Still standing by
Milo Yiannopoulos, the Breitbart senior editor and right-wing provocateur, has been profiting from a feedback loop of predictable outrage for some time now, and the alt-right’s takeover of the Republican Party has helped him take his trolling to an even bigger audience.
His trolling. Not his writing, not his ideas, not his thought – his trolling. He’s not a writer or thinker, he’s just a troll. He’s just a smartass who enjoys bullying people until they squeak, because that’s what trolls do. That’s all there is to him, and that’s why he’s not any kind of poster boy for free speech. Free trolling, yes, but then free trolling isn’t the same thing as free speech.
On Saturday, Yiannopoulos scored his biggest prize yet (aside from, perhaps, this Trump tweet): an invitation to speak at this year’s Conservative Political Action Conference. “An epidemic of speech suppression has taken over college campuses,” said CPAC chairman Matt Schlapp. “Milo has exposed their liberal thuggery and we think free speech includes hearing Milo’s important perspective.”
Utter bullshit. He has no “important perspective.” He’s a troll. That smelly kid in the back row who keeps throwing used kleenexes at people has no “important perspective” either; he’s just a bully. There’s no important principle or freedom at stake when it’s trolls or bullies. Trolls and bullies can be told to go away and not come back, and nothing of value is lost.
Then a couple of conservative groups started circulating videos of Yiannopoulos saying good things about sex with young boys. There was outrage. Outrage was merited, but there should have been outrage years ago. CPAC shouldn’t have invited a notorious trolling bully to “speak” in the first place. It’s revolting that overt public bullying is not enough reason to avoid him.
CPAC chairman Matt Schlapp was still standing by Yiannopoulos on Sunday night, though he did not address the videos directly. He said in an exchange with National Review’s Jonah Goldberg:
Jonah 1st amendment is dead on campus. Conservatives should fight back. As radioactive as milo is he is fighting back. https://t.co/grkdlGNBt3
— Matt Schlapp (@mschlapp) February 20, 2017
He is “fighting back” by bullying people. That doesn’t work out well.
Radioactive is a good term for Milo – radioactivity is harmful to humans and wildlife, and Milo is harmful. I do believe in free speech, but I’m not sure that should extend to an unlimited extent to someone who bullies women for jollies, and gets paid to speak on campuses, which already have a big problem dealing with entitled bullies in their male population who think they can just take what they want from the young females who are also present on the campus, usually with a desire to learn something (though I will admit I am sure there are females who come to campus just to drink and party; still, it’s their dollar, and if they choose to flunk out it should be their choice, and not because some randy man-baby decides to rape them).
I’m pretty sure it shouldn’t. It’s a familiar drill, but…free speech is a principle, meant to apply to substantive public speech. It’s not meant to protect everyone’s right to harass and interrupt and bully everyone else. It’s not meant to apply to private life, and it’s not intended as a shield for bullying. There’s a lot of argument over where bullying ends and protected speech begins, but few people claim it actually protects bullying. What they do instead is pretend that flagrant bullies like Yiannopoulos are actually engaging in substantive public speech.
It’s like my brother – he felt he could say or do anything. He once told me he had a right to smoke inside my house. I told him fine, I had a right to never invite him to my house again. And I didn’t.
The problem too many people have is failure to realize what the authors of the First Amendment would have realized, that with rights come responsibilities. You don’t just get to scream anything at the top of your lungs and require everyone to listen to you. But at the same time, we need to protect speech that is unpleasant to the majority, or there isn’t any free speech at all. But I like your criteria of substantive public speech.
Milo is the right’s version of Russell Brand – the outrageous young (Brand is 40, but he has earned his youth) performer who says outrageous, but oh so insightful things. There was a crazy fad for Brand’s ramblings & his supposed thoughts on politics which manifested itself in a book & with Ed Milliband seeking him out during the last general election (aaaargh).
Brand has thank god disappeared now but to give him some credit he’s a nicer human being than Milo and does have some talent as a comedian.
‘Free’ speech doesn’t mean ‘promoted by entrenched power’ speech. Milo is free to pontificate on any barstool. But there’s no justification for giving him a university platform, any more than flat-earthers should be invited to speak at geography departments, or holocaust-deniers at history conferences.
And…burning a cross on someone’s lawn is NOT really ‘free speech.’