Obama-Care for Kids

I watched the congressional antics last Saturday on C-SPAN. At stake was the proposed passage of the Obama/Reid/Pelosi Health Care Reform bill. Congressman John Boehner did a good job of highlighting the pernicious provisions of the latest version of the bill. The bill passed by two votes.

Today I stumbled across an August 2009 blogpost which discussed a provision in the health care bill that calls for "mandated reporters". These are people who would come to your home under government auspices and regularly check up on your young children. For more details, read -

http://cpscorruption.blogspot.com/2009/08/obamacare-send-in-social-workers.html

The blogger is obviously passionate about this topic - but SO AM I !!!

Here's the thing - our nation is utterly ruined. If a 22-year-old single woman with no kids can waltz into my home and pretty much decide (based on my attitude, or my religion, or my home-schooling, or my home-birthing, or my use of natural healing) that my kids are "at-risk" and probably need to be removed, then this Republic is cooked, and everything the Framers lived and died for is gone. IT IS JUST SIMPLY TOO MUCH UNFETTERED POWER!

Try having ONE of your kids taken (let alone 10!). You don't sleep. You can hardly work. Your stress level goes sky-high. You would honestly gladly agree to spend five years in prison rather than have the government permanently remove any of your kids. So therein lies the power. If Obama can hold the specter of the threat of removal of one of your kids over your head, then you are powerless. Your sense of powerlessness and frustration is 100%. No wonder they are also talking about doing away with the Second Amendment.

A good friend sent me a link to a video about the stunning extent of the corruption in our current government/banking machine. It tells the story infinitely more eloquently than I ever could.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VebOTc-7shU

Methinks they want even more than just our kids. I am reminded of the promise/threat given to Lehi 2600 years ago -

7 Wherefore, this land is consecrated unto him whom he shall bring. And if it so be that they shall serve him according to the commandments which he hath given, it shall be a land of liberty unto them; wherefore, they shall never be brought down into captivity; if so, it shall be because of iniquity; for if iniquity shall abound cursed shall be the land for their sakes, but unto the righteous it shall be blessed forever.

8 And behold, it is wisdom that this land should be kept as yet from the knowledge of other nations; for behold, many nations would overrun the land, that there would be no place for an inheritance.

9 Wherefore, I, Lehi, have obtained a promise, that inasmuch as those whom the Lord God shall bring out of the land of Jerusalem shall keep his commandments, they shall prosper upon the face of this land; and they shall be kept from all other nations, that they may possess this land unto themselves. And if it so be that they shall keep his commandments they shall be blessed upon the face of this land, and there shall be none to molest them, nor to take away the land of their inheritance; and they shall dwell safely forever.

10 But behold, when the time cometh that they shall dwindle in unbelief, after they have received so great blessings from the hand of the Lord—having a knowledge of the creation of the earth, and all men, knowing the great and marvelous works of the Lord from the creation of the world; having power given them to do all things by faith; having all the commandments from the beginning, and having been brought by his infinite goodness into this precious land of promise—behold, I say, if the day shall come that they will reject the Holy One of Israel, the true Messiah, their Redeemer and their God, behold, the judgments of him that is just shall rest upon them.

11 Yea, he will bring other nations unto them, and he will give unto them power, and he will take away from them the lands of their possessions, and he will cause them to be scattered and smitten. (Book of Mormon - II Nephi 9)

THIS ALSO REMINDS ME OF GOD'S PROMISE/THREAT in Deuteronomy 28 - (take particular note of verse 41)

¹And it shall come to pass, if thou shalt hearken diligently unto the voice of the LORD thy God, to observe and to do all his commandments which I command thee this day, that the LORD thy God will set thee on high above all nations of the earth:

²And all these blessings shall come on thee, and overtake thee, if thou shalt hearken unto the voice of the LORD thy God.

³Blessed shalt thou be in the city, and blessed shalt thou be in the field.

⁴Blessed shall be the fruit of thy body, and the fruit of thy ground, and the fruit of thy cattle, the increase of thy kine, and the flocks of thy sheep.

⁵Blessed shall be thy basket and thy store.

