What is Money? "Francisco's Money Speech" Dollars

[creator]

Next time you hear someone complain that government welfare is good, or that money is the root of all evil, or that someone thinks they are entitled to money without doing a thing for it... refer them to this, I love it - it's a great definition of what money really is and why money can't make you happy and won't solve your problems - for many people it's always a new definition of what money is - and it helps make the distinction between DOLLARS & MONEY:

This comes from the book Atlas Shrugged (1957) by Ayn Rand:

"Francisco's Money Speech"

"So you think that money is the root of all evil?" said Francisco d'Anconia. "Have you ever asked what is the root of money? Money is a tool of exchange, which can't exist unless there are goods produced and men able to produce them. Money is the material shape of the principle that men who wish to deal with one another must deal by trade and give value for value. Money is not the tool of the moochers, who claim your product by tears, or of the looters, who take it from you by force. Money is made possible only by the men who produce. Is this what you consider evil?

"When you accept money in payment for your effort, you do so only on the conviction that you will exchange it for the product of the effort of others. It is not the moochers or the looters who give value to money. Not an ocean of tears not all the guns in the world can transform those pieces of paper in your wallet into the bread you will need to survive tomorrow. Those pieces of paper, which should have been gold, are a token of honor--your claim upon the energy of the men who produce. Your wallet is your statement of hope that somewhere in the world around you there are men who will not default on that moral principle which is the root of money, Is this what you consider evil?

"Have you ever looked for the root of production? Take a look at an electric generator and dare tell yourself that it was created by the muscular effort of unthinking brutes. Try to grow a seed of wheat without the knowledge left to you by men who had to discover it for the first time. Try to obtain your food by means of nothing but physical motions--and you'll learn that man's mind is the root of all the goods produced and of all the wealth that has ever existed on earth.

"But you say that money is made by the strong at the expense of the weak? What strength do you mean? It is not the strength of guns or muscles. Wealth is the product of man's capacity to think. Then is money made by the man who invents a motor at the expense of those who did not invent it? Is money made by the intelligent at the expense of the fools? By the able at the expense of the incompetent? By the ambitious at the expense of the lazy? Money is made--before it can be looted or mooched--made by the effort of every honest man, each to the extent of his ability. An honest man is one who knows that he can't consume more than he has produced.'

"To trade by means of money is the code of the men of good will. Money rests on the axiom that every man is the owner of his mind and his effort. Money allows no power to prescribe the value of your effort except the voluntary choice of the man who is willing to trade you his effort in return. Money permits you to obtain for your goods and your labor that which they are worth to the men who buy them, but no more. Money permits no deals except those to mutual benefit by the unforced judgment of the traders. Money demands of you the recognition that men must work for their own benefit, not for their own injury, for their gain, not their loss--the recognition that they are not beasts of burden, born to carry the weight of your misery--that you must offer them values, not wounds--that the common bond among men is not the exchange of suffering, but the exchange of goods. Money demands that you sell, not your weakness to men's stupidity, but your talent to their reason; it demands that you buy, not the shoddiest they offer, but the best that your money can find. And when men live by trade--with reason, not force, as their final arbiter--it is the best product that wins, the best performance, the man of best judgment and highest ability--and the degree of a man's productiveness is the degree of his reward. This is the code of existence whose tool and symbol is money. Is this what you consider evil?

"But money is only a tool. It will take you wherever you wish, but it will not replace you as the driver. It will give you the means for the satisfaction of your desires, but it will not provide you with desires. Money is the scourge of the men who attempt to reverse the law of causality--the men who seek to replace the mind by seizing the products of the mind.

"Money will not purchase happiness for the man who has no concept of what he wants: money will not give him a code of values, if he's evaded the knowledge of what to value, and it will not provide him with a purpose, if he's evaded the choice of what to seek. Money will not buy intelligence for the fool, or admiration for the coward, or respect for the incompetent. The man who attempts to purchase the brains of his superiors to serve him, with his money replacing his judgment, ends up by becoming the victim of his inferiors. The men of intelligence desert him, but the cheats and the frauds come flocking to him, drawn by a law which he has not discovered: that no man may be smaller than his money. Is this the reason why you call it evil?

