The Michael Knowles Show - Ep. 1559 - Taylor Swift & Beyoncé SHAFT Kamala Harris?

Episode Date: August 23, 2024

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Kamala Harris spoke last night at the DNC, and it was completely unremarkable. I don't have a single clip of note to play from her speech. I got plenty of clips from the other speakers. If I had to find highlights from Kamala's speech, she called her husband, her partner, as if they were lesbians or owned an accounting firm or something like that. She promoted infanticide, and she was vaguely supportive of Palestine. And she wore a masculine suit jacket. That's it. Those are the most remarkable takeaways. Otherwise, Kamala's big speech was completely bland. Which was the point?

Kamala isn't running for president. The Democrat machine is. As far as the party is concerned, Kamala doesn't have policy views. The views that she actually holds on policy are unpopular, freebies for illegals and transing the kids, for instance. And Kamala's record on policy, inflation, immigration, etc. is a litany of failure. So she won't talk about policy. She doesn't have a political record unless you happen to like it. And then they'll say she does. She isn't part of the current administration, unless somehow you like the current administration, in which case she's responsible for everything. She also doesn't have a particular platform. She is just a warm body babbling vague encomia to freedom. And also she isn't Donald Trump. I'm Michael Noles. It's the Michael

show. Welcome back to the show. CNN says that Kamala's running mate, Tim Wals, and her husband, Doug M. Hoff, speak to men who aren't testosterone-laden. Nothing I've said about either of those two men is nearly as brutal as what CNN has said about them. We'll get to what that means. But first, folks, it is that time a year again. It's PSL season, and I am live, laugh, loving my best life. You can too when you go to the candleclub.com and get the juicy, beautiful, delicious, seasonal PSL candle. That's a pumpkin spice latte, baby. It's also your last chance to get the Sicilian summer candle. By my count, there are still seven or eight days left in summer. You can get that candle. Stock up. That's a seasonal flavor and it's going to disappear very quickly.

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Join now for exclusive perks, including 20% off a founding membership. A free founder's box valued at 115 bucks, 20% off all candles, and exclusive access to members-only sense. Thecandleclub.com. Kamala's speech totally unremarkable. It's not that it was terrible. It wasn't terrible. It was fine. It wasn't great. It was just it was totally fine, which was exactly what they were going for. The other speeches were less than fine. We kept waiting all night for a big surprise. It was reported by TMZ and then it was being promoted by all sorts of other people that Beyonce was going to appear. So we were waiting. Daily Wire had Michael Knowles doing the live stream. And then it was being promoted by all sorts of other people. And then,

the DNC was going to have Beyonce Knowles doing the big performance. So it was going to be a really knolls-filled DNC. And then Beyonce didn't show up. People were speculating, will Taylor Swift show up? We were waiting. Taylor Swift didn't show up. Some people wondered if George W. Bush was going to show up. His spokesman quickly put that rumor to rest. The big surprise of the night, I guess, was that two-bit barely in Washington Congressman Adam Kinsinger, who is a squish fake Republican, whose most notable achievement was sobbing while discussing January suits and opposing Donald Trump. Well, he went out there to explain why he, a true principled, conservative Republican, is now embracing the most radically left-wing Democrat ever to run for president.

The Republican Party is no longer conservative. It has switched its allegiance from the principles that gave it purpose to a man whose only purpose is himself. Donald Trump is a weak man pretending to be strong. He is a small man pretending to be big. He's a faithless man pretending to be righteous. He's a perpetrator who can't stop playing the victim. He puts on quite a show, but there is no real strength there. Tarnished by a man too fragile, too vain, and too weak to accept defeat.

How can a party claim to be patriotic if it idolizes a man who tried to overthrow a free and fair election? How can a party claim to stand for liberty if it sees a fight for freedom in Ukraine? an attack bidding tyranny against democracy, a challenge to everything our nation claims to be. And it retreats. Everything our nation claims to be, Ukraine. I don't know when we became Ukraine. We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal and we are Ukraine. So wrote Thomas Jefferson.

