Ep. 1373 - The Lib's Embarrassing Attack On Mike Johnson
POLITICO breaks a bombshell scandal to take down the new Republican Speaker, Chinese dictator Xi Jinping cleans up San Francisco, and pro-Palestine leftists protest the Democrat national headquarters.
Ep.1373
- - -
Click here to join the member exclusive portion of my show: https://utm.io/ueSEl
- - -
DailyWire+:
Get Your DailyWire+ Black Friday Deals Here: https://bit.ly/3QVgtGy
Pre-order your Mayflower Cigars here: https://bit.ly/3Qwwxx2
(Must be 21+ to purchase. Exclusions may apply)
Get your own Yes or No game here: https://bit.ly/3X6tlKY
- - -
Today’s Sponsors:
Good Ranchers - Get $15 off your order PLUS a year of your choice of meat!
Use promo code KNOWLES at checkout.. https://bit.ly/43G8p0P
Christian Care Ministry - Get a $150 gift card when you join Medi-Share at http://www.medishare.com/Michael
*To receive the $150 gift card Application and all Form Center documents must be completed and First Month's Share must be paid by Nov 30th, 2023 at 9:00 PM EST.
- - -
Socials:
Follow on Twitter: https://bit.ly/3RwKpq6
Follow on Instagram: https://bit.ly/3BqZLXA
Follow on Facebook: https://bit.ly/3eEmwyg
Subscribe on YouTube: https://bit.ly/3L273Ek
A major scandal involving the new Republican Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson.
They've got him now.
The walls are closing in.
It turns out, according to Politico's crack team of reporters, that Speaker Johnson sits on the board of a Christian publishing house called Living Waters Publications.
The CEO of which is a man named Ray Comfort, who once narrated a video which suggested that there is a link between monkey pox and weird sex stuff among the fellas, which is true, obviously.
But also, the Speaker's office says this is not a reflection of his views.
They've got him now.
The walls are closing in.
That's actually the attack.
You might think I'm mocking it or being hyperbolic.
That's the attack.
That's the big breaking news.
This attack is so weak that even the other Lib outlets are just ignoring it.
It's just a total flop.
If anything, the only reason I mention it, It speaks pretty well of the new Speaker in that if this is the best that his opponents have on him, then Speaker Johnson must be the cleanest man in the United States.
I'm Michael Knowles.
This is the Michael Knowles Show.
Welcome back to the show.
This episode is brought to you by Good Ranchers.
Claim your year of free meat, 15 bucks off, and free shipping with my code Knolls, K-N-N-W-L-L-E-S, at GoodRanchers.com.
That is GoodRanchers.com.
Promo code Knolls today.
Crazy, crazy tension and fighting going on last night.
In Washington D.C., the Capitol Police try to wrangle pro-Palestine protesters outside of the DNC headquarters.
We'll get to that in just a moment.
First, though, I don't want to move off Mike Johnson too quickly.
This guy seems great.
He seems so great.
He just states basic truths bluntly.
He doesn't shy away from them.
He's extremely socially conservative.
He goes on CNBC and was asked about the sacred American separation of church and state, and he gives a perfect answer.
There is a question about the separation of church and state.
We often talk on this show about folks, about whether religion should play a role inside a company, whether people should be allowed to pray inside a company.
It's one thing to pray outside and to have your faith, and there's a great importance in that.
But how do you think about that, and how do you think about the public perception of that?
Okay, put a pause right there.
Buddy, spit it out.
What are you talking about?
The question is, what do you think about the separation of church and state?
And there's a question.
It's not for me, necessarily.
There's a question.
Critics say, a lot of people are asking, many people are talking about it, that people can have religion, but should they be able to have religion in public?
Because you can have religion in private, I guess, so maybe okay in some cases, unless you think bad things that I disagree with.
But are you allowed to have those beliefs and do the things and even maybe pray, possibly, once you leave your home?
A lot of people are talking about that.
What do you think?
What do you think about that?
So he finally spits out some vague semblance of a question.
And then, there's Mike Johnson in the batter box here, knocks it out of the park.
Listen, faith, our deep religious heritage and tradition, is a big part of what it means to be an American.
When the founders set this system up, they wanted a vibrant expression of faith in the public square because they believed that a general moral consensus and virtue was necessary to maintain this grand experiment in self-governance that we created, a government of, by, and for the people.
We don't have a king in charge.
We don't have a middleman.
So we've got to keep morality amongst us so that we have accountability.
And so they wanted faith to be a big part of that.
The separation of church and state is a misnomer.
People misunderstand it.
Of course, it comes from a phrase that was in a letter that Jefferson wrote.
