The Michael Knowles Show - Ep. 20 - Are Democrats De-Sanctifying Abortion？

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00:00:37.940 Pigs are flying on this chilly day in hell as Fred Barnes reports in the Wall Street Journal 0.97

00:00:43.080 that the Democrat Party may be moving slightly to the right on abortion. 0.58

00:00:47.300 We'll analyze.

00:00:48.460 Then, Jacob Airy and his eminence Paul Bois are on an all-male panel of deplorables, just to punish me,

00:00:54.840 and we will discuss banana peel microaggressions, Charlie Hebdo's calling Harvey victims Nazis, 0.99

00:01:00.600 and how cops only kill black people. 0.98

00:01:02.600 I'm Michael Knowles, and this is The Michael Knowles Show. 0.83

00:01:12.040 We're going to have the mailbag today, too, so thank you for everybody who sent in a mailbag question.

00:01:16.640 We have lots of good ones to get to.

00:01:18.420 What I really want to talk about today is this vote yesterday at the L.A. City Council

00:01:22.880 to rename Columbus Day as Indigenous Peoples Day.

00:01:27.180 It was unanimous, but few things offend me more than renaming Columbus Day.

00:01:32.540 It is anti-historical. 1.00

00:01:34.320 It is morally idiotic. 1.00

00:01:35.940 It is empty virtue signaling. 1.00

00:01:39.520 It really drives me crazy.

00:01:40.800 It's ungrateful.

00:01:41.640 But I want to dedicate an entire episode to defending Christopher,

00:01:45.180 so we'll do that closer to Columbus Day.

00:01:47.660 And today, we have to talk about this great abortion story. 0.99

00:01:50.640 Pigs are clearly flying in hell. 0.97

00:01:53.260 So this is a welcome change, and a pretty unexpected one,

00:01:57.400 after the 2016 DNC platform position on this issue. 1.00

00:02:01.960 If we can kill all the babies, we can have sex, sex, sex for everyone all the time, 1.00

00:02:12.820 and use the bodies of our children to keep us alive forever like these people here. 1.00

00:02:22.040 I'll tell you, I thought even at the time, even at the time, I thought that was an extreme position.

00:02:31.980 And it moved pretty far after, just in 2008, Hillary Clinton had a very different view on abortion. 0.85

00:02:38.760 We can support a woman's right to choose that makes abortion safe, legal, and rare, 0.98

00:02:46.040 and reduces the number of abortions.

00:02:49.060 It's amazing to think that that was just in 2008.

00:02:52.780 Hillary Clinton said abortion should be safe, legal, and rare, which, of course, doesn't make any sense.

00:02:57.460 If abortion is morally similar to murder, then it shouldn't be legal.

00:03:00.860 And if it's not morally similar to murder, if it's just a procedure to remove a part of your body,

00:03:05.300 then there's no reason that it should be rare.

00:03:07.180 But classic Clintonian example of saying two things out of different sides of your mouth.

00:03:11.980 By 2016, not many years later, Planned Parenthood was selling baby parts to the highest bidder,

00:03:18.780 and the Democratic Party was cheering them on.

00:03:20.940 For tissue that you actually take, not just the tissue that the person bawled you and you can't find anything.

00:03:25.720 Exactly. Right. What is what we can use? What is intact?

00:03:30.500 So that's why I'm saying, no, don't lowball. I want you to be happy.

00:03:34.340 Well, it's complicated by the fact that our volume is so low, too.

00:03:36.280 I mean, are you looking at eight and nine specimens or only second farm history specimens?

00:03:41.980 It's been years since I've talked about compensation, so let me just figure out what others are getting.

00:03:47.000 And if this is in the wallpark, and that's fine. If it's still low, then we can talk about that.

00:03:50.840 You will.

00:03:51.540 What would you do?

00:03:52.680 I want a Lamborghini.

00:03:55.220 I said I want a Lamborghini.

00:03:58.920 Those were those undercover Planned Parenthood Sting videos.

00:04:02.580 I want a Lamborghini. Don't we all?

00:04:04.840 Those videos, they are almost cartoonishly evil.

00:04:08.400 Yeah, they're really just to the core evil.

00:04:11.620 It's amazing that some Hollywood screenwriter, if a Hollywood screenwriter had written that and turned it in, well, forget the politics of Hollywood.

00:04:18.700 But if he had turned it in for a movie about this, it would be thrown out for being too on the nose that a woman is going to sell body parts and haggle over the price so that they could make more of a profit. 1.00

00:04:28.220 It sounds like a horror film.

00:04:29.380 It did. Actually, it sounds like a horror film.

00:04:31.600 And so in May, Nancy Pelosi came out and suggested that the Democratic Party would support candidates who weren't strictly in favor of abortion. 0.88

00:04:40.500 If there were some candidate who's a Democrat in all the other ways but is pro-life, they would consider giving them money.

00:04:47.060 Pelosi wants that big tent, as they call it.

00:04:49.420 Chuck Schumer came out and said that he's in favor of that big tent.

