Posted on 11/15/2011 6:24:53 AM PST by Kaslin
"Success with Honor" is the motto of Penn State's athletic program. They got it half right.
The alleged sexual abuse of young boys by former defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky is disgusting, outrageous, and immoral. That so many at the school's highest level allegedly engaged either in covering up serial abuses, or turned a blind eye to them in order to maintain the "integrity" of the football program and its legendary coach, Joe Paterno, adds insult to unfathomable injury.
Baseball may still be called the national pastime, but football has become the national religion. College football is played on Saturday, the Jewish Sabbath, while professional football is mostly played on Sunday, the Christian Sabbath. Fans of both often express themselves in ways that are more vocal than the wildest Pentecostal preacher.
While denouncing what is alleged to have happened at Penn State as repugnant, we would do well to examine the reasons behind such things. Yes, it begins with human nature, but society -- buttressed by religion -- once did a better job of keeping human nature in check.
Since the free-loving '60s, we seem to have taken a wrecking ball to social mores. Today, anyone appealing to such a standard is denounced and stamped with the label of the day, usually ending in the suffix, "-phobe."
The medical and psychological professions have aided and abetted the cultural rot. Doctors once took an oath to "never do harm," accompanied by a pledge never to assist in an abortion. Now the official position of the American Medical association's "code of ethics" is this: "The principles of medical ethics of the AMA do not prohibit a physician from performing an abortion in accordance with good medical practice and under circumstances that do not violate law."
Doctors once led, now they follow cultural trends.
On its website, the American Psychological Association brags, "Since 1975, the American Psychological Association has called on psychologists to take the lead in removing the stigma of mental illness that has long been associated with lesbian, gay, and bisexual orientations." It once considered such behavior otherwise and while even most conservatives no longer regard homosexuality as a mental illness, many still regard it as sinful. That theological diagnosis, too, has been discarded in our increasingly secular and anomalous society where everything is to be tolerated except those people who assert that, according to a standard higher than opinion polls, some things remain intolerable.
What changed? Pressure groups aided by secular education and the entertainment industry.
Last week, an episode of "Glee" featured two couples -- one straight, one gay -- "losing their virginity." The show's co-creator, Ryan Murphy, told Bravo's "Sex in the Box": "Hopefully I have made it possible for somebody on broadcast television to do a rear-entry scene in three years. Maybe that will be my legacy." Some legacy.
What we tolerate and promote we get more of and what we discourage and reject we get less of. C.S. Lewis said it best in "The Abolition of Man": "In a sort of ghastly simplicity we remove the organ and demand the function. We make men without chests and expect of them virtue and enterprise. We laugh at honor and are shocked to find traitors in our midst. We castrate and bid the geldings be fruitful."
The message at Penn State was that we live in a culture that forbids almost nothing. Jerry Sandusky apparently believed that and crossed one of the few remaining lines of morality left in our culture. But even that line might soon be erased if the pressure groups and their campaign contributions grow large enough.
In the last verse of the Old Testament's book of Judges, there is this: "In those days Israel had no king; everyone did what was right in his own eyes."
That could have been the motto at Penn State. Increasingly, it appears to describe contemporary America as well.
Mr Murphy aims high doesn't he? If that's what he wants for his legacy......
Ol' C.S. was way ahead of his time. I need to do some reading.
Pedophiles want the APA to change how it classifies them. They want their behavior normalized now, too.
Evil is EVIL, not a mental illness.
Well, not exactly. Surely Sandusky, McQueary (unfortunately named) and Paterno knew what they were doing was wrong in their own as well as anyone else’s eyes. The problem is this: When they see everyone else idolizing sex, graft, thievery, lying and Denmark is rotten from the top of its administration on down, they get trapped in Satan’s snare real easily.
Yes, people with morals are laughed at, but time will show that those without morals will become as nothing. You will look for the evil ones and they will be gone.
I am another.
Ofcourse, it is a moral issue, which leads to mental degeneration.
Yet few seem to recognize that it's both our human heart and our corporate human culture -- fueled by the forces of darkness -- which is in dire need of repentance, reformation, restoration and revival.
Notice even the distancing: "It wasn't me that did this" vs. the repulsive shame.
The headline is perfect -- Penn State's shame is ours. In a concentric circle way.
The Penn State football players and coaches are to be ashamed...
...as we should expect of its student body and faculty
...and alumni and State College residents
...and Pennsylvanians and Penn State fans
...and college football fans who as Thomas says, treat football as "our national religion"
...and us as U.S. Citizens.
We have apparently communicated to the pervs and perps that we won't hold them accountable, which just emboldens them even more...even to use public showers -- without consequences for their actions.
And even when the lax are reigned in by firings, what happens? The indifferent culture of Penn State erupts -- more provoked over the firing(s) than the initial actions and inaction which prompted it.
It’s a real shame that when those kids needed one to intervene, there wasn’t a man among them at Penn State.
You said it better than I.
bump
“Penn State’s Shame - and Ours”
It sure as heck doesn’t make me ashamed. I have nothing to do with Penn. State, and it’s not my fault that at any given time there are some perverts among us.
The ones that should be ashamed of themselves are those who waste hours of their time following this story in the news.
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