Usually a bit of time is required…but it is fascinating to see historical revisionism and hagiography happening in real time. The early Christians would be envious.
I’m perfectly willing to acknowledge that my interpretation of the other person’s behavior is just that…an interpretation, and that I may be wrong. But the point remains valid just the same: when you jump to conclusions as a result of superficial appearances and your own imaginings you may very well be wrong, and the fact of the matter is that lacking the pertinent facts, one or the other of us that night jumped to the wrong conclusions. It doesn’t matter which of us was wrong. What matters is that had we both the pertinent facts, we would both have been able to come to the correct conclusion. Get it? The facts trump all, and without the facts we’re all just shooting in the dark. It’s a shame that Paterno got gunned down as he did, for there’s not a single fact to support the allegations that he knowingly allowed Sandusky to abuse kids, much less for years. There are no facts to indicate that he intentionally or knowingly participated in a coverup or that he knew one was likely. And there are no facts to indicate, as was so feverishly being claimed before I entered this thread, that Joe Paterno was a pedophile enabler or pedophile himself. Every bit of all that is nothing but supposition and imaginings born of hysterical overreaction to a particularly horrendous crime, and so far the most accurate descriptor of it is “nonsense.”
You’re trying to draw some equivalency between your projection that some guy who said nothing to you thinks you’re a pedophile, and the grand jury testimony of McQueary and Paterno.
You don’t have any facts to support the idea that this guy thought you were a pedophile. We have sworn testimony from McQueary that he went to Paterno and told him about “something of a sexual nature” and “slapping sounds” with a young boy in the shower. If you think those two situations are even at all comparable, you’re a complete moron.
No, I’m saying that without facts, people don’t know what they’re talking about.
All of which Paterno reported fully, and as the law and campus experience told him he should. This fact shows that Paterno did not attempt to subborn a coverup from McQueary, nor to minimize it or treat it dismissively in reporting it to the administration’s authorities. Thus there is not only a total lack of evidence that Paterno tried to cover up what he was told, but facts of record which prove the contrary.
Certainly they are comparable. They both involve people coming to conclusions not supported by the facts.
Certainly I’m beginning to feel like a moron for trying to reason with you. 
Yeah, okay. Whatever you say, boss.
Ah, but it’s the pervasive liberal sensibility that has infected modern culture that makes the two situations comparable. His moronity is but a fringe element.
What facts would you accept to get you to concede that Paterno did, in fact, cover or enable* Sandusky? Obviously (I think?) a sworn, notarized affidavit in Paterno’s safety deposit box, mentioned in his will, that said, “Yeah, I knew Jerry Sandusky was diddling boys on my watch, and I helped cover it up.” Anything short of that?
The reason I ask is because, as I recall, I once asked you a question about what it would take to change your view that liberals as the cause of all of society’s current ills, and you said nothing would change your mind. I wonder if we might be hitting something similar here.
No traps, I’m not waiting to quote from the Grand Jury testimony and say, “Well, here it is, you’re wrong, neener neener.” I just want to see if you’re capable of having your mind changed on this issue (especially now that the man is dead and can’t shed any further details on his involvement, or lack thereof).
- I’ll let you choose either of these verbs, or substitute one of your own.
Bingo
But in your story, your the only one who jumped to conclusions. You said you saw him looking at you and you know he thinks your a pedo. You felt so strongly that was the case that you almost went over and challenged him over it. And he is the one jumping to conclusions.
Haw many times am I going to have to say this? Certainly I could be wrong as to the thoughts and body language of the other guy at the 7-11 (though I doubt that you’d think so if I were to describe the incident from what would have been his point of view). But the point, yet again, is that without the facts no one can say. Same with Joe Paterno. If you don’t have the facts you’re merely inventing your conclusions. This applies to me and it applies to the Paterno bashers in this thread.
And yes, quixotic78, I could be persuaded of malfeasance on Paterno’s part if there was sufficiently credible evidence of it. After all, I’ve never said that Paterno was unquestionably innocent. Only that no evidence exists at this point which would prove or even suggest that he was guilty of the things he’s been accused of and had accepted as fact in this thread.
