Like many people, I've been following the story on the FLDS raid

[conuly]

Well, who hasn't been?

Haven't posted anything about it though because, really, what is there to say?

What I'm wondering, though, is what took so long. I mean, I've been reading articles about this compound and others in this country and Canada for years now. It has been known for years that they're marrying off their young girls, often to relatives, in polygamous marriages. It's been known for years that they tend to drive off their young boys for... well, for acting like teenage boys... and also for being in competition for the girls, y'know.

And I expect that they don't get to this point without raising the kids to see this as totally normal, and the outside world as totally unsafe.

I don't think the raid was wrong. Unlike some people, I think that it's clear that the children not currently being abused would be in the future - no matter how clean and fed they are.

But I have to wonder - we've known the conditions for years. What, exactly, was the hold-up?

(Incidentally, that doesn't mean I think the foster care system is wonderful for these kids. I'm very upset at the reports about how the foster care system in the area is scrambling to make things easier on these kids. If the system is as bad as they describe (and you know it is), then it should be changed for the other kids already in it as well. Not just spot changes - real ones. You think those kids couldn't use a better system? Riiiiight.)

Comments

[latenightparty.livejournal.com]

Have you ever read Under the Banner of Heaven by Jon Krakauer? It talks some more about these communities. They are usually left alone, pretty much like a time capsule, until some teenager runs away after being abused or married off to an uncle and causes a brief scandal. Child abuse, particularly sexual abuse, runs rampant in the communities.

[leora.livejournal.com]

The case scares me. I think child abuse is wrong. I think pushing young girls into marriages is wrong. I wish that were the focus of it. I think it'd be just as wrong to push young girls into monogamous marriages as into polygynous ones. But I worry they'll decide that raising children to believe polygamy is okay is child abuse. I think polygamy is fine for consenting adults who decide it's right for them. Big difference. But I worry that too many people won't draw these distinctions because the cluster of features they tie together. I've been following the case, but I don't feel like I have much to say.

[conuly]

But I worry they'll decide that raising children to believe polygamy is okay is child abuse. I think polygamy is fine for consenting adults who decide it's right for them. Big difference.

Fully agreed.

People have signs - polygamy is child abuse. And some of those people grew up in just this sort of family, and I feel for them. But polygamy in and of itself isn't child abuse, because it's something that *ought* to be practiced between consenting adults, like every *other* sexual or marriage-al arrangement. Incest and forced marriage and rape are child abuse.

[tsukikage85.livejournal.com]

Maybe it's a warrant issue?

[interactiveleaf.livejournal.com]

Maybe it's a warrant issue?

Nah. Good guess, though.

The actual issue is that in 1953, the then-governor of Arizona, J. Howard Pyle, ordered a raid on an FLDS compound and it literally destroyed his political career. There isn't a politician in the Southwest who doesn't know that story and fear that it could happen again; attorneys general and other law enforcers have been assiduously ignoring the FLDS for years.

You can read a short article about it here (http://www.religionnewsblog.com/14616/arizonas-1953-raid-on-flds-sect-backfired); notice that this article is from 2006. You can Google for more details if you want them.

[tsukikage85.livejournal.com]

Huh, interesting... Politics is so... Yeah.

[conuly]

No, that makes sense.

I feel for the parents of the young children now, and for the parents then (looking at pictures, it's interesting to note the very visible difference between how the children were dressed in 1953 and how they're dressed nowadays), and for the children - I'm sure it *does* hurt being separated from their families.

But that doesn't mean I condone what they're ultimately doing to those kids, no matter how they feel.

[leora.livejournal.com]

I just read this (http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5iIdMpRHjN4hpNKBhfYyAsR4DDo4QD90B77NG0). So, apparently the state says 31 of 53 of the teen girls who are legally too young to have sex yet are either pregnant or have already given birth to a child.

The counter-argument is that 17 of those girls are actually 18 or over, and that it's not fair that the boys were also removed when only the girls are accused of having been raped (which is what we call it when someone has sex with a child too young to consent).

So, their argument is that only 13 of the 53 teens were raped, and that growing up in an environment that encourages the raping of young girls is not harmful to boys.

Now, personally, I think sex with a 17 year old who consents generally isn't rape. 17 is a bit high for my preference for age of consent laws. But that is the legal case here. Anyhow, I do have problem with the argument, it's only about a 20% abuse rate, so it's okay!

[conuly]

So, their argument is that only 13 of the 53 teens were raped, and that growing up in an environment that encourages the raping of young girls is not harmful to boys.

And remember, they deal with their troublemakers (especially the boys, who might get annoyed that every girl they would, in the normal course of things, be dating or eventually marrying and/or settling down with, is in fact already the fourth or fifth or so wife to a much older man) by sending them out to a world they're totally unprepared for... and have been raised more or less, as I see it, to shun.

[(Anonymous)]

The boys need to be removed before they have "accidents."

http://childpro.org/2005/fbi_letter.html
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0503/S00014.htm

[wodhaund.livejournal.com]

The thing that bugs me about the number of people saying "But they're clean and fed, so they're not abused!" is that those same people are forgetting that this sort of extreme sheltering that leaves a person completely unprepared for the real world and that this sort of (dare I say brainwashing) mental manipulation is just as abusive as if the kids were being beaten to death.

There is more than one method of abuse, and I wish people would stop fixating on the obvious one.

I've also seen a number of people saying "They're not doing anything illegal!" except that, yanno, multiple wives is very much illegal. (Haven't there been some recent cases regarding bigamy? I'll have to look those up again.)

[conuly]

The thing that bugs me about the number of people saying "But they're clean and fed, so they're not abused!" is that those same people are forgetting that this sort of extreme sheltering that leaves a person completely unprepared for the real world and that this sort of (dare I say brainwashing) mental manipulation is just as abusive as if the kids were being beaten to death.

Heck, their parents go "our children are happy" and, to some extent, I'm sure they are. But that doesn't make it a healthy environment to grow up in.

[wodhaund.livejournal.com]

I hate to play the "They're happy because they don't know any better." card when I talk to people, but...

It's kinda true.

[conuly]

Kids often are happy with their families when they're young if they're not being outrightly physically abused, and sometimes even if they are. And if they have no baseline for normal, why wouldn't they be happy with their normal?

But that doesn't mean anything when you consider what's happening when they grow up, y'know?

[wodhaund.livejournal.com]

Exactly. And I think that's the very point so many people (my parents included!) seem to keep missing.

[conuly]

I feel bad for the kids, and the parents - who, while adults and therefore responsible for their own actions, were raised like this and also have no idea of normal - because I'm sure it does hurt for their families to be broken up like that, especially as it's probably in many ways a very close-knit community. (I'll even guess that that's one of the things that makes it hard to leave. Sure, maybe you'll get by with no skills and a bone-deep idea that you're doing something really evil by existing in the scary world - but to leave your entire family? Siblings, parents, and, unfortunately for many of these girls, babies? That's a lot to ask for a kid, for anybody to do.)

But I think how they're raising those kids is outright abusive. I think that marrying off the girls at young ages like that, and having babies with them, is outright, and unjustifiably, abusive. I think that driving off (or killing, as is alleged) your young boys is utterly unconscionable. I think the degree of incest going on, while not actually immoral if between consenting adults (which it's largely not, so forget that) is definitely really icky and will, eventually, lead to genetic problems. And I think using your large families to rip off welfare is just despicable.

[latenightparty.livejournal.com]

Have you ever read Under the Banner of Heaven by Jon Krakauer? It talks some more about these communities. They are usually left alone, pretty much like a time capsule, until some teenager runs away after being abused or married off to an uncle and causes a brief scandal. Child abuse, particularly sexual abuse, runs rampant in the communities.

[leora.livejournal.com]

The case scares me. I think child abuse is wrong. I think pushing young girls into marriages is wrong. I wish that were the focus of it. I think it'd be just as wrong to push young girls into monogamous marriages as into polygynous ones. But I worry they'll decide that raising children to believe polygamy is okay is child abuse. I think polygamy is fine for consenting adults who decide it's right for them. Big difference. But I worry that too many people won't draw these distinctions because the cluster of features they tie together. I've been following the case, but I don't feel like I have much to say.

[conuly]

But I worry they'll decide that raising children to believe polygamy is okay is child abuse. I think polygamy is fine for consenting adults who decide it's right for them. Big difference.

Fully agreed.

People have signs - polygamy is child abuse. And some of those people grew up in just this sort of family, and I feel for them. But polygamy in and of itself isn't child abuse, because it's something that *ought* to be practiced between consenting adults, like every *other* sexual or marriage-al arrangement. Incest and forced marriage and rape are child abuse.

[tsukikage85.livejournal.com]

Maybe it's a warrant issue?

[interactiveleaf.livejournal.com]

Maybe it's a warrant issue?

Nah. Good guess, though.

The actual issue is that in 1953, the then-governor of Arizona, J. Howard Pyle, ordered a raid on an FLDS compound and it literally destroyed his political career. There isn't a politician in the Southwest who doesn't know that story and fear that it could happen again; attorneys general and other law enforcers have been assiduously ignoring the FLDS for years.

