Like the DA who investigated the first incident and found nothing. Let’s not lose sight of the fact that the first incident with Sandusky was investigated by cops and the local DA and they found no evidence of wrong-doing. Of course, they were wrong. Very easy to see that from here.
In the second incident, the higherups at Penn State, who Paterno reported to, told the U Police, and they even told the head of The Second Mile, Sandusky’s employer, a charity for at-risk and underprivileged youth. Why didn’t THEY go to the cops and scream bloody murder? They were wrong. Very easy to see that from here. Paterno made the mistake of trusting his employers to do the right thing. The director of the movie, Amir Bar-Lev, is simply putting all the facts, and all the perspectives out there.
Pardon me for introducing what might be termed “nuance” into a discussion where minds are already made up.
“An investigation conducted by former FBI director Louis Freeh [in which he interviewed over 400 people and reviewed over 3.5 million documents] concluded in July 2012 that Paterno concealed facts relating to Sandusky’s sexual abuse of young boys. The investigation also uncovered information that Paterno may have persuaded university officials not to report Sandusky to authorities in 2001.” - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Paterno
Since we’re going for nuance let me clarify a little. Of course Paterno was right to trust the University initially, but once he saw the tepid response he should have pushed. He was so powerful that the president of the university was, essentially, his subordinate - even minimal pressure from Paterno would have changed the direction of how PSU was handling the situation. He was supposed do be a leader, and even if he fulfilled his legal obligation he didn’t fulfill his moral one. Given his central role in the whole debacle it’s hard to believe he didn’t have more knowledge than he admitted, which raises the possibility that he failed with his legal obligation anyway.
No one thinks that the people who thought up the phrase “The perfect beer for removing ‘No’ from your vocabulary” we actually advocating date rape.
Most people agree that all the people who all agreed to market the phrase “The perfect beer for removing ‘No’ from your vocabulary” without ever considering how it might be interpreted were as dumb as rocks.
It could’ve also a good move to get some free advertising for the beer. How to get droves of people to notice the brand between the other same-old-beer ones.
Besides, the interpretation is oversensitive; it says to remove the “no” from “your” vocabulary, not from “theirs”, with your prior consent. Any third parties’ vocabularies, and ability to say “no”, are unaffected.
Perpetually outraged people are predictable. They can be easily exploited for free advertising.
Given that the marketing idiot (or amoral genius, because it is hard to draw actual attention to shitty beer) probably came up with that stupid idea from having unconsciously (or consciously, if amoral genius) had it bubble to the surface due to having noticed the many consent campaigns that are ongoing.
If it were Don Draper who has the mystical power to override any editorial oversight, I’d think it was one idiot and/or amoral genius. But so, so many people had to see that copy before that copy ever saw a can, it was a concerted group effort to remain as dumb as that first idiot and/or amoral genius. It pretty much had to be.
I’ve got some sympathy for Paterno since I tried a thought experiment on myself. Imagine one of your best friends, a guy you’ve known for years and trust implicitly. Seriously, think of an actual person you know, not just an abstraction. Now imagine a casual acquaintance tells you he saw your best buddy fucking a kid. What’s your first reaction? I’m thinking of my college roommate right now, and I’ve got to admit that my first thought would be “That doesn’t make sense, it’s impossible, there must be some sort of misunderstanding. He only saw them for a moment–maybe it was somebody else, maybe the kid was older than he looked, maybe the informant is crazy or lying.”
I’d like to think I would do the right thing. I hope I would. But if I had the option to avoid direct involvement, pass it up the chain, and then tell myself that surely my superiors are good people who will pursue this diligently, and if they don’t act then there must not be anything to act upon… God, it would be tempting to let myself believe that I’d done the right thing, rather than face the pain and betrayal of seeing my best friend dragged through the mud of a public inquest at my hand.
I hope I would be strong enough to do the right thing, the hard thing. I hope.
You are oh so right. Thomas Boswell put it best in this poignant article: “Something shameful, if everything falls just wrong, could happen to any of us. How do we know? Because it even happened to Joe Paterno.”
Well, yes. But there’s sufficient evidence that Joe passed it up the chain, and then told them NOT to call the authorities.
Joe also made statements after this that he didn’t think boys COULD be raped , at all, by his friend. I mean, he literally told investigators that when the young whistleblower (who they tried to fire and is now going to get a settlement based on how HE was treated) reported it, he thought the whistleblower was talking about “tickling or something.”
Sandusky was banned from buildings after that alone. Joe made sure he got a key anyway. Joe brought him on football trips WITH BOYS PRESENT well after the suspicions and after he was told that this was a risk.
Either he was an old man incapable of evaluating the truth of the situation rationally, or he was actively covering up for the twenty plus year rape history of his VERY GOOD FRIEND.
Neither of those look too good.
As for your thought experiment, if you knew someone was doing this to kids, I would hope you would tell legal authorities, as is required by the laws of almost every state in the US of educators. I would you would NOT tell just your boss. And if just told your boss, I’d also feel less of you if you did what Joe did, and try to stop legal authorities from being notified.
