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[Vorthon]

Boy Scouts of America has been hiding 50+ years of pedophile crimes, often comforting and getting counseling for the rapists while doing little for the victims and their families, and when a pedophile was actually persecuted they made sure the court documents never mentioned the rapist was a leader in Boy Scouts.

Good god.  My whole family has been involved in Boy Scouting, even as far back as my grandparents.

Wait you've just found out about this now?

It's kind of old news, IIRC.

[Euld]

Heard about a couple days ago, didn't remember to post about it until yesterday o_O  I guess I'm sorta annoyed that everyone just went "meh" about it and moved on.  One of my earliest memories involved Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts, it's been a part of my life since forever.  Then suddenly you find out it's been a haven of sorts for pedophiles to regularly get away with things for more years than you've been alive :/

[kaijyuu]

Yeah I heard about that. Lots of apologetics about it over the radio yesterday.

The child molestation thing happens in a lot of places with authority figures over young kids (priests, teachers, etc) and anywhere will likely cover things up if it makes them look bad. Ultimately I'm just not too shocked about it at all, as it's the sort of thing I'd suspect in any similar organization.

I'm generally more pissed at them for their homophobia and pushing of religion than this, because those things are actively pushed by them rather than a skeleton in their closet.

[Leafsnail]

Something similar came to light with Jimmy Savile (OBE) recently.  It's really terrible that he managed to get away with it for years and only really got exposed after his death.

[Solifuge]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8JsRx2lois

This video renews my faith in humanity, also the preacher is actually a pastor.

He also runs a pretty cool blog.

At first I was like >:?

...Then I saw what he did there. That speech was masterfully done. Thank you for sharing that.

[justinlee999]

The best part is that he's really progressive, check out his blog, he's progressive in almost every other issue as well.

Goes to show that religious people can be progressive.

[Reelya]

Progressive religious types don't tend to ram their views down your throat, and the right wing religious fundamentalists tend to use that polarizing logic, like "Republican = For God, therefore Democrats/liberals are anti-god". They're good at "owning" the issues, I'll give them that.

[kaijyuu]

Yeah that speech is a good example of why I point out rhetoric to people who make bad arguments. Even if you're supporting a valid cause, if I can switch around the nouns in your argument to something horrible, your argument is bad.

Obviously his satirical first half wasn't supporting a good cause, but still

[SalmonGod]

Former executioners share their misgivings about death penalty

[Nadaka]

Yea. My biggest qualms about supporting the death penalty have always been:
1: The chance that an innocent person is killed.
2: Those executed are disproportionately minorities.
3: The psychology of those who would be involved. Though I have to admit I was more concerned about the kind of person who would seek out the position of executioner to satisfy their blood-lust than the one who reluctantly accepted that position

Its why I wouldn't mind seeing the death penalty being banned, even though I do think some people are so terrible that they should die to protect the rest of society.

[RedKing]

That's kind of my position as well. I'm not at all inherently anti-death penalty, but I am more than willing to agree that the implemention is heavily flawed and probably deserves a moratorium until it can be reformed.

[Skyrunner]

I remember reading a sad story related to death row in a cooking comic, of all places. '식객' (shik-gek).
Korean death row prisoners in solitary fear each time they are taken out of their cell. Are they going to turn left at the junction, to execution, or right, to some other place? Is today the last day of their life? Living in perpetual fear of that is hard to imagine. Even if they are criminals, I suppose they still have humane rights.

[kaijyuu]

I'm always promoting rehabilitation when possible; vengeance be damned. For those that can't though... Life imprisonment with the option of euthanasia (yes I know there's potential abuse in giving the "option" of euthanasia, mainly in the form of pressuring them to do it).

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Eh, it's not that hard to just commit suicide in prison if you really can't take life imprisonment.

[scriver]

It's no really a question of ease. It's a question of decency.