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Freedom Is a Tricky Thing
“The Republican Party is broken,” writes Brandi Love, a self-identified “Conservative PornStar who writes for the Federalist,” according to her Twitter bio. Brandi was an attendee of Turning Point USA’s Student Action Summit. A conservative gathering for the young, hip, and constitutionally-minded designed to galvanize future conservative leaders. The summit features many of the stars of the conservative movement from the Daily Wire’s Michael Knowles to Dr. Ben Carson.
According to the TPUSA website:
Turning Point USA’s Student Action Summit is an invite-only event primarily intended for students between the ages of 15 and 26. If you are an adult wishing to attend, we have a limited number of adult tickets available.
Brandi Love was the holder of one of those limited adult tickets.
She publicized that she would be going live from her hotel at the conference on her website onlybrandi.com. She added she would be doing so, “behind the paywall of my OnlyFans (So we don’t offend the low T white nationalist religious zealots.)”
She later had her invitation revoked, and the chasm between what Brandi defines as “conservatives” and “social conservatives” was revealed.
She accused Twitter commenters who disagreed with her of “once again mixing Social Conservatism and Conservatism.”
The question arises, is there a viable conservative movement that precludes social conservatism?
You can spot a TPUSA student from a mile away in their “Big Gov Sucks” masks and hip t-shirts with slogans like “save the bees and the republic.” Self-described, TPUSA is the “community organizers of the right.” The end goal, according to their mission, is the promotion of freedom.
Freedom is a tricky thing. It is seen as both a means and an end. Freedom is a prerequisite for a moral society, and simultaneously it is impossible to maintain freedom without a moral populace.
The question to wrestle with is why be free? If freedom itself is the aim, then it feels disingenuous to exclude Brandi Love from the TPUSA event. In the most basic meaning of the word, shouldn’t she be free to attend? This is the hypocrisy Brandi has taken to Twitter to point out.
Perhaps, we as conservatives have made a mistake in our messaging– inviting more into the fold and expanding the conservative base at the risk of losing the soul of what we set out to do.
What did we set out to do?
Win elections? By all means, bring in as many people as possible. It’s a numbers game and we need them all.
Beat the Democrats? Again, a numbers game. Bring them all on.
Restore human decency, order, and alignment with creation? We have slipped off track.
Freedom itself is not an end; it’s a doorway. There are many things I do not want the freedom to do:
The freedom to take a life.
The freedom to abuse a child.
The freedom to buy and sell my sexuality and the sexuality of others.
As our founders knew, to pursue the highest life, we needed freedom. But what good is freedom if it is used to justify baseness?
The natural end of the libertarian leanings of the conservative movement is virtueless anarchy–a world where we not only allow, but accommodate and support that which we know to be destructive.
There is a balance to strike between supporting the freedom of others, while not allowing what they do with their freedom to define the entire movement. There is the possibility for nuance. That is, as long as we are honest about our aims.
I aim for a high-minded society (that is, a society working to create heaven on earth) full of healthy people working in conjunction with creation and the creator. Freedom is a wonderful vehicle for that aim.
The totalitarian Soviet Union denied their citizens freedom which prevented them from achieving a higher ideal. In that case, freedom was still a doorway, and once it shut, the people were hard-pressed to rise above depravity.
But freedom is a doorway, nonetheless, on the way to something bigger than even freedom itself. There lies the rallying call of the conservative movement. It is a call to restore order–a call to connect to higher ideals.
Perhaps the message isn’t simply “come as you are,” but rather, “come as you are and then get better.” We can ask each other to enter the doorway of freedom and then keep walking. In that way, the movement is not a fold that holds as many sheep as possible, but rather a launching pad to a more meaningful life.
The religious world is also stuck in the doorway, grappling with the same problem as the conservative movement. The youth in the faith have had enough of “coffee house Christianity” and the like. They see through the baseless and easygoing self-help teachings and are begging to move past the elementary — to be pushed, to expand their knowledge, and to aim higher.
The modern church thought it would bring in more people if the church more resembled everywhere else. In doing so, they have destroyed the sanctity of the Holy Spaces and reduced the pursuit of faith to Chicken Soup for the Soul. (A book I loved as a young girl, by the way, but no substitute for in-depth spiritual studies.)
The conservative movement, like the church, has attempted to behave like the audience they want to reach in an effort to grow the base. In doing so, the members they recruit are denied any opportunities for growth, challenge, and pursuit of higher ideals.
