quote:It's a whole different level than fondling or rape, which is what the terms "abuse" and "assault" tend to evoke in the imagination.
This seems like saying that because "assault and battery" brings to mind an image of someone being shot, it is inappropriate to use those words to describe someone being punched. What word would you use, other than "assault," for being slapped on the ass by a stranger?
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quote:Originally posted by kmbboots: Nope. You're absolutely right, Scott. They should have left them there to be raped. Or somehow otherwise magically pregnant at fifteen. If that is how their parents want it, hey, who are we to care about what happens to those girls. The only possible reason we would want that stopped is so that we can persecute people with "weird" religious beliefs.
Hey. Knock it off.
EDIT:
To elucidate, kmboots, I didn't argue this. Do you want to address the things I have argued?
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Honestly, I don't know why I am even talking to you about this.
What would you have preferred they do? Again. The burden of proof for convicting someone of a crime is different than that of removing a child from possible harm.
How do you think those girls got pregnant?
If that guy in Austria had religious reasons for keeping his daughter in the basement and had raised her to share those beliefs, would the state have had any right to step in?
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Hello, follow the law? Use due process? Get warrants, collect evidence, arrest the perpetrators?
There was an avenue where everyone could have been protected. It isn't like there isn't laws against statutory rape.
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quote:This seems like saying that because "assault and battery" brings to mind an image of someone being shot, it is inappropriate to use those words to describe someone being punched. What word would you use, other than "assault," for being slapped on the ass by a stranger?
Except for the the fact that "assault and battery" do not evoke such an image, I understand your point. I was just indicating the dishonest means by which the "70% of women have been sexually abused" figure came about. Many women who would say "yeah, I caught a guy checking out my breasts" would disagree that they were sexually abused in the process.
Personally, I'd rather just call it a slap on the ass.
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MattP, an unwelcome sexual swat on the bottom and leer at 12 is terrifying. No, it is not at the same level as forced penatrative sex, but yes, it is similar. It's on the same scale. Even with the qualifier of relatively, there is no way that I would apply the word benign to it. At all, ever.
And I think there is value to statistics that show the percentage of girls under 18 that have been subjected to that kind of abuse in this country. It's part of making it unacceptable, and making sure people treat it as unacceptable instead of brushing it off as relatively benign.
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It isn't "just" anything. When you're twelve years old and are intruded on and treated like that, it is traumatic. It isn't harmless.
What about those women who say "This guy cupped his hands around my breasts in the elevator." Should that also be dismissed?
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quote:Personally, I'd rather just call it a slap on the ass.
Well, good for you, I suppose. I would call it assault, and I would press charges, and I don't know a whole lot of women who wouldn't.
[eta] I should add, I would press charges if I could. Because the one time I was sexually assaulted, the details of which I don't think are appropriate for this forum, the police weren't inclined to lift a finger, even though the perpetrator had left rather a lot of DNA evidence, so to speak. Because, after all, there hadn't been forced penetrative sex, so why did it matter?
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Hello, follow the law? Use due process? Get warrants, collect evidence, arrest the perpetrators?
There was an avenue where everyone could have been protected. It isn't like there isn't laws against statutory rape.
And in a situation where the entire community, including the victims, is bound to protect the perpetrators, you can't see how that isn't as simple as you want to make it?
And, one more time, the burden of proof for convicting someone of rape is less than it is for removing a child from possible harm.
edit to add: And I am really done with this. It is just making me angry. You can go right on thinking that I approve of government intrusion and persecting religious people. I will continue to think that, as long as people are religious about it, you are okay with protecting the parental rights of parents who want their daughters forced into "marriage" at fifteen.
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quote:Originally posted by kmbboots: Honestly, I don't know why I am even talking to you about this.
Far be it from me to make judgments about your motivations. If you don't know, I'm certainly in no position to make suggestions.
quote:What would you have preferred they do? Again. The burden of proof for convicting someone of a crime is different than that of removing a child from possible harm.
