Never forget!
Posted on 11/14/2011 3:29:55 PM PST by MrShoop
There are moral absolutes in life, and one of them is this: If a man comes across a child rape in process, he should do whatever he can to stop the rape and protect the child. There should be no reasonable debate about this, and the relevant question is not whether that standard is correct but whether we have the individual courage to meet that standard.
Those two sentences should be among the least controversial ever written in the pages of NRO. Indeed, there should be no need to even write them, but in the aftermath of my Friday posting about cowardice at Penn State, I was surprised at the number of individuals — both in the comments and via e-mail — who admonished me for my rush to judgment of the young graduate assistant who failed to stop Sandusky and failed even to call the police. “His career was at risk” some said. Others noted that Sandusky was likely a “father figure” to the young coach. Still others said that telling Joe Paterno many hours later was “enough.” But what does all that say about the inherent selfishness of the rationalizer? How important is your career? How much will you allow perceived authority to intimidate you? Do you respond to a crisis by asking what is “enough,” or what is right?
Friday night I had dinner with a fellow Iraq vet, a guy who served as a critical-care doctor at Balad Air Base, where he treated soldiers with horrific wounds. He noted how people in crisis, particularly people facing crises they’ve never experienced, almost always go through a moment of denial — a “this can’t really be happening” moment where they process the events around them and make, sometimes in less than a second, that most basic human choice: Fight or flight. I saw the same thing in my time downrange. I saw that moment of shock — and went through it myself — when events accelerate beyond experience or reason. We can try to prepare ourselves and we can imagine how we’d react, but you never know with metaphysical certainty until you’re there, until the moment strikes, what you will do. In fact it is that very uncertainty that makes the moral declaration all the more important, a vital anchor as the waves of fear, confusion, and doubt wash over you.
And believe me, in those times moral expectations do matter. There are soldiers who have stood and fought when every single cell in their body was screaming for them to run because they would rather die than abandon their brothers. The moral expectation was the difference between courage and cowardice, between victory and defeat. In fact, our nation’s very existence depends on the willingness of brave men and women to toe that moral line and utterly abandon self-interest in the face of mortal danger. And while we understand why some tiny minority of soldiers have run, we don’t condone it. Cowardice is still cowardice even if the conditions are extreme.
It is a sad irony that a graduate student who was part of the fake military culture that pervades football could not summon even a fraction of the warrior ethos when confronted not with mortal danger but danger to his career and reputation. If you read the grand jury report and honestly take from it that you would have responded the same way when confronted with the reality of child rape, you shouldn’t question the moral imperative of intervention. Instead, question yourself.
no doubt the athletic department will be held to a higher moral standard than the rest of the university.
Just the opening lines say it all.
It should be as obvious as 2+2=4
Then again, the left probably would scream that that is a white male construct and not everyones reality.
lol
LJ, your courage quote.
They are all guilty of enabling this monster...of turning their eyes away from abject abuse and sexual assault on under-aged boys. They were protecting their $90 million dollar a year football program and were too cowardly (or themselves wrapped up in it in some way) to even help the young men they witnessed being brought to those events.
It is a sick, disgusting, sad affair.
The University president, the Atheletic Director, and Coach Paterno all need to be charged with some form of criminal neglect IMHO and based on reading these sequence of events.
The Penn State Football program should get a 3-5 year death penalty.
How absolutely revolting and disgusting.
I wonder if Joe would have acted differently if Sandusky showed up to one of the "events" with Paterno's grandson? Or of the Janitor or other coach had seen Paterno's grandson in the shower with Sandusky.
How does the other coach see it, eyewitness the sexual assault in the shower, or the janitor for that matter...and NOT STOP IT RIGHT THEN WHILE IT WAS OCCURING? Much less immediately call the police?
It may be wrong...but as God is my witness, if I knew (and these people knew it) someone was doing this to one of my boys when they were younger (they're grown now) are any of my grandkids, the individual involved would never do it again. He would cease to be amongst the living just as soon as I could get there...and I would be happy to rely on a jury of my peers, whatever the outcome, and do so with a clear conscience.