"Only the man who does not need it, is fit to inherit wealth--the man who would make his own fortune no matter where he started. If an heir is equal to his money, it serves him; if not, it destroys him. But you look on and you cry that money corrupted him. Did it? Or did he corrupt his money? Do not envy a worthless heir; his wealth is not yours and you would have done no better with it. Do not think that it should have been distributed among you; loading the world with fifty parasites instead of one, would not bring back the dead virtue which was the fortune. Money is a living power that dies without its root. Money will not serve the mind that cannot match it. Is this the reason why you call it evil?

"Money is your means of survival. The verdict you pronounce upon the source of your livelihood is the verdict you pronounce upon your life. If the source is corrupt, you have damned your own existence. Did you get your money by fraud? By pandering to men's vices or men's stupidity? By catering to fools, in the hope of getting more than your ability deserves? By lowering your standards? By doing work you despise for purchasers you scorn? If so, then your money will not give you a moment's or a penny's worth of joy. Then all the things you buy will become, not a tribute to you, but a reproach; not an achievement, but a reminder of shame. Then you'll scream that money is evil. Evil, because it would not pinch-hit for your self-respect? Evil, because it would not let you enjoy your depravity? Is this the root of your hatred of money?

"Money will always remain an effect and refuse to replace you as the cause. Money is the product of virtue, but it will not give you virtue and it will not redeem your vices. Money will not give you the unearned, neither in matter nor in spirit. Is this the root of your hatred of money?

"Or did you say it's the love of money that's the root of all evil? To love a thing is to know and love its nature. To love money is to know and love the fact that money is the creation of the best power within you, and your passkey to trade your effort for the effort of the best among men. It's the person who would sell his soul for a nickel, who is loudest in proclaiming his hatred of money--and he has good reason to hate it. The lovers of money are willing to work for it. They know they are able to deserve it.

"Let me give you a tip on a clue to men's characters: the man who damns money has obtained it dishonorably; the man who respects it has earned it.

"Run for your life from any man who tells you that money is evil. That sentence is the leper's bell of an approaching looter. So long as men live together on earth and need means to deal with one another--their only substitute, if they abandon money, is the muzzle of a gun.

"But money demands of you the highest virtues, if you wish to make it or to keep it. Men who have no courage, pride or self-esteem, men who have no moral sense of their right to their money and are not willing to defend it as they defend their life, men who apologize for being rich--will not remain rich for long. They are the natural bait for the swarms of looters that stay under rocks for centuries, but come crawling out at the first smell of a man who begs to be forgiven for the guilt of owning wealth. They will hasten to relieve him of the guilt--and of his life, as he deserves.

"Then you will see the rise of the men of the double standard--the men who live by force, yet count on those who live by trade to create the value of their looted money--the men who are the hitchhikers of virtue. In a moral society, these are the criminals, and the statutes are written to protect you against them. But when a society establishes criminals-by-right and looters-by-law--men who use force to seize the wealth of disarmed victims--then money becomes its creators' avenger. Such looters believe it safe to rob defenseless men, once they've passed a law to disarm them. But their loot becomes the magnet for other looters, who get it from them as they got it. Then the race goes, not to the ablest at production, but to those most ruthless at brutality. When force is the standard, the murderer wins over the pickpocket. And then that society vanishes, in a spread of ruins and slaughter.

"Do you wish to know whether that day is coming? Watch money. Money is the barometer of a society's virtue. When you see that trading is done, not by consent, but by compulsion--when you see that in order to produce, you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothing--when you see that money is flowing to those who deal, not in goods, but in favors--when you see that men get richer by graft and by pull than by work, and your laws don't protect you against them, but protect them against you--when you see corruption being rewarded and honesty becoming a self-sacrifice--you may know that your society is doomed. Money is so noble a medium that is does not compete with guns and it does not make terms with brutality. It will not permit a country to survive as half-property, half-loot.

