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Dec. 20, 2018 - The Michael Knowles Show

47:49

Ep. 271 - Build The Slats! Build The Slats!

President Trump switches course and declares he won’t fund the government without the wall, or as he is now putting it, “artistically designed” steel slats. Then, President Trump announces he will withdraw U.S. troops from Syria, a move that has drawn a deep division among conservatives. Finally, the Mailbag! Date: 12–20-2018 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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	Oh, happy day!
	President Trump announces that he will not fund the government unless he gets funding for his wall, or actually, as he is now putting it, his artistically designed steel slats.
	We will examine whether a wall by any other name is just as big and beautiful.
	Then...
	President Trump announces he will withdraw U.S. troops from Syria, a move that has drawn deep division between conservatives.
	And a military veteran in the U.S. has started a GoFundMe page to build the wall ourselves, and this thing is increasing by millions of dollars every hour.
	We will monitor it.
	I'm Michael Knowles, and this is The Michael Knowles Show.
	Oh, you thought that we're only a few days until Christmas.
	You thought it was all over.
	No way, Jose.
	President Trump, the king of reality TV, had a few more tricks up his sleeve.
	There is a major shutdown fight brewing.
	The headline from CNN right now is...
	Is, are you ruining my life, Republican senators, in disbelief over Trump shutdown threat?
	But I'm not in disbelief.
	I was, you know, I was a little worried there for a second.
	You know yesterday I was a little worried that President Trump was going to cave in.
	But he apparently has not, so we'll be monitoring that.
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	Oh, happy days.
	So I'll just want to rewind for a second.
	You remember yesterday we were talking about how President Trump, he was going to cave.
	He wasn't going to shut down the government.
	He was missing his only opportunity to get the border wall through.
	Democrats were so happy.
	They were so happy that Nancy Pelosi went to a bar last night with all of her Democrat friends and danced along.
	You just have to see the clip to believe it.
	Hey, Mr. Dave, my time to the night, to the night, the sack of fish, you'll write a song, save the life, and with your life.
	Hey, baby, I'm the music guy.
	Baby, I'm singing right by Mr. Mary.
	I drove a Chevy to the levee, but the levee won't stop.
	You're good old boys are drinking whiskey and pie, singing whiskey, baby, I'm the guy.
	You'll be baby, I'm the guy.
	So for those of you who are only listening, you can see Nancy Pelosi right there staring up at these aging white liberals singing off-key and playing acoustic guitar, surrounded by other aging white liberals swaying and dancing back and forth.
	She's at a bar.
	She's dancing.
	By the way, if I made a computer robot watch a thousand hours of aging white liberals just being themselves, that is what it would come up with as the platonic perfect version of aging white liberals being themselves.
	Just playing kind of schlocky 60s, 70s music on acoustic guitar singing out of tune.
	Everyone's kind of out of shape.
	They all still think they're cool.
	They're trying desperately to be cool.
	That's the definition of white liberal baby boomers is they just can never not be the cool guys.
	So, oh man, she thought she had it.
	She was so excited.
	President Trump, he was just going to have this perfunctory meeting today with House Republicans at the White House.
	Then they're going to get the continuing resolution.
	They're going to keep funding the government until February 8th, right?
	Is that what happened, Paul Ryan?
	We just had a very long productive meeting with the President.
	The President informed us that he will not sign the bill that came up from the Senate last evening because of his legitimate concerns for border security.
	So what we're going to do is go back to the House and work with our members.
	We want to keep the government open, but we also want to see an agreement that protects the border.
	We have very serious concerns about securing our border.
	The President said he will not sign this bill.
	So we're going to go back and work on adding border security to this, also keeping the government open because we do want to see an agreement.
	Oh, don't tell me Christmas came early.
	It's only the 20th.
	Christmas isn't supposed to happen for five days.
	I told you, all I want for Christmas is $5 billion and a big, big, beautiful wall.
	And Paul Ryan is announcing this that President Trump is delivering.
	We should have seen it coming.
	Because yesterday, you know, I'm broadly quite supportive of the administration.
	I think they've done excellent work.
	They've been so much better than a lot of people expected they would.
	I was really upset yesterday and I was not alone in this.
	Ann Coulter tweeted out, she was talking, she was on a podcast at the Daily Caller and she said that President Trump, if he didn't get the wall, his presidency would be a joke.
	There would be no reason to support him.
	She was pretty brutal toward him.
	She was so brutal that President Trump actually unfollowed her on Twitter.
	Apparently there's a Twitter bot that monitors the Trump family accounts and who they're following.
	He actually unfollowed Ann.
	And, you know, Ann Coulter has been pretty tough on Trump the whole time.
	And she's been tough on him in a way to push him to do better.
	To push him to not alienate his base.
	To push him so that he doesn't lose in 2020.
	And I think she's tried to maintain this tension where she wants to really, really push him, but not so much that he'll unfollow her.
	So, he did unfollow her, but then he listened to her as well.
	I mean, you know, we were pretty tough on him in this show yesterday.
	Yeah.
