Ep. 195 - The Greatest Jobs-Producer God Ever Created
As socialist empty-heads insist that the economy isn’t working, a record-high number of Americans are working as the economy soars. We will analyze the greatest jobs-producer God ever created, and the threats it faces. Then, Jim Acosta complains some more, Owen Benjamin stops by, and Pope Francis changes Church teaching on capital punishment. We will analyze the many defense and benefits of killing criminals.
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As socialist empty heads insist that the economy isn't working, a record high number of Americans are working because the economy is absolutely soaring.
We will analyze the greatest jobs producer God ever created and the threats that it faces.
Then, I know you'll be shocked to hear this, Jim Acosta is complaining some more.
Owen Benjamin stops by, that huge pianist friend of ours.
And Pope Francis changes church teaching on capital punishment.
We will analyze the many wonderful benefits of killing criminals.
I'm Michael Knowles and this is The Michael Knowles Show.
That's a lot to get to in one day.
We're going to have to do it, though.
We're going to have to cover everything from how wonderful capitalism is to questioning certain changes that are coming out of the Roman Curia and out of the Vatican, certain things that seem a little strange.
You know, there's a difference, by the way.
A difference between Protestants or more evangelical Christians and Catholics is when more Protestant Christians Leaning people question their pastors or question their denomination's teachings.
They can be pretty vocal about it.
They can be pretty straight on.
And when Catholics do it, we say, well, is it perhaps the case that the Holy Father is mistaken?
I wonder if I am misunderstanding the Holy Father.
We will have to see if we are misunderstanding the Holy Father on the death penalty.
Before all that, you know, another promise has been kept.
President Trump, he promised us.
Do you remember this?
He's made a lot of promises.
Everyone laughed at him.
He said he's ridiculous.
That'd be crazy.
Everything was going to go terribly if he were elected.
He promised us that if he were elected, he would be the greatest jobs president that God ever created.
And I remember when he said it.
Well, that's a really bold statement.
Turns out that has absolutely been the case.
President Trump, take it away.
I'll be the greatest jobs president that God ever created.
So there's a great spirit going on right now, a spirit that many people have told me they've never seen before, ever.
We're going to create jobs.
I said that I will be the greatest jobs producer that God ever created.
And I mean that.
I really, I'm going to work very hard on that.
Alright, we're a year and a half in.
Let's see, what does the record show?
The record shows that in the month of July, the most recent month that we have numbers for, A record high number, 155,965,000 people were employed in the United States.
That is an all-time record high.
But by the way, that's the 11th record breaker since President Trump took office.
This is true, by the way, the way that Democrats and socialists try to spin this is they say, well, the economy is working really well for some people, but it's not working well for all people.
And this is when they try to demagogue on issues of class division or race division or sexual division or whatever.
But even when you look at all of their divisive categories, the numbers still hold up.
We have record low black unemployment.
We now have record low Hispanic unemployment in the United States.
This is the second record because he's had record low Hispanic unemployment two months in a row.
Last month, the economy added 157,000 new jobs, and unemployment has fallen below 3.9%.
To put that into perspective, economists consider an unemployment rate of 4 to 6.4% to be full employment.
Because if you're in a system that has freedom, you're going to have some unemployment.
People are going to be changing jobs.
A company might fire somebody who's not doing a good job, and then they'll find a job that they're better at.
So 4% to 6.4% is considered full employment.
And we are now looking at an unemployment figure below that.
We have more than full employment in this country.
And President Trump predicted it.
He said that would happen.
But why is that happening?
Because he said, I'm the greatest jobs president God ever created.
That might be true.
On the numbers, that is true.
But then he said, I'm the greatest jobs producer that God ever created.
And that isn't quite true.
He's the greatest jobs president, but he's not the greatest jobs producer.
The greatest jobs producer is capitalism.
It's economic freedom.
And it's a wonderful time to be seeing these numbers because you have the rise of socialism across the United States.
We've talked about how the democratic socialists of America have increased their membership eightfold in just two years.
The majority of millennials consider themselves socialist.
At the same time, we are seeing that economic freedom, economic liberty, capitalism, Creates jobs.
It creates prosperity.
This is the first time that we've seen this in our political lives as millennials.
And it's impressive to see because why is President Trump the greatest jobs president that God ever created?
Because he is increasing freedom and decreasing regulation.
He is letting people keep more of their money by lowering taxes, historic tax reform on companies and on individuals.
He is deregulating the federal government, so he's making it We're good to go.
We would hear, no, you can't drill here.
You can't transport oil or natural gas here.
You can't do this.
You can't do that.
No, no, no, no, no.
And what President Trump did, very simply, perhaps just on his gut, is when he got in, he said, we're going to unleash this economy.
We're going to unshackle it.
We're going to open up the bonds that are holding this economy back.
And this thing is going to roar.
And it is roaring.
This economy should have been roaring years ago because you had that recession in 2007-2008.
And after steep recessions, you should have a steep recovery.
But President Obama just put shackle upon shackle.
So what did President Trump do?
He opened that up.
He unleashed it.
Freedom works.
Freedom works.
It seems so simple.
I think even conservatives need to tell ourselves this sometimes.
Because sometimes we conservatives, you know, we get a little contrarian, a little tweedy, a little traditionalist.
And we say, oh, I don't know about freedom.
Well, you know, pish posh.
Freedom works very simply.
It works economically.
We're seeing that with all of these numbers.
It works politically.
It works creatively.
When you unshackle people, they are free to be creative.
