The Michael Knowles Show - Ep. 751 - Consequence Culture

00:00:00.000 Is cancel culture real? The left says absolutely not, you crazy conservatives.

00:00:07.120 The culture that we're living in right now is a consequence culture of accountability,

00:00:12.320 where people are being held responsible for their actions. And that's a very good thing.

00:00:17.320 That's a very conservative thing. LeVar Burton, the host of Reading Rainbow, among other TV shows,

00:00:23.260 he's sick and tired of hearing all this talk about cancel culture.

00:00:27.520 In terms of cancel culture, I think it's misnamed. That's a misnomer.

00:00:33.920 I think we have a consequence culture and that consequences are finally encompassing everybody in the society,

00:00:41.440 whereas they haven't been ever in this country.

00:00:46.680 So I think that there are good signs that are happening in the culture right now.

00:00:52.820 And I think it has everything to do with a new awareness on people who were simply unaware of the real nature of life in this country

00:01:00.460 for people who have been othered since this nation began.

00:01:04.740 So LeVar Burton is half right. He's not even half right. He's a quarter right.

00:01:09.100 Some people are being held to consequence in this country,

00:01:12.440 but a lot of times they're not being held to consequence for things they ought to be held to consequence for.

00:01:17.280 And if we've learned nothing for the past year and a half, it's that a whole lot of people who go out and pillage

00:01:23.840 and burn and loot and steal and even murder are not being held to consequence at all.

00:01:30.600 I'm Michael Knowles. This is The Michael Knowles Show.

00:01:32.380 Welcome back to the show. My favorite comment yesterday from Jay Hartman, who says,

00:01:45.200 the compelled speech pronouns thing reminds me of the mask persuasion. It's not for you. It's for them.

00:01:53.800 Don't be selfish. Just repeat lies with us and engage in superstitious nonsense because it's polite.

00:02:01.260 This is true. It's all about this emotional blackmail to say, no, it's about, it's about them.

00:02:07.900 Don't be mean. Don't be selfish. Just put the donut on your head and jump up and down.

00:02:13.440 Hey, just come on, just humiliate yourself and say that up is down and black is white and east is west

00:02:18.440 because that's so polite because lies are so polite. Lies are not polite. The truth is polite.

00:02:25.000 The truth will set you free. Lies, very, very disrespectful and cruel.

00:02:30.460 How are you going to find out the truth? Well, one great way, check out The Great Courses Plus.

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00:03:38.840 LeVar Burton's take here is not getting enough traction, but it's what the left has been saying

00:03:44.720 for a long time. And I got to tell you, you know that I have a very different view on cancel culture 0.55

00:03:50.000 than a number of other conservatives. A lot of other conservatives say that cancel culture is bad

00:03:54.820 because it's censorship and we're free speech absolutists and you should be able to say whatever

00:03:59.800 you want without any consequence whatsoever. And I don't think that's true. I think that when the

00:04:04.420 left says that canceling is about consequences, that's a very good thing. When the left says that

00:04:10.840 in the 1950s, conservatives canceled communists, I think that's a very good thing. I am all for

00:04:16.560 canceling certain people who are trying to upend our culture. Sign me up. Where can I do that?

00:04:23.640 The problem with this current culture is not that communists are being canceled. It's that

00:04:30.640 anti-communists are being canceled. It's not that some people are being shut up or some people are

00:04:37.160 being ostracized for abhorrent views. It's that people are being ostracized for holding perfectly

00:04:42.400 ordinary views. They're being ostracized for waving the American flag. That's the problem. The problem

00:04:47.640 here is the substance. This is the central issue that conservatives get wrong, which coincidentally,

00:04:53.940 I talk about at great length in my upcoming book, Speechless, Controlling Words, Controlling Minds,

00:04:57.620 available now for pre-order. People who are doing very bad things are not being held to consequence at

00:05:03.860 all. Case in point, Black Lives Matter just came out and effectively endorsed Makia Bryant's

00:05:11.120 stabbing her, this young woman that she was living with, which was the cause of her being shot by that

00:05:18.100 cop. BLM just tweeted out, quote, Makia Bryant, we say her name, another black life stolen, but we refuse

00:05:27.700 to define or remember Makia by her final moments. We uplift, celebrate, and honor this black child for

00:05:33.880 what she loved. Doing her hair, making TikToks, having fun, just being a teen. Rest in power, queen.

00:05:44.860 Makia Bryant, whatever else you want to say, it's a sad thing when people go down a bad path,

00:05:49.700 even if they get their comeuppance, it's a sad thing to watch it happen. Makia Bryant's life was

00:05:54.860 not stolen. Her life was forfeited. She forfeited her life when she went in and got that knife and

00:06:02.120 tried to plunge it into that other girl. That was when that cop did the right thing by killing her,

00:06:10.420 by shooting her to neutralize the target, and in so doing, killing her. She just, she was doing what

00:06:17.240 she loved. If she had not loved stabbing people, if she had not loved committing this violence,

00:06:23.900 she would be alive today. Is it a sad thing that she went down that bad path? Of course that's a

00:06:28.760 sad thing. Yep. Fallen world. We refuse to define or remember Makia by her final moments. You see this,

00:06:35.440 what they're really saying is, we refuse to define Makia Bryant by the act that got her killed,

00:06:41.640 namely trying to stab this girl. We're going to reframe what happened. If Makia Bryant was killed

00:06:49.100 because she stabbed a girl, that's totally just. If Makia Bryant was killed because she liked making 0.67

00:06:54.760 TikTok videos and having fun, well, that's not just at all. They are reframing the situation here,

00:07:00.120 just like the 1619 Project reframes American history. It's the same argument as the 1619 Project,

00:07:08.740 the author of which gleefully took credit for the 2020 riots all around the country.

