It's time to officially Pit Joe Paterno and the Penn State football program.

The BBQ Pit
1881

Certainly, as it illustrates the point I was making perfectly. The police received a report of a possible sexual assault. No victim has come forward and they have no evidence. They have hit a dead end and can do nothing unless and until they have more to go on than the fact that somebody thought they saw a sexual assault take place.

See? Here’s there’s some more of your dishonest bullshit right there. You tried to lay a stupid little trap for me by asking me if “fondling” ever had a non-sexual connotation. I replied that it did, and posted not only an alternative dictionary definition but described some of the various ways that non-sexual fondling between adults and children take place. Now, having egg on your face and being embarrassed over your own lack of proficiency with the English language, you have decided to distort the nature of your question and my response to make it look like I said something I never said.

Also, being a “pedophile enabler” requires the enabling of some specific pedophile. You may not legitimately characterize me as a pedophile enabler simply because I quote a dictionary definition that you are ignorant of.

What you should find deeply weird and troubling is your apparently utter inability to comprehend what you read in black and white.

Nonsense. Nowhere in any of those posts do I say that Sandusky’s behavior in the shower was “probably horseplay and therefore justified,” as you allege. You have concocted two separate lies into that one short sentence in a dishonest (or stupid - we can’t rule that out) attempt to make it appear that I was both defending Sandusky and approving of his behavior. Neither is true and that’s why you weren’t able to find anything to show that it is. What you hoped to prove by posting what you did is anyone’s guess.

Hardly. It was full of lies and stupidity.

You might want to remind yourself about courts at the same time, because they insist on facts too.

That is both unrealistic and silly. Just how could Paterno have made damn sure the kid was safe? The incident happened the day before, and Paterno had no idea who the kid was or just what it was that had happened. Of all the people involved in this episode, Paterno is the least culpable of all. He reported McQueary’s claim exactly as he was supposed to, without sugar coating it or trying to minimize it. And I’m certain you have no evidence whatsoever to support your opinion that Paterno was afraid of stepping on someone’s toes.

Nope, I never said nor implied that McQueary was “anguishly” uncertain and conflicted by what he saw. You have made that up our of whole cloth.

Given the fact that virtually nothing you’ve said about me or what I’ve said in this thread is correct or honest I can hardly believe you have the gall to say such a thing.

What I’ve been enabling - or at least trying to enable - is due process in the fact of hysteria and emotion. Eyewitness testimony is notoriously for often being inaccurate. If the facts don’t support anal rape, as they don’t in this case no matter what it “looked like,” then an attorney is hardly a “shyster” for trying to determine just what it was that McQueary saw, and whether or not what he saw is likely probative of anal rape. The attorney would be derelict in his duty otherwise.

Nope, once again you are unable to get your facts straight. I said what McQueary told Joe Paterno was vague. I haven’t said anything about McQueary’s testimony.

And the fact of the matter is that hugging, wrestling, tickling and “shower lessons” remain as possible explanations for what McQueary saw. Hell, the kid could have slipped on the tile and Sandusky had just grabbed him to stop him from falling when McQueary showed up. Any number of things are possible. This isn’t to say they happened as a matter of fact, or even that they are likely, but they remain within the realm of possibility and therefore what I said was correct. This is why it’s important for the attorney to determine just what it was that McQueary saw. If he saw no penetration, and he saw no thrusting movements, and the kid’s expression was not one of distress (which it apparently wasn’t), then the alternative explanations become more plausible, no matter how much you want to ignore them and how badly you want to jump to the conclusion that anal rape was what McQueary saw.

And just to head you off at the pass, the mere fact that I suggest these alternative possibilities does not mean that I am claiming them as fact, and it does not mean that I’m looking for excuses to defend a pedophile. What I am doing - and it needs to be done - is defending the use of due process to ferret out just what it was that did occur. We can’t know that a crime occurred, or how serious it is in terms of charges to be brought, as long as these ambiguities exist as to what McQueary saw. I’d bet money that if Sandusky were brought to trial today and tried for child sex abuse based on McQueary’s testimony only, he’d be found not guilty in less than an hour.

Needless to say you are correct, and I thank you for saying so.

I haven’t “insisted” any such thing (what is wrong with you people?). What I did was suggest that calling the police would likely not have occurred to Paterno in the first place because the police would have nothing to go on even if he did. (Was that not obvious from the little faux-dialog I posted of the conversation between Paterno and the police had he called?) Any subsequent “insisting” I might have done would only have been in reply to other posters claiming I was full of shit.

