Dakota Beacon

The outlook isn't brilliant for Prince Andrew today. He's been accused, found out, the Queen has stripped him of all of his royal duties, such as they were, which obviously left him too much time as it was, and he's on his own as far as legal fees to keep him out of the clink. And those lawyers will smell blood . . . and a lot of money.

Today I listened to a discussion between Alex Christoforou and Alexander Mercouris, who were hashing over the plight of the British royal family in general and Andrew in particular. Aside from the fact that many of us are sick and tired of this totally dysfunctional and funtion-less family of professional celebrities, and have been since 1776, when Britain still counted, can anyone out there think of any reason why Andrew should not be prosecuted if there is any truth in these charges against him?

To sum up, Andrew would appear to have pursued a long-term, fairly intimate relationship with the grisly Ghislaine Maxwell and her buddy, Jeffrey Epstein. He has been accused of having taken advantage (to use the charming Victorian euphemism) of a young teenage American girl who had been supplied to him by Maxwell. Well, she survived to grow up and accuse him once the house of cards of the Epstein/Maxwell consortium began to fall apart. There may even be others who might possibly come forward.

The conversation in this video wandered into speculation as to whether Prince Andrew would be prosecuted criminally in addition to the civil action which is in the offing. They – Christoforou and Mercouris – concurred that it wouldn't happen. Their reasoning was that after all, this would be a sort of diplomatic boo-boo, a slap in the face to Britain, unnecessarily humiliating the family. It's not as though some rock star or some ordinary millionaire were using underage American girls for pleasure, after all. I mean, this is in a different league altogether. Right?

I'd have to disagree here. I don't care much for the royal family, to be honest. My Plantagenet ancestors have long since departed and we've had no truck with the upstart Windsors, and had no sympathy with the Hanoverians in 1776 either. So maybe I'm prejudiced against special treatment. But this isn't just a little spat we are talking about here - this is because of the context. Before covid busted in and took over every waking hour of our attention, holding us in the thrall of “pandemic”, holding captive all of our headlines – and continues to do – one of the most compelling stories before us was the disgraceful behavior of the business class in England toward their “working class” little girls. It seems from all the evidence and testimony we were hearing, at least, that there was a good case to be made against the whole of upper-class English society for their off-hand treatment of their own girls. Muslim rape gangs were tallying up astonishing numbers of victims. There were hair-raising accounts of every kind of kinky torture of these poor kids. They were drugged, hung out of windows, their families were threatened with death, you name it, these criminals had already thought of it and done it to these little schoolgirls. And they did it with a wink and a nod from the local constables, the courts, the upper classes. Context is important here.

In America we don't have bragging rights, obviously – at least throughout the past several years, when our own young girls were being solicited and abused by people like Maxwell and Epstein and their posh clients, including some embarrassingly famous names over here. The question is – and I'm not making the charge here myself, this is all alleged and Andrew is to be considered innocent until proven guilty, of course – do we do the same as the British establishment? Do we throw the rug over this scandal and let the old prince pay the girl(s) off and call it good? Or do we make examples of these people – if proven guilty – and haul them off to criminal court? I think it is crucial that we avoid what has happened in Britain. We can't sit by and allow our weakest and most defenseless – our children – to be left unprotected if someone rich enough to bail himself out comes along and wants to abuse them. We can't do that. So I would disagree vehemently with the idea that international diplomacy requires the people of the United States to countenance this type of behavior. And, after all, if the lawsuits don't clean out the whole bank account of this loser (and apparently his family believes it will or they wouldn't have disassociated themselves and “cut him off” - they don't want to be held financially liable) he will be back for more fun. That's what these people do. They don't have a real world function, they have limitless wealth, they feel themselves above the law at home and suppose they are here as well. They see no reason to respect the lives of the young and vulnerable people they abuse for their own pleasure and have no consequences even when caught out doing it.

It's a good reminder of why we fought a Revolutionary War to escape them. Since that time there has seemed to be no reason to regret it. Currently, as it is, we are playing host to the Harry-and-Meghan side show. Not exactly a diplomatic plus for Britain. This dysfunctional clan should cease to hold any other country hostage to its “diplomatic” immunity from local laws. It's not about Prince Andrew, it's not about the Queen or the rest of the family at all. It is really about how we view our own children, what value we place on the lives of young girls and whether it is going to be okay, going forward, for international playboys and the like to flout the laws of our country.

Maybe the charges are not true or cannot be proven. If not, Andrew is entitled to be treated as an innocent person and the Queen and company can eat crow. But if they can be proven, he ought not to just be ding'ed for a big payout to some victim and then let off the hook. There would be no reason then to believe that our laws mean anything at all.  We can either make our own laws and defend them against all comers or we can simply abdicate and subscribe to the system in place wherever the playboy in question comes from.  Go by the laws of Russia if he's Russian, by the laws of Britain if he's British, Nigeria if he is Nigerian, China if he is Chinese.  We can just cease to defend our own values and culture and give them up so as not to embarrass the unembarrassable.  In other words, cease to have an identity of our own entirely.  If America is going to hold on to any kind of standards we can't be held to the warped values of other cultures - including Britain.

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