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Posted
1 hour ago, TwiceHorn said:

At one time, Mike Lee appeared to be a semi-sane and serious Senator, if a Mormon reactionary.

Mike Lee does a real disservice to the Mormons and pretty much every other human. 

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Posted
1 hour ago, C-Man said:


Not sure he was ever sane or normal. I was watching Jon Stewart last night and he recounted a story from back in 2019 or whenever where he and a handful of first responders were going around and meeting US senators and reps to help support potential legislation to get 9/11 first responders treatment for cancer and other toxic cleanup ailments they had.

Stewart said they met with Lee and the first responders took turns telling their stories. A police officer recounted his emotional experience of being in one of the towers that collapsed. When he was done telling story, Lee had this smile/grin on his face and said, “Man, I bet you’ve got a lot of stories.”

Stewart said they left the meeting and as soon as they walked out, they all looked at each other and said, “What the fuck was that?” He said it was the only meeting of many they had where they had that experience.

Needless to say, Stewart is no fan of Lee.

He's been a Senator for a good long time (since 2011), 2019 is recent history for him.

I noticed him as a sponsor of a version of the First Step Act quite some time ago, and a more charitable version of what actually got passed.  I'm sure he's always been some kind of reactionary, but he used to not be "based."

Posted

A reminder that it didn't used to be like this.

“It’s occurred to me on countless occasions today that if anyone spoke to my wife, or my daughter, or my mother, or any of my five sisters, the way Mr. Trump has spoken to women, I wouldn’t hire that person, wouldn’t want to be associated with that person, and I certainly don’t think I’d be comfortable hiring that person to be the leader of the free world.”

“We’ve been asked to settle, on matters of great principle, with our candidate for President of the United States. This can’t continue.”

“With all due respect, you, sir, are the distraction. Your conduct, sir, is the distraction. It’s the distraction from the very principles that will help us win in November.”

“It’s for precisely that reason, Mr. Trump, that I respectfully ask you, with all due respect, to step aside. Step down. Allow someone else to carry the banner of these principles.”

-Mike Lee the coward, October 2016

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Posted
1 hour ago, C-Man said:


Not sure he was ever sane or normal. I was watching Jon Stewart last night and he recounted a story from back in 2019 or whenever where he and a handful of first responders were going around and meeting US senators and reps to help support potential legislation to get 9/11 first responders treatment for cancer and other toxic cleanup ailments they had.

Stewart said they met with Lee and the first responders took turns telling their stories. A police officer recounted his emotional experience of being in one of the towers that collapsed. When he was done telling story, Lee had this smile/grin on his face and said, “Man, I bet you’ve got a lot of stories.”

Stewart said they left the meeting and as soon as they walked out, they all looked at each other and said, “What the fuck was that?” He said it was the only meeting of many they had where they had that experience.

Needless to say, Stewart is no fan of Lee.

i saw that too.

This piece is long and not just about the Minnesota events and aftermath but damn it's so good and worth watching.

 

 

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Posted

Lee is the one proposing an amendment to the budget to sell off Public lands to pay the deficit.  Like converting a revenue generating asset in a one time transaction to contribute towards the BBB tax cuts.  He's not a sane person.

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Posted
32 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

He's been a Senator for a good long time (since 2011), 2019 is recent history for him.

I noticed him as a sponsor of a version of the First Step Act quite some time ago, and a more charitable version of what actually got passed.  I'm sure he's always been some kind of reactionary, but he used to not be "based."

Or, he has been a fucking shitbag his whole life, and you just didn't notice it because you weren't looking for it. People dont just wake up one morning and decide to be awful people. The dude is in his mid 50's, he just now has cover to say what he wants to say. 

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Posted
1 hour ago, Hammerin Hank said:

It wasn’t until I read this this morning that I realized how desensitized I have become to republican shitbaggery. When I read those Mike Lee tweets over the weekend my reaction should have been complete shock and disbelief. Instead, it seemed like just another shitty republican remark. Business as usual. They’ve become so completely rotten that they don’t even thoughts and prayers anymore 

They have always been this way.  The just hid it.  

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Posted
1 hour ago, Hugo Stiglitz said:

Mike Lee does a real disservice to the Mormons and pretty much every other human. 

