Brainwashed!

A few days ago the Salt Lake Tribune published a comment by Rebecca Walsh that pointed out that the ACLU hasn't been particularly valiant in defense of the women's issues that have clearly come to the forefront of the Texas/FLDS child custody case in recent weeks. If I remember correctly, she characterized the ACLU response as "waffling".

Ms. Antoinnette Billings of Cottonwood Heights has taken umbrage, and responded with a Public Forum Letter, which I have linked and quoted in its entirety, along with my own comments.
http://www.sltrib.com/opinion/ci_9431788

FLDS women brainwashed
Public Forum Letter
Salt Lake Tribune
5/30/2008

Rebecca Walsh confuses feminists with the American Civil Liberties Union in "Feminists waffle in FLDS case" (Tribune, May 25). Polygamy is inherently sexist. It fosters the control of women. Feminists have no role in the defense of women in the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Feminism rightfully selects issues that address a woman's right against subordination. It would be appropriate to assist the FLDS women in a variety of ways, but not in their "choice" to allow abuse to perpetually rain upon their children. There is no "choice" to defend when brainwashing begins at birth.

The notion that a woman gains power in polygamy is an acquiescent lie. It is something she achieves through the manipulation of her husband in the performing of her childbearing and household duties. Manipulating one's spouse instead of communicating as adults has no place in any equal partnership. Manipulation belongs in the repertoire of wily, whining children. In the adult, it is found in the dishonest and immature.

An issue of "waffling" or "conflict" does not exist.

Antoinette Billings
Cottonwood Heights

There were many comments, and I added my own.

This charge of being brainwashed is a clever but vacuous argument, designed to discredit anyone who chooses to oppose a particular point of view, in this case, a feminist one. It's manipulative, dishonest, and deceitful. It's a clever way of saying "the choice you've made is stupid, so you must be stupid."

Today's feminists are a generation who have grown up having been thoroughly indoctinated in the feminist dogma. In other words, they've been brainwashed, too.

The problem with this kind of argument is that it dehumanizes the people who are being targeted. If you've been brainwashed, the argument would logically flow, then you shouldn't be allowed to make choices, you shouldn't be allowed to vote, you shouldn't be allowed to make personal decisions, such as who to marry, or when, and you shouldn't be allowed to have children. If you've been brainwashed, then it's alright for the state to take away your children and put them up for adoption, hopefully by people who've been indoctinated in a more acceptable dogma.

If you're interested, you can go to the link and read all the comments. Be warned, some of them are pretty tedious.
http://www.sltrib.com/opinion/ci_9431788

Incidentally, here are some dictionary definitions of brainwashing and propaganda:

brainwashing
1 : a forcible indoctrination to induce someone to give up basic political, social, or religious beliefs and attitudes and to accept contrasting regimented ideas
2 : persuasion by propaganda or salesmanship

propaganda
: the spreading of ideas or information to further or damage a cause; also
: ideas or allegations spread for such a purpose

To be honest, I believe there's been an inordinate amount of brainwashing and propaganda going on for several decades, in the news media, in public schools and on college campuses, and it's a liberal, leftist, socialist idealogy that has been promoted. The purpose, I suppose, is to establish this idealogy as the approved, acceptable social dogma, to which all civil society must ascribe.

To counter this trend, many conservative parents have started sending their children to private schools, or began homeschooling. And to counter that trend, there's a movement afoot to make homeschooling in California illegal. If Illiberal liberals don't like something that's going on, they just criminalize it.

Unshackle FLDS Girls

FLDS moms and kids prepare to board buses at the YFZ ranch in Texas on 5 April 2008.

Photo from Captive FLDS Children website.

http://www.captivefldschildren.org/

Here is a Public Forum letter that appeared in the Salt Lake Tribune entitled "Unshackle FLDS Girls."

I am a 15-year-old girl with a cell phone and iPod. Call me spoiled. I like sports, boys and dancing. I still play with my dog. It wasn't that long ago that I believed in Santa Claus and gave my mom painted rocks for Mother's Day.