00:07:14.880 The 1619 Project says, yeah, we're not going to look at American history through the lens of

00:07:19.480 all these wonderful, great accomplishments from George Washington and Thomas Jefferson and all

00:07:23.640 the great stuff America's done in the world and all the brilliant reasoning and the wonderful acts

00:07:28.380 that brought America into existence. We're only going to focus on the bad stuff. And so we're going

00:07:34.040 to hold to consequence some of the greatest men who have ever walked the earth and we're going to

00:07:39.180 let vicious people get off the hook. That's the, that's what all of this talk about systemic racism.

00:07:46.400 All this is about is reframing the narrative so that some of the, some of the greatest people on

00:07:53.080 earth, George Washington, right, are held to account for all the worst things they've ever done.

00:07:58.400 And people, other sorts of people who are in favorite groups never get held to consequence at

00:08:03.100 all for the bad things that they've done. Lindsey Graham was asked about this on, on Chris Wallace's

00:08:07.080 morning show. Is there systemic racism in the United States? His answer, an excellent answer. 1.00

00:08:14.440 Of course not. Senator, is there systemic racism in this country, in policing and in other institutions?

00:08:25.120 No, not in my opinion. We just elected a two-term African-American president. The vice president

00:08:31.280 is of African-American Indian descent. So our systems are not racist. America is not a racist country.

00:08:39.020 Within every society, you have bad actors. The Chauvin trial was a just result. What's happening in

00:08:46.580 Ohio, where the police officer had to use deadly force to prevent a young girl from being stabbed to

00:08:52.220 death is a different situation in my view. So this attack on police and policing, reform the police.

00:08:59.580 Yes. Call them all racists. No, uh, you know, America is a work in progress, but best, best place

00:09:06.220 on the planet. And Joe Biden spends a lot of time running the place down. I wish you had to stop it.

00:09:10.960 Much of the talk about systemic racism is explicitly not, is designed explicitly so that people are not

00:09:20.560 held to consequence for their actions. Because according to the systemic racism argument, only

00:09:26.300 straight white men who know that they're men have any agency whatsoever. So they have to be held to 0.86

00:09:32.400 account. The cops, good example. Somehow, even if they're a black cop or a Hispanic cop, somehow it's 0.99

00:09:37.340 still part of the white supremacy system. Cops held to account all the time. They have to wear body

00:09:43.000 cameras. Even when they engage in a just killing, like this officer in the Makia Bryant case, he's

00:09:48.520 going to have his life ruined. He's going to have LeBron James say, you're next. He's going to be doxxed.

00:09:52.940 He's going to face all sorts of consequences. But what about everyone else? What about people who

00:09:59.120 are committing crimes? Well, they're only committing crimes because of systemic racism. The systemic

00:10:04.540 racism made me do it. What about people who are not taking care of their families and their

00:10:10.640 communities? The systemic racism made me do it. Johnny, where's your homework? Oh, the systemic

00:10:15.660 racism made my homework. That's where it is. It's not designed for accountability, to use the

00:10:21.160 fashionable word. It's designed to allow people to evade consequences. Now, if you have a gripe, if you

00:10:28.260 can even contrive some sort of gripe or some complaint, you can get away with basically anything,

00:10:34.120 which is why people always want to keep grievance at the forefront of one's mind. The Oscars were the

00:10:39.320 other night. You didn't watch. I didn't either. Nobody did. There was an award given out for the

00:10:45.600 best live action short film. Not exactly the most prestigious category here, but the winner. If you

00:10:52.420 were to win an Oscar for anything, including best live action short film, and these are people,

00:10:57.860 the ones who are working in the short films usually are not the superstars here, right? These are people

00:11:02.760 who've been working in obscurity in Hollywood for a long time. They finally, their work of art that

00:11:07.000 they've created gets the, the industry's highest honor. What would you, you'd probably go up there

00:11:10.720 and say, gosh, thank you. I'm so honored. Uh, wow. What a privilege it is to be here. You'd either do

00:11:16.480 that or, or you would go whine about police killings or whatever. Today, the police will kill three

00:11:25.660 people. And tomorrow, the police will kill three people. And the day after that, the police will kill

00:11:32.240 three people because on average, the police in America every day kill three people, which amounts

00:11:39.000 to about a thousand people a year. And those people happen to disproportionately black people.

00:11:46.680 And, you know, James Baldwin once said, the most despicable thing a person can be is indifferent to

00:11:52.820 other people's pain. And so I just asked that you please not be indifferent. Please don't be

00:12:01.160 indifferent to our pain. The most despicable thing that a person can be is indifferent to other

00:12:07.240 people's pain. Like this guy, like this guy who's spouting off and saying every day, the police

00:12:14.280 kill three people. Who are the police killing? They're killing, they're killing largely black 1.00

00:12:21.800 people. Not most people, largely black people. Okay. What sort of black people? He doesn't say that.

00:12:30.220 The vast, vast, vast, vast, vast, vast, vast majority of these police involved killings

00:12:35.760 are justified. The cops are killing bad guys who are committing crimes.

00:12:44.680 But you're being insensible to the suffering of others. What about the suffering of the victims of

00:12:51.760 those crimes? What about them? This guy is doing exactly what he's accusing others of doing

00:12:56.800 when he is defending criminals. Here, I'll give you another, another slogan that you can lump in with

00:13:02.880 your James Baldwin slogan. This one from Adam Smith. Mercy to the guilty is cruelty to the

00:13:07.140 innocent. We just saw a clear example of this in San Francisco.

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00:13:43.520 A seven-month-old baby is dead in San Francisco because the district attorney refused to do his job

00:13:51.740 because the narrative that now exists is that any use of police force is evil and wrong, that

00:13:59.380 going after criminals is somehow unjust because the criminals, they didn't choose to become criminals.

00:14:06.620 They're just, it's the systemic racist, injustice, patriarchy, white supremacy, toxic. It's everybody's

00:14:15.440 fault but their own. You know, now, thank goodness we're living in a consequence culture, as LeVar 0.87

00:14:22.340 Burton says, and that, and in this consequence culture, all the criminals get to go free. Even

00:14:26.940 the Republicans are endorsing this kind of nonsense. It was, it was the most misguided action of the

00:14:31.820 Trump campaign, or of the Trump administration, rather. I thought Trump did such great stuff.

00:14:36.220 Huge fan of the president, former president now, I guess I have to say. But he focused so much time

00:14:42.880 and energy on what, on springing people out of the clink. Why? Why would we do that? When, when did

00:14:49.120 Republicans become the party of springing criminals out of the clink? You know what happens when you

00:14:53.640 spread, spring criminals from the clink? More people suffer. Chesa Budin, I don't know how to 1.00

00:15:00.300 pronounce this guy's name. He is a radical district attorney in San Francisco, elected not that long

00:15:06.900 ago. Chesa Budin, with his lax policies, allowed a guy with a long rap sheet to get out of the clink. 1.00

00:15:17.480 He was already booked on domestic violence, but hey, you know, it's just not fair because

00:15:23.660 disproportionately men of certain communities are targeted. The, the argument is that black men are

00:15:31.080 targeted. It, it, in fact, the criminals are being targeted by the criminal justice system. If there's

00:15:35.360 some overlap there, that's a coincidence, I guess. That's not, not the primary motivator. So, okay,

00:15:40.720 you let the guy out on all these cockamamie racial theories. What happens? Kills a seven month old kid.

00:15:46.700 Where is the consequence for that guy? Okay, now, now he'll go back to jail, I hope, I guess.

00:15:56.760 Where's the accountability? Where's the justice? Where are the crocodile tears from the Oscars stage?

00:16:03.160 What about this compassionate, wonderful district attorney for prison reform? We do need prison

00:16:09.040 reform in this country. We need to put more criminals in prison for longer and they need to

00:16:12.720 face stiffer consequences. We, I don't think that anybody can look around at the last year and a

00:16:17.680 half as the country is going up, cities being torched every other night and say, you know the,

00:16:22.860 you know the problem in this country? We don't have enough criminals on the streets. We need to let

00:16:27.660 criminals out of prison. I don't think so. I don't think that's the problem. The Oscars, however,

00:16:33.120 were not all bad and not everyone made these stupid speeches like this short film guy, Tyler Perry,

00:16:40.680 very, very, very successful filmmaker, came out and made an important point I felt, which is you

00:16:48.120 shouldn't judge a book by its cover and we shouldn't vilify people on the basis of their race or even,

00:16:53.840 even if they're cops. My mother taught me to refuse hate. She taught me to refuse blanket judgment.

00:17:02.700 And in this time and with all of the internet and social media and algorithms and everything that

00:17:07.740 wants us to think a certain way, the 24 hour news cycle, it is my hope that all of us would teach

00:17:13.440 our kids and not only to remember, just refuse hate. Don't hate anybody. I refuse to hate someone

00:17:19.580 because they are Mexican or because they are black or white or LBGTQ. I refuse to hate someone because

00:17:28.760 they are a police officer. I refuse to hate someone because they are Asian. I would hope that we would

00:17:34.540 refuse hate. And I want to take this Gene Herschel Humanitarian Award and dedicate it to anyone who

00:17:41.560 wants to stand in the middle, no matter what's around the wall, stand in the middle because that's

00:17:46.060 where healing happens. That's where conversation happens. That's where change happens. It happens

00:17:50.480 in the middle. So anyone who wants to meet me in the middle to refuse hate, to refuse blanket judgment

00:17:56.180 and to help lift someone's feet off the ground. This one is for you too.

00:18:01.440 Basically a good speech. There are three kinds of Oscar speeches. One is the typical leftist. You

00:18:11.200 whine about everything. The second type of Oscar speech is the one where you say nice political

00:18:17.380 things and you take the temperature down a little bit. And then the third kind of Oscar speech is where

00:18:22.580 you thank the Academy for recognizing your artistic work. And really all the Oscar speeches should just

00:18:28.260 be that third one. But I guess that's out the window now. I guess people don't really do that

00:18:32.360 very much anymore. So if you're going to have to deal with a political speech anyway, I guess we want

00:18:36.880 one that says what Tyler Perry said. Tyler Perry, notice how clever this is. I don't think Tyler Perry is

00:18:43.440 any particular conservative. He doesn't present himself that way. But he goes out there, he says,

00:18:48.140 refuse hate. It's kind of this slogan-y bumper stickery line. Okay, refuse hate. Refuse hate

00:18:55.800 against Mexicans. Okay, yeah, I know. Everyone's really harsh on the Mexicans, right? Refuse hate

00:19:00.360 against black people. Yeah, right. We're living in a white supremacist country, right? Of course,

00:19:04.400 everyone hates black people, right? Refuse hate against white people. Well, that's interesting because

00:19:09.320 we live in a culture right now where it's the only socially acceptable form of racism is against

00:19:14.200 white people. Tyler Perry calling that out. Refuse hate against police officers. Whoa, that's

00:19:20.500 interesting. Now we are basically told that if you don't come out and hate cops, that you're somehow

00:19:26.020 a white supremacist. So that's a very interesting line. Refuse hate against Asian people. We have

00:19:30.940 enshrined in our law discrimination against Asians and whites in the form of affirmative action.

00:19:36.600 That's interesting. He's slipping these very important things in here. It's actually a pretty

00:19:41.680 productive speech, I think. But the best speech of the night, the one, you know, this is a really

00:19:47.240 tailored down Oscar because nobody was watching. We'll get to that in a second. This is a really

00:19:51.960 tailored down film year. But in this small room, a musician named Jean-Baptiste, never heard of him.

00:19:59.080 He won an award for Pixar's Soul. And this guy got up there and he gave the best Oscar speech I have

00:20:07.780 heard in years. Man, you know, what's deep is that God gave us 12 notes. It's the same 12 notes

00:20:19.100 Duke Ellington had, Bach had. It's the same 12. Nina Simone and all the nominees. I just want to

00:20:29.780 first point out that every gift is special. Every contribution with music that comes from the divine

00:20:37.660 into the instruments, into the film, into the minds and hearts and souls of every person who hears it,

00:20:48.580 the stories that happen when you listen to it and watch it, and the stories you share,

00:20:52.980 the moments you create, the memories you make, man, it's just so incredibly special. And I just want

00:21:00.980 to first recognize the nominees and say that I'm incredibly, I'm speaking for all of us, we are

00:21:07.280 incredibly humbled and grateful to the Academy for this recognition. And I'm just thankful to God for

00:21:13.680 those 12 notes, man. That's so dope. I love that line. I'm just so grateful to God for those 12

00:21:21.140 notes. Man, that's so dope. It is. It is. That's the right answer. That's, that's, and it's not false

00:21:27.760 modesty, by the way. I was talking about this with Tim Poole and, and the whole show the other night.

00:21:36.160 False modesty is not the same as humility. False modesty is another form of pride. So when people

00:21:43.720 refuse to take a compliment, that's very often false modesty. Or, you know, when they make a big,

00:21:50.820 big deal about getting a compliment, that's a form of false modesty. True humility though,

00:21:55.600 is the sincere and totally justified acknowledgement that you are not totally responsible

00:22:01.300 for your accomplishments. You're not because you're not responsible for your own life.

00:22:07.280 You did not choose to be born into this world. You did not create your own life. Your life is a gift

00:22:11.700 from God. Your inborn talents are a gift from God. Even the things you work at, even the, the ways you

00:22:18.160 cultivate those talents and nurture them and express them are direct, derived from God. Your work ethic,

00:22:25.420 your energy, the, the food of this world, the coffee that you drink to give you energy,

00:22:31.120 all, all of that is a gift. And you work in accordance with that grace or you don't,

00:22:36.160 you can reject it too. But ultimately you've got to just say, well, thank God for all this stuff,

00:22:41.620 right? If you, if you're being really humble and really honest with yourself,

00:22:46.460 that's what you would do. That, that would be a great consequence culture to use LeVar Burton's

00:22:53.120 phrase. If we were to acknowledge that all these great things in life that we want to take credit

00:22:59.900 for, they're not really ours. All these bad things in life that we do, they are our fault when we

00:23:06.020 reject the free gifts that we have been given because of this fallen world that we're living in.

00:23:10.880 And because of our compromised and corrupted free will, that would be a real consequence

00:23:15.860 culture. But what we're seeing right now is the, the opposite of that. What we're seeing right now

00:23:20.880 is we're, we're pretending that we deserve all the wonderful things in life. And the minute that

00:23:26.240 something doesn't go our way, we complain and we say, this is a grievance and we are victims and

00:23:32.020 things are being taken away from us because of the, the patriarchy or the white supremacy or the

00:23:36.680 whatever. And then we refuse to take responsibility. We refuse to face consequences for the evil things

00:23:42.180 that we do. A world in which you can go out and stab somebody. And then if you are in any way held to

00:23:48.080 account for that, you can complain and say, that's unjust. I'm all for a consequence culture. What we're

00:23:54.900 living in right now is the total opposite of that. Ben is going to be talking about some political

00:24:00.560 consequences right now in the redistricting and in the addition of, of congressional seats. That's

00:24:06.740 actually going better for Republicans than for Democrats. Go check that out. Also join us tomorrow

00:24:10.680 for a special episode of Backstage where we will be watching Joe Biden's first congressional speech

00:24:14.460 live. Apparently this is invite only. Uh, we will be giving our expert genius analysis in real time.

00:24:21.960 And as Joe Biden daughters along there, we're going to be drinking a lot of whiskey. So the analysis is

00:24:27.020 going to get more and more expert throughout the night. Make sure to go check that out. Streams

00:24:31.320 tomorrow at 8 30 Eastern, 7 30 central on dailywire.com and on our YouTube channel, the daily wire

00:24:37.400 channel. Also another excellent high energy episode of Candace coming at you this Friday. Candace is 1.00

00:24:42.660 going to be talking to Dave Rubin. They're going to be talking about all sorts of stuff, especially

00:24:45.580 what's going on in California because Gavin Newsom is officially being recalled and he's running

00:24:50.320 against Caitlyn Jenner because we are living in a very strange world. Candace streams on Friday,

00:24:56.400 9 p.m. Eastern, 8 p.m. Central only at dailywire. Get 25% off with a new membership and code

00:25:00.260 Candace at dailywire.com slash subscribe. We'll be right back with a lot more.

00:25:16.420 How do we come back from the political brink? You've got BLM torching the country and defending 1.00

00:25:21.840 kids, stabbing other kids just to own the cops calls for abolishing the police entirely. And now

00:25:29.160 the Republican standard bearer, at least in, in California is a man who thinks that he's a woman.

00:25:34.080 We have really, something has gone wrong in our political world. Do you know who has the answer?

