The Michael Knowles Show - Ep. 1080 - We Are All An ＂Extreme Threat to Democracy＂

00:00:00.000 On the heels of calling roughly half the country semi-fascist, the Biden administration is now

00:00:06.220 somehow upping the rhetoric, referring to us all as a, quote, extreme threat to democracy.

00:00:14.980 The president thinks that there is an extremist threat to our democracy.

00:00:19.340 The president has been clear, as he can be on that particular piece, when we talk about a

00:00:25.140 democracy, when we talk about our freedoms, the way that he sees is the MAGA Republicans are the most

00:00:30.760 energized part of the Republican Party. This is an extreme threat to our democracy, to our freedom,

00:00:38.700 to our rights. Notice that line was not off the cuff. That was not merely some gaffe from Corrine

00:00:46.100 Jean-Pierre or Joe Biden. She was reading off of her written notes. She repeated the phrase,

00:00:52.340 the White House made a conscious decision to refer to MAGA Republicans the same way that they would

00:00:59.220 refer to ISIS. Actually, probably more harshly than they would refer to ISIS. The Libs call the leader

00:01:05.720 of ISIS an austere religious scholar. The Libs hand Afghanistan over to the Taliban. Okay, they're 0.80

00:01:11.620 actually pretty nice to the terrorists and to ISIS and Al Qaeda and all those people.

00:01:15.580 They reserve the terrorist rhetoric for you, for parents, and for conservatives,

00:01:23.600 and for MAGA Republicans, which, by the way, just means Republicans. That's it. That's all there is.

00:01:29.420 The Never Trump movement at this point is pretty much just Bill Kristol and five or six people that

00:01:35.720 he has over to complain about Donald Trump over tea. Okay, statistically, for all intents and purposes,

00:01:41.740 MAGA Republicans just means Republicans, which means the President of the United States,

00:01:49.120 the same President who keeps threatening to strafe us all with squadrons of F-15s,

00:01:54.520 is saying that half of the country should be treated as terrorists. He's saying that the only way we can

00:02:01.700 have government of the people, by the people, and for the people, is if we get rid of half the people. 0.96

00:02:06.940 A bad idea in general, an especially bad idea when those half of the people are you. I'm Michael

00:02:15.340 Knowles. This is The Michael Knowles Show. Welcome back to the show. My favorite comment yesterday is

00:02:25.780 from Toby, who says, I didn't want to believe that Michael actually loves pumpkin spice lattes,

00:02:33.000 but when he started calling them PSLs so casually, I knew he was being honest. Now I need to find a way

00:02:40.520 to reconcile this with the cigar-smoking, only Y-chromosome image of Michael that I had before.

00:02:47.440 I'll reconcile it for you. I know that this can be shocking. This was explained to me a little bit

00:02:52.060 when I was in college by a pal of mine. He was a few years older, who was very, very preppy.

00:02:57.760 And I said, he'd wear pink polo shirts all the time. And I said, hey man, I won't use his name,

00:03:04.580 but I said, hey man, isn't it a little girly to wear pink polo shirts? And isn't it a little

00:03:09.820 foppish and effeminate? And he told me, he said, Michael, you don't understand. It's actually the

00:03:16.120 manliest thing of all to wear a pink polo shirt. Because, you see, the pink polo shirt, it is just a

00:03:24.560 facade. It is in a way a kind of like a girdle or a corset to constrain the virile manliness within,

00:03:33.300 just aching to get out. That's what the pumpkin spice latte is, okay? It is just, it is a veneer

00:03:39.640 of civilization, okay? Of a sort of nice light, okay? This is a, but beneath the surface, just

00:03:51.900 underneath that frothy little foam and tasty little pumpkin spice sauce on top. Oh, there's,

00:03:57.740 it's just pure masculinity, toxic, waiting to explode. That's what's going on with my PSLs.

00:04:05.080 And one of those things that I can do when I'm really unleashing my masculinity would be to work

00:04:11.180 on my car. When I want to work on my car, what do I do? I go to rockauto.com. Right now, head on over

00:04:15.440 to rockauto.com, write Knowles in their How Did You Hear About Us box. Nobody likes to spend money

00:04:21.540 on their cars. If you buy it, you want to drive it, you want it to run forever maintenance-free.

00:04:27.580 Unfortunately, that's not the way that things work. Cars require upkeep. The good news is you can

00:04:34.060 maintain your car for less when you shop for auto parts at rockauto.com. Chain stores have different

00:04:40.660 price tiers for pros, the actual professional mechanics, and do-it-yourselfers. Rockauto.com's

00:04:47.080 prices are the same for everybody. They are reliably low, no gimmicks. They will not change

00:04:52.480 prices based on what the market will bear or some 20% off at 3 a.m. on a Tuesday. No, none of that.

00:04:59.440 Their prices make it affordable for customers to keep their daily drives and classics safely on

00:05:04.720 the road. Rockauto.com has been in the auto parts business for 20 years, family-owned. More

00:05:09.540 importantly, they've been with this show for, what, five, six years now? Pretty much right from the

00:05:14.060 beginning. Right now, go to rockauto.com. Get the brakes, shocks, carpet wipers, headlights, mirrors,

00:05:18.860 mufflers, lug nuts, or any other part you need. Rockauto.com. Write Knowles in their How Did You

00:05:23.860 Hear About Us box so they know that we sent you. Speaking of the MAGA Republicans, we need to add

00:05:31.260 another coin to the Donald Trump was right jar. I always try to keep the receipts here because here's

00:05:38.900 what happens in politics. A conservative says something. The liberals say, that's crazy.

00:05:44.720 That's stupid. You're an idiot. You don't know anything. That's wrong. That's dangerous. It's a 1.00

00:05:48.980 horrible idea. And then, I don't know, call it six months later, sometimes even a couple of years

00:05:55.340 later, the conservative has proven completely correct. And we say, hey, we were right the whole

00:05:58.940 time. And then what do the libs say? No, never mind. What are you talking about? Who remembers that?

00:06:02.880 No, forget about it. Move along, move along. And rinse and repeat. That goes on and on and on.

00:06:06.640 Then the conservatives will observe something. They'll say, wait, hold on. No, this is what I

00:06:10.220 think. And the libs say, no, you're completely wrong. It's stupid. They'll laugh at us. They'll

00:06:13.620 ridicule us. Well, this is what's happening right now when it comes to energy. You might recall

00:06:19.520 a few years ago, Donald Trump warned that Europe's energy policy right now was making Europe and Germany

00:06:28.700 in particular extremely reliant on Russia to heat the homes and power the cars and keep Germany going.

00:06:35.600 And at the time, all the libs, and Germany in particular, mocked Donald Trump for this

00:06:41.260 observation. This was considered so risible that the American left-wing news outlets put out joke

00:06:48.780 compilations of Trump making this claim. This is a clip from Now This, which is a left-wing

00:06:53.840 news source and commentary source, mocking, from the time, mocking Trump's suggestion.

00:07:00.300 Germany's reaction to Trump's inaccurate claim is priceless.

00:07:05.960 ...will become totally dependent on Russian energy if it does not immediately change course.

00:07:14.720 Oh, they're laughing. Look at that. Look at those Germans. They're laughing. Oh, 1.00

00:07:18.620 there's that idiot Trump. Trump's claim is not accurate and highly misleading, CNBC says. 1.00

00:07:23.400 Germany imports only a fraction of its total energy from Russia.

