Tea at Trianon: Not Just Epstein

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Monday, August 19, 2019

Not Just Epstein

From The Conservative Review:

Sex trafficking, especially of children, is a diabolical scourge that still affects the modern world, but the depth and scope of this evil are worse than you probably imagine, South African filmmaker and anti-trafficking activist Jaco Booyens told LevinTV host Mark Levin on Sunday night’s episode of Life, Liberty & Levin on Fox News.

Booyens recalled how his sister became a victim of sex trafficking when they were growing up in South Africa, which made the issue very personal for him. “I didn’t jump on a bandwagon by reading a book or a movement that I felt led to,” the filmmaker explained. “It was dire.”

Booyens’ sister — now Ilonka Deaton — was trafficked through corporate South Africa over the course of six years, he explained. He added that while his sister eventually came home, “It was a long, very painful journey that seldom has that outcome.”

“What is the typical outcome?” Levin asked.

“Death. The average lifespan of a child that’s trafficked is seven years. Because with it comes addiction, physical abuse, emotional abuse; suicide rate is through the ceiling, because how do you get out?” Booyens explained.

Shockingly, the United States leads the world with the lowest average age of trafficking victims: 12, Booyens says. He also says notes that an child trafficking victim in the United States will bring a pimp $200,000 to $250,000 per year tax-free: “Now you have a real problem — a real problem. Because now, like I say, the demons come out. Because there’s so many takers.”

And those takers come from all walks of life. While Booyens said that he’s glad that the high-profile arrest of billionaire sex offender Jeffrey Epstein put attention on the issue of sex trafficking, he has a big problem with the what he sees as a widespread assumption that supporting the sex slave market is only a problem among the ultra-wealthy. (Read more.)

Meanwhile, Epstein has died. From The Daily Wire:

"Six days on a suicide watch, prison officials reportedly removed it. Prison officials, guided by who? What self-respecting psychiatrist would say, 'okay, he's no longer suicidal,'" Siegel concluded. "There was evidence on July 23rd that he may have done something to his neck, or someone did ... suddenly six days later he waves his hand, says he's fine, and he's put in an area where ultimately he's unobserved — because as you know, people fall asleep and they falsify records reportedly." (Read more.)