This was a really silly speech. But what's the claim? At the very top of it, he says, the Republican Party is no longer conservative. It's abandoned. It's conservative principles. I'm the last principled conservative. What principles has the Republican Party abandoned? The GOP is still pro-life. We got Roe v. Wade overruled. Actually, Trump got Roe v. Wade overruled. It's pretty big. It's the biggest pro-life win in half a century. The conservative party is still in favor of supporting American business and American workers. The Republican Party is still in favor of enforcing our borders, unlike the Democrats. The Republican Party is still in favor of supporting American families. The Republican Party is still in favor of most things that it's been in favor of since I was a kid.

In some ways it's changed. It's a little bit more protective of American workers and American manufacturing. But I don't know. That's really more a return to the tradition of the Republican Party. Went a little bit awry in the 90s and 2000s. But the Republican Party is a little bit more restrained when it comes to foreign policy. We're seeking peace through strength, but that's really a return to the foreign policy of Ronald Reagan. The foreign policy of George W. Bush went a little bit more adventurous abroad.

But really, it's a return. Otherwise, what principles has the GOP abandoned for this one man, Donald Trump? As far as I can tell, I mean, look, we like Trump. Trump's great. But I don't think we've abandoned really any principle. We've strengthened some principles under Trump. I don't view politics as about one man. The irony is Adam Kinsinger does. That whole speech was about one guy.

It was all about Donald Trump. He never explains how he, the principled conservative, would show up to speak at a Democrat National Convention that has been consecrated in the blood of innocent little babies in the abortion van outside. He never explains the conservative principle of supporting transing the kids, which the DNC openly supports. The conservative principle of left-wing identity politics,

the conservative principle of an increasingly socialist economic policy. Kamala Harris, the daughter of a Marxist economist, who supports socialist health care, including for illegal aliens. Tim Walz, who says socialism is just another word for neighborliness. Tim Walz, who's had a fascination with communist China, visited many times and described it to his high school students, as a place where everyone shares and everyone has food,

extolling the virtues of Chinese communism. What's the conservative virtue of that? No, for the Republicans, politics is not about one man. We have a great nominee, and that's Donald Trump, and he's the best president of my lifetime. And so in as much as we nominate a person, I guess there's a guy that you can point to. But politics is not about one man.

For Trump's critics, politics is entirely about one man, especially Trump's critics who are supposedly on the right. That guy, Adam Kinsinger, and all those never-Trump Republicans, sold out every single actually conservative principle that they have ever purported to believe in just to oppose the Mango Mussolini whom they hate so much because he sends mean tweets. Next up, we had Oprah. Oprah actually spoke, not last night, but the night before. I really want to get to her, though, because Oprah addressed this joke that J.D. Vance told some time ago where he pointed out that, our country is run by this caricature of the childless cat lady. He's not talking about people

who suffer from infertility. He's not talking about people who are not called to parenthood who have some other vocation in life. He's talking about a caricature and we all know the type. We saw a lot of that type at the DNC. We're talking about the people who are hostile to family, who are hostile to human flourishing. The kind of people who would have an abortion van outside their political convention. So Oprah seizes on this comment and it inadvertently became the funniest moment of the DNC. Here's what she said. To a childless cat lady?

The camera's on Oprah. Cameras on Oprah. And then it... Oh, no. Then the camera just cuts to some random woman. And you see the woman, she's just a woman sitting there. How many thousands of people are in that arena? And the cuts to her.

And then she kind of looks around. He goes, wait, what? Hold on. Wait. Wait. You look. Can we play the clip again, please? To a childless cat lady.

And the camera cuts just bored. Nice enough looking lady in a blue dress. She's kind of looking down. And then she, I don't know, people maybe they're cheering around her. She looks up and she goes, wait, what? Why are you looking at me? This is the real life version of an old key and peel sketch about politics where a politician is given a town hall. And then it keeps cutting to one guy who doesn't want the camera on him.