00:07:27.060 ...we are committed to maintaining our independence from the encroachment of expansionist foreign powers.

00:07:39.360 Now this. There it is. Okay, so how's that shaping up? Well, Russia just announced that it's going to

00:07:47.600 cut off Germany's gas supply via the Nord Stream 1 pipeline for three days. Just three days.

00:07:54.160 Okay, well, that shouldn't matter at all, right? Nothing's going to happen. Because Trump's a big,

00:07:57.820 dumb, stupid idiot, right? And he said that Germany is too reliant on Russian energy, and all the Germans 1.00

00:08:01.920 laughed. Okay. Ha ha. Okay, so who cares? They're going to shut off this one pipeline for three days.

00:08:05.940 No big deal, right? Well, here's what the German economy minister, Robert Habak, told the Financial Times.

00:08:11.160 Apparently, this move by Russia to shut off the gas for just three days has already forced German

00:08:18.340 companies to stop production. It's a development that he said is alarming. He said, quote,

00:08:22.680 it's not good news because it can mean that the industries in question aren't just being restructured,

00:08:27.080 but are experiencing a rupture, a structural rupture, one that is happening under enormous pressure.

00:08:35.320 Oh, not laughing now, I guess. The Germans have said, what can we do with the three-day

00:08:41.140 pause? They said, I assume that we will be able to cope with it. That was Klaus Mueller,

00:08:46.580 the president of Germany's network regulator. That's what he told Reuters. I trust that Russia 0.98

00:08:51.420 will return to 20% on Saturday, but no one can really say, oh, so it sounds like Trump was 100%

00:08:58.960 correct. And all the Germans were laughing, and all the news outlets called Trump a big, stupid, 1.00

00:09:04.980 dumb idiot, and all the conservatives who followed Trump were just stupid, idiot rubes who don't know 1.00

00:09:08.940 anything about energy, except we were all completely right. And all of the geniuses at MSNBC and the 1.00

00:09:15.380 financial analysts and the establishment and the think tanks, they were all completely wrong.

00:09:19.740 That's what happened. And it's very important to point this out because it keeps happening.

00:09:24.540 That's why I keep focusing on this when it comes to COVID. We were right about the masks. All of the

00:09:30.440 genius authorities and experts and Fauci and all the big tech censors and all of the petty government

00:09:39.160 officials from the local level to the international level, they were wrong. We were right about the

00:09:44.460 masks. All of them were wrong about the masks, except for Fauci briefly when he was being honest

00:09:48.820 about the masks, but then he reversed his position. How about the vaccines? When we said, I don't think

00:09:52.880 the vaccines are actually going to stop you from catching COVID or spreading it. And then everyone,

00:09:57.140 all the experts, all the authorities said the opposite. And they all called us a bunch of big,

00:10:00.840 dumb, stupid idiots and science deniers and all the rest. We were 100% right. They were 100% wrong. 1.00

00:10:07.840 Same thing, catching COVID, transmitting COVID, the risks of the vaccines. Initially, we were told

00:10:12.700 there are no risks to the vaccines. We said, I think there actually are probably some pretty serious risks.

00:10:16.460 We were 100% right. They were 100% wrong. And it's not, it wasn't just COVID that this is the case on.

00:10:21.840 It's everything. It's everything from the COVID masks to the Russian and German energy sectors.

00:10:29.640 Our experts are established geniuses who have the power to form public opinion and exclude certain

00:10:36.440 opinions. They don't know anything. Okay. And Joe Schmo on the street and Joe Schmo's representative

00:10:43.820 named Donald Trump are much, much more correct. They have a much, much better record than these people

00:10:49.960 do. Speaking of extreme threats, there is a trailer out for a movie that in spite of myself,

00:10:58.140 I cannot wait to see. But it's very, very disturbing. The movie is called Winnie the Pooh,

00:11:05.240 Blood and Honey.

00:11:07.640 You know, you're the first person I ever shown this place to.

00:11:10.160 Why am I so special?

00:11:11.860 Because soon will be Christopher and Mary Robin.

00:11:15.720 You should be close now.

00:11:17.480 Christopher Robin from Winnie the Pooh is all grown up.

00:11:19.440 They go back to the hundred acre wood.

00:11:21.860 We were friends for many years and they're out there.

00:11:27.460 The beloved childhood characters.

00:11:29.860 Christopher, we need to leave now.

00:11:33.360 I really need to find out what's happening, okay?

00:11:36.940 Have been abandoned by Christopher Robin.

00:11:42.620 Oh no.

00:11:46.220 Oh no.

00:11:48.020 And it's turned wild and then there's demented Winnie the Pooh who starts stabbing people.

00:11:58.440 Oh my gosh.

00:12:01.780 We used to be friends. Why are you doing this? Please.

00:12:05.900 Okay, it goes on. I think there was Piglet there. It's like attacking people.

00:12:10.200 This seems really, really stupid and funny and I'll probably go see it. Part of the reason this movie can be made is the copyright has run out on Winnie the Pooh so now people can use the intellectual property. 0.93

00:12:22.020 But there is something disturbing here and it's not just the fact that you got these demented characters slashing people. There have been teen slashers for a long time in movies.

00:12:33.760 What makes this especially disturbing is it's a beloved childhood character. A character that made you feel really safe and nice and warm is now coming back and killing you. 0.98

00:12:42.360 Why? Because Christopher Robin abandoned him, right? Abandoned him and now the animals have turned demented.

00:12:48.640 What the movie I think is really about, certainly from the trailer what it seems, is it's a movie about a permanent loss of innocence.

00:12:57.440 What the movie is really about, I don't think I'm reading too deeply into a teen slasher.

00:13:00.860 What it's really about, the crux of the whole movie, why they make it all about Winnie the Pooh, is it's because it is about people who have lost their childhood and their childhood innocence.

00:13:13.400 Who don't know how to get it back anymore in society.

00:13:18.580 And that actually is a cultural shift.

00:13:21.300 When we want to talk to each other about how scary this movie is.

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00:15:05.140 I am going to go see Winnie the Pooh, Blood and Honey.

00:15:08.880 But I want to see it as much because it looks like a kind of fun, silly slasher movie.

00:15:14.060 As for what it means culturally, I get letters to the mailbag all the time.

00:15:17.680 And I got one last week and it really stuck with me.

00:15:20.060 The question was, Michael, I got really into porn and all sorts of, a lot of questions are about porn.

00:15:26.580 But it could be about anything that causes you to lose your innocence.

00:15:30.040 And he says, I feel, I really miss my innocence.

00:15:33.160 But I don't know that I can get my innocence back.

00:15:36.280 And I think that's what this movie is about.

00:15:38.960 And part of growing up is losing a little bit of your innocence.

00:15:46.020 And now we hope that we don't just constantly degrade ourselves.

00:15:49.920 We hope that, you know, we don't remain mired in all the problems that come along with youth and all of the temptations.

00:15:56.580 But how do you get, how do you recover some of that?

00:15:59.500 Well, you've got to, got to get back on the right road again.

00:16:03.880 Okay, and that doesn't, it doesn't mean just remain in perpetual adolescence.

00:16:08.380 I think that's something that millennials and Gen Z, but millennials in particular, have really fallen into.

00:16:14.040 Millennials don't want to grow up. 1.00

00:16:15.640 Millennials, every time they pay a bill, they post it on Instagram and they say, wow, I'm totally adulting.

