Texas Authorities Raid Polygamist Compound(400 kids taken from a polygamist compound)

I agree it is all the faults of those bastards who wrote the Constitution or the stupid judges in supreme court which come up with such nonsense as Miranda rights or other stupid laws defending the rights of criminals who rape girls and kill people.

All we need is to take the guilty guys to a quite room with couple of tough policeman, couple of towels and a bucket of water and when we have enough evidence of their guilt, we can take them to Larry king, so you can watch and be happy that you are sure now that they are guilty.

 

I have already read about the 7 year old taken away by CPS. I do agree it was an overreaction to that circumstance.

Still, I can't agree that Texas overreacted in the FLDS case. Too much evidence that abuse was common and ongoing.

Now if the women interviewed had said something like this;
"Most of our families do not marry off our teenage daughters. Unfortunately there are a couple of girls who were married too young, and several members of the community spoke out in an effort to try and put a stop to the practice. I myself married at age 19, none of my sister wives were underage, and none of my daughters were married underage." And then if they proceeded to provide the names of the parties involved in the underage "marriages". Then, I would agree that all of the children should not have been removed in one fell swoop, because that kind of response would indicate that not all of the children were at risk. But it didn't happen that way. Right from the beginning it was like this;
"No, no Sarah here" There were 4 or 5 Sarahs!
"No, no abuse here, no underage brides here" Uh huh, 31 14-17 year old girls pregnant or mothers already, or both.
"Your name and age, & who's your mother?" "Name?, which name do you want? Age? I dunno, but I'm over 18 regardless, and she's my Mom, er, no, that one is really my Mom."
And on & on.

Next we'll find out more about the boys. I read somewhere that there are over 50 girls 14-17 years old, but only 17 boys! Can't seem to find confirmation of it though, if anyone else can find a breakdown by age and sex, I'm interested.

 

Inquiring minds want to know - gonna apply reality anytime soon? You know, on the order of something like conflating:

(horseshit fantasy and ridiculous emotionality)

for a rather pleasant Early Morning Today host, who asked the following, and got an answer, freely?

(reality)

Or you want to just keep playing games?

Never mind. Playing games seems to be a kick for a few on this forum. It isn't for me.

 

Is there some one in the room with you?

Let's look at your smoking gun:

Many, it mean not ALL but the other ones got subject to same treatment.

Didn't know, because you do not have knowledge of a crime, it doesn't mean that you have actually done it or you are guilty of it. How can they be guilty of marrying an underage girl when their marriage is not recognized by state?

The interviewer is also wrong, it is not illegal to marry some one under 18 and in fact in most states girls can marry at the age of 16 with their parents consent.

 

This wasn't "my smoking gun." This was evidence that the "responsible parents" are lying, to be honest, since the two sides - what the women say, what the men say - obviously don't square. And that despite the attempt to paint a picture of backroom CPD confession extraction, the men declaimed their point of view quite willingly. Oops!

The "smoking gun" is the fact that close to 60% of the girls are underage, and there was no way possible for them to be impregnated except by males from within the sect's isolated compound.

Around and around in circles, facts be damned, Gworld. I won't waste my time repeating information that has already been provided, several times, simply because you won't, or can't, hear it. Unless you've got something credible, I'm going to let others speak.

 

Guerilla, how do you think this should have been handled? If you pretend that you were the police/government in charge, and taking into account the points that Paul and Kaethy made.

 

I haven't read what Paul wrote. I have read what Kaethy wrote.

The problem here, is that everyone is applying ex post facto justification to the situation. Because it appears there may be evidence of a crime, then that justifies whatever means where used.

So do I answer this knowing that there was a crime, and hence have to backtrack and justify a process that is both ethical and still exposes any criminality?

Or do I answer this going in, knowing that I have say, a 50/50 chance that there is no crime?

Because to be honest, I think that the process of discovery should be consistent, and equally applied. Everyone is so focused on buzzwords like "kids" "abuse" "rape", "polygamy" but not looking at this in a broader context as gworld has been arguing for.

I could editorialize for paragraph after paragraph. But rather than asking me to justify moral action, how about folks who disagree with me, tell me if mass arrests, breaking up families and forced DNA testing would be justified if no crime was found. In other words, is the means consistent, or are we only justifying it by the ends?

