• Aceticon@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    19 hours ago

    Judging from all the sociopathic shit I’ve seen from New Labour both when I lived in Britain and when I didn’t, I fully expect that Mandelson is but the tip of the iceberg.

    And this is without even going into the Tories, who are at least as devoid of empathy as New Labour types, though possibly more open about how they’re superior people for whom there is no need to verify that they obbey the ethical and moral boundaries that are supposed to moderate people’s social behaviors. (IMHO they mainly differ from New Labour types in their level of hypocrisy rather than in personal character).

    Consider the possibility that a nation’s “support for Israel” is highly correlated to how many of the elites there were involved in the pedophilic honeypot that Epstein ran together with Mossad.

  • CompactFlax@discuss.tchncs.de
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    1 day ago

    It’s nice to see there’s still social pressure in some parts.

    Would be nice to see this from Andrew, but he’s irredeemable and his brother is protecting him.

    • slothrop@lemmy.caOP
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      1 day ago

      Andrew could be the anti-hero we need and implicate Trump, under oath. He has nothing to lose.

      • ALoafOfBread@lemmy.ml
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        1 day ago

        Lots of these creeps could do that. The thing is they won’t to “protect their legacy” when, ironically, speaking out, admitting their own crimes, apologizing to their victims & taking full legal and personal accountability, and taking the other bastards down would be the best thing they could do to leave something of a positive legacy and begin to atone.

        • peopleproblems@lemmy.world
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          1 day ago

          While, yes, correct. It would also mean they would have to admit to making a mistake.

          As I understand it, that would be impossible with their personality disorders.

          • duncan_bayne@lemmy.world
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            6 hours ago

            making a mistake.

            I don’t intend this as a personal criticism, more of a whinge about the world in general. But this sort of thing isn’t a mistake, and it bugs me when that language is used to describe it.

            You could argue “I made a mistake” when you choose the wrong course of action when presented with a tricky dilemma. Or when you’re misled by someone, or misread the circumstances.

            But even associating with Epstein after the truth about him became known isn’t a mistake.

            • peopleproblems@lemmy.world
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              6 hours ago

              Dude that’s like a whole nother level of awareness they don’t have lol. Yes we all know it wasn’t a mistake. That’s how badly these guys distort their own reality.

        • TheTechnician27@lemmy.world
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          1 day ago

          Counterpoint to that: assume I’m Andrew and only care about my legacy. I don’t think that applies to Andrew; I think that, while he’s alive, he wants to be out of the spotlight, as unaffiliated with this as possible, not to be prosecuted, and not to potentially piss off old Epstein buddies who might have deeper dirt on him. But assume.

          If I do nothing, I’ll be a footnote in the history books. People will most often see me on some list devoid of context as part of the royal family. My crimes will be explored in as much depth as possible in any extensive biography, but who’s really going to be reading one of those? And to the extent they do, surely there’s some room for an overly skeptical person to doubt it. Meanwhile, my name is going to be overshadowed by other figures like Trump for anyone reading history about the Epstein case.

          If I confess, then Epstein is not only the absolute foremost thing I’ll be remembered for, but my name is going to come up at the top of and all over any account of what’s easily going to be one of the most scandalous criminal conspiracies of the 21st century. Even the dumbest, most overly skeptical idiot won’t be able to deny my involvement – of which I’m sure I’m going to have to go into gruesome specifics under oath to be permanently documented. Sure, maybe the five people who read a biography about me might see how I stood up and brought down the conspiracy and think, “Wow, he sure was slightly less of a monster for doing that!”, but the reality is that I’m probably making it much worse for the incurious general public who would otherwise, at best, see and forget me.

          • merc@sh.itjust.works
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            12 hours ago

            My crimes will be explored in as much depth as possible in any extensive biography

            Probably not. Without any investigation it will all be speculation. Biographies are written for a commercial audience. Who’s going to buy a biography of Andrew? People who like the royals, not people who hate them. If he’d actually appeared in court, the biography would have to address it. But, with it all just speculation, they can mention the speculation and move on.

            It’s possible that some of the people who met with Epstein did it because they knew he could introduce them to other rich and powerful people. They might not have known about the child sexual abuse. Or they suspected something, but thought that Epstein was always seen with barely legal 18-year-olds, and that that was the extent of it.

            I personally don’t think that Epstein introduced himself to billionaires by saying “Hi, I’m Jeff Epstein, I rape children, are you interested in raping children too?” I don’t believe that being a billionaire automatically means you not only enjoy raping children, but are excited to share that hobby with other people. Epstein probably sounded them out, investigated them, and only went into details with the ones who weren’t going to expose him. And, most likely, he got blackmail material on anybody who he did share his “hobby” with. He probably kept anybody who he thought might expose him at arms length, and he only let them see him with girls who were 18+.

            So, while that plausible deniability exists, I’m sure Andrew wants to be able to claim that he was buddies with Epstein, but was so clueless that he never knew about the child sexual abuse.

          • BanMe@lemmy.world
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            1 day ago

            He’s also got a wife and kids who are high profile, his selfishness will extend to them, he wants them to be able to have legacies too or else he’s going to die hated by the few people who still love him. Sarah is absolutely telling him not to go even near an open window right now, stay in the dark for the rest of time. He seems to actually listen to her a bit, too.

