Ep. 890 - If You Ain't Cheating You Ain't A Democrat
MSNBC harasses jurors in the Rittenhouse trial; Ron DeSantis trolls journalists in Brandon, Florida; and Biden tries to put a communist in charge of our currency.
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As the jurors in the Kyle Rittenhouse trial remain in a stalemate, reportedly not over the evidence so much as over fear for their lives, MSNBC dispatched a producer to follow the jurors' bus, presumably to uncover more about their identities.
The judge in that case did not, as you might expect, take too kindly to the legacy media's efforts to harass the jurors.
Police, when they stopped him because he was following in a distance of about a block and went through a red light, pulled him over and inquired of him what was going on and he gave that information and stated that he had been instructed by Ms.
Bayon in New York to follow the jury bus.
The matter is under further investigation at this point.
And the media has asked questions about it.
That's the latest I have.
And he was ticketed for violating a traffic control signal.
He's not here today from what I'm told.
And I have instructed that no one from MSNBC News will be permitted in this building for the duration of this trial.
Love that.
Absolutely right.
How can anyone expect a fair and impartial verdict in this case with that kind of intimidation?
Not just from the activists outside, but the activists who pretend to be journalists.
No matter how weak the prosecution's arguments, no matter how strong the defense's case, no matter how clear the evidence, the jurors fear for their lives.
And with good reason.
I'm Michael Knowles.
This is The Michael Knowles Show.
Welcome back to the show.
My favorite comment yesterday is from Steve Mikkel, who says, everyone takes a beating sometimes is known as the Goodfellas statute.
Very well-known law.
This is true.
And the prosecution, which made that argument, that everybody takes a beating sometimes...
Is acting like a bunch of gangsters.
And we all see it.
We all see that the evidence is on Kyle Rittenhouse's side.
We all see that all the pressure and intimidation is on the side of the prosecution.
But the fact is, the jurors are people.
They're people who have to go about and live their lives.
And they're people with families.
And they might succumb to that kind of intimidation.
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NBC News, which obviously owns MSNBC. NBC News sent out a very curious, non-denial denial about the incident with the jurors bust.
Take a listen to this.
This apparent denial, which I think is anything but.
Quote, last night a freelancer received a traffic citation.
While the traffic violation took place near the jury van, the freelancer never contacted or intended to contact the jurors during deliberations and never photographed or intended to photograph them, NBC News said in a statement.
We regret the incident and will fully cooperate with the authorities on any investigation.
Okay, hold on.
Hold on a second here.
If you did nothing wrong, then why do you regret the incident?
We did nothing wrong, but we regret the incident.
Why?
Because you're admitting that you did do something wrong.
It was a freelancer who received a traffic citation.
Why are you trying to put distance between yourself and your employee?
Who you're saying, look, he was working as a freelancer.
Right, a freelancer who was apparently working at your direction.
No, no, it's a freelancer.
It's not us.
Okay.
He just received a traffic citation.
Okay, what was the traffic citation for?
Why was he being pulled over in the first place?
The freelancer never contacted or intended to contact the jurors during deliberations.
There you go.
There are the two words that show you that these guys are guilty as can be.
During deliberations.
No one ever said he was going to contact them during deliberations is back when they're at the courthouse.
Obviously, if he's chasing their bus, he's not going to be contacting them during deliberations.
The problem is he's contacting them outside of the deliberations.
And you know it, and you lying hacks, you dishonest NBC News journalists, you're admitting it here.
Those two words are the proof.
Yeah, we sent one of our operatives to go harass the jurors, to find out more about their identities, probably to dox them, at the very least to pressure them to throw this kid in the can, even though all the evidence is on his side.
That's what went on, and NBC News, tacitly at least, admitted it.
Meanwhile, the prosecution is now admitting that they sent the defense...
Weaker evidence than they had.
You remember this issue of the videotape.
There was drone footage of the interaction between Kyle Rittenhouse and the Antifa thugs who were trying to kill him.
And there was a difference in the quality of the video.
The prosecution had extremely high quality HD video.
At least three times more clear than the defense had, which was this grainy kind of video.
It looked like it was filmed on a Nokia flip phone.
So, initially, the prosecution said, no, no, no, it's not our fault, it's the defense's fault.
It's their iPhone, or their Android, or their computer.
They're the ones whose technology messed up the video.
