The Michael Knowles Show - Ep. 105 - The Nuts And Bolts Of Mass Shootings

00:00:00.260 Demagogic leftists have wasted no time in pouncing on the horrific massacre in Florida

00:00:04.900 to demonize conservatives while offering not one single solution that would have prevented the

00:00:10.420 violence. Lefties insist we need to ban guns. Conservatives say we need to lock up lunatics.

00:00:16.000 We will analyze the nuts and bolts of the gun control debate point by hollow point.

00:00:20.740 Then our youth culture correspondent, Andy Millennial, joins the show to give a young

00:00:24.860 person's perspective on the violence, policy proposals, and the future of conservatism

00:00:30.000 broadly. Finally, the mailbag. I'm Michael Knowles, and this is the Michael Knowles Show.

00:00:41.340 The demagogic left is especially awful on these issues. People have read the facts of the case.

00:00:48.320 I think Ben was talking about the facts of this awful shooting earlier today. I'll talk a little

00:00:52.380 bit more about the reaction. Former Congressman Joe Walsh pointed out that a semi-automatic weapon

00:00:58.440 means one pull of the trigger and one bullet comes out. That's what a semi-auto is. Nobody knows what

00:01:03.560 these means because there are all these euphemisms flying around. Assault weapons, which was a term

00:01:07.740 that was just invented to demagogue and compare regular semi-automatic rifles, which have been

00:01:11.980 around for a very long time, to assault rifles where it's an automatic weapon. He pointed out that

00:01:18.000 he's not just firing a machine gun. It's one trigger pull, one bullet comes out. Some dummy

00:01:23.360 on Twitter responds. He says, defending an AR-15 while 17 children lay dead. You're part of the

00:01:29.500 problem, sir. And this is the really awful thing about this because we are accused, if we look at

00:01:35.760 this awful shooting, the left would like to pretend that gun rights people, people who support the

00:01:41.120 Second Amendment, are thrilled at these shootings. We say, oh, this is, oh, how wonderful. Oh,

00:01:45.100 tee-hee-hee, lovey-dovey-dovey. But of course that isn't the case. And to accuse us of not taking

00:01:51.080 this seriously, they are projecting because it is exactly the left that does not take this seriously.

00:01:56.900 They say there's this awful problem. We say, right, here are the facts of the problem. How can we fix

00:02:01.400 it? And they say, how dare you talk about the facts? How dare you observe the reality of these guns

00:02:06.040 and the reality of these gun control laws? You're a heartless, you're a monster, you're part of the 0.99

00:02:11.040 problem. They are the problem. The left, the left play is a huge part of the problem in this issue 1.00

00:02:16.320 because they won't have a serious conversation about the actual mechanics of, of gun control,

00:02:23.400 of firearms, of mental health in the country. They're the ones stopping that conversation

00:02:27.100 by shouting down anybody who's willing to point out simple facts, such as a semi-automatic rifle

00:02:32.600 is a rifle where you pull the trigger once and one bullet comes out. So the FBI and the local

00:02:36.440 authorities clearly failed to stop this threat despite knowing about it. That is all irrelevant

00:02:42.420 to CNN though. You know, we know that government bureaucracies are never going to get better

00:02:47.900 at these sorts of things. So we can't rely on that. The government was supposed to enforce

00:02:52.040 some, some threats that they got. They, they were, they were aware of this. There were laws

00:02:57.600 on the books that they probably could have used, but, and they just didn't do it. But that's

00:03:00.660 the nature of bureaucracies. We will get to some gun control numbers in a second. Here is CNN.

00:03:05.200 CNN, CNN, which was there on the scene to demagogue the situation through. Do you have a message

00:03:11.800 for the lawmakers? Do you have a message for Congress, for the president? My message to

00:03:15.820 lawmakers in Congress is please take action. Ideas are great. Ideas are wonderful and they help you

00:03:21.780 get reelected and everything. But what's more important is actual action and pertinent action

00:03:27.040 that results in saving thousands of children's lives. Please take action. Do you have a sense of

00:03:32.480 what kind of action that would be? Any, any action at this point, instead of just complete

00:03:37.480 stagnancy and blaming the other side of the political aisle would be a step in the right

00:03:41.240 direction. And working together to save these children's lives is what this country needs.

00:03:45.140 So that, that is David Hogg. He survived the shooting and I'm not criticizing him for this

00:03:50.580 statement. Okay. He's a, some shaken up 18 year old, presumably who just saw people get shot. So I'm

00:03:55.540 not criticizing him for this statement. I will point out what he said means absolutely nothing,

00:03:59.740 right? He said that we need action. And CNN was waiting for him to, you know, to say, please,

00:04:05.520 what kind of action? Assault weapons ban, this ban, that ban, that ban. But he didn't,

00:04:09.720 he didn't even go that far. He said, we just need some action. But then he said, ideas are good,

00:04:13.680 but really we need action. And he was just saying words that sort of sounded like they mean

00:04:18.420 something, but obviously they don't. I'm criticizing CNN because they went down there and they put this

00:04:22.640 kid on television and they want to make a big splash out of it. You know, these cute little kids who

00:04:27.720 are, who are saying we need to do this. And it's this awful, awful event. And they want to tug on our

00:04:32.780 heartstrings to make us pass more laws to take away guns from lawful gun owners, even though none of

00:04:38.640 those laws would do a thing to prevent shootings like this. The Media Research Center reviewed the big

00:04:42.920 networks, ABC, CBS, NBC. They reviewed their gun coverage from 2012 to 2013. They found 216 stories

00:04:50.620 on guns. It skewed eight to one to advocate Barack Obama's gun control policies. At that time,

00:04:57.040 Barack Obama was pushing a slew of gun control legislation. Eight to one, they favored his

00:05:01.860 legislation. Gun control advocates appeared 26 times compared to just seven times for constitutional

00:05:07.640 activists and Second Amendment advocates. CBS, the network of Cronkite and Rather, ran anti-gun stories

00:05:14.200 at a rate of 22 to one. 22 to one. Not just the way it is. Those are just the facts at CBS. And it

00:05:20.580 wasn't just the big networks. Here is a typical example of CNN's coverage of the Second Amendment.

00:05:26.340 Not everyone in Colorado wants more guns in the hands of its own people. State Representative

00:05:30.920 Rhonda Fields is one of them. This is a quote coming from an employee at a gun shop. He said,

00:05:35.460 a lot of people are saying, I didn't think I needed a gun, but now I do. Representative Fields,

00:05:41.640 if this person was sitting right there next to you, what would you tell him? I have to challenge

00:05:45.380 you. Why hasn't your party, the Democratic Party, done more to legislate guns? Because as you know,

00:05:50.680 that assault weapons ban expired in 2004. Wow, really hard hitting, really, really powerful

00:05:56.920 questions, really holding, keeping truth, putting truth to power because CNN just exists to tee up these

00:06:03.540 little softballs for Democrats to make their points that are basically irrelevant to the debate.

00:06:08.240 Let's go through the nuts and bolts of what can be done about gun control and trying to stop these 0.95

00:06:12.000 shootings. Let's start with the bolts, the facts that pertain to the guns themselves. There are 20,000

00:06:17.280 gun control laws on the books. Brookings Institution, the left-leaning think tank, disputes this because

00:06:23.480 they modify it and they say there aren't 20,000 relevant laws, but that neglects all of the local laws and

00:06:29.120 all of the local regulations. A solid estimate, it's hard to tell because there are so many gun laws

00:06:33.240 on the books, but a very solid estimate would be 20,000 and there may be many more than that.

