Everybody can accept that what he and his billionaire friends are horrible people who did horrible things to minors. The implication that so many high-ranking politicians from all over the world is associated with it is very bad indeed. But why do so many Americans seem to be so obsessed with Epstein and his “files”?
It seems like whatever discussion there is, there’s always some lunatic going on about “releasing the files” when it has nothing to do with the topic at hand. And when anything is vaguely about America and its politics (e.g. kidnapping of Maduro), many will claim that its because it’s to “distract the public from Epstein” or similar, feel good about themselves, and move on without contributing anything to the discussion like some sort of conspiracy theorist who tries to win arguments by saying it’s a conspiracy by the CIA/aliens/lizard people/etc. (side note: who actually believes in lizard people? Is this a joke or do people actually believe in those?) Not everything is about egg head island.
The involvement of so many powerful and rich people is quite bad indeed, and the coverup (suicide and maybe-murder of the guy, the hidden and almost mythical “files” that, even when released, are super redacted, the denial, etc) is concerning too. It is normal to seek out punishment for those involved, to press for more transparency around it, etc., that I can agree with, but it is not normal to justify all the war, conflict, and incitations of invasion that America is doing now, will do later, and has done in the past because of this.
darthelmet@lemmy.world 3 hours ago
The thing that bothers me about the whole discussion around the Epstein files is why do people think THIS will be any different? The rich and powerful have been getting away with heinous and illegal things in public for a long time. Wars which aren’t just immoral, but illegal by both international law and the laws of our own country. Gross violations of civil liberties and human rights. Police just straight up kill people and get away with it. Illegal torture facilities. Companies have killed tons of people through either negligence or outright malicious greed. Etc.
We KNOW about all of these thing already. Some were just straight up done in public, some done in private but eventually got leaked or declassified, but either way, we’ve had plenty of evidence of these people doing things that should have put them away for the rest of their lives and the worst consequences they’ve ever suffered were slap on the wrist fines if they even got those.
To me, the Epstein files are a perfect crystallization of the broader reality that the rich and powerful can use their money and influence to commit crimes with impunity. The idea that they are distracting from these crimes by committing even bigger crimes is just sheer absurdity. Not in the sense that it may be wrong, but rather how it shows how fucking insanely broken our system is. If you can get out of one crime by going out and murdering a bunch of people… what the hell are we even doing? Why do we think any of these people will ever pay for their crimes? The very system that would do that has been corrupted by those same criminals. They’re not going to put themselves, their buddies, or their benefactors in jail.
Something needs to change. Something needs to be done. But the idea that all that we need is for people to see the complete evidence of this particular set of crimes and the legal system will finally work properly is beyond delusional.