I admit, it’s a bit crazy to speaking up for Milo Yiannopoulos, the outspoken, Breitbart writing, envelope pushing, gay Brit, who has caused so much trouble, but I cannot help myself, I hate injustice, especially the kind of injustice I call crowd sourced violence, the politics of personal destruction.
Crowd sourced violence is an organized effort to take people down based on rumor, innuendo, and whispered smear campaigns. Gossip. The goal is get them fired from their jobs, their book contracts shuttered, their speaking engagements canceled. Whatever you can do to hurt someone for the purpose of silencing them.
I try not to hate anything, but I must say crowd sourced violence really pushes my buttons. I dislike bullies. I dislike mobs of bullies even more. For those who don’t know, people took some things Milo said out of context, edited some video footage, and declared him to be an advocate or a fan of pedophilia. Actually they didn’t even do that, they “implied” the possibility, they said such a thing is “seemingly possible.”
I flat out think not. It just does not fit. Milo has actually exposed 3 pedophiles that I know of, at least one who is now in court. He has clearly stated his opposition to the sexual abuse of children. He has addressed the issue repeatedly from several different angles, such as in this article from Sept 2015. Usually people who are invested in covering up for pedophiles are not also trying to expose them at the same time.
Ironically gay men are often the safest ones to talk to about sexual abuse, the ones most likely to understand victims, the ones most likely to be agreeable to exposing pedophiles. You don’t have to explain things to them, they already know. This is quite clearly a smear campaign, a more insidious one then the outright protesting, smashing of windows, and assaults that have occurred previously, but it is an effective one. No one will come within 200 feet of you if they suspect you “seemingly support pedophilia.” Unless you’re Salon of course, or Lena Dunham. Woody Allen. Roman Polanski…
Milo is a big boy, well-connected, and can likely take care of himself, but just the same I must speak out against this particular violent tactic because it’s just so wrong, so unjust, and so harmful to genuine victims of abuse. The threat of making some man a target of either whispered rumors of supporting sexual abuse or to imply he is a pedophile himself is just a despicable tactic, one I would genuinely like to see people criminally charged for.
That is just a grave injustice, one that I’ve seen used against men much less connected than Milo who lack the power to fight back. It’s really hard to defend yourself against rumors of how you “seemingly might approve of child sexual abuse.” You can’t fight against whispered evidence leaked into the court of public opinion and you can’t even face your accusers because you don’t even know who are. Half the time they don’t even know who you are either, they just don’t like your politics or something you’ve said or whatever.
Ironic, because genuine pedophiles should be given their day in court, the right to defend themselves,the right to face their accusers,the right to be represented, a whole slew of rights that you just don’t get in a political smear campaign. Crowd sourced violence stinks.
It breaks my heart that there are men in the world who have to live in fear of such things, that they could be falsely accused at any moment based on nothing more than gossip and rumors. People may not like Milo, may not agree with him, but there are other good men who push the envelope and risk being falsely accused of sexual abuse (or supporting sexual abuse) as a way to silence them. It is weapon being lobbed against men more and more and I fear that if we don’t address it soon, it’s going to become even more prevalent and effective then it already is.
Women are kind of protected from this, sheltered. Female privilege. Someone could start a whisper campaign that I support rape for example, and it’s just not going to stick. It doesn’t carry the same weight. For that reason alone, I think it’s so imperative that women speak out and speak up against this. We have far less to lose.
Victims of genuine abuse however, have a great deal to lose. When everyone is a pedophile, no one is anymore, and those who ask for help will no longer be heard.
See, there's this thing called biology... 
Group bullying and crowd sourced violence are one of my hot buttons too… I was just saying this last night about racism – when EVERYTHING is racist, nothing is. It takes away from the actual instances of it and takes away from actual victims who suffer from it. I don’t know about Milo, haven’t read enough on both sides to understand it, but I completely agree with your premise here that you can’t just silence groups or people you disagree with. If people would buck up and be able to have a solid argument based on facts imagine how different things would be – instead we’ve devolved into screaming little children when we don’t get our way.
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You make a really good point about racism, when everything is racist than nothing is. That’s really frustrating because it renders us powerless to address actual issues. Abuse is another word that is so overused it has begun to lose it’s power. Someone hurt my feelings or I didn’t get my latte on time is not really abuse. Conversely however, getting someone fired from their job,starting a whisper campaign, these things even though they are passive/aggressive, are actually pretty abusive.
