Polygamists: Authorities Prepare For the Worst in Texas

hamburger wrote:

epbrown is wondering is it is acceptable to take the children away from their parents (or mothers) .
unfortunately that's what warren jeffs and his sect members did quite frequently !
if anyone thinks that what jeffs did is acceptable ... ... (i don't want to see my answer expunged ; so i'll hold my comments to myself) .
hbg

everybody I think will agree that the wider society has the right to impose its standards of child sexuality upon the polygamy cults, what is at issue is whether Texas is going about it in a wise way. Texas and the other states also need to deal with the fact that poly relationships are rapidly going mainstream. Using vengeful tactics on the polygamy cults today will land the states is the same place that those who executed the Short Creek raids found themselves in, out of step with the majority of the citizens on what is fair for the state to do against individuals.

0 Replies

Quote:

...what is fair for the state to do against individuals...

was it "fair" for waren jeffs and his sect members to separate many children from their parents ?
what about the welfare of the children ?
i believe there should be laws to prevent such blatant abuse of children under the guise of "religion" , and abuse it is imo .

(i guess i know why many religious movements make me shiver when i think of the damage they do to children .
i know that warren jeffs and his cohorts are not the only ones ... .... sorry , but i don't think i can approve of what they did .
perhaps the texas authorities might have handled it differently , but it was warren jeffs who started the trouble , and i think that's worth remembering .)
hbg

0 Replies

hamburger wrote:

, but it was warren jeffs who started the trouble , and i think that's worth remembering .)
hbg

If you are under the misconception that child brides a new concept, or that very young females being married off to much older males is a new concept, then you should consult the history books. The polygamy cult practices are in keeping with how humans have often lived. They are at odds with modern sensibilities, however there is a case to be made that sub communities should be allowed to live by the old ways if they wish.

The Amish have a practice of making sure that all who are in the community as adults are there voluntarily, and the polygamy cults need to be encouraged to do better at this. They also must obey the modern child sex laws, but trying to get there through traumatizing the community and though the courts is stupid. It will not work

0 Replies

hamburger wrote:

Quote:
...what is fair for the state to do against individuals...

was it "fair" for waren jeffs and his sect members to separate many children from their parents ?

Nope!

Quote:

what about the welfare of the children ?
i believe there should be laws to prevent such blatant abuse of children under the guise of "religion" , and abuse it is imo .

Such laws already exist. They're referred to as "kidnapping", "interstate transport of a minor", "immigration fraud", etc...

The problem with your argument here, as applied to this particular instance, is that the Texas authorities have made no mention of any such charges or, for that matter, that they are even investigating any such allegations. The article you posted doesn't even mention that anyone in Canada has even filed a missing person's report or any legal complaint at all.

Quote:

(i guess i know why many religious movements make me shiver when i think of the damage they do to children .
i know that warren jeffs and his cohorts are not the only ones ... .... sorry , but i don't think i can approve of what they did .
perhaps the texas authorities might have handled it differently , but it was warren jeffs who started the trouble , and i think that's worth remembering .)
hbg

You are fully entitled to your personal opinions - no one is denying you that. And no one is asking you to approve of the actiosns of the FLDS members. However, your personal opinions carry no more weight in law than those of Jeffs and his cohorts. Whether you like them or their beliefs or not is irrelevant. They are still guaranteed equeal protection under the law. Whether they are or not is the question being raised.

0 Replies

i guess we'll know in a few weeks whether texas will apply some of the laws mentioned .
as i mentioned earlier , canadian authorities - both federal and provincial -
have so far shied away of tackling the issue here . they are really quite concerned that "religious freedom" guaranteed under canda's bill of rights will be used to squash any attempt by the state to intervene on behalf of the children .
i doubt that the framers of canada's "bill of rights" - much cherished by most citizens and human rights groups - had ever thought it might be misused to prevent the protection of innocent and vulnerable citizens (children) .
hbg

0 Replies

ebrown_p wrote:

- The rumors of cyanide stockpiles that were circulated have kind of conveniently disappeared once officials entered the compound.

You mean, the authorities believed there were weapons of mass destruction, but after they went in, they didn't find any? Somehow this sounds familiar. Must be a Texas thing.

