If you are an American citizen, you are mostly likely keenly aware of the internal problems affecting the American government and people. The decline in the integrity of the American government has recently been clearly manifested in the unwarranted raids on a compound that was home to a polygamist cult in Texas.

When law enforement agents initiated the raid, it was due to an anonymous, unidentified phoned-in claim of child abuse going on therein. With no substantial evidence to obtain a search warrant--and thus no warrant--law enforcement officials unlawfully raided the compound and ubsequently removed children from custody of their parents, putting many into foster care. This action directly violated the Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution, whic clearly states that the government is in no way legally permitted to don what they did:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Another thing that uttely appalled me was that it wasn't until sometime after the raid that "red flags" were raised about this action. It took around two weeks before their violation of the Constitution became a barely mentioned issue on mainstream media. Why are the American people not uttely infuriated by this circumstance? The federal government violated its own laws and limitations upon which this nation was founded and yet very few seem to actually care. I for one am abslutely livid at the completely audcious and unlawful over-stepping of authority that this represents.

Please, discuss. I'm very interested to know what you guys think.

and where i am the news stated it was a sect to see children have sex with mutiple partners... or that's how it sounded...
only later i found it is probably just a polygamous movement, of more woman to belong to one man... namely three... of which is no violation to any law that makes sense,
...is not after all modern mainstream a sect where whoreing is allowed and a single partner that is not a virgin is standard, a lot of ancient worlds or future worlds will deem this a very strange sect to marry only one wife that already had a whole history of mates for her...
my sect i can marry as many woman as i like, and they are preferably virgins, if at all possible...
what is the big deal, amish make perfect sense some times...
including that idea of not to partake in modern technology... interesting, i lived on candle light myself if not now they shove me in a fucking psychiatry and have me play with electrical lights. i can't stand them... their rays must be evil...
so in the end, the American government is long expired, past its date, its sitting in buildings built a long time ago... it became a freak, not even civil, bourgois a movement but a derailed movement, itself becoming a strange sect, hysterical over NOT having any power of any kind...
in a world of indivduals they can no longer do anything... corporations have some power though they only pollute and preach no ideals worth or to last...
ancient empires had power, they had principles, arts that enforced respect... this culture is just a corpse... and amusing as it is... metal indeed rules, it is much more recent, it can freely asses ideas, it is more apart of dream and arts, modern governments since they abstained from religion have abstained from principles and have abstained from power, they have abstained from ideas itself... they are nothing...

I saw from your other thread that you were willing to try to improve the aesthetic quality of your Symposium posts, so I won't lecture at you. I can only say that you'll have to try harder, or I'll be forced to remove future posts, and maybe you yourself.

Symposium posts should look more or less like this thread's initial post does, in terms of typing, grammar, punctuation, etc. Use that as a guide if you're having trouble.

Thank you for your comprehension.

I think that more attention wasn't paid to the rights of said polygamist cult because, well, they're a polygamist cult. It's a sad truth that people are less likely to respect the rights of people who aren't like them.

I agree that rights of the polygamists should be respectd (whether polygamy should be allowed is a different matter, though), but as PriestOfSadWings said, we cannot really expect people to feel strongly about it. This is a matter of people different from them, so they would not worry about being raided, and their abomination against polygamists is likely to dull the rage against the unlawful raids, if not make them support the raids.

If the reports of the young girls aged 14-17 being pregnant and forced into relations with older men are true than honestly I do not give a damn if they stepped on the rights of those people.

Polygamy should be legal - I mean, this traditional Christian way (the traditional human way IS polygamy) of marriage doesn't suit everyone - but if the allegations of abuse are true, whatever. They're a bunch of incestual shits anyhow.

Yes, as long as every individual involved in the process agrees, I don't see what is wrong with it.

When a call comes into Law Enforcement about abuse that is going on (child abuse, domestic violence, rape, etc), normally they will launch immediately without question in order to preserve and protect human life even if it means entering a premises without the proper paperwork. In that respect it is not a violation of the fourth ammendment. I'd like to think this was their justification, however if the info received was discovered to be unfounded I'd like to think they would take measures to remedy the situation. But knowing the beauracracy choked juggernaut that certain aspects of public service have turned into I'll wait to see what comes. Since I haven't really been following the story this is just my take on what I've heard.

While I am not knowledgeable enough on legal matters to know if it is a violation or not, I can see why it might be okay. If there is abuse, then it should be terminated as soon as possible. But it will depend on whether the case involves acutal victims; and in the case of polygamy - I don't know how most of those are, but if the marriage was agreed upon by all sides - it doesn't really have any victim that is suffering.

