How could American culture grow so corrupt as to value a game over protecting children?

I'm still wondering when Sandusky will petition the Vatican for asylum.

Paleocon:

He probably doesn't need to do that. He could get it from more proximate supporters.

Malor:

I'll sub in for darrenl, since he's not around anymore.

I'm kind of wondering why, if it happens in the Catholic Church and is protected by the Vatican, it's a problem with the religion; but when it's an American in a university environment, it's an American problem, and not a problem with education, democracy, capitalism or whatever Sandusky and JoePa supposedly stand for.

Off-hand, my read of it is that the former is an "us-them" situation where Catholics are the "them" and in the latter, it's an "us" problem, where JoePa represents things which you identify with, so he's an outlier, and not representative of everything that's wrong with American democracy, capitalism, or whatever.

Off-hand, I think the pedophilia is endemic to American or Western culture for some reason. Locally, the largest and most numerous clients of child prostitution rings are foreigners from Western culture. The Japanese and Korean sex tourists tend to... ...other forms of sex trade. Come to think of it, the Germans aren't that much into it, either, from what I hear on the street.

You'd think the Japanese ones would like the kiddies.

I'm kind of wondering why, if it happens in the Catholic Church and is protected by the Vatican, it's a problem with the religion; but when it's an American in a university environment, it's an American problem, and not a problem with education, democracy, capitalism or whatever Sandusky and JoePa supposedly stand for.

If they'd reacted differently, then they'd be complicit. But they seem to be doing what they should.

If you have evidence of other orchestrated coverups, especially if they go to the Federal government, I'm all ears. In the Church, the conspiracy goes all the way to the top... in Penn State, it appears to have gone to a vice-principal, and when the full governing body found out, they fired everyone involved, as opposed to moving them into other jobs working with children.

And, of course, Penn State doesn't claim to be a moral exemplar, nor do they claim to have instructions from the divine. It's the hypocrisy of making that claim, while actively protecting child molesters from the law, that gets my back up.

where JoePa represents things which you identify with

I am not into sports and I'm not into colleges. They're as 'them' as the Catholics are. Organized sports are just about as stupid, in my book, as organized religion.

But at least Penn State isn't telling me I'm going to burn in Hell for my sins.

Malor:

And, of course, Penn State doesn't claim to be a moral exemplar, nor do they claim to have instructions from the divine. It's the hypocrisy of making that claim, while actively protecting child molesters from the law, that gets my back up.

This may be the central point of difference. You see, I have no problems with a hypocrite telling me something that's true (or worth believing in). He might be betraying his trust, but that doesn't mean that what he says isn't worth listening to, or living by. I don't confuse the message for the messenger.

I am not into sports and I'm not into colleges. They're as 'them' as the Catholics are. Organized sports are just about as stupid, in my book, as organized religion.

But at least Penn State isn't telling me I'm going to burn in Hell for my sins.

The American educational system tells you that getting education is a good thing, and that without it, you'll be worse off in the real world, not in an afterlife. Shouldn't that count? They hold themselves as exemplars in the sense that they stand for more education as a desirable thing. Shouldn't you, like, disagree with that now? I'm not entirely sure how that reasoning is supposed to fly, so forgive the vagueness.

Also, note the thread's premise. I wasn't going to be one who's going to open this sort of topic, since it's almost 100% likely to be taken the wrong way coming from a foreigner, but the OP states that there's something wrong with American culture relating to rape and pedophilia. I'm not inclined to disagree.

Were I sober, I'd roll my eyes. But I'm kinda drunk and angry, so please, I beg of you both, continue.

Edit: Thanks jdzappa. As I mentioned by PM, although I disagree with the story about football being the reason for the reactions/cover-up, I appreciate that you posted this and that it represents a portion of the truth and our reactions to it. Very happy to have found GWJ where we can talk about such things rationally (for the most part) and with understanding for each other's pain.

For those who are mad at the rioters for expressing anger at inappropriate things, I present to you the parts of Penn State that the media isn't showing you:

IMAGE(http://i.imgur.com/7dQFL.jpg)

IMAGE(http://a2.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc7/316942_10150446577145663_143212655662_10566879_465693642_n.jpg)

IMAGE(http://a8.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/378497_10150931912525790_838595789_21584856_1525687733_n.jpg)

And one outlet that actually did a story about the vigil held last night. Thousands strong. The heading on that link is, "No one's talking football at Penn State."

My 2 cents. Part of this reflects poorly on America's tendency to grant wide legal latitude to organizations such as churches or colleges. Sometimes corporations. Think about it. You can literally get your door busted down for growing marijuana in your house and yet I've seen kids in college do this in their dorm room and get dealt with by the campus judicial system. Many organizations in America have their own rules, their own standards, their own bylaws and they become these weird legal grey areas where sometimes they hand it off to the police and sometimes they deal with things in house. I feel like the more press this gets the more likely it is that that whole thing will get blown wide open. Because regularly everything from underage drinking to drug use to even rape is handled by the college and not by police. I'm not making an excuse for what happened here, but just pointing out a possibility of why things are the way they are.

