Say what you want shall be the whole of the law.1
- Sans Everything has an interesting post collecting examples of homophobic caricature in classic comic strips. Robert Boyd responds with a collection of classic “Popeye” cartoons showing the sailor cheerfully — even eagerly — cross-dressing.
- A four-part Youtube video demonstrates “10 Rules For Dealing With Police.“
- In the comments on Reappropriate, Jenn and I debate Michelle Obama’s anti-obesity initiative.
- If America had $100 and 100 people…
- Tom at the SCOTUSblog called it months ago: the next Supreme Court Justice will be Elena Kagen. He makes a good case…
- Also at SCOTUSblog, Lyle argues that no matter who replaces Stevens, Kennedy is going to be drawn to the left by his desire to have more control over who writes opinions; but he’ll be drawn to the right by the lack of Stevens (who he has a good relationship with). On the whole, the Court is likely to move to the right, it seems to me.
- You’re Not a Rape Victim Unless Police Say So. Reading this story will infuriate you. And be sure to read this commentary on the story at Yes Means Yes, as well.
- Huckabee Compares Gays To Drug Users, Says They’re Unfit To Adopt Kids. And remember, he’s renowned for being the nice Christian conservative.
- Caro’s post on Chris Ware, and Matthias Wivel’s response, and the comments, are all interesting, although at times the discussion made my head spin.
- “…dieting has replaced sex as a means of trying to control women. It is as if we have gone from legs closed to lips closed.”
- Most of us are simultaneously homophobic and not homophobic.
- “If I were Maggie Gallagher or Brian Brown or Martin Ssempa or Pope Benedict, I can’t think of anything that would scare me more than the gentle joy of two high school girls holding hands, swaying to the music at their prom, or two boys dancing and laughing with the family at a wedding.”
- Mark Thoma is giving up on policymakers. We could make unemployment less bad, and we could make it much shorter in duration; but we won’t, because unemployed people have no sway in D.C..
- For instance, we could create incentives for employers to reduce hours for their workforce, rather than laying workers off. But that idea — a proven, workable idea that keeps unemployment down — is basically too radical to even be discussed in D.C..
- “…poor legal conditions for women in a given society are not necessarily a product of anti-women values in that society.” (Via.)
- The difference is, the liberal fringe isn’t running the Democratic party.
- Can comic books be scary?
- There’s No Such Thing as a Golden Age of Lost Liberty. And see also, Still Not Golden.
- Has American Really Become Economically Unfree?
- “MSM and mainstream American culture just doesn’t know where to look and/or how to talk about or take seriously evangelical culture if it’s not through the culture war or political polarization lens.” Nearly the best-selling novel in America is self-published (!) and most “Alas” readers have never heard of it.
- Drunk History is awesome. Volume 3 is my favorite, both for the hiccuping and for the welcome absence of vomit.
- Not really. [↩]
I do like the “10 Rules for Dealing with the Police”. I watched all 4 parts. I should have my son watch those. Of course, rules # 1 and #2 (“Stay Calm and Cool” and “Keep your mouth shut”) were drilled into my head by my Dad when I first got my license.
Israeli student at Carleton University (and pro-Israel friend) attacked with a machete by a mob outside an Ottawa club. The attackers, who the victims believe included fellow Carleton University students, made specific reference to their Jewish and “Zionist” relationships. Police are investigating the attack as a hate crime.
Is one of those ten rules, “Be white?”
Nope. I didn’t take perfect notes, but they were as near as I transcribed them:
1. Stay Calm and Cool
2. I don’t remember the exact phrase, but it was along the lines of keep your mouth shut unless responding to a direct question, be polite and respond directly to the question and keep your hands on the wheel until directed otherwise. Show respect to the cop as a cop even if the individual(s) themselves don’t deserve it.
3. Don’t consent to searches. But don’t try to talk like a lawyer, keep your language simple. None of “According to my rights under the 4th Amendment …”.
4. Don’t get tricked (Cops can lie to you, don’t buy into “It’ll be worse for you if you insist on your rights”).
5. Ask if you are free to go (if the cops don’t arrest you or detain you, you are free to go and don’t have to stand there and answer questions).
