Democrats take down a governor to avoid talking about their support for infanticide. Then, an Indian man sues his parents for giving birth to him without his consent. People who have endured the most suffering may live the longest. Finally, Super Bowl 53 and the death of football. Date: 02-04-2019
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Virginia Governor Ralph North is now denying that he appeared in a blackface Ku Klux Klan photo on his medical school yearbook page, one day after apologizing for appearing in a blackface Ku Klux Klan photo on his medical school yearbook page.
He also denies ever appearing in blackface, except for that time he wore blackface to a Michael Jackson impersonator contest.
But don't worry, he won't perform the moonwalk anymore because that would be inappropriate according to his wife.
Oh, yeah.
Also, he supports killing babies after they've been born.
We will analyze the sheer political brilliance with which Democrats took down one of their own governors to avoid talking about their growing support for infanticide.
Then, variations on a theme, an Indian man sues his parents for giving birth to him without his consent, the nerve of them.
All life is suffering, he says, but a new study shows that people who have endured the most suffering may live the longest lives.
We will try to make sense of the competing cultures of life and death.
Finally, speaking of death, Super Bowl 53 and the death of football.
I'm Michael Knowles and this is The Michael Knowles Show.
Ralph Northam.
What a tragedy in three acts.
A comedy and a tragedy in three acts.
We'll get to it in a second, but first, let me talk to you about, you know how much I love this, Purple Mattress.
I am a proselytizer for Purple Mattress.
It has saved my marriage.
It's certainly saved my back.
It is the greatest mattress I have ever slept on.
I have recommended it to all of my friends.
You need to get it yourself.
I'm telling you, it is the best sleep that you will ever get.
It is unlike any bed you've ever slept on.
It's not quite a memory foam.
It's not an inner spring.
It's this new technology developed by rocket scientists.
Somehow it is both firm and soft at the same time.
That doesn't sound like it makes sense.
It does, though.
It sleeps very cool.
It just feels great.
I got mine in California King.
As someone who sleeps 19 to 25 hours a day, I highly recommend it.
You've got to make sure that you've got a good quality bed.
It will change your life.
Purple Matt is going to feel different than anything you've ever tried.
It is unique.
You get a 100-night risk-free trial.
If you're not fully satisfied, you can return your mattress for a full refund.
You won't want to.
Backed by a 10-year warranty, free shipping and returns, free in-home setup and old mattress removal.
You are going to love Purple.
Right now, my listeners get a free Purple Pillow with the purchase of a mattress.
That's in addition to the great free gifts they're offering site-wide.
How do you do it?
Pull over your car right now.
Take out your phone.
Text COVFEFE, C-O-V-F-E-F-E, to 474747.
The only way to get this free pillow is to text COVFEFE, C-O-V-F-E-F-E, to 474747. C-O-V-F-E-F-E, 474747.
Message and data rates apply.
Okay.
Now, look, I love Purple Mattress.
But now we can get to one of the most incredible political displays of the last three or four years, other than everything Donald Trump's done.
The Ralph Northam turnaround is a jaw-dropping political display.
For those of you who missed it over the weekend, here is Democrat Virginia Governor Ralph Northam reacting to...
The news that on his medical school yearbook page is a photo of a man in blackface and a man wearing a Ku Klux Klan outfit.
According to the Washington Post, Ralph Northam is in this photo.
Ralph Northam gets exposed and he comes out and apologizes.
That photo and the racist and offensive attitudes it represents does not reflect that person I am today or the way that I have conducted myself as a soldier, a doctor, and a public servant.
I am deeply sorry.
I cannot change the decisions I made, nor can I undo the harm my behavior caused then and today.
But I accept responsibility for my past actions, and I am ready to do the hard work of regaining your trust.
He accepts responsibility.
He's apologizing.
He's about to work to gain back your trust.
And then he realized, wait a minute, I'm a Democrat.
I don't need to apologize for anything.
I don't need to take responsibility.
Yippee!
I'm a Democrat governor.
So then, a day later, he goes out and unapologizes.
Yesterday, I took responsibility for content that appeared on my page in the Eastern Virginia Medical School Yearbook that was clearly racist and offensive.
I am not and will not excuse the content of the photo.
It was offensive, racist, and despicable.
When my staff showed me the photo in question yesterday, I was seeing it for the first time.
I did not purchase the EDMS yearbook, and I was unaware of what was on my page.
When I was confronted with the images yesterday, I was appalled that they appeared on my page, but I believe then and now that I am not either of the people in that photo.
I stand by my statement of apology to the many Virginians who were hurt by seeing this content on a yearbook page that belongs to me.
Being a leftist means never having to say you're sorry.
