checking the human beast

O LORD, I know that the way of man is not in himself:
    it is not in man that walketh to direct his steps” (Jeremiah 10.23).
 
“The LORD looked down from heaven   
    upon the children of men,  
to see if there were any that did understand,   
    and seek God.
They are all gone aside,   
    they are all together become filthy:  
there is none that doeth good,   
    no, not one” (Psalm 14.2-3).
 
“All mankind must unavoidably perish;
yea, all are hardened;
yea, all are fallen and are lost” (Alma 34.9)

 
“Governments,” the Doctrine and Covenants maintains, “were instituted of God” (134.1). The only problem with the idea of government arises when it is stolen by authoritarianism or “the voice of the people doth choose iniquity,” for “then is the time that the judgments of God… come upon you; yea, then is the time he will visit you with great destruction…” (Mosiah 29.27).
 
I do not quote these well-known maxims because in electing Caligula “the voice of the people [has chosen] iniquity”—though, of course, it has. I do not quote these passages because “the time [of] the judgments of God” draws near—though it does.
 
I mention them, first, to remind those who feel that the current U.S. government shutdown isn’t such a bad thing because, well, we don’t need the government anyway—“Give me liberty or give me death”— government is one of God’s blessings to humankind. What is cursed is the autocrat and mad citizenry.
 
This leads me to my second reason for mentioning these passages: In the midst of an unwarranted government shutdown instigated by an insane megalomaniac, we see signs everywhere of the citizenry’s madness, and the necessity of government to control an unruly humanity (I am not ignorant of the fact that even with government we often find our way to the animalistic side of our nature—as two world wars and the continuous smaller wars since demonstrate. Nevertheless…).
 
But, enough of the false enlightenment principle that “men are basically good.” Hogwash! We could quote about a hundred scriptures to demonstrate that such doctrine is about as unscriptural as it gets. I’ll not distract us from the observation that I wish to make in this post by quoting them here, but have a look, if you’d like, at the teeny-tiny few that I have quoted in the header and footer of this post.
 
I want to come back to government and the U.S. government shutdown (By the way, have you ever heard of any other healthily functioning government on good old planet earth shutting itself down? Of course you haven’t! It is a parade example of our disfunction.).
 
Anyway, since the mad and unjust shutdown of the U.S. government, some departments have attempted to remain functional with skeletal staffs and/or volunteers. One such department is the U.S. Parks Department. They have attempted to keep most National Parks open.
 
With each passing day, this has turned, increasingly, into a disaster. Now, we will cut the tens of thousands of park patrons slack when it comes to the build up of trash and the filth found in restrooms. I mean, we’re dirty animals. But with the passage of time, park patrons have increasingly shown themselves to be something worse than animals. It now appears that Joshua Tree National Park will need to be closed because patrons have been vandalizing the environment itself. Trees that have survived mother nature for centuries are being killed by stupid human activities in a matter of weeks. Park patrons are not simply cutting into trees, they are cutting pieces from the trees. How, oh how has the planet survived mankind this long?!?
 
“Enoch looked upon the earth; and he heard a voice from the bowels thereof, saying: ‘Wo, wo is me, the mother of men; I am pained, I am weary, because of the wickedness of my children.  When shall I rest, and be cleansed from the filthiness which is gone forth out of me?’” (Moses 7.48)
 
Now, my point is not so much environmental—though there is that. Rather, the stupidity taking place in the Joshua Tree National Park is a simple demonstration of the need for government; the reason it is such a blessing. Mankind usually acts like a pack of wild and unruly monkeys. As the simple events that have taken place in Joshua Tree National Park during the government shutdown so clearly demonstrate, we Americans, like all mankind, are in desperate, desperate need of government. We are in dire need of the checks it provides against our selfish, wild, and animalistic nature—the human beast inside each individual and every beastly society. Without this… well, see for yourself.
 
It’s a small thing, I know, this destruction of beautiful and aged Joshua trees. But, you know what they say… “By small and simple things….”

​"And GOD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually” (Genesis 6.5)
 
“We know that… we are unworthy before thee; because of the fall our natures have become evil continually…” (Ether 3.2)
 
“Inasmuch as thy children are conceived in sin, even so when they begin to grow up, sin conceiveth in their hearts” (Moses 6.55).
 
“But we are all as an unclean thing,
and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags…” (Isaiah 64.6).