A follow-up to my earlier post on the unlibertarian Texas raid...

This news story from the Deseret News popped out at me: "Mysterious Sarah may be unnecessary in Texas bid to keep FLDS children." The article opens, The pleas of Sarah, the mystery polygamist child bride who told authorities she was battered and sexually abused, was the key that unlocked the doors of the sprawling YFZ Ranch in Eldorado. But according to state child protection officials, she won't have to walk through the courtroom doors Thursday for the state to prove its case of widespread child abuse at the Fundamentalist LDS Church compound.

Four things made the story pop out. First, the officials are contradicting each other on whether they have established widespread child abuse. Consider a Yahoo Daily News report on the custody hearing, Department of Public Safety Sgt. Danny Crawford testified to DPS's discovery of a church bishop's records taken from a safe at the ranch that listed about 38 families, some of them polygamous and some that included wives 16 or 17 years old. But under repeated cross-examination, Crawford acknowledged the records contained no evidence of sexual abuse.

Indeed, the only tangible evidence authorities seem to have are underaged girls who are pregnant. I suspect scummy cult elders of being the fathers but I don't KNOW this to be true and no accusations from the pregnant girls seem to be forthcoming. The girls all seem to be asking to be returned to the compound. In short, how the pregnancies occurred has not been established and the 'victims' are pleading to be released froim their rescue. Nor do I know whether the abuse (if it occurred) was limited to one family and, yet, the authorities are punishing all families.It is the Texas version of "kill them all and let God sort it out." To my critics, I wholeheartedly admit that I am being a total hard-ass about demanding real evidence because this purposefully sensationalized circus of a case is playing fast-and-loose with people's lives, including those of the children who wish to go home. How many Duke prosecutions/persecutions have to go on before people stand up and demand the hard evidence rather than sensationalism? The State does not have a presumption of ownership over children because of rumors, especially over children that show no sign of abuse. And, believe me, the authorities would be parading the vaginas of 4-year-olds in front of the camera if they thought it would vindicate them.

Second...the State's is distancing itself from the mysterious Sarah. And with good cause. She is almost certainly a fraud (I think they know that) and, perhaps, she is a fraud perpetrated by the State itself. The Sarah myth won't stand up under real scrutiny. Consider the following news item from Scripps: "Does victim at center of polygamy case actually exist?" The article opens, Authorities say a girl named Sarah made a series of telephone calls March 29 and 30 to the crisis line at NewBridge Family Shelter in San Angelo. In those calls, Sarah said she was the seventh wife of a 50-year-old man named "Dale" and had conceived her first child when she was 15, according to affidavits used to get the first search warrant. In a later call, she seemed to indicate he had three other wives at the ranch. She described being beaten by her husband, once so badly she needed treatment at a hospital for broken ribs. Okay...does anyone seriously believe that a badly beaten girl would fall under the radar of a hospital that is legally obliged and generally paranoid about reporting child abuse cases? Hell, I fell and injured myself last year and I had to fight off several reprehensible medical practitioners who seemed to drool over the prospect of turning an accident into a domestic violence incident. (What is it with these ghouls? They get paid more if I am abused rather than a klutz?) Nevertheless, we are asked to believe that a 15-year-old who has the gumption to call repeatedly for help is going to be ignored by the hospital staff and there is going to be no record of her treatment. Also, the girl claimed to have been recently beaten and badly so. There isn't a child of the appropriate age in custody who has identifying bruises? Sarah does not exist. And that's why the State of Texas is minimizing her role in the raid even though her phone calls were the only legal justification for their home invasion of the compound.

Third, the State of Texas is trying an end-run around the Constitution by trivializing the warrant through which they obtained evidence. According to the Constitution and well-established precedent, if the warrant is not valid -- as I would bet money it isn't -- then the evidence cannot be used. In order to use the evidence despite there being no legal grounds to raid the compound, the State of Texas is attempting to stir up public outrage so that the hatred so inspired gives them a popular mandate to ignore the civil liberties of its citizens. This is a tremendously dangerous expansion of state power.

Fourth, the emphasis on the women is shifting from their being victims to their being perps. And if the only thing they can get the women on is aiding and abetting the crime of bigamy...so be it. Clearly, the State has gotten nowhere with these women and the PR the women have received as weeping mothers who are heartbroken for their kidnapped children is backfiring on the Texas CPS. Threatening to charge them as criminals accomplishes at least two things for the authorities: they establish the turpitude (rather than the victimhood) of the women; and, they 'persuade' the women to shut up for fear of future charges based on what they might say. Well done Texas! What better way to establish the truth than to muzzle anyone who might present the other side or competing 'facts'?

At this point, I should reiterate...I don't like these people -- that is, I don't like the polygamist men and women of the FLDS. I wouldn't have a conversation with them, I wouldn't have them in my home, I detest what they stand for. But that doesn't mean the State of Texas has the right to wipe its ass with their civil liberties. The precedents being set here (or attempted to be set) are truly horrendous...as horrible as anything I've seen, including Waco.