Nelsons daughter and son-in-law accused of sex abuse

[_Rosebud]

Lemmie, I see that you're posting here because I get a message that says, "This post was made by Lemmie who is currently on your ignore list." I have made it clear to you on at least two occasions that I have you on ignore. Perhaps someone else will respond to what I assume (possibly falsely) are your concerns and disagreements with me. I have not read them. Best, -RB.

[_Lemmie]

People who are attracted to the profession of therapist are generally very gentle, sensitive people. They're not all ready to take on the media or harsh criticism. Unless they went on to get a PhD, they weren't likely trained in scientific or critical thinking. Add to that the "hypnotherapists" who got involved... the people who didn't even get a master's degree.... and wow... what a mess.

As a group, therapists aren't going to push back hard publicly. They're going to take the hits quietly and feel hurt. This is a generalization, of course,

Ya think??? omg.

... [therapists] weren't likely trained in scientific or critical thinking.

Are you serious??? CFR.

We don't know a lot, but one thing I think we can fairly accurately assert is that this situation was over most therapists' heads. Sticking with the "therapist" vs. "Satanist" narrative seems myopic to me.

You are the only one asserting that dichotomy. The article recommended by cinepro would be helpful in gaining a more realistic understanding.

[_cwald]

This is worth repeating...there is no credible evidence. The Satanic panic of the 80's has no credible evidence to back it up. God I remember how scared my parents were after reading Jay's Journal.

It sounds like you have determined, despite all professional assessments to the contrary, that Satanic ritual abuse did occur in those Utah neighborhoods in the 80's, and therefore you are forced into the position of having to explain how it could have happened when there is absolutely no evidence that it did.

You mentioned once before Occam's razor; this would be a good time to apply that type of thinking. Which requires the fewest number of assumptions,

(1) there is no physical evidence that Satanic ritual abuse occurred, therefore professionals conclude that no Satanic ritual abuse occurred; or

(2) there is no physical evidence that Satanic ritual abuse occurred, therefore some people who are sure that it occurred anyway conclude that abusers must have faked the Satanic ritual abuses, albeit still with no evidence of the fakery.

Really though, there seems a concerted effort in the threads about this to avoid talking about the most likely situation, that some therapists at the time exacerbated a very bad situation with some very un-professional techniques.

Cinepro Wrote: If it's the 1980s and those reports come to light at the hands of a therapist who believes in "recovered memories" and that such things are going on in local neighborhoods, and there is no other corroborating evidence other than the claims of the children after they have spoken to the therapist, then they should absolutely be discredited.

[_Mary]

Hi Mary, there was some discussion earlier about the direction of the 1985 Attorney general's report, and whether or not it implied there was evidence of ritual abuse. I noticed that in your timeline, you listed the reference and have now quoted only this part:

1995, – Attorney General Report: Ritual Crime in the State of Utah. Investigation, Analysis and a look forward

– Testimony only evidence. No evidence of homicide. However, [p3] outlines

“In another case, three adult female children recalled memories of Satanic sexual abuse that occurred while they were very young. The victims, in separate interviews discussed robed ceremonies, alters, candles, animal sacrifices and extreme physical and sexual abuse. Since their recollections appeared to show some consistency, an in-depth investigation was launched. At the conclusion of the investigation, the suspects were interviewed. Both the mother and the father admitted to serious sexual and physical crimes against the children and named several other individuals who were also involved. The case, however could not be prosecuted because the statute of limitations had run. The crimes occurred over 25 years ago, but this case does indicate that serious sexual and physical abuse can happen and that it is perpetuated by those who cloak their crimes in ritualistic activity.”

[ https://digitallibrary.utah.gov/awweb/a ... item=72457 ]

[ http://hellminusone.com/ ]

With the above quote, you picked out a single outlier that the report discussed, of which there were no other similar instances discussed, and are inaccurately representing it as though it was the conclusion of the report. In my opinion, the report actually could be summarized as concluding the exact opposite of what your isolated quote implies.

Could you explain why those paragraphs, out of the entire report, were the ones you are choosing to include in your timeline?

Hi Lemmie.

I covered the main conclusion. Testimony only evidence and no evidence of murder.

That's important for what it does and what it doesn't say in and of itself. The case of the three girls is interesting because the parents admitted their abuse according to the text. Most perpetrators don't admit.

[_Mary]

Okay. I want to push back on the idea that anything that Snow, Whitehead, Tyler or any number of therapists touched back in the 80s is invalid because they planted false memories.

In every case I have come across, the initial concern came from parents because their children were exhibiting age inappropriate behaviour sexually.

So the evidence was something was going on. Children were and are now being abused sexually. Babysitters, fathers, uncle, brothers, sisters can and are perpetrators.

I don't think anyone of us would deny this. The data supports the sad fact that child abuse goes on, and it goes on more regularly and more often than any of us would want to believe.