They're free to do what they want.
And this is true as a matter of political speech.
The accusation against President Trump and this administration is that he's authoritarian.
Oh, he's authoritarian.
He's a fascist.
He's authoritarian.
How is he an authoritarian?
By letting people say and do whatever they want.
You know, one of the observations of this era in politics is people are sort of frenzied.
They're vocal.
They're politically engaged.
The federal government's not stopping them.
The authoritarian so-called government isn't stopping anybody from doing that.
You know, people are out there screaming.
They're angry.
They want impeachment.
They want this.
They want that.
The president doesn't tell anybody to stop doing that.
The freedom of the press has not been abridged.
The freedom of the people to speak their minds has not been abridged.
There is freedom out there.
And by the way, even with all that screaming and all that fake news and all that anti-administration rhetoric coming out of the mainstream media, The administration's approval ratings are 50%.
They're doing very, very well because people, when you give them freedom, when they say, look, you can speak and you can speak and you can speak, Battle it out.
It gets really loud.
It gets really raucous.
It's not orderly.
It's not quiet.
It's not couth.
But it's really raucous.
And people can get a semblance of the truth.
This is a wonderful thing.
Some people are not thrilled about this, though.
And by some people, I, of course, am referring to Ron Burgundy himself, Jim Acosta.
Jim, take it away.
I just wanted to follow up on Sarah's question from NPR. She asked you about Ivanka Trump's statement that the press is not the enemy of the people.
And she asked you whether or not the press is the enemy of the people.
You read off a laundry list of your concerns about the press and things that you feel like are misreported, but you did not say that the press is not the enemy of the people.
And I think it would be a good thing if you were to say right here At this briefing that the press, the people who are gathered in this room right now, doing their jobs every day, asking questions of officials like the ones you brought forward earlier, are not the enemy of the people.
I think we deserve that.
I think the president has made his position known.
I also think it's ironic.
Would you mind telling us?
I'm trying to answer your question.
I politely waited and I even called on you despite the fact that you interrupted me by calling on your colleague.
I said it's ironic.
Which is why I interrupted.
I'm trying.
But if you finish, if you would not mind letting me have a follow-up, that would be fine.
It's ironic, Jim, that not only you and the media attack the president for his rhetoric when they frequently lower the level of conversation in this country, repeatedly.
Repeatedly, the media resorts to personal attacks without any content other than to incite anger.
The media has attacked me personally on a number of occasions, including your own network, said I should be harassed as a life sentence, that I should be choked.
ICE officials are not welcomed in their place of worship, and personal information is shared on the Internet.
When I was hosted by the Correspondents Association, of which almost all of you are members of, you brought a comedian up to attack my appearance and call me a traitor to my own gender.
In fact, as I know, as far as I know, I'm the first press secretary in the history of the United States that's required Secret Service protection.
The media continues to ratchet up the verbal assault against the president and everyone in this administration.
And certainly we have a role to play, but the media has a role to play for the discourse in this country as well.
Preach!
Preach, Sarah!
Yeah, baby!
So Ron Burgundy, Jim Acosta, leans in there and he says, Listen, we have freedom of the press in this country.
You need to respect the press.
You need to respect the freedom of the press.
And that's why you need to tell all the American citizens to shut up.
Why won't you?
Why won't you tell them to shut up?
They're saying mean things about me, Sarah.
Stop them.
And Sarah Sanders is saying, Well, that sounds like a you problem, Jim Acosta.
That certainly doesn't sound like a me problem.
He says, no, say it, say it.
And I love the idea of this, by the way, that Jim Acosta, you know, just a guy built in a lab for CNN, he's there.
He's saying, hey, listen, lady, say exactly what I want you to say.
And she says, no, I'm not going to do it.
And then the left is outraged because a woman wouldn't say what Jim Acosta told her to say.
And she's exactly right, by the way.
She has been pilloried.
She has been attacked.
She's the first press secretary in history to require a Secret Service protection.
And she says, no, we're not going to have that.
We're going to let you, Jim.
First of all, it's incredible that they still call on Jim Acosta.
I love that they do, because I think every time Jim Acosta speaks, Trump's poll numbers go up 3%.
But they call on Jim Acosta.
They don't ban CNN. They don't censor CNN. And then...
What she's saying is, not only do you get to speak, Jim, but your critics get to speak, too.
That's how this works.
That's how this freedom is going to work.
And to hear the media whine and moan, it's as though they've never been attacked before.
They've never, no, this is unprecedented.
No, no, no, maybe Jim Acosta hasn't been attacked, but what about Fox News?
Here's a clip from 10 years ago, I think it was 2008, of a mob swarming Fox News.
Check it out.
I'm sorry if that sounded like a fire alarm to you, because they have to bleep out every second and a half, every millisecond they They've got a beep, beep.
Yeah, swarming them.
You know, Che Guevara t-shirts on, you know, saying no borders, no this, no that.
And they're swarming.
They're saying F Fox News, F Fox News.
That's a lot worse than Jim Acosta's ever gotten.
That's a lot worse.
And you didn't really hear people complaining about it then, did you?
But freedom works.
Freedom works.
And the left is really nervous about this.
You've got, finally, this honest debate.
We were talking about the honesty right now of the midterm elections.
You have Democrats who are coming out and honestly saying, yeah, we're socialists.
We want socialism.
We don't like freedom.
We want socialism.
Then you've got a Republican, a conservative administration that's saying...
Have freedom.
Have it.
We're going to unshackle the economy.
You get economic freedom.
We're going to unshackle political discourse.
You're going to have political speech.
You're going to have freedom of speech.
Duke it out.
Do you want freedom or do you want slavery?
That's the question that Owen Benjamin has dropped by the studio to answer.
Owen, what's up?
You've been hiding quietly there since we've been doing that entire segment.
I've just been sitting on a pun the whole time.
Jim Acosted.
So that's what I got.
Am I right?
Yeah!
Oh, I bet you went, ladies and gentlemen.
Why didn't I have you write the title for yesterday's episode about Jim Acosta?
I just thought of it now.
Because when I'm told to be quiet for a bit, I do a lot of really good thinking and puns.
This is why you make the big bucks and I'm sitting here in a broom closet.
Yeah, this is why I look like a mime.
I just got off a plane and I'm like, I look like a mime.
I'm here.
That's what you were doing, sitting silently.
Welcome.
I do the verbal mime where I'm like, I'm in a box.
In case you don't realize it, this is a box.
This sucks.
I am a mime.
Don't forget to tip me.
Hey, look, it's a rope.
It's not a chain!
So, you're in town.
You just came here to mime and hang out.
What are you doing in town?
It's a good mime.
Well, I was going to go to Prager's birthday party, and I just did that Prager U vid, so I just stopped by Carolla's place, and then you, and then just hanging out.
That Prager U video was fantastic.
Thank you.
For those who haven't seen it, maybe we'll have to add in a video of this.
It's you talking about the death of comedy.
You're talking about what's happened to comedy.
And so, you shot the video a while ago.
And then in the meantime, between you shooting the video and now, Netflix came out with the Nanette anti-comedy comedy special.
I want to do an anti-plumbing plumber.
Where it's like, you know, I'm here to fix this pipe because human excrement is spraying everywhere, but I'm just, I was raped once, so I'm going to go home and just, you're going to drown.
Like, no other job that could even possibly be.
It's unbelievable.
You go out and you say, I thank you for paying money, everybody.
I am explicitly going to do the opposite of my job.
Right, and for those of you thinking that I just brought up the rape thing to be a weirdo, that's what she said.
So I was, like, referencing what she was, like, trying to reference these horribly dark things, and then that's why she will not do comedy as she's being paid to do comedy.
Well, I will say, you did have to clarify that, because not a soul on earth has watched that comedy special.
No.
Well, except for their friends sending the trailer being like, what is this?
Wow, wow.
Yeah.
You know, it's true.
It would be like Jim Acosta getting on TV and spreading real news.
You can't do that.
That's not his job.
No, his job is to be the irrational...
He has to act like a schizophrenic donkey all the time.
Just hee-hawing and kicking and acting just ridiculous.
So, this topic that I've been thinking about all week is freedom works.
Freedom is working.
It's working politically.
It's working economically.
This ties into your video, right?
This ties into this oppressive, don't laugh, nothing's funny, there's that culture.
Then there's the culture of...
Breathe the sweet air of freedom, have a laugh, have a chuckle.
Yeah, it's about consent.
You know, it's like, that's why it's so rapey on the left, you know?
Wait, how's it about consent?
Free markets.
It's consent.
It's like, I want to work with you, you want to work with me, let's make both of our lives better, that consensual relationship.
And then you have socialism, which is at the end of a gun, I will establish the price of bread without any factors.
There really is an element of force versus consent, and that seems to permeate people's entire lives.
The left, I mean, we've seen this now.
All these stories come out of these, like, the feminist good guys, the soy boy feminist guys.
They are by far the creepy ones with girls.
They, like, follow them around.
And Harvey Weinstein, obviously, the Me Too movement.
Maybe there's something to this theory.
It's the coercion of the left that makes them feel entitled to take whatever they want.
Right, because what they're doing doesn't actually help women.
In fact, it's horrifying.
Where it's like, you know what being a woman is?
Lots of abortions, you know, work 90-hour weeks, never get married, see you guys in 50 years.
Like, that's...
As someone who actually loves a woman and, you know, we just had our second child...
Yeah, congratulations, you just had a kid.
The last thing I would do is establish a fake wage gap...
She has her master's in engineering.
My wife's a brilliant woman who wanted to stay home and be a mom and just push her into the salt mines of, you know, and then just, and say like abortions, empowerment, and all this stuff, and then secretly they're just up to no good, these guys.
Yeah, yeah.
That's absolutely right.
That element of coercion.
Where do you see it, though?
I mean, because I'm interested in it from a cultural perspective and a political perspective.
So the midterm elections right now are being pretty honest.
Do we want to keep Trump?
Do we want to impeach Trump?
Do we want freedom?
Do we want socialism?
You've got these socialist candidates.
Where is it heading culturally?
Are we going to get more nanettes?
Are we going to get more anti-comedy?
I think there's going to be a lot of division, but I think...
There's more conservatism happening with young people, but there is that millennial generation that just has all this dead and no purpose, and they really...
The problem I see is the evilness of socialism, that whisper, like, I'll take care of your debt.
They're like, really?
Because they're so, like, they can't default on it.
My parents are professors, and they warned me about this a long time ago, where they're like, this is going bad.
You know, the devaluing of the...
The college education where they're just letting in anybody, anyone can get along.
There's no market forces on it.
Nothing.
And my parents both taught things, like actual things, not this like underwater lesbian ballet.
They didn't teach that?
Oh, clearly they...
My dad has his PhD on that.
That's one of his PhDs.
Yeah, good.
No, but they're just giving people nonsense.