Listen to that language.
Then he says, well, I'm apologizing that there was a racially offensive photo on my yearbook page.
Then he asks us to believe that he never saw the yearbook, never purchased the yearbook, had nothing to do with the photo being on his page.
Although then one wonders why was it on the page and why are you sorry that it appeared on the page?
Then he says, listen to the language.
I believe that I was not either of the people on that page.
Now, if that photo comes out, guy in blackface, guy wearing a Ku Klux Klan uniform, especially if you're a Democrat governor, I mean, you know, there's a long history of Democrat governors wearing that uniform.
If that appears, and you weren't in that photo, wouldn't you come out and say, it's not me?
You wouldn't apologize for it.
When you then unapologized, you wouldn't say, I believe I was not in that photo.
You would say, it's not me.
I'm not in that photo.
I didn't do that.
So, come on, get off it.
This is a political dirty trick or something like that.
Instead, he's just saying, don't believe your lying eyes.
This is what they always do.
This reminds me of Joy Reid.
Joy Reid is that MSNBC commentator, and it came out that she had written on her blog all of these anti-gay writings years ago.
And all of these anti-gay writings come out, and she denies that they were there.
She says, I don't know how they got there.
Maybe it got hacked.
Maybe my old website...
Ex post facto got hacked, and then all of these anti-gay writings appeared there, and well, anyway, no responsibility.
It's not me.
And then, so he doesn't deny that he wore blackface ever.
His excuse, Ralph Northam, is that he wasn't wearing blackface in this photo, but he has worn blackface before.
he wore blackface for a Michael Jackson impersonation contest. - - - - That's up to them.
You know, everything is in soundbites these days.
But I really do believe that both of them are wrong.
But there's a contrast between the blackface and someone standing there in a Ku Klux Klan outfit and me dressed up in a Michael Jackson costume for a dance contest.
And again...
They're both wrong, but I would hope people would see the contrast.
So speaking of seeing contrasts, the one reason this Michael Jackson line is just obviously bogus is that Ralph Northam today is much darker skinned than Michael Jackson for much of his career.
So that, you know, the timeline is very important here on when you're doing your Michael Jackson impersonation.
But why is he admitting that he wore blackface for a Michael Jackson contest or party or whatever?
The reason he's doing it is that the guy's obviously worn blackface.
He almost certainly wore blackface in that photo.
He wore blackface or he wore the hood.
I don't know which one's better for Ralph Northam, but he knows he's done it, and he knows that probably some other photos exist.
If this guy was going out wearing blackface in the 80s, probably that's not the only photograph.
If one of the photographs makes it to his medical school yearbook page, probably they're going to come out.
And so when the next photo comes out, it's going to be much more difficult for Northam to have any credibility, not that he has any now.
But the best part of the Michael Jackson line is the piece de la resistance of this whole beautiful press conference.
When a reporter asks him to do the moonwalk, And he almost doesn't.
The people that do that kind of research, perhaps they should have looked at that.
And you said that the competition in San Antonio was a dance competition?
Yes.
And it was that you danced the moonwalk?
That's right.
Are you still able to moonwalk?
Inappropriate circumstances.
My wife says inappropriate circumstances.
Are you still able to dance the moonwalk?
And for those of you who couldn't see it, he looks around.
He's looking around for a place on the stage to do the moonwalk, and he's smiling, and he probably doesn't know how to do the moonwalk.
I wish.
If only his wife weren't there, we could have seen that.
Somehow the press conference would have been even better.
Really beautiful.
So now, after this press conference, all of a sudden, leading Democrats are coming out against the guy.
Terry McAuliffe, ex-governor of Virginia, Eric Holder, ex-attorney general, Hillary Clinton, former future president of the United States.
They're all coming out there saying he doesn't have the judgment.
He can't be governor of Virginia.
He's got to resign.
He's got to get out of office.
You'll notice all of these Democrats were waiting until after the press conference.
It wasn't right when the photo came out.
It wasn't, you know, any of his other actions as governor.
It was after this press conference they realized this guy is not capable of remaining in office.
He's looking too bad for us.
What this is about, the reason that Ralph Northam is being pushed out of office is not because he wore blackface or a Ku Klux Klan hood 35 years ago.
He's being pushed out for being an incompetent spokesman for the Democrat Party.
It's not about blackface or racism or bigotry.
What this is all really about is abortion.
And this was an amazing move by the Democrat Party.
I don't know who was behind this.
I don't know exactly where the tip-off came from.
I don't know how it all played out moment to moment.
But pivoting this conversation from...
This man endorsing infanticide to this man having worn blackface 35 years ago so he's got to go.
