This is a tremendous book explaining leftism and explaining Americanism. The greatest problem is that we’ve not taught Americanism for the past two generations and we can’t defend what we don’t know. This is a great book that needs to be taught. It makes the battle lines clear.
Contents
Part 3: America and its Unique Values. 4
American Core Value 1: Liberty. 5
American Core Value 2: God & Judeo-Christian Values. 5
Judeo-Christian Value: People are Not Basically Good. 7
Judeo-Christian Value: Without God There’s No Objective Good & Evil 7
Judeo-Christian Value: Reason Without God is Ineffective. 8
Judeo-Christian Value: Superiority of Human Life. 8
Judeo-Christian Value: Hate Evil 9
Judeo-Christian Value: Male vs Female. 10
Judeo-Christian value: Holy vs Profane. 10
Judeo-Christian Value: Beauty. 11
Judeo-Christian Value: God as Creator 11
Judeo-Christian Value: Life Has a Meaning. 12
American Core Value 3: E Pluribus Unim (Out of Many, One) 12
Part 1 Leftism
Religion rightly teaches us to put financial values below moral, spiritual and intellectual values.
Don’t just do passive recreation.
The dividing line is not believing God in general but it’s belief in scripture. Those who believe in scripture being the word of God rarely adopt leftist values.
Note: This is a great point – too many take a casual approach to scripture and get carried away in many imaginative ideas which do not square with the truth. End note.
Leftism is a fiercely advocated religion. When a person stops believing in God they don’t believe in nothing, they believe in anything. Leftism is inherently anti-religion and the more religious a person, the less likely they are to be drawn to leftism. But leftists do take advantage of dressing up their principles in religious language to attract some mildly religious people.
Note: We see this in ‘Christian evolution.’ In reality, this is a contradiction of terms as much as would be a Christian atheist.’
The left doesn’t recognize real evil and therefore fights lesser evils. They replace America’s flag with a tree in the famous Iwo Jima depiction. Liberals are more concerned about physical inequality than fighting evil. Notwithstanding this, conservatives still donate more to charity.
The left makes victim groups and feeds on them.
We don’t hear about denouncing communism as much as Nazism because of ignorance. When comparing Nazism to communism, the people don’t recognize how many deaths were done by communism. For example, they say thousands were killed in the Soviet gulags, but the real number is millions. People also downplay when someone kills their own people (like Soviets and Chinese and other communists did) versus killing people of other nations (like Nazis did).
Europe isn’t great and inventive anymore because of failed multiculturalism. They should focus less on where a person came from, and more on where they’re going.
The United States is blamed for human rights violations because it executes murderers. But pacifism is morally backwards. You must kill the bad guy so they don’t kill more people. And back in the day when some physical discipline was allowed, there wasn’t nearly as much bullying. And it took soldiers to stop the Nazis.
Many saw Mussolini as left-wing. The Nazis are not right-wing, they are unique.
Totalitarianism is a trait of the left. They want more government more control. The left is inherently secular, so it needs more laws to keep people safe since there’s no god-based morality.
Children are brainwashed in school about leftism – it’s all they hear, and gay activists are allowed to come speak to school children, but not clergy defending man and woman marriage.
Note: The church state separation has hyperinflated to a strange situation where we think the church must have a stake driven through its heart, and that every non-religious opinion should be praised. We should wake up and see that, as Prager says, leftism and its tenants are just as religious as anything ever was. End note.
The job of a judge is not to rule in favor of the average Joe. His job is to rule in favor of justice.
The left is always looking for things to be offended over. They make people hypersensitive, which makes people weak. They take away the little joys of life, like the family home fireplace and the recess school games.
The left will excuse Islamic terror as oddball events not representing Islam, but they’ll never do the same for crusading Christians.
When you’re unhappy, you see yourself as a victim and you’ll be attracted to leftism. You think the world is out to get you. You’re not going to be happy. Suffering is a fact of life. If you don’t understand this, you might turn to leftism in hopes of getting rid of suffering.
Fidel Castro was willing to do anything he could to help President Obama. (Obama’s vision for America was not an American vision.)
Conservatives in different religions have more in common morally than liberals and conservatives of the same religion. The whole purpose of religion is to improve morality. Any religion which brings you to higher morals has some amount of truth.
