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I’m Still with Milo
It’s whiplash-inducing how fast Milo had been tossed under the bus.
Before judging, make sure you know all the facts. Unfortunately too many people on the right (mea culpa, I’m as guilty of this as most) take the liberal headlines at face value and recoil from certain individuals. This happened with Mike Flynn and now it’s happening with Milo. In both cases people have made judgments based on partial information, which is what the other side wants. It isn’t for nothing that the late Andrew Breitbart referred to this as “war.”
I love many of the pundits and podcasters who make their home here on Ricochet. I hold them in high regard, especially the more curmudgeonly types (looking at you, Kevin). But it needs to be said that anytime news reports come out painting someone who identifies as being on the right in a negative light we need to stop, wait and be 100 percent certain that we have all the facts.
I hate that this next bit sounds somewhat conspiratorial, but here goes. The institutional left fronted by the whining, virtue-signaling press corps and backed by the meretricious satraps of the deep state has shown that their philosophy is that the ends always justify the means. Democracy, honesty, decency, morality, probity, these are, in their eyes, weapons to be used when they work and set aside when they don’t.
It pains me to say, but I don’t think this is a war we can win playing by the Marquess of Queensbury rules at this point.
So, I look for my allies where I can find them and make common cause with those who would work with me to muck out the Augean Stables for the left.
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Published in Politics
@evanpokroy
Thank you for writing this post. I have looked into the details quite a bit and am also with Milo. Yes, it is possible that Milo supports relationships that are younger than some think prudent. Yes, Milo doesn’t mind an age gap especially in gay relations.
However, no where do I see Milo having a morally abhorrent viewpoint. He is clearly dealing with his early life in a unfortunate way. The possibility that in these two videos he is sometimes confusing statements where he rationalizes his abuse and his views on consenting age seems to be very likely. BTW, in the drunk peasants video it possible that Milo was drunk, I just saying… I would say that Milo isn’t a good public figure on this topic yet. It doesn’t look like he has come to terms with his experiences yet.
This does not mean that Milo isn’t a good person, I think that he is a good person in general (with issues). In fact, I would like to know if Milo ever speaks about the subject of early relationships much at all. Looking through his breitbart headlines, I did not see very many that were about this issue.
So, I consider Milo to have messed up, but not a bad person. Maybe he will grow from this.
Lastly, I think anyone with an interest might find useful some of the responses by people who know Milo better than we do.
Example: Drunk Peasants talk about Milo
especially when you can’t trust the man beside you in the foxhole. when you watch him toss the guy to his left over the top, you know, eventually, he will reach to his right.
Well I am, they represent a portion of this nation that we have to live with. Maybe the larger portion. CPAC has given these people a weapon to use against conservatives that prove conservatives are exactly what they the left thinks it is. Sadly in this case they may be right.
Ironically, the core of Milo’s entire ethos is that worrying about what the Left thinks is why conservatives lose. It means you’re playing defense.
I’m always amazed at how simple this and how ubiquitous it is in statements from Trump supporters and yet how the left and the NeverTrumper elites hate this so much. They don’t want us to fight and they will fight those of us on the right who do want to fight. I realize it’s more complicated than that in that they don’t see fighting as accomplishing anything. Well, I just put that up against their success with the left over the last few decades.
Dennis Prager has some bon mots about this:
“Those who don’t fight evil will fight those who try to fight evil.”
“The Germans learned the wrong lesson from WWII. Rather than fight evil they learned that fighting was evil.”
Teddy wouldn’t have had the balls to bring suit. Why have it proven in court that he was guilty of manslaughter?
you have no idea what you just said or what Milo said.
Nice duck. you’d be the guy with the rope to tie the witch to the chair cause it isn’t ‘worth’ defending her. just in case she floats
I don’t think this is quite right. Sure they don’t want us to fight, but who wants their enemies to fight? They fight all the time. What’s the difference between SJW’s calling us racist because of our positions on wealth redistribution and Trump calling the press un-American because of the immigration policies they support? I think it’s that the former has been done for so long by so many that it’s widely accepted.
Quack quack quack.
Here’s Bill Maher, who this week claimed credit for taking down Milo, going even further by defending sex between a 35-year-old teacher and a 12 year old boy:
I listened to the press conference. Don’t know a lot about Milo, but feel strongly that the young man I heard is telling the absolute truth. I like him instantly. And I’ll be buying his book.
