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April 2, 2021 - The Michael Knowles Show
47:18
Ep. 734 - Si, Se Pwodway

Woke corporations try to subvert our republic, coyotes hurl kids over our southern border, and the Left’s narrative falls apart at the George Floyd trial. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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The British CEO of a Fortune 100 company is very upset that the voters of Georgia, through their elected representatives, are trying to protect their elections.
He's really upset about this and he's going to do everything he can to stop it.
Let me be crystal clear and unequivocal.
This legislation is unacceptable.
It is a step backwards and it does not promote principles we have stood for in Georgia around broad access to voting, around voter convenience.
About ensuring election integrity.
And this is frankly just a step backwards.
We've spent many decades promoting within Georgia a better society and a better environment for prisoners.
And this is a step backwards.
And we're very clear on that.
And our position remains the same.
This legislation is wrong and needs to be remedied.
And we will continue to advocate for it, both in private and now even more clearly in public.
That's what we will do, fellow Americans.
Yes, we will.
Because we're all Americans here.
We're all residents of Atlanta, Georgia.
And that's what...
It turns out that he's Michael Caine.
That's the closest that he's got.
Really not helping his case and really not a compelling argument when multinational corporations are coming in.
I'm not even just talking about Coca-Cola.
There are a bunch of these corporations going in and saying that the voters of Georgia have no right This guy's got every right, I suppose, to lobby in the public, certainly, maybe in private, too.
And the Georgia representatives have every right to punish Coca-Cola for trying to undermine their government, for undermining their politics.
It is long past time that Republicans stopped...
Harping on abstract economic theories and started talking about old-time politics, particularly when it comes to the corporations that hate us.
I'm Michael Knowles.
This is The Michael Knowles Show.
I'm just warning you now, this show is going to have a lot of funny accents.
There's no way around it.
The Coca-Cola guy, just the tip of the iceberg.
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Not just Coca-Cola that is trying to undermine election integrity in the United States.
American Airlines, which is based in Fort Worth.
American Airlines has come out against voting legislation that was passed by the Texas Senate to protect the integrity of those elections.
American Airlines says to make American stance clear.
The answer to a question nobody asked.
We are strongly opposed to this bill and others like it.
What's going on here?
What's going on in Texas?
What's going on in Georgia?
What's going on in other places?
Is that all around this country, leftist activists overturned election integrity measures in 2020.
And they used the virus as the excuse to do it.
In many cases, they violated the law.
In some cases, they violated the state constitution to do it.
And so now, after the unbelievable...
The nonsense that went on during those elections, the outrageous power grabs, the collapse of voter integrity measures, people are going in and saying, no, we got to make sure that you don't try to steal elections because...
Political parties, and notably the Democrats, have stolen elections by stuffing ballot boxes for a long time.
This was outlined in excruciating detail by Robert Caro in his description of the 1948 Senate election in Texas involving Lyndon Johnson, gave us President Johnson eventually.
They do this a lot, and so we need to protect the ballot.
Because, you know, when someone is not permitted to vote, if that person is eligible to vote, that's a big problem.
But when an ineligible voter votes, in both of those cases, a vote from a legitimate voter is taken away.
It's not the only way to take away a vote from a legitimate voter if you prevent him from voting.
You can also just enfranchise an ineligible voter.
That accomplishes the same end.
So what is the Texas legislature going to do here?
What I think they should do is punish American Airlines.
Well, I think the old school Republican view of this would be, yes, punish companies that are trying to subvert your republic.
But then over the last 20 years, the Republican Party has gone stupid.
And the conservative movement even has really atrophied.
And the conservative movement has become little more than shills for giant corporations that hate us.
And it's because of some misbegotten principle that conservatives are never supposed to use political power and we're supposed to let corporations run our country.
It's because, I don't know, because too many conservative movement leaders read Ayn Rand or something and forgot that there is actually a political tradition here.
And if, If the wokeism and the upending of our culture is being pushed by corporations, that's really no better in the end than if it's being pushed by big government or something else like that.
So I think the Texas legislature, I don't know what kind of tax breaks American Airlines gets.
I bet they get some pretty significant ones.
The Texas legislature should go in and strip them of those tax breaks.
They should go in with the punitive purpose of preventing a very powerful company like American Airlines from subverting the electoral process.
Same thing going on back in Georgia with Delta.
Delta CEO Ed Bastian, one of the woker of the airline CEOs, he said that the new election on Georgia, quote, Delta does not value protecting the ballot box in Georgia.