They're actually...
I read somewhere that if you study economics right now in college, you leave knowing less.
Like, for real, because your basic thoughts are better than this Marxist nonsense.
Than what it's being replaced with, yeah.
And it's weaponized empathy, too, where it's like, I see the trick.
I see, like, don't you love poor people?
It's like, but socialism isn't about supporting the poor.
It's about destroying the rich.
It's an envy-based evil ideology.
And once you see it, you're like...
Well, you had that great video that came out, The Last Bernie Bro.
Oh, yeah.
We'll have to put a link to it, because it's like a four-minute video, right?
It's a pretty long video.
Yeah.
And The Last Bernie Bro, spoiler alert, is living in Venezuela.
Yeah, yeah.
He's like, on this mission.
He's like, I brought my machete.
He made sure he pronounced it the way that...
And then, you know, he's got Bumbles, his Frisbee, and two Laquaz, and his vape pen.
He's like, I'm going to go where the utopia is.
And of course he goes to Venezuela.
And my friend who's playing the guard is not even looking that direction.
It's only to keep people in Venezuela.
And he just, you know, spoiler, it's only four minutes long, but he steals my passport and I just have to stay in Venezuela.
Because it's this extended childhood.
There's no, you know, meritocracy is scary if you have no...
Skills and you're raised with no values.
Of course.
And that's such an interesting point there in the video.
Like, it tells you a lot about the country to go down to the border and see which way the guns are pointing.
Oh, yeah.
Which way are they aimed?
No, because me and my buddy were talking about that.
We're like, there is no socialist country in history where people are trying to sneak in.
Ever.
Right.
There's always rafts coming out of Cuba.
Nobody in Miami is like, I'm going to float on a tire and get to Cuba.
That's never, ever happened, so why would we want that?
Like North Korea, no one's running in.
That's right.
All the stan countries, no one's trying to go into it.
No, the stans are not good dudes.
Stans...
Well, yeah, because I'm actually...
Someone's got to track those guys down.
Afghanistan, Pakistan.
Dude, Stanley, man.
Stanley's not a good dude.
I'm watching Handmaid's Tale, and I thought I would hate it.
I thought it was going to be anti-conservative propaganda.
It's great.
Dude, it's awesome.
It's about Islam, though.
Like, I'm dead serious.
I'm watching this thing and I'm like, this is accurate Islam stuff.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Like, even general mutilation is in it, covering the faces, eight wives.
It's literally, like, I'm watching this and I'm like, how is this spun to be anti-Christian?
By the way, historians, when you're looking back to figure out when the moment was that we all...
Started to get jihad-ed.
It was this moment when Owen brought it up on the show.
This was the beginning of us at Daily Wire getting jihad-ed.
So thank you very much.
I appreciate that.
You gotta see my artwork of Muhammad and various horses.
No, I don't.
Yeah, it's not.
It is.
No, I actually, I agree with you.
I've enjoyed watching Handmaid's Tale because it is just trash.
I mean, it's like a trashy show.
Yeah.
But you look at it, the people on the left earnestly believe that that is where the United States under Donald Trump is headed.
But I think it's like a psychosis because they don't see that they're almost accurately picturing socialism and some of these caliphates and stuff.
It's not at all what the right wants.
Of course.
It's all coercion.
There's no free markets in the Handmaid's Tale.
Yeah.
And that's the irony about this whole thing.
Clearly Hillary Clinton had something going on with Russia, because this whole nonsense is coming from some weird projection.
It's like the closet gay guy with eight Z-28s.
It's like, dude, why don't you go camping with a dude?
Gay guy.
You were like, oh.
What are you, gay?
You don't want to go sleep with a man?
What are you?
I know.
Then you're like, why are you going so far?
And then the left, everything they're going so far with, you're like, that's you.
Yeah, absolutely.
I mean, you even see when Jim Acosta, when Ron Burgundy is yelling at Sarah Sanders, their premise is that the Trump administration is authoritarian.
And all Jim Acosta is saying is, tell people not to do anything.
Tell people not to talk.
Tell people not to criticize me.
She's like, we don't do that.
That's what you do.
You tell people to shut up.
We don't tell people to shut up.
Of course.
And of course the irony is if it really was what they described, they'd all be dead and they would never be able to say it.
Right.
Like the one way you know for a fact the media isn't actually being attacked in America and this is not a fascist government is because you can hear them talk about that.
Right.
Incessantly.
Oh, and it's this like comfort with cognitive dissonance.
Like Trump is Hitler, give him your guns, like all this stuff.
Submit to tolerance.
These things that any child could see, the comfort in it has to come from postmodernism, where it's like, there is no truth in the world, because if not, how do you function that way?
Like, up-down.
Up is down, down is up.
This is my question with the millennials, and I honestly don't know which way it's going to go.
The signs don't seem good.
More than half of millennials identify as socialist.
They skew Democrat, all these things.
But this is basically the first time in their lives, in their politically conscious lives, that they've seen prosperity.
Yeah.
They're seeing freedom.
Their rhetoric sounds very pro-freedom.
Is there any way, do you think, that we can get them back?
Or are they all just going to be vaping with Laquara?
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
We can totally get them back.
A lot of it is cultural, too.
I think a lot of young men don't have any strong male role models.
That's why they're drawn to people like you and Shapiro and Jordan Peterson.
Because we're so masculine, you know?
We're so like Conan the Barbarian, don't you think?
We're talking it up.
Before about how you were like the most manly guy at Yale.
Yeah, that's right.
But it's only because like I would wear Oxford shirts every so often.
You know, I wasn't wearing a dress all day long.
You know, it's true.
Like he's not wearing mascara.
He must be a lumberjack.
It's true.
You think like, guys, I have never thrown a football in my life.
That's so funny.
That's right.
But there is a sense of that in the culture.
In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.
I'm doing a speech for Yaf in the fall, which is how to be a man when you look like a Maddow.
And there are just very simple things that you can do.
But that's a very, that's a quality you just did that people want, where you can mock yourself.
Yeah, right.
Well, that's the other thing.
They're so precious.
The millennials, they're so shocked when you, I don't know, when I interact with guys, I'm a jerk, you know?
You kind of make fun of each other.
And you make fun of your own weaknesses or your own things that, like, I was laughing out loud when Shapiro was making fun of how he does ads.
Yeah.
That's so male.
That's so normal male behavior where I would make fun of my size like I'm an ogre.
And sometimes people don't get that and they want it so bad again because they're like, that relieves our pressure.
That's what my PragerU video is about.
That's right.
Where it's like this pressure is building where no one can just mock each other and then it just explodes.
And I think that there is no mockery on the left.
It's fundamentally such a lie that they can't ever be in their own skin anymore.
They can't just be free and criticize each other.
Me and you could have an argument over policy and our friendship wouldn't be affected at all.
In the least.
That's exactly right.
But for the left, when you attack their political opinions, they actually say this.
They say, you're erasing me.
You're erasing my identity.
You're invalidating me.
Like, you're really...
It's like, sometimes I want to be like, that dude's never seen a dead guy.
Like, I'll show you an erased person.
It's horrifying.
You know, it's kind of like, it's these people are almost doing live-action role-play with stuff they don't understand, you know?
One time someone was saying, words are violence, and I have two kids now, I don't want to go to jail or anything, but I want to just go like this and be like, which one do you want?
Do you want a word?
Or do you want me to seriously knock your face off your body?
Do you want to see how words are not violence?
And this is how I know that they don't have any sense of stakes, because I'm a giant, and there's no fear sometimes in these people.
They're just like, you're the worst, you're white, you're a man, words are violence.
And I'm like...
At no point in my life would I ever...
That would be like me looking at an eight-foot man.
Yeah, yeah.
Like on a...
You're like, I could eat you.
I could consume you.
I literally would be like, do you need help?
Do you want me to rub your feet?
You know, it's like, how do you not have that fear of just violence?
Yes.
And because I'm very anti-violence, but it's because...
You know, I tell that to people sometimes.
I'm like, dude, don't forget Sermon on the Mount or you'll get Leviticus again.
You know what I mean?
That base is still there.
That's right.
We've expanded it to this freedom and the lack of force.
Grace, you know.
Yeah, but you can go right back to that if people start forgetting about the work it took to get these freedoms.
That's right.
I remember in Exodus, it says, Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.
Perhaps, you know, we've got to go back to some of this more fundamental understanding.
I don't know.
That is so right.
And the millennials, they're so afraid of...
Or they're so coddled, rather, that they don't have that sense of reality.
You'll talk to them and you'll just think, like, have you never rubbed up against reality for even one second?
Never once.
No.
They're atrophy.
It's like muscle atrophy.
It's like when you have a cast and then your wrist looks weird.
Yeah.
It's like...
And it's not like there's...
I remember a weird concept of, like, spoiled.
It's not like they got everything taken from them with this.
It's not like...
There's no jealousy there because they now can't function.
They have no ability of functioning in the world.
And I think it's a bad parenting.
I can't put it all on them.
It's like their parents must...
It's like Fight Club.
It's like that absentee father, the absentee God.
No one cared about me, they just sent me out and then someone's always watching me.
Yeah, that's right.
I've noticed this with people.
People who have actually suffered in life They go one of two ways.
Either they go to jail, or they are the most joyful people on earth.
I had that North Korean defector, Ji Song-ho, came in here.
This guy, I don't know that I'll ever meet someone who has suffered like this guy has.
I saw him as I was going into North Korea.
Did you?
Yeah.
Where are you going?
It's utopia.
Socialist Democrats.
Why would you want to leave?
Why would you ever want to leave this utopia?
I saw him crawling out of it as I was crawling in.
I was like, why are you leaving?
What's going on, dude?
Don't you want freedom?
Don't you want safety?
Red lines!
Yeah, don't you?
So what happened?
So I talked to him, and I noticed, I thought, like, this is the most joyful person I've ever met.
So now, whenever, like, you know, I don't know, I stub my toe on my chair, I say, ah, my toe, you know, and my wife, she'll say, like, oh, yeah, should I call Jisong Ho?
Should I let him know?
I'll get a note, you know?
Like, humans adjust!
Yeah, that's right.
Come on, there's a stasis here.
But when I see these millennial types whining because, like, they can't just be professional poets.
They might have to, like, get a job, too.
I just think, like, man...
You gotta talk to G-Sung Ho, man.
You gotta talk to Ho.
Because it's like, yeah, the inability of feeling joy, that's the thing, is even if they did become a famous rapper or something, they still would never be happy.
They'd just be crying on a yacht.
It's like, this yacht is dumb.
It's like the same nightmare as just on Sheik's...
Same nightmare sheets with a higher thread count.
That's right.
Yeah, that is it.
I mean, I just, like, looking around, this is why I'm very into owning the libs.
I kind of, I disagree respectfully with our ambassador to the UN on this.
