I feel like we all should agree on this one regardless of where we are with the truth claims of the Church

[bluebell]

11 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

If every Mormon the church claims as a member lived in the US- say 15 milion US Mormons- they would be about 4.6% of the US population.  I am putting them in the US to make the number of members more favorable to make it seem like Mormons are a higher percentage of the US population than they are.  The real US population of Mormons is around 6 million so we are talking less than 2 %

And you get 50/50 next to the base, so that makes Utah diverse?

Just sayin'.

Most high schools hereabouts have a few thousand kids.  Maybe half a dozen are Mormon.  That's the experience my kids have had.  It's quite different hereabouts- that is my only point.

Maybe I should post on local news to let people know what it feels like. 

Did you know that our typical temple attendance at each temple session on a week day evening is about 8-10 people?  

The population of Utah is about 3 million.  The church claims 2 million members in Utah on the records. 66%

The population of California is 39.5 million.  The church claims 767 thousand members in California on records. 1.9%

LA county alone is 10 million, 3 times the size of Utah in population.

If all the Mormons in California lived in LA county, they would represent 7.6% of the COUNTY population.

It's pretty different.   

I don't know if 50% counts as "diverse".   

https://www.mormonnewsroom.org/facts-and-statistics/country/united-states/state/utah

 

I wasn’t even talking to you, so I’m not sure why you think I’m addressing anything you’ve posted.

 

[Kenngo1969]

1 hour ago, USU78 said:

Well, I will give you this: that's prolly a full degree of magnitude better than the local press, which cannot seem to be able to count to three.

Heh.  

[Kenngo1969]

29 minutes ago, bluebell said:

I wasn’t even talking to you, so I’m not sure why you think I’m addressing anything you’ve posted.

 

But, silly Bluebell, L.A. is the very center of the Entire Universe, don'tcha know?!!  I love it when I get calls from the area (I help people locate destinations and download the coordinates to their GPS, for anybody who's wondering), and the caller refers to a landmark by a nickname, doesn't even give me so much as a city other than "L.A.," let alone a full address (apparently, pretty much all of Southern California is supposed to be "L.A.," including San Diego, which, no doubt, is news to at least some San Diegans) and then gets p!$$@d when I haven't found it and downloaded it within five seconds.  (New Yorkers are worse, though; most Southern Californians are cool.) 

Edited July 19, 2018 by Kenngo1969

[jkwilliams]

46 minutes ago, bluebell said:

I wasn’t even talking to you, so I’m not sure why you think I’m addressing anything you’ve posted.

Where we live is definitely less diverse than where we used to live. My son's high school in Virginia was incredibly diverse. Only 27% of the students were white, and 19 different languages were spoken there. I do miss seeing the old Sikh man doing his daily walk around our neighborhood, the boys playing cricket on the grass near the tennis court, and the craziness of an Indian wedding lasting well into the early hours of the morning. 

My neighborhood here is fairly diverse: a mix of whites, Hispanics, and Polynesians, mostly, though a Ghanaian family just moved in. Oddly enough, my neighborhood in LA is less diverse than where I live now in Utah. Most of my parents' neighbors in California are white and Jewish. The only non-Jews I can think of are my parents and a Russian couple who live next door to my parents.

[bluebell]

1 hour ago, Kenngo1969 said:

But, silly Bluebell, L.A. is the very center of the Entire Universe, don'tcha know?!!  I love it when I get calls from the area (I help people locate destinations and download the coordinates to their GPS, for anybody who's wondering), and the caller refers to a landmark by a nickname, doesn't even give me so much as a city other than "L.A.," let alone a full address (apparently, pretty much all of Southern California is supposed to be "L.A.," including San Diego, which, no doubt, is news to at least some San Diegans) and then gets p!$$@d when I haven't found it and downloaded it within five seconds.  (New Yorkers are worse, though; most Southern Californians are cool.) 

I work for a Realtor and property manager in LA county and a lot of my time is spent coordinating vendors and tenants for maintenance work.  All of Southern California is definitely not L.A.  

[DBMormon]

23 hours ago, jkwilliams said:

I don't know that anyone's alleging "unethical" use of police records in the McKenna Denson case. There was a case of a Utah County deputy who shared a police report with BYU's honor code office in order to retaliate against a BYU student who reported she had been raped by a friend of the deputy. I seem to recall there have been accusations that the BYU PD have accessed records from other police departments in an excessive way.

Actually they are in a round about way.  The still heavily redacted portions are deeply in question.  Also The audio interview between police and Joseph Bishop.  We now from the fact that multiple reports exist and that different sections being redacted and unredacted show that the BYU police are redacting large portions that have no reasonable explanation for being redacted.  On each of these there are still sections on all reports that are consistently redacted and it is obvious from the length of them they are not just personal info of victims.  It is highly believed by Radio Free Mormon and myself that the Police are shielding something and it is a solid bet that said something is not a protecting the police specifically but deeply believed to be a connection to the LDS Church that the church would prefer not be public.

Time will tell - and barring a church broke high priest creating a loophole on this, all judicial sides thus far seem to agree that the BYU police should not be able to have full police power and not have the checks and balances that other police departments have.

[jkwilliams]

4 minutes ago, DBMormon said:

Actually they are in a round about way.  The still heavily redacted portions are deeply in question.  Also The audio interview between police and Joseph Bishop.  We now from the fact that multiple reports exist and that different sections being redacted and unredacted show that the BYU police are redacting large portions that have no reasonable explanation for being redacted.  On each of these there are still sections on all reports that are consistently redacted and it is obvious from the length of them they are not just personal info of victims.  It is highly believed by Radio Free Mormon and myself that the Police are shielding something and it is a solid bet that said something is not a protecting the police specifically but deeply believed to be a connection to the LDS Church that the church would prefer not be public.

Time will tell - and barring a church broke high priest creating a loophole on this, all judicial sides thus far seem to agree that the BYU police should not be able to have full police power and not have the checks and balances that other police departments have.

Fair enough. As for the "church broke high priest," I didn't think you were that cynical, Bill.

[Duncan]

3 hours ago, DBMormon said:

Actually they are in a round about way.  The still heavily redacted portions are deeply in question.  Also The audio interview between police and Joseph Bishop.  We now from the fact that multiple reports exist and that different sections being redacted and unredacted show that the BYU police are redacting large portions that have no reasonable explanation for being redacted.  On each of these there are still sections on all reports that are consistently redacted and it is obvious from the length of them they are not just personal info of victims.  It is highly believed by Radio Free Mormon and myself that the Police are shielding something and it is a solid bet that said something is not a protecting the police specifically but deeply believed to be a connection to the LDS Church that the church would prefer not be public.

Time will tell - and barring a church broke high priest creating a loophole on this, all judicial sides thus far seem to agree that the BYU police should not be able to have full police power and not have the checks and balances that other police departments have.

I don't know if English is your first language but in case it isn't please do a grammar and spell check thank you! 

[Tacenda]

20 minutes ago, Duncan said:

I don't know if English is your first language but in case it isn't please do a grammar and spell check thank you! 

Duncan you aren't always grammatically correct either, if we're being honest. Maybe DB is in a hurry to post and didn't proofread it. And you know DB's native tongue is English, why the dislike here? I do agree that DB is definitely in an anger phase, but according to mfbukowski's belief in philosophy, DB is just living out his gut feelings on things, IMO. 

