Knowledge Fight Interactive Search Tool

Sept. 19, 2019 - The Michael Knowles Show

47:48

Ep. 418 - Hypocrisy Is More Offensive Than Blackface

Justin Trudeau get caught wearing blackface in several photos from the ‘90s and early 2000s, NBC launches a climate change confessional for the Left’s environmental religion, and finally the Mailbag! Date: 09-19-2019 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Large

Audio Only |

Scroll

Time	Text
	Canadian Prime Minister and international leftist darling Justin Trudeau has been caught wearing blackface in several photos from the 90s and early 2000s.
	Right, left and center, black, white and brown, no one is actually offended by the photos.
	The problem is the hypocrisy.
	We will examine the surprising history of blackface and how all of us should react.
	Then, NBC launches a climate change confessional for the left's environmental religion.
	Of course, Protestant environmentalists are furious about this, preferring instead to confess to the earth directly.
	We will examine the new secular sacrament.
	Finally, the mailbag.
	All that and more.
	I'm Michael Knowles and this is the Michael Knowles Show.
	I love this story so much.
	I want you to shoot it straight into my veins.
	I can't wait for even more pictures of Justin Trudeau in blackface to come out.
	This is the funniest story in weeks.
	And yet no one's actually offended by it.
	We're all just pretending.
	So we will get into how to respond.
	Because on the one hand, conservatives say...
	Nobody really cares.
	Obviously, nobody's actually upset about it, so maybe we should let it go.
	On the other hand, we say the left uses blackface as a cudgel.
	They would never let this go if this were conservative, and yet the left gets to play by their own rules, so we need to smack them over the head for it.
	We'll get to the real answer to that question, but first...
	I've got to thank our friends over at Optima Tax Relief.
	If you owe the government back taxes, brace yourself.
	Because today may be the day that the IRS shows up at your home or work.
	You're not going to know when they're going to show up.
	They're not going to give you a warning.
	They're not going to tell you.
	So you've always got this constant level of stress.
	You're right to be afraid.
	The IRS has the power to take everything from you.
	Your bank accounts, your paycheck, even your home and business.
	But you can get yourself out of this situation.
	And look, it's easy to fall into tax problems.
	The tax code is very complicated.
	People, men in particular, tend to be a little lazy about these things.
	Maybe you forgot to report this.
	Maybe you didn't do that.
	Maybe you just didn't file your taxes.
	I don't know.
	Here's what you need to do.
	You can fix this, but you've got to act now.
	Call Optima Tax Relief.
	There is a reason that Optima has resolved over a billion dollars of tax debt for people like you.
	Optima takes over everything that's going on.
	They fight for you.
	They end your IRS nightmare.
	They help stop the demand letters.
	They stop aggressive collection actions.
	And they stop the IRS from targeting you.
	Don't go into this alone.
	Optima is...
	Really good.
	They know this landscape so well.
	That's why they've resolved a billion dollars in tax problems.
	If you go in this alone, the IRS is going to crush you.
	I'm sorry to tell you that, but that's just the way it works.
	We're talking about the federal government here, largest bureaucracy, largest government in history.
	Call Optima.
	Ask about the Fresh Start Initiative, a special IRS program that could save you thousands if you qualify.
	Nobody knows more about this powerful IRS program than Optima.
	Call Optima for your free consultation now while you still have options.
	You might not have options forever.
	Tomorrow, you might not have them, so call 1-800-658-8044.
	1-800-658-8044.
	That is 1-800-658-8044.
	Some restrictions apply.
	For complete details, please visit OptimateTaxRelief.com These photos come out.
	These photos come out of Justin Trudeau.
	I was on an airplane when these came out.
	And obviously, you know, I had to get the Wi-Fi.
	I had to get on Twitter.
	It was so hilarious because the photos come out first of him dressed up in what the left was calling brown face wearing an Arabian costume.
	You know, the left is so dishonest on blackface.
	When leftists wear blackface, they excuse it and ignore it.
	When conservatives even so much as talk about blackface, they take their careers away from them.
	They wouldn't even say that Trudeau was wearing blackface.
	They called it brownface because they wanted to draw a distinction between blackface and some other category, brownface, even though they're exactly the same thing.
	So they came up ex post facto with this logic.
	They came up with this logic and said, well, because Trudeau was only appearing as an Arab person, that isn't blackface, that's brownface.
	Really what the difference is, is that brownface is blackface worn by leftists.
	That's the only actual difference.
	Why is that?
	Because by their logic, they say, no, no, no, Arabs are brown and black people are black, so that's why they're separate words.
	Just a little correction here.
	Black people aren't black, they're brown.
	They're not like actual, just like the color black.
	They're different shades of brown.
	It's all the same thing.
	But they want to have a distinction without a difference because they don't want to admit that a major leftist, darling politician wore blackface.
	The Daily Beast right now, the left-wing outlet, the Daily Beast, is referring to this as face darkening.
	They couldn't even go into the brownface thing.
	They couldn't go into the brownface thing because the brownface logic fell apart when it turned out later that Justin Trudeau had worn blackface as well, meaning he was specifically dressing up as black people, one of whom was Harry Belafonte, who's a very famous Jamaican-American musician.
	It's just so disingenuous.
	For comparison, just a reminder, when Megyn Kelly, who, you know, Megyn Kelly was on a right-leaning news channel, Fox News, she then went over to a left-leaning news channel.