It's not in the Constitution.
And what he was explaining is they did not want the government to encroach upon the church.
Not that they didn't want principles of faith to have influence on our public life.
It was exactly the opposite.
Washington said, of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, Religion and morality are indispensable supports.
And John Adams came next and he said, our Constitution is made only for a moral and religious people.
It is wholly inadequate with government of any other.
But isn't it bad to pray?
Can you imagine that poor CNBC host?
And Mike Johnson there, completely off the cuff, just gives a perfect summary of the role of religion in public life.
And the way that liberals have revised history to pretend that we were founded as some sort of atheist nation or some other such nonsense, when our founding fathers were extraordinarily clear about the, not only importance, but the necessity of public religion for our government to work.
Just rattles it right off, knocks that nonsense down.
This guy is good.
It also shows you Mike Johnson is clearly a very intelligent and educated man, which is not always the case in Congress.
I remember some years ago, a friend of mine was running for Congress, and Tom Price came to the district to do a fundraiser.
Tom Price became the head of Health and Human Services under Trump.
Before that, he was a member of Congress, head of the Republican Study Committee.
He was a very intelligent member of Congress.
And he said to my friend, he said, you know, I don't know if you're going to like Washington, because the median IQ over there in Congress is probably a couple standard deviations below what you're used to.
Listen, I like the members of Congress.
Some of my best friends are in Congress.
Not always the brightest bulbs in the pack over there.
This guy is smart, and he's educated, and he knows what he believes.
He's not one of these blow-in-the-wind politicians, and he's willing to take the fight to the libs, even on contentious cultural, social issues.
Really, really good stuff.
Now, is Mike Johnson the most conservative politician in America?
No.
No, he's not.
Because I think we would have to give that title right now.
To Xi Jinping.
The Chinese Communist dictator came to visit California, specifically came to visit San Francisco, and Chairman Xi, with his very brief visit to San Francisco, has done more to clean up that city than any politicians, liberal or conservative in other parts of America, seem to have done in decades.
San Francisco, absolute disaster, druggies, criminals on the street, shooting up, dying of exposure, breaking into cars, wealthy people fleeing the city, burglaries, vandalism, all that.
She shows up, and right before he gets there, all the bums are gone, the crime is cleaned up, all of the broken windows, they're all fixed, and you could basically eat off the sidewalks.
Very, very impressive.
Some conservative commentators were dismayed at the pictures from Xi's visit.
And I understand why.
Because the streets of San Francisco look like they're the streets of Beijing.
There are just Chinese red flags everywhere, and it's a little spooky.
I don't think we want to become a vassal state of China.
And I don't want to.
I don't want it to seem like I'm singing Xi's praises.
Just because the Chinese communists are better than American liberals at many, many things, that's damning with faint praise, okay?
I'm not saying that's ideal.
But there are even some conservative commentators who say, look at these images from the streets of San Francisco and get ready.
That's what America is going to look like soon enough.
And the fact is, they're basically right about that.
It sounds like one of those hyperbolic conspiracy theorists, you know, fear-mongering, catastrophist lines.
Get pretty soon, we're going to just turn into Communist China and Chairman Xi is going to be ruling us with an iron fist.
But what is going to happen?
What's going to happen?
At the present trajectory of American decline and Chinese ascent, two things can happen.
The most likely thing is that we're going to have a global war.
Because most of the time, as the Harvard political scientist Graham Allison has showed, when rising powers confront great powers, Three quarters of the time in recent history that has led to a major conflict.
A war.
So, likely that's what's going to happen.
And then the question is, can the United States win a war right now?
Can we fight a war?
I'm not convinced that we can.
We're extremely divided.
The libs have turned our military into a critical race theory, sexual identity struggle session.
So, I don't know that that's a great idea.
The American people are extraordinarily divided, even on basic first principles, and we're bogged down in all sorts of wars of empire around the world that don't directly affect our vital national interests.
So, if some of our vital interests were threatened, say by a rising China, we would probably be scrambling to do anything about it.
Also, our military was degraded over eight years of Barack Obama, and certainly neglect under Joe Biden.
So that's probably the first thing that would happen.
But then even, let's say we somehow avoid war, or the war turns out fine in the end.
What will happen is, if China manages to keep on its path, and if America doesn't reverse the decline that decadence and liberalism have put us in, then China will be a global power.
We'll have, first, a multipolar world, with the United States and China as two of the great powers.
And then, you know, empires are born and they rise and they fall.
If America We hope it doesn't happen, but if America does really decline, then we will be subject to the same kind of cultural imperialism that we have subjected the rest of the world to.
And that's not good.
We don't want that.
