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June 18, 2021 - The Michael Knowles Show

53:38

Ep. 788 - The Courts Won’t Save Us

Conservatives celebrate a religious liberty win at the Supreme Court, our scientific experts discover death, and a new report shows how thoroughly the lockdowns gutted the middle class. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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	You want the good news or the bad news?
	The good news first.
	The Supreme Court just handed conservatives a crucial win on an important question of religious liberty.
	All right.
	The bad news?
	The courts have been clobbering us at almost every turn.
	On top of that, a new report out of Harvard shows how the lockdown dramatically ramped up the rate at which conservatives are losing political power.
	And Joe Biden proves me right on Juneteenth.
	You know I hate to say I told you so.
	I'm Michael Knowles.
	This is The Michael Knowles Show.
	Welcome back to the show.
	My favorite comment yesterday from Jay Destef, who says, Biden telling Putin not to attack certain things is like the kid telling the bully, no swirlies or wedgies, but noogies are okay.
	That is true.
	And by the way, what happens when the kid tells the boogie, no swirlies or wedgies, but noogies are okay?
	The kid is going to get swirlies and wedgies.
	Biden doing that is just saying, hey, Vlad...
	Come on in here, buddy.
	That's what you got to attack.
	That guy, man, Joe Biden, he doesn't know what's going on at all.
	He probably doesn't know what time it is.
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	Good news out of the Supreme Court.
	I don't want to downplay it.
	This is good news.
	Fulton v.
	City of Philadelphia comes out yesterday.
	The question in this case was, can the city of Philadelphia force Catholic adoption agencies to give their orphans to same-sex couples?
	Obviously, the Catholic Church does not support that sort of thing.
	Catholic Church is the largest charity in the history of the world.
	Catholic Church does a lot of great work, particularly on adoption.
	But now that the government in the last few years has redefined the definition of marriage radically, they've tried to redefine reality by redefining the words, which happens to be the topic of my upcoming book, Speechless, Controlling Words, Controlling Minds, which is available for pre-order for the next four days.
	and then it will be available for order.
	But for right now, you can get a signed first edition copy of Premiere Collectibles.
	The government has redefined marriage radically.
	This puts the Catholic Church in a bad position because the established state church of secular liberalism is now quite at odds with the Catholic Church, with many Protestant denominations, with Jewish denominations.
	I know there are different forms of Judaism, with Muslims, with all sorts of groups who do not cotton to this sort of thing.
	So the Supreme Court had to answer this question.
	In the interest of equality and individual rights and the new definition of marriage, can the government force Catholic charities to give orphans to same-sex couples?
	The court ruled unanimously no.
	Frankly, regardless of what you think about the definition of marriage, it should terrify you.
	Regardless of what you think about the particulars of this case...
	If the government can come in and force any religious group, any non-profit whatsoever, to just violate some of its most basic beliefs, including in the way that they are giving children, orphans, to be housed, there is no limit to what the government can do.
	So the court ruled unanimously, nine to nothing, that the city of Philadelphia can't do that.
	Good stuff, right?
	That's a win.
	However, we got a bunch of losses at the court, too.
	Supreme Court ruled 7-2 to reject a challenge to Obamacare.
	This is now the third time the court has weighed in on Obamacare.
	This challenge came from Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and 17 other Republican attorneys general.
	The court rejected this, not on any question of the Obamacare law itself, so much as the question of standing.
	Do these attorneys general have standing to even bring the suit?
	The court said 7-2.
	No, they do not.
	This is just another time.
	The court has sort of changed its reasoning as to why it's going to uphold Obamacare.
	There have been many different reasons, some of which seem sort of contradictory.
	And actually, Clarence Thomas pointed that out in his opinion here, even though he did agree with the reasoning on this case.
	But Obamacare, here to stay, the court's just never going to do anything about it.
	And then at the lower courts, poor old Jack Phillips.
	You know our friend Jack Phillips?
	Who owns Masterpiece Cake Shop.
	He's been on this show.
	He hasn't been on it a while, but he's been on this show before.
	He is targeted by radical sexual revolutionaries who want to force him to make custom cakes for all sorts of purposes, not just same-sex wedding ceremonies, but also really radical stuff involving gender ideology, things that really violate his conscience and his religious beliefs.
	They target Jack Phillips not because he's the only baker in Colorado.
	There are actually very liberal left-wing bakers just down the street from him.
	They do it because they want to crack him.
	They don't want him to have the right to practice his religion.
	They keep dragging him to court, and a court just ruled against him.
	Colorado court ruled to punish Jack Phillips for refusing to design a cake that celebrates a gender transition.
	A gender transition, which is not a thing.
	It's not possible to go from a man and become a woman.
	This is...
	Impossible.
	This view of human nature violates Jack Phillips' beliefs.
	It happens to be incorrect as well.
	And the court said, nope.
	The state-established church of secular progressivism, the state-established church with the sacrament of gender transition will impose upon you this religious ritual and you've got to do it.
	I happen to think, as happy as I am about this Catholic adoption agency's case, I just think, guys, we're Our bar is a little too low here as conservatives.
