The Michael Knowles Show - Dangerous Campus： Michael Knowles Vs University Of Illinois ｜ Cross The Line

00:00:00.000 So, we had been looking at this school, in particular, the University of Illinois-Champaign, for several months.

00:00:08.260 We had had some issues on a prior visit to the same school.

00:00:11.840 What happened last time?

00:00:13.820 Well,

00:00:14.420 Trans-Tractor Human Rights! Trans-Tractor Human Rights! 1.00

00:00:18.280 Conservative speaker and author Matt Walsh drawing crowds of supporters and protesters here at the University of Illinois campus.

00:00:23.720 When my campus speaking schedule was announced, there was one school in particular that I was looking forward to.

00:00:29.540 A university that, based on previous conservative speaking events, was in dire need of a sensible common sense lecture for the students seeking an actual education.

00:00:39.660 That was the University of Illinois-Urbana-Champaign.

00:00:43.360 Do you feel like, on campus, as a conservative, have you felt like it's been okay for you, or has it been difficult?

00:00:48.700 I feel like I have to, like, kind of change my view to make it easier for myself, honestly.

00:00:53.180 Like, I think I can have them, but it's like, I can't be too vocal about them, because they try to, like, silence or cancel you for what you believe.

00:00:59.660 This topic today, being on abortion, is this something you feel like you could talk about?

00:01:03.600 Um, I wouldn't necessarily be shouting it from the rooftops.

00:01:07.560 Do you feel like you can express your views as a conservative here safely on campus?

00:01:10.560 No. No.

00:01:12.260 For sure not.

00:01:12.820 Pro-Palestinian encampments now across more than a dozen campuses, as students call for universities to divest from companies connected to Israel.

00:01:22.240 Well, there was even concern that my speech would be shut down entirely because of the utter failure of these lib schools to keep their radical students in line.

00:01:33.180 But that's not what happened.

00:01:36.700 Instead, the university hosted the lecture in a much more secure location than the previous events, allowed everyone in attendance to have a great time and feel welcome.

00:01:45.080 The university even went the extra mile to make sure male students who use feminine hygiene products had access to them in the men's bathroom by the lecture hall.

00:01:55.060 What's well, guys?

00:01:56.220 It was a terrific event to close out the spring tour and allowed me the opportunity to sit down with Bedank, who was able to make it to the speech and discuss why he disagreed with some of my more traditional views of conservatism.

00:02:09.260 In this episode of Cross the Line.

00:02:11.620 Bedank, thank you so much for sitting down.

00:02:17.140 Yeah, great to meet you.

00:02:18.160 Great to meet you.

00:02:18.880 So usually after the speech, I'll sit down with someone who vehemently disagrees with me, some radical leftist, you know, transgender, socialist, something.

00:02:30.420 But you're not any of those things.

00:02:32.480 You're moderate.

00:02:34.660 So I would say I definitely probably have a slightly liberal bias, but on the net, I'm an independent.

00:02:40.200 Yeah.

00:02:40.360 So you came here expecting to agree with my speech or to disagree with it?

00:02:45.760 There are a lot of things I agree with you about, but it wouldn't be as fun if we talked about those.

00:02:51.140 So what's the big point of disagreement?

00:02:53.520 Please correct me if I'm wrong because I don't want to mischaracterize your position.

00:02:56.280 But I believe you mentioned in the past, in regards to free speech, something like flag burning should be illegal.

00:03:05.480 Should be illegal?

00:03:06.460 Should be illegal.

00:03:07.300 Is that something you've mentioned?

00:03:08.460 Yeah, I would happily ban it.

00:03:09.900 I would happily ban flag burning.

00:03:11.420 Okay.

00:03:12.200 So from my viewpoint, this is something that's like protected under the First Amendment.

00:03:17.500 And I think what makes this country like so great is that we can do, we have a lot more freedoms and the ability to do things that we wouldn't be able to in other countries.

00:03:28.860 Because if we can burn our own country's flag, like what cooler thing is there that someone can do, not something I would do.

00:03:38.960 But just having this right protected and allowing people to...

00:03:45.940 Why wouldn't you do it?

00:03:47.660 I would say I'm very patriotic towards the country and I'm grateful for the servicemen and for the values that are enshrined in our constitution.

