There is a famous if apocryphal tale of a Fleet Street theater critic covering the first night of a new play in the West End of London. At the end of the evening, he went to a public telephone and dictated his review. The following morning, a furious editor called him and demanded to know why he had neglected to mention that, midway through the third act, the theater had caught fire and burned to the ground. The critic sniffily replied that it was not his business to report fires, but that, if the editor had read more carefully, he would have observed that the review included a passage noting discreetly that the critic had been unable to remain for the final scenes.
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That, more or less, is the position of those Americans defending the behavior of the Penn State establishment: It would be unreasonable to expect the college-football elite to show facility with an entirely separate discipline such as pedophilia-reporting procedures, and, besides, many of those officials who were aware of Jerry Sandusky’s child-sex activities did mention it to other officials who promised to look into mentioning it to someone else.
From the grand-jury indictment:
On March 1, 2002, a Penn State graduate assistant (“graduate assistant”) who was then 28 years old, entered the locker room at the Lasch Football Building on the University Park Campus on a Friday night. . . . He saw a naked boy, Victim 2, whose age he estimated to be ten years old, with his hands up against the wall, being subjected to anal intercourse by a naked Sandusky. The graduate assistant was shocked but noticed that both Victim 2 and Sandusky saw him. The graduate assistant left immediately, distraught.
The graduate assistant went to his office and called his father, reporting to him what he had seen. His father told the graduate assistant to leave the building and come to his home. The graduate assistant and his father decided that the graduate assistant had to promptly report what he had seen to Coach Joe Paterno (“Paterno”), head football coach of Penn State. The next morning, a Saturday, the graduate assistant telephoned Paterno . . .
Hold it right there. “The next morning”?
Here surely is an almost too perfect snapshot of a culture that simultaneously destroys childhood and infantilizes adulthood. The “child” in this vignette ought to be the ten-year-old boy, “hands up against the wall,” but instead the “man” appropriates the child role for himself: Why, the graduate assistant is so “distraught” that he has to leave and telephone his father. He is pushing 30, an age when previous generations would have had little boys of their own. But today, confronted by a grade-schooler being sodomized before his eyes, the poor distraught child-man approaching early middle-age seeks out some fatherly advice, like one of Fred MacMurray’s “My Three Sons” might have done had he seen the boy next door swiping a can of soda pop from the lunch counter.
The graduate assistant, Mike McQueary, is now pushing 40, and is sufficiently grown up to realize that the portrait of him that emerges from the indictment is not to his credit and to attempt, privately, to modify it. “No one can imagine my thoughts or wants to be in my shoes for those 30–45 seconds,” he e-mailed a friend a few days ago. “Trust me.”
“Trust me”? Maybe the ten-year-old boy did. And then watched Mr. McQueary leave the building. Perhaps the child-man should try “imagining” the ten-year-old’s thoughts or being in his shoes. Oh, wait. He wasn’t wearing any.
Mr. Steyn right on. When we are a legalistic state like now there is no sense of right and wrong outside of what is legal or illegal. Something may be legal bu that does not make it right. Not stopping a child rape, even if he followed procedures, was not the right thing to do. Stop the rape was the right thing to do.
That is the problem when the government gets so big and so powerful most people begin to allow it to set the standards of right and wrong for all behavior. When some sees a moral wrong they think, "We need a law about that!" They don't mean we need a law to punish wrong doing they mean they need a law to prove that something is morally wrong. That is a horrible and even dangerous way to live. We need strong society norms and a moral compass not tired to the latest court cases or regulations if we are to survive as a nation. The best take on this scandal that I have read...
Most of you guys posting here ( and the author this cloumn is fullf of BS). There has always been selective morality in society, including in America!!.
How else can you explain the Dec. of Independence (..all men are created equal...) with the refusal to treat blacks as full humans. Negroes were merely 3/5 of a person in the Constitution. A Supreme Court chief justice wrote in 1857 Dred SCott case, that "...the authors of the Constitution viewed all blacks as being inferior.. unfit to associate with the white race... and they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect..". This is a direct quote, look it up if you dont belive it. Therefore, many unspeakable horrors & tortures were heaped upn blacks in this country during and after slavery by presumably God-fearing Christians. And that's just one example of open hypocrisy, so spare us the drama. I'm sure many a white saw even worse things done to young black kids in this country, but not only did they not stop them, but egged them on... These things being done to a white kid would have caused the perpertrator to be shot dead or at least go to jail...
Another example, of selective cruelty by enlightend - democratic - law abiding - God fearing - non heathen societies (including in America) is the decades/centuries long history of rape and child molestation by hundreds/thousands of ordained preists in the Catholic Church, and them merely being "punished" by occasionlly being sent to a different parish. What were these Bishops/Cardinals thinking? They had the exact same response as McQueary/JoePa/Schultz, et al. The didnt think that what was going was bad enough/illegal enough/immoral enough to call the police or to make sure that it stopped or to help the kid(s). They just went on their daily lifes, as if was not really a problem. I'm sure if the preists were committing murder, against mnay 10 year old boys, the bishops/cardinals would have been forced to call the cops, so obviulsy in thier mind, child molestation did not cross that threshold.
