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Aug. 3, 2017 - The Michael Knowles Show

34:47

Ep. 4 - Goo-Goo Ga-ttaca: The Dawn of Designer Babies

Scientists successfully edit the DNA of human embryos—cue the übermenschen. Plus, Roaming Millennial, Amanda Prestigiacomo, and Paul Bois join to talk Rosie O'Donnell's all-women political party, Stephen Miller's CNN smackdown, and President Zuckerberg. Finally, Michael answers your questions in the first-ever MK mailbag! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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	The tweets are in.
	Dawn of the designer baby.
	Scientists safely use gene editing to delete a mutation from a human embryo, bringing back ethical debates.
	Scientists have edited human embryos to safely remove diseases.
	What could go wrong?
	Great question.
	Trump is the designer baby of the GOP. Good point.
	Stoked for those who may benefit, but scared this might be the beginning of the end of the era of smart monkeys.
	Who are you calling a monkey?
	Last week, the MIT Technology Review reported that scientists in Oregon successfully modified the DNA of human embryos using the gene editing technique CRISPR to edit out a heritable heart condition.
	Signaling perhaps the dawn of designer babies.
	Start saving your pennies or you might wind up with one of those outdated, imperfect babies.
	Plus, roaming millennial Amanda Prestigiacomo and Paul Bois join the panel of deplorables to discuss Rosie O'Donnell's new women-only political party, White House aide Stephen Miller's smackdown of CNN, and the prospect of President Zuckerberg.
	Oh my.
	Stick around at the end because I will answer your questions from our first ever mailbag.
	I'm Michael Knowles and this is The Michael Knowles Show.
	This is a major news story that scientists have now successfully edited the human genome and deleted a mutation for a heart disorder which is called hypertrophic cardiomyopathy.
	Luckily, we at the Michael Knowles Show, we have so many great live feeds.
	We have a live feed from the laboratory where this advance occurred.
	Can we cut to it?
	Genetics.
	What can it mean?
	the ability to perfect the physical and mental characteristics of every unborn child.
	Oh no, that was the trailer for the 1997 sci-fi epic Gattaca.
	That was not the We've got to fix that live feed.
	So good.
	It's a very good movie.
	Now, of course, left-wing outlets predictably are denying that this is the age of Gattaca.
	They're denying...
	Not only the moral hazard, but even that this is happening in the first place.
	The Atlantic has a big piece out today, quote, The designer baby era is not upon us.
	American scientists have now used CRISPR to edit embryos.
	Doesn't mean we're entering into Gattaca dystopia.
	Steven Pinker out of Harvard has been denying that this is happening for a decade now.
	He wrote 10 years ago, 15 years ago, I think, the prospect of designer babies is very much in doubt.
	We can deal with the ethical conundrums if and when they arise, but thinkers should acknowledge the frailty of technological predictions and base policy recommendations on likelihoods.
	But not all of the experts agree.
	Not even all of the experts on the left agree.
	There is a left-wing, pro-abortion, genetic study center.
	It's called the Center for Genetics in Society.
	And they're firmly against this.
	They're saying that what's being reported as research here It's deeply misleading and quote, there's no need to manipulate the genes of children to remove the risk of disease.
	So in this debate, it's very confusing.
	Let's turn to the foremost expert we have in channeling scientific technology to perfect human nature.
	"Gerade sieben Mann hoch war, sprach sie schon zwei Grundsätze aus.
	Erstens, sie wollte eine wahrhaftige Weltanschauungspartei sein.
	Und zweitens, sie wollte daher Kompromiss." Marshall, how many times do I have to tell you I don't speak German?
	I'm sorry.
	No, we don't all speak German, okay?
	Now, we're lucky that we also have an English-speaking analyst.
	I guess we'll have to listen to him on this.
	It's an expert out of the University of Chicago, Leon Kass.
	He's a brilliant humanist.
	He was also the chairman of President Bush's Presidential Council on Bioethical Inquiry.
	And he breaks down this issue a little more in depth for those of us who don't speak Nazi.
