BYU’s The Daily Universe recently conducted a ‘Feel the Bern’: Poll that showed “BYU students prefer socialist Sanders” over all other candidates:
It turns out that the results have been removed, due to objections raised that pointed out that there was no way to guarantee that respondents were actually students at BYU. (You can read the Editor’s note here.) Removal was the right thing to do, but I regret to say that I would not be surprised that BYU students could in fact respond as this poll suggested they did.
Two friends alerted me to this poll, one of whom is a former colleague from BYU and the other was a colleague when I taught at the US Air Force Academy. Neither of the two is a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, but they are both aware of BYU and its core beliefs. The former BYU colleague asked in an E-mail regarding the survey, “How do you explain this?” and the colleague from USAFA tweeted, “What’s happening @ BYU?” along with a link to the Universe article.
My tweeted response was this, “The same that is happening everywhere else: Kids are brainwashed, if not at BYU, before they arrive here & by media!” I provide below a somewhat longer response to these inquiries.
Given that BYU students represent a broader cross-section of the United States than many might believe, I would only find it slightly surprising that so many could support a socialist for president than do so many college students across the nation. Unfortunately, we see from a poll commissioned by YouGov.com, that “36% of Americans under 30 have a positive view of socialism, while 39% have a positive view of capitalism.” On the other hand, for those over 65, only 15% view socialism favorably, with 59% liking capitalism. The only way I can explain that switch is to point a finger at what is being taught (or not taught) in our schools.
While the opinions of BYU students are no doubt influenced by what they are taught in school, I am still surprised at the number of young people in the LDS community who have a positive view of socialism. I see comments on Facebook and elsewhere that suggest that many believe socialism to be the world’s answer to Christian concern for one’s neighbor. Forgotten there, of course, is the fact that Jesus Christ has always left his followers to choose to help others or to choose not to do so. Indeed, free agency, or the freedom to choose right over wrong, is a key element of all of His teachings. The same cannot be said for socialists, who stand ever ready to use the force of government to take from one to give to another.
My surprise regarding the acceptance that socialism is gaining today is the result of the teachings of our leaders that go back many years, which have alerted us to the dangers of socialism. As just one example, Gordon B. Hinckley, who at the time had been First Counselor to President Ezra Taft Benson, stated in his eulogy at President Benson’s funeral:
I am confident that it was out of what he saw of the bitter fruit of dictatorship that he developed his strong feelings, almost hatred, for communism and socialism. That distaste grew through the years as he witnessed the heavy-handed oppression and suffering of the peoples of Eastern Europe under what he repeatedly described as godless communism.
President Benson was well-known in many settings for his views regarding socialism, and he spoke in General Conference of the value of the Book of Mormon with respect to socialism, “Our families may be corrupted by worldly trends and teachings unless we know how to use the book to expose and combat falsehoods in socialism, rationalism, etc.” In another conference address, he asked, “Would you like to know of the warnings of the prophets about our increasing descent down the soul-destroying road of socialism and what they have told us to do about it?”
My fear today is that not enough is said or taught in our time regarding the evils of socialism.