LDS Freedom Forum

A while back I posted the story of Mark Twain meeting Brigham Young. I try to use Brigham's approach for some posters on this forum but it is so hard to resist the urge to respond to some. Even though it is clear that no progress can ever be made. It takes all my self control to not dive into some of these threads.

It is especially difficult when we see prime examples of Isaiah 5:20 where people call evil good and good evil.It should be clear that racism is evil not good. But apparently that is too much for some to understand.

justme wrote: ↑May 7th, 2019, 10:09 am A while back I posted the story of Mark Twain meeting Brigham Young. I try to use Brigham's approach for some posters on this forum but it is so hard to resist the urge to respond to some. Even though it is clear that no progress can ever be made. It takes all my self control to not dive into some of these threads.

It is especially difficult when we see prime examples of Isaiah 5:20 where people call evil good and good evil.It should be clear that racism is evil not good. But apparently that is too much for some to understand.

Racism is just ingrained in some people. They grew up with it. Black people during my mothers time were considered less than human. That was only 50 years ago. Very sad! I don't understand why it ever had to be that way. But it happened. Once these older generations pass away then much of that hate will pass away with them. Then on to the next problem!

setyourselffree wrote: ↑May 7th, 2019, 10:31 am

justme wrote: ↑May 7th, 2019, 10:09 am A while back I posted the story of Mark Twain meeting Brigham Young. I try to use Brigham's approach for some posters on this forum but it is so hard to resist the urge to respond to some. Even though it is clear that no progress can ever be made. It takes all my self control to not dive into some of these threads.

It is especially difficult when we see prime examples of Isaiah 5:20 where people call evil good and good evil.It should be clear that racism is evil not good. But apparently that is too much for some to understand.

Racism is just ingrained in some people. They grew up with it. Black people during my mothers time were considered less than human. That was only 50 years ago. Very sad! I don't understand why it ever had to be that way. But it happened. Once these older generations pass away then much of that hate will pass away with them. Then on to the next problem!

...and to name just a few of those "next problems"...

a solid majority of the current teenager to 30 age group think that socialism is a desirable economic model...
...that vaccinations should be mandatory for "herd immunity" (it's bad enough when the elites think of you as cattle, how bad is it when we think of ourselves that way?)
... that anthropomorphic global cooling, no wait, WARMING, no, never mind "climate change" is a thing, because the government expert told them "the science is settled."
...believe in tolerance AND in shouting down anyone that disagrees with you - and doesn't see the hypocrisy.
...believe that women doing the same job get paid .83 what a man is paid.
...(the list could continue for some time)

Original_Intent wrote: ↑May 7th, 2019, 10:58 am

setyourselffree wrote: ↑May 7th, 2019, 10:31 am

justme wrote: ↑May 7th, 2019, 10:09 am A while back I posted the story of Mark Twain meeting Brigham Young. I try to use Brigham's approach for some posters on this forum but it is so hard to resist the urge to respond to some. Even though it is clear that no progress can ever be made. It takes all my self control to not dive into some of these threads.

It is especially difficult when we see prime examples of Isaiah 5:20 where people call evil good and good evil.It should be clear that racism is evil not good. But apparently that is too much for some to understand.

Racism is just ingrained in some people. They grew up with it. Black people during my mothers time were considered less than human. That was only 50 years ago. Very sad! I don't understand why it ever had to be that way. But it happened. Once these older generations pass away then much of that hate will pass away with them. Then on to the next problem!

...and to name just a few of those "next problems"...

a solid majority of the current teenager to 30 age group think that socialism is a desirable economic model...
...that vaccinations should be mandatory for "herd immunity" (it's bad enough when the elites think of you as cattle, how bad is it when we think of ourselves that way?)
... that anthropomorphic global cooling, no wait, WARMING, no, never mind "climate change" is a thing, because the government expert told them "the science is settled."
...believe in tolerance AND in shouting down anyone that disagrees with you - and doesn't see the hypocrisy.
...believe that women doing the same job get paid .83 what a man is paid.
...(the list could continue for some time)

Agree with most of what you said. It is going to be replacing one evil with another. Every generation has something they must overcome.

justme wrote: ↑May 7th, 2019, 10:09 am A while back I posted the story of Mark Twain meeting Brigham Young. I try to use Brigham's approach for some posters on this forum but it is so hard to resist the urge to respond to some. Even though it is clear that no progress can ever be made. It takes all my self control to not dive into some of these threads.

