There is one belief that currently unifies everyone from Bill Maher, to Joe Rogan, to AOC, to Elon Musk, to CNN, to Candace Owens, to the Democratic Party, to Netflix, to TMZ, to the British Parliament, to the United Nations, to the Iranian government, to the right-wing podcast circuit, to the left-wing podcast circuit, to the apolitical entertainment-oriented podcast circuit — and is currently the consensus view across all major social media platforms: X, TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, Reddit, Rumble, etc.
The dreaded "P" word is a clinical term originating from psychiatry, still used today to designate a person who has a predominant sexual attraction to people before puberty. "Puberty" is defined by the American Psychological Association as roughly under the age of 13, since scholars recognize that puberty varies from person to person and has varied across time and place (i.e. depending on nutrition, etc.)
Americans in particular, and now the wider world that their media permeates out into, have massively expanded and altered the meaning of the once clearly defined P word to an absurd degree.
Now, online at least, the P word gets used to mean anyone who shows the slightest hint of possible erotic interest or fascination in a person (or even cartoon character), who is or could appear to be under the age of 18. Depending on how you parse it, that could mean everyone. Everyone who fancies Belle Delphine and women who look young - "PEDO." Anyone who's okay with flat chested women - "PEDO." Anyone who's tall and has a short gf - "PEDO". And the list can go on and on...
It's all very strange, unproductive, and certainly not based in anything approaching "facts and logic" that don't care about your feelings... In fact, a whole host of academics, from Allyn Walker and Stephen Kershnar to Jacob Breslow (to name a few), have been "cancelled" for coming to unpopular / challenging conclusions on these issues, or for simply having used language and word's that other's didn't like or found upsetting...
Instead of thinking "hmm, these are experts who've spent literally years in their field; it makes sense they'd come to conclusions that are different to the masses who aren't specialists on these subjects. Maybe we should listen to them, read their books and articles and come to our own conclusions, maybe even 'debunk' them if they're so obviously and provably wrong despite their years of research..."
Instead of that, all we get are keyboard warriors screeching "PEDO" - some of whom would've been the same people complaining about "SJWs" and "cancel culture" before going on to do the exact same thing in a different context!! 🤦♂️🤷♂️
It's a weird situation and there are scholarly explanations for the rise in discourses of "abuse," "trauma," "victims" and "survivors" - and even scholarly histories of how the figure of the "child molester" or "monstrous ped*phile" have changed across time, from historians such as Phillip Jenkins and Steven Angelides. But, broadly speaking, scholarship isn't widely read by the general public and has a negligible impact...
That's why it's so good that you, Michael, and Richard Hanania and other journalists and public figures, are bringing forth a critical discourse that is so sorely needed. Nowadays, academic jobs are so precarious, the online bullying of the past so severe, that scholars and researchers who could provide food for thought have either left Twitter or social media altogether, or never bothered to begin with...
Thanks Michael, for what you do. You give me hope that there are journalists out there with integrity. 🙂
The British have had a lot to do with it. The word "pedo" is used constantly by the British film industry and media. Politicans in the US picked up on it, particularly with Judge Roy Moore, who dated some girls in their late teens when he was a 30-year-old bachelor. Pedo is a weapon, like racist.
Except it’s “paedo” in the UK, not pedo. I think in recent years the US is more to blame and the Brits have picked up on it over the last decade. Certainly the tabloids have always been paedo-crazy, but in the late nineties enlightened liberal opinion was totally on-side with the gay movement to lower the age of consent to 16; I suspect if it were happening now it might be reversed, which is really bizarre considering how the issue was framed 30 years ago.
I thought they used "nonce?" What's funny is their AOC is 16.
I think it's because of To Catch a Predator with Chris Hansen. Even though Hansen himself said they can't call it To Catch a Pedophile because pedophilia is attraction to prepubescent children, people didn't listen to him. They interpreted all of the guys as "pedos."
Even in that show, the ages they usually gave for the decoys was 11-14 (even though the decoys themselves were 18+). They didn't seem to bother with 16 or 17...probably because those ages are legal in many states (17 in most states), and district attorneys aren't as interested in men who pursue girls slightly under the age of consent.
Modern mass media is all about confirmation bias. It is target marketing for and by low-level thinkers who now have platforms for mediocre opining.
Regarding 'puberty' and the maturation of the body (and brain), we have a growing problem as hormones are increasingly active years before 13. Many preteens are interested and active soon after puberty starts. Then, we have social media, providing an enormous invitation and platform for sexual expression. Let's not forget the accommodating teachers.
And then, we try to put the genie back in the bottle. We pretend our kids are still innocent angels.
