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March 26, 2023 - The Michael Knowles Show
57:24
YES or NO with Matt Fradd | Real Answers and Real Drinks

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Time Text
It is perfectly acceptable to abandon your wife and children on a weekend to do a four-hour podcast with a couple of dudes while enjoying cigars and whiskey.
Of course it is.
We wouldn't have done it.
Who would suggest otherwise?
Welcome back to another exciting episode of the Yes or No Game.
We have a very, very special guest this week.
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Now, This game is a real special mash-up, because this game is usually martinis with Michael.
It will be mashed up with pints with Aquinas.
And my friend Matt Fradd.
Matt, thank you for coming on the show.
Thank you for having me.
So, you are a very well-known Catholic podcaster, and people might be wondering, Why my martini looks so strange.
It is because it is the Lenten season, and I've decided this Lent I'm gonna, for the first time in my life since I was 18, I'm gonna try to reduce the booze intake.
And so you are going to have to drink enough for the two of us.
Okay.
You have a flight to miss, so don't worry, we've got plenty of cards for that.
All right.
Usually we begin, if it's a woman playing, I let the lady go first.
You're a man, so I will go first.
And then you have to guess how I would answer the question.
And then you move my drink, which is a delicious Fruity Spindrift.
Would be much harder to give up than the booze, frankly.
It's so delightful.
It's like millennial ambrosia.
You will move that to where you think I would guess.
I will move yours to where I think you would guess.
And then we find out.
If you lose, you have to drink.
If you win, you get to drink.
First question.
Star Wars, Harry Potter, and the Lord of the Rings are all basically the same.
Okay, so I would hope that you would say no.
And I likewise would assume you would say no.
No.
It depends what you mean by basically.
If I basically mean, is it a story?
Well, then yes, it's basically the same.
Do nerds really like all of them?
Yes.
But that's where the similarities end.
Yeah, is there kind of messianic components in each?
Yes.
But Lord of the Rings is Christian.
It was written by a very famous Catholic, Tolkien.
Star Wars is some kind of Sufi, vaguely Muslim kind of thing, maybe.
And Harry Potter is for witches.
I started reading Harry Potter on my summer trip because I've never been terribly convinced by the Christian argument that it's demonic.
And I thought it was quite a charming read.
But the Lord of the Rings is absolute poetry.
Can I make a confession?
I got through like 200 pages.
Of what?
Lord of the Rings.
Wow.
With the Hobbit, I tried.
I went to the movie.
I said, I'm going to watch one of the movies.
I went to the second movie when it hit theaters.
I walked out.
They were in the woods for so long.
I said, this is so boring.
Well, you know what's funny?
I remember trying to watch the movies later on in life, and this was after I had become addicted to TV shows like 24, which is incredibly fast-paced.
And then I tried watching The Fellowship of the Ring, and I'm like, what is happening?
Why?
Where's the clock counting down?
This is... I know.
No, but the books are amazing.
I'm really surprised.
I know.
I take your word for it.
You know it's your problem.
I know it's my problem.
You know it's not Tolkien's fault.
Yes, that's right.
Okay, so I guess we get to drink.
This is weird.
Okay.
It's hard.
I'm not saying it's easy.
Cheers.
I asked your assistant for the cheapest bourbon imaginable.
Do you know what they got?
I don't.
Hopefully.
All bourbon tastes identical.
It's so weird when I have Drew come in.
Oh, that's quite nice.
Is it?
Okay.
Maybe I could get behind and say that.
When we have Drew come in, Drew requests scotch.
And for him, only the top shelf will do.
With the cigars, only the top shelf will do.
You're much more down to earth.
Your question?
G'Day is an abomination to the English language and should be thrown out with other terms like prolly, no cap, and intersectionality.
That's excellent.
Wow.
Is G'Day an abomination to the English language?
Oh no, do I have to guess for you?
You have to guess for me.
I think you might say yes.
Because there's not... I don't know.
No, I think it's a delightful...
Colloquialism.
And when I think of all the other examples, some of which you cited there, but many others as well, I think bidet is far from our worst problem.
And frankly, these days, if someone is speaking the English language at all, I'm grateful.
I'll take what I can get.
Even the conservatives here in America are giving their State of the Union response in Spanish.
Well, there's very little to unite us in America, in the broader Anglosphere.
I think it'd be nice to have at least a language.
But that's a good point.
I never heard that argument.
Like, if I'm not okay with Prolly, why am I okay with G'day?
I think it has a pedigree.
It has more of a history, perhaps.
Of course.
Etymology.
I'm really into etymology and the development of language.
Language is going to develop, right?
But sometimes it takes a turn that's charming and beautiful and poetic.
And sometimes you get bad stuff.
No cap, no cap.
Real.
So now you have to drink.
I have to drink.
You can drink if you like.
I'm gonna have the shakes by the end of the show, by the way.
Usually, the shakes go away by the end of the show.
Now I'm just gonna have the tremors far more.
Because you need the alcohol?
I need the booze, yeah.
Right now, go to hallow.com slash Knowles.
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I think they give that up outside of Lent, too.
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In the year of our Lord, 2023, I have more in common with a practicing Muslim than I do with someone practicing woke liberalism.
Oh, wow.
This is one of those questions that I'd hate to get wrong, and I'm sure if I took the time to think about it, I might come up with a different answer.
But I'm going to say yes.
Oh, no, I can't say that.
That's not how the game works!
And I just won this round, so you have to guess how I would guess.
Okay, I think you might say yes in certain instances.
Inshallah.
I don't know what that word means.
I think it's a Muslim thing.
Yes, I would agree.
The problem is this.
Wokeism, progressive liberalism, whatever you want to say, is a derivation of Puritanism.
I think that the woke left, they really are the inheritors of the Puritan tradition in the United States, which pains me to say because I have Puritan ancestors.
It all comes out of the same culture.
It's just woke leftism comes out of really the wrong turn that the culture started to take centuries ago.
Yeah.
But it does come from our culture, and it is a kind of weird aping of Christianity.
Yeah, I think that's right.
But you could say the same about Islam.
