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Witch Hunt Quotes

“The Legend of Robert Halsey This article examines the criminal conviction of Robert Halsey for sexually abusing two young boys on his school-van route near Pittsfield, Massachusetts. Mr. Halsey's name has been invoked by academics, journalists, and activists as the victim of the “witch hunt” in this country over child sexual abuse. Based on a comprehensive examination of the trial transcript, this article details the overwhelming evidence of guilt against Mr. Halsey. The credulous acceptance of the “false conviction” legend about Robert Halsey provides a case study in the techniques and tactics used to minimize and deny sexual abuse, while promoting a narrative about “ritual abuse” and “witch hunts” that apparently requires little or no factual basis. The second part of this article analyzes how the erroneous “false conviction” narrative about Robert Halsey was constructed and how it gained widespread acceptance. The Legend of Robert Halsey provides a cautionary tale about how easy it is to wrap even the guiltiest person in a cloak of righteous “witch hunt” claims. Cases identified as “false convictions” by defense lawyers and political activists deserve far greater scrutiny from the media and the public. journal: Cheit, Ross E. "The Legend of Robert Halsey." Journal of child sexual abuse 9.3-4 (2002): 37-52.”

LawMediaCrimeResearchEvidenceLiesVictimDenialNarrativeManipulationSkepticismChild Sexual AbuseScrutinyJudgeLegalLegendRitual AbuseCriminalSociety DenialMedia ManipulationTrialPedophileWitch HuntChildhood Sexual AbuseMedia LiesConvictedFalse ConvictionFalsely ConvictedRobert Halsey
Author:Ross Cheit
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“from: The Portrayal of Child Sexual Assault in Introductory Psychology Textbooks - Elizabeth J. Letourneau, Tonya C. Lewis One of the central questions surrounding the debate on memories of CSA is how often false or repressed memories actually occur. The APA working group (Alpert et al., 1996) and other experts (e.g., Loftus, 1993a) noted that no reliable method can distinguish between accurate and inaccurate memories. Therefore, no one can determine the prevalence of false or repressed memories. Nevertheless, six texts (30%) implied that false memories occur frequently (see Table 1). Of these, three included the opinionated suggestion that a "witch hunt" may be occurring in which innocent parents are routinely accused of, and then severely punished for, CSA. Two texts suggested that false memories of CSA must occur because an entire support group (the FMSF) has been formed for falsely accused parents. These authors apparently failed to consider that some members of the FMSF may actually have sexually assaulted children but are motivated to appear innocent. (85)”

OpinionLiesMental HealthChild AbuseBiasSexual AbuseRapeHypeChild Sexual AbuseAccusationIncestPseudoscienceSociety DenialRepressed MemoriesFalse MemoriesPedophileWitch HuntRecovered MemoriesFalse Memory Syndrome FoundationFalse Memory SyndromeDenial Of Child AbuseMemory WarsFalse AllegationPseudoscientifcInflammatory
Book:Handbook for Teaching Introductory Psychology: Volume II
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“It is often said that Vietnam was the first television war. By the same token, Cleveland was the first war over the protection of children to be fought not in the courts, but in the media. By the summer of 1987 Cleveland had become above all, a hot media story. The Daily Mail, for example, had seven reporters, plus its northern editor, based in Middlesbrough full time. Most other news papers and television news teams followed suit. What were all the reporters looking for? Not children at risk. Not abusing adults. Aggrieved parents were the mother lode sought by these prospecting journalists. Many of these parents were only too happy to tell — and in some cases, it would appear, sell— their stories. Those stories are truly extraordinary. In many cases they bore almost no relation to the facts. Parents were allowed - encouraged to portray themselves as the innocent victims of a runaway witch-hunt and these accounts were duly fed to the public. Nowhere in any of the reporting is there any sign of counterbalancing information from child protection workers or the organisations that employed them. Throughout the summer of 1987 newspapers ‘reported’ what they termed a national scandal of innocent families torn apart. The claims were repeated in Parliament and then recycled as established ‘facts’ by the media. The result was that the courts themselves began to be paralysed by the power of this juggernaut of press reporting — ‘journalism’ which created and painstakingly fed a public mood which brooked no other version of the story. (p21)”

