WAIT A MINUTE!

[caseycoon]

In regard to the polygamist brouhaha....

I have seen some posts here today advocating a change in the welfare/food stamp laws because of the way they have been used by these people..
To understand this situation a bit better I would like to mention that this is a strong PATRIARCHY. The women have no say in anything. They have no choices. Most, if not all of them don't know any other way to live. It's what they've been taught all their lives. You cannot arbitrarily take welfare & food stamps from the women & children. The other problem I see with taking everything away from a particular group is which group shall we pick next? After we starve out the polygamists all over the country that is? Believe me, once they start that they won't just stop with polygamists.
To be progressive you need to look at the whole picture. You also need to work on compassion. I don't have the answers for this mess, but don't let the anger & disgust over what these men have done goad you into changing laws that protect others, & think about the children involved here. Please.
***********
This a reply I made in another post, but I was asked to start a new thread with it. So here, with a little editing, it is. :)

BUSHCO... JAIL THEM ALL... NOW!

[vickitulsa]

1. Some people automatically go to the wrong end of any line

to pick someone to punish in order to end some abuse or other. You can almost always figure that if you think the solution to a problem is to cut off funding to poor, hungry, or deprived individuals, you're off the mark.

And do people know that the amount of food stamp "money" recipients are given is nowhere near enough to actually feed human beings? Think you could buy enough food to keep you healthy with $150 per month? And that amount is not going up even though the prices of food stuffs have kept rising steadily for years -- and lately have gone right through the roof!

I think no one in government wants to FIX the food stamp program and every other program to provide essential aid to the poor simply because they WANT all such programs to fail. They want to allow the abuses to continue because then maybe citizens will decide to just END all aid to the poor.

Yep, that'll fix the problem for sure! When you turn a blind eye to a problem, it's "fixed" as far as you're concerned, right?


Thanks for posting this, Caseycoon. It did deserve a thread of its own. You don't solve a problem like this one by making life even harder for those who are suffering the most from the abuses in such a subculture already!

[caseycoon]

2. Thanks vickitulsa!

:hi:

[roguevalley]

5. They raise their kids not to smile. they are forbidden to smile. these

women were born into this. poor things all around.

[proud2BlibKansan]

3. They rape children

We have an obligation as a society to protect those kids and punish their rapists.

[nichomachus]

4. Yes, but not to punish other children in the process n/t

[proud2BlibKansan]

8. Of course not

But they don't need to be returned to that environment.

[nichomachus]

9. I don't think that's what we're talking about here

[proud2BlibKansan]

15. But returning them to their families

means they will need food stamps, right?

I am saying they shouldn't be allowed to go back.

[nichomachus]

17. Wherever they go, we shouldn't let them go hungry

The key is to do whatever is in the best interests of the children. However, when religion is involved, especially in the current climate, it gets sticky.

I admit I'm not keeping up with the fine details of this case, but there seem to be some problems in applying the law (I used to work in family court, so I'm familiar with some of the problems).

This is a lot more complicated than some people like to think it is. It's easy to make overly broad statements about what should be done, but you have to make sure that (a) the absolute best interests of the children are protected, (b) the law is followed and (c) you don't set a dangerous precedent that could be used against other groups for political or theocratic reasons.

[proud2BlibKansan]

23. They won't starve in foster care

[bobbolink]

29. How knowledgeable are you about foster care?????

Are you aware of the abuse that has been proven?

Are you aware of the sexual abuse that children have suffered in foster care?

Are you aware that there are foster parents who only take in kids in order to get the $$$, and none of it goes to the kids?????

I suggest you do a bit of research on the topic, before making such pronouncements.

[bean fidhleir]

35. You beat me to it.

The adult women are capable, with therapy, of being MUCH better for their kids than any foster caregiver, far too many of whom are, as you point out, in it for the money or the social cachet or even the opportunity to be abusers.

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

6. And the Pope tried to protect rapists, and look at the reception he's getting!

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2005/apr/24/children.childprotection

[Jed Dilligan]

33. So they go to group homes, where no one has EVER been raped.

There's no good solution here. It shows what an ugly society we have become.

[malaise]

7. Isn't it amazing that now that the shit has hit the fan

the male authoritarians have disappeared and sent out the women to face the fire.

[cynatnite]

11. I think they're trying to give the impression that women aren't oppressed...

It's a poor one, IMO. I saw three of them on the Today show and they couldn't even answer a simple question about the age girls can be married in one of those places. It was tragic to watch.