It's just that Islam is a Christian heresy from the 7th century, not from the 17th century, as maybe puritanism and wokeism comes to be.
So, because Islam Started aping a culture back when it was much healthier.
I suppose I give the Muslims the advantage.
Yeah, if I've got someone here who believes that God exists, that he's separate from the world, that he has, he can command certain things, that there are certain things we are obliged to do.
Yeah.
I mean, that isn't to say that I don't think it's a heresy like you put it.
I like to think of Muhammad, I like to review Muhammad, I'm going to get into trouble here, but I like to review Muhammad in the way that the church fathers and then C.S.
Lewis would review Christ.
Lord, liar, lunatic.
Pick one.
I think with Muhammad, you've got to say prophet, liar, lunatic, or possessed.
Yeah.
I think it's probably one of those.
Right.
And you even see You know, in Dante, he puts some of these Muslims in the realm of sort of schismatics and heretics and things.
I mean, even Muhammad started the religion after going on a trip with his uncle and they met a heretical monk, which in the Muslim tradition they call Bahira, and in the Western tradition we call Sergius.
But no one really disputes that, so it obviously comes from some kind of understanding of Christianity.
One of the criticisms of Islam that you saw in the Regensburg Address by Benedict, In Christianity, God and logic are synonymous, whereas in Islam, Allah is utterly transcendent.
He quotes the Muslim theologian Ibn Hazm and says that if God so willed it, God being pure will, he could will his followers to worship idols, and they would be obliged to do that.
I think that's not a great thing.
However, the modern libs are obviously pure will.
They're so insistent upon the tyranny of their own will that they want us to let the men into the women's bathroom and pretend that reality is different than it is.
Why is it, do you think then, that the woke people are more likely to defend and reverence Islam?
Because Islam has been an historical enemy of Christianity.
However, you know, to the point of the question, as we see the shakeup today, I think that probably people who believe in theistic religion at all probably have quite a lot more in common.
Objective reality.
Yes, yeah, and probably can team up against the iconoclast secularists who want to just knock down everything beautiful and sacred in the world.
Dude, these are good questions.
These are.
I hate to compliment the producers, but these are good questions.
Okay.
Alright.
See, I've never been in a situation where I've had a drink in front of me, and it's only acceptable to drink at certain times.
Yes, only if you get it right or get it wrong.
Those are the only times that you can drink.
Currently, the internet and social media are more dangerous to young women than to young men.
Okay, alright, we'll guess.
One, two, three.
Yeah, no way.
I'd have to think about it more, but I wouldn't think that it's...
I can't think of a reason that it's especially pernicious to women in a way that it wouldn't be to men.
Well, the way it could be especially pernicious to women is it makes them think about their bodies all the time and either gives them anorexia or turns them into, you know, virtual prostitutes on OnlyFans or something.
But nevertheless, even granting all that, The reason it's more pernicious to dudes is because of porn, right?
Porn is just everywhere, and men are like a moth to a flame, especially young boys who are exposed to it.
And porn just totally messes up people's heads.
I mean, you've talked about this extensively.
Yeah, I like what Jason Everett said.
He says that pornography emasculates a man.
It robs him of the ability to be masculine.
So, instead of saying, this is my body given up for you, we learn the polar opposite.
This is your body taken by me.
We miss the point of manhood.
Women are left without a strong man to guide them, and men are just...
Wimps.
Right.
Norm Macdonald had a great bit, even on one-night stands.
He had this whole bit, which he gave at a club in San Francisco.
He said, you know, sex is obviously a filthy, shameful thing, clearly only meant for procreation.
And one of his arguments for this is, you know how when you're going to go do that thing, you know, one-night stand, or you go alone in the room, you know how you turn the blinds down?
You know, you lock the door and turn the blinds down?
That's shame.
That's a manifestation of shame.
That's right.
You don't go bragging about looking at porn all the time.
Sure.
I mean, I wouldn't want to say that the sexual act within marriage is in any way, shape, or form a shameful thing.
But if he's talking about fornicating, then that would be.
But the reason we would turn the blinds down and lock the doors in an appropriate sexual relationship is because there are certain human acts that are appropriate in certain contexts and not others, and that says nothing one way or the other.
You're telling me I shouldn't open the blinds when...
Put a red light on just so all the neighbors are aware.
I guess I'm a bit more exhibitionistic.
Okay, you're up.
So neither of us have to drink.
No, but we do get to drink.
We do get to.
We certainly get to.
It's okay to be goth.
These are great.
Is it okay to be goth?
I'd want definitions.
You don't get definitions.
You don't get them.
One, two, three.
Oh, I'm going to say no.
Yeah, right.
I'm bad at this game.
So you think that I would say no.
I think that you would say yes.
Yeah, I would say yes, but I'd need a definition on goth.
A kid who is 12 years old and really pissed off at his or her father.
Right.
That would be my definition.
So I would say it wouldn't be okay for parents to allow their children to dress in that way, but I'm okay with people expressing themselves.
And I think it would be weird if the government would step in and say no.
And parents ought not to be doing that, I think, with kids at a certain age.
So I'm okay with kids.
Would you be okay... I wouldn't be okay with my kid doing it.
You wouldn't?
Not at all.
It wouldn't be an option.
Yeah.
But if your kid did it, I'd be like, oh, bloody hell, sorry.
That sounds terrible.
But I wouldn't do anything about it.
What if...
A school said, okay, we've got a policy, you can't dress up like Marilyn Manson.
No goth stuff in the school.
I think the problem with the goth thing is it very quickly become verges on the satanic symbolism.
Yeah.
Almost immediately.
Yeah.
I was never goth, but I did wear a lot of heavy metal t-shirts and black jeans.
Really?
Yeah.
I was in a heavy metal band and things like this.
I didn't know this.
Yeah.
Why?
Um, I was... I liked the idea of, like, rebelling against the man and, you know, just being angry and trying to express that and not knowing how to.
I don't think I fit in with the jocks and I didn't fit in with other people, but I did like heavy metal music and so I just sort of adopted that identity.