	We are celebrating now that the state for now will not take orphans out of the hands of nuns and give them to same-sex couples against the wishes of the people running the orphanage.
	That, and to violate their religious views, which would effectively have to shut down all the adoption agencies, which is probably what the liberal establishment wants.
	That's our celebration.
	Whoopee!
	There was a case, as part of the Obamacare case yesterday, there were some conservatives who were actually gloating.
	They said, aha!
	You see, we were told, the liberals told us that if Amy Coney Barrett were confirmed to the court, she would be the decisive blow against Obamacare.
	But look, she voted to uphold Obamacare.
	That shows you libs.
	Yeah, we're going to uphold Obamacare to own the libs.
	Yeah, that's right.
	And you think, gosh, if we own the libs anymore, we're not going to have a country left.
	So that's not the sort of thing to celebrate, folks.
	Good.
	I'm glad that Catholic orphanages can continue to operate for now.
	Who knows how long that will last.
	But if that's victory and we've lost on every other issue, and if poor Jack Phillips has lost his life at this point, his livelihood rather, because now all he does is deal with these radical revolutionaries in court, then...
	Maybe we need to rethink our legal strategy.
	Maybe the conservative legal movement has not been particularly effective.
	The squishes really uphold this idea.
	The squishes love this idea that liberalism is a neutral playing ground.
	And look at the wonderful victories.
	The Catholic Church is still allowed to have adoption agencies for now.
	Well, I want a little bit more than that, folks.
	And I think we need to pay a little more attention to these cultural issues.
	Speaking of which, you know I've taken, I guess it's an unpopular position.
	Let me rephrase that.
	I've taken a position that is very popular among the American people, but is very unpopular among the media, among commentators, among politicians in the Democratic Party and in the Republican Party.
	Namely, Juneteenth should not be a federal holiday.
	I have a column up.
	It's a somewhat longer column at the Daily Wire.
	You can read my arguments for that.
	I've mentioned a few of them on the show here, but you can read that.
	That's up now and it's causing lots of controversy and consternation.
	But my main argument, the main thrust of my argument was this is not about recognizing the freeing of the slaves.
	The purpose of taking this local holiday from Galveston, Texas, and pretending that it's a very big, important national holiday, and then actually establishing it as our 11th annual national federal holiday is to create an alternative to Independence Day.
	And I knew this was happening.
	This was to create a holiday bereft of gratitude that's really focused on the resentment of our evil, terrible, rotten country.
	The title of the bill is the Juneteenth National Independence Day bill.
	It's right there in the title that it's an alternative to the 4th of July.
	During the debate over this in the House, so much of the Democratic debate focused on the evils of our country.
	And then Joe Biden signed it into law yesterday, and Joe Biden explained exactly...
	What I told you was going to happen.
	Juneteenth marks both the long, hard night of slavery and subjugation and a promise of a brighter morning to come.
	This is a day of profound, in my view, profound weight and profound power.
	A day in which we remember the moral stain, the terrible toll That slavery took on the country and continues to take.
	What I've long called America's original sin.
	At the same time, I also remember the extraordinary capacity to heal and to hope and to emerge from those painful moments in a bitter, bitter version of ourselves, but to make a better version of ourselves.
	The stain.
	This day is about remembering the stains of America, the original sin.
	But mind you, of course, slavery is not America's original sin.
	Original sin is America's original sin, but we don't have any words to talk about that anymore, I guess, in our moral discourse.
	This is a day to remember how terrible America is, how much pain slavery has inflicted on the country, and how much, in Biden's words, it continues to inflict on the country today.
	The only hope he's talking about It's not a day to celebrate victory.
	It's not the Emancipation Proclamation.
	It's not the 13th Amendment.
	It's this kind of weird, inconclusive, overdue day that we're memorializing that still isn't done.
	It's a day to revel in resentment.
	And that will be the reframing of American history.
	For those of you, I know that there are some people out there who are conservatives who say, this is a huge win for conservatives.
	Huh.
	We're celebrating the day the Republicans freed all those Democrat slaves.
	Uh-huh.
	Right.
	This is a great day.
	We're going to celebrate Abraham Lincoln.
	Are we?
	Is that what they're talking about?
	They're talking about celebrating Abraham Lincoln?
	You heard that from Joe Biden?
	No.
	If this Juneteenth National Independence Day is such a win for conservatives, how come all the people that pushed for it are Democrats?
	How come some conservatives are opposed to it right now and all the people celebrating it are Democrats?
	Why?
	Because they think it's such a big win for Republicans?
	Are they just mistaken?
	No.
	I think probably many Republicans are mistaken in not understanding the import of this day.
	I'm not talking about the local Galveston holiday.
	I'm talking about the national level.
	The new National Independence Day, it is a day for resentment.
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	Racial grievance has taken on such social currency.
	It may be the most valuable thing in the country right now.
	Grievance in general, sexual grievance, all sorts of grievance.
	Grievance is what the Juneteenth national holiday is about.
	I'm distinguishing it from the local tradition that in very few places people have celebrated.
