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Penn State Child Molestation Scandal

Discussion in 'General Discussions' started by Borla, Nov 8, 2011.

  1. Lindy

    Lindy Moderator Staff Member

    Location:
    Nebraska

    Really?
    And how do you feel about the death penalty, in general?

    I don't want to be seen as defending Sandusky, but are we perhaps moving beyond justice and rule of law, to a desire for humiliation, revenge, and retribution?
    Why not have him drawn and quartered?
    Why not drop him from 10,000 feet w/o a parachute? A big hit right at the 50-yard line at Beaver Stadium?
    How about a little waterboarding?

    Hey, let's put it all on prime time ESPN so that we can all watch.

    Lindy
     
  2. Random McRandom

    Random McRandom Starry Eyed


    If it's pay-per-view, I'd pay and watch.

    I get your point... no, really I do and I understand it, but considering the fact that this sicko didn't once consider the humiliation of his victims as he did these disgusting things, I really can't subscribe to feeling any sort of sympathy for him if he's raped repeatedly in prison.
     
  3. Lindy

    Lindy Moderator Staff Member

    Location:
    Nebraska
    Jerry Sandusky is an evil person. I would certainly feel no sympathy for him. But neither would I instigate or applaud those actions.
     
  4. Baraka_Guru

    Baraka_Guru Möderätor Staff Member

    Location:
    Toronto
    This is why there is a justice system. People are too emotional.
     
    • Like Like x 1
  5. Ozmanitis

    Ozmanitis Trust in your will and Hope will burn bright!

    Location:
    Texas USA
    and why Justice is blind.
     
  6. Random McRandom

    Random McRandom Starry Eyed


    Justice is far from blind. It merely wears green glasses.
     
  7. Ozmanitis

    Ozmanitis Trust in your will and Hope will burn bright!

    Location:
    Texas USA
    LMAO, well put, I stand corrected.
     
  8. Joniemack

    Joniemack Beta brainwaves in session

    Location:
    Reading, UK
    Justice ends at sentencing. Punishment and rehabilitation follow. At least that's how it's set up. In the US it leans heavily on the former.

    No Lindy, I don't believe in the death penalty. It serves no purpose except the much touted financial one- which is an end justifying the means solution - which I also don't believe in.

    Chances are he will not be bound, gagged, fucked, etc so I'm not expecting to watch it on ESPN anymore than I'm expecting to realize my ultimate fantasy of a big lottery win. It's simply good to know the possibility he might be is out there and if it happens, to hope the guards turn a blind eye. If he gets nothing out of the rest of his life, I would prefer him to at least get a taste of his own medicine. That's justice from my point of view and the prospect that my fantasy might be fulfilled diminishes when people start talking about putting him down like a pet dog with hip dysplasia.

    I also wish we could figure out what makes serial child molesters tick and fix it for both their sake and the sake of potential victims but Lord I don't want to get into that again.
     
    • Like Like x 1
  9. Alistair Eurotrash

    Location:
    Reading, UK
    Umm. Yeah, I do.

    Sometimes, love, you weird me out. Good job you're on my side (I think).
     
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  10. Joniemack

    Joniemack Beta brainwaves in session

    Location:
    Reading, UK
    When it comes to adults abusing children, the abundance of reason and logic I possess goes out the window. It's my Achille's heel.

    If I truly believed there was hope for rehabilitation I might think differently but in the case of sex offenders, the mental and emotional issues associated with the behavior have proven themselves outside the reach of current rehabilitative treatments. One day it might not be so but it will take a a concerted effort and commitment to research - another reason behind my not wanting to see them put to death. The need to remove them from society is a sensible one. The need to dismantle them in fine detail to see how they tick is just as sensible. Instead these perfect specimens are rotting away in jail to no one's benefit. If Sandusky won't be used a lab rat towards the goal of finding a way to stop the insanity of child molestation, then my lizard brain would like to see his own sins visited upon him. Not kind, but the way I feel.

