Chapter 11 announced

[ParkMan]

19 hours ago, elitts said:

 I think the issue of "this could be libel" is much more of an explanation that supporters have tossed out there after the fact.  The one recurring explanation I've seen from people involved all those years ago, and the one I find somewhat compelling is: "Who are we to instigate a police investigation into something when the victim (or their family) don't want the police involved?"

Now, the view of this issue has changed over time with there being a view today that the victims right to anonymity is outweighed by the importance of getting a predator off the streets, but I still don't think you can hold the idea of respecting the victims wishes to be entirely wrong.  Particularly not when evaluating the appropriateness of actions taken before the beliefs changed.

This is why it's important for supporters of the BSA to never try to defend the actions or inactions of the BSA back then.  What was wrong was wrong.

But it is fair to argue over the appropriate punishment.  This is why SOL make sense.

[David CO]

5 hours ago, ThenNow said:

Exactly what can’t you understand? Do you mean literally or the complex psychological conundrum inherent in making dark disclosures related to the child/adult and powerless/powerful dynamic? 

Yep.  That's it.  I don't speak psycho-babble.

[SSScout]

On 2/24/2021 at 4:03 PM, CynicalScouter said:

I believe the concern is that it creates an automatic payment system. Based on many interactions with people here and elsewhere, there's an assumption that SOL lookback windows simply mean that

1) Cheats, crooks, and liars will make up stories about events from far enough back (30+ years) that the individuals involve have forgotten and/or dead.

2) That said cheats, crooks, and liars upon filing a suit (or claim) will instantly be 100% believed, unquestioned (or unquestionable since, as noted, all others parties are forgotten and/or dead) and handed a bag full of money.

3) That this weighs too heavily toward punishing institutions vs. individuals. The Scoutmaster who sexually abused a scout in, say, 1954 is by this point 90+ years old and/or dead. BSA, the Council, and the CO, however, because of being perpetual are on the hook entirely and, apparently, eternally.

4) This punishes scouts. Consider the asbestos lawsuits. To this day, they are ongoing. The entities that have to pay are corporations, therefore the only people being harmed are shareholders and investors all of whom are adults (I suppose a child can own stock, but that's a minor point). And the Catholic Church? Sure, the diocese may be hit, but the financial and programmatic damage done is on adults who pay into the collection plate.

For many here, SOL "reform" means young men and women TODAY losing their camps TODAY for things that happened 1-2 LIFETIMES ago. They are losing their units (who won't be rechartered after COs walked away). Their opportunities.  I had one parent tell me "Why should my kid pay for some pedo 50 years ago?"

Now, from a purely legal standpoint you can say "only the incorporated entity called Boy Scouts of America, Inc. is being forced to pay" or "only the incorporated entity called "XYZ Council, Inc. is being harmed". But a) the perception is there that little Johnnie and Janie Cub Scout's popcorn fundraising is going straight to the alleged victims (who, again per item #1 above are assumed to often be liars, cheats, and crooks looking to make a buck) and b) the reality is that with the talk of 95,000 claims and folks like Kosnoff just ITCHING to liquidated BSA National and go after Councils and COs, things are bad and getting worse.

Again, if this were a regular corporate entity being forced to pay damages for actions taken 40+ years ago it would be one thing (asbestos suits, Agent Orange, etc.) But BSA isn't a regular corporate entity.

The rationale part of me, the part that can work my head around the law on this gets it: because corporations are perpetual they also have to suffer from wrongs done decades ago when SOLs are extended.

But the sympathetic part of me is torn between wanting to help victims and watching Councils holding firesales for camps and being forced to make massive payments for actions DECADES ago.

It is the same part that can understand when parents and leaders come back and ask over and over: why are WE paying? Why is MY scout suffering? "Why should my kid pay for some pedo 50 years ago?"

 

Send this to your congrssperson and the court.

[CynicalScouter]

2 hours ago, SSScout said:

Send this to your congrssperson and the court.

1) The court isn't going to care. The court is going to apply the law as written. If BSA is required by state law to pay out (due to look back SoL being extended), the court will apply the law. No one, not even BSA, is making a case these lookback windows are unconstitutional.

2) Congress is not about to step in and enact a federal law to block statute of limitation extension for sexual abuse cases. That is just not going to happen. No congressperson in his/her right mind is going to introduce a bill that will be depicted as denying sexual abuse victims their day in court. They will be depicted as absolute monsters. And if some 1 single House or Senate member did introduce it, there is no chance it passes.

[ThenNow]

3 hours ago, David CO said:

Yep.  That's it.  I don't speak psycho-babble.

I don’t see any such babble, but your choice to downplay what’s underlying what you grasp as inexplicable inaction.  Absent the loathsome, pesky babble, we’re left with a one word reiteration: fear. Fear on several levels. If you’ve not experienced it, you will remain unable to understand unless you don your waders and enter the babbling brook. 

[fred8033]

11 hours ago, ParkMan said:

This is why it's important for supporters of the BSA to never try to defend the actions or inactions of the BSA back then.  What was wrong was wrong.

But it is fair to argue over the appropriate punishment.  This is why SOL make sense.

In public opinion, BSA would be hur trying to defend the past.  In court, I don't know.  But in my conversations with my friends and co-scout leaders, I must admit I'll never stop trying to put context to this.  ...

Wrong is wrong.  Abuse is wrong.  But hindsight is easy.   Who could have expected BSA to be forced into bankrupcy and accused of fault for inaction because of having a system that tried to exclude bad leaders and tried to document the reasons.  Legally BSA would have been safer to not try to track abusers and definitely not keep documentation ... like the past schools and legal systems back then.  The youth would have been worse off, but BSA would have been better off. 