[Duncan]

2 minutes ago, Tacenda said:

Duncan you aren't always grammatically correct either, if we're being honest. Maybe DB is in a hurry to post and didn't proofread it. And you know DB's native tongue is English, why the dislike here? I do agree that DB is definitely in an anger phase, but according to mfbukowski's belief in philosophy, DB is just living out his gut feelings on things, IMO. 

it's hard to read and figure out!!!!! if you want to be taken seriously it would help if you could phrase your thoughts correctly and spell properly. How would I know what his native tongue is? it say he's in Ohio but remember Maxwell Q. Klinger is from Toledo yet he spoke Lebanese

[jkwilliams]

10 minutes ago, Duncan said:

it's hard to read and figure out!!!!! if you want to be taken seriously it would help if you could phrase your thoughts correctly and spell properly. How would I know what his native tongue is? it say he's in Ohio but remember Maxwell Q. Klinger is from Toledo yet he spoke Lebanese

20 bucks says he made that post on his phone.

[DBMormon]

23 hours ago, smac97 said:

Baseless conjecture and conspiracy-mongering is not "think[ing] this through."

This is rank bigotry, on par with anti-semitic "The Jews Run Hollywood" and "Wall Street is a Jewish Shtetl" hatefulness.

You should be ashamed.

Here are the allegations that are apparently being referenced here (emphasis added):

If this happened, and if this sort of thing has happened previously as pertaining to BYU's Honor Code Office improper use of / access to law enforcement databases, then I think that should be addressed.  Publicly.  And if laws have been broken, there should be some real consequences to that.

I have previously said that I have some real concerns about BYU (and other private universities) having broad law enforcement authority.  This is particularly so where, as here, the educational institution is owned and directed by a religious institution.  But let's get real here.  BYU is very much an anomaly.  There's only one of them in the entire state.  So transmuting this one issue into a broad accusation that the LDS Church "owns Police Departments in the state" goes well beyond the facts and well into bigotry.

Indeed it is.  In 2018, no person of any decency would feel at liberty to publicly disparage Jews or Catholics or Muslims in this way.

But when Mormons are in the crosshairs, all bets are off.  Bigotry carries the day.

Bigotry is Ignorance's vicious little brother.

See here:

Georgia and Indiana are not really known as hotbeds of pro-Mormon legislative/judicial activism.  And only six states ("Connecticut, Georgia, North Carolina, Ohio, Texas, and Virginia") have legislation in place "requiring some sort of disclosure by private police departments sanctioned by the state."

"Three-quarters of private-college police departments told the Department Justice their jurisdiction extended to properties adjacent to campus. Nearly 60 percent said their jurisdictions applied to properties outside the area surrounding campus. Twenty percent of departments said they had the authority to make arrests statewide."

The issue of accountability and oversight for quasi-"private" law enforcement looks to be a nationwide issue.

Again, bigotry and ignorance often go hand in hand.  

First, BYU PD is not "owned" by the LDS Church.

Second, I generally agree with the Tribune's legal arguments.  I think the BYU PD should be subject to the same sorts of oversights and accountability procedures as any other law enforcement entity.

Third, I nevertheless despise bigoted attempts to weaponize this issue against the LDS Church, as you have done.  It's stuff like this that makes people like me distrust people like you.  Every issue is viewed through an I-hate-Mormonism-so-much-that-I'll-weaponize-anything-I-can-get-my-hands-on-to-make-the-LDS-Church-look-bad lens.

-Smac

The question is do those other "private" police departments have full police power? ability to arrest, interrogate, carry weapons?  And if they do, do they also not follow their states "Freedom of Information Acts".  I am currently reaching out to Notre Dame police to see if they have it both ways as BYU does.  While you seem to balk at every turn of my post, you in the end seem to agree generally.... huh

[Duncan]

7 minutes ago, jkwilliams said:

20 bucks says he made that post on his phone.

I bet you're right!

 

[jkwilliams]

3 minutes ago, DBMormon said:

The question is do those other "private" police departments have full police power? ability to arrest, interrogate, carry weapons?  And if they do, do they also not follow their states "Freedom of Information Acts".  I am currently reaching out to Notre Dame police to see if they have it both ways as BYU does.  While you seem to balk at every turn of my post, you in the end seem to agree generally.... huh

It doesn't matter what Notre Dame does, as they are not governed by the same statutory law that police departments in Utah are. 