That's okay.
The protection of American elections does not match Delta's values.
Delta has very close ties to the Chinese Communist Party.
Delta, in 2015, bought a 3.5% stake, a little bit more than that, actually, in China Eastern Airlines, which is a state airline.
Purchased that for almost half a billion dollars.
So, the Chinese Communist Party and the policies associated with it, for instance, the genocide of the Uyghur minority, the long-standing, though fortunately now seems to have gone by the wayside policy of one child, on and on and on.
that very much in line with Delta's values.
China, our number one geopolitical adversary, so supporting our number one enemy, that goes along with Delta's values.
But protecting the ballot box in Georgia does not.
Georgia should strip Delta of its tax breaks.
And they're, they're moving to do that right now.
So the Georgia state has passed an amendment that would strip Delta of a multimillion dollar tax break.
They've done this before.
It's a Delta has weathered it.
I don't know how well they could weather these sorts of things right now because the airlines are hemorrhaging cash.
But even this sort of thing, this punishment of losing your tax break, has not worked very well in the past.
This is not a mere political disagreement.
Meaning, this is not an ordinary disagreement over, well, you want more immigrants, I want fewer immigrants.
You want higher taxes, I want lower taxes.
You support this kind of funding for this project, I support this thing.
Even, you support this view of marriage, I support this view of marriage.
This goes deeper.
This is, the people of Georgia are saying, we support our right to vote and secure elections.
And Delta's saying, nah, we don't, we don't support your right to vote.
We support whatever outcome we want, and we're going to undermine the integrity of elections to do it.
The Georgia State House should consider getting even tougher than they already are doing.
Can we do that?
Is it possible?
For an answer to that question, we turn to Dr.
Jill Biden.
So say it with me.
Si se poidwe.
The future is ours.
Thank you.
Yes, we can do it.
Si se poidwe.
No.
No, no se poid way if we're talking about Jill Biden.
Jill Biden was not able to do it.
The Democrats have always been good at pandering, particularly on racial issues.
This is why they try to sprinkle their conversation with Spanish.
Usually it doesn't go very well.
If you watched the first couple of presidential primary debates during 2020 on the Democrat side, it would have been like you were in a sixth grade Spanish classroom.
Yeah.
With Cory Booker trying to babble out some broken Spanish, Beto O'Rourke, that was unfortunate.
And isn't he Spanish?
He's Hispanic.
He should be able to do it.
And now Jill Biden butchering that language.
However, you know, it's funny.
I mentioned the Jill Biden thing in part because we, for the past four years, had a first lady who spoke something like five languages, maybe more, very elegant, very urbane, and the entire left just tried to make her out to be some kind of evil bimbo.
But Jill Biden, who...
I'm not going to attack Jill Biden.
She might be a nice lady.
I don't know.
But they try to make her out to be like a Rhodes Scholar, you know.
And for a while, Whoopi Goldberg on The View was campaigning for her to be the Surgeon General because she didn't know what kind of degree Jill Biden had.
So anyway, just to note the double standard.
To the question, though, that Joe Biden, I guess, is trying to allude to.
Can we do it?
I want to apply that question here in the question of the woke companies.
Can we, as conservatives, say no to the companies?
Can we say, hey, you've gone too far, you're trying to undermine our system, and we're not going to let you do that.
And we are going to wield the power of the state when the people have given it to us.
Against the allegedly free market, I think that phrase has been stretched beyond all meaning recently, but can we wield the power of the state as conservatives to undermine the working of the free market when those actors in the free market are trying to subvert our republic?
My answer?
Si.
Se puede.
Se puede mucho mucho.
Muy muy.
I don't know.
I don't speak Spanish any better than Joe Biden does.
Of course we can.
Conservatives, by writing a blank check to the corporations, we have given away the game.
Because have you noticed that the big corporations around the country are pretty into woke politics?
Have you noticed that they are some of the leaders in terms of pushing wokeism around our country?
Why would we let them get away with that?
Because we've made some idol out of a misbegotten conception of free markets.
I love free markets.
In their proper place, toward the actual end of politics.
The free markets are not the end of my politics.
They're an instrument toward a good polity, toward a flourishing regime, toward justice, which James Madison says in The Federalist is the end of government.
Si, se poidwe.
Si poidwe, muy, muy.
Mucho, mucho.
Speaking of childish Spanish, Jen Psaki was just asked a very difficult question and she didn't have a very good answer.
