Welcome to another episode of 'Cross The Picket Line' with Michael Knowles, where challenging conversations and open dialogues take center stage. In this riveting installment, Michael visits both Vanderbilt University and Clemson University, extending an invitation to his protesters to engage in face-to-face, friendly sit-down discussions.
'Cross The Picket Line' breaks down barriers, encouraging those who disagree with Michael's views to step forward and share their perspectives in a respectful and constructive setting. This episode showcases the power of civil discourse as Michael and his guests tackle a range of topics, from politics and culture to education and societal issues.
🔔 Join us in this unique journey of understanding and exchange at two renowned campuses. Don't forget to subscribe for more episodes of 'Cross The Picket Line.' Share your thoughts on these discussions in the comments below and suggest which campus Michael should visit next!
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The man you've all been waiting for, Michael J. Knowles.
Thank you very much.
You're all too kind.
You don't belong here, you genocidal maniac!
Oh, there we go, finally.
I was wondering where you were.
When a conservative speaks on a college campus, one of two things usually happens.
Activists and indoctrinated students try to burn the place down.
Or, leftist groups post strategies for limiting or shutting down the event, and then hide in their dorms, and then just hope that no one shows up.
Both responses are to be expected from miseducated students who scroll through the endless hit pieces from left-wing outlets, and then have those lies reinforced by their liberal professors.
Do you think there's a chance if they sat down and listened to him speak that their minds would be changed?
Yeah, some of them.
There is a third option, which I greatly prefer.
That is when my producer journeys into the mob of protesters and finds someone willing to cross the picket line, away from the activists and the mindless chants, to talk with me directly.
Are you a fascist?
I don't know.
You look like one.
Do I?
Yeah.
Do you mind if we ask you a few questions?
No, I do mind.
Often, no matter how welcoming the invitation for a cozy front row seat at the speech and a friendly discussion with me afterward, the offer falls on deaf ears.
Does anyone want to talk to Michael Knowles after the speech?
Anybody?
Other times, my producer is left out in the cold.
But sometimes, you find someone like Wes at Clemson University, who chose not just to hold some nonsensical sign while screaming at people waiting to hear me speak, but rather to come listen to what I had to say, but rather to come listen to what I had to say, and then to ask a question to challenge my A respectful strategy that gave Wes and me the opportunity to sit down and talk face-to-face.
Thanks for sitting down!
No problem.
So your name is Wes?
Yes, Wes.
And you did not protest me.
I did not.
But you disagreed with me.
I do disagree with you in many issues, including what you talked about today.
So tonight we talked about IVF and surrogacy.
You got up and you asked a question that I thought was really good.
So you disagree with me on this topic.
You came in disagreeing with me.
Did I change your mind at all through the speech?
I didn't disagree with the reasoning.
I do disagree with You know, the principle, I don't disagree with IVF and surrogacy, but I understand why you do, and I don't think you're wrong for believing what you believe.
So, if you agree with my reasoning, and you think that I made at least a logically sound argument, then don't you have to come over to my opinion?
Well, it kind of goes back to my opinions on everything.
Like, I am personally pro-choice, but I believe that people who are pro-life, I don't think that they are stupid and wrong.
I think that they have logic in their reasoning, but I also think that people who believe the opposite also have logic in their reasoning, and I almost believe it is just a Just a moral difference that is almost, can't be broken.
I think it's just a difference of morals.
So, I agree with you that people who disagree are usually not evil.
And they're usually not even stupid.
Usually.
Usually.
If two people have opposite views on a question that has an objective answer to it, then at most one of those people is right.
Contrary things can't simultaneously be correct, right?
So, if you say, in this wonderfully polite and respectful way, you say, look, I'm pro-choice.
I support legal abortion.
But I think that the pro-lifers make really good arguments, and their logic is consistent.
For me, at least.
If someone makes a really good argument, and it's logically consistent, and I can't find the flaw in their argument, I have to come over to their side of the argument.
I think that sometimes that there's just a moral disagreement, not necessarily that someone's completely right or completely wrong.
