Deseret News | Providing for FLDS costing Texas tens of thousands daily

Reader comments
Providing for FLDS costing Texas tens of thousands daily

Alan Shostak | 6:27 p.m. April 11, 2008

Sorry to use a cliche, but when the Nazis rounded up my great grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins in Poland, they used the same words as are quoted in the Deseret News today. The round up of Poles was not limited to Jews, or "bad people", but also included the Polish intellectuals. The Polish intellectuals, not Jews, were the first people made guests of the Nazis.

Go rent the movie Sophie's Choice and you'll see what happened to my family. Those of us remaining have always feared that something similar would happen, even here in America.

When you are not in the beer drinking, pork eating majority, you are always a guest, being treated kindly as long as your hosts wish to do so.

This is just the beginning | 6:42 p.m. April 11, 2008

Texas took a bite out of a big apple and will have to finish it. I bet the 16 yr. old girl does not exist, in the end, underage "marriage" is probably the only crime here

Confused | 8:10 p.m. April 11, 2008

The children will be "safe as long as they are with us..." and "appropriate foster care"... Look at the DFPS website in Texas.. they are not wanting new Texans' help with fostering the children if needed..instead they will "look at using out of state agencies.." (great, so let's split families and siblings and move them out of state) and CPS is "evaluating their schooling needs.." There is such ignorance on homeschooling.. If you are homeschooled, then the consensus is that you are behind the bar.. If these were public schooled children you would not see this phrase. And who said foster care is safe? Some families are...others house other children who pose a great risk..These girls are prime target for a teen pervert... As far as these "children were taught to fear the outside world".. I am not LDS or FLDS but I agree with their statements... We live in a very wicked and immoral world and we think teaching these young ones "sex education" and other public school agendas is going to make them safer and better citizens I guess.

Comments continue below

My kids mom | 8:19 p.m. April 11, 2008

Child abuse allegations must always be followed up in any cases. Please read about how many children are forgotten in the news and have perished because of inaction. Nazi's rounded up anyone who did not fit int the mold. This was not just Jewish people, and Polish people, this was also anyone disabled or seen as weak. However, that movement was lead by a narcissistic lunatic.These officials are monitored by other groups of people and don't want any more hurt to befall these children. Please look at the past history of these fundamentalists and know that if any child is in danger of physical,mental or sexual abuse it is our responsibility as a society to protect our young with every means necessary. I need no movie to tell me what is ethical. My great grandfather was an American Indian on the trail of tears. However, a complaint was made and I'm glad to see Texas protecting their young citizens. God Bless

Sandy | 9:16 p.m. April 11, 2008

Texas is doing a wonderful job. Better than anyone else could do. These people need to feel the freedom of living rather then that of their lives of slavery.

dcb | 10:04 p.m. April 11, 2008

I think the problem for everybody everywhere is they don't internalize "Love One Another." It doesn't matter if you are LDS, FLDS, RLDS, Catholic, Baptist, etc. It is commanded of everyone everywhere to Love One Another. The comments I've read on line about this Texas Raid shows that people haven't learned what it means to Love One Another. Love your Enemy. Pray for them which despitefully use you and persecute you. It's the same for everyone. Non LDS and LDS persons are all required to love one another. If these people are abusing the women and children they are not showing love to them and justice needs to be met. I do think it is a little outragious to have had so many children removed from their families. They needed to do it in a different manner. But, none of us does everything perfectly! If we did, we'd be back home in heaven right now.

InSanAngelo | 10:11 p.m. April 11, 2008

We are doing the best we can here. At least we are doing something. I look at it this way... other states can look at what has been done right and what has been done wrong here in Texas and hopefully formulate a plan of their own based on what we have learned. These children are worth it, worth being protected, worth being safe and worth every penny and inconvenience it has caused here. San Angelo is a small community, we keep to ourselves, we just want to live our lives and try to keep up with gas prices. But in a crisis such as this, it will be clear to everyone that Texas is serious abotu protecting its children.

the mantle of victimhood | 10:38 p.m. April 11, 2008

These comments about 'nazis' and the like are hilarious, and sad. No person that lived through the terror of real nazis would compare anything in the US to what happened there, or for that matter, the terror of Stalin's Russia, or Uganda, or any one of thousands of other times/places in history. Texas is trying to defend those that cannot defend themselves, nothing more, nothing less. If you don't like it...stay out of Texas.

