...proof that Mormonism is BS...go figure huh?

Or so it seems to me...

I get dizzy from the cherry-pickin' that goes on in mormonism as well as with the christians and the bible.

And when I try to go figure----well, it just does not work. Their 2+2=5 is not the way I dunn learnt it.

About as good as I can come up with is to try and laugh and say, "Whatever....And whatever floats your boat."

I think they acted on their own. BY wouldn't have been close enough to have them carry out orders in time. There isn't proof BY was involved.

I think BY planned for plausible denial but I believe the CC people believed they were acting on his orders carried to them by George Smith.

I majored in history. one of my professors was a MMM scholar. It was an interesting class.

Being banned twice from the Deseret News comments section for simply passing on some basic history and science relevant to the smear campaign George A. Smith orchestrated against the Fancher train.

Simple stuff like "it's impossible to poison a running spring," and the poison described matches nothing known to science, and it's not particularly credible that a wagon train from Arkansas would have a large quantity of arsenic on hand.

Some people just don't want to hear objective, factual ideas...

I suggest you read Bagley and Bigler's "Innocent Blood: Essential Narratives from the Mountain Meadows Massacre" if you haven't.

"Mormon Spin Department": The church-financed "rebuttal" to Bagley's "Blood of the Prophets" suggested anthrax as a possible explanation for young Proctor Hawkins' death, but it's illogical to suggest anthrax spores could've been transported to Utah in the short time frame from when the Mormon emigration began and Hawkins' death. It's likely anthrax did not arrive in Utah until after the railroad was built; cattle on the overland migration route would've died before they were able to bring the pathogen that far. A tick borne disease is far more likely to explain the cattle deaths, and "Texas fever" was well known among herds from that part of the country.

So your claims about being a history major do not impress me.

". . . and if any miserable scoundrels come here, cut their throats . . ." Brigham Young: Journal of Discourses 2:311 (July 8, 1855)

Read Will Bagley's book "Blood of the Prophets".

Young knew about the party by the time they hit Utah Territory. They had a lot of cattle and were making very slow progress. Brigham Young forbade anyone to do trade with them which slowed them down even more.

Trips back and forth from the Cedar City area to BY were made before the Baker-Fancher party reached the meadows.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/07/2013 03:05PM by crom.

we read massacre at mountain meadows

Will and I estimated--based on information from my sister, a former CFO of a Fortune 500 company--that the LDS Church spent in excess of ten million dollars underwriting the Turley-Walker-Leonard volume.

And a few years after it was published, with it's strong insinuation that "The Indians did most of it," no less than Henry Eyring apologized to the Native Americans of Southern Utah for the blame that had been placed upon them that rightly belong on Mormons.

George Smith gave them explicit orders, on behalf of Young, before the train of pioneers arrived. The original plan was to have Indians do the killing in return for part of the loot. It's documented that Young met with the Indian leaders before the fact.

The Indians refused to participate and then the local priesthood leaders changed the plan to include the killing be exclusively by the whites.

Those are my opinions after reading 3 1/2 books on the topic.

Bagley, Denton, Lee and parts of Brooks.

ANd other mormon history about Young. There is no way those local leaders would have killed the entire pioneer group without knowing Young was OK with it.

Was extracted from your sources from the writings of John D. Lee. Mormon historians are quick to denounce Lee, of course, and it's pretty clear he was profoundly affected by his role in the massacre, whether he was operating under orders or not. We can compare his forthright reporting of events in Missouri in the late 1830's with the differing versions of the massacre, and see evidence of that.

Lee was utterly devastated by the rape charge laid on him at his second trial, and at the same time it is clear that all of the individuals he named were enemies of his or already dead.

Brigham Young is Jack Nicholson and John D. Lee, Kiefer Sutherland, his loyal, adopted Stake President son down in Cedar City.

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=9FnO3igOkOk

Nothing happened in the Utah Territory without the consent or blessing of BY. He ruled all Mormons with absolute fear and requirement dor obedience. To have deviated by acting or failing to act without outside of his approval was to risk social, financial and physical death.

Brigham Young ordered the Mountain Meadows Massacre.

Sure did!

At very least, BY coordinated, using his second counselor Daniel H. Wells, both the coverup and the eventual sacrifice of John D. Lee. Wells and BY "signed" an order NOT to do anything like the massacre two days earlier. Just the two of them. Wells was, interestingly enough, on the jury which "carried out the law of Moses" in convicting a client of Abe Lincoln in Carthage in 1839 (the only man ever legally executed in Hancock County) and was in hiding for the trial of the conspirators in 1845 although he had been elected coroner of Hancock County. BY also gave to Wells John D. Lee's favorite wife.

Correction made.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/07/2013 09:46PM by rhgc.

Thanks for the correction. Got the two mixed up. Embarrassing.

In Salt Lake City, is Briggy guiltless?
No, the thought makes reason stare!
Truth is reason, truth eternal,
tells us there's a mass murderer there.

Sounds like something Eliza R. Snow Smith Young would have written.

