Jeffrey Epstein, whose life story should be the subject of a million movies, TV shows and streaming specials, is largely ignored. I can imagine, in a different age, his case being one of those stories that never goes away. Yet it only appears to raise its head when something makes it happen, and then it is quickly swept under the carpet again. Which I find interesting.
The movie Sound of Freedom was ravaged. It was brutally attacked. Film critic and Catholic deacon Steven Greydanus linked to an authority who said the movie's lies would lead to endless death and suffering on the part of trafficked children. Others attacked the movie for failing to be a full scale dissertation on the subject. Triumph of the Will got less pushback.
Now we have Senator Katie Britt, who gave the response to the State of Union stump speech. Wow. I mean, the Press/Left always attacks the Republican who gives the SOTU response. Remember the great Dry Mouth Apocalypse of Marco Rubio? But this has been brutal. Apparently she bold face lied about a case involving sex trafficking from decades ago. I don't know the details since everyone has their versions. I just notice that the topic of sex trafficking itself has been all but ignored in preference for attacking her. Once again. Even the victim in her example has jumped on board and attacked her as the main point of contention.
I just notice trends. And one trend I notice is that the national press spends scant little time discussing the modern global slave trade driven largely by the sex slave trade. Especially given our current lack of mercy or empathy for Western slave traders and slave owners of the past. Local press outlets will sometimes cover it, mostly in the sense of how local agencies are helping victims. But there's no real big national 'we must stop the horrors!' media frenzy. No ongoing headlines keeping it in the public eye for months on end, like George Floyd or the Unite the Right rally of 2017 or gun violence. In fact, it seldom comes up.
Unless someone brings it up, and then it's pull out all the stops and attack - the ones bringing it up. Again, I'm no conspiracy theorist. Nonetheless, if those - usually on the Left - would mount an outrage driven crusade against sex trafficking with the zeal that they go after those who bring up the problems with modern sex trafficking, I'd be far less inclined to give wild conspiracy theories even a second glance.
But as I've said before, there comes a time when it takes far more credulity to disbelieve a conspiracy theory than to believe in one. And given the reactions I've seen over the last few years where this topic does and doesn't come up, the craziest thing to believe appears to be the claim that nothing is going on behind the scenes where this modern scandal of human slavery is concerned.
Yep. A culture which honors Moloch and celebrates the sacrifice of childrens' lives can have no real objection to sex trafficking. Children: Objects to be discarded or abused as the Gods of the Market dictate.
ReplyDeleteComparing the US to the Israel of Jeremiah has been going on for some time. It's funny how those who would have us see only the bad in America are increasingly being worse than America ever was, and dragging the country down with them.
Delete(Tom New Poster)
ReplyDeleteWhile there might be a sceptic or two who remembers the Satanic Abuse "crisis" of the 1980s (in the end, not supported by data), but my own take is that either there are topics they don't want to raise (about how the sexual appetite becomes a monster once unchained from marriage and procreation) or (more likely) important political figures or movements they desperately want to protect. Figures include Bill Clinton, movements include Islam, which has an ancient history of mass sex trafficking which some have dragged into the West (look at the scandal in Leicester in the UK some years back).
That made me think of the old horror movie The Howling. Not family friendly. But the screen writer didn't focus only on literature or film, but psychology. He decided to throw a bomb into the post-sex revolution 70s. He used werewolves as an allegory. He said it was commonly taught by then that repression was the mother of all problems. The only hope for humanity was no rules, just right. He decide to say maybe not. Maybe total abandon doesn't make us better people, but monsters. With the werewolves embodying that animal instinct unchained. For a horror movie, I find that rather prophetic, even if we still won't admit to the obvious after tens of millions of lives lost and ruined.
DeleteMy son was a soldier stationed in Afghanistan about 12 years ago and he was saying how Afghani men looked at women as breeding machines but for sexual pleasure they had access to young boys. Parties in which older men would have a few young boys to satisfy their appetites were always present. It's been said that most men in Afghanistan have been victims of sodomy in their youth until they got to a certain age then they became the predators. The way I see Muslim men act around western women tells me they have not gotten to the age of civilization yet.
ReplyDeleteOne of the things the Left has done to portray the West in the worst ways possible has been to whitewash the rest of the world. Hence Pope Francis talking about those fun-loving Mongols. Or the idea the American Indians were too good for Jesus. The problem being, if we make blanket statements that entire cultures were perfect, then the next generations will begin to assume anything those cultures did was just awesome. It was only bad done in the one culture that was bad. Otherwise? Eh. Not so bad after all.
DeleteI also think the silence of the sex trafficking is deliberate. I hate the media and it's bias. I hate how they try and manipulate the populace with their lies and propaganda. It would not surprise me in the least they they are covering up the sexual crimes of politicians and others of wealth and fame. For what purpose? Money mostly and favors from politicians. It is an age where power and money and a total lack of accountability of ones actions and unbelief in God makes one believe they will never get caught or called on it. I've always called the MSM the false prophet and will continue to do so. They are the ones who prop up or destroy candidates for president. This is the main reason they hate Trump. Trump was not created by the media and so the media cannot manipulate or control or destroy him except by illegal means and lies. He called them fake news to their faces and NO one does that to the MSM without repercussions.
ReplyDeleteOh, they are definitely covering up for politicians, and probably themselves. I think once you start compromising for personal gain, your soul gradually slips away until it disappears.
DeleteYep. Media has always been biased, but it was buffered by other standards and principles. Those are gone, and the media is now fully invested in advancing the storyline, no matter how many millions of suffering and dying have to be ignored. Just consider the October 7th massacre. How many weeks did it take for the press to sweep that under the carpet? Or the Nashville Christian School shooting. It was days I believe, once the shooter was identified as transgender, for the press to flush that story. It is an evil of our age, being told that we should only car about the suffering of others - when convenient. The sad part is those Christians who embrace this.
