Opinion: Congrats to the Trib on their Pulitzer Prize

[Guest]

On 4/15/2017 at 11:37 PM, Maureen said:

Your first comment said nothing about "his being a former Mormon bishop" mentioned in the headline. If that makes a difference to you, you should have made that clear. But the fact of him being a former bishop is mentioned in both articles.

So, instead of recognizing your unwillingness to seek understanding, you find fault in my communication skills.  That's very interesting.  I wonder why no one else failed to understand my meaning.  Just you.  That's very interesting.

Edited April 17, 2017 by Guest

[Maureen]

1 hour ago, Carborendum said:

So, instead of recognizing your unwillingness to seek understanding, you find fault in my communication skills.  That's very interesting.  I wonder why no one else failed to understand my meaning.  Just you.  That's very interesting.

If you're trying to be specific about something, then make that clear. That's what communicating is all about - especially on a forum.

You're assuming that other posters understood your meaning; maybe in reality they just didn't care.

M.

[Guest LiterateParakeet]

On 4/15/2017 at 6:41 PM, Carborendum said:

I have to wonder what his being a former Mormon bishop has to do with the trial.  But I guess that's just the Tribune at work.

If he was a Bishop when the assaults occurred that has a lot to do with it. Otherwise, it's the kind of thing that amy paper will mention because it appeals to the natural man, like gossip. You know? 

[Guest MormonGator]

2 minutes ago, LiterateParakeet said:

If he was a Bishop when the assaults occurred that has a lot to do with it. 

Exactly. It's not a giant conspiracy, it's a statement of fact. If he was an agnostic garbage truck driver (no offense at all to garbage truck drivers!) they'd mention that too.   

[Guest MormonGator]

That said, I do think hardcore agnostics/secularists take more glee in the downfall of a religious person than they should. Now, that doesn't mean we should absolve the religious guy who gets in trouble (again, I don't see it happening here!), but we should be honest about what we see. 

[zil]

4 minutes ago, MormonGator said:

giant conspiracy

There you go again!  Taunting me with the faux giant conspiracy!  I feel bad enough already!  Let it be, will you!?

[Guest MormonGator]

2 minutes ago, zil said:

There you go again!  Taunting me with the faux giant conspiracy!  I feel bad enough already!  Let it be, will you!?

I'm going though a Don Quixote phase. I think I'll start building some wind mills at the compound. 

[zil]

10 minutes ago, MormonGator said:

I'm going though a Don Quixote phase. I think I'll start building some wind mills at the compound. 

Great, once again, I'll have to keep an eye on all those young men working for the contractor, make sure they don't wander off unattended...  I'll clear my calendar...

[Guest MormonGator]

6 minutes ago, zil said:

Great, once again, I'll have to keep an eye on all those young men working for the contractor, make sure they don't wander off unattended...  I'll clear my calendar...

:: ahem :: 
And I'll make sure we keep an eye on YOU keeping an eye on those young contractors. 

[zil]

Just now, MormonGator said:

:: ahem :: 
And I'll make sure we keep an eye on YOU keeping an eye on those young contractors. 

[NeuroTypical]

Well, Maureen, if it helps, I attended the parole hearing of a guy 2 years into his 5-life sentence for sexual abuse of a minor.  The guy running the hearing (I forget if he was just an officer or judge or what), was LDS and had also been a bishop.  He read through the court transcript, using those horribly descriptive words and phrases that just hurt our souls to hear.  Point by point, line by line, he asked the prisoner to confirm that yes, he had done those things to that girl.  Everyone in that parole hearing got to re-live every single gory detail, and hear the prisoner clearly and unambiguously reaffirm his guilt, reconfess to being a pedophile, and reaffirm that prison was the best place for pedophiles.

Dood didn't get any years shaved off his sentence in that hearing.  Dood didn't get told he was a good man.  Dood was reamed up and down for delaying his mandatory counseling.  Dood was asked to opine, if he were let go early, about the feelings of his victim realizing he didn't even serve his full sentence.  

Gunnison prison in Gunnison, UT.  I think a lot of the people who work there are LDS.  

[Vort]

42 minutes ago, MormonGator said:

If he was an agnostic garbage truck driver (no offense at all to garbage truck drivers!) they'd mention that too.   

Highly unlikely. That he was a garbage truck driver might make it into the article. Once. That he was agnostic or atheist would never make the story, and if it did, the editor would cut it out as irrelevant.

The SL Tribune sucks. Period. What an awful publication, an embarrassment to all those who work for it and who read it. But in this particular case, the fact that the guy was an LDS bishop is highly relevant. I don't know that it merits the hundred and fourteen times it was mentioned in the write-up. but yes, it's central to what happened. A man in a position of great religious authority horribly abused that authority. Relevant.