 

The government has been looking at this for at least 4 years according to their own admission and even have an informant in one of the complexes run by these groups. I know that even Canada is looking at this group in BC on insistence from USA.
The question is why in 4 years of investigation nothing has been done to help these girls and no one has been charged with a crime? The reason is that is very difficult to actually prove any crime since their marriage is not legal marriage and therefore is not polygamy according to the law. Rape can not be prosecuted when there is no complain. Under this circumstances, government happily uses an anonymous calls to attack this group, search their homes and remove the children since there has always been pressure on the government to deal with this group and finish them both from religious groups and feminist groups.
If the interest of state is really the protection of innocents, the government could have got involved in social program that would help the eventual victims during these 4 years. Some of the simple suggestions that could have been far more effective are as follows:

• Establishing hot lines for victims of rape or violence, printing pamphlets and distributing in the area, so people can contact them.
• Establishing local police foot petrol in the community that can react to any sign of violence against children and establishing a trust between the members of the group and authority.
• Bringing social workers and doctors to observe children in the community and identify possible victims for further investigation.
• many members of these groups are on welfare, insisting of identification of fathers of new born children since state can claim the child support from them and refusing to pay welfare if they refuse.
• Ask identification of underage girls that look pregnant and send social workers to talk to parents and the girl since there is a reasonable suspicion of possible crime and remove the minor if satisfactory answers are not given.

All these actions will actually help and protect the children and innocents and are part of actions that government has a legal mandate to perform as a part of it's duty toward the society and it would have been more effective and less costly than present situation.

 

GWorld:

The earlier references to the development of a probable cause standard and usage that precipitated the raid referenced comments by Texas authorities about their four year effort to get inside the compound, get access to the people, or have any shot at all at trying any of the items and actions you bulleted.

It just wasn't possible. The group is extremely isolated and separated from main stream population in every way possible. Those education and access ideas might work in a more normal setting but it just wasn't feasable in this isolated compound.

I'm amazed that the horror of rape, the possibility of physical abuse, and the 4 year wait period in which state authorities respected the 4th amendment and the constitution are ignored by GWorld and Guerilla.

I suppose in their eyes any action by government, especially the US government or a state government isn't justified.

I suppose that perspective negates their belief in the Constitution and specifically the 4th amendment, which, while establishing the rights of individuals specifically limits those rights subject to police actions which can only be carried out by probable cause and is very specific in its language on this issue.

In fact if you look at the governments of the world wherein Saudi's behead people, the Chinese killed an official who committed theft, and so many instances of horrendous abuse of individual rights, in this case, wherein young girls, (and it now appears young boys) are being brutally abused by elders, and wherein a state, (not even the feds) waited 4 years before acting...its astonishing such a loud and consistent case is being made against the actions of the state, and is unfeeling or completely unwilling to acknowledge the pain and crimes against the young.

Arguments have been made that the parents rights have been abused, a crank call initiated the raid, that the state is abusing the right of a religion....but there is no mention of the crimes against the kids, and the long period of time before the state acted.

Of interest, the feds have been pushed to act on this case and the case of other polygamist groups but have been similarly careful, in considering the probable cause standards of the 4th amendment.

Meanwhile, the evidence of sexual activity by a large number of young girls between the ages of 14 -17 suggests that if the state had acted earlier, fewer of them would have suffered abusive rape by an elder.

Its amazing that those that hate the concept of government so much, can't find even the slightest bit of concern for these young kids.

 

And yet you have nothing to say about Bush decapitating people with Hellfire missiles or bombing civilian neighborhoods. You're strangely silent when I bring up Food for Oil, and the 500,000 children killed by starvation through the policies YOU ENDORSE.

You want to play the moral equivalence game, I am up to it.

 

Guerilla:

You should try and stick to this issue of the raid on the compound in this thread, and discuss other issues elsewhere. But since you are so concerned about death and destruction, its fascinating that you continuously reference the food for oil situation and exclusively tie it to the US government. Its as if Saddam Hussein never existed, the UN wasn't involved, the many officials from many nations weren't involved.

When you can only find fault with the US government or state governments and can't see fault anywhere else, it gets pretty pathetic.

Based on the increasing evidence of crimes committed on both young girls and young boys in this compound I'm glad Texas stepped in when they did.

