DebateGate

Can't be.  That war can't be won.  WAIT A MINUTE!  It says here that terror bombings will GO ON FOR SOME TIME, but that the major combat is over.  CRAP.  So THAT's what winning means.  I wish the heck our side woulda come up with a definition like that YEARS ago.

Oh wait . . .

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080726/ap_on_an/iraq_winning_the_war

Analysis: US now winning Iraq war that seemed lost By ROBERT BURNS and ROBERT H. REID, Associated Press Writers

BAGHDAD - The United States is now winning the war that two years ago seemed lost. Limited, sometimes sharp fighting and periodic terrorist bombings in Iraq are likely to continue, possibly for years. But the Iraqi government and the U.S. now are able to shift focus from mainly combat to mainly building the fragile beginnings of peace — a transition that many found almost unthinkable as recently as one year ago.

Despite the occasional bursts of violence, Iraq has reached the point where the insurgents, who once controlled whole cities, no longer have the clout to threaten the viability of the central government.

That does not mean the war has ended or that U.S. troops have no role in Iraq. It means the combat phase finally is ending, years past the time when President Bush optimistically declared it had. The new phase focuses on training the Iraqi army and police, restraining the flow of illicit weaponry from Iran, supporting closer links between Baghdad and local governments, pushing the integration of former insurgents into legitimate government jobs and assisting in rebuilding the economy.

Scattered battles go on, especially against al-Qaida holdouts north of Baghdad. But organized resistance, with the steady drumbeat of bombings, kidnappings, assassinations and ambushes that once rocked the capital daily, has all but ceased.

This amounts to more than a lull in the violence. It reflects a fundamental shift in the outlook for the Sunni minority, which held power under Saddam Hussein. They launched the insurgency five years ago. They now are either sidelined or have switched sides to cooperate with the Americans in return for money and political support.

Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, told The Associated Press this past week there are early indications that senior leaders of al-Qaida may be considering shifting their main focus from Iraq to the war in Afghanistan.

Ryan Crocker, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, told the AP on Thursday that the insurgency as a whole has withered to the point where it is no longer a threat to Iraq's future.

"Very clearly, the insurgency is in no position to overthrow the government or, really, even to challenge it," Crocker said. "It's actually almost in no position to try to confront it. By and large, what's left of the insurgency is just trying to hang on."

Shiite militias, notably the Mahdi Army of radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, have lost their power bases in Baghdad, Basra and other major cities. An important step was the routing of Shiite extremists in the Sadr City slums of eastern Baghdad this spring — now a quiet though not fully secure district.

Al-Sadr and top lieutenants are now in Iran. Still talking of a comeback, they are facing major obstacles, including a loss of support among a Shiite population weary of war and no longer as terrified of Sunni extremists as they were two years ago.

Despite the favorable signs, U.S. commanders are leery of proclaiming victory or promising that the calm will last.

The premature declaration by the Bush administration of "Mission Accomplished" in May 2003 convinced commanders that the best public relations strategy is to promise little, and couple all good news with the warning that "security is fragile" and that the improvements, while encouraging, are "not irreversible."

Iraq still faces a mountain of problems: sectarian rivalries, power struggles within the Sunni and Shiite communities, Kurdish-Arab tensions, corruption. Any one of those could rekindle widespread fighting.

But the underlying dynamics in Iraqi society that blew up the U.S. military's hopes for an early exit, shortly after the fall of Baghdad in April 2003, have changed in important ways in recent months.

Systematic sectarian killings have all but ended in the capital, in large part because of tight security and a strategy of walling off neighborhoods purged of minorities in 2006.

That has helped establish a sense of normalcy in the streets of the capital. People are expressing a new confidence in their own security forces, which in turn are exhibiting a newfound assertiveness with the insurgency largely in retreat.

Statistics show violence at a four-year low. The monthly American death toll appears to be at its lowest of the war — four killed in action so far this month as of Friday, compared with 66 in July a year ago. From a daily average of 160 insurgent attacks in July 2007, the average has plummeted to about two dozen a day this month. On Wednesday the nationwide total was 13.

Beyond that, there is something in the air in Iraq this summer.