Part 2: Islam
You can criticize Christianity, but if you criticize Islam you’ll have to fear for your life. In these regards there is less logic and more emotionalism. Islamists try to make it illegal to criticize Islam. Islam is a massive movement spreading fast and it must be criticized just like any other massive movement. We make criticisms of conservatism and liberalism, and we should just as well be able to make criticisms of religions.
Christianity has made the greatest civilizations. The same cannot be said for Islam. The countries which are dominated by Islam are not the greatest or the safest.
Yes, Islam had a golden age where it surpassed European thought in science and philosophy, but most civilizations do have golden ages. That doesn’t mean that you judge each based on its golden age. You must judge each based on what it’s doing right now.
It’s not good to label any religion as violent. There’s been violent things in the history of Judaism, Christianity, Islam and atheism, but we judge the practitioners, not the religion itself.
We cannot ignore the fact that there are Islamic terrorist groups and no equivalent Christian groups. We cannot ignore that Islam spread by the sword more so than other religions. Islam from the start used conquest to take land and make converts on a level far beyond Judaism and Christianity. Some liberals claim that Islam did not spread by the sword, but this is grossly ignorant.
Both Christianity and Islam would like it if the whole world would adopt their faith. But the difference is non-Christians can safely live among Christians, whereas non-Muslims cannot safely live among Muslims.
You can’t just take one verse from the Quran about religious tolerance and ignore the fact that Muslims have conquered and conquered by the sword extensively and that many passages in the Quran justify that.
You have to look at what people are doing and have done in the name of the religion. Muslims continued conquering to convert until stopped. And they were not defensive wars. The violence has continued, and few voices in the religion have condemned it.
Jihad can mean fight against yourself to be better, but that’s not how it’s been used for most of history.
Tens of millions have been killed in the name of Islam, especially Hindus.
Muslims have not been tolerant of other religions historically, and you can’t blame Muslim violence on provocations from others.
The Middle East was once the center of the Christian world in the Byzantine empire, but because of Muslim persecution there are almost no Christians there now.
Five armies attacked Israel in 1948, that’s why there were Palestinian refugees. Then the world of Islam didn’t allow the refugees to reintegrate. They kept them for three generations as refugees to keep attention on their claim of mistreatment.
It’s been over 300 years since a Christian was executed for blasphemy, but executions for blasphemy happen all the time in Islam.
In Islam there are honor killings, and more so than any other group.
A verse in the Quran about allows hitting women. Muslims force women to wear face covers and often don’t allow them to go to school or to travel alone.
In the Bible Abraham reasons with God. But Allah doesn’t need reason or law; he’s said to be above all that.
The Middle East is poor not because of outside influences, it’s poor because of Sharia law.
American troops are all over the world, but it’s only in Islamic countries that it turns into extreme hatred and terrorism. So the excuse of them not liking us being there is not an excuse for their terror. Western imperialism has almost nothing to do with the problems in the Islamic world. The Jews have been abused by people for a very long time, yet they made themselves a free country.
Unlike the Bible, The Quran calls for killing non-believers. There’s one incident in the Bible 3000 years ago where they had to kill the Canaanites, but that was because the Canaanites were killing children and doing other horrific things. There’s nothing in the Bible calling for killing non-believers. The Quran repeatedly calls for killing non-believers. The Quran does not say to befriend non-believers, but the Bible repeatedly does.
Prager has a generous perspective saying that people of high morals of any religion will get the same reward he expects to get from his.
100 million Muslims believe that the attack on 9/11 was justified, and this survey represents the more educated among them. It doesn’t matter that most Muslims are peaceful, just like how it doesn’t matter that most Germans were peaceful or most Soviets. What matters is that they do have a lot of people that are on board with the killing machines.
Islamophobia has almost nothing to do with racism or anti-Semitism. Fear of an ideology does not equate to racism, otherwise fearing the liberalism or conservatism would make you racist. All religions should be subject to criticism. The only religion people aren’t allowed to criticize is Islam. It should be able to state facts without harassment, like the fact that treatment of women is worse in Islamic countries than in the West. The term Islamophobic is just meant to suppress criticism, no matter how valid. People like to say conservative Christians are a threat because they want to spread their religion, but no one will use the term “Christianophobia” to shame people for criticising Christianity.
Murderers in America don’t commit their violence in the name of Christianity like how Islamists commit violence in the name of Islam.
