Okay, this is America, and we're supposed to allow for people to follow whatever religion they want -- but does that include the right to belong to a cult that brainwashes you and treats you like property, or like a slave?
I have seen interviews with these Mormon Fundamentalists on TV, and they are very obviously brainwashed and under the control of the church's leaders. First of all, the women all wear identical pioneer-style dresses, identical hairstyles, and bonnets. The fact that their clothing is so uniform, with very little color variation, makes them look like a cult.
The true litmus test was when these women opened their mouths to speak on camera for the news reporters. They actually finished each others' sentences -- like everything was so scripted as to what they would say, that each of them knew each other's lines in the script. They kept talking in a monotone, too. How can you take people seriously when they say "Our way of life is so happy and fullfilling, and trully joyful" when they say it like Ben Stein discusses economics in "Ferris Bueller's Day Off"?
Worst of all, the cult is still not cooperating with the police. The women keep giving different names for the children, and the relationships between different family members is explained inconsistantly, so as to deliberately stimey Law Enforcement officials.
Some have argued that the government has gone too far in taking the children into custody. I say that the government hasn't gone far enough. Cults that control their members to the point where they will not cooperate with law enforcement in the investigation of a crime do not deserve being treated any better than an individual who behaves the same way. If you do not cooperate with law enforcement, I dont' care if you're the Pope of the Catholic Church -- you should be dealt with the same way.
I think that more media exposure for this cult will only damage the public's perception of them. After all, seeing a bunch of identical anachronistically-dressesd women speaking in monotone voices, finishing each other's sentences, looking just like what most people expect brainwashed people to behave like, will only secure the notion that they're just another mind-control cult that has ill-intentions for their women and children.
Cults are intimate terrorists. They terrorize each other, in their own homes, with the threat of hellfire and banishment from heaven. They are the terrorists who terrorize each other as a way of life -- by re-enforcing group-notions of external-persecution, fear of the end times, fear of hell, fear of not doing enough to get to heaven, fear of ostracism, fear of the outside world, fear of demons, and fear of anyone not like them. Any group that lives with a fear of outsiders, and an built-in antagonism towards non-members, ceases being a legitimate religion, and endangers themselves, as well as their neighbors.
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Here's an all-purpose litmus test: Replace their religion with a different affiliation and think about whether the public would react differently.
What if this were a group of atheists raping adolescents and keeping them in virtual slavery? The public would be howling for their blood. It would be pitchfork and torch time. And congressmen would be harumphing about expanding their proposed "Defense of Marriage Amendment" to include an explicit ban on underage or multiple marriages.
Likewise, if there were a wealthy worldwide Buddhist organization notorious for sexually abusing children, the bloggers and talking heads would rant about that as much as they do about "Islamofascism."
Yeah, pretty much. All you need to hear is that under-aged girls are being married off or sexually abused (actually, I just read that a 15-year-old boy was allegedly sodomized by the cult's leader, too), and nobody cares what religion it is.
But from a law enforcement perspective, when a group refuses to cooperate during a criminal investigation, and actually tries to interfere with law enforcement's job, the cuffs go on, and the cells get filled, and lawyers get called, until people play fair and square.
Ugh, the way the fundamentalist Mormon sects make their followers wear reminds me of some upcoming school uniform policies we might see here (though, not necessarily with the pioneer style clothing ;-) )
Cultist behavior might just be a block away sooner or later ;-)
I watched a short special on the polygamist aspects of these fundamentalist mormon sects on PBS, and the women all looked completely bland and unattractive, and they talked like robots...you're right Dave, it sure is a strange cult...
Pocket Nerd, sexual abuse occurs frequently in Buddhist orders, especially against children. It's just never reported on...
The Tiradefaction, I think the difference between school uniforms and these cults is that these cult members ALWAYS dressed like that, and had too, and were encouraged in all aspects of their life to be completely the same and drones.
I don't agree with school uniforms personally, but I don't see the similarities whatsoever. I doubt the uniforms would be like that anyway...
I was talking about the uniformed mindset that is forced onto the students, along with a uniformed dress code, not that the actual ascetics would be the same...
The Tiradefaction wrote:
I was talking about the uniformed mindset that is forced onto the students, along with a uniformed dress code, not that the actual ascetics would be the same...
Oh, well I guess if you see it that way. There is still one major difference, is that they don't wear that stuff all day. I agree in principle that uniforms are just there to instill conformity, which is one of the reasons Long Beach Middle Schools have them, at least most of them do. They don't have them in the High Schools, but they still have dress codes.
But I think that the Mormon fundie cult takes it 200 times more extreme, and it's kind of unfair to compare the two.
School Uniforms are how conservatives react to kids dressing inappropriately. You will note that when it comes to girls, they get the little plaid sailor's uniforms, and the boys just get told to wear dark pants and a light shirt with a tie.
Conservative and religious nuts take everything out on women. They tyhink it's worse for a girl to wear a miniskirt and "dress like a whore" (as they usually call it) than it is for a boy to dress like a gangster. So they make all the girls wear these identical plaid dresses, which actually, some guys think is hot. :)
Schoosl that have sane board members usuall impose dress codes that simply forbid street clothes, miniskirts, and tank-tops. UNiforms are nothing more than a way to make more money off of the parents.
I agree with you Dave, but I have never worried about them, but very little schools in California have uniforms, and the uniforms here are just a plain shirt and pants, the girls never have to wear skirts (it would actually be illegal to make them wear that here). Only the very poor and shitty areas (as I said, Long Beach, also known as shitty city, no joke) have them. Elsewhere in the US, you'll only find them in the South, like in Georgia and Louisiana, big surprise.