	Most of us cheerfully believe that we can both enjoy the promise and escape the perils of the coming biotechnological age.
	Most of us also believe that there is little connection between the promise and the peril, or between the humanistic aspirations that fuel the scientific enterprise and the deadly or dehumanizing uses to which new technologies might perversely be put.
	But a powerful challenge to our complacent opinion is provided by an important exhibit prepared by the United States Holocaust Museum entitled Deadly Medicine, Creating the Master Race.
	This exhibit documents the abominable uses that the Nazis made of science and medicine.
	But even more relevant for us, it also presents the scientific outlook on life and the aspiration to human perfectibility that the Nazis inherited and exploited.
	An outlook and an aspiration that dwell robustly in American cultural life today.
	So who said it better, Michael?
	Well, I certainly understood it better from Leon Kass.
	And I think that's why I'm always reluctant to make comparisons to the Nazis.
	But I don't think it's out of place here because this is a disturbing trend that's happened for a while.
	But it is a break from Western civilization, the quest to perfect human nature scientifically and not merely socially.
	I don't remember who put it this way, but it was put that...
	Previously in Western civilization, we had a God-made man who saved us from sin through his suffering, and now we have man-made God who is saving us himself from the sin of suffering.
	That is a really radically different way of approaching our lives and approaching the world, and it raises a number of ethical questions that we have considered.
	We've not even come close to answering yet, and probably we should answer before we start creating these supermen, these little superbabies.
	Will designer babies create radical inequality?
	We are already selecting out through abortion The people who have mental illnesses or who are mentally retarded while they're still in the womb.
	The number of people with Down syndrome has decreased dramatically because people are selecting against it.
	There is this radical inequality that could be created, and there's also the question of who has access to it.
	So if this technology exists to get rid of certain heritable diseases, Or to augment intelligence or so on and so forth, who's going to have access to them?
	It's going to be people who have the money to pay for it.
	Now, even if this is highly regulated by the government, of course a black market will exist.
	And when we're talking about something as important and fundamental as human nature and as the human brain, that black market could breed a lot of chaos and trouble.
	Some other questions are the unintended consequences.
	Do we really want to unbound ourselves from our human nature?
	And when I say that this technology has the prospect to change human nature, I'm not speaking hyperbolically.
	The word nature is referring to how we are born, how humans are born into this world.
	So if we can eliminate suffering and early death or disease or what have you, Would we really want to?
	Is suffering an enriching and inherent part of the human condition.
	And if we say, well, we'll just get rid of the really bad diseases, how do we determine what these really bad diseases are?
	This heritable heart condition that affects athletes that we've selected against or edited out using this technology, is that the threshold or certain other diseases?
	I sneeze a lot.
	Will that someday be edited out?
	I joke a little bit, but it's really hard to draw that line.
	And also, does this affect the commoditization of life?
	We've seen that life can have a money value in the modern world, and life that's more costly to create will have a higher price tag on it.
	Do we want to further degrade life in the material world?
	And does it undermine concepts that are essential to our country and our civilization?
	Universal equality, equality before God, all men are created equal and have natural rights.
	Will we create men intentionally who are decidedly unequal, who have huge variability in IQ or resistance to disease or so on and so forth?
	And there's a generational ethical question, which is you're not only affecting the genome for one person, You're affecting it all the way down the line.
	If you're taking out heritable diseases, then his children will not inherit them and his children and his children and so forth.
	And who gets to make that call?
	You know who I think gets to make that call?
	Our panel of deplorables.
	We bring on Roaming Millennial.
	You know her from the YouTubes.
	The Daily Wire is very un-Amanda Prestigiacomo.
	And for some reason, Paul Bois, the voice of the Lord himself.
	Roaming, does this mean that one day we could even make an embryo that was destined to look like Paul Bois end up looking like you or Amanda?
	Because then, very possibly, I could get on board with it.
	Yeah, you know, this is an issue where, honestly...
	I'm torn.
