7. October 8: David Frum and His Pro-Pedophile Protege Alex Knepper by Jenn Q. Public and David Swindle
The sexual exploitation of children is an almost unimaginable horror, abetted by the insidious online movement to paint pedophilia as just another puritan taboo. It should be just as unimaginable that a prominent public intellectual would allow this evil to fester in the conservative movement, but that is precisely what former Bush administration speechwriter David Frum does each time he renews his support of former NewsReal Blog contributor Alex Knepper.
Knepper’s disgusting views on sex have been thoroughly documented in posts we have written here at NewsReal Blog. We have contacted Frum three times to present evidence of Knepper’s degeneracy. In response, he snidely brushed off our documentation, instead focusing his protege’s energy on how to “fight the crazy right.” Never has Frum condemned any of this previously-disclosed material.
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To knowingly support the man who wrote these things is a moral degeneracy.
It’s time for David Frum to take a stand against Alex Knepper. No tent should have room for this unapologetic promoter of child exploitation.
Relevant follow-up posts:
- October 12: David Frum Weasels Out of a Morally-Suspect Corner: The 14 Errors in his Mea Culpa
- October 13 at RightWingNews: The David Frum/Alex Knepper vs. NewsReal Child Sex Fight – Exclusive: Alex Knepper Comments
- October 19: An Expert Weighs in on Young “Genius” Who Claims Writings on Child Sex Were Just Jokes
Question: what would happen if it was revealed that Glenn Beck’s protege was a pedophile? And what would happen if Beck responded by being more outraged by the people who exposed his protege than the fact that his associate wanted to molest children? It would be the end of Beck’s career. Every mention of Beck’s name would rightfully be proceeded with “pedophile apologist.”
But what happens when the Left’s favorite pseudo-conservative David Frum does just that? Nada. He remains a figure of note in the political culture, in spite of the revelation that he’s morally bankrupt and unable to recognize evil. Even many conservatives look the other way, quietly dismissing the whole story as a “moral panic” when it’s brought to their attention.
So far, to my knowledge there are only two people who now refuse to write for us because of this post. (And one of them had not even yet written a post yet, I had only given them permission to submit one.) This doesn’t bother me at all — quite the opposite in fact. If I lost five more bloggers over it then I’d be thrilled. Why? Because this story is the ultimate litmus test of someone’s soul. If you cannot recognize the evil here then I don’t want you writing for us. We’re not talking here about someone who thinks 17-year-olds are cute. (My former blogger noted in her emails to me that she drools over the 17-year-old boys in “Twilight.” Does that mean she’s a pedophile too? No, it doesn’t. But it does make her an idiot for being unable to realize that’s not the issue.) We’re talking here about a man who posted images of 10-14 year old children, labeled them “CHILFS” (as in “child I’d like to F—”,) and admitted to masturbating to such images. It’s definitive evidence of a degenerate sexual interest in children. This cannot be tolerated in our culture and is not up for debate.
There are many lessons to learn from this story. Foremost among them is this: we need to take evil seriously. Conservatives need to stop giving leftists and Islamists the benefit of the doubt. We need to stop dismissing Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as just some nutty guy when he’s actually this generation’s equivalent of Adolf Hitler. We need to start dealing with the malevolence embedded within our schools of higher education. (The Conservative Movement as a whole has by and large been out to lunch on this issue for the past decade as Horowitz has been waging the Academic Freedom campaign mostly on his own.)
Conservatives need to actually take seriously the lessons from the Left’s romance with tyranny and terror. In Jamie Glazov’s United in Hate chapter after chapter show a pattern of leftists refusing to accept that one leader and political movement after another was evil. In Radical Son we see how a still-Marxist, ’70s-era Horowitz could be taken in by a sociopath like Huey Newton. Why? Because as a New Leftist he didn’t take evil seriously. He had no concept of original sin. Horowitz wrote in Radical Son:
I had been reading Political Messianism, by J. L. Talmon, which described nationalism and socialism as secular religions that lacked a doctrine of original sin. After reading Talmon’s account, I began to wish that I had inherited such a concept. The idea of original sin—that we are born flawed, that the capacity for evil is lodged within us (no matter how our consciousness may be raised)—would have instilled in me a necessary caution about individuals like Huey Newton, and movements like ours. There were people who had a will to evil that no amount of political enlightenment could overcome. Nor could any movement (no less humanity) hope to purge itself of the potential for evil that lurked in us all.
George W. Bush was mocked for going with his gut instincts. But he was right: sometimes we need to listen to feelings that transcend the intellect. Nature has developed within us the capacity to recognize evil at a base level. When you read through the material from Knepper you can feel the evil in your bones. It’s as though it descends upon you like a dark cloud. When you see videos of Islamists admitting to wanting to exterminate the Jews – or even joking about it — you can feel it too.
We need to learn to recognize that and to stop over-intellectualizing. (David Kupelian’s How Evil Works is a good place to start in this task of understanding this universal of humanity.) Evil is real and we need to recognize it when we find it and stand up unequivocally against it. To do otherwise is to invite our own destruction.
Particular kudos are due to John Hawkins at Right Wing News and Erick Erickson at Red State for having the morality clarity to respond to this story properly.
Next: The death of one of the Left’s deities…
