Ep. 1038 - California Bribes People With Taxes & Abortion
Governor Gavin Newsom makes a desperate plea to people fleeing California, San Francisco votes to destroy the suburbs, and Chris Pratt claims he’s ‘not a religious person.’
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In 2020, 650,000 people moved out of California, including myself.
Last year, another nearly 700,000 people moved out of California.
Since 2010, about 8 million people have moved out of California to freer pastures.
Many, many more people than have moved into California from other places.
The state is hemorrhaging people because of onerous taxes, crippling regulations, rampant crime, and streets lined with needles and human excrement.
But Governor Patrick Bateman, American psycho himself, has figured out a way to lure people back to the Golden State.
And that is to let them kill their babies.
That'll do it, right?
This week, California state legislators advanced an amendment to enshrine a license to contraception and abortion in the state constitution.
Governor Bateman believes this will do it.
He says, we want you back.
Come back, come back.
Come on, please.
Here we go.
We're going to be the land of...
The free, quote-unquote, the freedom to kill your babies.
In the long run, this is very bad.
We don't want babies in California to be killed any more than we want babies in any other state to be killed.
No state, no community has the right to kill little babies, even if every single person in the state votes to legalize it.
And that is because abortion is contrary to natural law.
I don't think this is even going to achieve what Newsom wants, which is to convince the people to move back to California.
But it might convince more liberal Californians to stay in California.
In the short term, this might be a political benefit to avoid packing up their lives and shoving off to the red states in the first place.
It may make inertia even more appealing and keep the libs in California, which in the short run would do the great service of confining the poison of leftist policies.
It may slow the spread of epidemic leftism to the rest of the country, but conservatives cannot kick back and rest easy.
Conservatives need to take this opportunity that the left is giving us.
We are winning.
We are winning specifically on the so-called social issues.
Now is the time to strengthen our communities, our red states, prove the superiority of our way of life, rally the political troops, and then retake the blue states too.
I'm Michael Knowles.
This is The Michael Knowles Show. - Welcome back to the show.
My favorite comment yesterday is from Jordan Elizabeth, who says, The lady who founded March for Life, Nellie Gray, was born on June 24th, too.
The so-called coincidences keep on coming.
That's amazing.
June 24th, the day that Dobbs comes down, the day that Roe is overruled, the day that is the feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, the day on which traditionally would be the nativity of St.
John the Baptist, who leaps in his mother's womb when Jesus in his mother's womb approaches and A day when there is a five-planet alignment.
The photo of the five-planet alignment taken by a man named Wright Dobbs in all of the newspapers.
And now it's also the birthday of the lady who founded March for Life.
All nature is but art unknown to thee.
All chance, direction which thou canst not see.
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I don't think that the license to kill little babies is going to be enough to bring all the people who have fled California back.
I don't think it's going to convince someone.
How sad is that?
How desperate that that's all they've got.
Yeah, I know it's terrible to live here.
And I know that we're destroying all of our communities.
And I know that we're killing your businesses and taking your rights and stealing all your money.
But hey, we'll let you do the most evil thing I can imagine.
You can do that if you want to do that really evil thing.
You can do it here.
Is that going to do it?
I don't think so.
And they're making life even worse in California now.
San Francisco has just decided to destroy the suburbs.
This is such an important story, and the libs are pushing it, especially in San Francisco, but around the country.
And there have been fights over this, going back to the Obama administration, over whether or not to allow people to keep the suburbs.
Whether or not to allow nice communities with single family homes and lots, or to get rid of single family zoning and make everything into some big, ugly apartment building so that you can pack more people in and destroy the, to quote Donald Trump, the suburban lifestyle dream.
Well, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors...
Just passed this legislation two days ago to eliminate single-family zoning.
It will now allow four plexes on every neighborhood lot and six units on corner properties.
This builds on something I mentioned at the end of the show yesterday, which is if we want people to be conservative, we need to Have people like their homes, like their country.
We need to give them a country that is beautiful and lovable and pleasant to be in.
This was a point that the late conservative philosopher Roger Scruton made when he actually had a government post in charge of housing in the country in the UK. He said, if you want to Make people want to conserve something.
You need to give them something worth conserving.
The libs do not want us to live in a beautiful place.
The libs do not want us to live in a lovable place.
They want us to live in some dingy, tiny little apartment where we own nothing and we'll be happy.
That's what they want.
They want us to be packed in like rats.
And the reason for this, I think, gets to their view of humanity.
I think that the libs...
You'll frequently hear the libs talk about the masses.