⁶Blessed shalt thou be when thou comest in, and blessed shalt thou be when thou goest out.

⁷The LORD shall cause thine enemies that rise up against thee to be smitten before thy face: they shall come out against thee one way, and flee before thee seven ways.

⁸The LORD shall command the blessing upon thee in thy storehouses, and in all that thou settest thine hand unto; and he shall bless thee in the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee.

⁹The LORD shall establish thee an holy people unto himself, as he hath sworn unto thee, if thou shalt keep the commandments of the LORD thy God, and walk in his ways.

¹⁰And all people of the earth shall see that thou art called by the name of the LORD; and they shall be afraid of thee.

¹¹And the LORD shall make thee plenteous in goods, in the fruit of thy body, and in the fruit of thy cattle, and in the fruit of thy ground, in the land which the LORD sware unto thy fathers to give thee.

¹²The LORD shall open unto thee his good treasure, the heaven to give the rain unto thy land in his season, and to bless all the work of thine hand: and thou shalt lend unto many nations, and thou shalt not borrow.

¹³And the LORD shall make thee the head, and not the tail; and thou shalt be above only, and thou shalt not be beneath; if that thou hearken unto the commandments of the LORD thy God, which I command thee this day, to observe and to do them:

¹⁴And thou shalt not go aside from any of the words which I command thee this day, to the right hand, or to the left, to go after other gods to serve them.

¹⁵But it shall come to pass, if thou wilt not hearken unto the voice of the LORD thy God, to observe to do all his commandments and his statutes which I command thee this day; that all these curses shall come upon thee, and overtake thee:

¹⁶Cursed shalt thou be in the city, and cursed shalt thou be in the field.

¹⁷Cursed shall be thy basket and thy store.

¹⁸Cursed shall be the fruit of thy body, and the fruit of thy land, the increase of thy kine, and the flocks of thy sheep.

¹⁹Cursed shalt thou be when thou comest in, and cursed shalt thou be when thou goest out.

²⁰The LORD shall send upon thee cursing, vexation, and rebuke, in all that thou settest thine hand unto for to do, until thou be destroyed, and until thou perish quickly; because of the wickedness of thy doings, whereby thou hast forsaken me.

²¹The LORD shall make the pestilence cleave unto thee, until he have consumed thee from off the land, whither thou goest to possess it.

²²The LORD shall smite thee with a consumption, and with a fever, and with an inflammation, and with an extreme burning, and with the sword, and with blasting, and with mildew; and they shall pursue thee until thou perish.

²³And thy heaven that is over thy head shall be brass, and the earth that is under thee shall be iron.

²⁴The LORD shall make the rain of thy land powder and dust: from heaven shall it come down upon thee, until thou be destroyed.

²⁵The LORD shall cause thee to be smitten before thine enemies: thou shalt go out one way against them, and flee seven ways before them: and shalt be removed into all the kingdoms of the earth.

²⁶And thy carcase shall be meat unto all fowls of the air, and unto the beasts of the earth, and no man shall fray them away.

²⁷The LORD will smite thee with the botch of Egypt, and with the emerods, and with the scab, and with the itch, whereof thou canst not be healed.

²⁸The LORD shall smite thee with madness, and blindness, and astonishment of heart:

²⁹And thou shalt grope at noonday, as the blind gropeth in darkness, and thou shalt not prosper in thy ways: and thou shalt be only oppressed and spoiled evermore, and no man shall save thee.

³⁰Thou shalt betroth a wife, and another man shall lie with her: thou shalt build an house, and thou shalt not dwell therein: thou shalt plant a vineyard, and shalt not gather the grapes thereof.

³¹Thine ox shall be slain before thine eyes, and thou shalt not eat thereof: thine ass shall be violently taken away from before thy face, and shall not be restored to thee: thy sheep shall be given unto thine enemies, and thou shalt have none to rescue them.

³²Thy sons and thy daughters shall be given unto another people, and thine eyes shall look, and fail with longing for them all the day long; and there shall be no might in thine hand.

