MILO YIANNOPOULOS

The quick of mind are rarely soft and cuddly. Milo Yiannopoulos is a bright man of 31 years (Wikipedia says 32) from England by way of Greece. He is an on line celebrity and purposeful YouTube-Twitter personality. He has written for Breibart. He's articulate, pretty, flashy and openly tres homosexual. His non-virtual career focus seems to be politically conservative commentary on college campuses. He is good at it when he gets the chance to do it. Therein lies the rub for Milo and for those who want to hear diverse opinions from collegiate stages. The sincerely open-minded are a rapidly dying breed, it seems.

Milo was stigmatized by Twitter, for example. His speech has been labeled "offensive" and "hateful" and "triggering", whatever the hell that even means. But the more daring broadcasters in television, radio and especially on YouTube have reached out to Milo. He's good video and audio. And here is where, I have to say, YouTube may actually add a positive ingredient to contemporary global culture. (Sorry, Davey Wavey, but your pecs, while beautiful, do not deepen the cultural gestalt.) 

I disagree strongly with some of Milo's extremist statements on feminism, gay rights, gay bashing, guns, American politics and religion. But not all. That is the point. By listening to much of what Milo has to say, I know I could have an intelligent conversation with this young man. So why has he been banned from speaking on college campuses here and in U.K.? Should I consider myself an extremist for being able to hear validity in some of what Milo has to say? Of course not.

Milo is being banned because the regressive nature of our current culture in The West, which was codified after the 2001 political manipulation of the attacks on the World Trade Center, has extinguished real debate through common sense, observation, statistics and novel ideas. As public and private education in The West are financially gutted by the very capitalist (social Darwinian) ideals which Milo defends, the quality of public discourse, seen daily on Facebook, Twitter, etc, declines. To paraphrase a former U.S. Democrat President, "It's the stupid, Stupid."

Watching college students, many of them Caucasian women, spreading red goop on their faces as some indication of support for Black lives in protest of Milo's attempts to express ideas as an invited speaker on a college (Rutgers) stage has convinced me of the infantile state of many young adults in the U.S. academic sphere. Milo is not a military general or a government official. He is a British guest in America. He has no power over the police or the military. Why in the name of basic intelligence would pro-Black-rights activists find him so threatening? Perhaps in the same way that Yale students found Ayaan Hirsi Ali so threatening that they once banned her from speaking on women in Islam there. When you hide from a wider truth over and over, the truth-teller becomes the boogie man. 

Like Donald Trump, Milo dares to speak plainly against myths of Neo-Liberalism. I can hear the hissing already. I am Left of Neo-Liberals on most issues and Right of them on others. In other words, I have my own opinions based in education, reflection and life experience. Neo-Liberalism has become another form of fascism. It is a Fascism Against Free Speech, ruthlessly oppressing free expression of ideas which do not conform to regressive standards of "protecting" just about everybody from just about everything except street drugs and alcohol. Donald Trump, Milo and even Bernie Sanders (occasionally) cross the lines. And how the media and academics howl to silence them. To that howling, I say,"Stupid is as stupid does.", to quote another famous pragmatist.