Ep. 1147 - Pokémon Is Dead, The Trump Digital Cards Are The Future
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Trump sells $99 digital cartoons of himself, Elon bans a bunch of liberal journos from Twitter, and the GOP moves to banish TikTok from America.
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Two days ago, Trump promised a major announcement.
All caps.
Many speculated that he was going to announce his running mate.
Perhaps he would announce a slate of big endorsements.
Perhaps he would announce a coup d'etat.
But instead, Trump announced that he would be selling expensive computer cartoons of himself.
Hello everyone, this is Donald Trump, hopefully your favorite president of all time, better than Lincoln, better than Washington, with an important announcement to make.
I'm doing my first official Donald J. Trump NFT collection right here and right now.
They're called Trump Digital Trading Cards.
These cards feature some of the really incredible artwork pertaining to my life and my career.
It's been very exciting.
You can collect your Trump digital cards just like a baseball card or other collectibles.
Here's one of the best parts.
Each card comes with an automatic chance to win amazing prizes like dinner with me.
I don't know if that's an amazing prize but it's what we have.
Or golf with you and a group of your friends at one of my beautiful golf courses and they are beautiful.
I'm also doing Zoom calls, a one-on-one meeting, autographing memorabilia and so much more.
We're doing a lot.
I don't know if that's an amazing prize, but it's what we've got.
I love it.
I love it.
It's obviously a troll.
It's obviously funny.
It's charming, in fact.
Self-effacing.
Humble, even.
But that's all it was.
It was just a big joke.
Trump has always been funny and he was especially funny in 2016.
But in 2016, he was funny with a purpose.
He made jokes about illegal aliens to argue for closing the border.
They're rapists.
They're murderers.
Some are maybe good people.
It's a joke, but it's a joke that has a lot of truth to it, and it's a joke for a political purpose.
He made jokes about trade deals for the purpose of defending the American worker.
He made jokes about the fake news for the purpose of breaking the power of the lying press.
Yesterday, Trump made a joke about superheroes to sell some expensive JPEGs.
We all want Trump to be funny, but no one wants Trump to be frivolous.
He is entitled to raise as much money as he can for whatever kind of pictures that he wants.
Obviously, it's going to be a very expensive campaign in 2024.
But this whole thing is going to fall flat if no one knows what that campaign is for.
I'm Michael Knowles.
This is The Michael Knowles Show.
My favorite comment yesterday is from Scott, who says, Are you tired of getting kicked out of restaurants who hate your guts just because of your beliefs?
Visit Jeremy's Steakhouse instead.
Jeremy Boring, hopefully someday.
I know it's very frustrating that that restaurant in Nashville canceled our reservation because it's going to cost Daily Wire so much time and money now that Jeremy is going to have to become Emeril Lagasse.
Jeremy's now going to have to go on this whole multi-million dollar detour to become Mario Batali.
But listen, I'm sure the restaurant will be great.
$100 JPEGs are not going to win the 2024 presidential race.
I know we're two years out.
I know that there's not very much that Donald Trump can do right now.
He is not in political office.
So his rivals, notably Ron DeSantis, can do lots of things.
But Donald Trump can't seem frivolous.
It's good when he seems silly.
It's good when he seems funny.
It's good when he seems irreverent.
That actually helps distinguish him from the rest of the Republican candidates who just don't have as much razzle-dazzle celebrity as Trump does.
Trump's one of the biggest celebrities of the last 40 years.
But the JPEGs are not going to win the nomination, okay?
I think right now of Ron DeSantis.
Within the same week...
Donald Trump releases the $100 JPEGs.
Ron DeSantis impanels a grand jury to investigate and prosecute the people who pushed the COVID lies and the COVID vaccines.
As a Republican voter, I care much more about the latter than I do about the former.
I don't know what Donald Trump can do right now, but he's got to seem a little more focused.
When I think about the 2016 race, it really wasn't all about him.
He would put his name on things.
He would put his name on things like he's put his name on things for 40 years now.
Big gold letters on top of buildings.
But it seemed like that campaign was about us.
That was his motto.
Remember Hillary Clinton had I'm with her.
Trump said my motto is I'm with you.
He switched the subject of the motto.
And you really felt like this guy is doing this for us.
He doesn't need to.
He's going to lose money.
He's going to get a lot of agita.
It's going to make his life worse in many ways.
But he's doing it for us.