So please get off the sanctimonius high horse, unspeakable atrocities have been taking place in civilized Christian societies and in this here American states since its inception, by the powerful, against the powerless with almost narry a whimper. Dont act like the PennState situation is some new phenomenon and some even try to conveniently blame it on the liberals, totally bogus. JoePa was registred Republican, many of the Catholic priest/bishops are conservative on numerous issues.
This has nothing to do, perse, with a person's politics. It only has to do a with person/society willingness to inflcit pain/torture/rape upon another human being, be they an adult or child...
I'm Not saying that atrocities dont happen .in uncivilized societies, but please dont act like what happened at PennState was some new event relevant to our circunstances today. People have been looking the other way for along time...
Blacks were counted as 3/5th only for the purpose of representation in the south. And only slaves were counted that way. This was done to limit the power of the slave holders in the south (by limiting their representation). Personally, I don't think slaves should have been counted at all. How were they being represented?
Of course, we have a similar situation now in our gerrymandered districts. We set up districts (in the south mainly) to ensure a black gets elected. If I can vote for Tim Scott (and I have when I lived in SC), why can't blacks be represented by a white man (if we really are "equal" and the same)? Heck, we can't even make a change to where a polling place is without Federal approval! BTW, I am a white guy in the south.
Voting irregularities and even denial of the right to vote is not the same as physical violence against defenseless human beings. My point was that what MsQueary saw was analagous to (but not exactly) as atrocities (physical violence, such as whippings, lynchings, etc.) against balcks in this country, as well the molestation of boys by catholic priests, who were by and large not defended by the majority of those who knew about it. I only mentioned the 3/5 & slavery fact to make it clear that at that time, blacks were offically viewed as inferior and were not in a position to defend themselves, similar to the position of teh 10 y.old kid.
Having said that, many blacks did defend themselves, but generally sufferd even more violence, as a result.
You'll all be glad to know that MN US Senator "Smarmy Amy" Klobuchar has already announced she will introduce Legislation requiring people to "do the right thing", complete with more "training" programs.
I'm sure all the sexually abused children sleep better now knowing that?
(As opposed those children who have been assured that Their father/brother/uncle/neighbor have "had a little talk" with the man who hurt them, and "they don't have to worry about seeing him ever again."?)
The response to this news has been incredible. From the defenders/apologists for Penn State to the useful pseudo-intellectual idiots like David Brooks (to be fair to him, I think he was actually trying to make the same point as you, but was just unable to get his preening salon mannerisms out of his own way).
Liberals created government and government interventionism to replace the role that God and morality had at the center of our conception of being. As you nicely point out, once you attack morality, you have no moral compass to respond to the countless things that happen in life. All you have is a bureaucratic nightmare and clinging to your compliance to the mandates of that bureaucracy.
It's amazing to think that in 200 years we've gone from the founding fathers' distrust of government institutions and championing of liberty (with a stress on personal responsibility and morality) to a culture that portrays the creation of, and compliance with, a bureaucracy as a virtue!
The trouble with all of these sex scandals is that it's very hard to know who to believe, especially when the events described are almost a decade old.
You get the feeling - as with Candidate Cain - that the power of accusation is being belatedly used for some other agenda.
A discussion of the way in which the evolution of American morality effects the "pursuit of happiness" is well worth having, and we can be grateful to Mr. Steyn for his willingness to address such a nebulous subject.
Our laws used to be rooted in moralitybut now that we are a secular nation that has driven religion from the public square, we have driven morality out with it. We are all, like Clinton, moral relativists. Adultery and perjury are OK because you support my causes like killing unborn children on demand.
I am absolutely certain I would have found a towel for the victim and told him to wait outside. I would then have found a folding metal chair common to all churches, halls, auditoriums and gyms, and beaten the pedophilia out of Sandusky until he could not stand up.
Undoubtedly it would have been the right thing to do and I would be enjoying a cell in Centre County, PA for assault while the pedophile roams free, set off by one of his charity's many contributors.
And I would have sat there quiet and content knowing that on the judgment day that really matters, I would not be found "guilty" and would have reserved for the judgment day that doesn't matter the defense offered by Buford Pusser in Walking Tall: if you give them the right to do this to me, the you give them the right to do the same damned thing to you.
It’s our culture. Everyone believes in the liberal principle of non-discrimination. It’s drilled into us from earliest childhood. Non-discrimination teaches you can’t judge, that right or wrong is relative.
Liberalism is all about satisfying peoples’ desires. Since in the liberal vision there is nothing higher than the human self, ---no God, no social order, no moral order---the only guide is peoples’ desires. And the only moral action is satisfying those desires. We live in a liberal world, everyone accepts non-discrimination. How can we then howl when someone like McQueary is confused when he faces evil?
Liberals believe it is good to be non-discriminatory and inclusive toward everyone. McQueary was being a good little liberal.
