Knowledge Fight Interactive Search Tool

All Episodes

Previous Next

April 5, 2019 - The Ben Shapiro Show

01:06:35

Big Brother Meets Big Tech | Ep. 753

Large

Audio Only |

Scroll

Time	Text
	Facebook looks to the government to help censor Viewpoint, the old guard Democrats clash with the socialists, and we check the mailbag.
	I'm Ben Shapiro.
	This is The Ben Shapiro Show.
	Oh, man, a lot to get to today.
	I want to thank you again.
	We are in the third week of release for The Right Side of History.
	It continues to chart in the top three nonfiction books over at Amazon.
	It was number three on The New York Times bestseller list in its second week.
	It was number one in its first week.
	So thank you so much for going out and buying The Right Side of History and letting your friends know about it.
	I think it's an important book.
	We're going to get to all the news today in just one second.
	First, let's talk about something we can all agree on.
	Saving money.
	The reality is that if you are not shopping around, then you are probably not saving money.
	Well, what if there was some way That someone would do the shopping around for you.
	Well, that is exactly what the Honey Best Price Finder does.
	With millions of sellers on Amazon selling the same products, the only way to know if you're really getting the best price is Honey's Best Price Finder.
	It automatically compares the prices of millions of sellers that carry the item that you want.
	Honey even factors in shipping, sales tax, and Amazon Prime status to make sure that you are getting the lowest total price.
	It shows you the best deal every time, even if Amazon does not.
	It's like having your very own smart shopping assistant.
	I'm buying stuff from Amazon legitimately all the time.
	Books, kitchen products, legitimately exercise stuff, stuff from Amazon all the time.
	I've saved a lot of money using Honey.
	And the beautiful thing about Honey is you don't even know that you're really using it until it just saves you money.
	More than 10 million people are using it.
	They have over 100,000 5-star reviews on the Google Chrome store.
	Next time you're shopping on Amazon, treat yourself to the free upgrade that guarantees you always get the absolute best price.
	Here's how it works.
	You add Honey for free at joinhoney.com and then just forget about it.
	And it runs while you're going shopping.
	I mean, it's really amazing.
	Go to joinhoney.com slash ben.
	Honey is the smart shopping assistant that helps you save time and money.
	Joinhoney.com slash ben.
	And you can add honey for free when you use that slash ben.
	Joinhoney.com slash ben.
	Honey, the smart shopping assistant that helps you save time and money.
	So I do want to get to the 2020 presidential race, but I want to begin today with something that is really deeply troubling, and that is you are starting to see social media, instead of looking at the government as an opponent in its free speech mission, instead of looking at the government as a regulatory body that is seeking to quash its creativity, We have now moved from social media as capitalist companies to social media as government-enabled companies.
	That is where these big companies are seeking to go.
	There's this grand failure to understand how exactly big business sometimes works.
	People tend to say, well, big business, rapacious, exploitative, capitalist pigs.
	Here's the reality.
	Big businesses are in the business of profit-seeking.
	When you have a giant government, and that giant government can increase your profit margins by issuing regulations, companies will work hand-in-glove with the government.
	Corporatism is not, in fact, fair use of the free market.
	It is not, in fact, use of the free market at all.
	It is use of the government to do your bidding for you.
	And once the government is so big that it can threaten your company, then many companies have a binary choice, and that is they can either work hand-in-glove with the government to help quash their competitors, and they can say they are friends to the government, or they can fight the government.
	You see this historically with, for example, the car companies.
	So Henry Ford famously resisted the unionization efforts at Ford.
	He resisted the government cram downs of the FDR administration.
	He did not want to abide by their rules and regulations, and he fought them tooth and nail.
	Whereas other car companies just went along with the government and Ford kept losing market share because of all of that.
	Well, the same thing is happening right now in the social media sphere.
	Basically, there are all these major social media companies and the government actors see power in regulating a lot of these major companies.
	And so the major companies have two choices.
	One is they can fight the government.
	They can go to the public and say, listen, you need to tell the government to lay off and leave us alone.
	Or the easier path is often to go to the government and say, listen, regulate us.
	But when you do regulate us, understand that what you're really doing is regulating everybody else who is smaller.
	This was a lot of the net neutrality debate.
	There were major companies on both sides of that debate.
	Google, for example, was very much in favor of net neutrality because it prevented broadband carriers from charging them for things that it essentially crowded lower-down competitors out of the search engine market.
	That's why Google was in favor of net neutrality.
	It wasn't out of any goodness of their heart or anything.
	Big companies have an interest in working hand-in-glove with the government.
	Well, the latest company to do this is, of course, Facebook.
	So Facebook is now begging the government to censor it.
	I am not kidding you.
	Facebook wants censorship at this point.
	So Mark Zuckerberg was on with George Stephanopoulos, and he says that he wants the federal government to regulate speech.
	Why?
	Because he recognizes that Facebook is getting beaten up for its own failures to, on the one hand, censor speech, and on the other hand, they censor too much speech.
	So what he wants to do is kick the responsibility over to the federal government and thereby remove himself from the process.
	This is what he says to George Stephanopoulos.
	He poses this in terms of the public good.
	He says, I want more regulation in my company.
	Whenever somebody who's the head of a company says, I want the government to regulate my company, understand there's an ulterior motive.
	And the ulterior motive is almost always, I want the government to do something that will make my bottom line more lucrative while shielding me from the government's actual intervention.
	Here's Zuckerberg doing exactly that.
	There's a question of what decisions should be left to a private company to make, especially around things like speech and expression for so many people around the world, and where should we have either industry or more government regulation?
	You're already seeing the FCC push back fairly hard against this.
	Two commissioners, I think, saying, no, we don't want to get into the business of policing the First Amendment.
	Yeah, I don't think that that's what this is, though.
	You can say that any regulation around what someone says online is protected, but I think that's clearly not right today.
	It's not clear to me that we want a private company to be making that kind of a fundamental decision.
	Well, this is really funny, because Zuckerberg, like a year ago, was saying, that's the kind of decision that we will make.
	We will take responsibility for these decisions.
	And that's because he was called onto the hill by Republicans and Democrats, and then he was run through the ringer about all the stuff that was appearing on Facebook.
	Now his correct answer should have been to say to Congress, hey guys, it's not my business what appears on Facebook.
	Facebook is just a platform.
	If people put crappy stuff up there that I don't agree with, that's not my business.
	You know, I would prefer they not say that.
	I would prefer that people rebut that.
	But I am not going to sit there as the giant social media censor and shut down messages I don't like.
	The good that I have provided for American citizens and people around the world is a forum where they can exchange ideas.
	The good is not my particular perspective on politics.
	So all I'm going to do is create algorithms that ferret out violent content, threats of violence, Defamatory material.
	Actual legal violations.
	That's the stuff I can police.
	But I can't police generalized political viewpoints.
	But that is not what the government wanted from Zuckerberg.
	So Zuckerberg is responding by trying to kick the ball back to government.
	He's trying to say to government, OK, fine.
	You know what?
	I have the same goals that you do.
	I don't want any of this politically incorrect or bad, like legitimately bad material on my site.
	So you guys regulate it.
	You guys come after me.
	And that way, it's not my fault.
	That way, it's your fault.
	Well, that's not the role of government.
	And it's very dangerous to have folks in corporate life who are very powerful, like Zuckerberg, calling for this to be the role of government, because you could see a world in which House Democrats take Zuckerberg up on this.
	They say, you know what?
	Our social media companies have declared that they can't do anything about the white supremacy online, the white nationalism online, and now it's our job to do that.
	Well, no, it is not your job to do it.
	There's a First Amendment to the Constitution that guarantees, in fact, that Congress shall make no law respecting the abridgment of speech.
	That is part of the First Amendment.
	So when Zuckerberg explicitly calls for a violation of the First Amendment by the government in response to his own inability to police his own site, That's a problem.
	That's a real problem.
	And here's the, again, here's the real reason he is doing this.
	The real reason he is doing this is because in Europe, there are now regulations coming down the pike that would punish Mark Zuckerberg for bad material appearing on his website.
	He doesn't want the responsibility of having to censor his own website after saying he would take responsibility.
	Again, the answer to all of this was for Zuckerberg always to say, I created a platform, I'm like AT&T.