00:16:21.500 Wow, isn't this shocking?

00:16:22.360 No, it shouldn't be shocking that someone in their 30s is doing things that adults do.

00:16:27.400 But millennials don't want to grow up. 1.00

00:16:29.060 They don't want to get married.

00:16:29.960 They don't want to have kids.

00:16:31.240 They don't want to get off their parents' cell phone plan.

00:16:33.440 These are people who are in their 30s and early 40s in some cases, but they don't want to do it.

00:16:38.400 They're stuck in perpetual adolescence.

00:16:40.940 And so they want to go back to Disneyland alone.

00:16:46.340 They don't even have kids yet.

00:16:47.400 They'll just go to Disney World.

00:16:48.520 They'll just go, they'll go watch the latest superhero movie.

00:16:53.460 But they'll go, and I don't mean to knock people for, you know, having a little bit of nostalgia for their childhood.

00:16:59.440 But you're supposed to do those things while growing up and with your kids.

00:17:06.540 That's how you get to relive your childhood when you're an adult.

00:17:09.200 You get to do it through and with your own children.

00:17:12.620 Actually, Kenny Loggins wrote a whole song about this, specifically about Winnie the Pooh.

00:17:16.900 It's called Back to Pooh Corner.

00:17:18.360 And the whole thing is, he wrote it when he was a high school junior or senior.

00:17:21.700 And the whole thing was, wow, I've wandered away.

00:17:23.700 I can't get back to the 100-acre wood.

00:17:25.560 Come on, I've got to get back to Winnie the Pooh and all of my friends, so help me if you can.

00:17:29.500 I've got to get back to the place at Pooh Corner.

00:17:31.680 And he realizes he can't because his childhood is over and he's growing up now and he's graduating high school.

00:17:35.980 And he revisits that song later.

00:17:38.280 And he says, you know, I'm looking, I'm paraphrasing the lyrics, but he says,

00:17:41.860 I was looking at my little kid lying in his crib.

00:17:44.500 And I realized now I've returned to the 100-acre wood and Pooh Corner and Winnie the Pooh.

00:17:49.320 And I've returned as the dad now.

00:17:51.780 And my little kid is there hugging my little Winnie the Pooh doll.

00:17:55.220 And so I do get to, you know, return in some ways to the joys of childhood.

00:17:59.740 But it's in a new way.

00:18:00.740 It's in a mature way and an elevated way.

00:18:02.780 And our culture has kind of stopped that.

00:18:04.780 We've kind of stopped having kids.

00:18:06.280 We've kind of stopped growing up.

00:18:07.880 We've kind of stopped doing the things that adults are supposed to do.

00:18:12.500 I promise you that will be the most detailed analysis of Winnie the Pooh blood and honey trailer that you will see anywhere.

00:18:20.460 But I do think that's what's undergirding the movie.

00:18:22.460 I'll see it anyway, but I'll see it in the same way that I look at a car accident around our culture and say,

00:18:27.140 gosh, we've gotten really, really decadent and weird, haven't we?

00:18:31.040 Speaking of child abuse, doctors now, lib doctors and teachers are getting really brazen about admitting

00:18:40.800 that they are not only violating social norms, but violating the law in some cases.

00:18:44.920 There's a doctor right now in San Francisco, Dr. Scott Moser, who is admitting that he not only transes the kids, but he transes little kids.

00:18:55.860 He transes kids without any minimum age to perform these kind of surgeries at all. 1.00

00:19:01.580 The GCC, Gender Confirmation Center in San Francisco, we kind of have these like secret missions.

00:19:07.560 Now that it's on a slide, these public secret missions, which are, one of them is that we try to live with our values 30 to 40 years in the future.

00:19:16.580 So, and that puts us in a mindset of extreme affirmation because affirmation at that time is a foregone conclusion.

00:19:24.720 This is a time in the future when gender is just a thing. 1.00

00:19:27.820 Nobody makes a big deal out of it.

00:19:29.260 People are being screened as children and adolescents for their gender journey and appropriate steps are taken to get them involved in a multidisciplinary process to get them where they need to go.

00:19:38.160 So that's, that's the future of you.

00:19:40.780 I do not have a minimum age of any sort in my practice.

00:19:44.200 There's no chronological age that says you don't get surgery.

00:19:47.420 Now, having said that, I don't think I've ever done a consult on a 12-year-old yet, but we would if one came our way.

00:19:54.460 We just haven't had reason to.

00:19:56.680 And then we've done a number of 13-year-olds who did consults on.

00:20:00.640 I think I've done one or two 13-year-old surgeries.

00:20:04.420 I think I've done one or two 13-year-old surgeries. 0.87

00:20:07.180 He's lopped off the genitals of 13-year-olds.

00:20:12.820 As I say, every time one of these stories comes out, we are accelerating down the slippery slope. 0.67

00:20:20.460 It's not that we've reached the bottom.

00:20:21.860 It's not that we're going to keep going afterward.

00:20:23.980 We're accelerating how fast we're going down the slippery slope.

00:20:27.480 Ten years ago, the idea that there would be more than a handful of adults who had these mutilations would be a scandal and unthinkable.

00:20:35.460 The idea that someone who was 18 years old or younger would have this done, truly, truly beyond the realm of the imagination.

00:20:46.680 Then the idea, even a couple of years ago, that this would happen to 16-year-olds, unthinkable.

00:20:51.880 Yesterday, the idea that this would happen to 13-year-olds or 12-year-olds.

00:20:55.900 He said, I'd do it to a 12-year-old.

00:20:57.420 I haven't yet, but I would.

00:20:59.320 Would be unthinkable.

00:21:01.680 What's it going to be tomorrow?

00:21:02.900 Tomorrow, it's going to be nine.

00:21:04.060 The day after that, it's going to be eight, six, seven.

00:21:07.700 He says no limit.

00:21:08.860 And of course, the logic, or the kind of logic, the kind of illogic, but it follows from the premises, is on his side.

00:21:20.000 And conservatives need to wise up on this. 0.99

00:21:22.240 The minute that we grant the premise that a man who thinks he's a woman, maybe we should call him a she. 1.00

00:21:28.300 The minute that we grant in any way the premise that the man who thinks he's a woman should maybe be able to use the girl's bathroom. 0.98

00:21:35.040 The minute we grant the premise that an adult should have the right to lop off his own genitals and pretend to be a woman. 0.97

00:21:43.120 An adult, 35 years old.

00:21:45.240 I mean, these days, that's not an adult because they don't know how to do adulting because millennials don't want to grow up.

00:21:48.940 But let's say someone chronologically an adult.

00:21:51.180 The minute we grant the premise that anyone at any age should be able to lop off his genitals because he's really, seriously, a man in a woman's body. 0.70

00:22:00.060 Or he's got this permanent psychological condition where he's a man in a woman's body. 0.99

00:22:03.820 And so we have to let him lop his genitals off. 0.99

00:22:06.140 The minute we grant that, we've given the libs the whole game. 0.98

00:22:10.700 Because if that's really true, then certainly it's much better for people who have this totally real illness, you know, where you're a man in a woman's body or whatever. 0.96

00:22:20.960 We have to let them do it before puberty. 1.00

00:22:23.420 Because puberty is only going to set in the dysphoria. 0.75

00:22:25.960 And then they're going to be really, really sad and depressed and have all these problems.

