Ep. 324 - Killing Babies, Saving Murderers
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Summary
Today's show is all about death. Beginning to end, it's all about the Supreme Court's recent 5-4 decision on the death penalty, Bucklew v. Praseth, a case about cruel and unusual punishment.
Transcript
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The left launches a crusade to murder innocent babies in Georgia while simultaneously doing
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its best to overturn the death penalty for rapists and murderers. We will examine the
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left's inverted judgment and why good judges matter. Then a new study shows that assault
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weapon bans do not reduce homicide. Finally, Dorothy Parker describes all the ways to kill
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yourself on this macabre way to kick off National Poetry Month. I'm Michael Knowles and this is
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The Michael Knowles Show. Today's show is all about death. Beginning to end, it's all about
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death because there was a very important decision that just came down from the Supreme Court
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thanks to Justice Gorsuch and I guess thanks to Justice Kavanaugh because this was a 5-4 decision
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on the death penalty and Kavanaugh was the one who replaced Anthony Kennedy. He was that swing vote
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and he sided with the conservatives. This is very important and it's funny I say sided with the
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conservatives because a lot of people who were conservative or libertarian or in the conservative
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movement oppose the death penalty. They hate the death penalty. They're very wrong about this
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and we'll examine why. Judge Gorsuch was the one who gave this opinion. The case was Bucklew v. Preseth,
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the director of the Missouri Department of Corrections et al.
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The case was all about cruel and unusual punishment. The case was all about evolving
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standards of decency. The case was basically about whether we can outlaw the death penalty
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by making up imaginary things in the Constitution. That's really what it's about. Whether you like
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the death penalty or you don't like the death penalty, what this case is really about is whether
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a bunch of robed justices or benevolent bettors or self-appointed elites can outlaw the death penalty
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simply because they imagine something in the Constitution that isn't there. We'll get to the
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off the price of your modeling kit, candidco.com slash cofefe. What was this Supreme Court decision
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about? Bucklew versus Praseth, director of the Missouri Department of Corrections. This guy,
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Bucklew, he's a convicted murderer, convicted rapist. He's on death row. He has blood-filled
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tumors on his neck, and I told you this show was going to be really tough. It's a little grotesque,
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a little tough to listen to, but very important decision that came out. He's got all of these
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blood-filled tumors, and what his lawyers are arguing is because of this medical condition,
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it could make lethal injection painful. Now, I know what you're thinking. The guy's going to be
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dead in 30 seconds. If he has a little pain, what's the big deal? The question in this case
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that ostensibly the judges were looking at is whether the possibility of this guy having a
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painful execution makes the execution itself cruel and unusual punishment and therefore
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unconstitutional. And Justice Gorsuch and Kavanaugh and all the conservatives came out and said,
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of course, this does not, because you have a tumor on your neck, this does not mean that the state
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can't execute you. This does not mean that the death penalty is cruel and unusual punishment.
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The Constitution does not ensure you a painless execution. That's one of the main takeaways from
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this decision. By the way, it was a total cheap trick, total BS. This guy, Bucklew, had faced the
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death penalty for 18 years. He was waiting on death row. And then 12 days before he was scheduled
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to be executed, all of a sudden he said, oh no, I've got this medical condition and we have to
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file appeals. So they filed appeals. This led to five years of litigation. The appeals ran out last
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year. So he was finally going to be killed. It was on death row for 18 years. Then another five years
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of litigation. You're looking 23 years down the line. And just as he's about to be killed,
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the justices halted the execution when Kennedy sided with the liberals. So some of the fears
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with Kavanaugh being appointed to fill Kennedy's spot is Kennedy sort of liked him. He clerked for
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Kennedy. Kennedy sort of picked him. And there's this fear that Kavanaugh is going to side with the
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liberals. But on this case, on this exact case, you saw Kavanaugh siding with the conservatives while
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his predecessor, Kennedy, had sided with the liberals. You are seeing a change in the shift
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of power on the court. So thank goodness for Kavanaugh. Thank goodness for Neil Gorsuch. Thank
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goodness for the election of Donald Trump, because you wouldn't have had any of those things had
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Hillary Clinton won. So to the actual meat of the case, I guess the question is, why do we need to
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kill this guy? Because we're only arguing over these points of the Constitution. We seem to forget that
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there is a criminal here who has committed serious crimes, crimes serious enough to merit execution in
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an age where we don't like killing people very much. This is what Gorsuch wrote.