	At the same time that the signature campaign promise you're basically caving in and not delivering on, you choose instead to free thousands of prisoners from the clink through this first step act prison reform bill.
	It's just a horrible moment.
	I mean, just a really low point for the Trump presidency, especially as the economy starts tanking.
	So I don't know what it was exactly who was whispering in his ear, but today he totally turns around and he says that we are going to do it.
	And he says he's going to build the wall in a very specific way.
	He sent out this tweet and wrote, The Democrats, who know steel slats, parentheses, wall, are necessary for border security, are putting politics over country.
	What they are just beginning to realize is that I will not sign any of their legislation, including infrastructure, unless it has perfect border security.
	USA wins!
	Now, you'll notice in that tweet, the wall is in parentheses, and the new phrase is steel slats.
	Steel slats.
	Okay, so what do we mean by steel slats?
	Well, you've probably seen there were a number of prototypes of this wall.
	One of them is that it's slats up and down, and conservatives are a little upset about this.
	I think the left is actually trying to pretend conservatives are more upset about the steel slats versus the wall than they really are, because I don't care what the wall looks like.
	I don't care if it's got graffiti all over it.
	I don't care if it's made of steel or marble or concrete or whatever.
	I just want the thing to be built.
	President Trump also went on, he tweeted, quote, When I begrudgingly signed the omnibus bill, I was promised the wall and border security by leadership would be done by the end of year.
	Now, it didn't happen.
	We foolishly fight for border security for other countries, but not for our beloved USA. Not good.
	Absolutely right.
	This is totally right.
	And so the left is trying to still portray this as a retreat.
	They're saying, well, okay, he's going to shut down the government.
	They're furious about that.
	They thought they had him beat on that.
	So they say, well, he's going to shut down the government, but he's not even going to deliver the wall.
	He's foolishly, recklessly trying to rebrand it as Steel Slats.
	Who wants Steel Slats?
	Maggie Haberman, who was a total in the tank for Hillary Clinton.
	The Clinton campaign sent emails about how they could rely on Maggie Haberman of the New York Times to give them good coverage.
	Here she is on CNN trying to portray this as some Republican loss.
	The goalposts have moved, right?
	I mean, he realizes there is not going to be a concrete wall, so he has to start rebranding it for his followers to look as if he is the one who created this and this was not foisted upon him.
	And again, that will work with some of his supporters.
	It will work with some of his base.
	The problem is that you can't constantly try to wave away your previous statements and assume that nobody is watching.
	There is a weight to these.
	There is a certain collection of them over time.
	Again, his supporters, Mark Meadows and Coulter, didn't do him any favors, but they didn't do him any favors because they know where his voters are.
	But they are reminding people that this really was the last chance.
	If he was serious about getting this wall, you don't sign this continuing resolution to keep the government funded through February 8th.
	So Maggie Haberman's right about a couple things here.
	She made those comments, in fairness to her, before it became clear that President Trump was willing to shut down this government to get his border funding at the very last minute.
	And so I think she would probably modify her comments now.
	So she's right that this is the last chance.
	And Ann Coulter was right about that.
	Mark Meadows and President Trump realizes that.
	What she's wrong about is she says that President Trump keeps changing his language.
	It's going to be a big wall.
	It's going to be 10 feet higher.
	Mexico's going to pay for it.
	Mexico's going to pay for it indirectly because of a new trade deal, because of increased this or that or the other thing.
	It's going to be a wall now.
	It's going to be steel slats.
	So she's trying to say that when you make a promise, it is stuck in time.
	You can't change.
	You can't negotiate.
	It has weight.
	Which is true except for this administration.
	It doesn't.
	President Trump openly says this.
	He says, I am having the art of the deal.
	I am always negotiating.
	I'm going to ask for five times more than what I really want so that I can whittle it down and just get what I actually am aiming for.
	So no, if he says I want a big, beautiful concrete wall, and then he says, okay, okay, I'll settle for steel slats, steel slats is the wall.
	I really see no difference here.
	And I think this may actually be a sort of clumsy strategy from President Trump.
	So that it actually gives Democrats a little bit of an opening if they want to vote for it.
	Because Democrats should vote for border security.
	Democrats want to get re-elected just as much as anybody, and the majority of Americans want a structure along our southern border.
	Not just Republicans, not just Independents.
	Democrats, too.
	They want the wall.
	The majority of Americans want the wall.
	So Democrats are answerable to that.
	They were all for border security, at least in their rhetoric, until a few years ago when they became beholden to the far left of their party.
	Okay, so he says, well, you don't need to vote for the wall.
	You can vote for steel slats.
	I'm kind of into the steel slats.
	Am I the only conservative who sort of prefers artistically designed steel slats to a big concrete wall?
	You know, I do have to remind myself, sometimes conservatives, you know, we're Philistines.
	We don't like artistic things.
	We don't like aesthetics.
	We don't take any of that into account.
	We disregard the culture.
	But the founder of modern conservative philosophy, Edmund Burke, was actually an aesthetic philosopher.
	He wrote a famous inquiry into the origins of the sublime and the beautiful.
	It's 33 years before he wrote the founding tract of modern conservative political thought.
	So I actually kind of like the idea.
