Fundamentalist Mormons and individual rights

[Alfonso Jones]

Hm. I'd say it's rather inconsistently put: first, the state has to be kept out of interfering with what cults teach (which was the context of the first quote) and then how deadly are the interferences of cults with thought, which sentiment would seem to justify interference in what cults teach. ??

Ellen, it's only in today's warped political context that to state that something is bad can be taken to imply that the state should make it right.

Barbara

Whenever I see the evidence of the assumption that "something is bad" implies "the government should fix it" I wonder . . . . "Did they ever read Rand?"

Alfonso

Hello???? Where did I ever imply any such thing? It's exactly Barbara's apparent presumption -- as near as I can tell from what she's written on this thread -- that the State of Texas barging in there was doing right which I am questioning. If you actually think that I have any presumption of "the government should fix it," you have not been reading my posts.

Ellen

___

Ellen -

I don't think you ever implied any such thing. I wasn't responding to you at all. You have expressed yourself clearly as being opposed to such a notion, in this thread.

Why do you think I was referring to a post by you?

Alfonso

[Ellen Stuttle]

[....]

Hello???? Where did I ever imply any such thing? It's exactly Barbara's apparent presumption -- as near as I can tell from what she's written on this thread -- that the State of Texas barging in there was doing right which I am questioning. If you actually think that I have any presumption of "the government should fix it," you have not been reading my posts.

Ellen

___

Ellen -

I don't think you ever implied any such thing. I wasn't responding to you at all. You have expressed yourself clearly as being opposed to such a notion, in this thread.

Why do you think I was referring to a post by you?

Alfonso

Because it was a post of mine which Barbara was answering, and part of which you included in your reply. If you -- unlike Barbara -- were not referring to my post, then it would have been clearer had you not included the quote from me in your reply to her. Barbara was saying that my question of her could only have been asked because of a presumption on my part which was not my presumption at all. (And she has yet to clarify her views on the legitimacy of the raid of that compound.)

Ellen

___

[Alfonso Jones]

[....]

Hello???? Where did I ever imply any such thing? It's exactly Barbara's apparent presumption -- as near as I can tell from what she's written on this thread -- that the State of Texas barging in there was doing right which I am questioning. If you actually think that I have any presumption of "the government should fix it," you have not been reading my posts.

Ellen

___

Ellen -

I don't think you ever implied any such thing. I wasn't responding to you at all. You have expressed yourself clearly as being opposed to such a notion, in this thread.

Why do you think I was referring to a post by you?

Alfonso

Because it was a post of mine which Barbara was answering, and part of which you included in your reply. If you -- unlike Barbara -- were not referring to my post, then it would have been clearer had you not included the quote from me in your reply to her. Barbara was saying that my question of her could only have been asked because of a presumption on my part which was not my presumption at all. (And she has yet to clarify her views on the legitimacy of the raid of that compound.)

Ellen

___

I understand the basis of your assumption - though I was not referring at all to your comments but to the content of quite a few in the entire thread. I replied to Barbara's post, and in the process captured thereby all those she had captured in her post. (I often don't snip enough from posts I reply to.)

I look forward to reading others clarify what they mean, and how they reconcile their proposals with the notion of limited government. I think we're dealing in some dangerous ideas here - with the possibility of endorsing government-creep being high, if we're not careful.

Alfonso

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Anyway, do you have any ideas for salvaging value from this, or do you suggest trashing all the people, sending the kids off somewhere else and hoping the adults die off soon?

Hmmm. That is my only alternative?

William,

Good Lord, no. Sorry for the rhetorical excess.

I don't happen to see any other alternatives when taken to the extreme, but if you do, I am interested. And I am interested in the not-so-extreme, also. The more I debate on Objectivist forums, the more I am beginning to see that wisdom lies in the not-so-extreme, not because absolutes don't exist. They do. But because it is so easy to oversimplify. I am getting weary of arguments that leave out enormous chunks of reality that any 10 year old can observe because it doesn't fit some principle or other.

Maybe you will see a dim cousin to 're-education' be applied to reunited families, in the form of a Family Service Plan. This might assuage your concerns about ignorant but good FLDS folks who need a little guidance to raise their children without flouting the law.

It shall be intriguing to see the actual husband fellows coming out of the shadows. My only useful suggestion is for them: end the practice of underage marriages, publicly.

Actually I do see the dim cousin and, in the present context, I am glad something like that is on the books. (In the best of all worlds, of course, it should not be.)

I like your suggestion, too. End the practice. I endorse that. I need to add something, though. This keeps going back to my original point. Those who have engaged in the practice in the past should receive some kind of re-education and not punishment. I strongly believe punishment for infringing the rules of our society should come only after some kind of integration with our society has taken place.

Funny thing marriage. Has no particular meaning except citizenship, residency, and tax liability -- 100% statist.

;)

Wolf,

Once again you hit a nail on the head.

Here's a thought along those same lines. If the state is going to be used to stop and punish pedophilia, the definition of pedophilia is also 100% statist. For instance, the religious cult defines adult maturity in biological terms (onset of menstruation for females). The state rejects the biological standard qua standard and defines it differently. It uses guns to enforce that definition. It doesn't matter that what other standard is. The moment it uses guns to enforce it, the issue is statist.

I haven't had the courage to open this link. Somebody else do it.

Baby Dropping Ritual (Reuters)

I looked. The babies are dropped off a 15 meter shrine and caught on a sheet held tight by several people, similar to the equipment firemen use to catch people who jump from burning buildings. There is also a person there, but not holding the sheet, whose job is to grab the baby on the first bounce. These people in India have done this since ancient times and they believe it makes the child strong. They claim there has never been an accident.

From what I saw, it was simply a stupid custom that puts an infant at unnecessary risk. I don't think it impacts the child at all, much less causes a trauma. The impression I got from the child filmed was that he was perplexed, not frightened. I don't think he had a clue about what happened and I don't think he cared after a couple of minutes—just one more strange thing in a strange world. I have no idea how that crap is supposed to make an infant strong, though.

Michael

[Barbara Branden]

Ellen: "If you actually think that I have any presumption of "the government should fix it," you have not been reading my posts."

I'm sorry about that, Ellen. Rereading my words, I see that I did give that impression. It was not my intention, nor is it my view.

Barbara

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Michael, I agree that combating cult programming will often require reeducation. Not always, however. There are many people of all ages who have been able to throw off the influence of a cult without outside assistance. But the state should be kept out of it entirely, both directly and indirectly.

Barbara,

Here we come to where I am unsure of your position. You seem to endorse the state being kept out of it entirely except for one exception: to use armed forces to go in and dismantle an entire society in the name of combating a cult or, at least, protecting children against cult practices.

If that is the case, I have a real problem with using the state to destroy someone's way of life and confiscate their children in the name of ethics, but keeping the state out of fixing the problem. This reminds me of hanging a wild Indian in the old West for breaking the law when the Indian couldn't even speak English.

