Fringe lifestyle? I used to live in Cortez, CO, pretty close to Colorado City, where these yahoos used to live. My mother works as a local public health nurse, and every so often one of the escaped mothers would come by, lost and helpless. I personally heard a half-dozen stories of coercion, rape, brainwashing and exile (barren women are kicked out). I knew a young guy who was kicked out so they could keep the ridiculous gender ratios steady, who was planning on going back to bust out his girlfriend. To me, this is on the same level of refusing medical treatment for your children because you don’t want to interfere with God’s will. By the way, there’s a bunch of those kind of people around Cortez too: the Church of the Firstborn.

And talk about welfare parasites! Every one of these wives beyond the first is legally a single mother, and they sign them up for welfare, WIC, food stamps, and anything else they can get.

They bought some land outside Mancos, which is about 20 minutes from Cortez–I think that’s their backup when Texas falls through. I bet they get off–same raid thing happened in AZ and they pulled through.

Robert, it’s a “compound” because that’s the way it was treated. The FLDS men were in constant contact by cell phone and they monitored the movements of everyone on their land at all times. The Rangers had to take away driving privileges from the FLDS men because they were constantly trying to shuffle the women and children around to keep them away from the Rangers. I don’t know what kind of weapons and ammunition the FLDS men had, but they were definitely armed.

As I said earlier, considering the square area of land owned by the FLDS members, 1700 acres, how open it all is and how easily they could have set up resistance all over the place, I’m impressed that the Rangers locked the place down without a shot being fired.

I posted my lengthy response at my blog:

http://skipoliva.com/?p=335

Everyone is okay with the government raiding a “compound”, but if they called it a ranch, or community, people wouldn’t be so cool with it.

I wonder which government official, or government official’s supporter is going to stand to profit when they either sieze the ranch, or it gets sold for cheap because they leave?

I know folks don’t like them, but come on, killing them off? That seems pretty harsh in a land that was founded by people who wanted freedom from religious persecution.

That’s a very good point. When I read the comment about (El doh-RAY-doh), in my mind it either ruled out the hoaxster, or revealed her to be the Albert Einstein of hoaxters. It may have briefly crossed my mind that this could rule out the members of the compound too, but if I did have that fleeting thought, it escaped quickly. Cognitive dissonance strikes again…

Pokerwolf, that is extremely interesting to me. From what I’ve read, the women from the FLDS never interacted with the locals–and the men did so only rarely. The sect is from another state. I wouldn’t necessarily expect any of them to pronounce the name of the town the same way as the locals. Maybe they do, but this raises other possibilities about that call, in my mind.

For instance, I’ve looked at articles about this sect dating as far back as 2004. The community was not exactly welcoming. They were concerned that these people would register to vote! The local paper as been very purposely active in covering the FLDS travails in Arizona and Utah–especially the conviction of, I believe, Warren Jeffs–the one convicted of rape via forcing a 14 year old girl to marry a 19 year old.

I grew up part of the time in a small West Texas town not too far from San Angelo and El Dorado. If these people had asked me if it was advisable to settle near such a town in order to preserve their privacy, I would have said hell no–go to Lajitas or Study Butte in the Big Bend of Texas where people mind their own business. The towns in the area of the ranch are dominated by Southern Baptists and, sometimes, Church of Christ. They do not mind their own business when it comes to “lifestyle”. My parent were always joking that the people in our little town had to sneak off to Abilene to have a beer. I’m not sure that the high school, to this day, lets the students have dances.

It is evident to me that from reading the articles all the way from 2004 to now, that the townspeople wanted the FLDS out of there. Perhaps the caller came from their ranks–if not from the Colorado hoaxster.

We state that someone isn’t responsible enough to drink alcohol until they are 21.

We state that someone isn’t mature enough to vote until they are 18.

We state that someone isn’t responsible enough to drive until they are 16.

We state that someone isn’t mature or responsible enough to give thier consent to have sex until they are 14-17 (pick a State).

Why can they be tried as an adult as young as 10 years of age?