HOLD ON A MINUTE!! We are being told by the Democrats that this boy has a choice. And he chose to "partner" with The Esq. Sandusky.
So, What is the problem??
Sandusky got what he wanted, The boy got what he wanted...apparently, and Paterno and Penn State got what they wanted as well, namely, his record win total, lest we forget that $50 mil. a year as well.
Meanwhile...did you hear what Herman Cain did 25 years ago?
Obviously your astute observations transcend Penn St. Mr. Steyn, but this particular institution has now created a sordid history of moral failure for itself. Two other incidents in "Happy Valley" that precede this latest one of homosexual pedofilial rape come to mind.
Chronologically, the first involves legendary women's basketball coach Rene Portland who was railroaded out of town by none other than Tim Curly, the same recently disgraced and dismissed athletic director. Rene's crime was a zero tolerance policy on lesbian behavior in and around her program. It was the first thing she told parents and kids on recruiting visits. The irony of course is that the societal evolution (or devolution) that led to her opportunity for a storied career (in this case Title IX) also destroyed it with an arrow from the quiver of "Diversity." Of course Curly forced Portland to attend the requisite sensitivity training that all knuckledraggers ultimately must endure before sacking her.
The other incident is Professor Michael Mann, he of the now infamous hockey stick graph based on bogus data and fraudulent scholarship that perpetuated the belief in the man-made global warming nonsense. The significance of this incident is that the moral failure was actually in the classroom and laboratory. not the football building or basketball arena.
I have several colleagues who are PSU alums and have nothing but respect and admiration for their work and the way they conduct their lives. However, their Alma Mater now finds itself in quite a pickle of their own doing.
The foundation of our society was conceived out of a basic sense of morality, which requires a limited government to function. Mr Steyn makes a seemingly unrelated statement about road signage in conjunction with this piece, but it's actually spot on. Any government large enough to dictate the size and scope of highway billboards on the basis of beauty while it clutters the same roadside for it's own ends is by definition morally repugnant.
This is exactly the argument the survivors of clergy sex abuse made against the Catholic church, and are STILL being ignored. I can attest to that, since I am one of those survivors. Victims will be dismissed, and the collaborators vindicated. If Joe Paterno were any ordinary guy, we wouldn't even be talking about this...
OK, I'll play along. Penn State is an educational institution. Education is micro-managed by people who create generic (and false) standards and then apply Byzantine rules in any way that some authority figure feels like applying them. When an adolescent decided to expose himself in my classroom, I immediately yanked him from my classroom and presented him to an administrator believing that some serious consequences would ensue. His punishment? He was excused from MY classroom for three days. That's it. Message to sexual deviant, something is wrong with your teacher. Never again. The next such act will cause me to initiate a 9-1-1 call. Has McQueary ever held a real job? You know, where you actually have to make decisions, implement plans, take action? Didn't think so. And people in education are more prone to this kind of buck passing at all levels. Nonetheless, no real man should react the way McQueary did. Try this , yelling, "What the f.... are you doing? Let him go. I'm calling the police!" Seems pretty simple to me. You still get to run away, but this time you call the cops.
David Brooks actually titled a column, "Let's All Feel Superior?"
How dare we draw lines of moral clarity that are sharper than the crease in his favorite president's pants? (You know, the one who appointed Kevin Jennings - who, while working as a teacher, advised an underage male student to use condoms in his random trysts with adult men - to Assistant Deputy Secretary for Safe and Drug Free Schools in Dept of Educ.).
DianeinWA, Agreed. There is no morality any more. The concept is obsolete. There is what you can get away with and what you can't. Christian morality is now illegal. In its place is Just Do It. And if something goes wrong, Blame Others and Make Those Who Have Lived Responsibly Pay For It. In a word, "ObamaIsm."
"It certainly doesn’t do anything for American road safety, which is the worst in the developed world. We have three times the automobile fatality rate of the Netherlands, and at 62 in the global rankings we’re just ahead of Tajikistan and Papua New Guinea."
Telling if it was true, but it is not really. Road fatality rates in the Netherlands is 7.7/billion kilometre travelled. In the US it is 8.5. I am assuming Steyn is talking about raw per capita numbers, which are 12 for the US and 4.1 in the Netherlands. But why anyone would think that per capita rates is a better measure than per kilometre rates is beyond me.
The US has a fairly typical fatality rate per distance travelled when compared to the industrialized world. We have so many fatalities because we drive so many miles not because we have a poorly designed traffic system.
And if Mr. Steyn thinks we have an over abundance of signs he needs to spend more time in Europe. Using incomplete, wrong, cherry picked, or misleading statistics is something I usually attribute to liberals, conservatives should do better. Surely, Mr. Steyn could have made his overall point, which I believe is valid and important without using such tactics.
I was wondering about those fatality statistics myself, and I appreciate you pointing this out. Indeed, fatality per miles driven is the more accurate way of measuring this. I suspect we drive a heck of a lot more here in the U.S. than any other place in the world.
Nevertheless, though Mr. Steyn's choices for supporting facts can be at times inaccurate, his bottom lines are always spot on.
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