Here we go again, Christians BEWARE

In a move that should frighten every "Fundamentalist" Christian in the country, Texas wants to take the Yearning for Zion ranch away from the FLDS and it's resident members:

The San Angelo Standard Times - "The Texas Attorney General's Office on Wednesday filed search and seizure paperwork in 51st District Court in Schleicher County, seeking to take over the 1,600-acre YFZ Ranch owned by the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints."

Of course, Texas isn't trying to render FLDS members homeless, no.....

"The Office of the Texas Attorney General doesn't know how many people still reside at the ranch, Strickland said. Nevertheless, the seizure 'is not an eviction notice,' he said. He said he didn't want to speculate on what might happen to the ranch if the state succeeds in seizing it."

It does look like the residents knew something was afoot earlier this year:

"It's uncertain how many people still live at the ranch. In 2008, more than 400 children were taken from the ranch before appellate courts ordered them returned to their families. Over the past year, massive building projects began to crop up around the ranch.

Then earlier this year, a huge tower that resembled an airport control tower was toppled shortly after it was finished, and work has halted on an amphitheater-like building larger than the temple on the property."

Supposedly, the way the money was brought in to finance the acquisition of the "Yearning for Zion" Ranch was illegal. Are you really sure than you're exempt? Just parceling the money out in a way that the government doesn't like, is illegal it would seem:

Fox News - "In the affidavit, prosecutors allege that sect members illegally structured financial transactions and that Jeffs personally toured the ranch before the land was purchased."

But no one has been charged with a crime, yet, just like before:

"To support prosecutors' claims that FLDS leaders financed the property through money laundering, one section in the affidavit lists 175 deposits, almost all of which are just less than $10,000, made at San Angelo banks over the course of two years and staggered by only a few days each. The total is about $1.5 million.

Prosecutors say the series of four-figure deposits -- which financial investigators call 'structuring' -- are typically done to evade federal reporting requirements.

However, the Texas attorney general's office, however, has not formally charged any FLDS members with any financial crimes."

Yup, a bunch of child molesters, who cares? Right? Except if you haven't read this blog, or others like it over the last four years, you probably think you know things about the YFZ affair that never happened, such as there being a bunch of pregnant teenage girls wandering around YFZ during the raid in 2008. To this date Texas has never said WHO they saw that was pregnant and "underage" when they raided YFZ, and only one girl out of all the underage girls on the ranch might have been visibly pregnant. That's wholly unremarkable in today's America.

This tactic can be used against YOUR church. The YFZ ranch is a FLDS church trust holding, and the church is being treated like a sort of organized crime syndicate. With as many laws as this country has, all they need to do is pick one your church members seem to violate, and start combing through your church's finances, and declare that you did something illegal to buy your land, and on it, you engaged in "crimes."

The smaller you are, the more conservative your beliefs, the greater the danger.

Just remember how they got the documents that they are using to seize the property:

The San Angelo Standard Times - "The ranch had been created with the intent of illegal activity, the affidavit alleges. The civil document liberally quotes Jeffs from his sacred documents, recovered from the ranch in the 2008 raid."

But the basis for the raid was a hoax call:

Fox News - "Texas Rangers raided the ranch following a call to a domestic abuse hotline that turned out to be false, and took 439 children into state custody."

The hoaxer now is completely forgotten in the narrative, as she was so obviously NOT genuine. Fox even forgets to mention that none of the kids were kept by Texas, but at least San Angelo's paper did remember:

"In 2008, more than 400 children were taken from the ranch before appellate courts ordered them returned to their families."

Go back to sleep now.

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Tulsa Time

Appologies to Danny Flowers.

Danny wrote Tulsa Time, which is most popular in our memories as a song either by Don Williams or Eric Clapton. Danny was born in Henderson North Carolina. I was born in North Carolina. I was just in Henderson a few weeks ago. But I digress. I intend to digress more than one time in this post.

This is going to be one of those catch-all/catch-up messages, intended to let you know what's going on in life with me, and more or less why I haven't been blogging. Trucking, (I am now a Over the Road trucker) has not lived up to it's promise as far as free time to write and blog goes. Probably an experienced trucker would have told me this had I asked. I asked (it appears), the wrong experienced trucker.