00:06:37.840 That number, by the way, has been accepted for 50 years until recently because people don't want

00:06:42.260 to believe that there are 20,000 gun laws on the books and they're still not stopping these incidents

00:06:46.400 that we see on CNN. Democrat Representative John Dingell explained as early as 1965, quote,

00:06:51.720 we now have on the law books of this nation, 20,000 laws governing the sale distribution and use of

00:06:57.680 firearms. By the way, interesting to note, 1965 was three years before the gun control act of 1968,

00:07:04.620 which was spurred by the deaths of RFK and Martin Luther King. This was three years before that we

00:07:09.280 had 20,000 laws on the books. As for the semi-automatic rifle, they say, because they always go after the

00:07:14.240 AR-15 because it looks, it's big and black and scary is basically why the TV goes after it. It's an easy 0.57

00:07:20.020 target, even though it's, it isn't like these sort of blacks, terrifying machine guns that we see and 1.00

00:07:28.000 automatic, or fully automatic rifles that we see in war zones. It isn't like that at all. AR does not stand

00:07:34.260 for assault rifle, it stands for Armalite, the company that makes it. Even on that, if they want to ban

00:07:39.560 semi-automatic rifles, you know, one pull, one bullet, the semi-automatic rifle has existed since 1885.

00:07:45.720 This wasn't invented in 1970, it wasn't invented in 1960, it wasn't invented in 1990. It's, it's been

00:07:51.920 around for well over a century. And, uh, if, if we're going to remove that, we might as well go

00:07:58.080 back to the musket, I suppose. Is that going, that's going to be the next call from them. Uh,

00:08:01.700 another thing to note is mass shootings are not getting more frequent. So the murder rate in 2011

00:08:05.920 was almost exactly the same as the murder, the, as I'm sorry, the raw number of murders in 2011 was

00:08:11.440 almost exactly the same as the raw number of murders in 1969. But since we've added 110 million

00:08:17.540 more Americans since then, the murder rate in 1969 was about 55% higher than it is today. Overall,

00:08:24.540 the murder rate is declining precipitously. So that gets to, uh, the, the point here.

00:08:30.380 We will never eradicate these crimes because the imagination of man's heart is evil from the

00:08:34.760 beginning. It is easy for left utopians to believe that eventually we can perfect human nature

00:08:39.660 and stop war and stop violence. But it ain't going to happen as long as human beings are around.

00:08:45.380 We've never seen any example of it in the history of the world. Nothing about it, nothing we know

00:08:49.320 from philosophy or history or biology suggests that will ever be the case. There's also no evidence

00:08:54.340 that the expiration of the assault weapons ban in 2004 has affected gun violence whatsoever.

00:09:00.300 Even Politico reports this. All available evidence shows gun laws will not significantly affect

00:09:05.700 incidents or severity of mass shootings. Other studies show that large capacity magazine bans,

00:09:11.860 as have been advocated in recent years in my own home state of New York, uh, conceal carry laws have

00:09:17.040 had a little to no effect on mass shootings one way or the other. It doesn't move the needle.

00:09:21.760 According to the FBI in 2011, you know, I can't believe we have to rehearse all of these numbers,

00:09:25.800 but now it's considered, uh, hateful and uncaring and uncompassionate to even point out these numbers

00:09:33.960 or name any facts when it comes to the debate, because unless you have a quivering lip,

00:09:38.060 you're not considered an authority and not, uh, credible to, to talk on this topic.

00:09:42.880 According to the FBI in 2011, 323 people were killed by rifles of any type, bolt action,

00:09:49.180 uh, semi-automatic, the dreaded AR-15, uh, 496 people were killed by clubs or hammers that same year.

00:09:57.100 726 people were killed by hands or feet that year, twice as many as were killed by any kind of rifle,

00:10:02.420 including assault weapons, so-called assault weapons. And 1,694 people were murdered with

00:10:07.820 knives over five times as many people as were killed by rifles, rifles of any kind, including

00:10:14.300 the AR-15, including the dreaded semi-automatic rifle that's existed since 1885. Far and away,

00:10:20.260 the biggest killer was handguns. At 6,220 deaths, though 60% of those deaths were suicides,

00:10:26.980 mostly among middle-aged men. That's the bolts of this gun control argument.

00:10:31.460 Uh, Marco Rubio pointed this out a few years ago, even the Washington Post, even PolitiFact said it

00:10:35.460 was true. None of these laws that Democrats are, are throwing out, vaguely throwing out,

00:10:40.880 or specifically throwing out, and calling Republicans uncompassionate monsters for not

00:10:44.900 taking them up. None of those laws, not a single one of those laws would have prevented any of these

00:10:49.220 shootings, uh, that we've seen that are so horrific on television. We have to get to the

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00:13:57.300 On the nuts side of this equation, it is now virtually impossible to commit someone against

00:14:02.040 his will to a mental institution. All states now require that you prove clear and convincing

00:14:06.300 evidence that someone is imminently dangerous to themselves or others. Imminent means 12,

00:14:10.980 uh, 24 to 72 hours. They're going to commit some awful thing in 24 to 72 hours. You maybe can commit

00:14:16.820 them. Otherwise you can't. People blame Ronald Reagan for this. It actually was underway long

00:14:20.720 before he arrived on the scene, though he was active in politics while these institutions closed.

00:14:26.040 There were 37,500 mental patients in California in 1959. That was before the Gipper. Reagan entered in

00:14:32.520 1967. By that time, the number was already down to 22,000. It continued to decline and kept dropping

00:14:39.100 for years. This is in part because we had new drugs that would be able to hopefully cure people and not

00:14:45.640 have them be faced there. And there were also reports that these institutions weren't very nice.

00:14:50.580 Clearly this kid should have been institutionalized. I won't even use his name. He's a little demon from

00:14:54.800 Florida. I won't use his name. He clearly should have been institutionalized. When he was a little kid, 0.98

00:14:59.380 he used to kill animals. He posted on social media that he wanted to shoot up a school. He was reported

00:15:04.000 to the local authorities and to the FBI for saying these sorts of things, being, being an all around

00:15:08.400 weirdo. His recently deceased mother apparently reported him to the police, sat down with the

00:15:12.820 police and her son and discussed what a deranged monster he is. So the, why aren't they talking about

00:15:19.000 this? Because it's harder for Democrats to argue for institutions because that might be a partial

00:15:24.180 solution to this problem. It's much harder to say, well, we need to lock up lunatics. Uh, so they 0.73

00:15:29.300 have to keep demagoguing the gun control arguments that we know for certain, we know with as much

00:15:34.500 certainty as we can in public policy that they won't achieve anything because they, the only

00:15:39.120 reason they're doing this is because they occasionally help Democrats achieve the only thing they really

00:15:43.060 care about on this issue, raising money and winning reelection. Speaking of kids who should be

00:15:48.680 institutionalized, we are so lucky that we have our youth culture correspondent here, Andy

00:15:53.320 millennial. Andy, thank you so much for coming. I really appreciate it.

00:15:58.420 It's good to be here. Yeah. Uh, uh, so I was, I was wondering, we were talking about this shooting.