Me, personally, I believe that what gives people value is not just a beating heart or the fact that you are a human.
I believe that it is your consciousness and your personhood.
That's my personal moral belief, but I don't think someone else is wrong for believing They don't think that's what gives someone value.
They believe it's a beating heart and brain function and a body.
Or just their very existence.
Yes, exactly.
That, I believe that people, I don't think that that's, I disagree with it, but I don't think that that is illogical, or I guess I disagree with it, but I don't think it's an incorrect way of thinking.
You don't see the flaw in the logic, you just, you're still confident that the person, that they have the wrong side of the argument.
Or at the very least, that you have the right side of the argument.
I guess I would say that I, well, because it's my belief, I would of course think that I'm correct and that they are incorrect, but it's not as simple for me as, oh, you're an idiot, you're wrong.
That's a stupid way of thinking.
Have you ever changed your mind on one of these questions?
I used to be, I grew up with a conservative family, my brother's conservative.
I was very conservative growing up and I actually switched to becoming a liberal.
What happened?
I got indoctrinated by the college.
That's the best and most precise answer.
Did it really happen at college?
Not.
I was about a senior in high school when the transition started happening.
I used to consider myself fiscally conservative, but socially liberal.
That's what all teenage boys say, so that the girls still like us.
Exactly.
And that's kind of, you know, that's the start of the liberal pipeline.
It is.
That is the beginning.
You're very perceptive of these things.
I wonder if you're a little too respectful.
Meaning?
If you really believe, say, that the thing that gives a person value, the reason not to kill a person, like through abortion, is not their existence, it's not a beating heart, it's consciousness, and you said that's the determining factor, then I would respond to that, and I would say, okay, well, would it be okay to kill an unconscious person, someone who's asleep or who's in a coma, but who might likely come out of the coma?
That would be an example of someone who's not conscious, but who still has a right to life.
It is of my understanding that we do take people off of life support that are in comas sometimes.
Well if they have like brain death or something.
I'm just saying a coma.
They were in a car accident.
Let's say they're in a medically induced coma or something and there's some great likelihood that they're going to come out of the coma.
I've heard someone put it this way.
It is the ability of the person to project consciousness.
In the sense that their body has that function, it is capable of projecting a conscious experience.
So even if the person is not at the time actually conscious, there is the potential for consciousness there.
Yes.
But then you would apply that same description to a baby in the womb.
That baby might not be actively conscious there, but they certainly have the potential for consciousness.
I wouldn't say that it has the potential or the ability to project consciousness in that moment physically.
It's incapable.
Same with the guy in the coma.
His body is developed to the point where it would be able to project a conscious experience.
But it's incapacitated.
Yes, and I think that that also plays a role into it.
The fact that you were a conscious being and you've been experiencing life as a conscious human, and then some unfortunate accident or whatever may have happened puts you into an unconscious state.
I think that the fact that there was a conscious experience beforehand Does play some role in the value of the person.
So having been conscious, you notice you've now sort of changed the criterion, because you're saying, well, it's no longer being conscious, but it's having been conscious at some point, which would separate someone who is asleep or in a coma from a baby in the womb who has never been conscious but has the potential to be conscious later.
Then one might bring up the case of killing the elderly.
Do you support euthanasia?
Assisted suicide or whatever euphemism they want to call it.
I've struggled with that.
I don't have firm convictions either way.
Whenever people bring up medically assisted suicide, I have not formed an opinion on that yet.
I'm not in support or against it.
I would have to learn more about it and really think about my morals.
The setup that you've just made.
You're saying if you've ever been conscious and you've sort of fallen out of the active use of your conscious faculties, that it would be wrong to kill that person.
So that would be an argument against euthanasia for the senile or demented in that case.
I don't think it's steadfast.
If you've been conscious before, you absolutely have value that cannot be taken away.
I think it's on a case-by-case basis.
But then what is the principle by which you discern one case from another?
I don't, personally, it would just have to be on a case-by-case basis.
I don't have this rule that I go by.
But then, this is what's so curious about this, because you're saying, I don't have a rule.