You can’t bring up the Crusades when you’re saying that Christian fundamentalists are like Islamic fundamentalists. The crusades were a thousand years ago, and they were to take back what Islam had taken.
Note: The Crusades weren’t about converting people, were often defensive, and were of relatively short duration. End note. See Real Crusades History YouTube channel. End note.
Those who criticize Islam typically have to travel with bodyguards and write under a pen name. Christians, even though they despise some acts, prize highly and religiously the value of liberty.
Muslims who want to make the world a better place need to stop being hostile toward America, stop being hostile toward the nation of Israel, and confess their radical, hostile, terroristic history. Any scriptures are what you make them. Islam has the opportunity to be a force for good in the world if it wants to.
Part 3: America and its Unique Values
There is a distinctive value system in America.
See the book, “The Idea of America” by Gordon Wood which talks about the American value of liberty.
The 3 core American values are:
1. Liberty,
2. in God We Trust, and
3. E Pluribus Unum.
These are on our coins, and these are our values.
American Core Value 1: Liberty
America has protected and spread liberty more than any other country.
More black Africans have come to America voluntarily for freedom than we’ve brought here as slaves. More people have immigrated to America for freedom than all other countries combined.
We had to support Stalin in World War II to help defeat the Nazis.
JFK in his inaugural address said we’ll do anything to support liberty around the world
Liberty means political and religious freedom and freedom from religious coercion. It means freedom of press, freedom of speech, freedom from state. The bigger the government, the smaller the citizen, the smaller the liberty, the less individual control. Liberty also means economic freedom to do business and keep as much of your profits as reasonably possible. Americans valued liberty above economic equality.
Leftists don’t trust people to govern their own lives, and they feel big government with power in the hands of the few is the way to accomplish their goals.
Note: In a March 2026 No Kings Protest by Leftists, the speaker told the people to obey the leadership of the protest, not ask questions, and serve them. It was beyond ironic. Take a look, Matt Walsh shows and chimes in on the speech: Min. 1:53-5:30 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qnkPHLUs-tg&t=715s End note.
Wherever it is embraced, Americanism produces prosperity and liberty.
Taking care of yourself is a moral virtue. But there are situations when people need help and it’s a moral virtue to help them.
The New Testament says if you don’t work, you don’t eat.
Americans work more than Europeans because Europeans have been taught the welfare state. It corrodes morals to think that someone else will take care of you. When you feel entitled, you’ll feel less grateful. Ungrateful people cannot be happy or good. The more entitled a person is, the more they will be angry. When you’re taught that you don’t have to take care of yourself, you also believe you don’t have to take care of others. The welfare state creates selfishness. Big government makes people angry, ungrateful, lazy and spoiled. Human beings have to feel needed, otherwise life feels pointless. Men have less prestige and social importance when their women and children rely on the state instead of them. The bigger the state, the smaller the individual.
You lose autonomy and dignity when you can’t make choices for how to run your own life. Economic inequality, personal failure and hurt feelings are the price Americanism is willing to pay for liberty. Leftism is not willing to pay these prices for liberty.
America is the freest place for a black person to live, far more free than Africa.
American Core Value 2: God & Judeo-Christian Values
People will abuse liberty and that’s why America also has the value of God, recognizing accountability on an individual level. Conscience is often overridden by appetites and popular opinion so they need to believe (recognize) that they will be judged by something greater than themselves.
Freedom without religion becomes chaos. We must believe in a judging God. The founders taught that religion is the only thing that can tame our savage natures, and that America specifically doesn’t work without religion. The founders were ethical monotheists, even if not strictly Christian in every case. Despotism can work without faith, but freedom can’t. Dostoyevsky in the Brothers Kemerovo said where there is no God, all is permitted. Franklin said men are bad with religion and very bad without it. Adams said Earth would be a living hell without religion.
There are people who are ‘good without religion,’ but they’re standing on the shoulders of a society built by centuries of Judeo-Christian values. They are like cut flowers who will eventually wither.
There are some people who never took lessons in music who became good musicians. This doesn’t mean that if we want a society with a lot of great musicians that we shouldn’t teach music.
Which God do we revere? The God who created us and will judge us.
The great universities were founded by pastors and Bible study was at the center of them.
If you forget about the real God, you’ll get a fake God instead.
