The Michael Knowles Show - Prove Me Wrong： Michael Knowles At America Fest

00:00:00.000 Thank you guys so much for being here. It's a great honor to be here.

00:00:14.300 What time of the morning? Okay, it's not that early. I don't know, maybe it's just,

00:00:17.600 it feels early because I was out at the cigar party last night. It's great to be with all of

00:00:21.400 you. Thank you for making it out. I am so, so pleased. I want to give a big thank you,

00:00:27.000 a big shout out to TPUSA, the unbelievable team here, who has just done heroic work in keeping

00:00:33.660 everything going and growing and advancing, just as I think we all know our friend Charlie would

00:00:39.980 have wanted. Just incredible work from TPUSA and incredible work from all of you. Thank you.

00:00:48.760 I've never done one of these. You know, Charlie was the king of this and now a bunch of Charlie's

00:00:53.400 friends are going to be sitting in all day. So go easy on me, please. I don't, he was, but we,

00:00:58.760 but you know, one thing that we all really, really have loved over the years and I think has really

00:01:03.780 helped our political movement is that we're willing to have these conversations. People come up,

00:01:08.680 no notes, no anything, no rules, ask anything you want and we'll, we'll try to get at the truth

00:01:14.880 and we'll try to move on forward together. So who's the first question? Love your hat.

00:01:23.400 I love your hat, but I hate your microphone because I can't hear you.

00:01:28.300 So my question is, what is your opinions on private Christian schools versus public education?

00:01:35.200 I'm sorry. I still hate your microphone and I can't quite hear you.

00:01:39.640 So private schools versus Christian run organizations in college education. 0.61

00:01:47.900 Christian versus public education. So the first thing we have to all recognize is that education 0.95

00:01:57.120 is not merely a private endeavor. So I love that homeschooling is normalized now. I've been

00:02:03.700 homeschooling my children. I think the reason that homeschooling really took up, it's great.

00:02:08.100 We've got a lot of homeschoolers.

00:02:09.640 Of course we do. Of course we do here. The, all of the public school kids are at the like BLM rally 0.98

00:02:18.520 down the street, but every, all the homeschoolers are here at TPUSA. So I do it. I really love it.

00:02:23.700 I think it's great. Part of the reason homeschooling really took off in recent years was because during

00:02:29.600 COVID, the students went home, the parents actually got to see what their students were being taught

00:02:33.960 and they yanked them out as quickly as they possibly could. So that was a great temporary solution.

00:02:39.880 Christian education is a great alternative to the secular public schools, but it's not the final

00:02:45.520 stop because education is a public thing. It's a political thing. It creates and shapes whole citizens.

00:02:52.420 It shapes whole souls, you know? And so I think that conservatives would make a mistake

00:02:57.620 if we merely retreated to the Christian schools, private parochial schools, and homeschooling.

00:03:05.300 That's all good. I'm all for it. But we need to go a step further and we need to reassert ourselves

00:03:10.320 in the public schools as well. You know, there didn't used to be a difference between Christian

00:03:14.680 schooling and public schooling. It was all the same thing because until the middle of the 20th century,

00:03:20.340 you were able to, I don't know, read the Bible in schools, you know, the most important book ever

00:03:25.260 written without which you can't know anything about anything at all. You know, you were able to pray

00:03:29.740 in schools. Our friend Yoram Hazzoni, great philosopher, suggests that taking the Bible out 0.63

00:03:35.500 of schools, prayer out of schools, was the most catastrophic event of the 20th century in terms

00:03:41.160 of our country. So look, I encourage everyone, yes, do the homeschooling, do the Christian private

00:03:47.220 schools if you can afford it, if you can find a good one. But let's go further. Let's make more

00:03:51.280 demands of our country. Let's make more demands of the public school system. Let's fight the

00:03:55.500 bad guys. Let's fight the public teacher unions. Let's go in there. Let's overturn ridiculous 0.93

00:04:00.220 Supreme Court decisions. And let's restore seriousness to education. It's about raising up whole people.

00:04:06.820 It's not just reading, writing, and arithmetic. Great question.

00:04:10.680 Thank you.

00:04:11.640 Thank you.

00:04:12.200 Thank you, sir, for taking my question. I want to preface that I'm a devout Christian as well as

00:04:22.780 not a racist, which feels like something I shouldn't even have to say in America. But my question or

00:04:28.140 maybe topic for debate for you today is I do not believe that Islam and those practicing this religion 1.00

00:04:35.240 are compatible with institutions of the West, considering their long track record and the fact

00:04:42.120 that their core book, the Quran, most literally says to, for example, kill the unbelievers, and then

00:04:48.260 once again, just the combative nature.

00:04:50.720 I don't think you're going to get much debate out of me on that particular question.

00:04:55.900 Although there are some who do want to debate that on the right. And I think there are some people

00:05:01.240 who think that we can form some kind of enduring alliance with Islam. There can be some synthesis, 0.75

00:05:06.820 say, between Islam and the liberalism that came out of Christianity and maybe Christian civilization

00:05:13.420 itself. And to them, I would just say, seems like wishful thinking, because to your point,

00:05:20.660 Christendom, which we now call the West, has been in conflict with Islam for roughly 1,400 years.

00:05:27.400 So this began very shortly after the invention of Islam. The first real clash between the Christian 0.84

00:05:36.200 West, between Europe and Islam took place in 732. And it didn't take place in Arabia. It didn't even 0.93

00:05:42.860 really take place in the Levant. It took place 150 miles outside of Paris. So Islam has endeavored to 1.00

00:05:49.200 conquer the West many times over the course of history. The Battle of Lepanto, 1571 is a good example. 0.67

00:05:54.860 The Battle of Vienna after that. Now we just sort of welcome them all in and allow them to defraud our 1.00

00:05:59.880 welfare systems and create their religious rituals and buildings all over the world. So, no, it's not

00:06:08.060 going to work. What do we do about that? Well, we have to recognize a very important word for

00:06:14.460 conservatives. And the word is no. We've had a lot of trouble with the word no in recent years,

00:06:22.000 haven't we? Even the conservatives have had trouble. We used to say, look, we want endless

00:06:27.880 migration as long as it's legal. Flood the country with totally unassimilable cultures, but make sure 1.00

00:06:34.060 they fill out the right paperwork before they come in. And that's ridiculous. It's not just the 0.98

00:06:38.400 procedural norms that matter. It's the substantive goods that matter. We have believed that our country

00:06:43.940 is totally open. It's just, some people would say it's just an idea, but what's crazy is some people

00:06:50.480 would say it's not even, it's any idea. It's just anything at all. We can close our eyes and be

00:06:54.540 whatever we want to be. But of course, a country that's everything is a country that's nothing.