I will work for everyone. Whether you are young, whether you are old, whether you are Asian or Hispanic, whether you are straight or whether you are gay. I will work for all of you. And that's why I also support marriage equality. Are you calling me gay? Folks don't choose to be gay any more than I choose to be straight. Could you imagine if someone told you that you couldn't marry the person that you loved?

I'm sorry, I think gays are people too. Gays are not different. He looks at the camera. Hey, no, wait, cut it out, man. Gays, they are just like us. They love. It puts his arm around a woman. That was the lady.

Oprah did the thing. The Democrats are doing the key and peel sketch when they took. talk about the childless cat lady. They're doing the Monty Python sketch when they talk about transgenderism. Old Monty Python sketch. I say, I want to be a lady. I want to have babies. Now that's the actual platform of the DNC, is that men should be allowed to do that. Really delightful. It's delightful because it's absurd and what makes it distressing is that that absurdity actually governs our country. And absurdity in power can be a really nasty ugly thing. You know, one of the most lunatic leaders famously and infamously in all of history

is Nero, and he caused a lot of suffering. He was really into weird sex stuff too. That, you know, that story for another time. It would be funny if these people didn't have power. They do, and so it focuses us on the stakes in November. Oprah then hit a darker point than just calling some poor woman in the audience of Childless Cat Lady, she vigorously defended killing babies. If you do not have autonomy over this, over this, if you cannot control when and how you choose to bring your children into this world and how they are raised and supported, there is no American dream. Unless you can kill your kid, there's no American dream. We hold these truths to be self-evident

that all men are created equal and endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights among these life, except for babies, liberty, the pursuit of happiness, and the right to murder your baby. That's why I had the exception in the first right, the life one.

That's why I excluded the babies from it. So wrote Thomas Jefferson way back in 1776. I don't think so. I think. call me old-fashioned, call me crazy, I think there is an American dream, even if you can't murder your kid.

But this is what they're pushing. It reminded me, this speech reminded me of just how awful Oprah is and has always been because Oprah Oprah is not merely a political figure. She's even become a kind of religious figure. She pushes all that weird new agey nonsense

and the secret. and all of, she pushes a view of morality, a view of anthropology. She's really transcended the merely political. And everything she believes is hideously wrong. So much so that she would articulate what the Democrats already acted out at the DNC, which is that murdering kids is the central sacrament of modern liberalism. Peter Craft, I think it was, the philosopher observed how satanic this is, because he said that even the phrases that they use are a satanic parody of Christianity. In Christianity at the consecration of the Eucharist, of the Holy Communion, the priest will say, reading the words of Christ, this is my body, which will be given up for you.

This is my body. And abortion as the satanic parody of the sacrifice of the mass uses the exact same words. This is my body. This is my body. But to an entirely inverted meaning. That was basically it for the DNC. There was one more dumb argument I really want to take on before we move on from a relatively uneventful party convention. And this was the argument from Josh Shapiro.

who's the jilted, would-be running mate for Kamala Harris. He's the governor of Pennsylvania. He was not picked to be her running mate, even though he would have probably brought a lot more to the ticket than that wacko Tim Walls over in Minnesota. Pennsylvania is a must-wing state for Democrats. Some have speculated that Shapiro was passed over because he's a member of a certain ancient nomadic tribe

that many of the Democrats don't like very much right now and that his last name is the reason he couldn't do it. But I don't know, actually, because after you listen to this guy speak, you realize that he's pretty weak. Josh Shapiro used his time at the DNC to invade against Republicans for making the audacious suggestion that little kids shouldn't read gay porn in schools. It's not freedom to tell our children what books they're allowed to read. It's not freedom! They made the theme freedom. The freem previously was democracy.

But because Kamala was not democratically nominated, because there was actually a coup within the DN's Democratic Party, and they took the nomination from Biden, who was democratically nominated. They can't use democracy as much anymore. So now it's all about freedom. And Shapiro says, it's not freedom to tell our kids in schools, presumably, what books they can read. Tim Walls made basically the same argument. We're banning books from their schools? We were banishing hunger from ours. You're that? These Republicans are banning books from schools, and there's no freedom in banning books.

