Ep. 1457 - BREAKING： Mail-In Ballot News Terrifies Libs
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Summary
A court ruling that undated mail-in ballots in Pennsylvania should not be counted, a new report that the CIA is going dark, and the mayor of Baltimore says that white people should be afraid of him because he's a racist.
Transcript
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Republicans have just won a major court victory in Pennsylvania that could prove crucial
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to the 2024 election. The Third Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that undated mail-in ballots
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do not count. The ruling reverses an order by a federal district court which had ruled
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that mail-in ballots possessing an incorrect date or no date at all under the voter signature
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should be counted. Knowing the Democrats' proclivity for dubious mail-in ballots,
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the Republican National Committee sued, and the appeals court ruled correctly that no,
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mail-in ballots must in fact meet the bare minimum standards of voter integrity to count in elections.
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The Democrats are furious, and the case will likely make it all the way up to the Supreme Court,
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which raises a serious question for the Democrats. Why exactly are the Democrats so desperate for
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these unverified ballots to count? First, why are the Democrats so certain that the undated or
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incorrectly dated ballots will help them? Do the Democrats know something about these ballots?
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Are they confident for some reason that these undated, unverified ballots are not going to help
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Donald Trump and the Republicans? And then furthermore, what does the lack of a date or an
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ineligible date say about the people filling out these ballots? It says one of two things. Either
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the ballots are fraudulent, they were not cast when they were supposed to be cast, or that the voters
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who cast them are incompetent, that they couldn't perform even the most basic tasks required in order
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to vote. In either case, I have no doubt that the votes will help Democrats. And either explanation,
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fraud or incompetence shows us precisely why they should not count. I'm Michael Knowles. This is the
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Michael Knowles Show. Welcome back to the show. There's a new report out that the CIA is going trans.
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That is really upsetting. I think of the CIA, I think of Felix Leiter, you know, in the James Bond
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movies. Now, not so much. Now, Felicia Leiter, maybe. We will get to that in a moment. First, though,
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speaking of lighters, you got to get your smells and bells candle, baby. DailyWire.com slash shop.
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DailyWire is going to stop selling these after Easter, and it is Good Friday today, which means that
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tomorrow is Holy Saturday, which means that Sunday is Easter Sunday, which means that Monday they're gone.
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So this is the greatest selling candle ever, certainly in the history of the Daily Wire,
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probably in the history of candles. Maybe not like all candles, but it's pretty,
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you want to talk about right out the gate. We've sold about a bazillion of these things.
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I know some people want to stock up because they're going away now that Lent is over. So if you want,
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I think we're selling them in packs of two and packs of three right now. Head on over to DailyWire.com
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slash shop, and you can get yours before they are gone. Okay. Speaking of Democrat politicians,
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the mayor of Baltimore says that white people should be afraid and that making white people
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afraid is actually the purpose of his life. I know, and we all know, and you know very well
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that black men and young black men in particular have been the boogeyman for those who are racist
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and think that only straight wealthy white men should have a saying anything. We've been the
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boogeyman from them since the first day they brought us to this country. And what they mean
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by DI, in my opinion, is duly elected incumbent. We know what they want to say, but they don't have
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the courage to say the N-word. And the fact that I don't believe in their untruthful and wrong
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ideology, and I am very proud of my heritage and who I am and where I come from, scares them.
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Because me being at my position means that their way of thinking, their way of life of being
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comfortable and suffering, and while everyone else suffers, is going to be at risk. And they
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should be afraid because that's my purpose in life. My purpose in life. I, what's this guy's name?
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Brandon Scott. I have a purpose in life, and my purpose in life is to make some of my constituents,
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particularly white men, afraid. Not exactly the civic spirit, kumbaya, bring us all together
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kind of happy talk that we sometimes hear from Democrat politicians. But of course,
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this is really what underlies all of leftist ideology, is a kind of resentment. I mean,
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let's not forget the term left comes from the National Assembly during the French Revolution,
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when on the right side you had the monarchists and the Catholics, and on the left side of the
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assembly you had the atheists and the revolutionaries who were preparing to chop off the head of the
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king and the queen and a lot of other people, and then to destroy whatever cultural patrimony there
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was left in France, and to raid the churches and loot and steal and pillage and burn. So no surprise
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there that leftism would continue to have this envious and resentful and vengeful aspect to it.
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I think it was Winston Churchill who famously said that socialism, here we might just substitute
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leftism broadly, is the creed of ignorance and the gospel of envy, to say nothing, of the philosophy
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of failure. And so looking around Baltimore, the city is a disaster. It's too bad. It could be nice.
