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July 25, 2022 - The Ben Shapiro Show

46:36

Everyone’s Bananas About Monkeypox | Ep. 1541

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	The media continue to push panic about monkey pox, even though it is almost entirely spread via men who have sex with men.
	The media claim Republicans are raising alarm about civil war.
	And we explore the New York Times' ideal wedding.
	I'm Ben Shapiro.
	This is The Ben Shapiro Show.
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	Well, everybody is talking about monkeypox.
	Apparently, the WHO has now declared an international global emergency over monkeypox.
	By the way, this is super scientific stuff.
	When I say super scientific, I mean that apparently the head of the World Health Organization overruled a divided expert panel to issue the group's highest alert in order to do this.
	Okay, so that right there tells you that this is not actually a scientific question.
	It is a political question.
	Because again, the panel of the WHO was like, not a global health emergency.
	And because it's gotten so much media attention, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the WHO's Director General, overruled that panel.
	He said that this was instead a public health emergency of international concern, a designation the WHO currently uses to describe two other diseases, COVID-19 and polio.
	Well, you may have noticed that COVID-19 hit pretty much everybody on earth, and polio is widely transmissible outside of people having sex with each other.
	This particular disease, as we'll discuss in just one second, seems to be transmitted almost entirely by men having sex with men.
	Well, we actually do understand the mode of transmission.
	outbreak that has spread around the world rapidly through new modes of transmission, about which we understand too little, and which meets the criteria for a public health emergency.
	Well, we actually do understand the mode of transmission.
	It's, um, it turns out via penis.
	It was apparently the first time the director general had sidestepped his advisors to declare an emergency. The WHO's declaration signals a public health risk requiring a coordinated international response.
	The designation can lead to member countries to invest significant resources in controlling an outbreak, draw more funding to the response, and encourage nations to share vaccines, treatments, and other key resources for containing the outbreak.
	Now, of course, there is a vaccine for monkeypox, but the FDA in the United States totally held up the development of enough vaccine until it was too late.
	Like, they are just now getting through the process of approving the vaccine that should have been available for monkeypox, because they had a vaccine, They basically allowed it to expire.
	All the vaccine got really old and therefore ineffective.
	And then the FDA didn't re-up on that.
	So, well done once again, administrative state.
	This is the seventh public health emergency since 2007.
	COVID-19 was the most recent.
	Some global health experts have criticized the WHO's criteria for declaring such emergencies as opaque and inconsistent.
	Yeah, you would think.
	I mean, again, monkeypox is not exactly on the level of COVID-19.
	So far, the number of people who have died of monkeypox globally Five.
	Five people have died globally from monkeypox, which does not sound like a global health emergency to me.
	That sounds like a bad weekend in Chicago.
	Monkeypox has been a concern for years, according to the New York Times, in some African countries.
	In recent weeks, the virus has spread worldwide.
	Some 75 countries have reported at least 16,000 cases so far.
	Nearly all the infections outside Africa have occurred among men who have sex with men.
	This isn't me just saying this, this is the New York Times saying this.
	The outbreak has galvanized many in the LGBT community, who have charged that monkeypox has not received the attention it deserves, as happened in the early days of the HIV epidemic.
	Well, I mean, I feel like it's getting a bleep load of attention.
	Don't you?
	I mean, you heard about monkeypox.
	And also, it seems as though the media are really going out of their way to pretend that this thing could affect pretty much anybody on earth.
	In the early days of HIV, that was not the case.
	So when it came to HIV, the early days of HIV, the media basically suggested correctly that it was between homosexual men that HIV was being transmitted, which was largely true.
	Then there was a harsh media push To the other side.
	Anyone could get HIV at any time.
	Men having sex with women.
	Women having sex with women.
	This sexually transmitted disease was going to be widely spread throughout human society.
	And it turns out that, statistically speaking, that was not true.
	Well now with monkey pox, they're just starting from step two.
	They're just going right to anybody can get monkey pox at any time, even though we now know that virtually everyone who is getting monkey pox is a man having sex with another man.
	The WHO's declaration is better late than never, said Dr. Bhagumati Tandji, an infectious diseases physician at Emory University in Atlanta.
	But with the delay, one can argue that the response globally has continued to suffer from lack of coordination.
	Apparently, the outbreak is expected to infect maybe hundreds of thousands of people, depending on who exactly engages in this sort of behavior, and may have permanently entrenched itself in some countries, according to Dr. James Lowler, co-director of the University of Nebraska's Global Center for Health Security.
	Now, the real question about this is whether it is actually a virus that is widely transmissible in any serious way outside of men having sex with men, or whether it's just a new kind of STD.
	According to the Jerusalem Post, the World Health Organization, after declaring the outbreak a global health emergency, Well, there are serious questions among doctors about why exactly this is not an STD.
	Dr. Roy Zucker, director of the Tel Aviv Swarovski Medical Center, Ichelove Hospital's LGBTQ Health Services, and a doctor at Clalit Health Services, said whether or not monkeypox could be designated as an STD is a quote-unquote great question.
	He said, we know from past data the virus can be spread by being in the presence of someone who's infected for a long time, say for three hours at a distance of two meters or so, or by simply coming into physical contact with them.