"Whenever destroyers appear among men, they start by destroying money, for money is men's protection and the base of a moral existence. Destroyers seize gold and leave to its owners a counterfeit pile of paper. This kills all objective standards and delivers men into the arbitrary power of an arbitrary setter of values. Gold was an objective value, an equivalent of wealth produced. Paper is a mortgage on wealth that does not exist, backed by a gun aimed at those who are expected to produce it. Paper is a check drawn by legal looters upon an account which is not theirs: upon the virtue of the victims. Watch for the day when it bounces, marked, 'Account overdrawn.'

"When you have made evil the means of survival, do not expect men to remain good. Do not expect them to stay moral and lose their lives for the purpose of becoming the fodder of the immoral. Do not expect them to produce, when production is punished and looting rewarded. Do not ask, 'Who is destroying the world? You are.

"You stand in the midst of the greatest achievements of the greatest productive civilization and you wonder why it's crumbling around you, while you're damning its life-blood--money. You look upon money as the savages did before you, and you wonder why the jungle is creeping back to the edge of your cities. Throughout men's history, money was always seized by looters of one brand or another, whose names changed, but whose method remained the same: to seize wealth by force and to keep the producers bound, demeaned, defamed, deprived of honor. That phrase about the evil of money, which you mouth with such righteous recklessness, comes from a time when wealth was produced by the labor of slaves--slaves who repeated the motions once discovered by somebody's mind and left unimproved for centuries. So long as production was ruled by force, and wealth was obtained by conquest, there was little to conquer, Yet through all the centuries of stagnation and starvation, men exalted the looters, as aristocrats of the sword, as aristocrats of birth, as aristocrats of the bureau, and despised the producers, as slaves, as traders, as shopkeepers--as industrialists.

"To the glory of mankind, there was, for the first and only time in history, a country of money--and I have no higher, more reverent tribute to pay to America, for this means: a country of reason, justice, freedom, production, achievement. For the first time, man's mind and money were set free, and there were no fortunes-by-conquest, but only fortunes-by-work, and instead of swordsmen and slaves, there appeared the real maker of wealth, the greatest worker, the highest type of human being--the self-made man--the American industrialist.

"If you ask me to name the proudest distinction of Americans, I would choose--because it contains all the others--the fact that they were the people who created the phrase 'to make money.' No other language or nation had ever used these words before; men had always thought of wealth as a static quantity--to be seized, begged, inherited, shared, looted or obtained as a favor. Americans were the first to understand that wealth has to be created. The words 'to make money' hold the essence of human morality.

"Yet these were the words for which Americans were denounced by the rotted cultures of the looters' continents. Now the looters' credo has brought you to regard your proudest achievements as a hallmark of shame, your prosperity as guilt, your greatest men, the industrialists, as blackguards, and your magnificent factories as the product and property of muscular labor, the labor of whip-driven slaves, like the pyramids of Egypt. The rotter who simpers that he sees no difference between the power of the dollar and the power of the whip, ought to learn the difference on his own hide-- as, I think, he will.

"Until and unless you discover that money is the root of all good, you ask for your own destruction. When money ceases to be the tool by which men deal with one another, then men become the tools of men. Blood, whips and guns--or dollars. Take your choice--there is no other--and your time is running out."

The above is an excerpt from Atlas Shrugged, © Copyright, 1957, by Ayn Rand

see: http://www.capmag.com/article.asp?ID=1826

[Proud 2b Peculiar]

I Loved that book.

It is the LOVE of money, not money itself that is the root of all evil. If we love it more then God, then that is where the problems come in spiritually, and even then temporally.

It is sad to see how many people are actually taking handouts rather then looking for a hand up. I would think that people would prefer the satisfaction of being a producer, rather then being a consumer. Obviously, we all consume at some level, but there is great joy in being a producer, even if the first concept of it is taught in your own back yard teaching your children to plant a garden.

