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- [00:00]
Michael Knowles
The left is rallying around Jimmy Kimmel, who is taken off air for telling an egregious and malicious lie about the assassination of Charlie Kirk. They're rallying around him as some kind of free speech martyr. Not Charlie. Not Charlie, who is a free speech martyr. No, no, no. Jimmy Kimmel, who was suspended for lying. But not only was Jimmy Kimmel suspended over a lie, it turns out the whole story about his suspension is a lie too. I'm Michael Knowles. This is the Michael Knowles Show. Welcome back to the show. The mayor of Chicago has a plan to tamp down violence to reform criminal justice. His plan is to try to get rid of the jails. Jails are a sickness, he says. That don't make anyone safer. Hmm. We'll get to that. We'll examine that in light of modern evidence, all the way back to ancient evidence. First, though, I want to tell you about Chevron.
- [01:14]
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- [01:45]
Michael Knowles
Jimmy Kimmel lost his job because Trump's FCC wielded authoritarian power to pressure the company to fire him. That's the official story from the establishment media, which lies what actually happened. We got the inside scoop. Not even from a right wing outlet. It's from the Hollywood Reporter, okay? It's a trade publication for left wing Hollywood. How Jimmy Kimmel's Suspension Went Down, Sponsor Panic, A Defiant Host and a Painful Call Subheader. Disney's Bob Iger and Dana Walden wanted to know how Kimmel was going to address the situation. What's the situation? That Jimmy Kimmel went on air right after Charlie Kirk was murdered by a radical leftist dating a trans furry who wrote antifa slogans on his bullets. He went on air right after that and said that the murderer was actually on the same side ideologically as Charlie. That the murderer was a MAGA supporter. Malicious, egregious, preposterous lie. So how was Kimmel going to handle the situation? According to the Hollywood Reporter, sources say he planned to defend what he said rather than kowtowing to the outrage. Disney thought that would fan the flames. There was much more pressure, according to Hollywood Reporter, leading up to the suspension. Than was previously reported. It's a good report you should all read. It points to the social media sit storm that followed Jimmy Kimmel's lie. But one thing it also points out is that this suspension did not come primarily from. From the fcc. The fcc. Brendan Carr, chairman of the fcc, came out and he said, look, we need to make sure that the networks are abiding by their responsibilities and their obligations. Because the news networks are licensed by the government. They don't have some kind of right to public airwaves. They don't have private ownership of public airwaves. They're public. These are public airwaves. And so they can say what they want broadly, but they can't tell malicious lies that then triggers the government's legitimate oversight responsibility. As we saw in the case of Jimmy Kimmel. Disney was already freaking out. Trump has pointed out that Kimmel's ratings could be a little spotty, too, and that he's not been as talented as he used to be and he's kind of weak in recent years. But that's all beside the point. It's not about the joke. If there was a joke in that monologue. It's about the lie. That's what triggers it. The sponsors, the corporation, Bob Iger, the audience, social media, all had turned on Kimmel. The FCC signaled that it might engage in its legally required oversight of the news networks. That's why the FCC exists. But Kimmel's suspension had relatively little to do with that. Kimmel's suspension came because of what he did and the natural consequences that come from companies and audiences and advertisers, all those normal things. Kimmel has no one to blame but himself. Nevertheless. Nevertheless, the left has kept up this kind of rhetoric referring to the Trump administration, even in the wake of Charlie Kirk's murder, as constituting a fascist takeover. Here's Rashida Tlaib, one of the squad in Congress.
- [05:28]
Sponsor/Advertiser Voice
And I think it's really important. We need to stand up against this fascist takeover. That's not a bad word. It's a fact. And here in D.C. and across the country, it is so incredibly important, Mr. Chair, that this committee does not allow rhetoric that defames or paints Washington, D.C. in a way that you all haven't really truly seen. You're just reading it. No, you're just reading it or something off of some.
