The Michael Knowles Show - Ep. 16 - What Is Western Civilization？

00:00:00.000 As the left attempts to finish the Umayyad Caliphate's job at the Battle of Tours by dismantling the Western civilization we hold so dear, while the alt-right tries to make it a matter of melanin, we ask classicist, scholar, and immortal heir to the multiverse Spencer Clavin a simple question, what is the West? 0.96

00:00:18.220 Then, lone conservative Cassie Dillon and Fleckis Talks join to discuss President Trump's congressional smackdown, Florida's finally killing white guys who kill black guys, and the Girl Scouts' outrage that the Boy Scouts are becoming the Girl Scouts. How transphobic are they? Plus, the mailbag. I'm Michael Knowles, and this is The Michael Knowles Show. 0.95

00:00:35.840 Western civilization is all the rage these days, a hot topic of debate. Here is Tucker Carlson and President Trump describing Western civilization. Tucker on his show and President Trump in his Warsaw dress.

00:00:56.340 President Trump's speech in Poland last week may have been the single best thing he has said out loud since entering politics, and for one reason. It was a rousing defense of Western civilization.

00:01:07.620 We write symphonies. We pursue innovation. We celebrate our ancient heroes, embrace our timeless traditions and customs, and always seek to explore and discover brand new frontiers.

00:01:21.620 The fundamental question of our time is whether the West has the will to survive. Do we have the confidence in our values to defend them at any cost?

00:01:33.620 That's a very good question. The left hopes the answer to that question is no. They have at least since the time of Jesse Jackson marching on college campuses said, hey, hey, ho, ho, Western Civ has got to go. Here's why.

00:01:46.620 That triggered the alarm bells for me. Am I wrong in making this parallel between Steve King, President Trump, and white nationalism?

00:01:58.720 Trump seemed to embody and enshrine that belief that the West should steal itself for a clash of civilizations with other cultures, other beliefs, which pretty much spelled out, you know, the Muslim world. 0.61

00:02:13.820 So this is not a speech he could have given really any place else. And this is a white America, America first kind of speech. 0.74

00:02:20.820 Well, as he talks on the left about white nationalists, let's ask a white nationalist himself. Richard Spencer and the late Sam Francis also get in on the battle to define Western civilization.

00:02:32.820 A quotation from Samuel Francis is from the mid nineties. And he actually said this at a speech at an American Renaissance conference.

00:02:40.820 He said the civilization that we as whites created in Europe and America could not have developed apart from the genetic endowments of the creating people, nor is there any reason to believe that the civilization can be successfully transmitted to a different people, whether you're on the left or the right.

00:03:02.820 Or the right. Many people seem to imagine that we could just find a, you know, a black African and dress him up in a Harris tweed vest or give him a pipe or some snuff and maybe a bowler cap and he'll become an Englishman or something like that. 0.97

00:03:17.820 Or, you know, in another way, like the neocons, we describe Western civilization in this totally abstract term where it's, you know, some vague ideas about individualism and political institutions like democracy and so on.

00:03:32.820 Steve King is not doing that.

00:03:34.820 Now, they all seem to get this wrong, all of those people. And that is why last week we talked to a Charlottesville Unite the Right attendee about the alt right and how they define Western civilization.

00:03:46.820 And today we're joined by an in-studio guest, Spencer Clavin, a classicist and obviously heir to the to the multiverse.

00:03:55.820 Now, I can't help but notice Spencer Clavin is here. I can't help but notice the coincidence of the name. Are you related to Richard Spencer?

00:04:02.820 You know, not genetically. And as I understand it, that's basically the only kind of relationship that he acknowledged. So I would have to say no, unfortunately, I'm not.

00:04:10.820 Not genetically, certainly not spiritually, if that doesn't exist.

00:04:14.820 Spencer, a very simple question. What is the West?

00:04:17.820 Boy, oh, boy. You know, it's funny. I one of my great regrets as a as a doctoral student is that I don't get to spend a lot of time firing up the old tour browser.

00:04:28.820 And, you know, only when you're buying contract killings and drugs, I assume.

00:04:33.820 I thought we were going to talk about that.

00:04:34.820 Oh, that's right. Marshall will cut it out, right?

00:04:36.820 You'll cut out how Spencer Clavin engages in contract.

00:04:38.820 No, I'm going to turn up the audio on that part.

00:04:40.820 Okay, good. Thanks. We wouldn't want that to get out.

00:04:43.820 Is it too late for me to cover my thing?

00:04:45.820 Look, I mean, I'm not up on the whole Keck and Pepe the Frog of it all.

00:04:50.820 So I might be getting some of this.

00:04:51.820 But it seems to me whenever I listen to the all right on this stuff, I'm amazed at how exactly like the radical progressive left they sound.

00:05:00.820 I mean, basically Richard Spencer is basically at the point of accusing people of cultural appropriation, which I'm pretty sure was the province solely of the, you know, the far left.

00:05:10.820 But on this particular point, I think that the radical progressive left and the alt right are almost in exact complete agreement.

00:05:19.820 I mean, you have the alt right chanting things like blood and soil.

00:05:23.820 Blood and soil.

00:05:24.820 Right. Which amounts to the assertion that basically what it is to be Western is to be born into a certain gene pool within a certain set of geographic barriers.

00:05:34.820 And that's basically what a lot of people on the left want to claim is true of Western civilization, that all of our lofty ideals and principles are essentially just window dressing for a kind of white supremacy.

00:05:47.820 Right. I mean, this is back in, I think it was in 1978.

00:05:49.820 Edward Said basically makes this argument in Orientalism that it's all kind of a Western identity is just a way of justifying to oneself the superiority of whites.

00:05:59.820 White people angle European countries.

00:06:02.820 Right. Exactly.

00:06:03.820 I take a slightly different view on the subject by which I mean basically the exact opposite view.

00:06:08.820 Just only slightly 180 degrees.

00:06:11.820 That's right. If you just take a slight turn to everything that is not that, then you'll get what I think.

00:06:15.820 I mean, look, one of the crowning achievements of actual Western civilization is to develop slowly over time and space,

00:06:26.820 this idea of a nationhood whose citizenship doesn't depend on ethnic or geographic determiners.

00:06:33.820 I mean, you really I think this really kind of you can see it beginning with the Stoics who, you know, the ancient Greek set of ancient Greek philosophers.

00:06:41.820 And the Stoics had this idea which exists before them, but which they developed in a really robust way of the Logos.

00:06:47.820 Right. The Logos being this universal sort of rational principle or rationality that pervades the whole universe.

00:06:55.820 And things like ideas about, you know, right and wrong and logic, those all come under the head of this Logos which exists everywhere.

00:07:02.820 And that's kind of where you start to get this idea or to justify this idea that there might be a universal civilization because you could have a society of people who no matter where they are or what race they were, they live by the Logos.

00:07:17.820 There's an eternal law, an eternal reason that isn't confined to your government.

00:07:23.820 Right. And you see this again, it plays out elsewhere, like Cicero near the end of the Roman Republic, he writes that on the Republic.

00:07:30.820 And he talks about a law that will not be different at a different time or a different place and different in Athens and in Rome, but it'll be the same for everyone.

