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Aug. 10, 2017 - The Michael Knowles Show
45:44
Ep. 8 - FLECCAS TALKS Why The Right Wins Online

Right-wing YouTube star joins Michael in-studio to talk conservative Internet culture. Plus, Antonia Okafor and Zo Rachel join the Panel of Deplorables to discuss giant chicken Trump, gay seat belts, and 13 million year old apes. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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We are joined today on The Michael Knowles Show by Fleckus Talks, the YouTube star, the Dartmouth graduate, the troller of lefties all over the internet.
Plus, we'll also have Antonia Okafor and Zoe Rachel to join the panel of deplorables.
We'll be talking about the giant Trump chicken, a 13-million-year-old ape, and gay seatbelts.
I'm Michael Knowles.
This is the Michael Knowles Show.
So we've got our first in-studio guest ever, Fleckus Talks, Austin Fletcher.
If you haven't seen this guy, he's put up like three videos on the internet, and he's just the biggest thing on YouTube.
He's put up 24 videos.
He's been on Tucker Carlson.
He's been all over the place.
Let's take a look.
We have a little supercut.
We're at the March for Truth here, June 3rd, Pershing Square, downtown LA. We're heading down to town hall and we're going to yell about why we don't like Trump so he hopefully quits.
Kathy Griffin actually spoke for all of us and took the hit for the entire planet.
She didn't speak for me.
She spoke for me.
That's not all of us.
Did you speak for you?
No.
Hey guys, it's Fleckus.
We're out here at Hollywood Boulevard, walking fame, protecting Donald Trump's star from these people trying to deface it.
I hate Donald Trump.
I'm a socialist, a true socialist, and he is nothing but a fascist.
I'm very against Trump.
Why are you against Trump?
Because Trump is against everybody who's not in his class.
I look at it like anybody that's not, like...
I don't know West Trump's situation because he's friend with Kanye West, so you can't really say he's racist.
What are we mad about?
Everything.
Everything.
What do you think his most...
I think that sums it up.
We can probably cut it off here.
Just mad about everything.
So Austin, man, thank you for coming.
Thank you for having me.
Welcome to our illustrious studios.
In our little cramped closet, the broom closet of the Ben Shapiro show.
So the first question I have to ask, why are conservatives so much better at the internet?
Why are we so much better at YouTube and trolling the left?
It seems like we're outpacing them by miles.
I agree, and you're absolutely right.
We are better at the internet.
I think it's kind of coming down to the cultural fight.
I think the left and the right are fighting for the culture right now, and I think we're really doing a better job online.
I mean, the left's kind of been controlling the mainstream media, they've been controlling movies and films and TV, but we're kind of slowly taking it back, and the next frontier is the internet.
It kind of makes sense.
You're right.
There's this whole deck stacked against us.
We're out here in Hollywood.
The Hollywood mainstream media are totally stacked against conservatives.
We also found out Google and YouTube are stacked against conservatives.
They've cut conservative revenue.
They're going to start censoring the videos, apparently.
Google is firing people for putting common sense into a memo.
But we're still dominating on...
Is YouTube a conservative platform?
Or...
Are we going to need to look for other places once they shut us down?
I think at one point YouTube was a conservative platform, but right now we need to, I think, find a different platform because of the recent, you know, the ADL is doing the censorship of certain YouTube profiles.
Of extremists.
Of speech and extremists.
Someone tagged me in one of the things on Twitter and was like, hey, you got to watch out, man.
They're trying to stifle our voice.
I was like, don't tag me in this.
I'm sure they're going to look at whoever they're talking to about it.
Like, don't tag me in it.
It's the Taliban beard.
That's why.
It's not because of your conservative views.
It's got to be the beard or something.
I think it might be one of the problems.
So you're from Dartmouth.
You're clearly a smart, conservative guy, and you're out here doing comedy.
What is it about Dartmouth?
Dartmouth produces all of these great conservatives.
Dinesh D'Souza, Laura Ingram, our buddy Josh Riddle and the Young Cons guys, Peter Robinson, George Rutler, so on and so forth.
What's in the water up there?
I think it has a lot to do...
I mean, on campus, especially lately, it's been very divisive when it comes to the left versus the right.
And I think it's an extreme amount of leftists, like movements, leftists, classes, professors, everything is so left that it makes people that are going to head to the right head there sooner.
So I think when you're up there and, you know, Cinco de Mayo, the party gets canceled because they were planning on serving tacos, and you're like...
Okay, wait a minute.
That's kind of BS. And then it makes people wake up and have their red pill moments, if you will, sooner.
Were you always a conservative?
I actually wasn't.
I only became conservative in the last couple of years.
In college, I didn't know how much I supported Obama because I didn't actually do anything political at all.
But I thought Obama was a good president.
I saw him give a speech and he cried.
And I'm like, this guy cares for the people.
You know, his whole thing was pushing change when I was in college.
I'm like, yeah, change.
Like, that's what we need.
But realistically, I didn't participate in politics.
I barely scanned headlines.
And it wasn't until, I mean, the campaigns this last year where I really woke up and saw what was going on.
