Posted on 09/10/2010 4:09:40 PM PDT by Colofornian
On the morning of Sept. 11, a small group of dedicated men launched a surprise attack that resulted in the vicious slaughter of men, women and children. The assailants were forced to act, they believed, because their religious community was under siege by the United States government.
They perpetrated their murders with the blessing of their leaders and in the name of God, although the religion’s highest authorities would immediately disavow themselves of any connection with the massacre. In its wake, most Americans claimed the faith itself was inherently violent and supported military action against the associates of those who perpetrated the massacre.
This scene played out nine years ago in New York City and Washington, D.C., with al-Qaida’s terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. But it also describes another Sept. 11 morning — in 1857 — when Mormon settlers in southern Utah, along with some Paiutes they had recruited, mercilessly killed more than 100 California-bound emigrants.
If history doesn’t exactly repeat itself, it certainly has a profound sense of irony in placing two of the most horrific acts of religious violence in American history on the same day, nearly a century and a half apart.
For decades afterward, the Mountain Meadows Massacre was a flashpoint for opponents of Mormonism. Works of popular fiction depicted Mormons as bloodthirsty zealots whose primary form of religious devotion was murdering “gentiles.” Testimony in the 1879 Reynolds v. U.S. trial placed Mormons alongside other “thugs” who “commit murder with impunity, on the ground that it was sanctioned and enjoined by their system of religious belief.”
Some Southern mobs cited vengeance for the fallen emigrants as their rationale for vigilante violence against Mormon missionaries who were not even born at the time of the massacre.
The raw wounds of mass violence do not heal easily. It took four decades after this incident for the rest of America to drop its suspicions and grievances enough to pursue the path of accommodation.
Mormons then became one of the great success stories of the 20th century, trailing perhaps only Catholics and Jews as once-reviled religious minorities who earned a modicum of acceptance and achievement in American society. Enough skepticism remains on each side to preclude a full embrace, but Mormonism and America have at least become skilled, if wary, dancing partners.
The Mormons are the only people subjected to mass, organized attacks in America due to their religion. That preceded the events that led to the attack by Mormons on fellow Americans.
I resent these people that use the word “Tragedy” in conjunction with 9-11.
What happened that morning in New York City, Washington D.C. and in Shanksville, Pennsylvania were nothing short of an Act of War, committed against innocent civilians, without warning or provocation.
That Act of War has yet to be sufficiently responded to.
Wrong.
67% of Hate Crimes are against Jews in America.
This is ignored by the MSM and the DOJ.
It is doubtful that they account for that percentage
of the population.
The Muslim terrorists who perpetrated the 9/11 acts didn't just wake up that morning and decide to fly jets into buildings killing people. Those acts took months of planning and thousands of dollars of financing. Planning and financing that could only come from a group bent on our ultimate destruction. Short of Christ's return or every Muslim in the world renouncing Islam, I don't see how we can eventually 'dance' together.
Please, the Mormons (the prophet-founded syncretist “religion” closest to Islam) were not unpopular with local Christians just out of meanness, but because the Mormons would ride into a town on the western edge of the US and try to take it over.
The reason the US government got involved is that Mormonism, like Islam, is theocratic and the Mormons essentially wanted to set up their own state with land they had occupied from the US.
The Mountain Meadows massacre was not a defensive action; the Mormons had been attacking wagon trains for some time, and these people were literally asleep in their beds when the Mormons swept down.
Mormonism is the American version of Islam. But maybe your two prophets can get together and duke it out.
The faith itself IS inherently violent.
It says to slay those who don’t bow to Mecca.
I say again “Victim focus!” They oppress us, they constrain us, they indict us, after they attacked us.
The greater crime was that after the wagon train surrendered to the mormons and were told they would be escorted to safety, once disarmed they were shot and bludgened to death by the very people who promised safe passage - in cold blood. The size of the massacre was not exceeded in the US until the Murrah Federal Bldg in OK.
Mormons actually are divided. In order to become part of the US and not be chased out by the Cavalry, they had to accept the Constitution and give up certain practices (such as polygamy and child marriage) that they had cultivated up to that time.