³³The fruit of thy land, and all thy labours, shall a nation which thou knowest not eat up; and thou shalt be only oppressed and crushed alway:

³⁴So that thou shalt be mad for the sight of thine eyes which thou shalt see.

³⁵The LORD shall smite thee in the knees, and in the legs, with a sore botch that cannot be healed, from the sole of thy foot unto the top of thy head.

³⁶The LORD shall bring thee, and thy king which thou shalt set over thee, unto a nation which neither thou nor thy fathers have known; and there shalt thou serve other gods, wood and stone.

³⁷And thou shalt become an astonishment, a proverb, and a byword, among all nations whither the LORD shall lead thee.

³⁸Thou shalt carry much seed out into the field, and shalt gather but little in; for the locust shall consume it.

³⁹Thou shalt plant vineyards, and dress them, but shalt neither drink of the wine, nor gather the grapes; for the worms shall eat them.

⁴⁰Thou shalt have olive trees throughout all thy coasts, but thou shalt not anoint thyself with the oil; for thine olive shall cast his fruit.

⁴¹Thou shalt beget sons and daughters, but thou shalt not enjoy them; for they shall go into captivity.

⁴²All thy trees and fruit of thy land shall the locust consume.

⁴³The stranger that is within thee shall get up above thee very high; and thou shalt come down very low.

⁴⁴He shall lend to thee, and thou shalt not lend to him: he shall be the head, and thou shalt be the tail.

⁴⁵Moreover all these curses shall come upon thee, and shall pursue thee, and overtake thee, till thou be destroyed; because thou hearkenedst not unto the voice of the LORD thy God, to keep his commandments and his statutes which he commanded thee:

⁴⁶And they shall be upon thee for a sign and for a wonder, and upon thy seed for ever.

⁴⁷Because thou servedst not the LORD thy God with joyfulness, and with gladness of heart, for the abundance of all things;

⁴⁸Therefore shalt thou serve thine enemies which the LORD shall send against thee, in hunger, and in thirst, and in nakedness, and in want of all things: and he shall put a yoke of iron upon thy neck, until he have destroyed thee.

⁴⁹The LORD shall bring a nation against thee from far, from the end of the earth, as swift as the eagle flieth; a nation whose tongue thou shalt not understand;

⁵⁰A nation of fierce countenance, which shall not regard the person of the old, nor shew favour to the young:

⁵¹And he shall eat the fruit of thy cattle, and the fruit of thy land, until thou be destroyed: which also shall not leave thee either corn, wine, or oil, or the increase of thy kine, or flocks of thy sheep, until he have destroyed thee.

⁵²And he shall besiege thee in all thy gates, until thy high and fenced walls come down, wherein thou trustedst, throughout all thy land: and he shall besiege thee in all thy gates throughout all thy land, which the LORD thy God hath given thee.

⁵³And thou shalt eat the fruit of thine own body, the flesh of thy sons and of thy daughters, which the LORD thy God hath given thee, in the siege, and in the straitness, wherewith thine enemies shall distress thee:

⁵⁴So that the man that is tender among you, and very delicate, his eye shall be evil toward his brother, and toward the wife of his bosom, and toward the remnant of his children which he shall leave:

⁵⁵So that he will not give to any of them of the flesh of his children whom he shall eat: because he hath nothing left him in the siege, and in the straitness, wherewith thine enemies shall distress thee in all thy gates.

⁵⁶The tender and delicate woman among you, which would not adventure to set the sole of her foot upon the ground for delicateness and tenderness, her eye shall be evil toward the husband of her bosom, and toward her son, and toward her daughter,

⁵⁷And toward her young one that cometh out from between her feet, and toward her children which she shall bear: for she shall eat them for want of all things secretly in the siege and straitness, wherewith thine enemy shall distress thee in thy gates.

⁵⁸If thou wilt not observe to do all the words of this law that are written in this book, that thou mayest fear this glorious and fearful name, THE LORD THY GOD;

⁵⁹Then the LORD will make thy plagues wonderful, and the plagues of thy seed, even great plagues, and of long continuance, and sore sicknesses, and of long continuance.

