Cast Your Vote for Virtue

            It is the summer of 2016, and American citizens are swimming tirelessly, desperately trying to stay afloat, while stuck in the current of determining who to vote for in the upcoming presidential election. Voters would be wise to follow the counsel of Hyrum Smith when he said, “. . . you are to vote for good men . . . to vote for wicked men, it would be a sin.” . Each individual voter should make virtue a primary criterion while evaluating the future leaders of America.

This republic was formed because righteous founders were at the helm. Cleon Skousen, an American conservative author and faith-based political theorist, shares the following idea in his book, “The Five Thousand Year Leap”, that virtuous leaders beget morally stable people. He then relays a quote from Benjamin Franklin that says, “Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom.”  Skousen tells a story of the early colonists who desperately wanted to form a republic, but fretted about their own personal goodness. They had lived under the aristocracy of European masters and were ready for self –government, but they believed a successful, free self-governing society could only stem from a people who had the capacity to live by a high moral code. By steadfastly following the examples of their honorable leaders, men defined by President Wilford Woodruff as, “the best spirits the God of heaven could find on the face of the earth . . . choice spirits … [who] were inspired of the Lord”, a moral reform swept across the nation and the vision of America began.

History is replete with examples of upright leaders bringing stability to a nation. Example one is King Cyrus of Persia. He was viewed as a noble man who had a desire to do the Lord’s will. In Isaiah 44:28 the Lord says of Cyrus, “He is my shepherd, and shall perform all my pleasure . . .”  He freed the captive Jews in Babylon and “established the largest empire of his time” through tolerance, diplomacy, and principle. 

In Alma we read about example number two, which involves the righteous transformation of King Lamoni.  His return to virtue blessed his people with liberty, religious freedom, and thousands of Lamanites were converted to the gospel. They left behind their murderous ways and covenanted with the Lord to lay down their weapons of war - forever. 

In the Book of Mormon we see peoples being “swept off” due to worldly leadership. King Noah was a Nephite and was raised by a righteous man but, “did not walk in the ways of his father”.  Therefore, “he did cause his people to commit sin”. King Noah’s own people burned him alive and were eventually taken into bondage by the Lamanites. We learn from Ether that, “this is a land which is choice above all other lands; wherefore he that doth possess it shall serve God or shall be swept off . . .” 

On November 8^th voters will elect the next president of the very land that God preserved for the righteous. Some patriots have expressed moral concerns regarding the various party nominees and have decided upon voting for the candidate who represents the lesser of two evils.  Elder Jorg Klebingat, a General Authority Seventy, said, “. . . choosing something bad over something worse is still choosing wrong.”  The United States of America’s liberty and freedoms are not secure when we settled for a leader that is only a little wicked. To thrive as a nation each individual voter should make virtue a primary criterion while evaluating the future leaders of America. No matter the cost.