Capitulation is Worse than Bad Optics

Well the Cuckservatives are at it again, this time rescinding their offer to let Milo speak at the CPAC conference. Milo, who has done more to advance the conservative message and to wage war with the left than any white-collared DC insider has done in decades, is being blocked because of a video that has surfaced where he talks about relationships between young gays and older men.

That Milo would seem to normalize sexual encounters between teenagers and adults isn't terribly surprising, considering he was himself a sex abuse victim at that age. Do sexual abuse victims in this country not get any empathy these days? Of course not, not if they're conservative. However Lena Dunham who wrote in her book about sexually assaulting her sister when she was a toddler is free to speak at the Democratic National Convention. Apparently talking about pedophilia or being gay or being an immigrant are terrible things in this country if you happen to be a conservative. (Remember them saying Peter Thiel can't be gay because he supported Trump?)

The lesson the Republicans can't seem to learn is that if your position is even remotely defensible, you never back down to leftist bullying! Never never never!! No matter how bad the optics. Sure, keeping him on would have opened them to accusations that his interview could be interpreted as normalizing child sex abuse. But their side allows someone who wrote things that can't be interpreted as anything but normalizing child sex abuse! He was a victim; she was a perpetrator. As long as conservatives allow themselves to be held to a double standard, they will be. The cause of the right will be far less damaged by standing strong during controversies than by chumming the water with the blood of their own every time "the optics are bad."

You know it's interesting I was listening to the radio on the drive to work this morning, and I heard Joan Jett's famous hit, "I Love Rock n Roll", which is just a story about her going home with a 17-year-old. Where is the outrage? Nowhere, of course, because she is politically liberal.

Here's the video in question:

Are the optics bad? Yes. Does he advocate for pedophilia? No. Does he walk a dangerous line in advocating ephibophilia (attraction to post-pubescent minors)? Yes. Does he outright endorse it? No. And in his response he clarifies that he does not. Also consider the context. In Europe, where he grew up, the age of consent tends to be low (he mentions 14 in his mother's home country). Yet these countries also until fairly recently had gay ages of consent at 21. So in his example where he was 17, the relationship was illegal only because he's gay. And yet the pro-gay left is going full-bore to attack him. Salon even deleted their articles showing favor for pedophilia (which Milo strongly condemned) just so they could attack him for it!

 This all falls easily into the category of "remotely defensible."

Milo's response to the matter: