Who I Think Is on the Epstein List

 

BFF?

I have no business speculating on the Jeffrey Epstein list, but here’s my speculation.

I believe the most plausible reason the Epstein client list or its equivalent has not been released is that he was an intelligence agent. Exposing more would destroy some intelligence operation.

This would explain how he became rich despite no relevant background.

He was not, I speculate, Mossad, as some are suggesting. Seems to me the point of his Lolita Island was that it took him off the US coast; the CIA is not allowed to operate within the US. If he were with Mossad, there would not be this need. Mossad may come up only because of antisemitism. It fits with the eternal trope of an International Jewish Conspiracy.

And the Trump administration would not have great incentive to avoid blowing up an Israeli intelligence operation.

The names we hear of, supposedly among the Epstein clients, tend to be famous Americans. This suggests a deep state coup.

And the failure of the Trump administration to release the information suggests that the CIA has some means of controlling them as well.

The obvious explanation is that Trump too is on that client list. Allan Dershowitz says he has seen the list, and it includes some people pointing fingers at others for being Epstein clients. That could include Trump.

Countering this, it is said that Trump actually blew the whistle on Epstein originally, and cooperated with investigators when others would not. And the fierce opposition to Trump by the deep state and the media seems best explained by the thesis that they had nothing on him, that they felt they could not control him.

So we’re back to an intelligence operation.

It may be that the speculation centres around famous Americans only because of the natural local bias of the media. It is an old saw in journalism: you always want a local angle. Three locals dying in a car accident is more newsworthy than 300 people dying in a bus crash in Bangladesh. It may be that the bulk of Epstein’s actual clients were foreigners—like Prince Andrew, the one person actually identified so far.

Epstein visited Israel and was introduced by Dershowitz to government figures there? Don’t assume from that he was working for the Israelis. The simpler assumption, per Occam’s razor, is that he was working for the CIA to set honey traps for Israeli politicians.

I think the reason the Trump administration will not release the list is that it will include the names of prominent foreign allies. A Trudeau, a Macron, a Netanyahu, a Boris Johnson, or the like. 

How to Feel Good

 

A friend who is himself a therapist sent me a link to a brief summary by David D. Burns, promoting his book Feeling Good. Reading it, Burns himself acknowledges that no known form of psychotherapy actually can be shown to be effective. Including his own.

“For example, in one large, well-controlled outcome study, CBT [Cognitive Behaviour Therapy, essentially his own approach] was found to be comparable to the popular antidepressant medication paroxetine (Paxil) in the short-term, and slightly more effective in the long run, when patients were contacted a year or more after treatment (DeRubeis et al., 2005; Hollon et al., 2005). Most researchers and clinicians have concluded that if CBT is at least as good as treatment with antidepressants, then it must be effective.”

Wait. The problem is, the SSRI inhibitors have not been shown to be effective. So if CBT is no better, it does not work. I had thought it was at least one therapy that did have scientific backing.

Burns confirms this further on:

“if you examine the data closely, and understand the rating scales the investigators used, it becomes clear that neither CBT nor antidepressants (nor any form of psychotherapy) appears to be much better than treatment with placebos. In fact, many recent research studies indicate that the so-called ‘anti-depressant’ medications may have few or no significant anti-depressant effect above and beyond their placebo effects.” One study I saw found them no more effective against depression than sleeping pills. “In order for any treatment to be truly deemed ‘effective’ it must provide an effect significantly superior to placebo. Sadly, this is not the case for any of the currently prescribed antidepressant medications or any currently practiced forms of psychotherapy.”

There you go—little to no scientific backing for any form of psychotherapy. You might as well just put on a mask and do a rain dance.

Burns cites no stats for his own “TEAM” approach, only anecdotes. But he does make the following claim for using his book:

“Results indicate that bibliotherapy [meaning his book specifically] can be almost as good, if not better, than the results obtained with antidepressant medications or psychotherapy in controlled outcome studies (Ackerson, Scogin, Lyman, & Smith, 1998;…)”

In other words, his book too does just about as well as a sugar pill.

Now you might rightly ask, what are you supposed to do if you are a therapist, and someone comes to you with a problem? You want to help; you do not want to send them away; you must give them something. Isn’t it better to give them a placebo than to give them nothing?

Yes, so long as you are not charging more than the cost of a sugar pill for it.

And only if there are no alternative treatments available that do work. To say that no forms of psychotherapy work is not to say that nothing works for depression or mental illness or the problems of life. There is an obvious alternative treatment for the problems of life, or for those who struggle with meaning or the nature of reality; it is almost too obvious. That is what religion is about.

Psychotherapy and psychology began as an attempt to replace religion. This is plain in Freud. Jung admits this. It is a failed replacement. Religion works, and materialist psychotherapies do not.

You can see the rates of depression, mental illness, drug addiction and suicide rise as church attendance falls. Correlation does not prove causation, but it is a clear correlation. Looking further back, the reason Christianity spread so quickly across the Roman Empire, then Northern Europe, then the Americas, then Africa, according to the chroniclers of that day, was its ability to cast out demons—in modern terms, to cure severe mental illness. That’s a lot of empirical evidence that it works. 

In the Seventies, the World Health Organization did an international study, and found the recovery rate for mental illness was dramatically higher in the “Third World” than in the developed West. The obvious variable is that the developed West relies on scientific psychology, and the poor South relies more commonly on religion.

You might argue that there is in turn no proper scientific proof for the effectiveness of religion. I believe there is, but this is not that relevant. Science is a tool to study nature, not mankind; it does not work on subjects, only objects. Mankind is studied through history, philosophy, and the arts—the humanities. We deduce from first principles, from the lessons of history, and the advice of great minds.

Those Crazy Indians

 

Friend Xerxes writes that his father’s doctoral dissertation was almost rejected. His father was using the standard Rorschach test on Indian (as in India) subjects. The problem was, his study showed that most of India’s population was schizophrenic.

There are several possibilities here. One is that Xerxes senior was not properly applying the test. The thesis examiners, however, could not find and flaw here, and so had to approve his thesis.

The second, and the conclusion Xerxes draws, is that the Rorschach test is culturally biased. 

But this implies a further conclusion: that our understanding of schizophrenia is culturally biased. It is primarily a cultural prejudice, not an illness. This has grave implications. It means people might actually be drugged up or put in mental hospitals because of their cultural background. And it has been suggested that this has happened, often, to Native Americans/First Nations shamans.

And there is actually a third possibility, currently not permitted to be mentioned: maybe schizophrenia is a real mental disorder, and the majority of Indians are indeed schizophrenic. Maybe an entire culture can be mad, out of touch with objective reality.

We cannot entertain this last possibility, because we currently falsely identify culture with race; and then with the concept of human equality. So we cannot admit that one culture can be better than another.

This is obviously false. A culture is a tool for living, a technology, and one tool can always be better than another.

I will go further. Our present Western culture, which asserts that a man can become a woman, and vice versa, is objectively mad. It is leading to rising rates of depression and suicide. 

It is always possible that the schizophrenics, and the Indians, are sane, and psychology and the psychologists and modern secular scientistic “Western” culture, are mad.

If this sounds shocking, this is actually the foundational assumption of Christianity, or Buddhism, or Hinduism: that an entire culture, indeed “the world,” can have it wrong. 

The Emerging Effects of the New Media

 

I keep hearing and seeing online that Catholicism is now suddenly growing in Britain, France, the US. It is growing across Africa, in China, Southeast Asia, Korea, Japan, even in places like Iran. Generation Z, and Generation Z men in particular, are reputedly showing up in Catholic Churches. Famous celebrities are publicly converting. 

Why now?

I think we are beginning to see the fruits of the new media. Governments and establishments have tried to control what people hear and think. They control through restricting what appears in the media, and wat is taught in the schools. Now that filter is off, despite their desperate rear-guard actions, because everyone now in effect owns a printing press and a television network.

Just as John Stuart Mill explained, the only way to arrive at truth is to ensure that all voices are heard.

In particular, we are seeing debates online. This actually used to be how universities worked: teachers established their reputation through public debates and lectures. Buddhism advanced in the subcontinent, and Christianity in Eastern Europe, through public debates. 

Let those public debates happen, and, over time, it becomes apparent that Christianity, and Catholicism, have all the best answers. We cannot overestimate the influence of online personalities like Wiliam Lane Craig, Bishop Barron, Michael Knowles, Andrew Klavan, Charlie Kirk, all laying out the case.

New Atheism had its part to play, in provoking this response, but the major factor is simply the New Media. While it can spread misinformation and lies as easily as truth, a good argument, and especially a good debate performance, cannot really be faked. The reasoning stands up, or it does not.

Proof that the New Media is the main cause of this awakening is that Gen Z is most affected. Gen Z is most inclined to get their information from new media, and not from the establishment channels.

Catholicism is simply the most coherent and plausible explanation for life and the universe. Which is shy the urgency to spread the gospel. Secular scientism, the political religion of Marxism, and, dare I say it, to an extent also Islam and Protestantism, have maintained their influence largely by restricting information and spreading falsehoods about Catholicism, its history and beliefs.

In the midst of present turmoil, this suggests that good times are coming. Better times than we have yet seen.

RFK Jr. as HHS Secretary

 

Friend Xerxes objects to RFK Jr. as US Secretary of Health and Human Services, on the grounds that he is unqualified for the position. And, of course, that he is an “anti-vaxxer,” and promoting dangerous unscientific falsehoods about vaccines.

I note that his Wikipedia entry introduces Kennedy as, among other things, a “conspiracy theorist.” “Since 2005, Kennedy has promoted vaccine misinformation.”

However, as a result of his criticism of Kennedy, Xerxes had two readers unsubscribe from his newsletter.

I think it is a symptom of how dysfunctional our society has become that two people unsubscribed simply because Xerxes said something they disagree with. 

What is the point of reading opinions you agree with? They will tell you nothing you do not already know. To refuse to hear opposing arguments means you are not looking for truth; you can have no idea whether your own ideas are true or not, if you have not heard the opposing arguments. This amounts to deliberately choosing delusion. Too many people currently seem to be doing exactly that, systematically. They want to belong to a cult.

As it happens, I disagree with Xerxes on RFK Jr. I disagree with him on most things.

Regarding RFK Jr. being unqualified for his position, there is a Catch-22 here. Milton Friedman pointed it out. Who are the qualified experts? When a government wants to set regulations, they must indeed turn to experts for advice. That almost inevitably means people prominent in that industry or field set their own rules. For example, to regulate the automotive industry, government will turn to the executives of the big car companies. To set vaccine policy, the executives of the big drug firms. To set science, policy, prominent scientists. Of course. But such experts automatically have a conflict of interest, and an overwhelming temptation to set up a cartel. They are likely to regulate in their industry’s interests, or their profession’s interests, and to restrain competition; not in the public interest.

How can you get around this?

RFK Jr. arguably has the ideal qualifications for his position, precisely because he is not a medical doctor nor a food or pharmaceutical executive. Nevertheless, as a lawyer who has specialized in lawsuits against members of these groups, he has had to research the issues thoroughly and develop expertise to present his cases. You might argue he has a bias against the industry, but he is not beholden to them, nor nearly as financially interested. And a bias in the other direction might be a useful corrective.

For the same reason, it was rather a good idea to vote in an entrepreneur with no prior political experience as president. Trump knows how to get things done, but he is not compromised by nor beholden to what he calls the “Washington swamp.” Both appointments seem to be a useful experiment.

This is not to say I think JFK’s views are right; I have no position on that. I don’t have the knowledge nor expertise to know that. We do know something is wrong somewhere in the modern American lifestyle: perhaps in our food, perhaps environmental pollutants, perhaps the vaccines, perhaps in common drugs and medicines. We see an epidemic of obesity, of autism, of diabetes, of mass shootings, of suicides, of drug abuse, of unexplained sudden deaths of young and seemingly fit people. Something is up. Surely more research is a good thing, and independent research not directly funded by the drug companies or food companies. Maybe Kennedy can get to the bottom of it, with the resources now at his disposal.

One thing seems clear to me about Kennedy: he is sincere. He is doing this out of conviction. He is not paid off. I want leaders like that.

Why, other than voluntary delusion, would we not want to do the research to find out?

The Hound of Heaven

 

Trying to understand the general hostility to religion: it is hated because it makes us feel bad about ourselves. Therefore it is countered with “self-esteem.” And that will make everything better; once we cast off this nagging voice saying we are not good enough.

The problem is, self and getting what we want is a hollow idol. It takes all meaning out of life. Because if we are wonderful as we are, we never improve ourselves. We have no purpose; we just sit there with nowhere to go. And that nagging voice of guilt does not go away. It gets louder.

