It's Liberty Stupid

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal,
that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights,
that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

FLDS and many other polygamist women are born, and indeed, bred in captivity, not Liberty.

Their unalienable right to ‘Liberty’ is gone the day they are born.


I’d like someone to ask Flora Jessop if she believes she was born with any access whatsoever to Liberty as the dictionary plainly defines it here; and exactly at what point in her life she finally obtained it.

Liberty
n. pl. lib•er•ties
1.
a. The condition of being free from restriction or control.
b. The right and power to act, believe, or express oneself in a manner of one's own choosing.
c. The condition of being physically and legally free from confinement, servitude, or forced labor. See Synonyms at freedom.
2. Freedom from unjust or undue governmental control.
3. A right or immunity to engage in certain actions without control or interference: the liberties protected by the Bill of Rights.


Was Flora Jessop born a free citizen of the United States of America?

Was Flora Jessop born into an illegal Theocracy, operating independently of, and opposed to the laws and values of the United State’s Constitution?

You could even say, “It’s the Constitution, stupid”.

Flora Jessop was born into an organized crime family. The sexual crimes committed against her person as a little child were heinous. Escaping, only to be betrayed by a Utah Judge, who called her a liar to her face, Utah CPS sent her back for more physical, mental and emotional abuse by the same group of organized criminals who had conspired from her birth to ensure she became one of them, and would 'choose' to break America's polygamy laws.

Flora Jessop was born in the Concubine state of Utah.

Things really are just this simple sometimes.

YFZ Private Cemetery Visit Declined

Here is the response sent to Ms. Hennington regarding the offer for a scheduled and escorted visit to the YFZ's private cemetery... as long as I leave my Constitutional rights on the Schleicher County road before I come in.

Mohave County & Marriott Int. Sent "Help" to Texas

Well, well, well, it looks like Mohave County was sending "help" to Texas before the FLDS children from the YFZ were even out of emergency shelters.

Who exactly is this woman, Lenore Knudson from Kingman, Arizona, currently home to Warren Jeffs?

So before Texas had even wrapped up the rescue, someone from Kingman, Arizona, the Mohave County seat, was winging her way here to help us understand the cultural sensitivity required in dealing with polygamists and how children should stay with their parents, even if they are known to be participating in Felony acts... Then, Marriott comped her whole stay for her. www.http//:en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marriott_international.

That's interesting. Did they comp all people who were here to help the Texas children? Social workers, attorneys, law enforcement? They all had to travel from across Texas to the scene to help. Were any of them comped by Marriott as well? Or was it just this one woman from Mohave County? Maybe they comped the stays of the Safety Net Committee members sent to help the Texas children, too?

The "special training" Lenore accomplished here appears to have been performed on behalf of the Texas Supreme Court Childrens Commission. Gee, I wonder who is running that?

Y'know, I've asked more than once how these volunteer ad lidem attorneys could have ever in a zillion years thought sending these children back to their abusers was in their best interest. I really want to know who the ad lidem attorney for that boy with 19 identifiable bone breaks in his little body. How was it exactly in his best interest to return to whoever was "responsible" for him? Was that particular attorney the beneficiary of any of this special Mohave County training?

Lucky for us her training sessions were video taped, so maybe we can get some answers from that.

Did Mohave County call us and offer their "help"? Or, like complete idiots, did someone here call them to ask for it? If so, who made that call and why was Lenore Knudson from Mohave County considered an expert on abused cult children? Did she give advice to prosecutors at Tony Alamo's trial? What sort of expert exactly is she? Is she an expert on abused cult children or an expert at convincing people that the felony crime of polygamy is harmless and should be decriminalized.

The owner of Marriott International is one of the largest contributors to the main stream LDS Church today. Why was he, or someone with his company, so interested in helping Texas children that they would donate free hotel space to someone sent here from Mohave County? Who else did they comp rooms for?

What I Love About Texas

I darted into the MiniMart for a cold Coke while I was in Center Point last week. Right as I was opening the case to grab my drink a booming voice rang out across the store, "K.Dee, Are you telling me nobody has shot you yet!"

My blood ran a little cold for moment as my mind processed the voice from behind me. I instantly started sorting through my brain as quickly as possible for which ex-boyfriend Bubba it could possibly be, Bird Bubba, Beer Bubba, Rodeo Bubba, Fixer Bubba, Listener Bubba, take me horseback riding Bubba? I slowly turned around and there was my propane Bubba! I shouted out across the store, "Well not cause they don't want to, and I can't say one won't eventually get me either!"

I thought of the time peeling out of the driveway at Listener Bubba's house, as he stood there in his Texas Tech boxers screaming at me, "You're just like that Travis Trit song! TROUBLE! T-R-O-U-B-L-E! I really tried not to hit him with flying gravel as I left.

I threw my arms around Propane Bubba in a big hug. He saved us from freezing half to death during more than one Hill Country winter in that 132 year old house we lived in on the ranch. It was wonderful to see him again. He showed up once on our door step, during the year I was under my no-compete contract and I couldn't work in broadcasting. I was waiting tables for a year because I refused to leave the ranch behind. I couldn't afford propane so we were literally living under mounds of blankets and trying to hover around a small electric heater. My ex, who I like to call Peter Pan, had just informed me that he had remarried in England, was taking fencing lessons three times a week in London and could no longer afford his child support and alimony payments. Propane was out because cooking or being warm was a luxury. So when Propane Bubba found us in this condition, he extended me credit and filled my tank. He was kind and selfless and never once made a pass at me. He is a good man. It was wonderful to see him. I probably still owe him money...

