Just_A_Guy

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Posts posted by Just_A_Guy

  1. The Washington County Attorney’s Office released a lot of its evidence in the case last week, and gave interviews to 20/20, which did an episode on it.  First ten minutes are on YouTube:

    Incidentally, Ruby’s “torture journal” mentions that Hildebrandt had met with Brad Wilcox (counselor in YM General Presidency) and Elder Jaggi (of the 70).  Which has the Reddit and exmo crowd gleefully offering all kinds of speculation and conspiracy theories.  

    Glad I’m not doing PR for the Church this month.  

  2. On 9/21/2017 at 10:21 AM, Just_A_Guy said:

    I would be very surprised to see them part with the Kirtland Temple or their portion of the Independence lot.  Barring those, the two major things I can see them selling that the LDS Church might want to buy are the Joseph Smith site in Nauvoo, and the manuscript for the Joseph Smith Translation.

    Then again, it will be interesting to see how the rank-and-file CoC membership receives this new policy.

    Welp.  It appears we pulled off the trifecta.

  3. 58 minutes ago, LDSGator said:

    Haley is doomed. 

    Trump is in serious trouble too. You have people like us who usually vote republican looking at other options. Combine that with suburban swing voters who are repulsed by his legal issues and he’s got his work cut out for him. He could still win of course, but if loses again it’s incredibly obvious as to why. 

    Never fear.  I was told back in 2016 that Trump would do just fine without my fuddy-duddy preening about such irrelevant minutiae as “right and wrong” and “honesty” and “civic virtue” and “values” and “having a president who is not a recidivist credibly-accused thief and rapist”.

    They didn’t want my support.

    They didn’t need my support.

    They did fine in 2016, they did fine in 2020, they’ll do fine in 2024.

    They’re fine.

    Everything’s fine.

    Fine!

  4. 17 hours ago, prisonchaplain said:

    I have a fantasy that involves Trump, Biden and CONTROL-ALT-DELETE. Then I wake up to a Dystopian world in which these two are the main candidates for POTUS. I used to call myself a conservative. Now I am moderately so. I really haven't changed, but the world and the Republicans have. For example, I believe that the US should support Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan. We should counter Chinese ambitions. I used to be considered a bit of a hawk and an anti-communist. Now, Trump and Tucker label me a globalist and say that folks like me (well, Ben Shapiro to be honest) don't love America. Of course, the alternative is Biden and Harris. So, I'm at a loss. Any counsel?

    Write In Russ.  president-nelson-2018_2.jpg

    That’s what I’ll be doing in November.  

  5. On 2/16/2024 at 4:35 PM, mrmarklin said:

    All you rich Utah Valley and Silicon Slope Mormons should migrate here.  Much better weather.  We need your talent.

    If I didn’t have kids, I might.  But I think it’s going to be increasingly difficult for LDS parents who don’t want their schoolchildren turned into a captive audience for sexual proselytizing by the political allies of the party in power there, to retain legal custody of their kids.

  6. At this point, I’m  not 100% sure I want our armed forces to be particularly competent.

    I think overall, the Pax Americana has been a good thing—worth fighting a few small-ish wars to preserve, even.  If we maintain it on such terms as befit our highest ideals, it can bring about the best possible conditions for worldwide human flourishing—both material and spiritual.  

    But in this day and age, conservatives are wishy-washy about whether they want to preserve it at all; and libs have largely thrown out the value system that made our nation a unique influence for good; they mostly seem to want to preserve American might insofar as they can use it to export the continually-evolving values of the sexual revolution (with a side of fantasizing about using the military to kill right-wingers who won’t toe the line).  In such situations, it’s hard not to conclude that a large standing army is of limited use and may actually be a threat.

    It’s all a darned shame.

  7. 2 hours ago, zil2 said:

    After perusing, it appears they do, but also that it's a "new" decision.  Not sure how long they've been doing it, but OK.  I wonder if there's a style guide somewhere...

    I remember a BYU class taught by Randy Bott in the late 1990s, where he mentioned that in some of his book manuscripts he had consistently capitalized pronouns for Deity only to have the Deseret Book editors make them all lower case.

  8. On 2/5/2024 at 12:09 PM, askandanswer said:

    It may be the case that the church has had to choose between, on the one hand, maintaining its practice of preventing missionaries from serving as witnesses in criminal trials and concealing, or not making available, important evidence that could result in an impoverished person with a clean criminal record receiving a sentence that would be harsher than it might otherwise have been, or on the other hand, allowing the missionary to testify, thereby serving the interests of justice and reducing the severity of the sentence that is likely to be given, and that the church has chosen to protect the missionary to the detriment of the accused.