Overall, it's not a big issue for me and I rarely even think about it. Back to the Mormon fundies, shall we?
Speaking of which, is the polygamy about sex or just controlling women? Because if it was about sex, why would they go to such great lengths to make them so damned unattractive and plain? I don't understand...
A big issue? Nah, but an issue none the less. And I am a bit worried, because they are spreading around the nation, they are not just contained to "long beach" as you say. After all, they buy the whole BS long beach statistics that uniforms are reducing crime. And yes, they really say that.
http://school.familyeducation.com/educational-philosophy/individuality/38676.html
http://www.pe.com/localnews/inland/stories/PE_News_Local_S_uniforms26.3687b96.html
Uh...all you gave me was links to two school websites. Nothing about uniforms.
Uniforms are not spreading in the US, they are just more common and accepted in poor areas, like New Orleans or Long Beach. They may tout success in some area because of that, but there is no success in those areas, as crime is still high, as gangs are, and various other socio-economic problems.
The problems are poverty, but they don't want to face that. You can learn about and discuss school uniforms here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/School_uniform#United_States
Now can we please go back to the topic? Ya know, the Mormon Zion Fundies...?
Nothing to do with school uniforms? I guess you can't read.....
The first link is indeed called School Uniforms: Pros and Cons and gives off what I detailed as the "Uniforms resulted in less crime in Long Beach" argument.
The other link deals with the attractiveness school uniforms still have in California.
But yes, I am done talking about it also.
Well, you didn't give me direct links, as they just lead to the main site. Also, who cares what a couple of websites say about it? People who promote anything and say it reduces crime. Also, the topic of this post is "The Yearning for Zion Cult" not about school uniforms. If you want t discuss that, go to your school districts website or whatever.
The links do take you to the pages I listed, you have to highlight them and put them in your browser. But I did say I was done talking about it.
Gamingasshole said:
"is the polygamy about sex or just controlling women? Because if it was about sex, why would they go to such great lengths to make them so damned unattractive and plain? I don't understand..."
It's about a number of things. Firstly, it's about sex. If you read the history of Joseph Smith, you will see a definite pattern to how he would greet new families that signed up with his group. Account after account has him eating dinner with a new family, either invited to their home or at a group event, and he would say "The Lord has guided (you here/me to you) because he wants me to get to know your daughter..." Inevitably, the daughters he was interested in were younger and younger. He had about 33 wives! All were married between 16 and 20 years of age. Parents would unfailingly let him marry their daughtrers, because who is seriously going to argue with a person whom many beleived was the second coming of Christ, or at the very least a prophet of God. Not giving in would be tantamount to disobeying God's wishes.
Secondly, it's about out-breeding the competition. Catholics and Evangelicals have deliberately been having large families for decades, because it means out-populating all those unbelievers who just have one or 2 kids. The Mormons are a highly political church, and always have been. Their mode of operating was to move into small towns, out-populate them, and use their numbers gain seats in government, and essentially run the towns. This backfired many times, and mormons found themselves chased out of towns by armed mobs. It's also how Joseph Smith got killed -- His people moved to Commerce, Illinois, and soon were in charge of the whole government there. They renamed the town to Navuoo. Some people who resented the often heavy-handed control of the town by Smith started a newspaper that was openly critical of him. Smith ordered the paper be shut down and the press destroyed, and many people, including loyal Mormons, were outraged, as this was clearly a violation of free speech. Smith and his cohorts were arrested, and while in jail, a mob stormed the jail and killed him. Even in Modern day Utah, the Mormons pretty much run the state, and impose many of their religious views on the rest of the population.
For the modern cult, it's about money. What they do is they have the girls get married and pregnant as young as possible, then, they sign them up to get welfare as single mothers, since the marriages are not recognized officially by the government. The girls are eligible for child support money, just like single teen moms from poor families in the city. This deception gets free income for the men, and the more wives they have, the more money they get -- YOUR MONEY, FROM YOUR TAXES! Controlling the women is part of this scam, because if the women are brainwashed to accept this, or to never criticize the men, they will willingly play into the deception. Imagine getting upwards of $1500 a month -- times 6, 7, or 8 women. You get rich pretty quick. This scam is common to most of the Mormon fundamentalist sects, and this one is no exception.
Oh, okay I understand now. But a second question arises: How does the modern mainstream church control the modern state of Utah? I mean, are they just basically like conservative Christians or are they and the state of Utah different?
See my new article on Mormons, which I am posting right after this.
I've seen on another blog http://shockandblog.blogspot.com/ where someone with almost the same username as GamingAsshole is spamming...I'd suggest a name change perhaps for GA, in case someone gets the wrong idea that you two are the same...that person is doing stuff that could get him into legal trouble.
>>> I've seen on another blog http://shockandblog.blogspot.com/ where someone with almost the same username as GamingAsshole is spamming...
The username is GapingAsshole, not GamingAsshole. Here's an example:
Hey bitch, so when are they going to permanently ban me? Fucking idiot. hey drop me a quick line, then we can commence raping each others kids. That would be awesome.
Gaping asshole.
>>>.I'd suggest a name change perhaps for GA, in case someone gets the wrong idea that you two are the same...that person is doing stuff that could get him into legal trouble.
Well, it's not going to happen, since Gaping and Gaming are different things.
I know that they're different; I just said that they're almost the same...a one letter difference.
I thought I'd let you know just in case someone thought that you were this other person and started after you; you'd at least know why.
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