While ESPN and the NFL cheered the supposed courage of former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick for failing to stand for the national anthem, it turns out the viewers were less sanguine. According to a new poll from J.D. Power, the reason fans decided not to watch the NFL last year was the National Anthem protests. Which means that the left's unwavering desire to infuse politics into even the most apolitical content comes with a cost: alienation of an audience that disagrees. And that s going to have larger ramifications than merely a drop in NFL ratings. Ben Shapiro's full analysis of the new poll and Anthony Scaramucci's controversial interview with the New York Times in which he lost his mind in an interview with The New Yorker. And we'll tell you about it and why it actually isn't so bad, and why you should have been watching the game anyway. Plus, a special offer from ProFlowers that you can get 20% off your first order of flowers! Subscribe to my new podcast, The Ben Shapiro Show, wherever you get your stuff, and I'll send you a surprise bouquet of blooming blooms that will keep them fresh for 7 days or more! You won't want to miss it! Use code "That's Proflowers" at checkout to get a discount code "ProFlowers" to receive 20% of your entire order. That's PROFLOWERS" and you'll get a total of $29 or more in blooming bouquets, plus free shipping, plus an additional 20% when you sign up for the option to receive a new bouquet and shipping discount, plus a 20% discount when you place an additional $5 or two days of your choice. you choose that code, you get the bouquet, they won't even know what you're getting. that's proflowers won't know that you'll be getting a discount, they'll get all that'll get that deal, you won't have to pay for it, it'll get it, you'll even get that discount, and they'll even be getting it, too! That's a deal like that's all that and you get a whole bunch of flowers, and it won't be able to vouch for that won't get that? so you won t have to wait seven days to receive it, they're just that, right there, it's gonna be that and more, right?
00:00:00.000While ESPN and the NFL cheered the supposed courage of former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick, who sucked at his job, for failing to stand for the national anthem, it turns out the viewers were less sanguine.
00:00:43.000Which means that the left's unwavering desire to infuse politics into even the most apolitical content comes with a cost, alienation of an audience that disagrees.
00:00:52.000While polls show that the vast bulk of Americans despise the National Anthem protests, those statistics polarize by race.
00:00:58.00063% of white Americans disliked the protest, a plurality of Hispanics disapproved, 45% to 36%, but fully 74% of black Americans liked the protest.
00:01:04.000Overall, 54% of Americans opposed the protest, with just 38% approving.
00:01:12.000That racial polarization that gripped the nation over the last several years, thanks to the rise of Black Lives Matter and President Obama's decision to humor racially divisive politics, it didn't leave football untouched.
00:01:22.000And the leftists at the sports networks, in an attempt to mirror their political idols of the Democratic Party, celebrated as their own industry imbibed from the intersectional bottle.
00:02:35.000And speaking of policy that's not getting passed, skinny repeal went down to flaming defeat after John McCain throttled it with his with his old hands.
00:02:43.000And we'll tell you about what happened there and why it actually
00:04:39.000So I'm actually going to start in a place where I think the media is not covering things.
00:04:42.000And that is, there's a story that came out yesterday that really does throw a crimp into the style of the Democrats when it comes to this Russian narrative.
00:04:49.000I talked about this a little bit yesterday.
00:04:52.000So, since Hillary's election, the left has been saying that Russia wanted Trump to win, and that's why Trump won, that there was some sort of collusion.
00:04:59.000So far, there's no evidence of actual collusion.
00:05:00.000There's willingness to collude from Don Jr.
00:05:02.000to these Russian lawyers, but there's no actual evidence of collusion, and there's no evidence that the Russians actually wanted Trump to win, as opposed to just screwing with our election cycle.
00:05:11.000Well, last week, in a little-noticed move, the Senate Judiciary Committee called a guy named Bill Browder to testify.
00:05:16.000Browder's a financier who's been targeted by the Vladimir Putin regime, and he testified, according to the Weekly Standard, that Fusion GPS, which is a Democrat-linked Apple research firm, arranged the meeting between Donald Trump Jr.