I saw how the left and the mainstream media is pandering to these people who don't actually know what's going on.
And they just push this idea of, oh yeah, you're morally superior.
If you're moral, you know, you'll support Hillary Clinton.
And that was the red flag for me.
Because they're politicizing morality, which is completely inappropriate.
And it's very divisive, but now it's a war.
That's interesting, especially on the Dartmouth front.
Being at Dartmouth, I guess, moved you more to the right.
Do you find that there's any...
Dartmouth always had the reputation of being the more conservative Ivy League school.
Do you think that is true?
Do you think the professors were targeting conservatives, as has happened in a lot of other schools?
I think when I was there, I graduated in 2012.
So I think when I first started in 2008, it was pretty okay.
But then in the last 10 years or so, it's really heading in a direction where there's no more debate, there's no more dialogue.
And I think Ben Shapiro made a great point.
You know, he said 10 years ago he used to go do speeches and he didn't have security.
He'd just walk in, do his speech, he either liked it or he hated him and he walked out.
Now they're shutting down the streets, they're destroying campuses, flipping over cars because people want to come talk.
So the room for debate has gone away and with that, I think the silent majority needs to be less silent.
And I think we need to kind of take a stand and show that we're proud to be conservative, show our values are actually more in line with what A self-proclaimed college liberal would think.
We're not as bad as the old Republicans they think we are.
There has been a shift.
I even noticed it.
We graduated in the same year, in 2012, and I noticed it from my freshman year to my senior year.
Maybe it was because it was an election year.
When we got there, Barack Obama had just won.
Everybody was jumping for joy, except for the five of us Republicans on campus were swigging vodka in one of the freshman dorms.
That shift, it really did happen.
It's really gotten mean.
I went back up for my reunion.
It seems much more vicious, much more tense than it was.
A lot of times, people will write in for the mailbag or whatever and say, if I'm a conservative at college, should I speak my mind or should I hide and get good grades?
What do you think?
Oh, there's a fine line.
I think the answer used to be you kind of hide and get good grades because get the good grades, that's going to help and whatever.
But now I think when I'm starting a movement myself, I've some people who are going to go out to college campuses this fall and start interviewing protesters and events at liberal, you know, liberal events at their local colleges and interview the people and just have a discussion and then send me the footage and then I'm going to chop it up and make like a You know, best of the fans of Fleckus Talks.
So I'm trying to take back the colleges.
I think that's the next frontier.
I think people are being indoctrinated.
There's no better word than that.
And we need to get in the faces of the liberals non-violently and say, what are you doing here?
Why do you disagree with Trump?
Why do you disagree with this policy?
And ask questions where people need to explain themselves because we need to stop the politicization of morality.
It's not where the game's headed.
So what is the moment?
What is the fleckus on the road to Damascus?
You're at Dartmouth.
You're up there in Hanover.
Is there some big event that happens?
Is it just you're reading certain things, you're talking to certain people, or you're just getting progressively disgusted by the lefties?
So it's a combination of, yeah, getting constantly disgusted by the left.
All these social justice warriors and everything they're pushing is just so soft.
Like, what happened to toughness and grit?
That's what America was all about a few years ago.
That's like when my grandparents came here and they were tough.
My grandma came here and she worked in a factory and sewed dresses and took care of her family and saved all the money she could to help her daughter, which is my mom.
And then those values need to be instilled, and they're not.
And I think it's just like the universities have become this safe space, and it's too safe, it's too soft, and it's about time we take it back.
An, this is a little bit of a tangential point, but you're also of Italian descent, as I am.
Italians tend to trend Republican.
Of immigrant groups, Italians tend to be quite Republican.
My family on the Italian side is, because of that toughness, that, I don't know how to put it, that je ne sais quoi, they tend to vote Republican, they're a little tougher.
What is it about the Italian culture that does that?
I think, yeah, it's the toughness.
It's just...
For me at least, my mom came from a family where they came from nothing.
They came from Italy with a few dollars in their pocket, they got in a boat, they came here, dropped out of high school, and just worked.
And she remembers the lessons she learned from her parents, and I think it's...
Italians have a little toughness.
They really appreciate toughness.
They really appreciate grit and hard work and not making excuses.
And that's where my wooden spoon microphone comes from.
I have the wooden spoon with the mic.
Yeah, I was going to ask you about this.
For those who haven't seen it, Austin's microphone is a wooden spoon with a tape recorder taped to it.
So yeah, what brought that idea up?
So it's kind of just bringing the wooden spoon back to these leftists because growing up, if I misbehaved, my mom would pull the spoon out and whack it at the table and calm down.
And I listened because I don't want to give the wooden spoon.
And now these protesters, mostly millennials, are out in the streets having a big temper tantrum.
And it's because no one gave them the wooden spoon.
No one gave them a tough structural upbringing.
And now they're calling for socialism.
They want it their way.
They want everyone to be...
We talked about this a little bit yesterday.
Millennials have this reputation of being snowflakes, of being coddled, they're helicopter parented, they haven't...
I've been exposed to the realities of the world.
Do you think that's fair?
It's a fair criticism of them?
They also have a lot of student debt.
They've also got a ton of divorced parents.