	But what we're seeing across the world and in Israel is that most of the patients were infected via sexual activity.
	The WHO also said the same.
	So it appears as though this disease is transmitted sexually, and so we can begin to refer to it as another STD.
	But of course, everyone is afraid of calling it an STD because then, of course, they're afraid of the stigma that might attach to homosexual sex, which There must never be any stigmas with regard to any sexual activity, let alone homosexual sex, no matter the levels of transmission of STDs, which differ widely based on the kind of sex that people are having and with whom they are having that sex.
	If you don't have sex with strange men in high promiscuity areas, the chances of you getting monkey pox are significantly lower than if you do.
	Zucker said, it is not entirely certain that monkeypox will be classified as a new STD because, although it is less common, it can be transmitted via skin-to-skin contact in non-sexual situations.
	Okay, well, again, that may be true, but the main vector of transmission is, in fact, homosexual sex.
	According to Dr. Zucker, for those engaging in sexual intercourse, it's best to do so in places where visibility is good, rather than in dark places.
	I know that we're not allowed to talk also about the fact that you should probably know your partner, but kind of, you should probably know your partner.
	As we also know, the use of a condom lowers the risk of infection, especially of rectal infections, which are very painful.
	Sounds terrible.
	People need to be aware of this virus and go and get checked if they have any kind of skin lesion.
	He said, right now the cases are mainly found among men that have sex with other men.
	It's a disease that can easily be passed on to other populations.
	I mean, not that easily, because the research from the New England Journal of Medicine is showing that an overwhelming 95% of confirmed cases were likely transmitted via close sexual contact, unless there are other doctors who are very afraid that this is going to stigmatize the LGBTQ plus minus divided by sign ampersand star percentage sign community.
	Dr. Itzhak Levy, director of the HIV AIDS Center and supervisor in the infectious disease unit at Shiba Medical Center said, I'm not sure if it's a sexually transmitted disease or a disease that is transmitted during sexual activity, which are two entirely different things.
	If it's the former, that means it's transmitted when there's penetration and things like that.
	If it's something that is transmitted during sexual activity, that means it's being spread during skin to skin contact.
	Okay, but it has to be apparently pretty heavy skin-to-skin contact because, you know, you just shaking hands with somebody is not going to give you monkey pox.
	Benjamin Ryan writes that over at the Washington Post.
	He says, quote, countless public health experts have uttered statements like this one.
	Anyone can get monkey pox in the past few months.
	Members of the media and politicians have parroted the message ad nauseum without stopping to dissect what it implies or obscures.
	This broad strokes maxim that everyone on earth is susceptible to this troubling infection might be factual on its surface.
	It is so egregiously misleading it amounts to misinformation.
	But this, by the way, is typical of the health community.
	And what we have seen in the past several years is that the health community is willing to lie to you.
	They love the platonic lie.
	It is their favorite.
	It is where they get to tell you that you are at tremendous risk of dying from X, Y, or Z. And thus, you must do exactly what they say.
	If you don't shut down the schools, your kid is going to die of COVID, even though the number of kids who died of COVID is exorbitantly low.
	Everybody is at risk of dying of COVID-19.
	Even very young, healthy 20-year-olds, you must get 20 times vaxxed because, after all, you could die of COVID.
	And I mean, technically, you could die of COVID.
	The chances are just extremely, extremely low.
	But what they do is they tell this platonic lie so as to get everybody to take the vaccine, supposedly to end infection, which it didn't end up doing.
	But says this columnist for the Washington Post, who's been covering infectious disease and LGBTQ health for two decades.
	He says, those who make such statements don't intend harm.
	On the contrary, leaders at the CDC, the WHO, and elsewhere repeat them because they commendably want to combat the societal stigma faced by gay and bisexual men who have been disproportionately impacted by monkeypox.
	Again, I don't know what stigma you're talking about.
	Is the stigma that if you have promiscuous gay and or bisexual sex, That you are more likely to get an STD?
	Because that's not a stigma, that's just an actual health fact.
	And I don't know when our health directors became more concerned with lying to you about the health statistics than about, you know, preventing people from knowing the health statistics because it might cause them to societally stigmatize people who engage in promiscuous sex in bar restrooms.
	As far as this columnist is concerned, he says, as these public health experts know well, epidemiology is less concerned with whether someone could contract an infection.
	Instead, the much more vital questions focus on which groups of people are the most likely to be exposed to a pathogen, to contract it, and why.
	In public health stats, this is the study of relative risk.
	Here is what we can discern from data collected about monkeypox so far.
	This viral outbreak isn't just mostly occurring among men who have sex with men.
	The confirmed cases, at least to date, have consistently, almost entirely occurred among this demographic, which accounts for 96% or more of diagnoses where data are available.
	Per capita, the few monkeypox cases in women and children remain minuscule compared with the rate among gay and bisexual men.
	Of course, substantial transmission could always occur among other such groups.
	They keep saying this over and over.
	Then why hasn't it happened?
	Why hasn't it happened?
	Researchers at the WHO and elsewhere have speculated the monkeypox reproduction rate will likely remain significantly lower in such demographics, meaning the virus will more likely hit transmission dead ends among them than among gay and bisexual men, because presumably gay and bisexual men have more promiscuous sex in general than the rest of the population.
