The Michael Knowles Show - YES or NO with Matt Fradd | Real Answers and Real Drinks

Episode Date: March 26, 2023

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It is perfectly acceptable to abandon your wife and children on a weekend to do a four-hour podcast with a couple of dudes while enjoying cigars and whiskey. Of course it is, or we wouldn't have done it. Who would suggest otherwise? Welcome back to another exciting episode of the yes or no game. We have a very, very special guest this week. But first, you ever just want to be me? You ever just look over there and you say, man, I want to be the.

that guy play in that game. Well, now you can. When you go to DailyWire.com slash shop, you can get yes or no the game you can play with your family, with your friends, multiple players, figure out who knows whom best. You can order that now.

We sold out. We had an initial run of a thousand copies in this game. It sold out instantly, long before Christmas. Now is your chance to pre-order. We've ordered thousands more copies. They are all going to sell out. So make sure you pre-orderdailywire.com slash shop. Now, this game is a real special mash-up

because this game is usually martini's with Michael. It will be mashed up with Pines with Aquinas. And my friend Matt Frad, Matt, thank you for coming on the show. Thank you for having me. So you are a very well-known Catholic podcaster, and people might be wondering why my martini looks so strange. It is because it is the Lenton season, and I've decided this Lent, I'm going to, for the first time in my life,

since I was 18, I'm going to try to reduce the booze intake. And so you are going to have to drink enough for the two of us. Okay. You have a flight to miss, so don't worry. We've got plenty of cards for that. All right. Usually we begin, if it's a woman playing, I let the lady go first. You're a man, so I will go first.

And then you have to guess how I would answer the question. And then you move my drink, which is a delicious fruity spindrift. Would be much harder to give up than the booze, frankly. It's so delightful. that's like millennial ambrosia. You will move that to where you think, I would guess, I will move yours to where I think. You would guess, and then we find out.

If you lose, you have to drink. If you win, you get to drink. First question. Star Wars, Harry Potter, and the Lord of the Rings are all basically the same. Okay, so I would hope that you would say no. and I

likewise would assume you would say no No Lord of the Rings It depends what you mean by basically If I basically you mean Is it a story Well then yes it's basically the same Do nerds really like all of them

Yes But that's where the similarities Yeah is there kind of Messianic components in each Yes But Lord of the Rings is Christian It was written by a very famous Catholic

Tolkien Star Wars is some kind of Sufi vaguely Muslim kind of thing maybe, and Harry Potter is for witches. I started reading Harry Potter on my summer trip, because I've never been terribly convinced by the Christian argument that it's demonic. And I thought it was quite a charming read. But the Lord of the Rings is absolute poetry. I mean... Can I make a confession? Yeah. I got through like 200 pages. Of what?

Lord of the Rings. Wow. For the Hobbit I tried. I went to the movie. I said, I'm going to watch one of the movies. I went to the second movie when it hit theaters. I walked out. They were in the woods for so long. It's so boring. Well, you know what's funny is when I, I remember trying to watch the movies later on in life. And this was after I had become addicted to TV shows like 24. Yeah. Which is incredibly fast-paced. And then I tried watching the Fellowship of the Ring. And I'm like,

what is happening? Why? Where's the clock counting down? This is. I know. No, but the books are amazing. I know. I'm really surprised. I know. I take your word for it. You know it's your problem. I know it's not Tolkien's problem. Yes, that's right. Okay. So I guess we get So this is weird, because, okay. It's hard. I'm not saying it's easy. Cheers. I asked your assistant for the cheapest bourbon imaginable. Do you know what they got? I don't.

Hopefully. All bourbon tastes identical. It's so weird when I have Drew come in. Oh, that's quite nice. Is it? Okay. Maybe I could get behind me. When we have Drew come in, Drew requests scotch. And for him, only the top shelf will do.

With the cigars, only the top shelf will do, you're much more down to earth. Your question. Okay. Gidei is an abomination to the English language and should be thrown out with other terms like prolly, no cap and intersectionality. That's excellent. Wow. Is Gidey an abomination to the English language? Oh no, I have to, do I have to guess for you? You have to guess for me. I think you might say yes. Because it's not, but I don't know. No, I think it's a delightful colloquialism.

I rather like, and when I think of all the other examples, some of which you cited there, but many others as well, I think the day is far from our worst problem. And frankly, these days, if someone is speaking the English language at all, I'm grateful, I'll take what I can get. You've got, even the conservatives here in America are giving their State of the Union response in Spanish. I think, well, there's very little to unite us in America in the broader Anglosphere. It'd be nice to have the same, yeah, basically. Elfish.

It has to have at least a language. But that's a good point. I never heard that argument. Like, if I'm not okay with Prolly, why am I okay with Gide? I think it has a pedigree. It has more of a history, perhaps. Of course. I love etymology.

I'm really into etymology and the development of language. And sometimes, language is going to develop, right? But sometimes it takes a turn that's charming and beautiful and poetic. And sometimes you get bad stuff. No cap, no cap. Real. Okay. So now what?

So now you have to drink. I have to drink. I simply get... You can drink it, if you like, yeah. I'm going to have the shakes by the end of the show, by the way. Usually the shakes go away by the end of the show. Now I'm just going to have the tremors far more. Because you need the alcohol?

I need the good. Right now, go to hallow.com slash knolls. It seems for Lent this year, the Libs are giving up morality and common sense. I think they give that up outside of Lent too. But you don't have to. Choose today to strengthen your faith in spite of this broken world through prayer, meditation, and fasting. join me and thousands of others on Hallow, the number one Christian prayer app in the United States.

As Christians, we are called to abstain from luxuries during Lent and instead more deeply embrace our faith. Hallow is here to help me maintain a daily prayer routine from now until Easter, and it can help you too. Download the app for free at hallow.com slash Knowles, K-N-W-L-E-S. You can set prayer reminders and track your progress along the way. Not sure where to start, maybe check out my favorite podcast that I listen to, Father Mike Schmitz's Bible in a year, available on that. Hallow app for brief daily Bible readings and reflections, where you can pray alongside Mark Wahlberg, Jim Cabiesel, and even some world-class athletes. With Hallow, you can customize a personal prayer routine for yourself. Stay rooted in your faith and values during this season of Lent.

