Child & Family Advocacy W9

 Ezra Taft Benson: “The Lord works from the inside out. The world works from the outside in. The world would take people out of the slums. Christ takes the slums out of people, and then they take themselves out of the slums. The world would mold men by changing their environment. Christ changes men, who then change their environment. The world would shape human behavior, but Christ can change human nature.”

Brother Petermann: ...regardless of our talents and skills, we all can apply Bronfenbrenner's Model to "socialize" the world to light and truth rather than adopting ideas that are culturally popular or politically correct....

The family unit is the most powerful, humane, and economical system for building competence and character and that starts with strong marriages. Strong marriages are fostered—in part—by a strong marriage culture. 

 >Law shapes culture, and culture shapes law. It is an endless cycle. It was better when God shaped the law and religion shaped the culture.

The Declaration of Independence: "..a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation." is a good reason to advocate.

...That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, so why doesn't that apply to The Church?

D&C 134: 4- ...that the civil magistrate should restrain crime, but never control conscience; should punish ^bguilt, but never suppress the freedom of the soul.

• Based on what you have learned, what is the proper role of government in general? In other words, what should government do to help people and make our lives better? Identify language from all three documents (i.e., Declaration of Independence, D&C 134Links to an external site.) to support your answer.
• Think of the topics we have explored this semester. What role, if any, do you feel government (international, national, state, or local) should play in helping to resolve or address these issues? Why?
• If our unalienable rights are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, shouldn’t the government be responsible to control and eradicate threats to our happiness? Why or why not?

Dallin H. Oaks: Our belief in divine inspiration gives Latter-day Saints a unique responsibility to uphold and defend the United States Constitution and principles of constitutionalism wherever we live.

...Such independent actions will sometimes require voters to support candidates or political parties or platforms whose other positions they cannot approve.⁹ That is one reason we encourage our members to refrain from judging one another in political matters. We should never assert that a faithful Latter-day Saint cannot belong to a particular party or vote for a particular candidate. We teach correct principles and leave our members to choose how to prioritize and apply those principles on the issues presented from time to time. We also insist, and we ask our local leaders to insist, that political choices and affiliations not be the subject of teachings or advocacy in any of our Church meetings.

Goodness leaves when the government gets bigger because why help others when the government (or The Church) will just do it for you?

Taking care of others is a sign of moral character and so is taking care of oneself.

The more you expect to be given, the less grateful you will be for what you are given and you get resentful when any of those entitlements are taken away. REMEMBER: frustration happens when your expectations are not met.

Our increased reliance on laws to regulate behavior is a measure of how uncivilized we have become.  Moral Discipline

• Does family breakdown increase or reduce the size of government laws, policies, and programs?
• What can the government do to promote and protect the family?
• What can the government do to get out of the way of the family?

Consider this:

Can you think of any policies—at any level—that might inadvertently or unintentionally promote or perpetuate fatherlessness?

Ezra Taft Benson: ...Have we read The Federalist papers? Are we reading the Constitution and pondering it? Are we aware of its principles? Are we abiding by these principles and teaching them to others? Could we defend the Constitution? Can we recognize when a law is constitutionally unsound? Do we know what the prophets have said about the Constitution and the threats to it?

“As Jefferson said, ‘If a nation expects to be ignorant and free…it expects what never was and never will be.’”

...Here we see that the mission of BYU-Idaho could also be called BYU-Idaho policy as it is a set of decisions oriented towards the above long-term purpose.

The Honor Code is law based because it is a system of rules that must be obeyed.

Marcia Barlow: Parental involvement in their child's education is a more significant factor in a child's academic performance than the qualities of the school itself.

....increase the understanding that human beings are not a hinderance to sustainable development, but a necessary and critical component.

• Does the family void in policymaking stem from policymakers who are uninterested in family issues or undervalue their importance?
• Can the family void in policymaking be blamed on the lack of attention and support from professionals?
• Is the public apathetic or uninterested in whether families are designated as a criterion for policymaking?
• Is the government support of families a new idea that has been slow to gain acceptance?
• Can the rapid changes in family life be credited with the family void in policymaking?
• Has Americans’ interest in families failed to move beyond lip service?

• In what ways do we make the same mistake in advocacy? More specifically policymaking?
• What important “gorillas” are we missing (according to your readings) because we are too focused on something else?
• Why do we do this? How can we remedy this tendency?
• What are the consequences of minimizing or eliminating family from public policy? (cite readings)
• According to your readings, what can we do about it?

 Famliy Policy Matters: Logging in the Northwestern woods has damaged the habitat of the spotted owl and has threatened extinction of the species by interfering with the ability of the adults to reproduce and guarantee the survival of the young. Similarly, the weakening of the ecology of families can undermine competent parenting and impair the capacity of the human species to rear its young into productive, caring adults.

...about half of all children alive today will live in a single-parent home by the time they reach 15 years old, often accompanied by poverty (Smeeding, Moynihan, & Rainwater, 2004)

.... Parents, in particular, have desperately tried to shield the young by serving as this absent ozone layer; however, doing so requires exorbitant expenditures of time and energy that can only be provided by a heroic level of parenting that all aspire to but few can achieve. A society that creates an environment so unfriendly to parents that it requires superparenting has been characterized as inhumane (Garbarino & Kostemy, 1994) and a “public health problem that warrants national attention” (Steinberg, 1996, p. 189).

Freedom can be given away through ignorance!

Optional Material

Our Divine ConstitutionLinks to an external site. by President Ezra Taft Benson.

invisiblegorilla.com

c-fam.org

https://www.unitedfamilies.org/?sfw=pass1699557135