6. Don’t expose yourself (by running off at the mouth, physically resisting, or in general by permitting them or inviting them to do things that they have no right to do)
7. Don’t run (away from them).
8. Never touch a cop.
9. Complain about misconduct – but DON’T ask for a badge number or tell (threaten) them that you’re going to make a complaint. Make a record as quickly as you can after the encounter as to what happened, the time, description of the cop(s), badge numbers if you were able to read them, etc.
10. You don’t have to let them into your home.
This was a black criminal defense lawyer who had also been a judge talking to a room of people who had recently had encounters with cops. The room’s racial makeup was mostly black but there were some whites and Hispanics there as well. While there were a few references to “In our neighborhood the cops have no respect for us” there were no direct references to the race of either the cops or the public. There were scenarios acted out. The citizens were always black or Hispanic. There was a traffic cop scenario where the only cop was white – in the multiple cop scenarios it was generally a “one black, one white” couple.
When dealing with the cops, “Don’t be an asshole” has always been good advice. I’ve gotten off of a few tickets – or had them downgraded from “> 20 MPH over” to “10 MPH over” or to a warning ticket – expressly because “You didn’t give me a lot of $hit.” If you spend your whole day mostly giving people bad news and hassles with the constant worry that some fool will go off his rocker and do something desperate you’d show appreciation for a little consideration and cooperation too.
Boy Scouts of America found negligent in sex abuse case.
The BSA & the Catholic Church appear to have something in common with regards to child molestors.
And so the dominoes begin to fall in Riverside. I had written on the silence at City Hall regarding the probe and lol, had to adjust a bit when it was released.
Am working on a series of blog postings on how it got there.
In honor of tax day and opinionated cartooning; Do Any Of Them Play The Oboe?
Oh, what the hell. I’ll bite. Tell me, Jake, what would that be? Please be sure to back up your opinion with facts, especially with regards to what information the BSA had in it’s files about the defendant in the trial.
$hit, Radfem, keep after them. That police department sounds like it needs a real clean out. I speak as someone who lives in a town where a former police chief was convicted of and served time for arson.
That would be keeping knowledge of child abusers secret. Protecting child abusers from the consequences of their actions.
From the article:
If you don’t see this as a similarity, you’re blinded by your love of your idealized version of the BSA. If you aren’t appalled by this… I don’t know what to say.
I don’t need to provide evidence of what those files said about the defendant in that trial, I merely need to provide evidence that the BSA has kept files on child molestors for decades without sharing that information with the authorities or the parents. There is no question that this is the case. The files that the BSA tried to keep hidden have been revealed and they contain information on child molestation by adults within the organization.
If you want to defend the BSA on this, go right ahead. I’ll forever think of you as morally and ethically bankrupt, but what do you care?
You’re really going to defend the BSA on this issue? Really?
Still more from that very same linked article:
Great. Did the Boy Scouts warn the communities in which these pedophiles lived? How about communities that they later moved to? Besides which, the national organization isn’t responsible for local issues. Even if they did keep files identifying child molestors.
That’s a fine example being set by an organization that touts itself as morally and ethically upright.
And you’re defending them? Without shame on your part?
Here’s another report on the ethics of the BSA.
Nice. And in no way similar to the cover up and enabling of child abusers by the Catholic Church. No similarities whatsoever.
Oh, yes. The BSA are indeed, as they say themselves, “The best organization for the development of young boys to responsible adults.” The BSA, providing a compass for life. I guess if you believe that preserving the image of your organization is actually more important than protecting children from sexual abuse that it’s a compass for life of which to be proud.
You and the BSA can do that, I’ll report to the authorities any child abuse of which I become aware.
But no need to go to the police. I’m sure that all these cases sorted themselves out with no further harm to any children.
And you’re okay with this?
Feral cities
I thought the crew here might find this interesting to expound on the ways a “feral city” can turn into a segregated zone. We read a lot of Mike Davis in my sociology class, and while the 3rd LA riot has not happened yet (as far as I know,) he tends to be one of the better thinkers about the sociological currents behind public policy. Stephen Graham sounds pretty promising as well; I’ll have to check him out.
I will absolutely NOT defend any instance where National Council had information regarding an individual that rose to reportable evidence (e.g., the specific example you give) and did not report it. If this guy told an employee of the local Council (which is different from a member of a local Council, e.g. me) that he had molested children and they did not report it to the appropriate authorities then they damn well deserve to be found liable and pay. The responsible Council employees also deserve to be sanctioned as well. And if they failed to act but passed the information along to National and they failed to take action then National deserves the same. The BSA served the nation ill here.
