“Constructing for himself a comfortable past” I believe that that mental exercise is far worse than the actions of the past. It’s actually degrading to the victim. I have experienced this but of course the evil done to me doesn’t compare to a Nazi death camp but I get it. You know what’s worse? “Finding Jesus “ and believing your past is now forgiven.
Epstein's "friendships" with luminaries like Gates all happened *after* he cleaned up his act after his jail time. *Before* he got busted in Palm Beach he was heavily into fourteen-year-olds. He gave that up after prison, for what Megyn Kelly called "..eighteen-year-olds who look like fourteen-year-olds." At least on US soil. Although there are numerous allegations he continued with schoolgirls sourced from Eastern Europe at his non-US properties.
According to Trump biographer Michael Wolf--who appears regularly on the Daily Beast podcast--because Epstein was only convicted of a single count of soliciting a 17-year-old underage prostitute, he would tell his elite friends that he had no idea the girl was underage. And they apparently believed him. Epstein's past was at that point "comfortably reconstructed."
It wasn't until Julie Brown's 2018 explosive four part Miami Herald expose on Epstein's crimes in Palm Beach, that there were literally *hundreds* of fourteen- and fifteen-year-olds abused whose collective testimonies were discarded by the Florida DA prosecuting the case, that the entire shitshow went fully QANON/MAGA crazy. Alex Acosta, a rising GOP star, and the Federal Attorney who'd given Epstein much of his amazingly sweet deal, was at the time Trump's Secretary of Labor, and was forced to resign in disgrace. Epstein was arrested soon thereafter, and died in extremely suspicious circumstance in a NYC jail awaiting trial.
In the late 1980's,in America, I quit the highest tipping waiting tables job I had yet had. The restaurant was owned by an older couple their daughter and son in law and a young male chef from Italy. The chef was a wild man,out and about with all sorts of people. He was young unattached,charasmatic and respectful of those not wanting to join in. The son in law ate a lavish dinner each night with his wife and her parents. During her first pregnacy the wife would leave the restaurant early,heading home to rest. The son in law would then spend hours at the bar flirting, mutually groping women and making future dates. Talking to him about the danger his behavior posed to his family did no good. I quit and told him why. I did not tell the wife.
It is good for us to discuss the decisions we make in life. We are all brought up in different ways,and may not realize our autonomy until being out in the world for a time. I had worked in restaurants in America,England and Greece earlier in the eighties. I saw all kinds of couples lying to each other. This was what I saw growing up. Only, once finding myself living with a well adjusted, loving,not alcoholic Irish/English couple and their young adult son and daughter, only then did I understand - everything matters
What is the quote about "all that needs to happen for the world to end is for good men to do nothing?" Bill Gates has done great things with his (and his ex wife's) Foundation. He also had a yearly affair with a lover that he expected his wife to put up with (and she did, for years, although she told his to stay away from Epstein, I think).
Epstein gave these men, and others, access to what they wanted. Whether it really was underaged girls or the ability to live the high life on someone else's dime, they allowed themselves tom pretend what was happening wasn't happening. The same goes for everyone who worked for Epstein, by the way. From the housekeepers who cleaned up the messes to the cooks making the food to the flight attendants and pilots on the plane. Sad, sordid and gross.
Thanks Pam. You raise an interesting point. How guilty are the people who were the "cogs" in the machine of Epstein's predations? Legally, it would be hard to prove that the household staff were accomplices. But what bout the drivers who brought the girls to the residences? So many victims with damaged lives. it would be good to cast a wide net and prosecute as many people as possible.
In this post, I think you are taking a very close look at a social human nature mechanism that enabled Epstein to continue his aberrant behavior and keep large financial inflows headed his way long after a much less wealthy and less influential American entrepreneur would have been quickly arrested and not too long after, placed in prison.
The uncomfortable revelation of this mechanism suggests to me that there may be a whole cadre of one-eyed men and women elitists who are enabling antisemitism to increase and intensify by totally ignoring it. They do this by pretending that rampant antisemitism is harmless free speech. When "free speech" is used to call for the erasure of prominent middle East nation, how is that harmless?
There are federal laws against free speech being used as insidious latent or even blatant one-eyed incitement to violence.