I'm not sure why people do it today though, because what I find interesting is if I show my son, who's 15 years old, Metallica, he's like, why are they so angry?
I'm like, this is brilliant, what do you mean?
So it's almost, it's funny to me that young kids don't listen to the same music we did So I don't know what goth means today.
I really love that.
I mean, today, of course, though, to be subversive, to be really transgressive, is to just go to Latin mass and get married young and have children and work hard.
Yeah.
It's very different than it was in the 80s.
As Gavin McGinnis says, it's the new punk rock.
It's the new punk rock, that's right.
Sometimes people write in to me and they'll say, Michael, is it okay to listen to or perform in heavy metal?
And I go back to Plato on this.
Plato is very wary of music, especially percussive music, especially music that cuts right through to your soul.
What's your answer?
I certainly wouldn't have as sophisticated an answer as you would.
I get the feeling you think about this quite frequently.
I'm up all night.
I say, should I listen to Metallica?
I listen.
It's funny.
When I was a teenager, I was listening to heavy metal.
Pantera, Machine Head, Metallica.
Now, if you said, what do you listen to?
It's, you're listening to oldies on a front porch and it's raining.
That's the crap I listen to right now, Michael, because I'm old and I'm tired.
But I do listen to heavy metal.
There's a band called Sabaton.
And there's an excellent song about the Swiss Guards doing things to the Muslims.
Really?
Shall we say.
It's excellent.
Oh, Michael, you'd love it.
I could see this sort of goth to trad pipeline.
You know, it's just you're kind of turning your target.
Yeah, that's right.
So I like heavy metal if I'm working out.
I feel like it.
But if I try to listen to secular music, what I find is that it haunts me like a ghost.
So it'll be two days later, or I'll be up at night, and this stupid song is in my head.
I'm like, why is it there?
Go away.
So I tend not to like.
And this does explain why I do not listen to it, because I have not worked out since the Obama administration.
Okay.
Can I drink?
No, I can.
You can.
Yeah.
You have the opportunity now, because of how you answered that question.
In general, men in the workforce should avoid close female friendships with co-workers.
I'm going to reset your drink.
Okay.
In the workforce... In general... In general... Men should avoid close friendships with female co-workers.
Yeah, alright.
One, two, three.
Okay.
Yeah, of course.
Yeah, I think so.
Certainly if you're married, I don't know if you should be having new close female friends at all.
But if you're a single man and you're looking to marry and you're walking on the same piece of carpet as another young single woman, presumably you'd like to get to know her first.
And I don't like the idea of saying to a man, you shouldn't do that lest it look weird or you be accused of something when you did nothing wrong.
Yeah.
I feel like I'm kind of capitulating when I say that.
So you're saying if you're a single guy, she's a single girl, and you plan on dating seriously and getting married or something, then yeah, go for it.
But in general, you know, you shouldn't be flirting with your secretary or something.
But that's a very different thing to getting to know someone, isn't it?
Yeah.
I've heard Matt Walsh make this point that he says that men shouldn't be friends with women.
I don't want to misquote him.
I misquote him all the time.
I heard he's a fascist and called for genocide.
I got a new idea for a game.
Misquoting Matt Walsh.
I have female friends, but certainly once I got married, I was completely uninterested in making friends or maintaining those female friends to the degree they were before.
Do you find, though, One of my closest friends is a woman, and we've been friends for many years.
But we are friends also in the broader context of she and I are both married, we are both friends with each other's spouse, and we'll spend time hanging out with just the spouse, you know, and not the other person.
And I've got actually multiple friends like this, but I'm thinking of one in particular because we've been friends for so long.
And I think, well that, I would still say this person is one of my best friends.
The woman?
The woman.
Yeah.
But not, you know, she and I don't have romantic dinners together.
You know, it's within this broader context of, Yeah.
Now I guess we're couple friends.
When I meet new friends, if I meet their wives, I'm only interested in them because I care about my male friend.
Yeah.
And when my male friends who know me forget the name of my wife and children, I respect it.
Yeah.
I kind of like that.
Yeah, right.
Right.
Yeah, I think it's also, people will write in and they'll say, can men and women be platonic friends?
And I think, well, you've got to be really careful about the context.
If there's a single woman, let's say you work with a single woman and you're married, even if you're not married but you're not interested, I don't see any world in which you can be close friends with that person and not have it be kind of weird.
Right?
I don't know.
I don't know.
Because I also know someone I would consider a very holy priest and a very holy nun who worked together in different ministries.
And I know that the cynic in us might be like, oh yeah, but I think that says more about us than them.
So I certainly want to leave room for the possibility.
And in that case, I mean you would say in that case, They both are married.
Right, sure.
Coincidentally, they're married to the same person.
Yeah.
So, they're not single at the very least, even though they don't have a spouse that walks around on Earth all the time.
Yeah, fair enough.
Okay.
Fair enough.
So, we're both okay?
We're both okay.
All right.
The East Palestine... Did I pronounce that right?
I think so.
...train derailment is likely just one of many intentionally orchestrated attacks, manufacturing plants, chicken hatcheries, etc., with the goal of destabilizing our society.
All right?
Did you get that?
I got it.
I got it.
All right.
One, two, three.
I would say no, but I thought you would have said yes.
I...
I'm open to yes.
However, Eileen, no.
My reasoning is this.
I never ascribe to malice that which is equally explained by incompetence and stupidity.
And so, I do think there's something going on now which is, as the boomers are retiring, boomers for all their flaws did have some basic kind of professional competence, and millennials don't have that at all.
Millennials don't know a damn thing about anything in terms of practical skills.
I don't.
I certainly don't.
I mean, this is my job, is I drink and read these cards.
And so, as that As that starts to change, you're seeing, I think, some more of these industrial-type accidents.
Interesting.
There are over a thousand train derailments every year, and that has been true for decades.
There are competence problems getting worse from the perspective of the government.
But are there nefarious actors and saboteurs and spooks and all sorts of people who are going in and trying to mess around with our public life?
Of course.
I think a lot of it is actual incompetence.
Yeah, no, I'm with you.
