Without the sheep,

to keep him in power, Joseph Smith would have been just another power mad, sexual predator, BUT, he seized upon the innate human desire, present in many, to follow a leader and to perceive a divine purpose to their lives. Whenever his will came into conflict with common sense and reason, he conveniently had a revelation from God, written down as 'Doctrine and Covenenants', explaining and sanctifying his actions and appetites, and the sheep said, 'amen'. He eventually took over 40 wives, many of them in their early teens, threatening them and their families with eternal damnation if they balked. Looking at him historically, it is hard to believe that people would actually believe and follow such an obvous fraud, but that is the nature of a cult, and whenever he ran into problems, as when he decided he wanted the wife of a man named William Law, who happened to own the local newspaper, The Nauvoo Expositor, Smith called the sheep to action. Law exposed Smith's adulterous affair with 1000 copies of a 'special edition', to be followed by more, so Smith incited the sheep to destroy the printing press, burn the building and beat the printer. 'Control the media and control the people', a fact not lost on FOXNews, was as true then, as it is now.Tis good to be the king, and control the sheep. Can I get an 'Amen'?