- [05:56]
Michael Knowles
Well, the gentleman. She said that eight days after Charlie Kirk's assassination. Eight days. And she said it's unbelievable how little function there is in between her ears. Because she says on the one hand that the Trump administration constitutes a fascist takeover. And then in the very same breath, she says, and this committee will not allow for defamation. We will not allow. And she kind of catches herself. She goes, I mean, other. Well, it won't allow the Trump to defame. Anyway, moving on. I'm glad she said this because it shows you something that I think a lot of us have inferred since the assassination of Charlie Kirk, which is that the left wants to murder us. Broadly, the left would be fine with our murder. In some cases, they would celebrate it. What's my evidence of that? The widespread minimization and mockery and outright celebration of Charlie Kirk's assassination. From cable news, from msnbc, from the kinds of left wing streamers that have been platformed, popular left wing streamers that have been platformed in establishment outlets. People like Stephen Bonnell, who called for Republicans to fe for their lives when they go out to public events. A man who should be prosecuted for that, Hasan Piker, very popular left wing streamer who has called for the streets to soak in the blood of capitalists, who has suggested the assassination of a Republican senator, Tom Cotton. These guys are the faces of it. But all the way down to your co workers that you see on Facebook, the people you went to school with were posting on Facebook that it's fine that Charlie Kirk was murdered or further, that it's actually a good thing. And now we have Rashida Tlaib eight days later. What does she say? She says that Trump is a fascist. What is the import of that statement? What does it mean when the left calls right wingers fascists or Nazis? For a long time, conservatives thought that what that meant was these people are hysterical. These people are hyperbolic. These people are so silly, they don't even know what fascism and Nazism really mean. Oh, those silly, crazy leftists. That's not the import of that kind of statement. We now can see in the wake of the assassination of Charlie and in the wake of the reaction to the assassination of Charlie that the political significance of the left calling the right fascist or Nazi is to justify our murder. Because in our culture now, if you walked up to someone and said, hey, Hitler is on the rise, the implication is you should go kill that person. To compare someone to Hitler is to say that any means it would be acceptable to take that person out of society, go kill that person. And in the case of the events of last week, that's exactly what happened. One of the bullets said, hey, fascist, catch. So when Rashida Tlaib says the Trump administration. They are fascists and they constitute a takeover of our government. What she is saying, especially in the context of last week's assassination, is murder President Trump. Now, of course, the left had already been doing that at the highest levels. Joe Biden launched his own presidential campaign on the lie. Also egregious, Lieutenant, that Trump had called neo Nazis fine people at Charlottesville and that Trump posed an existential threat to democracy. If you say that someone poses an existential threat to you, you are justifying the killing of that person. And of course, we saw in the wake of President Trump's near assassination, many people, including that streamer that I just mentioned, Stephen Bunnell, excusing it or encouraging it. Eight days after Kirk's murder, a Democrat member of Congress comes out and effectively says, you should murder the whole Trump government. And so we can't tolerate this. The firings need to continue. The social stigma and ostracism needs to continue. Rashida Tlaib, if she could be thrown out of Congress, if the Republicans could muster the votes, they should do that. If they could deport her, they should do that, too. We cannot tolerate this kind of behavior in society. And that's not from a place of vengeance. Vengeance is mine, says the Lord, and I will repay. That's not even merely from a place of retribution, though. Retribution is important and it's the primary object of the justice system. That comes from even a defense of the free marketplace of ideas in the broader public square and stable government and government by the people and a constitutional system. You cannot have any of those things. If people are. Are threatening violence when you engage with them, you can't have it. You cannot have a market. As I've been saying now for almost a week, you cannot have a marketplace of ideas or anything else if certain actors keep coming in and shooting up the marketplace. In order to defend and even expand the marketplace, you have to exclude those actors and you have to exclude those suicidal ideas. So the consequences need to keep up. The firings need to keep up. There's some good news on that front. We'll get to that in one second. First, I wanna tell you about Good Ranchers. Go to goodranchers.com, use promo code Knowles. Do you know what I had for dinner? Was it two nights ago? One night ago, two nights ago, I had a delicious Good Ranchers New York strip steak. Do you know what sweet little Alisa had? She had a delicious Good Ranchers ribeye. Do you know what? Actually, my favorite thing from Good Rancher's is, is the Good Ranchers Wagyu Burgers. Do you know what else I like from Good ranchers? Every single thing. Especially the seed oil free chicken nuggets. They are phenomenal. 100% American meat from local farms and ranches delivered straight to your door. I've been a Good Ranchers subscriber for many years at this point and I can tell you look me in the eye, it is the best meat you're going to get. Now look at me in the eye. If you're listening, just imagine it is the least expensive meat that you are going to get. Especially certainly for the quality. It is American meat. You don't need to worry about it being injected with all sorts of weird stuff. It is supporting a wonderful company. There is no downside, it is only upside and it is shocking. If you subscribe to any good rancher's box today, use code Knowles K N A W L E S. You will get free meat for life. That is goodranchers.com, code knowles. You will get $40 off plus free meat for life@goodranchers.com welcome to the table. Final point on this one of these left wing streamers I talked about Hasan Piker earlier. This one, Steven Bonnell, relatively popular, went on Piers Morgan's show not only to call for the existential fear of conservatives in the public square to say that they need to fear for their lives so that they shut up, so that if they didn't want to be murdered then they shouldn't have elected Trump as he has previously said, but also now, just when you think this person has reached the depths of degradation in his extraordinarily deviant and degenerate life, he goes on to mock Charlie Kirk's widow for crying over her husband.
