two days late: Ben Shapiro

For all of the fair debate tactics that Ben Shapiro praises, it is more than disappointing to watch him exercise the juvenile tactics that he claims to despise. These are the tactics of a 'morally bankrupt' ideology, he claims. They are the tactics of 'the left'. As a person that is morally correct, it is beneath Ben to practice such tactics. His ideology isn’t so susceptible to fair criticism that it must sink to level of its enemies.

Until it is.

The leftist agenda is undeniably pervasive, and until Ben Shapiro went on his college tours and started a daily podcast, the only alternative figureheads in the conservative tradition were the crusty old men at Fox News: Bill O’ Reilly, Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck, Megyn Kelly. Rush Limbaugh is on the radio, but all the kids are listening to podcasts now.

For modernity-brainwashed college students, these men are the old guard. They defend principles and values that are obsolete. It is only a matter of time before they all die of being fat and old for the inevitable progress of the world to continue.

Enter Ben Shapiro: a smart, quick and principled young man. Not only does he defend the same traditional values as the old guard, but he conveys the reasons for their indispensable importance in ways that will make other young men listen…

“Facts don’t care about your feelings,” says encyclopedia Ben. Suddenly, all of the inconvenient facts of the left are unveiled in a public forum. The leftist ideology, so commonly the loudest voice on the college campus, is revealed to the politically agnostic as a radical fringe. Turns out the other side of the spectrum had their own reasons for their opinions. And they started to make sense! Turns out that all the students really needed was some context, something that college campuses purposely exclude. Those soft, young minds belong to us, Ben!

Debates all start to sound alike once Ben Shapiro’s facts also become talking points. His new recruits were never meant to formulate opinions from these talking points anyway! (They were meant to parrot Ben Shapiro!)

Although justified in proselytizing against abortion, Shapiro piggybacked on it. Infanticide is evil, agreed. Genocide is evil too. But there are exceptions, like when it pertains to issues of a certain geopolitical importance.

For all of the criticism against identity politics, Ben Shapiro is himself an identity politician that uses his minority status as a shield against bad policy and deceptive ideas. As an Orthodox Jew, it makes sense that he would defend the state of Israel’s right to exist. And if he can do it without deceiving his recruits into believing that a Jewish state is in the interest of Judeo-Christians, a term he coined but could not defend without throwing a tantrum on the BBC, then he is as righteous as his cause.

I’m two days late, and we’ve all seen the interview by now. He used the same debate tactics as the leftist identitarians he became famous for debating. And DESTROYING. Therefore, he deserves all the criticism he has received. His credibility as a sharp debater might be restored with an apology for his behavior, but he will be a hypocrite as long as he is a Jew.

two days late

Without a large scale war, the mainstream media relies on reporting small scale 'disputes' in regions of little relevance to its mainstream audience.

This violence, while rarely justified, approaches meaningless without historical context. Only in retrospect can history weigh the importance of these recorded events. Meanwhile, the mainstream media can only give so much historical context in a headline. It has to play on our ability to feel compassion and sympathy, and to make the best of our own lives while we are healthy and free.

Unfortunately, the amount of innocent lives lost to regional violence is not enough to make historical every event. Unfortunate too is my inability to feel real grief. It's already hard to actually care when someone else's phone is lost or stolen.

This coverage makes an impact. It makes a story. But stories make me jaded.

The Easter bombing in Sri Lanka and the most recent skirmish in Israel/Palestine, while sad, doesn't have any personal impact on me: I have never been to these countries, my ancestors are not from these countries, and I did not know any of the victims. I try to imagine what it is like to feel like my life is in danger in my own neighborhood, but my imagination is lacking.

The very reason they were killed is tragic: worshipping the Lord on the holiest day of the year, caught in the fire of a border dispute. I feel sad that people have no choice but to live as best they can in these dangerous conditions, and when they succeed, and they let their guard down to celebrate--or cross a street--they are unfairly destroyed. I grieve for the evil triumphing over good. Where there is no hope on Earth, there is hope in heaven.

The world pretends to grieve, but it moves on only as quickly as the news cycle stops barraging them with coverage. I'm two days late on this opinion and already the bloodshed in Israel/Palestine--coined "the worst since 2014" by The New York Times--has been replaced by the most recent overrated episode of Game of Thrones in twitter trends.

Last time on the Arab-Israeli Conflict.....

Where I live, there is an overdose everyday. The local news cannot report them all. There might be a retrospective at the end of the year for all of the junkies that died in that year, but their families would feel that their privacy was violated, and wouldn't want their loved one to be publicly remembered by local strangers for dying a junkie.

I celebrate Easter, and I knew junkies. I feel sadness for both victims. To really care for someone's death, I would have to know them, and care for them. To know someone enough to care for them takes time. 

It is always sad when innocent people are killed. I want to be more Christ-like, but I don't feel grief for people I never knew in a place I've never been.

This is the purpose of prayer. I can pray for those whose lives are prematurely extinguished. I don't necessarily need historical context. I don't need to know who is right or wrong, or what is or isn't justified.

The news media's cynical purpose might be to sell stories, but without it, we wouldn't know what war torn regions to pray for. Or which junkies aren't in their basements anymore.