The Michael Knowles Show - Ep. 67 - Christmas Comes Early! Tax Cuts

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00:00:30.740 John McCain says that he will vote for tax reform.

00:00:34.760 What a chilly day in hell.

00:00:35.860 Nancy Pelosi has called on the longest-serving member of Congress 0.95

00:00:39.260 from her own party to resign. 0.72

00:00:41.660 And The Daily Show mocks Senator Liawatha Elizabeth Warren

00:00:45.000 and calls Trump woke.

00:00:47.100 Did Christmas come early?

00:00:48.500 We will analyze alongside our award-winning panel of deplorables,

00:00:52.160 Jason Russell of the Washington Examiner

00:00:53.920 and Vincent Buda of Live from Studio 6B.

00:00:57.440 Plus, speaking of Christmas,

00:00:59.220 we will talk to author Leo Severino about his new book,

00:01:02.740 Going Deeper, A Reasoned Exploration of God and Truth.

00:01:06.560 Then, all of your questions will be answered in the mailbag.

00:01:09.860 I'm Michael Knowles.

00:01:10.700 This is The Michael Knowles Show.

00:01:19.320 So much to talk about today.

00:01:20.980 There is so much good covfefe stuff going on.

00:01:24.480 Before we can talk about it, though, we have to remember the reason for the season.

00:01:28.480 Before we open our Christmas presents of tax cuts and weird sex stuff and Democrats eating their own,

00:01:33.580 we have to remember that Christmas isn't about presents.

00:01:36.000 It's about God.

00:01:36.940 And in that spirit, we bring on author Leo Severino to talk about his new book,

00:01:41.820 Going Deeper, A Reasoned Exploration of God and Truth.

00:01:45.260 Leo, thank you for being here.

00:01:46.720 You, like me, are a decadent, gaudy, saint, venerating papist.

00:01:50.880 Your book presents a number of clearly laid-out arguments for the existence of God and his nature,

00:01:56.300 largely drawing on St. Thomas Aquinas.

00:01:58.940 I've actually been referring to the book around the office as the Summa Theologica,

00:02:02.720 because it's some of it.

00:02:03.420 You know, it's not the whole encyclopedia of Theologica,

00:02:05.440 but it is an excellent, you know, concise edition,

00:02:08.680 and it offers a concise taste of Aquinas.

00:02:10.900 So my first question is, why did you write this book, and why did you write it now?

00:02:16.040 Well, first of all, thank you for being such a venerable company as St. Thomas Aquinas and Michael Knowles.

00:02:20.540 So I appreciate that.

00:02:23.260 It's a star-studded hall of fame I've been added to.

00:02:25.540 So thank you so much for that.

00:02:27.500 My pleasure.

00:02:28.680 The reason I wrote the book was essentially it was very personal,

00:02:32.160 because it was kind of my journey from the result of being part of a university system

00:02:40.860 that was rooted in more modern philosophy through a more realistic approach to life and philosophy.

00:02:47.980 So it was really cathartic for me to just kind of put out my experience,

00:02:51.840 kind of logically, theologically, mentally, philosophically.

00:02:55.000 I do find college kids now, they seem to think that philosophy began with Descartes,

00:02:59.860 and they don't even really get him or any of his contemporaries,

00:03:02.640 but they don't understand that the human search for knowledge and meaning and God and their own nature

00:03:08.460 goes back a little further than 300 years.

00:03:10.860 So you felt that on campus there was this dearth of wisdom.

00:03:18.000 That's right.

00:03:18.540 So what led you to the arguments you make in the book?

00:03:21.980 Well, I was part of that dearth, right?

00:03:23.740 I mean, I only realized much later that philosophy kind of ended with Descartes.

00:03:27.860 It didn't really start with Descartes.

00:03:29.140 Right.

00:03:29.460 But, no, I can't cast aspersion because I was part of that world.

00:03:35.960 I studied philosophy and I was quite apt at it, quite good at it.

00:03:41.180 And by that I meant I was quite good at putting up such silly notions as there is no truth,

00:03:47.840 as if that were true.

00:03:49.100 That's why I started it, right?

00:03:50.940 And so I was really submersed in this for a very long time.

00:03:54.160 It took me actually through law school before I started realizing that there was a whole world prior to 300 years ago

00:04:00.640 that actually saw things very clearly.

00:04:02.420 That evolution where you finally hit and you realize,

00:04:07.200 oh, you know, the statement there is no truth is a self-defeating statement

00:04:10.880 because obviously if there is no truth, then that includes the statement there is no truth,

00:04:16.180 then you end up with nothing.

00:04:17.640 You begin the book with that argument and you lead into a number of other arguments,

00:04:22.500 the unmoved mover, the argument from teleology, all excellent, compelling arguments.

00:04:28.740 I think for a lot of people who are steeped in modern philosophy and have never heard these things,

00:04:33.260 it will give you a good rational basis for God and the existence of God.

00:04:37.900 But I remember reading, I think it was in Jesus of Nazareth in the infancy narratives by Pope Benedict,

00:04:43.580 Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, that he doesn't believe that people can come to believe in God through arguments.

00:04:52.260 I always convinced myself that I was first brought to believe in God through arguments,

00:04:56.480 but I'm not so sure.

00:04:57.380 He believes that there has to be a base level of faith,

00:05:01.100 that God has to approach you before you can reach back to him.

00:05:05.840 Did you find that to be the case, or do you think that right now, for this rationalist, materialist culture,

00:05:12.780 the way that we can bring people to God is primarily through these arguments?

00:05:16.760 Well, I tend to side with St. Paul, in as much as he says that God can be known by the things that were created.

00:05:24.120 And I think it's actually pretty close to a tenet of faith that we can know God by the sure of our reasons.

00:05:30.320 I think back to the Council of Florence and a couple of other places that was set forth.

00:05:34.280 What I find to be compelling to me is this.

00:05:38.740 Either it is or it isn't.

00:05:39.800 And if it is at some level, even if we obviously can't know the full depth of inner workings of the Holy Trinity,

00:05:47.680 that God is knowable, I think, is something that could be produced.

00:05:52.240 And that's my attempt.

00:05:53.560 But, you know, one of my favorite arguments that you didn't include in the book, but I really like it,

00:05:58.240 it's one that really convinced me, is the ontological argument,

00:06:01.260 which, in a nutshell, there are much more elegant versions of it,

00:06:04.420 but in a nutshell, it's God is the maximally great being,

00:06:07.120 and if he's maximally great, it's better to exist than not to exist,

00:06:11.620 so therefore God exists.

00:06:13.300 And it doesn't convince a lot of people.

00:06:15.080 I find it lovely.

00:06:16.900 I really enjoy that argument.

00:06:18.480 Is there something about these arguments that is so whimsical

00:06:22.600 that that speaks to the character of God himself and the character of the world that we see,

00:06:28.220 or is it all just logical drudgery?