⁶⁰Moreover he will bring upon thee all the diseases of Egypt, which thou wast afraid of; and they shall cleave unto thee.

⁶¹Also every sickness, and every plague, which is not written in the book of this law, them will the LORD bring upon thee, until thou be destroyed.

⁶²And ye shall be left few in number, whereas ye were as the stars of heaven for multitude; because thou wouldest not obey the voice of the LORD thy God.

⁶³And it shall come to pass, that as the LORD rejoiced over you to do you good, and to multiply you; so the LORD will rejoice over you to destroy you, and to bring you to nought; and ye shall be plucked from off the land whither thou goest to possess it.

⁶⁴And the LORD shall scatter thee among all people, from the one end of the earth even unto the other; and there thou shalt serve other gods, which neither thou nor thy fathers have known, even wood and stone.

⁶⁵And among these nations shalt thou find no ease, neither shall the sole of thy foot have rest: but the LORD shall give thee there a trembling heart, and failing of eyes, and sorrow of mind:

⁶⁶And thy life shall hang in doubt before thee; and thou shalt fear day and night, and shalt have none assurance of thy life:

⁶⁷In the morning thou shalt say, Would God it were even! and at even thou shalt say, Would God it were morning! for the fear of thine heart wherewith thou shalt fear, and for the sight of thine eyes which thou shalt see.

⁶⁸And the LORD shall bring thee into Egypt again with ships, by the way whereof I spake unto thee, Thou shalt see it no more again: and there ye shall be sold unto your enemies for bondmen and bondwomen, and no man shall buy you.

I think verses 43 and 44 are referring to Bernanke . . . .

More Egg on its Face

Texas just got a whole lot more egg on its face!

I followed the pleadings today in the sentencing phase of Raymond Jessop's trial. Today, to the irritation of the prosecution and Barbarous Wartthug, a handful of defense witnesses came forward voluntarily to speak of their esteem for Raymond as a citizen and as a dad.

Texas has wasted some 20 to 30 million dollars on pursuing the residents of the YFZ ranch already. Today, we learned that Texas wasted (at least) an additional $44,000 dollars on this charlatan named Larceny Billall. Larry Billall testified during the trial that he was an EXPERT on the FLDS people. All this because, out of his some 5,500 clients, 20 were either FLDS or ex-FLDS. Of these twenty, fifteen were (Lost, now found) boys. That leaves five clients, of whom two or three are disaffected, angry, apostate ex-members with a grudge. How can this make him an expert? Larry Baal admitted his mistake of asserting that no in-depth psychological studies had been conducted in Fundamentalist Mormon families. He was admittedly oblivious to the monumental work done by Professor Irwin Altman. He conceded that he had actually gone out of his way to avoid examining any other authorities' work on the topic, expressly to enable him to keep his (highly anecdotal) opinions virgin and pure (peer review be damned!!).

Folks, does this smell funny to you? What the hell is Texas doing giving this hate-mongering goon over $44,000 (TO DATE !!!) to sashay onto the witness stand and spew a pack of worthless lies about people about whom he knows ABSOLUTELY NOTHING? I shall make a (partial) list of the names of the people I believe have a deep, unrestrained, insatiable thirst to "bring down" the FLDS religion and/or some or all of its members.

Flora Jessop,
Carolyn Jessop,
Bruce Wisan,
Laura DuPaix,
Brooks Long,
Angie Voss,
Marleigh Meisner,
Larry Beall,
Barbara Walther,
Denise Lindberg,
Sam Brower,
Dan Fischer,
Laura Chapman,
K. Dee Ignatin,
Nancy Mereska,
Natalie Malonis,
Brent Jeffs,
Elissa Wall,
Harvey Hilderbran,
Roger Hoole,
Andrea Moore Emmett,
Deborah Brown,
Doris Hansen,
Shirley Davis,
Becky Musser,
Sarah Hammon,
Randy & Kathy Mankin,
Lucifer

Why, you ask, would I mention these names? Well, it's because I think that all of these people have caught the same spirit. What spirit? The spirit of malice towards a largely nameless, faceless community of believers. It would seem that each one has almost made it his or her life's mission to exact a pound of flesh. I bet if you sat some of these activists down and inquired, "What is your beef against the FLDS; and why are you so driven to get back at them?", you would get a variety of answers - including some of the following:

