Protect the Children

At the time of writing this article, there is a lot of talk going on about Jeffrey Epstein, a new batch of files was released relating both to his victims and potential clients who abused said victims. I'm going to assume that if you're reading this, you are already at least somewhat familiar with the controversy surrounding Jeffrey Epstein and his private island, as well as the nature of those who were implicated in the released files. What I want to focus on for this article is how the conversation about Epstein started, how it shifted from Hilary to both Trump and right-wing politicians, why that shift happened, and what it means for people who actually care about protecting children.

Firstly, let's start with how this whole thing got started, and it may surprise you to learn that this was started by Trump himself. It started all the way back during the 2016 campaign with what was called "pizzagate." This was a conspiracy that alleged that several high-ranking democrats were involved in a child sex trafficking ring. The theory first appeared on various sites across the internet and of course, was spread by many right-wing news outlets in an attempt to smear Hillary Clinton and make her lose the election. This theory was called "pizzagate" because of the allegations that the word pizza was being used as a code word in calls, texts, emails, etc. to signify "child sex." Now of course, this particular conspiracy is false, but what's important to remember is that Trump and several of his allies spread the rumor. The goal was to make it look like Democrats (and only Democrats) were engaged in this kind of behavior, and of course, that Hilary was aware of it and did nothing to stop it. This key fact is important because it shows just how reckless Trump and his supporters were regarding the truth. In hindsight, it's somewhat ironic that we now KNOW Trump was a part of a real global sex trafficking operation (was an active participant and did nothing to stop it) and here he was promoting the idea that Hilary was involved in a fake one. So, Trump and the right were willing to use this lie as an effective tool when they thought it would help them gain power.

Now of course, the reason he was fine using this lie is because most people hear the words child sex trafficking ring and will immediately have a negative reaction to it. Obviously, child sex trafficking is wrong and anybody who would engage in that sort of behavior must be evil. This kind of debauchery provokes a very visceral reaction from people, especially parents. No parent would want something like that to happen to their child so a lie saying Hilary and Democrats were a part of one was at least somewhat effective in discouraging people form voting for her, seeing as she would end up losing the election. Most humans would agree that sex trafficking is bad and sex trafficking of children is even worse, but the interesting thing about this claim is that it was completely false. Not only that. but Trump and the right never provided any real evidence of this supposed "trafficking ring". All the "evidence" they pointed out was certain words in emails and nothing else. No formal charges against anyone were ever filed, no investigation was carried out, and nothing that would lead to this supposed ring discovery and termination was ever done. Even when Trump won and could have appointed a special prosecutor to investigate it, he didn't, and that detail is important.

I should point out that the reason this lie was so effective is because many Republican voters are inclined to believe in "conspiracies." This has been a slow and steady process that was aided by certain fringe right-wing personalities (i.e.: Alex Jones) who, again with no regard for the truth, push these theories to their listeners to both try and convince them that they are true and to slowly erode their trust in other news sources. This is a larger topic for another time, but I just wanted to bring attention to it as the reason why so many people believe such obvious lies. I also want to point out how effective this lie was in getting people fired up about a supposed "secret cabal of pedophiles running the world."

With all this established it is now time to return to the topic of the Epstein files, what we've learned from them, and how they expose the hypocrisy of Donald Trump and the larger Republican Party. Because, as it turns out, there was a "secret cabal of pedophiles running the world," and Donald Trump was one of them! As for the real "secret cabal," it turns out it was on a privately owned island that was maintained by a large number of billionaires. And while yes, some Democrats were implicated in these files, they were not the ones running it. The people running it were billionaires, people who have acquired too much money and feel no need or obligation to share it with society. People who tend to indulge in hedonism because their massive wealth allows them to do that. In this case the hedonism in question was the assault and rape of underage girls.

This is the sort of thing that should piss off everyone; it should rally all of humanity against those who participated in this behavior and allowed it to continue. As I said before, Trump and his campaign manufactured outrage against Hillary for her supposed role in a "child sex ring," but then years later we learn about the REAL child sex ring… and nothing was done. There was no outrage amongst Trump or any of the Republicans, no investigation opened, no charges filed, nothing. Why? Because a large majority of those who were implicated were Republican, and of course, one of the most implicated persons was Donald Trump, who was now president. Now this didn't have to be an issue; Republicans in Congress could have voted to impeach Trump, they could have demanded the Attorney General open an investigation, they could have done something, but no. Instead, they chose to simply pretend that nothing happened and that the current president wasn't involved in that child sex trafficking ring. They lied, covered up evidence, and tried their best to bury the entire thing; all of this was done, I should add at the behest of Trump himself. The only reason we even have access to some of the files now is that a small number of Republican congressmen cared enough to vote to release the files. What we got was not sufficient, as many of the perpetrators' names were still redacted, but we were honestly lucky to get even that.

So, with all that now out in the open, it's time to talk about the absolute hypocrisy of those who cry "protect the children" yet take no action at all to enforce that in the case of actual children who need protection. Trump and his allies had no problem at all accusing the other side of "child sex trafficking," and they're not the only ones. We've heard it before, mostly from religious organizations and conservative parents, about how you must "protect the children," they're worried about such things as music, video games, tv shows, etc. They're worried those things could "corrupt" them and cause them to have "violent" tendencies. They make laws wanting to limit what kids are exposed to because of this fear. When I spoke earlier of the accusations Trump leveled against Hilary, I said that the detail of him doing nothing about it was important. It's important because of what I just outlined about how certain groups of parents will rant and rave about "protecting the children," yet when it comes to REAL protection, they'll make all kinds of excuses. One big example is corporal punishment. Many of these types of parents think it's acceptable to hit their child to enforce "discipline." Most of society now accepts that this isn't the right way to correct bad behavior in children, but these parents will likely argue in favor of it despite the fact that it both physically and mentally harms children. Another example is how these types of parents demand "respect" and "obedience" from their children, and also insist children never talk back to them or to any other adult. On the surface, you might think that is reasonable, but what it can do is lead to children blindly obeying any adult they interact with, including those who wish them harm. Even when you consider teaching children about "stranger danger," it's usually not enough if the person trying to harm them is a close family member or friend. Many of these more conservative parents are also proud advocates of the 2nd Amendment (the right to bear arms) and thus want no restrictions at all on gun ownership, even though so many children have died in school shootings that could have been prevented if we had stricter gun laws. This same mindset extends to their attitude about abortion and how "evil" abortion is because it's "killing" children, yet once again, these same conservative parents will be against any sort of social programs that could potentially help children (free school lunch, free childcare, etc.) And of course, given recent events involving Epstein and the revelations about what he was doing, so many of these same "protect the children" parents are content to do NOTHING about it, even though we know that REAL HARM was done to many children. They won't do anything because Trump and many of his friends were implicated in the files, and they like Trump more than they like standing up for children.

In conclusion, we are now aware of just how much harm Jeffrey Epstein and his "clients" did to children. Society should be demanding justice for the ones harmed and some sort of protection put in place so that something like this never happens again. The people who scream about "protecting children" should be the ones yelling the loudest about this, and yet that crowd is strangely silent. There are practical things we can do to help defend against this sort of thing ever happening again, but they will require work and sacrifice. They will also require courage from lawmakers who care about justice and are willing to fight for it, and not the billionaires who may be funding their campaigns. I honestly don't know if anything good will come out of all of this, or if anyone who reads this will be convinced to care. I hope that if you do read this article, you will think carefully about what it really means to "protect the children" and whether the politicians you support are actually in favor of that, or if they simply scream about "protection" while doing nothing of substance against those who seek to harm them.