	The audience never forgave her for working with conservatives.
	So she was on a show on NBC, and she just discussed the question of blackface and wearing makeup that makes your skin look darker.
	She just discussed it.
	They took her entire show, they tried to take her entire career away from her.
	Because, truly, you do get in trouble if you are a white person who puts on blackface on Halloween, or a black person who puts on whiteface for Halloween.
	Like, back when I was a kid, that was okay, as long as you were dressing up as, like, a character.
	There was a controversy on The Real Housewives of New York with Luann, and she dresses Diana Ross, and she made her skin look darker than it really is, and people said that that was racist.
	And I don't know, I felt like, who doesn't love Diana Ross?
	She wants to look like Diana Ross for one day.
	I don't know how, like, that got racist on Halloween.
	That comment, which is pretty much as innocuous as it gets, got Megyn Kelly's career taken away from her.
	Just for comparison, here is Jimmy Kimmel's blackface performance, not comments about blackface, full-on blackface, blackbody performance that he did a few years before he got picked to host one of the largest late-night comedy shows on network television in the country.
	Sometime at night, Karl Malone will look up in the sky and say, what the hell going on up there?
	Do UFO live on another planet, phoning home like E.T.? Karl Malone will read on TV about white people getting deducted by aliens, sticking all kind of hell up their butt.
	And that's a damn thing.
	Karl Malone never seen no flying saucer himself, but if he do, that's going to be a spooky time.
	That's why Karl Malone say government got to step up and give 102 percent to keeping them little green man off this here earth, because the day them dudes stick something up Karl Malone, but, that's going to, well, that ain't going to be no good time for nobody, especially Karl Malone, but.
	By the way, the whole joke?
	The whole joke he's doing beyond just coloring his skin brown, the joke is that Karl Malone is an idiot and doesn't speak the English language well.
	What Jimmy Kimmel is doing is much, much closer to a minstrel show, which is the origin of blackface, than any of the other examples.
	But there are a lot of other examples because it isn't just Jimmy Kimmel.
	It's Jimmy Fallon.
	It's Ted Danson.
	It's Joni Mitchell.
	You know Joni Mitchell?
	They paved paradise.
	She wore blackface.
	Billy Crystal, host of the Oscars.
	Cindy Lauper.
	Sarah Silverman.
	Fred Armisen from Saturday Night Live.
	All of them wore blackface.
	All of them, in all of those cases, worked out just fine.
	They didn't lose their careers, nor should they have.
	I don't think Jimmy Kimmel even should lose his career for doing this sketch.
	I don't think any of the other ones should lose their careers for doing their blackface sketches.
	Some people have brought up the governor of Virginia, who in a yearbook photo from his medical school yearbook was accused of having worn blackface because there was this photo of him, a photo of a man in blackface on his page.
	Now, he hasn't admitted that it was him.
	He could have been the other guy in the photo who was wearing a Ku Klux Klan uniform.
	That guy, Ralph Northam, still the governor of Virginia.
	Oh, by the way, Northam, Northam, So he may have worn blackface.
	Okay.
	He may have worn a Ku Klux Klan outfit.
	That's worse.
	That's definitely worse.
	He also said on radio that we should kill babies after they've been born.
	That's probably worse than either of the first two.
	If you were just asking me, sitting governor, what's worse?
	He wore blackface 30 years ago?
	Or he wore a Ku Klux Klan costume 30 years ago?
	Obviously not to a Klan rally, but just as a costume.
	Or he says that right now, while he has political power, while he is making and enforcing laws in Virginia that we should be able to kill babies after they've been born, I'm going to go out on a limb here and say...
	That last one is worse.
	I've said this comment before.
	I've made this apparently controversial remark before.
	When I said that, last time I said that, Media Matters tried to get me fired for saying that I'm pretty sure it's worse to kill babies after they've been born than to wear blackface.
	Which means, according to Media Matters, it's better to kill babies after they've been born I guess Media Matters wants us to change the laws in this country, make it legal to kill babies after they've been born, but make it illegal to wear blackface.
	We're going to have to change all the punishments.
	Now, of course, no one really believes that.
	No one, nobody really believes that.
	Obviously, it is the case that there are some instances of wearing blackface that are not offensive to people.
	How do we know that?
	Because all those other people were blackface and all those other people still have their careers and all those other people haven't been boycotted and all those other people are still perfectly popular.
	You know, the last time a blackface story was breaking, I think it actually was the Ralph Northam story, I had just gotten into an Uber with a black driver.
	The story had just broke.
	And I asked what he thought about it.
	Maybe it was on the radio or maybe it had just been all over the news that day.
	And he brought up the difference.
	He actually brought up the point that I just made, which is the difference between wearing blackface and wearing the Ku Klux Klan hood.
	And he said, blackface, if it's all in good fun, doesn't bother him at all.
	The Ku Klux Klan hood, it's hard to wear that in good fun.
	So he didn't agree with that.
	He said that's different.
	Of course that's different.
	So the question is, how should we react to the photos of Trudeau?
	Certainly as conservatives, maybe even centrists or regular old liberals.
	Nobody cares about the photos themselves.
	Everybody cares about the hypocrisy.
	It's the same thing Matt Walsh tweeted this out today.
	It's the same reason that the left goes after a Republican senator like Larry Craig for trying to pick up men for sex in an airport bathroom.
	It's not because the left disagrees with having sex with men in airport bathrooms.
	They'll do all sorts of weird stuff.
	It's because of the hypocrisy, Larry Craig, the alleged hypocrisy at least.
	Larry Craig says that he opposes redefining marriage, for instance, to include gay marriage.
	And yet, he engages in homosexual acts himself, and this is apparently hypocrisy.
	And so, that's the same thing here.
	The left talks a big game on blackface, but they don't actually care unless it's politically useful to them.
	So, what we like in this case is to see the liberals hoisted on their own petard.
	But I think there is a third way here.
	I actually think there's a way.
	Between just totally letting Trudeau off the hook and between trying to get him to resign, I think there is a third way.
	And what it has to do is the meaning of blackface itself and the history of blackface itself, which nobody knows because no one cares about history or nuance or context anymore.
	We'll get to that in one second.
	But first, I have got to thank our friends over at Ring.
	Ring's mission is to make neighborhoods safer.
	You probably already know about their smart video doorbells And cameras that protect millions of people everywhere.
	Ring helps you stay connected to your home anywhere in the world.
	So if there's a package delivery or a surprise visitor, you will get an alert and be able to see, hear and speak to them all from your phone.
	That's thanks to the HD video and two-way audio features on Ring devices.
	I love Ring.
	I was just on the road.
	I was in New York for most of the last week.
	What I love about Ring is you can...
	Have access to your home from anywhere.
	So if you've got some guy coming up delivering a package, you can see him.
	You can talk to him.
	That video will get uploaded to the cloud.
	So if someone comes over and they try to rob you, you've got that too.
	You can scare them away too.
	My senior producer, Jonathan Hay, he came over, or he was rather at his own house, middle of the night, some weird drug-addled maniacs tried to come in and get into his house.
	He spoke to them from his own bed in his bedroom.
	Then they chased him away.
	I gave a ring out as a housewarming gift to another couple friend of mine.
	And they immediately installed it.
	And they were wondering who this creeper was that was making noise all around their house at night.
	Turned out it was a possum.
	And now they kind of like the possum.
	They know.
	It gives you peace of mind as a listener right now.
	You have a special offer on a ring starter kit with a video doorbell and motion activated floodlight camera.
	The starter kit has everything you need.
	To build a ring of security around your own home.
	Get started today.
	Ring.com slash Knowles.
	That is ring.com slash Knowles.
	Why is nobody actually offended by the Justin Trudeau blackface?
	By the blackface.
	Why is no one actually offended?
	It's because no one believes that Justin Trudeau hates black people.
	Nobody believes it.
	I don't like Justin Trudeau, but I get a kick out of him, actually.
	I sort of think if he didn't exist, conservatives would have had to build him in a lab somewhere because he's such a caricature of a leftist politician.
	No one thinks he hates black people.
	Nobody thinks Joni Mitchell hates black people.
	Nobody believes any of that.
	When Billy Crystal put on blackface to do an impression of Sammy Davis Jr., he darkened his skin.
	He couldn't have done the impression otherwise.
	Billy Crystal doesn't look like Sammy Davis Jr.
	When you do impressions and impersonations of people, you've got to make yourself look and appear like them.
	That's what an impression is.
	That's what an impersonation is.
	Same thing with Fred Armisen.
	Fred Armisen isn't black, but he darkened his skin to look like Barack Obama.
	He put on blackface to use the term.
	But he couldn't have done the impression otherwise.
	You can't go and be a white guy and do an impression of Obama.
	Then just don't do the impression because you're not going to look like the person.
	So are we then saying that white people can't imitate anyone else?
	We can't do impressions.
	We can't do impersonations unless they have exactly the same skin tone that you do.
	How about when the Waynes brothers whitened their faces to play white chicks?
	Remember that movie White Chicks?
	I actually don't.
	I mean, this was like 20 years ago or something that it came out.
	But they look like they whiten their faces and they play white chicks.
	Is that okay?
	Are they not allowed to do that?
	How about when the Jersey Shore came out?
	Jersey Shore TV show.
	All of a sudden you saw parties start cropping up.
	I went to a number of them where people were wearing, you know, the white tank top and gold chains and things that I actually just wear under my clothing every single day of my life.
	But they did it to kind of look like Italian people.
	Sometimes maybe they darken their skin a little or they make their hair look a little more slicked back or something.
	They physically made themselves resemble Italian people more.
	Is that not okay?
	The left objects.
	The left says, well, black people have been oppressed in America and white people have not been oppressed.
	So it's universally always terrible and never acceptable to wear blackface, always offensive.
	But if a black person wears white face or, you know, dresses up like an Italian for a Jersey Shore party or something, that is okay.
	That's perfectly fine.
	First of all, everybody suffers.
	Everybody has experienced some pain and suffering in their life.
	Every people group suffers.
	The largest lynching in American history was of Sicilian people in the late 19th century.
	They suffered.
	That's a lot of oppression.
	So, are you still going to say dressing up like the Jersey Shore is okay?
	What about the Irish?
	Irish faced plenty of oppression in America.
	I mean, there were signs on doors that said Irish need not apply for work.
	So when we go out on St.
	Paddy's Day and wear green suits and go drinking and speak in fake Irish brogues, are we allowed to do that?
	The Irish have been oppressed.
	Everybody suffers, certainly.
	But let's even indulge the premises.
	Let's say that, okay, it's okay for some people to do it, but not okay for others.
	It's okay for...
