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Dec. 14, 2017 - The Michael Knowles Show

45:14

Ep. 75 - ‘Net Neutrality’: Trump Makes The Internet Free Again

Donald Trump’s FCC makes the Internet free again! We’ll explain so-called "net neutrality" since apparently nobody has any idea what it is. Then, Cabot Philips and Paul Bois join the Panel of Deplorabes to discuss deregulation, sex, and the deregulation of sex. Finally, the Mailbag! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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	Donald Trump's FCC makes the internet free again.
	We will explain so-called net neutrality, since apparently nobody has any idea what it is.
	Then, Cabot Phillips and Paul Bois join the panel of deplorables to discuss deregulation, sex, and the deregulation of sex.
	Finally, the mailbag.
	I'm Michael Knowles and this is The Michael Knowles Show.
	Trump just deregulated the internet.
	This vote just came out.
	Good stuff.
	Very, very covfefe.
	Now, I realize nobody knows anything about net neutrality.
	Actually, that isn't true.
	It's that nobody who supports net neutrality knows anything about it.
	So, very quickly, here's what you need to know.
	Today, there was an FCC vote to repeal Obama-era regulations on the Internet that the judiciary has consistently struck down.
	The vote, led by FCC Chairman Ajit Pai, who himself actually was appointed to the FCC by Barack Obama, means that broadband providers will now be able to offer people a wider variety of service options and price points and have more incentive to build networks, especially in rural areas and underserved areas.
	How awful.
	I know.
	It's so terrifying.
	Net neutrality, that phrase, is an Orwellian-named regulation that empowers the government to force broadband networks to treat all data traveling over their networks in the same way.
	Downloading high-speed porn, uploading your child's book report, Internet providers can't offer different plans for different purposes under net neutrality, which is now struck down.
	How did all of this begin?
	In 2005, the FCC declared that broadcast internet, the internet that we all use, broadband internet rather, is specifically not a telecommunications service, and therefore it is not subject to common carrier rules and rates and services and regulations.
	This made total sense.
	The freewheeling, unregulated nature of the Internet is why it evolved so rapidly, so efficiently to serve customer demands.
	Ever since Al Gore invented it, it's really blown up.
	It's dynamic.
	The line in the Internet between successful investment and failure is very thin, so it makes a lot of sense not to regulate this thing to death.
	Things got a little murky in 2008.
	So even though the FCC explicitly acknowledged three years earlier that broadband is not a telecommunications service, It issued guidelines, which in 2008 it bizarrely started to enforce.
	They're just guidelines.
	You don't have to follow them.
	In 2008, for some reason, they changed their mind and started forcing these companies to follow guidelines that it itself said they don't have to.
	Now, fortunately, a federal appeals court in 2010 smacked the FCC down.
	They pointed out that the agency itself had admitted that it didn't have regulatory authority.
	Thank you.
	I don't know how they arrived at this terminology.
	But even then, even after they adopted these formal rules, there had to be exceptions.
	Winners and losers selected arbitrarily by the government.
	Some people and services hog bandwidth.
	On the innocent end of this is Netflix and Hulu.
	On the other end – and I know none of our listeners know anything about this – but on the other end, there are people binging high-speed Internet porn.
	So the FCC had to exempt, quote, reasonable network management.
	This included certain mobile networks.
	Obviously, they had to do this.
	Otherwise, it would have slowed the growth of the Internet and Internet companies tremendously.
	But all of it was pretty unfair.
	So the Internet service providers sued in 2014 – Once again, the court struck down the FCC's rules because the FCC lacked authority.
	So in 2015, this godless, headless regulatory agency, the FCC, got tired of the game, emboldened by Barack Obama's governing principle of, If it moves, tax it.
	If it keeps moving, regulate it.
	If it stops moving, subsidize it.
	The FCC changed its tune and they insisted that they indeed had the right to regulate broadband and therefore the internet as a public utility like the phone company.
	This decision was doubly awful.
	It was awful for two reasons.
	On the one hand, the federal government should get its grubby paws off of the internet.
	Go away.
	We don't want you there.
	I know Al Gore invented you, but that's enough.
	We'll keep the internet free.
	Thank you very much.
	On the other hand, if the federal government is insisting on making the internet less free, it should be our elected representatives in Congress who do it, not some...
	Totally unaccountable, unelected bureaucracy at the FCC. Congresswoman Marsha Blackburn, a Republican, explained this.
	She said, if there are net neutrality rules, it's something to be done by Congress, not the FCC. They're on our turf, and we need to reclaim it.
	Absolutely right.
	Now, the pro-regulation crowd are typically hysterical.
	They predict that you will not be able to access video streaming services, ISPs will have total control over customers.
	This is what they always say.
	It just doesn't happen because these companies, they're not out to get you.
	They're not out to oppress you.
	They want your money.
	They want your business.