My first wife was five years younger and it didn’t work. My second wife is exactly two days younger than my first and I’m happy to say that has worked.
I cannot argue with that, but I’m not going to propose a limit such as yours once the woman is truly an adult, like at least 21. I certainly empathize with your position.
Look jerk, there are numerous cases of couples with vast age difference and I guarantee you there are some in your ancestry. It was and is common for men to marry women much younger than themselves. That you couldn't get along with your wife merely means you couldn't get along with her.
By whose estimation? You might want to look at your own family tree. Bear in mind that Mary, the mother of Christ, is believed to have been sixteen when she was betrothed to Joseph. Sam Houston married a 19-year-old and they were married for the rest of his life. You're voicing an opinion that is contrary to historical fact.
Look. Whether it's pedophilia, pederasty, or ephebophelia, it's wrong. Pedophilia at the center of the world, governments is well documented, and we are finding this out. The infantilization of women and the girlification of our fashion choices and how we present ourselves, our result of pedophiles running our culture. I wonder what's on your hard drive.
Finally, the accusation, after a confused litany of judgement. What's on your hard drive? Soon enough, the actual ruling class' police will be confiscating hard drives and a lot more based on whim and witless and paranoid accusations. What's on YOUR hard drive?
Ultimately, we will have crimes of the mind--the only way to achieve full mind control. We can see it in Europe, Britain, Australia... This is where I think Liberate Humanity is headed. The starting point is the 'Pedo' meme.
I am not saying 'it' is right or wrong. However, it would be worthwhile to look at the foundations of modern morality before staking a position. Then, consider Leonardo da Vinci was a pederast.
So be it. You also have to look at the developmental ages then as compared to now. We understand much more about human development now, and perhaps becoming a mother at thirteen and having twelve children wasn't so good for the mother or the children. To say nothing of maternal and infant mortality, the brain itself isn't ready for such a task. There is no ability to deal with something like that. And when you talk about sexual assault, perpetrated again and again, and again, from the ages of eleven and up, that has severely damaging consequences for the victim. It sounds to me like you're just trying to make it okay somehow. It's not.
AT the same time, look at the decreasing age of the onset of pubescence. BTW, when lifespan is short, breeding starts sooner. I wonder why?
Meanwhile, trying to understand is NOT trying to make it okay, unless your mind is closed.
I recommend Moral Foundations Theory as part of understanding human development. Curiously, IQ plays a role, which was why I tossed out Leonardo and Salai. And if IQ is a factor, what then?
Ohh don't be too worried about experts/ accademia there's heaps of then acting as moral entrepreneurs, riding the trafficking wave( pumping out pretty reviewed papers, advising everyone on how to cope etc). My feminist professor & cronies, recently used the intro to state... " some scholars argued that concern about CSA is moral panic, we see no evidence of that". Nothing future just we see no evidence! Are you lot fucking blind? Lol. The paper went on talk talk about female dissociative disorder & how it was sometimes a cause of women neglecting their kids, sympathetic lens. Betcha if these females SA a kid, they'd be no such mercy. JANUS FACED. Kids DIE of neglect. My sister & are a caring for a 13 year old, she arrived on our doorstep, no shoes, no food for days. Locked in a shed. But hey who gaf
I don’t like insisting on rigid distinction between pubescent and pre-pubescent, since most actual molestation takes place in early puberty. If one must die in a hill, let it be the fact that paying older teenagers to provide massages and non-penetrative sexual contact, under the false pretense of being at least 18, is statutory R, but not really S abuse.
The apparent fact that so many consumers of online media currently seem to be fascinated, obsessed, in a moral panic or otherwise consumed by all things Epstein is a far more significant indicator of societal disintegration than anything Epstein may have done in real life.
Completely false. If we are not completely overwrought and consumed by the way these monsters have treated children, we are the degenerates. Yours is a cursed view.
I first heard Ro Khanna use it, and I suspect it was coined by a Dem. It allows them to deflect from their complicity in the crimes of the actual ruling class, which owns them.
I think this is happening in large part due to the wealth divide combined with man's inherent drive to rise to the top of the pecking order. Subconsciously, in needing to cope with the sense of inferiority in comparison to individuals that are examples of wealth, power, and success, many people will be heavily confirmation biased toward any opportunity to determine the elite to be inferior in moral/ethical substance, thereby providing a boost in perceived self-worth by effectively eliminating the unattainable outliers from competition. Alongside this phenomenon is probably also a compulsion to make them a scapegoat to tie up loose ends in faulty, delusional political/tribal theories and imagined explanations for why "they are bad" and "we are good." So it's all pretty much identity and value oriented, which means it's taking place subconsciously and shaping the perception of those affected due to limited depth of insight.
