[pfannkuchen]

There's a very strange problem with this whole thing where, of course, whatever these powerful people have done behind closed doors that is illegal and exploitative and harmful is terrible and they should be put to justice.

However, if the direction of the country is being seriously altered via blackmail, IMO that is many orders of magnitude worse than anything they could have done. Like we are currently bombing yet another middle eastern country for no clear reason.

I would personally be open to some kind of Epstein jubilee where we absolve everyone involved in order to nullify the blackmail.

Like it's not great, it's terrible for the victims and for justice, but at the moment we are getting terrible from both ends, could we at least reduce it to one end?

[pjc50]

That creates a far worse problem down the line because they will just do it again, more publicly.

Really the rot set in with the pardons of Nixon and Oliver North.

[pfannkuchen]

Can you justify that assertion? How would they do it again, more publicly?

It's not like a blackmail ring is that easy to set up, it seems to have taken a lot of heavy lifting to get this one going.

[paulryanrogers]

When people see what others have gotten away with, they become emboldened themselves.

[BLKNSLVR]

If their actions have made this level of blackmail possible, then said actions are the worse thing because that's what made this scale of blackmail possible.

Their actions are the foundation for everything that came after.

[smackeyacky]

You don’t need a jubilee. At this point Trump could release a video of himself eating a crying baby and his supporters simply will ignore it.

[bdbdbdb]

We always talk about what these powerful people "have done", as if it's all over. Surely Epstein's death did not bring about the end of billionaire sex trafficking? Someone stepped in. These guys are still raping people on private planes and private islands

[pfannkuchen]

But why are we focusing on the raping, and not on what the American government is doing that has no clear rational motive without “Israel has captured the government” and a very clear rational motive with “Israel has captured the government”?

If the American government continues to perform actions that are blatantly against the interests of America and Americans, the impact of that on Americans is going to be (and may be already) massively massively worse than the person to person level crimes we are focusing on.

Does it just feel so bad thinking about it that a lot of people have a hard time even going there mentally? I really don’t get it.

[BLKNSLVR]

I can't shake the feeling that Trump's continual needling of Europe is intended the destroy NATO. And this is a desire of Putin's.

I know it's conspiratorial, and I hate that, but it's one of the only things that makes any of the actions of the US in the last year make any semblance of sense.

I don't like to think that, but it remains, for me, a valid scenario.