A little sanity in this time of paranoia

Court: Texas had no right to take polygamists' kids

We have have slowly but steadily been going fucking insane in this country over paranoia about child sexual abuse. And this case has been one of serious concern for me of just how much callousness we will rationalize in the name of that paranoia.

"The state never provided evidence that the children were in any immediate danger, the only grounds in Texas law for taking children from their parents without court approval, the appeals court said.

The state never provided evidence that teenage girls were being sexually abused, and never alleged any sexual or physical abuse against the other children, the court said.

It was not immediately clear whether the children scattered across foster facilities statewide might soon be reunited with parents.

Every child at the Yearning For Zion Ranch in Eldorado was taken into state custody more than six weeks ago, after Child Protective Services officials argued that members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints pushed underage girls into marriage and sex and groomed boys to become adult perpetrators.

'The existence of the FLDS belief system as described by the department's witnesses, by itself, does not put children of FLDS parents in physical danger,' the court said in its ruling, overturning the order to keep the children by state District Judge Barbara Walther, a former family law attorney.

The appeals court also said the state was wrong to consider the entire ranch as an individual household and that any abuse claims could apply only to individual households."

And then, get this:

"The sect children were removed en masse during a raid that began April 3 after someone called a domestic abuse hot line claiming to be a pregnant abused teenage wife. The girl has not been found and authorities are investigating whether the calls were a hoax."

A hoax. 400 children taken from their parents. And now it all may have been a hoax.

This was all for the children, remember. And 400 children may have just been forcibly removed from their parents' care because of a hoax.

What the fuck is wrong with us? As with every regressive, repressive period that the world has ever witnessed, our fears have turned us to cowardice and paranoia, and to running roughshot over our neighbors to appease that cowardice.

Justice is constituted in individual cases, not allegations against an entire community and a presumption of guilt that tears children away from their parents 400 at a time.

What the fuck is wrong with us?

Concerns about sexual abuse, in this case, may have been warranted. Concerns about murder in every generation are warranted. That doesn't mean that we run all over people that we have suspicions of - for more reasons, in this case, than a concern about child sexual abuse, if we were honest with ourselves - and take their children away from them out of our self-righteous zeal.

We have gone off the bend, is the truth. Ever since 1999 and that pedophile priest scandal in the Catholic Church, we have lost our bearings, and lost faith in the heritage of liberal democratic thought, engagement, and presumptions that is the anchor for everything we take for granted in free societies.

We have become a nation of bullies and scolds. And then we bully and scold our children to not be the same. It's a fuckin' nuthouse, is what it is.

And then, like any dysfunctional family worth its salt, we all sit around and say, "This is how it has always been and this is how it will always be. Or this is how it has to be to keep us safe (or financially secure, or whatever excuse will do). And there's nothing I can do about it."

Except there is. We could own up. We could take responsibility for how out of control we have gotten in the name of being in control of our own repressed obsessions and, fruitlessly, in control of other people around us.

We could work up the courage to get honest about what a mess we have made of the world in the name of controlling it. In mental health, it's called a control issue. And the world has been going through and continues to go through one big collective control issue. And it has clear consequences for anyone not being defensive of our bullshit and how badly things have gone with our rationalizations of this repressive, regressive direction.

We are obsessed, is the truth. We are obsessed with this issue of children and sex. And this is but one illustration of the ugly direction that such an obsession creates. It's the repression that makes the obsession all the more powerful.

And this is one very important case to remind us of the virtues of liberty that we take lightly at our own risk.

If there are evidenced individual cases of genuine child sexual abuse among this sect, they should be investigated.

But bullying and scolding our way through such issues has clearly been counterproductive, to anyone not being defensive of such efforts.

These parents deserve an apology, is the truth. And for those who have been innocent of these charges and have had their children taken from them in the hopes of wrangling up child abusers, I am sorry and cannot imagine what a traumatic experience this might have been for you and your children. For those children who might be abused, among this group or in any situation, I am sorry for their pain, as well.

But we have got to grow up and stop letting our fears rather than our reason, understanding, and geuine compassion guide us.

There's a million excuses for why we've been such pricks during this period. None of them matter. We just need to stop being such pricks and stop pretending like being assholes to one another doesn't matter, when it so clearly fucks everything up.

We are all so wrapped up in our righteous indignation that we just can't give up the bullshit. And that is the problem with righteous indignation. It's inevitably wrapped up in bullshit. Because noone is right all the time. And people who think they are right all the time or that their friends are right all the time are the biggest bullshitters of all. Ask Stalin and Hitler.

We need to give up the bullshit, is the truth. And own up to what callous shitheads we have become in the name of ridding the world of callous shitheads. It's a fuckin' circus, is what it is.

And, every once in awhile, it is nice to get a little sanity amidst this circus of a regressive, repressive political period.

Good call by the Third Court of Appeals in Austin.

Perhaps a little sanity might do us some good.

Because God knows the insanity has worn on my last nerve.