DSGamer wrote:

I'm not making an excuse for what happened here, but just pointing out a possibility of why things are the way they are.

I agree that the desire to protect the organization played a role here, but there's a big difference between an accountant being concerned about the legality of a financial transaction their company is making and someone witnessing a child getting raped.

At the end of the day this simply boiled down to a college protecting a serial child molester. It doesn't matter if they did this to protect the money the football program generates, to protect the prestige and reputation of the college, or the simple desire to avoid a scandal. Everyone involved actively made decisions that said that the school's football team (or the college in general) was more important than protecting children and there's really no way to put a positive spin on that.

Jolly Bill wrote:

For those who are mad at the rioters for expressing anger at inappropriate things, I present to you the parts of Penn State that the media isn't showing you:

I hate to say it but that reaction is a day late and dollar short. Students can hold all the candle light vigils they want, but the reputation Penn State is trashed. It will forever be a school that allowed children to be raped so they could win football games.

OG_slinger wrote:
DSGamer wrote:

I'm not making an excuse for what happened here, but just pointing out a possibility of why things are the way they are.

I agree that the desire to protect the organization played a role here, but there's a big difference between an accountant being concerned about the legality of a financial transaction their company is making and someone witnessing a child getting raped.

At the end of the day this simply boiled down to a college protecting a serial child molester. It doesn't matter if they did this to protect the money the football program generates, to protect the prestige and reputation of the college, or the simple desire to avoid a scandal. Everyone involved actively made decisions that said that the school's football team (or the college in general) was more important than protecting children and there's really no way to put a positive spin on that.

Jolly Bill wrote:

For those who are mad at the rioters for expressing anger at inappropriate things, I present to you the parts of Penn State that the media isn't showing you:

I hate to say it but that reaction is a day late and dollar short. Students can hold all the candle light vigils they want, but the reputation Penn State is trashed. It will forever be a school that allowed children to be raped so they could win football games.

Not to mention that the logical emotional reaction should be one of outrage and betrayal at the criminal conspiracy that allowed this to continue. Everyone should feel for the kids, but that should not, in any way, detract from the fact that a horrific series of crimes took place.

It's not enough to mourn the Cambodians. You also have to round up the Khmer Rouge.

It will forever be a school that allowed children to be raped so they could win football games.

Well, they did 'fess up and fire everyone involved. Is there any evidence that the school board knew of the crimes and didn't do anything? We know one vice principal did, but if just kept everything on the down-low, the board may never have realized there was a problem.

I don't think we know that there was any active coverup by the organization proper, do we?

OG_slinger wrote:

I hate to say it but that reaction is a day late and dollar short. Students can hold all the candle light vigils they want, but the reputation Penn State is trashed. It will forever be a school that allowed children to be raped so they could win football games.

I don't think that's what public perception will be, or is now. They are in no way the school that allowed children to be raped so that 'they could win football games'. Protecting Sandusky in no way helps them win more games. Sandusky's conviction (say if it had happened years ago) doesn't hurt the football program or bring about NCAA violations. Had he been outed immediately, if anything it might have helped the school and program, since that sort of thing can happen anywhere and it would have displayed integrity to be honest and bring him to justice. It wasn't an epidemic or a child sex ring, it was just one guy.

I think the university is far more damaged now than they ever would have been had they not ignored it (or actively covered it up).

My own perception of the situation is one monster, and a handful of cowards, and otherwise an excellent institution.

Malor wrote:

Well, they did 'fess up and fire everyone involved. Is there any evidence that the school board knew of the crimes and didn't do anything? We know one vice principal did, but if just kept everything on the down-low, the board may never have realized there was a problem.

I don't think we know that there was any active coverup by the organization proper, do we?

Eight victims that we know of whose abuse goes back at least a decade? You can't keep a lid on something like that without the powers that be knowing and actively helping you (or at least aggressively turning a blind eye).

When the head coach and senior college officials admit their involvement (or, more specifically, lack of action) you can't claim it wasn't an active coverup by the organization proper. Those people *were* the organization.

Apparently, it goes all the way to the President of the college... fifteen people knew about this abuse, and none of them reported it to police.

So, well, yeah. With this info, I'd call Penn State a secular Catholic Church.

OG_slinger wrote:
DSGamer wrote:

I'm not making an excuse for what happened here, but just pointing out a possibility of why things are the way they are.

