I see this fairly differently. The Milo fans were screaming, positively SCREAMING, with delight to watch all those oxen getting gored, cheering it on, putting themselves firmly in the pro-goring-oxen camp.
Then Milo turned his horns on theirs.
The reason they loved him was because he was pissing off people, and he was pissing off people they loathed, and he was doing so by saying the shitty things many of them believed, and they could enjoy hearing their shitty thoughts voiced and could enjoy watching people they hated be annoyed, AND THEY COULD PRETEND IT WAS ALL ABOUT FREE SPEECH.
Suddenly, they’re realizing that it wasn’t actually about free speech. Bummer, dude!
It’s not that he became too embarrassing. He wasn’t embarrassing at all before.
Yes, I think this is it. It was never a difference in philosophy, just in standards. Once Milo violated the standards of his conservative supporters/enablers, they were just as quick to shun him as his liberal critics. What’s revealing is that their standards were fine with the many bigoted and otherwise horrible things he had said already.
Exactly. He was saying what the majority of Republicans appear to believe. Bigoted things, sexist things, homophobic things, and transphobic things. And they were okay with every single one of them.
Again as a general rule my thoughts are public universities are a bit different than a private meeting. In this particular case? I think it’s an overreaction. I think discussing taboo issues be they racial, sexual, drug use, religious, immigration etc shouldn’t make one a pariah. Age of consent is a valid subject for discussion. Now you can disagree with the points advocated or debated but I don’t think it’s healthy to demonize people engaged in debate.
Evidence of their absurdly high tolerance for embarrassment to be sure, but Trump promises to be profitable for them (and thus they’ll put up with a lot from him), while Yiannopoulos wasn’t worth the continued association so it’s all “Yiannopoulos who?”
Because there’s a point where decisions are made, positions are decided and further “debate” only serves to muddy the waters and bring those decisions and positions into question.
By your logic, we should simply debate slavery all over again if someone decides to take the public position that we should enslave every black person in America. There’s no value in that other than to validate an indefensible position.
Milo isn’t interested in debate, any more than the monkey who flings shit at you at the zoo is interested in trading cookie recipes. Milo has made his brand into pissing people off, into insulting people in the most vile way he can imagine.
I still don’t think shutting him down through yelling or whatever is correct: on the contrary, that gives him exactly what he wants, that monetizes him. Instead, he should be treated as the deeply unserious rodeo clown that he is.
Yeah, that’s pretty much how I feel about it. Trump’s an embarrassment, but he’s an embarrassment who will sign their anti-science and pro-torture bills into law, so they’ll put up with it.
Don’t know what will happen come re-election time. Will they kick him to the curb, or will they be so popular with their (surviving) constituents that they won’t need to?
Yesterday I was listening to someone comparing him to Oscar Wilde, in a way I think it’s an apt description, a flamboyant man not afraid to shock by saying some things that people know are true but rather not have them aired in public.
I also suspect the hatred he receives from the Left is in large part due to him being a threat to the Left brand image, an openly gay man being accepted and celebrated by the Right? They are not supposed to do that, that’s our shtick!
No, we just despise him because he is a troll and a scumbag. He is not a threat at all to the Left, or the Middle. He’s that buzzy damn mosquito you swat and forget.
Ockam’s Razor.
Yes, the reason is that what you are talking about wasn’t a thing until a few days ago, yet the hatred for the man began as soon as he became prominent a couple years ago.
I’ve seen time and time again the Left going against people whose cause they putatively own; it’s group dynamics, the one thing In-groups hate more than the Out-Group is people the “betray” the In-Group. For example BLM adherents calling a black person that doesn’t align with them an Uncle Tom.
That type of dynamic is true for most, if not all ideological groups, Left, Right, doesn’t matter; what they also have in common is that they also absolutely hate this to be pointed out.
Why not debate it? I disagree that any topic is unworthy of debate. Now it can be a simple to win debate but it doesn’t hurt to debate it. Imho, of course.
Some because they love how he riles some people up, some because they need to feel outraged, some because they can sort through the chaff to find something of value on what he says, etc, etc…
He is a controversy monger, he thrives on it and he is not alone in the business; that’s why I think that the relevant variable is that his flamboyantly gay persona is accepted by people on the right, and that makes him dangerous to people on the left that derive political capital from painting themselves as the LGBT friendly side, the idea that a person can be gay and on the right threatens their demographics.