The Michael Knowles Show - Michael Knowles REACTS to ANARCHY and ＂The WHITE Pill＂｜ Michael Malice

00:00:00.000 I'm Michael Knowles, and this is The Michael Knowles Show.

00:00:09.140 Finally, after years and years of anticipation, we're bringing onto the show one of the most

00:00:14.900 interesting guys in the political media space right now, Michael Malice, who I've been following

00:00:20.800 for a long time, follow him on Twitter and everything. And I said, Michael, I can't believe

00:00:24.460 that you're just coming on the show now. And he reminded me that he DM'd me like two years ago,

00:00:29.760 and I missed it. Like I miss every DM, like I miss every text, but I'm so pleased that Michael

00:00:34.960 could be here today. Michael, thank you for coming on the show. You know, Michael, interesting is

00:00:39.520 always a euphemism. You know, do you have dinner with this guy? What was he like? Oh, he was

00:00:42.920 interesting. He was interesting. Yes, that's true. You know, one thing, Michael, that I, so I should

00:00:48.760 mention, you need no introduction, but you're the author of one of the two best titled books in

00:00:53.660 Human History, Dear Reader, The Unauthorized Autobiography of Kim Jong-il, that the only other 0.88

00:01:00.660 book of an equally great title is When Harry Became Sally by Ryan Anderson, the author of The New

00:01:07.260 Right, A Journey to the Fringe of American Politics, the author of The Anarchist Handbook, and, and this

00:01:13.260 is especially what I want to talk about, the author of an upcoming book about the white pill, a cause 1.00

00:01:19.240 for hope in our absolute decayed, disgusting, collapsing ruins of politics. What is the cause

00:01:26.860 for hope, Michael? Well, you just said it. It's a collapsing ruin. Politics is a disaster. There's

00:01:32.140 no possibility for freedom through a political venue. So to watch, you know, the elites basically

00:01:38.340 cannibalize themselves, it's very hard for me, whether you're a Republican, Democrat, independent,

00:01:43.820 whatever, to look at Joe Biden literally voiding his bowels behind the resolute desk and think to

00:01:49.400 yourself, this is a symbol of an empire at its strength. This is someone who really has, is on

00:01:55.160 top of things as opposed to, you know, a Weekend and Bernie situation, which we should be looking at

00:02:00.000 with a great comedic applause. And that also follows, you know, President Trump. Donald Trump was

00:02:05.700 basically a third party candidate. He had no roots within the Republican Party at all. Historically,

00:02:10.840 he endorsed Romney, but that barely says anything. And he managed to beat every single Republican

00:02:15.760 candidate in the primary. So this just speaks to, in many ways, the complete decaying weakness

00:02:20.940 of both of our major political parties, which from my perspective is a very healthy thing for a free

00:02:26.080 country. Now, most people would say the collapse in support for the, not just the political parties,

00:02:31.080 but for basically every public institution is terrible. It shows you that the country is falling

00:02:36.280 apart. I myself am a little worried about it. Although for some institutions, I think,

00:02:40.900 bye-bye, don't let the door hit you on the way out. But you're saying from your perspective,

00:02:46.060 the collapse of trust in these institutions is a wonderful thing.

00:02:50.120 Yeah, I don't think things like the Ivy League and the state are redeemable, the New York Times

00:02:55.120 elements like that. And I think what conservatives fail to appreciate is that these institutions have

00:03:01.380 been this way for a very long time. There's an argument in conservative circles that Hollywood's

00:03:07.240 been taken over by the liberals, but at the same time, conservatives do appreciate that Ronald Reagan

00:03:11.880 was president of Screen Actors Guild. And as president of Screen Actors Guild, and previously,

00:03:16.040 he was very concerned by the depths of literal communism, and not just communism, Stalinism within

00:03:22.780 Hollywood. So at what point wasn't Hollywood a venue of the very hard left? In the 20s when they

00:03:28.860 had, they didn't have talkies? Well, yes, I guess if you can't talk, you can't spread leftist ideas.

00:03:33.600 But I mean, Woodrow Wilson is another great example. He was a college professor, the first

00:03:37.540 college professor became president. He was president in 1912. And he was advocating things far to the

00:03:42.780 left of what even Bernie Sanders would advocate for today. So I think conservatives, by and large,

00:03:48.060 are supposed to learn the lessons from history. But unfortunately, that seems to not be the case very

00:03:52.620 often. And this is why it's a big reason for optimism in the future. Woodrow Wilson is a far

00:03:58.220 more nefarious foe, far more talented individual, far more charismatic than what, AOC? I mean,

00:04:04.040 there's just no comparison, in my opinion. But there was this sense among the old right,

00:04:08.380 you know, I mean, these terms old right and new right, they change every 20 years because you get

00:04:12.060 new people and older. But, you know, of what we would have called the old right in, say, the 50s,

00:04:16.140 they really were concerned with getting rid of the New Deal. They were fighting against FDR,

00:04:20.840 they were fighting against Wilsonianism. And then that just kind of went away. You know,

00:04:26.220 over the ensuing decades, the conservatives just gave up. They kind of made their peace

00:04:30.000 with the New Deal. In some ways, they adopted a Wilsonian view, at least a foreign policy.

00:04:35.140 And so, you know, that to me speaks to the absolute entrenchment of these sort of leftist

00:04:42.760 progressive policies. You think, though, maybe they're not so entrenched? Maybe we can upend them?

00:04:49.540 Oh, they are entrenched. But let's talk exactly what I talked about. In the 1950s,

00:04:52.880 you had the nomination was between Dwight Eisenhower, who no one knew what his political

00:04:57.040 resume was at all. Both the Democrats and Republicans tried to recruit him. He was a

00:05:00.760 great war hero. And the Republicans had Mr. Republican Robert Taft, who was a conservative

00:05:05.840 Republican. Taft got his ass handed to him, partly because of liberal Republicans like New York State 0.97

00:05:10.820 Governor Thomas Dewey, you know, who ran against FDR twice, who was a Romney Republican before the term 0.98

00:05:16.960 existed. They later called him Rockefeller Republicans. So I think this idea that the

00:05:22.720 Republican Party has historically been a venue for shrinking the state is really kind of an

00:05:28.700 ahistorical fairy tale along the lines of the 1619 Project. When push comes to shove,

00:05:33.700 they've never really cut budgets at all. The other example to that was 1964 with Barry Goldwater,

00:05:40.680 of course, who's a great conservative hero. And he got his butt hand to him in that election,

00:05:44.620 which, of course, presedged the Reagan election in 1980. But the relationship between conservative

00:05:50.160 ideas or limited government ideas in the Republican parties is far more nuanced than I think a lot of

00:05:56.600 people appreciate. True. And actually, going back all the way to the founding of the Republican Party,

00:06:01.240 let's not forget, Abraham Lincoln ran on tariffs. I mean, the party was anti-slavery,

00:06:06.080 pro-protectionism. So that's not exactly a small government policy. And, you know, even after,

00:06:13.320 I don't think anyone would call Abraham Lincoln a small government sort of president. The guy

00:06:16.800 suspended habeas corpus, you know, rightly, I think, but still, he did it. And so, yes,

00:06:23.420 the Republican Party has not always had this small government ideology, and it very rarely has it

00:06:27.660 expressed it even in the 20th century. So then, where do we go from here? If the 20th century

00:06:32.660 conservatism was basically a flop with a few nice moments during the Reagan and Trump administration,

00:06:37.460 with Trump, I guess, being the 21st century, what's the future look like? Because you have hope,

00:06:42.040 whereas I'm a little more skeptical.