In Baghdad, parks are filled every weekend with families playing and picnicking with their children. That was unthinkable only a year ago, when the first, barely visible signs of a turnaround emerged.

Now a moment has arrived for the Iraqis to try to take those positive threads and weave them into a lasting stability.

The questions facing both Americans and Iraqis are: What kinds of help will the country need from the U.S. military, and for how long? The questions will take on greater importance as the U.S. presidential election nears, with one candidate pledging a troop withdrawal and the other insisting on staying.

Iraqi authorities have grown dependent on the U.S. military after more than five years of war. While they are aiming for full sovereignty with no foreign troops on their soil, they do not want to rush. In a similar sense, the Americans fear that after losing more than 4,100 troops, the sacrifice could be squandered.

U.S. commanders say a substantial American military presence will be needed beyond 2009. But judging from the security gains that have been sustained over the first half of this year — as the Pentagon withdrew five Army brigades sent as reinforcements in 2007 — the remaining troops could be used as peacekeepers more than combatants.

As a measure of the transitioning U.S. role, Maj. Gen. Jeffery Hammond says that when he took command of American forces in the Baghdad area about seven months ago he was spending 80 percent of his time working on combat-related matters and about 20 percent on what the military calls "nonkinetic" issues, such as supporting the development of Iraqi government institutions and humanitarian aid.

Now Hammond estimates those percentage have been almost reversed. For several hours one recent day, for example, Hammond consulted on water projects with a Sunni sheik in the Radwaniyah area of southwest Baghdad, then spent time with an Iraqi physician/entrepreneur in the Dora district of southern Baghdad — an area, now calm, that in early 2007 was one of the capital's most violent zones.

"We're getting close to something that looks like an end to mass violence in Iraq," says Stephen Biddle, an analyst at the Council of Foreign Relations who has advised Petraeus on war strategy. Biddle is not ready to say it's over, but he sees the U.S. mission shifting from fighting the insurgents to keeping the peace.

Although Sunni and Shiite extremists are still around, they have surrendered the initiative and have lost the support of many ordinary Iraqis. That can be traced to an altered U.S. approach to countering the insurgency — a Petraeus-driven move to take more U.S. troops off their big bases and put them in Baghdad neighborhoods where they mixed with ordinary Iraqis and built a new level of trust.

Army Col. Tom James, a brigade commander who is on his third combat tour in Iraq, explains the new calm this way:

"We've put out the forest fire. Now we're dealing with pop-up fires."

It's not the end of fighting. It looks like the beginning of a perilous peace.

Maj. Gen. Ali Hadi Hussein al-Yaseri, the chief of patrol police in the capital, sees the changes.

"Even eight months ago, Baghdad was not today's Baghdad," he says.

___

EDITOR'S NOTE — Robert Burns is AP's chief military reporter, and Robert Reid is AP's chief of bureau in Baghdad. Reid has covered the war from his post in Iraq since the U.S. invasion in March 2003. Burns, based in Washington, has made 21 reporting trips to Iraq; on his latest during July, Burns spent nearly three weeks in central and northern Iraq, observing military operations and interviewing both U.S. and Iraqi officers.

Five generations of my wife's family and ALL of the sisters came in pairs.  We never even noticed all of these years.  Family history is so cool!

                                 [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i8wT6_XSViE[/youtube]

Well, summertime is here at last and it's time for that wonderful summer ritual:  simulating (and occasionally achieving) the mortal jeopardy of uncontrolled flight.  Yes, every summer millions of Americans strap themselves into ostensibly secure harnesses and allow themselves to be helplessly dragged to the top of metal mountains and then dropped to the ground from heights God never intended man to drop from and survive.  I refer of course to the thrill of roller coaster riding.  It takes a good deal of bravery and a modest helping of insanity to board these scream-machines.  The modest lift and dip coasters of the past are dinosaurs.  Today you get dropped, twisted, looped, corkscrewed and just generally all shook up.  King's Dominion in Virginia has 14 roller coasters.  When it first opened up some 35 years ago it had one - the Rebel Yell.  It boasted a 90 foot drop.  HA!  90 feet is like a short stumble compared to the 200 foot plus demons they have today.