    I said I didn't want to go there.
     
  11. Baraka_Guru

    Baraka_Guru Möderätor Staff Member

    Location:
    Toronto
    When I refer to the criminal justice system, I'm referring to laws, courts, and corrections.

    Yes, it would be fantastic to empower this kind of behaviour so that it happens more often to anyone and that the perpetrators, upon release, will carry that experience with them into general society.

    If the crime is so unsavoury, I don't understand why people call for more of it (and often far worse) without consequences. I didn't know eye for an eye was still so in fashion. In all this talk about good and evil, I guess I'm just some godless, postmodern, bleeding-heart socialist.

    I find it distasteful when people crave barbaric "justice." I do, however, at least find it intriguing—the psychology behind it.

    Yeah. I still say that these folks aren't right in the head. How can we consider them healthy? We call them sickos, but we don't consider them sick? What's up with that?
     
    Last edited: Oct 11, 2012
  12. Joniemack

    Joniemack Beta brainwaves in session

    Location:
    Reading, UK
    You're wrong, about me at least. I don't believe in the concept of good and evil and I do consider him sick. He's an adult afflicted with an uncontrollable obsession and compulsion to be inappropriately intimate with children.

    He's not been convicted for his affliction though. He's been convicted because in all other areas of his life he has proven himself sane enough to behave as a responsible adult who understands the difference between right and wrong and between acceptable and unacceptable behavior. He chose to behave unacceptably.

    He could have chosen to seek help, though treatment options are few and less than effective. He could also have voluntarily exposed his affliction to others around him and asked for their help in keeping young boys away from him. It would have taken great courage to do something like that, as the consequences for him would likely have cost him dearly, but when it comes to choosing between losing a job, reputation, wife, etc or molesting young boys, I don't think it's asking too much.

    Of course, he did none of this. What he did do is use his position and contacts to set up an organization which would steadily feed his obsession.

    Some comments I've made in previous posts on this topic probably certainly contradict what I am now saying but I'm not above changing my mind. I've given this a lot of thought and have come to the conclusion that he consciously premeditated and followed through with horrendous acts against children entrusted to him. Because this is innocent children we're talking about, any liberal, open-minded opinion I have about the fair and just treatment of those convicted of crimes fails to rise to the same level, in my mind.

    I've given myself permission to abstain from having to choose between being a reasonable-minded, bleeding heart who would prefer living in a society which took greater efforts at prevention and rehabilitation, or being outraged enough to wish the same sort of suffering on him. I can do both.

    For the record, my outrage and fantasy driven desire to see him suffer at the hands of fellow sex offenders is not something I would go out of my way to advocate for and I'd be pretty distressed if "justice" as we know it, made policies which actively promoted it. But if it occurs as an unspoken about aspect of prison life, I certainly won't be in the stands crying "Foul." Not for this guy or any adult who abuses children in this manner.
     
    Last edited: Oct 11, 2012
    • Like Like x 1
  13. Baraka_Guru

    Baraka_Guru Möderätor Staff Member

    Location:
    Toronto
    Joniemack

    All good points. I wasn't talking about you exclusively, of course, and I do recall your previous comments on the issue.

    However, I wouldn't underestimate the ability of those with severe mental afflictions to hide them by appearing "normal," "well-adjusted," or "sane." I do believe that acting on the sexual urges is a part of the disorder and not some external agency applied to it just for the heck of it. Also, I think remorse or a wish to rid of the urges only occurs in a specific subtype.
     
  14. Joniemack

    Joniemack Beta brainwaves in session

    Location:
    Reading, UK
    Chances are very good that Sandusky was himself sexually abused as a child but I don't believe that the disruption or distortion of a child's emotional development caused by abusive trauma causes a severe mental affliction or at least it's not in the same category as say schizophrenia.

