FLDS raid appears to have backfired

[madmusic]

Source: LAT

As polygamist families from the Yearning for Zion Ranch await the return of their children, officials in Texas face the fallout after trying to crack down.
By Miguel Bustillo and Nicholas Riccardi, Los Angeles Times Staff Writers
May 31, 2008

ELDORADO, TEXAS -- As officials haggled Friday over how to return more than 400 children to their parents, it was becoming increasingly clear that Texas' audacious attempt to rein in the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints had backfired -- and become a lesson in the difficulty of cracking down on the 10,000-member polygamist sect.

"If you want to make any change . . . it has to go case by case, one child at a time," said Ellen Marrus, co-director of the Center for Children, Law and Policy at the University of Houston. "It's going to be very slow."

Read more: http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/front/la-na-polygamist31-2008may31,0,5459251.story

[Trajan]

1. Stumbled, yes ...

Backfired ? .... hardly ....

The facts as they are known and acknowledged reveal a strict societal regimentation that demands underage girls become enslaved to middle aged men .... It is clear that illegal acts have been committed, and while the methods of law enforcement there are far from perfect, the cat is out of the bag, and the facts about the sect have become known, and will not be forgotten ....

I support actions by law enforcement to stop the exploitation of young girls by men who should know better ....

[Ian David]

5. Is that an Obama Rally, or is that where they're holding the FLDS kids?

Obama Rally, or where they're holding the FLDS kids?

[atreides1]

9. So you support their actions

And the law be damned, as long as the alledged exploitation is stopped, in other words the ends justify the means.

I can think of some in history who would agree with your premise.

Yes some illegal acts have been committed, and those should be addressed, based on the law, not on personal dislikes of a group of people who are different.

[liberalhistorian]

10. Exactly, thank you!

Native American journalist and columnist Tim Giago, who founded Indian Country Today, published an excellent column last week about how their actions were very similar to the government's actions in unilaterally removing Indian children from their homes and families and putting them in far-away boarding schools for years, stripping them of their culture, language, history, etc. Which was the goal, of course, and which largely succeeded and its effects are terrible even to this day. All because, like in TX, they didn't like the "different" religion and culture, because they weren't "truly Christian" and because they believed it was their "duty" to save the children by destroying their families, cultures and, in many cases, their lives. Thousands of children either never saw their parents and homes again or became so messed-up it didn't matter.

[NashVegas]

11. I Believe We Have Laws

About adult men fucking 12 year olds.

I believe these laws should be enforced.

We also have laws regarding child abandonment. Those laws would apply to the LDS Lost Boys.

[Diane R]

12. Ask Elissa Wall, or Carolyn Jessop how much help they got from FLDS controlled cops.

[Trajan]

15. Which law was broken ?

It is expected that all possible suspects AND victims would be identified BEFORE law enforcement would reunite child victims to those very persons whom may have victimized them ....

Sorry bud, but all the whining in the world does not deny the fact that a number of children WERE criminally victimized, and they needed to be identified so they would not be returned to the very men and women who were subjecting them to those criminal acts ....

We would expect this in ANY case involving statutory rape .... for ANY family or group ....

I am of course against Gestapo tactics for political cause, but I do see this as a valid (though bumbling) attempt by law enforcement to STOP the criminal abuse of children ..... Their cause is legitimate, and their methods are essentially legitimate was well ... In my view, this is not an abuse of law enforcement power for political reasons ....

[sasquatch]

2. The state of Texas could fuck up a soup sandwich

[uppityperson]

3. That is how they are going to return the kids to the right parents also.

Child by child, checking to make sure the kids go back to their parent, not just an adult.

[Berry Cool]

6. And that is how it should be.

Consider them on a case-by-case basis, not en masse.

[Ian David]

4. Oh, if only Mitt Romney were the Republican nominee right now. n/t

[WolverineDG]

7. And if you don't want to piss lawyers off

re-think driving a tank onto private citizens' front yards & surrounding them with paramilitary forces.

dg

[Aragorn]

8. good and bad

Removing the exploited and not-yet-exploited kids was good. But Texas CPS has a long history of lousy work, just the same. And like Texas Medicaid it is partly about who gets the taxpayer money in the process.

[timtom]

13. Just to remind everyone that there has been a major

cultural shift in America, remember that my father's mother gave birth to him when she was 16 (in 1904) and he was preceded by a child who died before he was born.

Leo Gorcey (the chief Bowery Boy) was born in 1917:

"In 1917, 16-year-old Josephine Condon—already a mother at 14—gave birth to her second son, Leo, in New York City."

This was not uncommon.

There has been a cultural shift.

[Dogtown]

14. Historically accurate.

*But*, that shift has occurred. *Much* has changed since then; including the laws, and enforcement of the laws against incest and child molestation. Hell, in 1917 most 14 year olds in this country were working in factories.


Much has changed, and rightly so. I don't want it to go back, but the Bush family remember that as the good old days.

It appears the Texans have not observed the law in pursuing this. That's a 2nd crime against these kids. I wish they'd got it right.