Ben Shapiro kicks off YAF conference, telling students conservatism offers 'a much happier life'

Kicking off the 43rd Young America's Foundation student conference was the Daily Wire's Ben Shapiro, speaking to a room full of young men and women intent on staking their claim to liberty, their natural rights, and the future of America.

But what's at stake, as Shapiro pointed out, isn't just the nation, her policies and political squabbles, but the increasingly important meta narrative, culture, and America's core values.

In front of glowing lights reading "freedom," Shapiro addressed the crowd to mad applause and a standing ovation. More than 500 students showed up from across the country, and it was the first time the conference took place outside of Washington, DC.

Shapiro was glad to speak with the crowd, he said, after a year of primarily talking to his young kids while the pandemic-inspired lockdowns and restrictions raged across the US. He spoke about the battle that students are facing on college campuses.

Shapiro said that conservatives used to believe that college kids would be changed by the world, that after time spent in universities they would emerge to find that real life was not as they imagined, and would bend to the responsibilities they faced. But instead, they eschewed responsibility entirely, focusing on their own progressive pleasure principles, and took their poor habits of discourse and lifestyle out into the world, changing society for the worse.

The result of this narrative takeover has been that most people, Shapiro said, feel that they can't speak freely in their general lives.

"You have to fight back," he told the students. The primary way to do this, Shapiro said, is the reverse engineer the left's takeover of American institutions by using their tactics in service to conservative ideals.

To do this, conservatives need to "win the emotional arguments," to "take over the levers of power," and "close all the doors."

Because letting the left control not only the message but allowing them to take full reign on how that message is delivered and implemented is basically how our country got to the mess that it's in. Shapiro spoke about the "cordiality principle," which in essence has driven conservatives to not make waves, to not make noise, and to accept the left's highly emotional reactions simply to preserve the peace.

This isn't working anymore, and in fact, rolling over and playing nice is a big reason that the narrative manufactured by progressive leftists has managed to overtake our society.

Conservatives, Shapiro said, are susceptible to the idea that "being nice" is a primary driver of how to behave. In part, this has to do with the religious principles that drive so many conservatives.

But it isn't nice to let people believe lies, and Shapiro illustrated this by taking aim at two concepts that are pressed by leftist activists. The left tells us that "speech is violence," which was followed up in the narrative with the concept that "silence is violence." How can both things be true?

First, the left said that if you're not nice to them in speech you are hurting them, and once that bitter pill was swallowed, they chased it with the demand that people say exactly what the left wants them to, because to not do so is oppressive.

All of this, Shapiro said, has become normalized. Often, he said, it stems from one person, or a small group of people, who take over the perspective and inflict it on everyone else.

Shapiro has studied how the leftists have overtaken the institutions and recreated those American institutions in their own image of grievance. It's clear, we all see it, these students see it, and so do media, politicians, and moms and dads all across the country.

"They start with the minor requests and the minor requests become more and more major," he said. Though he said that the left has been moving too far too fast, and that it is to this that the blowback against this monstrous messaging can be attributed.

To "renormalize the institution and achieve a set goal" is the tactic of the American left, Shapiro said. The trajectory of the left is apparent, and it's been tracked by Shapiro perfectly.

But what is the conservative right offering other than a counter narrative? The left offers inclusion and groups that will embrace you, albeit shallowly. They offer pleasure and Dionysian abandon.

What do conservatives offer? They offer hard work and personal responsibility. They offer sense, as well, and reason, rationalism, sense, but not of that fits neatly on a sign.

So what are Shapiro's solutions? Take lessons from the left and don't be cordial, he said. "If you're saying something true do not be so concerned about who it offends," he said.

Trump, he said, ditched cordiality to the extreme.

Shapiro suggested that conservative students form coalitions with other groups, be intransigent, loud, and push back against the left. "Turn these institutions neutral again," he said.

"Use the media," he said, and use phones and report what you see. "Be strategic," he said, telling students to "pick your spots." In his view, conservative students should choose the places where the left has gone too far.

The left offers a "woke religion without forgiveness," he said, but "if you run with us you're going to have a much happier life."