Can someone please tell me why Megan McArdle has a job?
I know, it’s a question we on the left perpetually ask. But here she puts the “ass” in morass while wading into the Jerry Sandusky swamp:
McQueary grew up in State College; his family was friends with Sandusky, and of course, Sandusky had coached him. Paterno had worked with Sandusky closely for years. And if you think about what you would have done in a situation where you caught someone you love and respect in that position, is it really so obvious, as the chest thumping punditariat proclaims, that you would have leaped into the shower, beaten the snot out of him, and frog marched him to the police station after you rescued the kid? Really? You’d have done that to your father, your favorite uncle, your best friend, a beloved mentor?
Yes. Hell yes. Raping a 10-year-old boy in a shower? Oh my GOD, yes. This isn’t a moral gray area. This is assault on a child.
She goes on:
Think about what that really entails: overcoming all the shock and horror, the defensive mechanisms that make you question what you’re really seeing. The total destruction of a long relationship as soon as you name it out loud and accuse him to his face. The actual physical logistics of grabbing a naked sixty year old man, detaching him from that child, and then pounding on him for a while as a ten year old you don’t know watches. The fact that the minute you go to the police, you will have utterly ruined this man’s life: he will be jobless, friendless, and branded as the worst sort of pervert by everyone in the country–oh, and also, in protective custody so that the other inmates in jail don’t, like, kill him.
That’s a pretty huge emotional hurdle to leap in the ten seconds or so that McQueary had to do the right thing. Isn’t it quite understandable that your instinct might be to get away? To look for some way that didn’t have to involve jail? Wouldn’t it be a huge relief to tell your superiors and let someone else take care of it?
What fucking world do you live in, lady? This just explains so much about McArgleBargle. That something as clear-cut and flat-out-wrong as anally raping a child should somehow become morally ambiguous as she tries to place herself in Mike McQueary’s shoes… I’m just dumbfounded that she’d even go there.
I guess we should give McMegan some props for at least giving empathy a shot, I’m just shocked that it’s for Mike McQueary. It’s not like we’ve seen her walk a mile in the shoes of someone who’s been unemployed for months, or was sold a crap mortgage by CountryWide, or has gone 10 rounds with their insurance company and still denied benefits, or any of the other people I personally hold empathy for. Weren’t we just reading that conservatives are sociopaths? I’m starting to think it’s true.
Look, maybe it’s how I was raised, but when I see a crime in progress, I’m going to try to stop it. And if I catch my coworker in the act of something like raping a kid, I’m not going back out of the room, tell a superior, and then be all like “bygones!” when I still see the guy around the office. I’m going to stop the act and then I’m blowing the whistle.
Maybe it’s just me.
And then McMegan plays the “Nazi Jews in Germany” card. Only 1% of Germans sheltered Jews in danger, she says, which just proves that everyone claiming they’d stop Jerry Sandusky in the act is lying. She goes on:
Oh, well, that’s an extreme example, you may say; McQueary was at no risk of life and limb. Fair enough, but one can name dozens of less dangerous situations where only a small minority actually does the right thing, but everyone believes that they woulda.
[…]
When you find out that someone you know is a pedophile, that doesn’t erase your knowledge that they’re also a human being. It does in the public mind, of course, but it’s very different when you know them.
Oh, wow.
As Edmund Burke famously said, “All it takes for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.” And for columnists like Megan McArdle to sympathize with those who stood by with their hands over their ears and eyes.
Here’s a deep thought: despite all of our flaws, human society is actually getting better. Take the long view — long in human terms, at least — and you will see that for the most part, we’ve been on a long march from brutality towards enlightenment. Less than 150 years ago, fellow human beings were held as property in this country. Just a few hundred years ago, watching two men beat each other to the death was considered entertainment — the equivalent of going to the multiplex or catching a football game. When I get depressed about the human condition I remind myself that if you take the long view, things are actually getting better. We still have a long way to go, but we have come a long way. The arc of history is long, but it tilts toward justice.