[Tacenda]

48 minutes ago, Duncan said:

it's hard to read and figure out!!!!! if you want to be taken seriously it would help if you could phrase your thoughts correctly and spell properly. How would I know what his native tongue is? it say he's in Ohio but remember Maxwell Q. Klinger is from Toledo yet he spoke Lebanese

i cant get made at ewe dunkin no mater how hurd i tri. 😉

Edited July 19, 2018 by Tacenda

[jkwilliams]

48 minutes ago, Duncan said:

it's hard to read and figure out!!!!! if you want to be taken seriously it would help if you could phrase your thoughts correctly and spell properly. How would I know what his native tongue is? it say he's in Ohio but remember Maxwell Q. Klinger is from Toledo yet he spoke Lebanese

They speak Arabic and French in Lebanon, FWIW,

[Duncan]

9 minutes ago, Tacenda said:

i cant get made at ewe dunkin no mater how hurd i tri. 😉

😊

[Atheist Mormon]

Quote

I feel like we all should agree on this one regardless of 

I feel like we should all agree of reducing our nations nuclear arsenals no matter what our religious leaders think.

[DBMormon]

On 7/18/2018 at 2:00 PM, rpn said:

The poster who wrote the above has clearly not lived in other states and cities where the strong religious presence was something other than Mormon.  Such places exist in many states and cities where one faith is more established.   Utah is not at all unique, except that it is the Mormon faith involved.

examples of states where in the church operated facility has its own police force and that force has full power and authority like general state police but who also claim not under public domain so as to avoid adhering to information act laws?  Lets make a list.  Say, lets name  5 and be sure they fit both stipulations

[DBMormon]

23 hours ago, Storm Rider said:

That is what I was looking for - thank you.  

So, there is no moral issue about right and wrong, but rather what state laws exist or don't.  Based on this, it is not a black and white issue at all much to the chagrin of some critics who seek to make mountains out of molehills.

But did they have full police power and could they not be sued?  

You see a full public police department has three qualifiers that we are talking about

#1 they have full power to carry weapons, make arrests, and question and hold suspects.
#2 they can not be sued in most regard because they are a gov't entity
#3 they are responsible to adhere to that states freedom of information act (in Utah's case GRAMA)

BYU police won a legal battle saying it could not be sued because it was a public govt entity.  
BYU police as such has full power to carry weapons, make arrests, etc...
BYU claims not to be a Gov't entity when it comes to adhering to GRAMA laws

The discrepancy between not being sued and not adhering to GRAMA has them losing.  They can not have it both ways.  They either must adhere to GRAMA or relinquish other rights that come with being a fully operational police force

I would suggest we understand the context of this issue and also other police forces that seem similar and if they fall under the same guidelines of if they are actually apples and oranges.
 

[DBMormon]

22 hours ago, rpn said:

If he'd lived in any of the states and cities where the catholic or the baptist or whatever are the majority, why would he say that control of government and culture doesn't happen except with mormons:  IME it absolutely does.   That is my point.

maybe from a collective group of members but not by the institutional church.  big difference.

[DBMormon]

20 hours ago, ttribe said:

I may have missed it being discussed in this thread, but didn't BYU argue the exact opposite of what it's arguing in this case in Mallory v. BYU in 2014?  Namely, didn't it argue that it was a government agency under the direction of Provo PD?

yes but dont let the facts get in the way

[smac97]

1 hour ago, DBMormon said:

The question is do those other "private" police departments have full police power? ability to arrest, interrogate, carry weapons? 

Funny how you ask this question after publicly declaring: "In no other state would this dynamic play out."

Funny how you ask this question despite the link I provided (this one) that includes the following (which I quoted verbatim):

Quote

The Justice Department survey of four-year universities and colleges with 2,500 or more students found that 38 percent of private colleges used sworn police officers in their security operations. Of those 153 departments, 82 percent were authorized to carry sidearms. By contrast, 92 percent of public universities within that cohort used sworn police officers. Nearly all were authorized to use sidearms.

