What is an anti-Mormon?

[_grindael]

What about all the family members that may have lost loved ones (like at Mountain Meadows) and hated the Mormons for it, would they be "anti-Mormons" too?

[_grindael]

You want to take morality out of all this and make it a separate issue, and that is a mistake.

[_grindael]

Do you even know why the Missourians burned down the printing press of the Evening and Morning Star and tarred Edward Partridge. Have you tried to understand what may have driven them to do that (as wrong as it was)?

[_schreech]

So by niadna’s tortured logic, can we assume she believes that only John Lee did anything illegal at mountain meadow. I mean, nobody else was found guilty of anything so nobody else did anything illegal right?

[Guest]

Interesting side note regarding extermination orders. Growing up in the church we all heard about Boggs extermination order and how at that time it had never been rescinded. But I have yet to hear any LDS talk about BY's extermination orders in 1850 on the native Indian population in what is now Utah Valley or even Utah Mormon Senator Arthur Watkin's efforts as a legislator, to create Federal governments policies in the 1950's to "terminate" Indian tribes. As far as I know the native Indian populations in Utah that were decimated by the invading Mormon settles, never were reimbursed for their loss of land and property. But hey they were Indians and pretty much everybody back then was driving them out. It's not like Mormons believed they were special somehow.....

By the way, for anyone interested there is a really good book on the subject of the early Mormon settlers in Utah and how they treated the native American population that occupied that same territory called On Zion's Mount by Jared Farmer.

Spoiler alert for that book in which we find out a few interesting things in it they weren't quite like we had been led to believe growing up.

The Utah and Salt Lake valleys weren't the deserts we've been taught growing up that the Mormon settlers made bloom like a rose. There was (and still is) a lot of water in both those valleys. They are, after all, living in the Wasatch Front which is a vast interior drainage basin. The eastern side of both those valleys was teeming with vegetation when BY and Co. showed up.

Utah Valley at that time had a thriving native American population that depended on fish from both Utah lake and the river (Provo) that fed it. Extensive over fishing and canal building by the invading Mormon populations decimated the fishing grounds the local Indians depended on for survival. By the 1860s the Mormon settlers had driven the fish eating Indians from the most productive and reliable fishing sites and many of them were starving. In 1865 one local leader named Sowiette (an Indian name that meant "the man who picks fish from water")was forced by hunger to sign a treaty relocating him and his tribe elsewhere. At the ceremony to sign the treaty he told the interpreter there that his Indian name meant "Nearly Starved", a pun that went unnoticed or more likely was unimportant to the whites.

[_grindael]

From Wiki,

Approximately seventeen children were deliberately spared because of their young ages. Multiple sources claim that Lee protested and prohibited the death of all children that were assumed to be too young to talk, and directed that they be placed in the care of one who was not involved in the massacre.[16] Not all of the young children were spared, however; at least one infant was killed in his father's arms by the same bullet that killed the adult man. In the hours following the massacre Lee directed Philip Kingensmith and possibly two others[17] to take the children (a few of whom were wounded) to the nearby farm of Jacob Hamblin, a local Indian agent.[18] Later, under the direction of Jacob Forney, the non-Mormon Superintendent of Indian Affairs for Utah, the children were placed in the care of local Mormon families pending an investigation of the matter and notification of kin. However, some accounts relate that Lee sold or bartered the children to whatever Mormon families would take them. Sarah Francis Baker, who was three years old at the time of the massacre, later said: "They sold us from one family to another."[19]

Sure Screech, and I'm sure this was all totally legal too, since no one ever went to court over it or was blamed until decades later. But if they could talk, kill 'em. https://www.legendsofamerica.com/ut-mou ... tims2.html

[_grindael]

Is what happened at Shoal Creek equally as bad as what happened at Mountain Meadows? ABSOLUTELY. Funny that right at the time of the MM Massacre, Brigham Young said that he was the one controlling the Indians in Utah from attacking wagon trains, and that he was going to stop doing that. The timing is just exquisite.

[Guest]

I don't know what anybody ELSE does. I call an anti an 'anti,' not because of WHAT is criticized, but HOW it is criticized.

Niadna, YOU do NOT need to use ALLCAPS in EVERY sentence to communicate YOUR point. It IS very distracting AND makes it hard to READ and follow YOUR actual point and ARGUMENTS. For the LOVE of god, PLEASE stop. Other than THAT, I'M really happy to see you posting on THIS forum board. Welcome. WE need more faithful member perspectives AND opinions.

[_moksha]

Niadna, what do you think of the idea about petitioning President Trump to pardon Joseph Smith, Jean D'Arc, and Lucretia Borgia?

[_Niadna]

Or doesn't it bother anybody in here that Joseph Smith is charged with treason, then murdered, for doing something that when his ENEMIES did it, with considerably more damage done, those enemies were actually rewarded for doing so?

This paragraph is problematic. And I hate when people break things into parts but it does not make sense to me so I'll respond to as if it is two issues.

1. Does it bother me Joseph Smith was charged with treason? Not really, remember he had just set up the council of the 50 and had himself installed as a prophet priest and king. Was it treason? I don't know but it did merit the charge of treason in my opinion. It did not, in anyway justify his murder. Joseph Smith should have had to face a jury for that. By the way if that had happened and he had been found guilty by say a jury composed of the Carthage Greys (the same guys who murdered him), would you still be arguing that legal technicalities are important?

2. I think the second sentence here is referring to something besides Joseph Smith being charged for treason as none of his enemies, as far as I know, were so charged or even accused. Here I think you are referring to what you said below about enemies assaulting and burning Mormons. If that is true, we seem to be jumping around a lot in time frames. Where and when specifically are talking about? Because the Jackson press was several years before the Nauvoo press and in both Missouri and Illinois we have both sides burning and stealing from each other, though I believe the Mormons probably got the worst of it. Additionally if you are willing to go back to the time of the Jackson press destruction for comparisons are you then willing to go forward in time to Mountain Meadows Massacre for a comparison of horrific acts where justice was also not served? I mean where do you draw the line?

...or that when those enemies committed assault and arson, the Mormons were told that it was strictly a civil...as in property damage...matter, but when the Mormons did the same thing (with considerably LESS damage) capital charges were leveled against them?
I mean...hello?

The problem with bringing in all these different issues and trying to compare them to each other is pretty obvious. Nothing is actually decided. Each side just seems to say "oh yeah! What about this?" I think the destruction of both presses are very interesting topics that deserve discussions that focus primarily on the individual event. Continually trying to broaden out the subject matter tends to dilute the conversation and destroy any hope for either side to gain more insight.

...and narrowing down the conversation without bringing in examples that are pertinent is called contextomy.

While your point is a good one when discussing things that are far apart in time or type, like, oh, pointing out that it might be possible to excuse the twin tower bombings because of the crusades, talking about one press destruction in the context of another one that happened a decade previously in an ongoing atmosphere of antagonism is not. THAT would be 'context.'

When discussing whether Joseph Smith' establishing of martial law was a treasonous offense, for instance, bringing up the Revolutionary or Civil war may be problematic. However, if one compares the actions in Nauvoo to the motives and actions of martial law being declared in San Francisco, Coer d'Alene, the Texas oilfields in 1931, Phoenix City, and most recently, Ferguson, Missouri, are not. Context IS important.