The Iced Coffee Hour - “Why America Is Screwed…” Michael Knowles on Ben Shapiro, Hookup Culture, and Toxic Wokeism

Episode Date: April 1, 2024

Oracle: Free test drive of OCI at https://oracle.com/iced Prolon: Got to https://prolonlife.com/ich for 10% off their 5-day nutrition program Streamyard: Start creating high-quality content easily with https://clickurl.ca/ICH-StreamYard https://www.youtube.com/@MichaelKnowles NEW: Join us at http://www.icedcoffeehour.club for premium content - Enjoy! Add us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jlsselby https://www.instagram.com/gpstephan Official Clips Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCeBQ24VfikOriqSdKtomh0w For sponsorships or business inquiries reach out to: [e-mail] For Podcast Inquiries, please DM @icedcoffeehour on Instagram! Time Stamps: 0:00 - Intro 0:26 - Michael Knowles Explains His BEEF W/ Ben Shapiro 3:25 - How Michael Sold 500,000+ Copies of A Wordless Book 12:11 - Why Michael Knowles LOVES Cigars 17:24 - “There’s Real Wisdom In Avoiding The Near Occasion Of Sin” 22:21 - Michael Defends His Statement “We Need To Eradicate Transgenderism” 32:59 - Confronting Michael On His Aggressive Language Toward Transgenderism 41:21 - How To Be A Good Communicator 47:12 - This NEEDS To Be Changed About Modern Dating 58:58 - Michael’s Advice To Young Men Who Are Dating Today 1:00:58 - “What Do You Think Are Your Most Extreme Opinions?” 1:04:53 - Michael & Graham DEBATE: Are Aliens Real? 1:12:13 - How Do You Know Which Religion Is Right? 1:18:08 - Michael Knowles On Atheism 1:23:38 - “If Your Wife Doesn’t Look Great In A Dress, Do You Tell Her?” 1:26:49 - How To Approach Difficult Conversations W/ Your Wife 1:38:04 - Michael On His ‘Whatever Podcast’ Appearance 1:45:45 - Michael On His CPAC Speech & Using Precise Speech 1:52:11 - Word Association / Closing Comments *Some of the links and other products that appear on this video are from companies which Graham Stephan will earn an affiliate commission or referral bonus. Graham Stephan is part of an affiliate network and receives compensation for sending traffic to partner sites. The content in this video is accurate as of the posting date. Some of the offers mentioned may no longer be available. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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I don't think men want to rule over women. I don't want to rule over women. I have to do that. That's my role. What do you think are some of your most extreme opinions? There are certainly things I believe that I wouldn't be allowed to even say on YouTube. It would shut down the hole. The excellent Michael Knowles.

Thank you for using the proper pronunciation of that title. Oh. Mr. Shapiro, he does not pronounce it correctly. Of course. What would they say? He says something with a couple extra letters. It sounds almost excru. I don't know.

Excellent is the proper guy. Excellent Michael Knowles. And since we're on the topic of Ben Shapiro, I was wondering if maybe we could just start this off by you reacting to this little clip we have right here, okay? Just letting us know your thoughts. Okay. Free association. Michael Knowles.

Uh, I was going to say good Catholic. He's not as good as me, but he's, you know, mediocre Catholic. And mediocre person. I mean, I think we can agree on that. I mean, Knowles is a discredit to the company, and he's ask, but it's not my free association. I really shouldn't be sounding awful. Go ahead. Go ahead.

Yeah, he's just awful. I mean, the fact is that Knowles is. somehow been able to make a career out of being a complete empty vessel. And it's, it's incredible to me. And all the stuff where he's not an empty vessel, whenever he talks about it, I mean, my goodness, have you heard him go on for like an hour about Aquinas? It's really just, it's pretty terrifying. So, okay, so I like, by the way, I like here how Ben says, I'm an empty vessel, and then I just pontificate for hours about St. Thomas Aquinas, the greatest theologian ever to walk the earth. You know where it comes from, though, especially the empty vessel phrase.

Where does it come from? Mr. Shapiro, my friend. of many years. He wrote a lot of books when he was a young man. He started writing his first book, I think he was in the womb. And then I come along. It's about the year 2017. And I published a book called a masterpiece, actually, called Reasons to Vote for Democrats, a Comprehensive Guide.

And it didn't have any words in it. And that book, at the time, since then, Ben has sold a lot of books. I think at the time, my book without any words may have sold more than, all of Ben's books that he put a lot of time and effort and words into. He was not happy about that. But then there was one other, this is something that really got back. 2016, the election, Hillary Clinton was supposed to win. Ben is Mr. Data. Ben is Mr. facts. All of the polls said Hillary Clinton was going to win. Now, I'm a little bit more, when it comes to politics, a little bit more about intuition. And I said, I don't, I don't know if I

believe that the wicked witch of the West is actually going to be elected president. And Trump, he's kind of a weird guy's, big celebrity though for 40 years. I don't know. And Ben said, okay, okay, Knowles, I'll give you four to one odds, four to one on a hundred dollar bet that Trump is going to lose. I said, okay, I don't know if I'd take even odds, but four to one, I'll take, sure. Okay, Ben. And I now have a check framed in my office at home, crumpled up because he crumpled it and threw it in my head. But it's now framed $400. And he said in the memo it was for ignoring data. I think that was the beginning, the origin story of Ben's frustration. So I'm curious, when you made this book, there's no words in it. It's just blank pages. How much

did you make on a book like that? Is that technically now a New York Times bestseller? Well, it is certainly a bestseller. It is not in New York Times Beth. Why is that? They wouldn't acknowledge it. They would not acknowledge it. Now, they, the book, When I say a bestseller, I'm a number one Amazon bestseller. And there are a lot of books that claim to be that. Sure. Because they'll say, well, you know, in the category of Norwegian fantasy, troll fiction, you know, I'm the number one. But this was the number one Amazon bestseller in all of books for 11 days.

And what was in the book? So the book, I can't say it had zero words. Okay. It had a very limited number. It opened up with an epigraph from Thucydides, the ancient Greek historian. And the epigraph said, this is not. an effort to win the applause of the moment, but a contribution for all time. Because my book was not just for the 2016 cycle. It remains true, every election cycle. And then it had about 10 chapters

or so on economics, on civil rights, on immigration, on foreign policy, of all the reasons to vote for Democrats. Now, those chapters were completely blank. They did not have any words in it. But then, at the end of the book, I had a very, very extensive bibliography. I cited all of my sources, modern, medieval, ancient. And I think that the book was very persuasive. To answer your question about the money, I made a lot of money on that book. I made, I sold hundreds of thousands of copies of this four. I don't even know what the number is at this point.

I don't think it's a million yet, but it might be getting up there. Sure. I self-published it. So it cost me nothing to pay us. Oh, my gosh. And it wasn't like a stunt, meaning I actually just did it to irritate my friends and relatives. Yeah. I didn't expect to make a ton of money.

And then I see the thing starts ticking up. I was having a cigar with Jeremy the God King Boring over here. And we're refreshing Amazon, and it's, you know, number 20,000. Oh, that's pretty good. Number 20,000 on all of it. And it's number 5,000. And it's number 500. And it's number 20 or something.

So Fox News called me, asked me to go on. the morning show the next day. I said, okay, I wake up for the morning show. This is LA time. And it's number six. I do the morning show. I go back to sleep 4 a.m. I'm sorry, I wake up. It's number one. And it stays at number one forever. So here's where the real money kicked in. I get a request from Simon and Schuster to purchase the rights to my nothing. No way. To my nothing. And so I sort of thought, well, do they know that they could just kind of do it? I can't sue that. What protects someone else from taking your idea, doing the exact same thing, copying me, a little different.

Well, they could do it for Republicans. They could do it. I know maybe I should have played both sides. You should have. I could have doubled my life. I wasn't mercenary. Does that exist on the other side? Yeah, there were a bunch of copycats who all tried to do it.

But they didn't, the libs man. It's the essence of it. Yeah. They also just aren't. You're first to market. It's really an advantage. It's got to be really high quality. It's hard to make nothing high quality, but.

the cover needs to look like a real cover. The epigraph has to be a good epigraph. It has to be a little subtle to it. And the libs, they did all these, you know, it was like, 10 reasons why I hate that dumb idiot Donald Trump or whatever. I said, it's not even the joke, man. You're not getting it, you know. And so it was number one.

Yeah. Simon & Schuster tries to buy it. I talked to Jeremy. I say, hey, man, Simon & Schuster's offering me like, I think it was like 25 grand to buy the rights, plus then royalties. I thought, I didn't have a lot of money. I'm a young guy.

I say, this is great, right? And Jeremy says, no, you can't take it. So what you mean I can't take it? He goes, 25 grand is not funny. It's funny to me, man. It's pretty good. He goes, no, it's got to be at least six figures. You need at least a six figure advance on your fake book for it to be funny.

Then I get a request from another publisher, St. Martens. Then Ben, though he was upset about how great the book was doing, he then, because of his masochism, decided to give me his book agent to help negotiate the deal. So he said, okay, Nolz, I'll set you up with this agent. You can negotiate a contract between for nothing. I tell the agent's got to be six figures. He said, all right. They negotiated all the way up.

We get the deal. But the publishers didn't, they just didn't get the joke. So they said, okay, well, Michael, the one thing you can't do is make fun of us for giving you a bunch of money for nothing. I said, why did you give me the money then? The whole reason to do this is, that's how you get more media and it'll be funny. They won't do it. So the sales start to decline. They say, we got to turn this around.

I said, okay, put me back on Fox. So I go back on Fox. We had already done the schick about the book. So they asked me, it's just something about, I think it was Trump's policy in Syria, maybe. And I complimented Trump. In those days, Fox and Friends had a big audience. But there was only one audience member who counted. And that was the man sitting at 1600 Pennsylvania who happened to be watching that morning.

And so I go off the show, I go take a little nap at the office. and I wake up as my phone explodes because Trump had tweeted out, uh, reasons to vote for Democrats by Michael J. Knowles, a great book for your reading enjoyment. And it goes right back up to number one. And, and then the New York Times won't acknowledge it. Okay, fine. I'm offered another book contract. I say, well, what, what do you mean another book?

What would, what have I ever done that would give you? the impression I can write a book with words. People were offering me a book contract. So I finally take one years later. I write this book and I realized this had to be a pretty good book because otherwise the headline would say, Noel should stick to what he knows. And it would have been a disaster. So I really put a lot into this book. And the book hit number one on the publisher's weekly list, which is tied to actual book sales. Sold 18,000 copies at the first week or something. I outsold the number one New York Times bestselling book by like 40% that week. Nowhere on the list.

Even with my book with words. Nowhere on the list would the lying fake news New York Times put me on their list. What was the second book? That was called Speechless. So the first book. That's a great name. Thank you. It was just a little nod.

Yeah, sure. So the first book had no words. the second book was entirely about language. And I actually didn't know how the second book was going to sell because it was not just a usual right-wing polemic. I think had it been a usual right-wing polemic, you know, how to own the libs and so can you. It would have sold reliably very well. But this one was a little different because it was a book about free speech. But at the time, all the conservatives were defending free speech in this grandiose, absolutist kind of way.

And my book actually disagreed with that. And my book said, no, free speech absolutism, that's a liberal idea. That's not a very conservative idea. Actually, all societies have a right to standards and norms. I don't think you should just be able to go scream whatever you want in the street, even if it's offensive or obscene or fraudulent or whatever. The question is not a battle between censorship and free speech. The debate is actually between two competing sets of standards.

So the question is not how much should we be allowed to say. The question is, what are we going to say? Because free speech in the abstract doesn't mean anything to people who have nothing to say. Although before we go into that, AI might be the most important new computer technology ever. Kind of like the beard trimmer jack that you should be using that you're not using. At least I can grow a beard. You're not using it, though. Anyway, it's storming every industry and literally billions of dollars are being invested.

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I highly recommend it. Oracle.com slash iced. Thank you so much, Oracle, and back to the podcast. What led you to this point today? Did you always have an interest in these sort of beliefs? Yeah, I was always interested in politics and show business for my entire life. Acting. That's what I wanted to go.

And I was an actor. I'm also the only human being ever in the history of theater who got over the acting bug. I was cured. I actually have lots of moral qualms about acting to me. We'll get into that later. But I always like show business and I always like politics from the time I could remember. And then I was always relatively conservative. I've had this haircut since I was six years old.

You know, I started smoking cigars when I was 15. Oh, by the way, I have brought you guys for my company Mayflower cigars. I brought you. These are some of the rarest items on the market right now. Why is that? I sold out of these cigars. I had four months supply when we launched this company, Mayflower. We sold out in one day, 30,000 cigars.

These cigars took a year to get the blend and the brand perfect. I worked with the best factory in Estelaide, Nicaragua, which is the best cigar capital in the world right now, as far as I'm concerned. And there's two cigars here. This is the dawn. That's your breakfast. have it with coffee smoke. This is the dusk. That's your evening smoke. You have a full day right there. You got to figure out, you're on your own for a long. How much can you smoke of a cigar

on one day? Are you like a multiple cigar per day type guy? I can be. I try to keep it to about one, just not even for the health. You know, I actually think cigars are on the whole, relatively good for you. The FDA has not looked at that statement. Though there have been a couple studies on this that have shown that fewer than four cigars per day have no statistically significant correlation with mortality. Cigars. Yeah, and there was one actually done by one of the Cancer Society's, a major study that showed that the cigar, now there's a difference between cigarettes and premium cigars, but for premium cigar smokers, the premium cigar smokers who smoked in moderation actually lived slightly longer than the non-premium cigar smokers. Is it a social thing?

Could it be that people who smoke cigars maybe do so in a group setting? So I think part of it is, It is, it's social, so you're more likely to have good conversations with guys and, you know, relax a little. Some of it, you could have a cigar alone. I'll have a cigar at night with a book and a drink. That's the only way I really get to relax, right? I got kids running around. I'm working here all day, traveling. If you sit and relax, I think stress is a real killer, you know, and that's one of the few ways.

A man is not going to go to the spa usually and get a face mask and cucumbers on his eyes. So that's one way to do it. So it's the sort of thing where, yes, you get a tiny little bit of a nicotine buzz, but just like, you know, you get a little jolt from the coffee. But it's also just about focusing on these flavors. And in the same way you would with a scotch, same way you would with a good meal. And it's just, I think if you can take your mind off your work and your responsibilities for 40 minutes a day. But there are other certain outlets that you could achieve that with, right?

Meditation. I know about me. Have you noticed any detriments to smoking cigars? Anything bad in your life? No. Maybe like you went on a date with a girl and she was like,

you know, it smells a little bit. So my wife, who is a saint, walking around the earth, she's right about almost everything. She hates the cigars. She hates them.

And I told her, I said, look, I'll defer to you on a lot of things. But there are very few things that I've loved longer than I've loved you. Cigars are one of them. Because I kissed my wife

for the first time at age 16, but I smoked my first cigar at 15. It was your first love. It was my first love. So I'm curious. What does she hate most about you smoking cigars? Just the smell.

She encourages me to go have my nightly cigar. Go sit outside. To relax. She likes you to relax. Cigar maybe when you're calmed down. She likes to kick me out of the house. I think your wife is right.

I can't stand the smell of it. Like, I've seen some of these cigar lounges and you walk down the street And it stinks. Like you're 20 feet away and you smell the thing and you get there. It's just, it looks like a weird place inside. It's always really tiny and there's like,

I have dudes in there all like just, it's kind of weird. You like that. I love it. I love it. Here's another reason. So, you know, I'm a married guy.

If I go to a bar, what do I get out of that? I could, if I go to a regular bar, there's going to be girls around. Now, I don't think I'm going to be tempted to go, you know,

pick up a girl at a bar. But even the, the appearance of impropriation, I don't need that. I don't need some woman walking up. Someone takes a picture and it looks bad. I don't need any of that. What do I, well, you know what I want to do when I go to a bar? I want to sit with a bunch of fat old dudes and I want to talk about politics and religion and philosophy. And I want there to be a woman repellent all around the bar. And for the bars that I go to, there is. And that would be a big cloud of smoke that you're describing. Now, is that more so because of you or because your wife would prefer you not to go to a bar with a lot? of women around her. They're all drinking. She's not worried that, you know, I'm going to go be Don Giovanni. But it's more for me. I just don't need the appearance of impropriety. I mean, I think there's real wisdom, first of all, in avoiding the near occasion of sin. So I think you would probably have to torture me to get me to ever cheat on my wife. But I don't

need the occasion of sin to be near to me. And then furthermore, I don't need the sin of scandal. You know, I don't want there to be the appearance. I was talking to a friend of mine who was set up one time. He's a celebrity. Maybe one might have heard of him. And he was taking pictures with people sometimes, you know, they want to come up, let's have a picture. And so this woman says, can we take a picture?

And he has his hand on her shoulder or something. And right before the picture's taken, she grabs it, pulls it down. And so he's like, hey, get out of here. They got the picture. And then all of a sudden, you know, it's, you're in essentially a blackmail kind of a situation. I don't need any of that, okay? I don't, I just want to sit.

Also, even, let's say you have a more innocent conversation with a chick at a bar. I don't want to sound like I'm sexist or something, but what? I don't know. I don't need to. Go ahead. What were you going to say? What are you going to say? What are you going to say?

What are you going to say? What are you going to say? Certain topics lend themselves more to the conversation among men. And certain things guys are not going to talk about or they're not going to talk in a certain way if they're in mixed company. Okay, well, let's get on to that. But real quick, while you were on the topic of like that photo thing where they're guy, the girl grabbed his hand. I've seen this meme of Ben, your very own Ben Shapiro. He does a

hand lefatation. Have you seen that? Every single time he takes, he takes a photo, Keanu Reeves. I think he does the same. Yeah, yeah, he's a lot of pictures. His hand is like six inches off of her shoulder and he's always like smiling the exact same thing. You know what people love the Keanu once though because you're like, look how respectful he is. He's not even touching the other person. Yeah. To me, that's a little too far. You think that's too far. I think it's a little too far. But it is a safety precaution, right? It is. It's a safety precaution. It is a safety. I just sort of think, I fear that if I were to do that, that would be seeding to the liberals and the Me Too movement, way too much ground. I think it's okay. If someone asks you for a picture, they like you, you can be chummy and put your hand. Make sure they don't pull your hand at any bad. But couldn't that happen with a guy to, hypothetically. There's nothing stopping a guy from grabbing your hand and putting it down and taking the photo. It could. Luckily, my hands aren't that long. Your arms aren't that long.

But yes, no, it could happen to. And I just sort of think, if I live my life in a way that has integrity, if I do my best to do that, and I am the person who I present myself to be as much as I possibly can be, then people just aren't going to believe it. That's sort of a trick just is not going to work. And so I think that's the better way to focus on it. But who knows, you know, if all of us end up getting me-toed at some point, then Shapiro and Keanu are going to have the last laugh. When it comes to, you know, do I have to, is everyone out to get me all the time? I sort of think there are two kinds of fear. There's servile fear and there's fear of the Lord.

Fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom and servile fear is cowardice. So we don't ever want the servile fear. This is what I think. I go to these schools and I give speeches and sometimes people make threats, sometimes more than others. And we take security precautions very seriously around here, but I'm not going to live my life in constant fear that some wacko is going to pop me off. it could happen. Okay, well, that's life, you know, and I'll prepare in case that happens. I'd be more inclined to prepare my soul than to constantly be worried, you know, and checking every corner of the day, you know, at a certain point, then they win, don't they? If you're constantly in fear of these things, then they've already won.

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Just go to ProlonlonLife.com slash ICH.H. that's prolonlife.com slash ICH or click the link in the description to get 10% off your five-day nutrition program. Thank you so much, Prolon, for sponsoring this episode and back to the podcast. So you were doing something similar with Ben where you would go to colleges and do debates. What were some of the craziest experiences that you've seen? I had one last night, actually. I was at Vanderbilt here, a local speech. Go in, nice packed auditorium. Everyone looks good. I start to give my speech and out pop these pro,

transgender activists. They snuck in. They looked fine, but I don't know, they took their masks off, you know, and they jump up. They all have signs. And the irony was, I was there to give a speech on settler colonialism. So it was actually kind of taken aback. And they were screaming some that I couldn't quite tell. And I said, hold on, wait, who are you? And I said, we're the transgender people. And I said, well, it's always the pro trans crowd. They are by far the craziest protesters I'd ever. the most violent, the most likely to threaten to kill you and everyone you know. And I mean, it's not even close. There's no other issue. Abortion, immigration, colonialism, and nothing touches the trans issue. And so I said, okay, well, why are you protesting me? And it was because of a speech I gave it CPAC, the big conservative conference back in February or March, where I said that for the good of society and especially for the good of the confused people who fall in prey to this confusion, transgenderism must be.

eradicated from public life entirely, the whole preposterous ideology at every level. Those are the exact words, because I've seen them written in print a lot now. I was accused of calling for genocide. I said, hold on. How do you get that? Rolling Stone accused me of that. Huffington Post accused me of that. Other Outlet, Daily Beast, I think.

And I said, I called for the eradication of an ideology from public life. I didn't call for killing people. What did you get that? I said, in fact, I prefaced my statement. statement with for the good especially of these people who identify as transgender. We got to get rid of this crazy idea. And so eventually all of those libelous outlets had to change their headlines. I think eradicate is probably a heavy word to use. I think eradicate. I usually think pests or I think something in the house like ants. You have an ant calling. You eradicate the

ants. Maybe eradicate was too strong over the word. But you were talking about an ideology and people thought you were talking about a population. Yeah. I mean, you hear about eradicate poverty. Does that I mean you're going to kill all the poor people? We're going to eradicate Nazism. Does that mean you're going to nuke Germany? I don't think so. Eradicate comes from radix, the Latin word radix, means root. You can pull it out by the root, which is precisely what I was saying.

I don't believe that it's a good idea to merely say, all right, we need to stop transing the eight-year-olds. We need to wait until they turn nine. You know, eight is too young, but 18 or whatever, that's fine. No, either a man can become a woman or he can't. And if a man can become a woman and vice versa, then we should trans the kids. If you can really be born in the wrong body, then for sure we should encourage gender affirming care or whatever else they call it. But if you can't, and we know that you can't, we know that a man can't really be a woman and vice versa, then we shouldn't tolerate it for anyone. It's not going to help anybody.

In fact, the largest data set on this ever published came out of the U.S. UK not long ago. And it showed that contrary to popular propaganda, the transgender transition does not alleviate any of the conditions of gender dysphoria. They looked at anxiety, suicidality, depression. They all remained the same, post-hormonal and post-surgical transition. And in one case, in the case of anxiety, it got worse. So I just looked at that in a sober way, and I said, oh, this ideology, which is fairly novel, poses a false view of human nature. It says, that your body has nothing to do with who you really are. And so it's harming everyone, it's harming society and it's harming the individuals who believe in it. So we got to get

rid of it. And in America, we had never enshrined transgenderism in our law until about eight years ago. And then some, you know, feisty radicals on the Supreme Court decided to start doing that some legislators in North Carolina. But it's been bad for everyone. So let's just get rid of it. So what happened with the protesters? So the protesters shrieked and yelled and I made my point and then they just shrieked profanity at me because they don't have a, there's no argument. You know, I don't think I'm overstating the case here. I don't mean to sound condescending or anything. There is no pro-trans argument. I've never heard a single persuasive argument. I doubt either of you could even think of one that you've heard that was in any way persuasive. And so they left,

you know, some voluntarily, some the police, you know, were helping to get out if they were getting a little more violent. And then we went on with the speech, and I talked about the history of colonialism, which probably disappointed them, actually. Is your view that that would be body dysmorphia where you believe you're born in the wrong body? And transitioning wouldn't help that solution

that instead should be treated, how else? If, let's just say I'm in a male body, but mentally I think I'm female, how would you go about treating that order? Well, you're not in a male body. You are in part your body. Yes. the human being is body and soul,

chylomorphic being combined, right? So what these people believe is that it's a view, one's called Gnostic dualism, the idea that the soul, the metaphysical self, is opposed to matter to the body, and that matter is bad,

and metaphysics is good, and this heresy has cropped up a number of times in history, and it's always been put down, thankfully, because it would destroy civilization. So what would I tell a person who's confused? I'd tell him the truth.