You know, the unwashed masses.
That religion is the opiate of the masses.
Just masses.
Masses of what?
Conservatives generally don't talk about the masses.
We talk about people...
Because we like people and we view them as individually very important and as working together in a community and having dignity and having worth.
And the libs say, no, it's just masses.
These masses are creating a problem of overpopulation.
We're just going to kill them through abortion or through euthanasia.
We're just going to treat them like refuse, like nothing.
And then we're going to cram them into these ugly, giant buildings and not give them a beautiful home where they can thrive in We're good to go.
I don't think Nancy Pelosi is going to go live in a quadruplex.
I don't think Nancy Pelosi is going to go move into some ugly apartment building.
That's just for you.
That's just for everybody else.
That's not a good way to live.
But it ties in with the social issues.
It ties in with the economic issues.
They don't want to give people lovable places where they can thrive.
Speaking of Nancy Pelosi and reasons not to move to California, there's a scandal that's just come out with Pelosi, which is that Pelosi just visited the Vatican and apparently got to meet the Pope and then later, at a papal mass, received communion, received the Eucharist.
This has been a big political battle because In the Catholic Church, to which Nancy Pelosi at least pretends to adhere, you do not receive the Eucharist if you are in a state of grave mortal sin.
And the reason you're not supposed to do that is not just because it causes scandal to everyone else, but because St.
Paul says that if you eat the Eucharist unworthily, you are eating your own damnation.
So it's not good for you to do that.
It's actually a sin to do that.
Nancy Pelosi does it anyway.
Her archbishop has a great backbone.
His name is Cordileone.
It means heart of a lion.
Archbishop Cordileone says, listen, I'm instructing all the priests in this diocese.
Do not give the Eucharist to Nancy Pelosi.
It's bad for her, and it's bad for the flock, which will be led astray.
So then she goes to the Vatican.
And it's unclear.
I don't think the Pope himself gave Nancy Pelosi the Eucharist at a papal mass.
There are lots and lots of people distributing the host.
But she did present herself to receive it.
And this is a great scandal.
It ties in with another sort of scandal that's come out of the Vatican, which is that the Pope has tried to get rid of the Latin mass.
He's really trying to suppress the Latin mass.
And I know for the people listening who are not Catholic, who are not particularly traditional, who maybe aren't Christian at all, maybe they aren't even religious, this story really matters too.
I know it doesn't seem like it would if you're not attending the Latin mass or you're not Catholic, but it really does.
And it does because of a principle in Christianity that applies to our entire American life.
And the principle in Latin is lex orandi, lex credendi, lex vivendi.
It means the way that we pray is the way that we believe, is the way that we live.
This idea that the way in which we worship God, the way in which we worship anything really, is going to really probably determine the way that we believe.
The way that we think about God or whatever we worship.
And it's going to affect the way that we live our lives.
Because we're incarnate beings.
We have bodies and ritual matters.
And where we spend our time is where we place value.
It's what we think is really meaningful.
It's why the liturgy is so important.
But it's why the liturgy of the way that we live our lives is so important.
If we...
If we pray and worship money, then we are going to believe that money is the most important thing and we're going to live our lives in a very materialist way.
If we pray, if we worship sex or pornography or the hookup culture or something like that, we're going to believe that that is the most important thing.
That just getting at our sort of animal aggression and instincts and And things like that is the most important thing, and we're going to live like animals.
Or, if we worship God, and specifically if we worship God in a reverent way, in the way that he asks us to in the Bible, then we're going to believe in that way, and we're going to live our lives in that way that's very elevated.
You can't ignore it.
Even if you think you're an atheist, even if you think you're agnostic, you can't escape that, because You got a body.
You got a body, and the way that you use your body, and the way that you spend your time, and the way that you worship, because man is a religious being, and everybody's got to serve somebody, that's going to affect the way that you believe about everything, and it's going to affect every other aspect of your life.
When you've got people leading others into scandal, That creates a big public problem, whether you're Catholic, whether you consider yourself broadly Christian, or whether you don't consider yourself any of those things at all.
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Speaking of religion, really unfortunate story coming out of Hollywood and religion.
This is about Chris Pratt.
Chris Pratt is a movie star.
Probably the most popular movie star in the world right now.
He has become a voice for Christians.
He's become a voice for maybe kind of conservatives, I don't know, or at least non-leftists.
He did this because he was at an awards show and he spoke about God.
And he said, God loves you.
There is a God.
God loves you.
And you should have a relationship with God.
Something to that effect.
I'm paraphrasing, but that's what he said.
