I feel really torn over the Mormon sect out in San Angelo. On the one hand, I recoil at the thought of the government taking kids away from their parents. Their practice of polygamy and teen marriage is deplorable, but it’s not acute child abuse so much as it is a warped alternative culture. What bothers me is how this is portrayed in the media, as they harp on the fact the kids wear modest clothes, don’t watch television, don’t eat junk food, are homeschooled and are polite. I think they’re pulling a guilt-by-association to smear homeschoolers in general.
And I do have a natural loathing of Child Protective Services, and all the little tyrant social workers who in their heart of hearts hate parents with a traditional view of childrearing and family, eager for the least reason to use the guns of the state to remove children from homes they deem “abusive” because they have the wrong political views. And now we learn that the whole raid was triggered by a fake abuse claim, yet they still keep the kids.
But at the same time state governments have been dealing with various sects of polygamous Mormons for over a hundred years, and they simply violate Western norms of society to such a high degree that their tolerance is impossible. But, really, they aren’t doing anything that wasn’t done in the Old Testament by Abraham or others that we admire. They’re wrong of course to do so, but still.
We’re talking about people of essentially Scandinavian descent (Mormons pull from the same high-latitude stock as the Quakers historically) with all the discipline, fertility and extended kinship solidarity of Muslims. If allowed to grow, they might be unstoppable.
I agree with your perspective…….I’ve never felt any fear of the Morman faith in any form, yet become more horrified of our “Media Driven Corporatocracy” as each day goes by.
I guess on a positive note, it was good of the Government to not set them on fire as they did in Waco!………Had it been a community of homosexuals with an alternative lifestyle teaching children that God was gay, they would have been a benchmark sucess for multiculturalism.
Holocausts always start with groups that the mainstream appose, escalates to the slightly apposed, then rounds up the apposers themselves with noone left to object.
I’m just not comfortable with this action at all, and begin to worry that Texas has become the “Social Laboratory” for many radical programs that the Feds start?……..It is Texas where the mock urban marshall law pilot programs are being practiced in the event of NSPD-51 and HSPD-20 being put into effect giving the Executive Branch Dictatorial Powers.
“Do it for the children!” has been a huge sucess in implementing many programs that circumvent liberty, even on a small scale as bicycle helmet laws.
Just wanted to say that this in not a Mormon group. They are a fundamentalist group that is in no way the same as the Mormon religion. The Mormon religion doesn’t practise polygamy, and underage marriages. Please do not confuse this group with Mormons.
“And minus the polygamy and heresy, we might learn a lesson or two.”
I have to say that I disagree. The polygamy and heresy totally undermines anything else they have to say, and I think that is what is being portrayed in the media. I don’t know that it is the fact that they are modest, polite and homeschooled that the media is reacting to. I it is the fact that they are FORCED to homeschool (by their cult “leaders”), COERCED to be polite, etc.
I advocate all of the above. But I do not advocate forcing people to choose these things.
Also, I believe that polygamy and teenage marriage, especially when the children have no say, IS child abuse, or at the very least, a breeding ground for child abuse to propagate.
That said, I do distrust Child Protective Services, and in general agree with your comments about them.
Yeah, you’re right. They’re pretty loathesome. But something does strike me as wrong with what the state is doing.
The scope of this round up is troubling. Almost certainly, there are some of these children that should not have been confiscated.
I wonder if CPS investigates everytime an underage girl from a public housing project delivers a baby? (I don’t know the answer. Maybe they do.)
Considering the Supreme Court’s recent rulings on sodomy I don’t think polygamy, between consenting adults, can be prosecuted. We will probably see the constitutional challenges in the next few years.
You can see by the letters at this link (the Texas Homeschool Association) http://www.thsc.org/news_and_resources/Letters.asp that CPS often (avidly?) pursues claims of abuse in even the most obviously unnecessary circumstances. That is one thing that scares me as a homeschooling parent – the idea that someone could decide to come against my family. It leaves me feeling very vulnerable to a system that does not have mine or my kids’ best interests in mind – only the furthering of their own agenda.
I’m aghast that the lawyer in the bunch failed to point out the 4th and 5th Amendment implications here. Not one of these kids should have been rounded up. Not one. Polygamy and child abuse don’t even enter into the equation. The intial phone call that started it all was a hoax. The jack-booted fascisti stormed into the compound, refused to present a warrant to the families they ripped apart, and absconded into the bowels of the Great and Powerful State with little or no warning, explanation, and no justification.
If you ask me, they State of Texas, the several manifestations of the Federal Beast, and the “honorable” AG Greg Abbot himself oughtta be going back there, FLDS kids in tow, personnally kissing the feet of each and every parent, begging their forgiveness.
I mean, seriously, we were discussing this in my Sunday school class last week. I was the only one in the room that saw the negative implications of the unconstitutional power of organizations like the CPS being allowed to do this. (Granted, I probably bring the aveerage age in the room down considerably; the other men there, save one or two, probably served in Korea, or were old enough to have done) “It’s for the children” was the tired refrain they used to justify this tyranny. And while I understand they grew up in a totally different world, one where we would never be lied into an aggressive foreign war, one where the central bank would never act to send our economy into a tailspin, I am shocked — shocked! — that I have heard so little concern over the way the rule of law is being trampled.
The fact remains that no charges have been filed, no evidence presented. The one scrap of justification they had was a hoax call from a reportedly disturbed woman who has made, if not a career, at least a hobby of these sort of baseless accusations.
I’m sorry. I’m so ticked about this thing that I’m having to heavily censor myself, and I keep mistyping. (In fact, my lovely bride is prolly getting tired of me yelling at the newscast every time this story comes up) I have to cut this rant short.
By the way, I wanted to point out that, in my understanding of common law, none of these men are polygamists. The multiple marriages were not legal; they were performed without benefit of the government’s involvement — no marriage licenses. So the “polygamists” turn out to be guys with one wife and multiple live-in girlfriends.
As far as the “abuse” accusations, I categorically oppose empowering the State to seize anything without due process. The call that started the ball moving has been admitted to have been fraudulent. That, as far as I’m concerned, is case closed.
The smarmy, self-satisfied AG was on NBC tonight saying that the ends justifies the means in this case, that, if there are no signs of abuse, the kids’ll be returned to their parents (earlier in this fiasco, he said the state is going to use DNA evidence to bypass statute of limitations restrictions for bringing charges against YFZ members). I guess that’s the law of the land in this post-constitutional America.
My basic point is, if you are willing to accept abrogation of due process and basic civil rights in this case because these people are personally loathsome, for their practices, their theology, or whatever, where does it end? What would constitute an unacceptable violation? Who is safe from the tyranny of the present zeitgeist, whatever its form?
We are either a nation of laws, or we are not. There is no in-between.
Very well said Brian!!
Older citizens still live in the world of Andy Griffith where Mayberry had one deputy named Barney Fife which never even put the bullets in his pistol. The citizens would have laughed at Sheriff Andy had he demanded a budget to justify swatt teams, bullet proof vests, and comando tactics!
The judicial system is now vast, deep, and wide with everybody from the newest cop to the oldest lawyer part of the system. Like a factory, medical practice, or grocery store, inorder to expand they must have more customers! It’s like the “Crazy Fireman” that becomes an arsonist to create job security.(It happens.) America’s judicial system now opperates on a “Revenue Generating Policy” of:
“Throw everybody in the system, and the guilty go to prison and the innocent go home broke!”………….A former attorney friend of mine was told by his senior partners of the firm, “No longer in America are you innocent untill proven guilty. At this firm, your innocent untill proven broke, and we don’t work on peoples cases after their broke!”…………….We are rapidly moving in the direction of a fascist police state. Soon you will need papers to cross state lines.