	Less regulation means there's more room for competitors to swoop in and offer you a better deal.
	This always happens.
	Deregulation...
	It does not raise the price of goods.
	It decreases the price of goods.
	Now, there has been no case in the courts of an ISP violating net neutrality that actually arose involving the dominant Internet provider abusing its market power.
	In reality, that hasn't happened.
	In the fantasies of hysterical lefties, that happens all the time, but not in reality.
	The main industry that's freaking out is high-speed porn.
	Pornography is a $100 billion per year industry.
	It makes all of that money by giving you free bandwidth-hogging videos that display ads and infect your computer with viruses.
	Mashable's Cassie Murdoch exemplifies the lefty hysteria.
	She wrote, quote, Thursday's FCC vote to end net neutrality will kill many of the things you enjoy most about the Internet in its current form, but chief among them is your ability to access copious amounts of free adult entertainment.
	That's true.
	She isn't kidding, by the way.
	That's not satire.
	She writes about how awful it is that we're going to lose our precious, our precious, our most favorite thing, Fast internet, free internet porn, which, by the way, isn't true.
	It was around before 2015.
	It'll be around long after.
	Now, last year, Pornhub viewers alone used 3,110 petabytes of bandwidth.
	Petabyte.
	That's one above terabyte, which is above gigabyte.
	That's over 3 billion gigabytes.
	On just Pornhub.com alone, that's one porn website.
	People are paying basically nothing for it.
	Now, the porn industry is so desperate to keep these rules, these unfair regulations in place, these government subsidies of porn or government incentives for cheap Internet porn for users at the cost of ISPs and other Internet users, they're threatening to dox Republican politicians who oppose the deregulation.
	Snagglepuss porn CEO... That's the name of the company.
	Snagglepuss Porn CEO Andrew Kennard said, There are lots of Republicans who just assumed we'd keep their dirty boy secrets.
	We assumed they wouldn't screw with us.
	I guess that unofficial deal is off.
	So what do you need to know?
	The people in favor of the euphemistically titled net neutrality government regulation of the internet are Democrats, pimps, and extortionists.
	But I repeat myself, the people opposed to net neutrality regulation are conservatives, libertarians, federal judges, and economists.
	In particular, FCC's own chief economists before, during, and after the regulation, Michael Katz, Timothy Brennan, Michelle Conley, all of whom point out that net neutrality regulations make no economic sense.
	Barack Obama's FCC regulated the internet just two years ago.
	You wouldn't know that from looking at Twitter.
	You would think that it's been around since the country was founded.
	Net neutrality is two years old.
	Did the Internet work just fine two years ago?
	Then there is no reason not to repeal net neutrality.
	There's no reason not to.
	What are you so worried about?
	It was fine two years ago.
	It'll be fine next year.
	When hysterical lefties who tell you that the Internet will be ruined forever because two-year-old anti-constitutional, anti-liberty regulations will be repealed Just get out your Leftist Tears Tumblr.
	Collect them.
	Drink deep that salty, delicious ambrosia because President Trump hasn't even finished out his first year in office.
	It's too good.
	Mmm.
	They're almost too salty today.
	I have to put that down.
	I need some water to wash that down with.
	To discuss, we will bring on our panel Cabot Phillips and Paul Bois.
	But listen, gentlemen, before we get to this, I do want to talk about net neutrality and mostly just all of the copious leftist tears that are pouring out from all sides because no one understands what that is.
	But it's not time for that yet.
	Do you know how I know that?
	Because I'm wearing my movement watch.
	My sweet movement watch.
	Look how cool that is.
	So, movement watches was founded on the belief that style shouldn't break the bank.
	The watchmaker's goal is to change the way consumers think about fashion by offering very high-quality, minimalist products at revolutionary prices.
	Now, I really like watches, and I really hate paying a lot of money.
	So, if you went into a department store, a watch like this could easily cost you $300, $400.
	But the movement watch guys have figured out that they can skip all of those markups by selling direct to you online.
	That's why they've sold over 1 million watches to customers in over 160 countries around the world.
	It has solidified itself as the fastest growing watch company, and it's because there are no regulations.
	You don't have a lot of regulations on the watch industry, so they're able to give customers what they want.
	Very fitting for our topic today.
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	Christmas shopping is very tough.
	Thanks to movement, all that gift-giving anxiety can disappear with the press of a button.
	The price point that these begin with, these watches, is $95.
	That is nothing for a quality watch.
	It is a really, really good deal.
	So finish your holiday shopping.
	Christmas is just around the corner.
	Get a movement watch for someone on your list or yourself.
	That's what I'd go on.
	I'd say, oh, I'm going to get it for, you know, my brother or my yada, yada, yada, and I'd just get a bunch for me.
	Because at a price point like $95, you can afford to get a few, you know, put them on, wear them with different outfits.
	It's really nice.
	Moving to watches.