That's what I would do. What would you tell anorexic? an anorexic comes to you she's 89 pounds she says i'm so fat i just got to put down the sandwich would you say well you know to be charitable and to help to affirm your what you know yourself to be deep down yeah fatty put down the sandwich no you wouldn't you say no you're you're deeply diluted and uh you're at at risk of a lot of health problems and even death and so no you're you just have a defect of perception and we're going to, we're not going to indulge that. We're going to correct that. And that might be hard for you. You might never get over that temptation to starve yourself. But we're,

we're not going to help you do it. Yeah. So your answer would be, in that case, therapy of going through maybe self-acceptance or, you know, acknowledging. Therapy is one way you could do that, though that's a little bit dangerous now because there's so many quack therapists who will affirm these delusions. I guess I would just broadly say I would tell people the truth. And you get the truth a lot of different places. You know, you get the truth from talking to your friends, you get the truth from talking to your family, you get the truth from talking to a psychotherapist, you get truth from talking to a priest, you get the truth from talking to your guidance counselor. I don't know. But what we have now is a regime that insists to all of those people that if they do not

tell a lie, they will be punished. The parents, the teachers, the psychotherapists, that lose their accreditation, they'll lose their license. And so I would not only encourage the culture to change, I would also change the law back to what it had always been. What do you think the harm is to society in indulging in that? Because my belief tends to be, if it doesn't affect me and it makes someone happy, I don't really care. If someone wants to wear a suit every day doesn't impact me whatsoever. They want to wear a dress every day or dress, you know, one gender. It doesn't affect me. So it's not really something that, you know, I'm all for whatever makes people happy. How do you believe that is a detriment to society? Well, society is not just about you, right? Society is about all of us.

So even your premise, which is that leave me alone, you do what you want to do, I do what I want to do, we have nothing to do with each other. That is the negation of society, right? But the furthermore, the premises are off because you say, well, if it makes someone happy, it doesn't make them happy. Happiness is not merely a subjective question. The anorexic might think that starving herself makes her happy. She'll tell you that. But it doesn't. That is not conducive to human flourishing. So that would be the first issue. The second issue then is the real harm felt by other people. I don't know, when big husky Hank walks into your little girl's bathroom, you know, that's a problem. That damages her. It's scandalous. It's traumatic and it can lead to sexual assault. And it has.

this is what got Glenn Yonkin elected in Virginia. The Loudoun County Schools had a transgender bathroom policy, and so some very confused young man went into a girl's bathroom and ripped a girl. And what happened? What did the school do? They covered it up. Why? Because it was politically dangerous to touch the trans issue.

So what did they do? They sent the kid to another school, and what did he do? He did it again. And what did they do? They covered it up again. So, you know, for the victims of those people who were in harm's way because of trans bathroom policies directly, that would be a harm to society. The girls who train their whole lives to win scholarships in women's sports. We're doing a movie about this now, Lady Ballers. And then

they lose their scholarships and they lose their medals. They just lose even the glory of the game because some husky dude who's sexually confused takes their trophy because men are physically stronger than women. That's a direct harm. I mean, that can be a real financial harm even to those girls. So there are all sorts of problems that come along with it. But at a deeper level, even beyond these material issues. Living in lies is never going to allow your society to flourish. The further removed your society is from reality, the worse off it's going to be. The libertarian view that you've just articulated, which is, well, leave me alone. You do you, I do me. No one really believes that. You might not care about politics, but politics cares about you. You might not care

about society. Society cares about you. We are not free-floating atoms in outer space. man is a political creature. We are born not primarily with rights and entitlement, but primarily with duty and obligations. You know, you didn't choose your life. You didn't choose how you came into the world. You're not going to choose, hopefully, how you leave the world. And so we need to recognize that we do all live together. We have to figure out how to live together, and we can live together either in accordance with truth that we can all perceive using our reason and objective reality, or we can live according to some kooky narrative of lies that we're constantly rewriting, where no one ever knows what everyone accepts and where the ground is basically quicksand.

So if you think the people that believe the opposite of what you believe are really suffering, do you think that saying something like they subscribe to a kooky narrative of lies is something that's going to like flip a switch in their head and think, oh, okay, maybe Michael's right and I can change my ideology? Or do you think that it puts them into a position defending their ego or their idea of who they are that maybe it wouldn't be productive to defend in the first place? Because I think, like, if you're really trying to convince the other side, coming at it from an angle of being like, I understand your plight, I understand the way that you suffer, and I understand your argument entirely. And I respect you for having said opinions, right? But I have my own and these are what they are, rather than from a more aggressive angle, because I see these kind of like these debate, like aggressive undertones, which I see on everybody, right? The left and the right, 100%. But I do wonder to bring people into the center in some capacity, right? It is better, I feel like, to not. be super aggressive and say that the other person's agenda and narrative is just like, you know, ideologically inferior.

Like, like to a supreme degree, right? Especially something that so many people subscribe to. Yeah, I don't think so. You know, it depends on the context. So you're saying in these debate scenarios, sometimes people get aggressive. Yeah, that's a debate. You know, a debate is not when you're sitting with a loved one trying to persuade them of something. A debate is when you and an opponent are standing on stage, you both have fixed views. You will not convince the other person. That's not your job. You're not allowed to convince the other person. You know, they are there to defend their view. You are there to defend the other view. You are trying to persuade the audience. And so the way to persuade the audience, the people kind of in the middle, I think is through clarity. I think always clarity is charity, but especially during a time of debate. Now, if I were speaking to a trans-identifying person, as I have many times, I would speak very differently. There I'm not having a public debate. there I'm trying to figure out, okay, what has led you to this error so that I can go and and correct that error? For different people, it's going to be different things. For some people, it might be they fell down a tumbler rabbit hole on the internet. I talk to one trans detransitioner

who did that. For someone else, it might be a childhood problem or a sexual trauma that they had. That's often the case. For some, it might be an undiagnosed medical condition like autism. I talked to a girl who nearly transitioned because her doctors told her that she was, you know, or other doctors had told her that she was the opposite sex. And then fortunately, her doctor and her family and her priest said, no, that's not how reality works. And they found out she had undiagnosed autism and now she feels a lot better. So it depends on who you're talking to. But even calling it necessarily like an error is kind of attacking somebody's belief of who they are, their identity. And I think like-

No, it's attacking their belief. of who they are, their identity, right? Saying that, like, your entire identity is an error. Because to them, it's their identity. That they are in error about their identity. That's true. But it's not attacking their true identity. It's not attacking them. I guess that's the distinction.

But to them, that is them. But they're wrong. Yeah. And you can't convince someone they're wrong by telling them they're right. Right. Of course not. But I'm just saying to call something an error when someone I get to. What should we call it?

A situation, maybe. I don't know. What kind of situation? I guess it could be like attacking. attacking someone's religion where like that's what they believe. It is a type. I think that if anything, it's going to ramp up their side of the argument. It's going to make them angry and defending their position even more.

I don't think it's going to spur actual change. If I felt that there were something really wrong or bigoted or mean-spirited or something about my statement that men and women are different, which everyone everywhere has believed for all of history until five minutes ago, then I might soft-pedal it. So I have nothing but love and charity for them. And part of that charity is telling them. honestly what I think. I mean, you just mentioned that it's sort of like attacking someone's religion. It's not sort of, it's exactly like attacking someone's religion. They have a belief about human nature, how man relates to the world, to himself, how the body relates to the soul that is fundamentally wrong. In fact, where I will give the pro-transgender people a little

bit of credit is they have an advantage over the modern liberal materialists. The modern liberal materialists who say, you know, you're just your body, you're a bag of chemicals, love is fake, everything in your head is just an illusion caused by firing synapses, and when you die, you turn to worm food and take a dirt nap, right? That's the modern materialist view. The pro-trans people say, no, I'm not just my body. They go too far. They say, I'm not my body at all. But they recognize, at least, that there is a metaphysical component. Sometimes they fall into error and into liberal materialism again, where they'll say, my true transgender identity is on a brain scan.

I have the brain of a woman, but the body of a man. But of course, your brain is part of your body, so they don't really understand that. What they're trying to talk about is the mind. What they're trying to talk about is the soul. They can say, my body, including my brain, could be entirely male, but I'm at a deeper level female. And that's actually closer to the truth of the matter,

which is they're saying, I have a soul. And they do have a soul. But then the question is, What is the relation of the soul to the body? Can the soul and the body really be in opposition? Or, and by soul, they use the term gender identity. Or is your soul the substantial form of your body, which is the matter? And does your sex and your gender identity derive from the soul or from matter?

And the fact is, the great thinkers who have ever walked to the earth have actually discussed these questions. There is an answer to these things. But because our education system is so extraordinarily weak now, very few people have ever read, maybe have even heard of someone like a Thomas Aquinas or an Aristotle or Plato, you know. They don't read these things anymore. And so they're left totally confused on the questions.

But there is an answer, and I think that is a lot more comforting. You know, there's a great tapestry called the Bio-Tapestry that depicts the Battle of Hastings, 1066, one of the most famous scenes from it. is this guy with a funny hat holding a stick, beating his soldiers who are running at him. And it says, here, Bishop Odo, holding a stick, comforts the boys. So it comforts. Bishop Odo was not able to fight in the battle, the bishop.

But he had a stick. And when his retreating men were coming at him, he hit them with the stick and said, go back into the battle. Go back and fight. And the biotapestry, one of the most famous pieces of Western art, says, he was comforting them. Because to comfort is to give strength. And I think the way you give strength is by telling people the truth and putting them on a path that will be conducive to their flourishing and happiness.

That's the traditional view. The traditional view in our civilization is the truth sets you free and lies will deceive you and lead to death. The way the modern libs talk about it is that they want you to believe that lies will set you free. Oh, just let them live in their lies. Who cares? It doesn't harm you. It doesn't hurt your bottom line. and just makes them happy,

that the truth can be so harsh and cruel and actually harm people. It's a total inversion of reality. Could AI help you do more of what you love? Workday is the AI platform for HR and finance that actually knows your business. We help you handle the have-to-dos so you can't-wait-to-dos.

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Save the everyday with Amazon. Although, you know what, before we go into that, you guys might have noticed that lately we've been putting a lot of money back into the podcast. We've been traveling to guests. we've been upgrading our equipment. But the thing is, if you want to get into content creation yourself, it doesn't have to be this expensive with our sponsor, StreamYard. For those that aren't aware, StreamYard is a live streaming platform that allows you to create

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Plus, Streamyard is the best way to start creating content without having to spend any money because they actually offer a free package for our listeners linked down below. That's right. The cost is absolutely nothing to get started, meaning it's going to cost you the low price of zero. And we absolutely recommend it. The link is down below. Thank you so much. And now let's get back to the episode. So you wrote an entire book on language. What do you think is more important in debate, in conversation, in just like transmitting information to someone else? The words that you're putting out with the intent that you assign to these words or the way that it's received from the other person receiving the information. Well, one hopes in good communication, one hopes that the two overlap.

And the way they overlap is if we have a shared view of reality. This is one of the reasons that the transgender issue is so dangerous to society is because it rips at one of the most basic aspects of, of, are shared perception of reality, the distinction between men. Sure, but let's just say you don't have a shared reality with someone else. So what would be more important?

Well, if you don't have any shared reality, then words don't do anything. So then how would you bridge that gap? Through persuasive and clear language. So what words are, words are symbols that refer to some objective reality outside of us, right?

