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Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry

@pegobry_en

Dec 12

I had to get surgery at a French hospital (I’ll be fine), and everything was clean and high-tech, all staff were friendly and hypercompetent, everything was 10/10, and I paid a grand total of €0.00

I am not saying all healthcare in France is like this, or that most healthcare should be government-run (indeed in France it is not), just that things like this are possible because state capacity is a thing and a good thing.

Single-payer is awful but almost all industrialized countries, like France and the US, have a mixed public-private system, and that’s a good thing.

Read 15 tweets

Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry

@pegobry_en

Aug 8

The historical arc of the mafia in Sicily is the redpillest redpill you can have:
- There was no mafia when the Bourbons ruled Sicily
- The mafia came about and grew into this tentacular monster because the liberal government of united Italy dispossessed the landed aristocracy and the Church, which were the traditional sources of order and authority, and replaced them with incompetent, corruptible, demotic government.
- Mussolini, using, well, fascist tactics, over decades, essentially almost completely destroyed the mafia
- The mafia only came back to life because the American OSS used them as proxies against Mussolini, and then the Italian Republic was too weak to do anything about it

I remember being in a mid-size city in Italy and walking past this great big abandoned 18th century building, surrounded by iron fencing, and a sign informing tourists that this was a prison during Bourbon rule of Sicily, and isn't it awful that this authoritarian government put people in prison.

And I looked around at this impoverished town and the graffiti on the wall, and I thought, I can think of worse things happening in Sicily than putting criminals in prison.

Anyway: read The Leopard

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Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry

@pegobry_en

Jul 24

Once more about Epstein...

Since the latest outburst in The Discourse I have read up more on Epstein, particularly from people who believe Epstein was an intelligence asset (I listened to @esaagar on the Andrew Schulz podcast), because I always want to hear the steelman case against what I believe, and I have to say that the more I listen the MORE I am convinced that Epstein was just a random rich sex pervert who had sex parties a la Diddy.

What's more, it's the things that the conspiracists POINT TO which convince me that Epstein COULD NOT have been a spy.

1. "He was a college dropout who became a math teacher and then became super rich."

So, there's an amazing French TV series titled "Le Bureau des légendes," which I believe is available in the US under the title "The Bureau" and has been remade as a US series as "The Agency." It was made in cooperation with the French spy agency DGSE and every intelligence expert I'm aware of says it's the most realistic spy show out there, and it's specifically about undercover agents.

One of the plotlines is about the DGSE getting an agent to get recruited as a seismologist in Iran to get close to the country's scientific elite.

You know how they got an agent to pose as a seismologist? They recruited a student at a top science school and MADE HER DO A PHD IN SEISMOLOGY.

The reason she was able to pose as a seismologist is because she WAS a seismologist. Because obviously if she WASN'T a seismologist, she'd immediately get exposed after six months working around real seismologists. And because the best covers have the maximum amount of actual truth in there.

If they want somebody to be a lawyer, they MAKE HIM GO TO LAW SCHOOL AND PASS THE BAR WITHOUT CHEATING.

If the Mossad or CIA or anybody else wanted to create this Gatsby-financier type character, they would NEVER, EVER, in a MILLION YEARS approve the following cover story: "Ok, so, he dropped out of high school, became a maths teacher at an exclusive prep school, and this allowed him to become close to a guy and get hired at Bear Stearns, and then he gets some other rich billionaire to sign away his fortune. Yep, makes sense. And then he's going to pose as this super rich guy, but he's not going to have a real hedge fund and we just have to hope nobody asks too many questions."

No, first of all, the Mossad would recruit somebody named JAMES WORTHINGTON IV, not Chaim Jewstein, they would make sure he had an Ivy League degree, they would make sure he got hired LEGITIMATELY at JP Morgan and then AFTER FIVE YEARS they would set him up to start a hedge fund. And that hedge fund would be a REAL hedge fund, which would hire REAL analysts, who would have no idea that this isn't a legitimate hedge fund, and who would make REAL trades. The seed money would come from the intelligence agencies, and they would provide a backstop if necessary, but 80-90% of the activity would be totally legitimate.

2. Gatsby characters actually exist

Did you read The Great Gatsby? Fitzgerald wrote that novel because such characters actually existed. Gatsby was a fraud, but he was not a creation by any intelligence service.

Gatsby-type characters who have the gift of the gab and the schmooze and find ways to con (whether in the literal sense or in a broader figurative sense) rich people out of their money happen all the time. That's about 80% of Republican-consultant world and 70% of Democrat-consultant world.

One of the heirs to the Hermès family fortune signed away 4 billion euros to his gardener. To this day nobody knows exactly why; the assumption was they were lovers but apparently that's not true; probably he was just the only charming and interesting person in his life. Many such cases. There was a huge financial scandal in France when Liliane Bettencourt, then the richest person in France (L'Oréal heiress) turned out to have suffered from dementia and had been preyed upon by all sorts of grifters who got her to sign away huge chunks of her fortune.

You have NO idea how often this happens because most of those stories get squished because they are hugely embarrassing--IF they are found out, which obviously is not always.

And of course some of these guys get a head too big and fly too close to the Sun and crash out.

Like Epstein. Epstein clearly had a gift of the gab, of schmoozing. He probably also managed to acquire real skills in the area of wealth management.

Again, all of the stuff about Epstein that screams "sketchy" also screams "NOT SPY". Another obvious example: the mansion. Would an intelligence-created Epstein type have some sort of swanky Manhattan residence for the parties/sex parties? Sure. Would it be THE biggest mansion in all of Manhattan? NO, OF COURSE NOT. That's CERTAIN to attract unwanted attention. The only person who would do that is a narcissist sociopath weirdo who very much does NOT have an intelligence handler.

3. Epstein was Jewish and was connected to a lot of Jews and Zionists

When discussing Epstein, everybody talks about a famous Mossad op where they did create a character in Syria who was this socialite who threw big parties in Damascus and got access to the Syrian elite and Syrian government secrets that way.

What they usually fail to mention was that while that agent was Jewish, he posed as a NON-JEWISH Egyptian businessman.

For pretty obvious reasons. If some guy named Moshe Ben Judah was throwing swanky parties in Damascus, OF COURSE everyone would NATURALLY assume he was a Mossad agent.

Seems pretty intuitive that when Epstein got his start in the world of providing various financial services to the super rich, he leaned on his Jewish identity, that his early clientele had more Jews than non-Jews, and that those Jews would tend to introduce him more often to other Jews, and that many of those Jews would also happen to be supporters of Israel in some sense.

Which makes total sense if Epstein was this social climber character. And makes ZERO sense if Epstein was a Mossad creation.

If he was a Mossad creation, A. they would have picked someone non-Jewish or given him a non-Jewish identity, and B. every bank or institution or individual that would have given him his start in that world would have been somebody THREE CUTOUTS AWAY from ANYTHING remotely smacking of Jews or Israel.

4. Epstein was connected to Israeli Prime Ministers

This one is the final straw, because it is by far the most retarded.

In fact it is so retarded that I cannot believe that anybody makes this argument with a straight face.

Epstein was connected to several Israeli Prime Ministers, and in particular after his premiership Ehud Barak would come stay at his mansion.

Can I just point out that this is INCONTROVERTIBLE EVIDENCE that Epstein was NOT a Mossad agent or asset in any way shape or form?

Like, how fucking retarded do you have to be to believe that the Israelis had this amazing asset at the heart of the American elite, and then the Prime Ministers, who would obviously know about this asset, would DROP BY TO HANG OUT WITH HIM PUBLICLY?

This would be like if, while Kim Philby was in MI6 as a Soviet double agent, and Khruschchev came on a state visit to the UK, he stayed in Philby's flat and had dinner with Philby at his club in full view of everyone.

Of course Khrushchev would NEVER in a MILLION YEARS come anywhere NEAR Philby PRECISELY because he was an enormously important Soviet agent!!!

Like, how DUMB can people be to believe this?

Imagine that Nixon or Kissinger or Carter or whoever in his post-White House life, knew from his days in the government that Boris Popov, this key figure in the Soviet Communist Party who knew everyone and schmoozed everyone, was actually a CIA. And so Nixon is travelling to the Soviet Union on a goodwill tour to give speeches or promote his book or whatever, and he thinks "Oh yeah! Why don't I go hang out with Popov! He's one of our guys, I'll just hang out at his dacha for a couple days, have lunch with him at the Arbat."

