Me, I am completely independent. I vote for the candidate, not for one’s party.

I have voted for Nader for President three times (and lost), and I wrote my own name in for Congress

and for my state Legislature in 2004, because I thought all the other candidates sucked.

Only one of mt candidates won, but, I cast my vote, and I got my name on the list of official candidates for those offices.

Regardless of who won, however, they are in office to serve me (and my neighbors, of course), which

they cannot do with any degree of accuracy unless they hear my voice.

So I write and I call and I have made several visits to my state’s legislature, to testify in

committees, and the like.

And I lobby the supervisors of governmental agencies, too, just to make sure they know where I stand

and what I want from them.

But that’s just me.

It’s all part of what I believe to be Sustaining the law.

How important can it be?

Ask the six million vicitms of Nazi Germany Concentration camps.

One person can often make a big difference. Ask Rosa Parks.

When I see a law I don’t like, I do my best to get it changed. Not only by lobbying, but, if it can

involve an arrest, I allow myself to get arrested so that the Courts can overturn it.

I have three arrests, zero convictions, and, a handful of overturned laws to my credit.

I have no desire for my community to become the next Nazi Germany nor the next Zarahemla in A.D.30,

nor anything like unto it.

That’s how important it can be.

Most laws are created with very decent intent, but are written in a way that they can be abused, and

from my experience, when something can be abused, it will be. So, I do what I can to change things

that are just plain wrong.

I see the exact same dichotomy, but it isn’t false. It is very real. But it shouldn’t be.

In the United States, it only takes six people to change a law. One petitioner and five of the nine

Justices of the Supreme Court. I have never had to take my petitions that far, though… yet.

I look forward to the opportunity to do so.

After three arrests, zero convictions, and five overturned laws, the prosecutors have learned that

about me. And now, they give me a very wide berth.

If more people were to do the same, with their pet-peve laws, the United states would be a much much

better place to live.

However, a word of caution: don’t break any good laws and expect the same treatment. Many laws are

good. Some, however are bad.

That’s my other answer.

There is no such thing as the “only true and living political party”. Living, yes. True, no. And

regardless of our political party affilliations, our elected officials need to know where we stand.

Although the Church CAN spread a sense of moral absolutes, it is NOT supposed to bleed over into any

polical arena.

Some people don’t decide to become politically active until late in life. Others earlier. Me, I

thought I was staying completely out of politics, but, looking back on it, I was my class

president’s unnofficial cheif of staff for all six years of secondary school, in addition to being

the Vice President of the Drama Club for two years, the Captain of the Junior High School Safety

Patrol, and very actively involved in the Bishop’s Youth Committe, the Stake presiden’s youth

Committee, and the Regional Representative’s Youth Committee from time four of which I served at

concurrently in my Senior year of high school.

I just didn’t realize at the time that just because I wasn’t becoming involved in class politics

that I was still very heavily involved in politics. So, I kept getting my good friend elected as

Class Pres, until our Senior Year, when he became the ASB pres, and then I lobbied him for

everything I wanted, and, everything I wanted him to do, he not only did, but it made him just that

much more popular.

Since high school, the stakes have changed, but it’s still very much the same game. It’s all about

getting people to see things your way, and helping you obtain your objectives, or finding ways to

get around anybody who is in your way.

If a policeman is in your way, let him arrest you. The worst it can hurt is to put something on your

record, but it can also help immensely, because as soon as you are placed under arrest, you become

an officer of the court (until you appoint an attorney to represent you, but you can always get

around that by not appointing the attorney to represent you, but to be your co-counsel, so that you

remain an officer of the court) and then you can subpeona anybody who had been hiding out from you,

and require them to answer all of your questions right there in court.

And then, once you have their testimony, you can use it to your advantage.

Edward: why do you say that?

Curtis: Amen.

By the way, from my perspective, after having done a bit of study on politics in other countries,

there really is not a very big difference between what we in the US call a Democrat and a

Republican. I would say that there is only maybe at most a ten percent shift between the most

liberal of Democratic Candidate Platforms and the most conservative of Republican Candidate

platforms in the overall “spectrum” of political possibilities. We just tend to perceive the

differences as being greater becase of the inherent “us vs. them” nature most humans are born with.

But, what does the Book of Mormon say about natural man?

Mark N: The war in heaven was not started by Lucifer. That is not Lucifer’s way. Lucifer’s way is

not to start a war to coerce anybody into doing anything. Lucifer’s whole purpose was to convince us

that his plan was better than our Father’s. I was there. I was allowed to voice my own opinions. I

don’t happen to remember what all I said, but, based on my presence here, I did not join Lucifer’s

team. Michael started that war. Okay maybe someone else actually started it, but, it was Michael who

led the team to drive Lucifer and the one-third our siblings who thought very highly of Lucifer’s

plan. I don’t believe I was on Michaels’ team, either. At least I sure hope not. I don’t think I

could live with myself knowing that I was on the team that told my siblings that we didn’t want them

around anymore just because of them having an opinion different from mine. Heavenly Father sure

didn’t drive our siblings away. Nor did Jehovah. I would like to think that I was part of a team

that was more like what Christ was like.

But, I do vehemently agree with you on that second aspect: anybody who uses laws to coerce people to

do the right thing is only doing Satan’s job for him.

Have you ever noticed how many stupid laws there are in Utah?

In the barbaric Old Testament, where so many infractions of the law are a capital offense, what is

the worst thing that can happen to you if a guy commits the sin/crime of fornication? He get’s

married… if the girl wants him. If he commits it again and again and again before he gets

married, what happens? He becomes ignominally polygamous, getting married to all who will take him

for their husband. Once he gets married is when he risks losing his life.