00:03:55.680 So then why would it be cool in principle to burn the flag?

00:03:59.680 Because part of the values that are ingrained in American society is freedom of speech.

00:04:06.940 And burning a flag is an example of freedom of speech.

00:04:12.220 Has it always been considered an example of freedom of speech in America?

00:04:15.840 I'm not sure.

00:04:17.300 No, it hasn't.

00:04:18.080 It hasn't.

00:04:18.620 It's only been considered protected by the First Amendment in very recent decades.

00:04:23.280 With relatively recent justices of the Supreme Court weighing in on this decision.

00:04:28.420 So you had the Chief Justice, William Rehnquist, argue that actually it's not protected by the First Amendment.

00:04:34.940 Yeah.

00:04:35.040 You have, on the other hand, another conservative, Antonin Scalia, saying it is protected by the First Amendment.

00:04:41.000 But the reason that it came up as a relatively recent Supreme Court case is because for most of American history, it was not considered to be protected by the First Amendment.

00:04:50.060 There were lots of anti-flag burning statutes all over the country.

00:04:52.960 Because freedom of speech, the First Amendment, doesn't literally mean that you can say anything at all, right?

00:05:02.060 Like, I can't threaten you.

00:05:03.920 Yeah.

00:05:04.300 I can't slander or libel you.

00:05:07.440 I don't have a right, First Amendment right to obscenity.

00:05:11.820 Pornography, appeals to the prurient interest, all sorts of things.

00:05:16.960 And so I guess on the matter of the flag burning, I guess part of why I think it is good that in America's legal tradition it was not protected by the First Amendment is because the flag is a symbol of the whole country.

00:05:30.640 So to attack the symbol of the country on the grounds of what the country stands for is an incoherent action.

00:05:41.600 And so there's a line from G.K. Chesterton who says, there's a thought that stops thought.

00:05:45.580 That's the only thought that ought to be stopped.

00:05:47.400 It seems to me the sort of example of a thought that stops thought.

00:05:50.860 Furthermore, every society has taboos, right?

00:05:54.380 And so every society has something sacred.

00:05:58.000 So if we don't even hold the symbol of our whole country sacred, if we don't protect it to some degree, you know, we have flag code, for instance, then can we hold anything sacred?

00:06:08.040 So I agree with like some of the points that were brought there.

00:06:11.160 In regards to something like flag code, obviously it's good for people to follow.

00:06:16.120 In terms of not burning the flag, we as a society can condemn it.

00:06:21.100 But why do you think that we need, like, why do we need to ban it by law?

00:06:28.020 Because I think there is such a thing as lex arondi, lex credendi, meaning the way that we act and the way that we worship, the way that we venerate things, is going to affect the way that we believe.

00:06:39.360 So that phrase is often used with regard to liturgy, but it's just as true in politics.

00:06:44.640 I venerate the flag because it's a symbol of the country.

00:06:47.100 If the flag fell on the ground right now, instinctively I would just pick it up.

00:06:50.280 I would too.

00:06:51.560 You would too, of course.

00:06:52.420 I would too.

00:06:52.920 Anyone who's raised in any patriotic way would do that.

00:06:55.600 Why do we do that?

00:06:56.240 It's just a piece of cloth.

00:06:57.240 Well, because it's a symbol of the broader country.

00:06:59.900 So if we get into the habit of burning the symbol of our country, of disrespecting the symbol of our country, of tolerating that disrespect,

00:07:08.240 I think that the way that we treat the symbol is going to affect the way we treat the symbolized.

00:07:14.360 And we're going to cultivate less of a respect for our country.

00:07:18.100 And I think that's exactly what's happened.

00:07:19.380 And so I agree with you that on the surface level, it seems as though this is just a matter of speech and ought to be protected by the First Amendment.

00:07:29.280 Even if the guys who wrote the Constitution didn't think that that was protected,

00:07:32.940 even if generations of American statesmen didn't think it was protected,

00:07:36.760 we kind of think it is now and it ought to be.

00:07:39.340 But it's not without consequence.

00:07:41.760 I don't think the problem in America now is that we revere our country too much.

00:07:47.180 You know, I don't think it's that we have too much respect for America.

00:07:49.640 I think it's quite the opposite.

