It has long been obvious that raising the banner of ‘fighting political correctness ‘ gives conservatives the freedom to attack marginalized groups without fear of being called bigots or racists. Add the bonus of attacking liberals and Democrats, season it with some good old American jingoism, and and you become a darling of the right-wingers.
I have not been following the activities of this character called Milo Yiannopoulos but what I gathered causally from news headlines is that he seems to be a truly odious person who has managed to take the familiar Ann Coulter route to fame by making outrageous and hateful statements about all manner of marginalized groups and claiming to do so in the name of fighting ‘political correctness’. This is guaranteed to bring praise from right-wingers because they finally feel free to say what’s on their minds and can even preen themselves on being heroic. The release of all this venom has been quite remarkable to see, though disgusting.
He has attacked feminists, women who use birth control, Jews, Muslims, transgender people, and foreigners, though he himself is from the UK and is not an American. But we all know that there are ‘good’ foreigners (white, Christian, European) and ‘bad’ foreigners (everyone else). Since he is also gay, that apparently made him a contrarian hero and provided him with a free pass to spew his venom.
His career had been on an upward trajectory and he has been invited to give speeches and appear on TV and most recently got a lucrative book deal and was invited to be a keynote speaker at the CPAC (Conservative Political Action Conference), an annual gathering of extreme-right wingers that was scheduled for next week. But then a video emerged of him condoning pedophilia and that seemed to the one thing that crossed the line. He has been abruptly disinvited from CPAC and publisher Simon & Schuster has cancelled his lucrative book deal.
What is ironic is that conservatives have been quick to condemn it when speakers who have hateful views have been disinvited by colleges and other institutions, saying that free speech was being muzzled. I wonder why these once-zealous advocates of free speech are now not condemning CPAC for disinviting Yiannopolous because of his views?
As should have been obvious, the right to free speech means the right to speak, not the right to be given a prominent platform. People like Yiannopolous are free to stand on the street corner and express their views. But that distinction seems to elude conservatives. Clearly what distinguishes progressive champions of free speech from conservative ones is that progressives set a higher bar for giving speakers a platform while conservatives seem to be willing to welcome the worst bottom feeders.
The Yiannopolous case seems to indicate that pedophilia seems to be the one thing that gets you ostracized by the right-wingers. But given that other taboos such as xenophobia, misogyny, and racism have ceased to be sufficient to be shunned by conservatives, it would not surprise me in the least to soon see right-wingers advocate for pedophilia and bestiality under the banner of fighting political correctness. But for now at least, it seems that pedophilia is where these conservatives draw they line and they expect to be praised for their action. Such is the sorry state of conservatism today. It used to be a philosophy that was coherent and had many worthy principles. Right now, it is the umbrella under which bigots and racists unite.
As I said, I knew little about Yiannopolous and had never seen or heard him before. But in this episode on Bill Maher’s show, he turns out to be utterly odious, smirking and unctuous and clearly intent on getting a rise out of others by making outrageous statements. Is that what passes for courage these days among conservatives? It was nice to see Larry Wilmore put him in his place. Jeremy Scahill was also invited to appear on the same panel but he refused, saying that to do so would be to give credibility to Yiannopolous. Maher’s invitation to Yiannopolous to appear on his show was a disgrace, and his condemning of Scahill’s withdrawal showed the poverty of Maher’s libertarian philosophy.
Conservatives can do “no-platforming” too. Excellent. Nowadays you can’t even go around condoning sexual relationships between adults and children under the age of consent, it’s political correctness gone mad.
Because that has always been a wafer-thin excuse to maintain bigoted belief systems and not a consistent ethical principle on which they act? 😛
Better get a bucket.
I’d probably qualify that its homosexuality combined with the “boys” that caused the ostracization. If someone religious (like the fundmentalist church of latter day saints) were advocating of lowering the age of consent for women , they probably wouldn’t run into this from the conservatives
Was it pedophilia that crossed the line, or was it a sexual preference outside the accepted norm? I don’t know the biblical stand on pedophilia, but the conservatives are too uptight about sexuality to accept any kind of deviations from the biblically straight and narrow. Both homosexuality and bestiality is clearly condemned by the bible, so I don’t see a rising interest in animal husbandry in the near future. If they didn’t fear masturbation so much, we’d wouldn’t have Corn Flakes, Graham Crackers, or near mandatory circumcision.
Of course they don’t have any problems with xenophobia, misogyny, or racism. It’s condoned and even encouraged by the bible. I’m expecting them to advocate for slavery soon.
I can’t wait for the Rapture.
yes.
# 5 Smokey
I saw an interview with Mike Huckabee when he was still candidate and he seemed to agree that slavery was acceptable but I did not get the impression he was advocating it, just not objecting to the idea.
I think you miss-understood that while these attitudes have been rejected by liberals, they have never been taboo to American conservatives. Educated conservatives in positions of power learned to not express these attitudes publicly, but if you happened to be, for example, at a dinner party with a politically-mixed crowd twenty or thirty years ago, you would have heard all these attitudes expressed, and even some signs of agreement among the crowd.
What POed me was Maher’s statement that Yiannopoulos’s view about transgender people and bathrooms was reasonable.
I liked Wilmore’s pushback. It was much appreciated.
Why is Maher still a thing? What a pseudocontrarian bag of limpness.