LawCrimeLiesAbusePropagandaChild AbuseHypeChild Sexual AbuseAccusationLegalAbuse Of PowerClevelandAbusersSociety DenialMedia ManipulationAllegationsChild RapePedophiliaWitch HuntChild ProtectionMedia DistortionFalse AccusationPaedophile RingSystemic FailureFalse AllegationsSocial ServicesPedophile RingChild Custody
Book:Creative Responses to Child Sexual Abuse: Challenges and Dilemmas
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“The last time that I consciously wrote anything to 'save the honor of the Left', as I rather pompously put it, was my little book on the crookedness and cowardice and corruption (to put it no higher) of Clinton. I used leftist categories to measure him, in other words, and to show how idiotic was the belief that he was a liberal's champion. Again, more leftists than you might think were on my side or in my corner, and the book was published by Verso, which is the publishing arm of the New Left Review. However, if a near-majority of leftists and liberals choose to think that Clinton was the target of a witch-hunt and the victim of 'sexual McCarthyism', an Arkansan Alger Hiss in other words, you become weary of debating on their terms and leave them to make the best of it.”

SexCorruptionDebateLiberalismDelusionCowardiceIdiocyArkansasLeftismWitch HuntMccarthyismBill ClintonImpeachment Of Bill ClintonLewinsky ScandalAlger HissNew Left ReviewVerso Books
Book:Christopher Hitchens and His Critics: Terror, Iraq, and the Left
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“The Awakening Web by Stewart Stafford One defamatory word starts reputations dragging, And spreads the virulent and incessant tagging, As the cat cruelly with the mouse has toyed, By a kangaroo crucible, condemned, and destroyed. For these spiders of the great stalking portal, Do bend the ears of mobs of mortals, And spin others in silken shrouds, Shaking the web, shameless and proud. So be cautious of the image you put out, And with the carefree words that leave your mouth, For tempests form over waters calm, When self-righteous arachnids hypocritically cause harm. © Stewart Stafford, 2021. All rights reserved.”

Self RighteousCancel CultureDefamationWitch HuntCanceledThe CrucibleReputational DamageCancelledCancellingKangaroo Court
Author:Stewart Stafford
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“The book argues that even though many cases have been held up as classic examples of modern American “witch hunts,” none of them fits that description. McMartin certainly comes close. But a careful examination of the evidence presented at trial demonstrates why, in my view, a reasonable juror could vote for conviction, as many did in this case. Other cases that have been painted as witch-hunts turn out to involve significant, even overwhelming, evidence of guilt. There are a few cases to the contrary, but even those are more complicated than the witch-hunt narrative allows. In short, there was not, by any reasonable measure, an epidemic of “witch hunts” in the 1980s. There were big mistakes made in how some cases were handled, particularly in the earliest years. But even in those years there were cases such as those of Frank Fuster and Kelly Michaels that, I believe, were based on substantial evidence but later unfairly maligned as having no evidentiary support.”

RealityMediaCrimeEvidenceAbuseCourtGuiltGuiltyWitnessNarrativeChild AbuseSexual AbuseJuryChild Sexual AbuseJudgeRitual AbuseSociety DenialEpidemicTrialSatanic Ritual AbuseNot GuiltyChild RapeWitch HuntDay CareSraDaycareInstitutional AbuseWitchhuntChild MolestersFalse AllegationFrank FusterJurorKelly MichaelsManiuplationMcmartinOverwhelming Evidence
Book:The Witch-Hunt Narrative: Politics, Psychology, and the Sexual Abuse of Children
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“The witch-hunt narrative is a really popular story that goes like this: Lots of people were falsely convicted of child sexual abuse in the 1980s and early 1990s. And they were all victims of a witch-hunt. It just doesn’t happen to line up with the facts when you actually look at the cases themselves in detail. But it’s a really popular narrative — I think it’s absolutely fair to say that’s the conventional wisdom. It’s what most people now think is the uncontested truth, and those cases had no basis in fact. And what 15 years of painstaking trial court research (says) is that that’s not a very fair description of those cases, and in fact many of those cases had substantial evidence of abuse. The witch-hunt narrative is that these were all gross injustices to the defendant. In fact, what it looks like in retrospect is the injustices were much more often to children.”

