Apocalips

A stream of consummate insanity continues to flow from Warren Apocalips Jeffs.  Faithful FLDS congregants are being admonished to refrain from sex and to swear complete allegiance to Jeffs by the end of 2011, lest they suffer divine wrath and destruction.

For many years I have pondered on the nature of the relationship between the FLDS people and their leaders.  Some say that the critical "fork in the road" occurred in the early 1980's.  There was a dispute at that time over whether or not each member of the council of the the twelve held the same authority as the president, such that at the passing of the president, the senior member automatically assumed the position of president.  Apparently, some leaders abandoned this formula and dismissed the pivotal revelation given to Wilford Woodruff in 1880 on this very topic.  This caused the ideological split.  This was the genesis of the "One Man Rule" leadership model - the seedbed for a hierarchy utterly controlled by a monolithic dictator -  a Jeffs.

I have struggled at length with other caring observers to figure out where to point the finger of blame for the current crazed state of affairs.  Is Warren Jeffs truly to blame?  Jeffs is culpable for his own integrity lapses.  He is guilty of a litany of abuses.  He is the epitome of a terrorist.  He takes wicked delight in toying with his victims.  He is a true psychopath.  He is like some of the hater-harpies - he is blithely complacent about destroying families.  More importantly, however, he would not be able to get away with any of his perverse manipulations if it were not for several thousand people who think that simply by virtue of the fact that he occupies the station of church president, he is somehow imbued with divine investiture - the steward of God on earth - the "PROPHET".

Brigham Young spoke often and adamantly about the importance of not abdicating one's free agency to some corruptible mortal church leader person.  This was one of the fundamental tenets of Mormonism.  I shudder to think that modern adherents, mainstream and FLDS alike, have undergone such an ideological metamorphosis that their religion is no longer akin to the gospels restored through Joseph Smith.  In one short generation, thousands of honorable saints have turned into lemmings, merely as a result of a doctrinal diversion.

Warren Jeffs is doomed to suffer long and greatly.  He has caused untold pain to many honest, decent people.  What, however, is the fate of the obsequious sycophants who have been trained from birth to do whatever they are told to do by their megalomaniac, lunatic leader?  I hearken back to the idea that God Himself is partly complicit.  He knew perfectly well before He put those pre-mortal spirits into those Short Creek FLDS embryos that they would be raised in a unique and ultimately bizarre environment.  This was part of the plan - the moral test.  These good, honorable souls are faced with a crucial choice - choose true principle or a false doctrine and its false prophet.  As the lunacy crescendos, each one must weigh the options and measure the pressures against the promptings of the Spirit and the bedrock teachings in revealed scriptures.  Like it or not, the inevitable train-wreck of this community is just around the corner.  One can only hope that the latest in Jeffs' wacky antics will trigger an awakening - a personal epiphany for many.  Surely many, many of the people are scratching their heads and wondering why things are getting so strange - why they have to part with their pets and tricycles and now their children.  Even now, people are vanishing.  Maybe, when the Apocalypse fails to occur a half an hour from now (midnight 12/31/2011), some will wonder if the prophet is false after all.

I'm sure cult experts have written volumes on how difficult it is to break free from the tyrannical psychological clutches of a religious dictator.  To my way of thinking, the hardest part would be facing up to the realization that virtually your whole life has been based on a religious distortion, and that you let yourself get slowly sucked in because your were afraid to lose your job or your home or your wives and kids.  This was the wizardry of the Jeffs incumbency - he kept you in the dark - people were told only the bare minimum of what they needed to know.  Jeffs controls access to information.  He threatens you with the forfeiture of your salvation (not even doctrinally feasible).  He even controls the local police.  He conspires with his brothers to execute his dictates.  His control is political, financial and religious - a dangerous combination.

No matter where you ascribe the culpability, many of these townsfolk are innocent.  They are just trying to survive and please God.  When this sick house of cards comes crashing down, there will be an immense humanitarian crisis.  Tonia Tool (Holding Out Hostages) is all over the news, clamoring for the castaways to come into her lairs.  The crisis will not so much be one of food and lodging, moreso a crisis of faith - one that the hater-hags cannot remedy.

The gospel dispensed to Joseph Smith was pure at its source.  Despite his immense significance in the history of this planet, he was a mortal man.  All of the gospel dispensations (except Enoch's) were doomed to crash and burn.  Attributing perfection to a mortal is foolhardy.  The restored fullness of the gospel of Jesus Christ and the gospel of the Father are perfect in principle - they are the "baby" that must not be "thrown out with the" Jeffs "bathwater".  That is the essence of the humanitarian crisis.