As far as AOC goes, I get fund-raising emails from her every day! Her "team" sent me one a week or two ago, and this was the one where she finally addressed Epstein-gate. It was filled with contradictory and irrational lies, and as usual was pitched to someone with 3rd-grade level reading skills.
I was almost jumping on the bandwagon with the train of thought all those people you mention were talking about. But I don’t want to ignore my gut anymore. The fact that a lot of people, even people I know personally, think this baffles me. Ugh
Many of these people don’t actually believe any of the “pedo panic” aspect but believe there is propaganda utility to the idea. That’s why the concept spreads. Not because of true belief.
Unfortunately, this is true and it goes to show that people will believe anything even if there is nothing to prove it. It goes back to the METOO movement and before, and the emphasis on "sex trafficking," the belief that young girls are captured and sold into prostitution. While there is sex trafficking, it's more the importation of Asian and Latin American girls rather than pimps forcing young white girls into prostitution (many, if not most, prostitutes are black.) The FBI found zero proof that Epstein was running a sex-trafficking ring but people don't want to believe it, just like they don't want to believe that contour trails are not some kind of chemicals released by the Federal government. Yes, the Federal government puts out propaganda but it's more to get support for it's adventures, such as the current war against Iran.
Well "trafficking" doesn't even mean trafficking. The way the laws are written (depending on which jurisdiction) probably everyone is guilty of "trafficking" - of their own spouses, to themselves!
The issue with Epstein had nothing to do with sexual attraction to minors, it was all about money and massages. The irony is that not a single one of his accusers ever went to court. Virginia Roberts sued Maxwell but her case was settled without going to trial. She sued Andrew and the Crown settled without trial. Four women testified against Maxwell and the judge instructed the jury to discount the testimony of two because they testified to no crime being committed. The only one who had actually been abused by Epstein as a minor was Nadi Bjorlin, but she never mentioned anything about giving him a massage and him masturbating. Carolyn Andriano claimed Maxwell had been involved but the defense pointed out that she had never mentioned Maxwell when she was interviewed by the FBI. She also claimed she had been sexually abused by her grandfather as a child and admittted she she was schizophrenic. NONE of the women, most of whom were adults, now making claims against Epstein ever had a case go to trial. The idea that there is an "Epstein Class" is a figment of someone's imagination. If youi read the FBI reports, you'll find they found no evidence of a sex ring. Incidentally, I find it ironic that professed liberals make such a big deal when Epstein himself was a liberal Democrat, as were most of his associates.
You are missing — or refusing to see — the symbolic meaning of what you call the denunciation of the “Western world.”
At this point, the discussion is no longer really about the factual details of Epstein. The name has become a symbolic language through which a much broader violence is perceived and judged, The Epstein Fury: children killed in Gaza, in Iran, and elsewhere; the bombing of civilians; the destruction of innocent lives. In this perception, these acts are experienced as a kind of collective moral violation carried out by the powers that claim to embody the Western order.
Whether Epstein, Trump, Gates, Andrew, or others personally committed specific crimes is no longer the central issue in the collective imagination. They have become symbolic figures — faces attached to a system increasingly perceived as predatory.
By insisting on establishing a microscopic factual truth about Epstein, you are fighting at the wrong level of the problem. You believe you are correcting a factual error, but you are overlooking the symbolic function these narratives have come to play.
In doing so, you risk appearing less like a defender of truth than one of the last defenders of a system many now experience as fundamentally barbaric.
This resonates. Michael’s myopic truths - or as your better moniker states - “microscopic factual truths about Epstein” - are at their face value correct. The “9 yo” misreads from “19 yo” formatting error or Epstein playing with his goddaughter pics made out to be something else or many such imaginative excesses - and even the now widely extrapolation of “pleading guilty to prostitution charges” (not a technical conviction in a court of law) to pedophilia are all bizarre for folks who especially ought to have learnt from their own naiveté of years of Russia-Gate. Sure, many of the Epstein emails with just borderline college girls are reflective of exceedingly poor taste, and judgment. If it is only the truth - and nothing but the truth - Michael’s analyses are sober because very few of those emails rise to the level of judicial evidentiary scrutiny of wrong doing. HIs take on the late Virginia Giuffre seems on point as well, though I equally possibly more detest that scumbag Dershowtiz. Also I agree with Michael on Chomsky.
That said, your comment is around western moral order. In contrast, for many others, the epstein saga is a jewish one, and leads to the evident and now obvious jewish and israeli infiltration of western power networks (institutions, governments, media, legislatures, think tanks), and their singular focus on power grabs to advance seemingly a singular jewish supremacist world built on amorality, savagery, naked expressions of might-is-right and hegemony. Gaza, WB, Lebanon, now Iran - all that is tied to the Epstein class and to their expressions of denigration and disgust for the goyim - recall those emails?. To the extent, that one can use the collective blowback from the Epstein files to advance a rising up against jewish global domination, that is what many seem to be going along with. Can’t complain. Nothing else has worked.
