The SCMC: New information Comes to Light

[_Mister Scratch]

I got a couple questions....if the SCMC called in some pundits to talk to this guy....does this suggest this guy had a file?

Was a recording made of this meeting?

According to DCP, no recording was made, nor was there any "file" presented to the Committee, or anything like that. I think it is important to remember that this committee's supposed function is Strengthening the Members. As I understand it, that includes:
---Making sure that negative publications are "caught"
---Making sure that people who write too many "negative publications" are booted out of the Church and smeared
---Working to address complaints such as those lodged by the above-mentioned man's wife
---Ferreting out dissenters
---Talking to struggling members in the hopes of bringing them back into the fold.

What is eerie about all of it (to me anyways) is the clandestine tenor of the whole thing. It is like the SCMC is this kind of "official" indicator as to the harmful nature of gossip in the Church. You know? It is like a Sword of Damocles, perpetually danging above the heads of everyone---especially scholars. And, as even TBMs have noted, the SCMC saves local ecclesiastical leaders a lot of work. SPs and bishops don't have to worry about combing through all the publications of the membership to make sure that everyone stays absolutely in line. The SCMC does it for 'em!

[_The Nehor]

According to DCP, no recording was made, nor was there any "file" presented to the Committee, or anything like that. I think it is important to remember that this committee's supposed function is Strengthening the Members. As I understand it, that includes:
---Making sure that negative publications are "caught"
---Making sure that people who write too many "negative publications" are booted out of the Church and smeared
---Working to address complaints such as those lodged by the above-mentioned man's wife
---Ferreting out dissenters
---Talking to struggling members in the hopes of bringing them back into the fold.

What is eerie about all of it (to me anyways) is the clandestine tenor of the whole thing. It is like the SCMC is this kind of "official" indicator as to the harmful nature of gossip in the Church. You know? It is like a Sword of Damocles, perpetually danging above the heads of everyone---especially scholars. And, as even TBMs have noted, the SCMC saves local ecclesiastical leaders a lot of work. SPs and bishops don't have to worry about combing through all the publications of the membership to make sure that everyone stays absolutely in line. The SCMC does it for 'em!

I'm curious as to how they would be 'smeared' if the organization is secret and the reason the Church keeps so many things secret is to protect the individual from getting smeared.

[_beastie]

These files are not just archived for research. The information in the files is also used in providing information for local leaders who then decide how to proceed - whether just call the person in for a talk (which happened to my boyfriend who was instructed to remove his website or face excommunication proceedings) or for actual action against the member (as happened to Lavina Fielding Anderson, or she may have reported it happening to linda Newell)

[_Daniel Peterson]

Let me see if I have this straight... You were excited to be going on this "mission" because the SCMC had been getting bad press?

You don't have it straight. You never do. You're plainly determined never to get it straight.

I said nothing about being "excited" to go on that "mission." I said that, given the then-recent publicity that the SCMC had been receiving, it gave me a momentary start when my caller identified himself as secretary of the Strengthening Church Members Committee.

It is not even remotely like that! Unless, of course, you want to allow that the sister is also recruiting the help of secretive "big guns" who also happen to tape record the conversations of other dissidents, and to maintain "dossiers" on them.

Are you suggesting -- quite falsely, of course -- that I help to tape record the conversations of dissidents and that I maintain "dossiers" on critics?

You keep "dossiers." I don't.

Interesting change of tune, Prof. P. This was most certainly not what you were saying before. (It's also funny how you are blaming all of the negativity on him.)

I won't lie to please you, Scratch.

What would you like me to call it? A "conversation"?

Yes. It was a conversation, so it seems that it would be appropriate to call it a conversation. That's what I've been calling it all along.

I don't think that's really accurate, since it seems that he was pressured into talking with you. A "talk"? A "tete-a-tete"? A "confrontation"? What?

A conversation. That's what I've been calling it all along.

And, remember, I was there. Unless you're the man himself, you weren't.

And you have no basis for alleging that he was "pressured" into talking with us. I have absolutely no reason to assume that to have been the case.

Your claiming that he was "asked" is no more accurate---and, I would argue, even less accurate, given the evidence---then my suggestion that he was "pressured."

You weren't there.

I was.

You know literally nothing about it beyond what I've said. All you have, otherwise, is your perpetual compulsion to paranoid negativity.

The power to dissolve his marriage.