The analogy between National Council and the Catholic Church is very inexact, though. The Catholic Church shook the faith of it’s parishioners by retaining known molesters within it’s leadership and in a great many cases continuing them in positions where they would or could have contact with Catholic children. National’s files were created and maintained to ensure that (among other people) people suspected of molestation would be thrown out of the BSA and would not have contact with Scouts. If the Catholic Church had acted as the BSA did it would have immediately defrocked such priests and never allowed them re-entry into the clergy. People now would have been much happier if the Catholic church had acted in such a fashion.
Should National have shared the contents of those files with local authorities to make sure the offender would pay for their actions instead of moving on to coaching youth soccer? Absolutely. At least in those cases where they could. It’s my understanding that not everything in those files is as clear cut as this case. Rumor/innuendo could also get you an entry in them. BSA membership is a privilege, not a right, and National can deny you registration based on unverifiable information. What would National’s legal exposure have been at the time if they’d passed such information along?
I’m a little curious as to why National bears the brunt of the blame here. They had all the information second or third hand. The people with primary knowledge and thus primary responsibility would be the church leaders (who selected him as a leader and who apparently knew about what was going on before anyone else and didn’t toss him out) and then the local Council. Why then do they not bear the primary punishment for not throwing him out and reporting him?
National Council has changed procedures since then, long before the Catholic Church did. When I joined the BSA as an adult 18 years ago I was trained in procedures to guard against even the possibility of molestation. I can’t be alone with a kid that’s not mine, there can never be only one adult with a group of kids, etc., etc. I have to retrain on that periodically. No meeting or trip can be held unless there is at least one person at it trained in this and pledged in writing to enforce them. I and every other leader have been given a pager number from their local Council that they are to use to immediately report any violations of the set of policies called Youth Protection. If you do something illegal to a kid, the cops get called.
Also, every leader in the BSA has now gone through a national background check looking for felony convictions, DUIs, protection orders, sex offenses, offenses against children, etc., and every new leader (or every existing leader that changes position) goes through it as well.
There is only so much that National can do, though. If something is not reported as a crime it won’t show up on a background check. Nobody from National goes on campouts or to Pack, Troop, Crew or Ship meetings. It is unavoidable that the primary responsibility for selecting and keeping an eye on leaders is the unit’s sponsoring organization and the other leaders in the unit. They are the people whose kids these are. They are the people who know the families. They are the people who talk to the adults and pick out which ones will be leaders. They are the people actually on the scene who see what’s going on and work with the parents, leaders and Scouts. National Council has a role, and where they have failed in it they deserve what they get. But they do not and cannot fulfill the primary role in solving this problem.
National bears the brunt here because National has files going back over 40 years of known pedophiles.
We’re not discussing cases where they couldn’t share that information. The fact is that BSA brought exactly 0 (zero, ZERO) of these cases to either the police or parents. This is appalling and reprehensible.
Dykes’ convictions go to abuse committed as late as 1994.
Has the BSA apologized for their (in)actions? No. Instead they have tried to keep the files secret. They are, indeed, a shining light to all those who care about children, their fellow citizens and morality.
You don’t see the similarity between this paragraph and statements being made by the Vatican about the Church’s cover-up? This is pretty much verbatim one of the Catholic Church’s recent excuses.
The fact is that the BSA knew about pedophiles, kept files on pedophiles, for decades without informing anybody about those criminals. They allowed those people to continue to attack children. For decades. Instead of apologizing, as any decent organization would, for their past acts, the BSA and its apologists say that there is nothing the BSA could have done. The fault lies with local troops who unanimously ( I’m sure without discussion with other locals or National) decided that parents and police were not to be informed – only National would be informed so that they could keep files of known pedophiles so that National could, what? keep that information secret.
Oh, well then that makes everything okay.
Did they also inform you of the existence of the “Perversion Files?” And did they let you know how to access or have National check the files for you? Did they inform parents or the police of the names of known pedophiles ever?
By “every leader” do you mean every adult who has involvement with BSA activities?
Like, I don’t know, telling parents and police about known child molesters?
Your continued defense of an organization that shielded, and therefore enabled, pedophiles is astounding.
Wait, you’re saying you think most Alas readers have never heard of The Shack?
I’ve had like four copies passed on to me, two by Catholics. I expect most people have at least been talked to about it. I would be interested to hear if it’s true that other folks here haven’t heard of it.
Huh. I’m no lover of BSA–OK, I admit it, I really don’t like them at all–but I’m not so sure it’s that clear cut.
BSA could believe that someone was a problem and still not have any legal obligation to report them; most places don’t have that type of reporting statute.
Also, BSA could believe that someone was a problem but also believe that it was not necessarily an objective problem: I may dislike John Doe and may have a gut feeling that he should not be around my kids, but I may not have enough evidence or knowledge to think that I should report him to others, or to the police. This gets even trickier second hand: if I tell you about my opinions on John Doe, would you feel the need to report him, even if I didn’t?
Of course, that’s a general hypothetical. There are plenty of situations where BSA’s reporting obligation would seem pretty clear cut from a moral standpoint if not a legal one; this sounds like one of them. I’m not defending BSA’s actions here. If someone admits to abusing a kid, you tell the kid’s parents, for chrissakes.
But generally speaking, the fact that BSA has their own impressions of who shouldn’t be around kids doesn’t mean that much to me absent more info. For all I know, plenty of people got on that list merely by being gay or atheist.
All the info that we have, granted it’s second or third hand but I’m going to give established media outlets the benefit of the doubt, indicates that this list was purely for known and suspected child molesters. Suspected is a gray area, but I would think that you’d pass that information on to the police and see where it goes. Known is not a gray area.
The similarities between BSA’s response (as enumerated in this thread by RonF) to the response of the Catholic Church is not coincidental. It’s attempting to deflect blame that rightly falls on the upper levels of organizational hierarchy to lower levels that don’t really have the ability to act, nor did act, as independently as their defenders would like us to believe.
The fact that BSA fought to keep those files out of court in a trial about child sexual abuse indicates motives that are not exactly noble.
How about a, “We fucked up badly. We can’t correct that mistake but we’ll do whatever we can to help you recover and make any amends that you’ll allow us to.” The self-promoted image of BSA leads me to expect no less. Common decency leads me to expect no less.
I don’t think that the systemic suppression of info on child abusers makes all members and leaders morally corrupt in exactly the same way that I don’t think the same actions by the Catholic Church make all members and clergy morally corrupt. Or even suspect. But the organizations themselves have a lot to account for here. I don’t think that there’s much question about that.
This is new to the thread. I can’t find this in the articles on this case that you have cited, which I’ve just re-read. Can you point out where I missed it? Conceding for the sake of argument that this is true AND that the information about Dykes in National’s files was more substantial than rumor or innuendo then in my opinion National should share liability for any assaults committed by Dykes after they were notified.
The acts of the RCC and of the BSA have similarities and differences. The similarity is that they both apparently knew about offenses and did not report them. The difference is that the RCC continued in a great many cases to maintain these people in positions of leadership and contact with children under it’s care, whereas the BSA removed these people from positions of leadership and contact with children under it’s care. As I said, the analogy is inexact.
I can’t answer for “it’s apologists”. National’s probably listening to it’s lawyers in an attempt to minimize it’s financial losses. But I agree with the spirit of this. “A Scout is loyal” should not override “A Scout is trustworthy”. “A Scout is brave” is something that National should consider in this case.
I would not at all be surprised to find out about kids who were molested where the unit leadership just tossed the guy out and never notified either the local or National Council. But when they did, and the information was something substantial, National was in the wrong and betrayed the kids and their parents.
No. But it means that National is taking real and substantial steps to keep this kind of thing from happening again.
I mean every adult who is registered with the BSA. Parents of Scouts who are not registered with the BSA are not required to undergo background checks. That leaves interactions between adults who are neither registered Scouters nor parents. Those are a fairly small fraction of the total youth/adult interactions in Scouting. They do occur; at the last two meetings we had a couple of lawyers working with the Scouts on Citizenship in the Nation merit badge. That consisted of those lawyers sitting at a table with a bunch of kids talking about their rights and duties under the Constitution while a few interested Scouters listened and occasionally offered their own opinions. If Youth Protection policies are followed – as they were in this case – there’s no danger of abuse from Scouters, parents (except between a parent and their own child) or others.