First of all, on my absence of comment on the FLDS and Warren. Warren signed the 120. I thought he was winning. Maybe all Warren is trying to do is stay out of the General Population in a Texas Prison as long as he can. Warren Jeffs has been made into the moral equivalent of a Jeffrey Dahmer. Warren, the media narrative goes, consumes the virgin flesh of young girls to satisfy his sick sexual appetites. Jeffrey ate people.

Jeffrey Dahmer was a trophy kill in prison. I sadly think Warren may be lined up for the same fate. I think Texas knows this. Given that Warren may not survive in prison, it may not matter how long he spends there. He won't be freed on appeal and the railroad style trial that Judge Walther would give him puts him in the crosshairs long enough to die. Perhaps this is Warren's thinking. Maybe his defense team knows something we don't that is a game changer. I don't think so.

The FLDS no longer talk to me and what is in the media is all I know. I've peaked behind the curtain on two ends. Rozita Swinton and "TxBluesMan." It doesn't seem to interest them. I'd be vitally interested in the FBI communications network that seemed to exist before Rozita was "discovered." So far the FLDS have only paid lip service to interest in that topic.

TxBluesMan had extraordinary access, sometimes posting court documents before the Judge seemed to see them or approve them. I seem to know who TxBluesMan is. That's interesting. The FLDS again give lip service to being interested in the topic. That's all though. Proving any conspiracy leading up to the invasion of YFZ may well let all the FLDS men go overnight. They don't seem to care. I don't know why. Maybe they have looked. Maybe I had good couple of leads that didn't pan out. I don't know.

On to what's happening with me.

I continue to pursue several paths that seem at least theoretically open to me.

In short, I propose a business/religion empire based on family and a spine of trucking.

How romantic.

I've "proposed" that anyone interested could contact me and the starting position of the business would be staffing one truck with two wives/drivers and me. That would mean you would get ten days off in a row, away from the cranky old Pharisee, and ten days with him. If I'm too much to take, maybe I wouldn't be in tiny doses.

Those of you who think the current Mrs. Pharisee doesn't know of this proposal are wrong.

A number of things would have to work out for the above to be the path.

The end result would be part ownership in a diversified business that had trucking as part of the enterprise. Driving the rest of your life is not part of the idea. Driving part of your life away, would be.

Follow the above link for more details.

Another path is the formation of a denomination, which continues to be my interest. This continues to progress. It is agonizingly slow. People are in addition, just too stubborn to admit that the best way to do things is simply to agree with me.

Odd, isn't it?

Then there is the sort of Methodist/Presbyterian circuit riding polygynist preacher. I need people to pony up for that one. It's quite simple. Support the effort monetarily and I will use my far ranging truck driving profession to show up on occasion, preach, take your money and deliver the sacraments, which for a reformed venue is pretty much baptism and communion.

The last is the least complex. I can make free time as a solo trucker. I do range about the country from one end to another. If I derived an income as a preacher the truck is just my wandering taxicab. It also would serve the denominational goal but from a slightly different angle.

I haven't mentioned the other path.

That's giving up, closing up shop, declaring bankruptcy, and shouting "Bah, Humbug" into some anonymous box canyon and retiring from public view. That would be after beating my head against the wall now for more than 20 years and coming to the conclusion, as I rapidly am beginning to seriously entertain, that no one at all, cares.

So what about Tulsa Time?

It appears that Tulsa does have it's own time standards. It is laid back. No one works in this industrial park on weekends, well one merchant does. Several of the commercial buildings are empty. They remind me mysteriously of the abandoned ABM site east of Conrad Montana. Melting snow drips. It's accumulated in places you would expect people to clear out. The ABM site was like that.

I hoofed it for about a mile round about my delivery site which won't take my cargo until tomorrow morning. There were no laundromats. There were no bars. There were no churches. There was a church TV station. There was a 24 hour a day pawn shop that redeemed gold and silver. It was busy.

Eventually I went back to the "receiver" of my freight and looked again for an outlet to plug into for my laptop. There were none. I continued to be nervous about the fact that there was what appeared to be an abandoned "tractor" (the term for the "truck" portion of an eighteen wheeler, it had expired plates and hadn't moved for a while and was backed up to the "dock"). The whole dock area showed only marginal signs of use. The snow was cleared away from the dock which was comforting, but I saw no signs of life at all. No security (it is Tulsa though) and no noises. Finally I did get an angle on the roof cooling unit and could hear it running. I felt better.

I have been sent to wrong locations before. It now appears this was not one of them. It's just sleepy. Tulsa time you know.