    My question is what is the moral and ethical thing to do in this situation. Should I let the lawyer know that there might be one, possibly two witnesses who could provide evidence that may run counter to the police narrative, or should I follow the church line and say nothing to anybody about the  missionaries? And if I say nothing, would I then be complicit in what could be labelled a conspiracy of silence aimed at influencing the course of justice in a manner that is likely to adversely impact on a poor and highly vulnerable person? My inclination at present is to follow my Priesthood leaders and keep quiet about the missionaries. How might you handle such a matter?

    I flatly deny that the Church as a whole has any such policy or practice regarding missionaries testifying.  Elizabeth Smart came home from her mission to testify against her kidnappers—multiple times, IIRC.

    I could *hypothetically* see why local leaders in a particular area (particularly one where government corruption may be an issue) might prefer to stay out of legal proceedings.  But, if they’re leaning on third parties/lay members to stay silent or hide evidence . . . the Church could get in a lot of trouble for that.

    I would tell my leaders that I intend to inform legal authorities/ defense counsel/ whatever of the situation on such-and-such a date unless they instruct me in writing by virtue of their priesthood and in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ that I must remain silent.  And if they do write such a letter, my next step is to forward a copy of it to the Area Presidency.

     

  9. 23 hours ago, rcthompson88 said:

    A different temple, but I have liked this article about the significance of the eight pointed star that litters the San Diego Temple. Though I will say upfront that I find the connection of this symbol with the "Seal of Melchizedek" to be a bit dubious.

    Someone wrote an article tracing the whole “seal of Melchizedek” thing; and it turns out that it originated from a photo caption in Nibley’s book that was actually written by a research assistant and not Nibley himself.  The RA—when approached much later about it—vaguely recalled thinking they’d seen it in a book somewhere.

    It’s an aesthetically cool motif, certainly a very old one, and I like the symbolic meaning that’s being imputed to it.  But I’m not convinced it’s an ancient symbol of Christ, priesthood, or anything else relating to the Gospel.

    EDIT:  pretty sure this is the article I was thinking of.  https://rsc.byu.edu/vol-11-no-3-2010/seal-melchizedek

  10. 1 hour ago, Carborendum said:

    There are over 40 stars of different types on the temple.  But they are grouped in ways to indicate that the groups mean something different.

    One of the Center Towers (I believe it is the front one) has four stars on the three visible sides of the tower.  These twelve stars "crown" the taller tower with 12 stars.

    Originally there were also to be Saturn stones, which I think would have looked cool (though the intended symbolism is lost on me).

  11. 9 hours ago, laronius said:

    Matt. 27:52 And the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints which slept arose, 53 And came out of the graves after his resurrection, and went into the holy city, and appeared unto many.

    I don't see why righteous Abel would not have been resurrected by now. If their time is anything like our time the gospel should have already been preached to everyone of that dispensation. I would think his work was done.

    This seems to give rise to another question, though.  We have skeletons of infants and children who died pre-Christ.  But I had always understood that the non-Telestial dead who died pre-Christ were resurrected shortly after He was.  So, why weren’t these little ones resurrected?  Is *every* pre-Christian grave modern archaeologists find, the resting place of a wicked person?

    One solution to this that I’ve been toying with, is that while resurrection *might* in some cases entail the re-gathering/re-assimilation of all of the specific atoms/molecules that went down into the grave (especially when doing so constitutes a sign to others, such as Christ’s own resurrection)—that that may not *always* be the case; and resurrection may actually involve the selective retrieval of some body material that was discarded throughout one’s life (if *every* molecule that was ever part of/eaten by us came back in the resurrection, we’d be physically enormous.)  

    Thus, I suspect that the fact that we today have remains that are traceable to a particular individual, doesn’t necessarily mean that the individual has not yet been resurrected.  Peter, for example—we know he’s been resurrected.  Joseph Smith saw him.  He got ordained to the Melchizedek priesthood by him.  And yet, I think the evidence is reasonably strong that the 1st century skeleton found under St. Peter’s Basilica and analyzed in the mid 20th century, does originate with the apostle Peter.  But then, it must be that there isn’t enough of him there at the Vatican to even call it his “body” anymore.  Certainly, the soft tissues are all gone.  Whatever’s still there is like . . . nail clippings.  The nonessential stuff.