	In the victim hierarchy for the more oppressed class of people to dress up like the less oppressed class of people or the oppressor class of people, but it's not okay, vice versa, then what about drag?
	What about drag?
	What about transvestitism?
	Because we're told by the left that men oppress women and have always oppressed women and only now, thanks to feminism, do they not oppress women.
	I take some issue with that history, but let's even indulge the premise.
	Then how on earth are you going to let men dress up like women?
	Put in long hair, paint their nails, put makeup on, wear a dress and high heels.
	That's just the blackface of sex.
	And it's almost a direct analogy according to the left's premises because you have the oppressor group, the men, dressing up like the oppressed group, the women.
	So is it not okay to wear drag?
	Why are men allowed to dress up like women?
	Not only are they allowed today actually, by the way, the left is encouraging that to happen.
	They're celebrating that.
	They're holding whole parades to celebrate men dressing up like women.
	And none of us really has a problem with that.
	I mean, I was just in New York, which, you know, I was actually down in Greenwich Village for a little bit of it, and in and around the village, there's a drag bar like every three blocks, walked by Stonewall Inn, the very famous gay bar in New York.
	Plenty of people dressing up, plenty of crazy ways, no one had a problem with it.
	What it all comes down to is context.
	Nobody knows the history of blackface anymore.
	It's actually a very interesting history.
	Blackface comes from the old minstrel shows.
	So this was a form of vaudevillian entertainment in the U.S. And arguably, it's certainly the first uniquely American form of theater.
	It's arguably the only uniquely American form of theater.
	And in the minstrel show, broadly, you have white people dressing up like black people and specifically stock characters of black people.
	So one criticism of minstrel shows is they portray black people as stupid.
	And this is actually different from what Jimmy Kimmel did when Jimmy Kimmel dressed up like Carl Malone.
	Even though they might have said the same things and looked the same way, Jimmy Kimmel was making fun of a single person.
	He was calling one single person an idiot.
	Whereas in the minstrel shows, you're talking about whole stock stereotypes of people.
	So it's not just one individual, but it's black people generally or slaves generally.
	That's one difference.
	But what's funny is that the minstrel shows aren't only attacked by people who support racial equality for instance.
	They weren't even just attacked by integrationists for instance at the time.
	They were attacked by everybody.
	And for opposite reasons.
	So it's funny because they were very, very popular in the 19th century and the very early part of the 20th century.
	But they still managed to offend everybody.
	So integrationists objected to minstrel shows because they portrayed black people as dumb and as happy slaves.
	So almost sort of defending the institution of slavery because it falsely portrayed the slaves as really happy and content with the whole thing.
	But the segregationists opposed minstrel shows and objected to them because they portrayed the black characters as sympathetic.
	And they humanized the black characters and they exposed white audiences to some actual black songs.
	So some of the songs that were sung were just written by white people and they were sort of caricatures of black spirituals.
	Some of them were actual black songs though and black spirituals that were then exposing white audiences to some small aspects of black culture.
	I say small aspects because you'd only get that for like one or two acts of the show.
	The rest of it, there was a sort of vaudevillian format.
	Our society does not object to non-Italians dressing up like Mike, the situation.
	Our society does not object to men dressing up like women.
	Far from it.
	We actually encourage it.
	Our society does not really even object to white people darkening their skin for costumes.
	We know they don't because all those other people have their careers.
	Jimmy Kimmel, Jimmy Fallon, Billy Crystal, all of them.
	What it all does come down to is context.
	Justin Trudeau's Arabian costume is not funny because he was mocking Arab people and saying that he's so much better than Arab people and Arab people are dumb and terrible and racially inferior.
	That's not what he was doing, I don't think.
	The reason his Arab costume is funny is because it's so incongruous that it's ridiculous.
	You have Justin Trudeau, who is the whitest Canadianist person that has ever walked the earth, And you have him dressing up as an Arabian prince.
	That's funny.
	Humor very often comes from incongruity and subverting expectations.
	Trudeau apparently darkened his skin on another occasion to look like Harry Belafonte.
	This is very funny because Harry Belafonte is a cool, suave, Jamaican-American singer who was very popular for a long time.
	And Justin Trudeau is a square, stiff, White is the newly driven snow Canadian.
	For the millennials and Gen Z in the audience, who might not recognize Harry Belafonte, Harry Belafonte is the guy who sang Daylight Come and Me Wanna Go Home.
	This is a clip of Harry Belafonte.
	Take a listen.
	Work all night and I drink a rum.
	Daylight come and me wanna go home.
	Stock by nine till the morning come.
	Daylight come and we want to go home.
	Day, me say day, me.
	You've all heard that song.
	Justin Trudeau singing that song is even more ridiculous than me singing that song, because Justin Trudeau is whiter and more Canadian than I am.
	It's funny.
	It's funny to compare Justin Trudeau to Harry Belafonte.
	They're very different people.
	I don't think he was singing that song to disparage all black people or all Jamaican people.
	He was wearing it because it's funny, because the comparison is funny.
	So the question is, how should conservatives react?
	We'll get to that in one second because I have a different answer than a lot of other conservatives have.
	But first, I've got to thank our friends over at Vistaprint.
	Vistaprint is so great.
	I've used them for so many years long before the Daily Wire even existed.
	It's important to keep a business card on you.
	I don't do that a lot and then I look like an immature schmuck.
	You need business cards.
	Your next big opportunity could be coming around the corner and you need to be able to give out your information.
