The Michael Knowles Show - Ep. 212 - Anti-Social Media

Episode Date: September 5, 2018

Social media CEOs head to Capitol Hill and promise censorship to their political overlords. Alex Jones makes a good point, the health benefits of “friending” God, and Pope Francis tells his critics to shut up. Geoffrey Owens explains the value of work, and the First Continental Congress convenes on This Day In History. Oh, how the legislature has fallen... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Social media CEOs head to Capitol Hill and promise censorship to their political overlords. We will analyze the sniveling testimony. Then, Alex Jones, shirtless vitamin salesman, actually makes a good point. Scientists extoll the health benefits of friending God, and Pope Francis tells his critics to shut up. In today's This Is America segment, Cosby Show actor Jeffrey Owens explains the value of work. Finally, on this day in history, the first session of the Continental Congress convenes without Kamala Harris shrieking even one time. We will analyze the unpleasant reason for our government's dysfunction. Spoiler alert, it is not in our stars, but in ourselves.

Sad. I'm Michael Knowles, and this is the Michael Knowles Show. I sat through all of that testimony just for you. I listened to Jack Dorsey, spout, sniveling little line after line, just for you. The Kavanaugh hearing, all of it. What I do for you, people, because I love you so much. Before we get to all of that awful testimony and so much more today, we have got to thank ZipRecruiter. See, I'm about to do even more for you. ZipRecruiter, you know about

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This was really frustrating. I actually have some pity for Jack Dorsey here. I think Jack Dorsey, he's not a crazed leftist. He's not really an activist. He seems to have the entire world angry with him right now. At first, it looked like Jack Dorsey of Twitter was going to resist calls for censorship. He was saying, no, we're not going to censor Alex Jones.

No, we're not going to censor this guy. No, we're not going to censor that. guy. And then he caved. He totally caved without any explanation. And there's shadow banning going on at that company. We know there's shadow banning. There are actually reports that before this testimony, suddenly, magically, all of those shadow bans were lifted because there are services where you can check it. So they're aware of this. This bias runs deep. Jack Dorsey admitted that his company has a left-wing bias when he was talking to Brian Stelter a couple weeks ago on CNN. I know that nobody watches CNN, but I watch it for you so that I can explain these insightful moments

like when Jack Dorsey admits his own bias. But I want to take you through his testimony, line by line. He sounds almost as though he's serious and unbiased and willing to take action. And when you actually parse the wording, you realize it's exactly the opposite. So here's Jack Dorsey. In any public space, you'll find inspired ideas and you'll find lies and deception. people who want to help others in unify and people who want to hurt others and themselves and divide. What separates a physical and digital public space is greater accessibility and velocity.

We're extremely proud of helping to increase the accessibility and velocity of a simple, free, and open exchange. We believe people will learn faster by being exposed to a wide range of a pace. opinions and ideas, and it helps make our nation and the world feel a little bit smaller. Now, listen to those words, because this all sounds great, doesn't it? Simple, free, open exchange of ideas. That's what all of these tech companies are saying they are. We are an open platform. We're not publishers. We're not activists. We're not a campaign organization. This is a very important distinction because if the tech companies are publishers, then they're going to be liable for all of the copyright violations that are uploaded to them.

They're going to be liable for some of their campaign work. If they're seen to be punishing certain candidates, helping out other candidates, that could be an in-kind donation. That could lead to campaign finance questions. So he's very, very clear. He says, this is about an open, simple exchange of ideas. Just like we have the public square, we also have the digital public square. And that is what Twitter is.

And by the way, for anyone who's ever visited public squares, crazy people go to public squares and shout a bunch of nonsense. That's fine. That's what happens. That's called the free and open exchange of ideas. So that's how he sets us up. All sounds great, Jack. Tell us more.

We are proud of how that free and open exchange has been weaponized and used to distract and divide people. And our nation. We found ourselves unprepared and ill-equipped for the immensity of the problems that we've acknowledged. What? Excuse me? You'll notice that word weaponized. This is the line that the left used.

uses a lot now when they say, they say, I really like free speech, but, and then they negate everything that came before the but. They use the word weaponized. But if free speech is a good thing, then weaponizing free speech is also a good thing, right? If it's a good, it doesn't, weaponizing, how do you weaponize a good thing? To weaponize it, right, is to use it against your adversaries and against your opponents. But that's the purpose of free speech. That's not perverting the nature of free speech. That's not distorting it. That's actually using free speech for its intended purpose. The whole, The whole reason that we have a public square is so that we can exchange ideas that we disagree with.

He says we want the open, simple exchange of ideas. Well, if you're exchanging ideas, presumably that exchange is not going to be of ideas that are exactly the same. Then you're not exchanging anything. There's no trade going on at all. You're just a chorus. But when you have an exchange, then you are using language, you're using words to convey ideas that oppose other people's ideas.