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There has been beautiful architecture there. It's in a nice spot in the country. But it's a total
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disaster. And with this guy running the show, who says that his purpose in life is to make his
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constituents afraid if they're white, then you can expect that to descend even further into
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kind of third world conditions. I'm not sure we're quite at the level of barbecue in Haiti yet,
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but that's the direction. That's the direction that these guys are headed. Because what he's
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articulating is not only an indifference to the common good, which is supposed to be
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the chief concern of civil servants, of statesmen, but actually a hostility toward the common good
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and a preference for selfishness and for private interest over the common good so that he can
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plunder and terrorize some of his constituents for a smaller interest group. Now, speaking of
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America's cities, things are not only bad in Baltimore, they're also bad in Los Angeles,
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they're bad in San Francisco, and they're bad in New York City right now in particular. And having
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been a New Yorker for a lot of my life and having grown up in New York and lived in the state of New
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York and in the city of New York, I can see it when I go back and visit, things are getting a lot worse
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over there. And that's particularly true when it comes to crime. And the New York's police department
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is one of, if not the best police departments in the world, but they've been hamstrung in their
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ability to stop the crime. When the NYPD is allowed to do its job, then New York goes from being Gotham
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to becoming a really safe place. That happened under Mayor Giuliani. That lasted even through Mike
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Bloomberg. And then right about the time I moved out of New York, things started to get really bad again.
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And they're getting bad now. And the NYPD are big targets. So there was a New York police officer,
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Jonathan Diller, who was murdered by a career criminal. Very sad. It's very sad when any innocent
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person is murdered, especially sad when the people who are risking their lives to protect all the rest
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of us are murdered by the criminals. And it's especially, especially sad when the political
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establishment takes the side of the criminals instead of the cops and instead of the innocent
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people. So President Trump went to New York to attend the wake for Officer Diller. Here's what
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he had to say. Well, thank you very much, everybody. I want to thank Bruce and all of the people that
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have worked so hard to make this area beautiful and safe. And this is what happened is such a sad,
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sad event, such a horrible thing. And it's happening all too often. And we're just not going to let it
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happen. We just can't 21 times arrested, this thug. And the person in the car with him was arrested
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many times. And they don't learn because they don't respect. They're not given the respect. The
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police are the greatest people we have. There's nothing and there's nobody like them. And this
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should never happen. I just visited with a very beautiful wife that now doesn't have her husband.
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Stephanie was just incredible. Their child, brand new, beautiful baby, sitting there innocent as can
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be. Doesn't know how his life has been changed. But the Diller family will, you'll never be the same.
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You can never be the same. And we have to stop it. We have to stop it. We have to get back to law and
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order. We have to do a lot of things differently because this is not working. This is happening too
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often. So it's the right thing to do, obviously, to pay respects to a fallen New York City cop who's
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killed by a career criminal, especially at a time when the political order won't lock up the
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criminals. And so many of these tragedies are totally preventable. It's also a good campaign theme.
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And it's a good campaign theme, not in the sense that it's cynical or exploitative. It's a good
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campaign theme in that the people want law and order, and their elected representatives are not
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being responsive to that. They're actually undermining the desire of the people. If you look at top
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election issues in 2024, crime is pretty high up on the list. I think according to a recent Gallup poll
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or a morning consult poll, it was number four. So it's not quite in the top three, but it's really,
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really close. And it's true not just in New York. It's true around the country. So it's an important
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campaign theme because it resonates. And it's good for that to be a campaign theme. And it's a disgrace
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that Joe Biden won't make it a campaign theme, but he can't because he's campaigning on promoting crime
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effectively. Crime all the way down to our national border, which is controlled by criminal cartels
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wide open, encouraging people to violate our most basic laws in this country, a major crime in and of
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itself. But then even, even street crime, even, even murder, even robbery and the rest of it,
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the Democrats are going very soft on that. Trump is getting stronger on that. I know that the
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Republican party has been taken in recent years by certain flights of fancy when it comes to going
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easy on the criminals. And there have been voices within the Republican party saying, we need to
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let some criminals out of prison, you know, and we need to, we need to reduce punishments for it.
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No, I don't think so. And in as much as president Trump has been persuaded by those voices, it's
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not only not in keeping with the properly conservative position, but it's not in keeping
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with, with Trump's view. Trump for pretty much his entire career has, has been very, very tough on
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crime, including when he was making political comments from the private sector, which is most
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of his career. So I see this as a, an excellent rearticulation of Trump's view. And it happens to be
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the traditional view of the conservatives and it happens to be what most people want. And the
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cherry on top is it's the right thing to do. Speaking of the right thing to do, you ought to
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donate to Food for the Poor. Go to foodforthepoor.org slash Knowles. For many people worldwide, the
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K-N-W-L-A-S, to 51555 or by visiting foodforthepoor.org slash Knowles. That is Knowles. Text it to
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51555 or go to foodforthepoor.org slash Knowles. Now, turning to major issues and keeping on the
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theme of violence, there's a new Gallup poll out that shows that most Americans disapprove of the
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war in Gaza. This is a shift. Back in November, Gallup found that 50% of Americans approved of
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Israel's actions in Gaza, while 45% disapproved. 4% said they had no opinion on the war. So even then,
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it was a somewhat contentious issue, but half of Americans, and certainly a plurality when we're
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talking about the three opinions expressed, said that they supported Israel's actions.