00:22:28.740 And we have to do it.

00:22:29.560 In fact, we should encourage people to have it done before they're 13.

00:22:34.260 Probably before they're 9.

00:22:35.520 People are starting puberty earlier and earlier because of all the weird chemicals we're pumping into the food.

00:22:39.220 So, okay, let's do it at 9 now.

00:22:42.680 You have to grant that premise, I think.

00:22:45.560 Or you have to go to that extreme if you grant the premise of the libs.

00:22:49.660 That's why we're going there.

00:22:50.880 And conservatives, and especially the libertarians, are always trying to split the baby on this.

00:22:55.480 Well, no, okay, it's insane if you're under 18, but it's totally fine if you're over 18.

00:23:00.520 We have to, no.

00:23:02.180 No, it's just, we've got, if we're going to have a society, we have to agree on some basic principles of reality.

00:23:09.180 Can men become women or not? 0.99

00:23:11.880 They can.

00:23:12.340 And, okay, so then no one should be able to do that, especially the kids, but really no one.

00:23:21.780 Speaking of abuse, Kristi Noem, who is the Republican governor of South Dakota, she just went on Fox and Friends, talk about trying to split the baby,

00:23:31.100 to discuss the FBI's raid on Mar-a-Lago, which now it's so preposterous.

00:23:38.800 The FBI has posted on social media a photograph of the alleged top secret documents that Trump had, the classified documents that he totally wasn't allowed to have, I guess, maybe, sort of.

00:23:52.140 And they're so super-duper top secret that they had to raid his home in, you know, without any warning whatsoever as he's preparing to run for president in 2024.

00:24:02.680 So super-duper top secret that we're going to post a picture of them on social media.

00:24:08.160 So Kristi Noem, Republican governor, goes on Fox and Friends.

00:24:12.160 And I got to tell you, this whole interview, I felt like I was in bizarro world.

00:24:15.940 This was not, it was not an interview on MSNBC.

00:24:18.400 It was not an interview on CNN.

00:24:19.560 It was an interview on Fox News, it's supposed to be the right-wing channel, about how terrible it was that Trump had the documents.

00:24:29.320 He had apparently three classified documents in his desk.

00:24:34.180 And then the stuff, as Brian detailed on the floor, it shows five yellow folders marked top secret,

00:24:40.560 and another one that says secret SCI, which means sensitive compartmentalized information.

00:24:46.140 Those are the biggest secrets in the world.

00:24:49.880 Why would he, and apparently the president, former president, went through them in January.

00:24:55.000 Why wouldn't he say, oh, you know what?

00:24:56.760 I really need to turn that back over.

00:24:58.880 Why'd he have all that stuff at Mar-a-Lago?

00:25:00.980 Well, that's why I think it's important that this is transparent, and that we do have someone who's outside of the DOJ looking at this and talking to people.

00:25:10.520 What is this information?

00:25:12.240 We don't know what was in there.

00:25:13.660 We don't know.

00:25:14.520 I think President Trump declassified all this information.

00:25:18.160 Let's find out, really, what the process is, what is right, what's precedent that other presidents have followed,

00:25:24.120 and make sure that this is done correctly?

00:25:26.680 Governor, I don't think any president has ever carted off that many documents to their house after they left the presidency.

00:25:35.420 I guess what this comes from is just we disagree on the premise here.

00:25:43.380 Because you've got Steve Doocy's really hammering this home.

00:25:47.000 He had classified documents.

00:25:48.460 You're not allowed to have classified documents.

00:25:49.900 And Kristi Noem is, she seems kind of surprised by the commentary, too.

00:25:54.480 It's like, well, you know, this will play out, whatever.

00:25:58.220 They weren't classified.

00:26:00.160 The documents were not classified.

00:26:01.980 Do you know how I know with 100% certainty that the documents were not classified?

00:26:05.060 Because Trump said so.

00:26:07.040 And that's actually all it takes.

00:26:09.800 That's all it takes is for the president to say the documents were not classified.

00:26:14.260 That declassifies them.

00:26:15.940 Because he's saying, I declassified them in the past.

00:26:18.320 Now, you might respond and say, well, who knows if Trump actually declassified them in the past?

00:26:23.200 The answer to that?

00:26:24.720 Only Donald Trump can know that for sure.

00:26:26.840 But the documents still had a top secret classified stamp on them.

00:26:30.600 Yeah, okay, fine.

00:26:32.280 Doesn't matter.

00:26:33.300 It does, I guess people just don't,

00:26:35.780 we've never been in a situation where the FBI has knocked down the doors of a former president.

00:26:39.940 And even raised an objection to a president doing this sort of thing.

00:26:43.860 Okay, but the president does not need a special stamp to declassify the documents.

00:26:49.400 He doesn't need to go through a process.

00:26:50.940 He doesn't need to ask permission of some deputy director of whatever the hell at the DOJ.

00:26:55.500 He just, if the president said, if a former president says these documents were not classified,

00:27:01.640 or were declassified at some point by me, they just are.

00:27:06.560 That's it.

00:27:07.140 It's completely made up.

00:27:11.240 Okay, it's like, if you begin with the false premise,

00:27:13.580 then you can end at the crazy logical conclusion of that.

00:27:18.300 That's what the libs do. 1.00

00:27:19.500 But the premise is just wrong.

00:27:22.080 If a man can really be a woman, then you end up at transing the kids. 0.99

00:27:25.960 But a man can't be a woman. 1.00

00:27:27.300 If Donald Trump can have mishandled the classified documents,

00:27:31.220 then you end up at this place where maybe he committed a crime.

00:27:33.780 But he can't.

00:27:34.500 It's not, it's ontologically not possible for the president to do that. 1.00

00:27:38.460 If my aunt had testicles, she would be my uncle. 1.00

00:27:43.360 Speaking of the Biden administration, 0.99

00:27:46.440 the Biden administration is pointing at Trump right now

00:27:48.760 and raiding his home and calling half the country fascist

00:27:52.940 and doing whatever distractions they can because of their completely failed record.

00:27:56.580 We know that they have a failed record on the economy.

00:27:58.280 We know they have a failed record on immigration.

00:28:00.780 We know they have an extremely failed record on foreign policy.

00:28:03.420 We know they got a failed record on energy.

00:28:06.060 We know, the list goes on and on.

00:28:07.660 One area we haven't talked enough about, they have a really failed record on drugs.

00:28:12.640 The American life expectancy decreased again.

00:28:16.780 Okay, it should not be decreasing.

00:28:18.620 It's supposed to be increasing because of all that progress that we've allegedly got going on.

00:28:22.440 But it's decreasing, and it's decreasing in large part because of deaths of despair,

00:28:26.520 specifically deaths caused by drug overdoses.

00:28:29.520 So, at the White House briefing, Corrine Jean-Pierre is asked,

00:28:34.800 hey, what is the president doing about drug overdoses?

00:28:38.620 Here's her answer.

00:28:40.340 There's a big problem now that rainbow fentanyl, which is designed to target children,

00:28:46.500 has been found in 18 states.

00:28:48.360 What specifically is the president doing about this?

00:28:50.900 So, we just talked about the day, the overdose awareness day, that we are observing today.

00:29:00.380 I just laid out what the second gentleman and others are doing within this administration.

00:29:07.280 And, you know, we are going to continue to focus on the steps that we're taking, that we have taken.

