All the god-ding in the world couldn't fix him

[Fireball]

I just found some more material regarding what Josh was dealing with:

One file, according to Faulkner, depicted child sex abuse involving children ranging from 18 months to 12 years of age. Faulkner described the images as "in the top five of the worst of the worst that I've ever had to examine.

I remember when the scandal broke out, and it turned out that, of his five sisters at the time, he left the oldest alone for whatever reason. And now I think we have some idea of “whatever reason” actually was. And now, I’d like to ask: Jesse Custer, help a brother out, will ya?

18 months?  I'm reminded of a case many years ago where the baby girl's grandfather molested her. I don't remember her exact age, but the father caught his FiL in the act, and beat him to death. This was in Los Angeles, and the police ruled it justifiable and didn't prosecute the father.

[Rev. Rye]

I found a story like that, but it was in Texas (in one of the "middle of fucking nowhere" parts that aren't even part of any municipality, closest town was Shiner, Texas, about 67 miles from Austin), the girl was five, and the man was actually a ranch hand.

https://abcnews.go.com/US/charges-texas-...d=16612071

[arewethereyet]

This scumbag is out on bond and is allowed to see his kids...as long as his wife, the woman who married him in despite his past molestations, is present.

Fox guarding the henhouse?

What a crock of shit.

[Rev. Rye]

This scumbag is out on bond and is allowed to see his kids...as long as his wife, the woman who married him in despite his past molestations, is present.

Fox guarding the henhouse?

What a crock of shit.

If it’s a fox guarding the penthouse, it’s made out of plywood and tempera paint. These types of fundies tend to be extremely strong on women’s submission and, I strongly suspect that whatever Anna knew, she didn’t have much of a say in the matter.

It’s easy to say she could have just left him, divorced him, and taken the kids. But, bear in mind, the fact that literally every step of the process (all the way down to defying Josh) is anathema to the religion she was raised him aside, that once the process is done, she’s a 32-year-old woman with six kids (with a seventh on the way), bugger-all in the way of marketable skills, no place to go, likely no support network (since everyone she knew on a level of “hey, can I crash at your place?” is likely in the community that’s shunning her), and no means of supporting herself. Once she takes the step of saying “all right then, I’ll go to Hell,” she’ll be asking herself “okay, so now what do I do?” And If she doesn’t do something, the consequences will be fucking dire.

---

Nah, Imma go with the ‘garbage fire’ thing.

Boru

At this point, I’m inclined to think the defining point of conservatism these days, more than the free market or limited government, or tradition or whatever the fuck they say they stand for is that people who say the shit they like and hate on the same things and people they hate on should be impervious to any consequences for their deeds.

Thanks for reminding me that this attitude was entrenched in them even when Trump was just a dark horse candidate.

[arewethereyet]

This scumbag is out on bond and is allowed to see his kids...as long as his wife, the woman who married him in despite his past molestations, is present.

Fox guarding the henhouse?

What a crock of shit.

If it’s a fox guarding the penthouse, it’s made out of plywood and tempera paint. These types of fundies tend to be extremely strong on women’s submission and, I strongly suspect that whatever Anna knew, she didn’t have much of a say in the matter.

It’s easy to say she could have just left him, divorced him, and taken the kids. But, bear in mind, the fact that literally every step of the process (all the way down to defying Josh) is anathema to the religion she was raised him aside, that once the process is done, she’s a 32-year-old woman with six kids (with a seventh on the way), bugger-all in the way of marketable skills, no place to go, likely no support network (since everyone she knew on a level of “hey, can I crash at your place?” is likely in the community that’s shunning her), and no means of supporting herself. Once she takes the step of saying “all right then, I’ll go to Hell,” she’ll be asking herself “okay, so now what do I do?” And If she doesn’t do something, the consequences will be fucking dire.

His wife knew before they married that he had molested his sisters and went along with the marriage anyway.

I "get" that she is in a tough spot now with 6 kids and one on the way but she has turned a blind eye from the jump.  She's complicit as far as I'm concerned...that's my take as a mother.

[Rev. Rye]

I strongly suspect that even if she left the second she figured out what the fuck was happening with Josh, the only thing that would have changed from that tight spot I described earlier is the number of mouths she’d have to feed. Maybe if she left him at the beginning of the courtship, after he explained what he did (and I’m not convinced he told her “I fingered four of my kid sisters’ pussies plus that of some other girl,” let alone “I’m attracted to children” at the time), best case scenario is her family never lets her hear the end of it. If she explains exactly why, they either don’t believe her or they don’t care. You listen to Kyle Stephens testify against Larry Nassar, I get the feeling that it wouldn’t be much better in such a ludicrously patriarchal structure as the one Anna and the Duggars were brought into. Once they tied the knot, if she wasn’t willing to leave everything she knew behind, up to and including her presumptive eternal salvation, I suspect that she thought her fate was sealed.