"Bombing of civilians." Nobody sincerely believes anybody intentionally bombs civilians. That's just another disingenuous propaganda tactic.
It does nothing good for the bomber to bomb civilians. It's horrible for "optics"/PR, as you aptly demonstrate, and you don't win wars by bombing civilians. You win wars by destroying military targets. Sometimes civilians are in the way, as is the case quite a bit in urban warfare.
Nobody actually cares about the civilians. They're just a tool for faux-outrage. The real concern is Marxist "power imbalances." The model of "oppressor" vs. "oppressee" that so many are obsessed with.
I'd suggest that before one defends or attacks, one must understand the 'pattern.' And since 99% of people do not think critically, they never see the 'pattern.'
My sense is that we are in an era of mind control by, and for the masses, unable to detect truth from lie. And with AI, it will only get worse, and more believable. Memes now define us.
You know, there's all kinds of Epstein-unrelated sex trafficking going on right now that no one cares the least about. That's pretty perverse if you ask me.
Trafficking adults is a form of slavery, less sexual, and more about getting a job. Africa has a long history of slavery, less so for sexual trafficking, unless from northern regions... Berbers for example. FYI, you'll find sex trafficking is more common in poor parts of S.E. Asia, and Eastern Europe.
Historically, the 'hot' area for sex trafficking was Eastern Europe, with some into the western Europe. This was during the Islamic Golden Age. BTW, the word slave comes from Arabic for 'Slavic' peoples, who made the most desirable slaves.
It's so weird. Freud was kind of crazy, but I wonder what he would have to say about this hysteria? There is some sort of displacement, substitution or projection going on perhaps?
Don't forget the canibalism part of the tale. They also make meatballs and eat the children after raping them, and they give the leftovers to the dogs.
Of course. The actual ruling class doesn't need to blsckmail anyone. They buy them off, or simply drum them out if they step out of line. It has always been so.
That certainly is not a secret to me, but for propaganda to succeed, it depends upon the victim not knowing its propaganda. There's the old tale that illustrates this perfectly:
An American and a Russian aboard a plane bound for the US get to talking, and the US citizen asks the Russian why he's visiting the US, and the Russian replies, "to study your propaganda system."
That's the thing. People believe propaganda. All you have to do is look at comments on social media. Most people don't have a clue because all they know is that they have been told. In one scene in the Mel Gibson movie Air America, a character says "I'm forty years old and I've never had an original thought in my life." That's pretty much the vast majority of the world population, particularly the United States.
My worrisome thought is having to relive my time in the GWOT and see more American soldiers die for a story the admin can't get straight. You are going to tell current service members and veterans of that region that more soldiers are just going to have to die and that is the way it is and expect us to just go along with this? I really don’t care what rhetoric the opposition for these policies use when antagonists can’t get their story straight.
They're dying for a criminal of aggression, the highest crime as country can commit. It doesn't matter what lie they come up with. ANY military person or soldier or contractor, of ANY rank, is therefore participating in a crime. They are required by the oath they took to NOT participate.
Yeah it's all completely insane.
The dreaded "P" word is a clinical term originating from psychiatry, still used today to designate a person who has a predominant sexual attraction to people before puberty. "Puberty" is defined by the American Psychological Association as roughly under the age of 13, since scholars recognize that puberty varies from person to person and has varied across time and place (i.e. depending on nutrition, etc.)
Americans in particular, and now the wider world that their media permeates out into, have massively expanded and altered the meaning of the once clearly defined P word to an absurd degree.
Now, online at least, the P word gets used to mean anyone who shows the slightest hint of possible erotic interest or fascination in a person (or even cartoon character), who is or could appear to be under the age of 18. Depending on how you parse it, that could mean everyone. Everyone who fancies Belle Delphine and women who look young - "PEDO." Anyone who's okay with flat chested women - "PEDO." Anyone who's tall and has a short gf - "PEDO". And the list can go on and on...
It's all very strange, unproductive, and certainly not based in anything approaching "facts and logic" that don't care about your feelings... In fact, a whole host of academics, from Allyn Walker and Stephen Kershnar to Jacob Breslow (to name a few), have been "cancelled" for coming to unpopular / challenging conclusions on these issues, or for simply having used language and word's that other's didn't like or found upsetting...