They're going to inherit a big national debt.
Do you think we're being too hard on millennials, or is it just a fact of life and we've got to straighten them out?
I think the millennial group is still forming.
Imagine it being like clay, and we're still deciding who these people are going to become, what the culture is going to be, what the main message of this generation is going to be.
So I think we're in a point now where we can kind of decide who the millennials are in a few years from now.
Right now, they're coming across as a little soft, a little entitled.
They're more educated than ever, but they're sitting in student loan debt with no job.
A lot of them live at home.
They're trying to tell us how the country should run, how the government should be run, how the economy should be run.
It's kind of like, just because you're educated and took a class about this doesn't mean that you should be in charge.
There's a system here, and it involves being tough.
It involves failing and getting back up and going again, and that's what these people lack.
They're very credentialed, but just because they took a class doesn't mean they're educated at all.
I mean, education has decayed a lot.
I don't know that these people, they might have higher SAT scores, but I don't know that they...
Are more educated than a class from the 1940s or 50s.
Oh, totally agree.
But they're more entitled than ever, which is a huge issue because, I mean, years back, not everyone went to college, you know?
So either, you know, graduate high school, did you do good enough in high school and care about certain stuff?
You go to college, cool, get a job.
If you don't, get in the workforce.
Now everyone goes to college.
Everyone thinks, oh, I go to college.
$4 million of debt.
$4 million of debt.
And it's for what?
To party for four years and drink a bunch of beer?
I would pay a quarter of a million.
It is a lot of fun partying for four years.
It was.
It was great.
But, you know, here we are.
These people now are, I don't know, why should we give them credibility?
Why should they be in charge of anything?
I really don't get it.
Well, so you're at Dartmouth.
You graduate Dartmouth.
As is your Ivy League birthright, you immediately go to Wall Street.
Just like, you know, when I graduated, they had, I got three emails from Yale's employment office or office of God knows what.
And the first one said, a career panel about finance.
And the other one said, a career panel in the law.
And then the third one said, alternative career paths.
Those are the two that you can do, and then you have to...
So you go down to Wall Street.
What makes you go down there?
Um, so growing up, um, I had a strict upbringing and my mom had a plan for us.
She told all the kids, you know, go to the college, get a good job, go move out of the house and just make something to yourself.
So I knew that was a, like my goal at the time.
So I got internships.
I really built up my resume.
I played football.
So I reached out to some alumni football players and got hooked up with an internship, which has led to a full time job.
And that was basically just following my parents' path, which I'm so happy I did because it was a great experience.
I learned about waking up at 5 in the morning every day.
I learned about staying late until, you know, you're the last one there.
Working 100-hour weeks.
Oh, brutal.
A number of my friends were working on Wall Street.
Exactly.
And then they make you go out for drinks with people and you can't leave until everyone's done.
So...
You know, you're out till two, three in the morning.
No, you're going out for those damn drinks.
It's so frustrating.
It's the worst.
And you have to come back to work like three hours later.
Sometimes I went straight to work from like, you know, hosting clients or whatever.
So I learned a lot though.
And then from there I learned what I didn't want to do.
And I learned that I wanted to create my own content.
I want to create my own brand and just get out there and create something that can affect people in a bigger way.
So you've got a career ahead of you.
You're on Wall Street, Dartmouth graduate.
King of the world.
You're guaranteed to make a lot of money, have a good life.
And then you decide to make the very wise decision to throw all of it away to go piss off lefties at airports and on the internet.
I'm not being facetious.
I think it was a great decision.
But what gave you the guts to do that?
I was sitting in...
Actually, I was sitting in my promotion meeting.
I was going to get promoted to associate.
They were really happy.
And I said, actually, I was going to give you guys a two-week notice next week when my contract was up.
I'm planning on moving to California.
And everyone laughed.
They thought it was hilarious.
And then I was like, no, seriously, I am.
And then some people said, you're making the worst mistake of your life.
You can't do this.
No one has a job right now.
Like 10,000 people applied for 35 spots.
You got one and you're leaving.
And I was like...
So I moved to California.
I bought a 1999 SL500 convertible.
Oh, nice!
Really cool.
I drove that around for a little bit.
And then after a couple of years of making comedy, before this I wasn't huge into politics until this past election, and I'm so happy I I became passionate about it because it's my favorite thing in the world right now.
It is amazing.
You leave your Wall Street job to go do comedy in Hollywood, but not just to do comedy in Hollywood, to do comedy as a conservative in Hollywood.
These are really niche paths you're following here, but you don't look like a banker.
This brings me to my other question.
Why are these people talking to you?
Why do these guys at these protests allow you to humiliate them on video?
Well, I think a lot of the conservative interviewers, like Jesse Waters and those types, they'll come actually with the suit and the microphone and the production crew and they're hitting you with questions and everyone kind of just clams up and they do a lot of post-production sound effects and they cut to a Jack Nicholson clip where he goes, what are you talking about?
And then they're like, all right, this guy got roasted.
But I think that there's more to it.
If we can actually hear these people out, Then we can decide, really, if they make sense.
So I sneak up on them, you know, wearing clothes like they wear.
