Brave new world without boundaries gets one: Milo Yiannopoulos has been disinvited from C-PAC after interview clips of him supporting “consenting” sexual relations between adolescents and adults surfaced, as they say.
The question was not about Milo’s right to free speech.
The question was whether it was proper for the leading, conservative, movement venue to choose to elevate someone who openly and quite volubly supports pedophilia (notwithstanding Milo’s post-puberty stipulation). Such relations with youngsters are still a crime, thank goodness; also an abomination, even, to some considerable number of conservatives and, I expect, liberals, too.
If CPAC made its decision on the merits, I imagine it came down to a matter of how capacious the meat/potatoes, Solid Joe and decent conservative mainstream is, or ought to be — and whether the hedonism that passes under the flag of “edgy” is really where its C-PAC helmsmen want that mainstream to flow.
Milo’s homosexuality, humor and outspokenness make him a star vehicle for Breitbartian conservative outreach, but extending that outreach almost literally into prime time — the old-fashioned “family hour,” if we think back — turns out to be a bridge too far.
And that’s a good thing. It was also a massive car crash that should never have happened to any of the victims, Milo included. His reputation, which may seem like a quaint word to use in this context, has been sorely damaged by these revelations. That is, it’s one thing to rail about third-wave feminism, etc., but railing about minor-adult sex is something else again. C-PAC, as usual, looks like an idiot. Maybe with a clearer sense of all kinds of boundaries, C-PAC wouldn’t have extended the invitation in the first place; ditto, for Milo’s acceptance. Although, in the end … best to know now.
Didn’t I write a book about all of this ten years ago?
Conservative ship of state blunders on.