Next week, Canadians go to the polls to cast their ballot for someone to represent them in the federal government. (Well, most will vote for a party instead, but that’s another post altogether.) At 78 days, this year’s election campaign will be the third longest since confederation but the longest since 1872.

On top of that, the election campaign for the 2016 American election is also underway, as candidates for party nominations debate and campaign across the United States.

And because I have so many Facebook friends in Canada and the United States, I have been seeing so much political content shared on social media. And it’s quite polarized.

The fact that a good portion of the posts are shared by friends who are Mormon means that a good portion of the posts shared laud right-wing conservatism.

Because my journey toward communism has overlapped these campaign periods has allowed me to see this attachment to conservatism in a light different from how I have seen it in the past.

I’ve come to the conclusion that despite what the conventional traditions and culture of Mormonism indicate, the scriptural doctrine of Mormonism includes far more principles of socialism and other left-leaning political ideals than it does of conservatism and other right-leaning political ideals.

Here are a few examples to illustrate my conclusion.
Continue reading “Why I think Mormonism is incompatible with conservatism”