The Epstein List

     The news sites have been buzzing about it, but who cares?  Most of the prominent names have already come to light and the people who committed provable crimes have been charged, most if not all have gone to trial, and the ones found guilty have been sentenced.

      Criminal actions were undertaken; he was a terrible, terrible guy and most of the people playing along knew it.  Maybe they pretended not to see.  Maybe they lied to themselves.  Maybe they gleefully joined in.  We don't know.  The justice system doesn't know.

     Justice is, of necessity, imperfect.  The police are not all-seeing.  Witnesses are of varying degrees of reliability.  Prosecutors, judges and juries have to work from imperfect knowledge.  We can either have a criminal justice system that, shockingly, does not punish every criminal, or we can have one that sweeps up the innocent along with the guilty in hopes of catching every malefactor.  (In the real world, you get a little of both, and the question is, which way should the system lean?)  The people who set up our justice system thought it was better to miss the occasional criminal than to punish the innocent.  YMMV -- until you find yourself in the crosshairs, having done nothing wrong.

     Is it galling nevertheless that some scofflaws walk free?  It is; but there's nothing but prurient interest in poring over a list of Epstein's known associates.  Are Donald Trump and Bill Clinton both on it?  Yep.  The guy hobbnobbed with the powerful and the famous.  It was what he did.  Maybe they were horrific horndogs; maybe they were dewy-eyed innocents, swept up in the glamor of it all.  There's no way to know.  Get over it.  Such remedies as the law can apply to those persons and their actions have been applied (or perhaps the cops are still digging) and our continuing to stare at the skin-crawling details is coarse salaciousness, not a hunger for justice.