I agree that the desire to protect the organization played a role here, but there's a big difference between an accountant being concerned about the legality of a financial transaction their company is making and someone witnessing a child getting raped.

At the end of the day this simply boiled down to a college protecting a serial child molester. It doesn't matter if they did this to protect the money the football program generates, to protect the prestige and reputation of the college, or the simple desire to avoid a scandal. Everyone involved actively made decisions that said that the school's football team (or the college in general) was more important than protecting children and there's really no way to put a positive spin on that.

Just to be clear. I wasn't defending the school. I was simply offering up a perspective on how we got here which... was.. the original question.

Pedophilia is sort of an interesting taboo in American culture. Upon hearing from a demented elderly woman that a witch (who can fly in the air) built secret tunnels under a childcare facility in which she and the entire staff held elaborate Satan-worshiping child rape rituals, people will come storming in with fire and pitchforks to ruin the lives of everyone allegedly involved (when of course no one was actually involved in anything). Virtually anyone who works with children can be ruined by the mere allegation of child abuse (with some, uh, notable exceptions). And yet, most of the actual perpetrators of child abuse (who are, as I understand it, friends, family members, stepparents, etc...) manage to get away with it with astonishing regularity. Is it just a monkey-sphere thing, where people you don't know are infinitely more easy to condemn than people you do? Is Joe Paterno, by virtue of being inside some students' monkey-sphere, similar to the husband no one wants to believe is abusing the stepchild (or, if you prefer, the relative who knew it was happening but didn't respond appropriately)?

Like any form of rape, it is almost universally reviled yet very common and rarely reported. We have a few TV dramas dedicated almost exclusively to rape and child rape, which is sort of weird. It gets internet people to post elaborate comments describing the sort of torture they would inflict on the perpetrator (though perhaps only when said perpetrator is some Othered person). Frankly, I think people find it exciting in the same way they find gruesome murder exciting. It does seem to be a popular cultural subject for its intense emotional impact and sheer morbidness.

It's easy to see why the various parties reacted the way they did, even though their actions were obviously not ethical. Child rape is poisonous to everyone it touches. If you witness it and go tell the police right away, will you then have to answer questions about why you didn't notice sooner? Will you recognize in hindsight signs that should have been obvious, and conclude that you have already failed miserably to protect the child? You probably recognized some of them even at the time, but chose to ignore them. Plus your relationship to the perpetrator will lead towards endless, increasingly-ridiculous rationalizing. The natural response is to want the whole thing to simply go away; as a rational thinking person you should realize that it will not and act accordingly, but I imagine it is difficult to be rational in such a situation.

As for the protestors, I choose to believe they view Paterno as someone they know, and so they were unwilling to associate him with such evil. It isn't really that they just wanted to win at football, but rather that at some level they believe he could not have been responsible. Endless rationalizing.

Thank you, everyone. Talking about this somewhat calmly and hearing more views than just "JoePa was wronged, GRAAHHHH" and "PSU and JoePa are forever wrong, burn them to the ground now!" helps me a lot.

It's not a straight forward timeline of the criminal acts, but there's a great article at pennlive.com about how the investigation was bungled in many ways, and why it took so long to finally bring charges.

NCAA should kill Penn St football.

Everyone outside of football knows that Penn St is guilty which especially includes Joe Paterno.

Great post, 4xis!

The only think I would add is that the damage these kind of accusations can do makes all of us very cautious about leveling them. Obviously McQueary saw something blatant. But his actions were so inconclusive, I would have a hard time going to the police with his story, when he did not do so himself.

People lie. People make mistakes. But making a public accusation of pedophillia is a bell that can't be unrung. After the fact, it is so easy to lay blame for those that should have known. But you make a great point that on the whole, society misses these clues over and over and over. And part of it really is denial. We don't want to think about it.

But we see what happens in the race to be the most outraged, as you mentioned in your post. And despite this theme being a common trope for TV dramas and novels, we still see educated people falling into the trap of going overboard in their zeal to hunt down evil.

goman wrote:

NCAA should kill Penn St football.

Everyone outside of football knows that Penn St is guilty which especially includes Joe Paterno.

Why kill the football program and not just the people involved? Seems like overkill in addition to punishing people who had nothing to do with it (the players and fans).

gregrampage wrote:
goman wrote:

NCAA should kill Penn St football.

Everyone outside of football knows that Penn St is guilty which especially includes Joe Paterno.

Why kill the football program and not just the people involved? Seems like overkill in addition to punishing people who had nothing to do with it (the players and fans).

You are such a child rapist enabler!

gregrampage wrote:
goman wrote:

NCAA should kill Penn St football.

Everyone outside of football knows that Penn St is guilty which especially includes Joe Paterno.

Why kill the football program and not just the people involved? Seems like overkill in addition to punishing people who had nothing to do with it (the players and fans).