00:16:03.960 Uh, what is your take on, on, uh, this horrific shooting as a millennial? You know, as a millennial,

00:16:08.980 I have to say that this was a pretty good mass murder, uh, for me. You know, I got some pictures

00:16:13.980 on my cell phone and put them up on YouTube and they got over a hundred thousand hits. And, uh,

00:16:19.320 then I even did a piece on, uh, you know, hit on CNN, which I thought was one of my better hits

00:16:23.820 about how, uh, upset I was and how much I wanted, uh, gun control. And, uh, I was, uh, I was going

00:16:30.040 to, um, you know, uh, I also put some pictures of myself crying, you know, cause I was very upset

00:16:34.560 about it. And my picture of crying got a lot of likes on. So I think people are really moved by my

00:16:39.300 tears on, uh, on Instagram. I think that really, so, so as mass murders go, I think I did pretty well

00:16:45.160 here. Have you considered Andy, uh, looking into an internship at CNN?

00:16:48.600 Uh, you know, I, I, that's kind of my next step. I think, I think if I, you know, when you put the

00:16:53.700 crying together with the gun control, you're basically a CNN anchor. I will say in, in every

00:16:59.100 one of your appearances on this show, your ability to make your lip quiver has been really impressive.

00:17:03.840 It's been really, really good. That's what I bring to the, to the conversation. I, you know,

00:17:09.620 I was afraid that I was actually going to bite into this. I, I love that we just had Tide Pods

00:17:14.060 lying around in general. I don't know what the animators are getting up to in the back there and the

00:17:18.080 producers. That, that is where I've got to send you. There are videos of people on the internet

00:17:22.400 just chomping down into these, just detergent pouring out of their mouth. We should, we should

00:17:27.080 say that we're not making fun, of course, of any of this terrible thing that happened, but

00:17:30.840 it, it is insane what they do on TV.

00:17:34.220 It's awful. I actually, I, for, for that little, you know, that little back and forth, I, I have no

00:17:40.660 compunction about doing that sort of thing whatsoever because it is so despicable what CNN

00:17:45.260 does in these, in these events. They trot them out like these awful shootings. They trot them out

00:17:50.780 like the perfect little circus to push their ridiculous policies. 0.99

00:17:55.360 It's amazing. And at the core of this, there are people genuinely suffering. You know, I mean, 0.88

00:17:58.860 the, it's a genuine atrocity and then it kind of goes out and radiates out. And by the time it gets

00:18:04.100 to CNN and to the networks too, because they do it too, it's just, they're just using these tears, 1.00

00:18:09.820 you know, as a, as a kind of magic potion to sell their stupid gun control. And, and they're using the 0.99

00:18:14.040 tears to shut other people up. They're using those tears to make us look uncompassionate because we

00:18:19.520 want to look at the actual facts of the situation and try to do anything that might help it. The funny,

00:18:24.920 the funny thing is, I mean, funny, strange is that really, if you looked at it rightly, liberals,

00:18:30.660 leftists and right wingers could stand together and weep over what actually is happening and then

00:18:35.740 go to their corners and argue about what to do. And that would be the fair way to do it. But that

00:18:39.440 because their ideas don't make any sense and because the facts keep contradicting them, they just have

00:18:44.220 to carry those tears on. And when we say, let's wait until the emotions pass, they're going, how long

00:18:48.780 must we wait? You know, that's not wait. Last time they were screaming like wait, that waiting itself was wrong,

00:18:54.340 you know, being reasonable itself was wrong. Thoughts and prayers and waiting are wrong.

00:18:57.520 I know. And this, and CNN has now become like a tear fest. It really is like being in a sorority

00:19:03.280 where like these people going, all they do is cry. Well, it's very funny because in my living room,

00:19:07.800 it's also a tear fest when we watch CNN, just tears of laughter and joy when we keep them on.

00:19:13.400 Do you think, because you're right, they say that we can't wait. We can't, we can't have thoughts.

00:19:18.060 We can't have prayers. We can't, we can't think. We can't mourn even together. Is it, is it a weird

00:19:23.920 twitch of materialism of their thinking that thoughts and prayers are, are actually meaningless?

00:19:29.840 Oh yeah.

00:19:30.780 Obviously that has to play into it. And is there, is there some aspect of this that is just,

00:19:37.740 they, they don't actually care about the event itself. They just, they're so frenzied in scoring

00:19:42.340 points that they don't even see the tragedy. They just jump to score the points.

00:19:45.960 It is amazing. It seems to me to be, I think, I won't say that they don't care. It seems to me

00:19:51.880 a confusion of their feelings with their thoughts. Like we really have lost the idea. You know,

00:19:58.620 it's the old Aristotelian idea that your inner state is important. Your, your pleasures and your joy,

00:20:04.680 your eudaimonia, whatever they call your joy.

00:20:06.760 Eudaimonia.

00:20:07.020 Thank you. Only you would know that.

00:20:08.500 That's the only great word I know.

00:20:11.220 That, that it's important, but it has to be trained to attach itself to reason.

00:20:14.920 And what they've lost that little part of it. So that what they think is, they think because

00:20:19.280 they're upset, it matters. It matters that they're upset. And it doesn't. I mean, it's the

00:20:23.020 same way that college kids think I'm offended by that. My feeling is, you know, get, get some

00:20:28.440 harder feelings.

00:20:29.680 Yeah. Yeah. You need to build up those feelings calluses.

00:20:32.120 I mean, this is, this is the sale from the left is that you're, everything is about your feelings.

00:20:36.960 And I think, I think that's basically it. It's not that they don't care. It's that they think

00:20:40.320 that the fact that they care gives them some moral, uh, high ground and it doesn't, we all

00:20:44.760 care. We all care. Of course we do. You know, nobody wants to see this happen, but that doesn't

00:20:48.880 mean you're right.

00:20:49.380 You know what I think is like, I'll get us in more trouble for making this analogy. There

00:20:53.280 are a lot of sketches on the internet that go around about this problem. Yeah. You know,

00:20:56.820 when you're, you come back and your girlfriend has had a hard day, she's really upset and there's

00:21:00.540 some problem. She's, and she's upset. You say, what's the problem? And then your girlfriend

00:21:04.040 tells you what the problem is. And then you say, okay, well, I think the way you can fix it is this,

00:21:07.640 this, and this. She says, I don't want you to fix it. I just want you to be sad with me.

00:21:11.540 You say, but I'm all, I'm trying to, how dare you try to, I, that's what CNN is doing. That's

00:21:15.680 what the mainstream media do on these kind of issues. We say, okay, we'd like to fix it.

00:21:18.840 We'd like to help you fix it. You know, it really is womanish. You know, I use the word womanish 1.00

00:21:23.260 because it's, it's, it's actually the opposite. It's a phenomenal word. It's a great word.

00:21:26.540 It's the opposite of womanly. It is to womanly what like macho is to manly, you know, 0.82

00:21:30.320 childish to childlike. That's exactly right. You know, it is womanish is, is like having a woman who thinks, 0.99

00:21:36.780 who cries so that you're willing to do anything to just to get her to stop crying. And that's what

00:21:41.540 they think we're going to do. And just, you know, after a while guys catch on. That's right. It's

00:21:45.400 going to happen. It's not going to happen. It's going to happen. CNN. Yeah. Where do you see,

00:21:49.200 you know, I was down. So that takes us through this topic. What I want to know, I was, you know,

00:21:53.880 I was down in Palm beach at the Coudera Institute. We were doing this panel a couple of days ago on the

00:21:58.560 future of American conservatism. And we've got this awful future of mainstream media, maybe,

00:22:03.900 but it was me. It was, uh, Ramesh Ponaru from national review, great guy. And Mike Frank from

00:22:10.780 Hoover and Al Felsenberg who wrote the Buckley biography. And I think I was the only covfefe

00:22:15.840 advocate on the panel. I was the only, well, the national review crowd. National review doesn't

00:22:20.860 exactly love El Presidente. I was certainly the most, uh, vocally pleased with this administration.