Moses (speaking for the true God) said, “Go, proclaim liberty throughout the land.” (Lev. 25:10)
Everyone originates with God.
American principles are applicable to all individuals and societies regardless of what their religion is. America originally was designed to be religious. It’s a Biblical Republic. The Declaration of Independence speaks of God as the author of rights. You don’t need a specific religion to have Americanism, you just need ethical monotheism.
Note: The importance of monotheism is, at least in part, that everyone gets instructions and standards and judgement from the same God. God speaks to the conscience, and we must obey. The world is not governed by unpredictable whims of various deities. The Supreme God, whom is our Creator and Judge, upholds justice. End note.
Separate church and state doesn’t mean indifference to religion, it means the state shouldn’t have an official religion. To this day every session of Congress is opened by a member of the clergy invoking God’s blessings. The original seal of America was of the Jews leaving Egypt, it was like Americans leaving Europe.
To live by Judeo-Christian values one need not be Jewish or Christian. And in the converse, there are many Jews and Christians who do not hold Judeo-Christian values, preferring secular leftist values instead. Moral values are different from theology. All who believe the Torah is divine share moral values, aka Judeo-Christian values.
Note: As Prager points out elsewhere, a great dividing line exists between those who take scripture as the word of God, and who take it as just good advice that doesn’t need to be taken too seriously or strictly. End note.
When the secular left says it’s in favor of helping the poor, it’s insinuating that no one else is. But Jews, Christians, Muslims and Buddhists have all been teaching charity for thousands of years.
The heart is not a moral compass, it is a generator of emotions. We have values so that we can navigate. Moral values are greater than love. For example, humans are greater than animals, yet people 2/3 of the time say they would save their dog instead of saving a human stranger if they saw both drowning.
Jews emphasize good works. Christians emphasize grace at the risk of not doing good works. They can balance each other.
Note: The Book of Mormon masterfully balances the two. It says, “It is by grace we are saved after all we can do.” Truly the Book of Mormon is the book of the end times, bringing in the balanced theology of the ages! End note.
Judeo-Christian Value: People are Not Basically Good
If men were angels, no government would be necessary. Babies are innocent, but not good. No culture prior to the enlightenment has held that people are naturally good.
Note: Notwithstanding its merits, enlightenment fantasy disagreed about this, so they ended up with too big a focus on the popular vote and not enough focus on securing individual rights, as seen in the French Revolution. End note.
Note: Children are ‘good’ in a sense of the word, but not in the sense of knowing how to control all their urges and fight evil. Little by little children grow into these things with proper training. Children are what remind us of the kingdom of God due to their wonderful purity, but they still need to be trained and corrected, or they will grow into enemies of God.
Note: The scriptures call us to be like children in the sense of simple obedience to God. We are also to avoid the natural tendencies of man. Mosiah 3:19 says, “For the natural man is an enemy to God, and has been from the fall of Adam, and will be, forever and ever, unless he yields to the enticings of the Holy Spirit, and putteth off the natural man and becometh a saint through the atonement of Christ the Lord, and becometh as a child, submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love, willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon him, even as a child doth submit to his father.”
Note: All children are saved by Christ. Moroni 8:12 says, “But little children are alive in Christ, even from the foundation of the world; if not so, God is a partial God, and also a changeable God, and a respecter to persons; for how many little children have died without baptism!”
Genesis says the heart is evil from youth (Gen. 8:21).
Leftists and Marxists attribute evil to poverty, not to people. But terrorists are often from middle class families. Terrorists act based on evil beliefs, not poverty.
Note: Indeed, many of the best people are poor. Poverty is a forgotten Christian value. Money can be used for good, but few can withstand the corrupting nature of money. End note.
Crime rates are lower in tougher economic times.
Racism also isn’t the reason for crime.
Understanding that people are not born good is essential for parents to be motivated to stress character development in raising children.
In secular schools they learn the main problems are with society. In religious schools they learn the main problems are with themselves. The secularist views those who differ from his own views as bad.
The left trust a concentration of power to the few because of its misunderstanding of human nature.
Note: D&C 121:39: “We have learned by sad experience that it is the nature and disposition of almost all men, as soon as they get a little authority, as they suppose, they will immediately begin to exercise unrighteous dominion.” End note.
Believing that people are inherently good leads to the faulty conclusion that people don’t need religion or morals.
