Living the dream

Living the dream
Visiting grandmas farm.

Monday, April 14, 2008

Rumors lead to stealing children

I am so annoyed by this raid at the so called polygamy compound and going on line to read many citizens comments on news stories. Most people are assumming that all sorts of things went on there that they have no proof of. All kinds of wild stories with no supporting evidence are floating around. In a few stories they talk of an informant feeding a sheriff information for four years. If this informant couldn't find anything in four years that would call for a raid why should a phone call suddanly bring one on?

So far no one can find the teen girl who supposedly made the call and a similar call to another police department in another state really makes you wonder. The man the "girl" claims raped her hasn't been to Texas since 1977. The calls also come around the time of the anniversity of the Branch Davidian cult raid. Makes you wonder- or should.

It's also mentioned in the news stories that some women weren't at the compound when their children were stolen. Obviously they are allowed to come and go and are not prisoners. Also medical records were seized, which means outside medical care was probably obtained. Yet there was no complaints from residents before or just cause from medical evidence to justify action previously.

Over 400 children were forcibly removed from their homes in a traumatic manner. There is talk of putting them in foster care- if they can find enough homes. Many of the mothers went with the children but their side of the story isn't being allowed to be heard. Instead we hear all sorts of things that supposedly are going on in this compound- without any proof any of them are.

I saw clean, neatly dressed women and children in spring colors, hair nicely done, looking well fed. Not a single boy with his underwear hanging out or a girl with her belly button showing. Their homes appeared neat and comfortable.

Pregnant teens are not new in this society. Look in any low income living area and you will find many young teen girls who are having sex with men who treat them like dirt, who are often gang raped or beaten into gangs and who expect to raise their children alone, like their mothers and grandmothers before them. You could say this is a "cult" or at least a way of life. Yet we don't raid these places to remove children from their mothers to protect them, even though many calls to law enforcement from the area have probably been made. If we do take children out of a home in these neighborhoods we take only those who are being abused or neglected, not all the neighbors kids too.

It should be easy to examine the children removed from this Texas compound and find signs of abuse. Signs of physical and sexual abuse are identifiable. The parents of those children should be charged. At least the children of the pregnant teens were being cared for by their fathers, not the government in this situation- at least they were.

Polygamy is a crime and possibly we should arrest those men and women who practice it. I say possibly because we allow Muslims from other countries to bring more than one wife into this country, live with them and become US citizens. Is one religions polygamy more legal than anothers? It is "said" that many Muslim girls are still forced to marry at a young age, even in the US and that many Muslims quietly practice polygamy here. Yet I don't see authorities raiding Muslim neighborhoods and rounding up Muslim children on the suspicion of what might be happening.

We can't raid homes and take children because of rumors of what might be happening. And just because one young woman in that compound was being mistreated by one man doesn't mean that all the children and women were being mistreated, that they all were in plural marriages or all were unhappy. Polygamy in itself does not equal abuse of women and children.

Punish those who do abuse children but don't punish children because of their religion. Yanking those children from their world and separating them from their families, and putting them into god knows what kind of foster care is also abuse.

Remember if we allow this to happen to these people it will happen to us next.

No comments: