.....I may be at the wrong end of opinions now, but I still have my own regarding the punishment inflicted on Penn State. I can't understand the purpose of destroying a great university when everyone there now is innocent of child abuse, and especially the students and coaches of the football team. The boys on the team came to Penn State, not merely for its academic program, but also to have the opportunity to play football there under Joe Paterno. Paterno is no longer there, but what is the point of taking it out on the football program? And the penalties that have been applied will also have an affect on all the other athletic programs as well as the student body.
.....And if this crime was going on for 10 years it's hard to believe that, in all that time, not a single parent came forward with the complaint that a child was being molested. And was there no victim who complained to a parent? All of those responsible for failing to report these crimes are gone now; Joe Paterno is dead, all the school administrators have resigned or have been fired, all the coaches are gone.
.....I have also read that the victims' lives "have been ruined". Is that a fact? Who is it that decides that? Have the victims made that claim? Yeah, right. I find that their lives are ruined is too hard to believe. The University has been fined millions of dollars, and they will also lose the millions of dollars they might have expected from bowl games. They might have been ordered to give these victims a million or two. I feel that financial penalties should have been sufficient. The penalties to the school's football program are too harsh. The football program is not responsible for child abuse. The man who committed it and those who failed to report it are the guilty ones. Punishment is justice for the unjust.
FYI a letter to the editor is being published tomorrow in the Valley News, Lebanon, NH
ReplyDeleteAccording to National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) logic all marriages performed by the Catholic Church should be annulled. Ridiculous. American justice is not supposed to be based on revenge but the recent NCAA punishment of Penn State smacks of precisely that. The NCAA should hold those directly responsible accountable and leave the accomplishments of players and programs that had no knowledge or involvement in the Sandusky child abuse scandal out of the consequences.
Bob Fox
Quechee, VT
Hello again, Bob, lovely that you're back, and a great letter. And both you and the Baron are right. What we are facing here is both greed for financial compensation combined with a hysteria about child abuse that transcends logic and common sense. There is always gross wrong that occurs when there is an underlying assumption that A SPECIFIC CRIME IS SO TERRIBLE THAT SOMEBODY'S - IT DOESN'T MATTER WHOSE - HEAD HAS TO ROLL. What is additionally worrying is that there is always the possibility that the population will eventually quite reasonably become very sceptical, and that there will be a backlash, with the result that no child will ever be believed on the subject of abuse, not even one to whom it has actually happened. Actually, a few years ago the cops got heavy with me because I was taking photographs of children who might have been responsible for kicking my back gate in - I was collecting evidence, in fact. The cops tried to make me believe that I was acting illegally, which was rubbish. You can take as many pics of children as you like in a public place, so long as they're not indecent pics. (There is no general law of privacy in this country - well, not yet anyway!) I told the cops to get lost or else I'D be suing THEM! So they went away and haven't bothered me since. Cuzzin Ruth
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