I don't want red Chinese flags anywhere in the United States, other than for a few days to clean up the city of San Francisco.
But that's not something I look forward to.
Well, if that's not something you look forward to, if you don't look forward to decline, if you don't look forward to cultural imperialism and outright invasion when you don't have any borders, then you have to support an agenda that will make America great again.
Then you have to support an agenda not just of small government, not just of global liberalism and running every single country around the world.
You have to support an agenda that is specifically oriented toward national greatness in the United States.
And very few people seem willing to do that.
Now, one way to begin is around the kitchen table.
Ronald Reagan said all good politics begin around the kitchen table.
And when you want greatness on your kitchen table, you've got to check out Good Ranchers.
Right now, go to GoodRanchers.com, use promo code NOLS.
There's a lot at stake this November.
So don't be chicken and shop at the grocery store like usual.
Instead, you should see food.
Nah, I added that one in there.
Go get Good Ranchers!
It's great.
It's even better than my meat puns.
Head on over and do not miss their Black Friday Your Way Sale, which is now live.
This November, get your favorite meat free for a year.
That's right, one year of free steak, salmon, chicken, or bacon when you subscribe to Anybox right now.
Better yet, when you subscribe to Anybox on GoodRanchers.com, you not only get a free gift of meat up to $480, you also get $15 off with code NOLS.
I don't know how they do it.
The meat is exceptionally high quality.
I've never seen anything like it.
I love it.
I eat it multiple times a week when I can, if I'm not being sent on the road and kept away from my good ranchers.
I don't know how they keep the prices so low.
I don't know how the meat is All-American meat.
I don't know how they're giving you free meat for a year.
I don't know how any of their finances work, but their financial confusion is your benefit.
Go get it right now.
I could not possibly recommend Good Ranchers highly enough.
Go to GoodRanchers.com.
Use code NOLS.
Your free meat, 15 bucks off.
Number one place to get All-American beef, pork, chicken, and seafood.
Promo code NOLS, K-N-W-L-A-S.
GoodRanchers.com.
Good Ranchers, American meat, delivered.
Now turning to more cities in disorder.
Across the country from San Francisco you have Washington D.C.
where a riot broke out last night because leftist protesters were rioting outside of the Democrat National Committee headquarters.
So much so that the news is reporting the DNC had to be evacuated by Capitol Police.
So hold on here.
This wasn't the January 6thers.
This wasn't the neo-Nazis and the whites.
Well, in a way, we'll get to what they were protesting about.
This wasn't the white supremacists.
This wasn't the far right wing blah blah blah Charlottesville, whatever.
These are libs.
These are the people who are protesting outside of the DNC.
We're outside the DNC.
We're outside the Democratic Party headquarters because this party claims to be on the side of life and peace and equality.
And we're saying that we want them to live up to their values and oppose this horrific war and call for a ceasefire now.
And we're being responded to by the police shoving anti-war activists down the stairs, shoving peaceful protesters back with their bikes.
And because our party, our party that 80% of us want a ceasefire, would rather beat up protesters.
Hold on.
One second.
One second.
One second. - Oh my God.
My goodness.
Howling like animals.
There's a lot of cops out there tussling with a lot of protesters outside the DNC.
This is an example of the phenomenon you saw in the Iran-Iraq War, in which Henry Kissinger famously said he wanted them both to lose.
That's how I feel about the DNC fighting the leftist protesters.
What are they fighting over?
They're fighting over the conflict in the Holy Land.
Of course, because this war in the Holy Land is a real wedge issue for the Democrats.
The Democrat elite, the Democrat establishment, the Democrat donors support the State of Israel, by and large.
The Democrat base opposes the State of Israel and supports the Palestine Liberation Movement, by and large.
And it's not even particularly close.
The vast majority of the activist base is extremely anti-Israel, pro-Palestine, and the vast majority of the Democrat establishment and donor class is at least significantly pro-Israel and anti-Palestine liberation, which is why I really don't have much to say about that war, which has gone on for a very long time and will continue to go on for a very long time.
For the American political order, the key here is that Mike Johnson is a genius for separating Israel funding from Ukraine funding.
The key to this, I guess my whole thesis today is that the new Republican speaker is just extremely clever and is doing a pretty good job.
Despite compromising with the Dems on certain things and disappointing conservatives in some ways, this is really smart.
The first thing that Mike Johnson came down and said was, We need to support Israel and we need to get a bill to fund Israel's military immediately.
And a lot of conservatives said, wait a second, you're supposed to be America first.
Wait a second, how about we focus on the economy or the border or this or that or the other thing?
But I read that as a pretty clever move because there was going to be military funding.
What the Biden administration was pushing for was just massive, virtually endless funding for the war in Ukraine and the war in Israel and the war in Taiwan and the war here and the war there.
And by splitting those things off, You're putting the Democrats on, he's already done it, putting the Democrats on the record as being for or against the state of Israel.
And either way the Democrats vote, they lose.
Either the Democrats irritate their country club buddies, the establishment types and the neckties with the donor checks, or they irritate those lunatics screeching on the street of Washington, D.C.
But they need those lunatics to win the elections because those lunatics make up a lot of the voters.
Now, speaking of liberal activism, liberal activists who just succeeded at passing a pro-abortion ballot measure in Ohio are trying to do the same thing in Nebraska.
This new ballot measure is being supported by Protect Our Rights, which is endorsed by groups like the ACLU and all sorts of awful left-wing organizations.
What do we do about it?
Well, what we do about it is we need our own ballot measures.
Think about what happened in Ohio.
Nebraska to enshrine the supposed right to kill your child in the Nebraska Constitution.
Bad idea.
What do we do about it?
Well, what we do about it is we need our own ballot measures.
Think about what happened in Ohio.
Everyone's wringing their hands about this, and they're saying, oh, I guess abortion's a losing issue for us.
Oh, Oh, the Squishes are saying the Republicans need to ditch abortion.
And the conservative answer, I think, is, well, hold on.
Where was our ballot proposition?
The conservative response, I think, is, hold on.
What did the Ohio ballot measure say?
Here's what it said.
This is issue one in Ohio.
A yes vote for this ballot prop.
Supported amending the Ohio Constitution to provide a state constitutional right to make and carry out one's own reproductive decisions, including but not limited to decisions about abortion and contraception and fertility treatment and miscarriage care and continuing pregnancy.
And it's all this gobbledygook language with a bunch of nonsense, but abortion snuck right there in the middle.
So people voted for that because they're not reading these things very closely and it sounds like a vote for yes is a vote for freedom and health and choice and tradition.
This was really well written by the Libs to confuse people.
Why didn't we have our own ballot measure?
Why can't we write the pro-life ballot measure which uses all the same kind of feel-good language but for something that's actually good instead of something that's evil like the liberals are doing?
I don't think this is a failure of life.
I don't think this is a failure of the American people who have overnight become just evil maniacs who want to kill all the babies.
I think this is a failure of conservative organizers to be wise as serpents and innocent as doves.
I think this is a failure of the imagination of conservative organizers to go out there and get our own ballot props.
I also think it's a failure of ambition, because the conservatives, after Roe v. Wade was overruled, they said, OK, we got it.
Now we got to play it cool, guys.
Let's play it real cool.
And we got what we wanted, but let's not push too hard on abortion just yet.
No man, that's not how politics works.
You've got to go with the momentum when you've got it.
That's not how politics works.
In politics, sometimes the best defense is a good offense.
You're winning on the issue of life, keep pushing.
That's what we did on the trans issue, and it got us Virginia, and it got us Florida, and it's gotten us a whole lot of other elections since then.
It turned parents into a conservative voting group.
Because we didn't just say, okay, well, we were able to win a little bit and raise the age at which you can transition, quote-unquote.
No, we said, hey, these weirdos are trying to push a bunch of weird propaganda and sexual grooming in schools, and we're going to kick all of that out, and we're going to eradicate transgenderism from public life entirely, the whole ideology at every level.
To just use a phrase off the top of my head.
And we've been winning on it ever since.
It's like when you try to pick up a girl at a bar.
If you go and you're kind of timid and you say, well, hi, hello there, lady.
No, you don't have to talk to me if you don't want to, but maybe would you like to maybe go get a cup of coffee sometime?
Then the girl's going to think you're a weirdo and she's going to think you have something to hide.
She's going to think that you're not very attractive.
But if you're confident, As conservatives ought to be in what we believe, because the things we believe are true and good, if you're just confident and normal and you say, yeah, killing babies is bad, we're going to get rid of it, right, we all agree, cool, killing babies, no good, yeah, alright, great, and you put that on the ballot, you're going to do a lot better.
Because that's what the libs have done for things they should not be confident about that are false and evil.
Now, speaking of medical care, you gotta go check out MediShare.
Right now, go to MediShare.com slash Michael.
As a Daily Wire listener, you are not just informed, you are engaged and handsome and pretty.
You value freedom and personal responsibility.
That's why you need to check out MediShare.
MediShare is a community-based approach to healthcare that lines up with what you believe in.
Your views matter and MediShare allows you to take your healthcare dollars and not use them for medical procedures that don't line up with your beliefs.