Here, I don't really see that.
What is motivating the campaign?
Is it fixing trade?
Is it fixing immigration?
Or is it telling jokes?
I like jokes.
I like owning the libs, but I like doing it with a purpose.
Trump used to have that energy of, we're going to impanel the grand jury, and we're going to lock you up, Dr.
Fauci.
That's the subtext of impaneling the grand jury.
The subtext is what Trump said to Hillary in 2016.
Hillary says, I wouldn't want to live in a country where Donald Trump is president.
He says, yeah, because you'd be in jail.
Boom!
Owned!
Love it!
Yeah, that'd be great!
Right now, DeSantis is taking that energy.
Trump is not.
Speaking of wielding power, absolutely great news.
Elon Musk is going on a banning spree on Twitter, and he is banning the libs.
This all started because there was an account called Elon Jet that was tracking in real time Elon Musk's private airplane.
And this led to some very bad things.
One, Elon Musk is already getting lots of threats against him.
But then Elon Musk also just had an attack that I guess was supposed to be against him.
It ended up being against his little kid.
His son was in a car and some black-clad Antifa-looking guy pulls up to the car, starts attacking the car.
The car didn't have Elon Musk in it.
The car had his kid.
And so Elon is fit to be tied at the moment.
And he has gone on a banning spree specifically against people who have doxed him or amplified voices that have doxed him.
So he's gone on a banning spree.
He banned the left-wing propagandist and former Vox journalist Aaron Rupar.
He banned CNN reporter Donny O'Sullivan.
He banned New York Times reporter Ryan Mack.
He banned WAPO reporter Drew Harwell.
He banned Intercept journalist Micah Lee.
I don't really know anything about Micah Lee.
And he banned Keith Olbermann.
Oh my gosh, it's just too delicious.
I just love it.
I was on TimCast last night, and as this news broke, we're all sitting around there And Luke on the show, huge libertarian.
Me, I'm not so libertarian.
And so a lot of people raise these concerns.
Well, what about free speech?
I don't mean to make fun of them, but I like the guys on the Tim Cash show a lot.
They're friends of mine.
But a lot of people out there in the media as well, and especially the left-wing journalists, I say, what about free speech?
What about the free speech absolutism?
I'm not a free speech absolutist.
I think Elon Musk was 100% justified in banning people who are doxing him and threatening his family.
100% justified.
I would like to thank Elon Musk for vindicating and enacting the view of free speech that I advocate in my book.
Speechless, Controlling Words, Controlling Minds, number one national bestseller, right now, right in time for Christmas.
Do I? Okay, maybe the bell is a little delayed when I'm on the road.
I'm not so sure.
But in any case, thank you, Elon.
The book will still arrive in time for Christmas, depending on where you order it from right now.
And you're seeing it play out in real time.
No one seriously believes that the First Amendment protects the right of leftist political activists on the internet to endanger the lives of Elon Musk's children.
Okay?
No way.
And I have to tell you, even beyond the principle of the whole thing, and in principle, Keith Olbermann has no right to a Twitter account, but even beyond the principle, I do get a little bit of schadenfreude when I look at these liberal journalists dealing with something that conservatives have been dealing with for years.
Keith Olbermann is at least as extreme on the left-wing side as Alex Jones is on the right-wing side.
Keith Olbermann is, in fact, much more extreme, much less reasonable as a leftist than Alex Jones would be as a conservative.
Absolutely great stuff.
Tim made a really, really good point on the show last night, which is that he said, the letter of the law is important, but it requires judges to interpret it.
You could go even further.
The letter of the law is important, but I frequently reference Adrian Vermeule, the conservative Harvard law professor.
He draws a distinction between two senses of the law, lex and use.
Speaking Latin, by the way, I'm not just mispronouncing English words.
Lex, meaning the law as written in a statute or in a constitution.
And use, meaning the background legal principles, the context in which that written law would exist.
The letter killeth, the spirit giveth life.
Okay?
And when we look at Twitter right now, yes, there are some rules that can be written down on paper.
Here are the new Twitter guidelines.
But it's always going to require people to put that into effect.
And I'll tell you, I trust Elon Musk, a sort of center left-wing guy, maybe now center-right, I trust him to put it into effect much more than I trust Vijaya Gadi and all of the other lunatics who used to run Twitter, okay?
And there's nothing unprincipled about saying that.
This is a human society.