00:07:50.940 And maybe if we restored some of those traditional taboos, it might help. 0.64

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00:08:57.660 But do you think we could not restore these taboos in terms of like societal expectations

00:09:03.420 where say someone were to burn the flag, we look down upon them as a society

00:09:08.940 as opposed to legally going ahead and banning it through?

00:09:12.640 I feel like it would be much stronger to societally condemn something and to give people the option

00:09:18.460 to do something even if we disagree with them.

00:09:22.160 And one other thing, the one other point that I would like to make is it makes it very hard

00:09:28.160 for conservatives to go out and say that the liberals have a slippery slope argument

00:09:36.640 when they want to go ahead and ban something like say hate speech.

00:09:39.860 Because they could be making the same exact arguments that I feel like you're making right now.

00:09:45.360 But I basically agree with them, actually.

00:09:47.440 I don't agree with the substance of their point, but I agree with the point in principle,

00:09:51.120 which is that free speech doesn't mean you can just say whatever you want whenever you want to say it.

00:09:54.720 That's not what George Washington thought free speech was.

00:09:57.280 That's not what even 20 years ago American statesmen thought that's what free speech is. 0.53

00:10:01.200 I think that's a modern liberal slash libertarian fantasy.

00:10:05.560 When you say, why can't we just create social pressure against flag burning rather than a legal pressure?

00:10:15.340 What I would ask is, in a self-governing society, what's the difference?

00:10:19.120 You know, the expression of our social pressure is in our laws and in some of our customs,

00:10:27.020 but ultimately it's in our laws because, at least in theory, we the people are supposed to govern our country.

00:10:31.560 So then my question is, why not?

00:10:34.020 Why wouldn't we do it?

00:10:34.980 To your point on free speech versus hate speech, I support free speech in the American tradition.

00:10:42.180 That doesn't mean I support protections for threats or fraud or libel or obscenity, certainly not.

00:10:48.140 The libs, I think, have used the legitimate free speech that we've had in America to smuggle in all sorts of things

00:10:56.420 that none of the architects of our country ever would have, especially pornography.

00:11:01.520 We've heard there's a First Amendment defense of pornography.

00:11:04.500 That was never true in American history before.

00:11:06.480 And that has real effects because taboos and standards and norms affect the way that we believe.

00:11:13.480 And if you're just saturated with porn everywhere, you know, appeals to the Praurian interest,

00:11:17.780 it's going to mess up your head a little bit.

00:11:19.260 It's going to actually affect the way that, especially now that the median age of exposure to porn is what,

00:11:24.800 like eight or something like that, it's going to affect the way that we develop.

00:11:28.100 And so the question is, does my supposed individual right to burn a flag or to look at porn,

00:11:34.760 does that trump our political right to have a society that isn't saturated in porn,

00:11:39.760 isn't full of communists burning the American flag?

00:11:43.000 I think the traditional view led to a much more flourishing and well-ordered society

00:11:48.700 than the modern view where we're all just, you know,

00:11:51.560 looking at people bumping uglies on the internet and burning the American flag. 0.69

00:11:55.520 Yeah, that makes sense.

00:11:56.940 On the issue of pornography, I agree that it's not something that is good for people to societally watch.

00:12:02.600 But do you not think that it is something that is protected under the First Amendment?

00:12:07.120 No.

00:12:07.640 You don't?

00:12:08.180 No, not at all.

00:12:09.180 It's, even today on the books, it is not protected by the First Amendment

00:12:14.440 because we are still permitted to have laws against obscenity and appeals to the Praurian interest.

00:12:19.160 Now, in recent years, because liberal jurists have watered down the meaning of obscenity,

00:12:24.280 that has permitted porn to proliferate.

00:12:27.060 But as recently as 2008, the federal government imprisoned a pornographer

00:12:31.200 simply for producing pornography, not even for, you know, a sexual assault on the set or anything like that.

00:12:37.440 So those laws are still on the books.

00:12:39.080 And your surprise at that, I think, is typical of most Americans, including many American conservatives.

00:12:44.920 They have no idea that American free speech means,

00:12:48.420 actually, you can and probably should outlaw certain things like porn

00:12:52.860 and speech that has never been protected in our tradition.

00:12:57.060 But I think that just shows you how far the right has moved to the left.