	An uncomfortable truth, one documented in peer-reviewed papers, is that sexual behaviors in networks specific to gay and bisexual men have long made them more likely to acquire various sexually transmitted infections compared with heterosexual people.
	This includes not only HIV, but also syphilis, gonorrhea, chlamydia, hepatitis B, and sexually transmitted hepatitis C.
	Now of course, we used to have health classes in public schools, and they just would not teach any of this in health class in public schools.
	Because again, no stigma, all sexual activity is completely equivalent in a utilitarian sense.
	There is no better or worse way in terms of health.
	To have sex, right?
	All that matters is that you have your own sexual sense of self-identity and that must trump everything including apparently health statistics.
	We have to obscure those health statistics so as to prop up the central tenet of left-wing thought socially in the West today.
	Global public health experts agree skin-to-skin contact in context of sexual activity between men has been the principal driver of the monkeypox outbreak at least so far.
	Such experts have also asserted the risk of monkeypox to the broader population remains very low.
	This is hopeful news!
	Assuaging fears of contagion will help fight unhelpful hysteria and prevent gay and bisexual men from being subjected to even greater stigma should they be painted as culprits of the spread of virus.
	Like, this is the other point.
	If you're afraid of the stigma, then what was the worst stigma with regard to HIV?
	The worst stigma was, if somebody has HIV, you're going to shake their hand and get HIV.
	Remember, this was a big conversation when Magic Johnson got HIV.
	Would he be allowed to play in the NBA?
	Because it was generally transmitted through open wounds, for example.
	But there was this notion that if Magic Johnson sweated on you, you might get HIV, right?
	This caused actual real societal stigma.
	If I don't have to worry about monkeypox, I don't really care whether you are engaging in activity more likely to give you monkeypox.
	I mean, I would prefer you didn't, but if you decide to do so, that would be a you problem.
	Such enmity devastated the gay community during the height of the AIDS crisis, as this columnist says, when the CDC waged a long-running misleading public service campaign with variations of the slogan, anyone can get HIV AIDS.
	Because the same is true of the monkeypox outbreak, newly launched vaccination campaigns appropriately target this group, gay and bisexual men.
	In particular, those reporting multiple recent sex partners.
	Again, it is amazing that our society is so stuck.
	In this particular social rut of suggesting that all sexual activity is morally equivalent, we have to pretend that all sexual activity is also equivalent in terms of baseline health.
	Which, by the way, underscores so much of the sexual ethos of the left.
	The sexual ethos of the left is that because they wish all activity to be considered morally equivalent, Also, we have to pretend that men are women, women are men.
	We have to pretend that all forms of sexual activity should be equally recognized by the government as meaningful, healthy, and useful to society.
	This is their... This is the propaganda point.
	And so we're going to obscure fact, and thus make it more likely, by the way, if you think that everybody's equivalently likely to...
	Get monkeypox.
	You are more likely to engage in particularly the type of activities that give you monkeypox if you're a member of a subpopulation, because you're gonna think, well, you know, why should I worry about it?
	It's the same as my straight neighbor next door.
	Well, it is not.
	I mean, that's just the simple fact of the matter.
	If you don't tell people how they get a disease, people are more likely to engage in the behavior that leads to the disease.
	We'll get to more on that in a second.
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	Rochelle Walensky, the head of the CDC, she pointed out there's been talk about a couple of kids who got monkey pox.
	Well, she says, well, that's not coming from the kids.
	I mean, it's not that kids are walking around in serious danger of getting monkey pox in elementary school.
	That's coming from men who have sex with other men being in close proximity with small kids for significant periods of time.
	Not because they're having sex with the kids, but skin to skin contact for long periods of time can allow the transmission of monkey pox.
	Here's Rochelle Walensky.
	You've warned that monkeypox cases could rise into August.
	Do you have projections on what those total cases would be and how many would be in children?
	We do have seen now two cases that have occurred in children.
	Both of those children are traced back to individuals who come from the men who have sex with men community, the gay men community.
	And so when we have seen those cases in children, they have generally been what I call adjacent to the community most at risk.
	Ooh, awkward.
	By the way, you can see how awkward she is about saying in the gay community, right?
	Just men who have sex with men, et cetera, et cetera.
	Again, the reason that the health community is having even some trouble with this, because this should not be troublesome.
	You just report the statistic and then people make their behavioral decisions based on the stats.
	This should not be about stigma.
	It should not be about anything else.
	But it is.
	And the reason that it is, is because the left has the social ethos and they push it forward no matter what.
	Like, all the time, forever.
	Which is why you have a piece in the New York Times over the weekend about an amazing wedding that took place during the San Francisco Pride March.
	It's just an amazing piece.
	Because again, according to the left, all forms of sexual behavior, all forms of coupling, are identical.
	They're equivalent.
	There is no reason why we should value, as a society, say, male-female heterosexual partnerships that produce children and then raise those children in the context of their biological parents.
	We should treat those identically.
	As a society, and in the law.
	As the wedding of Melody Sage and Roscoe Kinkingstone.
	Rocco Kickingstone.
	This is the New York Times.
	Wow.
	Such beautiful heroism.
	marching forward together.