Get an exclusive three-month free trial at hallow.com slash knolls. That is hallow.com slash knolls. In the year of our Lord, 2003, I have more in common with a practicing Muslim than I do with someone practicing woke liberalism. Oh, wow. This is one of those questions that I'd hate to get wrong, and I'm sure if I took the time to think about it, I might come up with a different answer, but I'm going to say yes that I...

Oh, no, I can't say that. That's not how the game works, Michael. And I just won this round, so you have to guess how I would guess. Okay, I think you might say yes in certain instances. Inshallah. I don't know what that word means. I think it's a Muslim thing. Yes, I would agree.

I think we basically... The problem is this. Wokeism, progressive liberalism, whatever you want to say, is a derivation of Puritanism. I think that the woke left, they really are the inheritors of the Puritan tradition in the United States, which pains me to say because I have Puritan ancestors. But it all comes out of the same culture. It's just woke leftism comes out of really the wrong turn that the culture started to take centuries. But it does come from our culture, and it is a kind of weird aping.

of Christianity. Yeah, I think that's right. But you could say the same about Islam. It's just that Islam is a Christian heresy from the 7th century, not from the 17th century, as maybe Puritanism and Wokism comes to be. So because Islam started aping a culture back when it was much healthier, I suppose I give the Muslims the advantage. Yeah, if I've got someone here who believes that God exists, that he's separate from the world, that he has, he can command certain things, that there are certain things we're obliged to do. Yeah. I mean, that isn't to say that I don't think it's a heresy like you put it. I like to think of Muhammad, I like to review Muhammad, I'm going to get into trouble here, but I like to review

Muhammad in the way that the church fathers and then C.S. Lewis would review Christ, Lord, liar, lunatic, pick one. I think with Muhammad, you've got to say, prophet liar, lunatic, or possessed. Yeah. I think it's probably one of those. Right. And you even see, you know, in Dante, He puts some of these Muslims in the realm of sort of schismatics and heretics and things. Because even Muhammad started the religion after going on a trip with his uncle, and they met a heretical monk, which in the Muslim tradition they call Bahira, and in the Western tradition we call Sergius. But no one really disputes that.

So it obviously comes from some kind of understanding of Christianity. One of the criticisms of Islam that you saw in the Regensburg address by Benedict is that in Christianity, God and logic, synonymous, whereas in Islam, Allah is utterly transcendent. So he quotes the Muslim theologian Ibn Hasam and says that if God so willed it, God being pure will, he could will his followers to worship idols. And they would be obliged to do that. And so I think, well, that's not a great thing. However, the modern libs are obviously pure will. They're so insistent upon the tyranny of their own will that they want us to let the men into the women's

bathroom and pretend that reality is different than it is. Why is it? Do you think, then, that the woke people are more likely to defend and reverence Islam. Because Islam has been an historical enemy of Christianity. However, to the point of the question, as we see the shake-up today, I think that probably people who believe in theistic religion at all probably have quite a lot more... Objective reality. Yes, yeah, and probably can team up

against the iconic class secularists who want to just knock down everything beautiful and sacred. in the world. See, these are good questions. These are. I hate to compliment the producers, but these are good questions. Okay. All right. I've never been in a situation where I've had a drink in front of me, and it's only acceptable to drink at certain times. Yes, only if you get it right or get it wrong. Those are the only times that you can drink. Okay. Currently, the internet and social media are more dangerous to young women than to young men. Okay. All right, we'll guess one, two, three. Okay. Now, we'll guess one. Two, two, three.

way. I wouldn't, I'd have to think about it more, but I wouldn't think that it's, I can't think of a reason that it's especially pernicious to women in a way that it wouldn't be to men. Well, the way it could be especially pernicious to women is it makes them think about their bodies all the time and either gives them anorexia or turns them into, you know, virtual prostitutes on only fans or something. But nevertheless, even granting all that, the reason it's more pernicious to dudes is because of porn, right? Porn is just everywhere. And manor like a moth to a flame, especially young boys who are exposed to it. And porn just totally messes up people's heads. I mean, you've talked about this extensively. Yeah, I like what Jason Everett said.

He says that pornography emasculates a man. It robs him of the ability to be masculine. So instead of saying, this is my body given up for you, we learn the polar opposite. This is your body taken by me. We miss the point of manhood. Women are left without a strong man to guide them, and men are just whips. Right. Norm MacDonald had a great bit, even on one-night stands, you know, and he had this whole bit, which he gave at a club in San Francisco. They said, ah, you know, sex is obviously a filthy, shameful thing clearly only meant for procreation. And one of his arguments for this is, you know how when you're going to go do that thing, you know, one-night stand or you go alone in the room, you know how you turn the blinds down? You know, you lock the

door and turn the blinds down? That's shame. That's a manifestation. of shame. That's right. You don't go bragging about looking at porn all the time. Sure. I mean, I wouldn't want to say that the sexual act within marriage is in any way, shape, or form a shameful thing. But if he's talking about fornicating, then that would be. But the reason we would turn the blinds down and lock the doors in an appropriate sexual relationship is because there are certain human acts that are appropriate in certain contexts and not others, and that says nothing one way or the other ways. You're telling me I shouldn't open the blinds when... And put a red light on just so the neighbors are aware. I guess I'm a bit more exhibitionistic.

All right. Okay, you're up. So neither of us have to drink. No, but we do get to drink. We do get to. We do get to. It's okay to be goth. These are great. Okay, all right.

Is it okay to be goth? I'd want definitions. You don't get definitions. Ray, one, two, three. Oh, I'm going to say no. Yeah, right. I am bad at this game. So you think that I would say, no, I think that you would say yes.

Yeah, I would say yes, but I'd need a definition on goth. A kid who is 12 years old and really pissed off at his or her father. Right. That would be my definition. So I would say it wouldn't be okay for parents to allow their children to dress in that way. But I'm okay with people expressing themselves. And I think it would be weird if the government would step in and say no. And parents ought not to be doing that, I think, with kids at a certain age.