	All I did was provide a forum where people can talk.
	Instead, Zuckerberg, because he wants to be seen by his friends, is a do-gooder.
	Instead, he has said, no, I will be one of the great policemen of speech.
	And now he's saying, I want the government to do it so I don't have to take the blame for it.
	Again, this is more in response to pressures from government than it is in response to an actual necessity on Facebook for censors to shut down speech.
	Why?
	Because here's what they are doing in Europe.
	According to a leaked plan from the United Kingdom, social media bosses could be liable for harmful content, according to The Guardian.
	Social media executives could be held personally liable for harmful content distributed on their platforms.
	There's been growing concern, according to The Guardian, about the role of the internet in distribution of material related to terrorism, child abuse, self-harm, and suicide, and ministers have been under pressure to act.
	Under plans expected to be published on Monday, the government will legislate for a new statutory duty of care to be policed by an independent regulator and likely to be funded through a levy on media companies.
	In other words, they're going to tax Facebook to police Facebook.
	And the way they're going to police Facebook is by fining or jailing people like Mark Zuckerberg if they do not take a quote-unquote duty of care to prevent bad material from getting on their platforms.
	It seems to me the reason we pay taxes is so that the police can prevent crime.
	We don't shut down phone lines because criminals often use phones, and we don't hold AT&T responsible for criminals using their phones.
	It is obvious that we have been treating these social media companies not as common carriers, not as platforms.
	Instead, we have been treating them as actual editorial sites, and that's why they're seeking to blame people like Zuckerberg.
	The regulator, likely initially to be something called Ofcom, but no longer from a new body, will have the power to impose substantial fines against companies that breach their duty of care and to hold individual executives personally liable.
	The debate has been sharpened in recent months by the case of the British teenager Molly Russell and the issues raised by the Christchurch shootings.
	Molly's parents said she killed herself partly because of self-harm images viewed on social media.
	Self-harm images are not threats of violence.
	They're horrible, they're terrible, but it is up to individual people not to look at things that are going to hurt you unless it is an actual attempt to hurt you.
	Rights come along with duties.
	Rights come along with responsibilities.
	If we as individuals can't be trusted to participate in a free speech society, the answer isn't to curb free speech.
	The answer is that we better do some introspection and figure out how we are utilizing our free speech in a bad way.
	Other proposals in the online harm white paper include government powers to direct the regulator on specific issues such as terrorist activity or child sexual exploitation, What exactly constitutes harmful content?
	Are we going to have the U.S.
	government determining what content is harmful?
	Especially when in New Zealand, they're legitimately attempting to prosecute people for reading a manifesto online.
	Is that something we want in the United States?
	The manifesto is evil of the Christchurch shooter.
	Do we want people prosecuted for downloading it and reading it so that they know what's bad?
	The same people who think that it is a good thing that Jordan Peterson's book was temporarily banned from White Coals, a bookseller in New Zealand, over the Christchurch shooting, those would be the same people sitting on boards like this.
	And that is what Mark Zuckerberg is calling for.
	It's incredibly dangerous.
	In Europe, obviously, they don't have the same sort of free speech protections, which is one of the reasons I'm incredibly glad I'm an American.
	Both right and left in Europe are far more comfortable with curbing free speech than we are in the United States.
	Theresa May has repeatedly raised the issue of online harm.
	The government has gradually shifted its position in Britain from favoring voluntary self-regulation to backing tougher enforcement.
	And why is this good for Zuckerberg?
	Because now Zuckerberg can simply say it's not in my hands.
	The government is regulating it.
	I just have to comply with government regulations.
	All the free speech issues are kicked over to the government level.
	The only losers in this?
	American citizens and citizens abroad who are now subject to the government deciding what messages they can and cannot see.
	This is dangerous stuff and Zuckerberg is not the creator of the danger but he is complicit in the increase of the danger if he doesn't stand up for the free speech The sort of free speech basis for the platform that he built in the first place.
	We'll get to more of this in just a second.
	The tech companies caving to kind of social justice warriors and then looking to hand it over to government.
	It's pretty amazing.
	We'll get to it in one second.
	First, let's talk about your sleep quality.
	There's nobody on the planet like you, so why would you buy a generic mattress built for everyone else?
	Helix Sleep has built a quiz.
	It takes two minutes to complete.
	They use the answers to match your body type and sleep preferences to the perfect mattress.
	Whether you're a side sleeper or a hot sleeper, whether you like a plush or a firm bed, with Helix, there's no more guessing and no more confusion.
	Just go to helixsleep.com slash ben, take their 2-minute sleep quiz, they will match you to a mattress that will give you the best sleep of your life.
	For couples, Helix can even split that mattress down the middle, providing individual support needs and feel preferences for each side.
	They've got a 10-year warranty, you get to try it out for 100 nights risk-free.
	These mattresses are incredibly comfortable.
	My wife and I have one.
	We took the 2-minute sleep quiz, they personalized a mattress just for us, and then, We jump on every night.
	It is fantastic.
	It is incredibly comfortable.
	It's so good that I got one for my sister for her wedding as well.
	Right now, Helix is offering up to 125 bucks off all mattress orders.
	Get up to $125 off at HelixSleep.com slash Ben.
	That's HelixSleep.com slash Ben for up to $125 off your mattress order.
	HelixSleep.com slash Ben.
	Go check them out right now.
	HelixSleep.com slash Ben.
	They are fantastic, really.
	I mean, the mattresses are incredibly comfortable and not nearly as expensive as some of the stuff that's worse that you're going to get at a mattress store.
	All righty.
	Speaking of social media companies botching their job, Google on Thursday announced that it opted to disband its newly formed Artificial Intelligence Ethics Council following aggressive pushback from more than 2,000 Google employees.
	What happened?
	Well, a Google spokesperson in a statement said Google is going back to its drawing board.
	Why?
	It became clear that in the current environment, the council can't function as we want it.
	So we are ending the council.
	We're going back to the drawing board.
	Google had announced its new AI ethics board, a body tasked with serving as an ethical check on Google's AI technology production last week.
	The board was immediately met with controversy as thousands of Google employees and hundreds of external petitioners took issue with one of the board's members, who they said had an anti-trans and anti-immigrant record.
	Who was this?
	K. Cole James, who's president of the Heritage Foundation.
	That is a mainstream conservative organization, and K. Cole James is about as mainstream a conservative as you can find.
	But because she believes that men are men and women are women, and she believes that we should have border security, this means that she cannot be present in a hearing between multiple viewpoints about AI ethics.
	A petition from Google employees, signed by almost 2,400 of them, said by appointing James, Google elevates and endorses her views, implying that hers is a valid perspective worthy of inclusion in its decision-making.
	This is unacceptable.
	In other words, her views are not even valid.
	They are not even valid.
	So what did Google do instead of standing up to their own internal mob?
	These are all their employees.
	Instead of them standing up to their own internal mob, they're just saying, guys, cool your jets.
	They have a wide variety of perspectives on this panel.
	This is a mainstream conservative pound sand.
	Instead, they caved and they disbanded their own board.
	These tech companies are just, they're just cowards.
	They're legitimately cowards.
	They won't stand up for freedom of speech or diversity of opinion on their own internal boards, let alone in their public policy.
	And now they are calling for the government to come in and regulate?
	And of course, who will that affect the most?
	It'll affect alternatives.
	Because if you regulate Google or you regulate Facebook, let's say that there's a new Google or Facebook who wants to come up, and they don't want to regulate speech in the same way that Facebook and Google do.
	They want to have a broader platform.
	It's too late.
	The government's already regulated the entire industry.
	So it's now impossible for you to actually create an alternative to Facebook or Google.
	Once the government regulates this sort of stuff, by the way, then you are looking at true monopoly.
	You really are.
	People have said, well, shouldn't we break up Google or break up Facebook?
	And I've always said, no, these are private companies.
	Rivals can crop up.
	And those rivals could take a different viewpoint on how to build an algorithm or what kind of free speech to allow.
	It's a private company.
	Once the government regulates, that is no longer the case.
	Then you have to start regulating these things like monopolies because effectively they are.
	The AI Ethics Council is over and we did this together, the Googlers Against Transphobia account tweeted.
	So many people answered the call to stand against transphobia.
