Ep. 1156 - Donald Trump For Speaker Of The House
Episode Stats
Words per minute
173.0237
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Misogyny
12
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Toxicity
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Hate speech
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Summary
Donald Trump has been nominated as the next Speaker of the House of Representatives, and now we know who the next speaker will be, and it's a man named Matt Gaetz. Michael Knowles explains why he thinks Donald Trump would make a great Speaker.
Transcript
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It has finally happened, the moment we have been waiting for in the House speaker race.
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No, Kevin McCarthy has not yet won. No, we still do not have a speaker. But finally,
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after days of anticipation, someone finally nominated Donald Trump.
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Matt Gaetz, absolutely love it. And frankly, Donald Trump would be a great House speaker
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for this time in history. The only job of the House speaker over the next two years,
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while Democrats hold the White House and the Senate, is to gum things up for Biden.
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Nobody would do that with a greater aplomb than the Donald. The anti-Trumpers would get him out of
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the 2024 presidential race, probably. Maybe he'd just run for both. The pro-Trumpers would get him
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two heartbeats away from the Oval Office. And most important of all, we would get to watch him make
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snide remarks and funny faces at Joe Biden during the State of the Union. Matt Gaetz,
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I am sold. I'm Michael Knowles. This is The Michael Knowles Show.
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Welcome back to the show. My favorite comment yesterday is from Grip, who says,
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regarding the vote for speaker, see how hard it is to rig an election when there's no drop boxes
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and you verify the identity of everyone who's voting? It's amazing. It's so weird that there's a
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different set of rules when the congressmen want to vote than when we, the hoi polloi people,
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get to vote. When the congressmen vote, there's definitely election security. They know who's
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voting, that's for sure. And they got the precise numbers and they keep doing it until they get it
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America's coffee. Also, I should wish everybody a happy January 6th, a really, really wonderful day.
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Obviously, it's wonderful every single year that we celebrate January 6th, but just to imagine
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how glorious it must have been to be there at that blessed event, that day when wise men came from
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all over to worship their leader, the true leader of us all. It's just so fitting and so right. So I
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hope everybody is enjoying a blessed Feast of the Epiphany, and I look forward to it next year.
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Already, on this January 6th, this glorious blessed day, I am already looking forward to
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January 6th next year. By the time that rolls around, we might still be voting for the Speaker
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of the House. There is no evidence that this is going to be resolved anytime soon. Don't forget,
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the establishment told us that this was all going to be over on the first ballot. Kevin McCarthy was the
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anointed Speaker. He was going to get it. Some of the House Freedom Caucus people could
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throw a fuss about it, but it didn't matter. Kevin McCarthy had the votes. And then he didn't have
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the votes. And in part, this is because the red wave that was supposed to take place in November
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was not quite so red, not quite so wavy as we thought it would be. So all of a sudden, McCarthy
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needed the votes of those 20 members of the Freedom Caucus, and they were not so ready to give up
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their votes since the negotiations apparently broke down over the summer. So if you want to hear more
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about the machinations behind all of this, I conducted an interview yesterday with my friend
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Lauren Boebert. That's on YouTube. It's on the RSS feed as well. And obviously, of course, on Daily
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Wire Plus. So now here we are. First vote, McCarthy doesn't get it. Second vote, he doesn't get it.
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Third vote, doesn't get it. They adjourn. Next day, one, two, three, he doesn't get it. They adjourn.
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Next day, now we're on the 10th or 11th ballot. They're going to be voting again today,
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and people are pulling their hair out. This is terrible. It's the downfall of American democracy.
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This is the fall of our sacred democracy. Oh, no. It's amazing that they would say that on January
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6th. Amazing how history repeats itself. And yet, when you look at history, it's really not all that
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unusual. 1923, so 100 years ago, it took nine ballots to elect a speaker. 1833, 90 years before
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that, it took 10 ballots. 1839 took 11 ballots. 1821, 12 ballots. 1819, 22 ballots. 1859, 44 ballots.
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1849, 63 ballots to elect a speaker. And 1855, it took 133 ballots to elect a speaker.
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This has happened before. It's okay. It will be all right. We will end up with a speaker of the House.
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It just might not be the anointed speaker of the House that the establishment has rallied behind.
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It might not be. And it's, you can make all the arguments in the world for why Kevin McCarthy
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deserves it, and why Kevin McCarthy has labored in leadership for years and years, and how Kevin
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McCarthy is much more conservative than John Boehner or whoever. It's fine. I'm not even disputing those
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things. The job of the speaker, the job of someone in congressional leadership is to lead.
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The first test of that is, can you get enough votes to put yourself in office? If you can't,
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then you're probably not up to that job. Now, speaking of potential speaker Donald John Trump,
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one consequence of this speaker fight is it does suggest that Trump's hold on the GOP is slipping a
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little bit because Trump has vocally supported Kevin McCarthy. He has campaigned actively for him.