Comfort and weak-minded inclusion of all ideas is the best friend who justifies your drinking problem. She expresses friendship but ensures you never overcome your addiction.
This is, of course, a more ideological than political discussion. Many conservatives embrace the big tent philosophy to win elections. But the conservative movement does not end (or even begin) at the ballot box.
This is not an argument to avoid allyship. As the common saying goes, “the enemy of my enemy is my friend.” I believe that wholeheartedly. I love to see the unexpected alliances rising to defeat damaging Marxist ideas and their various manifestations. I pursue these allyships, as we all should. But if our movement is unable to be inclusive while simultaneously holding our standards, then what good do we offer the people we are including anyway?
What good is a conservative movement that doesn’t address the whole of a human being–political, spiritual, economic, relational?
If conservatism doesn’t stand for the American family–an institution proven over and over again to benefit us and our neighbors, then why have a movement?
If conservatism can’t stand for the sacredness of human sexuality, then why have a movement?
If the conservative movement is just about electing the right people, or worse, a cloaked and seductive march towards anarchy, then why have a movement?
As we become wrapped up in the game of growth, the game of numbers, we have to stay connected to why we do what we do–to what end?
I argue that freedom alone is not a satisfying end.
Of course, our founders took for granted that freedom would provide the platform for the more important work of maintaining a moral society deserving of that freedom in the first place. The opinions of the faith were so commonplace they were considered self-evident. In fact, the faith of early Americans is what made freedom self-evident.
But freedom is a tricky thing, and what we do with it matters.
Mikayla Goetz is a renegade actress turned conservative storyteller. Since receiving her B.F.A. in Theatre Arts from Coastal Carolina University, Mikayla has worked as a story developer, writer, and consultant with armed service members, veterans, and Jewish-Ukrainian refugees. She has led the development of plays, film work, community initiatives, and an audio series. Mikayla is the Host of the SomethingBurger Podcast and a regular voice on AM 950-Orlando.
Published in Culture
The question of “who jumped ship” depends on what you see as the “ship” in this extended metaphor.
Me too! And I wrote it. That’s the fun of a good conversation!
She was talking about the Coalitions in the GOP not playing like a team. And I wasn’t sure that was totally true. We played as a team until Trump. And I think we worked as a team because the most unsportsmanlike of us were getting their way.
Once they stopped getting their way, they threw a fit.
I have a sibling like that.
There’s less of that kind of talk too. 90’s vs now – no contest. The dynamic is more open than it used to be.
A lot of that is because the divide between the citizen class and the political class is wider than ever.
It’s like our elected leaders have decided we’re not really their constituents. The ones they really need to please are the media, the corporate lobbyists, the globalists . . . and we’re kind of in their way.
I don’t think this case, a narcissistic porn actress trying to attend a conservative event, is a good case study for this situation.
There are many freedom-loving conservatives. The ones I can live without are the David French types.
The other faction is the frauds who use the party for globalism corporatism and world policing.
DJT was the sweet spot. While not himself pretending he was a moral role model, he championed the policies, knowing that’s better for the country.
But the real threat to conservatives of all stripes, is leftism which has taken over corporations to the point we have a new kind of fascism. Corporations control the government now, notably media corporations have adopted and empowered the Democratic Party as their weapon.
If this isn’t addressed, there will be no freedom to ‘conserve’ anything.
This discussion is whistling past the graveyard. Very 90’s.
Really well done.
I’d call it more of a parasitic/host symbiosis. Corporate fascism, oligarchy, rule by elites — whatever you call it, it isn’t good for ordinary citizens or the country as a whole.
Hear ya’ brother.
There’s got to be an Ahoy joke in here somewhere.
In the act of galvanizing young conservatives, some social conservatism might have (ahem) rubbed off on Ms Love.
Regardless, she paid for a VIP package and my understanding was that she was going to be sharing her experiences with her fans via her existing communication channels. If, that method of sharing were of the pornographic variety that impugned TPUSA then I concede they would have a cause for action. I am just not seeing it.
–That was hard (oops, I mean difficult), the many many double entendres that exist when talking about actual pornographic performers make it hard (difficult) to type an actual comment with a straight face.
Same-same.
For example, I tend to be libertarian on porn, in theory. But every jot and tittle of @westernchauvinist #81 is 100% true.
One of the big problems I see is that “fiscally conservative” doesn’t really match with “socially liberal” because “socially liberal” gets VERY EXPENSIVE.