And the appellate court maintained that CPS had no reason to remove all 450+ kids. Are you arguing that the appellate court got it wrong?
quote: If that guy in Austria had religious reasons for keeping his daughter in the basement and had raised her to share those beliefs, would the state have had any right to step in?
If the guy was found to be doing something illegal, of course.
Is there evidence that the FLDS were engaged in systematic abuse?
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quote:And in a situation where the entire community, including the victims, is bound to protect the perpetrators, you can't see how that isn't as simple as you want to make it?
We do not get to ignore due process because it is difficult.
Are you a big fan of Guatanamo Bay? The people there are accused of abetting terrorism. How can you be opposed to that but supportive of this?
quote:And, one more time, the burden of proof for convicting someone of rape is less than it is for removing a child from possible harm.
And pathetically, CPS didn't even make that standard. Forget ironclad proof and evidence - they didn't even have enough for that.
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What, "Unless you are willing to toss out the law, you clearly love the perps"? "The real patriots/moral arbitrators are vigilantes"? "Who needs laws when you have outrage"?
How very Bush of you.
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Scott, What definition are you using for systematic? I'm using it to mean "conforming to a system and/or pricinciples; deliberate." From what I can tell, this was the case in the FLDS compound.
quote:And the appellate court maintained that CPS had no reason to remove all 450+ kids.
No reason or not sufficient reason? I think there is an important difference between the two.
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There was no reason to remove all 450 children. The state, as I understand things, only removes children when there is imminent danger. There was no imminent danger to all 450 children, according to the appellate court's findings.
There may have been imminent/immediate danger to some of the 450 children, however, and in those cases, the children in question could legally be removed.
Is this your understanding as well?
Systematic as I've used it means widespread and culturally ingrained.
quote:From what I can tell, this was the case in the FLDS compound.
This was the case with what? Child abuse?
If you do mean child abuse, how do you reconcile the appellate court's findings with your own views? Or do you?
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*sigh* From what I read when I looked into that statistic, which is over a decade old now, it was based on the broadest possible definition of sexual abuse and, I believe, was dishonest in it's methodology. Regardless of the protestations here, there is a world of difference between persistent, systematic rape and other unwelcome sexual acts. My friend who was raped for several years by her fathers and brothers was most definitely a victim of sexual abuse and still suffers from it. A girl who got pinched on the butt by a boy in junior high school was not and likely doesn't even remember that incident any more. The butt pinching is still wrong, and still should be answered, though nowhere near as harshly, but both incidents shouldn't be munged into one "sexual abuse" statistic with no indication that the two incidents are being treated as equivalent. It demeans one event and elevates the impact of the other.
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quote:The state, as I understand things, only removes children when there is imminent danger.
Honestly, I don't know, but I doubt that this is correct. I certainly hope that the bar is not set that high. If what seems to be the case, i.e. these kids are raised to be raped and believing that this is right and just, I believe that the parents should ultimately lose their rights to them, even though it can't be proved that a specific child is in imminent danger. Do you disagree?
---
quote:If you do mean child abuse, how do you reconcile the appellate court's findings with your own views? Or do you?
I'm not sure what you mean. What needs to reconciled? Has the appellate court shown that there was not culturally condoned, deliberate raping of children?
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It's obvious that CPS had some reason for removing some children. They maintain that at least 5 girls were/are being sexually abused.
Whether or not their findings pan out will be seen in the future. I assume that the evidence they have on the 5 girls is valid; I wonder why they have apparently not made any arrests, however.
I believe it is essential to the health of our current society that the state have some powers to remove children from parental custody.
Equally, I believe it is essential to the health of our current society that citizens watch those organizations endowed with this power very, very closely to make sure that bounds are not crossed.
I don't think anyone has argued to the contrary on this board.
While recognizing that CPS apparently had a reason to remove SOME children, I'm appalled with their heavy-handed barnstorm of an entire community. The appellate court seems to agree. It is not just that they raided a religious community that is irksome-- it is that they apparently acted outside of the bounds set by the law.