"I don't really know, but I can't stop myself"
"I like to go on the Larry King Show"
"I needed to demonize someone publicly so that I could sell my book (- /story - /testimony - /soul)"
"It restores meaning to my otherwise empty life"
"They are all child-molesters and perverts"
"They worship Warren Jeffs"
"They are uneducated"
"The women are Zombies"
"Their religion doesn't belong in a socialist country like America"
"I hate their hair and fashion styles"
"They have no business pooling their resources for the good of the whole community"
"They are too powerful"
"They have too many children"
"They don't like black people - like Rozita Swinton"
"They took away my free agency"
"They expect their teens to be too well-behaved"
"They won't embrace our decadent modern society"
"They believe in polygamy like people in Bible times"
"Willie is a thug"
"Willie looked at me with a dangerous face"
"I need some of their land for my family"

I shall finish this post with the text of the prayer I shall offer tonight on the eve of Raymond Jessop's sentencing:

Dear Heavenly Father,

Please forgive me for my weaknesses and impatience (and dry wit). Please bless me to be as faithful to my religion as the FLDS are to theirs. Please bless our country at this time when the Constitution hangs by a thread (and Barack Hussein Obama is fixin' to snip it). Please bless all the FLDS defendants who are being accused of pedophilia and sexual molestation for simply marrying as did 99% of our pioneer ancestors. Bless the government to have a teensy-weensy little bit of forgiveness, since all the Fundamentalist Mormon communities have now pledged to refrain from all marriage age violations (even though the statutes keep changing for political reasons).

Please bless Raymond's family-members (and all his children, too). Bless the jury to not be infected by the bitter acrimony of the anti-polygamy crusaders. Bless them to see Raymond for the honorable father he is, and to see that his religion was his reason for structuring his family in the way he did, and that his loyalty to his imprisoned prophet is a sound assurance that he will not fall afoul of the law again. Prompt the hearts and minds of the sincere jurors to sentence him to probation, so that no more children will have to be wrenched from their father. Bless all those who war against the FLDS; soften their hearts so that there can be peace and no more hostility.

Last of all, please inspire the Texas Appeals Courts to be as wise and courageous as they were last year, and overturn the epic travesty which was the unlawful search of the YFZ Ranch.

In the name of Jesus Christ,

Amen

Frontier Justice - Mob Jubilation

I know some people who went to the Raymond Jessop trial this week. I really would have given a small limb or at least a tooth to have been there. Barbarous Wartthug must be salivating over the opportunity to get some revenge on those filthy polygs who embarrassed her. I know she must be equally steamed over the fact that, now that there has been a conviction, the illegally-obtained evidence can be impeached or challenged or suppressed (or whatever the legal term is).

I understand that, when the jury (guilty) verdict was read, one of the honorable Texas Rangers inside the courtroom radioed his Ranger buddies standing outside. Their celebratory hootin' and hollerin' was so loud that it could be heard by those inside the courtroom. Now that's decorum!

Apparently, a conviction was the inevitable conclusion of this trial/lynching. Barbie coached the prosecutors and denied the defense's legitimate objections. Rather than beat this topic to death, I shall just make two more points - one dealing with human compassion - the other dealing with the law.
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1. I have observed these polygamy witch hunts over the last several years, and I have observed the following:

Tom Green married a 13.5 year old and did five years. The girl faithfully waited for Tom.
Rodney Holm married a 16 year old and did seven months with work release.
The guy who raped Heidi Mattingly's 13-year-old daughter while she was in forced foster care did a few months of prison time.
The Colorado City "Eight", who faced trials in Kingman before Judge Steven Conn, did a few weeks or months of prison time for marrying 16- and 17-year-olds.

