Josh, Anna and the Ms 16: The sins of our fathers

[KelseyAnn]

1 hour ago, SamiKatz said:

Why should you have the right to know that someone was sexual assaulted as a child?  You shouldn't.

And why does the fact that they are on TV mean you should have that right?  You shouldn't.

Under no circumstances should the identies of sexual assault victims be made public unless they've chosen to do so.

I will NEVER understand the logic that because someone has chosen to appear on television, or to become a public person in some way, means they lose their rights to any privacy they seek - especially regarding things that happened when they were minor children.

 

THANK YOU! I cannot even begin to adequately detail the shame I felt when news of what happened to me (won't go into details) was leaked through our small town via a loud-mouth CPS worker. These poor girls couldn't control what happened to them, but they should have at least been given the chance to control the narrative of their own victimization. Just put yourself in thier shoes. How would you feel going out for groceries or coffee, only to know and feel as if everyone is judging you for what happened? Just because InTouch COULD reveal the story, doesn't mean they SHOULD have. It was a disgusting grab at ratings and they should feeel very ashamed of themselves. 

45 minutes ago, Ivycoveredtower said:

The public had a right to know about Josh. the girls got out that sucks for them but blame their parents for not taking them to the police on time so the records were sealed blame their parents for not protecting them from their brother. blame Josh for being the gross pig he is. Blame the parents for putting them in a position that their personal life in the public spot light.  they knew this was in the closet and they STILL put their kids on TV. the cops legally released the records and the tabloids legally obtained them the ONLY ones to blame are Jim Bob Michelle and Josh those are the people those girls need to be angry with. they set it all up and it came falling all down because of their own actions.  you can get as mad about my opionon as you want but it will never change. 

I cannot help but think that if this was a more-popular family, like the Kardashians, that people's views on privacy would be a little different. I think just because these girls were/are Duggars, people think that they aren't 'worthy' of the respect, they would give other famous families and that's sad. 

[Carm_88]

Victims have the right to be protected. End of story. The girls should never have been outed. 

We know that JB and Michelle did wrong in how they dealt with Josh, they should have let it go through the system. Did Josh deserve to be outed? Sure did. However, victims should never be dragged through the mud. Nope, not right. Never going to be right. 

[Bad Wolf]

I'm glad that #5 was able to stay anonymous. 

[Jenn The Heathen]

This whole situation just highlights how hypocritical the Duggars are.  Josh failed his sisters.  Boob and Michelle failed all their children.  Yet, they’re looking to profit from doing all the wrong things (I just know Boob has had a hand in these lawsuits).

They really are driven by greed and their own sense of superiority.  Why would you put your family in the national spotlight knowing that there are police documents that show your son is a child molester?  Even if the reports were redacted more thoroughly and the reader couldn’t deduce that he molested his sisters, Josh is still a child molester and that could have been made public at anytime.  Putting yourself in the National spotlight only increases the chances of someone sniffing around and getting their hands on the info.  But, Boob saw the chance to make easy money and believed because he’s a good Christian that god would protect him.

Don’t even get me started on the robocall thing.  I just can’t wrap my head around that.  You have to be high up on your horse to automatically label a group of people as child molesters when you yourself have been hiding a child molester for years.

ETA: If Josh really felt bad about what he did, he wouldn’t look to gain financially from it.  Every time he spent a dollar of that money from the lawsuit, he should be reminded of the horrible things he did.

[luv2laugh]

Do the girls still have an ongoing lawsuit with the county?

 

it may not have been right for them to be outed due to poor redacting but the county is not at fault since they followed the law.

[Ivycoveredtower]

10 minutes ago, Jenn The Heathen said:

This whole situation just highlights how hypocritical the Duggars are.  Josh failed his sisters.  Boob and Michelle failed all their children.  Yet, they’re looking to profit from doing all the wrong things (I just know Boob has had a hand in these lawsuits).

They really are driven by greed and their own sense of superiority.  Why would you put your family in the national spotlight knowing that there are police documents that show your son is a child molester?  Even if the reports were redacted more thoroughly and the reader couldn’t deduce that he molested his sisters, Josh is still a child molester and that could have been made public at anytime.  Putting yourself in the National spotlight only increases the chances of someone sniffing around and getting their hands on the info.  But, Boob saw the chance to make easy money and believed because he’s a good Christian that god would protect him.

Don’t even get me started on the robocall thing.  I just can’t wrap my head around that.  You have to be high up on your horse to automatically label a group of people as child molesters when you yourself have been hiding a child molester for years.

ETA: If Josh really felt bad about what he did, he wouldn’t look to gain financially from it.  Every time he spent a dollar of that money from the lawsuit, he should be reminded of the horrible things he did.

exactly the girls want to sit there and be mad at the county the police the media they go on national TV defending their parents and Josh and  JIm Bob and Michelle decide to rebrand their show and keep it on the air instead of doing the smart thing and fading away into obscurity and letting their daughters heal they are all trying to make more money on it. feeling bad for the girls is one thing if they had stayed private AFTER it happened but they are still on TV and still holding the wrong people accountable. 

