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Josh Duggar and His Entirely Unsurprising Child Porn Charges

Josh Duggar and His Entirely Unsurprising Child Porn Charges

Last updated on: April 30, 2021 at 8:53 pm by Captain Cassidy

Josh Duggar and His Entirely Unsurprising Child Porn Charges 2021-04-30T20:53:58-06:00 Captain Cassidy

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Hi and welcome back! Last night, we got the news that Josh Duggar — eldest ultra-evangelical son of ultra-evangelical Quiverfull-type parents — had just been arrested. No charges had been filed yet, but no bail had been set, either. Well, we found out today what the charges were: possession of child porn. I hope nobody’s even surprised here. Jesus didn’t change Josh Duggar one bit, and this new arrest is just proof of that fact.

We are not surprised here. Nobody should be.

(Previous Josh Duggar posts: Oh man. Probably easier to just give you the tag. But here’s a sampling: Josh Duggar’s Tough Time; The Predators in Plain Sight in Broken Systems; What It Took to Take Josh Duggar Down; Josh Duggar’s Fake Rehab Thing; Anna Duggar’s Impossible Decision; Josh Duggar’s Secret Facebook Account; The Tribe Spins for Josh Duggar; Christian Defenses of Josh Duggar; Excusing the Inexcusable. My favorite: Do Not Piss Off Lesbians, and Other Surprising Revelations.)

Josh Duggar and His Clown Car Family.

Back in the late 2000s, a surprising family entered the genre of reality TV: the Duggars, a huge family of extremely fervent right-wing Christians. Their reality show, 17 Kids and Counting, depicted their family — yes, with 17 kids! — as they went about their day. In a world of “real housewives” who seemed about as “real” as unicorns and fairy dust, they represented quite a contrast from the usual fare on TV.

In those halcyon days, a lot of people seemed absolutely fascinated with this family. They were like a circus sideshow act. How did such a huge family shop for groceries? (In bulk. Way, way in bulk.) How did they get around? (In very large vehicles.) How did they organize all those childrearing tasks parents must do? (With military precision and lots of help from older daughters and young, live-in babysitters.) And how did they even pay for it all? (That part tended to stay murky, but Jim Bob seemed to have a lot of irons in the entrepreneurial fire.)

Through the years, they just kept popping out more kids. In short order, 17 Kids and Counting became 18 Kids and Counting, then 19 Kids and Counting. When the oldest children began marrying out, people wondered if they’d get spinoff shows (and yes, some would).

Most of all, people noticed how incredibly obedient the kids were — and how happy everyone seemed to be. Gosh, the kids and wife were always smiling ear-to-ear! In a lot of ways, the Duggar clown car functioned as a living advertisement (or witness, as the Christianese goes) for their style of repressive, oppressive, authoritarian evangelicalism.

However, controversy soon dogged this family’s heels.

Josh Duggar: An All Too Brief Outline of the First Scandal.

Of course, most Americans didn’t like hearing about the family’s incredibly bigoted views. Folks were also weirded out by their extremist religious practices. The parents’ increasing involvement in the worst brand of right-wing, culture-warrior, Jesus Party politics didn’t please many people either.

Really, viewers seemed to most want scenes of sky-high-loaded shopping carts, incessant clown-car chore rotations, cute kids trying to survive amid the inevitable chaos of their situation, and huge family meals.

Alas, viewers got the bigotry-and-extremism bonus plan anyway.

But all of that unpleasant stuff paled before the Josh Duggar scandal.

In 2015, a gossip site, In Touch, printed a 2006 police report about Josh Duggar. He’s the oldest son of Jim Bob and Michelle, and he was the scion of their family. And in 2006, Jim Bob informed his state’s police force that his son had, a few years earlier, molested five little girls in the household. Four of his victims were his own sisters, while the last was one of their underage, live-in babysitters.