Then the defense came back and said, that's BS. It's got a different file name than the file you had.
So, obviously, it happened when you sent the file.
It has nothing to do with our computers.
It has everything to do with what you guys did.
So now...
The prosecution is making the opposite argument.
They're saying, oh no, it was actually the guy who sent it to us.
That's why the footage was different for the prosecution and for the defense.
What happened?
When Detective Howard obtained the video, he airdropped it to my phone, which is a lossless type procedure, or at least it didn't change anything.
At some point, I emailed it to myself, which did not change anything.
It has the file name, the long file name.
I did ask Detective Howard to email it to me as well.
Then it had the IMG file name that Attorney Wisco received.
So somehow in this Detective Howard transmitting it to everyone.
If it was emailed, it was compressed.
If he airdropped it, it was complete.
And that was not known by anyone until a few days ago on Friday.
So let me get this straight.
Your first story is that it was the fault of the defense computers.
And then when that was shown to be BS, you blame it on the only other person that you could blame it on other than taking responsibility yourself.
And what you're saying happened is that the video man airdropped it to you, so you had the perfect quality video.
Then you emailed it to yourself, and then you separately had him email it to the defense.
And whoopsie-daisy, the videos that got emailed were of lower quality than the one that was airdropped.
So one, why did you email it to yourself?
If you were not going to forward it to the defense, and you already had the video file airdropped, the high-quality video file, why did you then separately have Mr.
Video Man send it to the defense?
Why were you making sure?
And if you emailed it to yourself to forward it to the defense, then why didn't you just send them the airdrop?
There seem to be one or two extra steps in here that mean that this does not pass the smell test.
I never want to attribute to malice that which is equally explained just as well by stupidity.
And the prosecution has exhibited a lot of stupidity here.
But I think they're also exhibiting some malice.
I think they're also exhibiting some corruption.
I think they're changing their story a little bit too much.
I think they're making legal arguments that are so bogus that if they're being made in earnest, you should probably be disbarred.
The prosecutor should.
Or they're being made disingenuously.
I don't buy it.
Does not pass the smell test for one single second.
It's wrong.
It's wrong what they're doing.
So why don't we have a verdict yet?
We don't have a verdict, I think, because the jurors rightly are afraid for their lives.
There are reports coming out, again, who knows if they're true, that it's a deadlocked jury.
And so, I suspect it's not because the evidence is so clear.
Kyle was completely acting in self-defense.
The whole narrative that we were told by the media, by the state, turned out not to be true.
The prosecution's case was undermined by the prosecution's own witnesses.
Like the guy Grosskreutz, who said, yeah, I actually, Kyle only shot at me after I was coming at him with the gun.
Devastating to the prosecution's case.
But the fact is that the jury ought to fear for their lives.
This whole trial started in the first place because leftist activists burned down Kenosha.
The last time they didn't get a movement of the criminal justice system that they wanted, right?
Remember the cop shot that degenerate Jacob Blake?
Rightly so, absolutely rightly so.
He probably should have shot him sooner.
And the left didn't like that, so they burned the city down.
And then Kyle Rittenhouse showed up, and then he killed these Antifa guys who were trying to kill him, and now we're on trial.
Now it's going to be a vicious cycle.
I don't think that this trial, I said there are two trials going on, the trial in the court of law and the trial in the court of public opinion.
Well, I don't think that the verdict is necessarily going to come down to right or wrong.
I think it's going to come down to self-preservation for a lot of these jurors.
When, of course, it should come down to right.
Just a further weakening of our trust in the criminal justice system.
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Speaking of right and wrong, Governor Ron DeSantis gave a speech yesterday, press conference to reporters, when he was asked about his prohibitions on vaccine mandates in Florida.
his protection of people's rights and freedoms in Florida.
He gave one of the most perceptive answers on conservatism, on our political rights, on what freedom really is.
One of the most perceptive answers I have ever heard from a politician.
Take a listen.
There has never been a federal vaccine mandate imposed on the general public.
I hear people talk about, you know, they do things in the military.
Yeah, when I was in the military, they used to give me all kinds of stuff.
Honestly, I wish I would have thought a little bit, but I mean, whatever it was.
But that's much different than regulating the military and then imposing it on civilians in society.
It's never been done before.
They don't have the power to do it.
There's no federal police power.