...

Not all university police jurisdictions are created equal. Three-quarters of private-college police departments told the Department Justice their jurisdiction extended to properties adjacent to campus. Nearly 60 percent said their jurisdictions applied to properties outside the area surrounding campus. Twenty percent of departments said they had the authority to make arrests statewide.

Power to arrest?  For quite a few (20% at least), yes.

Carrying firearms?  For most (82%), yes.

1 hour ago, DBMormon said:

And if they do, do they also not follow their states "Freedom of Information Acts". 

Again, from the article: "In 2016 the Indiana Supreme Court ruled that state-imbued arrest powers did not require the University of Notre Dame to give ESPN crime reports that pertained to student athletes."

As our resident Conspiracy-Mongerer-in-Chief, how do you account for the Mormon Church's undue influence over the Indiana Supreme Court? 

1 hour ago, DBMormon said:

I am currently reaching out to Notre Dame police to see if they have it both ways as BYU does. 

I'll be interested to hear the results.

1 hour ago, DBMormon said:

While you seem to balk at every turn of my post, you in the end seem to agree generally.... huh

Indeed.  Huh.  As I said:

Quote

First, BYU PD is not "owned" by the LDS Church.

Second, I generally agree with the Tribune's legal arguments.  I think the BYU PD should be subject to the same sorts of oversights and accountability procedures as any other law enforcement entity.

Third, I nevertheless despise bigoted attempts to weaponize this issue against the LDS Church, as you have done.  It's stuff like this that makes people like me distrust people like you.  Every issue is viewed through an I-hate-Mormonism-so-much-that-I'll-weaponize-anything-I-can-get-my-hands-on-to-make-the-LDS-Church-look-bad lens.

And here:

Quote

I love the LDS Church.  And I love BYU.  I went there.  Twice (BA and JD).  So did my parents.  So did my wife (I met her there).  So did my two older brothers and one younger sister.  I live in Provo.  I am definitely on the "team" loyal to the LDS Church.  And yet the issue here is a complex legal matter pertaining to procedural/administrative oversight of law enforcement.  There are a lot of moving parts to it.  A lot of factors to take into account.  Broadly speaking, however, I have some concerns about civil law enforcement authority and power being vested in private entities (such as BYU PD) without a concomitant measure of supervision and oversight and accountability.  "With great power comes great responsibility" and all that.

I feel totally comfortable saying this, as this has essentially nothing to do with whether Joseph Smith had a theophany in 1820, whether a resurrected angel visited him and told him where to find authentically ancient metal plates, whether he translated those plates "by the gift and power of God," and so on.  For that matter, BYU PD's obligations relative to GRAMA also have nothing to do with Jesus Christ being born of a virgin, living a sinless life, suffering and being slain and atorning for the sins of the world, and resurrecting on the third day.  All of these are "the truth claims of the [LDS] church."  None of them are relevant to GRAMA.

You are publicly accusing the LDS Church and its members, without evidence, of serious and widespread corruption and illegal conduct.  I take exception to such damnable falsehoods.

• "How much influence does the LDS Church have in utah with Legislators?"  Innuendo and slander.
• "Is  that influence unique to Uta h in terms of a religious institution being able to influence about half or more of its politicians to side with it out of loyalty?"  Baseless slander.
• "This same religious institution owns Police Departments in the state..." A factually false statement.  A damnable falsehood, actually.
• "...and can through that police department access records it has no business accessing."  Innuendo and slander.
• "That same Police Force can then redact documents when those redactions will hide that Religious Institutions unethical use of the Police Force to access records unethically."  California Boy, in another thread, recently suggested that the misconduct of an individual in that group should not be attributed to the entirety of the group ("As with any organization, there are bound to be those that disagree.  Anyone who reads more into it than that is IMO not really being fair in judging these organizations harshly.").  That's a pretty good idea.  So if a BYU PD officer or an employee of the BYU Honor Code Office misused access to a law enforcement database, that should be addressed.  But here you are publicly accusing the entirety of the LDS Church of behaving unethically.
• "This same Religious Institution can then also wants to claim its private police Force be exempt from GRAMA Laws that would expose all of its unethical activity."  You are presuming "unethical activity."  
• "This same Religious Institution can also influence legislators and Political leaders to not release and publish studies done to see how Police Records were accessed and utilized by This same Private police Force in order to help the Religious institution to resolve worthiness issues within its university."  Are you just making this up?  Fabricating it out of thin air?  Has the LDS Church done this? 