This is just stuff I like to wear, but I have my spoon microphone.
I look like an idiot.
I have, like, this dumb, fat face and a beard.
So they just think I'm a nobody.
I go up to them.
Hey, what are you doing here?
My questions are really easy.
What are you doing here?
Who did you vote for?
What does your sign say?
And they'll be like, oh, I'm here because Donald Trump's worse than Hitler and he's going to kill all the Jews.
I'm just like, all right, keep going.
Like that happened last video.
That's what someone was saying.
I was like, okay, cool.
You know, very cool.
Very cool.
And what else about this, this, and this?
And they just open up to me for some reason.
Well, you know, you don't look like a smart conservative.
And then you are a smart conservative and it catches them off guard.
A lot of great politicians talk about this.
They talk about playing dumber than their mark.
Bill Clinton does it.
George W. Bush does it.
Do you think that is the way to engage lefties?
You don't try to slam them.
I think 100%.
I think that's what Trump does too.
I agree.
Because people look at Trump, and you look at Trump in either one or two ways.
You either think he's a brilliant mastermind savant, or you think he's some real estate idiot who's in charge of the country.
I can't believe it.
Who's just coincidentally succeeded in four different industries and reached the top of all of them.
Exactly.
And if you look at him like he's...
So if you're here and you look at him like he's dumb, he knows that.
And he embraces that.
Kind of embraces his Queens, New York.
And he lets you think that.
Because now when you're looking at him down like this, he's really up here making moves.
And he has your reaction to him planned for.
He knows what you're going to think about all the stuff he does.
And he's like a step ahead.
It's the 4D chess they talk about.
Right.
So you're an adherent of the 4D chess.
I don't think the guy's an idiot.
I think it is really...
It's hard to imagine that a guy would succeed in television, real estate, casinos.
And he has succeeded in all of them.
He's had bad deals.
He's had things go bankrupt.
And then, obviously, politics.
He comes in his first race ever.
He beats 16 of the most prominent politicians in the country and then takes out the Clintons.
It's hard to imagine that guy's a dummy.
Do you think conservatism is ascendant right now?
Do you think in the age of Trump, we're just winning, winning, we're getting sick and tired of winning?
Or do you think, you know, some of the never-Trump people say...
Really, it's a Pyrrhic victory.
We're losing the culture.
We're becoming too much like the left.
Do you think we're winning?
Do you think we're losing?
Is Trump a net positive or a net negative?
I think right now it's net positive.
The way I watch the news now, which has actually been working out, I watch the mainstream news, like CNN, for example, and I watch it backwards.
Yeah.
So I'll see the leaking of, oh, Manafort's house got raided a month ago, and that gets leaked.
I see that as, okay, some big news is coming for the right, and that's their preemptive thing to kind of eat up the news cycle when it's happening.
That's an interesting theory, and probably not far from the truth.
I would not put it past them at all.
I mean, the lies that have been published.
New York Times just got caught in this big climate change report lie.
Their whole report was inaccurate.
CNN, one story after another.
Washington Post, same thing.
They're clearly, they've become activists, if ever they weren't activists, against the Republican Party.
Wouldn't be surprised at all.
I think we've got to try to, I've got to try your strategy.
Yeah, it works, yeah.
So you're reaching out to these college kids.
We're talking about post-millennials, really.
We're not talking about 28, 29-year-olds.
We're talking about these kids who are in college now.
If we were the Obama generation, do you think there's a chance that the dominant culture among these young people, or not dominant, but the subversive and cool culture, is finally on the right?
Are we finally seeing that, or are we kidding ourselves?
Yeah, I absolutely believe that.
And I think the strongest movements are kind of like these cult followings and these very niche-specific movements.
And that's right where we're falling into here.
I think the younger generation is Generation Z, right?
They're more conservative than ever, and they don't like getting their news from TV. They like to go online.
They like to research.
They like the Reddits and 4chan and all that kind of stuff.
So it's like these people aren't going to just take what's fed to them and say, oh, that's what I believe.
Oh, Obama's great.
Trump's bad.
They're actually, they desire the truth.
The ways of the old Republicans, where it's kind of in your face, America, guns, all these things, that's getting adjusted, and the parties are rebranding.
The Democrats aren't doing a good job of it.
They keep pushing Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer.
Hillary Clinton.
Hillary Clinton.
It's so bad.
But the right is rebranding.
The new young conservative movement is going to take pride in knowing the facts.
They love knowing the facts because then they can go debate anybody and say it pretty much however they want if they're based in truth.
And they're slowly fighting back and taking back the culture.
And I think we're coming into a really cool non-violent war here.
That's going to be exciting.
And they're fighting this sentimental PC hogwash that we've been imbued with for decade upon decade.
It is an exciting time.
Almost as exciting as bringing on the panel of deplorables.
We've got, we're very lucky today, we've got Zoe Rachel and Antonia Okafor, and Fleckes is going to stick around.
So, you know, we've got all of these internet-y people here.
I've got to ask, all of us in our political lives, every person here is sort of a product of the internet.
That was our entrance into politics.
So, Zoe, is it because the internet as a whole leans right, or is it because everything else leans left, or some combination?