States have the police power.
So that's from a constitutional perspective.
It is worlds, worlds apart.
Now, some people say, hey, these local governments wanted to lock down businesses.
They wanted to force mandates.
They wanted to keep the kids locked out of school.
Yeah, you're damn right I overruled them on that because they were wrong.
And the fact of the matter is, you don't have the right to do wrong.
The fact of the matter is, you don't have the right to do wrong.
That is one of the most perceptive, insightful observations about American government and the nature of liberty itself that I have ever heard from a politician.
You don't have the right to do wrong.
The typical Republican answer that you would have heard for the past 20 years is, well, look, people have the right to do whatever they want.
If people want to do something crazy with their bodies, if people want to do something crazy and it doesn't violate the certain limits of some constitutional interpretation, then that's totally their right.
I don't agree with it, but it's their right.
The squishy Republican answer would be, you do have the right to do wrong.
The correct answer is you do not have the right to do wrong.
This is why some of the squishy Republicans will say, look, we're not going to have government mandates for the vaccine, but if a private business wants to, that's totally cool.
Private business can do whatever they, they have the right to do whatever they want, even a bunch of wrong stuff.
No, they don't.
No, they don't.
You don't have the right to do wrong.
This is something about Ron DeSantis that is powerful.
He talks like a linebacker and kind of looks like a linebacker, right?
He's just this big guy who's like, look, okay, when I was in the military, right, he reminds you I was in the military.
When I was in the military, they shot me with all kinds of stuff.
It's pretty stupid.
I actually kind of wish I hadn't done that.
But anyway, I did that, right, and he just talks in this very blunt, down-to-earth way.
But then he'll say something that is philosophically extraordinarily sophisticated.
You do not have the right to do wrong.
So, because he has that philosophical premise, he's gotten everything right about COVID in Florida.
And so those just seem like very pragmatic, practical, no, we're not going to force masks, we're not going to force vaccine, we're not going to let businesses force these sorts of things.
But it's because he's got real philosophical clarity here, and I think this is the reason that he's doing very well in the pre-potential running for president type of thing, is because Ron DeSantis is where the new right is, which is much less libertarian, and it's much more conservative.
This is why he's doing well.
Now, if Donald Trump runs for president again, it's probably all a moot point because there won't be a primary because he'll clear the field.
But very impressive stuff.
From DeSantis.
Not just do you want that philosophical clarity, but you want to be able to balance out the talking like a truck driver, but having the political vision to know where the country is supposed to go.
The lower and the higher, right?
The kind of on the ground, tangible, based in reality, and also the pie in the sky, abstract philosophy.
And you saw a little bit more of the former when you looked at where he was giving this speech from.
He was giving this press conference From Brandon, Florida.
It's obvious to a lot of the people in the crowd that they believe you chose Brandon because of the thing that goes around on certain websites.
Is this why you came to Brandon?
Because of the trolling of the Biden administration?
So I think that Brandon, Florida is a great American city.
I think the people here are fantastic.
And I can tell you, My only negative on Brandon was when I was growing up playing baseball, they always used to beat us every year.
But now I think, you know, as governor, I'm really proud to be able to do it.
I want to thank Brandon Honda for hosting us here today.
And we're proud to be able to make a stand for freedom in Brandon, Florida.
So the guy knows how to troll.
I don't think he chose Brandon, Florida because it's his favorite Honda dealership.
I think it might have something to do with the chant about Joe Biden.
That's good.
You're going to need both of those things.
Now, it's very early.
It's 2021.
The presidential is not until 2024.
In 2013, for instance, no one could have guessed that Trump was going to be the nominee.
People thought, oh, it's going to be Bobby Jindal, oh, it's going to be this guy, oh, it's going to be that guy, and it just wasn't.
Ron DeSantis has a long way to go to prove himself.
There are going to be other candidates that come up.
Donald Trump might run and wipe them all out.
There might be a nominee who we've never heard of.
But the reason I mention this DeSantis clip...
It's because he is seeing something here, okay?
And I think you don't have the right to do wrong.
That is where the Republican Party is right now, and it's heading in that direction.
The stragglers who are not there yet are heading in that direction, and I think whoever is going to be the nominee, whether it's Donald Trump himself, I think they're going to have to be in that area.
They're going to have to be doing that thing.