I'm still surprised that BSA did not create a document retention policy to avoid become a target for fishing.  This happened for most companies back in the 1990s.  But then again, who "back then" would have thought BSA would be liable for trying to maintain a system to exclude abusers before other companies, schools, and groups had such systems.  

SOL is important because legal situations like BSA is in are inconceivable back when most of these abuse cases were happening by abusers who were volunteers and vouched for by other local organizations and the crimes not really pursued by others involved, by families or by the law.  It really is inconceivable.  

Edited February 28, 2021 by fred8033

[David CO]

12 hours ago, fred8033 said:

But then again, who "back then" would have thought BSA would be liable for trying to maintain a system to exclude abusers before other companies, schools, and groups had such systems.  

I did.  I said so at the time.  I thought keeping "secret" files was a stupid idea.  Ever hear of the Pentagon Papers?  

[David CO]

14 hours ago, fred8033 said:

... like the past schools and legal systems back then. 

I don't agree with your position that other youth serving organizations and schools were not trying to keep child molesters out of their ranks.  They were.  Many of them did a better job of it than BSA.

[fred8033]

9 hours ago, David CO said:

I did.  I said so at the time.  I thought keeping "secret" files was a stupid idea.  Ever hear of the Pentagon Papers?  

So what should have BSA done?  Not try?  Doing that is a legal and moral liability itself.  It really seems like BSA is dammed if you do and dammed if you don't.  

8 hours ago, David CO said:

I don't agree with your position that other youth serving organizations and schools were not trying to keep child molesters out of their ranks.  They were.  Many of them did a better job of it than BSA.

Yeah, I hugely disagree with you.  in the 1980s, if a teacher got kicked out of a school they could find a job in another state or another district.  Or apply at a private school.  Or start as a substitute with lower level checks and get back in.  ... Trouble as a youth minister in a church, then start attending another church and slowly volunteer with kids again.  ...  Starting to get strange looks at the YMCA, apply at another YMCA. 

There were no and still are not any large national registries tracking rumored bad people.  Only recently (late 1990s) did states and national government create registries tracking sexual predators.  Only very recently were they easily searchable.  

[David CO]

1 hour ago, fred8033 said:

There were no and still are not any large national registries tracking rumored bad people.  

For good reason.  Nobody should be deprived of employment opportunities because of unsubstantiated rumors.  

[yknot]

1 hour ago, fred8033 said:

So what should have BSA done?  Not try?  Doing that is a legal and moral liability itself.  It really seems like BSA is dammed if you do and dammed if you don't.  

 For me it's not so much what BSA should have done, it's that it even happened in the first place. BSA, like the Catholic Church, staked out a higher moral ground where participants expected everyone to be held to exemplary standards. Other youth organizations, like sports or 4-H, exhorted you to enroll your kids but they didn't bleat about religious values or character or morality. Ironically, that lack of moralizing may have protected them to some degree. The church and BSA did and then failed miserably in recognizing how predators would use that to cloak their actions. We were in the kid and personal character and leadership business and we actively promoted that. It's incomprehensible to me that we were so inept at recognizing and dealing effectively with this no matter what the standards were at the time. That, to me, is the indictment of the BSA. How did such predators thrive in our ranks when everything we are supposed to be about should have kept them out? 

[David CO]

3 hours ago, fred8033 said:

So what should have BSA done? 

BSA should have told the truth.  Scouting wasn't as safe as they made it out to be.  They knew it wasn't safe.  They knew that thousands of boys were being sexually molested.  Yet, they kept this important information from the parents.  BSA didn't give the parents correct facts so that families could make an informed decision on their participation in scouting.

 

 

[David CO]

2 hours ago, yknot said:

How did such predators thrive in our ranks when everything we are supposed to be about should have kept them out? 

They thrived in our ranks because BSA didn't want to inform the public about their existence.  BSA understood the scope of the problem, but they kept quiet about it.  

Using a movie metaphor from the 70's, they knew that there was a shark in the water, but they still let the 10 year old boy go out into the water with his rubber raft.   

Edited March 1, 2021 by David CO

[fred8033]

5 hours ago, David CO said:

BSA should have told the truth.  Scouting wasn't as safe as they made it out to be.  They knew it wasn't safe.  They knew that thousands of boys were being sexually molested.  Yet, they kept this important information from the parents.  BSA didn't give the parents correct facts so that families could make an informed decision on their participation in scouting.

Perhaps I'm not understanding.  What statement was a lie?  That sounds more like an aggressive interpretation of the past than a specific lie.  

Where was scouting less safe than pretty much any other organization?  I don't know any scouter than abused kids, but I do know teachers, coaches, private music teachers, etc that did.  

I just don't accept that scouting was less safe than other community organizations.  

[ParkMan]

Which is why I try to avoid these kinds of discussions in my life.  I don't see that we can ever reach a conclusion on these debates - even amongst Scouters.

Myself, I think the message is:

• it's without question that abuse happened
• Scouters in the BSA should always do whatever we can to prevent the abuse of youth.
• When abuse occurs, we should focus on learning what happened and work to learn from those cases so we can prevent it in the future.

To me, the relevant question is whether the BSA is safe today. 

• Regardless of whether it was safe in the 1980s and before - is it safe now? 
• Have we learned the hard cultural lessons that led us to not address this aggressively as we could have? 

What we did back then does not have to reflect on who we are today - unless we let it.  This is why I don't think we should engage in defending that time period.  When we defend it, we suggest that we agree that they made the right decisions - that given the same information we'd make the same choice today.  I don't think that's the message we want to send.

 

Edited March 1, 2021 by ParkMan
grammar