Let Your Conscience Be Your Guide

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There was an article in the news recently about a man who returned money he stole from a Sears store in Seattle in the 1940s.  The original theft was between $20 and $30, so the now elderly man returned $100.  The store manager believes the man’s conscience may have been bothering him for the past 60 years.  The store will put the money toward helping needy families.

So I was interested to learn what my listeners have owned up to – even years later – because of their conscience; why they felt it was important to right the wrong and how doing so changed their life.  Below are just three examples. 

I.
When I was a young, very poor child in the 1940′s nearly everything was ‘too expensive’  — even the little rubber balls on a rubber string that were only ten cents at the Five & Dime store.

One summer day I stole one of the little balls. It seemed to be such fun but sadly, my great aunt and grandmother had raised me with a conscience. The ‘fun’ even seemed to be stolen and not so much fun after all.

Years later, in my 20s we traveled back to my old home town. The first thing I did was go to the store and paid back ten fold for the little ball. The manager was open-mouthed at first and then smiled and thanked me.

It was a great feeling. Forgiven and restored. That was nearly 60 years ago but the satisfaction of handing a dollar to the store manager and wiping the slate clean is still with me. – P.

II.
When I was twenty-four, already living on my own, my mom had a hysterectomy. A week later it was her 50th birthday. I was supposed to go to her house, but I wanted to go out with my boyfriend instead. I told my brother over the phone it would be real boring because I’d have to sit around and just hold her hand. My mom was listening in on the extension and started to cry. My dad called me back, told me I was a slut, and he was ashamed of me. I went to my boyfriend’s house anyway.

Years later I told my mom there were things I did selfishly I had regretted ever since, and I mentioned the time of her 50th birthday. I realized how much it must have hurt her and I was appalled at my behavior. She said she forgave me, and was proud of the person I had become; I was a good mom and she admired my strength. I replied, “Every good thing I know I learned from you, Mom.” I think Mom was choked up and couldn’t accept the compliment, but I know my slate was wiped clean and it felt so good.

When she lay dying this past spring, I was sad and upset, but I never felt we had any unfinished business. In every way that matters, I know Mom loved me and knew I loved her. – L.

III.
In high school, there was a kid who was a real easy target for me.  We went to a small school; our class had 20 kids. I was a big kid, had a big mouth and silver tongue, and he was a little slow, didn’t have any friends, and torturing him was a quick way to get easy laughs and make myself look cool. It went beyond simple name calling and spit wads. You could say my friends and I were bordering on psychological abuse. I thought about it every now and then over the years, but just shrugged it off as teenage crap.

This July I went to my 20 year reunion. I was surprised to see him there, in the corner by himself, and, was shocked at the look on his face when he saw me. It was a look of fear and panic. I was made aware in that split second when our eyes met it was much more than ‘teenage crap’ to that guy. I wasn’t a distance memory he could barely recall. He was actually scared of me – 20 years later.

I felt awful. I spent the next hour or so away from my buddies, one-on-one with him, engaging in good conversation, about what he’s been doing and just general catch-up. Unfortunately, life hasn’t been much kinder to him than I was all those years ago.  Just before the dinner started, I leaned in close and said, “There’s something I’ve got to say to you. I owe you a huge apology for how I treated you, man.” He tried to dismiss it and I interrupted. “No, this is important. There was no excuse for the crap you had to endure back then. I have no excuse for the things I said and did, and I was an absolute bastard. I’d like to ask for your forgiveness.”

He studied me for a second, and then got a huge grin with glassy eyes as he put his hand out. We shook, he said he accepted, and appreciated it.

The rest of the evening was great, he had a good time, and his spirit seemed to lift. I’m not sure if that had more effect on me or him, but I’m angry at myself for not seeking him out sooner. All I can hope for is I’ve made it right, and that night was a turning point for him. – C.

I do believe no matter how many days, months, years or decade pass, it’s a good thing to right the wrong.  I’ve gotten so many calls from people having done something they want to apologize for, but it happened so long ago.  Absolutely, send a card, send an email; just don’t text — that’s the least sensitive way to apologize.  But make a connection and say you’re sorry – if you are.  Don’t excuse it, don’t even explain it.  The best way to apologize is to say, “I did _________.  It was wrong.  I regret it.  And I’m sorry for any pain I caused you.”