	We thank you for your support and unwillingness to compromise on hate.
	One of the council's members dropped out almost immediately after the council was announced.
	Leading behavior economist and privacy researcher Alessandro Acquisti last week tweeted, I'd like to share that I've declined the invitation to the council while I'm devoted to research grappling with key ethical issues of fairness, rights, and inclusion in AI.
	I don't believe this is the right forum for me.
	On Wednesday, another one of the council members, Luciano Florida, a leading AI expert, wrote that James' inclusion was a grave error and sends the wrong message.
	In other words, any conservative cannot be part of the Google board.
	I mean, this sort of top-down idiocy at these major social media companies, combined with government power, turns this from a company sucking at its job to an actual monopoly issue.
	Alrighty, meanwhile, The 2020 race is heating up.
	There are no less than 18 potential Democratic candidates who want to jump into the race.
	And the list just goes on and on and on.
	There's a top tier.
	The top tier is probably four or five people.
	It's basically Biden, Bernie, Beto.
	It's the three Bs, plus Kamala Harris.
	I would say that that's probably the top tier in the Democratic Party right now.
	By polling data, that's the top tier in the Democratic Party right now.
	And Biden is the one who is in trouble, shockingly enough.
	Without any real rationale, I gotta say, like, again, because he did not have the courage of his convictions, because he was unwilling to simply come out and say, listen, I've never sexually harassed anyone.
	I've never sexually abused anyone.
	And if people were offended, I'm sorry.
	I'm just a physically affectionate guy.
	Instead of him just saying that and letting it go, he had to kowtow to the mob.
	It's not going to stop.
	Once you kowtow to the mob, it never stops.
	Ever.
	You never apologize to the mob, is the rule of modern American politics.
	If you don't apologize to the mob, like Ralph Northam, you're still governor of Virginia.
	If you do apologize to the mob, like Al Franken, you no longer have a Senate seat.
	That's the way this works.
	It's unfortunate, but that is the way that it works.
	And we are now supposed to take seriously every allegation of something terrible happening.
	I mentioned yesterday one of the allegations from a woman named Sophie Karasek, a survivor's rights advocate and progressive organizer who appeared at the Oscars with Lady Gaga.
	And she now has a piece in the Washington Post called, A Photo of Me and Joe Biden Went Viral.
	I want him to take ownership for his actions.
	This is the one I talked about yesterday, where this lady took the photo, had it printed, had it framed, put it on her bookshelf, and then decided two to three years later that it was actually a very, very bad thing.
	Very, very bad.
	She apparently interacted with Biden two months later at a conference in Colorado.
	She said, quote, So over time, it started to offend you?
	And this is Joe Biden's fault?
	So over time, it started to offend you?
	And this is Joe Biden's fault?
	No one can live by these constantly shifting standards in the Democratic Party.
	Really, there's this moment in the new, not very good Star Wars movie in The Last Jedi, where Kylo Ren, who's the bad guy, turns to Rey, who is the Mary Sue good character, and they're fighting together for a brief moment in time.
	And Kylo Ren turns to Mary Sue, to Rey, sorry, and says to her...
	And says to her, you know, we should just kill all the oldies and start something new.
	And she's like, no, we can't do that.
	We totally can't.
	And then they fight each other, right?
	Well, that is basically what the Democratic Party is right now.
	It's a battle between Kylo Ren and Rey.
	It's the newbies saying, let's kill all the oldies.
	Let's kill all of them.
	Right?
	Sure.
	They helped us build this empire.
	Sure.
	They're the ones who got us to where we are, but they're oldies, man.
	And they don't understand the new wave.
	Now, the thing about this sort of mentality is that the revolutionaries are usually the first to the guillotine, meaning that sooner or later these people will be hoisted by their own petard.
	Biden is one of them, by the way.
	He's one of the people who pushed for lowering standards when it came to proving sexual misconduct in Title IX cases, for example.
	But Biden is now being shellacked by his own party for stuff that even the people who were the quote-unquote victims did not consider victimization at the time.
	That's how far we have moved.
	And the worm has turned.
	I mean, Nancy Pelosi, I'm old enough to remember when Nancy Pelosi was the great radical inside her own party.
	Now she's the establishment holding back the radicals.
	For example, yesterday, Bernie Sanders tweeted this out.
	He tweeted out, Those who oppose Medicare for all need to explain why our current failed system should be allowed to continue bankrupting the American people.
	Okay, well, then Nancy Pelosi comes out and she's like, um, you know that Medicare for all thing?
	Uh, not a great idea.
	If he really opposes Medicare for All, by the way, if he's upset with Medicare for All, I mean, with opponents of Medicare for All, you know who he should talk to?
	Joe Biden.
	And Barack Obama.
	Because Barack Obama is the creator of that system he is criticizing right now.
	When Bernie Sanders says, if you stand for the current system, you're standing for high costs on people, who does he think constructed the current system?
	He voted for it, by the way.
	It was Barack Obama and Joe Biden who, as I recall, said to Barack Obama that the new system was a big effing deal.
	A phrase that was so popular among Democrats that it was sold on a t-shirt by the DNC.
	It's the old guard Democrats versus the new fangled socialists.
	This is why Speaker Nancy Pelosi is out of step with her own party.
	She questioned today whether a health care proposal embraced by several Democratic presidential candidates would be too expensive and fail to provide the same coverage as the Affordable Care Act.
	Instead, she suggested she'd rather build on Obamacare, is yet to be convinced the Medicare for All proposal pushed by many liberals would achieve its purported goals.
	She said in an interview with the Washington Post, quote, I'm agnostic.
	Show me how you think you can get there.
	We all share the value of health care for all Americans, quality, affordable health care for all Americans.
	What is the path to that?
	I think it's the Affordable Care Act.
	And if that leads to Medicare for All, that may be the path.
	She also suggested that Medicare for All had become more of a buzzword among political activists in the run-up to the 2020 campaign, which is basically her ripping on all the 2020 candidates, saying, you guys are ignoring the effect of Obamacare so that you can run for president.
	She says, when most people say they're for Medicare for All, I think they mean health care for all.
	Let's see what that means.
	A lot of people love having their employer-based insurance and the Affordable Care Act gave them better benefits, which is not actually true, but sure.
	The fact that Nancy Pelosi has now been castigated as out of the mainstream by her own party is pretty telling.
	The fact that Joe Biden is now considered retrograde by his own party demonstrates that when you have no fundamental principles to which you adhere, it is pretty easy for you to be cast overboard by the newer More robust socialists among you.
	It's pretty incredible.
	Meanwhile, President Trump facing challenges of his own.
	Apparently Michael Cohen now, I guess he's trying to cut a better deal or something?
	He's trying to delay his prison time.
	According to the Washington Times, President Trump's former personal lawyer Michael Cohen says he has new information to offer Democrats if authorities reduce or delay his upcoming three-year prison sentence.
	First of all, I'm not sure what he thinks he's doing.
	I mean, he is a bad lawyer, obviously, but his plea agreement says he had to be completely forthcoming with prosecutors all the way through.
	If he says that now he has new material, that means he was not forthcoming before, so they could theoretically revoke his sentence and give him a new, longer sentence.
	In a letter to lawmakers on Thursday, Cohen's attorneys say he has discovered substantial files on a hard drive that could help investigations of the president.
	So now he's trying to become a hero of the resistance.
	The hard drive is said to include over 14 million files consisting of all emails, voice recordings, images, and attachments from Cohen's computers and phones.
	But Cohen has already testified that he has no actual evidence of Russian collusion, even though he is trying to float such evidence now to Democrats.
	According to a memo that he apparently sent to Democrats, he said that he would provide significant value to the various congressional oversight and investigation committees.
	Honestly, this may be more of a threat to Democrats than it is to Trump, because Cohen probably doesn't have much that is new, but Democrats could continue to spiral down this hole and never recover.
	If they focus in here, I'm not sure that's a smart strategy for them.
	In just a second, gotta give you the Jussie Smollett update, and then we'll get to some mailbagging because it's Friday.
	First, Let's face it, Congress, they stink.
	The balance of powers that was guaranteed by the Constitution of the United States has completely fallen apart.
	In some ways, Congress has overstepped its boundaries regulating on activities that have nothing to do with Congress's original purview.
