Harry Reid: A Mormon in the Middle

If you are trying to imply that BYU is a hotbed of liberalism, with all due respect that could be the silliest thing I’ve seen all year.

No, I'm not saying that at all. I'm saying they lack the discernment because they engage in identity socio-politics FIRST, and everything else is a distant SECOND...
Example 1: I've seen 5 FR thread/posts re financial scam Mormons taking advantage of fellow ward Mormons this yr alone -- ponzi schemes -- two in the last 2 wks...why? 'cause they trust the Mormon ID FIRST, and fall for the rest of the scams they offer up...
Example 2: Likewise, some of the BYU faithful were trusting Reid FIRST because of the Lds ID...
Example 3: Just like Lds trusted Smith on his liberal position on marriage (more than one wife) -- even though their good books (Bible & Book of Mormon) told them otherwise...they trusted the ID of Smith FIRST...and foreclosed on what their good books told them about marriage

Great point on how some LDS members seemed to get so easily deceived!

Mormons set these examples like low-hanging fruit...Mitt Romney is another perfect example...he was pro-abortion thruout the 90s...wrote a letter to the editor of Utah newspaper telling folks he didn't consider himself "pro-choice...then campaigned heavily as pro-abortion as Mass gov...then supposedly "converted" to pro-life, only then to tell folks several years into his gubernatorial pos. that he wasn't going to rile up "the status-quo" pos. on abortion in that state! And then appointed a Planned Parenthood rep to help permanently oversee RomneyCare in that state...yet supposedly 95% of "pro-life" Mormons voted for him in Utah, Wyoming, AZ & Nevada! (go figure)

Likewise Romney took 3 separate stances on whether hiring homosexuals should be a civil rights issue -- all while being a long-time board member for Marriott of the porn industry -- run by a Mormon hierarchy religious figure whose padded his pockets with porn prostitutes! (No better than a twice-removed pimp) Yet "anti-porn" Mormons look past the Romney pro-homosexual positions he for the Log Cabin Republicans in the Bay State and the above -- and they look past the porn revenue of Bill Marriott. Why? ('Cause they're Mormon...Identity socio-politics!)

The assumption is always that Romney only pretended to move to the right for the presidential election. Isn’t it equally plausible that Romney moved to the left during the governor race and as governor in order to have a chance in Massachusetts?

Ah, excellent diagnostician on Mitt's "symptoms" but a wrong core conclusion. Comments I've heard from other posters who give Mitt the "benefit of the doubt" seem to assume Mitt was somewhat of a middle moderate who...
...shifted left in the early 90s,
...shifted left again in '02,
...then shifted right midway thru gubernatorial position,
...then left again for appeasing RomneyCare pushers,
...and then back to the right for POTUSville.

My observation is that Mitt has no "center" of who he even is @ his core. Few core convictions & accompanying "identity" (other than "Mormon" and the Romney political name). If you have no true lasting "center," that's a vacous place to be -- willing to "sell your soul" to the political process of appeasement.

This observation is best anchored in Romney's 8/12/07 Fox interview with Chris Wallace: Romney: "I never called myself pro-choice.
I never allowed myself to use the word pro-choice because I didn't FEEL I was pro-choice.
I would protect the law, I said, as it was, but I wasn't pro-choice, and so..."

That amounts to whatever he was from…
…1970 when his mom ran as a pro-abortion senator & he sided with her,
…to the early 90s when he attended a Planned Parenthood fundraiser (& his wife wrote a check to Planned Parenthood in trying to “outflank” pro-abortion opposing candidate Ted Kennedy)…
…to 2002 when he solicited a third pro-abortion voters guide after filling out two other pro-abortion guides…
…up until 5/27/05 – when he promised he would CONTINUE to protect the “status quo” of abortion in a press conference -- w/whatever “interruption” he had due to a pro-life altar call in Nov of '04, whatever that was...well, he assured us in August 2007 campaign mode that it wasn't a pro-abortion inlook or outlook 'cause he didn't ”feel...pro-choice..."

Now is this just “Mormon talk” for basing reality upon some sentimental burning bosom – how you “feel” = reality? (Or does reality transcend that & includes how you talk & act & trust?) Would the pre-born babies aborted now say in heaven, “Yes, Mitt was our man because he never ‘called’ himself pro-choice and never 'felt' like it?")

Believe me, when a politician claims he is not pro-abortion or pro-choice while saying, “I would protect the [abortion] laws,” how is that distinct from WWII German politicians in the various death camps regions claiming that “all” they were doing was upholding German laws?

A politician who actually takes the time to write a letter-to-the-editor of a Utah newspaper in 2001 – like Romney did – to claim that he “wasn’t pro-choice” – and then in 2002 campaigns on abortion and goes out of his way to even expand pro-abortion voter guide awareness has no moral core center of protecting life. And when his…
… 2001 position opposes his 1992 position.
…And when his 2002 position opposes his 2001 position.
…And when his Nov. 2004 position opposes his 2002 position.
…And when his May 27, 2005-2006 position opposes his November 2004 position.
…And when his most-of-2007 campaign position opposes his mid-2005, etc. position.
…And when his Dec 2007 Katie Couric interview opposes his previous 2007 pro-life statements…
…you have a politician whose core is ultimate flexible rubber.

Those kind of convictions bounce like a bad check.

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