	You know, the slats, I don't know, they let in more light.
	They're probably a little more pleasing on the eyes.
	I like the idea of the steel rather than the concrete.
	The concrete has a little bit of a Berlin Wall-ish vibe.
	It probably won't age very well.
	One nice thing about the steel slats is they can extend all the way into the ocean.
	But actually our own Cassie Dillon went down to the border and she interviewed a Border Patrol agent down there.
	And the Border Patrol agent made a good case for the steel slats over the concrete wall.
	In 2017, six companies were given 30 days to build prototypes for President Trump's proposed 30-foot-tall border wall, which would replace the steel mesh barrier.
	Each prototype cost $450,000, but a finalist has still not been chosen.
	You can see they're all different.
	We did a testing and evaluation process which took about 60 days.
	What did the testing include?
	The testing included anti-scaling, anti-climbing.
	I can't imagine scaling this.
	You can see it's 30 feet tall, very intimidating.
	In 2017, funding was secured to replace the Vietnam-era barrier with an 18-foot-tall see-through fence made of steel posts and anti-climbing plates.
	This modern fencing extends all the way into the ocean.
	And so what's the benefits to the new see-through border compared to this one?
	We have no idea what's on the south side.
	If I'm being assaulted, if I am, you know, patrolling an area and there's a group forming 8 to 10 people, I want to know and I want to be able to see what's going on.
	This, I think, is the best argument for the steel slats over the wall.
	Because, look, this isn't like President Trump said, okay, well, it's politically impossible to get a giant concrete wall, so I'm going to get a giant steel wall with some spaces every so often.
	And that's much more politically feasible to get or less expensive or something.
	That's not how it works.
	They're both difficult to get politically.
	It's difficult to wrangle Democrats.
	There's not much of a difference between the two.
	I think the best argument is that people are going to continue to try to come into our country illegally.
	That's not going to stop.
	And so they can either try to hurl things over a big concrete wall or they're going to try to hurl things over the steel slats.
	And also, just as a matter of being intimidating, those slats kind of seem a little scarier to me because they're kind of like spiky.
	You can imagine trying to scale the slats and like impaling yourself.
	I don't know.
	I'm having very dark visions about the whole thing.
	But it's really for the protection of our border security.
	We're still going to need a lot of agents down there on the border monitoring this.
	There are going to be a lot of people trying to get guns and drugs through.
	And so it's probably as...
	That Border Patrol agent says, to their benefit, to be able to at least see what's coming, to see how many people are on the other side, to see what kind of danger is being presented.
	And also it allows it to extend into the ocean.
	I suppose they could extend it into the ocean anyway, just using the slats that way, and then they could have concrete for the rest of it.
	The one worry with the slats is that people would be able to pass things through it, so drugs or guns or whatever.
	Again, probably that wouldn't be very effective because we can still monitor via drones.
	We can still monitor via video cameras.
	So we could probably apprehend people.
	One way to do it, though, is to just have two sets of steel slats.
	So you're building two structures but pretty close to one another.
	Maybe fill it with a moat and some alligators in the middle such that you wouldn't be able to pass things through.
	That's easily solved, though.
	So I'm all for it.
	I say build the slats, build the slats.
	That's going to be our new chant.
	I've talked to conservatives about this and said, do you prefer the wall to the slats or the slats to the wall?
	They don't care.
	Just build it, protect the border, get it through.
	This is the time to do it.
	I'm glad that President Trump is doubling down.
	I mean, tactically speaking...
	Now he actually has some leverage.
	Because he let them think that they were going to get it through and they all made their plans for how to start the new year, their Christmas plans, whatever, he's actually in a better position now.
	So it's entirely possible that he was letting this fester the whole time, that he was sort of leading them on and lulling them into a state of complacency, and now he's doubling down.
	It's also plausible that he saw the reaction from his followers and from his voters and his supporters.
	And he said, yikes, if I'm losing Ann Coulter, if I'm losing the Michael Knowles show, which is like named after a typo that President Trump made.
	You know, I mean, the covfefe thing is the title of my yaftor.
	I'm pretty supportive of this guy.
	If he loses me on an issue like that, then maybe they've got to double down.
	And I'm just so thrilled.
	I'm actually, you'll notice I'm not in the studio today.
	I'm down in Palm Beach.
	I'm down the road from the Winter White House.
	I'm actually going to an event at Mar-a-Lago tonight, so I'm sure there will be lots of good gossip.
	Maybe I'll be able to bring some to you tomorrow.
	But this is great.
	I mean, this is what we came for.
	Russell Crowe in the Gladiator.
	Are you not entertained?
	Is this not why you are here?
	This is the stuff.
	We should never have doubted that the reality TV guy would give us a great season-ending cliffhanger to go into 2019.
	Really, really good stuff.
	And again, this is such a winning issue for Republicans.
	There is actually a GoFundMe now that was started by an American military veteran.
	Who said, if you're not going to fund the wall, Democrats, we're going to fund the wall ourselves.
	And let me just check what it's up to right now.
	When I checked this this morning, I don't know, it was up to $4 million or something, it's now at $7.3 million that's been raised by 120,000 people over the course of three days.
