cmr2014

I've been having a lot of conversations regarding American history recently, and there is a phrase in the Declaration of Independence that is a bedrock belief of most Americans: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. We tend to think of this as being obvious, but it was radical in it's time and, even today, there are many people who don't believe this -- especially religious extremists. If you were to recite this to one of the Duggars (or their fellow cultists), you would get a weepy, flag waving response. If you were to paraphrase it, you would get an angry reply that you're a "secular humanist" and hostile to honest, decent, God-loving people. I don't think that Anna sees herself as an autonomous individual with the associated rights and responsibilities regarding for her own life. She is a pawn in "God's plan." Everything that happens in her world is pre-ordained and a "blessing" or a "test," but it's not of her own making; it's what "God has planned" for her. She's secure in her belief that all she has to do is fulfill her role (wife and mother) and she will be taken care of -- if not by Josh, then by JB. If something happens to JB, then Jesus will take over. The idea that she's an autonomous human being with not just the right, but the responsibility, to take care of herself and her children isn't even a blip on her radar.

I agree -- and I don't think she "has a lot of whatever it is that gets people to leave cults," either. I also think that a lot of these statements (that Anna should leave Josh, get a job, ect.) are based on viewing Anna as a sort of blank slate, like Jana, who we know very little about and onto whom we can project positive attributes. Anna may not have a huge SM presence, but we've seen enough to get some idea of who she is. Anna "at least I have a husband" self-identifies as a Gothard/Christian wife and mother. There is no part of her that identifies as an independent woman. The raid was two years ago; Josh was arrested 6 months ago. I'm sure that the lawyers gave them some insight into his chances. If she had any intention of fending for herself (or there was any expectation that she would), some groundwork could have been laid in the last two years, and there's no sign that that happened. Anna has made only a few public posts/statements in the past few years, and almost all of them have been related to her self-identified status as a persecuted Christian. There's no indication that she has ever poked her head outside the Gothard bubble -- and no indication that she wants to do so. JB may not want 8 more mouths to feed, but it is very much part of his belief system that he will feed them. He's their "umbrella of authority" which gives him absolute control over their lives, but also makes him responsible for their well-being. I don't think they're going anywhere, and I don't think it's crossed any of their minds (JB, J'chelle, Josh, Anna, and the J'kids) that they would.

I think Anna believes that Joshua was framed by the evil government and is being persecuted because he's a Christian. I think that JB thinks that Joshua did the crime, but that it's a "sin" not a "crime" and should be dealt with within the religious community (e.g. by him). I think J'chelle tries very hard not to think of it at all . . .

My guess is that the first year ot two will be filled with appeals, and Anna being sure that God will send Joshua home. I think that she is also 100% convinced that the prosecution was persecution inflicted by a heathen Federal government on a Godly Christian man. I think that Plan B is to wait for the "right" sort of government to be elected so that Joshua can be pardoned. I also think that there is about a 100% chance that Anna has done less research on federal sentencing than the people on this board. She may well believe that Plan C will be that he will be paroled in a few years because of all of the good work his "prison ministry" has done. Maybe five or six years down the road, she'll begin to get a clue, but I doubt it.

It may be that they all know JB well enough to know that today wasn't a day to talk with him . . .

My guess is that Josh will NOT sign up for any program like this. 1. He's planning to appeal, and isn't willing to admit that he's a sex offender. 2. His "spiritual advisor" (daddy) will advise against it, because it is a secular program, and he might get some sort of non-Jesus related help.

I'm not 100% sure on the timeline of his story, but it seems like his early years were very chaotic. It wouldn't surprise me if the combination of chaos and rigidity of the Duggar hh doesn't suit him well (he always appears very happy). I think he's a very vulnerable kid, and may well end up being the most religious and dogmatic of them all.

I'm sure you're right. Jana can break out the special "Birthday Template" so that her "parents" can make a special loving and personalized post on SM on (or relatively close to) the special day. It looks like he's going to miss the opportunity to go out for a free sunday and a glass of water and a half hour of extra face time with his parents this year . . .

I somehow think he will get more attention, and more of a celebration on his birthday at ALERT than he would at the TTH.

I'm not 100% sure of the timeline, but this is my understanding 1. Josh molests his sisters (age 12-14 2000-2002) 2. Josh gets sent to Little Rock for "rehabilitation" by working on a construction project or cleaning out a pond (age 14 2002) 3. Family get television show (first special 2004) 4. Family moves to TTH (2006) 5. Family gets booked on Oprah (2006) 6. Oprah staff receives letter about Josh and alerts AR authorities (2006) 7. AR authorities interview Josh and his victims (the transcripts that were in InTouch 2006) 8. CPS requires that Josh not live at the TTH (possibly with Grandma Mary at this time 2006) 9. Josh and Anna begin "courting" (2006) 10. Josh gets married (2008)

If I recall correctly, once the police became involved with the molestation incident (after it was reported by the Oprah staff), Josh was barred from living at the TTH.

My take on it has always been, that he didn't really have much use for her in the beginning. He couldn't live at the TTH, and they wouldn't accept him living alone, so he had to get married, and Anna (and more particularly her father) agreed. I don't think he thought she was good enough for him AT ALL -- not hot enough, not smart enough, and not from a good enough family. I do think that they had a happy period while they were in DC. I think that for a short while there, they were a couple and actually beginning to communicate and act as a couple separate from their parents. Once they were back in Arkansas, though, I think that all fell apart. I agree that Josh never wanted a bunch of kids, and I think he had some hope in DC that the baby train might slow, but once they were back in Arkansas, that fell apart, too.

I think he's scared right now. There are a lot of unknowns for him, and he's led a very sheltered life. I do agree, though, that prison won't be a big problem for him once he gets settled in. He'll probably be in a segrated unit and be relatively safe from physical harm. I don't know if he'll be required to work, but if he is, he'll probably "work" as hard as he has up until now at the car lot. The food will be very similar to what he's eaten his whole life, and I'm sure Anna will be sending him care packages on a regular basis. Plus, he won't have to even pretend to be nice to Anna, and he won't have to worry about any more "blessings." He won't have his parents breathing down his neck. Won't have to talk about Jesus/God/the Bible all the time. I think he'll probably sign up for college classes, although I'd be hard pressed to believe that he'll actually put in the work and get a degree.

Also, as we've discussed on their respective threads, they just don't really seem to get the point of the sponsorships. Joy mentions something like sometimes she's "just dropped," as if there's no imaginable explanation. I think that in their minds, the only reason they would be dropped because their "image isn't a good fit" is because of the release of the InTouch article. It doesn't even cross their minds that companies don't want to be associated with bigots and cult members. It also doesn't seem to occur to them that they might be dropped because they just suck at it. Jill puts on her Citrus & Lemon clothes, takes a photo of herself squinting into the sun, and then takes them off. We don't ever see Jill living the life of a young wife/mother in her modest, yet stylish and comfortable C&L clothes. Joy puts on ridiculous fake eyelashes, takes a photo, and then takes them off. She could be posting about all kinds of items that actually fit her lifestyle (children's clothes, camping gear, etc.), but instead she posts about something that is so far out of her comfort zone that she can't even pretend that she'll ever put them on again. I'm sure, though, that whenever they lose a sponsorship, JB rages about how much they are discriminated against because they're Christian, and how they're losing their incomes because of InTouch (not Josh).

Jinger mentions that she was working with an agency of some kind. It wouldn't surprise me at all if working with a reputable agency and having a clear plan made a huge difference in compensation. The agency can negotiate better rates, and Jinger states that she makes x number of posts per month while the rest of them just haphazardly put out ridiculous posts.

JB has a pretty standard way of "providing," and I don't think much will change. They live in the warehouse, and will live there unless the county comes by and kicks them out for living in a warehouse that hasn't been approved as habitable. They will get groceries (mostly canned food) from the TTH pantry and grocery runs. I'm sure her phone is already on a TTH plan, and I'm sure her car is already part of the Duggar Enterprises fleet and is insured and gassed up on the Duggar Enterprises dime. She'll probably get a tiny allowance from JB to keep her kids and herself supplied in thrift store clothes and shoes. That's it. That's going to be her life for the next 10+ years: warehouse/TTH, TTH/warehouse. Probably not much better than Josh's life, and she's not the criminal.

While $10,000 for Jill and $30,000 for Jessa isn't a great income to live off of, it's a ton of money for how little effort they put into their SM. If I'm not mistaken, they all identify as SAHM's in their depositions. It's hard to make a case that you've lost significant income when you state, up front, that your primary role in your family is not to produce income. If they could produce a single instance of an organization dropping them because they were victims of abuse, they should produce the notification they received. I would bet that they have a stack of notifications saying that they were being dropped because of their public homophobia, and zero letters/e-mails/texts saying that they were being dropped because of Josh.

