Posted on 05/09/2015 11:42:37 AM PDT by E. Pluribus Unum
I think a lot of people care not the least because if these kids were truly living in a tent or lean-to, drinking dirty water etc they would barely be alive, certainly not as bright and cheery as the pictures portray. But then evading the law across multiple states and counties takes an expert ability to worm your way into situations and manipulate it to your advantage.
I live in the country-was born and raised there, too-and like just about everyone else, I’ve had to collect rainwater and/or buy water and haul it in my truck when a well pump is broken. Water can be bought and hauled every place I’ve ever been, so I’m not in favor of people stealing water from a neighbor or anyone else.
For my practicum in college (for a degree in social work), I was assigned to CPS, and that is where I learned to despise the agency, the arbitrary putting of kids into city foster homes that were usually ten times worse than the rural home they came from-I was told that each kid taken, then placed and/or adopted into a foster home brought the foster parents a check each month, and gave CPS an increase in funds when budget time came...
By the time I was done, I made it a point to only work with adults-as a workers comp case manager in the private sector-so that I never had to deal with that corrupt, heartless agency again-thank God...
A few years ago, four of my neighbors-one is a Baptist minister-and I fed, housed and hid the 16 year old son of a woman who lived on our road and was committed for 6 months after a psychotic episode, to keep the vultures at CPS away from him-we rotated him between our homes for several weeks until his uncle could come from NM to whisk him away-during the week, he went with the minister’s kids to the cottage school they were all enrolled in, like always.
The young man is now a career AF officer who has served in Iraq, and we are all invited to his wedding this coming July. A much better outcome than if he had been taken by CPS-we are all proud of that young man and he has thanked us for caring for him through a difficult time in his life-no one is sorry for what we did...
I joke with my family about the fact that if nanny CPS had been around when I was a cub, grabbing kids off remote rural ranches and such that had outhouses, ponds, etc, there would have been no more kids around there. I had no sibling, cousin, etc ever drown in a stock pond/tank, contract a disease, etc-we didn’t even have allergies. No one had any heat other than woodstoves, fireplaces-but some people used space heaters-which really are dangerous around kids.
People in outback Alaska still live like we all did 100 years ago, which is pretty rough by city standards-should CPS go abduct all their kids just because you or I consider the place cold, dirty, etc, as long as the kids are happy and fed good food?
Like you, I’m going full galt/off grid at the earliest opportunity-many of my neighbors already are. I think living in a rural are and living without city stuff and standards means we will survive-people in cities just might not...
MrT5 had a client who had lived near an Amish community for a few years, and had some business dealings with them, and he was the one that said they mistreat animals, as if they are just tools, like a rake or plow-that women have a lower status than men, that rape of women and abuse of women and children is common.
If the women/girls/children don’t say a word, file complaints and law enforcement is not called, then is it anyone’s business? Granted, the Amish society does appear to be very closed to outsiders-they completely shun anyone who leaves for work, education, marriage, etc-but I never heard anyone is imprisoned or threatened with death for leaving, like some of those break-away LDS groups that molest underage girls and practice polygamy threaten women.
Look at the filth they are living in with no water or enough water for 12 people a day and no way to stay warm or keep insects/poison spiders and other vermin away from them. There is only fabric for a roof. I would take them out of there to save their lives and I don’t care which agency or who took them out.
For this case, I don’t care if CPS gets more money if they take these kids out - get the kids out and complain about CPS another day.
I grew up with an outhouse as our potty. We had four rooms in the house but it was a solid house with a regular roof and we had clean running water and hot water. The house was clean and I had proper medical care from my parents. We did not live in filth on a dirt floor in the woods.
Thanks for that. It seems folks can't look backwards to what their grandfather probably grew up in. Hale, healthy and happy kids don't seem to be recognizable to them. I guess kids aren't being 'properly treated' unless they are fat, pasty, and glued to a TV or computer. Lord help them poor kids, having to be outside all the time, and go swimming in a duck pond, and traipse around in the woods! How turrible!
I have been in many a winter hunting camp that was no more than tents with outside commons... Even in below zero temps. These folks have what looks like a 12x15 shed with one open wall leading into the common area - easy to hang a curtain or even wall in for the winter... And with 12 people and a fire, even without insulation, that will keep toasty warm... WAY better than a tent.
That folks, even here, are such busybodies is an astonishment to me.
You don't know what you are talking about. I know plenty of people who haul water, and have for years... They have a pond right there to supply water for washing, so all they really need to haul in is drinking/cooking water, and that likely can be reduced with rain catchment...
and no way to stay warm [...]
There is a (wood?) stove for heat. You can plainly see the chimney sticking out of the shed.
[...] or keep insects/poison spiders and other vermin away from them.
I have lived in a wikiup with a dirt floor for months at a time. Your fears are greatly exaggerated. Almost hyperventilating. Calm down. How did all those poor indian children make it through a hundred generations without a way to keep the 'insects and other vermin away from them'? Have you ever been camping in your life?
There is only fabric for a roof.
That is not true. There is a shed for sleeping in. The tented area is an open commons because the shed is too small - Probably by design, as it is small enough to keep warm for sleeping.
I would take them out of there to save their lives and I don’t care which agency or who took them out.
Those kids are as healthy and happy as I have ever seen. It's folks like you who make the nanny state possible.
Totally agree. Romanticize the old-timey ways when life expectancy was much shorter and riskier if you wish but don’t involve innocent kids. There is a reason non-rural people today for the most part don’t die of dysentery and many other completely preventable parasitic diseases (heartworm, roundworm, etc) that basic medicine, sanitation and food safety keeps us safe from.
And these folks are NOT self sufficient by the way unless that includes all over the internet begging others for money, entering others property to steal “resources” and accepting “donations” of items from others.
“Those kids are as healthy and happy as I have ever seen”
You have no idea if they are healthy and a one minute picture doesn’t depict the squalor in which they live or determine whether they are well or not. I looked at all the pictures anywhere there were pictures, and the babies bodies were filthy and in the cold were wrapped in a blanket. All 12 people sleep on those boards together.
At any rate, the children were removed from that death trap.
Oh baloney. The pics are posted from their blog, over a long period of time. it isn't a '1 minute' picture. And that is not 'sqalor'. There is order and neatness - All you seem to be seeing is the dirt floor and the stick pickets and making assumptions from there.
I looked at all the pictures anywhere there were pictures, and the babies bodies were filthy and in the cold were wrapped in a blanket. All 12 people sleep on those boards together.
Those babies are in no mortal state. look at the feet and fingers - If they were in fear of hypothermia, they'd be going blue. And so what if they all sleep together? What is that supposed to mean?
I will not be judgmental where others are concerned as long as their children are eating well, not ill all the time, etc-many things are a matter of individual taste and perception, and what each of us considers comfortable or right. I’d run into the road screaming if I had to live-and eat-like some of my neighbors and others out here, but they are just fine with it. A lot of them turn up their noses at my all-fresh paleo type diet, but I do well with it. It isn’t frigid here often-I’d be cold at a temperature someone from Kentucky is perfectly well used to-I’d love to go live off grid in Alaska, but I’d have a hard first year with the cold...
If nobody is running a meth lab, abusing each other, or starving, I’d fine that guy for the theft of water, take him and a couple of 200 gallon containers to be filled, make sure he pays in cash, ask if I can help with anything else, leave my cell phone number and be on my way.
During a rebellious phase, for a few months I lived in the herding shack on the family ranch-I was 17, pregnant at the time, hiding from the husband I married on a bet. Dirt floor, woodstove for heating and cooking, leaking tin roof and rotting walls with gaps and holes. There was an outhouse, and water had to be hauled from the main house, and heated on the woodstove for bathing and cooking. Sounds miserable, but I was happy-I proved my point-that the guy I ran off with was too citified-not tough enough for me-a bad match.
I’ve had to live hard since then a time or two-I’m doing it now, until everything comes together-but I do have a well and septic on the property...
While I don’t think I’d care for the idea, tents-and their lately-fashionable cousins, yurts-are very popular among back-to-nature off grid folks-they can be kept warm with the proper equipment-the yurts in particular are popular in outback Alaska as shelter while a cabin is built.
In rural SW Texas, scorpions, spiders, are to be found indoors no matter what you do-you will be stung/bitten at some time, no matter the care you take. And poisonous snakes and vermin are under every woodpile and rock.
I did not see that the kids in the article did not have medical care, or that they were ill-they certainly don’t look like it. Most off grid types here don’t use medical services unless there is an immediate need-I think it is a practice for maybe when it is real.
The point of this ramble is just that I’m not willing to impose my version of what is right, clean, etc on someone who is doing no harm-I associate that stuff with liberals.
“What is that supposed to mean?”
Not enough space for 12 people.
The children were removed after an inspection of the conditions there, so that is it. No need to discuss this further.
