February 26, 2017
Milo
The Milo story broke as I was preparing to go into the hospital and I only became aware of it in the waiting room. I was horrified...though not as much as I was 2 days later.
A bit of background:
Milo Yiannopoulos is an exuberantly gay Catholic Briton of Jewish decent with a black boyfriend. Milo is also a loud, obnoxious, rude and crude advocate for free speech and vocal opponent of both government and corporate censorship.
Naturally this assortment of characteristics got him pegged as a NAZI.
Obnoxious, rude and crude don't actually do him justice, as he has had a tendency to be sadistically catty in a way that only urbane queens can pull off. In his case this caused some anxiety because as we all know, gay men are not actually people, but a variety of animatronic fetish dolls whose only legitimate functions are to provide upper middle class white women with affirmation of their grandeur and opportunities for virtue signaling.
Sadly, Milo did not fulfill this important societal niche, at least not in the approved way. He did not turn his poison tongue against working class pizza waitresses of limited means, but rather against hollywood celebrities, as well as powerful lobbyists and activists in the gaming industry. He said some things that I think were rude and unescessary, and he hurt his argument sometimes through the exquisite sadism of his insults.
He also tended to be on the bad side of some truly loathsome individuals as seen in his habit of going after pedophiles and exposing them. Amongst those were Sarah Nyberg, and Chris Leydon and he was an early voice sounding the alarm about Jimmy Savile.
So it was pretty horrifying to learn that an interview of Milo with him advocating for pedophellia had turned up.
It's at least as horrifying that this story appears to be bunk, yet has cost this man his job, his book deal and his good name.
Here is what was expertly excised from the tape:
Milo’s money quote, which was edited out of the video, is this:
The law is probably about right, that’s probably roughly the right age. I think it’s probably about okay, but there are certainly people who are capable of giving consent at a younger age, I certainly consider myself to be one of them, people who are sexually active younger. I think it particularly happens in the gay world by the way. In many cases actually those relationships with older men…This is one reason I hate the left. This stupid one size fits all policing of culture. (People speak over each other). This sort of arbitrary and oppressive idea of consent, which totally destroys you know understanding that many of us have. The complexities and subtleties and complicated nature of many relationships. You know, people are messy and complex. In the homosexual world particularly. Some of those relationships between younger boys and older men, the sort of coming of age relationships, the relationships in which those older men help those young boys to discover who they are, and give them security and safety and provide them with love and a reliable and sort of a rock where they can’t speak to their parents. Some of those relationships are the most -â€
Well, Milo's been an ass again, but that's hardly a new development. Milo, himself a victim of sexual abuse by a priest, did NOT advocate for pedophelia. He's said numerous times that he considers it to be possibly the worst crime possible.
Milo Yiannopoulos is often not my cup of tea, but he's been nuked from orbit by a false claim and his job, book deal and reputation are currently smouldering ruins.
That bothers me for some reason.
There are a few others who have opinions that diverge from the "It serves him right!" school of thought.
The charges against Milo are contrived from a) video editing and b) rumor and innuendo and c) pretending no one ever used the word "boy†to mean man, thereby meaning playboy is for 10 year olds and "playing with the big boys†means middle schoolers.
IF the attack on Milo were about, say how outrageous he got before the election (he’s been walking it back since. I suspect he gets a little battle mad as I tend to.) I’d shrug and say "whateverâ€. However this is a contrived and false attack and one that apparently came from the right but is teaching the left the way to take every one of us down. You might not like Milo or his lifestyle, but you should not under any circumstances, applaud this means of taking him down. And if you do, I hope you experience likewise and get to experience what you like so much. There is a good chance you will. They’ve tasted blood with Milo. We’re next.
John C Wright (Who, it should be noted is a fairly hardcore social con, going to bat for the gay guy whose being accused of child molestation.)
I have been on the receiving end of a coordinated libel Campaign like this but smaller and not this vicious.
The tactic is simple: simply edit what the victim says to make it sound like he said what you want him to say.
Then you have your Newsmen and paid trolls repeat it.
By the time the truth comes out, everyone already believes the narrative and it’s too late.
I realize that if you have never seen a fake edit job before, it will fool you. What you do to do a fake editing job is take parts of one sentence parts of one conversation and clip them to another. In this case you take a conversation about how many times two college students engaged in copulation are required to ask each other about the continued ongoing state of their consent, and then you clip in a discussion of the consent between a 17 year old and a 27 year old gay couple.You take a sentence where the speaker uses the word ‘boy’ to refer to a seventeen-year-old and you clip it to a question when someone is asking about a 14 year old boy , clever editing makes it sound as if he is talking about lowering the age of consent to 14
Having unloaded these truths, Milo nevertheless completely agreed that the legal age of consent is a good thing and lands on the right age. The unspoken conclusion driving that statement had to have been that, given the broad spread in age of sexual maturation, it’s appropriate for the law to err on the side of caution to protect the maximum number of children from sexual predators.
Neo Neocon hits on what I think is the real problem with Milo's nosehair curling rant...
As an abuse survivor, Yiannopoulos thinks he can say that consent can be given in such a case, apparently because he thinks he gave it. But that shows one of the problems with sexual abuse, and it’s not just the problem of an adult exploiting a child sexually. It’s the problem of an adult messing with a child’s mind. Because the relationships Yiannopoulos describes are actually betrayals of the child/teen in the guise of "helping†the child, betrayals that may even feel good to the child/teen in certain circumstances but exploit the child/teen’s psychological, emotional, and physical vulnerability.
Kate Paulk's piece contains this brief passage that's almost free of obceneties.
Let me be absolutely clear here. The stickybeaked moralists who are claiming that Milo Yiannopoulos somehow brought this shitstorm on himself because his lifestyle squicks them are endorsing lying to eliminate a person. They are endorsing show trials and guilt by association and all the evils of every fucking Communist regime ever. They are endorsing the tactics both the Soviets and the Nazis used to crush dissenting voices and enemies of the regime.
I'm a southerner and, arguably, a variety of social conservative, so I'm not exactly a Milo fanboy, but I do note that in general, Milo, as a reporter, as well as a rabble rouser, gave considerable discomfort to the powerful, and defended the innocent.
He may well deserve criticism's. Lets make damned sure they are for things he actually did.
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at
09:36 PM
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I just can't get too exercised over Milo. I agree the outrage over what he said has been particularly ginned up to a much greater extent via the use of half-truths and out-of-context screaming headlines. I can't get past the idea that he did, to an identifiable extent, justify sexual relations between people who should know better and people who most often can't and won't know better; on the grounds that a predatory sexual relationship (my words, I understand he doesn't see it that way) is probably just what an abused and misguided child needs. That's how *I* construe what he's said on the issue, not what I've heard he said.
And while I have no problem with defending his statements as a First Amendment issue; even then there is a strong element of "living and dying by the sword" with Milo. Just as with Trump, there is a line that can be crossed from defending one's right to say a thing; and defending what that person has said. Right or not, I strongly suspect that most people won't bother noticing the distinction between the two, and that the defense of Milo is a lost cause, for the moment.
And while I have no problem with defending his statements as a First Amendment issue; even then there is a strong element of "living and dying by the sword" with Milo. Just as with Trump, there is a line that can be crossed from defending one's right to say a thing; and defending what that person has said. Right or not, I strongly suspect that most people won't bother noticing the distinction between the two, and that the defense of Milo is a lost cause, for the moment.
Posted by: Ben at Mon Feb 27 23:13:43 2017 (S4UJw)
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