            • GMac@feddit.org
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              12 hours ago

              She’s in the files too. Little doubt she knew what was going on, and yet she chose not only to not speak out, but she profited from Epstein money and contacts. She might as well have been holding the girls down. Inaction is a chosen course of action and all who knew and did nothing are guilty.

      • Triumph@fedia.io
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        1 day ago

        It’s kind of the only good thing he has available for him to do for the rest of his life.

  • ceenote@lemmy.world
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    1 day ago

    So they’re investigating him and expect to bring up charges, right? Right?

    • Aceticon@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      19 hours ago

      That will be right after they do it to Tony Blair for the war crime of Pillage in Iraq as detailed in the Iraq War Report …

  • ChicoSuave@lemmy.world
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    1 day ago

    No matter how despicable each person turns out to be, remember that all of them are less weird than Elon Musk in the eyes of other pedos.

    • supersquirrel@sopuli.xyz
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      24 hours ago

      Even if I was stuck in a damp dark cave obsessing over naught but a magic ring, that truth would still be sufficiently warm and anodyne enough to comfort myself to sleep with at night.

    • Aceticon@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      19 hours ago

      I lived in Britain for a decade and the impression I got was that, outside people with genuine proven merit like artists and scientists, having a titles of nobility there was a pretty good indicator of the holder of the title being a complete total sociopath, the higher the title the worse the character of the holder.

      They do quite a lot of whitewashing of the system by giving things like knighhoods and damehoods to well known and loved actors and actresses, plus a renowned scientist here and there, plus some lesser honors (NEVER a knighthood or damehood) to people like firemen or nurses who went above and beyond their duty in helping others, but the vast majoriyty of types with Peerages and above are either well connected career politicians who made sure the “right” people gained from the system, very wealthy nouveau riche or those from old wealth.

        • Aceticon@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          15 hours ago

          I think that if one would blindly throw a stone in the middle of the Lords it would be far more likely to hit a person who is not good (i.e. with a personal moral better than “personal upside maximization”) than one who is.

          More broadly for things like Peerages, outside artists it’s rich people, politicians and public-school attending scions of the upper and upper-middle class (even the Public Servants who get one are public-school educated). Notice how common people who are not in the public eye and committed enormous acts of bravery and self-sacrifice for the good of others (the above-mentioned “firemen and nurses”) never get peerages or above, and instead get at most OBEs.

          • BeardedGingerWonder@feddit.uk
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            13 hours ago

            I think we should, to a degree, separate peerages from KBE/CBE/MBE/OBE/BM - they’re not political and there are (so far as I know) specific criteria that need to be met to achieve the various levels (for instance someone doing something locally will by definition never get anything higher than an OBE, because a CBE requires significant achievement at a regional or national level).

            Peerages are a bit weird, senior politicians/lawyers/academics etc getting appointments makes sense because they’re the upper legislative house and to a degree we want some level of political nous in the parliamentary body. However they’re also given to the likes of Andrew Lloyd Webber presumably as a reward for his achievements, which may or may not be deserved, but also mean he can be shipped in if required to vote on legislation.

            Separation of “honours like” and “legislative like” peerages would be a good idea.

            • Aceticon@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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              12 hours ago

              The criteria of “significant achievement” is basically bollocks: for example Fred Goodwin who led RBS to pretty much bankruptcy (not quite as it was saved by the state) held a knighthood for “Services to Finance” which he got for merelly leading the bank he almost destroyed (though at least it was annuled after he almost destroyed it) and mandarins, politicians and public prosecutors get theirs for nothing more than doing their job without being brazenly incompetent, something which is only a “significant achivement” if one expects extreme incompetence for the vast majority of such people hence doing one’s job without ending up in the press for massive incompetent is a “significant achievement”.

              From my point of view (as an immigrant who lived in Britain for a decade, and thus having not started with any respect or lack thereof for the Honors System), after a couple of years I concluded that whilst the folklore surrounding it was all about if being about honor (hence the supposed criteria of “significant achievement” and the very loud giving once in a while of one to a very visible public personality such as an actor for being a famous person who did their job in a competent manner), the reality of it was no such thing and de facto the criteria were highly skewed by the social class a recipient originated from and their level of contribution to “keep the boat steady and stop it from being rocked”.

              Certainly when it comes to peerages the Honors System bares no relation to honor or any kind of achievement that goes beyond “having a specific job and not end up in the press for being exceptionally incompetent at it”.

              • BeardedGingerWonder@feddit.uk
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                12 hours ago

                I’m not really trying to argue the point on the level of achievement - that will always be subjective. More to address the point on why local heroes don’t get above OBE and to raise the absurdity of the dual use of peerages.

    • calcopiritus@lemmy.world
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      19 hours ago

      They are not resigning because they are ashamed of being pedophiles. They are resigning because they were caught being pedophiles.

      If they were ashamed they would’ve resigned before the Epstein files were released.

      • peopleproblems@lemmy.world
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        15 hours ago

        See that’s the part I don’t agree with. If it wasn’t shame, there really aren’t any consequences if he doesn’t resign, other than losing his next election.

        That won’t happen in the US. The regime here is incapable of shame.

    • Zombie@feddit.uk
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      1 day ago

      Balls is not the correct description for resigning in shame after being publicly outed as a paedophile…