Arrested for Being Creepy
More and more, it looks like the real crime of the Fundamentalist
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is being different and ...
well ... creepy. The FLDS has apparently been targeted for destruction because its tenets and practices rub America's increasingly intolerant soccer moms and suburban dads the wrong way.We just can't let people live that way!
I'm as weirded out by the Persian-harem-via-How The West Was Won
ambience that clings to the FLDS as the next guy, but I want
allegations of abuse against the group to be (fancy this) based on
actual evidence, and addressed on an individual basis, rather than as
an excuse for a pogrom. That is, as weirded out as we all may be, you
prosecute the actual abusers among the oddball minorities (as well as
the bland majorities) and leave everybody else the hell alone.
Next thing you now, we'll be locking up college lacrosse players just because they are rich white guys.
Jody:
I disagree on the "increasingly intolerant" part. There's a reason the Mormons are out west.
May 20, 2008, 1:05 pmJohn Moore:
This whole thing is difficult. On the one hand, we have valid (IMHO) laws against statutory rape, and the raid was based on allegations of that. Many of the tactics of the police can be sort of justified as part of the evidence collection part of that.
Likewise, allegations of "brainwashing" in the case of a cult are quite valid. Cults are very good at deeply indoctrinating their members, especially children. They are much, much better at this than normal organized religion. The FLDS is quite clearly a cult by normal definition - it's religious, sexual, indoctrination and control practices are all cultish.
However, there aren't any laws against cults. Likewise, brainwashing is not illegal, unless it represents some extreme form of psychological abuse.
I suspect one reason this case is so disturbing is that is shows in a dramatic way the ordinary tactics of police and prosecutors in abuse cases - separating the individuals, denying custody, and interrogating. With FLDS, it's just a lot more newsworthy so we hear and write about it.
May 20, 2008, 5:25 pmJosh:
'Brainwashing' is an entirely relative idea. For a non-Christian, Catholic schools are brainwashing facilities turning out mindless Christian zombies. To Christians 'secular' education is doing a similar thing.
There is no objective measure of what is or isn't 'good', nor of what is or isn't 'brainwashing'.
May 20, 2008, 10:40 pmhappyjuggler0:
David Friedman, son of Milton Friedman (RIP), has posted extensively on this subject over at his blog, starting it seems to me April 15.
The link I gave is to his blog, to read all the articles on FLDS one has to pick through the blog posts. Personally I haven't read the FLDS posts, but I like the other ones. To each his own....
May 20, 2008, 11:28 pmStuhlmann:
I'm curious who is financing the "FLDS lifestyle". The mothers don't appear to work outside the home. I know that I couldn't afford to have multiple wives and multiple kids by each. How do these guys do it? Do the wives and children receive any public support, and is any fraud involved in obtaining that support?
May 21, 2008, 8:07 amStuhlmann:
I'm curious who is financing the "FLDS lifestyle". The mothers don't appear to work outside the home. I know that I couldn't afford to have multiple wives and multiple kids by each. How do these guys do it? Do the wives and children receive any public support, and is any fraud involved in obtaining that support?
May 21, 2008, 8:08 amtribal elder:
As Stuhlmann observes, one stay-at-home mom is an expensive proposition, so multiple wives/multiple households are suspect.
If the taxpayers are subsidizing the FLDS lifestyle, the welfare fraud issues are worth following up on.
If the taxpayers aren't picking up the tab, and the transgression is fathering multiple children with numerous grown women, shouldn't the TX authorities investigate the NBA too ?
May 21, 2008, 11:11 amScott Wiggins:
FLDS lifestyle??? Sounds like something glamorous as seen on MTV cribs...I'm pretty sure they're not driving Escalades and raiding the Sub-Zero fridge for champagne and caviar. I submit that for those who choose to be self-reliant i.e. hunting, fishing, farming, gardening, preparing food at home as well as having built your own home in areas that don't have a Starbucks on every corner, life is pretty cheap. In my extensive travels in Utah, I have only occasionally seen those who look like they are FLDS. They seem normal enough if you can look past the pioneer dress of the women. Welfare fraud...Maybe, if so we should investigate them in line with the millions of section eight mothers who have live-in gangbanger, drug attic or just no-account boyfriends. I'm in the Real Estate business and can tell you that virtually every section eight household is supporting a non-productive and often criminal male along with the unwed mother...
May 25, 2008, 2:47 pm