What's going on at the southern border right now is that coyotes are hurling Hispanic children over the border.
Peter Doocy brings this question up.
To Jen Psaki, he says, hey, you know, your border policies don't seem to be working that well if it's incentivizing criminal cartels to just hurl children across the border.
What are you guys doing about that?
On immigration, has the White House considered beefing up border security now that there is video of a three-year-old and a five-year-old being thrown over the wall in New Mexico?
Beefing up border security.
Well, there's video now of a three-year-old and a five-year-old.
I've seen the video, and I think any of us who saw the video were incredibly alarmed by the steps of smugglers, ones that we have been quite familiar with, that we've spoken out about, our concerns about.
As Secretary Mayorkas said, the inhumane way smugglers abuse children while profiting off parents' desperation is criminal and morally reprehensible.
The president certainly agrees with that.
Oh, good.
I'm glad to hear that the president agrees with that.
But why is he still pursuing policies that encourage the behavior?
If you've got effectively an open border, if you're pursuing catch and release, if you're saying the kids get to stay, then what do you think is going to happen?
The coyotes are going to start throwing the kids over the border.
They're making a lot of money doing this.
There was a coyote just the other day told Univision business is booming.
The president of Mexico blamed Joe Biden for what's going on.
Everyone in the country is blaming Joe Biden for this, but Biden doesn't want to take responsibility.
It's quite clear.
While the border has always been an issue, things have gotten much, much worse under Biden because Biden said, come here, come surge, get over here.
So, Jen, he might have the best of intentions, but look at what's going on.
Look at what his policies are actually resulting in.
What's your answer to it, Jen?
These kids, I believe, were rescued by individuals who are working at the border.
Yes, but they still got close enough, as you guys are talking about addressing root causes in the region, for a smuggler to throw them over a wall into the desert.
And I'm just curious what the White House is doing to stop that from happening.
And are you concerned more about the kids' safety, or are you concerned about kids getting in?
Or tell me more about your concern here.
Kids' safety is, as you just mentioned, the main concern.
Well, of course it is, which is why I'm often surprised by some of the line of questioning here.
But I will say that our concern and our focus is on sending a clear message to the region that this is not the time to come.
Not the time to come.
Not the time to come.
We want to send a very clear message about this issue of violating our laws.
We want to send a very clear message.
Wait until next week.
Come on.
Come on, man.
This is a very clear message.
We are not going to tolerate this sort of thing until at least 2 p.m.
today.
So just don't, you know, hey, come on, we're being serious.
Come on, man.
That's not even the most egregious part of that exchange.
Peter Doocy asks the very serious question, why are we allowing these criminals to get close enough to hurl three-year-olds over the wall?
And Jen Psaki, she says, well, hold on, Peter.
Is your concern the law or is your concern the safety of the children?
I want to know about your concern.
I don't care about Peter Doocy's concern.
Why should anybody care about Peter Doocy's innermost concerns and motivations?
I care about the question he's asking, which is the actual policy.
Well, yeah, but what are your intentions?
What are your feelings, Peter?
First of all, by the way, you can both be concerned about the safety of the children and the safety of the American people and the enforcement of our laws that were passed through the democratic process here in the country that at one time was governed under a constitution.
You can be concerned about all...
I'm concerned about the whole thing, Jen.
Why is it that it's only permissible to be concerned about the little children?
not permissible to be concerned about the enforcement of the law.
Conservatives sometimes fall into making these arguments too, which is, if you're talking about, say, the injustice of affirmative action policies that, you know, disadvantage white and Asian students in college and job applications and give an unfair advantage to black and Hispanic students.
Sometimes you will hear people say, look, it's actually, it's really, it's unfair to the students Because then they'll be looked at as though they didn't deserve to get in.
That will follow them their career.
It's the soft bigotry of low expectations.
It's really unfair to them.
Sure.
Okay.
It is also unfair to the people it's disadvantaging.
Yes, it's true that what's going on at the border is unfair to these children.
It's creating awful incentives and it's bad to put kids in cages.
Yeah, that's true.
That is bad.
It's also unfair to the American people.
And it's not illegitimate to mention the concerns of the American people and the enforcement of our laws.
The only interest Jen Psaki has, the only pseudo-argument she can make, is about motivations and intentions and psychobabble.
Speaking of dubious motivations, on another major issue of public safety and public health, the vaccines.