	I mean, you know, obviously, when we start talking about steps to perfect the human race, I mean, yeah, that is, you know, Nazi whispers kind of start going off at the back of your head.
	That was Paul's nickname in high school, by the way, was the Nazi whisperer.
	But I'm sorry to interrupt.
	Go ahead.
	That's a good one.
	But I mean, yeah, you know, at the same time, people are saying like, hey, look, we have the chance of eradicating a lot of these more serious diseases.
	And As someone who hopes to be a mother someday, I'm trying to put myself in that position.
	If I'm about to have a kid and this is a possibility, I can ensure that they are going to be healthy growing up.
	Honestly, it's a hard decision to make, and I think it's something that We, as a public, should have more input on, right?
	I don't think we should just let this happen and kind of on the sidelines.
	Let it happen by accident.
	Right, exactly.
	I think we do need to be having this conversation as a culture because, like you said, there's a ton of implications that we've never had to deal with before.
	And you bring up a great point.
	I think everybody wants it for their child.
	I want it for little Michael Jr., for sure.
	I just don't want it for anyone else's child.
	And this raises this moral hazard.
	So, Paul, to you, moral hazard, schmoral hazard.
	Why shouldn't we just make our kids pretty and smart and wonderful?
	I mean, well, we can go on all day about what kind of world this opens up.
	I think the movie Gattaca really successfully explored the kind of caste system That would develop with genetically enhanced human beings.
	But I think an interesting point is one that was made by Dr.
	David King when he said that by genetically enhancing people, we would therefore be forcing them to perform according to the way that we designed them to.
	So essentially, we're eliminating people's free will.
	So let's take, for example, you take a person who's born and And we design them to be like Ben Shapiro, a superhuman IQ intelligence.
	God help us!
	That's the name of my show, actually.
	And let's just say this Ben Shapiro clone, he just decides one day he wants to sit all day on his butt and watch Brady Bunch.
	Who's to say that a government or an agency can't force him to live according to the way that he was designed to do so?
	So that's an interesting point.
	I think we just got a window into polls Saturday afternoons, just sitting on that couch watching the Brady Bunch.
	Sounds good to me.
	Amanda, the secular left is always harping on inequality.
	They imagine inequalities, they create new inequalities, but they seem to be embracing this, at least a good percentage of them.
	Isn't there a disconnect here?
	Yeah, and you see the same thing in abortion as you were talking about earlier.
	It's the same thing where they're eliminating Down syndrome babies.
	Like they talk about all this inequality, income inequality, that's what they're fixated on.
	When it comes to things like this, we are literally eliminating Down syndrome children through abortion.
	And again, this would be the same thing, where you would eliminate whatever quality or whatever...
	I mean, I know they're talking about genetic diseases right now, but where does this end?
	It's all in the name of compassion, isn't it?
	Just like the compassion to let little child go and die.
	As always.
	As always.
	Same with abortion.
	Compassion for the mother, but no compassion for the child.
	And again, like Paul said, no free will as well.
	That's a great point.
	Roaming, Leon compared this to the Holocaust, compared it to Nazi eugenics.
	Is that outrageous?
	Were the Nazi eugenics a bastardization of science, or is it the logical conclusion of this sort of scientific inquiry?
	Well, I mean, if we take the assumption that there are groups that we are, as a society, prejudiced against...
	I don't know, let's say gingers, because that's a pretty inoffensive way to go.
	It's not crazy to think that when we...
	We're going to have to bleep this out, Richard Spencer back here again, with all her racist clap.
	I'm sorry.
	Go ahead, Roaming.
	But, you know, it's not crazy to think that when we do have the ability to select which genes and which traits we want to pass on to our children, that these traits that we find less desirable will be eliminated from the gene pool.
	And, you know, if you're...
	You know, if you're someone who is, I don't know, of a, you know, let's say, again, let's go with gingers.
	Let's say for gingers, right?
	I mean, I don't think it's crazy to make that leap and say, like, hey, yeah, you know, maybe this is something we should be concerned about.
	Do we want to give people the power to, you know, kind of take these genes out of...