We live in a political community.
People are always going to matter.
So yes, we need the right rules written down on the sheets of paper, but we also need wise, prudent, just people to enact the rules that we have written down.
We need to be able to speak with one another in a self-government.
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Speaking of social media bans, more great news coming out of Capitol Hill.
The GOP Congress is moving to ban TikTok in the U.S. And you know, you know that congressmen cannot resist a good acronym.
Initialisms and acronyms are absolute catnip to members of the Congress, and so they have proposed the averting the national threat of an internet surveillance, oppressive censorship and influence, and algorithmic learning by the Chinese Communist Party Act, also known as the Antisocial CCP Act.
Boo!
This is so stupid.
But the bill is very good.
The title, perhaps a little silly.
The bill, very, very good.
This is being proposed in the Senate.
This is being proposed in the House of Representatives.
Marco Rubio is helping to lead the bipartisan charge in the Senate.
This is a really important law.
The extreme libertarian position will be, well, we don't want the government interfering in the market.
And if people want to download their TikToks and jiggle on camera and just waste their time doom-scrolling for hours a day, that's their right.
And now, we have the right within the political community to set boundaries within the marketplace.
And when it comes to TikTok...
We have, I think, an obligation to suppress TikTok in our country.
Because there is a national security risk from TikTok.
TikTok is a way for the Chinese Communist Party to get data from us.
And that's a really, really bad thing.
And TikTok is a way for the Chinese Communist Party to censor some of the discourse within the United States.
To help control the public square, which in a self-government means the Chinese Communist Party would have a fair amount of control over our political order.
But furthermore...
TikTok is just bad.
It is just digital crack, okay?
When you look at the amount of time per day that TikTok users are on the app versus, say, Twitter users, it is not even close.
And there's one study showed the average or median Twitter user is on the app for two to six minutes per day.
The average or median TikTok user, it's upwards of an hour, okay?
It's a huge waste of time.
It's a total psyop.
And we should wield the power of the state, by which I mean the political community, to put a stop to that.
People are not really benefiting from TikTok.
And we can know that, and we can perceive that, and everybody deep down knows that it's true.
And we should put a stop to it because it's endangering national security.
It's also endangering our psychology and our lives and our productivity and our national soul.
Speaking of dangers coming from China...
The House Intelligence Committee, GOP, has just come out with a report that you're going to be shocked to hear this.
If you're driving, pull over.
If you're standing up, have a seat.
Turns out that COVID maybe didn't just start in nature.
It maybe just wasn't a total accident because of a bad batch of bat soup at the Wuhan wet market.
You're going to be shocked to find out that COVID... Actually may have come from the Wuhan laboratory.
And that COVID actually may have been part of a Chinese bioweapons program.
You're going to be shocked to find out that the wild-eyed, crazy, tinfoil hat conspiracy theorists were actually very likely right about everything regarding COVID from the very beginning.
Here's what the report says.
Contrary to the implication of the intelligence community's declassified report, based on our investigation involving a variety of public and non-public information, we conclude that there are indications that SARS-CoV-2 may have been tied to China's biological weapons research program and spilled over to the human population during a lab-related incident in the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
the IC, the intelligence community, failed to adequately address this information in its classified updated assessment.
When we attempted to raise the issues with the IC, it failed to respond.
There you have it.
Now, why might the IC and other branches of the administrative agencies in the deep state, why might they not be so interested in admitting that SARS-CoV-2, COVID-19, the Wu flu, whatever you want to call it, may very likely have been part of a Chinese bioweapons program.
Well, one, because the United States obviously is conducting similar research.
This became a big issue when certain bio labs were uncovered in Eastern Europe as part of the Ukraine war.
But two, because the U.S. funded the laboratory.
Because the U.S. was funding this kind of research on bat coronaviruses and had subset grants to the Wuhan Institute of Virology through Peter Daszhak and through EcoHealth Alliance.
So you've got a combination here of culpability and incompetence in the federal government.
And so they don't want to admit that they're doing that.
And so they're trying to cover it up.
They've been trying to cover it up for two and a half years.
I'm really pleased to see that the House GOP is coming in and they're at least willing to talk about these things.
We need to go further though.
We need to be vindicated.
We We have been gaslit for so, so long.
We need some vindication.
If all the House GOP does is obstruct Biden's worst plans and uncover this kind of stuff, that will have been a great service.