TruthLawMediaCrimeAbuseInjusticeDenialJudgementManipulationSurvivorChild AbuseChild Sexual AbuseJudgeLegalCriminalChild RapePedophiliaWitch HuntChildhood Sexual AbusePedophilesChild Abuse SurvivorsMedia LiesWitchhuntConvictedConvictSocial DenialChild Abuse ProtectorsMedia Denial
Author:Ross Cheit
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“The witch-hunt narrative is now the conventional wisdom about these cases. That view is so widely endorsed and firmly entrenched that so widely endorsed and firmly entrenched that there would seem to be nothing left to say about these cases. But a close examination of the witch hunt canon leads to some unsettling questions: Why is there so little in the way of academic scholarship about these cases? Almost all of the major witch-hunt writings have been in magazines, often without any footnotes to verify or assess the claims made. Why hasn't anyone writing about these cases said anything about how difficult they are to research? There are so many roadblocks and limitations to researching these cases that it would seem incumbent on any serious writer to address the limitations of data sources. Many of these cases seem to have been researched in a manner of days or weeks. Nevertheless, the cases are described in a definitive way that belies their length and complexity, along with the inherent difficulty in researching original trial court documents. This book is based on the first systematic examination of court records in these cases.”

MediaEvidenceCourtWitnessSpeculationSexual AbuseRumorChild Sexual AbuseMisinformationConventional WisdomMedia ManipulationTrialChild RapeDisinformationWitch Hunt1980sWitchhuntChild MolestersUrban Myth
Book:The Witch-Hunt Narrative: Politics, Psychology, and the Sexual Abuse of Children
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“Despite its popularity amongst critical criminologists, the empirical basis of the moral panic account of sexual abuse has been shown to be substantially untrue. There is no evidence of an increase in reckless or baseless sexual abuse prosecutions during the 1990s, which was supposedly the height of the “moral panic” (Cross, Walsh, Simone, & Jones, 2003).”

Sexual AbuseRapeChild Sexual AbuseWitch HuntMoral PanicRape MythsFalse AllegationsFalse Allegations Of Rape
Book:The History of Surrealist Painting
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“The above is stereotypical FMS rhetoric. It employs a formulaic medley of factual distortions, exaggerations, emotionally charged language and ideological codewords, pseudo-scientific assertions, indignant protestations of bigotry and persecution, mockering of religious belief, and the usual tiresome “witch hunt” metaphors to convince the reader that there can be no debating the merits of the case. No matter what the circumstances of the case, the syntax is always the same, and the plot line as predictable as a 1920's silent movie. Everyone accused of abuse is somehow the victim of overzealous religious fanatics, who make unwarranted, irrational, and self-serving charges, which are incredibly accepted uncritically by virtually all social service and criminal justice professionals assign to the case, who are responsible for "brainwashing" the alleged perpetrator or witnesses to the crime. This mysterious process of "mass hysteria" is then amplified in the media, which feeds back upon itself, which finally causes a total travesty of justice which the FMS people in the white hats are duty-bound to redress. By reading FMS literature one could easily draw the conclusion that the entire American justice system is no better than that of the rural south in the days of lynchings and the Ku Klux Klan. The Salem witch trials of the seventeenth century are always the touchstone for comparison.”

AbuseChild Sexual AbuseMisinformationRitual AbuseSatanic Ritual AbuseWitch HuntFalse Memory SyndromeFmsfSalem Witch TrialsOverzealousCounter AttackSatanic PanicMass HysteriaRitual Abuse Myth
Book:Ritual Abuse in the Twenty-First Century: Psychological, Forensic, Social, and Political Considerations
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“interview from Ross E. Cheit about The Witch-Hunt Narrative: Politics, Psychology, and the Sexual Abuse of Children (Oxford University Press, February 2014). In the foreword to your book you mention a book titled Satan’s Silence was the catalyst for your research. Tell us about that. Cheit: Debbie Nathan and Michael Snedeker solidified the witch-hunt narrative in their 1995 book, Satan’s Silence: Ritual Abuse and the Making of a Modern American Witch Hunt, which included some of these cases. I was initially skeptical of the book’s argument for personal reasons. It seemed implausible to me that we had overreacted to child abuse because everything in my own personal history said we hadn’t. When I read the book closely, my skepticism increased. Satan’s Silence has been widely reviewed as meticulously researched. As someone with legal training, I looked for how many citations referred to the trial transcripts. The answer was almost none. Readers were also persuaded by long list of [presumably innocent] convicted sex offenders to whom they dedicated the book. If I’m dedicating a book to fifty-four people, all of whom I think have been falsely convicted, I’m going to mention every one of these cases somewhere in the book. Most weren’t mentioned at all beyond that dedication. The witch-hunt narrative is so sparsely documented that it’s shocking.”