	Out of our society, out of humans, based on, I don't know.
	The answer is, of course, yes.
	We're probably going to get blocked on YouTube for all of this anti-ginger talk.
	To me, it's a lot of control to be given to people, to scientists.
	Absolutely.
	Absolutely.
	And Paul, you're more Catholic than the Pope.
	Would you say that people here are looking now towards science for their salvation?
	Questions that they might have prayed for or accepted suffering with acceptance and patience, they're now looking for science to fix.
	Is there something wrong with this?
	Is it going on?
	What do we do about it?
	Oh, absolutely, Michael.
	There's tons of things wrong with here.
	So, I mean, what you have here is really, it's a multi-pronged situation with different theological implications.
	Like, one is a conjurable good, you know, which is the healing of certain diseases, while the other is a violation of natural law, and that's the enhancement of humans beyond their natural state.
	And so the church makes a clear distinction between genetic enhancement and genetic therapy.
	Genetic therapy essentially restores nature.
	I mean, as long as it restores the dignity upon a person, and genetic enhancements imposes upon them Something that wasn't there already naturally, you know, you make them super smart or you make them super athletic.
	And that is very clearly defined as morally defunct and to be avoided.
	An important distinction from Cardinal Bois.
	We have to move on.
	The DCCC, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, has signaled that there will be no litmus test for candidates.
	Just speaking of eugenics, they are suggesting that they'll allow pro-life Democrats to run and still fund them.
	Rosie O'Donnell is very upset about this.
	She's threatening to form her own all-women political party if the Democrats don't kick out all of the pro-lifers from their party.
	For reaction, we go to President Trump.
	Well, Rosie O'Donnell's disgusting.
	I mean, both inside and out.
	If you take a look at her, she's a liar.
	She talks like a truck driver.
	Rosie O'Donnell personally, because I was very happy when her talk show failed.
	The other thing that failed, and this was a real monster, and everybody was suing her, Amanda, it seems fair to say that Rosie O'Donnell will never need an abortion.
	Why does she care about this so much?
	Yeah, first of all, I'm glad that she's speaking up and coming to the forefront of the Democratic Party as much as we can get her out there.
	I'm cool with it.
	She makes Lena Dunham look sufferable, so I'm okay with Rosie being as loud as she can.
	She's always loud, so it's a given.
	That's true.
	It's just so funny, though, because...
	This is the Democratic Party.
	This is what they're up against right now.
	They're trying to move to the center because they know they keep getting their butt kicked and they want to win those voters that Trump won, that white working class.
	And they're not being allowed to because of crazies like Rosie who have taken over their party and pulled them to the left.
	I mean, they're just saying we're going to be open to the idea of someone who is not pro-Sacrament abortion and they're losing their minds.
	She wants to start a whole new party of just women?
	By the way, women are not monolithic.
	They're not all pro-abortion.
	So, I mean, I think it's 40% of women aren't for abortion.
	That's right.
	Almost half of women are pro-life.
	They don't support abortion.
	And the numbers get even more interesting when you break it down by second trimester, late abortion, what have you.
	Oh, exactly.
	Paul, is Amanda right?
	Is the DCCC signaling that it should back away from the sacramental view of abortion?
	It might not play in Peoria?
	Yeah, I think they realize that it's been hazardous to them in the long run.
	I mean, this is a litmus test that was actually imposed upon by the Clintons.
	The last major pro-life Democratic figure was Governor Robert Casey, who was disinvited to speak at the DNC in 1992 because of his pro-life views.
	And I think that after the election of Trump and the fall of the Rust Belt and the Midwestern states sort of going into the Republican Party...
	I think they see a serious problem on their hands.
	And there are a lot of pro-life people that I know personally and out there voicing themselves who identify politically with the Democratic Party, but they just are very, very uncomfortable with their pro-abortion views.
	So I think it's starting to hit them.
	It also seems like a bad strategy to keep killing the next generation of your political activists.
	That can't last for very long.
	That's why they open borders.
