Ep. 671 - Hindsight Is 2020
Episode Stats
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Summary
Trump pardons key political allies Roger Stone and Paul Managant, and the compassionate left could not be more furious. Michael Krieger explains why this is a good thing, and why we should all be thankful.
Transcript
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It is looking like a Merry Christmas already for some key Trump political allies.
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Paul Manafort, who formerly ran the Trump 2016 campaign,
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Roger Stone, decades-long political advisor to Donald Trump,
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both found themselves in legal hot water because of their association.
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This is a wonderful mercy just days before Christmas,
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and the compassionate left could not be more furious.
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I'm Michael Knowles. This is The Michael Knowles Show.
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My favorite comment from yesterday from Henry Knox, who says,
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And actually, the comment is even more insightful than it would seem
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because the left, when they invoke this term science,
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it is actually precisely because they have defined their politics as science,
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because they've defined their understanding as science.
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This goes way back, about 150 years, and they continue to do it today,
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and you see it most clearly with those little lab coat doctor dictators who were telling us
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President Trump has pardoned these two key political allies.
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Roger, both of these guys actually have been sort of legendary in conservative political circles.
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And I mean legendary in the full sense of that word.
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Roger Stone has cultivated this image that he's the sorcerer of the dark political arts.
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And some of that really is a legend of Stone's own creation.
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I think, you know, some of it is just a way to kind of gin up publicity.
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But he's been involved in presidents going back to Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, and now most
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Roger Stone and Paul Manafort have no doubt been involved in shady business deals.
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Every political operative has been involved in shady business deals, at least at that level.
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That's just an occupational hazard or a requirement of the job.
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But I think we all know the real reason that Stone and Manafort were prosecuted, right?
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It's because they committed the one unforgivable crime.
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They didn't get prosecuted because they put money in this account overseas,
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or they worked on this particular business deal, or they talked to this witness.
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They got prosecuted because they worked for Trump.
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They'd been involved in shady business deals for decade upon decade upon decade.
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Because of the abuses at the DOJ, the politicization of our criminal justice system,
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But when high-level Democratic operatives are prosecuted at the same time with the same
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ferocity that these Republican operatives are, who are just coincidentally the ones who
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worked for Trump, when that happens, when Tony Podesta goes to the can, then we can talk
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about how Manafort and Stone should be prosecuted.
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There is a reason that we have the pardon power.
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I know we talk about law and order on this show a lot.
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That's extraordinarily important to a civilization.
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The pardon power exists for a reason, because you do want to have an avenue for mercy as well.
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I haven't been thrilled with all of Trump's pardons going back years now.
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One I'm not thrilled with here is the pardon of Charles Kushner, who is his son-in-law's father,
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who actually was prosecuted by Chris Christie, which shows you what a small world it is.
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Charles Kushner, first of all, his crimes were committed outside of this political realm.
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You know, his prosecution was not selective for political reasons.
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He pled guilty to a whole host of sort of financial and business charges.
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He tried to tamper with witnesses by actually hiring a hooker to seduce his sister's husband,
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husband, and then he filmed it, and he sent the tape to his sister.
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And he does not have the same defense that Stone and Manafort have,
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that because they had some political courage to work for this guy,
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But in terms of the two big ones that we're hearing about today, Stone and Manafort, great stuff.
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AOC, the compassionate left winger, absolutely furious.
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She tweets out, a flow of pardons for the wealthy and the corrupt, yet Brandon Bernard was left to die
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when his own jurors and prosecutor begged for mercy.
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Our carceral system, our prison system, laid bare for the world to see.
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Brandon Bernard was the guy, he's been on death row for decades,
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and he was just executed a couple of weeks ago because Trump is now actually enforcing the law.
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So Brandon Bernard, the whole left, said, we need to let this guy off the hook.
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Brandon Bernard killed two youth pastors in cold blood after they had helped him.
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He and a couple of his criminal friends took a ride from these youth pastors,
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held them at gunpoint, stuffed them in a trunk, robbed them,
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drove around for hours, tried to sell the woman's wedding ring.
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They were pleading for mercy, reading them, reading these killers scripture.
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Another one of these guys shot them both in the head.
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So Brandon Bernard poured gasoline all over the car and burned her alive
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That's the, that's the crime that AOC says he should have gotten off the hook
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and Stone and Manafort helped Trump win an election.
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And that's the more egregious crime, according to AOC.
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Could you imagine what a pervert you have to be to think that?