00:22:25.800 Yeah. What is the future of American conservatism in the age of Trump?

00:22:29.640 Well, it's a, it's a really good question because Trump is important at least in, in two, uh, very

00:22:35.840 specific ways. I mean, one is the fact that he has shattered. I think that this is the thing that

00:22:42.000 all these never Trumpers and the intellectual anti-Trumpers do not understand. He has shattered

00:22:47.920 this glass bubble that has surrounded conservatism for 30 years, 40 years. I mean, this idea that there

00:22:54.700 are things you can't say, that there are ideas you can't introduce that, uh, I'm, I'm crying. So

00:22:59.340 don't say guns are good. He shattered that if only because he's too boorish in some ways to pay any

00:23:04.420 attention to it. He's not sensitive enough to see it. I mean, this is something that the slavery of

00:23:10.100 political correctness has, has, is something that drives people crazy and it pushes them so far to

00:23:16.160 the right. They go off the reservation. I mean, it makes people overreact. And you know, when you look

00:23:21.800 at Europe where people are, can literally be harassed by the police for criticizing Islam or

00:23:27.000 for saying certain things that are considered hateful, you know, it means that the elite are

00:23:31.860 free to do whatever they want without us saying you're wrong. You just, I'm sorry. I may wash cars

00:23:36.720 for a living. You may have a PhD, but you're wrong and I'm right. So Trump has been really important.

00:23:42.000 And in that way, he has been almost a totally a good thing. The, the other way is this push toward

00:23:48.140 what they call populism. And I'm not sure that's the right word for it because what, what he has

00:23:53.360 done is he has reconnected the Republican party to that base that used to be part, part of Reagan's

00:24:00.860 party. It actually used to be Democrats. They were the Reagan Democrats, right? They were the Reagan

00:24:04.080 Democrats. Yeah. And, and he has reconnected to them and we, we lose touch with them. It's funny

00:24:09.620 because you and I are probably people who would lose touch with them because we are, you know,

00:24:15.380 theoretical. We think in intellect and some, and sometimes people are going, yeah, but I can't

00:24:19.020 feed my kids. What do I do here? Right. And to have some intellectual conservative saying, well,

00:24:22.820 you know, this is wrong and that's wrong. You got to answer the question first. Am I going to lose

00:24:27.580 my job? Am I going to, how deeply has he read Tocqueville? I know, I know that he's going to reform

00:24:31.720 your taxes and create jobs and growth, but how deeply has he read Strauss and Tocqueville? That's right.

00:24:37.760 So you have to come up with other kinds of answers. Trump has been bad for conservatism in that way,

00:24:43.580 in a certain way, because he does not care. He doesn't care that we need to reform entitlements.

00:24:49.760 And, and, you know, the, the arguments for reforming entitlements are simple. People live longer.

00:24:54.580 Yeah. You know, you can't, it used to be that you collected at 65, but you died at 63. It doesn't

00:24:58.980 cost as much as when you're collecting at 80. So I think that this is the part of Trump that we have

00:25:05.180 to deal with. It's not the tweets. It's not the rudeness. Those are the things that actually are

00:25:08.800 working in our favor. It is the spending and the, the fact that he never, even though in the old

00:25:14.840 days, he used to talk about debt, he didn't run on that and he doesn't seem to care. And that is

00:25:18.900 something we're going to have to confront at some point because you do go off the cliff.

00:25:21.760 I do wonder, this is really maybe the optimistic side here is I wonder if he could be a Nixon in

00:25:28.880 China when it comes to entitlements, because he signaled it a few months ago. I felt, I thought 0.88

00:25:33.280 that he was using the phrase welfare reform to hint at entitlement reform, because these

00:25:38.180 are welfare programs. I thought Rubio and Ryan started to move in that direction. We don't

00:25:42.560 know. He said, I'm not going to touch social security. But when it comes to the big spending,

00:25:46.220 the big spending sends shivers up my spine. But if he's going to spend a little more domestically

00:25:52.500 on whatever programs he's going to do, he's going to beef up the military. That is a drop in

00:25:56.280 the bucket compared to the long-term liability of entitlements. If he, if he somehow came around

00:26:01.020 to that, it would be, it would be the most excellent presidency.

00:26:04.500 You know, it would be, it would be an amazing presidency. It's been an amazing presidency

00:26:08.300 so far. One of the things about Trump is that he has such a big character that his, his,

00:26:13.640 the bigness of his character obscures who he is in some ways. So for instance, is he a guy

00:26:17.880 who sleeps with porn stars? Probably. I mean, do I care? No, I do not care. You know, do I think, 1.00

00:26:23.760 do I think that's a good thing to do? No. But is, does that what he does for me? No,

00:26:27.800 he runs the government for me. That's, that's what I pay him to do. So he is a guy who learns

00:26:33.160 stuff and he is a guy who will make an argument to his base that's unpopular. He will go back to

00:26:38.260 his, I mean, with the DACA thing where he's saying, you know, yes, I will give you a path

00:26:42.440 to citizenship, but I want this, this, this, and this. And if he doesn't get that, he won't sign.

00:26:46.640 He's willing to do that. And he does learn stuff in office and he is willing to go back to his base.

00:26:50.720 So it wouldn't shock me if he said, you know what? I said, I wasn't going to cut entitlements.

00:26:56.180 I'm not going to cut them, but I am going to reform them because take them a little later

00:26:59.220 because you're going to live 20 years longer. You know, I think he's, I think. And he can do

00:27:03.420 that. He, he always levels with people. He writes about it or somebody wrote about it and he at least

00:27:07.180 read it in the art of the deal, which is that, you know, he'll ask for 99% and then in order to get

00:27:12.220 51%. He never, it's really a lovely thing that he does as a politician that all these other

00:27:17.560 politicians would try to worm their way into once they flip-flopped, trying to explain how they 0.79

00:27:22.560 didn't flip-flop. And Trump just sort of says, I don't know. Yeah. Now this is what I think. Yeah.

00:27:26.100 Before I thought this and now I think this. I know he does. And so there, there is that

00:27:29.360 chance. I, you know, I don't understand the conservative has always ridden on the back

00:27:34.680 of the Republican party. Right. The Republican party has not been conservative. It has almost,

00:27:38.620 almost ever, ever, ever, you know, and the fact the two most conservative presidents we've

00:27:43.160 had in my lifetime were Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton after Newt Gingrich. Yeah. Is that

00:27:46.980 what Bill Clinton believed? I don't think Bill Clinton believed anything. Right. You know,

00:27:49.580 he still doesn't. He did what he could get away with. Yeah. And on both sides of that equation. And

00:27:53.980 he was a good conservative president. This guy has been a great conservative president,

00:27:57.240 Trump. Mm-hmm. And he's a belligerent guy who sleeps with porn songs. Yeah. You know,

00:28:01.480 it's like, that's, that's also true. I can live with that. You know, like he's not, he's

00:28:05.560 not my son-in-law. I don't have to worry about who he's sleeping with. So it's like, you know.

00:28:08.980 One thing confuses me about the followers of Bill Buckley, and I count myself among them. Yeah. So

00:28:16.540 I'm confused by those at National Review and other places who say that it's so awful that he doesn't

00:28:21.900 articulate these high-minded principles and he isn't always talking about these abstractions. Bill

00:28:26.320 Buckley, by the end of his life, criticized vehemently the George Bush II administration for

00:28:31.720 dealing primarily in abstractions, for dealing in what he called Wilsonianism, Wilsonian conservatives.