	The idea being, if all the people who voted for Donald Trump contributed, that's about 63 million people, if they contributed, what, 80 bucks?
	You'd fund the wall.
	Five billion dollars.
	The goal right now is a billion dollars on this GoFundMe campaign.
	And I think this is great, by the way.
	I think it's a really good idea.
	This guy's name is Brian Colfidge.
	He's a Purple Heart recipient, a military veteran, triple amputee.
	And he says, look, I've given a lot for my country.
	I'm deeply invested in the future of my country.
	I don't want to have given all of that for nothing.
	So we've got to build the wall and protect our liberty, protect our sovereignty, protect the integrity of our nation.
	And you should help me out to do this.
	Now, what he said is he's working with a legal team.
	They will make sure that every dollar that is donated can only be used legally by the government to build the wall.
	And if they only fund it halfway, then they'll try to strike a deal with the government to fund it the other half of the way.
	And if they don't make a deal, if they can't fund the wall with this money, if they fall short of any of their goals, they're just going to refund the money.
	I think this is great.
	I think this is terrific.
	Some left-wingers are making fun of conservatives for this.
	They're making fun of them and saying, what a bunch of dupes.
	They're giving their money and paying extra taxes.
	Some cynical conservatives are saying that too.
	I think it's great.
	I think it's sending a terrific message to people and to the president and to members of Congress and the Senate to say, we want this wall.
	We want it so bad.
	We want to protect our country so much.
	We're willing to put our own money on the line about this.
	120,000 people in just a few days, and the number keeps rising.
	I keep refreshing the page, and you just see more and more people.
	1,000 people, since I last refreshed it a few minutes ago, have donated money to this.
	I think it's great, and I think that these...
	Republican senators, some of the squishy ones, I think their jaws hit the floor.
	This from CNN. Republican Senator Susan Collins almost dropped her handbag Thursday as she gestured disbelief at word delivered to her by reporters that Donald Trump would not sign the budget extension to keep the government funded until February unless border wall money was added.
	Did he just say that?
	She asked as she left a Republican lunch.
	Ugh, are you ruining my life?
	No, you're doing your job.
	You're being forced to do your job.
	Because you weren't doing your job because neither Republicans nor Democrats have ever really cared about stopping illegal immigration and funding border security.
	None of them really have.
	It's this unholy alliance made between these open borders left-wingers and open borders Chamber of Commerce, Wall Street Journal type Republicans.
	Love the journal, but it's that kind of perspective that says, oh well, they shouldn't do it, but sure love that cheap labor.
	Oh, well, they shouldn't do it, but gosh, it's pretty good for the economy.
	And we'll get to why it's good for the economy in...
	Well, we'll get to it right now, as a matter of fact.
	Which is that there was this study that came out which showed that the least educated state in America...
	Do you know what it is?
	The least educated state in America, I know you're thinking, Mississippi, Alabama, haha, those dumb southerners.
	California, that's the least educated state in the country.
	And, of course, I believe that.
	I'm surrounded by Californians all the time.
	So it's California, and then number two is Texas.
	Texas is still a pretty red state.
	Then it's New York, then it's New Mexico, then it goes to Kentucky, Nevada, Arizona.
	I thought, how is this?
	Why is it the bluest of the blue states, then the reddest of the red states, then the blue again, New York?
	And why are these the least educated?
	We're always told New Yorkers are so educated and sophisticated.
	We're always told that Californians are so educated, so sophisticated.
	So why is that?
	What's going on?
	Then I looked at the percentage of illegal aliens living in these states.
	And it turns out they match very well.
	They don't match one to one, but the greatest percentage of illegal aliens is California.
	Within the top five, you get Arizona, you get New York, you get all of these.
	Nevada has a lot.
	So it's not a perfect one to one.
	There are other factors as well.
	But this is a big one.
	This makes perfect sense.
	You're talking about people who are flooding into the country without much of an education.
	I don't begrudge them.
	They come from bad countries and they're coming to America because America is a good country.
	But when you have that unchecked, when you just allow people to flood over completely unvetted without any limiting principle, then there are negative effects on your society.
	Education levels go way, way down.
	Wages, especially at the low end of the wage spectrum, go way, way down.
	This affects a lot of people.
	It might not affect the people writing for the New York Times, but it does affect a lot of Americans.
	And what underlies this immigration debate?
	What actually is underlying the immigration debate, the reason why the Wall Street Journal wants illegal aliens to pour into the country, is that the U.S. population has grown so slowly.
	In the past year, it's been its slowest rate in over eight decades.
	The growth in the South and the West is outpacing people in the Northeast and the Midwest, but this is all according to new figures from the Census Bureau.
	People are not having kids in the United States.
	They're not replacing themselves.
	U.S. life expectancy has decreased now, two years in a row at least.
	That's for the first time in 50 years.
	Why?
	Because of suicide, because of drug addiction.
	We are living...
	Demonstrably on every single measurement in a very decadent culture that is losing vitality.
	It doesn't have much vitality at all.