	I'm talking about the national thing that even left-wing outlets like Salon.com admit just have not been known at a widespread level until very recently through the machinations of leftist activists.
	In Newark, New Jersey right now, People have erected a 700-pound statue of George Floyd.
	There is now a monument and a memorial to George Floyd.
	People are taking photos like he's a hero, like he's a saint.
	George Floyd was an unreformed career criminal who robbed pregnant women at gunpoint.
	He held a gun to a pregnant woman while his buddies robbed her.
	He died while resisting arrest for committing another crime.
	It's not even like, look, St.
	Paul was a murderer.
	People turned their lives around.
	This guy didn't.
	He was killed under these dubious circumstances and in a very, very problematic trial where you had political pressure all the way up to the President of the United States and threats of riots from congressmen.
	Eventually, they convicted him of murder, but I suspect they're going to have...
	Quite a lot to talk about on the appeal.
	But even so, sure, dubious circumstances, no question about it, lots of questions.
	The whole reason George Floyd was on the ground is because he asked to be taken out of the cop car.
	Why did he ask to be taken out of the cop car?
	Unclear.
	He was obviously very high on drugs at the time.
	But even the claim that the cop callously refused to get off of him, off of his neck, and then we learned it was actually also his shoulders, when he said, I can't breathe, is because he was saying I can't breathe before the cop ever really even touched him.
	I'm not saying that...
	We know that this was a justified arrest.
	We know exactly how he died.
	We really don't.
	Even though the court ruled, we know that there was a lot of pressure on that court, a lot of irregularities.
	But even so, let's say it was a totally unjustified killing.
	Let's say the guy was murdered.
	You erect a statue of an unreformed criminal?
	You only do that in a culture that values grievance, And racial resentment over virtue, sanctity, holiness, patriotism, courage, all of these sorts of things.
	Absolutely insane.
	But it's why it's happening now.
	This is the other point I make on the Juneteenth national holiday.
	If this is really just, oh, it's a great thing, we're just celebrating this holiday, it's been around forever, it's been around for a hundred years.
	I mean, no one's ever heard of it, but no, it's been around for so long, and what, you never heard of Juneteenth?
	Yeah, okay.
	Okay.
	Why now?
	Why is there this big push right now?
	Do you think it has to do with remembering the glories of the Union troops and Abraham Lincoln?
	Or do you think it has more to do with the racial resentment narrative that has cropped up and that has actually exploded, literally, onto the streets of our country, burning down city after city, notably during the BLM riots of 2020?
	What do you think it's more about?
	What do you think it's more about?
	Actually, I know what it's about, because people say, why are holidays created?
	Columbus Day was created in part for the 400th anniversary of the Great Explorer, in part because Italians the previous year had been the victims of the largest mass lynching in American history.
	So it was in part to seem to make amends to Italians.
	And I suspect that's what's going on here, is to make amends to black people in America.
	What will this accomplish?
	What will it do?
	What is the amend specifically for?
	I suspect it's...
	Not a whole lot has changed in the last several decades.
	I suspect what it's for is this canard of the epidemic of systemic white racism and the cops and the killers and the white supremacy is the greatest threat to America, whatever Merrick Garland told us.
	It's a false narrative that's being pushed.
	And Republicans, sadly, going along with it.
	Going along with it.
	Some...
	Very woke black people, though.
	I mean woke in the best sense of that term.
	Recognize that this racial narrative is just garbage.
	It's trash.
	It needs to be rejected.
	It is insidious and it's harmful to black people themselves.
	Like this man who recently spoke at an Illinois school board meeting.
	He said, you think that I'm being kept down by the white man?
	Well, if I'm being kept down by the white man, then how am I so successful?
	You talk about critical race theory, which is pretty much going to be teaching kids how to hate each other, how to dislike each other.
	That's pretty much what it's going to all come down to.
	You're going to deliberately teach kids, this white kid right here got it better than you because he's white?
	You're going to purposely tell a white kid, oh, the black people are all down and suppressed.
	How do I have two medical degrees if I'm sitting here oppressed?
	How do I get...
	First of all, wait.
	Time up.
	We've only got five minutes now.
	Five minutes.
	Two medical degrees.
	No mom, no dad in the house.
	Worked my way through college.
	Sat there and hustled my butt off to get through college.
	You gonna tell me somebody that looked like all y'all white folks kept me from doing that?
	Are you serious?
	Not one white person ever came to me and said, well, son, you're never gonna be able to get nowhere because you know the black people.
	But guess what?
	What's sickening about this whole thing is what y'all doing right now is already something I do in my community right now to speak out against it because black folks are getting told by other black folks, oh you know you ain't going to be able to do nothing out there in the world because those white folks ain't going to let you get no, oh you know you're not going to be able to do it because the white man, the white man going to keep you down.
	Well how did I get where I am right now if some white man kept me down?
	How am I now directing over folks that look just like you guys in this room right now?
	How?
	What kept me down?
	What oppressed me?
	What oppressed me?
	You know, there was one time I was giving a speech at a college in Los Angeles.
