The author of this piece was featured in Dateline's report 'Defending Gender Part 1: Proud Boys'. For another perspective, please read 'What’s behind the rise on men’s rights groups?'
In New York City sarcasm is used like a wrench: It could be a tool to tighten up a point as much as it could be used to smash someone's face.
New York City gave birth to the Proud Boys.
The Proud Boys are a politically incorrect men's social club. It was founded by cultural commentator Gavin McInnes as a throwback to old fashion men's clubs injected with punk rock. I attended my first meet up on September 11, 2016 where, as part of my initiation, I named five breakfast cereals while getting dead-armed by five guys to earn a status of 2nd degree. I now sport a Proud Boy tattoo, which makes me a 3rd degree, and I help run the official website; Proud Boy Magazine.
I firmly believe that if we were just a collection of individuals who went drinking once a month, no one would bother to ask why we're doing it or what we might stand for’. It was that we had the balls to put a name to what we were doing that made us a spectacle. In big cities, especially New York, many people feel they are the most progressive and therefore better than the rest of their neighbours.
Openly declaring “I am a Western Chauvinist and I refuse to apologise for creating the modern world, and we call ourselves ‘the Proud Boys’,” makes us a social pariah.
We're a new kind of animal the uptight left don't know how to deal with. These are people who think being an individual ends with hair dye. We're funnier than them, we're smarter than them, and we enjoy life better than they ever could.
I have seen progressive culture become the culture of ingratitude and contempt for the society it takes advantage of. There is an intellectual laziness in being offended – people who simply say they are offended use it as a way to shut down ideas they don't like, in many cases.
I've rarely seen ‘offended people’ consider these two basic facts; One, it's not my fault you're offended, your feelings are your own; and two, the act of being offended doesn't bring you closer to the truth.
Facts don't care about your feelings, and our humble social club gets to suffer the slings and arrows because it's easier to point to something with a name attached, like the Proud Boys, who won't walk on eggshells around college snowflakes, than take a deep breath and admit they really have an issue with:
- Fathers.
- Veterans.
- Christians.
- Cops.
- Entrepreneurs.
- Husbands.
- Writers.
- Anyone with more money than them.
- Libertarians.
- All Trump supporters.
- Success.
- Patriots.
- People of colour with a non-progressive opinion.
- Meat-eaters.
- People who support Israel.
- Guys from Texas.
- Blue-collar workers.
- ...and folks who simply won't let them get away with spewing their bullshit.
Even lazier, some of them will accuse us of being Nazis or alt-right, in an attempt to dismiss all further debate about our points (usually while hysterically screaming until their voice breaks).
Obviously the Proud Boys are not Nazis or alt-right, despite every effort sad commies make to play 6 degrees of Nazi separation with us. We are just people who understand our principles, and if what you stand for is a good idea, you should be able to explain it.
Being a Proud Boy only requires you to be a man and a Western chauvinist; meaning that you love and appreciate Western culture to an obscene degree. We define Western culture as the culture of ideas, the free market, and free speech rooted in the system outlined in the United States Constitution, which has had a direct influence on the drafting of constitutions in other nations. Race isn't a factor.
We did not set out to be the most conservative. Our goal is to find out what is most effective and true about any given issue. It just so happens that anyone today without a rainbow-coloured, vegan Che poster on the wall of their safe space is now considered a conservative – so we are unapologetically just that.
Today the left controls media, academia, the unions, and much of the government – yet they are losing the culture war.
That is because they don't factor into the equation ‘what works’ vs ‘what doesn't work’. Like any pseudoscientist they stick to their faulty hypothesis and attempt to bully anyone who contradicts the results they want. (See; Marxism).
That's how we get domestic terror groups like Antifa who set fires and attack people when speakers they don't like are booked to talk.
We get liberal politicians like Maxine Waters encouraging harassment of citizens she disagrees with.
And it's how we get the media who trips over themselves to defend it all; while reporting how terrible Trump is for drinking Diet Coke and having an extra scoop of ice cream.
The same media fears the Proud Boys. We have hundreds of chapters everywhere. They fear us because we're fun, effective, and aren't afraid to poke holes in all the sacred cows they hold so dear.
They also know how dangerous we can be if they force us put down our cigars, get up from our beer and handle their bullshit.
When we did it in 2016 we saved our country and the world is still in shock.
Pawl Bazile is the Senior Patriotism Correspondent for Dangerous.com and the Production Director for Proud Boy Magazine. He featured in the Dateline report 'Defending Gender Part 1: Proud Boys', which can be viewed on SBS On Demand.