I believe that Brigham Young both knew about it and planned it. However, I believe he expected the Piutes to carry it out. Not the Mormons. His motive was to demonstrate to President Buchanan that he controlled the emigration routes to California and could control California's trade significantly. Buchanan had sent troops and Young wanted to show that he had control of the "Lamanites" aka "The Battle Axe of The Lord". The fact that the Franchers had a very wealthy wagon train was certainly a factor. The Piutes failed to deliver so the settlers stepped in where BY wished they hadn't.

One question no Mormon can answer is "If Brigham Young didn't order the attack the. Why did the attack not happen until the Franchers had for all purposes left Utah and were a days ride from the nearest Mormon settlement."

When you read the small plaque out next to the highway where it describes how the men were killed by signal from their escorts you cannot excuse BY for not making sure every man jack of them was brought to trial.

The people who participated were NOT brought in for questioning or trial.
The children who survived should have inheirted what was left of the train; the cash value at least,fair market value of the cattle, horses, wagons and supplies and household goods.
The kids didn't even get so much as their parents family Bible to take home with them did they? Just the clothes on their backs.

With that, there is NO EXCUSE for the perfidity of BY. He could have made some compensation. He is as guilty of theft by killing as the people who did it for him. BY by moral law and law of the land was required to bring ALL of the murderers to justice, or at least in for questioning. He did not.

The Arkansas relatives paid their own way out west to come get their kin. end of story.

Except no right thinking person with a sense of justice or lawful order could ever let BY off the hook for this one!




And the TSCC has NEVER apologized or even tried to return anything to the descendants......high moral ground of the TSCC.....my Ass....ets!

BY was the prophet and right hand of God that would keep members out of the CK. They wouldn't dare risk doing anything unless they knew he would approve.

Given the political circumstances at the time, there was probably a standing code red order that if any wagon trains come through that met certain conditions, this was what they were to do. There didn't need to be time to send someone to SLC and get an answer on what to do. They already had their orders on what to do when X,Y, and Z conditions were met.

Steve-here's some archived discussion including the esteemed Cabbie!

http://exmormon.org/phorum/read.php?2,761207,761349#msg-761349

From My post of a post in the thread:


Is there direct evidence that Brigham Young pushed the "button" to order the specific action? It doesn't appear so at this point.

But I think there is at least clear evidence that he knew exactly how his general instructions would potentially be carried out in the same way that "instructions" were issued to Hutu militiamen in Rwanda and in similar places around the world.

For a very compelling explanation of the evidence of Young's complicity please see Will Bagley's address here:

http://www.salamandersociety.com/interviews/willbagley/

Bagley says, in part:

" . . . I also felt that if I was going to conclude that Brigham Young did this, and make an argument that he did, that I also better have pretty damn good evidence. But that's one thing I did not set out to do (in my book on the subject), to prove that Brigham Young ordered the Mountain Meadows Massacre. First of all, I didn't think that it was even possible. And I still don't think, no, I'm sure that if I had a signed confession from Brigham Young, validated as being in his handwriting by Dean Jessee and every other Mormon expert on handwriting, witnessed by all twelve of the apostles, nobody would believe it. It wouldn't make any difference. So I recognized that it was foolish to try to build a polemic, to try to prove something. So what I realized was that no one's ever told this story very well.

This is an incredible story. It is an awful tale, but it is an American tragedy. First of all, it's an American crime, and it is an incredible epic story. So I thought, look, if I can tell this story accurately and fairly, tell what happened and when---and I believe chronology is a key to understanding history. I'm of the school of history that believes one damn thing happens after another, and that chance plays an enormous role in human history. And that if you want to track an event, look at the sequence of events. In many ways, chronology is the key to figuring out the basic parameters about Meadows.

Here's an example: The Fancher party doesn't get to Cedar City until Friday evening, September 4th. On Monday morning, September 7th, they are attacked by a large force of Mormons and Indians. And these Indians are allegedly assembled all the way from the Muddy River, which is 80-90 miles away from Mountain Meadows, all the way up to Cedar City, which is a span of 120 miles.

But guess what? You can't get pissed off on Friday night, and organize an orchestrated military attack on the Fancher train over the weekend! You simply can't get your people there to do it. So what does that tell you? It means that whoever ordered this event did it before the Fancher party got to southern Utah. It was ordered before they got there. Whatever they did in southern Utah was irrelevant. It didn't matter. Their fate had already been determined elsewhere."

Bagley believes Young ordered the murders, he says:

"Why do I believe this? I believe it because that's what Brigham Young said had happened. I want to read the quote. This was stated, I believe, on the 30th of May 1861. The week before, Brigham Young had gone through Mountain Meadows, and he had come to the site of the grave where after two years, the U. S. Army had arrived, and found the bones of these people still littered on the ground.

They found tresses of hair scattered about, found the clothing of women and children, and they gathered up the remains they could find, and they interred them in several different graves. At the site of the wagon siege, they put the bodies in the siege pits they'd dug to defend themselves, gave them a military burial, orienting them as they would fallen soldiers, and then raised a cairn above their grave. At the top, they put a verse from Romans, "Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord."

Brigham Young showed up with an entourage of 120 people, riding in his carriage, rode up, looked at the monument with the inscription and said, "Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord, and I have taken a little." And he raised his arm to the square, and as Dimmick Huntington told his granddaughter Juanita Brooks, "Within five minutes, not one rock was standing on another."