I'm afraid that there isn't a group plotting terrible things, and it's just people like me who have no idea what they're doing.
That's terrifying.
I know.
But I think it is.
It's a more boring answer, but it seems like therefore it's probably the answer.
There are groups.
I mean, there are groups conspiring.
The definition of a company is a conspiracy, right?
I mean, you're conspiring together to do something, get an edge over competitors.
But I just don't know that you can ascribe all of the nefarious things happening in the world to those groups of people.
I fear, yeah, it's us.
The fault lies not in the cabals, but in ourselves very often.
All right.
So I got yours wrong.
So I get to drink.
That's what I'm gonna try to do now.
Get your answers wrong.
All right, here we go.
Now do I, wait, is it?
It's my go.
Oh, it is your turn.
It's my go, here we go.
In 2023, there is an even greater push from mainstream entertainment toward promoting white guilt than LGBTQ plus visibility.
Oh, wait.
- I don't know.
I mean, the news cycle this last few weeks seems to make it seem like that is the case.
But I haven't done any... Do you know why?
Why?
This is something an American would have an advantage over an Auss.
I'm going to have to say you got it wrong only because we've just come to the end of February.
Half of this year so far has been dominated by the liberal liturgical month of Black History Month, and so the activism has been hyper-focused on white guilt and black grievance.
That is going to change.
In June, we are going to get the first of two, if not several, gay months, and then everything is going to be rainbow.
In May, do you mean?
In June is the first one.
Isn't May the gay month?
It soon will be another gay month, I'm sure.
But June it is.
But June is a long time.
I just thought May rhymed with gay and that would have been a good strategy on their part.
Yeah.
June.
No idea.
That's an Italian.
That's an Italian phrase for homosexual.
It is.
And then I don't know what big year is for some reason.
Or October.
I don't know.
I got nothing.
All right.
Is it your shot?
It's now it's yours.
Here we go.
The argument can be made that legalizing polygamist marriage would be less detrimental to society than legalizing gay marriage.
Oh, okay.
So can the argument be made That you can legalize a polygamous marriage and that that would be less detrimental to society than a gay marriage.
Okay, ready?
One, two, three.
A hundred percent I would say that.
At least polygamy is real.
Yeah, at least you're dealing with... It's something that God permitted.
Even if he didn't like it.
Testament.
Yeah, he wasn't into it.
Things kind of went awry very often when guys... Not promoting it, you understand.
Not saying we should be doing it.
It doesn't violate the natural law.
No.
Whereas the notion of same-sex marriage is just an incoherent phrase.
I mean, this is why even to say legalize same-sex marriage, you can't.
Even if I wanted to legalize same-sex marriage, I feel so impelled to do so, I could not do that because it is not a thing.
It'd be like legalizing, I don't know, burning hot ice.
Yeah.
I can't do that.
Yeah, marriage precedes the state.
The state has no right to redefine what precedes it and what is in the natural law any more than the state saying from now on we've decided that friendship means enemies.
Yeah, right.
You can play with words if you want, but that isn't what it is.
It doesn't work.
I mean, this is sometimes they'll say, I got in trouble recently for saying we should ban transgenderism entirely.
Thank you.
It's the only way that you could protect women's bathrooms or women's locker rooms or anything.
It's not just that you would ban it for five-year-olds.
You have to ban it for everybody Yeah.
Or you're going to end up with the same effect.
It's like saying, we want to ban abortion except for cases.
It's like, no, we want to ban abortion because you shouldn't kill innocent human beings.
Right.
Yeah, if you believe the premise, then you've got to keep going.
But someone said, well, Michael, why won't you affirm transgenderism?
And I said, because I can't.
Yeah.
It's not me.
Even if I really, really wanted to legalize transgender, it's just, it is not an ontological category that is real.
Yeah.
So it's not my fault.
I don't want to get into this.
I'm not sure how much we can say before you... Oh, they'll bleep me out.
Yeah.
Oh, they will?
They will.
My producers will.
All right, so then I would say, yeah, because you're legalizing...
Yeah.
You're legalizing somebody's ****.
Yes.
And I can no more affirm transgenderism than I can affirm the voices of ****.
Well, you went above me.
Good job.
Let's have a drink.
Do they actually beep it or do they jump cut?
Beeping would be much funnier.
I insist that they bleep.
With a big bar that says Big Tech.
I say, if you're going to cut me...
All right, my shot or yours?
Sorry, I just want to see it.
I think it's mine.
I'm up.
Australia's biggest export is boomerangs.
It's also their biggest import.
Oh, that is interesting.
I'll just take a guess.
I'll have to guess what you would think.
I don't know.
I guess you'll say no, maybe.
I would say you would say no.
I think I might say yes.
I mean, it's an interesting point.
If that's one of the things that tourists like to buy, then we've got to be cranking these bad boys out.
Who can crank them out faster than China?
That becomes a problem because obviously if a boomerang is your biggest export, then eventually it will come back.
It will come back.
It has to.
Very good.
But they are all... Is that the joke?
I missed the joke.
I think that may have... It was a lame joke.
It was very good.
No, it was very good.
I think the reason that it's not boomerangs is one, actors.
The biggest American actors somehow are all Australian.
There's a disproportionate number of them.
It's weird.
It's very strange.
And they're all also just angry and, you know, fairly conservative actually.
But you think about guys who are known for getting into fights and scrapping.
It's Russell Crowe, Mel Gibson.
I love that people have this view of Australia until our government became tyrannical and locked of people in their houses.
And everyone came up to me and went, why is your country gay?
And I said, I don't know if it is, and I actually haven't kept up on what's going on.
So, I don't know.
But they did, it was sort of like, you call that a lockdown?
No, this is a lockdown!
And then they closed their blinds and locked their doors and they didn't go anywhere.
This was my other thought for the biggest export.
Is wokeness.
Now, did you see your native e-safety commissioner?
Nope.
I don't think so.
This woman.
She was working at Microsoft and Twitter.
She was too woke for those two places.
She goes to Australia.
She was also part American.
She gets hooked up with the Australian government.