00:06:58.240 So we have to circumscribe what we mean. And we need to recognize, when we talk about the migration

00:07:04.560 issue, for instance, we need to recognize that the question is not merely legal versus illegal.

00:07:09.240 The question is not merely even numbers. You know, we'll take half a million versus two million or

00:07:14.960 something. No. The question is, where is the migration coming from? What cultures have the habits,

00:07:20.800 the institutions, the beliefs that work for us? I go back to John Adams. John Adams wrote to

00:07:27.220 Thomas Jefferson in 1813. A little bit of bad blood between two of our founding fathers,

00:07:32.440 but they both agreed in principle on what won the revolution. John Adams says,

00:07:39.820 the general principles of Christianity in which all the sects agreed and the general principles of

00:07:45.040 English and American liberty are the principles upon which independence was won. It is simply an

00:07:50.800 historical fact that we are a Christian nation with a history of tolerating all sorts of deviations

00:07:57.160 but nevertheless with a norm. The differences between the Christian and Muslim conceptions

00:08:02.680 of God are manifest. In Christianity, God sends his son as a mediator between man and God. In Islam,

00:08:11.260 God is wholly transcendent. There is no way to reach him. In Christianity, Christ is the divine logic of

00:08:17.620 the universe. In Islam, God is pure will. As Pope Benedict XVI quotes Ibn Hazm, we get some shout-outs for 0.80

00:08:29.480 Pope Benedict XVI out there. I don't think for Ibn Hazm. According to Islam, if Allah wanted his followers 1.00

00:08:36.680 to worship idols, he could make them do so. These are radically different conceptions. They've led to

00:08:41.400 radically different civilizations, and we can't just paper over those differences. We can be nice and

00:08:48.040 kind, but we can't be everything to everyone. We have to be a specific civilization. And for us,

00:08:55.200 if our civilization is not animated by the spirit, which has animated us from the beginning, namely

00:09:00.020 the Holy Spirit, our civilization will be nothing at all. Thank you, sir, for your time.

00:09:04.920 Can I sign that hat? Yes, sure. Throw it up. That's a good throw. Now, can you throw up a pen?

00:09:24.440 That's a black hat with a black pen. How am I supposed to sign that?

00:09:26.840 All right. Where'd he go? Look at that. I was terrible at baseball as a kid, but I'm glad that

00:09:36.340 throw worked. Who's this at? All right. One more. One more. That's it. Now, I got to get back to

00:09:43.480 answering these questions, because Charlie was way pithier than me. I'm a little more verbose,

00:09:47.900 okay? We got to get through these questions. There we go. All right. Next question.

00:09:54.160 Hello. My name is Chelsea, and I'm from New Jersey, and I wanted to ask you, should America

00:10:01.700 implement free healthcare just like Canada and the UK? Should America have a universal socialized

00:10:07.720 healthcare like Canada? I agree. I agree. No, we should not, though I see why some people want us to, 0.50

00:10:18.780 because the American healthcare system is really messed up. Worth pointing out that the American 1.00

00:10:23.040 healthcare system was created almost entirely by Franklin Roosevelt, Lyndon Johnson, and Barack

00:10:28.400 Obama. So, you know, it doesn't have a great track record on who built it. I'm not surprised it

00:10:33.480 hasn't worked out, and yet it's still preferable to what you see in Canada, because the conclusion

00:10:39.600 of the Canadian healthcare system is death, and I mean that literally. A huge number of Canadians now 1.00

00:10:46.000 every single year are killed, I think it's over five percent, are killed through government-encouraged

00:10:52.180 physician-assisted suicide, which is contrary to the Hippocratic Oath and leads literally to the

00:10:58.240 suicide of the whole country. Furthermore, though, you see a major rationing of care. So women who are 1.00

00:11:04.960 under the age of 50 have a reasonable chance of getting breast cancer procedures in Canada. Women who

00:11:11.400 are over the age of 70 basically do not. Something like 80 percent of women who are waiting for breast 0.98

00:11:17.240 cancer surgeries over that age just did not get the procedures, because the government said they

00:11:21.640 were old enough and they would rather ration the care and let the older women die. That's a ghastly 1.00

00:11:26.520 kind of system. Furthermore, you have Canadians waiting months and months, years and years, for

00:11:32.840 procedures, and many of whom will die because of that. You hear stories coming out of Canada, coming out of

00:11:38.920 the United Kingdom, of people who have cancer in particular, who simply will not be given chemotherapy

00:11:45.400 by the horrific regimes that have a monopoly on health care up there. And so what are they offered

00:11:51.080 instead? They're offered the privilege of killing themselves. This is completely contrary to any sense 1.00

00:11:57.800 of moral goodness. It's totally inhuman. It is as tyrannical as any government policy could be. I've long

00:12:06.040 observed that Canada is America's evil top hat. George Washington did not conquer it for a reason, 0.61

00:12:11.720 and I think we should leave them be and not adopt their terrible practices. Thank you very much.

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00:13:39.300 get back to the table. Good afternoon, Mr. Knowles, a big fan of your show. I'm a very devout

00:13:43.300 Catholic myself. Praise God. My understanding is the only thing I disagree with you on is the one beef

00:13:52.500 that you have with Mr. Walsh is I believe in aliens. I couldn't hear you. Is what? I believe

00:13:58.240 in extraterrestrial life, that it is possible. Oh no, please. Hear me out. I know I said ask me

00:14:04.080 anything. I should have said ask me anything but this ridiculous new age Gnostic nonsense 1.00

00:14:10.220 about the little green man. I'm sorry, go on, go on. Yeah, so it was Kardashev who basically said 0.92

00:14:15.200 that it'd be kind of ignorant to say that we are the only sentient terrestrial life out there.

00:14:19.760 I do believe that God created man for one sole purpose, to inhabit the earth and to follow our

00:14:24.400 savior Jesus Christ. Praise God. But I do think that it is possible within, you know, the 14 billion

00:14:30.520 years that this universe has existed, that there are other forms of life out there. We just will

00:14:35.200 never know. So what is your rhetoric on that? Do you think it's likely that aliens exist?