	And in other ways, Congress has kicked a lot of power to the executive branch, to the regulatory bodies, so that they never have to be held accountable.
	We need to restore the checks and balances that were originally invested in the Constitution The only way to do that is to call a convention of states where we the people can propose amendments.
	Those would be amendments that could force changes to the current balance of power, that could restrict the power of the federal government to intervene in your life.
	Can you imagine the look on the faces of federal regulators and members of Congress when they realize they can no longer control your life as they once wanted to?
	Calling a Convention of States is the only way to get the job done.
	There are already 3.8 million people with us on this and more every day.
	So join me and Mark Meckler and go to conventionofstates.com slash Ben.
	Go sign the petition today.
	I know there are people who worry about a runaway convention.
	The fact is that every amendment still has to be approved by two-thirds of the states.
	So that's really not an issue.
	Go to conventionofstates.com slash Ben.
	Sign the petition today.
	That is conventionofstates.com slash Ben.
	Help restore the original constitutional checks and balances that ensured limited government and our freedom.
	Go to conventionofstates.com Again, almost 4 million people with us on this already.
	Go to conventionofstates.com slash Ben and check it out right now because obviously that balance of power does need to be restored at the first available opportunity.
	Already, I think, what, 13 states have approved the Convention of States?
	So go check it out right now and become part of the fight.
	Conventionofstates.com slash Ben.
	Alright, Jussie Smollett update.
	So, apparently, Jussie Smollett has now refused to pay.
	Chicago had sent Jussie Smollett a bill for like $130,000, which, by the way, he can afford to pay.
	He made, apparently, about $100,000 an episode from Empire.
	Well, now the city of Chicago is going to sue him.
	Last week, the Cook County State Attorney, they dropped 16 counts against Smollett, of course.
	The decision caused an uproar in Chicago.
	Mayor Rahm Emanuel and other officials blasted the prosecutor's office.
	Two days later, the city's Department of Law sent Smollett a bill in the amount of $130,000 and gave him a week to pay up.
	That deadline expired on Thursday afternoon.
	The law department issued a statement saying it was drafting a lawsuit.
	They said Mr. Smollett has refused to reimburse the city of Chicago for the cost of police overtime spent investigating his false police report on January 29th, 2019.
	The law department is now drafting a civil complaint that will be filed in the circuit court of Cook County.
	The law department will file the suit in the near future.
	As part of this legal action, the law department will pursue the full measure of damage as allowed under the ordinance.
	Smollett, of course, had falsely claimed that he was jumped while walking on the street at 2 a.m.
	on the way back from the subway by two white guys wearing red hats who used racial and homophobic slurs and shouted that it was MAGA country.
	And now he is going to be sued for $130,000.
	Meanwhile, the real scandal here is the prosecutor in this particular case, Kim Foxx, who has significant political connections to Team Obama.
	Yesterday, the police union called on Kim Foxx to resign her job.
	We are here today.
	We're very grateful for the top police officials who are here with one united voice to demand the resignation of Cook County State's Attorney Kimberly Fox.
	This is not just about Jesse Smollett.
	This is about many cases in the Cook County system that have gone unprosecuted or having charges reduced.
	And what she's doing is she's enabling the offenders.
	The bad guys are not being held accountable.
	So today we're here to ask State's Attorney Fox to do the right thing to step down and resign from her position.
	Okay, and this has been the commonly held position among the police chiefs all over the city of Chicago.
	Suburban police chiefs and the Fraternal Order of Police called out Kim Foxx yesterday and they suggested that she needed to resign over the case.
	A group of suburban police chiefs joined with the Chicago Fraternal Order of Police.
	They gave her a vote of no confidence Thursday.
	The Fraternal Order of Police President Kevin Graham and some other 30 suburban police leaders took it a step further.
	They called on Fox to resign, and that's what you just heard.
	Fox's office would not respond.
	They said, I was elected by the people of Cook County to pursue community safety, prevent harm, and uphold the values of fairness and equal justice.
	I'm proud of my record in doing that.
	I plan to do so through the end of my term.
	And if the people will, so will it into the future.
	Graham said the union's issues with Fox's office didn't start with Jussie Smollett.
	He expressed frustration that Fox's office had dropped murder charges against Gabriel Solash and Arturo Reyes in late 2017 after a judge threw out their confessions.
	At the time, Fox's then-top assistant said the office still believed the two had fatally stabbed a couple in their Bucktown neighborhood home in 1998, but had no choice to dismiss the charges after the judge discredited testimony by a retired detective.
	Since mid-2016, about a dozen convictions tied to that particular detective have been thrown out of court because of allegations that the former detective beat suspects and coerced confessions.
	Apparently, this ticked off the Fraternal Order of Police.
	So, listen, the Chicago Police Department has had a bevy of problems, but that's really not the case when it comes to this particular case.
	This particular Smollett case was interviewed all the way down to the ground, and the fact that Kim Foxx decided not to prosecute is pretty astonishing.
	Meanwhile, speaking of law and order, the situation on the border continues to degrade.
	The crisis on the border continues to move ahead.
	We spoke yesterday on the radio show with a member of the Border Patrol down in San Diego who said that the crisis was essentially historic.
	He said he'd never really seen much like this.
	Tens of thousands of people descending on the border en masse.
	President Trump doesn't really know what to do because nobody knows what to do.
	Nobody really knows what to do.
	So the fact is that Democrats are not providing the funding.
	President Trump needs the funding in order to secure the border.
	And media are now beginning to cover this.
	And so what do Democrats do?
	Do they take seriously the problems at the border?
	No, of course they don't take seriously the problems at the border.
	So Lawrence Jones is a reporter for Fox News.
	Okay, he went down to the border and he put on a flak jacket.
	And the reason he put on a flak jacket is because in this particular area, There had been a case of 12 Mexican Marines wounded in a shootout in the nearby area.
	This is like a couple of weeks ago.
	This is March 26, 2018 from the Associated Press.
	A Mexican Marine and four suspected gunmen were killed during a coordinated series of ambushes against Marine patrols in a northern Mexico border city, authorities reported on Sunday.
	So Lawrence Chose goes down there, and he is told by the Border Patrol, put on this flak jacket because we just don't know what we're going to encounter out there.
	So what does AOC do, naturally?
	Fresh-faced Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez, very fresh, very face.
	She tweeted out, Fox is really out here doing the most on a budget to make the border look more dangerous than it is.
	And then she tweeted the laughing, crying emoji as though the border is not a dangerous place.
	Well, Lawrence Jones responded.
	He said, Yeah, it is.
	And there's a reason I am wearing this bulletproof vest.
	The Border Patrol agent that's standing right here keeping us safe told me to put it on, to keep us safe here.
	What people don't understand is that we control this side of the border, but the cartel controls the other side of the border.
	So there's been gunfights.
	I'm going in danger with these Border Patrol agents to report on this story.
	The public doesn't know that over the last two and a half years, there has been an uptick over 200% of violence against these agents.
	And so, in order to do my job and the border agents to do their job, I had to come with this vest that they supplied.
	Okay, this is obviously true.
	Okay, I've talked to people who are serving down at the border, and what they've told me is there are cases where the cartels who are on the other side of the border, they've got binoculars, they've got eyes on a lot of the border patrol agents.
	They will figure out who they are, and then they will call up their hotel rooms and threaten them.
	So this idea that the border is a perfectly safe place, that's the myth.
	That's the myth, that the border is a perfectly safe... You literally have an organized criminal outfit that has killed legitimately thousands and thousands of people in Mexico, sitting right on the other side of that border.
	And we're supposed to believe that it's somehow out of bounds for a reporter to wear a flak vest?
	It's just insane.
	It's just insane.
	You know, Howard Schultz, who turns out to be maybe the only reasonable person in the 2018 race, I mean, he's amazing.
	The former CEO of Starbucks, one of the few sane people apparently running for office, and he's sane because he's really not from the political... He's really not from a political party at this point.
	He pointed out yesterday on Fox News that President Trump is correct on securing the border, which is obviously and eminently true.
	President Trump is correct, and the Republican leadership is correct, that we need fierce, strict levels of control on that border to keep bad people from coming in.
	Illegal immigrants should not come in.
	I don't want to get into a wall or anything, but I agree we should fund whatever we need to do to secure the border.
	The Democrats are not correct.
	We should be funding ICE and giving them all the tools and resources they need to secure the borders and arrest the bad people.
	Okay, that is of course true.
	But Howard Schultz is considered an outcast from his own party because he says those things.
	I mean, the Democrats' response to this effectively is, not only should we not police the border, we should catch and release everybody.
	And when we release them, what should we do?
	What should we do with them?
	How are we going to integrate them into the American economy?
	We should teach them coding.
	I am not kidding you.
	Ro Khanna, who is a congressperson from out here in California, a Democratic congressperson from out here in California, he says that what we need to do is bring everybody through and then we can teach them coding.
	Why is this a solution to everything except for journalism?
	If you say to a journalist on Twitter, learn to code, they will suspend you.
	If you're a congressperson who says we should teach illegal immigrants, many of whom do not have a high school education, how to code, then this is somehow a solution to the border crisis.
	There's no doubt that the numbers of people coming over has increased.
	That's a fact.
	Vanderbilt has done a study that one of the real reasons that people are coming over is an increase in violence.
	I believe we need to have U.S.
	aid programs that are working, that are decreasing the violence there, that are teaching people about coding so people stay there, so folks aren't coming across the border.
	So we're going to teach them to code in Honduras is the idea here?
	Yeah, good solutions, guys.
	Well done.
	That's definitely going to fix things.
	Okay, in a second, we'll get to the mailbag.
	First, let's talk about how you can alleviate that back pain.
	So it may sound kind of weird, but hanging upside down is actually a pretty great way to decompress the back and joints after a workout and boost recovery.
	You may not know it, but I work out on a regular basis.
	This is why I am just ripped.
	But that means that sometimes my back hurts after a workout, and I need inversion therapy.
	It uses gravity and your own body weight to decompress the spine and release tension in your shoulders, neck, and joint.
	Over 3 million people have put their trust in Teeter.
	The Teeter Inversion Table is the best inversion table on the market.
	They've been the best known name in inversion tables since 1981, and they are offering a great deal just for my listeners.
	For a limited time, you can get a brand new 2019 Teeter FitSpine Inversion Table model with bonus accessories and a free pair of gravity boots so you can invert at home or take the boots with you to the gym.
	Teeter Inversion Tables have thousands of reviews on Amazon with an average 4.6 star rating.
	And with this deal, you will get $150 off when you go to teeter.com slash ben.
	That is T-E-E-T-E-R dot com slash ben.
	You also get free shipping, free returns, a 60 day money back guarantee.
	So what exactly are you waiting for?
	There's no risk to try it out.
	Remember, you can only get that new 2019 Teeter FitSpine Inversion Table plus a free pair of gravity boots by going to teeter.com slash ben.
	That's T-E-E-T-E-R dot com.
	Slash Ben, I love Teeter.
	You will too.
	Teeter.com slash Ben.
	T-E-E-T-E-R dot com slash Ben.
	Go check it out right now.
	Okay, in a second, we're going to get to the mailbag.
	But first, I need to remind you that as a thank you to our Daily Wire annual subscribers, we are giving a shout out to a different subscriber every Friday.
	Today, E.J.
	Cronin on Instagram.
	We are thanking you For supporting what we do.
	In this photo, it appears that one of EJ's students came in with her leftist yours tumblr, and EJ put her in a choke because she wouldn't share the tumblr with him.
	She now realizes that chokes, like facts, do not care about your feeling.
	EJ, thank you for being a subscriber.
	We really appreciate it.
	If you want a chance at being featured on the show, become a Daily Wire annual subscriber, post a photo of your leftist year's Tumblr on Twitter or Instagram.
	Go check it out right now.
	Also, make sure that you subscribe for $9.99 a month or $99 a year.
	When you do, you get all the various glories we have talked about so many times.
	You get to join the show for two hours in the afternoon.
	We sometimes answer questions during the breaks.
	We answer questions in the mailbag.
	We give you early access to the Sunday special, which this week is Andrew Yang.
	I think it's one of our best Sunday specials ever.
	You get early access.
	Get that on Saturday, plus questions that you haven't heard behind the paywall, all sorts of goodies.
	And, you know, we really appreciate your subscribership.
	So let's get to the mailbag.
	Today, we are not actually cutting off the YouTube stream.
	So congratulations to you.
	Same thing with Facebook.
	So let's do some mailbag.
	Josiah says, Hi Ben.
	I listened to much of your conversation with Joe Rogan.
	When you were talking about decriminalizing marijuana, it makes me wonder how to sell this to religious communities.
	I had a good conversation with my pastor about it.
	Well, I think he made a great point in saying if we were to vote for decriminalization or legalization, he felt he would be signing approval, signaling approval for the usage.
	I tried to rebut by saying when we do things the right way or God's way, it works.
	The war on drugs is a complete failure.
	I said it was sinful because we as Christians weren't being a good steward of God's money or resources.
	Though he agreed, he would refuse to ever vote to decriminalize or legalize marijuana.
	Most of the parishioners in my church are much less open-minded to that conversation.
	I respect people's moral opposition, it just seems like a giant waste of money to me.
	Do most people in your synagogue disagree with you?
	Well, I would say there's a pretty broad disagreement in my synagogue and in religious communities generally about decriminalization of marijuana.
	So what is a good way to convince the religious community that the government is obviously not competent enough to deal with the issue?
	Well, I think that the first thing that you have to recognize is that just because something is bad doesn't mean that the government gets to regulate it.
	I do not like using the government as the imprimatur of appropriate behavior.
	I don't think that's the government's role.
	And in fact, I think it's been a huge mistake for conservatives to use government action as a sort of moral substitute.
	For social disapproval.
	So we disapprove of something, therefore we pass a law against it, and then we use that law to crack down on the behavior, and then when we fail at cracking down on the behavior, then we legalize the behavior, and now the moral imprimatur is taken away, and people think it's okay to do something.
	I don't think that's how we should view things.
	I don't think politicians are moral leaders.
	I don't think that laws are about installing a quote-unquote moral system.
	They're about preventing harm to others.
	Installing moral systems is something you do in your home.
	Installing moral systems is something you do in your religious community.
	Yes, there's more of an onus on churches to take responsibility for their members when it comes to the use of marijuana or overuse or abuse of marijuana.
	If you were to decriminalize it, presumably it would become more common in particular areas.
	But that is not an argument in favor of the government simply enforcing your views on someone who is doing no harm to anyone else.
	Externality is the measure of what a government ought to do.
	So you really ought to discover, I mean, you really ought to discuss what government is there to do, and then move from there, rather than talk about whether it is moral or not to smoke pot.
	Because I don't think these two questions have to do with anything.
	I mean, this is basically the conversation that I had with Joe, not only on marijuana use, but also on same-sex marriage.
	I said that the government does not have a role here.
	That does not mean that I personally am in favor of same-sex marriage, because I'm not.
	Stephen says, hey, Ben, what are you looking for in episode...
	I think it's very difficult to imagine a universe in which they can recover from what they did, not only in The Last Jedi, but from Force Awakens.
	I thought Force Awakens was wildly overrated.
	I think that they should, honestly, listen, they're never going to do this.
	It's a billion dollar industry.
	If it weren't for that, they should throw out episodes 7, 8, and presumably 9.
	They should go back and they should throw out episodes 1, 2, and 3 and they should start over.
	As I've said before, what they should have done after episode 6 is they should have either skipped forward 100 years and then relaunched an entirely new Star Wars universe, or they should have actually recast all of the characters after Return of the Jedi.
	I mean, they did it for Solo.
	And then just moved on with the story.
	That would have made a lot more sense than simply killing off these characters in the dumbest possible way to make room for new and significantly more boring characters.
	Also, they made a huge mistake in not allowing Rey and Kylo Ren to team up.
	That would have been so much more interesting.
	So much more interesting.
	Like this whole, okay, now we're going to revert back to Kylo Ren as Darth Vader and Rey as Luke.
	We saw that story already.
	We don't need the same story again.
	Adiel says, hey, Ben, I'm writing a paper on affirmative action.
	What would you say is the biggest issue with the policy specifically in regard to post-secondary education?
	Well, there are two major issues with affirmative action.
	Issue number one is it doesn't actually tend to help the people that it seeks to help.
