Paineful Truth

Milo Yiannopoulos. A person relatively few had previously heard of, made a lot of headlines this week after he was uninvited to speak at CPAC due to comments he made regarding his apparent support for pedophilia. Now whether this and his subsequent resignation from Breitbart were justified or a witch hunt, it brings up some significant questions that conservatives must address. First, who are we willing to ally ourselves with? While “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” may be true to some extent, it does not mean that he is on my side. People like Yiannopoulos and other internet ranters may be fighting for freedom of speech and against political correctness, but that does not make them conservatives. The reason this distinction is important is because the rest of America is watching. If they see “conservatives” being chummy with individuals like Yiannopoulos, they tend to assume that means that we approve, and they automatically lump us all together. We cannot control the ass...

I love movies about magic. Magicians are some of the best entertainers in the world, in my opinion. It doesn’t matter how many times I’ve seen the trick, I am always willing to see it one more time. To be duped one more time. The wonder produced by magic tricks comes from what is known as the art of misdirection. The magician directs your attention to one area while the real trick is done elsewhere. Now, this is all well and good on a stage in Las Vegas or on the movie screen. However, it is neither well nor good when it comes to domestic policy in the United States of America. Repeal, No Replacement It was reported this last week that Rand Paul stormed out of a meeting of GOP lawmakers discussing how to replace ObamaCare. Key word here: replace. Rand Paul was not happy with how the discussions were going saying, “I hear things that are unacceptable to me. If they don’t seem to care what conservatives think about complete repeal of ObamaCare, they’re going to be shocked when ...

As humans, we have a natural self-defense instinct. When we sense an attack, we naturally respond in defense. Now, any marriage counselor will tell you that this reaction needs to be tempered for a relationship to work. We need to stop “auto-responding” and instead begin viewing attacks as opportunities to examine ourselves, change, and improve. From the moment Trump announced his candidacy for president, I opposed him. Vehemently. Throughout the entire primary I loudly pointed out his liberal ideology , his character shortcomings , and his apparent disregard for the Constitution. During the general election, I did not turn around and sing his praises. Rather I focused efforts on Clinton, pointing out her flaws as a candidate . Once Trump was elected however, I found myself less despondent than I anticipated. After the inauguration, I found myself cautiously optimistic. And just the other day, I found myself attempting to come to Trump’s defense. My, how things change. Th...

   UC Berkeley has long been considered a bastion of free speech and expression. However, this last week its campus was ravaged by violent rioters who could not tolerate the thought of a speaker being allowed on campus that disagreed with their beliefs.   Milo Yiannopoulos, lately of being banned from Twitter fame, is not my favorite person in the world if I’m being honest. However, whatever disagreements we may have, I respect his right to believe what he believes and to speak out regarding what he believes. The rioters at UC Berkeley, on the other hand, do not. (It should be noted that there was a contingent of peaceful protesters that did not engage in the rioting and looting. Those people were well within their rights and are not the subject of this article.) There’s an old saying, "If you can't win on the facts, argue the law. If you can't win on the law, call your opponent names." Arguments often degrade over time. When one side senses that it is los...