Her inaction enabled him, no doubt. But I think it’s important to take points like that into consideration. Why? Because half a lifetime ago, I saw this:



Realizing that 2 out of 3 of us would dutifully electrocute an old man to death just because a man in a white coat tells us it’s necessary for the experiment (with no explanation as to why it’s necessary and no more incentive than $4 plus cab fare which isn’t even brought up as a carrot to keep you in the experiment [admittedly, closer to $40 in modern times, but still]) really puts shit like that into perspective. And, just for the record, while Milgram’s original study didn’t include women or racial minorities, further replications showed there was no real difference.

If that’s true, if those odds are right, with such little incentive to go along, what do you think would have been the results if the entire infrastructure of your life demanded that you go along with it?

[arewethereyet]

I strongly suspect that even if she left the second she figured out what the fuck was happening with Josh, the only thing that would have changed from that tight spot I described earlier is the number of mouths she’d have to feed. Maybe if she left him at the beginning of the courtship, after he explained what he did (and I’m not convinced he told her “I fingered four of my kid sisters’ pussies plus that of some other girl” at the time), best case scenario is her family never lets her hear the end of it. Once they tied the knot, if she wasn’t willing to leave everything she knew behind, up to and including her presumptive eternal salvation, I suspect that she thought her fate was sealed.

Her inaction enabled him, no doubt. But I think it’s important to take points like that into consideration. Why? Because half a lifetime ago, I saw this:



Realizing that 2 out of 3 of us would dutifully electrocute an old man to death just because a man in a white coat tells us it’s necessary for the experiment (with no explanation as to why it’s necessary and no more incentive than $4 plus cab fare [admittedly, closer to $40 in modern times, but still]) really puts shit like that into perspective. And, just for the record, while Milgram’s original study didn’t include women or racial minorities, further replications showed there was no real difference.

If that’s true, if those odds are right, with such little incentive to go along, what do you think would have been the results if the entire infrastructure of your life demanded that you go along with it?

Bold mine-
I grew up in a family with generations of abuse in the family history - not sexual as far as I know - but I was trained not to talk about it.  What I did was break that cycle when I had kids of my own...because I can think for myself and I knew that shit that was kept secret was wrong.  

I do not, and will not ever, give his wife a pass.   Period, full stop.

[Rev. Rye]

So, looking a bit further on this, I watched this video:





One of the points Fundie Fridays raised was rather interesting, and might help explain why the whole "Josh Duggar being into CP and/or molesting his sisters" thing might not have seemed to be as horrible to his community as it would for most people.

I think it's safe to assume that most of us tend to have moral compasses with sliding scales. Something like, say, looking for an affair or inappropriate touching is on the lower end of the scale, and I'm fairly certain all of us would consider raping and torturing an infant at the very high end of the scale. In the version of fundamentalism that the Duggars preach, that scale should not exist. In their view, a sin is a sin is a sin, and if you don't ask for God's forgiveness, you deserve nothing short of everlasting torture. I'm not going to pretend this is a good ethical system. At best, it's blue and orange morality, and at worst, it's utterly monstrous. But people legit believe it. And the Duggars are among them.

I'm starting to suspect that it's possible that, in addition to demonising things like premarital sex and homosexuality, this might end up blunting the effect of the more legitimately fucked-up shit. Remembering Love, Joy, Feminism's coverage of the initial scandal, I found these screenshots of reactions to the initial allegations:


Note how the first post seems to think a boy going to Disneyland with his girlfriend unchaperoned is in any way comparable to repeatedly molesting your prepubescent sisters. It's the sort of take that's so bizarre that not only is it hard to believe anyone would make it in good faith, but it's even harder to imagine anyone acting in bad faith thinking it's a good argument. But, if you look at through the lens of all sins being equal, it starts to make sense.

Another point she brings up is that fundies like the Duggars tend to view porn addiction the same way drug scare films of the Eighties and early Nineties treated drug use: you try the milder shit once, then, with baffling ease, you keep on trucking to getting addicted the very worst shit possible. FF floats the possibility that, having been inculcated with this horseshit all his life, Josh might have decided, well, "I've already crossed the line with regular porn, why not get into CP, and not just CP, but the worst of the worst?" And when I say worst of the worst, I mean that, apparently, one of the files was so notorious that even I knew about it.

---

It's a thing called "Daisy's Destruction." I won't go into details about what's actually in it (partly because I haven't seen it, and partly because of basic human decency), but I will say "Imagine if the worst shit in A Serbian Film was real." It's so horrible that, for years, it was assumed that it was just a creepypasta and not a real thing. But it was, and, fortunately, the guy who made it is in jail in the Philippines for the rest of his life, and, against all odds, that little girl is still alive. She'll live with the injuries all her life, but at least she'll live.

---

I don't think this scenario is likely, but, frankly, given how toxic the belief system is, that they legit believe the slippery slope to sadistic CP is inevitable for anyone with an interest in porn unchecked by God's love, I can't 100% rule it out.

For the record, I don't think this excuses anyone involved. At best, they're living in a Platonic Cave whiling their days away looking at shadow puppets and they haven't taken the plunge of even turning around. And that may be giving them too much moral credit. Or maybe he's just a run-of-the-mill nonce who just happened to grow up in a famous family.