And it was so refreshing to see, because the rest of Hollywood, usually in their speeches, insinuates there is a Moloch.
You should sacrifice to Moloch.
You should sell your soul to the devil.
And they always say the opposite of what Chris Pratt said.
So it was very refreshing to see that.
Now Chris Pratt is coming out.
He's saying, I'm not a religious person.
And it's being reported in a lot of places, but it's a very long interview in Men's Health.
And Chris says, look, I'm not really a religious person.
I think religion has been oppressive AF sometimes.
For a long time.
I don't know how I came to be viewed as this voice of religion.
People said that I went to Hillsong Church, which I guess is not down with the rainbow.
They're not the most LGBT church in the world.
And I've never been to Hillsong Church.
And it was just really sort of sad to see.
Again, it's such a long interview.
I can't even find the exact quote.
It's fine, though.
It doesn't really matter what the exact quote is.
It was just really, really sad.
It was like in the old days of the House Committee on Un-American Activities and Hollywood blacklisting.
The Hollywood people would be asked, are you now or have you ever been a member of the Communist Party?
Which I firmly defend, by the way.
I'm perfectly fine blacklisting communists because communists are very bad and we're subverting our country.
Now we've got the opposite.
Now we're having, are you now or have you ever been a Christian?
And Chris Pratt doesn't disavow God entirely here.
But he basically says I'm spiritual but not religious.
It's really, really weak sauce.
And I think it's dumb for him to do it because he's trying to thread this needle and remain a big Hollywood star in the mainstream, but not get canceled, but not totally throw away his beliefs.
And it's just not going to work, man.
I mean, I think this is...
This is kind of what, in the Gospels you see spoken of, and what the early Christians saw.
At a certain point, you're going to have to pick a side.
If you believe in God, if you believe in the truth, and you say true things, and you stand up for the truth, people are going to hate you for it, and then you're going to have to make a decision.
Do you go with the mob, or do you stick with the truth, and do you stick with God?
And right now, it's...
Chris is trying to stand in the middle and he's trying to thread that needle and have everything.
You can't.
You can't do that.
You can't have everything.
And if the choices are between picking the absolute degenerates in Hollywood and fame, which even for a giant star like Chris Pratt will be fleeting, or the truth and God and what is right, it shouldn't be a hard decision.
I know that it is in the moment, but it should not be A hard decision.
And there's a kind of humility with Pratt saying, wait, why am I? I'm just some big, dumb movie star.
Why are you having me be the voice of religion and theology and faith in America?
But that role has been thrust on him to some degree, and he should step up to it.
That's sad.
It was a disappointing interview, and I hope he doesn't do it again.
And I don't want to be too hard on him, but come on, man.
Toughen up.
Toughen up, man.
What are you doing?
The institutional power is with the libs, okay?
The people are with Chris Pratt here.
The people are with God.
The people are with beautiful places.
The people are with normal ways of life.
The people are with don't trans the kids.
The people are with don't kill babies.
The people are with all the normal stuff.
And yet, the institutional power is all on the opposite side of that.
The institutional power is pushing extremely fringe views, such as transing the kids.
It's because the principalities and powers and dominations of this world are on the side of the ruler of this world who is the devil, okay?
The prince of this world.
But I don't think that speaks for the majority of people or our best inclinations.
And so this is where you get populism from, especially the populism of the last few years.
How is it that the people seem normal, but the elites are so crooked and wicked and stupid and evil?
Well, that's sort of the way it's always been.
And so you've got to kind of pick a side.
Now, the institutional power is behind Biden.
The institutional power is behind the Democrats.
No question about that.
Yet, when you look at where the money is, you look at where the smart money is, where the bets are, where the people are, Joe Biden is not only not the favorite to win in 2024, he's not even number two.
There's an amazing story right now out of gambling.com, which is sometimes more reliable than public opinion polls because it shows you where people are really willing to put their money, what they really think is going to happen.
It's not just a consequence-free pie in the sky.
They're actually putting a little skin in the game here.
And according to gambling.com, The number one favorite to win in 2024 is Donald Trump.
The number two favorite to win in 2024, the whole presidency, Ron DeSantis.
The number three choice, Joe Biden, third favorite.
You think this is good news for DeSantis, but I'm actually not sure that it is.
It means that he's popular.
It means that people like him.
It means that people think he's a strong candidate and could be president.
All of that's true.
All of that's true.
But I think it might be bad news for DeSantis because I think this is only going to make Donald Trump double down on running.
If Trump is looking at this right now and he's saying, hold on.
