Legalized extortion
As we have reported many times before, one of the most under-reported elements of the entire Catholic Church abuse story is the prevalence of false claims against innocent priests and priests long ago deceased who are no longer around to defend themselves.
Journalists and public relations-types – being the pack animals that they are – never pursue the ultimate counter-narrative of wrongly accused priests.
Now, in a refreshing episode of honesty, Louis Aguirre, spokesman for the Diocese of Houma-Thibodaux, a small diocese in Louisiana, has acknowledged that in recent years "there has not been a case that we deemed to be true" even though the diocese has paid out at least one financial settlement for a claim alleging abuse decades ago.
According to Louisiana's The Advocate:
"[Louis Aguirre, spokesman for the Diocese of Houma-Thibodaux] said that since the 2002 bishops charter the diocese has not alerted parishioners about allegations against priests because none have been credible."
Profiles in courage
Not surrendering to injustice:
Sarah McDonald from
the Archdiocese of New Orleans
In doing so, there can be no doubt that the Church is surrendering to injustice as a result of the social pressures fueled by the mainstream media's witch hunt mentality when it comes to the Church.
The Diocese of Houma-Thibodaux's Aguirre also blows the lid off the popular media narrative that the Catholic Church demands confidentiality in settlement agreements. In truth, reports Aguirre, it is the victims – and not the Church – who demand secrecy in settlement agreements in order to protect their identities.
"When we make a settlement … we have given the alleged victim the pledge of confidentiality," reports Aguirre in the Advocate. "They in turn can turn around and talk about it all they want."
Aguirre's comment mirrors the conclusion years ago from the Honorable Patrick J. Schiltz, now a U.S. District Judge in Minnesota, who has had as much experience as any individual with clergy abuse cases. Addressing the issue of settlements with victims in an article (highly recommended) back in 2003, Judge Schiltz wrote:
"There is a reason why victims often sue as 'Jane Doe' or 'John Doe' and often seek protective orders from courts. Victims are understandably concerned to protect their privacy …
"I have been involved in hundreds of settlements, and I literally cannot recall one that required the victim not to talk about his or her abuse."
Separately, some dioceses are finally standing firm against publishing the names of priests who have been accused but whose accusations have not even been deemed to be credible.
Speaking from the Archdiocese of New Orleans, spokeswoman Sarah McDonald told the Advocate that although the the archdiocese publishes the names of priests who have had "credible" allegations against them, the archdiocese has chosen not to publish the names of offending priests from decades past "because some may be deceased and to protect those whose allegations against them are not credible."
Kudos to the Diocese of Houma-Thibodaux and the Archdiocese of New Orleans for standing up for falsely accused priests, truth, and justice – however unpopular.
There have probably been thousands of phony cases.
Where has TMR been on these?
The same place all the CATHOLIC MEDIA has been as well as ALL the other media!!
Read it and weep!
So you truly believe that not a single priest has ever molested a child in this diocese? That is certainly beyond being niave. Now you must really be trying to sell the Brooklyn bridge to the most gullible who would buy this incredibly ignorant statement.
"[Louis Aguirre, spokesman for the Diocese of Houma-Thibodaux] said that since the 2002 bishops charter the diocese has not alerted parishioners about allegations against priests because none have been credible."
The DIOCESE has found none credible…how about law enforcement? Have they also investigated every one of these cases the diocese own people claims to be not credible?
How is it that 1 in 6 boys and 1 in 4 girls nationally are the victims of unwanted sexual contact before the age of 18, yet you can possibly try and promote the idea that not a single priest has abused a child (only in this diocese)? Yet we have seen many diocese admit many abuses occured (by their own reporting) and by the bishops own admissions in the John Jay report, they have concluded that 4% of clergy have been credibly accused of abuse. How is it not a single one worked in this diocese? No way do I believe this self serving statement…ask local law enforcement if they believe this to be true. Simply not possible.
No one is saying that Mark
You are saying none and never as in reference to the total timeline of the diocese's existence. The article specifically states "since the 2002 bishops charter " and "has acknowledged that in recent years". Do you understand the difference?
Since there are no credible allegations since the implementation of the charter, it must be having a positive effect in the protection of minors.
"How is it that 1 in 6 boys and 1 in 4 girls nationally are the victims of unwanted sexual contact before the age of 18," How do you know this? Did you ask all these boys and girls and even if you did, how do you know that they were telling the truth? How do you know that this statistic is not due to some form of manipulation?
As for your questioning of what is stated in the article? What evidence do you have to question it? Do you believe that there is no such thing as media pressure on prosecutors to bring in somone in highlighted cases or there are no people on death row who ware innocent?
You must analyze and now swallow all you read in papers, see on TV or Internet.
Bias blocks brains.
AnotherMark, I doubt the law enforcement has investigated because time has probably expired on them.
Considering how they are handling this other case involving the girl, claiming Religious Liberty issues etc, I would not trust their reporting.
I don't buy it.
Another Mark: "So you truly believe that not a single priest has ever molested a child in this diocese? That is certainly beyond being niave. Now you must really be trying to sell the Brooklyn bridge to the most gullible who would buy this incredibly ignorant statement."
It certainly has happened in the secular world. The prime example of a media witch hunt where false accusations of child molestation occurred is the McMartin Preschool case.
Much of these allegations involved 'recovered' memories of children to whom things things never happened, but many of them are still convinced they did. Double abuse. Mind rape.
There is an innocent priest, still in prison, for a crime he never committed – his 'victim' knowingly scammed the courts and made his thirty pieces.
God keep Fr McCall.
Speaking from personal experience, it's sad that it is easier and less costly to pay a settlement on a bogus claim than maintain your innocence and defend yourself in court.
Once again (the 23rd, 650AM) we see the Abusenik creation of a fantasy position in order to a) have something to go on about, while b) simultaneously avoiding the real issues raised by the actual position. (This is precisely the gambit I discussed in my comment of the 22nd at 528PM on the immediately prior article here.)
I can find no statement in this TMR article or the comments on it (nor can I recall any prior comments on any thread on this site) to the effect that “not a single priest has ever molested a child”, either “in this diocese” or in any diocese.
And this manipulative howler is then spiced-up with – waitttt for ittttttt! – an epithet: whichever “you” who is the addressee of this ‘Another Mark’ comment “must really be trying to sell the Brooklyn bridge to the most gullible”. But in light of the initial howler, this statement not only i) fails but also ii) through the marvelous dynamics of projection indicts ‘Another Mark’ who is the only one who has actually made an “incredibly ignorant statement” (in regard to which, see below).
‘Another Mark’ then goes on to quote the diocesan spokesman who stated that “the diocese has not alerted parishioners about the allegations against priests because none have been found credible”. Given the Stampede-enabled ease with which such allegations can be made, what exactly is the alternative? Should the Diocese or any organization simply publish such allegations merely on the grounds that somebody lodged such an allegation? And what are the legal consequences for the Diocese or for any organization that engages in such a policy?
But what we do see here is the old Stampede gambit of trying to get the Church to mule the Stampede’s own handiwork and do the Stampede’s work for it, i.e. try to Keep The Ball Rolling.
And given the often seriously over-defined and elastic criteria for ‘credibility’ (e.g. an allegation can be deemed ‘credible’ if it can be determined that at the time of the allegation a priest was residing in the same geographic area – however defined – as the allegant) then any diocese might find itself enforcing ‘credible allegation’ consequences on any number of priests whose guilt is not even minimally suggested by any evidence at all.
And then the familiar “law enforcement” bit. First, we don’t know how many of these cases were referred to the police.
