Posted on 11/11/2011 8:53:16 AM PST by PA BOOKENDS
When something as awful and seemingly inexplicable as what’s going on at Penn State happens, I find myself asking God, “What’s going on, here? What is the lesson we are supposed to learn?”
As an alumna, I truly don’t believe Joe Paterno is evil. Joe’s freshman year as head coach was my freshman year as a student. I’ve been watching him (granted, from afar) for 45 years. In all those years his actions underscored his philosophy and his belief system. Could all that have been a half century ruse to hide a monster?
Is he perfect? No. Is respecting him for all he has done the same as idol worship? Not for me. Do I wish - would I have expected - him to do more? Yes, and so, according to his statement, does he. Is it heartbreaking disappointment? Yes – bigger than the Big 10.
So why, at a school whose football team and head coach have always had a squeaky clean reputation, does something this catastrophic happen? I mean, let’s face it, it could hardly be any worse – the crime, the victims, the duration, the cover-up, the stature of the accused. It has all the elements of a classic Greek tragedy! Where is God in all of this?
Here’s my take-away . . . so far.
Our culture has become so sexualized that I can’t even find words to adequately describe the debauchery. What used to be hidden is now not only done openly, but glorified, endorsed, promoted. Heterosexual, homosexual, pederasty – it doesn’t matter. As the new cliché goes, homosexuality has gone – IN ONE GENERATION – from the “love” that dares not speak its name to the “love” that won’t shut up.
God is trying to warn us that we are not far from collapse. There have been many skirmishes in this war between good & evil, and a few battles, but so far, nothing has really made an impact on the culture. If we don’t soon return to our moral moorings, I fear the end really is near – at least for our country as we know it. Maybe a tumble of the magnitude that Penn State represents will get the needed attention (although, I have to admit – I doubt it.) How the mighty have fallen – and how great is that fall.
Joe Paterno, because he appears to be the one who has fallen from the greatest height, is getting the most attention, but I’d like to focus on Graham Spanier, the President – former President.
Spanier’s degrees are in sociology with an emphasis on things sexual – wife swapping, adolescent sex. He claimed he wanted to make PSU the most LGBT-friendly university in the country. Penn State had the first gay fraternity in the nation. Under Spanier’s leadership, Penn State has sponsored “the Tent of Consent” - all about gay sex, as well as C*ntfest (I hope you find that shocking).
Shortly after his arrival, Spanier tried to get rid of Paterno. Hmmmm. Why would that be? The football program was bringing in tons of money. Paterno was (and remained) one of the LOWEST paid college coaches in the country. He, Paterno, has donated millions to the University. Spanier lost the battle, but one has to ask: why was Spanier so eager to get rid of Joe??
Maybe because the darkness can’t stand the light?
There is WAY more to this story. Joe may, yet, end up being a footnote.
I would add; there is a rare occasion when the morality of “not getting involved” beyond a cursory obligation becomes a crime. IMO, this falls into that category.
I can't state the law or completely make a case for it, but an “involuntary negligent accomplice to rape and solicitation of a minor” would be a charge I would make up for Joe.
“All that is required for evil to prevail is for good men to do nothing.”
Well written perpsective on this.
Joe didn’t seem to mind running it up against a weaker team (In ’95, with 58 seconds to play Mike McQueary, hit Chris Campbell for a 42-yard touchdown pass to give Penn State a 59-34 lead.) or even going for it on 4th and 3 up by 31 points as he did against Temple.
Not only that, but the inordinate amount of players who’ve been arrested, yet remain on the team.
That perception coupled with the reputation Penn State enjoyed made for a toxic combination with the outside world.
I will say that the image that Penn State upheld, “Success With Honor”, is one worthy of being embraced, and not something you see at a lot of other schools. So, while Paterno (and much of the administration) failed to live up to that, at least the alumni and student body recognizes it as a virtue and seems to strive to reach it.
Evil? Probably not, but:
Here's a couple of interesting items from Paterno's history:
"After serving a year in the Army, he attended Brown University; his tuition was paid for by Busy Arnold.[5]"
and:
Well put...you just can’t get past that and bring on “excuses” and “reasons”.
and if Paterno was told Sandusky was in the shower at 9pm alone with a 10 yr old...you don’t need “more details” even for any decent person to say “WHAT???”
BTW, to this day, they do not know the boy’s name...yeah, Paterno and his buddies really cared-—NOT.