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You hit the Bulls Eye again, IB! Bullies, gangs of bullies, that “crowd sourced violence” (love this description! May I borrow this phrase?) will never work to bring the radical transformation that God longs to bring! I’m reading a book, “Messy Grace” by Caleb Kaltenbach that shares your message. We will never win the hearts and minds of others for Jesus by pointing out, and making up stuff about others. I am reminded what Paul wrote in Romans 12:21 and from The Message it goes like this: “Don’t let evil get the best of you; get the best of evil by doing good.” Bullying, crowd sourced violence is NEVER GOOD!
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Amen, Pastor Randy!
“Messy Grace,” sounds fascinating. I am all about being a hot mess for Christ. Clean upon aisle 6! 🙂 I jest, but He meets us right where we’re at and sometimes grace is messy, radical even.
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I must admit I got caught up in this too. At first after watching that clip (a one and a half minute clip taken out of an hour long live stream if I recall correctly) I was going to bide my time and just wait to see how it all unfolds before making a fuss, but then a little comment on twitter got to me. Someone said, “Where are the Christian Republicans now? Their silence is deafening.” And although I live in Canada and therefore cannot be a republican, I do lean to the right, toward conservatism, and so I would be categorized as republican if I lived in the US. So, that comment got to me, and looking back I can’t believe it did. I retweeted the video and then share it onto one of Milo’s posts.
Looking at that tweet now, I just can’t believe that such a childish comment got me. At the time the smear campaign had only been launched a few hours ago, and already someone was saying “Where are the Christian Republicans now?” Really? The dust hasn’t even settled and already your mocking a specific group of people for not lighting their torches yet?
*sigh* Alas, peer pressure gets to me now more in the world of politics then it did back in high school. High school cliques pale in comparison to this madness. I do wish I had said, “Waiting for more facts.” That would have been a much better response to the mockery.
Thanks for sticking up for him. People love a good witch hunt, so it’s important that there are others out there who resist the hunt.
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“I live in Canada and therefore cannot be a republican..”
Somewhat funny, I misread that as, “I live in California and can’t be a Republican,” which made me laugh. Always put your reading glasses on, things will make a lot more sense. 🙂
I’ve seen some comments about where are the Republicans? Conservatives? Christians? But I never followed through to find out exactly what the complaint was. Do they want a resounding denouncement of Milo or some brotherly love? Doesn’t really matter, I think the guy needs some love, as we all do. 🙂
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I haven’t seen the entire video, but if he really was defending sexual relationships between 13 year old boys and adult men then people should indeed light those torches. Technically that is not pedophilia, which involves prepubescent children, but it isn’t something that any Christian or conservative or decent human being should be defending. I’m not sure what context could make those kinds of comments ok.
As far as the mob violence thing goes, he’s made a career and a name for himself by saying mean things about people. What goes around comes around. I hope that he isn’t going to whine about it.
I am not sure why so many conservative Christians embraced that hateful little internet troll, but I am embarrassed for them.
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He specifically mentions the age 13 to clarify with the people he was having a discussion with that they all understand what pedophilia really is. He later clarified in a face book post that in much of what he shared he was talking about his own experiences, and earlier on in the same video he agreed with the people he’s discussing the topic with that the law probably has the age of consent right. He was discussing his issue with people’s compulsion to put a “one-size-fits-all” sort of thing on some of the most complex areas of the human experience. He says in the video that he’s not assuming that because he felt he was sexually mature enough to explore such relationships at a young age that he thinks everyone should be that way.
I don’t agree with everything he said, but if you watch the unedited video (particularly from the 1:00:00 mark) and compare it to the shorter clip, it becomes obvious that it was deceptively spliced to make it sound worse than it is. It’s propaganda, really.
I haven’t even watched the whole video myself (it’s quite long and I have a terrible attention span) but I think I’ve watched enough to see that he is indeed being slandered.
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Umm… That video isn’t really going to help pull people over to his side. He even accuses the left of having a stuffy idea of consent.
This is so ironic when you consider that conservatives have been accusing the LGBT community on the left of wanting to lower age of consent laws to get legal sexual access to young boys for decades. Not to mention, that many conservatives and alt-right types are still arguing that pizzagate is not just a completely fabricated conspiracy theory, despite the lack of evidence. Now we a have gay man on the right who pays lip service to age of consent laws, but makes an argument for how a sexual relationship with a much older man might benefit a young teen boy and conservatives are defending him.
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I’m not defending the idea of older men having sex with boys (again he agrees that the age of consent is probably correct), and he later on clarifies in a facebook post that the language he uses (younger boys/older men) refers to the younger male and older male regardless of age in many gay relationships. I don’t condone any of it, but he’s being slandered. That’s the only point being made here.