Is the state to be used as a bludgeon only against those who live according to laws different than ours? Is it merely a tool to blindly destroy those we do not approve of?

I have a problem with saying to a person on invading his/her home: "Sorry, but we have to screw up your life right now and take your kids because you believe and practice the wrong ideas. Get out of the way or we will shoot you, too. But don't worry. We won't bother teaching you the right ideas because we are the good guys and we won't interfere with your intellectual freedom."

Something is seriously wrong with that standard.

It will not lessen the danger of state control of ideas if the government hires private organizations to do the deprogramming; the government would still be deciding, by its choice of organizations and by its control of payment, which ideas are to be accepted and which rejected.

Here is my point. The government has already made that decision the moment it uses lethal force (or the threat of it) to invade people's homes and remove their children. This is where I have mixed feelings. There is a lot that is not clear in this case.

And consider this problem. Who is to decide what is a cult and what is not? If you give this power to the state, I surely don't have to spell out what would eventually happen. The British in the early days of this country would certainly have advocated "reeducating " the unstable and fanatical cultists who demanded independence from Britain. And what do you suppose would happen to libertarians under a more statist government than we have? In Soviet Russia, those with ideas considered by the state to be "sick" were sent, at best, to psychiatric institutions; that's what we would be opening the door to if we put the state in charge of deprogramming cultists.

I have no problem with mentioning Russia and so forth. Certainly their form of re-education was evil. But something fundamental always gets tossed aside when this kind of example is brought up as rebuttal: access to information.

You asked who is to define a cult. I have given the standard I am using elsewhere, but I am not sure it serves as a definition of a cult. It definitely serves as a clear rational standard, though. Any group that prohibits access to information widely available through normal communications means should be categorized into some kind of group that needs special treatment.

If you accept this standard as valid, I think you will then see a vast difference between a person struggling to obtain information—in China, for instance—who is sent to a reeducation camp to get the bad ideas he sought out of his head and indoctrinated in the party line, and a person who is being raised in a cult that prohibits access to information and is sent to an environment once in a while in a manner that he is able to look at other ideas that have been prohibited to him.

I see no problem in making that kind of definition for a group and it is certainly easy enough to observe. Who decides when access to normal information is being prohibited? Anyone who looks, just like we do for robbery or murder. In fact, I see no reason at all not to use a standard like that.

But if you put people into a camp, and order them to listen to a particular curriculum, what is this but attempting to force other ideas on them rather than the ones they presently accept? What if they refuse to listen? You won't let them go, you'd keep them prisoner until they "saw the light" so obligingly brought to them by the state. This is the plain, garden-variety use of force to ensure the acceptance of those ideas deemed acceptable by the state.

I am afraid my idea idea has not been clearly communicated. I don't know how you got the impression that I demand intellectual conformity, but that is not what I have been saying, not even by implication. You asked: "What if they refuse to listen?" Well, they refuse to listen. At least they have been exposed to the ideas. What they choose from that point on is up to them. My idea is to combat the insulation they live by removing the insulation and exposing them to what they have missed, not by cramming ideas into their heads.

You then projected: "You won't let them go, you'd keep them prisoner until they 'saw the light' so obligingly brought to them by the state." Why? How did you arrive at that conclusion? I don't see why this would be, seeing that the purpose is exposure and not indoctrination. Where have I even implied such a horrible thing?

How do you teach freedom to people you have locked up?

That's easy. You let them out and you let them look at the things they were denied when they were locked up. You are treating my proposed emergency measures in the same manner as life in the cult. These people have been brought up in a cult and that means years and years. I have proposed short spells of exposure to other ideas so that mothers and children do not become permanently separated by the state.

So long as the state is going to interfere (and this is the context of this discussion), there are only three options: (1) the state gives up and leaves the people alone, (2) the state tears the cult society apart and removes the children, (3) the state interferes in the cult society in a milder manner than total destruction, educating the members so that they understand what the law is and why it needs to be enforced.

I am merely suggesting the 3rd in this kind of case. I find the first two unacceptable. And to be clear, I am not at all comfortable with the third, but I have been unable so far to look at reality, look at the actual situation, and imagine anything else. When I look at principles only, matters are easier. Reality in this case is a bit messier.

Incidentally, I like the following suggestion:

There are a number of women who escaped the compound and have been courageously trying to help those still imprisoned, (They did not require government reeducation to recognize that they were living in a nightmare.) They are the logical ones, if they so choose, to attempt the reprogramming. -- but not by forcing anyone into a camp but by attempting to convince the victims to voluntarily seek their help. And there is little question that many of the women and children would seek their help.

I don't see this as either-or, though. I think common sense needs to be used. You claim that "there is little question that many of the women and children would seek their help." That's a good guess. But I still don't know in what manner you intend these people to have access to such help, unless you are discussing a case where the state has used force to dismantle the society.

Why are the doors of the compound locked and escape so difficult if these victims think their lives are just fine as they are?

I think this needs to be more specific. From what I have read, anyone is free to leave the fundamentalist Mormon cult. They just can't take their children and they will be excommunicated if they do so. The real prisoners—physical prinsoners—are the children. Obviously, the intimidation of being shunned and condemned to hell for all eternity makes psychological prisoners out of many.

I find it impossible to believe that a mature men thinks he is being virtuous when he forces a sobbing, terrified young girl to have sex -- and when he has locked the gates of the compound so that his victim cannot escape.

There is a danger to projecting from this kind of image. I have no doubt some of the young girls are terrified and sobbed. But I also have no doubt some of the others went for it with gusto. Unless mankind is different only for Mormons, attitudes toward sex vary greatly between individuals. Part of that is education, but part is within the person. When I was growing up, I personally knew several 14-year-old girls (or around that age in either direction) who were very curious about sex and couldn't wait to start. We called them sluts.

We can argue over what age a girl should start having sex, what standard should be used for defining an adult, whether it is a proper function of the state to define this, and so on, but I believe that treating all young wives as if they were terrified sobbers is inaccurate. I fully agree that those who are terrified sobbers should not have to be forced into having sex. And as WSS said above (with which I fully agree), the practice of underage marriage should be abandoned.

Incidentally, I heard today that some of the children removed from the compound, who are being examined medically, have been found to have untreated broken bones.

The most accurate statement I have come across in the news about this so far is the following: "A state welfare official said 41 of the children had broken bones or previous fractures, without giving more details." (From here.) So far, I have seen no statement other than speculation as to the cause of this, if the injuries are confined to one or two families or spread out over all the children, what parts of the body the injuries are on, etc. I think more time and more findings are needed before any conclusion can be responsibly drawn from this. Of course, the very existence of this fact is not a good sign.