00:28:37.420 Yeah. He criticized him, criticized that aspect of conservatism immensely. And here,

00:28:42.640 I think we have the response to that. We have something that is clearly not abstract. It's

00:28:46.940 very tangible. The words he uses are tangible. The policies he's advocating are tangible. And it

00:28:52.580 is bizarre to me that the conservative movement, in the light of Bill Buckley, would ignore what he

00:28:58.820 was talking about for the last several years of his life. You know, I'm perfectly willing to sit and

00:29:03.020 have a conversation about the moral hazards down the line of having a president

00:29:07.400 who says some of the things he says. Sure.

00:29:09.060 You know, I'm willing to have that conversation. What I'm not willing to do is sacrifice present

00:29:12.900 gains for things that may or may not happen because I'm afraid they'll happen or I can picture

00:29:17.720 them happening. When you sit and think of what would have happened, all these guys who didn't

00:29:22.420 vote for Donald Trump and, you know, said, I'm too, you know, they're too evil for me to vote for them.

00:29:27.740 You know, when you think what would have happened with a Hillary Clinton presidency, the judges who

00:29:32.320 would now be in place, and I don't, this whole idea of, well, Republicans would have stopped her. 0.88

00:29:36.040 When have they ever stopped anything? They don't stop anything. They can barely, they can barely

00:29:40.360 govern conservatively with Donald Trump in the White House. So, you know, the judges who would

00:29:44.560 have been in place, I really do believe we would have lost the Second Amendment. I think the First 0.85

00:29:48.200 Amendment would have been gutted. It would have been gutted. She was campaigning on gutting the 0.99

00:29:52.060 First Amendment. She was campaigning on gutting it, you know, and so I think that we dodged a

00:29:55.660 bullet. We didn't dodge it any thanks to them. I think that they should all stand up. I mean, I stood,

00:30:00.120 I voted for him, but I stood up and said, look, I opposed him. I think he's done a good job. You know,

00:30:04.880 hey, I don't know the future. I'm doing the best I can. We both variously did TV commercials for Ted

00:30:09.920 Cruz. That's right. Absolutely. Speaking of porn stars. And, but ultimately I came around and voted

00:30:16.880 for him too, and I'm very pleased that I did. I understood the arguments not to, I understand

00:30:20.860 that that's compelling in some way. But now that we know, looking back on this phenomenal year we've

00:30:26.000 gotten, I don't think there's any way to say, oh, I'm glad I didn't vote for the guy. Yeah. And I'm,

00:30:31.000 I am more than willing to say, like, I don't like this new budget. I think he's, you know,

00:30:35.480 I don't like the fact that he's not thinking about the debt. I think the debt matters and I think it's

00:30:39.320 a problem. And I think he knows it's a problem. Yeah. He's a businessman. He understands it's a

00:30:43.260 problem. You know, I'm perfectly willing to criticize him. What I'm not willing to criticize him on is

00:30:46.900 every damn thing he says, especially when CNN and the rest of that, I'm now using CNN as a, you know, 0.93

00:30:53.160 a, what is it called? It's a metonym. Yeah. It's a metonym. Yeah. I've got all these obscure words 0.99

00:30:59.120 are just coming out today. You're great. I love coming in. You know, but the press takes everything

00:31:04.780 he says and spins it to its worst possible meaning. So if he comes in and he says there are good people

00:31:09.680 on both sides of the Robert E. Lee statue equation, oh my God, he's siding with white supremacists.

00:31:14.200 You know, they do, I'm just not going to do it. I'm not going to do it. I'm not going to appease it.

00:31:18.200 I'm not going to like give it any credence whatsoever, but I will criticize him on policy.

00:31:22.780 Every president should be criticized on policy. Nobody's, nobody's above criticism. I just think

00:31:26.700 he's doing a good job. And this, by the way, people say that we've always held our conservative

00:31:31.060 leaders to account. Bill Buckley in 1968 endorsed Richard Nixon over his good friend, Ronald Reagan.

00:31:38.100 He endorsed him for president because he felt he was more viable. He was tested. He went in there.

00:31:43.060 Nixon did a bunch of terrible things, founded the EPA, a number of other agencies,

00:31:48.640 and Bill Buckley still defended him because of the practical concern is I'm not going to knock him

00:31:53.180 on these little things. All overall, we're getting decent policy out of the guy until China, until he

00:31:58.480 felt that his stance on the Soviet Union and communism was too weak. Then he turned on him, but it wasn't

00:32:04.280 this, uh, I'll hit him here. I won't hit him there. I'll hit him there. I'll, I don't like this. He, he made 0.62

00:32:09.480 his decision. There's a long history in the conservative movement. And I, I hope we see, I hope that what we

00:32:14.760 see for the future of the conservative movement is kind of fusionism, but whatever that is for

00:32:19.360 the 21st century. Yeah. I mean, I think, look, I can live with a lot of, uh, liberal, you know,

00:32:24.700 annoying liberal things. And I can even live with a welfare state if we can keep the welfare state 0.96

00:32:29.080 under control and keep it reasonable. I think we're, we're old enough at this point to support

00:32:33.440 a welfare state. It, it actually does keep people from panicking at some, at some level, but when it

00:32:39.520 gets up to the European world or the world that Obama imagined in that video he did in the life of

00:32:44.440 Julia, where every minute that you live is governed by the state, I, I start to think, no, we've got to

00:32:50.420 dial this back. I believe so deeply in individual freedom. Uh, you know, and I'm, I'm going to fight

00:32:56.920 that. You have to fight that every day. Right. Every day they're against it. And so if I win today,

00:33:01.200 that's a victory. And if tomorrow Donald Trump becomes, you know, a bad guy, then that, that'll be

00:33:07.340 tomorrow's problem. If I win today, that's a victory. If I eat a Tide pod tomorrow, somebody

00:33:11.700 else will have to win that victory for me. I just want to know how stupid these people are. I mean, 1.00

00:33:16.480 what, what on earth has happened to our children that they are putting soap detergent? Just delicious,

00:33:21.460 delicious laundry detergent. Well, if you have any extras out there, save some for me after this

00:33:25.040 segment, we've got to go. I got them fried. Anti-millennial, ladies and gentlemen, 1.00

00:33:29.800 the youth cultural correspondent, we've got to go. We've got to, uh, say goodbye to YouTube and Facebook.

00:33:34.280 Obviously I'm not talking to anybody on YouTube right now because they censor every, anytime they

00:33:38.420 see my swarthy complexion come on, they immediately censor whatever videos we have. So if you're on

00:33:42.800 Facebook though, you got to go to dailywire.com right now. What do you get? You get the Michael

00:33:46.980 Knowles show. You get the Andrew Klavan show who bears a striking resemblance to Andy millennial.

00:33:51.120 You get the Ben Shapiro show. You get, you know, the mailbag questions, you get blah, blah, blah,

00:33:55.040 but you get this guys. And you know, CNN though, this is not only the FDA approved vessel for all salty

00:34:02.400 leftist tiers, but especially the demagogic CNN leftist tiers. There is really good for those.

00:34:07.360 And I think it's the only safe way to store them. So make sure to go to dailywire.com right now.

00:34:11.540 We'll be back with the mailbag.

