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Polygamist sect conditioned girls from birth
Washington Times – 1 hour ago
By Valerie Richardson The 16-year-old girl whose phone call led to the massive raid on a West Texas polygamist compound was repeatedly beaten and sexually abused by her much-older husband, according to state documents released yesterday.
Teen mothers reported at polygamist sect’s compound Los Angeles Times
Papers detail alleged abuse at sect’s compound USA Today
New York Times – KGAN – The Associated Press – ABC News
all 3,205 news articles »

There’s a shocker!   Didn’t see that coming.   Who would have thought that?  I wonder what they mean by ‘conditioning’ in this Google news article on 4-9-08 about those people in South Texas?   Are they claiming they were conditioned like rats or monkeys?   That’s outrageous!

I guess that religion is just weird…a cult or worse! Good thing it has been discovered so that we can ‘help’ save those members of the CHURCH OF JESUS CHRIST OF LATTER-DAY SAINTS people… After all, they used all the conditioning methods below.  Some are versions of other methods listed but those polygamists used them on their women and children…

Reward – Reinforcement

· I’ll reward you if you do it. “if you do this spread sheet I’ll pay you on pay day at this rate…”

· “Thanks! I’ll make certain your parents know how good you did in school today.”

Punishment

· You won’t get an allowance if you don’t clean your room.  “If you don’t read the scriptures today, I won’t be able to speak to the mullah on behalf of your salvation.” “If you can’t recite the Catechism section in Church on Sunday God will not be pleased.”

Positive Expertise

· As your pastor, I can tell you that rewards will occur if you do X, because of the Gods love for you.  Or “If you start working out at our gym regularly, you’ll be thinner and will make a good wife to bear children with one of the elders of the community.”

Negative Expertise

· Speaking as an authority on the subject, I can tell you that punishments will occur if you do Y, because Y is a SIN!  “If you don’t recant, you may never get another chance—God’s patience in these matters is not infinite.”

Gifting, Pre-giving

· Giving something as a gift, before requesting compliance. The idea is that the target will feel the need to reciprocate later. “Here’s a little something we thought you’d like. Now about those reading the homely this Sunday? . . .”

Debt

· Calling in past favors. “After all I’ve done for you!  I request this small favor and now it’s a big deal all of a sudden….”

Aversive Stimulation

· Continuous punishment, and the cessation of punishment is contingent on compliance. “I’m going to read my Bible out loud in front of your friends if you insist on playing your rock music. When stop listening to that garbage I’ll stop reading out loud.”

Moral Appeal

· This tactic entails finding moral common ground on a set of rules, also conditioned, and then using the rule set of a person to obtain compliance. “You believe that women have a traditional importance in the family don’t you? You don’t believe that women ought to work as hard as men, do you? Then you ought to sign this petition! It’s the right thing to do.”

Positive Self-feeling

· You’ll feel better if you X. “If you join our kibbutz today, you’ll feel better about yourself because you’ll know that you’re improving and contributing your soul every day.”

Negative Self-feeling

· You’ll feel bad if you Y. “If you don’t marry this Zionist and bear him children, you’ll find it hard to live with yourself or your faithful parents who brought you up to obey the law of Punjab.”

Positive Altercasting

*    Good people do X. “The truly faithful people tend to volunteer for sacrifical training right after high school. Are you one of the faithful?”

Negative Altercasting

· Only a bad person would do Y. “You don’t look like an atheist.  Are you sure you won’t come to services with me if I go out with you?!”

Positive Esteem of Others

· Other people will think more highly of you if you X. “People respect a man who drives a Mercedes. No one cares about his _______ [fill in the nefarious type] connections.”

Negative Esteem of Others

· Other people will think worse of you if you Y. “You don’t want people thinking that you’re a loser, do you?”

I’ll bet the vile conditioning the polygamists used was a lot different than the ‘good’ ways that others condition their members, employees, children, citizens …

Schools	Dating	Driving	writing	Buying	Cleaning
Sports	Finance	Eating	Thinking	Voting	Typing
Trades	Baby sitting	Watching TV	Reading	Socializing	Lying
Sales	Choking	Texting	Loving	Hunting	Giving

Ok, you caught me… choking is not learned; it’s a reflex. The others are all learned though through consequences as feedback.  The polygamists were conditioned and we’re all conditioned using the same methods and procedures.  Good guys do it and so do bad guys.

It’s just that what we call bad is arbitrary and not absolute.  It too is conditioned.  Along the way we all come to value some things and not value others.  When some potentate says its bad some of us believe it and some laugh out loud.

What we believe gets conditioned and becomes our reference points – better known as our “biases” – which gives them their good, righteous, virtuous, and lofty titles and also their which give them their evil, sinner, heathen, crook, terrorist, bad biases titles.

So how were the West Texas women and children in the story different than other groups that do the same thing only aren’t…

· polygamists

· isolated them from other ideas and influences

There isn’t. Seems that the Catholics have their nunneries, the other religions have their missions, catechisms, bar mitzvah’s, etc.  The Hasidic Jews in New York area are particularly secretive about their practices with young people.  Why isn’t the New York state and US Marshall’s offices investigating them or raiding their temples?

Could it be that there are some biases going on…?   “If you are like us, we can look the other way but if you are not like us and we can find some reason to make you fit in, we’ll take a shot at disbanding your, vilifying you or making your practices illegal.”

No one is tolerating the abuse that was present. However, if that was the sole criteria for raiding a sanctuary of worship we’d raid the NBA training camps where spousal abuse is treated as a collateral damage for players having the pressure of making a lot of money.

There are a lot of double standards; let’s not wince but get a clear view of what’s going on. Then we’ll all meet at the other churches and high schools where similar abuses and sexual abstinence are conditioned.  That’s worked wonders hasn’t it!?

So the next time you see a heading in the local scandal sheet or city newspaper like:

“Polygamist sect conditioned girls from birth”

We’re all conditioned from birth…  So, you know that it is not about “conditioning from birth” but that something else is there that the editors don’t agree with or that will sell a lot of papers.

And oh, by the way, that behavior set is conditioned too.