Pete Hegseth (4:16)

We're prepared. Those who long for peace must prepare for war. That's why we're rebuilding our military. That's why we're reestablishing deterrence in the warrior ethos is because we live in a dangerous world with powerful ascendant countries with very different ideologies. You mentioned defense spending. They're rapidly increasing their defense spending, modern technology. They want to supplant the United States. If we want to deter war with the Chinese or others, we have to be strong. And that president understands peace comes through strength.

Michael Knowles (4:46)

Those who long for peace prepare for war. We're ready. That's his answer. You're going to threaten us? Well, I wouldn't be so comfortable about that. You don't want to threaten the global hegemon. Okay, what is this all about? Hostile regimes, even friendly regimes, always test new presidents. And Trump is kind of a new president. I know he was already president once, but he's an historical anomaly. Him and Grover Cleveland, those are the only two non consecutively serving presidents. Non consecutively elected presidents. So it's kind of a new administration, and there are some new people around him, and there does seem to be a new focus. Many people have lauded Trump in the last six weeks because his administration this time around seems More focused, more effective even, than it was the first time. So I think this is a test of Trump. But the thing you gotta remember is these tariffs on China are also a test from Trump, a test by the president of his foe that he was previously engaging in a little bit of a trade war in the first time around. How worried will China be about a 10 to 20% tariff? So they levy the tariffs, then they double the tariffs. And now we're talking about a 20% tariff on Chinese goods, which have flooded the American market over the last 30 years. But it seems like everything we buy practically comes from China, usually from labor that is underpaid or even slave labor. That's how they get away with it. And so Trump says, okay, we're gonna try some tariffs. Hmm. All right. You're not reacting to it. What if we double those tariffs? China is very, very reliant on the United States. 15% of China's exports go to the United States. And China's a big country that we're talking about half a trillion dollars a year. Okay. Only 7.5% of U.S. exports go to China. So half the proportion of exports that China sends to the US Is what we send to China, and that's only worth about $154 billion. So we're talking about a major imbalance here. China is very, very reliant on access to the US market. China was able to grow its trade because 20, 25 years ago now, the United States decided to play nice with China and decided to welcome China into the World Trade Organization. And then, as China was cheating on its World Trade Organization responsibilities and obligations, the US Would just kind of look the other way. And so when China was illegally subsidizing steel and aluminum, when China was devaluing its currency, when China was dumping certain products and commodities, the US Would just kind of look the other way and not hold them accountable. And that had severe economic consequences in the United States. And one of the big issues that President Trump was elected on was reassuring. American manufacturing was rebuilding. America's industrial base was making sure in the wake of COVID which cut off our supply chains, that the US could take care of itself if another global conflict or even just a global flu broke out. All makes sense, but that's what you're seeing here. I would not be expecting the missiles to start flying anytime soon. This is a test. And Trump is testing China, and China is testing Trump. And I don't envy Chairman Xi because Trump is inscrutable. To this day, I cannot tell you what Trump truly believes about tariffs. Does he want tariffs instrumentally to increase trade? Does he believe in tariffs as a revenue raising mechanism? And is he hardcore on tariffs? I couldn't tell you. The man is inscrutable. Just like we were talking about this yesterday on the show. Just like Vladimir Putin when Trump says, if you invade Ukraine, I'll bomb Moscow, I'll hit the Kremlin. Even if you only think there's a 5 to 10% chance he's telling the truth here, how can you take the risk? That's what's going on now. Speaking of wars, this ties directly into the main war that people have been talking about. Volodymyr Zelensky has come around. Horrible, tragic, chaotic meeting in the Oval Office just on last Friday. Zelensky gets tossed out of the Oval Office. The White House staff eats the lunch prepared for the Ukrainian delegation. The Democrats are licking their chops. There were some reports that top Democrat officials and operatives were actually meeting with Zelensky and coaching him on how to handle that Oval Office meeting. But Zelensky gets tossed out. Trump blew it up. Oh, no. This is the end of the American empire. No, this is Trump siding with Putin. Oh, no. Ukraine is. Is totally lost. And then what happens? Hours later, Zelensky says, oh, yikes. Okay, that wasn't good, actually. We really want the mineral