Laws and agency

I was thinking today about some topics of conversation that are deeper. Deeper than what's on tv, anyway. Which brought to my mind the current health care reform. Now to start off with, this post is not about health care reform. And I don't really know enough about it to have a strong opinion one way or another. However, its brings up the idea that the government is exerting more and more control over our lives. This is something I am opposed to. The reason is this: the government seems to feel the need to create more and more laws. Each succeeding president, or group of elected officials seems to feel that in order to be successful, they need to create some important law for the rest of us to abide by. (Why is this anyway?) The problem with this is that as the government exerts more control, the people are left with fewer choices. As we have fewer choices, we do not gain the experience we need to make wise choices. Especially when the consequences of our actions are removed (as American society loves to act without consequences). This makes us a weak people. Like the Israelites who were lead out of Egypt, they were slaves before and had not learned how to make wise choices. That is why they built the golden calf, they hadn't learned how to make wise choices. If we allow people to limit our choices, we are going to create a weak society who cannot make wise choices because they lack the opportunity to develop that skill.

As a respected leader once said “I teach them correct principles and they govern themselves.” (Messages of the First Presidency, comp. James R. Clark, 6 vols., Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1965–75, 3:54.) This creates a strong people. The increase of government control as our nation has grown will only lead to our eventual downfall because we will be unable to make wise choices without someone there to dictate what to do. Oh, that we could govern ourselves instead of expecting the government to do it for us.