They became illegitimate surrogates.
If they had invaded an atheistic hippie commune, I think I would be just as incensed.
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If I may be so bold, I think a part of the reason why the discussion is so heated at this juncture are exaggerated statements like:
quote:Originally posted by katharina: Are you expecting people to join the chorus of McCarthyists in order to prove they don't approve of underage marriages?
or
quote:Originally posted by katharina: Agreed. It would be terrible to have your state have as its central goal the breakup of your family.
which are really pretty similar to Occasional's entry into the thread.
Once you presume that the people working on this case are intentionally persecuting religious families to break them up or compare people to McCarthyists, once you eliminate even the possibility that people are independently coming to their conclusions or that the state in this case is making a good faith effort (albeit screwing up), then its only a short skip away to a pretty unnuanced discussion.
I think that Squickly hit the nail on the head with:
quote:Originally posted by MrSquicky: ... I also think that this prejudice was formed more from the structure of the situation and not in its religious nature. A non-religious separatist compound set up in similarly "weird" way that practived polygamy and was also raping children in a culturally sanctioned way would have been treated similarly.
If this was a Marxist commune which shared children's bodies rather than commodities and goods, the debate wouldn't last nearly as long.
Even the remote possibility of religious persecution with no corresponding evidence seems to be enough to hit nerves and set off a rather disproportionate response.
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It is correct. By Texas law, children are only to be taken from their homes when they are in immediate danger and after a reasonable effort has been made to solve the problems through other methods.
If you're advocating taking the children of all those who teach beliefs that are dangerous - not commit actions, but teach beliefs, then I emphatically disagree. We prosecute on the basis of wrong actions, not on wrong beliefs.
As a result, people teach crappy things to their children. On the upside, we don't live in a totalitarian, fascist state. So, yay.
Those who trade liberty for security end up with neither.
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quote:It is correct. By Texas law, children are only to be taken from their homes when they are in immediate danger and after a reasonable effort has been made to solve the problems through other methods.
What source are you using for that?
---
edit: As I said, if that is actually the case, I'm pretty disatisfied with it. If these parents are raising their children with the deliberate intention that they regard rape as acceptible or even commendable and with the very real possibility that they will be raped with the assent of the parents and community, that seems to me a clear case where the state should step in to remove those children. Do you really disagree with that kat?
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Too lazy to look it up. There's at least one link on this page. You're welcome to look there - they have a whole sheaf of articles about it, and most of them cite one or another portion of the law.
If you disagree, I'd like to see a cite of the criteria for taking children from the home that support your beliefs about what the standard is.
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quote:The state, as I understand things, only removes children when there is imminent danger.
Honestly, I don't know, but I doubt that this is correct.
From the article I posted last page:
quote:The Third Court of Appeals in Austin said the state failed to show the youngsters were in any immediate danger, the only grounds in Texas law for taking children from their parents without court action.
quote:If what seems to be the case, i.e. these kids are raised to be raped and believing that this is right and just, I believe that the parents should ultimately lose their rights to them, even though it can't be proved that a specific child is in imminent danger. Do you disagree?
Yes, I disagree with the following explanation: Without proof of actual imminent harm; without proof of actual child abuse, the parents should retain their parental rights. And the state should certainly be vigilant about monitoring such families within legal bounds.
If the government can take away children for the ideology that their parents teach-- without actual action on that ideology-- then we have given the government far too much power.
quote: Has the appellate court shown that there was not culturally condoned, deliberate raping of children?
It has ruled that the evidence provided by CPS is not sufficient to justify the action taken by CPS.
Do you feel that the appellate court made the right decision?
I'm not willing to condemn all the FLDS as child rapists until I see widespread, systematic, ACTUAL evidence of rape.
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posted
kat, Slate supports no such thing. The only references in it were to emergency removal, not any sort of removal.
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Squick, I can't even tell what you are arguing for here.