  12. IIRC, Paul Reeve has pointed out that by “priesthood” Young is probably referring to the patriarchal order—that what changed Young’s mind about blacks and the priesthood (he was initially in favor of it) was coming to understand the importance of the temple sealing, developing a horror that righteous Abel’s line of posterity had been cut off, and concluding (via inspiration or otherwise) that Cain ought not to have priesthood-bearing seed until Abel did.  So . . . maybe 1978 was the year Abel finally finally attained his exaltation, took his place upon a throne (as, IIRC, we are told that Abraham and some other patriarchs already have), and—presumably—attained godhood.

    Of course, in modern times we’ve been asked not to speculate about this.  But since so many disregard that counsel by speculating—even arguing—that the ban was spurious, I don’t know that there’s a lot of harm in pondering the possibility that maybe BY was, to some extent, right.

  13. 14 hours ago, LDSGator said:

    I always thought writing in a vote or going third party was an ego trip. It still is-but I’ll probably do the same.  

    To some degree it probably is; but I believe God will send us better candidates when we show we want them and refuse to embrace the openly-amoral, proudly visionless libertines that the abortionists or the “beer, babes, burps ‘n’ brawls” wing of the GOP serve up to us.  Naive, I know . . .

    A certain forum member back in 2016-ish got really mad when I cited 1 Kings 19:18 and likened it to Trump; but that’s still pretty much where I am.  If the GOP thinks they need my vote, they know where to find me.  

  14. 3 hours ago, Carborendum said:

    I've spent a lot of the past 15 years or so praising the 10th Amendment Center.  They specifically fight for states' rights.  I'm all for that.  The states now are the only remaining line of defense against a run away federal government.

    Recently, however, I see some states blowing off the dictates of the Federal Government in ways that are unconstitutional.

    Bear in mind that this isn't just about right/left politics.  It is about what powers are constitutionally afforded to the Federal Gove, State Govt, and to the people.  Whenever the state or federal powers go over those lines, they are doing so without proper authority from the Constitution.  Whenever the people cross the line, we're descended upon by TPTB.  

    So, what happens when federal government wants to enforce something that is not within its Constitutional powers?  The state is supposed to step in and protect them from federal powers.  And the method of stepping in can be passive (like Abbott's Come and Take Them policy about gun confiscation) or it can be active (like the placing of concertina wire along the southern border).

    But what if the state wants to infringe upon the 2A?  If SCOTUS declares a state's gun ban to be unconstitutional and issues a cease and desist order to the state, but the state continues to fine and arrest people for violating the unconstitutional ban, then what can the Federal Govt. do?

    @Just_A_Guy specifically, but anyone else?

    Well, wasn’t it Eisenhower who sent in federal marshals to de-segregate the schools?  And I think that when Arkansas threatened to use the National Guard to keep enforcing segregation, Eisenhower federalized them—and sent them home.

    I imagine that the solution is going to be tailored to the circumstances of each case. Maybe it means sending federal troops to a county jail to secure a prisoner’s release.  Maybe it means instructing the Treasury to quit making reimbursements to a particular state under some particular federal program.  Obviously, the ability of the executive and legislative branches to coordinate a response will play a role in determining what kinds of options are on the table.

    IIRC, there’s a relative dearth of 10th Amendment case law from the Supreme Court.  @JohnsonJones may know more about that than I do.

  15. On 1/13/2024 at 2:05 PM, Anddenex said:

    Please DM the insider scoop. :)

     

    On 1/13/2024 at 5:02 PM, mikbone said:

    @Just_A_Guy cc that DM with the inside info to my inbox as well.

    Need to know how many bottles of Vitamins I need to stock up in the bunker.

    I'll DM you if/when it becomes public; for now, it's probably a little too sensitive to go into detail about.  :( 

  16. 5 hours ago, old said:

    And the statement above is exactly why it will go down the route it will go down. There is no firebreak whereby the collective body understands and knows . . .this thing is off the rails.

    Now, growing up it was taught many, many, many times to judge whatever the prophet says against Scripture. If it is in alignment with Scripture then it is fine, if it is not in alignment with Scripture then you know the leaders are speaking not from revelation but from the wisdom & knowledge of man.

    That understanding seems to have long, long been tossed out the window; or maybe it was never really believed but just said.

