Mormons Make Great FBI Recruits

Sounds potentially problematic, having a lot of members of one group, any group, in your intelligence service? But then again, i can imagine the type of person who would be willing to apply to an intelligence service in the first place...

Most Mormons I’ve met are so wholesome and kind that I think they would legitimately choose to work in the FBI or IC to make the world a better place. If we’re gonna have one group overrepresented I can’t think of a better one, and I disagree with basically all of their beliefs.

For one the IC basically excludes edgier and free spirited types, or those with baggage, by design. It also excludes financially motivated people and academic types - in practice we’ve already ruled out most of the urban upper middle/upper classes and most poorer people. Among the remainder you have to pick those with college education that are willing to live in or around cities. And then among those, people willing to commit to a long career, believe in the cause, maintain discretion, unlikely to fall off the wagon… and without any kind of concerning overt bigotry. Besides people who enlisted directly out of high school I feel like Mormons are the only major group who would consistently fit the bill.

As a counterpoint, the two architects of the CIA torture program, one of the most evil of things that has ever come out of the CIA (which is a ridiculously high bar), were Mormons. High ranking Mormons in ecclesiastical positions, teaching love on Sunday, and torture on Monday through Saturday. And they probably legitimately thought they were making the world a better place...in a very compartmentalized and thoroughly corrupted way. Religion is a plague on this world...people can be just as easily corrupted by it as they can be elevated by it. I'd prefer to not have any group overrepresented at the CIA.