As for the judge saying the abuser was a "great man" or whatever compliment he offered -- so what? Of all the stupid things to get upset over... Who cares what the judge thought, or even said, about the guy? If the perpetrator's sentence is reduced because the judge thinks he's such an upstanding dude, then yes, that should be hollered about. But the judge says, "You're a great guy, I admire you, but you abused a girl, so you go to jail for forty years" -- what's to object to?

[Maureen]

54 minutes ago, NeuroTypical said:

Well, Maureen, if it helps, I attended the parole hearing of a guy 2 years into his 5-life sentence for sexual abuse of a minor.  The guy running the hearing (I forget if he was just an officer or judge or what), was LDS and had also been a bishop...  

...Gunnison prison in Gunnison, UT.  I think a lot of the people who work there are LDS.  

I'm not sure how "the guy running the hearing" or the "people who work" at a prison being LDS relates to this former bishop (who was a bishop while sexually assaulting young girls) being convicted of this serious crime.

M.

Edited April 17, 2017 by Maureen

[Guest LiterateParakeet]

4 minutes ago, Maureen said:

I'm not sure how "the guy running the hearing" or the "people who work" at a prison being LDS relates to this former bishop (who was a bishop while sexually assaulting young girls) being convicted of this serious crime.

M.

I liked NeuroTypical's comment because I felt he was saying that some might wonder if the judge called the Bishop a great man because perhaps the judge is alao LDS. So the prison story was (I thought) to show that in that story they didn't go easy on the sex offender simply because of shared religion. 

[Maureen]

51 minutes ago, Vort said:

...Who cares what the judge thought, or even said, about the guy? If the perpetrator's sentence is reduced because the judge thinks he's such an upstanding dude, then yes, that should be hollered about. But the judge says, "You're a great guy, I admire you, but you abused a girl, so you go to jail for forty years" -- what's to object to?

A person cannot be a sexual predator and a great man. He may have once been a great man but once he molested he negated any greatness that he ever had.

M.

[Vort]

2 minutes ago, Maureen said:

A person cannot be a sexual predator and a great man. He may have once been a great man but once he molested he negated any greatness that he ever had.

Martin Luther King, Jr., is known to have cheated on his wife. Does that therefore negate any "greatness" he may have showed? More to the point, does it mean that we should take umbrage at someone who calls MLK "a great man"?

And please don't say that the molestor was no MLK. First of all, that's irrelevant; second, you have no idea what good the molester might have accomplished outside his molestations; and third, you are in no position to say whether his molesting a little girl has negated the other good he may have accomplished in his life.

[Guest MormonGator]

1 hour ago, Vort said:

 

As for the judge saying the abuser was a "great man" or whatever compliment he offered -- so what? Of all the stupid things to get upset over... Who cares what the judge thought, or even said, about the guy? If the perpetrator's sentence is reduced because the judge thinks he's such an upstanding dude, then yes, that should be hollered about. But the judge says, "You're a great guy, I admire you, but you abused a girl, so you go to jail for forty years" -- what's to object to?

I agree with your last paragraph but remember something-"great men" don't assault children. So people got upset with that judge over that. 

[Vort]

Just now, MormonGator said:

I agree with your last paragraph but remember something-"great men" don't assault children. So people got upset with that judge over that. 

Joe Blow singlehandedly mitigates nuclear disaster. At huge personal risk, he thwarts an effort to cause a thermonuclear exchange by exposing the liars involved. He has saved hundreds of millions of lives and averted World War III, purely through his own blood, sweat, and tears, and through great personal deprivation and sacrifice.

Joe Blow, who (by the way) has profound sexual issues stemming from a nightmarish childhood, also molests a little girl.

Do you really believe that Joe Blow cannot lay claim to being "a great man"? I'm not talking about judging his soul and assigning him his eternal reward or punishment -- a thing we absolutely cannot do and are explicitly commanded to avoid suggesting. Rather, in the normal, worldly way we define greatness, do you really believe that such a man cannot be considered "great"?

[Guest MormonGator]

9 minutes ago, Vort said:

Joe Blow singlehandedly mitigates nuclear disaster. At huge personal risk, he thwarts an effort to cause a thermonuclear exchange by exposing the liars involved. He has saved hundreds of millions of lives and averted World War III, purely through his own blood, sweat, and tears, and through great personal deprivation and sacrifice.

Joe Blow, who (by the way) has profound sexual issues stemming from a nightmarish childhood, also molests a little girl.

Do you really believe that Joe Blow cannot lay claim to being "a great man"? I'm not talking about judging his soul and assigning him his eternal reward or punishment -- a thing we absolutely cannot do and are explicitly commanded to avoid suggesting. Rather, in the normal, worldly way we define greatness, do you really believe that such a man cannot be considered "great"?