MediShare is the highest rated healthcare sharing ministry with a 30-year proven track record.
It's not health insurance, it's a community of 400,000 believers committed to caring and sharing with one another.
Members save up to 50% or more on their monthly healthcare costs and member satisfaction surveys show that they like MediShare much more than health insurance.
Why?
Because it works.
For a limited time, Daily Wire listeners will receive a $150 gift card when they join MediShare.
To find out more, go to MediShare.com slash Michael, M-I-C-H-A-E-L.
That is MediShare, M-E-D-I, Share.com slash Michael.
Terms and conditions apply.
Speaking of babies, Congresslady Yadira Caraveo yesterday was celebrating birth control.
This was one of the things trending on Twitter yesterday.
Thanks, birth control!
And this woman, I've never heard of this, this congressman, but she says, by age 50, women who had early access to contraceptives earned 8% more per hour than those who did not.
As a doctor, as a woman, as a member of Congress, I will always defend the freedom to choose.
Thanks, birth control.
I love this tweet.
I love it.
I don't love contraception.
I think that's very bad.
But I love this tweet because this is the best argument they've got.
And it's a terrible argument.
This is the argument for contraception.
The argument for contraception is sacrifice your children so that you can earn 8% more money making widgets at the factory.
That'll be fulfilling.
You'll love that.
That'll lead to a flourishing life.
Yeah, yeah, don't have kids.
I understand there are plenty of conservatives who use contraception and who think contraception is fine.
And I'm just even pull yourself out for one second and just think about What contraception means socially.
Forget about the personal choice and if you like it or if you feel that you've benefited from it.
Just pull yourself out.
Socially what it means is fewer babies.
We in the United States have a dying population.
We don't replace ourselves.
It's literally a dying country.
There are fewer Americans every single year which is why we have to replace those who are not being born with mass migration.
So, you got a dying country with a dying Western civilization, and then what does contraception mean?
It means divorcing sex from the purpose of sex, from the natural ends of sex, which is procreation.
Which means what?
Decadent behavior.
It means ignoring consequences.
It means being more promiscuous.
It means... What does being more promiscuous mean?
It means more broken hearts.
It means more Me Too movement.
It means more using human beings just as vessels for our own pleasure rather than actually giving fully of ourselves to another person in holy matrimony through a love that's so real that it actually creates another person.
It means things go wrong.
If you criticize The sexual revolution.
If you are one of the people who says, man, this trans stuff has gone really crazy.
Can you believe what they're teaching kids in elementary schools now?
You got to ask yourself, okay, did that pop out of thin air or did that come from somewhere else?
Well, no, it obviously came from somewhere else.
This crazy sexual revolution didn't appear overnight.
The trans agenda probably comes from the radical LGBT agenda more broadly, which denies the difference between men and women.
Uh-huh.
That's right.
Keep going.
Well, and that was enshrined in the redefinition of marriage, which was a decision from the Supreme Court.
Yup.
Totally agree.
Keep going.
Well, I guess the premise that men and women are exactly the same and indiscernible and can substitute for one another, I guess that comes from Well, feminism, yeah it does.
Feminism which says women and men are pretty much the same and a woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle.
That's totally true.
Where else though?
Where does the sexual revolution come from?
What was the single event that upended sexual mores and behavior in the United States?
It was the advent of contraception.
Not just the advent of contraception as a scientific discovery.
There have always been technological means, some more effective, some less effective, for putting off conceiving.
That's been true for all of history.
We flatter ourselves into thinking that we invent everything under the sun, but we don't.
A lot of these things have been long-standing in history, albeit perhaps less effective in the past.
The big change was not a technological discovery of birth control.
The big change was the cultural mainstreaming of it and the legal enshrining of a license in the Constitution.
The Founding Fathers didn't think there was some sacred right to artificial contraception, right?
The Supreme Court, the Liberal Supreme Court, in 1965 just invented that supposed right out of whole cloth.
And they said, yeah, in the Constitution, somewhere between the First and Second Amendments, I don't know, it's written in invisible ink, there is a right for married couples, but only married couples, to use contraception.
And that was the rule.
That was Griswold v. Connecticut.
And where was that right in the Constitution?
I don't know, no one's ever shown it to me, but that's what the judges said, so I guess there it is.
Seven years later, the judges revisit the issue, and they say, hey, actually, no, we got it kind of wrong.
Turns out, between the Second and the Third Amendment, somewhere in Invisible Inc., is a right of unmarried couples to use condoms and stuff, too.
Where is it?
We'll show you our work later, but anyway, it's in there.
It's definitely in there.
And we didn't get it totally right in 65, but 72, yeah.
Artificial contraception.
