Live data from Hacker News

The 1857 Utah War

imetatronink.com

81–90 of 92 posts

Re: The 1857 Utah War

#81
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)

What I can’t imagine is your comment to be in good faith.

The quote is from the Mormon girl, specifically referring to the “Mormon church” as opposed to your “[Mormons]”, in the context of all informed officials of said church deliberately having allowed her and her infant sister to be raped for seven years, by explicit written church policy according to the article.

If your takeaway from that was that printing the quote is offensive to Mormons, mine would be that you are either trolling, reading below the article’s grade level, or morally in support of the church’s decisions.

Re: The 1857 Utah War

#82
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.

I hadn’t known that, though it doesn’t surprise me.

Re: The 1857 Utah War

#83
post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“[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)

What I can’t imagine is your comment to be in good faith. The quote is from the Mormon girl, specifically referring to the “Mormon church ” as opposed to your “[Mormons]”, in the context of all informed officials of said church deliberately having allowed her and her infant sister to be raped for seven years, by explicit written church policy according to the article. If your takeaway from that was that printing the…

Well said sir.

Re: The 1857 Utah War

#84
post #18

I find Mormons to be truly remarkable people. We visited Salt Lake City recently, and headed out to the Great Salt Lake. Brigham Young wasn’t kidding about “land nobody wants!” There’s almost nothing there, except swarms of flies. (I have no idea what they eat in the middle of the desert. As an aside, my wife’s family apparently went through Utah on the way to Oregon in the wagon train days. They noped the f—k out of…

I live in Utah just North of SLC and I hear this every once in a while. The Wasatch Mountains here, to the East, are also pretty amazing. When I'm away I always miss these mountains. If you go West you hit the lake, which is low, muddy, stinky, and mostly dead and then there are the salt flats beyond. True, it's a desert, like much of the US, but the mountains are pretty amazing here. The best times to visit are Spri…

I grew up in the Salt Lake Valley. The land is amazing, the people not so much. Not sure how this whitewashing of history ended up on the front page but I find it amusing that the author consistently uses quotes around "Mormons". Another commenter in this thread referred to them as a minority. Well, if you live in Utah, then they are no minority and you are living under their thumb. Especially in the author's town of Cedar City. Yikes.

Re: The 1857 Utah War

#85

Wasn't this one of the primary reasons why majority of Mormons live south of Salt Lake? I swear Brigham Young ordered a scorched earth type thing on SLC and most relocated south.

There are lots of Mormons in Idaho too, as evidenced by BYU in Rexburg, Idaho.

Re: The 1857 Utah War

#86
post #58

Quoted post unavailable.

"all career advancement and social status is dependent on your position with the church" -- this is bullshit, at least in my experience. I lived there 2012-2017, never had an issue with dating/making friends/getting promotions at work. There were of course many women that would only date mormon men, but the non-mormon population was big enough that I didn't think about it much. I worked for multiple tech companies th…

SLC makes all the difference. It's quite different elsewhere in the state. I've lived and worked in multiple locations and was happiest in SLC but housing prices are absolutely outrageous for what you get.

Re: The 1857 Utah War

#87
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…

>- 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 poli…

Comparing Democratic/Republican parties to a theocratic church is laughable. They could only dream of being as organized and as wealthy. Imagine being required to give 10 to 20 percent of your income to a political party.

Re: The 1857 Utah War

#88
post #62
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…

>Hard liquor only sold by State Liquor stores, where they digitally record your ID. Similar to about 15 other states. >Only open a few hours a day, and on certain days. 11 AM - 10 PM Monday thru Saturday. If you can't work with those hours you have a different problem than the lack of opportunity to buy alcohol. >Additional state-mandated restrictions on what may be stocked (not too high of proof, etc). Fiendishly ov…

Being able to buy a perfectly normal foodstuff on a Sunday would be nice.

Re: The 1857 Utah War

#89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>- 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 poli…

Comparing Democratic/Republican parties to a theocratic church is laughable. They could only dream of being as organized and as wealthy. Imagine being required to give 10 to 20 percent of your income to a political party.

>Imagine being required to give 10 to 20 percent of your income to a political party.

I don't need to imagine it. I pay my f-ing taxes.

Between income, sales, property, fuel, sin taxes and government fees the state tax burden is probably close to 20%. Just like the Mormon church then go on to spend that money, a lot of it on good stuff that is helpful to everyone, but a ton of it is also spent on cronyism, make-work BS, enriching the leadership and those connected to it (with pretexts of course, they're not amateurs at this) and expanding the organization itself.

Utah is the same as any other one-party state. It just so happens that the values-defining "club" that nearly everyone at every level of government belongs to is religious and not overtly political. Why is this so hard for you people to grasp?

Re: The 1857 Utah War

#90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Comparing Democratic/Republican parties to a theocratic church is laughable. They could only dream of being as organized and as wealthy. Imagine being required to give 10 to 20 percent of your income to a political party.

>Imagine being required to give 10 to 20 percent of your income to a political party. I don't need to imagine it. I pay my f-ing taxes. Between income, sales, property, fuel, sin taxes and government fees the state tax burden is probably close to 20%. Just like the Mormon church then go on to spend that money, a lot of it on good stuff that is helpful to everyone, but a ton of it is also spent on cronyism, make-work…

>Utah is the same as any other one-party state. It just so happens that the values-defining "club" that nearly everyone at every level of government belongs to is religious and not overtly political. Why is this so hard for you people to grasp?

Might have something to do with that whole pesky First Amendment thing.

Post reply on HN