[SwissMrs&Pitchfire]

It is sad to see how many people are actually taking handouts rather then looking for a hand up. I would think that people would prefer the satisfaction of being a producer, rather then being a consumer.

Your thoughts do not betray you. That man is a myth. But we fail to acknowledge that no one is offering the hand up and as such the man is forced to subsist upon others on account of his defects. (Who among us is free of defect?)

[SwissMrs&Pitchfire]

To question Francisco, is it then safe to summarize money as being a token of the work, blood, sweat, and tears that went into it's creation and then exchange? Is it then really not just work itself? Is it not the commodity itself in representation?

[shadow]

That man is not a myth Pitch. To think so is absolutely ridiculous. You talk of a man being forced to subsist upon others. What a joke. I say help the man help himself. To think that others aren't FORCED to provide for this defected individual (and we all are defected) is a flaw. Is force good? Is that the plan? Equality. What a lame concept.

Money is just a tool, like a pair of scissors. Money is a way for others to place value upon the work you've done. It's a means of exchange. One does not need to exchange his/her work with others, or for money. I just happen to find it easier to go to the grocery store and buy the goods I want at once as opposed to trading or bartering good for good or service for service. What a time consuming nightmare that would be. I can hardly see how one can prosper without the tool called money.

[SwissMrs&Pitchfire]

So then your money represents your work?

[shadow]

Yes, it represents the market value of your work. - my opinion.

[WYp8riot]

That man is not a myth Pitch. To think so is absolutely ridiculous. You talk of a man being forced to subsist upon others. What a joke. I say help the man help himself. To think that others aren't FORCED to provide for this defected individual (and we all are defected) is a flaw. Is force good? Is that the plan? Equality. What a lame concept.

Money is just a tool, like a pair of scissors. Money is a way for others to place value upon the work you've done. It's a means of exchange. One does not need to exchange his/her work with others, or for money. I just happen to find it easier to go to the grocery store and buy the goods I want at once as opposed to trading or bartering good for good or service for service. What a time consuming nightmare that would be. I can hardly see how one can prosper without the tool called money.

I do not believe the man is a myth, but I also believe that as deep as we are in satans form of government and monetary fraud that many are placed in subservient positions.

When a family has financial difficulty what should be their efforts and actions?

Both parents go to work? This is disastorous to society but the route of many. The father could work additional hours but this also prevents the father from being the patriarch of the home which is hardly possible for a work a holic that isnt home except to be fed and sleep.

Reduce spending? Well this would be an obvious help as I think most of us would agree that people spend money on things that are not essentials but for many isnt sufficient however many families expenses for the basics such as housing food and transportation exceed that of a single income for the family.

How do you teach a man to fish? Certainly people should make efforts to improve their situation and get adequet education but when a family financially struggles how do they create time and money for more education when they allready have inadequet time to meet obligations?

Obviously the idea is more income than outgoing. However as I have discovered that many of jobs that do pay sufficient do so because they are connected to the TAX dollar directly or indirectly (forced theft of fruit of others labor). When you figure whats left under our current fraudulent system its munerically impossible for the majority to live without sacrificing family or going further in debt.

We have sold the future generations further into bondage. We have allowed the country to become like a democracy where 51% rule over 49% or what ever the ratio is. We allowed Fascism, socialism and evil that seduces people to lower standard while competing amongst themselves for the few jobs that are somewhat honest labor and produce without being at the expense of others.

[shadow]

" Money is a tool of exchange"

"Money is the material shape of the principle that men who wish to deal with one another must deal by trade and give value for value"

[SwissMrs&Pitchfire]

Or in other words:

Through uniting ones efforts with resources the man adds value to them and is thus compensated with money. That money then represents the degree to which the resources were bettered through the attachment of labor, ergo his work.

[WYp8riot]

That man is not a myth Pitch. To think so is absolutely ridiculous. You talk of a man being forced to subsist upon others. What a joke. I say help the man help himself. To think that others aren't FORCED to provide for this defected individual (and we all are defected) is a flaw. Is force good? Is that the plan? Equality. What a lame concept.

