We are unalterably opposed to Socialism, either in whole or in part, and regard it as an unconstitutional usurpation of power and a denial of the right of private property for government to own or operate the means of producing and distributing goods and services in competition with private enterprise, or to regiment owners in the legitimate use of private property, especially through the use of public taxes.
“While the State exists, there can be no freedom. When there is freedom there will be no State.” – Vladimir Ilyich Lenin
1963 Statistics by Ezra Taft Benson:
“I fear for the future when the Central Government now owns more than one-third of the total land area within the boundaries of the fifty states.
“I fear for the future when the Central Government owns and operates more than 3,000 businesses and commercial activities in competition with its own private tax-paying citizens.
“I fear for the future when I realize that the functions of the Federal Government are carried on by some 2,000 major operating units.
Socialism, with Communism, destroys private property and makes man production “cogs in the machine” which is the State.
“I fear for the future when the Federal Government directly lends $1 for every $5 loaned by private banks and that much of the federal funds loaned are at rates below the cost of the money to the government.
“I fear for the future when in 1913 a couple making $10,000, paid in federal taxes $60, but in 1956 a couple earning $10,000 paid $1,590 in federal income tax.
“I fear for the future when I realize that twenty-five years ago the Federal Government received one-fourth of all taxes collected in the United States. Today the Federal Government collects not one-quarter but 68 per cent of all our taxes.
“I fear for the future because twenty-five years ago all taxes, federal, state and local, took 14 per cent of our national income. Today taxes take 35 per cent.
I fear for the future when I see our federal debt soar well above 300 billion dollars-over $7,000 per family of four-sixteen times the combined debt of the fifty states and at the same time see no evidence that this dangerous trend will be curtailed.
“I fear for the future when foreign governments have used and are using American tax money to pay for socialism… [and] an affluent but complacent citizenry is paying little or no attention to these and many other socialistic trends in America.”
“Socialism… is the theory and practice of coercive collectivism. It is the evil fruit of greed for other men’s possessions and greed for control over other men’s labor. This greed for goods and power is as old as man and as widespread as the human race. It goes by many names, disguised in many forms, as men think up many excuses for robbing and ruling their fellows.
“Socialist theory is a modern excuse, an elaborate rationalization for this greed and for the organized looting and despotism it seeks to achieve…It holds out to men the hope that they may reap where they have not sown. It teaches that man is the creature of his environment, and that he may be happy and good if he gets enough wealth, regardless of how or where. All that is needed, says the Socialist Tempter, is to bow down and worship the Socialist State, turning over to it authority and power to take wealth where it finds it and to direct labor as it wills. Just a little class hatred, a little lying propaganda, a little violence on the picket lines, a little suppression of adverse critics, and a few generations of compulsory education in Socialistic thought, then surely we shall see the bright new day of equality, peace, brotherhood, and freedom! So says the Socialist.” – Dr. V. Orval Watts, noted political economist
The first new state added to the Union was Ohio, admitted in 1803. Ownership of the land was “privatized” and immediately went on the tax rolls for the state. This was followed in all of the new states east of the Mississippi as well as all new states in the Louisiana Purchase.
However, these provisions were ignored when the western states were admitted to the Union. The federal government unconstitutionally withheld vast sections of each state. Today, the government holds the following percentages of land: