Prince Andrew not served papers as they were handed to his police security.

[Colonel_Klinck]

How do you know there is no difference? Many of the men have been convicted in a court which had access to the evidence. We know from that the girls were groomed, plied with drugs and alcohol and raped. In the case of Andrew we don't yet know whether he is innocent or guilty and whether her accusations of grooming and trafficing are true. They might be or they might not be. That's for a criminal court to decide and until that time the accused is innocent by default. Are you suggesting he must be guilty simply by the accusation and that we must believe any accusation?

Many differences, Princes, billionaires, private jets, private islands versus private hire taxi drivers, takeaway shop workers, and it was often a "family affair". Morally some of the girls would be similar, only the price they put on their bodies varied, but also the subtleness and rewards of the Epstein groomings and sheer vulgarity and cheapness of the Muslim groomings differed wildly. Few come out of these affairs looking good, but some came out of them with a shed load of money and a wild rock star ride for a while...I have heard no evidence the Epstein girls were plied with drink and drugs and physically abused, only plied with money, celebrity bedfellows and a good time.

As prostitution goes the Epstein girls were in a class apart, the grooming gang ones were not so lucky, and probably many given little to no choice.

They may have gone about it in different ways but lives were ruined in both cases, that is my point and no amount of money if any took hush money takes away what happened to them. Epstein was a serial groomer, is Andrew guilty of any crimes, sadly we'll never know. Anyone who was spending lots of time partying with Epstein must have been fully aware of what he was doing and they still chose to keep hanging out with him. Does that mean they are legally culpable, probably not, does it mean they condoned his actions, in my eyes yes.

 

[Jean-F]

I have considered my comments and stand by them. The bias and lack of understanding some posters itt have shown is significant and it forms their opinions, for which they are wrong.

I’m not weighing in for or against you here hurfdurf, but your post reminded me so much of my old man arguing with me when I was in my teens, I’d say something and add, “Of course, that’s just my opinion.”
He’d shoot back, “You have every right to your opinion son, but you have F.A. right to express it!”

 

[Chris Wilson]

I’m not weighing in for or against you here hurfdurf, but your post reminded me so much of my old man arguing with me when I was in my teens, I’d say something and add, “Of course, that’s just my opinion.”
He’d shoot back, “You have every right to your opinion son, but you have F.A. right to express it!”

That, Jean, reminds me of a huge poster in a friend's office, something I think I may have mentioned on OC before, so forgive m e for regurgitating it.

There were a number of Mafiosa types sat at a big table, the elderly Don at the head of it.. One younger man was stood up, obviously addressing the rest. Underneath the Don it said "When I want your opinion I'll tell you what it is".

 

[Angilion]

They may have gone about it in different ways but lives were ruined in both cases, that is my point and no amount of money if any took hush money takes away what happened to them.

I think there are important differences between being kidnapped, drugged, beaten and gang raped and being paid for sex. I'm not at all comfortable with conflating the two.

Epstein was a serial groomer, is Andrew guilty of any crimes, sadly we'll never know. Anyone who was spending lots of time partying with Epstein must have been fully aware of what he was doing and they still chose to keep hanging out with him. Does that mean they are legally culpable, probably not, does it mean they condoned his actions, in my eyes yes.

I disagree with your assertion that proximity necessarily means full awareness (even even any awareness). People who do things that could get them ruined, jailed and dead usually hide it from people not also legally culpable for those things.

 

[Richie]

So, you're suggesting that she knew exactly what she was doing and who she was doing it for and now that Epstein's dead and she's run out of money she's going to play the eternal victim card in order to get paid off again?

It's a possibility, absolutely. She says it's not about money but about being vindicated... We'll see I guess.

Another possibility is that she was groomed to the point of an almost Stockholm Syndrome-esque level which is why she appears happy and didn't, at the time, believe she was being manipulated and used.

Or anything in between those 2 extremes.

I realise I don't have a lot of the facts - @Chris Wilson post about her trying to groom someone in Thailand and being involved with Trump is news to me for example.. This also means I am aware I can't make a proper judgement yet... Something certain others should admit to as well.

 

[Colonel_Klinck]

I think there are important differences between being kidnapped, drugged, beaten and gang raped and being paid for sex. I'm not at all comfortable with conflating the two.

Why are you making the assumption that all the girls abused were prostitutes? Kind of sounds like you are victim blaming here. Being given money or gifts after being raped (statutory) in an attempt to keep it quiet isn't prostitution. And accepting hush money further down the road isn't prostitution either. These girls were groomed and abused. In that sense it is just like what happens when any girls are groomed and sexually abused. Yes the severity of the abuse can differ from case to case. Harvey Weinstein was known to shower his victims with money/gifts or threats to keep them in line. Men have been doing this forever.

