I'm not a big victim fan. I am, however, a huge fan of survivors. That's one reason I loved Flora from the moment I met her. She started life as a victim and fought her way out of it until she was free. That made her a survivor.
That said, I have noticed in people who express genuine concern for the victims of American polygamy a disturbing pattern emerging. I call it "the never ending victim".
Perfectly reasonable people who understand that most pedophiles were abused as children themselves, and have no problem sending men to prison once they have crossed the line from victim, over to abuser, want to brand the women of polygamy as completely helpless victims who should not be held accountable for their actions.
I find this to be a blatantly anti-feminist and misogynistic way of thinking. Everyone knows that abuse is a cycle. Everyone knows that just because a boy grows up in an abusive home where his father is an alcoholic wife beater he is never excused or given a free pass once he begins to engage in the same behavior.
As I read more about polygamy around the world I understand that women are not only a necessary part of the victim cycle, they are also a necessary part of the polygamy abuse cycle.
Take these two quotes, both from national news stories about polygamists this week:
By JON GAMBRELL
Associated Press Writer
On the Tony Alamo Case:
"One woman even testified that she was "married" to Alamo at age 14 during a visit to him in prison, with a group of other "wives" blocking guards' view as he groped her".
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Associated Press
On the Elizabeth Smart case:
"At a hearing last month, Smart said that within hours of the abduction, Mitchell took her as a polygamous wife and then raped her. Smart said Barzee washed the teen's feet and dressed her in robes before the ceremony."
In both cases women were facilitating the abuse occurring within their respective polygamous practice.
Why do some act as though it is a big mystery how the abuse cycle, any abuse cycle, works?
Is it not evident that polygamy needs a very strong matriarchal structure to function? How would it continue without the cooperation and active participation of the women themselves?
Why, when over two hundred Texas children were identified as having been the victims of abuse, were they sent back to the very women who facilitated it? These women blatently attempted to obfuscate facts as simple as their names and ages when questioned by Texas authorities. Why?
Because they completely understand this country's laws against polygamy and have made the conscious decision to break the law, no matter what it ever costs them.
Now, I'd like to know exactly what other felony crime a woman can commit in this country with complete immunity from prosecution? Never mind when she hands her child over to a polygamist she is earning her heavenly brownie points, or upping her standing within the community. Do you really think there is no reward in giving her children over for rape? Do you really think there is no reward in preventing her little girl from ever knowing about the freedoms and opportunities she is born entitled to in America?
Every time you excuse one of these women in the name of "she's just a victim", you are spitting on little Flora Jessop as she tries to cross a desert to get away, because she knew it was all wrong.
They all know it, they've just made different choices, illegal choices.
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It doesn't matter who commits abuse - a monogamist, a polygamist, a homosexual, or a nutcase like Mitchell - they should all be prosecuted. The problem you have is that you confuse the abstract lifestyle concept with the perpetrator. We know that Arab Muslims have committed terrorism, so we make laws to proscribe terrorism (which laws, of course, are largely targeted at Muslims, even though you cannot say "ISLAM" in the statute). We make laws to proscribe "BIGAMY", which of course is a thinly-veiled targeting of religious polygamists (since you cannot say "Mormon" or "polygamy" in the statute).
ReplyDeleteIf you hate terror, you still cannot mention "Islam" or "Arabs" in the statute. My guess is that you don't really hate Arabs - you just hate what some of them do. Problem is that you apparently do DEEPLY HATE polygamists, and do not seem to be able to distinguish the criminal acts of the few from the abstract beliefs and lifestyle of the many. That is about as dumb as convicting a GUN for the commission of a weapons crime. The culprit is the bozo who squeezes the trigger - not the company which invents or manufactures the gun.
My guess is that you are deeply uncomfortable with the whole American Constitutional model. You want to pass laws to burden others who don't think like you. You prefer the "mob" or national socialist approach. You might be happier in Nazi Germany or here in a couple of years when Obama has dismantled the Constitution completely.
You would tell the Amish that they cannot exist. I heard a woman once say, "I cannot sleep until polygamy gets eradicated." GOOD LUCK !!! That kind of O.C.D. is just as deranged as the mind of Brian David Mitchell.
I think you are on an obsessive crusade that you can never win. It would be like crusading against abortions. Abortion may be infanticide, but the commission of that act is a function of the free will of the actor. Unless you are Satan himself, you are wasting your energies trying to stamp out personal free agency.
Go work with the polygamous families and communities. Tell them that you sincerely want to help them. They like that, and it works.
Dear Anon,
ReplyDeleteI am perfectly comfortable with the Constitutional model. I am also aware that the Supreme Court of the United States has already ruled that there is no constitutional right to practice polygamy in this country. Obviously you are the one uncomfortable with the model.
Polygamy is a recognized human rights abuse. There is no constitutional right to abuse anyone in this country, not in the name of religion or anything else.
Keeping women in concubinage is an abuse. Raising children to commit felony acts is abuse.
I am not interested in working with the "victims". I am interested in seeing crime prosecuted, regardless of the gender, or religion of the offender.
What happened to Elissa Wall's free agency?
What happened to Pam Black's free agency?
What happened to Flora Jessop's free agency?
What happened to Carolyn Jesssop's free agency?
What happened to Kathleen Mackert's free agency?
What happened to Mary Mackert's free agency?
Would you like to try to argue that none of these women experienced abuse at the hands of polygamists?
You claim I have hatred for Mormons, no sir, that is untrue. I have a strong dislike for abusers, which is what polygamists are, whether Mormon, independent like Tony Alamo and Hawkins, or organized like Muslim and fundamentalist Mormon polygamy.
Ignore the research if you want to, the results are in, polygamy harms women and children.
There is no religious exemption that allows anyone to harm women and children in this country. Polygamy is a misogynistic practice. If there were a cult compound teaching little boys that they must submit to sodomy to enter Heaven, it would have been raided by authorities and shut down immediately.
But these are just little girls you know, and that's what there here for of course, to be raped.
Not in Texas. Get used to it.
You might be misunderstood Bootsie , but you have a clear vision of what you are doing and who you are doing it for. You have founded a first class organisation and you obviously work very hard.
ReplyDeleteYou know Bootsie one doesn't have to be a brain surgeon or a rocket scientist to appreciate what you are doing for vulnerable oppressed woman and children.So I am more than happy to say for the umpteenth time " Well done " to you and all who work for the AAAP. You are appreciated.