	There's not a lot of data to demonstrate that affirmative action has been effective in increasing the upward mobility of people who benefit from affirmative action.
	Dropout rates are significantly higher for people who get into college through affirmative action.
	It also creates a broad spread perception, a widespread perception, that people who are of the race that has benefited from affirmative action are somehow unqualified because probably they got in, or maybe they got in, or possibly they got in through affirmative action.
	It does create a certain level of social stigma.
	If you look at your class and you say, well, I know some of these people got in with lower SAT scores, and I can tell who they are, probably, or at least possibly based on race, that creates an unfair stigma on a bunch of people who may have gotten in not based on that.
	And that's really not a great thing.
	Then there is the question of who is being excluded by affirmative action.
	And typically, it is not actually white people.
	It is Asian people.
	Asian people are outperforming at major colleges across the country.
	This has been true of Harvard, where a lawsuit is now going on on the basis of all of this.
	Using standard metrics is a far better way of admitting students than this Ridiculous, holistic examination of your college essay.
	So you got 200 points less on the SAT, but you had a hard life, and so we are going to pretend that that is the equivalent of an Asian person who had a hard life, but got 200 points higher on the SAT.
	Race does not make up for performance when it comes to these issues.
	Again, if you have two people, and they have the same SAT scores, and one had a harder life than the other, race or not, race as a factor or not, then Fine.
	I mean, that's good.
	That person who has the harder life has overcome more to get the same scores.
	But if you're talking about letting in someone with a 1200 SAT to Harvard because that person was of a particular race, that is obviously a separation of human beings by race and an aspect of racism that is quite unpleasant.
	I've been a fan for years.
	out here in the socialist republic of canada it is more than the weather that is bleak in our future i know you don't follow canadian politics who could really but i'd like to know what given the limited information you have now what would you want for a canadian conservatism in the future well i think that a canadian conservatism would start by pushing back against a lot of the free speech encroachments that have happened in places like british columbia where you could theoretically be prosecuted for violating particular political beliefs the same thing is true i believe in ontario of bill c16
	i would start there and push back against the idea that the government gets to cram down on people what to think or how to raise their children it's very very dangerous stuff socialized medicine obviously won't be touched in canada because once people are given what they see as an entitlement they are very loath to give it up But obviously, socialized medicine in Canada has some serious, serious problems.
	Such serious problems that a part of Canada was forced to recently open up the private market because people simply were not getting the care that they needed from Canada's public market.
	Lower taxes, obviously, would be a factor in driving more business to Canada.
	I mean, I don't want to rip on Canada too much.
	I think Canada's a pretty great place, but that's, those are a few corrections.
	Jonathan says, Hey Ben, long time listener, first time subscriber.
	I have a cousin who attends USC.
	She loves her time there.
	However, she's afraid she's a diehard Ben Shapiro subscriber because she's afraid of being criticized.
	I know her story is not the only one that breaks my heart.
	I live in Texas.
	I'm starting to feel the same pressures, especially from Robert Francis supporters.
	That'd be better.
	Well, no, I don't see an end to that.
	In fact, I see a censorious left that is looking to harm people who disagree.
	I have a great story about this, in fact, from The College Fix today.
	Well, no, I don't see an end to that.
	In fact, I see a censorious left that is looking to harm people who disagree.
	I have a great story about this, in fact, from the College Fix today.
	Quote, "One evening last September, a Michigan State student, university, awoke from his nap to see his roommate sitting at his computer.
	There was a video playing, and the student realized his roommate was watching a video of conservative commentator Ben Shapiro.
	The newly awoken student then took to his own computer to file a complaint with the administration's biased reporting system against his roommate for watching the Shapiro video.
	Ben Shapiro is known for his inflammatory speech that criticizes and attacks the African American community.
	The student wrote in his report against his roommate, I'd like to see any evidence that I have attacked the African American community, like legitimate evidence.
	He said, I thought hate speech, I thought hate had no place on MSU's campus, yet MSU has roomed me with someone who supports hate speech, spelled S-P-E-A-C-H.
	Okay.
	Shapiro is a popular conservative pundit, says the College Fix, whose appearances on college campuses are frequently accompanied with protests.
	In response, the university tasked an investigator to look into the matter, who is told to work for a room change if the claimant would like one.
	First of all, if I were the other student, I'd be like, yeah, get this person out of here, because this person is crazy.
	If my roommate in college were watching Rachel Maddow, I wouldn't file a complaint.
	And that's a near human rights violation, for goodness sake.
	But no, the tolerance is not going to be extended anytime soon.
	Raphael says, Hey Ben, I agree that abortion is a sin and immoral.
	However, in my opinion, the government should allow it with proper education in cases of rape.
	The argument that it is the person's responsibility since they did not use contraceptives and they chose to have sex does not apply in rapes.
	What is the pro-life position in this case?
	And in your opinion, is there a valid argument to be made for this kind of policy?
	Well, the pro-life position is not dependent on the quote unquote responsibility of the person.
	Because again, the actual pro-life position has to do with the status of the human life growing in the womb.
	It's actually a separate question The quote-unquote responsibility.
	Responsibility adds to the mix in the sense that if there is a predictable result to the thing that you are voluntarily doing and then that result happens, you can't throw up your hands and go, oh my God, I was victimized by life.
	That's just silly.
	But that's really not what we are trying.
	We're not trying to punish somebody with a baby.
	That's not the idea here, right?
	As Barack Obama said, punishing somebody with a baby.
	You don't want to punish her with a baby.
	That is not what we are talking about.
	We are talking about protecting the life of an infant.
	We're talking about protecting the incipient life of a baby.
	And that really has nothing to do with where the responsibility lies, it has to do with the idea that you are not allowed to kill a baby because the original creation of the baby was not your responsibility.
	In other words, if somebody leaves a baby on my doorstep, and I open the door and there's the baby, and then I shut the door and I just leave the baby out there to die, that's not something that we should presumably morally be okay with.
	Now, in Western law, this is one of the dicier issues in Western law.
	In Western law, the question is, is there a duty of care that attends a person who you are not related to?
	What is the duty?
	So in Western law, we've been reluctant.
	The best argument for abortion in cases of rape is this argument, effectively, which is, If you're walking by a person who is drowning, you don't actually have a responsibility under Western law to jump in the water and save that person, even if you could do so pretty easily.
	There's no responsibility in Western law.
	So that could theoretically be extended to cases of abortion and cases of rape, but the problem is that there's a difference between not saving somebody, letting them die, and actively killing somebody.
	So if the baby is on my front door and somebody leaves the baby at my doorstep, and then I open the door, And it's not just me closing the door now, now it's me actively stabbing the baby.
	That is now a completely different question.
	Sure, go read my book, The People vs. Barack Obama.
	President Obama's administration has been scandal-free.
	Could you go over some of the top scandals people are forgetting?
	Thanks.
	Sure, go read my book, "The People Vs. Barack Obama," came out in 2014?
	Sorry, 2015, I believe.
	And that book goes through a bevy of Barack Obama scandals, ranging from HHS to the IRS.
	He had scandals, obviously, having to do with the NSA.
	He had many, many scandals during his administration.
	So, go read the book.
	I lay it all out in detail there.
	Nick says hi, Ben.
	Do you think Trump has a shot at Virginia in 2020?
	Unlikely.
	It's not a Trumpy state.
	Republicans in Virginia tend to be a little bit more moderate than Republicans in other conservative areas of the country.
	And Virginia has been largely turned by Northern Virginia, which is effectively a D.C.
	suburb.
	Orthodox Judaism believes that the Bible, the Torah, the five books of Moses, were given by God, and that they are true, and that the Talmudic tradition that interprets the Bible is in fact good and proper law and that you have to abide by the commandments of the Bible because that is what you are put on earth to do.
	Conservative Judaism, original conservative Judaism said that basically the Bible may have been God-inspired and that we could abrogate a lot of the laws because those laws are no longer relevant and said that the rabbinic tradition is not nearly as important as it has been in Orthodox Judaism for a long time and Reform Judaism Honestly, I'm not sure even what the doctrine of Reform Judaism is at this point.
	They say that the Torah may not have been biblically and may not have been God-inspired.
	It may be just a historical document.
	The bottom line is that conservative used to be kind of closer to what modern orthodox is now.
