The *official* FLDS thread.

[Sylvia727]

I broke the cardinal rule of debate forums by becoming emotionally involved in this discussion. No one here did anything to attack me or be hurtful, but I don't trust myself to respond well on this topic anymore. For this reason I am withdrawing from the discussion. I'll see y'all on the other threads.

[Ree]

They are going to be screwed up for the rest of their lives no matter what. not only from the background of being raised they have had the us government invade their home, rip them from their parents and most likely go on ahead and send them to fostor homes in the usual child sales that children services do. (Dont think its not child selling. The CPS gets money for ech child they place as well as the foster parents get paid for their new addition so there is a definately market for the right kids from unscrupuous gestapo agencies)

I hadn't read this before now, but as a foster parent, I am extremely offended by those comments.

I do not consider myself as part of a buying and selling of children ring.
If you think we are getting rich by taking in children who are in an unhealthy environment and providing a home with some stability, then you are sadly mistaken.
We get a per diem, yes, and we can claim some expenses, but in my own personal experience, I haven't found one single person who looked at this as a money-making opportunity. Every single worker I have encountered has always had the best interests of the child first and foremost.

I'm sorry you have had bad experiences with these agencies, and I'm sorry that there are some agencies in need of change, but DO NOT generalize and tar all child service agencies and foster parents with the same brush.

[rahmota]

Ree:there are exceptions to most rules. Heck Hitler liked dogs. I'm sure there are a few "good" people trapped in the bowels of the gestapo (CPS) but I'm not gonna hold my breath on that. I'm also not alone in the receving end of unfair and excessive mistreatment by the CPS. I posted a website on here earlier about that with several examples and links to what i was talking about. Be offended if you wish but CPS needs to be reformed quite a bit and reigned in. They have too many thigns wrong with them to begin to list.

[MMATM]

Rahmota, having read your comments and those of others I feel like your prior experience with CPS is biasing you against them. Yes, while CPS is capable of heinous acts, they do exist for a reason.

Your choice to "take the chance and leave the kids" is essentially an abandonist attitude. By leaving the children to "maybe or maybe not" suffer physical and psychological abuse, you're cutting the ties between yourself and those children who are victims of an abusive system. If the country as a whole felt the same, then generations of innocent children "may or may not" suffer forever. The fact of the matter is that until the situation has been thoroughly investigated, ideally without predispositions given by differing religions, the reasonable probability of abuse must override the religious freedoms granted to citizens.

Religious law has no place in secular law, except rarely as a guide of what may be morally acceptable (e.g. "thou shalt not kill...thou shalt not steal" issues).

The short version of what I have to say (and I could hold out on this topic for a hundred pages or more, but I won't) is that secular law, despite its flaws, has a basis for correction. Religion, almost universally, does not. That's my basic statement and TL,DR types can skip the rest. Very few religions change their tenets based on the beliefs of its congregation. Religions instead change or mold the beliefs of their congregations. This eliminates the potential for correction if something endorsed by the religion is found to be out of line with the views of its believers. In fact, some religions that enforce strict rules on its members are worse for their peoples than dictatorships. Look at Jim Jones, or more recently, Fred Phelps, for some examples of what I mean.

While Mormonism is very different from the "standard" beliefs in this country, it is still a recognized religious sect and still practices freely. A major difference between "recognized" Mormonism and the FLDS sect is transparency. The shock and awe sweeping through the country stems as much from the surprise of finding out about these "morally reprehensible" acts being committed and never discovered until now, as from the actual acts themselves.

Do I agree that all of the people who will be "guilty until proven innocent" will be guilty? Certainly not. I agree with the sentiment that those born and raised within the sect, with no knowledge of the outside world, are victims as much as the young girls who have been raped during their affiliation with the sect.

Do I think that the investigation will be handled in a purely rational and objective manner? Definitely not. The court of public opinion has already ruled against nearly all the men in the sect, especially the "Prophet". They will likely not be given a fair trial, even if that is what they're entitled to.

Do I believe that the government should have stepped in, as soon as the call came in? Most definitely. Whether or not the call was a hoax, as soon as the responding officers (who presumably believed the content of the call) found reason to believe that crimes had been committed, they had no choice but to do what they did. Legally speaking, that is.

And is there any "religious" value in banishing younger males in the sect, for the benefit of older males? Not by any objective observation, no. Not only are these "lost boys" psychologically and financially incapable of surviving outside of the sect's influence, but the sect itself continues to propagate an environment of psychological captivity for all its members. Even if the members were or are allowed to leave the sect, none of them have the skills or knowledge needed to survive outside of the compound walls, so to speak, and so they are indentured for life.

