http://money.cnn.com/2017/02/20/media/milo-yiannopoulos-cpac/
Violation of free speech as some have argued in the context of universities or not?
Please discuss.
These organizations are not government ones, nor are they ones that proclaim that they accept all political viewpoints, right?
^ ^
The same could be said of private universities which have disinvited him as well.
Also, CPAC has been on record decrying the deprivation of free speech in universities regardless of public or private and in contexts where they’re really decrying the free-speech rights of private individuals/organizations to voice their disagreements, define their own boundaries for engaging in discussions, or not provide them a platform for their speech.
I think Milo whatever his name is has a right to free speech but that doesn’t mean CPAC must invite him and since they decided to disinvite him he can always speak somewhere else as freely as he likes including YT where he supposedly has 500,000 followers (all of them I am guessing with far too much time on their hands).
This is actually a big issue in the day and age of social media combined with the fact that a segment of people need “safe spaces” and such or else they become offended and shut down. I’m not offended by almost anything in the form of a spoken word so I couldn’t care less what this guy, or people like him, says or where they say it because it absolutely has no impact on me or my kids. We would shrug, probably laugh, and go on about our business.
But, here again, it is a big issue because we rely on a free press to serve as one check against the people we elect, the press serves as the people’s eyes and ears, and the press is being attacked. It is hard to ignore that. That is, if unchecked, a potential move towards totalitarianism and if that doesn’t worry you it should. So being able to speak freely, even if one doesn’t like the message, is a really big deal. I would not have had any problem with what this guy said but I would not have invited his goofy backside in the first place. He seems belong someplace else … maybe a public bathroom … where he can meet others who share his interests.
I’m not sure how this could be considered a violation of free speech. CPAC hasn’t invited me to speak about anything, is that a violation of my right to free speech? I think these organizations have the right to invite/disinvite anyone they choose, for whatever reason (that is not in violation of any contract they might have). No doubt they are paying for a speaker, and to choose not to have him may violate a contract they have with him (possibly), but it certainly doesn’t challenge his right to free speech. He can go yell his nastiness on the street corners and see where that gets him.
Looks like Simon & Schuster has rescinded his book contract, too.
I’ve never even heard of the guy until today. So he was the guy who got students in Cali to protest/riot because he was scheduled to speak on campus? I just watched three-quarters of an interview he did with CNBC after Twitter banned him and I am not sure what to think.
How does someone like him get famous? He was a writer from Brietbart? He has, or had, 380,000 Twitter followers before he was banned there? His comments in that interview were interesting and, to be honest, I felt like he was being picked on a little bit and he was clearly nervous and carries himself as a really sophisticated well spoken guy with a big vocabulary and a bit of a persecution complex. I’m not sure though. Sometimes, if you don’t say what the crowd wants to hear, you get attacked. I know that feeling so not sure what to believe here.
I think a lot of people like him are in a constant battle for attention. Things are great until they are not great and you get thrown out kind of like Anne Colter. She has no audience now. No platform. No one is listening and it is a little sad which is not an endorsement of what she said just a little sad as in how pathetic she is now.
@GoNoles85 I’m not quite sure what you mean by him meeting others of his ilk in a public restroom, but whatever.
A simple google search will bring up a number of troubling aspects to him - misogyny, racism, alt-right. He has written that women shouldn’t be allowed to be in STEM fields because they will have babies and quit, his remarks on Twitter about Leslie Jones (and prompting his “followers” to gang up on her in a number of despicable ways) caused him to be banned from twitter.
He likes to consider himself a provocateur, but he’s really just despicable. If my daughters were subject to the stuff that comes out of his mouth, I’d probably end up in jail.
Funny that all the other stuff he’s said was ok enough to get him an invite to CPAC.
Yes, very interesting (but not surprising) what CPAC considers acceptable and where they draw the line.
I’ve never heard Yiannopolus even semi-apologize or admit to " imprecise" language as he does here so that tells you something about the issue here and why it’s different than his other reprehensible stuff. he knew he’s doomed himself. I couldn’t be happier.
I’m suspecting that’s a reference to his support of pedophilia.