And DeSantis is doing an impressive job of that right now.
Speaking of the Brandon administration, you know, there's a little infighting going on between Kamala Harris and Joe Biden.
Joe Biden obviously doesn't like Kamala Harris.
Kamala Harris launched her presidential campaign calling him a racist.
Kamala Harris doesn't like Joe Biden and Joe Biden keeps throwing her under the bus and saying, oh yeah, I'm putting Kamala in charge of illegal immigration.
Yeah, deal with the border, Kamala.
Good luck.
Okay, enjoy.
See ya.
Enjoy Texas.
And he's not backing her up, and he's saying nice things about his other minions.
He's saying nice things about Pete Buttigieg, for instance, but he's not really defending Kamala Harris.
And now Kamala Harris' flacks are going to the press and saying, yeah, we think Joe Biden's a racist.
So there's all this infighting going on.
Jen Psaki goes out to try to throw some water on this.
She's asked, do you think the criticism of Kamala Harris is because of racism?
You took to Twitter this week to defend the most prominent woman there, the Vice President, after there were stories about her this weekend that mentioned low approval ratings, allegations of staff problems.
Some of her allies have attributed this to sexism.
Do you think she is receiving more criticism because she's the first woman and first woman of color to serve as Vice President?
Yes.
Criticism from the outside?
Absolutely.
I do think that it has been easier and harsher from some in the right wing who have gone after her because she is the first woman, the first woman of color.
Criticism from the outside?
What about the other criticism, darling?
Because Kamala Harris doesn't really need to worry about criticism from the outside, from the Republicans right now.
It's from you guys.
It's from Joe Biden.
Sorry, I got confused over who the president was.
It's from Joe Biden.
Why was Kamala Harris the first person out of the Democrat primary?
Is it because of racism and sexism?
No, no, it's only Republicans who are racist and sexist.
Democrats hate Kamala Harris for completely different reasons.
That's why.
It's just the go-to.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
Oh, totally.
Yeah.
Racism, sexism.
Beep, boop.
Beep, beep, boop.
It reminds me of this one time David Webb was on the radio and a black woman called in and said, David Webb, you're just exposing your white privilege.
She didn't realize David Webb's a black guy.
It was on radio, so she couldn't tell.
She said, oh, yeah, it's always racism and sexism.
Well, okay, honey, what's your excuse?
Why does Joe Biden seem to be going after Kamala Harris?
Why do the Democrats not like Kamala Harris?
You're going to need an answer on that before 2024.
You're going to need an answer on that when you try to figure out who your next presidential candidate's going to be.
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Senator John Kennedy, one of the most entertaining members of the United States Senate.
He is, if you're not familiar with John Kennedy, he's the very folksy-sounding conservative Republican who, you know, he'll be grilling a can and he'll say, well, listen here.
You know, he'll often go on cable news and he'll say, listen, I remember the last time a possum skinned my granddaddy.
He told me, you know, he's got all these really folksy expressions.
But beneath the folksy expressions, he's always making these very perceptive points.
He's very, very intelligent.
He's very strategic.
And kind of like we were talking about DeSantis making these deep philosophical points in a very down-to-earth way, John Kennedy does a similar kind of thing.
So John Kennedy was just grilling Saul Omarova.
Saul Omarova is Joe Biden's nominee for comptroller of the currency.
So the person that we're going to put in charge of the currency.
And the problem with Saul Omarova is that she is a communist.
I'm not exaggerating.
I'm not being hyperbolic.
She's an actual communist.
And so Senator Kennedy asked her about this.
You used to be a member of a group called the Young Communists, didn't you?
Senator, are you referring to my membership in the Youth Communist Organization while I was growing up in the Soviet Union?
I don't know.
I just wanted to ask you that question.
Well, Senator, I... There was a group called the Young Communists and you were a member, is that right?
I'm not exactly sure which group you're referring to.
Well, the formal name of it is the Leninist Communist Young Union of the Russian Federation, and it's also known as the Leninist Komsomol of the Russian Federation, and it's commonly referred to as the Young Communists.
Were you a member?
Senator, I was born and grew up in the Soviet Union.
Okay, now before we get to her bogus excuses, just look, take a master class lesson here in rhetoric and politics from John Kennedy.
He's sitting there, he's got no paper that he's holding up, right?
He's just looking, and he's playing dumb.
