# It's time to officially Pit Joe Paterno and the Penn State football program. **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [November 7, 2011, 2:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-time-to-officially-pit-joe-paterno-and-the-penn-state-football-program/602167 "2011-11-07T14:23:58Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 78
**Author:** ![miss\_elizabeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/838e76/32.png) [@miss\_elizabeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/miss_elizabeth)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2011, 9:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-time-to-officially-pit-joe-paterno-and-the-penn-state-football-program/602167/1541 "2011-12-18T21:23:57Z")
Well, damn dude. If you don’t like it, don’t click. Besides, I rather enjoy calling him a pedophile. Does it need to be deeper than that? ---
**Author:** ![Enola\_Gay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/3ab097/32.png) [@Enola\_Gay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Enola_Gay)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2011, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-time-to-officially-pit-joe-paterno-and-the-penn-state-football-program/602167/1542 "2011-12-18T21:35:33Z")
> [@John\_DiFool](#): > > I can’t believe, after all this time and the endless decaying spew that flows in spurts and dribbles from what passes from **SA** ’s mouth, the copious evidence that he isn’t the least bit interested in anything remotely resembling a reasonable discussion, that people still insist on trying to debate him as if he is. His statements in this thread should be evidence enough, for anyone who had any lingering doubts, that he is simply trying to troll everyone here (and I mean here=Pit, since he rarely leaves the protection of its environs anymore, at least to indulge in his schtick), and has been doing so for years. Yet he continues to get response after response, rebuttal after rebuttal, with absolutely no effect at all, year after year, in a never-ending parade of multi-page preposterousness. > > So what, exactly, are you trying to accomplish, I wonder? If you are interested in influencing the minds of the great unwashed masses of lurkers out there, I doubt he has swayed anybody, or will sway anybody by this point (i.e. you give our lurkers too little credit). Is it just an idle game, a casual and carefree waste of time (and board bandwidth)-you have nothing better to do? What, precisely, is your aim here, for over 15 hundred fucking posts, in replying to him? I can see responding to that little basket case emo troll we had last night-at least she was fun. How the fuck is this remotely enjoyable or worthwhile? > > Bah. Well NOW you tell me. I have no idea of Starving Artist’s posting history here, as I am a very infrequent visitor. I only opened the thread because I have been following this case and I certainly didn’t read the entire thing. Seemed to me the guy can string together words into sentences so he can’t be a _complete_, moron, hence my attempt to get him to see the inanity of his reasoning. Now that I know he’s just trying to get a rise out of people, I’ll give it up. ---
**Author:** ![Frank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Frank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frank)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2011, 9:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-time-to-officially-pit-joe-paterno-and-the-penn-state-football-program/602167/1543 "2011-12-18T21:39:46Z")
> [@miss\_elizabeth](#): > > Besides, I rather enjoy calling him a pedophile. Does it need to be deeper than that? That’s a disgusting tactic on your part, and on that of the others who have implied that **Starving Artist** being a pedophile is the reason for his defense of Paterno. His inane and stupid arguments are easily demolished and more easily ignored, and to introduce emotional buzzwords as if calling him a pedophile somehow makes the arguments against his posts stronger is uncalled for. ---
**Author:** ![Condescending\_Robot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a183cd/32.png) [@Condescending\_Robot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Condescending_Robot)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2011, 10:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-time-to-officially-pit-joe-paterno-and-the-penn-state-football-program/602167/1544 "2011-12-18T22:00:20Z")
> [@Frank](#): > > That’s a disgusting tactic on your part, and on that of the others who have implied that **Starving Artist** being a pedophile is the reason for his defense of Paterno. His inane and stupid arguments are easily demolished and more easily ignored, and to introduce emotional buzzwords as if calling him a pedophile somehow makes the arguments against his posts stronger is uncalled for. Right, he’s just someone who is so insanely devoted to the Republican death cult that he insists on defending Joe Paterno because he is a Republican, even to the extent of standing up in favor of child rape. That doesn’t make him a pedophile, just a moral vacuum like Paterno himself. ---
**Author:** ![miss\_elizabeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/838e76/32.png) [@miss\_elizabeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/miss_elizabeth)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2011, 10:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-time-to-officially-pit-joe-paterno-and-the-penn-state-football-program/602167/1545 "2011-12-18T22:21:09Z")
> [@Frank](#): > > That’s a disgusting tactic on your part, and on that of the others who have implied that **Starving Artist** being a pedophile is the reason for his defense of Paterno. His inane and stupid arguments are easily demolished and more easily ignored, and to introduce emotional buzzwords as if calling him a pedophile somehow makes the arguments against his posts stronger is uncalled for. Go piss up a rope. It’s the Pit, not GD. **Starving Artist** prefers to hang out and try and debate here, because he is a piece of shit who knows he’ll get his ass handed to him in a real debate, and he relies on personal attacks and stupidity to make his case. Returning it in kind, in the proper forum, is amusing to me. If you don’t like it, don’t come to the fucking pit. Besides, he does sound like a fucking pedo, and I actually wouldn’t be surprised if he’d crossed a line with a kid at some point. He certainly doesn’t think there’s anything wrong with showering with kids, and naked hugging. _That’s_ what’s disgusting here. ---