	Melody Sage was queer, and Roscoe Kickingstone, a transgender man, wed before the Trans March during San Francisco Pride on the day Roe versus Wade was overturned.
	Wow, such beautiful heroism.
	I mean, this is, when the Bible talks about a man shall leave his mother and father, and he shall cling to his wife, and they shall become a family unit.
	This is exactly what they were talking about, right?
	It was a queer woman and a transgender man getting married on the day of the apocalyptic overruling of Roe vs. Wade.
	That's exactly what the Bible is talking about.
	Anyway, the New York Times says, and this is precise, all relationships are the same.
	They're all equivalent because all of them are just the expression of your inner sense of sexual well-being.
	And that is the only thing that matters in life.
	Your duties to other don't matter.
	Your duties to society don't matter.
	Society's utilitarian.
	Value that is placed upon marriage, that doesn't matter whatsoever.
	Now listen, we're not talking here about whether this activity should be quote-unquote legally restricted.
	We are talking about the utilitarian and or moral value of particular sexual behavior.
	And to pretend that it's all equivalent is of course incredibly, incredibly silly.
	And we don't pretend that masturbation is just as morally useful as, for example, heterosexual sex that produces children.
	Not on a societal level.
	In traditional moral terms, of course, the two are tied together.
	Societal value and coupling, right?
	These two things are not completely separate.
	In fact, all of human propagation relies on the formation of male-female heterosexual dyads that then create children.
	I don't know why this is... We've now pretended that all of this stuff is mysterious and we don't understand why tradition has held this.
	No, this is one of the more understandable elements of human tradition and human culture passed down for thousands of years in literally every society ever to be documented is the importance of male-female dyads in raising children.
	Like, it's insane to me that the entire West has decided not only is it not understandable, we should completely explode the basis of forget human, all mammalian reproduction.
	In order to reestablish the Freudian sense of sexual self-worth that lies at the root of happiness.
	So here's the New York Times on this, on the, just a beautiful marriage, a beautiful marriage, just like your marriage, just like my, just like any other marriage.
	Quote, while dancing around a bonfire to the rhythms of a drum circle in May, 2013, Melody Christine at Tancamire, who goes by the name of Melody Sage, felt a tingling rush of energy course through her body.
	It was at that moment when she turned around and caught sight of Rocco Kickingstone Siragusa, who goes by Roscoe Kickingstone, The two introduced themselves, but Ms.
	Sage could only manage a short conversation with Mr. Kickingstone before she danced away.
	I was overwhelmed, she said, describing the sensation as such a strong feeling that I had never experienced.
	Both were camping in southern Oregon, where they had traveled for a week-long celebration of Beltane, a pagan festival also known as Celtic May Day, hosted by the Radical Fairies, a countercultural group that for decades has maintained rural communities catering to LGBTQ residents.
	The day after the bonfire, their paths crossed again.
	Ms.
	Sage said that Mr. Kickingstone, who had jumped out of a tree and broke his foot just hours before they met, was not difficult to track down.
	I joked that he was easy prey, she said.
	Their second conversation lasted a lot longer.
	She told him about her pirate radio show, Xicas Unidos, which featured female guests discussing a range of issues.
	Sounds like a...
	A big market winner right there.
	He talked about his participation in groups including Food Not Bombs, which distributes free vegan and vegetarian meals, and the Occupy Movement, born from the 2011 Occupy Wall Street protest in Lower Manhattan.
	From there, they spent most of the festival in each other's company, with Miss Sage often procuring meals for an injured Mr. Kickingstone.
	Activism, each learned, was not their only common bond.
	As teenagers, both had come out as queer.
	Miss Sage grew up in Santa Cruz, California at 18 years old, and Mr. Kickingstone, who was raised in San Diego at 15.
	Four years later, at 19, Mr. Kickingstone, whose mixed ancestry includes indigenous American and Mexican roots, came out as a transgender man.
	Coming out so young, how both learned to live and be comfortable with ourselves, said Mr. Kickingstone, who also identifies as two-spirit, a term that refers to gender non-conforming indigenous Americans.
	Before the end of their week in Oregon, Ms.
	Sage had initiated their first kiss.
	It's like Romeo and Juliet, this story.
	After the festival, they parted ways.
	Ms.
	Sage, now 34, was at the time living in Santa Cruz.
	Mr. Kickingstone, now 36, in Seattle.
	Again, this is in the New York Times, okay guys?
	I'm not just picking a case out of a hat.
	Featured on the front page of the website of the New York Times today.
	A few weeks later, Ms.
	Sage traveled to Seattle to visit another friend and ended up staying with Mr. Kickingstone for two weeks.
	On that trip, they sang a lot of karaoke, and she accompanied him to a 30th birthday party for his sister.
	Not long after Ms.
	Sage left Seattle, Mr. Kickingstone visited her in Santa Cruz in June 2013.
	While there, they went to the San Francisco Pride Celebration, during which they participated in the Trans March supporting the transgender community, an annual event they have since attended regularly.
	It's like a Christmas party.
	Though they saw other people in the months that followed, the two continued to grow closer, keeping in touch by phone and via text message and visiting one another when they could.
	We were so much on the same wavelength spiritually, emotionally, physically, Mr. Kickingstone said.
	I mean, what a romance.
	What a romantic story here from the New York Times.