Second, we immediately come up against the same problem we have always come up against in this matter: have allegants themselves (or anyone personally acquainted-with or related-to them) gone to the police to initiate such an investigation? For any case where an allegation is current (i.e. the incident recently happened) then the police are an easily-available recourse (and have been for at least 20 years).
For any allegation that is ‘historical’ (i.e. the incident happened quite a while ago) but the allegation is recently-lodged, then it would be necessary to know if the allegation were made to the police even if the police could not follow-up because of Statute of Limitation. (And we also have to factor in whether any allegation rejected by police was rejected merely because of the SOL or rather because the police themselves could not discern sufficient evidence to go forward.)
Of course, the brilliance of the Anderson Strategies was that for the vast majority of allegations (which were historical), they would preferably be brought forward by torties in the civil forum (i.e. by lawsuit), where not only a) the standards for finding-against the defendant(s) are lower but also b) the Anderson-abetting media collaborators can more easily ensure that the defendant is ‘tried’ in the media before any actual court-room inquiry needs to be made.
(And we have seen here on this site many revealing examples of how Abuseniks might perform under sustained questioning by opposing counsel, and no tortie would want to risk that type of performance in public on the stand. For that matter, any DA would also have to worry about the prospects of such trial-problems – as we have seen so marvelously demonstrated in the reverse by the Doe/Gallagher trial in Philadelphia and as we may yet see in the Doe/Gallagher civil lawsuit now pending, with or without the presence of the allegant/’victim’ himself.)
And – of course – once the media’s collaboration could be presumed and the general Stampede presumptions were established in the public mind, then that fact alone would exert great pressure on the already-divided ‘defense’ counsel to settle the lawsuit rather than take it to an already-influenced jury.
And by “the already-divided ‘defense’ counsel” I mean that while the Church’s own counsel would have the objective of defending the Church, the Insurers’ counsel would instead have the objective of minimizing potential outlays the Insurer(s) would have to pay – and the two objectives are not at all the same.
And indeed if the Insurer(s) decided (as they almost surely would, given the conditions created by the Stampede) that settlement was cheaper, then any diocese would have to agree with that decision or else run the risk of losing all insurance coverage. This is another brilliant – if not obvious to a legal layperson – element of the Anderson Strategies.
(Readers may also note that there would be no ‘defense’ counsel primarily tasked with the defense of the individual priest(s) against whom the allegations were made.)
‘Another Mark’ will then try to build to a conclusion on the basis of his originally flawed presumption: he refers to statistics “nationally”.
First, nobody here – as we have seen – has actually tried to “promote the idea that not a single priest abused a child” in this diocese or any other.
Second, we have to consider – as has been done on this site several times before – the reliability of such statistics. These statistics a) are almost invariably based on nothing more than a survey methodology, i.e. you simply ask selected persons a list of questions, requiring them to then give a Yes or No answer.
Thus, whoever puts the list together can influence the answers. This can be done by i) how you define the terms you use (what, for example, is the definition of “unwanted sexual contact – a rape, a hug, a pat on the head?) as well as by ii) providing an opportunity for only a Yes or No answer. Or even iii) merely asking if the person-surveyed was ever hugged and felt uncomfortable, without informing them that a Yes answer would qualify as ‘proof’ of “unwanted sexual contact” (and how many relatives at holiday times are then ‘guilty’ of imposing “unwanted sexual contact” on a child?).
And b) these statistics are almost invariably based on ‘self-reports’ – meaning that the only basic evidentiary material the researchers are working with are the answers (Yes or No) put down by the persons-surveyed. Which difficulty may be intensified by either i) the persons’ reported answers not being further corroborated or ii) the persons knowing or reasonably inferring that their answers will not be investigated for corroboration or iii) both.
Especially in light of the type of self-analysis I discussed in a recent comment on a prior thread in regard to the 1970s ‘self-help’ books (initially about incest), you can see how a) elastic and overbroad definitions that are b) unbounded by any professional education or praxis and are c) not liable to questioning or corroboration but instead d) are instant tickets to both status (i.e. of a ‘victim’) and invulnerability to question (i.e. ‘victims’ cannot be re-victimized by questioning) … can bloom and expand like kudzu.
And also: these self-reporters may even be selectively picked-out precisely because they are already pre-disposed to want to see this or that particular outcome of the ‘study’ and their ‘cause’ (whatever it may be).
And would Stampede allegants in all probability have any predisposition toward that? They are, after all, self-selected (i.e. they have come to the torties with their claims, expecting action – and results).
Third, the results thus achieved by such a ‘study’ can then – no matter how small or dubiously-selected the reporting group – be ‘extrapolated’. This means that those who conduct this ‘study’ take their results and apply the proportions reported to a much larger population (thereby hugely increasing ‘the numbers’).
Thus, say, if you give your selectively-formulated questions to a group of 100 or 200 selectively-chosen persons and get a Yes answer-rate of 80 percent (which would not be hard to do according to your gameplan) then you can then ‘extrapolate’ and claim that your study ‘proves’ that 80 percent of all persons similarly-identifiable would also have answered Yes. And thus that, in this type of study we are looking at here, 80 percent of that very large group would be ‘victims’ of – in this case – “unwanted sexual contact” (which, as I said and as the word “contact” implies by definition, would not necessarily include only “abuse”).
We see this dynamic so often deployed and played-out in this or that ‘issue’ or ‘crisis’. Just recently, for example, Senator McCaskill (herself a former prosecutor) quickly commissioned a ‘study’ which was conducted in a very very short period of time, that purported to support her initiative in regard to college sexual abuse of women. Similar such ‘studies’ have been whomped-up in support of a host of such gambits. And – as I have noted before – one can cross-compare State laws to see the variability in the definitions of ‘sex abuse’ or similar phenomena; and one can – as I have noted before – consult the current Uniform Code of Military Justice to see just how broad its Article 120 defines sexual abuse and related phenomena.
Thus the provenance of ‘Another Mark’s statistics here (he gives us no reference) is very much an issue – and one that he avoids. I would especially be concerned for statistics (or interpretations of those statistics) that conflate ‘child abuse’ (which can be emotional or physical or neglect-related as well as sexual) with ‘child sexual abuse’.
When dealing with statistics and conclusions drawn from ‘studies’ it is invariably necessary to see the text of the basic research instruments themselves (Senator McCaskill, for instance, has not to my knowledge published the actual survey instrument, although her PR flaks have done extensive work plumping its ‘results’ to the media – who are so often ever-ready to gobble up whatever catchy pabulum they are fed).
But at any rate, this entire gambit by ‘Another Mark’ fails simply because nobody here has ever said (and has never implied, in any sense I can see) that “not a single” case of sexual abuse of a minor was perpetrated by a priest in this diocese or any other.
Thus, I completely agree that it is “simply not possible” that no instances of sexual abuse – of minors or adults – ever occurred. But I also point out that it is not an issue that is so “simply” figured-out.
But Cartoons are by definition ‘simple’ and catchy. And we thus can see how Abuseniks – for so long comfortable with their assorted Cartoons – can feel that since the issue is so clear and ‘simple’, then anyone who interferes with that ‘simplicity’ must merely be evil and lying and fill-in-the-blank.
And at this point there are now a very large number of persons and interests who do not want to see any of these Cartoons of theirs carefully examined.
Thus, too, this responds to the earlier comment question here as to ‘where TMR has been’ all along. It took a while for somebody to put up a site where these Cartoons could be more carefully examined. That’s due to the Stampede – for far too long nobody else wanted to really dig into the Thing.
Joanne says on the 23rd ….."it is sad that it is easier and less costly to pay out on a bogus claim than to maintan your innocence and defend yourself in court" . Yes… it is very sad, even tragic, when we reflect on the causes and consequences.
