LaneWolfley wrote:So I've been a trial lawyer for 43 years. Along the way, one tends to learn some lessons about human nature. Here is Jonathon Neville's schtick: he is motivated by an obsession to say he knows something important or profound, while lacking the bona fides to warrant having this knowledge. A federal court has already found him to be a fraud, so he left the medical fraud arena, but found a new home doing the same thing in the Heartlander movement. While this is readily obvious to all who care to consider the evidence, he is uttered blind to this reality. He is a fraud, now and forever, until such time as he realizes his basic character and devotes each waking moment to changing this trait. Whereas you would shudder to utter another public word after the United States successfully prosecuted you for defrauding the public, Jonathon Neville just wakes up the next day and does the only thing he knows how, which is, defrauding the public. He doesn't even see it.
Joseph Smith History wrote:[Smith said] he had a certain stone which he had occasionally looked at to determine where hidden treasures in the bowels of the earth were; that he professed to tell in this manner where gold mines were a distance under ground, and had looked for Mr. Stowel several times, and had informed him where he could find these treasures, and Mr. Stowel had been engaged in digging for them. That at Palmyra he pretended to tell by looking at this stone where coined money was buried in Pennsylvania, and while at Palmyra had frequently ascertained in that way where lost property was of various kinds; that he had occasionally been in the habit of looking through this stone to find lost property for three years, but of late had pretty much given it up on account of its injuring his health, especially his eyes, making them sore; that he did not solicit business of this kind, and had always rather declined having anything to do with this business. ... And therefore the Court find the Defendant guilty. Costs: Warrant, 19c. Complaint upon oath, 25 1/2c. Seven witnesses, 87 1/2c. Recognisances, 25c. Mittimus, 19c. Recognisances of witnesses, 75c. Subpoena, 18c. - $2.68.
It can be said of Jonathan Neville on Sic et Non that:
Sic et Non history, volume 5 wrote:Few have confronted more antagonism and trials than did Jonathan Neville. He was besieged with dozens of unjustified slanderings and was often in jeopardy of his career. Jonathan reflected, "they seem but a small thing to me, as the envy and wrath of Daniel Peterson has been my common lot all the days of my life. It all has become a second nature to me; and I feel, like Paul, to glory in tribulation; for to this day has the God of my fathers delivered me out of them all.
It's fascinating to see the Mezoamerican apologists so quickly label someone a fraud, even a believing fellow Mormon, knowing the full history of their own founder.