00:25:40.880 One of the few politicians with crossover appeal in this country, Tulsi Gabbard, who says,

00:25:46.400 hey guys, chill out, hang loose, and just embrace the spirit of Aloha.

00:25:53.720 My dear friends, my fellow Americans, please, please let us stop the racialization of everyone

00:26:02.720 and everything. It's racialism. We are all children of God and are therefore family in the truest sense,

00:26:11.340 no matter our race or ethnicity. This is Aloha. And this is what our country and the world need.

00:26:19.820 The mainstream propaganda media and politicians, they want us to constantly focus on our skin color

00:26:25.860 and the skin color of others because it helps them politically or financially. Aloha means respect

00:26:33.560 and love for others. It's what enables us to see beyond our skin color and see the soul, the person

00:26:41.400 within. So let's do our best to cultivate this Aloha in our hearts and see and treat others through this

00:26:49.960 prism of love, not through the prism of race and ethnicity. Please let us not allow ourselves to be led

00:26:58.120 down this dark and divisive path of racialism and hate. Love this. Absolutely brilliant. What most

00:27:07.260 people are going to hear is this sort of platitudinous thing about, you know, it's just

00:27:11.180 about Aloha. Just chill out and pop a coconut, you know, and have a few drinks. It's cool, man. We're

00:27:16.520 all, we're all people. Let's just sing Kumbaya. That's not what she's saying. She got a little bit

00:27:21.460 of that because she's a politician, but what she's saying is more specific and more insightful.

00:27:25.640 She says, a lot of people in this country who are in very powerful positions have a financial and

00:27:34.560 political stake in keeping us divided, especially on this fault line of race. She's saying that the

00:27:42.460 establishment, which doesn't like her any more than they like Donald Trump, actually. They're in

00:27:47.060 different political parties, but the liberal establishment, the blob, the corporations, you know,

00:27:52.880 the multinationals, the administrative state, the sort of permanent government, the big tech sector,

00:28:01.960 all of these, the things that all work in tandem don't like Tulsi Gabbard because she contradicts 0.91

00:28:08.440 their narrative. And she's saying those guys have a real incentive to keep you all divided up so they

00:28:15.860 can maintain their grip on power. It is just like what Amazon does, for instance, when various local

00:28:24.780 Amazon worker groups want to unionize. You've seen some memos come out about this. Amazon will always

00:28:32.720 go in and find ways to get them to hate each other. And they, and it's not just Amazon. Big companies

00:28:38.220 have been doing this for a long time. They'll go in and figure out the fault lines in the company among

00:28:42.240 the workers so that the workers don't unionize. And then once they get all the workers to hate each

00:28:47.220 other, the big corporation gets to maintain power. The left has, has recognized this for a long time

00:28:53.680 and the right for a long time, especially when the right was shilling for big corporations,

00:28:58.000 refused to acknowledge it. But this is true. This is just what, this is a very basic political

00:29:02.760 strategy and it's obviously what's happening right now. And it does account, I think, for a lot of the

00:29:07.500 focus on these physical characteristics. Notice what she says here. She says, we're all children of

00:29:12.200 God. We're told to think in a racial way primarily, but we're all children of God.

00:29:17.460 What she's saying here as a matter of philosophy is we're told to think about the physical,

00:29:23.620 but actually we have something that binds us at a metaphysical level. This is, by the way,

00:29:29.600 why Christians, regardless of their views on evolution or the origins of mankind, the church

00:29:36.980 has always insisted upon the descent of the human race from two parents. Regardless of how that all

00:29:43.920 came to be, human beings must descend from these two parents. It's called monogenism because

00:29:49.040 that, that accounts for our human dignity and our human solidarity. Now we are made in the image of

00:29:55.660 God. We all have this common link all the way back. Tulsi Gabbard pointing that out. Really,

00:30:01.240 really good stuff beneath all of the lines you've heard about how we should all get along. That key,

00:30:08.400 the propaganda media, that's what you've got to be on your guard against. People don't like it. People

00:30:14.060 don't like the messages that we're being told by the establishment media right now. However, they

00:30:21.080 continue to do it. The numbers are in from the Oscars. This was the lowest rated Oscars ever. Not the lowest

00:30:30.080 rated Oscars in the last five or 10 years ever. The total viewers dropped 58% year over year. So just

00:30:40.780 from last year. But last year was also a record low. So this is an absolute cratering, an absolute

00:30:48.600 collapse. Last year, you had 23.6 million people tune into the Oscars. This year, 9.85 million.

00:30:57.940 Fewer than 10 million for the first time ever. And in the key demographic, 18 to 49, these are the

00:31:04.920 people who are going out and buying stuff, a decline of 64%.

00:31:08.980 15 years ago, Michael Moore got up and gave a political speech at the Oscars bashing George Bush

00:31:16.560 and he got booed. He was actually booed even by the Hollywood liberals because that sort of thing was

00:31:23.500 frowned upon. The Oscars have had political moments for a long time, but they were few and far between.

00:31:30.660 This really began in the 70s when Marlon Brando did not show up to accept his Oscar and he sent

00:31:36.280 a woman who was part Indian to give a speech protesting the treatment of Indians in Hollywood.

00:31:44.620 Sachin Littlefeather. Take a listen.

00:31:47.440 My name is Sachin Littlefeather. I'm Apache and I'm president of the National Native American

00:31:54.300 Affirmative Image Committee. I'm representing Marlon Brando this evening and he has asked me to tell

00:32:00.760 you in a very long speech, which I cannot share with you presently because of time, but I will be glad to

00:32:08.460 share with the press afterwards that he very regretfully cannot accept this very generous award and the

00:32:17.820 reasons for this being are the treatment of American Indians today by the film industry, excuse me,

00:32:26.980 and on television, in movie reruns, and also with recent happenings at Wounded Knee.