Ideally, this is how we're communicating right now. We're not communicating because I'm in your head and you're in my head. We're communicating because we're using different symbols and we basically agree on what those symbols refer to. Language breaks down when the relationship between the symbol and the symbolized between the signifier and the signified are ruptured, which is increasingly happening. People don't know the meaning of the word woman. That's why Matt Walsh has a big hit movie is because one of the most basic words in language is now controversial. So what we see from this then

is that the progressives in a way have a point when they say language, man, you know, it can kind of, it changes meaning over time. You know, it's, it's what Lewis Carroll writes about Humpty Dumpty in Alice in Wonderland. Humpty Dumpty says, when I use a word, it means whatever I say it means, nothing more, nothing less. And Alice says, well, can a word really mean so many things? And Humpty Dumpty says, that's not the question. The question is, which is to be master? Who is controlling things? Who's controlling the perception of reality? This is why the libs are so frequently using language manipulation to change the political order, both from controlling the public square through big tech these days, but then also by changing the very meaning of words, marriage, woman, patriotism, you know, any of these words. So it's very important for the conservative, I think,

or for any normal person who wants to get back to a shared reality, to use words in their proper meaning in a very precise way, even and especially if it's a little bit provocative, because sometimes you've got to be provocative to wake people out of a trance. And so when I use a precise word, like eradicate, I'm doing so very intentionally. And that is going to make headlines,

and that is going to lead left-wing outlets to lie about me, and that is going to lead left-wing activists and terrorists to threaten my life when they read the lying headlines from the left-wing articles. But I think you actually kind of have to do that Because the only alternative to that Is to buy into the manipulated mealy-mouthed language of the left To use vague use of them.

It's like a word like situation That will do nothing other than seed to them the ground So I want to get your take on this Because we try to be as in the middle as we can We really don't pick a side You know, if you stand in the middle of the road You will be hit by the road. Here's what I want your opinion on.

Yeah. We very much want to be a platform that gives everybody a way to speak their truth, both on the right and on the left. However, we found overall that we make a very diligent effort to reach out to people on the left and ask them to come on. And they don't want to come on. And they don't. It's very, very, very difficult. For us, we really want Andrew Yang, Bernie Sanders, and AOC. If we could get those three on, not to argue, not to debate, but purely just to hear.

hear them out and learn. And it's very difficult. We have had a couple of people on the left on our show before. We had Hassan Hiker. And they do fantastic. So I love it. We've had Destiny is amazing. I don't think I've never talked about it.

Okay. Destiny is incredible. Absolutely. The Daily Wire needs to collab with Destiny and something past. I think I was supposed to do something with him. Absolutely. And the scheduling. We told me. I think he's, you were on whatever, right?

I was on whatever. I think Destiny was on that or he was on Fresh Pit or something like that. Destiny and I were supposed to do something and it, scheduleing got postponed. Do it. But we should do it. Yeah. Because I like that he's willing to talk to conservatives.

I've invited conservatives on my show a bunch. And the irony is, there are some clips of me that have gone viral, you know, owning a lib with fact and logic and, you know, having one of these intense debates. It's really not my style, though. I'll do it when I do it. I think I do it maybe a couple times a year. But I'm much more interested in long-form conversations. I'll do a two-and-a-half-hour show with a pro-abortion activist. I did one about a year ago.

There were some zingers in there, but I actually do want to figure out what they think, where it comes from, how to correct that error. Destiny would be great. He articulates everything. He has so much debt to his arguments as well. Yes. But most of the, most of the libs I find don't want to do it. And the thing is, if they're not coming on my show, I am, I say with no false modesty and true humility, I am like the nicest guy on the right. I am the most willing to grant premises and seed ground and try to see it from their perspective. If they're not going to come on my show, they're not going to come on. any shows. They're not going to come on Ben's show. They're not going to come on this show, no matter how much you try to be down the middle. And I think part of the reason for that is, one, they don't have very good arguments. But two, they have cultural hegemony. So they have all of the institutions of influence, which means that they don't need to sharpen their arguments. And two, they have no reason to make the arguments because they've got all the power. You brought up relationships and marriage a couple of times now. I think you said somewhere that you met your wife when you were like four years old, right? We were in the womb. No. No, no.

How did you meet your wife at four years old? It's controversial. We were at least in sixth grade home room. Okay. In middle school. But we may have met in fifth grade district orchestra because I was the, you know, 52nd chair of second violin and she was 53rd or something. But we don't really remember it.

I mean, it was a long time ago. Sure. And so then in the eighth grade, She had a crush on me. I was dating the lead of the eighth grade musical. It was, you know, a real celebrity romance. And then I had a crush on her in ninth grade. She was dating a much older man.

Wait, did you break up with the celebrity orchestra person or whatever? Like the number one. We broke up. What happened? You know, it was a real tourid love affair. I don't know. One of us didn't hold the other's hand or something. You know, it's got to be more than it.

A few weeks of passion, yeah. It was just a few week long. relationship? It was, I mean, in middle school, a few weeks is like you're married for 10 years. Right. I mean, that's pretty long. Sure. And then, but then ninth grade, my wife was dating this much older upperclassman in high school. Oh, I was furious. But then they broke up and then we started dating in high school. Who made the first move? I guess I did. Yes. Do you remember what you said? I do, actually. I remember she had broken up with her boyfriend and I instantly said, oh, we should go watch a movie. That was it. It was just instantly like. So you were kind of,

waiting for them to bring it i was waiting i was keeping my my eyes out were you were you friends with her at the time kind of like yeah yeah yeah we were friends i mean we were like we weren't i'm somewhat skeptical of men and women being friends just platonic friends generally but we were yeah but you kept your foot in the door a little bit yeah you kept your friend that's why you're skeptical maybe of that is why yeah because you were the exact example man yeah okay i see and then you ever met a girl you tried to date when did you realize that this girl you were dating in what, sixth grade or whatever you said it was? Yeah, yeah.

Or ninth grade. 11th grade we start dating. Okay, okay. Was going to be the one? Pretty quickly. I realized it. My wife and I split for college. We're very sort of, we regret this now.

But at the time, you got to put yourself in liberal New York. It's amazing how backwards everything was. Everyone in our lives said you have to split for college. You have to. It's crazy. You can't marry your high school sweetheart. That's not. That's what country bumpkins did, 50 years.

You can't do that. You got to split for college. You've got to go date a million people. You got to go, you know, live the hookup culture. And so we go to, we were in colleges that were pretty far away from each other. And so we did break up for college. And then rather quickly, I realized, oh, that's, this isn't good. You know, but whatever.

I was single for three, four years. And then by the year. So you're single all throughout college. Yeah. So it didn't even work being split up with her anyways. Did you guys communicate in between? or did she go off? No, no, I wasn't single like I was dating other women.

Oh, I wasn't single like I was sitting. Okay. And she just went out and fun. So you were not dating anyone else. So you guys broke. No, I was doing. Why are you guys trying to make me? No, I'm just, I'm just double-checking.

No, no, I was. You want to get the timeline correct. Right. No, I was. Sequence of events. This is, I guess, you know, all as well that ends well in that I, I know for certain that my wife is like the one of the greatest women ever to walk the earth, you know. And certainly, you know, at present, the greatest woman walking the earth.

because I did. I dated a lot of girls in college and I thought, why am I doing this? Like, what's the point? I know, I have to. I was told I have to break up with my high school girlfriend

and we have to date these other women and we have to, but it's all just bunk, man. You know, it's totally crazy. It turns out that what people had been doing for all of history is usually better than what a bunch of modern

radical reformers are doing now. And the evidence of this is my friends who really bought into that, especially my female friends, one can have a few, I guess, is they say put your career first, don't pay any attention to relationships, don't get married young, don't have kids young, don't do this, don't. They're all miserable. And I feel bad for them. I'm not saying this to make fun of them in any way.

They got duped. I got duped a little bit too, but they got duped and they were told this by the entire culture. And, you know, then they wake up one day and they say, wait, you know, brunch isn't as fun anymore. Or, you know, actually my puppy is not satisfying a longing that I have. And actually, I'd like to be with a person. And, you know, I asked my grandparents who were married for 69 years before my grandfather died. And at their 60th anniversary, I said, hey, grandpa, what's the key to a good marriage?

And he was a Navy captain. He said, throw out of three things, buddy, patience, shared experience, 54 months of pregnancy. That's a shared experience. And frequent absence, because, you know, he would deploy and go away for nine months at a time. The shared experience is a big one. You can't, there's no substitute for that. You know, I have known my wife and her family for the majority of my life. My wife and I went on our first date more than half my life ago.

That's crazy. And I'm a young man, you know, I mean, that is a crazy thing. And so people don't really have that anymore. And I'm not saying you can't have a great marriage with someone you meet. But it's, it's just harder. It's harder to do that. And I hear all the time people write into the show young men and especially young women who say, I just got lied to. Dating is just so hard. Okay, but you don't think

that there's any merit to going on multiple different dates with a bunch of different people and collecting all of these data points about things that you like and things you don't like. And then once you have this rubric, finding someone that kind of fits all of those things. I do think that there is merit in knowing what you know and liking what you like and finding that someone else. So this gets to another disagreement about human nature, which is some people say you need to go figure out who you are and then you need to find that person who will, you know, match perfectly with you. The other view of human nature is that we grow together or we grow apart. So I think it's very hard. If someone, you know, is single until they're 40 and they date a million girls and they, you know,

have their career and they do whatever they want, it's going to be very hard to find someone who fits perfectly into that. You've got a life. You've built a kind of life. You're more set in your ways. You've cultivated habits that are going to be harder to break the longer you do them, the older you are. If you and a person grow from a young age together, look, there's a risk you might grow apart. There's a risk you might have some big blow up and disagreement. I guess that's always a risk with any relationship. But more likely, you're going to grow together. You know, my wife's views are going to influence my views. My views are going to influence my wife's, our behavior is certainly going to influence each other's behavior. And so that view you're

describing, it's the most popular view by far of everybody. But I think it mistakes how human nature really works. Liberalism, lowercase L liberalism. You know, I'm not even just talking about the modern crazies, but this whole idea of modernity views man primarily as an individual. And we just, we do our own thing and leave me alone and don't, you know, don't yuck my yum and don't Don't bug me. To oversimplify it. Enlightenment liberals were wrong. Aristotle was right.

Man is a political creature or a social creature. We don't make any sense outside of our social environment. And the basis of that, the fundamental political and social unit is marriage, is the family, because we're a coupling creature as well. And so if you can couple with a good person, you know, you don't pick a bad one, at a young age, you're going to grow up together. And you're going to be different people as a result of that than you would have been had you gone separate. So what event happened in your relationship with your now wife that kind of sold it to you that she's the one? Well, we got back together because I realized that the modern hookup culture, I won't call it swipe culture because dating apps weren't around yet, but that the modern just like date a million girls and don't, you know, don't treat romance or love or anything as significant was it was deeply unsatisfying and pointless and just a huge. waste of time. Don't you think there's merit to that as well? It's like the motivation is created

from desperation. So when you were away and you felt like you lacked that love with your wife, that was empty in your life, you're like, oh my gosh, I need this back. And then that had like fortified it and created some strength that wasn't maybe. It's like the zeal of a convert, you know. I was an atheist for 10 years. I'm fairly fervent in my religious views in my faith. In part, that's because I was an atheist. Now, does that mean that I'm more fervent? than I would have been had I just stayed in the faith. I don't know. I know plenty of people who were, you know, cradle Catholics who are much more sanctified,

notified than I am. So I don't know. But that effect can be the case. And yet it could be the three years of girls at whatever college you went to send you screaming back to your high school sweetheart arms outstretched. Sure. But think of just all the wasted time. I had this realization in college.

I said, man, if I had spent every moment that I spent chasing girls reading, I would be the smartest person at this entire university. Like, what did it get me? There's no point. And so much of our modern view of sex is pointless, including marriage now, because marriage can be dissolved with no fault divorce. Even marriage is just kind of pointless. You do it as long as you sort of feel it's personally beneficial and then you just split up. And I, you had some kids, well, that's okay. better that the parents are happy than that the parents bicker and, you know, stay together.