	That is why they open borders.
	Exactly, yes.
	Roaming, if Rosie starts an all-women political party, will you be its nominee for president?
	And if so, what will be your first acts in office?
	Well, absolutely, I would, you know, join the party and want to be head of that movement, because as we all know, the only thing women care about as voters is abortion.
	That's right.
	Obviously, just throw abortions at us, we will come a-running.
	No, but seriously, I've never understood these left-wing feminists who try to make abortion You know, something that all women should care about all the time.
	Even if you're, I know, so I'm personally pro-life, but I know a lot of my friends who are pro-choice, and even for them, they understand that, hey, you know, I may or may not have an abortion throughout my lifetime, and hopefully, you know, Lord willing, it's never going to happen.
	But you know what I do do every day?
	I do go to work every day.
	I do pay taxes every day.
	I do live in a society that is influenced by immigration every day.
	Maybe those are more important to me.
	When it comes to abortion, I've actually been shamed as a woman for actually saying that I'm pro-life, but I don't know if it's necessarily something I would I've been shamed by pro-life women for not caring, sorry, pro-choice women for not caring enough about this topic.
	I shame you too.
	For shame, Roaming.
	For shame.
	Right!
	But I mean, shouldn't the point of abortions be, even if you're for them, to, I don't know, have as little of them as possible?
	So Rosie O'Donnell just seems one of those people who, like, I don't know, the sort of shout-your-abortion type of feminist who's trying to, you know, glorify it, make everyone wants one, just abortions, you know, on the street corner, and I just don't get it.
	Lena Dunham said she's sorry she hasn't had an abortion because she can't be a good ally for the pro-choice movement.
	And there is this conflation, too, of abortion with women's health.
	So all of women's health is abortion.
	I think someone else said it, but when you call up your grandmother and you say, Hey, Grandma, how you doing?
	Well, you know, my hip hurts and I don't walk as well, but at least I still have my right to have an abortion.
	At least I still have that.
	That's not what I hear from my grandma.
	Okay, you know what?
	We have to say goodbye to Facebook and YouTube.
	You can keep watching all of these great panelists, but only if you're not so cheap.
	You have to go to thedailywire.com and subscribe.
	It's only $10 a month, $100 a year.
	Plus, you get the Leftist Tears Tumblr, the very famous Leftist Tears Tumblr.
	Keeps your leftist tears hot or cold, always salty.
	I will say, I used my leftist tears tumbler the other day.
	I had iced coffee in the morning.
	No joke, I brought it in at 7 a.m.
	or something like that.
	By the time I left at 6 p.m.
	in a hot office, it still had two ice cubes in it.
	It is a really good tumbler, perfect for such a precious commodity as leftist tears.
	Go there right now, dailywire.com.
	We'll see you to talk about the news and the mailbag.
	CNN's Jim Acosta recently got into a heated exchange with White House aide Stephen Miller over immigration.
	Thank you.
	The Statue of Liberty says, give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses, yearning to breathe free.
	Doesn't say anything about speaking English or being able to be a computer programmer.
	Aren't you trying to change what it means to be an immigrant coming into this country if you're telling them you have to speak English?
	Can't people learn how to speak English when they get here?
	Well, first of all, right now, it's a requirement that it be naturalized yet to speak English.
	So the notion that speaking English wouldn't be a part of our immigration systems would be actually very ahistorical.
	Secondly, I don't want to get off into a whole thing about history here, but the Statue of Liberty is a symbol of liberty enlightening the world.
	It's a symbol of American liberty lighting the world.
	The poem that you're referring to that was added later is not actually part of the original Statue of Liberty.
	They're not always going to be highly skilled.
	They're not always going to be- Jim, Jim, I appreciate your speech.
	Jim, I appreciate your speech, so let's talk about this.
	Jim, let's talk about this.
	In 1970, when we let in 300,000 people a year, was that violating or not violating the Statue of Liberty Law of the Land?
	In the 1990s, when it was half a million a year, was it violating or not violating the Statue of Liberty Law of the Land?