And now I find out that you appear to have apparently made these accusations mostly from a position of ignorance.  So you you publicly maligned your own faith, you did so out of ignorance, you did so falsely, and have not retracted or apologized for anything. 

Again, you should be ashamed.

-Smac

[DBMormon]

5 hours ago, jkwilliams said:

Fair enough. As for the "church broke high priest," I didn't think you were that cynical, Bill.

no, I deeply believe there are members of the Church who are so loyal to their religion that they would sanction and assist any effort on the Church's part.  One only need to look to Gordon Smith who coined the term "Church Broke" claiming he was and would assist in any way out of loyalty.

Gordon Smith admitting being Church Broke

It only takes one judge who gets such cases to side on the less reasonable end.

[DBMormon]

4 minutes ago, smac97 said:

Funny how you ask this question after publicly declaring: "In no other state would this dynamic play out."

Funny how you ask this question despite the link I provided (this one) that includes the following (which I quoted verbatim):

Power to arrest?  For quite a few (20% at least), yes.

Carrying firearms?  For most (82%), yes.

Again, from the article: "In 2016 the Indiana Supreme Court ruled that state-imbued arrest powers did not require the University of Notre Dame to give ESPN crime reports that pertained to student athletes."

As our resident Conspiracy-Mongerer-in-Chief, how do you account for the Mormon Church's undue influence over the Indiana Supreme Court? 

I'll be interested to hear the results.

Indeed.  Huh.  As I said:

And here:

You are publicly accusing the LDS Church and its members, without evidence, of serious and widespread corruption and illegal conduct.  I take exception to such damnable falsehoods.

• "How much influence does the LDS Church have in utah with Legislators?"  Innuendo and slander.
• "Is  that influence unique to Uta h in terms of a religious institution being able to influence about half or more of its politicians to side with it out of loyalty?"  Baseless slander.
• "This same religious institution owns Police Departments in the state..." A factually false statement.  A damnable falsehood, actually.
• "...and can through that police department access records it has no business accessing."  Innuendo and slander.
• "That same Police Force can then redact documents when those redactions will hide that Religious Institutions unethical use of the Police Force to access records unethically."  California Boy, in another thread, recently suggested that the misconduct of an individual in that group should not be attributed to the entirety of the group ("As with any organization, there are bound to be those that disagree.  Anyone who reads more into it than that is IMO not really being fair in judging these organizations harshly.").  That's a pretty good idea.  So if a BYU PD officer or an employee of the BYU Honor Code Office misused access to a law enforcement database, that should be addressed.  But here you are publicly accusing the entirety of the LDS Church of behaving unethically.
• "This same Religious Institution can then also wants to claim its private police Force be exempt from GRAMA Laws that would expose all of its unethical activity."  You are presuming "unethical activity."  
• "This same Religious Institution can also influence legislators and Political leaders to not release and publish studies done to see how Police Records were accessed and utilized by This same Private police Force in order to help the Religious institution to resolve worthiness issues within its university."  Are you just making this up?  Fabricating it out of thin air?  Has the LDS Church done this? 

And now I find out that you appear to have apparently made these accusations mostly from a position of ignorance.  So you you publicly maligned your own faith, you did so out of ignorance, you did so falsely, and have not retracted or apologized for anything. 

Again, you should be ashamed.

-Smac

in a few years when those redactions are uncovered you will see.  Guess we play the waiting game.