Special to L. Neil Smith’s The Libertarian Enterprise

I originally intended to write this as an update to my previous article about conservatives, but it turned out to be longer than I intended, so I decided to just write another article on the subject. I actually wrote the previous article months ago, but I kept pushing back publication partially because I was occupied with other matters and partially because I kept publishing articles that had more pressing issues ahead of it. Since then I have had somewhat of a change of opinion when it comes to conservatives. Don’t get me wrong, I stand by everything I wrote in that article. Yes, I believe that conservatives have more diverse ideas than so-called liberals. Yes, I think that it is much easier to have an adult conversation with a conservative. Most importantly of all, I still believe that conservatives are really the only buffer that we have between us and the left, who are becoming increasingly more violent and oppressive every day. Yet, what I failed to realize is that the stereotypical conservatives who represent the humorless prudes, who think it is perfectly acceptable to treat gays like second class citizens, are still alive and well. They are part of what many call Establishment Conservatives.

I normally wouldn’t even give them a second thought if it weren’t for their involvement in the recent scandal involving Milo Yiannopoulos. For those of you who may not be keeping up with Milo Yiannopoulos, he was recently accused of making statements that justified sex between grown men and thirteen-year-old boys. I have been a longtime fan of his articles on Breitbart.com and I have enjoyed watching him trigger leftist snowflakes with his blunt language. I also love how he fearlessly takes his fight against the Social Justice Warriors to their home bases on college campuses. It’s not to say that I have agreed with everything this man has said. The one downside to having what I once heard referred to as a Don Rickles style filter, where he says everything that comes to mind, is that he sometimes says things that one may find absurd, such as there being no such thing as lesbians. Despite him on a few occasions describing himself as a libertarian, I would say that he is not quite there, though it is possible that he may have strong leanings in that direction. The minor disagreements aside, I have always found him entertaining to watch.

I was going to dedicate the bulk of this article to defending Milo against the accusation that he justified Pedophilia when he was interviewed online by both The Drunken Peasants and The Joe Rogan Show. That was before I saw the wonderful job that L. Neil Smith and Giovanni Martelli did in defending Milo in “The Perils of Milo” article. It was nice to see that somebody acknowledged that the video circulating that allegedly shows Milo trying to normalize sexual relationships between thirteen-year-olds and adults had been deceptively edited so that Milo’s words would be taken out of context, instead of everybody repeating the same mantra that Milo advocated pedophilia, when he actually didn’t.

My real disappointment with this scandal wasn’t the leftist media who used it as a way of attacking one of their adversaries. I have learned a long ago that the left has no shame. They are not afraid of coming off hypocritical, which is why they could freely give Trump so much flack for his locker-room talk, while completely ignoring their own candidate’s reputation for enabling her husband to sexually harass or possibly rape young women. It was the Establishment Conservatives who really disappointed me. Especially those who were responsible for delivering the distorted video in the first place. Then there were those who instead of seeing the unedited video for themselves or waiting for Milo to explain what he really meant, they instead chose to join in on the attack. It became quite apparent to me that the Establishment Conservatives have always had it in for Milo, since he is a gay man who in recent years has gained much more popularity than they could ever dream of having and has probably reached more young people by going into the lion’s den that we call college campuses.

I have also been disappointed in conservatives such as Guy Benson, who I once admired for being a gay man who didn’t want to be pigeonholed, much in the same way that I admire Milo. Yet, when I saw him join in on the attacks, I lost whatever respect that I had for the man. Apparently, he didn’t like the way that people seemed to pay more attention to a gay conservative that likes to be provocative, as opposed to one who is completely boring and Milquetoast like himself. Then of course there was the disinvite from CPAC, the cancellation of his book and his cowardly co-workers at Breitbart.com who demanded his termination. I can honestly say that there are many people who lost my respect.

Now, I can’t say that Milo was totally without blame. He himself even admitted on his Facebook page that he had made on several occasions a poor choice of words that could easily be misunderstood or twisted so it could later be used against him. This is another downside to having a Don Rickles style filter. Though the one thing I can say about Milo in all this is that he doesn’t seem at all defeated. During his press conference, he said that other publishers have shown interest in his book and that it should be published later in the year. He also spoke about purchasing his own media conglomerate. That is one of the traits that I have always admired about Milo. He is a man who has never seen himself as a victim and refuses to be kept down.