I meant to include this clip with the previous post, but forgot.
So enjoy.
Lindsey Graham would not do well in the Oceania of Orwell’s 1984. If he tried to mouth the latest absurdity — say, “We have always been at war with Eastasia; we have always been allies with Eurasia,” he’d crack up. He’d laugh right in Big Brother’s face. Then it would be off to Room 101 with him.
Basically, he’s too honest to pull of the “I back Cruz” thing. He just can’t pull it off.
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Didn’t watch it, but Graham loves to be interviewed. Probably more than Donald Trump. I don’t see popularity for Graham by the media, he thinks he’s a party leader but he’s far from that. He’s more like the Senate’s Press Secretary.
Just got finished watching Spotlight. It should be clear to anyone paying attention that the Catholic Church has caused many times the destruction to people’s lives than ISIS.
While the plot of “Spotlight” involves uncovering pedophilia among the Roman clergy, the major theme is that all large institutions need outside oversight. The problem there was that the reporters and the social milieu in Boston were so overwhelmingly RC that they could not see what was in front of their faces. It took an outsider to start to investigate it. Pedophilia is no more prevalent in the Roman church than it is anywhere else; it was just efficiently covered up by an institution unquestioningly trusted by others. Any large institution, be it church, government, or large social group needs outside oversight or it becomes secretive and abusive. For example, see how hard our own representatives are fighting to keep from being investigated by anyone outside themselves?
“Pedophilia is no more prevalent in the Roman church than it is anywhere else; ”
I’d like to see some research on that claim. Does that include school systems? hospitals? police forces? I’m not saying they don’t have pedophiles in their midst, but part of the problem with the Catholic Church is that they DID cover up the problem — which means it creates an environment that tacitly allowed it to happen more than it would have “anywhere else”. I’d compare it to what went on at Enron – systemic bad behavior that is not representative of all similar organizations.
There was a particular study out there that I’ve found in the past. It may be this.
But the data constitute a two-edged sword. The finding is that pedophilia occurs among Catholic priests no more often than among men in general.
On the one hand, that buries the notion that there’s something especially twisted about Catholic clergy.
On the other hand, for such a horrific perversion to occur among priests at anything approaching the overall-population figure is itself a major scandal. They’re priests; the incidence should be far lower…
The study found that about 4 percent of priests “had been accused of sexual misconduct involving children.”
The estimate among the overall population ranges from 10 to 20 percent — which seems high to me, but those are the numbers I keep seeing.
So that’s good, right? Not really. Not when you think of this as an often-unreported crime. But even if 4 percent is the ceiling, and even if that’s less prevalent than among the general population (which seems to be the case), that’s a horrific scandal for the Church, and many thousands of individual tragedies…
It’s not the crime, it’s the coverup.
Brad, the fact that the study you cite has a range of 10-20 percent pretty much discredits the whole thing. No one believes that 20% of men in the general population are pedophiles. We really have a catastrophic problem in this country if that’s the case. Also, the 4% figure for the priests is clearly too low. The figure the Boston Globe is 6% confirmed priests. Probably many others. Probably many others not uncovered. As a Doug says the coverup was the very worst part of this atrocity. Big government, big business and big church are all bad actors in many ways. But what is the answer?
Actually, Bud, I think — and I’d have to go back and watch the movie again to be sure — that the 6 percent figure is the incidence in the overall population, according to an expert that the Spotlight team interviewed.
Based on that, they operated on the assumption that close to 6 percent of priests would be pedophiles, just like in the overall population.
I share your skepticism about the 10 to 20 percent. No WAY that many men are that messed up. Personally, I think 6 percent is way too high.
But if you Google it, those are the numbers that keep coming up. At least, it did when I was searching on how the incidence among priests compared to the larger society…
Not every large institution has a habit of doing misdeeds and covering it up, but every large institution is at risk for it. Independent oversight is the only effective answer that I can think of.
Sexual predators are found where there is opportunity, especially families. Most children are sexually abused by someone they know. Most sex abusers are male. Outside the family, “perps” are usually people who have some position of power over the child.
bud just wanted to make Brad spit out his coffee this morning…
It would be hard for Bud to accomplish that. I’m used to his hyperbole. He has an interesting sense of proportion…
“It should be clear to anyone paying attention that the Catholic Church has caused many times the destruction to people’s lives than ISIS.”
Are you including stuff like the Spanish Inquisition and all the torture the Catholic Church did in the middle ages? Or are you just talking about the recent child molestation stuff?
I think he’s including the Crusades…
The Republican party has cozied up to racists (code words only please; we must be able to deny it at any time, anarchists (once we get government small enough to drown it in a bathtub we will). They have decided that the “enemy of my enemy is my friend,” even when those “friends” are much worse than your original enemy. Basically, they’ve made their collective bed and are now lying it. And all of those pests are there to haunt them.
When I read that comment, the first thing I think of is the line from Forrest Gump, where he says, “Sorry I had a fight in the middle of your Black Panther Party.”
🙂
Brad Spotlight reflects well on the journalism profession. You can take some pride in that.
Hey, I’m not only proud of the job they did back then, I’m prouder of The Globe because despite the dire state of newspapers, they’ve actually added resources to Spotlight…