I think he’s not doomed. I think this is what he wanted. Attention, of any type. Look at me, look at me, I’m famous now.
This is the guy who got himself banned from twitter, so that should tell you something.
I just want to correct an idea that seems to be taking hold. He was not booted because of his views. There was no conscience-driven line drawn. CPAC officials were strenuously defending him last night. He was booted because of the social media firestorm. Resistance works.
I read somewhere that other Breitbart writers are threatening to quit if he isn’t fired. I’m sure he’s a joy to work with!
I wish no one would listen to him or pay him the least bit of attention. He might just deflate and blow away without attention, never to be heard from again.
Such a bunch of snowflakes! 
So CPAC is fine with a Neo-Nazi as a guest but a Neo-Nazi pediphile is where they draw the line? Interesting.
Hypocrites.
Hey, this is the free market at work. As a conservative, Milo should be happy.
As others have noted, shunning of a detestable person (or even of detestable ideas) by private entities does not have anything to do with the First Amendment right to free speech. Of course, entities that claim to be forums for open debate (like colleges) are subject to claims of hypocrisy if they pick and choose too much.
What stuns me is that the invitation was extended to Milo in the first place. I thought CPAC was a conference that pretty much represented mainstream conservative values. There is absolutely nothing mainstream about Milo. I can’t decide if CPAC did not do enough research on Milo, or if they were simply willing to take a risk since he is so vehemently anti-PC culture, anti-feminism and appears very willing to criticize Islam.
Not sure if others have actually listened to the interview, but it is pretty “out there” on the subject of young boys. And the radio show on which he appeared was also pretty bizarre – one of the hosts was in some sort of costume. And although he is doing some major back-pedaling since the tape surfaced, he most definitely defended pedophelia as we legally define it. He made the distinction between 13 year old boys who are not sexually aware and those who are, and then defended relationships with older men if they fell into the latter category. Then he referenced his own relationship with a catholic priest and went on to attribute some of his own sexual prowess to that relationship in very, very crass terms.
You just never know with this guy --is he being truthful or he is just looking for shock value?
CPAC is supposed to represent mainstream conservatism, but the problem there is what is mainstream conservatism, the rules have changed a lot, what was once alt right or far right is now mainstream…CPAC probably invited him because the ‘alt right’ these days is considered a powerful political force, it is attributed in some part to the results of the last election.
There is hypocrisy here, because if conservatives screamed about Milo being denied by ‘liberals’ the right to speak at Berkeley or whereaver, then they are guilty of the same thing, because much of what Milo comes out with, about women, about immigrants and other things, is just as distasteful to those who protested as Berkeley as advocating pedophilia was to CPAC. You can argue that pedophilia is illegal, that an underage child cannot consent and therefore it is different, but keep in mind we are talking what he is saying, and advocating pedophilia to me is morally reprehensible ahd horrible, but that advocation is not illegal; and to those at Berkeley Milo’s claims about immigrants, Muslims, women and so forth are just as vile…
It isn’t that I think CPAC should necessarily have let him speak, my problem is the same people who stopped him from speaking yell and scream and talk about ‘the illiberal left’ and the like when protests stop someone the people at Berkeley and elsewhere found equally distasteful from speaking, and claims that "pedophilia is different’ is equivocating, it is the hypocrisy that stands out, because level of disgust is in the eye of the beholder. I think CPAC responded to public pressure because most people are troubled by someone advocating pedophilia, and I have no problem with that, what I do have problems with is where a speaker is dropped because CPAC supports what they say but others find that person vile and pressure the speaking agency drop the person and they yell and scream that this is suppression of speech, suppression of ‘my ideas’, etc.
For the record I happen to favor letting people speak, no matter how vile, whether it is neo nazis or extreme socialists or granola heads saying we should all be living in yurts and eating root vegetables shivering under blankets in winter, and then protesting the heck out of them speaking out against them, etc…and if you are mad that the sponsoring organization actually let this guy speak, protest them, boycott them, whatever, that is your right, too.
I will wait for the alt-right to join NAMBLA in protest kind of like all the people who joined the ACLU after the Muslim ban.