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Real advocates of free speech understand the gravity of their words and that their words will sometimes have consequences. They also know how to choose their words carefully. Milo has a lot to learn.
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Milo may well have a lot to learn, but in truth he could be the worse person in the world and that would still not give people the right the right to make up false accusations and to engage in a smear campaign. As I mentioned in the post, we would protect and defend the legal rights of an actual pedophile, or at least I would, because the truth matters, justice matters, legal rights matter. It’s the thinking behind the idea that, “we don’t like this guy therefore anything we do to him is justified,” that really bothers me.
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Milo has made false accusations of many of the people he roasts, but he just says it’s free speech. Now all of a sudden, free speech is bad when it’s turned against him?
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Well, like I said in the post, I know of at least three times he actually exposed pedophiles and those weren’t false accusations at all. They were not done for the purpose of roasting anyone.
There is a big difference between roasting a public official, movie star, or a system of power, and falsely accusing an individual of a crime against children.
Free speech is a broad term that covers a multitude of things,many that can easily be labeled obscene, inappropriate, but still they are protected speech. Falsely accusing someone of a crime is not protected speech at all.
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I agree. Words and ideas being taken out of context is wrong, as well as malicious editing. All of the articles I’ve read imply that he was defending pedophilia, not that he has committed the crime of pedophilia, unless I just haven’t seen that.
On a side note, I know of many people who don’t think diddling teenagers who are sexually developed is a crime, and that makes the difference between being a pedo and not, and to that I firmly disagree with and have real concerns about.
A pedophile is someone older who takes advantage of someone underage who is mentally and emotionally vulnerable. Jared the subway guy had relations with girls who were physically developed, but he got off on the fact that they were easily manipulated, because their brains are not fully developed, and that is what makes him a pedophile.
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Unless I am missing something, his legal rights have not been violated. It isn’t like naked pictures of him were stolen and posted and for all to see (which is what he and his followers did to that actress and is the reason he was kicked off twitter) or he has been arrested for something that he said. Free speech doesn’t mean that other people can’t decide that you are the kind of person that they don’t want to be associated with. Free speech works both ways. He used his and other people used theirs.
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I think your comments reveal a problem that concerns me. We’re so quick to judge that the evidence doesn’t even matter. You yourself said you never even watched the video and you’ve condemned the man.
Milo actually never hacked Leslie Jones account. Her account was hacked and the items were posted on her personal website, not twitter. That incident had nothing to do with Milo or twitter. Milo actually spoke out against that incident and sent his support to her, stating in several places, “I was distressed to hear that Leslie Jones has been hacked and naked pictures of her have been posted online. I know we had our differences after my review of Ghostbusters but I wish her all the best during what must be a very traumatic experience”
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“A pedophile is someone older who takes advantage of someone underage who is mentally and emotionally vulnerable. Jared the subway guy had relations with girls who were physically developed, but he got off on the fact that they were easily manipulated, because their brains are not fully developed, and that is what makes him a pedophile.”
This is false, and thats one of the points Milo was making. A pedophile, properly speaking, according to the strict dictionary and medical definition, is someone who is attracted to prepubescent children. This is what Milo was getting at when talking about misuse of the word. You are simply arbitrarily defining pedophilia to mean whatever you disapprove of, whereas the real meaning is exactly what Milo refers to, a sexual attraction to actual children (whether acted upon or not).
Milo made an important point: Jared the subway guy was actually NOT a pedophile if he got off on girls who were physically developed, because pedophilia ACTUALLY means getting off on girls who are still physically UNDeveloped (JonBenet Ramsey may well have been killed by a GENUINE Pedo). subway Jared may be a creep, a criminal, and a pervert, but he’s not, strictly speaking, a pedo if he’s into post pubertal bodies.
I am not a Milo fan in general. I have a lot of problems with his exhibitionism and his whole act, which I find annoying. But a witch hunt is a witch hunt, and it’s clear to me now that the video was indeed selectively edited with the purpose of misleading the public as to what he was actually saying.
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“Milo has made false accusations of many of the people he roasts, but he just says it’s free speech. Now all of a sudden, free speech is bad when it’s turned against him?”
What exactly are these many false accusations that Milo has made? Be specific. I have often found him to be unnecessarily rude and crude, but I can’t recall any outright lies about anyone. By the way, anyone can sue him for slander if he actually has lied about them.
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I appreciate your support of Milo and your willingness to look at him honestly. Nobody really has to like him or approve of his behavior, but it is encouraging to know there are people in the world willing to look beneath the narrative and question it.