This was one of the most brilliant strategic communication strategies, crisis management strategies, that I have ever seen.
It totally worked.
We will explain how it worked, what it means, what it means for the culture of death, but first, let's...
Let's talk about something beautiful, like 1-800-Flowers.
Right now, gentlemen especially, most of us have started racking our brains.
What are we going to get for Valentine's Day to make her gift special?
With 1-800-Flowers.com, it's really not that complicated.
Rosens from 1-800-Flowers are a no-brainer.
Right now, when you order early, 1-800-Flowers has amazing deals on vibrant and romantic Valentine's rose bouquets, arrangements, and more, starting at just $29.99.
Listen, I've used a lot of different flower services.
Some of them are really not great.
1-800-Flowers.com will get you beautiful bouquets at great prices.
They're just tremendous.
So many unbelievable deals from 1-800-Flowers.
You have to hurry.
Check it out.
The beauty, the quality of them.
It's so easy to order.
I really love it.
And, you know, fortunately, obviously, sweet little Elisa would never listen to my show.
So I can just tell you, I'm obviously using this for Valentine's Day.
You should do.
Treat your lady as though she is the finest wife in the world.
Sweet little Elisa.
Use 1-800-Flowers.
Picked at their peak.
They're shipped overnight to ensure freshness and her amazement.
Bouquet prices will be going up soon, so take advantage today.
Pick your delivery date.
1-800-Flowers will handle the rest.
Go to the Rose Authority, 1-800-Flowers.com, to order Valentine's bouquets, arrangements, and more, starting at $29.99.
1-800-Flowers.com, click the radio icon, enter promo code COVFEFE, C-O-V-F-E-F-E. Order today and save it.
1-800-Flowers.com, promo code COVFEFE, C-O-V-F-E-F-E. C-O-V-F-E-F-E, that's another aphrodisiac Check it out.
You're going to love it.
This was the brilliance of this Ralph Northam Democrat strategy.
First of all, who tipped off the press about this photograph?
I don't think they just coincidentally discovered this photograph a day after Ralph Northam exposed the entire Democrats abortion position, which is to kill babies.
After they're born, as they're being born, right before they're born, he exposed abortion for what it really is, which is infanticide, the killing of babies.
A day later, his career is over because of a photograph that someone obviously had for a long time, and they were sitting on it, sitting on ammo, just waiting to use it.
So who tipped off the press?
According to reports now, it was a concerned citizen, not a political opponent.
And this is from Big League Politics, which published this.
Quote, a concerned citizen, not a political opponent, came to us and pointed this out.
I think there's a lot there.
How it's being reported now is that it was a medical school classmate who was outraged by the infanticide But how was the medical school classmate outraged?
Because he's pro-life or because he's a Democrat?
I don't know.
The language here, a concerned citizen, not a political opponent, Maybe this wasn't a political opponent.
Maybe this was a Democrat.
Maybe this tip came from a Democrat who wanted to get abortion and post-birth abortion and infanticide out of the headlines because it looks really, really bad for Democrats.
You know, we talked about this on the show last time on Thursday.
For so long, the leftists had us argue pro-life at the moment of conception.
Where the majority of Americans support legal abortion three days after conception, two weeks after conception, whatever.
But the logical conclusion of that is at the day of birth or the day after birth or the day before birth.
And now, because of guys like Ralph Northam and Andrew Cuomo and other Democrats, we're arguing about abortion at its logical conclusion, which is the baby, which is infanticide.
And today, other than on this show, other than on maybe a couple other conservative-leaning shows...
People aren't going to be talking about Ralph Northam and infanticide.
They're going to be talking about some stupid photo 35 years ago that I truly care nothing about, that is truly not relevant to our lives, to our public policy, to racial relations, to abortion.
Just remember, three, four days ago, this is what we were talking about from Ralph Northam.
You know, when we talk about third trimester abortions, these are done with the consent of, obviously, the mother, with the consent of the physicians, more than one physician, by the way.
And it's done in cases where there may be severe deformities.
There may be a fetus that's non-viable.
So in this particular example, if a mother is in labor, I can tell you exactly what would happen.
The infant would be delivered.
The infant would be kept comfortable.
The infant would be resuscitated if that's what the mother and the family desired.
And then a discussion would ensue between the physicians and the mother.
So I think this was really blown out of proportion.
So, really blown out of proportion.
Well, something was blown out of proportion here, but it wasn't the infanticide comments.
I guess it's now been blown out of proportion because of this new thing.
I'll say it here.
I'm probably going to be called a racist for saying this.
I think that it is worse to slaughter babies after they've been born than to wear blackface.
I know.
I'm going to be kicked off Twitter.
I'm going to be kicked off Facebook.
