The Michael Knowles Show - Dangerous Campus: Michael Knowles Vs University Of Illinois | Cross The Line

Episode Date: June 1, 2024

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Terms apply. So we had been looking at this school in particular at the University of Illinois-Champaign for several months. We had had some issues on a prior visit to the same school. Well, Conservative speaker and author Matt Walsh drawing crowds of supporters and protesters

here at the University of Illinois campus When my campus speaking schedule was announced there was one school in particular that I was looking forward to the university that, based on previous conservative speaking events, was in dire need of a sensible common sense lecture

for the students seeking an actual education. That was the University of Illinois Urbana Champagne. Do you feel like on campus as a conservative Have you felt like it's been okay for you or has it been difficult? I feel like I have to like kind of change my view to make it easier for myself, honestly. Like I think I can have them, but it's like I can't be too vocal about them because they try to like silence or cancel you for what you believe.

This topic today, being on abortion, is this something you feel like you could talk about? Um, I wouldn't necessarily be shouting it from the rooftops. Do you feel like you can express your views as a conservative here safely on campus? No, no. For a sure not. Pro-Palestinian encampments now across more than a dozen campuses, a students call for universities to divest from companies connected to Israel. There was even concern that my speech would be shut down entirely

because of the utter failure of these Lib schools to keep their radical students in line. But that's not what happened. Instead, the university hosted the lecture in a much more secure location than the previous events, allowed everyone in attendance to have a great time and feel welcome. The university even went the extra mile to make sure male students who use feminine hygiene products had access to them in the men's bathroom by the lecture hall. What's well, guys? It was a terrific event to close out the spring tour

and allowed me the opportunity to sit down with B'Dang, who was able to make it to the speech and discuss why he disagreed with some of my more traditional views of conservatism. In this episode, I've crossed the line. Badang, thank you so much for sitting down. Yeah, great to meet you. Great to meet you. So usually, after the speech, I'll sit down with someone who vehemently disagrees in me,

some radical leftist, you know, transgender, socialist, something. But you're not any of those things. You're moderate? So I would say I definitely probably have a slightly liberal bias, but on the net I'm an independent. Yeah. So you came here expecting to agree with my speech or to disagree with it? There are a lot of things I agree with you about, but it wouldn't be as fun if we talked about those.

So what's a big point of disagreement? Please correct me if I'm wrong because I don't want to mischaracterize your position. But I believe you mentioned in the past, in regards to free speech, something like flag burning should be illegal. Should be illegal? Should be illegal. Is that something you've mentioned? Yeah, I would happily ban it. I would happily ban flag burning. Okay. So from my viewpoint, this is, is something that's like protected under the First Amendment.

And I think what makes this country like so great is that we can do, we have a lot more freedoms and the ability to do things that we wouldn't be able to know other countries. Because like if we can burn our own country's flag, like what cooler thing is there that someone can do, not something I would do? But just having this right protected and allow and allowing. people to... Why wouldn't you do it? I would say I'm very patriotic towards the country and I'm grateful for the servicemen and for the values that are enshrined in our constitution. So then why would it be cool in principle to burn the flag? Because part of the values that are ingrained in American

society is the right, is freedom of speech. And burning a flag is an example of freedom of speech. Has it always been considered an example of freedom of speech in America? I'm not sure. No, it hasn't. It has. It has. It's only been considered protected by the First Amendment in very recent decades, with relatively recent justices of the Supreme Court weighing in on this decision. So you had the Chief Justice, William Rehnquist, argue that actually it's not protected by the First Amendment. You have, on the other hand, another conservative Antonin Scalia saying it is protected by the First Amendment.

But the reason that it came up as a relatively recent Supreme Court case is because for most of American history was not considered to be protected by the First Amendment. There were lots of anti-flag burning statutes all over the country because freedom of speech, the First Amendment, doesn't literally mean that you can say anything at all, right? Like, I can't threaten you. I can't slander or libel you. I don't have a right, First Amendment right, to obscenity, pornography, appeals to the prurian interest, all sorts of things. And so I guess on the matter of the flag burning, I guess part of why I think it is good that in America's legal tradition it was not protected by the First Amendment is because the flag is a symbol of the whole country. So to attack the symbol of the country on the grounds of what the country stands for is an incoherent action. There's a line from G.K. Chesterton who says there's a thought that stops thought. That's the only thought that ought to be stopped.

It seems to me the sort of example of a thought that stops thought. Furthermore, every society has taboos, right? And so every society has something sacred. So if we don't even hold the symbol of our whole country sacred, if we don't protect it to some degree. You know, we have flag code, for instance. Then can we hold anything sacred? So I agree with some of the points that were brought there. In regards to something like flag code, obviously it's good for people to follow.

