The details of the Epstein files are shocking. It must be the job of prosecutors to bring each of these sex offenders to justice, no matter how powerful they are or what their merits may be.
The extent of a civilization’s inhumanity is always demonstrated by how it treats its most vulnerable. The weakest of a society are the young and the frail old. Abusing children is one of the most awful crimes people are capable of. The worst are sexual assaults, from which children and young people do not recover for a lifetime.
The register of sins of Western, liberal societies is shamefully long in this respect: for instance, the global abuse of children in the Catholic hierarchy was not a moral accident but the result of decades of institutional cover-up that placed the Church’s reputation above the suffering of children. Similar forms of sexual abuse of children and cover-ups occurred in many boarding schools worldwide, especially where children were isolated and power unchecked.
And now the Epstein files that left horrified readers behind. They are moral abysses and crimes of unimaginable magnidute. You don’t have to be a mother or father to be stunned by what -- led by a psychopath -- has happened in hundreds, perhaps thousands of times the number of crimes. It must be the task of wise investigators and prosecutors to really bring each of these sex offenders, every child-soul crusher and destroyer to justice, no matter how rich, powerful or in other cases supposedly meritorious their lives may have been. As it turns out that parts of the global money and political elite wanted to garnish their lives with child abuse and sexual offences against minors, then this must be fully clarified.
It goes far beyond political damage if this enlightenment fails. It would be a civilizational catastrophe because then it would become clear that there are lawless spaces for the particularly rich and powerful. It is striking in the US that the Epstein files are surprisingly restrained by both political parties -- probably also because both sides are affected. The same applies to Hollywood. The same applies to pop culture. The same applies to European noble houses.
As the philosopher Thomas Hobbes so gloomily assumed: “Without a powerful government and justice, human life will be nasty, brutish and short. Man will be wolf to man.”
Only a defensive constitutional state and good journalism can clean up this horrible crime by meticulously scouring mountains of data.