I have known a lot of Mormons. Most of them are the salt of the earth, the best, most kindly neighbors and per capita probably the happiest people there are. 

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Posted
I have known a lot of Mormons. Most of them are the salt of the earth, the best, most kindly neighbors and per capita probably the happiest people there are. 

And now you know that some are spineless evil pieces of shit.
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Posted
3 minutes ago, Bozo_Casanova said:

I have known a lot of Mormons. Most of them are the salt of the earth, the best, most kindly neighbors and per capita probably the happiest people there are. 

I really thought you were gonna finish this with the punchline from blazing saddles.

IMG_3804.thumb.jpeg.8b2cf39018a0b18c7de992c22b294780.jpeg
 

Disappointed. I need a laugh this morning.

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Posted
29 minutes ago, Bozo_Casanova said:

I have known a lot of Mormons. Most of them are the salt of the earth, the best, most kindly neighbors and per capita probably the happiest people there are. 

Funny. I've heard many people using salt of the earth as an insult but I'm aware that people use it in the opposite as well.

Posted
6 minutes ago, Nice Guy Eddie said:

Funny. I've heard many people using salt of the earth as an insult but I'm aware that people use it in the opposite as well.

Then they've been using it wrong. "Salt of the earth" is far from an insult.

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Posted
15 hours ago, OU Sucks said:

I always like to see how Fox News covers stuff like this...well, this story had been their headliner, and an article they had detailing the shooter was on the second row of featured articles as of just a few hours ago. Now, that story has completely vanished from the front page, in favor of articles like "Chick-fil-A fans 'shocked' by controversial cup change sparking customer outrage", "Former Team USA gymnast accuses Simone Biles of bullying her 'many times'", and "OneRepublic singer breaks ranks with celebrity elite over military parade". That's about as close to an admission Fox will give towards acknowledging the guy was a right-wing lunatic. In all the articles I've read on Fox News, there's still zero mention of the manifesto/hit list, even though the Acting U.S. Attorney confirmed that a hit list does exist and that it contained all Democrats long ago. There's also zero mention of the video clip of the conservative speech the suspect gave, zero mention of him being a registered Republican, and zero mention of his friend saying he was a Trump supporter. Of course, most people in the Fox News comment section are still calling him a Democrat and saying things like "lulz, Democrats killing their own".

Over on X, some are now going with the "this is a conspiracy!!!1" slant, so at least they finally figured out the guy is a right-winger.

if grok can be compromised there should be a way to inject these alternative alternative facts in to the disinfosphere for involuntary consumption by the mentally diseased

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Posted (edited)
On 6/16/2025 at 1:46 PM, TwiceHorn said:

The federal nexus on criminal charges seems extraordinarily weak here.  

The US Attorney (acting) doesn't seem to be a hack, but it's hard to tell.

I hope you're right, but . . . 

 

9xpc4c.jpg

Edited by dcbc
Posted
4 hours ago, Bozo_Casanova said:

I have known a lot of Mormons. Most of them are the salt of the earth, the best, most kindly neighbors and per capita probably the happiest people there are. 

My experience as well.

Posted (edited)

Why is the Millennium Falcon inside the USS Enterprise bridge?

Oh.  Because it's Trump.  Nothing SHOULD make sense.

Edited by Iceman
Posted
7 hours ago, 956 Worldwide said:

He is a life-long dweeb who got a taste of popularity from the algorithm and got into a positive feedback loop by being edgy on the internet.  Adult version of eating ever-grosser bugs on the playground for attention. Many such cases, SAD! 

I ate crickets for $10 a pop for a couple days in 4th grade. Got to color with a nice lady during class hours for a couple weeks after that. So this hits close to home.

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Posted
1 minute ago, Hank_Hill said:

I ate crickets for $10 a pop for a couple days in 4th grade. Got to color with a nice lady during class hours for a couple weeks after that. So this hits close to home.

how... many did you eat? you'll be well-suited when that's the last protein available 

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Posted (edited)

Like…5 over 2 recesses? That was big money at the time. The counselors freaked but my dad appreciated my entrepreneurial spirit.

Edited by Hank_Hill
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Posted

Thank you, @Pods. There’s been a strange hero worship of Mormons on this site for a long time. I’ve always figured the people doing it only had surface level knowledge or some guy at work that seemed like a nice guy. I spent a little over five years working in heavily Mormon communities in Utah and Idaho and my impressions more closely mirror your examples than the whitewashed experiences people around here post about. Working in healthcare, specifically, women’s and children’s, I have plenty of stories that would make people sick.

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Posted
32 minutes ago, royiv said:

Thank you, @Pods. There’s been a strange hero worship of Mormons on this site for a long time. I’ve always figured the people doing it only had surface level knowledge or some guy at work that seemed like a nice guy. I spent a little over five years working in heavily Mormon communities in Utah and Idaho and my impressions more closely mirror your examples than the whitewashed experiences people around here post about. Working in healthcare, specifically, women’s and children’s, I have plenty of stories that would make people sick.

People are often really stupid about people who are nice to them and refuse to see what they really are.

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Posted
40 minutes ago, royiv said:

Thank you, @Pods. There’s been a strange hero worship of Mormons on this site for a long time. I’ve always figured the people doing it only had surface level knowledge or some guy at work that seemed like a nice guy.

I just figured most of those people were the byu folks who migrated here and never left.

Mormons are kooky

Posted

So one of my parents grew up Mormon and the other Mennonite.  While we were never part of either church it’s remarkable to see the differences/similarities among the two groups and how they have both succeeded at the public perception game.

People tend to overlook that they are openly oppressive cults at their core and have all the negative baggage that comes with it. 

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Posted
2 hours ago, Pods said:

Long post alert and I am leaving out tons. 

I often try to avoid posting on this, but these posts get made all the time. For reasons I'd rather not expound on, I've known more Mormons than most of the rest of this board put together. Your impression is accurate about some, but there is a grotesque side that outsiders rarely see. Mormonism is a mix of good people, average people and predators that prey on them. There's a reason Utah has more multi-level marketing schemes and victims than any other state. 

First, the happy all the time is a manufactured image and beaten into you as a child, often literally. It's similar to other prosperity gospel groups. If you aren't happy, it's because you need to be more righteous and God will favor you and make you happy. People learn quickly not to show anything aside from a beaming smile. Especially to outsiders. That faux everyone is always happy bullshit is one of their biggest recruiting tools. The women and children are very frequently unhappy, but have learned to keep it to themselves. 

Utah's suicide rate is nearly double the national average. Suicide is the leading cause of death for ages 10-17. The suicide rate among kids has tripled in the last decade. It is especially high for LGBTQ+ kids. 

https://www.abc4.com/news/local-news/suicide-is-leading-cause-of-death-among-utahns-ages-10-17-research-shows/

Mormonism itself is also in major flux. They are facing an existential truth crisis thanks to the internet and even to South Park, though South Park barely scratched the surface.

As a result, many of the actual salt of the earth people are leaving in droves. Wards are being closed down and consolidated across the country. Exmormon content is some of the highest traffic content on TikTok and reddit. Check out r/exmormon and r/mormon for examples. They realized they've been lied to and exploited their entire lives. Or, they've watched others exploited and can't stay silent, though speaking out often means they are completely cut off by their family, friends, jobs and housing. 

Some left because rape victims are shamed and blamed for not fighting back enough.

That's only one example of many and it's gone on for decades, at a minimum. It's beyond cruel and makes the worst experience of their life even more traumatic.

Real salt of the earth people don't blame rape victims and they leave cruel organizations where others do blame rape victims. 

Recently, a bunch left over how the Mormons treat LGBTQ+ members. You won't see it in public, but many Mormons are fucking monsters to any friends/relatives who come out as LGBTQ+, especially trans. I have a friend who is trans and I'd put the odds at 80/20 she kills her self at some point due to how other Mormons treat her. I'm probably underestimating, she's hardly talking to anyone, or returning texts anymore. I regularly have to ask her to text me an emoji response, so I know she's still alive. It makes me fucking livid that there is nothing I can do, because all the love I can give her is dwarfed by the hate she is surrounded by, including most all of her family and former close friends.

Salt of the earth people wouldn't do that to her. The real salt of the earth people stand up for the vulnerable and are leaving. 