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Thanks, IB, for putting up a post I should have tapped out yesterday. NEO beat me to this as well… although I should have been moving faster and feel a tinge of shame for not doing so. (I think it’s shame, I’m not sure what that feels like so I’m a bit off the map here.) Milo is a powerful weapon in the war for Freedom. The Followers of Force believe they own the ‘under 30 crowd’. Milo is putting that to the test… and the hate him for it as evidenced by the crowds of cheering rioters found wherever he goes. But as usual, a subset who are supposedly on our side representing everything Liberty and Freedom show their true colors once again. You would think we would learn, and maybe we are but it is taking far too long. Milo has been clear, and unless you have other issues you really don’t want to address or admit, the information is available for all to see. We must stop allowing others to edit, in omission and or presentation, the information we digest and lead us to conclusions they desire us to have. That makes us useful… not intelligent.
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“We must stop allowing others to edit, in omission and or presentation, the information we digest and lead us to conclusions they desire us to have.”
A big amen to that, Mike. Another word for that would be brainwashing, thought policing, something that begins to take on a very creepy sci/fi element. Honest to goodness, people could be thinking all wrong, but as long as they are engaging in some critical thought, I’m grateful. It’s the mindless parroting of narratives that really bothers me.
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Ugh, the alt left is stopping to new lows….Just incredible the vitriol that is running rampant….praying….praying….praying for JESUS to return! Come quickly LORD!!!
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Yes, the amount of venom is pretty awful.
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Where were the complaints about venom when Milo was being venomous? Why was it OK when he was leading the charge against that actress and any number of other people but when it happens, to a lesser extent, to him it is so sad and awful and Jesus come quickly. LOL.
He has not really been misrepresented. Many people mistakenly call adult sexual relationships with someone below the age of consent “pedophilia” even though that is not the definition of that word. However when someone is defending sexual relationships between adult men and teenage boys and the only argument you can make in his defense involves semantics, splitting hairs and misconstrued applications of free speech then you don’t have much of a defense.
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“Why was it OK when he was leading the charge against that actress …’
The “charge” against that actress was that she starred in a remake of Ghost busters that nobody really liked. There is a huge difference between objecting to propaganda over a movie and personally targeting someone with false allegations of child abuse for the sole purpose of silencing them.
One is protected speech, the other is not.
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“However when someone is defending sexual relationships between adult men and teenage boys and the only argument you can make in his defense involves semantics, splitting hairs and misconstrued applications of free speech then you don’t have much of a defense.”
It’s not splitting hairs. The video is deceptively edited, period. For instance, at one point he discusses university profs who have relationships with their students, and then immediately segues into a comparison with older gay men having relationships with young guys or “boys,” which he admitted in his Facebook post was a poor choice of words. So he is clearly referring here to gay college age “boys” sometimes benefitting from a relationship with an older man. But the video was edited in such a way as to leave out the first part and then splice with the discussion of 13 year olds. When he was singing the praises of age gap relationships, he was talking about guys above the current age of consent: hence the reference to college students.
Evidently you don’t quite grasp what legitimate “free speech” entails. People DO have the right to expect that their speech will not be distorted and misrepresented. Milo says some shocking and provocative things here – and I don’t agree with all of it – but that is why it’s all the more important for his words to be conveyed and reported accurately. The falsified video and the hortendously inaccurate coverage in the MSM failed to do so.
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I think your comments reveal a problem that concerns me. We’re so quick to judge that the evidence doesn’t even matter. You yourself said you never even watched the video and you’ve condemned the man.
Milo actually never hacked Leslie Jones account. Her account was hacked and the items were posted on her personal website, not twitter. That incident had nothing to do with Milo or twitter. Milo actually spoke out against that incident and sent his support to her, stating in several places, “I was distressed to hear that Leslie Jones has been hacked and naked pictures of her have been posted online. I know we had our differences after my review of Ghostbusters but I wish her all the best during what must be a very traumatic experience”
I condemned him based on his own words, which I just listened to in context. And of course his well documented words and actions color my opinion of him.
I followed him on twitter before he was banned and he did indeed encourage people to harass Leslie Jones. We don’t know who actually hacked her personal accounts unless there has been an arrest and conviction that I missed. He may have spoken out against it later, in the same way that he paid lip service to age of consent laws in that video, but it was quite clear where he stands on it.
I don’t let people off the hook on technicalities. Well “technically” he said that the age of consent laws were ok after he talked about how great a sexual relationship between a 13 year old and an adult man can be. “Technically” he didn’t say hack Leslie Jones, he just encouraged people to harass her. Clearly that’s enough for you, to support and defend someone. I personally find that problematic.
