A horrible secret

Although I usually write about national politics, I never forget that politics is not the be-all. So many things in life are more important than who wins an election-- a belief in the meaning of life, a chance to experience a joyful life, giving and receiving love and friendship.

This post is about something beyond electoral politics. It's about Mike McQueary, the assistant in the Penn State athletics program who witnessed Jerry Sandusky allegedly raping a boy in 2002. McQueary, shocked and uncertain, left the scene, and reported the incident to his father and to the head coach Joe Paterno.

There are huge, disturbing, painful questions.

The Perpetrator

How could someone who was respected as kind and generous ... also be a serial rapist of children?

A lot of players who knew Sandusky are shocked. Jon Ritchie, a former fullback, said:

I thought he was the most compassionate, altruistic, selfless man on the face of the earth. I'd known him since I was 14 years old.... We developed a relationship... I loved him. I thought that he was what I wanted to be...

I have just a bit of experience with child molesters. In the town where I live, we had a new high school principal. He was popular with the kids because he found some ways to make school more responsive to them. For example, they could pile up merit points towards pizza lunches or a free afternoon. The hall pass system was reformed in a simple way that made it a lot fairer. They weren't big changes, but the kids felt for once that they had an ally.

Unfortunately, there were a couple questionably incidents (without physical contact), and more thorough investigation revealed a strong possibility of past sex with middle school or high school boys. The man's foster son was removed from his home, and he was fired as principal. I don't know what became of him.

I did learn that it's possible that a molester really loves kids, but then crosses that strict line that you don't have sexual contact with them. Most adults don't have that problem. I love my kids, I love my neighbors' kids, and I don't have any sexual interest in them. It's the same for most people. But this principal loved kids more than an average parent or teacher. But he also crossed the line. I can't label him a monster, but what he did was still wrong and unacceptable, and I have no regret that he's gone.

The Witness

How could someone witness the rape of a child and not intervene or follow up to make sure that no other children were endangered?

Again, Jon Ritchie said:

My reality was Jerry Sandusky was Mother Teresa.... It's really hard for me to put myself in Mike McQueary's position.... I conceptualize my defensive coordinator ... doing what he is alleged to have done.... At that point in time, my mind would be gone, I would flee, I would run.... My world would be turned upside down.... Apparently that is what Mike had done.

Many molesters bind victims psychologically by heaping shame on them. Their shame, though not their fault, keeps them silent. It can be the same for witnesses. Since Mike McQueary didn't immediately stop Sandusky and turn him over to the police, he shared some of Sandusky's guilt. The shame of that might have paralyzed McQueary until it came time to tell the truth to the grand jury. Notably, university officials are being charged with lying to the grand jury, but McQueary isn't.

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I don't excuse Sandusky in any way. I believe in harsh punishment for child molesters, but I don't think he was a complete monster. However, a partial monster is still a monster, and we need to remove monsters from society.

I have sympathy for McQueary. It's incredibly difficult to protect the small against the powerful and respected, and I've been the coward more than I've been a hero. The best way to help witnesses is mandated reporter laws with clear requirements of what witnesses have to do. Such laws seem to provide the higher power that guides us wavering souls down the right path.

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"But I'll tell you this: when I was 16, I finally demanded my pedophile explain what he'd been doing to me.

"I believe, to the bottom of my soul, that he'd found ways to justify it for my good.

"And after the difficult time of processing this over the last week, I'm also coming to the realization that much of the good pedophiles do, which I'd previously assumed was to provide cover and gain access, is likely also to convince themselves they're good, not just evil. It's a horrifying feedback loop; the more good they do, the more they gain for their shortcoming."  --zic, a blog commenter

Update 6/22/12. Sandusky has just been found guilty of 45 counts out of 48. This feels like justice to me, but justice doesn't erase the evil he's done. Unfortunately, nothing does. It's one of the imperfections of our existence, that such wrong-doing can't be undone, not by the judicial system, not by apologies, and often not by penance. That's why we have to strive to do good and avoid evil. I hope I remember that every day of my life.

Health costs reimbursements - FAIL

I had an inspiration today. The way we pay for healthcare is like the old military cost-plus contracts. The payer (the government, the private insurance company) pays for all the costs the patients racks up (or a percentage of the costs). This method was terrible at cost-containment on military spending, so we junked it. It's terrible for cost-containment on healthcare spending, so we should... junk it.

Finding a new model to pay for and manage healthcare costs, now that won't be easy, especially with people screaming "rationing" and fighting every inch of cost containment. How do we get consumers to want less healthcare and doctors to hold down costs while maintaining a responsive healthcare system?

The Unbearable Debt Deal Quantified

As I wrote before, the wily Dems managed to get the Republicans to agree defense spending cuts that they now find unpalatable. Republicans are looking for ways to avoid those cuts.

• One way is for the House, Senate, and whatever president we have in 2013 to agree not to make those defense cuts. That's a pretty big stretch. It won't happen if Obama is re-elected. Even with a Republican president, Democratic senators could block moves to void the defense cuts.

• Another way is for the super committee to agree on another plan that the House, Senate, and president all accept.

The Republicans are now in the weaker position:

• They want to reduce the defense spending cuts.
• They want to maintain Bush tax cuts, which are worth $3.7 trillion over 10 years.
• They have no leverage for either of these goals.

The Democrats are now in the stronger position:

• They have largely accepted cuts to Medicare that are capped at 2% a year.
• The debt ceiling deal protected Social Security and Medicaid from cuts.
• They have leverage using defense spending cuts and the expiration of the Bush tax cuts at the end of 2012.

Despite their weak negotiating positions, the best offer from the Republicans is:

• $250 billion higher tax revenues through limiting deductions if...
• Tax rates are frozen at below Bush tax rates.