As they feel worse and worse, this causes the irreligious to get more and more hostile to religion. To their imagination, its residual influence is causing them more and more suffering. As if it is chasing them. It is everywhere. Clearly just walking away from it was not enough. The solution must be to wipe it out entirely, for everyone, every vestige. It must be poisoning the entire culture. Religious people are looking at you, and you know they are condemning you in their hearts. Maybe the entire culture must be destroyed.

Such people can do a lot of damage before they realize religion was not the problem, but their own guilt. Religion is the means to escape it. The problem is, first you have to face it.

A White Elephant?

 

It’s time to address an elephant in the room. Something nobody dares to say.

I have pointed out recently in this space (“Narcissism Is Not Depression”) that people with low self-esteem will compensate by “working hard at whatever they are asked to do, to prove themselves. They will be scrupulously moral, and always want the structure of rules. Rules will reassure them they are doing all right.”

This means that someone with low self-esteem is primed for accomplishment in life. Someone with high self-esteem will avoid what is difficult. They may enjoy life more, but will never accomplish much.

It follows that a culture that fosters low self-esteem, especially in its children, will, over time, develop faster and become more advanced than a culture that fosters high self-esteem. It will also be more orderly and have less crime and violence; and this in turn allows for faster development.

And this can easily explain, in turn, why some cultures “dominate” others. Why Jews are always so successful. Why “whites” do better than “blacks.” Why the British managed to manage one quarter of the world. Why indigenous cultures never invented the wheel, while Europe and Asia had printing and firearms and ocean-going vessels.

In fact, there is no other adequate explanation. The common one, that whites or Jews or Asians are simply racist and violent, while Africans and aboriginals were always peaceful and loving, is not just nonsense on the evidence, but nonsense on the internal logic. Simply being mean does not give you power over others.

Different cultures are simply better than others. And the key is in child-rearing. Child-rearing is really what a culture is all about: culture is what we pass on to our children. Some cultures instill low self-esteem. Their children suffer, but succeed, and the culture succeeds. Other cultures instill high self-esteem. Their children have a great childhood, but accomplish little in life, and the culture does not progress. They will also suffer more in later life; because the culture around them will be less orderly, less developed, and more violent.

The British upper class has long understood this. It was all about “breeding.” For countless generations, they sent their young away to spartan, rigorous boarding schools, where they were commonly bullied, and expected to fend for themselves. This was the key to the continued dominance of that class. 

Do the same with Canadian aboriginal children, and they call it “genocide.”

I tutor many Chinese and Korean students. They barely have a childhood. For them, it is a grind from morning to night. What is their favourite free-time activity? The usual response is “sleep.”

And you wonder why they do so well at academics? It is not discrimination in their favour. They are systematically discriminated against.

“Jewish guilt” is similarly notorious. You are never good enough.

African-Americans, by contrast, freely boast about themselves. They spike the ball in the end zone. They trash talk. A current ad for Hamilton Ontario tourism features a local football player paid to talk up the city. But he also inserts that he is the best football player ever seen—just in case you didn’t know. One cannot picture a ‘white” athlete saying such a thing. One cannot imagine a Chinese athlete saying such a thing. It is perhaps the most obvious cultural difference between the two groups.

A further irony is that those with low self-esteem are unlikely to complain. They will feel they do not deserve more than they have; and if they are genuinely discriminated against, they will fear drawing attention to themselves. It is likely to cause them trouble.

Those with high self-esteem, and those accustomed to getting what they want, on the other hand, will complain loudly if they do not get it. 

So if some group is complaining loudly of discrimination and injustice, they are almost certainly already privileged. 

This includes women. Boys are traditionally treated roughly and held to account as children. Little girls are traditionally treated as “princesses.” Young women are fawned over. And so they grow bitter when privilege is not acknowledged.

This includes African-Americans. If not privileged by the wider society until recently, they almost always grow up privileged. African-American mothers are famously indulgent. African-American fathers are often absent. And they currently have systematic privilege, and complain the louder for it.

This includes Canadian “First Nations.” Contrary to the myth, they have always been given every consideration by the government and the wider culture, as advised by the best experts of the day. As a result, they remain mired in poverty and a sense of grievance. Again, fathers are often absent; and mothers are indulgent. 

The current popular push for “self-esteem” is increasingly making a disastrous mistake. Our growing lack of interest in child-rearing is making a disastrous mistake.  A civilization-ending mistake, unless we correct it at this late date.