![\"Wiki](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/186\/2017\/12\/Poster_-_Brigham_Young_01.jpg\")
<\/a>For whatever it may be worth, a video recording of my presentation at the recent 2025 FAIR Conference, which was entitled \u201cBrigham Young and Slavery,\u201d is now available for viewing<\/a> on the FAIR website. \u00a0A transcript of the presentation is also available, here<\/a>. \u00a0I haven\u2019t read through the transcript yet, but I expect that it\u2019s a bit rough \u2014 as such things often are. \u00a0(I\u2019ve already, for example, noticed Cameron Bagley Fox<\/em> for our Camrey Bagley Fox<\/em>.) \u00a0However, it should be enough even now to be serviceable.<\/p>\n On a somewhat related note: \u00a0I spent a couple of hours today talking about Brigham Young and about our forthcoming series of Becoming Brigham<\/em> short-video documentary features \u00a0with Professor Christopher Blythe of Brigham Young University<\/a> for his podcast. \u00a0The bulk of our conversation will go up in a single podcast episode. \u00a0(I\u2019ll try to call attention to that when it happens, knowing that at least my small cadre of weirdly obsessive critics will want to listen to it.) \u00a0Snippets from the remainder of our conversation, he tells me, will probably go into other episodes. \u00a0Part of our conversation was off the record, deliberately not recorded.<\/p>\n I was saddened to have a post brought to my attention from a site that calls itself the \u201cLDS Freedom Forum.\u201d \u00a0I don\u2019t know how large a following it has, but I presume that at least most of those who comment on it consider themselves to be believing and communicant Latter-day Saints.<\/p>\n Here\u2019s the relevant portion of the post to which I refer<\/a>:<\/p>\n Keep in mind that ALL illegal aliens are criminals. While some imbeciles may think that they come here for a better life, Duh! You mean like a bank robber wants a better life? Or anyone that steals papers to get welfare and food stamps wants a better life? These people are criminals.<\/p>\n There are 40 million of these scum in this country. They take housing that could be used by law abiding citizens. They take jobs that could be taken by honest people. They also create crime.<\/p>\n When Russia and China complained to Biden that it was too difficult to get a ship, plane, or missile across the ocean without being detected in order to obliterate the United States, Biden said that he would open the borders so that the militants would already be here when they decided to fight. Remember that all illegals are not latinos.<\/p>\n The best way to rid our country of these criminals would be to have a bounty and an 800 number. You call , ICE shows up and hands you a voucher for $500 and takes the criminal into custody. This would save the US billions in undeserved freebies, and allow disabled vets and homeless to earn an extra thousand dollars a day.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n I want to offer some commentary on the paragraphs above. \u00a0First, though, I need to state my own position clearly enough that there is no confusion about it: \u00a0I believe in borders, I believe in secure<\/em> borders, and I believe that the federal government of the United States of America has failed the states and the people of the United States by not controlling<\/em> our borders. \u00a0I favor orderly and generous rules for necessary non-citizen agricultural workers, and so forth, but I also favor strong border enforcement. \u00a0(As things stand, almost anybody<\/em> could be coming across the Rio Grande, including Hispanic-looking Arab terrorists transporting biological or chemical bombs or, for that matter, components for tactical nuclear weapons \u2014 which is not only dangerous but ridiculous.)<\/p>\n However, contrary to the paragraphs above, illegal aliens are not necessarily criminals. \u00a0While, obviously, some undocumented immigrants may commit<\/em> crimes, simply being in the United States without legal permission is, I\u2019m informed, a civil<\/em> violation, not a criminal<\/em> one.<\/span><\/p>\n And illegal aliens don\u2019t necessarily commit crimes otherwise. \u00a0It\u2019s surely false to suggest that all or even most undocumented aliens are criminals, beyond their being present in the country illegally (which, as I\u2019ve just pointed out, is not criminal). \u00a0Most are not<\/em>. \u00a0Most are working on construction crews, or as hotel housecleaners, agricultural laborers, resort maintenance workers, restaurant dishwashers, gardeners and landscapers, maids, and the like. \u00a0Many of them, in fact, are trying desperately not to call attention to themselves, to keep a low and inoffensive profile in hopes of not drawing the notice of immigration officers. \u00a0They want to keep their jobs. \u00a0The available statistics simply don\u2019t bear out the suggestion that they are responsible for a massive national crime wave \u2014 as shown even in this article in the conservative-leaning City Journal<\/em>, which supports immigration control: \u201cDo Illegal Aliens Have High Crime Rates? High enough, from what we know, to take measures to secure our borders.