Now, you can call that weaponizing them, but that's the exact purpose of free speech. All of politics, politics comes down at its most essential core to meaningful speech, to people who use speech to convince their other countrymen or their citizens or whatever of one policy or another policy, to influence them in one way or the other, to persuade them, to convince them that one course of action is better than another course of action. to call it weaponizing is just to say, I really support free speech, but I hate when free speech is used as free speech. That's what he's saying. Go on, Jack. Abuse, harassment, troll armies, propaganda through bots and human coordination, misinformation campaigns, and divisive filter bubbles. That's not a healthy public square. Worse, a relatively small number of bad faith actors were able to game Twitter. to have an outsized impact.

Okay, so let's just use the word propaganda to begin. He says, propaganda is infiltrating the public square. Propaganda is the essence of the public square. Propaganda is making an argument for just one side of the dispute. So if you say, well, Fox News is propaganda. Fox News is not their news programming, but their commentary programming. That's propaganda for a conservative point of view. Sure, some of it might be, but MSNBC is propaganda for a left-wing point of view.

I don't say that Rachel Maddow can't have her free speech. I mean, what would happen to my show if I said Rachel Maddow isn't entitled to her free speech? But likewise, I don't say Sean Hannity isn't entitled to his. What is propaganda? Propaganda is a one-sided argument. It's a one-sided point of view of a political issue. So that exists there. I also love that he says that people and robots and robots under human control

are infiltrating the public square. What are those robots that aren't under human control? What are those guys doing there? I actually do think that we should maybe attack them. We need to weaponize weapons against the robots who have broken free and are attacking us. But as for the robots that are being controlled by humans, and by that we just mean humans who are using technology

to convince people of their own political goals, which is what we're all doing when we use computers or cell phones or this show or anything, that isn't some nefarious turn of events or innovation. That is what these platforms were built for. So again, he's just constantly using. He says, I love free speech, but I hate what free speech is used for, and I hate when it is used and how it is used,

and through what media it is used. Go on, Jack. We're now removing over 200% more accounts for violating our policies. We're identifying and challenging 8 to 10 million suspicious accounts every week, and we're thwarting over half million accounts from logging in to Twitter every single day. We've learned from 2016 and more recently from other nations' elections

how to protect the integrity of elections. Better tools, stronger policy, and new partnerships are already in place. What integrity of elections? What integrity of elections is being threatened here? Is Twitter being used to go in and change voting machines? Is Twitter being used to go in and disrupt buses and stop people from getting?

getting to the polls is that? No, of course not. What Twitter is the public square. It's not the voting machine. It's not the ballot counter. It's not the car that takes you to the polls. It's a public square. So when we're talking about interfering in elections, what you're really talking about, as you've been talking the whole time, is political speech. It's saying, now people are using Twitter for political speech. That's the whole purpose of it. I thought free speech was the whole point, the open exchange of ideas in a public forum. So yes, they are doing that. Listen to how he says he's fixing this. He's saying that his answer, his way to fix the problems with Twitter, which are censorship and shadow banning and treating conservatives unfairly and artificially boosting

left-wing views, the way he's combating that is banning 200% more people, is questioning 8 to 10 million accounts, is regularly preventing half a million accounts from logging on. He's saying our way, because Twitter is supposed to be an open public square for the free exchange of ideas. And something has gone wrong in that. So the way we're going to make it open and free and keep exchanging ideas is booting off millions and millions of people and harassing them and making it harder to use the service. That's his set of solutions. That's what he thinks is going to help. Is there any more, Jack? Do you have anything more to say? Oh, that's all. We'll have to, it'll have to. It goes on and on and on. I guess we can cut it there because it's more of the same.

It's all more of the same. He's totally wrong here. When I was watching this testimony, it was so clear that the problem with Twitter is not that conservatives have points of view. It's not that foreign people are on Twitter. It's an international platform. It's not only Americans. You can't say that we're colluding with other people, other nations, whatever, people are able to have an open exchange of ideas. It's not that there's too much of that. The main problem with Twitter is censorship. And I'll explain how we can fix that in just one second. Before I do that, though, while I was watching Jack Dorsey this morning sitting in my bathrobe, so frustrated at my kitchen table, the only thing that was able to calm me down, make me feel better, was my delicious black rifle coffee. And the black rifle coffee goes very well, by the way, in the Leftist Tears Tumblr.

