Rozita! What? No Caller ID?

Any excuse will do!

Another interesting development in the Texas polygamy case:

According to the Colorado Springs Gazette, a phone number linked to a Colorado Springs woman was used to make calls to a Texas crisis hot line in the days leading up to a raid on a polygamist compound in Texas, records show. According to newly released court documents, Texas Rangers tracked the number to Rozita E. Swinton last week before traveling to Colorado Springs to interview her as part of their investigation into the April 4 raid at the Yearning for Zion ranch near Eldorado, Texas.

So, let's see if I understand this... you're sitting at your desk, fuming about the evil polygamists living down the street and the phone rings. A sobbing young woman begins to relate a horrid tale of rape and abuse. Action must be taken, bring in the sheriff and FBI, bring in the armored personnel carriers... RAID THE COMPOUND!!! Caller ID? What Caller ID?

What is with these people and how stupid do they think we are? Apparently they think we are pretty stupid, and we in our ignorance far exceed their expectations.

According to the Springs arrest affidavit, Texas Rangers determined the same phone that police in Colorado Springs linked to the Feb. 26 call had also been used to make false distress calls to the New-Bridge Family Shelter in San Angelo, Texas, on March 29 and March 30. In those calls, authorities allege, Swinton claimed to be a teenage girl named Sarah Barlow - the third wife of a 49-year-old man at the polygamist ranch. Read the whole story here:
http://www.gazette.com/articles/swinton_35580___article.html/calls_colorado.html

If I pick up my phone, dial 911 and hang up, the police will show up at my door, and I live so far out in the country I don't even get cell phone service. It is inconceivable that the Texas authorities did not know that the phone call was fraudulent and coming from out of state, and if they didn't they are completely and utterly incompetent. This woman would call and talk for hours...not minutes, more than ample time for the authorities if they so desired, to trace the call (which I will agree they had probable cause to do). Even if she was calling from a cell phone they could determine that it wasn't originating locally, as she would be on a cell tower in Colorado Springs, not in Texas.

The Texas authorities, without a doubt, were simply waiting for an excuse to raid this ranch. I would venture that in their desire 'to get in there', they acted in bad faith, if they did not know that the calls were fraudulent it was out of a desire not to know, a sin of omission so to speak, and trampled the constitution underfoot to do so. As much as the alleged behavior of the polygamists disgusts me, the actions of the authorities in Texas disgusts me just as much if not more. At least theoretically, the polygamists are acting on their beliefs and their faith... what's the state of Texas' excuse?

For those who find the FLDS practices and beliefs repulsive, consider that when they moved to Texas in 2003 the state's law allowed 14 year olds to marry with parental consent. That law wasn't amended until September 1, 2005 when the age was raised to 16. At least according to Texas Law:
http://tlo2.tlc.state.tx.us/statutes/docs/FA/content/htm/fa.001.00.000002.00.htm

I hear a number of people decrying the fact of married and pregnant 16 year olds... which unfortunately under Texas law is utterly and completely LEGAL! Looking at Texas law, theoretically, if a girl turned 14 on August 31st 2005 she could have been legally married on that day with parental consent. Still 14, she could have had her first child in May of 2006, her second child in February of 2007 at age 15, her third child in November 2007, and be five months pregnant today at age 16 years eight months. As repugnant this scenario is to most of us, it is still legal under Texas law (I'm not a lawyer, but I presume people married under the old law prior to their 16th birthday would fall under some sort of 'grandfather' clause).

So now the state of Texas is about to put 416 children into foster care, which one might rationally argue is an act of abuse in and of itself. Not only are these children being put into foster care, but I would wager that it will not be up to the same moral standards (polygamy issues aside) that they were raised under.

Setting aside their belief in polygamy and marriage at a young age, what do these people profess a faith in? A devout and worshipful life, hard work, a belief that modern society is corrupt? No TV, No Internet, Wives subservient to their husbands? Husbands subservient to the church? Children mindful and obedient? In other words a fundamentalist lifestyle? What riles us up more? Their polygamist belief system or the fact that they turn their backs on the rest of us as morally corrupt sinners? What does it say about us that the legal age of consent in Texas is 17 and marriage 18? We can have sex at 17 without our parents consent but we can't marry until 18 without it? We can make the rational decision to marry three years before we can make the rational decision to drink? We are wise enough to make decisions about sex, but not about politics at 17? Our laws are a conflicting hodgepodge of irrational and illogical boundaries. Why can't we all just get together and settle on an age at which someone is an adult? 18? 21? Heck... I'm sure the good state of Texas doesn't have any problems trying 14 year olds charged with murder as adults, seems like we kind of want our cake and want to eat it too!

~Finntann~