She creates this thing, Safety by Design.
And Safety by Design says, and it's in work with the World Economic Forum.
They're working in tandem.
It would embed the WOKE regulations in the tech platforms themselves.
So they're saying, oh, the governments, they're not going to keep up with all the trends.
And so what we need to do is just embed it in the three big tech companies.
And if the Australian government, maybe one or two others demands it, the World Economic Forum demands it, then it's just going to go in there, and it's going to be exported all around the world.
Yeah, all right.
WOKE-ism.
OK.
All right.
I don't know what happened.
You... Well, we have to drink.
OK.
My show.
I realized I'm hiccuping more with a non-alcoholic drink.
I think it's because it's bubbly.
It's bad for you.
It's not good for you.
Andrew Tate's advice, I don't know what it is, you can tell me, does more harm than good.
Since I don't know anything about this fella, I'm going to presume that you're going to say no.
And I'll say that you say no too, because you don't know.
I don't know much about him.
Have you followed him at all?
I know he's got a bald head, that he dated Michaela Peterson at one point.
Did he?
I didn't know that.
Maybe he didn't.
Scratch that.
But we're going to start that rumor at the very least.
And something to do with Romanian prostitutes.
Yes.
So the guy became really famous.
One, because he's very savvy at the internet and just knows how to go viral and that succeeded for him.
But he became famous also because he would contradict Parts of secular modernity, and leftism.
And he would say, no, men should be strong, and you should make money, and that's good, and masculinity's not toxic, and all these sorts of really basic self-help things that got him pretty popular.
He is also a pimp.
By a pimp, you mean?
I think that's uncontroversial.
Like, he sells flesh and makes money on it.
And you think that he's doing more good than harm?
No, I thought it was more harm than good.
Advice does more harm than good.
Okay, well hold on, I'll give the same answer.
I'm going to double down.
Well, in the sense that he's not saying anything different than the rest of the culture is saying.
The whole rest of the culture says, be a prostitute, get hooked on porn, treat yourself like you're a bag of meat.
So, he's not especially bad in that regard.
They're all pimps in this culture.
Though he contradicts wokeism a little bit, so I guess you give him a slight edge there.
But the guy is a pimp.
I mean, he admits to this.
- He moved to Romania.
- It's disgusting.
- Yeah, he created OnlyFans accounts and stuff like that.
- Yeah.
- Well then we should be bloody condemning him.
I think this is one of the things that Catholicism can do for the conservative movement, is it gives you guardrails and direction and information about the things you ought to be conserving.
And my problem with those on the left is that they are spiraling into this madness And it seems like unless you are as insane as possible in that direction, you're not yet enlightened enough.
But we might be seeing something similar on the right, where the most obscene and outrageous and ridiculous and false things are thought to be good if they're diametrically opposed to what the left is saying.
Although, a lot of what Andrew Tate has put out, he might think it's diametrically opposed to the left, but it's really not.
I mean, if you're accepting the premises of the sexual revolution and you're conducting your business and your personal life in a way that is not The most conducive to virtue, then you're really kind of going along with the libs.
Although I think Tate recently converted to Islam.
That's right.
So I guess that's better than being an atheist.
We'll see.
We'll see.
I don't even know how I answered on that.
I do not understand this game at all.
Okay, I'm up.
I can drink, so I will.
Biden is a better Catholic than Nancy Pelosi.
Joe Biden's a better Catholic than Nancy Pelosi.
Okay.
I would say.
So you're going to say no, he's not a better Catholic.
Would you agree that he is not a better Catholic?
The only reason I think he might be a better Catholic is that despite his false views and promotions of things like abortion and transgenderism, he at least seems to Pray the rosary, he seems to go to mass, and he might just be a really old man who doesn't know what he's doing anymore.
I'm not saying that to crap on the poor fella.
I can't tell if I feel sympathy for him or not.
Can't tell if I'm more angry at him or the people around him who pushed him into it.
I don't know.
They both seem pretty bad Catholics.
Why would you say that you think Nancy Pelosi is a better Catholic than Joe Biden?
Only because he is more prominent and I think he has more responsibility to live his faith properly and to respect his... But having more of a responsibility is not the same thing to say he is a better Catholic.
Well, that when he commits the sin of scandal, it's more egregious than when she does.
Sure.
Because, though, theoretically, I mean, she's the head of one of the houses of one of the three branches of government, or was until very recently.
But he's the President of the United States.
It's a figure that is imbued with a kind of monarchical quality, almost.
And so when Joe Biden goes out and he says, I support killing babies, and I support Men pretending to be women, and I make a mockery of the definition of marriage.
And am I right in thinking that he at one point said that a child should be able to have themselves mutilated?
Oh yeah, he's saying that right now.
His administration's pushing it.
I'm sure Pelosi thinks all the same stuff.
I just think the sin of scandal is more severe for Biden.
But they're both pretty bad.
Cardinal who told her she can't receive communion.
Archbishop Cordileone.
Cordileone.
Can we give just a little cheers to Cordileone for being a man.
You know, to give a little Italian translation for that.
Cordileone means heart of a lion.
And he's got it.
I think it's really important that we publicly celebrate our bishops and priests when they take a stand like that.
Even if we disagree with a bunch of other things that they've done, even if we think they've been cowardly, as soon as they make a right decision, they need to hear our praise more than the critics' boos.
That's a great point.
I sometimes, when a priest or a bishop or somebody does something great, I sometimes hesitate to compliment them because I don't want them to catch more heat.
For my praise.
Oh, sure.
But you're probably right.
If they're going to go out there, you know, Cordeleone, Archbishop Cordeleone comes out and he says, it's bad for Nancy Pelosi.
It's bad for the flock and it's bad for Nancy Pelosi.
Out of love for her, we have to deny her Holy Communion.
Exactly.
And you're right, he deserves a lot of praise for that, shouldn't you?
Yeah.
Because I think if you came out and said something like that, you would embolden those faithful Catholics who would then be, hey, did you hear what?
Yeah.
My basic thought is like, most of us are cowards, and we like people to like us.
Yeah.
