From the Mail Pile: Do I Have An Anti-Mormon Bias? Or Is Something Larger Going On?
In a previous post on the Mormons and the Huntsmans it occasioned some back channel conversations. I’d like to clear the air in a way that’s public and helpful. I struggle with my tone sometimes and I appreciate the opportunity to make clear my views.
There are even those who suggested my list — really the deep state list — of things for the Mormons or their proxies to consider investing in various deep state projects was tantamount to a shakedown. Good heavens! That’s ridiculous but I can see why people in our deeply cynical age misunderstood an invitation for a shakedown so all is forgiven on my end.
But upon further review: Maybe we shouldn't crack down on the Mormon sovereign wealth fund. Maybe we should have them run the American sovereign wealth fund.
No, I think we won’t get very far as a species if we don’t give each other the opportunity for grace. All of us have done things in our past that we aren’t particularly proud of. All of us have black sheep in our families. Some of us are that black sheep. Those of us who have been successful or who have had families which are successful know all this all too well.
Often I think of how my namesake was heavily involved in the oil and gas industry and how that industry has all kinds of externalities that we couldn’t have known about way back when. Like many Mormons, my family also settled the West and I’m proud of the role that they played in being real pioneers. My family has crossed paths with the Mormons many times and I must say that I rather like them.
I’ve learned from my Mormon friends a great deal about the kind of Christian conduct I want in my life. One of my Mormon friends actually saved my life — repeatedly. Another let me stay at his California house when I was too poor to go back to the East Coast. Still another even married me and my ex-wife. The marriage didn’t last but the friendship did. It is they who taught me what they meant by “Choose the right.”
We need to learn to love one another and forgive one another. We need everyone on team — all Americans.
Finally I have great respect for the great families of the Mormon world, the Huntsmans especially. Any patriarch who gives up his son or any son who nobly serves our country is deserving of respect, especially if they could have been doing other things with their time. The Mormon friends I have I cherish and if I caused any of them pain, it was not my intent. They’ve been through a lot over the years and are rightly sensitive.
A good friend notes how I might have gotten it wrong and I reproduce his analysis below. He makes fair critiques. I’ve lightly edited it.
Since you pointed your pen at the Mormons in Utah, I need to come to the aid of my home boys. My mother's people are from Ogden and my parents met at First Presbyterian in Salt Lake City. But they are still our guys.
So, the Mormons have a 100 billion dollar Deseret Fund? Sounds like they consulted Dave Ramsey and he recommended a big emergency fund to take care of the tribe for when the balloon goes up. A pretty healthy financial move, IMO.
Mormons are the last remaining real Protestants. They are hard working and enterprising, they practice the virtues of temperance and non smoking which were common to Protestant Americans a century ago, they save their money, keep their kids in the church and have a strong in group preference to help each other.
Their tithing gives them "owned space". They own much of Utah and Southern Idaho. They have their own institutions.
They are committed to the American experiment. If any group is committed to the American experiment, it is the Mormons.
And if you were to send your future sons (and may you have many) to a college campus to find a wife who would bright up the Johnson gene pool, where would you send them? Harvard? Hardly. BYU!
You do have a point about the CIA recruiting BYU grads. Here, BAP agrees wholeheartedly with you. In his Bronze Age Mindset he says that the Mormon boys get into the CIA (and FBI) because they can pass the security clearance hurdles. BAP argues that these are precisely the kinds of people who the CIA should NOT want. Real spies should know about pimps, prostitutes, poker and the seamy side of life. (I think you would like BAP. He understands organized crime and talks about it alot on his podcasts)
Working through OSS records from the Second World War, I encountered the same sentiment, though not stated so bluntly. I repeatedly saw that the request to find agents with the language skills came with a caveat: Preferably not missionary kids. It is easy to understand why. These Presbyterians and Baptists might have native fluency in Cantonese. But they knew nothing of opium dens.
One more thing. I urged one of my unchurched mentees to visit all the churches in his small town in the Midwest. He told me that the Mormons impressed him most. He saw in them the historic Protestant virtues which made America.
Gambling. My oldest boy suggested that the Super Bowl was rigged. (He watched. I did not). And then your sub stack showed up. Yes.. Let's ban the sport. But above all the gambling. Sports betting is now getting into the colleges. LSU recently sent its students an app with a discount for their first bets. . .
You are primarily concerned, rightly so, about how the mob and foreign intelligence services use gambling.
You can add the social justice side. Gambling preys on the poor.
I am wondering if we can get your friends in the deep state to build a coalition to return gambling to where it was during your grandparents' generation: only in Nevada. Every palace needs a sewer and Las Vegas functioned as the shit hole. Let's get back to the Nevada outhouse.
The police. Yes. We know that there are lots and lots of problems. . . . The Defund the Police movement has helped create a new paradigm in Portland. Downtown businesses hire private security for rapid response. But the private security officers are trained to deescalate. They don't arrest. They have cigarettes and water to hand out. They walk a beat and know all the homeless.
I agree wholeheartedly about the importance of confining gambling to approved zones and how dangerous it can be when it is everywhere in a society. We may well be approaching that in the United States.
I’ll have more to say about BAP at a later date. I’m struggling to put into words just what I want to say. I think others are saying it largely for me. I obviously don’t agree that we should hire anti-social types in government service. We should have patriots but we should be aware of human frailty that plagues all of us. Leave no talent unprocessed!
Ask yourself who you’d rather have as a neighbor — a BAPist or a Mormon? It’s an easy choice isn’t it?
I’ll always open the door for my Mormon neighbors and friends. Sorry if there was any confusion.
I’ll bring the green jello for the next get together.