You're not allowed to say that my show is going to be canceled.
I think actually a lot of reasonable people would agree.
It is worse to kill infants after they've been born in 2019 than it is to have worn blackface in 1984.
That's what I think.
Call me crazy.
Call me crazy.
But of course, everybody thinks that.
And the leak strategy worked.
We're now talking about blackface, which everybody can condemn.
Democrats can go out and condemn.
Democrat politicians, presidential candidates can go and condemn him, call for him to resign, rather than talking about infants who have been born alive who are now being killed, which Democrats can't condemn.
The Democrat presidential candidates who have announced and who haven't announced have been very quiet about these abortion bills in New York and possibly in Rhode Island and in Virginia.
The ones that allow you to kill a baby as it's being born or I guess even after it's been born.
They can't talk about that because if they come out and say that's too far, then they create a losing issue for Democrats.
They're going to lose the primaries.
And the question is obviously then going to be, well, if it's too late to kill a baby on the day it's being born, or the day after it's been born, what about the day before it's been born?
What about the week before it's been born?
What about at 26 weeks?
Now you can kill a baby at 26 weeks in a whole lot of places.
Women who are 26 weeks pregnant have a giant belly You can feel the baby kicking You can see on 3D sonograms that it's clearly a baby What about that?
And it also, this leak strategy, which was so good, puts Republicans on the defensive because we expressly, we very explicitly do not hold people's 30-year-old yearbooks against them.
This was the whole Brett Kavanaugh incident, was that Brett Kavanaugh wrote about chugging beers in his high school yearbook from the 80s, and Republicans rightly pointed out, who cares what he wrote in his high school yearbook?
Who cares what he did in the 80s?
I care what's happening now.
So just sort of by principle, Republicans don't want to condemn people for things that happened 30 years ago, especially if they've changed, especially if they've said that they're sorry.
I don't care.
I don't care if this guy wore blackface 35 years ago.
I don't care if he wore the Ku Klux Klan hood 35 years ago, especially because he's a Democrat governor in basically all of them.
We're the Ku Klux Klan hood for the majority of the existence of the Ku Klux Klan.
What I care about is, is he sorry for it?
Has he changed?
Is he doing things as governor that are discriminatory toward people of other races?
Is he oppressing people?
If he's doing that, I'm much more concerned about that.
He's obviously oppressing one class of people, namely babies.
Or babies who are not wanted.
Or babies, he says in that video, he says, look, we're not killing the good babies.
We're killing those disabled babies.
Nobody wants a disabled baby.
Who wants that?
Nobody wants a baby who has a mental or physical deformity.
No, come on.
I care a lot more about that.
So now Democrats, by switching up this story on Ralph Northam, they're trying at least to argue on terms that they can win on.
These are not comparable things.
And it's also worth pointing out as we talk about these abortion laws, which are growing around the country now.
When we talk about them, we should make clear that there are real differences between arguing over these bills and arguing over other Democrat policies.
I always refrain, or I am reluctant to call things evil, to call people evil, to condemn people categorically.
Because they want to raise taxes, even because of awful political ideologies like socialism.
I like to point out that people who are fond of socialism usually do so because they're ignorant, because maybe they have good intentions, but the road to hell is paved in good intentions.
This is different.
These abortion bills, so-called abortion bills, and really infanticide bills, are different.
They are categorically evil.
They are categorically barbaric.
They are evil down to the core.
They're horrific.
They transcend mere political difference.
And we should talk about it that way.
It is pure barbarism.
The people who support that should not be permitted into polite society.
People who vote to support that, to support the killing of babies after they've been born, should be ostracized.
They should probably be deported.
At least.
They should be held to criminal standards.
There should be laws passed against this sort of thing.
They should be held to criminal standards.
It is wickedness.
Total evil.
Depravity.
That's what that guy did, Ralph Northam.
That's what he said on that radio show.
Is we should allow babies to be born, and then if they have a deformity, or if their parents don't like them, then their parents should be able to kill them.
Right on the table.
While they're smiling up at their little mothers.
That's what he said.
That is pure evil.
And the Democrats have us not talking about that.
They have us talking about a guy wearing a racially insensitive costume 35 years ago.
Brilliantly done.
My hat goes off to those cynical people.
Depraved political strategists who managed to do that.
It was really, really well done and pretty horrific.
It was really, really...
Really cynical and really effective.
Now the reason that Northam's comments are so dangerous for Democrats is that they describe the reality of abortion.
And there's a new series coming out from Live Action which shows this beautifully.
It's really astounding.
When you have arguments with people, when you have political debates with people, you never change their mind.
But this issue, as I say time and again, is different.
