DCP Has Been Encouraging The Public To Donate To An Evil, Abusive And Fraudulent Charity

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Philo Sofee
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Re: DCP Has Been Encouraging The Public To Donate To An Evil, Abusive And Fraudulent Charity

Post by Philo Sofee »

drumdude wrote:
Tue Sep 19, 2023 9:19 pm
Maybe we can find some witnesses who can testify of the truthfulness of Tim Ballard? That should be sufficient to clear all of this up.
With Peterson being such a dupe to witnesses, this would just dupe him further in - Lol! Talk about a complete charade of inspiration! Just wow... is it any wonder at all I have lost all confidence in ANY Mormon leader and MANY of their own followers and supporters who have as s little Holy Ghost revelation as their "prophets" do?
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Doctor Scratch
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Re: DCP Has Been Encouraging The Public To Donate To An Evil, Abusive And Fraudulent Charity

Post by Doctor Scratch »

drumdude wrote:
Tue Sep 19, 2023 9:19 pm
Maybe we can find some witnesses who can testify of the truthfulness of Tim Ballard? That should be sufficient to clear all of this up.
If they never recant, then they must be telling the truth! How impressive!

I bet this is really eating at the “SeN” proprietor. He probably wants to post something about how the POB is all wrong, how the condemnation is premature, etc. Except that—d’oh!—the actual Church has withdrawn their support for this organization!

This may very well be the biggest blow to Mopologetics that we’ve seen since the expulsion of FARMS from the Maxwell Institute.
"If, while hoping that everybody else will be honest and so forth, I can personally prosper through unethical and immoral acts without being detected and without risk, why should I not?." --Daniel Peterson, 6/4/14
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Re: DCP Has Been Encouraging The Public To Donate To An Evil, Abusive And Fraudulent Charity

Post by Doctor Scratch »

Moksha wrote:
Tue Sep 19, 2023 2:42 am
Doctor Scratch wrote:
Tue Sep 19, 2023 2:31 am

This may very well turn out to be one of the most pivotal moments in Mopologetic history.
Doesn't this praise and advertisement for Cleon Skousen constitute a significant slap at Louis Midgley, an outspoken opponent of Cleon Skousen and his vast conspiracy theories?

Was this move in relation to a potential donation to the Interpreter?
You may be right—on both counts.
"If, while hoping that everybody else will be honest and so forth, I can personally prosper through unethical and immoral acts without being detected and without risk, why should I not?." --Daniel Peterson, 6/4/14
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Gadianton
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Re: DCP Has Been Encouraging The Public To Donate To An Evil, Abusive And Fraudulent Charity

Post by Gadianton »

A couple of things that stood out from catching up on this issue yesterday.

The Church has condemned OUR, and it appears that old M. Russ is furious with Tim (who apparently isn't a relative). And the reason is that Tim has been pulling a "Hunter Biden", throwing his weight around by dropping M. Russ's name. (huh, can you think of anyone else who does that?) Anyway, that cracked me up. Leave it to a church leader to condemn the organization not because it's a loose canon that very possibly does more harm than good to kids, but because it's dropping the Church's name to establish credibility with clients. The horror!

I listened to RFMs commentary, and he had some good stuff. He asked if it was normal for these Johns to frequent prostitution parties abroad and bring their wives. LOL! I hadn't thought about that -- brilliant question. Sounds awful fishy. Yeah, it's going to be so believable the woman with him is his wife.