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The solution that he proposes is the problem. Transparency is another problem. But that is the problem. I was recently rereading an essay or a speech, I suppose, by John Milton. He's the guy who wrote Paradise Lost. And it's called the Aereopagitica. And it is one of the greatest defenses of free speech ever. He gave it before Parliament.

and it is this resounding defense of free speech. I'm seriously considering posting all 19,000 or 20,000 words of the Aereopagitica to Twitter, tweet by tweet, because there is a total misunderstanding and lack of appreciation of the free exchange of ideas and free speech. And what makes this testimony so Orwellian is the whole introduction is how this we want Twitter to be a free open platform, a free open platform. BS, pal, clearly not, because all the rest of your testimony, negated that. The reason they're so insistent on this is because they don't want to get regulated like publishers. They don't want to

get regulated like political actors. They don't want to get regulated out of business. But you've got to live up to what your platform is supposed to be, what it was founded to be. Because coincidentally, while all of this was happening, we witnessed the biggest one-day drop in tech stocks in

months. It dragged the NASDAQ down. It hit Twitter especially hard. Twitter was down 5.2%. Google's down 1.7. at the highest. I think they've rebounded a little by now. And by the way, I'm not saying that this is caused by the testimony. We're not even sure if the testimony is priced into this yet, but certainly it is the case that all of the scandals that have plagued big tech in recent months, all of which, by the way, are related to how freely information is exchanged. The privacy issues,

the censorship issues, the shadowbany, all of that creates uncertainty in text stocks because the tech stocks are not doing what they're supposed to do. Either Twitter is going to be an open platform and it's going to be Twitter or there won't be Twitter. It's not going to be something else. The left always goes in and perverts these institutions. Either Twitter will do what it does or there won't be a Twitter. It will just disappear. And we know this by the way. Look at the decline in users. So a new study came out from Pew Research. 42% of Facebook users have taken a break from the platform in the

past year. Forty-two percent. That is a shocking amount. I mean, I use it all the time. Obviously, we broadcast on these platforms. These platforms have given conservatives such an opportunity. That's why the left is so angry. That's why the left is pressuring them to censor all of us, because it's given us such an opportunity to get our views out, unvarnished to the American people. You know, for decades and decades and decades, the mainstream media had this awful monopoly. They controlled the point of view. A conservative could never get his point of view out to the people. it would only be seen through a perverted and distorted narrative lens of the mainstream media. We crashed that because of social media.

Now they're trying to take it back. That's why they're so furious. This is why Trump has got to keep tweeting. I know there's the conservative sent the sort of conservative aristocratic. Oh no, pishpaw, she shouldn't tweet. Take the phone away. No, the phone's the whole thing. I'm here for the phone.

Keep tweeting. Tweeting is the way that we're able to get our message out unvarnished. In the case of President Trump, it's very unvarnished. It's very. It's not really polished up at all. But that's fine. You're getting that point of view across. In the last year,

54% of Facebook users have adjusted their privacy settings. Over a quarter of Facebook users in the past year, a quarter, 26% have deleted the app from their phone. And Facebook's a mobile platform now. People use it on mobile

much more than they use it on desktop. 26% have deleted the app from their phone. That is a shocking, number. And it gets even more shocking because it's specifically among young people who've done it. That number, when you look at just 18 to 29 year old Facebook users, 44% have deleted the app from their phone. That is a terrifying number for Facebook because I think the number is only 12% have deleted it from their phone for 65 and over, but of that young group, it's so high. Why is it? Because there's no transparency because these big tech companies have abused privacy

settings. They've used data dishonestly. And because they are censority. half of their audience. They're saying, no, you can't, nope, this isn't fair. When people don't play by the rules, we get very sick of it, we tune out. It's all about trust. It's all about, do we trust these companies? Now, I don't want to harp on this too much, because we could talk about social media all day. I'm sure there's going to be fallout from this.

Before we move on, I do have to get to the best part of all of the hearings. Mr. Jones, take it away. It's happening here, but you say I don't exist. Is that a heckler? Look at this guy. He's saying that I don't exist. You're not from doing you are. I just don't know who you are, man.

I don't really your website. Sure. Sure. And they demonize me in these very hearings. And then he plays dumb. InfoWords.com, you know what it is. Oh, well. Does Google?

Does Facebook? That's why you didn't get elected to be a snake like. Do they need to be wrecked? A little friend boy here. All right, man. Yeah. Who are you, man? Yeah, sure.

I swear to God, I'm going to be platforming. Tens of billions of views. Info Wars. Better than Rex Limbaugh. He knows who Info Wars is. Play of this joke over here. That's why the deep platforming didn't work. But here's the question. Don't touch me again, man. I'm asking you not to touch me.

Well, sure, I just patted you nicely. I know, but I don't want to be. I don't know who you are. It's not just going to take my first amendment. It's not just enough to take my first amendment. Oh, oh, he'll beat me up. Did you? I didn't say that. He didn't do my end.

You're not going to silence me. You're not going to silence America. You are like, you are literally like a little gangster thug. There are people in this country. Rubio is threatened to physically take care of me. So there is so much here. If you couldn't hear that, that would be Mr. Marco Rubio and Alex Jones comes into this little press gaggle and just starts getting right in Rubio's face. There's a big debate happening right now over how Rubio handled this.