I was having a debate at Politicon with Democrats like, what's his name?
Bakari Sellers, a few others.
They said, we need to meet in the middle.
I said, you can't meet in the middle on abortion.
He said, you're right.
That's what you can't.
That's a different kind of it.
This is a different kind of issue.
We'll get to that in a second.
We'll get to antinatalism.
We'll get to the Indian man who's suing his parents for giving birth to him without his consent.
We will get to...
The Holocaust Paradox.
How life may involve a lot of suffering, but suffering makes us stronger.
We'll get to all of that.
Providence and politics.
But first, let's thank We the People holsters.
I love We the People holsters.
They design everything in-house.
They offer custom-made holsters, all produced in the USA. They design them in-house, which means they don't use any third-party molds for their holsters.
Instead, they design every unique mold in Las Vegas to order the best fit for each and every firearm.
Perfectly.
They We the People holsters even have their own 3D design team, which measures every micro millimeter of their guns to ensure the perfect fit.
You can easily adjust the cant and ride of your holster so that it will fit comfortably and securely at all times, and you're able to place the holster on your waistband and change the angle.
They're just really, really high quality.
If you're going to protect yourself, if you're going to exercise your Second Amendment rights, if you're going to put yourself in a situation where maybe you need to defend your life, maybe you need to defend your family, don't cheap out on the holster.
That would be insane.
Don't get some generic mold that might not work.
You get these wonderful custom printed designs.
We the People Holsters start at just $37 apiece.
They come with a lifetime guarantee.
They ship free.
If it's not a perfect fit, you can send it back for a refund.
Go to wethepeopleholsters.com slash Knowles, K-N-O-W-L-E-S. wethepeopleholsters.com slash Knowles.
Enter promo code Knowles, K-N-O-W-L-E-S at checkout.
Get $10 off your first holster.
That is as low as $37, and shipping is free with an additional $10 off using my promo code.
That is a really good deal.
WeThePeopleholsters.com slash Knowles, K-N-W-L-E-S, promo code Knowles, K-N-W-L-E-S at checkout for $10 off.
And then, tomorrow, tune in for our latest episode of Backstage, State of the Union.
Daily Wire, God King, Jeremy Boring, Ben Shapiro, Andrew Clevin, E. Alicia Krauss, and little old me will be smoking stogies, breaking down the issues of the day, separating the MAGA from the non-MAGA, and enjoying those yum-yum leftist tears, also with some booze.
We will finally see Donald Trump deliver the State of the Union address, hopefully.
Maybe we won't.
I don't know.
Either way, we're going to have a lot of fun.
Tune in and find out.
As always, only Daily Wire subscribers get to ask the questions, so make sure to go subscribe today at dailywire.com.
$10 a month, $100 for an annual membership.
You get me, the Andrew Clevin Show, the Ben Shapiro Show, the Matt Wall Show, Ask Questions in the Mailbag, get all of Another Kingdom.
You get the Backstage.
You keep the lights on.
You keep Covfefe in my cup.
Do it if you're on Facebook or YouTube.
Go to dailywire.com.
You'll get the Leftist Tears Tumblr.
You need the Leftist Tears Tumblr.
This is a great model.
It holds those vintage 1984 leftist tears from the Virginia vineyards.
It's really, really good, where they're now stuck defending the indefensible infanticide, and on top of that, they're wearing KKK hoods again.
You thought those days were over?
They're not.
They're really not looking great right now.
Go to dailywire.com, get your leftist tears tumbler.
We'll be right back.
The reason that Ralph Northam's interview there is so dangerous for Democrats, current Democrat politicians, the Democrats running for president, is because current Democrat politicians, the Democrats running for president, is because they describe the reality of abortion.
The pro-abortion activists always use jargon.
Whenever people use jargon and euphemisms, you know that they're hiding something from you.
When they describe abortion in the pro-abortion activist movement, they'll say, well, we use certain tools and employ certain tools to find the cranium and then we remove the product of pregnancy from the uterus.
They all make it very clinical.
There was that video of a woman trying to describe abortion to children because she's obviously deranged.
And she said...
It just, you know, it's not a big deal.
Getting an abortion, it's just like a weird body thing, direct quote.
It's kind of like going to the dentist, you know, it's just a clinical, but it's obviously not like that.
So you hear all of the clinical euphemisms, jargon, that the pro-abortion crowd uses, and then what does Ralph Northam say?
Because he's obviously not a terribly intelligent man, so when he's out there talking on the radio, he says, yeah, the baby's born and then we leave it on a table and then we kill it if we want to.
He's the more honest person.
He's the one telling you what it is.
At least he's being honest.
All that jargon is very dishonest.