It is especially difficult when we see prime examples of Isaiah 5:20 where people call evil good and good evil.It should be clear that racism is evil not good. But apparently that is too much for some to understand.

Too lazy to go search the other thread....what was BY's approach to Mark Twain?

Here it is again

I love this story from Mark Twain about his meeting with Brigham Young.

"He never paid any attention to me, notwithstanding I made several attempts to 'draw him out' on Federal politics and his high-handed attitude toward Congress. I thought some of the things I said were rather fine. But he merely looked around at me, at distant intervals, something as I have seen an benignant old cat look around to see which kitten was meddling with her tail. By and by I subsided into an indignant silence, and so sat until the end, hot and flushed, and execrating him in my heart for an ignorant savage. But he was calm. … When the audience was ended and we were retiring from the presence, he put his hand on my head, beamed down on me in an admiring way and said to my brother: 'Ah — your child, I presume? Boy, or girl?'"

The Church, like all other religions, is not immune from members customizing the Lord to fit their own warm and fuzzy narrative.

justme wrote: ↑May 7th, 2019, 12:03 pm Here it is again

I love this story from Mark Twain about his meeting with Brigham Young.

"He never paid any attention to me, notwithstanding I made several attempts to 'draw him out' on Federal politics and his high-handed attitude toward Congress. I thought some of the things I said were rather fine. But he merely looked around at me, at distant intervals, something as I have seen an benignant old cat look around to see which kitten was meddling with her tail. By and by I subsided into an indignant silence, and so sat until the end, hot and flushed, and execrating him in my heart for an ignorant savage. But he was calm. … When the audience was ended and we were retiring from the presence, he put his hand on my head, beamed down on me in an admiring way and said to my brother: 'Ah — your child, I presume? Boy, or girl?'"

Seems to me Bro. Brigham had the measure of him.
Twain appears a little too impessed with himself.

Robin Hood wrote: ↑May 7th, 2019, 12:26 pm

justme wrote: ↑May 7th, 2019, 12:03 pm Here it is again

I love this story from Mark Twain about his meeting with Brigham Young.

"He never paid any attention to me, notwithstanding I made several attempts to 'draw him out' on Federal politics and his high-handed attitude toward Congress. I thought some of the things I said were rather fine. But he merely looked around at me, at distant intervals, something as I have seen an benignant old cat look around to see which kitten was meddling with her tail. By and by I subsided into an indignant silence, and so sat until the end, hot and flushed, and execrating him in my heart for an ignorant savage. But he was calm. … When the audience was ended and we were retiring from the presence, he put his hand on my head, beamed down on me in an admiring way and said to my brother: 'Ah — your child, I presume? Boy, or girl?'"

Seems to me Bro. Brigham had the measure of him.
Twain appears a little too impessed with himself.

No, Twain would and could distort anything into humor with a wry twist to it. He was the old fashioned master of it.
dc

justme wrote: ↑May 7th, 2019, 12:03 pm Here it is again

I love this story from Mark Twain about his meeting with Brigham Young.

"He never paid any attention to me, notwithstanding I made several attempts to 'draw him out' on Federal politics and his high-handed attitude toward Congress. I thought some of the things I said were rather fine. But he merely looked around at me, at distant intervals, something as I have seen an benignant old cat look around to see which kitten was meddling with her tail. By and by I subsided into an indignant silence, and so sat until the end, hot and flushed, and execrating him in my heart for an ignorant savage. But he was calm. … When the audience was ended and we were retiring from the presence, he put his hand on my head, beamed down on me in an admiring way and said to my brother: 'Ah — your child, I presume? Boy, or girl?'"

The humor of it being that Twain presents himself as a visitor to Brigham Young, when, in fact, he was a young boy at the time and probably clamoring for attention with nonsense banter and Brigham Young saw the need to put him down a bit.

But the real issue is, how old he would have been at the time. Mark Twain did travel west with his older brother who became first, I believe Secretary of the State of Nevada. And for one weekend his brother acted as governor in the weekend absence of both the Governor and the Lt Governor.