Judeo-Christian Value: Without God There’s No Objective Good & Evil
The left got mad at George Bush when he identified an “axis of evil.” But if those regimes weren’t evil, nothing is.
In the 1970’s public schools used values clarification programs where children were asked how they feel about things, instead of being asked if something is good or evil. (Lines were blurred, subjectivism was pushed.)
Morality was once something revealed and shared, but now it’s taught as being individual.
Objective morality means that in every situation there’s a right choice and a wrong choice. It doesn’t mean that that will always be the same choice in every situation. Situational ethics is not the same as moral relativism. The Bible itself gives circumstances around a killing to tell if it is immoral. The Bible says thou shalt not murder, and there are different words for kill and murder. It is immoral to kill someone who is innocent. It is moral to kill someone who is guilty of murder.
Judeo-Christian Value: Reason Without God is Ineffective
Acts of self-sacrifice, where you risk your life to help strangers or give up lucrative opportunities, are not made out of reason. There’s more than reason.
Reason is merely a tool that can be used for good or evil.
Reason is necessary but not sufficient. You also need a moral God and sacred texts.
Note: We saw how the French Revolution, based supposedly solely on reason, went badly. We have seen many movements claiming to be inspired by reason turn out to been inferior. Truly, God’s ways are higher than our ways Issaiah 55:8-9 reads, “8 For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord. 9 For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.” End note.
Judeo-Christian Value: Superiority of Human Life
The life of humans is superior to all else as they are made in the image of God (Gen. 1:26-27).
This doesn’t mean animals have no rights. The Bible says even animals need a day of rest, etc.
Note: Scriptures teach that we must not waste animal life, that we will give an accounting for what we used, and that they should be used sparingly on an as-needed basis. See D&C 89. End note.
Some refuse to kill a pig to get a valve for human heart. Some refuse experiments on animals that could bring medicine to save human life.
Some claim we are just stardust elements made in the image of oxygen and are unimportant.
In the animal-rights movements they don’t elevate animal rights, they just bring down human rights.
Note: This is why scripture says to beware people who say it’s never okay to kill animals. Indeed, one of the reasons God has given us animals is to help us nutritionally as needed. Human rights must always be held in highest esteem above animal rights. God made humans as the lords of the Earth, all things are made for man. End note.
Humans can be holy, animals cannot.
Humans are supposed to elevate their behavior above that of animals. That’s why it’s an insult to say someone’s eating like a pig.
Elevating human behavior is the great achievement of religion and civilization.
Note: Prager makes the mistaken claim that humans are biologically animals, but spiritually not animals. Actually, we are not animals on either account. He recognizes that humans are the center of the creation and that we are somehow made in the image of God, but he doesn’t realize that the evolution theory of human origins is uninspired and full of fabrication. The Book of Luke gives a clear genealogy that mankind is the offspring of God (Luke 3:38; Moses 6:22), and genetic science shows clear limits on how much one species can change. The human race is a divine race. A divine species. It is wholly different than the animals. We didn’t ascend from animals, we fell from God. We are the same species as God, something entirely different from animals. Blurring the line between animals and humans is of the Devil. End note.
Societies which do not place a marital fence around sexual intercourse are acting animalistic. Clothing elevates humans above animals whose genitals are always uncovered. Judeo Christian sensitivity to nudity is not just about religion, it’s about our value system that humans are above animals.
Note: By instituting marriage in the garden of Eden, God has instructed us, His children from the beginning, that the way for us is to keep our relations inside the bond of marriage. We have always been different, and we will always be different than animals. One of the great apocalyptic evils is to equate human life with animal life and animal values with human values.
Note: Some say Americans who stare at the nude people in the European nude beaches are overly sensitized to nudity and obsessed with it. How obtuse! First, we shouldn’t be at such wicked places. Second, when we see something very strange, we might stare out of shock. It is not normal to be nude in public. Godly people will always be sensitive to nudity. The body is not something to be toyed with. It is to be protected and kept for specific holy covenant purposes. End note.
A similar principle is dignified language. Religion helps elevate us to the higher plane. If you see someone with a swear word on their bumper sticker you can be confident that person does not regularly attend church services.
If holiness breaks down, the ethics and morality will as well.
Judeo-Christian Value: Hate Evil
The Bible tells us to hate evil. The Bible says if you love God, you have to hate evil. Other religions didn’t have the requirement hate evil. We don’t ignore evil, we fight it.