And when they praise us for doing good things, we're like children who will then be more likely.
That's it, no.
I'm like that.
I think you make a great point.
All right, you, who's it?
I think it's me.
Okay.
Maybe.
Who cares?
I believe I've seen what can only be described as an angel, demon, or ghost.
So at some point, you've seen an angel, a demon, or a ghost.
I'm going to say one, two, three.
Oh, I certainly have.
Oh, you have?
Certainly.
I feel like you're about to be funny, though.
No, I'm not gonna.
I mean, there are jokes to be made about it.
And I'm not going to relate.
These stories, because I find when one talks about numinous experiences... It cheapens it, doesn't it?
Well, not only does it, it's endlessly fascinating to the person to whom it happened, and it's chloroform to everybody else.
I don't know, I'd find it pretty... It was publicly once I spoke about one of these because I felt it was pertinent, but suffice it to say, I am convinced I've entertained angels, unawares or awares, Certainly, at least twice, and maybe more.
How about you?
No, I don't have any recollection of encountering anything supernatural and seeing it with my visible eyes.
Really?
I've had dreams that seem peculiarly demonic.
But no, no, nothing.
You have.
Like, have you ever had sleep paralysis or something?
No.
That kind of feels, that feels very different.
I've heard that that's terrifying.
Yeah, and I don't, it might just be a purely physical thing.
Although I suppose, if you're Catholic, you don't really think that anything is purely physical.
Or in this world, purely spiritual, right?
There's a... No, I think you could say things are purely spiritual.
Even in time and space?
Well, those purely spiritual things, were they to manifest themselves?
I'm not sure how they would do it.
I don't think they would take the form of something visible for us to see.
God may grant them the appearance of something physical, I suppose.
So I guess I can't write it off.
Yeah, yeah.
It could be perceived, albeit not material.
I should have said, my wife, a demon.
No, I'm just joking!
Take my wife, please!
All right.
So I got it wrong, so I have to drink.
A man who does not exercise the body is feeding the vice of sloth and is thus sinning.
Okay.
Uh, did you get that?
I got it.
All right.
Yeah, I got it loud and clear.
Yeah, thanks a lot.
Um, yeah, uh, yes, he, I mean, yes, yes, of course, but That doesn't mean three hours in the gym in the morning.
Yeah.
I heard that C.S.
Lewis said a day wasn't complete without a good walk.
Yeah.
So if a good walk... That's true.
...to the mailbox... Yes.
...and back... Good walk.
...is exercise.
To the bar.
Yeah.
Right?
To the liquor cabinet.
Yeah.
Yes, because I guess then it's that last part of the question that trips me up a little bit.
I have not exercised in at least, you know, 50 years.
And I'm only 32 years old, somehow.
But is that, I think it's bad.
I think it's sloth.
I think it is a vice, certainly.
Is that a sin that I would be obligated to confess?
Again, no, I think it depends on what you mean by exercise.
I really do.
Yeah.
Because I'm actually concerned.
I'll get my steps in.
I'm concerned sometimes when you watch people on these YouTube videos saying, like, here's why you should be working out three hours a day and meditating two hours a day.
You think, well, gee, that's great.
How many hours do you have in your day?
It's also great if you could just ignore your wife and children responsibilities.
But most of us, sure, we could be a little more self-disciplined.
We could work out more.
Maybe we should.
But I don't think we have to.
Right.
I think about my exercise.
This is actual exercise.
When I carry my kid or kids up and down stairs multiple times a day, that is certainly more exercise than I got three years ago.
See Joe Rogan try to do that.
Yeah, that's right.
See Dana White try to lift my toddler.
People who come from countries that surrender to EMIS should not be taken... EMIS?
What is EMIS?
Can we get a clarification from the producers?
Emus?
Oh, Emus.
Oh, why is the E capitalized?
Respect.
Out of respect for the Emus.
People who come from countries that surrender to Emus should not be taken seriously.
I would say... Oh, right.
Let's see.
Should not be taken seriously.
Yes, that's correct.
At least for the time being.
Maybe they grew some balls and did something with the Emus after that.
I've heard that something like...
There were some sort of attacks from emus, but I don't know what happened.
In Australia?
Yeah.
Though they are pretty bloody terrifying, to be fair.
So, my producer, who I'm sure is making this up, says that the Australians famously surrendered to a pack of emus one time.
What does that mean, the Australians?
Yeah, or the aboriginals, maybe.
But you're telling me that all those British convicts, some of the most derelict, scrappy people on earth, they surrendered to a bunch of weird birds?
Is that true?
Probably not.
But okay, I guess we gotta take it.
But yeah, if somebody's going to surrender to emus when they want to take you, Wife away or something.
Yeah, no respect for that.
But then maybe later, you know, they'll regret it.
The EMU comes knocking and says, take my kid!
Anything, please!
Yeah, okay.
Here we go.
It is perfectly acceptable to abandon your wife and children on a weekend to do a four-hour podcast with a couple of dudes who are enjoying cigars and whiskey.
Of course it is, or we wouldn't have done it.
Who would suggest otherwise?
You know, when I think about the different kinds of love, you get to drink.
I get to drink.
You get to drink.
There are different kinds of love, and today, all we talk about is romantic love, or perhaps then in its fulfillment, the love between spouses.
What about philia?
What about friendship?
Proper friendship?
Yeah, huh?
Yeah.
So why are you yelling at me about going and having three or four Coca-Colas with the boys over at George's place for four hours, multiple cigars, when we're talking about philia?
This is a very, very high form of friendship.
Right.
I was very high when I walked out of there with the fumes.
Oh my goodness.
I had such a headache.
I was exhausted that whole time, but I enjoyed it.
Okay.
Thanks for being here.
Yeah, I think it's your turn.
You have to explain this to me, I think.
In one of the American states, cuck relationships will be recognized as legitimate marriages before 2030.
I believe that's short for cuckold, where the man is being stepped out upon by his wife with another man.
And that that will be recognized as legitimate marriage before 2030.
Explain it to me again.