    Fundamentally it depends on whether the modern prophets and apostles are what they say they are.  If so, then we can trust them to act as the “firebreak” when necessary.

    Insofar as the Church ever really taught that “scripture always trumps prophets”, I’m not sure that’s really an ideal paradigm.  For one thing, it ignores the role of the reader in interpreting scripture.  For another, scripture can often be cited for both sides of a particular controversy.  For yet another, sometimes the scriptures are incomplete or silent or (most often in the case of the KJV) just plain wrong.  And for yet another:  sometimes God gives different instructions tailored to people in different times and places.  

    “Scripture always trumps prophets” might be a useful generality to teach primary children; but at a certain point the exceptions become glaring enough that we start looking for more useful paradigms.

  17. I have no idea whether this is what Joseph Smith was thinking of; but I think of "estates" in the Austenian (is that a word?) sense--a son in a Jane Austen novel inherits an estate which he can either a) work carefully and conservatively, thus earning a living for his family and perhaps even increasing the size of the estate over time and securing the status of his children and grandchildren; or b) cash out the estate immediately, spend the proceeds on riotous living, and die a pauper.

    I believe that in Pride and Prejudice, a subtle comparison is even drawn between Mr. Darcy (who manages his inherited estate well) and Mr. Bingley (who has wisely managed his assets and is seeking to grow his estate) versus Mr. Bennett (who took no thought to using his inherited life estate to build an inheritance for his daughters, until it was too late) and Mr. Lucas (who could have built an estate but instead spent his assets pursuing a knighthood and the trappings of luxury and left a relatively modest legacy for his own children, thus driving his daughter Charlotte into an unhappy marriage as she pursued financial security). 

  18. 23 hours ago, MrShorty said:

    Adding as a hedge against "presentism" or some other "maybe we in the 21st century don't or can't understand God's moral calculus on these things. I think it is pretty solidly accepted in LDS circles that a major purpose of our mortal experience is learning to judge good and evil, right and wrong. IMO, if we are too quick to simply write this sort of thing off as "God's morality is inscrutable to mere mortals," then I think we are failing in some way to pursue our purpose in this life and learning how to judge right and wrong. Perhaps at the end of the day, I can begrudgingly accept that I just don't understand right and wrong the same way God understands right and wrong, but I am going to be uncomfortable with an inscrutable morality until the moment I can stand before God and ask Him to help me understand it.

    I don't think we have to go so far as to say "golly gee willikers, no one knows what the will of God really is; so I guess we're all just the moral kings of our own individual universes!"  (Not saying that's your position; just waxing hyperbolic for argument's sake.)

    On the other hand, I think Spackman would likely point out that we, too, approach scripture and history and morality and God Himself with our own set of cultural expectations.  Our own perceptions on gay marriage and race-and-priesthood are heavily influenced by--if not exclusively 21st-century--certainly post-Enlightenment Western notions such as liberty, democracy, equality, power (and who should wield it), culture, race, ethnicity, the modern nation-state, cross-cultural sensitivity, the tension between universal ethical standards versus allegiance to one's own identity group, the relationship between individualism and collectivism and between duty and personal fulfillment/happiness (both in society as a whole, and within the constraints of one's own "clan"), covenant, child-rearing, and relatively unique constructs of "love" generally and "romance" in particular.  In the absence of modern prophets speaking authoritatively for God, we're on extremely tenuous ground if we assert that these particular values and notions are morally/ethically superior to those that rooted earlier civilizations; or if we purport to know God's will about any particular topic any better than any other person at any other point in history.  

    It's especially perilous for us as Latter-day Saints to make projections about what kind of behaviors (or, for that matter, doctrines) will become en règle in the future; because the whole notion of living prophets presupposes that God has information to give to future generations that He didn't give to past generations--that He will expect actions of future generations that He did not expect of past generations.  We can't say for sure that divine ratification of same-sex marriage is impossible; any more than we can rule out the banning of the color cyan, the mandating of eating fish on Fridays, a proscription on home solar arrays, the restoration of plural marriage (including concubinage), or a re-institution of a race/lineage-based priesthood ban.  For all we know, tomorrow night President Nelson will get a revelation that the Savior of the World was actually an overweight pipefitter with a heart condition named Earl who died in Chicago in 1954. 