	Brutal.
	It goes on like that for about seven minutes.
	I actually couldn't cut it anymore.
	Paul, I'm not familiar with international law, but did Stephen Miller technically commit a war crime in his Smackdown of CNN? Oh, lock him up, Michael.
	Lock him up.
	Lock him up.
	He triggered me.
	My safe space was violated by the very idea that a government can...
	Put up standards as to who they can let in and let out of their borders is just extremely offensive.
	I mean, call UN. Call the courts.
	Absolutely.
	Romain, illegal immigration has been a major issue for the last 10, 15 years.
	And they've even accused those who want to limit illegal immigration of bigotry.
	But the issue of limiting legal immigration hasn't really been discussed very much since maybe the 90s, maybe the early 90s.
	And now I think it's clouded over with a great sense that if you want to limit legal immigration, you're a bigot.
	Is it a legitimate opinion to say that a country should decide who comes in and who comes out?
	I mean, legitimate opinion is such a broad term, right?
	I think it's not a racist opinion.
	That is what I'm asking.
	Is it racist, is it bigoted to say we don't want as many people from this country, we want more people from this country and more people with these degrees?
	Absolutely not.
	And actually, you know, I'm I'm an immigrant myself.
	I went to the US as an international student for college.
	After that, you know, student visa.
	After that, I got my OPT visa.
	Then I did the long, arduous and expensive process of applying for a green card.
	You know, I've I've been through the system.
	And so, you know, what really bothers me is when people try to make it seem like caring about immigration and wanting more skilled immigrants is somehow like racist or anti-immigrant.
	It is neither of those things.
	And I think You know, immigrants who actually want the best for the United States and want to be, you know, economic benefits to the United States, they should understand that, hey, you know, this is a country where, you know, welfare is already high.
	You know, the number of unskilled laborers is already perhaps higher than the number of jobs for them.
	So, you know, do we want to bring in more people who are going to compete with the most economically vulnerable?
	People in the society.
	And, you know, the answer is no.
	And what's so funny is that the people who are against any sort of skills or means testing for immigration, what they're actually in favor for is bringing in people who are going to, again, compete with people who are the most vulnerable in American society.
	So, you know, if you actually care about the American poor, this is a great policy.
	You want skills testing.
	If it were all roaming millennials coming across that Mexican border, I think we would all be Democrats.
	Is that fair to say?
	I think that's fair to say.
	Amanda, a CNN reporter says that the poem that he references is at the Statue of Liberty, but CNN is fake news.
	So is it possible that there's no poem at all?
	That's probably actually right.
	But I was unaware that poetry was U.S. law.
	I was, too.
	So whenever that happened, I wish I knew that during the Obama years.
	I can write some poetry.
	But it's just unbelievable.
	First of all, Miller for president.
	Stephen Miller for president.
	He's tremendous.
	He's my favorite guy in that administration.
	Oh, just so smart.
	Annihilated Acosta.
	And this brings up one other point that's kind of not that relevant, but there should not be cameras in these press briefings because this is what happens.
	This is just more confirmation that we should get those cameras out.
	The grandstanding, showboating, absolutely.
	Yeah, it's ridiculous.
	But as opposed to, I mean, just with regard to policy, this is actually really good policy.
	And this has to do with green cards.
	So all like the agricultural stuff they're talking about is like a different...
	It's not even with this policy.
	So I don't even know if he understands what he's talking about.
	And when it comes to speaking English, it's on a point system.
	So if you don't speak English, you can still get in.
	You just don't get that point.
	So he's just wrong on so many levels.
	He must have gotten lost in that beautiful, beautiful poetry.
	Sorry, go ahead.
	Is he even pretending to be a reporter and objective at all at this point?
	Because you're literally an open border advocate at this point, right?
	You're arguing that they shouldn't need to speak English.
	Like, how is that...
	How's that journalism?
	How's that reporting?
	You know, it's funny.
	I spent an afternoon one time with Jim Acosta.
	He came up to Yale because he was covering a campaign that we were running there.