Speaking of things that can hurt you, Speaking of things that can hurt you, Jay Leno has had his face set on fire.
We covered this a couple of weeks ago when it first happened.
Jay Leno loves working on cars, and he had oil and gas sputter out of a car, and then there was a light that was already lit, and it lit his whole face on fire.
He goes to the hospital, and this guy just jokes about it.
So he's out of surgery.
They seem to have fixed his face up fairly well.
Leno says, quote, Eight days later, I had a brand new face, and it's better than what was there before.
I'm sorry, I'll try that again.
Eight days later, I had a brand new face, and it's better than what was there before.
And he just says it as a joke, as a total throwaway.
That's a very funny line.
He says, when you look at me, you don't really worry about what you look like.
Look, if I'm George Clooney, it's going to be a huge problem.
They said it would be all right.
My attitude is I trust people who are the best to do what they have to do.
He then said, the most expensive part of the whole operation was the gasoline.
We're in California.
It's seven bucks a gallon.
So he just keeps telling jokes.
I think he's already performing again.
There were reports that after a couple days in the hospital, Leno was going around telling jokes to kids who were in the hospital.
It's just up on his feet, very buoyant.
And a lot of people are looking at this and they're saying, wow, this is great.
Good for Jay Leno.
I wish I had that attitude.
For me, I stub my toe.
It ruins my whole day.
For me, someone cuts me off in traffic.
I'm still whining about it.
Jay Leno gets his face burnt off, and he's telling jokes about it days later.
Wow, what a guy.
I wish I could be like that.
My question is, what's the alternative to being like that?
Yes, it's great.
Clearly, Jay Leno has cultivated certain virtues that have allowed him to remain buoyant.
But my question is, for those of us who have not done that yet, what's the alternative?
We're just going to whine and be miserable all the time?
Jay Leno is not only doing something that's virtuous here, he's doing something that's wise and smart and in his self-interest.
He's not going to be benefiting by whining and crying all the time about what's happened, whether it's spilled milk or burning his face off.
He's just going to move on with his life.
Now, speaking of late night hosts, late night has really gone downhill since Jay Leno left.
Stephen Colbert has a lot to say about the potential 2024 presidential race.
Because right now, Donald Trump not doing very, very well.
Right now, Ron DeSantis doing much better.
But Stephen Colbert, he's already looking ahead to what happens if DeSantis takes over Trump.
New Wall Street Journal poll says that in a hypothetical GOP primary matchup, DeSantis beats the former president 52% to 38%.
Yay?
Also maybe boo?
It's hard to know who to root for here.
It's like a poll between gonorrhea and a slightly more racist gonorrhea.
This is...
Apologies to gonorrhea.
Gosh.
Donald Trump.
Donald Trump is Hitler.
Donald Trump is the worst person to ever hold the presidency.
It's not just that we hate all the Republicans and conservatives.
Donald Trump is uniquely a threat.
He's a fascist.
He's a Nazi.
We have to stop Donald Trump.
But Ron DeSantis is just as bad.
And I told you this.
You know, I hate to say I told you so.
I said this all the way back in 2016.
They're all pretending that Trump is the unique case.
By the time Trump leaves office, it's going to be the good old days.
Oh, Donald Trump was bad, but he wasn't as bad as, insert the name of the next Republican.
Just like they did to George W. Bush.
When George Bush was president, he was Hitler.
Now he's all the good old days, George W. Bush.
Just the same thing with George H.W. Bush.
They did the same thing to Ronald Reagan.
They called him a white supremacist and a Nazi and a skinhead and all the rest of it.
I guess he couldn't be a skinhead because he had such a beautiful head of hair.
And so right now, actually, the only silver lining for Donald Trump in what's been generally a pretty bad political news cycle for him Vis-a-vis the Republican primary and Ron DeSantis is they haven't really opened fire on DeSantis yet.
So DeSantis is doing very, very well in the polls.
But the moment that they start to turn their firepower on Ron DeSantis, you are going to see those numbers come down.
I'm not saying it's going to be fair.
It's really never fair when the media do that.
That is the game that they play.
And so we've got to stay alert.
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Speaking of rolling with the punches...
A House Republican representative, Carlos Jimenez, is urging Elon Musk to move Twitter to Florida.
Not to move the Twitter digital platform, he's doing lots of moves there, but to move the physical headquarters to Florida.