steel. And then, as President Trump announced during the joint session, Zelensky came out. He said, our meeting in Washington at the White House on Friday did not go the way it was supposed to be. It is regrettable that it happened this way. It is time to make things right. We would like future cooperation and communication to be constructive regarding the agreement on minerals and security. Ukraine is ready to sign it in any time and in any convenient format. Hmm. It's a nice little change in tune, isn't it? In the White House, they say we need security guarantee. We don't. I don't. Why you talk to me? Why you ask me to wear a suit? Jd, you're raising your voice. Why you're raising your voice, jd, why you? Why would I ever say thank you to United States? And he thought that strategy was going to work. And it did curry him some support in Europe, but it's not enough. So then Zelensky says, we really do value. I'll cut the Eastern European accent just for a moment. We really do value how much America's done to help Ukraine maintain its sovereignty and independence. And we remember the moment when things changed, when President Trump provided Ukraine with javelins. We are grateful for this. My team and I stand ready to work under President Trump's strong leadership to get a peace that lasts. Okay, this is another reason that we might wanna wrap up what's going on in Ukraine. This is another reason beyond the moral reasoning. This is another reason that we might want the war in Ukraine to wind down. It's been three years, really, it's been over 10 years now because the war really kicked off in 2014 when Russia invaded Crimea with the Maidan revolution. The change in regime in Ukraine, which the United States has admitted to being involved in, it might just. I'm not gonna re litigate the last 11 years. I'm just saying we might wanna wrap it all up in Ukraine because we have bigger fish to fry. I'm reminded of Henry Kissinger during the Cold War. Remember when Nixon goes to China and they're all playing ping pong and Kissinger is working on diplomacy with China? Why? To counter Russia. To counter the Soviet Union. You have two communist powers right there. The United States recognizes we're in a much better position if we can split them apart, make friends with one of them and use that against the other one. Well, here, where does the threat come from? Where does the actual threat to our security come from? Russia or China? Who's the bigger player? Who's the ascendant power? Who owns our debt? Who makes our technology? Who has stolen our information? Who's the big threat? Probably you would say China. Good time as any as far as I'm concerned. When China is saber rattling and literally threatening war with the United States. Good a time as any to maybe refocus our military resources. There's so much more to say. First though, go to expressvpn.com knowles problem with Facebook, Google, other supposedly free services is. 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One subscription covers eight devices, enough for everyone at home. I partnered with ExpressVPN because I want all of my viewers to have access to this protection. Which is why right now you can get an extra four months for free when you go to expressvpn.com knowles e x p r E-S-S vpn.com knowles to get an extra four months totally free. I know that many of you have been looking and here it is. Smells and Bells candle available@thecandleclub.com Michael Our friends over in the wardrobe department were just yelling at me because I've been using the Smells and Bells candles so much. Very, very high quality. Makes your home smell like a 12th century monastery. Great for Lent, which just kicked off yesterday on Ash Wednesday. But they said, Michael, with any candle you have to clip your wick. I said I thought a wick was self clipping. But no, apparently I'm using it too much. And you will be using it too. Maybe get two. That way it'll last you through all of Lent. The one thing that the Democrats stood up for at the State of the Union, what was it? Was it that sweet little kid DJ who has been fighting brain cancer who became an honorary Secret Service? No. Was it that American who got freed from Russia? No, not even that. Was it their own policy? No tax on tips? Well, not their own policy. It's a policy that Trump floated that they then stole and campaigned on and that Trump said he was gonna, he was going to implement. And the Democrats wouldn't even applaud their own policy. The one thing they stood up for and clapped for was Ukraine. It was a foreign country, of course. Bad look. There were a lot of bad looks at that joint session. And the fallout continues. I mean the fallout's gonna continue for days and days after this. And you don't just have to take my word for it. You don't just have to take the Daily Wire's word for it. You can go to cnn, which is a left wing network. You can turn to David Axelrod, who is one of the most important left wing polit political operatives in the country, the genius behind Barack Obama's ascendancy to the presidency. Here is what David Axelrod had to say about the Democrats performance during that joint session.