I feel no sorrow for the cult, neither am I willing to speak out for their rights. They've indoctrinated their children, they're fundamentalist Christians, aren't these the people the Metal community is supposed to hate?

I fully support the destruction of Christian cults/fundamentalist groups, as the same with any extremist organization for that matter.

Excuse my ignorance, but are all (or most of) polygamists fundamentalist Christians? I never knew that...

Well these people are an indoctrinating bunch of extremist-fundamentalist cult morons that support incest and pedophilia; why the hell do they even deserve to have rights?

The leaders should be punished and the members saved, how this happens doesn't really matter to me as long as it happens. I'm pretty sure there are enough legal reasons to put an end to this so I don't think it's necesarry to do something illegal.

This "taking away of rights" reminds me of something that happened in Canada in 2001. If anyone remembers the man's name, do tell me.

Basically, what happened was that an Iranian pilot (this part is important) came to the US illegally, then he moved up to Canada. He confessed that he did these things illegally. Remember, the date where he moved from the US to Canada was September 11, 2001. So, when he was detained by Canadian officials, they didn't give him his right to a lawyer or anything, and mainly for racial reasons, they detained him for war crimes such as plotting September 11th, when they had no evidence. He was released last year, I think. But man, that story pisses me off so much.

I have no evidence to back this up, but I'd say yes. I'd say religion is the only guise with which they can get people to agree to join, stay with, and agree to these practices.



They didn't think he may have been leaving the United States for fear of persecution? Hmm?

While charging him with plotting terrorist action with no proof is a bit much, I see no problem in them detaining him. A horrible attack had just happened on the United States by Muslim extremist. You bet your ass there was justification in inconveniencing a few thousand Muslims just to be sure.

Of course I'm implying consent - coercion for something like marriage is retrograde.

I agree. People should be free to define their own relationships.




But FUCK, I really did get pissed off about this whole thing. While I hold contempt for all religious organizations, as a humanist I still care about their followers. The government has found a way to make these girls victims TWICE- not only has their cult indoctrinated and oppressed them (like Scientology), the government has stepped in and removed them from their mothers and placed them into the unbelievably shitty foster-care system. I don't see how anyone could think removing them like this was a good idea; the fact that it was an illegal raid was just icing on the fucking cake.

The irony is that religion itself is the cause for anti-polygamy raids, so religion is ultimately the perpitrator on both counts. And people say that calling religion child abuse is hyperbole..

Most american polygamist cults, including this one, are mormons. They are a nominally Christian group, but they bear virtually no resemblance to what people normally mean when they say "Christian."

So no, not really.

Most Mormons are not polygamists. They are just normal Christians with a slightly different belief system than regular Christians. Polygamy was something Mormons as a whole out-grew a long, long time ago. It's a negative stereotype now, and one that they typically find offensive. Polygamy, in the Christian world, is only found in obscure seperatist cults like this one.

I believe Islam has a lot more polygamists than any division of Christian faith.

It is an unreasonable search and seizure. Your analysis basically means that if you don't like someone, you can go to a pay phone and report child abuse, then the cops will come and disrupt the person's life and destroy his reputation.

In response to the OP, I do consider the government's actions highly offensive and the same can be said of MSM, which refuses to eat humble pie. Now that the courts have ruled correctly in favor of the people and not the state's abuse of power, MSM has either dropped the story or it has segments in which commentators ridicule the court.

Wow, you are so naive that I can hardly believe what I'm reading. If you give the state unlimited power to abuse the rights of 'bad' people, you in effect give it the power to abuse the rights of everyone, since judgments of badness vary from time to time and are easily influenced by propaganda. In addition, if you give the state the ability to abuse citizens' rights on the basis of tenuous, anonymous tips, your own rights could be violated at any moment because an enemy could falsely accuse you. It is evident that you have no conception of what a 'safeguard' is, nor of why it is useful. You need to have enough vision to look beyond the bridge of your nose to see it.

Polygamy is only "extreme" because it is not common these days. In my opinion, as long as everyone is at least 18 and consents, there is nothing wrong with it. Personally, I think the "benefits" for the husband are highly overrated; having a dozen wives would be hell on earth, but that's just me.


I'm glad that the authorities got slammed for it. This kind of government hostility needs to stop. I hope the next president repeals the Patriot Act, as it more or less nullifies the Bill of Rights, anyway, and allows things like this to happen.