Michael

[John Dailey]

MSK:

~ You keep talking about how those in the 'group' CAN'T do this or that; they 'CAN.' No leader in these types of groups actually forcibly prevent any member from doing whatever (in America, anyway, so far). They intimidate them into NOT doing what is 'forbidden' (akin to the Cat'lic Popo re excommunication.) That's the members' prob to deal with, if you wish, however indoctrinatedly/brain-washedly/rejection-fearably so choose; not us 'outsiders.'

~ You haven't mentioned how the 'outside' community (or, The State) should insure those inside have 'access' to outside info. Yes, the inside leaders 'should' allow such; the prob is: while some clearly don't, who of 'us' outside have the right to FORCE accessibility by them?

~ My answer is: those of us 'private' citizens so concerned, do it on one's own. However, the 'State' (especially DCYS's ilk) should stay out of it.

~ HOW would *you* suggest such info access be...insured?

LLAP

J:D

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

No leader in these types of groups actually forcibly prevent any member from doing whatever (in America, anyway, so far). They intimidate them into NOT doing what is 'forbidden' (akin to the Cat'lic Popo re excommunication.) That's the members' prob to deal with, if you wish, however indoctrinatedly/brain-washedly/rejection-fearably so choose; not us 'outsiders.'

John,

That is inaccurate. You are only referring to adults. The children are forced with physical force kind of force.

As to your other concerns, please keep the context in mind. The context is that the state invades their homes and takes their kids. Not that it might do that. It did and is doing that. This doesn't go away just because we are discussing a possible solution. Unfortunately, this is the given.

I answered your question in a previous post, but I will answer it again. If the only alternative is to permanently remove children from their mothers (which is reality, not projection), I then suggest as an emergency measure for this case, and maybe similar ones, that the children be permitted to live with their families. However, during a certain time (relatively short times) I think it is a good idea if they are taken to another place away from their families and be exposed to the information that is normally denied to them in the cult environment.

That goes for adults, too, but for them, the reason is also to make them aware of the law—the hows and whys and penalties.

Although I propose this happen several times, not just once, I also think a ceiling should be placed on it.

As a practical result, I don't see a closed off culture survivng this as a fundamentalist cult for too long. Some individuals will continue as fundamentalists, but their lives will be made uncomfortable by the inevitable questioning from family members and they will gradually lose their stronghold on the community. That is my projection, anyway. That's how it works out in the free world.

I am not proposing a permanent measure. Just a temporary thing to deal with the present crisis and clip the wings of both the state (which prefers to decree removal of all children to child care) and the cult leaders at the same time.

My goal is to try to find a way to get information in without the state tearing families apart, and still deal with the government's lethal force machine, which, in my opinion, is abusing its power.

Some might call this treason, but I have not found any other viable suggestion that does not leave out large chunks of the situation, i.e. large chunks of reality.

Michael

[Barbara Branden]

Michael, one point now; more to follow.

You wrote: "Here we come to where I am unsure of your position. You seem to endorse the state being kept out of it entirely except for one exception: to use armed forces to go in and dismantle an entire society in the name of combating a cult or, at least, protecting children against cult practices....If that is the case, I have a real problem with using the state to destroy someone's way of life and confiscate their children in the name of ethics, but keeping the state out of fixing the problem."

Here perhaps I have not been clear. In my view, there are two legitimate reasons for the state to remove people from the cult. The first is that children are being sexually abused, and probably physically abused as well. The second is that the doors of the cult are locked -- that is, those who want to leave are not free to leave, they are prisoners of the cult. The women who have been speaking against the cult had to escape it. I do not for a moment sanction the state combatting the ideas of a cult, only the cult's practices if those practices e illegal.

In essence, my view is like Rand's when she was asked if a free country has the right to invade a dictatorship. This particular cult is like a dictatorship -- its citizens are held there by force, the women have no vote or say in its rules, which they nevertheless must follow, and information about the outside world is forbidden to them, meaning censorship is enforced. And all this takes place in a country that has laws against imprisonment and the initiation of force by private citizens, laws against censorship, and laws against the sexual abuse of children. In this case, the government has not only the right to, as you put it, "dismantle the society," "destroy someone's way of life," and "confiscate their children" -- it has the the legal requirement to do so. If the government's duty is to protect its citizens against the initiation of force, surely it cannot allow this society to continue its use of force.

(A side point: you speak of the state taking children from their families. Many of these children do not know who their families are: their mothers may be any of the dozen women whom they call "mother," their fathers the same.

Barbara

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

The second is that the doors of the cult are locked -- that is, those who want to leave are not free to leave, they are prisoners of the cult. The women who have been speaking against the cult had to escape it.

Barbara,

I'll have to check this. I have the impression that anyone at all can get out of the cult by being excommunicated.

I realize there have been (and are) tyrannical members of that society who use(d) force on their women and children and that books have been written by escapees from such hell. I have read excerpts and I certianly do not condone such abuse.

But out here in the free world, we have our own tyrannical members and street gangs and so forth. Should we dismantle whole cities because street gangs exist? Or should we go after the street gangs?

If we are going to damn an entire society and relegate their way of life to only being mentioned in scare quotes as something obnoxious and viscious, we have to make sure that we are accurate and not damning the whole for the sins of a few.

From what I have seen, the monsters in that society are not in the majority and there has been abuse and injustice on all sides, state and cult.

You also wrote: "I do not for a moment sanction the state combatting the ideas of a cult, only the cult's practices if those practices e illegal."

Here I think we part ways a bit and this is a point where I am leaning more and more towards common sense rather than rigid principle. After seeing all I have seen in the world, I cannot condone the existence of public organizations like the Nazi party precisely because of its ideas. I don't agree with the state indoctrinating others with ideas, but I do agree with it not allowing large groups to be formed based on dangerous ideas. I fully endorse use of force by the state to prohibit this, too. I see no reason to allow an intellectual cancer to organize and grow until it turns into a large-scale lethal force after it gets organized enough to do so. We already know where that leads.

In the case of fundamentalist Mormons, since they are not hellbent on taking over the world, I think they need to be dealt with differently than Nazis, but I think they need to be dealt with because they teach and practice ideas that are contrary to individual rights. If they forcibly prohibit access to information to women and children, I think it is proper for the government to remove that prohibition, by force if necessary. This is the new right I was talking about: the right to not be prohibited from accessing information.

As far as family structure is concerned, we can either define family in terms of biology only, or in terms of who raises the children. To a child, biology doesn't count for much. Anyway, that would eliminate foster families. Family to a child is whoever is regularly taking care of him. So when I say destroy families, destroying that is what I mean.

Michael

[william.scherk]

Anyway, do you have any ideas for salvaging value from this, or do you suggest trashing all the people, sending the kids off somewhere else and hoping the adults die off soon?

Hmmm. That is my only alternative?

