Milo to be Keynote Speaker at CPAC

 

CPAC has announced that this year’s keynote speaker will be Milo Yiannopoulos, the controversial Breitbart editor whose talk was shut down earlier this month through violence at the University of California at Berkeley.

Yiannopoulos told The Hollywood Reporter that he will discuss his “experiences in America battling feminists, Black Lives Matter, the media, professors and the entertainment industry.”

…According to The Hollywood Reporter, those protests are part of the reason CPAC Chairman Matt Schlapp decided to host Yiannopoulos as the meeting’s keynote speaker.

“An epidemic of speech suppression has taken over college campuses,” Schlapp said. “Milo has exposed their liberal thuggery and we think free speech includes hearing Milo’s important perspective.”

Yiannopoulos appeared on HBO’s “Real Time with Bill Maher” on Friday, where he sparred with the show’s liberal host and took aim at high-profile female celebrities, including Lena Dunham and Amy Schumer.

The Conservative Political Action Conference will be held February 22-25, just outside of Washington at National Harbor, MD.

The first CPAC in 1974 featured Ronald Reagan as the keynote speaker. Gay conservative groups were banned from having a booth at the conference until last year.

Exit question: What do you think it says about the state of the conservative movement that CPAC has chosen as its keynote speaker an openly gay free speech activist with alt-right leanings? A good move, bad move, or somewhere in between?

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  1. Max Ledoux Coolidge
    Max Ledoux
    @Max

    Robert McReynolds (View Comment):

    Metalheaddoc (View Comment):

    anonymous (View Comment):

    Functionary (View Comment):
    Does that mean he’s another diode (one way flow – transmit only) who does not engage on Ricochet?

    Ricochet diodes:
    They write, but they do not read.
    Sad, how much they miss.

    Speaking of which, wasn’t this supposed to be a selling point of Ricochet? Interaction with the contributors? Many of them just do drive-by posts of columns and disappear.

    It’s just another paycheck for these people. Paid for by our subscription.

    We don’t pay Pethokoukis.

    • #91
  2. Concretevol Thatcher
    Concretevol
    @Concretevol

    Tzvi Kilov (View Comment):
    Notwithstanding, I am going to enjoy the defenses of this behavior from the right for the coming days.

    That makes one of us……   I don’t think he should be censored or anything but that doesn’t mean he should be giving a keynote address at a “conservative” conference.  In my opinion he is a bore and an ass who makes a good living pissing gullible people off by purposefully being inflammatory.  Not my thing I reckon.

    • #92
  3. Matt Bartle Member
    Matt Bartle
    @MattBartle

    Valiuth (View Comment):
    Broccoli is very tasty, if properly cooked.

    I can’t continue to participate in a thread that has descended into madness.

    • #93
  4. Damocles Inactive
    Damocles
    @Damocles

    Tzvi Kilov (View Comment):
    Milo would encourage all the literal nazis in the universe to attack his political opponents, and famously tweeted a black baby at Ben Shapiro because he was a “cuck” and apparently a black man must have impregnated his wife. If any of this seems wrong, you must be a progressive. He justified the truly anti-semitic acts of many of his supporters as mere playfulness.

    You need to be fair and quote Ben taking shots at  Milo’s sexual activity as well. He gave as good as he got:

    • To be fair, your knees are pretty calloused by now
    • At parties, @Nero keeps getting mistaken for the fondue fountain, because everybody gets a taste
    • @Nero keeps ripping on my height (5’9″), but I’m not sure how he knows how tall I am, considering he spends all his time on his knees.
    • #94
  5. Damocles Inactive
    Damocles
    @Damocles

    Matt Bartle (View Comment):

    Valiuth (View Comment):
    Broccoli is very tasty, if properly cooked.

    I can’t continue to participate in a thread that has descended into madness.

    • #95
  6. Tzvi Kilov Inactive
    Tzvi Kilov
    @TzviKilov

    Damocles (View Comment):

    Tzvi Kilov (View Comment):
    Milo would encourage all the literal nazis in the universe to attack his political opponents, and famously tweeted a black baby at Ben Shapiro because he was a “cuck” and apparently a black man must have impregnated his wife. If any of this seems wrong, you must be a progressive. He justified the truly anti-semitic acts of many of his supporters as mere playfulness.

