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Answer Them Nothing: Bringing Down The Polygamous Empire Of Warren Jeffs (2011)

by Debra Weyermann(Favorite Author)

3.55 of 5 Votes: 3

ISBN

1569765316 (ISBN13: 9781569765319)

languge

English

genre

History & Biography

publisher

Chicago Review Press

review 1: This book has a pretty detailed and comprehensive view of the take down of the FLDS, focusing mostly on the financial and property-driven attacks from outside of the cult. I really enjoyed the author's sarcastic tone, since after having read numerous other books about and by FLDS "apostates," I don't know how you'd talk about it without a little cynicism. My rating would be higher, except that the details about the white-collar crimes going on aren't as interesting to me, and I felt that I'd have liked some more information about Ruth, whom she opened and closed the book with. It's a good book, though, and if you're business-minded, this is the one for you.
review 2: When I was 10, there was a Mormon girl in my grade school class. I didn't know much about he... morer religion but somehow I believed that her father had more than one wife. At the age of 10, I knew what polygamy was. Since this was in England, her parents were probably monogamous but I was aware that this situation did exist in certain circumstances. I never really understood the fullness of the situation until I moved to Mohave County, Arizona, in 2002. During the three years I lived there, I gradually learned about the Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints of the twin communities of Hildale and Colorado City and how our school district suffered financially because of their actions of "Bleeding the beast." I cheered when Warren Jeffs was arrested.This book stops short of Jeffs' conviction in Texas only because it hadn't happened before publication. Other than that, it is extremely detailed. Did you know former Arizona Governor (now Secretary of Homeland Security) Janet Napolitano let the FLDS go unchecked for years because she was worried any action might not help her career? Did you know certain Mormon lawyers and judges in Utah are sympathetic to their Fundamentalist brethren, often paying only lip service to cases? Did you know there are non-FLDS members living in the twin communities who are harrassed and physically threatened daily by their FLDS neighbours? Did you know that the FLDS is spending millions of dollars in frivolous lawsuits to tie up the Utah and Arizona legal systems?This isn't about polygamy and wanting the religious freedoms to practice it. What other religion condones blatent child abuse? Girls as young as 12 are forced into marriages with old men who systematically rape them. There is evidence that Jeffs himself regularly participated in these rapes. The police in the twin communities are FLDS. They filter millions of tax dollars from public services to church pockets and return home girls who run away from their abusive homes. None of the children are educated, ostensibly so they can't rise up and oppose Jeffs and the other higher-ups. Young men are dumped in the desert with no money and no way to make a living, just because they're perceived as a threat to the older men in terms of marriage. After all, there aren't enough girls to go around. Sadly, I don't believe anything will change until Jeffs and this generation of FLDS leaders are dead. Jeffs still controls the sect from his jail cell.Read this book, and open your eyes. I'm a conservative who believes strongly in the First Amendment. But can sexual abuse of children or fraud or tax evasion on a massive scale really be considered religious freedoms? I think not. less

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