The "whatever it takes" logic isn't unexpected -- I have to defend Tim on this one at least from the perspective of LDS theology. Joseph also had to do "whatever it takes" under threat of flaming sword.
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Re: DCP Has Been Encouraging The Public To Donate To An Evil, Abusive And Fraudulent Charity

Post by Moksha »

Here is an update from RFM titled Tim Ballard Strikes Back.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EgkOV9rJuig
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Re: DCP Has Been Encouraging The Public To Donate To An Evil, Abusive And Fraudulent Charity

Post by drumdude »

Philo Sofee wrote:
Mon Sep 18, 2023 11:26 pm
drumdude wrote:
Mon Sep 18, 2023 11:11 pm
Yesterday he was promoting the fringe right wing conspiracy nut job Cleon Skousen:

https://www.patheos.com/blogs/danpeters ... -land.html



https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm ... story.html
I don't believe that. He doesn't support and promote Skousen. I think you are misunderstanding why he is quoting him or something. This just doesn't ring right to me.
“DCP” wrote:
“Sam Bishop” wrote:I think it would be hard to overstate the amount of damage that Cleon Skousen did to my testimony and the testimonies of my siblings.

Our parents were big Cleon Skousen believers. In our home we were taught that organic evolution was a lie, and the political outrage of the month overshadowed our relationship with Jesus Christ. Instead of being taught to engage with the scriptures, we were fed proof-texts that--like the statements made about scientific topics--did not stand up to any scrutiny. This was hugely damaging to our testimonies.

Don't get me wrong: I'm an adult now with a strong testimony and a love for our divinely inspired constitution. But I had a lot to unlearn and overcome to make it to this point
I get it, Sam Bishop. I have an endorsement on the jacket cover for the book [about Skousen]. It's very short, but I thought about it a lot.
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Re: DCP Has Been Encouraging The Public To Donate To An Evil, Abusive And Fraudulent Charity

Post by I Have Questions »

Peterson is trying to spin it...
Back in 2018 and 2019, my wife and I donated to Operation Underground Railroad and encouraged others to do so as well. (Child sexual trafficking seems about as unambiguously evil a crime as can be imagined — not unlike its near-cousin, slavery.) Moreover, a little more than two months ago, we watched the film Sound of Freedom, which tells a story connected with the founder of Operation Underground Railroad, Tim Ballard.
https://www.patheos.com/blogs/danpeters ... pirit.html
He wants readers to think he only promoted OUR and Tim Ballard in 2018 and 2019 - which isn't true. Peterson promoted Tim Ballard and OUR over a longer period of time. Back in 2017 Peterson wrote:
This is a group that my wife and I have tried to support
https://www.patheos.com/blogs/danpeters ... iland.html
So was he donating in 2017 as well?
February 2017
I’ve been writing about this effort, and encouraging donations to it, for quite some time now
https://www.patheos.com/blogs/danpeters ... ctims.html
December 2015
3. Operation Underground Railroad. This is a remarkable undertaking. And it has a strong Mormon connection in the person of Timothy Ballard. Again, even small donations can make a real difference here.
https://www.patheos.com/blogs/danpeterson?s=Tim+ballard
So as of 2017 he'd been promoting Tim Ballard and OUR for "some time". So his carefully selected dates and words above in his first "response" to the current fallout, can be seen for the smoke and mirrors that they are intended to be.

This is from 2014
Tim Ballard, Latter-day Saint
DECEMBER 13, 2014 BY DAN PETERSON 3 COMMENTS

Operation Underground Railroad poster
One of the best things I’ve heard about in years

I’m very proud that this man is a member of my church:
https://www.patheos.com/blogs/danpeterson?s=Tim+ballard
Like the Church, Peterson is hastily breaking links to past articles which might now be embarrassing.
Now, it seems, there is a controversy swirling around Tim Ballard (who evidently left Operation Underground Railroad back in June or so).

This is extremely unfortunate. Human trafficking does exist, and the sexual trafficking of children is, in a sense, especially heinous. Anything that hinders the goal of putting an end to the sexual exploitation of minors is, to put it mildly, regrettable.

All I know about this particular matter, though, is what I’ve read online, and I haven’t been following it with any special care until today. But here are four relevant links that have now provided me with at least some slight orientation:

FAIR LDS: “Tim Ballard – Current Events”

“LDS Church removes content promoting Tim Ballard”

“Sound of Freedom’s Tim Ballard Is a Star on the Right. Why Would His Church Denounce Him? The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is conservative. But maybe not like this.”