And so this is a big charge the Dems are making. And the Republicans are totally taking the bait. And I think reacting in a way that is really stupid and it's only going to help the Dems. The Republicans are reacting. We're saying, we're not banning books. We're not banning books from schools. Why would you suggest that? Yes, we are.

But the Democrats are banning books too. Everyone has to ban books from schools in the sense that there is only so much time in a given semester. There are only so many books you can teach. Every book you add into the curriculum means there's some book that you're not going to teach in the curriculum. And all societies have standards. We all exclude certain things. I don't think, and even the Democrats, I don't think are going to argue that we should have a playboy section in the elementary school library. So everybody wants to ban certain books.

The question is, which books do the Democrats want to ban and for whom? Republicans want to ban gay porn from public schools. I think, again, call me old-fashioned and crazy, I think we should ban gay porn from public schools K through 12, the whole way through. Many Republicans are merely arguing that we ought to ban gay porn from the elementary schools. And even that that is far too much for the Democrats. They want gender queer and all sorts of other gay porn in kindergarten in first grade and second grade. But that's it. The books we want to ban pretty much is gay porn in schools.

The Democrats want to ban the Bible. And they have successfully banned the Bible. In the middle of the 20th century, the Libs were able to get a preposterous court ruling that said that you can't have students read the Bible in schools. Now, the Bible, even if you're an atheist, a non-Christian certainly, but even if you're an atheist, you think all religion is bunk. You would have to admit the Bible is the most important book ever written. It's the most influential book ever written.

You can't really understand almost anything of Western civilization without having read the Bible. As my friend Spencer Claven pointed out the other day during the member block, you can't be an educated person if you haven't read the Bible. That book totally banned from schools. Democrats totally in favor of banning that. But they will get up in arms if you suggest that, maybe we shouldn't have gay porn in the fourth grade classroom. So if Josh Shapiro really means what he says, if Tim Walz really means what he says,

can't ban books in schools, cool, we're going to have the Bible back in schools? Is that what you mean? No, that's not what they mean. And this is the way to argue it, I think. This is going to be much more convincing than adopting a liberal premise that you can never circumscribe any kind of reading material, even in an elementary school classroom, something that not even the liberals believe. Yeah, both sides are trying to ban books. We want to ban gay porn in the schools, and the libs want to ban the Bible.

Which side are you on? There's so much more to say. First, though, go to prageryou.com. Is America heading in the right direction? The majority of Gen Z supports left-wing policies like open borders and socialism. If we do not reach them and change their minds, the country we know and love will be lost forever. Prager You is the leading nonprofit when it comes to influencing young people. Daily Wire is rather close with Prager.

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In order to keep making great content reaching millions and changing minds, Prager You needs your help. Make a 100% tax deductible donation at Prageru.com today, and your gift will be tripled. My favorite comment yesterday is from Soldier of Christ 4545, who says that poetry, I assume you mean the slam poetry from Amanda. What's her name? Amanda Gorman? I think it's Gorman or Gordon at the DNC. That poetry was definitely unburdened by what has been. That's true, namely culture, English grammar, art, artistry. That is, it was very much unburdened by what has been.

speaking further about education, New York Times is up in arms because last year, the Supreme Court ruled that colleges can no longer discriminate on the basis of race in admissions. For decades now, the Supreme Court has discriminated on the basis of race

when it comes to admissions. They discriminate against Asians. They discriminate against Asians. whites and they discriminate in favor of Hispanics and black people and Native American Indians and any other number of small minority ethnic groups. This is just a matter of law for decades. And so the Supreme Court said, oh, actually, you're not really allowed to do that. That's actually unconstitutional. Here's how the New York Times is reporting what has happened sense. At MIT, black and Latino enrollment drops sharply after affirmative action ban. That would be