00:06:32.420 No, no, no.

00:06:32.940 I think there's something really beautiful to it.

00:06:34.780 I had a philosophy professor, he's since passed, his name was Dallas Willard at USC,

00:06:41.340 and he was a theist.

00:06:42.960 And he always told me, you know, if you can't explain it to your grandmother,

00:06:47.660 and even my grandmother, and let's just say she wasn't exactly a scholar,

00:06:51.780 beautiful, beautiful, is that if you can't explain it to your grandmother,

00:06:54.540 you don't know it's a fiction.

00:06:55.520 And I think that's the irony of it, is that there's not only truth and beauty,

00:07:00.460 I think, are two sides of the same form.

00:07:02.460 And when we know something, there's a beauty to it,

00:07:05.600 there's symmetry, there's clarity that it's global,

00:07:08.600 like just about anybody.

00:07:10.760 That's absolutely right.

00:07:11.880 There's truth and beauty, and that's all we know on earth and all we need to know,

00:07:14.440 and they clearly have a relation to one another.

00:07:16.280 So if you are ignorant about these arguments for God, 0.67

00:07:20.360 which I think a lot of people are, go out. 0.76

00:07:22.160 This is a really clear book.

00:07:23.340 It's really concise.

00:07:24.600 You can read it quickly.

00:07:25.860 This isn't, you know, an 800-page tome.

00:07:28.420 It's really a nice overview of these arguments for God.

00:07:32.120 I'm certain that you'll be convinced if you take the argument seriously enough.

00:07:36.960 And so go check it out.

00:07:38.220 It's Going Deeper, A Reasoned Exploration of God and Truth by Leo Severino.

00:07:43.160 Leo, thank you for being here.

00:07:44.160 Good to have you, and we'll have to have you back.

00:07:46.960 Congratulations on all your good work, Michael.

00:07:48.140 Thank you so much.

00:07:48.780 Thanks.

00:07:49.820 Okay, before we bring on our panel, before we do that,

00:07:52.920 we've got to pay for our Christmas presents.

00:07:55.220 We don't just get to present all of our Christmas presents like John McCain

00:07:59.020 giving his tax cuts and all the weird sex stuff on the Democratic side.

00:08:02.720 We've got to pay for that, folks.

00:08:04.280 This is capitalism.

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00:08:23.300 I've moved around a little bit from Connecticut, New York, L.A.

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00:10:39.680 Thanks to Helix Sleep.

00:10:40.740 Now we have to let's get to the presents.

00:10:42.580 Let's open up the presents, baby.

00:10:43.920 It is Christmas time in November.

00:10:45.920 We have to bring on the panel.

00:10:46.880 We have Jason Russell from The Washington Examiner and Vincent Buda of Live from Studio 6B.

00:10:52.300 Gentlemen, thank you for being here.

00:10:54.220 Let's get right into it.

00:10:55.340 It is a chilly day in hell, Senator John McCain tweets, quote,

00:10:59.180 after careful consideration, I have decided to support the Senate tax reform bill.

00:11:04.140 Though not perfect, this bill will deliver much needed reform to our tax code,

00:11:08.300 grow the economy, and provide long overdue tax relief for American families.

00:11:13.540 I'm just going to, let's just have a moment.

00:11:15.040 Let's try to process this without our brains frying up.

00:11:17.960 Vincent, is this possible?

00:11:19.280 Is he going to pull the rug out from under us or are we going to get tax reform?

00:11:23.060 Well, I say thank you, John McCain, finally coming to your senses.

00:11:28.020 But, you know, this guy's hatred for Trump has just gone way too far.

00:11:32.380 It's like, listen, the topic that we're talking about right now is we're so happy and surprised.

00:11:36.680 He's actually got along with it, right?

00:11:38.240 Something he's run on, something the whole party believes in.

00:11:41.760 And we're like, oh, thank you, John McCain.

00:11:44.040 This is what he should do.

00:11:45.100 Not let his personal hatred of Donald Trump change how he votes on things or policy.

00:11:51.040 So, you know, for me, it's very frustrating.

00:11:53.780 I'm like, okay, great.

00:11:54.960 Thank you, John McCain.

00:11:56.060 Hallelujah.

00:11:56.680 It is Christmas time.

00:11:57.260 I know.

00:11:57.520 I didn't think I would be saying that phrase before the end of the year.

00:11:59.780 But thanks, John McCain, as long as you follow through.

00:12:02.020 Jason, Marco Rubio and Mike Lee have proposed an amendment to this tax reform bill

00:12:07.760 to raise the corporate tax rate from 20% to 22% in exchange for higher child care credits.

00:12:15.620 Since when is it up to conservatives?

00:12:18.920 Since when is it the conservative opinion that a 20% corporate tax rate is too low?

00:12:24.040 Yeah, it's a pretty interesting amendment they have.

00:12:26.840 And I think it's an interesting conservative debate about whether you want to increase the,

00:12:32.140 you know, child tax credit as a result of that.

00:12:34.360 I don't personally think it's a great idea.

00:12:36.080 You know, I would rather see that corporate tax rate stay at 20%

00:12:39.520 and then the child tax credit stay at the current rate that it is at the proposal.

00:12:44.700 So, you know, I hopefully this doesn't blow up the whole thing.

00:12:48.460 You know, I say put it up for a vote.

00:12:50.100 And if it gets enough 50 votes and they say go for it, then fine.

00:12:54.300 You know, I still think that even if that is included, it's still a better bill than the status quo.

00:12:59.080 And I hope that Mike Lee and Marco Rubio agree.

00:13:01.440 I hope even if this amendment doesn't get included, that they will still vote for tax reform

00:13:05.440 because this is much better than the status quo, including in terms of the child tax credit.

00:13:10.700 And I'm actually just confused about why Mike Lee would put his name on this.

00:13:16.600 I understand little Marco might want to get a little squishy.

00:13:20.180 He's the favorite conservative of every conservative who lives surrounded by liberals.

00:13:24.260 But Mike Lee is a pretty rock-ribbed guy.

00:13:26.640 It's hard to get more right-wing and conservative than him.

00:13:29.800 Vincent, why is Mike Lee on board with this?

00:13:32.280 Oh, boy.

00:13:33.040 I say that's a great question because it's shocking to me that Mike Lee's on board with that overall.

00:13:39.380 So I don't really know why he's doing this.

00:13:41.520 The only things I could surmise is that many Republicans, and we have seen this particularly in the last year,

00:13:48.020 seem to be somewhat scared of the Democrats and what they may want so they try to proactively react so they can get things through

00:13:56.380 while they control everything, the House and the Senate. 0.60

00:14:00.600 So you have Republicans like Rubio and now Lee, I think, reacting to those things.

00:14:06.000 Listen, as your other guest just said, I agree.

00:14:09.460 Even with this, it's still a better deal.

00:14:11.800 So I'll take that.

00:14:12.640 But Mike Lee, this is really strange unless he's feeling some pressure from voters in his neck of the woods that are on the left

00:14:21.060 and thinking we've got to do something more with child care credits.

00:14:23.620 And that is the trouble.

00:14:25.060 It's very easy for me because all I have to do is talk to this microphone and look into the camera.

00:14:29.580 It's very easy for me to say we should have a 15 percent corporate tax rate,

00:14:32.580 and it doesn't matter that we need to increase the child tax credit.

00:14:36.260 But I don't have to answer to constituents.

00:14:38.660 These guys do.

00:14:39.580 It's a much harder TV ad when it says Mike Lee voted for corporations instead of giving your children some extra money or whatever.

00:14:49.780 I do understand that.

00:14:51.720 That said, I don't know.

00:14:52.920 He's a rock-ribbed guy, and I'm just surprised at him, and I wish that we could be more rock-ribbed about this.

00:14:58.560 I was pushing for that 15 percent corporate tax rate.

00:15:01.140 But, sure, I'll take what I can get, especially if John McCain's on board.

00:15:04.120 It's a lot harder to make the sausage than it is to go criticize and look at the sausage factory.

00:15:09.460 Jason, one aspect of this that has gotten a lot of attention is graduate students.

00:15:15.020 So for tuition, right now graduate students do not have to pay income tax on their tuition credits.

00:15:20.620 Let's say the grad school pays them $20,000 a year in stipends.

00:15:24.000 They also pay them $30,000 a year as tuition, but you never see that.

00:15:28.140 They just keep the money, and it's a matter of accounting.

00:15:29.920 Now their taxable income could go to that full $50,000.

00:15:34.060 My fiancé is a graduate student.

00:15:36.100 I could be personally negatively affected by this.

00:15:39.300 But that said, who cares?

00:15:41.620 There was a walkout yesterday among graduate students.

00:15:45.080 There was a big national protest, a big walkout.

00:15:47.820 What they misunderstand is that for a walkout to work, you have to provide a service.

00:15:52.020 So there has to be a demand for your service.

00:15:54.160 But there's no service being provided.

00:15:55.520 They can just keep on walking.

00:15:57.100 Do you think that we ought to rectify this aspect of the tax proposal, or should we let

00:16:03.020 the universities sort it out and let the grad students pay a little more?

00:16:05.600 Yeah, I could see this either way.

00:16:08.520 In my personal opinion, I side a little bit with the graduate students on this one.

00:16:16.340 And that's because, again, like you said, this is kind of an accounting thing.

00:16:19.940 The universities don't actually give this money to the students.

00:16:22.420 They just keep it basically and say, well, we'll take money off of your tuition and the

00:16:27.260 cost of that, right?

00:16:28.080 So it doesn't really seem like income.

00:16:30.440 It's basically just saying, the university's saying, we're going to give you this service

00:16:33.720 for free instead of paying for you to then just give it straight back to us.

00:16:39.480 But that service is pretty expensive.

00:16:41.580 It's an in-kind donation, at least, right?

00:16:43.820 Shouldn't it be regulated as such?

00:16:45.240 Yeah, yeah.

00:16:45.900 And so I could see it either way, like I said.

00:16:48.260 But, you know, again, it's not a huge deal to me.

00:16:52.360 And when it comes to that walkout thing, you know, I don't see how that's going to be

00:16:55.840 effective.

00:16:56.640 You know, maybe that makes some noise on your college campus.

00:16:58.940 But, you know, the members of Congress are not on your college campus.

00:17:02.920 They're here in D.C.

00:17:03.880 So how they expect to make a big stink with a walkout on their own college campuses that

00:17:08.180 no one in D.C. or in Congress is going to notice, I don't know.

00:17:11.700 And as you point out, this is a matter of accounting.

00:17:14.140 If the universities aren't going to lose all of their consumers, all of their customers,

00:17:17.700 they're not going to let it happen.

00:17:18.720 So they'll probably just account for tuition in a different way and get around all of this.

00:17:23.600 But as a matter, the American campuses have been in crisis for decades, for 40 years.

00:17:30.920 Alan Bloom wrote it expertly in The Closing of the American Mind.

00:17:34.980 There's a crisis not only of the institution, but of liberal education generally.

00:17:39.140 These crazy fields of study, they usually end in studies.

00:17:43.340 Harold Bloom, the great literary critic, referred to it as the school of resentment.

00:17:46.540 It isn't a serious engagement with scholarship.

00:17:49.920 It's basically political activism masquerading as scholarship, as the left frequently does.

00:17:55.740 It hollows out great institutions, and then they just become zombie institutions for their

00:17:59.940 political agendas.

00:18:01.440 It doesn't seem to me that we need as many graduate students as we have.

00:18:04.880 It seems to me, especially when I talk to my friends, millennials who have a ton of student

00:18:08.620 debt, very few career prospects in the academy, it's virtually impossible to get a job.

00:18:13.460 It seems to me not a terrible thing that we would maybe disincentivize or stop subsidizing

00:18:19.720 people from following this path.

00:18:22.120 It doesn't seem like a great path for a lot of them.

00:18:25.200 And for those who are the elite of the elite and the intellectual elite, they'll find the

00:18:30.260 money.

00:18:30.540 The universities will account for it, I think, and they can find outside funding as well.

00:18:34.560 It does not seem to me that we should be the solution to this awful crisis of intellect

00:18:40.220 and of scholarship over the last 40 years.

00:18:42.720 It doesn't seem to me that we will be correcting it by continuing to subsidize the perpetrators.

00:18:47.660 But that's just me.

00:18:48.440 I'm sure I'm going to get a lot of hate mail from my millennial pals after saying that.

00:18:52.100 Let's move on to more shocking news.

00:18:53.720 Let's move on.

00:18:54.320 We have the—you're not going to believe this one.

00:18:56.880 Hold your breath.

00:18:57.980 If you've had any hot drinks, please spit it out now or swallow.

00:19:01.760 The Democrats are holding their own accountable for their weird sex crimes.

00:19:05.580 This, we didn't expect this either, but here is Nancy Pelosi explaining the issue with

00:19:11.120 John Conyers.

00:19:12.260 The allegations against Congressman Conyers, as we have learned more since Sunday, are

00:19:17.920 serious, disappointing, and very credible.

00:19:21.880 It's very sad.

00:19:23.300 The brave women who came forward are owed justice.

00:19:26.860 I pray for Congressman Conyers and his family and wish them well, however Congressman Conyers

00:19:34.100 should resign.

00:19:36.480 As dean, Congressman Conyers has served our Congress for more than five decades and shaped

00:19:42.940 some of the most consequential legislation of the last half century.

00:19:46.600 However, zero tolerance means consequences for everyone, no matter how great the legacy.

00:19:53.200 It's no license to harass or discriminate.

00:19:57.040 There is a lot to dissect in that statement.

00:19:59.840 John Conyers, by the way, is the dean of the House of Representatives.

00:20:02.460 He's the longest-serving representative in Congress.

00:20:06.220 He's a Democrat.

00:20:07.000 He's been around since the Johnson administration.

00:20:09.480 He's been serving since the 1960s.

00:20:11.840 Vincent, why are they willing to throw John Conyers under the bus, but not Al Franken?

00:20:17.640 Oh, my goodness.

00:20:18.760 You know, this whole—first of all, Nancy Pelosi goes on Meet the Press, and she doesn't

00:20:22.380 have a big issue with it.

00:20:23.720 She's saying, well, they need to investigate it, and I don't know.

00:20:27.240 I don't know the women who said this. 0.86

00:20:28.840 Do I believe them or not?

00:20:29.740 I don't know.

00:20:30.200 She had all these defensive things to say because there was no chance that she was going

00:20:34.240 to support this or trying to have him removed or anybody else removed because they seem

00:20:39.180 to just all be like a flock of sheep following each other blindly.

00:20:43.100 Then she gets pressure put on her from those comments from Meet the Press, which even people

00:20:47.780 on the left were appalled by.

00:20:50.180 One thing that people don't talk about with this whole situation, he paid someone off.

00:20:54.980 You know, he used monies to silence someone that accused him of something.

00:20:58.980 That's, you know, admitting guilt.

00:21:00.640 It's not just a couple of women coming out and saying he groped her or did this and this

00:21:04.200 and that, which is bad enough.

00:21:05.400 Oh, there were threats.

00:21:05.620 There were payoffs.

00:21:06.440 Absolutely.

00:21:07.920 So that's what drives me crazy.

00:21:09.840 Jason, is Al Franken next?

00:21:12.260 Are they going to let these other guys fall?

00:21:14.980 Or is Conyers just the old, desiccated, no longer politically useful corpse of the sacrificial

00:21:22.100 lamb? 0.59

00:21:22.440 Yeah, I think it's, Franken hasn't been thrown under the bus yet because he's a little bit

00:21:27.380 more prominent, one, as a senator, but two, because he's famous, Al Franken, everyone

00:21:31.660 knows him from Saturday Night Live.

00:21:33.400 He's the funny man in the Senate.

00:21:35.000 He's good enough.

00:21:35.880 He's smart enough.

00:21:36.720 And God, doggone it, Democrats like him.

00:21:39.600 Yeah.

00:21:40.120 Yes.

00:21:40.580 But if the accusations against him continue to grow, which I think they probably will,

00:21:45.960 then I expect at some point they will start to say, yes, Franken has to go as well.

00:21:50.800 Well, you know, there's just really no excuse for the kind of behavior that he's been doing.

00:21:55.440 I don't know.

00:21:56.120 You're more optimistic than me.

00:21:57.680 I think you give them more credit than I do. 0.96

00:21:59.680 I think Conyers is about 150 years old and useless and they can toss him under the bus

00:22:04.860 and not sacrifice their younger, more promising talent. 0.94

00:22:08.020 But maybe I'm just a little cynical.

00:22:09.200 I don't know.

00:22:09.500 Let's get to this wonderful clip.

00:22:16.180 This might have been my favorite clip of all.

00:22:18.640 From The Daily Show, Trevor Noah called Donald Trump woke and he slammed Elizabeth Liawatha

00:22:25.040 Warren.

00:22:25.440 Here's the clip.

00:22:25.940 I don't think Donald Trump was actually trying to offend those Native American war veterans.

00:22:31.960 I know it's crazy to say it, but he doesn't care about them.

00:22:34.780 He saw an opportunity to feud with Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren

00:22:39.400 because he's been calling her Pocahontas long before he met with these heroes.

00:22:44.500 You might be thinking, wait, Trevor, I'm confused.

00:22:47.540 Is Elizabeth Warren Native American?

00:22:49.960 And you see, that's the question.

00:22:53.640 But in his own way, he's hitting Elizabeth Warren for saying she was Native American when

00:23:00.320 she wasn't, something she's never apologized for or owned up to.

00:23:04.660 So as weird as it is to say, in his own racially offensive way, Donald Trump was being woke.

00:23:11.700 Yeah.

00:23:12.200 And that's unfortunately the truth.

00:23:14.080 And like a Bernie Sanders pop album, the truth isn't always something we want to hear.

00:23:17.400 Unbelievable.

00:23:21.080 Every late night show, every single one, I think there are now 750 across network and cable.

00:23:27.520 They are all left wing.

00:23:29.300 Every single one of them.

00:23:30.780 All they do is make Trump jokes.

00:23:32.480 Stephen Colbert would have been canceled if not for Donald Trump.

00:23:34.960 It gave him a new surge.

00:23:36.560 But all of these guys put together get not very many more viewers than in the old days

00:23:42.240 Jay Leno used to get just by himself.

00:23:44.080 Jay Leno is a much more middle America, even keel, not that political comedian.

00:23:48.580 Is this a sign, Vincent, that comedians are finally realizing that maybe they shouldn't

00:23:54.020 utterly ignore and mock half of the country?

00:23:56.960 Or is it just the case that Elizabeth Warren is such a joke they couldn't resist making? 0.85

00:24:02.100 How long can they continue the hypocrisy is really my question.

00:24:05.200 You know, I used to like Trevor Noah, too.

00:24:07.060 But like Stephen Colbert and others, it's all hate comedy.

00:24:09.940 But he's right. 0.97

00:24:11.360 You know, if you think about how Donald Trump operates, he points out hypocrisy.

00:24:15.980 And that's what he was pointing out.

00:24:17.640 And these late night comedians, what I don't understand, here's my big question.

00:24:21.440 They're alienating 50 percent of the audience every time they pull one of these hate jokes

00:24:26.620 they use.

00:24:27.140 Now, the fact that Trevor Noah actually came out and said something truthful, you didn't

00:24:31.080 hear the audience respond, by the way.

00:24:32.600 Dead silence.

00:24:33.500 You didn't hear a pin drop.

00:24:34.240 Oh, my goodness.

00:24:36.200 I couldn't believe it.

00:24:36.940 If this was anything bad against Trump, it would have been a standing ovation and the

00:24:40.020 wave would have been done.

00:24:41.340 You know, actually, I didn't put it in that hypocrisy.

00:24:43.700 But he did say he prefaced his comments where he said, basically, Trump is right about this 0.92

00:24:48.160 and Liz Warren is despicable for pretending to be a Native American. 1.00

00:24:52.380 He had to preface it by saying, look, look, I think Trump is racist and everything. 0.98

00:24:56.260 And then they started mooing and hooing and cheering. 0.94

00:24:58.900 But that was just perfunctory.

00:25:00.520 He had to do it or they would have stormed out.

00:25:02.420 Jason, has Trump permanently branded Liz Warren as a fraud, as a deceiver?

00:25:08.900 You know, Little Marco, Low Energy Jeb, Lion Ted, those things stuck like glue.

00:25:13.820 Does she have a chance in 2020 if she is just forever Pocahontas? 1.00

00:25:22.000 I don't think she has a chance in 2020, but I don't think it's because of Pocahontas. 1.00

00:25:26.000 A lot of other reasons.

00:25:26.980 Because I think people will be like, oh, Bernie Sanders again.

00:25:30.700 But, you know, this time it's slightly different.

00:25:33.000 Yeah, less funny.

00:25:33.860 The humorless Bernie.

00:25:34.880 Yeah, less funny, less interesting to watch, give speeches, things like that.

00:25:39.100 I don't think she has a chance because of that.

00:25:41.020 She's just not very fun to watch, doesn't create great speeches. 1.00

00:25:44.360 And most of all, does not connect with ordinary Americans in middle America and what they stand for and what they believe in.

00:25:50.980 So, you know, perhaps the Pocahontas thing will stick by her. 0.99

00:25:54.920 Maybe she'll eventually have to apologize for that.

00:25:58.140 Maybe even her Democratic opponents would attack her on that. 0.98

00:26:01.760 But we'll see.

00:26:02.880 But there are lots of reasons she's not going to win in 2020.

00:26:05.900 And that is a minor one, if won at all.

00:26:08.640 I love that pitch to Democrat voters, like a Hollywood pitch.

00:26:11.780 You know, OK, listen, here's the nominee.

00:26:13.400 It's going to she's going to have all of the intellect of a desiccated old socialist who can't hold a job. 1.00

00:26:19.480 But she'll be a humorless scold. 0.99

00:26:21.780 Isn't that what America, why isn't that what middle America is going to vote for?

00:26:26.000 I don't think so.

00:26:26.880 That's what we want to hear.

00:26:27.440 Too bad.

00:26:28.300 Gentlemen, thank you for being here.

00:26:30.580 Excellent to have you both.

00:26:32.620 We will have to get you back again.

00:26:34.820 And yeah, Jason, Vincent, thank you for being here.

00:26:37.220 And we have to move on to the mailbag.

00:26:39.480 Thank you.

00:26:40.900 OK, so before we get into the mailbag, we have some business to clear up.

00:26:45.360 It's the capitalism.

00:26:46.880 Listen, Christmas shopping is very expensive.

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00:26:50.220 I'm even considering keeping Marshall employed for Christmas.

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00:27:38.300 When I wake, I usually wake up about 3 p.m., 3.30 on days when I'm not doing the show.

00:27:42.580 I'll occasionally roll over and do the show.

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00:27:48.940 Stamps.com is open 24-7.

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00:28:24.400 It is a wonderful adjective to describe wonderful services like this.

00:28:29.100 You'll get a special offer.

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00:28:34.720 I am just offering you two things, free stuff and the ability to type in COVFE as a promo

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00:28:52.340 type in what should they type in?

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00:29:05.980 Okay.

00:29:06.460 We've got to get to the mailbag.

00:29:07.780 We have to change your lives for the better.

00:29:11.340 So the first question is from Justin.

00:29:13.680 Dear patron saint of smug Catholics, I'm an evangelical curious about Catholicism, but one major point 1.00

00:29:20.380 I don't understand is the church's reverence for the Virgin Mary.

00:29:24.860 Why is she considered so much greater than other biblical figures that have furthered the

00:29:28.620 faith like St. Paul, Moses, John the Baptist, etc.?

00:29:31.620 Love the show, Justin.

00:29:32.820 Thanks, Justin.

00:29:33.520 That's a good question.

00:29:34.200 Consider the question.

00:29:37.080 I don't mean to mock your question at all.

00:29:39.740 I get this a lot, and it's a serious question raised by a lot of Christians.

00:29:42.640 But consider the question.

00:29:43.560 You've just asked, why do Catholics venerate the mother of God?

00:29:50.060 Basically, that's the answer.

00:29:51.300 That's the end of it.

00:29:53.140 Mary is the mother of God, chosen by God to be the new ark of the covenant, right?

00:29:57.880 She is in her womb, is God, conceived by the Holy Spirit, out of which he becomes man.

00:30:03.740 When we recite the Nicene Creed, we kneel at that point when we say Christ was conceived

00:30:10.120 of the Holy Spirit and he became man through the Virgin Mary.

00:30:14.300 That is a miracle second only to the resurrection, the physical and the metaphysical uniting in

00:30:21.280 Mary's womb.

00:30:22.040 But the other reason, there are endless reasons as to why we ought to venerate and adore Mary

00:30:30.540 as the mother of our Lord and a mother that he has given to us from the cross when he says

00:30:36.200 to the apostle John, behold your mother, mother behold your son.

00:30:41.300 He gives her to us as a mother.

00:30:43.520 But the other reason is that there is this essential marriage, this beautiful marriage

00:30:48.560 of grace and liberty that we find in the infancy narratives.

00:30:52.040 Right now, I'm reading Jesus of Nazareth, the infancy narratives by Pope Benedict XVI.

00:30:57.140 It is a wonderful little book.

00:30:58.720 It reads like poetry.

00:31:00.260 I'm reading it at the recommendation of the Supreme Master of the Multiverse, Andrew Clavin.

00:31:04.180 You have to read it for Advent.

00:31:05.820 It is just so beautiful and savor it.

00:31:07.940 You could read the whole thing in two hours, but you really read it slowly.

00:31:10.920 It's really beautiful.

00:31:12.040 And there is this essential combination of grace and liberty in Mary.

00:31:19.280 The Pope Benedict describes it as all of the heavens holding their breath when the angel

00:31:23.640 Gabriel comes down and says, Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with you.

00:31:27.460 You've found favor with the Lord, and you're going to birth the Son of God.

00:31:32.340 He'll be born of you.

00:31:33.900 And they all wait because she has to obey.

00:31:37.480 It isn't purely grace.

00:31:38.800 There isn't just purely grace.

00:31:40.160 We are humans with a free will, and that freedom has to come too.

00:31:44.840 So God comes down the mountain, offers everything to us, but we have the free will to turn away

00:31:50.560 from God.

00:31:51.380 Mary does not turn away from God.

00:31:53.100 She accepts it.

00:31:54.980 Her response is, Behold, I am the servant of the Lord.

00:31:59.520 Let it be to me according to your word.

00:32:02.280 And in that obedience, we have the salvation of the world.

00:32:05.940 So that's just part of it.

00:32:07.960 There are plenty of other reasons as well for why Mary is a pretty cool lady, and we 1.00

00:32:12.920 all like her very much.

00:32:14.360 But that's an introduction, and I recommend certainly Googling it, but reading more about

00:32:21.360 Mary, studying Marianology a little bit, and understanding how the veneration of Mary has

00:32:28.180 come about, because I think there's a Protestant misconception that it's this weird pagan thing.

00:32:33.700 But certainly that isn't the case.