(Re: the babysitter. Huge Christian families in this religious group, especially wealthy ones, commonly do this. Poor families offload their extra little girls, while the wealthy families get an indentured servant to ease the huge burden on severely-overworked mothers.)

At the time of the molestation, Josh Duggar was 14-15 years old. When his parents found out what he’d done, they enrolled him in a fake rehab thing to force-labor his way out of trouble.

The Duggars were quite surprised when they got investigated a few years later. And even more surprised, I’m sure, when the whole sordid fiasco got publicly revealed in 2015.

Josh Duggar: Leopards Do Not Change Their Disgustingly Hypocritical Spots.

After the scandal exploded in 2015, Josh Duggar did another fake Christian rehab thing.

He’d gotten married by then to a naive-sounding young woman from his wackadoo religious community, and they were already popping out children left and right. Until the scandal’s reveal, he even had a paying gig with the bigoted hate group Family Research Council, which — combined with his family’s influence in Republican politics — had him rubbing shoulders with all kinds of big names.

Hooray, Jesus Power had fixed him!

Except not really.

Later in 2015, we learned Josh Duggar was a high-paying member of Ashley Madison when their site got hacked — and he haunted other dating sites as well. He also had a secret Facebook account, which he used to pick up young women for rough sex.

Then, a porn actress, Danica Dillon, filed a lawsuit against him for injuries she’d sustained during sex with him. They’d met at the strip club where she worked; he paid quite a lot for lap dances from her. He purchased her time for sex, but “manhandled” her so badly she sustained physical and emotional injuries.

In short, 2015 was a very big year for Josh Duggar. At least everyone seemed to be of-age, I guess.

Laying Low.

After his big blowout year in 2015, Josh Duggar did his best to lay low. The world learned he was mostly just a total screw-up. Mostly, he seems to have worked for his dad.

His family depended on his parents’ help for survival. A lot of people do and there’s no shame in that, but it’s just so striking that Josh Duggar so completely lacked his father’s shrewd abilities to network and ferret out money from so many places. The scion of the family was definitely showing everyone how great Quiverfull teachings really were.

In 2019, Josh Duggar hit the news again when his used car dealership got raided by authorities. Homeland Security showed up to search the place. It was all very mysterious. The agency said it was just there as part of “an ongoing investigation,” but I don’t think anyone ever really found out what that was all about.

Well, I reckon we found out today.

A New Scandal for Josh Duggar.

Last night, we heard Josh Duggar had been actually arrested. Nobody knew what the charges were, though.

(Source.) JFC, that sleazy smirk.

I headed for the usual sites to figure out what had happened. A Duggar discussion forum, Free Jinger, delivered the goods. Their community had a flurry of posts speculating about what had happened, and someone provided his arrest record (seen above).

U.S. Marshals had arrested Josh Duggar. A detention center had him on a federal hold — and they’d set no bail for him.

One member at Free Jinger, DugFan, wrote:

I just told all of this to my lawyer-husband (who doesn’t follow the Duggars at all except for what I tell him. [laughing emoji]). He said that the “no bail” part is what stands out to him. “Either no bail because he’s considered a flight risk for a medium level crime or no bail because it is an extreme crime and it doesn’t matter whether he is a flight risk or not”.

That sounded quite plausible. Quite a few of the folks there wondered if this arrest was related to the 2019 raid. So did I. That raid never really materialized into anything.

As well, plenty of the good folks at Free Jinger wondered if this was going to be something really bad — like way past financial skulduggery, which they all thought was way beyond Josh Duggar’s meager capabilities. I agreed there, too.

Sidebar: Okay, This Part Was Funny.

One of the Free Jinger people, Sops2, mentioned this during their discussion:

Jim Bob and Michelle have been speaking at Big Sandy today Their session is titled “God works all things for Good”

-they’ve probably rushed home by now

Oh, that was great.

In fact, it seemed like a lot of the Duggars were in Big Sandy yesterday. Clever feds!