I disagree with your assertion that proximity necessarily means full awareness (even even any awareness). People who do things that could get them ruined, jailed and dead usually hide it from people not also legally culpable for those things.

Oh please. There have been stories about Epstein for years. Trump said openly like he liked them young. There is enough reporting of what happened to his victims. Given the age of consent for an adult to have sex with someone is a minimum of 18 and girls younger than that were at his parties you'd have to be an idiot not to question what was going on.

 

[Hades]

Why are you making the assumption that all the girls abused were prostitutes? Kind of sounds like you are victim blaming here. Being given money or gifts after being raped (statutory) in an attempt to keep it quiet isn't prostitution. And accepting hush money further down the road isn't prostitution either. These girls were groomed and abused. In that sense it is just like what happens when any girls are groomed and sexually abused. Yes the severity of the abuse can differ from case to case. Harvey Weinstein was known to shower his victims with money/gifts or threats to keep them in line. Men have been doing this forever.

I think you've misunderstood Angilion's point. He most certainly isn't saying the girls who were kidnapped, drugged, beaten and gang raped were prostitutes. He's saying there is a vast difference between those poor girls and someone who may have willingly been paid for sex, Ms Giuffre (because we don't yet know if her story about being forced is true or not - maybe it is, maybe it isn't).

Oh please. There have been stories about Epstein for years. Trump said openly like he liked them young. There is enough reporting of what happened to his victims.

How young was Trump referring to? Illegally young or legally young? Assuming he's referring to legally young then what's that got to do with this? And if he's referring to illegally young then what has a comment made by a US president got to do with Andrew?

Given the age of consent for an adult to have sex with someone is a minimum of 18 and girls younger than that were at his parties you'd have to be an idiot not to question what was going on.

The age of consent for an adult to have sex with someone, in the country that Andrew is accused of it (the UK) is 16, not 18.

EDIT: Slightly correction on my part. He's also accused of it in New York which is 17.

 

[alchal]

I was going to compare your position with that of the notorious trial of ordeal by water in which someone was thrown into a body of water and deemed guilty if they floated and innocent if they sank. But that would be unfair. That trial gave the accused a chance of being declared innocent. Your approach doesn't. If the accused defends themself, you consider that proof of guilt and add "sickening" to "guilty".

I'll make up an example not involving sex in order to prevent the lack of thinking that happens when sex is involved.

For the sake of the hard of thinking: the following section between asterisks is an entirely fictitious example made up to illustrate a point of argument. It is not real.

*********
Imagine I accused you of stealing something from a shop in Bognor Regis at some time on the 18th of March 2000.

I state unequivocally that it was you. I am stating that I am certain it was you. I have no doubt about that. There is no possibility that I am mistaken.

You are widely presumed guilty because you are an unchosen group identity with a lower status than mine and that's how it works now.
*********

How do you defend yourself? You can't defend yourself on the basis that it was mistaken identity - I have stated that there is no possibility that I am mistaken about it being you. So your only two options for defence are that I am lying or that my memories are false. Evidence is irrelevant to that issue. Even if you can definitively prove you were somewhere else at that time ~20 years ago, you would be saying that I am lying or that my memories are false. If you can definitely prove I was somewhere else at that time, you would be saying that I am lying or that my memories are false. If you can definitely prove that the theft never happened, you would be saying that I am lying or that my memories are false. As soon as someone says something happened and there is no possibility that they are mistaken about it, the only ways in which their claim can be wrong is if they are lying or if their memories are false.



As for false memories, they are commonplace. Human memory is not a recording. It's created on the fly every time it's "remembered". It's like a "based on a true story" film, i.e. anything from completely untrue to completely true. It's not at all reliable. Inducing false memories is shockingly easy. In the most famous study, false memories were induced in about a third of subjects by nothing more than the mere presence of a cardboard cutout and a fake advertising picture. Not even any words. Detailed false memories of something that never happened. Sights, sounds, even tastes and smells in some cases. Since memories are created on the fly by a person's own mind, any degree of detail is possible. False memories can also be induced without any targetting of the subject and can be induced in what seems to be real-time. In the best known example of that, general propaganda aimed at the entire population immediately induced detailed false memories of a murder in two wholly independent eyewitnesses. During daytime, in broad daylight. With clear line of sight. At short distance. A murder that never happened, as proved by multiple independent videos. No special effects, no subterfuge, no deception of any kind. No chance of any misunderstandings. The detailed memories of the two independent eyewitnesses were entirely false, created by their own minds as a result of the relentless propaganda targeting the entire population, not specifically targeting those two people.

https://www.washington.edu/news/200...evidence-shows-false-memories-can-be-created/

https://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/15/...er-attack-show-the-power-of-false-memory.html

If a subject is personally targeted, even more can be done. For example, a subject (who volunteered) had an aversion to boiled eggs induced in them by a psychologist using simple techniques to implant and reinforce false memories. In this case, a false memory of over-eating boiled eggs and being sick as a result. That was chosen because it was harmless, but that harmlessness was solely due to ethical concerns from the psychologist.