Instead of thinking "hmm, these are experts who've spent literally years in their field; it makes sense they'd come to conclusions that are different to the masses who aren't specialists on these subjects. Maybe we should listen to them, read their books and articles and come to our own conclusions, maybe even 'debunk' them if they're so obviously and provably wrong despite their years of research..."
Instead of that, all we get are keyboard warriors screeching "PEDO" - some of whom would've been the same people complaining about "SJWs" and "cancel culture" before going on to do the exact same thing in a different context!! 🤦♂️🤷♂️
It's a weird situation and there are scholarly explanations for the rise in discourses of "abuse," "trauma," "victims" and "survivors" - and even scholarly histories of how the figure of the "child molester" or "monstrous ped*phile" have changed across time, from historians such as Phillip Jenkins and Steven Angelides. But, broadly speaking, scholarship isn't widely read by the general public and has a negligible impact...
That's why it's so good that you, Michael, and Richard Hanania and other journalists and public figures, are bringing forth a critical discourse that is so sorely needed. Nowadays, academic jobs are so precarious, the online bullying of the past so severe, that scholars and researchers who could provide food for thought have either left Twitter or social media altogether, or never bothered to begin with...
Thanks Michael, for what you do. You give me hope that there are journalists out there with integrity. 🙂
The British have had a lot to do with it. The word "pedo" is used constantly by the British film industry and media. Politicans in the US picked up on it, particularly with Judge Roy Moore, who dated some girls in their late teens when he was a 30-year-old bachelor. Pedo is a weapon, like racist.
Ironically, that means Moore is not a pedophile.
Except it’s “paedo” in the UK, not pedo. I think in recent years the US is more to blame and the Brits have picked up on it over the last decade. Certainly the tabloids have always been paedo-crazy, but in the late nineties enlightened liberal opinion was totally on-side with the gay movement to lower the age of consent to 16; I suspect if it were happening now it might be reversed, which is really bizarre considering how the issue was framed 30 years ago.
I thought they used "nonce?" What's funny is their AOC is 16.
I think it's because of To Catch a Predator with Chris Hansen. Even though Hansen himself said they can't call it To Catch a Pedophile because pedophilia is attraction to prepubescent children, people didn't listen to him. They interpreted all of the guys as "pedos."
Even in that show, the ages they usually gave for the decoys was 11-14 (even though the decoys themselves were 18+). They didn't seem to bother with 16 or 17...probably because those ages are legal in many states (17 in most states), and district attorneys aren't as interested in men who pursue girls slightly under the age of consent.
I don't think that is true. Age of consent in UK is 16 btw.
Modern mass media is all about confirmation bias. It is target marketing for and by low-level thinkers who now have platforms for mediocre opining.
Regarding 'puberty' and the maturation of the body (and brain), we have a growing problem as hormones are increasingly active years before 13. Many preteens are interested and active soon after puberty starts. Then, we have social media, providing an enormous invitation and platform for sexual expression. Let's not forget the accommodating teachers.
And then, we try to put the genie back in the bottle. We pretend our kids are still innocent angels.
IOW, there's nothing wrong with a 60 year old man lusting after a 13 year old girl, you sick fuck.
Is it wrong if a 13-year-old lusts after a 60-year-old man?
I propose the 'Decade Rule' for all human sexual relationships. It ensures a level relationship.
In the first decade of life, the maximum difference in age is 1.
In the second decade of life, the max. difference in age is 2
and so on.
For your 60-year-old, the partner must be aged between 54 and 66.
Counterpoint: this is batshit crazy and also evil.
My first wife was five years younger and it didn’t work. My second wife is exactly two days younger than my first and I’m happy to say that has worked.
I cannot argue with that, but I’m not going to propose a limit such as yours once the woman is truly an adult, like at least 21. I certainly empathize with your position.
Look jerk, there are numerous cases of couples with vast age difference and I guarantee you there are some in your ancestry. It was and is common for men to marry women much younger than themselves. That you couldn't get along with your wife merely means you couldn't get along with her.
And it was very very wrong then, too.
By whose estimation? You might want to look at your own family tree. Bear in mind that Mary, the mother of Christ, is believed to have been sixteen when she was betrothed to Joseph. Sam Houston married a 19-year-old and they were married for the rest of his life. You're voicing an opinion that is contrary to historical fact.
Do you think that Philip Chism should be released from prison?
That is not what Aaron said, is it?
Look. Whether it's pedophilia, pederasty, or ephebophelia, it's wrong. Pedophilia at the center of the world, governments is well documented, and we are finding this out. The infantilization of women and the girlification of our fashion choices and how we present ourselves, our result of pedophiles running our culture. I wonder what's on your hard drive.