Money is just a tool, like a pair of scissors. Money is a way for others to place value upon the work you've done. It's a means of exchange. One does not need to exchange his/her work with others, or for money. I just happen to find it easier to go to the grocery store and buy the goods I want at once as opposed to trading or bartering good for good or service for service. What a time consuming nightmare that would be. I can hardly see how one can prosper without the tool called money.

I do not believe the man is a myth, but I also believe that as deep as we are in satans form of government and monetary fraud that many are placed in subservient positions.

When a family has financial difficulty what should be their efforts and actions?

Both parents go to work? This is disastorous to society but the route of many. The father could work additional hours but this also prevents the father from being the patriarch of the home which is hardly possible for a work a holic that isnt home except to be fed and sleep.

Reduce spending? Well this would be an obvious help as I think most of us would agree that people spend money on things that are not essentials but for many isnt sufficient however many families expenses for the basics such as housing food and transportation exceed that of a single income for the family.

How do you teach a man to fish? Certainly people should make efforts to improve their situation and get adequet education but when a family financially struggles how do they create time and money for more education when they allready have inadequet time to meet obligations?

Obviously the idea is more income than outgoing. However as I have discovered that many of jobs that do pay sufficient do so because they are connected to the TAX dollar directly or indirectly (forced theft of fruit of others labor). When you figure whats left under our current fraudulent system its munerically impossible for the majority to live without sacrificing family or going further in debt.

We have sold the future generations further into bondage. We have allowed the country to become like a democracy where 51% rule over 49% or what ever the ratio is. We allowed Fascism, socialism and evil that seduces people to lower standard while competing amongst themselves for the few jobs that are somewhat honest labor and produce without being at the expense of others.

Not everyone that is in financial struggles is a result of lack of effort. Correct?

[shadow]

I don't claim to know how to fix the problems of this country. But individuals can fix their own situation - that I don't doubt. I haven't grasped the idea that people are "placed" into subservient positions. I think people generally place themselves in these positions. Now what? Well, as you stated, both parents work. Not a good idea. If they need help, go to your family. If that doesn't work, go to your church. What if you don't go to church? Hopefully you'll be humbled enough to. But if the government steps in a sends you a paycheck every month, where's the humbling? Where's the submitting yourself to God asking for help?

Just look at my own sibling. My sister and her husband don't make much money. They are on WIC (food stamps) and medicare or medicaid, their kids are on CHIP. They just had a baby paid for by the good tax payers of the state of Utah. When I offer to help I'm turned down. Now Pitch calls this a straw man, but here's the facts. They have new furniture. They go on more vacations than many. They just bought a new minivan, Honda's aren't cheap. They don't go without. The're kids have all the new play stations and other computer crap. Since being supported by the government, they've quit going to church and they carry an arrogance attitude. Hand out or hand up? Pitch is dead wrong. These stories are told all the time. -Not an isolated case. I won't even get into the facts of legal plunder (stealing) to support this idea of "helping".

How do you teach a man to fish you ask? First that man needs to want to fish. Why fish if he's given a fish everyday? If a man wants to learn, there's no shortage of teachers.

[SwissMrs&Pitchfire]

And where do you think they are coming from? You would not say that there is a defect in them that leads them down this destructive path? You think that if they understood true principle and the true effects they would not change? Are they then rebellious spirits, sons of perdition?

I submit that they have been literally and factually brainwashed. "Others have excuses, I have my reasons why." I am not excusing their actions I am explaining them. Surely they will reap what they sow.

You clearly do not have a problem helping them yourself, but then claim that to do so robs them of the required humility before God? Would you really do such a thing to them, or is that only the case when it comes form strangers who vote money from their own pockets?

I believe that that man is an absolute myth as it requires one to be a son of perdition.

Many are trying to exalt themselves with the means offered them. Their error is in that it will not work, but they obviously do not know it! Teach them. When they refuse, teach them. Count the cost to them.