Joe Blow molests my own daughter.  The judge says he's a fine fellow. I have a right to be angry at the judge. 

I get it Vort, this guy is a bishop. We want to circle the wagons. We take it as a personal attack against our faith. I get it. But would you be" defending" the guy if he was a Catholic priest, Jewish rabbi, or agnostic garbage man?

You are what you do. Robert Hannsen (the soviet spy) apparently went to church weekly, paid his taxes and loved his family. But his actions put the country at risk and caused good men to be killed. Therefore, he is a bad man.  Timothy Mcveigh served our country and maybe even was a cub scout who helped little old ladies across the street. But he killed 100+ people. Therefore, he is a bad man. Joe Blow was an LDS bishop who molested a girl. Therefore, he is a bad man. His molestation of an innocent child is not justified by how nice he is to others. 

Sorry Vort, we won't agree on this. 

Edited April 17, 2017 by MormonGator

[Guest LiterateParakeet]

40 minutes ago, Maureen said:

A person cannot be a sexual predator and a great man. He may have once been a great man but once he molested he negated any greatness that he ever had.

M.

I agree. Our character is manifested through our actions.  . .

[Vort]

9 minutes ago, MormonGator said:

I get it Vort, this guy is a bishop. We want to circle the wagons.

You don't get it at all, MG. This has nothing to do with circling any wagons, nor with the guy being an ex-LDS bishop. It has to do with a logical consideration of your statement that a man who molests a child cannot be considered "a great man".

[Guest MormonGator]

5 minutes ago, Vort said:

You don't get it at all, MG. This has nothing to do with circling any wagons, nor with the guy being an ex-LDS bishop. It has to do with a logical consideration of your statement that a man who molests a child cannot be considered "a great man".

That's where we disagree, and that's where I'll stop. I DO think it has to do with circling wagons, the guy being an ex-bishop, etc. I saw with the Catholic priest scandal in New England, and I'm seeing it now.  

And you are correct on one thing-I do not think that a person who molests a chid can be considered a "great man". Exactly right. 100%. True dat. Yup yup. 

Edited April 17, 2017 by MormonGator

[Just_A_Guy]

45 minutes ago, Vort said:

Martin Luther King, Jr., is known to have cheated on his wife. Does that therefore negate any "greatness" he may have showed? More to the point, does it mean that we should take umbrage at someone who calls MLK "a great man"?

And please don't say that the molestor was no MLK. First of all, that's irrelevant; second, you have no idea what good the molester might have accomplished outside his molestations; and third, you are in no position to say whether his molesting a little girl has negated the other good he may have accomplished in his life.

Sally Heming was fifteen when her relationship with Thomas Jefferson began. That's two years younger than the youngest victim in this case.  Is anyone prepared to seriously go on the record and suggest that there was nothing great about Jefferson?

And frankly, my perception is that the question of whether a pedophile *is* "great", versus merely *was* "great", is an arcane theoretical tempest-in-a-teapot not nearly worth the amount of digital ink that is being spilled here.   Judge Low's sin isn't that he came out on the wrong side of this debate.  It's that he acknowledged the humanity of a convict at sentencing; and the Tribune smelled blood in the water because--Mormon.

Edited April 17, 2017 by Just_A_Guy

[Vort]

5 minutes ago, MormonGator said:

That's where we disagree, and that's where I'll stop. I DO think it has to do with circling wagons, the guy being an ex-bishop, etc.

But I'm the one making the statement, and I am telling you that you are mistaken. My statement has nothing at all to do with wagon-circling or with the molester's previous state as a Latter-day Saint bishop. Do you really believe you know my intended meaning better than I know it myself? I mean, I suppose it's possible, but I would be surprised if you actually believed you know me better than I know myself.

6 minutes ago, MormonGator said:

And you are correct on one thing-I do not think that a person who molests a chid can be considered a "great man". Exactly right. 100%. True dat. Yup yup.

That's fine; whatever. A fairly light logical extension of your reasoning insists that no man or woman other than Jesus Christ himself can be considered a "great man (or woman)". Which is fine if that's how you want to define your personal vocabulary, but then it means that there are whole areas you simply cannot talk about, because you have restricted your usable vocabulary, thus handicapping your own ability to consider ideas and express yourself. Or, more likely, it means that you come up with other words that mean "great man (or woman)" without actually saying the words "great man (or woman)", effectively neutralizing what you're trying to accomplish.

[Guest MormonGator]

3 minutes ago, Vort said:

I mean, I suppose it's possible, but I would be surprised if you actually believed you know me better than I know myself.

That dude out in the bushes with the binoculars? That's me pal. I know all about you.