Have Liberals Created an Established Church?
This article is an opinion piece from Bill Lockwood. Catch American Liberty with Bill Lockwood weekly at 11 a.m. Saturdays on NewsTalk 1290.
John Hanson Beadle was a prolific author in the 19th century as well as an editor of the Salt Lake Reporter. Beadle was known to be “unfriendly to the Mormon Church” and wrote many volumes of expose regarding the Latter-day Saints.
One does not have to agree with his stance on Mormonism to appreciate what he writes in the front-piece of his 1870 volume, "Life in Utah: Or, the Mysteries and Crimes of Mormonism." It involves the "individual liberty to choose what we wish to believe."
Beadle speaks of the free flow of information in 19th century America. This is the very opposite of what is occurring today in the United States as government itself seeks to define for us what is “misinformation” and is actively in the business of curtailing it — an insignia of all totalitarian governments. This is absolutely no different than the government of England deciding what religious doctrines Englishmen were to believe.
Consider, however, the "principle behind suppression of information," as explained by Beadle, editor of yesteryear.
America Has A Variety of Beliefs
America has spawned a variety of belief systems, “hence we see that every new or purely American phase of religious error, there is always tacked a feature of political power, communism of property, social license and moral perversion, a general revolt against accepted theories in law, medicine, marriage, government or social relations.”
This variety of beliefs, be they religious or political, is the logical outgrowth of the freedom. Beadle writes, “In the perfect liberty of conscience guaranteed, the perverted or diseased conscience is equally free to choose as he will, it is reasonable to suppose that many will choose but poorly.”
But government leaders do not wish us to “choose poorly”, but to “choose wisely.” So the temptation is always there in seats of power to suppress “unwise” or “poor” views. But when a governing authority gets in the business of deciding what is wise and what is poor on the information scale — totalitarianism is the result. The Democrats thus wish to label “misinformation” so that America might be unified behind a totalitarian state. What to believe — an established church.
But repression it not unity. Beadle asks, “Suppose either of the prominent sects to be made the Established Church — if indeed the mind can possibly conceive of an Established Church in America — the Methodist, for instance.”
What would occur? That church would “at once lose many of its communicants; most people would avoid it to the farthest extent allowed by law, not from any particular hostility to that one church, but simply because it was established.”
But this is exactly what is occurring today pertaining to political doctrine. As Alex Newman writes, “From rigging Google’s algorithm to promote the UN propaganda and deploying over 100,000 propagandists, to actually removing criticism of the [global warming] agenda from the Internet and social media, top Deep State globalists are now out in the open with the agenda to silence all who question this and disingenuously promote their narrative. Fake fact-checkers promoting the lies and squelching the truth are proliferating. This is illegal and extremely dangerous.”
This is in effect an “established church” where only a certain set of beliefs have the imprimatur of government upon them.
Where Does Government Legitimately Enter the Picture?
But one may ask where government force should enter the scene? Beadle answers, “When the faith is perfectly inwrought, it cannot but show itself in acts, and with these the state has a right to deal.” That is, "only when a certain belief manifests itself in some act that is in violation of law can the state properly enter." As long as one holds a certain belief — government has no right to enter.
Beadle again writes, “Perfect toleration is due to all beliefs, and these gross forms of error only demand attention when endeavoring, against the good of the state, to make a peculiar moral condition and general law for a whole people …”
Toleration for a variety of beliefs — conservative or liberal — is what we are lacking today. It is only when “gross forms of error” have been enacted “against the good of the state” should the state act.
An example of this, he goes on to suggest, is when fanatics seek to overturn the institution of marriage — such as is already occurring in America. Beadle had in mind “plural marriage” as practiced by Joseph Smith. But the same deterioration of that sacred institution came in the wake of the Obama revolution. Obama shepherded the legalizing of “homosexual marriage” in the state, by which he actually threw marriage into the dustbin of history.
Repression of information is not the role of government. The only reason that globalists seek to control what is “misinformation” is because they know their programs cannot survive the free marketplace of ideas.
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