00:05:26.000And furthermore, Browder stated that these Russian lawyers had hired Fusion GPS to conduct a smear campaign against him.
00:05:33.000And the reports are that Fusion GPS has contracted the Russians, and maybe they were hired by the Russians.
00:05:41.000In order to come up with this anti-Trump dossier.
00:05:43.000The reason this is important is because it does again destroy the Democrat narrative that the reason Trump won is because the Russians wanted him to win.
00:05:50.000What it looks like more is that the Russians were screwing with all sides.
00:05:53.000They were working on the Trump dossier at the same time they were playing the other side of the aisle with Trump.
00:05:57.000Which means that that's a pretty large confounding factor.
00:06:01.000When you say, did the Russians hurt Trump or did they help Trump?
00:06:04.000Well, it's possible that the Russians did both.
00:06:08.000And so I think that that hurts the Democratic narrative in a pretty significant way, which is one of the reasons why the Democrat media does not want to report all of that.
00:06:16.000Okay, but what they do, here's the thing.
00:06:17.000Trump could be saying all of that, right?
00:06:31.000But, last night, very late at night, I'm on a plane because I'm an idiot and I went to Dulles Airport instead of Reagan National Airport to get home from Washington, D.C., so I had to hop a later flight.
00:06:39.000And on the flight home, I'm sitting, there's nothing worse than being in a middle seat watching CNN
00:07:30.000That's why they called it a skinny repeal.
00:07:31.000The biggest problem with skinny repeal, and the reason a lot of people opposed it, is because it left all of the Obamacare regulations in place, but it got rid of the funding mechanism for the Obamacare regulations, which means all the prices are going to immediately begin rising very, very quickly in the individual market.
00:07:45.000It also didn't make any sort of Medicaid restructuring, so a lot of people would presumably be thrown onto Medicaid, a cost the government would then absorb.
00:07:59.000You can either try to fix Obamacare by strengthening a lot of its repercussions, by subsidizing insurance companies, by creating higher taxes on it, because the money has to come from somewhere.
00:08:13.000Would presumably like to do, or move to single-payer.
00:08:15.000Or you can get rid of Obamacare entirely, which is what Republicans were unwilling to do.
00:08:18.000Instead, they sort of settled for the worst of both worlds.
00:08:21.000Keep the regulations, get rid of the funding mechanisms, which destroys the insurance companies and forces Republicans to bail out the insurance companies.
00:08:36.000Then they said, OK, well, how about if we just do repeal only, which would be a broader version of repeal, but it would still leave the regulations in place.
00:08:43.000And finally, he said, we'll do skinny repeal.
00:08:45.000But we in the Senate don't actually want to pass skinny repeal.
00:08:47.000We'd like to have some subsidies in there, but we can't pass that through our Senate right now.
00:08:51.000So what we want to do is pass skinny repeal and make Paul Ryan say that he won't pass skinny repeal in the House.
00:08:56.000And then we'll go to conference committee, we'll come up with a bill that we can all agree on, and then we'll revote it.
00:09:01.000And Paul Ryan was not giving a lot of signs that he was going to do that.
00:09:04.000He sort of kind of committed to the idea that they were going to go to a committee that was going to put together a conference committee that was going to put together a new bill.
00:09:14.000But in the end, the bill goes down to flaming defeat after John McCain, Susan Collins, and Lisa Murkowski decide they're not going to vote for it.
00:09:20.000Collins and Murkowski were never going to vote for it because they don't actually believe in repealing Obamacare.
00:09:24.000McCain didn't vote for it, presumably because McCain was angry at the process.
00:09:28.000So as we played his speech a couple of days ago, he basically said, I don't like how this is being done.
00:09:32.000I'm going to vote on a motion to proceed, but I'm not going to vote on any bill.
00:09:35.000And he fulfilled that promise to the Democrats.
00:09:40.000I think a lot of the sort of freak out is over the top.
00:09:44.000I think a lot of the freak out is over the top.
00:09:47.000Now listen, Ted Cruz was right in 2012.
00:09:49.000When there was the government shutdown and Ted Cruz said, listen, if we don't defund Obamacare right this instant, it is going to be ensconced in American life.
00:09:56.000It is going to be enshrined in American life.
00:09:58.000It's going to be very difficult to get rid of it.
00:09:59.000He was exactly right when he said that.
00:10:01.000That has obviously been proved to be true.
00:10:02.000The Republican Party has been lying for seven years that they actually wanted to get rid of this thing.
00:10:05.000They clearly do not want to get rid of this thing.
00:10:07.000Cruz last night, he said, listen, no party can remain in power by lying to the American people and then not fulfilling promises.
00:10:15.000There's no issue I have fought harder on, devoted more time to, than stopping the disaster that is Obamacare.
00:10:21.000And mark my words, I am committed to this fight, as long as there is breath in my body.
00:10:28.000I will be fighting for the working men and women of this country that are being hurt by Obamacare, and I believe
00:11:08.000It is a loss for Donald Trump, who, unfortunately, his late-game push for healthcare, namely saying that his attorney general is a poophead,
00:11:17.000Did not actually have the impact that people thought it was.
00:11:20.000His closing argument that his attorney general was garbage, that actually didn't, believe it or not, push this bill over the finish line.
00:11:27.000So tweeting out a couple of times, we can do it, which is basically what he tweeted out, like two minutes before this vote, and then it failed.
00:11:35.000That isn't going to do it because, unfortunately, the way the system works, you know, it's not Trump's fault completely, but
00:11:52.000If Republicans had passed the skinny repeal bill, and if that had gone to Trump's desk, and if he had signed it, they would have had a momentary celebration.
00:11:59.000And then the premiums would have started rising dramatically.
00:12:01.000It would have been very difficult to get Republicans to vote for subsidies to bail out all the insurance companies.
00:12:05.000If they did, they would then own the subsidy regime.
00:12:08.000And, as the insurance premiums continued to rise, and they were now sponsoring subsidies, there would be a call for a single payer from the left, and Republicans would own this thing.
00:12:16.000Right now, it's unclear who owns this thing.
00:13:06.000So, to a certain extent, there's a good possibility that John McCain and Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski actually saved the Republicans from themselves on this thing.
00:13:13.000Better to pass no bill, in some cases, than to pass a crappy bill that gives you ownership of the entire system.
00:13:19.000So I'm not completely, you know, you know how cynical I am about politics.
00:13:23.000I'm not completely sold on the idea that this is a killer for Republicans if they don't pass anything.
00:13:28.000And I think that Trump is not entirely wrong when he says if this thing continues to fall apart, people are going to look for a fix and they're not going to look to, they may not look to Democrats who built the thing in the first place.
00:13:37.000So, with all of that happening, it would have been helpful if Trump actually wanted to push something through, which apparently he did.
00:13:42.000If he wanted to push something through, it would have been helpful if he weren't distracted by stupidity.
00:13:47.000It would be helpful if he wants to fight back on the Russia thing if he weren't distracted by stupidity.
00:13:50.000Unfortunately, he's deeply distracted by the stupidity inside his own administration.
00:13:55.000It has basically become Game of Thrones.
00:14:49.000Just a group that is vital for all gun owners.
00:14:52.000You should be, you should have membership with USCCA.
00:14:55.000You never want to be put in the position where you're unprepared and USCCA makes sure that you are prepared for before, during, and after a shoot.
00:15:01.000So, defendmyfamilynow.com is the place where you can get five chances to win $1,776 worth of guns and ammo.
00:15:07.000It's not going to last much longer, this drawing.
00:16:28.000When I put out a tweet, and I put Reince's name in the tweet, they're all making the assumption that it's him, because journalists know who the leakers are.