Given that the hierachy don't explain why they would pay out on a claim that isn't 'credible', then all we can do is to talk about the likely reasons. For example I personally think that the legal process has become so deranged that the hierachy feel they have a 'gun to their heads'.. In other words if they refuse to pay then the result will be costly litigation that they will lose anyway. And may even result in the accused priest going to prison. Then would follow and even larger claim for compensation.
But why am I so pessimistic that they would lose in the courts? Because the media bias has created a witch- hunt public mood. This in turn has resulted in biased jury members. A worrying derangement of the legal process. If my perception is realistic, then what can the laity do to challenge this witch-hunt public mood? . Well for a start we should honestly ask ourselves whether we have a collective guilt complex. Because this guilt complex can prevent us from exercising our critical faculties when we hear of those shocking accusations of abuse. We are not the only ones with a guilt complex…. many people seem to need to feel guilty. They watch the T.V. news and see starving children in Africa and feel guilty. They seem to strangely enjoy their daily 'guilt trip'. Astute managers in the media understand this and so feed the public's guilt complex. Catholics have a very sensitive guilt complex, in my opinion. So you should pray not only for more faith, as Pope Francis has asked you to do. But also pray for an awareness of the guilt complex that can paralyze us.
When somebody says to you…. "but aren't all priest pedaphiles?" you should not be paralyzed into a stunned silence. But quietly say….. 'Actually more schoolteachers are convicted of child abuse than priests…..but nobody is saying that all teachers are pedaphiles…are they?.'
So it's that easy to get undeserved compensation? Oh please! I'll put an ad on Craig's list telling people they should scam the church.It's so easy.
You people are idiotic. Really you are. Tapped down sexuality like celibacy; always will out, one way or another. Sex is the only reason we are here. We, like every other mammal are here to reproduce and that's about all we are here to do.
And if you believe in god. You should believe the sexual drive is a part of his plan for magical you. Yet through celibacy you flaunt the very reason we were born.
The rest of living, science; arts, sports; education is entertainment while we wait to breed again or at least screw again. That is not necessarily a bad thing it's just the way life is.
Even a child can understand that we were made by God to love Him and serve Him in this world and be happy with Him in the next. Only one existing in proud denial (under the influence of satan) could counter all the evidence of creation in the face of our own mortality and limited powers. Even the most primitive reasoning would scoff at the proposal that we only live from one screw to the next. What would be the point? It is diamond clear why you have such a poor view of yourself and humanity in general. I pity you and will pray for you but you need to pray too!
I'm in shock. Scam artists in Louisianna!!!! One? You pull up one case where a catholic employee "says" somebody scamed the church. Well that'll stand up in a court of law.
I know a woman in Los Angeles, Rita M. who refused a 3 million dollar settlement because she refused to keep silent about what happened to her. Mark Serrano broke his confidentiality (silence) agreement with the church risking the settlement he recieved by doing an article for the New York Times on his abuse and the contract of silence the church demanded from him. He's from New Jersey. My friend, Rita was in California. So you can quit lying about who wanted the silence agreements. It was always the church.
We now have two comments under JR’s name; readers may compare their style and form and tone (and oddly mostly-correct spelling) to those at the end of the comment thread on the previous article and consider that as they will.
On the 23rd at 338PM he attempts to address the Stampede’s ease of allegation by … some snark.
And then by epithet (“You people are idiotic”), which is then reinforced by the characteristic JR give-away of repetition (“Really you are.”) that signals to readers that the assertion has nothing to justify it so JR will try to hammer it home with repetition.
Then a bit of Freud-y speculation: since “sex is the only reason we are here” then “tapped down sexuality … always will out” (prescinding here from the incoherence of the comment text as actually written). But Freud’s speculation remains speculation (it has not been established that humans categorically cannot mature to the point where sex can be – to use a Freudian term – ‘sublimated’) and it is, in any case, far too broad and vague to be considered as an evidentiary proffer for any specific case. But the source of this comment has latched onto a cartoon-concept of Freud’s already dubious – if assertive – speculations.
As for the Darwin-derived (anti-)metaphysical assertions as to we humans only being here to “reproduce”, let it remain up where it was put. (But if this assertion of JR’s comment is accurate, then it doesn’t do much for the oft-claimed normalcy of same-sexual activity, does it?)
But JR then tries to build his thing here a few blocks higher: he (or his source) displays a cartoonish lack of awareness-of, or deliberately ignores, the Catholic theology of celibacy. (And ignores the possibilities inherent in Freud’s “sublimation” concept in the process.)
Thus readers may consider the credibility of JR’s concluding assertion as to “it’s just the way life is”.
Then at 349PM we are back to snark, apparently deployed in an effort to pooh-pooh and ‘minimize’ the significance or credibility of the original report made by the diocese’s spokesman. In the process, he is willing to make a broad generalization about the culture of “Louisianna” (as if his generalization would be considered credible).
And then the snark about whether the spokesman’s statement would “stand up in a court of law”. In the context in which the comment was made as outlined in this TMR article, the observation is not entirely relevant and for all we know it may yet spark some further investigation.
And in the process, JR has also admitted that “scam artists” might be a relevant consideration in all of this.
And – really – are Abuseniks well-advised to talk about ‘standing up’ “in a court of law”? Few ever have done so (although we do have the example of the Doe/Gallagher material now) and certainly JR did not take the stand in any “court of law” (for reasons that may by now be rather obvious).
Then – waitttt for ittttttt! – JR has a story to tell us. Readers may consider it as they may, although on its face the story-telling we get here in his comment does not justify his concluding assertion that “it was always the church” that demanded the secrecy agreements.
"Thus"! Who else but a religious would use the word "thus". Are you as member of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence?
With all the possibilities raised by issues in my most recent prior comment, the Abusenik mind (modeled here with stunningly revelatory acuity by JR on the 27th at 1227PM) chooses instead to go with – waitttt for ittttt! – snark: it latches on to the use of “thus” and – with characteristic tunnel-vision – presumes that only “a religious would use the word”.
That may seem a bit of stupefying illogic that surpasses even what readers may have become used-to seeing, but it turns out that there is perhaps a mitigating circumstance: JR really was only using that “religious” bit in order to provide a lead-in to an implicitly epithetical bit about membership in some gay comedy performance group. Thus, as so often, the actual content of ideas is secondary to the Playbook effort at distraction-by-snark.
But that’s characteristic of Abuseniks, and perhaps it is a dynamic also characteristic of the allegations and claims and stories and accusations: the content of ideas (and especially their coherence, accuracy and veracity) was secondary to the script requirements for a good story. Which recalls the constructed ‘Hollywood’ aspect to the Stampede and all its allegations and claims and stories and accusations.
Also, referring back here to my thought about the difference in objectives between attorneys for the Church and Insurers’ attorneys, I would add this: from the point of view of legal tactics, it is very conceivable that all along the torties knew that their key legal opponents were the Insurers’ attorneys and not the Church’s defense attorneys.
Because if the Insurers’ attorneys decided that the cheapest way to deal with all of the lawsuits )and allegations and claims and stories and accusations) was going to be by settling out of court, then the Church attorneys would be decisively and preemptively outflanked in any effort to specifically address the accuracy and veracity of any particular allegations and claims and stories and accusations: the Church would have to accede to the Insurers’ attorney recommendations for settlement or else face the risk of losing insurance altogether.
More bull from you. What are you going to do about these horrific crimes against your innocent church?