00:14:39.580 I think it's likely. I think it's more like Schrodinger's box where it's like until you open the box,

00:14:43.840 I mean, it's, you can neither prove nor disprove it and we'll never know the answer.

00:14:47.720 That's somewhat more reasonable than Walsh's view that he's been like beamed up to the little

00:14:54.060 green man and who knows what procedures has undergone. But no, I just don't buy it because

00:15:00.300 the argument from the vast age of the universe or the immense size of the universe does very little

00:15:06.540 to me in terms of ascertaining the probability that little green men exist. Because in order to 0.98

00:15:12.780 ascertain the probability of anything, you need to know something about how the phenomenon came to

00:15:19.120 be. And so when we're talking about how life could spring up in a physical sense, how you could go

00:15:26.200 from inorganic matter to organic matter, we have absolutely no idea how that happened. Scientists

00:15:33.240 have posited all sorts of crazy theories over the decades and none of them have been proven true.

00:15:38.480 There's really no evidence for any of them. I mean, I believe that God made man out of clay

00:15:42.700 and breathed into his nose and now man had life. And I think that whatever physical precision

00:15:49.420 that description lacks, that is without question the clearest, most accurate view of how life came

00:15:56.460 to be. So until someone can make a serious argument for abiogenesis, for instance, I see no reason

00:16:02.960 to conclude that just because the universe is really big, that it has some other life in it.

00:16:07.380 Just like, I have no reason to believe that just because my basement is really big,

00:16:11.860 there's a bar of gold sitting somewhere in it. How did the bar of gold even get there in the first

00:16:16.520 place? The theological problems that would come from this also come from the specialness of man

00:16:24.220 as man, because God is a man. The mystery of the Trinity, which is the central mystery of the Christian

00:16:31.160 faith, tells us that we have God the Father and God the Son, God the Son eternally begotten of God the

00:16:38.600 Father, true God from true God, true light from true light, who becomes man, who is incarnate of the

00:16:46.380 Holy Spirit, conceived by the Holy Spirit, incarnate of the Virgin Mary, and becomes man and ascends bodily

00:16:53.060 into heaven. That his humanity is an essential part of Christ, of the Godhead. And there's no room for

00:17:02.260 E.T. in there. So I don't know what it would mean for us to discover some extraterrestrial life.

00:17:08.920 To me, it's a kind of an amusing thought experiment at best, and a demonic perversion at worst. Not to go like

00:17:20.880 to Alex Jones here, it's a demonic perversion, but I kind of think it is, because I think it's a way for the devil

00:17:29.020 to whisper into our ears that man is not that special, which is of course the cause of the angels rebelling in

00:17:36.200 heaven. Them basically refusing to bow down to a man. And so I wouldn't follow it that far. The other

00:17:43.880 reason I'm convinced aliens don't exist is because Walsh says they do exist. And so that alone should be

00:17:49.720 reason to conclude it. But in any case, regardless of your very mistaken view on this, live long and

00:17:56.180 prosper, Obi-Wan, or whatever they say.

00:17:59.900 Thank you.

00:18:00.620 Hello, my name is Lorelei. You are awesome. On your show, you had said that you don't believe that

00:18:11.100 Christmas decorations should be for all year, and they should only be for around the days of Christmas.

00:18:16.340 And I would like to say that I think that we should be allowed to have all the decorations out

00:18:20.600 all year, so that you can see and you can celebrate and you can remember every day. And I will say, I don't

00:18:26.080 mean like the Christmas tree or any of that stuff, but like Jesus baby, that kind of a thing, out all year

00:18:32.220 so that you can see it and you can remember it every day.

00:18:34.220 Okay, alright. You saved your point right there at the end. Because I freaking hate when the people put up

00:18:41.240 the Christmas decorations. It used to be right after Thanksgiving, which I found preposterous. Then it became

00:18:48.580 just before Thanksgiving. So that's Thanksgiving erasure. This is the American holiday. This is erasing the 0.57

00:18:55.060 legacy of the men who came on the Mayflower, which is a great cigar company, by the way. And then, oh, thank you,

00:19:00.500 thanks. But now, I kid you not, I saw people putting up Christmas decorations the day, you can see how angry

00:19:06.880 I'm getting, the microphones aren't even working. I saw people put up Christmas decorations the day after

00:19:12.060 Halloween. I said, this is, this is the problem with modern religion. We used to have first the fast and then the

00:19:20.720 feast. Now we have first the feast and then the hangover. It's got to be special. Lent is a penitential

00:19:27.520 period. Now, the modern Christians, they say during Lent, you need to meditate on hope and joy and no,

00:19:35.200 no. You are traditionally, during Lent, Christians focus on the four last things, death, judgment, 0.96

00:19:43.920 heaven, and hell. Fa-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la. Okay? I want penitence. I want one song playing

00:19:52.580 during Advent. I don't want to be Feliz Navidad rocking around the Christmas tree. I want that

00:19:57.640 song to be, oh, come Emmanuel. Maybe if you're feeling spicy, come thou long-expected Jesus.

00:20:03.040 But that's it. And then, I sound like Scrooge. Then you can put up your Christmas tree on the

00:20:09.980 evening of Christmas Eve, and you keep it up through February 8th. Who is that? I'm starting

00:20:14.420 to lose the audience on the Christmas. Okay, all right. I went too far. I went too far.

00:20:18.560 You keep it up through all of Christmas, 12 days, or bring it all the way up to February 8th. So,

00:20:23.240 then you get to enjoy. That's what I'm doing on my set. Now, you make one other important point,

00:20:27.580 though, which is, well, look, maybe you don't put Santa Claus up all year, but you do have an image of

00:20:32.620 maybe the baby Jesus. I think that's good. I have an image of, I have many images of Jesus in my house,

00:20:37.940 one of which is the Theotokos tenderness. It's an Eastern icon of Mary holding the baby Jesus.

00:20:44.220 And I think that's very important to put up. You need to have these symbols all over because,

00:20:49.820 you know, we're in an age of iconoclasts on the left. They want to tear down our statues. They want

00:20:54.760 to tear down our pictures. They want to tear down our whole culture. But we're physical creatures.

00:20:58.520 That's the message of Christmas and the incarnation. And we got to see things with our senses in real life.

00:21:03.780 We got to see images. Those images color our world. They elevate our mind up to God. So,

00:21:08.840 I totally agree. Keep pictures of the baby Jesus up all year long. But if you put Rudolph up one day

00:21:15.220 before Christmas Eve, I will come to your house like the Grinch and steal it up your chimney.

00:21:20.160 Perfect. Sounds good. Thank you.

00:21:21.540 You're the best Obama impersonator on the internet. I'd just like to say that. I also think the GOP

00:21:31.500 should be the party to legalize marijuana federally. What's your position?

00:21:37.280 I know, I know, I know, I know.

00:21:40.140 Listen here. I'm a cigar man, so I like combustible leaves. I'm not opposed to smoking generally. But

00:21:50.040 you're not asking me about tobacco, the crop that built our country. No. You're asking me about the

00:21:54.940 old sin spinach, the jazz cigarettes. You know what I mean? The Peruvian parsley, the Haitian oregano.

00:22:01.620 I'm talking about Mary Jane reefer. I'm talking about pot. Yes.

00:22:07.600 Which conservatives have long opposed. Why have we opposed it?

00:22:12.340 Because just as we make distinctions between one nation and another nation,

00:22:17.260 one culture and another culture, one religion and another religion, 0.51

00:22:19.920 so too we make distinctions. Just because you roll something up, put it in your mouth and light it

00:22:23.620 on fire, doesn't mean it's the same. So let me ask you, before I give you my final anti-pot

00:22:29.500 reefer madness diatribe, why? What is the good that is achieved by legalizing pot?

00:22:35.880 Well, first, the economic benefits in Missouri when we legalized it. Immediately, we had

00:22:40.680 dispensaries opening when everywhere else was closed. Kind of weird about the COVID stuff,

00:22:45.040 but that's one. And then two, I think that the liberty of it, it's not as bad for society as

00:22:50.640 alcohol is. So I think that we should have it. It's a liberty versus society thing. And I think

00:22:55.700 the down effect on society is oversold. It's not as bad as we think it is.

00:23:00.060 Say that last part again. I couldn't hear you over the booze from the crowd.

00:23:02.860 I think that the effects on society are not as bad as we think they are. I think that

00:23:09.200 for the most part, nobody ever gets aggressive off of marijuana. They usually tend to keep

00:23:13.860 to themselves, maybe play too much video games or something, but they're not going to go

00:23:17.760 home and kick the dog because they had too much to smoke.

00:23:20.880 Okay. So to take those in order, the first one says that if you legalize pot, you'll get a new

00:23:29.100 industry, namely selling pot. That's true, though that argument alone could be used to justify

00:23:35.200 legalizing any manner of vice or deleterious activity. It could be used to defend the pornography

00:23:40.900 industry. It could be used to defend widespread gambling. It could be used to defend prostitution

00:23:45.700 or anything else. So we wouldn't say that just because something might make some money,

00:23:50.160 it is there for a good idea and even a conservative idea for us to legalize it.

00:23:55.000 Then on the point about alcohol, I would have to push back a little bit. Alcohol can be abused,

00:24:00.300 just like any, I mean, cupcakes can be abused. Anything could be abused. But alcohol, when it's 0.94

00:24:04.900 used in moderation, has some good effects. It's a social lubricant. So it makes us more sociable.

00:24:11.340 It's a little bit relaxing. It encourages conversation, sometimes rowdy conversation,

00:24:16.940 as we discovered last night at the Mayflower party here in TPUSA. But it inclines us more

00:24:23.580 toward our human nature because man is a social creature, the political animal who is naturally

00:24:28.700 inclined to live in ordered society. Marijuana doesn't really do that. I'll make a little confession

00:24:34.100 here before all of you. I usually, I'm a Catholic, so I usually make my confessions in a box to a

00:24:39.180 priest, but I'll make it to this gigantic crowd. I might've tried the old left-hand cigarettes once

00:24:46.100 or twice. Okay. I might've tried it. It's not too bad. Unlike Bubba, I may have inhaled. I actually

00:24:51.980 have trouble inhaling because I'm a cigar man. But anyway, the thing I've noticed about pot,

00:24:55.940 anecdotally and personally, is that it does not conduce to socializing. It makes you more

00:25:01.380 introspective. People say it makes you funnier. It doesn't. It makes you much less funny,

00:25:06.440 but it makes everything seem funnier. So it makes you kind of dumber. It makes you kind of slower, 1.00

00:25:10.360 makes you hungrier and like fat. And so, you know, I don't see those as being particularly good.

00:25:16.640 And then your point on the social effects of it more broadly. We've been told for years that pot

00:25:22.400 is not addictive. That's obviously ridiculous because we all know potheads who like wake and

00:25:28.600 bake and are vaping all day. And who, if they go one day without their drugs, they start freaking 0.98

00:25:32.780 out. Even the fact that, that many people who are into marijuana refer to it as self-medicating

00:25:37.940 tells you that obviously this is a habit forming addictive substance. Furthermore though, yes,

00:25:44.060 you usually don't see fights between potheads at a bar or at a dispensary, but you do sometimes see

00:25:50.240 psychotic breaks. And this is being reported more and more as marijuana has become more normalized

00:25:54.360 and legalized. You're seeing psychiatrists having to deal with people who have overdosed,

00:25:59.200 not just on a few puffs of a joint, but especially on edibles where the doses can be insanely high,

00:26:04.360 where they're very difficult to regulate, to say nothing of car accidents and things like that.

00:26:09.440 So I think the social effects are pretty bad. And then I'll bring it back to both a traditional 1.00

00:26:13.320 argument, an argument from tradition and an argument from religion. From, from the religious

00:26:19.040 perspective, Christ's first miracle is turning water into wine for people who have been drinking for

00:26:25.000 like four days. Okay. So that tells you, it's not necessarily a recommendation to drink all day

00:26:31.520 long, but it tells you that wine has an important place, even in our faith that the, you know, Christ

00:26:38.140 says at the last supper, I will not, I will not yet again, a taste of the fruit of the vine, you know,

00:26:43.900 until all is accomplished. So there's this role. And if you believe in sacramental religion,

00:26:47.820 you believe that actually alcohol is necessary to the proper worship of God. Now, if you look from

00:26:55.160 the traditional perspective, we've had wine forever. We've had wine and beer and mead forever.

00:27:00.660 Marijuana is only recently introduced to our culture. So it's kind of a foreign thing. I once

00:27:05.420 spoke to a drug czar for a Republican president and he said, you know, at the bottom of all these kind

00:27:10.780 of libertarian, let's legalize marijuana arguments. My question is, why would it, even if you think

00:27:16.660 alcohol is bad, why would we add another bad thing? What's the benefit to that? So to me, the strongest

00:27:22.080 argument for a legalizing pot is this libertarian idea that we should all be able to abuse our bodies

00:27:29.140 however we want. But I don't think that's true. I don't think you really own your body. I don't think

00:27:32.920 you're chiefly an individual. I think you are a member of a family and a society and a nation. And so I think

00:27:38.080 that argument's bunk and you got to get off the dope kids, not even once. And what you got to do is

00:27:43.820 something much better for you, much more delicious, much more conducive to civilization.

00:27:48.360 You need to smoke a Mayflower cigar.

00:27:51.520 Thank you.

00:27:56.920 Hi, Michael. I'm a Roman Catholic and I want to make sure that my future husband shares my goals

00:28:01.520 of a strong, faith-filled family that is in communion with God. I know there are challenges

00:28:05.780 in mixed-faith relationships. Should I be focusing my prospects on Catholic boys or should I, like,

00:28:10.800 yeah, how should I approach that?

00:28:13.060 So the question is, you're a serious Catholic, you want to marry a mackerel-snapping papist husband, 0.84

00:28:19.060 and you want to know, do you go swimming in the Tiber to find your man or do you go on missionary

00:28:24.180 dating? Do you go, yeah, look, my advice, oh, obviously, yes, I think it would be wonderful for

00:28:33.100 you to have a good, nice Catholic marriage. You can have a small Catholic family of 12 or 14 kids,

00:28:37.900 and that all sounds wonderful. However, when I think about dating, I think I have the least popular

00:28:46.200 take of all. It's a take I don't hear on the right anymore. I certainly don't hear it on the left.

00:28:52.060 I think dating is fun. I think, like, speaking to members of the opposite sex and flirting with them

00:29:00.580 and getting them to like you and going to dinner is, like, fun and should be enjoyable,

00:29:06.540 and you can be guided by attraction. Like, girls are hot, you know? I know it's, like, 0.85

00:29:12.740 crazy suggestion these days, but you should follow that a little bit, you know? Don't make it a chore.

00:29:20.540 Don't make it a job interview. Especially the way some Zoomers talk about dating. It's like they're 1.00

00:29:25.860 applying to college or something, you know? No, it doesn't have to be that way, man. Girls are fun. 1.00

00:29:30.600 And if you're a girl, you know, it's like, I think maybe it's, I don't know, it's probably less fun 0.98

00:29:33.500 to hang out with a guy, but I don't know, like, girls seem to like it. And so that's what I would

00:29:37.220 do first. I would allow yourself to be legitimately attracted in ways that are not always conscious,

00:29:44.460 that get to the intangible, ineffable aspects of love. You know, Cole Porter did not sing,

00:29:51.220 let's do it, let's find the ideal partner to have a perfectly flourishing life with. No,

00:29:57.880 let's do it, let's fall in love. So, you know, allow that to happen. Now, you're going to have

00:30:01.560 to weed out some losers or some guys who don't necessarily want to go along with, you know,

00:30:06.060 a conducive life. But you find that along the way. Let, let, I hate to sound like a liberal,

00:30:13.800 but, you know, kind of follow your heart a little bit first, and then when he's just mad about you,

00:30:19.220 and he says, I love you, you're the only thing I ever think about, you say, that's great. You need

00:30:23.460 to sign on the bishop's line right here. We're raising the kids Catholic, and we're having a lot

00:30:28.000 of them. Thank you. Thank you so much. Yeah, throw the hat up. Look at that. I need a, oh no,

00:30:36.620 I have a pen. I stole that pen from whoever it was. Now, I'm a lefty, so don't judge me if this

00:30:49.460 is a bad throw. Yeah, that was a perfect throw. That was, all right, I'll get to the hats after

00:30:55.620 the next question. Hey, Michael. So, I'm pro H-1B visas and pro meritocracy, and it seems like a lot

00:31:02.440 of the right is very against it. You could tell me why that is. Yes, that's true, because that's

00:31:09.000 been a big shift, and I'm not entirely opposed to some version of an H-1B visa program. Obviously, 0.88

00:31:16.060 the H-1Bs have been horribly abused, and it's in many ways just a way for corporations to get cheap 0.98

00:31:20.740 labor and undercut American workers, but some version of bringing in talent that's difficult

00:31:25.140 to find in America in very small numbers. I'm not totally opposed. I'm a conservative. In practical

00:31:31.440 policy, I generally don't deal in firm absolutes, but it needs to be radically reformed. Your latter

00:31:37.780 point, I think, is more pertinent, which is this belief in meritocracy, because I don't think that

00:31:44.300 meritocracy is a particularly conservative or traditional idea. I believe in rewarding good

00:31:51.160 effort. I believe in justice, giving to people what they deserve. I believe in encouraging people

00:31:56.940 to work hard. I believe in the American tradition of being able to make something of yourself,

00:32:02.740 regardless of your circumstances. But I think that meritocracy takes all of those good virtues

00:32:08.300 totally out of whack, and it makes an idol out of them. That's often what happens with heresies

00:32:13.240 and ideologies, is they take a kernel of a good thing, and they take it so far that it becomes a

00:32:19.360 bad thing. Because in a purely meritocratic country, other virtuous relationships are diminished.

