The Fundamentalist Latter-day Saints Church (FLDS) is, by any rational definition, a cult. Its adherents are the property of the church's ruling sacerdocracy, an all-powerful priestly caste headed -- until recently -- by Warren Jeffs, the hereditary 'prophet' of the sect.

The government of the State of Texas presides over an administrative unit of a Regime that is, by any definition, tyrannical and corrupt. That Regime, and all of its subsidiaries, implicitly claims ownership (including the power of discretionary killing) over every human being residing within our national borders, and any human being anywhere the Regime can project its power.

...It's really difficult to say which of these two cults -- the FLDS Church, or the Imperial Regime -- is worse, in principle. In practice, the Regime's evil easily outstrips that of the Mormon offshoot, since the latter is commendably disinclined to impose itself beyond its own ranks. The Regime, of course, eagerly inflicts its armed benevolence on distant lands with the slightest provocation, or none at all, when it can get away with doing so.