You should be speaking about this to the U.S. government. You should be speaking in churches across the country. Your slide show will be a tad limited since you've no proof of fraud. But you'll be talking to your co religionists and since you all believe so many things without proof. Your show should do well. (Sarcasm)
You are a great comic. You're the queen of snark at this site and have been for the 2 years I've been writing here. Joan Rivers is gone "thus" a path is opened unto you.
What's the matter? You can dish it out but you can't take it?
On the 28th at 1148AM: the usual unsupported epithet (“bull”).
As far as what I “should be” doing about all this: I am speaking on this site. And I am speaking in terms of probability – which is the point I have been making . And on that score there is already a great deal I have put forward here and the readers may judge as they will.
Then more epithet (tying in the late Joan Rivers to the effect that I am “a great comic”).
Then another deployment of the characteristic juvenile JR bit: I’m Not/You Are (i.e. JR is not snarky, I am).
JR’s two years worth of material is now permanently in the record. And the same “world” that is reading my material has also been reading his.
Then a repetition of his “thus” bit.
And then – apropos of absolutely nothing that he has put up in this comment of his – the bit about my being able to “dish out” and so on.
And the bottom line: not a single responsive bit dealing with any of the issues.
Can you ever stop being silly?
You offer the word "probabillity" which in any court would be dismissed as conjecture.
Step down off the Xmas tree, sugar plum. Come down to earth with some proof. Give us your proof of our fraud.
You can't simply imagine a crime without proof?
If I'm held up in an alley. It's my word against the acused. If I'm raped in that alley. It's the clarity of my telling my truth as a witness to the crime and as the victim of the crime that determines who's telling the truth. Some crimes are done one on one. No witnesses other than the participants. Yet verdicts are handed down.
Our judges were the church, It's lawyers the insurors, their lawyers and the victims lawyers and our psyche evidence from the shrinks hired by all sides. Those are the judge and jury for our cases. You can imagine what you wish about "probabilities" but conjecture is simply that imaginings. Swell for religion not so good in the courts and believe me we were very ready to go to trial. Very ready indeed.
You whine persecution whith out evidence of persecution.You have fewer priests in jail because of how your religion has been let off the hook untill now. You've been treated as "special" in a privilaged way. And when you are finally treated almost like anyother child molestor,You rage. You can't believe that you are even asked to endure the light of public opinion. And still none but one of the upper cleric enablers has been put in jail. The church is so very much like the banksters of wall street.( Well really that's who they are; business men in Roman collars.) They have not been held responsibile for their crimes.
Is religion to big to fail? Even though it keeps on failing and like the banks is never if ever punished.
You see our telling the truth as equivalent to persecution. It's as if you've been held on a silk cushion for most of 2000 years. When some one finally speaks up and tells you your shit smells. You go into shock.
Reactively you blame the messengers. How dare the truth be told about the one true faith's oligarchy.
You count on religion as the third pillar of society.( First being family, then state, then religion.) It's a child's dream. It's superstion. It's the lie that insures the status quo. The church, which was supposed to be the best possible world to raise children in and to send them safely into; but it became living hell for many of us.
Our hell should shatter your myths. The fact you fight so hard, here, denying that; is beneath pathetic.
I have come across a current issue that seems very relevant to the Stampede.
The Wall Street Journal – on the 18th of September – published an article about Princeton’s revisions of its sexual-misconduct review (or ‘court’) procedures, by which the cases of accused students are to be ‘adjudicated’.
In order to get the link without the firewall, enter ‘presumed guilty at princeton’ into your search engine, and the link to the WSJ article will bypass the subscriber-only firewall for your reading. (If you are a WSJ subscriber, of course, you needn’t worry about the firewall.)
In sexual misconduct cases – but only in sexual misconduct cases – ‘due process’ will no longer require “clear and persuasive evidence” but rather only the much lower bar of “preponderance of the evidence”. This is similar to the distinction between evidentiary principles in criminal and in civil cases (although these university ‘courts’ can end a college career if they so decide).
The ‘court’ is a 3-member faculty team acting as investigators and judges and jury (similar to European magisterial-inquisitorial jurisprudence rather than American jurisprudence where the roles and powers are separated into police investigation, judge, jury, counsel for defense, and prosecution).
Defendants accused by allegation have no right to confront their accuser. If they have retained an actual defense counsel, that attorney can only speak with the accused but cannot address the ‘court’ or discuss or examine the ‘evidence’.
The faculty will be “trained” but – the WSJ notes – there is no indication of just what that training might consist-of. We had seen with the Michigan training protocols some time ago on this site just what that ‘training’ might consist of: essentially, one is ‘trained’ out-of the fundamental principles of Western and American Constitutional law and praxis, and ‘trained into’ taking the route of (hugely regressive if not also totalitarian) presumption of guilt and of the validity of any ‘law’ that seeks as the outcome of its ministrations a ‘good cause’ regardless of quibbles about ‘due process’ and ‘evidence’.
The article then goes on to discussing the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (F.I.R.E.), which has been working against this university trend, most significantly in a 2011 exchange with government education bureaucrats occasioned by Stanford University’s adoption of new government ‘standards’.
You can access the F.I.R.E material here http://www.thefire.org/ and more specifically here http://www.thefire.org/?s=stanford+2011+sexual+misconduct+standards
If you scroll down on the second link’s page you will come to the “FIRE Letter to Office for Civil Rights Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Russlyn Ali, May 5, 2011”. Opening that link will give you the text of that letter, outlining a number of problems FIRE sees with the new sexual-misconduct guidelines which the government is seeking to informally impose on universities (apparently after discovering that university trial-periods in which the agenda was tested were revealing very serious problems with government’s desired regulations).
And in footnote 29 to that Letter, a link is provided to the Stanford newspaper’s article from 2011 reporting that university’s adoption of the government agenda. One student activist from the senior class of that year stated that “lowering the standard of proof is absolutely vital to the women’s community” and – the article then says – “Survivors or sexual assault must not be deterred from the judicial system because of too high a standard, she added”.
Aside from noting the delusional imagining that these university courts are some sort of “judicial system”, TMR readers might quickly realize that the powerful interests behind Victimism and the Stampede are now turning on the universities themselves. And while contemplating this spectacle may seem a pleasant irony, yet the issues at stake are far too vital to allow oneself such lesser pleasures.
As has often been noted on this site, issues of “standards of proof” (which the Supreme Court has declared to be “more than just an empty semantic enterprise” if any system of due-process is to minimize the danger of “erroneous decisions” and – I would add – minimize undermining the integrity and ultimately the legitimacy of the legal system) has been a serious and active fault-line in the Stampede.
The Anderson Strategies, piggy-backing and surfing-on and synergizing-with the overall Victimist tendencies of the past 40 years, sought to bypass this abyssal problem by a) creating (with media help) a general public predisposition to presume the guilt of priests such that the issue of actual evidence would not seem all that important and then b) keeping most of the claims and stories in the civil forum of lawsuits (where i) the evidentiary standard is lower and ii) those utterly key Insurers’ attorneys would increasingly tend to call for ‘settlement’ rather than trial).
To which – I would add – one could add the neat bit of Victimist dogma and ‘logic’ to the effect that investigating or prosecuting any allegant (presumed, of course to be a (genuine) victim) for false claims must not be permitted because it would a) ‘re-victimize’ the (already-presumed genuine) victim and it would b) exert a chilling effect on future allegants/victims who might wish to ‘come forward’.
There is also the hardly-insignificant problem that if the allegated sexual-misconduct is a crime, then it has to be professionally investigated by the government (the police function) and then adjudicated in a constitutionally-sufficient court of law (the judicial function). This is no place for the kangaroo courts of a university campus (as if, of course, sex-crime jurisprudence is not already deranged substantially in the direction of kangaroo-courts and ‘show-trials’).
