the raison d’etre of the FLDS is to have high status in heaven. This requires a minimum of three wives

Three ?

I’m way too busy with one ;)

No, the raison d’etre of the FLDS is to have high status in heaven. This requires a minimum of three wives (problematic in itself) but there is nothing in their history or their theology that requires underage wives or incest. It seems that Warren Jeffs himself is the source of much of this recent perversion.

Far too many of the government actions in this case have been based on rumor and hyperbole. I’m hoping to see more facts and less hype.

And if nothing else the Texas case should be a signal to law enforcement to actually do their job right.

If it’s true that children are being sexually abused in this compound, the fact that the State of Texas is too incompetent to protect them is a stain on the authorities.

If this is a “fact” then why is it that the State of Texas was unable to provide sufficient evidence of the same to a judge ?

Frankly, I think the FLDSers are nuts, but the idea that the state can come in and take away 400 children from their parents based on allegations with no evidence scares the heck out of me.

Pournelle conveniently omits the fact that the whole raison d’etre of FLDS is to celebrate incestuous polygamous statutory rape. They openly and notoriously declare this to be so.

The only questions here are: (1) whether “celebrate” metastasized into “practice” at YFZ, and (2) what credible evidence did — or did not — exist to suggest as much?

Reasonable minds can argue over the second paragraph, but not the first.

Also, it’s worth remembering that this is a child welfare matter first and a criminal matter second. So the whole “whatever happened to innocent until proven guilty” lament is a bit of a non sequitur.