The incumbent president is so weak that not only is he going to lose to me, according to at least this sort of odds-making, not only is he going to lose to me, he's going to lose to the other guy too?
Okay, now I'm definitely going to get in.
In 2024.
It's even more of an incentive for Trump to run.
Because the incumbent is even weaker than he had previously thought.
And there's no bench.
Kamala Harris is less likable than Biden.
Pete Buttigieg is someone that the libs all think is really likable.
But he's extremely unlikable.
And he's glib.
And he's shallow.
And he's almost certainly a CIA operative.
And he takes four months maternity leave so that he can chest feed his...
Adopted child or whatever the situation is.
He's in the mainstream of the fringe.
Of the people who are familiar with management consultant, Ivy League educated, socially radical, glib people.
He's not in the mainstream of the mainstream, so he's not going anywhere.
Elizabeth Warren is totally done.
Who else?
Who do they have?
Hillary.
I actually don't think Hillary's going to run again.
She's going to be busy.
Look, Ghislaine Maxwell is about to go to prison.
Hillary's got a few things to take care of before she can think about 2024.
So this is more incentive for Trump to run.
Tough on DeSantis, but we'll see.
And there might just be a primary, and...
The guys might get bruised up, and that's the way it goes.
Republicans have clutched defeat from the jaws of victory before.
Right now, though, we are winning.
Right now, no matter what happens in 2024, we are winning.
You saw it on all those Supreme Court decisions on the Second Amendment.
You saw it on religious liberty in schools.
You saw it on, obviously, the Dobbs decision.
You're seeing it right now outside of the court.
In education.
There's a huge win for conservatives in education.
Took place in Arizona.
Almost nobody is covering it.
In Arizona right now, they have the Empowerment Scholarship Account Program.
And previously, this was a way for a very small number of students to take the taxpayer money from the state that would go toward their education and spend it in a small number of specialized programs.
The California legislature has...
Greatly expanded this.
Families now can receive over $6,500 per year, per child, without those same restrictions that you had before.
So a whole lot of Arizona students will qualify for this.
And they can use that money for private schools, yes, or for homeschooling.
Or for learning pods, so it's homeschooling with a few other families, or for tutoring, or for pretty much any other kind of educational service that will fit their family's needs.
This is incredibly good news.
This is the silver lining, one of the silver linings that comes out of the storm cloud of COVID. During COVID, parents saw all the lunacy that their kids were being taught in schools because of distance learning.
And they also...
So that obviously impels the parents to pull the kids out of school.
But then they also realize, wait, we don't need this public school.
These public schools have failed our students.
The teacher unions are shutting our kids out of schools.
They're completely screwing them over just for their own selfish purposes.
And so what do we need them for?
And it led to a huge rise in homeschooling.
Now conservatives can capitalize on this.
This is a huge win.
If we can break the back of the public schooling system, which from the very beginning has been for the benefit of Libs going back not just 10 or 20 years, going back to Horace Mann, it has been to create a leftist consensus in America.
If you can break that, And have some Christian learning pods and some traditional classical learning pods and some tutoring.
You would do so, so much to transform the future of the country because classrooms are crystal balls.
What happens in the classroom is just telling you what your country is going to look like in 20 years.
Play the long game.
Now is the time.
The libs are so good at playing the long game.
We have an opportunity to do it here.
The opportunity is on education.
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The social issues.
Are something that we've been told that conservatives should not focus on, do not go anywhere near the social issues for the last 30, 40, maybe even 50 years.
Conservatives have said, no, just focus on cutting taxes and regulation and let the social issues go.
It's too divisive.
We're going to lose on that.
This has been some of the worst advice that Republicans have ever taken.
And there are two issues that prove it.
The Dobbs decision.
The one real hardcore social issue that the conservatives did not give up on was abortion.
Even though we were told in 1973 it's over.
Then we were told in 1992 with Casey, it's over.
Give it up.
People hate it.
Ugh, Republicans, just ditch this abortion stuff, then you'll start winning elections.
Conservatives didn't give it up.
They said it's a pipe dream.
It's never going to happen.
You're never going to overrule Roe.
They kept it up.
Kept it up.
30 years, 40 years, 49 years just kept plugging away pro-life laws all in the states and the local communities, court cases, bringing up to the Supreme Court.
And you know what happened?
We won.
And you know what happened?
Our views are popular.
And you know what happened?
We did exactly what the left has done.
For the opposite ends, what the left does is they just keep going.
They lose, okay, they lose in court, they're going to keep going.
They lose in the legislature, okay, they're going to keep going.