In terms of not burning the flag, we as a society can condemn it. But why do you think that we need, like, why do we need to ban it by law? Because I think there is such a thing as Lexerondi, Lex Credendi, meaning the way that we act and the way that we worship, the way that we venerate things, is going to affect the way that we believe. So that phrase is often used with regard to liturgy, but it's just as true in politics. I venerate the flag because it's a symbol of the country. If the flag fell on the ground right now, instinctively, I would just pick it up.

I would too. You would too, of course. Anyone who's raised in any patriotic way would do that. Why do we do that? It's just a piece of cloth. Well, because it's a symbol of the broader country. So if we get into the habit of burning the symbol of our country, of disrespecting the symbol of our country, of tolerating that disrespect, I think that the way that we treat the symbol is going to affect the way we treat the symbolized. And we're going to cultivate less of a respect for our country. And I think that's

exactly what's happened. So I agree with you that on the surface level, it seems as though this is, you know, a matter of speech and ought to be protected by the First Amendment. Even if the guys who wrote the Constitution didn't think that that was protected, even if generations of American statesmen didn't think it was protected, we kind of think it is now and it ought to be. But it's not a, it's not without consequence. I don't think the problem in America now is that we revere our country too much. You know, I don't think it's that we have too much respect for America. I think it's quite the opposite. Maybe if we restored some of those traditional taboos might help. K-N-W-L-E-S, whether you're feeling stressed or anxious, or simply seeking a moment of peace and

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Hallow is truly transformative and will help you connect with your faith on a deeper level. What are you waiting for? Download the Hallow app today at hallow.com slash Knowles, Kennaw-W-L-E-S. That is hallow.com slash Knowles, Ken to W-L-E-S for an exclusive three-month free trial of all 6,000-plus prayers and meditations. Hello.com slash knolls. But do you think we could not restore these taboos in terms of like societal expectations where say someone were to burn the flag, we look down upon them as a society as opposed to

legally going ahead and banning it through? I feel like it would be much stronger to societally condemn something and to give people the option to do something, even if we disagree with them. And one other thing, the one other point that... I would like to make is it makes it very hard for conservatives to go out and say that the liberals have a slippery slope argument when they want to go ahead and ban something like, say, hate speech, because they could be making the same exact arguments that I feel like you're making right now. But I basically agree with them, actually. I don't agree with the substance of their point,

but I agree with the point in principle, which is that free speech doesn't mean you can just say whatever you want, whenever you want to say. That's not what George Washington thought free speech was. That's not what even 20 years ago, American statesmen thought that's what free speech is. I think that's a modern liberal slash libertarian fantasy. When you say, why can't we just, you know, create social pressure against flag burning rather than a legal pressure? What I would ask is, in a self-governing society, what's the difference? You know, the expression of our social pressure is in our laws and in some of our customs, but ultimately it's in our laws, because at least in theory, we the people are supposed to govern our country. So then my question is,

why not? Why wouldn't we do it? To your point on free speech versus hate speech, I support free speech in the American tradition. That doesn't mean I support protections for threats or fraud or libel or obscenity, certainly not. The libs, I think, have used the legitimate free speech that we've had in America to smuggle in all sorts of things that none of the architects of our country ever would have, especially pornography that we've heard there's a First Amendment defense of pornography. That was never true in American history before. And that has real effects because taboos and standards and norms affect the way that we believe. And if you're just saturated with porn everywhere, you know, appeals to the Purian interest, it's going to mess up your

head a little bit. It's going to actually affect the way that, especially now that the median age of exposure to porn is what, like eight or something like that, it's going to affect the way that we develop. And so the question is, does my supposed individual right to burn a flag or to look at porn, does that trump our political right to have a society that isn't saturated in porn, isn't full of communists burning the American flag? I think the traditional view led to a much more flourishing and well-ordered society than the modern view where we're all just, you know, looking at people bumping uglies on the internet and burning the American flag. Yeah, that makes sense.

On the issue of pornography, I agree that it's not something that is good for people to societally watch, but do you not think that it is something that is protected under the First Amendment? No. You don't. No, not at all. It's, even today on the books, it is not protected by the First Amendment because we are still permitted to have laws against obscenity and appeals to the prurion interest.

Now, in recent years, because, you know, because. because liberal jurists have watered down the meaning of obscenity that has permitted porn to proliferate. But as recently as 2008, the federal government imprisoned a pornographer simply for producing pornography, not even for, you know, a sexual assault on the set or anything like that. So those laws are still on the books. And you're surprised at that, I think, is typical of most Americans, including many American conservatives. They have no idea that American free speech means actually you can and probably should, outlaw certain things like porn and speech that has never been protected in our tradition.