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He has called the members of the Freedom Caucus, who are the holdouts, and begged them to switch
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their vote to McCarthy. And it hasn't worked just yet. So I'm not saying that that means that Donald
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Trump is not going to be the nominee in 2024. I'm not saying that Donald Trump is not the most
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important Republican or the head of the party. I'm just saying that kind of a situation would not
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have occurred in 2018. In 2018, if Trump picks up the phone, tells you to do something, you're going to
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do it. So it means that there is a lot more at play, that the party is not just operating as a
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kind of deterministic machine where we the people have nothing to say about it. And I think that's
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a pretty good thing. If we're going to live in a democratic republic, then give it to me. Don't give
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me a facade that seems like it's a republic, but actually it's just some corrupt kind of oligarchy.
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Give me the real thing. I want campaigning. I want electioneering. I want fighting on the floor of the
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House of Representatives. I want congressmen yelling at one another and wheeling and dealing
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and smoking cigars and back rooms. I want all of it. And I think there's a reason that you saw a lot
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of this in the 19th century. There was a raucous kind of democratic culture in the 19th century,
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a little bit too raucous toward the middle of the 19th century. But it was a real period of change
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within the parties and within the relationship of the people to their government. And so I'm all for
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it. That's fine. Give it to me. If we're going to live under a democracy, I guess that's what we're
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going to have. Now, speaking of the congressmen and Democrats, Democrat Representative Robert Garcia,
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whenever we get a Speaker of the House, plans to take the oath of office not on a Bible,
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but on a comic book. Representative-elect Garcia has said that he is eschewing the Bible.
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He's going to swear his oath of office on the Constitution, on his citizenship papers,
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on a picture of his dead parents, and on a Superman comic that he borrowed from the government.
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Very childish, obviously, to take the oath of office on a comic. It's embarrassing. It's
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humiliating for our whole country, and certainly for this guy.
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There's something deeper going on, though. The shallow take on this is just, wow, this is an
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overgrown man-child. What a joke. Our Congress, we're living in clown world. But there's something
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deeper going on, because the purpose of swearing the oath of office is that you are swearing by
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that which you worship, that which you hold most sacred, that to which you feel most accountable.
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The whole purpose of the oath of office, it's not just some empty ritual that we do because
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people used to do it in the old-timey days. We do it because what you were saying is,
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I promise that I will work for the common good. I'll defend the Constitution. I won't be corrupt.
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I'll pursue good and avoid evil. And I'm swearing by my God. May God help me if I do not do that.
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Okay? And so if you believe in God, if you believe that such a vow matters, you're more likely to keep
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your promises. But for the modern lib types who don't believe in God, it's not just that then
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there is a void. It's that you swear by other gods. So the gods that he is swearing by here are
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the gods of the state, his citizenship papers, even the Constitution. The fact that he would swear by
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that means that what he holds most dear, what he holds most sacred, is the state, his ancestors,
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and a myth. I won't even just call it a child's story, which Superman is, but a myth. That is
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valuable. There is great value in the state. There's great value in your ancestors. There's
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great value in myths. But it's a sorry comparison to God. And it's pagan too, is the other thing.
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In pagan societies, in godless societies, people swear by the state. The state is held as the
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supreme thing. Or one's ancestors. People, when they give up God, they engage in a kind of ancestor
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worship. Or myths. You think of the old Greek and Roman myths, which are different from true religion,
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which worships the one true God in a way which is logical. That's why we have theology.
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The pagan myths do not have theology. The pagan myths are not identified with the logos. You
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actually see this going back all the way to the ancient Greek writers, distinguishing between
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the mythological stories of the gods and the true God, the truth, the logic, the first mover,
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the creator. This is a natural consequence of a society that is giving up God and specifically
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giving up Christianity, which has animated our civilization and has allowed our civilization
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to become the greatest in the history of the world. And as we give that up, expect a lot more
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confused people taking their oath of office on a comic book. And I tell you, I don't want to put
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the good of my society, my future, my family, my state, my country. I'm willing to stake that on
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God. I am not willing to stake that on a comic book. Okay? I trust that God will see us through.
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That's where I put my trust. We write that on our money here. In God, we trust. That's our motto.
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It's in the national anthem. In Superman, I do not trust. Now, when you want to put your faith in God,
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I strongly recommend you check out the Bible in a Year podcast. Right now, go to ascensionpress.com
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the reading plan for free. Speaking of comic books, I don't read comic books. I don't go see the comic
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book movies except when the Daily Wire forces me to. I'm not a big fan. However, I have to defend the
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comic books a little bit because there's a new hubbub over DC Comics in which apparently it's a
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Batman comic. I used to really like Batman when I was a kid. And in the Batman comic, the Joker,
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who is a man, becomes pregnant and gives birth to a mud monster who transforms into a child version
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of the Joker and who he then adopts as his son. Apparently, some other villain in the comic book
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pushes the Joker into a big pile of mud and the curse that this character puts on the Joker doesn't
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work and the Joker becomes pregnant. And now some people are reacting and saying, this is DC Comics
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going woke. This is pushing the transgender agenda in our comics and this is terrible. And I actually
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have no problem with this. He's the Joker. He's the bad guy. It's okay, I think, in artistic depictions
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and certainly in mythological depictions, which is what the superhero stories are, I think it's okay
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when disordered experiences and desires and states of being are represented in the bad guys.