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The people of Missouri, the surviving victims of Mr. Bucklew's crimes and others like them,
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deserve better. Under our Constitution, the question of capital punishment belongs to the people and
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their representatives, not the courts, to resolve. Now listen to this. Adam Smith used to say, he wrote
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down famously, mercy to the guilty is cruelty to the innocent. And we think, all we think about is
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this poor murderous rapist, Bucklew, who's got some tumor on his neck and it might hurt when he gets
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lethal injection. That's what we think about. We don't think about the victims of his crimes, which we'll
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get to in a second. Most importantly of all, the people that we always forget about are the citizens,
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the people of Missouri. Now listen to how Gorsuch begins this. The people of Missouri, dot, dot, dot,
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deserve better. Why? Why? He didn't murder the people of Missouri, not more than a couple of them. He
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didn't attack the people of Missouri. He did. Because crime is an assault on the country, on the
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community, on justice. And therefore, the civil authority has to enforce justice, has to bring us
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justice. Because it affects all of us. This is the point of criminal justice that we always forget.
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We remember the criminal part. We remember rehabilitation. We remember deterrent. We forget
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about the justice part of it. And this is important and this affects all of us. And we all demand it.
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Then, of course, Gorsuch gets to the point here. The question of capital punishment belongs to the
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people and their representatives, not the courts, to resolve. Okay, obviously, at the time of the
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ratification of the Constitution, nobody thought that the death penalty was cruel and unusual punishment.
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The death penalty was basically the definition of a felony. There was the death penalty everywhere
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when the Constitution was adopted. Nobody thought that was cruel and unusual punishment. Now today,
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some people think it's cruel and unusual to kill criminals for committing crimes.
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It's becoming increasingly unusual because these courts and these judges have taken away the power
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of the people to decide this. But let's say we don't like the death penalty anymore. Society has gone
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soft. We don't want to kill criminals anymore. Whatever the reason. Say you don't trust the state to carry
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it out. You think there's too much corruption. Okay, there are a lot of arguments against the death
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penalty. If you don't like the death penalty, then convince your fellow citizens and pass a law
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outlawing the death penalty. You can do that. That's what a self-governing people is allowed to
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do. What you shouldn't do is have attorneys general or DAs or governors or presidents or judges just
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waving their hand and saying, oh, pish posh, forget about the law. We don't need the law. Who cares what
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the people want? I know in my infinite wisdom. I know better than everybody else. I know better than
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all the citizens of this country, the citizens of this state, the framers of the constitution.
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I know better than everybody. And so I'm just going to pretend that the death penalty is
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unconstitutional. It's not unconstitutional. It's very constitutional to kill criminals.
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But if you don't like it, fine, convince your fellow citizens and pass a law. However,
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remember that these guys are pretty bad hombres. Remember that these victims deserve justice.
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Remember that a civilized society deserves justice for the victims, on behalf of the victims,
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on behalf of justice generally, and for the perpetrators. This guy Bucklew, now 20 years ago,
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23 years ago, I guess, went on a rampage in 1996 after his girlfriend tried to break up with him.
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Where are the feminists on this? Where is the Me Too movement? This guy goes on a violent rampage
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as his girlfriend tries to break up with him. She flees to a neighbor's house. He goes over there
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and shoots and kills the neighbor. He then beats this woman with his gun and rapes her.
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Then the police come and he gets into a shootout with the police. Finally, thankfully, he's arrested.
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He's sent to jail. He escapes from jail and then he goes and attacks the girlfriend's mother with a
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hammer. This guy needs to be put down. He needs to be taken out back and put down like old yeller
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for all reasons. For all three reasons that we have capital punishment and criminal justice as a
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deterrent. And we would have a much better deterrent effect if we had taken this guy out back and put
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him down like old yeller in 1997, right after it happened, not 23 years later. We have to do this
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for the retributive effect because this demands justice. Justice demands to be satisfied.
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And even as a matter of rehabilitation, I don't think any amount of therapy is going to turn this
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guy around. I don't think going into a therapy session and hugging each other and saying,
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oh, hey, let's talk about our feelings. Oh, daddy didn't go to your baseball game when you were a
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kid. Oh, okay. They're there. Now you're reformed. I don't think so. The only chance this guy has at
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rehabilitation is to stare down the gallows and say, well, I'm about to meet my maker in an hour. I
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guess I had better start taking these things seriously and I better throw myself on the ground
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and ask for forgiveness. That's the only, that's the closest to rehabilitation this guy's ever going to
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get. So what's the bottom line from this case? We're talking about cruel and unusual punishment.