Also of note on this issue, you may remember the Mormon "church" spending enormous political capital and members enormous amounts of money to take away LGBTQ+ right to marriage in California. Prop 8 would not have passed without their bigotry. 

Real salt of the earth people allow others to live their lives as they see fit, rather than trying to take away their rights. 

Others have left recently when they found out the "church" created a bunch of shell companies to hide at least $32 billion dollars from the SEC. The highest levels of leadership were aware and condoned it for 22 years, until a whistleblower turned them in. For 22 years, everyone else, including 3 different President's and all of their first counselors, covered it up. That whistleblower is the only salt of the earth person in that whole bunch.  

https://www.bbc.com/news/business-64727764

Real salt of the earth people don't condone 22years of hiding billions from the SEC, they leave corrupt organizations like that. They report it to the SEC if they find out.

Lots of the good people left when they found out about Joseph Smith's many concubines, including his 14 year old "wife" and how he coerced her by telling her that her families salvation depended on her giving herself to him.

She lived to regret that decision and wrote about how she missed her lost childhood dearly.

Many of those same Mormons you would call salt of the earth people bend over backwards to excuse this, "She was a few months shy of her 15th birthday". It's fucking gross.

Actual salt of the earth people know that is deeply wrong and are leaving over it.  

Others left when they found out about the many "wives" Smith took that were already married, including sending men overseas on missions and "marrying" their wives.

Or Brigham Young's 15 year old "wives", genocide and massacres of the Utah Native American tribes and that he owned slaves. 

Or that at least the first 4 Prophet, Seer and Revelators took child brides. 

Again, actual salt of the earth people cannot countenance these completely immoral and indefensible actions. Real salt of the earth people leave. 

Others left because there is a burgeoning awareness of how rampant domestic and sexual abuse of women and children are. Check out https://floodlit.org, a group who are cataloging all known sexual accusations and instances of direct coverup by leadership. They have a backlog of thousands of cases.

The "church" has a special hot line for bishops and stake presidents to call that goes straight to their lawfirm, Kirton-McConkie, who "investigates" and covers up everything they can.

The "church" actively lobbies to maintain clergy privilege and not have to disclose abuse to police if it's reported to leadership, despite the fact that the bishops/stake presidents have no formal training and are often just one of the richest, most connected members of the community. 

Right up the present day, Mormon leadership protects domestic abusers and sexual abusers if the family of the perpetrator is well connected. A friend of mine was married to a man who regularly beat the shit out of her, put out cigarettes on her, subjected her to regular and extremely violent rape. The abuser's family was powerful locally. His brother was a bishop in a nearby ward, his father was the stake president. Every time she reported it to her bishop, he heavily pressured her to not report it and to give the abuser another chance. God had brought them together, who was she to question his will? That's pretty close to verbatim what she was told over and over, to the point where she internalized it and began to see it as her fault. When she tried to complain to the stake president, it was the abuser's dad and he also tried to force her to accept the abuse. When she tried to escalate that, she was scolded for going over the stake president's head. She was frozen out completely and told to talk to the abuser's father about it. 

She was subjected to that for nearly two years until I found out some of the worst details she'd been telling the church leaders for years. I decided if his church wouldn't put the fear of God in him, I would. He hasn't come within 1000 feet of her since. 

They could have stopped it at any time, but chose not to. Her abuser, his brother and his father all remain members in good standing as of the last time I heard about them. Brother and father were still in high up leadership roles.

You can check the subreddits to see that is far from an isolated case.

The top post on the r/exmormon subreddit currently is about a man who raped his daughter for 14 years, went to prison for it, and has just been re-baptised and forgiven. His daughter's life is destroyed forever, but he's re-baptized, so that sin is washed away for him. Her mother chose him over her own daughter. Welcome back into the flock Elder Incest Child Rapist. 

How can any decent person stay in such a monstrous organization. Actual decent people leave.

Kids do one on one "worthiness" interviews with the bishop where they are asked incredibly invasive questions. Many kids first learn about masturbation when the bishop asks them about it explicitly. It's fucked up. 

For members, including teenagers, that have engaged in extramarital sexual relations, bishops have total leeway in what to ask them. Virtually all of them will ask how many times, what you did, was there oral, hand, vaginal, anal. Some of them want to know exact positions, did you use a condom, did you cum, did you cum inside her, did she cum?