00:32:43.700 I beg at this time that I have not intruded upon this evening and that we will, in the future,

00:32:51.720 our hearts and our understandings will meet with love and generosity. Thank you on behalf of Marlon

00:32:59.900 Brando. So you can hear in the background when she goes out and gives the somber speech about

00:33:04.480 this relatively minor issue in Hollywood. It wasn't even, you know, he's not going to take this

00:33:10.160 because he's protesting the Vietnam War or he's not, because he's protesting whatever, some other

00:33:15.320 major. He goes, he's protesting the depiction of Indians in Hollywood movies in the seventies. What?

00:33:25.340 And you hear people boo and some people applaud and some people boo and that seems about right.

00:33:31.060 It's gotten so much worse though. Now nobody would boo that speech. Now you'd have to say, wow,

00:33:36.440 oh, that was so beautiful. Every speech has to be Sachin Littlefeather now. Nobody likes it. The audience

00:33:41.940 is totally going away. Why does the left keep this up? Because they have the power.

00:33:49.660 We, I think, like to delude ourselves in this country and say, look, either in the political

00:33:55.620 realm, you say, look, this is a democracy, okay? The people get what they want. Democracy is the

00:34:00.100 theory that the common people know what they want and they deserve to get it good and hard,

00:34:03.700 as H.L. Mencken said. Or this is a capitalist country, okay? The almighty dollar is what decides

00:34:10.000 what's going on. If Hollywood's pushing a bunch of crazy propaganda, it's because they're going to

00:34:13.800 make an extra buck out of it. No, you get, it's, both of those are so reductive. The, the political

00:34:20.460 view actually does not encompass the way that our system of government works in reality. And the

00:34:27.100 economic view reduces man to a purely economic animal, which is not what he is. That's not what

00:34:32.220 we are. We are much more than that. What's actually going on here is something that I document

00:34:38.000 in my book, Speechless, Controlling Words, Controlling Minds, available now, by the way,

00:34:40.760 for pre-order. What's actually going on is that radicals who had a very, who have very,

00:34:46.220 very unpopular views were able over decades and decades to attain positions of power and influence

00:34:55.200 throughout the culture, in this case, specifically in the entertainment industry.

00:34:59.220 And they've been able to slowly change the culture, try to get a hold and create a cultural

00:35:05.240 hegemony that the common people are still resisting. They're still tuning this stuff out.

00:35:11.420 But because they have the positions of power, they are not directly accountable. They're not

00:35:15.820 directly responsible. They are not directly held to consequence for their craziness. Eventually,

00:35:22.660 if things trend in this direction long enough and there are no viewers left, at a certain point,

00:35:26.840 you think the Oscars are probably going to have to call it quits, but they'll go on for a very long

00:35:32.340 time. This is not a responsive system right now. This is a minority of, of radical ideologues have

00:35:40.860 taken over huge positions of power everywhere, and they're going to keep pushing their garbage,

00:35:45.600 whether the common people like it or not. They don't like the common people. They think the common

00:35:49.260 people are deplorable and irredeemable. They tell us that to our face when they tell you that

00:35:53.700 you should believe them. Now, occasionally, some people face some consequences for their incompetence

00:36:00.840 and radicalism, as is happening to Governor Newsom right now, Mr. Nusselini out there in California.

00:36:07.020 It is official. This is relatively breaking news. Gavin Newsom will be recalled. The threshold for

00:36:14.680 the recall on the, the signature petition was 1,495,709 signatures. That's the number that they

00:36:23.520 needed to get to. Now, you might say, Michael, they got 2 million, way more than 2 million signatures.

00:36:28.680 So he was obviously going to be recalled. No, because what happens in politics is then you go

00:36:32.500 in and you take out signatures that you can say, oh no, that address wasn't right. That signature

00:36:37.420 doesn't look right. That person moved. So you take them all out. And what, what Newsom was hoping was

00:36:41.180 that he could disqualify enough signatures that he wouldn't even have to face the recall. That's

00:36:45.160 long gone. He's now at 1,626,042 signatures. It's going to go up and up from there. So this guy is

00:36:52.900 officially getting recalled. He might survive it. The reason he might survive it is that the recall

00:37:00.340 process is set up to favor the incumbent. What's going to happen is there's going to be one question

00:37:06.220 on the ballot. Because even though he's being recalled, you still have to answer the ballot

00:37:10.180 measure should Governor Newsom lose his job. And if the majority of people say yes, then they will

00:37:18.060 look at the answers to the next question, which is who should replace him. There are going to be

00:37:20.960 seven zillion candidates. So the only way that the Republicans are going to have a chance is if they

00:37:24.920 solidify around a candidate. Now, as of now, at least in the media, the leading candidate is

00:37:31.340 Caitlyn Jenner. And we talked yesterday on this show, can a conservative go in for Caitlyn?

00:37:38.300 On the one hand, his policies will be better than Newsom's. On the other hand,

00:37:42.460 we'll be mainstreaming transgenderism. That would be absolute death for any sort of conservative movement. 1.00

00:37:48.760 And you know that misguided conservatives are going to start parroting stupid things like,

00:37:53.300 you know, Democrats, they're the real transphobes. Oh, we're totally cool with men putting on dresses 0.91

00:37:57.520 and pretending to be women. So how do you do this? I was speaking to some friends of mine last night. 0.89

00:38:02.200 I said, is there any way for a conservative to get behind Caitlyn? And they made a somewhat,

00:38:06.860 I'm not sure that I'm totally persuaded by this yet, but they did make a somewhat compelling case that

00:38:10.920 the only way to do it is if you had a group called Conservatives for Bruce.