00:06:45.240 You know, it's kind of, I think conservatives are basically like diabetics who are trying to

00:06:49.220 choose between Coke and Pepsi and wondering why their feet keep getting cut off. At a certain

00:06:53.400 point, you have to realize that if you can't vote yourself free, and Mitch McConnell will always be

00:06:58.540 a lot closer to Hillary Clinton than he will be to you and your values. So to stop looking toward

00:07:03.600 Washington for answers, and also to start looking to where the toxicity starts. If you're fighting in

00:07:10.380 Washington, by that point, it's the fourth quarter, you can only play defense, you're not

00:07:14.240 going to win. You need to point your guns toward the universities, because that's where these ideas

00:07:20.680 are first promulgated, where they train young people to be the shock troops for the progressive

00:07:25.400 militia, who then run Hollywood, who then work in newspapers. And they're the ones who shape the

00:07:30.740 ideas of the country, especially for young people. A lot of people frequently invoke 1984 and George Orwell

00:07:37.320 with this hard authoritarianism. The book I would recommend people read is Aldous Huxley's Brave New

00:07:42.380 World. I totally agree. The persuasion is not, you know, with a stick, the persuasion is go work at

00:07:48.320 this crappy job, go home and watch stupid television, we will provide for you, we'll give you food, we'll 1.00

00:07:53.580 put a roof over your head, don't think and don't question us. And I think that model, the realization 1.00

00:07:59.120 that the corporate press has not just recently been a mechanism to sell narratives as opposed to

00:08:05.580 information and to guide public opinion, but that this has been going on for a very long time. Let

00:08:10.420 me give you one example, which I think everyone can appreciate. We're all taught back in the day of

00:08:15.320 William Randall first, the Spanish American war, you know, yellow journalism, and that basically that

00:08:20.260 led us into war during the McKinley administration. And then there's a record scratch. And the corporate

00:08:25.320 press is supposed to be objective and decent that never happened. That's just one of the big lies

00:08:29.960 that the media likes to tell about itself. Yeah. Yeah. I certainly agree with that. And,

00:08:35.300 you know, this, this sense of, you know, the, the objective media just grew out of this liberal

00:08:40.840 establishment that, you know, I guess sort of thrived in the middle of the 20th century

00:08:45.900 and increasingly is, is collapsing. I, I totally agree. You know, Orwell was Huxley's student. I think

00:08:52.620 Huxley was his French teacher and Huxley wrote to Orwell and said, you know, I like your book,

00:08:56.380 but what you're missing here is the subtlety. You're missing how the regime is going to use

00:09:02.100 drugs, promiscuous sex is going to use pleasure to enslave people. 1.00

00:09:07.480 Yeah. And it's not, it's at that point, it becomes kind of like this Greek myth of the

00:09:11.520 lotus eaters. Like you're in, you know, one of the terms that, you know, I've popularized,

00:09:15.140 which has become kind of loosened in its definition is the concept of the red pill. But if you go back

00:09:20.120 to that movie, the matrix, the people who are on the matrix are having a pretty nice life.

00:09:23.840 They have food, they have a job, they have a family, they don't have to think about anything

00:09:28.240 and therefore they don't have to worry about anything. And it's very useful if I would like

00:09:32.620 to be an elite to have a population, which basically I can farm who aren't going to question

00:09:37.460 my choices and just do what I like. The problem is at some point people wake up both on the right

00:09:43.760 and the left say, this isn't working for me. And then it's the media's job to tell the rest of

00:09:48.220 the population how to analyze this and how to perceive it. So one of the things why I'm hopeful

00:09:52.940 and I'm positive you'll agree with me on this, after the 2020 election, for the first time in

00:09:58.680 my lifetime, and you and I are both fairly young, the Republicans and the right, broadly speaking,

00:10:04.880 didn't turn their sights on Joe Biden. They turned it on media outlets. They realized that Biden is a

00:10:11.120 symptom of a larger issue, that Biden himself is nowhere near as malevolent as many of these other

00:10:17.320 entities. And to realize, okay, these are the people who made something like a Biden happen or

00:10:23.440 the lockdowns happen. That I think that healthy analysis of who is against you is a much stronger

00:10:29.960 position. I'll just make one more point. If you look at Nancy Pelosi and Joe Biden, and if you look

00:10:35.820 at, let's suppose, the Harvard Law Faculty and the New York Times editorial board, which one of these

00:10:40.020 groups really has more contempt for you and your lifestyle. And I think this is a very easy question

00:10:45.780 to answer. Yeah. Yeah, I think you're certainly right. The ruling elite involves a lot more than

00:10:52.900 just a couple politicians in Washington, D.C. Frankly, they're not even the most important people

00:10:57.360 in that equation, right? You've got higher education, lower education, big tech, Hollywood, the media,

00:11:02.760 all of these supranational, international organizations. And then you've got doddering Joe Biden,

00:11:07.280 who doesn't know which end is up. Absolutely. Now, your answer to this is a very naughty word.

00:11:15.700 Anarchism. Freedom? Freedom. Yeah, that's what I just said, freedom.

00:11:19.400 Well, now, so I think we've agreed basically on everything thus far, but now I think we're going

00:11:24.440 to disagree. What made you come to identify as an anarchist? How would you define anarchism? This is

00:11:32.500 notoriously difficult to define, and people have lots of different definitions for it. And what does it

00:11:36.880 mean practically if we said, okay, enough of our political system? We're going all in for anarchy,

00:11:42.340 baby. Sure. So anarchism can be defined in one sentence. You do not speak for me. Everything

00:11:49.120 else is simply application of that concept. It is the idea that political authority is inherently

00:11:54.880 illegitimate. And just because a law is passed does not give you any moral impetus to respect or follow

00:12:00.860 it in any respect. It also means that when you look at the Republicans and Democrats, you're looking at

00:12:06.200 literally two different gangs who are fighting for turf war, neither of which have your interest at

00:12:12.520 heart. So the black flag is the traditional symbol of anarchism. And I have the expression,

00:12:17.920 the black flag comes in many colors. So the reason I wrote this anarchist handbook is it's different

00:12:22.440 anarchist thinkers from the last 200 years explaining what anarchism means to them and how it applies.

