Fault and Blame

I’ve been following an appalling storyline over at A Small Victory, and it goes a little something like this:

At a High School Football camp trip some members of the team are raped (sodomized with broomsticks, golf balls, and pine cones) and despite the fact that virtually everyone on the team knows, the story doesn’t get out until one of the boys requires surgery to repair damage done by the sodomy. Once it DOES come out, the school cancels the football season. This upset a lot of people. Oddly, there seemed to be more people upset that the football season was canceled than that the players raped other players. (Read the rest at the above links)

That’s the gist of it. It’s disgusting. But possibly as twisted as the minds of those who would DO something like this, are the minds of those that blame society (or any of its parts) for the acts. It’s a part of liberalism that greatly irritates me. These people just don’t believe in personal accountability. It wasn’t two kids’ fault that they shot at moving cars… it wasn’t Bill Clinton’s fault that he lied under oath… the “trenchcoat mafia” wasn’t to blame for Columbine… and on, and on, and on.

Let’s get something straight here. It wasn’t football. It wasn’t football culture. It wasn’t the school. It wasn’t the victims. It wasn’t video games. It wasn’t Santa Claus. None of those people are to blame for what happened. There are, as far as I’m concerned, two groups that should bear the full brunt of the blame here. First and foremost, the kids wielding the broomsticks. This is a situation where that cruel & unusual punishment business is so restricting. Secondly, you have all of the kids who knew, but didn’t tell. Also somewhere in here fit the parents who quite obviously failed in raising children that weren’t demonic.

There are some folks who should be beaten severely for their actions in the aftermath, though certainly aren’t to blame for the crime. Parents who have talked out about how wrong it is to cancel the football season, but fail to mention how wrong it is to rape someone. The cheerleaders, of course, for being so vocal about how “unfair” it is. There’s also the media for turning this into a Parents vs. School Board drama instead of DA vs. Suspected Felons drama. There’s plenty of blame to go around, but there’s only so much FAULT and CAUSE and that lies squarely on the shoulders of the players on that team who committed such horrendous acts or were silent when they were finished.