	Vistaprint will help you own the now with free shipping on any business card in any quantity.
	They're the best.
	They're the kings of this.
	They are the absolute top of the heap.
	That's why I've always used them.
	You can choose whatever style, whatever finish, whatever shape, whatever paper you like, and you can get free shipping.
	I just got some business cards made.
	I actually didn't even get business cards made.
	I got calling cards made because I think calling cards look a little cooler than business cards, but, you know, decide for yourself.
	Nice linen paper.
	Just really a beautiful card.
	Very simple.
	Takes two seconds to do it.
	You choose everything.
	You can choose the fonts, the designs, the colors, the images.
	It helps you create something as unique and compelling as your business.
	Are you ready to get started on your business card?
	You should be.
	It's very easy.
	These guys are the best.
	Look, this is something you don't need to think about too hard.
	Go out there, plug in your information, plug in your logo.
	You get hundreds of fresh designs tailored to your type of company.
	Or you can upload your own original layout.
	You pick everything.
	You can even upgrade to a unique touch like, say, rounded corners or other paper qualities.
	Order and receive your cards with free economy shipping.
	You can feel good knowing that Vistaprint uses only carefully selected inks.
	Your satisfaction is 100% guaranteed or your money back.
	They'll make it right.
	Vistaprint wants you to be able to own the now in any situation, which is why listeners will get free shipping on all business cards, any style, any quantity.
	Go to vistaprint.com and enter promo code Knowles2 for free shipping on all business cards, any style, any quantity.
	Knowles 2.
	I don't know.
	Maybe Beyonce has them as a sponsor too.
	Limited time offer.
	Own the now at vistaprint.com.
	Promo code Knowles 2.
	That's the number 2.
	K-N-O-W-L-E-S, the number 2.
	Promo code Knowles followed by the number 2.
	You support our show when you support our sponsors.
	Thank you.
	So what do we do about Trudeau?
	Some say it's none of our business.
	You know, it's a foreign country.
	It's Canada.
	You know, we don't need to get in their affairs.
	But that's the point.
	It's Canada.
	It's like America's hat, Washington's greatest mistake.
	So the best case scenario here is to get the left to admit in writing and on camera that their attacks on people like Megyn Kelly are completely disingenuous and that life and art are complicated.
	That's what we should be aiming for.
	I don't care if Justin Trudeau resigns.
	I get a kick out of him and he's kind of funny to read about in the news.
	That's the best case scenario.
	Okay?
	And we should be perfectly honest about that.
	If they don't do that, then we need to make Trudeau resign.
	Some conservatives have trouble holding these two ideas in their head at the same time.
	The best solution is for the left to admit that they were wrong, that they're vindictive, that they're shallow, that they're small people, and that they're not going to do it again.
	Get them on record doing them.
	That is the best scenario.
	If they won't do that, we have to make them resign.
	Because what that would mean is even though Trudeau did not commit some impeachable offense, the left won't respond to reason and mercy and grace.
	And so then you've got to make them feel the pain and the consequence of their actions.
	There is news, by the way, from the left that is even more ridiculous than Trudeau wearing blackface.
	This we have to get to before the mailbag.
	It's a new initiative from NBC News.
	It's called Climate Confessions.
	Climate Confessions.
	They've established a confessional.
	Here is the headline.
	Climate Confessions.
	Even those who care deeply about the planet's future can slip up now and then.
	Tell us.
	Where do you fall short in preventing climate change?
	Do you blast the AC? Throw out half your lunch?
	Grill a steak every week?
	Share your anonymous confession with NBC News.
	It's even an anonymous confession.
	They don't have the little booths, but they do it all online.
	Here are some examples.
	An energy confession.
	I sleep with the air conditioner on year-round and justify it to myself by recycling.
	Here's a meat confession.
	I just can't get behind the Impossible Burger.
	I'm sorry.
	Here's a paper confession.
	My work lunches are the worst, so much disposable everything.
	So those are real confessions from the website.
	You can read them.
	The way you do it is you go and you pick a category, then you write down your confession.
	I put out an energy confession.
	I said I occasionally read NBC and watch NBC News.
	That's my confession, and I'm really sorry that I do that.
	This obviously is going to create some sectarian strife among Protestant environmentalists who just want to confess their sins to the Mother Earth directly.
	But listen, for me, being a little more on the Catholic side of the issue here, I like that NBC is at least creating this secular sacrament.
	We were just talking yesterday about this, about how climate change is the left's religion.
	It's not about science.
	It's about religion.
	Specifically, it's about false religion.
	And so, look, we don't need to get into that again.
	It's very clear the left ditched real religion and they had to adopt these false religions because everybody's got to serve somebody.
	I'm glad to be able to tell you I was completely right, totally called it.
	I've been saying it for years and now NBC proves that that is true.
	I mean, they're even creating these sacraments now, perfectly mimicking the Catholic sacraments, the traditional sacraments of our culture.
	But there's another aspect here, which we haven't touched on too much, which is environmentalism also fulfills the political usefulness of religion.
	Not just the religious longings themselves.
	Man is a religious being.
	We are born naturally with a longing for God.
	It also fulfills the political usefulness.
	So conservatives embraced the religious right at least 30-40 years ago and that has been very useful to us politically.
	It gives conservatives the moral high ground if only because the left has ceded the moral high ground and they've embraced and flaunted all sorts of inversions and perversions of moral norms.
