Posted on 02/21/2017 5:06:22 AM PST by Kaslin
It was quite the weekend for Milo Yiannopoulos. After Friday night’s typically compelling sit-down with Bill Maher on HBO’s “Real Time,” the Saturday web buzz crackled with the news that the 32-year-old British provocateur had been named keynote speaker in the usually comfortable mainstream environment of CPAC.
This came as a surprise to many, including some on the American Conservative Union board that oversees the event. A debate ensued over whether a speaker sure to energize some and repel others was the smartest keynote choice.
Then Monday, the questions ran deeper, including but not limited to: Would Milo’s publisher cancel his book, due out in June? (Yes.) And would he be fired from the very job that lofted him to high visibility, writing and editing at Breitbart?
The bomb that exploded in his path is a video clip in which he explores with unfortunate imprecision the occasional gay teen who winds up in a relationship with an older (sometimes much older) adult man. This sparked instant cries that he was advocating pedophilia, which he denied in lengthy detail in a Sunday Facebook post, announcing to all: “I am completely disgusted by the abuse of children.”
But the video keeps alive the question of Milo’s definition of “children.” Or at least his definition of what constitutes pedophilia.
He rightly asserts that an adult eyebrow raised in the direction of today’s rapidly developing older minors is not the same as a sexual taste for pre-pubescent children. But at this point, those layers of nuance became sufficiently uncomfortable that from the brain trust of CPAC to the offices of Simon & Schuster, conclusions were reached that it was time to distance.
So are these decisions justifiable, or has Milo been done wrong by people who should have stuck up for him?
Any perusal of Milo’s writings (and even more so his speaking) reveals that he makes life hard for defenders, and that seems to be the point. A tireless advocate for freedom of expression, he is a useful example of the old adage that innocuous speech requires no protection; it is the edgy firebrands who will draw negative attention requiring the armor of the Bill of Rights.
But I hope even Milo understands that this moment’s predicament has nothing to do with free speech. Unlike campus fascists who have sought to disrupt his invited appearances, a convention and a publisher have the right to associate with whomever they please. This includes the right to disassociate for whatever reasons they may cite.
We, in turn, are free to understand or lament these abandonments of Milo. So let’s move to whether he deserves such banishment.
Maybe it’s the months of explaining Donald Trump to people who cannot grasp his appeal, but I can understand the points Milo makes in the video without subscribing to any of them. While he may wistfully appreciate an older gay man offering comfort to an empathy-starved 17-year-old, my preference would be for young men to introspectively explore whether they might find and cling to the slightest thread of heterosexuality.
But that’s not the point. The issue surrounds whether Milo has crossed a line into ambivalence (if not approval) of even younger teens coming under the wing of gay mentors decades older.
Discussion groups are free to dive into the tricky layers of where those lines are drawn. A worthy distinction can be drawn between sexual attention toward pre-pubescent children and blossoming post-adolescents. But this is a roundtable millions of Americans have no interest in, and the very sound of these ruminations is apparently mortifying in a number of locations that mere days ago were pleased to do business with Milo.
His book deal, his CPAC speaking gig and his Breitbart job strike me as three different cases. CPAC first: it was stupid to invite him.
I can understand, even appreciate, how a Milo invitation looks appealing for about ten seconds. Here’s the guy whose very words sparked riots at Berkeley, the kind of thing that confers instant conservative heroism. Throw in his boldness on issues from Black Lives Matter to global jihad, wrapped in glib Brit-millennial patter, and it’s easy to see his potential for broadening the appeal of some conservative ideas.
But his caustic style, which he constantly brands with the asterisk of satire, may well have repulsed as many as it attracted. A speaking window somewhere at CPAC was justifiable. The keynote slot was not. Now one wonders if he’ll be allowed into the building.
Which brings us to another location considering his fate: his employer. Breitbart is free to cut ties with anyone whom it feels has damaged its brand, but has he? The Breitbart brand is so vague and splintered now, that it is hard to suggest that Milo has somehow caused a wave of new bad pub aimed its way.
Breitbart is the one forum where he should be able to expect a full ear for his denial of pedophilia advocacy, an argument that takes him some time, but resonates once made. There are smatterings of stories of Breitbart employees threatening to quit if he is not shown the door, but I’ll guess those are people who grew weary of his excesses long ago. My gut feeling is that this episode should not be a career-ender.
So if CPAC never should have reached out to him and Breitbart should restrain itself from jettisoning him, what about the book deal?
Totally the publisher’s call.
I would probably appreciate Simon and Schuster saying something like: “We signed Milo with the full knowledge that his views are intentionally, entertainingly incendiary. We expected his book to draw fiery reaction, and we welcome it as part of today’s many styles of political engagement, and we believe his assertions that he in no way turns a blind eye to the victimization of children.”
But that’s a lot to ask. Their job is to sell books in a nation currently filled with various hopped-up constituencies ready to wage economic warfare upon provocations large and small. I do not blame them for reducing to zero the chances of pickets swarming their midtown Manhattan headquarters.