00:04:52.320 Even Governor Moonbeam, our own governor here in California, the once and future Governor Jerry Brown, he came out in favor of supporting pro-life candidates.

00:05:00.440 But the former DNC chairman and failed presidential candidate had a less favorable view of that.

00:05:06.880 Let's cut to Howard Dean for his reaction.

00:05:11.240 Not happy he did not support that move at all.

00:05:14.160 He said that he would not donate to candidates who were pro-life.

00:05:17.260 He would not support those candidates.

00:05:19.100 He wants to keep the Democratic Party pretty small.

00:05:22.240 Now, Planned Parenthood's CEO, Cecile Richards, along with NARAL and all of the other pro-life advocacy organizations, were predictably infuriated.

00:05:31.120 Here's her reaction.

00:05:32.380 Help! Help me!

00:05:33.680 Come back here. You're not a human being. 0.90

00:05:37.300 I am! I am a human being!

00:05:39.420 For crying out loud, look at me!

00:05:41.040 No one can see you.

00:05:43.440 Hold still, you piece of tissue, you.

00:05:46.800 Help! Black lives matter! Black lives matter!

00:05:50.160 I thought I was going to make it through that without breaking.

00:05:56.340 It is amazing that they put her on TV.

00:05:58.540 She's so unlikable.

00:05:59.720 I don't know why they would ever put her on TV like that.

00:06:02.040 Now, why are the Democrats doing this?

00:06:04.420 There are two words.

00:06:06.800 Donald Trump.

00:06:07.760 Donald Trump won five states that the Democrats have won for two elections in a row.

00:06:13.220 Barack Obama won all five of these states twice.

00:06:16.360 Iowa, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.

00:06:19.260 Those happen to be states where social issues matter.

00:06:22.440 And it turns out that if you have just the devil going on TV in support of your candidates, it doesn't play that well in Peoria.

00:06:30.160 Now, Republicans are basically unified on this issue.

00:06:33.880 68% of Republicans are pro-life.

00:06:36.220 And that is the same for men and women.

00:06:37.760 68% of men, 68% of women.

00:06:39.840 Interestingly, the more educated a Republican is, the more likely he is to support pro-life, the more likely he is to oppose abortion.

00:06:48.560 71% of college graduates who are Republican are pro-life.

00:06:52.080 The number dips down a little bit below for postgraduate degrees.

00:06:55.460 But the trend line is obviously in favor of pro-life as Republicans are more educated.

00:07:00.860 Democrats are totally split on this issue.

00:07:02.940 Democrat pro-life, according to Gallup, is 32%.

00:07:06.180 Men are 35%. 0.98

00:07:07.900 Women are 30%. 1.00

00:07:08.800 So Democrat men are more likely to be pro-life than women.

00:07:12.980 As Democrats are more educated, that number actually decreases, though, for pro-life.

00:07:18.920 And 29% of white Democrats are pro-life, but 39% of black Democrats are pro-life.

00:07:25.300 So the minority vote that Democrats are always sucking up to and pandering to actually opposes their rigidity on the issue of abortion.

00:07:34.420 Now, this presents a real problem for Democrats because a lot of their issue in the last election was that they came across as elitist, out of touch with the regular American.

00:07:44.740 Hillary Clinton wanted to kill coal. 1.00

00:07:46.380 They seemed to toss the issues of the middle class and the lower classes completely out the window to suck up to Hollywood celebrities and to suck up to the latte-sipping limousine liberals.

00:07:57.260 It did not play well for them, particularly in those five states.

00:08:01.160 So the March for Life has been getting larger every year.

00:08:04.520 Things have been moving in the direction of pro-life anyway.

00:08:07.220 But the country remains split on it.

00:08:09.480 This is great for us, for the country and for Republicans in particular, for two reasons.

00:08:14.040 There's the moral reason.

00:08:16.460 If the Democrats are supporting pro-life candidates, that means that we'll probably get more pro-life politicians, politicians who are less likely to be extremists on the issue of abortion.

00:08:25.240 On the political issue, though, it will split Democrats.

00:08:29.420 So if we can wedge an issue in there with them, then Republicans are more likely to win those elections.

00:08:34.760 And Republicans generally are more pro-life anyway.

00:08:37.300 So it's a win-win situation.

00:08:39.500 To discuss this, we have to bring on our all-male panel of deplorables. 1.00

00:08:43.400 I figure when we're discussing an issue like abortion, it's very important to only talk to men. 0.99

00:08:47.180 And so we have Jacob Ayer from The Daily Wire and, of course, his eminence, Paul Bois, to give us his opinion on it.

00:08:55.020 Jacob, lots of people could take credit here.

00:08:57.880 President Trump could take credit.

00:08:59.460 Those undercover Planned Parenthood video creators could take credit.

00:09:02.900 Trump's reaching out to new voter demographics.

00:09:05.400 We could give them some credit.

00:09:06.460 Who deserves all of the glory for making the Democrats give up or move slightly to the right of their currently sacramental view of abortion?

00:09:16.840 I honestly think it's actually pro-life Democrats who deserve some credit for this.

00:09:23.180 I have several friends who they vote.

00:09:25.800 They are in principle Democrats, but they vote Republican because of the life issue.

00:09:32.500 They can't stand Cecile Richards. 0.99

00:09:35.200 They can't stand Planned Parenthood. 0.92

00:09:36.900 They know the back story of Margaret Sanger, a radical racist who wanted to exterminate the Negro population, her words.

00:09:44.700 And I think that they should receive some of the credit because they've been pushing this party in this direction after they left it.

00:09:54.460 So I really feel that when they voted for Trump, they said, hey, we want our voices to be heard.

00:10:00.800 And if we have to get Trump elected, we're going to do this.

00:10:03.220 You bring up a great point in Margaret Sanger.

00:10:06.080 People should read Woman in the New Race. 1.00

00:10:08.340 That's an essay by her, a book by her, that does sum up this really spooky eugenicist position on abortion.

00:10:15.760 But, yeah, there is a lot of glory to go around on moving Democrats a little bit back to moderation on this issue.

00:10:23.520 Paul Bois, your eminence.

00:10:25.740 When did Democrats begin to take this sacramental view of abortion?

00:10:29.440 It wasn't so long ago that pro-life Democrats were welcome in the party.

00:10:33.060 Isn't that right?

00:10:34.020 No, no, no, no, actually not.

00:10:37.040 The Democrats pretty much adopted abortion into their platforms in 1976 and 1980.

00:10:44.140 And, of course, Mondale was pro-abortion and so was Dukakis.

00:10:47.900 Jimmy Carter actually, however, expressed several times, even long after his presidency, that he regretted enforcing Roe v. Wade.

00:10:56.560 So there was a climate of kind of that big tent pro-life Democrats are allowed in the party.

00:11:02.720 And it wasn't really until 1992 at the Democratic Convention when the Clintons disinvited Pennsylvania Governor Robert Casey from speaking at the convention.

00:11:21.300 And Robert Casey was a big-time pro-life Democrat, and he was a big-time member of the party.

00:11:27.380 He was—his name, Casey, was the Casey in the famous Supreme Court decision, Planned Parenthood v. Casey.

00:11:35.000 So by having him get disinvited, that was really when the new trend of the abortion litmus test set into the party.

00:11:44.080 So you blame the Clintons?

00:11:45.340 In that way.

00:11:46.680 Yeah, it's the Clintons.

00:11:47.600 And I think them getting defeated is a wonderful thing, and it may end that litmus test finally.

00:11:53.580 I'm happy to blame the Clintons for everything.

00:11:55.620 That's perfectly fine with me.

00:11:57.680 We have to move on to much more important issues than the sanctity of life and human dignity.

00:12:01.860 A Greek life retreat at Ole Miss was canceled this weekend after a banana peel was found in a tree.

00:12:08.540 A student tossed the perfectly compostable banana peel because he couldn't find a garbage can.

00:12:14.300 Now, according to the director of Greek life, quote,

00:12:16.940 quote, many members of our community were hurt, frightened, and upset by what occurred—a banana peel being tossed into a tree—and felt it was imperative to provide space immediately to students affected by this incident.

00:12:30.600 Paul Bois, who is at fault here?

00:12:32.660 Is it the parents?

00:12:33.460 Is it the administrators?

00:12:34.820 Is it the students themselves?

00:12:37.380 Is it our terrible culture?

00:12:39.780 Is it the banana peel?

00:12:40.580 Who do we blame?

00:12:42.220 Michael, I—

00:12:43.340 I blame Paul.

00:12:44.120 I'm just at a loss here.

00:12:45.400 I'm just going to go ahead and say it's the banana peel.

00:12:47.960 It's the banana peel because I—

00:12:49.720 It's the only way you're not going to offend somebody.

00:12:51.960 I mean, really, I typically, on all of these triggering cases, these microaggressions, I find them ridiculous, but I can at least somewhat see the point or the flow of logic that they're making.

00:13:06.180 This, I'm at a loss.

00:13:07.320 So I'm going to say it's the banana's fault.

00:13:08.980 We should just ban all bananas. 0.97

00:13:10.740 They're racist. 0.75

00:13:11.660 No more.

00:13:12.340 I agree.

00:13:13.720 I've been leading the charge against bananas for years.

00:13:15.120 I would never blame my favorite fruit.

00:13:17.640 Jacob, how do we fix the problem of snowflakiness?

00:13:21.040 It is really fun to make fun of these people.

00:13:23.120 They're out of their minds if they're triggered because some kid threw away a banana peel.

00:13:27.120 But how do we fix it?

00:13:28.260 How do we make students stronger and smarter and less out of their minds?

00:13:34.040 I think the solution should be we should teach Western culture from a literary perspective.

00:13:40.640 I mean, if you read a lot of, like, Charles Dickens, the masculine and the feminine characters are all very strong.

00:13:49.120 But because these faculties placate to these snowflakes, they're like, oh, well, Dickens, Shakespeare, on and on and on.

00:13:58.780 They must be racist because they were written by straight white men or whatever.

00:14:02.360 And so I think my dad's about Dickens, but you're gone.

00:14:04.800 But I'm just saying if we go back to teaching, oh, this is how, if we go back to teaching that literature, we represent to them good, moral, strong characters, I think that they can be strong again.

00:14:18.360 It should go back to teaching what their Western culture is all about. 0.99

00:14:22.420 Then you have to read, though.

00:14:23.620 It's a real hassle.

00:14:24.640 Dickens is very pro-lix.

00:14:26.280 I'm one of the few millennials who read, I guess, you know.

00:14:29.260 Absolutely.

00:14:29.560 You are, and that's how it's going to stay. 0.89

00:14:31.600 Yeah, you make me sick.

00:14:32.860 I don't have time for that stuff.

00:14:33.920 Okay, we need to say goodbye to Facebook and YouTube now.

00:14:37.220 And I know that what you're waiting for is to hear more of this panel.

00:14:40.940 I know that you want to get a blessing from his eminence, Paul Bois.

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00:15:22.380 The latest cover of the French satire magazine, Charlie Hebdo, reads,

00:15:33.680 God exists.

00:15:34.820 He drowned all the neo-Nazis in Texas. 1.00

00:15:38.060 The editors at Charlie Hebdo might remember that their stupid magazine would be written in German if it weren't for us. 1.00

00:15:44.180 Paul, surprise, surprise. 1.00

00:15:47.180 Muslim terrorists murdered much of the Charlie Hebdo staff. 0.98

00:15:50.060 The United States is leading the global fight against radical Islam, but these children over there, these rude people, have decided to attack us. 0.99

00:16:00.260 They've decided to attack regular Americans.

00:16:02.560 Why won't they give us a break?

00:16:04.080 And is there any satirical merit to making fun of hurricane victims?

00:16:09.140 Well, the reason why they won't give us a break, Michael, is because they're leftists at heart.

00:16:12.760 I mean, I know we want to give them credit, and they were attacked, and that was a horrible, horrible thing, and we all rightly stood alongside them.

00:16:21.160 And they were brave enough to criticize Islam when everybody is running away from that issue. 0.90

00:16:27.040 But it doesn't change the fact that they've just been nothing but cruel and merciless towards Christianity and particularly Catholicism and the way they've painted it on their magazine.

00:16:37.320 And on the issue of whether or not, you know, you can do satire on hurricane victims, look, you can do satire on anything so long as it's tactful and it's funny. 0.98

00:16:48.960 I mean, even that stupid political cartoon that was making fun of the hurricane victims at least had a little bit of tact in there. 0.99

00:16:56.000 This is just dead, dead on arrival. 0.99

00:16:57.940 It's not funny.

00:16:58.780 It's not tactful.

00:16:59.620 It's akin to the Kathy Griffin holding Donald Trump's severed head.

00:17:04.300 It's just a tasteless cartoon. 0.98

00:17:08.440 It's also a little ridiculous of them, Jacob. 0.93

00:17:11.240 Do the French have any credibility to call Americans Nazis? 0.92

00:17:15.780 Hitler sneezed and those guys surrendered.

00:17:18.500 Is there any credibility to their accusations?

00:17:21.080 Absolutely not.

00:17:22.020 And I want to make something absolutely clear to Charlie Hebdo.

00:17:24.860 When you were attacked by radical Muslims, Texas Monthly didn't put a cover, didn't put a cover mocking France on their publication. 0.57

00:17:35.880 Absolutely not.

00:17:36.900 And you know what?

00:17:38.540 750,000 Texans went to World War II and rescued you.

00:17:44.000 So I don't even want to hear it.

00:17:45.180 And 22,000 of them died.

00:17:47.600 My sister, she is literally trapped by a flood of water.

00:17:51.920 My great-grandmother is in a nursing home, and they're trying to keep the power on so those nursing home live-in patients don't die.

00:18:03.560 So shame on you, Charlie Hebdo.

00:18:05.340 I am disgusted by this.

00:18:07.240 I'm offended as a Texan, and you should apologize immediately.

00:18:11.360 This is the first time I've ever seen Jacob Berry angry.

00:18:13.940 And you really got to do a lot to get Jacob Berry angry.

00:18:16.980 I'm kind of aroused.

00:18:17.820 Great job, Charlie Hebdo. 0.99

00:18:22.060 You've done the impossible, you rude French dummies. 1.00

00:18:26.860 Okay. 1.00

00:18:28.460 That's it.

00:18:29.000 I got to get—oh, no, I'm sorry.

00:18:29.880 There is one more story.

00:18:31.000 Oh, my God.

00:18:31.840 There is one more great story we have to cover.

00:18:33.960 Body cam footage has just surfaced of an incident last year in an Atlanta suburb when a woman pulled over for drunk driving told the officer that she didn't want to get out of her car because she'd seen so many videos of cops killing people.

00:18:46.920 The officer responded, but you're not black. 0.99

00:18:50.240 Remember, we only shoot black people. 1.00

00:18:52.180 We only kill black people, right? 1.00

00:18:53.580 All the videos you've seen. 1.00

00:18:55.260 Have you seen the black people getting killed? 1.00

00:18:57.400 Not—maybe not the classiest joke the officer could have made. 0.99

00:19:01.520 Paul, left-wing heads have exploded here.

00:19:04.800 Is the outrage justified over these comments?

00:19:08.240 I mean, look, Michael, you know, I'm very, very quick to condemn snowflakes and all of their phony outrage.

00:19:15.120 But this is definitely one—I mean, I know that the officer is joking and clearly is not—

00:19:20.020 He's clearly joking, right?

00:19:21.300 I think some people on the internet are saying that it's an admission that he's making. 0.93

00:19:25.200 Yeah, I could see that, though—I mean, if I'm a black person and I hear an officer saying, like, we only shoot black people, yeah, I could understand the initial outrage.

00:19:36.080 Do I think the guy should lose his job?

00:19:37.580 No, but I'm going to cut some people having outrage, a little bit of slack on this one.

00:19:43.000 That's fair.

00:19:43.540 You think the joke crossed the line.

00:19:44.920 I wondered a little bit. 0.98

00:19:46.120 It is a funny joke, though, because I think people think that he's joking about black people being killed by the cops. 0.98

00:19:53.060 That's clearly not it. 0.83

00:19:54.140 He's joking about the narrative that is being pushed.

00:19:57.000 There have been study after study that has come out that has explained away most of the disparities between black people and black suspects being killed by cops and suspects of other ethnicities.

00:20:08.880 And I think the narrative here is that there is a nationwide epidemic of racist cops looking for the next black person to kill, which is just simply untrue.

00:20:19.000 And if the joke is about that, I kind of cut him some slack on it. 0.73

00:20:22.900 It seems to me that cops have been under a lot of attack over the last few years.

00:20:27.280 Nevertheless, not the sort of thing that one should say professionally and especially not when you're in a position of enforcing violence and coercion.

00:20:36.160 Jacob, the officer was placed on administrative leave.

00:20:40.000 Is that too harsh for a joke or does that punishment fit the crime?

00:20:44.040 I think in this case, the punishment does fit the crime.

00:20:46.860 I don't think he should be fired.

00:20:49.140 I don't think that he should be removed as a police officer.

00:20:52.320 But administrative leave, especially since it was just such, as Paul was talking earlier, it was a joke that lacked tack.

00:21:01.600 And I agree with you.

00:21:02.680 It was a little funny.

00:21:03.320 It's one way to describe it.

00:21:04.380 Yeah, very lacking a lot of tact.

00:21:07.680 And I agree with you.

00:21:08.820 It was a little funny because he was just kind of being sarcastic.

00:21:11.220 But I still think that, yeah, he's a police officer.

00:21:14.560 He's he he should honor his badge.

00:21:17.280 And he and I think in this case, he dishonored it.

00:21:19.600 So administrative leave, I think, is is just right for him.

00:21:22.920 Two jokes that just simply did not land for people.

00:21:26.120 You got to watch your comedy, guys.

00:21:27.860 OK, panel, you're out of here.

00:21:29.620 Jacob, your eminence.

00:21:31.300 Thank you very much for coming on.

00:21:32.500 Now we have to get to the mailbag.

00:21:34.920 All right.

00:21:38.840 First question comes from Mike.

00:21:40.880 Just discovered you here on Daily Wire.

00:21:42.800 I'm a new subscriber and former leftist.

00:21:45.080 Thanks for coming on over both to the Daily Wire and to the right.

00:21:48.540 Love your work.

00:21:49.180 But why the heck is your book not available on Kindle?

00:21:51.780 You know, there's a big misconception about this.

00:21:54.240 My book is preloaded on every single Kindle.

00:21:57.560 What you have to do is you take it out and you make sure that the book is powered off and you can read it cover to cover.

00:22:02.680 But thank you for your support.

00:22:03.720 From Tyler, hey, Michael, would you, Andrew, or Ben be willing to speak at a community college?

00:22:09.480 And if so, what would be the best way to set up the event?

00:22:12.740 We would love to do that.

00:22:14.100 I can only speak for myself, but I love speaking at colleges and would love to come to your college.

00:22:19.500 So if you want to do that, just tweet at me and I will connect you to the people who handle that and we'll set it up.

00:22:24.460 It'll be a lot of fun.

00:22:24.980 From Brandon, dearest Michael Trolls, best cigar under 50 bucks.

00:22:31.400 Thanks.

00:22:32.040 Kind regards.

00:22:33.080 Finally, a question I care about.

00:22:35.100 I have been doing this show for a month now and I haven't gotten a question that I care about nearly as much.