Why do you ignore my statements that they SHOULD have notified people about these people?
So you just kind of skipped past
Are you more interested in attacking me and the BSA or engaging in discussion?
The RCC maintains direct control over a parish. A parish has no choice over who is ordained and who their priests are. The Bishop is responsible for supervising his priests. The parishioners have neither control nor responsibility for the selectionor the actions of their priests.
The BSA operates on a franchise model. The unit sponsor directly controls and is responsible for who is registered in the BSA and who the leaders of their unit are. No unit leader can be registered with either the particular unit or even the BSA overall without the signature of the sponsor’s head or representative and the unit’s Committee Chair. No leader can retain registration if either the Committee Chair or the sponsoring organization withdraws their approval. The units are instructed in this every year when their charter comes up for renewal and they have to sign off on everything all over again. They are also required to train in the procedures for recognizing the signs of this kind of thing, the procedures for preventing it and procedures for reporting it. There is no comparison between how the BSA operates and how the RCC operates.
Look here.
From that link:
Whether or not Mr. Dykes (or any other person known by the BSA) sexually abused boys in the scouts after the BSA gained that knowledge doesn’t matter. What matters is that he was able to continue to molest children afterwards. This is a bad thing that the BSA has done and, by not working with the authorities now with regards to their files on child abusers, is doing now.
Yet you continue to defend the National Council. You ask what else they could have done? I tell you what they could have done & then you say you already agreed and then continue to defend the organization.
I’d attack the BSA a lot less if they would actually take responsibility for their abdication of responsibility and duty to the children of the US. As I wrote above:
Instead the organization, the one that you’re defending here, the National Council, continues to try to keep its information about child molesters secret. Do we believe that everybody the BSA has a file on in their “Perversion Files” is dead?
The BSA has a duty to report all evidence of child molestation in its files to the police. The police then become responsible for acting on that evidence and the BSA has discharged its moral, ethical and civic duties with regards to the situation. That would be a concrete step that the BSA could take to ameliorate the damages it allowed over those decades. Not doing that is enabling child abusers today. Right now. At this very moment that you are reading this comment.
This is why I have a problem with the BSA as an organization (well, there is its bigotry as well, but that isn’t the issue here). Its concerns are with the organization and not with the country and communities it claims to serve. Read that again. The BSA is not concerned with the children it claims to serve. You may be, your local troop may be, 99.9% of local councils may be concerned with the children they serve but the BSA is clearly not.
And you neither concede this point nor stop defending pedophile enabling actions. Actions and inaction, I remind you, that are going on at this very moment.
There isn’t much of a conversation here unless you’re going to provide evidence that the BSA, contrary to its own admission, does not have decades worth of files on known as well as suspected child molesters. There isn’t a conversation here if you concede that the BSA has those files if the BSA is doing nothing with that info now.
What is the BSA doing with the information it has on known pedophiles (we can leave out the suspected ones for now) that helps to protect children? Unless you can point me to where they are working with the police to hand over any evidence and/or information they have this is merely me pointing out an abhorrent organizational practice of both the past and the present and you defending the organization that has done and is doing this.
We clearly disagree on this point. I don’t see how we can reconcile our positions.
I’m going to recommend a trigger warning on that Reappropriate piece. The amount and extent of fat-hatred cloaked in medicalized discourse was really disturbing to read.
It scares me more that these kind of people live among us in society than that we are sometimes assailed with anti-fat epithets from dimwitted frat boys. The former are much more dangerous.
I’m not defending their actions in this case and any other where they had sure knowledge that someone had commited this (or any other) crime and failed to report it to the appropriate authorities. But National never becomes aware of such an issue unless other people and organizations who have the ability and the responsibility to take action found out first. The LDS (or whoever else the sponsor is) and the local Council should have called the cops before they passed the word along to National. The LDS’s actions are more comparable to the RCC than National’s are. Pointing out that others failed to act on their responsibilities is not equivalent to defending National from having failed to act on theirs.
In talking about other aspects of this issue I haven’t addressed the BSA’s treatment of their files. Let me do so now. The BSA should release any factual information they have about child abuse.