So, the lessons? A livelihood steeped in edgy discourse has its hazards. It can reward its practitioners, but trap doors are common. Donald Trump can be elected president, surviving rhetorical moments his supporters chose to ignore. But Milo might suffer mightily as support he enjoyed mere days ago is yanked from various corners where his act grew too hot to handle. Our parents were right: life is unfair.
But if Milo Yiannopoulos is as resourceful as he seems to be, he can probably spin this into some new chapter, flaunting these latest rejections as further marketable evidence of the dangerous persona that some folks did not have the stomach for.
Not surprised.
I like Milo - hopefully he can bounce back!
Well it certainly showed that elements of the Glenn Beck right, and the NeverTrump cartel are still working with their lib buddies as much as they did in 2016.
No time to fight the left though.
No real interest in it either. Their enemy is Trump and everyone who voted for him.
I would just as soon people like this were not speaking for conservatism.
He will bounce back if we leave it.
Do not let him get Alansky-ed.
Leave it be. Time and the news cycle will take care of things.
That is why leftists keep chugging and the conservatives usually eat their own.
Let’s try it differently, leave it be instead of tearing things apart. There is much to like about Milo.
And the future of the country is at stake.
Don’t give the leftists power over us
Saul Alinsky’s Rules from Rules for Radicals
Saul Alinsky describes 24 rules in Rules for Radicals. Of those 24 rules, 13 are rules of “power tactics”:
1. “Power is not only what you have but what the enemy
thinks you have.”
2. “Never go outside the experience of your people.”
3. “Wherever possible go outside of the experience of the
enemy.”
4. “Make the enemy live up to their own book of rules.”
5. “Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon.”
6. “A good tactic is one that your people enjoy.”
7. “A tactic that drags on too long becomes a drag.”
8. “Keep the pressure on, with different tactics and
actions, and utilize all events of the period for your purpose.”
9. “The threat is usually more terrifying than the thing
itself.”
10. “The major premise for tactics is the development of
operations that will maintain a constant pressure upon the opposition.”
11. “If you push a negative hard and deep enough it will
break through into its counterside.”
12. “The price of a successful attack is a constructive
alternative.”
13. “Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.”
The remaining 11 rules Alinsky describes are concerned with “the ethics of means and ends”:
1. “One’s concern with the ethics of means and ends varies inversely with one’s personal interest in the issue … Accompanying this rule is the parallel one that one’s concern with the ethics of means and ends varies inversely with one’s distance from the scene of conflict.”
2. “The judgment of the ethics of means is dependent upon the political position of those sitting in judgment.”
3. “In war the end justifies almost any means.”
4. “Judgment must be made in the context of the times in which the action occurred and not from any other chronological vantage point.”
5. “Concern with ethics increases with the number of means available and vice versa.”
6. “The less important the end to be desired, the more one can afford to engage in ethical evaluations of means.”
7. “Generally success or failure is a mighty determinant of ethics.”
8. “The morality of a means depends upon whether the means is being employed at a time of imminent defeat or imminent victory.”
9. “Any effective means is automatically judged by the opposition as being unethical.”
10. “You do what you can with what you have and clothe it with moral garments.”
11. “Goals must be phrased in general terms like ‘Liberty, Equality, Fraternity,’ ‘Of the Common Welfare,’ ‘Pursuit of Happiness,’ or ‘Bread and Peace.’”
Never-Turmping, House conservatives.
Sadly, violent, blue-haired Berkeley kooks are probably not the main enemy.
it’s people in the GOP who do not want to win.
They are the Vichy Republicans.
Simon and Schuster- not sure if they gleefully publish liberal books, but if he *WAS* a liberal and was actually promoting pedophilia he would probably be their brave hero of the day.
Yes, they are far to busy denouncing Milo to prove how "conservative" they are.
This human talks a conservative line, but he’s not, he’s a male queer, and male queers rim and gerbil and spread diseases. He is tarnishing the decency of normal Americans.
Unfortunately his second possible exemption, that he is a Catholic priest, and the Church has condoned child rape for centuries, won't work for him either.
There is always a future in the Boy (sic) Scouts though!
I saw his Facebook post, I accept his explanation, time to move on to the REAL enemy.
He should simply state: I am not a muslim, therefor I reject pedophilia.
Yeah, whatever.
So when can we see “real normal American humans” like you take his place?
Or are not not brave enough to become the target of leftist smears.
So far the male “queer” has shown more fight than folks like you.
So you wanted Hillary to win then?
If being conservative is talking like you....prepare to lose, alot.
Irrespective of Milo, Mark Davis has been a divisive blowhard for years.
Q. What’s the difference between Milo and Lena?
A. (”Calling Captain Obvious, calling Captain Obvious...”)
And if "people like this" aren't welcome to speak for conservative ideas why do you think anyone will be able to speak for conservative ideas? If organized groups on the left and the right can silence one group of people for what they think is politically incorrect speech, what will stop them from silencing the rest of us?
Didn't it bother you when people lost their jobs for opposing gay marriage? Were you OK with that?
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