Are you in a position to offer the right kind of assistance?
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Why Bother?

The Amicus (friend of the Court) George Macintosh was the attorney appointed by the provincial government of British Columbia to argue against Canada's (S.293) ridiculous anti-polygamy law.  I received word today that Macintosh is declining to appeal the recent decision from Chief Justice Robert Bauman which upheld the law.

I guess I would be more upset if I thought there was good reason to appeal the stupid decision.  Chances are that, if this case got to the B.C. Court of Appeals or to the Canadian Supreme Court, either would reverse Bauman and decriminalize Canada's polygamists.  Truth is - Canada's polygamists are already decriminalized - appeal or no appeal.  What would you like to bet me that no BC polygamist will be arrested?

Canada is playing the same game as the idiots in Utah.  Last week, Utah's Attorney General deputy Jerrold Jenson told a Federal judge that the Utah County attorney, Jeff Buhman has not yet decided whether to arrest the Browns (and have them extradited from Vegas).  I believe he has decided, but that he doesn't want to admit it.  If he says he won't prosecute, the Browns have good cause to ask that the bigamy statute be stricken.  If he says that he will prosecute, the Browns have good cause to complain that they are threatened by the law and thus have harm and standing with which to challenge it.

The politicians just want to preserve the status quo - one in which polygamists can be painted as outlaws and felons, and can be demonized by society as legal lepers.

Massacre

Yesterday and today saw the Syrian government massacre over 200 of its own people - defectors from the army, and residents of a village near the Turkish border.  I am horrified at the brutality of the Assad regime - its willingness to murder its citizens in order to preserve dictatorial control.  It does not appear that the U.S. has any interest in military intervention.  I guess I'm okay with that.  We had no business going into Iraq - other than to control its oil output.  In Afghanistan, opium production has skyrocketed since our intervention began.

Some people may be sighing a sigh of relief that such massacres do not take place in our own country - except for the one in Waco in 1993 - - -  oh, and the one where they deliberately demolished the Twin Towers to trigger a Middle East war.  Good, white Christian folk just don't do that stuff, do they?  Well, yes, the good, white folk of Hitler's third Reich did it.  I guess it doesn't matter whether your skin is black, brown, red, yellow, olive or white, you are not immune from the tendency to massacre.  Obama's FCC is trying to control cable stations, radio broadcasts - even the Internet.  Massacres are just the last link in the chain of tyrannies required for curbing dissent and silencing protesters.  In 1900, the Russian "Russ" made up the largest group of Christians (100 million) in the world.  Stalin annihilated a significant portion of them.

Boy, a Telestial world can be a cruel place sometimes - and yet our universe is filled with them.  I like to watch those Science channel shows that show the fabric of the universe.  Our own galaxy has over 200 billion stars in it, and astronomers have detected at least 200 billion galaxies.  Do the math!

I guess I can take solace only in the fact that this mortal probation is but a brief moment in our eternal journey - that those poor Syrian villagers passed on relatively swiftly, and that they are in a more rewarding place now.  As a wise man recently noted, there is a set of scales in the divine control room, and when the oppression manifested by mankind surpasses the oppression required of God in the form of divine discipline, God can intervene.  It remains to be seen whether the atrocities of the 21st century are greater than those of earlier times.  I suspect they are.  I look at Europe - a place from whence the best blood of Israel was to come.  Europeans are under-reproducing.  More than half the households are a single person.  Russia is considering legalizing polygamy and banning abortion (the average Russian bride has had three abortions). Christianity in Europe is virtually dead.  Religion is seen as a joke.  The Mormon Church is shrinking in the British Isles - closing wards and chapels.  The love of men is "waxing cold".

I look at some of our politicians - Anthony Wiener, Rahm Emmanuel, Nancy Pelosi, Chris Dodd, Barney Frank, Dick Cheney, Maxine Waters - the list goes on - and I think - "What would it take for them to call for a massacre, if it served their craven purposes enough?"

Are we really shielded from future holocausts?  With only three days worth of food in the grocery stores, and the whole Western world on the brink of insolvency, are we really secure?

I have said it many times, but when the fat hits the shin, there will be only two types of people in this world:

1.  The ones who would rather starve than kill a fellow human.
2.  The ones who would rather kill a fellow human than starve.

Which one are you?

Dignified and Respectful

The Air Force promised the families of 274 airmen killed while on duty that their remains would be disposed of in a dignified and respectful manner.