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Justice should never be based on who someone is and whether you like them or not. So basically what you’re saying is that it was a horrible, appalling thing that people didn’t like Leslie Jones’ movie and that someone hacked her account in the cloud, but it’s okay for Milo to be falsely accused of supporting pedophiles,financially attacked, have his speaking engagements canceled, his book contracts nixed, and a well funded media campaign launched against him, all because you don’t like him.
That’s not how right and wrong works, that’s not justice, that’s actually vigilantism.
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1. Milo did not simply dislike a movie and say so. Again I read his tweets and they were vile and often racist. His actions were indefensible, even by twitter standards, which is why he was banned.
2. Milo is not being falsely accused of supporting pedophiles. His comments were technically in support of pederasty, a seldom used word for which most people substitute pedophilia. They may have gotten the word wrong, but the meaning is clear and his words are there for all to hear in context. I read the articles about this and it was clear they were talking about young teens, not prepubescent children even when they used the wrong word. How even had they used pederasty, that doesn’t really help his cause with decent people.
3. He isn’t being “financially attacked”. I doubt that they’ve stolen his identity, cancelled his credit cards and blocked his access to his bank accounts. LOL
Birds of a feather flock together. Others have decided that they don’t want to be associated with that kind of bird. That means that they don’t want to invite him to speak or publish his book. That is actually part of the freedom of speech that we are both in favor of.
There is no injustice here. He made his money by making shocking remarks. Now he is losing money because of his shocking remarks. He was rude to people. Now people are being rude to him. A man reaps what he sows and God is not mocked. Where is the injustice?
BTW – he just resigned from Breitbart.
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“2. Milo is not being falsely accused of supporting pedophiles. His comments were technically in support of pederasty, a seldom used word for which most people substitute pedophilia. They may have gotten the word wrong, but the meaning is clear and his words are there for all to hear in context. I read the articles about this and it was clear they were talking about young teens, not prepubescent children even when they used the wrong word. How even had they used pederasty, that doesn’t really help his cause with decent people.”
This isn’t exactly true. In one discussion, he defended the sexual,experience he himself had at 13 and insists he was not damaged by it, now this I don’t agree with. However, it is still the case that the video was very deceptively edited, because at another point he mentions college students and profs, then segues straight into praise for (some) age gap relations among gays, but the context makes clear he is talking NOW about twentyish guys hooking up with older men. He is no longer referring to 13 year olds here, therefore it is wrong to call this a defence of pedophilia. The video making the rounds was carefully and mendaciously edited to make it appear as if the reference to college age youths was still a discussion of younger teens, when he was actually NOW talking about young guys just over the age of consent. That is not pedophilia regardless of wthether you approve of it or not.
So, actually, yes, he IS being falsely accused of supporting pedophiles.
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@insanitybytes22
Well, I am not a fan of the Milo. Just not a fan of the witty rude and crude. However, I have far more disdain for those bearing false witness. So I congratulate you for defending the man from what you believe are false charges.
This article (=> http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/feb/20/milo-yiannopoulos-disinvited-cpac/) says the Reagan Battalion was behind the smearing (if that it was) of Milo. If that is the case, then that group is not what it pretends to be. Surprise! Surprise! Here is an article (=> http://www.dailydot.com/layer8/reagan-battalion-milo-yiannopoulos-never-trump/) about the Reagan Battalion. My guess is that it would be more interesting to investigate the chicanery of the people behind that group than whatever Milo is actually guilty of doing.
We all have the right to know the name of our accuser. In this case, some people who should know better are just looking at “the seriousness of the the charge” and running for cover. That’s what I call chicken.
That said, I think CPAC made a mistake when it invited Milo. When CPAC offers someone the opportunity to speak, it is offering that someone a leadership role. Of course we should respect the rights of homosexuals, but it is just silly to give a flagrant homosexual, atheist and provocateur a leadership role at a Conservative conference. Even if Milo is not a pedophile, most Conservatives would not want anything to do with that Drunken Peasants video.
Milo may not be opposed to our values, but he does not share many of the values we hold most dear. He may be a Libertarian, but he is no Rand Paul. Conservatism has to stand for more than just ticking off Liberals.
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Thank you Tom, much appreciated.
I think any of us would be wise to research and study how these things go down and who funds them. It may be Milo today, but tomorrow it could be someone much closer to us.
I agree with you, CPAC had no business inviting him. Once invited however, they had no business cutting him loose. It is not as if they did not know who he is, so I view their behavior as fickle and unethical. They’re fine with him when the winds are favorable,but flee when the boat starts rocking. That’s a real problem with politicians.
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Yep!