	And he wasn't like this.
	He was actually just kind of a TV newsman.
	He didn't seem to care at all about politics.
	I would say a little bit like that Will Ferrell version of an anchorman in that movie.
	And now he's the biggest political activist in the world.
	Who knows what Trump derangement syndrome must be.
	Yeah, he got a taste of fame.
	That's right.
	Speaking of presidential politics and endless immigration, Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Facebook, has hired Joel Benenson, a Democratic pollster and the chief strategist for Hillary 2016, to fuel rumors that Zuck will run for president.
	Roaming, if Mark Zuckerberg is so smart, why would he hire the strategist of the worst campaign ever?
	Well, you know what?
	I believe in multiple intelligences, right?
	I think he's probably, you know, a gifted programmer, stuff like that.
	I think if The Social Network or whatever that movie was taught us anything, it's that he may not be the best read on people.
	That's a very diplomatic way of putting it.
	Amanda...
	Yeah, he may, I mean...
	Sorry, go ahead.
	Gender may not be on a spectrum, but there's a good chance he might be.
	And, you know, just, like, the decisions he's made about this, I mean...
	I think we found the Zuck 2016 slogan.
	That's the bumper sticker slogan.
	Amanda, what do you think we can look forward to in a Zuckerberg administration?
	There won't be one.
	Hillary Clinton is more charismatic than Mark Zuckerberg.
	A rock has a better personality than Mark Zuckerberg.
	It's going to be tough for him to win anything.
	He does have a ton of money and a ton of power.
	I understand that.
	He has a ton of data, too.
	He knows everything about us.
	Yeah.
	Yeah, that's why it'd be terrifying if he actually did win.
	But I think, luckily, I think we can bank on his terrible personality and his Zero charisma.
	He's not going to go anywhere.
	And then he's relying on Hillary people.
	Has he not read Shattered?
	Did he not know who won the election?
	Who knew Big Brother would be so dweeby?
	Probably everybody, I guess.
	Paul, could Zuckerberg defeat Trump?
	Does he stand a chance or no?
	No way.
	No way.
	I mean, it's pretty much just...
	He represents everything that Hillary represents in many ways.
	I mean, he's a Silicon Valley elitist.
	He has no relationship whatsoever to people in the Midwest.
	Or especially Donald Trump's working class base.
	No, I think he'd get creamed in election.
	I almost think he'd probably lose in an even bigger landslide than Hillary.
	You heard it here first.
	Vox Dei, Vox Populi.
	Paul Bois has settled it.
	All right, you, get out of here.
	It's been great to have you.
	Amanda Prestigiacomo, Romney Millennial, and Paul Bois.
	Now, for the first time ever, we're going to do the Michael Knowles Show mailbag.
	This is great.
	Okay, so some of these came in tweets because we didn't have it set up on the website yet, so they'll be kind of quick.
	From Joel, what are staff meetings like when a papist, a Jew, and a Protestant all have their own podcasts?
	I don't know, but we have them in a bar.
	It's a lame joke.
	Adrian says, can you give me some tips for the SAT? I'm assuming you had a near perfect score.
	Thank you very much for the compliment.
	I can give you some.
	It's kind of funny.
	So now the SAT is two parts, math and verbal.
	And it used to be two parts, math and verbal.
	But when I took it for like five minutes, they had a third part.
	And I did get a perfect score on two parts, on math and verbal.
	But I didn't get a perfect score on the third part, which was writing.
	Which, depending on how you look at it, is either ironic or manifest and obvious, given my literary endeavors.
	From Madison Hahn.
	That question was intentionally left blank.
	I think you really get us here at the Michael Knowles Show.
	Great, great question.
	From Kristen.
	Mr.
	Knowles, first of all, the show is great.
	Thank you very much.
	My question is simply, to satisfy my curiosity, what tweet is in the frame behind you?
	It has to be a good one to be in such a beautiful gold frame.
	I will tell you what that tweet is.
	It is the moment that I knew we were living in a Matrix-esque simulation.