They are one in the same.

goman wrote:
gregrampage wrote:
goman wrote:

NCAA should kill Penn St football.

Everyone outside of football knows that Penn St is guilty which especially includes Joe Paterno.

Why kill the football program and not just the people involved? Seems like overkill in addition to punishing people who had nothing to do with it (the players and fans).

They are one in the same.

How so? This is what I'm trying to understand.

goman wrote:

NCAA should kill Penn St football.

Everyone outside of football knows that Penn St is guilty which especially includes Joe Paterno.

I am part of 'everyone', and I do not know this, therefore, statement = false. The NCAA is not, and cannot be involved in this. This is criminal proceeding.

"Penn State" is not a person. "Penn State" is not guilty of anything.

Would you nuke Saudi Arabia because most of the 9/11 terrorists were from there?

Jeff-66 wrote:
goman wrote:

NCAA should kill Penn St football.

Everyone outside of football knows that Penn St is guilty which especially includes Joe Paterno.

I am part of 'everyone', and I do not know this, therefore, statement = false. The NCAA is not, and cannot be involved in this. This is criminal proceeding.

"Penn State" is not a person. "Penn State" is not guilty of anything.

Would you nuke Saudi Arabia because most of the 9/11 terrorists were from there?

1. You are not "everyone outside football."
2. NCAA has rules. Sure this did not violate their rules but it obviously violated a higher rule.

Penn St does not deserve a team. They are brainwashed. Every single one of them. From Franco Harris to the students protesting.

Yes.... about the OP... it is endemic to our American culture.

gregrampage wrote:
goman wrote:
gregrampage wrote:
goman wrote:

NCAA should kill Penn St football.

Everyone outside of football knows that Penn St is guilty which especially includes Joe Paterno.

Why kill the football program and not just the people involved? Seems like overkill in addition to punishing people who had nothing to do with it (the players and fans).

They are one in the same.

How so? This is what I'm trying to understand.

The coverup was to protect the image of Penn St football. They let the child rape happen because of this false virtue called Penn St football. It deserves to die.

.

goman wrote:

1. You are not "everyone outside football."

What the hell does this even mean?

2. NCAA has rules. Sure this did not violate their rules but it obviously violated a higher rule.

So it didn't violate their rules, but they should take action to destroy that university's 100+ year history?

Penn St does not deserve a team. They are brainwashed. Every single one of them. From Franco Harris to the students protesting.

Who are "they"? You seem to possess an omniscience in this matter, perhaps you should have testified at the grand jury hearing.

Jeff-66 wrote:
goman wrote:

1. You are not "everyone outside football."

What the hell does this even mean?

2. NCAA has rules. Sure this did not violate their rules but it obviously violated a higher rule.

So it didn't violate their rules, but they should take action to destroy that university's 100+ year history?

Penn St does not deserve a team. They are brainwashed. Every single one of them. From Franco Harris to the students protesting.

Who are "they"? You seem to possess an omniscience in this matter, perhaps you should have testified at the grand jury hearing.

1. It means you care about college football. There are many people in the USA that don't. Not one of them would agree with you.
2. Yes.
3. You are being naive.

goman wrote:
gregrampage wrote:
goman wrote:
gregrampage wrote:
goman wrote:

NCAA should kill Penn St football.

Everyone outside of football knows that Penn St is guilty which especially includes Joe Paterno.

Why kill the football program and not just the people involved? Seems like overkill in addition to punishing people who had nothing to do with it (the players and fans).

They are one in the same.

How so? This is what I'm trying to understand.

The coverup was to protect the image of Penn St football. They let the child rape happen because of this false virtue called Penn St football. It deserves to die.

Yes, every single person that covered something up deserves to be fired/prosecuted. How does that apply to anyone not involved? You're not answering my question. How are the people who did not participate in the coverup involved and deserving of punishment?

gregrampage wrote:
goman wrote:
gregrampage wrote:
goman wrote:
gregrampage wrote:
goman wrote:

NCAA should kill Penn St football.

Everyone outside of football knows that Penn St is guilty which especially includes Joe Paterno.

Why kill the football program and not just the people involved? Seems like overkill in addition to punishing people who had nothing to do with it (the players and fans).

They are one in the same.

How so? This is what I'm trying to understand.

The coverup was to protect the image of Penn St football. They let the child rape happen because of this false virtue called Penn St football. It deserves to die.

Yes, every single person that covered something up deserves to be fired/prosecuted. How does that apply to anyone not involved? You're not answering my question. How are the people who did not participate in the coverup involved and deserving of punishment?

Because it was to coverup the image of Penn St football. It was saying that football is greater than child rape. NCAA should get involved and kill the team. It would say that child rape is not greater than a football team. End of story.