Big Brutha

Member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Political Hack, International Man of Mystery, Stranger in Strange Lands, Regressive Christian ☂️

[Big Brutha @big_brutha]

@punished_bobda “Why’d you divorce him?”
“He abused me.”
“How?”
We argued.”
“And….?”
“He was mean.”
“How?”
“He wouldn’t give me what I wanted.”
“Was there a reason he was supposed to?”
“I’m his wife.”
“Did you give him what he wanted?”
“That’s sexist.”
“Okay.”

[Big Brutha @big_brutha]

@TacticalMinivan Praying for you brother.

[J. Respectful Clark @JReubenCIark]

This is an excellent book for anyone with interest in LDS history or even history of the American West generally. You get more gritty detail than you do in official church history, but without the scandal-mongering that you sometimes get from historians who only engage the Mormon Pioneers as a caricature. Highest possible recommendation.

[J. Respectful Clark @JReubenCIark]

The author, as you may have guessed, is a descendant of DHW, and his admiration of his subject is discernible but not, I think, in any way distortive. There are a couple of interpersonal conflicts with other church leaders, one with his fellow 1st Presidency counselor Heber C. Kimball which seems oddly one-sided from Kimball's direction, and another with George Q. Cannon which involved a tragic incident between their two families. DHW comes out looking much the better of these two conflicts, which made me curious to hear an account from the other side.

[J. Respectful Clark @JReubenCIark]

There is plenty of good action in this book, more military action than you would find in a biography of any other LDS leader. There's tremendous detail in the portrayal of the battles in Illinois, the Utah War, the wars with the Utes; it has a clearer and more balanced account of the Mountain Meadows Massacre than I've read anywhere else.

The writing style is engaging and flows without being dumbed down. No one with interest in the topic will find it a slog.

[J. Respectful Clark @JReubenCIark]

This is a biography I didn't know I needed to read. Sometimes when people learn about a topic for the first time, they shift the blame for their own prior ignorance onto society at large: "We don't talk about X enough"; "No one ever taught me about X." At the risk of doing the same: Daniel H. Wells occupies too little space in our collective memory of LDS history, compared to his contemporaries of similar importance.

And the reason for this is clear from reading the book: DHW was a doer, not a talker. He was the commander of the Nauvoo Legion for decades; without his military leadership, and at times diplomacy, it isn't clear that the Utah experiment would have survived. He was an apostle for over 3 decades, 2nd counselor to Brigham Young for 20 years, Mayor of Salt Lake City for 10. He was Brigham's master builder of Salt Lake City, and a successful lawyer and businessman. He was Attorney General for Deseret. He was a hyper-competent pioneer and a man of integrity, and from reading this book it's easy to see why Brigham leaned on him so heavily.

But you won't hear him quoted at General Conference. He just wasn't a flowery speaker that so many of our Victorian-era church leaders were. He does not appear to have engaged in much theology. Since so much of our engagement with Church history is about pulling doctrinal quotes, or analyzing theological debates, he just doesn't figure in such discussions. Only by looking at the scope of his life and his many accomplishments, any one of which would suffice to etch his name in LDS history, do you really understand how indispensable he was.

[J. Respectful Clark @JReubenCIark]

A long time ago, longer than I care to reveal, a friend of mine sent me a free copy of "Defender: The Life of Daniel H. Wells," by Quentin Thomas Wells, on the condition that I post a review of it. Here at long last is that review.

[Curtis Yarvin @curtis_yarvin]

This is why the admin has to concentrate force on it.

To win, focus all energy on a position which the enemy cannot surrender. The true story of Covid delegitimizes the whole regime.

(Also Russiagate, but natsec ppl are better at not taking notes on a criminal conspiracy)

[Big Brutha @big_brutha]

@ATIF_Podcast Materialism alone cannot teach that these acts are objectively evil because, per Hume, you can’t get an ought from an is. You have to smuggle some a priori assumption into the argument because you can’t get it from merely observing the facts of the universe.

[Big Brutha @big_brutha]

@PeacemakingSt A bathtub. The Caspian Sea.

[Big Brutha @big_brutha]

@Je5ton This kind of vacuous posturing deserves a beating for the selective outrage at a minor slur compared with the enormity of the evil committed by those toward whom it was directed.

[Big Brutha @big_brutha]

@acrimonyand The chickens will come home to roost.

[Big Brutha @big_brutha]

@pnwguerrilla The issue isn’t the panopticon. The issue is who controls it.

[Salva Ortega @_SalvaOrtega]

Soy de Ceuta, y lo que estamos viviendo ahora mismo es una auténtica invasión, por favor, necesitamos la difusión de todos para que declaren emergencia nacional. Por ahora ha sido solicitada por el gobierno de Ceuta y ha sido rechazada.

[Big Brutha @big_brutha]

@lil_boggy @Sheum_Search Just gotta make sure not to delve too greedily or too deep.

[Big Brutha @big_brutha]

@crandallbox @grunk876 Yes, they were condemned. None of that limits the Atonement. By definition everyone is unworthy of the Atonement. What one does IS a reflection of one’s heart. Especially if you’ve been told not to do something and do it anyway.

[anarcarural 🐂🇪🇸 @anarcarural]

en alguna casa de españa hay ahora mismo un chavalin de la generación alpha scrolleando tiktok que va a dejar a franco, hitler y stalin como autenticas hermanitas de la caridad

[Big Brutha @big_brutha]

@EdgyLatterDaySa @alma43_47 Maybe don’t label groups of people based on pornographic categories. We shouldn’t all stop infantilizing adults who are capable of directing them own lives and decision making.

[Big Brutha @big_brutha]

@feelsrattlin @DeseretSalz Equal partner is a misleading term. Equal in the sense that we’re both partners is really as far as it goes.

[bumbadum @bumbadum14]

You don't hate "health professionals" enough