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Culture War Roundup for the week of July 28, 2025

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where he leverages connections and money to get off with a slap on the wrist and the government not looking too closely

Nobody disputes this, though. Well connected billionaires getting away with stuff is Tuesday.

The rich and powerful are expected to get away with some crimes. Sex trafficking children is not on that list.

In a civilized society, that kind of behavior gets you executed, and not because you know too much.

The rich and powerful are expected to get away with some crimes. Sex trafficking children is not on that list.

Err, the west covers for sex trafficking kids all the time, and you don't need to be rich and powerful to get away with it (though it helps). Popular entertainers get away with it. Politicians cover massive-scale abuse - far beyond what Epstein is accused of - up and journalists look the other way to avoid having their foreign policies outed as idiotic, avoid having to be on the same side as icky migration restrictionists, or to avoid being called racist.

Don't we all regard those examples as moral failures though?

I've yet to see anybody seriously take the position that grooming gangs were okay, I've only seen shameful denial.

And yet lots of people keep covering such things up and not freaking out and leaking them out of moral outrage.

In a civilized society

So your contention is that there has never been a civilized society?

Rather, that we are not living up to much of our ideals.

Real civilization has never been tried.