00:34:23.160 All right, we're running, we're running a little late. So I'm going to burn through these mailbag

00:34:26.400 questions. First one from Zachary, Dr. Knowles, I need your expert opinion. My doctor recently told

00:34:31.980 me I consume too much salt and that I need to change my diet. I of course figured as much given

00:34:37.180 the approximately two gallons of delicious and salty leftist tiers that I consume daily.

00:34:42.820 What are my options? Obviously cutting back on my main source of sustenance would not be ideal.

00:34:48.360 Should I dilute them with some covfefe? Pray that lefties stop crying altogether. Help. Thank you as

00:34:53.160 always, Zach. First of all, you got to be very careful with covfefe. Covfefe is a hell of a drug.

00:34:57.220 Don't you use that lightly. Second of all, lefties will never stop crying. Pray as you might. Only at

00:35:02.280 the end of the earth, at the second coming, is there a chance? And then there'll be really sad

00:35:05.860 that, you know, they were wrong about theology, but then maybe they'll be happy and joyful. You have

00:35:10.940 to ignore your doctor. Ignore him. I don't know how long he's going to last. You have, we talk

00:35:14.800 sometimes about supplements and nutrients on here. Don't believe the hype. Nutrition pyramids and

00:35:19.740 everything changes all the time. Keep guzzling those leftist tiers. You might actually want to

00:35:23.720 increase your consumption. Next question from Tyler. Hey, Michael, when are we getting your

00:35:27.680 second book, Covfefe, the art of the troll? Actually, my real question is I have been a

00:35:32.900 Christian all my life and was wondering if you had any great tips on studying the Bible.

00:35:37.140 Where should I start? Thank you. Huge fan of the show. Yeah. Leviticus started. It's a really,

00:35:41.280 it's a great page turner. It's a real, you got a lot of leprosers that you can read about. It's

00:35:45.360 really strong. Uh, you should start with Genesis because it's like the greatest book ever written.

00:35:49.340 Um, and you could read it. I always start these Bible in a year things, and then I fall off at

00:35:53.680 some point. So I've read Genesis a lot. I've read it at a number of times. Uh, whereas, you know,

00:35:59.300 Leviticus is a little tougher to slog through. I would start with Genesis. You might want to skip

00:36:03.620 to the end. The first time I ever really engaged with the Bible, I skipped to the dessert and read

00:36:09.040 the new Testament first. And that, that might be rather nice. Uh, I know the Catholic church and

00:36:13.800 several other Bible reading programs have one old Testament, one new Testament, one epistle

00:36:18.160 or Psalm that you can read every day. I like reading it in order though, in the order that

00:36:21.940 it was compiled and written. So I, that's my Bible in a year program, but just keep doing

00:36:27.980 it. Even when you have to slog through the, uh, relatively boring parts, because the relatively

00:36:33.220 boring parts, like the begat, begat, begat, all the genealogies, all of the rules, they do

00:36:38.180 actually tell you something just in themselves, just in their inclusion. And what kind of a meta

00:36:43.700 literary statement about what they're saying is, is really interesting. Even if as you're

00:36:47.480 reading it, your eyes are rolling in the back of your head. Next question for Becky. Hi,

00:36:51.080 Michael. I listened to your show on Tuesday night and you got me curious. How did Galileo

00:36:55.280 die and by whose hand, if any? And why have we been told that it was the fault of the Catholic

00:37:00.060 church? Really enjoy your show. Thanks. Thanks, Becky. So, uh, Galileo died peacefully at home

00:37:05.680 in 1642, January 8th, I believe, after he had a fever and heart palpitations. No torture, no,

00:37:13.560 nobody sniping at him or anything. He died of natural causes. The Grand Duke of Tuscany,

00:37:18.320 Ferdinando II, wanted him buried in the Basilica di Santa Croce. Uh, Pope Urban VIII and Cardinal

00:37:24.600 Barberini objected to this because Galileo was a huge jerk to everybody and called the Catholic 1.00

00:37:30.100 clergy idiots. So they buried him in a less prominent room off of the chapel rather than in the main 1.00

00:37:35.280 area of the Basilica. But, uh, about 80 years later, they reburied Galileo in the main body of

00:37:40.400 the Basilica anyway, basically the most incredible honor you could ever possibly get in the church to

00:37:46.180 be buried in the Basilica di Santa Croce. Uh, now he didn't get reburied before losing three fingers

00:37:52.200 in a tooth, uh, for some relics, one of which is now at the Museo Galileo in Florence. Um, the,

00:37:58.220 the reason why you, you hear all of this misinformation that the Catholics tortured him and killed him or

00:38:03.300 whatever is that the Anglosphere is quite Protestant. Henry VIII assured us of that.

00:38:08.820 And he ensured that because he wanted to chop off some of his wives' heads and get some new ones. 1.00

00:38:13.760 Uh, you know, people have always hated the church and GK Chesterton talked about this a lot. He talked 0.96

00:38:19.300 about it in Orthodoxy actually before he converted to Catholicism. But I think the, the church he's

00:38:24.300 talking about here is quite clearly the Catholic church. Uh, the, the church is attacked for,

00:38:29.860 for opposite reasons. And that's one argument that Chesterton gives for it being right. So the

00:38:35.760 church is attacked for cloistering women, taking women away from the family and cloistering them 1.00

00:38:40.400 in these little nunneries. And also it's attacked for insisting on procreation, be fruitful and

00:38:45.420 multiply, no, uh, artificial contraception, right? It's attacked for both of those things. It's taught,

00:38:51.680 it's attacked for disrespecting women's intellects. And it's, it's also attacked because only women ever go 1.00

00:38:56.780 to church, only women participate in the church. It's attacked for being too ascetic, sackcloth, 1.00

00:39:01.180 dry peas. When you whip yourself, mea culpa, mea culpa. It's also attacked for being too pompous

00:39:05.540 and ritualistic and dripping in gold. Uh, I think those are the reasons they just, people, especially

00:39:10.340 in the Anglosphere, just don't really like the Catholic church. But one of the reasons people

00:39:14.200 don't like the church as far as I'm concerned is because it's true because it's the right thing. 1.00

00:39:19.180 And it tells us right there in the Bible that they're going to feel that way. Uh, next question from

00:39:22.640 Christian, providentially from Christian. Hey Mike, where do you see the U S in 10 years in regards 0.53

00:39:27.440 to culture, mores, values, et cetera? I actually see it getting a little bit better. People forget

00:39:33.860 how kind of crazy that the PC culture was that really took effect in the 1990s. I see that getting

00:39:39.760 better. Murder rates are going down. Divorce rates are going down. Abortion rates are going down.

00:39:44.160 Those are all excellent cultural things. Um, I do see it getting more divided, unfortunately,

00:39:50.060 because I, there isn't a common culture anymore. Television basically doesn't exist anymore.

00:39:54.700 People are cutting their cable faster than ever. There was a great common culture when there was,

00:39:59.340 when there were just a few networks. It was the liberal consensus, the conservative movement in

00:40:03.360 many ways actually fought to crack up that common culture because it was a bit of a left culture.

00:40:08.500 Uh, so there's no common culture in terms of pop culture. There's no common religious culture.