	$95, over 1 million watches sold.
	Get 15% off today.
	That is just for our listeners.
	Free shipping and free returns.
	There's no risk at all.
	You'll save 15% if you go to MVMT.com slash Covfefe, C-O-V-F-E-F-E, movement.com, MVMT.com slash Covfefe.
	It is the time right now to type that in.
	The watch, really clean design, makes a great fashion statement.
	Now is the time to step up your watch game.
	Come on, you're an adult.
	We're not little kids anymore.
	You need to wear a watch to, one, keep track of your own time and to let people know that you have places to be and people to see.
	So step up your watch game, join the movement, mbmt.com/covfefe, C-O-V-F-E-F-E.
	OK, let's bring on our guys.
	Gentlemen, let's begin with Cabot.
	Cabot, with all of the right enemies, is there any argument for Obama's net neutrality regulations?
	Well, the argument that they're trying to make is that this is going to hurt people.
	You see on Twitter, millions of people are going to die from this.
	I don't see a legitimate argument that's being made by the left that – the arguments they're making sound convincing, but that's because they're not based in fact.
	And it is interesting to see how the left is always talking about how they care about the little guy.
	They want to support people in need.
	If they actually cared about low-income families in America, they would – I don't support what happened today because now this means that for that family that doesn't need the world-class internet in these low-income areas and can't afford it, they can now pay for a cheaper package and just get what they need.
	They don't have to get the same internet.
	It's going to make costs cheaper for them many times.
	It's going to be better for all Americans.
	Look, when I'm driving to work on the highway and I look over and I see people in the express lane, you have to pay a $10 toll to get in that lane.
	And so I understand Those people are driving that lane right now because they paid a little bit more because they had the resources to do so.
	And that's why they're getting the best possible service right there.
	And I think it's a little bit similar with what's happening with net neutrality today.
	And again, anyone that supports a regulated industry, they should oppose what happened today.
	Anyone that wants actual the market to decide what's best, anyone that wants businessmen to decide what's best, I'm a trade market.
	You're absolutely right.
	Regulation always hurts the little guy on both the consumer side and on the industry side.
	It hurts the little guy who can't afford the big expensive Internet package that the government forces you to buy.
	He just wants the cheaper Internet package so he can, I don't know, get some work done, help his business, educate himself, this, that, or the other thing.
	And it also hurts the little guy in business because you have these giants who are trying to squeeze little people out with burdensome government regulation.
	They're saying that this is going to stop the free flow of information on the Internet.
	Nothing could be further from the truth.
	First of all, we're just talking about bandwidth.
	We're talking about whether ISPs can prioritize certain information over other information, certain websites over other websites, in a free market, in a market where there is competition.
	And certainly there will be more competition as these technologies evolve, as they always do.
	But there are people who are preventing the free flow of information on the Internet.
	That's Google.
	That's YouTube.
	That's Facebook.
	I mean, these guys are blacking out information.
	They're killing conservatives.
	The other day, a friend of mine tried to post an article on Facebook.
	It was a conservative article, but it was...
	Absolutely truthful.
	Facebook wouldn't let him do it.
	Facebook said, "Do you know that this is fake news?
	Do you know that this might not be real?
	Consider looking at this fact-checking website, this left-wing fact-checking website, before you post it." Those are the guys who, if the government's going to regulate anybody, it should be them.
	It should be Google and Facebook and YouTube, but certainly not the ISPs.
	It's a total distraction.
	And the fact that people who support this repeal today can explain pretty easily what net neutrality is and what it means, and the people who are screaming about people dying can't do that.
	They have no idea what it is.
	They don't know that it's only two years old.
	That tells you everything you need to know about this issue.
	There's a lot of demagoguery on this issue, and it's all on the left.
	Paul Bois, your cardinal, your eminence, Will this actually hurt the porn industry?
	They are baring their fangs.
	They're very upset about this.
	Is it going to damage this gazillion-dollar-a-year industry?
	Unfortunately, no, Michael.
	It's not going to hurt the porn industry.
	All right.
	I mean, no, that's terrible.
	That's awful.
	That's terrible.
	Unless we go back to the days where porn is illegal in this country, I'm sorry to say that porn is probably going to be doing quite well in this country.
	Something tells me that even if people were getting charged $100 extra a month, it would still be doing well.
	Profits might even go up.
	I mean, the worst that could happen is that some guy who spends three hours a day on Pornhub might, and I emphasize the word might, be charged a tiny extra a month, but something tells me even competition will root that out.
	So, no, the porn industry is not going to die, unfortunately.
	But the thing is, who can put a price on self-degradation?
	Who can put a price on it?
	It's priceless.
	Speaking of weird sex, this is actually a pretty sad story.
	Dan Johnson, a Kentucky lawmaker who was accused of drunkenly kissing and grabbing a 17-year-old girl on New Year's Eve four years ago, he shot himself in the head yesterday.