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We're talking about the eighth amendment to the constitution in the bill of rights. And this is
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what Gorsuch writes. The eighth amendment has never been understood to guarantee a condemned inmate,
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a painless death. That's a luxury not guaranteed to many people, including most victims of capital
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crimes. This is a great point, by the way, for the vast majority of people on earth, for all of human
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history, no one can expect a painless death. We all sort of hope, we think, you know, when my day
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finally comes, I hope that I can go out in my sleep or, you know, smoking a cigar on a beach
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somewhere. You say this, oh gosh, I just like a painless death because for the vast majority of human
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history, we've had very painful deaths. Now he makes that point about everybody. Then he makes
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the point of the victims of capital crimes because Bucklew's girlfriend didn't have a pain-free
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experience with him. His, his girlfriend's mother didn't have a pain-free experience. That
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neighbor just in the very moment of that incident didn't meet a pain-free death and Bucklew can't
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expect to meet a pain-free death either. Now Neil Gorsuch goes on to clarify what he means. Does
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this mean that we should torture the guy? Does this mean that we should give him an intentionally
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painful death? No, of course not. Gorsuch writes, what the eighth amendment does guarantee is a method
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of execution that's not cruel and unusual. And ever since the founding, people have understood that
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the only way to tell if the method is cruel is to compare it with other known and available
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alternatives to see if the state is inflicting substantially more pain than necessary to
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carry out its lawful sentence. So we're not, we don't want cruel and unusual punishments. It goes
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in, in the opinion here, they talk about other punishments that at the time of the ratification
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of the constitution were done away with. Drawing and quartering people, disemboweling them,
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those sort of things would be cruel and unusual. They were understood to be cruel and unusual at
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the time. And so even as the constitution was adopted, you couldn't inflict that sort of capital
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punishment on somebody. But how about today? This is the question that the court's liberals bring up.
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I mean, why are we having this discussion? It is so obvious that the, that capital punishment is not
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unconstitutional. And yet a lot of people are pretending that it is. Why? Because of this one man,
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Chief Justice Earl Warren, in 1958, coined the term evolving standards of decency. He did it in this
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case, TROP versus Dulles. Evolving standards of decency. This is a very funny statement because we like to
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flatter ourselves. We moderns, we people living in 2019. I said, gosh, we're just such decent people.
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We're just so good. We would never do barbaric things like kill murderers and rapists for their
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heinous crimes. We would never do awful indecent things like enforce justice and bring about justice
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for the victims of violent crimes and for the society at large. Oh, that would be so indecent.
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Oh, hey, let's go kill a million babies a year. Hold on. I'm sorry. I'm just,
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I'll be right there. I'm going to go kill a million babies a year. I'm going to go boycott Georgia
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because they don't want to kill a million babies a year. But hold on one second. I just have to
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finish my lecture on decency, but I'll be right there. And then we can go kill all of those babies.
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I'm sorry. Where was I? Oh yes. I was talking about our evolving standards of decency and how much
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more decent we are today than those awful people in the past who enforced capital punishment for violent
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criminals and also didn't kill a million babies a year. Decency. So Gorsuch basically goes right at
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the jugular of this stupid idea from Earl Warren. And he says, quote, the Constitution allows capital
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punishment. In fact, death was, quote, the standard penalty for all serious crimes at the time of the
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founding. It was the definition of a serious crime. You hang. He goes on, nor did the later
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edition of the Eighth Amendment outlaw the practice. On the contrary, the Fifth Amendment
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added to the Constitution at the same time as the Eighth expressly contemplates that a defendant may be
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tried for a capital crime and deprived of life as a penalty so long as proper procedures are followed.
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It is manifestly clear that the Constitution permits the state to deprive criminals of life for serious
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crimes. This is an argument also for originalism because, especially on this case, because conservatives
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are divided about this. Pope Benedict said this when he was still Pope, which is that there can be
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legitimate disagreement among Catholics as to the question of the death penalty. He's recognizing
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Catholics are very split on the question of the death penalty. This new Pope wants to pretend that
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there can't be legitimate disagreement, but there can be. And the same is true for the conservative
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movement. I totally get the arguments against the death penalty. I don't think they're ultimately
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convincing. I don't even think they're really that good. But they're legitimate arguments. I think there
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can be totally legitimate disagreement among conservatives about the death penalty. However,
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there cannot be legitimate disagreement over the constitutionality of the death penalty.