I got to say, I think he could have handled it better. I don't think this was the best way. If Alex Jones gets up in your face, starts screaming at you, you're at a hearing about big tech censorship of people. Alex Jones is one of the big faces of tech censoring people on the right. I use the term the right broadly because Alex Jones probably wouldn't be considered a conservative or call himself a conservative. He's a little more out there than that. But certainly he does fall broadly within the right. There is no way that Marco Rubio doesn't know who he is. Of course Marco Rubio knows who he is. Everybody knows who he is. He's on TV all the time because Alex Jones, as you saw in that clip, is very good at making a spectacle.

So, of course he does. I just felt like this is the kind of classic politician response. say, oh, I haven't seen that. Whenever there's a damaging video or somebody does a hit piece or does a damaging advertisement or something, they would say, oh, I haven't seen it. I've heard about it, but I haven't seen it. And they deny it and they deny it. But that's not credible here. And then Marco Rubio says, I swear to God, I don't know who you are. Which is, I think for a lot of listeners, a little jarring, because we all know that Marco Rubio knows who Alex Jones is. So when you say, I swear to God, you're saying, what are you doing here? What is the game that you're playing? and also Alex Jones isn't going to take that for an answer

and I'll show you how this ends up to give you a recap on Alex Jones's media strategy here is the rest of that altercation the Democrats are raping info wars what's the difference between you know misinformation from abroad and differences of opinion within the United States is a very fine line and that's something we need to be careful about we don't overreach in that direction

but then he doesn't know about the top of the news story in the country not just how they how they apply that within the United States InfoWords.com, bigger than ever. But they don't become agents of authoritarian regimes abroad to crack down on free speech. Because... I wonder why Rubio got so mad at me. There's a balance between what is free speech and what people disagree on. Poor Rubio.

I've got to go to the committee. You guys can talk to this clown. Oh, yeah. Looks a little frat boy. So cool. Go back to your bathhouse. Go back to your bathhouse. He says, I mean, it's just...

So what this... I pity Marco Rubio here because, you know, what was he going to do in this situation? But I think what he did was just leave at the end, right? He said, okay, I'm leaving my little press gaggle and you guys can talk to Alex Jones. I'm getting out of here because it was so awkward. It was not making good video. It didn't look good. He should have done that the second he saw Alex Jones from down the hallway.

So like, nope, Nadia, see ya. You can't win an altercation with Alex Jones. That's not going to happen. Alex Jones creates spectacle. There is no way to win that. There's no way to look cool doing that. Denying that you know who he is, trying to laugh at him, trying to get in his face,

trying to threaten him, whatever. It doesn't work. The guy is immune to it. They're turning the frogs gay, you know? I mean, it's really... So I think he should have just walked away sooner. If you get down into a fight with Alex Jones, you can't leave it looking good.

You can't lay... This is true of a lot of people in politics, but you can't leave it looking good. When it's a lose, lose, lose, get out of there. He should have done it sooner, but I do have some sympathy for Marco Rubio. Alex Jones, regardless of whether they're turning the Frogs Gay or any, you know, conspiracy theories of Alex Joneses, you've got to give the guy credit because he's so compelling on camera. He's so entertaining. We've got more, because, and by the way, Alex Jones makes

a very good point in the midst of all this chaos. But before we do that, I've got to thank Bowling Branch. The Bowling Branch sheets, you know, I've talked about this. I got married recently. This was a nice little wedding gift to myself. I actually bought another set of these. They're so good. Bowling brand sheets are like you're sleeping at the nicest hotel ever. You know that obviously Ben hasn't paid me for my work here and ever, but one of the perks is when we're traveling. I get to stay at a nice hotel. You know, occasionally they don't put me in the doghouse. Sleeping on Bowling branch sheets are like the nicest sheets at the nicest hotel, and you can get them every single night. I didn't realize this. Expensive sheets. Really,

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Shipping is free. You can try them for 30 nights. If you don't love them, send them back, but you will not want to send them back. They're great. There's no risk, no reason not to give them a try. And if you are a real cheap skate, get a good night's sleep for 30 nights. Go to Bolinbranch.com, promo code,

Michael, M-I-C-H-A-E-L, you will get 50 bucks off your first set of sheets. Don't say I never did nothing for you. Bull and branch.com today for $50 off your first set of sheets. B-O-L-L-L-L-Branch.com, promo code Michael. So in the midst of all of this, in the bathhouse comments and the bullying, whatever, you know, Alex Jones is doing, he actually made a good point. He made a good point at a separate moment when he was addressing the press. Here is Alex Jones actually making a compelling statement, much more compelling than

what Jack Dorsey was saying. I'm going to say why I'm here. Say sorry to the Sandy Hood parents, Alex. I am here because there is a concerted effort by the Democratic Party and multinational corporations in big tech to silence conservative and nationalist and populist voices ahead of this critical midterm election. And the big tech companies and the head of Apple admit that they met with Senator Warner who's running this whole thing to begin shutting down conservatives or the Democrats threatened to federalize big tech. if they did not basically roll over to him. That's a great point.