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I would not be so placid about it all if Batman became pregnant. That would be pretty weird. That
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would probably be pushing a woke thing. But yeah, the Joker is a pretty disordered guy and it's pretty
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disordered for a guy to get pregnant. I have no problem when Milton in Paradise Lost represents
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Satan as giving birth through his head to sin and death. It's kind of trans, I guess, but not really.
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It's okay. It's a mythological depiction of something and something that's quite evil and
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quite disordered. So if the comic books want to portray transgenderism as just bizarre and wrong
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evil in something the Joker does, okay, that's fine. Something you should avoid. Now, if the Joker
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becomes the hero, then I guess we have a problem. Speaking of gender identity, there's a group of
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scientists that has just discovered that there is no biological basis for transgenderism. Can you
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believe that these people get paid to do this? Can you imagine how much these scientists got paid
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the funding they had to conduct this study to know what every three-year-old knows? That's amazing.
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But it's good that they're doing it because our culture is so crazy that it takes courageous
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scientists to go out and buck the politically correct norm. But this is an international group
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of over 100 clinicians and researchers who have attested that there is no biological evidence for
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gender identity. They've observed that no laboratory test can distinguish a trans-identified
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person from a non-trans-identified person. What they write, quote, the assumption of the core
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biological underpinning for gender identity and gender dysphoria remains an unproven theory.
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While biology likely plays a role in gender non-conformity, currently there is no brain,
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blood, or other objective test that distinguishes a trans-identified from a non-trans-identified person
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once confounding factors such as sexual orientation, meaning desire, are controlled for. This is
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according to the Society for Evidence-Based Gender Medicine. Okay, I'm glad that they're debunking
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this idea that you'll sometimes hear this among the most eccentric and incoherent transgender
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activists. They'll say, well, you know, the brain of a man who identifies as a woman, it's actually
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closer to a woman's brain. Which is funny because the libs for years told us there's no difference between
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the brains of men and women. Do you remember that? Do you remember in the days of feminism when we were
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told there? Absolutely no. The only differences between boys and girls is that, is a few secondary
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sex characteristics, but the brains are exactly the same. How dare you say that women have different
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brains than men? Until they wanted transgenderism. And they said, no, of course the brains are totally
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different. But there's never been any scientific evidence for that. The reason that some transgender
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activists have made that argument is because they're materialists. And they're atheists. And they
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don't believe in the soul. And they don't believe in metaphysics. And so they can't discuss these
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issues of anthropology in a sophisticated way. The only thing they can talk about is just stuff
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and matter. So they have to ground the soul, which is what they're really trying to talk about,
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in something physical. And they know they can't ground it in the visible physical attributes of
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a person. So they say, oh yeah, it's somewhere in the brain. Yeah, somewhere in the brain that you
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can't see, that's where you find out that a boy's really a girl. But that never made sense.
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And the more serious and intellectual transgender activists will be more honest. And what they will
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say is, there's a difference between sex and gender. And sex is your physical state. And gender
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is your non-physical state. So physically, you could be a man. But metaphysically, you're a woman.
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And what they're really talking about there is the soul. And these guys are a little more
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sophisticated and intellectual in the way that they're talking about it. But it still doesn't
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hold up. Because then you have to ask, okay, well, what is the relationship to the body and
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the soul? And the relationship between the body and the soul is that the soul is the substantial form
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of the body. That the body is a symbol of the soul. And so the two are linked. And the technical term
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for this is hilomorphism. This is how Aristotle describes the relationship between form and matter,
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between the metaphysical stuff and the physical stuff. And very quickly, not to go down a long
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discourse on ancient Greek philosophy, but very quickly, this conversation goes over the heads of
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the transgender promoters. Because they want to talk about the soul when it gives them some way of
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justifying their absurd idea that a man can really be a woman. But they don't want to go so far as to
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have a serious conversation about the soul. They're not capable of doing that. Because when you do that,
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when you raise this possibility that the soul is entirely different from the body, that the soul can
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be in total opposition to the body, their argument, I think, at that point falls apart. But then it
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especially falls apart. Because if you're saying, okay, these two things are entirely distinct,
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and you want to bring them into conformity with one another, well, then that raises the obvious
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question, okay, if my soul is one thing and my body is this other thing, why do I have to change
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my body? Why can't I just change my soul? Why can't I just change my mind is really the question that
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comes up. If I look like a man, but my mind tells me that I'm a woman, well, just change my mind. I change
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my mind about things all the time. I go, I say, hey, I want sushi for lunch. And then my buddy says,
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hey, actually, I want to get burritos. I say, okay, let's get burritos. There we go. I just
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change my mind. It's very easy to change your mind. It's very hard to change your body. It requires
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extremely painful surgeries, extremely expensive surgeries, sterilizing yourself, grafting off your
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skin from your legs and your arms to create this grotesque caricature of genitalia. Why don't you
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just change your mind? All of that falls apart. All of which to say, getting back to the scientific
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document, debunking the biological basis for gender identity. Yeah, obviously that's true.