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The death penalty is obviously, repeatedly, manifestly constitutional. And even if you don't like the death penalty,
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even if you wish that there were some prohibition of the death penalty in the constitution, you still
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should defend originalism. You still should defend what the constitution means. You still should defend
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the constitutionality of the death penalty. Why is that? Because what is the alternative?
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Even the liberals should defend originalism. Even the radicals, even the radical reformers.
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Because what is the alternative? I got to ask Justice Scalia this when I was still in college. I got to meet
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him twice before he died. And one of the questions that was asked was, shouldn't this method of
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constitutional interpretation? Originalism, shouldn't this just be taken in the context of all the other
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methods of constitutional interpretation? And he said, what other method? At least originalists have
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a clear interpretive scheme. At least originalists have a clear interpretive methodology. What's the
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constitutional interpretive methodology of Ruth Bader Ginsburg or Sonia Sotomayor? It's willy-nilly. What is
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the clear method of constitutional interpretation of Earl Warren? There isn't one. It's whatever little
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fancies pop into his head. Who is to decide evolving standards of decency? Earl Warren, I guess. Just
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whatever they want. They say, you know, those framers obviously allowed for the death penalty. But
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today, I, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, don't like it. And so I'm going to pretend it's unconstitutional.
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Okay. Well, I think, I think when the framers wrote the constitution, I think what they really meant
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was that in 2019, Michael Knowles should get a lifetime supply of Chick-fil-A sandwiches.
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I'm pretty sure that's what they meant. That's just what I feel because,
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because that would form a more perfect union for me. So I think they wrote, we the people,
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in order to form a more perfect union, obviously my having free Chick-fil-A sandwiches for the rest
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of my life would make the union more perfect, definitely to me. So give me my Chick-fil-A.
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It's there. Look, it's just evolving. It's just an evolving understanding. I know what you're
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going to say. There wasn't Chick-fil-A at the time of the ratification. Right, right. But because
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of evolving standards of decency, because of evolving standards of taste and deliciousness,
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I think it's manifestly clear that in order to form a more perfect union, you need to give me free
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chicken sandwiches for the rest of my life. What the liberals on the court are saying is not in any
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way less ridiculous than the statement that I just made. And I really am waiting. I know a few
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liberals, left-wingers who would call themselves textualists and originalists because they see
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that what's good for the goose is good for the gander. They see that either you accept the meaning
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of the constitution for what it is, or you don't have a constitution. Either you accept what the
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words mean, and then if you don't like them, you amend the constitution, or if there's more wiggle room
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in the law, you just pass a law, or you don't have law, or you don't have the constitution.
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This reminds me of that Bible analogy. When people say, they start quoting the Bible out
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of context. Alyssa Milano does this a lot. We'll get to that in a second to defend the indefensible.
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But when people say, well, in the Bible, it says this, and that's why, and then they go form all
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these crazy conclusions from it. Looking at the Bible without context, without a knowledge of
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history, and trying to draw grand theological conclusions from that is like looking down a deep,
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dark well, and all you see is your own reflection on the surface. This is why there are 30,000
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denominations of people who all have the one true interpretation of the Bible, and it was finally
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discovered in 1967, and finally, oh, after 2,000 years of darkness, finally, random Joe Schmoe has
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figured out the true meaning of the, okay, fine, whatever. The same thing about the constitution.
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When you look down at that profound document, with all that profound history and tradition that it
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represents, and all of the tradition that's come from it, and you look down at it, and you take it
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completely out of context, completely out of the context of what the words meant by the people who
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wrote them, and what they were commonly understood to mean at the time of ratification, you are just
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looking down a deep, dark well, and all you see is your own reflection on the surface, your own
00:22:59.500
evolving standards of decency, or in this case, indecency. Excellent decision from Judge Gorsuch,
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excellent decision from Kavanaugh, and Alito, and Roberts, and Thomas, all the good conservatives.
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Well done, guys. Really glad we won that last presidential election, so we got those two
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judges to make a very good decision. Speaking of death, there is an evolving indecency standard
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from Alyssa Milano, who now is leading the charge in Hollywood to boycott Georgia. Why, you ask?
00:23:32.340
Because Georgia doesn't want to kill as many babies. This has become the crusade. Now Alyssa Milano is
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invoking God in her quest to kill more babies. We will analyze Alyssa Milano's very suspect theology.
00:23:46.540
Then, news that the assault weapons ban doesn't lower homicide. Then, a poem about suicide to kick
00:23:53.460
off National Poetry Month. But first, go to dailywire.com. You have to do it. You have got to do it.
