Yet another religious cult raided

[kandrathe]

Sorry kandrathe, I will Not debate you on this subject, YOU made your mind up in your original post #1. You say you don't support the Practices and Doctrine of the FLDS and You do not Support the Law in this matter.

Correction. I support the law, but I don't support the actions of Texas CPS when they violate the law. My view is that you start with rights, and the State must prove a case in a court with due process. In this case, based on false information, an entire community was raided and stripped of its children. Now, because of testimony of an "environment of indoctrination to accept abuse" (which may be the normal community practice of underaged marriages), ALL the children have been removed from their community.

Answer one Question for me. How many Children Need to be Abused before You would take action???

For me, zero. The allegation of abuse is sufficient for the state to act on behalf of an abused child. I'm not comfortable with a State that rounds up people and locks them up to later sift the innocent from the guilty and work to manufacture the evidence on the fly.

How would we feel if in our communities, children were routinely rounded up, herded onto buses, taken to an institution where they are examined, psycho-analyzed, probed, and questioned, and when anything out of the ordinary appears it is reported as abuse and the children are removed until the parents can prove themselves innocent. Wait, we do this already. We call it Public School. :) I'm be facetious (and sorry in advance Gris!), but you can see how easy a program of routine physical and psychological screening can be implemented in our "normal" culture. In fact, I believe that for many teachers and school administrators they actually do believe they are better parents, than the parents. It may be true in some cases, but woe be to our nation when we allow the state and federal government to raise our children for us. In that case, we've moved one step closer to Huxley's "Brave New World".

[kandrathe]

Pete, you are just on purpose not understanding Jim for the sake of argument now. Abuse in a cult that happens according to the 'laws' of this cult is something completely different than an individual case of abuse in a city like NY. Jim pointed at this and he is right to say that by removing the children from this cult very very likely a lot of abuse has been prevented. In a case like this you don't want to start number juggling. Breaking down every door in NY city will do more harm than it will do good. Because you are right in that sense that we have our civil rights so we don't do these kind of actions. The case we are discussing about now is completely different though.

Why is it nonsense to equate the action in New York as an unfair violation of rights, since it is millions of individuals as opposed to YFZ ranch which is maybe around 1000 citizens? If you can treat all 1000 as guilty before proven innocent, then wouldn't you be able to do that for one million or 200 million? You are essentially saying "All those FLDS people are all mindless zombies who have no independent thoughts, no free will, and so we can invalidate their personal rights and lump them all together and treat them as a group".

It comes down to three questions in my mind. 1) Is there evidence for each and every child of abuse? 2) Are BOTH parents abusers? and 3) Does a belief system, or set of beliefs, (which in this case seems to apply to marriageable age) allow the State to remove a child from parents to protect the child from your backward beliefs?

So, my answers are; 1) I don't believe the CPS has evidence of abuse for ALL the children, only some and we are not sure how many even that is. It might be 2 out 465 or 31 of 465, or higher if more allegations are fished up here over time. 2) Depends on your definition I guess, if the CPS case is that the mothers are complicit in allowing the abuse of their children. 3) I think this is where the State has no authority. If we allow the state to regulate thoughts, then we are in huge trouble.

So, is it possible there is a child in custody whose parents committed no crime here? I'd say yes, no evidence, other than the call which we now know was fraudulent, was presented before the action was taken and that is the travesty of justice in this case.

[eppie]

Why is it nonsense to equate the action in New York as an unfair violation of rights, since it is millions of individuals as opposed to YFZ ranch which is maybe around 1000 citizens? If you can treat all 1000 as guilty before proven innocent, then wouldn't you be able to do that for one million or 200 million? You are essentially saying "All those FLDS people are all mindless zombies who have no independent thoughts, no free will, and so we can invalidate their personal rights and lump them all together and treat them as a group".

I am saying that this religious sect is based on a certain treatment of children. It doesn't just happen, it is part of their 'lifestyle'. A lifestyle that is there just for some sick old men at the cost of women and children, in other words, a power base created with as excuse 'religion'. Can you expect all children to be abused? Yes you can because that is how the sect works.
Can you expect a certain new york father to abuse his children? No not any more likely than any other normal person on this planet. Of course it happens, and I can not say that 100% of these children were abused but we are talking about a whole different ballpark of % chance here.

[--Pete]

Hi,

Pete, you are just on purpose not understanding Jim for the sake of argument now.

No, I understand him perfectly. To him, the law is fine, but totally ignorable as long as one of HIS pet peeves is concerned. Then, to hell with the law -- kill the blue monkey.

