Fundie LDS
azz’s new greatest joy in life, particularly now that it’s gotten nice enough to open the windows, is to sit in front of the window she can see out of, and bark at everything that goes on. It’s like I have a grumpy little old lady with binoculars instead of a Jack Russel. She’ll sit in front of the window for hours. “Hey! Hey! You goddamn kids out there! What are you doing on my lawn? Hey!” If something particularly offensive goes on, she has to run and tell me. She’ll jump up on my leg, outraged. “Can you believe this shit? Someone out there just got into their car! Opened the door and climbed right in, just like anything! The nerve of some people!”
Moving right along to something of actual substance . . . By now, you’ve heard about the FLDS child custody case. Basically, back in 2003, this cult gets together and builds a 1,500+ acre ranch outside of Eldorado, Texas, puts up a hella big temple, builds a bunch of houses, and proceeds to practice a bunch of fundie nutjob religion, including polygamy. On April 3rd, Texas authorities, acting on a phone call from a sixteen-year-old member of the cult who claimed she’d been sexually abused by a fifty-year-old man in the cult, raided the place, broke into their temple, all on a search warrant, and removed 400+ kids and their mothers on charges of child abuse and so forth. Texas courts have made the kids wards of the state, and now the FLDS members are trying to get their kids back. Texas officials appear ready to argue that polygamy is an inherently abusive situation, and grounds for taking the kids away (1).
Orcinus has a good article on the matter, and is planning a few more, so keep your eyes open there. From his article:
Almost every feature of these women’s lives is determined by someone else. They do not choose what they wear, whom they live with, when and whom they marry, or when and with whom they have sex. From the day they’re born, they can be reassigned at a moment’s notice to another father or husband, another household, or another community. Most will have no educational choices (FLDS kids are taught in church-run schools, usually only through about tenth grade — by which point they girls are usually married and pregnant). Everything they produce goes into a trust controlled by the patriarch: they do not even own their own labor. If they object to any of this, they’re subject to losing access to the resources they need to raise their kids: they can be moved to a trailer with no heat, and given less food than more compliant wives, until they learn to “keep sweet.”
Basically, these women are raised to believe that it is acceptable that they be handed off to a man, as property, pretty much, and at a very young age, for the sole purpose of birthing babies. The men are raised to believe that this is acceptable. What you end up with are a few old pervs in power hording most of the young girls and women to themselves. The women have no power, and are, in essence, slaves. That they have been socialized into being willing slaves makes no difference.
It seems to me that this cult has broken several laws, and they should be busted for that. If some of these men are having sex with underage girls, they should be arrested for sexual abuse, pedophilia, etc. It sounds like they might be failing to properly educate their kids up to state standards, too, but I’m a bit hazy on what’s going on with that. What we’re running into here, though, is a bunch of people hollering “Religious persecution!” combined with hordes of tearful women and children all over the news channels, and all of a sudden, everything gets thorny.
That’s not the way it works in America. Yes, we have the freedom to practice a religion, whichever religion, however we want, as long as we’re not breaking secular law to do so. For example, if your religion believes that it’s okay to marry off a young teen or preteen girl and knock her up, that’s all well and good. You’re free to believe that as hard as you’d like. However, the minute you actually do it, you’re breaking our child protection and sexual abuse laws, and that you can’t do. However many tearful, poorly socialized, brainwashed women and children jump up in front of a camera to weep about the “abuse” they’ve suffered at the hands of the state, however many men rant and bluster about their poor women and children, however many religious nutters come out of the woodwork to defend this slave lifestyle, none of it will change the fact that these people are breaking laws, and their religion doesn’t protect them from that.
To put it another way, if this compound existed without religion being involved, if it was just a bunch of guys hording women and little girls with no divine justification to put a polish on the situation, it would be an open-and-shut case of sexual abuse, molestation, and so forth, and we’d pretty much all agree that taking the kids away and letting the legal system sort things out was the right way to handle it. But because someone tossed some religion into the mix, everyone chimes in with “religious freedom” and “but that’s what God told me to do” and “civil rights” and other such fallacious bullshit.
It doesn’t matter who these people pray to, or if they pray at all. It doesn’t even matter if these women are brainwashed, socially enslaved, etc. It doesn’t matter if they own the property, if they locate the mysterious sixteen-year-old girl who lodged the complaint (as long as they can show the phone call took place), etc and so forth. They had a search warrant, which has so far held up as legal, and they’re acting within the right of state law, which is so far holding up in court, and these FLDS cultists broke the law, and now they have to pay for it. It’s pretty much that simple.
