Here’s the thing, DrDeth.
Murder, obviously, is bad. It’s one of the worst things you can do to a person. But at least, once a person’s life has been taken from them, their suffering is over.
Rape is morally worse than murder, because the victim’s suffering never ends. That person is going to spend the rest of their life living with feelings of inadequacy, failure, lack of worth, guilt, self-loathing, fear and distrust of authority, and difficulty trusting or opening up to anyone, because their autonomy was violently taken from them in the most intimate way possible. When that victim is a child, it’s worse yet, because they’re being victimized by a person society and every living experience they’ve ever had has told them they’re supposed to be able to trust and be safe around, and they haven’t even developed a mature understanding of their own bodies and the nature of human sexuality. And when that victimized doesn’t just rape a child, but prostitutes them and sells them to other men for his own personal gain - that’s just about one of the most morally repugnant things a human being can do.
Epstein didn’t just do that to one girl. He didn’t just do it to the 36 credible victims the state of Florida knew of when he plead guilty to procuring a child for prostitution in 2008. He did it to at least twelve hundred girls.
Murder doesn’t necessarily make someone a bad person. Sometimes it’s morally ambiguous. Sometimes, criminal homicide can even be morally justifiable. There is never a justifiable reason to rape someone. And when that someone is twelve hundred children? Jeffrey Epstein was, without hyperbole, one of the most evil men to ever live. People like him don’t deserve to be part of our society.
And what Epstein was doing wasn’t a secret. Literally thousands of people knew about it. He didn’t make much effort to hide it. The people who circled around him celebrated him for it, because those people are also evil. They believed that having money and power meant the rules and laws and morals that apply to us mere mortals were optional for them. It was impossible to spend any amount of time in Epstein’s orbit and NOT know he was trafficking children.
Anyone who willingly associated themselves with him after 2008 knew what he had done and what he was still doing. Some of them were indifferent. Some of them were OK with it. Some of them were active participants. ALL of them were morally bankrupt and complicit in the evil deeds he committed, either by omission or commission. There is no excuse for knowing Epstein was a pedophile and still being his friend, or being willing to accept money from him, or working for him. Those people can all go straight to hell as far as I’m concerned. I wouldn’t want anything to do with them and I wouldn’t want to be part of any organization that also includes them.
If someone told me they were friends with a convicted murderer, I’d assume that that person’s friend had changed their ways. If someone told me they were friends with a convicted pedophile, I wouldn’t talk to that person anymore.