Abuse in a cult that happens according to the 'laws' of this cult is something completely different than an individual case of abuse in a city like NY. Jim pointed at this and he is right to say that by removing the children from this cult very very likely a lot of abuse has been prevented. In a case like this you don't want to start number juggling.

Nope, you don't want to number juggle. Just define 'abuse' to be whatever turns you off, and re-define 'child' to whatever age is convenient to turn your prejudices into law and, bingo, you're home free. Anything that doesn't meet your narrow definition of 'moral' can then be persecuted at will. Reminds me of "Forgive him, for he believes that the customs of his tribe are the laws of nature." (George Bernard Shaw).

Breaking down every door in NY city will do more harm than it will do good. Because you are right in that sense that we have our civil rights so we don't do these kind of actions. The case we are discussing about now is completely different though.

Different how? Because *you* are offended by polygyny? Because teens having sex in that cult is somehow wrong, but teens having sex outside it (and there is either a lot of that going on or virgin births are damn common) is OK? How is it different? What about it justifies a raid based on false information? The falsity of which could have easily been determined by caller ID. What about it justifies the use of evidence that was illegally obtained in that search to justify that search? What about it justifies *assuming* that everyone was abused on the basis of the claim on the part of the authorities of some abuse?

Different? The only difference I see is that a bunch of self-righteous bigots finally got a flimsy excuse to take an action they'd been dreaming of for years. Yeah, that cult is unattractive. And some of its practices are against some (morality based and archaic) laws. But if ugliness is sufficient to exclude one from the protection of the law, then the old, the fat, and the infirm are truly damned.

Perhaps in Europe, with its history of Star Chambers, Inquisitions, Bills of Attainder, divine right of kings, law by force or by whim, and other such repulsive nonsense, the actions of the Texas authorities could be stomached. But here, in a nation founded specifically to divorce us from the whim of the rulers and of the mob, such actions should give rise to an outcry that would pierce the eardrums of the Texas CPS. That it hasn't, that it is accepted, even acclaimed, indicates a degeneration in our national fabric. We are becoming all too willing to trade our principles for the illusion of security or the support of our prejudices. We are becoming Europeans, and that stinks.

--Pete

[kandrathe]

Can you expect a certain new york father to abuse his children? No not any more likely than any other normal person on this planet. Of course it happens, and I can not say that 100% of these children were abused but we are talking about a whole different ballpark of % chance here.

Ok, now explain how this is different than the Native American communities on reservations where the incidence of abuse is consistently higher. Explain how it is different than immigrant communities where the traditions allow for arranged marriage at age 12, and impregnation by age 14 where the incidence of abuse is consistently higher. Look at how Islamic communities are even allowed/arguing to practice Sharia law in some family disputes, rather than submit to the law of the land, e.g. Ontario, Netherlands. Are you not imposing your modern "western" values upon them? Even your comments about "dirty old men" betrays that you are making a values judgment, rather than a legal judgment. Are you not being either equally ethnically insensitive, or unreasonably emotionally inconsistent here? Is it OK to ignore "abuse" in Laotian, and Native American tradition, but now prosecute it in FLDS tradition?

[eppie]

Ok, now explain how this is different than the Native American communities on reservations where the incidence of abuse is consistently higher. Explain how it is different than immigrant communities where the traditions allow for arranged marriage at age 12, and impregnation by age 14 where the incidence of abuse is consistently higher. Look at how Islamic communities are even allowed/arguing to practice Sharia law in some family disputes, rather than submit to the law of the land, e.g. Ontario, Netherlands. Are you not imposing your modern "western" values upon them? Even your comments about "dirty old men" betrays that you are making a values judgment, rather than a legal judgment. Are you not being either equally ethnically insensitive, or unreasonably emotionally inconsistent here? Is it OK to ignore "abuse" in Laotian, and Native American tradition, but now prosecute it in FLDS tradition?

No it isn't. This is also the reason why 'we' are so desperate to invade Afghanistan, Irak, and what will be next (Iran, Jordan, Syria). I am not saying the (your) government is being consistent (you don't attack Saudi Arabie or India) but in general we (you) are opposed to oppression and we try to do everything that we can to stop this. (indeed it is easier to this in your own country than in Saudi Arabia but that doesn't make it wrong).
Liberty is a great good but people should learn to behave accordingly.
In Holland we in some way are many years ahead of the US (true we are a monarchy, but very republicy....and already for a long time) and we have many problems at the moment with populist that because they have the freedom of speech want to use it to piss other people off and on the other hand a large Muslims community that wants to keep there habits of treating womens as second class citizens....a lack of clear thinking persons that don't care about getting votes is also destroying our country). Freedom of speech/religion should not mean you can do everything you want when you call it religion.