DeleteI’ll admit, though, I don’t understand why seemingly good people jump on the bandwagon here if they have nothing to hide. I think the people in power have lots to hide, and radio silence on the subject makes sense. But to argue that bringing awareness to human trafficking somehow makes it WORSE for kids is just baffling. And often these are the same people who are essentially pro open border, even though the human trafficking is rife. It actually makes me angry with our Church leadership in the US that they prefer their hands in the govt. moneybag over actual human beings. They are entirely complicit with this endeavor by all their NGOs processing illegals.
ReplyDeleteSometimes I'm not sure who to believe about discrepancies in Catholic Charities, CRS etc. I hear much from the Lepanto Institute about corruption in some of these NGO's. I'm a firm believer that where a lot of money is handled you will always have those few with sticky fingers. The Church should not be taking government money. I think that is the reason why not much is said about trafficking, the rapes, and the criminals crossing the border. There needs to be a constant cry from our Church concerning these things but you hear it only here and there every once in a while. I believe the Church is afraid if it protests too much federal funds will stop flowing to the Catholic Church. I hope I'm wrong.
DeleteI think also that bishops are not crying out from the rooftops 24/7 about abortion for fear of having fed money stopped. The feds know that if the Church harped constantly on the evils of abortion that many more Catholic voters would think twice about voting for Dems. As it stands we have bishops who have tried to remove abortion as the preeminent issue in qualifying candidates for political office. The government is all out for abortion rights. If the Church rocks the boat too much...bye bye money?
DeleteBob, I completely agree. I read an article by John Zmirak (who I don't always appreciate, mostly for style) who laid out how the Church in the States has made back all the $3Bill it paid out in sex abuse settlements in "immigration" money. And on the abortion topic, it's true. Had the bishops held the line early on, even into the early 90's, on Democrats in particular... that party could not have gone so dang far to the left on the issue.
DeleteBernadette, a common rumor back in the early days of Social Media was that the Church's jumping on board the 'all illegal immigrants are good immigrants' bandwagon was to deflect from the emerging abuse scandal. True or not, the timing was noteworthy.
DeleteTo Bob and Bernadette: I think part of your answer calls to mind this quote from Theodore Dalrymple:
DeleteTheir training tells them, quite rightly, that it is their duty to care for everyone without regard for personal merit or deserts; but for them, there is no difference between suspending judgment for certain restricted purposes and making no judgment at all in any circumstances whatsoever. It is as if they were more afraid of passing an adverse verdict on someone than of getting a punch in the face—a likely enough consequence, incidentally, of their failure of discernment. Since it is scarcely possible to recognize a wife beater without inwardly condemning him, it is safer not to recognize him as one in the first place.
I believe this is the case with some of those Catholic charities. Since "it is scarcely possible to recognize" a child trafficker without condemning him, "safer not to recognize him as one in the first place." It's a whole lot easier to love your neighbor if you never acknowledge your neighbor's sin in the first place.
Nate what you say is true however if we love our neighbor as ourselves then we acknowledge our own sin and reprove the sin of our neighbor out of love whether they or we like it or not. That is not judgement of a neighbors soul but his action.
DeleteThere is an economic phenomena called "Bootleggers and Baptists." It's basically talking about how things can arise when two groups who are generally opposed on 90% of everything, find a common overlap on that 10% agreement and creates a kind of iron lock on society. One good example would probably be feminism. Feminists hate men. Conservatives definitely don't want women abused. So we get a court system that comes down hard on men because both sides end up agreeing on that even though they come at it from completely different angles.
ReplyDeleteAt least some of this I wonder if a similar thing is going on - two opposite sides intersecting over a sliver of commonality. Like you, I do keep wondering why this topic keeps ending up as "exceptions" in our society. We show other evils in less than accurate lights - and yet this is seen as ok because it's "important to start the conversation" and "raise awareness." Yet when it comes to child abuse and exploitation, suddenly that's not what matters?
Sure there's the obvious question of "evil forces" and all - it's the "useful idiots" I wonder about. Like why does Mark Shea hate it so much and even take delight in tearing down Tim Ballard when we've seen him defend others of much more questionable character with charity? I certainly don't think he's an evil person exploiting children. Why do him and people like him suddenly apply this rigorous and exacting standard to this topic and not any others they champion? It really makes you wonder.
Everyone will fall into the trap of applying double standards sometimes --- it's human nature. But for leftists it has become a kind of first principle : loose, easy standards for your friends but strict harsh standards for your enemies. I see this all the time. I even see it coming from the Pope. ---- G. Poulin
DeleteNate, I find that to be one of the best cards that progressives have to play. You can always argue there are problems in the world. You can point to racism, or bigotry, or just bad actions. The trick is to wrap it up with only one acceptable explanation and only one acceptable solution. I think that is a struggle conservatives have had since forever. What do you say when progressives point out the worst elements of the past? Slavery or racism or bigotry or atrocities? It's as if the second that conservatives concede something, they miss the point of being able to say 'but you're wrong about how you frame it, or how you solve it.' As soon as the issue of racism is brought up, you either accept the Left's take or you're a racist. And no matter how conservatives say 'yes, we give you racism has existed', we lose. I don't know why it plays out like that every time, but it does. It reminds me of that scene in the Exorcist. Satan is a liar, but he will mix truth with lies to attack. Conservatives haven't figured out how to break that game.
DeleteG. Poulin. I have always said that many things - like preemptive accusations, assumption of malice, hypocrisy - are hardly unique to the Left. But they are almost universal among the Left. And, with a sympathetic yap-dog media, they are never called out for it. Whereas if a conservative was to play that game, media outlets would be on him like white on rice.
Delete