Chris Cuomo, Fredo Cuomo on CNN, had Liana Wen on.
Dr.
Liana Wen was the former president of Planned Parenthood, and she was booted out, I believe, for not being radical enough on abortion.
She was radical enough to become the president of Planned Parenthood, but not so radical that she would go as far as the organization wanted to go, which really tells you some spooky stuff about that organization.
Liana Nguyen, I hate to have to say something sort of nice about her, she was fairly honest on television.
She said the quiet part out loud about the left's maniacal push.
Unconstitutional push to get everyone at all times immediately to get the vaccine and to prove to everybody that they got the vaccine.
She said that time is running out to force everyone to do this because ultimately they're probably not going to need to.
We need to make it clear to them that the vaccine is the ticket back to pre-pandemic life.
And the window to do that is really narrowing.
You were mentioning, Chris, about how all these states are reopening.
They're reopening at 100%.
And we have a very narrow window to tie reopening policy to vaccination status.
Because otherwise, if everything is reopened, then what's the carrot going to be?
How are we going to incentivize people to actually get the vaccine?
So that's why I think the CDC and the Biden administration needs to come out a lot bolder and say, if you're vaccinated, you can do all these things.
Here are all these freedoms that you have.
Because otherwise, people are going to go out and enjoy these freedoms anyway.
Heaven forfend we enjoy our freedoms anyway, without her permission.
Really, I don't mean to beat up on her too much here.
She's at least blowing the whistle on what the public health apparatus believes and what the left believes.
What's the stick going to be?
What's the carrot going to be?
What's the carrot going to be?
She's saying that the states are going to reopen to 100%.
That just is happening.
And the left is pretending that the state's reopening to 100% is contingent upon 100% of people getting the vaccine.
But, Liana Nguyen admits, that's not really true.
That's just a lie, a noble lie that the public health left is telling people right now in this narrow window before the state's reopened to 100%.
I don't have any interest in getting the vaccine.
Not because I'm afraid that the vaccine is going to kill me.
Not because I'm afraid that the vaccine is going to inject me in 5G or something going around.
Frankly, I could use the extra cell service, right?
So I'm not totally concerned about that.
It's because I'm making a prudential calculation of risk, which is that I'm young.
I think I'm healthy.
I'm not saying I'm invincible.
There's a chance that I could...
Very, very small chance, but there is a chance I could suffer some real awful complication from COVID. And I'm going to roll the dice.
Okay?
If I were 85, maybe I would think differently.
And Liana Nguyen and the public health apparatus are saying, you must get the vaccine.
We're going to force you to get the vaccine.
If you don't get the vaccine, you're not going to be allowed to engage in commerce.
Which, by the way, is convincing me more and more that I'm not interested in getting the vaccine.
If I'm going to be told that I'm going to be ostracized from society, not because of any medical necessity, but because of the political desires of these people.
When you talk about sticks and carrots, when you're talking about the public side of public health, you're talking about politics.
And I think these people's politics just totally whack.
And I'm not interested in indulging that at all.
I do appreciate it when our political opponents tell us what they want, tell us what they think.
When your opponents tell you what they're after, you should believe them.
Even if it is someone like the former director of Planned Parenthood.
Even if it's someone like Dr.
Fauci, who has admitted...
That he was not exactly truthful on the masks.
Can I just say he lied?
When he came out initially and said, the masks don't do anything, don't wear the masks.
And then later on said, you need to wear the masks, they do a lot.
And then he was asked why he flipped and he said, well, you know, part of it is the science change, but really the reason I flipped is I wanted to save the masks for the nurses.
And so if I told people that the masks worked, then they would all go out and buy them and we wouldn't be able to save them for the people I wanted to have them.
That's all politics.
I don't agree with most of what these people are saying, but when they tell you what they believe, believe them.
Speaking of medications, the trial of Derek Chauvin, the officer involved in the death of George Floyd, is going on right now.
Now, I'm using my words carefully.
I'm not saying the officer who killed George Floyd or the officer involved in the killing of George Floyd.
I'm saying he was there at the death of And the question is, did this police officer murder George Floyd?
Did he accidentally kill George Floyd?
Or did George Floyd suffer a drug overdose?
Did he resist arrest?
Well, we know he resisted arrest.
We know he was on drugs.
We know that he asked to be taken out of the car.
We know all of those things, just from video.
So what was the cause of death?
Already the left thinks that this cop is going to get off.