I think this would be a great, great move.
What Jimenez says is, quote, I'm writing to you as the former mayor of Miami-Dade County, who now has the distinct honor of representing my community in Congress.
We want to encourage you to explore our free state of Florida and make the move to relocate Twitter to Miami-Dade County.
This would solve a lot of Musk's problems.
If he moved the headquarters from San Francisco to Miami or something, that would solve a lot of Musk's problems.
You remember right now, Musk is being investigated because he brought some mattresses to the office for overworked employees who want to take a quick nap.
Well, he's being investigated for that.
The government in San Francisco, in California, obviously very, very hostile to Musk.
They're going to continue to launch investigations.
They're going to pass laws to punish him.
And so what he should do is move to Florida.
It is a lesson that I've been trying to drive home for a while, but now we're seeing it play out in real time.
Politics is not just your friends online.
Politics is not just about your affinity groups and some meetup chat or something like that.
Politics is about a political community.
Man is, in some degree, a physical being.
And so the political community is also where we live.
If Elon Musk moves from California to Florida, he will have a much easier time conducting business.
Just like the Daily Wire has had a much easier time conducting business when we move from LA to Tennessee.
Just like all sorts of businesses have had a much easier time since they moved from Florida to, from California to Florida, from California to Texas, from California to Tennessee.
Elon, now is the time to do it.
It's going to be a lot easier to move because you fired or allowed to quit huge numbers of You're selling off a lot of the merch.
Elon is probably several steps ahead of us in planning this out already, but let's do it.
It would also seriously help the culture war because we have to show these people that there are consequences to their terrible policies and their terrible government.
Take their money away.
Take their power centers away.
I don't like the idea that three or four entities control the public square, especially because they're semi-private entities.
But I would feel a hell of a lot better if not all of those entities were based in Silicon Valley surrounded by crazy libs.
I would feel a lot better if at least one of those entities, even if it's the smallest one, were based in a conservative state.
Speaking of the GOP, there's a big explosive report.
This report is out from Red State.
It says that the RNC has been spending tons of money, and it's largely a political attack on Ronna McDaniel, who is the current chairman of the Republican National Committee.
I assume this is part of the campaign right now.
There's a power struggle.
Who's going to be the next GOP chairman?
Is Ronna McDaniel going to continue to serve?
Is Harmeet Dillon, who's a friend of ours, A California Republican lawyer.
Is she going to become the new head of it?
There was a rumor that Mercedes Schlapp, who is a former Trump official, who is married to Matt Schlapp, out of the American Conservative Union, that she might run...
What is it?
Regardless of who's behind it, it's obviously an attack on Ronna McDaniel.
And I have to say, there are many reasons to attack the RNC and the House GOP leadership and the Senate GOP leadership.
This one seems a little bit weak to me.
If you look at the money that was spent on private jets, the money that was spent on limousines, luxury retreats, Broadway shows, you know, it all sounds really bad in the headline.
It's not a ton of money.
The money that was spent on private jets, half a million dollars.
That's what?
Ten flights?
Ten to fifteen flights?
That's really not a ton of money over this period of time, over a year, for a major American political party to spend on chartered flights.
Because sometimes, to get to fundraisers, to get to big events, to get there on time, to places where they don't have commercial flights, I don't know, that just doesn't seem crazy to me.
The floral arrangements, food and beverage, alcohol.
Again, it sounds really bad.
They spent $36,500 on alcohol.
Well, yeah, they're throwing events.
They're raising money.
This seems a little bit weak to me.
I mean, all is fair in love and war and politics, but the reasons to go after the RNC are the failure of the RNC to support good candidates, to win elections, to counter the Democrats' strategies in terms of ballot harvesting, in terms of changing the laws in certain states to benefit one party over the other.
That's why one would go after them.
But spending a little bit of money on booze at fundraisers, I don't know.
That doesn't do a whole lot for me.
You know what I think would be significant?
What you're seeing in Georgia right now.
In Georgia, the Secretary of State is moving to end runoff elections, which I think is great.
Brad Raffensperger has just called on the state legislature to eliminate runoff elections after last week, because we saw the Herschel Walker and Raphael Warnock campaign.
It was a really close call on election night, so it goes on for another few weeks.
Then it goes into December, and okay, Warnock barely edges it out.
We need to get rid of this stuff, okay?
The runoffs generally only serve the Democrats.