And I love 'em all, brother.  I could ride all day long.  My favorite theme park is Busch Gardens Europe (which, contrary to its name, is located in Virginia nowhere near Europe).  It lags behind King's Dominion in coaster volume, boasting only five.  But it more than makes up for that by having a park voted world's most beautiful for eighteen straight years.  It really is beautiful - a great place to bring the family.  And the coasters are pretty cool.  They range from the relatively tame "Big, Bad Wolf" to the 205 foot 90 degree (yep, STRAIGHT down) "Griffon."  My favorite is the "Alpengeist" which is filled with corkscrews, loops and incredible G forces.  And rounding it out are the "Loch Ness Monster" with double interlocking loops and a good dark tunnel, and the "Apollo's Chariot," with 9 drops starting off at 210 feet.  Am I afraid?  Heck, no.  I can handle them all.  No fear here, baby.

Except for one ride.

Wait a minute, you must be saying to yourself (because I know I would be).  Here you tell me you take 200 plus feet vertical drops in stride, deal with corkscrews and loops with hardly ruffled composure, dangle your feet from precipitous heights on floorless coasters with no concern, yet you have one ride which scares even you?  (Yes, you thought that, you know you did.)  What, you ask, could be so terrible?  What gut-wrenching, mind-boggling, twisting, turning, G-force pushing monstrosity from hell causes the Pooch to break out in a cold sweat, fake a headache or change the subject nervously?  What can be so horrifying?

The sky ride.

Yeah. You heard me.  The freakin' SKY RIDE. The silly little Gondola ambling slowly through the air over the park.  It's mass transit - not a thrill ride. No dips, no twists, no loops, not even a big dark tunnel.  No need for a restraint.  Loose articles welcome.  No minimum height.  No long list of disclaimers saying "Patrons who have stubbed toes or slight head colds should avoid this ride so we don't get sued."  No nothing.  Just a slow-moving, cable-suspended, long, excruciating torture session!  I hate it.  I would rather be launched from a catapult into a net made of spaghetti than be enclosed in that little  box, hung from an impossibly thin cable (and nothing else, dammit!) and dragged into the air to be dangled over the heads of park patrons like some overweight Sword of Damacles.  Whoever dreamed up this mode of transportation must have been a bigger sadist than the demons who create the metal monsters.  Nobody has any business feeling comfortable in this thing.

Well by now you're thinking (I'm psychic like that) "What?  Are you serious?  What in the WORLD is scary about a sky ride?"  Yeah, sure, YOU aren't afraid.  That just shows what YOU know.  Have you ever thought this thing through?  On a roller coaster you are strapped in safety harnesses, riding on a big, honking metal track that ain't going nowhere. There are fail-safe, redundant, interlocking safety systems all through the ride.  Yeah, sometimes the rides break down and people get left dangling, but that just proves the safety systems work.  You are very unlikely to get hurt on a roller coaster - unless you happen to be male supermodel Fabio, who got struck by a bird in the face on Apollo's Chariot (and God obviously had it in for him for being so damned pretty.  It just ain't natural for a man!).   Yep, unless you're on the almighty hit list, you aren't going to lose anything but ego points (and maybe your lunch) on a coaster.

But on the sky ride, not only are there no restraints, but they wouldn't matter anyway.  The only thing holding you up there is a cable.  A freakin' CABLE.  No good firm track under you (or thick metal supports over your head like on suspended coasters).  No good, strong engine like on an airplane. No parachutes. No means of backup, no fail-safe way of holding you up should the front half of the cable decide that it doesn't love its back half any more and the counseling has failed.  DO YOU UNDERSTAND THE FINALITY OF THIS SITUATION?  The good folks at the park have informed me that, should the cable decide to part, all of those little tower thingies would lock up, keeping the OTHER segments from dropping.  HOW VERY COMFORTING!  It is SOOO nice to be able to think, as I plummet to my certain death, that the people on the OTHER segments are gonna be OK, darn it.  If I happen to be on the segment with the cable halves that have irreconcilable differences, the only good a restraint would be is to keep the smashed-beyond-recognition body parts in a tight little package for ease of disposal.  How convenient for the morgue.  And then again, even if I happen to be lucky enough to be on one of the OTHER segments, I now get to wait for rescue for what might be hours while contemplating the likelihood that the failure mode which affected the poor folks whose bodily fluids are currently seeping into the local water table might also be imminent in my own cozy little cell.  Joy.