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Makes sense in November. I'm actually surprised the number wasn't even higher. This was in November,
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right after this horrific attack by Hamas on Israelis, killing well over 1,000 and committing
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all sorts of crimes and then taking a lot of hostages back to Gaza. So that was in November.
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And it's amazing because in my mind, the war has only been going on for a couple of months,
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but no, it's been going on at this point for what? Six months? At this point, public opinion has
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changed. 55% of Americans say they disapprove of Israel's military action in Gaza. Only 36%
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say that they approve of it. Now, what does this mean for Israel's conduct of the war? And more
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importantly, for our purposes as an American political program, what does this say for how
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America ought to feel about it? The biggest issue when it comes to the conduct and continuation or
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cessation of the war between Israel-Palestine is not just public opinion, because public opinion can
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be wrong. And we don't base our judgments of right and wrong. We don't base our understanding of
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justice on consensus. The people can be wrong. The biggest issue I see here is a news report that
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comes along with these bad numbers. And the news report coming from the Telegraph says that Israeli
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intelligence is now admitting that it might not be able to destroy Hamas.
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This is the biggest change, I would say. And this is probably feeding into why public opinion has
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shifted. Probably the lengthy duration of this war now is feeding into why public opinion has shifted.
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So much so that even President Trump is saying it's time for the war to wind down. But I haven't heard a
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clear articulation of why the war now all of a sudden really should wind down. The reason comes down to
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proportionality and the reasonable probability of success. It comes down to a concept that is not
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discussed nearly enough these days, which is just war theory. Some people, you know, I don't know,
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the Kumbaya hippies or something, they say, there's no war ever made. War is terrible all the time, man.
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Give peace a chance, man. Pass the bong. And that is not a serious view. And it's not a moral view.
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We have no moral obligation to allow the cruel to rape the earth, for instance. We have a natural
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and correct inclination to defend ourselves. Self-preservation is an aspect of the natural law.
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So some wars are justified. Not all wars are justified. And it's even more complicated because
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there is justice in going to war, and then there is justice in the conduct of war. And those are
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separate questions. A country could be justified in going to war, but then not justified in its
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conduct of the war. So on the two separate questions, the first one is, did the state of
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Israel have a right to go to war in Gaza? I think most people would agree, yes, it obviously did.
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After this major attack by the government of Gaza, which explicitly in its charter says,
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we want to wipe out the Israeli state. And then they go in and they kill and maim and take as
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hostages a number of civilians. Very few people would disagree that Israel had a right to go to
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war. Then the question over the last six months is, does the state of Israel have justification in
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its conduct of the war? This has been much more contentious. There have been strong arguments
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on both sides. But I think many people would say, yes, the goal of the war is to get rid of Hamas.
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The Hamas leadership in Gaza is an unacceptable security risk. And so they are justified in
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conducting the war, even from the perspective of proportionality. Proportionality is misunderstood.
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A lot of people bandy that word about, and they seem to think that proportionality means
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one side kills one guy, and then the other side kills one of their guys. That's not what
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proportionality means. But what proportionality does mean is that you are not using excessive
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violence to achieve the aims of the war. So the war has an objective that you're trying to achieve.
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And so in war, innocent people are killed. That is basically inevitable. But it means that you're not
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using excessive violence that will not further your aims. And a related concept here is the
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reasonable probability of success. So if Israeli intelligence is now saying, as according to
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reports, that it will not be able to wipe out Hamas from its control of Gaza, then the war has to end.
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Then it's not even clear what the goal of the war is. Then the criticisms that the state of Israel
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is not being proportionate in its carrying out of the war are justified. If the state of Israel says
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they can wipe out Hamas from the government, then you might say the war continues to be justified,
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although debate would continue to range. But if this is the case now, and why, by the way,
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why is Israeli intelligence, according to reports, saying that it can't wipe Hamas out of Gaza?
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They're saying it's because the US, which is the most prominent sponsor of the state of Israel,
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and especially of the Israeli military, I think we fund six and a half percent of it.
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If the American people have turned against it, the state of Israel is saying,
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well, now we can't achieve our goals. And maybe that's the case. And maybe you say,
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well, that's wrong, and the American people shouldn't have turned against the state of
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Israel. And actually, if we just run another ad campaign or something, maybe public opinion
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will swing back, and that way they can wipe out Hamas. Whatever the explanations are,
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whatever one's opinion is of that, if that is the case, then the war has to wind down because there
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is no longer a reasonable probability of success at achieving the war's aim. If the war's aim is taken
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off the table, then obviously the violence is excessive vis-a-vis the goal of the war,
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because the goal of the war, we now say, is totally out of sight. So this is happening.
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Whether you want that to happen or not, both political parties in the United States are
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turning against the war in Israel. Israeli intelligence is saying that without America's
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full-throated support or thereabouts, they're not going to be able to achieve their war aims.