He is making a great point right there, which is that there is a concerted effort by not just the left in America, but the sort of transnational, you know, world federalist, a European Union, UN, Kumbaya, chorus crowd, which includes multinational corporations, to stamp down voices, to tamp down threads of nationalism, of patriotism, of conservatism,

trying to tamp those down because it doesn't go along with the political order that they think is inevitable. That is 100% correct. We're going to be speaking to the political philosopher, Yoram Hazzoni, about this

a little later. I think we'll air that interview next week. But that is a very good point. And he's right about Mark Warner too. Mark Warner submitted his proposals for what he was going to do to Big Tech if Big Tech didn't go around

and start censoring voices that Mark Warner doesn't like. And part of that was we're going to regulate you into the ground. We're going to federalize you. We're going to this, that, and the other thing. This is actually a really good point. It makes me go back and forth on Jones, which is if he can make a good point like this in between talking about the gay frogs, like maybe he should just do that. Maybe he should do that instead of just screaming in Marka Rubia's face and creating a spectacle. I don't know. I certainly prefer the spectacle because it's a lot more funny and interesting to watch. But this is a really

important point, and it does get to the core of our debate over nationalism today and what the role of companies are in a country, but we'll get to that a little bit later. So all of big tech is really floundering right now. Just look at the stock market, and if you can't look at the stock market, look at the user numbers, look at Facebook losing daily users for the first time ever, just this year. Same thing with Twitter. Same thing happened for monthly users with Twitter. One of the solutions for this is a study that just came out of the

University of Michigan, which is that we need to friend God. That was the headline. You need to friend God, like you're friending him on Facebook, but friend God in real life. And it's a kind of cheap headline. You know, it's a little kitschy or something. But I

really do like the point because what the study found is that religious people have a stronger sense of belonging and purpose in life. Of course, this is true. If you live in the modern materialist nihilist worldview, that everything is just a big cosmic accident, it's a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

The only even plausible purpose of life is to pleasure yourself until you die. If that's your point of view, you're not going to have a sense of purpose because that worldview precludes the possibility of a sense of purpose. If you believe in God, particularly the Judeo-Christian version of God,

then you're going to feel a real sense of purpose. if you have theistic religion you're going to feel purpose because there is a purpose. There's a teleology. This is true even if you were living around in Old Uncle Aristotle's Day, that there was a purpose to life, a purpose to do the good to pursue virtues, which is totally missing in that materialist point of view. So that makes a lot of sense. The study also found that friendless people, people who don't have a lot of friends or don't have a big social circle, are more likely to lack direction and struggle with meaning. Fair enough. I mean, this is true.

everybody goes through this at a certain point of life. They feel a little lonely. Not all the time, but some of you go through a period and you say, I'm a little lonely right now. I don't know, whatever, maybe later you've got a big social circle. And when you're lonely, when you're isolated, when you don't have a lot of human contact, then you can kind of get lost in your own head

and get lost in what your sense of purpose is in the world. So what the lead author of this study, Todd Chan, says, is that for the socially disconnected, God may serve as a substitute relationship that compensates for some of the purpose the human relationships would normally provide. this is where it goes totally wrong. Because it is true.

For people who lack substantive social relationships with human beings, God can help them. God can also help people who do have a lot of friends in the real world, in the physical world. God can help people who've got some friends and not others and who have good work friends and this and that and the other thing. It isn't a substitute relationship. Your relationship with God is the foundational relationship.

So I think what the authors of the study are saying is if you don't have any friends, make an imaginary friend, a big guy in the sky with a beard. But that isn't what God is at all. God is the foundation of those relationships. God is the basis of all meaningful speech. God is the basis of our consciousness. And if you've got a good relationship with God,

you're going to have a better relationship with your friends. If you have a good relationship with God, you're going to have a better relationship with your spouse, or your boyfriend or girlfriend. That is the root. People get this totally backwards in the world because they think that the tangible is what is ultimate. The physical is what is ultimately true. But that isn't the case. This is a very

modern idea and it's very mistaken. The tangible is a metaphor for the foundational things, which are metaphysical. Our relationships with our friends are in many ways substitutes for our relationship with God, or are there at least augmentations of that or their ancillary to that. So I wish they got that right, but it's very, very true. I've got to say about it's Facebook and YouTube. We have a lot more to talk about speaking of God. We have to talk about Pope Francis's new response to his critics, not terribly polite. And it's two words and they're not happy birthday. They're shut up. That's what the words. So what were you thinking? We also have to talk, we have a great, this day in America and this day, or this is America and this day in history. But you watch

Jack Dorsey today. You watched, you watch the Kavanaugh hearings yesterday and today. You know what you need. I don't need to tell you. If you go to dailywire.com, you'll get me the Andrew Claven Show, the Ben Shapiro show. You get to ask questions in the mailbag that's coming up tomorrow, get them in. You'll get to ask questions in the conversation. Yeah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I don't know. I'm not one for mixing spirits.