David Axelrod (15:21)

So it's one thing to mine our differences. It's another thing to try and heal our differences. And that is, you know, that's the difference between real leadership and political expediency.

Michael Knowles (15:34)

Would it have been healing to stand for Mark Fogel? Might have been.

David Axelrod (15:37)

No. I agree. You know, you are absolutely right, DJ Johnson. I will do what you will not. I will say I thought Democrat. I thought that was just. I think there were times when they should have risen. I think what Al Green did was despicable.

Michael Knowles (15:49)

Al Green was that wacko congressman who stood up there with his cane. He was. He actually engaged in a greater insurrection. Democrat Congressman Al Green engaged in a greater insurrection than the horn hat guy ever did in the Capitol. Because Al Green was brandishing a weapon. He had that cane. You know, there was the caning of Sumner. There was actually a major historical incident involving a member of Congress caning somebody. Okay? Al Green acts that out again, has to be escorted out of the chamber by the Sergeant at arms. David Axelrod is totally right here. And the reasonable people on CNN agree that was a bad display from the Congressional Democrats. Was immoral, I think. And it was nasty and it was ugly, but it just was politically so stupid. It didn't win them any votes. I think it probably lost them votes. But it's a lot deeper than just one joint session address. Okay? The Democrats, especially in Congress, don't seem to have learned anything from the presidential election. Here is just before the joint session, here is Democrat Representative Jasmine Crockett doing a little TikTok dance for her constituents.

Jasmine Crockett (16:58)

Oh, no.

DJ Johnson (16:59)

It's a cultural divide. I'm gonna get it on the floor.

Jasmine Crockett (17:03)

You really about to do it?

DJ Johnson (17:04)

40 acres in the mule. This is bigger than the music.

Michael Knowles (17:07)

You really about to do it?

DJ Johnson (17:08)

Yeah. They tried to rig the game, but you can't fake influence. Hey, I'm tripping, I'm sliding I'm riding through the back like Buck Bust that on a beat Throat deep boat in wreck He a freak throat man down Call the Amber Lambs tell him breathe Let them boys to the cross they walk around like tease what's up with these?

Michael Knowles (17:27)

Can you hear? It's very subtle, but can you hear right now that kind of creaking that is James Madison rolling over in his grave is what you're hearing. I don't really know what that song is about. I've been told it's by Kendrick Lamar, whose lyrics I rarely can understand. Something about 40 acres and a mule, which is fitting because this woman, Jasmine Crockett, now a Member of the US Congress is a frequent racial hustler. So I don't mean to put Congress up on a pedestal. I know some great members of Congress. Okay, look, some of my best friends are members of Congress. But Congress often engages in degraded behavior. This kind of thing, this jiggling around for the camera to some hip hop song. This is degraded and degenerate behavior, even by congressional standards, which is really saying something. But it's of a piece with this woman's political career. Congress lady Jasmine Crockett also went a little bit viral for describing the country that she is supposedly serving as one that her ancestors built. Her exact words, actually are, her ancestors built this mother.

Jasmine Crockett (18:39)

Effer that while we may not have the numbers just yet, that doesn't mean that we don't have fight left in our bodies. And so I am going to fight him every step of the way until we get what we deserve. Because it was my ancestors that built this mother. Okay, I'm done now. I'm done.

Michael Knowles (19:00)

Okay. So generally, I would advise members of Congress and anyone who wants to speak in a respectful way about our country not to describe it as a mother effort. Though I suppose we did rebel against the motherland, so in a way. Well, in any case, I wouldn't use that language. Naughty language. Don't go blue. Okay, but she says it was her ancestors. My ancestors. It was my ancestors who built this country. And I think. Okay, if we're gonna play that game, I'm pretty sure my ancestors were here first. I'm not talking about the ones who came on the sardine boat, but the ones who came on the Mayflower, which, by the way, is an excellent cigar. Some of my ancestors came over on the mayflower. It was 1620. So. Unless. I don't know. Unless the point Jasmine Crockett is making is that her ancestors who came here as slaves. Unless they were on, like, the very first slave ship that came to America, which seems statistically rather improbable, then, no, I guess I would say my ancestors built this country. They've been building it longer than hers have, haven't they? That's kind of a stupid game to play. Of course, we all have lots of ancestors. And what does that even mean? Well, what it means for her is her whole political career is based on racial grievance and maybe based on a hoax. People don't know where this woman came from. She did not just fall out of a coconut tree doing weird TikTok dances and making offensive comments. This woman says that she went to law school she went on this path of becoming a politician because she was the subject of racial hate crimes. Hmm. She claimed in a 2020 interview that she and other black students were victims to a number of hate crimes. In 2002, at Rhodes College in Memphis, Tennessee, she said, in my junior year, I became the victim of a series of hate crimes myself, along with a handful of other black students. My school didn't know what to do. And they brought in the Cochran firm. It's Johnny Cochran. You know, if the glove don't fit, you must acquit O.J. simpson. And the lawyer that helped me became my instant shero. And she said to ABC7 News, or ABC7 News, rather reported she recalled needing an advocate when someone left racist hate mail in her campus mailbox. I've heard this one before. So this apparently the hate crime. She says there are multiple racial hate crimes, but this is the one that she's pointing to is racist hate mail in her campus mailbox. And then she says her black friends had their cars keyed on campus. What's a little weird, though, is Jasmine Crockett has never been able to produce any evidence that any of that actually happened. The Tennessee Star did an investigation. They could not locate contemporary reports even of the alleged hate crimes. So you gotta remember she's saying 20 years after the fact that she was the victim of these hate crimes, and that's why she engaged in this legal career and then political career. But not only is there no contemporary evidence that the crimes occurred, there aren't even contemporary news reports that anyone even claimed that the crimes occurred. The Tennessee Star contacted Crockett's office. Crockett's office declined to comment. If you look at a timeline of the school's history, it was listed in 2002 as Mother Jones'one, of Mother Jones's top 10 activist colleges in the United States. There have been many racial hate hoaxes on college campuses. I detail a ton of them in my book, Speechless Controlling Words, Controlling Minds. Thank you. A great book that you can get number one national bestseller. However, this case would seem. I don't know. There's no evidence that any of this actually happened. So I have to wonder if this is one of those hoaxes that would mean that this woman doing the little jiggle on the TikTok dances, that her whole political career is just a fictional performance, which would seem to be in keeping with what she's arguing, because her whole career comes down to racial grievance. And this is part and parcel of the problem that David Axelrod is describing the Democrats performance during the joint session during Trump's sort of State of the Union speech was unpersuasive to people. It didn't work. And why? Because they're just going back to the well of the same stuff that they always have. Racial grievance, killing babies, castrating little kids. I think that one's really on the way out. What have they got? What's new? Nothing. And so I think David Axelrod is saying, look, I want some. I was just speaking to Piers Morgan yesterday on his show. He said, you know, I'm waiting for some new candidate to come. Where are they? Where is the new candidate? I think it's the same. They're just stuck in a rut. They don't know how to react to President Trump, who has reordered our politics. So their old games, even if they did work a year or two ago, well, now at this point, five or 10 years ago, they don't really work anymore. So what do they do now? That's a question for them. I don't have the answer. I don't think they do either. There's so much more to say. First, though, go to