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Obviously there's no biological basis for these sexual delusions of boys who think they're girls.
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It's important to establish that, but it doesn't answer the question. The question of transgenderism
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is not, is it physical? The question of transgenderism is, is it real? Yes, I know
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gender identity is not in your brain somewhere. It's not in your hands. It's not, yes, but not every
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real thing is physical. Love, language, geometry, most things that we hold dear are not physical,
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but they are nonetheless real. So I think conservatives have fallen into this trap too. And I suspect a lot
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of these scientists are relatively conservative compared to the culture. And they want to ground
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everything following the enlightenment and following the scientific revolution and following
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modern liberalism. They want to ground every single thing in something physical and say, well,
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if it's not physical, if I can't see it under a microscope, then it's not real. Okay, I guess that
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will help you make certain calculations about certain physical phenomena. But most of the stuff that we care
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about in the world is not physical. We all behave every moment of every day as if we believe that there
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is more to the world than just the physical world. So then we have to ask ourselves, okay, what is the
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nature of the metaphysical world? And is there such a thing as gender identity there? Is the soul totally
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distinct from the body? What religion are we living under? Okay, and because we, for most of our
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country's history, we took those questions seriously and came to relatively reasonable conclusions about
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that, namely various interpretations of Christianity, some far more precise, some a little less precise.
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But that was what animated our country. That's what our founding fathers said. That's what the men who
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developed not only our country, but our civilization said. Okay, I get that. That gives me a grounding
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of who we are and what we're all doing here together.
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As that has fallen apart because of our ignorance and sin and vice, as that has fallen apart, now we're very,
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very confused. And men are chopping off their genitals and equally confused men are taking the oath of office
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in the U.S. Congress on a comic book. Not great. We got to turn it around or else this country is going
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Promo code Knowles. Speaking of our advertisers, and speaking of getting back to Christianity,
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00:25:26.340
Bible in a Year, which you've heard me mention on the show many times, heard me mention today,
00:25:30.720
Bible in a Year remains one of the top podcasts in the country.
00:25:39.140
Bible in a Year right now is the number three podcast in the country, according to the charts.
00:25:44.120
Do you know what the number two podcast is? The Bible Recap, which is another Bible podcast,
00:25:50.720
this one put out by D Group. Do you know what the number one podcast in the country is?
00:25:56.200
Catechism in a Year, also with Father Mike Schmitz, who does Bible in a Year.
00:26:02.680
This one Catholic priest is the host of two of the three most popular podcasts in the country,
00:26:08.480
one of which is on the Bible, one of which is on the Catechism of the Catholic Church.
00:26:13.260
And then the podcast that's wedged right in the middle of those two is the top three
00:26:16.500
is also a Bible podcast. This is great news. I know there's all terrible news in the culture
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00:26:23.040
and in the politics. This is great news. What that tells me is not that our country is totally
00:26:30.920
fine right now. Not that actually we're still a serious Christian country that has our act together.
00:26:36.160
It doesn't tell me that. But it tells me that there is a longing in the country
00:26:41.140
to return to that which is true and good and beautiful. There is a longing. We're not there right
00:26:47.660
now. If we lived in a country that had its act together, spiritually, personally, politically,
00:26:55.120
I suspect that Bible in a Year and Catechism in a Year probably wouldn't be the top three podcasts.
00:27:02.600
I suspect you might have some religion shows as the top podcasts. You might be Father Mike Schmitz,
00:27:09.060
but they would be more advanced. They would be on the lives of the saints. They would be on the
00:27:15.140
doctors of the church. They would be on more technical aspects of the faith, I think, probably.
00:27:23.460
Because we would all know our Bible really, really well. We would all know the Catechism really,
00:27:27.420
really well. The Bible in a Year podcast is, I mean, it's edifying for people who've been in the
00:27:33.820
church their whole lives. But it's also totally acceptable to people who are just questioning,
00:27:37.880
who don't even know what they believe. Catechism in a Year is that primer. Okay,
00:27:42.240
what does it mean to be in the church? What does the church say? What does the church taught
00:27:45.340
for 2,000 years? It's totally open and accessible and can be very basic for people,
00:27:52.000
which is a wonderful thing. Because it's people who have been raised basically without religion
00:27:56.300
who recognize, wow, something has gone horribly wrong here. Whatever, I don't know what it was,
00:28:05.700
but something broke in the last 70 years. And I want to get back to that thing that we lost.
00:28:11.980
That's absolutely great news. Speaking of enduring things, the oldest woman that had been living in
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00:28:19.940
America just died. She died at the age of 115. And according to nurses, her final words were,
00:28:28.400
I have information that will lead to the arrest of Hillary Clinton. It's true. No, that part's not true.