[eppie]

Nope, you don't want to number juggle. Just define 'abuse' to be whatever turns you off, and re-define 'child' to whatever age is convenient to turn your prejudices into law and, bingo, you're home free. Anything that doesn't meet your narrow definition of 'moral' can then be persecuted at will. Reminds me of "Forgive him, for he believes that the customs of his tribe are the laws of nature." (George Bernard Shaw).
--Pete

I absolutely don't define abuse to be whatever turns me off. I recognize other cultures I just draw a line when a certain culture doesn't treat people equal at least in a intellectual way. Here you also see what drives my distrust of religion in general.

[Occhidiangela]

We are becoming Europeans, and that stinks.

--Pete

It's in the blood for the great majority, or so DNA mapping would likely reveal. :shuriken:

To speak metaphorically, it's in the cultural bloodstream. More's the pity, but then, it's still the American experiment.

I am in general accord with the sentiments you expressed on the heavy handedness of CPS. It is not limited to what is going on with FLDS.

Occhi

[kandrathe]

No it isn't. This is also the reason why 'we' are so desperate to invade Afghanistan, Irak, and what will be next (Iran, Jordan, Syria). I am not saying the (your) government is being consistent (you don't attack Saudi Arabie or India) but in general we (you) are opposed to oppression and we try to do everything that we can to stop this. (indeed it is easier to this in your own country than in Saudi Arabia but that doesn't make it wrong).

Hmmm. I'm not sure the rules of international behavior would be the same as the rules for the individual, and to split hairs the rules of the government over the governed. Ideally, national relationships should be peer egalitarian where we mutually respect the sovereignty of legitimate governments, and work together to defend the rights of humanity when ungoverned (e.g. Somalia), or work to depose the illegitimate governments. $10K question here is how you can tell the difference between a legitimate and illegitimate government? This imposes a global morality for the rights and wrongs of nations. Since there are loose definitions of rights and wrongs now based on treaties, commissions, and precedence, we could condemn a Stalin for his atrocities, but because some nations still have veto power they are in essence above the law. I like this power for the US, but I know that is irrational and entirely unfair -- but it may be essential until there is a guarantee that the UN wouldn't be manipulated for political ends. So as much as we hate it and love it in some cases, the UN originators get to either set a good example or abuse their authority.

Liberty is a great good but people should learn to behave accordingly.

I think I know what you mean, but it comes across as a bit of an oxymoron. Maybe freedom defines to what level we can misbehave. Maybe is is as Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas said, "The right to be let alone is indeed the beginning of all freedom. " But, I think what you are saying is that if we don't like people defaming classes of people (e.g. Catholics, Jews, Asians, Gays, etc.) we should have some respect for Islam and avoid doing things we know will outrage them. On the other hand, if some ham handed nut job artist or cartoonist goes around waving their liberties they don't deserve to be maimed or killed (as much as we would understand the idea that poking a bear with a stick is bad). Take religion out of it in these cases, and you just have sensational (usually sensationally bad) art.

In Holland we in some way are many years ahead of the US (true we are a monarchy, but very republicy....and already for a long time)...

I guess that would also depend on your definition of progress! :) My view is that America has made giant leaps backward from its origin. So you might be right.

...and we have many problems at the moment with populist that because they have the freedom of speech want to use it to piss other people off and on the other hand a large Muslims community that wants to keep there habits of treating womens as second class citizens....a lack of clear thinking persons that don't care about getting votes is also destroying our country). Freedom of speech/religion should not mean you can do everything you want when you call it religion.

I see it as a clash of cultures, values, morals, and ethics, where the modern world meets the ancient world at a time when the modern world is very confused about what is important in maintaining a civil society. It was Voltaire who said, "Religion began when the first scoundrel met the first fool." -- for me, "Truth" is the journey and I'm not willing to close any doors.

[Occhidiangela]

This bears repeating:

Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas:

"The right to be let alone is indeed the beginning of all freedom."

Occhi

[eppie]

I guess that would also depend on your definition of progress! :) My view is that America has made giant leaps backward from its origin. So you might be right.

Well come to think of it.....we are making big leaps backward as we speak....so probably we are trailing you.


By the way did you also hear about the woman in Austria that had been locked in the basement by her father and was abused for 24 years?

[Jim]

Hi,

Points well taken!

[Jim]

Hello Pete,

Apology Accepted. :wub:

Best Regards,
Jim...aka Big Brother...

