Polygamy that involves child abuse - Holmes, Randman, CS?

I think there are two issues here, and it would be a shame to have them mingled.Polygamy (regardless of child-abuse issues) -> I think should be legalized. I have no idea how to work out government benefits and that side of things (and don't really care, either). But from a moral "people should be able to make their own decisions" stand point, I support the legalization of polygamy.Child Abuse (regardless of polygamy issues) -> I think the government certainly does have the right (and moral obligation) to step in and stop this. For the same reasons as I was advocating against the child-abuse in the previous thread.

1. All people have the equal right to make their own decisions on how to live their life.
2. In the case of minors, the parents make these decisions for them since it is their responsibility to care for their children. However, if the parents choose to use unvalidated methods to "care" for their children, and those methods end up with the child harmed or dead, then those parents should be punished.

"Valid" methods are those methods which can be shown to be a part of reality and have been shown to be successful in caring for children until they are no longer minors.

Why not?Even if we simply allow divorce (is that the correct term in this context?) from a polygamous relationship. Is divorce somehow implied as 'not an option' in a polygamous marriage? Why would that be?Or we could go one-stop further and have a pro-active solution:If any member of any marrige wants to include another member into that marriage, they need the agreement of everyone already within that marriage first.
And, if someone wants to marry someone else yet a partner in their present marriage refuses, they are free to divorce from the present marriage and move onto the new one. I don't see why this has to be a problem. All they have to do (under my ideas, anyway) is say "I don't consent to this" and it doesn't happen. Either they divorce from the marriage, or a member of their marriage divorces out of it, or the marriage continues as it did previously.

This is exactly why I wanted to try and seperate the two issues. You're talking abuse, here. The "consent" I was talking about above was the consent to be in a polygamous relationship. That has nothing to do with abuse. Yes, I fully agree that abuse is a problem in all sorts of relationships (not even marriage).That's why I'm against abuse.But I'm for polygamy.If you're only negative point against polygamy is that you find it's easy to hide abuse within, then you don't have a problem with polygamy, you have a problem with abuse. If you don't start finding a way to take care of abuse, that problem is only going to grow. Polygamy is not the only refuge for abuse to occur.Increase police presence. Increase education (especially education of personal rights and freedoms). Increase social care systems.None of these focus on polygamy. All of these focus on abuse. If abuse is your problem, focus on the solution of that problem. No one's offered that as an option. However, I still don't see how the current structure doesn't handle these cases as well as it handles our current cases of abuse. Current "handling" of abuse is not really up to par, in my opinion.

So... since polygamy may be a place where abuse can happen. Your option is to not allow polygamy?Why not choose the option of trying to stop abuse?If abuse is your problem, what about all the abuse in all the regular marriages that are going on today? You don't seem so concerned about that abuse.If abuse is your issue, focus on stopping the abuse.
Stopping polygamy has nothing to do with stopping abuse. If you think it does, you're going to have to show the connection for me.

And your issue is as equally irrational as the others.If your problem is with someone being in a relationship against their will, then focus on a solution that helps to prevent people being in relationships against their will.We have plenty of two-people marriages today where the male considers himself the "dominant" member. You don't have a problem with that?Of course you do. But does it make you say "well, we shouldn't allow marriage, then"? No? Why not? Because it has nothing to do with it.If abuse is a problem, focus on fixing abuse.Polygamy is not the only place where abuse occurs.Preventing polygamy in order to prevent abuse is like preventing ID from being taught in science class in order to prevent children from being taught "the controversy".Beneficial goal, but horribly wrong and irrational reasoning. We prevent teaching "the controversy" because there is no controversy. There is no reason to prevent polygamy. Preventing abuse is another issue that is only brought up to cloud rational judgement.

