You raise your son by continuing to show him what it is to be a man, someone who respects women, works hard at whatever sparks his interest to create his own future, and most importantly, make sure he knows he is loved.
Seattle. The best protection is if your family has a living income, then children are not looking for ways in order to have things other children have as normal.
Katie, being smarter than Trump is the lowest bar possible.
Mike, Bush was NOT a worse president than Trump is and I can't even imagine how you could say that. Bush left office, didn't try to overturn an election, incite a insurrection and so on.
The way that I put it is that I could still call Bush "my president" even if I disagreed with most of what he did. That was definitely a question of politics.
This thing with Trump, the people that he works with, and the people that support him, it's not about politics, but about values and good governance. But mostly values.
Mike, I think your son faces a far greater threat from the Zuckerbergs than the Epsteins of the world. Epstein chose individual victims and although the total was very high it is nothing like the reach that social media oligarchs have.
Well, one of my favorite topics, sexual abuse of children by the Rich and the powerful.
Caveat: I’ve been busy all day today and haven’t had time to listen to the interview. But still, one of my favorite topics. I don’t speak from the point of view of a parent, but I do speak from the point of view of the Big Gay Uncle to a number of children and young adult adults.
And this topic positively infuriates me for so many reasons that I’ve gone into before. But here’s the thing. Today’s column from Hemant Mehta was all about the recent report about the sexual abuse scandal that goes back decades in the Assemblies of God church. What they claim is that they are 200 pastor abusers and hundreds of victims, along with a cover up going back 50 years.
First and foremost, before anything else, one thing that we absolutely know about the sexual abuse of children, like most other sex offenses, is that it is vastly under-reported. 200 pastors over 50 years? I don’t buy that for a moment. I would want to know what gets designated as a pastor, as opposed to professional Christian, as opposed to professional teacher in a christian school, as opposed to the music minister who isn’t a pastor, as opposed to the pastor’s brother who helps out in the church with the kids.
And you can tell also that if their attitude (their=the Vatican equivalent at the AoG) was 30 years ago, “let’s not talk about it and it’ll go away “, or “make sure the pastor apologizes to the ceiling for his faithlessness, adulterous thoughts, fornication thoughts, perverted thoughts, and besides, victim she or victim he was 16 or 17 years old so it almost doesn’t even count”…
Then there’s a lot more going on here.
I have been informally studying this subject for nearly 50 years, and I’m absolutely certain that there’s a lot more going on here. Although the terminology is old, nearly 50 years ago there was a distinction made between people who were “fixed pedophiles” – people who were definitely oriented towards children, and “regressed pedophiles”— people whose orientation may have been primarily towards adults, but situationally found themselves abusing kids. But the thing is, the age of those kids. I have a suspicion that a lot of regressed pedophiles were picking on adolescents and teenagers because they aren’t small children. Pubic hair and developed genitalia.
That doesn’t make it better, it just doesn’t make them as disgusting.
And what all of this about the Epstein case reveals is that it isn’t just the religiously powerful. It’s the rich and the powerful people who run the world. It’s the current president of the United States. It’s everybody that has a steak in the current system. Parallel to the religious denominations that have a severe problem with this— and it appears to be the conservative ones, precisely the ones that support Donald Trump— there was the Boy Scouts. For decades they have a sexual abuse problem, which for decades they covered up and exactly the same way that the Catholic Church did it, and which they blamed on gay men and gay scouts.
But one problem with that: gay men and gay scouts were not allowed in the Boy Scouts. So who was doing the molesting of the boys? Men who would be considered by their communities, families, the scouts, wives, colleagues, and the above all, by themselves as Certifiably Heterosexual. There was an image to maintain, and hey, if they just blamed the homosexuals, WHO WEREN’T DOING THE MOLESTING BY DEFINITION, the problem would just go away.
In Trump’s campaign, and in all of the support materials provided by MAGAtry, the problem was gay men, the problem was drag queens, the problem was transgender people. Except that it wasn’t. And it never has been. It was rich people, powerful people, religious people, and the rich and powerful people who use the religious to accrue even more money and more power.
Everything about this is about the moral rot that has infected Republican politics since Ronald Reagan decided that he needed the religious right and religious issues to become president. Are the Democrats perfect? Absolutely not, but compared to what the Republicans have been doing politically, with the religious right has been doing with the Republican Party, the Democrats are pure as the driven snow.
The information is out there. But this problem will continue as long as so many people are willing to be quiet about it. It will continue as long as innocent people are blamed by the rich, the powerful, the religious, the people with secrets, and as long as a certain proportion of the American voting public is so uninformed and so prejudiced that they are more than happy to go along with the charade, no matter what the cost.
After more than fifty years in academia, teaching from high school to residents in medical and engineering schools I am moved to insist, Mike, that you will help make your son a self-sufficient man if you don't insist that he get a college degree.
the fact that girls/women think their only option to support themselves is sex work is not a them problem, it’s societal negligence to not give them support/opportunities to help to give them a confident head start.
The fact that men (and women) prey and exploit/traffic these girls, knowing full well they are desperate to make it in life, is deplorable.
* I am aware some women choose sex work and enjoy what they do. I have no judgement for sex workers. I have full judgment for the men that exploit the naive and vulnerable.
You raise your son by continuing to show him what it is to be a man, someone who respects women, works hard at whatever sparks his interest to create his own future, and most importantly, make sure he knows he is loved.
Hell yeah
Teach him to be proud that he’s white
The Gaetz girl WAS working at McDonalds, but she was doing sex work to pay for the orthodontia. You’re not paying for braces working at Mickey D.
Massachusetts! Looking forward to your thoughts today.