I can't imagine being married at this age, let alone having a baby. I'm pretty sure those FLDS girls are just like me in most ways. They want to enjoy their youth, friendships and all that modern life has to offer, and not be handed over to some gross old guy and forced to sleep with him. Helloooo?

Hooray for the Texas authorities who raided the Yearning for Zion ranch of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Maybe they can take the girls to Great Clips hair salon and then to the mall for a new pair of shorts. It's about time someone stepped in to stop this robbery of precious childhood.

Ellen Sliwinski
Salt Lake City

As you can imagine, there were many colorful responses, some applauding this young lady, others mocking her. You can go to the link and read the comments if you like.
http://www.sltrib.com/Opinion/ci_9370217

I commented also. Here's my response:

"Do you know that when they were first taken to the shelter, those FLDS girls were not allowed to pray if they wanted to? Nor were they allowed to close the door when they went to the bathroom.

A teen age boy got up to give a talk, and officers took him away and locked him in a utility closet. They left him there overnight, then took him away in the morning.

I suspect if they took these girls to the mall, they might have to shackle them together to keep them from running away. I suspect they would have to be forced to get haircuts, and they'd have to hold them down to strip those prairie dresses off and put those new shorts on.

Yes, it's a shame someone didn't step in sooner and free these girls from their oppressors."

My YFZ Photo Gallery

Here's an interesting photograph I borrowed from the Grits for Breakfast blog. It's unattributed, but appears to be a phone-camera image that was taken surreptitiously. It's a fairly ambiguous photo. Does it show young FLDS boys who are caught in a sinister opressive cult that will precondition them to become predatory males and child rapists? Or are they prisoners of the state, incarcerated for no other reason than that their parents practice a strange, unpopular religion and their mothers wear odd, 19th century dresses and hairstyles?

My YFZ gallery is growing. Here's another photo, also borrowed from GFB, of a young girl being bused away into state foster care.

Here's another of my favorites, a Deseret News photo featuring a Baptist missionary, a former FLDS "escapee" who can't wait to take as many of the FLDS children into her care as the state will allow, so she can convert them and save their souls from hell.

Here are some links for more background:

http://texaslastfrontier.com/prairie_fire_journal/blog1.php
http://nyc.indymedia.org/en/2008/04/96681.html
http://worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=64356
http://www.lewrockwell.com/fisk/fisk39.html
http://blogs.usatoday.com/oped/2008/05/what-does-texas.html?loc=interstitialskip
http://www.texascivilrightsproject.org/?p=239
http://iperceive.net/judge-barbara-walther-madame-defarge-of-san-angelo-texas/

Comments from the blogosphere on YFZ Debacle

Scott Henson is a Texas blogger who writes about the Texas criminal justice system, and has covered the YFZ debacle relentlessly in his blog, GRITS FOR BREAKFAST. As enlightening as his own articles are, some of the comments by readers are equally revealing. Here's a small sample:

Comments at Grits For Breakfast

"if...the 'nature of some of the [adult] marital relationships' was a reason DFPS took the kids, they were woefully beyond the scope of their authority! There are only four reasons DFPS can seize a child:

1. an immediate danger to the physical health or safety of the child,
2. the child has been the victim of sexual abuse.
3. the parent or person who has possession of the child is currently using a controlled substance,
4. the parent or person who has possession of the child has permitted the child to remain on premises used for the manufacture of methamphetamine.

Notably, non-traditional (or rather, ultra-traditional) family structures or strange religious beliefs are simply not on the list of reasons the state can take your kids. That appears to be exactly what happened, though."

Grits For Breakfast
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An anonymous commenter on the process of reporting suspected child abuse:

"Law inforcement refers them [suspected abuse cases] to CPS. If the suspected abuse is happening in the context of a government institution the complaning witness is told that CPS doesn't have jurisdiction."

If CPS itself is neglecting the care of a child who investigates this? After months of investigation and the damage is already done a court tells CPS, 'Don't do that or we'll be forced to tell you not to do that again.'"

Anonymous
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