Jacob – Okay, once I was able to read each quote individually, rather than mashed up all together in my email, I can actually respond to them. ;-)

First of all, the first quote by Harold B. Lee is meaningless out of context. We don’t know what Pres. Clark said or what the young man in question was objecting to.

The next three quotes all point to this seeming suggestion that if the government does anything to benefit its citizens, it’s somehow giving them a handout, and they should pay for it from a private provider instead. Ludicrous. Of course, that’s part of the problem is that they’ve heard so many speeches against “socialism,” and then the moment Fox News declares anything to be “socialist,” they get their pitchforks and torches out against it. Like sheep. Last I checked, many of the proposals that are getting labeled as “socialist,” such as raising the minimum wage, or single payer health care, or publicly financed community college don’t enable people not to work, they enable people to work.

With regards to the First Presidency statement you quoted, what was it about the Communist party they were objecting to? Was it the mere act of government trying to act in the best interests of its people? Or was it the revolutionary overthrow of the Bolshevik movement? Seriously, did the church fall in Britain after they instituted the NHS? Or in Canada once they implemented their public health care plan? Has the church fallen in Europe because they have higher education fully paid for with public financing?