	Now conservative Judaism has fallen into disrepair and moved toward reform Judaism.
	The only growing area of Judaism right now is the orthodox community.
	Well, certainly there is an attempt to downgrade particular states, right?
	Well, certainly there is an attempt to downgrade particular states, right?
	Nobody would spend time in Wisconsin or in Michigan or in Pennsylvania outside of the major urban areas if it were just a popular vote.
	And this is one of the big arguments in favor of the Electoral College, is that if you want to have a country that holds together across a disparate population, you do need to give a certain level of outsized impact to people who don't live in city centers, or those people are simply going to say, listen, leave me alone.
	I'm going to break away.
	I'm not interested in listening to what the people from the big city want to do with my life.
	We're not part of the same community.
	One of the things that keeps communities together is a certain level of care that is taken for people who are living outside these sort of city centers and levers of power.
	Let's see.
	Tori says, Hey Ben, love the show.
	As you know, the left has pushed this idea that men and women are completely the same and that all gender roles are socially constructed.
	I do believe there are gender roles that are socially constructed, but I also believe a lot of feminine and masculine attributes are human nature.
	Can you say which gender roles you consider to be socially constructed and which you believe are influenced by biology?
	Well, you can tell which gender roles are socially constructed and which are influenced by biology by looking cross-culturally.
	So the fact is that women tend to be more caring and affectionate.
	They tend to be more interested in interpersonal relationships.
	Men tend to be obsessed with objects and things and mechanisms.
	The male tendency toward aggression and violence is documented not just in the human species, but also in virtually all mammalian species.
	These are things that are hardcore embedded.
	The sort of cultural outgrowths of that have manifested in various modes of dress.
	Obviously, the notion that women are more nurturing, that women are less physically aggressive has manifested in sort of prettier garments for women in most cultures, for example.
	But as far as gender roles that are sort of constructed, well, I mean, the idea that women were not supposed to work at all was an exaggeration of a perceived gender binary.
	So the idea was that women are more likely to want to be in the home, and they're the ones who bear and rear children.
	There's a certain biological truth to that, but that was taken to the extreme by saying, well, women shouldn't work outside the home, and obviously that's stupid.
	So what has very often happened is that gender roles are based in reality, but then they are pushed too far to the point where they become oppressive.
	That's what has happened very often.
	Patrick says, Hey Ben, I wanted to ask you about the anti-Israel attitudes on college campuses.
	When I was in college, I took a course on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and looking back, it was basically anti-Israel propaganda.
	Shocker.
	This is what happens on college campuses.
	However, at the time, I was a pretty far-left student.
	I bought into it more readily.
	Only after learning about the conflict in more detail did I see the truth.
	My question to you is A. Why do you think anti-Israel and pro-Palestinian attitudes dominate leftist college campuses?
	And B. What can people who support Israel do to combat it?
	Also, any book recommendations about the conflict you know would be great?
	Okay, a couple of book recommendations.
	There's one by Mitchell Bard called Myths and Facts.
	There's also a really good book out by David Brog right now about Israel's history, so go search that.
	I think it's called Reclaiming Israel's History, I think is what it's called.
	That one is a very good read.
	Those are a couple of basic history books on the conflict.
	If you want deeper history books on the conflict, Michael Oren has written several on the various Israeli wars.
	There's a great book called The Prime Minister.
	It's about a person who was present during virtually all of Israel's history, writing about it, and it's really readable and interesting.
	So go check all of that out.
	The reason that anti-Israel and pro-Palestinian attitudes dominate leftist college campuses is because the left has a widespread view That anytime you see a rich person and a poor person, the rich person is responsible for the poor person's misery.
	And so when they look to the Middle East, and they see a westernized, liberal, powerful country like Israel, juxtaposed with a hellhole like the Gaza Strip, where a terrorist group is in charge, they want to attribute that to Israeli exploitation.
	Despite the fact that Israel abandoned the Gaza Strip in 2005.
	Despite the fact that the vast majority of Palestinians have been living under direct Palestinian control for the last 20 years.
	This is somehow Israel's fault, Even though Palestinian terror groups keep being elected and controlling the governments in these areas.
	It's a very convenient baton to wield against the Jewish state, which, after all, seeks to survive only.
	As Dennis Prager is fond of saying, if Israel put down all of its guns tomorrow, there would be no Israel.
	If the Palestinians put down all their guns tomorrow, there would be a Palestinian state.
	Alrighty, let's get to some things I like and then some things that I don't.
	So, first thing that I like today, There's a movie that came out and was largely ignored called Vox Lux.
	Now, I understand why it wasn't a popular movie, but it is one of the best takes on the depredations of Hollywood and modern culture that I've seen in a very long time.
	The basic premise of the film is that there's a young girl who is going to school in the late 90s, and her classroom is shot up in a Columbine-style attack, and she herself is shot.
	And when she recovers, she sings a song at a memorial service, and it becomes popular, and she ends up becoming a pop star.
	And the movie is basically about how she falls apart as a human being, thanks to the predations of Hollywood and the music industry, and how we as a society have decided to gloss over many of our problems with this sort of happy talk of pop music, that sort of, the Irisatz happiness that pop music is supposed to represent.
	It's kind of a deep meditation.
	It's not an enjoyable movie, but it is a really interesting movie.
	So go check it out, Voxlox.
	Okay.
	Other things that I like, so I just have to pay homage to this amazing nurse who has adopted a baby At the hospital that had not been visited for five months, is according to the Washington Post.
	Two years ago, Liz Smith, director of nursing at Franciscan Children's Hospital in Brighton, Massachusetts, was headed toward the elevator at work when she saw her.
	A tiny girl with bright blue eyes and a single soft brown curl swept across her forehead.
	Who's this beautiful angel?
	Smith asked the nurse who was wheeling the infant down the hall.
	Her name is Giselle, the nurse told her.
	The infant, a ward of the state, had been at the hospital for five months, but Smith had never seen her before.
	Smith learned that Giselle, then eight months old, had been born premature at another hospital in July 2016, weighing just under two pounds.
	She had neonatal abstinence syndrome, a result of her birth mother using heroin, cocaine, and meth during pregnancy.
	The state of Massachusetts took custody of Giselle when she was three months old, And transfer her to Franciscan Children's because her lungs needed specialized care and she had a feeding tube.
	The baby didn't have a single visitor in five months at the hospital.
	Social service workers were trying to place her in foster care.
	And so Smith decided to foster the baby and become her mother.
	She adopted the baby, which is just an amazing thing.
	You know, folks who adopt are the great unsung heroes in our society.
	They truly are.
	It's an amazing, amazing act of charity.
	It's a gift to the child and it's a gift to our society when people adopt.
	This nurse is an amazing human being and thank God there's so many.
	I know many parents who have adopted.
	They're doing something absolutely incredible and providing for every baby who requires a chance at a successful life.
	Adoption needs to be made easier in the country and needs to be facilitated by the state in a better possible way.
	OK, one final thing that I like.
	So as you know, I talk on the show a lot about Birch Gold.
	They're one of our sponsors and one of their representatives stopped by yesterday to talk to me about the future of the economy.
	Here's what that sounded like.
	Well, here we are on Things I Like, and one of the things that I like, as you know, is Birch Gold Group.
	We talk about them all the time, so much so that people have memes about us and Birch Gold Group.
	Well, joining us from Birch Gold Group today is Philip Patrick.
	He's the Senior Precious Metal Specialist over at Birch Gold Group.
	Philip, thanks so much for stopping by.
	Thanks for having me.
	So, let's start with this.
	There's been a lot of talk in recent months about the inversion of the yield curve.
	What exactly does that mean, and what does that indicate for the future of the economy?
	I mean, it's a really key sign that we have some tough times to come.
	Essentially, the yield curve charts interest rates on bonds short versus long-term.
	And in a normal climate, what you expect to see is shorter-term bonds will carry lower interest rates, longer-term bonds higher interest rates.
	Obvious reasons, right?
	I loan somebody money today, assess their creditworthiness, the chances of default in three months, fairly slim.
	Ten years, a lot of unforeseen circumstances, so I'll typically look for a higher interest rate.
	That's a normal climate with the yield curve.
	What we've seen recently, of course, back in December, some of those metrics started to invert.