See, now you’re going all Huerta on me. First you’re making an erroneous assumption (claiming my position is “completely unsupportable” when your own post regarding the alleged rape in Colorado shows that it is supportable indeed), and then extrapolating from that I am either mentally deficient or playing some sort of game, with the latter seeming to imply that I am supportive in some way of child sex abuse. I’ve come to expect this sort of lunacy from Huerta and Guinastasia, et al., but I didn’t expect it from you.

Disagree all you want. You didn’t come close to proving your allegations, and that, not your disagreement, is what counts.

Okay, let’s see if you can do any better with this little piece of bullshit. Did I say it would be a BAD idea, or did I merely say it would likely have been fruitless? There is a distinction you know.

Are you and your cohorts in this thread simply incapable of relating anything accurately/honestly? Virtually nothing any of you has said about my posts has been correct. Why is this? And what explanation can there be for it besides stupidity or dishonesty?

Paterno did not ignore what McQueary told him. He reported just like he was supposed to. He did not try to dissuade McQueary or convince him that he was just seeing things, and he described what he was told by McQueary accurately to his superiors without trying to minimize it or sugar coat it.

Hah! An incident has posted to this very thread where cops are at a standstill with regard to an alleged sighting of rape. Perhaps they missed A&E and the appropriate books. :rolleyes:

And Biography? WTF? :smiley:

I’m sure that settles it in your alleged mind. You’ve decided for yourself how I would have responded in McQueary’s place, and the scenario you’ve concocted in your fevered little mind is self-disgusting. I’m sure Huerta88 and Jack Batty and a few of the other batty posters in this thread will find that to be of great significance, but to those of us grounded in fact your imaginings of what I would do in any given scenario are meaningless.

Paterno did something.

Why do you have doubts? I never suggested that McQueary, Paterno, Curley and Schultz should have done nothing. And unless you can show that I did, don’t you think it’s rather stupid to doubt my “goodness” based on that premise?

1882

And thanks to Fotheringay-Phipps for recognizing the actual content of my posts and and fighting the good fight in favor of truth and accuracy despite not agreeing with some of the things I’ve said.

(Tip-of-the-hat smilie to F-G!)

1883

Right there again. You say, “it’s possible that Sandusky didn’t do anything.”

The Biography Channel often features documentaries on criminal cases.

Yeah, he told his supervisors who did what, exactly?

QUIT MAKING EXCUSES FOR HIM. He failed, MORALLY. We’re not talking about whether or not he did his legal duties, dumbfuck.

1884

You’re doing it again, Guinny. I didn’t say it’s possible Sandusky didn’t do anything; I said it’s possible that what he was doing wasn’t anal rape. (I also said we’d have to find out just what it was that he was doing before we’d know what to charge him with, if anything, because number one, there may not be sufficient evidence to charge him; and number two (better sit down for this one) he may not have been doing anything criminal. Personally I think the latter is unlikely, but it is still possible. This is why we have to have evidence before we charge people with a crime, and it’s why we have trials after they’re charged. We don’t convict people simply because we suspect they were up to no good. Specific crimes have to be alleged, and there has to be sufficient evidence to overcome reasonable doubt. Where alternative explanations are possible, as they are in this case whether you like it or not, there has to be sufficient evidence to persuade reasonable people on the jury to rule out those alternative explanations. Your problem is that you are convinced Sandusky is guilty of some kind of pedophilia (even though you don’t know for a fact what it was and couldn’t begin to prove it even if you did) and you are so wedded to that conviction that you regard anyone who disagrees with you as a pedophile or pedophile enabler. And that is nonsense! There has to be proof, and that proof has to be strong enough to override alternative possible explanations. We don’t convict people on supposition in this country, but that’s what you’re insisting upon. And in addition to that you’re insisting that anyone who would dare call for due process is doing so only to enable or defend pedophila. You would be perfectly happy to see due process go straight down the drain in favor of vigilante justice, and that makes you a far greater threat to society than any child abuser.

If you say so. I haven’t watched the Biography channel in a while.

Two things:

  1. He told his superiors, which is what the law and decades of campus policy dictated he do. He did not seek to minimize it; he did not attempt to sugar coat it; and he did not attempt to hide it. So you are wrong when you say he did nothing. Period.

