12 Comments
User's avatar
A.J. Cooke's avatar

This is an extremely well-written and nuanced take, but holy crap your parents did a number on you. Also you demonstrated very effectively how it's impossible for even very intelligent people to build a moral compass from scratch using reason alone. Moses or Jesus or Buddha... Pick SOMETHING FFS.

1) You're conflating inappropriate intrusive sexual thoughts in the minds of otherwise normal people with the escalating sadistic obsessions of morally bankrupt freaks. Life has a lot of shades of gray, but there is a very bright red line between the two.

2) Hollywood having a child molestation problem is an amply-documented fact, not an antisemitic conspiracy theory. You really aren't doing the Tribe a favor by using Jews as a shield for Shanda-bait.

Fwiw here's my review, which isn't entirely opposed to yours. I think you just missed some of the film's nuance from your cultural perspective:

https://valiantnews.com/2023/07/review-sound-of-freedom-is-not-what-you-think/

Expand full comment
ClarkCunt's avatar

"All told, in my personal experience, when people find out a child is being sexually abused, they pretend it isn’t happening and hope it goes away on its own."

Ouch.

My parents did this to me for a long time. I didnt have to be around the person who abused me after they found out, but i also wasnt allowed to talk about it.

It wasn't until I was 18 and had a fairly violent mental breakdown that they really understood they can't just ignore this problem. They stepped up in a huge way then and got me into therapy and groups. They even sat in with me and let me tell them all the ways they had disappointed me.

I know that me being abused hurt them a lot. They had to confront the fact that they were neglectful parents, who in some ways, allowed this to happen to me.

Expand full comment
Guyven's avatar

This is actually well written compared to the Destiny report, and while I don't agree on some substance it still was worth the read. Your parents really fucked you up though. The older I get the more I see the damage parents have done to their children. I'm more curious about you then a fan, and in fact dislike alot of what you do, but I do hope you're doing better after the Destiny thing. That definitely would be hard on anyone.

Expand full comment
Max Karson's avatar

The Destiny Report is a stack of evidence designed to help other people write and talk about Destiny's abusive behavior. It's not really meant to be read straight through for pleasure. I will probably not write anything else like it.

Expand full comment
Cracka's avatar

"Naturally, the warlord has chosen her to be his personal child sex slave (she is the most attractive child sex slave in the movie so this makes sense)"

Just another derivative Cuties-like. Canceling my dead mother's Netflix.

Expand full comment
Max Karson's avatar

There is something pedophile-adjacent about being obsessed with pedophiles. It's like when soccer moms are obsessed with serial killers.

Expand full comment
trifle's avatar

It's quite clear to me that the film is instrumental for Caviezel to position himself politically.

I'm surprised you didn't comment on the scene where Ballard is asked why he wants to rescue the children. In what could have been an interesting moment of self-reflection, Ballard answers with the mantra: "God's children are not for sale". Of course, Caviezel intends this to be the mantra all his "followers" use to justify their rage (which may extend to their otherwise unrelated political activities), but it reveals an emotional guardedness that is everywhere in the film. Ballard, when he is not grinning for pedo-punishment, is emotionless. Even when he cried, he was stone-faced. To me, this disconnection from one's emotions to supplant it with an idea of Godly righteousness is incredibly unsettling.

Expand full comment
Max Karson's avatar

I agree it is unsettling. It's like people are taking all their anguish and pain about their lives and projecting it onto shadowy pedophiles, some of whom don't even exist. It's anti-introspection and it seems to make people go crazy.

Expand full comment
Zero State Reflex's avatar

This film, (I haven't seen it, though have listened to others comment about it) seems like a hero fetish. Push the darkness into unknown lands and I don't have to feel bad about it.

I think your analysis is right. Just look at the recent article by the WSJ on the underage sex networks on instagram. We have sex trafficking in our own backyard as the data suggests and not one mention during the hype of this film. Meta will do fuck all about it.

Social media companies are the traffic lanes already being used. Imagine a film based on that, maybe we'd feel so gross we'd actually do something.

Expand full comment
Max Karson's avatar

I'm going to be making a video called "The Pedophile Narrative" which will get into that, so maybe I can put in a documentary section that exposes how social media companies enable the victimization of children.

Expand full comment
Zero State Reflex's avatar

Hell yes. I don't know what happened to instagram but it looks like meta just opened the flood gates to pre-teen abuse. I started seeing gymnastic "suggested reels" with really young girls thinking why in the fuck am I seeing this? I think it was because young 20 somethings realized they could use the system by doing the "look at my outfit! tee-hee.." always starting the reel in their underwear and since I watched (lingered..) on those the algo pushed younger and younger under the "gymnastic model" banner, it's creepy how efficient it is. I think the monsters saw the money these 20 somethings were making and naturally flooded the reels market and the trading network flourished.

There is no doubt they know. When I saw another gymnast reel, apparently it doesn't matter how many you block or say not interested, they will come back to the suggested reels, I looked at the comments and holy shit, 100's of dudes using love emoji's, then look at who they're following and down the rabbit hole of mostly really young Mexican / Spanish girls (from what I saw) surely being pimp'd for the reel money by their parents. It's bad. Tiktok is (was?) bad but at least the girls are over 18, but instagram is on a whole new level.

I don't even follow models, I just post pictures of birds but because I'm a male the algo just feeds it. It's crazy. You do good work and I hope you can put a dent in the social media companies.

Expand full comment
Max Karson's avatar

Thank you for the ideas here. I never use Instagram. I'll put together some screen recordings and stuff and take my best shot at them.

Expand full comment