00:22:42.140 There are a couple categories here.

00:22:45.180 If you're able to get Cuban cigars, if you're traveling to Cuba or you're traveling abroad, there are a number of great Cubans under 50 bucks.

00:22:52.220 The prices vary widely.

00:22:53.940 So if you go to Cuba, the cigars are dirt cheap.

00:22:56.940 If you go to London, you'll have to mortgage your house to afford any of them.

00:23:00.520 For the Cuban cigars, I would recommend the Trinidad Vigia, the San Luis Rey Exclusivo Cuba, and the Bolivar Bellicoso Fino.

00:23:07.880 All tremendous cigars could be cigar of the year.

00:23:11.120 For non-Cubans, I would recommend, which are available anywhere in the United States. 1.00

00:23:14.900 I've been smoking them for years and years and years.

00:23:17.420 I would recommend My Father.

00:23:18.900 Basically anything by them.

00:23:20.440 The blender is Don Pepin.

00:23:21.740 Everything he makes is exquisite.

00:23:24.780 The Padron 1926 Anniversario and 1964 Anniversario are both good.

00:23:29.060 I prefer the 1926.

00:23:30.840 It's a little pricey, but it's an excellent cigar.

00:23:33.440 I love Nat Sherman cigars.

00:23:34.920 I'm from New York.

00:23:35.740 It's a New York local tobacconist.

00:23:38.020 The Timeless series is very good.

00:23:39.460 If you can get your hands on the Gotham West side, that's my favorite that they put out.

00:23:43.180 And then, of course, Oliva Series V and Series O are tremendous cigars.

00:23:48.840 I recommend them.

00:23:49.980 They're really cheap.

00:23:50.800 They're like seven or eight bucks a stick, and I couldn't recommend them more.

00:23:53.800 I've been smoking them since I was a wee little boy.

00:23:56.140 Okay, next question from David.

00:23:59.320 Mr. Knowles, who would you pick to star in a movie adaptation of your number one bestseller?

00:24:04.920 David is talking, of course, about reasons to vote for Democrats, a comprehensive guide.

00:24:08.780 I recently rewatched Gone with the Wind, and I think I would have to use an actor from that film, specifically the wind.

00:24:16.420 The scene that comes to my mind is from American Beauty.

00:24:20.160 It's that scene where the wind is whipping around, and there's a little plastic bag just floating around.

00:24:25.860 And the kid, he says, this is my greatest work of art.

00:24:29.080 When I consider all of the reasons to vote for Democrats, that is the picture that I see before me.

00:24:34.400 And I would love it if a Hollywood director could realize my artistic vision for that film.

00:24:39.980 From George.

00:24:41.400 Hi, Mr. Knowles.

00:24:42.120 I'm not sure if you saw in the news recently that Iceland is on the path to completely eliminating Down syndrome from its population through prenatal screening and abortion.

00:24:50.380 I think we actually mentioned this on the show a little bit.

00:24:52.300 We did, at least on a panel.

00:24:54.800 This seems very Nazi-esque to me.

00:24:56.500 It is, especially since people born with Down syndrome can still have a high quality of life.

00:25:01.300 They can.

00:25:02.140 How would you argue with someone who thinks this is a good thing?

00:25:05.020 I would ask them specifically, who would you kill? 0.73

00:25:07.600 Of the people who are alive right now, who have injuries, who are maimed, who have been amputated, who have mental retardation of any variety. 0.99

00:25:17.640 I would ask them, which of those people would you kill? 0.92

00:25:21.240 For whom would it be better to be dead than to be alive?

00:25:24.180 I think that will shut them up and make them realize the flaw in this argument because in Iceland and for other eugenicist arguments here, what they center their arguments around is abortion because of the fiction that if you kill a baby in the womb, it hasn't really lived yet and you're not killing it.

00:25:44.640 You're just preventing it from ever having life.

00:25:46.760 But the reason we know that that little baby has Down syndrome in the womb is because it's a little baby that is living that we can run tests on and figure out what their life will look like to some degree after they're born.

00:25:58.840 So I would make it very clear that you are ending a life and if we go down this path, if we say, well, people with Down syndrome, they shouldn't live, their life is so poor, which is not true, by the way, but they'll say their life is so poor, it's not worth living for them. 0.97

00:26:15.480 Then you have to ask, well, where do we draw that line?

00:26:18.740 Do we say that people who are born with missing limbs, their quality of life will be too poor, people who are born with autism, their quality of life will be too poor, people who are born with a predilection for the common cold, is that will their life be too poor?

00:26:32.480 When we determine who has the right to live and who ought to live based on how beautiful they are, how smart they are, or how tall and athletically strong they are, we're going down a really bad path that will end in oblivion and despair.

00:26:49.100 From Hendrick, in California, I unfortunately overheard two men discussing the killing of trees, which leads me to the following questions.

00:26:57.740 If they are distressed about the murder of trees, what do they eat for breakfast?