00:16:37.000So if Reince wants to explain that he's not a leaker, let him do that.
00:16:42.000If Reince wants to explain he's not a leaker, let him do that.
00:16:45.000Yeah, that's- that's a real strong repudiation of the idea that you don't think he's the lea- that you think he's the leaker.
00:16:51.000Anthony Scaramucci, this dude can do the fandangle like nobody's business.
00:16:54.000Then, he says- I mean, he's declared war inside the administration against all of these people.
00:16:58.000Right, he's declared war again in the administration against Reince and against Bannon.
00:17:02.000Basically, anyone who wants to do conservative policy is on Anthony Scaramucci's poop list because Anthony Scaramucci wants to be Trump's right-hand man and he has somehow parlayed being on national television saying nice things about Trump and ripping CNN into becoming probably the second most powerful man in the country, which is incredible.
00:17:40.000I told his wife, I looked over to the First Lady and I said, I forgot how much fun I used to have when I hung out with him on the campaign trail.
00:17:59.000Their job is to inject this president into America so that he can explain his views properly and his policies so that we can transform America and drain the swamp and make the system fairer for the middle and lower income people.
00:19:09.000Other brothers can fight with each other and get along.
00:19:12.000I don't know if this is repairable or not, that will be up to the President, but he's the Chief of Staff, he's responsible for... The literacy at this administration is so high.
00:19:24.000Okay, so if you're on national TV suggesting that you might be like Cain and Abel, you might also just be like brothers who fight a little bit and then get along, but I might murder him and bury him in the backyard.
00:19:32.000I mean, basically, Scaramucci is Joe Pesci from Casino.
00:19:37.000And then, Sarah Huckabee Sanders is out there, and it's pretty clear that this is now Scaramucci's administration, so far as Trump is concerned.
00:19:43.000Huckabee Sanders is out there saying that she won't commit to saying whether Trump supports his own chief of staff.
00:19:47.000Remember, this is in the same week that Trump has been tweeting out about how his own AG's a poophead.
00:19:52.000You can't say right now if the president has full confidence in Chief of Staff Mike Spriggs?
00:19:57.000Look, I think what we have, this is a White House that has a lot of different perspectives because the president hires the very best people.
00:21:14.000Plus you get this incredible, magnificent, incomparable, phenomenal, unbelievable paper.
00:21:21.000This mug, this Leftist Tears Hot or Cold Tumblr, it is the greatest thing you will ever own in your life.
00:21:26.000You may own a house, you may own a horse, you may own a car, but this, in a fire, this is the only thing you're going to be able to grab and take with you.
00:21:56.000So, last night, after Scaramucci goes on CNN, and things seem to have calmed down a little bit because now we're all going to focus on the healthcare stuff, and now we're all going to focus on what Trump is doing about sessions, and we're all going to focus on some of the Russia stuff, and we'll go about our daily business.
00:22:14.000Ryan Lizza releases a piece about what Scaramucci had said to him on Wednesday night.
00:22:19.000Scaramucci apparently does not know, this is what Scaramucci basically says, he does not know the difference between on the record and off the record.
00:22:26.000So, for those who don't understand how this works, when you're speaking with a journalist,
00:23:19.000Because he did an interview with Ryan Lizza, and I'm going to tell you about this interview.
00:23:23.000So he started off by threatening to fire everyone on the White House communications staff.
00:23:28.000He said, the Mooch said, first of all, every time I see him, all I am reminded of, I mean, he's like a cross between, he's like some perverse cross between Christian Bale from American Psycho, Leonardo DiCaprio from The Wolf of Wall Street, and Ellis from Die Hard.
00:23:47.000You know, Hans, Boobie, I'm Your White Knight, that guy.
00:25:08.000Okay, so he's ripping the Chief of Staff for the President of the United States at the White House, and he's saying that he clock-blocked him.
00:26:06.000So now he's attacking the White House chief strategist as a guy who is in love with the media and wants to be in front of the cameras and also wants to perform anatomically impossible acts on himself.