Ha ha ha.
Well, you know, the conversation is about, I got the email for a conservative culture and I was like, conservative internet culture, we got one?
Really?
And no, but in terms of it leaning right or leaning left, it's a foundation of I'm not trying to make leftists
angry.
I usually make them laugh.
And the leftists can't have that.
You make me laugh at leftists.
I'm getting confused.
Yeah, I'm sorry.
The world feels absurd and it's easy to make jokes out of.
But the thing is, what they'll do is that they'll try to mask my work to make it look uninteresting.
They don't even send trolls after me anymore.
Because trolls equals views.
They don't want my views to go up.
And sometimes when the trolls come, they end up reconsidering what it is that they thought.
So they can't have that either.
to your question of does it lean right or does it lean left?
No, it's on a leftist foundation.
Google, YouTube, this is their platform, this is their foundation that we're making use of.
And I think that kind of has to stop. - And you know, speaking, I've lived under the bridge for a very long time, and I can say, while the internet and these platforms might be left, those trolls definitely lean right.
There is no question about that.
Antonia, do you think this right-wing online activism, the laughs and the serious commentary and the facts and all of that, does it translate into real political results or are we all just babbling into the air?
Yeah, no, I definitely think that it has results, definitely.
I think that really, like I said, like you said, I started out with the internet culture.
Like being able to spread my message that way.
And I think because people, just like he was saying, like Zoe just said, that because when they do see people like me and they're like, oh my gosh, that's not what I think of as the traditional conservative, well now their stereotypes have changed and really basically their whole foundation has changed because the left has made it so much about race and sex.
And that's why we don't see people like us, because it really is changing people's minds and making people...
I mean, that's what changed me.
I saw someone else who was a black conservative, and I was like, whoa, they exist?
And then I was like, okay, well, I guess I could come out of the closet now.
So yeah, I think it does make a difference.
It smashes this whole vision that we've been presented with.
I don't think anybody on the screen right now is what people think of when they think of the young Republican.
Maybe even, you know, my jacket's a little too loud.
Usually it's the Brooks Brothers buttoned up, the hair parted, all of that.
And also, you've actually had some very real results.
In your activism on guns.
And we talked about last week the number of black women in particular who are purchasing guns and getting permits is way up.
So at least with you we're seeing real results.
When you have mugs like the three of us, probably not as effective, but at least Antonia Okafor is.
Michael, you need to give yourself credit.
I mean, you went to Yale and you...
I appreciate it.
The thing that Yale can do is either make you into a kind of left-wing automaton, or it makes you such a reactionary that you go completely in the other direction.
All right.
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According to the Washington Post, some idiot assembled a giant inflatable chicken with golden Donald Trump hair outside of the White House on Wednesday.
Do you get it?
Because Donald Trump is a chicken.
Do you get it?
Isn't it so funny?
Austin.
President Obama's strategy in Libya was called leading from behind.
His strategy on North Korea was called strategic patience.
And yet, they're accusing our side of being chickens.
Are they just projecting?
Where are they getting this from?
I think it's, yeah, definitely partially projecting, but anything the guy does, they have to hate.
So if he comes out and says, you know, everyone's great, and I love the left, I love the right, and all people are equal, they get mad about it.
Kim Jong-un comes out and threatens to nuke us, or nuke Guam, you know, one of our provinces.
What's wrong with what he said?
He took a strong stance.
I mean, we haven't done it in the past, and now it's, you know, he's being offensive or he's being irrational.
The guy can't get it right.
That's absolutely right.
Whatever he does, they have to do the opposite, I guess.
And on this kind of psychobabble thing, Zoe, the Democrats called Bush a chicken hawk.
They called the same thing about Dick Cheney.
They said that George W. Bush had daddy issues and was trying to resolve what his father didn't resolve.
It's all of this psychobabble.
Why do they love making these insinuations instead of talking about real issues and real policies?
Well, if we're going to use the term psychobabble, let's toss in the word projection because that's what they're doing.
They're projecting their own disposition onto somebody else.
And if they want to call Donald Trump a chicken, man, have you guys seen that viral video, man, where he has this cat, like, batting this little mouse around, right?
And I imagine this cat, have you seen it?
You know what I'm talking about?
I do, yeah.
Batting this mouse around, just playing with it, and this chicken comes out of nowhere, man, and snatches up this mouse and just starts bashing it on the floor, man, and just runs off with this mouse.
Now, if you're going to call Donald Trump a chicken, that's what it's like, because it's like Hillary's the cat, like, batting around CNN saying, you guys are going to do my bidding, right?
I'm going to be the next president, right?
I'm going to be the next president.
And then Donald Trump, the chicken, just comes and says, nope, mine.
I'm running off with it, just bashing Marshall, we need to make a note.
You need to animate that immediately.
We need to get that as exactly the right image.
Right away, Michael.
Now, Antonia, we're lucky that we have Antonia here because your reputation and your motives are constantly impugned, too.
People insinuate all sorts of cycle babble on you.
How do you respond to those people?
Do you respond to those accusations or do you just ignore them and move on and keep doing what you're doing?