Now, I believe Sailorman is right; there’s other things in those files that have nothing to do with child abuse, and I’m told that there’s things in those files that are simply rumor and innuendo. National can and will revoke registration for a volunteer simply based on the expression of a lack on confidence – for whatever reason – in a leader. I’ve personally seen it done for stuff that has absolutely nothing to do with any legal matter. The guy’s a total pain in the ass and throws sand in the gears in anything he gets involved in. She’s rude to everyone and drives people out of units. That can get you banned, too. Such matters do not belong in the hands of the authorities.
But evidence of child abuse? That belongs to law enforcement. Withholding that from them is wrong and the people who did and are currently doing so should be accountable to the authorities, the BSA membership and the public.
I don’t understand the basis for your opinion. The hierarchy of the RCC selects priests. They educate them on a full-time basis for years. They subject them to multiple psychological evaluations and retain or remove them on that basis. They hire them and provide their livelihood. They assign them to and remove them from parishes without the parishes’ consent. The priests are accountable to the hierarchy, not the parish. The parish knows nothing about the priest (unless they’ve been assigned somewhere else first that a parishioner has contact with) until the priest shows up.
Scout leaders are selected by the unit sponsor with the advise and consent of the unit leadership and committee. The latter is the body that directly governs the unit and it’s members are generally parents of the Scouts in the unit and (often) ex-leaders whose kids have aged out of the program (I fall under this heading). The leaders themselves are either Scout parents, someone who has stayed on after their kid aged out, or sometimes a recent Scout who has stayed or returned to the area after getting too old to be a Scout. The local Council doesn’t know this person has been selected as a leader until they receive an Adult Application that’s already been signed off on by the sponsor and the committee. Unless that person has previously been a Scout or a leader they know nothing about him or her other than what’s on the form and what’s discovered during the background check. Neither the local Council nor National have any way to evaluate the performance of that leader unless someone calls up and complains or compliments. They never see the leader or his or her interaction with adults or youth unless that leader shows up at a District or Council event and someone from Council spends some time around them; otherwise their opinion is formed from the numbers they see and any commentary they pick up from volunteers. The Council has no power to assign a leader to a unit, and while they can remove a leader from Scouting overall they can’t permit someone to stay in Scouting but remove them from unit office. They don’t pay the Scouter a dime.
I fail to see how you can claim that people at the unit level don’t really have the ability to act independently. In one of the positions I occupy in Scouting I can literally call up the Scout Executive of my Council and tell him or her (yep, there’s a few “her”s) “You know our Assistant Scoutmaster Joe Blow? He’s out. Strike him off our roster. Why? We don’t like him.” and hang up and Joe’s OUT. If at the annual re-charter process I pick up a pen and draw a line through Joe’s name on the roster sheet before I sign it and turn it in Joe’s OUT and no one’s going to call me up from Council and ask why. If no other unit picks him up or if the District or Council doesn’t offer him a position (highly unlikely under the circumstance) then Joe’s out of Scouting. The lower levels have complete authority to act and the Council can’t do a thing about it.
Can National revoke the franchise from a local? I ask because I understand the following to be true:
Is that quote correct or am I misinformed? Am I mistaken in believing that “Executive Board” is synonymous with what you have called “National?”
Did National order the Cradle of Liberty Council to revoke their non-discrimination policy?
If these things are true I don’t understand how, “The lower levels have complete authority to act and the Council can’t do a thing about it.”
Nope. I’m not asking what else they could have done. With the exception of asking about certain types of legal exposure are, I’m telling you what they can do and should have done. I’m also telling you what they can’t do and who the other people involved are and what they should have done and should do. There seems to be a concept here that saying “National can’t do ‘x’, the sponsor, etc. are resonsible for that” is an attempt to absolve National Council of responsibility. Not true. National is 100% responsible for what they do with the information they have and the consequences of inaction. But they are not 100% responsible for stopping molestation of Scouts or of non-Scouts by Scouters. The sponsors and the unit leaders and committees (and parents) have responsibilities that National cannot assume on their behalf and that National has explained to them in writing that they must perform. They have to do their jobs too.
Because that isn’t the similarity that I’m talking about. The similarity is that both the RCC and the BSA have enabled pedophiles in the past and continue to enable pedophiles in the present. This this is what the similarity between the two is.