Note: Psalm 97:10 says, Ye that love the Lord, hate evil: he preserveth the souls of his saints; he delivereth them out of the hand of the wicked.” Proverbs 8:13 says, “The fear of the Lord is to hate evil: pride, and arrogancy, and the evil way, and the froward mouth, do I hate.” End note.
Note: The Bible also says God hates evil-doers. He doesn’t just hate evil, he hates evil people. Psalm 11:5 says, “The Lord trieth the righteous: but the wicked and him that loveth violence his soul hateth.” Psalm 5:5 says, “The foolish shall not stand in thy sight: thou hatest all workers of iniquity.” End note.
Note: We cannot forever divorce someone’s deeds from their character. God calls certain people wicked. If you persist in evil, you will become a bad person, not just a good person who makes bad choices. All people have infinite worth, but they also have the ability to destroy themselves and others by bad choices. Such destructiveness is evil, as is the person who perpetuates the evil. An evil person can be saved and cleansed by Christ and be restored to innocence. We hate the sin and love the sinner, but let’s be honest about what is what. End note.
Note: We must be kind, but also honest. To be nice about truth is to be polite, and to be mean about truth is to be rude. Let’s be polite. End note.
Note: Proverbs 6:16-19 says, “16 ¶ These six things doth the Lord hate: yea, seven are an abomination unto him: 17 A proud look, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood, 18 An heart that deviseth wicked imaginations, feet that be swift in running to mischief, 19 A false witness that speaketh lies, and he that soweth discord among brethren.” End note.
The left rarely hates the greatest evils of their day, like communism.
Europeans now hate the world view of good versus evil.
To fight evil you must hate it.
The Judeo-Christian value says murderers must die. Taking the life of a murderer is the only law that’s found in all five books of the Torah. You cheapen the worth of a human life when you don’t take the crime of murder seriously.
Note: For some references on the necessity of executing murderers, see Genesis 6:9; Numbers 35:30-31 (don’t cut a deal, murderer must die); Exodus 21:14; Exodus 21:12. There are others. End note.
God wiped out a universally wicked society.
Using what someone did to punish them is just. For example: You teach that kidnapping is wrong by ‘kidnapping’ that person to put them into prison. You teach that stealing is wrong by ‘stealing’ the thief’s stuff (fining them). You teach that killing is wrong by killing the murderer. (These are the basics of morality.)
Because human life is so valuable, it can’t be taken without the taker forfeiting his life. If you allow someone to keep their life when they took someone else’s life, that’s the ultimate injustice.
In the Torah the purpose of declaring capital punishment for a crime is not that it must be done all the time, but that it shows how serious it is.
Note: As Prager pointed out, the exception to the allowance of exceptions is murder. For murder, the consequence must ALWAYS be death (Numbers 35:30-31).
Note: There are many popular movies, like Star Wars or The Lord of the Rings, that take it too easy on the death penalty. Once someone has gone that far, their judgement is God. Send them to God to handle them at that point. That is God’s instruction for how to handle them, it is the most just and wholesome thing to do for all involved. End note.
God made order out of chaos by separation and distinctions. Attempting to abolish those differences leads to chaos.
Some people are so backwards on good versus evil that they say the 9/11 attacks can’t be classified as evil.
Isaiah says woe to those who call good evil and evil good.
Judeo-Christian Value: Male vs Female
Civilization rests on preserving the distinction between male and female.
The Bible speaks of creating male and female and outlaws wearing clothes of the opposite sex.
Transgenderism is about getting rid of the male female distinction.
We must maintain both standards and compassion.
Judeo-Christian value: Holy vs Profane
Intercourse is holy and should not be seen as just a health issue or recreation.
The scene in Schindler’s list of women going naked into the gas chamber is to show that historical horror. There’s no titillation. (It isn’t to entice, it is to show how evil things got.)
Note: The whole question of modesty pertains to holy vs profane. Sexy and modest are two ends of a continuum – you can’t and shouldn’t seek to have both. Sexuality is holy/private, it is not profane/public. Some powers are so great that they are not meant to be unleashed in public. End note.
Judeo-Christian Value: Beauty
The left has gotten rid of greatness truth and beauty. Now they just honor whatever confronts middle-class values.