expected. If those two groups are having their qualifications artificially inflated just on the basis of their race and other groups are having their qualifications suppressed, then once you re-institute a more merit-based admission system, just looking at test scores, preparedness for the curriculum at MIT, et cetera, then, yeah, you would expect the group that was artificially inflated to deflate a little bit and the group that was artificially suppressed to increase a little bit. Then the subheadline, Asian American students made up almost half of the 2028 class. So the big beneficiaries aren't really white people. The big beneficiaries are Asians, which is the only reason we're even allowed to talk about this, by the way. If the affirmative

action policies merely discriminated against white people, they would still be on the books today. because we live not just in a legal system that discriminates against white people, but in a culture that encourages that discrimination against white people. If you ever suggest that perhaps we should not, as a matter of law, discriminate against white people, you will be called a racist for that, especially if you're a white person. You'll be called every name in the book to the point that most people, and especially most white people, won't even raise an objection to the legal discrimination that they face. But because the Democrats made a big mistake and they also discriminated against

Asians, their own dominant liberal identity politics were able to be used against them. So they could claim that Asians are an oppressed minority group, non-white, don't partake of white supremacy, and therefore that's why the policy was wrong. So now, and now Asians are making up half of the class since the end of affirmative action. Okay, that's true. How else, though, could we report on this? You know, the New York Times is obviously furious about it. The New York Times wants fewer Asians and fewer whites at MIT, even if those kids are qualified, and they want more blacks and Latinos at MIT.

But think about the kids. It wasn't so long ago that I was applying to college. And I was applying to a very competitive school. Imagine that you're the kid who has worked really hard his whole life. And in this case, let's say you're a, not just an Asian-American student, but you're an Asian-American immigrant. I know plenty of these kids whose families came here with nothing. The parents worked very, very hard, and, you know, Tiger moms drilled academic discipline into their kids. These kids, you know, give up other opportunities

to go out and hang out with friends, to, you know, to do extracurricular activities. You know, they're really focusing on their academics, doing a lot of test prep. They work really, really hard, and they do better than other students. And they've put in their all and they're ready for the curriculum, but because they're Asian or, dare we say, because they're white, they don't get to go. And so they go to a school that is less prestigious that's going to have effects for the rest of their lives, very possibly.

It's not always the case. There are plenty of people who go to Harvard and Yale and they're just total flunkies and it doesn't help at all. but it can help. It can help you get into that really big law firm. It can help you get into that big consulting firm or investment bank. You know, it can be the difference between millions and millions of dollars over the course of your life. Doors opening for you, the graduate school you get into. And you don't get that because you're Asian or because you're white. Isn't that really, shouldn't we, rather than being sorry for the black and Hispanic kids who didn't do as well on the tests, who didn't do as well in school, who now won't be going to MIT and they'll be going to some other school or plenty of other schools that will be happy to have them. Shouldn't we be happy for the kids who did do well on the test and did do well in school and who are getting in now? The whole way that the libs are framing this issue and the whole way they frame politics, really,

is purely from the perspective of one group, whatever their preferred group in that case happens to be. but when we think about politics, we're supposed to be thinking of the common good. Don't the libs tell us, we've got to think about everybody. We've got to include everybody, but they're not. The only way that this racial discrimination was ever justifiable was if you say that whites and Asians don't really count. They're not really people.

Screw them. They don't have any feelings. They don't deserve anything. They don't have any rights. That's the only way that it ever made sense. Furthermore, there were really negative academic consequences to it. Antonin and Scalia wrote about this, and he got in big trouble for writing about it. But there is the problem of mismatch. If a kid has his grades artificially inflated or his test scores artificially inflated to get him into a school simply on the basis of his race,

one of two things is going to happen. Either the school is going to lower its standards to meet the students, which is really why you have all of these grievance studies departments proliferating. It's because students who are not really able to hack it at these schools can't take the serious academic disciplines. So they've got to take, you know, gay studies or something like that. And they'll get an easy A in it. won't really learn anything. So either the academic standards will decline or the kids will flunk out. And maybe the kids have taken out some loans to go to these schools. Certainly the kids would have wasted time if they spend a semester or two semesters at these schools and then they flunk out.