	Now, what that means is shorter-term bonds will carry higher interest rates than longer-term bonds.
	So, it's a complete reversal of that trend.
	Negative, negative sign, right?
	Because what it implies is that in the short term, people don't see opportunity, right?
	Bad things are to come, so they're happy to tie their money up longer term, even if it's at a lower interest rate.
	A very negative sign.
	So what are some of the other signs that we've been seeing?
	I've seen a number of reports about employment slowing.
	What are some of the other signs that you're seeing in the economy about a sort of slowdown in the economy that we might be expecting here?
	Look, a lot of key metrics are reflecting bubbles and some bad things to come.
	We mentioned price-to-earning ratios last time I was here.
	Something we've been looking at very closely recently is something called a Smart Money Flow Index.
	It's a Bloomberg chart and essentially it's designed to track institutional money flows in and out of the stock market.
	And what we're seeing is a lot of institutional money last year and carrying on into this year Flooding out of the Dow Jones, a really, really big sign of tough things to come.
	What I think is even more interesting about the chart, it goes back to 1992, and it seems to show the uncanny ability of institutional investors to get out because we saw the same trend before the crash in 2008, same trend before the crash in 2000.
	So, a signal of tough things to come.
	So, Philip, what exactly can we do to prepare for the possibility of an economic slowdown?
	Look, I think a big part of it is staying informed, right?
	We're talking about looking at certain metrics.
	I think a lot of people like to bury their head in the sand, quite frankly, and that can be a dangerous thing.
	It's not hugely complicated.
	It's a case of understanding where opportunity exists, and I think making preemptive moves.
	And as you and I have discussed, I think precious metals, for a portion of one's portfolio in a climate like this, Can work really, really well.
	They're contrarian in nature, so the idea is, if we see losses on one portion, it should be the same climate driving growth in contrarian assets, so that losses could be mitigated.
	And this is what people mean by diversification.
	When people talk about diversification, you're not talking about everybody taking all their money and putting it into precious metals.
	You're talking about, you should have your eggs in more than one basket, effectively.
	Absolutely correct.
	You wouldn't recommend anyone taking all eggs and putting them in any one basket, but it's diversification, it's a measure of a hedge, that's exactly what we're talking about.
	So when it comes to precious metals, how have they performed historically versus the market, particularly in downtimes?
	That's the key, actually.
	Look, in times of economic boom, the stock market outperforms pretty much everything else.
	But it's in times of correction, right?
	It's in times of downturn.
	That's when contrarian safe-haven assets tend to perform.
	And you look at the last stock market crash in 2008.
	We saw a 50% correction in the Dow Jones, and gold and silver prices doubled in value in 18 months of that.
	So, historically, slow and steady growers, but in times of correction, they can perform very, very well.
	And you think the economic indicators point to, sometime in the near future, a market correction?
	It looks that way.
	It really does.
	Well, with that said, folks, if you are interested in diversifying the people you should be talking to are my friends over at Birchgold.
	They have the 16-page free information kit that you can go check out right now at birchgold.com slash Ben, or you can text Ben to 474747.
	There's a reason that I trust them.
	They have an A-plus rating from the Better Business Bureau.
	And there's a reason we advertise with them.
	They advertise with us, and that's because of that mutual trust relationship.
	They're folks that you can trust.
	They're going to tell you the truth about how much of your money you should put in.
	They're not going to try and oversell you.
	Go check them out right now at birchgold.com.
	And Phillip, thanks so much for stopping by.
	I really appreciate your time.
	Folks, check out Birchgold Group at birchgold.com slash Ben.
	Okay, time for some things that I hate, so let's just jump right in.
	Okay, so it is worthwhile noting that Students for Justice in Palestine actually is a group that has ties to terrorism.
	They were just given an award, apparently, at New York University.
	The Presidential Service Award at NYU.
	Despite the pushback we have received from our institution, we agree that we have made significant contributions to the university community in the areas of learning, leadership, and quality of student life.
	Anyway, New York University divests from Israeli apartheid.
	The attempts to boycott Israel on campuses is growing in stature.
	It's always fascinating to watch as groups like Students for Justice in Palestine, which again, do have ties to groups that are associated with terror, that those groups are given all sorts of credence, despite the fact that Students for Justice in Palestine is legitimately an anti-Semitic group.
	It's amazing.
	Instead of them doing Palestinian Pride Week, there's Israel Pride Week, which happens on campuses all over America.
	Instead of doing Palestinian Pride Week, they do Israeli Apartheid Week, because the goal is to label the Israelis as a bunch of evil racists, despite the fact that Israeli Arabs are treated better than Muslims in any part of the Middle East, bar none, it is not close.
	Despite the fact that Arab parties sit in the Knesset, despite the fact that there's a Palestinian on the Supreme Court of Israel, none of that matters.
	Israel is the bad guy, and so they put out posters like this one.
	For Israel Apartheid Week, in which it shows a Palestinian who is throwing a, it looks like a paint can, a spray paint can at an Israeli.
	And this is either causing the Israeli to have a bump on his head or the Israeli soldier has horns.
	And is following the Palestinian with a gun.
	Because that's all that's happening there, is that people are spray-painting and then the Israelis shoot them.
	It's not that terrorists are trying to break through the border and murder Israeli citizens, or fire rockets into civilian areas in the middle of Israel.
	It truly is astonishing.
	And this sort of stuff is not only tolerated on college campuses, which it should be.
	I mean, bad rhetoric should be tolerated on college campuses, obviously.
	But it is promoted by the administration in many of these cases.
	Students for Justice in Palestine, according to the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, Has significant ties to Islamic terror groups, this is according to the Los Angeles Jewish Journal.
	The JCPA report notes that the National SJP Organization was established in 2010 by American Muslims for Palestine, AMP, the US-Palestinian Community Network, at the 2010 World Social Forum.
	AMP is chaired by Hatem Bazyan, who is also the founder of Students for Justice in Palestine.
	Bazyan has called for an intifada in the United States and has referred to Israel as the slave master.
	Additionally, at least a couple of A&P board leaders have ties to the Holy Land Foundation, a charity that was convicted in 2008 for providing material support to Hamas.
	National SJP has also provided a platform at their conferences to the terrorist Razmiya Odeh, who was convicted by an Israeli court for a 1969 Jerusalem supermarket bombing that killed two students.
	Razmiya Odeh, by the way, has also been praised by people like Linda Sarsour.
	The report notes that SJP has been involved in a number of incidents on college campuses throughout the country, including members of UC Irvine's SJP getting arrested for violent verbal disruptions of a presentation by Dr. Michael Oren, the former Israeli ambassador to the United States.
	Things are very ugly in the anti-Israel community on college campuses, and that is something worth taking note of.
	Okay.
	Well, we will be back a little bit later this afternoon with two additional hours.
	Also, this weekend, make sure to check out our Sunday special with Andrew Yang.
	It really is, I think, fascinating and interesting Democratic presidential candidate.
	We hope to have more Democratic presidential candidates on if they will allow us to interview them.
	It's a really nice discussion.
	I think you'll find it Interesting and informative.
	So go check that out as well.
	And make sure you're looking for some weekend reading.
	Go check out The Right Side of History, my New York Times bestseller, my number one national bestseller.
	Go check it out right now.
	And we will see you here either later today or next week.
	I'm Ben Shapiro.
	This is The Ben Shapiro Show.
	This is The Ben Shapiro Show.
	Executive producer, Jeremy Boring.
	Senior producer, Jonathan Hay.
	Our supervising producer is Mathis Glover.
	And our technical producer is Austin Stevens.
	Edited by Adam Sajovic.
	Audio is mixed by Mike Karamina.
	Hair and makeup is by Jesua Olvera.
	Production assistant, Nick Sheehan.
	The Ben Shapiro Show is a Daily Wire production.
	Copyright, Daily Wire 2019.
	Hey guys, over on the Matt Wall Show, is it white nationalism to expect immigrants to assimilate?
	Of course not, but some people seem to think so.
	We'll talk about that.
	Also, a feminist in a college newspaper wrote an article saying that it is patriarchal oppression to leave the toilet seat up.
	It's pretty hilarious, we'll get into it.
	And what about the economic argument for abortion, that abortion helps the economy and so on?

▲