So I'm okay with kids. Would you be okay? I wouldn't be okay with my kid doing it. You wouldn't? Not at all. It wouldn't be an option. Yeah. Yeah.

But if your kid did it, I'd be like, oh, bloody hell, sorry. What about... That sounds terrible, but I wouldn't do anything about it. What if a school said, okay, we've got a policy, you can't dress up like Marilyn Manson, you know, no goth stuff in the school? I think the problem with the goth thing is it very quickly become verges on the satanic symbolism. Yeah. Almost immediately.

Yeah. I was never got... But I did wear a lot of heavy metal t-shirts and black jeans. Really? Yeah. It was in a heavy metal band and things like this. I didn't know this. Why?

I was, I liked the idea of, like, rebelling against the man and, you know, just being angry and trying to express that and not knowing how to. I don't think I fit in with the jocks. I didn't fit in with other people, but I did like heavy metal music, and so I just sort of adopted that identity. I'm not sure why people do it today, though, because what I find interesting is if I show my son, who's 15 years old, Metallica, he's like,

why are they so angry? I'm like, this is brilliant. What do you mean? So it's almost, it's funny to me, that young kids don't listen to the same music we did. So I don't know what goth means today. I really love that. I mean, today, of course, though,

to be subversive, to be really transgressive, is to just like go to Latin Mass and get married young and have children and work hard. Yeah. It's very different than it was. As Gavin McGuinness says, it's the new punk rock. It's the new punk rock, that's right. Do you, sometimes people write into me and they'll say, Michael, is it okay to listen to or perform in heavy metal?

And I go back to Plato on this, where Plato is very wary of music, especially percussive music, especially music that cuts right through to your soul. What's your answer? I certainly wouldn't have as sophisticated an answer as you would. I get the feeling you think about this quite frequently. I'm up on night. I say, should I listen to Metallica? I listen, it's funny. When I was a teenager, I was listening to Heavy Metal, Pantera Machine Head Metallica. Now, if you said, what do you listen to?

You're listening to Oldies on a front porch and it's raining. That's the crap I listen to right now, Michael, because I'm old and I'm tired. But I do listen to Heavy Metal. There's a band called Sabaton. And there's an excellent song about the Swiss Guards. doing things to the Muslims. Really? Shall we say? And it's excellent.

Oh, Michael, you'd love it. I could see this sort of goth to trad pipeline. You know, it's just you're kind of turning your target. Yeah, that's right. No, so I, yeah. So I like heavy metal if I'm working out. I feel like it, but if I try to listen to secular music, what I find is it haunts me like a ghost.

So it'll be two days later or I'll be up at night and this stupid song is in my head. I'm like, why is it there? Go away. So tend not to like. And this does explain why I do not listen to it, because I have not worked out since the Obama administration. Okay. Can I drink? No, I can. You can. Yeah. You have the opportunity now because of how you answer that question. In general, men in the workforce should avoid close female friendships with coworkers. I'm going to reset your drink. Okay. In the workforce. In general. in general.

Men should avoid close friendships with female. Yeah, all right. One, two, three. Yeah, of course. Yeah, I think so. Certainly if you're married, I don't know if you should be having new close female friends at all.

But if you're a single man and you're looking to marry and you're walking on the same piece of carpet as another young single woman, presumably you'd like to get to know her first. And I don't like the idea of saying to a man, you shouldn't do that lest it look weird or you be accused of something when you did nothing wrong. Yeah, yeah. I feel like I'm kind of capitulating when I say that.

So you're saying if you're a single guy, she's a single girl, and you plan on dating seriously and getting married or something, then yeah, go for it. But in general, you know, you shouldn't be flirting with your secretary or something. But that's a very different thing to getting to know someone, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah. I've heard Matt Walsh make this point that he says that you, men shouldn't be friends with women or you can't, I don't want to misquote him. I missquote him all the time. I heard he's a fascist and called for genocide.

I got a new idea for a game, misquoting Matt Walls. But I have female friends, but certainly once I got married, I was completely uninterested in making friends or maintaining those friends, those female friends to the degree they were before. Do you have fine, though, one of my closest friends is a woman, and we've been friends for many years. But we are friends also in the broader context of she and I are both married. We are both friends with each other's spouse and we'll spend time hanging out with just the spouse, you know, and not the other person. And I've got actually multiple friends like this, but I'm thinking of one in particular because we've been friends for so long. And I think, well, that, I would still say this person is one of my best friends. The woman? The woman.

Yeah. But not, you know, she and I don't have romantic dinners together. You know, It's within this broader context of, now I guess we're couple friends. When I meet new friends, if I meet their wives, I'm only interested in them because I care about my male friend. And when my male friends who know me forget the name of my wife and children, I respect it. I kind of like that. Yeah, right, right. Yeah, I think it's also, people will write in and they'll say, can men and women be platonic friends? And I think, well, when you've got to be really careful about the context, but if there's a single woman, let's say you work with a single woman and you're married or even if you're not married, but you're not interested, I don't see any world in which you can be close friends with that person and not have it be kind of weird, right?

I don't know. Because I also know someone I would consider a very holy priest and a very holy nun who worked together. in different ministries. And I know that the cynic in us might be like, oh, yeah, but I think that says more about us than them. So I certainly want to leave room for the possibility. And in that case, I mean, you would say in that case, they both are married. Right, sure. Coincidentally, they're married to the same person.

Yeah. And so they're not single at the very least, even though they don't have a spouse that walks around on earth all the time. Yeah, fair enough. Okay. Fair enough. So we're both okay. We're both okay.

We're both okay. We need drinking. All right. The East Palestine. Did I pronounce that right? I think so. Train derailment is likely just one of many intentionally orchestrated attacks, manufacturing plants, chicken hatcheries, etc.

With the goal of destabilizing our society. All right? Did you get that? I got it. I got it. All right. Okay, one, two, three. Ha, ha.