I'm not applying reason exactly to this question.
I'm just kind of going on my gut.
And that's what a lot of people do.
What's strange about that, though, for you, is that you show up to a lecture.
Given by someone who you go in disagreeing with.
But then, at the end of it, you say, well, you know, you have your logic, I have my logic.
We can't really reason about these things in an objective way.
I think, well, then why show up?
If you're not going to come to a conclusion, if you're not going to say, no, you're wrong, or I was wrong, and now I agree with you, or actually, I still disagree with you because here's the flaw in your argument.
If you're not going to grant that there's some objective reality to these arguments that might pertain to a great many people or everybody.
And what's the point of the logic?
Well, I don't come here to get my mind changed or change anybody else's mind.
I think that hearing other opinions, whether you personally believe that they're going to change yours or not, it's just healthy in general, and I support free speech.
And also, to be frank, I'm here because I'm friends with a lot of YAF people, and they asked me to come, and I was like, sure, I'll come.
You're like the most amiable liberal on campus, and you say, sure, I'll come.
It's just, Wes, you're a confounding figure, because you might be the nicest guy I've ever met on a college campus.
You might be the most open-minded guy, and yet I feel defeated because you're saying, Michael, your arguments, all arguments, they don't work on me.
I believe that abortion is just a moral disagreement.
I think that some people have one moral code of ethics, and some people have an opposing moral viewpoint.
If I say 2 plus 2 equals 4, that's a view that we would both agree to, and that's my opinion.
Someone might say, I've heard people say this, that when you really think about it, 2 plus 2 equals 5.
You don't agree with it.
And I don't agree with it.
Definitely not.
Now those are contradictory opinions.
2 plus 2 cannot simultaneously be 4 and 5.
At the same time, it can't happen.
So one of them is right and one of them is wrong.
Yes, and you can't dispute that a fetus is a human.
It is a human.
I don't disagree with that.
Where the morals come into play, there's no... I don't personally believe that there is any set of facts that tells you what gives human value.
I think that's what the argument is about.
No, it's morality.
What gives a human value?
And I don't think that that is something that can be Objectively known.
Objectively known, exactly.
Can you know that it's better, it's morally better, to help a little old lady cross the street than it is to kick a little baby in the head?
Can you know that for a fact?
You see, I personally don't agree in objective morality.
So you don't know.
If someone came to you, this is just you, there's no cameras.
Well, there are cameras, but imagine there were no cameras and someone came to you and said, hey, Wes, just between you and me, man, there's a guy who's helping a little old lady cross the street and there's a guy who's kicking a little baby in the head just because he's a sadist.
Is one of those guys morally better than the other guy?
Obviously, I believe so because I have a moral code of ethics and I believe those to be true.
So, of course, I would say that.
And where do you get your morality from?
Evolution.
Maybe a higher being.
Evolution never gave me any morality.
Well, maybe a higher being.
I'm not a Christian.
I may not be a Christian.
I'm told by Christians that I'm not a Christian, but I do think that there can be a higher power that created the world.
It's like the non-contradiction thing again.
You're not a Christian, but you're not not a Christian.
Well, I've been pushed out of the Christian... By whom?
Who pushed you out?
Let me go talk to him.
Well, I mean, some people could say I led myself out because I have moral disagreements with certain things in the Bible, and I've always rationalized my whole...
What's that?
Shellfish?
Yeah.
You say, I love shellfish.
I like shellfish too.
There's lots of moral, exactly, lots of moral disagreements that I have with the Bible.
And I've been saying, okay, I believe in God, but the God that I believe in and want to believe in doesn't necessarily think those things that are in the Bible.
If you get your morality from evolution, Well, I don't know necessarily if that's where it comes from.
It's just... Because evolution, in theory, just exists to propagate the species, right?
It's just the process by which a species adapts to its environment to propagate itself.
That's all it is.
So, evolution doesn't care at all about good or bad.
It just cares about life or death.
It seems like you're looking for love in all the wrong places.
You know, if you're looking for good or bad, you're not going to find it in any theory of evolution.