00:27:09.000I gotta start tweeting some bleep to make this guy crazy.
00:27:12.000A minute later he sent that tweet, directed at Reince Priebus, in which he accused Priebus of being a leaker, and then the next morning he went on CNN and said that's not what I meant by that tweet.
00:27:33.000All I want from life right now is Anthony Scaramucci in front of the camera every minute of every day.
00:27:38.000I don't think Trump feels the same way.
00:27:40.000The reason is because Trump wants to be in front of the camera every minute of every day, which is why Steve Bannon did the clever thing of going to his old friends at Breitbart.
00:27:46.000He went to Tony Lee, who's a reporter very friendly to Trump.
00:27:49.000I mean, and to Bannon, who was very friendly when Bannon was there.
00:27:52.000And Tony Lee ran a long piece about how Scaramucci was stealing the spotlight from Trump, which is, of course, the smartest way to appeal to Trump is to say, someone is stealing your spotlight.
00:28:01.000And Trump goes, no, no one steals my spotlight.
00:28:04.000Hit him with a hammer and bury him in the desert.
00:28:08.000Scaramucci's trying to accuse Bannon of trying to steal the spotlight, and Bannon's trying to accuse Scaramucci of stealing the spotlight, all in a battle to try and be second in command to Trump.
00:28:16.000But Scaramucci has no principles and doesn't care about what Trump pushes, and Bannon has some principles, but some of them suck.
00:28:22.000So all of this is just going awesome, as I think the short story here.
00:28:26.000Also, Jeff Sessions, who's the Attorney General, he's just got to be relieved that now he's out of the spotlight, because earlier this week, all Trump cared about was ripping on Jeff Sessions.
00:28:33.000Jeff Sessions was talking to Tucker Carlson, and he said Trump's tweets have been very hurtful this week.
00:28:38.000You've seen the President's criticism of you.
00:28:43.000Well, it's kind of hurtful, but the President of the United States is a strong leader.
00:28:50.000He is determined to move this country in the direction he believes it needs to go to make us great again, and he has had a lot of criticisms, and he's steadfastly determined to get his job done, and he wants all of us to do our jobs, and that's what I intend to do.
00:29:07.000The president, that's sort of the latest.
00:29:09.000So even as Sessions is trying to be the loyal soldier here and saying it's kind of hurtful, it's basically turned into a dating show.
00:29:34.000It doesn't do anything to forward policy, okay?
00:29:36.000We haven't had any policy except for Gorsuch in, like, six months.
00:29:39.000But at least this part of it's ramping up.
00:29:42.000At least this part is entertaining, so...
00:29:44.000What you're starting to see is that it undermines Trump's entire agenda because Trump's personnel is policy, and he's not selected the best people, and not only has he not selected the best people, he's treated his own employees like the Joker treats people in The Dark Knight.
00:29:56.000He's basically said, I'm hiring, here's a pool cue.
00:30:01.000One of you comes out alive and gets hired.
00:30:03.000This is not the way to run an administration.
00:30:04.000And this is why you're seeing senators beginning to buck Trump.
00:30:07.000Ben Sasse has openly said now that if Trump is going to fire Sessions and then try to make a recess appointment of a new Attorney General, that we're going to stop him in the Senate.
00:30:17.000Supreme Court ruled that the Obama administration had made unconstitutional appointments when it declared this body to be in recess, when the U.S.
00:30:26.000Senate was not, in fact, in recess, and it functionally claimed power, that is, the administration functionally claimed power that belonged to the Senate under our Constitution.
00:30:37.000So today, I've come to the floor to keep my promise and to offer a word of humble advice to the president.
00:30:44.000If you're thinking of making a recess appointment to push out the Attorney General, forget about it.
00:30:51.000The presidency isn't a bull, and this country isn't a china shop.
00:30:57.000Okay, so even the senators are starting to buck him.
