TheTechnician272d ago

TIL the US state of Missouri's governor signed a Mormon extermination order in 1838 which wasn't formally rescinded until 1976

https://lemmy.world/post/44799030

TIL the US state of Missouri's governor signed a Mormon extermination order in 1838 which wasn't formally rescinded until 1976 - Lemmy.World

Missouri Executive Order 44 (eat your heart out, George) was signed by Lilburn Boggs on October 23, 1838, and ordered that Mormons in the state be “exterminated” or exiled. This destroyed Boggs’ political career, but the order wasn’t formally rescinded until 1976 as a goodwill gesture by Governor Kit Bond. Zombie laws and orders are a hell of a drug that I imagine keep lawyers up at night.

Show threadGalacticGrapefruit23h ago

Ohohohooo

Hey. Ex-Mormon here. Funny story, my ancestors were the ones named in that extermination order.

For context, this came after Mormons had been chased out of Kirtland, Ohio for scamming the local populace with a securities fraud case.

There was an urban legend that went around Mormon communities that the reason why Governor Kit Bond rescinded the order was because of a murder trial in rural Missouri, where two neighbors got into a disagreement. The killer supposedly got off scot-free because his neighbor was Mormon, and the Extermination Order was still in effect.

While the term extermination was used in the order, Boggs would claim later in his life that his main desire was to subdue the Mormons without bloodshed.[20] Historians Alexander L. Baugh and Steven LeSueur suggest the word ‘exterminate’ reflects the historical usage of the term, which more broadly encompassed the expulsion or removal of a group or population from an area.

While Governor Boggs’ intent in the order was to forcibly expel Mormons, the state militia still killed 17 people at the battle of Hahn’s Mill.

Congrats, Governor Boggs, you gave this nascent cult enough reason to fuel a couple centuries worth of victim narrative.

Here’s some extra context

The unfortunate lack of an ensuing investigation of the massacre was not because the law affirmed and upheld the killing of these Mormons, as some might infer. It was due to the fact that the whole situation of the Mormon War was out of control. Those non-Mormons who killed at Haun’s Mill, as well as the non-Mormons who engaged in the burning and looting of Mormon homes, were never tried and convicted; just as those Mormons who killed a State Militia soldier, and participated in burning and looting of non-Mormon homes, were never tried and convicted. LDS historian Stephen C. LeSueur affirmed, “No Mormons were convicted for crimes committed during the Mormon War” (The 1838 Mormon War in Missouri, 256). It is true that the terms of surrender presented to and accepted by the Mormon community placed an immense burden on them; however, the massacre at Haun’s Mill, as horrible as it was, does not support the assertion that it was legal to kill a Mormon in Missouri.

Add on top of that Joseph Smith Jr.'s stay in the local jail, his followers had plenty of reasons to turn Far West into a warzone. Understandably, no one was happy about this.

Joseph Smith Fined $1,000 for Illegal Banking—Then Fled the Country

In February 1837, the self-proclaimed prophet of the Restoration, Joseph Smith, found himself once again on the wrong side of the law—this time, for illegal banking.

Church Expositor
Show threadBarneyPiccolo

You mentioned Kirtland, so I thought I’d let people know that the Mormon nonsense in Kirtland continued to fairly modern times. Here’s the AI blurb on the “Kirtland Cult Killings:”

The 1989 Kirtland cult killings involved the murder of five members of the Avery family—Dennis, Cheryl, and their daughters Trina, Rebecca, and Karen—in Kirtland, Ohio, by cult leader Jeffrey Lundgren and his followers. Lundgren, a radicalized former member of the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, claimed the killings were commanded by God. He was convicted of the murders and executed in 2006.

Mormons are crazy at their best, but there are countless splinter groups like this one, that are downright psychopathic.

Mar 28 at 2:25pmWeb
Show threadJarix18h ago
Please don’t post AI content
Show threadBarneyPiccolo18h ago
It was an accurate synopsis of the story, without forcing people to wade through some journalist’s attempt at literature. I don’t like AI either, but this a pretty benign use of it, as long as you can verify the facts. This one was fine.
Show threadJarix17h ago

“I don’t like it, but now we rely on it”

Look I’m not saying you didn’t use it responsibly, the tech can be used well. But it’s just better not to incorporate it and normalize it. We are already having problem with kids of all ages losing the ability to think critically and if we push this tech into every corner of our lives and never take an intentional stand against it, or we draw no lines in the sand and say here but no further, we are headed in the same direction that has billionaires and other oligarchs choosing for us what is even available to us.

Even what you said, without forcing people to wade through some journalists attempt at literature, well that’s a symptom of forcing journalists to turn every thing of interest they want to write on, into some opinion piece with a tasty juicy story that can be used for clicks and more traffic.

Maybe I’m just a grumpy old man now, but I’m also someone who doesn’t understand why people can’t sit through a good movie, if it’s more than 90 minutes. Like do you not enjoy the things you do?

It’s the constant pressure to turn everything into a headline, and just look at headlines that has put us in such a sorry state.

I’m not arguing that it is or isn’t a benign use of AI that’s really the point to my way of thinking.

It’s a stand against laziness. We have to hold ourselves accountable for the things we choose because they are convenient. Especially when they actually are because we as a whole can’t be trusted to use convenient things as if they arent a worse choice almost every time

Show threadBarneyPiccolo17h ago

I’m a grumpy old man, too, and along with that comes realism. AI is here to stay, so we should encourage responsible uses for it, and strongly resist immoral uses of it, like replacing workers.

Having AI compile a quick answer to a simple question, so I don’t have to research through a half-dozen articles, prepare my own blurb, then vote all the articles, is the kind of thing AI should be used for. I just wanted a quick synopsis of the incident, and it gave me an accurate one, and nobody has to lose their job. How dumb would it be to ignore that, and then go write my own, that would take a bunch of time, and probably wouldnt be as good?

And please don’t write your own statement, put quotes around that, and attribute it to me. If I believed that, I would say it, but I don’t believe that, and I didn’t say it. Few things are more disengenuous than putting false words in someone’s mouth, and then using that false statement as a poor argument to defend your own poor position against.