  2. It doesn’t matter what his superiors did. It wasn’t his job to oversee campus investigations. He had neither the time, training nor authority to do so. It is unfair, unreasonable, and, frankly, ridiculous, to expect that he should have supervised his supervisors.

In that case we’re merely discussing opinion, and yours carries less weight than mine because it operates out of hysteria, knee-jerk emotionality and disdain for due process. Of all the actors involved in this incident, Joe Paterno is the only one who did what he should. Besides, who are you to talk about morality when you’re a greater threat to society and justice than a child molester?

Ahh…insults. The last refuge (or is it the first?) of the impotent argument. :slight_smile: When come back bring substance.

1885

This has nothing to do with what I said, well done.

So the first thing Paterno should have done is to call Sardusky into his office to explain what he was doing with a kid in his showers late at night. He should then have asked to speak to the kid (Sardusky knows who he is right?) to make sure he was Ok. Failure to do both of these is not doing enough in my opinion and I am almost certain that if Paterno had done this no other kids would have been hurt.

SA people make mistakes, doesn’t make them bad people you know.

1886

The fact that you cling to this ridiculous rationalization is what is getting you the attention as an enabler.

It doesn’t matter if Sandusky was “merely” hugging, wrestling, tickling or giving shower lessons (the single most dopiest term come out of this fucked up story). When you have a 60 year old man (who’s already been in dutch regarding kids in the past) naked in a deserted shower room, at night, with a naked 10 year old boy, you don’t stop to ask “was he just hugging him?” The fact that he has brought a boy to a secluded spot and got him naked is all you need to be outraged.

You should know this. And fucking Paterno should have known it too.

The fact that you offer up “realms of possibility” to mitigate that is making you sound ridiculous.

1887

I don’t see why everybody is so hung up on anal rape. Any naked full body physical contact with an unrelated child is a crime. I also agree that Sandusky should not be convicted without due process. However, we are talking about an investigation, not a conviction. Due process does not apply.

I would say that this depends on Sandusky’s defense. If he put on no defense I suspect he would be convicted in less than an hour. That is why it is important to call the police and have them actually investigate crimes-you know, the thing we pay them to do.

1888

Well, I don’t think everybody is. It is just that the actual entry of Sandusky’s penis is the only thing that McQueary testified he didn’t see directly and thus couldn’t have reported to Paterno. That is why SA has to focus on it so obsessively as though absent that fact, Paterno just couldn’t know whether (his latest) Sandusky was helping the child up after he slipped, or raping him. That, and his tired penchant for three card monte (invent a scenario in which it might have been helping a kid up or wrestling, then when he thinks no one’s looking, pretend that proof of anal penetration is the only acceptable trigger for reporting criminal sexual contact with a child, then declare victory). All the while ignoring the fact that McQueary’s direct testimony, in which he mentioned “extreme sexual contact” that he believed “was some form of intercourse” is “extremely vague” because he conceded to the defense on red-herring-seeking cross examination that he wasn’t in a position to see the actual penile penetration.

Hell, I proved upthread, using the actual text of the, ya know, statutes that (as you suggest) any naked man on boy contact or proximity stood a high chance of being unlawful (and certainly cause for alarm) not only under the sex assault laws but under the indecent exposure laws, etc. Needless to say the people hung up on “Paterno had no proof of actual anal rape so he was bound by campus policy not to report it to the police” have not read the statute. (Not to mention that the reporting statute is a bare minimum for legal compliance, not an upward limit of what a moral person would be permitted to do).

And, we are talking about a moral question (Paterno’s moral obligation to do more). The moron doesn’t understand what “due process” means or when it does (and emphatically does not) apply, but he heard it on Law & Order once and liked the sound of it so trotted it out when it came time to play Boy Lawyer in defense of his buddy Joe. (Joe may have a decent malpractice claim, BTW).

1889

SA, it’s hard to know what your position is at this point, maybe you could clarify.

In the quote above you quite clearly state that investigators would do nothing. You use an exclamation, which to me means you are “insisting”.

Then you say you didn’t really say that.

What are you saying?

1890

Oh, but that’s at the heart of his game. Float a factually-unsupported scenario or assertion as fact, then rely on the “fact” that police would be completely stymied to investigate to justify Paterno, then if challenged eventually say “but I was responding to a different hypothetical situation” (why introduce jerkoff “hypotheticals” to hijack the OP’s threads about this actual situation, you’d have to ask a clinician skilled in attention whoring). That’s why I call it three card monte; confuse the issue enough then he’ll declare game set match because the allegations were “extremely vague” (based on his confabulated multiple contrived alternative scenarios).