Raymond Jessop's sentencing phase is underway and continues next week. The prosecution is rounding up disaffected apostates to plead against leniency. "String him up!", "Throw away the key!" This filthy, disgusting, warped, perverted, lecherous, polygamist pedophile had the nerve to MARRY A 16-YEAR-OLD !!!!!!!!!!!!! My heavens - why don't we just slit his throat? His wives and children don't need him. The least we can do is put him in prison for 20 years! Barbie can smell blood in the water. Let's put this guy away for the rest of his life so that we can set a precedent and send a message, and let's do this again and again until we put the other eleven guys away for 20 years, too. This is not Eldorado, Texas - this is Carthage, Illinois! Cut off his head! Kill the beast!

The other key point to remember is that Jessop's and the other defendants' marriages were sanctioned by their prophet. Now that the church's leader has long-since forbidden any future underage marriages, I am supremely confident that NONE will occur. So what message does the jury need to send? - "Don't marry any more minors"?! Any prison time at this point is would be malicious and spiteful and (as another esteemed blogger has pointed out) a hypocritical denunciation of the great Bible patriarchs whom God loved and endorsed as paragons of virtue and integrity.

2. The crime with which Raymond was charged was alleged to have occurred in November of 2004. If Texas truly had jurisdiction, and the crime could be shown to have occurred in Eldorado, then Texas's laws regarding age of consent (in 2004) would govern. In 2004, the age of consent was 14. The law was changed to reflect a higher age of consent (17) in September of 2005. So here's your homework assignment, kiddies - help me to figure out how Raymond Jessop can have been found to have been guilty of unlawful sexual assault, by an ex post facto law enacted after the date of the alleged crime.

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I'm no lawyer, so don't let me get carried away here, but it seems to me that something is rotten in Denmark.

The Texas Court of Appeals and the Texas Supreme Court are likely to have fun with this one. I'm sure that Barbie and her SturmTruppen are as proud as peacocks to have the taste of revenge. So, if they ever read this blog, my message to them comes from Proverbs 16:18 -

"Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall."

Renn

Supreme Questions

A friend of mine attended the Utah Supreme Court appeal hearing yesterday regarding Warren Jeffs' rape-as-an-accomplice conviction. Apparently, Wally Bugden made some compelling arguments against the legitimacy of the charges and convictions. Before I elucidate, I want to make a comment about our sense of justice in America.

I don't really like Shaquille O'Neal. I don't know him at all, although I saw him in a bad movie once. Truth is - I dislike him because he never played for my favorite team. I think that a lot of Americans can build up a similar, simmering hatred for people on the opposing team, or for people who are different. I think that we Americans like to be polarized, and to see things as black-or-white. There is no gray. It is this social phenomenon that makes it easier for us to throw our consciences out of the window and let the end justify the means. We violate our own principles due to our desperate need for victory. It is the necessary drawback of the Jeffersonian polemic model.

Tom Green's unlawful-sex-with-a-minor trial was a media circus. His "wife", Linda (of 17 years), had borne him seven children, and is presumably happily still with him to this day. The complexity of Tom's case was that Linda was "married" to him and impregnated with her first child when she was 13 1/2 years old. Now, back then (circa 1986), marriage in several states was perfectly tolerated at 13, so the question of propriety depends on how you view things and on local history and traditions.

The prosecutors (David Leavitt and Monte Stewart) faced the challenge that so many years had passed since the time of the alleged offense that the statute of limitations had already run. In 1986, the statute was 'eight years from the date of the offense'. At the time of the trial the statute had already been changed to 'four years from the date the offense was reported to law enforcement'. Neither provision could catch Tom, but, since the prosecution was hell-bent on a conviction, it brought in a string of witnesses to testify that they "didn't report the crime" (so that Tom couldn't claim that the statute of limitations clock had already started to run in 1986). The judge cooperated, and, through an amazingly creative contortion of the statutes, Tom was convicted and incarcerated. Today, he his back with his family, even perhaps continuing to do some of the things that got him arrested in the first place. So why won't the prosecutors arrest him again? You already know the answer - POLITICS.