**Author:** ![Huerta88](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/82dd89/32.png) [@Huerta88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Huerta88)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2011, 10:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-time-to-officially-pit-joe-paterno-and-the-penn-state-football-program/602167/1546 "2011-12-18T22:35:27Z")
> [@Frank](#): > > That’s a disgusting tactic on your part, and on that of the others who have implied that **Starving Artist** being a pedophile is the reason for his defense of Paterno. His inane and stupid arguments are easily demolished and more easily ignored, and to introduce emotional buzzwords as if calling him a pedophile somehow makes the arguments against his posts stronger is uncalled for. I was one of the first to go there, and I did not do so early on or enthusiastically. But I take exception to your characterization of it as tactical. Here’s why. At the beginning, when people were still making the (apparently unwarranted, I can now admit) mistake of thinking the pro-Paterno crowd was arguing in good faith, people went to a great length to emphasize the point that what Paterno himself had admitted to knowing about (“fondling or sexual conduct with a young boy”) was a 100% clear case in which he had a moral duty to pursue every means of reporting and following up on this. In response, **SA** and a couple of others replied with emphatic attempts to prove why Paterno might have been right, inventing facts such as maybe Paterno thought it was tickling or wrestling but not raping, in a bizarrely persistent attempt to distinguish between Paterno’s admitted knowledge of “fondling or sexual conduct” from some category thereof that was “not necessarily illegal” ( **SA** ’s exact words). How does that not read as really, really, creepy and as raising doubts about his motives? Now, I guess I have now spent enough time on the Internet to concede an alternate possible motivation – maybe some losers really do have enough time on their hands and attention-whore craving to troll message boards just for fun. That’s some type of alternate mental disorder that might conceivably explain his not having horseplay inclinations. The political thing never struck me as plausible (I’m a pretty big right wing hack myself, and I’d never thought of Paterno as some visible bastion of the Movement, and even if I did, I’d not put my credibility on the line when he publicly shamed himself or “us” like this). So I dunno – the “just what are you trying to cover up for” argument really did for me start to fall into Holmes’s when you have eliminated everything else . . . category. ---
**Author:** ![Snowboarder\_Bo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowboarder_bo/32/229_2.png) [@Snowboarder\_Bo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snowboarder_Bo)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2011, 11:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-time-to-officially-pit-joe-paterno-and-the-penn-state-football-program/602167/1547 "2011-12-18T23:19:50Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > I don’t know of a single instance when a person has been convicted of raping an unidentified victim. Do you? [I do](http://www.cleveland.com/anthony-sowell/index.ssf/2011/07/unidentified_victim_tells_court_in_cleveland_that_anthony_sowell_brutally_raped_her_in_2007.html). ---
**Author:** ![Frank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Frank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frank)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2011, 12:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-time-to-officially-pit-joe-paterno-and-the-penn-state-football-program/602167/1548 "2011-12-19T00:00:09Z")
> [@miss\_elizabeth](#): > > If you don’t like it, don’t come to the fucking pit. I know it’s the Pit; I’ve been here once or twice. It’s still a disgusting tactic. You’re scum, without even the excuse of being sociopathic and stupid like **Starving Artist**. It must just come naturally to you. ---
**Author:** ![Jack\_Batty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jack_batty/32/3201_2.png) [@Jack\_Batty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jack_Batty)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2011, 12:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-time-to-officially-pit-joe-paterno-and-the-penn-state-football-program/602167/1549 "2011-12-19T00:32:55Z")
I love the Christmas season. ---
**Author:** ![Huerta88](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/82dd89/32.png) [@Huerta88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Huerta88)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2011, 1:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-time-to-officially-pit-joe-paterno-and-the-penn-state-football-program/602167/1550 "2011-12-19T01:16:15Z")
> [@Frank](#): > > I know it’s the Pit; I’ve been here once or twice. It’s still a disgusting tactic. You’re scum, without even the excuse of being sociopathic and stupid like **Starving Artist**. It must just come naturally to you. I haven’t called him a pedophile. I’ve accused him of making arguments that sound very much like ones someone would make if they were straining for false distinctions between different classes of sexual conduct with children. And I’ve probably looped back and said that, gosh, the types of people who would be motivated to make such strained distinctions might include (if not necessarily be limited to), well, people who had done X sexually to a kid and were desperate to rationalize that “real” child sex abuse was limited to some not-X set of acts. It wasn’t a tactic or intended to shame him, it was a form of WTF, your arguments are not going to carry the day because they **sound like** something a pervert would say. Am I scum? I mean, I could have carried the debate (such as it was) over his “arguments” without going there, but it seems like my and several other people’s impression was that his bizarre arguments were dragging us to at least considering that might be what was going on . . . . ---
