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Chairman says Texas CPS workers mistreated FLDS
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These parents were abusing these kids EVERY DAY!! By telling them that everyone and everything outside the gates is evil, and if they leave they will go to hell - and told that every day from the day they are born, by people they trust - that's abuse. That's stealing their future - and I wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy."
There's a slight problem with your idea--namely that what you have just described is legal and practiced daily in the Bible Belt and elsewhere.
I look forward to the evidence being weighed and individual child custody cases being resolved. But, that should be done with deliberate speed so that youngsters are not returned to abusive FLDS members.
It saddens me that the degree of ignorance of some people in our country is such that years after everyone should have learned people in the condition Terri Schiavo was in have no brain functions beyond those provided by the brain stem such as breathing, there are still folks incapable of grasping something that easy to understand. Let's hope that the YFZ Ranch saga will provide lasting understanding of why child sex abuse is unacceptable in our society, and, the legal procedures involved in child custody cases.
I stand by what I said earlier. MHMR staff do not have a leg to stand on. Posters need to check their records also. I find it interesting that they did not say how many workers were actually at the coliseum. Was it 9 complaints out of 9 staff, or 9 complaints out of 100 staff?..We will probably never know that one for sure.
In reality, CPS is only trying to prevent the FLDS from further abusing their children, but the FLDS don't see anything wrong with abusing their children, so to them, this is all a giant conspiracy to destroy their religion.
Whatever it takes, the FLDS must be prevented from getting their kids back until they've agreed to abandon their practice of forced underage marriages.
Comparing these kids to those raised in a std religious household is just ignorant.
Yes, but there is a major difference between teens who explore their sexuality--not with the best results, sometimes--of their own free will and kids who are forced into marriages with adults several times their age. None of the teens I work with chose forty-year old men for their partners. I'm a high school teacher, and there are plenty of teens having sex, but they have access to birth control. FLDS kids do not. And they're told that if they don't submit to these older men they're disobedient and bad and going to hell. What kind of life is that, whether that's how you were raised or not?
As for the poor writing skills of the Mental Health workers, they are probably drawn from the same pool as the CPS workers. Few of the CPS workers we have come into contact with over the years have the comprehensive skills to grasp a technical concept such as legal rights and almost none possess the compassion to look inside an issue and weigh the consequences of their abuse. Their reading comprehension skills are minimal and sometimes laughable. That is sad.
It is my and every other parents God and State given right to teach my children (or indoctrinate them) the way that I think is in their best interest.
There may not be a right way to handle a complicated situation like this, but I think there is little question that this is the wrong way. I hope and pray that justice when the dust settle that justice is served for everybody involved here. Unfortunately justice isn't going to repair the damage done to these kids.
I wonder if anyone at CPS ever considered the possible outcomes of this situation? Maybe shortsightedness is just part of being a Texan. I wonder if anybody ever thought about the high probability that if these kids do go back to their families (which they probably will because the state is running out of reasons to keep them) and they grow up continuing to be "indoctrinated" with the teaching of their faith. How much MORE like will they be to become MORE extreme in their distrust fo the government and MORE radical in their separationest views.
Childhood Trauma + percieved injustice + abuse of authority + isolation = perfect breeding ground for extremism
To the poster at 8:33:
"what I said isnt practiced every day in the bible belt. Those kids go to college and are free to choose their path. These kids are locked behind a guard tower. See the difference?"
I've lived in the Bible Belt all my life, I think I know how things go here. Yes, many religious groups teach that non-protestants will go to Hell when they die, and generally threaten their own children with the same. That isn't conducive to producing well-balanced children, but not illegal nonetheless.
As for college, that issue is completely irrelevant because "kids" do not generally go to college. College is for adults (18+) and is not a parenting issue any more than military enlistment is ("Kids" that old are fighting in Iraq right now. Call CPS.)
Why you pro-CPS types continue to resort to non-sequitirs like this one is confounding since Texas insists that they have substantive evidence that FLDS was doing something that was actually illegal and not something that is merely disturbing to your own particular suburbanite, soccer-mom ethos and therefore "bad parenting".
The world is a big place, and not every good parent drives a minivan.
I don't see how a young girl getting pregnant by a boy her own age who has no means to support her is good. "Safe sex" is more of a benefit to men than women. It is nothing more than unpaid prostitution. It causes emotional damage in young women as they travel though numerous meaningless sex partners. Men want sex. Women want love, stability, and a safe place to raise their children.
Even if the Mormons paired off teenagers I'll bet they would have still been treated the same.
In many states all you need to be an entry-level social worker is a B.S. degree in anything. State agencies like CPS and many others soak up the graduates that find that their peace studies or feminist theory degrees don't get them far in the private sector and whose records don't qualify them for the graduate schools. They get decent salaries, good benefits, and employment for life since it's very difficult to fire state workers. And they get to impose their will on others.
You have yet to actually address the issue. You state that kids don't go to college, but I'm assuming that you realize they grow up. And if either pregnant or brainwashed, they won't have a chance to go to college. So stop beating around the bush and trying to impress with big words. Try actually addressing the issue of servitude being forced upon these women and children. That is, after all, the big issue. That's why the children were taken. The most ironic part is that you FLDS don't even realize that is the issue. You think it's about underage brides. lol - wake up. Free the women and children and you can live as you like.
Do you not realize how silly this exchange has become when you state that the government can take children away because parents don't send them to college?
I'd be laughing now if your views weren't so disturbing. Maybe CPS should start taking children away from people that make $20,000 a year or less, since they obviously can't afford college.