That could be true. It's also possible that they know better than anyone else what kind of person he is. Some (or all) of them may be in denial, like Anna, but they've been around him all their lives, and they must see that he's different. I think it's more likely that the the youngest ones will grow up with folk-stories and hero-worship from Anna, and will buy into the idea that he was persecuted, but the older ones might have doubts. I dislike all of the Duggars and Duggar-adjacents, but none of them is as overtly disrespectful to their wives as Josh. Despite what J'chelle and Anna wrote in their letters, Josh doesn't seem like a particularly hands-on dad, either (perhaps a poor choice of words, here).

To me, Josh has always seemed like the most Gothard-y of all of the spouses in the Duggar oribit. I've always thought that he thinks of Anna as his servant, sex toy, and the incubator of his mini-me's. To me, it's always seemed like he didn't think Anna was very bright, and certainly never thought she was "hot."

I'm not 100% sure I woudn't be one of them. I doubt I would actively try to get her fired, but I would not want her around any child in my care. Anna hasn't done anything wrong (that we know of), but she hasn't done anything right, either. I think she's weak, gullible, sheltered, and not terribly bright, so I cut her some slack, but, again, I wouldn't want her around any vulnerable population. She's a religious bigot, and I would expect her to prosletize whenever she had the chance; it's part of her belief system. I would expect her to be have significant problems dealing with people outside of her cult -- people of different ethnicities, religious groups, sexual orientations, etc. I see no ability (or interest) on her part to move beyond her tiny sheltered world, and I think her beliefs are too extreme even for a Christian school. She's still in denial about Josh which, while weird and creepy, is not entirely unrelateable. On the other hand, she has shown zero empathy for any of Josh's victims -- including his sisters. While that might be acceptable (although not great) if she were working in an ice cream shop, it's a non-starter (IMO) for working with children.

I agree. I also think that if I were the judge and I was reading these letters, I would be concerned by Anna's letter. She's clearly in denial, and I would be concerned that once Josh is released, she will not be vigilant about her children's well being. It's not even remotely uncommon for women to care more about a significant other than their own children. Plenty of women stand by while their men physically, sexually, and emotionally abuse thier children and, to me, Anna "at least I have a husband" Duggar is just that sort of woman. I'm not suggesting that there's any indication that Josh has abused his own children, but there's also no indication that Anna has accepted the seriousness of what he's done, or that she has checked in with her children and has any reason for comfort that he hasn't. If it were up to me, that would factor heavily into my decision and I'd be more likely to give him 16+ years.

Maye that's why she didn't write a letter? If someone had helped me out to the tune of $2000/month for multiple years, I would think that I would be able to take pen in hand to write at least a short letter on his behalf . . .

I think this may be Jessa's personality, but I also think she may have just seized a moment. When Jessa and Ben were "courting" she was full of rebelious zeal -- talking about eloping and posting all kinds of non-Gothard religious screeds on social media. About the time of Josh scandal #1, Josh had lost his halo, JD and Jana were unmarried (and JD was being openly mocked by JB because of that), Jill was moving out of the country, Jinger was "courting" someone her father didn't really like, and Josiah appears to have taken up permanent residence in the dog house. I think Jessa may have realized that she could move up in the pecking order and become a most-favored child. That could account for her coming home to roost and maintaining such a strong allegiance to the TTH.

I was thinking about the letters, and Josh's "ministry." Nicole Burgess wrote: "He and his family are not typical of what this world has to offer -- they are better." Josh is literally not even "better" than the majority of people in the same prison. Most people in county jail are incarcerated for relatively minor crimes like drug and alcohol related offenses and petty theft. Josh is a felon who committed a henious crime and is awaiting transfer to Federal prison. I would expect the prison to segregate the serious felons from the general population.

I would not have included the Nicole Burgess letter. While it may be over-the-top with praise of Josh's abilities (e.g looking through his ENTIRE medicine cabinet! etc.), it's kind of offensive. In the last portion, she talks about his "Joshua's relationship with his Savior, Jesus" and italicizes "I'm not asking you to understand what a relationship with Jesus looks like." It's condescending and offensive -- and I wouldn't want to be condescending and offensive to a judge. She mentions (and italicizes) several times what a difficult and horrific time this is for Josh. I don't expect her to go into how horrific his crimes are in a character letter, but talking about how difficult this is for him is more than a little tone-deaf. She might have wanted to stop with how hard it is on Anna and the kids. Then, there is the final sentence" He and his family are not typical of what this world has to offer -- they are better." I have no words -- that pretty much sums up what's wrong with the Duggars and their fellow cult members in a nutshell. How anyone could think that a judge would respond to this bit of smug, self-satisfied cluelessness with anything but a hammer, I don't know.