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Those are all great points. To me, this is like when Utah voted to repeal probation in 1933. You might think you know how “the people” will vote. But never ask a question you don’t want the answer to!

I was in favor of Roe's overturn, to return the matter to the people. Kansas is off happily voting what they want into law on the matter. Good for them. Kansas law allows for an abortion up to 22 weeks after the last menstrual period. After that point, only in cases of life or severely compromised physical health may an abortion be performed, with this limit set on the belief that a fetus can feel pain after that point in the pregnancy. It's more than just legislation, it's written in to the state constitution. Honestly, that ain't bad reasoning. If God's gonna allow humans to make up their own minds on when life is worth protecting, "as soon as it can feel pain" seems like something folks wouldn't mind being judged by the Almighty about. Kentuckians wanted to enshrine such things in their constitution, so whims of whatever legislature is in power currently can't just change things with legislation. Kentuckians have what they want. Many Kentuckians wanted to change their state constitution to kill abortion entirely, they couldn't find enough to get it done. Good for Kentucky, getting exactly the law they want, with exactly the hurdles they want to change things. Get bent, federal government, and bad SCOTUS decisions. Hooray for states rights! And hooray for protecting the life of the fetus once it can feel pain! It doesn't exactly align with my personal take on things, but it's not bad.

@NeuroTypical-check out what happened in Kansas recently regarding abortion. This is Kansas, one the reddest states out there. Can’t blame “the left”’ for this one. https://ballotpedia.org/Kansas_No_State_Constitutional_Right_to_Abortion_and_Legislative_Power_to_Regulate_Abortion_Amendment_(August_2022) Not only did it not pass, it got slapped in the face. This should be a major red flag (no pun intended) for the GOP. If the right wants to put gay marriage on the ballots…well, I call their bluff. Go for it.

Hopefully he learned something and will be more careful with his words next time.

Looks like either way he's paying for his mistakes. 5.6 million owed...and damages still to come. Ouch.

In some ways, I wish this were as easy as Spencer W. Kimball's quote, "Do it." We are informed in scripture to take the "yoke" of Christ upon us. We have wonderful poems, analogies, that say when you see only one set of footsteps it is because the Lord was carrying you at that time. We come up with other analogies to comfort, or try to comfort, our hurting souls. In practice for us to fully practice this we must be "fair dinkum" -- fully committed. This correlates with with what Omni said, "offer your whole souls as an offering unto him." This is why it is also hard, because the majority of us, in practice, do not fully commit and give our whole selves unto the Lord. We seek to maintain - self. To cast fully our burden on him, means we lose "self." When we look over scripture we can see highlights of how this looks in practice (even in not in perfection): 2 Nephi 4 Alma the Younger who remembered the words of his father about a Savior Stephen upon being stoned who saw the heaven's open Nephi upon being tied by his brothers allowed his suffering to be caught up in Christ Alma and the Nephites when seized upon by the Lamanites And many others I'm writing this, full well, knowing I'm not yet 'fair dinkum' -- at one point I felt like I was fully committed -- until I had some experiences in life that shifted many thoughts of mine. The shift is all do to the word "self". If we take Lehi's counsel, invitation, to Laman and Lemuel to be righteous like unto the river they past flowing continually into the sea of righteousness. As we look further into the analogy, when the river flows into the sea are we able to tell the difference between the water in the sea and the water coming from the river? No. But if we seek to maintain "self" then we ultimately seek to maintain our ways, our truth, and our life.

