No need to consider any people on any website as legitimate supporters of someone who let a child abuser roam free instead of doing his best to stop him.
Some people in this thread, or other threads, or other forums, may choose to consider a possible justification for allowing a child abuser keep on abusing children, for the benefit of college football and its interests.
Paterno knew what was happening and swept it under the PSU rag to save his job. Same thing that McQuery did.
Don’t take it personally, Huerta made the same sorf of accusation to me, asking if I had homosexual or heterosexual child molestation my past that caused me to try to excuse it. Apparently all it takes to convince him you are a pervert of the worst order is to argue that we should not automatically assume the worst about a man with a decades-long reputation for honesty and integrity. Nope, child rape is invoved so all bets are off and everybody having anything to do with Sandusky is as guilty as he is.
I’m expecting a Dopefest to form in Pennsylvania any day now to test Paterno’s guilt by thowing him in the nearest deep pond. If he swims or floats it means a child-raping devil is holding up and he is surely guilty, and if he drowns, then, oh, well, he must have been innocent after all. Our bad. :rolleyes:
Please tell me she’ll recuse herself?! Sure, it’s a small town, but the conflict of interest here is staggering. This isn’t some petty theft of a chocolate bar - this case is way too high profile and involving way too many alleged cover-ups to let the judge be someone who volunteers for a charity the accused founded!
<sigh> You’re right, you’re right, I know you’re right. I just that there are times that I can’t quite believe the filth that’s before my eyes (just like Paterno’s defenders can’t believe his guilt), and want to believe that people are better. That there aren’t really people out there that would actively defend grown men’s failure to protect children.
This has been pointed out a couple times already, Starving Artist, but this thread on this message board is not actually subject to the rules of criminal procedure, which for all you’ve gotten riled up about them you don’t seem to grasp the significance of. Those only apply in, like, criminal procedure, which usually happens in a courtroom. You can tell this isn’t one of those because you’re allowed to talk in here without your guardian Rita from downtown.
The rest of us don’t actually have to meet an evidentiary standard to conclude that Paterno failed as a human being when, after being informed that a sexual assault had happened within a realm over which he had near-total control, he didn’t do enough to ensure that there was not an ongoing problem. If we want him locked in a jail by the power of the state for that, we need the state to prove certain things. This is not that. Here, it’s OK for us to say that he didn’t have to hear the words “anal rape.” He didn’t have to have immediately appreciated the full extent of the violation. He just needed to hear that there was a problem, and not do his due diligence to bring about one of two conclusions: 1. that he knew enough to know no further action was necessary; or 2. that he told the fucking police about the rape that had just been reported to him, because that’s what it was, whether that was “clear enough” or not. The first option, it turned out, was an impossible scenario, because further action was necessary. That leaves us with 2, and he didn’t do it.
If we’re being unreasonable here, do me one favor and give me one example of a plausible narrative that explains what Paterno did, and why it was acceptable. We know what McQueary says he saw. We know what he said he did about it. We have a pretty good idea what was actually happening to those children at the time. What could Paterno possibly have heard, said, and done that would excuse him from blame for the fact that it’s now 2011 and he’s been working side by side with the guy who witnessed it, and he hadn’t said shit until somebody else took action? I’m repeating myself, but I’d love to hear a response to this. In your world, what did Paterno do, and why in christ’s name do you think it was enough?
Now watch the parade of individuals trying to point out the legal ramifications of how the people that tolerated child abuse for so many years are justified for doing so.
Jimmy Chitwood, it’s one thing to debate whether Paterno was correct in following the law and reporting the crime to the school’s administration or whether he should have called the minicipal police. It’s another entirely to go batshit crazy and assume as fact that Paterno knew exactly what happened, didn’t care, engaged in or went along with a coverup, and is just as vile and guilty of child rape as Sandusky is, which is what tbe general tone of this thread has been. It’s also another thing, when other postets try to debate the other side and argue that there are reasons why schools have the reporting requirements they do, that Paterno and McQueary were merely following longstanding and commonly accepted practices when they reported the crime as they did, and that Paterno’s long-standing record of record of honesty and integrity should entitle him to the benefit of the doubt, they get reviled as supporters and enablers of child rape, and to suggest that tbey themselves are likely guilty of child molestation themselves, which is what has happened to at least me and jtgain.
That way lies the type of lunacy that creates witch hunts and lynch mobs, and the fact that we are not in a courtroom does not in any legitimate way justify it.
Are you seriously arguing they should take away their pensions? That is money they are entitled to, and has nothing to do with their actions. Please also keep in mind that they haven’t even been convicted yet. I suppose Penn State might want to sue them to recover some of the money they will inevitably lose as a result of the lawsuits that I am sure will come in the coming years, but even establishing a precedent that employees be held financially liable for things like this seems like a bad idea.
Because IMHO, people are generally decent and moral. I not only include myself in that group, but also you, the other “Paterno enablers”, and even many of those directly involved in the scandal itself. It’s particularly sad to me that you have such a high degree of cynicism that you (and those of your ilk) cannot accept that a genuine disagreement is not based on some thinly-veiled proclivity towards pedophilia or a blindness to the particularly gruesome aspects of the case. Honestly, no one has come close to defending the actions of the Sandusky, or minimizing the seriousness of the case. Yet, those on your side continue to assume people are acting out of malice or ignorance rather that honest disagreement.