I can only predict, I don't have any suggestions for the situation on the ground beyond urging that we all pay attention to the details. There are plentiful actors working on behalf of the FLDS values. There are plentiful actors working on behalf of the values of children, and even more actors in place to watch over the whole procedure of hearings. At this stage in the proceedings at least, we can only cross our fingers that the YFZ ranch operations are less dire than the worst charges (wholesale physical and mental abuse).

[....]

William,

As best I can tell, you, too -- like Barbara, as best I can tell -- approve of what was done in this case.

"What was done in this case" covers a lot of ground. I presume you mean done by the state actors (the State Police, the judge who granted the original warrant, the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services, Judge Walther, individual social workers, etc).

Given the chronology of events (summarized here at the DFPS website), there are any number of actions to take issue with.

As far as I can gather, you take issue with some if not all of the state action, from the granting of a warrant to enter the ranch, to Judge Walther compelling DNA tests and directing foster placements and hearings. You may take issue with a broad sheaf of law and policy in the state of Texas -- from the actual existence of a DFPS and its powers and procedures to the right of a state to intervene in families. I don't know the particulars of your position. It would be interesting to see it all laid out.

I hope it doesn't come across that I am just marking out moral territory to my own credit. That would be true if I held you to a caricature of a position: Ellen believes all the children must go back and that the state has no business whatsoever at the YFZ ranch or with the marital arrangements of the FLDS.

I will try to list some of the underlying precepts that I support, and a few of the actions that I support.

First precept is state right to intervene in cases of abuse. I support this. I also support the right of families to be left alone to do their own family thing, short of criminal neglect or abuse. I support an adversarial legal system; I support a system of family courts.

It is perhaps Canadian history that leads me to support these rules and bodies. Many heartbreaking crimes against children and families are written therein. Against a backdrop in which religious bodies and authorities were prime purveyors of all social services, government policy delivered up children to the churches and their agencies, be they they residential schools, orphanages or shelters. Many shameful actions resulted. Butterbox babies. Mount Cashel. The likes of St Joseph's School.**

I also support the right of religious sects to build and maintain their collective societies as they see fit, contingent on observing the law. The law in this case protecting the rights of children to be free of abuse and neglect.

I suspect everyone participating in (or observing) the OL debates on the Texas events has a position on a spectrum of opinion across these precepts and actions. There are duel commitments. The commitment to individual rights (that parents be free to raise their children) versus the commitment to justice (that children be freed from abuse). It's not easy to dead-reckon the rights and wrongs at this stage of the game for me, and I suggest it's not easy for anyone else here.

The optics are bad: it is awful that 139+ ladies and their unnamed and unnumbered patriarchs are separated from their 464 rightful spawn. The ranch is emptied of its children. A sorry situation as it stands.

I wish you would stop speaking with the Near-Royal "We" you've kept using. (Another example, "we North Americans" in an earlier post, and there have been several others.)

Duly noted. You are OL's finest prose stylist, after all. Let's have a look at the last offender:

I'm with Barbara. Michael's camps are a non-starter. We north americans don't have the funds or a mandate to do any of what he envisions, let alone the will. What we do have on our hands is a creepy and illegal polygamist breeding project that has made captive subjects of its girls. As more details emerge from the investigation, we'll get an idea of the extent of the project.

Better to say that no north american state or province has the money or the mind to 're-educate' its polygamist sects. That Texas, BC, Arizona and Utah face a creepy and illegal polygamist breeding project. That the extent of the creepy project will emerge.

In the last instance, however, I wrote, "we can only cross our fingers that the YFZ ranch operations are less dire than the worst charges."

I think I would keep that in a reformed paragraph. Isn't there a shared hope that the sect did not break its children's bones, molest the boys, and spared most of its girls the rigours of marriage at 13 or 14?

If the vilest charges are not true, then the harm done is less than feared, and the state will have no right to keep the kids from returning to the embrace of the ranch.

Would you please speak for your opinions, only?

Yes, and thank you for the correction, but I may again speculate on common ground.

___________________________

** The Butterbox Babies were born in the Ideal Maternity Home, and buried in butterboxes after being secretly starved, some background here; Mount Cashel was a Christian Brothers orphanage in Newfoundland where abuse was rampant, a good site here; St Joseph's was but one of scores of religious schools that sequestered and abused first nations children, some useful info here.

[Wolf DeVoon]

William you're a nice man and I enjoy reading your posts. That said, I disagree completely in every respect.

First precept is state right to intervene in cases of abuse. I support this. I also support the right of families to be left alone to do their own family thing, short of criminal neglect or abuse. I support an adversarial legal system; I support a system of family courts.

State has no right to intervene as such. Citizen neighbors, doctors, women and children have a right to complain to police, alleging abuse. Families have no special right qua family to be left alone, kids particularly have the right to say 'no' to their parents, teachers, and religious authority.

I also support the right of religious sects to build and maintain their collective societies as they see fit...

Religious orgs should be taxed and regulated like business, facilities opened for health inspection, etc. Religious education should be heavily inspected and teachers routinely investigated on a par with public and secular private schools.

The law in this case protecting the rights of children to be free of abuse and neglect.

Terrible idea. You expand on it in the next quote:

I suspect everyone participating in (or observing) the OL debates on the Texas events has a position on a spectrum of opinion across these precepts and actions. There are duel commitments. The commitment to individual rights (that parents be free to raise their children) versus the commitment to justice (that children be freed from abuse). It's not easy to dead-reckon the rights and wrongs at this stage of the game for me, and I suggest it's not easy for anyone else here.

Individuals rights have no connection to raising biological children, which is a duty undertaken, rather than a persistent liberty. I'm not sure there is right to fatherhood, except with mom's consent. Whether it imposes a duty on dad is debatable and specific to the case. Mom and dad are presumed to be acting in the kid's best interest, but the state sets health and welfare standards policed by the schools, esp. vaccination and no obvious evidence of abuse at home. Can't show up in 3rd grade terrified, with broken bones, black eyes.

Parents have no rights. They have duties. Kids have an inalienable constitutional right to resist abuse, indoctrination, crazy bullshit about Ghostianity, Islam, Divine Right of Jews, etc.

Edited May 3, 2008 by Wolf DeVoon

[Judith]

Families have no special right qua family to be left alone, kids particularly have the right to say 'no' to their parents, teachers, and religious authority.

. . .

Parents have no rights. They have duties. Kids have an inalienable constitutional right to resist abuse, indoctrination, crazy bullshit about Ghostianity, Islam, Divine Right of Jews, etc.

Damn. Well said, Wolf. I get really tired of hearing parents talk as if they had a property right in their children.

Judith

Edited May 3, 2008 by Judith

[Brant Gaede]

Religious education should be heavily inspected and teachers routinely investigated on a par with public and secular private schools.

No government inspections and no public schools. Teachers can be privately certified by insurance companies providing liability insurance. Schools too. They can do all the necessary inspecting. Home school if you want to.

