But this post -- #47 -- provides the real heart of what I'd like to address.
So please allow me to address your three similar comments from three posts here:
* So, FOR THE EDIFICATION OF THE FREEPERS FOLLOWING THIS THREAD, WHY DON'T YOU GO TO THAT EXTENSIVE SET OF POSTS ON THE RAIDS, AND LINK TO SOME COMMENT I MADE THAT CONTAINED "REDICULOUS DEFENSES ON BEHALF OF THE FLDS" Or, you could apologize for suggesting that I ever defended the FLDS. My arguments were legal, and were vindicated by the final court ruling regarding the seizure of hundreds of children without rational cause. [#47]
(My note on your bold-faced comment above: OK, I will...ALL -- including YOU, Charles -- remember -- YOU invited me to do this):
* And as a point of clarification — I have never argued for or against any group using the term “mormon”, in fundamentalist form or otherwise. [#52]
* ...it is hard to discuss the issues if when you do, people accuse you of being mormon sympathisers... [#54]
Charles, I directly interacted with you back on those threads -- both during the Spring of '08 -- and after.
Reading your comments back then, CW, was often like riding a rollercoaster!
Why?
Because on the one hand you'd be agreeing with the majority of posters...including me...
You'd make these concessions -- these admissions -- which would usually go against the tenor of your other posts...
And that's why in my sense of fairness I went back to review what you said -- so that people would not simply get a lopsided review of your comments.
Here's some a sampling of those concessions you made:
(1) Will I be surprised if the DNA shows that all the girls in fact were made pregnant by a few old men? From what I’ve seen alleged of this group, not really. It would seem to be the likely outcome. (April 28, 2008) (Source: Officials: 31 of 53 girls from [FLDS] sect ranch have been pregnant (via. Drudge)
(2) Bad things happened to at least some of the children in this compound. (April 28, 2008 Post 589 Source: Officials: 31 of 53 girls from [FLDS] sect ranch have been pregnant (via. Drudge)
(3) There will most certainly be some children in the group who either were statutorily raped, or were forced against their will into marriages, or who are from a family where the mother or father allowed another child to endure such things. May 20, 2008 Post #24
Source: Sect children not to hear leader's name, Texas CPS says
(4) Yes, I think there were some guilty people, and some kids who were abused. (Sept. 6, 2008) Post #32 FLDS Children Safe With Their Parents
Now I reviewed quite a number of statements you've made...and I want to compliment you that you're a very principled person who sticks to your convictions even when heat is being generated your way. You are able to remain calm; keep in check your "provocation meter" most of the time. And you pride yourself on applying your principles evenly and across the board -- no matter who and how they effect. You don't show favoritism. You have a very "justice" oriented personality; and you realize the danger of a government overstepping itself re: intruding itself too far. You are a quick study. You do farely well in sizing up a situation and commenting upon it in a good summarized way. Most of the time you stay on topic without wanting to get entangled with tangents -- both real and perceived ones.
However, we all can use a little feedback now & then -- just as you've chosen to give me feedback on this thread. Juxtaposed to these common sense statements you made above, the following statements exemplify a bit of wrecklessness on your part -- and is why I said your arguments essentially went too far on the side of defense re: fLDS:
Examples:
(1) May 23, 2008: They [FLDS] took great pains to attempt to practice their religion as they believed in it, without breaking the law.
Source: Post #38 Texas seizure of polygamist-sect kids thrown out
You know...when you've had as many perpetrators in places like the El Dorado Texas location...perhaps up to a dozen (or even more)...it takes a GREAT DEAL of no-fuss silence, capitulation to the exploiters' wishes, and just plain covering up. IOW...most of those people were as guilty for ongoing compliance with criminal patterns re: abusing teens! So for you to have made that statement above was absolutely ludicrous!