Sometimes Republicans can win.
I'm not saying that it's always right against the Democrats, but I just think what conservatives and Republicans should be aiming at is to Reduce the size of the election.
We need to get rid of the mail-in ballots.
We need to get rid of election season.
We need to get rid of the runoffs.
We need to get rid of ranked choice voting.
We just need to bring it in.
It's much easier to control for shenanigans when the election takes place on election day and people have to show up.
So any way that we can reduce the size of the election, that is what we have to do.
There's even more great political news, by the way, that's coming out of Loudoun County.
Before we take a break and go over to the member block, I do have to mention this.
In Loudoun County, the superintendent there has just been indicted.
This guy, Superintendent Scott Ziegler was the one who permitted There's ridiculous bathroom policies that encouraged a rape to take place.
A boy in the girl's bathroom at Loudoun County, all sorts of gender-bending craziness.
But that wasn't even the worst part.
The rape was the worst part.
But then the worst part from the standpoint of policy was that the superintendent just moved the kid to another school.
He knew about it.
He didn't really follow up on it.
He just tried to brush the problem under the rug.
And then what happened?
The kid raped someone again.
It was all this big cover-up because it was so politically incorrect to say that boys shouldn't go into the girls' bathroom and that gender-bending students obviously have some psychological problems.
Well, now that guy's being indicted.
Love that.
This guy lied.
There's more to say on this story, but this is a great use of political power.
I mean, I just keep coming back to this.
In all of these fronts, when we're talking about social media, when we're talking about local school boards, when we're talking about the national government, when we're talking about woke corporations, we're talking about all of it, we need to wield our power.
Because if we don't, if all we do is issue strong statements or crack jokes, Then the libs are going to get away with it, and they're going to keep on with their terrible policies that are destroying the country.
Now, we are heading on to my absolute favorite time of the week.
That is when I get to hear from you in the voicemail bag.
If you have not submitted a voicemail bag this week, make sure you get it in for next week.
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Take it away.
Hey there, Michael.
So, my situation is...
I am a young adult...
I don't really do much of anything.
I'm not interested in partying, drinking, going to bars, none of that.
I spend most of my time at church where everyone's either a lot younger or older than I am.
I recently moved to a new area for work, and I don't know how I'm ever going to find a man.
I feel like I'm going to be alone forever because most young adults that I know go to bars on the weekends or go out and do things and be social.
I have maybe one friend who I go out with a few times a month, maybe, and that's hiking.
So, I mean, I'm not the most social person.
I'm not interested in compromising my beliefs.
But I don't know how to meet someone with the same interests as me, if that makes sense.
I would love your advice.
Thank you so much.
First thing to do, take some pressure off yourself, okay?
You're clearly feeling this pressure of, I've got to go out.
I've got to meet a man.
This is it.
This is one of my three times a month I go out.
It's got to happen.
If it doesn't happen, now I'm going to die alone!
It's okay.
It's alright.
Relax.
If you go out with that kind of attitude, you're not going to have a very good time, you're probably not going to meet anybody, and you're going to be very, very disappointed.
So it's okay.
What you need to do is, you say you don't really like going to bars and restaurants, you do like going to church, but the people at your church are very, very old or very, very young.
So, I would recommend maybe looking for another church, or if you really love your church, just different groups affiliated with churches where you might find young people.
That is your interest.
So you can find people who share that interest there, and it's a very good interest to have.
God is a very good interest to have.
I would recommend, I'm not sure if you're Catholic, but if you are Catholic, I would recommend you check out a traditional Latin Mass.
I actually would recommend it even if you're not Catholic.
But that's not only because I find it to be the most beautiful liturgy ever, but also because for your needs right now, that's where all the young people are.
The young, family-oriented people who are really interested in community are attending the Latin Mass.
I know that seems sort of counterintuitive, but it's because young people, unlike the boomers, are more interested, I think, in orthodoxy, in rigor, in truth.
Not just the soft soap, hippy-dippy Age of Aquarius stuff, but they want all the sorts of things that you are describing that you want.
And so, that would be one venue.
I assume, no matter what your denomination is, that there is...
Some version of it that attracts younger people, I hope.
I'm actually not totally confident of that, but one would certainly hope so.
And then there are organizations related to the church, volunteer charitable organizations that might do that.
Furthermore...
You can avail yourself of the dating apps.
I'm not saying it's the best solution.