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Breaking News 2:25pm CT on Fox News Channel, Milo has resigned.
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Bummer.
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This controversy continues in an article at http://www.politico.com/story/2017/02/cpac-conservatives-milo-yiannopoulos-235251. I ask, what happened to free speech?
Some people choose to be offended where there is no intended offense but is a misunderstanding some people choose to misunderstand to fan the flames and fuel the fire. People speak English, but it is as if not all English speaking people are speaking the same language. What one person means is of different meaning to another person. I can say, “I noticed the sky is a beautiful deep blue today.” One might reply, “Finally the clouds are gone.” An accurate observation. But another person hearing that might reply to me, “You must be in a really sad mood.” What?! Some people hear what they want to hear or in what they believe to be hidden meanings or interpreting differently rather than what is said and what is meant.
Perhaps related to that oddity, every time the far right gripes about the far left for a particular issue, it results in the far left and that issue getting free publicity that ends up benefiting the far left and that issue than exposure reducing or stopping it. Sometimes bad things need to be exposed. Other times that exposure benefits the bad things. Lack of exposure and they might die out from lack of interest. I recall long ago a powerful church group in Wichita Kansas protested sales of Playboy at convenience stores they targeted. News of it boosted sales of Playboy instead of reducing or stopping sales. They never learn. Of course, the far left is just as guilty of doing the same thing to the far right. Don’t give an enemy or issue free exposure in such a way as to to gain followers for the enemy or issue.
My point on the current issue, although I’m somewhat familiar with Breitbart News for other reasons, I’d not heard of Milo Yiannopoulos until this controversy exploded across the Internet and to some extent TV cable news between brief gaps of Trump obsession. So Milo is now known to more people than before. Perhaps Breitbart News too. He’s got enough exposure now to start his own news outlet. Perhaps he should. Then he can further clarify what he really meant that got him into trouble. Perhaps he chose the wrong words causing a misunderstanding. If he is silenced, the misunderstanding stands. Otherwise he can still choose the right words, or the left words instead of the wrong words. Freedom of speech.
Politico reported, “Yiannopoulos is a leading figure of the alt-right movement and a prominent supporter of Donald Trump. He has made a career out of offending liberals and has always weathered past controversies. But the emergence of his comments on pedophilia has prompted his conservative allies to turn on him, precipitating a rapid fall from grace. He announced at his press conference that he plans to start a new media venture in the coming weeks.” Milo said, “My full focus is now going to be on entertaining and educating everyone, left, right and otherwise. If you want to brand or stereotype me, good luck with that,” Yiannopoulos said. “America has a colossal free speech problem, I’m proud to be a warrior for free speech.” That I agree with. BRAVO!
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Yiannopoulos, who joined Breitbart as technology editor in 2015, came under fire after emergence of an old tape that apparently shows him advocating for sexual relationships between “younger boys and older men.” Yiannopoulos addressed his resignation at a press conference, arguing that while he believes the tapes that led to his resignation were deceptively edited, he was “certainly guilty of imprecise language.” Further at the press conference, he said, “To repeat: I do not support child abuse. I am sorry to other abuse victims who may have interpreted my statements as flippant.”
After my father apparently* died at age 50 when I was age 12 [*no body in his grave], a few men dated my mother and tried to be like fathers to me, and other men tried to be like big brothers to me. Then at age 14 I was pressured to join one of two…
DeMolay, fraternal organization for young men now ages 12 to 21 – was 14 to 18 in 1970 when I was 14. It was named for Jacques de Molay, last Grand Master of the Knights Templar. Each chapter must be sponsored by a local masonic body or some other group composed exclusively of masons. It was a Shriner who dated my mother who pressured me. Before a man can become a Shriner, he must become a Freemason. In fact, if you look carefully at the full name — Ancient Arabic Order of the Nobles of the Mystic Shrine — you can rearrange the letters A.A.O.N.M.S. and spell “A MASON.” All Shriners are Freemasons, but not all Freemasons become Shriners. The male adult leaders at DeMolay required members to refer to them as “Dad” – for which I was not too keen since my “dad” had departed. Further I disliked all the words they demanded I memorize and recite like religious fanatics. Worse, the 16-year-old male assigned to be like a brig brother guide for me turned out to be gay. He tried. I rejected it. I forgave him. I began to notice many other members are gay or engage in sexual abuse as a kind of hazing. This is not for me, I concluded, so I then focused on the other one of two choices being pushed on me…