	Because again, all sexual activity, all sexual pairings, they are just, they are morally equivalent.
	They're societally utilitarian equivalent.
	All the same.
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	Okay, so the New York Times story continues.
	That December, the pair went to Mexico, where they spent a month backpacking in Chiapas and Oaxaca.
	At the end of the trip, Mr. Kickingstone was ready to take the next step with Ms.
	Sage.
	She, however, felt conflicted.
	I've always been a little bit of a love skeptic, Ms.
	Sage said.
	In February 2014, Ms.
	Sage, a graduate of Mills College in Oakland, moved back to that city to attend a manicuring program at the International College of Cosmetology.
	It's like the Harvard of cosmetology.
	When Mr. Kickingstone broached the subject of moving there himself, she at first was skittish, telling him she didn't want to be the only reason for his move.
	He assured her she wasn't.
	I wanted to be around more people of color and radical queer people, Mr. Kickingstone recalled telling Ms.
	Sage.
	That April, he moved to Oakland, into a house with nine roommates, one of whom was Ms.
	Sage, who found out he was moving in when other housemates told her Mr. Kickingstone was their preferred candidate.
	Three months later, ahead of construction on the property, Kickingstone moved out and into another house.
	Once living in the same city, he and Ms.
	Sage decided to stop seeing other people.
	They remained monogamous for the next year and a half, before opening up their relationship again in October 2015.
	Their period of monogamy was a way for the two, who had both previously been in polyamorous relationships, to establish trust, Mr. Kickingstone said.
	As someone who's really flirtatious and had hurt people in the past, I didn't want to hurt him, as I loved him so much.
	Ah, the romance!
	The romance.
	They meet at a radical pagan festival.
	A woman and another woman who believes that she is a man.
	And then they lived apart.
	And then they got together for trans festivals.
	And then they got together again.
	And they were monogamous for like a year.
	And then they decided they both were not monogamous and they would have an open relationship.
	And then they moved in together.
	In the early years of their relationship, neither had much of an interest in marriage.
	Mr. Kickingstone's parents divorced soon after he was born.
	Ms.
	Sage's parents were never married.
	The system has never served us, Ms.
	Sage said.
	We queer people have never been seen as fully human as the romance developed, though Mr. Kickingstone became more convinced what they had was worth celebrating.
	We have to build our own families often because our own don't accept us or are not emotionally available to be the support we need, said Kickingstone.
	I always wanted a primary partner to build a family with, even though I don't agree with the whole marriage system.
	And Melody is my person.
	Well, they finally decided that they would tie the knot in a church.
	No, that's not what happened.
	They actually got married at a radical gay festival.
	And when they did, they had planned for the event to be a symbolic union.
	But as it neared, the couple decided to incorporate a legal ceremony for purely practical reasons.
	So Ms.
	Sage could become entitled to the health benefits offered by Mr. Kickingstone's job, and so she could make his doctor's appointment for him.
	On June 18th, the couple held a symbolic ceremony at Fern Cottage on the grounds of the Kennedy Grove Regional Recreation Area in El Sobrante, California, led by a friend that included a blessing with crystals and the pagan ritual of invoking the four elements, earth, air, fire, and water.
	At a reception that followed, they and 50 guests sang karaoke and enjoyed salads and agua fresca from Understory Oakland, a worker-led kitchen and restaurant, along with a spread of charcuterie and cheeses.
	Less than a week later, the two were married at the Helen Diller Playground in San Francisco's Mission to Loras Park, just before the Trans March kicked off as part of the city's 2022 Pride Celebration.
	They both wore white denim vests, customized with gold studs, rhinestones, rainbow-colored patterns.
	By the way, this several thousand words is being dedicated by the New York Times to this, because this is the ideal.
	This is an ideal marriage, guys.
	This is the building blocks upon which... These are the little platoons upon which society is formed, as Edmund Burke notes.
	Those little platoons are a gay woman and a woman who believes she's a man.
	Getting married at a crystal ceremony celebrating earth, air, fire, and water.
	It's just... Ahead of the ceremony, Ms.
	London, this is the person who is presiding, Annie Rose London, acknowledged the indigenous Oakland people, the first inhabitants of the land now known in the Bay Area, before reminding the roughly 30 friends of the couple in attendance for the reason they had gathered that day, so Ms.
	Sage could get Mr. Kickingstone's health insurance.
	You see the building blocks of society built upon who can get whose health insurance.
	This is the meaning of marriage, folks.
	This is it.
	And we must guard these sorts of relationships from any sort of societal questions.
	We must pretend that all of these relationships are purely equivalent in every single way.
	We must leverage it into law.
	We must suggest that your children have to learn about this sort of stuff.
	The magical day when this happened.
	This must become a part of your child's curriculum in the state of California.
	Really exciting stuff.
	And then the left wonders why exactly people feel like the country is coming apart.
	Maybe it's because you're attacking the fundamental basis of Western civilization and pretending that you're not.
	Maybe it's because of that.
	So, whenever I read stories like this, there's always a backlash that occurs from the left-wing types.
	Like, why are you even paying attention to this?
	Because it's on the front page of the New York Times website.
	That's why.
	So, my favorite game that the left plays is they point out something that is radical, specifically because they hope to shift the debate.