00:32:36.400 Mary does sit right at the inception of human salvation, right at the heart of it.

00:32:42.060 It begins in her womb. 0.93

00:32:43.880 All right.

00:32:44.440 I want to keep changing your life for the better, folks, but we've got to say goodbye to Facebook

00:32:48.280 and YouTube.

00:32:49.160 If you are already a subscriber, thank you very much.

00:32:51.900 You keep Covfefe in my mug.

00:32:53.420 Now is a great time, by the way, Christmas time, to subscribe to The Daily Wire.

00:32:57.320 Treat yourself.

00:32:57.980 It's been a good year, a very Covfefe year.

00:32:59.560 We've gotten a lot of great stuff out of it.

00:33:00.720 Or you could give a gift subscription.

00:33:03.080 In any case, go to dailywire.com right now.

00:33:05.160 What do you get?

00:33:05.860 You get me.

00:33:06.560 You get the Andrew Klavan show.

00:33:07.520 You get the Ben Shapiro show.

00:33:08.720 Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:33:09.360 You get no ads on the website.

00:33:10.460 That's kind of cool.

00:33:12.240 But you get this.

00:33:13.980 You get the Leftist Tears Tumblr.

00:33:17.380 We're talking a lot about religion right now.

00:33:20.060 It is not as sacred as holy water.

00:33:22.420 It is not as sacred as that.

00:33:23.960 But it is pretty sweet, guys.

00:33:25.960 You know, it's below, but it's not that far below.

00:33:28.720 The Leftist Tears, they are so delicious.

00:33:30.340 They're even fairly comforting.

00:33:32.220 You can have them hot or cold, always salty and delicious.

00:33:35.960 We're getting a nice batch from Nancy Pelosi and John Conyers and Al Franken right now.

00:33:40.240 Obviously, Matt Lauer has given us case after case after case.

00:33:44.460 So make sure that you can store them all and have a nice vessel so you can enjoy them.

00:33:48.440 Buy the Yule log.

00:33:49.640 Put a little muddled spice into it.

00:33:52.420 Go to dailywire.com right now.

00:33:53.660 We'll be right back.

00:33:54.360 Master Knolls, this question comes from Kyle.

00:34:06.900 Master Knolls, I was raised Christian but am now agnostic as I have had issues believing in Christ due to the comparison of the New Testament to personification of astronomy.

00:34:18.060 I have seen several comparisons that show that the story of Christ is very similar to other older religions and that use the story as a way to explain the journey of the sun throughout the year.

00:34:28.360 And it's been compelling enough to me to make me question the New Testament, but not God himself.

00:34:33.340 I ask you to debunk this.

00:34:34.680 I gladly will, pal.

00:34:35.740 Not to debunk Christianity or Catholicism, but rather that I can get a clear explanation as to why this theory is false.

00:34:41.620 Please assist me, if you will, in coming closer to God with many thanks, Kyle.

00:34:45.260 It would be my pleasure, pal.

00:34:46.700 I also was an agnostic atheist type for a decade, beginning actually at my confirmation, so I can empathize with you.

00:34:55.520 This is a little weird.

00:34:56.760 I think there's a kind of logical error just in your thinking about this.

00:35:01.540 You see, or you've been told, you actually haven't seen similarities in other religions, but you've been told by some authority that there are many similarities and that Christianity is just a sort of copy of those religions.

00:35:13.400 But so what?

00:35:14.720 Christianity is the greatest story ever told.

00:35:16.580 By Christianity, we know that Christ is the logos of the universe that breathed creation into existence.

00:35:22.180 So it isn't surprising that there would be echoes of the story, the greatest story ever told, throughout mythology, throughout all of mythology, and throughout history, and in our own human nature and in our own heart.

00:35:34.520 What I think you're getting at, though, is that you don't believe that Jesus existed as we know him to exist.

00:35:41.220 You don't believe the story of Jesus in the New Testament.

00:35:43.920 But this puts you in a real minority of people who have thought about this, a virtual minority of one.

00:35:50.120 I think what you're getting at is something called the Christ myth, the idea that the historical Jesus, if there even was one, is completely different than the guy we know attested to in all of these documents that we call the New Testament.

00:36:02.860 The Christ myth theory only originated in the late 18th century, so within 300 years, a little over 200 years ago.

00:36:10.760 One of the major theorists of this was Constantin Volney, who believed a lot of other nonsense, too.

00:36:15.780 He also believed that Abraham and Sarah were derived from Hindu deities, Brahma, Saraswati, and the Christ as a version of Krishna.

00:36:23.600 He really also thought that Christianity is just a version of Syrian, Egyptian, and Persian myths, like that of Sol Invictus.

00:36:30.420 You kind of hear this.

00:36:31.660 No serious scholar believes this.

00:36:33.900 It is rejected by scholars of the New Testament and of first century Rome and Palestine.

00:36:39.820 We know more about Jesus of Nazareth than we know about basically any person of that period, with the exception perhaps of the other Prince of Peace who was reigning in Rome, Caesar Augustus.

00:36:53.720 That said, so we know this history about him.

00:36:59.900 I wouldn't really question, do the research yourself, but I don't think there's any reason to doubt that.

00:37:04.580 So then the question is, well, how come some religions seem similar to Christianity?

00:37:08.540 A lot of atheists will tell you, well, it's just a copy of that.

00:37:11.640 But you don't really see it in all of these myths that we're talking about, whether they are Persian myths or Hindu myths or whatever.

00:37:17.540 However, the intersection of the metaphysical with the physical, the encounter between heaven and earth, is categorically different.

00:37:25.960 In many mythologies, you'll see the gods come down and have sex with a mortal or something, and they give birth to demigods.

00:37:32.940 Or you'll see ancient monarchs, ancient kings, suggesting that they are part divine.

00:37:38.980 But that is fundamentally different than the virgin birth, than Christ being fully man and fully human.

00:37:48.640 There's a theology to that.

00:37:50.120 Where there isn't really a theology to these older myths, there's a mythology.

00:37:53.700 And those are categorically different things.

00:37:57.440 That said, I've studied a number of Hindu, a lot of the Hindu religion and mythology there.

00:38:04.020 And there are resemblances between, say, Krishna and Christ or what have you.

00:38:07.760 But this makes perfect sense, because man is born with an innate longing for God.

00:38:12.820 This is one argument for God's existence.

00:38:15.180 We're born with a thirst for water, and water exists to quench that.

00:38:18.960 We're born with a hunger for food.

00:38:20.800 Food exists so that we can be full.

00:38:23.520 And we're born with a longing for God.

00:38:26.360 Everywhere, every place on earth for all of history, we're born with a longing for God.

00:38:31.120 And fairly similar conceptions of God.

00:38:33.840 And therefore, it seems perfectly reasonable to me that there is a, for many other reasons as well, there is something to quench that thirst.

00:38:42.180 There is something to satiate that longing.

00:38:44.060 So when you see resemblances between the greatest story ever told, between Christianity and other mythologies, a little hint of true religion in Norwegian mythology, or, sorry, Norse mythology, or Hinduism, or this, that, or the other thing.

00:39:00.420 That's lovely, and that makes perfect sense, because the God who created the entire universe echoes throughout it, and we're born with similar conceptions of him.

00:39:10.880 But it requires theology, not mythology, to figure out which the right one is, and the right one is Christianity.

00:39:17.820 Christianity, I am happy to tell you, so that you can return to your faith. 1.00

00:39:21.380 Good question.

00:39:22.540 Gary.

00:39:23.600 Oh, this is another really serious and esoteric question.

00:39:28.280 Is covfefe leftist tears, or covfefe leftist tears, strained through a French press?

00:39:35.440 Obviously, that's the case.

00:39:36.680 That's the only device through which they could be strained.

00:39:39.700 And by the way, if you spill your covfefe leftist tears, you can always mop them up with the flag of the French army.

00:39:45.300 So, France pervades this entire process. 0.87

00:39:48.380 Great question.

00:39:49.360 From Christian. 0.98

00:39:50.520 Hey, Michael, I've always believed in God.

00:39:53.220 Notice how much God we get.

00:39:54.320 We get so many religious questions, I think, because this materialist culture is unsatisfactory, and people are longing for that answer, as I did, as a lot of people I know have gone through that stage.

00:40:05.280 Back to the question.

00:40:06.300 I've always believed in God.

00:40:07.320 I never got into religion.

00:40:08.660 How do I know which religion is right? 1.00

00:40:10.260 Christianity, that's the right one. 0.99

00:40:12.540 If you want to know, there are a few that you could think about.

00:40:14.960 You know, there are two types of religion that Edwin Bevan talks about in a book I've mentioned a few times, Symbolism and Belief.

00:40:23.020 It's a book that C.S. Lewis talks about in Miracles.

00:40:25.560 And he says there are two types of religion.

00:40:27.060 There's theistic religion and non-theistic religion.

00:40:30.080 So the religions that believe in God, like Christianity, Judaism, Zoroastrianism, and Islam, and religions that don't believe in God.

00:40:37.960 So Hinduism, Buddhism, Shintoism, other religions.

00:40:44.200 You can't even really say East and West, though.

00:40:46.580 Zoroastrianism is an Eastern religion, but it's theistic.

00:40:49.320 Islam is practically an Eastern religion, but it's theistic.

00:40:52.040 So those are two visions of the world, and it will require thinking about theology to decide which of those is correct.

00:41:00.920 You know, we talked to Leo Severino today, who did this book.

00:41:03.480 There are a lot of great books.

00:41:05.420 The one that I would always recommend is Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis.

00:41:09.660 Lewis is such an incredible writer that he takes the most impossibly complex things and explains them for a three-year-old.

00:41:17.500 And when I read it, I had the theological intelligence of a three-year-old, so it worked out very well.

00:41:23.340 Once you conclude that God exists, which I think you will, then you have to deal with Christ.

00:41:29.240 So if the Hebrew Messiah hasn't yet come, then you're probably a Jew. 0.95

00:41:34.120 If the Hebrew Messiah has come, you're probably a Christian. 0.99

00:41:37.500 If Christ was a prophet, if you believe in some of Christianity, but you reject the essence of it,

00:41:44.740 you reject the most important claims of it, then you might fall into the category of Islam,

00:41:49.100 which was founded after Muhammad spent weeks with a heretical Christian monk in Syria.

00:41:55.280 So it bears a lot of resemblance to Christianity, but on essential, important matters,

00:42:01.980 it doesn't hold up because Muhammad founded his religion after hanging out with a heretic for a very long time.

00:42:08.820 So you know what I think about theology and Christology, and I would explore down that route,

00:42:18.400 and you might reach a different conclusion than I have, but I don't think you will.

00:42:21.840 I think you'll reach that one.

00:42:22.800 So good luck in your journey.

00:42:25.400 By the way, it isn't just books, I should point out.

00:42:28.220 Andrew Klavan has a great video called How to Find God in 60 Days.

00:42:31.660 He says just act as though God exists and pray.

00:42:34.260 Why? Praying is essential because we're not just, especially with Christianity,

00:42:39.380 we're not just talking about a philosophy.

00:42:41.140 We're not just talking about ideas that you can learn.

00:42:42.980 We're not talking about Gnosticism.

00:42:44.140 We're talking about a relationship with the God that created you and saved you,

00:42:48.200 and that's very personal.

00:42:50.020 That isn't, you can't just get that in a book.

00:42:52.280 A book can help you get there, but that's a relationship with a person.

00:42:56.240 So you'll have to dig a little deeper than you would researching history or natural science or something.

00:43:02.240 Next question from Michael.

00:43:04.860 Michael, could you convince Ben and Jeremy, that's Ben Shapiro and Jeremy Boring, the God King of the Daily Wire,

00:43:10.980 to let you change your background to a wall of bookshelves filled with your bestseller?

00:43:15.460 I feel like Ben doesn't take you seriously enough, and because of your extreme humility,

00:43:20.260 viewers are likely unaware of your life's work.

00:43:23.960 Mike, I appreciate it, man.

00:43:26.220 I appreciate you acknowledging my magnum opus, Reasons to Vote for Democrats,

00:43:29.700 A Comprehensive Guide, which sat number one on the bestseller list for almost two weeks

00:43:34.580 and was endorsed personally by President Donald Trump on Twitter.

00:43:39.180 It makes a great stocking stuffer, by the way.

00:43:40.980 It is true.

00:43:41.660 You know, great works of genius are very often not recognized during the author's lifetime.

00:43:47.640 They might be underappreciated during the author's lifetime.

00:43:50.000 But as I wrote in the first pages, in the preface to Reasons to Vote for Democrats,

00:43:55.940 A Comprehensive Guide, quoting Thucydides,

00:43:58.380 I have written my work not as an essay to win the applause of the moment,

00:44:02.240 but as a possession for all time.

00:44:04.320 So perhaps if it can't be constantly displayed for this popular audience,

00:44:09.820 it will reach an esoteric elite audience now and for generations to come.

00:44:14.280 Thank you for appreciating true scholarship.

00:44:16.660 From Cliff.

00:44:17.960 Swarthy Mike.

00:44:18.880 That is my real name, by the way.

00:44:20.400 What do you think we would be talking about right now if Hillary had won?

00:44:23.740 For example, instead of a battle about anthem kneeling,

00:44:26.580 the conversation would be about changing the name of Redskins.

00:44:29.180 Or instead of North Korea, it'd be a war on gun owners. 0.96

00:44:31.540 Any ideas?

00:44:32.180 Thanks, Clifford the Great.

00:44:33.260 Yes, two things on this.