I agree with this. As far as I can tell, Alex Jones is a liar who traffics in people's naivete and ignorance. But that view is fueled by media reports. I have never listened to the man, so I can't say with any confidence what the man believes or preaches. I'm not going to take the word of the likes of CNN. As mirkwood pointed out, no believing Latter-day Saint can deny the existence of conspiracies. For that matter, no reasonably intelligent human being with any amount of exposure to human society can deny it. But believing in the general existence of harmful, evil conspiracies and believing in some particular claim of conspiracy are entirely different matters. By its nature, a conspiracy is secret. That's pretty much baked into the definition of the word. Successful conspiracies generally do not become known. If they do, it's because they're old and defunct (e.g. the Great Light Bulb Conspiracy, aka the Phoebus Cartel) or they're so powerful that they don't care about being known (e.g. OPEC). You may have noticed the overlap between conspiracies and cartels. This is not coincidental. Consider this hypothetical: A group of Illuminati-minded people with the money, ambition, connections, and raw power to attempt an invasion of governments worldwide form a conspiracy, what the Book of Mormon calls a "secret combination". If their conspiracy involves too many people, it risks becoming known; everyone who knows about it is a potential liability. So they play their cards close to the vest, with only a few people at the top of the pyramid really knowing what's up. They use puppet actors and corporations to set up their conditions so that it becomes exceedingly difficult to trace their activities back to them. As they grow in power, they gain control of the media and other means of information dissemination, such that they can more directly control what information gets out. How would such a conspiracy ever be discovered? Only one way: A member of the conspiracy would have to betray the secret and make it public knowledge. But such a person would not be believed without evidence, and of course that evidence would be quickly covered up by the conspiracy members. Any information that made it out would be dealt with by the media and governmental elements controlled by the conspiracy. The only other way such a conspiracy could be uncovered is by a mole making his way in, collecting information, and then exposing the conspiracy. This becomes more and more unlikely the longer the conspiracy remains and continues consolidating its power. Such a mole would never make it to the courts. He would be dealt with, by which I mean he would be disposed of. Sound familiar? Of course it does. It's mobocracy. It's the Cosa Nostra. It's evil people with wicked intent to gain power and money. Such has it always been. Given the secretive nature of such conspiracies, is it any wonder that Jeffrey Epstein's supposed (and very convenient) suicide is greeted with rolled eyes and doubt? If it looks, acts, and smells like conspiracy, isn't that evidence? But of course, without truly damning evidence, the majority won't believe such a thing. It's far too easy to make up some conspiratorial explanation. In any case, such evidence is unlikely to be found. Why do you suppose that Bill Clinton, Bill Gates, and other men (including men not named Bill, e.g. the UK's Prince Andrew) involved with Epstein have not been connected to him in more than a cursory manner? Are we to believe that all of these rich and powerful men with known attachments to illicit sex were simply at the wrong place at the wrong time and are innocent bystanders? I believe few of the conspiracy allegations I hear, but I absolutely believe that such conspiracies exist, even deeper and more evil than the Illuminati conspiracy theorists would have us believe. There are one or two members of this forum who disbelieve that people are ever bad, but I am among those who disagree. People have a deep capacity for evil if they choose to exercise it. Many have no qualms whatsoever about selling their fellow men into slavery, destroying liberty, and so forth, as long as they get the power and/or money and/or sex they crave. In such a world, conspiracies are a sure thing.

I have a hard time commenting on this because the information in the media is all SO biased. I don't trust it. I know that what I typically see is that the media and everyone makes the terrible claims about him and they typically turn out to be inaccurate, twisted, or outright lies. So is there truth in some of the claims related to what happened with the Sandy Hook stuff....??? Could be. Probably is. But it's a cry wolf situation and so I don't trust much. And having not followed Alex Jones back then at all...well I just don't know. I'm not sure how to think on the idea of "followers" of any given person doing something that the person didn't tell them to and then blaming said person. We see the same thing with the Trump/Jan 6 narrative going on. As a general rule I don't buy that sort of thinking. Should Alex have said, "stop this" to them, in that case? Well, yeah. Of course. But I'm not sure we can really know the full story, what he was thinking, and why he might have said or not said what he did related to that. So I can get on board that there may have been mistakes made by him. From what I know of him though, he'd probably admit the same. In fact I've heard him say he made mistakes on certain things. Because he isn't some prophet leader of some cult. He's a radio show personality who talks about stuff. I mean we see the same thing with like Joe Rogan and the medicine he talked about taking on his show for Covid. Joe's not responsible if someone takes him as the authority on the matter. Anyone who takes Joe Rogan as an authority on anything besides, perhaps, MMA stuff is being dumb. Joe Rogan isn't an authority. If he said, "This is what you should do!" then, sure...he becomes somewhat culpable (though those believing him would still be dumb to do it on his word alone... Do your own research people!). But does every person with any sort of a following on any given platform need to automatically presume their listeners are nut-jobs who will do something stupid based on their opinions. Well...probably. Yeah. But... did Alex Jones presume that? Should he have? I dunno. Anyhow, I'm not really defending Alex Jones here. I just...I dunno... There's a problem in the world. (That's putting it lightly. I mean there are many problems. But....) Speech is under attack. Big time! It's a serious problem. Political correctness is out of control. People can't talk about so many things. Opinions can't be shared. Debates can hardly be had. It's bad. And it's getting worse. I'm not defending Jones...but his ability to share his opinions on things openly even if they're off based.... That I would defend. Of course that doesn't have anything to do with whether he's a good or bad person. Who knows. It doesn't strike me he's bad. Just flawed. But that's everyone. Right? Anyhow...just chatting. Don't take my thoughts too seriously on the matter. It's more a matter of curiosity than having any sort of real stance.

A few minutes ago I found myself wanting to react to a post with an 'astonished' face.😲 Sadly, the best alternative was the thumbs up / like button (😲), because when I clicked, I noticed an astonished reaction wasn't there! 😲 I have grown accustomed to using it in other messaging tools and am shocked (😲) that I have made it this far without begging for it! @pam, what do you think? Would you be willing to give us this new reaction option?

Yeet!

I am NOT a fan. I hate emojis. They're stupid. They're reductive. They're twee. They do not encourage expressiveness, but the opposite. Sadly, I'm in a distinct minority. Emojis appear to be the wave of the present as well as the visible future. Bleah. 💩