So I'm sitting on a loading dock of an adjoining business that does have plugs, and lighting, and listening to the snow melt dripping. It was 70 when I got here, it's in the 50's now. The snow is melting quickly but there was a lot of it to melt in Tulsa. It's still melting. Water is running everywhere.

This brings me to the digression (in part) of another reason I haven't been blogging.

There is the issue of no one giving a rat's hiney. It's hard to keep banging on the door when no one is home. It bruises your hands.

There is the issue of depression.

This is a depressing job when you're not moving or sleeping. I don't like hanging out in a truck. It is turning out to be very hard for me to compose a thought, and then follow through with putting it into print when the overwhelming thought is "oh, never mind," because when the truck stops moving, and you're not making the dough, and you're not sleeping, it's really really REALLY depressing.

I got into this business to be with a friend and to set about the activity of forming a new denomination.

I am now alone.

I never go home.

I miss my wife.

I'm not making enough money to justify doing this as a solo driver. I keep putting the pencil to it and can't make it work.

I do have one or two ways to make "soloing" work better that I've been trying. We'll see.

I try to be honest about who I am and what my faults are. I try to set things in front of you all so that you know me as well as you can know anyone you haven't met, or may have only met briefly.

There are drawbacks. It's the issue of "Pearls before Swine."

"Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn again and rend you."

They do rend.

Most of what I encounter to my posts on both of my blogs now, is that rending.

Alone, I must tell you, it is extremely painful.

There are those that trample. They lie. They rend. They twist everything you say and yes, it hurts a great deal.

I don't mind saying so as I continue to try to be honest about who I am and what I am. Just saying the above will let me in for another round of jeering and ridicule. The only vague interest I have in that trampling and rending is what bizarre twist will my words be subjected to when I hear them read back to me, modified.

So I'm here in Tulsa. I may be here until Tuesday. Clock-wise, as a trucker, I have about four hours left to spend before Tuesday. I cannot go too many places in four hours. I certainly can't go on from that place to another. I may visit the local service center for my "tractor" and see if they can diagnose some odd things that are occurring with old blue. We'll see.

I think if I want to write, and to blog, I need to get out of the truck. It helps a lot.

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You doubted me? Just read the latest.

Oh, you doubted me did you? You thought I was spinning a wild yarn of male bovine manure reading too much into the details of yesterdays arraignment of Warren Jeffs? Just read how the local rag immediately characterized Warren's arrival in Texas. I mean, they LEAD with the verbal version of the negative photo op, as if it means anything:

The San Angelo Standard-Times - "Warren Jeffs, the leader of the polygamy sanctioning Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, walked into the Tom Green County courthouse for an arraignment with a gray sweater tucked into the chains that surrounded his waist, covering the top of the bright orange jumpsuit."

If you're BLIND you're going to get the message. If photos don't make that big an impression on you, you're going to get the message. If you read a text version or a print only version or some reprinted version of the story emailed to you without a picture.

You're going to get the message.

Warren was in a gray sweater (sweatshirt) and a BRIGHT ORANGE jumpsuit. About the only thing left to the imagination is WHO wears BRIGHT ORANGE?

Most of us reading the article know it's a PRISON INMATE.

You're supposed to look at Warren and think of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.

Not like Khalid wants you to see him, but as a criminal. And we all know that criminals are unshaven, disheveled and have just been rousted out of bed.

Granted, Khalid is guilty, he confessed. In addition Khalid does not have the rights of a US Citizen, because he's not one (Warren is). If you want to know the remaining stereotype that no racial group or gender will ever give up it's "good looking" vs "bad looking." We want to believe that the disheveled and slovenly in appearance look that way because it's a reflection of their true moral character. When we go out in public, we put on our best for the most part. If he ever goes to trial, Khalid will try to appear as he wants to be seen, so will Warren but neither man is how they appear at their best or worst. They are what they are.

An American, like Warren, is entitled to be pure as the driven snow in front of the law, until it is proven otherwise. We need to remember that, and not what the Government/Media complex wants us to believe.

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Cost is NOT a factor, including your freedoms....

The Three Piggies and Warren

Does Government not care what rights or treasure of yours it takes to expand it's power? Does a former drill instructor make a really bad therapist?

The money, while it is probably a prodigous amount, is not important to the State of Texas.  Texas thinks it's probably some amount YOU would think is inappropriate, considering the lack of prosecutorial success (vs Warren) elsewhere.