This is a synopsis of consent laws in the United States: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ages_of_consent_in_North_America#United_States

I am no expert, but the above link does not seem to support your claim. Of course, when you say “most” you may simply mean 26 States. I did not count, but it seems like most states have exceptions to consent laws when both participants are minors. It seems to become more confusing when you go below the age of 14 (good thing I got lucky and picked 14 in my example…)

For example (and I am admittedly cherry picking a bit here)

Minnesota: “If the victim is between the ages of 13 and 15 the actor must be no more than 48 months older.” (Bad use of the word victim there, IMO. And actor too….)

New Hampshire:”However a close in age exception exists where a person may “engage in sexual penetration” with a person 13 years old or older and younger than 16 if their age difference is less than 3 years.”

There are quite a few more similar examples. I would site more, but I am beginning to creep myself out (:

The only case I have heard where two minors of the same age got in legal trouble for having sex was when they filmed it and then one disseminated it as an adult. The charges were under child pornography laws, not consent laws.

That’s one of the big questions in this case, j.d. Are these marriages considered “forced” or not?

I guess I should have said “There is no evidence *so far*” since the fact the Texas authorities were involved could mean they are suspicious of a link. It’s also possible they are interested in quickly proving there is no link since it would seriously question the basis for the raid.

It just occurred to me, I suppose they have compared the hoaxter’s calls with the originals, I wonder what they found out, and why no one has mentioned it.

One thing’s for sure, we should not need this much media scrutiny to ensure we are getting all the facts.

I’m about to take a little vacation, so I’m going to miss what already looks like an interesting discussion. Reasonable people, please don’t get dragged into the weeds by the anarchists on here.

In Texas we have a small religious group whose lives are being utterly destroyed in the name of protecting children while a thousand miles away at the United nations we have the whole world honoring the current head of a huge religious group notorious for perpetrating the worst child sexual abuse scandal in modern history.

On the face of it, they do seem excessive. But, after looking at pictures of the entire compound and realizing that the whole thing is 1700 square acres, I’m rather impressed that the initial raid happened without anyone firing a shot.

the justification for the raid iffy at best

That depends on your perspective. The information provided by the original caller (who, according to locals who have reviewed the tape pronounced “El Dorado” like a local (El doh-RAY-doh) instead of how most other Americans pronounce it (El doh-RAH-do)) provided enough evidence to trigger the raid (knowledge of the layout of the compound, the local area, etc.). Apparently, the Rangers who investigated found enough evidence after they arrived to not only set up shop, but to take the kids out of there.

I have seen other reports in which police do claim to have found evidence of girls on the compound being pregnant while as young as 13. So I guess we’ll have to wait and see how it all shakes out.

Correct. From what I’m hearing there’s a lot of other things that they can’t talk about yet either.

Should we allow parents to give consent for a child under 18 to marry, or to have sexual relations? If 18 is that state’s age of consent, I think I’d be inclined to argue that we shouldn’t.

That’s a difficult question to answer, for sure. I have to agree that the parents can’t over-rule the law, though.

As I understand it, since it is illegal to be married to more than one person, any subsequent marriages are invalid, and not recognized by any state. I believe case law where a person was issued more than one marriage license found that a marriage entered into by a person legally married to another person has no legal standing. Therefore it is statutorily impossible to be legally married to more than one person at a time, therefore the state cannot prosecute anyone for polygamy, since by definition it cannot occur. The only remedy the state would have would be to officially declare subsequent marriages void.

I’m tired of morally outraged politicians and bureaucrats persecuting Americans who don’t share their belief systems. While the public stance and the majority of the discussion of why the raid on the TX compound took place centers around child welfare, I think that was an excuse to go after people with a fringe lifestyle.

Not really much of an argument there. Slavery and discrimination based on race were acceptable not too long ago, and still occur around the world. That in no way makes it acceptable here.

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We live in a country where people are prohibited from having sex for 5-6 years after reaching the age they would naturally be having it.
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Actually, there are usually no laws against two 14 years olds having sex, at issue is when a 14 year old and a 20+ year old have sex. Still, the argument does not hold water: Just because something is possible physically does not mean it’s ok. We develop the ability to consume and process alcohol at a young age, should we allow six year olds to start buying and drinking whiskey?

The age of consent laws are what they are because most think that’s the youngest age, on average, that people can engage in sex and accept the physical and psychological responsibilities that go along with it. Arguments for a younger age should be made on that basis, not simply on the fact that (1) It’s physically possible and (2) groups of people in other countries or temporal realities do it.