Yeah, I would say no, but I thought you would have said yes. I am open to yes. However, I lean no. My reasoning is this. I never ascribe to malice, that which is equally explained by incompetence and stupidity. And so I do think there's something going on now, which is as the boomers are retiring, boomers for all their flaws, did have some basic kind of professional competence. And millennials don't have that at all. Millennials don't know a damn thing about anything in terms of practical skills. I don't. And I certainly don't. Don't. Look, I mean, this is my job, is I drink and read these cards. And so as that starts to change, you're seeing, I think, some more of these industrial-type accidents. There are over a thousand train derailments every year, and that has been true for decades. So, and there are competence problems getting worse from the perspective of the government. But are there nefarious actors and saboteurs and spooks and all sorts of people who are going in and trying to mess around with our public life? Of course. But I think a lot of

is actual incompetence. Yeah, no, I'm with you. I kind of, I'm afraid that there isn't a group plotting terrible things, and it's just people like me who've got no idea what they're doing. Like, that's a terrifying. I know. But I think it is. It's a more boring answer, but it seems like therefore it's probably the answer.

There are groups. I mean, there are groups conspiring. The definition of a company is a conspiracy, right? I mean, you're conspiring together to do something, get an edge over, competitors, but I just don't know that you can ascribe all of the nefarious things happening in the world to those groups of people. I fear, yeah, it's us. The fault lies not in the cabals, but in ourselves very often. All right. So I got yours wrong. So I get to drink. That's what I'm going to try to do now. Get your answers wrong. All right. Here we go. Now, do I, wait, is it

I think it's, my go. Oh, it is your turn. It was my go. Here we can give me that call. In 2023, there is an even greater push from mainstream entertainment toward promoting white guilt than LGBTQ plus visibility. Oh, I... White guilt. I don't know. I mean, the news cycle, this last few weeks, seems to make it seem like that is the case.

Yeah. But I haven't done any... Do you know why? This is something an American would have an advantage over an oz. I'm going to have to say you got it wrong, only because we've just come to the end of February. Half of this year so far has been dominated by the liberal liturgical month of Black History Month. And so the activism has been hyper-focused on white guilt and black grievance. That is going to change.

In June, we are going to get the first of two, if not several, gay months. and then everything is going to be rainbow. In May, do you mean? In June is the first one. Isn't May the gay month? It soon will be another gay month, I'm sure. But June it is. Okay.

Long time was the, it was probably day. I just thought May rhymed with gay, and that would have been a good strategy on their part. Yeah, June, Rikian. No idea. That's an Italian. That's an Italian phrase for homosexual.

It's okay. And then, I don't know what big ears, for some reason, or October I don't know I got nothing bend over all right is it your shot

or it's not it's yours right here we go the argument can be made that legalizing

polygamist marriage would be less detrimental society less detrimental to society than legalizing gay marriage oh okay

so can the argument be made that you can legalize a polygamist marriage and that that would be less detrimental society in the gay marriage. One, two, three. A hundred percent, I would say that.

At least polygamy is real. Yeah, at least you're dealing with, it's something that God permitted. Even if he didn't like it. Yeah, he wasn't into it. Things kind of went awry very often when guys... Not promoting it, you understand. Not saying we should be doing it.

It doesn't violate the natural law, at least. Whereas the notion of same-sex marriage is just an incoherent... Right. Oxymorum. I mean, this is why... even to say legalize same-sex marriage, even if I wanted to legalize same-sex marriage, I feel so impelled to do so, I could not do that, because it is not a thing. It'd be like legalizing, I don't know, burning hot ice. Yeah. I can't do that. Yeah, marriage precedes the state. The state has no right

to redefine what precedes it and what is in the natural law any more than the state saying from now on, we've decided that friendship means enemies. Yeah, right. You can play with words if you want, but that isn't what it does. It doesn't work. I mean, this is sometimes they'll say, I got in trouble recently for saying we should ban transgenderism entirely. Thank you.

It's the only way that you, it's the only way that you could protect women's bathrooms or women's locker rooms or anything is you can't, it's not just that you would ban it for five-year-olds. You have to ban it for everybody, or you're going to end up with the same effect. It's like saying we want to ban abortion except for cases. It's like, no, we want to ban abortion because you shouldn't kill innocent human beings. Right. Yeah, if you believe the premise, then you've got to keep going.

But someone said, well, Michael, why won't you affirm transgenderism? And I said, because I can't. Yeah. It's not me. Even if I really, really wanted to legalize transgender, it's just it is not an ontological category that is real. Yeah. That's not my fault. I don't want to get into the...

I'm not sure how much we can say before you... Oh, no. They'll bleed me out. Yeah. Oh, they will? They will. My producers will. All right.

So then I would say, yeah, because you're legalizing... Yeah. You're legalizing somebody's... Yes. And I can't... I can no more affirm transgenderism than I can affirm the voices of... You know, talking into it. Well, you went above me.

Good job. Let's have a drink. Do they actually beep it? or do they jump cut? Beefing would be much funny. They bleep. I insist that they bleep with a big bar that says big tech. I say, if you're going to cut me, I don't know.

Yeah, yeah. I said, all right. My shot are yours. Sorry, I just want to see it. I think it's mine. I think it's mine. All right, I'm up. Australia's biggest export is boomerangs.

It's also their biggest import. Oh, that is interesting. I'd have, I'll just take a guess. Oh, I have to guess. So you would think. I don't know. I guess you'll say no, maybe. I would say you would say no. I think I might say yes. I mean, it's an interesting point.

If that is, if that's one of the things that tourists like to buy, then we've got to be cranking these bad boys out. Yeah. Yeah. Who can crank them out faster than China? Yeah. So I think it's... That becomes a problem because obviously if a boomerang is your biggest export, then eventually it will be important. It has to. Very good.

But, but they are all. Is that the joke? I missed the joke. I think that may have. It was a lame. It was very good. No, it was very good. I think the reason that it's not boomerangs is, one, actors. The biggest American actors somehow are all Australian.

