There’s two sides to that story. The Mormon Dannites were part of the problem in Missouri. They were a militant group created by the Church leaders (Joseph Smith, Sidney Rigdon, etc.) at the time and they went out and pillaged and killed for retribution, and they killed and threatened Mormon dissenters in their midst. Joseph Smith taught that it was Gods will that for the people that the Mormons vanquished for retribution(killed or burned homes, etc), it was ok to take their personal belongings. That’s why you see that when the Mormons were driven out, the Missourians who had their stuff stolen took back their belongings. You see, some of the Mormons back then did that. And yes, there were mobs of Missourians that did the same to the Mormons. The Mormons were not innocent, just as the Missourians weren’t innocent either. It’s naive to think that Boggs just woke up one day and decided that he should exterminate the Mormons. His decision came over a period of months and confrontations between the militias and the Mormons, and retribution on both sides. I’ve read many of Boggs’ letters to the Legislature regarding the issue, and I don’t get the impression he was a hitler-like leader who just wanted to persecute the Mormons. He was trying to control an explosive situation during a difficult time in our nations history, where there was a lot of bloodshed over disputed territories and a lot of distrust of people with differences.
On top of all that, you had a religious group that appeared clearly to be a separatist movement. Sidney Rigdon gave a famous speech endorsing such separatism from the Federal government.
The Mountain Meadows Massacre was about a group of Mormons who killed 150 men women and children over the course of several days. This was planned and executed over time when people had time to be aware of what was going on. It wasn’t like one man bombed them, there were many people involved, and I personally don’t believe that the higher up leadership in the LDS church wasn’t aware of what was happening. In fact, court records show that Lee admitted that Brigham Young was aware and had ordered the killings. After several days of surrounding and picking off the men women and children, the Mormons’ leader Lee (who was a Dannite since Missouri and close adviser to Brigham Young the Prophet) and his men offered the remaining group of men and women a chance to surrender with the assurance that they would not be killed. What did they do? They marched the remaining men women and children who surrendered and then shot them in their heads (except for kids under 8 yrs). Learn about the details and you may see a difference.
My point about bringing that whole thing up was to illustrate the dangers of not having a critical mind and simply doing what your leaders ask because they say God said so. We should all learn from what happened at that massacre and be wary of religions that ask us not to question.
And no, I can’t forgive what those bastards did!
But my reason for not wanting a Mormon for president isn’t based on that. I will vote for who I believe to be a Christian Conservative because that’s my choice. And, guess what, that ain’t Mitt.
Funny, That's not the impression you gave. That impression was that you were trying to dig up an atrocity with which to associate modern day Mormons, such as Romney. That is what the thread is about, right?
You seem willing to see "two sides to that story" when it is a question of contemporary atrocities committed by the other involved parties. You seem to believe that, "It’s naive to think that Boggs just woke up one day and decided that he should exterminate the Mormons," but not naive to think the same of Lee's motives about exterminating those who bragged of doing those earlier atrocities.
Odd, that. Also odd that you should bring the whole thing up WRT an election in the year 2008.