00:31:35.000If you don't do your job, you get laid off.
00:31:37.000And then you get somebody else who replaces you, who presumably does a better job.
00:31:40.000And then if the business fails, that's my fault, because I'm the head of the business.
00:31:44.000Okay, that's the same thing at the head of the government.
00:31:45.000The executive branch is an executive branch that are supposed to execute.
00:31:48.000Are you seeing anything executed except some random staffers?
00:31:51.000I mean, at this point, Sean Spicer is just sitting around, basically... Sean Spicer is sitting around on a beach in San Juanto, sipping a beer and going, thank God I escaped.
00:32:00.000He crawled through 300 yards of foul-smelling, I can't even imagine, and came out clean on the other side.
00:32:17.000So I had the privilege of speaking before the, uh, Government Oversight Committee, a subcommittee on the, uh, a subcommittee on, uh, education, as led by, um, Representative Jim Jordan, uh, from 4th District of Ohio.
00:32:31.000Dave Brat stopped by from Virginia, and, um, and, uh, Representative DeSantis stopped by from Florida.
00:32:36.000Eleanor Holmes Norton stopped by from District of Columbia.
00:32:40.000And there were a couple of moments that I thought was worthwhile, so here was my opening statement.
00:32:43.000We won't play the whole thing, we'll play a little bit of it in just an Easter egg.
00:32:46.000That is God-King of the Daily Wire, Jeremy Boring, sitting behind me to my right, wearing the three-piece suit, looking glorious, of course.
00:32:56.000It's an honor to testify before you here today.
00:32:58.000The reason that I'm with you is that I speak on dozens of college campuses every year, so I have some first-hand experience with the anti-First Amendment activities that have been taking place on the college campuses.
00:33:08.000I've encountered anti-free speech measures, administrative cowardice, even physical violence at campuses ranging from California State University at Los Angeles to University of Wisconsin at Madison, which is driving
00:33:37.000And the impetus for administrators who all too often humor these protesters.
00:33:42.000Free speech is under assault because of a three-step argument made by the advocates and justifiers of violence.
00:33:47.000The first step is they say that the validity or invalidity of an argument can be judged solely by the ethnic, sexual, racial, or cultural identity of the person making the argument.
00:33:57.000The second step is that they claim those who say otherwise are engaging in what they call verbal violence.
00:34:01.000And the final step is they conclude that physical violence is sometimes justified in order to stop such verbal violence.
00:34:09.000Okay, so I went on from there, but I slapped out at intersectionality.
00:34:13.000I said that intersectionality was the root of the modern Democratic Party, which set off some of the Congress people.
00:34:18.000I thought the best exchange was there was a representative named Plaskett, who's actually from the Virgin Islands.
00:34:24.000She's not technically a congresswoman.
00:34:25.000She's a representative who sits with Congress.
00:34:28.000And she came after me because she was upset that I had said that the arguments about white privilege on campus are a way to shut down debate and provide impetus
00:34:36.000for a lot of the protesters who simply think that nobody else should be able to speak.
00:34:41.000I had a conversation with Rachel Lazar, who's done some work, a Jewish American woman who's done some work on this area, as well as having extensive conversations with Dr. Greg Parks of Wake Forest University, who's also talked quite a bit about critical race theory.
00:35:02.000And it's my understanding that white privilege is not telling individuals that they cannot
00:35:08.000But it is a term for societal privilege.
00:35:11.000that individuals have as a benefit of their white skin.
00:35:16.000And I don't think that, and I think universities would be remiss to then say that because you're white, you're not allowed to say anything that's critical of white people.
00:35:27.000I didn't know that white privilege actually went into that sphere.
00:35:31.000My understanding is it's just, and the issue is, is that white privilege makes people uncomfortable to talk about the societal privilege that they have.
00:35:39.000Well, to me, what I say on campuses all the time is if you want to cite instances of racism that we can all find and fight together, that's something that I'm more than willing to stand next to you and fight because that's obviously stuff that we should fight together.
