Re: Texas Polygamists--sf in real life?

In article <fv5j8p$kis$1@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>,
 nospam@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
 (Paul Ciszek) wrote:

> In article <ddfr-4B9C92.23492927042008@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>,
> David Friedman  <ddfr@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> >In article <fv23hc$qr1$1@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>,
> > nospam@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
 (Paul Ciszek) wrote:
> >
> >> 
> >> If the parents have consented to the statutory rape of their older
(but
> >> not old enough) daughters, does it make sense to leave the other
girls
> >> with those parents and come back for them when they reach puberty?
> >> If the parents are unfit, they are unfit to have ANY children in
their
> >> custody.
> >
> >Which, if one accepts it, explains some but not all of the seizures, 
> >since many of the children must have had mothers who had not consented 
> >to the statutory rape of their older daughters--indeed mothers with no 
> >older daughters.
> 
> Well, that's the tricky part--both the parents and the children have
> been told to lie when asked who is whose.  That is one reason the state
> has to do all that DNA testing.

I have seen no statement by the authorities even hinting that they plan 
to give a large fraction of the children back and retain only those for 
whom they have some evidence of impending child abuse. Have you? If that 
were their intent, wouldn't the obvious thing be to have merely seized 
the teenaged girls, since they were the only ones even arguably at any 
immediate risk? If, after investigation, they concluded that some of the 
parents were unfit, surely that would be the appropriate point to take 
action. If, on the other hand, the real objective is to suppress the 
sect, then their actions make sense.

I did, however, see a statement by the woman from the CPS who seems to 
be their spokeswoman explaining the seizure of boys on the grounds that 
they were being raised to be abusers. Do you think that's a legitimate 
basis for taking them away from their parents?

Are you at all disturbed by the CPS spokeswoman claiming that several of 
the girls told her they knew the Sara who had made the phone call but 
clammed up in response to later questions? It's now quite clear that the 
person who made the call was a 33 year old Colorado woman. From which I 
conjecture that the spokeswoman either was deliberately lying or engaged 
in self-deception--neither of which inspires much trust in the 
authorities. 

One interesting contrast with the Short Creek raid, a similar episode 
back in 1953, is how much more favorable the public treatment has been 
this time. That looks to me like evidence of a decline in concern about 
government abuse of authority over the past fifty years--not a good 
thing. As I may have commented, the major U.S. media have been 
surprisingly reticent with regard to the facts of the phone 
call--re****ted in the London Times a week or so back.

The Short Creek raid was sup****ted by the LDS, or at least applauded by 
a newspaper that the church owned. I haven't seen any public statements 
from them this time around, but my guess is that they favor this one 
too. The polygamists, after all, are a double threat to them. Outsiders 
may confuse FLDS with LDS, or at least be reminded of the LDS' 
polygamous past. And from the standpoint of insiders, the FLDS is a 
standing reproach to the LDS for surrendering its principles under 
pressure.

-- 
 http://www.daviddfriedman.com/
http://daviddfriedman.blogspot.com/
 Author of _Harald_, a fantasy without magic.
 Published by Baen, paperback in bookstores now