The biggest problem we seem to get from that is the building impression that it’s okay to vote against that candidate the next time around, because they’re so personally icky, even if the other side has fielded someone much worse such as a Biden.
I think it’s worth emphasizing that the part that bolted is the much smaller share, and always has been.
The problem is that labeling “compassionate conservative” implies that most/other conservatives/conservatism ISN’T.
Better to find a way to show that conservatism really is compassionate, always, rather than some exception.
AKA, what WC wrote in #86.
I agree. I think a lot of the need for those on the Right to criticize Trump for his character flaws (who doesn’t have them?) was to make sure that none of that ick rubbed off on them. Otherwise, it was completely fruitless, since it was never going to change who Trump is.
Really? I think using it as a descriptor drives people away. Who wants to belong to a group that has a compassionate variant?
Assuming it is reality is another matter. We should do that.
Everybody is compassionate to their own. Being compassionate to humans is different.
Stopping illegal immigrants because we lack compassion for them is not going to take us anywhere good.
The more compassionate thing would be to show them how to, and help them to, make their home countries better.
Who is this “we” you speak of? Those who believe it’s out-of-bounds to criticize Trump for anything at all?
You, or anyone else, shouldn’t be getting any sort of “building impression” from what I said. Please don’t invent penumbrae of meaning that don’t exist. If I meant to say, “next time, vote against the candidate you think is personally icky, even if the other side has fielded someone much worse,” you’d have received that message from me loud and clear. Trust me.
I’m not sure you read the entirety of my comment, but I think you sorta made the point of it for me.
Not the point I was making. And in that case, “we” means the country as a whole.
But I can see why others might hesitate to “reply” to your comments, you seem to take things personally.
If, in this environment, that is basically war, one shouldn’t be in any mood to pile on with petty criticisms. You may well be trying to express objectivity with valid and nuanced critiques, but you are helping the enemy because they care not a whit to give you credit for balanced views, they will just use your example to trash people who defend Trump as being in a cult of personality, and use your example as a cudgel.
As a prisoner of war, an analogy not too far from reality, we resolve not to give the enemy propaganda fodder. So even if I hate hot dogs and think baseball is boring and stupid, I will not engage in that conversation with my captors to bond with them so they don’t see Americans as monolithic.
And tell me this isn’t war.
Very good analogy. Long ago, when I was at USAFA, one of the things I was required to memorize is the US Code of Conduct. It was changed in 1988, so if I am called upon to recite it I remember the 1984 version.
It does explain your analogy as well as explain why some conservatives get so frustrated with Never Trumpers. See for yourself.
Every time a purported conservative agrees or commiserates with the left they are making an “oral or written statement … harmful to the cause.”
The left never does that.
Fiscal conservatives I have known don’t mind the expense. They just want to pay for it with more taxes. Which means leveraging more debt.
That’s the kind of thing I meant, yes.
Also, Jonah likes to say things such as that criticizing the sitting president is different, because “the election is over” etc. But that ignores that building up opposition towards the sitting president still makes it harder to pass legislation etc, and also – as I mentioned earlier but She seemed to think I was somehow referring to her personally – builds up a case that it’s acceptable to not support their re-election because, after all, they’re so dumb or whatever.
Well, guess what, Jonah (and fellow travelers): When Trump was up for election in 2016, and re-election in 2020, the primaries were over!
Jonah also conflates things like opposing the nomination of Harriet Miers to SCOTUS because she’s not really qualified, and saying repeatedly that Trump is “unfit to be President,” “loathsome,” etc.
I don’t see evidence of this in our political class.
Besides, what they inevitably dress up as compassion and justice is rarely ever compassionate or just.
Does he really? I haven’t listened to him for a few years. Not very logical for someone so educated. Could it be he’s just a shill and propagandist for his cause?
Imagine Trump nominating his family lawyer for SCOTUS. The arrogance of the Bush family knows no limits. Running Jeb in 2016? I still can’t believe it.
That point is mentioned again in the clip I’ve made available in the past.
https://www.adrive.com/public/b667dv/Remnant%20with%20Jonah%20Goldberg%2003-15-18%20clips%20Hillary's%20Pillory%2C%20Lamb's%20Slaughter.mp3
You can’t control spending with political will anymore. The problem is, spending props up the economy. This is the end game for inflationism which the GOP should have stopped in the 90s.