Yeah because prince Andrew can be easily mistaken...jog on with that one.

 

[alchal]

To be fair, guilty or innocent, surely it's your legal teams' job to do everything and anything to prove your innocence, moral compasses be damned?

Indeed but he's clutching at straws in my eyes and it's already been tried and failed previously so..

 

[Chris Wilson]

I am the plot

Said in jest (perhaps) but with a potentially dark truth to the seemingly flippant remark.

 

[Angilion]

Why are you making the assumption that all the girls abused were prostitutes? [..]

You have just claimed that "being kidnapped, drugged, beaten and gang raped" means "being a prostitute". I have no idea why you're making that claim, but it certainly has nothing to do with me. Or reality.

Yeah because prince Andrew can be easily mistaken...jog on with that one.

You've done a great job of killing that strawman you made. Congratulations. Would you like to have a go at replying to anything I wrote?

 

[andicole0]

Is a title change necessary to just "Andrew".

 

[alchal]

You have just claimed that "being kidnapped, drugged, beaten and gang raped" means "being a prostitute". I have no idea why you're making that claim, but it certainly has nothing to do with me. Or reality.



You've done a great job of killing that strawman you made. Congratulations. Would you like to have a go at replying to anything I wrote?

Not really because what you wrote is a load of big steaming crap really.

 

[Diddums]

Is a title change necessary to just "Andrew".

Andy

Or... Handy Andy (oof)

 

[Gerard]

Andy

Or... Handy Andy (oof)

Hand shandy

 

[Angilion]

Not really because what you wrote is a load of big steaming crap really.

How would you know, since you obviously didn't read it? The strawman you made up so you could knock it down was indeed crap, but that has nothing to do with me.

 

[Angilion]

Said in jest (perhaps) but with a potentially dark truth to the seemingly flippant remark.

I think it was a combination of a typo and an autocomplete error and hurfdurf intended to say "I am the pope".

 

[Colonel_Klinck]

You have just claimed that "being kidnapped, drugged, beaten and gang raped" means "being a prostitute". I have no idea why you're making that claim, but it certainly has nothing to do with me. Or reality.

I've claimed no such thing. Your words

I think there are important differences between being kidnapped, drugged, beaten and gang raped and being paid for sex. I'm not at all comfortable with conflating the two.

Women who are paid for sex are prostitutes yes? I'm not said or implied that these girls were being paid for sex. Lots of them were children legally and they were groomed. They weren't underage prostitutes when he met them even if he may have turned them into such for himself and his guests. I think we can all agree that there were girls who didn't willingly do these sex acts with him so that is good old fashioned rape as well as statutory rape.

 

[Angilion]

I've claimed no such thing. Your words

Are not what you're claiming. I'll change the formatting to make it clearer for you:



I think there are important differences between

being kidnapped, drugged, beaten and gang raped

and

being paid for sex.



Also, I disagree with the assumption required for your wild accusation of victim-blaming, namely that being a prostitute is such a bad thing that it means that the person deserves to be kidnapped, drugged, beaten and gang raped. I don't have such a low opinion of prostitutes. If you do, that's your opinion. Not mine.

[..] I think we can all agree that there were girls who didn't willingly do these sex acts with him so that is good old fashioned rape as well as statutory rape.

Where's your evidence? For anyone in this case, but particularly for Prince Andrew. I prefer proof of guilt rather than just assuming someone is guilty because you said so. But whether or not someone is guilty of rape isn't relevant to whether or not being paid for sex is the same thing as being kidnapped, drugged, beaten and raped. I'll continue to understand those two things are different.

 

[ANDREW GREEN]

Are we confusing Epstein's crimes with Prince Andrew's actions here? Epstein did groom and sexually traffic these girls. That aside, what did Andrew know of this? He's commited a crime if he had sex with her while knowing she was a sex worker that was only 17 years old. Epstein could have arranged for the girl to be his bedfellow without Andrew having knowledge that she was a sex worker. She was of the age of consent in the state they had sex. I can't see it likely Prince Andrew paid a Billionaire's sex worker cash in hand. So where's the crime or the wrong doing here on Andrew's part? There's no statutary rape in this case. Did he even know how old she was?

I think taking people to court or publically shaming them for legally consenting sex to be a very slippery slope. Now ofcourse he could have known Epstein was grooming girls, which would make him complicit. But where's the evidence of that?