So then we'll go on and we'll just have a new marriage. And that'll break up, though, because we take our vows and we say we're going to be together till death does his part. But no one really believes that. And so, you know, it's just kind of whatever. It's just me, me, me. But a man wrapped up in himself makes a small package indeed. And it just seems so pointless. I mean, a lot of the criticism of the LGBT movement from, you know, heterosexuals, I think is,

a little high-handed and misplaced because the problems run so much deeper than that. What it all boils down to, I think, is a sterile sexual ethic. The idea that sex can be just totally divorced from procreation. This is a view that never existed at all in really in human history until modern birth control technology and the radicalism of the middle of the 20th century. And now we think that the primary purpose of sex is just to, you know, be titillated for a little while. And, you know, we consider babies to be a sexually transmitted disease. And if, you know, something goes wrong with your contraception, well, at least that's why we need to have abortion to kill the baby so you don't need to think about it. And it's just totally wrong. When you, when you

separate means from ends, when you separate actions from their natural consequences, then things are going to go haywire. And the consequence that we're facing now is the country is literally dying. You know, we have a below replacement birth rate and we have for 50 years. And that's, that's been true around the West. Only one country's even started to turn it around. That's Hungary through a great deal of effort. So, you know, even if you think I sound like an old fuddy-duddy or something and, you know, people should go out and swipe right. There are actual political, civilizational effects. Xi Jinping and China in South Korea, they're talking about this. They're doing everything they can to turn it around because otherwise your country literally dies. So what is your advice to young

men who are dating today. I don't want to sound exactly like Ben. I can't because Ben talk so much faster than I do. Date for marriage, certainly. And don't make all the mistakes that all of us have made. And what are those mistakes? Don't have sex before marriage. Don't do, don't, don't view marriage as just some kind of relationship, you know. I hate, I hate that word, relationship. It's so devoid of any romance or era. or love at all, you know, do you hear now people, even heterosexuals, will introduce their boyfriend or their girlfriend that say, this is my partner. This is my, like you have an accounting firm together. You know what's so funny? I've said that with Jack. I'm like, oh, this is my part. But I think

like business partner. And people look at us, but no, no, no, no, business. Business partners. We're also lovers. But, you know, that's a separate. We do that after the show. Yeah, that would be, that would be some of the advice. And so what do you call it then. If it's not a relationship. Let's do it. Let's fall in love. That's what Cole Porter was singing. Not, you know, let's do it. Let's swipe right and have a relationship. You got to do that and then you got to get married. And then you have to have a ton of kids. That's the other thing.

You only have two. I only have two. You know, listen, we got started a little late, but we're working. If I can fill up the trad wagon by, you know, age 38 or something. How many kids? My ideal number, look, I would be open to as many as we could possibly have. But my ideal number, six would be good. Six kids.

It's a little tough. It's tough, especially if you have C-section or anything. It's a little trickier to do. It's expensive. It's expensive. It's sort of. I don't know, man. I left California, so I already saved a ton of money. But how do you make sure you have the time to spend with each child individually and give them the time that they need and want from their father? Well, I don't know that you, you know, again, I guess we're getting to this kind of distinction between the view that we're primarily individuals and the view that were primarily social. I don't know that I need to play with my kids individually all the time. I do, you know, a little bit here and there.

But we're also together as a family a lot. So that's one way to do it. What do you think are some of your most extreme or fringe opinions? And are there any opinions that you hold that you feel too uncomfortable to share publicly? Oh, many, yes. Really? No, no, not that many. I mean, the thing is, there's a writer by the name of Leo Strauss. And this guy, Leo Strauss, a very smart Jewish philosopher who wrote a book called persecution in the art of writing,

who said that basically in any age, if you get a little too close to the truth, you will be persecuted by the regime for it. So you have to find clever ways of conveying the truth. And one way would be through esoteric writing. And it makes a persuasive case that for some philosophers, they write in a way that is exoteric to be understood plainly from the text, and esoteric as well. And this is part of a great conversation with philosophers. So anyway, I think people who have any politically incorrect opinions

probably need to engage in a little esoteric speech every now and again. But I don't think my views are particularly extreme. And I'm not just being glib or cute about it. I think among conservatives, even, I have pretty moderate views. It's just that moderation these days, I guess, is in the eye of the beholder. I think moderation is a good thing. I think moderation is a virtue. But I don't think, for instance, that claiming that a man is not a woman, you know, I don't think that's extreme.

I don't think claiming that a baby is a baby is extreme. I don't think claiming that God exists is extreme. I don't think claiming that the fact. family is a real thing and a basic unit of society is extreme. I guess the libs would say that that is extreme, but I can't help that. Is there anything too extreme that you would feel uncomfortable talking about on camera? Well, I certainly wouldn't bring it up. There's a camera. I don't know if you guys saw it. No, they're off, man. They're off. They're off. They're not recording. I'm trying to think what I is sort of edgiest. Or maybe if there is something,

you could just say yes. There are a few things that I do believe that would just be too triggering to talk about. It's pointless. There are certainly things I believe that I wouldn't be allowed to even say on YouTube. It would shut down the whole. Maybe I already said some of them. It would shut down the whole stream. How about this?

What if we bleep it? And then you just get a reaction, but we're not going to acknowledge what it is. I'll give you an example of it. Okay. Do you want us to bleep it? No, no, you can keep this. Well, we'll see. Maybe for our own sake, we might be.

This is the example. And I really promise you I'm not, I'm not just being cute and glib about this. Here's an opinion I have. Okay. When the parliament voted to oust James II, the King of England, last Catholic monarch, and to invite the Protestant interlopers from Orange, William and Mary, in, that was an unjust act of parliamentary supremacy that created a major problem and sent England on its path of degradation. And there was a Jacobite Rising. There were a number of them, the most famous of which was led by Barney Prince Charlie, from France into Scotland and it was a bloodbath and he got lost and, you know, he totally was destroyed. And then he went back and lived his life in obscurity and sadness. And then through the ages, there have been various pretenders to the throne. Presently it would be Franz, the Archduke of Bavaria, who is a childless and a homosexual apparently. So then it would pass to his brother, Maximilian, then down to his daughter, Sophia. And then finally down to a young man about our age, Prince George.

Joseph Wenzel of Lichtenstein, who will be the claimant to the throne of England. That's a view that I only somewhat ironically hold. That's an extreme view, I guess. Now, most people would, listening to that, well, just their eyes will glaze over and say, what hell, what are you talking about? Who cares about it? But that's the kind of political disagreement that I'm most interested. I thought maybe you were going to bring up aliens.

The aliens. Give me a break. I heard you're a big believer. Here we go. This is where this is. Do they exist? And have you seen proof that they exist? Yeah, I think maybe the present royal families are actually the aliens who took over.

The aliens are not real. They're not real. And I have friends and loved ones and colleagues who believe that they are, but they're not. They're fake. How do you know they're fake? But what about the piece that was recovered? Oh, which piece was that little, the little tiny guy? The one from Mexico.

I think it was discovered in Mexico. That one, that guy is real. I love that. You know, this is what I love these guys, man. So there's a congressional committee to investigate E.T. Which is, it just tells you everything about the Congress, right? And they said, no, but there's evidence now. So, cool, what's the evidence?

And it was like, well, you know, my cousin's brother's third uncle's neighbor who once saw a movie about the CIA, man. He said he saw a weird light in the sky. Like, well, okay. I don't know. That's not very persuasive. And then the best evidence they had, this is this a little like paper mache project from a fifth grade student in Mexico? And I said, here he is. We've got E.T.

But E.T. is not real. But demons are real. I guess maybe that's a controversial opinion that I have. So we spoke with someone who was high up in a certain organization. who told us off the record. Now, but this is a firsthand experience. They've seen this firsthand. Well, now it's thirdhand from me.

I guess so, okay? But they have told us off the record that they've seen unidentified spacecraft in air that they cannot explain that has been covered up. I believe that. That they see these, these objects come down and will whiz off. And they're in the best technology ever in the world. And these things are outpacing by a hundred times. and they'll report it, they'll do that, but it disappears.

Yeah, I am inclined to believe that. I mean, that could be a sciop too. Sometimes we do that. Our government pretends to discover things to scare our enemies. And so we might be doing that again, or it might be enemy technology or it might be just a failure of perception in radars. But yeah, people probably see things. But the little green men do not exist. So you don't believe in anywhere in our universe that is infinite, that there can't be life outside.

Well, the universe probably isn't infinite. It's probably finite, but it's very big. But no, I don't, I don't suspect that we'll find life anywhere else in the universe. No, that's not a feeling. I don't, I wouldn't, you know, if we find some little cell somewhere, I wouldn't, that wouldn't totally rock my world. But yeah, I don't think we'll find life anywhere, basically. I think that the chance of us being the only living organisms in the entire universe seem pretty small when you really think about it. Why?

Why? Because I feel like if it could happen here. I don't. Well, then how do you talk about the chance? I just think that the chance. I just think that the fact that we're here means there's a good chance that someone else is elsewhere. Now, why do you think that? Why do you think that our existence here implies the existence of other people somewhere else? Because I don't believe that our existence is an accident. I don't think it's an accident either.

So I don't think it would be an accident that there would be something else somewhere. You're saying you don't think we're special. I think that we could be unique, but I don't think that us being. alive is something that is unique necessarily to us. I feel like life has to exist because we're here. Yes. You're saying that. So you're you're stating that belief. I'm just asking what about our life here seems to you to imply the existence of any life anywhere else. The answer will involve something about what you believe about life and how we got it. Maybe by chance. It feels like if the chance of us here exists.

You think we got here by chance. I too. Well, that's really what it comes down to. I don't really believe in chance. You know, I believe in Providence, but I don't really believe in just, I don't think that this whole world that we live in, in our life and everything.

I don't think it's just like a big, dumb accident and a farce and a joke. I think it's intentional. And so I think that we are special, and I think that we are special. are created by a creator. That being the case, there is nothing about our special existence that would imply the existence of some other kind of life form elsewhere. I even compare human beings to animals on earth. What separates human beings is that we have a rational soul,

right? So we have intellect and will. A cow does not have intellect. What about octopus? An octopus is a weirdo and might be an alien, but does not have a rational soul. They always overstated too. They say, you know, an octopus says the intelligence of a seven-year-old. I don't know what kind of dumb seven-year-olds you're dog going to, but it looks like a big blob to me that got out of a container, just like a mouse can, too. But anyway, maybe they're smarter than mice, but they're not that smart.

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from rolling countryside to cobblestone streets. Begin your next chapter. Book your seat at westjet.com or call your travel agent. WestJet, where your story takes off. We would not put an octopus on trial for killing somebody, would we? An octopus sneaks into your home at night, strangles you with all those little tentacles. Would you say, arrest that octopus? He's really smart.

He knew what he was doing. No. He's just a dumb octopus. Well, my understanding is that octopus would be way smarter, but they don't live that long. So that they, because their lifespans are pretty short, they're not able to advance in the same way that we would. So if they lived 80 to 100 years old, we can have entire octopus civilization. Maybe they might have pets. They could have pet crabs and stuff like that if they lived to 80 years old, which they don't.

But look, I don't know what they do down in the water. This is the other crazy. They're investigating outer space, which is empty. We should be investigating the oceans, which we know basically nothing about. We're probably a bunch of aliens live down there, you know, like octopuses. But we don't. You know, we're not going to put any of these things, even an 80-year-old octopus. We're not going to put them on trial.

And it's because we have a rational will and soul. And so we can conceive of abstract concepts and we can think about things like justice, and we can perceive objective reality and reason about it. No other being can do that on earth. it even relates to the way that our wills work, right? We have two wills. You want the 10th cup of coffee, but you don't want the 10th cup of coffee because it'll make you jittery. But you want it because it'll taste good and give you a little more caffeine high.

And so how do you explain that? You have a disagreement about your wills. Well, one is the higher will. It's rational. It's reasonable. And the one is the lower will. It's the appetite. The animals have the latter, but they don't have the former.

