Polygamists get their prey back...

Actually, CPS can indeed do that. But they will, at some point, have to adequately justify their decision in order to KEEP the children away.

 

You're right. Your point is what I was getting at. They couldn't justify it so the kids had to go back.

 

I know a little too much about CPS in Texas. And let's just say this doesn't shock me in the least.
CPS is nothing but incompetent morons who seem to drop the ball at least once a week. Of the ones I know of, I wouldn't trust them as fry cooks at McDonald's, let alone with the wellfare of children. For some reason, though, they still have jobs.

 

It's sort of frightening how blithely most people accepted that the state could swoop in and take away 400 children on the basis of one anonymous phone call that now almost certainly appears to have been a hoax.

Yes, these people and their beliefs are weird, but if we took children away from everyone with weird religious beliefs, the foster system would be overwhelmed.

There is a process that CPS can go through to remove children from abusive homes. The state violated its own rules and is finally being held accountable for it.

 

If a parent is OK with his or her underage daughter having sex with somebody who is older than the parent, that person is not fit to be a parent.
Why is that so hard to understand?

 

A lot of people also blame Texas CPS for ram-rodding the Branch Davidian debacle. "THINK OF THE CHILDREN!"

I stated early on this whole thing has a hinky feeling to it, and I'm being (sadly) proven right. The real pervs may walk because of the ham-handed way this thing's been prosecuted.

 

The whole thing is incredibly sad and strange, and I'm not sure the state of Texas entirely thought through what it was getting into.

Anyone who has covered the FLDS knows it's a sick, abusive, backwards bunch led by a nutcase. It's also the only way of life the majority of these people have ever known, and they're extremely hostile and mistrusting of outsiders. That guarantees you will never get a straight story out of any of them, and finding the evidence to prove rape and abuse is virtually impossible short of a girl choosing to leave and testify. (They're so secretive it took weeks to determine that one of the "girls" in foster care is actually 27 years old.)

They've been raided before - 50 years ago. The children were taken away. That was eventually viewed -- apparently by everyone involved -- as a complete disaster. It doesn't look like the Texas authorities took that into account.

I have no doubt than many of the horror stories we have heard are true. Many of them are false. We'll never know which are which. That puts the authorities in an impossible position. You can't ignore it... but realistically, it's extraordinarily hard to do anything about it.

There are signs that the sect may be changing now that Jeffs is behind bars. If the abusive practices are going to stop it's likely going to be gradual because of that leadership vacuum, not because of any action by the state.