How do we know it's too much?

They'd tell you if it was cheap.  (Either that, or they don't know, which ought to bother you as well.  Strickland says he doesn't know.)

It doesn't matter to Texas, they got their desired photo op. Not Warren as depicted in the last post, but Warren in prison sweats and prison orange with what looks like a bit of a 50+ five o'clock shadow, in irons, flanked by fat pigs dressed in their best.

Oh.

You think I meant something pejorative?

Those guys aren't a bit porky looking to you?

Considering Mr. Jeffs is more or less a cardiologists ideal by comparison, Texas did need to "weight" (sorry, no, not really) the photo op in their favor.  I've been driving through Texas a lot recently and they are the most cliché bound bureaucracy I know of. "Don't Mess with Texas" one Government billboard preaches, and yet another declares; "the Eyes of Texas are upon You."

So when it comes to whether or not Texas will spend infinite amounts of Tax Payer $$$ to get a picture of Warren looking his worst with a three overweight cowboy wannabes flanking him like he was going to shoot his way out of the "joint," or be rescued by "King Willie, the Thug," gangster style, they spare no expense.

The San Angelo Standard-Times - "Jerry Strickland, spokesman for the Attorney General’s Office, said they flew Jeffs into San Angelo from Utah at 9 p.m. Tuesday night and then drove him to Big Lake.

'Attorney General Abbott and his office his prosecutors have been handling the prosecution of cases related to the YFZ ranch,' Strickland said, as he walked into the courtroom Wednesday morning. '... Today 7 of 12 men have been convicted of sexually assaulting children. This case stems from that action.'

When asked about costs related to trying Jeffs in Texas, Strickland said he doesn’t have specific numbers, but that cost is not a factor.

'What I do know is, Attorney General Abbott is committed to protecting children in this state,' Strickland said. 'You cant’ put a price tag on protecting children and because of that, this case will be handled with prosecutors (from) the AG’s (attorney general’s) office.' "

The great difficulty is that they are not just spending your tax dollars (and with the "co-mingling" of Federal and State money that is Revenue Sharing, yes, it's yours too), they're spending your freedom as well.

Texas wanted to make this "statement" as you see above, and Texas wanted their picture. Now they've got it. In the process they ran roughshod over Warren's right to a "speedy trial" (it doesn't matter if he didn't want it before, he wants it now) and they got to treat him like a fugitive. No one in Texas wanted a Dapper Warren Jeffs showing up in wing tips and business suit, with stylish coiffure, fatherly appearance, etc, walking through the front door and surrendering to authorities, they wanted to fly him out and drag him around much like Achilles is supposed to have done with Hector after defeating him in battle.

Well, there you go Texas. And America? There went your money, though granted, it was mostly Texas dollars (except they won't account for it), and there went your freedom, with Warren. You have to decide: Does the prosecution of a man for crimes Texas probably can't prove warrant the setting aside of the rights your founding fathers insisted on having for each citizen PRIOR to signing our Constitution in favor of the rights of the State to extradite?

I think you know my answer. What's yours?

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Jury Selection in the Trial of Raymond Jessop (UPDATED AGAIN)

Brooke Adams (with whom I have a massive approach/avoidance issue) is someone I continue to regard as a great writer/reporter and also someone who conceals a severe bias, but she does make the great critical observation from time to time, and here is one.

The Plural Life - "There are about 2,100 residents of the county who are 18 or older."

This is the basic jury pool from which persons begin to be disqualified right away.

"The big question, of course, is whether there are 14 people — 12 jurors and 2 alternates — in Schleicher County that do not already have an opinion about the FLDS."

And this is what makes me wonder. The O.J. Simpson trial for his supposed murder of his wife and another was held close to home in what had to be a massively tainted jury pool. O.J. was IMHO opinion, guilty. There were some disturbing questions that schooled around the O.J. trial, some of which place me on the side of his conviction (which did not occur) and some of which did not. I tend to think it is an excellent example of a foundational right in this country, of "jury nullification." One that is so seldom discussed that we are about to lose it altogether, as a right.

I confess to finding O.J. acquittal supporters infuriatingly political, there was one interview of onlookers at the time, black onlookers in the Los Angeles area, where it was asked "Do you think he will/should be acquitted?" and the answer was an emphatic YES, and then an astoundingly insightful follow up question by the reporter who then asked the same person if they though O.J. was guilty. The answer was an equally quick and sincere YES. Essentially the onlooker (and I think ultimately the jury) said "I don't care if he's guilty, I'm not going to convict him."