00:07:39.820 And that law is justice, this idea of, you know, of right and wrong and good and bad that kind of pervades the whole universe.

00:07:46.820 And so, again, that you start to develop that idea of a society that transcends location and space until, you know, a minor event occurs in the Middle East around, oh, I don't know, the year zero.

00:08:01.820 That's a coincidence around when time started.

00:08:03.820 Surprisingly, that's right, yeah.

00:08:05.820 Jesus Christ is born.

00:08:07.820 And one of the claims that Jesus Christ, I think, makes about himself and is certainly made about him is that he is the Logos as a human being, right?

00:08:15.820 That the word, the Logos, was made flesh.

00:08:17.820 And so now you have a person claiming to actually pronounce the universal moral law.

00:08:23.820 And as Christ himself says, you know, allegiance to him is what defines membership in the universal society, right?

00:08:32.820 Whoever does the will of God, that is my brother or my mother or my sister.

00:08:36.820 My kingdom is not of this world, meaning it's not in a specific time or place.

00:08:40.820 And so out of that tradition, then, you get people like Augustine who start to kind of theologize and to Christianize the Ciceronian idea of a universal civilization.

00:08:50.820 Christ even goes further.

00:08:51.820 He says, if you don't hate your mother and your brother and your sister, then you can't follow him.

00:08:56.820 If you don't renounce your parochial and superficial bonds, then you can never bond yourself with the Logos, with the eternal law.

00:09:08.820 Yeah, I mean, I really think there he's almost building on the call of Abraham way back in Genesis, right?

00:09:13.820 God says to Abraham, leave your home and your brothers and your father and everything that you've known and be defined by my call to you. 0.89

00:09:21.820 Be defined by what God pronounces as truth.

00:09:24.820 And, you know, actually, Paul, too, confronted the Stoics and the Epicureans in Acts.

00:09:32.820 And you usually kind of read this as an adversarial confrontation between Christianity and Greek philosophy.

00:09:37.820 But basically, I mean, Paul quotes Eratos at them who had strong Stoic roots.

00:09:41.820 So basically what he's saying is, look, you Greeks, you Greek philosophers, you already believe this.

00:09:46.820 You already believe in this universal society.

00:09:48.820 I'm telling you that the king of that society was here on Earth in a particular person.

00:09:53.820 And so then that gets fed into the Christian tradition with Augustine and with Aquinas.

00:09:58.820 So effectively, this massive major strain of Western thought is the opposite of blood and soil.

00:10:06.820 It's the only idea that really effectively contravenes what everyone else believes, you know, which is that you are in a particular place and time and genetic material.

00:10:16.820 And that's what makes you who you are.

00:10:17.820 I think you just made all the alt-right guys' heads explode.

00:10:20.820 I think because for most of those guys, I think they read a summary one time, an excerpt of Thus Spake Zarathustra and the bell curve.

00:10:29.820 I think that's basically the canon of those great thinkers.

00:10:32.820 Well, we were talking before the show about, you know, analyzing the portion of Aristotle where he quotes the bell curve.

00:10:37.820 That's right.

00:10:38.820 Well, I remember, you know, the Greek better than I do.

00:10:40.820 But I do remember in Aristotle, he often expounds upon how we must secure the existence of our people in the future for white children. 1.00

00:10:47.820 Did I get the translation wrong?

00:10:49.820 You know, that's actually that's book 15 of the metaphysics.

00:10:53.820 It's a lost book.

00:10:54.820 It didn't get transmitted over.

00:10:56.820 But but the alt-right has a secret code that allows them to read the minds of, you know, I read on them.

00:11:02.820 I guess that's the site Vox Poppily or whatever.

00:11:04.820 Yeah. Yeah.

00:11:05.820 Incidentally, I think, you know, the it seems like a seminal feature of alt-right discourse is like purposefully misspelling important words and ideas, which goes really well with the willful misunderstanding of crucial concepts.

00:11:18.820 But anyway, I read on Vox Poppily this this assertion that, you know, if only the founders had kept the title of the rights of Englishmen instead of using the concept of natural law for propagandistic purposes.

00:11:32.820 So it's like, oh, it's a living document.

00:11:34.820 We know what was really there.

00:11:35.820 We know what they really meant.

00:11:37.820 Yeah.

00:11:38.820 We're going to write it today. 0.94

00:11:39.820 So you're telling me that you trace the West to Jews and gay guys. 0.98

00:11:44.820 And this, by the way, they are going to call us cucks. 0.97

00:11:46.820 That is going to be in the comments section.

00:11:48.820 Here's my question for you about that. 0.96

00:11:50.820 If an alt writer calls a gay guy a cuck, does that mean that there's an alt writer out there somewhere sleeping with a guy?

00:11:59.820 This is the Claven's theorem, Spencer Claven's theorem. 0.87

00:12:04.820 This is going to become a major question for alt-right thinkers, a paradox of sorts.

00:12:09.820 That is really good.

00:12:10.820 So you think, I will push back a little bit.

00:12:14.820 Okay.

00:12:15.820 Is there no geographic component?

00:12:17.820 Were these ideas not carried by people, specific people in specific times and places?

00:12:22.820 No, you make a really good point.

00:12:24.820 I mean, before sort of the Stoic philosophy that I was talking about, you have people like Aristotle who expressly tie the whole ethical universe to the polis, to this particular city in which you're living.

00:12:37.820 And there is another important strand of Western thought that you have to kind of incorporate when you're talking about this, which is the sort of development of the idea of the nation state as kind of the Goldilocks of political entities, right?

00:12:49.820 Not too big, not too small.

00:12:50.820 Not too big, not too small.

00:12:51.820 Not too big, not too small, right?

00:12:52.820 Exactly.

00:12:53.820 The right size to defend individual liberty in the real world.

00:12:56.820 But the thing about that is, you know, that acknowledges a fact about the world, which is that we live in countries and are related to people and have ties to this particular life.

00:13:08.820 But the whole project of the West, I would argue even a definitive project of the West, is the struggle over, you know, centuries to reconcile that fact with this beautiful notion of the universal society.

00:13:24.820 And basically, I think what people come up with is this concept that your particular nation might somehow embody or be a model of the universal society.

00:13:35.820 This comes up a lot in Aquinas, but you know where it really comes up is in the idea for America.

00:13:40.820 John Winthrop, the model of Christian charity.

00:13:42.820 And I know, talk about making the alt-right's head explode.

00:13:44.820 The concept of a creedal nation is like, you know, anathema to them.

00:13:48.820 But that, I mean, the founders read their Cicero, they read their Bible.

00:13:52.820 This is a concept that was not alien to them.

00:13:55.820 And essentially, the whole idea is to unify the idea of a nation state with the idea of the universal society and get a country to whom you can belong,

00:14:08.820 in which you can be a citizen solely by, in the ideal world, solely by ascribing or professing fealty to a certain series of ideas, life, liberty, equality under the law, etc.

00:14:22.820 Pursuit of property, private property, sure.

00:14:24.820 That's right, shooting people at will. 0.96

00:14:26.820 Yeah. 0.94

00:14:27.820 Might be in there somewhere.

00:14:28.820 Oh no, sorry, that's not, right, yeah.

00:14:30.820 That's in some addendum.