	And it was me and Drew giving the speech.
	And at one point, a group of entirely black students come into the room with duct tape over their mouths.
	And some of it said silenced or whatever.
	Some of it was just the tape.
	And they obviously didn't know anything about me or Drew or the Young America's Foundation, which was hosting it.
	And it was just that usual canard that anybody that opposes radical leftism is a racist and a bigot and a terrible person.
	And so they also had no idea what we were talking about.
	So I said, hey...
	We've got these microphones up here.
	You seem to be under the impression that you're silenced.
	So does anybody want to come up here and talk?
	Do any of you guys with the tape on your face want to come talk?
	Because I've got a microphone.
	You can make whatever point you want or ask whatever question you want.
	I'm happy to talk about it.
	Nobody would do it.
	They didn't have anything to say.
	You might say they were speechless.
	It's the title of my upcoming book, Speechless, Controlling Words, Controlling Minds, which is available for pre-order, but not for much longer.
	They were silenced.
	They had put the tape over their own mouths.
	I asked them that question.
	I said, who put that tape on your mouth?
	Was it the white man?
	Was it the system?
	Was it the powers that be?
	No, of course not.
	It was they themselves who had done it.
	Now, this guy, this father who was speaking at the school board meeting, absolutely right about this pernicious ideology, critical race theory.
	It's just awful.
	We talk about how it's anti-white racism, so that's bad.
	Bad for white people.
	Also bad for black people because it creates this culture of victimhood and grievance that will not serve anybody well.
	Speaking of educational decline, I had to read to you a headline from a new study.
	It shows you how stupid we've gotten in this world.
	This was from The Guardian.
	Headline.
	Aging process is unstoppable, finds unprecedented study.
	Immortality and everlasting youth are the stuff of myths, according to new research.
	New research, which may finally end the eternal debate about whether we can live forever.
	How much, oh my gosh, how much money do you think these researchers wasted undertaking this shocking, unprecedented study that found out that men are mortal?
	You idiots!
	Oh my gosh!
	I've heard this from some of my kind of futurist friends.
	Generally, they're more of my liberal friends who say, you know, we're going to find the cure to death.
	We are probably within our lifetimes.
	Maybe we'll just miss it, but they're going to cure death.
	We're going to figure out the way to solve all the ailments of age, and we're going to live forever.
	And I thought, you know, pharaohs, evil geniuses, dictators...
	Billionaires, they've all sort of tried at this, and it's always very foolish.
	This is the stuff of myth and legend.
	We want to live forever, and part of the human condition is coming to grips with this apparent tragedy that we will die, the fact of our own mortality.
	One may have life everlasting, but you're not going to find it in this mortal coil.
	We no longer even know that.
	Our scientific geniuses no longer even know that man is a mortal being.
	What else do they not know?
	They don't know anything about men But you know, there are some things I know for certain about men.
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	There's really bad political news that has come out of the coronavirus lockdowns.
	Obviously, we've lost a lot of our political rights.
	They shut down churches for a long time.
	They completely overhauled the election procedures to take away a lot of voter integrity measures.
	There are a lot of political problems, okay, with the lockdowns.
	But the biggest political problem for conservatives is that it has eroded the political power of our main constituency on the right.
	There was a new report that just came out yesterday.
	It used data from Harvard, Brown, and the Gates Foundation.
	Showed that the COVID-19 lockdowns had a far worse effect on middle-class Americans than on very rich Americans.
	So back in January and March 2021, Americans earning above $60,000 a year observed a 2.4% overall increase in employment.
	They actually increased their employment, right?
	Workers earning below $60,000 a year And workers earning below $27,000 a year saw a 4.5% and 23.6% decrease in their employment, respectively.
	So the lowest classes are getting hit very, very hard as well.
	But the thing that we've got to worry about is the middle classes.
	The rich go up.
	The poor, the quite poor, don't forget, have access to government programs and more stimulus and more unemployment.
	But the middle class gets squeezed.
	The middle class traditionally has been the conservative constituency.
	The lowest classes tend to be easy prey for Democrats to promise them goodies.
	The upper classes are part of the ruling regime.
	They tend to go for the Democrats.
	But the middle, that's where the conservatives thrive.
	And the middle is getting squeezed.
	Really, really squeezed.
	This has been true since the 70s, at least, and it's getting worse and worse and worse.
	And conservatives are ignoring this at their own peril.
	There has been much talk of the Great Reset.
	You know, what is the Great Reset?
	Well, this is not a conspiracy theory in as much as many world leaders have used this very phrase.
	They've said that we need to build back better and come out of the pandemic stronger in a new economy that's better for global warming and better for international cooperation, whatever.
	whatever nonsense.
	They are explicit in their goal of revolutionizing society.
	There's nothing new.
	That didn't start with the pandemic.
	That's been going on for a long time.
	And the key to that is going to be to breaking down the intermediating institutions and political blocks that are stopping them from taking more and more and more power.
	And so much of that is going to be in the middle class.
	Any successful conservative political movement in this country, it's not going to be shilling for billionaires.
	It's just not.