00:28:33.640
But the oldest woman, the oldest living woman in America did die, 115 years old. And her actual
00:28:39.660
last words were not, I hope we're not about Hillary Clinton. I don't know. Her actual last words,
00:28:43.640
though, it seems, were about hard work. In the later years, not her very final breath that she uttered,
00:28:49.400
but in the final years of her life, people kept asking her, how did you live so long? And she kept
00:28:54.260
going back to this answer, hard work, and the love of my family, and good genes, and all of this. But
00:29:00.160
you know, working hard. And this is really, really important for us to remember. Because a lot of
00:29:05.500
people in our modern culture believe that the reason that we go to work is so that we can have
00:29:12.100
the weekends. For your career, the reason that you go trudge along all day at your job, that maybe
00:29:17.520
you like it, but maybe, probably more likely, you don't like your job all that much. The reason that you do
00:29:22.120
it is because you have to do it to make a little bit of money so you can get to the weekend, and then
00:29:25.460
you can watch some TV, and you can chill out and eat some potato chips, and then you got to go to
00:29:29.460
work again on Monday. And we're going to do that for 50 years, and then maybe if we're lucky, we get
00:29:36.880
to quit our jobs and sit on the couch and eat potato chips until we die. And that view, we're all tempted
00:29:43.100
by it at different times, but that view is not in accordance with our nature. We are made to work.
00:29:50.020
Ever since Adam took that fateful bite, humanity has been kicked out of the Garden of Eden, and by
00:29:58.220
the sweat of our brow will we earn our food. And it is good. Some people in my family and friends
00:30:06.280
have done just fine in retirement. More often than not, people go crazy in retirement, and there are
00:30:12.560
statistics on this that people very often will die shortly after they retire because they lose a sense
00:30:18.160
of meaning and purpose. We are meant to work. And there's even a strange phenomenon that I have even
00:30:25.460
noticed in the new year, which is that in the lead up to the holidays, people usually slack off a little
00:30:31.780
bit. People stop showing up to work as much. You kind of slow down. Okay, we'll get started again.
00:30:35.940
And then you hit the ground running at the beginning of January. And what's weird is I have found during
00:30:41.560
periods in my life where I'm slacking off a little bit, I'm far less energetic. Maybe I'm sleeping
00:30:48.920
more. Maybe I'm relaxing more. But I have lower energy than when I'm working hard and not sleeping
00:30:55.300
that much and I've got a thousand things that I've got to do. We are meant to work. Take that advice
00:31:00.940
from the oldest woman in America. I'm not saying you got to just put all your efforts to trudging away in
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the widget factory or something. Far from that. But you're working for your boss to make your paycheck
00:31:10.540
and you're working for your family. And then you're working for God. There's a reason that there is that
00:31:16.180
old maxim that we all know is true in our lives. Idle hands are the devil's playground. Do not be
00:31:23.360
idle. Okay? People write in all the time about vices that they have. They'll say,
00:31:29.680
I've been an alcoholic. The main one that people write in about is porn or the hookup culture.
00:31:35.160
Because sex is so central to our nature. They'll say, oh, I'm addicted to drugs. Or I'm addicted
00:31:40.880
to social media. Or oh, I'm addicted to that. What's the common thread here? The common thread
00:31:45.840
to all of those things is that you do them when you're not doing anything else. That's when we
00:31:50.000
just sit around and doom scroll. So you got to work. And it's a new year. And people make all sorts
00:31:54.720
of resolutions that they immediately break. But when you look ahead to the year, you have to ask
00:31:58.960
yourself, what are we doing? What are we going to do? Frankly, I see this reflected in the
00:32:03.380
leadership fight. As I've said, I'm not a member of Congress. I don't, as far as political battles
00:32:08.960
go, this one is not super high up on my list. I think leadership fights really are just for the
00:32:13.280
members to decide. And they involve a lot more than political issues. But I like seeing this fight.
00:32:18.780
I am glad that the Republicans are not just sleepwalking idly into, well, this is what we're
00:32:24.580
told we're going to do. And we don't really have any say over it anyway. And so we're just going to
00:32:28.400
keep on doing the same old thing. Okay, I'm going to go do my TV show hit. And then I'm going to go
00:32:32.660
back and fundraise. And okay, whatever. No, I want to see my representatives engaged in real fights,
00:32:40.500
getting real concessions out of one another, talking about real issues. That is not a bug of
00:32:46.120
our system. That is a feature. Last year, Jordan Peterson joined Daily Wire Plus. He has been putting
00:32:54.320
the rest of us to shame with his output. You want to talk about energy. That guy is like the energizer
00:32:58.360
bunny. Seems like every day there's something new from Jordan. And it is very high quality too.
00:33:02.440
Specials such as Logos and Literacy, a special on marriage, and brand new episodes of the biblical
00:33:07.980
series Exodus. As I am speaking, Jordan right now is probably recording something new for us.
00:33:14.980
If you want to see it, you have got to become a member because you will only find it on Daily Wire Plus.
00:33:19.960
So head on over to dailywire.com slash Knowles to become a member and watch all of this and more.
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delivered. Finally, finally, we have arrived for the first time in the new year at my absolute
00:34:12.560
favorite day of the week. That would be mailbag day. Let's take it away with the voice mailbag.