Then you get the issue of sex rings, which also occur when like minded individuals find ways of hooking up with each other.. and they do so not only in real life but also through the dark web. Sadly.

This we can agree on, yes?

So then, it becomes a matter of unpicking testimony and analysing memory and the way deeply traumatic memories are stored. It also entails a knowledge of how children, as children, confront their experiences, how they recall and recant.

When this stuff happens children can be drugged and threatened because the deepest desire of the perpetrators is not to be found out and for the children not to tell. We all appreciate this, yes?

So, what I am saying is that each case has to be carefully analysed and unpicked without dismissing everything or blindly accepting everything.

Introvigne at least recognised the debate and the messiness.

[_Lemmie]

[So, what I am saying is that each case has to be carefully analysed and unpicked without dismissing everything or blindly accepting everything.

no one has ever said otherwise.

You are missing my point entirely, and you are misrepresenting the 1995 report by picking out that one story. No one denies child abuse occurs but you are misconstruing the entire situation to support an insupportable conclusion.

[_Mary]

[So, what I am saying is that each case has to be carefully analysed and unpicked without dismissing everything or blindly accepting everything.

no one has ever said otherwise.

You are missing my point entirely, and you are misrepresenting the 1995 report by picking out that one story. No one denies child abuse occurs but you are misconstruing the entire situation to support an insupportable conclusion.

Can you be more specific? I clearly outlined the conclusion of the report.

How am I misconstruing the entire situation?
What is my unsupportable conclusion?

[_Rosebud]

This gets back to why I think the 1995 Attorney General report's statement that the cases aren't (usually) prosecutable is key.

What it is also saying is that just because they aren't prosecutable, that doesn't mean the abuse doesn't happen.

And what it is also saying is that the lay public depends on prosecutions to know what is real and what is not.

The report was very prescient, in my opinion. Because prosecution doesn't happen because the cases aren't prosecutable, the public latches onto media sensationalization and words like "Satanic panic" and assumes that it was all false, pointing fingers at therapists just like the defense attorneys did. No, people like Geraldo don't help the victims. All someone has to do to feel good about discrediting victims is say, "Geraldo reported on if and he said there were 50,000 of these 'Satanists' across the United States." And yes, this means that I don't think our Mormon sensationalists help either.

Because it isn't prosecutable and because the defense means attacking therapists, the therapists concluded that alleged victims should focus on healing instead of using the law. And since therapists didn't feel like law enforcement took the victims seriously, they concluded victims should not bother reporting to the police unless victims had physical evidence.

And therapists concluded that child protection policies that acknowledge that sometimes predators work together were more important than anything else. They wanted abuse prevention measures put in place.

But then the Boy Scouts and the church adopted the 2-deep program that was inatituted while Douglas Soverign Smith Jr., later convicted for the possession and distribution of child porn, led the Boy Scouts Youth Protection Task Force that focused on sexual abuse prevention.

If the problem is un-prosecutable sexual abuse that happens when predators work together, the last kind of abuse prevention policy you want is something like 2-deep.

The therapists noticed.

And the public kept saying "Geraldo" and "Satanic Panic" and "zero evidence."

The therapists kept listening to horrifying stories in their offices.

[_Lemmie]

Can you be more specific? I clearly outlined the conclusion of the report.

I already have been, and you persist in picking out tiny irrelevancies instead of the main issue. And no, you did not clearly outline the report, and I've posted why several times already.

With regard to rosebud's bizarre interpretation of how therapists dealt with the Satanic ritual abuse scare, see cinepro's comment I quoted above, about being in a feedback loop.

[_Rosebud]

I was having a conversation with someone about this the other day (who may end up reading this post.... idk).

I brought up child protection policies and Douglas Soverign Smith Jr., convicted for child porn, being in charge of child sexual abuse prevention and education when the 2-deep policy was first put in place.

His response was that just because Smith was a bad person, that doesn't necessarily mean his work was bad.

I had two interesting and immediate responses to that argument. First, define "bad person." Who is 'bad' and who isn't?

Second, and more importantly, what is is about humans that gives us a propensity to defend Smith's work when we know he was convicted of child porn while it was his job to educate others about child protection, and to simultaneously criticize Snow for her imperfections in her work when we know she was coping with a crisis in a new field and was trying to help children in the worst of circumstances.

We use thinking that's open to the possibility that the "bad guy's" work is better than he is and the "good guy's" work is deficient, fraudulent and destructive.

My answer as to why humans have this tendency is that we don't want to face that this is possible. We'd rather defend Smith and criticize Snow than allow ourselves to be open to the possibility that some small children might actually have to face this kind of thing alone. It's too terrible to believe.

But doesn't that make it all worse? Isn't the answer to stop completely discrediting all the reports and to listen and try to figure out what pieces of the story might be accurate despite all the sensationalization?

And that includes thinking through why predators might intentionally use sensationalization to get away with their crimes.