	It's good when billionaires donate money to help us win campaigns, but it's not going to be shilling for billionaires.
	It's not going to be shilling for multinational corporations.
	It's not going to be winning over the most destitute of the destitute.
	It won't.
	We want to welcome everybody into our party, but just as a practical political matter, it's going to be in the middle.
	And if it's not in the middle, then we're just going to lose.
	Lots of our rights are being taken away right now.
	Mark and Patricia McCloskey, you remember them?
	They should be the cover of the Brooks Brothers catalog, as far as I'm concerned.
	The guy wearing the...
	It actually was a Brooks Brothers shirt.
	Wearing a pink polo shirt, nice chinos, holding his AR-15.
	His wife with that little...
	What is that?
	Like a Walter PPK or something?
	It's a little like James Bond gun.
	Standing out when the BLM rioters busted through their property.
	They've now pled guilty to misdemeanors and had to surrender their weapons to St.
	Louis authorities.
	Think about how crazy they charged him with felonies and they just had to plead it down.
	The McCloskeys did nothing wrong.
	They could use a little better trigger discipline, but they did nothing wrong.
	Armed criminals busted onto their property, broke some of their property, threatened their lives.
	These two pull out their weapons to make sure they never even fire their weapons.
	And they're the ones getting in trouble.
	The BLM terrorists and criminals, they get off scot-free.
	The McCloskeys, who are mostly responsibly exercising their Second Amendment rights, they don't.
	They have to plead guilty to crimes that they did not commit.
	And they need to surrender their weapons and their Second Amendment right.
	Fake atrocities, very important.
	Namely, exercising your Second Amendment right.
	Real atrocities, like someone busting onto your property and threatening your life, are ignored.
	Or even realer atrocities, more significant atrocities, like killing a million babies a year through abortion, ignored.
	Nancy Pelosi was just asked this question.
	Pelosi pretends to be a practicing Catholic sometimes.
	She is an ardent defender of abortion.
	This has become a big issue now with a nominally Catholic president who nevertheless breaks with the church, disobeys the church on very important matters.
	So this has been a big debate among bishops.
	Do they punish these scandalous, heretical, sometimes apostate Catholics?
	Do they formally excommunicate them or anything like that?
	Pelosi was just asked about this issue of abortion.
	Her answer, pretty weak sauce.
	The Supreme Court this fall will review a Mississippi law that bans most abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy.
	Is an unborn baby at 15 weeks of human being?
	Let me just say that I'm a big supporter of Roe B. Wade.
	I am a mother of five children in six years.
	I think I have some standing on this issue as to respecting a woman's right to choose.
	Is it a human being?
	Yes.
	What kind of an answer was that?
	That wasn't an answer at all.
	I like the reporter saying, no, I'm just asking, is it a human being?
	Obviously, she won't answer that.
	Her answer is, the question, of course, is, do you support being able to kill babies in the womb?
	She goes, well, I've had five kids, so I think I've got a lot of standing here.
	As if to say, hey, Nancy Pelosi, should it be legal to kill people?
	Well, I have not killed many people.
	There are many people that I have not killed, so I think I'm something of an authority on this question.
	What are you talking about?
	That doesn't mean anything.
	But she just ignores the question and moves on.
	And there's no scandal here among her constituents and among the powers that be.
	Speaking of killers, I want to get to this before we get to the mailbag.
	Vladimir Putin was just asked a question, point blank, by NBC News.
	Are you a killer?
	A lot of Putin critics wind up dead.
	Are you a killer?
	His answer, there's a lot there.
	There's a lot there.
	The late John McCain in Congress called you a killer.
	When President Trump was asked, was told that you are a killer, he didn't deny it.
	When President Biden was asked whether he believes you are a killer, he said, I do.
	Mr.
	Mr. President, are you a kinder?
	Look, over my tenure I've gotten used to attacks from all kinds of angles, from all kinds of directions under all kinds of pretexts and reasons and of different caliber and fierceness.
	And none of it surprises me.
	People with whom I work and with whom I argue on the international arena, we're not bride and groom.
	We don't swear everlasting love and friendship.
	We are partners.
	And in some areas, we are rivals.
	As far as harsh rhetoric, I think that this is an expression of overall U.S. culture.
	So the reporter pushes him.
	He says, you didn't answer the question.
	And then he goes, and then he just kind of gives more of the same theory that he has here of the way that the U.S. and Russia relate.
	Forget about the actual political question for a second.
	It's quite clear that Vladimir Putin has killed his critics.
	Here's the important rhetorical lesson that we should all learn from Vladimir Putin.
	Because the guy's a very effective politician.
	Not saying we need to learn the substantive stuff, but the rhetorical stuff, the technical stuff we should learn.
	Do not answer your enemy's loaded questions.
	Do not give in to their premises.
	This is the subject you might know.
	This is one of the most important lessons you may have heard.
	In my upcoming book, Speechless Controlling Words, Controlling Minds.
	It is available now for pre-order for four more days.
	Thank you to everybody who has pre-ordered.
	The numbers are really, really strong on the pre-order.