00:34:19.980
Hello there, soon-to-be Speaker of the House Michael Knowles. I listen to your show pretty
00:34:26.600
much every single day of my life, and I hardly ever disagree with you. But the other day you brought
00:34:31.860
up New York's new burial composting law, and you said that it's a degradation, that it's disrespectful
00:34:37.380
to the dead, that we absolutely shouldn't do it. But as a conservative guy myself, I've always thought
00:34:43.480
that that's the right thing to do. I've always wondered why do we pump bodies full of formaldehyde?
00:34:48.380
Why do we screw their jaws shut? Why do we bury people in concrete tombs to preserve them forever?
00:34:54.480
It just doesn't make any sense to me. It seems that the natural thing that God desired was for
00:34:59.880
us to return our bodies back to the earth, to give back to his creation so that future generations can
1.00
00:35:07.200
have the nutrients the earth needs. So where's the disconnect here? Thanks.
00:35:12.400
The question I would ask you, first of all, thank you, not only for listening to the show, but for your
00:35:16.940
clear wisdom on who the next Speaker of the House should be. Not that I would ever want it. Okay,
00:35:22.320
not that I've, I've never sought that office. I would only accept it if the Congressman elected me
00:35:27.900
to it. The question you have to ask yourself on the composting is, why do you believe that God
00:35:35.680
intended for us to be thrown into the garden and have tomatoes grow out of this? You said,
00:35:39.960
it seems to me that God just wanted this to happen. Okay, why do you believe that? Is there a scriptural
00:35:45.940
basis for why you believe that? Probably not. Is there a basis in the tradition of the church that
00:35:54.640
would have you believe that? Certainly not. Why do you believe that? Maybe you believe it because
00:36:00.880
God says, remember man that thou art dust and unto dust thou shalt return. Yeah, that's certainly true.
1.00
00:36:05.900
But that's true whether you're put in a coffin or whether you're thrown to the dogs in the garden
00:36:10.960
or chopped up like mulch. You will return to dust. That's just a fact of the physical world. The
00:36:17.200
question is, how do we treat dead bodies? Do we treat them as the remains of people made in the image
00:36:26.800
and likeness of God and beloved family members and with some reverence, with some respect? Or do we
00:36:32.720
treat them like fertilizer? The composting law chooses the latter category? The composting law is
00:36:41.600
based on an anthropology that denies the soul, I think, that at least implicitly denies the soul.
00:36:51.860
It's based on a theology that is not Christian, at the very least, I think we would say. There have
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been other religions in history that throw people to the dogs. Zoroastrianism would throw people to
1.00
00:37:05.100
vultures or to the dogs. But that's not our view. That's a different religious view. And so I don't
00:37:12.880
think that you need to embalm the dead. I don't think you need to pump them full of formaldehyde or
00:37:16.420
put them in special makeup or build a giant mausoleum for them. But I do think that we need
00:37:20.900
to treat dead bodies with respect and reverence. And we shouldn't just intentionally accelerate the
00:37:27.800
process of them turning into tomatoes so that we can eat them in some bizarre pagan ritual like
00:37:32.840
cannibal indigenous people do, where they'll eat a piece of their relatives or something.
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00:37:38.200
That would be disordered and disrespectful, I think. And likewise, I don't think that we should
00:37:42.880
burn our dead either. It's certainly less egregious an offense than composting them. But I also think
00:37:49.520
it's quite pagan to burn the dead. I think it makes a mockery of the idea of the resurrection of the
00:37:55.140
body. Next question. Hi, Michael Arun here. You recently explained objective reality as not being
00:38:02.500
the only aspect of reality. For example, you explained that the sun may be the center of the
00:38:09.580
solar system for the purpose of calculation. But in a very real sense, the earth is really the center
00:38:15.620
of the solar system. Now, I like this idea. And I agree that we may give a bit too much primacy to
00:38:22.760
the idea of objective reality as opposed to, I guess, metaphysical reality. But what do we do
00:38:27.980
about the truth claims that are made by various religions? Just to use an example from your faith,
00:38:33.380
St. Paul says that Jesus is risen from the dead in a real sense. And if he is not, then your faith is
00:38:40.500
in vain. So my question for you is, do you believe that Jesus is risen from the dead in the same sense
00:38:47.360
that the sun is the center of the solar system or in the same sense that the earth is the center?
00:38:52.940
I think this will help me to much better understand this distinction between objective reality and
00:38:58.460
metaphysical reality. Thank you, as always, for your wisdom.
00:39:02.760
Arun, continuing to prove yourself one of my absolute favorite members of the Michael Knowles
00:39:08.140
show. And a really, really intelligent question. Not that we would expect anything less. A little bit of a
00:39:15.060
correction here, though. I think you're falling into the language trap that I'm trying to avoid,
00:39:22.640
which is conflating scientific reality or physical observation with objective reality.