	A day earlier, he denied the allegations on social media.
	He asked his friends to stay strong for his wife.
	Johnson was 57 years old with five children and nine grandchildren, two more on the way, in the tummy, as he wrote.
	Lefties on Twitter celebrated the suicide.
	Cabot, how does this end?
	We are way past Harvey Weinstein now.
	What he's accused of is not Harvey Weinstein's behavior.
	Now drunken passes at young women over the age of consent are being conflated with rape and pedophilia.
	Does every guy who has ever acted stupidly around women now have to shut up or kill himself?
	Yeah, I think that's where the danger comes in.
	It's really tempting to just pour on any time, you know, someone comes out and says, you know, this person did this to me.
	Whether it's right or wrong, I think it's really easy to just say, oh, this is horrible.
	We can all agree this person deserves this.
	They deserve this.
	And it's really easy to get involved in that just character assassination.
	I think it's important that, A, we gather as many facts as we can before we're making serious accusations like this.
	In a case where you're not able to prove anything, is it really something where someone's life should be ruined automatically, where there's no way of proving it?
	Even if it is something that did happen, it's tough.
	I think these cases, as often as possible, need to be handled in criminal courts, where we can have actual investigations into what's going on.
	But the he say, she say, it's dangerous.
	It's certainly dangerous.
	It's sad to see when it comes to this.
	It's not something anyone would say.
	I don't know what to make of this.
	It makes you wonder if this guy was innocent and he was just not wanting to deal with all this or if he was guilty and was dealing with the guilt of all of it.
	But I don't know where this goes.
	I don't think this will be the first time this happens.
	I think we're going to continue to see people dealing with these kind of accusations in this way.
	And it's important that we get all these cases out in the open so we can start to find out who's a good person, who's not.
	But you never want to see it end like this.
	And also you don't want to see false accusations happening.
	So it's tough.
	It's tough to really go one way the other.
	But in the case of this guy, the accusation, even if we believe the accusation, which I don't know if there is evidence for it or against it, the accusation is that four years ago he made a pass drunkenly at a New Year's Eve party, the drunkest night of the year.
	He made a drunken pass at a young woman who's over the age of consent.
	She's still a teenager, but there's nothing illegal about that.
	He made a pass at her and that was it.
	It apparently ended there.
	No Weinstein-like rape, no stalking, no craziness.
	This is not the sort of thing that one should kill oneself over, but in this present climate I can see why that temptation would exist.
	But comparing this guy to basically any other politician in the country, he's pretty much a saint.
	To compare him to the sex crimes that we're hearing from the people who have already fallen in Congress and in the Senate and the people who we haven't heard from yet, compare him to Bob Menendez, who's accused of repeatedly having sex with underage hookers, not 17-year-olds who's accused of repeatedly having sex with underage hookers, not 17-year-olds over the age of consent, talking about like very, very young It's really reached a fever pitch.
	And speaking of Menendez, Cardinal Bois, can we get that guy to resign before January 17th, before there's a Democrat governor of New Jersey, or is that just not going to happen?
	No, it's not going to happen, Michael.
	Unfortunately, Bob Menendez was not found guilty in court, and the Democrats certainly...
	And by the way, that trial had nothing to do with the sex stuff.
	That trial was just about corruption.
	It was a mistrial.
	But federal prosecutors who said he might have had sex with those underage hookers, they have not filed charges.
	No, they have not filed charges.
	But it seems as if the left is going to go off of accusations against people like Al Franken because I think that was politically advantageous for them at the time when Roy Moore was being inundated with allegations.
	And they're not going to do the same thing for Bob Menez, I believe.
	Even while the trial was taking place, people were being asked, Dick Durbin was asked, several other senators asked, would you pressure Bob Menez to resign?
	They would not give a clear, straight answer.
	I think the media is just essentially going to bury it, and they're not going to push it any further.
	Absolutely.
	All right.
	Gentlemen, sad to end on that low note of not impeaching Bob Menendez, but c'est la vie.
	What can you do?
	Good to see you all.
	Thank you for coming on.
	That is Cabot Phillips and Paul Cardinalbois, his eminence.
	I'll talk to you both soon.
	Now it is time for the mailbag.
	The first question comes from Joseph.
	Oh, you know, I'm sorry, guys.
	This is such a good question.
	It's about Islam.
	It's about the religion of peace.
	But if you don't subscribe to thedailywire.com, you can't see it.
	I want you to see it.
	Go to thedailywire.com.
	We've got to say goodbye to Facebook and YouTube.
	To all of our current subscribers, thank you very much.
	You keep the lights on.
	You make Covfefe fill up magically in my Leftist Tears Tumblr.
	For those who haven't subscribed, DailyWire.com right now, it is $10 per month or $100 for an annual membership.
	What do you get for that?
	We're all capitalists.
	We don't like regulation.