Oh, no.
Yeah, I completely...
I always just ignore because I'm better than everybody.
No way.
I definitely...
It is true, though.
It's certainly true.
I definitely talk to them, and I definitely respond.
I try to, depending on my mood, actually, like, have a coherent conversation that's not just, well, you suck back, or, you know, something like that.
But most of the time...
No, you don't shoot them.
Oh, I should have, right?
I use my graduate degree, I guess, kind of.
And...
No, I don't.
It's really just student loan money that I'm going to have to pay back later.
But really, when I do come down to it, I tell them, especially when it comes to the race issue, they'll be like, oh, you're a token.
Oh, you're an NRA. I mean, I'm doing stuff with the NRA. They're just using you.
Basically, they're telling me that because I'm a black person, another black person is telling me as a black person that because I am a black person, that's the only credibility that I have.
In order to succeed and then yet they're like oh well you know what we really need like affirmative action and we need all these different things because I just don't understand this culture that does not think that black people are able to actually have thoughts outside of being controlled by somebody.
That's right you only have brains.
You only have brains if you parrot what everybody else is saying, but if you think for yourself, then you're totally brain-dead, you're a puppet, you're being used, and of course, it makes total sense.
You think for yourself, and it's not a problem.
Exactly.
You learn to think for yourself, and that means thinking just like me.
I gotta say, that beard, man, it's Nebuchadnezzar.
Thank you.
It's going to get them on that YouTube watch list.
Now, KLM, the Dutch airline, has recently gotten into the news because they tweeted out a photo for Pride Month.
It was three rainbow seatbelts in a row.
And they had one where it was the male buckle and the female buckle.
And then they had one where it was the male buckle and the male buckle.
And then one where it was the female buckle and the female buckle.
And the tweet read...
It doesn't matter who you click with.
Happy Pride Amsterdam.
Now, there is just one issue with this image that only one of them clicks.
Only male and female actually click.
Now, Zoe, is this the stupidest tweet of all time?
Or is this 4D chess?
You know, we are talking about KLM on the show today.
Maybe they're just masterminds.
Probably not.
Man, the law of nature itself dictates that you can't connect poles to poles and holes to holes, man.
You know, it's like, that's not the...
I'm gonna have to edit that out.
Thank you, Seth.
That is about as accurate an analysis as I've heard of this.
You know, I mean, wow.
Talk about, this is Twilight Zone type stuff, man.
It's, uh...
It's just by the laws of nature, that doesn't work.
It's like, this is pride?
That pride ain't gonna work if you...
Man, I don't even know how to respond to that.
That's just funny.
Maybe it was really...
Maybe it was anti-gay marriage.
You were saying it doesn't matter whom you click with.
It just has to click.
It has to click or it's an abomination.
Maybe that's what they...
It could have been the esoteric message.
You can't naturally make that click, man.
It's like, what you gonna hold that together with?
Duct tape?
That just...
That doesn't work, man.
It doesn't matter who you click with, and if it doesn't click, roll it up and duct tape.
Antonia, why is an airline tweeting about sex?
Why do I care?
I've flown KLM, it's fine.
Why do we care what KLM thinks about homosexuality or Pride Month or whatever?
Well, why is Teen Vogue writing articles about how you can have anal sex?
I canceled my subscription, so I haven't read the article.
Well, I mean, as I'm telling you, it was just day and age that anything goes, apparently.
I mean, yeah.
But the funny thing, too, is that at first I was like, oh, man, that social media intern is totally, like, not getting any full credit on that.
But then I was like, but then they had the picture with it.
If it was just the text, it would have been, like, a social media intern.
But then they actually put thought into it, had a picture, you know, displayed it, and made it a campaign.
That's right.
They probably had a meeting about this.
Yeah.
They probably had several meetings about that.
So I'm just like, yeah, I'm not flying with that airline, obviously.
They can't even put those two things together.
And people were thinking, well, but that doesn't actually click.
And then they say it in the actual text.
I wonder what the safety demonstration looks like.
Excuse me.
I'll show you how it works.
Now, Austin, you make leftists say stupid things on video, but KLM is showing us that leftists will just say stupid things themselves, completely unprovoked.
Is there a place for us in this world?
Or have they transcended parody?
I think there is a place for us.
I think this is a perfect opportunity.
And I've realized, too, in the last, especially the last year, if you're going to put something on the internet, it better be what you really believe.
Because the trolls are going to tear it apart.
So once I saw this come up, I was like, all right, here it comes.
And sure enough, all the conservatives went right after it.
And I'm sure Kalen will be out with an amendment to it.
They'll come out with some...
Some sort of retraction down the road.
They'll have to because anything you put out right now, if it doesn't line up with certain groups, we'll play their own game at it and the trolls will tear it up.
Absolutely.
Now, another important story.
There has been a discovery of a 13 million year old ape skull that shows what human ancestors may have looked like.
Question goes to you, Austin.
Why was it necessary for God to put this fake skull on earth to test our faith?
Why did he have to do that?
Yeah, it's a great question.
It's just a perfect opportunity to continue to be faithful, though.
We have to ignore this.
We have to ignore science, selectively, of course.