    We conservatives have to concede that in theory, as far as the future goes, nothing is completely off-the-table.  (Obviously, there are eternal truths and divine absolutes and there are indeed things that will never be permissible, worlds without end; but our ability to "know" precisely which parts of the Gospel as we understand it are truly immutable, is somewhat malleable.)  All we can do is take a proposed doctrinal innovation and weigh it against the body of revelation and practice the Church has already received, and make sometimes-tentative and sometimes-pretty-darned-confident declarations about how "this could actually fit and solve a lot of problems" versus "this would be a radical departure from everything we have known and done in the past".  (And then, of course, comparing that necessarily-subjective conclusion to the whisperings of the Spirit and the pronouncements of the current Church authorities.)

    When dealing with these kinds of questions, I think it's also easy to fall into an overly simplistic discourse about "what God wanted."  The fact is, human motives aren't that clear-cut, and I don't know that God's are either.  I don't want to eat my vegetables, or get up and go walking at 5 AM, or discipline my kids for misbehaving in a particular way.  But I do it, because I'm playing a longer game, and I know that distasteful actions in the here-and-now are necessary to attain a particular goal over the longer-term.  

    In that sense, I have no problem agreeing with @MrShorty that God probably didn't want to impose the priesthood ban.  It's not how He got his kicks and giggles.  But for some reason, He found it necessary.  That reason could be any one of a myriad of things.  Maybe it was due to the prejudices of Church members.  Maybe it was necessary for the sake of PR for a church operating in a hopelessly prejudiced region.  Maybe it was, as Elder McConkie stated after the fact, an extension of God's practice of dispensing the Gospel to different peoples at different times.  Maybe it was strategically necessary as a guide for the Church to focus first on growing in the areas where Church growth would prove most sustainable while avoiding areas where Church efforts would be undone in coming decades due to political or cultural upheaval.  Maybe a blanket ban nipped in the bud the pretensions of designing, predatory men (William McCary, perhaps, or others) who, if they could claim authority via priesthood ordination, may have led thousands astray or even precipitated a race-based schism in the Church.  Maybe President Young (as interpreted by Reeve) was actually right that there really is something to the idea of Africans having common descendancy from Cain or some similar ancestor, and it being improper to allow that ancestor to have priesthood-bearing seed under the Patriarchal Order for a period of time.  Maybe there were factors going on in the pre-existence that we know nothing about.  We've been asked not to hitch our wagon to any particular speculative explanation, and so I try not to.  But that doesn't mean that no such explanation in fact exists.  

    On the other hand, stripped of 21st-century cultural baggage, the theological argument against divine origin of the ban seems to me to boil down to the protestation that "the God I worship just wouldn't do such a mean thing!"  The trouble with this argument is that, as @Vort points out, Prince's biography of McKay cites multiple witnesses to illustrate persuasively that God did do such a mean thing, as recently as the 1950s.  Which pretty much eviscerates the argument that He could not also have done such a thing in the 1850s.  (And of course, Jews in the spirit world awaiting their redemption who happen to have died during the Holocaust, continue to suffer under a current race-based temple ban vis a vis proxy temple work; and that happened within the last twenty years.)  

    Probably inevitably, arguments over the priesthood ban don't really revolve around the question of whether it was a divinely-instituted necessary-evil.  Instead they tend to jump to the assumption that President Young, President McKay, and the other pre-McKay prophets instituted or maintained a spurious discriminatory practice against God's instructions and due to nothing more than their own unquestioning adoption of broader cultural discriminatory mores and oppressive power dynamics.  Because the modern political ramifications of such a position are fairly obvious:  If the GAs were hateful fun-sucking old doodie-heads once upon a time, then they probably are again; so we'll just wait for their moral judgment to catch up with ours, and in the meantime bring on the sexy time!!!  

    But, with regard to gay sex and gay marriage vis a vis the priesthood ban:  Reeve himself, in a podcast interview with Gospel Tangents around 2018-2019, pointed out that there is a distinction between that and the priesthood ban; as gays do have the option to govern their behavior in such ways as to make them eligible to receive priesthood and temple blessings.  It's also worth noting that there was a very early LDS tradition of ordaining at least a few black men to the priesthood, and that even when the ban was imposed Young foresaw that it would someday be lifted.  By contrast, there is no precedent in LDS history for permitting or solemnizing gay sexual relationships at any point in its history and no authoritative suggestion by a GA that such unions will ever be permissible.  