In Utah, neither fornication nor adultery is a capital offense, so in the respect of adultery tht’s

not such a bad trade, but, in Utah, the crime of fornication carries a prison sentence. Now does

that make sense? Sorry young lady. We can see that you are pregnant and in need of paternal support,

but the both of you have broken the law so I guess you can both worry about that sort of thing when

your three years of prison are over.

Does that make sense? Not one lick. It’s only purpose is to scare kids away from making a choice

that their parents and teachers are too lazy to train them up to avoid.

There are so many laws like this that are just plain stupid. Just because I never found myself in a

position to challenge that particular law does not mean it’s a good one, because it’s only purpose

is to do Satan’s job for him and coerce kids into making “the right choice”, which is evil.

But, the majority of Utahns don’t see it that way.

It’s especially evil when the kids have to become their own secret combination in order to avoid

prosecution, because that just trains them how to construct even larger secret combinations later

on, which unfortunately abound in this world, and in Utah as well.

And, Mark N, that is why I often vote for myself by writing myself in as the candidate. The only

time I have ever abstained from casting my vote was for some particular candidate, was in my Senior

year of High School, for Homecoming Queen. As a Freshman, I led a grass-roots campaign for a girl

that I felt deserved to be recognized for her unheralded community service, but who was not likely

to get much public recognition from her other activities, and one third of the freshman class voted

along with me, likely for the exact same reasons, and she won, in spite of not gaining the most

votes from any other class, not even her own. (ooh, hey, I just noticed a fractional similarity to

someone else I’ve written about… can that be a bad thing?). Likewise, my candidate won when I was

a Sophomore and a Junior, and likewise, it probably had an awful lot to do with my grass-roots

campaigns. As a senior, however, I was afforded the singular opportunity to be the Master of

Ceremonies for the Homecoming Coronation Ceremony, so I would be the one reading the name of the

winner. Each of the candidates were my personal friend and I had absolutely no desire to

inadvertently offend anyone by inadvertetly appearing to be disappointed by the results. So, that

was the only year that I did not campaign for anyone, and in front of the entire Senior Class, I

cast my ballot but allowed everyone to see that instead of marking anybody’s name, I wrote in bold

letters “Abstain”. But I think the rest of the class knew who deserved to be recognized, because the

girl that I would have voted for won anyway.

BTD Greg: Please rest assured that if the Church wanted to try to influence people in one way or

another, they would do so, and would find a way to do so without losing their non-profit charitable

status. The Church goes way above and beyond the tax-codes. There is absolutely nothing in those

codes that would prevent the church from using its buildings for political purposes: meetings,

gatherings, campaign offices, and the like, and the Church could easily charge a reasonable space

rental fee to any polilitical candidate or action committee, without any change in their n-p/c

status. They could also allow their buildings to become polling locations. They don’t however,

because they don’t want to be seen as influencing the membership to vote in any particular way,

except campaigning against the modification of marriage laws and specifically campaigning against

the Communist Party. Quite frankly, I don’t think they should be spending the Lord’s money that way

without telling everybody exactly how it doesn’t interfere with the Eleventh Article of Faith, just

like they used to do any time there was a Communist Party candidate anywhere, who stood a chance of

becoming a contender.

You sound like a solid Sunday School teacher. Wish I was there… Did Joseph Smith running for president work its way into the discussion at all? How about millennial things like the two capitals with different roles, etc.? While separation may be the preferred ideology at present, I wonder if it’s founded in the fact that leaders are imperfect. Too much power under one roof always seems to be a bad thing… Unless you’re perfect.

CJR,

I think you’re spot on with your “local level” comment. The nation gets all excited around elections. Citizens start wearing crazy “VOTE” shirts. I wonder where all the enthusiasm goes when other, more pertinent elections happen.

The lesson went well. We pretty much stuck to the script, had a pretty good discussion of Section 134 and the civic duties of Latter-Day Saints. I gave bi-partisan props to both Harry Reid and Mitt Romney and talked about Ezra Taft Benson and J. Reuban Clark. There were a few moments when I though it might get dicey when I floated my theory that Section 134 supports a strict view of separation of Church and State, and one of the members of the bishopric had an interesting observation about verse 4 and how it might apply to punishment of hate crimes which, though interesting, made me somewhat unconfortable.

CJR,

Fair points, of course. I don’t think there are any but the most stridently partisan among us who would try to argue that one party is all good, while the other party is all bad. Just the same, I do wonder if the Church’s official policy would change if the tax implications of endorsing particular candidates were different. The issue of the Church’s political neutrality didn’t come up in the lesson. We actually spent a lot of time discussing your point about local-level activism/participation/service. That was probably one of the highlights of the discussion.

I’d be very interested to know how you handle that one, Greg. Your point about the Church remaing politically neutral is valid even if a cop out in the long run. But even as it stands now, the problem of “being a good citizen” turning into a discussion that is ambigiously buzz-wordy causing no reason for anyone to take anything you say seriously vs. the overtly partisan flavor where you’re taken too seriously… Surely you’ll find middle ground that avoids the pitfalls of the two traditional paths. I’d love to hear more about it.

One thing that I’ve given a lot of thought to that I haven’t seen brought up here is the fact that much of the Church’s official position might be influenced by the fact that the Church must remain politically neutral to maintain its status as a non-profit charitable organization (i.e., to make sure that tithing and other Church contributions remain tax deductible, etc.) I don’t know the extent to which this fact of the Internal Revenue Code influences Chuch policy, but I think it’s naive to assume that it doesn’t affect it at all.