	Well, you get me.
	You get the Andrew Klavan Show.
	You get the Ben Shapiro Show.
	Yada, yada, yada.
	Who cares?
	Guys, you will not survive the repeal of net neutrality without a Leftist Tears Tumblr.
	You won't do it.
	You are guaranteed to drown.
	So run, don't walk.
	Scurry, you know, I guess it's on your keyboard so you won't run.
	Scurry to the Daily Wire right now.
	Dailywire.com.
	You have to get this Leftist Tears Tumblr.
	Please, it's for your own health.
	Dailywire.com.
	We'll be right back.
	Okay, this question's from Joseph.
	Hi, Potentate Knowles.
	If Islam is the religion of peace, then why do so many of the flags that represent Islamic countries have swords crossing over the nation of Israel?
	Joe.
	I'm not sure about the Israel part of that, but yeah, there are swords on these Muslim flags.
	I've traveled a bit around the Middle East and the UAE and Oman and Lebanon, and yeah, you see the symbolism of the sword pretty frequently.
	The reason for that is that Islam spread by the sword.
	I don't know the symbolic significance of it and why they chose it for their flag, but the reason that it rings true for us and makes us wonder about the connection is that Islam spread by the sword.
	So Islam began, a lot of people don't know this, Islam began when Muhammad, the supposed prophet of the Islamic religion, when Muhammad accompanied his uncle Abu Talib on a trip to Syria.
	And while in Syria, they came across a heretical Christian monk.
	His name was Bahira or Sergius in the Latinized version, but is known as Bahira.
	And he was a heretical monk.
	They don't know which version of heresy, but it's supposed to be either Arianism or Nestorianism or Gnosticism, Nazareanism, all various heresies that deny the divinity of Christ.
	It was immediately after this trip that Muhammad began to form the Islamic religion and to write the Koran and go on conquering much of his area.
	We know when it comes to the sword that when Muhammad arrived at Medina, he slaughtered a Jewish tribe there, the Banu Kareza, slaughtered all of them, beheaded all of the men in that group.
	It's very hard to describe that as a religion of peace, but really that is just a euphemism and a platitude that is used by people who don't want to grapple with religion itself.
	And the good that Islam contains within it and also all of these bad things that clearly have led to horrible atrocities all around the world and certainly within our century.
	They want to bury their head in the sand, to use an image, and they don't want to acknowledge that.
	But you can't solve a problem if you're not willing to engage honestly with it.
	And engaging honestly with what Islam offers, which is theologically true and good, and what it carries with it, what cultural baggage it carries with it, and historical baggage that is very much not good for civilization, that's the first step to solving the problem.
	Next question from Seth.
	Dear Michael, what is your best reason for being Catholic as opposed to Protestant?
	And what is it that you think that Protestantism is lacking?
	It's lacking the Pope, of course.
	Also, do you believe in the idea of a rapture?
	Thank you for a great show.
	I love listening.
	Haven't missed an episode yet.
	Thank you very much, Seth.
	Appreciate that.
	The reason I'm a Catholic, I suppose I was baptized as a Catholic when I was a baby.
	And by the time I was confirmed, I was an atheist or strongly agnostic.
	That's why I chose Thomas as my confirmation name.
	I was an atheist for about a decade, and slowly various philosophers and writers and conversations I had began to chip away at my atheism, and then I reverted to Christianity.
	Some evangelical writers brought me back to Christianity, certain Calvinists, and then ultimately I've We're good to go.
	It seems to me very convincing that the incarnate Son of God, the divine logos of the universe, the total metaphysical, becoming physical, entering into his creation in a particular place, in a particular time, in a particular body, through a particular woman, with particular apostles, dying on a particular cross, executed, condemned to death by a particular man.
	It would have a particular church.
	It would have a church that is real and tangible.
	It would have a clergy.
	When he says to Peter, Peter, Simon, I now call you Peter, and on this rock, which is a pun, I will build my church, and here are the keys to the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven forever.
	Whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.
	He's giving that to a man.
	That isn't meaningless.
	We can't etherealize that or try to universalize that.
	He's talking to a person.
	So there's that aspect, the reality of the sacraments, the reality of the physical and the metaphysical coming into union, heaven and earth coming into union in the bread, which is the sacrifice.
	Paul writes about that wonderfully, and Christ talks about it very seriously.
	And he says, I know this is a hard saying.
	I know you don't believe me, but you have to because it's true.
	So there's that aspect.
	It also was basically the unquestioned position of civilization until the 16th century.
	So there were always little heretical movements.
	Santa Claus, St.
	Nicholas famously punched the heretic Arius in the face of the Council of Nicaea.
	But even after the Great Schism, there was still a recognition of one universal church with a clergy, with a theology that had a leader.
	And there was some question over how much power that leader should exert temporally.
	There's that aspect as well.
	There is much to offer in Protestantism.