As a reminder, here is what I wrote in comment #5:
This quote says nothing about the RCC & the BSA being structured the same. It does say that both have done something extremely similar wrt pedophiles. They have both enabled and continue to enable child molesters.
This is a red herring. I’m not talking about things that have nothing to do with child abuse. Neither, as I understand it, do the “Perversion Files” contain things that have nothing to do with abuse. Why would something not considered perverted by the BSA be kept in a system dubbed the “Perversion Files?”
That makes a pretty clear assertion about what those files are. They are used to track Scout leaders suspected of sexually abusing young boys. They aren’t filled with lack of confidence statements.
Do you have any links that support your position that the files cover something other than suspected sexual abusers? Your statement is the first time I’ve heard such a thing.
These are the files under discussion. The files that BSA admits they kept on suspected abusers. That isn’t enough to turn over to the authorities?
Look, this isn’t the case of a few irresponsible people not doing their job. This is a case where the system set up by the BSA is itself irresponsible. The BSA has been enabling abusers for 45 years by their own admission. The people keeping the files secret now are unlikely to be the people who kept those files secret 45 years ago. The people keeping those files secret have not been at the local level. This is not a few bad apples, this is a monstrous flaw in the operation, the principles of the BSA. This wasn’t just the bad luck to exclusively have a string of people over the course of 45 years who didn’t care if children were abused. If I were a member of the BSA I would be demanding that the bylaws be amended immediately to lay out the procedure on how the BSA deals with suspected pedophiles. One of those changes would be that all files on suspected child abuse be turned over to the proper authorities immediately.
I fail to see how you are not defending the BSA. You are blaming a few people for not doing their job while absolving the BSA from blame.
You say that it’s just some people who didn’t (and are not) doing their job, not the BSA. You say that all the power to deal with this is at local, not with the BSA. You say that you’ve heard that the files contain things unrelated to sexual abuse, so the BSA couldn’t have turned them over.
These are all statements excusing the BSA. This is defending the BSA. Yeah, I can see that you stand firmly against child abuse. You just can’t bring your self to accept that, in this case, the BSA (not just some members, but the organization) is terribly, terribly wrong and enables people to keep abusing children.
This is a misunderstanding of what I’ve been saying. This may be the reason that, against your protests, I have been saying that you are defending the BSA.
I never said that National is 100% responsible for stopping molestation of Scouts or non-Scouts by Scouters. Let me say it clearly so there are no mistakes.
The BSA has been enabling child abusers for 45 years and continues to enable child abusers by not turning their files on suspected and known abusers over to the proper authorities. The BSA has been enabling child abusers for 45 years and continues to enable child abusers by not informing communities and parents of the presence of known and suspected child abusers in their midst. There is something wrong with the rules and the principles of the BSA to have this continue for 45 years.
There is no defense for this.
I just find it interesting how organizations that set themselves up as to ‘protect against gays’ and engage in gay-exclusion and gay-hate are actually the ones engaging in child rape and protecting child rapists.
I don’t think this is disconnected.
Homophobia is not normal. Being that concerned with opposing the mutually consensual romantic relationships of adults is not normal. Maybe we’re starting to find out that one place some of this comes from is a deep sexual dysfunction.
—Myca
No. I have said repeatedly that National is responsible for the information it has in it’s possession. But you asserted that the local people are not independent actors. It is a fact that National does not and cannot be the primary collector of this information. The fact that National has this information means that someone else got it first, someone who had the responsibility and authority to act. Now, when National got the information they should have asked “What did you do about this?” and if the answer was not “We called the cops” then National should have called the cops. But that doesn’t mean that the locals are home free for not having called the cops themselves. National’s sins do not absolve the locals from sin. It is incorrect to say that they were not independent actors.
If I had the people who knew about this information and withheld it in front of me, I’d say “Recite the Scout Oath and Law.” Once they had finished, I’d ask “How was withholding this information consistent with ‘On my Honor I will do my best to do my Duty to God and my Country’? How is it consistent with ‘Help other people at all times’? How is it consistent with “A Scout is Trustworthy”? How is it consistent with ‘A Scout is Brave’? How is it consistent with ‘A Scout is Reverent’?”
Now, that may not be language that means a lot to you. But to someone who’s recited it weekly for a good part of their lives or has it hanging up in their office and who has sworn to live by it it should mean a good deal. It should shame them. If it doesn’t, then they don’t deserve their jobs or my support.