To me this whole situation boils down to a few issues. First, (IMO) it does little good to treat systemic and institutional failures as a micro issue in which individuals are punished for bad judgment that exists largely as a result of larger institutional forces. Just as it doesn’t really make sense to individually punish crack dealers or prostitutes when it’s largely the system that makes their actions morally questionable, it doesn’t really make sense to me to castigate people like Paterno who do what about half of people would do in a similar situation.
From there, the question becomes why don’t roughly half of the people who know of sexual abuse report it to authorities? Your side seems to be arguing they are all morally dubious cowards who are often carrying water for abusers for one reason or another. I think that is a facile explanation that completely ignores all that science has taught us about how people have blind spots, rationalize information, suffer from cognitive dissonance, compromise their ethics in the presence of authority, and just generally make bad decisions under pressure. I can appreciate how fulfilling it must be to think that anyone who reacts poorly in a situation with such deleterious consequences for others must be some sort of defective with no regard for the victims, but more often than not, they are just normal people. I am sure most of you are familiar with the Milgram experiment. Let’s pretend the experiment was real. Would it make sense to treat all those people who shocked others as criminals? Would it seem logical to deem all of them sadists with no moral center? Not really. The take away from experiments like those is that when an individual’s morals are concerned, context matters. In light of those things, it’s often better to not judge people in their worst moment when the context leads most to err. It’s not really indicative of their true moral character, only their humanity. So when a guy like Paterno, who had (by nearly all accounts) a stellar record and fine reputation cultivated over several decades, I tend to give them the benefit of the doubt.
Second, the mob mentality that surrounds issues like this does nothing to help kids that are being sexually abused, nor does it encourage people to report their suspicions. It makes everything worse. I know you guys think you are doing the world a favor by ensuring the Paterno dies in shame, and that anyone that deigns to defend him is intimated to be a pedophile, but you our merely satisfying your own blood lust at the expense of actually tackling the root problem. That is not admirable, it’s lamentable; and completely at odd with your stated goals.
Sure it does: “if you don’t report your suspicions and word gets out anyway, it will destroy your career and your reputation” is a pretty good incentive not to let that happen.
Or maybe because you are like 47% of people who don’t report such things, and presumably, don’t work for PSU. Are you really trying to contend that all of those people are amoral?
But either way, your entire premise is speculative. There is no evidence indicating why McQueary walked away. Presuming it was done in blind self-interest is a level of cynicism I can’t get behind given the evidence we have thus far.
Kinda like how arresting people for selling drugs stops people from selling drugs, right? Or maybe it’s like when we shame politicians who have affairs. That has stopped them from having affairs, right? You should try to face the fact that we have been doing things your way for a while, and it doesn’t seem to have helped us minimize the problem of people not reporting what they see and suspect.
No, it wouldn’t. I didn’t call for forfeiting the rest of the regular season games. I ask for them to not participate in any post-season games. The players are entitled to their season but they have no “right” to a post season. If the coach screws up, which Paterno did, then the post-season is just something that passed them by. The post-season is something that is anticipated, not something that is guaranteed.
As I’ve said before, there is always collateral damage. It’s not always “fair” but sometimes the individuals have to take one for the team. Why should we be worried about individuals when it is the University, the team and the coaches that needs to be punished. Let the players demonstrate their displeasure to Paterno, not the Trustees or the people that are outraged by the cowardice of the coaching staff.
The players are not entitled to post-season games. PSU should shut down the football program after their last scheduled game and start the rebuilding process. Clean house, release players from their scholarships and start over. Take a lesson from Johnson & Johnson in the Tylenol crisis.
They are “entitled to” nothing. The pension plan is predicated upon their having rendered “honest services” to PSU.
They did not. Look up “theft of honest services.” Sandusky and Shultz (and JP) are prime candidates.
I am arguing that this crap (minus stupid ERISA protections) should, for sure, be reversed. Won’t hapen, don’t worry, your molester and molester-enabling buddies will get their full pension.
This seems like an awesome idea. Establishing a precedent that when you find out a school employee thinks he is presiding over Socrates’s Gay Ass-Raping Little Boys utopia, you should freaking report it to anyone who will listen, lest you bear a penalty, seems like a no-brainer.
What I know is that if a decent human being would witness abuse going on, they would try their best to stop it.
Calling someone else to tell them what they should do is an obvious marker of someone being a scum trash piece of a human excrement who wanted to protect his paycheck.
Sandusky and Paterno were football coaches at PSU. How exactly were they engaged in honest services theft? How did they breech a fiduciary duty to PSU?
Uh. They owed a fiduciary duty to PSU not to corrupt PSU’s athletic program and reputation for veracity and uprightness. That was a huge part of their job duties and the reason they were paid.
Maybe, I don’t know much about McQueary. Regardless, it is ALL about percentages and specifics. The fact that roughly half of us engage in conduct you find morally reprehensible should maybe lead to us to try to see why so many people are of terrible moral fiber? Focusing on an individual seems like a pretty dumb way to address the problem.
No it isn’t, because it is individuals who are entrusted with ultimate control of issues and programs. You want to give JP Papal Infaliibility authority over all things PSU football? Fine. But then accountability isn’t going to be anything other than individual.