Within a matter of hours, we might have a new Pope. And even if you're not Catholic, what happens today in the Sistine Chapel is going to affect you in a big way because, whatever your religious views, the Catholic Church is the single most important institution in the West. And it's the last institution holding our decaying civilization together.
00:03:33.200So, when the cardinals are done voting, they're going to burn all their ballots in a stove that will go up through a flue in the Sistine Chapel.
00:03:43.520If the smoke is black, that indicates that we don't have a Pope yet.
00:03:48.140If the smoke is white, and they have little chemicals and things to change the color of the smoke, if the smoke is white, that indicates that we have a Pope.
00:03:56.400Why do you care if you are not Catholic?
00:03:58.880This matters, even if you're not Catholic, because the Catholic Church is the institution that built our civilization.
00:04:09.860The Catholic Church built the cathedrals.
00:04:12.140The Catholic Church built the universities.
00:04:14.400The Catholic Church built the governments, in many ways, of a lot of our nations, even though religious influence has waned over time.
00:04:22.760The Catholic Church built our art, our paintings, our sculptures, our everything.
00:04:32.080So, even if you're not Catholic, what happens today and what happens to the Catholic Church will affect you.
00:04:39.520There is an old expression, lex arandi, lex credendi, the way that we worship, the law that we worship.
00:04:47.780The law of worship is the law of belief.
00:04:52.020So, and by the way, speaking of the lex arandi, the liturgy is going to be a really important part, I think, of the conclave.
00:05:01.960The traditional mass has become a big draw for a lot of converts, for a lot of reverts, for a lot of young people, for myself included.
00:05:12.300And during Pope Francis' pontificate, the Vatican tried to suppress the traditional Latin mass for all sorts of reasons, which I don't think were very persuasive.
00:05:20.260The Latin mass persisted in substantially its same form from the year 600 until after the Second Vatican Council in the 20th century.
00:05:33.140Then there was a big tumult, a big change to the liturgy, and that affected a lot of the ways that we believe.
00:05:39.260If you no longer receive our Lord in the Holy Eucharist, kneeling on the tongue, if you receive our Lord in some different way, that's probably going to affect the way that you believe.
00:05:52.100If the priest is facing the people like he's putting on a vaudeville show for you, instead of facing the altar and leading all of the people in worship of God, that's going to affect the way that you believe.
00:06:02.060I think that's going to be a big part of it.
00:06:03.480Obviously, some geopolitical issues are going to touch on it too, but I don't care if you've never been inside a Catholic church.
00:06:12.480I mean, I do care, and I think you should go, but I'm just telling you, this institution, the sole institution in the West to survive from antiquity,
00:06:24.140the institution that has had more influence than any other in our civilization, what happens to that institution?
00:06:34.160It's going to affect everything, okay?
00:06:36.280The other institutions that could have held the West together have fallen.
00:06:42.540The universities, the old regimes, the old monarchies, the pomp and the circumstance, it's gone.
00:06:50.240The one institution that remains, that endures, somewhat expectedly, if you ask me, is the church.
00:06:56.520So, we got to hope and pray that the conclave goes well.
00:07:01.000Now, speaking of reforming institutions in our dying civilization.
00:07:07.220By the way, when I say dying civilization, I don't just mean we're getting dumber or we're more impolite or something.
00:07:26.800And at the political level, that's what Trump is trying to do right now.
00:07:30.080Well, Doge is announcing, Elon Musk is announcing, that they've saved over $1,000 per taxpayer.
00:07:39.260Doge says the total savings has now reached $165 billion.
00:07:42.040That's through a combination of asset sales, contract-slash-lease cancellations, renegotiations, fraud, improper payment deletion, grant cancellations, interest savings, programmatic changes, regulatory savings, and workforce reductions.
00:07:56.020Which means, if you divvy that up among the taxpayers, you get down to $1,024.84 per taxpayer, because there are 161 million individual federal taxpayers in the U.S.
00:09:20.220So anyway, my point still stands on it, which is, in fact, now the point is all the clearer and all the more compelling, which is $11 billion to deport all the illegals.
00:09:35.300I'd like to pay more in taxes, actually, if that's the result that I'll get.
00:09:39.560Where I don't want my tax dollars going is to stupid programs that promote leftism overseas that are super corrupt and to bureaucrats who are not doing their jobs.
00:09:49.240Elon Musk came out with a shocking fact yesterday about the federal employees that you're all paying, taking even more of your money.
00:10:00.700We've actually found there's a lot of people who are federal government employees.
00:10:04.520They're active employees who nonetheless applied for and have received unemployment insurance.
00:10:15.620100,000 people that you're paying your taxpayer money, taking even more of your taxpayer money because they're claiming unemployment.
00:10:26.480This, after we've heard so much from Doge and from various agency heads.
00:10:32.040I mean, you heard from EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin that the vast majority of the workforce was not coming into work five days a week or even close to it when he took office.
00:10:41.660These are really crazy numbers and the libs are going to try to fear monger among the electorate with tariffs or with the bond market going up and down or with the NASDAQ going up and down.
00:10:58.880They're going to say, see, Trump is a disaster for our economy.
00:11:01.960But just let's get down to brass tacks here.
00:11:06.620Trump is plowing through the waste, fraud, and abuse in the government that the Democrats have used as a patronage system to ensconce themselves in power for decades.
00:11:17.700That's why they're freaking out and Trump can bring the receipts and say, hey, my agenda, my administration is cleaning up their corruption and it's thus far giving each of you a thousand bucks back in your pocket.