Owning the libs, it's great because it's so attractive.
There's such a joy to it.
There's an exuberance.
Yeah.
And you compare that joy to this relentless, tedious, self-serious leftism Why would you ever pick that?
Gotta own the lips.
I'm not advocating killing the lips.
Yeah, I wanna just possess them.
That's what I always do without vegans.
I'm always like, I wouldn't eat a person.
You know, you just try to go so far that they're like, what?
Look, I'm a moderate.
I have compassion.
I'm a moderate.
Yeah, I would never eat a human being, I don't think.
Yeah, I mean, I've never been to the Andes, but I don't know.
This is what happens.
Yeah, it's like, no, I think leftism is such a destructive force that I don't know why people are like, Just saying that it's, I don't know.
I'm like, no, you gotta take it out any way you can.
Just get it out.
And be funny with it.
If the best comedy they can do, if the comedy that the left has, which gets Netflix hour-long specials, is not comedy, then make them laugh, man.
People just want to laugh.
They want to smile.
They're dying for it.
Yeah, I thought my career was done because of, like, certain opinions I had, and it's totally not.
Opinions like we shouldn't castrate children.
Literally.
For instance, yeah.
That opinion got you fired from everything, right?
Racists all deserve jokes about them, equally.
Yes.
Oh, that's...
Oh, there's nothing more condescending.
Like, there'd be jokes I'd write with, like, a bunch of black dudes I'm on the road with, and some, like...
Just white girl and like...
Always a white girl.
Always!
Always a white girl, I know.
And they're like, excuse me, excuse me.
My neighbor's mailman's best friend is named Tyrone.
And you're like, what are you talking about?
Like, it's so infuriating.
Cory Booker's imaginary friend T-Bone would be very offended by that joke.
Yeah, they have like invisible black people around them.
They're like, I got this one, T-Bone.
And you're like, if you actually see human beings as individuals, you never know when the pothole's coming because you don't see people as demographics.
I'm more into heightism.
If someone's under 6'5", I don't even look them in the eye.
You can't.
No, but honestly, I think, obviously I'm not a heightist.
But, like, I think height is way more divisive than race as far as what your day is like.
Totally.
There actually is height privilege.
That is true.
There are only studies.
Yeah, but then it goes farther.
Like, I'm almost 6'8".
Yeah, you're on the back end of that privilege.
Yeah, I can't be on a roller coaster.
No one in a nursing home is over 5'10".
You know, like, I'm the first one arrested.
You know, like, there's all kinds of stuff.
I'm like a Great Dane.
Like, hips go out at, like, 40.
You know your mistake, though?
When you were making jokes about all the races...
If you had only made jokes about white men, and even if you just said really vicious things about white men, you could be on the New York Times.
No, if I endorsed Hillary Clinton, I could just, like, rape someone.
No, I'm dead serious.
It's true.
That literally is happening!
I know.
You might have had to donate.
You might have had to donate a little too.
Harvey Weinstein was openly raping people.
And they were calling him God.
That's right.
It's like, what I just said seems so shocking, but people laugh.
Good people just laugh because there's so much truth in it that you're like, that's true.
You can get away with anything.
And I think Louis C.K. is an incredible joke writer, but I'll watch some of his bits and I'm like, The way he's talking about his wife and kids, I'm like, you know, I'm like, dude!
You know, he's like, my daughter's...
I don't even want to say that on your show out of respect!
I'm like, whoa, man!
You know?
Yeah, it seems to be a little...
Well, that's like the James Gunn thing, right?
It's all jokes, and you think, well, maybe, but...
That's some weird jokes.
I disagree with Shapiro, and now I think he actually might have been right.
Because the dude is such an assassin.
When you're debating with him, you're like, whoa.
Oh, yeah.
Easy, Paganini.
He could sell spoiled milk to a cow.
Dude, because I was convinced that he was wrong about it.
And I realized he's actually right about it.
Because he was talking about if you know what you're getting into when you hire someone, you've got to just eat that.
That's true.
Right.
And so that makes sense.
Because my point was like, no.
We have to have standards.
We can't go down that road of like, we're becoming our enemies if we don't hire a known pedophile to babysit our kids.
You know, it's like, no, there's right and wrong.
And it's like, that's going to take a hit out of the business, the fact that he writes these things.
Yes.
But...
I mean, what he's saying isn't funny.
And I know people have said that to me where they're like, your joke isn't funny.
I'm like, because you don't understand hyperbole, irony, and assumptions.
Yeah, right.
Because lefties are known for their great sense of humor.
That's really what it's about.
Right.
I'll even describe what the joke is and how it's the opposite of what they think it is and they still don't get it.
Of course.
So I don't want to fall down that road and say James Gunn shouldn't do these jokes.
Well, I don't personally think he should, but he should not be around kids professionally is all I'm saying.
Yeah.
I just love it.
It couldn't have happened to a nicer guy.
He was the first one to cheer when they all got fired for jokes, and now it comes back and bites him.
And it is great because, you know, these guys are dying by their own hypocrisy.
You're, like, living in freedom.
Oh, it's awesome.
And it's like, you just have a happier life.
I would get those, like, lefty development deals that you don't deserve and all that stuff, but you don't enjoy it.
Again, it's almost like biblical.
It's like you get out of the world and you get nothing, you know?
That's so true.
So what are you up to?
Where can people see you?
Where can people find you?
Well, my website is hugepianist.com.
I have three specials there, self-produced from the last year and a half.
And then the PragerU video, watch and share it.