[malaise]

16. The irony of this entire expose is that

we have seen women in the US who are being treated as bad or worse than the ME women W et al claim to be liberating. M$M so loves a circus that they don't even know what they're really showing to the world.

[nichomachus]

12. The important thing to remember

Is that Mitt Romney was only five paces away from this. His grandfather was a polygamist and the church officially gave it up, not because they thought it was wrong, but because they wanted to present themselves as more politically acceptable. This is why is was important to question his religion (when so many people said it wasn't).

[JuniperLea]

13. So true!

I said this in another thread... and I think it applies here as well:

Our patriarchal society has screwed us all up. I think it's time for a matriarchal society, with women leaders who act, and respond, as women do.

We would have far fewer wars... we would feed the hungry... shelter the homeless... we'd take far better care of ourselves and our country, no question.

[nichomachus]

18. Oh dear!

I think it's time for a matriarchal society, with women leaders who act, and respond, as women do.

You didn't go to Catholic school, did you?

I went to a school -- way back when -- run by nuns. Let me tell you, patriarchal society has nothing on matriarchal society when it comes to domineering, abusive, and sometimes violent practices. I have friends who still have scars from the nuns.

When any one same-sex group gets all the power, you're going to have problems.

[JuniperLea]

30. Nuns are not women in this sense...

Nuns live in an unnatural world, IMHO, and most of us women would be frustrated as all hell in that environment! It's no wonder they behave the way they do.

One sex has all the power now... men.

[bean fidhleir]

36. It's not a "same-sex group gets all the power" issue

It's an issue with inbred, common-culture groups.

[bobbolink]

21. Not amazing at all! It's always the way. Yet, the "progressives" are excoriating these women

all over DU today.

:cry:

Then, they wonder why so many USians can't tell the difference between Republicans and Democrats.

:cry:

[malaise]

24. I find them strange but they too are victims n/t

[bobbolink]

27. Absolutely. Yet, to hear DUers here, they are "creepy" and therefore

aliens.

What the hell has happened to the soul of this party???

:cry:

[JuniperLea]

10. I agree... that tact is so Hitler-esque, if you ask me

Those people are still US citizens and have civil rights. They just don't have all the rights they think they have... like having sex with and impregnating young girls.

Who would we pick next, indeed!

[G_j]

14. Using Food as a Weapon?

that is a crime in itself!
It's simple, If laws are being broken, enforce them.

let's get a grip here!

[caseycoon]

19. Exactly G_j

These men have broken any number of laws. Let them be prosecuted. But help the helpless ones, the women & children.

[bobbolink]

20. Bless you! You always know how to cut to the heart of the matter!

You da best!

:hug:

[G_j]

22. I delved a little further

here:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=3170278&mesg_id=3171849

thanks, :loveya: :hi:

[BeFree]

25. Innocent kids

These are innocent children and if someone can't do everything possible to protect them once born, then we are a failure as a civilization.

I agree, feed and shelter the little bastards. It is the least we can do.

[bobbolink]

28. "I agree, feed and shelter the little bastards." How...very..... enlightened.

:wtf:

[BeFree]

31. Well

We do what we can do, and if the poly's don't leagally re-produce I think the proper term is bastards, legally speaking.

And frankly your self-righteous tone with me and my little joke is quite disturbing. Enlighten thyself, would be my advice.

[Psst_Im_Not_Here]

26. Listening to the woman on CNN this morning,

the first thing that came to mind was Helter Skelter. They have the same types of voices as the women in the Manson Family. That same "non-voice", airy and haunting. Truly bizarre and eery in tone. They are completely controlled.

[Greyhound]

32. The inevitable result of our predisposition to legislate and regulate based on the most extreme,

and rare, of circumstances.

Three madmen hold up a bank in NoHo with automatic weapons, the first such incident since the 1930s, and LA spends 10s of millions of dollars putting military assault weapons in every squad car, and complete the transition of a civil police force into a domestic military force. Another madman kidnaps a child from her bedroom and kills her, a horrible tragedy to be sure, but also thankfully rare, we get Megan's Law, a travesty of justice and a major curtailing of the constitutional rights we all claim to hold dear. A small group of maniacs hijack 5 planes and use them as missiles to attack US capitalism and we happily surrender the last vestiges of our civil liberty out of irrational fear.

Just like prohibition, this will never work and the price we will pay is beyond comprehension, and all because we simply react like dumb prey animals instead of the thinking people we like to think we are.

(Links are in the original reply http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=3170278&mesg_id=3173377">here)

[varelse]

34. I'm sorry that I'm too late to recommend this thread

but I wholeheartedly agree with you.