Letter to a College Republican

Note: I wrote this back in January or February, when there was that big stink about Milo being invited to speak at Berkeley (this was before his pedophile-sympathizing implosion). I have to whip it out occasionally when a trans rights person claims I am being uncaring or a "bad ally" for rejecting some of the movement's language policing....

I just heard Troy’s interview on Here and Now. One would think that Berkeley would teach its students to think more logically and rationally than he is ostensibly capable of doing.

At one point, after the interviewer played Milo’s statements personally and viciously attacking a transsexual student during a talk at another school, Troy essentially states that, well, Milo has been called names… so of course he’s going to call other people names!

Firstly, what one person does never serves as an excuse for another person’s behavior. This is not a moral or ethical manner of thinking or behaving. Nobody else’s vitriol excuses his. Nobody else’s wrongful character assassination excuses his. The fact that you are incapable of recognizing this does not bode well for your own futures. I am curious how a future employer would take an argument that amounts to “But that other guy did it first!” Good luck with that.

Secondly, the student whose picture he displayed — the student whom he then went on to so atrociously and personally attack, despite such an attack being both unwarranted and completely unnecessary to make the point he was trying to make (which was itself confused and illogical) — had nothing to do with any attack on Milo. What Troy’s argument seems to amount to is this: if one person X makes a personal attack on Y, then it is perfectly acceptable for Y to attack my mother. It’s entirely nonsensical and, again, does not form the basis of any valid moral theory. It is, in fact, a quite despicable argument, and I think this should be patently obvious.

Moreover, Troy seems to think that there is something called a “hate speech case.” The Constitution does not permit any such case. One cannot be prohibited by the state from making speech regardless of how hateful or vile it is. It does not surprise me that Troy doesn’t understand how the First Amendment works, but perhaps he could do a little research (maybe speak with an attorney) before he makes such a fool of himself before millions of people.

He conflates a prohibition on state action with consequences by private entities. While the state cannot prohibit speech (e.g., in the form of a lawsuit or criminal consequences), that does not mean a person who spouts such vituperative tripe as Milo cannot or won’t or shouldn’t experience consequences vis a vis private actors. What’s more, with his misunderstanding of the First Amendment, Troy also seems to equivocate between speech that is prohibited by the constitution and speech that is not tolerated in public and private fora due to social mores. Just because Milo has not experienced a “hate speech case,” (again, no such thing exists in this country), that does not mean his speech is tolerable or should be tolerated. To take the point to a logical end, we wouldn’t tolerate someone who goes around shouting “Fuck the Jews! I love to fuck Jesus in the ass! Young children are great in bed!” Yet this kind of verbal sewage is how Milo operates, essentially. He has consistently based his popularity not on coherent arguments and cogent ideals, but by essentially being a supreme shock jock jackass. At some point, the college Republicans should display just a modicum of decency and common sense before wasting money on someone who isn’t actually trying to spread a message so much as troll the country for the explicit purpose of getting a rise out of everyone.

There is nothing intellectually honest or substantive about Milo. His speech can be boiled down to “Hah! I pissed you off!” with the oft-incoherent substance of his messages being secondary and essentially unimportant. There are scores of brilliant conservatives whose intent is to actually convince and argue, to engage in a productive dialogue. That is not Milo. Yet you chose Milo.

Which gets me around to my final point: by choosing Milo instead of these other (actually intellectually honest) conservatives and Republicans, you are simply engaging in the same worthless, substance-free, “I just want to piss you off” campaign of nonsense that Milo does. You didn’t want him to come so that he could say something meaningful. You wanted him to come to “make libs’ heads explode.”

Perhaps you should have been able to do so. But it speaks volumes about your [lack of] character that that was your goal and your ultimate desire. Grow up.

Kendra

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