I desperately want to beat Dave Rubin because he gets a little cocky about a 6.7 mil.
Oh, yeah, that's right.
And yeah, just YouTube.
And Dennis' birthday party.
Those are the places they can go.
HugePS.com.
So you figure James Gunn has a Twitter, ISIS has a Twitter.
Where can they find you on Twitter?
Not on Twitter.
Well, I got kicked off Twitter permanently for a joke that if I could say...
At a Catholic preschool.
Not quite.
But literally nothing.
And the more time goes on, the more people are like, this joke?
Making fun of David Hogg?
Yeah, well, you know, James Gunn gets to stay on Twitter, but you don't.
Dude, Farrakhan is on Twitter.
Farrakhan, yeah.
He, like, hates Shapiro just for his race.
Yeah, that's true.
Dude, the left is so racist.
And it's like, these guys are on there talking about how Jews are like a disease.
Yeah.
I'm like, uh, what?
Yeah, but you're a huge pianist.
They're not going to let you on.
No, but I'm a quarter Jewish, so that kicks in hard.
I'm like, excuse me?
And I didn't even find out I was Jewish until I was 20, but I always knew I was up to something.
You were the tallest...
Come on, that's a good bit.
Like, I always knew.
I just think that's funny.
It's a true story, too.
I thought my grandmother was totally Jewish.
I didn't even know.
That is true.
Yeah.
You are the tallest Jews in Samson.
I'm almost certain.
I know.
That's why I never cut my hair until recently.
Yeah.
No, but Louis Faircott is on Twitter.
Like, that's insane.
That's true.
It is insane.
That's amazing.
Like, the way he talks about Jews is genocidal.
That's right.
But yet, I'm not allowed to be on there because I want my gun rights.
That's right.
That's right.
That's terrible.
That's all right.
Twitter's going to die anyway.
Facebook and Twitter stocks are just plunging.
That's why they hate the free market, because nonsense is rewarded with a lack of money.
Yeah, that's true.
That's absolutely right.
So I'm going to see you tomorrow.
Well, yeah, and I want everyone to buy the Leftist Tears mug.
Or Tumblr.
You've got to get it.
The only way to get this, by the way, people, because I've got to say goodbye to Facebook and YouTube.
I've given you too much today.
I've got to say goodbye.
It says hot and cold.
What about lukewarm tears?
You're not allowed to have it that way.
Pick a side.
Stand in the middle of the road, get hit by a truck.
Go to dailywire.com.
Subscribe now.
Get the Leftist Ears Tumblr.
We'll be right back, unfortunately, without Owen.
Owen, thanks for being here.
Oh, dude, a blast.
Cheers.
For those of you who didn't catch that, I just said goodbye to Owen and he stood up and cracked I just said goodbye to Owen and he stood up and cracked his head on our ceiling lights.
Owen is on the other side of height privilege.
He is not on the good side of height privilege.
Man, it's always good to have him here.
It's like the Tasmanian Devil, like 10 Tasmanian Devils come through.
He's so funny, and he's got such a fresh perspective.
It's so good that this guy isn't being just owned by studios.
He's on his own.
I mean, freedom works.
Now, this brings us to our final point today.
We're running a little late, so I'll try to cover it quickly.
There's another side to freedom.
When people abuse their freedom, when they use their freedom to break the laws, to hurt other people, to violate the moral law, then we can kill them.
And the state can kill them.
They can.
This has been true at all times.
It's acknowledged in the epistles.
It's acknowledged in Christianity.
It's always been the position of the Catholic Church.
And today, Pope Francis has...
He amended certain aspects of church teaching in the Catechism of the Catholic Church to say that the death penalty now is inadmissible.
That's his word.
The death penalty by civil governments is inadmissible.
So we'll go into what that means a little bit and some of the thoughts on the health benefits of capital punishment.
But lefty politicians are cheering.
So fake Catholic politicians like the Cuomos, for instance.
The Cuomos, Mario Cuomo, invented this whole, I oppose abortion, but I think it should be legal line.
Well, I'm personally opposed to abortion, but I support abortion.
And they're trying to have their cake and eat it too, and it's absurd because abortion is intrinsically evil.
So Andy Cuomo is running with this.
Andy Cuomo, his son, the governor of New York, tweets out today, quote, The death penalty is morally indefensible, has no place in the 21st century.
Today, in solidarity with Pontifex and in honor of my father, I will be advancing legislation to remove the death penalty from state law once and for all.
This is the same guy, by the way, Andy Cuomo, who said that if you're not in favor of abortion, you're not a New Yorker, you have no place in New York.
This is a radical lefty and he quotes his church when it's convenient.
So what is it with the death penalty?
Is the death penalty morally acceptable?
Well, what Pope Francis wrote today is this.
This is the new teaching of the Catholic Catechism.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church is the book of teachings of the Catholic Church.
There was a version that came out, I believe in 1992, is it?
From John Paul II. And it formerly said that the death penalty in modern society, while not intrinsically evil, would be practically non-existent because we have other ways of dealing with criminals.
It's now changed to, Today, however, there is an increasing awareness that the dignity of the person is not lost, even after the commission of very serious crimes.
In addition, a new understanding has emerged of the significance of penal sanctions imposed by the state.
Lastly, more effective systems have been developed.
Consequently, the church teaches in light of the gospel that, quote, the death penalty is inadmissible because it is an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person.
Hmm.
Well, I don't know.
So, inadmissible.
What does inadmissible mean?
What is it really saying?
You know, because the Pope is not allowed to change doctrine.
That doesn't happen.
People mistake this frequently because people don't understand papal infallibility.
The Pope can't change doctrine of the Church.
He can articulate doctrine.
He can clarify doctrine.
So, inadmissible.
That's not the same as saying it's intrinsically evil.
Inadmissible means not capable of being admitted or conceded or allowed scope for or conceded as valid.
Tricky wording, isn't it?
Was it always inadmissible?
No.
It certainly wasn't always inadmissible.
St.
Augustine writes about this.
He says,"...the same divine authority that forbids the killing of a human being establishes certain exceptions, as when God authorizes killing by a general law or when he gives an explicit commission to an individual for a period of time." Thomas Aquinas says the same thing.
"...it is permissible to kill a criminal if this is necessary for the welfare of the whole community." Now look, Pope Benedict, this isn't a total break with Pope Francis.
Pope Benedict said, quote, there may be legitimate diversity of opinion among Catholics about waging war and applying the death penalty.
So there can be some disagreement.
It doesn't mean that now, if you're pro-death penalty, you are not Catholic or something like that.
Certainly not.
But I would like to bring in a little bit of history before we go here on the death penalty and the church and the health benefits of capital punishment.
In Rome, in 1817, Pope Pius VII was reigning.
Three robbers were beheaded.
They were beheaded for robbery.
Between 1814 and 1870, 369 criminals were beheaded in the Papal States under the control of the Pope.
You know, you've got to take care of those criminals.
Giovanni Battista Bugatti, who was the official papal executioner, used an axe to chop off criminals' heads before the guillotine was brought in to be more humane.
The Pope, between 1814 and 1817, just three years, sanctioned the hanging, drawing, and quartering of criminals 11 separate times.
Heinous crimes, particularly heinous crimes, were not treated in this way.
Instead, those criminals had their heads crushed with the mozzatello mallet.
That's a little stronger.
That doesn't seem to be quite in keeping with the modern teaching.
Agatino Bellomo, who was the last to be executed in the Papal States, asked Blessed Pius IX for a stay of execution.
Blessed Pius IX responded to him, this is the last person executed there, and said, I cannot, and I do not want to.
And then he was executed.
The issue here is that capital punishment protects human rights.
It protects human beings, human life, and the natural right.
The natural law, rather.
So there are different kinds of punishment.
There is retributive punishment, punishment just for justice's sake.
There is deterrent punishment, so when people are punished harshly for a crime, it discourages others from doing that.
There is therapeutic punishment.
You know, you can put someone into a rehabilitation center.
You say, oh, you know, the purpose of putting someone in prison is to rehabilitate them.
Okay, that's one of them too.
And there is medicinal punishment, medicinal capital punishment.
Which is that the Samuel Johnson quote, when a man knows that he's going to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully.
When you know that you're going to be killed for your crime, it clarifies the world a little bit.
The whole point of the Catholic teaching on capital punishment, excuse me, Is that we want to bring people to Christ.
We want to give them a time to repent.
Well, when you're looking at that guillotine over there, it focuses your mind.
It really brings certain questions to mind.
A more modern example of this, because you can talk about all the papal states and popes chopping off people's heads and all that is very good, but consider the Nuremberg trials.
During the Nuremberg trials of all the Nazi war criminals who slaughtered and genocided whole scores of people, Pope Pius XII was so eager for justice that he sent his Jesuit archivist to assist the prosecutors at the Nuremberg trials.
Pope Pius XII personally told the prosecutor Robert Jackson, quote,"...not only do we approve of the trial, but we desire that the guilty be punished as quickly as possible." One of the defining features of this pontificate is some confusion.
There seems to be a lot of confusion on matters of divorce, matters of who can receive the communion, matters of capital punishment, matters of church teaching, evolution, where things are going.
I mean the evolution of the church, not monkeys turning into people.
There seems to be a lot of confusion, and it would be nice to have some clarity.
Because the church has had moral clarity on this issue for a very long time.
And if the confusion persists and suggests that capital punishment is intrinsic evil, then, first of all, church tradition will be changed.
The thoughts of the church will be changed.
But it's really morally unclear because there's nothing Christian about letting the wicked rape the face of the earth, letting the cruel rape the face of the earth.
There's nothing Christian about that.
Let's hope that that confusion doesn't persist any longer.
I told you at the top of the show, when Catholics have trouble with things that are coming out of the Vatican, you're very respectful about it.
There was a group of clergy who formally accused Pope Francis of heresy, but the way that you do it in the Catholic Church, it's called a filial letter of correction for heresy.
Most Holy Father, we think we may have misunderstood what you were saying.
You know, very, very respectful.
So let's hope respectfully we can get some clarity on all of those matters and people don't forget the important medicinal effects of hanging and having your head chopped off.
In the meantime, you know, we started recording Another Kingdom.
Another Kingdom's coming up.
Get ready for it.
You've got to binge that first season so you're ready for season two.
It is really, really cool.
I will tell you that.
In the meantime, I'll see you soon.
I'm Michael Knowles.
This is The Michael Knowles Show.
See you Monday.
The Michael Knowles Show is produced by Senia Villareal.
Executive producer, Jeremy Boring.
Senior producer, Jonathan Hay.
Our supervising producer, Mathis Glover.
And our technical producer is Austin Stevens.
Edited by Jim Nickel.
Audio is mixed by Mike Coromina.
Hair and makeup is by Jesua Olvera.
The Michael Knowles Show is a Daily Wire Forward Publishing production.