helixsleep.com knowles I love Helix mattress. I've had my Helix mattress for something like five years now. It is my absolute favorite mattress, and I am a discerning sleeper. Okay? I really try to make my sleep count. I take it very, very seriously. And Helix has this amazing personalized approach. They take the time to figure out the perfect mattress for your specific needs. Okay? I love my Helix mattress so much. I love this company. I got the Helix mattress for my son when he transitioned out of a crib. And my middle son is now approaching that age. And I'm thinking, should I treat him? Should I? I don't want him to have a complex if his older brother has the greatest mattress around. And then I put him on a bale of hay or something. Nobody wants that. Go get your Helix mattress. Treat yourself, okay? Especially right now because you can take advantage of their March Madness sale. You go to helixsleep.com knowles, you will get 20% off site wide helixsleep.com knowleskiner w l e s 20% off site wide helixleep.com knowles Speaking of language, President Trump has signed an executive order making English the official language of the United States. I remember this debate going on for over 25 years now. This debate has been going on for a really, really long time. Further. I remember in high school, this would have been the mid 2000s. I remember this was a really lively debate. Are we going to make English the official language? Sure. You could say it's the national language, but America doesn't have an official language. This was kind of peak. Diversity is our strength. America is an idea liberalism. We don't have an official language in this country. Well, now we do because Trump has declared it so. This revokes an executive order issued by Bill Clinton in 2000, about 25 years ago, improving access services for persons with limited English proficiency that required federal agencies and recipients of federal funding to provide language assistance to non English speakers. What did Trump say in the order? He said, quote, a nationally designated language is at the core of a unified and cohesive society, and the United States is strengthened by a citizenry that can freely exchange ideas in one shared language. So true. No nation can survive if its citizens don't speak the same language. You're gonna hear people say that this is racist or something. You know, you're gonna hear that from the libs. But this gets to one of their major misunderstandings of human nature. They have a lot of misunderstandings of human nature. Like they think that men can be women. But one of their other misunderstandings of human nature, even, say, for instance, with their racial grievance politics, is that the races are all kind of different species or something. Another problem with their understanding of human nature is they don't recognize that babies are babies. So they'll say a human being only becomes a human being at 10 months old, but not at 8 months old or something like that. But that then raises the question, well, what is a human being? What makes us human? And maybe that'll be the next Matt Walsh documentary. What's a human? It's that we are creatures with a. We're incarnate creatures with a rational nature. So you could say there are animals, lower animals, you know, salamanders and chipmunks and things. They don't have a rational nature. Meaning we don't put them on trial for committing crimes. Meaning they don't reason abstractly. They don't understand what justice is. That's all that means. And that's indisputable. I don't know that any. If you disagree with me, then you prob. Probably think we than you necessarily actually would think that we need to put squirrels on trial for ripping up my courtyard chair as they did last year, two years ago. I'd like to do that, but I won't do that because the squirrels don't have a rational nature. So that would be an incarnate creature without A rational nature. Or conversely, if you're of a religious bent and you take theology seriously, you could point to the angels who have a rational nature, but they're not incarnate creatures. A human being is distinguished in his humanity by the fact that he is an incarnate creature with a rational nature. Meaning, I can learn English as I did as a boy. You can learn English. A white person can learn English. A black person can learn English, A Hispanic person. Any human being can in principle learn English. So you can't call it racist or anything like that. It just gets to a basic point that no nation can survive if citizens don't speak the same language. In fact, what dismantled the Tower of Babel, it was good to dismantle the Tower of Babel because they were trying to build a tower to heaven. But what dismantled it was when God confused their language. You can't have a polity if you don't speak the same language. We don't want to become the Tower of Babel, but we do want to have a functioning polity. 