00:14:32.820 Right now, nationalism has come to the fore as a response to Davos, basically, as a response to these globalized elites who want to get rid of many features of the nation state.

00:14:45.820 And so we have a robust defense of nationalism.

00:14:48.820 We have a robust defense of Western civilization.

00:14:50.820 And it seems that those defenses are often totally missing the point of the nation and of the Western civilization.

00:14:57.820 How do we defend it?

00:14:59.820 How do we pick up, like our forefathers in Philadelphia did, how do we pick up Cicero and bring our civilization into its next phase, into the future, and to preserve our country?

00:15:10.820 Well, you know, a good start would be to actually read Cicero.

00:15:12.820 I don't want to do that.

00:15:13.820 It's very long.

00:15:14.820 It's in Spanish or something.

00:15:15.820 Oh, I forgot.

00:15:16.820 You're the guy who wrote a book with no words in it, right?

00:15:18.820 I have certainly read much more than I have written, that is.

00:15:22.820 But all in all, I don't want to watch YouTube videos, I don't want to read these things.

00:15:26.820 Right.

00:15:27.820 Sorry.

00:15:28.820 Okay, so scrap that idea.

00:15:29.820 Scrap the idea of actually reading the canon.

00:15:31.820 Look, you know, this is a thing, as I'm sure we'll shortly discover on the panel, you know, my job is basically to sit in dusty attics lined with books and read about people from 2,000 years ago.

00:15:42.820 So I basically digest information at like a 2,000 year delay.

00:15:46.820 Yeah.

00:15:47.820 So when you get down to sort of, I'm hoping that people like you can answer the question of how do we put these ideas into practice in the modern world.

00:15:54.820 I will say this.

00:15:55.820 It's not through nostalgia.

00:15:57.820 This idea that, you know, we're going to basically resurrect the Ciceronian or the Aristotelian or any number of ancient ideals by living the life that Cicero or Aristotle lived by throwing our iPhones away and, you know, living according to the, this is going to, living according to the sexual morality of 300 years ago.

00:16:20.820 Right?

00:16:21.820 That's just, that just doesn't happen.

00:16:22.820 That's not how the, how the world works.

00:16:24.820 What I think we have to do is, you know, another kind of Aristotelian idea is one of form and matter, right?

00:16:29.820 That you have the particular form, the particular matter in which things are embodied, but then you have the, the concepts and the ideas which, as we've been talking about, are universalizable.

00:16:37.820 And I think what we really have to do is figure out how to embody the ideals that we've been talking around in the 21st century, given all of the new facts that are available to us.

00:16:47.820 And you bring up an interesting point on academics, on the elites.

00:16:52.820 You, it's, I think the guys who are Western chauvinists and who are basically white identitarians, they try to pride themselves on being intellectually superior.

00:17:02.820 You know, they read the bell curve or part of it and they think they have a high IQ and that they've read, but they don't really know anything about their civilization.

00:17:10.820 You have read all the books. You have a high IQ. What is the role of elites in conservatism and in America? They've gotten a bad rap over the last year and a half.

00:17:21.820 There's been a revolt in many ways against the elites. How do we, how do we use them? What is the role of an elite?

00:17:27.820 What is the role of an elite?

00:17:28.820 Yeah, no, this is really tricky. And I start to sweat under the collar.

00:17:31.820 It's like, you know, here I am.

00:17:32.820 You're trying to tar and feather you.

00:17:33.820 That's right.

00:17:34.820 Doing a doctorate in classics is like, it doesn't get more kind of like airy fairy than that.

00:17:39.820 Was it you got rejected from gender studies? Is that why you had to choose classics? 0.96

00:17:42.820 You know, I did. I gave them my best, but I wasn't quite queer enough. 0.97

00:17:47.820 I think it was like one degree further. No, I do think that the, some of the criticisms that have been leveled at the elites are partially justified in the sense that in this country we have become,

00:18:04.820 we being the Chardonnay sipping, brie cheese eating, intellectual elites, we have become disconnected from the basic everyday concerns that animate 90% of the population.

00:18:17.820 And I think that the election of Donald Trump is evidence of that. The fact of how shocked I was by the number of people who sympathize with a man that I find abhorrent,

00:18:27.820 tells me that there's something going on that I'm not keyed into, or at least there was, and I'm trying now to.

00:18:34.820 I have a metaphor about this, which will take me a second, but bear with me.

00:18:39.820 So my mom has a plumber that she likes to call whenever our toilet breaks down, which is approximately every five minutes.

00:18:45.820 And the plumber is always boring her with these long descriptions of the technical process that he's going to undergo to fix her toilet.

00:18:55.820 You know, widgets and gaskets or, I'm now just saying words.

00:18:58.820 Yeah, I have no idea about any of the words other than plunger.

00:19:01.820 I've heard of that one.

00:19:02.820 If I didn't, if I, yeah, if I listened to our plumber, I would know.

00:19:04.820 But anyway, my mom's joke is always, you know, I pay you to know about these things.

00:19:10.820 I'm really glad you do.

00:19:11.820 So that I don't have to.

00:19:12.820 So that I don't have to.

00:19:13.820 Right, exactly.

00:19:14.820 So that's fine.

00:19:15.820 If the plumber then were to go off and come back and say, you know, in my deep study of plumbing theory,

00:19:22.820 in my extensive analysis of widgets, gaskets, and what have you,

00:19:26.820 I have discovered that actually what a toilet is supposed to do is not flush human waste into the sewage,

00:19:32.820 but actually regurgitate it up into your face every time you flush it.

00:19:36.820 That's what the true purpose of a toilet is. 0.99

00:19:38.820 Then the authority to say, no, actually that's not what a toilet does, would rest with my mom, 0.83

00:19:44.820 because she uses the toilet every day and she knows what it's there for, it's there to serve her needs. 0.99

00:19:49.820 Likewise, the general populace doesn't actually, you know, they're not required to,

00:19:56.820 and nor are many of them interested to sort of delve into the high weeds of political and philosophical analysis.

00:20:05.820 Historical, yeah.

00:20:06.820 That's right.

00:20:07.820 I mean, it's not incumbent upon every citizen to study to the degree that, you know, would be required to get a PhD.

00:20:14.820 And we do.

00:20:15.820 We have elites for that so that they can, you know, study the theory behind these things and bring it back to us.

00:20:21.820 And just breathe dust for the rest of their lives and sit reading old books.

00:20:25.820 Exactly.

00:20:26.820 Eschew human interaction for their entire adult lives.

00:20:30.820 Anyway, no, I mean, so that they can come back and offer to us things that we maybe didn't know

00:20:36.820 and guide us in ways that we might not have been able to do.

00:20:39.820 But if what they bring back to us is at odds with what we know to be true in our own life and experience,

00:20:47.820 then we do have, we being the sort of general population, we do have some authority to say,

00:20:52.820 no, actually that's not what the state is for.

00:20:54.820 That's not what these, you know, because we encounter.

00:20:57.820 And we can tell. We can tell if it's working or if it isn't working.

00:21:01.820 If GDP growth never rises above 3% or whatever it was,

00:21:05.820 no argument in the world is going to convince the hungry person

00:21:10.820 that we have the right political philosophy in play in some abstract sense.