Are you supporting the past actions of CPS that are in dispute here, or are you supporting the removal all children from parents who teach but do not action on beliefs you find repulsive? Or both?
If you support the non-emergency removal of children from parents who teach beliefs you find repulsive but where there is no evidence of illegal actions, what laws are you planning this to be justified by? If there aren't any, what new ones are you proposing?
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quote:Originally posted by Mucus: If this was a Marxist commune which shared children's bodies rather than commodities and goods, the debate wouldn't last nearly as long.
Even the remote possibility of religious persecution with no corresponding evidence seems to be enough to hit nerves and set off a rather disproportionate response.
I can't speak for anyone but myself.
And I already have:
quote:If they had invaded an atheistic hippie commune, I think I would be just as incensed.
quote:The state, as I understand things, only removes children when there is imminent danger.
Honestly, I don't know, but I doubt that this is correct.
From the article I posted last page:
quote:The Third Court of Appeals in Austin said the state failed to show the youngsters were in any immediate danger, the only grounds in Texas law for taking children from their parents without court action.
While it's not conclusive, doesn't that strongly suggest that the state does take children away when they are not in immediate danger?
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edit:
quote:If the government can take away children for the ideology that their parents teach-- without actual action on that ideology-- then we have given the government far too much power.
Emphasis mine. In this case, there has already been action on that ideology. The community has, the parents included, explicitly condoned the rape of other children.
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quote: The Third Court of Appeals in Austin said the state failed to show the youngsters were in any immediate danger, the only grounds in Texas law for taking children from their parents without court action.
----
While it's not conclusive, doesn't that strongly suggest that the state does take children away when they are not in immediate danger?
If they do, it's apparently without a legal ground to stand on.
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posted
What are you basing that on? To me, the indicative part is that this is noted as the only grounds in Texas law for taking children from their parents without court action. This strongly suggestes to me that there are grounds for taking children away from their parent with court action that are not limited to showing that they are in immediate danger.
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posted
I don't know about Texas, but I do know that Squick's impresssion is how it works here -- emergency removal can happen without prior court action, and requires imminent danger (and is followed by a court hearing). In non-emergency situations the court action has to happen first, and grounds can involve something like "persistant abuse or neglect" even if it doesn't meet the "immanent danger" level.
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quote:Originally posted by Scott R: I can't speak for anyone but myself.
Indeed, however, in your case I am willing to entertain the possibility that if we could somehow rate indignation as a real number, your indignation in that case would be in the same neighbourhood or the same order of magnitude as it is currently.
However, I am rather dubious that you would be *more* indignant, thus you would probably be less indignant, albeit in the same range.
However, in many other cases, Occasional's being the most obvious, I am almost certain that the level of indignation would be in a completely different order of magnitude if not totally reversed.
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The lack of court action is exactly what I'm objecting to in this case. The reckless disregard of due process is my problem - I don't think that's okay unless the danger meets a certain standard, which CPS failed to prove that it did.
If you're talking what sort of people should be allowed to keep their children based on what they are teaching them, that's an entirely different debate.
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quote:Originally posted by MrSquicky: What are you basing that on? To me, the indicative part is that this is noted as the only grounds in Texas law for taking children from their parents without court action. This strongly suggestes to me that there are grounds for taking children away from their parent with court action that are not limited to showing that they are in immediate danger.
I suppose you're right, but I don't see the point of it in this conversation.
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quote:Originally posted by Scott R: I can't speak for anyone but myself.
Indeed, however, in your case I am willing to entertain the possibility that if we could somehow rate indignation as a real number, your indignation in that case would be in the same neighbourhood or the same order of magnitude as it is currently.
However, I am rather dubious that you would be *more* indignant, thus you would probably be less indignant, albeit in the same range.
However, in many other cases, Occasional's being the most obvious, I am almost certain that the level of indignation would be in a completely different order of magnitude if not totally reversed.
How about you take the easy way out, and just decide not to rate other people's motivations at all?