	C.S. Lewis is one of the greatest apologists of the century, and he's ostensibly a Protestant.
	The issue of various Protestant denominations, one, you see that they keep multiplying.
	There's so many.
	A church will always break in two if it isn't grounded in that context.
	On that solid foundation, on that rock.
	But G.K. Chesterton writes about this in Orthodoxy.
	He said the trouble with heresy is not that it's the promotion of vice.
	It's not just saying, yeah, in our version of the church, we're going to go cheat on our wives.
	Yeah, that's going to be a lot of fun.
	Ha ha ha.
	We'll show you, Pope.
	It isn't that.
	It's that it's the promotion of one virtue at the expense of others.
	So one might...
	One church might focus only on mercy or on compassion to the exclusion of justice or to the exclusion of prudence.
	It might say, well, we don't think that we should punish any crimes whatsoever.
	Another church might say, we are going to punish crimes as hard as possible.
	We're going to deter everybody.
	Those are two extremes in a theologically...
	Illuminating extremes, there's grace and there's liberty.
	So some churches might say, you have absolutely no free will whatsoever.
	You are just a mindless robot being sucked up in various waves, and only grace matters whatsoever to your life or to your salvation.
	And then moralizing churches might say, yeah, grace, that doesn't play a big part.
	It's just your liberty.
	It's your choice.
	It's your ability to do things and earn your way into heaven.
	But that isn't true.
	And then there's the Catholic answer, which balances these extremes.
	And it says, God comes down the mountain, but you have the free will to turn to him.
	And we see this in Mary, in the annunciation of Christ to Mary.
	The angel Gabriel comes down and says, Mary, hail Mary, full of grace.
	You're blessed among women.
	You are going to conceive a baby of the Holy Spirit.
	And then heaven holds its breath.
	The heavens and the earth hold their breath.
	And Mary says, I am the servant of the Lord.
	I am your obedient servant.
	Thy will be done.
	And she says yes.
	She obeys and she accepts that.
	And that unity of grace and free will is glorious.
	And it results in the incarnation.
	It results in the divine logos becoming a man.
	So that one thing that recommends the Catholic Church, I think, is balancing itself between these extremes and these ideologies.
	It's no coincidence that the Protestant Revolution in part caused modernity, in part was caused by modernity.
	And it breaks off into various ideologies.
	But when it comes to religion, I would resist ideology, and I would look for the sturdy bark of Peter that doesn't tip all the way to one side or the other, but remains stabilized.
	Okay, next question.
	From James.
	Dear Michael Knowles, King of Trolls, in your infallible, except when fallible, opinion, how should proponents of traditional family structure view homosexual couples adopting children?
	Being raised by biological parents is in the best interests of the child, but there are situations where it isn't and adoption is the best option.
	If the parents can't care for the child, if they're dirty, rotten bums or addicts, absolutely.
	Can same-sex couples create a loving and healthy climate for the child as effectively as heterosexuals?
	If yes, should same-sex couples be permitted to adopt children?
	Where should we draw the moral and legal line?
	P.S. Would you ever consider growing a mustache?
	Okay, good question.
	Obviously, they can provide a good home for a child.
	That's certainly the case.
	The legal issue when it comes to this is, can single parents adopt children?
	If single parents can adopt children, if a single woman can adopt a child, then of course a homosexual couple should be able to adopt a child.
	And it's been for decades now that single parents can adopt children, so given that premise, homosexual couples should be able to.
	Can they give a good home?
	Of course.
	There is a question of what a marriage is and what a family is.
	So there is a modern view that the sexes are identical, that men and women are exactly the same, they're not different, and therefore, by that logic, of course, homosexuals could raise children just as well as anybody.
	There's also the complementarity of the sexes, which is that men and women are different.
	They complement one another.
	They're not the same thing.
	And this seems to be the ideal unit for children to be born and raised.
	This is probably why until modernity, until very, very recently, that was the only way that children could be conceived and basically the way that they were raised.
	But we have shifted culturally and legally.
	So certainly it will be the case in the future that homosexual couples can adopt children.
	But these questions of gender, are men and women the same?
	Are they different?
	That's totally going to inform it.
	Until we say that men and women are complementary, that children are not something to...
	Have to make us feel good, but we have to struggle to have children.
	We have children, and we serve them, and it's about the child, not about the parents.
	We're going to see the same culture that we've been seeing now, and it would be disingenuous to say, well, single parents can adopt kids, but not gay couples.
	That would be discrimination, and given those premises, it doesn't work.
	Next question, Mike Miley.
	I often get into discussions regarding the great economy Trump inherited from Obama and how nothing in our present economic state or because of anything Trump has done.
	In fact, they add that he's done nothing.
	Can you give me some talking points as a response to these claims?
	I would be glad to do that.
	Second quarter economic growth was 3.1%.