Like the Nazis | 10:42 p.m. April 11, 2008

I think this is very similar to what the Nazis did, and I have friends that survived the holocaust.

Astonished | 10:43 p.m. April 11, 2008

Alan Shostak, you don't know what you're talking about. What happened in Sophie's Choice or to your grandparents has no bearing on this issue. You sound like a dirty old man advocating the right of other dirty old men to "marry" underage girls in the name of religion. If our legal system doesn't have the right to intervene on behalf of these children, then who does? This is a no brainer. Had there been no abuse of young girls, then there would not have been a raid.

No more abuse! | 10:52 p.m. April 11, 2008

I think the Texas Government is doing an excellent job with these woman and children. The government has the right to break up this horrible FLDS cult, so that these woman and children will no longer be sexually abused as slaves to these FLDS men. They deserve to have the chance for freedom to choose for themselves as every American should.

Utah is grateful to Texas!

Overstepping | 10:47 p.m. April 11, 2008

This reminds me of Waco. The authorities were so worried about the children that they precipated the death of those children.

Texas "authorities" | 12:01 a.m. April 12, 2008

are no different than the Nazi Gestapo... despicable. On the pretense they were looking for a particular 16 year old girl who supposedly called a sex abuse hot line worker and weaved a mystical story of abuse but then retracted the whole thing and hung up, the Texas Gestapo stormed into a community and hauled off every single child, boy and girl, and plans to put them into foster homes and never, ever return them to their parents. This is criminal. They would never get away with it but it's the Baptists getting even with the Mormons. The fools in Texas don't know and don't care that the FLDS and Mormons are not one and the same. Like an Eldorado Baptist woman interviewed on TV: "They are all from Utah, that's good enough for me." I had my own little run in with the Texas "authorities, they lied and stole money from me. It wasn't worth the $10,000 to get a lawyer and get it back so they got to get away with theft. I left Texas, I'll never go back. This is par for the course for the Baptist mafia that runs rural counties like this one.

Anonymous | 11:57 p.m. April 11, 2008

Any attempt to make this a monetary issue is a religious smokescreen. It costs money to properly maintain the people rescued from the compound by the texas authorities.
It's worth every nickel. There is no financial bogeyman. There may be a cost to providing citizens of this nation the rights and freedoms associated to them. We must pay it, for what it is, to free these poeple from the oppression that is the FLDS church.

George Wines | 12:07 a.m. April 12, 2008

On TV last evening Texas authorities were announcing that they had
taken EVERY Bible from the homes at the ranch, to read their family
record sections & use against these people who would dare to build
a nice town and beautiful temple in West Texas (ever seen Texas?).
So its not only 400+ children removed, but their Bibles?
Story is the Pennsylvania authorities are next going to raid the Amish
communities. See they live isolated lives as well, no cars, no electricity, no higher education. Hold on to your Bibles Amish (and your kids).
This is modern America as revealed on late-night TV.

nazis? | 1:38 a.m. April 12, 2008

"
Like the Nazis | 10:42 p.m. Apr. 11, 2008
I think this is very similar to what the Nazis did, and I have friends that survived the holocaust."

Where are the dead bodies? The ovens? The gas chambers? Troops in the streets? Martial law?

I think this is more like Texas LE enforcing the laws of the land and rescuing little girls from filthy pedophiles holed up in a compound. Such yammering and hand-wringing from 'adults'.

Thomas | 9:08 a.m. April 12, 2008

If juveniles is old enough to be prosecued as an adult for a crime, then juveniles are old enough to be married.

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