00:32:27.220 If a guy, for instance, has a family business, he's been in business for 100 years, his great-great-grandpa

00:32:33.440 founded it, went to his great-grandpa, his grandpa, his dad, and now it goes to him. And he says,

00:32:38.380 you know, I want to hire my kids for this business and keep the business in the family. But they didn't

00:32:44.040 score well enough on the SAT, so you're all out, kids. Bring me the Indians. We're going to have a 1.00

00:32:47.680 new business now. You know, that rings unjust for all of us. That seems kind of silly. The reason that

00:32:54.240 universities have had legacy admissions in the past is not just to award some plutocracy. It's because,

00:33:00.540 in many cases, one of the things that people go to universities for is to pal around with,

00:33:07.140 to form relationships with, people who are from different stratas of society than they are. That

00:33:12.660 it's a way of maintaining traditions, even within institutions. And I think that's a good thing. I

00:33:18.520 think continuity within institutions is wonderful and should be encouraged, even if it crosses against

00:33:24.380 meritocracy. And taken to the extreme, and this is where it goes back to the H-1Bs, 0.99

00:33:28.860 it's one thing for Americans to have to compete with people from their high school, say, or from

00:33:35.820 their hometown or county or state. But in an increasingly globalized economy and an increasingly

00:33:42.220 borderless country until President Trump was re-elected, all of a sudden, you're telling

00:33:46.960 American workers that they have to compete against the entire world. And that's not even a level of

00:33:52.520 playing field, by the way, because the American workers have regulations imposed upon them

00:33:57.000 that the, and costs imposed upon them, that the workers around the world do not. And so I don't,

00:34:03.020 it's, I suppose, in a sense, anti-meritocratic for American policy to favor American citizens and

00:34:09.480 exclude other people. But that's what a country is supposed to do. A country is supposed to conduce 0.75

00:34:14.180 to the common good of the people in that country. So I would say two cheers for meritocracy. Not three

00:34:21.180 cheers. I would say two cheers for meritocracy. We want our people to be tough, smart, work hard,

00:34:26.240 ambitious, not get lazy, not be on the dole. And we want all of those things. But we also have to

00:34:31.020 recognize these are our people. And we have a special obligation to our people that we don't

00:34:35.640 have to people on the other side of the world. Awesome. Thank you.

00:34:43.580 Hi, Michael. My name is Nella. I'm a student at a college in Indiana. I've been listening to you and

00:34:48.460 Ben Shapiro for like five years now. But I'm a Protestant. I'm like not Calvinist, but I'm Arminian.

00:34:54.380 So I do agree with a lot of like the Catholic traditions. But the one thing that like, like the

00:35:00.100 one thing I disagree with Catholicism is like that you have to, you have to be beholden to the Pope

00:35:06.480 because I just don't think you should do that. Because the Pope is a man that's fallible. Like

00:35:10.140 we're all fallible. And that's like the only thing I have. Yeah, the Pope was a big stumbling block for

00:35:15.700 a lot of people who are, they're Catholic curious, but that's the one issue that they have trouble. In fact,

00:35:20.680 our friend Charlie, you know, quite, quite openly had issues, especially with the last Pope who

00:35:24.800 sometimes made things difficult for, you know, for people given some political statements of his.

00:35:31.080 However, the Pope, the office of the papacy, obviously has developed over time as, as all

00:35:38.520 things do. But I think you see the papacy going all the way back to the apostolic age, I think really

00:35:44.680 even in scripture. That's certainly been the defense of it. And the primacy of the Bishop of Rome

00:35:50.640 goes all the way back to those early ages too. So, you know, the scriptural defense is that Christ

00:35:55.660 says to Peter, Peter, Simon, you are now Peter. And on this rock, I'll build my church. I give you the

00:36:00.980 keys to the kingdom of heaven. What you bind on earth will be bound in heaven. What you loose on

00:36:04.360 earth will be loosed in heaven. This traditionally was understood to be the special appointment of

00:36:10.980 Peter, to have this leading role in the visible physical church on earth. Peter and Paul then go

00:36:16.140 to Rome. And you see this in the writing of the early Christians, the church fathers going back

00:36:21.620 to the apostolic age and shortly thereafter, that when there were divisions between the churches,

00:36:27.100 they would defer to Rome. Rome was understood to have had a special authority because Peter and

00:36:31.660 Paul went there. Furthermore, there's a famous quote from St. Augustine, which is that

00:36:36.460 Rome has spoken, the matter is settled. That when there were disputes, the disputes had to be

00:36:41.860 settled ultimately by someone. And so I think there's a misconception of what the Pope is and

00:36:47.000 does. The Pope is not some like North Korean tyrant who just imposes his will on every matter of life.

00:36:53.800 I think the Pope arises out of, not only out of scripture and the acts of Christ, but out of a

00:36:59.720 logical necessity. That for an institution to have authority and to carry on, someone has to be the

00:37:07.060 ultimate decider when issues cannot be resolved at lower levels. So when you have an issue with your

00:37:12.800 brother, you try to resolve it amongst yourselves. Then maybe you bring in some of the other believers.

00:37:17.760 Maybe you go to your priests, your presbyters, your elders, your bishops. You bring these people in.

00:37:22.360 When there are battles between the bishops, theological questions that have to be resolved,

00:37:25.920 there can be councils. There have been many, many councils throughout history. We see a council in

00:37:29.760 scripture. And ultimately, when you need that clarity, when you need to believe, or rather,

00:37:37.180 when the church needs to speak as a divine institution that really has the authority of God,

00:37:42.200 you need someone to settle that. That has been traditionally the office of the Bishop of Rome.

00:37:47.920 I agree, there have been lots of bad popes over the years, some recent, some older. And so,

00:37:54.120 you know, this is very scandalous. But I often go back to a line from Hilaire Belloc,

00:37:58.200 who is a great Catholic writer, very pugilistic. And Hilaire Belloc said, look, I have to take it as

00:38:04.300 a matter of faith that the church is divinely instituted. But for those who doubt the divine

00:38:09.600 institution, one proof of it is that no other institution conducted with such knavish imbecility 1.00

00:38:15.180 would have lasted a fortnight. And I think that is kind of a proof of it. 0.82

00:38:21.480 And our Lord, just as, you know, St. Paul tells us the civil authority is there for our good,

00:38:27.720 our Lord sends a spiritual authority. And sometimes we get good popes, and sometimes we get bad popes.

00:38:33.200 And maybe the bad popes are there to chastise us. Maybe the good popes are there to, you know,

00:38:38.960 comfort us in a way. And maybe the bad popes are even there to remind us that the pope is fallible,

00:38:45.480 except when he's infallible.

00:38:47.840 Thank you so much. It would mean the world to me if I could just get a quick, like, selfie real quick.

00:38:51.960 A selfie? Absolutely.

00:38:53.380 Thank you so much.

00:38:54.380 Nihil Obstot. I say with authority, you can have that selfie. And I'm not even the pope.

00:38:58.000 All right, we have a very brief hat signing pause. Please ask your question while I gather the hats.

00:39:04.220 Um, okay.

00:39:06.180 Don't throw all the hats. No, I'm going to be buried in hats. No.

00:39:10.180 That was entirely my fault. I shouldn't have said that.

00:39:13.860 Yes, your question.

00:39:15.600 Hi, my name is Levi Blair. I am a junior high school student at Mountain View High School.

00:39:22.100 Uh, and I just actually, uh, started my own, uh, chapter at Mountain View High School.

00:39:29.320 Um, and I agree with you on just about everything I can think of except for, uh, I have nothing against

00:39:41.960 Catholicism or anything, but I personally believe that, uh, Catholicism and Christianity are two

00:39:48.020 different things, uh, and beliefs. Um, I want to know what your stance is on that and why.

00:39:55.920 Well, I would disagree with that, I would say. Um, though, uh, certainly, uh, Catholicism and

00:40:03.260 Protestantism, you know, have different views of religion and Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy

00:40:07.960 to some degree have different views, though it's, it's much, uh, the chasm is much smaller.

00:40:11.920 So, uh, if, if the premise is that there's Catholicism, uh, which, you know, Catholics are

00:40:18.300 fine, but they're wrong, and, you know, there's, uh, Chris, Chris, true Christianity, which is

00:40:23.120 some, some version of Protestantism, I guess the first question you would have to answer

00:40:27.560 is how it is the case that Protestantism only came about beginning in 1517? Uh, because, uh,

00:40:35.600 what that would suggest is that Christ was on earth, he picked apostles, he said, go make

00:40:41.640 disciples of all nations, uh, he says, you know, you're the rock on which I'll build my church,

00:40:45.720 but it's all going to disappear for the next 1500 years, and then in roughly 1500 years,

00:40:52.300 then the true church will finally emerge. Uh, how could that possibly be the case? That would mean

00:40:58.100 that the great saints, the church fathers, the great Christians of history were all fake, basically.

00:41:03.720 Right. Okay. Yeah, I hear the, I hear the, um, argument that, um, Catholicism, like, typically

00:41:12.620 came before, uh, like, like, you know, Christianity and stuff, and, or, like, as it is defined, uh,

00:41:19.640 uh, with Protestant, uh, Protestant, you know, practices. Uh, but the reason why I, I don't believe

00:41:27.480 that, uh, I reject that argument is because if, by that logic, wouldn't Judaism also count as

00:41:34.080 Christianity, and wouldn't we call Judaism Christianity? You're saying Judaism came from

00:41:40.640 Christianity? No, I'm saying that Christianity was, uh, came after Judaism, and many attribute

00:41:45.940 Judaism. You know, that's also kind of a touchy subject, because that's not really how I see things,

00:41:50.880 you know? The, the church understands herself to be the, the, the new Israel, or the spiritual Israel,

00:41:55.780 that the particular, the, the, the Old Testament Israelites are a particular nation chosen to be

00:42:03.060 the type of all nations. So they tell, there are particular people called out, but they tell us

00:42:08.000 something about all nations, and that the Old Testament prefigures the New Testament, that you

00:42:13.060 can find the New Testament, uh, you know, uh, foreseen in the old and revealed, and the Old Testament is

00:42:19.200 revealed in the new. Uh, so, uh, it would seem to me that, uh, you know, just as St. Paul tells us,

00:42:25.100 previously you had circumcision, now you have baptism. You know, St. Peter says, baptism now

00:42:30.180 saves you. Uh, the, uh, what we see are, you know, hints of the true religion, and it comes out, and

00:42:36.600 the incarnation is the fulfillment that God makes in his promises to Israel. And so, it's not that

00:42:42.200 there's a break, you know, we used to have Judaism, and now we have Christianity. It's that there is a 0.60

00:42:46.720 fulfillment of God's promises going all the way back to Abraham, in fact, going all the way back to

00:42:51.200 Adam. So, I, I don't really see that as the issue. Uh, the other distinction, of course, between

00:42:56.060 Judaism and, uh, Catholicism, Protestantism, Eastern Orthodoxy, and a few other things in the

00:43:01.700 middle, is that, uh, we believe in Christ. So, you know, I don't, I don't think it's a totally apt

00:43:07.120 comparison. Um, and it just seems to me strange that our Lord would tell us in Scripture, I will be

00:43:13.180 with you always, even until the end of the age. Uh, and then he would say, except for the next

00:43:18.920 1500 years, when I'm going to totally abandon you, but don't worry, I'm coming back at some point.

00:43:23.540 So, I, I think the historical arguments, uh, are, are kind of difficult for that, to say nothing of

00:43:29.220 the theological arguments. And I would point to someone who was just made a doctor of the church,

00:43:33.300 St. John Henry Newman, who was Protestant, and he was extremely anti-Catholic, and he, he wrote, uh,

00:43:39.540 anti-Catholic invectives. And, and then, especially through his acquaintance with the history of the

00:43:44.640 church and church fathers, he, he became Catholic, and he became a cardinal, and then he became a

00:43:49.180 saint. And so, listen, if Jack Newman can do it, that might be the path ahead of you, too. I'm not

00:43:54.080 making any prophecies or predictions, but that might happen to you as well. Okay, thank you. Also,

00:43:59.440 can you, can you sign my Reagan 80, uh, uh, campaign poster? Yeah, let's do it. Look at the stack

00:44:03.860 of signing things I have. I'm sorry, I'm sorry.

00:44:09.540 If I fall off this stage signing a, uh, poster, that will be very, that's the only clip that's

00:44:20.680 going to go viral from AmFest.

00:44:21.880 Thanks, Michael.

00:44:22.780 Let's see. Where he is, here's the Gipper.

00:44:26.600 Where he is, he's the Gipper!

00:44:28.600 All right.

00:44:34.100 Thanks, pal. Great catch.

00:44:38.780 Okay, next question.

00:44:39.920 Um, hi, I'm Phoebe Linney. Uh, I was wondering, do you think you would be, uh, Matt Walsh in

00:44:47.380 a fight?

00:44:49.920 I heard, do, do I think I could be Matt Walsh in what?

00:44:53.420 Uh, a fight.

00:44:54.820 A fight.

00:44:55.520 A fight.

00:44:56.460 In a fight? In a fight.