And the rational will is understood as mediating between the lower will and the divine will, you know, God's will, perfect will, the objective truth and reality. So if that's the view of things that you're going into with, which is how I view things, then I just don't see any reason to believe that, you know, E.T. is out there somewhere. Certainly that there's no rational E.T. out there. I don't even know, I don't even know what that would mean for our own understanding of ourselves, you know, because if you believe what I just said, then you believe that man is made in the image and likeness of God. So what's E.T. Is he made in the image and likeness of, I don't know, some like lesser demon or something?

I don't know. What are you like? Is he, does he look just like us? See, my question when it comes to religion is that there are so many different religions out there

and every religion believes that they are right. And so in virtue of that, I tend to think that how do you know which one is the correct one if there are so many out there? Well, there are a lot of different theories

of physics, right? And then they contradict one another. So how do you know which one is right? There are a lot of different theories of evolution. And if you're inclined to be really gung-ho about evolution. Well, which one do you think is right? Is it Darwin? Is it Lamarck? Is it some newer strand of either of those? You use your reason and you separate fact from fiction

and you believe the more persuasive arguments and you throw out the less persuasive arguments. And that's what you do with religion when it comes to theology. Theology is faith-seeking understanding. So it's applying logic and the rigors of reason to religious claims. And religion is just simply a habit of virtue that inclines the will to give to God what he deserves. So we talk about multiple religions, but there's really only one religion. And we're all just trying to figure out what it is. But do you believe that other sex of that religion are incorrect or are worse? I don't believe in sex before marriage. If that's what you know. Yeah, I mean, I'm Catholic. Yeah. I think that's true. I think that's the true faith. So in as much as a religion contradicts that, I think that religion is wrong. Of course. But that's, You know, that's just Aristotle's non-contradiction principle, right? You can't simultaneously believe things that are in opposition. I think even the most atheistic person would say that certain religions seem more plausible than other religions.

You know, what would be a good example of this without offending a wide swath of the audience? Most people out there would say that Christianity is more plausible than Scientology, right? Why? Well, Scientology makes all these crazy claims about machines and technology. Okay. Like space aliens. Okay. Okay. Like kind of actually the claims, are you guys Scientologists? You are? I had a feeling. A bad example then. So we would say that, okay, well, if Christianity is more persuasive than Scientology, then, okay, you've just dismissed one of their religions. Well, how about the other ones? Do you think it's more persuasive than Islam? I do. I think that the historical claims of, and the theological claims of Christianity are more. persuasive than Islam. Okay, we got rid of that one. How about Judaism? I, you know, have great respect for my Jewish friends and my Muslim friends and even Scientologists, some of them. But Judaism says Jesus is not who he says he is. Christianity says Jesus is who he says he is. Well, I don't know. What is it? And then one investigates this question, and I've arrived at the conclusion that he is who he says he is. Okay. So there goes that religion. How about Buddhism? Well, all the Buddhists I know

are just like liberal women in Northern Westchester who wear tight pants and, you know, meditate during So they're not right about anything. I can easily dismiss that religion. How about Hinduism? My best friends are Hindus. But that's a non-theistic religion. So that's a pretty easy one to reject off the bat because it contradicts plenty of logic and conclusions

I've already come to about the nature of being and who created everything. Okay, well, I think we've just handily gotten rid of all the other religions, right? Now you might say, well, there's a lot of different sects of Christianity. That's true. I just think that the historical claims and the theological claims of the church go back to antiquity. They're well attested to over 2,000 years. And so that's how I landed on that one.

Your mileage may vary. Maybe you come to a different one. But at the very least, we've landed roughly in the neighborhood of one another here. We don't just have to throw up our hands and say, well, you know, Johnny says this and Jack says that. So who the hell knows? Everyone can believe whatever they want. let's not try to arrive at any. Why did you become religious?

I was persuaded of it. You know, I was an atheist for 10 years, but that view just is not tenable. What about it? Well, it doesn't explain anything. Why do you need things explained? Because I'm a rational person. But how does it not explain certain things?

I feel like just by chance is an explanation, right? How does the chance come about? How does anything come about? You know, that's the nature. of I feel like just chance. One could discuss chance and probability and, I don't know, stochastic systems or whatever, but that you can only do that

within the context of a created world, right? You can only do that within the context of I'm a human being with a brain, I think with faculties of reason, on planet Earth, within a universe. And so at a certain point, you have to ask, well, how did all of that come about? And there are plenty of ways to do it.

You can ask how anything is in motion. An object is in motion when some other object puts it in motion. Well, what happens when you go all the way back down the line? You need to have an unmoved mover. How do effects come about? I smack you across the face. I would never do such a thing because I'm a lover or not a fighter,

but then you would have a little red mark on your face. That's an effect, and the cause was my slap. Well, why did I slap you? I don't know, because I drank too much coffee this morning. Well, that was the cause and the effect was my irritability. Well, where did the coffee come from? You go all the way back down the line of causes. There has to be an uncaused cause, doesn't there?

Perfectibility. the fact that some things are better than other things, the fact that we would all agree, even if you're like a nice, happy, skeptical person, we all agree that it's better to help a little old lady cross the street than it is to kick a newborn baby in the head, right?

I think we would all agree with that. Okay, well, if some things are better than other things, then there has to be a maximally great thing. Traditionally called a sumum bonum, well, who is that maximally great thing? That would be God. There are many other arguments, too. I mean, that's just a handful off the top of my head,

But those observations necessarily entail coming to the conclusion that atheism is just like Reddit tier 2006 bunk. What prompted that, though? There's got to be an event that happened that made you think, that pushed you in that direction. I'd met smart people, I guess. I mean, this really started my freshman year of college. And I diss my college sometimes because it's kind of super liberal and gone completely off the rails. But there are a lot of intelligent people at it. A lot of them were atheists.

No question about it. I noticed the very smartest people were religious, and they presented me with arguments. You know, we're just having little debates and things. They were challenging my thinking. And I didn't have an answer for the arguments that they were making. And so if you have any kind of humility at all, then you have to say, huh. You never do it in the moment. You never say, yeah, you're totally right, man.

I can see the debate. In the moment, you go, you're totally wrong. You're a big jerk, whatever. But then you go home, and if you have any humility whatsoever, you think about it. You say, huh. Yeah, I guess that guy was right. I guess I did lose that debate. And then once you do that, for long enough, you come to the correct conclusions, hopefully.

Was your wife on board with the decision to go in a certain way for a religion? She was freaked out by it. She was freaked out. Because, look, we grew up in a big, agnostic, liberal New York play. Everyone was functionally an atheist, anyway. Whatever their nominal, you know, some people were nominally Jews. Some people were nominally Catholics. But, you know, basically everyone was a practical atheist.

A liberal, really. I mean, they just, they believed what you articulated at the beginning, which is, you do you, leave it alone. We can't really know anything. I don't know, whatever, you know. And I don't mean to diss it. I don't mean to be dismissive in any way. That is the zeitgeist, man. That is the culture we're living in.

But as a result of that, when I came around and I said, hey, you're going to, this is my freakia out. But I think God exists. It's so funny. It's so funny. This is the thing that virtually everyone believed for all of human history. But now if you say, it's kind of like, it's a little radical. And I said, look, I'm going to go to Mass this weekend. I'm going to go to church.

You don't have to come. But I don't. I'm just going to go because I think I should. She said, okay. And she kind of, you know, she went with me just to kind of, she was freaked out, man. She became less freaked out over time, obviously. You know, we were married in the church and everything. But it can be very jarring.

I mean, it's very, this is why I keep coming back to liberalism because I don't, I don't mean it in the own the libs way. I mean it in the like recognize the air that you're moving in way. We live in a liberal age where all the premises of liberalism. We're just what we believe. We don't even think about it. And it's not our fault. You don't, you know, you don't wake up every day and write a five page report on whether you're going to have waffles or pancakes for breakfast. You just do things. You know, we, we are animals of prejudice and we just kind of go about our habits, right? But when you start to pull at that thread, and this is where we're, we're why to bring us all the way back full circle. This is why the trans issue keeps coming up. Because the trans issue is just, it's so absurd. Everybody knows a man and a dress. It's not really a woman. But it's also the logical conclusion of liberalism. It's also the logical conclusion of radical self-sovereignty. It's also the radical conclusion of, I'm going to make my own reality. I'm going to have my own truth. And so once you pull at that thread, you can't stop pulling. The whole thing starts to unravel. So you say, okay, yeah, we shouldn't trans the kids. We shouldn't really trans

anybody. Actually, men and women are different, which means that marriage is what it used to mean, not what people say it means now, which means that feminism is kind of bunk too, which means that liberalism is kind of bunk, which means we're actually not radical individuals. We're not just, we don't make ourselves. We don't, oh, my goodness gracious, the last 500 years has been a total series of error. What if your wife did not want to convert with you? What if she says, I disagree with you? You could have your religion. I don't see the things the same way. I can't do that. Would that be a deal breaker for you? No, I wouldn't be, it wouldn't be a deal breaker at first. because I'm what the late conservative writer William F. Buckley called an epistemological optimist,

meaning is a very unfortunate and pretentious phrase, but it means that I think we can know things. And I'm confident in the rational faculties of my loved ones, not just my wife, but people like my good friends too. And so I'm confident that if something is true and that I think it's true, and I'm a relatively persuasive person, I think, that I'll be able to persuade them of that. Or maybe it's not true. Maybe I'm a mistake. I make mistakes sometimes, a rare occasion. And if it's not true, I'm confident in their rational faculties and solid, you know, character, that they'll be able to persuade me. Some people really worry about this when they talk about values alignment. And it's true, especially if the, if the person that you were dating is, you know, not the brightest, not the most humble, not the most open to things, you want to make sure that you agree on basic stuff. But I think that people are persuadable, and I think people do have reason and they're amenable, even if you're really far down the rabbit hole.

People are attracted to truth at a certain point and to beauty and to goodness, and, you know, eventually you want those things. So I'm not afraid of it. I don't treat dating or friendship like, you know, you've got to check boxes on a checklist. So, okay, you scored 75. All right, we can get married. You got to see. I don't think so.

You're a human being. Do you get along? Do you love the person? All right. Then you'll grow together. Let's talk about maintaining a marriage. How long have you been married at this point? Five and a half years.

Five and a half years. Because we just had our five-year anniversary in Memphis, Tennessee, the most romantic city in America. No, I don't know. She recommended it. I said, we can go to the Caribbean, we'll do whatever you want. She wanted Memphis. She said, Mac, I want to go to Memphis. What's in Memphis?

Well, it's more about how do you get to Memphis? She didn't want to get on an airplane for a day or two. And so we had to do some place we could drive to. And there aren't that many places to drive if you're in Nashville. Go to Chattanooga. That's not that romantic. Go to Louisville, I don't know, drinks and bourbon and hit a baseball. And so Memphis, we, it was great.

We went to Graceland, went to Elvis's house. And then we, where else do we go? We went to this hotel that has ducks and had a nice dinner. And it was really fabulous, yeah. But so anyway, that was five. So I guess we've been married like five. Louisville is one of the few places that we've been. Yeah.

To Louisville. Yeah. Papa John. It was all right. Yeah, we collab with him. Papa John like Schnautter. Oh, man, that guy's great. Yeah.

Yeah. He's fun with him. Yeah. I'd love to. They're looking for collabs. Yeah. He's amazing. That's great.

But okay. I love that little garlic sauce. I could take that like shots. Yeah, it's very good. This is a question I love to ask most of our guests. If you think your wife does not look great in a dress, do you tell her? Yes. Now, it's rare.

My wife is a haughty. There's no doubt about it. And there was actually, she's going to get angry because I'm like telling tales out of school. She was trying on two dresses for an event like a couple months ago. And so she tries one on it. It's just like, yo girl. Welcome aboard via rail. Please sit and enjoy.