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Can you imagine what a completely upside down understanding of justice you need to have
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And, and frankly, it's, it's more widespread on the left.
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AOC is in many ways just a loudspeaker for, for what people on the far left
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and increasingly what people more broadly on the left believe.
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This year, this past four years have clarified a lot.
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I think the, the most important takeaway from, especially this year, but I suppose the whole
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Trump era, is that the left is not engaging in good faith.
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The left has convinced us to play by standards and rules that they themselves flout.
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Sometimes you hear this very famous sort of wicked community organizer, Saul Alinsky brought
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He was a sort of mentor of Hillary Clinton and, and most other left-wing organizers.
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And he said, the key is you've got to make your opponents play by their own rules.
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And the left has not only done that, they've actually made us adopt certain rules that don't
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really make a whole lot of sense that we previously wouldn't have adopted.
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But they've made us forget about political reality, right?
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Which is that politics does not just exist in this abstract plane where it's only principle
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and it's only these ideologies and five maxims written down to explain your whole view of the
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Politics requires that you adjust your strategy based on how your opponent is playing.
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Well, the, the re, your opponent has a say in both politics and war.
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And what the, we've been trying to live up to the standard that we at least thought that
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the left believed in, even though they didn't live up to it.
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Standards of fairness, standards of justice, standards of equality, standards of non-discrimination.
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And so we've got to adjust our strategy if we want any hope of righting this ship.
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Not that we need to commit immoralities, not that we need to commit injustices, but we
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You know, you want to be wise as a serpent, innocent as a dove.
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In terms of these pardons, I would oppose them if the left were playing in good faith,
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if the left would also throw their guys into the can, but they won't do it.
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They're trying to impose radical new standards on us and we merely throw our hands up in
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We need to, first of all, start engaging in politics.
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We also need to actively defend our own standards.
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I think this is, to me, the biggest takeaway of 2020 and 2016, which is you've got political
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correctness, wokeism, this kind of now scientific tyranny, technocratic tyranny, the Fauci types
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that you're not allowed to see your family and Christmas gets canceled and you got to wear
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the mask and you got to jump around on one leg and you've got that new standard put in.
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And for decades now, the right-wing response has been, you do you.
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I can't suggest it's better to do one thing or another because the minute that I make a
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moral claim, then you can make a moral claim and they're both the same thing.
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So the minute, the minute that I say, don't go to drag queen story hour, maybe there shouldn't
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The minute I tell you don't have drag shows with nine-year-old boys named Desmond, where
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men are throwing dollar bills at his feet, uh, at a strip at a, at a gay bar rather, which
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The minute I tell you, you can't do that, then you're going to tell me I can't go to
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And we, I don't know where we got it in our head that that made any sense, but it doesn't.
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In fact, not only can we say that we must say that that is what society must do.
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We've had, even on the topic of free speech, I like, I, I strongly defend the first amendment,
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our traditional American understanding of free speech.
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There's still some things you're not supposed to say, some things you are.
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And what, what the left has done is totally flip it.
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If we want any hope of turning the ship around, we've got to re-engage.
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Ron DeSantis down there in Florida is, first of all, he's got a famously elderly population
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there because once you reach a certain age in New York, I think it is a law you have
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They are at far greater risk for the coronavirus than any of the younger people or the essential
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It's, this virus really does break down along age mostly.
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And, but yet we're being told by the left, no, the way we've got to determine how to give
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There were people talking about this in the New York Times.
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If you're a member of Congress, Democratic member of Congress, you should get the vaccine
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Ayanna Pressley says that criminals should be prioritized in getting the vaccine.
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And then the Democrats broadly say that we should ship the vaccines to other countries
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Ron DeSantis, keeping it simple, says, I don't think so.
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We're going to give it to the people who are actually at risk.
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Our vaccines are going to be targeted for our elderly population.
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We've been going through over the last week to do those tip of the sphere, healthcare workers,
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as well as our long-term care residents and staff.
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But as we get into the general community, the vaccines are going to be targeted where the
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risk is the greatest, and that is in our elderly population.
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We are not going to put young, healthy workers ahead of our elderly, vulnerable population.
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And he's going to be opposed by people on the left who say, how dare you?
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And so therefore, they're disproportionately white.
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If you say that we should give the vaccine to elderly people first, I don't care that
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We need to prioritize people based on historical injustices.
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They'll write up whatever they want for what a historical injustice is.
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Even on the matter of race, they'll say that some people aren't really a certain race.
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He said, if you don't vote for me, then you ain't black.
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Clarence Thomas, they say, is a sort of race, straighter, any conservative who doesn't happen
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So even on the racial issue, they have their own fantastical ideology on it.
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But Ron DeSantis is going to be called all those things.
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You are going to be called all of those things.
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If you want to win back the culture, you have to not be intimidated by what the left is calling
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Let's say it's the case that, you know, white people or older people are disproportionately
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It nevertheless is true that the older people who are at risk from the virus should get
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That's going to be one moral framework that's put out there.
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The other one is we should just, you know, measure how dark a person's skin is and give
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That's the standard the left is putting forward.
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Or we'll let sort of the randomized distribution work it out.
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No, no, you need, in order for it to work, you need a, a framework.
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This is one of the things that drives me crazy with left-wing science is they always say,
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look, I don't want to get political about this.
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I don't know that they work at anything other than taking away our civil rights and destroying
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But, but even if you're going to say this works, you need to say what it works for.
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Say, in order for something to work, it has to have a purpose and it has to achieve that
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And it is up to us in politics to determine what, what those purposes are to, to understand
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And you've got to be able to stand up and defend a, a framework, an understanding of what
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What do you think the best song of the year is?
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There was a great music video that came out just the other day that was really good.
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I think it was a version of Please Come Home for Christmas.
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Maybe that, but if that's not the best song of the year, what do you think would be?
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Well, according to NPR, taxpayer funded national public radio, the greatest song of the
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year, you already know, NPR, it's WAP, wet piece, wet genital structure.
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I'm not going to, I'm not going to say the name of the song.
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NPR described this because they said that it mocks the insecure, the zealots, the moral
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grandstanders for having the audacity to push back.
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Now, I've never met any moral grandstanders more grandstanding about their morality than
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The lie that they push is that they're not, you know, religious.
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That's all of us crazy Christians and Jews and Muslims.
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We're the ones who have these kind of crazy Bible thumping morality, right?
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No, they, they have their own religious understanding of the world, their own moral framework and
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And if WAP is the song of the year, then that is representing a very different moral framework
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Do we have the spine to stand up and say that one's wrong?
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The first thing that would be good to do is to take it over.
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If I were president today, what I would do is I would use all of the power that I had
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at my disposal to replace the executives at National Public Radio and put in people who
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understand things and who understand that WAP is not the best song of the year.
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And then I would totally transform National Public Radio and make it actively defend the
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And if I couldn't do that, if for whatever reason, corporate structure, the law, if I
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It is not enough for us to throw up our hands and say, oh, well, that, you know, look, that's
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And if you throw up your hands, you've, you've given up the entire country and we don't want
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I think for far too long, conservatives have tried to pretend that the private realm has
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The left understands this way better than we do.
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When they said in the seventies, the personal is the political.
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They understood that the way that people interact privately on the whole is going to affect
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You've got NPR saying WAP is the song of the year.
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This, this song that, you know, they, they say it's a wonderful for women.
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The song actually says that women are prostitutes.
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The only way to convince a man to marry you is to become, uh, to play the role of a prostitute.
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The only way to keep him engaged is to put on different wigs so that he can think he can
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convince himself that he's actually cheating on you with another woman so that he remains aroused.
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That is not empowering, but that has effects in a broader culture.
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And then here on the New York Times, you've got an op-ed from Megan Nolan, who says, who writes
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It says, in early lockdown, I spent most evenings in the front room of my mother's house, drunk,
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staring at a computer, reeling at the prospect of my body being deprived indefinitely of touch.
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I think especially a lot of, uh, single people living in cities who moved to the big city to
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have all these kind of crazy frivolous interactions.
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They were looking, they're saying, wait a second.
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I can't go on Tinder because of this virus is shutting down my understanding of the world.
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Only weeks earlier, I was in New York for an extended visit, recently single, pleasantly
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My romantic and sexual value seemed higher then and there than it had ever been anywhere
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My value, like you're an object, like you're a commodity.
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I thought it would suffer by comparison because everyone in New York is really hot, but it turned
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out my mildly manic exuberance and complete lack of interest in anything resembling commitment
00:23:09.020
And I imagine my Irish accent didn't hurt either.
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She's saying, I, you know, I was basically, uh, it's really fun to go out with.
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And so guys would go out with her big surprise.
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I felt almost nauseated by the overwhelming knowledge of how many attractive people were
00:23:23.140
Even when my dates were with guys, I would never see again.
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I found something in them or the evening that I would remember happily, like the one who
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looked fondly down at me in a hotel room and exclaimed, I love New York at the
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And she goes on and complains and says, you know, in, in Holland and one of the most completely
00:23:39.980
degenerate leftist countries in the West in Holland, they said, yeah, there's a virus
00:23:45.280
and it's a pandemic and we've got to shut down all the businesses, but you should still
00:23:55.940
You shut down the churches, but these people are clamoring to have casual sex.
00:23:59.200
It shows you maybe, I'm, I'm not even going to, you know, say that this woman, I'm not
00:24:05.440
You know, I think a lot of people are in the same boat that she is.
00:24:08.100
However, if she were married or at least in a committed relationship, she'd be happier,
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Because she wouldn't be deprived indefinitely of touch.
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She'd be happier for a lot of other reasons too.
00:24:18.100
When you look at that, when you look at the screaming girls with the blue hair and,
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you know, some of the videos we've played this week on the show and you read the joys
00:24:24.720
of frivolous sex, you got to ask yourself, do you want to be that?
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Is that, is that the kind of standard you want to have?
00:24:32.260
No, I don't think it's conducive to happiness or flourishing.
00:24:34.780
Well, then we need to have another standard and it's not enough to say you do you.
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You've got to orient the society toward good things, toward flourishing.
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You have to have a coherent framework for your society.
00:24:52.340
And the left is denying even that whole concept, even as they impose their own on us.
00:24:58.140
We're going to have to leave this planet, I think.
00:24:59.900
We're going to have to go to another, we're going to have to colonize Mars or something
00:25:02.000
like that if we want to set up a normal society again.
00:25:04.240
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There's this battle now between faith, religion, and science.
00:25:47.120
And it's not a real battle because obviously the only reason science developed as it did
00:25:56.720
The most famous scientists in history were Christians.
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Isaac Newton, devout Christian, spent decades of his life interpreting scripture.
00:26:06.140
George Lemaitre, the guy who discovered the Big Bang, was a Catholic priest.
00:26:17.080
However, there is now, in the public view, a debate between religion and science.
00:26:22.200
And what it really is, is a debate between Christianity and encompassed within this kind
00:26:26.540
of traditional religion is, you know, Judaism, Islam, the kind of theistic religions, and science
00:26:34.020
And what that is, is the religion of leftism, secular liberalism, which has its own maxims,
00:26:39.500
its own liturgies, its own rituals, its own completely irrational beliefs.
00:26:43.200
And Nancy Pelosi, just the other day on the House floor, described this battle as much as
00:26:48.680
the left wants to say, Joe Biden's a devout Catholic.
00:26:55.680
And they look upon people who are actually religious, Christian or otherwise, with total
00:27:09.020
We couldn't pass legislation until now because the administration simply did not believe in
00:27:17.080
testing, tracing, treatment, wearing masks, sanitation, separation, and the rest.
00:27:24.840
It had come clear to us now that they believed in herd immunity, quackery, springing right
00:27:34.980
from the Oval Office and not denied sufficiently by some of the CDC and the rest.
00:27:45.220
So now we have a vaccine and that gives us hope.
00:27:53.460
People say around here sometimes, I'm faith-oriented, so I don't believe in science.
00:28:04.860
And our prayers have been answered with a vaccine.
00:28:08.600
And in this legislation, we had provision for it to be developed, purchased, and distributed
00:28:16.960
in a way, again, that is fair and equitable and free.
00:28:24.080
I have to question a few things Nancy Pelosi said.
00:28:27.460
Does anybody really believe that someone has come up to Nancy Pelosi and said,
00:28:31.600
I'm faith-oriented and therefore I don't believe in science?
00:28:38.820
Moreover, I don't know that anyone who is faith-oriented has ever uttered the phrase
00:28:47.000
It's like in that movie, The 40-Year-Old Virgin, you know, Steve Carell's character is explaining
00:28:54.620
But it's very clear he's never had any encounter.
00:28:56.680
I think that's what it's like with Nancy Pelosi and religious people.
00:28:59.140
She goes, yeah, she's like holding it at arm's length.
00:29:01.940
People who are faith-oriented, is that a word you use?
00:29:12.420
They say, I'm Christian, I'm Jewish, I'm Muslim.
00:29:15.480
They don't say, or they say, I'm leftist, I'm liberal.
00:29:20.380
And nobody has said, I'm religious, therefore I don't believe in science.