And he goes, ah, now I heard you were a member of the Young Communists, is that right?
And so everyone who has their prejudices against conservatives, against southerners, They're going to look at us and say, oh, here we go.
Red Scare again.
Joe McCarthy.
Look at this bloviating guy.
He has no idea what he's talking about.
There's no group called the Young Communists.
And she thinks she's called the Young Communists.
Yeah, I heard you're part of the Young Communists.
Isn't that right?
Senator, I don't know what on earth you're talking about.
Okay, well, here, let me check.
The actual name is the Leninist Communists.
And then he goes on because he's got all the details.
So he leads her into this trap.
To sort of deny the young communist connection.
He goes, well, here's the official name, and here's what it's known as, and here's how long you were a member of it, and here is, oh, oh, that, oh, yeah, that group.
So now she's got to pivot.
Now she pivots to, well, I grew up in the Soviet Union.
I was so oppressed there.
If a kid grew up in Nazi Germany, he was part of Hitler Youth, you can't blame him.
All the kids were part of that.
So just like that, you can't blame this woman for being part of the young communists, right?
Well, Kennedy keeps grilling her.
You wrote your thesis in college at Moscow State University.
The title was Karl Marx's Economic Analysis and the Theory of Revolution in the Capital.
But you won't send Senator Toomey a copy.
You studied at university, at Moscow State University, scientific communism, which is the science regarding the working class struggle and the socialist agenda.
In 2019, not 30 years ago, in a Canadian documentary, you called the financial services industry, quote, a quintessential industry.
You wrote a paper called Systemically Significant Prices, calling for the federal government to set wages, food, gas prices.
In 2020, you wrote a paper called The People's Ledger, where you said we need to abolish bank accounts and make everybody set up an account at the Fed where the federal government will have access to your data.
He goes on.
He's got this woman dead to rights.
And he lets her, he first lets her make the condescending response, right?
You don't know what you're talking about, Senator.
Then he allows her to play the victim.
I was just, I grew up in the Soviet Union.
And then he says, well, no, but you weren't just in the group when you were eight or nine years old.
You went on to study scientific communism and you wrote your thesis in a defense of Karl Marx's economics.
And then actually just over the last couple of years, you've been defending communist policies, including a Takeover of private property by the government.
Takeover of private bank accounts.
The problem isn't that you were a communist when you were a kid.
The problem is that you are a communist now.
Oh, boy!
Does she look bad.
Now, can the Republicans actually railroad this nominee?
I'm skeptical of that.
But the reason I bring it up, one is to show you the radicalism of the Biden administration.
Two is to show you this great political tool.
All of us could take a lesson in this.
Manage expectations.
John Kennedy, this very, very sophisticated man, walks up and he just, he just talked like a good old boy, you know, just like a good old Uncle Bill, you know, and he down here now, listen here, you, and he makes everyone underestimate him, and then he clobbers them.
Speaking of subverting expectations, I have to, this is going to be a little bit of a weird story, but I have to get to it.
Laura Ingram's show the other night, Raymond Arroyo is on, and they do, they have a discussion about Where there seems to be some confusion between the host and the guest.
And the liberal media went crazy over this.
You know, I was watching an episode of you where measles came up.
Wait, wait, wait.
When did I mention measles?
I don't know.
It was on you.
What was on me?
What are you talking about?
The measles and the vaccine episode was on you.
We never did a...
We never did a measles and vaccine episode.
Is this a joke?
I don't even know what you're talking about.
It was on you.
It was on you.
I've never had...
Raymond, I've never had measles.
What are you talking about?
This is stupid.
It was an episode of a show, Laura.
What's it called?
You!
You!
It's called You!
I've never done a show on measles.
I just completely give up.
It's a show called You on Netflix.
There's a show called Loring of a Netflix.
What are you talking about?
I'm moving on to Adele.
I can't explain this to you.
What's he talking about?
The pop singer.
All right, so this is obviously a bit.
They're doing who's on first, okay?
And I think it's kind of funny, but maybe you think it's funny, maybe you don't think it's funny.
They're obviously just doing who's on first.
I don't know.
What's on first?
No, what's on second?
I don't know.
Third base, right?
They're just doing that, but about this Netflix show.
And the left didn't get it.
And the left said, oh, these idiots.
It's so obviously a bit.
But they didn't look at these.
