In early April 2008, prosecutors for the State of Texas announced a raid on the Yearning for Zion Ranch. The State took "legal custody" of 401 children who had been raised in the 1,700 acre double-gated locked "19th century prairie" compound. By the second week a third person was arrested, Leroy Steed joining Levi Jeffs, and Warren Jeffs the founder, in jail.
It is interesting to recall the action taken by one of the finest Federal Attorneys General in the history of the United States, Janet Reno, in attempting to liberate a few dozen children in Waco, Texas, from a heavily-armed cult of Branch Davidians. The right-wing was screaming invectives at Ms Reno for each step taken in a slow transparent attempt to disarm the Davidian leaders. Now, after a wholesale raid and the taking of custody of 400 children from their community, not a peep of complaint from the right-wing.
The Federal Government, of course, is not involved. The Government has been deaf and witless in the face of the known and accumulating dangers with which civilization is faced. The Bush administration is not interested in the welfare of 400 children. Well, it is NOW time to scream. Who is taking care of these children? The children have been taken from the 19th century (weaving their own clothes), and from their homes.
It is not possible to forgive those who savaged the administration of Janet Reno, a prosecutor who at least addressed the dangers. Her critics are now hypocritically silent. They show no concern for an even worse and much much larger "cult" endangering the lives of even more children. Why is our Right Wing taken over by ideological hypocrites? Since extreme idiologues took over, we can no longer count on the wisdom of the Right Wing.
Finally, the news coming out seems to share the same tone and perspective which the FLDS Founders espouse: Males are important and females are reproductive drudges. Behind those "important" males are very significant females. We have not heard from any of them in any capacity. Apparently the State of Texas -- violating its tradition of having had five female governors and equal and independent citizens -- has been too much infected with the Bush legacy.
The compound was a type of prison, there is no doubt. The gates were guarded against coming or going. However, I am entirely un-nerved to hear that hundreds of children have been removed FROM THEIR MOTHERS and are being placed in "foster" homes. The scale of the child molestation perpetrated by the male control freaks is one thing. The scale of the seizure of children is another. Both are clearly forcible kidnappings.
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