You saw them do this with the redefinition of marriage.
They just pushed and pushed and pushed.
Now they put it up to a vote.
They put it up to a vote in California.
They lost.
They keep pushing, pushing, pushing, pushing, pushing.
Eventually they get their way in the courts.
They don't stop.
Well, conservatives have refused to give up on that one issue, on abortion.
Huge win.
And as far as we can tell right now, basically no political fallout.
If anything, it's helping conservatives.
Yes, it motivated Democrats more, according to polls for the midterm elections.
According to those same polls, it's going to motivate Republicans even more than that.
One of the other kind of social issues that we haven't given up on is guns, one of our most popular issues.
Defending the Second Amendment, absolutely one of our most popular issues.
Conservatives have rolled over on pretty much every other social issue, and we've lost them instantly.
But those issues, guns and abortion, kind of funny.
I don't think that they're in conflict with one another, but they are issues of life and death, that's for sure.
On those two issues, we have maintained a principled stance.
Not this conciliatory, weak, squishy nonsense.
Not this technocratic, well, actually, you know, just from the perspective of utilitarianism and efficiency and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and spreadsheets and eggheads.
No.
We held a principled stance and we said, no, we're not going to give you a We're actually going to take back an inch.
We're going to go inch by inch like I'm Al Pacino here, okay?
We're going to keep just winning and winning and winning.
Hard, hard, hard.
Guess what?
Those are the big issues for us that have won, that are propelling us in this election and in future elections.
Don't trans the kids in schools.
We're not just going to be conciliatory and say, well, you can okay certain bathrooms, well, certain sports teams, well, maybe, I don't know, my kid can't wear a dress and high heels.
You've got to pick one.
No, we said, nope, we don't want any of this crap in schools.
If you do it, we're going to sue you.
We're going to go in.
We're going to kick out your governor in a blue state.
The Blue Commonwealth of Virginia.
We're going to win on that.
The social issues are winning issues.
Principles are winning issues.
Don't listen to the squishes.
The squishes lost us the country.
Now is the time to listen to the rock-ribbed conservatives.
The libs are so upset about this.
They're so upset because conservatives finally...
Are really getting aggressive on these social issues.
And they're giving the people what they want.
And according to the libs, this is a great threat to democracy.
I'm a black gay woman and I have a daughter.
So I'm not doing so well right now.
I'm a little salty.
You're a little salty?
I'm a little salty right now.
Okay.
Yeah.
We'll sprinkle a little salt.
Yeah.
Let's put some flavor on here.
It just sucks, man.
It really does.
I mean, you know, it's like the country, it's no longer a democracy, right?
I mean, it's no longer majority rule.
No, certainly not in the Senate.
Certainly not in the representation of the Supreme Court.
It's not.
It's no longer majority rule.
I love here Stephen Colbert, who is somewhat intelligent.
He realizes that what Wanda Sykes is saying doesn't make any sense.
And so he's trying to Make it seem like it makes sense.
She goes, it's no longer a democracy.
Why?
Because of the Dobbs decision.
Because of a decision where the judiciary is giving away power and is saying, no, we're not going to make a decision about this issue.
We're going to give it back to the people and their representatives.
We are going to expand democracy.
And she says, it's no longer a democracy.
Colbert is just thinking, how do I make this extremely dumb statement sound like it might sort of...
He goes, yes, well, certainly not.
Yeah, not when it comes to The judiciary and the Supreme Court, or the Senate and the Supreme Court.
The judiciary, the Supreme Court, were never democratic exactly.
They're democratic in the sense that people vote for electors and the electors elect the president.
The president appoints the judges and the judges are confirmed by the Senate.
And the Senate previously was sent by the states and the people elect the state representatives.
Now the people directly elect the senators.
So there's some democratic tie-in.
But the Supreme Court is not supposed to be the most democratic institution.
They have a life tenure for a reason.
It's to balance out The tyranny of the majority.
And then the Senate is fairly democratic.
It's not a one-to-one representation of the people in the country, but it does give representation to the various states, and they're elected by the people of those states.
So he's trying to thread this needle.
She's saying this really dumb, dumb point.
But then she gets to a really key political lesson.
The problem is that middle stuff.
It's those states in the middle, that red stuff.
Why do they get to tell us what to do when the majority of us live out, you know, New York, California, and we're paying for all this crap, really.
I mean, right?
We're putting a bill.
Well, that's the union.
It's supposed to be a representative democracy, but it turns out to be minority rule right now.
Right, right.