Really enjoyed your content! First time joining in! Thanks for speaking out 😄
How to dismantle??? the current US Supreme Court? We will get nowhere as long as Trump continues to use them to do his abominable deeds.
So you can kill more babies in utero? Way to “protect kids”
Seattle. The best protection is if your family has a living income, then children are not looking for ways in order to have things other children have as normal.
Katie, being smarter than Trump is the lowest bar possible.
Mike, Bush was NOT a worse president than Trump is and I can't even imagine how you could say that. Bush left office, didn't try to overturn an election, incite a insurrection and so on.
The way that I put it is that I could still call Bush "my president" even if I disagreed with most of what he did. That was definitely a question of politics.
This thing with Trump, the people that he works with, and the people that support him, it's not about politics, but about values and good governance. But mostly values.
Mike, I think your son faces a far greater threat from the Zuckerbergs than the Epsteins of the world. Epstein chose individual victims and although the total was very high it is nothing like the reach that social media oligarchs have.
I don't have time to watch videos. Do you post transcripts somewhere?
Well, one of my favorite topics, sexual abuse of children by the Rich and the powerful.
Caveat: I’ve been busy all day today and haven’t had time to listen to the interview. But still, one of my favorite topics. I don’t speak from the point of view of a parent, but I do speak from the point of view of the Big Gay Uncle to a number of children and young adult adults.
And this topic positively infuriates me for so many reasons that I’ve gone into before. But here’s the thing. Today’s column from Hemant Mehta was all about the recent report about the sexual abuse scandal that goes back decades in the Assemblies of God church. What they claim is that they are 200 pastor abusers and hundreds of victims, along with a cover up going back 50 years.
First and foremost, before anything else, one thing that we absolutely know about the sexual abuse of children, like most other sex offenses, is that it is vastly under-reported. 200 pastors over 50 years? I don’t buy that for a moment. I would want to know what gets designated as a pastor, as opposed to professional Christian, as opposed to professional teacher in a christian school, as opposed to the music minister who isn’t a pastor, as opposed to the pastor’s brother who helps out in the church with the kids.
And you can tell also that if their attitude (their=the Vatican equivalent at the AoG) was 30 years ago, “let’s not talk about it and it’ll go away “, or “make sure the pastor apologizes to the ceiling for his faithlessness, adulterous thoughts, fornication thoughts, perverted thoughts, and besides, victim she or victim he was 16 or 17 years old so it almost doesn’t even count”…
Then there’s a lot more going on here.
I have been informally studying this subject for nearly 50 years, and I’m absolutely certain that there’s a lot more going on here. Although the terminology is old, nearly 50 years ago there was a distinction made between people who were “fixed pedophiles” – people who were definitely oriented towards children, and “regressed pedophiles”— people whose orientation may have been primarily towards adults, but situationally found themselves abusing kids. But the thing is, the age of those kids. I have a suspicion that a lot of regressed pedophiles were picking on adolescents and teenagers because they aren’t small children. Pubic hair and developed genitalia.
That doesn’t make it better, it just doesn’t make them as disgusting.
And what all of this about the Epstein case reveals is that it isn’t just the religiously powerful. It’s the rich and the powerful people who run the world. It’s the current president of the United States. It’s everybody that has a steak in the current system. Parallel to the religious denominations that have a severe problem with this— and it appears to be the conservative ones, precisely the ones that support Donald Trump— there was the Boy Scouts. For decades they have a sexual abuse problem, which for decades they covered up and exactly the same way that the Catholic Church did it, and which they blamed on gay men and gay scouts.
But one problem with that: gay men and gay scouts were not allowed in the Boy Scouts. So who was doing the molesting of the boys? Men who would be considered by their communities, families, the scouts, wives, colleagues, and the above all, by themselves as Certifiably Heterosexual. There was an image to maintain, and hey, if they just blamed the homosexuals, WHO WEREN’T DOING THE MOLESTING BY DEFINITION, the problem would just go away.
In Trump’s campaign, and in all of the support materials provided by MAGAtry, the problem was gay men, the problem was drag queens, the problem was transgender people. Except that it wasn’t. And it never has been. It was rich people, powerful people, religious people, and the rich and powerful people who use the religious to accrue even more money and more power.
Everything about this is about the moral rot that has infected Republican politics since Ronald Reagan decided that he needed the religious right and religious issues to become president. Are the Democrats perfect? Absolutely not, but compared to what the Republicans have been doing politically, with the religious right has been doing with the Republican Party, the Democrats are pure as the driven snow.
The information is out there. But this problem will continue as long as so many people are willing to be quiet about it. It will continue as long as innocent people are blamed by the rich, the powerful, the religious, the people with secrets, and as long as a certain proportion of the American voting public is so uninformed and so prejudiced that they are more than happy to go along with the charade, no matter what the cost.
After more than fifty years in academia, teaching from high school to residents in medical and engineering schools I am moved to insist, Mike, that you will help make your son a self-sufficient man if you don't insist that he get a college degree.
I’m on Patriotic Millionaires’ mailing list. (They got me half right… but millionaire? never gonna happen.)
https://substack.com/@thefourthturningpoint/note/c-177200463?r=64a3r9&utm_medium=ios
Asheville NC. Exactly what Lynn said.
the fact that girls/women think their only option to support themselves is sex work is not a them problem, it’s societal negligence to not give them support/opportunities to help to give them a confident head start.
The fact that men (and women) prey and exploit/traffic these girls, knowing full well they are desperate to make it in life, is deplorable.
* I am aware some women choose sex work and enjoy what they do. I have no judgement for sex workers. I have full judgment for the men that exploit the naive and vulnerable.
How should we protect kids?
MOAR ABORTIONS!!!