If you're, say, on a college campus and somebody starts shooting your reactions may be different. It may take longer for you to achieve clarity.
I'm not trying to contradict the writer or defend the grad student -- just saying that when it makes a difference whether people are prepared for or expecting something or aren't.
Well, he is absolutely right. And I must confess that I have been giving the graduate student some benefit of the doubt.
What would I have done if I’d seen something like that happening. I think I’d have intervened. Because seeing it would have really brought it home. But you don’t really know what you would do in a sudden and unexpected emergency until it happens.
This writer cites war as an example. My own experience has been sailing, when I’ve been caught at sea in a sudden storm and needed to act at once. You don’t know what you would do until you’ve been through something like that.
I got the mainsail down before the boat went over and sank, even though I was seasick and throwing up while I did it. My cousin, who I would have thought was as good a sailor as I am, just stood there paralyzed, even though he didn’t get seasick.
But David French is right. The right thing to do was to intervene and stop it.
[There are moral absolutes in life, and one of them is this: If a man comes across a child rape in process, he should do whatever he can to stop the rape and protect the child. There should be no reasonable debate about this, and the relevant question is not whether that standard is correct but whether we have the individual courage to meet that standard.]
I agree with this, but there are even some FReepers defending McQueary. Actually, quite a few.
As an aside, note that this is one of the central points of Robert Heinlein's book "Starship Troopers".
Never forget!
Excellent article, BUMP!
how much clarity does one need when one sees an ADULT MALE sexually molesting a young boy?
Not sure why anyone views the happenings at Penn State w/ surprise. Why would anyone stop/report a rape when society seems all good w/ killing the unborn or partially born. Children are a thing to be played w/ and if necessary murdered. We cant have it both ways. Either protect all or none and at the moment it seems like none.
Jon Ritchie in an interview says he would have frozen and run away. He makes it understandable if not forgivable. As he says, not calling police, not following through after the immediate shock is over, is a different issue.
But after seeing the Ritchie interview I can understand that it would be far easier for a stranger to intervene, than for someone who thought he knew Sandusky, who loved and revered him.
well.http://www.sportsgrid.com/ncaa-football/jon-ritchie-sandusky/
There is no doubt, by his own admission, that McQueary is a coward.
Athletes were once held to a higher standard because so many young people look up to them. Then professional sports began to let those standards go downhill and if someone was really go at a sport, they could be a rapist, thief, degenerate, whatever, and they were allowed to go on playing. That was where this all started.
Professional and college sports needs to clean up their act. Anyone who cannot be a good moral example should be bounced out on their ear. That’s the way it used to be. It needs to be that way again.
how much clarity does one need when one sees an ADULT MALE sexually molesting a young boy?
Initially, I was disgusted and offended that a 28 year old man apparently couldn’t do the right thing and stop a rape in progress. Now, I’m beginning to think that a wide scale pattern of child abuse for money to Penn State has been exposed. It makes you look at child rape in Bangkok and Cambodia as symptomatic of a world consuming hedonistic criminality. Where ever an adult rapes a child, the adult should be permanently removed from the society and the pimp killed.
I agree, and I think that is his point. That we need a culture that says very loudly and clearly that one has a moral imperative to act. Individuals need moral training like soldiers need basic training. The PSU apologists are actively undermining the moral imperative with their football worship. A loud vocal condemnation now might help the someone act next time this happens.
However as far as the career goes, aren't there other football programs? Don't coaches tend to move around some?
what McQueary did is totally indefensible. sheesh, I am one of those parents who is defending kids at WalMart from their own parents. I stopped a guy bullying his kid outside of church on Sunday. No question I would have been on Sandusky like white on rice. Even if I got hurt. Because I don’t care if I die fighting for what is right. What I do care about is I do not want to live life as a worm.
JoePa and all this is a microcosm of the moral gutter into which we have fallen, God will not stand by and just allow us to maintain our sinful ways without consequences.
The pain has not yet even started. So sad, and so unnecessary, but the story of man.
schu
I understand your point - there is a difference in the training and expectations that could perhaps justify *some* hesitancy, especially on the part of a young grad student who told his father instead of calling the police on the spot. OK.