My interpretation of that, and it was the view of many at the time, is black Americans saw themselves as a separate group within the country, and a severely oppressed one. It was a chance to strike back and declare they as a group felt railroaded all too many times and the Simpson trial was a way to say that.

Consider yourselves heard.

On balance, what further threat did O.J. represent to society? He was successfully sued in a second trial to recover the proceeds of his book speculating on "What if" he did do it. While adamant that he should have been convicted, I was equally adamant that if he was pronounced "Not Guilty" then no one should be able to use the assumption of his guilt to recover money from him. I was disappointed with O.J. now on two fronts, but he did not recover any money from the whole business it would seem, he did not kill again, and eventually he did a massively stupid thing in Nevada and will probably die in jail for it.

This illustrates the threat to society of a lone criminal, or even a group of criminals. What threat are they on balance to me? None. If I have met a Mafioso I haven't known it. The closest I came to meeting one was Jimmy Hoffa's book keeper who is probably now passed away. It led to my personal but largely unsubstantiated (but plausible) theory of what happened to Mr. Hoffa. If true, he will never be found. I digress. The point? I have not been visibly harmed to a great degree by the presence of organized crime (I certainly disapprove) and I was not shot by O.J. The fact that criminals do go free and do what they do again, or that organized crime kills and steals and harms us all is not lost on me. The question is of comparative threat.

Back to Raymond and his various compatriots on trial in Schleicher County. Is it a right of Government to have an assurance, constitutionally, of having a fair shot and convicting any particular defendant. I have to say no. The presumption of innocence and the right to a fair trial (by a jury of your peers) are those of the defendant(s), not of the prosecution. It has been suggested that the trial may be moved because a jury cannot be seated in Schleicher County. If the trial is massively unfair in favor of the defendant, what precisely is the harm? I submit, as framed by our founders, none.

This "right" though, to "get 'em if they are guilty," now seems embedded in the public consciousness and it would seem that a change of venue might be asked for by the prosecution. I don't even know if that's possible, but I suspect it may be so. It shouldn't be. If Raymond Jessop wants to be tried in Eldorado, he should be tried in Eldorado. If they can only find 14 jurors (2 alternates and 12 regulars) then that's all they can find, and the trial should proceed. If the defense deems those jurors too tainted to try their client, it is Raymond's right to change venue, or it should be. Again, IMHO.

"The names of some residents who’ve been called as potential jurors are trickling out. Michelle Roberts of The Associated Press quoted Success editor Randy Mankin as saying he, his mother and his son (a photographer for the newspaper) are in the pool. Mike Kelly over at the San Angelo Standard-Times reports a court clerk got a summons."

Those folks? Probably going home. Who else?

The San Angelo Standard-Times - "The trial will be a strain for Williams’ office: It will be closed Monday because she and her deputy will be in court, and her only remaining deputy was summonsed for jury selection."

Back to Brooke's blog:

"Here are the seven sure-fire, automatic ways to get out of serving on this jury:

1. Over the age of 70. (According to Williams, this is the No. 1 reason for dismissals so far.)

2. Legal custody of a child or children under 15 and services would leave them without adequate supervision.

3. You are a student at a public or private high school.

4. You are enrolled and in actual attendance at an institution of higher education.

5. You are an officer or employee of the Texas Senate, House of Representatives, or any department, commission, board or office or other agency in the legislative branch of state government.

6. You are a primary caretaker of a person who is an invalid, unable to care for her or himself (does not apply to health care workers).

7. You are a member of the U.S. military forces serving on active duty and are deployed to a location away from your home station and out of your county of residence."

There are 12 men to try, and here is the initial call:

"Court Clerk Peggy Williams told (Brooke) a couple weeks ago that of the 300 people sent jury summons, about half are likely to show up. The no-shows either have moved out of the county or qualify for an automatic jury exemption."

After challenges, which Judge Walther must be sure are fair (I'm not sure she can manage that, it's not her nature) there may have to be a second call. In all Schleicher will plow through 1/7th of their available jurors in this first trial, and there are 11 trials to go. That 1/7th number may go substantially higher. It's conceivable that a full third of the jury pool may be spent on this first trial.