Evolution could have guided you in such a way to believe all sorts of things, as long as it would impel behavior that were conducive to reproducing.
So don't you have to look somewhere else for good or bad?
Well, I'm not necessarily, I completely understand what you're saying, and I'm not claiming that my morals do come from evolution.
I don't really know where my morals come from.
I was raised the way I was raised, and I just have the belief system that I believe.
But even people in Tahiti, you know, or wherever, in Papua New Guinea, even though they believe all, you know, they believe some weird stuff and they do some weird stuff.
There are certain things that everyone, every people for all of human history just kind of know, even if they express it differently.
We know that murder is wrong.
We know that theft is wrong.
People transgress those, but every culture knows this, right?
And it can't just be the particular environment in which you were raised.
There has to be something perhaps more objective and universal about it.
Well, going back to evolution, I don't think that, again, I don't think that all morals come from evolution, but I think specifically knowing that murder is wrong probably does come from evolution, wanting to, you know, make sure that the race continues.
If you murder people, that's bad for the human race.
Would you murder anyone right now?
No.
No, you wouldn't.
But the thing is, The moment that you become aware of the evolutionary impulses in you that have tricked you into believing that murder is objectively wrong, when it's not, that's just a trick we've concocted in order to propagate the species.
Well, the moment you become aware of that, then you can contradict the moral order.
Right?
Because it's not objectively true, it's just a product of evolution.
It's just something to spread the species.
So, if you are aware of that now, And it's not objectively binding.
And you could benefit.
You know, some guy's got a million dollars in a satchel.
You could kill him and no one would find out.
You could take the money and you could live a great life.
Something tells me you still wouldn't do that.
Well, I wouldn't, but I personally don't think that just the fact that I know where they come from, I don't think would give me the ability to go against them.
I think that there's still that deep gut feeling that's ingrained in me that tells me that murder is wrong.
If I know that that came from evolution, that doesn't change the fact that I have a gut feeling that tells me that murder is wrong.
So even if you've arrived at that from your reason, what you're saying is, no, my gut instinct is going to overpower my reason, which is what you've been telling me the whole time.
Well, I don't think that... I don't even necessarily believe that I did get my morals from evolution.
There very well could be a higher power and a creator.
I do not dispute that.
But... I don't think that I can just say that murder is wrong.
I think that that... You can't force that view on someone else.
You can't say that's objectively true, is what you're saying.
I...
I think that morals and what we decide as a world, or I guess a country or society, is wrong is based on the collective, subjective morality of all the different people put together.
I think that if everyone in America, in their subjective moral viewpoints, thought that murder was okay, then murder would be legal.
Well, it would be legal, but you still wouldn't think it's okay.
I would am, but I mean, that's my subjective morality.
I don't think that somebody... I think it's your objective morality.
I think, Wes, you don't give yourself enough credit.
You're here, you listen to these arguments, you parse them rationally, you say, in some cases, I guess in this speech tonight, you say, I actually agree with his arguments, but I came in disagreeing and my first principles are a little different, so I'm going to have to consider that.
But I don't know, I don't want to like, I don't want to say that someone's wrong, because you're very nice.
Wes, my only advice as an older man coming, you know, I was a student once, much less open-minded than you.
I would say you can be less nice.
You can give yourself permission to be right about the things that you instinctively want to be right about, that you kind of know that you're right about.
You don't need the permission of Charles Darwin or, you know, 50 Million Frenchmen or anything like that.
Your gut, ironically, is pretty good, and it's okay to, when you hear a logical argument, you can accept the conclusion, even if all the other people tell you wrong.
Just my humble advice, in no way condescending, as someone who was a student once.
Wes, thank you so much.
Thank you.
Wes may not have been completely convinced by my views, but the fact that he showed up and sat down with someone he fundamentally disagreed with was impressive.
Wes is a student and showed a lot more courage and integrity than many former teachers on the YAF Tour that I have encountered, all of whom showed up with all that shallow confidence in the world, screaming at my producer and storming out of the event, but who, when given the same offer to sit down with me, went mum and slunk away.