Now I wonder how the Duggar parents will spin that concept into Josh Duggar’s arrest. I mean, Christians like them love to say horrifying things like that — like hey, okay, Josh Duggar harmed children, but look at all the good that came of that harm! Must be Jesus Power!

They never think through what they’re saying there. They’re telling us that it’s okay with them that someone got hurt. They’re accidentally revealing what an absolutely abusive monster their imaginary friend really is. After all, Jesus couldn’t create that good without an innocent child taking potentially lifelong emotional and physical injuries!

Y’all, if some Christian goes there, I will not, will not, take it well.

The Unsurprising Charges for Josh Duggar.

Today, KNWA has the story for us.

Josh Duggar was charged with two counts of receiving and possessing child porn.

It’s the actual charging document that got my attention — specifically, the dates mentioned in the official indictment. KNWA thoughtfully provided it in their story (along with a link to the arrest record I mentioned earlier if you want to click around there). Here’s Count One of the indictment:

Between on or about May 14, 2019, and on or about May 16, 2019, in the Western District of Arkansas, Fayetteville Division, the Defendant, JOSHUA JAMES DUGGAR, knowingly received child pornography [. . .]

Count Two is the same, just using “possessed” instead of “received.”

Those dates sure bring immediate memories of his 2019 investigation, don’t they?

More to the point, they confirm that Josh Duggar hasn’t changed at all.

Wow, Jesus sure changed Josh Duggar, didn’t he? What a wonder-working god! And look how well he protected innocent children from this abuser!

Gosh, who wouldn’t want this deity on their side?

Child Molesters and Recidivism.

In reality, Jesus doesn’t seem to care much at all about changing the hearts of child molesters. Their recidivism rates are purely dismaying. Here’s one government source with some numbers:

The study of sex offenders released from state prisons in 1994 by Langan, Schmitt and Durose (2003) included a large sample (4,295) of child molesters. The researchers reported that 5.1 percent of the 4,295 child molesters released from prison in 1994 were rearrested for a new sex crime within three years of their release, 14.1 percent were rearrested for a violent crime and 39.4 percent were rearrested for a crime of any kind. Similar to the pattern for rapists in the study, child molesters with more than one prior arrest had an overall recidivism rate nearly double (44.3 percent compared to 23.3 percent) that of child molesters with only one prior arrest.

As might be expected, child molesters were more likely than any other type of offender — sexual or nonsexual — to be arrested for a sex a crime against a child following release from prison. During the three-year postrelease follow-up period, 3.3 percent of the child molesters, 2.2 percent of all sex offenders and less than one-half of 1 percent of the non-sex offenders were arrested for child molestation. Released child molesters with more than one prior arrest for child molesting were three times more likely to be rearrested for child molesting than released child molesters with no more than one prior arrest (7.3 percent compared to 2.4 percent).

Other studies cited by that source note that while overall arrest rates were lower for the sex offenders, their arrests for sex crimes were much higher than those of non-sex-offenders. They also note that child molesters also tend to commit sex crimes against adults too:

Estimates suggest that 32–64 percent of rapists have molested children and that many child molesters have assaulted adults [. . .]

This is perfectly consistent with Josh Duggar’s record as well.

Jesus neither changes Christians, nor protects even Christian children from Christian perverts.

(Here’s another paper, btw.)

Who’s Surprised, Though, Really?

Josh Duggar seems like the sneaky kind of weasel who can be counted upon to seek out and take advantage of any opportunities to work his wickedness. I wouldn’t even be half surprised to learn he’s been sleazing around Fayetteville for years looking for strange tail while his wife incubates nonstop babies at home.

(And yes, Anna is currently pregnant again — with #7. They only just announced it last week. They’re all apparently living in one of Jim Bob’s many outbuildings on his property — a windowless warehouse-looking building, from what I’m hearing. Sounds cheery.)

