Reply #18: Where does it rank in relative importance to you? [View All]

The OP is based on news reports less than 24 hours old regarding a suspected hideout for a fugitive on the FBI's Most Wanted list. It's an ongoing story that has received wide media coverage since Warren Jeffs' flight from justice last summer.

So what makes it unqualified for LBN? The polygamy angle? Polygamy is funny, innit? Who wants more than one wife anyway? Or maybe because the polygamy angle brings in white Christian females, like the Natalee Holloway story, and white females in peril don't get much respect on DU. Or maybe because a cult is something that someone can simply choose to walk away from - even though many can't, especially when their families have been part of one for over 100 years.

But consider that the FLDS is a highly secretive, 10,000-member cult that sanctions incest, child abuse, sexual abuse, and is suspected of tax and welfare fraud. It is listed as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center. And now it is spreading from Utah, whose politicians and law enforcement officials have long ignored it rather than stir up anger among Mormon voters, to other parts of the country.

The FLDS is, by dint of its totalitarian fundamentalism and disregard for US law, an anti-government group. It's far bigger than Posse Comatitus or the Branch Davidians, with whom it shares a number of similarities. That's why, white women and polygamy aside, it's well worth keeping an eye on the FLDS and its fugitive leader.

I wasn't aware that members are required to gauge a story's importance against all current threads before posting in LBN. This story is at least equal in relevance to those about furry crustaceans, Ambien sleep-driving and Congressional interest in Hollywood sex scenes - none of which have earned any posts questioning their place in LBN. I urge anyone who disagrees to alert the moderators.