Why whould we in the USA be supprised or shocked? We tend to assume that all non-communist countries are as free as our country. They are NOT! We have something really special in all of history here in the USA. We need to hold on to it.
This is old news but the parents are still in jail. I followed it since it started and pretty tragic.
6-22-2002
The Death of Free Speech and Individualism
In the New World Order of America
by Edgar J. Steele
(Text of speech given at annual conference of Council of Conservative Citizens in Atlanta, Georgia on June 22, 2002.)
Another case I tried just last month involved a young man and his wife, whose children were taken from them by Oregon ’s Child Protective Services while the family was visiting Grants Pass. Allegedly due to criminal mistreatment – they were skinny and one girl had a small cut on her forehead – on an anonymous tip. Brian and Ruth Christine are the young parents.
They refused to cooperate for several months, because they felt they had done nothing wrong, so CPS said it would adopt them out. The Christines were home-schooling Christians. At trial, the state made a big point of there having been a copy of the Declaration of Independence taped to the inside wall of the converted bus that served as the family’s home.
The Christines took their children back at gunpoint and fled the state. They were tried for kidnapping, robbery and other, lesser, charges. The wife received 7 ½ years and the husband 12 ½ years, primarily because of a conviction on the robbery charge (not guilty on all kidnapping charges).
We are appealing the main charge now – robbery – which shouldn’t stand up in the face of Oregon case law which says one cannot be convicted of robbery merely for taking something which is used in the execution of another crime. You see, Brian took the state car the kids were in at the time and drove it 2.1 miles, where he left it unharmed, keys in the ignition.
Again, these folks were politically incorrect: poor, white, vegetarian, home-schooling Christians.