Sunday, February 28, 2010

The Blatant Bigotry At CPAC: The Anger, The Arrogance And A Distinct Lack Of Reasoning



It's over a week since this event happened. It went viral almost immediately. Millions have already seen it. Why am I writing about it? Simply to state this:


THERE  ARE  MORE  WHERE  RYAN SORBA  CAME  FROM

A young Right-wingnut disguised as a budding conservative ala William F. Buckley (who would NOT have approved) aroused anger, shame, boos, disgust and yes, a small amount of applause. No one had expected his arrogant tirade. He was very proud of it. With the first sentence, he proved that Republicans still have not mastered the art of vetting. The event is best told in short points:
  • Alexander McCobin of Students for Liberty thanks CPAC for including GOProud as a sponsor...
  • McCobin is booed by several members of the audience...
  • Including (admittedly): Ryan Sorba, representing ...
  • California Young Americans For Freedom ...
  • Sorba is introduced next as the young man who appeared on Glenn Beck's show for the wrong reasons and ...
  • Was supposed to tell his story...
  • The first words out of his mouth...
  • "I'd like to condemn CPAC for accepting GOProud"...
  • It was met with a chorus of boos...
  • To which he said "I love it!"
Forget the booing. It's PC. Yes, for once, booing was politically correct. A bunch of CPAC arch-conservatives would have cheered, but people were recording his sage words, so how should they have reacted? They also heard the boos for McCobin and didn't want to go down that path by cheering Sorba.

And the saga doesn't end with Sorba's words at the podium.

He gave TWO interviews.

One ended in an ugly manner and should be quoted verbatim by gay reporter Alex Knepper of Race 4 2012.

He [Sorba] said at around this point that he needed to go, and put out his hand to say goodbye. I stared at him, refusing to shake his hand, and he said “Well, I don’t really want to shake your hand, you’re intrinsically evil.”

When we reached the area near the escalator downstairs, he turned on his camera. I put out my arms, striking a mocking pose, but realized he kept holding the camera at me.

“Wait, are you recording or taking a picture?” He was recording.

“Ah! OK…Well, I’d like to say, then, that the person behind the camera is a Hitler Youth waiting for a fuhrer to sweep him off his feet into a grand national project so he can sacrifice individuals like stock-fodder to his own biases.”

He turned off the camera and approached me. I told him he should get his girlfriend to give him a blowjob so that he could experience the joys of sodomy. He put two of his fingers an inch from my face and said that he’d want to fight me if a girl wasn’t around. “Ah, the use of force!” I said again.

The full exchange can be read HERE. This was not the first time Sorba's speech caused a stir. Recall that he cited protesting lesbians at Smith College. He was referring to a three-year-old incident at Smith where he was supposed to speak on the "Born Again Hoax". The theme for his speech was supposedly culled from his "forthcoming" book of the same title. Protesters stormed the hall in which he was speaking and he was ushered out ("for his own safety"). He's been living on that story ever since, it seems.  

The irony here lies in the possibility that the "hoax" may be Sorba himself. The only available copy of his "book" is HERE. It is not listed in Amazon.com (which many times even lists out-of-print books). It was copywrighted in 2007. The first chapter and the last three chapters are labeled "tbc" presumably because they are not under copywright yet, but they are important chapters and are missing. But the biggest problems with this 95-page pamphlet/book: no bibliography and no index. Sorba thinks that his brain and his brain alone should be taken as the temple of truth. This man who prides himself on spewing pure Aristotilian rhetoric is himself unreasonable, expecting everyone to take him and his arrogance at face value simply because HE says he's using reason. He makes statements, then immediately storms off because he is cowardly. Bravado, it seems, is not his forte.
 
The second interview he gave that day is below. Again, his bravado does not extend to allowing himself to be photographed for some inexplicable reason. You are allowed to laugh at his statement "I don't hate anybody."  

Remember this message: Ryan Sorba is not alone. He may seem like a one-man hate group masquerading as an intelligent neo-conservative, but he has supporters out there - somewhere.