Just one example. 

 

Bear in mind, the bishop has no formal training, he's usually just one of the richest members of the congregation.

It's a religion literally founded on lies, grifting, predatory behavior and sexual abuse of women and children. It continues to be that today. 

So there are three types of mormons left. 1) The ones who are willfully ignorant, despite the internet being at their fingertips, or 2) are gullible enough to know it and try to make themselves okay with it, or 3) the ones who see it as a guidebook for how to prey on the rest of them.

There are still some willfully ignorant good people there. I really do feel bad for them. They are so afraid to find out the truth, they wall themselves off from reality. They are told by their leadership to "Doubt Your Doubts".

I understand it is incredibly difficult to walk away from indoctrination that constant and powerful, especially if you are born into it. They've never known any different.

But unless they do stand up and leave, they cannot be real salt of the earth people. Not if they support all of the above, plus much, much more awful shit. Real salt of the earth people leave such a monstrous organization. 

 

Great post. Last May, my wife and I decided to attend Kilby Block Party in SLC on a whim. In the course of the weekend, we met a really great local couple, who we later found out are directly involved with the group who put on the annual music festival. In other words, good people to know. We've become very good friends with them and their group of friends in the 14 months since. His wife and her friend joined my wife and I in Charleston this April for High Water Fest (they're big music fans like we are). We also went up to SLC last Sept for the War on Drugs/National co-bill show and spent a long weekend with that group. We also went to Kilby this year. Anyway, great folks.

They are all ex-Mormons and we have had some very interesting conversations with them. Most are from bigger families (4-6 kids) and in almost every instance, they're the only sibling who has left the church. They're all around my age or a few years younger (I'm 52). To a person, they all said the main thing that made them decide to leave the church was the internet becoming readily available in the late 90's/early 00's. These people are forbidden to read newspapers/magazines (even when on missions) and don't know anything that isn't spoon-fed to them by the Church. But the internet is the wild, wild west and they finally were able to read all this stuff from the outside about Mormonism and it forced them to really take a introspective look at it. So they left. They admit it is 100% a cult. One interesting thing the woman told us when she and her husband came down to Dallas last fall (he was coming for work so she tagged along and we dragged them down to the State Fair on a Monday night) is that they grow up being told things like the sky is yellow not blue -- shit like that gets repeated enough and it becomes the new truth (see Fox News and other MAGA-adjacent peddlers of disinformation, Russia/KGB, etc). I'm not quite explaining it right but essentially elders are teaching an alternative reality.

You're right about the crisis facing the church. Members are leaving in big numbers. The population of SLC is only like 20-25% Mormon now. Same for the county as a whole. However, if you go one county south toward Provo and it's in the 80's and higher maybe. It's crazy town down that way.

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Posted

Organized religious groups are only a few bad decisions away from being a cult. As with many thing is this world, organized religion is what you make of it. You can use it to wield power and victimize others, or you can use it as a moral compass to guide you in society and in building a strong and loving family. Invariably, assholes will find a way to do the former.

But it's beautiful when people use that moral compass to extricate themselves from a predatory group. The ex-mormons in my life are easily among the kindest, most intellectually curious and genuine people I've known. I'm not going to say there's a causal relationship or give credit to the Mormonism, but I do think it's likely that the heavy emphasis on community has a tendency to cultivate a person's inherent selflessness and the repeated exposure to and analysis of its complicated lore has a tendency to cultivate a the expectation that almost everything has should have an explanation if you think hard enough about it (even if the explanation only makes sense in a fictional sense that their faith requires them to believe is real). Which is to say, in theory you could have all the benefits of Mormonism without all the exploitation, but in practice it's probably impossible to achieve.

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Posted
46 minutes ago, David Dennison said:

I'm not genuinely shocked by much on this board, but this is an exception.

I had no idea it was that low.

So I just Googled this and it sounds like Mormons are now a slight minority in SLC but only slightly. Google went on to say that while 49% are Mormon, less than 30% are active members of the church. Not sure how our friends would be classified. They were born and grew up Mormon but haven't been members of the Church in 20+ years.

