I was never much of a conspiracy theorist. Sure, I heard the speculations (we didn't land on the moon, vaccines cause autism, 9/11 was an inside job, etc.), but I usually just dismissed them with a shake of my head and maybe even a chuckle. I know that evil men can join together to do evil things, but I just didn't think men were competent enough to pull off the usually elaborate machinations these theories proposed.

Of course, the past five years changed my perspective, and I'm not alone in this shift. It's not that I see conspiracy theories everywhere; I still firmly accept that we landed on the moon, for example. However, after witnessing the massive gaslighting done by our authorities in order to give them more power and control over our lives, I realized that many conspiracy theories were conspiracy facts.

The lies that accompanied the Covid pandemic were particularly galling, as people were accused of wanting to "kill grandma" just because they didn't accept obviously false claims about the virus. While I don't subscribe to some of the most extreme of the conspiracies (I don't think the Covid vaccine was produced specifically to kill us, for example), I'm now far more open to the reality of high-level conspiracies in our government and other institutions. And like I said, there are many others who joined me in my skepticism of the dominant narrative.

Which brings me to Jeffrey Epstein and his infamous "client list" of rich and powerful child rapists. When Epstein's case became prominent in 2019 I barely followed it. I suspected he didn't kill himself, but that wasn't much of a conspiracy theory—it just seemed obvious that he had information on very powerful people and that at least one of those people didn't want it made publicly known. It's not like men haven't been killed in this type of situation throughout history. But how was this any different from the normal DC corruption that flares up every few years?

Since 2019, however, the story has grown beyond all expectations. A number of major politicians and celebrities have been implicated for allegedly being on the Epstein List, including Prince Andrew and Bill Gates as well as Bill Clinton and Donald Trump. Further, it's been suggested that Epstein was actually an agent for Israel. Considering the deep connection between America and Israel, and the fact that our connection to Israel has involved us for decades in numerous military conflicts in the Middle East, the idea that we might have blackmailable pedophile government leaders beholden to a foreign government makes this far more than a run-of-the-mill story of political corruption.