--Brant

Edited May 3, 2008 by Brant Gaede

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

I just had another thought, and this is another common sense thing instead of absolute principle thing. (Is there such a thing as an absolute principle outside of the fundamental axioms? Hmmmm...)

When we talk about rights, we are talking about each person as an individual. When we talk about groups, here in O-Land I mostly hear Rand's statement that a collective does not exist as an entity, it is merely a group of individuals.

Yet when I observe certain groups, they certainly act like entities. When I mentioned the Nazi party, this was one example. The FLDS is another. Any dictatorship is another. How about tribes (do you hear me, you orthodox boneheads)?

Whether anyone buys into this idea or not, they cannot escape the validity of certain principles that apply to groups (whether they also apply to single entities or not) just from simple observation. And here is one that interests me a great deal with cults:

If you cut the head off the beast, the rest of the body dies.

Translated to the crowd context, if you neutralize the leadership, the group disperses.

So long as the state is going to interfere, this is definitely something that should be taken into account. This affects groups of individual people in that those who made up the body of a suddenly headless beast are just as suddenly set adrift without direction. Most end up into some other system of thought for their morals and values. One can deny this nature of crowds if one wishes, but that is how it has worked thoughout all of human history in practically all contexts and societies I have been aware of.

I find it offkey (I think that is a pretty good word for the nuance I mean) to claim that the state has the right to cut the head off the beast, but not the right to set the derelict members of the corpse off in a new and proper direction.

I think most of my argument has centered on salvaging them, not the leadership. I find that punishing the followers just as severely as the leaders ignores this part of reality. (I am not saying do not punish the followers for actual damage performed, but I am saying that they need education more than punishment. The leaders are the ones who deserve the most punishment.)

There are limits, of course, and this is where common sense kicks in. I see an enormous difference between a person who (for example) hears gossip about a leader's viciousness and sees small indirect signs that such gossip is true and ignores it because he is ordered to, and the concentration camp guard who pours the poisonous liquid gas in the spraying mechanism of a death chamber. "I was just following orders" means different things in these two contexts. There is a point where brainwashing does not excuse closing ones eyes (like gassing people to death—who, among those who performed this, could reasonably say he was not aware that it was evil?), but there is a point where it is reasonable to believe that brainwashing is the main force operating.

I believe true justice should take this into account, simply because it is reality and easily observed.

EDIT: The image of Hydra later came to mind and I began to marvel at the wisdom of the ancients. The larger a dictatorship becomes, the more Hydra-like it becomes. When you chop off one head, two more grow back. The following quote makes a very interesting metaphor for how to deal with a destructive or oppressive cult: Hydra:

The Hydra was a many-headed monster slain by Heracles. It was related to the Chimaera and Cerberus. As one of his Labors, Heracles sought the Hydra's lair in the swamps of Lerna and forced it out into the open with flaming arrows. Wading bravely into the fray, he began to hack at the monster with his sword. But every time he cut off one head, two grew in its place. Eventually, Heracles called on his charioteer to bring a torch to cauterize the Hydra's severed neck each time a head was lopped. This prevented new heads from sprouting. And when the final head was chopped off and buried beneath a rock, the monster died.

Michael

[Wolf DeVoon]

Religious education should be heavily inspected and teachers routinely investigated on a par with public and secular private schools.

No government inspections and no public schools. Teachers can be privately certified by insurance companies providing liability insurance. Schools too. They can do all the necessary inspecting. Home school if you want to.

--Brant

UL approved. Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval. Why not? I'm with you on the free market angle, Brant. It can work for kids, provided there is a Save The Children From Religion charity, nowadays with inflation maybe The March of Bucks. I think this is what Andrew Carnegie had in mind when he funded free lending libraries. Money talks.

W.

[Ellen Stuttle]

William,

As best I can tell, you, too -- like Barbara, as best I can tell -- approve of what was done in this case.

"What was done in this case" covers a lot of ground. I presume you mean done by the state actors (the State Police, the judge who granted the original warrant, the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services, Judge Walther, individual social workers, etc).

Given the chronology of events (summarized here at the DFPS website), there are any number of actions to take issue with.

As far as I can gather, you take issue with some if not all of the state action, from the granting of a warrant to enter the ranch, to Judge Walther compelling DNA tests and directing foster placements and hearings. You may take issue with a broad sheaf of law and policy in the state of Texas -- from the actual existence of a DFPS and its powers and procedures to the right of a state to intervene in families. I don't know the particulars of your position. It would be interesting to see it all laid out.

By "what was done in this case" I did mean the particulars of the actions by Texas officials. My over-all view is that whatever the harms of the situation the YFZ ranch people were in before, the harms are now multiplied manifold, that instead of being "rescued," those people have been sent into even worse circumstances. I'm not prepared to do any laying it all out at this stage. I've been reading as much as I can as many hours as I can read -- and then taking breaks for feeling sick both physically and mentally.

I haven't yet come across any comments by Flora Jessop on how the situation has been handled. I wonder what she's thinking. I've read some background material by and about her. It seems that there's a large difference between the problems in Utah (and Arizona) and those in Texas: in the former, people trying to escape the FLDS can't get help; in the latter, they're being sent en masse into worse captivity than the former captivity. That's how it looks to me at the current time.

I hope it doesn't come across that I am just marking out moral territory to my own credit. That would be true if I held you to a caricature of a position: Ellen believes all the children must go back and that the state has no business whatsoever at the YFZ ranch or with the marital arrangements of the FLDS.

You were coming across to me -- much to my surprise -- as if you were talking from a role of Grand Magistrate in the Skies, but I didn't think you were meaning to sound like that.

I will try to list some of the underlying precepts that I support, and a few of the actions that I support.

I have disagreements (along similar but not identical lines to Wolf's) with your description of your precepts. I'll leave details for another time. At the moment my primary concern is with trying to piece together what has happened.

It is perhaps Canadian history that leads me to support these rules and bodies. Many heartbreaking crimes against children and families are written therein. Against a backdrop in which religious bodies and authorities were prime purveyors of all social services, government policy delivered up children to the churches and their agencies, be they they residential schools, orphanages or shelters. Many shameful actions resulted. Butterbox babies. Mount Cashel. The likes of St Joseph's School.**

I understand your backdrop of concern, William, but my present belief is that in the YFZ case you're almost seeing the situation as reverse to the reality. In the current circumstance, the religious setting is where the children are growing up. It's their home, where their familes live, whatever the bad features. The state authorities, on the other hand, are comparable to the "residential schools, orphanges or shelters" to which children were delivered in your Canadian examples. The actions of the authorities here look to me more like those of the religious powers in the Christian Brothers cases, even though it's a religious group against which the authorities are acting.