00:21:14.820 So there has to be a kind of dialogue and interaction.

00:21:16.820 And the fact that the elites have kind of absconded on that dialogue

00:21:19.820 and declared their authority to be absolute is the problem.

00:21:23.820 It's not that they are elites at all.

00:21:25.820 That is an excellent analogy.

00:21:27.820 It, it rings so true because when I think of the so-called elites, the elites like in the media,

00:21:33.820 like George Stephanopoulos, you know, the elites at most of our universities, 0.98

00:21:37.820 the image that comes to mind is a bad plumber spewing excrement in my face. 0.96

00:21:43.820 That is a wonderful analogy. 0.97

00:21:45.820 And on that, I think we have to bring in our panel.

00:21:49.820 We have a superb panel of deplorables today.

00:21:51.820 We have Spencer's going to stick around. 0.78

00:21:53.820 We have Cassie Dillon and we have Fleckus talks.

00:21:56.820 You guys want to come in?

00:21:57.820 They're all in the studio today.

00:21:59.820 I've summoned them all to this layer, the broom closet of the Ben Shapiro show.

00:22:03.820 Because we, because we have to talk more about Western civilization. 0.97

00:22:09.820 Fleckus, you've just gotten an image of university professors spewing excrement in your face. 0.96

00:22:15.820 Does it ring true? You were in college pretty recently. 0.97

00:22:17.820 Hey Fleckus, why don't you go ahead and share a mic with Michael on the desk.

00:22:21.820 That way you guys are both picking the same thing up.

00:22:23.820 Your mic just went out.

00:22:24.820 All right.

00:22:26.820 I've got to love the Michael Knowles show.

00:22:28.820 It's only fair that you get to share it with you because today is Austin's birthday.

00:22:33.820 Hey, happy birthday.

00:22:34.820 Fleckus talks.

00:22:35.820 What an honor to have him.

00:22:37.820 All right.

00:22:38.820 Well, Fleckus, you bring up these Dartmouth professors.

00:22:40.820 There was this guy, Mark Bray.

00:22:42.820 I think his name is a Dartmouth professor who was on defending Antifa the other day

00:22:46.820 and defending the violent left suppressing free thought.

00:22:49.820 How did these guys get jobs there?

00:22:52.820 I don't know.

00:22:53.820 That's a good question.

00:22:54.820 But I think if they weren't getting jobs, you know, the majority of the professors are on the same page.

00:22:59.820 So it's probably easier for them to get jobs and keep their jobs and to bring on someone with more conservative views.

00:23:05.820 And at least we're keeping them off the streets.

00:23:06.820 If this guy, Professor Bray, weren't there, he just it's a nice criminal employment program, isn't it?

00:23:11.820 Oh, yeah.

00:23:12.820 And I saw the I saw that piece you're talking about, you know, defending Antifa and these Antifa people think they're out there fighting the Nazis.

00:23:18.820 They think there really are not there's a huge Nazi problem in the US and we need them to step up, take it to the streets, get violent, justified violence and defeat the Nazis on, you know, for America as if there are heroes. 0.53

00:23:30.820 That's there's a lot of projection going on, I think, on their part.

00:23:34.820 Cassie, we've been talking about the centrality of logos of Greek thought and Jerusalem of Christianity that built the West.

00:23:42.820 These days in the West, people don't think and they don't practice any religion of any of any classical variety.

00:23:49.820 Do you think I know young people very often are not raised in formal religious households anymore, though there is a little pushback to that.

00:23:59.820 Do you think that there is a future for the right or for Western civilization if it remains atheistic or secular?

00:24:07.820 Is there a way to translate those classical religious values into secularism or do we all need to get back to church and synagogue and get some old time religion?

00:24:16.820 I find that to be a very difficult question because if you look at Europe, it's becoming progressively less religious.

00:24:22.820 But if you look at certain parts of America, it's actually becoming more religious.

00:24:25.820 And I think that has to do with a lot of values changing in American society where people are confused and kind of scared of what's going on.

00:24:32.820 So they're going back to the church, which gives them a foundation for beliefs that they have held true throughout the last couple hundred years.

00:24:38.820 So even in the West, I would say that secularism is becoming or in the East, secularism is becoming more prominent, too, in certain areas.

00:24:46.820 But you are seeing the rise of more fundamentalists around the world.

00:24:50.820 So I think that you need to have the clear balance.

00:24:52.820 If you aren't getting your values from religion, you have to figure out where are you getting them from.

00:24:56.820 Al Gore, environmentalism.

00:24:58.820 I get all of my everything from the internet.

00:25:01.820 I guess we're fixing Fleckus' microphone.

00:25:04.820 Okay, I'm just making sure no one's manspreading.

00:25:06.820 Are we good?

00:25:07.820 Yeah, we'll take this moment to ensure.

00:25:09.820 We're in the clear.

00:25:10.820 I was told this was a safe space for manspreading.

00:25:12.820 It is the Michael Knowles Show.

00:25:14.820 We defend your right to spread your legs as far as you want, gentlemen.

00:25:18.820 So we have to get to the news before we kick out all of the people who haven't subscribed.

00:25:25.820 We have to talk about the most important story in the headlines today.

00:25:29.820 The Boy Scouts are becoming the Girl Scouts and the Girl Scouts are very upset about this.

00:25:34.820 The Girl Scout president just sent a letter to the Boy Scout president saying, quote,

00:25:38.820 I formally request that your organization stay focused on serving the 90% of American boys not currently participating in Boy Scouts.

00:25:47.820 Ouch.

00:25:48.820 What a burn.

00:25:49.820 It is unsettling that the Boy Scouts of America would seek to upend a paradigm that has served both boys and girls so well through the years.

00:25:56.820 Cassie, as our resident female, why are the Boy Scouts recruiting girls?

00:26:02.820 By the way, this isn't just transgender issues.

00:26:05.820 They're recruiting girls, just actual girls.

00:26:08.820 Okay.

00:26:09.820 So I think I have a little bit of authority to speak on this.

00:26:11.820 I go to an all-girls school, the first all-girls school in America, Mount Holyoke.

00:26:14.820 So I think when you have women in a space that's just women, whether it's just women in Mount Holyoke anymore, who knows?

00:26:21.820 But I think you have people, women, coming together and actually getting a voice.

00:26:25.820 Because it is true that women don't speak as much in class. 1.00

00:26:28.820 I have seen it when I'm in Mount Holyoke classes, even the women don't talk. 1.00

00:26:31.820 It's like just me and the random man who's visiting in the class.

00:26:34.820 But I think when you have women together in a space, it does give them some sense of becoming stronger women.

00:26:39.820 Because I think the best way to get women to raise is have them do it themselves. 1.00

00:26:42.820 Don't knock down men.

00:26:44.820 Why would people do that?

00:26:45.820 So I think that the Boy Scouts are trying to be inclusive.

00:26:48.820 And by doing this, they're actually targeting women and they're, they're wrecking feminism, whatever they want to call it.

00:26:54.820 But I think it's just, it's not okay.

00:26:56.820 And I think you're going to see a rise in a tension between the two organizations.

00:27:01.820 That brings up a really weird tension that we see throughout the modern left.

