Kit's Friday Thoughts: Duggar, Iraq, and some other stuff

By Kit

Duggar Family Scandal
A number of you are probably aware of the sex abuse allegations that have hit the ultra-conservative Duggar family of the reality show, 19 and Counting. If you are like me and before the scandal broke had no idea who the Duggar family were, only vaguely aware of the existence of a show called 19 kids and Counting, and had absolutely no interest whatsoever in it, here are the details from what I know.

The Duggar family is, as stated above, a very conservative, Christian family who hold very restrictive views on gender roles and sex —even by the standards of most conservative Christians; they allow no kissing or even any physical contact between members of the opposite sex prior to marriage and there are always chaperones for their daughters, usually the older brothers (Source). Bennett and Darcy’s courtship in Pride and Prejudice was Sex and the City by comparison.

And speaking of the older brothers…

Now, before I go any further I want to point out that I really don’t care how they choose to live their lives or raise their kids. As long as it operates within certain basic parameters of no abuse, I don’t care. Really, I don’t. It’s America. I love living in a country where you can have two agnostic (or Presbyterian) gay men raising a kid next door to a super-religious family with 12 kids.

Anyhoo, back to the family.

Speaking of older brothers, it turns out the eldest son, Josh, sexually molested five girls back when he was 14 or 15 by fondling their breasts and genitals. Four of them were his younger sisters. The family, it appears, only told a few close family friends and, when law enforcement was eventually contacted, it was a police officer the family knew who reportedly gave Josh a “stern talk” —and was later arrested on counts of child pornography.

As for Josh Duggar, he recently became executive director of FRC Action, which wikipedia describes as “the non-profit political action and lobbying arm of the Family Research Council.” A position from which he has now resigned.

First, I’ve never much cared for these family reality shows. Or most reality shows in general. I find them very stupid. The few times I’ve watched one, or, more accurately, been trapped in a room with people who are watching one, I’ve come away with a very low estimation of the human race. While there are in all likelihood at least one or two that are probably, most have come across as little more than voyeuristic freak shows; look at these weird people being weird!

Say what you will about the circus freak show of old, at least they typically had to develop some skill or talent. Like juggling.

Second, the family, going into damage control, said that the victims have forgiven Josh. Ok, that is good. Forgiveness is often better than holding onto bitterness and anger, even justified anger. It allows you to move on with your life like nothing else can. So to those girls I say, bravo.

BUT THAT STILL DOESN’T CHANGE WHAT HAPPENED! If this was one time event where he did it, got caught, and was punished at 14 then maybe, maybe, I could be grant them that point and move on. But he continued to molest his sisters, even after getting caught. That’s a pattern.

Finally, if you want a good takedown of the family’s actions and behavior, particularly those of the patriarch, from a conservative Christian point-of-view I recommend David French’s post at the National Review, “Put Not Your Faith in Duggars, or Any Other Christian.” It’s quite good. LINK.

And much of what he says about the Duggars is quite good, even if you are not a Christian: “If the past 30 years of very public Christian scandals should teach us anything, it’s that no one should put their trust in famous Christians. They often can’t even get the basics right, much less serve as shining examples of faith lived the right way. In the case of the Duggar family, they hid sexual abuse from everyone but those they most trusted, delayed notifying the authorities for months (and then afterward telling only a close family friend), escaped prosecution only through the expiration of the statute of limitations, and then had the audacity — knowing full well that these events had occurred — to put themselves out to the public as a role-model family. The abuser himself decided to become a leader in the Christian pro-family movement, as the executive director of the Family Research Council.”

Not much I can add to that except, “Amen brother.” Read the whole thing.


Obama’s (and Hillary’s) catastrophic failure in Iraq
Last Friday, Krauthammer wrote an excellent column for the Washington Post where he pointed out that instead of running around asking if we should or should not have invaded Iraq in 2003 we should be asking whether it was right for Obama to leave Iraq wholesale as he did in 2003?

Obama can complain about the crappy economy and the stuff in Afghanistan but he was handed a victory in Iraq on a silver platter. By his own admission, the surge was a success. All he had to do was maintain a minimal amount of troops in Iraq and it is certainly possible things over there would be a lot better now.

But he didn’t. So here we are.

Obama the Federalist?

I recently read a story in the USA Today about how Obama, now failing to get any of his measures passed at the federal level is now taking things to the cities, such as minimum wage raises (which are having the predictable effects).

Now, there is some debate about whether the cities can actually do this considering that traditionally the states and the federal government have handled this responsibility with the feds setting the floor and the states deciding whether or not to go up from there.

But, hey, at least he’s realized that not everything must be done at the federal level. Even if its really just another example of his “ends justify the means” mentality… and its constitutionally sketchy.

But, baby steps…


Miscellany

— No book of the week this week. Though I hope to have Road to Serfdom finished by next Friday. Nearing the end, it is very good.

— I will be resuming Summer of Marvel this coming Monday with The Incredible Hulk, so stay tuned!

— It was revealed that Bernie Sanders wrote an essay back in 1972 saying most men fantasized about raping women and most women fantasized about being gang raped.

Huh.

Now, normally, I could not care less what someone wrote back when Nixon was President but in this case, considering that if he was a Republican we would never hear the end of this, I say hit him, and the Democrats, hard over this. They need to be held to their own standards. It’s the only way they’ll ever learn.

— Kevin D. Williamson wrote a great piece for National Review where he hit Bernie Sanders for his “Dark Age Economics”. Read it here: LINK.

Now, in there he referenced what Cthulhu would say on the subject of money. Jonah Goldberg, sensing an endorsement for the crustacean Great Old One, responded that the Sweet Meteor of Death (SMOD) would be a better candidate in “The Real Primary: Cthulhu vs. SMOD”: LINK

Kevin hit back in “The Campaign Call of Cthulhu”: LINK

Jonah will reply in his newsletter, the G-File, tomorrow. (Side-note: The current format of my Friday’s Thoughts are directly inspired by Goldberg’s G-File)

The highlight of the debate so far is from Goldberg: “replacing public-sector unions with Cthulhu cultists strikes me as, at best, a modest improvement.”

— The series Honest Trailers has now done 100 trailers and to honor that auspicious event they are doing 50 Shades of Grey. Give it a watch, though I warn you, it is very much NOT SAFE FOR WORK! LINK

As always, the thread is open for the weekend. Discuss anything you want, Hillary’s shell corporation or Cthulhu vs. SMOD (It’s Cthulhu).