There's a disproportionate number of them. It's weird. It's very strange. They're all also just angry and, you know, fairly conservative, actually. But, you think about guys who are known for getting into fights and scrapping. It's Russell Crow, Mel Gibson. I love that people have this view of Australia. until our government became tyrannical and locked people in their houses.

And everyone came up to me and went, why is your country gay? And I said, I don't know if it is. And I actually haven't kept up on what's going on. So I don't know. But they did, it was sort of like, you call that a lockdown? No, this is a lockdown.

And then they closed their blinds and locked their doors. And they didn't go anywhere. This was my other thought for the biggest export is wokeness. Now, did you see your name? native e-safety commissioner. Nope. I don't think so. This woman, she was working at Microsoft and Twitter. She was too woke for those two places.

She goes to Australia. She was also part of American. She gets hooked up with the Australian government. She creates this thing, safety by design. And safety by design says, and it's in work with the World Economic Forum, they're working in tandem, it would embed the woke regulations in the tech platforms themselves. So they're saying, oh, the governments,

they're not going to keep up with all the trends. And so what we need to do is just embed it in the three big tech companies. And if the Australian government, maybe one or two others, demands it the world economic form demands it, then it's just going to go in there and it's going to be exported all around the world. Yeah, all right, wokeism. Okay. All right. I don't know what happened.

You? Well, we have to drink. Okay. Marshall. I realized I'm hiccipping more with a non-alcoholic drink. I think it's because it's bubbly. It's bad for you. You want to drink alcohol.

It's not good for you. Andrew Tate's advice. I don't know what it is. You can tell me, does more harm than good. Since I don't know anything about this fella, I'm going to presume that you're going to say no. And I'll say that you say no, too, because you don't know. I don't know much about him. Have you followed him at all?

I know he's got a bald head that he dated Michaela Peterson at one point. Did he? I didn't know that. Maybe he didn't. Scratch that. But we're going to start that rumor at the very least. And something to do with Romanian prostitutes. Yes.

Always comes back to Romanian. So film me in. So the guy became really famous, one, because he's very savvy at the internet and just knows how to go viral and that succeeded for him. But he became famous also because he would contradict parts of secular modernity and leftism. And he would say, no, men should be strong and you should make money. and that's good, and masculinity is not toxic,

and all these sorts of really basic self-help things that got him pretty popular. He is also a pimp. I think that's uncontroversial. Like, he sells flesh and makes money on it. And you think that he's doing more good than harm? No, I thought it was more harm than good. Advice does more harm than good.

His advice... Oh, right. So, that's it... Okay. I'll even, I'll even allow. I'll get the same answer. As you know, the rules don't really. I'm going to double down. Yes.

Well, in the sense that he's not saying anything different than the rest of the culture is saying. Right. The whole rest of the culture says, be a prostitute, get hooked on porn, treat yourself like you're a bag of meat. So he's not especially bad in that regard. They're all pimps in this culture, though he contradicts wokeism a little bit. So I guess you give him a slight edge there. But the guy, the guy is a pimp.

I mean, he admits to this. He moved to Romania. Yeah, he created only fans, accounts, and stuff like that. Yeah. Well, then we should. should be bloody condemning him. I think this is one of the things that Catholicism can do for the conservative movement is it gives you guardrails and direction and information about the things you ought to be conserving. And my problem with those on the left is that they are spiraling

into this madness. And it seems like unless you are as insane as possible in that direction, you're not yet enlightened enough. But we might be seeing something similar on the right, where the most obscene and outrageous and ridiculous and false things are thought to be good if they're diametrically opposed to what the left is saying. Although, I wouldn't want that. A lot of what Andrew Tate has put out, he might think it's diametrically opposed to the left, but it's really not.

I mean, if you're accepting the premises of the sexual revolution and you're conducting your business and your personal life in a way that is not the most conducive to virtue, then you're really kind of going along with the libs. Although I think Tate recently converted to Islam. That's right. So I guess that's better than being an atheist. We'll see.

We'll see. All right. I don't even know how I answered on that. Somewhere in the middle. I do not understand this guy at all. Okay, I'm up. You're sure. I can drink, so I will.

Biden is a better Catholic than Nancy Pelosi. Joe Biden is a better Catholic than Nancy Pelosi. Okay. I would say So you're going to You're going to tell him, okay, you're going to say no, he's not a better Catholic. Would you agree that he is not a better Catholic? The only reason I think he might be a better Catholic

is that despite his false views and promotions of things like abortion and transgenderism, he at least seems to pray the rosary, he seems to go to Mass, and he might just be a really old man who doesn't know what he's doing anymore. I'm not saying that crap on the poor fella. I actually can't tell if I feel sympathy for him or not. I can't tell if I'm more angry at him or the people around him who pushed him into it. But I don't know. They both seem pretty, they both seem

at pretty bad Catholics. Why would you say that you think Nancy Pelosi's a better Catholic than Joe Biden? Only because he is more prominent and I think he has more responsibility to live his faith properly and to respect his. But having more of a responsibility is not the same thing to say he is a better Catholic than her. Well, that when he commits the sin of scandal, it's more egregious than when she does. Because though theoretically, I mean, she's the head of one of the houses of one of the three branches of government, or was until very recently. But he's the president of the United States. It's a figure that is imbued with a kind of monarchical quality almost. And so when, when Joe,

Biden goes out and he says, I support killing babies and I support men pretending to be women and I make a mockery of the definition of marriage. And am I right in thinking that he at one point said that a child should be able to have themselves mutilated? Oh yeah, he's saying that right now. His administration is pushing it. So it's just, I'm sure Pelosi thinks all the same stuff. Yeah, yeah. I just think the sin of scandal is, is more severe for Biden. Yeah, yeah. But they're both pretty bad. Cardinal, who told her she can't receive you. Archbishop Cordillione. Cordillione, can we give just a cheer. A little cheers.