LawCrimeResearchEvidenceDenialManipulationChild AbuseShockingPublicityChild Sexual AbuseJudgeLegalCriminalSociety DenialGullibleWitch HuntChildhood Sexual AbusePedophilesPedophile ProtectorsWitchhuntConvictedChild MolestorsMedia DenialDebbie NathanMichael SnedekerSatan S Silence
Author:Ross Cheit
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“An undergraduate researching the "witch hunt" cases asked for evidence that there had been more than one hundred cases, noting that the major lists of such cases added up to about fifty. There was no reply that provided documentation to support the claim.[34] The members of the list were generally strong proponents of the witch-hunt narrative. They knew the answer to the question “Is there a child sex abuse witch hunt?” These “witch hunters,” as those on this list soon came to describe themselves, were increasingly activists who used the internet to exchange information and ideas. Jonathan Harris may have done more than anyone else to disseminate the witch-hunt narrative in the mid 1990s and beyond.[35]”

NarrativeChild AbuseSexual AbuseChild Sexual AbuseActivistsWitch HuntWitchhuntWitch Hunters
Book:The Witch-Hunt Narrative: Politics, Psychology, and the Sexual Abuse of Children
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“For all this talk about us being a nation at war with child abuse, and for all the media hype about witch-hunts and false allegations — and don't ever let anyone use the word witch-hunts about this; there were no witches — the fact remains that in 1994, it is extremely difficult to come forward with allegations of sexual abuse. And the external forces of denial are almost overwhelming. If a case as verified as mine meets with denial, I dread to think about the experience of people who don't have the kind of corroboration that I do. And I really worry that we're getting close to a point where it's going to be impossible to prosecute child molesters, because we don't believe children, and now we don't believe adults. (Cheit "Paper presented at the Mississippi Statewide Conference on Child Abuse and Neglect" Jackson, April 29 1994.)”

DenialChild AbuseChild Sexual AbuseIncestSociety DenialAllegationsWitch HuntPedophilesFalse Memory SyndromePaedophilesWitch Hunts
Author:Ross Cheit
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“Talk of "witch-hunts" conceals an inconvenient fact: men charged with rape stand a better chance of walking free than other defendants. The conviction rate in rape trials – 63 per cent in 2012/13 – is quite a lot lower. Prosecutors are taking a bigger risk when they bring rape cases to court, especially when the alleged offences happened decades ago, leaving no forensic evidence. The Independent, 9 February 2014”

LawCrimeRapeChild Sexual AbuseRape CultureCriminalNot GuiltyConvictionsWitch HuntPedophilesPaedophilesAcquittalChild Sex AbuseWitchhuntAllegedRape ConvictionsHistoric Child Abuse
Author:Joan Smith
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“Roache's statement after his acquittal was dignified but his supporters were angry. They demanded to know why the case was ever brought, claiming that the actor was a victim of the "hysteria" created by revelations about Jimmy Savile. It's a curious conclusion to draw from a "not guilty" verdict; there are courtrooms where the conviction rate is 100 per cent but they tend to be in totalitarian states. In serious criminal cases in England and Wales, the rate is around 82 per cent, and I would be seriously worried if every defendant were to be found guilty. The Independent, 9 February 2014”

LawJusticeCourtInjusticeConvictionHistoricRapeChild Sexual AbuseHysteriaLegalRape CultureTrialNot GuiltyPedophileWitch HuntPaedophilesHystericsAllegedHistoric Child AbuseHistoric CrimeWitchunts
Author:Joan Smith
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“Claiming to be offended is a great way to elevate yourself at the expense of others: “Look at me! I'm a much better person than you! And I judge you! I condemn you! Shame! Shame! SHAME!”