00:27:05.820 Spencer, some say the world will end in feminism. 1.00

00:27:08.820 Some say in transgender movement, a fire or ice or something.

00:27:12.820 Who is to blame here?

00:27:15.820 And how will the left be able to resolve this tension between a feminism that says women should have their own organization and should be able to do whatever men want to do. 1.00

00:27:24.820 And a transgender gender bender movement in the popular culture that says men and women are essentially the same. 0.63

00:27:31.820 And those categories are mutable and we can will our way from one to the other.

00:27:36.820 I think this is, this is one of those issues on which, you know, we need to find our way forward incorporating new information that has actually come to us since, since we sort of set up the paradigms that are reflected in say the Boy Scouts and the Girl Scouts.

00:27:51.820 It is true and I think you actually see this in leftist discourse.

00:27:55.820 It is true that there is a, there's a tension between the idea that there is no difference between the genders.

00:28:00.820 It's a purely physical situation.

00:28:03.820 And that someone could somehow, it could be spiritually one gender and physically another.

00:28:09.820 Personally, I'm, I'm sympathetic to the latter claim, but not really to the former.

00:28:15.820 And I think that that's probably the idea that, that has to go.

00:28:18.820 It seems just deeply, it's one of those ideas that is deeply contradictory to the evidence of our basic experience.

00:28:24.820 We know there to be two genders. 1.00

00:28:26.820 We know that they have a spiritual component as well as a physical component.

00:28:29.820 Right.

00:28:30.820 And, and that basically speaking, there are sort of discernible, what do they call them population level, right?

00:28:37.820 Differences between men and women.

00:28:39.820 I also actually believe that is, you know, that, that you encounter people who have a tension between those two aspects of their gender.

00:28:48.820 Certainly.

00:28:49.820 Yeah, no, I mean, absolutely.

00:28:50.820 And so I think, you know, we need to find a, a compassionate and charitable way to incorporate that new fact into,

00:28:58.820 uh, our idea that the genders are actually different.

00:29:01.820 Right.

00:29:02.820 That the, the left, one of those will win and we need to make sure that it's compassionate and not totally,

00:29:06.820 uh, not totally ignorant of physical realities, not ignorant of, uh, social realities either.

00:29:12.820 I have one more question before we say goodbye to Facebook.

00:29:16.820 I'm giving them a little something extra today, Marshall.

00:29:18.820 We, Fleckus, one of these reasons for the Boy Scouts to start recruit, uh, recruiting women and young girls is that

00:29:26.820 some girls want to do adventurous stuff. 1.00

00:29:29.820 The Boy Scouts go camping and do adventurous stuff.

00:29:31.820 The Girl Scouts sell delicious cookies that I buy every year.

00:29:33.820 So what is the problem with having a tomboyish girl join the Boy Scouts if she doesn't want to just sit around and sell cookies? 1.00

00:29:42.820 Um, I don't think there is a problem with that necessarily, but I think maybe the Girl Scouts should do a little bit of a rebrand and,

00:29:48.820 you know, get away from the cookies selling.

00:29:50.820 I'm going to cut you off right there.

00:29:51.820 How dare you suggest that the Girl Scouts stop selling those cookies?

00:29:56.820 We will not stand for that on this show.

00:29:58.820 We'll make sure the cookies keep coming, but, um, maybe a little bit of a rebrand and get up with the times a little bit and,

00:30:03.820 you know, have more adventurous things and do more, you know, tomboy or stuff, whatever you want to call it.

00:30:08.820 Um, instead of, you know, combining the two, cause they're already called the Boy Scouts.

00:30:13.820 It's kind of a tough rebrand for the Boy Scouts.

00:30:15.820 They're bringing in the girls. 0.97

00:30:17.820 Fair enough.

00:30:18.820 Now we will say goodbye to Facebook and YouTube.

00:30:20.820 If you are already a subscriber, thank you.

00:30:23.820 Thank you for supporting this show, keeping the lights on, allowing me to purchase Girl Scout cookies.

00:30:27.820 If you are not, go to dailywire.com right now.

00:30:29.820 It is $10 a month, $100 a year.

00:30:32.820 You get my show.

00:30:33.820 You get the Andrew Klavan show.

00:30:34.820 You get the Ben Shapiro show.

00:30:35.820 But who cares about any of that?

00:30:36.820 You get the leftist tears tumbler, the most sought after piece of material on earth.

00:30:45.820 It keeps your leftist tears hot or cold, always salty and delicious.

00:30:49.820 And those tears are flowing these days.

00:30:51.820 After that Phoenix speech, it's, it seemed that they were falling out of the sky.

00:30:55.820 So make sure you go over there.

00:30:56.820 You get your leftist tears tumbler so you can catch them and imbibe them and dream and carouse on their intoxicating deliciousness.

00:31:05.820 Dailywire.com.

00:31:06.820 Go over there right now.

00:31:07.820 We'll be right back.

00:31:08.820 All right, in today's tweet news, there's always some President Trump tweet news.

00:31:22.820 President Trump is once again tweeting his displeasure with Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan.

00:31:27.820 He tweeted out just today, quote, I requested that Mitch M and Paul R tie the debt ceiling legislation into the popular VA bill, which just passed for easy approval.

00:31:36.820 They didn't do it, so now we have a big deal with Dems holding them up as usual on debt ceiling approval.

00:31:41.820 Could have been so easy.

00:31:43.820 Now a mess.

00:31:44.820 And another quote came out.

00:31:45.820 The only problem I have with Mitch McConnell is that after hearing repeal and replace for seven years, he failed.

00:31:52.820 That never should have happened.

00:31:54.820 I am inflecting my voice up to express the exclamation points.

00:31:58.820 Fleck, is this Trump right?

00:32:01.820 I think, yeah, I'm cool with it.

00:32:03.820 I think this is a great way to call someone out.

00:32:06.820 Obviously, with Trump in the White House, it's not business as usual.

00:32:10.820 It's not politics as it used to be.

00:32:12.820 But he is a businessman.

00:32:14.820 He's got a business mind.

00:32:15.820 And this is something I saw in football, too.

00:32:16.820 I played football in college.

00:32:18.820 And if you're not bringing it, if you're not performing, if you're not going 110%, the coach calls you out in front of the whole team.

00:32:25.820 And he kind of did it with Jeff Sessions a few weeks back.

00:32:27.820 And I think since then, things have gotten better.

00:32:29.820 He's back in his good graces.

00:32:31.820 So I think, yeah, it's not politics as usual.

00:32:34.820 But the change is the change that people voted for.

00:32:36.820 Because a lot of people, especially in the media, are whining that President Trump isn't handling this in private conversations and whispering to them.

00:32:44.820 And I guarantee you none of those people have ever picked up a football.

00:32:47.820 You're saying there's a benefit to being called out in public, holding people accountable, making them sweat a little bit, and hopefully straightening out their job.

00:32:55.820 Yeah, exactly.

00:32:56.820 And it's kind of, I keep saying rebrand today, but I think what it means to be president, it's changing.

00:33:03.820 Like, you know, a few years back, we could have watched Obama and said, oh, Obama's great.

00:33:08.820 He gave really passionate speeches.