I read today how a 15 year veteran New York Times reporter was livid and practically raging in their column against the New Jersey state legislature considering passage of a bill to redefine antisemitism that purportedly challenges their pretended free speech ramblings supporting rampant antisemitism or support of it are protected under the U.S. Constitution.
Almost nothing could be more one-eyed than that. I hope I am not stirring up the pot just as I think your intention with this post is not to stir it up.
But the ocular concept of one-eyeism is well worth looking at closely in order to more clearly understand what's going on in this era of extreme polarization.
Consider the one-eyed Jewish people who look away from the starvation and devastation occurring right under their noses to innocent Palestinians. Verbal insults and anti semitic rhetoric are nothing in comparison to death from the sky or by starvation.
I definitely understand your point. But what I definitely find difficult to understand or even comprehend, is why Hamas pretends not to be seizing on arrival in Gaza (as they always have), 70 percent of the worldwide donated emergency food supplies and building construction materials for themselves to enable a worldwide jihad to get underway to erase all Jewish people. They obviously do not care about all the destruction and starvation their continuing terrorism has brought down and continues to bring down upon innocent Palestinians, who they fiercely embed themselves both with and beneath in the tunnels. Hamas also gets away with seizing the emergency food and building supplies donated from the outside world to support their worldwide communications informational infrastructure set up to encourage a worldwide jihad against all Jewish people. Because of the importance to Hamas of their antisemitic jihad, their is virtually zero mass food distribution and no rebuilding of destroyed homes or refugee facilities for innocent Palestinians. That is what I can't understand.
May I suggest you read Qasim Rashid, who posts regularly about the war and who posted today that “even the NYT” is reporting that the Israeli government is lying about Hamas stealing food? Any of his columns will broaden your information sources. He posts on Substack.
Thanks for the suggestion but there are a lot of people who won't read the New York Times anymore because they don't believe anything the NYT prints. The Gaza coverage seems orchestrated by Hamas and reflects zero journalistic integrity or any worthy of the name. I totally distrust them and anyone they traffic with within or outside Gaza who they point out as a reliable source of information. Everybody knows for the last ten years or since Hamas first seized control of Gaza most all the international emergency food and building supplies, any sort of foreign aid has somehow never reached innocent Palestinians. Why? So why would that change after Hamas selfishly reignited a new war with Israel via Oct. 7th. No one has to read the New York Times to realize that Hamas could easily let food and rebuilding supplies be distributed and starving innocent Palestinians fed. But they don't want to. How many ceasefires have they refused? All the starvation and destruction to Gaza Palestinian innocents could be remediated if Hamas just full stop give up all this erase Israel and all Jewish people insanity. I could recommend you read an article with pictures posted of a Palestinian refugee center in Lebanon. There are no pictures of any food being distributed or any efforts to rebuild the broken down dilapidated facilities. What the person who went there saw were a lot of wires strewn all over the place and also a lot of guns. And they didn't see anyone because presumably most of the people must have been in hiding and the facility must be under full Hamas control. It's very uncomfortable to realize how callous and uncaring Hamas is towards starving innocent civilian Palestinians. And that the New York Times is actively preventing that message from getting out to the whole world. Would recommend don't trust the NYT, elites or an antisemitic Jewish supposedly expert Brown University holocaust professor whose op-ed was recently published in the New York Times.
I respect your suggestion to me to read QR and the New York Times concerning what is really happening with lack of food distribution in Gaza. But the problem for me is that usually in a war, there are 2 sides to every story and usually one of them is not being told. Sometimes not all the information is there for the world to see. So I found some missing information and I know you will probably think it is a lie or lies so I am not going to tell you where I got although you can probably figure. Ellen, the world needs to see both sides of the withheld food debacle in Gaza. And then the world can make up its own mind as to who is lying and who is telling the truth. “The UN is starving Gaza on purpose. They’re hoarding food like warlords, letting children starve so Hamas can keep playing victim. 900-plus trucks. Millions in food and aid. All sitting inside Gaza. Not outside. Inside. Owned by the UN. But the UN refuses to give a single bite to starving civilians. Why? Because Hamas, the sick terrorists of the Muslim Brotherhood, told them not to. The UN is obeying Hamas. Using hunger as a negotiation tool with Israel.”
David--this was a superb essay. The opening two paragraphs (excellent)--the sentence "constructing for himself a comfortable past"--brought to mind the Wehrmacht's "Clean Hands" defense.