00:39:30.020
And I think certain things can be objectively perceived in physical reality, but certain things
00:39:38.040
are also objectively true metaphysically. So I wouldn't say that the physical world is,
00:39:42.980
that's the objective reality in the metaphysical world is subjective. That's actually the thing
00:39:46.220
that I'm arguing against. But the rest of your question, I think, acknowledges that fact.
00:39:51.700
So the point, as you summarized it, is, yeah, it's true. When I look up and I make some calculations
00:40:00.980
and I make some scientific experiments about the physical world, I can discover that the earth
00:40:06.480
revolves around the sun. So that means the earth is not at the center of the solar system or at the
00:40:11.800
center of the universe. But metaphysically speaking, because man is the meeting of the
00:40:16.280
physical body with the rational soul, man is, in a deeper sense, the center of the cosmos.
00:40:22.660
So which is it? Is man the center of the universe or not? Well, because metaphysical reality is more
00:40:29.420
fundamental than physical reality, physical reality is contingent on metaphysical reality.
00:40:33.740
That's why it's metaphysical. It's beyond physics. I think it is truer and more profound to say that
00:40:40.920
man is the center of the universe. But for the purposes of making certain physical calculations,
00:40:46.100
I think it's fair enough to say that the earth revolves around the sun. Now, you ask about
00:40:50.400
my religion. What about the resurrection of Christ? Is that metaphysically true in some sense? Is it
00:40:58.740
kind of a really nice metaphor, but it didn't actually physically happen? Or did it physically
00:41:06.060
happen? It's not a metaphor, but it physically happen? In the person of Christ, you see uniquely
00:41:13.780
the perfect meeting of the physical and the metaphysical. They are both true simultaneously
00:41:20.840
in Christ. God, Christ is fully man and fully God. He metaphorically feeds 5,000 people with just a few
00:41:32.900
loaves of bread. He also literally fed 5,000 people with just loaves of bread. He metaphorically turns
00:41:38.720
the water of ritual into the wine of celebration and marriage. He also literally did that. He
00:41:46.440
metaphysically saves us, or metaphorically saves us, metaphorically rises from the dead and is
00:41:53.460
resurrected. That also physically happened. In Christ, it has to be the perfect meeting. Earlier on in the
00:42:00.240
show, I talked about the silliness of taking the oath of office on a Superman comic and pointed out
00:42:06.840
that this is kind of a pagan practice, that the pagan myths are just myths. What distinguishes the pagan
00:42:13.020
myths from the Christian story? Even according to the self-understanding of the pagans, in most cases,
00:42:23.000
the myths are metaphorical. Christianity is the true myth. The myths partake of literary genres such as
0.98
00:42:36.480
poetry or myth, I guess, or fable. Christianity, the gospels, are journalism, along with all the other
00:42:46.100
genres. But it's journalism. This man, at this time, did these miraculous things. And these other
00:42:55.620
physical men who were born in bodies and dates and times and real place actually saw them happen. And
00:43:00.440
there were 500 eyewitnesses to the resurrection. And there were 12 apostles. And they went all around
00:43:04.940
the world. And they spread this thing that actually happened. In Christ and in the sacraments that he
00:43:10.900
institutes, we see this perfect meeting of the physical and metaphysical. Next question.
00:43:16.420
Greetings to you, Nostradamus, from the Rio Grande Valley. Often you discuss how men ought to be men,
00:43:22.420
how we should be leaders for our families, and that as men of faith and good character,
00:43:26.920
we should exercise, with discretion, executive authority in our relationship or marriage.
00:43:31.940
Where, if any, have you made concessions with your wife, and why? Also, do you have tattoos?
00:43:41.460
I only have tattoos when I'm playing guitar at the Ryman. That's when I have tattoos. The rest of
00:43:47.020
the time, I do not have tattoos. How does that work? Well, it's a profound physical and metaphysical
00:43:53.120
conundrum, which I'm sure we can explore at some other time. In terms of making concessions to your
00:43:58.000
wife, of course, we all make concessions to our wife. I've certainly done that. And when I think of
00:44:04.180
my day-to-day life, sweet little Elisa makes most of the decisions. Ultimately, I guess I'm the
00:44:13.740
decider, to quote George W. Bush. But practically speaking, Elisa makes most of these decisions.
1.00
00:44:21.640
What are we going to have for dinner? Where are we going this weekend? What are the kids wearing?
00:44:25.680
What am I wearing, frankly? She makes most of those decisions. But because the husband is the
00:44:33.880
head of household, and man is the head of wife, husband is the head of a wife, as Christ is the
00:44:39.240
head of the church, there is this leadership role within a marriage. So what does that look like in
00:44:44.720
practice? Well, one decision where Elisa and I did not totally see eye-to-eye, and I just delegated it
00:44:50.440
to Elisa, because why not, was our bedroom furniture. Our bedroom furniture is a little more
00:44:57.240
modern than I like. It's still pretty trad, but Elisa, look, she spends more time than I do in
00:45:04.380
the bedroom. She doesn't spend most of her time in the bedroom, but she spends more time than I do
0.99
00:45:07.920
because she's there with the babies, and she's in the home, and so that's okay. She has a vision for
00:45:14.400
how the bedroom's going to look. Okay, that's fine. Rest of the house, where I spend more time,
00:45:18.520
I had a little bit more to say about those things. But beyond these little disputes that are
00:45:24.000
inevitably going to arise in any marriage, because two people are different, I think the more
00:45:29.200
important thing is that not only do you have to compromise, and you get this room, and I get this
00:45:36.260
room, and you got this dinner, and now we're going to this place, and now this. You actually,
00:45:40.280
you want to mold your wills to be in accord with one another. It's not merely that you need to come
00:45:48.160
to some kind of contractual conclusion about the particular things you're going to do.