Posted

Even the most radical atheist feminist can see the appeal of joining a strictly closed and monitored religious community. The big decisions are made for you and your life is comfortably predetermined in what appears to be a supportive community.  That’s probably why these folks seem happy all the time.  They don’t have to think anymore. 

Posted
3 hours ago, Pods said:

Long post alert and I am leaving out tons. 

I often try to avoid posting on this, but these posts get made all the time. For reasons I'd rather not expound on, I've known more Mormons than most of the rest of this board put together. Your impression is accurate about some, but there is a grotesque side that outsiders rarely see. Mormonism is a mix of good people, average people and predators that prey on them. There's a reason Utah has more multi-level marketing schemes and victims than any other state. 

First, the happy all the time is a manufactured image and beaten into you as a child, often literally. It's similar to other prosperity gospel groups. If you aren't happy, it's because you need to be more righteous and God will favor you and make you happy. People learn quickly not to show anything aside from a beaming smile. Especially to outsiders. That faux everyone is always happy bullshit is one of their biggest recruiting tools. The women and children are very frequently unhappy, but have learned to keep it to themselves. 

Utah's suicide rate is nearly double the national average. Suicide is the leading cause of death for ages 10-17. The suicide rate among kids has tripled in the last decade. It is especially high for LGBTQ+ kids. 

https://www.abc4.com/news/local-news/suicide-is-leading-cause-of-death-among-utahns-ages-10-17-research-shows/

Mormonism itself is also in major flux. They are facing an existential truth crisis thanks to the internet and even to South Park, though South Park barely scratched the surface.

As a result, many of the actual salt of the earth people are leaving in droves. Wards are being closed down and consolidated across the country. Exmormon content is some of the highest traffic content on TikTok and reddit. Check out r/exmormon and r/mormon for examples. They realized they've been lied to and exploited their entire lives. Or, they've watched others exploited and can't stay silent, though speaking out often means they are completely cut off by their family, friends, jobs and housing. 

Some left because rape victims are shamed and blamed for not fighting back enough.

That's only one example of many and it's gone on for decades, at a minimum. It's beyond cruel and makes the worst experience of their life even more traumatic.

Real salt of the earth people don't blame rape victims and they leave cruel organizations where others do blame rape victims. 

Recently, a bunch left over how the Mormons treat LGBTQ+ members. You won't see it in public, but many Mormons are fucking monsters to any friends/relatives who come out as LGBTQ+, especially trans. I have a friend who is trans and I'd put the odds at 80/20 she kills her self at some point due to how other Mormons treat her. I'm probably underestimating, she's hardly talking to anyone, or returning texts anymore. I regularly have to ask her to text me an emoji response, so I know she's still alive. It makes me fucking livid that there is nothing I can do, because all the love I can give her is dwarfed by the hate she is surrounded by, including most all of her family and former close friends.

Salt of the earth people wouldn't do that to her. The real salt of the earth people stand up for the vulnerable and are leaving. 

Also of note on this issue, you may remember the Mormon "church" spending enormous political capital and members enormous amounts of money to take away LGBTQ+ right to marriage in California. Prop 8 would not have passed without their bigotry. 

Real salt of the earth people allow others to live their lives as they see fit, rather than trying to take away their rights. 

Others have left recently when they found out the "church" created a bunch of shell companies to hide at least $32 billion dollars from the SEC. The highest levels of leadership were aware and condoned it for 22 years, until a whistleblower turned them in. For 22 years, everyone else, including 3 different President's and all of their first counselors, covered it up. That whistleblower is the only salt of the earth person in that whole bunch.  

https://www.bbc.com/news/business-64727764

Real salt of the earth people don't condone 22years of hiding billions from the SEC, they leave corrupt organizations like that. They report it to the SEC if they find out.

Lots of the good people left when they found out about Joseph Smith's many concubines, including his 14 year old "wife" and how he coerced her by telling her that her families salvation depended on her giving herself to him.

She lived to regret that decision and wrote about how she missed her lost childhood dearly.

Many of those same Mormons you would call salt of the earth people bend over backwards to excuse this, "She was a few months shy of her 15th birthday". It's fucking gross.

Actual salt of the earth people know that is deeply wrong and are leaving over it.  