180 out of 195 countries in the world have an official language. Are they all just wrong? America's unique. We're just an idea. We're not a place, we're not a people. We're just an idea. Unlike every other country throughout history, diversity is our strength. And we don't have a language. And we don't need to speak the same language. We'll be confused about everything. I don't think so, Trump. Totally right here. Drawing on great wellsprings of classical philosophy, classical politics and common sense in America until about 25 years ago. Now, speaking of the English language and not speaking the same language, Dylan Mulvaney, the second most prominent trans identifying person in the country. First, I think you gotta give to Bruce Jenner. Second, Dylan Mulvaney, he was an actor, a kind of minor actor, Broadway actor, who decided he was going to pretend to be a woman one day. And then he made a big nuisance of himself and a lot of women were offended by it. And he rolled on that outrage for a little while. He actually put yours truly in his Rockefeller center musical. I made my Rockefeller center debut because of Dylan Mulvaney. But he's got a new book out. People haven't been paying attention to him lately. The bizarre act that he was putting on had kind of lost some of its charm. And so he's fallen into obscurity. So now he's got a new book, Paper Doll Notes from a Late Bloomer by Dylan Mulvaney and I have got the papers here so you can get the first five pages. It's not out yet. Coming out soon enough. Cover is pretty gross, so I'm going to skip over that. What's the book? It's just his days of being a girl. He had this series on TikTok, day one of being a girl, day five of being a girl. And he would engage in frequently offensive caricatures of what a man would think a woman is and does. And it was gross and weird and offensive. But, you know, obviously the guy's got problems. And he's talking about how when he was four years old, he told his mother that he was a girl. And I don't know, I'm a little skeptical about that, but. Okay, then you skip to the next page. Day three of being a girl. Some women hate him. Talks about the TERFs. All these women who he accuses, these are feminists, he says, who hate all trans people just because they want to have their own bathrooms. They don't want to be put at risk by men in women's spaces. They don't want men to crack women's skulls in sports. They don't want men raping women in women's prisons. That, according to Dylan Mulvaney, is examples of women hating all trans people. But then you keep scrolling, being on the red carpet, and he talks about how his father. And he describes how his parents were divorced. Here, this is the last page that you can access. When my parents divorced when I was nine, I emotionally sided with Dana. I saw mom as the gatekeeper, and my dad is the one I asked for permission from only when mom said no, and blah, blah, blah. He goes on about this divorce. I actually feel for the guy because if you asked 100 people said, hey, do you think Dylan Mulvaney grew up in a stable, married household, or do you think maybe his parents were divorced or had sex? 100 out of 100 people would say probably his parents are divorced or there's some problem there. And of course that is the case. So I really. I feel for the guy. I think that's the case for a lot of people who are confused about their identity. And I think that's actually borne out pretty well in the literature. But that doesn't excuse this. Okay, He's a grown man, and I'm sorry that he had problems as a kid, and I'm sorry that some of the consequences of those problems were predictable. But he's a grown man and he has no right to go into women's spaces. And he has no right to pretend to be a woman. And he just needs to grow up a little bit, okay? And he needs to get right with reality. Most people agree with that. Now, this book, I think, is evidence of it, and the fact that very few people are talking about it is evidence of it. I think this act is getting stale. I think that this guy is an actor who's in need of a new act, of a new character, because this one's getting stale. I am so sick of talking about transgenderism, and I don't think I really have to anymore. When I at CPAC a couple years ago called for the eradication of transgenderism in public life entirely for the good of including for the good of the people who've fallen prey to that confusion, I think we basically got that. President Trump is doing that now. That is happening right now. I think trans is kind of over. People rejected it pretty soundly at the ballot box. Dylan Mulvaney needs a new character. The proof of that is people aren't really tuning in anymore. I'm mentioning it because I played a little role in this, I guess, but I think this is done. That's just the transgender error is just yet another error about human nature that the left has made. And I think that error has run its course. If you're not a Daily Wire plus member, now's the time to join the fight. Get exclusive breaking stories from our investigative journalism team. The stories the establishment media won't cover. Enjoy ad free uncensored daily wire shows, plus live chat in the app with other members and