I Am the Face of Child Abuse

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When the scandal at Penn State broke, and everyone was scrambling to protect the school football legacy, and coach Joe Paterno, I went on the air livid no one was talking about the children who were allegedly abused by Jerry Sandusky.  I dedicated a major portion of my SiriusXM show on Friday, November 11 to any victims of child abuse.  I wanted them to tell their stories, so people could no longer distance themselves from those who have had to live their lives with memories of these heinous crimes.
 
One of the most powerful callers was Roxine, who wrote out her statement so she’d be able to get through it.  She has given us permission to reprint it, and I encourage you to share it with all others and especially with those who would like to just “look the other way,” and not think of the actual effects of abuse on these children.  If you’d like to hear the actual call, click here, but what follows is the text of Roxine’s statement:

I am the face of child sexual abuse

And this is the face of my abuser.

He was my grandfather.  “Paw-Paw” sexually abused me from age 5 to 13.  And people knew.

The events unfolding at Penn State involving the sexual abuse of children and subsequent cover-up has awoken that little 5-year-old girl who deserved to be protected, who deserved a childhood, who deserved to live, who deserved for someone to say something to make it stop – as did all of the victims of this sexual deviant at Penn State.
   
The sexual abuse of a child not only takes away their innocence, it takes away their life, because who that child was supposed to be is forever changed.  And while we don’t carry scars that you can see, they are there.  Internal, emotional scars, filled with trust and betrayal issues, fear and anger, loss; sometimes we are unable to find value in ourselves as human beings because we were once just objects used to satisfy someone’s abnormal sexual desires.  Once we are old enough to realize that what our abusers did to us isn’t right, we begin to think  that maybe we had no worth, because no one protected us, no one stood up for us, no one cared.
 
Used and discarded, we are left to seek out “love” and “value” in the only way we know how, through sexual behaviors that aren’t rooted in real relationships.  We don’t know how to have relationships because we can never trust anyone fully.  The relationships we counted on as children failed us.  No one stood up for us.  No one protected us.  No one spoke up.

Because child sexual abuse is taboo, it makes people feel uncomfortable.  And it is this uncomfortable feeling that leaves the door open for the abuse to continue.  The incredulous thoughts of “not in my family, not him, not her, no way he or she could do that” make people question what they actually saw, or makes them doubt what they know is true.  Because it is such a gut-wrenching notion to imagine a child being raped by an adult, people would rather rationalize it than deal with it.  They would rather it just go away than have to face it.  Our mental self-preservation mode kicks in and we try not to think about such awful, monstrous acts on a child.

Already, just a few days into this news story, there are articles, reporters and radio hosts saying they just want to be done with it.  It makes them so uncomfortable that they just want it to go away.  But for us, for the little kids who suffered the heinous acts of child sexual abuse, this never goes away.  In a way, we welcome this conversation and want it to continue.  It is the only way that some will listen.  That little 5-year old girl is screaming at the top of her lungs for you to help her – if it doesn’t look right, if it doesn’t feel right – go with your gut – say something, do something, anything.  Don’t just walk away because it makes you uncomfortable.  Don’t sweep it under the rug because you don’t want to embarrass the family or the team or the university.

Children cannot protect themselves.  It is our duty to keep them safe. Speak up.  I would rather say something and be uncomfortable, than say nothing and risk losing another child.  No matter what, always protect the child.  If any of those involved had said something, they would be hailed a hero.  Instead, they turned a blind eye.  In my opinion, they are no better than the perpetrator himself.

Joe Paterno and the Penn State Child Abuse Horror

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It is my never-to-be-humble opinion that coach Joe Paterno from Penn State ought to be in jail.  Fired wasn’t enough.  Let’s see, endangering the welfare of minors, knowing kids were being molested and not reporting it to the police?  I don’t know, I think that should be actionable.
 
The other night just before I went to sleep, I turned on the computer looking to see if there’s anything I really need to talk about on my program the next day.  What I saw was a video of 2,000 moronic, amoral young people, spoiled rotten with no moral compass clapping, laughing, smiling and shouting, “We stand up for our school!  Paterno is our iconic hero!.”  These were totally misguided protests from creepy kids on the campus.  And they had nothing to say about the victims.  Me? I would throw them all out of school.