**Author:** ![Frank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Frank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frank)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2011, 1:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-time-to-officially-pit-joe-paterno-and-the-penn-state-football-program/602167/1551 "2011-12-19T01:21:49Z")
> [@Huerta88](#): > > Am I scum? I’ve generally been as little interested in your posts as I am in **Starving Artist** ’s. Certainly, most of your posts in this thread have been unusually accurate and appropriate. But, yes, insofar as you believe that the defense of Paterno for his inaction marks the defender as a pedophile, then, yes, you are scum too. ---
**Author:** ![Enola\_Gay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/3ab097/32.png) [@Enola\_Gay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Enola_Gay)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2011, 1:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-time-to-officially-pit-joe-paterno-and-the-penn-state-football-program/602167/1552 "2011-12-19T01:22:52Z")
> [@Frank](#): > > I know it’s the Pit; I’ve been here once or twice. It’s still a disgusting tactic. You’re scum, without even the excuse of being sociopathic and stupid like **Starving Artist**. It must just come naturally to you. You might not agree with miss elizabeth’s comments, but I fail to see how that makes her scum (though I concede that she may have a long history of scummy behavior of which I am not aware). But in \*this \*thread, Starving Artist does indeed come off as extremely creepy in his defense of pedophilic behavior. Your suggestion that his revolting arguements are “easily ignored” is interesting in that ignoring atrocious behavior is precisely what Joe Paterno is being rightfully ridiculed for. And yeah, merry fucking christmas. ---
**Author:** ![Huerta88](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/82dd89/32.png) [@Huerta88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Huerta88)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2011, 1:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-time-to-officially-pit-joe-paterno-and-the-penn-state-football-program/602167/1553 "2011-12-19T01:29:17Z")
> [@Frank](#): > > I’ve generally been as little interested in your posts as I am in **Starving Artist** ’s. Certainly, most of your posts in this thread have been unusually accurate and appropriate. But, yes, insofar as you believe that the defense of Paterno for his inaction marks the defender as a pedophile, then, yes, you are scum too. Well, no. Not just “defending Joe Paterno for his inaction.” Rather, the specific and actual fact pattern we have here of “defending Joe Paterno by making arguments that some forms of ‘fondling or sexual contact with a child’ (what Paterno admitted to hearing about) are worse than others, and that some are sufficiently mild that they don’t morally obligate anyone to make a big ol’ stink about them.” **That** ’s what got my and others’ creep-o-meter going. 'Cause that’s exactly what Curley and Schultz did when they lied and reduced a report of a rape to “horsing around in the shower,” and what Sandusky did by admitting to naked “horseplay.” Not – in other words – putting the guy who avidly embraces these false distinctions on the side of the angels. Doesn’t mean he’s a pedo himself, but people can be forgiven for wondering. ---
**Author:** ![Frank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Frank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frank)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2011, 1:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-time-to-officially-pit-joe-paterno-and-the-penn-state-football-program/602167/1554 "2011-12-19T01:29:27Z")
> [@Enola\_Gay](#): > > You might not agree with miss elizabeth’s comments, but I fail to see how that makes her scum (though I concede that she may have a long history of scummy behavior of which I am not aware). But in \*this \*thread, Starving Artist does indeed come off as extremely creepy in his defense of pedophilic behavior. That makes him a pedophile? Disagree with his arguments all you want; I do too. Nevertheless, I find it disgusting that because he is arguing in defense of what Joe Paterno knew and when he knew it that posters here are labelling him a pedophile. That’s uncalled for. ---
**Author:** ![Carmady](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f04885/32.png) [@Carmady](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Carmady)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2011, 1:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-time-to-officially-pit-joe-paterno-and-the-penn-state-football-program/602167/1555 "2011-12-19T01:35:12Z")
To be fair, Paterno may have been lying when he said he was told Sandusky had done something sexual in nature with a child in the Penn State showers. It would have been irresponsible for Paterno to contact the police based on Paterno’s own potential lies. Paterno had to continue allowing Sandusky to use Penn State Football to obtain victims (camps, practices, Second Mile events), even after Paterno alleges that Paterno knew about the sexual abuse, because he could not be sure Paterno wasn’t making things up. To go to the police, or to take away some of Sandusky’s resources in finding victims, would have been a tacit admission that Paterno was telling the truth, and that is the one thing Paterno could not abide. ---