“LDS Church Delivers Blow to Tim Ballard’s Hero Status”

I intend to try to monitor what comes of this.
He's hedging his bets.

Does Peterson's' prolific and sustained campaign of promotion for a now-alleged serial groomer and sexual abuser cast a shadow over the Interpreter Foundation? Has he channeled any Interpreter donors money towards Tim Ballard and/or OUR? Has everyone involved in the film-making ventures been properly vetted? Should Peterson step away from Interpreter and movie making to protect them from any perceived association with an alleged sexual abuser via his own connection to them?
Premise 1. Eyewitness testimony is notoriously unreliable.
Premise 2. The best evidence for the Book of Mormon is eyewitness testimony.
Conclusion. Therefore, the best evidence for the Book of Mormon is notoriously unreliable.
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Doctor Scratch
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Re: DCP Has Been Encouraging The Public To Donate To An Evil, Abusive And Fraudulent Charity

Post by Doctor Scratch »

From “SeN”:
I'm entirely comfortable with having supported the fight against human trafficking and the sexual exploitation of children for longer than I had remembered. If a charity proves problematic (which OUR may or may not have, at this point), I learn from it and move on. It won't stop me from trying to support good causes.
The point of all of this is that he *did not* support “the fight against human trafficking and the sexual exploitation of children.” Instead, his donations went into the pocket of a charlatan—a mountebank. Does he not get that? Is he really this stupid? He, Midgley, Mike Parker, and all the other Mopologists have spent decades attacking people on the grounds that they were “charlatans” who were just looking to collect a profit. This is an accusation that has been leveled against John Dehlin, Rodney Meldrum, Ed Decker, and countless others. Part of the Mopologists white-hot hatred for Grant Palmer had to do with the claim that Palmer “dishonestly” collected a paycheck from CES despite his disbelief.

Now, though, we’ve got Daniel C. Peterson, the “Titan” of Mopologetics, and he was utterly duped by Ballard, and yet there is no criticism of this guy? It’s met with a shrug, and a “maybe I’ll pay attention to this”? Where is the “sadly necessary” smear blog from Parker, warning everyone about Ballard’s evilnesses? Jonathan Neville merits years’ worth of attacks, but Ballard might still be an OK guy?
"If, while hoping that everybody else will be honest and so forth, I can personally prosper through unethical and immoral acts without being detected and without risk, why should I not?." --Daniel Peterson, 6/4/14
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Gadianton
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Re: DCP Has Been Encouraging The Public To Donate To An Evil, Abusive And Fraudulent Charity

Post by Gadianton »

me wrote:The "whatever it takes" logic isn't unexpected -- I have to defend Tim on this one at least from the perspective of LDS theology. Joseph also had to do "whatever it takes" under threat of flaming sword.
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I hesitated going beyond this comment yesterday. I'm a sucker for speculation, but certain subject matter is taboo enough that I think insinuation of possible offense is wrong, no matter how ideologically opposed to the person in question, or how lame the person in question. So I pulled a hard stop.

I'm listing to RFM's YouTube update for today and oh boy, it's going exactly where I expected it to go (or where I would expect it to go eventually, I was a bit surprised it has already possibly gone there already), and so yesterday's "hard stop" is a "continue" for today.

The allegation is that T claimed to coerce female companions to do "married couple" things with him to "make it more believable" that they were married. The logic is good for a laugh. However, the "whatever it takes" logic is quite applicable to crossing boundaries with the young girls.

Remember the series 24? Well, during one of the last seasons, Jack Bauer had to become a heroin addict in order to go deep cover into South America somewhere. That's what "whatever it takes" really means. Basic logic dictates that T and company will never get beyond the posers and rank amateurs without establishing credibility, and there is really only one way that will ever happen. Even when it comes to consenting adults skirting the law with this stuff, providers use reference systems and validate potential customers by verifying their fellow providers.
Social distancing has likely already begun to flatten the curve...Continue to research good antivirals and vaccine candidates. Make everyone wear masks. -- J.D. Vance
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