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Okay, that's the end of the war. If you find a hole in my logic, please let me know.
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But until any of the, I think even the Israeli sources are basically coming to this conclusion.
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So if the war continues to go on, which it seems in the interest of Prime Minister Netanyahu and the
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Israeli government for it to continue to go on, that's going to continue to be a major issue in
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the 2024 election as well. And it's one of these strange ones because now all of a sudden, just
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within the last couple of days, President Trump has said it's time for the war to wind down. So
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you've got an odd issue where Biden and Trump seem to be in agreement. And President Trump,
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who's the most pro-Israel president ever in my lifetime, they named a town after the guy in the
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state of Israel, would seem to be at odds with the government there, the Netanyahu government,
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which is already on shaky grounds. And where one cannot even articulate, it seems,
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a goal any further for that war might come to an end soon. Now, speaking of things that are
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potentially nuclear, I suppose that war could potentially go nuclear. The Washington Post is
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celebrating the demise of the nuclear family, which is very, very unfortunate, probably speaks
00:21:21.960
to a lack of education and a lack of patriotism over in the left-wing newspapers. So when we want
00:21:29.420
to turn that around, we got to get educated. You got to check out PragerU. Is America doomed?
00:21:34.740
A majority of Gen Z supports left-wing policies like open borders and socialism. If we don't reach them
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and change their minds, the country that we know and love will be lost forever. PragerU is the
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leading nonprofit when it comes to influencing young people. Their educational, entertaining,
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but they need our help. Go to PragerU.com, make a tax-deductible donation. Whatever you give
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right now will be tripled and have three times the impact. Donate $10, triples to $30. I'm no math
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major, but I'm pretty sure that's what it comes out to. You give $100, let's see, you carry the four out of
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five, that triples to $300. PragerU is 100% free to everyone, no fees, no subscriptions. They don't
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reaching millions and changing minds, PragerU needs our help. Go to PragerU.com to donate today. And then
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you can check out my five-minute videos over there, as well as The Book Club with Michael Knowles,
00:22:36.880
my show over at PragerU, PragerU.com today. My favorite comment yesterday is from Phil Vetta,
00:22:44.560
who says, all I want to know is, did Diddy do it or did Diddy not do it? That's the question,
00:22:50.240
I think. It's one that has bedeviled philosophers for many, many days now. Did Diddy do it? Did Diddy
00:22:58.800
didn't do it? Did he? Let me know in the comments, please. Washington Post says,
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the nuclear family is dying. That's a good thing. Headline, farewell and good riddance
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to the typical American family. This article is really worth reading. It makes some interesting
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points and it gives you, more importantly, it gives you a really good view of how the left views
00:23:24.840
the basic unit of society, the building block of all politics. Just a few lines here.
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The Washington Post observes, families that are double income, no kids, you know, the dinks,
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they're thriving economically. Dinks have a median net worth of over $200,000 and are making six
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figures. Wow, that's a lot of money. They're also set up for a cushy retirement with more money stashed
00:23:48.360
away than any other groups. I don't know who's going to take care of them in that retirement,
00:23:52.800
but they got a lot of money. I guess they'll go to a nice retirement home or something.
00:23:57.200
Seems like everyone wants to be a dink these days. Okay, I don't. Yeah, the first part is true. The
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dinks have a lot of money and the dinks are saving a lot of money and all of that's true. But I don't
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know that everyone wants to be a dink. I certainly don't want to be a dink. Some people have to be dinks
00:24:12.700
because they're infertile and maybe they don't want to adopt or something. You know, not everyone gets
00:24:17.520
a kid. You don't have a right to a kid. You're not entitled to a kid. Infertility can be very,
00:24:20.760
very troubling, obviously. But some people are choosing it and that's a major aspect of the
00:24:30.360
cultural battle right now. The people who want family and the people who don't really want family.
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To say everybody wants to, I don't want to be a dink. Probably many of you listening don't want
00:24:39.200
to be a dink either. So how does Washington Post explain this? They say the first major death knell
00:24:43.360
to the nuclear family came with the 1973 oil crisis and the two-year recession that followed,
00:24:49.760
which signaled the end of the West's post-war prosperity boom. Since then, the nuclear family
00:24:55.140
has crumbled piece by piece. In 1970, more than two-thirds of American adults between 25 and 49
00:25:00.880
lived with a spouse and at least one kid. By 2021, only 37% of adults fit that bill, according to
00:25:05.600
Pew Research. Very troubling, but you're noticing a theme from the article already.
00:25:08.840
Very Washington Post, very lib. Everything is being described in economic terms.