However, not all of them did so, which is why you have these weirdo cults living on welfare out in the desert.
I think there are some of the “adapted” Mormons who genuinely want to be Christians, and they should go off and find a good Evangelical church somewhere where they might fit in and abandon their crazy cult.
The same with Muslims. If we had been strong enough, we could have made them accept the Constitution and settle down. While for years Muslims living here did do just that, in recent years, with their 9/11 victory, they have switched their allegiance and now Islam, which is a rival political system, is not only reviving in its most vicious form, but will probably take over (even though they represent only about 3% of the population).
This is because we have a Muslim president, a corrupt and foolish press, and a left that hates the West and will do anything to undermine Judeo-Christian culture.
Mormon Meadows happened once.
Islamic atrocities happen every day.
Lots of possible reasons...the fact that they stole the finest horses in the West from the group -- along with everything else -- makes robbery a motive...even if that was an "after-the-fact" reality.
High suspicions...unsure of letting "Gentiles" roam freely through their state when threats of a "war" breaking out...some say Brigham ordered it as "prophet" of the church...some say "revenge" since Fanchers were from Arkansas & Lds apostle Parley P. Pratt was murdered in Arkansas not long before. Anyway, you have it, I don't think there's any good reason for executing children & their parents & point blank range, do you?
Did they give the immigrants the Islamic choice of convert or die and the immigrants chose die?
No. "Just" cold-blooded mass murder on a nice day.
Was it a planned massacre or did something trigger it that day?
The ambush was planned. They probably didn't think (a) that they would put up such resistance...the siege on the wagon trains started before Sept. 11...and (b) they thought they could clearly pin it on the Indians...but the Indians went home after the initial siege...As for the point-blank massacre end to the party, the "trigger" could have been Brigham Young...but they say he was days away in SLC. So the account has been told both ways.
Is the author suggesting that since Mormons are accepted today in spite of the past murders, we should overlook the act of war the Islamic community launched against our country?
Seems to...His message seems to be: "If you don't want to accept murderous Muslims & their descendants, on what ground have you come to accept murderous Mormons & their descendants?"
It was a horrible thing.
I was driving across the country once many years ago and we arrived at a park with a campground in the late evening and decided to stop there for the night. We set up camp and went to bed almost immediately, because the place was somehow unpleasant. My kids didn’t sleep at all and I had to keep getting up and going to them, and in fact none of us could sleep. I woke up in a real panic in the middle of the night, something that never happens to me because I love going camping and I am not nervous at all.
As soon as the faintest dawn broke, we got up and packed up and drove out of the camp. At the gate, we stopped and read the sign: Mountain Meadows. There was a brief description of what had happened on the site, but it wasn’t until later that I read the full story. However, that did explain our horrible night (and I’m not even a very “sensitive” person). It must have been awful.
The mormon church owns the site and continues to refuse to allow descendants to honor their dead by allowing them to erect a cross.
Well, good point.
At least with NY 9/11 the direct killers got their "due" in meeting their Ultimate Judge...not so of the "behind-the-scene" killers.
With the Utah 9/11, justice was NEVER served beyond one scapegoat.
Believe me, 'twas dozens of Lds involved...Brigham Young, even if he wasn't aware of the massacre before it happened, covered up the crimes. He was not only "prophet" but territorial gov at the time.
Even as "prophet" alone, he could have uncovered the mass murderers & held them accountable.
He didn't, which made him just as culpable as if he'd pull the triggers.
And then the mass conspiracy expanded. They all remained relatively "hush" about it. And those who knew -- or came to know -- also refused to yield justice. Even confessions in journals have been tucked away by later generations.
I mean if your pa, grandpa, great-grandpa, or g-g grandpa was guilty of this, isn't it time to set the record straight so that we can allow history to unfold and move on from there?
