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A sex trafficking ring involving the rich and powerful — the Epstein scandal is fertile ground for conspiratorial thinking. This is why it's important for us to remain grounded in truth if and when we talk about news regarding Jeffrey Epstein.
We must all guard against conspiratorial thinking because human brains are prone to conspiratorial thinking. Believed to be an evolutionary product of our ancestors survival of the fittest, our brains naturally want to make sense of a chaotic world by finding connections among disparate facts, even when those facts aren't actually connected.
Conspiratorial thinkers, or conspiracists, make unproven claims about world events, often saying these events are controlled by powerful figures, who may be unknown or "working in the shadows." Unproven is an important word in this definition. A conspiracy does not have to be false to be a conspiracy, but it is unproven.
For instance, there was once a conspiracy theory about a drug company knowing it was selling dangerously addictive prescription pain killers but it did so for the profits without warning doctors and the public. When this conspiracy theory was proven true, it went from being a conspiracy theory to simply a fact.
Much of what we now know about the Epstein scandal has entered the realm of fact. Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell did sex traffic young girls and some of the clients we know of were rich and powerful.
There are also many unknowns, and some legitimate issues that we should be raising with government officials regarding this scandal. And while much of the recent focus has been on President Trump due to his past friendship with Epstein (and Trump himself frequently urging us to stop talking about Epstein), keep in mind that this scandal spans five presidential administrations and involves many government officials at the local, state, and national level.
These unknowns include,
Why did Epstein get such a light sentence the first time he was arrested in 2006?
Who were the other co-conspirators and clients, and why weren't they prosecuted?
Why was the video footage from Epstein's cell the night he allegedly committed suicide doctored and what does the missing footage show?
Where is the video footage that law enforcement recovered from Epstein's house and what does it show?
Let’s demand answers to these questions, and more, but do so without speculating on what the answers might be before we know the truth. Our focus should not be on satiating our appetites for salacious gossip or conspiracies, but on demanding justice for the victims.
What do you think? Is this a news story worth paying more attention to, or not so much?
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What Else We’re Reading
Esau McCaulley: “The Christian Backlash Taking Hold”
For too long this administration has presented itself as the only defender of Christianity while it engages in merely symbolic gestures like posting Bible verses or publicizing worship services in the White House. Frederick Douglass described this type of performance: “Religion simply as a form of worship, an empty ceremony, and not a vital principle, requiring active benevolence, justice, love and good will towards man.” I fail to see how you can shout glory to God one minute and laugh about the harsh conditions of Alligator Alcatraz the next.
Christianity Today: “When ICE Raided Their Community, These Churches Were Ready”
This rapid response is not unusual. Pasadena pastors have been showing up to sites of ICE arrests often within an hour. Alongside a local day-laborers organization called the Pasadena Community Job Center, they quickly assess who was arrested, what family members they leave behind, and what their needs might be—maybe food or an immigration lawyer.
They come together through the Clergy Community Coalition (CCC), a network of local churches established 20 years ago by Pastor Jean Burch. The coalition started small but now includes about 100 churches and nonprofits, ranging from Pentecostal to mainline.
National Review: “Superman vs. the Grift-Industrial Complex”
Of course, none of this is true, and all of it is tiring. Not because there aren’t cultural battles worth waging, but because it’s cheap clickbait masquerading as vigilance. It’s the handiwork of a Grift-Industrial Complex more interested in keeping Americans perpetually aggrieved than in conserving anything except their own paychecks. As Don Corleone once said, how a man makes his living is his own business, but this hustle is draining more than Grandpa’s Social Security checks. It’s bleeding conservatives’ capacity to engage with art, distracting us from genuine cultural ills, and training younger generations to believe that conservatism is just another word for screaming into the void.
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