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Old 05-26-2004, 09:25 AM
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KirkVining KirkVining is offline
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Quote:
Originally posted by The Warden
How reliable's the source?

(not trying to flame or start a debate; I don't know anything about that news service)
Worldnet Daily is very far right wing, however knowing what I know about the Tyler Texas area, I believe most of the story. It's freakin kook land out there when it comes to religion. The small towns in the East Texas/ Arkansas area regularly go into "Satan panic", where rumors of Satanic cults in their midsts sweep the towns to the point they result in prosecutions and arrests of a lot of innocent people. The worst case was in Gilmer, Tx, when the whole town literally went nuts, to the point of arresting their police force:

http://www.skepticfiles.org/misctext/whunt2.htm

Another case out that way is the the very odd story of the West Memphis 3, a bunch of Goth kids who were arrested for a supposed Satanic cult murder of young children in Arkansas. Their case was portrayed in the "Paradise Lost" series on HBO. These kids were convicted on hardly any evidence, and the jury of rednecks was swayed by some fundmentalist who called himself a "Satanic Cult Expert" who was given wide leeway by an elected fundie judge to pretty much use a bunch of BS to portray these kids as Satan worshippers because they listened to Metallica. Any objective person who takes even a cursory look at the evidence in this case can see they are innocent. As an example, bite marks that didn't match any of the defendants were found all over one of the kids, and two days after the murder the kids wacko step-father, a guy who had been in and out of the joint for years, had had all his teeth removed. In the HBO specials, its pretty clear all the evidence points to this guy, but the cops never even considered him because all the cops were caught up in the Satanic Cult thing as well. You have no idea how the "Satan in Their Midsts" thing grips these people. The 3 kids, now grown men, have remained in prison for 11 years. One is on Death Row and will probably be executed. Their case is a cause celibre among the Goth crowd, Their website is at

http:\\www.wm3.org

Stuff like this happens out there all the time. The fact one of them wants to try another run at the Civil War doesn't surprise me, however the economy in South Carolina is now driven so much by Yankee retirees I doubt if the locals will want to end that gravy train. I would have picked Arkansas, or perhaps Far East Texas for a new country called Nutbar. Of course, then Little Rock and Hot Springs would have to secede from them.

Last edited by KirkVining; 05-26-2004 at 09:32 AM.
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