But if we fit in the bill, you know, and like California, if it were a country, it would be like the fourth fifth largest economy.
So, you know, if I'm fitting the bill, know your position.
You know what I'm saying?
You know, for real.
Like, look, if I say, hey, let's go out to dinner, you don't get to pick the restaurant.
Just shut up and eat.
There it is.
Shut up and eat.
So she's saying the majority of Americans live in New York and California.
That's not true.
That's not even close to true.
It might be true in her mind.
But then she points out, she's saying, okay, I'm not really talking about the majority of Americans.
I'm just talking about the majority where the money comes from.
You're right.
I'm not talking about democracy because if we're talking about democracy, then the people get what they want and the people don't support my radical views.
I guess I'm talking about oligarchy.
I guess I'm talking about money.
Because, yeah, in this country, while maybe the liberal states are not the majority, we make all the money, baby.
All the rich people are Democrats.
And so if you're not making all the money and you're not paying for everything, then shut your mouth and do what we say and let us trans your kids and let us kill your babies and let us do whatever the hell we want.
You know, like democracy, right?
When they say democracy, I've said this for a long time.
Not the first one to say it, but I have been saying it for a long time.
When they say democracy, they mean...
They mean leftism.
They mean progressivism.
When they weep philosophic about our democracy, our sacred democracy, what they're referring to is their oligarchy.
And you heard it from Wanda Sykes, and you see Stephen Colbert nodding along.
They are going to tell us what to do.
We have one political advantage here.
The political advantage we have is that the people broadly don't like that stuff, and the people broadly are on our side, and it's time to exercise that political power.
They've got a lot of institutional power.
We do still have that basic fact of political power.
You know, speaking of harnessing the power of the people, last night was our biggest live event of the year, backstage live at the world-famous Ryman Auditorium, we celebrated our biggest wins.
The documentary and the book, which took the world by storm.
Our summer blockbuster, Terror on the Prairie, which brought Gina Carano back in a big, big way.
We made some earth-shattering announcements, such as the launch of Daily Wire Plus.
This is the new streaming service for our fast-growing library of shows, movies, and coming soon, animated and live-action kids content.
We also dropped the news that I've been sitting on for a while.
I knew people were going to lose it on this, but the news that Jordan Peterson has signed a multi-year deal with Daily Wire Plus, where members will get access to exclusive content, new podcast shows, and And more.
And lobsters.
Lots and lots of lobsters for everybody.
We expanded our existing relationship with PragerU where I host a show.
I host the book club at PragerU, which you can get over there.
You can get the whole PragerU content library at Daily Wire and a brand new master's program with Dennis Prager coming this fall.
The time to join is now.
Right now, head on over to dailywireplus.com to become a Daily Wire Plus member.
That's dailywireplus.com.
We will be right back with the voicemail bag sponsored by Pure Talk.
Welcome back to my favorite time of the week when I get to hear from you in the voicemail bag sponsored by Pure Talk.
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All right, let's get to the first question.
Hey Michael, my name's Steve, and I have a little bit of a more serious question for you.
So, my girlfriend and I have been together for about two years.
We have a mutual agreement that we're going to wait to have sex until marriage, but there's a little bit of a difference here.
She had like a religious awakening right after college and vowed abstinence after she graduated, and I am actually a virgin.
Now, while we've had this mutual agreement of abstinence, I had never asked her how many guys she had slept with.
But we got into a drunk conversation last week, and she had told me that by the time she had sworn abstinence, before she had this religious awakening, she had slept with—hold on, I wrote it down—she slept with 22 men, 6 women, and she even told me she had two abortions, one which was very early and one which was in a later stage.
This kind of has me torn up because now we both fear God and everything.
I guess my question to you is, if we get married, do you think God would still respect our marriage, knowing, I mean, her body count, I guess you could say?
Yeah, this kind of has me torn up, so I'd appreciate your advice.
Thank you so much.
Yes, of course God would still respect your marriage.
Marriage is a sacrament and it's a real thing.
It's not contingent on all sorts of other questions or on your emotions or on even the things that you've done in the past.
I mean, your sins can be forgiven.
You have the opportunity to repent, to go sin no more, to have your sins be forgiven by God because Christ dies on the cross for all of our sins and redeems mankind.
I'm not sure if you believe that, but I certainly believe that.
So, yes.
If your question is, will God respect your marriage?
Yes.
If it's a licit and legitimate marriage and done in the right way, then yes.
The act of marriage, when two people leave their families and come together and become one flesh, what God has joined, let no man separate, that is a real action, no matter what your feelings happen to be.