So what if they cannot find 12 men (or women) good and true to seat as a jury that is not perhaps, biased in favor of acquittal? Is this not their own fault, the prosecution? Should the presumed innocent be forced to pay for the peeing in the jury pool that Texas has already done? Shouldn't it be that if you can only find persons prejudiced for acquittal, that they should be seated and the trials go on?

If you don't want to try the trial before the trial, don't. If you do and it forces you to select jurors predisposed to acquit, then it's O.J. all over again, and I think I'm alright with that.

The comparative threat by a lawless government, is much greater.

UPDATE! - Brooke is "Twittering" that there are 12 FLDS members, that she has been able to count, so far, in the jury pool. That's close to 10% of the available jurors.

UPDATE 2 - Brooke twitters again: 153 prospective jurors showed up. So far 19 have been released after privately pleading case at bench with judge and attorneys. I wish she would tell us if any of that first flight out included FLDS members. It does sound like the first 19 were making their excuses though.

UPDATE 3, again referring to Brooke. the 19 included the obvious like Randy Mankin of the Eldorado Success. 153 jurors, 19 excused, maybe more later. That's now 134 jurors out of which 10% can be figured to be FLDS since Brooke was able to "eyeball" identify at least 12 she knew, all of whom appear eager to do jury duty.

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Yes, what happened to the FLDS could happen to you Mr and Mrs Christian Conservative. Vote AGAINST Rick Perry.

Over at the "Ellis County Observer" a letter from "GOP Activist" Robert Morrow is posted. An excerpt.

"Imagine a fascist, totalitarian government coming into your household and ripping away YOUR kids based on a crank phone call. That is exactly what happened to those FLDS families in 2008 and Religious Oppressor Rick Perry supported that move LONG AFTER it was revealed that a crank phone call complaint was the basis for the move. And even if the ONE complaint had been legitimate, what kind of a fascist, totalitarian government would come in there and remove FOUR HUNDRED AND THIRTY EIGHT children from hundreds of families?

As of now, 438 of the 439 children who were taken are back with their parents, which just shows how weak the CPS case was and proves that the real motive for this raid was governmental religious oppression. The FLDS had been watched and targeted by the government who was just looking for an excuse to move in and destroy their lives.

If you are a home schooler or a conservative Christian or you just believe in freedom and 'live and let live' you should be extremely concerned at the state sponsored gross miscarriage of justice that happened to these FLDS families. Perhaps you live in a Christian household where the man is the spiritual 'head of the family' or you teach that homosexuality is wrong. Thanks to Rick Perry, maybe one day the Left Wing and Child Protective Services will be TARGETING YOU and your family and they might not even need a crank phone call to religiously oppress you."

Which is why FLDS victory, is your victory. You may loathe polygamy. You may think it is inextricably connected to systemic child abuse. You may think that it is oppression of women in and of itself. You might even HATE the FLDS.

If they go down for this though, you do too. And soon.

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Texas is the Nascent Dictatorship, learning to walk.

Grits for Breakfast has an excellent post. We are on the verge of utter chattel slavery that I don't think even Scott sees. The solution to the abuses of CPS, as proposed by Harvey Hildebran, is simply to make the abuses of CPS, not abuses. I told you, you must be a friend of the FLDS in this matter, because to oppose them establishes a precedent that you cannot live with as parents.

"The bill also eliminates a requirement that CPS - when seizing children without a court order - make 'reasonable efforts ... with respect to preventing or eliminating the need to remove a child from the child's home or to make it possible to return a child to the child's home.' Under Hildebran's proposed language, 'the court may find that based on the circumstances no reasonable efforts would prevent or eliminate the need to remove a child and that the department satisfied the requirements ... even though the department made no efforts to prevent or eliminate the need to remove a child.' That essentially guts the requirement that CPS make a good faith effort to keep families together."

This is a stunning display of legislative arrogance and budding totalitarianism. If they can take your child, and keep your child on a rumor, they own you. Outright. You are no more than slaves.

It's not right for me to analyze the entire article. I will stop at this quote and the above observation. Go read the rest.

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Ringing in the Era of State Sponsored Religion, in North America.

A premise for you to consider, if you think yourself capable of detached rational thought. Suppose, just for a moment, that God has created Men, directly in his image, and women, as a derivative of men, taken out of men, still reflecting God's image, but for man.