We also see that in these new government regulations (where, I would say, Victimist legal ‘reformers’ allied with government bureaucracy are starting to really come out into the open about their aims and methods) that the accused and the accuser are treated very unequally. And worse, that this imposed inequality before the law reverses the core principle of Innocent Until Proven Guilty, which reversal was effected in the Stampede by both i) taking advantages in Victimism’s so-called ‘reforms’ of law and jurispraxis and ii) whomping-up a media-abetted general public presumption of guilt.
Also making an appearance is an updated variant of those grossly global and vague ‘checklists’ that demonstrate guilt or innocence that we discussed in relation to those 1970s incest self-help and self-diagnosis books. For example, that abusers can always be identified because they ‘appear rational and reasonable’ while victims often appear ‘confused’ and ‘irrational’ and don’t always tell the same story twice. (Thus: the party who appears rational and coherent may be presumed guilty, while the party who appears irrational, incoherent and confused (or mendacious) may reliably be presumed to be a genuine victim. You can immediately see how such a principle was catnip to torties and to anybody who – for whatever reason – wanted to take a run at the piñata.)
All of which, then, goes to show even more vividly the context and milieu out of which the Stampede was created and by which it functions and has always functioned.
We might imagine that it took JR a while to come up with something (as he has now done on the 30th at 1149PM) because he was really stretching his abilities to make a coherent response. Or we might compare this most recent comment of his with his usual performance and imagine that it took a while to get something from a source and paste it up here.
But that’s of no great consequence. Abuseniks are always going to provide material for analysis, no matter how they finagle to get that material onto the site here.
We open – of course – with an epithet (“silly”).
Then – as if reading it for the first time – JR (for purposes of simplifying things here as to the source of this comment) takes issue with my use of “probability”. And he does so because – waitttt for ittttttt! – “in any court would be dismissed as conjecture”.
Not quite. It apparently has to be pointed out to JR that – not to put too fine a point on it – we are not actually in “any court” or in any court at all. We are on this site, conducting rational and coherent analysis of various aspects of the Stampede. And rather than me trying to pretend to evidence and proof, I am trying to get some evidence and establish the probability of veracity (which appears to be an objective that causes Abuseniks to recoil like vampires from holy water).
And further, is it really wise for Abuseniks to bring up “conjecture” or hearsay or any other such qualifying and limiting terms, given a) the profound and obvious iffy-ness of their stories, claims and allegations and b) the way those so-iffy stories, claims and allegations were shrewdly steered through the legal system by the torties (as I have discussed at some length in prior comments on this thread), to say nothing c) of the way Abuseniks have responded to questions being raised about stories and claims and allegations on this site itself … ?
How much of the Stampede is based on “conjecture” or its cousin ‘presumption’?
Then more epithet (“Xmas tree, sugar plum”) which includes more queasy gender or sexual orientation dreck and also serves to warn us that JR is trying to make up for substance with snark, as so often happens at those cafeteria tables.
Then a repetition of the “proof” bit, since – apparently – JR figures he’s already disposed of the far more acute “probability” problem. Which, as we see, he hasn’t.
I keep seeing JR as “proof” of something, but perhaps readers can formulate that “something” as they may.
Then a question (or at least it is grammatically structured as a question): can one “imagine a crime without proof”? Why yes, I can; very easily.
But that’s not the core of the problem with the Stampede, is it? The core of the problem is that if you want to demand the deployment of the Sovereign Coercive Authority’s powers to redress (civilly and/or criminally) a tort and/or crime you claim has been perpetrated, you first have to provide i) proof of the tort and/or crime having been perpetrated and ii) proof that the accused did it.
And if you don’t or can’t thus provide, then that Authority cannot rightly be deployed against the accused (and there thus might also exist a very reasonable possibility – perhaps even probability – that the tort and/or crime was not perpetrated).
And given everything we’ve seen on this site and discussed on this site, it’s my position that ‘possibility’ has risen clearly to the level of ‘probability’.
We then get a bit of legal ‘thinking’ that appears to be either invented on the spot by JR or else comes from the Victimist school of thinking … or both: when there is no evidence, then it’s “the clarity of my telling the truth” as witness/victim “that determines who’s telling the truth”.
Clearly JR hasn’t read the bits in my immediately previous comment about the current Victimist dogma as spouted by that Senior (Class of ’11) from Stanford: the probability of genuine victimhood is demonstrated by the allegant’s irrationality and incoherence, not by the allegant’s rationality and coherence. So perhaps JR is working here from notes given to him by his own torties’ story-burnishing squad back when he was prepping his run on the piñata: don’t worry about the lack of evidence for your story, just tell a good story for the cameras, just good enough for the Insurers’ attorneys to recommend settlement.
But – alas – Victimist dogma has moved on (but it’s probably not surprising that he didn’t get the memo).
And yet there is a common factor to both the old and the new Victimist dogma: the necessity for spiffy and snazzy story-telling.
Then an argument not from reason or legal principle but rather from actual events: even in cases where there are no witnesses, “yet verdicts are handed down”. Yes they are. On the jury’s determination of probability of guilt, no? And that was precisely the brilliance of the Anderson Strategies: move the public (with the indispensable help of the media) to presume guilt, such that any odd bits an allegant might provide could be more easily taken as probable.
Odd, is it not, how JR can come up with the first half of a legal-ish point but then show utterly no indication that his mind has gone on to further examine the point?
But then back to the same old stuff: trying to now make the hugely dubious and iffy procedure of settlement during the Stampede pass-for a genuine probative court trial-level of demonstration: “our judges were the church”. No I don’t think so at all. And for all the reasons I have put up several times on this site. The “judges” were the Insurers’ attorneys, and all they were concerned for was to minimize their employers’ (i.e. the Insurers) fiscal outlays. Thus the only standard of ‘proof’ was: is it going to be cheaper to let this turkey settle or to take him to trial? (At which point, of course, we recall the brilliance of the Anderson Strategies multiple and many-multiple Plaintiff cases.)
And while we can “imagine” what we wish about “probabilities”, it is only “conjecture” (clearly JR has a new conceptual toy and he’s going to play with it). Well, as I have so often said, there is not much more to work with when there’s no evidence to work with. But “probability” can be reached not only by mere brute ‘imagination’, but also be rational enumeration and assessment of relevant factors – which is precisely what I have been doing for quite some time. With precious little but epithet and distractions and half-thoughts from the Abuseniks in response.
Then – in another vivid instance of JR’s signature use of repetition to hammer home an unsubstantial bit – he assures us (the Wig of In Your Face) that “we were very ready to go to trial … very ready indeed”. Given what we have seen here, one can only imagine the footnote in the law-school textbook of witness-strategizing were JR to have been placed on the stand.
Then a bit of creation of a quote I never made in order to give himself a chance to use another Wig: I “whine persecution” and (later on in the paragraph) I “rage”. Accurate quotes from me to that effect would be necessary here (and, of course, you should not postpone your next meal waiting for it from JR). And as for the “whine” and the “rage”, we see yet again the dynamic of projection trip-up the Abuseniks.
That paragraph then proceeds on with the Wig of Declamation, so excited – apparently – that control over spelling starts to dissolve.
Then the train proceeds off the track here, and goes on about religion generally being too big to fail and about “the banks”.
Then again with the “persecution” trope: I “see” the Abuseniks’ “telling the truth as equivalent to persecution”. And once again: an accurate quote as to my playing the “persecution” card is necessary here.
And – to repeat for the umpteenth time – I don’t see the Abuseniks’ performance as “persecution” because I don’t see the Abuseniks’ performance as “telling the truth”; shrewdly-strategized scam and sleaze and extortion, perhaps – but not “persecution”.