I believe this was not an actual meeting of Mark Twain, the famous author and Brigham Young, but Samuel Clemens, a goofy teen at that time.
dc

possibly brigham had been informed theres going to be a traveling reporters visit, fellow brother mason, by name of samuel clemens(even future name mark twane).

"We know him as Brother Samuel Clemens. . “Travel is fatal to bigotry, prejudice, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one’s lifetime.” — Mark Twain . . ."

samuel clemens he never paid any attention...
https://search.yahoo.co.jp/search?ei=UT ... to%20me%22

samuel clemens freemason
https://search.yahoo.co.jp/search?ei=UT ... 0freemason

from Roughing It by Mark Twain: http://www.online-literature.com/twain/roughing-it/15/

"Our stay in Salt Lake City amounted to only two days, and therefore we had no time to make the customary inquisition into the workings of polygamy and get up the usual statistics and deductions preparatory to calling the attention of the nation at large once more to the matter.

I had the will to do it. With the gushing self-sufficiency of youth I was feverish to plunge in headlong and achieve a great reform here--until I saw the Mormon women.

Then I was touched. My heart was wiser than my head. It warmed toward these poor, ungainly and pathetically "homely" creatures, and as I turned to hide the generous moisture in my eyes, I said, "No--the man that marries one of them has done an act of Christian charity which entitles him to the kindly applause of mankind, not their harsh censure--and the man that marries sixty of them has done a deed of open-handed generosity so sublime that the nations should stand uncovered in his presence and worship in silence."

Stop this, Twain was simply jealous!!

After all, as Young himself said,

"Do you think that I am an old man? I could prove to this congregation that I am young; for I could find more girls who would choose me for a husband than can any of the young men." (09/06/1857)

"Do you think that I am an old man? I could prove to this congregation that I am young; for I could find more girls who would choose me for a husband than can any of the young men." (09/06/1857)

Where men hold much power and social prominence, there will ALWAYS be 'groupies'.

setyourselffree wrote: ↑May 7th, 2019, 10:31 am

justme wrote: ↑May 7th, 2019, 10:09 am A while back I posted the story of Mark Twain meeting Brigham Young. I try to use Brigham's approach for some posters on this forum but it is so hard to resist the urge to respond to some. Even though it is clear that no progress can ever be made. It takes all my self control to not dive into some of these threads.

It is especially difficult when we see prime examples of Isaiah 5:20 where people call evil good and good evil.It should be clear that racism is evil not good. But apparently that is too much for some to understand.

Racism is just ingrained in some people. They grew up with it. Black people during my mothers time were considered less than human. That was only 50 years ago. Very sad! I don't understand why it ever had to be that way. But it happened. Once these older generations pass away then much of that hate will pass away with them. Then on to the next problem!

A lot of plain old common sense is dying off along with that racism and hate

dewajack wrote: ↑May 8th, 2019, 7:35 pm Stop this, Twain was simply jealous!!

After all, as Young himself said,

"Do you think that I am an old man? I could prove to this congregation that I am young; for I could find more girls who would choose me for a husband than can any of the young men." (09/06/1857)

I don't think getting married vs losing your property or starving to death would be much of a choice. Or condemnation by others for refusing. Or did Utah allow women to keep their property and feed them if they became widows? From what I gather, things at one point were a bit more ahead for women in that state. Or at least I know they were the first to allow women the vote.

I don't think getting married vs losing your property or starving to death would be much of a choice. Or condemnation by others for refusing. Or did Utah allow women to keep their property and feed them if they became widows? From what I gather, things at one point were a bit more ahead for women in that state. Or at least I know they were the first to allow women the vote.

Truth is always somewhere in between diametrically opposed assumptions.

From what I learned while living in Utah and working in the historical archives at BYU's Harold B Lee Library - Most women living in polygamous households created their own living(s). Some actually lived apart from their 'husbands' and ran their own businesses. More than support from the 'husband', women supported one another in their endeavors.

We had an elderly neighbor on the west side of Salt Lake Valley who recalled a community of single Latter-day Saint women who - because of disabilities or other lack of inherent physical attraction - were consigned to live as impoverished social outcasts doing their best to support one another in their struggle to survive. Being witness to this cruel neglect our neighbor had a confirmed abhorrence of polygamy and a decided scorn of the men who collected wives as symbols of their ranking in The Church. Although raised in The Church, he could not abide the 'culture' that then dominated the institution.