00:24:00.480
Listen to the headline today from Think Progress. This was after that decision came down from Judge
00:24:06.900
Gorsuch. Gorsuch just handed down the most bloodthirsty and cruel death penalty opinion of
00:24:14.140
the modern era. Get your tumblers out. You need the tumbler, or the tears will get all over your
00:24:23.300
computer, or your phone, or your... And it will all break apart. All your electronics will fizzle, and then
00:24:31.220
you will drown. So go get the Leftist Tears Tumbler. Ten bucks a month, $100 for an annual membership.
00:24:36.300
You get everybody at The Daily Wire. You get to ask questions in the mailbag coming up Thursday, so make
00:24:40.080
sure to get your questions in. We'll be right back with a lot more.
00:24:43.040
Alyssa Milano is invoking God to kill more babies. Okay, so why is this? The background
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here is that Georgia is trying to pass a heartbeat bill. This is the idea that you can't kill babies
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down the line. Now, we know that 80% of Americans oppose late-term abortion. We know that two-thirds
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of Americans who identify as pro-choice oppose late-term abortion. The vast majority of this
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country opposes late-term abortion. But Hollywood loves late-term abortion. And the Democrat Party
00:25:25.440
loves late-term abortion. And the Democrat governor of Virginia loves abortion after the child's
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already been born. And the governor of New York loves abortion while the child's being born. And
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all of the Democrat senators love taking away protections from babies who survive abortion.
00:25:40.860
They've just gone crazy on the question of abortion. So now, Georgia's trying to pass this
00:25:45.980
heartbeat bill to save some babies. And Hollywood is up in arms. Because a lot of TV and film is shot
00:25:54.060
in Georgia. This has been going on for years now. Georgia had a lot of tax incentives for Hollywood
00:25:58.800
to come out there. And so it's brought a lot of the industry out to Georgia. Now, Hollywood is
00:26:03.220
threatening to take it all away if they don't let them keep killing babies and serving them up to
00:26:06.940
Moloch for dinner. So Alyssa Milano is leading the charge, of course. Alyssa Milano, the voice of
00:26:12.500
her liberal generation. Alyssa Milano has somehow become the most articulate spokesperson on the
00:26:19.320
left. It's her and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. And she's leading Amy Schumer, Judd Apatow, Alec Baldwin,
00:26:25.680
all threatening to boycott if Georgia doesn't keep killing babies. Also, for those last two guys,
00:26:32.540
Judd Apatow and Alec Baldwin, how creepy is it when men are pro-abortion extremists?
00:26:40.240
It is the creepiest thing. It's creepier than Beto O'Rourke. Well, I guess he's just an example
00:26:45.660
of that. Never mind. It's so, so creepy. It's creepy when women do it, too. But it's especially
00:26:50.240
creepy when men do it. This is what they wrote, quote, we cannot in good conscience continue to
00:26:56.140
recommend our industry remain in Georgia. Now, Hollywood brings a lot of money to Georgia.
00:27:01.580
Hollywood brings a lot of work to Georgia because a lot of people now have gone to Georgia, worked in
00:27:06.380
the industry, working around the industry, working downstream of the industry. So Hollywood is now
00:27:12.760
literally offering to Georgia a deal with the devil. They're saying, ooh, hey, do you like all
00:27:19.060
that mammon that we keep bringing you? Do you like how we keep satisfying all of your lusts and greed
00:27:24.300
and giving you a lot of money? Do you like that? Okay, we'll keep doing that. But you have to keep
00:27:31.240
feeding us all of those babies of yours. You have to keep giving us all those babies.
00:27:35.860
Listen, here's, it's a really simple tax incentive structure. You just give us a little bit of a tax
00:27:40.780
incentive and you pour an endless stream of babies down the gullet of Baal to satisfy his demonic
00:27:46.880
urges. And then we'll keep bringing you the jobs. Come on, it's no big deal. We hash these out all the
00:27:52.000
time. I'll get my agent from CIA on the line. We'll hash it out. You'll give us all your babies and
00:27:56.360
we'll eat them. And it's all good, right? Okay. That is what a deal with the devil is. So it's no
00:28:01.460
surprise that Alyssa Milano is now invoking God to justify killing babies. Here's what she wrote.
00:28:08.300
I love God. I believe in God. But I don't believe my personal beliefs of which we can't confirm
00:28:16.720
should override scientific facts and what we can confirm. Okay. Then she goes on to quote John 3, 12,
00:28:26.040
but I'll just obviously try to get past the incoherent grammar and syntax. She says,
00:28:33.100
I love God. I believe in God. That's interesting. I didn't know that she believed in God.