00:12:27.740 In terms of what that would mean right now, it would mean things like an increased skepticism of

00:12:34.080 the police because they are the ones who are forcing you in your home. They are the ones who

00:12:37.580 are enforcing gun control laws and every other edict that Gretchen Whitmer, Mario Cuomo, and Gavin

00:12:43.220 Newsom put into place. It is having an increased skepticism of concentrations of power, whether it would

00:12:49.320 be Jeff Bezos, the Ivy Leagues, or the federal government, as well as state governments. And

00:12:55.260 understanding that this idea of, well, you and I disagree, but I'm going to respect your opinion.

00:13:01.220 When the person disagreeing with you is a politician and have the ability to enforce their views upon

00:13:07.300 your family, you are under no obligation to take them seriously for one second. And you should instead

00:13:12.920 regard them with an enormous amount of contempt. Let's take the gun control issue for a second.

00:13:17.500 You know, a politician sits forward and says, you know, I'm going to make it harder for you to get a

00:13:21.960 gun to protect your home and your family. That's not a time for debate. That's a declaration of war

00:13:27.180 and everything else proceeds accordingly. Typically, historically, anarchism is more

00:13:33.300 associated with the left than the right. In some ways it's associated on the right. But generally

00:13:37.380 speaking, a lot of the people who developed anarchism as a political theory were, some of

00:13:43.080 them were communists, some of them associated with communists, trying to work things out in the 19th

00:13:46.840 and 20th centuries. So how is it that you, a right winger, you know, quite, quite firmly on the

00:13:53.020 right, how do you reconcile that? This movement that came largely from the left is now the movement

00:13:58.660 you'd identify with. Well, I don't know that I would call myself firmly on the right, but I think

00:14:02.840 also this is an example of when labels and binary thinking fault people. The biggest criticism of Marx,

00:14:10.180 and I include the essay in my book, was by Mikhail Bakunin. He was Marx's rival for the early

00:14:15.260 kind of leadership of what would become communism. But in 1867, he, 50 years before the Soviet Union

00:14:22.660 existed, he was predicting what it would look like and why it would be an enormous disaster.

00:14:27.340 Emma Goldman, who was deported by Woodrow Wilson and J. Edgar Hoover to the Soviet Union,

00:14:32.400 she wrote a book in the early 20s denouncing how bad the Soviet Union was and warning the left that

00:14:38.020 this is even worse than the Tsar and this is not what we're for. So you mentioned Orwell as well 0.58

00:14:42.840 earlier. Historically, the strongest opponents of the totalitarian state have been these leftist

00:14:49.180 anarchists because they realize, guys, and they're arguing from leftist principles. This is not what

00:14:55.200 we're about. So we have to have respect. And this also in America, there have been many, Truman certainly

00:15:00.960 did his job taking on communism as well. There have been many people who would be on the left who have

00:15:05.960 historically been very skeptical of the state and certainly the totalitarian state.

00:15:12.300 Now, in America, when anarchists have come to prominence, they tend to be terrorists.

00:15:18.940 I'm no terrorist.

00:15:20.100 You might be the one exception. No, there are obviously exceptions to this. But you think the

00:15:24.800 most prominent anarchists today are Antifa, some of Antifa, some of them are communists too.

00:15:29.420 And Sacco and Banzetti, you know, and some of these terrorists from the early 20th century.

00:15:34.960 So if the idea is you dissolve the state, you're all just pursuing your own interests,

00:15:40.060 you have totally voluntary associations. I'm obviously oversimplifying anarchism.

00:15:44.540 No, that's pretty much it. Yeah.

00:15:45.400 That's a broad, you know, kind of general view.

00:15:49.320 What happens when every time anarchism has tried to be put in practice, at least in recent history,

00:15:55.640 it's led to lots of violence and terrorism and things like that.

00:15:59.780 Anarchism isn't a location, it's a relationship. So you and I are currently in an anarchist

00:16:03.660 relationship, even though neither of us is in a position of authority over the other. It's your

00:16:08.160 show, so I'm deferential to you because it's your space. But neither of us is, I'm in an opposition

00:16:12.580 to tell you, Michael, you have to do this. And you're in an opposition to tell me you have to do that.

00:16:16.620 So in fact, the vast majority of our interactions are anarchist in basis. They're voluntary and peaceful.

00:16:23.140 This Thomas Hobbes idea that if, you know, if there wasn't a strong government, we'd all be 0.59

00:16:28.320 raping and murdering each other is absolutely abhorrent. If anyone listening to this asks

00:16:32.220 themselves, would you rape someone if you could get away with it? The idea would be unconscionable 0.98

00:16:37.260 to them. Now, the question is, what do you do about the bad people? And historically, the left

00:16:41.840 anarchists that you mentioned, I think, have a weak track record on this because their argument is,

00:16:45.700 well, if fewer people were poor, there would be less crime. Okay, that's true. What about the ones who

00:16:51.060 are left? You know, what are you going to do about them? So an anarchist system would involve a very

00:16:55.620 heavily armed population. It would involve not having a government monopoly on security,

00:17:00.900 but encourage voluntary and private security. And it includes having choice for how people can

00:17:07.360 protect themselves and their purpose. Antifa is a different example because they do take

00:17:12.280 a lot of inspiration from some of these left anarchists. But at the same time,

00:17:16.920 they tend to be pro-state and certainly, you know, are much bigger fans of violence than I would be

00:17:23.840 comfortable with myself. But in terms of our anarchist relationship, you know, we obviously

00:17:28.100 have a voluntary relationship, you and me, but it is mediated by lots of other people. It's mediated

00:17:32.720 by producers. It's mediated by the tech giants who could cut us off at any time. And ultimately,

00:17:36.740 it's mediated by the state. I mean, you know, you may want to, let's not say commit violence on me,

00:17:42.120 but, you know, you might want, let's say you want to make a pass at me, turn our anarchist

00:17:45.600 relationship into a sexual relationship. That's mediated by laws. Thank you very much.

00:17:50.360 Is that why you're, is that why you're dressed in that modern family shirt, Michael? Is that

00:17:53.840 what's going on here? Give me some Cameron. Trying to be really enticing here. You see

00:17:58.120 through, I mean, what I mean by this is, you know, to, to use that phrase, true socialism has never

00:18:05.440 been tried. One could easily say true anarchism has never been tried. And then someone will point

00:18:09.840 to 10th century Iceland or something, which I think is a dubious example, but I agree with you.

00:18:14.460 Yeah. I just think, sure. I get this in theory, although I have questions about some of the,

00:18:21.400 the assumptions of anarchism, but how do we get there? Other, you know, you say we, we trust the

00:18:27.440 police less. Okay. Well, that's fine. But I certainly trust the FBI and the CIA a lot less

00:18:31.500 than perhaps I once did. We should be more skeptical of the universities. Yeah, I'm complete. I'm

00:18:38.160 basically ready to take a wrecking ball to them. But does this really mean then we dissolve the state

00:18:42.400 because we think it doesn't have legitimate authority? Yes. And how we get there is at a

00:18:47.760 certain point, the costs of law enforcement become more expensive than the benefits. So it means having

00:18:54.460 things like having politicians feel uncomfortable in their person. It means not engaging in political

00:19:00.040 discussion with a straight face because it's inherently illegitimate. It means causing existential

00:19:04.760 threat to people who would have control over your life and your family. These are just some steps

00:19:09.320 that would get you there. And just because, you know, you're making the argument true anarchism

00:19:14.280 has never been tried. I mean, you could also easily say that we've never had a true democratic

00:19:18.160 republic. We've never had true republicanism. We've never had true democracy. So in one sense,

00:19:23.240 yes, there's any ideal is going to be in like some kind of platonic sense, not practical to reality,

00:19:28.780 but certainly private arbitration, private security, peaceful interactions between human beings.