They're set a year back. They've got nothing to show for it. It actually hurts their resume because they've been expelled from a school. That's called the mismatch theory of higher education. And it happened. That's very real. So it's not even good for the, the, the, supposedly favored racial groups that these policies are supposed to benefit. The New York Times is crying. I think this is really, really good stuff that we're eliminating racial discrimination in college admissions. Now, speaking of great court decisions, this is a big one, and this is really going to matter when it comes to the election. The Supreme Court has just ruled that Arizona must reject state voter registration forms without proof of citizenship. This just came out yesterday. This follows

an emergency appeal from the Republican National Convention. Arizona was trying to sneak these voter registration forms through without proof of U.S. citizenship. The Libs recognize if this is going to be a close election, they're going to need to use every trick in the book. And one of those tricks is just getting a lot of ineligible people to be registered as voters. Supreme Court just said no. The only reason that anyone would throw a hissy fit about this is if they were trying to rig the collection and take a look at who's throwing a hissy fit. Before we get to the mailbag, which I'm very excited about as always, I do have to get to this one clip from CNN where CNN, Danabash, made the cruelest remark that I've heard yet from anyone about Tim Walls and Kamala's husband,

Doug Emhoff. It has been noteworthy to see how they are learning about what to do and how to confront Donald Trump as the opponent to a woman, 2016, and now very different campaigns, very different female candidates. But they are doing so in trying to put forward male figures, Tim Walls being one of them, Doug Emhoff last night, who can speak to men out there who might not be the testosterone-laden you know gun-toting kind of guy

yeah they speak to men who are not there's not so much like oh I have a Y chromosome I identify as a man they speak to a different kind of man you know

what do we call them Arnold Schwarzenegger called them girly men CNN hey that wasn't Daily Wire that wasn't the Blaze there wasn't Fox News or CNN saying that

Walls and Emhoff appeal to girly men. Very, very rough. But it's true. Part of the reason I think that Kamala picked a male running mate is she recognizes that her being a woman is a vulnerability. Forget about the Democrat identity politics.

We've never had a woman president. There's probably a reason throughout history that most political leaders have been man. Not all, but most have been. There might just, be something in human nature that inclines us toward male political leaders. And so she's trying to balance that out. This is why she wore a big, masculine blazer last night with big, wide, sturdy shoulders in it, single-breasted big wide peak lapel, big pants. She's trying to lean into a more masculine image.

I think picking a male running mate was supposed to help her on that front, CNN saying, uh, not quite doing the trick. You know, our friend, Dr. Jordan B. Peterson has completed yet another extraordinary five-part series of the West. Follow Jordan as he journeys through history with Ben Shapiro and other esteemed scholars to three important cities that gave birth to some of the most important ideas in history, government, religion, and freedom. The first two episodes are live now with new episodes premiering every Sunday. If you're not a member, go to dailywire.com slash subscribe now and use code Jordan for 35% off. Finally, finally, I've arrived at my favorite time of the week when I get to hear from you in the mailbag. The mailbag is sponsored by PureTalk.com slash Knowles today.

switch to a qualifying plan, get one year free of DailyWire Plus Insider. Take it away. I sing that every day. Michael Knowles, you are an English major. You analyze everything, like a brilliant English major. I will be teaching English 2030 this semester,

and I was wondering if you could teach any novel, any drama play, any poem, and any short story, what would those four texts be? Thank you so much. One correction. I was actually not an English major. I, you know, I do write in English, and I spend most of my time in the English language. But my majors were history and Italian, Italian literature specifically, because I knew Italian going into school. So it's kind of funny, but I'm happy to answer the question anyway. The novel I would recommend, if I could pick one, this is teaching in high school, I assume, that I would probably pick crime and punishment, Dostoevsky. It might be the greatest novel ever written.

