What do you think would happen?

Ann Althouse proposes a thought experiment.

What if there were a young, handsome, smart, funny provocateur who'd spiked into popularity spouting left-liberal politics, stirring up young people on college campuses and irking older liberals who didn't think he knew enough or had served his elders long enough to deserve his place in the spotlight? And what if then his antagonists dropped some edited audio of late-night podcasts he'd recorded some years ago in which he revealed that when he was 14 he'd had a sexual relationship with a 24-year-old priest but that he refused to think about himself as the victim and he displayed his rationalization of the victimhood experience by characterizing himself as the sexual aggressor and by claiming that the priest had actually helped him?

How would Leftist Milo be treated?

Capitulation

Mark Tapson writes at Truth Revolt,

In The Washington Times Monday, Wesley Pruden wrote a piece called "An expensive lesson for conservatives," in which he addressed the controversy surrounding Milo Yiannopoulos' recent podcast comments that seemed to condone gay sex between underage teen boys and older men. In the wake of that firestorm, the gay libertarian gadfly Milo posted statements unequivocally denouncing pedophilia and apologizing for treating the subject flippantly. Nonetheless, his lucrative Simon & Schuster book deal was yanked and he was disinvited from CPAC, where he was to be the keynote speaker.

In his article, Pruden approves of the disinvitation, saying "not all publicity is good publicity," and disapproves of Milo's "'gift' for saying outrageous things." He concludes the piece by saying, "The moral here for conservatives is that just because someone calls himself a conservative, claiming he is heir to carefully nourished values formed and defended by the generations, does not mean that he is one.”

In an email statement, David Horowitz, Freedom Center founder and author of Big Agenda: President Trump's Plan to Save America, responded to what he calls the Times' "disgraceful" commentary by noting that it exemplifies the right's kneejerk habit of capitulating rather than putting up a united front as the Democrats do every time:

The hateful left, whose most effective weapon is character assassination, has created a gotcha culture for conservatives, and conservatives can be counted on to fold every time. Barney Frank had a prostitution ring operating out of his house and masturbated into the president's locker in the Capitol gym. But that didn't prevent him from becoming the architect of the incredibly destructive Dodd-Frank bill and the subprime mortgage crisis, because Democrats protected him and never broke ranks.

Milo is indisputably the most effective conservative on campus battling the anti-American, identity-obsessed, racist left. He is a victim of sexual abuse himself, which entails confusion on these issues. That conservatives would abandon him - throw him to the wolves - tells you everything you need to know about why the left dominates the national culture and thus the political culture which is downstream from it.

Group that accused Milo of pedophilia is funded by an anti-Trump, pro-McMullin PAC

Rob Shimshock reports at the Daily Caller,

The group that accused Milo Yiannopoulos of defending pedophilia is funded by an anti-Trump, pro-McMullin PAC that once tweeted “we hate white children.”

The Reagan Battalion Facebook page, which alleged Monday that Yiannopoulos supported pedophilia, has a link under Contact Info that directs visitors to a web domain titled, “stopdonaldtrumppac.com.” The domain no longer resolves, but a screenshot of the site can be found here.

The Stop Trump PAC also has a Twitter account from which it once tweeted the phrase “we hate white children,” which has since been deleted.

Bookworm's perspective on Milo's travails

Bookworm has a new post up tonight, entitled Milo Yiannopoulos got punished despite having done nothing wrong! Read it here.

The interview that is being used against Milo

Here is the September 2015 interview that is being used against Milo. The controversial part begins at 2:21.

hat tip MacG, a commenter at Bookworm Room

"We are in a political sewer."

Bookworm adds an addendum to her piece on Milo she posted this morning.

Milo seems to have been destroyed. Despite his books status as a best seller, Simon & Schuster has dumped it. Breitbart is silent about him.

As best as I can tell, thanks to Stephen Green’s research, these are the two worst things Milo said that would lead to an accusation that he’s a pedophile:

Milo’s money quote, which was edited out of the video, is this:

The law is probably about right, that’s probably roughly the right age. I think it’s probably about okay, but there are certainly people who are capable of giving consent at a younger age, I certainly consider myself to be one of them, people who are sexually active younger. I think it particularly happens in the gay world by the way. In many cases actually those relationships with older men…This is one reason I hate the left. This stupid one size fits all policing of culture. (People speak over each other). This sort of arbitrary and oppressive idea of consent, which totally destroys you know understanding that many of us have. The complexities and subtleties and complicated nature of many relationships. You know, people are messy and complex. In the homosexual world particularly. Some of those relationships between younger boys and older men, the sort of coming of age relationships, the relationships in which those older men help those young boys to discover who they are, and give them security and safety and provide them with love and a reliable and sort of a rock where they can’t speak to their parents. Some of those relationships are the most -”

And this was edited out as well:

“You’re misunderstanding what pedophilia means. Pedophilia is not a sexual attraction to somebody 13-years-old who is sexually mature. Pedophilia is attraction to children who have not reached puberty. Pedophilia is attraction to people who don’t have functioning sex organs yet. Who have not gone through puberty… That’s not what we are talking about. You don’t understand what pedophilia is if you are saying I’m defending it because I’m certainly not.”