[luv2laugh]

JB probably had Josh do this. The scandal has made Josh unemployable and JB is most likely feeding him.

[Ivycoveredtower]

1 minute ago, luv2laugh said:

JB probably had Josh do this. The scandal has made Josh unemployable and JB is most likely feeding him.

Josh may be working back at the car lot. I thought I heard something about him selling cars to some guy a while back. 

[Million Children For Jesus]

I feel bad for the girls, even if they spend the rest of their lives fame whoring and exploiting their children, their identities as victims should have been protected. The report was not properly redacted. 

I do not feel bad for Josh. I am happy that he was outed, but I wish there would have been a way for In Touch to bring this to the surface without outing the girls. 

Had he had been a minor when the reports were made than it would not have been legal and/or ethical for InTouch to expose Josh, but IIRC, he was 18. 

[luv2laugh]

Josh may not be doing that well at the car lot. I think JB is paying his bills.  I think Josh will be financially dependent on JB for a lifetime.

[KelseyAnn]

18 minutes ago, Jenn The Heathen said:

They really are driven by greed and their own sense of superiority.  Why would you put your family in the national spotlight knowing that there are police documents that show your son is a child molester?  Even if the reports were redacted more thoroughly and the reader couldn’t deduce that he molested his sisters, Josh is still a child molester and that could have been made public at anytime.  

1

I don't think anybody really takes issue with Josh being outed (apart from a few and that's just fine). What some of us take umbrage with is that these young women were ousted, very likely against their will. As an assault victim, it can almost be revictimizing when somebody outs such personal information about you- no matter how 'good' their intentions are. And, FYI, I do not believe InTouch had good intentions when they did so. It was a money grab. They did not do it to protect anyone. 

[Jenn The Heathen]

It’s expensive to raise 5 kids and Josh is used to the easy 19KaC money and probably a decent salary when he was working in Washington.  I know car salesman can make a decent living, but how many people want to buy a used car from Josh of all people?

[KelseyAnn]

13 minutes ago, Ivycoveredtower said:

exactly the girls want to sit there and be mad at the county the police the media they go on national TV defending their parents and Josh and  JIm Bob and Michelle decide to rebrand their show and keep it on the air instead of doing the smart thing and fading away into obscurity and letting their daughters heal they are all trying to make more money on it. feeling bad for the girls is one thing if they had stayed private AFTER it happened but they are still on TV and still holding the wrong people accountable. 

I don't think it's fair to say they're hypocritical because they didn't want something they felt shame for being aired to millions of strangers. Come on, that would be most anybody's reaction. They are allowed to defend Josh, I wouldnt, and they are allowed to be angry at the magazines. People are capable of feeling more than once emotion at the time, even if they conflict with each other. 

[Ivycoveredtower]

2 minutes ago, KelseyAnn said:

I don't think it's fair to say they're hypocritical because they didn't want something they felt shame for being aired to millions of strangers. Come on, that would be most anybody's reaction. They are allowed to defend Josh, I wouldnt, and they are allowed to be angry at the magazines. People are capable of feeling more than once emotion at the time, even if they conflict with each other. 

If they were mad at Josh and the mags okay but I'm not going to feel sorry for them when they go on national TV. well getting all pissy at the Media and defend their brother and parents  I'm just not. 

[Carm_88]

I also think that victims of abuse will often downplay it because they don't want to believe that it was as bad as it was. I can see a lot of that in Jessa and Jill in their interview. The girls were failed again, it's the story of this. 

[KelseyAnn]

1 minute ago, Ivycoveredtower said:

If they were mad at Josh and the mags okay but I'm not going to feel sorry for them when they go on national TV. well getting all pissy at the Media and defend their brother and parents  I'm just not. 

When my oldest sister got removed from the home, and the terrible stories leaked, I was both mad at her for embarrassing us all and sympathetic to my family for having yet another strike placed against us. I was a child, one who was told what her opinions were, much like the Duggar girls. I didn't have the capability of really discerning my feelings and anger to my family until I was older and had had many years of therapy. And just like the Duggars, I told anybody who would listen at the time that it was my older sister  who was at fault, not my parents. When you're getting bullied for something personal, it's almost the default to double-down on the lies you've been fed. That way the hecklers and bullies are still wrong, and you're still right and not as bad as them. 

We understand the Duggar girls are obviously not emotionally mature as those not raised in cults, yet when it comes to something as complex as victimization suddenly it doesn't matter? 

[tabitha2]

However  they are choosing to deal with matters concerning the show, blame, and healing doesn't make them less Victims  of a Tabloid magazine looking for a scoop and not caring a damn  who’s lives it affects. For all we know they had dealt with the accountability of Josh and their parents long ago and were living normally or what counts as normal for a Duggar.  Then suddenly the Most private matters are laid bare for an entire country to discuss, joke about, examine and judge.  Yes, the tabloid rag was within its rights but it still was pretty shitty. 