00:44:35.020 And it's one where Trump's critics on the right don't give him enough credit

00:44:38.360 because all they see, first of all, there's all the great stuff Trump has done,

00:44:42.440 but there are some things that Trump has done that perhaps we don't all agree with,

00:44:46.120 might have gone too far, might have been counterproductive.

00:44:48.900 Some of them might have been flat out bad ideas.

00:44:51.800 The handling of James Comey seems to be the worst decision of his presidency so far

00:44:57.620 because it led to this Mueller investigation,

00:45:00.720 which is a big cloud hanging over the administration.

00:45:03.520 So there are two sides of this.

00:45:04.940 One, what would we be talking about on the cultural conversation?

00:45:08.920 You're right.

00:45:09.280 We'd be talking about bathrooms.

00:45:11.260 We'd be talking about gender bathrooms. 1.00

00:45:13.380 You know, the issue that affects seven people in the entire country,

00:45:16.980 that would dominate the national conversation

00:45:19.280 because it's a way of getting the left's arguments and premises in by the back door,

00:45:26.400 taking compassion for a handful of people

00:45:28.720 and squeezing in all of their relativism and their vision of politics

00:45:32.820 as groups of people just battling each other for interests

00:45:36.480 rather than as a civil discourse in a united body politic.

00:45:40.820 So that would be the cultural conversation.

00:45:43.440 But as a matter of policy, it would be horrible.

00:45:47.660 I'm glad that I can't be profane in my language on this show

00:45:51.120 because there are so many words I could use to explain how awful it would be.

00:45:55.840 We would have Hillary Clinton campaigned on damaging, if not outright undercutting, 1.00

00:46:02.120 the First and Second Amendment.

00:46:03.460 She campaigned.

00:46:04.240 There were separate pages on her website about this.

00:46:06.400 The Citizens United decision, which Citizens United was overturned,

00:46:12.920 or rather Citizens United was ruled and overturned campaign finance laws, McCain-Feingold,

00:46:17.400 because they were a violation of the First Amendment.

00:46:19.480 The question was, can you criticize Hillary Clinton a few weeks before an election?

00:46:23.220 It was centered around Hillary. 0.98

00:46:24.900 So now we have our robust First Amendment, which is under attack from all corners of the left,

00:46:29.300 and the Second Amendment.

00:46:30.220 If we had that Supreme Court justice, if we had a lefty replace Antonin Scalia,

00:46:34.960 we would have awful decisions that seriously threatened your liberty and mine coming down the pike 0.56

00:46:40.740 to say nothing of legislation, to say nothing.

00:46:44.000 We might have been able to obstruct a little bit, but it's hard to predict these things.

00:46:48.740 So on both sides, on the real policy side and on the cultural conversation,

00:46:53.460 things are looking a lot better, not even because Trump is in.

00:46:56.380 I think that's also true, but just because Hillary isn't, things are so much better, and that's great.

00:47:02.240 Christmas came early, I guess.

00:47:03.940 From Ian, I've never had a problem seeing divine providence in other situations,

00:47:08.280 like when you and Clavin were talking about the pilgrims.

00:47:10.940 In my own life, however, I'm not as good at seeing it.

00:47:13.980 As you can imagine, this leads me to feel abandoned by God.

00:47:17.340 Do you have any advice on how I can start to see him in my own life?

00:47:20.900 Thanks, Ian.

00:47:22.440 Yeah.

00:47:23.600 Yes, I can.

00:47:24.420 It's an evil generation that looks for signs and wonders.

00:47:28.000 Don't forget that.

00:47:29.140 So I think the way to see him is to stop looking at you.

00:47:32.580 It's to stop looking at your own life and stop looking inward at yourself and look at him.

00:47:36.700 The evidence of him is all around you.

00:47:39.020 You know that it's all around you because you see it everywhere else.

00:47:42.580 Don't go looking for signs and wonders.

00:47:44.440 It isn't a good thing.

00:47:45.180 I mean, you'll see them all the time.

00:47:47.440 Once it clicks in, you will see it in every little seemingly ridiculous coincidence in your life.

00:47:53.960 Fr. George Rutler has an excellent book on apparently random coincidences.

00:47:58.440 It's called Coincidentally.

00:47:59.240 It's very enjoyable, very funny, and it does make a sort of serious point about providence.

00:48:06.340 The quote he uses on the cover is from Alexander Pope's essay on man.

00:48:09.860 All nature is but art unknown to thee.

00:48:12.140 All chance direction which thou canst not see.

00:48:15.360 It seems to me that you are not seeing that direction in your own life.

00:48:19.200 If you can see it when you look elsewhere and you can't see it when you look at yourself,

00:48:23.000 then I would keep looking elsewhere.

00:48:24.380 Keep looking forward.

00:48:25.560 Keep doing you, kid.

00:48:27.040 Just do the right thing.

00:48:28.300 Keep your head down and live your life.

00:48:31.840 And if you don't harp on your own feelings of abandonment by God or how God wronged you

00:48:38.140 or how anybody else wronged you or all the problems in your life,

00:48:41.600 if you just keep doing what you can do.

00:48:43.560 Remember, suffering is not immoral.

00:48:47.200 It's morally neutral.

00:48:48.160 It's how we react to suffering that is moral.

00:48:50.560 We can either react to suffering in a good way or we can react to suffering in a sinful way.

00:48:56.540 We can either react to it with perseverance and kissing it up to God, as we used to say,

00:49:01.680 or you can react to it and say, woe is me and life is terrible and why does everyone have it so much better than me?

00:49:07.640 One of those is a good moral choice.

00:49:09.260 One of those is a bad moral choice.

00:49:10.540 So keep your eyes ahead and look out for God.

00:49:12.660 I think that you'll find him.

00:49:14.080 And pray.

00:49:15.000 That's our entire show today.

00:49:16.100 A very godly show.

00:49:17.220 I guess it's because Christmas came early.

00:49:18.540 I guess that's why.

00:49:19.420 Talk about Providence, folks.

00:49:22.280 Okay, that's our show for the week.

00:49:23.980 But don't forget this weekend.

00:49:25.840 You'll get another kingdom.

00:49:27.080 You'll be able to save yourself from the chaos of the Clavenless weekend.

00:49:30.740 Go to iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play, wherever.

00:49:33.640 Great narrative podcasts about Hollywood schlubs who fall into fantasy worlds with bloody daggers and dead damsels

00:49:39.580 written by conservative people who also work in the arts and perform by them, too.

00:49:43.340 Wherever those are downloaded, you can get another kingdom and survive the Clavenless weekend.

00:49:47.340 Until Monday, I'm Michael Knowles.

00:49:49.840 This is The Michael Knowles Show.

00:49:50.900 We will see you then.

00:50:17.340 is a Daily Wire Forward Publishing production.

00:50:20.020 Copyright Forward Publishing 2017.

The Michael Knowles Show - November 30, 2017

Ep. 67 - Christmas Comes Early! Tax Cuts

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