And if I have given any cause to be considered as having gone “into shock” I’d like to see that accurate quotation as well. Shrewdly-strategized scam and sleaze and extortion –even if only a strong probability – does many things to me, but sending me “into shock” isn’t one of them.
Then the usual self-serving characterizations (on top of the ‘truth-teller’ bit) about “shooting the messenger” (as if the Abuseniks were reliable reporters of a truthful message) – although this time very curiously frosted with that psychol-babbly bit about “reactively”.
And the non-sensical deployment of “oligarchy” in the context of the comment.
Then more cultural-religious eructation from JR (or whomever).
But it is neatly designed as a lead-in to the histrionic concluding trope (delivered while heading for the curtains) about “our hell” (JR thus manipulating us to number him among the genuine victims – which increasingly looks to be a very small and exclusive club indeed). And indeed, it is even woven into a kick-butt concluding one-liner: “our hell should shatter your myths”.
Except we haven’t proven that “hell” true …nor the myths false.
And then – in a move of truly zany if also sleazy marvelousness – an attempt to trump everything I ever wrote on this site: the very fact that I have written so much on this subject of the Stampede here means that I am “denying” the truth of the Stampede.
When actually, all along I have been exploring the actual truth of the Stampede – which is not at all what the Abuseniks want to see done by anybody.)
And that “denying” is – waittttttttttt forrrrrrrrrr the epithet! – “beneath pathetic”.
And on that note let us thus allow JR to slide behind the curtains, with the Wig of Rueful But Indignant Truthiness perched – however precariously – atop.
Prove it.
Could you ever pay for material more useful than what Abuseniks put up here?
On the 1st at 754PM we are delivered a line that is so very often seen in police shows where the criminal looks the cops in the eye and says with a smirk – as JR so pitch-perfectly delivers: “Prove it.”
But this isn’t a police show and we’re not the cops.
Indeed, when we look for what the police actually said when actually given any of the Abusenik stories we have been proffered here, we get … nothing. The Abusenik stories we have seen here never actually got considered by the cops, who in most if not all of the cases we have seen here, were not included in the show (for whatever excuses were made and continue to be made decades later.
We are simply trying to examine and assess what is left to us after the tortie secrecy agreements and all the rest of the Playbook gambits have been deployed: probabilities.
And I haven’t seen anything ever put forward by any Abusenik here that could reasonably be construed as reducing the high-probability that a very substantial chunk of the Stampede is of seriously dubious veracity.
The Abuseniks are, of course, welcome to put up anything that would indeed serve to reduce that high-probability of non-veracity and/or establish a higher probability that the Stampede is indeed largely veracious.
Faithicks are easily faked. P believes everything but the truth.
The police were told about my abuse. I reported it. I was told the criminal statutes of limitations applied.
I expected my teachers, to whom I told what was happening concurrent to the crimes committed against me, would report it to the police. I was 16. They did not report it. They were the adults.
On the 2nd at 1139AM JR opens with an effort to manipulate us into presuming “the truth” in all of this.
Then we are given yet another variant version of his ‘story’, this time claiming that the police were told. But – as we quickly see in JR’s own text here – this telling must have happened some years afterward since the SOL limitations had by that time kicked in (and perhaps this telling took place only decades later, in the run-up to the 2006 LA 500-Plaintiff case).
That leaves us with the rest of the story from the actual era in which the event allegedly took place: JR didn’t want his parents to know, but he told some other student (who then told students who didn’t like JR or whom JR didn’t like or both) and then JR or that other student told some faculty and/or administrator, who took action by assessing his allegation as the result of a vengeful student taking it out on the teacher who was giving him low grades.
We don’t know – and cannot at this point know – what personal assessment or knowledge of JR that administrator or the faculty may have had, that would have made such an assessment probable to them. Was the allegant in this matter considered by adults and teachers who knew him prone to being vengeful and/or prone to blaming his problems on others and/or displaying poor academic performance?
We don’t know. All we have is the material JR has provided to us. And readers may consider it all as they will.
You are such a mess. You whine that our abuses were not reported to the police. When I tell you mine was (as were all the cases against the church in California) reported to the police; You whine that it was reported after the statutes of limitations had run out.
Nothing victims do seems to satisfy you.
Were the cases reported to the police even though you say they weren't? Yes they were. You change your arguments mid stream. Ever feigning the moral high ground.
Yes the crimes were reported to the police. Now shut the F word up!
"may consider it all as they will"? What a pompous thing to say. And yet you repeat the same phrase here, ad nauseum.
If the readership bothers to read what you and I write; that is consideration in and of itself. That's what reading is all about, you numbnut.
You are a pompous turd.
Nothing new from JR (the 4rd, 1145AM) – but let’s go down the review-the-Playbook path.
Let’s get the epithets out of the way all at once at the outset. They’re all there where they were put. And the scatological bits while we’re at it.
JR will have to demonstrate how I “whine” about any of his material; there was a lacuna there and I pointed out factually. How that equates to “whine” in his mind is anybody’s guess.
“Nothing victims do seems to satisfy” me. From what I have seen on this site, that’s true enough indeed. But all that we have seen “victims” do on this site is put up a whole lot of distraction, epithet, Wiggery, empty or unsupported assertions, and dots-that-don’t-connect.
Thus, I would suggest that this bit from JR is a “whine” itself.
Then an empty assertion that “Yes the crimes were reported to the police”. But a) there is absolutely no way JR can know that about all the cases and b) in his own case the key question was when the crimes were reported.
Then I am “pompous” for pointing out that readers can judge matters as they will. What I said is about readers judging material is true and beyond that readers can judge JR’s characterization as to pomposity as they will.
The penultimate paragraph makes no sense that I can see, as written. Unless he presumes that readers will make judgments about proffered material that they read. But if that’s true then that’s all I am doing – and he certainly doesn’t seem to like it. Is it possible – to use a recent trope of his – that he can dish it out but he can’t take it?
And that’s all we’ve got, folks.
All the cases filled against the church in California were reported to the police, period.
Prove they weren't since it's you who claims that not to have happened.
As a matter of fact; prove something, anything, about your slanders against victims.
Your "seeing sense" in anything is useless. Everything you "believe" in is senseless.
In regard to JR’s of the 4th at 949AM:
We’d need to see some sort of proof that “all the cases filed against the church in California were reported to the police” – especially in the timeframe of the alleged offenses actually being committed. As usual ,we get nothing but an assertion from JR here, and one that is rendered even more dubious by his signature insistence that analysis must now cease because of his pronunciamento “period”. As always, that seemingly definitive and conclusive “period” actually indicates that there is indeed much more to be considered and the Abuseniks are trying to squelch any further examination.
What we see here is some sort of a mental checklist: a box is ticked off (“reported to police”) and thus with that box checked off then nothing more need be said. But – as I have been saying – there is rather a great deal more to the matter, and this is where the Abusenik mind starts to steam and squeak and wobble like some old Star Trek alien computer that Spock confounds with a simply logical question.
Then a mere repetition of JR’s trusty toy – that “prove” bit: the game here is to try to put the burden of proof on readers, shifting it away from the Abusenik stories, claims and allegations – the original source of the whole matter here – which were indeed never proved. As always: it is up to the accuser to prove the accusation, not the other way around.
“Slander” requires false-statements to be made and so far we haven’t really established that either any statements are demonstrably false (or, for that matter, that any of the Abusenik proffers are demonstrably true). But let’s go with JR’s bit on this: let him prove that any statements are false or – if he wishes and as I have been seeking all along – let him prove any of the basic Abusenik stories, allegations, assertions and claims are true.