00:11:34.260Those conversations are going to be very important as Trump moves toward his signature legislative achievement, one hopes, of the first year, which is the extension of the tax cuts.
00:11:46.140We'll get to all of that, though, in a little bit.
00:11:47.880First, I want to get to this ridiculous debate about the N-word that has gotten even funnier because of a magnificent television appearance on Piers Morgan's show last night that has everybody talking and that I have many thoughts on.
00:12:03.360I have a lot more, a lot more to say, okay?
00:12:06.980But first, you've got to go to hillsdale.edu slash Knowles.
00:12:17.800Even if you're one of the few people who can say it did, you're probably due for a refresher.
00:12:22.340While our world constantly evolves through time and technology, certain fundamental truths about humanity and our place in the universe remain unchanged.
00:12:29.860That is why I'm really excited that Hillsdale College is offering more than 40 free online courses in the most important and enduring subjects.
00:12:36.480Learn about the works of C.S. Lewis, the stories in the book of Genesis, the meaning of the U.S. Constitution, the rise and fall of the Roman Republic,
00:12:42.240the history of the ancient church with Hillsdale College's free online courses.
00:12:47.040Personally, I love Hillsdale's course on Paradise Lost.
00:12:52.200Paradise Lost, as you know, is the great epic English poem by John Milton, one of the great works of literature ever written.
00:12:57.560I didn't study it back when I was in college, so it's really nice that Hillsdale has a course on it.
00:13:02.460It was first published in 1667, even today, especially today, actually.
00:13:06.800It's a great look at human nature, the relationship between God, man, the angels, the stark contrast between Satan's lies and God's truth,
00:13:13.580and also it's kind of about liberalism, which is really helpful these days.
00:13:18.740So, right now, go to hillsdale.edu slash Knowles to start.
00:18:04.640The taboo is too intense for this word by any reasonable standard,
00:18:09.600which is a fair point that she's making, that she is implicitly making in the first video.
00:18:14.440In the second video, it's a less reasonable point when she says, yeah, I call black people this word all the time.
00:18:18.900And whenever it's appropriate, when's it appropriate?
00:18:21.260Whenever I feel like it, that's when it's appropriate.
00:18:23.120This is a kind of tyranny of the will, voluntarist vision of using words.
00:18:29.360And she's backed herself into a corner.
00:18:30.760And this is a political issue because I find that conservatives have backed themselves into a corner on the N-word and on all of these discussions.
00:18:41.440And actually, you know, I hate to say I told you so, and I've mentioned my book twice now today on the show.
00:18:46.720I wrote my book largely to prevent conservatives from backing themselves into a corner here.
00:18:52.940Because now this debate, once again, is about free speech.
00:18:57.340But as I mentioned the first time around, when we were talking about Shiloh Hendricks, when I was defending people who donated to her,
00:19:05.360when I was pointing out the cultural context and grievances that led to this interaction on a playground,
00:19:13.120I pointed out, no one, not one person is seriously defending calling a five-year-old kid a racial slur.
00:19:23.280That has nothing to do with the Shiloh Hendricks story.
00:19:26.000That has nothing to do with the GoFundMe.
00:19:27.820That has nothing to do with any of it.
00:19:30.380What this is really about is Austin Metcalf and racial double standards and mass migration.
00:22:48.140Those should be things like vulgarity, profanity.
00:22:52.660Those should be things like threats and obscenity and fraud and libel and slander and all the things that we traditionally have suppressed and discouraged.
00:23:05.800And the true taboos, taboo is a religious term.
00:23:09.780The real taboos should pertain to religious things.
00:23:12.480But these days, we're allowed to and encouraged to profane religious things.
00:23:18.000The only thing we're not allowed to talk about are the left's hobby horses.
00:23:39.200But they've got to be really good and really bad, not just some social engineering scheme cooked up by the left to push whatever racial or sexual agenda and fantasy they're trying to push that week.
00:23:50.200I want to give you more pearls of wisdom.
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00:25:50.600Actually, pretty decent reporting in this case.
00:25:52.500The Trump administration is defending federal regs allowing abortion pills to be available online and by mail, according to the DOJ.
00:26:02.380The DOJ is not defending the abortion pill and the FDA's rules on the abortion pill on the merits.
00:26:13.140The DOJ is simply arguing that these three red states that are suing the agency lack standing.
00:26:20.600And so they're arguing to a judge in the Northern District of Texas that the case should be thrown out.
00:26:25.300So first, I think I understand a little bit what the Trump administration is doing here, which is putting the abortion issue aside entirely.
00:26:36.760The Trump administration is defending federal power against the states taking that power back.
00:26:43.520Which is a little bit of a shift in that Republicans tend to support states' rights, at least in the last 50, 60 years.
00:26:48.680The Republicans are on the side of states' rights, and the Democrats are on the side of the federal government.
00:26:52.360Trump has changed that a little bit, I think for good reasons, but this would be an example of the federal government saying, no, this is our right.
00:26:57.820We have the right to set these regulations.
00:27:00.180You, even if you're red states, even Idaho, Kansas, and Missouri, you don't have the right to take that away from us.
00:27:17.460Obviously, when you have a party elected to power, then in the first midterm election, usually the party in the White House loses power in the Congress.
00:27:24.100So they're concerned that the Republicans are going to lose power there.
00:27:26.860It's going to imperil the rest of the Trump agenda.