And we have to kind of, you know, decide what we believe and what we don't believe.
I don't believe it.
Well, now you sound like the left, because we need some science, but we need to selectively ignore science.
You know, the same people who tell us that men are really women if they say they're women, but not if they don't say they're women, they accuse us, conservatives, of denying science.
Antonia, do you think there is a conflict between faith and science?
Well, first of all, I remember specifically that ZO said that he was going to identify as a woman, so there would be half an equal representation of genders in this panel.
Absolutely.
I know.
He's denying science denial.
It's getting very confusing.
I'm really sick of it, actually.
I'm definitely sick of it.
Yeah, so faith and science.
I mean, for me, I'm a woman of faith, and I definitely believe that.
I think all of the stuff that's happening is really just showing, is just backing up our faith.
I mean, I'm a Christian, so I still believe, though, that God has had a plan for people.
And this is part of his plan.
Science is just uncovering what he already has done.
It's giving evidence for intelligent design.
Right, yeah, yeah.
Absolutely.
A lot of people, they'll say, well, do you believe in Genesis or do you believe in the Big Bang?
And people forget, because not only are they science deniers, but they're history deniers, that it was a Catholic priest who discovered the Big Bang.
It was George Lemaitre who discovered it.
And the more that we learn about science, the more light that's been shown on our faith.
It seems to me.
Zoe, what do you think?
Are you a science denier, a God denier, or both?
I bet you're both.
Oh, man.
I'm a denier of neither.
I'll tell you what, man.
The things that they claim to come up with in science, these are all discoveries.
That's all you can really do in science is discovery.
And the things that they discover are things that the Bible has already talked about.
When they talk about even the Big Bang, or when they're talking about how the universe is expanding, they say that the universe is contracting, then they say that the universe is expanding, not only is it expanding, it's speeding up.
Well, the Bible already told us that the Lord spreads out the heavens like a tent.
That has to start from a compressed point and then open up.
In terms of the ape skull, I don't know how they tie that to us.
If they want to go ahead and see themselves as descendants of apes, go ahead and be my guest.
It was a descendant of Joe Biden, or an ancestor rather.
There you go.
That facial structure seems to add up somehow, but I guess they're trying to put a date on Earth.
And the thing is, if you read the Bible, the Bible lets you know quite clearly that there was an Earth before the Genesis account.
All you have to do is read the thing.
Reading, though, reading's tough.
We don't do that so much anymore.
At most, I'll read a text or two.
Okay, panel, thank you so much for being here.
We have Zoe Rachel, Antonia Okafor, and Fleckis Talks.
Now it is time for the mailbag.
We have got a lot of mailbag questions today, so we are going to fly through these.
The first one comes from Johnny.
Dear MKUltra, thank you.
That's very nice.
Should a conservative walk through a hyper-leftist school unseen to survive, or should they try to explain their beliefs to their peers?
Austin, I guess we talked about that a little bit.
I take a different view than I think most people.
I think a lot of people say, put your head down, get the good grades, get out of here.
I personally am convinced that at least on one occasion my grades were hurt at Yale because of my views.
Only on one occasion, though, which says a lot about the school.
I did not do that.
I was very open about my politics.
I was the head of every conservative Republican thing.
I trolled every lefty that I saw.
You know, we did Occupy, Occupy New Haven.
We did all these things.
And I've enjoyed it.
Same thing in Hollywood.
Since I've been, you know, I was an actor in New York and theater, film, TV, out here as well.
And I was always open about my politics.
Has it hurt me?
Did it hurt me at Yale academically or socially?
Did it hurt me in show business?
Maybe it has.
I never wanted to hide my own views.
I don't think it's worth doing that.
I don't think that you should be denying what you think.
But that said, there are huge risks to it.
So you've got to really weigh it out.
There are risks to both sides.
And I don't think there's an easy answer on it.
But what I would do is be honest about your point of view.
Next question from Joe.
Grandmaster Knowles, thank you.
A lot of talk over this NASA planetary defender position.
Is there any chance that a certain best-selling author, Ivy League-educated Sicilian provocateur will be applying?
Just show them the framed tweet.
The thought of you being the only line of defense between me and the threat of alien annihilation makes me truly believe in Trump's America.
Looking forward to the sequel.
I am convinced I am the planetary protector.
I'm convinced I'm Neo in the Matrix.
Ever since my blank book became the number one bestseller, I now know this isn't the real world.
This is only a simulation.
So maybe I'm Keanu Reeves.
I'm glad that I got the position.
Didn't even have to apply.
Next question from Alistair.
Hi, Michael.
Yay!
Finally a podcast.
So happy for you.
I'm looking for the most comprehensive definition of what conservatism is.
Would it be fair to say that the most comprehensive guide would be the entirety of the Federalist Papers?
Would there need to be anything added to that?
Or does the Federalist Papers delve outside the scope of what conservatism is?
I'm happy to give a definition.
I think conservatism evades definition, though.
In my view, it would be three things.
Ordered liberty, human dignity, and a skepticism of ideology.
So I love The Federalist.
Everyone should read The Federalist cover to cover.
If you're in this country, you should have read The Federalist.