A week later, after preaching at John D. Lee's [?], "President Young said The company that was used up at Mountain Meadows were the fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, and connections of those that murdered the prophets. They merited their fate, and the only thing that ever troubled him was the lives of the women and children, but that under the circumstances, this could not be avoided."


This fish sticks from the head down.


SL Cabbie offers this perspective:

"John D. Lee notes that George A. Smith, whose journey to the southern settlements, began just after the doomed wagon train arrived in this valley, asked him cryptically if the Southern Utahans would make things "lively" for the emigrants.

Smith's extensive "smears" of the emigrants began on the trip south and included fabrications implying they'd been involved in the murders of Joseph and Hyrum, poisoned the running spring, etc. His presence is only "circumstantial," but it is entirely reasonable to believe he carried the order from Young via word-of-mouth.

Bagley and Bigler's "Innocent Blood: Essential Narratives of the Mountain Meadows Massacre" reproduces much of the surviving original source material, and I consider it essential for serious students of the subject.

http://www.amazon.com/Innocent-Blood-Essential-Narratives-Mountain/dp/0870623621

For me, the critical issue is whether 50-80 priesthood holders would willingly participate in a cold-blooded slaughter without sanction from the leadership in Salt Lake. I don't believe they would."


I agree. Anyone wanting to see the actual text of George Albert Smith's highly inflammatory speech can see it here.

www.truthandgrace.com/1857GeorgeSmithSermon0913.htm

Note also that Bagley cites firsthand evidence that many "priesthood holders" who participated in the murders believed that they themselves would be killed if they didn't do it. Who believes that the mormon leaders who threatened death to worthy members just did this on their own? Not me.

Shades of Rwanda and Srebrenca indeed?!!
_____


Posted by: rodolfo
Date: November 07, 2013 03:36PM
Re: Cabbie: Your Area of Expertise--Did Brigham Young Order the MM Massacre?...



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/07/2013 03:56PM by steve benson.

I agree with what Steve Benson wrote.

It's unlikely, at the time, that there would have been enough evidence to convict BY of murder or conspiracy in the death of those at Mountain Meadows. Juanita Brooks, whose "Mountain Meadows Massacre" is generally considered to be the foundation for most modern MMM scholarship, came to the same conclusion.

However, the absence of evidence doesn't necessarily mean BY wasn't involved-- just that BY was probably smart enough not to document an order to kill dozens of people on paper or to say it aloud in front of a large audience. But if you're trying to discuss the various ills of the LDS church, there are better places to hang your hat than the Mountain Meadows Massacre. It was a travesty, yes. But blaming the whole LDS church for it is misguided.

Alpiner:

'no one' wants to blame the Entire LDS church (at that time) for the MMM, BUT:

the LDS members are & were Responsible (ha!) for 'Feeding the Monster'

No disagreement from me.

My point (ineloquently expressed) was that MMM was due to individual actors making reprehensible decisions, not the fault of a nebulous institution (the LDS church, in this case). Too often, people in their zeal to blame LDS or BY for MMM forget that the people doing the killing--regardless of their religious affiliation-- are the ones who we should blame first.

DISAGREE!!!!!!!!!!!!

You won't be able to convince a TBM that Brigham Young actually ordered the attack; however, he IS at least partially to blame for it indirectly. He created an atmosphere of hate and paranoia among his followers, including church talks he gave. And his actions following the massacre are also despicable.

Its like saying an al Queida "spiritual" leader shouldn't be blamed for terrorist attacks simply because we can't find a reliable source of him actually ordering specific attacks. He would certainly be responsible for influencing others who do it on their own.

MMM is not some fluke. It is just the most deadly result of the theocratic rule and its religious fanaticism.

Polly Aird covered some of the stories from this era in ""You Nasty Apostates, Clear Out": Reasons for Disaffection in the Late 1850s"

download it free here: http://digitalcommons.usu.edu/mormonhistory/vol30/iss2/1/

She covers the Potter Parrish murders. The good people of their ward confessed and gave full details of how the Bishop called them together to plan the murders. They did not feel any shame for it, and the all Mormon grand jury refused to indict.

the LDS Church is responsible for multiple examples of institutional evil including MMM. The fact that many contemporary LDS have no idea of MMM demonstrates it hushed up ans blamed on circumatances not embraced and incorporated as a shameful manifestation of cultural weakness. The obedient, may feel absolved. Their submission and displacement of responsibility and accountability are poor choices.

BY's involvement is a red herring. The fact that only one person was brought to justice....years later...is indictment enough of BY and the stench if Mormon rule.

I agree. I would avoid telling TBM's that Brigham Young ordered the MMM. I would, however, point out that Mormons have probably killed more people due to Brigham Young's hate speech. I'd also show them how the church dealt with the aftermath of the MMM.

There's far too many other subjects that you can broach with a TBM that are more "provable" than Young & MMM.

Brigham Young was not responsible for MMM in the same way that Hitler did not personally murder any jews.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/07/2013 10:23PM by Dave the Atheist.