00:27:01.880 Do they commit abortion by eating eggs or do they commit infanticide by eating alfalfa sprouts?

00:27:06.840 Excellent questions, Hendrick.

00:27:08.600 I got this a lot with my blank book because environmentalists would yell at me for wasting all of this paper.

00:27:14.520 You must remind them, paper is an organic, renewable resource.

00:27:18.140 We should use it, we should print out these emails, and that way the tree farms won't just become big parking lots in the middle of Washington State.

00:27:25.920 This does call to mind my favorite group of political activists.

00:27:29.840 They are the people who are vegan, they're crunchy, they're vegetarian, but they support abortion. 0.66

00:27:35.140 Those are two things that cannot go together.

00:27:38.460 They're people who won't eat an egg because chicken life is sacred, but they will kill a second or third trimester human baby because human life is not sacred.

00:27:46.860 It does not make a whole lot of sense.

00:27:48.740 Perhaps you should bring that up to them.

00:27:51.180 From James.

00:27:52.200 Good day, Michael.

00:27:53.000 Good day, James.

00:27:53.580 Here in Australia, we're having this same-sex marriage debate, and I was wondering, what are the best secular arguments for and against gay marriage?

00:28:00.840 P.S., would you ever like to visit Australia?

00:28:02.600 P.P.S., keep up the great work.

00:28:04.060 P.S., yes.

00:28:04.800 P.P.S., thank you very much.

00:28:06.180 The gay marriage debate, it has been totally wrongly framed on both sides, but in particular on the left.

00:28:13.220 People view this issue as a civil rights issue.

00:28:17.380 Who has the right to get married? 1.00

00:28:19.760 Why do some people have the right to get married, but some people don't have the right to get married? 1.00

00:28:23.420 I can marry any woman that I like, any person that I love, but someone who's gay can't marry the person that they love. 1.00

00:28:31.100 This is skipping the first question in this debate, which is what is marriage?

00:28:35.080 And that's not necessarily a religious question.

00:28:38.120 Obviously, religions have quite a lot to say about that, but it's a philosophical question.

00:28:42.400 It's a historical question.

00:28:44.000 It's a question that has always had basically one answer for the history of civilization, which is that marriage is a union between one man and women, at least women.

00:28:54.380 There has been polygamy at various points in our history, but for the vast majority of that history, it's been between one man and one woman.

00:29:02.260 And so the secular question that you can ask, the philosophic question is, what is marriage?

00:29:08.120 Why is marriage, why do we think of it as between a man and women or a man and one woman?

00:29:13.020 Is there something about the complementarity of the sexes that defines marriage?

00:29:17.540 Is the sexual difference inherent in what marriage is?

00:29:21.020 Does marriage involve the possibility, the potential to create a family, the atomic unit of society?

00:29:27.260 If marriage is not about that, if marriage is simply about sexual attraction or emotional attraction, then why on earth would we prevent polygamous couples from being married, polyamorous couples from being married?

00:29:39.560 Why would we prevent marriages that involve more than 50 people if it's simply about attraction and living together and visiting people in hospitals and any other order of things that could be accomplished simply through contract law?

00:29:53.260 If the sexes are different, if there are inherent sexual differences, and if those inherent sexual differences play some part in our nature and in our society, then the question of redefining marriage is a perilous one 0.98

00:30:07.880 and should be taken very cautiously and not oversimplified as it has been at all levels right up to Anthony Kennedy giving one of the stupidest decisions in the history of the Supreme Court and saying that the only reason to oppose gay marriage is irrational hatred of gays. 0.99

00:30:22.960 It's slanderous and absolutely absurd. 0.99

00:30:26.500 Next question from Lucy.

00:30:29.160 Hey, Michael, you often joke about your Catholic guilt and seem to be ripping into Joel Osteen for his focus on mental positivity.

00:30:35.560 I hadn't heard of Osteen aside from the time he was on Jimmy Fallon's show, but at first glance, I would say his self-talk style of preaching has both scientific and biblical foundations.

00:30:46.840 A perhaps cliche but obvious example being Philippians 4.8.

00:30:49.580 Do you think Christians are supposed to live ashamed?

00:30:53.720 What's your take on Romans 8.1 and Galatians 5.1?

00:30:56.840 Cheers, Lucy. 0.99

00:30:58.660 I actually don't mean to rip into Joel Osteen as a figure in the culture or as a book writer or as a TV host.

00:31:05.300 I do rip into him a little bit as the leader of the largest church in America, but as a figure, I don't think he's necessarily doing anything particularly wrong.

00:31:14.320 Let's go through those Bible verses that you brought up.

00:31:17.600 Philippians 4.8.

00:31:18.500 Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable, if anything is excellent or praiseworthy, think about such things.

00:31:29.820 Wonderful advice.

00:31:30.720 We ought to do it all the time.

00:31:32.000 Romans 8.1.

00:31:33.080 Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

00:31:37.520 Also true.

00:31:38.100 Galatians 5.1.

00:31:39.820 It is for freedom that Christ has set us free.

00:31:42.400 Stand firm then and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.

00:31:46.660 And Christ himself tells us this in the Gospels.

00:31:49.120 Follow me for my yoke is easy and my burden is light.

00:31:53.560 All of which is absolutely true.

00:31:55.040 And Christians should live joyously and joyfully.

00:31:58.600 You rarely see a frowning saint.

00:32:00.280 You see saints who suffer all the time, but they don't seem to be frowning too much because they're filled with joy, even when they're grieving or if they're a little sad.

00:32:08.980 We certainly shouldn't live ashamed.

00:32:10.500 We should live in joy in Christ.

00:32:12.280 And this is the issue with Osteen, is that Osteen does not talk about Christ very much in his sermons or on his Twitter account.

00:32:19.180 He used the word Jesus or Christ 112 times out of over 16,000 tweets.

00:32:25.800 He doesn't have a cross on his altar in his megachurch.

00:32:30.700 So practically, go with what works.

00:32:32.640 If Joel Osteen is giving you practical advice for your life, which is, by the way, what he says he's doing.

00:32:37.680 He says he's not an evangelist in the traditional sense.

00:32:40.360 And I give him total credit for honesty.

00:32:42.460 If that's helping you in a practical way, go with it.

00:32:45.240 Go with what works.

00:32:46.020 Theologically, though, I wouldn't focus on you.

00:32:49.680 A lot of Osteen's books are living your best life now, making the better you, you, you, you.

00:32:54.500 And a man wrapped up in himself makes a very small package indeed.

00:32:59.040 What you should do is live joyously looking at Christ, as all of those verses allude to.

00:33:03.880 So I would make sure that we don't focus on sentimentality here.

00:33:10.080 I think that's what Osteen kind of goes into a little bit.

00:33:13.220 Jesus wept.

00:33:14.140 It's the shortest verse in the New Testament.

00:33:16.860 Jesus wept, and he wept rightly so. 1.00

00:33:19.760 Your freedom was purchased miraculously at a great cost.

00:33:24.120 It was purchased at the cost of God the Son being incarnate and dying on the cross, being tortured infinitely, literally dying, and then coming back up three days later.

00:33:33.460 Now, when you think about why he died and the reason for what he died, which is the sin of mankind, I guess that's negative.

00:33:40.980 That's probably not the most positive thing to think about.

00:33:43.400 But when you think about it in that way, then the miracle of redemption is much more awesome.

00:33:48.600 It fills you with greater awe, and it fills you with a deeper and truer joy.

00:33:52.600 So I think we ought to view the world in exactly that way.

00:33:55.580 We ought to smile just as much as Joel Osteen if that's how the spirit moves us.

00:33:59.440 But it shouldn't be one that's based on saccharine or sentimentality.

00:34:02.600 Because, as C.S. Lewis points out in The Weight of Glory, if you look for truth, you might find comfort.

00:34:07.980 But if you look for comfort, you'll find neither truth nor comfort, only soft soap and wishful thinking and, in the end, despair.

00:34:14.700 So ground it in something real and look toward Christ for that rather than toward yourself.

00:34:19.860 And now the final question from Greg Michael, the Clavenade.

00:34:23.180 That's a nice nickname.

00:34:24.820 I'm excited for your new story podcast that you're working on with Andy Millennial.

00:34:29.160 He's so in touch with our culture.

00:34:30.600 He just raps about what all the kids are talking about, like rock and roll and stuff.

00:34:34.320 But I do have one concern.

00:34:36.260 Since this takes place in another universe, will this introduce Claven into a new universe,

00:34:42.120 only to pull him out every week, making a, dare I say, bum-bum-bum Claven-less weekend?

00:34:48.540 Thank you.

00:34:49.260 That is a really serious concern.

00:34:52.820 Thank you for bringing up a philosophical question, a paradox that has plagued Drew and I

00:34:59.480 since we began working on this story podcast, Another Kingdom.

00:35:03.820 My answer to that is, it's in another universe.

00:35:06.520 Who cares?

00:35:07.320 It's not in our universe.

00:35:08.340 Not my problem.

00:35:09.360 I don't care.

00:35:10.180 Thank you for that question.

00:35:11.140 We'll let you know more when that podcast is about to come out.

00:35:13.400 Now we are heading into the Claven-less weekend, so batten down the hatches.

00:35:16.440 Get the MREs and the ammo ready.

00:35:18.660 We will be back next Monday.

00:35:21.020 Tune in then.

00:35:21.620 I'm Michael Knowles.

00:35:22.300 This is The Michael Knowles Show.

00:35:23.420 Have a good weekend.

00:35:24.020 Stay safe.

00:35:42.700 Nervous about financing a renovation or move?

00:35:46.080 TD can help.

00:35:47.600 Request a calming call with TD Mortgage Direct and say hello to good advice.

00:35:54.020 Thank you.

The Michael Knowles Show - August 31, 2017

Ep. 20 - Are Democrats De-Sanctifying Abortion？

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