Later this month in Las Vegas?

Later this month in Las Vegas? July 3, 2019

 

Not exactly the Athens of the West, but . . .
FreedomFest 2019 will be held at the Paris Resort Hotel and Casino. Not my usual haunt, although this will, I believe, be my fifth FreedomFest. They’re always in Las Vegas, and they’re always both stimulating and entertaining.  (Wikimedia Commons public domain image)

 

You might enjoy this 28-minute Tabernacle Choir program, appropriate for the American holiday tomorrow:

 

“Fourth of July Special (Live at West Point) – Music & The Spoken Word”

 

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Here’s an interesting piece from the British newspaper The Guardian:

 

“Salt Lake City offers glimpse of socialism, Mormon-style: Utah has one of the nation’s lowest rates of income inequality in part because of the Church of Latter-day Saints’ welfare system, but it also ranks dead last for economic equality for women”

 

The question of women’s economic equality is rather complex one.  Much that is written and said on the subject is flat nonsense.

 

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Scheduled for 15 September 2019:  “Worldwide Devotional for Young Adults: A Face to Face Event with Elder Ulisses Soares and Elder Craig C. Christensen”

 

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The 2019 theme for FreedomFest is “The Wild West,” and I was just now — as in five or ten minutes ago — invited to participate in an added, extra session there under the title of “Building Zion:  Mormons and Religion in the American West.”  The session will probably include a discussion of the Mormon settling of the West, polygamy, the United Order, and the Book of Mormon.  It sounds like a fun and challenging topic for conversation.

 

It’s already been suggested that we use this scene (“A Woman Can’t Have Two Husbands”), from the film Paint Your Wagon, as a jumping-off point for our discussion:

 

 

After all, it’s about a “Wild West” in which there were no rules, and FreedomFest, which is held every year in Las Vegas, Nevada, is the world’s largest gathering of libertarians, who dislike rules.

 

I don’t know yet when the session will be, but it’s shaping up to be most likely sometime on Thursday, 18 July.  If you’re in the area, please come.

 

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From a letter written by President David O. McKay to BYU’s president at the time, Ernest L. Wilkinson:

 

It is a part of our “Mormon” theology that the Constitution of the United States was divinely inspired; that our Republic came into existence through wise men raised up for that very purpose. We believe it is the duty of the members of the Church to see that this Republic is not subverted either by any sudden or constant erosion of those principles which gave this Nation its birth.

In these days when there is a special trend among certain groups, including members of faculties of universities, to challenge the principles upon which our country has been founded and the philosophy of our Founding Fathers, I hope that Brigham Young University will stand as a bulwark in support of the principles of government as vouchsafed to us by our Constitutional Fathers.

 

 


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