    Like I mention above, when talking about future Church policy we can probably never say "never" with one-hundred percent confidence; because we simply don't know everything and we do believe that the Restoration is ongoing.  But as many have shown in a variety of contexts, it's always tempting to trip all over ourselves trying to pre-emptively follow what we fancy the prophets will be saying in 50 years, to the point that we forget to follow what they're saying right now.  The current Church position is the one that keeps us safe, leads us to Zion, and ultimately introduces us into the Divine presence.

    And if a person's going to prattle on about how someday the Church will allow gay sealings in its temples, I feel like I have a right to prattle on about how someday both society and the Church will allow the children of apostates and outsiders to be sold into slavery.  My prediction, having the value of scriptural precedent behind it, would be just as well-founded as theirs is.  And if @mikbone or @old or @The Folk Prophet tells us all that we should start praying to Pipefitter Earl the Corpulent on the basis that that's what all the Mormon cool kids will be doing as of 2124--I suppose we don't have have much of a basis to prove them wrong, either.  :D 

  19. On 1/14/2024 at 7:53 AM, laronius said:

    This is a worthwhile question.

    My response would be take up personal concerns with leadership but do so in private. Publicly questioning Church policy only causes doubt in those who faith is weak and emboldens the enemies of the Church.

    I generally agree, but will point out in partial response that the enemies of the Church are *already* emboldened by the mere appointment of a man whom they see as one of their own.  In their paradigm, all they need to do is usurp a few high-profile positions, and then the Church membership like sheep will quietly do the bidding of the libertines.

    I don’t want to unduly embarrass the Q15, but part of me also wonders if maybe it isn’t a bad thing for the libertines to know that they’ll never be able to wholly do our thinking for us no matter what positions—or even quorums—some of their allies manage to infiltrate.  

  20. 18 hours ago, laronius said:

    A good communications director knows how to keep personal opinion out of how they represent their employer. Time will tell if he is good at his job. It sounds like he works pretty close to the brethren. If there were multiple levels of separation, personnel speaking, between he and them I would be more concerned. But regardless I doubt this was an uninspired decision so I'm not worried.

    Time will tell.  My misgivings are that his expressions go beyond standard disagreement; it’s a fundamental loyalty issue.  Plus, it’s frankly a little galling—at the behest of Elder Holland and others, many of us spent a lot of time and effort defending the Church and its teachings from the criticisms of people like Sherinian. Many of those who did so under their own name continue to face stigma, discrimination, and career stagnation; while the buffoons they were defending the Church from wind up getting Church money, Church public recognition, and Church confidence.  It kind of makes some of us apologists wonder what the #%$@! we’ve even been doing this for over the last couple of decades; and feeds into a sneaking suspicion that the Church leadership doesn’t have our backs the way we’ve tried to have their backs.  I hope and trust that I’m wrong, but it’s hard to make those niggling doubts completely go away. 

    One of my comforts (other than knowing that the Lord is in charge, yada, yada, yada); is that for professional reasons I’m fairly confident that some things are going to come out in the next 2-3 months that will cause the Church’s PR guys quite a few headaches.  The full facts, if known, would tend to exonerate the Church—but few will be willing or legally able to provide any public statement that might independently collaborate the Church’s response.  (Incidentally:  buckle up, folks.  Take your vitamins, eat your Wheaties, say your prayers and read your scriptures and do all those things the prophet has been telling us to do.  I may well be wrong, but think it’s going to be an interesting year.)  If Sherinian is the snake in the grass that I rather suspect he is, he just won’t hold his job for very long under those circumstances.  He’ll either say something so stupid or off-base that the Q15 will have no choice but to distance itself from him—or the professional need to back the brethren when every fiber of his being revolts against it, will just plain make his head explode.

    And a potential silver lining here is that if he is indeed good, he’s probably very good.  I believe his wife Emily was the originator of the “I’m a Mormon” campaign from 10-15 years back, which I thought was extremely well done.  

  21. In the abstract, I have no problem with states determining that certain candidates are ineligible to run.  I think it strengthens the role of states in the electoral system.  But of course, any regimen that tends to exclude a particular candidate would still have to pass muster under a due process analysis; and I have no idea whether the states in question have afforded due process to Trump (and whether the underlying statutory regimens are truly tenable) or not.

    I rather wonder, though, whether Kamala Harris couldn’t be excluded from office under those same statutes; since I believe her campaign was involved in raising bail funds for BLM rioters (including resistors of arrest and, possibly, courthouse/state capitol occupiers).