I took particular offense to two things in particular. The first was your implication that "assisted suicide" and "murder" are the same thing, simply because the end result is the same. While neither are legal, one is seen as more callous by the majority of American citizens. Why? Is there reason for this? Yes.
In an "assisted suicide" case, when it is known that the victim's intent was to die by the hand of the perpetrator at the time of the suicide, the blame is shared between the two parties involved. In a "murder", it is assumed that the victim did not wish to die at that time and by that method, and so the blame falls solely on the shoulders of the perpetrator. Suggesting that the "end result" should justify the path taken in getting there is overlooking the subtleties of morality.

Secondly, it seems as though your experiences with "gestapo" CPS agents have left you so bitter as to deny any possibility of their doing any good. While I know of many cases in which CPS performed their duties irresponsibly, unprofessionally, and even illegally, they exist for a reason. That reason isn't to make money by selling other people's kids. And the amount of good CPS has done and will likely continue to do vastly outweighs the bad, despite your or anyone's personal experiences to the contrary.

Insinuating that "they have a judge in their pocket that doesnt care" simultaneously negates any argument in favor of CPS's case and labels the judge as a corrupt power that exists only for the ruination of a specific religious sect. While you phrase the comment as a possibility, it is fairly clear that you personally believe the judge to be corrupt and on the side of the state's malicious prosecution for whatever reason, so if you believe that then simply come out and say it. This is Fratching, after all, and if there's a place to express your opinions it's here.

Finally, I agree with TPG in that the media is reporting whatever will get the highest ratings, as it always does. Truth takes a back seat to sensationalism in most media outlets, and is one of the reasons the justice system is in such rough shape nowadays. If the media has been spouting one thing for weeks and weeks, leaning the public towards one side or the other, and the jury finds that the media has been over-hyping, dramatizing, or even fictionalizing the entire ordeal, then it is much harder for the jury (or the judge, as the case may be) to overcome that popular belief. This is one of the reasons that so few details are released to the media, as the less people know about a case, the less (presumably) will be reported.

However, in today's American society, money often talks louder than objectivity, and so nearly every news station skews its stories one way or another. Look at the OJ Simpson case for an example. Whether the media skews its stories in the right direction is irrelevant.

[rahmota]

BOOM baby! The truth wins out1 I just saw on CNN that the appeals cout passed down the following decision:

SAN ANGELO, Texas (CNN) -- The state of Texas should not have removed the more than 460 children it took from a polygamist sect's ranch because it didn't prove they were in "imminent enough" danger, an appeals court ruled Thursday.

Stating that the texas department of children services did not present enough evidence that the children wherein sufficient dager to warrent immediate removal. That the FLDS belief system by itself was

The existence of the FLDS belief system as described by the department's witnesses, by itself, does not put children of FLDS parents in physical danger," the three-judge panel said.

the court also said:

It concluded, "Evidence that children raised in this particular environment may some day have their physical health and safety threatened is not evidence that the danger is imminent enough to warrant invoking the extreme measure of immediate removal prior to full litigation of the issue."

Also in regards to those false phone calls that started the persecution of thesepeople the court had this to say:

At least one of the telephones used by "Sarah Barlow" to make the calls has been traced back to a Colorado woman. Police have named Rozita Swinton a person of interest in connection with the reports of abuse at the ranch, but she has not been charged, although she faces charges of providing a false report to authorities in a Colorado case.

So it looks like the texas gestapo got a big slap on the hands for their overzealousness and told they misehaved rather badly. Good did win out over evil in this case so far. Figured that the CPs would go overboar and react the way they did since it involved a religious sect that was not the standard christian hypocrisy. I aint at home right now so I'll have to deal with any replies later but yeah like i figured and tried to say the gestapo overreacted and persecuted these people for their religious beliefs instead of any real and actual harm.

[AFPheonix]

There were still households at that ranch that the court admitted were involved in abuse, so not all of the children are being returned. The suit won because CPS treated the entire ranch as one household, not as many separate ones.

Don't be fooled, it's not all fun and games at the ol' FLDS compound.

[rahmota]

AFP: no I know that things are not all fin and games there but the CPS was using a very large brush to tar and feather everyone who lived there with the same charges. They where goign on the assumption that if they lived there and believed in that manner then they where guilty of something. Basically persecution of the families for their religious beliefs in violation of the constitution of the united states of america. A typical CPS tactic.

And besides any setback or slap down that the CPS gets anywhere is a good thing for the families and citizens of america.