00:33:10.820 You could tell he cared.

00:33:11.820 You know, he's a really good orator.

00:33:13.820 He's our guy.

00:33:14.820 But then there's a lot of things behind the scenes that I don't think he did very well.

00:33:17.820 Like everything.

00:33:18.820 Yeah.

00:33:19.820 Everything was one of those things that he didn't do very well.

00:33:21.820 Yeah.

00:33:22.820 So, you know, you have to kind of treat Trump, you know, for what he is.

00:33:26.820 He's just a different guy.

00:33:27.820 He's not a, you know, your standard politician.

00:33:30.820 And with that, there are some benefits.

00:33:31.820 And I think that's what the people voted for.

00:33:33.820 Cassie, why has the congressional leadership not been able to round up these votes?

00:33:38.820 Is it because they don't have confidence in Trump?

00:33:40.820 Or is the GOP just hopelessly fractured?

00:33:42.820 Honestly, it's the never-Trumpers you can blame.

00:33:45.820 Like John McCain.

00:33:46.820 The never-Trumpers.

00:33:47.820 Well, they aren't working with him at all.

00:33:49.820 And instead of going with the Republican Party, they're going with the Democrats.

00:33:52.820 And it's just really hard to get anything passed.

00:33:54.820 And if you saw it in his speech, he was throwing a lot of shade at John McCain.

00:33:57.820 And it was very, very interesting.

00:33:58.820 I didn't hear him name anybody.

00:34:00.820 I think he said there was one senator or just one vote in Arizona.

00:34:03.820 I won't say the name.

00:34:04.820 Your senator.

00:34:05.820 Yeah, so I think it's definitely telling.

00:34:08.820 But I do think that Trump is going in the attack too soon.

00:34:11.820 We have a long session left.

00:34:13.820 And honestly, if he keeps doing this, are they going to work with him in the future?

00:34:16.820 I think more things can be done behind closed doors.

00:34:19.820 And I don't know if things have been necessarily, but I think going in the offense this early

00:34:23.820 on can be dangerous.

00:34:24.820 Well, yeah.

00:34:25.820 Some things can be done behind closed doors like funding Jeff Flake's primary opponents

00:34:28.820 and the others.

00:34:29.820 Not a bad idea.

00:34:30.820 Spencer, does this help President Trump?

00:34:32.820 Boy, oh boy.

00:34:33.820 I just, you know, so often with Trump, it's like vaguely kind of the shape of something

00:34:39.820 you might want him to be doing.

00:34:41.820 And then like substance that is utterly insane.

00:34:44.820 So, I mean, we've seen that he has trouble working with the legislature.

00:34:49.820 We've seen that he has trouble marshalling people behind his ideas to get bills passed.

00:34:57.820 And I suppose that then you would probably want him to be able to develop a set of techniques

00:35:02.820 for convincing or corralling, as they say, the legislature into his camp.

00:35:09.820 But the idea that you're going to pass the debt ceiling by tying it to a VA bill is like

00:35:15.820 you're going to sneak a nuclear bomb into the Pentagon by tying it to a kitten, right?

00:35:20.820 Like, there's just, in what universe...

00:35:22.820 It's not a bad idea.

00:35:23.820 I've got to write that down.

00:35:24.820 In what universe would that have been an effective plan?

00:35:27.820 So, I don't know.

00:35:29.820 As usual, I kind of throw up my hands.

00:35:31.820 That is fair.

00:35:32.820 Every time I'm asked to say, will this help Trump?

00:35:34.820 Will this hurt Trump?

00:35:35.820 I'm always wrong.

00:35:36.820 Inevitably.

00:35:37.820 I don't know what answer I give, but I'm always wrong because nobody can predict this

00:35:41.820 guy.

00:35:42.820 Nobody can ever tell what Trump is going to do, which is why I got $400 from my friend, Mr.

00:35:47.820 Shapiro.

00:35:48.820 Okay.

00:35:49.820 For the first time in Florida's modern history, a white man has received the death penalty 0.95

00:35:54.820 for killing a black man.

00:35:55.820 And this seems like progress to me. 0.97

00:35:57.820 It seems like a wonderful move for social justice.

00:36:00.820 Cassie, is it a win for social justice and racial equality?

00:36:04.820 Honestly, I think it's a big deal, but necessarily, it's not really that big of a deal.

00:36:09.820 Because this, he was convicted, what, in the 80s?

00:36:11.820 Right. 0.92

00:36:12.820 And this isn't the first white man who's been killed for killing a black guy. 0.92

00:36:17.820 But it's the first one in Florida.

00:36:19.820 And the only reason why we're talking about it is because of Charlottesville.

00:36:21.820 If Charlottesville didn't happen, we would not be talking about this.

00:36:24.820 I don't think it's necessarily the biggest news topic that we can be talking about right

00:36:28.820 now.

00:36:29.820 The only reason why we're talking about it is because of Charlottesville.

00:36:31.820 We also need to acknowledge that this is a bigger deal, not because of the skin color

00:36:36.820 of the person, but because this is after they changed the laws regarding execution in Florida.

00:36:40.820 Right.

00:36:41.820 The Supreme Court talks about it.

00:36:42.820 Right.

00:36:43.820 And a lot of opposition to it.

00:36:44.820 You always hear opposition to the death penalty because of racial disparities. 0.93

00:36:47.820 A lot more black guys are getting the death penalty for committing murder than white people. 0.83

00:36:52.820 And there are a number of theories as to why that is. 0.94

00:36:55.820 But deep down, it appears to me, this is all just about opposition to the death penalty per se.

00:37:01.820 You've got people coming out today with this story saying this doesn't change the hundreds of years 0.87

00:37:06.820 without executing a white man for killing a black man.

00:37:09.820 And we need to get rid of it altogether. 0.99

00:37:11.820 Spencer hanging concentrates the mind wonderfully.

00:37:14.820 Yet nobody ever talks about the spiritual and political benefits of capital punishment.

00:37:18.820 Is there a place for the death penalty in our society right now?

00:37:21.820 Oh, man.

00:37:22.820 You know, it's funny.

00:37:23.820 I've just been reading Boethius, who's basically-

00:37:24.820 I love Boethius.

00:37:25.820 Right.

00:37:26.820 And he writes his entire, you know, his great contribution to philosophy as written sort of

00:37:30.820 under pain of death.

00:37:31.820 So I guess at the moment I'm more sympathetic to that.

00:37:34.820 There's also a philosophic benefit to the death penalty.

00:37:37.820 No, exactly.

00:37:38.820 I mean, this is one of those issues, you know, if you needed a hot take on Aristotelian hylomorphism-

00:37:42.820 I've been waiting for one my whole life.

00:37:44.820 I realize, yeah.

00:37:45.820 But I feel sure on this question that I'm likely to put my foot in my mouth no matter what

00:37:50.820 I say.

00:37:51.820 Yeah.

00:37:52.820 I will say that, you know, the death penalty is, for me at least, a deeply complex and

00:37:56.820 conflicted issue morally because it's both a concept, an abstracted concept, right, should

00:38:01.820 we put people to death for certain crimes that are so heinous that, you know, that pragmatically

00:38:06.820 we need to remove them.

