Secret Combinations

Today I completed a routine cleaning of my kitchen stove and the hood over it. I scrubbed the entire hood including the screens for the fan. I scrubbed the back panel of the stove with all the knobs and buttons. I washed around and under the electric burners. I lifted the top of the stove to clean the area under the burners. This is routine cleaning which I usually do every month or sooner if needed. This time as I was cleaning under the top, I recognized that I had not cleaned for a very long time, perhaps never, the underneath of the lid. I had apparently never noticed that the underside of the stove top collected grease and dirt and therefore had not cleaned it. Today I saw the area in a different light and worked long and hard to get it clean and shining.
Just as I found a previously uncleaned area on my stove, I am beginning to see unclean areas in our local, state and federal governments that I have not previously noticed. Uncleanness in government is usually called corruption.
There are recent news reports about an organization known as ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now) as counseling a "pimp" and a "prostitute" on how they could run an illegal business using under-age, illegal, undocumented girls and also how to avoid paying taxes on the business. ACORN has also been accused in about sixteen different states of voter fraud. ACORN has received $53 million of our tax payer dollars since 1994 to help poor people keep from losing their homes and to help them with tax problems. The current president of the United States, Barack Obama, has ties to ACORN. Is ACORN a legitimate organization or is it corrupt?
We have other organizations in our country that may or may not be considered corrupt, such as the Mafia, labor unions, the mainstream media who has failed to cover the ACORN news. How do we tell which organizations are "clean" and which ones are corrupt?
I believe that there is some corruption in our local area. We have a brand new mayor who was installed in July. He discovered soon after being sworn in that our city had a net worth deficit of $17 million. A few weeks later he added another $9 million to the deficit for this year plus $25 million expected for next year. My question is, how can a city of 300,000 to 350,000 people have a deficit of $50 million without some corruption somewhere?
Our former governor, Sarah Palin, brags about clearing out some of the "good ole boys" at the state level, and several of our state legislators have been indicted and convicted of illegal activities in recent years. Are there more?
Do we have legislators and administrators on the federal level who are supporting and abetting illegal activities? If we do, we would be wise to listen to the counsel given by an ancient prophet who lived about 400 A.D. He called corrupt organizations "secret combinations" and said that secret combinations are built up to obtain power and financial gain. He also said that whoever supports these secret combinations seeks to overthrown the freedom of all lands, nations, and countries. He told of two great nations who had been destroyed by secret combinations and then said, "whatsoever nation shall uphold such secret combinations, to get power and gain, until they shall spread over the nation, behold, they shall be destroyed" (Ether 8:22).
Are we going to root out and destroy the secret combinations among us and thus protect our liberties and freedoms? Our other choice is allow them to grow so powerful that they bring about our destruction. How about it America - what are we going to do? Live free or be destroyed? The choice is ours. I choose freedom!