The Old Testament describes innocent blood on the ground as a territorial pollutant. (References in book of Numbers & in Isaiah)
In the early chapter of Deut. 21, if a murdered man did not yield a murderer, they sacrificed a heifer & pleaded with God not to hold them accountable for the lack of justice. (Unsolved murders don't just leave bloodstains; but a stain on the guilt of a people group around them who don't care enough to ensure that sin is atoned for)
Here's the Deut. passage: If a man is found slain, lying in a field in the land the LORD your God is giving you to possess, and it is not known who killed him, 2 your elders and judges shall go out and measure the distance from the body to the neighboring towns. 3 Then the elders of the town nearest the body shall take a heifer that has never been worked and has never worn a yoke 4 and lead her down to a valley that has not been plowed or planted and where there is a flowing stream. There in the valley they are to break the heifer's neck. 5 The priests, the sons of Levi, shall step forward, for the LORD your God has chosen them to minister and to pronounce blessings in the name of the LORD and to decide all cases of dispute and assault. 6 Then all the elders of the town nearest the body shall wash their hands over the heifer whose neck was broken in the valley, 7 and they shall declare: "Our hands did not shed this blood, nor did our eyes see it done. 8 Accept this atonement for your people Israel, whom you have redeemed, O LORD, and do not hold your people guilty of the blood of an innocent man." And the bloodshed will be atoned for. (Deut. 21:1-8)
I wonder if local Mormons have ever gone to the site & prayed, "Lord, please don't hold us accountable for what was done here. May the blood of Christ atone for the sin of our physical and spiritual ancestors." ??? If not, perhaps THAT explains the unease there...it's never been solved ... or spiritually resolved...
Please get over yourselves.
American in no way ever persecuted you, disrespected you, or hated you before 9-11. Guys, we were completely ignorant of you prior to 9-11.
Here in the land of the free, your religion is unimportant to us. We figure, if it doesn't involve killing people or burning down houses, we give any group of people the benefit of the doubt. Have your religion. Practice it. Go on with your life.
But just because the last major achievement you had was the Zero a thousand years ago, you folks have a inferiority complex bigger than the Bug in Men In Black. Back home, your major skills are doing as you are told, giving the best cut of goat meat to whatever tinpot Imam says you have to, and beating up women for showing a bit of ankle. You haven't really done anything of note since a millenium ago. And to compensate for that, you have to blame it on America. Your leaders keep you poor, feed you hate, take the oil money from the west, put it in Swiss bank accounts, and tell you "We could take care of you, but we are all so victimized by America!"
Seriously, on 9-10, we didn't hate you. We just didn't CARE or KNOW anything about you and your murderous, hate-filled, intolerant, vicious, death-crazed faux-religion. But on 9-11....we all learned everything we need to know about you.
You are as virtuous as the Serpent. Your kill-crazy baal-god says you can lie to us, so why the hell should we believe anything you say? You kill your own children to strike out at the "Infidel." You keep your women slaves, beat them regularly, and maintain the lie that yours is a "Religion of Peace." You dare to moan about our intolerance, and then kill Christians when you find them in your own poorly maintained homelands. You use the liberties we have in America to insinuate yourselves in our culture, and then do all you can to overthrow it. You breed like rabbits, and then demand we change our schools and businesses to let you practice your rituals, when the Government under our week-kneed leader won't even give Christians the same rights. You keep your own people in line by making them headless in the middle of the night, and then wail about what a noble and advanced culture you have. You burn Christian bibles and crosses without flinching in your homelands, and then threaten us when you get a dose of your own medicine. And on 9-11 you forced 3,000 innocent Americans to decide between jumping to their deaths and roasting alive, and we are supposed to let your religion off scott free because the pathetic, blood-dripping losers you sent to kill us went out to strip clubs the night before, consorted with strippers, and drank alcohol to get up the guts to die the next morning...and this supposedly means "they weren't real Muslims."
Mohammed, we know everything we need to know about your tinpot religion. Before you killed 3,000 people for the crime of going to work in the morning, we were willing to let you live here. But now we know everything we need to know. And the NEXT president, by the Christian God, isn't going to be a mealy-mouthed little imitation American Islamic wannabe. I used to be one of the "live and let live" people. Pull another stunt, and a LOT of Americans like me are going to start thinking that putting you in camps sounds like a pretty good idea. You have no idea what it it REALLY like to be "oppressed" in this country. Watch it, or you may find out.
Religious intolerance....That’s the problem...it’s not a religion, it’s a political system and it has evil intentions.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.