00:29:15.960 You have the $80 million that DHS just announced today on drug prevention.

00:29:20.900 And the president has taken many steps.

00:29:23.480 He's made this a priority.

00:29:24.820 So, the only answer, they said, we're going to spend $80 million on this vague thing.

00:29:31.080 She doesn't say what the $80 million is.

00:29:32.920 And then, the only concrete action that Corrine Jean-Pierre can say the Biden administration is doing

00:29:38.680 on this once-in-an-ever historic drug overdose problem is,

00:29:45.460 well, we're observing Drug Overdose Awareness Day. 0.99

00:29:49.320 What do you, what do you, Peter, Doocy, are you crazy? 0.86

00:29:54.000 What do you mean we're not doing anything? 0.89

00:29:55.160 We're, it's, it's Overdose Awareness Day.

00:29:57.540 You know, we're all wearing a little pin.

00:30:00.080 You know, we, we posted a hashtag.

00:30:02.420 We did a hashtag.

00:30:03.980 And so, yeah, we're not, we're not doing anything about, you know,

00:30:07.260 the completely open border that all the drugs are crossing from, or crossing through.

00:30:12.160 We're not doing anything about big pharma that the rest of the drugs are coming from.

00:30:17.620 We're not doing anything about the mass nationwide legalization campaign that our own party is pushing.

00:30:24.540 We're not doing anything about the, the criminal justice reform, so-called,

00:30:31.200 that's letting all the drug peddlers out of prison. 1.00

00:30:33.700 We're not, but it's awareness.

00:30:36.580 We're, we're raising awareness.

00:30:39.460 No, yeah, you're, the, the way that the White House is raising awareness about drug overdoses is by causing them.

00:30:44.400 That's, that's what's raising awareness of it.

00:30:46.320 That's not the, that, awareness and a buck fifty used to get you a cup of coffee.

00:30:50.700 Now you'd need probably like five fifty in addition to that,

00:30:53.520 to the awareness to get a cup of coffee because of Biden inflation.

00:30:57.080 That's, you need to do stuff to stop it.

00:30:59.680 And the, the Democrats are not doing that.

00:31:01.460 They're actually encouraging the drug problem.

00:31:03.200 And unfortunately, a lot of Republicans are too.

00:31:05.740 I, I listened to, it was probably the, 1.00

00:31:07.620 some of the stupidest political commentary I'd heard in a long time. 0.99

00:31:11.260 It came out a few days ago. 1.00

00:31:12.980 Charlemagne the God is a left-wing broadcaster.

00:31:16.940 And he had this idea for Joe Biden, which is that, I mean,

00:31:20.680 politically it was actually probably a pretty smart idea.

00:31:22.660 As a matter of policy and the common good and the flourishing of America,

00:31:26.000 it was a really terrible idea.

00:31:27.220 He says what Biden should do right now is just pardon every single person who is in prison

00:31:32.500 for the devil's lettuce.

00:31:34.500 I thought it was incredibly disrespectful for Joe Biden to come out and say the sentence

00:31:40.920 that Brittany Griner received in Russia was unacceptable.

00:31:44.260 It's like, yo, we live in a country where right now, if Joe Biden wanted to,

00:31:50.020 don't need no votes, no nothing.

00:31:52.200 He could literally pardon every single person that is federally jailed for a nonviolent weed offense.

00:32:00.540 He could pardon every single body. 0.98

00:32:02.740 It's motherfucking doing life in jail for an ounce and a half of marijuana right now. 0.98

00:32:06.880 My whole point is, man, when you live in a country where more than half of the country 0.99

00:32:10.260 has legalized weed in some way, shape, or form, whether it's for medicinal, 0.95

00:32:13.720 whether it's for recreational, to have people still locked up for marijuana in America is ridiculous. 0.76

00:32:19.060 If I'm Joe Biden, you need this for the midterms, bro.

00:32:22.940 Okay?

00:32:23.460 Yeah.

00:32:24.040 I'm pardoning every single body that's locked up federally for a nonviolent marijuana offense.

00:32:29.940 Let them all out.

00:32:30.540 So first of all, I think that's going to be the title of my next blank book.

00:32:34.480 That's my next magnum opus is everybody who's locked up in federal prison for a marijuana

00:32:39.480 possession offense.

00:32:41.060 A comprehensive guide because it's nobody.

00:32:43.460 It's nobody.

00:32:44.320 It's not real.

00:32:45.360 That's fake.

00:32:46.100 Okay?

00:32:46.360 I gave a long speech on this some months ago, six months, eight months ago, called America's

00:32:52.400 Under-Incarceration Problem.

00:32:53.740 I forget the exact statistic.

00:32:57.020 It's virtually no one.

00:32:58.460 And usually, even the people who are on the books in federal prison for marijuana possession,

00:33:04.540 it's all plea deals.

00:33:05.840 It's all people who were peddlers, who were pushing harder stuff, or who had more than just

00:33:09.880 simple possession.

00:33:11.080 And they pled it down.

00:33:12.760 And then they go to the clink for a little bit.

00:33:14.400 But it virtually never happens.

00:33:18.160 Okay?

00:33:18.320 But second of all, for the people on the right, the Republicans and the conservatives who are

00:33:25.200 into legalizing the Haitian oregano and the California cumin and the Peruvian parsley and

00:33:29.900 all the rest of it, I just have to ask you a basic political question.

00:33:34.020 Do you think that that guy is right about politics?

00:33:38.900 That guy, Mr. Charlemagne over there?

00:33:41.180 Do you think that that pothead yes man that was sitting next to him on the podcast, do you

00:33:46.520 think that guy gets it?

00:33:48.080 Do you think he's on the right side of politics?

00:33:50.240 Forget about pot for a second, just of all the political issues.

00:33:53.760 No.

00:33:54.220 Do you think the people who are pushing to let the drug dealers out of prison and who are

00:33:59.060 pushing to legalize pot and put it in everybody's food, put it in, legalize it in cafes, and

00:34:09.180 you're probably going to end up with it in your breakfast cereal.

00:34:11.080 Do you think, forget pot for a second, that those guys who are really into legalizing pot,

00:34:16.640 where do they stand on abortion, on economic policy, on immigration, on marriage, on transgenderism,

00:34:28.620 on foreign policy, on every single political issue, where do they stand?

00:34:33.880 My guess is they are on the wrong side of every single political issue.

00:34:40.760 And yet, I know there is a group of right-wingers who, for some reason, have convinced themselves

00:34:45.940 that on this one issue, they're right.

00:34:49.500 They're not.

00:34:50.180 They're not.

00:34:50.780 Okay, don't let the wool be pulled over your eyes, my friends.

00:34:54.480 And speaking of us versus them kind of politics, before we get to the mailbag, I've got to

00:34:59.000 get to this clip, really shocking, came out from Project Veritas, a Connecticut public

00:35:03.160 schools assistant principal who was caught on camera discriminating against hiring Catholics

00:35:09.220 because he says that if you hire Catholics, then they're not going to indoctrinate the

00:35:12.460 kids well enough, and they're not going to churn out Democrat voters in the future.

00:35:15.200 I think one of the questions that we might start putting in is something about transgender

00:35:32.540 stories.

00:35:33.760 I don't think kids have enough knowledge to make decisions for something.

00:35:39.000 But if they're older, I'm not allowed to do that, but I can't tell them I'm not interviewing

00:35:49.860 you because you're older, I just don't interview them.