Jerry Sandusky abused little boys over a period of 15 years.  Not only that, but the story gets worse when you learn where some of them were “done”.  I would say, “More than ever Paterno should be fired. He took no moral responsibility and did not follow through on the information he knew so he could protect little kids.  And yet he talks about his 17 grandkids…”
 
Would he have felt differently if Sandusky had done one of his grandkids?  I don’t know.  Think he would’ve stepped forward to do anything?  What? And mess with Penn State football?  I don’t know, maybe he’d sacrifice one of his own grandkids too; I have no clue.  But those 2,000 students, who had no clue, morally, as to what this was really all about, make me sick for our future.  And the parents…if you’re parents of any of those kids who were out there, you should be embarrassed you produced critters like that.
 
Good for the board for not allowing Paterno to write the blueprint for his own exit.  He wanted to leave on his own terms.  Creep.  He wanted to finish out the season.  They got his butt out of there anyway.  He didn’t help the young victims of “alleged” sexual predator Jerry Sandusky, his former defensive coordinator, and he knew about it.
 
Paterno made a statement on Wednesday.  He described himself as “‘absolutely devastated’ by the recent indictment of Sandusky for 40 counts of sexual abuse across 15 years.”  He promised “to pray for the ‘comfort and relief’ of the victims identified.”  And he had the friggin’ gall to say, “With the benefit of hindsight, I wish I had done more.”  That’s an admission of guilt.  The victims probably wish he had done more too.
 
To add to this, the current assistant coach Mike McQueary, who was then a graduate assistant, walked into the Penn State shower to see Sandusky raping a 10 year old boy, and turned around and walked out.  He turned around and walked out.  He is 6’4″, 220 pounds, and he turned around and walked out.  He didn’t call the police.  He told his dad and he told Paterno.  “I saw it with my own eyes.”  And what did that bastard do?  Nothing.  Why?  Probably because he thinks, “I am God.  I am a football coach for Penn State.”
 
Loyal students camped outside Paterno’s house chanting, “Joe must stay!,” cheering a man who could’ve stopped a predator from attacking kids, had he just dialed 911.  They are cheering to keep him because football is king, success breeds power, power breeds influence, influence breeds a bullet-proof arrogance and most of our young people have absolutely no concept of morality.

It’s Dangerous To Be A Guy on Campus

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I received a letter from the folks at SAVE (Stop Abusive and Violent Environments).  They’re a group of people dedicated to improving the effectiveness of America’s approach to solving the problem of domestic violence through education, training, and awareness programs.  Well, they’ve expanded a little and are actively protesting against a new set of rules issued by the Department of Education regarding sexual assault on campus.  I’ve decided to reprint the letter here:

When sexual morality breaks down, lives get chaotic. When lives get chaotic, the government steps in to deal with the mess – and that rarely ends well.

Two recent stories vividly illustrate this principle:

Story 1: Newsweek just released an unusual and provocative set of college rankings. One of the lists – we kid you not – is the 25 “horniest” campuses. These are the colleges “where students have the best odds of hooking up.” This is presented as an appealing feature of these campuses.

Story 2: The Department of Education recently issued new rules telling colleges, in great detail, how they must handle accusations of sexual assault or harassment. The rules in effect strip accused men (students or faculty) of the presumption of innocence and the right to confront their accuser, even when they’re facing expulsion.

So on the one hand, liberals celebrate the “hook up” culture, the ultimate expression of their precious sexual revolution. And the place where liberalism reigns supreme – the American university – is now the scene of sexual anarchy. On the other hand, college boys who have obediently “explored their sexuality” face career-ending prosecution by an academic inquisition that will probe every salacious detail of their intimate encounters. The irony couldn’t be richer.

The results are seen in an illuminating article in Philadelphia magazine: “The New Rules of College Sex.” And we now have the inevitable lawsuit, brought by a young man who was expelled from Sewanee after an obviously fraudulent accusation of rape: http://www.timesfreepress.com/news/2011/aug/24/sewanee-lawsuit-trial-begins/

The federal rules about sexual assault on campus are such an egregious assault on basic civil rights that a backlash is brewing. (Even the American Association of University Professors has protested.) SAVE is leading the charge against these rules. We advocate for men falsely accused on domestic violence. Your listeners can find our more at our website saveservices.org.

Stop Abusive and Violent Environments (SAVE)

Pedophilia is Normal Say Some Mental Health Pros

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About 10 years ago, there was a major point I could not get people to see or believe. I said the sole end game of the liberalization of sexuality in our culture was to have sex with children. 

You look at societies throughout history and there are many societies in which having sex with children was okay.  You look at a place like Afghanistan and unless the men want to have babies, they do boys and animals.  This is nothing new on the face of the earth.  But, in western civilization, this is an issue and I said back then the end game was to have sex with kids. 