In other words, Milo never said that he had sex with little boys or that he intended to do so. What he did say was that older gay men often introduce younger gay men into sex. I certainly saw that enough when I was living and working in San Francisco. It was too common practice for sexually confused 20 or 22 year olds to be taken under the wing of a 30 or 40 year old gay man. It was not pedophilia, it was gay mentoring and it’s obvious that Milo is referring to that practice.

As for Milo’s comment about pedophilia being a perverted passion for children who have not gone through adolescence, he’s correct. He’s also correct that children mature at different speeds. In my neighborhood, one kid at 12 had a nascent mustache and a voice deeper than my husband’s. Another finally got his growth spurt when he went off to college, although he’s still not shaving. Having said that, Milo made it clear that, given this variability, he has no problem with the current age of consent laws.

It’s very disturbing that this take-down of one of the most effective voices for conservativism came from the #NeverTrump crowd having a petty pique fit over Milo’s invitation to CPAC. Having said that, the information was out there, and if the renegade right hadn’t published it, the Lefties would have and in a way that was even worse.

I’ve heard from friends that Lefties are already piling on to this man who did nothing wrong other than making observations about the realities of the gay world and the physical maturation process. More than that, I find it incredibly ironic that this tut-tutting comes from the Left. These are the same people who demand that condoms, birth control advice, and abortion information should be given to kids as young as 11 in their schools, and who insist that a child can get an abortion with an adult okaying it something that is, of course, the best possible way for a true pedophile to destroy any genetic evidence of his crime.

And by the way, if this seems familiar, you’re seeing the same takedown that the Left and #NeverTrumpers did to Trump. He observed accurately enough that, if you’re rich and famous, women will indeed let you do anything to them. He did not say that he took advantage of this reality, yet he was instantly called a molester and subjected to the harshest castigation. And of course, most of the screaming came from the same side that was fine with Clinton raping women and using the pressure of his fame and power to coerce a women young enough to be his daughter to engage in a sordid workplace affair.

This whole thing sickens and disgusts me. We are in a political sewer in our country.

"Selective outrage strikes again."

Glenn Reynolds weighs in on the Milo book cancellation:

Lena Dunham writes a book where she reminisces about abusing her baby sister and it’s no big deal. Milo talks about being abused, says it wasn’t that bad, and Simon & Schuster cancels his contract. Double standards indeed.

Meanwhile, he should self-publish. He’ll make a lot more money, and, really, you can’t rely on lefty platforms. They’ll cut you loose in a second.

Ace of Spades also weighs in with,

I would say an important additional dimension here is that if they can do it to him, they can do it to you too.

Ace goes on to one of his lengthy analyses here.

At Instapundit,Anchorman comments,

Again, the original Vagina Monologues had an older lesbian rape a minor girl and the narrator called it, "Yeah, it was rape, but it was a good rape."

Point? Selective outrage strikes again.

Instapundit commenter AmyH writes,

Is there an analogous term to Stockholm Syndrome for young people who are abused and groomed into a homosexual lifestyle? Cause that is what Milo (and a lot of other gay men) suffer from. It is kinda stupid to pillory him for that though.

Simon and Schuster backs out of publishing Milo's book

The New York Times is reporting that Simon and Schuster has canceled Milo Yiannopoulos' book deal.

Milo Yiannopoulos, a polemical Breitbart editor and unapologetic defender of the alt-right, tested the limits of how far his provocations could go after the publication of a video in which he condones sexual relations with boys as young as 13 and laughs off the seriousness of pedophilia by Roman Catholic priests.

On Monday, the organizers of the Conservative Political Action Conference rescinded their invitation for him to speak this week. Simon & Schuster said it was canceling publication of “Dangerous” after standing by him through weeks of criticism of the deal. And Breitbart itself was reportedly reconsidering his role amid calls online for it to sever ties with him.

Read more here.

Tucker Carlson interviews Milo Yiannopolous

He's to the right of Jane Fonda.

"One of the things that authoritarians hate is the sound of laughter, because they can't control what you find funny!"

"What is hate speech? It seems to be anything the Left doesn't like."

"America now is a scene of political violence in response to ideas!"

"Free speech under threat in America"

"Ask me a question that is less disingenuous." "The AltRight is energized by three issues, political correctness (free speech), immigration, and trade." "It isn't radical Islam, it's Islam, that is the problem." "I'm talking about culture, not race. It's typical of the BBC to conflate the two. What they want to do is say that if you are proud of your country and the ideals on which it was founded, that somehow makes you a racist. It doesn't!"

"The regressive social attitudes of Muslims in the west are terrifying. Organizations like yours won't report honestly, accurately, or fairly on Muslims."

"The only people who are still feminists are journalists!" "The patriarchy is a conspiracy theory."

"I guess I'm over here as a warning from Europe!"