	And when you notice, they're like, why are you even noticing?
	I'm noticing because you're doing it.
	That would be the reason why.
	And then you wonder why it feels like the country is coming apart at the seams.
	That would be precisely the reason.
	So Pete Buttigieg, yesterday, he was on State of the Union.
	On CNN.
	And he says, you know, we're not, we on the left, we're not starting the culture wars.
	So right now the left is pushing through the House.
	They just pushed through the House with a bunch of Republican votes.
	A bill that gets rid of the Defense of Marriage Act and essentially enshrines in law Obergefell, which is the Supreme Court case saying that same-sex marriage is purely legally equivalent to heterosexual marriage in every single way.
	It goes a little bit further than that, actually.
	But again, it essentially makes the law of the land that you're a bigot if you believe that heterosexual marriage is in any way different or superior to homosexual marriage.
	And people just say, we're not declaring the culture war.
	No, you kind of are.
	You kind of are.
	And just because the left has been winning the culture war doesn't mean that if you continue to push that you're going to continue to win the culture war.
	Everybody is pretty tolerant up until the time you start suggesting that they get to teach your kid, that you get to teach their kids your particular form of anti-traditional morality.
	Here's Pete Buttigieg, who apparently is, he's very fond of speaking up on everything except for transportation policy. When it comes to actually, you know, fixing the supply chain bottleneck, then he's completely uninterested in the job.
	When it comes to speaking about gay marriage, then of course he is first on the, he's Johnny on the spot. Here's Pete Buttigieg yesterday.
	In the work that we're doing, we have found that not everybody is prepared to hear about justice and equity in the context of transportation. As if transportation is somehow uniquely immune to the impacts of patterns of exclusion and racial injustice that have touched every other part of our society.
	So I just want to make clear, we're not the ones looking for culture wars.
	We're just trying to do what's right, healing the broken places in our country.
	They're not.
	They're not looking for culture wars, except for how every single day they're looking for culture wars, right?
	Of course, in the stretches Not just from issues of marriage, it also stretches to indoctrinating your kids in radical gender ideology.
	It extends to extending abortion to all stages of pregnancy.
	And Kamala Harris, the vice president of the United States, yesterday, she was trying to talk about the GOP and abortion, suggesting that, again, there's only one priority when it comes to abortion, and that is the autonomy of a woman over her own body.
	Forget about the countervailing interest of a child in actually living and not being killed.
	That apparently does not exist, according to the vice president of the United States.
	We must stand and say, it is wrong-headed and intended to harm.
	When you pass laws that deny a woman a right to make decisions about her body, when you pass laws that suggest there's not even an exception for rape or incest, You know, I personally prosecuted cases Involving child sexual assault.
	It's an uncomfortable topic, people don't want to talk about it, but it's real and it happens.
	And that child and that woman should not have to endure an act of extreme violence and then not have the ability to have agency and autonomy to decide what happens next.
	They always use the edge cases, like a 10-year-old gets raped and then wants an abortion.
	By the way, Very likely, if a 10-year-old gets pregnant, that she's going to need an abortion in order to live, because the simple fact of the matter is that 10-year-olds are generally not capable of bearing children.
	But, Kamala Harris, there's a key phrase that she uses there.
	Intended to harm.
	Right?
	The idea is that if you oppose her, you intend to harm.
	And the same thing from Pete Buttigieg.
	If you oppose anything in Pete Buttigieg's agenda, it's not because you have disagreements over the societal standard that ought to be applied to human behavior.
	No, it's intended to harm.
	It's intended to harm.
	This is part and parcel of a broader leftist rubric, whereby if you disagree with them, you're not just the culture warriors, you are the people who are putting the country on the brink of disaster.
	And then, if you notice this, if you say, guys, you're tearing the country apart, that is when the media jump in and they say, well, you're the ones who are provoking.
	So if you push to the left, push to the left, if you greenlight riots in the middle of 2020, If you, like Vice President Harris, try to bail out rioters in the middle of riots in 2020, if you push on the idea that children can be boys or girls and they should be taught that boys can be girls and girls can be boys, if you suggest that all forms of human sexual relations are morally equivalent and that that must be taught at every level and enshrined in every area of American law, if you suggest that any restriction on abortion whatsoever is an attack on a woman,
	And then people say no.
	Then the idea is that they're the ones who are starting the civil war.
	And this is how you end up with a piece by Dave Weigel in the Washington Post titled, On the Campaign Trail, Many Republicans Talk of Violence.
	In both swing states and safe seats, Republican candidates say that liberals hate them personally and may turn rioters or a police state on people who disobey them.
	I wonder why people might have that thought.
	I wonder why people might have the radical thought that there are people on the left who hate their guts.
	Why would they think that after listening to the Vice President of the United States say that if you're pro-life it's because you have intent to harm?
	Why might they think that?
	Why might they think, after listening to Pete Buttigieg suggest, repeatedly, that you're a bad person if you disagree that homosexual marriage and heterosexual marriage are morally equivalent?
	This means that you're a bigot.
	Why might they think that they are under some sort of dire threat?
	Why?
	It's all a mystery wrapped in an enigma.
	When they listen, To people on the left suggest that disagreement amounts to a form of violence and that they are about to overthrow the country.