So, I found an article on Fox News titled “Mental Health Group Looks to Remove Stigma From Pedophilia,” which says:

“A group of psychiatrists and other mental health professionals say it’s time to change the way society views individuals who have physical attractions to children.

The organization, which calls itself B4U-Act, is lobbying for changes to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, or DSM, the guideline of standards on mental health that’s put together by the American Psychiatric Association.”

The DSM is the one where you look up a number for the disorder so the insurance companies will pay.  And, let me remind you for the umpteenth time:  there is nothing in psychology that makes it a science.  What goes in and out of the DSM as a disorder is based on social pressures and voting.  It has nothing to do with science.  I want you all clear…psychology is NOT a science.

“The group says its mission is to help pedophiles before they create a crisis, and to do so by offering a less critical view of the disorder.”

That’s just a bunch of bull and it’s words.  Words sell things, and even “nice” words can be co-opted to do some awful things.

“B4U-Act said that 38 individuals attended a symposium in Baltimore …[and] the speakers in attendance concluded that “minor-attracted” individuals are largely misunderstood and should not be criminalized even as their actions should be discouraged.”

I said a long time ago the end game of all this social liberalization (unknown to people even amidst the social liberalization) was to do your kids and not be criminalized for it, and this is what this article refers to.

Many of you may not know or may not remember the American Psychological Association published the infamous “Rind article” in its 1998 Psychological Bulletin.  This was a study which downplayed the impact of men having sex with boys, finding quite a few of the boys remembered their molestations positively, and not every child who has been molested has problems.
 
That’s like saying “I shot you in the head and you survived; therefore getting shot in the head is not a bad thing.”  This article was published by the American Psychological Association, and it said essentially man/boy sex was okay as long as the boys consented, because it was “love.”

I went on the air after the Rind article was published and I was very clear about this article wanting to decriminalize screwing your kids.  Grown men screwing your boys:  “it wasn’t a bad thing, it was a ‘love’ thing.  It’s a cultural problem;  people are just misunderstanding it.”

Well, I went ballistic and I got everyone in my office on the phone to Congress, and I asked the audience to do the same. I want to tell you the upshot, and I’m going to take all the credit for it.  It was my pressure which made Congress condemn the study and the American Psychological Association for the first time in its entire history backed down and apologized and the president of the American Psychological Association found another job.  I am proud to say I had enough power to mobilize enough people.  And Rind and his buddies were still invited to talk everywhere and were still published in other places.
 
Well, that may have happened, but we still have mental health professionals going to a symposium from a group which looks to remove the stigma from pedophilia.  “It’s a cultural thing.”  If the culture allows it, it’s not a bad thing, they say.  It’s not a bad thing for example in Afghanistan.  So, if it’s the norm (like Rome before it fell), what’s the big deal?  This is savage and all I can say is, I warned you.
 
I want you to understand the attempt to normalize screwing your children is still on in full gear.
 
They refer to pedophiles as “minor-attracted individuals.” How benign can you make it?  That’s why I call things as they are.  There needs to be clarity.  When you say “minor-attracted individuals,” you can follow it up with “are largely misunderstood and should not be criminalized.”  So, don’t be impressed just because someone is a psychologist or a psychiatrist.  You have to be very afraid because people get into positions of power to change things.  If I were a pedophile and I wanted to get it normalized and not criminalized, I would secretly and quietly get a bunch of my buddies and we’d join the psychological associations and teacher associations –  everywhere there are kids — and get in positions of power.  And then we’d gently start using different words (i.e., words that don’t shock, words that don’t alarm, words that don’t send up red flags) and slowly make it happen.  Remember the Rind study said it was not a problem; kids were not hurt by this.  And the American Psychological Association actually published that.

Why Men Are Failing

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Stop Being A Wuss! Just Say It!

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Family members seem to have a hard time when it comes to being firm with those closest to them.  Case in point:  today’s letter from a grandma who doesn’t want to offend her granddaughter.

Or watch other videos at youtube.com/DrLaura.

Interview with Parents Who Had Wrong Embryo Implanted

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It’s a nightmare no one wants to live out in real life.  Carolyn and Sean Savage, undergoing an in vitro fertilization (IVF) transfer, had the wrong embryo implanted, yet they brought the baby to term and then turned the infant over to his genetic parents.  I wanted to talk to this courageous couple about their heartbreaking journey.  Listen to the interview here.