The 4th at 952AM is merely epithet and readers may make what sense of it they can.
The Stampede script structure has several elements: i) Totally innocent and marvelously-futured victim /suddenly and deliberately attacked by evil cleric / (most often) in the distant past; ii) (in order to cover for any current unpleasant and doubt-inducing characteristics of the allegant) that abuse totally and utterly wrecked the life of the ‘victim’ and is the only reason why the allegant now may have such unpleasant characteristics; iii) Victimist ‘science’ backs this up with ‘knowledge’ gained primarily from surveys (that are so variously dubious in their dynamics).
I will give a hypothetical example: Suppose you have already made up your mind that Communism is the best thing since sliced-bread and you want to provide some ‘scientific evidence’ of that, which you can then use for your purposes. How would you go about it using the usual ‘scientific’ methods that have become staples of the contemporary PR scene?
You would a) you select for your survey a group of Party members (whom you don’t identify as such) b) with a survey-instrument that allows only Yes or No answers to the question: have you ever in your life come across any political system that in your opinion does a better job than Communism; then c) thus getting a set of responses that are almost 100 percent No, you then extrapolate that almost 100 percent of ‘people’ affirm your thesis or assertion that Communism is the best thing since sliced-bread.
And that’s how the survey scam works.
I would go further: if you can be reasonably sure that the public had already been soaked with a propaganda blitz (backed up by the threat of social ostracism and worse) by various Communist elements working in synergy with the media, then you might even venture a bit further afield in selecting your survey-candidates to members of the public who are not avowed Party members.
Why use a hypothetical example that involves Communism? For the simple reason that it was with Communist agitprop and propagandizing that these methods were originally developed and honed in practice a century or so ago.
Boo! said the Communist in the lunchroom.
Americans must always be afraid of people deemed, other. So afraid we like to kill them. If we aren't afraid of people; we pretend ourselves their superior by deciding what government they should want and then killing them if they don't like what we've chosen for them.
You haven't the mearest shadow of proof for anything you say . I will repeat that for as many times as is necessary for you to get, until it finally sinks in, that you literally have no proof, for what you claim to be true.
You can label the air Casper; but you still fail to provid a real ghost let alone a "holy" one that backs you up. All you've got is that you believe something is true or exists. That's it; you believe..dream…imagine! Smoke dreams. Mirages for your own personal desert.
Well, from my comment of the 4th at 324PM JR certainly had a number of substantive issues to which he might choose to make substantive comment response. Let’s see what he did with all that.
Before looking at the content of his comment of the 6th at 123AM we note – as so very often – the style of it, which again gives rise to the thought that we are dealing with a ghost-writer here. But so what? We could consider this his first choice. And I’ll use “JR” here to mean ‘either JR or the ghostwriter’.
Thus then to the content.
We get an abstract reference to that very Politically Correct sociological theory of ‘the Other’, deployed here to somehow demonstrate that Communists – apparently – are merely victims of being considered “other” by judgmental and other-excluding “Americans”.
Note that whereas I had mentioned “Communism” (thus the theory and practice of that ideology) JR has personalized it to “Communist” (making it, of course, easier to claim somebody as a candidate for his favorite being-victimized gambit).
But Communism was indeed ‘other’, was it not? The record of its depredations against its own people (and I exclude here the war-caused casualties – civilian and military – inflicted by the Red Army in the Great Patriotic War) is something that no other political system could equal or ever has equaled.
And – through the marvelous workings of projection – JR once again proves that for the Abuseniks their bits are far more revealing in the recoil than in the projectile: in trying to somehow tar “Americans”, he gives a pretty good example of what Communist praxis actually did (Communism did indeed “pretend” itself “superior by deciding what government” its captive peoples “should want and then killing them if they don’t like what” Communists “have chosen for them”). Nice work.
As to whether all those targeted and captive peoples actually did “want” Communism – well, that’s apparently a necessary presumption to make this little bit work here. But it’s a howler.
Then, with that fractured-fairy-tale bit of history out of the way, JR will – waitttt for ittttttttt! – simply revert to repetition of his ‘proof’ gambit, although that does nothing to reach the far more relevant issue of ‘probability’ (which, I would say, becomes more visibly probable with every JR gambit here).
And leaves exposed the core and original problem of the lack of “proof” for Abuseniks stories and claims and assertions and allegations that we’ve had a chance to look-at on this site.
But he will then try to tie-off that huge problem by claiming that he will “repeat” his “proof” bit “for as many times” as he has to. Which will be quite a long time, since it (deliberately?) leaves unresolved that core and original problem.
But he then creates – for the need and convenience of his little construction of play-blocks here – a statement I have never made. I have been working with ‘probabilities’ and since that issue is far too hot for him to handle, he will claim that I have outright ‘claimed’ that the non-veracity of the Stampede is “true”.
But I have been working all along here with probabilities; thus an accurate description of my position would be: from everything we have seen and discussed here, the probability of the Stampede being primarily “true” is very low indeed.
We have – as I have said before – reached the bottom of JR’s little 3×5 box, so repetition is all we’re going to get from now on.
What ‘ghosts’ are we actually dealing with here? I’d say – far far more often than not – we are dealing with those ‘ghosts’ that are the class describable as ‘genuine victims of clerical abuse’.
And then he will try to connect – rhetorically if in no other way – “ghost” and Holy Spirit (or Ghost) for another distracting run on Catholic and Christian belief.
But I think it is becoming ever more clear that the Stampede itself – projections’ marvelously revelatory dynamic again – that is “dream” and a work of ‘imagination’ and “smoke dreams” and “mirages”.
Which last term – rather too impressively for JR’s own demonstrated literary capacities – simply provides the lead-in for the snappy exit-line about “desert”. Neat, in a sort of LDB way.
And the entire final paragraph is itself merely an extended epithet and nothing more.
Rather than waste everybody’s time with nothing but the JR comment, I will note a very recently-decided legal case of relevance to the matters under consideration on this site.
The link to the local Boston article is here: http://www.bostonherald.com/news_opinion/columnists/2014/10/mcgovern_sjc_tosses_doctor_sex_abuse_case_on_technicality This article appeared in the print edition of the Boston Herald newspaper on Thursday, October 2, 2014, on page 7.
This is a case that originated in North Carolina but came before the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, which has published its Decision.
The case is entitled ‘Roe v. Children’s Hospital Medical Center’, and its docket identifier is SJC-11533, published as 469 Mass. 710. Note that this news article doesn’t give the case title or docket number, which one has to find for oneself; we are not supposed to examine the case, we are simply supposed to take the spin that the article chooses to give it. This is – as readers may recognize – a trusty Victimist Playbook gambit.
The case is a civil lawsuit brought in reference to a deceased doctor who at one time practiced at a Massachusetts hospital (he had been a pediatric physician); he worked there from 1966 until he left the hospital in 1985 (the reasons for his departure are not in the record). He committed suicide in February of 2011 when – the article says – he discovered that a malpractice complaint and/or lawsuit had been lodged against him.
How did the case wind up in so high a Massachusetts court?
Because the lawsuit that is the subject of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court’s Decision here – squired by a Boston tortie – is not actually against the deceased doctor (or his Estate) but rather against that Massachusetts hospital , Children’s Hospital Medical Center.
The lawsuit seeks to collect from Children’s Hospital Medical Center in Massachusetts for not warning the North Carolina hospital that this doctor, who left the Massachusetts hospital and took up employment at the North Carolina hospital, had allegation(s) of abuse against him.
Specifically, that the Medical Center failed to train and supervise the doctor properly; that it knew or should have known that this doctor was (allegedly) conducting some form of “inappropriate” activity.
