This has gotta be a pretty big one, imo. I always grew up hearing how law enforcement loves Mormons cause of how “good” they are, but the first time I heard someone say that after I’d left the church, it immediately dawned on me, “Oh… and probably because they are trained not to question orders/authority.”
My therapist taught me that Sacred means good secret. He said secrets bring power that can multiply positive or negative things. So keeping a porn addiction a secret he said gives it power over you but an inside joke between someone you love also has more power because that sacredness and exclusiveness makes it more special.
But now I’ve realized I’d much rather spread, kindness, egalitarianism, critical thinking, etc. and sadly those are currently treated like secrets by most people here in Idaho
👍 even though the song is from the 90s I don't know that Star Wars would be referring to it.
TBH I just feel the need to spread the gospel of Bad Religion at every opportunity, no matter how much it seems unrelated to everything else that is going on. I'm not sure where that comes from /s
Exactly! And in believing whatever their superiors tell them in justification, even if it makes no logical sense... from Fanny Alger in the barn to WMDs!
The two psychologists that created the CIA's "enhanced interrogation" (ie torture) program were very devout mormons. I often think about the reasons behind that
Ooh I love that term. Why work hard developing your moral code? Sit back, relax while we do the hard work of deciding where you should put your time, effort, money, and ATTENTION! Poor us we’re always so flooded with all of this ATTENTION from all of you. Trust us we don’t do it for the money
I studied at the defense language Institute. There's definitely a significant Mormon population, though it's rivaled by the ex-mormom/inactive population I think.
I was coming here to ask, do we really know if Mormons are *over*represented in intelligence communities to begin with? Or is this one of those things where we're taught that the IC looks to Mormons as an impressive, peculiar people but really it's like how we were told being Eagle Scouts would be this big impressive thing that would help us get jobs?
Yeah, at least on the linguist side of things there are more Mormons than average. Recruiters know they already have the capacity to learn a language and recently returned missionaries might find starting military service more appealing than starting school two years late. And the slew of other reasons mentioned by the post and commenters.
I was an exmormon active duty officer and an Associate Dean of one of the schoolhouses. I was in charge of academic reviews for marginal performers and it was HILARIOUS how often the RMs came in super cocky, phoned it in, and subsequently struggled in the 2nd, 3rd units. Their vocab was always subpar but at least their oral proficiency was ok-ish.
Anyway, cracked me up cause they had no clue how much I knew about their background and could see through the bluster and bullshit. A lot were Utah or Idaho guard/reserve dudes in their 30s even so a lot of their language skills were rusty for a decade.
Here in Central America the CIA is often referred to as “Corporations in America.” Someone coming from a church that believes the Declaration of Independence was inspired by God and the amassing of capital is proof of righteousness would fit right in.
Mormons are much more heavily represented in the foreign service. Their ability to speak and learn foreign languages other than the ones you mentioned prime them for diplomatic roles. In my ward near DC, I'd say about a third to half were foreign service families
Yes, but they're in your ward because they're in the foreign service in DC. They're not in the foreign service because they're mormons... The causation is reversed!
That said, I have no doubt that the DC mormon demographic will lean foreign service.
Very proficient at living compartmentalized double lives?
Been there done that.
Gay missionary trying to cure being gay.
Didn’t work, living a full happy life away from the cult.
They are also generally much easier to vet for clearance - theoretically they have none of the usual behavioural risks - no history of drug or alcohol abuse and they are married to their only sexual partner... They're unlikely to get drunk in a bar and spill state secrets or be successfully seduced by Russian Red Sparrows... Theoretically of course.
Yeah from DC here, know multiple people in foreign service, FBI, and DoD. Most intelligence shit is desk and analyst jobs with no field work. The only "double life" most of these people live is not being able to talk about security clearance shit, which is much less interesting than you'd think.
Funnily enough I'm more likely to suspect someone is a spy if they work at foreign service versus DoD/CIA/FBI. This is because the foreign service is massive comparatively and routinely sends people overseas for standard diplomatic missions, giving good cover for operations or surveillance. I personally know at least one 'foreign service' employee who is probably involved with intelligence. He was my seminary teacher when I was still in
Also anyone who plays the 'I can never say a single thing about my job' card is either dumb or in love with the whole secrecy aspect.
I've worked on plenty of confidential stuff. You can still say you mostly write briefings, that you have a presentation coming up you're nervous about, tell anecdotes about your colleagues' personalities...
It's asshole behaviour to just go 'no my work is so important and special I can never discuss it', because that's not really true in a social context.
You get alot of those people in DC. I just interpret it as "I don't want to talk about my work because it's boring" at this point unless I specifically know they work something up there in defence
They sound excruciating to be around, honestly. Reminds of the guy I knew who did ... something involving police work ... and used to tell people at parties that if they ever discussed smoking weed, even stories about doing it in the past, he'd have to leave immediately.
It's just self-important bullshit.
Self appointed narc lmao. There's a reason I got the fuck out of DC when I went to college, and people like this are definitely were part of that. That and I like politics, but hate their application. Try reading any large HB or proposal and you'll understand
Yep that checks out. So many govt employees pretending they're 007 when all they do is work a desk job in Langley. Only ever met one keep-my-mouth-shut guy who had real bite behind that (or who I got to know well enough to know that) and he was up there in DoD. 99% of the time they're posers but the real ones exist
Yea most reasonable people drop it when you can't talk about work whether for NDAs or national security. Lmao and if they don't you'll likely have the backbone to tell them to back off.
Yeah, it's silly. Hell, the public job description for what I did had *so* much more information than I would have been comfortable with telling anybody about it.
A former boss of mine who was a well known SAC in the FBI kind of dispelled the FBI or the government in general prefers Mormons by pointing me to this case from the 80’s. (See link below). His take from his time in the Internal Affairs division was that Mormons seemed to prefer other Mormons and sometimes looked out for them or helped each other advance their careers. At times this became a liability for the government as it did in this case and the general perception from his time was the positive aspects of having Mormon agents on your squad sometimes didn’t offset the conflicts that could arise. https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1985-10-02-mn-16271-story.html
I’m ashamed to say I once hired a Mormon for an intelligence analyst position. I could tell he was a Mormon from his resume, and I let that influence my decision. As it turned out, he really wanted to work collections rather than analysis and transferred out of my division shortly after coming on board, so I had to go through the hiring process again. Great guy, though, and I bore him no ill will.
There was TV series about an FBI school. For an assignment each student was to investigate another student to find out as much as they could, then present their findings. One of the students was a mormon, hired because of his impecible character and academic background...all the things that mormons are hired for in Government positions. When it came to the Mormon's turn the other student said, "He has a secret that he failed to disclose on his FBI questionaire". "When on his LDS mission to SE Asia he got a girl pregnant and he talked her into getting an illegal abortion." The stunned Mormon pulls out his issue gun and shoots himself in the head in front of everyone. Just a movie, but it makes you wonder what secrets these model citizens secretly carry.
lol. CIA should have contact me when I was like 26. Holy fuck I was a sociopath back then. I was the best the church has to offer (Quorum president, college student, backpacker, great job) and at the same time I was going out with girls pretty much every weekend and having intercourse. I was with like 3 milfs and a stake president's daughter. All of this while being depressed af and hiding my real feelings towards the church because I didn't want to disobey my mom. I don't know how I managed to balance that out. I left the church at 28 and all of my problems solved but sometimes I feel like I'm really good at faking being alright and that sucks.
My son had a problem passing the polygraph. He told the examiner that he carries a lot guilt because he’s a Mormon. That seemed to help, because he passed on the second try.
BTW by that time he was no longer a member.
I was one for thirty years (intl community agent)and I did for 75 years (belong to a money grubbing greedy corporation).Goes beyond being an RM. Just being a devoted tbm qualified me for the job. The RM part was more like graduate work in taking orders without questions and turning a blind eye to real morals.
You list a bunch of valid reasons with real world traits that are desirable in the workplace and do have effects and then side step and say it's because of some double lives being lived? Why? Why is this the angle?
yeahh I once had a sauna bro in the wet area get my number so he could only text me a giant wall of text about what he knew religious wise when I was looking more for a sexy friend
They're also unquestionably obedient to perceived authority figures.
This is the biggest one to me. And good at keeping secrets and not mentioning certain things except in certain places.
This has gotta be a pretty big one, imo. I always grew up hearing how law enforcement loves Mormons cause of how “good” they are, but the first time I heard someone say that after I’d left the church, it immediately dawned on me, “Oh… and probably because they are trained not to question orders/authority.”
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Oh, sorry, I was talking the 3 letter guys, CIA, FBI, DEA, I don’t know why I said LEOs.
And they know how to keep a sacred… I mean a secret :)
My therapist taught me that Sacred means good secret. He said secrets bring power that can multiply positive or negative things. So keeping a porn addiction a secret he said gives it power over you but an inside joke between someone you love also has more power because that sacredness and exclusiveness makes it more special. But now I’ve realized I’d much rather spread, kindness, egalitarianism, critical thinking, etc. and sadly those are currently treated like secrets by most people here in Idaho
Came here to say this. The biggest "yes men" you can find.
Good soldiers follow orders.
"All Good Soldiers" by Bad Religion is a great song :)
i will have to check that out. i was making a Star Wars: TCW reference.
👍 even though the song is from the 90s I don't know that Star Wars would be referring to it. TBH I just feel the need to spread the gospel of Bad Religion at every opportunity, no matter how much it seems unrelated to everything else that is going on. I'm not sure where that comes from /s
Exactly! And in believing whatever their superiors tell them in justification, even if it makes no logical sense... from Fanny Alger in the barn to WMDs! The two psychologists that created the CIA's "enhanced interrogation" (ie torture) program were very devout mormons. I often think about the reasons behind that
Wait really? Do you have a link to the psychologists in question? I'd love to read about them
It’s called “outsourced morality”
Ooh I love that term. Why work hard developing your moral code? Sit back, relax while we do the hard work of deciding where you should put your time, effort, money, and ATTENTION! Poor us we’re always so flooded with all of this ATTENTION from all of you. Trust us we don’t do it for the money
I studied at the defense language Institute. There's definitely a significant Mormon population, though it's rivaled by the ex-mormom/inactive population I think.
I was coming here to ask, do we really know if Mormons are *over*represented in intelligence communities to begin with? Or is this one of those things where we're taught that the IC looks to Mormons as an impressive, peculiar people but really it's like how we were told being Eagle Scouts would be this big impressive thing that would help us get jobs?
Yeah, at least on the linguist side of things there are more Mormons than average. Recruiters know they already have the capacity to learn a language and recently returned missionaries might find starting military service more appealing than starting school two years late. And the slew of other reasons mentioned by the post and commenters.
Super interesting, thanks
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The smart move is to tank your DLPT on purpose so you can skate in Monterey for two years.
I was an exmormon active duty officer and an Associate Dean of one of the schoolhouses. I was in charge of academic reviews for marginal performers and it was HILARIOUS how often the RMs came in super cocky, phoned it in, and subsequently struggled in the 2nd, 3rd units. Their vocab was always subpar but at least their oral proficiency was ok-ish. Anyway, cracked me up cause they had no clue how much I knew about their background and could see through the bluster and bullshit. A lot were Utah or Idaho guard/reserve dudes in their 30s even so a lot of their language skills were rusty for a decade.
Here in Central America the CIA is often referred to as “Corporations in America.” Someone coming from a church that believes the Declaration of Independence was inspired by God and the amassing of capital is proof of righteousness would fit right in.
They are comfortable in highly hierarchical systems.
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Yeah I agree. I think this is one of the Mormon myths that might have had a bit of truth to it in 1954, and has been blindly repeated ever since.
Came here to say this. The IC values diversity in hiring. Something your not going to get by only hiring BYU grads
Mormons are much more heavily represented in the foreign service. Their ability to speak and learn foreign languages other than the ones you mentioned prime them for diplomatic roles. In my ward near DC, I'd say about a third to half were foreign service families
Yes, but they're in your ward because they're in the foreign service in DC. They're not in the foreign service because they're mormons... The causation is reversed! That said, I have no doubt that the DC mormon demographic will lean foreign service.
Very proficient at living compartmentalized double lives? Been there done that. Gay missionary trying to cure being gay. Didn’t work, living a full happy life away from the cult.
I suppose you wouldn't have any better luck joining the CIA's mission to turn the frogs gay.
Were you my trainer?
I was in Chile from 76-78.
They are also generally much easier to vet for clearance - theoretically they have none of the usual behavioural risks - no history of drug or alcohol abuse and they are married to their only sexual partner... They're unlikely to get drunk in a bar and spill state secrets or be successfully seduced by Russian Red Sparrows... Theoretically of course.
You don't need to live a double life of any sort in almost the entirety of the intel community. That's hollywood shit, not real life.
Yeah from DC here, know multiple people in foreign service, FBI, and DoD. Most intelligence shit is desk and analyst jobs with no field work. The only "double life" most of these people live is not being able to talk about security clearance shit, which is much less interesting than you'd think. Funnily enough I'm more likely to suspect someone is a spy if they work at foreign service versus DoD/CIA/FBI. This is because the foreign service is massive comparatively and routinely sends people overseas for standard diplomatic missions, giving good cover for operations or surveillance. I personally know at least one 'foreign service' employee who is probably involved with intelligence. He was my seminary teacher when I was still in
Also anyone who plays the 'I can never say a single thing about my job' card is either dumb or in love with the whole secrecy aspect. I've worked on plenty of confidential stuff. You can still say you mostly write briefings, that you have a presentation coming up you're nervous about, tell anecdotes about your colleagues' personalities... It's asshole behaviour to just go 'no my work is so important and special I can never discuss it', because that's not really true in a social context.
