Bells said:
Which states that Josh was sent there, for counseling while working with the guy on remodeling.
This is actually something worth watching, because there is a device in play that really does beg consideration.
If I were to ask you what this situation had to do with Jeb Bush, you might wonder why I was asking.
Do we all remember Mr. Bush's
really bad week↗ that involved trying
five different answers↱ to what should have been a softball question? There was something strange about how they just kept pouring answers out. Well, okay, we can digress and point out that his father and brother both did the same thing trying to explain their Iraqi adventures, but somewhere around day three with Jeb it started seeming like they were just polling, as if they might figure out which answer got the best response and then stand on that and pretend the rest never existed. Yes, don't know, won't answer, no (the correct answer for this ritual), and then dodge the question entirely.
The Duggars seem to be grasping after similar straws.
But here's the thing:
They're formulating for minimum passage.
There are a limited number of reasons by which we might explain their oddly insufficient intervention, and one of the most apparent is that a proper response would have endangered their fantasy. Normally I refer to epistemic closure, we're discussing the head-banging stupidity of American political echo chambers, but here we see an example of its living consequences. Quite simply, if the offender is not pathological, reconciling the issues driving the impulses would in this case require exposure to and education by countervailing influences. The sex offender would find himself obligated to address rape culture, the very ideology he is educated by. The Duggars chose nonstandard, insufficient intervention in order to protect the fantasy empowering and encouraging the abuse. The line that tells us more about their insufficiency than any other comes from the
L.A. Times↱ article our neighbor offered in defense of the Duggars:
"'Safeguards' were put in place, but then Josh started to touch the girls in a different room, [Jim Bob] said."
A ... a ...
different room?
Okay, right there. Competence. Full stop. If we take Jim Bob and Michelle at their word, they are incompetent and should not be raising
any children.
However, I digress.
It seems like the Duggars are after the sort of do-overs Jeb Bush wants, and instead of saying and doing the right things, they hope to continue as they are and merely concede the absolute minimum to be somehow satisfactory, and then stand on that as their real, final, and only answer.
And remember, in these political circles, you can be ninety-nine percent wrong yet still find vociferous support on that one percent. Kind of like the bit about how one has black friends and therefore can't be racist; if you do one thing that
isn't racist, your supporters will hold it up as the only thing.
More important than the fact of sex crimes, or sex crime survivors, or potential recidivism, or any of those human considerations, Jim Bob and Michelle are protecting a family and partisan brand. The way to do this is concede as little as possible. Notice how after the bit about getting their son help blew up for the whole remodeling thing, among other aspects, they went with down-home Americana. Not only did they get him "professional counseling" (political point: reiteration despite facts in order to reinforce narrative), but he also
paid for it himself (you know, like a good boy who wants a new bike, and works hard on neighbors lawns and scrimps and saves until he can afford that new bike that hasn't been ridden by some nasty kid from down the block). They're just trying to re-establish a favorable political narrative, so they need as many do-overs as possible.
And as I always say, if you let people talk long enough, they will eventually tell you the truth. Then again, it sounds like they could do this for years before coming 'round that bend. But, you know, let them talk. And then watch them try to pretend that the last thing on the list is the only thing they ever said. And then, hopefully, American society will get around to calling out the device instead of the individual application.
I don't know how you introduce kids to cricket, but in the States we start them down the baseball path with a game called T-ball. It is what it sounds like, baseball with the ball teed up for the hitter. And, yet, these are young children, so, you know, even with the ball sitting on the tee, there is a specific rule that nobody strikes out.
When Jeb Bush needs T-ball rules, we all laugh.
When the Duggars need T-ball rules? Well, isn't this just a bit dangerous?
I get that people are imperfect, but as long as we're all clear that these do-overs don't mean they didn't say the things they said before, that whatever final answer they come up with doesn't stand in a vacuum as if it was the only one, we're in good shape to simply let them talk.
Well, yeah. It's a horror show, but still, at some point they will accidentally tell us the truth.
If we let them keep talking.
____________________
Notes:
Parker, Ryan and Saba Hamedy. "Josh Duggar scandal: He 'was a child preying on a child,' his father says". Los Angeles Times. 3 June 2015. LATimes.com. 5 Jun. 2015. http://lat.ms/1MpmcdS