	And the way to artificially prop up those cultures is to flood it with migrants from countries that are not decadent yet.
	That is what's underlying this, is a loss of American vitality or sense of purpose or determination, or at least in certain parts of the country.
	And so you try to prop it up.
	This is what Europe has been trying to do for years.
	Europe is, you know, just a couple decades ahead of us on this.
	They've been trying to take their dying populations and resuscitate them with Muslim migrants coming from the Middle East.
	And that has negative effects because they're coming from different cultures and they're not being made to assimilate.
	And it just takes a while to bring people into society.
	And if you have a multicultural ideological regime, they're just not going to come in.
	They're just not going to come in at all.
	So I hope that this stand, this moment, President Trump's moment, the covfefe, the exuberance, the new sense of American hope, the idea that maybe we have a few more good days ahead of us.
	Maybe we can fix problems.
	Maybe we can take wages which have stagnated for 10 years and increase real wages.
	Maybe we can manufacture things.
	Everyone told us we can't manufacture anymore.
	Maybe we can.
	Everyone told us we can't stop illegal immigration.
	Maybe we can.
	Everyone told us we just have to fight wars of empire that monitor the entire world as a sort of benevolent patriarch.
	Maybe we can be our own country too.
	I mean, this is what underlies President Trump's major announcement today, that he's going to withdraw troops from Syria.
	And this is causing a lot of consternation.
	This is a big debate on the right.
	Here is President Trump's announcement.
	We've been fighting for a long time in Syria.
	I've been president for almost two years, and we've really stepped it up.
	And we have won against ISIS. We've beaten them, and we've beaten them badly.
	We've taken back the land.
	And now it's time for our troops to come back home.
	I get very saddened when I have to write letters or call parents or wives or husbands of soldiers who have been killed fighting for our country.
	It's a great honor.
	We cherish them.
	But it's heartbreaking.
	There's no question about it.
	It's heartbreaking.
	Now we've won.
	It's time to come back.
	They're getting ready.
	You're going to see them soon.
	These are great American heroes.
	This was another major announcement.
	It totally blindsided people.
	A lot of Republicans are not happy about this.
	The one leading the charge, Marco Rubio, came out against this move.
	A lot of the more, I don't want to call them neocons, but certainly the neoconservative types, the more establishment foreign policy conservative types, are coming out strongly against this.
	Lindsey Graham is leading the charge.
	This, to me, is an Obama-like decision.
	I hope I'm wrong, but I don't think I am, and I have no understanding of why we're doing this.
	To me, it is an ill-conceived idea.
	The downside is really great, and the upside is pretty small.
	All right, so the warnings are dire that Russia and Iran and Hezbollah, those guys are all celebrating today.
	And Assad, too.
	What do you make of it?
	One of my colleagues just called this an Obama-like decision.
	I couldn't disagree more and I couldn't agree more with the President's decision.
	Look, by definition, this is the opposite of an Obama decision.
	Obama got us involved.
	Trump's taken us out.
	Congress has never declared war or authorized the use of military force in Syria.
	We shouldn't be there anyway without Congress doing that.
	So that there at the end, that was Republican Senator Mike Lee, who comes from the more, I don't know, civil liberty-minded wing of the Republican Party and the conservative movement, and he's applauding it.
	Rand Paul is applauding the move as well.
	This is a long-standing debate among conservatives.
	The more Call them isolationist strain and the more Wilsonian strain.
	Interventionist, go around the world, police the world.
	My take on this is probably unsatisfying to both of those, which is I don't think it really matters that much if we pull out.
	We only have 2,000 troops right now in Syria.
	Those troops are basically helping Kurdish forces and protecting Kurdish forces a bit.
	We have lost service members in Syria.
	It's very hard to get precise numbers on this, but I think that number is about five American servicemen who have been killed in combat in Syria.
	One serviceman killed is a terrible thing compared to the losses in Iraq and Afghanistan.
	Obviously, it's very minimal.
	The reason, again, that I don't think this withdraws the huge end of the world that Lindsey Graham is making it out to be is we still have 5,200 troops in Iraq.
	For those of you who are a little geographically challenged, Iraq is right next to Syria.
	So if we did have a strategic interest, if we did have something we wanted to do in Syria, we could easily deploy those troops.
	They're right there.
	I think there's a symbolism to taking the troops home because the question that the people who wanted to pull the troops out have asked is, what is our strategic goal in Syria?
	What are we after?
	What we're being told now is if we pull our troops out, then the Syrian butcher president Bashar Assad will be strengthened.
	Russia's role in the region will be strengthened.
	Turkey's role in the region will be strengthened.
	Maybe, I guess, what is our strategic goal?
	Do we want to remove Bashar Assad from power?
	I'm not sure about that.
	Bashar Assad is one of the worst people on earth.
	But who would replace him?
	Would it be any better?
	Would we just have chaos?
	Would we further empower Islamist rebels?
	I don't know.
	Would the good guys win?
	Would the bad guys win?
	And they won't even articulate the strategic interest.
	It seems to me the strategic interest is in being there to monitor, to maintain the status quo, to not let any one power, be it Russia, a foreign power, or Bashar Assad, a domestic power, gain too much control and it's this long game of chess and geopolitics.