yes, mwah. Access exclusive daily wire docs, movies and series. Stay ahead with breaking news, instant reactions. Go to DailyWire.com right now and become a member. My favorite comment yesterday is from Joanie Maroney, 7475 says, would have been awesome if Trump had said, clap if you love our country at the joint session. Well, he kind of did, didn't he? He said, hey, you people, you won't clap for me. You won't. He dared him to say, you won't. You won't clap at anything. I say, no, we won't. We're not gonna clap. Cool. I freed an American hostage. He looks. We're not gonna clap. Okay. Look at that cute little kid with a really heartwarming story. We're still not clapping, right? We're not. Okay. Hey, here's one of the Democrats policies. He basically did that. It's like, hey, don't clap if you're a big, ugly, stupid idiot. I don't kind of in a. Lose, lose here. Darn you, Trump, you wizard, you magician. How did you hypnotize me? So, speaking of human flourishing, there's a new study out. I love these studies because these studies come out and they affirm common sense. But everyone's really relieved because in our decayed and shallow modern intellectual life, we need some stupid study from some guy with a PhD to tell us things that statistically everyone is known for all of human history. And so anyway, here's a study. It's an important one because a lot of people actually don't understand it these days, how the pursuit of happiness ends up sending people on a path to misery. This is a study published in Applied Psychology, Health and well Being. And it points out that the pursuit of happiness is like a snowball effect. This is from Sam Maglio, Marketing professor at the University of Toronto Scarborough in the Rotman School of Management. Pursuit of happiness is a bit like a snowball effect. You decide to try making yourself feel happier, but then that effort depletes your ability to do the kinds of things that make you happier. So you end up having a worse day. Anyone who has ever taken their wife out for a special Valentine's Day knows this. Anyone who's ever said, you know, this year we're gonna have a good happy Christmas. We're all gonna be happy all the time. You understand? We're all gonna. I'm gonna be happy. Or even not just on special occasions, but just people who are generally a little bit down. They're experiencing kind of ennui that is characteristic of our liberal modern age. They'll say, I am going to determine to be happy. And to do that, I'm going to think all the time about how I want to be happy. Which means, of course, that I'm going to be thinking about how I am unhappy. And it means if I'm thinking about how I'm unhappy, I will be making myself even less happy. And I'm gonna read a bunch of books that are at best useless about how to be happy. And I'm just gonna focus on my own unhappiness all the time. Why am I not happy? I remember I had friends who were really into the self help thing. I had friends who were writing self help books 10, 15 years ago. This was around the time that I was reverting to the church. I was so naive in this way. I remember I was reading the Bible seriously for the first time, certainly for the first time in a long time. And I said to them, I said, Guys, you're not gonna believe it. You got all these self help books, but there's this really good self help book that's way better than all the other ones. You guys ever heard of this book called the Bible? They roll their eyes at me. Alternately they think, michael, are you an idiot? And then on the other flip side, they'd say, are you crazy? We don't read the Bible. That's nuts. But you don't even look. Ultimately, if you want to live a life that is conducive to your eternal happiness, you really have to be religious. And it is helpful for your natural happiness too. But even just taking things in the order of nature, even putting theology aside for a second and just taking things philosophically, we also have good books on that. I do Happiness and you can too. Kind of all these modern stupid books. How to be happy, how to 10 rules for staying Positive or whatever. There's a great one called the Nicomachean Ethics that goes back to Aristotle, who comes up on the show every so often because he was right about basically everything. And he defined happy. He said, happiness is the goal. That's what people want. It's not just you. Everyone wants to be happy. But we all go wrong sometimes, and some of us more than others. And so if we want happiness, we gotta know what happiness is. And Aristotle said, happiness is excellent rational activity in accord with virtue. That's it activity. So it's not passive. It's not just like trying to meditate yourself into a state of happiness, though prayer and meditation might play a role in it. There's motion to it and it is activity done in accord with virtue. So we have to know something about the virtues that we can deduce using our reason. And it's activity that's done with excellence. When you do things poorly, you're not going to be as happy as when you do things really, really well.

