1 And I, the aLord God, spake unto Moses, saying: That bSatan, whom thou hast commanded in the name of mine Only Begotten, is the same which was from the cbeginning, and he came before me, saying—Behold, here am I, send me, I will be thy son, and I will dredeem all mankind, that one soul shall not be lost, and surely eI will do it; wherefore fgive me thine honor. 2 But, behold, my Beloved aSon, which was my Beloved and bChosen from the beginning, said unto me—cFather, thy dwill be done, and the eglory be thine forever. 3 Wherefore, because that aSatan brebelled against me, and sought to destroy the cagency of man, which I, the Lord God, had given him, and also, that I should give unto him mine own power; by the power of mine Only Begotten, I caused that he should be dcast down; 4 And he became aSatan, yea, even the bdevil, the father of all clies, to ddeceive and to blind men, and to lead them ecaptive at his will, even as many as would not fhearken unto my voice. (Moses 4:1-4)
A slave has no free will, a slave obeys but a master chooses.
You can be a slave to addiction, you can be a slave to any sin under the sun but you can also be a slave to your leaders political or clergy. If you obey rather than choose what virtue is there in that? There is none.
Not only is there no virtue in abdicating your agency there is no accomplishment in it because it's not your life your living, your letting others live your life for you.
Let's do a thought experiment: Imagine we're out in the wilderness and walking hand in hand and only the leader can see, the rest have blindfolds on. They only follow. Then the leader lets go and the chain of followers stumbles around looking for the leader who can see. After stumbling around for some time the leader instructs the group to stop and take off their blindfolds and asks a couple questions. Why did you keep walking?
One person says they were trying to find their leader.
But the leader asks "Why didn't you use your agency?"
"You said not to."
"But you could have chosen to take it off. You could have taken it off so you could find your way and choose what's right for you not what's right for everyone else."
We don't have to follow Christ, we have to choose to follow Christ.
Satan however intends to take away our agency and if he can't convert you to his path, he'll keep you busy with something to neutralize you.
So when Utah state legislators legally enforce the word of wisdom to whatever extent they can having people who have never broken it over see and be in charge of alcohol laws and distribution or severely limit the number of state liquor stores and liquor licenses.
The Church makes promotional videos linking mastrubation to a wounded soldier on the battlefield and said soldier needs a friend to help pull him off the field and save him but you cannot save any one from sin or pull anyone into the light, everyone must save themselves or stray by themselves because we all have a coice and it is ours no one elses. No one is responsible for our choices but us.
And trying as the Church or state legislators do to take away the agency of others to sin is a sin on par with the one Satan committed when he tried to enforce it in the Moses 4 quote at the beginning of this article. Because in the end you only add hoops for people to jump through to sin, you don't stop them but by trying to take away their agency you commit the sin of Satan by trying by force to bring everyone back into Gods presence. That is the way of Satan but free agency is the way of Christ. Freedom is given to us by Christ and slavery, being forced to "do the right thing" is the way of Satan.
By all means try to lead, to inspire but do not coerce or force others into doing anything even the "right thing." If someone submits to force, if someone gives up and obeys blindly there is no virtue in such actions.
Virtue requires free agency, it requires freedom to do wrong yet still willingly and freely choosing the righteous path.
Take off your blindfold or you'll never find your way or your happiness.