So the question, if you could rephrase it, would be... Would be that in America, the way marriage is going, There are a lot of cucks.
They're always... And that means what?
That a cuck is a guy, a cuckold.
You know, like cornuto.
A guy who... I think it began as a pornographic term, but anyway... Well, that's what people say now.
But the term, maybe it's just because I'm Italian.
This is the oldest Italian insult there is.
You say cornuto.
You know, sometimes Italians wear a necklace that looks like a little chili pepper?
That's a horn.
That's the sign of the cuckold.
Like the malocchio, you know, you're wearing.
And the idea, if you're cuckolded and you've got the horns, is that your wife is cheating on you.
And then...
Then I was told, within the last five or six years, that this is now racist, and it's pornographic, and they come up with all these things.
But it's a really old trope, actually.
It's just the idea that you're a man who's getting saluted on.
So the question is?
The question is, in the way marriage is going, that cuck marriages will be recognized as... So this is a Sheila who walks out on her husband and children for another bloke?
Yes.
Yeah.
Oh, no.
She stays with her husband and children.
She just schtups the mailman on the side.
Well, okay, let's go ahead and answer it.
It will be recognized, yes or no?
Yes or no.
Sure, why not?
We have no idea what the hell we're talking about.
We don't even know what marriage is anymore, so it may as well be that.
It may as well be a bag of potato chips.
Now, I have to actually disagree.
Okay.
I have to say no, though I agree with your point.
Yeah!
Because in order, it's sort of like the definition of man and woman, definition of marriage, in order to be cucked, You have to be in a marriage, and your wife has to sleep with a guy who's not in the marriage.
So in order for it to be cuckoldry, you can't all be married.
It has to involve a guy outside of the marriage.
Okay.
So just by definition.
But who knows?
But to your point, they changed the definition of marriage in all sorts of illogical ways, so maybe they'll do that too.
Sweet!
Okay.
You or me?
Me.
No, you.
Me.
No, what?
In a healthy society, female combat sports... Give me an example of one.
Female combat sport, like Gina Carano's stuff.
Should be banned.
Oh, yeah.
100%.
You're just going to move?
100%.
I actually think that things like UFC are probably immoral in and of themselves.
Even for men?
Yes.
I'm willing to change my mind on this, but it seems to me that if I'm going to risk imposing serious bodily damage to you, that I need to have a good reason to do that.
And money and entertainment are not sufficient.
What about football?
I don't know how to answer that.
Well, I'll translate it if you speak another language.
I'm talking about, you know, it's the one with the big guys and the pigskin.
It's a very good question.
Have you ever heard of the fallacy of the beard?
The fallacy of the beard is when you say, because you don't know when a beard begins, you can't say what a beard is.
Like, is this a beard?
No.
But it's a little blurry.
It's something.
It's a trad beard.
But if I kept growing it, in three months you'd say yes.
But at what day did it become one?
You might not be able to say.
Yeah, but you still know what a beard is.
I can say what pornography is, even though I think there are some blurry lines where I wouldn't be sure.
Right, right.
And so I do think, as I stand now, I'd be willing to say that I think UFC, boxing, as much as I'd love to watch it, like I actually think that I couldn't think of anything more enjoyable to watch, people beating the snot out of each other.
I get the appeal of it, just like I get the appeal of porn, but I think I'd probably come down on the side and say that UFC is immoral, especially with women.
Women should not be involved in it.
At the very least, you would say with women.
But feel free to push back on that.
No, I generally agree.
I mean, I think, you know, other than in very certain circumstances when you're a single man and you go to the nightclub and there's the jello pit, you know, and all sorts of, you know, pillow fights and things.
But that's very different, you know, than... I don't know if we should be doing that either in healthy society.
Yeah, maybe not.
Maybe that was sort of vicious and degenerate.
But I agree.
I don't want to see women beat each other up.
In fact, a famous female fighter is a friend of mine.
Gina Carano has been on this show.
And Gina Carano could probably punch me through a wall.
I'm sure she could be too.
But I don't want to see women being hit.
I just don't like that.
I agree.
You were right.
- You're right, you answered right for both of us.
It's better for someone to get drunk than it is to smoke a spliff of the old Peruvian parsley.
Oh, okay.
One, two, three.
I would say not at all.
It's not better for a woman to get... What question were you asking?
Am I drunk?
What does that mean?
You're saying it's not better for someone to get drunk than to smoke the Peruvian parsley.
If somebody is smoking pot and not becoming high, that's clearly a better thing than getting drunk.
But can you smoke pot and not get high?
People who smoke pot tell me, of course, and it's only people who say that you can't smoke pot without getting high.
Those are the people who've never smoked pot.
No, but those are like potheads.
You can't believe what they're saying.
They're a bunch of high guys, you know?
But that's the ad hominem attack.
I mean, it either is true or it isn't.
Well, I'll tell you something.
And this is, I think I've made this confession on the show before.
In my wayward youth, on occasion, I never really liked it, but on occasion, I had a little touch of the old... Devil's lettuce.
Yeah, devil's lettuce, you know, sinned spinach.
And I was never really good at it, but I ate it sometimes in brownies.
Yeah, at like a...
I was at a music festival in college, and every year at this festival, I would eat the pot brownie.
And then it didn't work, and I'd eat more, and then that was terrible.
Yeah.
Or once I was in India, had the local yogurt.
Guess what was in the yogurt?
No.
Yeah.
In the yogurt?
Yeah, yeah.
I know.
They're putting it everywhere.
They're putting it everywhere.
It's like seed oil.
It's Indian seed oil.
That's another great euphemism for it.
And so I had that, and you know, I smoked some of these things every now and again.
I always got, it always messed up my head in a way that if I have a drink, or even two drinks, it doesn't, it kind of mellows me out a little bit, but it doesn't, so I think your pothead friends are total liars, and so I think it's not good to get drunk, and it's not good to get high on the old devil's lettuce, but... I agree with both of those statements, but I don't think, but I disagree with you that you can smoke pot and necessarily be high.
Have you ever thought it's true?
Yes, I have.
And you've not gotten high?
No, I did get high.