00:38:07.820 But it's also a historic policy enacted in time and space.

00:38:11.820 And I think in that respect in America, it's a deeply troubled-

00:38:16.820 Because it's not always applied fairly.

00:38:18.820 Right.

00:38:19.820 Everybody gets it, but nobody is actually executed.

00:38:22.820 People sit on death row forever and ever.

00:38:24.820 Right.

00:38:25.820 It seems cruel and unusual in many ways.

00:38:27.820 Yeah.

00:38:28.820 That's sort of what I mean.

00:38:29.820 You know, those kinds of particulars of the death penalty as practiced here in America,

00:38:34.820 you can't ignore when you have this conversation, but they certainly muddy the waters of the

00:38:37.820 kind of more abstracted question of, is the death penalty ever okay?

00:38:42.820 And for certain crimes, it's very complex as to whether they would warrant the death penalty.

00:38:48.820 And for some, like suggesting that we get rid of Girl Scout cookies, the answer is very

00:38:52.820 clear.

00:38:53.820 Birthday boy.

00:38:54.820 Very, very clear.

00:38:55.820 Okay.

00:38:56.820 I have got to say goodbye to my excellent panel of deplorables.

00:39:00.820 We have Austin Fletcher, Fleckis Talks, lone conservative Cassie Dillon, and what's his name?

00:39:05.820 Spencer Clavin, classicist and heir to the multiverse.

00:39:09.820 Thank you all for being here.

00:39:10.820 Now it is time for the mailbag.

00:39:15.820 So we have a lot of mailbag questions today.

00:39:17.820 We're going to burn through them.

00:39:19.820 From John, Mr. Trolls, I'm a student at Wofford College.

00:39:22.820 And after reading your book several times, I'm hungering for more of your wisdom.

00:39:27.820 Smart man.

00:39:28.820 Would you be interested in coming to our campus to speak?

00:39:30.820 I would love to come to your campus to speak.

00:39:32.820 Shoot me a tweet or something or send an email in and we'll set it up.

00:39:35.820 I love doing that.

00:39:36.820 From Teresa.

00:39:37.820 Hey, Michael.

00:39:38.820 How do you respond to someone who says that there's a difference between socialism and

00:39:41.820 democratic socialism?

00:39:43.820 Well, in a sense there is.

00:39:45.820 Socialism is a big umbrella and there are lots of forms of socialism.

00:39:48.820 There's democratic socialism like that which destroyed Europe.

00:39:52.820 There is national socialism like that which also destroyed Europe.

00:39:55.820 And there's international socialism like that which destroyed Russia.

00:39:58.820 So a lot of ways to ruin your society.

00:40:01.820 A lot of varieties.

00:40:02.820 I don't know.

00:40:03.820 Do you like chocolate, vanilla, or strawberry?

00:40:04.820 Those are the differences all under that umbrella.

00:40:07.820 From Chris.

00:40:08.820 Michael.

00:40:09.820 I just watched your interview with Mr. Alsup.

00:40:11.820 I have never seen such a penetrating interview and I'm 62 years old.

00:40:14.820 Thank you very much.

00:40:15.820 It's very kind.

00:40:16.820 Did you have a model for your methodology?

00:40:18.820 If so, who?

00:40:19.820 If not, how do you do it?

00:40:20.820 Thanks.

00:40:21.820 Chris.

00:40:22.820 Thanks.

00:40:23.820 I approached that interview.

00:40:25.820 We did this interview last week with James Alsup, who's a YouTuber who went with the

00:40:29.820 protesters at Charlottesville last week.

00:40:33.820 The pro Charlottesville protesters in Unite the Right.

00:40:36.820 And he was scheduled to speak there.

00:40:38.820 In terms of interviewers, I love Bill Buckley.

00:40:40.820 I like more substantive interviews that push people that are combative and constructive.

00:40:45.820 They're not just yelling on television.

00:40:47.820 But that interview I really stressed about a little bit because I, in many ways, empathize

00:40:54.820 with this kid and with people like him because he's very young.

00:40:58.820 He got famous very young.

00:41:00.820 He understands a number of things correctly and he's just gone down a dark path and has

00:41:05.820 hung out with some bad hombres to quote a great man like the alt-right people and Richard

00:41:11.820 Spencer.

00:41:12.820 And it's very easy if we all know a little learning is a dangerous thing.

00:41:17.820 And if you've only read a few texts, if you've read three lines of thus spake Zarathustra,

00:41:23.820 it's easy to fall down a rabbit hole of terrible ideas.

00:41:26.820 And so with that interview I was hoping to press on that in a way in which we wouldn't alienate 0.97

00:41:33.820 these guys who have fallen into stupid ideas, but rather show them the flaws with their very, 0.97

00:41:40.820 very poor ideologies and bring them back to understand truth. 1.00

00:41:45.820 Truth and beauty.

00:41:46.820 From Cameron.

00:41:47.820 Michael, I stared at the solar eclipse without proper eye protection and now I am a peripheral

00:41:52.820 vision man.

00:41:53.820 I can't see straight forward.

00:41:54.820 I gained a useless superpower from the sun's radiation.

00:41:57.820 Does your book reasons to vote for Democrats come in Braille?

00:41:59.820 You are going to be so happy to know every single edition of reasons to vote for Democrats

00:42:04.820 is also already in Braille.

00:42:06.820 Ever just go to your local store, pick it up and you will catch every single word from

00:42:10.820 Greg.

00:42:11.820 Dear Knowles.

00:42:12.820 When can we expect the Michael Knowles guest panel swimsuit calendar?

00:42:15.820 A very good question.

00:42:17.820 You know, I asked before the show, I asked Cassie Dillon about this.

00:42:20.820 I asked Roaming and Antonia Okafor.

00:42:23.820 And unfortunately they're all busy on the shoot day, but lucky for you.

00:42:27.820 Fleckis is around.

00:42:28.820 Fleckis talks will be there.

00:42:29.820 We're going to have Marshall is going to be there.

00:42:31.820 Jacob Barry, Paul Bois.

00:42:33.820 So get ready.

00:42:34.820 It's coming to the daily wire store.

00:42:35.820 Just stay tuned.

00:42:36.820 It's going to be hot.

00:42:37.820 It's going to be really, it's going to be, it's going to be something, uh, from Wayne.

00:42:42.820 Michael, I just heard your commentary on people from Liberty University giving back

00:42:46.820 their degrees.

00:42:47.820 I think it's presumptuous to assume it's because they're liberals and that's why they're upset.

00:42:50.820 They could well be upset because Trump is a lifelong Democrat who isn't a conservative,

00:42:53.820 can't be trusted to protect the constitution.

00:42:55.820 I do think he's doing better these days, but I can understand why some young conservatives

00:42:59.820 would feel strongly about this and would want to see Cruz 2020.

00:43:02.820 That's a lot.

00:43:03.820 In that mailbag question, that isn't my issue with it.

00:43:07.820 My issue with it isn't the Trumpiness of it all.

00:43:09.820 My issue with it is that these students shouldn't be giving back degrees or diplomas because they

00:43:16.820 don't like who the president of the university voted for. 1.00

00:43:19.820 That's very stupid and very shallow and a very shallow view of education. 1.00

00:43:24.820 And if these kids, perhaps they should give back their degrees because they clearly haven't 1.00

00:43:27.820 been educated by this university.