 

Do you or do you not support the US participation in Food for Oil? Yes or no?

Do you or do you not support the occupation of Iraq?

Do you or do you not support the invasion of Iraq?

Do you or do you not support the practice of hunting terrorists globally by launching Hellfire missiles into (sometimes) urban locales, and generating "collateral damage"?

Do you support the use of chemical weapons like phosphorus?

Do you support black sites, rendition and Guantanamo?

You started the moral equivalence game.

We can play it, or you can start posting like an adult, and stop exploiting these girls to make character and motive accusations against other posters.

Your call.

 

Earl,

Excellent posts, thanks for contributing intelligence and useful information to the conversation. With you, I am astounded that the attempt is being made to bring every issue under the sun (but the issue itself), but not wholly surprised, regretfully. I am saddened by the pain these girls have had to endure, and only hope this is the beginning to their healing.

With new evidence, gleaned from interviews and journal entries, of possible sexual abuse of the boys, this was none too late. The judge should be honored for making the right, and courageous, choice.

 

You suppose a lot of BS. First of all do you have any proof that these people live in some kind of fortified military installation? I have seen one of these group communities about 2 years ago in Northern BC and it was not anything like you describe. There was no road blocks and there was no armed guards.
Second, if there was any rape then why the authorities have not charged the person responsible? Rape is not an uncommon crime, I think about 25% of American women get raped during life time, so certainly the government should have experience with dealing with a rapist and no need for such drastic actions.
Crimes happen very often in the society and there will always be innocent victims as the result of these crimes. That is life and there is nothing we can do about it but when the government victimizes the innocents, we as a society should not accept these actions and stop it since it also makes everyone of us to a criminal. Victimization of innocents by government can and should be stopped. Let's assume that only one family among those families in that compound had nothing to do with was happening and their children were not abused in any way but they were still subject to the same search, humiliation and seizure of their children, do you care at all about innocents being treated like this or their young kids or do you think that greater good justifies punishing the innocents?

 

That's the gist of it gworld.

You won't get a straight answer on

"ends justify means" aka "greater good justifies punishing innocents"

Spineless and cowardly from Earl and others who adopt his stances. People who are quick to accuse others of being complicit in allowing rape.

 

My problem is that I am old enough to remember the time that majority of Americans were not such spineless cowards and would have been outraged by such actions. I suppose I have to get used to post 9/11 and Guantanamo bay mentality that who cares if innocents are imprisoned or tortured if it "stops terrorism" and "saves" American life.

 

This is the news I've read; probably a disinformation campaign.

A teenage girl having sex with an adult male is considered statutory rape in most jurisdictions, including Texas. Pregnancy is prima facie evidence these underage girls have had sexual relations, and enough evidence has been entered to the court, and a reasonable person standard has been met, that these were impregnated by older males. Rape "proper" may or may not be established, as this maelstrom wends its way through the investigatory process.

Yes, there is. It's why it is means "prison" to "abuse girls," as far fetched as such a thing sounds, I know. In the case of ongoing victimization of innocents of minority age, removing them from the control of the abuser is one thing that can very much be done about it; presuming, of course, one wants something done about it. This is one key purpose of law in society. Our "right to liberty" stops at the door of the "right to harm another." Pretty basic, really.

Such a hue and cry, for everything but the 60% of girls whose life role, allegedly, has been to serve at the criminal pleasure of controlling, adult males; for everything but the boys themselves, raised in such a system that their humanity is also killed.

 

Guess I'm not old enough to remember a time when people might have said, fuck the law, and would kill sick old fucks who knocked up girls as a matter of course. We've come a long way.

Yep, this issue, stemming from the actions at a compound in Texas, really is all about 9/11, the Bush Doctrine, and every possible conspiracy theory known to man. Clear as the summer sun, really.

 

I don't think it is a problem for the majority.

You/we are dealing with arguments that consist of accusing one or both of us, that if we oppose the police rounding up hundreds of people until they can find a crime committed within the group, then we are pro-rape.

It's a juvenile tactic. But not unexpected considering the victim mentality of some people on this forum, and the rush of adrenaline they must get by supporting abuses of state power.

 

More joy:

I would think that an ex-member's testimony should hold some weight, at least to anyone interested in seeing the issue for what it is.