The word for this is TREASON. It's INSANITY.

And, of course, if, in this TOTALLY ABSURD BIZARRO UNIVERSE, Nixon had this idea, then the Popov in question would NEVER IN A MILLION YEARS agree to such a thing. He would fake an illness. He would have an aunt in Kamchatka that suddenly died.

And probably as soon as Nixon came back to the US, he would be arrested and sent to Guantanamo for the rest of his life for deliberately trying to expose a key CIA agent. Which is how everyone with knowledge of the facts would interpret such an action.

And the whole notion would be so absurd that Popov would FREAK THE FUCK OUT and almost certainly either disappear forever or turn, thinking that the entire notion was a scheme by the Americans to get him killed by his own people for some reason.

I CANNOT find the words to convey how DEEPLY DEEPLY RETARDED it is to say "Oh, Epstein was super chummy with Ehud Barak, therefore he probably was a Mossad agent."

Epstein fits a very classical profile, which is the high IQ narcissistic sociopaths.

One trait of narcissistic sociopathy is an ability to charm people.

Another trait is poor impulse control and, related to that, issues with sex addiction or substance abuse.

Epstein's checkered history actually fits that very well.

High IQ sociopaths are often dropouts because they can get into good programs but they don't have the discipline to get a degree.

It makes sense that an intelligent charmer would find a way to get hired as a maths teacher at an exclusive prep school, and then get fired for sexually harassing the students.

It makes sense that he would still be able to make the right connections at the school to get hired on Wall Street. (And remember this was Boomer-World. There are MILLIONS of stories of random guys getting hired on Wall Street on a smile and a handshake because they seemed smart and go-getter and presentable.)

It makes sense that he would gravitate to wealth management, a relationships-based business rather than a substantive-skills-based business.

It makes sense that he would eventually get fired for insider trading.

It makes sense that he would still have the connections to "con" (whether in the literal sense of defrauding or in a broader figurative sense of managing to pose as a financial genius and wildly overcharging for pretty vanilla wealth management services) rich people out of tons of money.

It makes sense that he would build himself this absurd life, with the giant mansion, the four Gulfstreams or whatever, the private island (there was a great bit by Eric Weinstein where he pointed out that most of the superrich actually don't own private islands because it's a logistical nightmare to fly there and it's just easier to own a mansion with a private beach), the over-the-top quality of it all fits the profile of a narcissistic sociopath and very much NOT of any sort of intelligence operative.

It makes sense that he would traffic teenagers, including American teenagers (very dumb), that he would fly too close to the sun in all these obviously dumb ways like associating with prominent politicians, that he would have poor OPSEC (like keeping the videotapes in his own house), that he would get caught once, and that he would STILL keep doing it. It makes sense that he would make shit up like bragging about being connected to intelligence. And it makes sense that in the end he would kill himself rather than suffer the humiliation and pain of a lifetime prison sentence.

All of that is consistent with the profile of an intelligent, very socially-adept, narcissistic sociopath. And not with the profile of an intelligence asset or operative.

And, of course, intelligence agencies work very hard to weed out these types of characters because they make terrible agents because they have low impulse control and are incapable of loyalty to anything beyond themselves.

Ok, writing that last tweet reminded me of ANOTHER slam-dunk, "No effing way that guy was an agent": getting arrested, and then GOING RIGHT BACK TO DOING IT AGAIN.

And again, this is one of the things were people point to him being intel, which is, he got arrested, and he got this lame charge.

First of all, rich people get these kinds of sweetheart deals all the time, all you need is really good (expensive) lawyers. (And sometimes they don't! Rule of law in the US is better than most places, though of course not perfect.)

But secondly, let's say he did get arrested, and he did get the sweetheart deal because Mossad or CIA said so. The next step is for him to FUCKING DISAPPEAR FOREVER.

Again, every intelligence agency, if they've got a deep cover agent in some foreign country, and that agent gets arrested for ANY reason bigger than a DUI, they immediately just bring their guy home and shut everything down because he's been compromised.