So that does, my personal example does contradict that.
But I do know people who, in my own life, who take certain things for pain.
And I can't think of an argument against marijuana that doesn't cut against alcohol.
I'm open to hearing.
Well, here it is.
Unless you give me some kind of medical argument that this is far... I love that we're getting into this at the... Yeah, yeah.
There's one question left.
Yeah, go on.
Give me an argument.
Well, one of the arguments, and this is not going to appease people who just want a rationalist explanation for everything, but one of the arguments is cultural and traditional and historical, which is...
Alcohol's been with us from the very beginning of our civilization.
I don't use the word racist much, but I don't know how that doesn't sound like a racist thing.
It's been part of someone's culture, pot, hasn't it?
Yeah, but not ours.
Who cares?
It's part of someone's.
Well, why would we bring a new evil in, is my question.
And I don't think alcohol is evil, but it certainly can be abused.
But we've got this substance that's been in our culture forever.
Christ's first miracle, our Lord's first miracle, was turning water into wine for people who'd been drinking for days.
And so it's been here forever, and so people can drink responsibly or they can abuse.
Pot has been imported in, what, the last 70 years.
It was really the hippies that kind of made it a thing here, or those jazz musicians smoking their jazz cigarettes.
And it was tightly controlled and basically suppressed until very recently.
People are promoting it.
Why would we encourage more of it?
Fair enough.
No, fair enough.
I get the argument that why are we introducing other ways to become degenerates when we have enough at our disposal.
But here's another thing.
If there was a culture that hadn't drunk alcohol before, but they did smoke pot, and only now were they trying to make alcohol legal, would you say, yeah, for them maybe you shouldn't be introducing another thing that can make you degenerate?
Well, because I favor our culture, I would probably suppress some of their practices.
It is hard to get around the biblical.
I mean, if Christ is, it is difficult.
He seems to bless some use.
I mean, he literally blesses some use.
So how about this then?
If it is the case that one can smoke pot without becoming high, right?
Let's just grant that for the sake of argument.
If my grandma had wheels, she'd be a wagon, you know, but okay.
Let's grant that.
What's better?
To drink to the point of drunkenness or to smoke marijuana and not be high.
I would say obviously smoke marijuana and not be high.
No way.
Yeah.
No way.
Oh, hold on.
Okay, and not be high.
Yeah.
Maybe I'm drunk.
Because that's the thing we have to grant for this, my version of the argument.
Yes, okay.
Okay, I would grant that.
And I'm not encouraging people to smoke pot.
We got Cheech and Chong over here.
Now, what if it were... That would be a different kind of game.
We're going to add that for the members only.
What if it were, is it better to smoke pot to the point of getting high, or drink to the point of getting drunk?
At that point, I would probably be open to looking at Which is worse for you?
I'd be open to arguments at that point.
Which is worse for you, physically?
Yeah, that's what I mean.
Yeah, physically.
I would be open to that at that point.
Because when you get drunk, you get very social.
And you can either get social in the sense that you're going to take a swing at your buddy, or you can get social in the sense like, buddy, I love you, man, thanks.
Whereas with pot, you get super high, and you just go into a corner.
See, that was me.
I remember that.
In fact, I was 16 years old, and that was the day I decided, I can't do this.
As a teenager, I probably swore three times in my life, but I remember I had to go to work.
And so I wasn't smoking pot that night.
So I went and I sat down with my friends, and they were all smoking pot.
And I saw them all get sucked into themselves, like solipsistically.
And I went, oh, this is very unattractive.
This is terrible.
I mean, don't get me wrong, drunkenness is unattractive as well.
That's why I'm saying arguments against pot often cut against alcohol too.
But I agree with you that that was my experience, but I'm not sure that's everyone's experience.
Because at least drunk guys can be funny, but high guys just think everything else is funny.
But they themselves are not funny.
Yes, fair enough, but I imagine less violent fights when you're moving at the pace of a snail.
Look at my hands, man.
Is it me?
I don't know.
You go for it.
I would rather have a pint with St.
Augustine than St.
Thomas Aquinas.
Um, I mean... All right, you ready?
Oh, this is actually a very difficult one.
Yeah, so let's not try to influence each other.
I'm going to shut my eyes.
Okay, yeah, yeah.
You would say yes, I think.
You heard me moving the glass, so I had to say it.
I'm going to say yes for you, too, even though you host a show called Pints with Aquinas.
Even though you host a show called Pints with Aquinas.
Yeah.
No, I'd say Aquinas.
You would take, okay.
Yeah, yeah.
Here's my argument.
And I guess actually, this is kind of cheating a little bit, I'm going to move it to no as well.
I would rather have a pint with St.
Thomas Aquinas, but I would rather have two pints with St.
Augustine.
I would rather smoke weed.
I love Thomas.
Here's the kind of distinction I like to make between Augustine and Aquinas, and only our Catholic listeners will get this.
Augustine is beautiful like a garden.
Aquinas is beautiful like a game board instruction manual.
It's beautiful.
There is a beauty to it.
Not a word is wasted.
It's very specific and clear.
He says more in a page than modern theologians say in books.
I love the man.
I really do think I'd love him.
He might not like me, but I'd love him.
My only argument here for getting the pint is St.
Thomas Aquinas, one of the most intelligent people that's ever lived, one of the greatest theologians ever to live.
But if you're hanging out, and it's like you've got St.
Augustine who had a kind of wild youth, Lord make me chase but not yet.
Or you've got this other fellow who's chasing prostitutes out with firebrands.
Who do you relate to?
No, that's a good point.
You'd probably Leave with just as a raw amount of knowledge, you would leave with more of that from St.
Thomas Aquinas.
Yeah.
However.
But it is interesting that you read Thomas in the Summa and other works of his, and he sounds like a chat GPT, his spat out syllogisms.
But when you read his poetry, you see the heart of St.
Augustine there, you know.
Oh, yes.
His hymns are glorious.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So either way, this is the last drink.
Chin chin to your health next time we bring out the spliffs.
I'm Michael Knowles.
This is The Game.
Yes or No Game.
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