[ExI] flds raid, was general repudiation...

[Stefano Vaj]

On Thu, May 1, 2008 at 3:05 AM, John Grigg <possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com> wrote:
> "Age of the the inseminator" is a big part of it, but the largest issue is
> that the FLDS community had *formally institutionalized* their very
> exploitive and criminal behavior.  Older Adult males at the higher echelons
> of power had formal societal control mechanisms in place to condition these
> young coming of age teenage girls to be their wives (and keep them out of
> the hands of younger males who might try to compete for them).

What is "special" in the FLDS situation is that the relevant
communities do not have any claim to sovereignty and belong to a
larger political community at a state and federal US level.

Here, while again I prefer to err on the side of giving communities
the right to adopt the internal rules of their choice, it is unclear
whether a "libertarian" stance provides a final solution to those
issues.

In fact, there are libertarian arguments on both side of the fence,
since if one hand freedom included that of giving oneself the legal or
moral system or one's choice, we obviously have a conflict here
between two different set of rules; on the other, those who would like
to limi FLDS freedom to regulate their affair as they like would
probably contend that they do so in the name of the individual rights
of a few fellow citizens.

This of course does not justify the idea that, say, or current concept
of "adult" has some metaphysical and universal value.

Stefano Vaj