Finally, the accusation, after a confused litany of judgement. What's on your hard drive? Soon enough, the actual ruling class' police will be confiscating hard drives and a lot more based on whim and witless and paranoid accusations. What's on YOUR hard drive?
Ultimately, we will have crimes of the mind--the only way to achieve full mind control. We can see it in Europe, Britain, Australia... This is where I think Liberate Humanity is headed. The starting point is the 'Pedo' meme.
ROFLMAO! And you belife in chemtrails, too!
I am not saying 'it' is right or wrong. However, it would be worthwhile to look at the foundations of modern morality before staking a position. Then, consider Leonardo da Vinci was a pederast.
So be it. You also have to look at the developmental ages then as compared to now. We understand much more about human development now, and perhaps becoming a mother at thirteen and having twelve children wasn't so good for the mother or the children. To say nothing of maternal and infant mortality, the brain itself isn't ready for such a task. There is no ability to deal with something like that. And when you talk about sexual assault, perpetrated again and again, and again, from the ages of eleven and up, that has severely damaging consequences for the victim. It sounds to me like you're just trying to make it okay somehow. It's not.
AT the same time, look at the decreasing age of the onset of pubescence. BTW, when lifespan is short, breeding starts sooner. I wonder why?
Meanwhile, trying to understand is NOT trying to make it okay, unless your mind is closed.
I recommend Moral Foundations Theory as part of understanding human development. Curiously, IQ plays a role, which was why I tossed out Leonardo and Salai. And if IQ is a factor, what then?
Ohh don't be too worried about experts/ accademia there's heaps of then acting as moral entrepreneurs, riding the trafficking wave( pumping out pretty reviewed papers, advising everyone on how to cope etc). My feminist professor & cronies, recently used the intro to state... " some scholars argued that concern about CSA is moral panic, we see no evidence of that". Nothing future just we see no evidence! Are you lot fucking blind? Lol. The paper went on talk talk about female dissociative disorder & how it was sometimes a cause of women neglecting their kids, sympathetic lens. Betcha if these females SA a kid, they'd be no such mercy. JANUS FACED. Kids DIE of neglect. My sister & are a caring for a 13 year old, she arrived on our doorstep, no shoes, no food for days. Locked in a shed. But hey who gaf
Also Tq for the names of those scholars.
The Feminist and the Sex Offender: Confronting Sexual Harm, Ending State Violence" by Judith Levine and Erica R. Meiners (2020)
It's not pedophilia, it's the Lolita Complex - sexual fantasies about nubile young teenagers.
I don’t like insisting on rigid distinction between pubescent and pre-pubescent, since most actual molestation takes place in early puberty. If one must die in a hill, let it be the fact that paying older teenagers to provide massages and non-penetrative sexual contact, under the false pretense of being at least 18, is statutory R, but not really S abuse.
And what is your documentation? Most of the cases I've read about in the media involved girls in their mid-teens, and the molester is often a woman.
The apparent fact that so many consumers of online media currently seem to be fascinated, obsessed, in a moral panic or otherwise consumed by all things Epstein is a far more significant indicator of societal disintegration than anything Epstein may have done in real life.
Completely false. If we are not completely overwrought and consumed by the way these monsters have treated children, we are the degenerates. Yours is a cursed view.
Why are teenagers responsible for everything except when they choose to have sex with adults?
“The Epstein class” is a coinage I never heard until very recently, but I think it’s gaining currency
“Epstein Class” is pretty persuasive stuff in my opinion, I must admit. I completely disagree with it, but it does have a ring.
I first heard Ro Khanna use it, and I suspect it was coined by a Dem. It allows them to deflect from their complicity in the crimes of the actual ruling class, which owns them.
To my knowledge, yes, it was Ro Khanna who first coined it.
I think this is happening in large part due to the wealth divide combined with man's inherent drive to rise to the top of the pecking order. Subconsciously, in needing to cope with the sense of inferiority in comparison to individuals that are examples of wealth, power, and success, many people will be heavily confirmation biased toward any opportunity to determine the elite to be inferior in moral/ethical substance, thereby providing a boost in perceived self-worth by effectively eliminating the unattainable outliers from competition. Alongside this phenomenon is probably also a compulsion to make them a scapegoat to tie up loose ends in faulty, delusional political/tribal theories and imagined explanations for why "they are bad" and "we are good." So it's all pretty much identity and value oriented, which means it's taking place subconsciously and shaping the perception of those affected due to limited depth of insight.
As far as AOC goes, I get fund-raising emails from her every day! Her "team" sent me one a week or two ago, and this was the one where she finally addressed Epstein-gate. It was filled with contradictory and irrational lies, and as usual was pitched to someone with 3rd-grade level reading skills.
Ain't it grand people are still as nutsy as they were at the time of the Pharaohs?