There are two outrages here -- one of them sopping wet with the yuck factor, the other as clean as the exterior of whitewashed sarcophagi. The yucky outrage is Sandusky and what he has been doing for decades, to judge by what the grand jury report is pointing to.
The second outrage -- the "clean" one -- is the idolatry surrounding Joe Paterno and the multi-million dollar industry that is Penn State football.
This latter idolatry manifestly includes among its leaders all the power-players at Penn State, including Paterno, who knew over a decade ago what was going on and was actively involved in brokering Sandusky's retirement (at the advanced age of 55!!) in exchange for covering up the results of a Penn State University police investigation into Sandusky's corruption of young boys (the Univeristy police investigation is detailed in the grand jury report).
And, then, a couple of years AFTER Sandusky retires (with full access to University property), Paterno is AGAIN notified of a sexual assault, witnessed in flagrante delicto, who then passes it up the line. And someone wants seriously to maintain that Paterno didn't know what was happening?
Included among the leadership of this idolatry of Penn State football is the administration of Penn State, all the way up to its president. Funding the idolatry are the rich donors to the Penn State football powerhouse. And filling the stadiums to worship the idol are the legions of Penn State students and alumns, some of whom rioted on campus when the Penn State Trustees finally did what the Penn State administration could never bring itself to do, viz. topple the idol in its sanctuary.
“Among ninety-nine percent of us....we would have simply called in this ‘tip’ and let the cops investigate”
That’s simply not the case. You don’t know the subject matter the way you think you do.
It’s hard to believe that Paterno, given his history of moral rectitude, turned a blind eye.
But history is replete with those who believed the highest moral calling was to protect the people and institutions they loved the most, regardless of the wrongs those people or institutions had done. I think JoePa is among those. His love and devotion to PSU seasoned with his loyalty to Sandusky clouded his judgement. Rather than contributing to a process in which those entities that he loved more than life itself would be harmed, he was an enabler of criminal acts.
JoePa is not a bad man, just a flawed one who made other things his gods, rather than serving the One True God who desires righteousness in all things, regardless of the consequences.
It is the classic Greek tragedy.
This may, in part, explain JoePa’s actions. It doesn’t excuse them and he must and will bear the consequences of his fatal choices.
Uh, not sure that you are correct that the “ success with Honor” is being strived for...
the campus riots are not about Honor for the victims and shame that PSU Success has been marred...or has Paterno yet got it, that he is NOT honorable.
Its is STILL all about the image and the phoniness and the “ Number One” in the stats at all cost.
And please allow me to make clear that my point about Paterno should in NO WAY be taken as an excuse. I believe he should be charged with a felony for his continued abetting of this pedophile.
Brilliant, articulate analysis...way more sophisticated than my banal outrage.
thanks for your post.
Re Post 26. Well said. My Post 28 dovetails with it. This whole incident points out the danger and tragedy of idolatry in all its many forms and disguises.
Re Post 26. Well said. My Post 28 dovetails with it. This whole incident points out the danger and tragedy of idolatry in all its many forms and disguises.
Every American in a position of authority or power - in the news media and the business world in general - who refuses to speak out against sodomy and the hedonism of society, is doing the EXACT same thing Joe Paterno has done for the past 13 years.
During those 13 years, PSU, since Joe and most if not all management staff have been silent and chosen their career over morality, has slid down a a slippery slope towards promoting immorality.
Joe was silent and the whole PSU staff was silent, as PSU helped to grow the power and influence of the immorality agenda.
And this has been happening at almost every American educational institution and in every governmental body in America.
We as a nation sat there and shut up and now this horrific crime has been brought to light, mercifully, as it shows us a crystal of ice on the iceberg which is the moral collapse America is heading towards.
How long will Americans who say “ahh, let them do what they want” tip the scales of the debate in favor of government-sanctioned moral decay ?
Moral decay is optional at first. Then it becomes forced on all members of society, as the law stops protecting the innocent who do not want to participate. Whenever I say this, people think I’m nuts, that I’m saying mobs of people will show up at your house, break in, and rape your family. They don’t have to when children are turned over to the government ( or a “football charity for kids” ) every day.
When are the American people going to start bombarding their Congressman’s office with letters, emails and phone calls, to convey to them that Sodomy is an abomination ?
Those whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad.
Meanwhile, the heterosexual statutory rape and impregnation of young girls repeatedly seems to go unreported and covered up by the Planned Parenthood institutions even while being awarded millions of dollars yearly in taxpayer grants.
PA BOOKENDS is correct about the unrepentant “anything goes” sexualization of students on campus. The liberal hypocrisy about “all things groin-ular” is starkly on display with the Penn State revelations and it is evil.
I like major college football, though I have no particular interest in Joe Paterno.
There is a media-driven attempt to make this scandal “about” the PSU football program in general and about coach Paterno in particular.
This is because education in general and PSU in particular “celebrate diversity”, and they especially are Gleeful about one particular diversity, which is of course the central element of this case.
Joe P. and the PSU football program have been perceived as “conservative” for years. Joe P. was used as a stage prop by Nixon during his time of troubles. Joe P. has been a loud and public voice for “values” and “honor” in his players, and this has not endeared him to the forces of the zeitgeist.
Now, coach Paterno made a bad mistake in 2002, and he may have made a lot of them in dealing with his friend Sandusky. At best, he was a self-deluded and foolish old man. At worst, he’s known for years and failed to protect little children because he was a greedy SOB making $$ off of PSU football. Perhaps the truth is somewhere in between. (As an aside, I observe that men born in the 1920s often have difficulty dealing with homosexual perversions because they just literally can’t believe that these things occur).
Anyway, the big story here is not Joe Paterno and is not PSU Football, except insofar as candyman Sandusky perverted and used it as candy. This is a story about a multistate multiyear homosexual pedophile ring disguised as a charity, which evaded by one means or another law enforcement at many levels. The DA who had the case may have been murdered. There are suggestions, some of which are credible, that extremely wealthy and extremely powerful people are involved.
Coach Paterno is ashamed and has confessed publicly that he failed, is ashamed, and will retire at the end of the season. Because this reveals a man of honor, we must understand that the idea of voluntarily abandoning his team in midseason was incomprehensible.
The trustees acted hastily, in a panic, and perhaps some of them have reasons for panic. We shall see.
You just don’t get into those positions of power and success without knowing how to ‘read the tea leaves’ and ‘pick your battles’. That usually translates into a more internally-focused definition of ‘right and wrong’. IOW, what happens to me if I push this?
IMO, the main difference between the powerful and the poor is that the poor have an externally-focused sense of right and wrong where the powerful are more internally-focused.
“JoePa is not a bad man, just a flawed one who made other things his gods, rather than serving the One True God who desires righteousness in all things, regardless of the consequences”
Uh, let me get this right....we now have liberal rationalizing bordering on moral equivalence...
Nobody is ‘bad”..they are just “flawed”...The whole problem with this horrible situation is that no one now wants to call anyone “bad” or “evil” because they don’t ‘appear evil”.
It is time we call some behaviors bad and call those people who do them “bad’ or “evil”.
I for one am having a hard time not calling Paterno ‘evil” and allow his decades long “look the other way, don’t make a federal case out of it” behaviors to be referred to as a “flaw”. He didn’t molest or rape children....but letting evil triumph when one could have done something to stop it...well, that is not “just flawed.”
Many thanks for the Spanier info. Most people do not know his bgrnd. It also answers the one question in everyone’s mind——how Sandusky got free rein in the PS showers with young boys.
Do we know if Spanier participated, as well? He certainly had an obsession with pederasty and moved hell and high water to give gay sex a foothold in PS.
VITAL REFERENCE Joe Paterno, because he appears to be the one who has fallen from the greatest height, is getting the most attention, but I’d like to focus on Graham Spanier, the President – former President.
Spanier’s degrees are in sociology with an emphasis on things sexual – wife swapping, adolescent sex. He claimed he wanted to make PSU the most LGBT-friendly university in the country. Penn State had the first gay fraternity in the nation. Under Spanier’s leadership, Penn State has sponsored “the Tent of Consent” - all about gay sex, as well as C*ntfest (I hope you find that shocking).
Shortly after his arrival, Spanier tried to get rid of Paterno. Hmmmm. Why would that be? The football program was bringing in tons of money. Paterno was (and remained) one of the LOWEST paid college coaches in the country. He, Paterno, has donated millions to the University. Spanier lost the battle, but one has to ask: why was Spanier so eager to get rid of Joe??
It becomes clearer and clearer why Spanier was out to ditch Paterno-—Spanier had to clear out any and all obstacles in his path to solidifying Penn State as a protected pedophilia haven.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.