00:25:15.000
The dinks are thriving because they've got $200,000. Well, it's true. I know very rich people
00:25:19.840
who are very miserable. I know people who have a lot more money than $200,000 who are very,
00:25:25.320
very miserable. How is that? How's that possible? Because unlike what the Washington Post and many of
00:25:31.980
the libs and the Marxists seem to think, money does not equate to happiness. Money cannot buy
00:25:38.520
happiness. And sometimes it has the opposite effect. Up to a certain level, money is kind of
00:25:46.420
nice because it supplies your material needs and it actually can take a load off. I'm not downplaying
00:25:52.620
that. But after a certain point, the marginal returns are kind of low and sometimes it can even
00:25:57.320
go in the other direction. And what's the price of a child? What's the value of a child?
00:26:04.100
I would say priceless, having two and a half of them myself, my friends with children,
00:26:08.180
pretty much all of them would say priceless. But that doesn't make sense. If you're approaching
00:26:11.900
this through a Marxist or even a liberal lens where everything's just about money,
00:26:15.900
it seems like they're thriving. And then they look at the breakdown of the family and they say it's
00:26:19.760
all because of economic circumstances. Economic circumstances do play into that,
00:26:23.060
but there are a lot of cultural and religious circumstances too. Okay, the bill goes on or the
00:26:26.560
article goes on. Critics of the nuclear family include radical family abolition scholars such as
00:26:34.840
M.E. O'Brien, whose 2023 book Family Abolition, Capitalism and the Communizing of Care argues that
00:26:41.300
the contained family structures cannot carry the immense burden of work placed on them. So here you're
00:26:47.760
seeing an affirmation of what a lot of traditional conservatives have been saying for years, which
00:26:55.540
is the libs are not just trying to liberate you and let you do what you want, man, and if it feels
00:27:01.700
good, do it. They're trying to destroy the family. They're not trying to expand it. They're not trying
00:27:07.060
to open up new pathways of liberation. They're trying to destroy the family because they view the family
00:27:11.500
as the primary impediment to their political ends. And the WAPO admits that. They say, yeah,
00:27:15.460
no, there is a movement, the family abolition movement. They view the family as tied up with
00:27:20.020
capitalism. And so if you want to abolish capitalism such as it is, you got to destroy
00:27:26.240
the family. Okay, Pat Robertson was saying this back in the early 90s. All right, this is nothing
00:27:32.140
new on the right. What's new is that the left is admitting it. While a smaller global population has
00:27:38.580
its perks, the planet certainly isn't complaining. That's what they're saying. They're saying it has its
00:27:42.680
perks. Fewer people means that there will be less climate change, you know? There will be less
00:27:48.300
global warming. The sun monster will be less angry with us. The planet isn't complaining. You know,
00:27:53.460
the planet never complains because the planet's a rock with flora and fauna on it, no doubt. It's
00:27:59.240
teeming with life, but it's a rock. Humans complain because we have rational souls, but you don't
00:28:05.160
like the humans. You want to get rid of all the beings that could complain in deference to a rock.
00:28:10.880
It shows you something a little bit wrong with their view of human nature and the cosmos.
00:28:18.060
Goes on, it poses a serious threat to long-term economic growth if the family disappears.
00:28:23.740
Shrinking GDPs in the future are a direct result of shrinking populations. That will challenge the
00:28:28.140
very foundations of American capitalism. This is one reason why conservatives are so keen to limit
00:28:31.740
women's reproductive freedoms. Yeah, okay. We want economic growth, sure, but we don't want the tail
00:28:39.220
to wag the dog. We like economic growth. That's a good thing. It's important. The reason we want to
00:28:44.160
limit women's reproductive freedoms is because we think it's wrong to murder babies. That's the reason.
00:28:50.380
If murdering babies made us money, we would still oppose murdering babies. And in fact, it can. That's
00:28:56.480
why a lot of corporations that have implemented liberal policies encourage abortion. They'll pay for
00:29:02.640
abortion. They'll pay for women to go out of state to go get abortions if their state has banned
00:29:07.180
abortion because it increases the profits of the company. That would be an instance where it's the
00:29:12.280
liberals, it's the leftists, who are prioritizing profits over people. The conservatives are saying,
00:29:16.720
no, we prefer the people. Even if it's going to hit GDP a little, we don't think you should murder
00:29:20.060
kids. So they get that totally wrong. Then it goes on, today, nearly a quarter of children in the U.S.
00:29:24.380
live in single-parent households. That's so sad. That's so terribly sad. And it's a degree of child
00:29:30.300
abuse that has reached a national level. It's a national scandal. The pandemic invigorated people's
00:29:36.700
desire for collectivism and community. Okay, keep, put that word aside for a second. Put a little
00:29:41.260
bookmark there, collectivism. Rather than, this is how it concludes, rather than changing families to
00:29:46.860
be more like society, this vision of the future imagines a society that's more like a big supportive
00:29:50.760
family. Okay. It's a really worthwhile read because it shows you how the left, they, some of their
00:30:00.440
desires are good. Probably all of their desires have some good aspect to them. They just get so
00:30:05.740
perverted. I agree with the left that we don't want to make an idol out of capitalism or GDP. I totally
00:30:11.380
agree with that. I agree with the left that it takes a village to raise a child because we're the social
00:30:17.260
creature. So we're not just isolated living in outer space as individuals or even as a nuclear
00:30:22.100
family, but we're embedded within extended families and embedded within generations and
00:30:26.720
embedded within a community. I agree with that. But there's a big difference, a big, big difference
00:30:31.060
between collectivism and community. There's a big difference between the state controlling a bunch of
00:30:43.820
atomized individuals who are in a hodgepodge of bizarro sexual relationships and largely choosing
00:30:49.360
not to have kids because they just want to pursue their own financial and economic frivolities.