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Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry

@pegobry_en

Jul 16

- Taxes are worse (not true 20 years ago)
- Regulations are worse (not true 20 years ago)
- Bureaucracy/govt competence is much worse (not true 20 years ago)
- Policing/public safety is now MUCH worse (HUGE change from 20 years ago)
- Health system is much, much worse (also true 20 years ago but the increased taxes make it more egregious)
- Immigration is now WORSE in the UK
- State schools shitty in both countries but private school in UK is £20K/yr vs €3K/yr in France
- Universities arguably better in some ways but also über-woke unlike French grandes écoles (besides Sciences Po) which still provide world-class education with much better value for money even though they’re not as swanky as Oxbridge; you can argue UK is better but you can argue the reverse and more importantly the UK has been getting worse fast while France is roughly holding steady
- Pubs (one of the great delights of British life) are dying
- And, obviously, eternally: the food sucks, it rains constantly, etc.

I say this as someone who loves British civilization and wants to see it thrive. The speed and scale of the crash is absolutely astounding.

- Intellectual/cultural life is much worse because everyone is America-brained so there is no original thought going on, just rehashing of US stuff whether on left or right

- Rugby is 10X better in France, both the national team and the club league

Read 10 tweets

Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry

@pegobry_en

Jul 8

Regular reminder that all the Biblical passages about "welcoming the stranger" relate to extending *hospitality* to travelers (who by definition depart on their merry way) and has nothing to do with immigration policy.

Witness the many times in the Bible where Israel fights invaders with God’s blessing and at God’s express urging

Withess the many times in the Bible where God scolds Israel for allowing strangers to live in Israel, and that this corrupts the people because it brings foreign practices such as polytheism and idol worship

Not that anybody making this argument is intellectually honest or actually interested in understanding God’s will through the Bible.

Hospitality was a huge deal in the Ancient world because travel was long and arduous and dangerous and if you had to camp out in the middle of nature you were very likely to get robbed or murder. It’s a huge thing in every Ancient culture we know of.

It’s simply absurd to suggest that anyone in the Bible could have written or understood those passages to mean "You have to let large numbers of random strangers settle in your country indefinitely if they feel like it"

And in fact, the Bible on *numerous occasions* discusses this very possibility and *every single time* GOD HIMSELF says "This is very bad, don’t do it"

The Bible of course has a VERY FAMOUS story about "welcoming the stranger", and that is the story of Lot in Sodom. And that story has nothing to do with immigration—the angels only ever claim to be passing travelers—and everything to do with hospitality.

Modern readers are often shocked by one aspect of the story, which is that Lot offers the hostile mob his daughters instead of his guests. But in Ancient stories, the honorable person doing over-the-top absurd things to honor the Law of Hospitality is a trope.

King Bob welcomes Strange Traveler into his palace. It turns out that Strange Traveler is a sworn enemy of King Jim over the hill, with whom King Bob has always had friendly relations. King Jim says unless King Bob hands over Strange Traveler, there will be war. King Bob accepts war with his heretofore friendly neighbor rather than hand over a guest.

And, of course, it’s not just Bronze Age stories.

The most Bronze Age culture still extant is, of course, Pashto culture. Famously, the Taliban refused to hand over Bin Laden to the US, knowing full well it would mean the end of their regime and decades of war, even though they didn’t particularly like Bin Laden and were blindsided by 9/11 which they thought was an insane retarded thing to do, but felt bound by the Pashto Law of Hospitality.

Marcus Luttrell is alive today because Pashto herdsmen found him and took him in and nursed him back to health. These men probably hated America and American soldiers and may even have killed many Americans themselves. But they took him in, and when Taliban militants demanded they hand him over, they not only refused but threatened war over it.

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Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry

@pegobry_en

Jul 3

https://twitter.com/anglochog/status/1938968379081269333

Most of the schools in England were run by the monasteries so the literacy rate in England went from almost 50% to ~10% in a generation.

https://twitter.com/anglochog/status/1938968379081269333

Also the "papal religion" had already "taken hold" for a thousand years and it took astonishing amounts of violence and oppression to draw the English away from the true faith.

They burned down the Bodleian Library. They burned down countless thousands of Books of Hours (priceless works of art and culture) because they had pictures and prayers to saints. Stained glass windows smashed. Statues smashed. TOMBS smashed because headstones mentioned saints.

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