00:13:02.180 You know, the free speech movement,

00:13:03.920 when it came out in the middle of the 20th century during the Cultural Revolution,

00:13:07.720 it was a left-wing movement, University of California, Berkeley.

00:13:11.820 But it was never just about free speech.

00:13:13.900 Because the minute that they got political, they undermined the standards,

00:13:18.560 they got political power, and then they imposed their own speech codes.

00:13:21.900 Because there's no such thing as free speech in the abstract.

00:13:25.360 Right?

00:13:25.500 All speech, all societies have standards and norms and politeness

00:13:28.560 and things you don't say and things you do say.

00:13:30.220 So it seems to me that's an illusory debate between free speech and censorship.

00:13:34.520 And the real debate is between two competing sets of standards.

00:13:37.420 Are we going to live in a country where, you know, you can teach the Bible in school,

00:13:41.460 but you can't teach pornography in school, as we did in the 50s?

00:13:44.700 Or are we going to live in a country where you can't teach the Bible in school,

00:13:48.000 and you must teach pornography in school, as we do now?

00:13:51.140 Which has more free speech, which has less free speech?

00:13:54.320 It's hard to say.

00:13:56.460 It's just different sets of standards that give us a different society.

00:14:00.520 Fair enough.

00:14:02.120 Honestly, I think, like, those are some pretty good points.

00:14:06.800 One other question that I had for you is, I don't precisely remember,

00:14:10.280 but in one of your clips, you mentioned that you would want society to go back towards,

00:14:17.220 I believe, 1240.

00:14:18.980 Yeah, someone said I wanted, they accused me of wanting to go back to 2012.

00:14:23.460 And I said, that's so crazy.

00:14:24.700 I want to go back to 1220. 1.00

00:14:26.640 1220.

00:14:27.240 Yeah, because of the year.

00:14:28.680 So what exactly about 1220 is so much better than, say, right now,

00:14:33.560 or, say, 100 years ago, or, say, 200 years ago?

00:14:36.000 Well, we knew the difference between boys and girls, for a start. 0.81

00:14:39.800 That was helpful.

00:14:41.680 We had a growing and flourishing civilization that was in an ascent,

00:14:47.700 where great works of art, great discoveries in science,

00:14:52.040 great advancements in philosophy,

00:14:54.300 the building of great cathedrals were taking place.

00:14:57.180 We don't have those things going on today.

00:14:59.320 We have a great degradation that's going on,

00:15:01.140 and most of our supposed technological and intellectual advancements

00:15:06.360 only add confusion rather than clarity,

00:15:09.500 to the point of mistaking boys for girls and vice versa.

00:15:14.080 Another thing we had then was the reign of scholastic philosophy,

00:15:18.560 which I think is quite reasonable

00:15:21.080 and led to the flourishing of our civilization.

00:15:24.460 Today, what do we have?

00:15:25.320 If we've got a hodgepodge of kind of postmodern slogans

00:15:28.980 and wishy-washy subjectivism and relativism,

00:15:32.100 to the point that we don't really know much of anything

00:15:34.320 and we throw up our hands in the air,

00:15:36.360 that was something that was better in 1220.

00:15:40.280 So if you ask me, would I like to return to dentistry in 1220,

00:15:46.260 I would say no.

00:15:46.960 I think dentistry in 2024 is probably better.

00:15:50.180 But if you ask me about philosophy, political order,

00:15:53.660 the unity of the West, which we used to call Christendom,

00:15:57.700 the families that were producing children,

00:16:01.240 we're living in literally a dying civilization.

00:16:03.100 We're not even replacing ourselves.

00:16:04.820 On all of those levels,

00:16:07.100 believe it or not, things were a little bit better.

00:16:09.900 So in some ways,

00:16:11.120 there were more philosophical advancements back then,

00:16:14.740 but I feel like at its crux,

00:16:16.300 that ignores all the sort of racism or sexism,

00:16:22.020 like that woman had much fewer rights. 1.00

00:16:25.500 Racism wasn't a huge problem in 1220.

00:16:29.160 There wasn't a lot of multiculturalism going on.

00:16:32.080 I mean, there were the Crusades, I guess,

00:16:33.960 but that was sort of a different issue.

00:16:36.040 Fair enough.

00:16:37.080 But why do you think there was more philosophy back then

00:16:39.960 as opposed to right now?