Oh my gosh, I can't believe this craziness.
The takeaway from it is not whether or not this is the funniest bit in the world.
The takeaway is the left does not understand the right at all.
They don't get it.
They think we're so dumb and evil.
And they just so don't get what we're saying and what we believe.
And you're seeing this play out right now in the Trial of Kyle Rittenhouse.
You're seeing a play out everywhere where the facts are sort of secondary to the left just imposing their will without even considering what the right has to say.
You know, as the first people to file a lawsuit against the Biden administration for their unconstitutional vaccine mandates, we at The Daily Wire are pleased to see that the Biden administration suspended their implementation and enforcement this week.
But the fight is just getting started.
We still have to win the court case.
So sign our petition against Joe Biden's vaccine mandate over at dailywire.com slash do not comply to send a message to the Biden administration.
We've had over 600,000 people sign the petition, but we're aiming to get to 1 million signatures.
Head on over to dailywire.com slash do not comply to sign the petition today.
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We'll be right back with The Mailbag.
My favorite time of the week, the mailbag.
First question up from Daniel.
Hi, Michael.
I've been struggling with a porn addiction for quite some time now, and lately I've been noticing the toll it has taken, not just on my moods, but on my ability to retain working memory, my ability to concentrate, and my ability to stay active.
And it just so happens that The Daily Wire recently published a list of reasons to quit porn, and among them are these very side effects.
My question is this.
Of what you've read and spoken to people about...
Well, I actually have two friends.
I'm not saying two friends who have looked at naked ladies on the internet.
I'm saying two friends who really had a very serious addiction to this sort of thing.
And it really had all the side effects that you're talking about.
And it took them a long time.
I mean, it was like other friends of mine who have dealt with drug addictions or alcohol addiction.
I mean, it was certainly to that extent.
And as far as I know, as far as I can tell, they both did come out of it.
The brain is a pretty elastic thing.
And one of the real temptations of the devil, one of the real snares here, is to convince you that you can never get any better.
And so why even try?
You're never going to kick the bottle.
Just have another drink.
You might as well.
You're never going to kick it.
Oh, come on.
You can't.
You're not going to quit.
Dope.
You got it.
Just shoot it up.
It's not possible for you.
And same thing with something like porn or any other addiction.
It's a very pervasive addiction, too.
I mean, this is something that actually should make you feel a little bit better about it, is that the average age of male exposure to porn is like 11 years old now or something.
So this is something that, especially for younger people, I hear from Zoomers all the time.
You're very possibly a Zoomer yourself.
They will have seen these things when they're very, very young.
It's obviously not a conscious choice they made, but then they get ensnared in it.
The thing also that I think one learns about with any kind of addiction is that there's no shortcut in this life.
There's no way around virtue.
If you want to be free, you need to pursue virtue and flee vice.
You just have to.
There's no way around it.
And we're very confused about that today because we think that we can be free and then do whatever drugs we want, look at whatever porn we want, sleep with whoever we want, eat whatever we want, just follow our appetites.
But we can't.
The very act of doing those things...
As you do them, you are losing your freedom.
And then you become enslaved to these things.
And you can't resist.
Your appetite totally dominates your rational will and you lose your freedom.
But it's a pervasive problem.
A lot of people have come out of it.
And you can.
And the way to do it is accountability, prayer, and just focusing on it.
One thing that, you know, I'll give you the Catholic perspective on not just this particular sin, but on all sin.
One thing that will really persuade you not to sin, or not to sin as much, or to think twice about it, is confession.
You know, there's this sacrament of confession in the Catholic Church where you have to go into a box and you confess your sins out loud to a priest.
And it's Very difficult to do.
I've done it a zillion times, and it's still difficult for me to do, no matter what the sin is.
It can seem like the most mild, moderate, but you're going there and you're saying, I did this wrong thing.
And I will tell you, if you get into the habit of doing this, of confession, then the minute you want to do whatever you're saying, in this case, you know, look at porn or something, you're going to think twice about it, because you just think, oh, I just don't want to have to go to confession.
I just don't want to have to tell the priest this and make the time...
So, I wish you luck.
I think your prospects are looking very good.
The brain is very elastic.
My friends who have dealt with this particular problem seem almost entirely better now.
Much, much, much better.
And you may know people who have dealt with other addictions and other problems.
And how many people do we know who were alcoholics and now they've recovered?
You say, well, can the brain ever recover?
The brain recovers just fine.
You can do it.
You can do it, buddy.
From Elise.
Hey, Michael.
I'm a 16-year-old girl.
I'm conservative and share the belief that generally women should be mothers.
However, I've personally never wanted children and feel that God has called me on an entirely different path.
How would you approach this as a believer?
Oh, well, I would probably discern a vocation.
If I felt that I'm not being called to marriage and God is calling me to a path of celibacy, then I would probably pursue, I would discern whether or not I had a vocation, meaning, am I supposed to be a priest?
Or in your case, are you supposed to be a nun, for example?
And not everyone is.
I did not have a vocation.
I was kind of an atheist at the time when I guess I would have been discerning these things, but I didn't.
Manifestly, I did not.
Some people do.
It's a gift given to some people.
It's a charism.
If you are that, then I don't know your specific religious leanings, but I would discern that.
You might be called to be a nun.
And that's great.
There are some pretty cool nuns out there.
I mean, some of the greatest women in the history of the world have been nuns, have been called to a religious life.
And even now, you know, I am going to see at an event soon enough a Sister Deirdre Byrne, who's a really impressive nun.
She spoke at the RNC. She's, you know, she's in the military and she's a surgeon and she's a nun.
Very, very impressive people.
So, you know, best of luck with discerning that.
Certainly, we can all pray for you.
From Nicholas.
Hey, Michael, my fellow swarthy former Westchester, New York resident.
How would you respond to the argument that a woman taking a man's last name after marriage is an outdated and sexist tradition?
Is there any reason behind doing so other than its tradition?
My fiancé has heard from many of her engaged friends that they either plan on having the man take the woman's last name...
That's good.
Poor schmucks.
Or to create a new hybrid name based on a combination of the two last names.
Luckily, I will be marrying a smart, beautiful Catholic Italian woman who plans on taking my last name when we get married in June.
Could use some ammo for arguments with all these New York libs.
You the man.
Thank you very much.
Okay.
You will inevitably be taking a man's name.
Your family inevitably will take a man's name.
Whether your wife takes your name or you take her name or you both keep your names, you will have a man's name.
You will either have your last name, the husband's last name, or the wife's father's last name.
And let's say that the wife actually was named after her mother.
Okay, then you're going to be taking the wife's mother's father's last name.
But somewhere down the line, you will be taking a man's last name.
So, if you take the husband's last name, this would seem to reflect that the man has a special leadership role in the household, headship of the household.
Doesn't mean he's a knuckle-dragging dictator, but there is a leadership role for a man in a household, which I certainly think is the case.
If you take the woman's last name, then you're saying that the father-in-law has a special leadership role in the household.
Okay, not the way I want to run my household, but that's fine.
And if the woman does not take the man's last name, then you're saying we're not really one flesh.
We're still two separate individuals who have consented to do certain things together.
We share a dishwasher.
And if you come up with a hybrid name together, if you just make up a name, then what you're saying is we are doing this thing together, but we have no connection to our past, no connection to our family.
No, we are our own thing totally divorced from tradition and custom and convention.
Good luck with that.
Each man has a very small quantity of reason and I don't think unfettered reason and unfettered atomized individualism is really going to lead you to a flourishing life.
The one exception I will say to this is a friend of mine.
I had a very complicated last name that was difficult to pronounce and probably not great for business.
And he did take his wife's last name because it was really succinct and easy to say and looked kind of cool.
So there might be prudential reasons to try to work your way around it, but I think generally speaking, your wife should take your last name.
From Thomas.
Hey, Mr.
Knowles.
I think the metaverse is great.
This is Mark Zuckerberg's new thing where you just plug into the matrix.
For the very same reason, I think it's terrible.
It's just like drugs or alcohol or porn.
It's an escape from reality.
I've gone through a ton of trauma in my 19 years of living.
As a young adult who struggles with suicidal thoughts, a world away from this one sounds amazing.
Sadly, I know the metaverse is in fact a prison, worse than this world, and not the heaven we want it to be.
So, I would want to go to the metaverse to escape my giants here.
Demons, you might say.
The more conservative I get and the more faith I put in God, the more my family hates me.
And the girl I love just sees me like an older brother.
