The Doctrine of Moral Legislation – Introduction
The Doctrinal and Philosophical Foundation of Moral Legislation - Introduction This is Part 1 in a series of articles on the statements made by prophets, apostles, scriptures and philosophers on…
Henry D. Moyle on Prohibition, Moral Legislation – April 1949
From: We Should Improve Our Communities LIQUOR LAW We've had another law on our books with reference to liquor, and there was an effort made to expand the present liquor…
David O. McKay on Prohibition – October 1945
From: Old Battles Yet to be Fought—New Victories to Win INTEMPERANCE AN ENEMY TO PEACE A fourth battle still raging, and in which the opposition seems to be gaining ground,…
Moses Thatcher on Prohibition & Drunkenness
Synopsis of a Temperance Lecture, Prohibition Advocated—Effects of Drunkenness Illustrated, Statistics, Etc. Discourse by Elder Moses Thatcher, delivered before the Young Men's Mutual Improvement Association of Hyrum, March 7, 1883.…
Rights, Agency, and Free Will
Unalienable Rights vs Vested Rights
The concept of human rights is widely misunderstood. Humans have two kinds of rights; unalienable rights come from God and are eternal while vested rights are civil agreements that have no eternal significance (however, our obedience to civil laws do have eternal significance—a topic for another article).
Unalienable rights establish the freedom to own weapons, such as guns, for use in defense or sustaining of life, but vested rights allow us to use the guns recreationally in designated ranges or to hunt on land we don’t own. Vested rights are applications of unalienable rights, meaning that we can only claim rights we first received from God and then gave to the government. The government can’t exercise any power or use any rights the people don’t have individually. Let me restate that: The government cannot do anything the people cannot do individually. Something doesn’t become moral or just simply because a group of people created a government to do it for them.
Now, when we talk about unalienable rights, we usually refer to the three main categories, “Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness”. This phrasing in the Declaration of Independence came from Thomas Jefferson. Thomas Jefferson took only one day to write down the list of the 27 complaints against the King. However, he spent 16 days studying what rights mean in Deuteronomy and Exodus. He came up with a great list of unalienable rights which found fit well into the three aforementioned categories or themes of rights. (more…)