Note: They have no compass, their only operation is to oppose good for it’s own sake. The Devil is having a hay day, it is the fullness of his dispensation where he has turned society on its head, attaining complete 180s against God’s truth. End note.
Note: Beauty has an aspect of physical traits, but it’s much more. The things of God area beautiful. Truth is beautiful. In the resurrection, physical beauty will be matched with moral beauty. The wicked will have a physical appearance that matches their twisted soul. The righteous will have a physical appearance that matches their awesome glory. The fact that these two aspects of beauty are not presently aligned is part of the great test of mortality. Will we sell our souls for physical beauty? Or will we endure the trials of life, stand with truth, and wait upon the Lord to fulfill all of His promises? We cannot now comprehend what the Lord has in store for the faithful! End note.
Judeo-Christian Value: God as Creator
God exists outside of nature, He is the creator of it. Supernatural means above nature. Nature is not divine, there’s not a river god, gazelle God, etc. like Egypt said. All of nature belongs to God who created it all. Ancient societies had a hard time accepting the God above nature, and modern societies are returning to the same issue with nature worship environmentalism. Nature is grand but it is not worthy of worship. Nature is amoral, it has no moral laws.
A hospital is an anti-natural institution. Nature is about death. The Free Willy movie talks about saving a killer whale, but kids seeing that show hadn’t seen real footage of killer whales thrashing around baby seals.
Genesis shows that everything was made to prepare the way for people. Earth was made for man. Earth has no intrinsic sacred value. This Old Testament idea of getting rid of gods of nature is what made medicine and science possible.
DDT insecticide will protect millions, so it must be used. It has already prevented 500 million deaths, but the environmentalist value of the mosquitoes is more than the value of the humans.
The Bible promotes feeding the hungry. That’s why many Christians have impoverished themselves to serve others. Judeo-Christians look for the Utopia in the afterlife, not in this life. They recognize the inherent limitations here.
Note: There are limitations here, and human nature is not so angelic, but it is the mission of the saints to be transformed by Christ and build Zion. This transformation doesn’t come by social programs or political heroes. It can only come from God and obedience to His laws. Find a people who will reverence God, and they will build Zion. Brigham Young said we aren’t going to wait for Zion, we are going to build it. But when you think there is salvation in some program other than God’s program, such comes of evil, and disaster ensues. End note.
Feeding the hungry is important and so is feeding the soul. That’s why it’s important to build big cathedrals, etc. Leftists do not understand why we would be devoted to things that are non-material. Preoccupation with material things does not lead to more charity.
Millions of Americans detest many points of the Democrat party like abortion and homosexuality, so they vote against that even if there’s a possibility of supposed economic things they would miss out on.
Note: It’s true that we simply can’t vote for leaders who are okay with killing babies. In Thomas Moore’s Utopia book, he talked about a wonderful society, but they just so happened to be cannibals who didn’t wear pants. In other words, it wasn’t such a utopia. We see these themes also in the writings of George Orwell and others. End note.
Judeo-Christian Value: Life Has a Meaning
The need for meaning is even stronger than the need for sex. You have to feel like what we’re doing is meaningful.
Religion gives the greatest meaning of all, otherwise we’re just random things in the universe.
Note: The Smithsonian has a philosophy of anti-meaning. It advocates that there is no meaning. They were going to air a program about meaning in the universe, but evolutionists got up in arms and demanded they cancel the program, and they did. See Jonathan Wells Politically Incorrect Guide to Darwinism. End note.
The population replacement minimum birth rate is 2.1 children per family, but many European countries are below that.
People are pushing God far out of school and it’s making America more like Europe and less like America.
American Core Value 3: E Pluribus Unim (Out of Many, One)
No other nation is made out of as diverse a set of people as America. No other nation calls itself a nation of immigrants. But we must be joined as one.
You’re considered a full-fledged American as soon as you become American. In other countries you can be there for multiple generations before you’ll be accepted.
Latin America didn’t prosper like North America because they gave jobs to people that were family instead of to people that were qualified. They didn’t trust people that weren’t in their family or tribe. In America we reject ethnicity and race and tribe and family as borders and we’re all one.
We’re not preoccupied with diversity, multiculturalism, ethnicity and race. We don’t focus on societal groups. We focus on the individual. America’s always been unique and emphasizing the individual.
America is the least racist society in the world.