When I arrived at my friend's house she wasn't home but I had a key. As I let myself in I noticed a slip of paper stuck between the door and the screen, "Your chickens need more shade and water. Please take care of this to avoid being charged with animal cruelty". Hmmm. I turned and looked at the chickens in the front yard. It was cloudy and about to rain. The water feeder was full. I decided they could wait until she got home and went in for a nap.

When she woke me up about an hour later, I was enlisted to help move the chickens to the other side of the house where it was shadier. As soon as we got outside it started to rain. The three of us managed to catch all the chickens, move them to a pen, and then relocate the entire coop to the other side of the house and safely get all the chickens back in. How many chickens can you hold by the feet upside down at once? The sweet Cajun bubba helping us swore he could hold at least nine at a time.

About a half hour later as we were headed out the door for dinner, my friend turned to me and said, "Honey, you might want to change your shirt before we go. You're covered in chicken shit".

Do these kinds of magical moments ever happen outside of Texas?

I heard listener Bubba finally found someone who would marry him and has moved to his ranch in Junction.

Most of all, I'm happy propane Bubba didn't shoot me.

A Grave Conversation

After our meeting last week with a lawyer in San Antonio I had one last commitment to attend to on Friday before heading back to Dallas.

I met a friend in Center Point. We had one of the world's best hamburgers at Vicki's Burger Barn. From there we drove a mile down the road to the cemetery. I wanted to introduce her to my friend, Army Specialist James Kiehl, who returned to the Texas Hill Country to be buried in Center Point after he was killed in an ambush of his unit in Iraq in March of 2003.

I never met James in life. I was just another citizen of the Hill Country who knew he was missing and was hoping against hope that he was the one rescued alive from the ambush. I learned, at the same time everyone else did, that it was not our James who had survived, but Jessica Lynch.

James was given a heroes welcome back to the Texas Hill Country. He was laid to rest in the Center Point cemetery because he wanted to be in the company of so many of his heroes, the more than 30 Texas Rangers buried there. That's a high honor for a little unincorporated Texas town with less than 700 people in it and James knew it. He could have been buried in Arlington but he wanted to come home to be with us. I've had a lot of wonderful conversations with my friend James in the Center Point cemetery.

Most of them center around what I owe James for his service to our country. James took an oath to defend the Constitution of the United States of America against all enemies, foreign or domestic.

As I sat with my friend in the cemetery last Friday, on the little bench at the foot of James' grave I was reminded again of my responsibilities to him and all those like him who have given their lives in defense of the Constitution. I wrestled aloud, again, with something that has been bothering me since the war started in 2002. We have failed.

We have failed as a people to bring true freedom to the women of Iraq. My feminist friends in the Middle East have taken pains to inform me that polygamy was on its way out when we invaded. It was punished by Saddam's government. When we invaded, and put new men in power there, encouraging them to write their own democratic constitution, they slipped the "right" to polygamy right back in.

That means we have left the women of Iraq in a worse position than we found them. Yanar said 20% of the homeless population in "religious cities" is comprised of the abandoned women and children of polygamy. They now have less freedom and protection, not more.

I looked down at James' grave and shook my head, "We failed them. My friends in the Middle East know all about American polygamy now, and they've laughed at me and told me we are no different than them and our American Constitution is a joke for women, just as theirs is for them".

Some of the anger directed at me over the war, over Bush, over Texas itself has been tremendous. I can understand the anger and the hurt. I can also understand how they feel it was presumptuous of us to try to teach them "democracy".

What I cannot understand is sending James to the other side of the earth to defend the Constitution and then returning him to be buried on his own sacred soil, while leaving the Constitution undefended here.

The SCOTUS has repeatedly said the practice of polygamy is not a Constitutionally protected right. Yet we have two states which are completely corrupt to the criminal practice.

I have said over and over that what I saw up in Utah and Arizona was the repeated violation of civil and human rights. The FLDS has finally been dumb enough to put many of those violations of civil and human rights into writing and even submit them into court documents, claiming the abuse as a "religious right".

What separates this domestic interpretation of the divine right to own and abuse women from the Middle Eastern view, which is also the divine right to own and abuse women?

Until the Feds wake up and start enforcing the Constitution in those two states there is no hope for the women there.

Texas, however, has a choice. Texas is in a position, right now, to say no to the spread of the human rights abuse of polygamy in our state.

There is little I can do to protect the women of the Middle East. There is little I can do to protect the women of Utah and Arizona. There is, however, a lot I can do to protect the women of Texas.

I feel I owe that to James. That's why I keep going back to visit him. I like to sit with him, pay my respects and make sure he understands he will always be remembered for his sacrifice and it was not in vein, because those he left behind will continue to remember what it was all really about.

Perhaps the one thing Texas can do that no other state has done yet, is to make women and children safe from the illegal practice of cultural polygamy here.

Texas can be a free state for women, not a concubine state for them. That's something we can do to honor James and all those like him, who died defending our Constitution because they didn't believe it was just a joke for women.