Here’s why this crap needs to be investigated early and often by professionals – because there’s no historic plague of false accusations of pedophilia (other than maybe in toxic custody cases), but there’s a huge and shameful history of making excuses and finding “alternate realms of reality” for what any sane or rational person could have determined was massive exploitation of kids and inaction by adult authorities unwilling to question a charismatic or popular figure.

Note that pace SA tender solicitude to the possibility that a suspect’s life would be “ruined permanently” by a mere police report, the Shanley case shows just the extent to which many, many, repeated reports and allegations over decades had very little effect on his standing in the community and ability to continue victimizing new kids.

1891

This isn’t a court of law. This is a message board where people are offering their opinions. And I’m offering mine that Sandusky is guilty as sin. The incident in the shower isn’t the only accusation – pay attention to the goddamned news. There have been numerous testimonies from multiple victims – not just news reports, btw. Actual descriptions. Have you bothered reading them?

WE. ARE. NOT. TALKING. ABOUT. HIS. LEGAL. OBLIGATION. Once again, it is about MORAL OBLIGATIONS. Two different things. You’re as thick as a plank. It doesn’t taking “training” to call the fucking cops.

I’m “hysterical”? Kindly stop patronizing me. Maybe people are “hysterical” because they’re frustrated with stupidity.

We’ve offered substance in the form of cites, articles, links, examples of legal procedure. You’ve offered nothing but your opinion and your view that Paterno is a great man. When pressed for anything more than that, you suddenly “have something to do”, or “I have to run, talk to you later.”

And yet when “later” comes, you still don’t have anything. Put up or shut up. What is your experience with police procedure? Where do you get your knowledge, other than TV? (Fuck Law & Order, I’m guessing he got it from the Police Academy movies)

1892

I’ll add that

contains not just one of his completely fabricated “facts” (“decades of campus policy . . .” has not been testified to by anyone) but also one of his would-be-sneaky alterna-realities (“dictated” implying that the law or alleged “decades of policy” affirmatively forbade any additional or further investigation or reporting beyond up-the-chain internal reporting, which is simply untrue and utterly moronic).

People should read that entire, disgraceful, Shanley story. Exactly the same kind of kick it down the road, buck-passing, we’ll-handle-this-ourselves, no need to create a big stir, besides, he’s denied it so it’s all very murky, behavior that amounted to enabling the predator in his lies, arguably becoming voluntarily complicit with his predation at some point from a moral perspective.

Pattern recognition, folks.

1893

SA, you will come back and explain yourself, right?

1894

Pretty sure this horse is dead…

1895

Not quite. There’s RaftPeople’s question to answer plus more bullshit from Guin and Huerta to disabuse. But time is short at the moment so I’ll have to do that later.

1896

Yep.

1897

And hopefully, when you clarify your position, you will also address these statements:

“You know what investigators do in a case like that? Nothing! Because that’s all they can do unless and until they have more to go on.”

“I haven’t “insisted” any such thing (what is wrong with you people?). What I did was suggest that calling the police would likely not have occurred to Paterno…”

There are two issues:

  1. Do you really think the police wouldn’t investigate something if the victim is currently unknown?
  2. Why did you tell me you never said that when you did?
    Final entertaining note about this particular point:
    If the police can do “nothing!” in a case like this, then the logical implication is that Paterno shouldn’t report it to anyone, because the people he reported to are ultimately supposed to report it to the police, but they can do “nothing!”. Basically, your statement that the police could do “nothing!” (you will note I am quoting you so you can’t call me names or claim I’m putting words in your mouth) leads us to the inescapable conclusion that in cases like that, the only person that could do anything is the eye witness and anyone after the fact should just let it go because it’s hopeless.

Final Final Note:
Look SA, taking the position that the police would do “nothing!” is hurting your cause because 90% of rational adults know that the police will investigate claims like this (I asked my friend who is a detective and he said absolutely they would) and it’s possible they will figure something out (and it’s possible they won’t). You are better off arguing other angles than this particular one.

1898

Isn’t this his usual practice?

1899

Oh, no, not as long as someone has to correct everyone else on the internet…

(there has got to be a name for that syndrome… my autistic students do this, but eventually they figure out that they’ll drive everyone crazy if they persist)

1900

Let’s whack it a few more times to make sure…