But I think that just shows you how far the right has moved to the left. You know, the free speech movement when it came out in the middle of the 20th century during the Cultural Revolution, it was a left-wing movement, University of California, Berkeley. But it was never just about free speech. Because the minute that they got political, they undermined the standards, they got political power, and then they impose their own speech codes because there's no such thing as free speech in the abstract. All speech, all societies have standards and norms

and politeness and things you don't say and things you do say. So it seems to me that's an illusory debate between free speech and censorship, and the real debate is between two competing sets of standards. Are we going to live in a country where you can teach the Bible in school but you can't teach pornography in school as we did in the 50s? Or are we going to live in a country where you can't teach the Bible in school

and you must teach pornography in school. as we do now. Which has more free speech, which has less free speech? It's hard to say. It's just different sets of standards that give us a different society. Fair enough. Honestly, I think like those are some pretty good points. One other question that I had for you is, I don't precisely remember, but in one of your clips, you mentioned that you would want society to go back towards, I believe, 1240. Yeah, someone said I wanted, they accused me of wanting to go back to 2012, and I said, that's so crazy, I want to go back to 1220. 1220.

Yeah, because of the year. So what exactly about 1220 is so much better than, say, right now, or say 100 years ago or say 200 years ago? Well, we knew the difference between boys and girls for a start. That was helpful. We had a growing and flourishing civilization that was in an ascent where great. works of art, great discoveries in science, great advancements in philosophy, the building of great cathedrals were taking place. We don't have those things going on today. We have a great degradation that's going on and most of our supposed technological and intellectual

advancements only add confusion rather than clarity, you know, to the point of mistaking boys for girls and vice versa. Another thing we had then was the reign of scholastic philosophy, which I think is quite reasonable and led to the flourishing of our civilization. Today, what do we have? We've got a hodgepodge of postmodern slogans and wishy-washy subjectivism and relativism to the point that we don't really know much of anything and we throw up our hands in the air. That was something that was better in 1220. So if you ask me, would I like to return to dentistry in 1220?

I would say no. I think dentistry in 2024 is probably better. But if you asked me about philosophy, political order, the unity of the West, which we used to call christendom, the families that were producing children, we're living in literally a dying civilization. We're not even replacing ourselves. On all of those levels, believe it or not, things were a little bit better. So in some ways, there were more philosophical advanceance back then, but I feel like at its crux, that ignores all the sort of, like, racism or, like, sexism, like, that woman, like, had many much fewer rights. Racism wasn't a huge problem in 12-12, 12-20.

There wasn't a lot of multiculturalism going on, you know. I mean, there were the Crusades, I guess, but, you know, that was sort of a different issue. Fair enough. But why do you think there was more, like, philosophy back then, as opposed to, like, right now? Like, what has actually changed in the culture that has led to, I guess, like society mean what it is right now? People believed that truth exists and that because of that

they were educated according to the truth and they disciplined themselves to discover truth and to be in command of their own wills in accordance with their intellect which was oriented toward the truth. And you saw this in theology and in philosophy, which is the handmaiden of theology and in the natural sciences, which is the handmaiden of philosophy. That's all kind of disappeared because we don't really believe in the truth anymore. So we just focus on me, me, me, and do whatever we want. And, you know, if it feels good, do it is kind of our guiding principle. And so that leads to all sorts of advancements in the realm of mind-numbing media

and in the realm of like new sex robots and stuff and in the realm of, you know, big massage chairs to watch the football game on Sunday. But it doesn't lead to a lot of advancements that actually help grow your civilization. So do you think the all of it? is intertwined with philosophy and like these advancements in civilization, because that's something I don't necessarily agree with. Of course it is. I mean, theology is just faith-seeking understanding.

And so they're all kind of intertwined because we're living in one reality. So you're right. In modernity, we ignore theology because we deny that God exists, but that's, I think, a rather elementary philosophical mistake. And if you start out wrong, it's like you're an engineer, right? Yeah. Yeah, it's like garbage in, garbage out, right? So if you start with bad premises, you're going to end up with bad conclusions, which I think is where we've landed today.

So societies like Europe where happiness is objectively and measurably higher than, say, the United States, where theology takes a bigger role in our lives. I don't think religion necessarily leads to... How do you measure happiness? I'm not familiar with how exactly they measure if I were to guess just by asking people or looking at it metrics such as income. Does money buy happiness? To some degree, yes.

We think it does now, but I don't think it's true. It's nice to have material needs met. But you understand all of these premises, even in the statement, well, we're happier now or whatever. Lots of premises here that I think are unquestioned in liberal modernity. But perhaps that could be the topic for our next discussion. Thank you so much for coming. Thank you.

Campuses will only get livelier this fall as the election approaches, and these conversations become more and more important. Thankfully, the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign did its job and allowed the student body to hear a conservative point of view. As my Yaff campus tour continues into the fall, I hope to find more students like the Dank, who are willing to cross the picket line to hear what conservatives have to say and maybe even muster the courage to sit down face to face.