I was talking with my dad over the winter the next year about all sorts of things that had been happening, like current events. I brought up Milo, and earned my father's pride and approval, I think (not because I had said I liked anything about him, but just knowing the name I think impressed him). We talked about Milo a while, who at the time was my only real link to the conservative/alt-right movement among the newer generations. My dad suggested a couple other conservatives I might like to listen to if I was trying to hear other opinions than the ones I might have heard in high school.
Enter: Ben Shapiro. Probably one of the most intelligent men I have ever listened to. An amazing author, an amazing lawyer, and an inspiration to me. If you haven't heard of him, but you just did, and you like Jews who love their wives and know how to run circles around leftists in debates, check him out.
In Milo I had found an entertaining antagonist of the left, who never apologized for anything and got famous that way. He was exhilarating to listen to, and he said things that no one else could say, especially about groups of people he belonged to.
In Ben Shapiro I found a voice of logic and reason, whose arguments I could take and use in my life in circumstances like the one we went over in the last chapter. He's very young for everything he's done, and he is more political of a speaker than anything else. Where Milo speaks more in social tones, Ben speaks in political ones.
From this came a curiosity about all sorts of people on the internet. I listened to a lot of Sargon of Akkhad, a European who didn't drink the cool-aid, Christina Hoff-Sommers, The Factual Feminist who doesn't stand for the modern feminist misandrist movements, Dave Rubin (whose video with PragerU called “Why I left the Left” opened my eyes to a lot), and Jordan Peterson, clinical psychologist and professor, a man I could listen to speak for years (and plan to), and someone I wish I could call a mentor.
It was sort of a self-education. I listened to these men and women debate, do college tours, teach classes, and hold events, and I tried to tune in to as many debates as I could so that I could hear what the other side had to say.
Except the leftists who came to protest never had much to say besides ad hominem. They called Milo a homophobe (he's gay), Peterson an alt-righter (he's more of a liberal actually), Christina a misogynist (she's a she) and Ben a transphobe. But no actual arguments to anything they have to say. Because why would you argue with rational points when you can just tell the person that they're not allowed to say those points.
I'm not going to tell you you're wrong. I'm just going to tell you that you have no right to be right.
The next few chapters will talk in more specifics about these people, things they've said ish, my take, and why I continue to listen.