Now, you might have some trouble with this, and I would work through that trouble and get past it before you decide to get married.
If your girlfriend's past, everybody's got a past, but if your girlfriend's past is just too much and you're not going to be able to deal with that, well, know that now.
Don't take it out on her later or leave her or hold it over her head or anything like that.
If she has truly repented and she thinks that's all awful and especially the abortions, that she's now firmly opposed to abortion and she's working through the trauma of that and she's sought forgiveness...
If you can get past that, then certainly you can get married.
If you can get past it, God can get past it.
So long as the repentance is sincere.
But it's a real thing.
It's also not something to just brush aside.
That's a traumatic way of living.
All those people to have been intimate with, and especially the abortions.
It's a very traumatic experience to go through.
So you've got to also make sure your girlfriend has worked through that as well.
It'll be a lot harder for you than it will be for God, but don't overlook the part of you both working through that yourselves.
But if you can work through that and repent and atone and move on, then have a good marriage.
Next question.
Hey Michael, Heather here.
I was hoping you could take a few minutes to debunk some of the Roe v Wade just blatant misinformation that is spreading around social media right now.
I know that this topic hits Home for a lot of people, but it's pretty personal for me given the fact that I had a miscarriage at 20 weeks and of course that is determined to be a quote-unquote spontaneous abortion and I really...
Don't love the fact that the left is using that to say, oh, see, that would not be allowed under some of these trigger laws, which is 100% false.
So I would love if you could just shed some clarity on that for those who might fall prey to the misinformation being spread right now.
Thanks, Michael.
Really good question.
I'm so sorry to hear about that miscarriage.
Yeah, this is another example of the Libs manipulating language to blur lines and try to get through their own radical agenda.
Until very recently, and I guess still in some clinical ways, a miscarriage was known as a spontaneous abortion.
An abortion might be known as infanticide, okay?
During the Quote-unquote abortion rights movement.
You see a kind of blurring of the lines there.
And that now abortion comes to refer to this procedure where a woman goes in and sees a butcher.
And then the butcher kills her baby in her womb and then takes the baby out.
But those are obviously categorically different things.
I've seen this canard as well.
that if you have a miscarriage, you can no longer treat that because that would be considered an abortion.
To be clear, even using that phrase, spontaneous abortion, that occurs at the moment of the miscarriage.
You can't abort a baby that has already died.
An abortion is when you kill a baby who was alive, who then will be killed through that action.
So no, there is no pro-life law in the country that does not permit a woman to treat a miscarriage.
That is just completely made up and it shows the desperation of the pro-abortion movement here.
And you saw that desperation in the dissent on Dobbs.
The dissent in Dobbs from the liberals who didn't want to overrule Roe v.
Wade.
Barely talked about Roe v. Wade.
Barely talked about Planned Parenthood v. Casey.
Didn't really make a legal or constitutional argument for either of those decisions, other than it's precedent.
It was precedent.
It was decided.
The doctrine of stare decisis means we have to, we can never overrule any decision, which is completely absurd.
They didn't really make a Then they just said, and if you overrule this, they might overrule the gay marriage decision or the Lawrence v.
Texas decision, which legalizes homosexual sodomy or finds constitutional right to it.
Or they might overrule contraception or they might overrule whatever.
It's just all this fear-mongering that isn't true, by the way, if you read the majority decision, and is beside the point as well.
It shows you how desperate they are.
If they could...
Argue the point on abortion they would but they can't so they have to misdirect to things like miscarriages.
Next question.
Hey Michael.
Came for Ben, stayed for you.
I'm a conservative Protestant preacher and often when I'm putting together my sermons I like to pull inspiration from some of my Roman Catholic brothers from the past.
John Chrysostom for example.
I was wondering if there are any Protestant preachers that you like to.
You quote C.S. Lewis quite a bit, who is, you know, near Catholic, but are there any others that you've read or looked into?
Thanks for everything.
Bye.
Great question.
Certainly John Henry Newman.
That's a little bit of a cheating answer, because John Henry Newman was a very anti-Catholic, Anglican prelate and theologian, and then he converted to Catholicism in the Oxford Movement and became not only a Catholic cardinal, but a Catholic saint.
So that one's a little bit cheating.
Yes, there are Protestants who I... Think of a lot and read a fair bit.
One of the Protestants who helped bring me back to Christianity from atheism was Alvin Plantinga.
He's an analytic philosopher, so he's not exactly a preacher.
But he is a, I guess you'd call him a Protestant theologian.
He did his own version of the modal ontological argument for God.