    It's just as likely I suppose, that Sandusky is a born sociopath. In that case, it's no great surprise that he had over time, managed to fit himself into society and appear no different from anyone else. Sociopaths are experts at doing that and it would certainly explain any lack of remorse or desire to get help he had no emotional interest in getting. So I do get your point, Baraka. But are personality disorders the same as severe mental afflictions? I don't view them as the same. I think personality disorders, even the worst of them, leave adequate room for normal brain functioning and decision making whereas a true mental disease can overwhelm the whole package.

    I suppose it depends upon the underlying reasons for his behavior as to whether or not he could appreciate the fact that what he was doing was "wrong." But, and I think this is a big but, he certainly knew that what he was doing was frowned upon by others. If he'd been disengaged from reality, he wouldn't have gone to such lengths to keep it hidden.

    So even if he didn't personally feel that what he was doing was wrong, he knew that it would be observed by others as wrong. If he knew this much, he was also aware that it was illegal. He did it anyway. This is his crime and despite whatever else he didn't know or didn't care about, he knew it was a crime. All of his actions point to this knowledge.

    So he was sane enough to know that what he was doing was a crime. As long as he knew this, why should he be given any special consideration for the fact that he has a disorder which prevents him from knowing or caring that his behavior was wrong? I see that as a secondary issue.

    The justice system concerns itself with the law. The law defines what a crime is. The system is in place to deal with those who knowingly break the law by committing a crime. Though they'll often take extenuating circumstances into account and might have done in Sandusky's case if he hadn't maintained his absolute innocence, the bottom line is - he committed crimes that he knew were crimes. His personality disorder/severe mental affliction did not prevent him from making the decision to do so.

    So fuck him. I don't care what happens to him in prison.
     
    Last edited: Oct 11, 2012
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  15. Alistair Eurotrash

    Location:
    Reading, UK
    All true. That's why he has been found guilty and sentenced.

    However, the argument does not support turning a blind eye if others are carrying out similar crimes just because he is the victim. That path is a VERY slippery one :)

    In all seriousness, I was taking your earlier posts as hyperbole and I don't think you WOULD turn a blind eye if you were around the prison. Not really.
     
  16. rogue49

    rogue49 Tech Kung Fu Artist Staff Member

    Location:
    Baltimore/DC
    man...I'm feeling a serious case of Deja Vu...


    sometimes you gotta just pop the zit...
     
  17. Joniemack

    Joniemack Beta brainwaves in session

    Location:
    Reading, UK
    I honestly don't know what I would do. Not where he's concerned. But slippery slope or not, in all likelihood I would keep on walking.
     
    Last edited: Oct 11, 2012
  18. Fangirl

    Fangirl Very Tilted

    Location:
    Arizona
    Not to drag this out but I do see, as a mother, where Joniemack is coming from. Before I had a child and I'd hear that something horrible had happened to someone's kid, I'd think 'how awful'. After having a kid, just listening to a news story about a terrible thing happening to any child I have a visceral reaction and tears well up in my eyes. That had never happened before being a mum. I don't know how a mother can view a case such as this without having a serious gut reaction. I have had moments where I wished horrible things on people who abuse kids. This guy is a sick fuck. Though I don't wish him ill, I don't wish him well, either.
     
  19. Are your low security prisons the same us ours - Open Prisons where inmates get to work and go out in the local community?
     
  20. Random McRandom

    Random McRandom Starry Eyed


    In most cases they are. In fact, many who are in max level prisons are able to get work release and time spent in a minimum security facility as they age or they approach their parole dates. The theory behind this is to help them adjust so they don't go ape shit once they are released and they are able to perform in society. It certainly has flaws, and I get the theory behind it, but, some just shouldn't be allowed to see the light of day ever again IMO.

    Minimum security doesn't necessarily equal an easy time for inmates however - especially once you are branded like Sandusky now is. I'm not going to get all into the psychology of PDs and abnormal mental conditions and I'm not in the mood to expand on the sex offender thing, but despite my feelings and knowledge on the subject, Sandusky is one that has zero hope of rehabilitation and should be treated as a violent offender.
     
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