No I do not. I have read it, but I can’t come up with a citation. I’ve also been told this. It makes perfect sense. But it may also well be that the only files that were subpoenaed and brought into court were those regarding rumored, suspected or known pedophilia and that other information was excluded from being brought into evidence.
To me the “principles of the BSA” are the Scout Oath and Law. I would not say that this is a flaw in the principles of the BSA, I would say it’s a failure of National Council to live up to them.
That aside, the rest of your statement sounds unfortunately reasonable to me. I must say that I had thought of these files in the context of past history. It had not occurred to me that some of these people might be alive and might still be assaulting children until this thread. But it makes sense that you’re right.
The procedure on how the BSA deals with suspected pedophiles now is clear. If a volunteer sees something wrong (or a child tells him about something) in the context of Scouting we are to first ensure that the child is made safe. Then we are to call the Council Scout Executive immediately (we’ve all been given an emergency pager number). You also tell the child’s parents (presuming that you don’t think they’re the ones involved). Your local state law may also require that you directly contact law enforcement, that varies from Council to Council depending on the laws in your area. The Scout Executive will tell you what the law is. He or she then is required to contact the authorities. If a child confides in you about abuse that occurs outside of Scouting then you should contact the authorities directly and also encourage the child to do so and otherwise ensure the child’s safety. Here’sguidelines that are published on this that people are trained in periodically (at least once every 3 years).
Now at this point you’re going to evince skepticism about what the Scout Executive will actually do. All I can tell you there is that unlike the people in Irving, Texas the Scout Executive is someone local that is directly accountable to the local people. I have confidence in my local SE. And if I don’t see something happen real quick I’ll be calling up the cops directly.
Which leaves open this:
And that’s a fair statement. Again, I hadn’t considered that information in those files gathered prior to the current procedures might still have relevance. But now that you bring it up it seems clear that at least some of it would. It should be passed along to the cops.
I appreciate your agreement on this problem being systemic. I also appreciate that you have come to the realization that this policy is doing damage today.
The link to the guidelines provides for some interesting reading. The following really caught my attention:
So National is not following their own guidelines even now. How is it that the membership has not loudly called for the resignation of the Executive Council and their replacement with people who will follow the organizations own guidelines on child abuse?
I can see the logic behind keeping the secret when the wrong-headed thought was that BSA needed to keep this quiet to protect its image as a safe place for boys. But what is the logic now? The cat is out of the bag. I don’t understand the motivation to keep it secret now.
I would feel a lot better about the BSA if either they would admit their wrong doing, apologize and turn over their files or the membership kicked out the current Executive Board and replaced it with one that would do the right thing.
What is the policy for electing and dismissing board members?
RealClearPolitics: Democratic losses could top 100 seats in 2010. http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2010/04/14/how_bad_could_2010_really_get_for_democrats_105152.html
Likely because the vast majority of the members of the BSA haven’t even heard about this lawsuit or the ineligible to register files. The same proportion also has little awareness of the structure of the BSA beyond that of their unit. Most of them don’t even know about the structure of their local Council, never mind National. Believe me, I know this for a fact as one of my jobs is to solicit people to volunteer at the District and Council level. I am quite atypical for a volunteer. My fellow volunteers generally are strictly concerned with running program for their sons and daughters and pay little attention to anything else.
How are members of the Executive Board of the National Council removed? Hm. I don’t know. I’ll have to look. Probably with great difficulty. The BSA is not a bastion of democracy in it’s corporate organizational structure; but then what corporations are?
National Council, like every other not-for-profit organization, has an annual meeting. The new board gets elected there. I know that the local Councils have representation at that meeting, but I don’t know who else gets a vote. The board is probably elected as a slate (if they do it the way that they do it at the local Council level) and nominations from the floor are not in order. I’d have to take a look at the National bylaws to see the details, what the procedure is for removing someone outside of the election, and how to propose someone to the nominating committee (if I’m right about the slating procedure). They’ve been attracting protestors for the usual reasons outside the meetings, but I’m not aware of anything that’s gone on inside the meetings.
From what I’ve seen, that is correct.
I hadn’t devoted a moment of thought to this but I bet that you’re right. Most people don’t know anything about anything they’re involved with. Why would BSA be any different?