A Little Bit About Milo

So Milo Yiannopoulis, the gay, conservative, comic troll, was invited to speak at CPAC. When it was revealed he seemed to have endorsed pedophilia, the invitation was rescinded. His meteoric career flamed out in a matter of 48 hours.

I've always liked Milo because he poked fun at stuck-up prigs, something comics used to do. Now many of the comics are the stuck-up prigs. I've always been leery of Milo because you felt he was walking on the edge of a volcano. He would dramatically hint at the details of his personal life, but it didn't make you want to see more, it made you wince and wonder if this was the time the volcano was going to erupt.

Well, this time it did.

Milo is such a well-known figure in political circles by now that his last name is almost superfluous, like Cher's. His antics have drawn out violent, stuck-up prigs at universities across the country, revealing them for the humorless, sour, ugly, dull-witted thugs that they are. He drew them out into the open and we all opened fire with gales of derisive laughter. It was glorious.

Despite my affection for him, I think it's a mistake to rush to draw parallels and accuse the left of hypocrisy for the piling on they're doing over this self-destruction. Milo deserves it and that fact stands alone. Instead, I'd suggest there's another lesson that not many people are learning.

By fetishizing "disadvantaged" groups, we seem to be whitewashing their sins away at the same time. Black lives matter until the black lives are ones wrecked by other blacks, as they are in ghastly numbers. See also: black family, destruction of. It's a pathology that dare not speak its name.

Similarly, we've turned our eyes from the troubles of the gay community. Promiscuity, violence and more, we don't just deny that they exist, to even raise them as issues is to put a target on your chest for cries of "Homophobia!" (Just what is fearful about concern for others is beyond me.) Wasn't Milo destroyed by one of the things we fear is going on behind the scenes in the gay community? In the interview that wrecked his career, he suggested that it's somewhat common. Is it real? Is it not? Who knows, we're not allowed to even discuss it.

Yes, the left has been totally hypocritical about this. The right is, too, when the shoe's on the other foot. That's what political groups do. Milo, however, isn't just a political weapon. He's a person.

The whole thing reminds me of the times when an NFL player turns out to have been beating his wife or sleeping around and leaving bastard children in his wake. We always deal with the individual as if he's asymptomatic when he might not be.

Oh well. At least we can get back to the real conversation that we all want to have. Pointing political fingers and yelling.