00:40:13.220 We have a religious pluralism, but largely we just have a lot of nuns, the so-called, uh, 0.87

00:40:18.580 atheists, the so-called nuns, the atheists, the agnostics. I do see a little bit of that changing 0.89

00:40:23.240 because I get so many questions about religion throughout the mailbag. And you, you, in just in,

00:40:28.740 I know the plural of anecdote isn't data, but just in talking with millennials, they seem to be a

00:40:32.620 little bit more open to some of those questions. So I'm, I'm hopeful for the future, but I see it

00:40:36.880 getting much more divided. And as we talked about on the show a few days ago, you can't stretch those

00:40:41.220 bonds forever. This whole citizen of the world nonsense and hating one's own culture and kneeling for the flag,

00:40:47.180 totally, uh, uh, bizarrely for a flag that it gives you the right to kneel for the flag. So it makes

00:40:53.960 no sense to kneel for it. Uh, that can't be stretched forever at a certain point. It's going

00:40:57.380 to crack and people should be careful of that. And fortunately we have a president right now who is

00:41:02.240 a pop culture figure who is also, uh, who's also perfectly willing to attack these awful aspects of

00:41:10.600 the culture. Next question from Grace. How do you suggest we balance privacy and national security?

00:41:16.040 Grace, the girl from Twitter who has a date with you tonight. I told you never to call me here. I told

00:41:21.120 you, no, I think, I think Grace is referring to my conversation yesterday on Valentine's day, which was

00:41:26.620 marketed as a date with Michael Knowles. And I hope I didn't, didn't disappoint you. Buckley wrote of the

00:41:31.340 need to bring terrorists to justice after 9-11 quote, we should always give solicitous attention to

00:41:36.840 liberty. What we are struggling to do right now is to discover how 15 steel-willed enemies of the U S

00:41:42.320 succeeded in destroying the two largest buildings in New York and one part of the Pentagon. That

00:41:47.580 finding the hidden enemy would require Yankee ingenuity and a couple of days off for the American 0.88

00:41:52.920 civil liberties union. Makes sense to me. Uh, the way we have to do it is by making the bureaucratic

00:41:58.300 agencies more accountable, at least to congressional oversight. So right now, uh, you, the, uh,

00:42:04.340 bureaucratic agencies can infringe on all of our civil liberties as we saw happened with the Trump

00:42:08.860 campaign. Uh, Barack Obama spying on the Trump campaign. We saw that happen without much

00:42:13.360 congressional oversight took a lot for Congress to be able to see that. I don't think we need to

00:42:17.140 make it so transparent that the public sees these things, but at least our elected representatives have

00:42:21.340 to have ready access to this so that we, the, we, the people can hold them to account at least

00:42:27.860 through our representatives. That seems to me a nice way of, uh, balancing both national security and,

00:42:33.300 and civil liberties from Benjamin. Hey, bud, I love the show. I'm taking my wife and kids to DC in April.

00:42:38.360 Have you ever been there? If so, what was a must do or see and good local restaurants? Thank you so

00:42:43.840 much. Yeah, I loved, I spent a lot of time in DC. You've got to go see the Lincoln Memorial. Uh,

00:42:47.640 obviously you can't do that without crying. Uh, the monuments at night are great. When I was in

00:42:51.760 college, we would do drunk monuments. That was our favorite thing to do in Washington, DC. We'd go

00:42:56.120 have a few drinks and then just gaze at the majesty of this country. You got to go to Shelley's backroom

00:43:01.560 cigar bar. It's fabulous. I went there with the CEO of daily wire, uh, just a few months ago.

00:43:06.280 You got to go to the gold house, the Trump hotel in order of the, uh, steak burnt with ketchup,

00:43:11.120 the Porter house. Old Ebbets is the best. That is a DC institution. After 11, I think they have

00:43:16.180 dollar oysters and cheap PBR. A great play. Really? You have to go there. National portrait

00:43:20.560 gallery is wonderful. And there's some good theater there as well. People don't know that,

00:43:24.540 but you can check it out. You should ask your congressman to get you a tour of the white house.

00:43:28.320 I've never done that, but I have been to meetings at the executive office building and that's

00:43:32.780 unbelievable to go do that. You should do it from Keene. Next question. What is the future of

00:43:37.420 conservatism in your opinion? After the conference, we talked about this a little bit, but just a few

00:43:41.420 other points. I'm pretty pleased because I think there is a future to conservatism.

00:43:45.580 The fusionism of Bill Buckley, cold war, anti-communism, libertarian economics, and social

00:43:51.120 conservatism doesn't really make sense after the fall of communism. That central thing kind of fell

00:43:55.560 apart. Uh, you know, Buckley came to oppose the Iraq war, as we said, as a Wilsonian abstraction.

00:44:00.900 This is what I, I mean by rationalism. When we talk about that on the show, I think we're going

00:44:06.020 to see a more Burkean conservative thought in the future. Chesterton, speaking of Chesterton said,

00:44:11.540 if you argue with a madman, it is probably that you will get the worst of it. Uh, for in many ways,

00:44:16.040 his mind moves all the quicker for not being delayed by the things that go with good judgment.

00:44:20.500 He is not hampered by a sense of humor or by charity or by the dumb certainties of experience.

00:44:24.760 He is the more logical for losing certain sane affections. Indeed, the common phrase for insanity

00:44:29.400 is in this respect, a misleading one. The madman is not the man who has lost his reason. The madman

00:44:34.380 is the man who has lost everything except his reason. I think we see this a lot, a little bit

00:44:39.940 in conservatism. There's an ossified rationalist conservatism that I think we're, we're seeing

00:44:45.080 clinked away by the realities of our culture, by the realities of seeing Antifa beat up Ben Shapiro

00:44:50.800 attendees at college campuses. And I hope that we can now get a conservatism that rise, relies a little bit

00:44:57.640 more on a tradition. And, uh, you know, the, the eighties were great. Um, but those, those policies

00:45:04.880 sort of ossified into a bean counting, uh, that, uh, a renewed interest in the tradition in light of

00:45:10.700 cultural chaos may propel through its sheer appreciation of mystery and wonder. I think

00:45:15.980 we'll see that with a little more religion too. Um, from Christina, uh, Hey, so Valentine's question,

00:45:22.900 I got my fiance a man crate for Valentine's and he got me a necklace that I hate. Uh, do I tell him I

00:45:28.480 hate it or just deal with a gift I'll never use? And if I should tell him, how do I? First of all,

00:45:32.740 marry me. You, what a wonderful, what a great fiance to get a man crate for her fiance. Uh, if he were 0.90

00:45:38.800 your boyfriend, I would say deal with it, but he's your fiance. You're going to have to live with him

00:45:41.720 forever. So be honest with him. You don't want him getting you ugly jewelry for the rest of your life.

00:45:45.740 He'll get over it. It's not a big deal. I did this to sweet little Lisa. I bought her a bracelet she

00:45:49.100 doesn't like when we were 16 and, uh, she, and she basically threw it in a drawer and never wore 1.00

00:45:54.060 it again. And that's okay. Now I don't get those bracelets from Jennifer. Hi, Michael. I'm a big

00:45:58.140 fan of yours. I'm wondering if you plan on doing any speaking tours anytime soon. Also, I'd love to

00:46:02.360 get your take on why the Olympics would even allow such a repressive regime as North Korea to compete 0.88

00:46:07.300 and be able to show face. I am speaking around soon. I can't give too many details yet. I'll be in

00:46:11.980 New York giving a speech in March, at least one speech. And I'll be in, I think I've got one booked in

00:46:16.580 Alabama coming up. Uh, if you're interested in, uh, uh, seeing a speech or someone hosting,

00:46:22.520 excuse me, uh, just send in that inquiry in the mailbag or to Michael at dailywire.com. And I'll

00:46:28.200 make sure that we can get on the books. And why do, why did the Olympics allow these repressive

00:46:32.460 monsters? Uh, because, because the Olympics hates America. It's all just about hating America. That's 0.89

00:46:38.640 why NBC loves it so much. I don't really watch much of the Olympics from Corey. Final question. We got

00:46:44.040 to burn through this. We're running late from Corey. I always enjoyed your show and even your

00:46:49.380 acting in another kingdom. Thank you. Now I feel like I can't even watch you speak anymore. Your

00:46:54.140 smugness over the gay marriage issue was mind blowing. I've got three questions. Why do you 0.69

00:46:59.640 care? Why were you so smug about it? Do you believe this issue is worth pushing gays further left? I 1.00

00:47:06.100 sincerely hope you can offer some secular answers. Thank you for watching the show and listening to

00:47:10.480 another kingdom. I appreciate that. I will point out one thing in your question, in all three of

00:47:15.300 your questions, you don't once refute my argument. Do you notice that? So I hope that my views don't

00:47:20.960 come off as smug. I know, listen, I've been wearing a lot of bow ties and smoking jackets recently.