What are you trying to underpin? That this girl was being abused? I totally agree.How does this have anything to do with polygamy and if it should be allowed or not?For all we know, this same girl wasn't even in a polygamous relationship. I don't think that information was included in the article. I may be wrong, though... Again, I totally agree. I also think the government's actions were completely appropriate. Appropriate because of the abuse, not because of the polygamy.And, I agree that there have been too many complaints about the FLDS. Perhaps, the government should look into the FLDS a little more and see if it should be interfering with the FLDS any more. I see no reason why the government should look into polygamy or restrict polygamy for any reason just because the FLDS is causing problems. I don't think the FLDS' problems are with polygamy, I think it's with their hiding from society.Again, looking into the FLDS for other abusive actions has nothing to do with polygamy.

So let's see.-you concede that polygamy itself is not the problem
-you understand we're not good at handling abuse
-you think we should, one day, strive to reach a point where we can have a good system for handling abuseAnd your solution to this problem is to ignore abuse, not propose any solution to preventing abuse, to continue with "fix the symptom, not the problem" actions, and you want me to consider you rational?Why can't we work to fix abuse today?
Why can't we come up with ideas to focus on abuse today?
Why are we putting of dealing with abuse?
Why can't we work towards having a good system for handling abuse today?Like I said, we should do the following:1. Legalize polygamy.
2. Increase police presence (or other more-suited authority figures) in areas where abuse is known to be a problem (like FLDS societies).
3. Increase education in areas of personal rights and freedoms so people know who to contact and where to go if/when they're being abused.
4. Increase social caring system for victims of abuse.But your course of option is to ignore the abuse, don't do anything about the abuse, and stop the polygamy... which is only 1 area where abuse is in our society.Is it simply because this area of abuse was put in the news? Is that what's driving your narrow vision? Fix this area, get it out of the news, and then we can all go back to our happy little lives? Of course, the people still being abused in non-polygamous relationships aren't helped by your solution at all.

Heh, sorry, I got a bit carried away there. Caught up in some sort of preacher-mode. Didn't mean to get so my-way-or-the-highway like. I don't think you ever said the words "ignore abuse". But we have two issues, the issue of polygamy and the issue of abuse. Your offered course of action (or inaction, I suppose) of not legalizing polygamy. Since you didn't say anything about stopping the abuse, I assumed you were ignoring it. I can't read your mind, only what you post. But yes, if you do agree with my actions on abuse (or something similar, anyway, I'm in no way an expert on government workings) I'll no longer imply that you're ignoring abuse. Quite possibly. I only got it from your words, though:

quote:

---

Stile: the abuse rate in polygamous families is much higher than the abuse rate in monogamous families (not to mention brainwashing, conspiracy and rebellion). What does that tell you? Maybe it's just abusive people who like polygamy, but it may also be that polygamy broods abusiveness (imagine how uptight and short-fused you'd be if you had to take care of seven wives ). Either way, there's a problem, and it is related to polygamy.

---

You say: "there's a problem, and it is related to polygamy".
To me, polygamy is a symptom, but not the problem. Abuse is the problem. If you want to say that polygamy IS the problem, you'll have to do better then a bunch of maybe's. You keep saying this. Can you show how polygamy is actually exacerbating the problem of abuse? For example, you agreed with these:2. Increase police presence (or other more-suited authority figures) in areas where abuse is known to be a problem (like FLDS societies).
3. Increase education in areas of personal rights and freedoms so people know who to contact and where to go if/when they're being abused.
4. Increase social caring system for victims of abuse.None of that has anything to do with polygamy.How will keeping polygamy illegal help the execution of any of these points in any way?How will legalizing polygamy hinder the execution of any of these points in any way?I really don't see how the two are related.