The Church had no power to dissolve his marriage.

People who are frightened often become defensive and act in a belligerent manner.

Your attempt at amateur psychological analysis of a man whom you haven't met from a conversation at which you were not present will persuade those whom it will persuade. Perhaps only you.

You have been saying, ever since your arrival on this board, that I am beyond low, and am barely human at all.

No, I've been saying that your relentless negativity and your insatiable compulsion to believe and assert the worst of believing Latter-day Saints is bizarre. In fact, I think it pathological -- if it's not simply a phony provocation designed to get a rise out of your chosen target.

I agree with you that it is not really fair to portray you and your colleague (Bill Hamblin? Lou Midgley?) as "Gestapo" agents.

My colleague's name was Guido "Lips" Benaducci.

I do still believe that the situation itself was "Gestapo"-like, and that it smacks of ugly secrecy and subterfuge. Of conspiracy to do harm.

That's simply crazy.

You did hold cards---I.e., that you were working on behalf of the SCMC.

Which he didn't know, which gave us no authority, which didn't come up. It was irrelevant to the conversation.

The man, as you pointed out, in your own words, was concerned and worried about the SCMC, and yet there you were, lapping up all the delicious, secret irony that, in fact, you were working for it. You are like the undercover cop who chuckles to himself inwardly about having duped some criminal. That you viewed this struggling member in this fashion is quite telling, in my opinion.

You invent discreditable thoughts and low psychological states out of thin air, attribute them to me, and then condemn me for your fictions.

Pathetic.

The truth is that your insistence that he was in no way coerced into the meeting is total bunk.

Do you write bad horror stories for a living?

Did his bishop or his SP tell the wife about this meeting?

She came with him. But she said little if anything during the meeting.

Ah, okay. This is yet another strike against you claim that he was there "totally on his own."

Good grief. Of course it's a strike against me. Everything is.

When I said he was there "totally on his own," I didn't intend that he was all alone. I intended that the decision to come or not to come was entirely his.

Has it ever occurred to you to consider, even theoretically, the possibility that I'm not a complete liar?

You're boring me.

[_Daniel Peterson]

I think it is important to remember that this committee's supposed function is Strengthening the Members. As I understand it, that includes:

---Making sure that people who write too many "negative publications" are booted out of the Church and smeared

Pure malevolent fiction.

What is eerie about all of it (to me anyways) is the clandestine tenor of the whole thing. It is like the SCMC is this kind of "official" indicator as to the harmful nature of gossip in the Church. You know? It is like a Sword of Damocles, perpetually danging above the heads of everyone---especially scholars.

Pure malicious bilge.

[_beastie]

You keep "dossiers." I don't.

Then where did you get all those quotes you cherry-picked from RFM (for not only your article, but also many other posts in which you reference RFM statements)?

[_Daniel Peterson]

You keep "dossiers." I don't.

Then where did you get all those quotes you cherry-picked from RFM (for not only your article, but also many other posts in which you reference RFM statements)?

Oh good grief.

A few saved quotes that I got a kick out of? Don't you ever save anything that you've read so that you can quote it later? I have maybe fifteen or twenty quotes, mostly 1-3 lines long. Some "dossier."

Are there any normal humans on this message board?

[_Runtu]

Are there any normal humans on this message board?

Not me. :-)

[_harmony]

You keep "dossiers." I don't.

Then where did you get all those quotes you cherry-picked from RFM (for not only your article, but also many other posts in which you reference RFM statements)?

Oh good grief.

A few saved quotes that I got a kick out of? Don't you ever save anything that you've read so that you can quote it later?

Not from RfM. Not even from here. I'm impressed by the people who actually remember threads, and know where and how to find them.

I have maybe fifteen or twenty quotes, mostly 1-3 lines long. Some "dossier."

Are there any normal humans on this message board?

My quotes include things written by Robert Frost, Dylan Thomas, and Nike, among others, not people from internet bulletin boards. I'm still jaw-dropping shocked that Mercury has a quote from me in his sig line.

[_Daniel Peterson]

My quotes include things written by Robert Frost, Dylan Thomas, and Nike, among others, not people from internet bulletin boards.

In other words, you maintain Sinister Dossiers (shudder!) on Robert Frost, Dylan Thomas, and Nike?

If I were Scratch, I'd soon have you depicted as an agent of some vast global espionage network.