0 Replies

hawkeye wrote :

Quote:

They also must obey the modern child sex laws, but trying to get there through traumatizing the community and though the courts is stupid.

is it possible that the children were previously traumatized by waren jeffs and his cohorts when they the were removed from their real parents ?
maybe everything that is being presented in the news is completely incorrect , but for now it seems that many of the children at the compound were not with their real parents - hence the DNA tests that have been ordered to find out who-is -who .

let me stress again that i have no problem with adults wanting to live in multi-partner relationships .
if they want to have children , that's fine too with me , but i don't see the need for needing sex with underage children .

as far as "history" is concerned , there used to be human sacrifices way back in history but i doubt that many humans see the need to go back to that ( though we have managed to use wars to achieve those sacrifices ) .
hbg

0 Replies

hamburger wrote:

hawkeye wrote :

Quote:
They also must obey the modern child sex laws, but trying to get there through traumatizing the community and though the courts is stupid.

is it possible that the children were previously traumatized by waren jeffs and his cohorts when they the were removed from their real parents ?
maybe everything that is being presented in the news is completely incorrect , but for now it seems that many of the children at the compound were not with their real parents - hence the DNA tests that have been ordered to find out who-is -who .

I certainly think that the state has the right to know paternity and maternity, and to hold the parents responsible for the welfare of the children. There was no need to inflict this trauma on the community to get there however. I also see no reason for the state to keep the kids while they are figuring this out. Finger print everyone, take DNA, and send them home where they belong.

0 Replies

Quote:

send them home where they belong.

where is their home ? where do they belong ? in the compound ?
i would assume that they belong with their "birth parents" for the time being .
hbg

0 Replies

hamburger wrote:

Quote:
send them home where they belong.

where is their home ? where do they belong ? in the compound ?
i would assume that they belong with their "birth parents" for the time being .
hbg

No, because moving a child must be done with care. Speed is not the goal, low trauma for the child is the goal. Texas should send the kids back to their home as they (the kids) know it, and if a change needs to be made then do it down the line. However, now that the kids are a ward of the state moving them out of were they are now will also be possibly traumatic. All would have been avoided if the state had left the children on the compound. There was no good reason to take them away in the first place.

0 Replies

A local TV station in West Texas has posted the affadavit for the search of the compound:

http://i225.photobucket.com/albums/dd38/CBS_7_News/WebExclusiveFLDS3copy.jpg

http://i225.photobucket.com/albums/dd38/CBS_7_News/WebExclusiveFLDS6copy.jpg

0 Replies

Another part of the affadavit concerns observations at the compound:

http://i225.photobucket.com/albums/dd38/CBS_7_News/WebExclusiveFLDS5copy.jpg

0 Replies

The original phone call was evidently a hoax. If this was the case, this part of the affidavit is irrelevant.

The problem with the observations of the investigators is that they entered the community with strong preconceived notions. They were already sure of what they would find that they only looked for evidence that supported their beliefs. Even so, there is nothing I see in this affidavit (or anywhere else from the state) that offers an objective evidence abuse. The charges here are all based on the interpretation of the investigator.

This is not a very good unbiased source.

Part of the difficulty I have with this story is that there are no unbiased sources of information. This makes the real truth about what happened in this community very hard to ascertain.

0 Replies

With your reasoning, ebrown, every child abuse case is prejudiced. Every time the authorities enter a home to search for evidence of child abuse, whether the tip came from a teacher, hospital records, a neighbor or wherever, they go in looking for evidence to back the claim or suspicion.

I'm lost as to why you are trying to defend this.

0 Replies

Quite the contrary Squinney.

There are plenty of cases where there is conclusive evidence, or even strong evidence, that that a child is being abused. In this case I strongly support removal of the children (or any other appropriate intervention).

My point is that this need to be done objectively... based on real evidence. Whether other people dislike or fear the group should not affect the investigation or the decisions made.

I have no connection to or love for this particular group.

But there is a real danger that once a group has been tagged as outside the mainstream-- that people will then believe, without questioning, any accusation made against them whether true or not. I have no way to know which of these accusations are true (and neither do you), but some of them have already been shown to be false.

If any group, even these polygamists, can be stripped of their humanity and their rights based on public opinion... then anyone who is odd, or outside the mainstream is at risk.

That is why I am questioning the actions of the State. From the drastic nature of their action and the doubts raised by the case-- questioning the State is appropriate.

0 Replies

squinney wrote:

With your reasoning, ebrown, every child abuse case is prejudiced. Every time the authorities enter a home to search for evidence of child abuse, whether the tip came from a teacher, hospital records, a neighbor or wherever, they go in looking for evidence to back the claim or suspicion.

What you say is true. But in what percentage of those cases are the children removed from the household while there is an investigation? And how many involve more than 1 or 2 children? In this case, they have removed the equivelent of all the children of a small town. That pretty much removes it from the realm of standard practices.

Quote:

I'm lost as to why you are trying to defend this.