I suppose my point is that I don't think this is true. Like this:There are men who abuse women. (I agree)
Men who are in polygamous relationships (polygyny even moreso) often abuse women. (I agree)
Preventing polygamous relationships will therefore prevent these men from abusing women. (I don't agree)Do you seriously think that outlawing polygamy will actually prevent these men from abusing women?"Oh, I can't be in a government-legal polygamous relationship, I suppose I should re-think how I treat women in general and become a better person".You know this isn't going to happen. You know these men will simply abuse women the same way they've always been doing. Through fear, through lack-of authority presence, through lack of their victims' education in their rights, through lack of social care systems.Preventing polygamy doesn't help prevent abuse now.
Removing polygamy prevention is not going to "help" any abusers."Oh, I can legally get in a polygamous relationship. Now I can start abusing women!"You know this isn't going to happen either.Preventing polygamy does not reduce abuse of women in any way.
Preventing polygamy simply reduces the abuse of women by men who are in a polygamous relationship.
Preventing polygamy simply increases the abuse of women by men who are not in a polygamous relationship.Being polygamous does not make a man abuse women.Being an asshat makes a man abuse women.Preventing polygamy does not prevent men from being asshats.I'll ask you the same questions I asked Thy... Thylasci... Bluejay:2. Increase police presence (or other more-suited authority figures) in areas where abuse is known to be a problem (like FLDS societies).
3. Increase education in areas of personal rights and freedoms so people know who to contact and where to go if/when they're being abused.
4. Increase social caring system for victims of abuse.None of that has anything to do with polygamy.How will keeping polygamy illegal help the execution of any of these points in any way?How will legalizing polygamy hinder the execution of any of these points in any way?

Me too I guess we have different visions of the real world.I agree that preventing polygamy in order to prevent abuse would have a point, IF you can show one of the following:1. Polygamy is one of, say, less then 10 areas where "abusers of women" are capable of hiding.
2. Abuse of women coming from polygamous relationships is, say, 10% of all abuse of women cases.If you can show how either of those cases are true, then I agree you have a point where preventing polygamy will help to prevent abuse.In the real world that I have experience of, however:1. Men who abuse women hide in hundreds of thousands of areas (possibly millions?) of today's society. Removing 1 of those areas will have NO IMPACT WHATSOEVER on the amount of women being abused.
2. Out of all men who abuse women, I'd guess that very few of those men are actually in a polygamous relationship. And, again, if we remove that polygamous relationship, those men will continue to abuse women. Again, this has NO IMPACT WHATSOEVER on the amount of women being abused. Again, I just don't see it. With hundreds of thousands (millions?) of areas in our society where men can hide their abuse of women, adding one more will have NO IMPACT WHATSOEVER on the amount of women being abused.To prohibit polygamy under the guise of protecting people from abuse is to prohibit a huge right of human choice (who they spend their lives with) in order to effectively protect 0 people. Those people will just end up still getting abused through the millions of other options that abusers have at their disposal.I just don't see the point of it, or the connection to any real-world case. In the real world, these people are still going to be abused, even if polygamy is prohibited.

No. I'm thinking polygamy is a symptom of abuse in the same was that sneezing is a symptom of having a cold.If you sneeze, you may have a cold.
If there is polygamy, you may have abuse.There are many situations where you sneeze, but you don't have a cold.
There are many situations where polygamy exists, but you don't have abuse.Sneezing does not cause colds.
Polygamy does not cause abuse.Preventing sneezing is not going to help at all in preventing colds.
Preventing polygamy is not going to help at all in preventing abuse.It's a symptom, not the problem. Fix the problem, not the symptom. But, you admit you can't show this: ..only show a paper or two that might lend it some support.Do you really think that depriving people from a very high-priority right (the right to live their lives with the people they love) is worth the minimal impact you're getting from maybe having a slight imapact (and likely none at all) on abuse?

