I Went on a Vigilante Raid to “Save” Kids Sold for Sex. What We Did Haunts Me Now.

RotaryKeyboard@lemmy.ninja to U.S. News@beehaw.org – 54 points –
I Went on a Vigilante Raid to “Save” Kids Sold for Sex. What We Did Haunts Me Now.
slate.com
10

This is absolutely horrifying to read about from so many angles. Perhaps most disgusting is the movie coming out. Props to the author for showing some insight and willingness to admit fault. So many people are seemingly unable to admit wrong doing.

Delusional.

And that painting. Like...what the hell? And the name of the organisation?!

This looks like something South Park or Family Guy would make up, doesn't it?

::: spoiler offensive painting

offensive painting

:::

That's in the finest tradition of tone-deaf, clueless whitewashing Mormon painters, including their own mythology.

Those are something else.

I mean, Kenobi Space Jesus has a pretty direct antecedent in Mormon art. They took the Medieval and Renaissance European tradition of making literally everybody white and brought it deep into the twentieth and even twenty-first centuries.

Not a believer in any sense, but I would follow Kenobi and put his portait on my wall. No doubt about it.

Wow, so two of those children were kidnapped specifically because of the demand generated by the sting and then they got dumped out a week later from the shelter presumably back onto the streets.

Haven’t heard of them until this article, but holy moly does the Ballard dude have a hero complex. Between the whole TV show idea, the movie, and that painting of himself, it seems to me that all he cares about is being the “chew bubblegum and kick ass” sort of action hero instead of legitimately trying to help the kids after they are “rescued”.

It sounds like to me this Operation Underground Railroad is really meant for tacticool dudebros and rich people to feel like something they’re not: a hero.

Exactly what I was thinking and planned to say here when I came to the comments. Well said. This is Meal Team Six stuff for kids who grew up watching too many bad action movies.