I became a member of BSA Motorcycle Explorer Post 770. Very blue jeans casual, no Boy Scouts or Explorer uniforms, and I liked that. I’ve never been a uniform or suit-and-tie guy. There has been in more recent years the controversy of letting gays into the Boy Scouts. Seriously? Many of the adult male leaders are already gay, or bisexual, or otherwise like to sexually abuse boys. Small size for my age, I finally found an outdoor sport I could do – and then discovered I could do very well. Off road trails riding, cross-country racing and motocross, and I loved hill climbing events. My next door neighbor, a different Shriner than the one dating my mother, gave me my first job – eventually became my first profession of 10 years repairing coin-operated amusement games, including service calls on juke boxes in bars and clubs 1976 age 20 to 1986 age 30. He helped me to get a bank loan to buy my first motorcycle, required for membership, and he became one of the adult leaders of the Explorer Post. The primary adult leader, married with children, very rich owner of a tractor manufacturing company, turned out to be bisexual or turned gay – not only males his age but also teens. He’d been sexually abusing a 14-year-old member and no one dared to report it or stop him. I was sent to repair a foosball table in the basement game room of his home. There, he tried to give me a hand job. Big mistake. I gave him a scar on the side of his head from applying half of a broken foosball rod. He never bothered me again after that for fear of me reporting it to police, and I remained in the Explorer Post. I stood my ground. He respected that, as did others who somehow knew about him. Lyrics from a favorite song, “If that cat could talk, what tales he’d tell, about Della and the Dealer and the dog as well. But the cat was cool, and he never said a mumblin’ word.”
My employer started sending me on service calls to gay bars because I was the only employee who didn’t fear gays. I knew they wouldn’t dare harm any service people willing to service their bars. As a fan of science fiction, especially Robert A. Heinlein (who I corresponded with via his wife Virginia before his death), and Spider Robinson, I became very open-minded to “alien” ways of life. Each to their own way of life, I believe, but that does not mean I embrace other ways of life. I prefer my own way, my own kind of people. No offense, but with some humor, I’ve thought of gays as being like aliens. I can work well with most anyone if they do a good job. I don’t care what they do to each other after work, as long as they are not doing it to me. As result of my open-mindedness and because I never married, I was many times accused of being gay, even by relatives and old friends who should have known better. Those 10 years 1976-1986, I dated and had sex with enough women to last 10 lifetimes. My social life meshed well with service calls at straight bars and nightclubs where I met most of the women I dated, until I got my first bleeding stomach ulcers. Then had to quit drinking alcoholic beverages and change professions. My views didn’t change. I was born into a Republican family in the oil business. Most friends, coworkers and employers were Democrats – they treated me right. Finding myself in the middle, I became an Independent Centrist similar to Libertarians.
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Thanks for telling your story Jim and for being so on top of it when it comes to current affairs. I feel richer having bumped into you, and blessed to read your words.
When I was a kid I was actually going to marry Robert A. Heinlein. Madly in love, terrible crush. Perhaps I still do. Alas, he was much older than me, already married, and than he died, but our romance lives on 🙂
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What I witnessed back then and over the years, amounts to adults and others in positions of authority or leadership engaging in abuse of power – to take advantage of people in vulnerable positions. So much of it is more about power than about sex. My research into adult fraternal orders and college fraternities found sexual abuse more in the form of hazing than done as gays. However, I was shocked by what I found women doing to each other in some college sororities, significantly worse than what the men do to each other. In the case of the women, it includes brainwashing to convince the victims that such sexual activities (abuse) is normal, and if they don’t accept it then they are not normal and will never fit in – never be accepted – never have any success in life. Even worse, some make videos of the abuse and post them on the Internet, which has resulted in a few being prosecuted. In the justice system, women abusing women and girls is of less concern than men abusing women and girls or other men and boys. However, prosecutions of female teachers having sex with male students is on the increase – including here in Oklahoma. In ancient times, of Rome and Greece, such things were an acceptable way of life. Not surprising some present day abusers reach into that history for justification and examples to follow.
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“However, I was shocked by what I found women doing to each other in some college sororities, significantly worse than what the men do to each other.”
I hear you. Women can be special sometimes. What can I say.
I think Milo’s real “crime,” his social faux pas, had a whole lot to do with hinting at the relationship between child sexual abuse and homosexuality. Often people are groomed into assorted issues, and if we were willing to be honest about it, we would acknowledge that some of the damage that is done can involve completely distorting and perverting a victim’s sexuality.
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ya know…I told a friend just the other day…” hell must be freezing over..why am I finding myself agreeing with a young gay Jew who is British …?????”
