[Vision2020] Burn Down the FLDS Church

Mon Apr 28 22:44:46 PDT 2008

Paul,

  I never thought you would ever defend the rape of children, but I guess you can convince yourself of anything being right if you want. 

  The law was followed, and there was lots of evidence to take the children away, a justified act. 

  If a vulnerable adult, or a child tells me that they are being abused, I am required by law to report it to authorities. If the authorities believe there is any "'reasonable chance" a child is in danger, they are required to move that child to safety until they can determine it is safe. That is the law, and a law that is to error on the side of safety of the child and victim. If someone is lying, we return the child and prosecute the person who knowingly filed a false report. That is what keeps the state from willy nilly taking children away from their parents, there must be a complaint, and evidence. 

  There are signs that a person is being abused, their behavior, their attitude, their answers to questions, and there are also physical signs, such a bruises, marks, and of course, pregnancy is a big clue someone is having sex. 

  Our system is designed to first, protect the child, then investigate, then return the child if it is safe. It does not follow to leave a child or abuser with a rapist to be raped repeatedly until a full length of a trial completes to ensure all the rights of perpetrator are followed. That is reckless endangerment of the child, and ignores the rights of the child. 

  Let me point out the fact, that first and foremost, they are already violating the state and federal law, because they are practicing polygamy. So the police had every legal right, just because of that, to enter the compound. 

  The state is exercising due discretion in taking these children away, as it is not something they do lightly, or very often. But if you strongly believe that a child could be in danger, and their is evidence, or witness testimony indicates so, you are required, by law, to act. 

  I don't buy this is a legitimate religion. And even if it was, that is no excuse to be violating the rights of children, or violating federal and state laws. You cannot violate federal and state law just because you don't believe it is wrong, especially when it harms others. 

  The reason they took all the children, is because the children live communally, and thus all the children are in danger, because they are all in the same environment, with the same adults watching them, and not willing (or able) to report crimes against children to federal authorities. 

  Best Regards,

  Donovan

Paul Rumelhart <godshatter at yahoo.com> wrote:
  Donovan Arnold wrote:
> Paul,
> 
> If you don't understand what is wrong with 50 year old men raping 
> their 13 or 14 year old cousins and forcing them to have their 
> children, while the community watches and says nothing, or praises 
> it, then you seriously need to consider reexamining your core values! 
> It is so wrong on so many different levels. 

My core values are just fine. I was just trying to draw a distinction 
between the two concepts, not advocate for their use.

> 
> The purpose of the law, Paul, is to protect the innocent from being 
> victims, not to shelter criminals from prosecution of the law or to 
> excuse them from justice. Any rights they may have lost in the 
> protection of these children, is far out-weighted by the rights they 
> violated of little girls they violated. Obviously, since there was in 
> fact horrendous crimes being committed, their information was correct. 
> The state has a moral obligation to prevent children from being raped 
> or being forced into sexual contact with others, especially their 
> relatives.

Preventing the innocent from becoming victims only works if you have 
some sort of magical ability to know the guilt or innocence of someone 
without evidence. I don't have such an ability, I don't know of many 
who do. So we're stuck with the legal process. The fact that they were 
right in this case does not justify their actions. If the state has the 
moral obligation to prevent children from being raped, then they'd 
better take all of them away from their parents, since you never know 
who might be a parent at risk for illegal behavior.

> 
> No adult in the facility, all of which knew the children where being 
> violated and victimized, are innocent. They are required by law to 
> report sexual and violent acts against children. If they saw a 14 year 
> old pregnant, and married to their cousin, 3 times or more their age, 
> they know there is abuse and neglect, they didn't report it, they are 
> criminals. They are not fit to be guardians or parents of these children.

The point I'm trying to make is that the children should not have been 
taken away without a reasonable amount of evidence which I haven't seen 
that they had. For the system to work, you have to abide by it's rules.

You are trying to paint this as a commune of sadists intent upon 
deflowering young girls because of their overwhelming desire to do evil 
or something. There is another aspect to this that I don't see being 
voiced much. These people, for the most part, believed that what they 
were doing was justified biblically, and extra-biblically. It's not 
that different culturally than some Middle Eastern countries that marry 
their daughters off when they are young, or who arrange marriages. It's 
not that different than what went on in this country a hundred years ago 
in some places.

So why did they take all the children away? If it was a massive 
apartment complex in Suburbia somewhere, do you think they would have 
busted down everybody's door and taken all the kids away if one of the 
parents that lived in the complex had potentially abused their child? I 
doubt it. They did it here solely because of their professed religious 
beliefs. It appears to me that they were horrified by this idea, and 
acted outside the constraints of the law because of it. To me, that's 
not right.

Paul

> 
> Best Regards,
> 
> Donovan 
>
> */Paul Rumelhart /* wrote:
>
> You're misinterpreting our defense of the rule of law and the
> potential
> innocence of the accused as support for these people or as some
> kind of
> statement that they were known to be innocent.
>
> "Take them away because they might have been abused" doesn't cut it.
> Coming in and removing all the children was heavy-handed and
> trampled on
> these people's rights (in my opinion). That doesn't mean that I think
> some of them might not be guilty.
>
> I'm sure I'm not going to make new friends bringing this up, but what
> the heck. I think it needs to be said. While 14 is too young, why the
> huge moral outrage over marriage to or impregnating of a young woman
> that is 17 years old, assuming it was consensual, of course? You have
> to draw the line somewhere, but on the day before their 18th birthday
> they are verboten on penalty of having your whole world destroyed,
> and
> on the next day they are fair game? I'm not advocating having sex
> with
> 17 year olds, but I think we as a country need to draw a line between
> young adult and actual child in our outrage in these incidents.
> People
> treat a 20 year old having sex with a 17 year old as if he or she had
> had sex with a 6 year old. There is a huge difference in severity,
> wouldn't you say? Ephebophilia and pedophilia are different things.
> Both are against the law, and it's up to your individual morals to
> determine where the lines should be drawn, but they should (in my
> opinion) be dealt with with different sentences.
>
> Paul
>
> Donovan Arnold wrote:
> > For those of you that were so outspoken to protect the rights of
> these
> > cultists, testing has now shown that most of the girls between
> 14 and
> > 17 years old have been forced to mother children or are currently
> > pregnant.
> >
> > http://www.idahostatesman.com/apusnews/story/364568.html
> >
> > The police were absolutely right in removing these children from a
> > harmful and destructive lifestyle. I hope they place all these
> > children into new loving homes and burn down these child
> abuser's so
> > called church after placing them all in jail for a long, long
> time. .
> >
> > Best Regards,
> >
> > Donovan
> >
> >
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