The difference is that YOU drew your conclusions based on nothing more than YOUR (retarded) interpretation of the ‘bozo redneck’s body language’, whereas those who are judging Paterno arrived at their conclusions based on what Paterno and various eye witnesses have REPORTED (aka their words, their testimony, the facts they presented to the grand jury, statements given to law enforcement, NOT on supposition based on nothing more than imagination or erroneous interpretation of body language). Do you honestly not see the difference??? If you can’t differentiate then you should be taken down to the quarry post haste and thrown in.
You are correct. My opponents in this thread have reached their conclusions based upon eyewitness and Grand Jury testimony. Unfortunately that testimony doesn’t begin to support those conclusions.
No, the testimony does support the conclusion that Paterno was told about “something of a sexual nature” with a 10 year old boy, “rhythmic slapping sounds” in the shower. And many people’s belief is that the bare minimum legal requirement he adhered to was not the minimum moral requirement that he had. The coverup that you believe everyone is claiming here was not active, it was passive. By not pursuing the claim beyond the bare minimum legal requirement to report to his supervisors, that is allowing it to die quietly, which covers up the severity of the actions.
What you have been doing is trying to hand wave away those words, either claiming that Paterno didn’t understand them as they were spoken to him, also didn’t understand what he told his superiors later, that he came from a gentler time when rape or molestation didn’t exist or some shit, and then flat out saying that what he said during an interview was obviously not what he meant to say. What isn’t supported in the testimony is YOUR interpretation of what must have happened, which is why you’ve been hot on the defensive to switch around the interpretation of words and place Paterno in a context where not only did he not DO anything wrong by not doing more, he didn’t know any better either, because he was too overwhelmed by all the words he just didn’t understand. Just like your stupid 7-11 story, the only person who’s running rampant with ill-founded suppositions is you.
Pure forgery!
An obvious hoax! More liberal skulduggery!
Nonsense! Pure fiction! St. Joseph didn’t even know the word “diddling”— a sick slang term from a sick society of which he held no part! A laughable frame-up from the same connivers who crafted the so-called “Obama birth certificate”! You shall not besmirch the legacy of our blessed JoePa, hallowed be His name!
And before you bring out the camera footage— Joe Paterno didn’t know how to operate a Kinetoscope, much less a Flip camera!
This is the second time I’ve wandered into this thread and this is the second time you’ve gone off on a tangent about your belief that people think you’re a pedophile. In the first, you blame unnamed, unquoted Dopers of smearing you with the label “pedophile.” In the second, you blame a guy across a parking lot just looking in your direction of thinking you’re a pedophile. In both instances, no one’s actually accused you of anything. It’s just that you’ve gotten defensive and your first reaction is to blurt out “why does everyone keep assuming I’m a pedophile?”
These seem like very strange tangents and very strange reactions. Why are you taking a thread about Joe Paterno and continually making it about yourself just so you can prove that everybody is wrong and that, no, you’re definitely not a pedophile?
This is a really nice summation. Especially, “…the bare minimum legal requirement he adhered to was not the minimum moral requirement that he had.” Thanks.
I would question if he even met the bare minimum legal requirement.
Years ago, when I was trained on legal requirements for ‘mandated reporters’ (like school employees) here in Minnesota, we were specifically told that we had to report to legal authorities – police or county attorney – passing the buck up to your job supervisor was not enough to meet your legal requirements.
Possibly Pennsylvania law is less stringent. Does anyone have the specific language of the law in Pennsylvania?
It’s been well hashed out that yes, he did meet the minimum legal reporting limit for PA.
He not only met the minimum requirement but he reported what he was told exactly as the law is written that he should. This “minimum that he had to” crap is nothing more than a specious dodge utilized to somehow blame Paterno in light of the fact that no actual probative evidence exists as to any deliberate wrongdoing on his part.
For the (checks post count, quick calculation on fingers) approximately 900th time, the question is whether he met his moral obligation, not his legal one.