Either they are sons of perdition or they will see the light, eventually.

That is my assertion. That they are doing what they think will assure them the best reward. Teach them otherwise, they will listen they are not sons of perdition he is a myth.
--------
Now obviously sons of perdition do exist and they are the only ones that fit the bill, but I defy you to tell me who they are aside from those pointed out by the Lord.

[shadow]

I agree, they don't know true principles. The best way to learn is to want to. The flaw in your statement is that while yes I want to help them, it would be conditioned upon them sitting with me while we discuss principles. I would NOT blindly send them a check month after month without having them be accountable. That is how the government works. It does not take a son of perdition to not improve ones self. Are you saying that those who rape people don't know that they shouldn't? How about the armed robber? Why the gun? Maybe because they know it's wrong to steal? The man does not have to be a son of perdition. No myth. Everyone is not going to be saved in the Celestial Kingdom. They will be judged according to their obedience to laws they're aware of. In other words, people may know the law and still defy it. Maybe that's a new concept to you. D-I-S-O-B-D-I-E-N-C-E. I'm not saying my sister and her family are a lost cause. Redemption, repentance, change is still their choice.

Your statement about stranger who votes money from their own pockets is interesting. Why vote from their own pockets? why not just donate it on their own? To not know that they are voting from others pockets as well is a little ignorant isn't it? Are they or are they not also voting from the pockets of those that don't want to give? What do you call it when someone votes money out of your pocket when you don't want them to? Democracy? I'm curious.

[SwissMrs&Pitchfire]

Do you have a problem with them taking the breaks afforded them, or living beyond their means?

I will guess both.

I agree that they will reap what they sow in terms of living beyond their means, as will all who do so. I hope that they are getting food storage even if they will be out on their cans.

I do not have a problem with them taking the breaks afforded them. That is what people do to get by in a socialistic government.

Those blessed souls who prosper financially take the tax write-offs that a business affords. They take the subsidies that come. (Anyone who sells a product is really taking many many subsidies. Up here wood products and fish are heavily subsidized to get them on your plate or in your house for cheap (which is a socialistic fallacy). Wal-mart takes advantage of so many subsidies it would make your head spin! Both foreign and domestic.)

My F-I-L had the feds build him a big water storage tank for his cattle, under the guise that the wildlife would use it too. He did the footwork to pay his share (matching funds and all that), so now you go to Smith's and buy your beef for cheaper thinking nothing of the subsidy, nor of the BLM land the cattle grazed for years for tuppence. But you nevertheless didn't mind the subsidy (although it actually makes the beef more expensive since the g-man is very inefficient). Let alone the subsidies he takes for his farm to grow hay to feed them...etc... There are lots of them just for cattle alone.

And on the other hand the seniors take their seniors discount at the pharmacy in line in front of your sister and her medicaid. Then they may or may not pull out their medicare card. The woman who uses coupons in wal-mart in front of the woman who uses WIC is no more nor less forcing others to pay regardless of how the programs are administered.

The resident student has his tuition subsidized by the non-resident, but he never thinks to make up the difference to appease his conscience.

It sucks! It is socialistic! It makes everything cost more and decreases real efficiency. It is a self-defeating system, but we vote to change the rules and then abide by them regardless of whether we get our way or not. We don't pout and take the ball and go home. But we should!

"That whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it..." -- The Declaration of Independence

I am an opting out sort of guy. I used to try to change the rules to make things right, but it wont work, I give up. I don't like the game at all and to the highest degree possible I am getting out as fast as possible. When enough people are fed up the game will end and we can get up a new game with fair rules that will ensure a good outcome, but until then everybody does what they have to to "get theirs," in this horribly socialistic state, how do I blame them?

[SwissMrs&Pitchfire]

Are you saying that those who rape people don't know that they shouldn't?