00:38:16.080 Bruce. Conservatives for Bruce that insisted in all cases to refer to him as him and probably just

00:38:23.960 to call him Bruce because the Caitlyn thing is very confusing. What you would need is a real assurance

00:38:31.360 that Caitlyn Jenner, Bruce Jenner, was not going to push gender ideology on conservatives and on the 0.55

00:38:40.980 people. And as far as I can tell, the only way to do that, while still letting him prance around in

00:38:46.460 dresses or whatever he wants to do, whatever makes him feel more, more like how he wants to feel on

00:38:51.580 the inside, is if he drops the female pronouns. And frankly, if he goes back to his old name,

00:38:59.200 could, could a guy vote for, could a conservative vote for Bruce Jenner if Bruce Jenner has this sort of

00:39:05.320 strange sexual desire? Yeah, maybe, maybe. But could a conservative vote for Caitlyn who insists

00:39:13.460 on going by she and who insists on abolishing same sex bathrooms? I don't think so. I think that would 0.99

00:39:20.840 be very, very difficult. So if you're in that world where Caitlyn Jenner or Caitlyn, she is the leading

00:39:27.620 Republican candidate and probably Newsom is going to survive that and will not be held to account.

00:39:36.080 The people who are in power are very clever. They're very crafty. Who's the most powerful

00:39:41.440 politician in the country right now? This should be a simple question. If you hesitated, you haven't

00:39:46.880 been paying enough attention. It's not Gavin Newsom. It's not, certainly not Joe Biden. It's not Kamala

00:39:52.920 Harris. Come on. It's a very easy answer. The most powerful politician in the country is Dr. Fauci.

00:40:00.380 He's one of the most powerful politicians in the history of this country.

00:40:04.240 He has no democratic accountability. Presidents come and go. He's worked for five of them. He always

00:40:09.140 stays in his position of power. He is almost single-handedly crafting national policy right

00:40:13.720 now. He's, he's been doing that from the Trump administration. He's doing that now in the Biden

00:40:17.500 administration. And even Fauci knows, even Fauci knows that he's got to be sort of clever about this

00:40:22.540 because his power is not totally unlimited. Dr. Fauci has come, he's been ruling with an iron fist

00:40:31.760 now for over a year. But he went on one of the Sunday shows on, on ABC and he was asked, hold,

00:40:40.880 okay, come on. We're over a year into this now. Do people still need to wear the masks all the time?

00:40:45.940 They even need to wear the masks outdoors? Fauci said, well, you know, look, maybe,

00:40:49.960 maybe we can negotiate here. You know, I don't want to get ahead of them, George,

00:40:54.580 but I think it's pretty common sense now that outdoor risk is really, really quite low, particularly,

00:41:01.260 I mean, if you were a vaccinated person wearing a, wearing a mask outdoors, I mean, obviously the

00:41:07.040 risk is minuscule. What I believe you're going to be hearing, what the country is going to be going

00:41:12.240 to be hearing soon is updated guidelines from the CDC. The CDC is a science-based organization.

00:41:20.640 They don't want to make any guidelines unless they look at the data and the data backs it up.

00:41:25.580 But when you look around at the common sense situation, obviously the risk is really very

00:41:30.680 low, particularly if you're vaccinated. Okay. So now we have, I think this is the 17th

00:41:35.680 mask position from Dr. Fauci. Remember the first position was masks are dumb and stupid and they

00:41:42.880 don't do anything and you shouldn't wear one even at the height of a pandemic. It's not going to,

00:41:47.100 maybe it will block a droplet, but it'll be bad because you'll touch your face. So do not wear the

00:41:52.580 mask sheep. Then he changes his position and he says, actually masks are really good. They're

00:42:00.080 necessary. You have to wear the masks. I only told you that you shouldn't wear the masks because I

00:42:05.080 wanted to save them for the nurses. Okay. Then we got to wear double masks. Now we don't need to wear

00:42:11.600 masks outside. Soon, maybe. What's going on here? Fauci is not giving a scientific proclamation.

00:42:20.180 He is a very, very adept and clever politician who is navigating the political waters as best he can

00:42:28.140 in trying to hold on to power. There is no simple answer here. When people,

00:42:34.400 when people tell you that the answer in politics is clear, it's so clear what, what is, what to do.

00:42:41.140 I'm reminded of a saying of, of my priest, Father, Father Rutler, where he says,

00:42:47.660 shallows are clear. Shallow thinking is clear.

00:42:51.620 complicated things, deep things, true things are profound. They're murky. They're a little

00:42:57.960 trickier. Someone came in and said, look, advanced calculus is clear. You say, well,

00:43:04.180 I don't know if it is. I think it's pretty advanced actually. It's sort of complicated.

00:43:08.340 That same thing here. If we want to take power back from these people, if we want to hold these

00:43:12.640 people to consequence, we're going to have to be clever and crafty and we have to ditch the old 0.98

00:43:18.300 bumper sticker slogans. This is much more complicated than, come on, just free speech,

00:43:24.560 free speech absolutism. Uh, just read the constitution. Uh, just go back to the 1780s.

00:43:31.400 That's not, it's not a serious answer. That is not going to wrest power back from these people.