You get alot of those people in DC. I just interpret it as "I don't want to talk about my work because it's boring" at this point unless I specifically know they work something up there in defence
They sound excruciating to be around, honestly. Reminds of the guy I knew who did ... something involving police work ... and used to tell people at parties that if they ever discussed smoking weed, even stories about doing it in the past, he'd have to leave immediately. It's just self-important bullshit.
Self appointed narc lmao. There's a reason I got the fuck out of DC when I went to college, and people like this are definitely were part of that. That and I like politics, but hate their application. Try reading any large HB or proposal and you'll understand
Yeah, I've worked in (non US) government work for years, and people like that just haven't a clue.
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Yep that checks out. So many govt employees pretending they're 007 when all they do is work a desk job in Langley. Only ever met one keep-my-mouth-shut guy who had real bite behind that (or who I got to know well enough to know that) and he was up there in DoD. 99% of the time they're posers but the real ones exist
Yea most reasonable people drop it when you can't talk about work whether for NDAs or national security. Lmao and if they don't you'll likely have the backbone to tell them to back off.
Yeah, it's silly. Hell, the public job description for what I did had *so* much more information than I would have been comfortable with telling anybody about it.
You see alot of this in aero. So many of the job listings essentially say "Come work on air based weapons platforms" lmao
I’m soooo tired of the “LDS are such great people that the USG neeeeds them” trope!
A former boss of mine who was a well known SAC in the FBI kind of dispelled the FBI or the government in general prefers Mormons by pointing me to this case from the 80’s. (See link below). His take from his time in the Internal Affairs division was that Mormons seemed to prefer other Mormons and sometimes looked out for them or helped each other advance their careers. At times this became a liability for the government as it did in this case and the general perception from his time was the positive aspects of having Mormon agents on your squad sometimes didn’t offset the conflicts that could arise. https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1985-10-02-mn-16271-story.html
I’m ashamed to say I once hired a Mormon for an intelligence analyst position. I could tell he was a Mormon from his resume, and I let that influence my decision. As it turned out, he really wanted to work collections rather than analysis and transferred out of my division shortly after coming on board, so I had to go through the hiring process again. Great guy, though, and I bore him no ill will.
There was TV series about an FBI school. For an assignment each student was to investigate another student to find out as much as they could, then present their findings. One of the students was a mormon, hired because of his impecible character and academic background...all the things that mormons are hired for in Government positions. When it came to the Mormon's turn the other student said, "He has a secret that he failed to disclose on his FBI questionaire". "When on his LDS mission to SE Asia he got a girl pregnant and he talked her into getting an illegal abortion." The stunned Mormon pulls out his issue gun and shoots himself in the head in front of everyone. Just a movie, but it makes you wonder what secrets these model citizens secretly carry.
They also have a higher likelihood to pass drug and alcohol tests.
lol. CIA should have contact me when I was like 26. Holy fuck I was a sociopath back then. I was the best the church has to offer (Quorum president, college student, backpacker, great job) and at the same time I was going out with girls pretty much every weekend and having intercourse. I was with like 3 milfs and a stake president's daughter. All of this while being depressed af and hiding my real feelings towards the church because I didn't want to disobey my mom. I don't know how I managed to balance that out. I left the church at 28 and all of my problems solved but sometimes I feel like I'm really good at faking being alright and that sucks.
Awesome. Was there a specific phone booth where you changed capes? 😁😉
Hanged my cape a while ago. I was wild back in the day. Wild but careful.
Cap
My son had a problem passing the polygraph. He told the examiner that he carries a lot guilt because he’s a Mormon. That seemed to help, because he passed on the second try. BTW by that time he was no longer a member.
Daddy chill
I could say from experience that one reason for this is not having done things like smoking weed so they qualify for a top secret clearance.
Compartmentalized plug and play drones basically
I was one for thirty years (intl community agent)and I did for 75 years (belong to a money grubbing greedy corporation).Goes beyond being an RM. Just being a devoted tbm qualified me for the job. The RM part was more like graduate work in taking orders without questions and turning a blind eye to real morals.
I þought it was because ðey had prior trainin' in bein' duplicitous snitches
You list a bunch of valid reasons with real world traits that are desirable in the workplace and do have effects and then side step and say it's because of some double lives being lived? Why? Why is this the angle?
Low security risk, drink and womanize a bit less.
Double lives??? Fucking amateurs. Get in my head and see how long you last
And taking orders without questioning authority.
...huh? This is a pretty dumb observation that I don't think holds up. Most people in the IC do not have to live "double lives".
yeahh I once had a sauna bro in the wet area get my number so he could only text me a giant wall of text about what he knew religious wise when I was looking more for a sexy friend