00:35:52.320 The times you're older you get, the more set in your ways, the more conservative you get.

00:35:56.360 It doesn't matter what they think about it, if they think about it in a logical, progressive

00:36:01.340 way, that becomes their idea.

00:36:03.340 Like a, so you kind of like do it on to think in a more liberal way.

00:36:08.340 I believe the, I'm hoping the more progressive teachers are actually more savvy about delivering

00:36:16.200 a democratic message without really ever mentioning the politics.

00:36:22.200 We want people that are going to listen to the people, we listen to the people.

00:36:26.200 And then later down the line, you're going to vote Democrat, and you will have son and

00:36:40.060 go for your service to our country.

00:36:43.860 That's it.

00:36:44.420 That's what they're going to do.

00:36:45.240 He's saying, we don't hire Catholics.

00:36:46.680 If someone is a really well-formed Catholic, they're never going to go with the libs.

00:36:51.880 They can't, they're not going to do it.

00:36:52.980 Too much Thomas Aquinas, that's not, they're not, so we can't hire them.

00:36:55.840 We got to discriminate against them.

00:36:57.280 How are we going to do that legally?

00:36:58.500 We'll ask them about transgenderism because they know, this is why the libs, one of the

00:37:02.080 reasons the libs focus so much on transgenderism, because it just tells you everything.

00:37:05.860 If you believe that men can secretly be women, you're a leftist.

00:37:09.500 If you don't believe that, you're one of the bad people, you might even be a Catholic, but 1.00

00:37:13.400 you're certainly, you're one of those bad conservatives, you're out.

00:37:16.120 If you're a little bit older, you might be more conservative.

00:37:18.000 Okay, we're not going to hire you.

00:37:19.260 We don't even need to mention explicit politics.

00:37:21.160 We are going to push this stuff on kids and churn out Democrat voters starting in kindergarten. 0.54

00:37:27.340 And you know, to this guy's, in this guy's defense, he's acknowledging one basic truth.

00:37:33.340 There is no neutrality here, especially in education.

00:37:35.740 There's no neutrality.

00:37:37.000 They're either going to be trained in the conservative way or in the leftist way.

00:37:40.860 They're going to be trained in the atheist way or the Christian way or the Catholic way maybe.

00:37:44.360 That's what he's really worried about.

00:37:45.700 But it's going to be some kind of training.

00:37:48.100 That's what education is.

00:37:49.380 And so, yeah, it's illegal for him to do what he's doing, to discriminate against Catholics

00:37:53.360 and conservatives in the schools.

00:37:56.160 But he's just, he's doing a natural thing.

00:37:58.120 He's saying, we want a certain type of education, not another type of education.

00:38:02.160 That's, maybe conservatives need to start thinking that way too.

00:38:04.460 I talk a lot on this show about the squishes.

00:38:07.260 You know, the Adam Kinzinger's, the future former Congress lady, Liz Cheney, whose gelatinous

00:38:14.440 GOP spines, they just fall apart under the slightest pressure.

00:38:22.960 It's the kind of pressure, kind of behavior rather, that you would never dream of engaging

00:38:27.620 in or modeling to your son or daughter.

00:38:29.640 And yet, and yet, the numbers are in.

00:38:33.420 Most of you squished this very morning.

00:38:35.820 You did.

00:38:36.100 You might not have even known it.

00:38:37.180 Some of you are squishing right now.

00:38:38.700 Well, Michael, don't be so mean to me.

00:38:40.820 What are you talking about?

00:38:41.880 It's not, hey, look, it's not me.

00:38:44.120 If you are still not shaving with a Jeremy's razor, if you are still using a razor made by

00:38:49.360 a company that says that you're toxic, you are, one, shaming yourself, and two, funding

00:38:55.920 the radical gender ideologues who wish that you would just disappear down a drain along 0.97

00:39:01.140 with that unwanted stubble.

00:39:02.380 Don't squish on your values.

00:39:03.780 Switch to Jeremy's razors and get your Founder Series Shave Kit today.

00:39:07.820 Go to jeremysrazors.com, jeremysrazors.com.

00:39:12.840 Now, finally, we have gotten to my favorite time of the week when I get to hear from you

00:39:16.980 in the mailbag.

00:39:18.340 The mailbag is sponsored by Pure Talk.

00:39:19.880 Go to puretalk.com.

00:39:20.900 Select a plan.

00:39:21.560 Enter promo code Knowles Podcast to get your second month for free.

00:39:26.720 Let's take it away with the voice mailbag.

00:39:28.400 Hi, Mr. Knowles.

00:39:30.440 I'm a 16-year-old high school student in Florida who is fortunate enough to be blessed

00:39:33.980 with the governorship of Ron DeSantis, but putting that aside, I'm taking an AP Environmental

00:39:37.840 Studies class this year, and I'm doing that for the purpose of getting my GPA up and my

00:39:43.180 grades, et cetera.

00:39:43.780 But the consequence of taking an AP Environmental class is I fundamentally disagree with a lot

00:39:49.980 of the stuff the teacher says about stuff like global warming and climate change and

00:39:52.980 et cetera, and I don't want to just debate teacher class or anything or sacrifice my grades,

00:39:58.720 but I also don't want to just sit idly by as I hear what I fundamentally disagree with.

00:40:03.940 So what do you think I should do in this situation?

00:40:06.600 Really great question, and I love that little caveat.

00:40:08.860 You said, look, I'm not there to debate the teacher.

00:40:10.560 And that's true.

00:40:12.160 You're actually not there to debate the teacher.

00:40:15.240 When you sign up for a course, you are there to learn something.

00:40:19.140 And so you should learn whatever you can.

00:40:21.480 You can learn things from very flawed people. 0.99

00:40:25.380 You can learn things from very ignorant people.

00:40:28.200 You can learn something from just about anybody. 0.97

00:40:32.500 There's a kind of old expression about this.

00:40:34.800 Every man is my teacher.

00:40:36.360 I can learn something from him.

00:40:38.380 So learn what you can.

00:40:41.000 When the teacher starts spouting nonsense, okay, you're not going to learn much from

00:40:45.280 that.

00:40:46.180 Tune that out.

00:40:48.380 Now, if the teacher calls on you, says, what do you think about this, or asks you to write

00:40:53.140 a paper, or starts interrogating you in class, then, and this is important, then you speak

00:41:00.780 up and you say what you really think.

00:41:02.160 I am not of the opinion that you should lie or hide your views or pretend to be a different

00:41:07.620 person just to get a decent grade in the AP course.

00:41:10.980 And then you'll go to college.

00:41:12.280 And then, well, then you'll have to hide your views and lie about them and squish too. 0.98

00:41:16.100 But then the only reason you'll do that is because then you'll get a good job.

00:41:18.960 And then when you get a good job, that's when you'll, oh, well, you'll probably have to squish.

00:41:22.500 I mean, you're going to be a first year at your new job.

00:41:24.700 And so you're not going to want to offend the upper management.

00:41:27.620 But it's okay.

00:41:28.180 Once you move up, maybe you're in middle management.

00:41:30.620 Then you can, well, you're going to have to squish too. 0.51

00:41:32.400 It's not your job to have opinions, you know, and you don't want to contradict the bosses,

00:41:35.940 ruffle any feathers.

00:41:36.740 But that's okay.

00:41:37.160 Maybe someday you'll become the CEO of the company.

00:41:40.260 And then you're going to, well, you probably can't say your opinion then either.

00:41:43.300 By golly, you have responsibilities maybe to your shareholders, maybe to your investors.

00:41:47.700 You got to do what's best for the company.

00:41:49.260 You can't, oh, and then you're going to die.

00:41:50.460 And then you'll have never had integrity at all.

00:41:53.640 So I'm not of that opinion.

00:41:56.180 But you need to be wise as a serpent, innocent as a dove.

00:41:59.640 You need to express your views and stand by your views.

00:42:04.320 But you don't need to be flamboyant about it, okay?

00:42:06.180 You don't need to wear the MAGA hat to AP Environmental Studies class every single day.

00:42:11.320 Next question.

00:42:13.500 Greetings, exalted Nostradamus.

00:42:15.940 Peace be upon you.

00:42:17.560 I have a question for you about acting.

00:42:20.240 I've been acting in theater for about eight years now, and I've recently secured an agent

00:42:25.280 to pursue acting professionally.

00:42:28.140 However, I have some concerns about the increasingly profane, obscene, and sexual content that you

00:42:35.360 see in TV and movies these days, and that I may be expected to do or say things for the

00:42:41.100 camera or on stage that directly contradict my morals.

00:42:44.740 So I was wondering if there is any gray area regarding what you do as an actor, morally

00:42:50.580 speaking.

00:42:51.320 Because since I'm only pretending, is it possible to do or say sinful things while remaining

00:42:56.700 inculpable?

00:42:58.080 Because my heart is in the right place, and my intention is merely to entertain the audience.

00:43:05.780 Basically, my question is, Jim Caviezel or Mark Wahlberg?

00:43:09.760 Thank you.

00:43:10.120 This is such a good question, and I was just discussing this last night with the Clavins,

00:43:16.180 Spencer Clavin and Drew Clavin.

00:43:18.040 And Spencer and I, we probably met for the very first time when we were doing plays and

00:43:23.320 operas and things in college.

00:43:25.040 So we've been thinking about this question for a long time.

00:43:28.080 And I think it's like the IQ bell curve meme, okay? 1.00

00:43:32.900 At the really dumb, stupid, idiot, drooling end of the spectrum, the guy's going to say, 1.00

00:43:37.460 duh, I don't know, actors are kind of liars, and they're doing bad stuff, and that's bad, 1.00

00:43:41.920 right? 0.88

00:43:42.400 And then you get into the middle of the IQ bell curve meme, and they say, no, actually,

00:43:45.840 when you're acting a role, it's completely divorced from your own person, and you have

00:43:49.260 no culpability whatsoever for the things you're thinking and doing.

00:43:52.400 Come on, a play is a play.

00:43:53.500 And then at the highest end of the IQ bell curve meme, I think you go back to the drooling

00:43:57.860 guy, and I think you say, no, actually, actors are kind of, you know, there's a reason

00:44:00.980 they weren't allowed in restaurants for a lot of history.

00:44:04.040 There's a reason they were lumped together with criminals and prostitutes for most of 1.00

00:44:07.000 history.

00:44:07.800 And there's a reason that the church took a pretty hard line against acting as a profession

00:44:12.500 and the theater broadly for, you know, roughly 1,400 to 1,600 years, because it is a complicated

00:44:22.060 question, and it's a little bit different.

00:44:24.280 When you are a writer and you write a story about, I don't know, a rape and a murder and

00:44:32.600 terrorism and a serial killer, your mind is wandering in certain places.

00:44:38.280 You are sometimes opening up wounds.

00:44:40.320 You're sometimes indulging kind of disordered thoughts and even desires.

00:44:44.300 And then you put it on paper, and that's that.

00:44:45.840 It's an action only of the mind.

00:44:47.720 When you are attending a play or watching a movie, you are allowing yourself to indulge

00:44:56.080 certain desires and things that could be disordered and not great for your soul.

00:45:00.600 But again, it is just in the mind.

00:45:02.300 It's not really in the body.

00:45:03.740 When you are acting uniquely, when you are acting, you are putting all of this into your

00:45:08.380 body.

00:45:09.980 And so you are really doing it.

00:45:11.460 And because we're incarnate creatures, that affects us.

00:45:14.960 This is especially true after what is colloquially referred to as method acting comes about,

00:45:22.200 which all comes out of Freud.

00:45:24.160 You have Freud come about.

00:45:26.660 You have the kind of psychological revolution of the late 19th century and early 20th century.

00:45:33.100 Then in Russia, you have the Stanislavski system, which is the first kind of method acting,

00:45:37.700 where Stanislavski, the director of the Moscow Art Theater, says, we're no longer going to

00:45:42.120 have representational, stilted acting, where you're basically like a glorified mime.

00:45:46.200 No, you're going to develop the inner life of your character, and you're going to live

00:45:49.720 truthfully in imaginary circumstances.

00:45:51.800 Out of that, then in New York, you get the group theater.

00:45:54.540 The group theater is people like Lee Strasberg, Stella Adler, Sanford Meisner, Uda Hagen,

00:46:01.120 all these people.

00:46:01.820 And they're all a bunch of communists, and they're all really into this stuff where your

00:46:05.940 inner life, it's all coming from the subconscious.

00:46:09.220 And they all do a lot of weird stuff.

00:46:12.100 Lee Strasberg, one of the great acting teachers in New York, won't name him, but he referred 0.86

00:46:17.820 to Lee Strasberg as a pervert and a voyeur.

00:46:20.580 And a lot of it, when people really get into the method, or any of this, the Meisner technique

00:46:26.700 or the Adler technique, sometimes it really can mess you up. 0.92

00:46:30.480 Okay, actors are all completely insane.

00:46:33.580 And it really can warp your soul and your body.

00:46:37.780 So I'm not going to give you the easy answer of, hey, don't worry about it.

00:46:41.200 It's okay.

00:46:42.520 You know, no big deal.

00:46:43.320 A play is a play.

00:46:44.020 No, you have to be very careful about it, because it is your mind, and it is your soul,

00:46:48.420 and it is your body.

00:46:49.240 Next question.

00:46:50.800 Hi, Michael.

00:46:51.460 Big fan of the show.

00:46:53.100 I think that too often, the left gains ground by defining the parameters by which conservatives

00:46:58.180 are allowed to speak.

00:47:00.080 One of those areas is the area of sexual orientation.

00:47:02.740 Here's what I mean.

00:47:05.060 The terms homosexual and heterosexual were once used exclusively as adjectives to describe

00:47:11.680 certain kinds of behavior.

00:47:13.180 But the left, I think, has turned them into nouns.

00:47:17.020 Now somebody can utter the sentence, I am a homosexual, and nobody blinks twice.

00:47:21.880 I believe this to be a purely ideological phenomenon that was aided by the medical community.

00:47:26.580 I don't believe there is such a thing as, quote-unquote, being straight or being gay.

00:47:32.620 I just believe there are beneficial preferences, which are to be pursued, and harmful preferences,

00:47:37.720 which are to be suppressed.

00:47:39.160 This dichotomy can be seen in every category of possible human desire, such as food, clothes,

00:47:45.040 music, etc., but none of these has anything to do with identity.

00:47:49.080 My question is, do you think it's time conservatives abandoned the idea that sexual preference has

00:47:56.340 anything to do with one's identity at all?