--

Re the particular "we" uses I happened to mention (there were others; those were just "immediate to hand"):

[....] Let's have a look at the last offender:

I'm with Barbara. Michael's camps are a non-starter. We north americans don't have the funds or a mandate to do any of what he envisions, let alone the will. What we do have on our hands is a creepy and illegal polygamist breeding project that has made captive subjects of its girls. As more details emerge from the investigation, we'll get an idea of the extent of the project.

Better to say that no north american state or province has the money or the mind to 're-educate' its polygamist sects. That Texas, BC, Arizona and Utah face a creepy and illegal polygamist breeding project. That the extent of the creepy project will emerge.

I'd say that "re-educating" its polygamist sects is what Texas is attempting to do! Thus I see considerable irony in objecting to the idea of "re-education camps" when those by a different name are where the YFZ children are being sent, indicating that a certain number of north americans at least have the will.

In the last instance, however, I wrote, "we can only cross our fingers that the YFZ ranch operations are less dire than the worst charges."

I think I would keep that in a reformed paragraph. Isn't there a shared hope that the sect did not break its children's bones, molest the boys, and spared most of its girls the rigours of marriage at 13 or 14?

In a sense, no, the "shared hope" you describe isn't one "we" are crossing our fingers regarding. I for one haven't had any belief from the beginning that the worst charges would turn out to be true, so I haven't needed to cross my fingers in the direction of hoping that they're exaggerated. Instead, I'm primarily crossing my fingers in the direction of hoping that the outcome for the children being sent into foster-home custody will be less dire than I fear it will be.

(As to the broken bones: that charge I expect is even more exaggerated than the others. 41 broken bones out of 400+ kids? About 1 out of 10? In my own family of 6, including me, one of the six, a brother, fell off a swing and broke both bones of his right forearm. Another brother badly lacerated the left forearm when he fell from a slide and caught the arm on a wire fence. One of my sisters only escaped either death or quadriplegia by being incredibly limber -- she was swinging on a rope swing and lost her grip and fell on her head with her body along a fence, her kneck bent in a way which would have snapped it except for her gymnastically-trained limberness. As to broken noses: my father, who was an orthopedic surgeon, told me that it was non-infrequent to find, upon X-raying a patient for some other reason, the signs of a slight break-fissure in a nose, or in a toe, the residue of an injury which had occurred in childhood and had healed without its having been noticed that there'd been an actual break in what had seemed just a badly bruised area. I really doubt the YFZ people were "break[ing] [their] children's bones.")

Ellen

___

Edited May 3, 2008 by Ellen Stuttle

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

I'd say that "re-educating" its polygamist sects is what Texas is attempting to do! Thus I see considerable irony in objecting to the idea of "re-education camps" when those by a different name are where the YFZ children are being sent, indicating that a certain number of north americans at least have the will.

Ellen,

That is a subtlety that I had been dimly aware of but had not verbalized. Thank you.

There is an enormous difference, of course, between what I suggested and what is actually taking place. My idea was to keep mothers and children living together (even with the biological identification problems) and intervene periodically merely to ensure exposure to outside ideas. What Texas is doing is permanent separation and providing schooling (or intending to provide it) in a manner determined by the government authorities. I will not say that the lessons the children are being (or will be) given are on the level of indoctrination, but I would bet my bottom dollar that it is not mere exposure to other ideas. I would bet good money that there are some professional deprogrammers aboard full of their own agenda.

Michael

[Ellen Stuttle]

There is an enormous difference, of course, between what I suggested and what is actually taking place.

Yes, I realize that what you were suggesting was just exposure to outside ideas -- whereas what the Texas authorities are doing amounts to an actual attempt at what you were misunderstood to be suggesting.

Ellen

___

[Selene]

There is an enormous difference, of course, between what I suggested and what is actually taking place.

Yes, I realize that what you were suggesting was just exposure to outside ideas -- whereas what the Texas authorities are doing amounts to an actual attempt at what you were misunderstood to be suggesting.

Ellen

___

Ellen and Michael:

I feel that this is the dilemma which I attempted to explain in a prior post. This "precipitous act" by the State of Texas did not use, at any time that I am aware of, to take Michael's "least intrusive" approach, which is a requirement for the state and a burden they will have to reach.

The "dirty little secret" is what Ellen established. Many folks believe the "advertising" of CPS/ACS/"child protective"/Family Court/etc as an agency that operates in the "best interests of the children".

This is factually a lie, by a government agency.

I, and clients of mine, have seen the results of children that are taken into the government retraining centers, many outsourced to "non-profits". I have seen and known a number of children before and after entering one of the government "safety" non-profit "supervised visitation centers or the Queens Children's Center.

They emerge robotic and dead in the eyes.

It is horrible.

Adam

[Judith]

When we talk about rights, we are talking about each person as an individual. When we talk about groups, here in O-Land I mostly hear Rand's statement that a collective does not exist as an entity, it is merely a group of individuals.

Yet when I observe certain groups, they certainly act like entities. When I mentioned the Nazi party, this was one example. The FLDS is another. Any dictatorship is another. How about tribes (do you hear me, you orthodox boneheads)?

Whether anyone buys into this idea or not, they cannot escape the validity of certain principles that apply to groups (whether they also apply to single entities or not) just from simple observation. And here is one that interests me a great deal with cults:

If you cut the head off the beast, the rest of the body dies.

Translated to the crowd context, if you neutralize the leadership, the group disperses.

That's proving Rand's point.

People tend to talk about monolithic entities. "The Government". "The State". "A Dictatorship". "The Cult". When you think about things like that, they seem omnipotent. It makes more sense to ask, "Who"? All of these colective entities are made up of individuals, and, more specifically, a few active individuals and a bunch of human ballast (to use Rand's term). When you think about individual people instead of monolithic entities, everything comes into perspective.

I find it offkey (I think that is a pretty good word for the nuance I mean) to claim that the state has the right to cut the head off the beast, but not the right to set the derelict members of the corpse off in a new and proper direction.

The right? Or do you mean the responsibility? As in, "You broke it, you fix it"?

I think most of my argument has centered on salvaging them, not the leadership. I find that punishing the followers just as severely as the leaders ignores this part of reality. (I am not saying do not punish the followers for actual damage performed, but I am saying that they need education more than punishment. The leaders are the ones who deserve the most punishment.)

I don't think anyone would argue with punishment proportional to wrong done.

There are limits, of course, and this is where common sense kicks in. I see an enormous difference between a person who (for example) hears gossip about a leader's viciousness and sees small indirect signs that such gossip is true and ignores it because he is ordered to, and the concentration camp guard who pours the poisonous liquid gas in the spraying mechanism of a death chamber. "I was just following orders" means different things in these two contexts. There is a point where brainwashing does not excuse closing ones eyes (like gassing people to death—who, among those who performed this, could reasonably say he was not aware that it was evil?), but there is a point where it is reasonable to believe that brainwashing is the main force operating.