As for the question, I once quit a very lucrative CEO job because my values were so out of alignment with the owner's in terms of toxic culture that--as I said to a close friend--every day I stayed made me feel as complicit as a Nazi prison guard. (Clearly, an embellishment.) But at some point you have to look your "enabling behaviors" in the eye and make a decision about the kind of person you aim to be.
It was less any specific bad case but more the willingness to basically do anything to please those with lots of status and money. I sort of realized I would have to be part of that if I wanted to succeed.
Yes I have cutoff friendships due to moral disgust. With details omitted, it took me five years to properly appreciate who I was dealing with - and out of a whole network of people I was the only one who voted with my feet - many in the network made excuses for the bad behavior or did not act, ever.
So in some cases with Epstein I can understand.
Some people don't see evil, or they ignore it, and they just avoid confronting it. Its hard to confront evil.
Yep. There are other factors at play as well, like individual tolerance for seeing bad behavior and also in some cases not everyone is exposed to, or made aware of, the bad behavior to the same degree.
One thing that did especially bother me about the case to which I am referring was in some cases some genuine displays of extreme moral relativism, people of weak (too much empathy) character who were unwilling to even admit evil exists. THAT is a huge problem today. Some people today seem to excuse anything.
My late husband was a political refugee, which, note to those seeking men with two eyes, is proof of moral courage—you know they will stand for what they believe because they’ve already done so and paid the price. I’ve left a couple of jobs for ethical reasons, but those were easy decisions and the cost was low. Just a few days ago, I read the obituary of a man who murdered his wife, my Girl Scout leader, back in the 80s. Lots of condolence notes to his second wife about what a good family man he was. No, he wasn’t.
Me too. We won’t know until the time comes. Hopefully we will recognize it then. And I hope, as a mom, that I don’t encourage my sons to keep their heads down and not make trouble, so they safe. Admittedly, I was relieved when my eldest chose to stay here in Canada for university. It’s easier here, where I know we’re all safe.
There are mandatory reporting laws at both the state and federal levels. State laws differ significantly in terms of who is required to report, the types of incidents that must be reported, and the procedures for making a report. For instance, some states have a broad definition of mandatory reporters, encompassing professionals such as teachers, healthcare workers, and social workers, while others may have a more limited scope.
Additionally, the types of incidents that trigger a reporting obligation can vary, with some states requiring reports for any suspected abuse, while others focus specifically on certain types of harm. Of recent note:The Catholic Church, particularly in the context of mandatory reporting laws for child abuse, has sought exemptions based on religious freedom and the "sacred" nature of confession. "A fox in the henhouse" if ever there was one.
Amy, you make a good point about certain professions having mandatory reporting requirements. And requirements differing among the various states. I wonder how many successful prosecutions there have been for non-compliance of reporting. I think they're pretty rare.
Prosecution for non-compliance is rare because mandatory reporters are, by and large, doing their jobs protecting children. The real problem lies with underfunded state and federal agencies failing to investigate and/or intervene after suspected child abuse is reported.
I'll be the contrarian and suggest that Bill Gates probably didn't vet Epstein because he knows dozens and dozens of people with net worths greater than $100 million, so vetting all of them thoroughly would be a challenge. He probably asked a couple friends who knew him and they said some variation of "he's a well-connected playboy." After all, that's what Donal Trump said in that 2002 article.
Hypersexual lifestyles among the rich are not uncommon. Here's a piece from 2015 about sex parties in Silicon Valley that even had an app for participants.
In 2011 a background check on Epstein would turn up a conviction for soliciting prostitution from someone under 18. That sounds bad -- and it is! -- but it doesn't hint at what he was really doing.
For comparison, Tracy Lords made quite a few porn films when she was 16, but no one knew because she used a fake ID. I imagine a PI who checked into the conviction would make the same assumption. The documents were all sealed, and it took monumental efforts for Julie Brown to get the underlying details.
In 2011, there were headlines and stories in the NEW YORK Post and the Guardian especially surrounding the Prince Andrew scandal. By then, there was a lot of media coverage.
This story is about the abuse of power—not about "pedophilia.“
Unfortunately, these two things all too often become confused, equated, and not differentiated.
Every time such things come to light, for example, on the "dark web" or elsewhere, and every time countless people are revealed to be involved, it should have become clear to everyone by now that these are unfortunately not "exceptional cases" of "a few perverts," but something that seems to be very widespread—and that appears as clearly impossible or insufficient to get addressed (alone) with criminal law.
The vast majority of pedophiles, however, would never harm or rape a child.
Yet they are always lumped together and equated with violent criminals and those who abuse power.
Unfortunately, there is hardly any rational and nuanced discussion of this.
In Germany, for example, there are several projects run by universities and psychotherapists, etc., that promote prevention by allowing pedophiles to seek help and counseling anonymously, before "something happens.“
The number of participants in these projects is always far oversubscribed – this demonstrates at least two things: how widespread pedophilic feelings are, and how aware pedophiles are of the problem.
The notorious preoccupation with "cases" like Epstein also unfortunately distracts from the fact that the vast majority of cases of sexual abuse against non-adults occur within families and their immediate environment.
90% of all "cases" do not occur at the hands of "evil strangers," but rather at the hands of fathers, mothers, aunts, in sports clubs, by far most with people whom the adolescents have a close relationship to – not at the hands of perverts who buy sex with "fresh meat.“
These latter individuals, in particular, are often not pedophiles; instead, they are concerned with the abuse of power. Since Mr. Trump, for example, is a guy with clearly enormous problems regarding the appropriate use of power – which he exercises as a threat – he would be a virtually typical Epstein "client" (which, of course, can't be taken as a statement about whether he did anything in this direction or not. I can only say „I wouldn´t be surprised").
I myself spent several years developing my own concept of lectures and courses – with which I also appeared on German and French television, for example – aimed at protecting and sensitizing children as much as possible, but especially "adults": because THEY are "the problem"…!
There, I experienced mostly the same thing to become clear ever again: wherever children couldn't openly ask questions about sexuality, where they were told "This isn't for children," and where they couldn't develop self-awareness about their well-being and their bodies, where they aren't taken seriously, where they are patronized, that's where the danger of (sexual) abuse is greatest.
Yes, this arrogance of so-called "adults“ already IS a kind of, or kind of pre-requisite of abuse. -
And so it can be clearly stated: precisely where so-called "family values" are constantly and persistently upheld, where children are supposed to "obey adults" and "not argue" and not to develop independence, where children are supposed to be "protected," precisely there they are most frequently subjected to harassment by "adults" and have few (learned) opportunities to defend themselves and seek help.
Wherever such hypocritical "family values" are upheld—as with Mr. Trump and his idiotic, autocratic, totalitarian, power-abusing followers—I become alert and prick up my ears…
The idea that children are respected as independent individuals who must be allowed to develop in peace and not be treated like "adults," and whose sexuality must also be allowed to develop undisturbed and independently: this is historically very new and recent; also in the "West," it has only existed for about five hundred years.
In many regions of the world, such awareness still lacks today.
Nor is the idea that children should not be "sexual objects" a "natural" realization.
Unfortunately, we must accept it as a fact, face it, and deal openly with the fact that there are people—and not just a few—who find non-adults sexually attractive, and that these people are rarely "monsters," but rather highly diverse human beings with otherwise diverse abilities, just like everyone else.
The idea that children should not be sexual objects must be learned and understood, and those with pedosexual tendencies did not choose this any more than anyone else can choose their sexuality.
Of course, this cannot mean that this sexuality, which is treated restrictively for good and understandable reasons, should be practiced.
Nor does it help to establish or strengthen a humane society without concentration camps, inhumane prisons, and so on...
But unfortunately, excluding and classifying such sexuality as "perversion" helps neither children nor adults. When something is pushed into the shadows, the following applies: in the shadows, victims have it hardest and perpetrators have it easiest.
“Constructing for himself a comfortable past” I believe that that mental exercise is far worse than the actions of the past. It’s actually degrading to the victim. I have experienced this but of course the evil done to me doesn’t compare to a Nazi death camp but I get it. You know what’s worse? “Finding Jesus “ and believing your past is now forgiven.
Good piece. Made me mad but I still liked it!
Thanks John. It made me angry, too!
Epstein's "friendships" with luminaries like Gates all happened *after* he cleaned up his act after his jail time. *Before* he got busted in Palm Beach he was heavily into fourteen-year-olds. He gave that up after prison, for what Megyn Kelly called "..eighteen-year-olds who look like fourteen-year-olds." At least on US soil. Although there are numerous allegations he continued with schoolgirls sourced from Eastern Europe at his non-US properties.
According to Trump biographer Michael Wolf--who appears regularly on the Daily Beast podcast--because Epstein was only convicted of a single count of soliciting a 17-year-old underage prostitute, he would tell his elite friends that he had no idea the girl was underage. And they apparently believed him. Epstein's past was at that point "comfortably reconstructed."
It wasn't until Julie Brown's 2018 explosive four part Miami Herald expose on Epstein's crimes in Palm Beach, that there were literally *hundreds* of fourteen- and fifteen-year-olds abused whose collective testimonies were discarded by the Florida DA prosecuting the case, that the entire shitshow went fully QANON/MAGA crazy. Alex Acosta, a rising GOP star, and the Federal Attorney who'd given Epstein much of his amazingly sweet deal, was at the time Trump's Secretary of Labor, and was forced to resign in disgrace. Epstein was arrested soon thereafter, and died in extremely suspicious circumstance in a NYC jail awaiting trial.
In the late 1980's,in America, I quit the highest tipping waiting tables job I had yet had. The restaurant was owned by an older couple their daughter and son in law and a young male chef from Italy. The chef was a wild man,out and about with all sorts of people. He was young unattached,charasmatic and respectful of those not wanting to join in. The son in law ate a lavish dinner each night with his wife and her parents. During her first pregnacy the wife would leave the restaurant early,heading home to rest. The son in law would then spend hours at the bar flirting, mutually groping women and making future dates. Talking to him about the danger his behavior posed to his family did no good. I quit and told him why. I did not tell the wife.
Thanks Stephanie. You chose not to look away and did what you could. That's admirable and brave.
It is good for us to discuss the decisions we make in life. We are all brought up in different ways,and may not realize our autonomy until being out in the world for a time. I had worked in restaurants in America,England and Greece earlier in the eighties. I saw all kinds of couples lying to each other. This was what I saw growing up. Only, once finding myself living with a well adjusted, loving,not alcoholic Irish/English couple and their young adult son and daughter, only then did I understand - everything matters
What is the quote about "all that needs to happen for the world to end is for good men to do nothing?" Bill Gates has done great things with his (and his ex wife's) Foundation. He also had a yearly affair with a lover that he expected his wife to put up with (and she did, for years, although she told his to stay away from Epstein, I think).
Epstein gave these men, and others, access to what they wanted. Whether it really was underaged girls or the ability to live the high life on someone else's dime, they allowed themselves tom pretend what was happening wasn't happening. The same goes for everyone who worked for Epstein, by the way. From the housekeepers who cleaned up the messes to the cooks making the food to the flight attendants and pilots on the plane. Sad, sordid and gross.
Thanks Pam. You raise an interesting point. How guilty are the people who were the "cogs" in the machine of Epstein's predations? Legally, it would be hard to prove that the household staff were accomplices. But what bout the drivers who brought the girls to the residences? So many victims with damaged lives. it would be good to cast a wide net and prosecute as many people as possible.
In this post, I think you are taking a very close look at a social human nature mechanism that enabled Epstein to continue his aberrant behavior and keep large financial inflows headed his way long after a much less wealthy and less influential American entrepreneur would have been quickly arrested and not too long after, placed in prison.
The uncomfortable revelation of this mechanism suggests to me that there may be a whole cadre of one-eyed men and women elitists who are enabling antisemitism to increase and intensify by totally ignoring it. They do this by pretending that rampant antisemitism is harmless free speech. When "free speech" is used to call for the erasure of prominent middle East nation, how is that harmless?
There are federal laws against free speech being used as insidious latent or even blatant one-eyed incitement to violence.
I read today how a 15 year veteran New York Times reporter was livid and practically raging in their column against the New Jersey state legislature considering passage of a bill to redefine antisemitism that purportedly challenges their pretended free speech ramblings supporting rampant antisemitism or support of it are protected under the U.S. Constitution.
Almost nothing could be more one-eyed than that. I hope I am not stirring up the pot just as I think your intention with this post is not to stir it up.
But the ocular concept of one-eyeism is well worth looking at closely in order to more clearly understand what's going on in this era of extreme polarization.
Larry, the comments are here to stir with vigor. Thanks for the comment.
Consider the one-eyed Jewish people who look away from the starvation and devastation occurring right under their noses to innocent Palestinians. Verbal insults and anti semitic rhetoric are nothing in comparison to death from the sky or by starvation.
I definitely understand your point. But what I definitely find difficult to understand or even comprehend, is why Hamas pretends not to be seizing on arrival in Gaza (as they always have), 70 percent of the worldwide donated emergency food supplies and building construction materials for themselves to enable a worldwide jihad to get underway to erase all Jewish people. They obviously do not care about all the destruction and starvation their continuing terrorism has brought down and continues to bring down upon innocent Palestinians, who they fiercely embed themselves both with and beneath in the tunnels. Hamas also gets away with seizing the emergency food and building supplies donated from the outside world to support their worldwide communications informational infrastructure set up to encourage a worldwide jihad against all Jewish people. Because of the importance to Hamas of their antisemitic jihad, their is virtually zero mass food distribution and no rebuilding of destroyed homes or refugee facilities for innocent Palestinians. That is what I can't understand.
May I suggest you read Qasim Rashid, who posts regularly about the war and who posted today that “even the NYT” is reporting that the Israeli government is lying about Hamas stealing food? Any of his columns will broaden your information sources. He posts on Substack.
Thanks for the suggestion but there are a lot of people who won't read the New York Times anymore because they don't believe anything the NYT prints. The Gaza coverage seems orchestrated by Hamas and reflects zero journalistic integrity or any worthy of the name. I totally distrust them and anyone they traffic with within or outside Gaza who they point out as a reliable source of information. Everybody knows for the last ten years or since Hamas first seized control of Gaza most all the international emergency food and building supplies, any sort of foreign aid has somehow never reached innocent Palestinians. Why? So why would that change after Hamas selfishly reignited a new war with Israel via Oct. 7th. No one has to read the New York Times to realize that Hamas could easily let food and rebuilding supplies be distributed and starving innocent Palestinians fed. But they don't want to. How many ceasefires have they refused? All the starvation and destruction to Gaza Palestinian innocents could be remediated if Hamas just full stop give up all this erase Israel and all Jewish people insanity. I could recommend you read an article with pictures posted of a Palestinian refugee center in Lebanon. There are no pictures of any food being distributed or any efforts to rebuild the broken down dilapidated facilities. What the person who went there saw were a lot of wires strewn all over the place and also a lot of guns. And they didn't see anyone because presumably most of the people must have been in hiding and the facility must be under full Hamas control. It's very uncomfortable to realize how callous and uncaring Hamas is towards starving innocent civilian Palestinians. And that the New York Times is actively preventing that message from getting out to the whole world. Would recommend don't trust the NYT, elites or an antisemitic Jewish supposedly expert Brown University holocaust professor whose op-ed was recently published in the New York Times.
Ellen,
I respect your suggestion to me to read QR and the New York Times concerning what is really happening with lack of food distribution in Gaza. But the problem for me is that usually in a war, there are 2 sides to every story and usually one of them is not being told. Sometimes not all the information is there for the world to see. So I found some missing information and I know you will probably think it is a lie or lies so I am not going to tell you where I got although you can probably figure. Ellen, the world needs to see both sides of the withheld food debacle in Gaza. And then the world can make up its own mind as to who is lying and who is telling the truth. “The UN is starving Gaza on purpose. They’re hoarding food like warlords, letting children starve so Hamas can keep playing victim. 900-plus trucks. Millions in food and aid. All sitting inside Gaza. Not outside. Inside. Owned by the UN. But the UN refuses to give a single bite to starving civilians. Why? Because Hamas, the sick terrorists of the Muslim Brotherhood, told them not to. The UN is obeying Hamas. Using hunger as a negotiation tool with Israel.”
David--this was a superb essay. The opening two paragraphs (excellent)--the sentence "constructing for himself a comfortable past"--brought to mind the Wehrmacht's "Clean Hands" defense.
As for the question, I once quit a very lucrative CEO job because my values were so out of alignment with the owner's in terms of toxic culture that--as I said to a close friend--every day I stayed made me feel as complicit as a Nazi prison guard. (Clearly, an embellishment.) But at some point you have to look your "enabling behaviors" in the eye and make a decision about the kind of person you aim to be.
Diana, it's always easy to think you'd the right thing but you actually didi it! Thanks for the comment.
Thank you.....and...I've done a lot of "wrong" things too. but eventually (hopefully) we learn...
I walked away from an elite consulting path inspired by the many men seen as leaders willing to hang out in the grey area.
Paul, consulting is definitely being highlighted more and more as an ethical gray area.
It was less any specific bad case but more the willingness to basically do anything to please those with lots of status and money. I sort of realized I would have to be part of that if I wanted to succeed.
Yes I have cutoff friendships due to moral disgust. With details omitted, it took me five years to properly appreciate who I was dealing with - and out of a whole network of people I was the only one who voted with my feet - many in the network made excuses for the bad behavior or did not act, ever.
So in some cases with Epstein I can understand.
Some people don't see evil, or they ignore it, and they just avoid confronting it. Its hard to confront evil.
Thanks Steven. I agree, it is easier to look away.
Yep. There are other factors at play as well, like individual tolerance for seeing bad behavior and also in some cases not everyone is exposed to, or made aware of, the bad behavior to the same degree.
One thing that did especially bother me about the case to which I am referring was in some cases some genuine displays of extreme moral relativism, people of weak (too much empathy) character who were unwilling to even admit evil exists. THAT is a huge problem today. Some people today seem to excuse anything.
My late husband was a political refugee, which, note to those seeking men with two eyes, is proof of moral courage—you know they will stand for what they believe because they’ve already done so and paid the price. I’ve left a couple of jobs for ethical reasons, but those were easy decisions and the cost was low. Just a few days ago, I read the obituary of a man who murdered his wife, my Girl Scout leader, back in the 80s. Lots of condolence notes to his second wife about what a good family man he was. No, he wasn’t.
Thanks Celia. I can't say I've made great moral sacrifices. I hope if the time comes I will have the courage of my convictions.
Me too. We won’t know until the time comes. Hopefully we will recognize it then. And I hope, as a mom, that I don’t encourage my sons to keep their heads down and not make trouble, so they safe. Admittedly, I was relieved when my eldest chose to stay here in Canada for university. It’s easier here, where I know we’re all safe.
There are mandatory reporting laws at both the state and federal levels. State laws differ significantly in terms of who is required to report, the types of incidents that must be reported, and the procedures for making a report. For instance, some states have a broad definition of mandatory reporters, encompassing professionals such as teachers, healthcare workers, and social workers, while others may have a more limited scope.
Additionally, the types of incidents that trigger a reporting obligation can vary, with some states requiring reports for any suspected abuse, while others focus specifically on certain types of harm. Of recent note:The Catholic Church, particularly in the context of mandatory reporting laws for child abuse, has sought exemptions based on religious freedom and the "sacred" nature of confession. "A fox in the henhouse" if ever there was one.
Amy, you make a good point about certain professions having mandatory reporting requirements. And requirements differing among the various states. I wonder how many successful prosecutions there have been for non-compliance of reporting. I think they're pretty rare.
Prosecution for non-compliance is rare because mandatory reporters are, by and large, doing their jobs protecting children. The real problem lies with underfunded state and federal agencies failing to investigate and/or intervene after suspected child abuse is reported.
"In the country of the blind, the one-eyed man is king."
Wow .... That's a keeper
No wonder QAnon and the whole conspiracy singularity took off the way it did with the distrust wrought by our world leaders...
I'll be the contrarian and suggest that Bill Gates probably didn't vet Epstein because he knows dozens and dozens of people with net worths greater than $100 million, so vetting all of them thoroughly would be a challenge. He probably asked a couple friends who knew him and they said some variation of "he's a well-connected playboy." After all, that's what Donal Trump said in that 2002 article.
Hypersexual lifestyles among the rich are not uncommon. Here's a piece from 2015 about sex parties in Silicon Valley that even had an app for participants.
https://www.businessinsider.com/high-tech-swingers-parties-are-all-the-rage-in-silicon-valley-2015-1
In 2011 a background check on Epstein would turn up a conviction for soliciting prostitution from someone under 18. That sounds bad -- and it is! -- but it doesn't hint at what he was really doing.
For comparison, Tracy Lords made quite a few porn films when she was 16, but no one knew because she used a fake ID. I imagine a PI who checked into the conviction would make the same assumption. The documents were all sealed, and it took monumental efforts for Julie Brown to get the underlying details.
In 2011, there were headlines and stories in the NEW YORK Post and the Guardian especially surrounding the Prince Andrew scandal. By then, there was a lot of media coverage.
I left a company whose morals and ethics were incompatible with mine. Does that count?
Siri, that absolutely counts.
Excellent article.
$50 million in advisory fees from Leon Black? Hmmm- sounds more like a deal to not be exposed by Epstein. We might never know.
This story is about the abuse of power—not about "pedophilia.“
Unfortunately, these two things all too often become confused, equated, and not differentiated.
Every time such things come to light, for example, on the "dark web" or elsewhere, and every time countless people are revealed to be involved, it should have become clear to everyone by now that these are unfortunately not "exceptional cases" of "a few perverts," but something that seems to be very widespread—and that appears as clearly impossible or insufficient to get addressed (alone) with criminal law.
The vast majority of pedophiles, however, would never harm or rape a child.
Yet they are always lumped together and equated with violent criminals and those who abuse power.
Unfortunately, there is hardly any rational and nuanced discussion of this.
In Germany, for example, there are several projects run by universities and psychotherapists, etc., that promote prevention by allowing pedophiles to seek help and counseling anonymously, before "something happens.“
The number of participants in these projects is always far oversubscribed – this demonstrates at least two things: how widespread pedophilic feelings are, and how aware pedophiles are of the problem.
The notorious preoccupation with "cases" like Epstein also unfortunately distracts from the fact that the vast majority of cases of sexual abuse against non-adults occur within families and their immediate environment.
90% of all "cases" do not occur at the hands of "evil strangers," but rather at the hands of fathers, mothers, aunts, in sports clubs, by far most with people whom the adolescents have a close relationship to – not at the hands of perverts who buy sex with "fresh meat.“
These latter individuals, in particular, are often not pedophiles; instead, they are concerned with the abuse of power. Since Mr. Trump, for example, is a guy with clearly enormous problems regarding the appropriate use of power – which he exercises as a threat – he would be a virtually typical Epstein "client" (which, of course, can't be taken as a statement about whether he did anything in this direction or not. I can only say „I wouldn´t be surprised").
I myself spent several years developing my own concept of lectures and courses – with which I also appeared on German and French television, for example – aimed at protecting and sensitizing children as much as possible, but especially "adults": because THEY are "the problem"…!
There, I experienced mostly the same thing to become clear ever again: wherever children couldn't openly ask questions about sexuality, where they were told "This isn't for children," and where they couldn't develop self-awareness about their well-being and their bodies, where they aren't taken seriously, where they are patronized, that's where the danger of (sexual) abuse is greatest.
Yes, this arrogance of so-called "adults“ already IS a kind of, or kind of pre-requisite of abuse. -
And so it can be clearly stated: precisely where so-called "family values" are constantly and persistently upheld, where children are supposed to "obey adults" and "not argue" and not to develop independence, where children are supposed to be "protected," precisely there they are most frequently subjected to harassment by "adults" and have few (learned) opportunities to defend themselves and seek help.
Wherever such hypocritical "family values" are upheld—as with Mr. Trump and his idiotic, autocratic, totalitarian, power-abusing followers—I become alert and prick up my ears…
The idea that children are respected as independent individuals who must be allowed to develop in peace and not be treated like "adults," and whose sexuality must also be allowed to develop undisturbed and independently: this is historically very new and recent; also in the "West," it has only existed for about five hundred years.
In many regions of the world, such awareness still lacks today.
Nor is the idea that children should not be "sexual objects" a "natural" realization.
Unfortunately, we must accept it as a fact, face it, and deal openly with the fact that there are people—and not just a few—who find non-adults sexually attractive, and that these people are rarely "monsters," but rather highly diverse human beings with otherwise diverse abilities, just like everyone else.
The idea that children should not be sexual objects must be learned and understood, and those with pedosexual tendencies did not choose this any more than anyone else can choose their sexuality.
Of course, this cannot mean that this sexuality, which is treated restrictively for good and understandable reasons, should be practiced.
Nor does it help to establish or strengthen a humane society without concentration camps, inhumane prisons, and so on...
But unfortunately, excluding and classifying such sexuality as "perversion" helps neither children nor adults. When something is pushed into the shadows, the following applies: in the shadows, victims have it hardest and perpetrators have it easiest.
I have ended friendships over my friends' prejudice against trans people.
Prejudices are, in my opinion, a good and necessary reason to stop friendships.