There are also other people to read.
Edmund Burke, Russell Kirk, Conscience of a Conservative, Bill Buckley, all of those great writers who contributed.
Tocqueville.
Also, I think people ought to read...
Michael Oakeshott gave a definition of ideology in the essay Rationalism and Politics.
It was so influential to my political view that I memorized it.
He defines ideology as the formalized abridgment of the supposed substratum of rational truth contained in the tradition.
And that's why the rationalists always get a bunch of cockamamie ideas and ignore reality in front of them.
A lot of times college professors seem to be saying, who cares if it works in practice?
Does it work in theory?
I recommend reading those guys and always having a healthy skepticism of ideology, of checklists, of political tests one way or the other, and taking it as a whole.
Institutions, the institutions of the West, and the ideas that have guided them and that have come out of them.
Next question from Silas.
This is a much more serious question than that.
Dear Mr.
Knowledge, I meant Knowles.
Well, it's the same thing, I guess.
I think you're right.
Hail to you, Sir Trolls, a lot.
Right-hand man to Commandant Klavan, beater of Shapiro in a game of chance.
Both true.
I will ask you one more time.
Can you confirm or deny that Andrew Klavan, the master of the multiverse and slayer of PC dragons, is an extraterrestrial shapeshifter?
Silas, come on, man.
Can I confirm or deny that fish swim or that birds fly?
Open your eyes, man.
Wake up, sheeple.
Next question comes from Rosemary.
One, please distinguish Sicilian from Italian.
Yes, it matters.
About seven shades of color is the difference.
And the second question is, please expand on your reversion to Christianity.
I'm happy to do that.
We talked a little bit about this last week.
I was an atheist, agnostic, practical atheist from 13 to 20, 21, 22.
One thing that was strange is everyone at Yale was an atheist, but the smartest people at Yale were Christian.
Particularly Catholic or Eastern Orthodox in my experience.
And so I started to contemplate the arguments for God.
I think a lot of people come to religion and Christianity in particular because of a religious experience, a numinous experience of some sort, ineffable.
It wasn't that way for me, primarily.
That came later.
I considered the arguments for God.
There were about a dozen good ones.
And I was just convinced.
I thought the arguments for God were better than the arguments against God.
In particular, rather, the ontological argument, which was formed by St.
Anselm of Canterbury, and then later reformulated by Leibniz and Gödel.
And the one that got me was the modal ontological argument, which was put forth by Alvin Plantinga, a Calvinist out of Notre Dame.
The argument, I'm not doing it justice, but the simple argument is this.
God is the maximally great being.
That's the definition of God.
He has all the great-making characteristics, none of the corrupting characteristics.
It is better to exist than not to exist.
Therefore, God must exist.
It's much more elegant when you read it, but that's the gist of the argument.
It convinces no one, but it did convince me, and I think C.S. Lewis, too.
I think it convinced him.
And after that...
The ineffable experiences come, particularly coincidences.
The Christian view of the world is semiotic.
It's very symbolic.
And then I found a church, coincidentally St.
Michael's Church in New York, where Father George Rutler is the pastor, and I recommend reading him as well.
And that might bring you to a reversion or conversion, too.
Next question from Tad.
Hey, MK, I listened to your defense of Christianity and Catholicism episode four.
With admiration, I have to wonder if you're more Catholic than the current Pope.
I don't think I'm more Catholic than the Pope, but I do understand where you're coming from.
The Pope has been saying some things that have raised eyebrows.
You know, there have been plenty of bad Popes, generally speaking.
Dante put some of them in hell.
And the Pope, there's a confusion over papal infallibility.
The Pope is fallible, except when he's infallible.
And by some counts, the Pope has only invoked infallibility, speaking ex cathedra, seven times, ten or eleven times.
So...
Perhaps the Lord gives us bad popes.
Not that I'm calling Francis a bad pope, but perhaps he gives us bad popes to show us that they're fallible, except when they're infallible.
A letter from Marie.
Dear Michael, loved the riveting read on reasons to vote for Democrat.
Thank you for reading it.
It's on the coffee table for anyone who wants to be enlightened.
My super serious question is, does the Donald let you borrow his tanner or do you glow naturally?
No, my mother was Sicilian though, which does explain why I look like I was on the face of the sun.
Next question from Wayne.
I'm feeling trans Michael Knowles.
Go see a doctor immediately.
Run, do not walk to the hospital.
Question from Jackson.
Michael, I've been following Roaming Millennial for a while now, and I was not only surprised, but very happy to see you bring her on your show.
Can you tell us why you chose Roaming for your panel of deplorables, and can you tell us if you plan on bringing her on for a while?
I'm so glad you asked this question.
You know, I am getting married to my wonderful fiancée, sweet little Elisa, soon, and so I've been bringing Roaming on as a sort of audition for when we do finally form our right-wing, apocalyptic, polygamous cult, And she could be a sister wife.
So that's been, I'm really glad you asked.
I think there's been some confusion about it.
That is the whole mailbag.
And that takes up all of my time with Fleckis Talks.
Fleckis.
Thank you so much for being here.
It's been great to talk to you.
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