Absolutely that is what I am saying. They know that it violates other mens laws and perhaps God's as well, but they would not do it if they did not think that doing so was in their best interest. They simply do not know wherein their best interests are served. They think that their own selfish best interests are served in the act and they are wrong.

We know that when offered the truth very few will reject it, very few (who are then the sons of perdition). The others are they who were deceived into thinking that their best interests were served by violating God's laws. Obviously in error.

[SwissMrs&Pitchfire]

http://www.lewrockwell.com/north/north551.html

http://www.lewrockwell.com/lora/m.lora35.html

You simply cannot get around it. Either you support anarchy and thus no taxation, laying a tax on foreigners (as CHH does) which is likewise going to bite us in the rump and is likewise theft, or think that government funding should be voluntary (which is where my support goes).

The current system however is not voluntary. Who can claim the moral high ground? If you buy anything form anyone you are supporting socialism. We simply cannot look at it with the least degree of allowance.

So then either we stop whining and play by the current sucky rules of the game, or we pick up our stuff and go home.

Revolution is the only way and it will come by compulsory means soon enough. Until then limit the negative influences of socialism in your life and fight to get out of the game.

[shadow]

Yes, they are in error. That we can agree on. Whew, we're making progress, but not much.

The light of Christ is given to all to know good from evil. I remember as a kid, next door to the elementary school was the Country Shopper. I stole a penny candy from that store. I knew I shouldn't, I knew it was wrong, but I did it anyway. Certainly it wasn't in my best interest to steal. That was obvious. But I was selfish and wanted to do it because my friends did it. I felt bad thinking about doing it, doing it, and I felt horrible afterwards. My INTENT was to KNOWINGLY do wrong.

To say a rapist doesn't know that they shouldn't rape is CRAZY!!!!!

When offered the truth, many reject it. The scriptures are full of examples. Doesn't it say somewhere in Proverbs that a dog will keep going back to eat it's own vomit?

[SwissMrs&Pitchfire]

Knowing that something is "wrong," and knowing that it is not in your best interest are two different things. Your motivations for taking the candy were stronger than your sense that it was wrong. You thus deceived yourself into thinking that it was the better thing to do (all things considered).

Are you really trying to argue that your sister doesn't believe that it is in her best interest to do so?

[Proud 2b Peculiar]

http://www.lewrockwell.com/north/north551.html

http://www.lewrockwell.com/lora/m.lora35.html

You simply cannot get around it. Either you support anarchy and thus no taxation, laying a tax on foreigners (as CHH does) which is likewise going to bite us in the rump and is likewise theft, or think that government funding should be voluntary (which is where my support goes).

The current system however is not voluntary. Who can claim the moral high ground? If you buy anything form anyone you are supporting socialism. We simply cannot look at it with the least degree of allowance.

So then either we stop whining and play by the current sucky rules of the game, or we pick up our stuff and go home.

Revolution is the only way and it will come by compulsory means soon enough. Until then limit the negative influences of socialism in your life and fight to get out of the game.

Thank you for your comments, it helps me see things so much clearer.

I have to say, on behalf of others that are brainwashed and blind, I have been there.

When my husband was working 2 fulltime jobs and we still could not keep up with medical bills and stupid choices, we had no clue that the WIC and food stamps and other programs were robbing people. We actually thought that we were not burdening the church or our member neighbors and keeping our issues from being their issues. yes, we were blind. As we started realizing what was really going on we decided that there were other ways of surviving and so on. We cut back, we stopped using those programs. Life is really hard compared to what it was when we used them. We struggle a lot, but at least we know that we are doing the best that we can and we are not taking it from others that didn't give it freely.

We cannot avoid it all, not at this point. I agree that Revolution or cleansing or whatever you want to call it is all that is left to happen. I still will try to do all I can to stand and be forthright, but I think that they are too much above us, it goes too deep, it cannot be rooted out easily.. and so few even know what is happening, and even when taught they still don't get it.

Again, thanks for your comments. It helps me understand some things that I only felt but didn't understand why I felt that way.