	It's the tweet from President Trump endorsing my book.
	A great book for your reading enjoyment.
	Reasons to vote for Democrats.
	Thank you, President Trump, and thank you for the question.
	This question from Beer Belly.
	My name is Beer Sheltiol Belkenesi, a.k.a.
	Beer Belly.
	Hello, MK. Do you mind if I call you MK? That's what I imagined calling you if we were close friends.
	I'm in dire need of help.
	I look like a regular guy, but in reality, I'm a transgender cross-dressing homosexual female.
	I've been happily married for a long time, but my wife has decided she is now a transgender cross-dressing homosexual male.
	She still looks the same, but identifies as male.
	Now, this has created an obvious problem, of course.
	I identify as female, but she, I mean he, now identifies as male.
	And since I'm a homosexual and she, I mean he, is homosexual, we no longer have an intimate relationship.
	Help me figure out what to do.
	I think I have to defer to the expert on this from Everyday Feminism, Riley J. Dennis.
	Would you date a trans person, honestly?
	Think about it for a second.
	Okay, got your answer?
	Well, if you said no, I'm sorry, but that's pretty discriminatory.
	Get over your bigotry beer belly.
	Disgusting.
	I can't believe these people listen to our show.
	Dear Mikeliest of Knowles from Mark, I'm curious about any general dating and relationship advice you have.
	Also, did you win over your fiance's love before or after you became world famous as one of the greatest authors of all time?
	How important is becoming famous overnight in having a successful relationship?
	I'm very glad you asked this question.
	I think there's a lot of misinformation out there about this.
	I did not win over sweet little Elise's heart before I became famous.
	I did purchase her.
	It was very expensive.
	And I think that if you're going to ground a relationship on something that isn't as fundamental as fleeting fame or a modest windfall of money, you're destined for failure down the road.
	So remember to keep the important priorities at the top.
	Thank you for your question.
	From Asa Hoffman, why are you Catholic instead of Protestant?
	Because I want to go to heaven, of course, and it's the one true church.
	That's a good question.
	We do have here podcasts with a Jew, a Protestant, and a Catholic.
	I was an atheist for a long time.
	I was an atheist or practical atheist until I was about 20, 22.
	I was actually an atheist at the time I was confirmed in the Catholic Church.
	I'm convinced of the Catholic Church for a few reasons.
	I do think Peter is the rock on which Christ built his church.
	I do believe in the primacy of Peter and the Petrine line.
	And I do think that Christ said to Peter, "You have the kingdom, the keys to the kingdom of heaven.
	Whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven.
	Whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven." The apostles would replace themselves.
	And I do believe in a clergy in the church.
	The other reason, which is I think a little less rote and What I've heard of before is the idea that Christianity, unlike other world religions, is a series of facts.
	It's not philosophy.
	It's not poetry, exactly.
	It's a series of facts.
	A man was born at a time in a place with bones.
	He wore clothes.
	He did things on earth.
	He was killed.
	He was resurrected.
	And so it seemed he had specific apostles.
	It wasn't a sort of simply generalized, ethereal spirit that he loosed on the world.
	He does talk to real people in real time.
	And so it seems perfectly reasonable to me that that Messiah and that Lord would have a real church with real buildings and real artwork on the walls and a real clergy that administers it.
	So that's one of the reasons.
	And we can talk more about religion later on.
	That is all of the mailbag questions.
	That brings us to the final thought.
	The leftist project for centuries has sought to perfect human nature, and each social experiment to that end has failed and left varying degrees of misery in its wake.
	Scientific experiments to achieve that goal may prove more effective, but by no means any more desirable.
	Winston Churchill warned of another scheme to craft the master race, that we might sink into the abyss of a new dark age made more sinister and perhaps more protracted by the lights of perverted science.
	Perhaps we should take a moment to unpervert our philosophy and culture before we embrace a science with the potential to destroy our humanity itself.
	I'm Michael Knowles.
	This is The Michael Knowles Show.
	No more shows this week.

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