But - this didn’t just happen last week, and they told Paterno the very next day. Paterno has had weeks, months, years of working alongside Sandusky to “achieve clarity”. Which direction has his moral compass been pointing all those years?
In my opinion, straight at his own ego. And wallet. And as the head coach, he should be held to a higher standard. He should have been prepared, or at least found “clarity” pretty damn quickly.
Does anyone think, had this not come out now, that Joe Paterno would have some day shared the evil secret that he was carrying around?
Oh sure. Shall I name the dozens of FREEPERS who while they may not think child sexual abuse is "debate-able" -- they've "debated" on the side of Penn State coaches that "enough" intervention was done...whate'er that means?
From the article: ...and the relevant question is not whether that standard is correct but whether we have the individual courage to meet that standard.
Indeed. Penn State's been a showcase of a "conspiracy of cowardice."
From the article: Those two sentences should be among the least controversial ever written in the pages of NRO. Indeed, there should be no need to even write them, but in the aftermath of my Friday posting about cowardice at Penn State, I was surprised at the number of individuals — both in the comments and via e-mail — who admonished me for my rush to judgment of the young graduate assistant who failed to stop Sandusky and failed even to call the police. “His career was at risk” some said. Others noted that Sandusky was likely a “father figure” to the young coach. Still others said that telling Joe Paterno many hours later was “enough.” But what does all that say about the inherent selfishness of the rationalizer? How important is your career? How much will you allow perceived authority to intimidate you? Do you respond to a crisis by asking what is “enough,” or what is right?
The parts underlined above have been among the most common pro-Penn State FREEPER arguments.
It's an ethic that is tantamount to: "Whatever is legal -- as in doing the bare legal minimum -- is moral 'enough.'" It's equivocation, meaning, "as long as I barely skirt within the legality of living, I've met my obligations. Nothing more is required. I don't have to be a neighbor to anyone as the law doesn't require that."
I think Penn State depicts our culture as it is: One where people are 'rights happy.' No inner compulsion of right or wrong; no transcendent values for relativists -- including plenty of FREEPER relativists -- to embrace. That's why so many rely opon reality Judge shows. That and the govt and the Supreme Court constitute the highest ceilings of authority.
As for God? To relativists, He ain't worth appealing to vs. what the Govt, a daytime TV judge, or a rogue Supreme Court judge can offer.
“Football has become an opiate for white America, brutalizing them so that they no longer care about more important things. They don’t care that their school has elicited the service of criminals in order to have winning football teams, and they don’t care if their football coaches facilitate (or commit) the molestation of children.”
L
Excellent article. I told my husband that if our sons encountered a similar circumstance, and failed to act, and that means beating the crap out of the offender, then we will have failed as parents, and will have failed our boys.
As I mother, there would be no forethought at all. My instinct would be to pick up the nearest thing and clobber the guy with it, though I would first yell i must admit, then get the poor child to safety. And you can bet, job or whatever be damned, the child would come first.
I’d like to see that turned around too...with Sandusky’s face;
“I voted for Obama”
To all...I get the “you don’t know what you’d do”.
Please point out, to ALL you discuss this situation with...that it was (so far) MALE children...
He’s a ped, fo shiz...
but he’s not *only* that. Look up pederast. And the homo agenda.
In fact, I’ll pose a question for y’all to ponder...how anxious do you think some are...
...for a female child of dusky’s abuse to be revealed?
Football mania is addressed in a posting I made earlier, part of which I’ll paste below:
Social psychologists use two terms: BIRGing and CORFing — Basking in Reflected Glory and Cutting off Reflected Failure. In the first, fans of a football team, for example, want to identify with the players’ success. Decked out in team gear, they’ll say, “We had a great win. We were awesome,” when in reality the fans had no part in the win. Cutting off Reflected Failure happens when a team makes a mistake or loses, and fans blame it on an external factor to distance themselves from the defeat. “The refs were biased. The weather’s bad.” The true blame doesn’t lie with the team.
Kids away from home for the first time are being taught to identify with the University, and The Team, as a source of collective identity. They can skip studying, go out binge drinking, whatever...so long as it is “for the team”.