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whole new level. Switch to Shopify. Start your free trial today. Let's clear the night. You know, let's, she's like, Mac, get out of here. So I just want your opinion on the dress. You know, whatever. She's like, I want to try another one on. And she tried the other one on. It was a pretty dress. But it didn't, it didn't garner that reaction. So I told her, I was like, yeah, that other, that dress is fine. That dress is just like super hot. You should keep, you should get like three of that dress, you know. And so I'd do it. But I would never say, I'd never say, you know, like you look fat and frumpy in the dresser so that doesn't seem like a good idea you know why does your wife sound like eric carman it's a good question many people have asked that uh so i i think because

she's a cartoon uh third grader from colorado actually i was doing that voice you know we started dating my body i do what i want mag you will respect my authority i when we were i was 16 and my much younger bride was 15 and a half. And I don't know. I thought I would pronounce her name Alisa. Like, it's Alyssa, but I pronounce it Alisa. This, like, romantic Italian. And I, I don't know why I would put on this Italian accent.

And then I would have her do an Italian accent. She's not Italian. She'd speak Italian. And she would go, and then it, so it started, I was like, Well, you know, I'm Alisa. And then it went, it became a little more Mexican. It was like, well, you know, I'm a Lisa. You know, hey, Lisa, right?

And then it became a little, like, consuela almost, like from, well, And now I think it's fully like Eric Carr. It's fully Mexican Eric. Like, Mac? Listen here, Mac. So I also want to know in settling an uncomfortable conversation with your wife. Yeah.

Do you treat these conversations a little bit differently than you would treat conversations with, let's say, like a work colleague or a peer or something like that? Yeah, I don't sleep with most of my work colleagues. Well, or debate. Like, yeah, because we were talking. talking with, it was Ben Mala, right? And I think I asked him something like, how do you approach difficult conversations or debates with your wife? And you just said she's right all of the time. Oh, that's so gay. He defers. He defers to her. Oh, that's happy wife's happy life is what he says. Oh, no. Oh, that's like, he says, though, he handles the business. He handles the business and the

businesses. I don't want to just, he will do everything else. I don't know. But when it comes to the business, he's doing that. Okay, Ben Mala, I just got to say, he's a saint. I'm sure he's a great guy. If you met him, if you met him, you would love him. I'm sure I would. So I feel bad that I, but the view that he was articulating is so gay and cuckled it, actually. And so he, what if it works for him? It doesn't.

It seems like he's pretty happy. He might be. What, 25 years? Yeah. Because of all the other great things in his life. I'm sure he's a great guy. I really don't mean to diss him. But that view is like a feminist view.

It's very sad. because the question, you ask, how do you settle an argument? I take my wife's views into consideration all the time. In fact, she practically, to give your pal credit,

practically, she probably makes many, if not most of the decisions around the house. What are we going to do on the weekend? What are we going to have for dinner? What are we going to, what are the boys going to wear? What are we going to,

who are we going to see? What are we, you know, where are we going for the holidays a lot of the time? But in our household, We do this a little of the old-fashioned way. I still view the husband as the head of the household, which is an office that, you know, is not exercised explicitly all the time,

but sometimes it is. If you really come to a final impasse, the husband is going to decide. That's my view. Because the alternative is the wife is going to decide. And that doesn't seem right to me. That's not how any culture has ever viewed it properly. That's not how Christendom, you know, has ever viewed it. that's, it seems kind of weird to me.

Is your wife, do you take the wife's in when you get married? The idea is that there won't necessarily be impasses if you're so aligned. And I think that's kind of where Ben is probably with his wife. Yeah, yeah. But there's never been an actual thing where he's exercised, you know, his, his power like that. Well, obviously, he hasn't because he gives it all to his wife. But he said happy wife, happy life. But I think he's deferring those decisions like you mentioned about where we're vacationing,

where we're going for dinner, this and that because he runs the business, which is here's yeah, no, but no, that's this, we can't move on from this. This is a big problem. problem. He runs the business. Yeah, I run my business too, but I run my household too. Or I'm at least the head of my household. My wife actually manages it all of the time. And my wife is my wife. And my wife is the hand that rocks the cradle is the hand that rules the world. And my wife is a living saint. You know, I mean, she's all these things. But we're talking about in an argument when there's a disagreement. And what you said is your pal says, happy wife, happy life, happy life. You win always. We do what you want to do. Which means that your wife is your husband now. And I just think that's crazy. I don't think women want that. I don't think, here's what I think, and what I've noticed, at least for myself, and I'm not married, but engaged. How strongly do you feel on a certain thing? And that's usually what I kind of defer to, where if she's like, I really need to go and get Chipotle tonight. And I'm like, I don't really care. I don't want Chipotle, but if you feel that strongly, absolutely, we'll do it. But if I feel really strongly about like, no, I can't get Chipotle tonight, you could get Chipotle tonight. You could get Chipotle tonight. I'm going to get this.

it's really like, you know, who wants something more? And if she feels more strongly about one thing that I do, then it's her. But if I feel more strongly about one thing than she does, then it's me. And if you reach... How do you know that? How do you measure that? No, I really feel more strongly. No, I really feel more strongly.

No, I think it's a discussion. I believe when she said this is like really, like there are certain things that she said this is really important to me that you're here for this or that you do this one thing. This means a lot. And if I don't match that same level of conviction, fine with it. If we get to a disagreement where I'm like, I'm really against it, you're really for it. Sometimes we'll sleep on it and just talk about it. And then sometimes we could just say, we know, we'll agree to disagree on this one thing.

I'm okay with this. We'll move on in the next one. So you'll say we agree to disagree, but I'll do what you want to. No, no. I think, you know, not that I'll agree to do that, but that, you know, we could table this for another time. Well, then you're just pushing it off. Yeah. So what if the question, though, becomes something a little more important that?

and Chipotle, which is, you know, where the kids go to school. And that can totally shape a person. I've married my wife from sixth grade, you know. And you have a big disagreement on that. You know, she wants to send the kid to public school. You want to send the kid to some private school. Well, that's going to have big effects on your family's finances. That's going to have big effects on your kids education.

But I think these are discussions to have before getting married. Like these are discussions that should be happening before having kids. What about the city you want to live in? You want to take a job in St. Louis, and she wants to stay with her sister in San Diego. Well, that was a discussion that we had when we left California, moved to Vegas, was a big discussion. And so I took her opinion into consideration. She took mine. I talked to Jack about it. I mean, it was not just an overnight, like, all right, let's go and move. You still made the decision. I think the will to move was stronger than her desire to stay, given our circumstances at the time. Yeah, that's good. That's a great. So you do it the way that I do it. But here's the thing. If she says, you know what?

If you move to Vegas, we're going to break up, that would put a whole different spin on things. What if your wife said that? Because you weren't married at the time. Right. And you're still engaged. Right. So what if your wife said, if you don't do what I want, we're getting divorced. I don't like ultimatums.

So for me, it would be the nature of like... But if you were just talking about an ultimatum, you just brought up an ultimatum. I don't think that's an ultimatum. I think that... They'll break up if you move? I think that would be something that she's entitled to... to that opinion and that and you know not wanting to go somewhere i'm not going to force anybody to move where they don't want to move what if it would be something is your wife though i think that

that would probably be deserving of of therapy and really getting to the root cause of it and and figuring out can there be a compromise or maybe we say okay let's move here but you're going to visit your family so often so we're going to make time to go back i feel like a lot of things can be compromised in such a way where it's not like all or nothing. Yeah, I'll give you a little bit. You give me a little bit. It's a partnership in this. I fear this.

Practically, I largely agree. Yeah. But in principle, I fear this perspective a little bit because it turns everything, every conversation with your wife into a negotiation. You're always trying to get a little bit and maybe I'll have more of my say on this

and I'm going to give on here because then I'm going to score some points. I'm going to bank them and then I'm going to be able to get my way later on down the road. And I think clarity is chair. And I think if you, Drew Claven gave me good advice. He said, keys to marriage. Don't sleep with other people.

Throw out feminism. If you say from the outset, look, we're going to do this the old-fashioned way. And I love you. But ultimately, I'm going to have the final say. And if I got to move to St. Louis, we're moving to St. Louis, the whole family. And I'm not going to hear peep about it. I think that's, it reduces anxiety, actually. It reduces tension because you recognize that you have.

have different spheres of influence. You recognize that you have different roles in a marriage. You recognize that you have different responsibilities in a marriage. I think a lot of the times, men do not want to be the decider. I think this is actually the secret of Genesis Chapter 3, which is sometimes cited by feminists as patriarchal and, you know, knuckle dragging, whatever, because it says, men love your husbands. That's what it says now. That's what the rewrite says. Men love your wives and wives submit to your husbands. Oof, yikes. And so we see this throughout scripture.

In Genesis chapter three, we see, to the wife, your desire will be for your husband, but he will rule over you. And rather than viewing this as a little reward given to Adam for his disobedience in the Garden of Eden, I see it as a little bit of a punishment, or a corrective at least, because I don't think men want to rule over women. I don't want to rule over women. You know what I want to do? I want to sit on the couch and I want to sit in my boxers and eat potato chips and strum a ukulele and watch movies. That's what I really, if you told them, smoke a cigar, Mayflower cigar, that's what I would do. I am called by the circumstances of this fallen world to be the head of my household and to make decisions and to work by the sweat of my brow. And I have to do that. That's my role. But

it's not my natural inclination. And so I think a lot of guys, they follow their worst instincts. And they just say, no, you know, man, wife does whatever she wants. And I'm just, you know, I'm a slub. I'm, I'm Ray Romano in that sitcom. I'm Kevin James in that sitcom. I'm both great guys. But the, that era, I'm Homer Simpson.

I'm just like the big, dumb, schlobby husband and she makes all the decisions. That's not good, you know, that's not, I don't think that's going to lead to happiness. That's really interesting. Because, I mean, in my relationships that I've had, obviously with women, uh, I feel like I just care so much less about so many things than they care about. Yes.

Like to them, just like everything is the world, but to me it's just like, yeah, exactly very carefree. Tell me where to show up and when. Tell me what to wear. Tell me,

you know, how to do my hair. Just whatever. I just don't care. You know, there are like maybe three things that I care deeply about everything else I 'll defer to you. I know.

The, the issue is though, if you cultivate this, uh, habit of just like letting your wife do whatever she wants, even if you don't really like it, you just don't care enough so you're like, I don't like it,

but whatever, I'll go along. It's not my big deal. I'll show up. Ultimately, that's going to build up a little bit of resentment, and it's going to build up on your part, it's going to build up some entitlement

on your wife's part. And then when the rubber does meet the road on a really difficult decision, I think you're going to be, you're going to regret your behavior until that point. When the rubber really meets the road,

and she's not going to move on the issue, but you've never exercised your role as the head of your household, and you've never even expressed that you have a desire for anything. You know, you just show up. You're going to be at a very hard impasse. And it's not even about what the decision's going to be. You're in San Diego or St. Louis. It's going to be, how do you even make decisions? What, you know, it gets back to a fundamental question. What is the family? What is the marriage? What is it that we're doing together? Are we just, I think this is what leads to a lot of divorce. Are we just, we're just roommates, just negotiating something? We're just, women are exactly like men and men are exactly like women and we don't, we relate to one another in the same way I'd relate to my button. Or is this something special and different with roles and duties? I guess the latter. So you're on the whatever podcast, by the way. Yeah, we're going almost two hours here. But that was like, what, five hours?

That was five hours. Now, you guys, you know, you're a little more succinct and clear in some of your views than some of our friends who were on the whatever podcast. So maybe that was why I went on long. prompted you to go on the whatever podcast. Because I have an associate producer who is a hip, young, cool zoomer. We call him Professor Jacob. He's this cool.

He's like 12 years old. And he said, he was like, Mr. Knowles. Yeah? He's like, you got to go on the whatever podcast. I was like, what's that? He's like, and he showed me. And I said, oh, I've seen these clips everywhere. Yeah.