00:16:41.140 Like what has actually changed in the culture

00:16:44.200 that has led to, I guess,

00:16:46.080 like society being what it is right now?

00:16:47.780 People believed that truth exists.

00:16:50.340 And that because of that,

00:16:51.720 they were educated according to the truth

00:16:53.420 and they disciplined themselves to discover truth

00:16:56.220 and to be in command of their own wills

00:16:58.060 in accordance with their intellect,

00:17:00.480 which was oriented toward the truth.

00:17:02.260 And you saw this in theology and in philosophy,

00:17:06.100 which is the handmaiden of theology,

00:17:07.320 and in the natural sciences,

00:17:08.180 which is the handmaiden of philosophy.

00:17:11.140 That's all kind of disappeared

00:17:13.540 because we don't really believe in the truth anymore.

00:17:16.040 So we just focus on me, me, me,

00:17:17.920 and do whatever we want.

00:17:18.980 And, you know, if it feels good, do it.

00:17:21.160 It's kind of our guiding principle.

00:17:22.880 And so that leads to all sorts of advancements

00:17:25.520 in the realm of mind-numbing media

00:17:29.000 and in the realm of like new sex robots and stuff

00:17:32.620 and in the realm of, you know,

00:17:34.480 big massage chairs to watch the football game on Sunday.

00:17:37.740 But it doesn't lead to a lot of advancements

00:17:40.420 that actually help grow your civilization.

00:17:42.680 So do you think theology is intertwined with philosophy

00:17:46.500 and like these advancements in civilization?

00:17:49.500 Because that's something I don't necessarily agree with.

00:17:53.280 Of course it is.

00:17:54.020 I mean, theology is just faith-seeking understanding.

00:17:57.300 And so they're all kind of intertwined

00:17:59.480 because we're living in one reality.

00:18:01.220 So you're right, in modernity, we ignore theology

00:18:04.800 because we deny that God exists.

00:18:06.500 But that's, I think, a rather elementary philosophical mistake.

00:18:12.040 And if you, you know, if you start out wrong,

00:18:13.800 it's like you're an engineer, right?

00:18:14.980 Yeah. 0.99

00:18:15.280 Yeah, it's like garbage in, garbage out, right?

00:18:18.500 So if you start with bad premises,

00:18:20.440 you're going to end up with bad conclusions,

00:18:23.220 which I think is where we've landed today.

00:18:25.220 So societies like Europe,

00:18:27.420 where happiness is objectively and measurably higher

00:18:31.140 than, say, the United States,

00:18:33.180 where theology takes a bigger role in our lives.

00:18:38.420 I don't think religion necessarily leads to...

00:18:42.300 How do you measure happiness?

00:18:44.580 I'm not familiar with how exactly they measure.

00:18:48.620 If I were to guess,

00:18:50.300 just by asking people or looking at it

00:18:52.280 in metrics such as income...

00:18:55.620 Does money buy happiness?

00:18:56.640 To some degree, yes.

00:18:58.040 We think it does now, but I don't think it...

00:19:00.160 It's nice to have material needs met.

00:19:03.260 But you see, you understand there are all of these premises,

00:19:06.600 even in the statement,

00:19:07.320 well, we're happier now or whatever.

00:19:09.300 Lots of premises here that I think are unquestioned

00:19:12.780 in liberal modernity.

00:19:14.060 But perhaps that could be the topic for our next discussion.

00:19:17.540 Thank you so much for coming.

00:19:18.980 Thank you.

00:19:20.020 Campuses will only get livelier this fall

00:19:22.380 as the election approaches,

00:19:23.400 and these conversations become more and more important.

00:19:27.420 Thankfully, the University of Illinois,

00:19:29.460 Urbana-Champaign, did its job

00:19:31.420 and allowed the student body

00:19:32.860 to hear a conservative point of view.

00:19:35.140 As my YAF campus tour continues into the fall,

00:19:38.380 I hope to find more students like the Dank 1.00

00:19:40.020 who are willing to cross the picket line

00:19:42.020 to hear what conservatives have to say

00:19:43.840 and maybe even muster the courage

00:19:45.460 to sit down face-to-face.

00:19:47.580 Thank you.

The Michael Knowles Show - June 01, 2024

Dangerous Campus： Michael Knowles Vs University Of Illinois ｜ Cross The Line

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