- [13:32]
Sponsor/Advertiser Voice
I don't understand you Destiny. You have so much hatred in your heart. And at the same time, if you're.
- [13:37]
Michael Knowles
Going to weaponize somebody's grief against the other party, but then of course people have a right to fight back against it. I think that she has every right to grieve in whatever way she wants, but when that grief is gonna be weaponized to do recruitment, political recruitment and further radicalization of the other side, then of course you not only have the ability to mock it, I think you have the obligation to mock it. It's insane. Stephen, by now a very prominent young left wing broadcaster says you have not only the right but the responsibility to mock Charlie Kirk's widow. Why? Because she spoke in public. The same reason that they're excusing or celebrating the Murder of Charlie Kirk. He says, oh, she has every right to be sad, but the moment she is sad in public, then we have to mock her. Oh, Charlie Kirk and the other conservatives, they have every right to their opinions, but the moment that they state their opinions in public, we have to murder them. It's perfectly fine for them to feel things, but if that leads to any effect in public whatsoever, as he says, her speaking will lead to recruitment because it will generate sympathy and empathy and it will be logical and it will attract people. And we can't have that. Which is also part of the reason they murdered Charlie Kirk. It's not just that they murdered Charlie Kirk because they didn't like the way he phrased something. It's that he was extremely politically effective, more politically effective than anyone else of his generation. Gotta murder. You gotta murder the conservatives who speak up. You gotta mock the conservatives who speak up when their husbands are murdered. You have to stop any of them from being effective. This person is not fit for polite society and he should be excluded from it. He should not be welcome into places of employment. He should not be welcome into clubs and associations. If he wants to go have his horrible ideas somewhere in a cabin in the woods, I suppose he can do that. None of us will stop him.
- [15:35]
Caller/Listener
Him.
- [15:35]
Michael Knowles
But in terms of society, he cannot be welcomed into that. He should not be welcomed into the marketplace of ideas. What he advocates is the abolition of the marketplace of ideas. And so that's the kind of thought that stops thought and the sort of thought that ought to be stopped. Happily, he has been demonetized on YouTube. So he makes his money by doing this. He's been demonetized on YouTube. That's good. Years ago, he was already banned from social media platform Twitch. That's all good. It should go further. He should be deplatformed from all of these places. He has no right to be in the public square. He damages the public square by his very presence in it. He should go away from public life. He should retreat to a much more private life. And he should not be welcomed in public life. Elon Musk has called for him to be prosecuted. I also have called for him to be prosecuted. He is at this moment calling for violence against conservatives who speak on campus, who speak at public events. There is a kind of a specificity, there is a kind of urgency, there is a kind of immediacy to his incitement of violence here. And this is not just a generic, abstract opinion. This is immediately in the wake of Charlie Kirk's assassination, when more Events like the one at which Charlie Kirk was assassinated will be occurring quickly. And this guy is calling for our murder at those events. That guy needs to be in jail, and he needs to be in jail for a long time. And there is nothing hypocritical about this. There is nothing authoritarian about this. This is the basic enforcement of the law. This is the basic enforcement of the norms and standards that must exist for any kind of free society to continue. Now, not everyone agrees. I think most people agree with that at this point, but not everyone does, including Bari Weiss. You know Bari Weiss, she's perfectly, perfectly nice lady. She runs the Free Press. She is a former left wing liberal who is now a slightly more centrist liberal. And therefore in our kind of crazy society, she seems almost like she's on the right, but she's not really on the right. She's basically a left libertarian. And she runs an outlet called the Free Press, which publishes some good work, but this was not good work that she just published. She just published an argument against the right basically doing anything right now with regard to Jimmy Kimmel and with regard to the broader deplatforming and discouragement of some of these kinds of ideas. Barry said, for those on the right who might like what they're seeing from this fcc, remember, the Democrats will wield this power again. Now, I have a lot of grace for Bari Weiss here. She is new to the right. She's not really on the right, but she's new. She used to be on the left. She used to be at left wing outlets. And so she's new. And I'm not surprised that she's making these kinds of arguments, but it's not correct. The argument that she is making is it basically boils down to the right at this moment should not wield the power that we have for justice and the common good. In other words, we should not govern because in the future the Democrats might have power again and might use that power again in ways that are contrary to justice and the common good. And therefore we should not govern. Now, I'm not persuaded, I'm not fearful of using the power that we legitimately have in ways that are just today after the people gave us that power. Because the left might in the future hypothetically do the thing that they always do that they've been doing for many decades. I guess I'm not afraid of that hypothetical which already exists. And furthermore, I don't think there's anything unprincipled about wielding that power today. If you're an anarchist or an extreme libertarian, then I guess, yes, it would run contrary to your principles to govern. But I'm not any of those things. I'm a conservative and I recognize that the FCC exists for a reason. The FCC exists to regulate these kinds of things, to regulate broadcast news, the broadcast stations. In the article itself, not just the tweet, but the article itself have it right here. The jawboning and Jimmy Kimmel. The editors, the editorial board writes, the suspension of his late night show isn't a great loss to the culture, but the FCC's coercion undermines our most fundamental values. Our most fundamental values. What's our most fundamental value? Lying about the assassination of a civil debater is our most fundamental. Letting a hack comedian tell an egregious and malicious lie on public airwaves is one of our most fundamental values. I don't know. I guess we have different political philosophies. I don't think that's what James Madison and Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton consider to be one of the most fundamental values of America. At no point in our history have we believed that letting people, much less a hack comedian, egregiously lie about important national events on public airwaves is a value. My question to them is, what's the point of the fcc? If the point of the FCC is not to regulate what happens on public airwaves, what is the point of the fcc? There isn't one. I guess the argument you hear from some of these guys is just, well, maybe we shouldn't have an fcc. Maybe we should just let the invisible hand of the free market. Okay, whatever.