[SwissMrs&Pitchfire]

I think all of this explains why the Lord's people so often find themselves in the wilderness!

[shadow]

Serenity NOW!!! -a little line from Seinfeld.

Yes, my motivations for taking the candy were stronger than my sense that it was wrong. But I still knew it was WRONG! I don't pass the blame on to that darn company that made that little piece of Bit O' Honey either.

I guess you and I hate the game of socialism being played because it's so destructing. Other's like my sis love the game. Why? As stated in Helaman, they were brought down to partake of the spoils. I don't think they're tricked. They know better. They really do! We were raised to not accept something for nothing. I believe that's one of the reasons they quit going to church. The guilt. It's being anti-Christ and pro satan. The spoils are so tempting they find ways to attempt to justify it. Evil cannot be justified with "but I think it's in my best interest." That line will not stand. It's false.

There is a difference, to me anyway, in accepting "free money" while living beyond your means vs buying something that has been subsidized. In this game, one is a flagrant foul the other not so much. Not that any are good. Both are infractions. But to seek after those things speaks volumes to me.

[WYp8riot]

I think all of this explains why the Lord's people so often find themselves in the wilderness!

And dont they historicly find peace by planting and growing their food rather than renting houses to each other at ones expense etc.? Is that not a form of interest of anothers labor spoken against in the scripture?

[SwissMrs&Pitchfire]

I would say you did it because your friends admiration was valuable to you, the candy was valuable to you, and whatever else. Together that outweighed your sense of wrong.

You were testing your pride as opposed to the spirit, and yes that is wrong, but most do not recognize it in those truthful terms.

Most weigh it in the balance an act on what they perceive as their best interest. The light of Christ is often not a very forceful argument, but rather like the still small voice. It is eventually very easy to put off as evidenced by those who consistently do. The first time is always the hardest.

I doubt that your sister stopped going to church because of guilt over WIC or whatever. More likely because they felt that there is not a place for them there. Perhaps the same reason and social pressures compel their poor spending habits? Perhaps they feel that they are rebellious spirits and that there is not a place for them. Very sad if indeed true.

Our job is of course to assure that they know otherwise. I have watched many good souls fall out of activity because of the pressures to fit into the rigid LDS mold. We have made many efforts to reach out to them and prove otherwise.

I assure you that if they knew the true cost, they would not incur the social nor spiritual debt that they are now incurring.

That said just like with awakening to our awful situation in other respects it is likewise a very difficult proposition to pull the blinders off.

Either way, we agree that something must be done to stem the tide of Socialism that robs everyone of a productive society in which all may have an active part (if they can be taught to find that part and act in it. That being our sticking point).

[SwissMrs&Pitchfire]

MT,

We eat a lot of food that we did not plant. The Lord grows swell blueberries! And Salmonberries, and Thimbleberries, and Raspberries, and Cranberries, and Lingonberries, and fiddleheads, and meat critters. We thus reap what we did not sow (heck the garden that we did sow didn't require more than hucking seeds into the ground). Truly Hugh Nibley was right, the lunch is free. The earth is full and then some. I would call us robbers but then the Lord doesn't seem to mind.

That brings me to a question. I may pick the berries on His lands. The feds allow it for personal use too. Buck Jones doesn't though. Where do his private property rights originate. We can trace our priesthood authority, can we trace our ownership authority? To whom? When?

I keep searching in vain for the Lord's declaration that he deeded any of it to anyone. Certainly Adam and Eve didn't fight over it. Satan said that he was going to gobble it up, but how? Surely God never deeded it to him? How then? When?

I guess that is why we will all have to consecrate everything to get into Zion and thus show it's true ownership. Then we can play with our little stewardships and maybe eventually keep them eternally (as we know the saints will).

Maybe the Lord intended for man to leave the ownership of natural resources in His hands and just take what they needed (through the attachment of labor argument perhaps). Then as during the pre-this last century ages throughout much of the world there was always the freedom of the wilderness.

Do you begrudge anyone subsistence? Access to the means of production? Opportunity?