On the other hand, individual members have responsibility for turning a blind eye to things. Ignoring things because one is ordered to do so? Since when is that an excuse for anything? Again, many of the facts are in question in this particular situation, but if -- and this is a big if -- girls and/or women were being wed against their will, anyone who turned a blind eye to it is responsible.

Judith

[Ellen Stuttle]

Here's some pretty straightforward reporting about the doctor, Dr. Lloyd H. Barlow. This comes from the website of a Rick Ross, an information-and-help site pertaining to cults. (There's a whole lot of information on that site.) Although the site's purpose is cult combat, the reportage is nonetheless pretty much "just the facts."

http://www.rickross.com/reference/polygamy/polygamy889.html

And here, from another item on the same site, is a synopsis of the story so far re the broken bones:

http://www.rickross.com/reference/polygamy/polygamy891.html

San Antonio - Authorities investigating whether teen girls in a polygamist sect were forced into underage marriages and sex said they are also looking into possible abuse of young boys -allegations that drew a sharp rebuke by sect's members.

Carey Cockerell, the head of the state's Department of Family and Protective Services, told state lawmakers Wednesday that his agency was looking into whether young boys were abused based on "discussions with the boys" and journal entries.

In a written report, the agency said interviews and journal entries suggested young boys may have been sexually abused, but didn't elaborate.

Cockerell also said 41 of the 463 children seized from the Yearning For Zion Ranch in Eldorado had evidence of broken bones. Some of those children are "very young," he said.

[Notice, they aren't talking about current injuries in all these cases. I haven't found any report of how many of the injuries are current.]

After Cockerell's presentation to the Senate Health and Human Services Committee, he sent an aide from the lieutenant governor's office to tell reporters he would not make further comments.

Members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, the renegade Mormon sect that runs the ranch, countered that the state was deliberately misleading the public to cover up its own errors in the case.

A physician at the ranch, who is also a sect member, said most of the broken bones were from minor falls and that there was no pattern of abuse there.

[....]

After Cockerell's comments on broken bones, a briefing issued said, "We do not have X-rays or complete medical information on many children so it is too early to draw any conclusions based on this information, but it is cause for concern and something we'll continue to examine."

Sect spokesman Rod Parker called Cockerell's testimony "a deliberate effort to mislead the public" and said state officials were "trying to politically inoculate themselves from the consequences of this horrible tragedy."

"This is just an attempt to malign these people," he said.

Lloyd Barlow, the ranch's onsite physician, said he was caring for a number of FLDS children with broken or fractured bones at the time they were removed from the ranch.

"Probably over 90 percent of the injuries are forearm fractures from ground-level or low level falls," Barlow said. "I can also tell you that we don't live in a community where there is a pattern of abuse."

I came across a possibly relevant tidbit on another site. This is from the story of a woman named Laura Chapman, who fled the Colorado City-Hildale community. The immediate quote comes from another former member of that community. Since it's Warren Jeffs' followers who live at the YFZ community, seems likely that the trampolines are in fashion there, too. Jumping on trampolines is a good way to produce numerous broken forearms from "low-level falls."

http://helpthechildbrides.com/stories/laurachap.htm

Children have little contact with kids outside their faith because they generally don't play competitive sports, which are considered unspiritual. Their main pastime is bouncing on the massive trampolines in front of nearly every home.

"Jumping on those tramps was the only freedom we had growing up. In a way, it was the closest we ever really got to being lifted up," said LuAnn Fischer, a 30-year-old mother of four who says she and her husband were booted from the church last fall after they questioned Warren Jeffs' authority.

___

Edited May 4, 2008 by Ellen Stuttle

[Wolf DeVoon]

More spiritual flying...

http://www.behind-the-tm-facade.org/Transc...ation-myths.htm

[william.scherk]

My over-all view is that whatever the harms of the situation the YFZ ranch people were in before, the harms are now multiplied manifold, that instead of being "rescued," those people have been sent into even worse circumstances.

I grasp this position: if there was abuse at YFZ, foster placements for the 460+ kids is a greater abuse. You have estimated the harm at YFZ, and estimated the harm that will be visited on the kids in "temporary state custody," and find the balance of harm to be far greater in "care."

I would like to know what harms are likely to befall the children while waiting on the outcome of custody hearings by June 5th. I have been at turns amused and surprised by the protocols of the placements. See a Deseret News story for details of a 'cultural guide' for caretakers of the FLDS kids.

I haven't yet come across any comments by Flora Jessop on how the situation has been handled. I wonder what she's thinking. I've read some background material by and about her. It seems that there's a large difference between the problems in Utah (and Arizona) and those in Texas: in the former, people trying to escape the FLDS can't get help; in the latter, they're being sent en masse into worse captivity than the former captivity. That's how it looks to me at the current time.

For those not familiar, Flora Jessop is an 'escapee' sister-wife and author who also runs a rescue organization for FLDS members, Help the Child Brides. She has apparently been keeping her eye on Eldorado for a while, according to this story. ** Of the events at the ranch she says:

I am so thrilled with the current rescue effort [ . . . ] The publicity is focusing so much public attention on the horrific conditions that are inflicted on minors within these polygamist sects. The truth is, young women contact me continually in their almost insurmountable efforts to escape underage, coerced marriages, incest, child endangerment, statutory rape, assaults, battery, ongoing child abuse, often by their own fathers, and child labor abuses.[from "Push lawmakers on child bigamy bill"]

I understand your backdrop of concern, William, but my present belief is that in the YFZ case you're almost seeing the situation as reverse to the reality. In the current circumstance, the religious setting is where the children are growing up. It's their home, where their familes live, whatever the bad features. The state authorities, on the other hand, are comparable to the "residential schools, orphanges or shelters" to which children were delivered in your Canadian examples. The actions of the authorities here look to me more like those of the religious powers in the Christian Brothers cases, even though it's a religious group against which the authorities are acting.

What my examples have in common are systematic abuse ignored by authorities. I take your point that it was state social policy that directed inmates to both the schools and the orphanages. I can't forget that the state washed its hands of responsibility to these kids.

Remember, I support several things: family courts, an adversarial legal system, a parent's right to raise children unmolested by the state, a state responsibility to intervene in cases of abuse and neglect. And my precepts were designed to identify interests and actions that come into conflict from time to time.

Sure the residential schools were 're-education centres' of a type designed to extirpate the languages and culture of the natives, and surely Mt Cashel was a gruesome place to be a boy, but as for a direct comparison between the Christian Brothers (at Mt Cashel) and Texas foster care, bosh. This group of kids is well scrutinized. Is it likely that any of the 14 year old girls in custody will be impregnated by the time their day in court comes around?

In any case, the YFZ ladies have signalled their compromise with state interests. A story in today's Dallas Star-Telegram suggests that any "Family Service Plans" agreed between the CPS and the folks on the ranch will contain some constraints on underage couplings.The mothers who appealed Walther's order "are not asking to return to life as it was before their children were removed," the petition said. "They are not seeking to stop [the CPS] investigation. They only want possession of their children, subject to any reasonable conditions [CPS] and the trial court wish to impose."