And it claims a conspiracy between the Massachusetts hospital and parties-unknown to conceal and prevent revelation of the abuse.
And it claims – although apparently does not offer supporting evidence – that while there is only one known complaint (in 1967) about the doctor (and a failed lawsuit from the late 1980s), yet the allegants “believe” there may have been others (the fact that there are no other complaints in evidence can – neatly – work as ‘evidence’ that there was indeed a cover-up, doncha see?).
And their case goes with the idea that if there might be more evidence out there (although they bring none here) then that possibility (bolstered, of course, by their “belief” in a conspiracy to cover-up) should allow them to go digging under court-authority to see what else they might turn up (for use in a more substantial subsequent filing).
The allegants do not claim that the Medical Center actually distorted the doctor’s employment history when he applied for the North Carolina position (he had obtained a North Carolina medical license).
They wish to establish the imposition of a duty on all such employers to actively search for and pass on to future employers any allegations because there is – it is claimed – now a general consensus among the public that such employers have a duty-of-care to all future potential patients whom the accused might encounter in any future job anywhere. (But – we note – there are no indications in the record or presented by the allegants of any actually verified instances of abuse.)
Whether any effort was made to first sue the North Carolina hospital for hiring the doctor without due-diligence is not mentioned in the article, nor whether a lawsuit was filed in North Carolina and what the outcome of that lawsuit was if it had been adjudicated. The timeline is hard to follow from this article, but that may not be unfamiliar to readers familiar with the Stampede.
As you can see, there is – rather like old Soviet news ‘reporting’ – so very much left out of ‘reports’.
And it also makes you wonder if the primary ‘source’ for this news article is simply a selectively summarized press release sent along by the Boston tortie. This possibility becomes a probability when one sees that the case was argued before the Court on October 1, 2014 and this news article appeared in the paper’s edition of October 2, 2014.
But the fact that the case wound up before the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court suggests that the case had for whatever reason(s) failed in a succession of lower courts.
The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court found against the lawsuit.
What is interesting for readers of this site starts to become clear as we read some of the quotes ascribed to the allegants or describing (or ‘spinning’) the case.
The Court’s decision “deprived victims of their only shot at justice”. (As I said, to get to this high a court, there had to have been prior ‘shots’.)
Said one allegant: “This guy ruined my life and he ruined a lot of other people’s lives. It’s just ridiculous”. Which gives us a clear (if epithetical) spin that apparently should be our ‘take-away’ from reading this article. (The allegant remains un-named because media do not publish the names of alleged victims of sexual abuse.)
Further: the doctor “destroyed so many lives – it wasn’t just me [i.e. the allegant quoted here]”. We see the familiar life-destroyed trope. And how might this particular allegant know that so many lives were “destroyed” (which term itself is clearly hyperbole since the individual is clearly alive and participating in the lawsuit).
Further: “I just don’t understand why the system would throw it out like this.” Perhaps one reason might be the weakness of the evidence in the case. Or in the construction of the case as it was theorized and structured and brought to the courts. Such possibilities should surely have been explained to this speaker by his attorney, but you get the impression from this quote in the article that the speaker is positioning himself as an utter innocent who is simply befuddled by the fact that a court would say No – regardless of the reason(s).
The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court says that the “breadth of the duty the plaintiffs seek to impose reaches too far” and “could leave employers open to far-flung litigation” … which should certainly ring some bells with readers familiar with Stampede cases.
Without actually mentioning the fact that the accused is deceased the Court says that such “employers” would face such “far flung litigation” “long after the employer had an ability to supervise, monitor or discipline the former employee’s conduct”.
So there are many bits here in this case that will be familiar to readers who follow the Stampede.
It bolsters my thought that the Anderson Strategies and the Stampede synergize with wider forces and dynamics in litigation theory. We see the reason for the Church to be cast as an ‘employer’, and a world-wide corporate ‘employer’: it would open up huge new vistas for lawsuits (and potential pots of gold in the form of Insurer funds and/or tangible Church assets).
And we see the selectivity of media reporting.
And we see the rather probable indications (seen definitively in D’Antonio’s recounting of developments in his book, discussed a while ago on this site) that the torties operate in close synergy with friendly media. And that they do so to present only their own ‘spin’.
And that allegants are rather adept (or adeptly ‘presented’) as being mere innocents who simply cawn’t think why they are being told No; they’re just ‘victims’ because they say so and that should be enough.
Probabilities on your part, a non victim's pov = Conjecture. What do you know about anyof this but what you see in the media?
There is more "probability", given the gauntlet of the testing of the accuracy of our claims; that we are what we claim to be; than that the "probability" your conjectures/imaginings are true.
It's only me writing what I write. but since you believe nothing true but what you believe to be true. Convincing you of that is a complete waste of my time. (Snark replies, I expect from you. You never let me down when it comes to snark)
Why is it victims must resort to the court system to get any decent compensation out of your greedy gut church? I thought you guys were supposed to be morality's leaders? That's according to your own PR. Fraudsters and montebanks: that's all you really are.
On the 7th at 1207PM JR – as if de novo – asks what we “know about any of this except what you see in the media?”. He asks this after having gotten rid of (to his own mental satisfaction – such as it may be – anyway) the fundamental Probability issue.
We have examined the Stampede using logic and rationality, historical and factually verified information, ditto from current events, court documents, assessments of the internal logic and coherence and factuality of assorted news articles, books by persons who have studied the matters, and considerable quantities of material proffered by Abuseniks (also examined for factuality, rationality, coherence, and essential credibility) as well as what can be gleaned from the assorted (and sometimes vivid) performances here by the Abuseniks themselves.
Against that, we are expected to place JR’s material and – given his penchant for self-revelation – JR himself along with all the other Abuseniks so very similar in performance.
His second paragraph – its texture so contrary to his usual performance – makes a stab at Zen koan (however ungrammatically structured).
But – we are to believe – it’s “only [JR] writing”. Readers may make of that what they will.
He has never taken the trouble to marshal sustained rational and coherent responses by which he might “convince” anybody. The Playbook and the cafeteria mentality (and character) have given us nothing but obscenity, epithets of all sorts, distractions of all sorts, and lumpish repetition of what few 3×5 talking points and stories he brought to the table to begin with.
Then the illogical stab at epithet: “since [I] believe anything to be true” … but that’s the nub of the Abusenik’s whining, isn’t it? They indeed had expected and been prepped for a ‘public’ that would believe just about anything, so long as a (self-declared and presumed-genuine) ‘victim’ was saying it. But that free pass doesn’t work here and they are much un-amused.
Thus to the 7th at 1217PM.
“Why is it must victims resort to the court system?” he whines? Because their stories, claims, allegations and claims were of such very dubious veracity that they couldn’t be credited without further examination / which the Abuseniks were not at all prepared to tolerate or withstand / and thus no cash could be forthcoming / so they went to torties to get the cash that way / and with Anderson’s Strategies it worked / … for a while.
Thus JR”s (or whoever’s) sly grab for the moral high-ground with the ‘morality card’ fails here: it wasn’t about ‘morality’ – it was about the gross lack of probability or veracity … and it still is.
He concludes with an epithet. And through the workings of projection’s marvelous dynamics, pretty much paints a picture of the Abuseniks.
It is strange the so called victim is always looked with compassion.Why the victim suffered a second time,why he or she did not inform parents,why he or she did not know sinfulness have to be looked into. Of course this will never absolve the perpetrator of the crime. It is impossible to think that a boy or girl of America or Europe does not know the implications. So I believe that there has been fake complaints for getting some free money . No real believer Catholic family will go for this fraud. Why compaints belonging to 60s,70s etc now..specially when the accused are no more.?