00:28:37.200
I take her at her word. So she believes in God, but I don't believe my personal beliefs,
00:28:44.580
which we can't confirm, should override scientific facts and what we can confirm.
00:28:49.120
So she doesn't believe in God. Because what she's saying is that God is a personal belief that she
00:28:57.260
can't confirm. And God is not a fact. The existence of God is not a fact. So she's saying the existence
00:29:04.340
of God is not knowable. She is not claiming that God exists. She's not claiming that the statement God
00:29:10.960
exists is true. What she's really saying is I sort of have this personal feeling about God. I just have
00:29:16.780
the feels. You know, sometimes I imagine certain things and I guess one of them is God, but it's
00:29:23.700
the existence of God is not a fact. So I prefer scientific facts. What scientific facts is she talking
00:29:32.520
about? We know that unborn babies are babies. We know that they're alive. They're not dead. They're
00:29:42.480
not rocks. They're living. We know that they're humans. They're not giraffes. They're not platypuses.
00:29:49.640
They're not goldfish. They're humans. So they're living human babies. That's a scientific fact.
00:29:57.580
Now, taking God out of it for just a second, it's very, I don't know what her personal beliefs
00:30:06.700
really are on God. She hasn't really explained that very much. We do know the personal belief
00:30:11.660
that she's really pushing here is that it is morally acceptable to kill babies. But then look
00:30:18.120
at what she just said. She said that personal beliefs that we can't confirm should not override
00:30:25.040
scientific facts that we can confirm. Babies are babies. That's a scientific fact that we can
00:30:33.460
confirm. It is morally acceptable to kill babies and murder them in the womb. That is a personal
00:30:41.640
belief that we most certainly cannot confirm. Even if you believe that it's true, even if you think
00:30:47.440
it's perfectly fine to kill babies in the womb, at the very least, you would have to admit that is a
00:30:53.380
personal belief and we can't confirm it. You can't confirm that to me, right? Okay. So if it is the
00:31:00.100
case that we should not allow personal beliefs that we can't confirm to override scientific facts that
00:31:05.220
we can confirm, then we most certainly should not be killing babies in Georgia or anywhere else for
00:31:11.940
that matter. She actually makes the case for the opposite of the thing that she thinks she's making
00:31:16.920
the case for. And then she goes on and quotes John 3.12. If I have told you earthly things and you do not
00:31:25.620
believe, how can you believe if I tell you heavenly things? Again, just a total, total self-own, just a total
00:31:34.840
colossal attack on her own argument. Here is an earthly thing. Babies are babies.
00:31:42.340
That's an earthly thing. And you do not believe that. So how can you possibly believe if you're told
00:31:51.740
heavenly things? Really bad argument, really weird obsession, really out of line with the vast
00:32:00.120
majority of Americans who oppose killing babies in the womb. That's Hollywood for you.
00:32:06.780
No wonder people aren't going to their movies. That's so weird. It doesn't make any sense,
00:32:11.760
does it? No wonder Unplanned, a pro-life movie, one of the first ever made, made on a shoestring
00:32:19.540
budget, cut off from social media, savaged by the mainstream critics, became the number five movie
00:32:25.840
in America over the weekend. 94% audience score. It's a huge, when you look at it, you know,
00:32:36.540
their Vox.com is finally admitting. They finally say they went crazy with the Russia thing. It was
00:32:42.860
Matt Taby from Rolling Stone said, in purely journalistic terms, this is an epic disaster.
00:32:48.180
Sean Illing from Vox said, a lot of people simply did not want to believe that Trump was a legitimate
00:32:53.760
president. That someone this vulgar and this dishonest to win the election. And I think that
00:32:57.440
disbelief and the emotional devastation of his election colored a lot of our judgments. Basically
00:33:01.960
taking a mea culpa and saying, you know, we all went crazy. Gosh, wasn't that crazy how for two years
00:33:08.640
we all convinced ourselves that Donald Trump, the guy we've all known for 40 years, tabloid star,
00:33:14.420
reality TV star, that that guy was actually a super secret double agent spy working for the Kremlin.
00:33:20.080
Wow, what a crazy self-induced psychosis we've just lived through. That's what we're seeing with
00:33:25.720
abortion. We're going to look back on this, or future generations are going to look back and say,
00:33:32.040
do you know that the most famous people in the country, people who were in movies and TV,
00:33:39.240
they were totally obsessed with killing babies? And they, do you know, they made arguments
00:33:47.000
invoking the name of God himself to justify killing babies? How on earth did that happen?