You see how many individuals this involved when you realized how even one person contributed to these patterns. Let's take Allan Keate, for example:
On December 18, 2009, a Schleicher County, Texas jury found Allan Keate guilty of sexual assault of a child. He was sentenced to 33 years in prison. Allan Keate fathered a child with a 15-year old girl.[54] According to documents admitted at trial, Keate had also given three of his own daughters away in “spiritual” or “celestial” marriage, two of them at 15 and one at 14, to older men. The youngest of the three went to Warren Jeffs.[55] [Footnotes -- 54 was from Dallasnews.com; 55 = UPDATE: Jury gives FLDS man 33 years ...Source: Wikipedia
So, here Keate not only fathered a child with a 15-year-old...but he also gave away three of his own daughters to this practice -- one of them a 14-year-old and two 15-year-olds! IOW...it appears for each of the dozen cases they've been prosecuting, dozens of others (parents, for example) catered to all of this! And then you had the leaders who ordered these arrangements; those who performed "spiritual sham marriages," etc. Even though we don't see these people prosecuted for aiding and abetting such criminal activity, they indeed broke the law as well! They were culpable! Even you conceded back then, Charles, that we were seeing "a general indication that the cult may have condoned activity by one or more of it's members that was illegal."
Source: June 9, 2008 Perry defends polygamist raid
(2) Even two years after, you were still saying things like: I oppose the “production” of child marriages. I also oppose homosexuality, adultery, and voting for Democrats.But people have the right to advocate for ALL of those things without interference from the government. That is the essense of free speech, being allowed to say what you believe, no matter how onerous it is. Post #26, June 23, 2010
Source: Jury finds FLDS man guilty in sexual assault case
You know, Charles, you can be technically say "legit" things from a "legal" standpoint -- and still be doing the enemy's work by emphasizing that such a form of so-called "advocacy" is no different than, say, that everybody has the right to learn how to play the guitar!
I mean I could make an awfully LONG list of what is technically legal to "advocate" for -- yet is as immoral as all hell breaking out...
Therefore, I'm not exactly sure why you would want to associate one of the very Names of the Holy Spirit -- Advocate (paraclete in the Greek) in conjunction with all of those sordid things. You see, Biblically, "Advocate" is a consecrated, Holy term set aside for the Holy Spirit and those through whom He acts! Why in heaven's name would you desecrate such a term to be applied to those who produce "child marriages?"
It's similar to those who describe "abortion" as a "choice." OK, sure, technically abortion is a "decision"; but to describe it in either amoral or neutral terms does a great disservice to being true to what that act really involves. And the way you framed the above -- to place those who lobby for producing "child marriages" in the same lineup as voting...just wow! Charles!
Same thread...a few posts earlier you stated:
(3) We have freedom of religion in our country, and that unfortunately means you have the freedom to raise your child to believe any bizarre religion you choose, including a religion that teaches that children should be married to old men at young ages (you don’t have the right to PERFORM those marriages, but you have the right to teach that the religion requires it....)
Charles...let's substitute a few things with some hypothetical religion:
Instead of it being "spiritual marriage" (exploitive lifetime of sexual abuse) being taught by a cult, let's say another cult mandated teaching abortion for its teens & young adults.
Instead of practicing such sham marriages in the temple, let's say another cult mandated not only "teaching" abortion -- but getting the abortions done to cover up the cult's pattern of incest.
I've paralleled the above -- both your comment & my hypothetical allow for one "legal" component & recognizes also one "illegal" thing going on, pattern-wise.
Rather than drag this post on any further, let me cut to the bottom line: Charles, what you said was tantamount to saying: We have freedom of choice in our country, and that unfortunately means you have the freedom to butcher your child at the hands of any bizarre abortionist you choose, including a "clinic" that subtly suggests older minors impregnated by adults should undergo the abortion (you don’t have the right if you're an abortion clinic counselor to cover up such a knowledge of statutory rape, but a religious counselor has the right to teach that the religion requires such an abortion for various reasons)....
I guess, Charles, I never did respect politicians who would claim, "I wouldn't have an abortion myself, but we have freedom of choice in this country..." (& they'd go on from there). Your comment I cited tended to "smack" along those lines.