And it doesn't help that the safety signs in the gondolas point out that rocking back and forth is prohibited and is cause for dismissal from the park.  This is, of course, almost an invitation for any number of teenagers or drunk adults to do just that.  Since the manufacturers of this ride seemed to think it important enough to prohibit the action, it MUST be of SOME importance.  So now I am convinced (without rational cause, but that is what irrational fear is ABOUT, people) that should a good strong breeze decide to come along and rock this cradle, it might come crashing down like the one in that sadistic lullaby.   Not only that, but did you know that each gondola actually has a weight limit of 608 pounds?  608 POUNDS???  That means if you put four average adults in that baby (easily accomodated, space-wise) you could be overloaded by 100-200 pounds.  And it's just my luck the McFatterson family is (over)loading the gondola right in front of mine with Mom and Dad and two childhood obesity poster children who are currently each holding a hot dog in one hand and an extra-large Coke in the other.  Yep, my fat on one side and the Goodyear blimp brigade on the other.  No reason to be concerned about that extra cable strain, right?  Oy vey.

To add one more exquisite layer of horror to all of this, the ride is S-L-O-O-O-W.   The Griffon, with it's two 90 degree death-drops, runs at 73 miles an hour.  Except for a sadistic 6-second dangle over the first drop, this thing is VERY fast.  It's over before your lunch has time to catch up with you.  It's fast and intense, but it's over before you know it.  But the sky ride, oh this little horror is slow torture.  It ambles on at a pace which a turtle on caffeine could best without breaking a sweat (assuming, of course, that turtles sweat, which is an entirely unrelated - yet fascinating to consider - topic in which I will avoid indulging here).  You feel each long, drawn out bump, wiggle, rock, vibration and rattle along the way.  You hear each pop, snap, moan and groan.  It is sensory devilry without the attendant adrenaline rush.  No thrills here.  The only thing your brain will overload on is frantic messages from your bladder.  This is no fun, it is hell.  The worst part is that I hold on to the center pole, indulging my irrational fear of parting cables with the equally irrational thought that, should the gondola plummet earthward, the center pole would somehow remain happily floating in mid-air with me attached.  It's comforting.  More comforting, at least, than contemplating the safety of those "other segment" people.  I hate those people.

So should you ever find yourself in Busch Gardens Europe, Stone Mountain Georgia, at a ski resort, or in any other place where one of these insane cable death-traps is used think, man, THINK!  Find an excuse to stay on good old mother earth.  Try "What?  The sky ride?  That thing's for wimps!  I'm going to go ride the Tower of Terror."  Or how about, "Sky ride?  Why would we want to do that when we could walk along this lovely path, surrounded by the trees and flowers and mouldering remains of the last victims of snapped cable syndrome?"  No wait, leave that last part out.  Just tell them its more healthy to walk.  But if dread circumstance leaves you no choice but to board the sky ride,  at least take this advice.  Hold on to the center pole.  It is extremely unlikely that the cable will snap.  It is even more unlikely that, should this tragedy occur, holding on to the center pole will have any good effect at all, but you never know.

I'm about to test for a Ham license and I need some practical information.  The technical stuff is easy as pie, but I need to get info on etiquette, accepted practices, frequency management  and the like.  I think there is a test coming up within a week or two and I am getting a couple of handhelds tomorrow morning.  (Oddly, as I was typing this, my Brother-in-law, who is dropping them off on the way to DC in the AM, just called me and said he is coming tomorrow morning.) 

How 'bout it.  Any "Elmers" in the saloon?

Hillary Clinton mentioned Kennedy's assassination as an example (perhaps an unfortunate one) of a LONG campaign.  She wasn't wishfully thinking about someone taking out Barak in the late stages.  She was pointing out that it happened in JUNE - that's later than it is now.   Her entire point (and she used other examples as well) was that this long campaign is NOT an anomaly and that she might still win the nomination (however unlikely that is).