___________________________

** Jessop is a lady on a mission. Here's an excerpt from an article at Free Republic, "Abuses in Polygamist Sects."

The child fatality rates in the FLDS also raise concern and

questions. In 2005, Flora Jessop and Linda Walker, director

of the Child Protection Pro­ject at www.childpro.org, went to

the Isaac Carling and "Babyland" cemeteries in Hildale and

Colorado City, videotaped all marked and unmarked graves,

and compiled all available information about the deaths.

Children are buried in both, but Babyland is exclusively for

babies.

Among the 324 marked graves were 180 of children under the

age of eighteen. In addition, there were 58 unmarked graves

of babies.

Jessop and Walker also list 74 FLDS members who they know

have died, but whose headstones are not in the Carling or

Babyland cemeteries. Among them are 18 minor children plus

eight stillbirths. Some of these children may be in the

unmarked graves, they note.

Many deaths and birth defects

Jessop says she saw and heard of many deaths of children

while she was growing up in the FLDS towns. After she and

her grandmother went to the police and reported that

Jessop's father was sexually abusing her, Jessop was held in

solitary confinement from age 13 to 16. Her room was next to

the sect's birthing center, which her uncle was in charge

of; Jessop says she became aware during that period that

many babies died and were buried in the backyard of the

birthing center.

She also has seen many children with severe birth defects.

Two of her siblings have cleft palates. Another sister was

born with dislocated hips. No­thing was done about it until

the baby was about 18 months old. Then both of her hips had

to be bro­ken, and she was put in a body cast for months.

Two defectors claim that some FLDS women pray to have Down's

syndrome children because such children have docile

temperaments and be­cause the mothers get $500/month in

public assistance for a handicapped child.

Are causes of death recorded?

CHILD wrote to the Utah Attorney General asking if there

were death certificates and causes of death recorded for all

the children buried in the FLDS cemeteries. If not, we

asked, "shouldn't criminal charges be filed for improper

disposal of remains? And if some of the babies died from

abuse or neglect, shouldn't that also be a criminal matter?"

The Attorney General's office replied that they did not have

the resources to investigate those con­cerns, but there is no

statute of limitations on homi­cide, so if we have evidence

of homicide, we should bring it to their attention.

Washington County prosecutor Brock Belnap says his office

and other law enforcement agencies are investigating the

deaths.

Jessop charges that the Mohave County, Arizo­na, coroner

signed off on many FLDS deaths with­out even seeing the

bodies.

Jessop says that until about seventeen years ago the FLDS

opposed medical care. Today they have their own pharmacy as

well as state-licensed physi­cians and nurses who are church

members and live in Short Creek. Indeed, some women get far

too much medication today, Jessop and others charge. They

say that women are put on high doses of psychotropic drugs

to keep them subservient.

[edit -- the custody hearings for the FLDS kids must be completed by June 5, rather that commence on that date.]

Edited May 4, 2008 by william.scherk

[Donovan A.]

State has no right to intervene as such. Citizen neighbors, doctors, women and children have a right to complain to police, alleging abuse. Families have no special right qua family to be left alone, kids particularly have the right to say 'no' to their parents, teachers, and religious authority.

Does this mean kids have the right to also say yes?

I find this subject to be very difficult. The United States started off as a religious haven for people who faced persecution. Perhaps now our population's attitudes have changed. Therefore, we have a new more modern attitude in regards to religious freedom, and some communities have not kept up with us. Obviously, arranged marriages are problematic since we recognize a man and a woman's right to choose who he or she wants or does not want to marry. However, as far as I know this is not an uncommon practice in the world. Therefore, we should ask what should be done in regards to arranged marriages? Even if it is outlawed, religious families put enormous pressure to have their way.

How many husbands and wives are acceptable? legally and morally?

At what age should a person be able to consent to sex or marriage? Legally and morally?

As Objectivists, it is important to think in principles. To consider the full range and implications of our positions and premises. On one side, we can ask should someone be able to treat their young as property? On the other side, do we grant the same full rights that an adult has to the very young? I think both answers are unacceptable. Children are a special case. Children (which needs to be defined) do not have the right to say "no" to their parents when their parents ask them to eat, to take medicine, go to school, to not take drugs, work, or clean their bedroom. A parent also has the right to use an appropriate (needs to be defined) level of force to discipline their children and ask them obey. Therefore, duties of both the child and the parent must be defined. Our culture in general is up to its eyeballs in religion, mysticism, tribalism and cultism. Common practices, are not necessarily rational or moral. We must be very conscientious in our thinking when it comes to the responsibilities of parents, and the rights of children.

What are the basic fundamental rights of children? At what point can a child demonstrate objectively that he is now an adult? I think to start by approaching the subject only considering age is problematic.

What does it mean to be an adult? In short, I would classify an adult as essentially someone who has the means and the ability to sustain his or her life independently, without aid. Who is responsible for adults that fail in the task of sustaining their own life?

In general I am more concerned about the potential for government abuse of its power. Consider the following questions:

Should the government force parents to give their children vaccinations? If yes, at who's expense?

What if a child dies from a forced vaccination?

Should the government force parents to:

Send their kids to school?

Adhere to a standardized educational program?

Introduce or prohibit the exposure of any particular ideas to their kids?

Is it acceptable to circumcise boys or girls? (I know many men, who wish they had not been circumcised) Should this practice be considered a violation of a child's rights?

If a child gets cancer and the parents wish to use prayer instead of traditional medicine, what should be done? At who's expense?

Should children be allowed to work in dangerous jobs? Coal mines? Logging?

When should a child be free to leave their parents home? Anytime the child wants to? At any age?

Should a child be free to access any information they want? Regardless of the parents values and philosophy? At who's expense?

What happens when two consenting children have sex and the girl becomes pregnant? How is this different than if an "adult" and a "child" conceive a child together? Does the age and sex of the partners involved have any baring on the issue?

If, we accept that prostitution should be legal. At what age or level of maturity would we allow a young person to enter this profession?

Consider the same question in regards to pornography. Can we clearly distinguish the difference between art and pornography? Does that make any difference?

In all of these cases, what is the appropriate response from the state? What are the general rights which the government is essentially bound to protect? Obviously, there can be no right to infringe upon the rights of others. The problem is that these two groups of people (Adults and Children) do not have equal rights. Our laws depend heavily on our ability to consider all of the reasonable variables. This is why different states have different laws regarding these very difficult issues. How we as Objectivists start to affect the culture around us, how we interrelate with the irrationality that exists around every other corner in the world is paramount. What we can demonstrate to the world is why we have something better to offer. That our means, will result in just and moral ends for adults and children alike.

Edited May 4, 2008 by Donovan A.