The remains were dumped in a landfill.
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Kool-Aid Time

Rumors are bubbling out of the Creek that things are devolving rapidly.  The nightly news is showing pictures of trampolines and tricycles stacked up ready for sale.  Warren or his brother must be exacting ever more oppressive demands of the beleaguered congregants.  No more toys, no more trampolines, no more 4-wheeling, and NO MORE SEX !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Young single girls must walk around with wedding bands to give off the pretense of being married.  Families are being squeezed to cough up thousands more dollars for the "Prophet", for printing and mailing those asinine doomsday proclamations filled with gerunds (to the tune of hundreds of thousands of wasted dollars).

Warren wants the married adults to cease and desist from all marital conjugating.  The Jeffs hench-elders are grilling the husbands and wives to see if they are of-a-consummating their relationships.  God help anyone who conceives a child in this apocalyptic climate.

Under Jim (Warren [yes, 'Warren' really is his middle name !!!]) Jones in tragic Jonestown, Guyana, the vast majority of the followers stayed sucked in till the bitter end, glugging the cyanide-laced Kool-Aid in a frenzied ritual of blind complying.  What is there about the current events in the twin towns that is any different?

 . . . . or will these fundamentally decent and intelligent people (who once had a benevolent king) wake up from the fog of obsequiousness and slavery, and remember that God's political structures always incorporated checks and balances, and separation of powers?

So, which will it be - hundreds of puffy bodies of men, women and children lying under the hot sun and swarms of flies, or a mass ideological epiphany?  Word is - this suffocating, tyrannical cult dictatorship is squeezing so hard that it is squeezing the Creek's best and brightest out into the clean, fresh cathartic air of truth and reality.  Warren is a deviant, crazed monster (with grammar of a new making).  Do you have to be deprived of all your human dignities and possessions in order to accept that?  Is it so hard to realize that you have been bamboozled by a cult (not colt) megalomaniac - to admit that your marriages were choreographed by a mad man?  That's why we have a Savior, an atonement, a chance to repent and make amends.  What? - it's not your fault, because you were born into this Matrix?  That's no excuse.

Remember, you were chosen to come to this land at this time.  You covenanted with your Heavenly Father to be born into the Everlasting Covenant, into the fullness of the Gospel at a time when there would be false prophets like Jeffs, Hinckley and Monson.  These trials were crafted specifically for you.  Are you going to stand on true principle or be tossed to and fro with every wind of dogma?

This Warren insanity is the exquisite test - a perfect gauge of your mettle - of your faithfulness to eternal truths and not to the corruptible arm of sick Jeffs flesh.  Which will you drink? - the dews of heaven or the Kool-Aid of poisoning?

Direct European Bailout

Yesterday the Dow Jones jumped up 490 points - a huge boost.  This was spurred largely by news that Europe may finally be figuring out how to calm the debt jitters over Greece and the other countries on the brink of default.

Today as the dust settles, observers are noticing that the plan under consideration proposes to allow Germany to dictate the day-to-day financial operations of the struggling European nations - in exchange for Germany providing the bailout.  Apparently, some of those countries are realizing that they don't want their financial affairs to be regulated by Germany.

If Germany fails to make the necessary loans available to the failing nations, then a widespread collapse would be inevitable -

UNLESS . . . . . . . . . . . . . 

Obama succeeds in convincing U.S. taxpayers that our tax dollars must now go to these over-indebted, flunky Mediterranean nations who have partied at the public trough for too many decades. Obama will cry doom, of course - "If we fail to rescue these troubled countries, the economic implosion will reverberate in our economy, and we will face horrible catastrophes here at home!"

40 cents from every dollar loaned by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) comes from the U.S. (after we borrow it from China). If the Germany solution doesn't succeed, then the IMF will surely come begging for U.S. dollars, and we will inevitably play along.  I wouldn't be surprised if Bernanke just went ahead and coughed up the money in spite of the Congress or the wishes of the American people.

I know I keep asking the same question, but if all the Western nations (who, granted, are shuffling debts amongst themselves all the time) are collectively way too deeply indebted to some private bank(s), why do we not propose that the entire Western world file a Chapter 7 bankruptcy and be done with it - start over with a clean slate?  After all, that's what the Bible requires.  Do those bankers really need all our stuff?  What on earth could they do with all of it, anyway?

Don't tell me that someone doesn't have a cunning plan up his sleeve to systematically crash all of the Western economies to force a global, "New-World" currency, overseen by the bank owners.

Are you feeling powerless yet?