00:19:34.880 These are not some kind of abstraction. These are, in fact, if not the norm, at least certainly

00:19:39.740 something we could wrap our heads around. You know, it's like saying, well, if you can,

00:19:44.160 we have to have socialized medicine because a free market of medicine has never been tried. It's like,

00:19:48.760 okay, I mean, I think that's kind of an argument you wouldn't make either.

00:19:52.160 Right, right. I certainly, I certainly would not. I do think there are degrees here. I think,

00:19:55.660 you know, I think states have approximated democratic republics better than the, you know,

00:20:00.120 but, but still, I totally grant that point.

00:20:02.000 And I'm going to say one more thing. I think certain laws are certainly much more legitimate

00:20:05.540 than others. I mean, laws against murder are legitimate, not because they're laws,

00:20:09.360 because it's, uh, you cannot violate someone's rights and hurt them. And certain other things,

00:20:14.600 like if there's a government program for food stamps, and this is the extent of the state at

00:20:19.580 that point, I'll be like, fine, I don't really care. I'm not going to fight this one. I don't want

00:20:22.840 people starving and hungry, especially children. And if it's wasteful as well, I'm fine with that too.

00:20:27.040 So when you say the law against murder is legit because, not because it's a civil law, but

00:20:32.120 because you have a right not to be murdered, you're, you're saying you're, you're drawing a

00:20:36.220 distinction between the civil law and the moral law. The moral law is eternal and the civil law is

00:20:40.540 constructed by politicians. Fair enough. Yes.

00:20:43.560 But then the, the moral law seems to imply a moral law giver. And would you go that far that it

00:20:51.140 implies that God exists? Uh, whatever gets you there, I'm happy with it. I mean, I I'm not an

00:20:57.500 atheist at all. Uh, but I think this is such a complicated, very personal issue for a lot of

00:21:02.840 people that if they have to have it grounded in this or that, whatever reason it takes for you

00:21:07.600 not to be hurting other people, I'm fine with you getting there as long as you agree to live

00:21:12.920 peacefully and benevolently with your fellow man. But I suppose the reason I even bring it up

00:21:18.380 is not to make lots of arguments for the existence of God, but because if we grant, if we keep

00:21:24.660 referring to the moral order and we grant that the moral order implies a moral law giver, then

00:21:28.800 we're, we're granting legitimate authority to someone above ourselves. And, and furthermore,

00:21:36.820 we are, I, I, I think we can easily infer that we must put some limits on the pursuit of our own

00:21:43.720 passions that if God really exists. And if we are creations of God, then we owe something to him.

00:21:50.000 We have obligation. We are not merely born with rights, but we actually are not permitted by that

00:21:56.260 moral law to pursue our own passions. We put limits on our, on our freedom in that way.

00:22:01.460 Uh, I don't know that I would use that exact verbiage though. I would agree with the message

00:22:05.420 in between the lines. Uh, I went to yeshiva as a kid. Uh, we went, came here from Russia and I went

00:22:10.720 straight there. And one of the things we were taught about how to look at life in this perspective is

00:22:15.980 under Judaism, the worst thing you could do is kill yourself because God has given you this gift of

00:22:20.880 life. It's this amazing adventure. Uh, the Christian focus on the afterlife is something that, you know, 0.76

00:22:26.320 in Judaism is not really a thing because it's kind of like, why are you fast forwarding the tape

00:22:30.680 when you've been giving this most miraculous gift that you should push toward its fullest, uh, and do

00:22:37.160 to the utmost what you can with it. Now, at the same time, that is also in many ways,

00:22:41.900 the ideology of Ayn Rand, who's a violent, uh, atheist, uh, you know, very against the concept

00:22:47.460 of religion and God. So, I mean, as I said, the black flag comes in many colors. My goal is a

00:22:53.800 voluntary, peaceful society. And I think religion for many people, if that's the means to get there,

00:22:59.000 I'm certainly not going to be the one telling them that they're wrong. I'm also not the one telling

00:23:02.640 them that that's the only path towards being peaceful and kind. But I suppose then even taking

00:23:08.820 this further, it creates this problem for anarchism because I'll, I'll just use Christianity as the 1.00

00:23:13.560 example, as the dominant religion in the West. Sure. Romans chapter 13, St. Paul says, writing

00:23:19.200 infallibly, right, uh, that, or inerrant, inerrantly that, uh, political rule comes from God. The civil

00:23:27.500 authority is instituted by God. He says explicitly, submit to your rulers. Now, over time there, this

00:23:33.940 has, uh, been, this idea has been developed. St. Thomas Aquinas famously, uh, recognizes some

00:23:40.620 exceptions to this and causes for political revolution, even though they're, they have to

00:23:44.940 be quite extreme. Uh, but, but then if one is a believing Christian and one says, submit to your 0.66

00:23:51.520 rulers, one sees that the civil authority is legitimate and instituted by God. How can he be

00:23:57.480 an anarchist? I don't think he can, but if I'll just make two more points. First of all,

00:24:02.240 I don't think the American concept is that the people of Washington are rulers, but leaders.

00:24:06.240 And I think there's a very important distinction to be had there too. If you want to tell me with

00:24:10.380 a straight face that, uh, Bill Clinton was heaven sent, uh, that is a perfectly valid position.

00:24:15.720 And I really have no argument to tell you. I mean, I don't understand how someone could look at,

00:24:20.140 uh, uh, um, Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, Mitch McConnell and Nancy Pelosi. I think this is a choir of angels.

00:24:26.340 It makes absolutely no sense to me whatsoever, but I will also point out that you, that Christian

00:24:31.860 perspective is not at all, of course, within Christianity universal Tolstoy, who's one of

00:24:36.680 the most prominent authors of all time was a Christian anarchism. And in the anarchist handbook,

00:24:41.320 there is an entire chapter of his views about why his Christianity leads him to have an anarchist

00:24:46.200 perspective. Yeah. No, I think of Tolstoy, you know, he, uh, you wouldn't call him the most

00:24:51.160 Orthodox Christian, but he did, he certainly had Christian views. And, uh, yes, and you see,

00:24:55.840 you do see this develop, especially in the last few hundred years, there have been people who try

00:24:59.660 to reconcile this thing. I mean, there are even people who try to reconcile Christianity with

00:25:02.720 socialism. Although many, many popes say, don't do that. It's very, very bad idea.

00:25:06.800 I don't know if you know this, but what would Jesus do came from Christian socialism. It is a 0.95

00:25:11.340 heretical concept, but the guy who put it forward, this is in the 1870s, not only was that he

00:25:16.860 explicitly was for spreading socialism. He also invented cancel culture because if you read that

00:25:22.920 book in his steps, one of the things he points out is if you're running a newspaper, you shouldn't

00:25:27.380 be talking about boxing because Jesus wouldn't like people punching each other. So we should

00:25:31.160 pretend it doesn't exist. So there's a lot of Venn diagrams that we had historically. And I think

00:25:36.200 it's absolutely fascinating how Christianity has been tried to be ported to different ideologies,

00:25:41.020 including many Christians, very disappointingly in the thirties, uh, pastors who are advocating for

00:25:45.960 Stalinism because they thought this was this, uh, ideal of equality, how they wrap their heads

00:25:50.860 around this between like what priests are being murdered and by force, uh, encouraged to denounce

00:25:56.600 their faith. I don't know, but a lot of, I don't have to make excuses for them.

00:26:00.600 Well, you know, so this brings up actually the, the coalition of right, right-wingers call it the

00:26:07.260 new right, call it conservatives. They come from very different perspectives. And so, you know,

00:26:11.560 famously in the kind of Buckley, Frank Meyer fusionist coalition, you had the traditional

00:26:16.440 conservatives, the libertarians and the Warhawk Democrats, and they came together because they

00:26:20.300 all hated the Soviet union to some effect, or they defeated the Soviet union, though they ignored a

00:26:24.960 lot of, a lot of things at home. But you've got then, you've got anarchism, which, uh, you know,

00:26:32.340 as you say, is basically incompatible with Christianity, though there are some exceptions.

00:26:36.200 I did not say that at all. You did you not? I thought you said, I thought you said that if

00:26:39.880 you're a believing Christian who believes Romans 13. No, no, no, no. I said, no, no. If you believe 1.00

00:26:43.380 those specific aspects of Christianity, that you have to obey your rulers, uh, and that, uh, and

00:26:48.180 that these rulers are basically God sent, that that is not compatible. But if you're, if you're a

00:26:52.020 Christian, you believe that the Bible is inerrant, unless you're a heretic like Leo Tolstoy or someone 0.99

00:26:56.000 else. Well, I, I mean, I would think Tolstoy would regard you as the heretic here. So I mean, 1.00

00:27:00.180 but he's wrong. It's the wrong, I mean, you know, neither, neither of us will ever be as great a man as Tolstoy.

00:27:06.120 I think it's fair to say. I think, well, I think we're both much better men than Leo Tolstoy,

00:27:10.280 by the way. He was a, he was a degenerate. He was a very good writer, but he was an absolute 0.79

00:27:13.660 degenerative human being. Well, in all fairness, you and I both did hit the number one nonfiction

00:27:18.620 book in Amazon, which I don't think he ever did. So in one sense, we are better writers than Tolstoy.

00:27:24.280 Yes, no, that, that is true. And you know, Tolstoy, he needed all of those words to write. I mean,

00:27:28.320 God, that book goes on and on. And you know, at least my, my first book didn't need a single word at

00:27:33.100 all. So I think, okay, so then you, okay, you've got Tolstoy aside, but, but let's say you've got

00:27:37.920 now in the new right, you've got anarchists such as yourself and other people, and maybe

00:27:42.580 some followers of Ayn Rand or, you know, kind of from that wing. Then you've got traditional,

00:27:47.960 just knuckle dragging to the right of Genghis Khan conservatives that I would, I would place

00:27:52.320 myself in that camp. Thrown an altar, theocratic fascist, I don't know, whatever term they want to

00:27:58.160 use. Then you've got, I don't know, today on foreign policy, I don't even know what would

00:28:02.280 constitute a conservative. My question is practically, you know, I mean, is it, is it

00:28:07.000 the Bush era thing? I don't think it's that. Is it the non-interventionist? Yeah. So how do you get

00:28:11.960 enough people together to, to unite that? Because, you know, for, for all of the many faults that Bill

00:28:17.260 Buckley had as he was trying to build this coalition, he did manage to bring people together

00:28:21.640 and win at least a couple of elections. What, how can we do that now with all these disparate factions

00:28:26.160 on the right? So I don't think that it's a numbers game. Uh, I think if you look at,

00:28:31.220 let's suppose if someone's pro-life, right. Or pro-choice that only took nine people to make

00:28:35.960 that decision. Uh, the anarchist view and Emma Goldman discusses this, uh, you know,

00:28:40.580 in the anarchist handbook is the majority cannot reason. So these vast number of people today will

00:28:46.320 be arguing for, you know, uh, black lives matter tomorrow. They'll be wearing the yellow ribbons to 0.98

00:28:51.160 support the war in Kuwait. Uh, they are really not of relevance. They're kind of ballast.

00:28:56.160 And history is always made. There's a book called the Machiavellians with James Burnham,

00:29:00.260 who was a national review writer mentioned. It's always about elites who are making history and

00:29:05.200 making decisions. And if you and I both know the number of people who are making political

00:29:09.940 decisions and choice and moving political thinking in America, it's gotta be under 2000 people.

00:29:15.560 It's, it's actually a much smaller number than people appreciate. If you add in the people,

00:29:19.220 the think tanks, you know, all of Congress and Senate, all the governors and all of us jerks on 0.70

00:29:23.720 Twitter, it may be, we're hitting 5,000. So, uh, people tend to, and that explains why you could 0.56

00:29:29.720 go from Obama to Trump to Biden and to W before that, this seems to be a vacillation. You realize

00:29:35.480 people are not politically involved necessarily. And even if they are involved, they're just really

00:29:40.240 not, they're going to be able to have perfectly contradictory views. So democracy is not a mechanism

00:29:45.180 toward fear of freedom and is in fact antithetical toward freedom.

00:29:48.420 Yeah. That used to be considered a very conservative view. I mean,

00:29:51.320 that was the view of the founding fathers, even, you know, as they were constructing this

00:29:54.180 constitutional Republic now though, they were terrorists though. Yeah. You know,

00:29:57.940 George Washington has several warrants after his arrest. They were saying we have to hang

00:30:01.540 together. We're going to hang separately. They were ready to kill all those founding fathers.

00:30:05.020 And, and that's right. That's right. They certainly, you know, had they lost the war, 1.00

00:30:08.120 they all would have been hanged without question. Oh yeah. But, but now I don't know how this

00:30:12.580 happened, but now we're told that if you in any way question mob rule, you are, or it really,

00:30:18.440 if you in any way question the ruling elite, that you are a threat to our democracy, our,

00:30:23.960 our sacred, by which of course they mean their oligarchy, right? But then our hegemony is what

00:30:29.980 they mean. It all, if you, I had that tweet, if you replace our democracy with our hegemony,

00:30:34.540 everything becomes much more clear. And the reason they need it to be hegemonic,

00:30:38.960 they need to have a monopoly on the microphone because before you and I were born, uh, you had three

00:30:43.920 networks and you had ABC, CBS and NBC. So you had the impression of choice, but these were all

00:30:49.900 strongly left of center anchors presenting things in a strong left of center context. But it gives

00:30:54.860 the illusion that, Oh, I made this decision. I picked B instead of C I'm an independent thinker.

00:30:59.560 This is a big lie. Now they're still apoplectic that Fox news exists, right? And they're trying

00:31:05.960 to regain a monopoly control over cable news. While at the same time, fewer and fewer Americans,

00:31:11.340 especially young people are watching cable news as a means of, uh, getting their information at all.

00:31:16.740 They're turning toward the internet and daily wire and other podcasts and other, uh, resources like

00:31:21.120 that. That's another reason to be enormously optimistic. It's not, people are no longer trying

00:31:25.660 to argue. They're just turning off the television and you're not, if the audience isn't listening to

00:31:30.500 you, it's really hard to control them. Yes. And you know, I, I love your observation about this,

00:31:36.760 this illusory choice. The idea we think, Oh yeah, good. My team won. No,

00:31:40.660 except I'm not getting really anything I voted for. And no, now their team won a way. They seem

00:31:45.220 to just be pursuing. I refer to the phenomenon sometimes as the, the court jester conservative.

00:31:51.060 I think, you know, Romney types who their whole job is to Buckley. Buckley was the court jester.

00:31:58.260 Don't you dare say, okay, make your case. Cause I still like Buckley, but what, what's your,

00:32:02.480 what's the argument? My book, then you're right. Demonstrates why Buckley is the great villain

00:32:07.100 of conservatism because his job was to be the court jester. The national review slogan is standing

00:32:12.980 a thwart history, yelling, stop, right? Well, some of us actually want to stop it. So you can stand

00:32:17.620 there and yell all you want, but that's a declaration of impotence and of powerlessness.

00:32:21.580 And, you know, he had some great lines when he ran for mayor in New York city, they asked him,

00:32:25.800 what would you do if you want? He said, demand a recount. He was very clever and very witty,

00:32:29.820 but at the same time he's putting on this pantomime where he's being completely steamrolled by the left.

00:32:34.880 Uh, and his biggest accomplishments politically in many ways was kicking out people to his right

00:32:41.120 and declaring them on persons. Now he had that power back when media was more tightly managed

00:32:46.400 and controlled, but now, uh, you know, it's very hard for anyone for better or worse. Certainly

00:32:51.140 there's worse aspects as well to have that position to be like, okay, this person no longer exists.

00:32:56.140 Yeah, I do. I do see a lot of the criticisms of Buckley. I, my, my defense of him though,

00:33:01.460 is when you look at basically the Wilson era through 1950, when he comes out with God and

00:33:08.420 man at Yale, conservatives had just consistently lost. Even when we had Republicans, we just

00:33:13.380 consistently lose. And so Buckley comes in and he says, I'm going to stand a thwart history yelling

00:33:18.460 stop. He starts to turn the conversation slightly. He, that first book, he makes a mockery of academic

00:33:24.120 freedom, goes after the institutions, which I love. By the way, there are many conservatives today

00:33:28.140 who will defend academic freedom on leftist terms. Buckley in, in the fifties was realized

00:33:33.300 that was crazy. He, his next book defends Joe McCarthy, which I love. I think that's a fabulous

00:33:38.060 book. He was still defending McCarthy a dozen years later, though he later came to kind of temper it.

00:33:42.700 So I, I agree. It's very sad. A lot of the, a lot of the 20th century was just a process of

00:33:50.000 conservatives losing. But I do think, you know, Buckley, I think he deserves credit for what he did with

00:33:55.620 what he had. And I just, I'm not convinced that there were others who could have done much better.

00:34:01.220 That's possible. I'll just say one more thing. A big difference in me and Buckley is he wants to

00:34:05.460 fix Yale and I want to burn it to the ground. Yeah. So, and I think that is just an ideological

00:34:10.940 difference in, in perspective. Yeah. In terms of goals and values. And by the way, there were,

00:34:15.340 you know, I think of Roger Scruton, the late, late, great conservative philosopher, very famously

00:34:20.040 said, you know, the difference between conservatives and leftists is leftists want to destroy things

00:34:25.620 and conservatives want to just build them. It's harder to build than to destroy. But by the end

00:34:30.080 of his life, Scruton was asked what he thought about academia. And he said, knock it down. You got

00:34:35.180 to, it's irredeemable. It's that when these riots were happening last year, I was like, can't someone

00:34:40.940 toss them a map to Cambridge? Yeah, I know that, you know, and there's also this question of

00:34:47.480 in the 1950s or 60s, was there a chance to try, you know, after, before the conservatives had really

00:34:53.960 been routed on, in every aspect of the culture, was there a chance to say that maybe, or maybe not,

00:35:00.200 maybe it was misguided even to try to do that. But I certainly think now the much more appealing option

00:35:05.800 is knock down these institutions. You know, when, when a house is so rotted out that it's no longer

00:35:12.220 structurally sound, you just got to knock it down and start again. Welcome to anarchism.

00:35:17.480 Michael, I'm glad, I'm glad to have brought you over. So I, you know, knock it down and build

00:35:23.260 voluntary, private, helpful institutions instead. There's, all you're conserving at this point is

00:35:29.660 Woodrow Wilson's accomplishments. Yeah. I, you know, the, the only thing that I would disagree,

00:35:34.500 because I do think we need a far greater focus on localism. I do think that the minute we look at

00:35:40.640 Washington DC, we are losing. Especially for charity. Let's talk about that. Like when you're

00:35:46.260 talking about poor people, there's like at least two kinds of poor people, right? People are criminals 1.00

00:35:49.640 and just like lazy. And then people who, through circumstances, maybe they grew up in the wrong 0.99

00:35:53.420 neighborhood. They really didn't have opportunities. If you have these programs voluntary, even through

00:35:58.640 the state at a local level, it's a much easier to sift out. Same thing with public schools, right?

00:36:04.540 In the inner city, you have the kids who are, have terrible upbringings. Their parents don't care

00:36:08.620 about them. And then you have the kids who are acting out and violent in school. Why are they locked in the

00:36:13.280 same room together? That is completely antithetical and downright inhumane.

00:36:18.460 But now I, I, I think the difference might be this. If you tomorrow were offered the opportunity

00:36:24.060 to knock down all of Washington DC or to hold political power, somehow the people gave you

00:36:31.480 power and you were able to kick out enough bureaucrats that you actually could wield political

00:36:35.380 power. Which would you take? Would you wield the arm of the state for good?

