There are two interesting developments this week on the pornography front.  Adam Greenwood wrote an excellent article for Junior Ganymede endorsing government efforts to block access to porn sites for children.  Meanwhile, Marriott announced that it will no longer be offering adult movies at its hotels because…everybody can get their porn via laptops and ipads (presumably), so they don’t need them on the hotel TVs.

I encourage everybody, no matter how you feel about this issue, to read Adam’s piece, which makes as good an argument as you can make for government action on this issue.  But ultimately I disagree with him (respectfully and lovingly).

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I am going to start this post by linking an article by Ralph Nader, the left-wing Green party hero.  I, a libertarian, unapologetic capitalist, agree with Mr. Nader on this issue.  Nader’s take is that the left and the right should be able to agree that corporatism is a common enemy.

The common response that I always hear from people on the left to my promotion of capitalism is:  why is government bailing out big business?  Why is government paying off big agriculture with billions in subsidies?  Why are corporate titans getting government money?  Why is the government in bed with the defense industry?

The left is completely correct on all of these points.  My response is that true capitalists want government to leave business alone as much as possible.  In the sense that government promotes certain businesses over others (which is what corporatism is), it is violating a central principle of free-market capitalism:  companies should live or die based on the marketplace and their ability to create new and better products at a lower cost, not on getting handouts from government (which means taking taxpayer money to make the rich even richer).

Let me make this very clear:  true capitalists hate corporate welfare just as much as the left does, and perhaps even more because it makes business look like the enemy.  In addition, in a corporatist world, your success depends more on your connections and who you pay off (or lobby), rather than the brilliance of your product.  Nothing could be more offensive to a true capitalist.

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This is the third in an occasional series of posts that looks at the scriptures from a different point of view. My contention is that many people misunderstand the scriptures in their totality. In a past post, I looked at the Book of Mormon and discussed its view on taxation. In a followup, I looked at some examples of misunderstandings in the New Testament. I’d now like to look at some examples in the Doctrine and Covenants.

Do the poor have any responsibilities in the Doctrine and Covenants?
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This post is aimed at my friends and the many people who have disagreed with me over the years. I have been at M* for six years now, and I have some experience under my belt. You might be interested in hearing why I continue to do this.

The first point I would like to make is that I have a firm testimony of the restored gospel. I have seen so many incredible things happen in my life since being baptized nearly 12 years ago that I am bursting to share those things with the people around me. Doing so on M* seems a good forum to do this, but I also share my experiences with the people I encounter and the many people to whom I hand out books of Mormon.

The second point is that I blog about other issues because I learn things. I don’t have an advanced degree, but I am interested in hundreds of different subjects, and discussing them with other people necessarily involves learning something new.

Let me give you some examples.
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One of the political left’s favorite stories in the Bible is the one in Luke 18:18-29 regarding the rich ruler who wants salvation. He asks Jesus how he can inherit eternal life, and Jesus says, in summary, keep the commandments. The man says he has done this. Then Jesus says (NIV version): “sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. The come, follow me.” The man then “became very sad, because he was a man of great wealth.” Jesus then says: “how hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God! Indeed, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.”

In the simplistic view of many people, the message of this scripture is: “rich people are evil and don’t go to heaven.” This scripture has been used by generations of the avaricious to justify forcefully taking money from the rich to spend on various government projects.

I will argue in this post that one cannot understand this story without taking into consideration two other stories that immediately follow: the story of Zacchaeus the tax collector, another rich man who does find salvation, and Luke’s version of the parable of the talents.

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