	I suspect that there are going to be a lot of places, not just on the left.
	But on the squishy right, even very powerful places on the squishy right that are going to try to ignore this book because it contradicts a lot of their loser strategy and loser rhetoric, and there are a lot of court jester conservatives out there who are going to try to ignore this.
	So I appreciate all of you pre-ordering.
	I know a number of people have pre-ordered multiple copies even.
	That's great.
	The signed first edition.
	There is obviously, you can get it on Amazon or Barnes& Noble.
	And there is the audio book as well, which is read by moi, by yours truly.
	I really want to stick one to the squishes, so I appreciate that.
	And you can order that right now.
	Now, also Amazon, you know, removed the historic and moving documentary, which they took down during none other than Black History Month, of Clarence Thomas.
	How do you remove a Clarence Thomas documentary during Black History Month?
	Well, The Daily Wire has decided to step in and acquire the North American streaming rights.
	So, because we're in the movies now.
	So right now you will be able to add Created Equal, this is the Clarence Thomas documentary, to your Daily Wire queue.
	Take a quick peek at the trailer.
	I was never going to be white.
	The problem is I can never go back completely to the world I came from.
	I saw what I had become and I asked God if you take anger out of my heart I'll never hate again.
	You're not really black because you're not doing what we expect black people to do.
	That's when all heck broke loose.
	So you'd still like to serve on the Supreme Court?
	I'd rather die than withdraw from the process.
	That's great.
	I'm so glad we did this.
	I actually, coincidentally, I met the guy who made this movie on an Amtrak train.
	I did.
	Not Joe Biden.
	Not Amtrak Joe.
	Certainly not Joe Biden.
	Joe Biden was actually an important figure in this movie.
	So you can go stream Created Equal live tonight at 9 p.m.
	Eastern, 8 p.m.
	Central at dailywire.com.
	If you're not yet a Daily Wire member, join with code JUSTICE for 20% off your membership.
	Get this Clarence Thomas documentary and all our other great content, like our talk show Candace, our first movie, Run, Hide, Fight, and a whole lot more on demand.
	We'll be right back with the mailbag.
	Welcome back to the show.
	My favorite time of the week, The Mailbag.
	First question from Camille.
	Dear Michael, I heard your mailbag last week about a guy expressing his feelings and reaching out to a girl he knew while having a girlfriend.
	I'm in a similar situation.
	Well, I agree that if he doesn't break up with his girlfriend, he's just trying to have his cake and eat it too.
	If the girl feels the same, should she try to pursue it in a way that is not amoral?
	I personally know married couples who met where one of them was already in another committed relationship.
	At what point do you just give up because they're not single?
	And at what point do you try?
	Sincerely, Jack.
	This was actually going to be my advice, and that's the way you signed the letter.
	Sincerely, just because there's a goalie doesn't mean you can't score.
	Score in a moral way, obviously.
	Yes, this is a very good point.
	Today, we erase all the distinctions between...
	Local, state, and federal government.
	Between friendships and relationships, romantic relationships.
	Between dating and marriage, and it's all just kind of fluid, man.
	But look, if someone is not yet married, then that opens up certain more opportunities to pursue those people than someone who is married.
	Then that person's really off limits.
	But before that, the guy ain't married yet, okay?
	Yes, I think it's important to go after what you want, as long as what you want is a good thing.
	And when people are dating, they're just dating.
	And they can pursue other options.
	But I suppose what I'm saying for these people who, they've got a girlfriend or a boyfriend, but they're actively pursuing someone else on the side...
	Is eventually, they've got to make a decision.
	And really, before anything happens, I don't think they should be really, you know, really exploring all of those options to the fullest physical extent, or even to the fullest emotional extent, for that matter, until they make a decision.
	Because otherwise, you are in a situation where you're You're getting someone who is compromising their character, right?
	When a man cheats on his wife, or when a man leaves his wife for his mistress, what happens?
	You get a job opening, is what happens.
	You think that's not going to happen again?
	It probably will.
	So you need to be prudent, not just for the objective moral questions involved in the relationship that currently exists, but even just for you.
	You want to make sure...
	I think it's totally fine.
	If people are dating other people and then they decide they don't want to date those people anymore and they want to date each other, okay, that's fine.
	But...
	That's a very tricky thing to do.
	do.
	You've got to make sure that no one's compromising their own character while they do it.
	From Weston.
	Hello, Michael.
	Most austere and religious podcaster and prodigious prognosticator who leaves his listeners speechless, controlling words, controlling minds.
	I'm a 23-year-old guy, and my issue is that I'm one of the 102% of men who are dealing with addictions to porn.
	It has seriously harmed my perceptions and relationships of and with women.
	My subconscious standards are a messed up conflation of a good Catholic woman.
	My question, besides prayers to the Trinity and all the angels and saints, how do I get to the point where I have a healthier perception of women and sexuality and how could I manifest that in my relationship with women in general and hopefully with a woman in a more intimate relationship?
	Thanks.
	First step, cut out the porn.
	I know, easier said than done.