You know, if there's justice, the left seems to think that the cop will get off because they're preemptively saying there shouldn't even be a trial.
We should just pay money to the family of George Floyd and the other race hustlers who are trying to exploit this situation.
We're bracing for riots.
We're bracing for...
Why?
Because you think he's going to get off.
Why do you think he's going to get off?
Well, for instance, because George Floyd's girlfriend admitted on the stand yesterday that George Floyd had a very, very bad drug habit and a drug habit that was so bad that he did overdose within two months of his death, which may or may not have been caused by an overdose.
We went to the hospital a couple times in March.
Okay.
He was hospitalized for a more extended period of time in March, right?
Yes.
That's the incident I'm talking about.
I went to go pick Floyd up from his house that night.
I thought I was taking him to work.
He wasn't feeling good.
His stomach really hurt.
He was doubled over in pain.
Just wasn't feeling well and he said he had to go to the hospital so I took him straight to the hospital.
We went to the ER and they were checking him out in the ER and it was getting late.
And I had to get home to my son, so I left that Friday night.
You later learned that that was due to an overdose?
Yes.
So, it goes on.
More and more evidence that George Floyd died of a drug overdose.
I mean, even just the report of the toxicity in his blood.
He had very, very toxic levels of drugs in his blood.
This is, I'd like to stake out a third position here between George Floyd is the worst person in the world and he got what he deserved and this cop killed George Floyd and, you know, he needs to go to jail forever or something like that.
What if it's the case that George Floyd resisted arrest, took a That this cop has been wrongly maligned.
Whatever happened in the moment, what people are accusing him of doing, he didn't do.
And what if one can sort of feel bad for George Floyd?
But George Floyd robbed a pregnant woman at gunpoint.
Yeah, he doesn't sound like a good guy.
He does not sound like a good guy at all.
But what if one can feel sort of bad for George Floyd in that the drug addiction that he obviously had Is just the clearest representation of vice and sin and broken human nature.
This guy was obviously not totally in control of what he did.
He's an addict.
I know that in the modern liberal view...
Being able to pursue your base desires is considered the definition of freedom, but it's not.
It's the opposite of freedom.
It's licentiousness, and it compromises your free will, and it compromises your ability to control yourself and your desires, and it compromises your rational faculties, and that's a very sad thing.
It's why we shouldn't let druggies completely off the hook and say, well, it's not your fault.
No, it kind of is your fault.
Maybe it's a vicious cycle.
Maybe you had bad circumstances and then you turned to drugs and then you further impaired your will and then you couldn't get out of it.
Maybe it's a bad cycle and you're somewhat responsible, but you've also compromised your free will during that.
What if that's the case?
I'm thinking of this Matt Gaetz thing here.
Matt Gaetz, speaking of potential crimes, is being accused of all sorts of things, but right now the latest that's come out is that he allegedly paid hookers using electronic apps, and he, I'm not even saying he did this a long time ago, he did apparently, according to the allegations, he did this like I don't know if it's true or not.
don't, I generally don't believe things in the New York Times, but we certainly have seen this kind of behavior with other politicians.
Elliot Spitzer, paying hookers while, while in office, while I think he was prosecuting people for prostitution.
Katie Hill, all sorts of weird sex crimes while she was running for office and in office.
Bob Menendez, all sorts of weird sex allegations and, and I think underage prostitutes in the case of, of him and his allegations, while he was a sitting Senator.
I mentioned all of this, especially today on Good Friday, because the thing that strikes us about all these, I'm not even just singling out Matt Gaetz.
I don't know if those are true or not, but, but all these allegations and sometimes proven crimes of politicians, you look at them and you, you're not really astounded that they would, you know, Give in to sins of the flesh.
That's actually not what surprises me.
Didn't surprise me about Katie Hill.
Doesn't surprise me about any of these guys.
We're kind of fleshy beings and we have these desires.
I'm no more surprised at that than I would be surprised that a fat guy gives into eating a cupcake.
But what surprises you is that someone with this kind of power, Bob Kraft, you know, super rich sports team owner, goes to a massage parlor in Jupiter.
Why?
Why are you doing it?
You have everything and yet you give in to this really basic...
Base desire.
Genesis chapter 4 verse 7.
Sin is crouching at your door and it desires you.
It's there.
It's always there waiting to devour you.
And it doesn't matter how big and powerful and rich and famous you get.
In some ways you're more susceptible to it then.
And it doesn't matter how old, it's not like, you know, when you're a kid you make all these mistakes, but then you become an adult and you don't have to worry about this anymore.