00:36:39.840 Assault the earth so much, it would look like the Dead Sea. A, A, A, I'm pressing the button so fast,

00:36:46.180 my finger's getting a blister. That's fair enough. I, you know, I, I, I'm sort of of the opinion that

00:36:53.340 the left managed to do a lot of things at once. It managed to destroy Hollywood, take over the

00:36:58.880 institutions, take up and, and wield political power. And, and I, I think that conservatives for a

00:37:04.120 long time have, have tied our hands behind our backs because we've had a lot of procedural

00:37:08.680 arguments about, well, we're originalists, but not conservatives. And we don't actually want to do

00:37:13.060 anything. And we want, we just want to be elected so that we can do less and let the left basically

00:37:18.360 run the government. And I just think if we wielded some political power for the good, the true and

00:37:23.600 the beautiful, if we made these kinds of distinctions, that could be great. But I agree

00:37:27.240 with you practically, uh, that's probably not going to happen anytime soon. And so a focus on local

00:37:31.980 power would be much more effective.

00:37:33.600 And I would, I would say one more thing. I don't think the left took over these institutions. I think

00:37:37.180 the left built these institutions. If you look at the Ivy leagues, they were designed to train the 0.97

00:37:41.940 next generation of elites. Well, this was the progressive model. You know, you have these kind

00:37:46.540 of smart cadres in Washington. You had the brain trust with FDR, which kind of it's apex, and they're

00:37:52.180 the ones who are educated and they know what's best for everyone. And you could see this in example,

00:37:56.320 Dr. Fauci, we can assume for the sake of argument that Dr. Fauci is the most brilliant doctor who's ever

00:38:01.260 lived. This person has not been elected and can't be unelected. So you see how their model isn't,

00:38:07.400 even though they play lip service to our democracy, when push comes to shove, the people who are put in

00:38:12.620 positions are not democratically accountable to anything.

00:38:15.860 But, but are you anti-elite per se? I'm anti-unjust.

00:38:20.420 Right. So, I mean, you know, the fact that Harvard and Yale were seminaries, though, I don't particularly

00:38:24.900 agree with their denomination, but I, you know, it doesn't bother me that they were producing

00:38:28.320 preachers and elites and statesmen. They still are. And they still are.

00:38:32.100 Secular preachers. I mean, I'm not joking. Rachel Maddow is literally a televangelist

00:38:36.180 for her evangelical faith. It's just, she doesn't mention the Bible, but she gives you moral lessons.

00:38:42.600 She tells you who the bad people are, and then you go to your office the next morning and you

00:38:47.520 promulgate the sermon. It's literally a televangelist. But this is, this is my point then. If we're,

00:38:52.300 if we're not anti-elite per se, rather than, you know, just totally demolishing all sorts of

00:38:58.140 hierarchy and institutions and coercive power, but either in civic associations or in the

00:39:02.420 government, why don't we on the right just become the elites? Frankly, I think we already are the

00:39:08.360 elites philosophically and politically or philosophically. And as a matter of, you know,

00:39:13.920 recognizing how a society ought to function, we just don't have the political power right now.

00:39:17.920 So why don't, why don't we just become the elites? Because central planning and political

00:39:21.620 planning is not practical. So even if you're in Washington, you can't design a program that's going

00:39:26.880 to work at all competitively to the market. You're never going to have a, like, if you're

00:39:31.380 saying, well, let's have conservatives run socialized healthcare. No, no, I'm not saying

00:39:35.420 it. No, but I'm saying like any kind of, as, as one example, if they're going to be running

00:39:39.900 any program, that program inherently is not going to be able to work because it doesn't

00:39:43.820 have information that markets provide you. You're not going to have information about supply.

00:39:47.720 You're going to have information about price because you're going to have all these market

00:39:50.840 distortions because the use of force, which is the essential aspect of government is going

00:39:55.620 to cause externalities. No, I agree with that, but I'm saying, why don't we run the universities

00:40:00.960 so that we can, rather than indoctrinate in a bunch of ridiculous nonsense, we can teach good 0.54

00:40:05.860 and true things. Why don't we run the courts so that we can have just systems of laws? I mean,

00:40:10.160 so that would be- There's no such thing as just law. It's a complete fallacy. If you read the book,

00:40:14.780 the essay in my book, The Myth of Objective Law by John Hasnas, who's a Georgetown law professor,

00:40:19.980 he talks about how this concept of just law is really nonsensical. And I'll give you one

00:40:25.320 example that you will agree with. It's in the book as well. There's an old lady,

00:40:29.960 and she basically signed a contract with some Samba instructor for $10,000, right? What's the

00:40:35.620 just approach? One can say, the point of law is so people don't get exploited. We have to break the

00:40:41.500 contract. The other person could say, the contract is the basis of law. It's not the court's job to be

00:40:47.320 an activist judge. We have to honor the contract. Both of those are perfectly reasonable,

00:40:52.020 perfectly objective, and demonstrate that no matter who the judge is, they're going to bring

00:40:56.740 their preconceptions to the court system. If you had a decentralized system where you can choose

00:41:04.520 what kind of rules you follow, it will have much more just and efficient and cheaper outcomes.

00:41:10.260 But isn't that only a problem if you believe that the free consent of individuals and maximizing

00:41:18.180 individual autonomy is the end of government? If you really believe that this woman has some right 1.00

00:41:23.280 or the Samba instructor has a right to sign a $10,000 contract, whereas if you think that's

00:41:29.040 hogwash and you believe that justice is the end of government and you believe that you don't actually

00:41:33.340 have the right to do wrong and you don't have the right to just pursue whatever whims your will tells

00:41:37.840 you, then couldn't you appeal to a higher authority? Couldn't you say it's immoral, it's exploitative,

00:41:43.400 it violates some aspect of the natural law rather than... So you're in favor of judicial activism

00:41:48.540 when it suits your purposes? No, I'm in favor of the natural law and I'm in favor of justice.

00:41:54.160 If the basis of government is justice, why is it so darn bad delivering it? Let me hold on. If I'm

00:42:00.480 going to go to a restaurant and they're serving sushi and the fish keeps getting cooked, at a certain

00:42:05.700 point this is not a sushi restaurant. Sure, but this is a fallen world. I mean, I suppose this would be

00:42:11.680 one of my divergences from some anarchists or some sort of proto-anarchists. I'm not arguing that

00:42:16.780 the words not fall. I don't think this is a utopia. I don't think utopias are possible. I agree with you

00:42:20.780 that there's a lot of depravity in any country and that is inevitable. So therefore, any system of

00:42:26.920 justice is going to be imperfect. There's no question about that. Sure. So granted all of that,

00:42:32.820 some systems of justice are better than others. Sure. I'm more interested in peace than justice.

00:42:38.160 And if you and I, maybe you invited me out to dinner and then basically you stick me with the

00:42:44.860 bill, justice would be like, I'm going to pitch a fit. But at the same time, I could be like, okay,

00:42:49.480 that's Michael being Michael. It applied both. We're both Michael. So either of us can be the

00:42:53.360 jerk in the situation and we can roll our eyes and not pursue justice. So that's charity. 0.98

00:42:57.300 Sure. And I love charity. I've always relied on the kindness of strangers.