ALL IT TAKES IS ONE ANONYMOUS PHONE CALL - SOMETIMES EVEN LESS. AND WHO IS TO SAY THAT THE SOCIAL WORKER THEMSELF WON'T BE THE ONE MAKING THE "ANONYMOUS PHONE CALL."
Where's the arrest? Where's the FOI forcing CPS to reveal their phone records? Have these calls been traced? I think that any 2 bit detective could figure this out in around 2 weeks - maximum.
You watch and see. There won't even be one conviction on underage marriage. Prior to September 2005, girls could be formally OR informally married (common law) married at 14 *with* their parent's permission.
After September 2005, it was 16.
When you look at the 2007 Bishop's census, not even one marriage violated the above. Some came close, but none violated.
Regarding the bigamy prosecutions, if Texas is stupid enough to bring those, it will be overturned by SCOTUS using Lawrence vs Texas language of "consensual sex between ADULTS."
Under Texas law, these 14 to 16 year old girls were ADULTS.
Holm was refused to be heard by SCOTUS because Ruth Stubbs was legally a minor under Utah law.
Oops!
Don't mess with Texas.
Leave it alone.
It'll mess its own drawers.
Robert T. McQuaid
CPS already admitted, there was NO EVIDENCE OF ABUSE. But there sure will be abuse to come for those poor little FLDS children, given the statistics on what brutalities occur in foster homes. Drug addiction, suicide, incarceration, homelessness, this is what they have to look forward to.
Before you so quickly condone the actions of the State and CPS, you might want to do a bit of research and think for yourself. After all, if you really care about the "best interests of the children" you would think long and hard, and do a bit of research, before you so blindly accept what the government and their thugs foist off on you.
BOYCOTT TEXAS!
I'm not saying there was not abuse in the FLDS compound, but I am NOT going to live in a state where the state government representatives hold adults as minors until they give birth to snatch their kids or any of the other things I have heard about their CPS.
I don't have children yet, but that does not matter - not moving to Texas.
Read the Frontline segment on Logan Marr, the 5 year old who was taken from her "unfit" mother, and given to the foster "mother" / CPS worker. This case reveals much about CPS and the kind of people who have power there.
All it takes is one (anonymous) phone call. A vindictive ex, a jealous co-worker, a creepy neighbour. There is no justice in a court where one side (the government and CPS) have all the power, and everything is done in secrecy. If you do run into problems with CPS, don't meet them without a (good) lawyer present, and (if state law permits it) tape record everything that transpires between you, CPS, doctors, etc.
Read up on your rights, and how to fight CPS, should that horrible day ever come to pass.
If I was young again, I would really think hard about having children. I can't think of anything worse than losing them to CPS. But I'm hopeful that things will change, given enough awareness. The human race has much goodness, unfortunately, right now there are a lot of evil people with power.
You should all contact the attorneys of FLDS and team up. Or have they made class action lawsuits illegal already ...The big surge in kidnapping came after the Welfare reform bill so most of the victims still are incarcerated someplace. It is about time to get them released.
THERE WAS NO ABUSE FOUND, AND NO EVIDENCE OF ABUSE FOUND, AT FLDS.
When are you people going to get that through your heads?
The FLDS children should have been given back LONG ago, and never taken in the first place. What is happening right now, EVEN IF IT WERE LEGAL, would be the most inhumane, brutal thing!
Have some heart and brains! This is so obviously a sickening bullying brutal action of the State and CPS. Anyone who can't see that is so totally brainwashed it's pathetic.
DO SOME RESEARCH INTO CPS! THEY ARE EVIL INCARNATE!
the problem with your rationale is that I really don't care whether CPS found evidence of abuse.
____________________________________________________
You don't care ? It's ok that based on someone's opionion that these girls/women were repressed,etc that 464 children are uprooted and placed with total strangers ? I have concerns about any children you may have based on these screwed up beliefs.
Your post means alot, considering you have first hand knowledge of the inner workings of CPS and family court.
I do have heart and brains. Where did you get your info that there was no abuse/neglect? So, did they rule out all of the findings? I made a comment on the neutral side and you taking it out of context.
I have seen first hand children saved from the hand of someone that took advantage of them. CPS first priority is to protect the unproteced, and to find a permanent situation be it with parents, relatives, kinship, adoptive placement.
CPS Child Protective Services or better said CPS Communist Police State...
Where did you get YOUR info that there WAS abuse?
Maybe you've seen a case, or even two, where it appeared that CPS helped. I'm sceptical. I've read case after case after case where they have done everything from lie, create false reports, bully, intimidate, abuse, sexually abuse, to murder (PBS did a story on a CPS worker who became a foster parent and murdered, and was convicted of murdering a poor little girl - the CPS worker / foster mom duct taped the little girl to a chair in the basement and she died, I believe, from suffocation.) There are many other stories out there about sick, twisted, perverted CPS workers. Power corrupts, and CPS workers have more power than God and Satan put together, at least that's the way it feels when you're a wrongfully accused parent. Please don't believe all the Oprah / Nancy Grace crap that you hear / read.
Oh, and boycott Texas -
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Listen, people - these children's rights were being STOMPED ON. Instead of being so concerned about the parents rights, try (for once) to think of the children's rights to an open and proserous future. If left alone in that compound, they were all destined to be enslaved and have no hope for a future. Granted, they'd be happy, since ignorance is bliss, but they could do great things in the real world, yet none of them would have any chance at all. How many doctors, scientists, etc are in ththose kids? We would never know.
These parents were abusing these kids EVERY DAY!! By telling them that everyone and everything outside the gates is evil, and if they leave they will go to hell - and told that every day from the day they are born, by people they trust - that's abuse. That's stealing their future - and I wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy.