6 ms·

The Jeffrey Epstein case is why people believe in Pizzagate

34 points by Melchizedek 7y ago

PaulHoule 7y ago
The "winner take all" turn of the culture has hurt the legitimacy of the system and I think it feeds anti-vax, "the moon landing was a hoax", etc. It's just too transparent that the people in charge grade their own papers. To counter it, the elite has to be held to a standard higher than we hold other people. Otherwise the erosion will keep happening.
- wahern 7y ago
  > the elite has to be held to a standard higher than we hold other people It's so infuriating when U.S. political pundits interpret the Impeachment Clause phrase, "high Crimes and Misdemeanors", as requiring ordinary criminal or even heightened criminal behavior. The qualifier "high" refers to the office, and reflects a notion that public officials in positions of trust should be held to a stricter moral standard than in private life--specifically, the moral standards we should expect of those entrusted with high offices. That is, behavior that would not be criminal for a private individual could be a high crime or misdemeanor for a public official. See, e.g., https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_crimes_and_misdemeanors https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_crimes_and_misdemeanors It's mostly Republicans who push this interpretation (though Democrats made similar arguments, albeit less vociferously, during Watergate). But Democrats remain silent because the Impeachment Clause is worded in a way that gives Congress an affirmative duty to prosecute high crimes and misdemeanors, and for strategic reasons the Democratic caucus would prefer to shirk that duty.
  - PaulHoule 7y ago
    It's tough because the law can't compel people to be good. It's a fundamental problem with liberalism and is part of the crisis that liberalism faces all around the world; people see our institutions failing and they start to wonder if maybe China has a better idea. If you are in a position of authority (parent, teacher, manager, ...) one thing you should learn right away is that you need to model good behavior if you want to control bad behavior. That's because your subordinates will certainly model any bad behavior you do. It's always shocked me how bipartisan the moral rot is. For instance, Epstein was close to both Trump and Clinton. Both Trump and Clinton had daughters who married the sons of convicted felons. Given that Chelsea Clinton might be interested in public life some day I can't for the life of me imagine why she married the son of this guy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Mezvinsky#Criminal_activities https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Mezvinsky#Criminal_acti...
    - gotorazor 7y ago
      Confucianism is not that great in practice.
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
- m-p-3 7y ago
  Like how police officers are (or should be) held to higher standards when dealing with illegal acts.
cafard 7y ago
Right, and Marilyn Monroe's death is why people believe that the moon landing was faked? Or are we overthinking this? I would suggest that people believe in Pizzagate because other people who knew better but had reasons to pretend not encouraged them to do so. Once you start from the premise that Hillary Clinton is the Queen of Night, and that clues to this truth are woven throughout the fabric of reality, then any old list of nouns--pizza, takeout, whatever--can be mapped to any other list plausibly enough. (If I sound grouchy about this, I am--I sometimes shop or dine on the block where Comet Pizza is.)
nootropicat 7y ago
I think the majority of politicians in Western countries have at least one filmed child sex episode. Assume you're a very powerful politician and you need underlings in powerful positions, which you can help novices get, but once they get powerful they become independent and can stop being underlings. Filming them having sex with an kid, or at least an obviously underage teen, is the single best blackmail material possible. Damage potential basically equal to murder evidence, but there's no hard to hide murder victim - and in child sex one victim can be used several times, as opposed to just one time in murder. As every such cabal would be much more effective than a lone politician, eventually power would entirely shift to competing cabals bound by child sex blackmail - making it impossible to dismantle externally, because both the executive, the judicial system and the biggest media would be controlled by people in such arrangements. Media in particular would have the main job - in case of any genuine leaks, mix the truth with outlandish claims to discredit it as a dumb conspiracy theory. The game theory works out so nice I don't see any alternative, it's the stable state of the political system. I can see it being murder though, if disposing a body is much easier than my estimate. In non-Western societies it could be something else. In North Korea, being filmed shitting on a photo of the current leader would work much better I guess.
- jbarberu 7y ago
  Just a thought: Most people have morals and wouldn't have sex with an underage person, nor murder someone, just because their boss told them to. They would tell their boss to go fuck himself.
  - nootropicat 7y ago
    Then they wouldn't get a promotion and most likely never attain any power.
    - jbarberu 7y ago
      Unless they learned after the first time and secretly recorded their boss trying to get them to commit crimes and use that as their blackmail...
SideburnsOfDoom 7y ago
I'm half-convinced of the notion that the "Pizzagate" idea was spread on the plan that "whatever our side is about to be accused of, make sure that the other side is accused of it first". It's like projection, only not unconscious; it's deliberate deflection to make the real thing look less believable when it comes up. What I am more certain of, is that in general in modern politics, disinformation has been weaponized to a high degree.
- bitlax 7y ago
  That doesn't make sense since Democrats were accused of having sex with minors in both cases.
  - ceejayoz 7y ago
    The first is a loony conspiracy theory. The second appears to have a variety of folks from both ends of the political spectrum (and internationally) entwined, including Bill Clinton, but balanced with Trump and his Secretary of Labor on the other side of things. I fully expect it to involve a variety of non-political folks, as well as internationally.
  - SideburnsOfDoom 7y ago
    Which Democrat said that Epstein was a great guy who they like to have fun with? Which democrat was possibly introduced to their beautiful wife by Epstein ?
    - ceejayoz 7y ago
      I'm liberal as all get out, but it seems clear Epstein was an equal-opportunity cultivator of powerful figures in both parties. Trump's being dumb enough to publicly brag about the association is very on-brand, of course.
      - Fjolsvith 7y ago
        > I'm liberal as all get out, but it seems clear Epstein was an equal-opportunity cultivator of powerful figures in both parties. > Trump's being dumb enough to publicly brag about the association is very on-brand, of course. Trump is playing the main street media like a violin. If you are thinking he is doing something because he seems stupid, it's just part of the plan. Trump did say back in 2012 that the pedophiles had to go. [1] And, since his inauguration, the massive crackdown on them has largely gone unreported. 1. https://mobile.twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/255294883680632833?lang=en https://mobile.twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/2552948836...
onemoresoop 7y ago
The conversation was civil. Why was this flagged??

34 points by Melchizedek 7y ago

The "winner take all" turn of the culture has hurt the legitimacy of the system and I think it feeds anti-vax, "the moon landing was a hoax", etc. It's just too transparent that the people in charge grade their own papers. To counter it, the elite has to be held to a standard higher than we hold other people. Otherwise the erosion will keep happening.

wahern 7y ago
> the elite has to be held to a standard higher than we hold other people It's so infuriating when U.S. political pundits interpret the Impeachment Clause phrase, "high Crimes and Misdemeanors", as requiring ordinary criminal or even heightened criminal behavior. The qualifier "high" refers to the office, and reflects a notion that public officials in positions of trust should be held to a stricter moral standard than in private life--specifically, the moral standards we should expect of those entrusted with high offices. That is, behavior that would not be criminal for a private individual could be a high crime or misdemeanor for a public official. See, e.g., https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_crimes_and_misdemeanors https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_crimes_and_misdemeanors It's mostly Republicans who push this interpretation (though Democrats made similar arguments, albeit less vociferously, during Watergate). But Democrats remain silent because the Impeachment Clause is worded in a way that gives Congress an affirmative duty to prosecute high crimes and misdemeanors, and for strategic reasons the Democratic caucus would prefer to shirk that duty.
- PaulHoule 7y ago
  It's tough because the law can't compel people to be good. It's a fundamental problem with liberalism and is part of the crisis that liberalism faces all around the world; people see our institutions failing and they start to wonder if maybe China has a better idea. If you are in a position of authority (parent, teacher, manager, ...) one thing you should learn right away is that you need to model good behavior if you want to control bad behavior. That's because your subordinates will certainly model any bad behavior you do. It's always shocked me how bipartisan the moral rot is. For instance, Epstein was close to both Trump and Clinton. Both Trump and Clinton had daughters who married the sons of convicted felons. Given that Chelsea Clinton might be interested in public life some day I can't for the life of me imagine why she married the son of this guy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Mezvinsky#Criminal_activities https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Mezvinsky#Criminal_acti...
  - gotorazor 7y ago
    Confucianism is not that great in practice.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
m-p-3 7y ago
Like how police officers are (or should be) held to higher standards when dealing with illegal acts.

cafard 7y ago

Right, and Marilyn Monroe's death is why people believe that the moon landing was faked? Or are we overthinking this? I would suggest that people believe in Pizzagate because other people who knew better but had reasons to pretend not encouraged them to do so. Once you start from the premise that Hillary Clinton is the Queen of Night, and that clues to this truth are woven throughout the fabric of reality, then any old list of nouns--pizza, takeout, whatever--can be mapped to any other list plausibly enough. (If I sound grouchy about this, I am--I sometimes shop or dine on the block where Comet Pizza is.)

nootropicat 7y ago

I think the majority of politicians in Western countries have at least one filmed child sex episode. Assume you're a very powerful politician and you need underlings in powerful positions, which you can help novices get, but once they get powerful they become independent and can stop being underlings. Filming them having sex with an kid, or at least an obviously underage teen, is the single best blackmail material possible. Damage potential basically equal to murder evidence, but there's no hard to hide murder victim - and in child sex one victim can be used several times, as opposed to just one time in murder. As every such cabal would be much more effective than a lone politician, eventually power would entirely shift to competing cabals bound by child sex blackmail - making it impossible to dismantle externally, because both the executive, the judicial system and the biggest media would be controlled by people in such arrangements. Media in particular would have the main job - in case of any genuine leaks, mix the truth with outlandish claims to discredit it as a dumb conspiracy theory. The game theory works out so nice I don't see any alternative, it's the stable state of the political system. I can see it being murder though, if disposing a body is much easier than my estimate. In non-Western societies it could be something else. In North Korea, being filmed shitting on a photo of the current leader would work much better I guess.

jbarberu 7y ago
Just a thought: Most people have morals and wouldn't have sex with an underage person, nor murder someone, just because their boss told them to. They would tell their boss to go fuck himself.
- nootropicat 7y ago
  Then they wouldn't get a promotion and most likely never attain any power.
  - jbarberu 7y ago
    Unless they learned after the first time and secretly recorded their boss trying to get them to commit crimes and use that as their blackmail...

SideburnsOfDoom 7y ago

I'm half-convinced of the notion that the "Pizzagate" idea was spread on the plan that "whatever our side is about to be accused of, make sure that the other side is accused of it first". It's like projection, only not unconscious; it's deliberate deflection to make the real thing look less believable when it comes up. What I am more certain of, is that in general in modern politics, disinformation has been weaponized to a high degree.

bitlax 7y ago
That doesn't make sense since Democrats were accused of having sex with minors in both cases.
- ceejayoz 7y ago
  The first is a loony conspiracy theory. The second appears to have a variety of folks from both ends of the political spectrum (and internationally) entwined, including Bill Clinton, but balanced with Trump and his Secretary of Labor on the other side of things. I fully expect it to involve a variety of non-political folks, as well as internationally.
- SideburnsOfDoom 7y ago
  Which Democrat said that Epstein was a great guy who they like to have fun with? Which democrat was possibly introduced to their beautiful wife by Epstein ?
  - ceejayoz 7y ago
    I'm liberal as all get out, but it seems clear Epstein was an equal-opportunity cultivator of powerful figures in both parties. Trump's being dumb enough to publicly brag about the association is very on-brand, of course.
    - Fjolsvith 7y ago
      > I'm liberal as all get out, but it seems clear Epstein was an equal-opportunity cultivator of powerful figures in both parties. > Trump's being dumb enough to publicly brag about the association is very on-brand, of course. Trump is playing the main street media like a violin. If you are thinking he is doing something because he seems stupid, it's just part of the plan. Trump did say back in 2012 that the pedophiles had to go. [1] And, since his inauguration, the massive crackdown on them has largely gone unreported. 1. https://mobile.twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/255294883680632833?lang=en https://mobile.twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/2552948836...

onemoresoop 7y ago

The conversation was civil. Why was this flagged??