Putting so much trust in institutions is dangerous, especially when some kids haven’t yet developed a strong sense of trust in their own beliefs. Why are we surprised then when they riot in Happy Valley, just as when they absorb every bit of liberal propaganda pushed at them by radicalized professors?
As horrific as the Penn State mess is, it’s also a symptom of a more pervasive sickness in education.
Officials at Penn State created an environment that ENCOURAGED perversion, and that no sex was wrong.
It was the stated goal of President Spanier to become the most Gay-Friendly Campus in America, and Penn St. had the first All-GAY fraternity in America. (I’ll bet they have an interesting Hell Week).
With Adminstration-sponsored events like “QueerFest”, or the ‘Become a Lesbian for a day’ “C##tFest”, they CREATED an atmosphere where the perversions of a sicko like Sandusky found not only a home, but acceptance, and a staff willing to cover it up, for the sake of the MONEY the Football Program dragged in.
Penn State FIRED its 27 yr National Championship winning Women’s basketball coach, Rene Portland,in 2006, for telling a parent she would not tolerate homosexuality on her team, claiming she created a “Hostile, discriminative environment”.
In this kind of an atmosphere, can you hardly be surprised that sexual abuse of children would go on, and be covered up, with no regrets?
I posted earlier that McQweary thought, or was told, he’d lose his job if he talked. And I’m sure he wanted to coach at PSU since he was old enough to talk. So, he sold his soul to the devil. As my wife said, sooner or later the devil expects to get paid.
I would have cut his heart out and been standing with it in my hands when the police arrived. No second thoughts whatsoever.
If you’re in the military you’ve probably had some training and a general idea of what to expect in combat.
If you’re, say, on a college campus and somebody starts shooting your reactions may be different. It may take longer for you to achieve clarity.
Also to be fair, a low ranked military guy would have to have walked in on a highly respected Admiral or a General raping a boy to make a real analgy to this case of a grad student (McQueary) walking in on Sandusky. If it was not Sandusky, rather some pervert in the resturant bathroom, McQueary would have acted differently.
What he did not do that he should have done is call the police as soon as he calmed down to process that a child was involved.
Parents should teach boys and girls what to do when confronted by a pervert.
Officials at Penn State created an environment that ENCOURAGED perversion, and that no sex was wrong.
FRiend, this whole society is guilty of that...how many times have we had to remain silent? How often have we closed our mouths, bit our lips, to the abuses abounding around us?
I am guilty...of not responding properly to the bleeding head-wound, of not...DOING THE RIGHT THING...over and over. By this self ass-kicking I grow...and will be a little less silent
NO MORE.
Reading about the culture at PSU and State College where McQueary grew up with Sandusky’s son Jon and played for Paterno with him, I can see how McQueary was rendered momentarily senseless at the scene he came upon. He literally wasn’t in his right mind imo, especially as Sandusky had likely groomed this poor victim to be quiet and docile under his “ministrations” since there was no mention that the child was struggling or screaming or calling for help. In that case I think McQueary would have snapped out of it and gone to the rescue, but there’s no indication the poor little boy was seeking help, adding to the surreality of it all. No excuse for leaving it in JoePa’s incapable hands for more than a couple of days with nothing happening and then going himself to the police though. And McQueary’s remaining silent and happily climbing the career ladder at PSU should be criminal. He’ll surely never coach anything again, and he’ll wear the “coward” badge wherever he is forever.
Good point. I'm not defending McQueary, just saying that the article's argument could be tighter if the writer recognized that his examples weren't exactly parallel.
Parents should teach boys and girls what to do when confronted by a pervert.
My parents NEVER taught me that. Do you realize how sad that is? I rode open country roads on my bicycle, hiked frozen creeks for endless childhood
HOURS
they are stolen by the thief
this one-timed innocence
now gone.
Now, we gotta fill innocents heads with warnings,
and all...
“The Penn State Football program should get a 3-5 year death penalty. “
Make it permanent and I agree.
symptomatic of a world consuming hedonistic criminality
Cultural cleansing a nation (and in this case Western nations) is not a pretty sight in the aftermath. Liberals did that to Western culture in exchange for Marxist social ideal of humanism. It operates on situational ethics and the only value in life boils down to materialism. Which are no ethics at all. Who are we to judge?
