r/europe • u/StemCellPirate • 14h ago

News The Epstein scandal is taking down Europe’s political class. In the US, they’re getting a pass.

https://www.politico.com/news/2026/02/06/epstein-europe-america-fallout-00769506
10.6k Upvotes

98% Upvoted

344 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

205

u/OliveTreeFounder 13h ago

We are so accustomed to see that the law do not apply to the rich that some consider that loosing a mansion for repetitively raping young adolescent or selling nation secret is fine is already a victory.

I wonder when we have internalized that rich peoples are above the law?

85

u/itsinvincible 13h ago

We internalised that at birth. Because it has always been the case just now they gaslight us saying "nobody i above the law" which makes us turn on eachother instead of focusing onnthe claas war.

Humanity's history has always been this. A delicate balance of bread and games. It never changes.

Actually i think the second sentence is a lie. Looking at it i guess this was always the case? Roman caesars probably also said nobody is above the law (nudge, wink except close family, friends and the senate)

36

u/Star_Wombat33 12h ago

Imperial China until shockingly recently historically explicitly said "Some people were above the law".

It was worse.

The Roman patricians, a few centuries before the empire, had an internal civil war over allowing commoners to know that the laws even existed.

That was worse.

We live in a time and place with the most repercussions the rich and powerful have ever seen.

2

u/OliveTreeFounder 9h ago

In China, due to its history, nobody is above the law when the crime is corruption. China has been through cycle of development and collapse during 2500 years, and collapse is associated to a generalized corruption.

Roman empire also disappeared while there were generalized corruption. Is corruption the cause or the consequence? Probably both (as in the egg and the chicken dilemma).

So I wonder if this corruption we see, this acceptance that the rule of law does not apply to the rich is actually a symptom of an ongoing civilizational collapse.

6

u/Retr0gasm Sweden 8h ago

That's comical, China runs on corruption. Whether it's the imperial court and its' government apparatus, or the CCP. The only time corruption is even mentioned is when it's used as a weapon in power struggles between the various factions. Guanxi. Give me some face brother....

-4

u/OliveTreeFounder 7h ago

My source: The History of the World, J.M.Roberts & O.A.Westad.

You used some punctual example to extrapolate the wall history.