00:43:37.740 We're going to have to be cleverer than them. We are seeing some consequences right now in our legal

00:43:43.360 system. Consequences of the past year and a half, more than that, where the liberal establishment

00:43:48.640 has told us that cops are evil, racist, terrible people. And anytime they do their job and enforce

00:43:55.360 the law, they could have their lives ruined and end up in the clink for, for life. Right now,

00:44:00.700 people are quitting the NYPD in droves. Uh, there is a 75% increase year over year in the number of cops

00:44:12.120 cops, retiring, quitting their jobs. 75% increase year over year, amounting to 15% of the total number

00:44:21.480 of officers on the force. Some people are saying, good, good. You know, the left wants to abolish

00:44:26.860 the police. Fine. Get the police out of their crappy neighborhoods and see how they like it. 0.98

00:44:31.140 Good. Give them what they want. Democracy is the theory that the people know what they want,

00:44:35.080 deserve to get it good and hard. I don't think that's the right idea. I don't think we should

00:44:40.680 cede this ground. I don't think we should allow the left to abolish the police. I don't think

00:44:44.900 we shouldn't cede any of that at all. I think that is the same failed strategy that we have

00:44:53.080 been practicing for years and years and years. It's that same strategy of forget about politics,

00:44:57.840 only focus on the culture. It's that same failed strategy of, hey, look, I don't care what you say

00:45:02.980 or do. Just don't make me pay for it. I'm for freedom in the abstract. Totally a historical

00:45:08.260 understanding of freedom that has no basis in the actual American tradition.

00:45:12.780 Founding fathers would find it completely foreign.

00:45:16.280 No, we need to get involved. We need to say, no, you want to abolish the police? We're going to

00:45:19.620 double the police and we're going to send them into your neighborhoods and you're going to call us

00:45:22.740 sexist and racist and this is to, I don't care. We're going to enforce the law. We're going to

00:45:27.120 enforce our traditional American standards. Okay. We're going to enforce the good and the true and

00:45:33.180 the beautiful and not the bad and the wicked and the ugly and the unjust and the false. We're going

00:45:38.660 to actually stand for a substantive message here, which brings me to that MMA fight between the ladies 1.00

00:45:46.520 that happened this weekend. This was the fight between Rose Namahunas and Zhang Wiley at the UFC.

00:45:53.540 I didn't watch this. We did cover it on the show a couple of weeks ago because there was this great

00:45:58.580 moment before the fight where Rose Namahunas said, look, I'd rather be dead than red. I stand for the

00:46:05.460 West. I stand for the tradition of freedom that we have here. I don't like communist China. I don't

00:46:10.580 stand for that. There's a real ideological battle going on and I stand on the side of freedom.

00:46:16.320 Wow. Love that. That's great. Totally for that. But I did not watch the fight. I had no desire to

00:46:23.020 watch the fight. I don't intend ever to watch one of these fights. I guess I'm glad that the freedom

00:46:27.740 girl won. That's good. Namahunas beat the other girl. She was very happy about that. Good for her.

00:46:34.220 We should not be watching women beat each other up. That is just wrong. That's just disordered. 1.00

00:46:40.400 A healthy society doesn't do that. Hate to be a wet blanket. Hate to be a fuddy duddy here, 1.00

00:46:45.740 but I don't want to watch a woman get her head beaten in. That's weird. That's a, that's a perverse 0.80

00:46:51.020 thing. People shouldn't be doing that. But Michael, come on. You know, they can do it. They're

00:46:55.900 really strong. They are really strong. I bet, I bet actually some of them could beat me up,

00:46:59.180 even though men are physically much stronger than women. These are pretty tough ladies. Okay. 1.00

00:47:02.780 I'm not doubting that at all, but it's still wrong. And when, when the right goes in on this stuff and

00:47:07.620 says, oh, come on, whatever they want to do, if they want to do it, that's cool. Just don't make me do

00:47:11.220 it. When the right goes in on this, we give up the whole game. No, women should not be beating each 1.00

00:47:18.800 other up in public. That's whether it's in sport or whether it's in the streets or wherever that is

00:47:24.420 wrong. We're giving away the whole, we're giving, we might as well vote for Caitlin.

00:47:27.420 We're giving away the whole, we might as well use the pronouns if we're saying that there's no

00:47:30.640 difference between men and women. No, we have to stand for something more guys. We've got to stand 0.96

00:47:37.700 for something more than just do whatever you want. We are going to live in a consequence culture.

00:47:43.040 LeVar Burton is absolutely right. But what are the consequences going to be? What is the standard

00:47:47.480 going to be against which we are judged? I'm Michael Knowles. This is the Michael Knowles show. See you

00:47:52.260 tomorrow. If you enjoyed this episode, don't forget to subscribe. And if you want to help spread the

00:48:02.900 word, please give us a five-star review and tell your friends to subscribe. We're available on Apple

00:48:08.400 Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever else you listen to podcasts. Also, be sure to check out the other

00:48:13.960 Daily Wire podcasts, including The Ben Shapiro Show, The Andrew Klavan Show, and The Matt Walsh Show.

00:48:19.040 The Michael Knowles Show is produced by Ben Davies. Executive producer, Jeremy Boring. Our technical

00:48:24.700 director is Austin Stevens. Supervising producers, Mathis Glover and Robert Sterling. Production

00:48:30.340 manager, Pavel Vidovsky. Editor and associate producer, Danny D'Amico. Audio mixer, Mike Coromina.

00:48:37.500 Hair and makeup by Nika Geneva. And production coordinator, McKenna Waters. The Michael Knowles

00:48:42.780 Show is a Daily Wire production, copyright Daily Wire 2021.

00:48:46.460 Today on The Ben Shapiro Show, red and purple states gain congressional seats as blue states

00:48:51.700 lose population. The anti-cop movement continues to gain steam, and we discuss the single worst

00:48:56.920 example of woke mob targeting I've ever seen. That's today on The Ben Shapiro Show. Give it a listen.

The Michael Knowles Show - April 27, 2021

Ep. 751 - Consequence Culture

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