An Apostle's View of the Stimulus Bill

This month's Ensign magazine correlates exactly with what's going on today. It's as if the leaders of the church are inspired or something.

Elder Romney's (not Mitt) talk correlates more closely to my opinion of the Stimulus Package than any other earwash opinion I've heard yet.

(Open his talk by clicking on the link to understand the next reference)
Firstly, I don't believe the seagull story. It's a good parable, with truthful application, but I don't believe it really happened. Who pays that much attention to gulls?

But the interpretation of the loss of independence is true:

"Our efforts [helping the poor] must always be directed toward making able-bodied people self-reliant." Which is "tied very closely to freedom itself."

Republicans currently wag their tongues at spending. Spending, spending, spending is the new catchphrase of the Republican Party. The problem is not that we spend money, but how we spend money.

Poor people do not deserve our money, but that is not the problem. The problem is that, either they are in bondage to poverty, or dependent on the government, and therefore have lost the fullness of their agency. Thus they are damned, no longer progressing according to the plan of God. And that must move our souls to action if we have any charity.

"Self-reliance is not the end, but a means to an end. It is very possible for a person to be completely independent and lack every other desirable attribute. One may become wealthy and never have to ask anyone for anything, but unless there is some spiritual goal attached to this independence, it can canker his soul."

We should not despise the poor because of their poverty, and say that they have brought their condition upon themselves. We ought to pity them, not hate them, lest we lose our souls. And we must do what we can to pull them out of their dire situation so that they can have the opportunities that self-reliance has given us.

"Self-reliance is a prerequisite to the complete freedom to act. We have also learned, however, that there is nothing spiritual in self-reliance unless we make the right choices with that freedom. What, then, should we do once we have become self-reliant in order to grow spiritually?"

As an answer he quotes the prophet Jacob: "Think of your brethren like unto yourselves, and be familiar with all and free with your substance, that they may be rich like unto you."

He then summarizes the idea behind social programs:

"There is an interdependence between those who have and those who have not. The process of giving exalts the poor and humbles the rich. In the process, both are sanctified. The poor, released from the bondage and limitations of poverty, are enabled as free men to rise to their full potential, both temporally and spiritually. The rich, by imparting of their surplus, participate in the eternal principle of giving. Once a person has been made whole, or self-reliant, he reaches out to aid others, and the cycle repeats itself."

It has always bothered me that wealth and self-reliance have been trumpeted as virtues in this church, and that poverty is so often associated with sinful laziness. This article reaffirmed what I had known before, and thus strengthened my testimony. That is, self-reliance is not the end. We can be self-reliant and complete sinners, lacking that charity which leads to the hope of Christ. The poor can be lazy, but must be pitied, rather than despised, for their bondage and lack of options.

May we be wise with how we use the means we have been given.

For those of you who wondered, Marion G. Romney is the cousin of Mitt Romney's father George Romney.