	Why do you think people might feel a little bit threatened?
	For example, Al Gore, he's back out of the woodwork now because it's really hot.
	Every time it gets hot during the summer, we call Al Gore out of the woodwork to fly his private jet into the green room at CNN and explain just why things are so bad.
	Al Gore over the weekend suggested that people who disagree with him on the climate are like the Uvalde officers who allowed a mass shooter to murder children in a classroom while doing nothing.
	Here is Al Gore, who's gotten extremely rich being a green advocate while raking in the green.
	You know, the climate deniers are really in some ways similar to all of those almost 400 law enforcement officers in Uvalde, Texas, who were waiting outside an unlocked door while the children were being massacred.
	They heard the screams, they heard the gunshots, and nobody stepped forward.
	And God bless those families who've suffered so much.
	And law enforcement officials tell us that's not typical of what Law enforcement usually does.
	And confronted with this global emergency, what we're doing with our inaction and failing to walk through the door and stop the killing is not typical of what we are capable of as human beings.
	Well, it's just, it's the same.
	Why might you think that people like Al Gore hate you?
	Why?
	It's again, giant mysteries.
	MSNBC's Malcolm Nance.
	So Malcolm Nance, he and I appeared together on Bill Maher where he suggested that every Republican was complicit in January 6th and wanted to overthrow the government and that we were at the moment when democracy was going to be overthrown by these people.
	But if you notice that that's extreme radical rhetoric that bores on the civil war type of rhetoric that Yeah, has been common throughout American history, unfortunately.
	If you note that, then that's because you want this award.
	Here's MSNBC's Malcolm Nance predicting that there will be no more elections ever if Republicans win, which, by the way, is kind of a Civil War-like call, right?
	The suggestion is, if your opponents win, it's the end of the country.
	What choice do you have but to use every tool at your disposal to stop them from winning?
	Here's Malcolm Nance.
	The Democrats, Joe Biden, all the rest of them need to understand.
	They are, what are we?
	July, August, September, October, November.
	You are four months from the end of American democracy.
	Four months.
	And we said that in 2020, and that was true then too, right?
	But now, now you're talking about Putting a party in power in which there will never be another election.
	They will vote through every piece of legislation and defund every component of the United States government.
	They're not joking about impeaching Joe Biden every week.
	Okay.
	And Kamala Harris and getting rid of people or expanding the Supreme Court, whatever it is they think they can do, even though some of it's crazy.
	First thing that they said, Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert said, we will criminally prosecute every person who took part in the January 6th investigation.
	Guys, if we don't stop those evil, evil people who disagree with us, they're going to burn down the country.
	So we'll use every means at our disposal.
	Why might Republicans feel threatened?
	I don't understand.
	They're only attacking, the left is only saying that if you back fundamental societal institutions, It's because you're a bigot.
	And if you notice health statistics, it's probably because you're a bigot.
	And if you are a person who does not agree with Al Gore on climate, it's because you're essentially a passive murderer.
	And also you want to overthrow elections.
	But probably there are people who want to live with you.
	The people who are saying this sort of stuff.
	Probably.
	They keep saying that you're a nut if you're worried that the left hates your guts and actually wants to target you in any way.
	That's just completely nuts.
	Well, you're not nuts, which is one of the reasons why you should be a member of the USCCA.
	We've seen and talked about on the show good guys with guns.
	You know, people who use their legal weapons and Second Amendment rights to protect their families and their communities.
	Sometimes these people are hailed as heroes by the media.
	There's one of those last week.
	Sometimes they are villainized and or arrested.
	It's not enough to legally and safely own a firearm to protect your family.
	If you want to fully protect yourself and your loved ones, you have to be prepared for the mental, physical, and legal ramifications of self-defense, which is why I am a member of the U.S.
	Concealed Carry Association.
	You should be as well.
	Right now, the U.S.
	CCA is giving away a free concealed carry and family defense guide and a chance to win a thousand bucks to buy a firearm to protect yourself And your family legally.
	100% free.
	Just text BEN to 87222 to get started.
	So, that 58 page defense guide?
	It's got a lot of great material you're going to need to know.
	How to detect attackers before they see you.
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	Equipment and training basics about the law and justice systems.
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	And a whole lot more.
	Text BEN to 87222 for instant access to this free guide.
	Enter for the chance to win a thousand bucks to put toward a firearm to protect Your family.
	Again, text Ben to 87222 right now.
	That's Ben to 87222 right now to get started.
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	So with the left on the march through our societal institutions ripping apart pretty much all of the things that traditionally have been the foundations and pillars of that civilization, the media are noticing that Republicans are getting mad about that and are feeling under threat.
	And why should they feel under threat?
	After all, we're only threatening them.
	Why should they feel under threat?
	Dave Weigel has a long piece of the Washington Post discussing this quote.
	In both swing states and safe seats, many Republicans say liberals hate them personally and may turn rioters or a police state on people who disobey them.
	OK, so first of all, by polling data, a lot of liberals hate conservatives personally.
	I mean, let's just point out that when it comes to which people say that they have friends on the other side of the aisle, many, many more conservatives than liberals say they have friends on the other side of the aisle.
	We know this.