    You need to be fair and quote Ben taking shots at Milo’s sexual activity as well. He gave as good as he got:

    • To be fair, your knees are pretty calloused by now
    • At parties, @Nero keeps getting mistaken for the fondue fountain, because everybody gets a taste
    • @Nero keeps ripping on my height (5’9″), but I’m not sure how he knows how tall I am, considering he spends all his time on his knees.

    There is a clear line between the personal jesting they used to do between one another and where Milo eventually ended up (along with his many followers).

    • #96
  7. Quake Voter Inactive
    Quake Voter
    @QuakeVoter

    Damocles (View Comment):

    Tzvi Kilov (View Comment):
    Milo would encourage all the literal nazis in the universe to attack his political opponents, and famously tweeted a black baby at Ben Shapiro because he was a “cuck” and apparently a black man must have impregnated his wife. If any of this seems wrong, you must be a progressive. He justified the truly anti-semitic acts of many of his supporters as mere playfulness.

    You need to be fair and quote Ben taking shots at Milo’s sexual activity as well. He gave as good as he got:

    • To be fair, your knees are pretty calloused by now
    • At parties, @Nero keeps getting mistaken for the fondue fountain, because everybody gets a taste
    • @Nero keeps ripping on my height (5’9″), but I’m not sure how he knows how tall I am, considering he spends all his time on his knees.

    So, to sum up, Ben Shapiro is Juvenal and Milo is juvenile.

    • #97
  8. AmishDude Inactive
    AmishDude
    @AmishDude

    For what does it profit a man to “be in the arena and fighting” but to lose his soul?

     

     

    • #98
  9. Freesmith Member
    Freesmith
    @

    In other news, Bill Kristol will be the keynote speaker at the DeepStatePAC in Langley, VA.

    • #99
  10. The Reticulator Member
    The Reticulator
    @TheReticulator

    Matt Bartle (View Comment):

    Valiuth (View Comment):
    Broccoli is very tasty, if properly cooked.

    I can’t continue to participate in a thread that has descended into madness.

    Broccoli is also good raw, but I wouldn’t call it “very tasty” in that state. It’s good to munch on, and not something I’m likely to get carried away with (unlike cauliflower, raw or steamed or whatever, which is always “very tasty”).

    • #100
  11. The Reticulator Member
    The Reticulator
    @TheReticulator

    So is this Milo thing going to keep any Ricochetti from going to CPAC?  (Assuming there is such a thing as going to CPAC. Seems to me there was a big controversy about it on Ricochet last year, but I don’t remember what about. It would probably be hard for me to continue to be conservative if I had to take part in something like that, though I don’t remember why.  I would still be conservative, but why make it more difficult for myself?)

    • #101
  12. JLocked Inactive
    JLocked
    @CrazyHorse

    The Reticulator (View Comment):
    So is this Milo thing going to keep any Ricochetti from going to CPAC? (Assuming there is such a thing as going to CPAC. Seems to me there was a big controversy about it on Ricochet last year, but I don’t remember what about. It would probably be hard for me to continue to be conservative if I had to take part in something like that, though I don’t remember why. I would still be conservative, but why make it more difficult for myself?)

    Nothing ruins commitment to an ideology more than socializing with its other adherents.

    • #102
  13. Tim Williams Inactive
    Tim Williams
    @TimWilliams

    Not familiar with Pethokoukis’s work but a brief survey of Milo’s has been sufficient to convince me that if you object to lazy liberal caricatures of conservatives as uniformly fascistic and ill-educated, you might not want to glorify someone who lazily characterizes all feminists as fat & ugly, all Muslims as fundamentalist thugs, etc. (Of course Klavan and many other conservatives take the same approach to feminism. I don’t quite get why.)

    That said, I will gladly be burned at the stake for Milo’s or anyone else’s right to talk whatever idiotic nonsense blows their skirt off.

    • #103
  14. Max Ledoux Coolidge
    Max Ledoux
    @Max

    Tim Williams (View Comment):
    Not familiar with Pethokoukis’s work but a brief survey of Milo’s has been sufficient to convince me that if you object to lazy liberal caricatures of conservatives as uniformly fascistic and ill-educated, you might not want to glorify someone who lazily characterizes all feminists as fat & ugly, all Muslims as fundamentalist thugs, etc. (Of course Klavan and many other conservatives take the same approach to feminism. I don’t quite get why.)