Then what happens the very next year?
Abortion.
Roe v. Wade is discovered in the Constitution, the magical right to kill your kid.
That was between the Third and the Fourth Amendments, I guess, in Invisible Inc.
But that's the logical consequence of it.
If people are having what they perceive to be totally consequence-free sex, if people believe that they have the right to an activity without the natural consequence of that activity, then when the natural consequence of that activity crops up, as of course it's going to do, people have to invent another supposed right to kill that thing.
To do whatever they can do, up to and including murder, to deny the natural consequence of one's actions.
So, it's not merely a simple answer of, oh, you old fuddy-duddies, you think there's a problem with condoms.
It goes much, much deeper.
It goes much, much deeper than that.
To an entire way of viewing the human person, and love, and marriage, and the relationship between men and women, which is the fundamental distinction and fundamental relationship within the human race.
And this woman boils it down to... So, that's the conservative argument.
Of why we ought to be a little cautious when it comes to contraceptive methods.
The liberal argument is, yeah, but you can make 8% more at your widget job!
That's the best argument.
I'm not even mocking this woman.
That is the single best argument you can make for mandating the right to contraception everywhere in the world.
Is, yeah, but if you have kids, you might not work as much at the widget factory.
This is secular liberalism.
This is mammon worship.
This is All that matters is ticking up GDP and bringing home a slightly larger paycheck and having dual income and no kids.
Ah, yes, in my old age I'll be so comforted by the extra 8% that I made at my widget job.
No, I don't think so.
I don't think anyone has ever said that.
But that's why this kind of secular liberalism is collapsing.
And it's why what it is giving way to is a serious conservatism, a cultural and a social conservatism, now represented even in the Speaker of the House of Representatives.
We haven't seen that maybe ever.
And, on the left, it's giving way to a more radical and aggressive, but in some ways a more serious form of political activism.
It says, no, life isn't totally about money.
It's about, and they come up with their own cockamamie answers.
It's about my identity.
It's my racial essence.
It's about my gender fluidity.
It's about, but what they're talking about are still things that are essentially immaterial.
It's about my loyalty to this group or to that group.
The shallow materialism of sacrifice your kids to make 8% more in your widget paycheck That is not going to speak to the ultimate longings of the human soul.
So then the question is, which direction are we going to go in?
The radical left direction, that tears the whole country to the ground, or the conservative direction, which says, no, we actually have things that bind us together, and we have responsibilities toward one another, and we shouldn't just use each other as economic vessels to exploit, or as sexual vessels to exploit for our own selfish interests, but as fellow citizens with a common interest, and a common country, and a common good.
Now speaking of babies, you know, I'm very pro-baby.
And babies are great and they drive you crazy sometimes because they're up screaming at night and they age you prematurely and they, you know, can really wear you down.
But they're also the most gratifying thing out there.
You know, ask anyone, ask any parent, what is your greatest accomplishment?
They're not going to say the promotion I got at the Widget Factory.
They're going to say, oh, my kids.
But increasingly, people are replacing children with pets.
And they say, well, look, I'm a dog mom or something.
And people always say I'm a dog grandma.
And this is very sad.
And I don't mean to mock people for it or even attack people for it.
We live in a really messed up culture where it's hard to find a husband and it's hard to have kids.
And because our culture has lied to us and told women to put off having kids until they're 62, then they discover they can't have kids and it leads to a deep crisis and a great deal of sadness.
And also they're pumping the food and the people full of so many chemicals that infertility is on the rise.
So I have a great deal of sympathy for people who are dealing with all of that.
The answer to those issues is not going to be to project your natural longing for a child onto a puppy or onto a kitten or something like that.
The answer to that is to be a mother or a father in some kind of way.
Not everyone can have kids.
Even adoption is not for everybody.
You should endeavor to be involved with human beings.
Matt made a great point on one of the last backstages.
He said, not everyone's called to be literally a mother or a father, but you can at least be a kind of spiritual mother or father.
Obviously, people in religious life are that.
They forego having biological children, and they have spiritual children, and you could even call them father if you go to a more traditional style church or Catholic church.
You could be a godparent.
There are plenty of wonderful godparents out there who don't, they don't have kids of their own, but they have a kind of spiritual parenthood for other people.
But increasingly, what people are doing is they're saying, no, I'm just gonna have a dog, and I'm gonna treat my dog like a kid, and I'm gonna spend more money on my dog than I would sending my kid to Harvard.
But there's a new study out, and you know I think studies are fake, but when they back up my points, I'm willing to cite them.
The study shows that having pets does not really bring happiness.
And it doesn't even really improve people's well-being.
