h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

They have been returned because they are not in immediate danger. I think the "child abuse" headlines are misleading since it could make people believe that the little children are being abused. In fact the abuse is the (alleged) forced marriage of young girls (if I remember rightly they are around 13 at the youngest?) And while that is abuse, the only girls really in immediate danger are the ones in that age group and just coming up to it.

What is child abuse is the fact that some siblings were so far apart. What can that have been like for them? I'm not an apologist for this, or any other cult, but I just think that people see that they belong to this "sect" (cult, whatever) and just get a blind-spot.

Anyway, I see investigations are ongoing. That is good. As long as everyone keeps their heads.

It's a hard one to argue, social moral limits etc. One person's right is another's taboo and so it's a minefield to try and define.

I personally think that causing psychological harm to children is something that shouldnt need a law to define it as wrong though. Any and all abusive control and so on simply shouldn't be acceptable among *people*. I cant understand why we cannot police ourselves enough to stop abuse and violence. To each other for a start, but also to animals, children, anything.

How many people know or know of someone who is known to be handy with their fists or their emotional and psychological abuse but will still socialise with them or know people who do? It's condoning their behaviour and teaching them their behaviour is acceptable. Who gets shunned? The victim. Why? because they make people uncomfortable. It makes me so MAD!

Everyone in that compound was a victim.

We all know whot he obvious ones were but the alleged perpetrators of the abus were victims too. They simply wanted to have a wife and another wife or a husband they were willing to share with other wives.

Now if people want to live like that shouldnt we let them?

As controlling as we take Muslim marriages and families to be atleast in the West the majority of children born in Muslim households get to live in the open not locked away in a compound because society has decided its illegal for women to were burkhas.

If people were allowed true freedom in the eyes of the law and not restranied by meaningless moral bunk codified into law then children inside that compound would have been able to go to school with other kids nad have had a fighting chance of making up their own minds about how to live and not been hidden away from the eyes of neighbours where abuse can easily take place.

one love

I dont disagree with you.

In fact, I didnt really point the finger at all. Only the people around abusers know who and where it comes from. This is why society needs to police itself instead of relying on clumsy laws.

That sounds rather worryingly like 'keep it in the family'.

Unfortunately that's how it ends up

Which is where it all goes wrong. At the end of the day, someone doing something wrong is someone doing something wrong, no matter who it is...

And especially with children, others need to protect the vulnerable in society before authorities and the necessary legislation gets involved.

I am talking about protection of minors and the vulnerable, whoever that may be, not ignorance and selective blindness and each to their own. 'keeping it in the family' is repulsive to me as an excuse for abuse and anti-social behaviour. Fine if the family is going to deal with it, but if they wont or not successfully, then it becomes society's problem and the family, having proven themselves unable to respond effectively, have to live with that.

But I'm just a wishy washy liberal, what do I know?

I'm not sure I really see a problem here.

The police were led to believe children were in immediate danger from a tip off. They acted on that - as is their duty. It then later (it seems) became apparent that this isn't the case and so the children have been returned.
So be it. Not very nice for all those concerned but isn't this what law enforcement is about? If there is reasonable suspicion of crime they arrest people, question them and find out what's going on. If a crime is commited people are charged, if not, they are released.

Well the accusation seems to be that an oicial made a bogus claim i.e. pretended to be someone else who had knowledge of abuse when if the accusation is true they were infact an overzealous official.

The police then did their clumbsy bit and alls well that ends well...well so ar anyway.


Clumbsy laws and falliable officials dealing with one of the worst crimes and imperect world throws up.

I know for a fact thought that it is better than the alternative by a bloody long chalk. Asking families and neighbours to police their kin and the people you only speak to occasionaly over the garden fence is only one step away from asking abusers to police themselves.

The present system has gapping holes and regularly makes errors the alternative of keeping it in the family is exactly what abusers would want.

Anonymous tips are exactly that: anonymous. And the cops have to assume its true and investigate it until proven otherwise. The one at fault here is the "tipster", not the police or the system.

Am I being deliberately misunderstood? If so, well done, it's annoying, cheers.

I'm assuming Blicky's section about keeping it in the family was regarding my earlier post and disregarding my latter one... Or simply refusing to understand.

I could be wrong but I dont think that suggestion has come up elsewhere on this post except where I have been mistaken for suggesting it.

OIC

I thought you might be referring to me

I wasn't even replying to you, you see, I was just making a general comment as I see it.

no no, that was fine I got that

I was terribly dissappointed that the government was forced to return the kids for lack of evidence. Everybody knows what goes on in those compounds really happens, is wrong and is against the law. (Everybody meaning, I guess, "most reasonable people" ... when I start using a word like "everybody" I then am confronted by my own bias which just takes me round in circles)

The press told everybody, so everybody knows and now it's common sense. That doesn't mean it's anything more than rumour.

Honestly I suspect you're more likely to be right than not, but the standard of evidence is important.

"The press told everybody, so everybody knows and now it's common sense. That doesn't mean it's anything more than rumour.

Honestly I suspect you're more likely to be right than not, but the standard of evidence is important."

I'm a latter day saint myself so I knew about it before it was reported in the press .... further confronting my own biases, when I said "everybody" I meant "everybody familiar with the situation"

I think at the present time I am being inappropriately prone to using sweeping generalities for the sake of brevity

I think I may have found myself caught in circular reasoning. I said "everybody familiar with the situation" and I associate "the situation" with the specific view that I expect all reasonable people to have. I think this is the same trap that ardent supporters of Darwinism fall into - they often equate "all fair-minded educated people" with "evolutionists"

post 5

told ya so