00:29:23.080
What they'll say is, I'm a Christian, and therefore I'm morally opposed to taking a vaccine that
00:29:31.240
was developed using stem cells from aborted babies.
00:29:43.620
I'm inquiring as to what this physical object, how it came to be.
00:30:01.460
And I also believe in science, because I think there's a 99.7% chance I'll survive this virus.
00:30:07.620
And I know that there is such a thing as herd immunity, despite what Nancy Pelosi is saying.
00:30:13.140
Herd immunity has been a medical concept for ages and ages.
00:30:19.520
It's still described on the World Health Organization website, even though they keep trying to redefine it according to the new politically correct standards.
00:30:29.800
It's like, do you remember when Hillary Clinton described there was a massacre of Christians on Easter?
00:30:38.340
This is a woman who has never thought seriously about Christianity ever once in her life.
00:30:43.360
She's probably thought seriously about some leftist ideology masquerading as Christianity.
00:30:57.740
We mentioned this a little bit at the end of the show yesterday.
00:30:59.660
49% of American adults believe that the new COVID vaccine will be safe and effective.
00:31:06.400
That's according to Rasmussen, which is a little right-wing, but it is also a very accurate pollster.
00:31:12.900
An even lower number, 46%, believe that the new vaccine will be available in a way that is fair to everyone.
00:31:18.680
That is not the fault of the faith-oriented or the Easter worshipers.
00:31:21.960
That is the fault of a medical establishment that has totally failed us, that we do not have faith in anymore.
00:31:26.860
We should not have faith in science, generally speaking.
00:31:30.720
Even our own faculties of reason are a little bit faulty, you know, so we should rely on them, but we should check.
00:31:36.660
You know, we should double check, and we should really only have faith in God.
00:31:42.060
You know, things that, you know, you know the thing, to quote our president.
00:31:46.180
49%, 49%, just as a purely descriptive matter, it means that the ruling elite have failed.
00:31:55.680
If they cannot convince the majority of Americans to believe that this vaccine is safe, then they have failed.
00:32:07.800
You know, Dr. Birx was sort of, she was the Ethel to Dr. Fauci's Lucy.
00:32:13.640
She was the Robin to Dr. Fauci's Batman, but Dr. Scarf got caught because she said,
00:32:24.580
And she defended it by saying, oh, it wasn't Thanksgiving.
00:32:27.000
We all had dinner up at my, my beach house, you know, the next day.
00:32:32.280
Apparently the virus gave everyone a free pass the day after Thanksgiving.
00:32:37.000
Then her excuse was, I have to go winterize my home.
00:32:40.760
It means you got to make your house ready for winter, you know,
00:32:47.480
And that's not a good excuse when you're telling millions and millions of Americans
00:33:01.780
You know, my family's tried to be supportive, but they don't want to do this.
00:33:19.700
I understand we're all going to deal with suffering.
00:33:21.560
We don't need to make this harder on ourselves.
00:33:23.940
And our political elites have made this harder on ourselves and the gullible liberals who've
00:33:27.440
gone along with it and have made it harder on themselves.
00:33:30.800
And the rest of us have been coerced into going along with it.
00:33:35.340
One thing to look forward to in 2021, one thing we've certainly learned from Trump,
00:33:41.720
We actually can exert the power that the people give us every now and again.
00:33:45.320
The politicians we elect can exert the power that we give to them at the ballot box.
00:33:52.860
We've seen what it's like to have a little bit of courage.
00:33:59.360
Dear Swarthy podcast host, my wife and I differ politically.
00:34:05.520
She is a more classical liberal with some leftist positions.
00:34:09.380
For example, she likes the idea of critical race theory, but hates the idea of big government.
00:34:18.040
The main issue that we disagree on is abortion.
00:34:20.780
I have pointed out that the low rates of rape and incest related abortions, but she counters
00:34:26.520
with the idea that a lot of these go unreported due to fear of backlash.
00:34:29.520
She has also pointed out that members of the military accidentally killing civilians in
00:34:38.500
Ultimately, she says that as a man, it is not my place to tell a woman what to do with
00:34:43.240
her body, but I say that it is not just the woman's body at stake.
00:34:48.080
Most specifically about the two arguments I mentioned.
00:34:52.020
Your wife is just dead wrong, I'm sorry to say.
00:34:54.480
And, uh, it's your, your responsibility as the head of the household to show her that.
00:35:00.700
First of all, if she considers herself a classical liberal, she really can't defend abortion.
