Freedom from Obama

                The liberty principle for this Freedom Friday is that we will soon be free of Barack Obama and his liberal policies. We will have a new President of the United States at 12:00 noon on 20 January 2017! Yeah! America survived eight years of the Obama administration. I am sure that America will survive a Trump administration.

                As this “peaceful transition” takes place tomorrow, I believe Americans need to know the counsel given by two Apostles to the young adults of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. 

                 Elder Dallin H. Oaks urges them to live their lives with the knowledge that election results are a consequence of living in a democracy.

                “I’m not making an argument for the outcome of the election, but I make an argument for the democracy on which our freedoms depend, and we cannot have democracy if we cannot accept outcomes with which we disagree as well as outcomes with which we agree.”

                Elder Oaks quotes many of the remarks that he presented in a devotional at Brigham Young University in September 2016. “Although the election is over, the conditions that made a painful month in September persist in January, even in the week that the new president will be inaugurated….”

                Continuing his remarks, Elder Oaks says, “The few months preceding an election have always been times of serious political divisions, but the divisions and meanness we are experiencing in this election, especially at the presidential level, seem to be unusually wide and ugly.”

                Elder Oaks adds, “We should also remember not to be part of the current meanness. We should communicate about our differences with a minimum of offense.” If only Elder Oaks could speak to all Americans!

                Elder Jeffery R. Holland shares the challenges of several different people and the agonies through which they lived. “It is not coincidental that the word that’s used for Christ’s experience [in] Gethsemane is that he was in `an agony.’ If we say we’re disciples of Christ… we will on occasion be in agony. And I bless you that when those moments come, contemporary issues, historical complexities, personal problems at home, challenges in a mission or a marriage, wherever it is, I pray and ask and bless you to the end that you will be strong.”

                I do not know whether Elder Holland was speaking of the “agony” of one’s candidate losing an election, but I certainly appreciate his reminder of what we need to do as disciples of Jesus Christ.