Sandusky Questions

Its very deceptive, and some people are farther gone than others. 

I heard a preacher once say,

"sin will take you farther than you want to go, keep you longer than you want to stay, and cost you more than you want to pay."

I'm sure trained professionals can give you a correct diagnosis.  And its probably true.  But, personally, I could care less.  There are some actions that should have no mitigating circumstances regardless of how compelling, and molesting children is one of those I put in that category.  (This is coming from a lawyer who had the concept of "innocent until proven guilty" hammered into his brain.)

This is the hardest thing for prosecutors bringing these cases.  We can convict the thief, because wanting more money makes sense.  We can convict the guy who kills his wife's lover, because we all understand jealousy and hurt.  We can convict the guy who punches someone in a bar, because we've all been there.  All of these things are rational, if improper, actions in our minds.  So, when a prosecutor says, "That man over there did this bad thing," we can believe it.

But none of us want to believe that child abuse occurs, and particular child rape, and that the perpetrators are usually great with kids and look normal.  Those factors only make sense when you think about it; for a child molestor to be successful, he usually has to be someone a kid would trust, someone who can build a good bond with a kid, and someone who seems "normal" and "safe" to the kid's parents.  They often have jobs of trust - teachers, priests, cub scout leaders, coaches.  

So, to convict one of these people is scary.  A juror who votes guilty has to accept that this "nice man," maybe a "trusted teacher for years," maybe "the great neighbor who always loved watching the kids play basketball," did something monstrous.  And that means accepting that your neighbor, your kid's teacher, your kid's coach, hell, your friend or family member, might just be capable of doing the same thing.

That is hard.  That is really, really hard.  No one wants to believe that happens.  Or if it does, it certainly doesn't happen HERE, in MY COMMUNITY, to kids who look like MY KIDS, and perpetrated by people who look like ME.  We want to believe that it happens OVER THERE, to THEM, and is caused by THOSE PEOPLE.  Accepting that is not true is very hard.

And don't get me wrong.  Most people who are "normal," are normal.  Most people who seem to like kids and are good with them, are good and kind people.  Most teachers, most priests, most cub scout leaders, are good caring people who would have laid Sandusky out on a slab if they walked in on this.  I'm not saying that we shouldn't trust.

But these crimes cross every socio-economic, racial, geographical, etc. line.  They are inexplicable, and leave us asking, "How could someone do this?"  It makes convictions so much harder to achieve.

These are very difficult questions to answer. Are you sure you want to go down this path? Are you asking rhetorical questions, or do you really want to know?

Here is a link to a Yahoo article talking about the normalization of pedophilia. (now called "minor-attracted persons.") http://news.yahoo.com/b4u-act-pedophilia-takes-step-toward-being-considered-212800919.html

Perhaps the largest organization that represents this kind of thinking is NAMBLA. (North American Man Boy Love Association.) http://www.nambla.org/ While I know of nambla, I can't even bring myself to read anything they post at their website.

The American Psychiatric Association, or APA, released a report in 1998 "claiming that the 'negative potential' of adult sex with children was 'overstated' and that 'the vast majority of both men and women reported no negative sexual effects from their child sexual abuse experiences.' It even claimed that large numbers of the victims reported that their experiences were 'positive,' and suggested that the phrase 'child sex abuse' be replaced with 'adult-child sex.'" Others have coined the term "intergenerational intimacy."

I personally feel great revulsion at this, but wonder if this is simply a reflection of the culture, and our aversion to making statements of moral right and wrong.

Mods, I invite you to delete this post. This is going far afield from why I go to mgoblog.

However, the delusional mindset of someone like Jerry Sandusky is not surprising to me. I feel this is very abnormal, and not at all typical for the general population. However, while I can't personally understand it at all, we live in a politically correct culture where in large measure, it is considered inappropriate to make value judgements on the behavioral choices of others.

I have worked for many years with abused kids and their families - though never directly with the abusers.  But my experience within these situations leads me to believe that::

• no two are exactly the same, of course, and below are generalizations
• however, most serial abusers believe to some extent that they are not hurting the child, possibly even helping or giving love or showing an exciting new world to the child
• this belief is often psychologically created as a coping mechanism so that they can deal with and justify their actions - actions that at other times they wish more than anything they could control and stop
• they rarely completely escape the truth nor fully escape their guilt - thus Sandusky replied to the mom who confronted him in person, "I wish I could have forgiveness.... I wish I were dead."
• Often abusers work with children in authoritative and/or supportive roles.  This is for several reasons: 1) It gives them access to kids - sometimes a direct goal to find prey, other times a goal to be near what excites them even if their conscious goal is not to abuse these kids 2) their mind's are obsessed with their sick addiction, like all addicts, and kids are their focus 3) in their mind they truly "love" kids and want to help them and for kids that they do not abuse, they often can be very compasionate and helpful. 4) almost as a make up or in payment for all the harm they consciously or subconsciously know they have brought upon their victims.

Adopted son.  He and his wife are unable to have children (thankfully, apparently) but adopted six (oh God).

This is probably one of my favorite games. I remember how excited I was when we pulled off the win.

AMERICA!

Randolph (Randy, like Randy Jackson, of the Jackson 5) Duke.

Mortimer (Mor-TAY) Duke, ftw!

I don't think its the child thing, so much as it is the helpless and powerless victim thing.  Murder of another fully functional adult male would be bad, but its still adult vs adult.  You're at least picking on someone your own size (for lack of a better way to say it).

Murdering a kid, murdering someone with a chronic condition that impairs them, a bed ridden senior citizen, basically someone with zero ability to fight back seems worse than adult man A stabbing adult man B to death.  It's not just the child part, it's the going after a victim who is powerless to respond in any meaningful way due to their social standing and/or physical condition.  

on the motive for the murder. Even then if it was a random murder of someone he didn't know we would think it strange - but this is just sick.

Everybody Murders.

I don't know, I think it can be worse if life becomes a living hell for them.  Also the tendancy for abuse victims to repeat the crime on others is a real concern as well.

I have several people whom I've met over the years and who have been very close to me who were childhood victims of sexual abuse.  And this isn't the case with everyone, but most have a lot of psychological disorders.  Its a story that is at the very heart of my family.  For the record, I was never abused.  But a lot of people around me were and they are totally fucked up because of it.  Some are in therapy, a few have killed themselves, some are addicts, the minority have normal lives.  Its painful and I have no stomach for any of it.  Like Staples said in his article today, I cannot comprehend it and it makes me so enraged that I really can't see straight and am incapable of rational thought. 

That analogy breaks down when you consider that the Sandusky victims who have come forward describe incidents over a period of more than 10 years. The proper analogy is a serial killer with multiple victims (helpless victims, as others have pointed out).

in my opinion, it's not worse morally, especially when we're talking about the age and number of the victims compared to one murder.

murdered someone and Penn State officials helped to cover it up?  Or just a murder? 

The underlying crime here is bad enough, but the fact that Paterno et al were willing to help cover this thing up and let Sandusky go on molesting kids raises the ick factor to a whole new level.