Nothing new under the sun

Thought I would share a recent message from Taylor  

 All,

In discussions with people about the 'state of the nation', I often take an objective view that, while we often remember or fantasize about better days gone past, that is not always the case, in fact, there is a saying that "there is Nothing New under the Sun".  Our founding fathers recognized that Human Nature never changes, that absolute power corrupts absolutely, that power is best diffused from the hands of the few, to the hands of many.  Ultimately the founding fathers enshrined that all Power not specifically given to the three branches of government (a scheme to avoid absolute tyranny) was reserved to "the People". (See Marie's website for my writings on "the People vs the Person").  

General Joseph Smith, who ran for President of the United States of America, wrote the following about the prison system on February 7, 1844 (the year of his martyrdom).  

"Born in a land of liberty, and breathing an air uncorrupted with the sirocco of barbarous climes, i ever feel a double anxiety for the happiness of all men, both in time and in eternity...when I viewed the condition of men throughout the world, and more especially in this boasted realm, where the Declaration of Independence "holds these truths to be self-evident; that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness, "but at the same time some two or three millions of people are held as slaves for life, because the spirit in them is covered with a darker skin than ours: and hundreds of our kindred" (this is key, this is what I found so interesting...) "for an infraction, or supposed infraction of some over wise statue, have to be incarcerated in dudgeon glooms, or suffer more moral penitentiary gravitation of mercy in a nut-shell, while the duelist, the debauchee, and the defaulter for millions, and other criminals, take the upper-most rooms at feasts, or, like the bird of passage find a more congenial clime by flight."

In 1844 he saw much the same condition that we see today, slavery excepting, but since then the growth of the Prison system he railed against, has grown exponentially, in many ways to take place of slavery as an institution (see the 13th amendment).  

He goes on to offer his solution in his Presidential platform:

"Petition your state legislatures to pardon every convict in their several penitentiaries, blessing them as they go, and saying to them, in the name of the Lord, go thy way and sin no more.  Advise your legislators when they make laws for larceny, burglary or any felony, to make the penalty applicable to work upon roads, public works, or any place where the culprit can be taught more wisdom and more virtue; and become more enlightened.  Rigor and seclusion will never do as much to reform the propensities of man as reason and friendship.  Murder only can claim confinement or death.  Let the penitentiaries be turned into seminaries of learning, where intelligence, like the angels of heaven, would banish such fragments of barbarism: Imprisonment for debt is a meaner practice than the save tolerates with all his ferocity; "Amor vincit amnia." Love conquers All.

I found this enlightening, we deal with many of the same problems that have been dealt with for centuries.  General Joseph Smith had personally spent multiple stints imprisoned, HE WAS A MAN ON THE INSIDE who knew the inmates plight.  Few who pass the laws, have experienced the same...He DID.  

If you always do what you have always done, you'll always get what you have always had.  To solve age old solutions, perhaps something that has never been tried should be...

Go in Peace and Sin no more...What a novel idea, from a master, a verdict passed over a woman condemned to death, it was good enough for him, why would it not be good enough for us?

Just some thoughts I thought I might share.

God Bless,

Taylor