You know, beer before liquor, you'll never be sicker. Liquor before beer. You're all in the clear. But do you put salty leftist tears from Kavanaugh's hearing before the salty leftist tears from Jack Dorsey's hearing? Or do you have the salty leftist big tech tears before you have? It's very complicated. and you could get sick.

Make sure you get this important tumbler, throw some ice cubes in, splash it around, strain it in a martini glass, nice and chilled, throw an olive in there for good measure. You're going to have a delicious cocktail. Go to Dailywire.com.

We'll be right back with a lot more. That does sound delicious, doesn't? I'm getting the shakes already just thinking about my delicious Cavanaugh-Hourine later. Yum, yum, yum. So, speaking of God,

Pope Francis is finally answering some of his critics. He previously said, in response to Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano's testimony that he was complicit in covering up some clerical abuse of seminarians, he said, I will not say one word on it. Well, now Pope Francis is saying more than one word on it. He said, quote, with people who lack goodwill, with people who seek only scandal, who seek only division,

who seek only destruction, even within the family, there is nothing to do, in brackets, but silence and prayer. May the Lord give. us the grace to discern when we should speak and when we should stay silent. Oh my gosh. This is the, he was much better when he was saying, I'm not going to answer my critics. He was, this was a, that was a much more satisfying answer than saying, shut up. I mean, because that's what this amounts to be saying, shut up. That is his answer.

This is utterly unacceptable. This is a totally unacceptable answer from the pontiff. And this is really amazing because from the beginning, you've had people who are not Catholic, who are not Christian in the mainstream media, talking about how wonderful the Francis Pontific it is. Oh, he's so much better than that old Benedict. Benedict, he was German, and we don't like Germans or whatever they were saying.

And now we see a serious, incredible charge of corruption at the highest levels of the Vatican all the way up to the papacy. We didn't see these charges under Pope Benedict. Now we're seeing this at the highest levels. And what is Pope Francis saying? Is it this humble, I'm sorry, this is, okay, I'm going to answer. No, it's shut up. That's the answer we're getting. This is totally unacceptable and people need to be held to account. And I'm telling you, the bishops are not going to get away with this. They're not going to get away with saying, oh, that's okay, it'll blow over, it'll blow over, it won't blow over. The Catholic laity in particular, because we're the ones who donate to the bishop's appeal and to all of the Catholic relief services, Catholic charities, everything connected with the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, which actually in this case has acted well enough to say there needs to be an investigation and this needs to be taken seriously. We should not give

a penny, not a penny to any of those things. We can give to our churches, don't give to any of those bishop's appeals or any of those bishop charities until answers are given, until heads roll, corrupt prelates get out of here. I mean, Christ talks very clearly about what should happen to those prelates who cause the least of his flock to sin, and it's that they should have a, it would be better for them if they had a millstone tied around their neck and were cast into the bottom of the sea. We should demand accountability, and this answer is just not acceptable. Moving on, as I'll try to, I try to be measured when I'm talking about these ecclesial things, but it's just unbelievable. This is a good way to feel better after watching big tech implode, after watching

our government implode, after watching the Catholic Church, not taking responsibility for anything. This is very lovely. Jeffrey Jones. Jeffrey Jones, was a regular character in the latter seasons of the Cosby Show. And he was always a good actor there. And so last week, some wacko girl took photos of him at Trader Joe's. He was working at a Trader Joe's. And she spread it. It was in the Daily Mail.

It was going all over the place. So they're shaming this guy for working an honest job. This is a totally honest job. Working at a store is a great thing. He's contributing to his family. I know a lot of actors who don't work jobs. Here is Jeffrey Owens explaining his reaction to it. I think this sums up the best of the American attitude.

I got to a point where, you know, I've been teaching, acting, directing for 30 plus years, but, you know, got to a point where, you know, it just didn't add up enough, you know, and you got to do what you've got to do. I wanted a job that I could have some flexibility, try to stay in the business. I didn't advertise that I was, you know, at Trader Joe's only, but not that I was ashamed of it, but because I didn't want the entertainment community to kind of decide, well, he's doing that. He's not in, you know, he's not pursuing acting anymore. You know what?

This makes perfect sense. This might not make sense to everybody, but having worked as an actor before, you know, this does make sense to me. For those of you who can't see this, by the way, Jeffrey Owens is wearing his Trader Joe's name tag and his Yale hat. He's a Yaleie by alma mater. And he's wearing both of them at the same time. I love this. There is nothing pretentious about this guy.