	What the left, though, is doing now with the increasingly religious tenor of environmentalism is they're trying to counter that.
	They realize it's useful politically and they want it themselves.
	The clearest example of that is Pete Buttigieg.
	Pete Buttigieg is, just to compare him talking about climate change to abortion, tells you all you need to know about this.
	We'll get to it in one second, and then we'll get to the mailbag.
	But first, I've got to say goodbye to Facebook and YouTube.
	You know what you get.
	$10 a month, $100 for an annual membership.
	You get everything, and you get the Leftist Tears Tumblr, and that's the most important thing of all.
	Head on over to dailywire.com.
	If people don't make all their climate change confessions, and the world heats up and the ice caps melt, you are going to drown.
	More likely, the ice caps aren't going to melt, but you're still going to drown because the leftist tears are going to flow everywhere.
	Go to dailywire.com.
	We'll be right back with a lot more.
	Pete Buttigieg, my least favorite candidate running in the Democratic field, the biggest jerk out of all of them, has come out.
	He's been doing this now for weeks and weeks, taking what NBC News is showing us, taking the religious...
	There are the political usefulness of religion and most decisively describing this in terms of climate change and environmentalism.
	Here's Pete Buttigieg using the word sin, using the concept of sin to describe climate change.
	If you believe that God is watching as poison is being belched into the air of creation and people are being harmed by it, countries are at risk of vanishing in low-lying areas, what do you suppose God thinks of that?
	I bet he thinks it's messed up.
	At least one way of talking about this is that it's a kind of sin.
	At a certain point I'm thinking, maybe just in my own faith's tradition, but What kind of sin is it to blame God for something you did and something you can do something about while other people are getting hurt?
	The way I see it, I don't imagine that God's going to let us off the hook for abusing future generations any more than you would be off the hook for harming somebody right next to you.
	And with climate change, we're doing both.
	The key word there is imagine.
	As you notice, Pete Buttigieg can't really do a great job quoting scripture or the tradition of the church because what he is expounding on is heresy.
	What he is selling is heresy.
	It's a religion that he's saying is Christianity, but it is not Christianity.
	And so he always just talks about what he imagines, you know.
	Forget that it's very clear from the book of Genesis, man has dominion over the land and the sea and the beasts and the birds.
	Now forget about that.
	In Pete Buttigieg's made-up version, fictional, heretical Christianity, we are only here to serve the natural environment.
	But at least, you know, hypocrisy is the tribute vice pays to virtue.
	He's at least pretending that he's talking about Christianity.
	Now listen to the religious terms in which Pete Buttigieg discusses abortion.
	Right now, they hold everybody in line with this one piece of doctrine about abortion, which is obviously a tough issue for a lot of people to think through morally.
	Then again, there's a lot of parts of the Bible that talk about how life begins with breath.
	And so even that is something that we can interpret differently.
	I'm pro-choice.
	Me too.
	But I think no matter where you think about the kind of cosmic question of how life begins, most Americans can get on the board with the idea of, all right, I might draw the line here, you might draw the line there, but the most important thing is the person who should be drawing the line is the woman making the decision.
	Absolutely.
	All heretical nonsense.
	I mean, all just absolutely demonic and hellish heretical nonsense to defend the slaughter of babies.
	We don't have time to get into it now.
	Father Frank Pavone, the head of Priests for Life, has a wonderful article describing all of the scriptural references where we can see that God knows us from the very beginning when he formed us in our mother's wombs.
	And you see this throughout the Bible.
	And what Pete Buttigieg is talking about is really disgusting stuff.
	But there's a story that just came out of South Bend, an abortion clinic that Buttigieg has supported in the past in South Bend.
	An abortionist from there was found to have more than 2,200 baby body parts found in his home.
	Buttigieg was finally asked about this.
	Here's his answer.
	Like everyone, I find that news out of Illinois extremely disturbing, and I think it's important that that be fully investigated.
	I also hope that it doesn't get caught up in politics at a time when women need access to health care.
	There's no question that what happened is disturbing.
	It's unacceptable.
	He doesn't want it to get caught up in politics.
	This is Pete Buttigieg, who is specifically making this a political issue, who is running in part on this issue.
	Abortion, of course, is a political issue now, and it has been for at least 50 years.
	This guy is so in support of abortion, he's trying to twist the Bible for his sick crusade to kill babies.
	He is so the worst.
	Buttigieg is so the worst candidate.
	Anyway, why is it disturbing?
	Because that's what he said.
	He said this story is disturbing.
	The story that the abortionist has 2,200 baby body parts in his home.
	Why is that disturbing?
	What Pete Buttigieg is saying is it's not disturbing to murder little babies and chop them up.
	But it is disturbing to have the body parts.
	To...
	When somebody is murdered, the disturbing thing about that is not how the family handles the funeral.
	They pick this casket or that casket, they serve chicken or beef at the funeral.
	What's disturbing is the murder.
	There is no way to get around this.
	It says, oh yes, we need to defend.
	It is good, it is moral, it is Christian and biblical to chop up little babies, rip them into different parts, pull them limb from limb, Discard them like they're nothing but meat.
	That's good and wonderful and virtuous and true and biblical.
	But then having the body parts is not.
	That's bad.
	That's disturbing.
	It's not disturbing.
	Totally backwards.
	That's the bizarre moral code, the bizarre logical consequence of the immoral code of these false leftist religions, including environmentalism, which would have us, all you hear about from environmentalism is have fewer babies, live less, thrive less, be less productive.