So Live Action, pro-life organization, has this new series, video series, where they go up to people and they say, what do you think about abortion?
And then the people say, well, I support it mostly.
I think it's basically fine.
And, you know, you should have the right to choose and blah, blah, whatever.
And then they show them videos of what an abortion is, what it does.
Obviously, the videos are not being shown in here because they're pretty graphic.
And then instantly the people change their mind.
This never happens in political debate.
It happens over time, maybe.
It's very hard to convince someone except on this issue, which is different.
Check it out.
What are your thoughts about abortion?
Oh.
I think everyone should have a right to it.
It's our body.
It's our decision, right?
So we want to go ahead with the pregnancy or to abort it.
It should be solely on the person who's carrying the baby.
So yeah, that's what I feel about it.
So would you both support abortion all the way up to the moment of birth?
Oh yeah, I do.
I do.
Yes.
So now she's watching this video.
You can see certain images from the video on how it's being done.
Some graphics.
One word your thoughts on what you saw?
That was heart-wrenching, I guess.
I mean, yeah, I mean, until you see something like that, you don't often think that you're going to change your opinion, right?
I mean, that's something I would never want anyone to go through, right?
Not myself, not her, not anyone.
I'm a mom to one, right?
And I had no idea this is how abortion takes place, right?
Looking at that video and the way it was performed, Yeah, it's an eye-opener.
So, no, I don't think any kid, any baby, any infant, I mean, any fetus should go through that.
No.
Listen, and she's so confused.
I mean, that's how you can really tell that this is genuine.
She's saying, I don't think any infant...
I mean, fetus, but even if it's a fetus, I still don't think it should go through that.
By the way, fetus means offspring.
It's a Latin word that means offspring of a parent.
A really effective tool.
And this is always...
the tool.
I mean, when you show the reality, when you show the images, that is what is going to convince people.
If you just have a debate, you kind of have a bull session freshman year where you're debating these abstract ideological ideas of abortion and you say, "Well, isn't abortion sort of like if a woman is chained to a hospital bed and she's connected to a parasite, isn't abortion sort of like if a woman is chained to a hospital bed and she's connected Is it morally licit?
Well, first of all, these thought experiments are ridiculous.
They're not terribly good analogies for it.
But rather than use some silly thought experiment, how about we just look at what an abortion is?
They won't let you do that.
The left doesn't want you to do that because when you look at the reality of it, when you see the story of what's going on, that's going to make you pro-life.
For all but the most psychopathic people, that will make you pro-life.
It has to.
The...
This is the difference between an ideological manifesto and a narrative.
This is why politics is downstream of culture.
This is why the culture matters so much.
It's because we live in stories.
Ideological manifestos, doctrines, boom, boom, boom, five bullet points that describe all of life, they're always wrong.
That's why ideologies are always wrong.
It's because they can't contain the richness of life.
Stories can get at the richness of life.
This is why myths describe life so much.
This is why Christianity is the true myth.
It's the greatest story ever told.
The stories do it.
And when we watch the narrative of what an abortion is, there's no ambiguity.
I don't have to wonder, what's a cranium?
What's this tool look like?
What is a fetus or an embryo or a blastoblastula or this or that?
No, it's a baby.
It's obviously a baby.
And it's obviously being killed.
And it's obviously trying not to be killed.
And that's what it is.
That's the story.
How you feel about abortion really comes down to how you feel about life.
That's what it's really about.
It's not about what you think about medical procedures.
It's not about necessarily even abstract ideological principles.
What do you think about life?
Is life ultimately good?
Is life ultimately a comedy?
Is it significant?
Does it have purpose?
Is your life geared toward a purpose?
Or is life a tale told by an idiot full of sound and fury signifying nothing at all?
Which is it?
Those are the two views.
The traditional view, the Christian view, the religious view, broadly, is that life has a purpose.
It has a telos.
The classic, ancient view, the Aristotelian view, there is a purpose to life.
There is a significance to life.
The modern and postmodern view is that it's nothing.
It's an accident.
We're just a bunch of weird molecules bouncing together that we accidentally ended up in this semi-conscious, probably not even physical, It's probably all determined anyway.
And then we delude ourselves with silly illusions like love and virtue and purpose, but it's all just ridiculous and it's really full of suffering and it's really just awful.
It would be better not to be born.
There is an Indian guy who is now embodying this in a really farcical and dark way.
He is suing his parents for giving birth to him without his consent.
His name is Ralph, I'm sorry, Raphael Samuel.
He says he has a great relationship with his parents, but he's compared having children to kidnapping and slavery.
He's leading a movement called anti-natalism.
And when I first saw this, I just assumed it was a joke.