    That said, I will gladly be burned at the stake for Milo’s or anyone else’s right to talk whatever idiotic nonsense blows their skirt off.

    I have watched/listened to many Milo speeches and I believe there is a lot more depth to his thought that people realize.

    • #104
  15. Tony Sells Inactive
    Tony Sells
    @TonySells

    I love seeing the old men who think we are in a “war” and we have to make Stalin like allies to defeat the enemy. It would be funny to watch this war with the most common uniform being black socks with sandals. Quite the warriors.

    • #105
  16. Max Ledoux Coolidge
    Max Ledoux
    @Max

    Max Ledoux (View Comment):

    Tim Williams (View Comment):
    Not familiar with Pethokoukis’s work but a brief survey of Milo’s has been sufficient to convince me that if you object to lazy liberal caricatures of conservatives as uniformly fascistic and ill-educated, you might not want to glorify someone who lazily characterizes all feminists as fat & ugly, all Muslims as fundamentalist thugs, etc. (Of course Klavan and many other conservatives take the same approach to feminism. I don’t quite get why.)

    That said, I will gladly be burned at the stake for Milo’s or anyone else’s right to talk whatever idiotic nonsense blows their skirt off.

    I have watched/listened to many Milo speeches and I believe there is a lot more depth to his thought that people realize.

    Also, when he says feminists are fat and ugly he’s joking.

    • #106
  17. Z in MT Member
    Z in MT
    @ZinMT

    Damocles (View Comment):

    Z in MT (View Comment):
    for all his bluster he is a bit of a coward.

    Cowardice is a bit of a strong claim. You’re gonna need a bit more proof to back this up.

    If you want brave conservatives standing up for free speech, and against political correctness and the SJW crowd the model should be Ben Shapiro, Steven Crowder, and Gavin McInnes.

    Now you’re just showing a bit of ignorance. One of the watershed moments in the fight against the PC/SJW crowd was “The Triggering” at UMass, with Milo, Crowder, and Christina Hoff Sommers.

     

    No ignorance here. I watched that presentation about a year ago when it came out. I am not saying that Milo isn’t an ally I just think he is not as effective as Gavin, Shapiro, or Crowder. These three have real intellectual and honesty behind them, whereas Milo does not.

     

    • #107
  18. Damocles Inactive
    Damocles
    @Damocles

    Z in MT (View Comment):

    Damocles (View Comment):

    Z in MT (View Comment):
    for all his bluster he is a bit of a coward.

    Cowardice is a bit of a strong claim. You’re gonna need a bit more proof to back this up.

    If you want brave conservatives standing up for free speech, and against political correctness and the SJW crowd the model should be Ben Shapiro, Steven Crowder, and Gavin McInnes.

    Now you’re just showing a bit of ignorance. One of the watershed moments in the fight against the PC/SJW crowd was “The Triggering” at UMass, with Milo, Crowder, and Christina Hoff Sommers.

    No ignorance here. I watched that presentation about a year ago when it came out. I am not saying that Milo isn’t an ally I just think he is not as effective as Gavin, Shapiro, or Crowder. These three have real intellectual and honesty behind them, whereas Milo does not.

    lol you’re having a bit of cognitive dissonance, you were previously discussing cowardice and bravery and are now switching to intellectuality and honesty!

    • #108
  19. Salvatore Padula Inactive
    Salvatore Padula
    @SalvatorePadula

    Concretevol (View Comment):
    That makes one of us…… I don’t think he should be censored or anything but that doesn’t mean he should be giving a keynote address at a “conservative” conference.

    Exactly. This isn’t an argument about whether Milo should be free to say any asinine or reprehensible thing he likes. It’s not about free speech. It’s about whether a professional troll and occasional pedophelia advocate should be giving the keynote address at the premiere forum for conservative activism in the United States. That so many people are so intent on eliding that distinction is more than a bit disheartening.

    • #109
  20. Henry Castaigne Member
    Henry Castaigne
    @HenryCastaigne

    James Lileks (View Comment):

    Henry Castaigne (View Comment):

    Milo is completely accurate with regard to the use of the word pedophilia. Attraction to the a thirteen year old is Hebephilia.

    I think the word we’re all looking for is “wrong”

    My apologies. I was exhausted and sloppy that night but the clarification of terms remains.

    • #110
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