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n Moreover, I reject the silly conspiratorial fantasy, in the third paragraph above, that Joe Biden deliberately opened the gates to illegal immigration so that a fifth column would be present within our borders for a planned war \u201cto obliterate the United States.\u201d \u00a0Come on. \u00a0I\u2019m reminded of the accusation leveled by Robert Welch, the founder of the once-famous John Birch Society, that President Dwight D. Eisenhower \u2014 formerly Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force in Europe and the five-star\u00a0General of the Army \u2014 was a \u201cdedicated, conscious agent of the Communist conspiracy.\u201d \u00a0Which drew a famous response from the great conservative writer and commentator William F. Buckley, Jr.: \u00a0\u201cEisenhower\u2019s not a Communist. \u00a0He\u2019s a golfer.\u201d \u00a0President Biden\u2019s record on border and immigration issues is execrable, but the conspiracy thing is just too much.<\/p>\n Further, I voice my objection to the notion that ordinary citizens \u2014 and particularly \u201cdisabled vets\u201d and the homeless! \u2014 should earn healthy annual incomes by becoming bounty hunters, continually spying on their neighbors and regularly turning people in to the authorities. \u00a0What a horrible society that would be! \u00a0Can you imagine living in such a community? \u00a0I wouldn\u2019t want to. \u00a0It sounds like the kind of thing that was encouraged under the Third Reich and in the former Soviet Union. \u00a0Does anybody admire the neighbor in Amsterdam who betrayed Anne Frank and her family to the German occupation? \u00a0Does anybody really wish that anything even remotely resembling such a system were in place in the United States?<\/p>\n Finally, I vigorously object to describing people who are in the United States illegally as \u201cscum.\u201d \u00a0Such dehumanizing language \u2014 used to describe millions of people who, overwhelmingly, are just trying to provide food and lodging and a better future for their children and families \u2014 has no place in the mind or mouth of a believing Latter-day Saint. \u00a0And I plead guilty to the charge of being what \u201cFred,\u201d with his characteristic kindness and charity, describes as an \u201cimbecile.\u201d \u00a0I do indeed believe most of those who enter the United States illegally do so in quest of a better life. \u00a0It\u2019s easy to look down on them from our relatively comfortable and privileged positions, but, if I were a husband and a father trapped in the poverty, violence, dysfunction, and hopelessness that exists in some of our neighboring countries to the south, I myself<\/em> might try to enter the United States illegally.<\/p>\n Happily, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints<\/a> has provided guidance on this matter in an Official Statement: \u00a0\u201cChurch Reaffirms Immigration Principles: Love, Law and Family Unity\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n Decent people of good will can and do disagree, often vigorously, about border and immigration policies and about how those policies should be enforced. \u00a0That\u2019s fine. \u00a0But we cannot plausibly claim to be disciples of Christ while choosing attitudes of contempt, hatred, cruelty, and lack of charity.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u00a0 For whatever it may be worth, a video recording of my presentation at the recent 2025 FAIR Conference, which was entitled \u201cBrigham Young and Slavery,\u201d is now available for viewing on the FAIR website. \u00a0A transcript of the presentation is also available, here. \u00a0I haven\u2019t read through the transcript yet, but I expect that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1019,"featured_media":36139,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[16343,39056,2451,2905,39053,788],"class_list":["post-112475","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-border","tag-illegal-alien","tag-immigration","tag-latter-day-saint","tag-lds-freedom-forum","tag-mormon"],"yoast_head":"\n<\/a>