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The 1857 Utah War

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Re: The 1857 Utah War

#71
post #40

The Mormons are fascinating for many reasons and highly skilled at building a certain kind of American community. One of the things they are best at is spinning their clean scrubbed version of history, which as with many groups has as many despicable acts as heroic ones. They were indeed quite persecuted on their flight across the continent, but that traumatic origin story doesn't justify to me some of the less attra…

“[Mormons] are just the worst type of people, from what I’ve experienced and what other people have also experienced.”

Can you imagine that being printed about any other minority in any serious publication? This article was published days ago and I’m still in awe at that line. (From the second link)

Re: The 1857 Utah War

#72
post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The persecution was also rooted in the cult's founder, Joseph Smith, having a thing for "seducing" young girls (14 year olds and even younger) and attempting to add them to his collection of 40 odd wives. His creepy heavenly-sanctioned pedophilic actions and vibe were not well-received by outsiders.

The 14 year old you are referring to is my 3rd great grandmother, Helen Mar Kimball. Her personal journals and her other writings don't agree with your characterization of what took place. I've gotten used to her being defamed, but it still bothers me. If you are interested in what actually transpired: Her father, Heber Kimball offered Helen to be sealed to Joseph, to create a spiritual link between the Kimball famil…

No post body was provided.

Re: The 1857 Utah War

#73
post #54
post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wasn't sure why you were being downvoted so I googled "utah population" and "utah mormon church member count". 2.2M divided by 3.2M --> 70% LDS seems to at least be a dominating factor in that state.

The LDS church is known to inflate their membership numbers significantly. They count anyone who was ever baptized at age 8 regardless of how active they currently are. > Independent Latter-day Saint demographer Matt Martinich has estimated that about 40 percent of Latter-day Saints in the United States are “active,” and he guesses that roughly half of Salt Lake County’s members go to church, or roughly 24 percent of…

Nothing you stated here supports the claim in your first paragraph. Weekly church attendance is not a requirement of religious affiliation.

Re: The 1857 Utah War

#74
post #27

Quoted post unavailable.

This hot take is a little extreme but not too far from the truth. You'll only understand the depths to which the LDS church controls the state and enforces it's social and moral code if you've lived in Utah for an extended period as an outsider. It's pretty fucking weird. - Hard liquor only sold by State Liquor stores, where they digitally record your ID. Only open a few hours a day, and on certain days. Additional s…

Beer info is out of date as well. Beer up to 5% can be sold at grocery stores with no day/time restrictions - which covers quite a lot of beer. High gravity beer (>5%) can be purchased at liquor stores or at the brewery (no time/day restrictions on brewery sales).

It's onerous sometimes, and often weird, but it's no more difficult to purchase liquor in Utah than in a state like Virginia.

Re: The 1857 Utah War

#75
post #27

Quoted post unavailable.

This hot take is a little extreme but not too far from the truth. You'll only understand the depths to which the LDS church controls the state and enforces it's social and moral code if you've lived in Utah for an extended period as an outsider. It's pretty fucking weird. - Hard liquor only sold by State Liquor stores, where they digitally record your ID. Only open a few hours a day, and on certain days. Additional s…

>- The LDS church is above the law, because they control it. Can't say they hijacked the state, because they founded it. There is no other place in the United States controlled by a single faction like Utah, which should terrify you.

Um? What?

There's like a dozen states that are just as bad if not worse. The only difference is that the "faction" just happens to be the state branch of one of the two big national political parties instead of a religion.

Heck, other than the whole anti-gay thing your description of Utah sounds just like my tiny northeast state. Actually now that I think about it our liquor laws are worse and I can't even buy fireworks despite the fact that this place is anything but arid...

Re: The 1857 Utah War

#76
post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This hot take is a little extreme but not too far from the truth. You'll only understand the depths to which the LDS church controls the state and enforces it's social and moral code if you've lived in Utah for an extended period as an outsider. It's pretty fucking weird. - Hard liquor only sold by State Liquor stores, where they digitally record your ID. Only open a few hours a day, and on certain days. Additional s…

Beer info is out of date as well. Beer up to 5% can be sold at grocery stores with no day/time restrictions - which covers quite a lot of beer. High gravity beer (>5%) can be purchased at liquor stores or at the brewery (no time/day restrictions on brewery sales). It's onerous sometimes, and often weird, but it's no more difficult to purchase liquor in Utah than in a state like Virginia.

[deleted]

Re: The 1857 Utah War

#77
post #53

I don’t know much about this incident but I am dubious about this retelling. There are a lot of florid adjectives, with one side being villainous and dastardly, the other side noble (that being said, Buchanan was a disgrace). And the level of privation described here as being inflicted on the US is not consistent with the force being able to press on. It had to have been exaggerated else they would have been forced t…

Utah was a slave state. They might not have joined the Confederacy, but Brigham Young as governor publicly advocated in favor of slavery.

Re: The 1857 Utah War

#78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with you. Though, I'd also ask, are you in the Utah region or outside? It's easy for us to lose sight of just how huge the U.S. is, and what might be "common history" in one area is obscure bar-trivia somewhere else. We've all heard of the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, and WWII and mostly know the broad strokes. I doubt the average person on the street could give you much info on The War of 1812, the Mexi…

Regional history, people don't understand how much there is. I never heard about the one bomb dropping on the continental 48 during World War 2 until I moved to Oregon, because where that happened it probably 2-3 hours away from me (bomb on a balloon). Grew up in the rural south. Like wise, my Wife who grew up in Oregon has never heard of Blair Mountain and the struggle between the the Union and the Mining company. O…

Wow, I had not heard of that - thank you for sharing. I've now gone and read up on it.

Similarly, many people "forget" (in quotes, since we're picking on that word today!) that some of the deadliest fighting in the Pacific was in Alaska*. Deadliest in terms of kill ratio, not total dead).

https://www.armytimes.com/veterans/2018/05/27/75-years-later...

Re: The 1857 Utah War

#80
post #19

This is a Mormon-biased spin on the history.

This was left out of the story: > At the height of the tensions, on September 11, 1857, at least 120 California-bound settlers from Arkansas, Missouri and other states, including unarmed men, women and children, were killed in remote southwestern Utah by a group of local Mormon militia. They first claimed that the migrants were killed by Natives but it was proven otherwise. This event was later called the Mountain Me…

I just finished Mark Twain’s “Roughing It”. If you want to learn what horrible, evil people the original Mormons were, it’s a good guide. Twain holds no punches. He describes the whole story in detail. They just straight up murdered a huge group of wagoners passing through to California because they wanted their cattle, etc. Almost every man woman and child killed except the youngest who wouldn’t be able to testify. That’s just the worst of a huge list of shitty things they did.
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