[OntarioJeremy]

The Politicians Swear Too Much article won't show up on my browser. Is anyone else getting this? How can I see it?

[Psudo]

I see it fine. Here it is again.

It's nice to see I'm not the only one opposed to swearing, especially by politicians. When I was a kid (1980s), I could watch politicians speak on TV, even press interviews, without worrying about content inappropriate for kids. From Clinton on, there has been a risk involved, a pattern which peaked when Dubya even swore about a reporter during a press interview when he thought the microphone was off. I think that was a peak the way global temperature peaked in 1998; it was a fluke that it was extreme then, but society shows signs of getting worse until that peak is the average.

However, McCain was never "the guy representing the family values/good-Christian-morals party." He was the candidate chosen precisely because he was an outsider on the fringes of that party, and the boneheads making the decisions thought that would give them a better chance of election than a "party man." He was so unrepresentative of that party that I, a registered member thereof, couldn't bring myself to vote for him.

[JJ]

Psudo, as I am sure you know, there's a common cliche about Mormons never swearing, and instead using all sorts of convoluted euphemisms like "gosh-durn" or whatever.

Is that something that has origins in the faith itself, or just a byproduct of the larger Mormon culture of friendliness.

[Psudo]

A little of both. Mormon theology takes Matt 5:48 pretty seriously. "Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect." By our theology, that is actually possible and includes mitigating minor sins, like offending people unnecessarily, taking the Lord's name in vain, and making oaths you don't intend to keep. In other words, swearing. In my own experience, it's easier to avoid swearing than to avoid more serious sins (though I'm still not perfect at it; I tend to slip up and swear about once a year). (Here's an article on the topic from LDS.org, the Church's official site. It's from 1983, but the theology still stands.)

There is also a cultural element; swearing is a very blatant sin, one that those around you can notice and, if they choose, complain about very easily. They can't see whether you're cheating on your spouse or embezzling from your employer, but they can hear habitual swearing (or see immodest dress) pretty easily. Thus, those minor sins tend to have a stronger social pressure against them simply because they're more obvious to strangers. During that half-century when Mormons were pretty much isolated from the rest of the USA, these social pressures were strong influences shaping the Utah/Mormon culture.

[Psudo]

Technically, the Bible and, thus, Mormon theology considers convoluted euphemisms like "gosh-darn", "heck", and "dangit" to be swearing, too. Matt 5:34-37 establishes the standard:

Matthew, in chapter 5, KJV, wrote:

34. But I say unto you, Swear not at all; neither by heaven; for it is God’s throne:
35. Nor by the earth; for it is his footstool: neither by Jerusalem; for it is the city of the great King.
36. Neither shalt thou swear by thy head, because thou canst not make one hair white or black.
37. But let your communication be, Yea, yea; Nay, nay: for whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil.

Invoking entities you have no power over to emphasize your claims ("Hell yes!") is considered a lie, since it is technically a claim to take additional consequence for your actions that, typically, you don't have the power to take. In the case of nonsense like "darn" or "golly gee", you can't take the extra consequence because it doesn't actually mean anything. Sure, people don't often mean to take an oath when they say such things, but if you don't mean it why say it?

Using such silly euphemisms is, thus, a concession to cultural pressures rather than theological reasoning.