Twitter permanently suspends Yiannopoulos

Breitbart Tech editor Milo Yiannopoulos has been permanently suspended from Twitter. His response:

In a comment, Milo said “With the cowardly suspension of my account, Twitter has confirmed itself as a safe space for Muslim terrorists and Black Lives Matter extremists, but a no-go zone for conservatives.”

“Twitter is holding me responsible for the actions of fans and trolls using the special pretzel logic of the left. Where are the Twitter police when Justin Bieber’s fans cut themselves on his behalf?”

“Like all acts of the totalitarian regressive left, this will blow up in their faces, netting me more adoring fans. We’re winning the culture war, and Twitter just shot themselves in the foot.”

“This is the end for Twitter. Anyone who cares about free speech has been sent a clear message: you’re not welcome on Twitter.”

V the K reacted at Gay Patriot,

On Twitter, if you fantasize about beating to death a grieving mother, that’s not a problem (provided the fantasist is a left-wing writer and the grieving mother is a Republican).

But razz a feminist celebrity and Twitter will drop the banhammer on you.

The interesting thing is no where does Twitter cite anything Milo Y. actually said, but they are banning him because the actress complained that mean comments from other people motivated by Milo were sending her mean tweets and giving her sadfeels.

It seems Yiannopoulos poked fun at an actress in the newest Ghotbuster movie. She didn't like his comments, and complained to Twitter. Yiannopoulos replied,

If at first you don't succeed (because your work is terrible), play the victim.

Mainstream Muslim society

In the wake of the tragic shooting at a club in Orlando this weekend, Milo Yiannopoulos says Islam, not just extremists groups and terrorists, but the entire religion is responsible for violence against gay people and women.

Yiannopoulos, a writer for Breitbart, told Rich Zeoli on Talk Radio 1210 WPHT that he believes all of Islam propagates this type of hate and brutality.

“I’m not talking about Islamists. I’m not talking about terrorists. I’m not talking about radical Islam. I’m talking about mainstream Muslim culture. There are eleven Muslim countries in which I could be killed for being a homosexual. The state penalty is death. One hundred million people live in country where the penalty for homosexuality is death. This is not radical Islam. This is mainstream Muslim society. Look what’s happening in Sweden. Look what’s happening anywhere in Germany, anywhere there are large influxes of a Muslim population. Things don’t end well for women and gays. The left has got to make a decision. Either they want female emancipation and it wants gay rights or it wants Islam. It’s got to pick.”

He also claims the dangers that emanate of Muslim countries are quickly spreading around the globe.

“Women are treated abominably everywhere in the Muslim world. Gays are treated even worse. It shouldn’t be a surprise to us that when we invite these people into western, democratic, capitalist, free societies that bad things start to happen. America is the greatest country in the world. It is a country founded on freedom, freedom of movement, free enterprise, property rights, the rule of law, the First and the Second Amendment. Those principles have created the greatest country in the world. Those things are under threat from an alien culture that respects none of those principles.”

Yiannopoulos blames the political left in America and Europe to too openly accepting Muslims into their countries and Islamic culture into their societies.

Read more here.

He's gay, and he's been banned in San Francisco!

Breitbart's Milo Yiannopoulos writes,

In the course of my Dangerous Faggot tour, I’ve had my fair share of bans… but here’s one I didn’t see coming. I’ve been banned from San Francisco! Me, the gayest person on the planet. Banned. From San Francisco, the queerest city in America.

Apparently I’m just too dangerous of a faggot, even for a city that pumps AZT directly into the water. Alas, Milo-roni will not become the new San Francisco treat any time soon.

Okay, so in truth I wasn’t banned from the entire city — though that’s surely only a matter of time. Just The Chapel restaurant and event space in Mission District, which cancelled a planned Breitbart meetup after learning of my attendance. The owner said I was the “biggest problem” at the event, and that he had concerns about the venue’s capacity.

...If there are any conservatives left in San Francisco, I expect they have to wear rainbow flags, plaid shirts, or jockstraps just to blend in. Besides serving as the biggest gay hub outside of Miami International Airport’s men’s rooms (Hi Marco!), the city is the most barkingly mad center of wacky progressivism in the U.S, and quite possibly the world.

The city has a fetish for banning things (among many other weird fetishes, some of which are OK I guess). Things that are currently unwelcome in San Francisco: McDonalds Happy Meals, Segways, plastic bags, soda vending machines, and gay people with opinions.

...San Francisco is a bastion of free speech — provided you have the right opinions.

It’s little wonder that companies like Twitter and Facebook, based in San Francisco, are so rapidly descending into the wacky politics of social justice, censorship, and blatant anti-conservatism.

We don’t really need boycotts to solve Silicon Valley’s anti-conservative bias. We just need to take the entire tech industry and move it to a small town in Oklahoma. Even New York would be an improvement — at least that city produced Donald Trump.

It’s been more than fifty years after the contemporary gay rights movement kicked off in San Francisco. Yet even today, it seems that some gay people aren’t allowed in the city’s bars. Not because they’re gay – but because they’re conservative.

Read more here.