Other examples, Charles, will follow...showing how on more than one occasion you were "conflating" what was occurring...
I'm going to tackle only the FIRST post you made, to show where the difficulty lies. I may leave it at that, but if I do, it's not because I think you have shown anything. But let's see how this first set goes.
Here is your first example of me "defending FLDS":
(1) May 23, 2008: They [FLDS] took great pains to attempt to practice their religion as they believed in it, without breaking the law. Source: Post #38 Texas seizure of polygamist-sect kids thrown outThis quote is taken out of context. In order to see the context, I'll need to quote from the person I was responding to, and a larger part of the comment than you quoted. Here are those two items:
Post 25: "That we allow freedom to groups who purposely teach disobeying law—just because they call themselves religions—is a sure path to war and anarchy—not liberty."As you can see from context, I was NOT defending their practice of religion. I was arguing that they seemed to work at not deliberately breaking the law, since any provable violation of law would in fact get them thrown in prison.Post 38, in response to post 25:
So far as I can tell, the FLDS cult never issued more than one government-approved marriage certificate per adult male.They believed (wrongly) that God called for men to have more than one wife, so they performed spiritual marriages that were not recognized by the state. They had men sleeping with multiple partners, and fathering children by those multiple partners.
They took great pains to attempt to practice their religion as they believed in it, without breaking the law. People DO get prosecuted for breaking the law.
So far from my argument being that they were right to have multiple marriages, or to defend them, I was saying that they had worked hard to avoid being easily arrested for breaking the law.
The remainder of post 38 further discussed polygamy and the question of how to distinguish between illegally sleeping with multiple women, and "legally" doing it. I even opined that some court might end up saying polygamy (as it is practiced where there is ownly one legal marriage) if there were as many people arguing for it as argue for gay marriage. Lest you think that is a defense, that was just my way of saying what many others have said: the argument courts use to legalize gay marriage would work equally as well for polygamy.
As in most of my arguments, I was defending something. In the case of FLDS, I was defending the rights of people to practice their own religion, so long as it isn't breaking the law, even if we find their religious practices offensive or absurd.
As I know I don't support the fLDS or LDS belief system, I know it is patently absurd to believe I am trying to defend it. If you want to say I am defending the rights of people to believe a false religion, that would be a fact.
But defending someone's right to believe something doesn't defend their beliefs, or illegal acts they engage in.
Having established that I clearly both thought there would be criminal prosecution for illegal acts, and that I supported criminal prosecution for those illegal acts, I certainly would not have wasted the bandwidth to repeat that information every time I attacked some specific act of the state which I found to be wrong.
BTW, I am totally against people committing crimes. But if a police officer catches someone commiting a crime, and while arresting them beats them senseless for no reason, I would argue against the police officer's actions -- and it wouldn't be a defense of the criminal's acts, although it would be a defense of the criminal AGAINST the illegal act of the police officer.
In the middle east, the laws forbid the teaching of Christianity, and in some states, the law forbids the practice of Christianity.This country, and it's government, are becoming increasingly secularized. There are already movements afoot to declare strict religious upbringing as a form of child abuse -- if we do not jealously guard our freedom of religion, the day will come sooner than we imagine when the laws of our country will be twisted in that fashion.By your definition, Christianity is not a legitimate religion in those states.
One day, a state/federal leglistature, or maybe a court, will rule that "forcing" children through the Catholic Catachism is a form of child abuse, teaching children to accept as fact fantasies and myths, threatening them psychologically with punishment including hellfire, etc.
We will all then be law-breakers, and they will come to take our children away. That is what I am passionate about, and why I argue against the abuses of the state. It is a threat real enough to me that I am willing to accept that some children will be abused in defense of those rights.
Attack me for that, if you want -- I don't mind the attacks on positions I actually HOLD, only when I am attacked for things I don't even believe. I would rather a few innocent children suffer abuse, torture, and even death, than that all of our innocent children in innocent families be subject to removal by an all-powerful state.