Political CorrectnessTwitter QuotesTrollsGame Of ThronesWitch HuntShamingPolitically Correct CultureTrolling GoodreadsGame Of Thrones Quotes
Book:Why Creeps Don't Know They're Creeps - What Game of Thrones can teach us about relationships and Hollywood scandals
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“But then, not long after, in another article, Loftus writes, "We live in a strange and precarious time that resembles at its heart the hysteria and superstitious fervor of the witch trials." She took rifle lessons and to this day keeps the firing instruction sheets and targets posted above her desk. In 1996, when Psychology Today interviewed her, she burst into tears twice within the first twenty minutes, labile, lubricated, theatrical, still whip smart, talking about the blurry boundaries between fact and fiction while she herself lived in another blurry boundary, between conviction and compulsion, passion and hyperbole. "The witch hunts," she said, but the analogy is wrong, and provides us with perhaps a more accurate window into Loftus's stretched psyche than into our own times, for the witch hunts were predicated on utter nonsense, and the abuse scandals were predicated on something all too real, which Loftus seemed to forget: Women are abused. Memories do matter. Talking to her, feeling her high-flying energy the zeal that burns up the center of her life, you have to wonder, why. You are forced to ask the very kind of question Loftus most abhors: did something bad happen to her? For she herself seems driven by dissociated demons, and so I ask. What happened to you? Turns out, a lot. (refers to Dr. Elizabeth F. Loftus)”

MemoryNonsenseChild AbuseDemonsWitchesSexual AbuseRapeDissociationHysteriaSurvivorsExpertIncestVictimsFalse MemoriesSalemWitch HuntFalse MemoryRepressed MemoryFmsfFalse AccusationsMemory WarsDefense WitnessSocial DenialElizabeth LoftusElizabeth F LoftusFalse Memory Syndrome SocietyWitch TrailsProtecting Abusers
Book:Opening Skinner's Box: Great Psychological Experiments of the Twentieth Century
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“These pundits are community leaders of the sort—they validate feelings and provide guidance. Internet Inquisitors position themselves as authority figures and truth tellers; they confirm the mob's hatred, paranoia, and insecurities and directed towards the nearest combustible witch on their radar. They serve as morale boosters, assuring the mob that they are correct, that their path is righteous, and that it's the world that's wrong (or in this case, the person they're offering up as a sacrifice).”

MisogynyWitch HuntMob MentalitySacrificial VictimsInciting IncidentMob LeaderSelf Styled Authority
Book:Crash Override: How Gamergate (Nearly) Destroyed My Life, and How We Can Win the Fight Against Online Hate
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“We shall therefore compare the concept of homosexuality as heresy, prevalent in the days of the witch-hunts, with the concept of homosexuality as mental illness, prevalent today.”

TodayConceptsIllnessMental IllnessCompareWitchHomosexualityHuntsHeresyWitch Hunt
Book:The Manufacture of Madness: A Comparative Study of the Inquisition and the Mental Health Movement
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“[A 2005 response to doping allegations] Unfortunately, the witch hunt continues and tomorrow's article is nothing short of tabloid journalism. The paper even admits in its own article that the science in question here is faulty and that I have no way to defend myself. They state: 'There will therefore be no counter-exam nor regulatory prosecutions, in a strict sense, since defendant's rights cannot be respected.' I will simply restate what I have said many times: I have never taken performance enhancing drugs.”

WaySaidStatesTakenRightsTomorrowDrugPaperPerformancesResponseJournalismWitchArticlesStrictHuntsExamTabloidsProsecutionAllegationsWitch HuntDopingPerformance Enhancing Drugs
Author:Lance Armstrong
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“We grow tyrannical fighting tyranny. . . . The most alarming spectacle today is not the spectacle of the atomic bomb in an unfederated world, it is the spectacle of the Americans beginning to accept the device of loyalty oaths and witch hunts, beginning to call anybody they don't like a Communist.”

WorldTodayFightingGrowsAcceptingLoyaltyToleranceTyrannyBombsDevicesCommunistWitchHuntsOathAtomic BombWitch Hunt
Book:In the Words of E.B. White: Quotations from America's Most Companionable of Writers
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“The witch-hunt was a perverse manifestation of the panic which set in among all classes when the balance began to turn toward greater individual freedom. The witch-hunt was not, however, a mere repression. It was also, and as importantly, a long overdue opportunity for everyone so inclined to express publicly his guilt and sins, under the cover of accusations against the victims.”

LongTurnsOpportunityIndividualSinClassGreaterBalanceVictimGuiltMereTyrannyManifestationWitchPanicHuntsRepressionAccusationIndividual FreedomOverdueWitch Hunt
Book:The Penguin Arthur Miller: Collected Plays (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)
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