I assumed it was satire.
But the weird thing about the age that we're living in is that it's not clear.
You have a sitting governor describing how it's perfectly normal and good to kill babies after they've been born if you don't want them.
So in that world, if this is satire, it's very good satire.
I'm not convinced that it is.
This guy, Raphael, says, quote, My life has been amazing, but I don't see why I should put another life through the rigmarole of school and finding a career, especially when they didn't ask to exist.
He's got this campaign, he's posting it on the internet, where he says, If parents truly know what is good for their children, why did they have them?
Isn't forcing a child into this world and then forcing it to have a career, kidnapping, and slavery...
The only reason your children are facing problems is because you had them.
Which is true.
That's why the children have problems, is because you gave them life.
So he's right in that way.
But what it comes down to is, is life ultimately a good thing or is life ultimately a bad thing?
There's a great little poem by Robert Frost called A Question.
And the poem reads, Look me in the stars and tell me truly, men of earth, if all the soul and body scars were not too much to pay for birth.
What's funny about that poem is it's not a question.
It's actually an imperative.
He's actually telling you to do something.
Of course, the person who is telling you this, it seems to be the voice of God, the voice of your creator.
You look up in the stars.
I've had this experience.
I know probably all of you have, too.
You think, gosh, life has some suffering in it, but there is a transcendent beauty and awesomeness to life, to this world.
That makes it all worthwhile.
Life is good.
That's the takeaway.
Life is good.
So there's that aspect of it.
The life is good view juxtaposed with this post-modern nihilist view that life is all suffering, absurd, meaningless, awful despair.
But then there's also the idolatry of consent.
Consent is the word of the...
It's all we hear about is consent.
It's the ultimate good.
We create an idol of choice.
The ridiculous conclusion of this idolatry of choice is that you should be able to consent to being born.
You can't do that.
When you're just a little glint in your father's eye, you know, maybe your parents are getting a little frisky.
Nobody wants to think about it.
That's not a good image to have in your head.
You're not able to consent to that because you're born of the product of that love.
And the Christian view, of course, is that the whole of creation is a product of love.
The love that moves the sun and the other stars.
This is what we see in especially Dante's comedy spells this out very well.
The love that moves the world and the other stars.
Out of this love is all of the creation.
This idolatry of consent also undoes a ridiculous premise that we've talked about a few times in the last couple weeks, which is this libertarian premise, this hyper-individualist premise that you totally own yourself and your body.
That you, this is all me.
It's all in my possession.
I am sufficient.
I am an island unto myself.
But you don't own that.
You are created by God.
You are begotten of your parents.
You have certain responsibilities, not just to your parents, not just to your creator, to your community as well.
You have bonds of loyalty and duty.
Because we're a selfish and decadent culture, we only like to talk about rights, and then we invent a bunch of ridiculous rights.
I have the right to...
Your labor.
I have the right to some new technological advancement.
I have the right to pretend that I'm of a different biological sex.
I have the right to redefine social institutions.
I have blah, blah, blah, all these rights.
What really we should talk about are duties.
We are born out of love.
I mean, obviously, in a very literal sense, the love of our parents.
And the love of our creator for the creation.
That's what we're born out of.
And this creates some responsibilities that you should want to embrace out of gratitude, veneration, gratitude, providence.
You know, what gives away the game on this anti-life crusade that the left has gone on is that they come up with different excuses to reach the same conclusion.
On this anti-natalist movement, they also have a meme.
It says, quote, Should we continue to bring more children in this world and accelerate the process of environmental and social degradation?
Wait a second.
What argument are we...
I thought the argument was we shouldn't bring children in the world because it's unfair to them because they didn't consent to it.
Because the world is awful and full of suffering and terrible.
But now you're saying we shouldn't bring children into the world because it's bad for the awful world, which probably shouldn't exist in the first place?
It seems as though they've reached a conclusion.
And it's a conclusion in search of a premise.
The conclusion being, life is bad.
And then the various premises and arguments, even if they contradict one another, are used to buttress that conclusion.
This is how a lot of conspiracy theories fall apart.
Conspiracy theories often can sound somewhat convincing, and one reason they sometimes fall apart Is because you'll have different conspiracy theories disproving one event or arguing against one event.
But all of the conspiracy theories disagree with one another.
They all contradict one another.
And the conspiracists don't care because they've reached a conclusion.
And they've got a conclusion in search of a premise.
A conclusion in search of an argument.
This rhetoric is leading now to the elimination of Down syndrome people all throughout the world.
In Iceland, 100%.
Statistically, 100% of people with Down syndrome are killed.
Denmark, it's 98%.
England, it's 90%.
France, 77%.