I'm not saying that I would be eager to do it if I were single, but that is where people are these days.
And you don't just have to go on some completely degenerate dating app.
You don't just need to swipe right all the time on some hookup app.
There are apps out there where you can meet people who are interested in longer-term sorts of things.
And I don't think there's anything wrong with engaging in the culture...
Within the parameters that the culture allows.
Don't abuse it so that you're just hooking up all the time.
But I know people who have gotten great marriages out of dating apps.
So that's what I would do.
Take the pressure off of yourself, but just calmly, steadily pursue the...
People and the interests that you want where they are.
And sometimes that'll mean, by the way, if you don't want to go out to a bar or restaurant, oh, it's a Friday night, I'm kind of tired, I just don't.
Well, maybe you should.
Maybe you should push yourself with your friend that you go out with to say, you know, we actually should be social tonight and go out and chat with some people.
But there are other ways, too.
You don't need to just meet your husband, your future husband, at a bar.
Okay, next question.
Hello, Michael.
Happy Friday to you.
I pray you and your family are well, and I thank you for putting on your show.
I enjoy it tremendously.
I am curious to get your brief thoughts on the age-old question of passion versus provision when selecting one's line of work or career path.
The background to this question is that at one time I was a hopeful academic.
I had I started a doctoral degree and was excelling in European history, and my goal was to be a professor, and that was my passion, really still is to this day.
But through one thing or another, in God's providence, I left academics, did not complete my doctoral degree, and got into business ownership instead, and I now run a small business that does very well.
And I mainly left because I'm an evangelical Christian, and I have a wife and five children, and I felt that I could better provide for and afford more opportunities for my family and my church.
Through business ownership than I could through academics.
However, I still oftentimes struggle with a deep sense of loss or regret, thinking about the fact that I did leave what I love to do something that I love less, but is better for others around me.
So briefly, if you could give your thoughts on that concept and how we should weight passion versus provision when selecting lines of work, I would appreciate it.
Thank you.
A good example I will use is my friend Spencer Clavin.
Spencer Clavin, a genius academic.
I have known him since his freshman year in college, my sophomore year in college, and we have been friends ever since.
Then Spencer went on, got his Ph.D. at Oxford in classics, I think in ancient Greek music criticism.
You know, it is...
This guy is as academic and scholarly as it gets.
He doesn't teach at a college right now.
He could have, but that would have made other aspects of his life more difficult.
He didn't want to have to move to Palookaville.
He didn't want to get on that really awful kind of track where you don't make any money and you don't have a ton of control over your life.
And there's all the sorts of problems that you're describing.
And then on top of that, you say you have to provide for your family, and so that's not going to cut it.
So what does Spencer do?
He starts a podcast called Young Heretics, a fabulous podcast, one of the few that I listen to.
Spencer writes books.
Spencer develops an audience by writing on his blog.
He feeds not only the The financial needs of his life, but also the intellectual needs.
I mean, I feel you.
I have plenty of academic and scholarly interests.
I'm not an academic.
I do not work in academia at all.
But I do try to make time in my day to read and to read certain sort of esoteric or more academic things.
And then I try to incorporate that into my daily life.
I host a talk show.
I go around to college campuses.
But I tailor those circumstances within my life to the interests that I have.
100% of the time, I would not have a great existence.
I think you can do that, too.
I know you're very busy.
The demands of business, the demands of your family are very busy.
But you can work these things in together.
We've come to this crazy conclusion in modernity that we have to be increasingly specialized and siloed and compartmentalized in our interests.
You really don't have to be, I don't think.
You can work all of these things.
You can work in your faith.
You can work in your academic interest.
You can work in your family.
You can work all of this into so much more of your life.
And that will give you, by the way, not only the satisfaction of pursuing your interests, it will give you a much more integrated life so that you won't feel so...
So you won't feel like you're one person at the office and one person at home and one person reading your book, but you're the same person moving and weaving all of these different facets of your character in throughout the day.
Next question.
Hey Michael.
Being a Christian woman, I want to take care of my husband and serve him to the best of my ability.
And I know men are different in some ways, but I just wanted to know what you think is the best ways that a wife can serve her husband.
Thanks, Michael.
Wow.
Whatever you're doing, I'm sure you're doing it just great.
That very question, I'm looking at Mr.
Davies over here in the corner.
You know, you can't see him.
He's off camera.
Wow.
