Special to L. Neil Smith’s The Libertarian Enterprise

I’ve spent the last day and a half in dread, looking at the coordinated attack on Milo, and the debacle on the right. As someone who was never-Trump before it was cool, and who only capitulated because she was never-Hillary more, and an anti-communist from the time she could understand the word, I felt divided when people piled on on never-trumpers. But this is ridiculous and has passed all bounds of civilized behavior.

The charges against Milo are contrived from a) video editing and b) rumor and innuendo and c) pretending no one ever used the word “boy” to mean man, thereby meaning playboy is for 10 year olds and “playing with the big boys” means middle schoolers.

IF the attack on Milo were about, say how outrageous he got before the election (he’s been walking it back since. I suspect he gets a little battle mad as I tend to.) I’d shrug and say “whatever”. However this is a contrived and false attack and one that apparently came from the right but is teaching the left the way to take every one of us down. You might not like Milo or his lifestyle, but you should not under any circumstances, applaud this means of taking him down. And if you do, I hope you experience likewise and get to experience what you like so much. There is a good chance you will. They’ve tasted blood with Milo. We’re next.
Links: the full unedited thing
The other full unedited thing
Milo’s press conference.
Possible McMullin involvement
Milo fighting pedophiles: here, here and here. And now, what I have to say.

If You Let Them “Get” Milo, You’re Next

Look guys, this is where Sarah takes her gloves off, turns the picture of Heinlein to the wall to spare him the worst of the rant, puts her hands on her hips and gives you the blunt and painful truth. I swear you’re not going to like it and I swear to you that you need to hear it.

So, this kerfuffle with Milo Yannopolis, let’s be frank: have you seen the non-edited videos? Have you been to his page? No? Then shut up.

He might have used infelicitous terms, but not all that infelicitous. He might have got caught in explaining too far—as someone who used to write for Classical Values, the blog devoted to overthinking it, I can’t complain—but he’s always been a bit more intellectual than the rest of the right and VERY intellectual for a shock-Jockey. But that is it.

Yes, he used “boys” when he meant men. So do you, every fricking day. No? Then what’s with Playboy, “one of the boys”, “playing with the big boys.” Unless you mean kids under the age of 12, you too used boys to mean men.

Second he talked about relationships between younger men and older men as nurturing, comfortable. Yeah, and? He also said that he thinks the age of consent is about where it should be. And for the US he is right.

The US, you say? What does that have to do with it?

Well, dear heart, if you think that the age of consent being 18 (it’s actually 16 in most states, but never mind) is a law of nature, you should perhaps meditate on George Bernard Shaw’s dictum: Pardon him, Theodotus: he is a barbarian, and thinks that the customs of his tribe and island are the laws of nature.

This is where Milo got into overthinking, when he started discussing how strictly speaking pedophiles are attracted to those people who haven’t undergone puberty (or are undergoing puberty.) He’s absolutely right, but he was perhaps over- intellectualizing. The truth is that laws of consent usually slice the do no harm/prevent harm very finely indeed, and are set when most of the population of the country can be assumed to have passed through and undergone puberty.

For instance the age of consent in Portugal is 14. By 11 I had undergone menarche. My best friend, OTOH, didn’t go through it till 16. However hers was very late, and doctors were involved. Most people got it at 12. So 14 seems like a fairly safe age of consent.

You’re not going to prevent people who go through it earlier from having sex (OTOH I found an interest in physics and electronics prevented me pretty effectively till much, much older.) But you want to discourage outright predators. So 14 is about right for Portugal.

Do I mean girls of 14 (or boys for that matter) know what they’re doing? No. But I also don’t think they know what they’re doing at 18. Left to me, I’d set the age of consent at thirty, and human population would plummet.

You can have an unequal relationship at any age, one that scars you and breaks you for life. You can’t really legislate those. The best you can do is stand by to pick people up when they fall. And the best you can do as a parent is make sure your kids know how complicated a decision it is, and how many ramifications sex can have that they don’t understand. (I keep telling my kids “Wait till 45!” I don’t think they’re listening.)

The best you can do as a legislator is keep people from making decisions when their bodies are still not working right and they know nothing of life.

No Milo was about right and the law of consent in the US of about 16 in most states and 18 in some is about right. It’s just about protecting kids who are still not physically adult. It’s all the law can do. the rest falls to parents.

Now leaving that aside, and returning to this. Milo has busted three pedophiles. He is vocal in saying that pedophilia can’t be condoned. BUT an unholy alliance of left and right edited a video of him talking and did away with his book deal and removed him from Breitbart.

And idiotic socons are piling on, telling us that “Milo doesn’t belong on the right” and that his (rather effective, frankly) talks about his private life are “disgusting.”

Maybe they are, but if you’re going to kick out everyone who isn’t middle class US, blond, Southern Baptist, you’re never again going to hold power in this country. Which is exactly what the left wants, and what you’re preparing.

Because NONE of you are clean. It is possible to demonize all of us, with ridiculous things NO ONE should believe. I’m sure somewhere or other (often) I made a joke about “Mediterraenan people uber alas” usually when people accuse me of being racist or white supremacist. It wouldn’t take much to plaster those everywhere and have some idiots say I don’t belong on the right, either. The fact that I’ve been accused of being a White Supremacist is proof to you that the left SMEARS. It’s what they do.

For years, in publishing and in the arts, if you weren’t a hundred percent behind them, the whisper campaign started: “She’s white supremacist.” “She’s racist.” “She’s an homophobe.” (Yes, I have been accused of that. By the left AND the right.)

And if the right buys into this, denounces and piles on, it just gives power to the left. Do you see them distancing themselves from irresponsible, economically corrupt Hillary? No. But you self- righteous little goody two shoes can’t wait to distance yourselves from Milo.

And his is how you give the left the rope to hang you with.

Milo is taking fire, because he can communicate with college students; because he’s getting a following; because his VERY EXISTENCE denies the stereotype that the right is racist/sexist/homophobic. The left HAS to destroy Milo.

And if you cooperate in his destruction, you are next.

You can tell them “you took that out of context, and you should be ashamed of yourself for rushing to judgement.” You can mock them with the Shaw quote. You can call them the judgmental prudes they are.

Or you can let Milo be taken down and cower in the dark, waiting for the knock on your door. It WILL come.

Reprinted from the According to Hoyt blog, February 22, 2017