In the United States of America they first came for the Smokers,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Smoker.
Then they came for the Public Speakers,
and I didn't speak up because I was not an Activist. (I'm an instigator!)
Then they came for the FLDS,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a polygamist.
Then they came for the Firearms,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a shooter or collector.
Then they came for the Newspapers -
and by that time...
(with apologies to Niemller)
Interestingly, the call that instigated the search and seizures at the FLDS compound was apparently a fake! You'd think that meant that everyone and everything would have to be returned, any and all evidence excluded, charges dropped, and someone charged with dereliction of duty (at a minimum) for not verifying the call initially. Aren't "they" required to show "reasonable cause" to get a search warrant? Don't they have caller I.D.: the call from ten miles away supposedly came from another state! But none of that will happen; the Supreme Court has ruled evidence collected in an illegal arrest can still be used for other charges.
So if, angry at Andy J., I call and report that he has a still and, based solely on that anonymous call, "they" search and find none, but, he is arrested on any trumped up charge, (later dismissed for cause)THEN they find a quantity of black powder and minnie-balls for his muskets AND he had BAYONETS on the guns, he can be charged for having bomb-making supplies. Bayonets, after all, are not Politically Correct today.
The FLDS' biggest crime may be just that they are not PC.
Polygamy? NO, thank you. One wife at a time was too many, at least the second one was, should have kept the first. But, have you heard of a Muslim being charged? There are routinely articles in web-news about their multiple marriages. Sex with a teenager? NO, not for well over 30 years.
Still, we, the U.S., allowed a ~12-year-old girl seeking asylum to be returned to her home country to be married against her will because it followed the mores of her ethnic group. After the wedding, remember pictures of her father proudly displaying the bloody sheet from her marriage bed?
Wasn't polygamy outlawed in Utah just because it was a condition of statehood?
Any ancestors that married at 14 or younger?
Who are YOU to say they can't live by century-old traditions? Heard of the Amish or Mennonites?
What happened to the "snake-handlers?"
We have Constitutionally Guaranteed Freedom of Religion.
Unless it is not PC.
Andy, wasn't Rachel technically a polyandrix? Why wasn't she charged and arrested? Oh, that's right. You were "special" and very PC at the time.