Michael, just tell me, how can a wife serve her husband?
Just by asking that question.
Just by thinking of your marriage in those terms.
You're doing it.
Okay?
How can a wife serve her husband?
And husbands should probably ask, how can I love my wife?
How can I love my wife?
It's not so easy to serve your husband and really to serve your whole family all the time.
So much of the work that wives and mothers do is not glamorous.
And people do not always express their gratitude for it.
And it's this constant, steady work of these small acts of love that are just so consistent that they create a whole universe.
They create the whole context in which you live.
They create your home.
And often men don't think, how can I love my wife?
wife?
How can I always be loving my wife?
Even when my wife is nagging me about that thing that I don't want to do, or even when my wife does something that I don't appreciate or don't.
And I think if you just ask yourself those questions regularly, you're on the track to Next question.
Hi Michael, Katie here.
You may also know me as SatoshaCaterGator on Twitter or just CaterGator in the member block.
I'm asking about someone who called in today to talk about the greater Idaho movement.
I'm looking at the map here and I'm disappointed that it fails to cover more of my state, Nevada, specifically places like Elko, which has legalized licensed brothels.
Also, we have gambling and all sorts of sinning.
So, Prince Prison Michael, self-proclaimed sex symbol, chaste and based.
What will you as a leader do to ensure that more of my state gets annexed?
Also, what will you do with the brothels once prostitution becomes illegal, as it should?
Will you turn them into cigar lounges, or will you do what powerful people in Vegas do, which is blow them up to build something better?
Looking forward to your answer.
Thank you.
Well, I love your question.
And I love your mode of addressing me as well.
I appreciate that.
Recognizing that I am, in fact, an international sex symbol, chaste and based, swarthy as can be.
So on that point, I'll answer the second part first.
What would I do with the brothels?
So we say, okay, we've got to shut down the brothels.
This is not good for anybody, really.
There...
There is a Christian argument for not shutting down brothels.
This was the argument made by Augustine and reiterated by St.
Thomas Aquinas, which is that if you move to outlaw prostitution and brothels that already exist, then society will just go crazy with lust and you'll have increases in violence and rape.
So there actually is an argument for Not totally outlawing these things, although obviously what's going on in Las Vegas is just terrible.
At the very least, I think everyone agrees one should curtail those kinds of vices, if not outlaw them altogether.
But then assuming we do outlaw it, would I renovate them and turn them into cigar lounges or would I... Knock them down and build something new.
It would have to be the latter.
And it would have to be the latter because if you allow some vestige of these things to persist, there will be a temptation toward them.
I think of a great book by Dom Lorenzo Scupoli called The Spiritual Combat.
And this is a 500-year-old book, very important to understanding the spiritual combat that we're always in.
And Scupoli writes that for so many sins and vices, We can look at them.
We can confront them head on.
But when we're talking about lusts, when we're talking about sexual temptations, you really do just have to flee.
You've just got to run away.
You will not be able to face them head on.
And I suspect that's because we are...
We're largely sexual beings.
That is a real core part of who we are.
The drive for sex is a stronger drive, and the temptation toward lust is a stronger temptation than, say, my temptation toward gluttony.
Which I have that, too.
I've got all of them in spades, but the sexual drive is stronger.
So I would knock that down, and I would then, of course, build the cigar lounge on the spot where they were, out of different materials with a different sort of design.
How will we make the greater Idaho movement?
How will we allow it to take over more of your state?
Well, I think it needs to go national.
I think that we can't be so short-sighted to say, well, we'll just open up the greater Idaho movement and have Idaho take over just a few more little areas around it.
No, it's got to go national, baby.
We need the whole country to be Idaho.
It's like that meme of the astronauts, one of whom is holding a gun at someone's head.
The guy says, it's all Ohio.
And the astronaut holding the gun says, it always was.
It's all got to be Idaho.
And that way, we will live in a good, flourishing, normal country and get rid of Gomorrah by the sea over there on the west coast in California and all the madness in New York as well.
The rest of the show continues now.
I have got a great...
Written mailbag question from a retired Jewish Christmas tree salesman that I'm very excited to answer.
I just see that name right up there at the top.
So you'll have to head over to the members' block to hear that question and answer.
It's also Fake Headline Friday.
So Fake Headline Friday is, of course, where Mr.
Davies gives me five headlines, and I need your help to understand which one is the fake headline.