So Wally Bugden argued yesterday that Warren Jeffs was charged with the wrong crime. Instead of arresting him for solemnizing the (void) marriage of a minor to a young man, they arrested him for aiding and abetting a rapist and for abusing his special position of trust as a minister. Bugden made the interesting point that the prosecution had completely omitted at trial to introduce any evidence that Jeffs had coaxed Allen Steed to have non-consensual sex with Elissa Wall. He only encouraged the alleged "victim" to follow through consensually with her marital duties. Based on this, Jeffs cannot be charged either as the rape's actor or as the aider and abettor. Further, Bugden argued that, since no rape conviction was achieved for Steed, the presumed 'rapist', it is absurd to convict Jeffs for having been an accomplice to a rape that has not legally been shown to have occurred.

Now, if it is true that Elissa was coerced against her will at the tender age of fourteen into a monogamous (and non-legal) "marriage" with a young man she did not love, then that is sad. Whoever did the coercing should acknowledge his or her error and make amends. This is one of the many accusations leveled at Warren Jeffs. Bugden apparently also asked if Elissa's family was not eminently more implicated in choreographing the wedding - and why are they not in prison instead?

My point is this - Utah politicians have made great publicity out of demonizing Warren Jeffs and painting him as a perverse, megalomaniacal despot. This was enough to get him on the FBI's 10-most-wanted list. Mormon politicians = good; Polygamists = evil. I wonder if it is that simple. Even if Warren Jeffs is different or eccentric, or even an iron-fisted leader, why does that excuse society in locking him in the stocks and throwing rotten vegetables at him for days? Why is it okay to charge him with a laundry-list of crimes that do not fit his actions? Is he so vile that we must throw truth and justice to the wind and punish him by any means available to us?

I believe that the State's attorneys don't care. I believe that they hate the FLDS and Warren Jeffs so much, that they don't care about following the spirit of the Constitution and good laws. They just want to "get them" at all costs. Why else would they try to get Texas to change its laws just so that it could ensnare the residents of the YFZ Ranch? Why else would they side with the angry enemies of the FLDS and condone Wisan and Lindberg's shameless plundering of the UEP? Maybe we all sleep easily because a reportedly evil man was crucified or tarred and feathered. That is not justice - it is brutality.

Addam Swapp blew up an LDS chapel in 1987. 22 years later, he still sits in a prison with no hope of a parole date. Ironic, wouldn't you say, when the average murderer serves nine years? This all stems from Utah's intense animus against Fundamentalist Mormons and polygamists. Why does the legal system tolerate such barbarism? You already know the answer - POLITICS. I am reminded of the state-sponsored raids and massacres of the early Mormons.

In yesterday's hearing, Chief Justice Christine Durham asked deputy A.G. Laura DuPaix if a Baptist minister should be incarcerated for counseling a member of his congregation to stay with her husband after complaining that she doesn't love or desire him anymore. Bugden wondered if parents who take their 15-year-old daughter in for contraceptives should not also be prosecuted for aiding and abetting non-consensual sex for a minor who legally cannot consent to it.

I pray that the Utah Supremes will see the State's naked malice and bad faith inherent in the Jeffs prosecutions and overturn them. If he really did commit a crime, then charge him with the crimes he truly committed - not some craftily twisted contortion of a wildly inapplicable statute because you hate him. This nation is fixing to undergo a dramatic metamorphosis (see Isaiah's "marvelous work and a wonder"), and such heavy-handed abuses of power might just bite some of the rest of us if we don't look out.

I am sickened when I think back to the remarks of Justice Nehring when he concurred in the Rodney Holm decision. In one of the most pathetic, milque-toast utterances I have ever read, he wrote:

I also suspect that I have not been alone in speculating what the consequences might be, were the highest court in the State of Utah the first in the nation to proclaim that polygamy enjoys constitutional protection. . . . . .

It would be a violation of my oath of office to permit my apprehensions about the public reaction to any ruling of this court to participate in my decision-making effort or to influence in any way my vote on a case. Moreover, I do not intend to suggest that the majority opinion is in any way shaped by fears of a public backlash against sanctioning polygamy.

If this kind of waffling is indicative of how Nehring will rule in Jeffs' case, I fear the worst. I fear also that, if Warren is forced to take his case to the next higher Court, it won't be around by the time he gets there.