Nationalism is national identity. This is fine. American values can be exported to any nation. It’s better to have ties to your nation and people in your nation than just humanity in general.
We learn to care for others by learning to care for our family, then for our community and our nation, then for everyone.
Note: And if you don’t care on a local level, especially in the family, then your other efforts will likely be uninspired and minimally helpful, if not destructive. The family is the center of all society. Too often I see teachers and social workers who have never had a family of their own. Their solutions are often less inspired as they don’t have the real experience of what is involved in raising a family. I understand life is complex and unfair, but it seems there is an increasing trend toward actively rejecting marriage and family. Without family, our perspectives becomes skewed. The next step is community. We should seek to make connections in our community. If we only live for those far away, we will be sad and less useful. Let your community be an extension of your family where such is reasonable and values are similar. We should promote our values in the home first, the community second, and then we can reach out beyond. The further removed the reach however, the less likely it will be to have an actual impact. So if you really want to change the world, make having a family your top priority. End note.
Democracy without identity is weak. The lack of religious and national identity in Europe has led to them becoming weak, not defending democracy and not even having children anymore. When you have a strong national identity, you’re less likely to have international institutions controlling you. American strongly opposed the United Nations and similar groups like the leftist biased world court. America has better values than any international group and so it should guide its own destiny.
Those who don’t believe in objective morality believe in objective law instead. They see the law is the highest value. This leads them to obey bad laws like the Nazis who killed the mentally handicap, or the Jim Crow laws which oppressed African Americans. If More Europeans placed morality above law there wouldn’t have been a Holocaust.
Note: It boils down to whether you will worship God or worship the state. If you don’t worship God, you will fill your desire to worship with something else. Often those who reject God place the state as their new higher power. They see the state and its actors as superior and not to be questioned. This is particularly the case on the left. They focus on expert opinions and minimize common sense. End note.
America is focused on morality and goodness, not just grandeur. Other countries don’t focus on their country being ‘good,’ just about it being great, as in powerful. America focuses not just on power, but on being a force for good.
No country is giving as many people as many opportunities as America.
Slavery existed in early America, but it existed in the whole world forever. So the real question is not why America had slavery, but why America ended slavery. In the American Civil War, the hymn “Battle Hymn of the Republic” was made, and it says, “let us die to make men free.” America became the first black minority country to elect a black president. We have completely gotten rid of racism.
When there is evil in the world, the first place people look to for help is America. If America ceased to be strong, liberty on earth would gradually be extinguished. Taiwan would be overrun by China. South Korea by North Korea. Tyrants in Africa would be emboldened. Anti-democratic regimes would take power. If America were gone, America would not be replaced. Other countries are just fighting for power. South America and Russia would be more aggressive and reestablish the Soviet Union because no one would stop them. Turkey used to be the bridge between the west and Islam. But now Turkey is becoming more radically Islamic. The only thing Europe cares about now is getting as many days off and as much economic comfort as possible. Without America, Europe would be under Soviet control. Without America you’d have China as the world superpower.
At least 100 million Islamists support violent jihad and the death of America. America must stand against them, or no one will.
American values made America prosperous and free and good and other societies should adopt American values too. They would have to embrace the fact that God, not government, is in charge. And that individual skill, not family ties are where merit is found.
Note: You can’t have guaranteed individual human rights without an understanding that some things can’t be changed. God has made eternal decrees about the nature of man. Government can’t decide to take rights away, but it will become tyrannical and do this if God is left out. God is the great author of freedom. End note.
If a religion requires the absence of freedom to prosper then it’s not a respectable religion. You can practice any religion in a free society. Is there something about your religion that you can’t practice in a free society? Then that part of your religion is invalid.
Note: Sharia law, for example, has got to go. Religion must be voluntary. People can make laws which align with religious values like preserving the sanctity of life and marriage, but governments should not force people to pray, etc. End note.
Note: This doesn’t mean religion is ‘anything goes,’ it means religion is voluntary, it comes from the heart, not from the whip or the gun or the threat of prison, etc. Communism is anti-religion not only because it hates religion and outlaws religion, but because it is the opposite of freedom of choice, it is force. End note.
Note: The latter-day saints teach that before coming to earth, all humans were spirit beings who participated in a war against the devil in favor of free agency. That war continues today. End note.
Prager put it well. He said, “God requires His people to fight evil!”
