'Romneys Selective Ignorance'

" ... The recent attempt by Republican Presidential candidate Mitt Romney to placate American concerns about his church's Christian view bespeaks his selective ignorance about his own church’s history.

Chief among the past woes of Mormons was the persecution complex. The story went that the church had suffered immeasurable harm from Christian persecution for its beliefs.

While it is true that there were some isolated incidents of unfair actions against members by non-Mormons, the overall scene was one of tolerance with a quiet smirk for the absurd claims of church founder Joseph Smith involving angels, golden plates, Book of Mormon and visions of God. Official Church History distorts most events alleged as persecution.

Between the time of the church organization on April 6, 1830 and the extermination order (infra) of Governor Lilburn Boggs of Missouri in 1838, Smith and his close cohort/conspirator, Sydney Rigdon, had created an unlawful bank in Kirkland, Ohio where they defrauded investors and fled to Missouri when Ohio officials were seeking their arrest. In Missouri, with a large swelling of converts, Smith declared the place at Far West to be the original site of the Garden of Eden and it would be there that the New Zion would be built. He also declared that the church would be the future ruler of Zion and the world both ecclesiastically and civilly.

[ ... ]

In 1844, Smith while a fugitive from justice in Missouri had declared himself a candidate for President of the US. He organized a semi secret group called the Council of the Fifty to bring about one world government but spelled backwards “YFTIF” in a clumsy attempt to conceal it. That group, which is perpetually organized, crowned Smith “King of the Earth”. The same crowning has occurred to each successive church leader to this day with Gordon B. Hinckley, Mormon president, as Christ's Vice Regent and Earth King. The Council continues to steer the church in that direction with involvement in the Heritage Foundation, the Bush war machine and international economic schemes raising poverty levels three fold in the past thirty years. Romney is a blood oath committed Priesthood subordinate to Hinckley in all matters!

Associated with that event, Smith ordered the destruction of a newspaper, the Nauvoo Expositor that was about to publish information about Smith's plural sexual relationships in particular with 16 year old Fanny Alger who worked in the Smith household as a maid.

Some time prior to this. Smith had obtained a franchise for establishing a Masonic Lodge. Very quickly he elevated himself to a 33rd degree Mason. He also adapted some of the Masonic Initiation rituals into the Mormon Temple ceremonies and had its icons sewn on special underclothing which had to be worn thereafter by all initiates to the temple ceremony every day and night for the rest of their lives. See: http://www.religionfacts.com/about.htm For doing this, the franchise was withdrawn and he angered the Order by his actions in violating its trust and the secrets within it.

Smith was arrested and lodged in the Carthage Jail to await hearings on charges of violation of freedom of the press and the extradition order.

In the evening of June 27th 1844, a mob made up of Masons, some of his own people and antagonists surrounded the jail shooting into it. Having been furnished a hand gun by his close allies, Smith mortally wounded two attackers as they attempted to ascend the staircase. Seeing his brother dead, he leaped out the second story window shouting the Masonic distress cry only to be repeatedly shot at by the mob.

This last event chronicled at least four times in the 38 year life of Smith when he ran afoul of the law. The first was a charge and conviction in New York State of the scam of stone gazing for pay (beforehand) for discovering buried treasure. The second was bank fraud in Ohio. The third was an insurrection in Missouri and the last violating freedom of the press in Nauvoo. Ill.
In the legends of Mormonism, Smith died as a “Martyr” sealing his “Testimony” with his own blood when in fact he died in a furious gun battle attempting further deception at the last moment by using the con of a Masonic distress cry. The cause of Smith's death was anger and fear of those within the mob who saw him and his teachings as a threat to peace, the Constitution and separation of church and state.

A few years later, with Brigham Young at the helm, Mormons left Illinois and traveled west to the Utah Territory where Young set up a colony he called Deseret establishing a theocratic government. Any dissidents attempting to leave the territory were murdered or “disappeared” in the “Back lotting” operation led by Orin Porter Rockwell. No message against the church was allowed to get out of the territory.

Unfortunately for Young, the territory came under the control of the US government as a result of the 1846-47 hostilities with Mexico. The area was then labeled the Utah Territory. Nonetheless, Young ruled with an Iron Fist first as the territorial governor and later in a shadow government as the head of the church.

Nothing was done in the territory without his approval. This included the September 1857 Mountain Meadows Massacre in which in excess of 120 people age four years and older of the Fancher Party emigrant train en route to California were laid siege to and slaughtered by deception about 20 miles west of Cedar City, Utah. It was supposed this train had persons among it that were responsible for the death of founder Smith and this was an exercise of the Blood Atonement doctrine of the church.

That doctrine says that the blood of Christ can't atone for all sins and that some persons need to have their own blood shed by others for forgiveness. Hence the oft heard phrase about dissidents “He/She should be shot”. This past September, the church after 150 years finally admitted its' complicity in the affair but blamed it on long dead local leaders of the church. ... "

 

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