This is what the culture war has been about. As usual, as we walk over the dead bodies, conservatives were right.
If you're, say, on a college campus and somebody starts shooting your reactions may be different. It may take longer for you to achieve clarity.
I agree.
McQuery is indeed a coward, but most probably an opportunist and a weasel.
Penn State has for too long been insulated, and the football program run by one man who reflected a cult of personality. Paterno got “sainthood” and stayed long past the time he should have left. If he was so concerned and upstanding, he should have given a younger man a chance 15 years ago.
I watched Saturday's game and realized that the whole “drop and pray”, moment of silence, etc. was pure PR. After the riot and the snarky conduct on the part of the fans, alumni and students, it was a very lame attempt to show a national audience that “gosh, we really, really care, look at how contrite we are”. Pure BS.
They still don't get it, they are living in a dream world. If this athletic program is allowed to exist with the same personnel who are minions of Paterno, that is a travesty. IMO every single one of those people connected with that program knew something was rotten. The insulated, arrogant atmosphere, the cult worship of Paterno, the inability of the principals to understand the gravity of the situation and allow Sandusky to continue cannot be forgiven.
Yes, there are moral imperatives. Yes, there are more important things than your stinking coaching job. Yes, every man has to look in the mirror in the morning. If I was McQuery, Paterno, Bradley or any of the rest of these failures as men, I don't think I could.
Of course yu know a lot of people would say “that’s way to harsh”, but I’ll tell you what - if Penn State were the only Div I university in the nation that was prohibited from having a football team, think about the unmistakable message that would send.
Since, based on the grand jury document, it was the head coach and AD that were covering it up, I really don’t think “tough love” for Penn State football should be off the table.
Witnessing the rape of a child is trauma in and of itself. However, once you pull yourself back together, you got to do the right thing. The young boy may have even tried to defend the perp out of loyalty to the seduction. However, I would hope that someone, myself included, would understand that and intervene anyway.
Bottom line: Sex with a 10 year old is just plain wrong on so many levels. My heart sinks everytime I think of that boy in the showers that night.
Witnessing the rape of a child is trauma in and of itself. However, once you pull yourself back together, you got to do the right thing. The young boy may have even tried to defend the perp out of loyalty to the seduction. However, I would hope that someone, myself included, would understand that and intervene anyway.
Bottom line: Sex with a 10 year old is just plain wrong on so many levels. My heart sinks everytime I think of that boy in the showers that night.
Two words: Kitty Genovese.
It is very easy for those standing from a distance to say that it was wrong for this guy to step back and do nothing, because it was wrong for this guy to step back and do nothing. But it’s grandstanding for so many to claim that they would have done differently. Many would likely have done less.
Thank you Jumper.
I suspect the REAL reason McQueary ran from the scene was because he & MANY others at Penn State KNEW about Sandusky’s “activities”, & knew it for YEARS. McQueary had already rationalized the situation & his place in it, & long ago decided to look the other way.
So, confronted in that shower room with what he already knew, he followed his rationalization & looked the other way.
Only hours afterward, when he realized his now much deeper involvement & possible criminal negligence, did he attempt some CYA by telling Paterno. That probably wasn't too dangerous, especially if McQueary knew that Paterno was fully aware of Sandusky’s perversion.
I do believe Paterno has known about this a long time. Why? Because when McQueary told Paterno what he witnessed, Paterno didn't call police either. A completely unaware Paterno would have gone ballistic over both the news about the rape & McQueary’s abandonment of the child. McQueary would have been fired on the spot.
The reason police were never called was because too many people knew too much for too long at Penn State. Police would ask too many questions about who knew what & when, leading to the exposure of the whole rotten bunch.
Given what you know of what in going on in public schools and children’s organizations, if you don’t warn your kids on what is right and wrong, you are either nuts or evil. Denial is not a river in Egypt.
My sons have a full and happy childhood. But one did finger a pervert coach in baseball because he was both happy and not stupid at age 12.
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