For being a man. You know, to give a little Italian translation for that Cordillione means heart of a lion. Yeah. And he's got it. I think it's really important that we publicly celebrate our bishops and priests when they take a stand like that. Even if we disagree with a punch of other things that they've done, even if we think they've been cowardly, as soon as they make a right decision, they need to hear our praise more than the critics booze. That's a great point. I sometimes, when a priest or a bishop or somebody does something great,

I sometimes hesitate to compliment them because I don't want them to catch more heat for my praise. Oh, sure. But you're probably right. If they're going to go out there, you know, Cordeliaone, Archbishop Cordiallione comes out and he says, now here's, it's bad for Nancy Pelosi. It's bad for the flock and it's bad for Nancy Pelosi. I have to deny her Holy Communion. Exactly.

And you're right, he deserves a lot of praise for that, shouldn't she? Yeah. But, yeah, because I think if you came out and said something like that, you would emboldened those faithful Catholics. Yeah. You would then be, hey, did you hear what? I think, yeah. My basic thought is, like, most of us are cowards, and we like people to like us. Yeah.

And when they praise us for doing good things, we're like children who then will be more likely to do. That's it. I think you make a great point. All right. You? Is it? I think it's, maybe. Who cares?

I believe I've seen what can only be described as an angel, demon, or ghost. So at some point, you've seen an angel, a demon, or a ghost. I'm going to say, one, two, three. Oh, I certainly have. Oh, you have? I feel like you're about to be funny, though. No, I'm not going to. I mean, I'm sure there are jokes to be made about it.

And I'm not going to relate these stories because I find when one talks about numinous experiences... It cheapens it, doesn't it? Well, not only does, it's endlessly fascinating to the person to whom it happened, and it's chloroform to everybody else. I don't know. I'd find it pretty... It was publicly once I spoke about one of these because I felt it was pertinent,

but suffice it to say, I am convinced I've entertained angels, unawares, or awares, certainly at least twice, and maybe more. How about you? No, I don't have any recollection of encountering anything supernatural and seeing it with my visible eyes. Really? I've had dreams that seem peculiarly, peculiarly demonic. But no, no, nothing. You have.

Like, have you ever had sleep paralysis or something? No. That kind of feels very... I've heard that that's terrifying. Yeah, and it might just be a purely physical thing. Although, I suppose if you're Catholic, you don't really think that anything is purely physical or in this world purely spiritual, right? There's a...

No, I think you could say things are purely spiritual. Even in time and space? Well, those purely spiritual things were they to manifest themselves? I'm not sure how they would do it. I don't think they would take the form of something visible for us to see. God may grant them the appearance of something physical, I suppose. So I guess I can't write it off. Yeah, yeah.

Could be perceived, albeit material. I should have said, my wife. Yeah. A demon. No, I'm just joking. Yeah, this is true. Take my wife. Please.

All right. So I've got it wrong, so I have to drink. Okay. A man who does not exercise the body is feeding the vice of sloth. and is thus sinning. Okay. Did you get that? I got it.

All right. Yeah, I got a Latin clear. Yeah, that's a lot. Yeah. Yes. Yes. Yes. Of course.

But that doesn't mean three hours in the gym in the morning. Yeah. I heard that C.S. Lewis said a day wasn't complete without a good walk. Yeah. So if a good walk to the mailbox and back. Good walk. To the box. To the liquor cabinet.

Yeah. Yes, because I guess then it's that last part of the question that trips me up a little bit. I have not exercised in at least, you know, 50 years, and I'm only 32 years old somehow. But is that, I think it's bad. I think it's sloth. I think it is a vice, certainly. Is that a sin that I would be obligated to confess? Again, no, I think it depends on what you mean by exercise.

I really do. Yeah. Because I'm actually concerned. steps in. I'm concerned sometimes when you watch people on these YouTube videos saying, like, here's why you should be working out three hours a day and meditating two hours a day. You think, well, gee, that's great. How many hours do you have in your day? It's also great if you could just ignore your wife and children responsibilities, but most of us, sure, we could be a little more self-disciplined, we could work out more, maybe we should,

but I don't think we have to. Right. I think about my exercise. This is actual exercise. When I carry my kid or kids up and down stairs multiple times a day, that is certainly more exercise than I got three years. I see Joe Rogan try to do that. Yeah, that's right, huh? See Dana White try to lift my toddler. Okay. People who come from countries

that surrender to Emus should not be taken to Emus? What is emus? Can we get a clarification from the producers? Emus? Oh, emus. Oh, why is the E capitalized? Respect.

Out of respect for the emus. People who come from countries that surrender to emus should not be taken seriously. I would say, yeah, right, let's see. Should not be taken seriously. Yes, that's correct. At least for the time being, maybe they grew some balls and did something with the emus after that. I've heard that something like there was some sort of attacks from emus, but I don't know what happened. In Australia? Yeah. They are pretty bloody terrifying, to be fair.

So my producer, who I'm sure is making this up, says that the Australians famously surrendered to a pack of emus one time. What does that mean the Australians? Yeah, who are the aboriginals, maybe? But you're telling me that all those British convicts, some of the most derelict, scrappy people on earth, they surrender to a bunch of weird birds? Is that true?

Probably not. I can't tell you. But, okay, I guess we got to tell you. But if somebody's going to surrender to emus when they want to take you a wife away or something, yeah, no respect for that. But then maybe later, you know, they'll regret it. The emu comes knocking. They take my kid.

Anything, please. All right. Okay. Here we go. It is perfectly acceptable to abandon your wife and children on a weekend to do a four-hour podcast with a couple of dudes while enjoying cigars and whiskey. Of course. Of course.

It is. We wouldn't have done it. Who would suggest otherwise? You know, when I think about the different kinds of love, you get to drink. I get to drink. You get to drink. There are different kinds of love. And today, we always...

All we talk about is romantic love, or perhaps then in its fulfillment, the love between spouses and love. What about philia? What about friendship? Proper friendship. Yeah, huh? Yeah. So why are you yelling at me about going and having three or four Coca-Cola's with the boys over at George's place for four hours, multiple cigars? When we're talking about filia, this is a very, very high form of friendship.