Others left when they found out about the many "wives" Smith took that were already married, including sending men overseas on missions and "marrying" their wives.

Or Brigham Young's 15 year old "wives", genocide and massacres of the Utah Native American tribes and that he owned slaves. 

Or that at least the first 4 Prophet, Seer and Revelators took child brides. 

Again, actual salt of the earth people cannot countenance these completely immoral and indefensible actions. Real salt of the earth people leave. 

Others left because there is a burgeoning awareness of how rampant domestic and sexual abuse of women and children are. Check out https://floodlit.org, a group who are cataloging all known sexual accusations and instances of direct coverup by leadership. They have a backlog of thousands of cases.

The "church" has a special hot line for bishops and stake presidents to call that goes straight to their lawfirm, Kirton-McConkie, who "investigates" and covers up everything they can.

The "church" actively lobbies to maintain clergy privilege and not have to disclose abuse to police if it's reported to leadership, despite the fact that the bishops/stake presidents have no formal training and are often just one of the richest, most connected members of the community. 

Right up the present day, Mormon leadership protects domestic abusers and sexual abusers if the family of the perpetrator is well connected. A friend of mine was married to a man who regularly beat the shit out of her, put out cigarettes on her, subjected her to regular and extremely violent rape. The abuser's family was powerful locally. His brother was a bishop in a nearby ward, his father was the stake president. Every time she reported it to her bishop, he heavily pressured her to not report it and to give the abuser another chance. God had brought them together, who was she to question his will? That's pretty close to verbatim what she was told over and over, to the point where she internalized it and began to see it as her fault. When she tried to complain to the stake president, it was the abuser's dad and he also tried to force her to accept the abuse. When she tried to escalate that, she was scolded for going over the stake president's head. She was frozen out completely and told to talk to the abuser's father about it. 

She was subjected to that for nearly two years until I found out some of the worst details she'd been telling the church leaders for years. I decided if his church wouldn't put the fear of God in him, I would. He hasn't come within 1000 feet of her since. 

They could have stopped it at any time, but chose not to. Her abuser, his brother and his father all remain members in good standing as of the last time I heard about them. Brother and father were still in high up leadership roles.

You can check the subreddits to see that is far from an isolated case.

The top post on the r/exmormon subreddit currently is about a man who raped his daughter for 14 years, went to prison for it, and has just been re-baptised and forgiven. His daughter's life is destroyed forever, but he's re-baptized, so that sin is washed away for him. Her mother chose him over her own daughter. Welcome back into the flock Elder Incest Child Rapist. 

How can any decent person stay in such a monstrous organization. Actual decent people leave.

Kids do one on one "worthiness" interviews with the bishop where they are asked incredibly invasive questions. Many kids first learn about masturbation when the bishop asks them about it explicitly. It's fucked up. 

For members, including teenagers, that have engaged in extramarital sexual relations, bishops have total leeway in what to ask them. Virtually all of them will ask how many times, what you did, was there oral, hand, vaginal, anal. Some of them want to know exact positions, did you use a condom, did you cum, did you cum inside her, did she cum?

Just one example. 

 

Bear in mind, the bishop has no formal training, he's usually just one of the richest members of the congregation.

It's a religion literally founded on lies, grifting, predatory behavior and sexual abuse of women and children. It continues to be that today. 

So there are three types of mormons left. 1) The ones who are willfully ignorant, despite the internet being at their fingertips, or 2) are gullible enough to know it and try to make themselves okay with it, or 3) the ones who see it as a guidebook for how to prey on the rest of them.

There are still some willfully ignorant good people there. I really do feel bad for them. They are so afraid to find out the truth, they wall themselves off from reality. They are told by their leadership to "Doubt Your Doubts".

I understand it is incredibly difficult to walk away from indoctrination that constant and powerful, especially if you are born into it. They've never known any different.

But unless they do stand up and leave, they cannot be real salt of the earth people. Not if they support all of the above, plus much, much more awful shit. Real salt of the earth people leave such a monstrous organization. 

 

and not one mention of soaking.

  • Drool 1
Posted
2 hours ago, Brian Fantana said:

People are often really stupid about people who are nice to them and refuse to see what they really are.

i mean Tom Cruise still makes incredible, popular movies.