00:35:06.620
The reason for this, and you know, I'm not a classical liberal, I'm a conservative, but
00:35:09.720
if you're a classical liberal, especially in the American tradition, then politics to you
00:35:16.900
boils down to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, right?
00:35:19.580
For life, liberty, and the protection of property.
00:35:23.540
Well, you can't pursue happiness or have your property if you don't have liberty.
00:35:29.800
And you can't have liberty if you don't have life.
00:35:32.640
The right to life, according to classical liberalism, is not just one right among many.
00:35:38.360
It's not, you know, I have a right to, uh, uh, go to the doctor or something.
00:35:43.240
If you think about positive rights, the way people are talking about it today.
00:35:49.340
And if you're talking about the negative rights of classical liberalism, you can't have a right
00:35:53.100
So the, the abortion, I think she should change her position on abortion, even, even from that.
00:35:58.460
As a matter of a critical race theory, it's just, uh, it's just poison to a body politic.
00:36:03.840
I mean, there's no, cause the, cause you know, I, I don't want to oversimplify it too much,
00:36:07.960
but critical theory generally is the theory to criticize.
00:36:11.700
It, it goes back to Marx's famous description, uh, of his plan, uh, for the ruthless criticism
00:36:22.920
It goes even kookier than that, but that's what it boils down to.
00:36:25.800
And so if you are keen on these kinds of modern ideologies, what they all amount to is you've
00:36:33.480
got to hate your country, your civilization, the way society is set up, you've, yourself,
00:36:41.240
you know, you, you, you've, you've got to, your religion, you, you've just got to hate
00:36:45.240
these things, um, because they're, cause what you're engaging in is a radical criticism
00:36:50.120
Uh, so that's unfortunate in terms of, I don't really know what she's talking about
00:36:56.320
I suppose that often is punished, even if it does go unpunished, doesn't really matter.
00:37:01.760
I mean, that's, it is simply the case that, uh, it's less than 1% of abortions.
00:37:06.640
And by the way, before Roe versus Wade, we were told that thousands of women died every
00:37:11.800
That the real number was double digits and it was statistically, um, the same when you, when
00:37:17.460
you consider how many states had legal abortion and illegal abortion.
00:37:20.400
The number of women who died from illegal abortions was statistically almost identical to the
00:37:25.380
So all those scientific arguments are bunk, but really you should get around the philosophical
00:37:28.400
argument that it's just, uh, it's indefensible to, uh, call yourself a defender of liberty and
00:37:38.820
You're the reason I'm no longer in my libertarian phase.
00:37:42.540
I went through it for a long time, but glad to hear.
00:37:49.260
I was born and raised Catholic, but recently with the Pope's comments, uh, who seems to
00:37:53.320
be just a leftist in disguise, I find myself being disenfranchised with the Catholic church.
00:37:59.160
Also, my local church hasn't been open in months, which has not helped.
00:38:03.280
Do you think the Catholic leaders will start to stand up against the lockdowns and start
00:38:08.360
Or are we going down a path where the church just lines up with every leftist idea as it
00:38:13.900
I'd like some insight as I'm quite concerned about the direction the church is going in.
00:38:20.200
We've had plenty of bad bishops before and some bad priests too.
00:38:24.600
I know that some places are, are holding public mass.
00:38:27.480
So if you can find one, even if you got a drive, I would recommend doing it.
00:38:35.920
And I'd recommend a Latin mass parish, the extraordinary form of the mass, if you can.
00:38:40.760
In terms of the Pope, you know, he said things that trouble lots of people.
00:38:47.740
Hilaire Belloc was this hilariously surly Catholic writer about a hundred years ago,
00:38:53.340
And Belloc said that, uh, I am required as a Catholic to take it as a matter of faith
00:39:01.180
However, for unbelievers, a sign of its divinity would be, uh, that no other organization conducted
00:39:08.420
with such knavish imbecility would have lasted a fortnight, much less 2000 years.
00:39:15.580
The church has been run poorly forever, almost forever.
00:39:20.340
And it's, uh, a lot of the people who have been entrusted with power in the church and influence
00:39:27.580
And yet, uh, if you're a Catholic, you have to believe that is, that is the one true church
00:39:31.760
And it's never gone away, but we can go through very difficult periods and it is up to the
00:39:35.660
laity to, uh, exercise, uh, respect, but also, uh, courage, you know, and to stand up
00:39:41.940
against things when, when they're not looking right.