I've wanted to run away for years, and the metaverse seems like a great way to do it.
Or like a way to do it, even though I know I would only be running into a dark, lonely cell.
Sincerely, a hurting soul.
Well, listen, pal, I'm sorry you're going through all this.
It's really, really tough.
The first step to overcoming a problem is knowing that you have a problem.
So you know that you have this problem of trauma that you've got to process.
The problem of not particularly enjoying your place in the world and thinking you might need to make a change in your social life.
And this problem of recognizing the temptation of fantasy, which is what the metaverse is.
So that's good.
I think you're really pretty far ahead of the game here.
And you said your family hates you because you believe in God.
Well, you know, that's what the Bible says.
They say, they will hate you for my sake.
So you can take, I think, a great deal of solace and comfort in that.
What would I recommend doing?
Well, one, I would recommend seeing a psychologist if you're trying to deal with psychological trauma from your past.
If you're not doing that already, I would recommend you do that.
I'm not saying you take a bunch of happy pills.
I'm saying you speak to someone who might have some expertise in working through this.
I recommend talking to a priest.
You know, you say you believe in God, so I would definitely do that.
And I would resist the temptation.
You know it.
You know that it needs to be resisted, and sometimes we just need a little comfort to resist these things.
Comfort in the sense of Bishop Odo on the bio tapestry, wielding a club, smacking his own men and saying, get back to battle and don't retreat.
That would be the thing to do, because you're right.
The escapism, you know, booze, drugs, porn, the metaverse, even video games can become a problem like this.
What they often are about is escaping time.
We want to be outside of time.
You feel under pressure.
You feel like, ah, I just, I don't like being in this world.
So you just, you try to get out of that.
But you can't get out of that.
You'll be far more edified to work out your problems here in the real world.
And maybe that means making some changes.
Maybe you have to make some changes to your social life.
Find a new girl that you're attracted to.
Who cares?
The girl doesn't like you, so whatever.
There's another fish in the sea.
Get over her, you know?
She doesn't sound that great to me.
Your family doesn't like you, well maybe you need to put a little distance between your family.
Or maybe you need to work things out with your family.
But you know...
Maybe you've got to sort those things out.
Maybe you do have to move.
Maybe you don't need to move.
You're 19.
You're very, very young.
Maybe you work these things out.
People get better at these sorts of things.
And the final part of that is maybe you need to recognize the productivity of suffering.
No one wants to suffer.
Suffering is terrible.
I'm sorry, you got to deal with it.
But suffering can be a sanctifying thing.
You can react to it in a way with patience and humility that is edifying.
It will build you up.
I just read Jane Eyre.
You ever read Jane Eyre?
Terrific book.
And the first part of the book is on this very point.
My It might be worth doing that.
That would be a much more productive thing to do.
To read a great novel like Jane Eyre than to go into the metaverse.
Stay strong.
You know the answer.
I think you just need a little comfort and so I'm happy to provide that if we can.
All right.
20 seconds left.
I'm still going to get to a question from Jared.
Michael, when talking about destigmatizing pedophiles, oh my gosh, it's a heavy episode, guys.
Heavy mailbag.
Shouldn't we approach, as some people have, evil thoughts, and shouldn't we approach, and this is worded a little weird, it's never okay to act on, but you should get counseling and maybe isolate yourself, encourage people to be better than their urges in this day and age.
Do you think our friends on the other side could accept this standard?
If so, we begin to chip away at all this gender stuff, right?
If we basically say that you got to work on these urges.
Yes, yeah, that is the problem.
One of the central problems of the gender ideology is that we're told that all of our desires are fine.
And maybe you can't act on all of them, that you can act on most of them these days.
But, oh, the desires are fine.
You should never try to change your desires or couch your desires.
But the fact is we can shape our desires.
Maybe not totally.
This is a fallen world and we have natural inclinations that we can overcome.
But we can order our desires.
A little kid craves milk chocolate all the time.
An adult craves filet mignon.
This is a cultivation of tastes, and this is true of all of our desires.
You can aim your desire toward vice, and then you'll get more of it, or you can aim it toward virtue, and you'll get more of that as well.
That is the only way that you could overcome the gender theory stuff, but it requires a lot of work on reshaping the moral discourse.
That's our show.
I'm Michael Knowles.
This is The Michael Knowles Show.
show see you tomorrow.
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