I'm not sure it's the greatest novel ever written, but it's maybe the greatest novel that a high schooler can appreciate. So I would do that in terms of the play that I would teach. I would teach Hamlet, probably. If I only get to pick one, I'd probably pick Hamlet. In terms of the poem I would teach at a high school level, maybe the wasteland by T.S. Eliot, it might be a little advanced, but then that way you get, you know, you're covering modernism,

but you're also, he's a traditionalist, and you're getting a lot in there. Probably that's what I would go for. And for short story, I guess, what would I say? Maybe like the Raven or something, you know? Well, I guess that would, that would maybe fit in with poetry. I'll give a hat tip to my friend Andrew Claven here, and I would say maybe the Great Good Place by Henry James would be a good short story to read.

It's really good. I mean, people, probably in high school, you'd be more inclined towards something from Hemingway or something. but the great good place. Henry James would be a good one and it would teach them more important true things than Hemingway probably would. Next question. Hello, Mr. Knowles. Thank you for talking about the difficulties that you and Sweet Little Lisa had when you were trying to conceive children. Me and my wife, we've been married for just over five years now and you gave me a lot of hope. We currently have a six-month-old, incredibly beautiful baby daughter, and I want to thank you for that. two quick questions. First, when sweet little Lisa gives you a mortadella, is she giving you

the mortadilla with pistachios in it, or is she giving you the bad stuff? Secondly, when you are enjoying your delectable and aromatic Mayflower cigars, do you hide that from your children, or is it just after they go to bed? I mean, obviously it's not something that's shameful, but it's Certainly not for children. Must be 21 to buy. Restrictions and exclusion supply. But how do you approach that? I mean, I guess the same thing could be said about having a couple of Coca-Cola's.

Thank you for your feedback. Great. I'll run through. So glad to hear that you got a kid and I'm very happy to hear, maybe in a way more happy to hear that my mentioning that it took us a little while to get our first kid, you know, got you through that difficulty. because when people are struggling with infertility, you know, I've seen it, it really can drive you crazy. So that's all great news. In terms of the mortadella, I'm actually trying to remember, I think it might be the pistachio kind. I agree the pistachio kind is better.

I'm just trying to remember because, you know, we're not in New York anymore, so we've got to get the packaged stuff. But it's a decent packaged mortadella. And then on the Stoge's, I usually just out of having, how much. I usually have a cigar when the kids are asleep because that's the only time I get to sit outside and do some work or read a book. And that's usually when I would have a cigar. So it's usually when they're napping or in bed. But I don't hide the cigars from them. I've had cigars with them. Not like they're not smoking. You know, they're a little bit too young. But if we're, you know, if we're sitting outside or if I'm, we're going for a walk or something, I might have a cigar. I don't hide it. I don't, as you say, I don't think it's anything to be ashamed of. You know, if I were like chain smoking cigarettes and it were an repetitive kind of action. then you might not want to do that. But they're aware of that. You know, they see this cigar. I've got cigar boxes all over the house. They put their little cars in different boxes, little Mayflower boxes and things like that. So, yeah, I don't, I don't think it's anything to hide from them. And then my children will say, they say, they does. That's your cigar. I'll say, that is my cigar.

I'll say, but I can't have that. I'm too young. I said, that's right. You are too young. Yeah, not until we're older. And then sometimes this is really, this makes my heart just, you know, beat out of my chest. someday we can have one together when I'm grown up and I say yes we can buddy same thing with wine if I'm having a glass of wine and say dada is that wine I say yeah it is wine say oh dayda I can't have that I'm too young you are too young that's right but someday when I'm grown up we can have a glass together I said that we absolutely can buddy you're right love that it's a beautiful thing so they kind of get it I don't I don't see my toddlers busting into my humidore next question

good morning Michael Knowles I have been thinking about if As Christians, there are Bible verses and explicitly New Testament Bible verses we can use to justify utilizing political power to wield the state's power of the sort to compel non-Christians to do what is right. One such example would be creating and enforcing laws that compel people to take such actions. Thank you for your help. Have a good weekend. Yeah, you can point to that in the Bible, but it's not, you don't even really need the Bible to do that. You know, obviously, St. Paul says that the civil authority does not bear the sword in vain, and that the civil authority is therefore our good. So that would be a verse of the Bible.