00:39:46.820
I was wondering why and also how do you put up with all the good-natured ribbing that you
00:39:51.340
were always getting from Clavin, Boring, and Shapiro, and perhaps, I don't remember any
00:40:02.520
I, uh, take it all as an opportunity to become more saintly as I take these sorts of barbs
00:40:11.040
And then it really, it kind of started with Ben, you know, Ben, Ben started and, and that
00:40:15.680
all started because I beat him in an election bet.
00:40:18.360
And then I, uh, in 2016, and then I sold more blank books than he sold real books.
00:40:22.400
Uh, so one way that I make myself feel better is I just go home every night and I sort of
00:40:26.860
stare at my framed check signed by one Mr. Ben Shapiro and, uh, and I just am filled with
00:40:34.180
The only, the, the, the other point on this though, which is more broad than the Daily
00:40:43.700
And I'm sure, I'm sure you know this as well, but I'll never forget in, in college, uh,
00:40:48.400
we're, you know, uh, four or five guys living in this, in the room and not just one bedroom,
00:40:54.680
And, uh, and, uh, I don't know, one of us brought a girl back to introduce her to the
00:40:59.140
fellas and, uh, we're all sitting there and we were all just like, you stupid idiot and
00:41:04.380
you don't, what are you dumb, you fat, you lazy, you whatever, you know, we're all just
00:41:10.060
And, uh, she looked at us, she goes, oh my God, why, why are you all so mean to each
00:41:21.080
And I know these days you're like not allowed to do it.
00:41:23.320
If you're, if you're tough on a guy, if you go out there and, and, uh, say mean things,
00:41:27.360
you know, it's like bullying, you're not allowed to do it.
00:41:29.160
But I don't know, I think we'd be a better, better society if we could all do that kind
00:41:37.700
If you ask the left from Annie, science says influenza cases are down because we're doing so well
00:41:46.440
My governor, Kate Brown says we need stricter lockdown measures and schools must stay closed
00:41:51.520
because we're doing a terrible job masking and social distancing.
00:41:57.680
Also, why is no one talking about the fact that case spikes have occurred exactly as cold
00:42:06.080
There is no question anymore that the coronavirus numbers are inflated.
00:42:09.520
COVID we, we know that they are because county coroners and health officials have admitted
00:42:16.960
that, that anyone who dies with COVID is counted as a death from COVID.
00:42:21.640
So you've heard this in many, many instances, people will be killed from a gunshot wound and
00:42:29.860
So we know for a fact that the cases are inflated.
00:42:32.180
Uh, we know for a fact there is a financial incentive for medical institutions to diagnose
00:42:38.220
COVID illnesses because they, they get more funding for that.
00:42:42.260
So yeah, there's no doubt about those sorts of things.
00:42:45.820
Uh, whether or not the washing the hands and the masks are working, I tend to agree with
00:42:49.940
Dr. Fauci eight months ago because I believe the science, I trust the science.
00:42:54.340
And as Dr. Fauci said, the masks are basically an ornament.
00:43:00.880
The virus is still spreading like crazy and everyone's wearing the masks.
00:43:03.880
Uh, they can actually make it worse because you're touching your face and you know,
00:43:08.800
they're, they're, maybe they stop a droplet or two, but they're not going to stop the infection.
00:43:14.600
And I, I think that, uh, Dr. Fauci, who is half scientist, half politician,
00:43:21.060
But I tend to believe the first thing that he said, because that is common sense.
00:43:24.160
And it seems to have been borne out by the data and the science in our dictatorship
00:43:30.980
Hey Michael, I'm curious what you feel the role of women in the church should be in first
00:43:36.000
There are many passages in scripture explaining different expectations, roles, and even positions
00:43:39.880
women are allowed to have in regard to the church.
00:43:41.680
Is this something that should continue today or should we embrace a more open and by more
00:43:46.720
open, I think you mean more liberal or more modernist idea of church duties between men
00:43:52.120
Yeah, I think that should continue to this day.
00:43:57.240
And there have been, unfortunately, some modernist infiltrations and abuses in the liturgy that,
00:44:03.660
that, uh, not even just for the role of women, but just broadly.
00:44:07.400
But yes, uh, men, priests are men, uh, women should not be priests.
00:44:13.440
I know that the Anglican church in the seventies decided to add priestesses to their, uh, to
00:44:18.940
their religion, but, uh, Catholic church can't do it.
00:44:22.360
A lot of other Protestant denominations will not do it for that same reason.
00:44:26.420
This is not to say that women don't have a role in the church or even that the role is
00:44:30.500
less spiritually important or something like that.
