Re: Texas Polygamists--sf in real life?

On Fri, 25 Apr 2008 10:40:32 -0700, David Friedman
<ddfr@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:

>In article <4dkQj.15027$yD2.14708@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>,
> Jette <bosslady@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>
>> David Friedman wrote:
>> 
>> >> She was opposed to the "marriage" from day one.  
>> > 
>> > Evidence? Opposed as in "had to be dragged to the altar?"
>> >
>> 
>> You really think this DOESN'T happen?
>
>I don't know. The public discussion of the whole business is heavily 
>prejudiced, at least in the U.S., which makes it hard to distinguish 
>between social pressure and literal coercion. 
>
>The London Times (online) published the full story of the fake phone 
>call that started it, from which it is absolutely clear that it was a 
>fake and who made it, six days ago. U.S. mainline media, at least the 
>ones I saw, are gradually conceding that fact, but as unobtrusively and 
>ambiguously as they can manage it. Earlier, it didn't seem to occur to 
>them that the combination of the inability of the authorities to find 
>"Sara" when they had all the minors under their control and the fact 
>that the one testable fact in her phone call--the identity of the 
>husband--turned out to be provably false, might be strong grounds for 
>suspicion. Nobody I have seen has yet suggested that the Child 
>Protective Spokeswoman who claimed that several of the kids said they 
>knew the Sara in question but then clammed up might be guilty of perjury.
>
>Given that we now know that the pregnant sixteen year old with an 
>abusive 50 year old husband who made the call was a 33 year old Colorado 
>woman with no connection to the sect outside her own imagination, we 
>ought to revise down our assumptions about what was actually going on. 
>You might add to that the fact that at present, with all the kids under 
>the control of Texas authority and lots of publicity, not a single 
>member of the sect, adult or minor, has visibly come out against the 
>sect and in favor of the authorities. 

What ought to, but isn't going to, happen at that point is that the
whole thing should be thrown out and all detained parties and seized
property returned, on the grounds of no valid probable cause for the
original warrants.  BTW the last I heard, a couple days ago, is that
the young (underage) mothers are being allowed to keep their children
if they "confess" to being, in fact, underage, and so are doing so.


>It's clear that they are polygamists. It's pretty clear that they engage 
>in what they consider marriage at ages below those permitted in 
>Texas--the age in Texas having been raised from 14 to 16 three years 
>ago. It's unclear if any literal coercion is involved.
-- 

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