This study out of Michigan State University assessed 767 people on three separate occasions in May 2020.
So specifically looking during COVID when people are locked up and, you know, we were told that having a pet, having any life around was going to be really, really helpful, and it just didn't do it.
The data sets showed no difference in the well-being of pet owners and non-pet owners over time.
As William Chopik, An associate professor in MSU's psych department, co-author of the study, he says, people say that pets make them happy, but when we actually measure happiness, that doesn't appear to be the case.
People see friends as lonely or wanting companionship, and they recommend getting pets.
It's unlikely that that will be as transformative as people think.
This is really important.
Again, I'm skeptical of the entire university system, of psychology departments, of studies broadly.
Yeah, I'm skeptical of all, and even the notion that you can measure happiness, but This rings true to me, because human beings are different from animals.
It's one of these same lies of liberalism, which tells us that we're actually no different from monkeys or dogs or the Delta smelt or a rock or a tree.
We're all just bags of chemicals, man, and human beings aren't special.
That's a very liberal view.
The traditional view is that man is made in the image and likeness of God, and we enjoy the creation.
We are stewards of the creation, though, and we are quite different from the animals and the rest of creation.
So what we need to do is be involved with human beings.
The left, being misanthropic, issues this idea and says, no, no, you don't need people.
People are terrible.
Forget about that.
We actually need to stop having children.
We need to kill old people.
We need to kill sick people.
We need to kill babies when they are conceived and we don't like them.
We need to just go worship Mother Nature.
People are bad.
But the conservatives too, the conservatives for many decades have said, well actually selfishness is a virtue and we should just go out there and make a lot of money and we can limit family sizes and we shouldn't, I don't need to worry about my fellow man and you do you and I'll do me and just don't bother me and don't make me pay for anything.
And both are just not...
They're just not true.
That's not how human beings actually work.
We are the social creature.
We're the political animal.
We need one another.
And there's no substitute for that.
You're not going to substitute that for material possessions.
You're not going to substitute that with robots or AI.
And you're not going to substitute that with a little puppy.
You need people.
That's why I always say people say, are you a cat person or a dog person?
I say, baby, I'm a people person.
Speaking of people, my favorite comment yesterday is from Solbejew, quite a name, wow, who says, like Dan Bongino says, America's not an airport, you don't need to announce you're leaving, just leave.
That's a good line.
Dan has very good lines.
That's a good line.
The libs always threaten to leave.
Barbara Streisand now is saying, I can't, I can't live in America if Trump is president.
But, lady, you did.
You did.
And you keep promising to leave, and then you don't make good on your promise.
Black Friday sales are coming.
There is one in particular that you need to know about.
Harry's Razors used to advertise right here on our shows until I, it was me, I'll take full responsibility.
I was on Candace Owens' old show, and I had the temerity to express the view that boys are boys and girls are girls.
Harry's then tried to cancel me, said that those views are inexcusable.
They dropped their ads from my show and from the Daily Wire broadly.
The list of companies going woke continues to grow.
Have you had enough?
Us too.
That's why instead of complaining, we created an alternative.
Jeremy's Razors!
And starting Monday, we will have the best deals of the year on all Jeremy's Razors products.
Get the Alpha Bundle for 40% off.
You can also find amazing deals on the Precision 5 Starter Kit and the Smooth 6 Starter Kit.
There's something for everyone on your holiday shopping list.
We've got the famous He Him and She Her chocolate, along with some special Christmas varieties that make excellent stocking stuffers.
We've got hand soap deodorant and an entire line of bath and beard products, all from a company that won't insult your values.
Stop giving your money to woke corporations for Black Friday.
Shop Jeremy's Razors instead.
With these deals, we are going to run out quickly.
So don't wait.
Start loading up your car right now at Jeremy'sRazors.com.
Get ready for our Black Friday deals starting Monday.
Speaking of human nature and happiness, Here's a story that might tickle the conspiracy theorists among you.
You know, those awful crazy conspiracy theorists who are usually almost always right about everything in the last few years.
We say the difference between a conspiracy theory and the truth is six months.
But the conspiracy theorists and the religious people and the conservatives and Pope Francis has just signed off on a new document, an official document from the Vatican, reaffirming that Catholics cannot be Freemasons.
What?
Why can't Catholics be Freemasons?
Wait, hold on, Pope Francis, he's supposed to be a big lib and a kumbaya, and some people accuse him of being a Freemason.
What do you mean Catholics can't be Freemasons?
Hold on, the Freemasons are still around?
I know there's some old secret society that I heard about in some movies, but I mean, they're that real?
And why does the Vatican even care about this?
There are all sorts of reasons.
The Freemasons are a real group.