00:44:59.420 Are you a Walsh plant? Are you a Walsh child? Hold on, what is your... 1.00

00:45:03.720 Yeah.

00:45:04.120 Hold on. How old are you?

00:45:05.980 What?

00:45:06.260 How old are you?

00:45:07.420 Uh, 10.

00:45:08.200 Unbelievable. I love, 10 years old. That's so, that's so great.

00:45:11.220 These, ah, the future, the future is great, because you ask a very important question.

00:45:18.920 You know, at, at DW, I don't know, we're all kind of like moderately sized fellas, with

00:45:23.600 one exception. Matt Walsh, that giant tree. He's like six foot 11. He's a lumberjack

00:45:30.520 of a man. In between shows, he just chops down oak trees. So, what you, what you would

00:45:37.780 suspect is that I, of a moderate Sicilian stature, would be defeated in a physical battle

00:45:44.340 by Matt Walsh. But you would be wrong. And let me tell you why you would be wrong. Because

00:45:49.580 I live, as I alluded to earlier, on a steady diet of caffeine, nicotine, vim, and vigor.

00:45:57.080 We're, we are a clever, crafty people, we children of the Mezzogiorno. The Princess Bride

00:46:03.420 tells us never to go up against a Sicilian when death is on the line. And I am reminded, 1.00

00:46:08.980 I am reminded that the tall trees fall the hardest. I would, in fact, defeat Matt Walsh

00:46:18.300 in a battle of brute strength. Very good question.

00:46:24.300 What? What did you say at the last part? Sorry, I missed it.

00:46:28.420 What did I say? Yes, I would beat him. That's what I'm saying. I would totally beat him.

00:46:32.220 Okay. Um, I forgot what I was going to say. But, yeah, can I have my pin back after you're 0.83

00:46:38.400 done? Can I have the marker back after you're done?

00:46:43.220 Can someone yell that at me? That's your pen that I've stolen? That's why you had that feisty

00:46:50.500 question. I think Matt Walsh, I think Matt Walsh would come beat you in a fight, Michael,

00:46:54.740 you pen thief. Yes, I can give you this back. Hold on. 0.92

00:46:58.500 This will be the last question.

00:47:00.260 Last question. At least you have a beautiful sweater for your last question.

00:47:04.080 Thank you. Hi, Michael. I'm Emma. And my question is, is that people love to say that

00:47:08.140 America has no culture. How do we combat the diversity is our strength message and put

00:47:13.740 the focus back on making American values and American traditions back in the mainstream

00:47:17.780 and worthy of our protection again?

00:47:20.060 That America has no culture?

00:47:21.800 Yeah, well, I guess that would explain why the entire world is trying to come here, actually. 0.51

00:47:28.940 Because if you claim that America's a vacuum, perhaps that's why we're sucking up everybody

00:47:34.080 from all around the world. That's one explanation. I think the other one is, we obviously have

00:47:39.240 a culture, and the culture is the envy of the world. And everyone wants, at the very least,

00:47:44.580 to experience the fruits of that culture and benefit from them, even if they don't want to participate

00:47:49.420 in that culture or sacrifice for that culture. So it's totally ridiculous. 0.97

00:47:54.760 One way to combat the idea that America has no culture, no identity, it's just an idea or any 0.62

00:48:00.800 idea or nothing at all. Come on in, Ilhan Omar. One way to combat that is to travel anywhere else

00:48:07.480 in the world, especially because a lot of us have some immigrant background, maybe a quarter of this

00:48:13.020 or half that. And when you go, well, I'll speak from my own experience, because, you know,

00:48:18.360 a quarter of my family is from England. Some of them came over on the Mayflower, which is a great

00:48:22.520 cigar brand, by the way. And then a quarter of them are, did I mention that? And then a quarter of

00:48:26.780 them are Irish. I don't really look it. And then the other, a quarter Italian and a quarter Sicilian. 0.59

00:48:31.500 So I remember I was a teenager. The first time I went to Italy, I said, ah, I'm going to be coming

00:48:36.000 home. You know, this will be like visiting my people. And then I go there and I think, wait,

00:48:40.560 there's a bunch of foreigners. What are you talking about, my P? I don't know. And I speak

00:48:43.840 Italian, by the way. But I said, this is crazy. I went to a sandwich shop. It was the most famous

00:48:48.300 sandwich shop in Siena. I go there to get a sandwich at lunchtime. It's closed. I wait there

00:48:53.240 45 minutes. The guy rolls up this Italian. He finally opens it. I said, can I buy a sandwich

00:48:58.140 here? He says, and no, there's no bread. I said, what do you mean there's no bread? He said,

00:49:03.140 no, I don't have bread. I got to go get a bread. I said, well, should I wait? Should I go? He goes,

00:49:07.680 I don't care what you do. You wait. I said, well, why don't you have

00:49:10.480 capitalism in this country? Why do I have to explain to you? And I realized in that moment,

00:49:15.500 if not earlier, I'm an American. You're all, you're all Americans. You are USA.

00:49:28.600 Antonin Scalia, the late great Supreme Court justice told this story when he was in school.

00:49:33.640 He studied for a year in Switzerland and he went to Switzerland. He goes to Italy. He doesn't,

00:49:39.100 you know, he doesn't feel that he goes to England, this big, gigantic Sicilian man. He goes to England 0.99

00:49:46.260 and he feels more at home in England than anywhere else he had been in the world other than America.

00:49:53.740 Why? Because it's the closest to the American culture because our culture has come from the

00:49:59.900 English culture. And so what we have to conclude from that is, despite the waves of mass migration,

00:50:05.900 despite all the nonsense about diversity is our strength and America is a nation of immigrants

00:50:09.920 or whatever, no, America is a real country with a real people, with real traditions and habits,

00:50:16.060 many of which we can't even articulate. And that's a special thing. That's what has attracted people.

00:50:22.060 And if you want to continue to flourish, if you even want to continue attracting people,

00:50:25.940 that's what you have to hold on to. That's a real particular thing. It can't be universalized

00:50:30.760 with some dumb slogan. And if people didn't like it or if it didn't really exist, 0.95

00:50:34.420 the whole world wouldn't be clamoring to get here. Thank you very much. Wonderful to be with all of you.

00:50:40.520 Thank you.

The Michael Knowles Show - December 23, 2025

Prove Me Wrong： Michael Knowles At America Fest

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