 

[KelseyAnn]

3 minutes ago, tabitha2 said:

However  they are choosing to deal with matters concerning the show, blame, and healing doesn't make them less Victims  of a Tabloid magazine looking for a scoop and not caring a damn  who’s lives it affects. For all we know they had dealt with the accountability of Josh and their parents long ago and were living normally or what counts as normal for a Duggar.  Then suddenly the Most private matters are laid bare for an entire country to discuss, joke about, examine and judge.  Yes, the tabloid rag was within its rights but it still was pretty shitty. 

 

Exactly! Just imagine your most  embarrassing moment (peeing your pants at school?) and having one of your classmates spreading it all over even though it happened months ago and everybody had forgotten. Well, suddenly the teasing starts again and you're forced to endure the teasing all over again. Now magnify that times, idk, fifty- that's what those Duggar girls likely felt. 

[libgirl2]

14 minutes ago, Jenn The Heathen said:

It’s expensive to raise 5 kids and Josh is used to the easy 19KaC money and probably a decent salary when he was working in Washington.  I know car salesman can make a decent living, but how many people want to buy a used car from Josh of all people?

Not I said the fly! 

20 minutes ago, luv2laugh said:

Josh may not be doing that well at the car lot. I think JB is paying his bills.  I think Josh will be financially dependent on JB for a lifetime.

How the mighty have fallen. 

[viii]

Plenty of victims have trouble blaming their abusers for a variety of reasons. Why are the Duggar girls any different? If anything, they should be treated MORE gently because not only do they have to come to the acceptance that their brother abused them and their parents failed them, but they're also raised in a limited, toxic atmosphere where they're not supposed to ask questions or challenge the authority. 

[pandora]

31 minutes ago, Carm_88 said:

Victims have the right to be protected. End of story. The girls should never have been outed. 

We know that JB and Michelle did wrong in how they dealt with Josh, they should have let it go through the system. Did Josh deserve to be outed? Sure did. However, victims should never be dragged through the mud. Nope, not right. Never going to be right. 

Gonna use what you said as a springboard so this isn't a response to you personally @Carm_88  I agree with you really strongly on the first point- The Duggar girls should have been protected from this, even if people don't like what they said/did in the aftermath, because victims of abuse should be protected. That's true no matter what a person does, like you said, end of story.

Because I agree with you on the first part so strongly is why I disagree with the idea that Josh deserves to be outed. Talking about stuff from a "deserves" standpoint ends at a strange place for me. Not because it doesn't make my skin crawl to think of his/their family's hypocritical rhetoric but because I believe we as a society have a duty to rehabilitate as best possible juvenile sexual offenders. With proper help teen offenders have far less recidivism than adult sexual offenders, and we owe it to potential victims, families, and society in general to help juvenile offenders walk the straight and narrow. Part of that rehab in the US means that if JB and Michelle had given a single shit about any of their kids' well being and reported the abuse when it happened when Josh was a minor this info wouldn't be out there. Because I support that rehab in general, I don't think I could say Josh "deserved" to be outed. How should we know what any single person deserves without some sort of window into their mind? A lot of teens (I am in NO way speculating this happened to Josh just talking about in the system generally) who sexually offend were sexually or physically abused themselves. Are we all supposed to sit here and try to decide if what happened to them was bad enough to justify their records being protected?

What I'm trying to get at is that talking about what people deserve generally leaves me feeling kind of squicky. I think we can (and should!) be talking about the massive hypocrisy and lack of care exhibited by Josh and his parents following the abuse. It's disgusting and I think his lawsuit is crap. It was perfectly legal for it to be published- but I don't think anyone can deserve or not deserve such a thing. So to circle back to the Duggar girls and their behavior, they don't necessarily deserve anything either, but it's wrong for any victim to be outed like that.

[KelseyAnn]

8 minutes ago, viii said:

Plenty of victims have trouble blaming their abusers for a variety of reasons. Why are the Duggar girls any different? If anything, they should be treated MORE gently because not only do they have to come to the acceptance that their brother abused them and their parents failed them, but they're also raised in a limited, toxic atmosphere where they're not supposed to ask questions or challenge the authority. 

They are not really all that different from the poor FLDS girls- who, by the way, have had their identities very protected throughout all the scandals. 

[viii]

1 minute ago, KelseyAnn said:

They are not really all that different from the poor FLDS girls- who, by the way, have had their identities very protected throughout all the scandals. 

I agree - there is a whole host of people who have failed the Duggar girls, and the media is one of them. 

[KelseyAnn]

I never thought in a million years, let alone 2018, that having the opinion that victims should be protected would be a controversial one. 

[Nikedagain?]

2 hours ago, Ivycoveredtower said:

the public had a right to know about Josh and what type of people they were watching on TV.

ignorant.