00:35:53.000But when you just say that there is a white privilege out there in the ether and that by dint of birth your skin color generates for you an advantage, what you're really saying to people
00:36:01.000Is that your view is less valuable because you have not experienced what I've experienced.
00:36:06.000And that is an identity argument, that's a character argument, that's not a rational political argument that can actually be taken on in any way.
00:36:13.000It's more of a cudgel in a club than it is an attempt to open a discussion.
00:36:19.000Okay, so you can see it got a little bit heated from time to time in the hearing.
00:36:25.000Because I want to get to things I like, things I hate in the mailbag, we'll cut it short there, but it's worthwhile.
00:36:29.000You should go and watch, I think somebody's put together a compilation of all the sections where I'm talking, if that's the part you want to watch.
00:36:34.000A lot of the other people who were speaking had interesting things to say, but a really fascinating hearing, and it was kind of a kick.
00:36:40.000I mean, thanks to all of the kids who came.
00:36:42.000A bunch of college students who showed up, filled the audience.
00:38:09.000This is used in movies ranging from Dead Again, which is a little-known Kenneth Branagh film, to Somewhere in Time, which is the most famous use.
00:38:16.000This is with Christopher Reeve, and what's her name?
00:38:40.000Rachmaninoff is great in short sections.
00:38:41.000I'm not sure I like Rachmaninoff that much overall, but this is the best of his, the best of Rachmaninoff.
00:38:45.000Okay, the other thing that I like, I lied, there will be one more thing I like.
00:38:49.000Representative DeSantis, who's just a hilarious fellow from Florida, he's a big fan of the show, and his wife is a sweetheart, and he had me FaceTime with her a little bit beforehand, and he actually asked me, Ben Shapiro Thug Life is now part of the congressional record.
00:40:17.000Trump's DOJ says there is no legislation on the books on the federal level that prevents discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, which is true.
00:40:25.000Okay, the law is still the meaning of the law.
00:40:28.000And this is how the left likes to twist things.
00:40:29.000What they do is they like to take the most egregious misuses of freedom, and they say, well, you're for that.
00:40:36.000Therefore, we should quash the freedom.
00:40:39.000You see this with free speech all the time.
00:40:41.000They say, well, free speech, on campus a lot.
00:40:43.000They say, well, free speech, that means that you're in favor of people saying the N-word, aren't you?
00:40:46.000It's like, no, I'm in favor of the right for people to say the N-word, but I think saying the N-word's a terrible thing.
00:40:51.000I think that discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation is a bad thing, unless you're talking about in a religious context or in some context where it might be values-laden and relevant.
00:41:01.000But this idea that the federal government has a role to play in jumping on this, number one, I think is anti-freedom, and number two,
00:41:09.000I don't think that the government at all should be involved in issues of this order, but it is certainly not covered by the Civil Rights Act.
00:41:17.000You don't just get to rewrite law because you wish that the law said something that it doesn't say.
00:41:23.000Okay, so let's jump right into the mailbag.
00:41:25.000We have a little bit of time for the mailbag, so let's do it.
00:41:26.000So Andrew says, Dear Ben, you seem like a ladies' man.
00:41:29.000How can I use my conservative beliefs to attract women?
00:41:32.000Do I start off with light discussion on religious liberty or go in confident with my line-by-line analysis of the Declaration of Independence?
00:41:37.000So far, neither method has been successful.
00:41:54.000And I think a lot of that had to do with the fact that
00:41:58.000Not only am I an abrasive human being from time to time, but also I think that I was a couple years younger than everyone else wherever I went ever.
00:42:51.000As an Orthodox Jew, what is your opinion on sterilization like tubal litigation and vasectomies?
00:42:57.000So, I am not in favor of irreversible surgeries that prevent you from having children.
00:43:04.000I am, you know, I'm going to separate my own religious viewpoint here because, you know, I'm not going to speak for Orthodox Judaism.
00:43:10.000You can ask a rabbi if you want the Orthodox Jewish perspective on these things.
00:43:13.000I don't like the idea of sterilizing yourself unless you are attempting to, you know,
00:43:19.000Unless you're... If you really, really don't want to have kids, which I think has a moral component to it, if you really don't want to have kids.
00:43:25.000I think you need to be a better person if you don't want to have children.
00:43:27.000But if you really, really don't want to have kids, then I don't have a problem with you doing what you want to do.
00:43:33.000On a moral level, I think that taking...
00:43:36.000Permanent steps to cure a transitory issue is not the smartest thing to do.
00:43:42.000I think there is a secular case in the sense that you don't have to mention the Bible or God, but I do think that eventually you're going to have to fall into a Judeo-Christian history that's a little bit vague, and this is the problem with natural rights theory as a general theory.
00:44:00.000It's all well and good to say that it is self-evident that there are natural rights, but it is clearly not self-evident that there are natural rights.
00:44:06.000That springs from a particular Judeo-Christian ideology that goes back to the foundations of Christianity and Greek thought and Judaism.
00:44:12.000And to pretend that you can just sit there in a room and come up with life, liberty, and property as the fundamental principles, I think that's a little bit misguided.
00:44:21.000There's a reason that not every society on planet Earth, in fact most societies for the majority of history,
00:44:26.000Did not believe that life, liberty, and property were inherent rights.
00:44:28.000It required a Judeo-Christian civilization developing toward an Enlightenment freedom to believe that.
00:44:34.000Okay, Rachel says, Hey Ben, this week in my sociology class at Brooklyn College, we mentioned the idea of being woke, and there was a debate about whether awareness is enough to help invoke change.
00:44:43.000First of all, I hate the phrase being woke because it suggests that everybody else is asleep, and also it's improper grammar, okay?
00:45:24.000Humility, which is why I'm so damn humble.
00:45:27.000But I actually think the single greatest quality a person can have, like the president, actually.
00:45:34.000I believe in loyalty, but I don't believe in loyalty to humans.
00:45:37.000I believe in loyalty to God and to values.
00:45:40.000I think if you're loyal to those things, then it's hard to go wrong.
00:45:42.000Jackson says, Hey Ben, do you believe people that come into this country legally and don't speak English should be given a choice to attend free classes to learn English?
00:45:52.000I mean, I don't believe in friggy anything.
00:45:54.000I believe that if you come here, it's your obligation to learn English, and that's on you.
00:45:57.000That's an affirmative obligation on you.
00:45:59.000Now, I think that Israel makes a smart move.
00:46:01.000If you want people to assimilate, there's a case to be made that you should attempt to facilitate that, but I'm not sure that that is... I'm not sure that you should have to pay for it.
00:46:13.000I was talking with God King of the Daily Wire, Jeremy Boren, just yesterday about this.
00:46:29.000If I have to turn off my phone from Friday night to Saturday night and not turn on my computer from Friday night to Saturday night and then on Sundays I spend the time with my children and I don't do politics, you need that break because it returns you to what is truly valuable.
00:46:41.000It also reminds you what you're fighting for, which is a social fabric that is worth upholding and a freedom from government intrusion that is worth fighting.
00:46:49.000And the freedom is worth upholding, obviously.
00:46:54.000Being ensconced in politics, there's a tweet that came out today from this idiot Democrat, Chris Murphy, where he said, Last night proved once again there's no anxiety or sadness or fear you feel right now that cannot be cured by political action.
00:47:07.000Anxiety, fear, or sadness can only be cured, not by political action and changing the world, but by you
00:47:13.000Creating a safe place for yourself, surrounded by people that you love and who you want to protect, and that also gives you a rationale for fighting in the first place.
00:47:21.000Okay, we'll be back here next week with more entertainment, more wildness, more joy.
00:47:26.000Sunday, if you're out in California, make sure that you come out to Politicon.