00:33:57.640
It's a self-induced psychosis. And the way you know it's a psychosis is it's basically only believed
00:34:03.680
by these small numbers of lunatics in Hollywood. That they are not representative of the American
00:34:12.560
people. They're not representative of Democrats. They're not representative of liberals. They're
00:34:18.620
not even representative of people who support abortion. Even people who support abortion,
00:34:26.620
two-thirds of them oppose late-term abortion. These guys cheer on abortion up until the baby's being
00:34:34.100
born and some of them thereafter. That is a self-induced psychosis. And they're all going to look
00:34:41.900
very foolish in the coming years. They already look foolish, I guess. But it's a very dangerous
00:34:49.380
game to be invoking God on these things. They might have consequences beyond just public opinion.
00:34:54.420
Speaking of death, again, there was a new study that came out. You know, we've been told by all
00:35:01.800
these same people, we need to ban the AR-15. We need to ban large capacity magazines. We need to ban,
00:35:09.340
we need to do something. Do something. David Hogg is going to go on television and call senators
00:35:16.980
murderers and terrorists. All those kids from Parkland who decided to try to get famous off
00:35:23.920
of a tragedy. They go on TV. If you don't stop taking money from the NRA, if you don't ban the AR-15,
00:35:32.320
if you don't ban high capacity magazines, you're a murderer, you're a terrorist, you have blood on your
00:35:36.520
hands. Turns out none of that's true. There was a study that came out. It's called The Impact of
00:35:41.100
State Firearm Laws on Homicide and Suicide Deaths in the USA, 1991 to 2016, a panel study. This study
00:35:48.440
looked at four states. It looked at 10 different types of gun control. It concluded high capacity
00:35:54.920
magazine and assault weapons bans do not lower homicide rates. Period. Punto e basta.
00:36:03.560
Now, I sort of say these things in a, with a little bit of a sarcastic voice or I'll put them in quotes
00:36:11.780
when I write it. Because what is a high capacity magazine? I think in California these days, it's
00:36:17.060
like if you can have 11 rounds, that's high capacity. What is an assault weapon? Assault weapon is a made
00:36:22.080
up term. What's the difference between a regular hunting rifle that you can think of and an AR-15
00:36:29.560
assault weapon? Practically, basically no difference at all. A lot, but the reason that they use these
00:36:35.360
terms, the reason that activists invented these terms is because they create a false image in your
00:36:40.180
mind. When you hear assault weapon, you think of an assault rifle. You think of a fully automatic
00:36:44.720
rifle. You think of a machine gun. You think of people going into war, pulling the trigger once and
00:36:49.720
having a spray of bullets come out. You think of Al Capone with a Tommy gun. What is an assault weapon
00:36:55.840
though? It's just a gun. You pull the trigger once and one bullet comes out. Fully automatic weapons
00:37:02.460
have been outlawed for a very long time. Heavily, heavily regulated. Pull the trigger once, one bullet
00:37:10.400
comes out. And the people who are pushing gun control laws are so disingenuous. This study is not going to
00:37:16.760
change their mind. It was never about preventing homicides. It was never even about preventing mass
00:37:21.760
shootings. We know for a fact that many, many, many more people are killed every year from handguns
00:37:28.380
than from AR-15s and actually any rifle all put together. Order of magnitude and multiples more
00:37:35.240
people killed from handguns. More people are killed from hammers and baseball bats than are killed from
00:37:40.380
AR-15s. And yet they go after the AR-15. One, because the AR-15 is a very popular rifle. And two,
00:37:47.680
because they know they can trick people. Because it looks scary. It's not really much more lethal.
00:37:53.640
It just looks really scary. And they know that they can. It's totally disingenuous.