I can't and won't speak for ebrown but to me, this whole thing reeks of the Day care sex abuse hysteria of yesteryear. And maybe it hits home more stringly because the Fells Acre case was right here and people are sensitive to the gross miscarriage of justice that occured in that case.

0 Replies

I certainly want to know about the original two calls. They are very suspicious....the convenience of them, the speed at which the state moved after them, and because I have a hard time believing that a community member would be inclined to make such a call or even know who to call. I would like information on the cell phone used, and cell company records of the location of the call. It looks like a con on the part of the state, that they put someone up to making the call that they needed. The state has already admitted that they were looking for a legal means to bust into the community, that these call were just what they were looking for.

We should all be very afraid for our freedom and civil liberties in light of these events. It the state can disregard the rights of people we don't like they can disregard ours as well. Who knows whom the state will choose for their next victim, whims have a way of changing.

0 Replies

ebrown_p wrote:

The problem with the observations of the investigators is that they entered the community with strong preconceived notions.

Although I sympathize with your general line of argument, this response to the police's affidavid is pushing it. Prejudices may skew the police's interpretation of what's going on. But it won't skew their estimates of a young woman's age, nor their perception that she's pregnant. Their judgment that she's a mother may be a bit more vulnerable to prejudices -- it's a close-knit community, where you would expect teenagers to hold other women's children. But the bottom line of the police's assessment looks pretty robust to prejudice: Underage girls are probably being impregnated there, and some of them are probably the victims of violence.

The police has probable cause to search the compound, and to build a legal case based on the evidence that they find. The stop-gap measures they take between the search and the trial may or may not be excessive, but I don't see a good case that they are.

EDIT: Fishin's latest response wasn't there when I started writing this. Now I'll have to go back and rethink my last paragraph.

0 Replies

fishin wrote:

squinney wrote:
With your reasoning, ebrown, every child abuse case is prejudiced. Every time the authorities enter a home to search for evidence of child abuse, whether the tip came from a teacher, hospital records, a neighbor or wherever, they go in looking for evidence to back the claim or suspicion.

What you say is true. But in what percentage of those cases are the children removed from the household while there is an investigation? And how many involve more than 1 or 2 children? In this case, they have removed the equivelent of all the children of a small town. That pretty much removes it from the realm of standard practices.

Quote:
I'm lost as to why you are trying to defend this.

I can't and won't speak for ebrown but to me, this whole thing reeks of the Day care sex abuse hysteria of yesteryear. And maybe it hits home more stringly because the Fells Acre case was right here and people are sensitive to the gross miscarriage of justice that occured in that case.

Re bolded.

I would imagine it is standard practice (it certainly is here) to remove a child who is to be interviewed re alleged abuse from contact with the alleged abuser, which, if the alleged abuser lives with the child usually means the alleged abuser leaves the house/is denied contact with the child until the investigation is complete.

If the reason for this is not obvious, I am happy to explain it.

However, where a parent/care-giver who is not alleged to have abused the child is considered likely to attempt to influence the child's testimony, then the child may be removed while the matter in investigated.

Given this is some sort of sect which is alleged to pursue practices which are abusive of minors, one would expect all or most adults within the group to be supportive of those practices which are being investigated, hence I would imagine this to be the cause of the minors' removal.

I haven't looked into the back and forth of this case, and I am aware both that removal is extremely traumatic, and that mass removals of this sort have proven very problematic in the past, but I do not know that removal, even mass removal, is necessarily an argument that the case is being mis-handled or is the result of some sort of mass hysteria.

Mind you, even IF abuse is being practised, in such sect situations, I doubt there is much chance of much coming out of the investigation, kids likely being too loyal/brain-washed/traumatised, or all three, to say anything much and all.

0 Replies

fishin wrote:

I can't and won't speak for ebrown but to me, this whole thing reeks of the Day care sex abuse hysteria of yesteryear. And maybe it hits home more stringly because the Fells Acre case was right here and people are sensitive to the gross miscarriage of justice that occured in that case.

I remember the sexual abuse hysteria in daycares, there was a very prominent case here in our town, however, I see no relation to this case
where you have solid evidence of young girls being mothers, being pregnant, suffering from mental abuse, having no (home)schooling, and being brainwashed by their religious fundamentalist old-geezer-husbands. Child abuse is not always evidentiary, yet if there is reasonable cause, the child(ren) need to be evaluated in a safe environment, away from the alleged perpetrators.

0 Replies

Polygamists: Authorities Prepare For the Worst in Texas

Related Topics

Quick Links

My Account

able2know