[kandrathe]

I don't often find myself in such stark agreement with the ACLU, so I think next week Hell will indeed freeze over. Maybe the Texas ACLU is an outpost of sanity. :)

ACLU weighs in on Texas polygamist custody case


"While we acknowledge that Judge Walther's task may be unprecedented in Texas judicial history, we question whether the current proceedings adequately protect the fundamental rights of the mothers and children," Terri Burke, executive director of the ACLU of Texas, said in a written statement.

"As this situation continues to unfold, we are concerned that the constitutional rights that all Americans rely upon and cherish -- that we are secure in our homes, that we may worship as we please and hold our places of worship sacred, and that we may be with our children absent evidence of imminent danger -- have been threatened," Burke said.

Here is a link to the Texas ACLU statement directly.

“We recognize that this balancing act is difficult, but we are concerned that government may not be complying with the Constitution or the laws of Texas in the execution of its mandate, from how the raids were conducted to whether the current process protects basic rights,” said Lisa Graybill, Legal Director for the ACLU of Texas, who is in San Angelo watching the hearings. “The government must ensure that each mother and each child in its custody receives due process of law in determining the placement of the children and other matters regarding the children’s care.”

[Vandiablo]

Ah, confusion about passive.

You've pointed out a mistake I've made: I have confused the term "passive" with "no human necessary". The "no human" can mean "automated". When I read the articles' "no human" I thought they meant the "passive" controls.

I am paid to be a software engineer (I call myself programmer tho). I think for many things automated is better than manual, but I also know firsthand that as the saying goes, it takes a computer (automation) to really eff things up. Complex systems that are automated using software written by people cannot be treated as 100.0% reliable. Maybe 99.9999% or so, sure. It may also be true that my qualifier "complex" may slide as technology progresses. ABS in cars for instance would be considered complex in the 1960's but not so by the 1990's.

My point is, I don't care that much about whether a plant is manual or automated. The automated would most likely be better, but I still wouldn't totally trust it.

The difference in plant designs that is important to me is what happens when either operators or automated processes fail to do the right thing.

Let me use the Browns Ferry atomic plant fire as an example. (My source is a reference book I saw in the library last week that was transcripts of the hearings on Capitol Hill in 1975. I haven't read another source yet.)

Engineers were testing the wall of "the containment". They were looking for an airflow that would indicate that a hole in the containment had not been sealed. They did this by lighting a candle next to the wall. The flame went horizontal, indicating an airflow. So they sprayed some sealing foam into the hole. They did the candle test again. The flame went horizontal again. The engineer with the candle noticed that the flame had caught the foam on fire. Another worker got a fire extinguisher. The hole was sprayed with the extinguisher. The engineer noted that the spray had pushed the foam into the containment and the foam was still on fire.

"What are the odds on that?" one of the senators asked at the hearings. (I paraphrase -- it was more of "I wonder if mr. soandso could tell me the odds of that happening...")

Anyway, the fire started spreading out of control. The human operator of the reactor unit did the right thing, cooling the reactor and slowing down its pace. Yay human operator. Note that an automated system may have done the same. Yay automated system.

However, after four hours, the fire had damaged the electronics used to control the cooling and the core temperature started going up again. Darn.

I had to stop reading and go back to my schoolwork, so I didn't find out what came after that.

So would it be much issue if it were a pebble reactor or some other reactor design that just falls apart when things get too intense? No. No problem, except a reduction of power output for a day or so.

But what about a "landmark" reactor? Certainly a big problem, if there's any chance of the "containment" not containing the mess. Wait, wasn't there a hole in the containment?? Can we really trust a container that was just worked on by Larry, Moe, and Curly?

And that is only if the runaway process does not run away too far. Well, supposedly we don't have to worry about that. See, though, that this is where I stop worrying about it: when you have a pebble reactor or some "passive" design that cannot "run away". The big early reactors don't give me that warm fuzzy.

I don't trust people nor their automated processes to keep it from happening.

Even the container is unacceptable to me. How many thousands of years does it need to contain? How much damage will it do when nature or misanthropes break it open early? Unacceptable.

To compare this to my riding a bus is not a valid comparison. I can accept the risk that the driver will do something stupid that will kill me. However, if every time a bus crashed we had hundreds or thousands of square miles of toxic dead zone for ten thousand years I'd say no buses please.

Comparing it to the burning of coal is valid. The coal damage is not as intense, yet is more definite and more widespread. And then there is the likely advent of global warming, which if it ever reaches runaway status, would be worse than thousands of nuclear catastrophes. Anyway, I feel that nuclear design has improved to the point where it is definitely better than coal. I don't have much reason to be optimistic about nuclear waste, yet I am -- I think we'll figure out what to do with it.