You forgot Putin
I was almost jumping on the bandwagon with the train of thought all those people you mention were talking about. But I don’t want to ignore my gut anymore. The fact that a lot of people, even people I know personally, think this baffles me. Ugh
We have no standing to ever again criticize the progenitors of witch trials
I said that almost verbatim in the opening paragraph of my Chomsky article last month: https://www.compactmag.com/article/noam-chomsky-was-right-about-epstein/
You are a hero of our times, keep fighting the good fight
One day they will make a movie about you like Woodward and Bernstein
🔥 häxa
Many of these people don’t actually believe any of the “pedo panic” aspect but believe there is propaganda utility to the idea. That’s why the concept spreads. Not because of true belief.
If there is money to be made, there is motivation...
Unfortunately, this is true and it goes to show that people will believe anything even if there is nothing to prove it. It goes back to the METOO movement and before, and the emphasis on "sex trafficking," the belief that young girls are captured and sold into prostitution. While there is sex trafficking, it's more the importation of Asian and Latin American girls rather than pimps forcing young white girls into prostitution (many, if not most, prostitutes are black.) The FBI found zero proof that Epstein was running a sex-trafficking ring but people don't want to believe it, just like they don't want to believe that contour trails are not some kind of chemicals released by the Federal government. Yes, the Federal government puts out propaganda but it's more to get support for it's adventures, such as the current war against Iran.
Well "trafficking" doesn't even mean trafficking. The way the laws are written (depending on which jurisdiction) probably everyone is guilty of "trafficking" - of their own spouses, to themselves!
The issue with Epstein had nothing to do with sexual attraction to minors, it was all about money and massages. The irony is that not a single one of his accusers ever went to court. Virginia Roberts sued Maxwell but her case was settled without going to trial. She sued Andrew and the Crown settled without trial. Four women testified against Maxwell and the judge instructed the jury to discount the testimony of two because they testified to no crime being committed. The only one who had actually been abused by Epstein as a minor was Nadi Bjorlin, but she never mentioned anything about giving him a massage and him masturbating. Carolyn Andriano claimed Maxwell had been involved but the defense pointed out that she had never mentioned Maxwell when she was interviewed by the FBI. She also claimed she had been sexually abused by her grandfather as a child and admittted she she was schizophrenic. NONE of the women, most of whom were adults, now making claims against Epstein ever had a case go to trial. The idea that there is an "Epstein Class" is a figment of someone's imagination. If youi read the FBI reports, you'll find they found no evidence of a sex ring. Incidentally, I find it ironic that professed liberals make such a big deal when Epstein himself was a liberal Democrat, as were most of his associates.
And didn’t Nadia Bjorlin say that Epstein/Maxwell never abused her during previous interviews? And suddenly changes story and got $5m.
Yes, that is correct. She kept changing her story.
You are missing — or refusing to see — the symbolic meaning of what you call the denunciation of the “Western world.”
At this point, the discussion is no longer really about the factual details of Epstein. The name has become a symbolic language through which a much broader violence is perceived and judged, The Epstein Fury: children killed in Gaza, in Iran, and elsewhere; the bombing of civilians; the destruction of innocent lives. In this perception, these acts are experienced as a kind of collective moral violation carried out by the powers that claim to embody the Western order.
Whether Epstein, Trump, Gates, Andrew, or others personally committed specific crimes is no longer the central issue in the collective imagination. They have become symbolic figures — faces attached to a system increasingly perceived as predatory.
By insisting on establishing a microscopic factual truth about Epstein, you are fighting at the wrong level of the problem. You believe you are correcting a factual error, but you are overlooking the symbolic function these narratives have come to play.
In doing so, you risk appearing less like a defender of truth than one of the last defenders of a system many now experience as fundamentally barbaric.
This resonates. Michael’s myopic truths - or as your better moniker states - “microscopic factual truths about Epstein” - are at their face value correct. The “9 yo” misreads from “19 yo” formatting error or Epstein playing with his goddaughter pics made out to be something else or many such imaginative excesses - and even the now widely extrapolation of “pleading guilty to prostitution charges” (not a technical conviction in a court of law) to pedophilia are all bizarre for folks who especially ought to have learnt from their own naiveté of years of Russia-Gate. Sure, many of the Epstein emails with just borderline college girls are reflective of exceedingly poor taste, and judgment. If it is only the truth - and nothing but the truth - Michael’s analyses are sober because very few of those emails rise to the level of judicial evidentiary scrutiny of wrong doing. HIs take on the late Virginia Giuffre seems on point as well, though I equally possibly more detest that scumbag Dershowtiz. Also I agree with Michael on Chomsky.