00:45:56.500
Marriage is also about transforming the will so that your desires are actually ever closer to one
00:46:04.900
another. I mean, that is how you become one flesh, more and more so over time. And this is also,
00:46:12.200
by the way, to get back to the analogy that marriage is. Marriage is a symbol of the relationship
00:46:17.860
between Christ and his church. You, broadly, you and your wife in your marriage and your whole church
00:46:23.320
want evermore to conform your will to God's will. So it's not just that you want, that you're going to
00:46:30.580
do the things that God tells you to do grudgingly, but you actually want to cultivate the desire to do
00:46:36.360
what God wants you to do. And you want to tamp down the desire to do things that are contrary to
00:46:42.140
God's will. I mean, this is, of all the beautiful images in Dante's comedy, in the Divine Comedy,
00:46:48.240
this, to me, is the most profound and enduring and transformative, which is that you're actually
00:46:54.580
turning your will toward God, whose will is the love that moves the sun and the other stars.
00:47:06.220
Hey, Swarthy Mike, it's Damaris from Arizona, and I have a dating slash relationship question for you.
00:47:11.260
I am a young college-age girl. I'm very religious, and I don't hide that or make a point to hide it.
00:47:18.300
I tend to be very modest in my dress and my behavior and my thinking and in my speech.
00:47:23.120
And by all of today's standards, it would seem that I would be considered outdated and obscure.
00:47:31.280
With that in mind, I know you get a lot of questions about what girls look for in guys,
00:47:36.600
but I really like your perspective on what does a guy look or find most attractive in a woman,
00:47:41.900
and maybe more specifically, a religious woman. I'd love to hear your thoughts. Thank you so much
00:47:46.620
for all you do. Thank you for the show, and proud to be a creme de la creme for the rest of my life.
00:47:51.660
Wonderful to hear from you. Thank you for writing in. I'm glad you specified at the end,
00:47:58.700
what does a guy look for in a religious girl? Because when you say, what does a guy look for
0.83
00:48:02.440
in a girl? I think you've got to be a little more specific. You've got to be more specific
0.99
00:48:05.460
about the guy, his perspective, time of life. What's he looking for exactly? What's he looking for
00:48:10.780
in a girl like you, Damaris? I think what one would look for is a serious woman.
1.00
00:48:20.640
You should be fun. You should make yourself look pretty as one does. You should do all of the kind
00:48:27.620
of normal things that go along with dating. But one thing that I always found to be a real turnoff
00:48:33.920
with women, and I continue to find to be a turnoff with women, even though I'm not on the market
1.00
00:48:37.440
anymore. I still chat with plenty of women. And one thing that I just think, oh, get this lady
1.00
00:48:43.880
away from me, is when women play a lot of games. When they're all sort of just trying to play these
1.00
00:48:51.300
little frivolous sort of games. I find that in just my daily life very off-putting, and certainly
00:48:57.840
in my dating life when I was single, I found this very, very off-putting. And the thing,
00:49:03.140
there are many things that I love about Sweet Little Elisa, but one of them in particular is Sweet
00:49:06.500
Little Elisa. She's a serious girl, okay? She's one of, if not the funniest woman I have ever met,
00:49:14.880
which I do find important, actually. And one of, if not the most perceptive women that I've ever met.
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But she takes herself seriously. She isn't blown away on fads and games and passions. I find that to
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be really, really important, okay? And when you look at depictions of love, particularly from the
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courtly love tradition, where when we think about the literary tradition of love, this is really where
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we take it from, from the Middle Ages. That is what these women are like. I mean, these women are
1.00
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serious women. I just mentioned Dante. When you look at Dante's great love, Beatrice, Beatrice is a
0.95
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serious woman, okay? Who is beautiful and graceful and feminine and all of these things. And also,
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when Dante steps out of line, she kind of gives him a look. You know, and when Dante starts crying at
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the end of purgatory, because he's about to lose his buddy Virgil, his guide throughout hell and
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purgatory, she goes, hey, non piangere ancora, non piangere ancora. Stop crying. We gotta go. We gotta go up to
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heaven. We gotta go to God. That's something to look for. Just be Beatrice. Is that so hard?
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The rest of the show continues now. You do not want to miss it. Become a member right now.
00:50:26.880
It is Fake Headline Friday. I need your help to guide me along as Virgil guided Dante as I try to
00:50:34.760
discern which of the five headlines that my producer Ben Davies has given me is the fake headlines. So
00:50:40.440
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