00:43:01.300 But I'm also biting my tongue, right? Because you did do me an injustice and you didn't pay for the

00:43:05.760 bill like you promised, right? We all have to have these little compromises in our day-to-day

00:43:10.200 lives. So I think justice as a term is overrated. Let's talk about criminals. I perfectly have no

00:43:15.900 problem with someone who's like an assailant on children or a violent criminal. They void their

00:43:21.100 right to life, right? I have no issue with that. At the same time, my biggest concern isn't

00:43:26.540 retribution. My biggest concern is how do I make sure this person is never in a position to harm

00:43:33.500 people again? That to me is a far bigger priority than seeing justice be had necessarily.

00:43:38.500 But I recognize that temptation. I think it's widespread now to make rehabilitation or deterrence.

00:43:44.500 I didn't say rehabilitation. No, I didn't say rehabilitation. I just said the goal of why prison

00:43:48.560 is important in many cases isn't justice, but like we got to get this guy off the streets because if he's

00:43:54.080 on the streets, he's going to be killing people. But if that is the primary purpose of the prison,

00:43:57.900 then don't you open yourself up to all sorts of moral quandaries. For instance, if, as I believe

00:44:03.900 it is, the purpose of prison is retribution for people who have primarily retribution, although

00:44:08.680 deterrence and rehabilitation are secondary matters, then a guy commits a crime, you bring him up on a

00:44:15.080 trial, you throw him in the can. If the primary purpose of prison is to get bad people off the

00:44:20.480 streets, then couldn't you throw someone in prison before they've committed a crime, right? Because

00:44:24.620 they're very likely to, because some social scientific data set has suggested that they're

00:44:28.840 likely to commit one. Well, that is the progressive mindset, right? That if you follow the science,

00:44:33.240 and I don't think at all, I think you, if someone has to have demonstrably actually done something

00:44:38.920 before they're likely to do something, I don't think that's a, that are, you obviously don't

00:44:43.580 think that that's. I don't either. But I think that if, if you come to the conclusion that you and I

00:44:47.880 have, then you, you must also conclude that the primary purpose, the sort of predicate for criminal

00:44:52.720 justice is retribution rather than some secondary goal. I don't think it's retribution. If the

00:44:58.940 person hasn't done anything, what are you, what are you being retributive? That's what I mean. I

00:45:02.400 don't think you should go to prison if you haven't done anything, but I think that therefore the

00:45:05.640 primary purpose of prisons, for instance, is retribution. That is to say it is justice rather

00:45:10.600 than some secondary aspect of imprisonment. I wouldn't agree that retribution and justice are

00:45:15.720 anywhere near synonymous. And I think a lot of times, again, and my goal, first of all,

00:45:22.400 the prison system's a whole other conversation, which I'm sure you and I could have because there's

00:45:26.300 lots of people who weren't in prison. And the thing you as a Christian certainly would agree is

00:45:30.580 things like the death penalty and innocent people being killed, although you might argue that that's

00:45:36.140 overblown. When that individual is innocent, that is something that is really a knock against

00:45:41.100 the society and something that should not be taken lightly. Camus had this great essay called

00:45:45.080 Reflections in the Guillotine, which I think I would encourage people to read. So this is a

00:45:49.520 very complicated issue. One that knocks against anarchism is that it's utopian, right? And I would

00:45:54.960 argue, and I'm sure you would agree, when you have criminals or accused criminals, you don't want to

00:46:02.000 put away innocent people, and you do want to make sure you get the ones who should be removed from 0.75

00:46:05.920 society. So how you get there is not going to be easily answered under any system.

00:46:10.680 Yes, I agree. And I also agree, speaking of this non-utopian stuff, the most important thing

00:46:16.700 right now, you know, this word praxis comes up in a lot of sort of anarchist or communist discourse.

00:46:22.740 And the praxis is very important here, because we actually have to do stuff. And so, you know,

00:46:26.740 I know that there are some conservatives, and Buckley to a degree certainly indulged in this,

00:46:31.380 who punch right a lot of the time. And I just think it is madness right now for people who in any

00:46:36.520 way consider themselves on the right, whether they're traditionalists, religious right, libertarian,

00:46:41.080 anarchist, whatever ism you want to add. There is now a consolidation of power at the level of the

00:46:47.920 ruling class and liberal establishment that is about to prevent us from using PayPal. It's about

00:46:52.360 to prevent us from using, I mean, actually, PayPal made this announcement today. They're teaming up

00:46:56.660 with the ADL. I mean, this is really terrifying stuff. And so I agree, we need to boot utopianism

00:47:03.040 and figure out a way to push back against it. And Michael, you are offering us a white pill.

00:47:08.380 And I'm going to say one more thing. If anyone's listening to me to listen to my advice,

00:47:12.980 focus on government schools, because government schools are literal prisons for children and the

00:47:17.580 only place many people experience violence in their lifetimes. And now that's one of the silver

00:47:22.680 linings of these lockdowns, that increasing numbers of people, regardless of the ideology,

00:47:27.060 realized just how depraved and dangerous these schools are and are taking their kids out. So if

00:47:33.000 conservatives are skeptical of the government, as they say, do not hand your children over to these

00:47:38.220 people to raise them for you and be surprised when they come out despising you and everything you

00:47:43.120 stand for. Yeah. I mean, and you even see the extension of school that went from first through 12th,

00:47:48.140 then they added kindergarten, then preschool, then now subsidized college. They're going to

00:47:52.200 eventually have your kids for like 20 years straight. I kid you not, a relative of mine

00:47:57.320 sent a kid to preschool at like two and a half. I don't even know what that preschool is. And it

00:48:02.920 obviously shapes your child's mind. It educates them, right? It develops who they are. And very

00:48:09.120 important not to give the state that power, to give the ruling elite that power. Michael, you are,

00:48:14.960 seriously, I say this sincerely, one of the most intelligent people out there in the right-wing

00:48:19.160 media today. You haven't convinced me on anarchism yet, but we'll have to save that for next time,

00:48:23.960 perhaps. And thank you for being so interesting. Yeah. Wait a second. Hold on here. Michael Malice,

00:48:29.660 the new book, The White Pill, the other book, The Anarchist Handbook, and then my favorite title,

00:48:34.960 Dear Reader, The Unauthorized Autobiography of Kim Jong-il. Michael, thank you for being,

00:48:38.720 where can people find you, by the way? On Twitter, Michael Malice. The White Pill will be

00:48:42.400 out later this year, but anarchishhandbook.com. All right. Look forward to speaking again,

00:48:45.580 Michael. Take care. All right. Good to see you, Michael. Thanks.

The Michael Knowles Show - August 06, 2021

Michael Knowles REACTS to ANARCHY and ＂The WHITE Pill＂｜ Michael Malice

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript

The Michael Knowles Show - August 06, 2021

Michael Knowles REACTS to ANARCHY and ＂The WHITE Pill＂ ｜ Michael Malice

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript

Michael Knowles REACTS to ANARCHY and ＂The WHITE Pill＂｜ Michael Malice