I agree. S/he obviously doesn’t belong here. If you let yourself get that rattled by something you read on a message board, you would probably be better off staying away from the Internet and renting a nice Disney flick instead.
WOW. Thank you, thank you, thank you, Diane. Very informative post.
I am also quite sick of the speculation on the other thread. I for one am more than willing to give this entire family the benefit of the doubt in this case. Haven’t they been through enough already? Why do they need people they don’t even know second-guess and make biased assumptions about how they are supposed to behave?
Maybe (God Forbid) one of you critics out there will someday have something horrible happen to your family. Maybe you won’t react the way a bunch of strangers you’ve never met think you are supposed to act. Do you think it’ll be a good feeling? Like you haven’t got enough to deal with already, and now a bunch of yahoos are jumping to conclusions and assuming things with what? Theories and ideas they pulled out of their ass? Is that the way you’d want to be treated?
I mean, come on.
Agreed. I thank you as well for your post. I’m a frequent visitor to the SLC area since my Dad moved out there 25 years ago. As you can imagine they can spot Bostonians a mile away there 
and I am often an object of curiousity. Having met everyone from cops to LDS leaders to restaurant owners, I can say that faith and trust is more common than not, in a way that Northeasterners would never understand.
But what galls me is the fact of the girl’s motives being speculated upon - and it’s not limited to here at all, this is all over the web. I do not think people can tell the difference between reality and a reality TV show anymore; there’s an element of “I’m reserving judgement until all the facts are in” when we really don’t need to be judging or fact-finding. She is not on trial.
There have also been many comments by the family that most everyone has been in therapy for months now. From everything I’ve seen, Elizabeth and the rest of the family will have as much counseling and therapy as they can stand.
I think it’s ridiculous that some people are judging Ed Smart’s state of mind and personality from what they see on the TV. He’s been through hell, he knows his daughter has been through worse, and people want him to act…how? Normal? The way they think he should act? What standards, exactly, do we impose on people who have been through this, and how do we approve them?
Yes, the family has been very media-friendly. They were from the start, and were the driving force behind the continuing focus on the story. For them, it certainly paid off; they got her back. I’m unsure why people seem to feel that talking to the media or taking pictures is a terrible thing for them when they may feel that the media and the coverage is what saved ES. (The pictures, you’ll notice, are all taken by the uncle, Tom Smart, who works for the Deseret News anyway.)
OK, this is fairly pointless then, but I’ve been appalled at the ‘blame the victim’ stuff going on here, the big-brush Mormon bashing, and the general ill-will toward a family we can’t begin to judge.
The mass ignorance in that thread is astounding and disturbing, but that is no reason to wish harm on people.
Diane, I can only speak for myself, but when I agreed that ES’s story was “odd”, what I meant was that I didn’t think it was a happy ending just because she was back with her family. I was concerned about the same kind of long-term trauma that you were speculating about in your above post. Sorry if I came off otherwise. 
Naw, I understood where you were coming from 100 percent Rilch.
It was a few of the other comments, especially the ones that implied she left on her own free will and had sex with this guy willingly and the comments regarding her family and the LDS church that got me riled up.
Diane, thank you for that post. As somebody once said, “if you want the real facts, don’t believe the press or public figures; ask somebody who was there.” You provided that, and I’m grateful.
And I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’m finding reading the Pit very refreshing lately because after people have vented their emotions, what ends up happening is that we get to the heart of the matter – as Diane did, and as has happened a number of times in a lot of threads here lately. That’s a great testimony to the community here!
Thanks Poly.
If I may be so bold as to criticize **jarbabyj’s[/b comment above:
“they were going to deal with her nine month abduction and possible rape via God and the Family.”
I’d like to say that the Smart family seems to be very religious, and as far as I know, counseling through a church counts as therapy. So does family support. “Therapy” does not necessarily consist of lying on a couch in a psychiatrist’s office. I would further say that, considering that this is indeed a child, pyschiatric therapy may be very traumatic. Let’s face it, this kid has been through a lot, and the best therapy may be the welcoming arms of her church and her God and her family. We may not all share the same beliefs, but if Elizabeth Smart is eased through this trauma by hers and her family’s, I find it hard to think of that as “abuse.”
Diane
Thanks.
I wish I could have said it so well.
Dang it Polycarp will you quit encouraging her! She comes into a perfectly good pit thread and ruins it by being… being… well, reasonable!
Seriously, we don’t much about what happened here, and probably won’t for a while. I don’t suppose idle speculation on this board will actually hurt anyone, but we should be very careful about taking any of it seriously in the absence of any real facts. In that vein, I’ll go along with everyone else and give Diane a hearty “Thanks!” for trying to inject some.
Banger posted this jackass comment in the GD thread:
It’s addressing my dissection of wearywitch’s absolutely prejudiced and stunningly ignorant posting therein.
Banger: I don’t know if you are actually a moron or if you’re just playing on on TV; however, if you’re playing one, then you’re playing it damn well.
emarkp raised the question about the necessity of a remedial logic thread. Heck, I’m now raising the question of a remedial reading thread’s necessity. wearywitch’s comments in her posting were absolute crap and I indicated why and how they were. The fact that the comments she made are prejudicial and stunningly ignorant are her fault. Amazingly, they pass for tactful in your book. Thus my comment about you being a moron.
BTW, Banger, I didn’t call anyone’s thoughts laughable. I said that wearywitch calling her freaking ignorant comments thoughts was laughable.
Crap. I left out something.
Banger: You can’t seriously be so moronic as to not realize that those stunningly ignorant comments, presented as fact, are incendiary.
Well, maybe you can.
Sorry for the brief hijack, but I totally missed the news that she’s been found. Has Larry King done an interview with the two prosecution women and the defense guy - Mark, I think was his name. 'Cause those two prosecutors basically sounded like they were ready to hang the father based simply on his rather odd behavior, and never let Mark have a word in edgewise with his rather reasoned appeals to the intellect and law. I don’t think I’ve ever yelled at the TV so much as when watching these prosecutors smell the blood. (Well, perhaps Fox’s post-Sept. 11 coverage was just as bile-inducing.)
I’d be curious to see what they all have to say considering the outcome…
For those who question why she didn’t escape when she was only a few miles away from home and for those who have made outrageous and shameful claims that she my have been a runaway or willing captive, I give you this latest article:
http://tv.ksl.com/index.php?sid=14921&nid=5
"Prosecutors say that when they reached the campsite, Barzee tried to remove Elizabeth’s pajamas. When the girl resisted, Barzee threatened to have Mitchell forcibly do it.
Elizabeth then complied and Mitchell attempted to sexually assault her, with Barzee’s help. At some point, she was restrained with a cable around her foot that was tethered to a tree, Yocom said.
From that night until Oct. 8, the couple held Elizabeth against her will at the mountain campsite with little or no shelter, plumbing, water or food, prosecutors said."
“She was under the threat of death,” Yocom said.
“Elizabeth was taken against her will at knifepoint, she’s a minor, and whatever rationale Mitchell used to believe that she was his wife and loved him is grossly mistaken,” Thomas said. “The definition of love is not degradation, humiliation, or robbing someone’s life of control and respect.”
:mad:
Diane: Would you be so kind as to return, again, to the GD thread and inject some sense into some of the folks there?
Done Monty.
Not sure if it will get through to a few of them, though.
I’m sure it’s not going to get through to mangeorge. Good grief! He asked a question and I posted the answer, along with the links to where I fetched the answer. His response: “I’m not familiar with the language.” Horse manure.