	I mean, listen, in my job, It is an actively career-dangerous move for people on the left to openly talk to me, to say hello to me.
	So yes, I get it.
	To pretend that this isn't happening is to stick your head in the sand, but of course, Weigel works for the Washington Post, so of course, he's going to pretend like, why are they so worried?
	Why are they so upset?
	Referring to the coronavirus and 2020 protests over police brutality, state delegate Stan Cox in the state of Maryland He said, quote, Wait, I'm waiting to hear the part that's controversial.
	Seriously, I don't understand the controversial part of that.
	I was in Los Angeles, and the Black Lives Matter rioters were allowed to burn cop cars all the way down Melrose Avenue.
	to defend our families with?
	That's why we have the Second Amendment.
	Okay, wait, I'm waiting to hear the part that's controversial.
	Seriously, I don't understand the controversial part of that.
	I was in Los Angeles, and the Black Lives Matter rioters were allowed to burn cop cars all the way down Melrose Avenue.
	Rioters hit the Walgreens about half a mile from us in one direction, and a footlocker about half a mile in the other direction.
	And the police officers with whom I was friends were telling me that they were getting active orders from the top downs who allow this sort of stuff to happen.
	Yes, people need guns in order to protect themselves when the police are told to stand aside by the politicians.
	I don't know what is remotely controversial about this, but again, the idea is that Republicans are the aggressors here for noticing.
	The rhetoric is bracing, if not entirely new.
	Liberal commentators made liberal use of the word fascism to describe Trump's presidency.
	The baseless theory that Barack Obama was undermining American power as a foreign agent was popular with some Republicans, including Trump, who succeeded Obama in the White House.
	Many Democrats saw the backlash to Obama as specific to his race and saw Biden as unlikely to inspire mass opposition to Trump in the presidential election.
	But many Republicans also portray Biden as a malevolent figure, a vessel for a hateful leftist campaign to weaken America.
	Again, why is this like a top news story at the Washington Post that a lot of people who are conservative see Biden as an empty vessel for a movement that does not have the best interests of the country at heart?
	Why?
	I failed to understand.
	But again, it's always Republicans' pounds.
	Every story from the media is Republicans' pounds.
	No matter how far left the left moves, no matter how dangerous their rhetoric, it's Republicans' pounds.
	It doesn't matter, by the way, if a person tries to assassinate a gubernatorial candidate in New York.
	The Republican nominee for governor, Lee Zeldin, was attacked by a person wielding a sharp implement who is trying to hurt him and kill him.
	This lasted in the media for less than a day.
	This was not a story.
	As Lee Zeldin pointed out, the attacker was telling me, you're done.
	If I were a Democrat, don't you think this would be a top national news story for like a year?
	Here was Lee Zeldin pointing this out over the weekend.
	Now the way that I'm wired, when I see somebody wearing a hat that says that they're a veteran, my guard couldn't possibly be more dropped.
	But at the same exact time, I noticed he had a weapon in his hand.
	And it had two holes where he had two fingers through the holes.
	It had two sharp dagger-like edges on it.
	And he was telling me, you're done.
	Okay, again, would this be a top news story if it were the other way around?
	Of course it would be a top news story, but it wasn't a top news story when a Bernie Sanders acolyte shot a bunch of Republican congresspeople at a congressional baseball game.
	That wasn't news for more than a week.
	So, yeah, I mean, you wonder why Republicans feel under threat.
	According to former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, quote, it's purposeful.
	It's all about the fundamental transformation of America.
	You only fundamentally transform something for which you have disdain.
	According to Dave Wagle at the Washington Post, that argument has been dramatized in ads that show, for instance, one armed candidate appearing to charge into the home of a political enemy and another warning of the mob that threatens ordinary Americans.
	I love the linkage.
	So if you say that there are a lot of people on the left, Who fundamentally do not like the principles of the United States, which they say, they openly say they don't like the Constitution.
	They openly say that the principles upon which the United States is based, that those principles are malevolent and bad.
	That those principles are rooted in racism and bigotry and power dynamics.
	I mean, this is mainstream politicians on the left who say this sort of stuff.
	But if you notice this, then this puts you in the same category as like Eric Greitens, who cuts an ad bursting into a guy's house with a gun, who's in his own party, by the way.
	So the goal of the left-wing media is to link all of this together.
	To link all of it together.
	So, and the idea is that Republicans, there's no reason why Republicans ought to be worried in any way.
	Republicans instead ought to be very complacent about the left-wing social change that is taking place in the United States of America.
	It's really a problem, says Dave Weigel.
	So it's it is an amazing thing.
	The people who suggest that you are a threat to the Republic are saying that if you notice that they say this and you feel threatened, then this is because you are the extremist.
	This is the little game that they love to play.
	That game isn't going to work because again, we all have eyes and we all have ears.
	Alright, we'll be back here later today with additional content.
	I'm Ben Shapiro.
	This is The Ben Shapiro Show.
	The Ben Shapiro Show is produced by The Ben Shapiro Show.
	The Ben Shapiro Show is produced by the American Public Television Association.
	Copyright Daily Wire 2022.
	Two little kids come down with monkey pox, a liberal mayor complains about Texas busing illegal aliens to his city, and the White House COVID chief praises Joe Biden for cleaning his breakfast plate.

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