David Axelrod (39:51)

And.

Michael Knowles (39:52)

And crucial. It's rational activity. It's activity that has a relationship to the truth. Sometimes we want to do things that are irrational, but that's not going to make us happy. Not in the long run. Stuffing your face and cheating on your wife and committing crimes. And that's not. It might make you feel a certain kind of titillation in the short run, but it's not going to make you happy in the long run. It's got to be rational activity, which means it's gotta be in accord with reality, which is why people like Dylan Mulvaney are unhappy. It's why the libs are unhappy. I'm not saying that the libs have to be actively killing their children or castrating their children or hanging around with face tattooed Mexican gangsters to be unhappy. It's the very fact that their political ideology is grounded on a false understanding of human nature and how society works is part of why libs consistently rank less happy in social scientific surveys than conservatives. It's the rational part. It's not that they're lazy, it's not that they're not talented or skilled at doing anything. It is in part that they don't quite understand virtue or that they pull away from virtue, but they even exhibit certain virtues. I think it's the rational activity part. They refuse to accept reality as it is. And so they live in the world of John Milton, describing Satan who rebels and falls down to hell and he says, well, whatever, I don't want to go back to heaven. The mind is its own place. It can make a hell of heaven or heaven a hell. Better to reign in hell than serve in heaven. That's where they're at and it's why they're unhappy. And if you want to remain unhappy, then keep doing that. Keep living in your fantasy world where you're God and you make the rules and you don't have to respect reality, biological, social, anthropological or anything else moral. But if, if you want to be happy, that rational part is really important. It's not just that you got to lift the weights and whatever, diet and read self help books and wake up at 6am take a cold plunge. Fine. Maybe some of that helps you, maybe some of it doesn't, but reality is really great. Okay? And if Mr. Mulvaney is looking for his next act, reality would probably be a good one. Makes you a better actor too. Now, speaking of flourishing and the moral order, big news story. I think I might have to tease this news story, though. I don't know that we have. Do we have time to get to it? We'll try. The Florida Attorney General has just opened a criminal probe into the Tate brothers, Andrew Tate and Tristan Tate. Who are the Tate brothers, some of you might be asking. They're very well known, so probably most of you know who they are. They're these guys who are best known for stating their opinions on the Internet, like so many people do. Some of my best friends state their opinions on the Internet and they are generally more right wing, though in a kind of odd way. They say things that are not merely offensive to certain women because they're true, but demeaning to certain women because they're not true. They don't promote traditional conservative values like getting married or having children in wedlock or curtailing their base passions or living in accord with virtue or these kinds of certain virtues. But a lot of them not. They're a little bit more. They're not the classical or Christian right. They're a little bit more the Nietzschean right or the individualist right or the, you know, I don't know, this other kind of right. But they're not libs, that's for sure. They wouldn't be called on the left, at least. Anyway, they're charged with crimes, pretty serious crimes in Romania. They've spent time in the UK and they've admitted variously to pulling girls, seducing girls, including at pretty young ages, into doing pornography and that they made a lot of pornography on it. And they've gotten women to put their names on their bodies and tattoos as a kind of harem or a symbol of property. One of the Tates was, I think he videotaped himself on camera, like beating a woman. And his argument was, it's consensual. Most conservatives wouldn't care if it's consensual. And I think at least one of the Tates is a Muslim. Says he's a Muslim. So, anyway, I don't know. But all of that is just background to the story here that the Florida attorney general has opened a criminal probe into the Tate brothers. And the Tate brothers have said, hold on, we haven't been accused, really, of committing any crimes in the United States. This is a political witch hunt because we're on the political right. And now there's all this argument over the rights of American citizens and innocent until proven guilty. And I think it's all kind of missing the point. The people, certainly the people who are rabidly defending the Tate brothers, I think, are missing the point. But even the people who are attacking the Tate brothers and really going to the wall, there's one question that they're not asking. And I think, to me, this is the crucial question of the whole Tate saga. And I'm gonna save it until tomorrow. How do you like that? How good is that for a tease? Because speaking of morality. Well, speaking of theology, speaking of Christianity, we have a theologian coming on to clear up some questions that I have personally and I think many people have about the canon of the Bible. This is Theology Thursday. The rest of the show continues now. You do not wanna miss it. Become a member and use code Knowleskin at WLES at checkout for two months. Free on all annual.