It's no wonder that the Dems aren't agreeing. They hold a lot more leverage now, and the Repubs' offer is paltry. Republicans only seems serious about deficit reductions when social programs pay the price. They can dish out the austerity, but they can't take it. We'll have to see if they'll threaten a government shutdown by holding up appropriations next year. As far as I can see (for what that's worth), that is the only leverage they will have until after the election.

The debt ceiling fight was the historic crisis that prompted me to start this blog. If looks even more historic now. It's quite a reversal for the Republicans. I wonder if that's the price they paid for playing chicken, and which Democrat was responsible for that advantageous outcome.

 Who dunnit?

Despite this apparent win for the Democrats, the 2012 election is still up for grabs. I'm not going to predict which party is going to win, or which party is able to spin this to their advantage. So often, it has been the Republicans, so I won't count them out.

Fits vs. Misfits

All the liberation movements here in the US have moved people from the "other" column into the "us" column. Blacks, Native Americans, other religions, women, gays, lesbians, the handicapped are no longer outsiders. I think this makes for a better world. That's why I argue with people about going back to old-fashioned values, because a lot of it was ugly and hateful.

However, among the positive trends on acceptance, there is at least one negative trend: conservatives have allegedly been made into misfits on campus, in classrooms, and in academic scholarship. At least, that's what I thought I would find. This story is less than I thought it would be.

This is what I found. Conservatives feel outnumbered. Again, the problem of unexpectedly being the minority. But most colleges have conservative groups and traditional religious groups. I didn't see any reports of these groups being mobbed, thrown off campus, members beaten or threatened. The sum total of wrongs:

• A non-student friend banned from demonstrating (the worst denial of rights I could find)
• A conservative political poster removed from a student's room and replaced with one supporting Obama.
• Obscene insults shouted at "Straight-Pride" supporters.

Does this look really thin to anyone else? I have heard of worse incidents in the past--speakers shouted down, vandalism of signs and literature. That's worse and crosses the line of civility and perhaps legality, but is incredibly mild compared to what happened to Matthew Shepard or James Chaney, and doesn't seem to be happening often.

So, no, I didn't find lots of reports of intimidation of conservatives, unless simply being in the minority is more intimidation than you can handle. There are plenty of resources if you are a conservative on campus. You can report wrongs to this blog. There are probably other well-funded organizations to help you too.

What is the problem of being a conservative on campus? It is that you're verbally intimidated, given lower grades, socially isolated? Or is that you're uncomfortable being so clearly in the minority? That happens to a lot of people--try being a woman in the hard sciences, a man in nursing, black almost anywhere. It will not feel comfortable at first. But I didn't find evidence that conservatives' fear on campus went beyond fear of being in the minority. Campuses are safe places to be conservative, but you probably won't be popular. Deal with it.

I live in a college town with a lot of progressives and old-line liberals, and just a few conservatives. In my family, it's all liberals. As a moderate, I am the outlier. Living with liberals, though, is not so bad. They may belittle and scorn, but they will back off when you point this out. So after they exercise their free speech on some liberal mantra, you can exercise your free speech on your viewpoint. And if they mock you, call them on it. It's not so hard. Stop whining and start standing up for yourself. If there are problems after that, then tell me about it.

Extras:
Professor mass emails angry response to Republicans. Not good, but the conservative columnist says she shouldn't have a job.
Good comeback to conservative complaints - they don't want to read books, etc.
Philosophy professors critique complaints. One problem is that conservatives are often dogmatic on moral issues, making discussion of different philosophies difficult.
Complaints about lack of diversity among professors - anecdotal

The Unbearable Debt Deal

Republicans used the debt ceiling to extract cuts from the Democrats, but they didn't make sure they got only the cuts they could stomach. Somehow, the wily Dems managed to get the Republicans to agree to a little pain themselves. Only now the Repubs are talking about reneging on the cuts they don't like, namely the defense cuts.

How did this happen? Because the Republicans no longer know what compromise feels like. They want what they want, and they don't want to give up anything else. Sounds like a spoiled child. That child is maybe going to get a lesson, but I wish it was sooner than 2013, when the cuts are finally due to bite. Can the Republicans take the medicine that they urge on so many others, and that they agreed to? I don't know. At this point, I'm expecting kicking and screaming, not adult behavior.

Update 11/22/11. For analysis of the bargaining positions, see this post.

The Worst President in My Lifetime

My conclusion: not Nixon, who is the scummiest. Not Carter, the most ineffectual. Not Obama, despite these opinions:

"History is more likely to conclude that Obama was the worst president of your lifetime.  Jimmy Carter meanwhile is overjoyed at being bumped up a place." - a blog comment

"the libs can blame G W Bush as much as they want but it's obama who has brought the USA to the brink of destruction and maybe over it. This s.o.b. really scares me."- yahoo answer

Considering the state of the economy and the national debt when he left office, I think Bush will be considered a far worse president than Obama. Bush, with his unfunded wars and tax cuts, is vastly more responsible for this mess than Obama is. People can fault  Obama for how he handled a crisis situation, but it is one he inherited, not one that he made. When people label Obama as the worst president of our lifetime, I see rank partisanship in that.

Update 12/30/11. The Onion foresaw this, but we didn't listen, to our own needless destruction. O, woe to us! (Credit - xpostfactoid.)

Rick Perry's Economic Plan -- I Can't. Oops

I guess I won't have to research his plan. Yeah--it's like having a snow day!

In case you haven't heard, Rick Perry had a horrible debate, and his stock on Intrade has nosedived more than 50%. The downside to this situation is that Newt Gingrich will soon be the presumed contender to Romney. I can't stand Newt.

"Ah shoulda stuck with two depar'mints."