So he would be one of them.
I don't agree with him on everything, and fundamentally on theology I don't agree with him.
But I've read him and quoted him a fair bit.
And then another one I love is Richard Niebuhr.
The Protestant ethicist who had a line that I quote frequently, which is that modern religion is a God without wrath leading a people without sin into a kingdom without judgment through the ministrations of a Christ without a cross.
Love that line.
Great line from Niebuhr.
Okay, next question.
Hey Michael, long time listener, first time caller.
I am totally in love with my boyfriend and we have been talking about getting married and having oodles of babies.
The problem is that I'm pro-life and he's pro-choice.
I believe that life begins at conception, the scientific and biological perspective.
And he believes that before sentience, at 12 to 14 weeks, it's not a life.
It's a potential life.
To me, that makes no sense.
I say it's a life with potential.
The biggest issue, though, is that two of his girlfriends in the past have had abortions before the 14-week point.
He thinks that he did a good thing by doing it so quickly and won't accept that he helped to end the lives of two innocent babies.
That worries me because what if he counsels our future children to do the same thing if the situation arose?
What should I do?
How can I counter his argument that is biologically, philosophically lacking.
Also, he thinks that I believe him to be a murderer, but I don't.
And even if I did believe that he was a murderer based on the definition of murder, his judgment will be in the hereafter, and I cannot, would not pass judgment on him.
That's for God to decide.
I welcome your counsel.
Love the show.
Well thank you.
He is a murderer.
He is.
I think even you need to accept that point.
By your own logic, he is a murderer.
Murderers can be forgiven.
Again, St.
Paul, though not exactly a murderer, probably, St.
Paul was, he participated in the stoning of St.
Stephen.
He was present for it, didn't object.
He's one of the greatest apostles in history.
The culpability for any sin, including murder, is mitigated somewhat if you are not fully aware of what you are doing, and that may have been the case with your boyfriend with the abortion.
If he genuinely didn't know that the baby is a baby, maybe he sincerely believed that the baby wasn't really a baby.
Maybe he was unsure, or maybe he was just really freaked out.
But that would mitigate guilt in some way, too.
The argument that he's making That the baby isn't a baby is, as you say, biologically and philosophically absurd.
He probably knows that.
He probably feels guilty in the fact that he's saying, you think I'm a murderer?
I think he's probably talking about himself.
Who are you really talking about here, buddy?
Who are you really trying to convince?
He probably knows.
The idea that it's a potential life doesn't mean anything.
From the moment of conception, the baby has all of the characteristics of life, and the baby is obviously a human, so it's a human life.
And even if we say potential life, what does that even mean?
It's not a potential life in the way that a sperm or an egg are potential lives.
It's a complete life.
It's a unique human being.
So I bet he probably knows that deep down, and I bet he probably feels just an extreme amount of guilt.
The way to get out of that guilt, though, is not to deny, deny, deny, deny.
That's what our culture tells us to do.
It says don't be ashamed of anything you've ever done.
It's not even wrong.
Don't even think it's wrong.
There's no wrong and right.
It's cool, man.
You know that gnawing guilt that your conscience is just poking you with all the time?
Yeah, just ignore that.
Just deaden that with drugs and distractions and sex and overwork and whatever.
Just don't acknowledge it.
That's not going to be a path to success or redemption.
You need to first acknowledge it.
The only way out is through.
And I think your boyfriend should probably just look himself in the mirror and say, you know what?
My fiancé or my girlfriend thinks I'm a murderer.
I guess I am.
I guess I am.
And I did a horrible, horrible thing twice.
I did a really horrible thing twice.
And maybe I didn't totally know.
And maybe I did know.
But I did it, and people do really horrible things.
And I can be forgiven, and I can repent, even for that.
But first you've got to acknowledge it.
The first step is acknowledging that reality.
And then, you know what I would recommend?
I'd recommend you go to confession.
He asks God's forgiveness.
And he really works on all of that.
That's going to be the only way out.
Because your concern is totally legitimate.
You're going to get married.
He's going to be the head of your household.
And even if he were not the head of household, this would...
I think you're going to see...
The downsides, you're going to see negative effects of that spread out in so many other areas of your marriage.
So deal with it.
Don't ignore it.
Deal with that man in the mirror.
I'm Michael Knowles.
This is Michael Knowles.
You have a happy 4th of July.
See you next time.
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Today on the Ben Shapiro Show, Jordan Peterson joins Daily Wire Plus, the same day Twitter bans him for observing that women actually exist.
And the White House and Democrats continue to overstep on abortion.
