Good discussion here and I'll try to contribute without veering way off course. DeanS, how are things in Northfield? I grew up just east of there in Cannon Falls. Anyway, back at good old St. Ansgar's Lutheran, our post-confirmation Sunday School teacher posed a paradox one Sunday morning. It went like this. Billy is a high school kid whose father is dead and whose mother is incapacitated, meaning Billy needs to get a job (it's important to remember that this was the 1960s and government assistance was not as comprehensive as it is now). Billy proceeds to get a job at a grocery store. One of his jobs is to put apples in boxes (again, this is the 1960s and those of you who are not old enough to remember that you bought apples by the box back the, please bear with me). The grocer instructed Billy to put only "good" apples on top for the customer to see while placing "bad" apples underneath. Now Billy needs the job. It's the only job in town for which he is qualified to perform. His mother needs the money. What does Billy do? Needless to say, watching a bunch of 15 and 16 year olds grapple with this was not a pretty sight by any stretch.
What does this have to do with Penn State you ask? I realize it's a tortured comparison as the crimes committed by Sandusky are much greater than a couple of rotten apples in a box of Granny Smiths. But in Paterno's (and the PSU administration's) eyes, going public with this problem served little or no purpose as long as Sandusky was let go. The problem, of course, is that they allowed Sandusky to linger after he was no longer officially associated with PSU. And there is, as badgergopher points out, an economic angle to all of this and morals get consistently compromised by economics. JoePa reasoned (and I believe it was Kant who posited that the insane man reasons correctly from false premises) that dragging down the Penn State program by making Sandusky's actions and any subsequent punishment public would unfairly penalize those people who didn't do anything wrong and would be tarred by association. And economics played a huge role in that equation. Again, I'm not arguing right or wrong here, I just think the complications of the economic angle add a significant variable that clearly contributed to Penn State's lack of transparency and that could translate into complicity.
I can't remember the author, but I somewhat remember the quote that "the average German in the 1930s wasn't evil, he was merely self-interested." While, as in the case of my earlier example, this is a bit tortured, but the question here is should the entire Penn State community be punished for the actions of the few? Clearly those who either enabled or failed to adequately deal with Sandusky should be brought to justice, but does penalizing the unknowing in all of this accomplish much of anything.
As I said in an earlier post, the NCAA is in a really interesting spot with this crisis. The public pressure will be on it to obliterate Penn State regardless of whether or not it is in their mission to do that.
Anyway, I apologize for the ramble.
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