	It's like saying to a heroin addict, hey, just put down the needle.
	But just do it.
	You can do that.
	One can persevere, certainly with God's grace and also with the cultivation of virtue, which might take a long time.
	Tools that will help you on this path, if you are Catholic, I suspect you are from the question.
	And even if you're not Catholic, I would recommend trying to find something like this, even if you don't swim all the way across the Tiber.
	Namely, go to confession.
	When you go to confession, count your sins.
	Name them and count them.
	It is a humiliating thing.
	Not just on sex stuff, on all sorts of things.
	It's humiliating to name and count your sins.
	That's the point.
	That's the point.
	One, you want to confess this, not just in your own mind, not just in the privacy of this very, very individualistic liberal religion that has taken over much of the West over the last couple hundred years, but to another person on your knees that will really do something.
	And it will create this practical benefit of you not wanting to commit that sin again so that you don't need to tell the priest.
	And you should abstain from receiving the Eucharist until you do that.
	There are other things you can do.
	Wherever you commit, wherever you look at the porn, wherever you, just don't spend a lot of time there.
	This is the idea of the near occasion of sin.
	Just don't do it.
	This is true not just of porn, it's true of anything you fall into.
	If there are places where you are more likely to fall into that sin, if there are people with whom you are more likely to fall into that sin, then avoid those places and avoid those people.
	Then, when you do commit a sin, again, it's not just sex stuff, it's any kind of sin, do not take that as an excuse to commit it a hundred million more times.
	You know, in for a penny, in for a pound, right?
	No, that's not how that works.
	Then, I would recommend some kind of sacramentals, even.
	I mean, now we're getting really Catholic here, I guess, but some Catholics will wear things, like a scapular.
	A scapular is a couple pieces of cloth on a string.
	You wear it around you.
	It's similar to the kind of broader scapular of people who are in monastic orders.
	Some people wear a little crucifix, a little cross on your neck, a medal.
	These things will just remind you.
	I don't know if you have icons or anything in your home.
	These things will just remind you.
	I'm speaking in a very practical, tangible way.
	You will not be quite as inclined to commit those sins when you've got a physical reminder there that you really should not be doing that.
	That's the first step.
	You are not going to do this in the recesses of your own mind.
	You are going to do this through faith.
	Real practice in the physical world.
	There's a good book that I would recommend you read as well called The Spiritual Combat by Dom Lorenzo Scupoli.
	Really, really good book.
	It was written hundreds and hundreds of years ago, and it's very, very good on these points.
	Next question.
	But you know when you should read that book?
	You should read it after you read another book.
	I'm...
	I'm going to save the bell for now.
	I think you know what I'm talking about.
	From Nick.
	Hey, Michael.
	Me again.
	Oh, Nick.
	Oh, my God.
	Yes, I remember you, Nick.
	Thanks for the advice last week on the...
	Yeah, here it is.
	Thanks for the advice on the astrology chicks.
	I'm no longer seeing any of those women who collect crystals and whose apartments smell like a party city on Halloween.
	However, by eliminating those others, I'm now with a woman...
	I'm glad you've narrowed it down to one.
	With a separate potential issue...
	I knew that when we started dating, she was bi, and I thought that it could be fun because liking hot women is a common ground that we share.
	But now I'm wondering if it will become an issue if we get more serious.
	Sincerely, is two company and three a crowd?
	Nick, you live an interesting life, my friend.
	You know, I suspect it's not all that different from the lives of many millennials and Gen Zers, but...
	The fact that this woman that you have started dating has had some interesting desires or perhaps experiences in her life is not disqualifying in itself.
	That's true of everybody.
	And I suppose that is common ground.
	Liking hot women would be something you have in common with her.
	However, in your life right now, dating this woman...
	Three is a crowd.
	You know, a lot of my friends are libs, and some of them are pretty radical out there.
	And I do know people who have been involved in all sorts of crazy relationships with more than two people and all that sort of stuff.
	It doesn't work out.
	I've never seen it work out.
	Certainly not before they stop doing all that sort of stuff.
	Do not do it.
	This girl sounds eccentric and interesting, and she should be enough for you.
	And you should be enough for her, frankly.
	And if you're not, then tell her to go take a walk.
	From James.
	Hi, Michael.
	An old girlfriend of mine and I.
	These were all relationships.
	Relationship questions today.
	An old girlfriend of mine and I are friends on Facebook.
	Today she announced to the world that she was a member of the LGBT, L-M-N-O-P, one, two, three, yeah.
	Apparently she's demisexual, complete with a pride flag.
	According to Wikipedia, demisexual people do not experience sexual attraction to another unless they have formed a strong emotional bond with that person.
	This sounds an awful lot like what a relationship used to be.
	Meet the person, date the person, fall in love with the person, then become intimate rather than swipe right, be intimate, then decide if you want a relationship.
	Is this just another way for people to jump on the LGBT bandwagon?
	thanks.
	Yes, it's a way for people to feel special.
	It's a way for people who are in a culture that has rejected the thing that actually makes them special, namely that they are made in the image of God and have human dignity and are, in Aristotle's words, the political animal because they have speech.
	No, not yet.
	But some books talk about this.
	They reject that, you know, that ultimate sort of divine spark of man that is reflected in man.
	And they try to just find things about themselves.
	But a man wrapped up in himself makes a very small package indeed.
	And yes, this ex-girlfriend of yours is now saying that she's really special and she's, you know, oppressed and she's eccentric because she's A normal woman who doesn't just engage in casual sex in the same way that men do and doesn't enjoy it as much.
	That was one of the lies of second wave feminism, is that women relate to sex in the same way that men do.
	It's not true.
	Frankly, I assume that it was just men looking to get laid who came up with second wave feminism because it gave them such an advantage in that department and convinced women to work against their own interests.
	But no, I suspect all women, deep down, Just about.
	Are demisexuals.
	And your ex-girlfriend is special, but not for that reason.
	From Margo.
	Michael, sweetheart!
	That's my name, don't wear it out.
	Margo, nice to hear from you.
	I am interested in your opinion on the log cabin Republicans movement within the conservative party and the conservative movement.
	In a previous episode of your show, you talked about how it's difficult to be both transgender and conservative.
	What about those who are gay and also consider themselves to be conservative?
	Shouldn't conservatives be united in conserving traditional values, especially regarding marriage and sexuality?
	Insert shameless plug.
	Now, okay, I don't think this is going to count for a ding because Margo's writing.
	Insert shameless plug for speechless, controlling words, controlling minds here.
	Ding.
	God bless your number one fangirl, Margo.
	Great, great question, Margo, and great to hear from you.
	I think there is a distinction to be had here between transgender men who believe that they're women conservatives and homosexual conservatives.
	Namely, if you're a homosexual, you are expressing your sexual desires in a way that may transgress the moral order, in a way that may transgress tradition, in a way that in an older time would have transgressed social mores, though I guess today it would not.
	But you are not exactly denying reality.
	And you are not forcing others to deny reality.
	You might say that they are denying the reality of the moral order, sure.
	I mean, fine.
	But the transgender movement is explicitly denying reality.
	And is coercing all the other people in the conservative movement to deny reality as well with the pronouns and calling people Caitlin when their real name is Bruce or whatever.
	So I do think there is a difference here.
	Now, there are some squishy conservatives who have said with regard to the log cabin, That conservatives need to be totally on board and they have to abandon whatever moral or religious objections they have to certain sexual acts.
	And they have to embrace the new definition of marriage and there's nothing greater than that.
	We all need to wave the pride flag.
	I think that's preposterous, okay?
	Obviously that's not true.
	However, if understanding these deep moral issues, if understanding that people have different views of sex...
	Margot, I know you're a Catholic.
	You know that I'm a Catholic.
	The Catholic view of sex is fairly restrictive.
	It's not just homosexuals who don't get to do that sort of thing, but many, many other sexual acts are just not permitted.
	And the same would be true in Islam.
	The same would be true in other religions, too.
	If there are people who say, you know...
	I have these sexual preferences.
	By my own lights, I've really determined that I think this is okay and this is how I'm going to live my life.
	And I know that you don't approve of some of these things, but that doesn't bother me and we get along and we actually are trying to oppose the radical left and we are trying to advance a political agenda that we can work on together.
	Well, I think that's great.
	I'm all for that.
	I'm not for one of the people who says that we need to excise Log Cabin or excise all sorts of people.
	From the conservative movement.
	Just so long as it is not a requirement that we all go along and we all give up our deeply held moral and religious views.
	The issue of transgenderism is just, there's no getting around it.
	We are going to have to use he or we are going to have to use she and that's the way it is.
	One last question from Nate.
	Hey Michael!
	My name is Nate.
	I'm currently going through a divorce two years after my marriage due to an unfaithful wife.
	We have no kids and I love her with all my heart but can't get past the betrayal.
	I need all the advice I can get.
	Please give me some advice that will help me through this difficult time.
	So sorry to hear that.
	That's a really horrible, horrible thing that you are going through.
	This actually ties in with the previous question because I know that...
	I know that these days, all sort of the Christian view of sex, for some reason, surrounds this issue of homosexuality or transgenderism or something.
	But it's really not about that.
	What I would urge you to do, if you can, is try to save the marriage.
	Assuming it was a valid marriage in the first place, which I don't know, I would urge you to try to say that even going through that horrible, horrible thing, I suspect that would be better in the long run.
	Marriages have survived infidelity.
	It's a horrible, horrible thing.
	But that's the first thing I would encourage you to do if you can go through some sort of couples therapy or talk to a priest or that sort of thing.
	You know, it's easier to fix things than to build them anew, and it's easier to destroy things than it is to build.
	That's one of the big lessons of the left and the right.
	So I can pray for you, though, and I hope that you can repair this thing that seems like it's strongly broken.
	All right.
	That's true of our whole country.
	I hope we can repair this thing that seems quite broken.
	I'm Michael Knowles.
	This is the Michael Knowles Chassis on Monday.
	Speechless.
	Here it comes.
	Uh-oh, no!
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