	Maybe it is that.
	Why can't we do that from Iraq?
	Why do we have to do that with troops on the ground in Syria?
	Do we really think 2,000 troops on the ground is going to do a whole lot in Syria?
	It's going to tip a civil war that we're not even sure which side we're fighting on?
	Of course not.
	I just don't think it's a huge deal.
	And it is President Trump fulfilling a campaign promise.
	And he's got to fulfill those campaign promises because he's facing re-election in 2020.
	And Americans broadly, not just right-wingers, but left-wingers too, get war fatigue after a while.
	And unless you can articulate a strategic objective there, and the reason why it's so essential that we have 2,000 troops in Syria, I just don't see the interest.
	Okay, we've got a lot of mailbag to get to, but first, I've got to say goodbye to Facebook and YouTube.
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	And I've got to tell you guys, it's really good.
	I can comment on that because I contributed nothing to the writing of it.
	And the story is so good.
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	So go over to dailywire.com, give us all of your money, and we will be right back with the mailbag.
	I'm gonna burn through this mailbag today.
	I'm getting to all of them.
	From Joel.
	Hi, Michael.
	I'm a big fan.
	I was hoping to get your opinion on a statement I heard recently.
	To understand racism, you need to understand power dynamics.
	To understand sexism, you need to understand power dynamics.
	To understand poverty, you need to understand power dynamics.
	To understand power dynamics, you need to listen and believe the stories of the powerless.
	Okay, so my opinion on that statement is it's not very insightful or profound at all.
	What that statement really means is, shut up.
	That's what it means.
	I know it doesn't quite sound like that at the beginning.
	Okay, to understand racism, you need to understand power dynamics.
	Well, that's not quite true, but certainly power dynamics have something to do with racism.
	To understand sexism, power, well, yeah, okay, maybe.
	Poverty, well, yeah, I mean, you need to understand economics and human nature and labor markets.
	Okay, well...
	But then they come in and they say, you need to listen and listen and believe the stories of the powerless.
	When they say listen, they don't mean listen like you and I mean listen.
	They mean stop talking.
	So you need to stop talking and then believe the stories of the powerless.
	No, I'll believe the stories of the credible.
	I'll believe stories of people who are telling things that are worthy of belief.
	They don't just believe anybody.
	Anybody can lie.
	A rich guy can lie.
	A poor guy can lie.
	Rich guys have interest.
	Poor guys have interest.
	And then of the powerless.
	Nobody is powerless in America.
	Nobody is powerless.
	A four-year-old orphan out on the street with drug-addicted, abusive parents.
	Even that kid is not powerless in America.
	He at least has communities and he has certainly the state to come in and get him out of those bad situations.
	A lot of charities to help people.
	Nobody is powerless in America.
	So just the premise there is this very Marxist premise that we have these class struggles between the oppressor and the oppressed and that defines the oppressor's By which they really just mean straight white guys who think that they're guys.
	They need to shut up and everyone else gets to talk and tell them what to do.
	That's ridiculous.
	Of course that's not the case.
	People who have good ideas should be listened to.
	And we should always be listening to everybody.
	But then we should use our judgment and our reason to determine what is true and what is good and beautiful and what is false and a bad idea and going to lead us down a bad path.
	From Justin.
	Oh, great knowledgeable.
	My ex and I broke up over a year ago and have not really communicated since.
	Looking back, I see all of my previous shortfalls and have noted that the breakup was most likely caused by our immaturity as individuals and as a couple.
	She really was everything I wanted in a wife.
	She's the only girl I've said those three little words to.
	Should I send the text to my ex?
	If not, how should I go about meeting new people?
	Justin.
	P.S. I thought about sending this question to Mr.
	Shapiro as well.
	However, my ex listens to his show.
	Well, she listens to his show, huh?
	Yeah?
	Well, she doesn't listen to my show.
	She clearly has very questionable judgment.
	You should delete her number from your phone and move on.
	Get a girl who has better taste in podcasts.
	Listen, you're asking me this question because you want permission to do something, right?
	Everything you're telling me is saying, I want to text my ex.
	She's perfect.
	We were both immature.
	We both made mistakes.
	I really love her.
	That's the only girl I ever said I loved.
	Can I text her?
	And if you're asking me permission, yeah, sure.
	I married my ex-girlfriend.
	You know, I've mentioned, I've talked about this before, sweet little Lisa and I were high school sweethearts.
	We split for college.
	We got back together.
	My life is great.
	My life couldn't possibly be better.
	Everything worked out wonderfully.
	I'm all for texting your ex if it's the right thing to do.
	Don't text the wrong ex.
	If the reasons that you broke up were...
	If you broke up because, I don't know, immaturity, you know, she was moving somewhere, you were going somewhere, you know, whatever, that's fine.
	I had one guy write into the show and say that his girlfriend kept cheating on him and kissing other boys in front of him and breaking up with him.
	Yeah, dump that girl.
	Don't text that girl.
	But, you know, people change.
	People mature.
	If you really like her...