Our Lord says, give to Caesar what is Caesar's, and give to God what is gods. But when you say, you know, can we as Christians wield the state to make non-Christians do good things, you don't really need to bring the Bible or religion into that at all. That's just a question of justice. Really the question is just, can we do politics? You know, can we be in political power and enact ordinances of justice, namely laws, and then enforce them? But yes, of course we can. And, you know, that's just what politics is. Politics is an enactment of justice.

Law is an ordinance of reason. It's not an ordinance of revelation necessarily. It's an ordinance of reason for the common good. by him who has care of the community and promulgated. So, you know, you don't, you really don't need to bring in revelation at all there. I mean, if you're asking me, should Christians wield the power of the state to force people to convert to Christianity or something? Certainly not. I mean, that's never been the position of the church.

There have only been a couple of times in history when that's even really happened. I'm thinking of Charlemagne and the Spanish Inquisition. And even when it comes to Charlemagne, his theological advisor, Alquin of York, told him not to do that, that you really can't compel people to be baptized. That's not how it works. But other than that, I don't even think that's really what you're asking. I think you're just saying, can the state wield its authority to encourage people to do good and discourage people from doing bad?

Yeah, that's just the law. That's just what justice is. You can, you know, take your particular religious views out of it. Next question. Hi, Michael. I wanted to leave a message. I'm not sure if you can play this. I'm in my 50s. This is about abortion. I'm in my 50s. So when I was 41, I got pregnant and this is embarrassing, but I was addicted to drugs. And my doctor said, how dare you bring? a baby into this world when you're addicted to drugs. It's going to be damaged or neurologically damaged. And I felt so bad, he was so angry. So I asked if I could go to detox. And he said that

that was out of his purview. So I got really upset and I had an abortion. But when I had the worship, I told the doctor that I wanted to stay awake. And he thought that was crazy, but he said, okay. And he said, why? And I said, so I never do this again. And I was awake for the whole thing. And I think, and there was a red medical trash can. And I watched him throw my baby in the trash and it was the most painful experience of my life and there were you know they heard you into this waiting room and they shut the door and you can't go out you have to go through the procedure room and all the girls there were really young and they were crying they were crying and the place put boxes of tissue out out and now I look back and how disgusting that was, that they knew how hard it was and they put boxes of tissue out. Anyway, so now I'm older and I could never have children again and I don't have grandchildren. So people don't tell you about that, that you regret not having grandchildren.

Okay, that's it. Thank you. Oh, man, really, really sorry to hear all of that. from the horrible advice from the doctor to the drug addiction to this awful decision to, you know, all of it. So even your sense that you knew it was so wrong. That's why you, you know, stayed awake during it. Really just totally heart-wrenching to then even the notion of in the waiting room, all these girls are crying.

Why are they crying? It's not tears of joy, obviously. It's just so, so dark. There was no question in your story. I appreciate your telling us that. If there were a question of, you know, what do I do or how do I think about it, I would recommend sacramental confession would be my spiritual recommendation here, since, you know, there's nothing that God can't forgive if you're seeking forgiveness.

And, you know, if one were to look at all for the kind of silver lining in the stormclad, I think it's this. What you've just told to a lot of people, many, many people listening to this show on the podcast, on YouTube, on terrestrial radio and all over the world even, a lot of people haven't heard that. A lot of people don't hear that part. They hear about how it's abortion's freedom and you're going to feel really great and you need this. Oprah's going to tell you this is the American dream. That's the American. It sounds like an American nightmare to me.

And this is the sort of thing, as you say, so gravely damaged your life to. say nothing about the life of your child. And there's a van pushing this at the DNC. This is the side that you're not going to hear. The liberals want to talk about banning books and suppressing information. They're suppressing a lot of this information, aren't they? So at the very least, I think it's very helpful to others as a warning. So thank you for that. Okay, that's our show. We've got a lot more coming up. The Membrum Segmentum is here. I'm Michael Noles. It's the Michael a little show. Republicans or Nazis.

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