	Third quarter economic growth was 3.3% over the expectation, which was 3.2%.
	Barack Obama is the first president since Herbert Hoover not to achieve 3% economic growth in any year of his presidency.
	Closest he came was 2.6% in 2015.
	Unemployment is at 4.1%, a 16-year low.
	Under Barack Obama, 0% interest rates got unemployment down to 4.9%.
	But underemployment was rampant.
	The gig economy was everywhere.
	A lot of that is part-time work.
	Consumer confidence is at the highest level since 2000.
	NFIB shows that small business optimism is way up since the election.
	These are changes since the election.
	Sure, the stock market has grown steadily for a decade or for nine years or whatever that is.
	But all of those other numbers we can attribute to Donald Trump and we can't attribute to Barack Obama.
	That is a sign of the Trump economy.
	Obviously, the economy is complicated.
	You can't say that on the late January when Donald Trump is inaugurated, then it all becomes President Trump.
	But he has done marvelously well, and no economist would question that.
	From Casey, dear Michael King Trolls Knowles, my Lutheran mother will be accompanying my Catholic aunt on a trip to the Vatican for Easter Sunday Mass.
	That's very nice.
	Even though my mom is not Catholic, she understands the magnitude of the trip.
	She would like to take this opportunity to do something special for other family members who are Catholic, but she doesn't know what to do.
	Do you have any suggestions that would make for a meaningful gift?
	Yes.
	One thing you could do, which is entirely free, and I know that that is a price that we all can afford, is to get tickets for a papal audience.
	So I did this.
	I just kind of stumbled into it when I was there.
	I was still basically an atheist, I think, at the time.
	I got into St.
	Peter's, and there were a lot of people there in the square.
	But you're right up there, and I saw Pope Benedict give a blessing and speak in a gazillion languages and pray.
	And it was really beautiful and really, in retrospect, sticks with you.
	It's a very significant event.
	So you can do that.
	I would be wary of any of the...
	rosary beads blessed by the Pope that they sell around the Vatican.
	I'm very skeptical that the Pope has blessed all of those gazillion rosary beads that they sell there.
	So in terms of physical things, I wouldn't quite do that.
	If you're in the neighborhood, I would go check out Caravaggio's The Calling of St. Matthew, which is San Luigi dei Francesi.
	It's right near the Pantheon in the Piazza Navona.
	It's a really wonderful painting.
	There's so much to do around there.
	And if you're totally out of options, take her out to a nice lunch.
	The Italians do lunch very well.
	It takes a very long time and you'll be very full afterward.
	Next question from Zachary.
	Professor Knowles, my 16-year-old little sister is starting to be influenced by her lefty friends in high school and is questioning why she should be a Republican.
	Republicans are, of course, mean and illogical.
	Luckily, she's open-minded and wants to chat with me about my conservative values.
	How should I begin my explanation of conservatism to my little sister?
	Help, it's not too late.
	Your little sister is in high school.
	She's being influenced by her lefty friends.
	That's good.
	That's the time for that.
	The time to believe lefty thoughts is when you're a teenager and you don't know anything.
	And then when you know things, then you'll move further to the right.
	I even went through a little bit of this phase when I was in high school, because these left-wing thoughts are appropriate to children who are both arrogant and uneducated.
	And then hopefully you can work on both of those things over time and you will move further to the right, I'm sure.
	I wouldn't shove it down her throat though, I would...
	I would take almost like a meta-political approach to this and ask her why she's so confident that these dummies are right and why these things that she's learning are right.
	Probably the curriculum that she's studying from is teaching her a lot of nonsense and the people don't know very much and it's an age where you're just...
	Insufferable.
	So I wouldn't give her too much grief for that.
	I would point out that all of those people and all of these assumptions she's taking for granted, they're on shaky ground.
	The poem that comes to mind is, A little learning is a dangerous thing.
	Drink deep or taste not the Purian spring.
	There, shallow drafts intoxicate the brain, and drinking largely sobers us again.
	So Bill Whittle talks about this.
	He says there's eye We're good to go.
	Yeah, Paul Krugman.
	They're really speaking to me.
	And people who have lower intelligence or higher intelligence are both conservative.
	So they're more conservative.
	It's a sandwich.
	But it's just people in the middle who don't realize how stupid they are, but they're smarter than your average Joe.
	They're the ones who are convinced of lefty stuff.
	I would go to that.
	And then you can tell her to read...
	I don't know, Edmund Burke or Bill Buckley or whatever.
	But in the meantime, I would have her look around and say, are these people really so smart?
	Are these ideas that you're being told really so convincing or is it just fashionable?
	And teenagers are contrarian and that might get to her.
	From Samuel, dear Michael, recently Pope Francis stated the English translation of the Our Father ought to be changed from and lead us not into temptation to and may we not be led into temptation Sure,
	I wrote a piece on this.
	And I don't have ancient Greek, and my Latin is very poor.