My emotional reaction to the press conference is that the people out to discredit him can drop dead.
I wish I could describe how powerful Milo is with our youth. Many of my high school daughter’s (junior) male classmates follow him. He allows them to relate to someone edgy and cool – and these are the nerd-jocks and the gamers btw. I don’t think this will hurt him with them. And he articulates the dangers of “BLM” leadership and extreme- feminism in a way that they could not but felt instinctively. I think he will be back.
What’s happening to Milo and free speech is so [redacted] sad. Milo is performance art in service of certainly himself, but free speech as well. He is so effective because, not in spite of, he observes few minimums and is a living exemplar of someone who cannot exist without constitutional protections. Those protections are under threat by both progressives and Islamism — the two biggest threats to our way of life. We need not support him, but we must support the idea of him or we do not support constitutional fundamentals that are the supposed values of conservatives.
in this case Maher is in the wrong. there are SEVERAL key differences here. 1) he is defending the ADULT PREDATOR whereas Milo was the MINOR CHILD VICTIM 2) Maher is speaking from uninformed ideas, probably based in his own perversion, Milo spoke about his own ACTUAL experience which, in his case, was not, in his view, predatory (we can discuss whether it was in actuality or not on another topic, but the fact is, Milo, as the minor victim of any possible crime, is not endorsing predatory behavior in any way. 3) Maher was defending a TEACHER, a person in a position of authority over the child for “being in love” with the student over whom she had said authority. also, the student was 12 when the abuse began as at the time he was 14, the teacher was pregnant with the SECOND child by the child.
I know that to you, victims and predators should both be pilloried but at least attempt to understand the difference
Milo is on our side because, in the long run, no other values but ours would protect his rIght to be publicly who he is and survive. And he’s sharp enough to know it.
Why have you made this charge?
This was going to be my response. I thought caring what the left thinks was a sign of cowardice.
What you’re fighting for matters. It’s not enough just to fight; if you’re fighting for the wrong thing, you are not our ally.
I wish I had said this on the other thread. Oh wait, I did. Those not inclined to listen won’t.
Right on Karon and Ansonia.
Because @misthiocracy said that Bill Maher went “further” outside the boundries of proper behavior.
Karon’s point is Milo was the 13 year-old in his story – it is from his actual experience – and his statement is a method if ignoring the actual harm that was done to him. Bill Maher, on the other hand, thinks that the 33 year old is in jail because of “love” (as opposed to “rape”) and that having sex with a 12 year old boy is perfectly ok. Bill is looking at things from the predator’s point of view.
I guess I don’t understand enough of any of this behavior to even have an understanding of what is being said here. I would think that predators are engaged in improper behavior by definition and victims are likely damaged in many cases and those trying to deal from outside with these events may not know enough to have expectations of success. Parents must be on guard at all times and if they are the predators God help them and their victims.
I don’t think Satan gives day passes to the inmates.
Before the Cock crows thrice…
OK.
When Milo was 13 he was sexually molested by an adult priest. This lasted for a period of time – years.
When he refers to that part of his life (in the podcast recorded last year) – he glosses over the harm done to him and instead makes flippant remarks about it. In public he chooses to excuse the behavior by deflection (“I was the predator”) or by what he learned…
He is not condoning the behavior for any other person, and has outed 3 pedophiles via his own reporting.
He does condone behavior between persons of consenting age or older.
Bill Maher, on the other hand, condones a 33 year old teacher raping a 12 year old boy and excuses it as “love”.
Milo is coping with his own abuse, while Bill Maher is excusing pedophilia.
The first is understandable – the second is inexcusable.
Caring what everybody thinks is a sign of courtesy. But courtesy doesn’t require that we offer our throats to the sword.
OK, and where did @Misthiocracy go astray?
I’m not sure looking at this from the victim’s perspective is completely appropriate either. Do you think the teen who hit dat feels like a victim? That doesn’t mean he’s not, I’m just pointing out that the perspective isn’t reliable.
The case that Bill Maher is that of Mary Kay Letourneau, now Mary Kay Fualaau. Upon her release on parole (conditional upon her staying away from her victim Vili Fualaau) – they were caught in a parked car in flagrante delicto.
Wikipedia has the details.