I'm so glad that I have an online retreat from the absolute insanity in which I am daily surrounded.

I was absolutely infuriated when I heard about this story originally, and I naively thought I would be greeted by my friends and coworkers the next day with similar reactions. To my horror, I was the only one that cared. That genuinely surprised me.

We have fallen off the slippery slope in America onto our collective apathetic asses. We are now in an absolute, stomach turning free-fall.

That's not what I was insinuating at all. My point was simply that nobody should give a shit about these people because they deserve to die (and hence don't deserve to have rights either). Simple as that. I never even mentioned the word "state" in my post ...

Yea, the whole message here is that if you're in a fringe group, your rights can be taken away and people won't care. At least the gubmint didn't get away with it this time, but it's not too far-fetched to imagine something like that happening to a metalhead, complete with smear campaign painting him as a hateful nazi/racist/anti-Christian.

You completely missed the point of his post. If the government can take away their rights, then they can take away the rights of innocent people as well.

This isn't about incest or polygamy; this is about fundamental human liberties, which everyone deserves no matter how much of a scumbag they are.

Well, the reason it was child abuse was because 12 year old girls were being married off to 30 year old men. I don't think there's a single part of the United States where this is legal, religious or not. There was a report of a sixtten year old girl who had four kids, and a fifth on the way. Her "husband" was old enough to be her father. How is that not abuse? The girls were indoctrinated into thinking that marrying someone your dad's age was okay; if I have my facts right, they were betrothed to these old bastards. My sister put it the best way: "It's just an excuse for pedophilic old men to fuck some jailbait little girl who's not even fully matured yet."
I understand that the U.S. Government should have gotten a warrant before doing this, but, in almost every other perspective, it was the right thing to do.

1. The 'federal government' didn't do shit: the raid was carried out by sheriffs and the Texas CPS.

2. The mainstream media didn't raise 'red flags' because it was some time before it became apparent that the red flags were there.

3. The anonymous tip on top of the well known history of sexual abuse within the FLDS sect would almost have to force law enforcement officials to at least consider an investigation. The raid was obviously an overreach, but hardly a grotesque abuse of power either. It's worth noting that the community leaders who negotiated the return of the children agreed as a condition of that return to stop forcing underage girls into 'spiritual marriages,' which would seem to imply, at least circumstantially, that this was in fact going on previously. The implicit admission that children were being sexually abused in the compound seems to be lost in the shuffle.

First of all pedophile means attraction to PRE-pubescent children - if they are old enough to bear children they are post-pubescent. The media loves this scare tactic - "they a comin' for you chil'uns!"

If they are really worried about young girls (13 -17) having sex why not look at almost any high school in the US (especially in inner cities and the South West) and you will find thousands who had sex with (oftentimes) older men who got them to that condition. I mean, hell, the teenage birth rate in United States is the highest in all the developed world!

The oft-repeated "polygamist" charge in the media is used as a tactic for the general masses to react with disgust ("ewww, they're weird - something bad should happen to them")

And to say you can take away someone's children because they are "brainwashed"? First off, who thinks that the government taking children away based on incorrect thought is a good idea? Second, who is the minister responsible for deciding what is and what is not correct thought in this country? Thirdly, where is the list of incorrect beliefs that will result in your children being taken away, or is this just decided on a whim? It seems to me, this is an incredibly dangerous precedent.

Freedom, people, freedom. That is what the focus of the story should really be. Regard for individual freedom and tolerance for people who don't quite abide by all of the norms of their peers.

At least they didnt slaughter people this time 'round like Ruby Ridge or Waco (or the Gordon Kahl murder and mutilation through dismemberment and burning which started it all for these government tuffies).

Not to derail the thread or anything, but we have similar crap going on in Canada too. This entire continent is heading down the tubes. At this rate we won't even have to wait for the NAU to do away with the last of our civil liberties.

Yep. The whole terrorism bullshit combined with renewed religious fervor has served to stifle civil liberties as much as the red scare, if not more. For some reason, polygamists are supposedly innately evil, according to your average theist, despite the fact that traditional marriages - marriages as they were carried out for millenia previous to modern society - were centered around one man holding many wives - polygamy! Of course, infant mortality was incredibly high in those days, and this was (and is) truer for male infants than female ones, but nonetheless, polygamy has only been branded evil by those moralistic bastards trying to impress their exact brand of ethics upon all else.