Sometimes the rush to make a sound-bite worthy gaffe leads to this sort of silliness.  It's like "MISSION ACCOMPLISHED" which was obviously only a message to the sailors on the boat but the left blew it into a premature declaration of victory.  There are a million other examples, but they are all the same.  Hillary said something that, at worst, might have been a poor choice of examples.  It was obviously not disrespectful or threatening or any of the other ridiculous interpretation.  It pisses me off to have to defend HRC, since I have little respect for her and don't trust her any farther than I can throw her.  But she is not guilty of anything here.  This is just another case of the media making news where there is none, aided, no doubt, by the Obama campaign.

The only difference between politics and "professional" wrestling is that occasionally wrestlers tell the truth.

Cockamamie.  We don't hear that word so much anymore.  It used to be used a lot back in, say, cartoons in the sixties.  The Animaniacs threw it into their theme song, too, probably in tribute to their illlustrious predecessors.  We seem to have let it go the way of "groovy" and "square."  But it's a good word, really.  It means ridiculous, nonsensical, or just plain stupid. Those words could, of course, be used just as well to describe things.  But cockamamie has such a silly, yet lyrical, sound that sometimes it just fits.  Cockamamie.  Say it out loud.  Doesn't it just bounce around in your mouth like a drunk on a trampoline until it comes spilling out haphazardly?  It's beautiful, really.  And you have to pick the right noun to follow it, too.  There is no such thing as a "cockamamie concept" or a "cockamamie plan."  Those nouns are far too stuffy to hang around with a party animal like cockamamie.  No, it has to be a "cockamamie caper" or a "cockamamie scheme."  Yeah, scheme.  That works.  Concepts and plans are organized, dressed in a business suit or a military uniform and are "developed" in board rooms.  Schemes are dressed in ragged shirts and jeans and are "cooked up" in smoke-filled back rooms.   And what's being smoked probably isn't tobacco.  Yeah, we got it now.  Cockamamie Scheme.  That'll do 'er.

So here ya go.  Some of the states - including a couple of big ones - decided that their voice needed to loom larger in the Democratic Party nomination process than they already did.  So they decided to move their primaries up.  This seems like something a state ought to be able to do.  This is kind of what the whole "United States" concept was about, after all - a group of sovereign states united together to cooperate, but each retaining its own sovereignty.  The concept, when applied to a political party, ought to be about the same.  It might annoy some Iowans or New Hampshire-er-ers, but that's what life is all about, kids.

But the Democratic Party, in its sudden incongruous embrace of the Great Compromise, decides that the little bitty states ought not be overshadowed by the great and powerful wizards of industry and retirement incomes, so they banish the interlopers to political limbo.

Except not.  Sort of.  With qualifications.  Maybe. 

Ya see, the genius minds that concocted this whole cockamamie scheme (see how well that fits here? Man, it's like I'm Walt Whitman or something.) had foresight roughly equivalent to that of the person who lights a match to see if his gas tank is full.  The party bigshots in Michigan and Florida insisted that their votes had to count for more.  Instead, in the one race where every state has been a battlefield the only ones that didn't count were the ones that concocted a cockamamie scheme to make themselves count more. ("Concocted" is like "cooked up" with high-falutin' airs about it - but it still works pretty well.  You could damn near break a tooth on the alliteration!)  So HA HA, Florida!  Nanny nanny boo boo, Michigan. Instant Karma gonna getcha!! 

But, oh, the cockamamie hasn't ended yet.  Oh no.  Suddenly, at the end of it all, after the queen has shouted "Off with their heads" to no avail, everybody wants to whine about how the poor voters in Michigan and Florida have been (the horror!) disenfranchised!  Suddenly, the anointed heads of the party  realize that something has gone, well, cockamamie!  (See?  Ya just gotta use that word here!)  Here the same big, bad bullies who told the states that the national party must rule over all have become born-again state's rights advocates!  Lord, I hope Hillary remembers this the next time she decides to propose abolishing the electoral college!  Worse yet, the poor voters in Florida have been crapped on a SECOND time - and this time not by the evil, old, white Republican, but the liberal, young, black Democrat.  It doesn't get any better than this, folks.  It's crazy.  It's cock-eyed.  It's . . . well, you know.

But there is yet more that warrants the revival of the "C" word that Jane Fonda didn't use on television.  No matter which way the party chooses to take the "kaka" out of cockamamie, they lose.  If they refuse to seat the delegates from Michigan and Florida those voters may just choose to stay home during the generals as well, and if the Repubs can pull off those two states, well, white guys have a pretty good shot at keeping the streak going.  On the other hand, if they suddenly relent and cook up some cockamamie scheme to seat the delegates from the two rogue states, Hillary may pull off an upset.  That means the Democrats just lost the black vote.  No, come on, wouldn't you pull out if you watched history slip away from you over some good ol' boy, er, I mean girl political deal?  I would.  Hell, there might even be riots at the convention and I mean that literally.  It would be as transparent as glass.  Hell, with that kind of turmoil a lot of Dems might show up at the generals just to vote McCain and keep Hillary out.  And on the other, other hand, if the delegates aren't seated and certain feminists feel that Hillary got cheated, they might sit out the generals as well.  You never know what cockamamie scenario might play out.  Isn't it just beautiful.

The end result of all of this political maneuvering is that the Democrats may have found a way to lose when they had their choice of two excellent, ground-breaking, darlings of the media and the Republicans are on the political ropes with a candidate that even we don't like.  It's all too beautiful.  Karl Rove couldn't have hatched up something this diabolically clever. 

Yep.  Cockamamie.  It's a beautiful word.   


 

All of the buzz about the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints lately has prompted questions about polygamy among Mormons and how the "Mormon Church" is related to the FLDS church.  I think most people get (because many outlets have taken the trouble to point out) that the "mainstream" church and this particular sect are not the same, but a lot of people think that we are sympathetic to, or wink at, the kinds of behavior going on in the sect.  Since I am the token Mormon on this site, I figured I'd shed  little light on the subject.

First of all, "Mormon" is not the correct name for a member of my church.  In fact, it got its start as a derogatory term.  "Mormon Church" is not an appropriate term.  Because of 175 years of usage, the term "Mormon" has become acceptable under certain circumstances  (see the following link for its uses).  http://newsroom.lds.org/ldsnewsroom/eng/style-guide  We don't get bent out of shape over it, but really calling me a "Mormon" is about the same as calling a Muslim a "Mohammedan."

That said, to understand where my church differs from other sects with a common starting point, let me give a brief history of the church and its splinter groups.

Joseph Smith, Jr. founded "The Church of Christ" (by that name) on April 6, 1830.  Today there are several groups that claim to come from that church.  By that name choice we mean that the original church that Christ established 2000 years ago became corrupted over time and that Joseph Smith, Jr. actually 'restored" the original church.  So we are, we believe, the original church restored.

Several years later, the name of the church was modified to "The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints."  The addition of "Latter Day Saints" was a distinction.  Practically speaking, there were several churches that called themselves the "Church of Christ" or something similar and were in no way related to our church.  Further,  in discussing the gospel, it is sometimes necessary to distinguish between the restored church and the original church.  As an example, when people ask "Was Peter a Mormon?" the answer is yes and no.  He was not, of course, a member of the restored church since he did not live in this dispensation (a term which in this context means, at its simplest, a particular era in time).  Yet he was a member of the Church of Jesus Christ, and as we claim to be the restored church, he can be said to be a member of the same church we are.  "Latter Day Saints" is a term describing those people who are members of the restored church.  This is as opposed to "Ancient Day Saints" or members of the original church.  "Saints" in this context refers to all who follow Christ, not to certain specific "holy" persons such as Apostles, martyrs and the like.  Though I am no "saint,"  I am, nevertheless a Saint.  So the "LDS" portion of our name comes from that distinction, but the IMPORTANT part of our name is the Church of Jesus Christ.  That's why we try to avoid calling ourselves "Mormons" or using the inappropriate shortcut "The Church of the Latter Day Saints."

So the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints continued with this name until 1844, the year that Joseph Smith was martyred.  At his death, a dispute arose about succession in the Presidency.  The church leadership consisted of a First Presidency, with the President (Prophet) and two counselors, and the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles.   Joseph had stated that the "keys" to the kingdom would be passed on to the Quorum of the Twelve at his death.  But disputes arose anyway.  Some believed that his counselors should become his successors like a Vice President might take over for the President in our government.  Some believed that the mantle of Prophet should fall on his son, Joseph Smith III.  Others believed Brigham Young, as President of the Quorum of the Twelve, should assume the Presidency of the Church. 

This confusion resulted in the first split in the church.  Several splinter groups were formed.  Among those, the most prominent was the group that followed Joseph Smith's wife and son back to Jackson County Missouri.  At some point, there was apparently a court decision made (according to this group) that gave legal succession to Joseph Smith III and made it the legitimate successor.  For some reason, this group decided to change its name to "The Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints."  By that name it no longer exists.  It split into at least two factions sometime within the last decade or so and now that name remains in the legal custody of "The Community of Christ" which downplays its "Mormon" roots and has more traditional Christian beliefs.  The other group "The Restoration Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints" sticks to its roots, with family members of Joseph Smith still in charge to this day, as far as I know.  Neither of these groups EVER went to Utah or practiced polygamy.  They reject outright the idea that Joseph Smith revealed or practiced polygamy.

The rest of the "Mormons" (so called, incidentally, because in addition to the Bible we believe in the "Book of Mormon" a compilation of Ancient American writings abridged by the Prophet Mormon) united behind Brigham Young and moved to Utah.  They retained the name "The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints" and became the church that today most people know.  After arrival in Utah, the practice of polygamy became public and fierce opposition to the practice began to appear.  Much of it was based on the same sort of concerns that people have about the FLDS sect today.  The idea was that women were being forced to marry against their will and this isolated sect had all sorts of evil things going on.  In reality only a small percentage of the members of the church were actually involved in polygamy.  But some dissidents claimed to have been forced into these marriages against their will, or seeing others who were, and public outrage was inflamed.  Personally, I have no problem believing that some of this was true.  After all, women (especially in those less enlightened times) were often forced into marriages by unscrupulous men in the monogamous world. (Think of the caricature of the villain tying the poor girl to the railroad tracks to force her into marriage.)  Polygamy would be an even bigger opportunity for that sort of abuse.   But largely, polygamy was just a lifestyle practiced by Mormons much as it has been in other cultures and times throughout the world.

The people, and ultimately the government, however, could not tolerate this behavior.  Over several years, the government did more and more to stop the practice.  Statehood was denied to "Deseret" (eventually named Utah for the Ute Indians) while polygamy was in practice.  Prosecution against church leaders was started.  Brigham Young was removed as territorial governor and an unpopular government representative was put in his place.  He claimed that the Mormons were rebelling against him.  US troops were sent to Utah to quell the "Mormon uprising" and the US Army still has a battle streamer on its flag for the "Mormon war."  (Some say, incidentally,  that future Confederate General Johnston was actually using the Mormon issue as an excuse to get pro-Southern forces in place in Utah for a drive to California in the event of a secession.)  Though only token harrassment occurred, passions were high.  The US Congress passed laws disenfranchising the Church and its members.   Ultimately, the US Supreme Court under Chief Justice Morrison Waite ruled that laws against polygamy were not a violation of religious freedom. 

Eventually, the church was forced to stop polygamy.  But many claimed the practice was still ongoing.  So in 1890, the President of the Church, Wilford Woodruff, officially announced that polygamy was no longer supported by the church and that all plural marriages must be stopped immediately.  This "Official Declaration" eventually was adopted into the standard works of the church and became scripture. (See http://scriptures.lds.org/en/od/1  ).  Future polygamous marriages would result in excommunication of the guilty parties.  As a result, the government stopped prosecutions against church members and restored the rights and property of the church.  Utah became a state in 1896.  Additionally, the government tactily agreed to turn a blind eye on those people ALREADY in plural marriages, figuring that the practice would die a natural death within a generation and that creating, effectively, a large group of widows and orphans was not a great idea.  So while no polygamous marriages were performed after 1890, the lifestyle continued for a while afterwards among church members.

Several people, however, thought that President Woodruff had become a "fallen" prophet.  So other spinter groups were formed.  Many of them broke away immediately, others took decades before the split. (I'm guessing these latter were the sons and daughters of those original plural marriages who had grown up in the lifestyle - and probably more than a few oportunists.)  Several groups collectively referred to as "Fundamentalists" faced off against each other, pitting prophet against prophet.  Many became violent within themselves and against competing polygamist sects.  There were even a few attacks against the now non-polygamist mainstream church.  Zealous prosecution of polygamists was no longer a priority, but when violence became a problem law enforcement came into play. 

Some people feel like mainstream Mormons refrained from prosecuting polygamists out of sympathy for the lifestyle or because we secretly approve of the practice.  That comes from the habit of associating polygamy with the Church.  Polygamy is only a very minor factor in church doctrine.  We have gotten along very well without it for well over a century.  We do not condone or wink at such behavior.  More importantly, a far more vital component of LDS doctrine is proper authority.  The President of of the FLDS church claims to be a prophet, in direct succession (through John Taylor, third President of the main church) of Joseph Smith, Jr.    That places him in direct opposition to Thomas S. Monson, and all of the Presidents of the Church from Wilford Woodruff on.  Further, whoever his predecessors in the Presidency of that sect are would be in a similar position.  Even if we somehow approved of, or viewed as harmless the sects practices, we would have no affinity with a sect we consider apostate for a much more important reason.   As far as any law enforcement agencies that might have mainstream Mormons as members, they would not view the sect with any sympathy.  As far as the church itself (the mainstream church, that is) we would have no authority whatsoever over that sect.  They do not acknowledge us in any way, except as apostates from the "true" church, and we believe them to be in pretty much the same condition. 

Obviously, even if there are those who view polygamy of itself as a matter of cultural difference, when it involves twelve-year olds (and, if we can believe one former member of the church, even molestation of boys) it is a far more serious situation.  In this day and age if three or more consenting adults choose to live together, irrespective of gender or lifestyle, it's getting to the point of anything goes.  But when one of the members of this sort of "marriage" is barely a teenager, it is time to draw the line.  I will say, however, that the wholesale dismantling of numerous families and the incredibly intrusive manner in which it is being done looks more like a witchhunt than a rescue mission.  It may be that this sort of thing is warranted, given that it appears that the sect and its leadership condones forced marriage of children and other sexual perversions.  But given the history of government interference in religion in general and Mormonism in particular, I'm more than a little skeptical about how much of this is truth and how much is crusading. 

Nevertheless, given that there are so many churches (many with very similar names) who have widely varying beliefs, people (quite understandably) think that we are either one and the same or just different facets of a single idea.  The church is relatively young.  The same sort of splintering has occurred with our religion as with mainstream Christianity (of which our sect is just another "spin off") and other faiths.  Calling an FLDS person a "Mormon" is much like calling a Lutheran a Catholic.  Our roots are the same, but we are not the same faith at all. 

One could argue (and some have) that making such a distinction is much like mainstream Christians claiming that Mormons are not Christians.  It's a valid point, but there is a difference.  Those Christians who disclaim Mormons as not "true" Christians are talking about spiritual beliefs.  They don't generally care that we don't use alcohol, tobacco or coffee.  They probably approve, in principle, of our paying of tithes, prohibiting extramarital sex or keeping the sabbath holy.  It is our beliefs about God, scripture and other spiritual matters that define our faith to them - and that is fair.  We reject FLDS and other splinter groups as part of our faith not because of the spiritual aspects.  We may not doctrinally agree with those sects - or other Christian faiths for that matter - but we believe ALL churches have some truth.  We would view the FLDS church as doctrinally no different from other sects.  It is their practices that concern us.  We disagree, often strongly, with Baptist philosophy, but we do not view their practices as un-Christian.  We believe Baptists, Catholics, Presbyterians, Lutherans and all of those other sects are Christian, though we differ with them on matters of doctrine.  But when a sect engages in clearly un-Christian behavior - that Westover Baptist group comes to mind - it is not their doctrines but their behaviors that call for denunciation.  The eternal state of FLDS members is a matter for God to decide, and each member is an individual.   Whatever their sins, Christ's atonement is available to them, as it is for all mankind.  But as I am sure many Baptists wish to clarify that they do not condone or wish to be associated with the nutcases at Westover, we feel similarly about the FLDS sect.  Just because we share part of a name does NOT mean we are the same, or even sympathetic.

Here endeth the lesson.