The teeth, they’re coming!
Is it just me that finds the multiplicity of identikit Romneys decidedly disconcerting?
It’s not just the Mitt lies and the hypocrisy and the weird religion and the teeth and and the torture advocacy, it’s that and the fact that should he be elected President, he’ll have his own ready-made, full-on Mormon, shiny-toothed and haired Praetorian guard – like Uday and Usay Hussein, but more Osmondesque.
What started me down that scary train of thought was this article from Reuters:
Polygamist community faces rare genetic disorder
Thu Jun 14, 2007 11:00AM EDT
By Jason SzepCOLORADO CITY, Arizona (Reuters) – In a dusty neighborhood under sheer sandstone cliffs studded with juniper on the Arizona-Utah border, a rare genetic disorder is spreading through polygamous families on a wave of inbreeding.
The twin border communities of Hildale, Utah, and Colorado City, Arizona, have the world’s highest known prevalence of fumarase deficiency, an enzyme irregularity that causes severe mental retardation brought on by cousin marriage, doctors say.
“Arizona has about half the world’s population of known fumarase deficiency patients,” said Dr. Theodore Tarby, a pediatric neurologist who has treated many of the children at Arizona clinics under contracts with the state.
“It exists in a certain percentage of the broader population but once you get a tendency to inbreed you’re inbreeding people who have the gene there, so you markedly increase the risk of developing the condition,” he said.
The community of about 10,000 people, who shun outsiders and are taught to avoid newspapers, television and the Internet, is home to the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (FLDS), a sect that broke from the mainstream Mormon church 72 years ago over polygamy.
The group, who wear conservative 19th-century clothing, is led by Warren Jeffs, who was arrested in August and charged as an accomplice to rape for using his authority to order a 14-year-old girl against her wishes to marry and have sex with her 19-year-old cousin.
Doctors in the area declined requests for interviews and families refuse to talk to reporters. But former FLDS members, independent doctors and authorities say the disorder appears to have struck at least 20 children in the past 15 years.
“The disease itself is very rare in the rest of the world,” said Dr. Vinodh Narayanan of Arizona’s St. Joseph’s Hospital & Medical Center and Barrow Neurological Institute. Doctors worldwide had only studied about 10 cases just a decade ago.
“Once you get people within in the same community marrying, then the chances grow of having two people carrying the exact same mutation.”
Yes, and this is the unfortunate result.
Image by Salamander Society
jr
June 16, 2007 at 12:54 pmThe bottom line for me as far as the LDS bunch goes is that they attempt to mask their rather strange doctrine in terms used by Biblical Christianity. So the Mormons end up sounding like the friendly Baptist church down on the corner but they are something entirely different. I say, believe what you want LDS folks, but be honest and up front about it. Don’t suck people in with this love bombing technique so that they are emotionally committed to the group without really knowing what the whole deal is all about. I wonder if that approach has effected Mittster the politician?
ed henline
June 16, 2007 at 1:13 pmYou are messed up. You are the kind of people that really mess up the country, with your non researched, hate oriented, ego driven speech. The article that you show is about the fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. A break away group from the original church. That is like saying, the methodists and catholics are one and the same. Because the Methodists are a break away from the Catholic church, so you see not the same church. Is this how you judge all people? And comparing them to Husain’s kids, is over the top nuts. It reminds me of 6th graders who like to call people honorable names when they don’t like someone just because others said things about them that are not true in the first place.
Palau
June 16, 2007 at 2:08 pmEd: If you look at the sidebar where it says ‘about the authors’ you’ll se it says we at this blog think ‘Derision is also a political weapon’.
Mormonism is an inherently stupendously ridiculous religion both in its tenets and practices and there’s some pretty ridiculous religions out there.
That a supposedly serious presidential candidate is stupid, deluded or merely self-interested enough to believe that codswallop is certainly worthy of derision of the wildest sort and I make no apology for that.
I also profoundly disagree with his politics and I make no apology for that either.
Romney is marketing himself like no other candidate has marketed before, using his vast personal wealth to do it, portraying himself as a bog-standard Christian while trying to hide and downplay the ridiculousness of his actual religious beliefs and practices.
Fra from acrting in a Christian fashion he also panders to the worst type of far right tendencies on race, immigration, women and civil liberties, ditching his previous pre-presidential-campaign policies for political convenience. He’s grubbing for the worst of populist bigot vote with his professed views on torture too: so much for his ‘faith’. His faith is in winning the nomination and nothing else.
You don’t like me saying it? You don’t have to be here.
I’m not quite sure how one small blog based in Holland’s taking the piss out of an idiot is messing up the whole country and threatening democracy, though I’m flattered you think we have that much power.
I’m not stopping you voting for the guy if that’s what you want. Go ahead, it’s a free country still, or so I’m told.
Joelcannon
June 16, 2007 at 6:47 pmMaking jabs at Romney’s ancestors is the equivalent of holding Clinton responsible for her ancestors slave trading – not really relevant long after they are dead and the practice has been disavowed. (Note that Romney has no affiliation with the Fundamentalist LDS church.)
I would be proud to have 5 handsome, successful, wholesome, loving and supportive sons. If they are your not role models – then which family do you esteem? (The Osbourns?)
Palau
June 17, 2007 at 5:21 amJoelcannon: I don’t bother with role models: every family is different. It’s trying to make them all the same that helps cause so many problems.
BTW, I wasn’t suggesting he has any affiliation with the Fundamentalist LDS : nevertheless, both versions of the religion are ridiculous and the parallels are not inapt, as Romney does have polygamists in his family tree, whatever his current religious practice is.