00:30:57.680
And the extended family, the real family, the organic communities that crop up. In one, it's an
00:31:06.220
ideological contrivance. What the left is pushing for is just pouring acid over society and all of the
00:31:12.880
intermediating institutions of society from states' rights to local government rights all the way down
00:31:18.780
to the family, from voluntary civic associations to natural and organic communities like churches
00:31:25.540
and other groups. They want to pour acid all over that. Parochial schools, private schools,
00:31:31.260
homeschools, pour all that and just then pull it all back together in a contrived, highly centrally
00:31:40.520
controlled way. The collective with a capital C. That's not, community is great. Community is totally
00:31:46.000
natural. And you're born, in fact, you are born into a community. All of us, we're not born as
00:31:51.660
individuals. We're born into a community. The first community is the family. And there are extended
00:31:56.440
families and it's good to get the wisdom of generations and the wisdom of your neighbors and
00:32:01.260
so on. And the state is a natural institution too. But with the libs, I always want to just totally
00:32:06.360
flip it. No surprise then. They say good riddance to the nuclear family. I would say we want the
00:32:12.560
nuclear family. You don't want to destroy the family, but you want it to be embedded within
00:32:16.340
bigger families and the tribe and the community and the state and the country. They want to do the
00:32:21.620
opposite. They don't want to keep growing out from there. They want to destroy the family as that
00:32:25.620
last stumbling block. And then we're all a bunch of undifferentiated individuals and the state can
00:32:31.260
do with us as it pleases. You know I'm a big tease. Well, I've got a story here. The CIA is embracing
00:32:41.860
gender ideology. This is, speaking of weird sex stuff, Cliff Sims, who served as deputy director
00:32:49.860
of national intelligence under President Trump, he has a new book out. It's called The Darkness Has Not
00:32:54.720
Overcome Lessons on Faith and Politics from Inside the Halls of Power. He sheds a light on how
00:33:02.400
transgender ideology has infiltrated not just our schools and our corporations and even the CIA,
00:33:08.780
which makes perfect sense. It tells us a lot about how the ideology works, how it works within the
00:33:14.260
state. But because I'm a tease, we're going to have to get to that on Easter Monday because now it's time
00:33:19.800
to get to the mailbag. The second episode of Divided States of Biden with Ben Shapiro has just
00:33:25.300
been released. It focuses on how fentanyl has become America's silent epidemic. The Biden
00:33:29.880
administration is completely silent on the matter. In fact, Biden's policies make it easier for
00:33:34.460
fentanyl to be distributed and sold across the country, allowing it to fall into the hands of any
00:33:38.340
American, many of them very young. Ben Shapiro uncovers the fentanyl crisis in one of the cities most
00:33:42.940
affected in the latest episode of The Divided States of Biden. Watch The Divided States of Biden
00:33:48.820
fentanyl America's silent epidemic now exclusively on Daily Wire Plus. Finally, finally, we've arrived
00:33:55.140
at my favorite time of the week when I get to hear from you in the mailbag. Our mailbag is sponsored by
00:34:00.020
PureTalk at puretalk.com slash Knowles, Canada W-L-E-S. Get an additional 50, 5, 0% off your first month.
00:34:36.040
Argument for Catholicism rests on its history, but I would think that God could change the church if
00:34:40.600
he thought it fit to do so. Also, what are your thoughts on Jehovah's Witness? I really like their
00:34:44.940
faith because they attend to biblical accuracy. Thank you so much for listening, and I hope you
00:34:49.860
have a great day. Happy Friday. Good Friday. Good Friday, that's right. Really good question.
00:34:57.740
God, of course, can change the church and necessarily does help the church to grow and
00:35:02.820
promises always to be with the church. That's what our Lord promises us in the gospels. But I think
00:35:07.540
that, ironically, that would be one of my chief defenses for the Catholic church is that
00:35:17.220
there's corruption in the church. There are all sorts of, there have been bad popes. There have been
00:35:23.460
all, there's, I mean, to quote Hilaire Belloc, he has to take the Catholic church to be divinely
00:35:28.620
instituted as a matter of faith. But one evidence of it for the non-believer is that no other
00:35:32.300
institution conducted with such knavish imbecility would have lasted a fortnight, much less 2,000
00:35:36.920
years. So the church does change in the sense that the church grows and develops within history
00:35:45.400
throughout the ages. That's, of course, true. It doesn't change its fundamental teaching. It
00:35:49.540
doesn't change its dogmas, but it does change in that way in the sense that it grows in the way that
00:35:54.000
a human being grows over time. But our Lord promises never to leave the church. You know,
00:36:02.840
the church is the, the marriage rather, is the symbol of Christ's love for her church.
