How is it right to undermine human rights to raid Mormons, when
collective punishment did not need to be applied.
Should we do the same for all Zionist Jews? Take their infant boys
away before they can perform their sick Jew penis rites on them!
http://www.rense.com/general81/flads.htm
FLDS Raid – A Dangerous
Legal Precedent
By Joel Skousen
Editor – World Affairs Brief
4-26-8
I waited a week to comment on the Texas case, separating 437 children
from their FLDS parents, to see if any substantive evidence of abuse
would emerge. It hasn’t. Even if it had, those could have been handled
individually. But no, Texas plans instead to make every member of the
group pay the supreme price: to strip away their beloved children. This
case is about group punishment. In spite of a search warrant tainted by
a false witness (the "Sarah" who doesn’t exist), no actual specific
evidence of abuse, or any unwilling participants in this polygamous
compound, a self-righteous Texas judge had decreed that all 400 +
children will not be returned to the custody of their parents. Texas
has gone too far to rid itself of this awkward religious sect that
built the "Yearning for Zion" (YFZ) ranch in order to evade persecution
in Utah and Arizona.
As this tyrannical order clearly meant separating even nursing children
from their mothers, a wave of outrage began to sweep the nation. The
media-savvy judge immediately changed her order (allowing children
under 1 year if age to be nursed) in order to keep the tide of public
relations on the side of the authorities. But this should not deter the
nation from realizing the danger of the tenuous legal proposition that
mere membership in a group (that may have isolated examples of marrying
underage girls) makes all unworthy of possessing any children at
all–ever. That is wrong, especially when legal remedies exist to
prosecute specific wrongdoers.
The local sheriff admitted on television that he had an "informant" on
the inside for over 4 years. That was probably a disgruntled member of
the group who decided to stay on to build up a case against his fellow
church members. If a case can’t be built after four years of informing,
and authorities have to rely on a false abuse phone call to justify
this invasion, what does that say about the State’s case?
The key testimony the judge relied upon was that of Texas Child
Protective Services’ Angie Voss who said that at least "five girls
younger than 18 are pregnant or have children." CPS argued under
cross-examination that none of the 400+ children should be allowed to
return to the YFZ ranch because 10 or 12 years down the road they may
be subject to abuse. Incredible! Defense lawyers correctly noted that
the state cannot make such sweeping generalizations about all of these
families. Fairness requires a case by case assessment. In the meantime,
Children should be free to return home with their parents, who have not
been accused of any crime. Criminals get easier release terms and bail
than these families.
Unfortunately, even Sen. Harry Reid, the Senate Majority leader (and a
Mormon who probably has polygamous ancestors) has joined in the witch
hunt and called for Department of Justice assistance to states in
prosecuting polygamists nationwide wherever they may be hiding. I call
this a witch hunt because these people are being judged as a group,
mostly because they can be easily targeted as a group. There is far
more abuse that occurs among the general populace as a whole, but
because they are not part of an organized group, they have to be
prosecuted individually–as it should be. There is no excuse for
engaging in group punishment for the polygamists when their general
record of raising fine, well behaved children is superior to the
average public educated family. Individual prosecution for underage
marriage or cohabitation is not that much more difficult than the
typical secretive bigamist–who makes no attempt to take responsibility
for any children.
Even the suspected perpetrator of the phony abuse calls (representing
herself as "Sarah Barlow") was treated more leniently by authorities
than these Texas families. Rozita Swinton, a 33 year old black woman,
with a history of false reports was allowed out on bail ($20,000 put up
by someone yet unknown) and promptly disappeared. An arrest warrant was
issued for her charging her with false reporting to authorities for an
incident in February. Some justice. This makes at least the third time
Swinton has been implicated in these kinds of false reports and she has
never served jail time. She was not arrested for this incident even
though the false call from "Sarah" originated from a phone Swinton has
used in the past to falsify abuse reports. Rod Parker, an attorney and
spokesman for the FLDS Church said Tuesday that "Sarah Barlow doesn’t
exist and Dale Barlow lives in Arizona." He correctly noted that the
phone call tainted the search warrant used at the YFZ Ranch, which will
certainly be part of a future legal challenge to the blanket separation
of mothers from children.