	In some cases, kill your babies.
	Go, that would be good for the environment.
	Sacrifice your babies on the altar of the climate.
	No different than any other pagan religion.
	We've got a lot more to get to, but we've got to get to the mailbag, so let's just fly right through it today, and we'll get to some more stories next week.
	From Dave, Dear St.
	Michael of the Blessed Covfefe, Do you have any suggestions about how to improve on speaking more eloquently in day-to-day life?
	Yes.
	Make a point of not saying uh or um or like, and to a lesser degree, but also importantly, you know.
	Just take those out of your speech.
	It's very difficult.
	I mess up on this sometimes, too.
	I use those words on occasion, but some people use those words a lot, and you'll notice that you use it a lot more than you think you do.
	Don't do that.
	One of the advantages is that you don't sound like a valley girl from the 80s.
	The other advantage is it will cause you to stop.
	You will stop speaking for a second, and that will allow you to think, which means that the things that you are saying are going to be more eloquent and better thought out.
	I would recommend slowing down.
	I would recommend speaking on your breath.
	One way that millennials and Gen Z, Gen Z less so, I've noticed millennials do this though, is they'll speak in vocal fry.
	Vocal fry is like when you talk like this, you know, so there's no real air supporting it, but it's just kind of in the back of the throat and it sounds really unpleasant and ugly.
	Speak on your breath.
	It will...
	Give off a sense of confidence, it will make you feel more confident about your ideas, and it will be more persuasive.
	Those are just a few things you can do.
	Also, read poetry, read good language, read good books, and memorize poetry.
	Poetry is easy because you can memorize a poem in an hour or two.
	Memorize verses from the Bible, memorize Shakespeare, memorize good quotes that you like.
	We have gotten much worse about our memories because we have electronics in front of us all the time, so we don't recall anything.
	But so much of speaking publicly is about recalling quotes and thoughts and ideas and who said it and citations.
	So just work on building up your memory.
	And when you do memorize things, do it with your mouth.
	Do it on your voice.
	Don't just do it in your head.
	Big, exaggerated movements from your mouth and from your vocal cords.
	This will...
	Make it much easier to memorize things, and it will make you a better speaker.
	From Kyle.
	Michael, love the show.
	It's art in one of its purest forms.
	Thank you very much.
	With Democrats racing to see who can have the most radical policy by 2020, what hope do you have for true bipartisanship or a renewal of agreement on common values between Republicans and Democrats when some of the most fundamental disagreements we have at this point seem irreconcilable?
	I think bipartisanship is nonsense.
	I mean, it's a contradiction in a term.
	Partisanship means there is a disagreement, there is a separation, there is division.
	So bipartisanship is a contradiction in itself.
	And I don't even think we necessarily want that.
	I don't want a big liberal consensus in this country.
	I like that I get to state my point of view, and other people get to state their incorrect points of view, and then I can persuade people to agree with what I think, to put it bluntly.
	So that's fine.
	I like a good, rigorous debate.
	I don't like the censorship.
	I don't like the constant character attacks.
	I don't like dredging up old tweets.
	Twitter is a little bit of the problem, though.
	I was on a Fox News show when I was in New York a couple days ago, and it was Martha McCallum's show, and I was on with Juan Williams.
	Juan and I disagree on a whole number of things.
	I'm sure we could easily go back and snipe at each other on Twitter all day long.
	But when you're in the room looking at somebody face-to-face, you take them more seriously.
	You treat them more respectfully.
	That would be good.
	good.
	I think that we could do with a whole lot more respect and reverence in this country, but that's going to come from a place of humility and personal interaction.
	Unfortunately, we're losing humility because we now have a whole month that celebrates pride, which is the opposite of humility.
	And we have much less personal interaction because more and more and more, we're just behind our screens and we're all keyboard warriors with the courage of people who never have to face consequences for what they say.
	So in short, I don't think that the future of good civil discourse is looking very bright.
	And the only way that we can try to create that culture now with all of the technological and social challenges is to embody it and have a little reverence and have a little humility ourselves.
	From Brandon.
	Dear Michael, if the 2020 candidates have their way and make college free, do you think we will see a dramatic drop off in the quality of education?
	Yes, of course, we already have.
	As the federal government has come in and subsidized loans and underwritten college loans, The quality of the education has declined dramatically.
	As more and more people have gone to college, the quality of the education has declined dramatically.
	In the 1940s, about 5% of Americans had a bachelor degree.
	Today, 60% of high school graduates are going to go to college.
	They may drop out, but they're going to go.
	We have too many people going to college, and we have too much of a one-size-fits-all solution.
	Some people shouldn't go to get a liberal education.
	Some people should go and get a trade education.
	And by trade education, by the way, I mean study business or study accounting or study pre-law or study...
	Because even law school is really a trade education, though usually you need a liberal education before that.
	Or you study some aspect of the medical field or, you know, learn how to buff hardwood floors or become an electrician or become a plumber.
	You don't need...
	Or go to seminary.
	I mean, that's a different sort of education.
	It involves liberal education and it involves something else.
	Education should be...
	Tailored to the individuals, and we're losing that.
	And I think that's just a function of a democratic society, which wants to level down and make everybody exactly equal.
	So that's a process that's already been happening, and once you make college into just 13th grade, you're going to see happening at the colleges what was already happening in public school education.
	From kindergarten through 12, and that's part of a long process that's been going on.
	It'll probably continue to happen whether or not Liz Warren gets her free college for everybody plan.
	It's a much bigger problem than this election.
	From Danielle.
	Hi, Michael.
	I listen to your show, and I appreciate your perspective into all aspects of life.
	My boyfriend and I have been together for almost four years.
	I'm 32, and he's 47.
	Recently, the question of are we ready to get married came up again.
	The I'm not sure we're ready answer that I eventually received from him is obviously not what I wanted to hear.
	However, this day and age seems to complicate feelings and futures and now so many people aren't sure of anything.
	What sort of insight do you have on this given that you and your wife had a longer winding courtship and that dating and marrying for millennials is sort of a train wreck?
	This is sort of a train.
	That's an understatement.
	This is a heartbreaking question to have floating around in my mind, but how do I wait?
	But do I wait and work on the relationship or call it quits?
	Tell him to piss or get off the pot.
	Simple as that.
	It is true.
	I dated sweet little Elisa for so long, in part because we dated when we were little kids.
	We met when we were 9 or 10 and were dating when we were 16.
	And we split for college and then got back together and In this very millennial way, waited a long time and moved all around the country and those sort of things.
	I wish I'd gotten married sooner.
	It would have been better to do that.
	And I sort of wish she had told me what I just told you.
	My grandmother and grandfather dated for a while, and eventually she gave him that ultimatum as well.
	Piss or get off the pot.
	That's what you should tell him to do.
	Especially because, I mean, you're younger than he is, it seems.
	You're 32 and he's 47.
	But he's 47.
	He's no young boy.
	I'd cut him off.
	I'd take the Lysistrata strategy.
	I would make him make a decision and make him act like a man.
	He's certainly old enough to be one, and there's no two ways about that.
	Don't wait around for even two seconds.
	Make him make a decision.
	You can move on with your life if he doesn't want to do it, or he'll get married, because sometimes men just need a little push.
	From Melanie.
	Hello, Michael.
	I'd love to know your opinions on the 26th president of the US of A, Teddy Roosevelt.
	He was a fascinating and inspirational man in his personal life, but I've heard conflicting views on his politics as president and whether they help the US in the long run or not.
	What do you think?
	Thanks.
	I love Teddy Roosevelt.
	Some libertarians don't like him because he liked national parks too much and called himself progressive, even though then that term had certainly a different connotation than it does now.
	I think he's great.
	I think he's basically America.
	He's loud.
	He's boisterous.
	The guy got shot one time, finished giving a speech, and only then went to a hospital.
	You know, the guy gets attacked, and he attacks the people right back.
	He goes over to Africa and bags hundreds of large game.
	He's just terrific.
	He's just a great historical figure.
	John Milius, one of the great filmmakers who's still living today, has a good movie on Teddy Roosevelt, The Wind and the Lion.
	Go check it out.
	There's a great speech by the character playing Teddy Roosevelt of how the grizzly bear is America.
	I think he very much embodies that spirit.
	Whether or not his policies in the early 20th century really matter or don't really matter, whatever.
	Look, politics is contextual, and politics is circumstantial, and it changes over time.
	So historical views of presidents change.
	But as an American character, I think he's just absolutely terrific.
	Final question from Samuel.
	What are your favorite last words, either historical or fictional?
	It is said that Pope Benedict XV, his last words on his deathbed were, La Comedia è Finita, which is quoting an opera, Pagliacci or something, which is, the comedy is finished.
	And...
	I love these last words because they're funny.
	There's some wit there, the idea that obviously the comedy of his life is coming to an end, but also that it's a comedy.
	Life isn't just a farce.
	He's not saying it's a comedy like it's an absurd joke, a big cosmic joke.
	It's a comedy in that it has a happy ending.
	We have a happy ending.
	Our life has a happy ending.
	This world has a happy ending.
	This is what the Divine Comedy is all about.
	And I think those are the perfect last words.
	And if I know that my end is coming, I hope I repeat them when my time comes up.
	All right, that's our show.
	Our time is up here.
	I'm Michael Knowles.
	This is The Michael Knowles Show.
	See you on Monday.
	Me, I come and me wanna go home.
	If you enjoyed this episode, and frankly, even if you didn't, don't forget to subscribe.
	And if you want to help spread the word, please give us a five-star review and tell your friends to subscribe.
	We're available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever else you listen to podcasts.
	Also, be sure to check out the other Daily Wire podcasts, including The Ben Shapiro Show, The Andrew Klavan Show, and The Matt Walsh Show.
	The Michael Knowles Show is produced by Rebecca Dobkowitz and directed by Mike Joyner.
	Executive producer, Jeremy Boring.
	Senior producer, Jonathan Hay.
	Our supervising producer is Mathis Glover.
	And our technical producer is Austin Stevens.
	Assistant director, Pavel Wydowski.
	Edited by Danny D'Amico.
	Audio is mixed by Mike Coromina.
	Hair and makeup is by Jesua Olvera.
	And our production assistant is Nick Sheehan.
	The Michael Knowles Show is a Daily Wire production.
	Copyright Daily Wire 2019.
	Hey everyone, it's Andrew Klavan, host of The Andrew Klavan Show.
	Should we go to war with Iran?
	Should we care about Justin Trudeau wearing blackface?
	Should we go to war with Canada?
	That'd make for an interesting afternoon.
	We'll talk about that and also murder most Democrat.

▲