00:36:09.420
So ironically, I think you're, you're kind of making the Catholic argument here, which is that
00:36:14.520
whatever we call the church that was instituted by our Lord, that has historicity and apostolic
00:36:23.540
succession and an unbroken line going back to the, to the first Pope, St. Peter, whatever you want
00:36:29.320
to call it, whatever, whatever your views on that, he would have to stay with that church. There would
00:36:35.620
have to be some authority that is wielded over time. Because if not, if, if, you know, as you seem to be
00:36:41.860
suggesting, our Lord can just say, okay, well, I was with the Catholics until this time. And then I went
00:36:46.500
over to the Presbyterians at this time. Then I went over to the Methodists at this time or something like
00:36:51.160
that, that, that would be tantamount to a divorce. So it would actually rupture the, the probably most
00:36:57.120
prominent symbol of our Lord's love for the church. You mentioned Jehovah's Witness. There are
00:37:03.020
lovely people who are Jehovah's Witnesses. I would probably dispute the precision with which Jehovah's
00:37:11.360
Witnesses look at scripture, but the problem would be a denial of the divinity of, of Christ among some
00:37:19.620
other problems. So that, that would be, you know, lovely people. I like them very much, but that
00:37:24.800
would, that would be why I am not a Jehovah's Witness, among other things. And is there a third
00:37:30.260
question in there? I don't know. If so, ask it again next week and we'll get to it. Next question.
00:37:36.180
Hi, Michael. My name is Eric. I was wondering if you could help me with the problem I'm facing.
00:37:40.700
I'm thinking about going back to school for my doctorate, and I'm wanting to get my doctorate in
00:37:45.480
philosophy with a focus of ethics and a focus of criminal law. But I know that I'm going to have
00:37:51.580
to read a significant amount of books from authors who have worldviews that are counter to my Christian
00:37:59.220
beliefs. I was wondering, how do you handle reading a lot of information from people who have more of a
00:38:08.160
toxic mindset when it comes to Christianity and morals and ethics and still be able to hold to
00:38:15.700
your values without facing doubts? Thank you for taking my question, and I look forward to hearing
00:38:22.060
from you. I don't seek out a ton of evil reading material or false reading material, to put it in a
00:38:34.200
nicer way. I read it. I obviously read plenty of things that I don't agree with, and to some degree
00:38:40.580
that can be very helpful because it can challenge your notions, it can expand your thinking, of course.
00:38:45.560
But contrary to the liberal spirit of the age that you hear on the left and on the right probably these
00:38:50.720
days more than on the left, I don't go reading false things just for the sake of it, just in deference
00:38:57.640
to the free marketplace of ideas or something like that. I read to find truth. So I am drawn
00:39:04.160
more toward books in which I think I will find truth. Sometimes you can find truth by way of
00:39:09.260
contrast. You read something that's just so terribly wrong that it, by contrast, sheds a light on what is
00:39:17.200
true. And in some things that are quite wrong, like Marxism, say, you can find little kernels of
00:39:24.400
truth in there that have been really perverted. You especially see this with Marx. But I would
00:39:31.060
ballast that with a lot of reading that is good and true. Resist the libs on the left and the right
00:39:37.580
who tell you, no, just read everything that you disagree with. Perhaps read some of these things that
00:39:43.060
you disagree with, but be careful. Just like you wouldn't want to fill your body with a bunch of
00:39:47.540
garbage, so too you don't want to fill your mind with a bunch of garbage. Sometimes eating things that
00:39:53.400
are a little more challenging as a matter of taste or ingredient can be helpful. It can help build up
00:40:00.860
your immune system. It can expand your palate, allow you to understand your tastes a little more
00:40:05.720
clearly. But sometimes it can kill you, so you don't want to do that. And I think the same is true
00:40:09.660
when it comes to what you put into your mind. Probably a very controversial take on the right,
00:40:15.460
but there you have it. It's very traditional and classical take. Next question.
00:40:18.500
Hi, Michael. I hope you're doing well. I'm such a big fan. I just wanted to send this in and ask
00:40:25.560
what you think the biggest slash most detrimental theological idea in Mormonism or LDS faith is.