And I guess this is the difference between someone like Megan McArdle and me. By justifying the inaction of those people who let evil triumph, she stands on the wrong side of human evolution, the wrong side of humanity, and the wrong side of morality.
Southern Beale 
Southern Beale:
Woman who sympathizes with rich people over people in need, also sympathizes with witness who didn’t do anything to stop child rape or report it to police over the victim. From Megan McArdle, is this really shocking? Or is it typical?
.
It’s typical.
SB, the arc is long but it bends toward our side. Chin up!
I’m sure that Megmisanthrope would feel ‘zackly the same way if it was, say, Barney Frank or Gerry Studds in Sandusky’s, ahem, “position”.
She “gave empathy a shot”
Would that it had been McMegan’s ten year old child.
And now we know who among us will say nothing as children are raped and people are tortured.
Would all other courageous conservatives please step forward.
Thanks to (Didn’t That Use To Be) The Atlantic for answering the question, “How wrong can McArglebargle be on a subject not requiring her deficient math skills?”
Why does this person have a job? Oh wait…you already asked. Sorry.
This is the best I can come up with- “ARGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.”
Look, imagine that if instead of a young child being raped it was instead a postal worker being laid off due to budget cuts, and that the elderly gentleman Sandusky doing the violent raping was instead a kindly and grandfatherly figure patiently explaining that it was necessary for him to give that employee her notice of termination, and the 28 year old football playing, quarterback-substituting McQueary was actually a small business owner arriving at the post office to ship a package that he can no longer afford to do so with a private company like FedEx because of all the federal spending the Democrats ruined the economy with, and you could see why that small business owner could identify with that pitiable, kindly gentleman sharing one last tender moment with his former employee, watching her now embark upon that terrible beautiful journey from taxpayer-suckling parasite to freedom-loving private employee.
El Cid:
McAnusgirl is not doin’ that one, that’s Romney’s schtick.
This:
“Wearing his best plaid work shirt and Tommy Bahama blue jeans, the candidate explained to workers at Giese Manufacturing that he would slash the number of federal employees if elected.
“We have to cut back on the scale of the federal government,” Romney declared. “And for me that will start by reducing federal employees by 10 percent. You do that through attrition.”
“And then something else that is just as important, and that’s to make sure the people who work for government don’t get better pay and better benefits than people that work in the private sector.”
is from here (http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/david/romney-complains-federal-employees-make-more).
“Raping a 10-year-old boy in a shower? Oh my GOD, yes. This isn’t a moral gray area. This is assault on a child.”
This has been the part of this story that has shocked me the most, that he walked in on a child being raped and did _nothing_.
I’m double dipping but I can’t help myself being a liberal and all. But In re: Divers and Sundry and others. I think we’re on the same page here. It’s not like walking in on on the ass rape of a 10 year old child represents some sort of ethical dilemma that requires thoughtful consideration. The age of the perpetrator is irrelevant. Grab the mofo by the throat, tell the kid to run and call the frking police. Jeez!
Honestly, I’m a 70-year-old women not-all-that-steady-on-my-pins and I know I wouldn’t have run away like McQueary. I’m not 6’4″ and 28-years-old but I could scream, throw stuff, make an ungodly racket, call the cops.
People who say they would have intervened are mocked and called “internet tough guys.”
As you say, this is not an ethical dilemma. There’s only one right answer. The discussion on McArdle’s piece is mostly disgusting. Like her.
That’s what has shocked me most, too. That he did nothing to help that child…not intervene, not go for help, not even call the cops. It’s inexcusable, and I can’t understand why anyone would bend over backwords trying to excuse it. Sometimes, people are just appalling cowards who refuse to do what is right, and they should be so identified.
No, Mrs. Beale, it’s not “how” you were raised, but “that” you were raised.
A subtle distinction, but one, as we are just learning, fraught with consequences.