Right. I was very high when I walked out of there with the fumes. Oh, my goodness. It's such a headache. I was exhausted that whole time. I enjoyed it. Okay. Thanks for you. Yeah, I think it's your time. In one of the American states, Cuck relations... You have to explain this to me, I think. In one of the American states, Cuck relationships will be recognized as legitimate marriages before 2030.

I believe that's short for Cuckold, where the man is being stepped out upon. By his wife, with another man. Oh, right. and that that will be recognized as legitimate marriage before 2030. Explain it to me again. So the question, if you could rephrase it, would be... Would be that in America the way marriage is going. There are a lot of cucks.

And that means what? That a cuck is a guy, a cuckold, you know, like corneta, a guy who... I think it began as a pornographic term, but anyway. Well, that's what people say now, but the term, maybe it's just because I'm Italian. This is the oldest Italian insult there, you say, cornuto. You know, sometimes Italians were a necklace. It looks like a little chili pepper. That's a horn, that's the sign of the cuckold, like the malacchio, you know, you're warning us.

And the idea if you're cuckled in, you've got the horns, is that your wife is cheating on it. And then I was told, within the last five or six years, that this is now racist and it's pornographic, and they come up with all these things. But it's a really old trope, actually. It's just the idea that you're a man who's getting cheated on. So the question is? The question is, in the way marriage is going, that cuck marriages will be recognized as a... So this is a shieler who walks. out on her husband and children for another bloke.

Yeah. Oh, no, she stays with her husband and children. She just stoops the mailman on the side. Well, okay. Let's go ahead and answer it. It will be recognized, yes or no? Yes or no. Sure, why not? We have no idea what the hell we're talking about. We don't even know what marriage is anymore, so it may as well be that.

It may as well be a bag of potato cheese. Now, I have to actually disagree. Okay. I have to say no. Yeah. With your point. Because in order, by, it's sort of like the definition, of man and woman, definition of marriage, in order to be cucked, you have to be in a marriage

and your wife has to sleep with a guy who's not in the marriage. So in order for it to be cuckoldry, you can't all be married. It has to involve a guy outside of the marriage. Okay. So just by definition. But who knows? But to your point, they changed the definition of marriage in all sorts of illogical ways, so maybe they'll do that too. Sweet. Okay. You're me. Me. No, you, me. No, what? In a healthy society, female combat sports, give me an example of one. Female combat sport, like Gina Carrano's stuff. All right. Should be banned. Oh, yeah, 100%. You're just going to move.

100%. I actually think that, I think that things like UFC are probably immoral in and of themselves. Even for men? Yes. I'm willing to change my mind on this. But it seems to me that if I'm going to risk imposing serious bodily damage, to you, that I need to have a good reason to do that. And money and entertainment are not sufficient. What about football? I don't know how to answer that. Yeah, I think you're right. Well, I'll translate it. No, no, I, I don't know. I'm talking about, you know, it's the one with the big guys and the pig skin and the, yeah. It's a very good question. Have you ever heard of the fallacy of the beard? No. The fallacy of the beard is when you say, because you don't know when a beard begins,

you can't say what a beard is. Like, is this a beard? No. Yeah. But it's, but it's. But in a little blurry. It's something. It's a trad beard. Okay. But if I kept growing it, in three months, you'd say yes. At what day did it become one? You might not be able to say. Yeah, but you still know what a beard is.

Right. I can say what pornography is, even though I think there are some blurry lines where I wouldn't be sure. Right, right. And so I do think, as I stand now, I'd be willing to say that I think UFC boxing, as much as I'd love to watch it.

Like, I actually think that I couldn't think of anything more enjoyable to watch it. People beating the snod at each other. I get the appeal of it, just like I get the appeal of porn. But I think I'd probably come down on the side and say that UFC is immoral, especially with women. Women should not be. At the very least, she would say with women.

But feel free to push back on that. No, I generally agree. I mean, I think, you know, other than in very certain circumstances when you're a single man and you go to the nightclub and there's the jello pit, you know, and all sorts of pillow fights and things. But that's very different, you know, than... I don't know if we should be doing that either in an healthy society. Yeah, maybe not. Maybe that was sort of vicious and degenerate. But I agree.

I don't want to see women beat each other up. In fact, a famous female fighter is a friend of mine. Gina Carano has been on this show. And Gina Carrano could probably punch me through a wall. I'm sure she could be too. But I don't want to see women being hit. I just don't like that. Yeah.

I agree. I agree. You were right. You answered right for both of us. It's better for someone to get drunk than it is to smoke a split. of the old Peruvian parsley. Oh, okay. One, two, three.

I would say not at all. It's not better for a woman to get... What question are you? Am I drunk? What is that? You're saying it's not better for someone to get drunk than to smoke the Peruvian parsley. If somebody is smoking pot and not becoming high, that's clearly a better thing than getting drunk. But can you smoke pot and not get high?

People who smoke pot tell me, of course, and it's only people who say that you can't smoke pot without getting high. Those are the people who've never smoked pot. No, but those are like potheads. You can't believe what they're saying. They're a bunch of high guys, you know? That's the ad hominem attack. I mean, it either is true or it isn't. Well, I'll tell you something.

And this is, I think I've made this confession on the show before. In my wayward youth, on occasion, I never really liked it, but on occasion, I had a little touch of the old. Devil's lettuce. Yeah, devil's lettuce. You know, sin spinach. Uh-huh. And I was never really good at it. I ate it sometimes in brownies.

Oh, okay. Yeah, at like, I was at a music festival in college. And every year at this festival, I would eat the pot brownie. And then it didn't work, and I'd eat more, and then that was terrible. Yeah. Or once I was in India, had the local yogurt, guess what was in the yogurt? No. Yeah. In the yogurt?

Yeah, yeah. I know. They're putting it in everywhere. It's like seed oil. It's Indian seed oil. That's another great euphemism. And so I had that end. You know, I smoked some of these things every now and again. And I always got, it always messed up my head in a way that if I have a drink or even two drinks, it doesn't.