My argument is not simply the prevention of abuse. My argument is that banning polygamy won't even reduce the abuse, in any way whatsoever. And I agree. My point is that this doesn't make a difference. This only makes a difference if the environment created somehow also increases the amount of abuse. That is, if there's only, like... 4 or 5 environments, and this is including another. That's a big increase. But that's not what's happening here. We already have millions of environments that abusers are capable of hiding in. Allowing them this one more will not have ANY EFFECT WHATSOEVER on the amount of abuse going on. Yes, and this is incorrect. It does allow for an additional environment, this is not contended. Creating a park in your local subdivision creates an additional environment for abuse to take place as well. What will not happen is an increase in abuse.Remove the polygamy, and you WILL NOT remove the abuse. The abuse comes from men thinking they have power over women. Removing polygamy does absolutely nothing to the men who think they have power over women.Removing the polygamy will not reduce the "number of enviornments" that abuse can take place in by any significant amount, not even close. We're not talking going down from something like 7 places to 6 places. We're talking about going down from something like 2 846 221 places to 2 846 220 places.The gain from this (nothing, since abusers will just continue to abuse anyway) is not worth the loss (considerable... people will not be allowed to live their lives with the people they love). It's easy to prove me wrong, all you have to do is show this.Show that abuse in states without polygamy laws is significantly lower than abuse in states with polygamy laws. (I really haven't looked it up, it may very well be and my whole argument will fall to pieces).Show that this "thriving abuse of women" is actually taking place, and not just made up in your head.Show that states with polygamy laws have huge problems with abuse that states without polygamy laws do not have.Polygamy is not causing the problem of abuse here. It's obvious that what's causing the problem of abuse is allowing these "mini-societies" to take care of themselves so removed from the rest of our culture. That's the problem. Change that, don't change something that isn't going to help anyway.

No. Those girls will not be raped because they broke up the "secret society" that was going on. Polygamy is still legal there. Stopping these girls from getting raped has nothing to do with stopping polygamy. Thanks for proving my point.Stopping more girls from getting raped will not be helped by stopping polygamy either. To do this we need to fix the problem, we need to stop "secret societies".

From this USA Today news article. I hope this shows my point. These people abuse others. These people abuse others because:1. They can have sex with multiple partners.
2. They can live with multiple partners.
3. They can have children with multiple partners.
4. They can live in secret societies away from proper authoritiesDeclaring polygamy unlawful will not remove ANY of these items that allow for the abuse to happen.
Declaring polygamy unlawful will not have ANY EFFECT WHATSOEVER on how these people continue to abuse others.In addition, if a state does currently have polygamy as unlawful, making it lawful will not create any of these environments for abusive people. All these environments for abusive people are all currently allowed even if polygamy is unlawful. No additional environment for abuse is even created, it's already there.Declaring polygamy lawful will not add ANY of these items that allow for the abuse to happen. They are all currently available already.
Declaring polygamy lawful will not have ANY EFFECT WHATSOEVER on enabling these people to abuse others. These environments are all currently available already.Edited by Stile, : Made it gender neutralEdited by Stile, : Added to spell out the obvious "In addition.." section

Seriously, the world "secret" is causing you problems? Replace it with "isolated" or "runs their own town" or however else you'd like to explain the unique community situation of FDLS. And I think you need to explain how preventing polygamy would prevent this FDLS community from abusing anyone.Remember: Message 35Making polygamy illigal will have no effect whatsoever on the functionality of isolated communities such as FDLS.Make polygamy illegal.The FDLS still has the right to have sex with any number of people they'ed like.
The FDLS still has the right to live with any number of people they'ed like.
The FDLS still has the right to have children with any number of people they'ed like.
The FDLS still has the right to live in an isolated community as they do now.You've simply removed their label as "polygamists". Now their just "different".Instead of 'polygamists' abusing others, you now have 'different people' abusing others.You have effectively done nothing at all.Except, of course, remove the right from non-abusive polygamists from getting married. And prohibiting polygamy will only serve to have the FDLS change it's tenets.The people will still be abused.Why does no one care about the abuse?It's not difficult, if the FDLS is known for abusing people, do something about the FDLS.Why don't you want to focus on the problem?