This whole discussion apparently divides between those who have lived harder/simpler at one time or another and hated it-or have never lived without all the stuff people have come to take for granted-either way, those people think the parents in the article are torturers, neglectful and should have their kids taken away for not going along with the herd-baaaaad....
On the other side are those of us who don’t see the point of interfering because those people want to live the off grid self sustainable lifestyle-of course, that means the guy has to pay for his water-and it doesn’t seem to matter whether we are rural or city dwellers-but most of us do appear to have lived or presently live a rural life, off grid or not. Either way, none of that group seems to be interested in imposing nanny rules or anyone else’s lifestyle on those people, and we don’t think the people have committed any crime of abuse or neglect-it is a fascinating contrast, assuming that everyone here is conservative and for personal liberty and responsibility...
I’ve never seen a formula for the determination of the proper space for a person or multiple persons-they live like sardines in walk-ups in NYC and other cities, but while I would rather be thrown off a bridge than live in those conditions, I don’t have the right to say someone else can’t live all crammed in like that...
I hope the parents get back their kids and sue the living crap out of the authorities-and that the woman permanently stays off farcebook-that was really dumb on her part-there are people there that just wait like vultures to stir up s***...
I've been in line shacks that size with eight full grown men. Again, you don't know what you are talking about.
The children were removed after an inspection of the living conditions.
The children were removed after an inspection of the living conditions.
I don't see it as harder... Simpler maybe, but certainly different - And preferable. I've got some nice digs going here - Just a half acre about a mile out of town, with a nice, cozy two bedroom cabin - But it's got a sweet water well, and I am just about to put in the garden and an aquaponic greenhouse... Got a wood shed going up and solar/generator coming soon. I'll still be on grid, but I won't need it.
And the back porch is going to have an outdoor wood fired kitchen, soon as I settle into what I want - I make my own bread, so I am fighting with myself over whether a a pizza style oven or just get a wood burning stove... and it will have a hot/cold smoker and a place for grilling (of course) All done up nice in stone masonry... Makes for a great place to do canning and bread making in the heat of summer, so the house will stay cool, and if SHTF and the inside kitchen doesn't work, well I can just go out to the porch, see? Who am I kidding - once I have wood to cook over, I probably could just forget about that inside kitchen... The food is that much better.
I don't NEED any of it - I am an old geezer (53) and kinda getting gimped up... I figger to stay closer in - So like I said, all the amenities are here - But I WANT all of it because that's how it's done as far as I am concerned. I like the self-sufficiency of it, and I aim to be as self-sufficient as I can be.
On the other side are those of us who don’t see the point of interfering because those people want to live the off grid self sustainable lifestyle-of course, that means the guy has to pay for his water-and it doesn’t seem to matter whether we are rural or city dwellers-but most of us do appear to have lived or presently live a rural life, off grid or not. Either way, none of that group seems to be interested in imposing nanny rules or anyone else’s lifestyle on those people, and we don’t think the people have committed any crime of abuse or neglect-it is a fascinating contrast, assuming that everyone here is conservative and for personal liberty and responsibility...
Yeah, All y'all... Texas rural folks... are my kind of folks (Y'all bend yer hats funny down there, but still). You still retain that civil-libertarian strain the Rocky-Mountain West is so ingrained with, and I admire that in you SW desert folks. Live and let live, and help each other if you can... Northwest Montana would welcome such as you. If y'all can't make it to Alaska, you might look here up the Yaak or the Bitterroot. I was gonna wander off down to Nirada or up the Yaak, or maybe down the Swan, But like I said, I am not as young as I used to be... And even here in the Flathead Valley, I could walk off of this piece and be in deep woods before nightfall.
That means absolutely nothing - as absurd as the statement that there has to be a fence around the pond... fur the childrun...
Nothing against the off grid lifestyle if done intelligently but having 11 kids on a dilapidated farm without providing for their education when neither parent can hold down a job and eschewing modern society unless it decides to give them free money for their “defense” or buy their cruddy crafts or they want to steal water from them I have to say is pretty much the opposite of personal responsibility in my book.
Plenty of people here where I live sell crafts in tourist traps I’ve been known to do it myself in the tourist season-do you have a problem with people selling whatever the tourists will buy? And pretty much everyone works for themselves as contract labor, rather than for a corporation-there is plenty of skilled labor in construction, ranching and other trades to be found. More kids of both genders join the military than go to college after graduation, too, unlike city kids.
I believe I said the guy should be smacked for stealing water, and made to buy it like anyone else would. And I don’t have a problem with anyone contributing to their legal defense if they want to-they have just as much right to legal counsel as anyone else does.
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