I heard today that Mormons believe that "special spirit babies" were sent by the god from the planet Kolob to be born to eventually form the US Constitution. I thought it was a joke. It isn't. I have LDS relatives and of all the kooky things I know about LDS, this one completely escaped me.
The LDS teaches that it is their divine destiny to "save" the Constitution and trigger a Mormon nation.
From teh googles:
"When the Constitution of the United States hangs, at it were, upon a single thread, they will have to call for the "Mormon" Elders to save it from utter destruction; and they will step forth and do it." (Discourses of Brigham Young, p. 361)
-- snip --
These noble spirits came there with divine permission - evidence that this work of salvation goes forward on both sides of the veil. At a later conference, in April 1898, after he became President of the Church, President Woodruff declared that "those men who laid the foundation of this American government and signed the Declaration of Independence were the best spirits the God of Heaven could find on the face of the earth. They were choice spirits.
http://www.cephasministry.com/mormon_mormonism_and_the_constitution.htmlLDS attachment to the Constitution has been further encouraged by an important oral tradition deriving from a statement attributed to Joseph Smith, according to which the Constitution would "hang by a thread" and be rescued, if at all, only with the help of the Saints. Church President John Taylor seemed to go further when he prophesied, "When the people shall have torn to shreds the Constitution of the United States the Elders of Israel will be found holding it up to the nations of the earth and proclaiming liberty and equal rights to all men" (JD 21:8). To defend the principles of the Constitution under circumstances where the "iniquity," or moral decay, of the people has torn it to shreds might well require wisdom at least equal to that of the men raised up to found it. In particular, it would require great insight into the relationship between freedom and virtue in a political embodiment of moral agency.
http://www.lightplanet.com/mormons/basic/doctrines/law/constitution_eom.htm“Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”
The single word that best describes a fulfillment of the duties of civic virtue is patriotism. Citizens should be patriotic. My favorite prescription for patriotism is that of Adlai Stevenson: “What do we mean by patriotism in the context of our times? … A patriotism that puts country ahead of self; a patriotism which is not short, frenzied outbursts of emotion, but the tranquil and steady dedication of a lifetime.”
http://lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?locale=0&sourceId=729d94bf3938b010VgnVCM1000004d82620a____&vgnextoid=2354fccf2b7db010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRDSo where was this assclown and his comrades when the Patriot Act was enacted and NSA was allowed warrantless wiretapping?
*sigh*