He's working, as actors have to do, he's working a job in between acting jobs because people who are even professional and working actors are almost never actually working. A lot of the time they're just sitting around waiting or going on auditions or whatever, which doesn't pay a whole lot. Even when you book a gig for the vast majority of actors, it does not pay a whole lot, which is why some of us have to stoop to take jobs. jobs at the Daily Wire and write blank books. And I'm sorry, I was getting lost in my own head. And so he did this. And there's no shame in that. I know actors, I kid you not, who go on the

dole, who take unemployment insurance or they take welfare checks. I have heard professional actors, professional actors who have graduated from Yale refer to the welfare system as the public arts subsidy. No shame. No shame whatsoever about taking their handout from taxpayers because they want to do their art, which doesn't have much demand in the marketplace. That's not what Jeffrey Owens did. Jeffrey Owens, this is America, baby. He said, I'm going to go out, I'm going to pursue my dream. I'm going to pursue this artistic form that I'm good at, that I've worked at a very, very high level in, that I still work at, though, at a, you know, less publicly than I did on this big TV show. I'm going to keep pursuing all of that, that crazy American can do, ambitious, artistic dream,

and I'm going to work hard and I'm going to put money on the table because I have to support my family and I have to be a responsible person. This is the best of America. He explains it even more succinctly. I do want to say this. You know, this business of my being this Cosby guy who got shamed for working at Trader Joe's, that's going to pass. You know what? That's going to, you know, in some measure of time, that's going to pass away. But I hope what doesn't pass is this idea that people are now thinking, this rethinking about what it means to work. You know, the, the, the honor of the working person and the dignity of work. And I hope that this period that we're in now where we have a heightened sensitivity about that and a reevaluation of what it means to work and

that a reevaluation of the idea that some jobs are better than others, because that's actually not true. There is no job that's better than another job. It might pay better. It might have better benefits. It might look better on a resume and on paper. But actually, it's not better. Every job is worthwhile and valuable. And if we have a, you know, a kind of a rethinking about that because of what's happened to me, that would be great. But no one should feel sorry for me. 100% correct. That is so correct. That is so clear. He's making his alma mater proud, baby. I mean, that is so right. What a, what a terrifically accurate American idea and sense of work. Adam in the garden was told to work.

Before the fall, work is not a punishment. In the Garden of Eden, Adam was told to work. It is in our nature, in the best parts of our nature, to work. Work is a good thing. I see this a lot with actors. I've experienced this. Actors get lazy. They just kind of loaf around, they wait for the phone to ring and whatever.

And it's very depressing. When people are out of work, they get depressed. In part, it's because the money isn't coming in. In part, it's because we are made to work. This is why people who retire and then don't do anything in retirement decline very quickly. You have to do something in your retirement. You have to do something with your time. And there is dignity to work. There is no work that is bad. Any job is better than no job. There is no minimum wage. The minimum wage is not $15 an hour or $14 an hour. It's $0 an hour.

That's the true minimum wage. That's the minimum wage that you've got to get out of. You've got to get some job. And there is work, I mean, there is work that pays very well. And there is, you know, as Jeffrey Owens was saying, there's work that pay. far less well. But the actual moral quality of that work is exactly the same. In some cases, the work that pays less well can be more morally gratifying, perhaps, depending on exactly what you're doing. But work being productive, contributing to society, not being a lout or a lazy guy or a criminal or, you know, people who are actually contributing.

That is an unqualified good. And he's, Jeffrey Owens is embodying that. He's articulating it very well, and it's a great thing. These days when actors and Yalys are bringing such shame to their institutions and lines of work in the country, it is so good that one guy who is both of those things is making it, is really making his institutions proud. Very good stuff from Jeffrey Owens. Before we go, I know we're running late. Tough.

We're always running late. I want to talk about this day in history. This day in history in 1774 sheds a lot of light on our present situation. as we are watching the Kavanaugh crazy chaotic hearing the Democrats are turning into a circus as we're watching the big tech testimony as we're watching all of this grandstanding. On this day in history in 1774, the first Continental Congress convened at Carpenter's Hall in Philadelphia. There were 56 delegates there.

Georgia didn't show up, but 56 delegates. Among those were George Washington, John Adams, John Jay, Patrick Henry. Henry, great men, serious men. They created the Continental Association. They didn't quite declare independence. It wasn't time for independence yet. It was in response to the coercive acts, the intolerable acts from Britain. And this was a response, but it was measured. It wasn't radical. It wasn't in some crazy, immediately revolutionary response. They also set a date for the Second Continental Congress in case the first one didn't work and Britain didn't repeal the intolerable acts. These were serious.

men who were going to this First Continental Congress in a way that really threatened their livelihoods, threatened, ultimately would threaten their lives at the second Continental Congress, which was to say we are going to break, we are slowly or

quickly going to break away from domination by Great Britain. And they did this for their country. They did this for their countrymen, for their families, for their states, for the colonies at that time, soon to be states, for human freedom, for

higher ideals, for sovereignty, and they did what they had to do, and it was a real sacrifice. The early Congress, after the Constitution was ratified, the early Congress was paid $6 a day, Congress and the Senate. They had to move it out of New York because

you can't live in New York on $6 a day, as many of them pointed out then. What has changed from then until now? The early Congress convened for less than nine months out of the year, the first Congress. less than nine months out of the year. They went on long recesses.