00:37:58.200
All a gun grabbing law. So this is a good statistic to have to be able to cite. But it's not going to
00:38:03.940
change anybody's mind. It's not going to, it's not really going to change the discourse other than
00:38:12.260
giving the people who want to protect our rights and our liberties and our constitution a little more
00:38:17.760
ammo, so to speak. But it doesn't matter. The arguments over gun control are not going to be won
00:38:24.460
on statistics. Very few arguments generally are won over statistics. I was just talking about this last
00:38:30.200
night at Drew University, which is, I was giving a talk last night on identity politics there. And at all
00:38:37.360
these schools, the students will come up and ask, how can I make more compelling arguments to the
00:38:42.480
left? And I say, stop being an egghead. Stop using statistics. Statistics are all fine. They're all well and
00:38:48.820
good. They're sort of impressive. They're also easily manipulable, and especially in the social sciences. So
00:38:54.760
that's fine. Cite a few statistics. But arguments are not won and lost on statistics. You have to make a moral
00:39:00.200
argument. You have to make a qualitative argument. You have to say the reason that we need the Second
00:39:06.180
Amendment is to protect our liberty. The framers of the Constitution knew this. We need to have the
00:39:12.140
Second Amendment in case the government ever turns tyrannical and tries to take away our Second
00:39:16.180
Amendment. Democratic governments have turned tyrannical many, many times throughout the West
00:39:20.940
in recent history. Happened all throughout Europe. It hasn't happened here yet. Good thing. One of the
00:39:25.840
reasons that it very, very likely will never happen here is because we have the right to keep and bear
00:39:30.420
arms. The right to keep and bear arms is not about hunting. It's not about target practice. It's about
00:39:36.120
protecting me and my family and my friends and my property. That's in a very personal, tangible
00:39:44.580
way. In a broader sense, it's about protecting my community. It's about protecting my liberty. It's
00:39:50.820
about protecting my way of life. It's about protecting my traditions. It's about protecting our system of
00:39:57.760
governance in the United States. That's what it's about. Oh, and also, assault weapon bans don't do
00:40:04.580
anything to change the homicide rate. It's a little addendum there. Even if you could make a good
00:40:11.100
moral argument, you lefties, you're also making a completely stupid argument because the thing that
00:40:18.020
you're proposing doesn't achieve the thing that you say will achieve. But it's not inefficiency that
00:40:24.360
is the cause of the argument being bad. It's the premises themselves. It's the arguments themselves from
00:40:30.260
the left that are bad, and we should discuss them on those terms. Do we have time to talk about Biden's
00:40:37.660
second accuser? Oh, I really want to talk about it, but I think we're out of time. So instead,
00:40:43.380
I will end, oh gosh, it's so good though, because I have to defend Joe Biden again. I have to do it.
00:40:48.660
I guess we'll have to do it tomorrow. More people coming out of the woodwork. Looks like Bernie Sanders
00:40:53.120
is behind a lot of these hits, and it's just a totally BS, disingenuous attack. We'll get to it
00:40:58.040
tomorrow. Before we leave today, it's National Poetry Month. Poetry is basically dead. Nobody
00:41:02.940
reads poetry anymore, but conservatives should read poetry. Don't be an egghead. Make good arguments.
00:41:10.160
People forget. We think of conservatives in this day and age as these sterile, cold, clinical,
00:41:15.700
calculating economist types. When Edmund Burke began what we would call modern conservative thought,
00:41:22.820
he said, the age of chivalry is gone. That of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded
00:41:27.960
it, and the glory of Europe is extinguished forever. Edmund Burke and the conservatives
00:41:32.060
who follow in his tradition are not sophisters, economists, and calculators. Actually, the people
00:41:38.420
who followed right after Burke were the romantics. They were romantic poets. Coleridge, those guys.
00:41:43.920
And so it's National Poetry Month. The left has sort of alienated conservatives from poetry because
00:41:49.700
they've written horrific poetry for a century. So when you think of poetry, you think of some schmuck
00:41:53.920
wearing a black beret in some club downtown saying, like, fish, I saw my dad in the hallway.
00:42:03.800
Uh, uh, uh, uh, uh. Hamburger. And they think that that's a poem. You know, as the literary critic
00:42:10.860
Harold Bloom said, slam poetry is the death of art. But good poetry is a wonderful thing, and it enriches
00:42:17.320
our lives. And, uh, and it, there can be light poems, there can be funny poems, there can be profound
00:42:23.380
poems, there can be, you know, poetry is just a wonderful art form. It's too bad that it died.
00:42:27.480
So to begin, in keeping with our theme today, I'm, I wanted to read a very mediocre poem, but sort of
00:42:34.460
funny nonetheless, by Dorothy Parker called Resume, and I'll try to, try to bring up some more poems as they occur
00:42:40.120
to me throughout National Poetry Month. Resume by Dorothy Parker. Razors pain you, rivers are damp,
00:42:48.460
acids stain you, and drugs cause cramp. Guns aren't lawful, nooses give, gas smells awful,
00:42:56.740
you might as well live. That's our show. I'll be back tomorrow. See you then. In the meantime,
00:43:00.640
I'm Michael Knowles. This is The Michael Knowles Show.
00:43:32.640
Is the Democratic Party ready to break with Joe Biden and Barack Obama? That's today on The Ben