00:48:00.340 Thanks.

00:48:01.220 Love the show.

00:48:02.620 Yes, really, really excellent, incisive question.

00:48:06.980 And you're absolutely right, except a little bit at the end.

00:48:10.440 Because sexual preference can have something to do with identity if you make it your identity.

00:48:16.100 Just like race can have a whole lot to do with your identity if you make it your identity.

00:48:21.500 Just like, I don't know, some interest that you have, some hobby.

00:48:25.660 You work on model toy trains.

00:48:28.660 That can be your identity if you make it your identity.

00:48:31.640 But when you place your identity in small, particular, contingent, sort of often material things,

00:48:39.700 then you're not going to be happy.

00:48:41.520 You will not flourish because our identity has to be grounded in God in order for it to achieve its fullest expression.

00:48:49.940 Because we are essentially children of God.

00:48:52.380 We are made in the image of God.

00:48:54.000 God is the essence of being.

00:48:55.500 He says to Moses at the burning bush,

00:48:58.420 my name is I am who I am.

00:49:00.380 I am being himself.

00:49:03.920 And so when we have our identity in I am who I am, we know who we are.

00:49:09.420 When we put our identity anywhere else, we don't know who we are. 0.98

00:49:12.420 We're left with a sort of silly, pathetic question. 0.98

00:49:14.680 Who am I? 0.98

00:49:15.600 Who am I?

00:49:16.140 I've got to go find myself.

00:49:17.680 And that's certainly true now.

00:49:19.600 We're all obsessed with the sexual identity stuff.

00:49:21.800 But you're absolutely right when you say these things.

00:49:25.300 In all categories of human desire, there are better and worse things to pursue.

00:49:30.520 And so if you ground your identity in God and objective moral order,

00:49:33.700 that will give you guidance to that.

00:49:35.240 And you won't be left with like a 13-year-old girl just saying like,

00:49:38.360 hey man, what am I?

00:49:39.440 You know, I'm more of a black metal punk,

00:49:42.540 visco kind of, you know, pansexual, whatever, you know, I don't know.

00:49:47.900 I don't know how the kids talk these days. 0.97

00:49:49.280 But you won't be left with that kind of silly, shallow understanding of identity. 0.97

00:49:54.960 You'll know who you are. 0.97

00:49:56.400 You'll have grown up.

00:49:57.360 One time I heard, I was mentioning to a friend of mine 1.00

00:50:00.160 that a conservative friend of ours used all these stupid political monikers. 0.99

00:50:06.500 It's the right-wing version of gender pronouns. 0.99

00:50:08.540 You know, I am a minarchistic, libertarian, anarcho, traditional, syndicalist,

00:50:13.600 or whatever, all this stuff.

00:50:14.560 And my friend just, he sighed.

00:50:16.640 And he said, oh, just grow up.

00:50:18.180 Just grow up. 1.00

00:50:19.080 Enough with all the stupid identity markers. 1.00

00:50:21.040 Okay, next question. 1.00

00:50:21.740 Hey, Michael, James here.

00:50:24.740 I just saw a PragerU poll that asks who you would save, your dog or a stranger.

00:50:30.820 60% of the 30,000 respondents said they would save their dog.

00:50:35.480 Is there a single greater indicator of a sick and dying society?

00:50:39.460 Thanks, bye.

00:50:41.040 That's a pretty good one.

00:50:42.240 You're right.

00:50:42.680 And the reason they would save their dogs, by the way,

00:50:45.400 is not even because they just necessarily hate people.

00:50:48.340 It's because they think their dogs are their kids.

00:50:52.620 People no longer treat dogs as dogs.

00:50:54.500 They treat dogs as kids because people don't really have kids anymore.

00:50:58.240 And people are not even comfortable not having kids.

00:51:00.620 And they often don't have the strength and confidence and encouragement

00:51:03.920 to pursue that life, which can be very difficult

00:51:06.520 because they're not grounding their identity in anything

00:51:10.800 beyond just sort of fleeting pleasure and an eternal present.

00:51:15.440 So, yeah, they would save their dogs over the drowning person

00:51:21.340 because their dog, to them, is their kid.

00:51:24.100 But they don't realize the dog is a dog, okay? 0.75

00:51:27.280 And it's a sick society that thinks that dogs are kids.

00:51:30.520 Okay, one question that is written before we get into the member block.

00:51:35.020 We had a lot of fun stuff in the member block today.

00:51:36.980 We've got Kirk Cameron stopping by.

00:51:39.100 We've got more mail.

00:51:40.120 I like to do the extended mailbag in the member block

00:51:42.140 because I only get to one old-school written-out question

00:51:46.160 with all the voicemail bags.

00:51:47.700 So we'll get to that in the member block, too.

00:51:48.900 Before we get to that, though, from Abby.

00:51:50.180 Michael, been marinating on your discussion about dating apps last week

00:51:53.460 regarding Kayleigh McEnany's sister launching a dating app for conservatives.

00:51:57.120 It's a good start, but we need to stop treating singles like little islands.

00:52:01.700 I suggest we take it a step further and launch the Yenta app,

00:52:05.800 Fiddler on the Roof, where families do their job and connect loved ones.

00:52:09.080 We as individuals are not the best at understanding what we need comprehensively.

00:52:13.040 We need family input to get the 360. 0.98

00:52:15.080 Bring family back into dating.

00:52:16.680 Thoughts love the show.

00:52:17.880 Yeah, I think it's good to have family and close friends be involved in this kind of thing.

00:52:23.100 There was that story that just came out about how young people aren't having drinks

00:52:28.640 on their first dates anymore, and one of the explanations for this

00:52:31.760 is that they don't want to get date raped.

00:52:33.300 They don't want the random stranger that they're meeting up with 0.88

00:52:36.740 to slip them a Mickey and drag them home.

00:52:39.080 And now there are all of these completely misaligned expectations

00:52:44.300 of what it means to go on a first date,

00:52:45.900 and what are you going to do after the first date,

00:52:47.740 or the second date, or the third date.

00:52:49.440 And so now people are so on guard that they go,

00:52:51.860 and what should be a nice little love affair,

00:52:54.020 you know, you meet and you enjoy someone's company, 0.98

00:52:56.220 now you're on guard because you don't want them to rape you 0.80

00:52:58.460 because you're meeting a stranger.

00:52:59.720 So yeah, part of the explanation for that is,

00:53:02.440 because we have no idea who these people are now,

00:53:04.080 because we're just swiping them like commodities on our phones,

00:53:07.420 on our little portals to hell, instead of a situation where you say,

00:53:11.160 oh yeah, John, yeah, John was roommates with Billy,

00:53:14.060 and Billy is my sister's boyfriend.

00:53:16.720 And so we know, we know all these people for many years.

00:53:19.600 Oh, it's my cousin's co-worker who he's known for this.

00:53:22.420 And when you have a much more tightly knit social group,

00:53:25.300 you have much more trust in people.

00:53:27.640 And so it makes the dates go better.

00:53:29.240 It also makes society function a lot better as well.

00:53:31.560 Okay, the rest of the show is continuing right now,

00:53:35.020 and you don't want to miss it.

00:53:36.740 So if you're not a member,

00:53:37.780 click the link in the description and join us.

The Michael Knowles Show - September 01, 2022

Ep. 1080 - We Are All An ＂Extreme Threat to Democracy＂

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