They didn't want to be in the summer heat. Now Congress is in session virtually all of the time. It's never off. They're flying back and forth constantly, raising a ton of money in their districts. It is a totally professionalized job. The early Congress was part-time work and you're supposed to go and tend to your business interests at home.

Now Congress is a full-time job. What has changed? How did we get from the First Continental Congress of Washington, J. Adams, Henry to the schmucks that are running around the Capitol right now, creating havoc, breaking rules, trying to stop a perfectly admirable Supreme Court justice nominee. How did we get there? Ben Sass sums this up very well during the Kavanaugh Judiciary hearing.

Here's Senator Sass. Because for the last century, and increasing by the decade right now, more and more legislative authority is delegated to the executive branch. every year. Both parties do it. The legislature is impotent. The legislature is weak, and most people here want their jobs more than they really want to do legislative work. And so they punt most of the work to the next branch. Third consequence is that this transfer of power means the people yearn for a place where politics can actually be done. And when we don't do a lot of big actual political debating here, we transfer it to the Supreme Court. And that's why the Supreme Court

is increasingly a substitute political battleground in America. It is not healthy, but it is what happens, and it's something that our founders wouldn't be able to make any sense of. And fourth and finally, we badly need to restore the proper duties and the balance of power from our constitutional system. Absolutely right, a totally correct diagnosis of what's happened in the country. The Congress has given away all of its power to the executive branch, to the executive agencies, to the alphabet soup, CDC, FDA,

ABC, LGBT, I don't know, I'm losing my, I'm losing my initialisms. They've delegated all of that power away so that you have the lawmaking being done out of the executive branch and the reason they do that is, and by the way, in the cases that it's not made by the executive, the people who demand answers to their political questions, put all of the pressure on the judiciary, which is why you get absurdly politicized hearings like the Kavanaugh nomination. The reason that Congress did that is because Congress has to answer to the people. The president has to answer to the electors every four years. The judiciary, the federal judiciary, doesn't answer. They get appointed and they have life terms. And the Congress has to answer.

The Senate every six years, the House every two years. So the House is very, very close to the people. And they fear that they won't be reelected. If they make laws, if they take a stand, if they take any courageous act, they'll be thrown out of office because the people won't understand that you have to do hard things, and so they get rid of that. It is easy just to blame Congress as an institution. I'm happy to do it a lot of the time. The Congress is us. The Congress is us. We did this. The American people did this. The Congress reflects the American people. It is the branch of the government that is most closely related to the people that is supposed to reflect the political appetites of the people. If there's the logos, the pathos, and the ethos,

the logos, the logical part of the government is supposed to be the judiciary. the ethos, the spirited part of the government is the executive, and the pathos, the appetite, the feeling of the government is supposed to be the Congress, the legislature. And our feeling has become weak and immature, and the American people are given way to base passions and irresponsibility and recklessness. It's so easy.

We do this all the time in politics. We complain about this on Twitter. This is one of the big aspects of social media censorship. As they're saying, it's too mean. People are being too mean to each other, blaming everyone else for their problems. It was the Russians. It was the Macedonians. It was this, it was that. No, it was you. Look at the man in the mirror. It is you. Before you pluck that little speck out of your brother's eye, pull that big giant tweet out of your own eye, that big

iPhone out of your own eye. It is your fault. You are doing it. The way to improve the country, the way to improve the politics and to improve the public square and to improve our government is to improve yourself, to be more virtuous, to be better educated, to be more curious, to be be more civil, to be more humble, to have therefore more wisdom. That's what you can do. It's not about yelling in people's faces. It's not about blaming this guy or that guy or that guy. You can do that too. You can do, I mean, these people that Congress does reflect us, so we should hold them accountable. We're, but we need to make sure that we are capable of self-government. And the more and more that we fall into this cycle of irresponsibility and blaming and, and,

bad education and misinformation, the less able we are going to be to control that government. So take a look at the man in the mirror, huh? I don't know that I've ever ended a show quoting Michael Jackson, but I didn't think that was how the show was going to end today. But take a look at the man in the mirror. Come back tomorrow so that we can do the mailbag, get your mailback questions, and in the meantime, I'm Michael Knowles. This is the Michael Knowles show.

I'll see you tomorrow. The Michael Knowles Show is produced by Sennia Villa Real, executive producer Jeremy Borey, Senior producer Jonathan Hay. Our supervising producer, Mathis Glover. And our technical producer is Austin Stevens. Edited by Jim Nickel. Audio is mixed by Mike Coramina. Hair and makeup is by Jesua Olvera.

The Michael Knoll Show is a Daily Wire Forward Publishing Production. Copyright Forward Publishing, 2018.