**Author:** ![Mother](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/76d3ee/32.png) [@Mother](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mother)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2011, 2:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-time-to-officially-pit-joe-paterno-and-the-penn-state-football-program/602167/1556 "2011-12-19T02:00:43Z")
> [@](#): > > To be fair, Paterno may have been lying when he said he was told Sandusky had done something sexual in nature with a child in the Penn State showers. It would have been irresponsible for Paterno to contact the police based on Paterno’s own potential lies. > > Paterno had to continue allowing Sandusky to use Penn State Football to obtain victims (camps, practices, Second Mile events), even after Paterno alleges that Paterno knew about the sexual abuse, because he could not be sure Paterno wasn’t making things up. > > To go to the police, or to take away some of Sandusky’s resources in finding victims, would have been a tacit admission that Paterno was telling the truth, and that is the one thing Paterno could not abide. Do you have too many Paternos in here or what? It doesn’t make any sense. ---
**Author:** ![miss\_elizabeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/838e76/32.png) [@miss\_elizabeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/miss_elizabeth)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2011, 2:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-time-to-officially-pit-joe-paterno-and-the-penn-state-football-program/602167/1557 "2011-12-19T02:11:24Z")
> [@Frank](#): > > I know it’s the Pit; I’ve been here once or twice. It’s still a disgusting tactic. You’re scum, without even the excuse of being sociopathic and stupid like **Starving Artist**. It must just come naturally to you. LOL, how ever will I go on! :rolleyes: 😛 ---
**Author:** ![Frank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Frank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frank)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2011, 2:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-time-to-officially-pit-joe-paterno-and-the-penn-state-football-program/602167/1558 "2011-12-19T02:17:43Z")
> [@miss\_elizabeth](#): > > LOL, how ever will I go on! I don’t know; how will you? I assume that you’ll go on by calling opponents of the Iraq invasion traitors, by calling opponents of Richard Nixon un-American, and by callling opponents of Joseph McCarthy Communists. ---
**Author:** ![Enola\_Gay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/3ab097/32.png) [@Enola\_Gay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Enola_Gay)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2011, 2:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-time-to-officially-pit-joe-paterno-and-the-penn-state-football-program/602167/1559 "2011-12-19T02:23:38Z")
> [@Frank](#): > > That makes him a pedophile? > > Disagree with his arguments all you want; I do too. Nevertheless, I find it disgusting that because he is arguing in defense of what Joe Paterno knew and when he knew it that posters here are labelling him a pedophile. That’s uncalled for. I’m watching “Nazi Collaborators” right now on the History Channel, but when I have time I’ll go back and reread this thread and quote the exact posts by him that made me bristle. But on that note, if “Poster X” were arguing in defense of Heinrich Himmler’s, Josef Mengele’s or Adolph Eichmann’s actions during the Holocaust…would it be scummy and uncalled for to label “Poster X” as a Nazi or an Anti-Semite, just because he was condoning such behavior? IMO, even though “Poster X” didn’t shove Jews into the gas chamber, any defense of such actions is objectionable and worthy of merciless ridicule. ---
**Author:** ![miss\_elizabeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/838e76/32.png) [@miss\_elizabeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/miss_elizabeth)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2011, 2:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-time-to-officially-pit-joe-paterno-and-the-penn-state-football-program/602167/1560 "2011-12-19T02:30:46Z")
> [@Frank](#): > > I don’t know; how will you? > > I assume that you’ll go on by calling opponents of the Iraq invasion traitors, by calling opponents of Richard Nixon un-American, and by callling opponents of Joseph McCarthy Communists. Yeah, I bet you think I wanted Casey Anthony to fry too. What is it with people assuming because I am against child rape, I am for all this other bullshit? You know how stupid you sound, right? You sound like **SA** except less child-rapey. Here’s the deal, loser. If **SA** wants to come into the Pit and say that naked shower wrestling is “just horseplay” and no one needs to call the cops, I am going to call you a pedophile apologist, and a possible pedo. Because that is how he comes across. Other people have defended Paterno and crew, and I didn’t call them pedos. Know why? **They didn’t say that naked shower wrestling between an old man and a little kid is a good time.** He did. And that is more fucked up and disgusting and scummy by a HUGE margin than me rightfully pointing out he is acting like a fucking child predator. You’re on ignore now; I will no longer see or reply to your posts, but have fun calling me names if you want. It is the Pit, after all. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-time-to-officially-pit-joe-paterno-and-the-penn-state-football-program/602167.md?page=77) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-time-to-officially-pit-joe-paterno-and-the-penn-state-football-program/602167.md?page=79)