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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: LindyBill who wrote (246510)	4/19/2008 8:43:48 PM
From: goldworldnet	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793782

The more I learn, the more suspect the tactics employed become. Something I do know though, is that the benefits of government are most definitely subject to the law of diminishing return. * * *

To: LindyBill who wrote (246510)	6/3/2008 10:19:02 AM
From: goldworldnet	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 793782

Our view on protecting children: Texas custody case collapses, leaving damage in its wake Tue Jun 3, 12:22 AM ET news.yahoo.com Imagine that state agents raided your home and seized your children along with more than 400 of your neighbors' kids. The reason, you were told, was suspicion of child abuse, but the authorities produced scant evidence involving your child. Imagine further that after a series of hearings, the children were shipped off to foster families while courts sorted matters out. That is essentially what has transpired in Texas over the past two months, though outrage was minimal and suspicion high because the parents were members of a reclusive polygamist sect. The families' nightmare ended Monday as the largest child custody case in U.S. history collapsed and a judge ordered the children returned. No matter how well-intentioned, the actions of the state's child services agency stand as a tragic monument to government overreach. The foremost damage, of course, is the trauma suffered by the young children — more than half under age 5 — abruptly and unnecessarily removed from their parents. Additionally, the outcome appears likely to embolden other isolated sects and cults, and make authorities elsewhere gun-shy about challenging potential criminal behavior. The pity is that the case could so easily have been handled better. From the start, the case rested on a weak reed. Texas Child Protective Services raided the secluded ranch April 3 in response to a phone call purportedly from a pregnant 16-year-old girl alleging abuse by her middle-aged husband. That call was likely a hoax (although the authorities thought it was genuine and were legally required to act). Once at the ranch, they were disturbed enough at the sight of some evidently pregnant young girls, and the sense that children were being hidden from them, that they got a judge's order removing all children. The problem is that the potential crime was the sexual abuse of underage girls. At most, that warranted removing a handful of adolescent girls, not the young children or adolescent boys who make up the great majority of the children. A Texas appeals court ruled that, in all but five cases, the state failed to produce evidence of imminent danger, the appropriately high legal standard for seizing children from their parents. If any good is to be salvaged from this mess, it will only be if the authorities and sect members cooperate to reach the outcome that has been needed all along: prosecution of credible cases of child abuse, and protection against future crimes. The groundwork has been laid. DNA test results are expected soon that could establish if any underage girls were impregnated by older men. Parents taking the children back have to sign affidavits pledging to give authorities access to the children, not move them out of Texas, and attend parenting classes. The broader questions will only be answered over the next few years. Will the case prompt reclusive sects to renounce underage marriage? Or will it encourage them to break the law, believing authorities won't dare to repeat the debacle? Relevant history is not encouraging. In 1953, Utah authorities similarly overreached and took hundreds of children from a polygamous group into custody. The case collapsed amid a public backlash. Polygamous groups became more isolated and suspicious. The lesson for Texas authorities should have been clear: Even when suspicion is widespread, justice is one person at a time. * * *