You do.
You of course do.
The thing that's interesting to me about the Matt Gaetz allegations, or really any of the other, you know, proven crimes we've seen from politicians, is how stupid it seems from the outside perspective, but how persuasive it must have been for these people in this moment.
The hubris it has to involve.
The lust that it has to involve.
The lack of self-control that it has to involve.
Like an addiction.
We are reminded that the man who sins is a slave to sin.
Any coherent understanding of liberty in the American context or in any context It has to start from there.
It has to start from this distinction between licentiousness and liberty.
Because if we continue to conflate the two, we're going to lose our liberty more and more and more and more.
And we're not going to need some woke corporation to undermine our political liberty.
We will have done it ourselves.
We're not going to need to focus only on Delta or Coca-Cola or some crazy blue hairs or anything like that.
We, even as conservatives, even as Republicans, will have done it ourselves.
Are we going to continue to have intellect and will?
As conservatives, are we going to try to pull that back from the bizarre, silly, shallow philosophy we've embraced over the last 20 or so years?
My answer is, si, si, poadwe.
Si, si, poadwe.
Muy, muy.
Mucho, mucho.
Ben is going to be talking about this on his show, the Woka Cola nonsense, and also AOC's plan to spend $10 trillion.
Also, you've got to check out Candace's show.
The Candace show is coming up.
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look.
We will be right back with the mailbag.
Welcome back.
My absolute favorite time of the week, beginning with Nicholas.
Dear Michael, you talk a lot about Gnostic dualism and how it relates to transgenderism.
Could you give an explanation in detail of what exactly the heresy is and why it is such, but without the parallels to the transgender movement?
Thanks.
Love the show.
Can't wait for the new book.
Oh, thank you very much.
Yes, gladly.
Wow.
Oh my gosh, you've just reminded me.
This must be the longest I've gone without plugging my new book.
In weeks.
The new book, by the way, titled Speechless, Controlling Words, Controlling Minds, available now for pre-order, and you can also pre-order an autographed copy at Premier Collectibles.
Great question on Gnostic dualism.
So Gnostic dualism has taken many forms over the millennia.
One of the clearest versions of this would be Manichaeism, this battle between good and evil and the evil of this world and the good of the eternal realm.
You see a kind of softer version of this in a revival of Manichaeism, which occurred a little over a millennium later in the rise of Albigensianism, also known as Catharism.
What all of these versions have in common is that the physical world is evil and the metaphysical world is good.
And so we need to oppose the physical world.
It lends itself to a sort of asceticism.
And we need to only embrace the truth of the metaphysical world.
This is why we use this term Gnosticism.
Is because what you see, what we all sense this world and perceive this world to be, is not true according to this philosophy.
That actually there's a secret knowledge.
That's where the word Gnostic means.
Secret knowledge.
Knowledge that really tells you the truth.
So I look like a boy.
The parallel to transgenderism then is I look like a boy, but secretly I know that I'm a girl.
So therefore, it's not just an open question.
Am I a boy as I appear or am I a girl as I secretly know deep down somewhere?
What Gnostic dualism would posit is physical world always bad, metaphysical world purely good.
But the reality of the situation is that God, who exists outside of time and space, creates this whole physical world that we have around us through this loving act of speech and the words with which God speaks the universe into creation.
The word is God.
The divine logic of the universe, the Logos, is God.
And then the bond of unity between the Father and the Son is so substantial that he is a third person, which makes up the Trinity, The physical world is created good, but goes bad through the fall of man, through the disobedience of Adam in the garden to turn away from God and to disobey.
And then man is kicked out and sin and death pervade the world.
However, that's not the end of the story.
The line that we celebrate on Easter is the felix culpa, oh happy fault, That one for us, so great, so glorious, a redeemer, that God, in his providence, even though the world goes so, so bad, becomes incarnate.
Sense is only begotten son.
And so the second person of the Trinity becomes a man.
Fully human, fully divine.
And dies on the cross today, on Good Friday.
And really dies.
And on the cross, in his death, repays this debt, this infinite debt, repays it, and redeems mankind.
And descends into hell, harrows hell, rises again from the dead, ascends up into heaven to see that at the right hand of God the Father Almighty, he shall come again to judge the living and the dead, and his kingdom will have no end.
That's the It's a great question for Good Friday.
From Justine.
Hey, Michael.
Do you think men of Italian descent make for a better mate?