Milo is pretty much totally outside of my wheelhouse…I’ve never listened to him nor knew nothing about him until most recently. It was all due to the fact that I became totally unglued over that Cal Berkley mess and when I learned that it was basically all because of this Milo chap, the same fellow who seems to be causing similar responses in places he’s scheduled to speak…well I dug a little bit, watched a couple of interviews…and thought this kid is not stupid…in fact, I find myself agreeing with a good bit of what he was saying in the interview. But now an interview is a far cry from stand up improv sort of talk…so in another setting I’m certain I’d find him totally repulsive…but then again I find much of SNL repulsive….I don’t know…
but what I do know is that if he is invited to speak, and folks agree to want to hear him speak and if what he speaks about is “protected” by a freedom to speak…despite it perhaps not being “popular” or endearing to others…well, he should be given the right just like those idiots who keep marching and calling everyone who is not one of them a fascist….
just saying…
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Thanks, Julie. I am laughing a bit here too, I never in million years thought I’d be defending the gay Brit with the potti mouth, but the guy is smart, he has something valuable to say, and the amount of venom being dumped on him is just unjust.
Right is still right, wrong is still wrong. What can I say 🙂
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exactly!!!
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EXTREMISM – on any ‘side’ is dangerous. Indeed, the ONLY justifiable extremist view is going ‘overboard’ in devotion to Jesus Christ.
Reconsideration: even there, some crusaders are as misguided as radical Islamic terrorists.
So, back to the original – EXTREMISM – on any ‘side’ is dangerous.
Sadly, Extremists tend to be too set in their ways to ever listen to, much less objectively evaluate, ANY thoughts or criticisms perceived as opposition to their ideology. All they hear is nonsensical rhetoric. Truth and facts mean nothing to them, because they’ve already determined that the only fact that matters is that they disagree. They do not want to know the truth, they live to resent truth.
To Extremists ‘facts’ are NEVER concrete, absolute, or universal; they’re always open to private interpretation. To them, propaganda is as reliable as scripture, which is just as readily misinterpreted by them. But how they love to quote it when they think it appropriately supports their tweaked reality. Reminding true Christians what Christians are, without being Christians themselves.
According to Extremist’s logic ‘Fake News’ isn’t fake because it is written or broadcast by ‘real’ people – which is a FACT, therefore, how can it be fake? They seem to equate the act of reporting as evidence that whatever is reported is factual! ‘Progressive’ is for them, defined as ‘moving beyond’- in this case, the realm of feasibility, or acceptability, or accountability.
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This was primarily a conservative hit-job, remember. This would never have happened if he hadn’t been scheduled to speak at CPAC. That annoyed a large contingent of conservatives of all stripes, ranging from movement conservatives to people like Rod Dreher. One of them went digging to find something to spring into the limelight (which isn’t that hard to do with Milo) in order to get him scratched from the CPAC event. The discussion in question was not recent, it was 14 months or so ago, and it was not hidden somewhere. But the very bright light was cast on it now because a lot of conservatives did not want him speaking at CPAC and were very, very annoyed that he was on the agenda. So they sprang him, basically. It’s ironic that some of the same conservatives who like to yammer about how free speech is restricted by people doing things like canning Brendan Eich turn around and do the same thing to Milo Yiannopoulos, but that’s the world today.
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“…but that’s the world today…”
Likely true, but it still stinks. Milo is on my heart and in my prayers.
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Reblogged this on Let me give YOU the Moe-down.
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Thank you, much appreciated.
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I can honestly say I am not a big Milo fan although he and I do agree on quite a few things. I did follow this story and was fascinated, as I usually am, at how the fascist Lynch mob did everything they could to ruin him just because he doesn’t “think proper thoughts.”
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exposecoverupsblog.wordpress.com
A Lieutenant General that covered up child sex abuse and still has his job
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Important – thanks, IB.
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Thanks, Maria.
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That was a well written piece, thank you.
To clarify for some people when Milo was talking about consent he was referring to how bad consent laws between ADULTS, specifically in college, have gotten.
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Correct.
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Good post. I’m not a fan of Milo but I think you are right on calling out the crowd source violence and misrepresentation done by others. It’s evil and we need to call out the bullies for what they are.
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IB: You might find this article in Crisis Magazine interesting.
http://www.crisismagazine.com/2017/now-everyone-cares-pederasty
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Thank you Eavan, much appreciated. That’s an awesome article and really speaks to the heart of the matter.
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Late to comment, but great post. I find most people outraged have never listened to even a one hour lecture of Milo’s.
Love your post, as it points out, it’s not necessary. I have yet to put my feelings to words on the entire thing.
But you did a wonderful job. As someone who survived child sexual abuse, values free speech, and finds value in what Milo does and can’t help but like the guy, thanks.
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