Namely, women would not exist if they were not for men. To read and accept as truth the creation story of Genesis you would have to come to this conclusion, or at least you'd be likely to. Now read Mindelle Jacobs article;

The Winnipeg Sun - "If we didn't like it, we wouldn't be here," a 28-year-old Bountiful mother of five who shares her husband with another woman told Sun Media last week. "It's as normal as a family can be."

This should be accepted at face value. If we do not accept this at face value, then we have to appoint religion and thought police to regulate what is acceptable to believe, and what religions are permitted. Mindelle believes she is qualified.

"(the above) comments reflect the devastating damage that the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (FLDS) and its polygamous lifestyle is having on Bountiful girls.

Females raised to believe that sharing their partners with multiple sister-wives is normal have been psychologically stunted by a sex-driven patriarchy. They just don't know it."

And of course, Mindelle is here to set things right. To accomplish this though, the religion of the Latter Day Saints must be completely eradicated. All their books burned, sought out, destroyed and its adherents marched off to concentration camps and systematically exterminated. This is not hyperbolic, it is a fact. Religions survive on fundamentalism. If it's just a cool story reflective of something in our collective psyche that deserves to be examined, reexamined and reinterpreted in the context of changing conditions and our ongoing evolution as a society, once that is known, the religion dies.

People by and large come to religion to get answers. They may be deluded and in fact we would have to say if we believe in objective truth in religion and the physical world, all religions save one, are delusions. If we deal with a God who delights in cruelty, or no God at all, then they're all delusions.

Elitists come to religion because of the crowd it gathers, because they have their own ego-centric agenda, they see a crowd, and they want access to that crowd so as to manipulate them, for their own purposes. Such persons are theological liberals, talking in God Words and Phrases that sound as if they agree with the fundamental tenets of a faith, but in fact, do not. What Mindelle proposes, and just doesn't know it, is that she believes society is the ultimate authority, and certifies all religion. Society is expressed through Government. Government is God. Government is content to allow religion to exist, as long as Government can tell religion what to believe.

Mindelle, religions die if the great unwashed out here (us) cease to believe that their God has sway over all worldly things. They abandon their religion. They may seek another. They do not stay in a "faith" that is shown to be simply a form of self expression or worse, government manipulation. Religions that hold to a basic set of beliefs without changing, grow or persist. Religions that change with the times shrink and are eventually abandoned.

I believe the LDS/Mormon/FLDS faith to be wrong. I would have to. I'm Orthodox Presbyterian. It is not however my place to tell them what to believe, for if it became my place to do so, by agency of the Government, then I too would submit to Government telling me what to believe. That's not going to happen.

She then descends to hysteria and falsehoods.

"Canada does not permit female genital mutilation -- a barbaric cultural/quasi-religious practice."

Female genital mutilation is a "quasi-religious practice" at best. It is irreversible. Government has no problem with divorce, so let these women do as they see best, regardless of who programmed them. If they're outwardly happy in their programming. There's nothing you can do, and more importantly, nothing you should do, other than talk to them if they are willing.

"Nor do we condone so-called honour killings of women deemed to have breached the norms of sexual behaviour. Such killings, tragically, are slowly creeping into western societies."

"Honour Killings" again are irreversible. At least in the Christian faith and its offshoots and new religions that have their roots in Christianity, civil punishment is not the province of the church. The only tool open to them is excommunication. Winston Blackmore is in Canada for precisely that reason.

Judaism can only practice its "intolerance" within the borders of its nation and to its fullest extent among its adherents while in that nation. Don't come to me and tell me it proposes stoning children in this country for disobedience. I have not seen any stories that suggest otherwise.

Christians and Jews in the United States and Canada need to wake up and stand with the FLDS, with Warren Jeffs, with Winston Blackmore and Jim Oler. If we do not, we're next. I have only to change a few words in the above quotes of Ms. Jacobs article. What if her article said this?

"her comment reflects the devastating damage that the Orthodox Presbyterian Church and its chauvinistic heterosexual lifestyle is having on young homosexuals who are programmed to live as heterosexuals.

Lesbians raised to believe that traditional marriage roles are normal have been psychologically stunted by a sex-driven patriarchy. They just don't know it."

Of course, then those victims would need her protection too. I'm warning all religious people, if a line is not drawn in the sand here, with the FLDS, defending their beliefs, we'll be next. Physical damage can be said to be the province of government. Once they become thought police, legislating what we can believe as damaging to us or not damaging to us, we are in the worst sort of trouble.

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