If so, what qualities make them better?
I'm a little bit biased in this question, but I'm going to try to give you as objective an answer as I can.
Yes, absolutely.
100%.
There's no question about it.
Why?
I will acknowledge there are some downsides to Italian men.
We are...
Well, I think this is an upside, but today it would be considered a downside.
We tend to be a little more old school, okay?
Of all the immigrant groups that ever came to America, basically the only one that ever turned out conservative were the Italians.
Cubans, too, though that's weakening over time.
The Italians, by and large, a pretty conservative group that came over here.
A little more old school.
We're probably not going to be, you know, Mr.
Mom, okay?
We're probably not going to Get up and do the dishes all the time.
Clean up the house.
And that's unfortunate sometimes.
However, Italian men, beyond our immense charm and physical attractiveness and things like that, Good cooks.
So we actually do cook a little bit at a time.
Very passionate.
Make of that what you will.
Very, very sentimental Italian men.
You know, we put on a good stern exterior.
Very, very loving people.
Think of the greatest love poetry ever written.
Think of Dante.
Think of Petrarch.
Oh, my gosh.
We are just so in love.
We are so, you know, we...
I'm speechless.
I'm left speechless by that.
So, yes, I think Italian men do make a good mate.
I will say, just I know my wife listens to this show.
I don't want her to get the wrong idea.
I am taken.
But there are lots of Italian men out there, and so I wish that you will find your perfect match.
From Joshua, Dear Michael Knowles, I understand that you do not enjoy marijuana yourself.
It's never been your personal thing.
I do know you drink and use tobacco, so do I. But I'm wondering how you can morally advocate for the legalization of alcohol and tobacco when they have similar, if not more, harmful effects than marijuana.
This is probably the only area I disagree with you on.
Love the show.
We'll continue watching regardless of the answer.
Well, I'm not advocating for the legalization of alcohol and tobacco.
Those two things are legal.
And marijuana is now increasingly legal, but it's still broadly illegal.
So we're not beginning from the same place.
One mistake that liberals make, and when I say liberals, I mean...
Liberal Republicans and liberal Democrats is they think that everything is abstract.
They're only looking at the alcohol or the tobacco or the marijuana.
But I'm actually looking at them in reality, in the practical tradition that we have.
Alcohol and tobacco are already legal.
I don't see any reason to make them illegal.
They are heavily regulated.
I'm not totally against that.
I do wish I could still smoke my cigar in bars somewhere, but, you know, unfortunately Mike Bloomberg ruined that, but okay, that's fine.
I'm talking about the real practical tradition, whereas marijuana is different.
It's a bad thing.
I don't think it does anything good for the culture.
Now, you might say, Michael, that's not a perfectly abstract rationalist argument.
Right.
I don't think we should be making abstract rationalist arguments primarily in politics.
I think we should be making prudential, practical arguments in politics.
There is another cultural aspect here, which is that tobacco has been a part of our culture for a very long time, 500 years or so.
It's been a part of American culture before Columbus discovered America.
It's been a part of American culture for a very, very long time.
Now we live in America.
There's a little blending of culture there.
And alcohol has always been part of our culture.
Christ's first miracle is turning water into wine.
I just don't think, speaking of rationalist abstraction, I don't think it's a good idea to try to uproot these very important things from our culture.
And I don't know that we could do it even if we tried.
I think that's part of why prohibition failed.
But I don't think that marijuana prohibition necessarily would fail.
We kept marijuana illegal for a really long time and I think that's perfectly fine.
I'm not going to flee the country because of that, but I just don't think it's good.
And I think that we are absolutely entitled in our republic to have a vision of the good and a vision of the true and a vision of the beautiful and a vision of what's right.
And to express that vision through our elected representatives in laws.
And I don't think there's anything wrong with that, particularly when those sorts of expressions and those regulations are at the more local level.
From Nick.
Michael, I've been struggling with my faith for a number of years now.
I was brought up as a Christian but have had a lot of exposure to a lot of different religions during my formative years.
This caused me to have many unanswered questions regarding what I should and shouldn't believe.
Being raised in the church, I want to believe in God, but I just can't seem to fully commit.
Could you please give me some insight as to what I should do?
Sure, I can recommend a bunch of books to read.
I was an atheist for about 10 years.
I was brought back through certain arguments for the existence of God.
The modal ontological argument got me as formulated by Alvin Plantinga.
The Thomistic arguments are very persuasive from St.