00:40:36.220
Sure. LDS, some of the nicest people you'll ever meet in the world. Just so lovely. They have strong,
00:40:44.440
thriving communities and families. They go, they do their jobs. They've got proper systems of
00:40:50.400
government. So please don't take this as some kind of withering criticism on the poor Mormons, but
00:40:56.060
probably the central problem would be that they deny the divinity of Christ. It's a similar answer
00:41:02.860
I gave earlier to the Jehovah's Witnesses. LDS is a non-Trinitarian religion. So this would be,
00:41:13.740
the Trinity is the central mystery of the faith articulated by our Lord, but then really codified
00:41:22.000
at the First Council of Nicaea, which is that we believe in God, the Father Almighty,
00:41:28.640
maker of heaven and earth, and in one Lord, Jesus Christ, who is begotten of the Father. He's begotten,
00:41:37.420
not made. He is consubstantial with the Father. Through him, all things were made. He's God from God,
00:41:44.280
light from light, true God from true God. That view is not, to my knowledge, held by the Mormons,
00:41:51.840
that the Son is subordinate to the Father, and there are other aspects to that as well. But in
00:42:00.560
any case, it's not the Trinitarian view. There are other sects like this. There is at least one
00:42:06.620
major Pentecostal sect that is non-Trinitarian. Obviously, the Unitarians are non-Trinitarian. So
00:42:12.820
that, the central mystery of the faith, that God is one, distinct in Father, Son, and Holy Ghost,
00:42:23.600
but also one, and of one divine substance. That's the central mystery. And so that would be,
00:42:28.840
that would probably be the chief stumbling block that one would have with LDS. Though
00:42:34.280
they have conducted themselves in public so wonderfully that, you know, I don't, I don't
00:42:41.660
really, I don't want to knock them all too much. But while we're here in theological disputes and
00:42:48.920
we're just discussing, you know, the faith itself and not, not just the external effects of a certain
00:42:56.860
culture, that would be it. Next one. Hey, Michael, my question's a little bit taboo,
00:43:02.720
but I think your young adult audience really needs to hear it. I'm a young adult. A lot of my friends
00:43:07.680
have made choices that they now regret, specifically having premarital sex. As we are walking into
00:43:14.160
marriage, a lot of us have fiancés and are married and we look on our paths. We tend to feel shame
00:43:20.040
and frustration at our former selves for making choices that we now regret. Much of us have gone
00:43:25.780
to church and asked for forgiveness, but it's become really hard for those of us to forgive
00:43:29.920
ourselves for choices that we can no longer go back and reverse. So my question to you is,
00:43:34.400
do you have any advice for young adults who have a hard time forgiving themselves for choices that
00:43:38.520
they made in the past, specifically premarital sex? Sure. I'd say go to confession and then you
00:43:45.160
will be absolved of your sins and then your sins are forgiven and that's it. If God forgives your sins,
00:43:53.800
then we ought to forgive people's sins too. That's about it. I'm not saying that there aren't
00:43:58.000
temporal effects that come as a consequence of sin, but you know, all sin and fall short of the
00:44:02.960
glory of God. And it's a fallen culture that greatly encourages premarital sex. So I guess the first
00:44:09.200
thing you would do is stop the behavior you bring up if someone's engaged. If you're engaged and you've
00:44:15.700
been doing that, but then you realize actually that's not a good thing to do, then just stop.
00:44:19.960
Stop until your wedding. I don't know when your wedding is, but if you're engaged, it's probably
00:44:24.380
not that far into the future. Just stop. That's the first thing. If you're going down the wrong path,
00:44:28.140
then the first thing to do is stop, then you turn around, then you go down the other path.
00:44:32.500
And if you did all sorts of bad things when you were young and dated around or whatever,
00:44:36.580
and then you've had a different idea, okay, well, one, be grateful that you've turned it around.
00:44:43.060
That's a wonderful thing to be grateful for. And then the reason I recommend sacramental
00:44:49.060
confession, I know not everyone believes in that. But in my view of things, it gives you
00:44:56.440
a certainty that an authority has been promised to the apostles and the successors of the apostles
00:45:03.220
that they have the power to forgive and to retain sins. And that this is a real power in a visible
00:45:08.600
church. And so it's not that you can't confess your sins to God, and it's not that God can't forgive
00:45:13.000
you when you confess your sins in your head to God, but it's an assurance in case you lack perfect
00:45:19.800
contrition, which most of us do most of the time. So I would do that. And there's a psychological
00:45:25.380
aspect here, which is not just, even if you don't really believe in the sacraments or something like
00:45:29.900
that, I recommend that you do. But even if you don't, there is just something psychologically very
00:45:35.740
comforting. In the real sense, it gives you strength to say, no, it is objectively the case
00:45:42.300
that your sins have been forgiven. Go forth and sin no more. All of us commit sins. I mean,
00:45:48.280
if we just focused on that, the devil wants us to focus on that all the time, and then you can't do
00:45:51.340
anything and you live a miserable life. But hope is not just happy thinking, it's a theological virtue
00:45:58.540
and to demand. So do that. That's what you should do. Okay. We have more voicemail back to get to.
00:46:05.000
We have more written mail back to get to. And we have Fake Headline Friday. The rest of the show
00:46:07.520
continues now. You do not want to miss it. Become a member. Use code Knowles, K-N-A-W-L-E-S at checkout