Backlash

It seems the backlash is already brewing.  B.C. Chief Justice Bauman contorted himself into upholding one of the world's stupidest and most tyrannical laws.  Many Canadian observers and commentators are taking note of this decision, and it is sinking in that Bauman's choice is questionable at best.  The common thread in these critiques is a touch of bewilderment that such an intelligent jurist could reach such bizarre conclusions.  It isn't that his explanations weren't articulate and reasoned - it's just that he is wrong and out of touch.  You cannot criminalize private, consensual-adult associations and intimacies in a modern, Western nation.  You daren't even try.  It isn't even clear what he means in some cases.  Let me show you with one simple excerpt from Bauman's ruling just how myopic he truly is:

"Having found a reasoned apprehension that polygamy is associated with numerous harms, it follows that criminalizing the practice is one way of limiting those harms, . .  ."

So, clearly the criminalization of the practice for the last 100 years has successfully limited the harms associated with the practice of polygamy, right?  !!!!!!!!!!!!!  Okay, follow along with me here.  If that kind of logic is the best grounds for the passage of criminal legislation, then we should criminalize the practice of divorce, right?  After all, divorce devastates the lives of millions every year.  The same thing is true for guns and knives, so we should ban them, too, right? We should ban cars and chemicals (both of which kill tens of thousands per year). We should ban single-parenting or the promiscuity that causes it.  The list never ends, but some shrill little posse of haters and colluding politicians has decided to criminalize a rare and specific practice which to my knowledge has not been the cause of a single domestic violence fatality in the Americas in over 100 years.

A friend pointed out to me another incongruous aspect of this ruling that I had ignored.  Bauman stresses the salutary benefits of S.293 in that it endeavors to protect women and children from "harms".  Feminists must surely view this a little dimly since polyandrous unions would also be criminalized.  What about the four poor, subjugated men who find themselves in a plural marriage with one overbearing woman?  Don't they deserve to be protected from all this harm and danger, too ?????

The ambiguity and pomposity of Bauman's reasoning leaves us all wondering how the criminalization he champions could ever be implemented.  Please read the following articles:

A-confused-judicial-treatise-on-polygamy/
Canada-doesnt-need-a-law-banning-polygamy/
We-have-as-many-double-standards-on-polygamy-as-solomon-had-wives/
Polygamy-ruling-offers-road-map-to-avoid-prosecution-lawyer/
State-shouldnt-interfere-in-consensual-adult-relationships/

The hater-harpies are dancing and celebrating what, to them, appears to be a pivotal victory.  The long-awaited day has arrived when law-enforcement can storm the homes of the Fundamentalist Mormons and round up the criminal adults in 'multiple conjugal groupings'.

Fast forward to the arraignment:

"Your Lordship, these three people were found in the same house sewing and doing laundry.  We have good reason to believe that they have formed a multiple conjugal grouping, otherwise termed 'religious polygamy solemnized by a religious ceremonial ritual overseen by one of their informal clerics'. We ask that they be denied bail because of the extreme flight risk."

In the history of the world, there have been entire nations which have been seduced into insanity and self-destruction by false ideals and bigotry.  Let's hope that Canada wakes up in time.

WHAT AN IDIOT !!!

Yesterday I got word that British Columbia's Chief Justice Robert Bauman published his decision upholding S.293 (Canada's anti-polygamy law), stating that 'there is no such thing as so-called “good polygamy”'.

This approach is certainly the more judicially convenient and politically palatable one for him to take. From a practical perspective, however, has he thought through what comes next?  Will they round up all the women and then put the kids in orphanages?

Bauman also says that the original spirit and purpose of S.293 was to "protect the institution of monogamy".  I find this utterly disingenuous.  First, the institution of monogamy in Canada must surely be highly susceptible to change in light of the relaxed gender requirement as of 2005.  Secondly, the tens of thousands of polygamists and polyamorists in Canada have had no impact on the institution of monogamy to date, and their continued existence will be no more relevant than before.  It appears that Bauman was taken in by some of the spurious theories of the hater-nasty tribe.  He even falls for the "not-enough-women-to-go-around", "zero-sum" lunacy!

Sorry, but I am now persuaded that this judge has either no backbone or no brain.  At least now he can wash his hands of the entire matter.  After reading some of Bauman's reasoning, I am persuaded of the following:

1.  He is educated and articulate.

2.  He had his mind made up before the Reference proceedings were over.

3.  Having decided to rule that polygamy was "inherently" harmful, he had to massage the arguments to support and 'back into' his pre-determined conclusion.

The problem with deciding to prohibit polygamy because of the "inherent harms" associated with it is that you cannot prosecute the (intangible) "institution of polygamy".  You can only prosecute the human actors who espouse the abstract concept of polygamy.  This is just like my earlier point about knives.  Knives are far more tangible and are (admittedly) inherently dangerous - they wound and kill people, but no judge in his right mind would ever dream of outlawing knives.  I shall quote some of Bauman's argument so that you can further see the bizarre fallacy of his reasoning (emphasis mine):

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' . . . . S. 293 prohibits more than two individuals from associating with one another in a conjugal union. As seen above, the criminal law does not prohibit a whole range of activities that can be characterized as polygamous, such as:

(a) Serial monogamy, through divorce and remarriage (de facto polygyny, as it is sometimes called from an evolutionary psychology perspective);
(b) Having sex or affairs with any number of partners while in a conjugal union with an unknowing and unconsenting partner (that is, adultery);
(c) Having sex with many partners at the same time;
(d) Having children with more than one partner, whether as a result of conjugal union, one night stands or even group sex; and
(e) Raising children by more than two adults, such as through blended families, including where one or more adults are unrelated to the children.

Yet, while the law is tolerant of these behaviours, S. 293 criminalizes three adults from agreeing to form a conjugal union together. Section 293 prohibits their association together as a conjugal union. While polygamous activities are not prohibited, s. 293 criminalizes polygamous groupings. 

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What the HELL is a "polygamous grouping"?  What kind of tortured logic is that?  How do you dispatch the Mounties to a polygamous household to check for that - (especially if the women live in separate residences)?  If all of the multiple-sex-partner activities listed above are "not prohibited" by S.293, then what will the exact nature of the charge be?  This judge (like the law-enforcement community in Utah) has painted himself into a corner where his framing of the crime of polygamy is essentially as a 'thought crime' -- "Have sex for the wrong reasons, and we will imprison you!"  I predict that there will be no more successful convictions now under (the freshly upheld) S.293 than there were in the last 100 years.

I hope that George Macintosh will be financially supported by the province to take the case to the Court of Appeals.  If not, then I can't wait for them to try to prosecute the first family for polygamously grouping.  After all, if it is a "group" crime, they'll have to arrest the women over 18, too.  That will go over real well !!!  They don't remember the 1953 Short Creek raid, do they?

WHAT AN IDIOT !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 

Read this brilliant article concurring with my thoughts.

Today's the Day

Today's the day when Justice Robert Bauman will issue his decision in the polygamy reference case addressing whether Canada's (S.293) law forbidding polygamy is in violation of Canada's charter of rights and freedoms.

I pity the poor guy.  The hater-witches are not wrong - Warren did molest the young wives.  Does this mean that all polygamists must go to prison?  The law says that you are guilty of polygamy even if you didn't have sex with any of your partners, and even if you don't even intend to have sex with them.  What, then, constitutes "a partner"? - someone with whom you study at the library?

I have said it twice before, so now I'm belaboring, but I think there are three potential outcomes in this decision (one of which I'm not sure is even available to Justice Bauman):

1.  S.293 is constitutional (and doesn't violate the Charter). 
2.  S.293 is unconstitutional and is now void.
3.  The B.C. parliament must craft a more legally sound anti-polygamy statute (I don't think he has the option to order this, but we'll see).

So, folks, picture me now, sitting at my desk, grinning from ear to ear in anticipation of the announcement around lunch-time today.  How fortunate I am to be happy with whichever decision comes down. Why? - because we win either way!

If S.293 is upheld, will they go and arrest Winston and Jimmy today, or will they wait until the case is appealed before the Canadian Supreme Court?

If Winston and Jimmy are prosecuted under this stupid law, what will be the nature of their crime? - "You had more than one sex partner, and you had religious thoughts in your mind during the same approximate time period"?

If, by some stroke of fate, Justice Bauman orders the law to be rewritten, I, Renn Oldsbuster, will personally demand to be part of the rewriting team.  I will take a sabbatical from my company and go to Vancouver and show those Members of Parliament how it's done (and vastly simplified from the original): -

Polygamy
S.293 Revised, 2012
(1) Every one who has sex with more than one person in a ten-year period is guilty of an indictable polygamy offence, and liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding five years.
(2) It shall be a defence to the indictment if the accused can show either that:
   a) All of the partners were of the same sex as the accused, or
   b) All of the intimate activities were engaged in solely for recreational purposes, or
   c) No sexual intercourse occurred, or
   d) None of the participants was a member of any religious congregation at the the time the sexual intercourse occurred.
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That ought to work, don't you think?
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