Authorities in Colorado are keeping everything concerning Swinton
sealed in order to avoid embarrassment of Texas authorities who based
their search and seizure warrant on this illegal call for help. Their
reluctance to prosecute Swinton is suspicious. A tape recording of the
call exists. How hard is it to match her distinctive voice to that call?
There is other evidence as well. Texas Rangers admitted privately to
Child Protection Project founder Linda Walker who took the call that
"she [Swinton] was obsessed with the FLDS." Rangers confiscated tons of
material on the FLDS in the search of Swinton’s home. She had real
addresses and real names of FLDS people which is not easy to get a hold
of for someone with limited intellect. Swinton also knew that the FLDS
had doctrinal beliefs that denied their Priesthood to Blacks and
devised racist statements in her call to the Texas abuse hot line so as
to further implicate the FLDS as racists. Because of Swinton’s
intellectual limitations (friends describe her as a sort of soft spoken
simpleton), I would not rule out that Swinton may be under the
influence of an agent provocateur working to justify the seizure of
children from the YFZ ranch.
The longer this blanket forced separation of family members continues,
based solely upon the tenuous doctrine of "potential abuse" for group
beliefs, the more dangerous it will become to the rights of all who are
or will become potential dissidents to government tyranny–unless it
backfires and they go too far. That’s what happened with the state of
Utah when they shot a polygamist home schooler named John Singer for
refusing to hand over his children to the state who was going to force
them into public schools. The nationwide bad press on the killing
forced Utah to stop prosecuting homeschoolers and finally allow parents
the right to educate their own.
If you think this is only about the evils of polygamy, consider that
Texas authorities prepared a "Cultural Competencies" tip sheet for
Texas social workers engaged in "de-programming" FLDS children warning
them that these cult members would be "fearful and distrustful of
government." Why shouldn’t they be, given what has happened? We should
all be deeply concerned.
The Texas ACLU also weighed in on the case: "While we acknowledge that
Judge Walther’s task may be unprecedented in Texas judicial history
[and totally without legal precedent], 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 [the
current legal standard] — have been threatened," Burke said.
I’m hoping that good people everywhere will realize how this expansion
of child "protective" law threatens every family whose parents
subscribe to any belief system "society" considers "abusive" and who
are members of an identifiable group of similar believers. "Society"
doesn’t exist legally, except in the minds of those who claim (wrongly)
that they speak for the majority. This targeting of dissident groups,
if allowed to continue, will eventually encircle almost all
fundamentalist Christians who believe in any form of strict discipline
and spanking, who are home schoolers or who hold to any theory that our
government is in some way an enemy of liberty. Indeed, belief in mere
physical discipline, or patriarchal authority, is one of the "evils"
social workers regularly list as one of the criteria that make for
abusive parents, and thus unworthy to keep their children.
That said, I do think there is a problem endemic to polygamous groups
relative to the treatment of girls. I’ve had some experience with
members of these groups. Almost all are constitutional conservatives
and some individual members have attended speeches I have given in the
West. We have to be careful not to stereotype all polygamous groups as
the press tends to do. They have some common beliefs, but vary greatly
in how they are organized and how they function as a group. The ones I
have met have actually been very fine conservative people. They all
readily admit that some polygamous groups are much more authoritarian
than others, and that is why there have been so many splinter groups
among them, each trying to find some form of leadership they are
comfortable with. Most often the problem with the old line groups like
the FLDS is with older leaders who tend to run things with a
patriarchal authoritarian mindset. In Biblical terms, the Lord does
endorse patriarchal authority, but it must never be exercised with
…
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