It kind of mellows me out a little bit, but it doesn't. So I think your pothead friends are total liars. And so I think it's not good to get drunk and it's not good to get high on the old devil's lettuce. But I agree with both of those statements. But I don't think, but I disagree with you that you can smoke pot and necessarily be high. Have you ever? Have you ever? It's true.

Yes, I have. And you've not gotten high? No, I did get her. So that does, my personal example does contradict that. But I do know people who, in my own life, who take certain things for pain. And I can't think of an argument against marijuana that doesn't cut against alcohol. I'm open to hearing. Well, here it is. Unless you give me some kind of medical argument that this is far, I love that we're getting into this at the one question left. But, yeah, go on, give me an argument. Well, one of the arguments, and this is. not going to appease people who just want a rationalist explanation of everything. But one of the arguments is cultural and traditional and historical, which is alcohol has been with us from the very beginning of our civilization. See, I don't use the word racist much, but I don't know how that doesn't sound like a racist thing.

It's been part of someone's culture, pot, hasn't it? Yeah, but not ours. Who cares? Part of someone's. Well, why would we bring a new evil in, is my question. So we've already, we've got, and I don't think alcohol is evil, but it certainly can be abused. But we've got this substance that's been in our culture forever. Christ's first miracle, our Lord's first miracle, was turning water into wine for people who'd been drinking for days.

And so it's been here forever. And so people can drink responsibly or they can abuse boost. Pot has been imported in what the last 70 years. It was really the hippies that kind of made it a thing here, or those jazz musicians smoking their jazz cigarettes. And it was tightly controlled and basically suppressed until very recently people are promoting it. why would we encourage more of it? Fair enough. No, fair enough. I get the argument that why are we introducing other ways to become degenerates when we have enough at our disposal. But here's nothing, if there was a culture that hadn't drunk alcohol before, but they did smoke pot.

And only now, were they trying to make alcohol legal, would you say, yeah, for them, maybe you shouldn't be introducing another thing that can make you degenerate? Well, because I favor our culture, I would probably suppress some of their practices. It is hard to get around the biblical. I mean, if Christ, it is difficult to do that. He seems to bless some use. I mean, he literally blesses some use. So how about this then? If it is the case that one can smoke pot without becoming high, right? Let's just grant that for the sake of argument. If my grandma had wheels should be a wagon, you know, but okay. Let's grant that. What's better to drink to the point of drunkenness?

or to smoke and not marijuana and not be high? I would say obviously smoke marijuana and not be high. No, no way. No way. Oh, hold on. Okay, and not be high. Maybe I'm drunk. Because that's the thing we have to grant for this, my version of the argument. Yes, okay. Okay, I would grant that. And I'm not encouraging people to smoke pot. We got, we got Cheech and Chong over here. Now, what if it were... That would be a different kind of guy. We're going to add that for the members only. What, what if it were, is it better to smoke pot to the point of getting high or do? drink to the point of getting drunk. At that point, I would probably be open to looking at

which is worse for you. I'd be open to arguments at that point. Which is worse you physically? Yeah, that's what I mean. Physically, I would be open to that at that point. Because when you get drunk, you get very social. And you can either get social in the sense that you're going to take a swing at your body, or you can get social in the sense. I'm like, buddy, I love you, man. Whereas with pot, you get super high and you just go into a corner. See, that was me. I remember that. In fact, I was 16 years old. And that was the day I think. decided I can't do this again. As a teenager, I probably spoke three times in my life, but I remember I had to go to work. And so I wasn't smoking pot that night. So I went and I sat down with my friends

and they were all smoking pot. And I saw them all get sucked into themselves, like solipsistically. And I went, oh, this is very unattractive. This is terrible. I mean, don't get me wrong, drunkenness is unattractive as well. That's why I'm saying arguments against pot, often cut against alcohol too. But I agree with you that that was my experience, but I'm not sure that's everyone's experience. Because at least drunk guys can be funny, but high guys, just think everything else is funny. But they themselves are not funny. Yes, fair enough, but I imagine less violent fights when you're moving at this pace of a snail. Just look at my hands, man. Okay, is it me? I don't know. Okay. You can go for it. I would rather have a pint with St. Augustine

than St. Thomas Aquinas. I mean, all right. You ready? This is actually a very difficult way. Yeah, so let's not try to influence each other. I'm going to shut my eyes. Okay, yeah, yeah. You would say, yes, I think. You heard me moving the glass, so I had to say it. I'm going to say yes for you, too, even though you host a show cold pines with... Yes.

Even though you host a show cold pints with Aquinas. No, I'd take, I'd take it. You would take, okay. Yeah, yeah. Here's my argument. And I guess actually, you know, I'm going to, this is kind of cheating a little bit. I'm going to move it to know as well. I would rather have a pint with St. Thomas.

Aquinas, but I would rather have two pines with St. Augustine. I would rather smoke weed. No, I don't get that. No, no. No, yeah. I love Thomas. Here's the kind of distinction I like to make between Augustine and Aquinas, and only our Catholic listeners will get this. Augustine is beautiful like a garden. Aquinas is beautiful, like a game board instruction manual. It's beautiful. There is a beauty to it. Not a word is wasted. It's very specific and clear. He says more in a page than modern theologians say in books, I love the men. I really do think I'd love him. He might not like me, but I'd love him. My only argument here for getting the pint is, St. Thomas Aquinas, one of the most intelligent people that's ever lived, one of the greatest

theologians ever to live. But if you're hanging out. And it's like you got St. Augustine, who had a kind of wild youth, Lord Make Me Chase, but not yet. Or you've got this other fellow who's chasing prostitutes out with firebrain. Who do you relate? to. No, that's a good point. You'd probably leave with just as a raw amount of knowledge, you would leave with more of that from St. Thomas Aquinas. Yeah. However. But it is interesting that you read Thomas in the sumer and other works of his, and he sounds like a chat GPT has spat out syllogisms. But when you read his poetry, you see the heart of St. Augustine there, you know. Oh, yes. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So either way, this is the last drink. Chin chin.

to your health, next time we bring out the splits. I'm Michael Knowles. This is the game. Yes or No game. We'll see you next time.