  • Hook 'Em 1
Posted

A Mormon will be incredibly kind and nice to you, all while believing they can blood oath you at any time they see fit.

Just another ingredient in the toxic stew that is organized religion.  

 

  • Hook 'Em 1
Posted
Just now, Pato del Muerto said:

This sure is a persistent non-related thread tangent. 

It’s somewhat related because we know the suspect had a fundamentalist Christian ideology that can reasonably be presumed to have influenced some of his decision making as to where his violence was directed. 

Posted
1 hour ago, C-Man said:

Great post. Last May, my wife and I decided to attend Kilby Block Party in SLC on a whim. In the course of the weekend, we met a really great local couple, who we later found out are directly involved with the group who put on the annual music festival. In other words, good people to know. We've become very good friends with them and their group of friends in the 14 months since. His wife and her friend joined my wife and I in Charleston this April for High Water Fest (they're big music fans like we are). We also went up to SLC last Sept for the War on Drugs/National co-bill show and spent a long weekend with that group. We also went to Kilby this year. Anyway, great folks.

They are all ex-Mormons and we have had some very interesting conversations with them. Most are from bigger families (4-6 kids) and in almost every instance, they're the only sibling who has left the church. They're all around my age or a few years younger (I'm 52). To a person, they all said the main thing that made them decide to leave the church was the internet becoming readily available in the late 90's/early 00's. These people are forbidden to read newspapers/magazines (even when on missions) and don't know anything that isn't spoon-fed to them by the Church. But the internet is the wild, wild west and they finally were able to read all this stuff from the outside about Mormonism and it forced them to really take a introspective look at it. So they left. They admit it is 100% a cult. One interesting thing the woman told us when she and her husband came down to Dallas last fall (he was coming for work so she tagged along and we dragged them down to the State Fair on a Monday night) is that they grow up being told things like the sky is yellow not blue -- shit like that gets repeated enough and it becomes the new truth (see Fox News and other MAGA-adjacent peddlers of disinformation, Russia/KGB, etc). I'm not quite explaining it right but essentially elders are teaching an alternative reality.

You're right about the crisis facing the church. Members are leaving in big numbers. The population of SLC is only like 20-25% Mormon now. Same for the county as a whole. However, if you go one county south toward Provo and it's in the 80's and higher maybe. It's crazy town down that way.

The difference between Salt Lake County and Utah County (Provo and Orem) is wild. Might as well be two different countries.

  • Hook 'Em 4
  • Fuck You 1
Posted

@Pods - I want to acknowledge your post, and do not challenge any of it. In fact, I hesitated to hit submit in part because of my awareness of the dark reality that the LDS (and for that matter most centralized and hierarchical faiths and denominations) go to great lengths to obscure, and I hoped not to pick at the scabs of anyone’s personal trauma or bad experiences.
I apologize if that’s what I’ve done here. 

  • Hook 'Em 5
Posted
5 hours ago, The Original Greaser Bob said:

Porter Rockwell was a bad ass.

in what context?

he was the leader of briggy's b'hoys and was in command of the aiken party job

@Pods well done and thanks for taking the time to write that post

you pretty much covered most of what i would have said

a couple of additions:

- the under-18 questions are a remnant of the 1856 reformation catechism

- the brethren concept of "lying for the lord' is a neuron-pattern duplication of magat 'alternative facts' - there is a reason the brethren are 99% red

- the comment from the wife in the re-baptism tweet, "the church is true", is an exact corollary to the ted koppel statement about fox: their audience is fact-toxic and seeks ideological confirmation bias - and breaking that spell is sudden and traumatic

- the $32B is from ancestry.com; the church has been compiling a genealogy of the entire anglo race for 150 years because when they get a convert they then baptize the souls of all of that living convert's ancestors in one of these:

image.jpeg.b1da60c4f88bea4fb0738630bfd5d5e2.jpeg

the advent of the intertrons created a cunnning plan: charge every person doinig genealogical research $350/year to keep their account "open"

voila: $32 BILLION

and last but not least, brig ordered the mountain meadows job when eleanor mcclean pointed the finger at the fancher party camped in pioneer square; juanita suspected it, bigler didn't want to believe it, and bagley stands unrefuted



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