Liberty For You ( When It Suits Our Church )

[Five Solas]

Note: This really isn’t a political thread, though some may succumb to temptation.  The several examples given are necessary to frame a question concerning contradictory values.

 

LDS have a *long* reputation for political conservatism.  Whether it’s gun rights or Medicaid expansion, things are highly predictable in Utah (for & against respectively, those cases).  Even when the air gets unbelievably filthy in the valley during winter inversions—the refineries confidently spew pollutants just North of SLC (where my parents live).  Did you know they save their dirtiest cycles for night, so you can’t see the discharge?  True.  By way of comparison, if a business tried to do this in Seattle—the ensuing public protest would shut down the whole city until the government forced redress.  Which it soon would.  Riots have broken out over less.

 

But unthinkable in Utah.  There’s no serious opposition or environmental movement afoot.  The LDS Church makes nary a peep on the matter.  The ideal of “free enterprise” reigns—and when it means inhaling toxic soot—take a deep breath for liberty.

 

They say—
A little firearm related death & injury is a tolerable price to pay—don’t infringe our rights!  A few people get seriously ill & lives are shortened from air pollution—don’t infringe the rights of business!  And don’t expand the Medicaid program, even though a lot of people really need help—we won’t have the Feds encroaching on our liberty!  We take the Constitution seriously!

 

Except.  Except when our Church has issued a doctrine, policy or announcement of some kind or other.  Then all that stuff we said previously about valuing liberty, enterprise, the Constitution—forgetaboutit...

 

Private sales and distribution of normal-strength beer, wine and/or liquor?  Forbidden.  The state must own & control—it knows what’s best for the people.  The mere sight of someone pouring liquor/mixing a drink in a restaurant?  Forbidden.  Ordering a beer without an accompanying food order?  Forbidden.  And y’all better appreciate we spend a couple million taxpayer dollars on police posing as customers to enforce compliance (the "sting teams”).  Ordering wine or liquor for home delivery, even with the safeguard of a mandatory ID check at the door?—doesn’t matter.  Forbidden.   Beer stored and sold cold from the liquor store?  Forbidden.  Cross us on any of this you’ll pay a steep fine—and maybe lose your business license.

 

Concerns about “liberty” now?  Tut, tut—that’s just silly anti-Mormon “histrionics.”  Move on, people.

 

But is this contradiction in values so easily dismissed as Scott Lloyd would have us believe?  And by what logic are you entitled to procure a handgun more easily than a bottle of first-class Scotch Malt Whisky?  (Getting such a bottle can’t legally be done in Utah.  You’d have to have it shipped to a nearby state and then drive it across the border.)

 

Please share whatever thoughts, explanations or justifications you may have.

 

--Erik

PS.  A sincere thanks to Scott for his previous research making the connection between the LDS Church and Utah’s liquor laws inescapable and irrefutable (even though his source wasn’t one of my personal favorites).  I submit he’s done the forum a real service by removing any pretense of separation.

 

PPS.  As a side note, when I was in high school in the mid/late 80’s, I served on the Senator Orrin Hatch Youth Advisory Committee.  It’s seems like a hundred years ago when we excitedly prepped questions and did conference calls with the Senator.  Decades pass—he’s still there.  A reminder change don’t come easy…
 

[thesometimesaint]

Utah isn't the Church.

[Storm Rider]

Hello Erik, 

 

Hmm, Seattle would do it another way? Maybe, but the Sound does not have a reputation of being a pristine body of water, quit the opposite. In addition, your sister city of Tacoma has long had a reputation for putrid air and that hasn't stopped because of some all-consuming demand for environmental purity.

 

Utah is not unique among conservative thought or action. It is simply a individuals who have a wide range of political ideas and beliefs. It is not too wise to paint with broad brush strokes because life and humanity is more complicated than that. 

 

I believe in capitalism, but not without an educated populace or curbs. I also believe in government directed social programs; I just wish they were more competent in fulfilling their responsibility. I appreciate democracy - if and only if there is an educated, involved populace. I recently read that there were more people in California that did not pay taxes than there were that did. How does that work and why does it happen? I think I am derailing your thread so I will stop here.