You can read a short article about it here (http://www.religionnewsblog.com/14616/arizonas-1953-raid-on-flds-sect-backfired); notice that this article is from 2006. You can Google for more details if you want them.

[tsukikage85.livejournal.com]

Huh, interesting... Politics is so... Yeah.

[conuly]

No, that makes sense.

I feel for the parents of the young children now, and for the parents then (looking at pictures, it's interesting to note the very visible difference between how the children were dressed in 1953 and how they're dressed nowadays), and for the children - I'm sure it *does* hurt being separated from their families.

But that doesn't mean I condone what they're ultimately doing to those kids, no matter how they feel.

[leora.livejournal.com]

I just read this (http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5iIdMpRHjN4hpNKBhfYyAsR4DDo4QD90B77NG0). So, apparently the state says 31 of 53 of the teen girls who are legally too young to have sex yet are either pregnant or have already given birth to a child.

The counter-argument is that 17 of those girls are actually 18 or over, and that it's not fair that the boys were also removed when only the girls are accused of having been raped (which is what we call it when someone has sex with a child too young to consent).

So, their argument is that only 13 of the 53 teens were raped, and that growing up in an environment that encourages the raping of young girls is not harmful to boys.

Now, personally, I think sex with a 17 year old who consents generally isn't rape. 17 is a bit high for my preference for age of consent laws. But that is the legal case here. Anyhow, I do have problem with the argument, it's only about a 20% abuse rate, so it's okay!

[conuly]

So, their argument is that only 13 of the 53 teens were raped, and that growing up in an environment that encourages the raping of young girls is not harmful to boys.

And remember, they deal with their troublemakers (especially the boys, who might get annoyed that every girl they would, in the normal course of things, be dating or eventually marrying and/or settling down with, is in fact already the fourth or fifth or so wife to a much older man) by sending them out to a world they're totally unprepared for... and have been raised more or less, as I see it, to shun.

[lviriditas.livejournal.com]

The boys need to be removed before they have "accidents."

http://childpro.org/2005/fbi_letter.html
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0503/S00014.htm

[wodhaund.livejournal.com]

The thing that bugs me about the number of people saying "But they're clean and fed, so they're not abused!" is that those same people are forgetting that this sort of extreme sheltering that leaves a person completely unprepared for the real world and that this sort of (dare I say brainwashing) mental manipulation is just as abusive as if the kids were being beaten to death.

There is more than one method of abuse, and I wish people would stop fixating on the obvious one.

I've also seen a number of people saying "They're not doing anything illegal!" except that, yanno, multiple wives is very much illegal. (Haven't there been some recent cases regarding bigamy? I'll have to look those up again.)

[conuly]

The thing that bugs me about the number of people saying "But they're clean and fed, so they're not abused!" is that those same people are forgetting that this sort of extreme sheltering that leaves a person completely unprepared for the real world and that this sort of (dare I say brainwashing) mental manipulation is just as abusive as if the kids were being beaten to death.

Heck, their parents go "our children are happy" and, to some extent, I'm sure they are. But that doesn't make it a healthy environment to grow up in.

[wodhaund.livejournal.com]

I hate to play the "They're happy because they don't know any better." card when I talk to people, but...

It's kinda true.

[conuly]

Kids often are happy with their families when they're young if they're not being outrightly physically abused, and sometimes even if they are. And if they have no baseline for normal, why wouldn't they be happy with their normal?

But that doesn't mean anything when you consider what's happening when they grow up, y'know?

[wodhaund.livejournal.com]

Exactly. And I think that's the very point so many people (my parents included!) seem to keep missing.

[conuly]

I feel bad for the kids, and the parents - who, while adults and therefore responsible for their own actions, were raised like this and also have no idea of normal - because I'm sure it does hurt for their families to be broken up like that, especially as it's probably in many ways a very close-knit community. (I'll even guess that that's one of the things that makes it hard to leave. Sure, maybe you'll get by with no skills and a bone-deep idea that you're doing something really evil by existing in the scary world - but to leave your entire family? Siblings, parents, and, unfortunately for many of these girls, babies? That's a lot to ask for a kid, for anybody to do.)

But I think how they're raising those kids is outright abusive. I think that marrying off the girls at young ages like that, and having babies with them, is outright, and unjustifiably, abusive. I think that driving off (or killing, as is alleged) your young boys is utterly unconscionable. I think the degree of incest going on, while not actually immoral if between consenting adults (which it's largely not, so forget that) is definitely really icky and will, eventually, lead to genetic problems. And I think using your large families to rip off welfare is just despicable.