Silencer, since you are in tune with the government stuff and a true patriot, I'd like you to read this and give your best commentary on why you think the author is right or wrong, and where.
https://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/04/23/969608/-Founding-Fathers-and-Wealth
That is a very good article.
The early Mormons might be an example of the ideal, and how it goes wrong.
Sidney Rigdon appropriated a few verses from the New Testament about how the "Saints" had "all things in common". The ideals of people voluntarily shedding accumulated "excess" and making it available to those in want, under the direction of a bishop, went wrong immediately with the first bishop. Edward W. Partridge is sanctioned in scripture for accumulating the excess wealth in the church treasury instead of re-deeding donated property to people who needed a piece of land to work on. Joseph Smith wrote that he must re-deed the property, or be damned. In other words, it was not supposed to be accumulated in the holdings of the Church.
The mainstream LDS Church today has some pretty sophisticated tapdances going on to avoid the application of those scriptures to its current operations. A relative of mine, a great uncle of some distance, was the architect of the modern LDS financial empire during the fifties and sixties, investing in corporate America from the tithes meant for the poor.
In the era of the early 1900s, Heber J. Grant worked for a New York banking establishment. The LDS church took out credit with the Chase bank, and by the twenties Heber J. Grant as President of the LDS was standing in the tabernacle extolling the virtues of the robber barons.
Well, I shouldn't wax too eloquent on this line, perhaps, because I have every intention to develop an empire of my own, well, at least what I can manage myself.
I think the best ideals of America entail equality before the law, equality of opportunity. Efforts to punish the productive to support the indolent will never produce a republic either.
I support the concept of getting the government out of the land and resource management business but would limit "corporations" by law from holding more than six hundred and forty acres in aggregate, counting all the various sorts of shell corporations/subsidiaries. We need to do something to make it financially sustainable for people to work the land, and I wouldn't mind if they were voluntarily smart enough to preserve their own resources. I figure an environmental-minded co-op, where all members are active in the management of their parcels, but maybe working together to make the spread something that preserves some aspect of the resources.
Five thousand southern utah citizens would probabley do a better job managing Zion canyon than the government has.
Let's sell off all the land to citizens.
After we get the government out of conspicuous accumulation of resources/perogatives/power maybe we can start taxing "churches" that are in the business of business, just like anyone else. I'd suggest the LDS set an example by divesting their stash. What the Lord said about Edward W. Partridge he meant should be applied even today to the Corporation of the President.
