This week, Alt-Right ideologue Milo Yiannopolis' career was spectacularly destroyed by the outrage over a year-old video of interview in which he defended paedophilia. I've blogged about Yiannopolis before. He's another journo from the right-wing news organisation, Breitbart, who's been very vocal in his support of Donald Trump. He's also a walking mass of contradictions – a self-hating gay, who rails against homosexuality, and a racist, who's half-Jewish and talks about his Black boyfriend. He's also extremely anti-feminist. Guy Debord's Cat has written a particularly good piece taking him and his bigotry apart at: https://buddyhell.wordpress.com/2015/03/24/lets-talk-about-milo-yiannopoulos/
A year or so ago, Yiannopolis was a guest on Joe Rogan's Drunken Peasant's podcast in which he defended paedophilia. Yiannopolis declared that the laws regarding consent were confused and oppressive, and confessed that he'd had a gay relationship when he was 14 with his Roman Catholic priest, Father Michael. He claimed that such relationships could be positive, and that he had been the initiator in the relationship. He also went on to claim that he had also been on Hollywood boat parties, in which 'very young boys' were also present and abused by the older men there.
Kevin Logan made a video of this part of the podcast, naturally attacking Milo for his vile defence of child abuse. This was picked up by the American mainstream media in the furore following Yiannopolis' appearance on the Bill Maher Show. The result has been that Yiannopolis' has been disinvited from CPAC, the main Conservative conference in the US. His deal for a proposed book, Dangerous, has also been dropped by the publisher, and many of the universities at which he was booked to speak have also dropped him. He has also been forced to resign from Breitbart.
Yiannopolis has now made a kind of non-apology, in which he claims it was all a joke, or something like that, and stating that he does not condone nor defend paedophilia. However, he makes a distinction between this and hebephilia, which is supposed to be sexual relations with teenage boys. This just seems to be a case of hair-splitting, as Milo is still talking about the abuse of those, who are minors under the law. It's still child abuse, and I think under American legislation would be considered statutory rape of a minor.
Here's a video from the Jimmy Dore Show, in which the comedian rips apart Yiannopolis' original comments and his later quasi-apology.
Dore also makes the point that Yiannopolis has also committed an additional crime under Californian law. This obliges those, who know that child abuse is being committed, to inform the police. Yiannopolis was present at these parties where 'very young' – barely teenage? – boys were being abused, and did not tell the cops. I think he also claimed to know three or four other men, who were also abusing underage boys.
Yiannopolis' defence of child abuse is disgusting, but many left-wing bloggers and vloggers have also pointed out that he's also made revolting comments about non-Whites, feminism and 'SJWs', or Social Justice Warriors, the Alt-Right term of abuse for anyone concerned with minority rights and social justice. He's always been a troll, who delights in deliberately saying the offensive and unspeakable to shock and outrage those on the Left. Dore, and David Pakman, who has also commented about this on his show, also make the point that Yiannopolis in himself isn't really very interesting. His views ain't original. All that makes him noteworthy at all is that he's a gay man, saying vile things about other gays. It's another example of the Republican strategy of taking one member of a particularly minority to criticise and attack the others. Quite often its Black Conservatives attacking Blacks. They've also pointed out that it also shows the great intellectual cachet Americans accord anyone with an upper class British accent. Yiannopolis' views on race and feminism are bog-standard, unremarkable bigotry. But because he articulates them in a BBC, public-school accent, they are somehow taken to be more insightful and intellectually respectable than they are.
For the moment, Yiannopolis' career has imploded. But one of the commenters on one of the news threads about this predicted that he'd probably be back in time. Unfortunately, I can see this being true. As for the universities that have cancelled him, I think they're entirely right to do so. Beyond matters of principle, unis and other places of education have a duty of care to their students. Many students and staff will have children, and will obviously be very uncomfortable about the university allowing someone to speak, who believes that statutory child abuse in certain circumstances is acceptable. Yiannopolis' views are also in strong opposition to the ethics of school teaching. These have very strong rules designed to protect students from abuse, and teachers from false accusations, which also occur from time to time. Universities aren't schools, but at least in Britain they do run teacher training courses. The education professionals running these courses are highly unlikely to want to see invited onto campus a speaker, whose stated personal views attack the moral and legal principles they wish to impress on the teachers of the future.
In the meantime, Yiannopolis' fall has shown that there is a line even which the trolls of the Alt-Right cross at their peril. But as the other left-wing bloggers and vloggers have pointed out, it's a pity that this didn't happen to Yiannopolis earlier when he making his vile comments on race and feminism.
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Source: Alt-Right Goebbels Milo Yiannopolis Spectacularly Self-Destructs Defending Paedophilia
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