…and just who, on this forum (or anywhere else) has held YOU personally responsible for the death of Joseph Smith?
You aren’t responsible for what your ancestors did. You ARE responsible for your pride in what they did.
By the way, claiming that you 'know all about Smith worshipers" and using as a bona fide that your ancestor was in on the mob that murdered the man is a little like claiming to know what it’s like to be black because your grandfather was in the original Ku Klux Klan.
It’s not only an illogical claim, it’s perjorative…and, by the way, inaccurate on the face of it. We do not, after all, worship Joseph Smith.
Quoting from my book:
On June 27, 1844, Joseph was murdered at the Carthage Jail, by local people,
angry at Joseph’s dissemination of Masonic secrets, religious fraud, a bid to become
president of the United States, Mormon appropriation of the property of non-Mormons
and dissenters, Mormon monopolization of the economy of the area, sexual exploits
with their daughters and wives, and the destruction of a printing-press which had
exposed the scandal. Shortly after his death, Apostle John Taylor forever sealed this
statement in The Doctrines and Covenants of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day
Saints:
Finally, having stripped himself of the support of Sidney Rigdon, Joseph met his
end. He was in jail for ordering the destruction of the printing press that exposed the
practice of polygamy. Friends had promised to rescue him from the Carthage jail.
Instead, others attacked the jail and killed him and one of his brothers. With more
moderate leaders such as the Smiths and Sidney Rigdon out of the picture, Brigham
Young took over leadership of a large faction. As a blatant sociopath leading a
community of other sociopaths and naive dupes, he had the cunning to turn the dying
cult into a terroristic organization that would support other sociopathic leaders, on
both local levels, and within the highest levels of the organization, for the next 150
years.
Joseph, Samuel, and Hyrum Smith were not the only victims of the troubles
during the Nauvoo era. Mormons killed many. Here are several accounts, from Thomas
Sharp, the hotheaded and impatient newspaper editor (lawyer, and educator) of
Warsaw, Illinois:
If you will note the moderate nature of my comments on the death of Joseph Smith, I have neither pride nor shame in who my ancestor was. What Mormons have done, in what is at the very least their mind-reading of my attitude towards the death of Joseph Smith, has led me to this point. And this point is that if Joseph Smith had not died at the Carthage jail, perhaps we would not be worried about the activities of radical-right fundamentalist LDS, who offend everyone else, and then cry “Persecution!!”