00:47:24.700 So I forgive people if they think that's smug and I'm sorry if I've given that impression. What I do

00:47:29.540 think though, is what you call smug, I think is, uh, because I offered an opinion confidently that

00:47:35.780 differs from your own. And I offered it and said, this is my opinion. This is the reality as I see it.

00:47:40.980 And you find that smug because it's not certainly not politically correct. And, uh, right now this

00:47:45.800 is the touchiest issue. Um, I hope that my opinions come off as clear and disinterested. Um, it is not an

00:47:52.280 emotional issue for me, obviously it might be an emotional issue for someone who very much wants to

00:47:57.400 redefine marriage because he or she is gay or something like that. For me, it isn't emotional. It's just a

00:48:03.480 clinical question of language, biology, and tradition. I'm perfectly willing to give a secular

00:48:07.960 answer on these things, but there, there aren't secular answers. I think even that's a little

00:48:13.120 bit of a euphemism. Secular means atheist. So you, you want me to get, I'm perfectly willing to give 1.00

00:48:17.360 an answer that is acceptable to non-Christians or acceptable to atheists, but there aren't atheist

00:48:21.960 answers because atheism isn't true. So there, you know, uh, I think basically in all ways,

00:48:27.880 atheism doesn't make any sense. So you might find that my answer makes sense, uh, but I'm not giving an

00:48:33.120 atheist answer. I'm giving an answer that is acceptable to atheists. Uh, this is why no 1.00

00:48:37.460 conservatives these days are willing to wade into the question of gay marriage. They think it's too 0.99

00:48:41.040 touchy. It's the great cultural taboo of the last few years. Conservatives are afraid of seeming bigoted

00:48:45.920 because we all have gay friends. And I'm, I'm not worried about that because this clearly isn't

00:48:50.520 about bigotry at all. Uh, we're, we're not talking about sodomy laws. We're not talking about whether

00:48:55.000 gay people ought to be able to do whatever they like with one another, whether they ought to be accepted

00:48:58.980 and treated equally and fairly by society and culture and government. We're not talking about any of

00:49:03.040 those things. We're, uh, we're talking about one question. What is marriage? So I, I have gay

00:49:09.140 friends who got hitched at the courthouse and the minute that game gay marriage became the new 0.96

00:49:13.380 definition. And I have friends who have been together for decades who did not go to the courthouse

00:49:19.580 and get hitched because they think that marriage doesn't include same sex couples. Practically those 0.95

00:49:24.580 same groups of people behave the same way, right? They behave in a monogamous same sex relationship

00:49:30.560 with, uh, all of the trials and tribulations and nice things that come out of that. But, uh,

00:49:37.300 but there is, there's disagreement even among, uh, gay people on this question. The question,

00:49:42.140 why do you care? Uh, because I'm involved in mankind. I don't know. Why do I care about U S

00:49:46.480 policy in Taiwan, right? Because, uh, no man is an Island entire of himself. I am a person with

00:49:52.920 faculties of reason. And the question of marriage is fundamental to culture and society. The question,

00:49:57.720 why do you care is enough to get me to care. The left always does this. They say, why do you care

00:50:02.080 about what pronouns we use? Why do you care? Who cares? What do you care about saying Merry

00:50:06.400 Christmas? Why do you, well, I don't know. Why do you care? Well, okay. If, if, if, if it's not a

00:50:10.280 big deal, then don't, why don't we not change the definition of marriage we've had for the entirety 0.92

00:50:14.540 of history until five minutes ago? If it, if, if it doesn't matter, if you don't care, then why don't

00:50:19.820 we just accept Barack Obama's view of marriage as late as 2012? You know, for, for the question,

00:50:25.900 why were you so smug about it? Uh, I hope I wasn't smug. I don't mean to be smug. Uh, I, I am fairly

00:50:32.600 certain that we should proceed with caution when radically redefining the building block of society.

00:50:37.920 I'm fairly certain of that. I hope that certainty doesn't seem smug. Is the issue worth pushing

00:50:41.840 gays further left? I hope it doesn't push gays further left. I don't think it will. Uh, because 0.99

00:50:46.320 most importantly, I think conservatives should respect gay people and respect them enough to speak

00:50:50.760 frankly and logically and not sentimentally and bizarrely. Gay people are not some infantilized

00:50:56.020 group that has to be mollycoddled and protected from logic and reason. And, and they're not only 0.90

00:51:00.940 thinking with their sexual thoughts. That's not the only aspect of the people. They're, they're not

00:51:05.980 just this one flat two-dimensional sexual issue. That's ridiculous and offensive to them, not to me. 0.95

00:51:12.660 Uh, you took issue with my suggestion that perhaps sexual difference has something to do with marriage, 0.71

00:51:17.120 that perhaps the definition of marriage held almost exclusively from civilization, uh, you know,

00:51:22.640 from the dawn of man until about 30 months ago, the view of marriage held by Barack Obama as

00:51:26.640 progressive a politician as ever there was until very recently, that perhaps that definition isn't

00:51:32.440 entirely incorrect. None of your questions refuted a single substantive point in my argument.

00:51:38.440 You asked a question about my psychology, you accused me of being smug, and you asked a question

00:51:41.500 about political practicality. Not, nowhere in those three questions did you refute a single point I made.

00:51:46.740 If you think the arguments made by either Father Schmitz or myself are wrong, refute them,

00:51:51.720 and we'll talk about it in the mailbag. If you can't, I encourage you to consider whether it is

00:51:55.800 possible that perhaps it is not we, but you who aren't seeing this issue quite right. I hope that

00:52:02.380 wasn't too smug. Uh, that's our show today. We are going to have a show tomorrow because I, uh,

00:52:07.640 obviously we didn't have a show yesterday, so be sure to tune in for that. We'll save you from one

00:52:12.680 day of the Clavenless weekend. Uh, we'll save you a little bit from it. Uh, in the meantime,

00:52:16.360 I'm Michael Knowles. This is The Michael Knowles Show. I will see you tomorrow.

00:52:23.340 The Michael Knowles Show is a Daily Wire Forward Publishing production.

00:52:27.640 Executive producer, Jeremy Boring. Senior producer, Jonathan Hay. Supervising producer,

00:52:32.980 Mathis Glover. Our technical producer is Austin Stevens. Edited by Alex Zingaro. Audio is mixed by

00:52:38.900 Mike Coromina. Hair and makeup is by Jesua Olvera. Copyright Forward Publishing 2018.

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The Michael Knowles Show - February 15, 2018

Ep. 105 - The Nuts And Bolts Of Mass Shootings

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