Rodney Erickson's morally bankrupt & Joe Paterno's criminal . . .

Sexual abuse of children is one area where I see absolute black and white. As readers will see at the end of the post, there's a reason the topic is personal for me. I'm biased, I admit it. There's no journalistic balance in my viewpoint, not even a pretense.

Fuck with a 12 year old child and I personally would like to see every one of your constitutional rights dismissed. It's the one place in life where I believe true torture is warranted. There a special place in Hell reserved for people who sexually abuse children, and I'm not above wanting that awful fate to start here on this mortal coil . . .

It grieves me very much when I hear people say 'the Penn State scandal.' This is not Penn State. This is 'the Sandusky scandal.  We're not going to let what one individual did destroy the reputation of this university.
    -- Penn State University President Rodney Erickson

The Associated Press story I've just quoted, begins with the following lede:

Penn State University's president told alumni that the school's crisis can be blamed on one person: former football assistant coach Jerry Sandusky. But many alumni are still grieving over the firing of longtime football coach Joe Paterno.

Joe Paterno - responsible for Sandusky's crimes?

Up until today, I've deliberately avoided comment on the ongoing scandal at Penn State University, where the school, it's athletic department, and it's football coaches, all actively ignored an ongoing pattern of predatory sexual abuse of young men by former football assistant coach Jerry Sandusky.

It disgusts me that anyone dares to defend Paterno, a man who may very well have been an outstanding teacher of football skills, but also an individual who must be found totally wanting and undeserving of the title great coach.  Paterno failed in the greatest responsibility a coach has to his team, he failed to put the team first!

Joe put his own desire to break records ahead of the well being of his athletes.  When Paterno decided to look the other way and effectively condone vile sexual abuse of minors by coach Sandusky, personal violations that happened in the very locker rooms Paterno should have been policing, he became complicit in the crimes themselves.

Most anyone with the slightest shred of common sense realizes that loyalty to friends, and even to authorities who control our lives, must have limits.  The individuals who hung after the Nuremburg Trials demonstrate the ultimate fate of those who follow blindly . . . 

So, why do former star athletes like Franco Harris fail to understand that by looking the other way and failing to disclose a rapist among his cadre of personally picked coaching staff, that Paterno himself committed a crime?

I understand loyalty to a coach, the role of coach and dominant have much in common, and I certainly expect loyalty from any submissive who might wear my collar.  But there are limits to loyalty, and those limits must break whenever a child's welfare is at stake.

If a child is raped in my house, and I fail to disclose it to the proper authorities, for whatever reason, I have become an accessory to the crime.  A child was raped in Joe Paterno's "house" and he did not the slightest thing to bring the criminal, his friend and fellow coach, to justice.  Morally, and perhaps legally, he's an accessory to the crime.

Remember former President Nixon and Watergate?  Most of the individuals who were jailed for crimes relating to the break-in at the Watergate Hotel were not convicted for the actual crime.  Instead they were sent to prison for their role in the cover up.

I'd like to see Joe Paterno jailed for failing to disclose the rape of a young child in his locker room.  I'd like to see everyone who was complicit in those crimes by refusing to report them to the proper authorities, brought up on criminal charges.

It's simple really, whether you are a coach or a dominant.  Along with authority comes responsibility.

I too was victimized in my youth by a predatory man, a teacher, a supposed authority.  I too had individuals who should have known better, who should have protected me as an innocent child, look the other way.  I know what it's like to have abuse whisked under the rug, and it's ugly.  It's really ugly . . . 

Serafina is reminded of Pontius Pilate, a man who washed his hands and sealed another's fate.  Me? I believe there's a low circle in Hell reserved for individuals who prey on the sexual innocence of youth.  It's only shared with one other group, just as vile - their accomplices and apologizers.

See you in Hell Joe!