This thing is great. I was like, there's no way they'd want me to go on that show. I don't, I don't know. He said, no, they do. They want you to come. I said, let's go. Let's go. Now, there was a conflict of intentions here

because the point of going on that show is to make fun of these poor, ignorant young women. That's the whole point. And you make fun of them, and then they look stupid, and then you get a great viral clip. And I just thought, man, that's kind of mean. I don't, not going to California

to go just make fun of these young women. Because it's not their fault. Most of them grew up in broken homes and they don't know anything and they're attending some stupid school that doesn't teach them anything. And they don't know. And they live in a swipe culture

and they're all being exploited and used or they're not only fans. And so I said, okay, I'm going to do this show a little differently. I'm going to do the show on their side. So often, you know, Brian, who I like, the guy who runs the show, often it was not me and Brian against the girls. Often it was me and the girls attacking Brian's points. But were you switching up your principles then? No, because the girls are wrong. I mean, I pointed out when they were wrong, plenty of times, too.

but Brian well he's probably more correct than them on some like basic things Brian said he didn't want to get married so you don't want to get married that's gay

you know I don't I'm making this accusation why do you keep using that term I'm like that guy that's a not very inclusive term you know that's very inclusive there are a lot of gay guys so I'm including that why can't you say you disagree

because I well I disagree but specifically I disagree because that view is gay. Right, but, okay, but the problem that I have with calling something... Why are you gay? Why are you gay? You are gay. I have a problem, I feel like with, at least if I'm trying to understand your motive,

like your desired outcome of going on these shows and speaking the truth or whatever, your truth, whatever you want to call it, I don't think it's going to yield good benefit or desired results if you say things are gay in a derogatory way. Because it's not, like someone maybe who's gay is going to hear. hear that. And they're going to be like, oh, this guy, he thinks all gay people are bad. Listen, I'm, I'm an icon of the gay community, you know. I don't think. I have plenty of friends. Look, I lived in New York. I lived in L.A. I went to the gayest university on. What university? Yale. Okay. So they say one in four, maybe more at Yale, you know.

And I have, I have a disproportionate number of homosexually identifying friends and people with variously eccentric views. But, you know, my view is that we shouldn't recommend the LGBT activism. I think that's not a good thing to... Right, but it's not recommending that. It's just, like I said, if your desired result is to hopefully find a middle ground where you can both agree on something, or at least... Or at least... Or at least... Or at least... Or at least... Or at the truth. But don't you want to... For yourself or to help other people arrive at the truth? For everybody. But if you're trying to help other people arrive at the truth, calling something

gay in a bad way in front of another gay person, I don't... I think... No, I'm not even saying... I think it's really good. I think it's really good to do. Because... I think people, they recoil when you attack at like, maybe you recoil. I don't think a lot of other people. I think a lot of people. I think a lot of people. I think a lot of people grew up on the playground saying, hey, that sure it's really gay. Ha, ha, ha. And then everybody laughs. I think everybody used this kind of language until five minutes ago. And in no way is it mocking or, you know, attacking any people who have kind of eccentric sexual desires or anything like that. I think it's just kind of gay. But even if it alienates. But imagine it alienates one or two. percent of the audience. Is that worth it? In this case, I'm using it in a very specific way and intentionally, much as I would use the word eradicate at my CPEC speech with regard to transgender ideology. I'm using it attention. No, no, no, that's what the liberals accused me of, but that's because they have difficulty understanding words. The reason I use the word eradicate there is because I specifically was referring to uprooting an entire ideology, root and branch. And the reason I use

gay specifically in this case is one, because it's kind of funny and we've all used it, even though we all politically correctly now pretend that we don't, we're all clutching our pearls. But the other thing, we all pretend that the homosexuals are offended by it. They're not. Homosexuals are outrageous people a lot of the time, and they're men a lot of the time, and they're tough guys. You know, it's like macho, macho man in the village people. The reason I'm using it specifically here is because gay refers to an entire view of the sexual ethic. a view of the sexual ethic that views men and women as indiscernible

and substitutable for one another and a view of the sexual ethic that is ultimately sterile that separates means from ends and so I'm doing that very intentional you're using the esoteric way

right it's I don't think it's so esoteric I think it's playing on the proper meaning of the word and it's showing people the issue from a perspective

that has been kept from them but when you just say When you just say the word gay, without any context behind it, people are not going to put that meaning the way that you meant it. They're not going to do all the background thinking of, oh, he means it like this, and if you extrapolate to this. When I use a word that everyone used until five minutes ago that now the politically correct censors won't let us use. When I use that word, what I am saying is I will not ascribe to your left-wing censorship regime. And you're right.

It might put some people off. It'll at least raise their eyebrows. even if they're not offended. I don't think many people are actually offended by it, but it'll raise their eyebrows, at least at first. But the consequence of that will be that it will start to crack away at the left wing censorship regime, which uses a cycle of euphemisms to constantly change the words that we're allowed to use for anything. I would disagree. I think it would cause a lot of people to check out immediately. They would hear you saying, oh, it's one of these guys. Anything he says after that then, you're going to tune out or not take as seriously as saying, I disagree with the concept of marriage. because of this. To me that sounds a lot more eloquent and a lot more sophisticated than saying, oh, and understanding, which is I feel like the number one thing that you need to be if you're trying to persuade other people. I guess my evidence to the contrary is I've given many long lectures using very dry language on all of these questions. And you've never seen any of them. And none of those clips have ever gone viral. So then you have a conversion rate on those. It's not merely for attention.

It's so that my... Your message gets heard. It's heard by people in a precise and just way. But then I think it's also, do you want your message to be heard or do you want it to impact the people in a positive way that you would like

to get your message across? Because getting attention and just saying crazy stuff will get crazy attention online. I don't think I'm saying any crazy stuff. I think it's a very reasonable true stuff. But just taking to the extreme and saying, I'm going to say something that'll get attention

that will do well on social media versus I'm going to say something. It's not going to get as much attention, but the people who will, watch it, will take my ideas into consideration. It'll make more of an impact than saying something. I think that my CPAC speech dominated the national discourse for at least a week after I gave it. And it wasn't exclusively my CPAC speech. It was Matt Walsh's What Is a Woman movie. It was the work of turf radical feminists who have, you know, I'm really not taking

credit for all of this. But I do think that my speech at CPAC and the positive way that it was received by the American right and a lot of the American middle. and the screeching crazy reaction that came from the left and the lies that came from the establishment media helped to expand the window of discourse and helped to move that issue more in our direction. And it's led to laws that have been proscribing the transgender ideology in public life. So I think it was very persuasive. And it did get people's attention. It did. I actually didn't intend for it to get that much attention.

But it did. And I think that's a good thing. And yes, the libs are going to accuse me of all sorts of things, genocide or whatever. But it's ridiculous and reasonable people know that's ridiculous. Just as when I say that, you know, a guy saying that my wife gets to run the whole show at home and I don't have a say, so that's kind of gay man. I don't think that homosexuals at home are saying that awful, terrible man, he wants to throw me off a roof like the Taliban. No. And they're saying, okay, he's using a word that we don't use as much in the last five years, but a lot of people have used for a long time.

I mean, he's using it in a derogatory way because he's criticizing an action of a husband with his wife. And he's using it in a precise way because he's saying that that view of sexual relations is essentially the same view as the gay view, which is that men and women are basically the same. So I think it operates on a lot of levels. And the proof of the pudding is in the tasting. I'm happy to give a really dry academic lecture, but that message is not going to penetrate. To some people, it will. I'm giving a lecture on Dante this coming summer. I can't wait to do it.

It's going to be extremely academic, very dry. A lot of people will consider it boring, probably. The people in the room will love it. I tend to believe that you could spice up your message without alienating even one or two percent of your audience, whatever that may be without using. What do you mean by alienate? I think when you say the term, that's gay.

I think the people who would be really receptive to you and want to hear what you have to say might tune you out at that point. Why? Because they think that I disapprove of that. sexual revolution. I think that you would use terms that maybe are not. It's just an aggressive term. It is. I'd say that when did it become an aggressive term? It doesn't matter how you're transmitting it. No, I'm just asking when it became an aggressive term. I'm saying that's not even a part of this discussion. I'm saying it matters how it's received. Well, all right,

but I got to get an answer to this question. You're saying it's an aggressive term. That's very shocking for me to hear. Right. My whole life, that wasn't an aggressive term. Right. And now it is. When did it become an aggressive term? Probably in the last couple of years. Exactly. Exactly. So what are going to do? Are we going to accept the radical redefinition of basic words by the left and just play along with their words? And what pretty soon I'm going to start calling Bruce Jen or she or Caitlin? And then I've accepted transgenderism. Because here's the point. When you use the language framed by your ideological adversaries, you accept their whole premise. When you start talking about the right to marriage equality rather than the meaning of marriage. You've already. You've

There's no debate to be had. You've already accepted that two men can marry one another, just as a man and a woman can marry one another. You've already accepted that. You're just asking who has the right to do it. You've lost the debate. The moment that you call Bruce Jenner, Caitlin, that's a girl's name. Or if you call Bruce Jenner, she, especially, you've accepted the premise of transgenderism. And you're right. If I call Bruce Jenner, he, people are going to recoil at that. I'm going to alienate one percent of the audience by saying that, because I'm not supposed to call him, Bruce. I'm not supposed to call him him. I guess I'll alienate some radicals. But I will show the vast majority of the audience the reality as I see it, which I think is correct. So that's what I've been trying to understand this whole time is that if you're optimizing for impact, you think that your route would be more impactful than maybe the other route. You're giving me way too much credit. You're making me out to be some big strategist calculator of every piece of rhetoric I use. It's not that complex. I just endeavor to tell the truth. I endeavor to speak the truth, and I endeavor to speak the truth in really plain terms.

I'm with George Orwell on this, politics in the English language. We should use simple terms. We should use Saxon words over Latinate words when we can. We should use terms that are vivid and I guess now we call that aggressive. But George Orwell would say it's plain. It's clear. It presents to people reality because if we don't use that, if we just use the euphemisms and the mealy mouth politically correct words, then people are going to continue to see a fantasy, you know,

But if we talk about an illegal alien, then we know that's the kind of person who has no right to be in the country. If we talk about an undocumented future American dreamer, well, that paints a picture for you, whether you're aware of it or not, of someone who has absolutely every right to be in the country, probably more than you do.

If we talk about she, the trans woman, well, she has every right to go into that bathroom. She's a she. If we say it's a he, and he's a dude, and he's wearing a dress, and that man has no right to go into the bathroom, that the clarity here in Lland language, you might call it aggressive. I think it's the only option. I'm not saying that I

personally find that aggressive. I'm saying in the way that it's received and digested in the people that are... This is the key. You think the language is just fine. You think, you probably I'm not labeling it either way. You just said you don't think it's aggressive. I said I'm not like, I probably be more against it. But it's at least not aggressive. Or you think it is aggressive. I think it is what the impact is probably. No, I'm asking what you think, man. I think if someone told me that, no, I wouldn't be, you know, super. Exactly. And I think basically everyone is like you. And I think that we're all just afraid of offending some hypothetical third party that doesn't really exist.

And I think that is how the left controls the whole dialogue because we're all normal guys. And everyone you talk to, even if they say, you know, I'm a gay guy or I'm a this thing or I'm a that thing or whatever. I don't know what language they're supposed to use now. But very few people actually get offended by any of this stuff. It is the fear, the hypothetical fear of offending the other that keeps us all trapped. in this linguistic prison living in a web of lies rather than just speaking the truth clearly, truth that we can all basically perceive. Well, Michael, thank you so much for coming out of the ice coffee hour.

Thank you very much to the Daily Wire. And thank you so much to the production crew that said all of this up. This is incredible. Getting into the lunchtime. Every single time we come over here, we have a great time. We're going to wrap this up with one final thing. We're going to do word association. I want to know the first thing that comes to your mind when I say Michael Knowles.

sexy Matt Walsh not Ben Shapiro hmm that's my answer yeah finally Brett Cooper

a marvelous wonderful bright shining the future of this country was that one word yeah no that was just one emotion that girl she's great great

thank you so much Michael appreciate thanks guys thank you thank you