That said, your comment is around western moral order. In contrast, for many others, the epstein saga is a jewish one, and leads to the evident and now obvious jewish and israeli infiltration of western power networks (institutions, governments, media, legislatures, think tanks), and their singular focus on power grabs to advance seemingly a singular jewish supremacist world built on amorality, savagery, naked expressions of might-is-right and hegemony. Gaza, WB, Lebanon, now Iran - all that is tied to the Epstein class and to their expressions of denigration and disgust for the goyim - recall those emails?. To the extent, that one can use the collective blowback from the Epstein files to advance a rising up against jewish global domination, that is what many seem to be going along with. Can’t complain. Nothing else has worked.
There is a saying in research, 'You find what you are looking for.'
In this case, the facts are documented in court and police records. Media is conjecture, not fact.
"Bombing of civilians." Nobody sincerely believes anybody intentionally bombs civilians. That's just another disingenuous propaganda tactic.
It does nothing good for the bomber to bomb civilians. It's horrible for "optics"/PR, as you aptly demonstrate, and you don't win wars by bombing civilians. You win wars by destroying military targets. Sometimes civilians are in the way, as is the case quite a bit in urban warfare.
Nobody actually cares about the civilians. They're just a tool for faux-outrage. The real concern is Marxist "power imbalances." The model of "oppressor" vs. "oppressee" that so many are obsessed with.
I'd suggest that before one defends or attacks, one must understand the 'pattern.' And since 99% of people do not think critically, they never see the 'pattern.'
My sense is that we are in an era of mind control by, and for the masses, unable to detect truth from lie. And with AI, it will only get worse, and more believable. Memes now define us.
More like 99.999% The sad fact is that few ever have a rational thought. They believe what they're told.
You know, there's all kinds of Epstein-unrelated sex trafficking going on right now that no one cares the least about. That's pretty perverse if you ask me.
Can you cite specific REAL examples?
Well, it's hard to know where to even start but a big problem is in Nigeria https://youtu.be/eDwvBGhNDh8?si=E5snWSFLW-hAfK6k
Trafficking adults is a form of slavery, less sexual, and more about getting a job. Africa has a long history of slavery, less so for sexual trafficking, unless from northern regions... Berbers for example. FYI, you'll find sex trafficking is more common in poor parts of S.E. Asia, and Eastern Europe.
Historically, the 'hot' area for sex trafficking was Eastern Europe, with some into the western Europe. This was during the Islamic Golden Age. BTW, the word slave comes from Arabic for 'Slavic' peoples, who made the most desirable slaves.
It's so weird. Freud was kind of crazy, but I wonder what he would have to say about this hysteria? There is some sort of displacement, substitution or projection going on perhaps?
Don't forget the canibalism part of the tale. They also make meatballs and eat the children after raping them, and they give the leftovers to the dogs.
With or without ketchup?
The obsession over blackmail making politicians do bad things covers up for the real reason why they do it.
The system is designed for power to manipulate it since day one.
This applies to economics, war, healthcare, science and other institutional forces.
The term, 'mutually assured blackmail,' is useful.
As for your 'system,' what is it?
I propose 'intelligence' as the fundamental differentiator of the human species. Those above average will always control the rest.
Of course. The actual ruling class doesn't need to blsckmail anyone. They buy them off, or simply drum them out if they step out of line. It has always been so.
Actually, government, in particular, puts out propaganda. So does the media and politicians. And people lap it up with a spoon.
That certainly is not a secret to me, but for propaganda to succeed, it depends upon the victim not knowing its propaganda. There's the old tale that illustrates this perfectly:
An American and a Russian aboard a plane bound for the US get to talking, and the US citizen asks the Russian why he's visiting the US, and the Russian replies, "to study your propaganda system."
The American replies, "What propaganda system?"
Replies the Russian: "Exactly."
That's the thing. People believe propaganda. All you have to do is look at comments on social media. Most people don't have a clue because all they know is that they have been told. In one scene in the Mel Gibson movie Air America, a character says "I'm forty years old and I've never had an original thought in my life." That's pretty much the vast majority of the world population, particularly the United States.
My worrisome thought is having to relive my time in the GWOT and see more American soldiers die for a story the admin can't get straight. You are going to tell current service members and veterans of that region that more soldiers are just going to have to die and that is the way it is and expect us to just go along with this? I really don’t care what rhetoric the opposition for these policies use when antagonists can’t get their story straight.
They're dying for a criminal of aggression, the highest crime as country can commit. It doesn't matter what lie they come up with. ANY military person or soldier or contractor, of ANY rank, is therefore participating in a crime. They are required by the oath they took to NOT participate.
. . . for a criminal war of aggression . . .