It's not just something that comes out of conspiracy theory YouTube videos.
The Freemasons have largely been opposed to the Catholic Church in particular over the centuries.
That part is true.
There are lots of conspiracy theories about the Freemasons.
Some of those conspiracy theories are true.
Some of them seem somewhat dubious to me.
The reason that Pope Francis is reaffirming the consistent and traditional Catholic teaching that Catholics can't be Freemasons is much more basic and it's a lesson for all of us no matter what you think your religion or political views are.
The basic reason that Catholics can't be Freemasons is because Freemasonry is a sort of religion unto itself.
That's the most basic reason.
Freemasonry has its own particular conception of God.
Freemasonry has its own particular rites and rituals.
It even has burial rites.
Freemasonry has its own particular conception of mankind and his role in the cosmos vis-a-vis God, whether the Freemasons would call God God or use a different term to refer to God.
It's just a different religion, and you cannot simultaneously Be a member of two contrary religions.
You cannot simultaneously believe contradictory things.
You cannot simultaneously serve two gods.
You can't do it.
I mean, this has been true since the origin, the advent of Christianity.
And in fact, since the advent of faith in the Old Testament.
Since Abraham comes around and says, nah, we're going to give up all that pagan stuff.
Because the true God, my God, has told me that he is the one true God and he's greater than all the other gods.
You can't do it.
I mean, it goes back to Aristotle's law of non-contradiction.
Things that are mutually contradictory cannot simultaneously be true.
Pardon.
Things that are mutually contradictory cannot simultaneously be true.
That's just a fact.
And I think a lot of people need to examine that because people generally hold all sorts of different views, especially in a pluralistic country, many of which conflict with one another.
So the question you have to ask is, what do you ultimately believe?
Where is your ultimate devotion?
Where does that lie?
And in modern pluralistic countries, we just try to push that question off.
And we say, no, you can believe all sorts of contradictory things, all sorts of all-party groups, just don't think too deeply about it.
But that's not possible, and even a pope who many refer to as a liberal is pointing that out, of course.
Now, speaking of religion and human flourishing, I meant to get to this story earlier this week, but a lot of you have written in about it, so I think I should address it.
Mayflower cigars flew off the shelves, and I want to thank all of you for doing that.
We had a supply that even some of the biggest people in the cigar industry, some of the most respected people in the industry, said this supply, even at an ambitious sales rate, will last you four months, and it lasted 24 hours.
Then you may have seen some new cigars showed up on the website in a totally different size, in a Corona Gorda, which is I think five and a half by 46 ring gauge or so.
Those cigars were cigars that I personally ordered.
They were going to make them for me.
It was 3,000 cigars they were just going to give for my humidor so I could give to friends or more likely smoke them myself.
And I get a call from the wonderful woman who is running the operations of Mayflower Cigars, and she said, hey, you're not getting your cigars.
Sorry, I gotta sell them.
I'm putting them on the website.
And they went on the website, and those also sold out in about two seconds.
What you can do now, if you want Mayflower Cigars, is...
Go to the website mayflowercigars.com, enter your name at the bottom of the page, enter your email address, you'll be notified when they come up.
I am fairly confident, a lot is in motion right now, I am at least somewhat confident that we will get another batch of cigars in time to ship and arrive before Christmas.
But I don't know when that's going to happen, there are a lot of moving parts.
So if you want the cigars, go to mayflowercigars.com.
You must be 21 years old or older to purchase.
Some exclusions may apply.
I have to say that every time I talk about it.
Put your email address down and you will be notified very, very quickly.
The thing is, man, some people, they're talking about all this crazy stuff in the world.
All these wars, you know, all economic turmoil, all sorts of social turmoil.
I'm just here trying to sell you quality cigars at a competitive price.
You know, that's just what we're doing over here.
A story I did want to get to today, Nikki Haley going after Vivek Ramaswamy and a new poll out from New Hampshire.
Upending a lot of the undercard race.
Trump is still, as he is pretty much everywhere, just dominating by a lot of points in the polls.
But the undercard, the number two, number three, number four place candidates, they are shifting around.
So I guess we're going to have to get to that tomorrow because today is Theology Thursday and I am extraordinarily honored To be joined by one of the great living theologians, a friend of mine who I was supposed to see in Nashville a week or two ago, and Daily Wire unceremoniously shipped me out of the country so I couldn't see him.
But we will talk to him now, and a lot of you have requested that he come on the show.
That would be Dr. Scott Hahn.
The rest of the show continues now.
You do not want to miss it.
Become a member.
Use code Knolls, K-N-O-W-L-L-E-S at checkout for two months free on all annual plans.