I need to crosspost my last thought to the other thread. That is: kandrathe started that thread by lamenting the lack of nuclear research because of anti-nuclear dummies. Yet if you read the original article on the thorium reactor it says "the biggest obstacle to (the idea) is a mature nuclear industry." What? How did it get to be mature if the know-nothings closed it down???

-Van

[kandrathe]

Comparing it to the burning of coal is valid. The coal damage is not as intense, yet is more definite and more widespread. And then there is the likely advent of global warming, which if it ever reaches runaway status, would be worse than thousands of nuclear catastrophes. Anyway, I feel that nuclear design has improved to the point where it is definitely better than coal. I don't have much reason to be optimistic about nuclear waste, yet I am -- I think we'll figure out what to do with it.

I think that within the public at large the concern about coal waste is nil, compared to the concern about nuclear waste. Activists have conveniently ignored the lethality of coal waste, and highlighted to danger of nuclear waste. At least you can find all nuclear waste with a Geiger counter, while you can only find some coal waste this way. The parts of coal waste that are hard to find are the heavy metals, such as arsenic, selenium, cadmium, lead and mercury. I would accuse the anti-nuclear activists to have been what I would term "useful idiots" in shutting down the growth in nuclear power industry. I'm not sure whose interest they served. The only reason that coal is coming under scrutiny now is the concern about the one by product of combustion that I'm not as worried about, Carbon Dioxide.

Scientific American article, Coal Ash Is More Radioactive than Nuclear Waste.

USGS article, Radioactive Elements in Coal and Fly Ash: Abundance, Forms, and Environmental Significance

[Mavfin]

Hmm, the teachers in my building can't agree about much of anything. I don't know how we'd manage to cobble together a common agenda and world view.

I'd have to agree there, being the son of a high school science teacher who was about as 'liberal' as Occhi, except I'd mouth off to Occhi. Not Mom. I'm also married to a teacher. Yes, she's fairly liberal. She and I cancel each other out in elections all the time, but, she also knows the difference between truth and fiction, and doesn't teach the latter. She also doesn't believe in always protecting people from themselves. For every bleeding-heart liberal impulse she has, she balances it by being pretty good about personal freedom.

I'm afraid generalizations about teachers won't get you far here...

(Be warned. I now work 6:30 PM to 4 AM 4 nights a week, and I have long pauses, so I'll have time to post here again. :shuriken:)

[kandrathe]

I'd have to agree there, being the son of a high school science teacher who was about as 'liberal' as Occhi, except I'd mouth off to Occhi. Not Mom. I'm also married to a teacher. Yes, she's fairly liberal. She and I cancel each other out in elections all the time, but, she also knows the difference between truth and fiction, and doesn't teach the latter. She also doesn't believe in always protecting people from themselves. For every bleeding-heart liberal impulse she has, she balances it by being pretty good about personal freedom.

I'm afraid generalizations about teachers won't get you far here...

(Be warned. I now work 6:30 PM to 4 AM 4 nights a week, and I have long pauses, so I'll have time to post here again. :shuriken:)

There will always be anecdotal evidence that seems to weight or balance things, however studies indicate a definite bias. The question is how that bias is expressed, and if most teachers are as restrained as your wife.

See this article, Is the Academy biased?

[kandrathe]

I sense some back peddling about to begin...

CNN - Age of pregnant FLDS 'girls' disputed

But in the past week, the state has twice been forced to admit "girls" who gave birth while in state custody are actually adults. One was 22 and said she showed state officials a Utah birth certificate shortly after she and more than 400 minors were seized from the West Texas ranch in an April raid.

[kandrathe]

I don't support the practices and doctrine of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (Warren Jeffs, Eldorado or otherwise), but it's outrageous to me that these families are all attacked and Texas is seeking to make all 416 children wards of the State.

"Rangers chose not to place Barlow under arrest, which highlights what media have been noting all week -- that authorities might be investigating the wrong man. Barlow, who is from Colorado City, Ariz., has denied the allegations of abuse, and has said he does not know the 16-year-old girl whose March 29 call to a domestic violence hotline sparked the raid on the Eldorado compound built by polygamist leader Warren Jeffs."

No Mr. Barlow, and now no Sarah Barlow... With no 'Sarah,' CPS asks to drop her case.

I watched the Nova episode on PBS last night regarding the Fistula Hospital in Addis Ababa in Ethiopia. Nova - A Walk to Beautiful. It is an epidemic in poor Africa due to young girls having babies too early and damaging their bodies (sometimes permanently). It is very sad, because their society shuns the poor young women who are really the victims of their societies beliefs. The women often attempt or successfully commit suicide, rather than live as outcasts. It made me think of this case, and contrast the similarities and differences.