	If you've gone out, you've kind of played the field, you've talked to other people, and you like this girl more, yeah, text her.
	That's great.
	I'm all for it.
	But don't do it because you don't have anything better to do.
	Don't do it because you're afraid of going out there and meeting someone new.
	Do it because you really love this girl.
	And if it's the latter, go do it.
	And if it's that you're just sort of settling for her because you're afraid to go meet a new girl, you don't know how to meet a new girl, go to a bar, buddy.
	Go meet a new girl.
	There's a lot of fish out there.
	But I'm all for texting your ex and marrying your ex, and I hope it works out for you.
	From Richard.
	Dear Michael, how do you think your bestseller, packed with factual data and indisputable arguments, will hold against Clapshap's new book?
	Look, I mean, a work like Reasons to Vote for Democrats, a comprehensive guide, is a once-in-a-generation work of genius.
	And not everything can be compared to that book.
	I mean, how could you possibly, with such economy of words, with such brevity and therefore wit, be able to convey such an incisive message as I conveyed in my magnum opus, Reasons to Vote for Democrats?
	I would never hold Ben to that standard.
	You know, I mean, Ben, for one, Ben uses words in his books.
	So I just don't know how he could convey with such concision and precision the sort of things that I did.
	But I did read Ben's book, and it's a very good book.
	I really, really enjoyed it.
	So I'm sure it'll sell, you know, a handful of copies.
	But, you know, again, since it's not really just cutting through right to the soul of the reader, you know, obviously I don't know that it'll do nearly as well.
	I think my prediction is it will be the second bestselling and most important book of the last two years.
	That's how I think it'll do.
	And you should read it.
	It's a very good book.
	From Cole.
	Do you have any advice for constructing a compelling argument against abortion on a scientific level?
	Most people I talk to won't acknowledge the moral dilemma that abortion presents.
	Thanks, Cole.
	Let me ask you a question.
	Can you construct a compelling argument against murder on a scientific level?
	On a scientific level.
	So we're talking about the physical.
	We're not talking about the metaphysical or the moral or the ethical.
	We're just talking about on a physical, on a meat level.
	Why shouldn't you murder somebody?
	Because you'll get blood on your clothing?
	I don't know.
	Can you construct for me a scientific argument against burglary?
	Or a scientific argument against rape?
	No, if anything, if we're talking about science, then we know that we have a biological imperative to spread our genes.
	So there's certainly no scientific argument against rape.
	There's really a scientific argument for rape, although not really, because, again, you can't make scientific arguments about moral questions.
	These questions, all of these things, really everything that matters to us in our society, So, of course you can't do it.
	There's no scientific argument against abortion.
	There aren't really scientific arguments.
	Period.
	When we argue, we're talking about ideas, and ideas are not scientific.
	I can't take an idea and look at it under a microscope.
	An idea is out there, and ideas are enacted by physical processes, and that you can study scientifically, but you can't study the idea.
	The reason that abortion is wrong is because it's wrong to take a human life without due process, certainly.
	We know that it's a human.
	We know that it's alive.
	We know that it's individual.
	What argument could you make to end that life without due process?
	I can't find one.
	Find me that argument.
	You can only make moral arguments, and if people won't acknowledge moral dilemmas, then I guess they can't make any other argument either.
	But I suspect they do make other arguments, they just don't want to face the reality of abortion.
	From Sally: "Hi, Michael.
	Have you ever noticed the linguistic link between being observant, in a religious sense, and the actual meaning of the word, being watchful?
	I don't think millennials have been encouraged to look deeper into themselves or deeper at the world.
	It shows in their amoral politics.
	How do we bring religion into the conversation where it is less consequential than the next Instagram ad?
	Thanks, Sally.
	A great observation.
	Pun, I suppose, intended.
	We constantly see that this isn't just the millennials who are being oblivious to this.
	This is even true of religious people sometimes.
	Sometimes religious people will say, well, I said I believe in Jesus and I'm saved.
	I believe in you and now I'm saved.
	That's okay.
	I don't need to think anymore.
	This contradicts both the letter and the spirit of the New Testament and the Old Testament.
	We know in Genesis, sin crouches at your door.
	It desires to have you, but you must take control over it.
	It's there.
	It's crouching.
	It's not sitting.
	It's crouching.
	It's ready to pounce on you.
	We know from Peter, he writes, He's constantly.
	We see it all throughout the Gospels.
	They say, be vigilant.
	Stay awake.
	Why can't you stay awake?
	Endure until the end.
	It's not easy to endure until the end, but you should.
	There's a prayer in the Catholic Church that they used to say at the end of Mass all the time, and then it became unpopular for a while in the 60s and 70s when the church became much more...
	Kumbaya and saccharine and sentimental.
	And now it's coming back a little bit because we realize the reality and personification of evil.
	And it's the St.
	Michael prayer.
	The prayer is very quick.
	It says, St.
	Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle.
	Be our defense against the wickedness and snares of the devil.
	May God rebuke him, we humbly pray.
	And do thou, O Prince of the Heavenly Host, by the power of God, thrust into hell Satan and all the evil spirits who prowl the world seeking the ruin of souls.