Thomas Aquinas.
The book Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis did a lot for me.
But it depends what aspect you're going after.
You know, for me, the hang-up was intellectual pride, and so the way back in was an intellectual way back in.
If the hang-up for you is more, I don't know, emotional or something like that, then you'll have a different way in.
If it's more liturgical, you'll have a different way in.
You should know that God exists.
The existence of God is knowable by the light of reason from the natural world.
So there are a lot of good arguments for God and there are no good arguments against God.
But that might not bring you all the way.
You might not say, well, okay, I acknowledge God exists, but does that mean Christianity is true?
Well, what are the arguments for Christianity?
They're really historical arguments, Christological arguments.
Considerations here, right?
You know, the nature of Christ himself, what Christ means.
But Drew Clavin has a great answer on this, which is that if you can't bring yourself to believe in God, just behave as though you do for 60 days.
Pray, behave in your personal life, and that will start to happen.
Access to the sacraments is very important here.
And I think it's important not to fall into...
Either of two heresies.
I don't think you should fall into the heresy of skepticism, that we just can't know about these things for certain, which is a very popular heresy right now.
But I also don't think you should fall into the heresy of fideism, that reason is totally useless and we just got to believe our Bible, darn it, even if it contradicts reason.
The Bible does not contradict reason, by the way.
The truth of the matter is that we can know these things through reason, and also revelation tells us quite a lot.
But the faith is reasonable, and you should know that.
If you have any more specifics on this, I'd be happy to answer a further question.
From Yarb, Dear Michael, Have you gotten more into guns and shooting since leaving California?
No, actually, I haven't.
Unexpectedly.
I got into guns and shooting in California.
I bought my first gun because the government told me I couldn't.
So then I bought the gun they told me I couldn't buy.
I was much more into it there.
Here, I'm kind of more laid back.
I'm more relaxed.
I also have less time because I've got my sweet little screaming bundle of joy 24-7.
So, you know, one does not have as much time to head on over to the range.
But, you know, I'm interested.
I want to get more into it here.
But I do think this is true more broadly in politics.
I think much more about very particular political questions when I'm surrounded by my opponents.
Because I have to, because the bullets are flying all the time, and so I've got to really consider down to the nitty-gritty.
I think the same is true with all manner of behavior.
You think much more about your Second Amendment rights when you're in a place that there's no real right for you to have it, or the right is really threatened.
You're much more conscious of it when you're in a place where you're under fire.
From Spencer, Dear Michael, first I wanted to say congratulations for becoming a father.
Thank you very much.
My question is this.
Do you think the public school system will pull back with their woke agenda anytime in the near future?
At least enough for very conservative parents like my wife and I to be comfortable and confident our daughter won't be subjected to all the critical race theory and gender ideology nonsense.
We are middle class.
We don't know if we'll be able to afford private school when our daughter is starting school.
We'd love to hear your thoughts.
Yeah, this is a big issue.
I'm...
Grappling with this too?
No, I don't think the public school system is going to get any better anytime soon.
The problems of the public school system have been built in from the beginning.
It goes way, way back many decades ago to John Dewey.
It goes back well over a century and a half ago or more to Horace Mann.
There was always this progressive character to it.
Your best hope, I would suspect, is to move somewhere.
Sorry to say this, I know that's not cheap either, but your best hope is probably to move somewhere where the public schools are just less decayed at this point.
But it's very tricky.
This is how they get you.
Because the public schools are free, the private schools are extremely expensive, and homeschooling is expensive too because it's expensive with your time.
Last question from Mike.
Hey, Michael, do you think that Sleepy Joe is so sleepy because he can't sleep at night knowing that Corn Pop is still out there?
Well, Mike, great question.
Corn Pop is a very bad dude, so that would not surprise me at all.
Great question to end on.
Hope you all have a blessed and holy Good Friday and holy Saturday and happy Easter.
And I'll see you on Monday.
Bye.
The Michael Knowles Show is produced by Ben Davies, executive producer Jeremy Boring, our technical director is Austin Stevens, supervising producers Mathis Glover and Robert Sterling, production manager Pavel Vidovsky, editor and associate producer Danny D'Amico, audio mixer Mike Coromina, hair and makeup by Nika Geneva, and production coordinator McKenna Waters.
The Michael Knowles Show is a Daily Wire production, copyright Daily Wire 2021.
Hey everybody, this is Andrew Klavan, host of The Andrew Klavan Show.
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