Malo periculosam, libertatem quam quietam servitutem.

Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations
become corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters.

Misrepresentation, false propaganda, innuendoes soon sprout into poisonous weeds, and before long the people find themselves victims of a pollution that has robbed them of their individual liberty and enslaved them to a group of political gangsters.

Conference Report, April 1951, pp. 92-98

“Our stand for freedom is a most basic part of our religion; this stand helped get us to this earth, and our reaction to freedom in this life will have eternal consequences. Man has many duties, but he has no excuse that can compensate for his loss of liberty.” (Ezra Taft Benson, General Conference Talk – October 1966. Protecting Freedom – Our Immediate Responsibility)

I am confident that it was out of what he saw, the bitter fruit of dictatorship that he developed his strong feelings, almost hatred for communism and socialism. That distaste grew through the years as he witnessed the heavy handed oppression and suffering of the peoples of eastern europe under what he repeatedly described as godless communism. These experiences further strengthened his love for the land of his birth …

He never got over his boyhood love for freedom. Rather, it grew within him. Nurtured by what he saw of oppression in other lands, and by what he observed first hand of a growing dominance of government in this land over the lives of the people. (Gordon B. Hinckley, Talk given at the funeral of Ezra Taft Benson, June 4, 1994)

The real purpose of the Constitution was the preservation of liberty. It's not the Constitution that gives us our freedom; that comes from the Creator. But if we cherish freedom, the Constitution is needed to keep the power seekers from usurping that freedom and to hold government in check.

Next to being one in worshiping God, there is nothing in this world upon which this Church should be more united than in upholding and defending the Constitution of the United States!

...you cannot fully live the gospel without working to save freedom and the Constitution ...our stand for freedom is a most basic part of our religion.

I always wonder why birds stay in the same place when they can fly anywhere on the earth. Then I ask myself the same question.

"The most liberating thing I've ever done has been to obey the laws of God and keep the commandments. I've never been so free in my life."