	But fortunately, the heir to the throne of the multiverse, Spencer Clavin, is an ancient Greek scholar at Oxford.
	So I talked to him about this.
	Pope Francis's translation, while creative, doesn't appear to be precise.
	And this is a reminder, too, that the Pope is only infallible when he's speaking infallibly, and that's not very frequently, and not in this case.
	The Greek eis seems to be into, just like in the Latin, in Ducas Intentationem is into.
	So it's someone is leading us into temptation in this line.
	And who is doing the tempting or who is doing the trial or who is doing the experiment is unclear.
	Someone could lead me to...
	To a boxing ring and then some other guy could beat me up.
	But the question is, who is doing the leading and then who is doing the tempting?
	It's unclear who's doing the tempting, which is Pope Francis's point.
	He says God doesn't tempt us.
	That's his view of things.
	But the leading is pretty clear, because we know from two paragraphs earlier in Matthew, that prayer comes from Matthew, and two paragraphs earlier, Christ is led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.
	And then two paragraphs later we get, lead us not into temptation.
	So it seems to me who is doing the leading is very clear, and that is God.
	And this more creative, abstract, looser translation that the Pope has suggested is just not as precise, and it's not as theologically difficult to grapple with.
	Nevertheless, God is doing the leading from the Scripture in the Greek, in the Latin, in the English, in the Italian.
	And The question of why he does that, why he leads us to be tested, to the trial, even to be tempted by the devil.
	In the book of Job, God allows the devil to tempt Job all he likes.
	Why he does that is a theological question, and I think that problem helps us to understand the world a little bit better in our relationship to him.
	But I would stick with the old translation.
	I think it's good enough for me.
	That old-time religion.
	Okay.
	One last question from Garrett.
	It is often said that you need to understand the other person's argument better than they do to beat them.
	How far should I take this?
	Should I read Marx and books written by atheists?
	Or should I deepen my understanding of capitalism and Christianity instead?
	In short, I'm worried that if I take the understanding the other person's side point of view too literally, I could have used that time to better my understanding of my own ideology.
	Let's begin at the last part.
	Don't have an ideology.
	Don't try to resist ideology.
	Obviously, our I think we're good to go.
	I would go for that first.
	I wouldn't worry too much about saying, I think I'm a conservative or I think I'm a libertarian, and so I'm only going to read these right-wing books.
	Or, conversely, I'm going to read Marx and Engels exclusively so I can prove them wrong.
	I wouldn't even read those books that way.
	I would read them openly.
	I wouldn't read them in the school of resentment where you hate the writers and you prejudge the texts.
	Read the texts.
	Let them speak to you.
	You'll understand why Marx is wrong.
	Here's that line that lefties read Marx and conservatives understand Marx.
	That's certainly true.
	I might go back a little further before Marx, before modernity, and read where those works come from.
	I would read classics.
	I would read the classic Greek philosophers and writers.
	I would read all the way up through the Roman Empire, through the Middle Ages.
	Then you're bumping up against modernity, and then you can start engaging with those.
	But certainly read everything.
	The reason that you should believe certain political points of view and religious points of view is because you think they're true.
	And if you think they're true, then you don't need to worry about reading an atheist or reading Marx because they might shake your worldview or the way you see things.
	The truth comes above all things.
	C.S. Lewis said some version of a madman can no easier block out the sun by writing darkness on his cell walls, his insane asylum walls, than we can block out the truth by repeating falsehood.
	You can't block it out.
	The truth will shine through, the truth above all things.
	So read those.
	I'd read it with an open mind.
	That's what separates us from those ideologues.
	And then...
	And then you'll come to hopefully correct conclusions, and you won't be all angry and ideological like those lefties.
	Okay, that's our show.
	We've got to run out of here.
	We're filming a special project that I can't tell you about.
	So go over the Clavenless weekend that will save you, the Clavenless weekend that will destroy you, and the project that will save you, Another Kingdom.
	Is available, I think, tomorrow, or it's dropping early in the morning.
	So make sure you download that.
	It really helps us out.
	If you leave five-star reviews, download it.
	We're still pitching this thing around Hollywood.
	They're still listening to us.
	We've got a ton of great reviews and listenership.
	If you can keep bumping that around, send it to your families at Christmas.
	That will really help us out.
	We appreciate it.
	Until Monday.
	I am Michael Knowles.
	This is The Michael Knowles Show.
	I will see you then.
	The Michael Knowles Show is produced by Marshall Benson.
	Executive producer, Jeremy Boring.
	Senior producer, Jonathan Hay.
	Supervising producer, Mathis Glover.
	Our technical producer is Austin Stevens.
	Edited by Alex Zingaro.
	Audio is mixed by Mike Coromina.
	Hair and makeup is by Jesua Olvera.
	The Michael Knowles Show is a Daily Wire Forward Publishing production.

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