April 18th, 2008 at 12:20 am
You know ocasionally I start thinking about things and wondering what would happen if this or that occured and now I have to sit back and wonder. What is the breaking point? We have a government that doesn’t care about us and screws us over regularly then bribes us to keep quiet about it. We have religous nut jobs that monopolize and in some cases abuse people’s lives. Our economy is going to the crapper, and so far no solutions are present.
So at what point do even the most mindless sheep like citizen of the US stand back and say WTF! At what point to the people of this nation stop finally say enough is enough.
It’s my opinion that things are going to get a lot worse before they get better.
The problem is we are lazy.
It’s hard to take the steps needed to make a positive change to your life.
Even harder to change the soceity that we live in.
At some point we all have to stand back and say, Hey this isn’t working anymore.
Democracy as it a joke. And it no longer works.
There are several things that need to be “fixed” and just maybe we need to change the system so that we can fix it.
First off, we need to kill more people.
This is hard to accept what with the value of human life and all but really think about it. If we killed every rapist, child molester, and murderer right off the bat then that’s a big message to others “don’t do that or you die.”
Next is the drug dealers they can go too.
After that, no more deals, no more pleas, every crime is mandatory 1 year or more in jail. No if ands or buts.
In Jail there will be segregation, Violent criminals on the left non violents on the right.
Non violents will recieve Job training, drug rehab, education.
Violents will also recieve counsleing and therapy.
The next thing to fix is the medicare system.
All hospitals are free and everyone pays an extra 6 dollars a month out of their paychecks for it.
Next up is education, There will be segregation.
Those who genuinly want to learn and excel and goto college on the right.
Those that don’t on the left.
Those that do get a free ride to collge if they pass all their tests ang get good grades.
Those that don’t have the option of speciallized job training and job placement of thier choice.
At this point I must say that there are alot of little things that need to be fixed like federalizing all law enforcement of all types. Caps on gas prices, tax options for synthetic fuels. More pollution restrictions.
But the biggest thing is this.
The government.
First we take a good pair of shears to the law book and get rid of a bunch of crap that doesn’t work, old precidents, and the like that don’t apply anymore but can still be used.
Next we re arrange our government.
No more congress
No more senate
No more reps
Each state gets 2 people to represent them.
Each of these people has a 4 year term limit that over laps a presidental term.
Voting will be like this.
the two reps that are voted in are the only people that vote.
From those reps they Choose a president for a 4 year term.
In this instance they can only choose from a group of people that have the qualifications for the job.
Each rep has to goto school and earn a degree in politics before they can run for the position. Anyone who wants to be president must also have such a degree and more so to boot. (This is why college will be free for those that choose to excel)
Each rep cannot serve more that one term but if they wish they can advise the next guy for a limit of 1 year.(show them the ropes that sort of thing.)
The next thing we need to do is legalize drugs.
Tax the hell out them.(make them safer too)
This will put the drug dealers out of buisiness.
Also if you know that you can do something you are less likely to bite the forbidden fruit.
There are lots of other things that need fixing, But it’s alomst 1:30am and I’ve got homework to do.
Expound upon this if you can.
Add to it if you will.
JavaElemental Reply:
April 19th, 2008 at 11:14 pm
We’ve tried a lot of this. Some of it we called “socialism”, some of it we called “communism”, and some of it we called “tyranny”.
I agree with some of what you have to say, but I disagree with the idea of utilizing the death penalty as you suggest. Studies show that the death penalty doesn’t work as a deterrent. Some people will argue that it doesn’t work as a deterrent because of the lengthy appeals process, but I think it has to do with the fact that most of the crimes we punish with the death penalty are committed by people who are so desperate and/or mentally ill that they don’t care if they die or not.
The key to solving problems is education. The better educated a society is, the fewer social problems it will face, as a general rule.
April 20th, 2008 at 5:29 am
One of the Hiveminders was talking about this very topic the other day, and he was saying the more old folks he talks to the more they all say that what we really need, is another Depression.
What happened after the Great Depression?
Enormous economic upswing, industrialization, and the road to america becoming the lone Superpower.
Basically, the American mindset is driven by comfort and greed.
Not so long ago, it was somewhat less self-centristic.
WW2 not long after that gave America a common goal to strive for, and people were willing to to grow “Victory Gardens”, accept rationing, conserve, and recycle.
Nothing of the sort today.
Hate to say it, but what this country really needs, is a few years of suckitude.
The good news is, Bush has put us right on track for just such a period.
Now, I think SOMEONE owes Mr Bush an apology!
Java?