00:43:29.820 They should understand the value of a liberal education and that political disagreement with

00:43:34.820 some administrator is not cause to tear up the symbol of your education.

00:43:39.820 And on that point, my other issue with it is it's not possible.

00:43:42.820 It is a completely empty gesture.

00:43:44.820 If you receive an award from some institution or a government, you can reject that.

00:43:49.820 And that is a protest of whatever that institution is doing.

00:43:52.820 But the university diploma is a symbol of your education.

00:43:56.820 It's a symbol of four years of your reading books or more likely chasing women and drinking 0.94

00:44:01.820 and gambling and staying up late.

00:44:03.820 You can't give that back.

00:44:05.820 You can turn in the piece of paper, but when you go to apply for a job or in the rest of

00:44:08.820 your life, you will still have had that education. 0.99

00:44:12.820 And so it's empty virtue signaling the worst of what millennials do and makes them look foolish. 1.00

00:44:19.820 From Michael. 0.99

00:44:20.820 Michael, that's a great name.

00:44:21.820 What is something unusual or strange about your fantastic boss, Ben Shapiro?

00:44:25.820 And I bet, I don't know if this was Michael or Ben who wrote this, that you would like

00:44:28.820 to share with the world.

00:44:29.820 I would ask you, what is not unusual about Ben Shapiro?

00:44:33.820 Ben Shapiro.

00:44:34.820 Ben was a syndicated national columnist at 17.

00:44:37.820 He was playing violin publicly for, who was it?

00:44:40.820 For Larry King when he was like two.

00:44:42.820 He's, he writes about 700,000 words per day.

00:44:45.820 So everything I would say, maybe next question we'll answer.

00:44:48.820 What is, what is usual about what is common about Ben Shapiro?

00:44:51.820 From Teresa.

00:44:52.820 Hey, Mr. Bestselling blank book Knowles.

00:44:54.820 Hey, Teresa. 0.99

00:44:55.820 If you were ever to hold office, how would you approach the issue of abortion?

00:44:59.820 I would want less of it.

00:45:01.820 I would try to make the law and the judicial interpretation such that there would be less

00:45:08.820 abortion in certain general, but also there are two prongs to this.

00:45:14.820 One, I think conservatives fight this issue on left wing terms.

00:45:18.820 So we're always arguing about cases of rape, incestor, life of the mother.

00:45:22.820 Those constitute less than 1% of annual abortions.

00:45:25.820 We always talk about three days after an egg has been fertilized and the left loves to use

00:45:30.820 their jargon of zygote and blastula and this, that, and the other thing to refer to these

00:45:36.820 early embryos.

00:45:37.820 We should fight it on the other end.

00:45:39.820 We should fight it where it's clear when people are getting sonograms and they can see

00:45:43.820 babies, full babies in the, in the uterus. 0.94

00:45:46.820 We should say that this is wrong.

00:45:47.820 This is clearly wrong.

00:45:48.820 This is a human life that has nobody defending it and that can't speak for itself.

00:45:52.820 And, and we should do it there.

00:45:55.820 As far as Roe v. Wade is concerned, story decisis would play a role in this.

00:45:59.820 I once asked Antonin Scalia about this and whether it was possible at this point to overturn Roe

00:46:04.820 v. Wade.

00:46:05.820 There is a lot of time that has passed.

00:46:07.820 And the principle of story decisis is such that you give some credence to the time, even

00:46:12.820 when a bad decision is made, but some decisions are so bad or so egregious that they could be

00:46:17.820 overturned anyway.

00:46:18.820 And I suppose that's what we'll have to hope for from Forrest.

00:46:21.820 Hey, Michael, as a fellow staunch Catholic, but also an ardent conservative, I'm troubled

00:46:26.820 by some of the viewpoints more recently espoused by the Pope and other church leaders regarding

00:46:30.820 immigration, climate change, capitalism, et cetera.

00:46:33.820 Join the club.

00:46:34.820 Do you think the Catholic church is falling to the left?

00:46:36.820 Thanks.

00:46:37.820 This reminds me of O'Sullivan's first law, which is that all institutions that are not explicitly

00:46:43.820 conservative or right wing will become left wing over time.

00:46:47.820 So there's this natural tendency for organizations to move left.

00:46:51.820 Luckily, as you believe and as I believe, the church is a unique institution instituted by

00:46:56.820 Christ on earth.

00:46:57.820 And one argument for the Catholicity of the Catholic church, of the universality of it, the realness

00:47:04.820 of it is that it's been around for so long.

00:47:09.820 It has so much weight and so much inertia that even bad Popes can't change it.

00:47:14.820 Even bad Cardinals have a great difficulty pushing it in the other direction.

00:47:18.820 So, you know, papal infallibility is misunderstood.

00:47:22.820 The Pope is fallible, except when he's infallible.

00:47:24.820 It's only been invoked a handful of times.

00:47:26.820 And I have great faith that the Catholic church, as a divine institution on earth, will be able

00:47:34.820 to withstand even bad Popes.

00:47:36.820 And I'm not explicitly calling out Francis, but we've had a lot of bad Popes in the past.

00:47:41.820 We have survived them.

00:47:42.820 The Vatican exorcist actually, Gabriele Amorth, who died recently, he said that Satan was in

00:47:48.820 the Vatican and that there were dark forces operating.

00:47:52.820 We see it all the time with obviously the sex scandal, but probably even more so the scandal

00:47:57.820 with the Vatican bank.

00:47:58.820 Anybody who ever tries to reform that institution gets thrown out the window basically.

00:48:02.820 And so I wouldn't be surprised if after two of the greatest Popes in history, two of the

00:48:07.820 greatest men of the century holding that office, that the devil would be a little hungry to

00:48:11.820 make things go crazy.

00:48:12.820 But I have faith nonetheless in the institution and maybe the church militant is in a purgatorial

00:48:19.820 phase at the moment, but we have hope that we'll come out of it.

00:48:23.820 On that very specific and serious note, we got to say goodbye.

00:48:28.820 I will say one thing.

00:48:30.820 Pretty soon, Andrew Klavan and I, he's the father of what's his name over there, are going

00:48:34.820 to be releasing a little podcast that we've just done on our own.

00:48:37.820 It's Drew's next book.

00:48:39.820 It's his story, Another Kingdom, and I perform it.

00:48:42.820 It's probably the only role I'm ever going to get again in Hollywood after my blank book

00:48:46.820 came out.

00:48:47.820 But look out for that.

00:48:48.820 It's going to be a lot of fun.

00:48:49.820 Another Kingdom.

00:48:50.820 It'll be all fiction and really, really cool.

00:48:52.820 And enjoy the weekend.

00:48:53.820 I hope you survive and we will be back again on Monday.

00:48:56.820 I'm Michael Knowles.

00:48:57.820 Thanks for watching.

00:48:58.820 This is The Michael Knowles Show.

00:49:17.820 This is the Michael Knowles Show.

00:49:29.820 This is The Michael Knowles Show.

The Michael Knowles Show - August 24, 2017

Ep. 16 - What Is Western Civilization？

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