	Just listen to that language.
	It's prowling.
	Sin is always there for us.
	We've got to constantly be watchful of that.
	And I hope some of these self-help guys who have become popular say that, you know, they speak to a very Aristotelian sense, which is that virtue is a habit.
	You form habits, and that is your virtue.
	The more you practice the virtues, the more natural they will feel, the better you will be at them.
	And if you're in a state of habitual sin, some sort of addiction or whatever, Then it's very difficult to break out of that.
	Christ says the man who sins is a slave to sin.
	And you've got to constantly be vigilant about that.
	But it's not just those millennials.
	I think that's a lesson that all of society could take.
	From Jason.
	What do you make of Jordan Peterson's nonsensical word salad whenever asked directly about the incarnation or the resurrection of Jesus?
	I couldn't possibly say.
	You'll have to ask Jordan himself about his answer to questions on the Incarnation.
	I have asked him this directly before.
	I think we did it on the air a little while ago.
	I also want to make the point, though, because I hear this sometimes from the religious right and from left-wingers.
	They'll criticize Jordan Peterson.
	The religious right will do it because he's He's a Jungian, basically, so he's only speaking about metaphors, and he gives vague answers on questions like the Incarnation.
	And then the left doesn't like him because he's getting people to take seriously traditional concepts and religion.
	Both of those sides are saying that Jordan is doing more harm than good.
	I think it's pretty clear that he's doing more good than harm.
	I've talked to a lot of people who are religious people, They reverted or converted to their faith because of Jordan Peterson.
	And it's because what Jordan Peterson does so well is he exposes the frivolous shallowness of modern materialism, of modern atheism, how low their arguments are, what a ridiculous and silly view of the world that they have.
	And he exposes that because he's talking about...
	He's talking about mythology, and he's talking about symbolism, and he's talking about the Bible.
	And I really hope that someday I'll be able to sit Jordan down, as I've tried many times, and get him to follow the logical conclusions of those ideas as I see them.
	But if Jordan is getting people to do that, to follow the logical conclusions of these ideas and come to a true faith, He's doing God's work on earth.
	It's great stuff.
	I'll take one more.
	Dear Lively, I have two questions.
	Okay, I guess I'll take two more.
	With the latter involving an anecdote.
	One, what is your favorite Protestant denomination?
	And two, I made the mistake of mentioning I heard Lutheranism described as Catholic light to a Lutheran pastor.
	He calmly explained to me why Lutherans are the true Catholics and the Pope is the Antichrist with a great deal of citations I don't remember.
	Is there any validity to these claims?
	I'll take the second one first.
	No, there is not any validity to those claims.
	A good book on this, though, on the history of the Reformation, and specifically Luther, is How the Reformation Happened by Hilaire Belloc.
	That's a good book.
	It's a short book, and I think it'll give you a flavor of why that individual was confused.
	As for my favorite Protestant denomination, I've got to go with the Church of England, of course.
	I've got to go with High Church Anglican, which is basically the Catholic Church, except they don't like the Pope.
	Twice the liturgy, half the guilt as they describe it.
	And this is because Henry VIII, when he broke the Church of England away from the Catholic Church, he didn't do so for theological reasons.
	He remained basically a Catholic until the day he died.
	He did it for political reasons, obviously because he wanted to divorce his wife, and the Pope was being stubborn about that, but also political reasons in that he had to maintain his line of succession, he had to maintain certain alliances.
	But Henry VIII was given the title by the Pope of a defender of the faith.
	He wrote beautifully about the sacraments and the Catholic faith.
	So I really like that.
	Unfortunately, now the Church of England is sort of an empty husk.
	It has all of the gilding, or it has all of the ornaments of the Catholic Church, but it's been basically hollowed out from the inside.
	But I still like it.
	I still go into Protestant churches, Anglican churches sometimes, and it's nice to hear, especially these days, a lot of the Catholic liturgy is so awful that if you go to the Anglican Church, you can figure out what it was supposed to sound like.
	So that's my favorite one.
	I actually take a lot from Protestants, though.
	I always liked Alvin Plantinga, the Calvinist analytical philosopher at Notre Dame, and I always enjoyed Tim Keller.
	Years ago, I would listen to him a lot more.
	So, there are some good ones out there, too.
	Alright, that's a surprisingly ecumenical end to our show.
	We will be back tomorrow.
	I gotta go boogie to Mar-a-Lago and figure out what's going on with this government shutdown.
	But I'll be in town also for the TPUSA Student Action Summit, so if you're around, I look forward to seeing you tomorrow.
	In the meantime, I'm Michael Knowles.
	This is The Michael Knowles Show.
	I'll see you tomorrow.
	The Michael Knoll Show is produced by Semia Villareal.
	Executive producer, Jeremy Borey.
	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.
	Copyright Forward Publishing 2018.
	Hey guys, over at the Matt Wall Show today, we'll be talking about a UCLA professor that is claiming that fire departments are not inclusive and diverse enough.
	What does this tell us about left-wing identity politics?
	Also, a famous Hollywood actor is trying to appease the Me Too mob, which isn't a smart move.

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