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quote:If you're talking what sort of people should be allowed to keep their children based on what they are teaching them, that's an entirely different debate.
As I've pointed out numerous times, this isn't merely a matter of teaching, but of actual case of child rape.
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That seems like an entirely different debate. Are you not interested in talking about the present situation with CPS, or are you content with the outcome that they acted highhandedly and without justification?
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quote:If you're talking what sort of people should be allowed to keep their children based on what they are teaching them, that's an entirely different debate.
As I've pointed out numerous times, this isn't merely a matter of teaching, but of actual case of child rape.
In those cases where there is actual evidence of harm or danger, I agree with you.
Where there is only ideology and no proof of action or danger, the state should yield the parents' rights.
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quote:Originally posted by Scott R: How about you take the easy way out, and just decide not to rate other people's motivations at all?
Erm, why? I'm not sure how that kind of intentional ignorance would help me. Everyone has an agenda of some kind or another.
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So, if CPS can show conclusively that there ocurred community approved/encouraged, deliberate rape of children and that the community (including the parents we're talking about) continues to advocate this rape, would it (or rather, in your opinion, should it) potentially be within the authority of the state to take these kids away from their parents?
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I don't think it should. The state regulates actions, but not thoughts and beliefs.
What if it wasn't organized? What if it was instead a neighborhood where most of the girls ended up pregnant in high school? I'm thinking of the students in my friend's class who deliberately get pregnant in high school because in their culture, that's how you prove you're an adult. I have known more than one great-grandmother less than fifty years old. I don't support suspending the parental rights of them, either.
That is NOT to say that the state should do nothing, but there are actions and choices between taking all children at birth whose parents have a certain belief system and doing nothing.
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quote:Originally posted by Scott R: How about you take the easy way out, and just decide not to rate other people's motivations at all?
Erm, why? I'm not sure how that kind of intentional ignorance would help me. Everyone has an agenda of some kind or another.
It's not intentional ignorance. It's a deliberate decision to not believe the straw men your mind constructs for other people's motivations.
quote: if CPS can show conclusively that there ocurred community approved/encouraged, deliberate rape of children and that the community (including the parents we're talking about) continues to advocate this rape, would it (or rather, in your opinion, should it) potentially be within the authority of the state to take these kids away from their parents?
It depends. Without action, I'm very hesitant to punish any sort of ideology.
Huh-- just came across a bit of one my own hypocrisies-- I'm all for the prosecution of virtual child pornography, despite the possibility of no child being involved.
quote:That is NOT to say that the state should do nothing, but there are actions and choices between taking all children at birth whose parents have a certain belief system and doing nothing.
Except, as I said, many, many times now, the parents we are talking about are active members in an isolated community the condones child rape and in which child rape has occurred. This isn't a matter of nothing being done.
As has been noted, neglect is accepted, in some cases, as a valid reason to take children away from parents. In my opinion, this is as it should be. Parents have a positive responsibility to take reasonable steps to keep their kids from certain types of dangers.
I'd look pretty carefully at parents who knowingly expose their children to the very clear risk of them getting raped. I think this is much more the case when the parents, who are complicit in and in fact supportive of other child rapes, are actively pushing their children to get raped and teaching their children that it this sort of child rape is fine.
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posted
So don't let them be isolated. There are lots of legal methods available. When there are no illegal actions, then taking the children (especially, especially into that crappy foster care system) is much too much.
Looking carefully at the parents like that is essential. Continual monitoring possibly justified. Frequent checks to make sure everything okay could be just perfect. But taking away the parental rights of those who do not act illegally and who meet the standard of care is unAmerican.
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posted
There are laws against that. If that occurs, then the law should applied to its fullest extent and the perpetrators responsible should go to jail.
There are all sorts of laws that apply, including neglect, and the state should be rigorous in applying them.
There is no law against believing in polygamy and against expecting teenage girls to become sexually active after hitting puberty. There are laws against statutory rape and those should be enforced.
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