In an article dated October 17, 2011, on Slate-dot-com, Christopher Hitchens published an article called "Romney's Mormon Problem". His basic tenet was, who cares if Mormonism is a cult or not, it's the religion's sinister beliefs that matter. I love the use of the word sinister - it's very appropriate. This article was one of the great Hitch's last before his death from pneumonia related complications due to esophegeal cancer on December 15th of last year. Here is my comment/reply to Hitchens' article.
Amazing article. Thank you Mr. Hitchens, posthumously, for writing something that needed so badly to be put out there, as one of your final essays. I was a Mormon, born and raised. I escaped three decades ago, and helped influence my younger brother to do the same. The rest of my family on both sides (except one Jehovah's Witness aunt belong faithfully to the cult. Mormons are strange, and clickish (see; cultish), but they're also, for the most part, good people. Their beliefs, however, are sinister. Especially in light of two of them are running for the highest office in the land, Romney and Huntsman, and Romney seems to be the front runner. Except for his well-known corporate greed and wealth created by buying out good, functioning companies and demolishing them to "part out" and sell off all the company's valuable assets at the expense of local economies and jobs, muckrakers and journalists are never going to dig up dirt on Romney. I'd put Vegas odds on it. Astronomically overwhelming odds are he's never cheated on his wife, taken a male escort to Belize, committed any financial misdeed that wasn't technically legal (even though entirely immoral and unethical). Why? Because he's a Mormon. This all might sound good on paper, but all that is kind of like, in my humble opinion, like electing Damien Thorn ("The Omen") or Rosemary's Baby to the place where the anti-christ can do the most damage.
Mormon's believe that "in the end times, the United States government will "hang by a thread", and that worthy priesthood members will step in and "save the day" by taking over - and basically enacting something akin to Sharia law, turning our already shaky democracy into a full blown and truly terrible theocracy. Anyone who doubts this, just take a look at Utah politics. Utah is practically a theocracy as it is. I high-tailed it out of that state the minute I was old enough. I have personally talked to a lot of Mormons who, while loving their church, shudder at the thought of the POTUS answering to the "prophet" in Salt Lake City". These people were raised in a free country and want to see it stay that way. They want the freedom for others to live as they would, as well. Others, however, in my non-scientific estimation, the vast majority of Mormons, have wholly consumed the purple Kool-Aid and think it would be just peachy if the entire world were forced by threat of death or slavery or loss of freedom to bow to the "elders" and tow the line of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.
To me, it is terrifying to think of a magic-underwear wearing (complete with symbols stolen by Joseph Smith from Freemasonry) Melchizedek priesthood-bearing drone of Mormondom to be within a stone's throw of "the button". People argue that the office of president is largely ceremonial and that of a figure-head, that the real power lies in Congress, and while this may be to a certain extent true, it is also true that by taking advantage of national crises, figure-heads can gain real, terrible and terrifying power. Look at how Hitler took advantage of Germany's runaway inflation in the thirties. Look at how the Patriot Act has completely gutted our American people's personal liberties and rights to privacy because of a single, horrible as it was, act of terrorism. As a dyed-in-the-wool Star Wars geek, I call it "Palpatine syndrome." (If you don't get the reference, fuggedaboudit, you're not geeky enough!)
The problem with all of this is, who do we vote for? I'm a slightly left-leaning centrist, basically. I believe in a fairly free market-place, where business, small and large is allowed to prosper, but not at the expense of Dickensian conditions for workers and catastrophic results for the environment. I believe in moderate progressive taxes that guarantee social security and socialized medicine (with checks in place that guarantee the rights for personal decisions such as smoking, danger-chasing, and eating foods that aren't good for you without interference by the state.) We need someone who will stand up for the Constitution and for the checks and balances that keep us from hastily voting away our freedom and liberty in times of crisis and national panic. Obama has proven to be a turn-coat, a Trojan horse who has given the right, the Republicans more than they could have ever taken if McCain had won the presidency. All-in-all, I still suppose he's the best choice that has a snowball's chance in hell of winning, and maybe, just maybe when he doesn't have a re-election to worry about, he really will keep some of those promises he made four years ago.
But lets not vote in a born-again religitard like Perry, Santorum, Ron Paul and that jaded, evil old troll Newt Gingrich - and let's not vote in a scary cult member in good standing who will bow to the will of the legacy of Joseph the huckster-fraud-pedophile-hat-scrying-polygamist-cultleader Smith. No theocracy in the United States of America!
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