00:44:33.320
I mean, this is something when I hear people complain about the feminization of the church,
00:44:39.840
I usually, it's more my Protestant friends who say this.
00:44:44.240
You get all the wimpy music and all the sappy saccharine kind of ridiculous, uh, liturgical
00:44:53.020
But, uh, likewise, let's not forget that the, the image that we have of the church is that
00:44:57.480
Christ is the bridegroom and the church is the bride.
00:45:02.960
That's a very feminine idea for especially Catholics and, uh, Eastern Orthodox and Anglicans
00:45:09.460
to an extent, Mary plays a very important role, uh, the way that we pray the rosary, the way
00:45:14.960
that we sort of try to, to view through Mary's eyes, uh, that you wouldn't call that masculine,
00:45:21.700
Uh, but just as we talk about in modern gender theory, you don't want men to become women
00:45:28.800
And so I think there are plenty of roles for women in the church.
00:45:33.460
I know that's now considered shocking that anyone would choose a religious life, but a
00:45:40.840
Um, but it can't be priests and that's, that's the way it is because men and women are different.
00:45:46.400
And I think if you, if you approach this matter, as I've heard even some, uh, Catholics say,
00:45:54.160
We deserve, I think you're approaching it from the wrong way.
00:45:56.760
This is, you ought to approach it from a position of humility and, uh, of duty and obligation.
00:46:07.800
I once, once heard a homily where a priest said that, uh, you know, sometimes, uh, uh,
00:46:14.500
people would want to, in a, in a Catholic procession, you have the people carrying the
00:46:19.600
cross up the aisle and then that goes in order of importance all the way back to the priest
00:46:24.300
or even the bishop or even the Pope would be further back.
00:46:26.520
And that, uh, this priest said that sometimes these younger, you know, members in the church
00:46:32.100
would try to go back to see more important where the priests and the bishops were.
00:46:35.680
And this priest said, those men should pray to have the humility to stand under the cross
00:46:42.200
and pray that the blood of Christ drops on their heads so that they can understand humility.
00:46:46.860
And, you know, it's a very graphic way of putting it.
00:46:49.200
Uh, but I think that's how we should approach the church, not from a position of entitlement
00:46:53.300
and, uh, feeling that we are owed something, but, uh, from the humble desire to serve.
00:46:59.340
From Aiden, Mr. Knowles, my college just announced that for the spring semester, COVID testing
00:47:05.080
will be mandatory every two weeks for faculty, staff, and students.
00:47:08.340
Masking and social distancing were required on pain of expulsion for the fall semester,
00:47:14.020
Now they're taking it further by mandating medical testing.
00:47:16.840
I don't think I signed over my medical rights when I decided to attend a public university.
00:47:22.880
He who pays the piper calls the tune, my friend.
00:47:25.740
I think what's going on at your school is absolutely terrible.
00:47:29.340
I think it's not going to stop until we all stop, until we all fight back.
00:47:40.600
Uh, this is true, by the way, when people talk about free education, free college,
00:47:45.700
What that amounts to is a government takeover of even the private universities,
00:47:49.260
which bad as they are, could get a whole lot worse in that scenario,
00:47:58.200
We all ought to ignore these stupid lockdown rules.
00:48:01.360
We all ought to have a very, very Merry Christmas,
00:48:04.700
because even amid all of this madness and unfortunate turns of events in politics,
00:48:09.340
which always happen, we have a lot to be grateful for.
00:48:13.200
We even have a lot to be grateful for in the struggle.
00:48:15.560
You know, the great saints of history have prayed to live in times such as these,
00:48:21.860
Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, see you in January.
00:48:25.500
If you enjoyed this episode, don't forget to subscribe.
00:48:36.260
please give us a five-star review and tell your friends to subscribe.
00:48:39.940
We're available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever else you listen to podcasts.
00:48:44.740
Also, be sure to check out the other Daily Wire podcasts,
00:48:47.700
including The Ben Shapiro Show, The Andrew Klavan Show, and The Matt Walsh Show.
00:48:51.320
The Michael Knowles Show is produced by Ben Davies, executive producer Jeremy Boring.
00:48:56.160
Our technical director is Austin Stevens, supervising producers Mathis Glover and Robert Sterling,
00:49:02.160
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00:49:07.280
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00:49:13.200
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00:49:18.940
If you prefer facts over feelings, aren't offended by the brutal truth,
00:49:22.300
and you can still laugh at the insanity filling our national news cycle,