All through his scandals, Josh Duggar has always talked up his religiosity. He and Anna attend Jesus-flavored events, like the launch of some evangelical Bible museum, and he uses Christianese incessantly in every quote I’ve ever seen of his. As for his weird, molester-shielding parents, they haven’t squeaked a word on their Instagram account for a week! But they did release a statement on their official site:

We appreciate your continued prayers for our family at this time. The accusations brought against Joshua today are very serious. It is our prayer that the truth, no matter what it is, will come to light, and that this will all be resolved in a timely manner. We love Josh and Anna and continue to pray for their family.

Everyone, think extra hard at the ceiling! Now! That’ll totally help!

But is it just me or do Jim Bob and Michelle sound beyond livid at this whole arrest thing? They sure don’t sound surprised, interestingly enough.

What Would Surprise Me: Jesus Finally Making Himself Useful.

We shouldn’t be surprised, either.

Josh Duggar has skated through every potential consequence for his evildoing. Every time consequences come sniffing around him, he’s played the evangelical restoration game and won big cash prizes. Not once, not ever has he really paid any price for the harm he’s done to others, nor made things right with any of his victims that I have ever seen. And for a family so obsessed with punishment, retaliation, and forcing their weird brand of accountability on others, as we know from here, the Duggar parents sure don’t seem to be in a major rush to see any of that happen to their darling eldest son.

What would surprise me is seeing this gormless git clean up his act. I wouldn’t think it was Jesus’ doing, no. If anyone ever proved such a thing about any reformed child molesters, we’d all rightly have some mighty big questions about why Jesus ignores all the other child molesters. We’d also want to know why he doesn’t help all the other children being victimized. But Josh Duggar actually reforming himself would be surprising, as well as being a welcome change.

Alas, Jesus clearly doesn’t care about changing anybody, and he’s obviously never cared about protecting children from predators. So it’s up to humans to protect children from the many Christians who want to hurt them. With this news of the arrest of Josh Duggar, we’re inching a little closer to that goal.

NEXT UP: Can toxic Christians please stop doing disgustingly hypocritical things for a couple of days? We’ll try again for a post about how Christians keep disproving their own religious claims 🙂 See you tomorrow!

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Last note: it’s been a long time since I noticed this, so I want to restate it for anyone new to the blog. When you see Michelle Duggar gazing at her husband with that weird smile on her face, cover up her mouth to see what her eyes are really telling us. She rarely seems happy at all in these photos. Indeed, she’s mentioned having a very serious anger problem. It’s why she speaks in such a baby-girl breathy voice: she’s hoping that by cultivating a very low-volume voice, she’ll prevent rage outbursts at her kids.

Those eyes always look like they are screaming for help, like she’s dealing with sheer existential terror.

Anna Duggar seems to be going the same route in her own photos, so I’m bringing it up here. I don’t think she’s really happy. I hope she gets out if she needs to — and gets the kids free too. Needless to say, I also hope that that her worthless sleazeball husband has kept his thrice-damned chomo hands off all the kids that the adults in that extended family keep f*(&ing allowing near someone they absolutely know has abused children in the past.

Child Sexual Abuse

evangelical restoration farce

Evangelical Sex Assault Scandal

Jesus this got long

Links So Many Links

The Duggar Clown Car

utterly disgusting hypocrisy

About Captain Cassidy

Captain Cassidy grew up fervently Catholic, converted to the SBC in her teens, and became a Pentecostal shortly afterward. She even volunteered in church (choir, Sunday School) and married an aspiring preacher! But then--record scratch!--she brought everything to a screeching halt when she deconverted in her mid-20s. That was 25 years ago. Now a comfortable None, she blogs on Roll to Disbelieve about psychology, pop culture, politics, relationships, cats, gaming, and more--and where they all intersect with religion. She lives with an adored and adoring husband named Mr. Captain and a sweet, squawky orange tabby cat named Princess Bother Pretty Toes. At any given time, she's running out of bookcase space. You can read more about the author here.

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