The U.S., 67%.
To show that the left, rather, that this is wrong, perhaps we should start using leftist language.
Matt Walsh had this brilliant phrase that he used the other day referring to undocumented infants.
He said we should use the left language.
Don't talk about them as babies or fetuses or this or that.
Undocumented infants.
Trying to pass through the border of the birth canal in search of a better life.
This is what we should talk about the Down syndrome community.
How it's being targeted.
How it's being persecuted.
How this is ableist.
That's a leftist term that means discrimination against people with various disabilities and handicaps.
Actually, in this case, in the slaughter of Down syndrome people that's going on now, even in our own country, the majority of Down syndrome people being killed before they're born, That's the one time that these leftist terms can apply.
These kind of vague leftist slogans, the such and such community, the such and such victim group.
They actually are a victim group.
They actually are being wiped out.
The left insists that anyone who suffers should be killed.
That's what they're saying.
That's what the antinatalism is saying.
That's what Governor Northam is saying when he talks about deformities and why we should kill people with deformities.
In part, there's a road to hell is paved in good intentions.
There's a little sliver of that here in a totally evil idea, which is...
That we should not allow people to suffer, and death would be better than suffering.
The trouble is, though, the logical conclusion is that we all suffer, so therefore no one should be born.
There was a study that just came out today in Bloomberg, the Holocaust paradox, long lives for those who survived.
The old idea was that people who went through the Holocaust and survived would have shortened lives because they had all this immense suffering.
You would hear about this a lot.
And what they're now finding is, straight from Bloomberg, quote, living through a horrendous event like confinement in a concentration camp or prisoner of war camp does create health problems serious enough to shorten most people's lives.
But those who survive also seem to have other characteristics.
Perhaps a stronger immune system and a more optimistic outlook than the general population that tend to make people live longer.
New research suggests that such resilience can often overcome scarring.
And this...
I mean, there is an analysis about this from the American Medical Association.
We see this again and again.
Horace Walpole has a great line, the English Gothic writer.
He says, life is a comedy to those who think and a tragedy to those who feel.
We hear this again.
The light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it.
We even hear it in this very popular slogan, which is whatever doesn't kill me makes me stronger.
We get the inklings of the same thing.
Politics is downstream of culture.
Culture is downstream of religion.
Edmund Burke, founder of modern conservative thought, Russell Kirk later, explained that the conservative vision is grounded in veneration and providence.
One glaring example of this, providence, the divine order, that the world really does make sense, that it really does have purpose, that it really is good.
Providence.
One glaring example of this, amid all this crazy talk about infanticide, actual infanticide, killing people after they've been born, came out this week.
Every week, there are different readings at the Catholic Mass.
These are not dependent on the news cycle.
They're not decided by the priest two hours beforehand.
They've been set long, long, long in advance.
And coincidentally, or providentially, however you like it, this is how the entire mass reading began this week.
Quote,
against its priests and people.
They will fight against you, but not prevail over you, for I am with you to deliver you.
says the Lord.
Amid all talk of infanticide, amid all talk of suffering, is why we shouldn't live at all, why life is ultimately bad.
Providence is a great comfort, and comfort means to strengthen.
We think of comfort as little dollies, safe spaces, hugging, kumbaya.
That's not what it means.
It means to strengthen.
You can comfort people with tough love, too.
It means to strengthen them.
With comforties, strength.
Even when things look bleakest, One cannot deny the comforting signs of providence pervading this life, which is a gift and a very good thing.
We'll end on that note and we'll skip the Super Bowl because everybody else did too.
Lowest ratings in 10 years.
Too bad for them.
That's our show.
Come back tomorrow in the meantime.
I'm Michael Knowles.
This is The Michael Knowles Show.
See you soon.
The Michael Knowles Show is produced by Robert Sterling.
Executive producer Jeremy Boring.
Senior producer Jonathan Hay.
Our supervising producer is Mathis Glover.
And our technical producer is Austin Stevens.
Edited by Danny D'Amico.
Audio is mixed by Dylan Case.
Hair and makeup is by Jesua Olvera.
Production assistant Nick Sheehan.
The Michael Knowles Show is a Daily Wire production.
Copyright Daily Wire 2019.
Hey guys, over on the Matt Wall Show today, we're going to talk about Ralph Northam.
The thing that strikes me is that the left is outraged at him because of an inappropriate costume that he wore 30 years ago.
They are not outraged about the fact that he advocated for infanticide only a few days ago.
So what does that tell us about the left?
Also, the Super Bowl featured a whole bevy of insufferable...
Cringe-inducing, virtue-signaling ads.
And we're going to go over some of the worst offenders that we saw last night.