- [21:22]
Caller/Listener
All right.
- [21:23]
Michael Knowles
You have a different conception of government. I'm talking about our government, though. I'm talking about our system. I'm talking about our fundamental values. Not only does it not run contrary to the purpose of the FCC to call this stuff out, that's the whole point of it. And I am afraid that the laissez faire liberalism that allows the left to get away with its increasingly murderous designs, overtly murderous designs. Not just the wacko who shot Charlie, but all of the many people throughout all of the strata of the left who celebrated it, that I'm not letting that go. I think we've all had enough. And I think we're gonna do something. We've tried not doing something about it that led to the destruction of our public square and the assassination of the most civil, generous, prominent public debater we have. So we tried that. That didn't work. Now I think we're going to do our jobs and accept our responsibility in society. Let's give that one a try, okay? 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Jails are a sickness that do not lead to safe communities. You hear this sometimes, not just from the libs on the left, but even from the libertarians. They said we have an over incarceration problem here. What's Brandon Johnson saying? He says, oh a crime, it's going down in Chicago. It's great. You think that. Does anyone really think that? Hey, hey, if you think that, then go out to the south side at about 11pm Maybe around midnight. Just walk around in a nice polo shirt and chinos. Tell me how you do. Oh, you don't want to do that. No, you don't want to. You don't want to leave your car unlocked. You don't want to come to a complete stop at a traffic light in a certain place. Come on. No one thinks Chicago is safe. Crime is out of control in Chicago. Many people are murdered every weekend. But we're not putting people in jail, right? Maybe that's the problem. It actually relates to the same error that is being made here by the people complaining about the FCC or the suspension of Jimmy Kimmel or any of it. They say if we ever do anything to try to address a problem, it's only going to make the problem worse. And it's the same kind of glib libertarianism that says that the government never does anything. Right? And really, the ideal form of government is to get rid of the government altogether. And then the magical invisible hand, which is providence for atheists, that will fix everything. If only we stop incarcerating criminals, then we'll have less crime. That is defied by all of the crime statistics we ever have had. But furthermore, it gets to a deeper question that is philosophical and it's how do you help criminals? How do you help criminals? People are committing crimes for all sorts of reasons, because of defects of their will, because of bad circumstances in which they grew up, because of the ignorance in which they're mired. And so they commit crimes. And we have to protect society from those people. And we have to give those people retribution because of the crimes that they committed. But we also wanna rehabilitate those people. So the question becomes, how do you help the criminals? Do you help the criminal by letting him get out of jail? That's the argument made by Brandon Johnson. That's the argument made by the left. That's the argument made by Rashida Tlaib, who wants to abolish prisons. That's the argument made even by some on the right who were pushing President Trump in the first term to let criminals out of jail. The Kim Kardashians of the coalition. Is that the way you help them, or do you help them by punishing them? And on this point, I think I'm gonna turn away from the mayor of Chicago. I'm gonna go back to Plato, who wrote a whole book about this called Gorgias in Antiquity, in which he argues in the voice of Socrates that the way to help someone who's doing injustice is not to let them off the hook, but actually to punish them as a kind of medicine. Because Socrates argues it is worse to do injustice than to suffer injustice. To suffer injustice might damage your body. To do injustice damages your soul. For those of us who have a sense of the eternal destiny of man, we would say that to suffer injustice might have temporal effects, but to commit injustice has eternal effects. It could affect our lives in the hereafter, but it even affects our lives now. If you allow someone to persist in vice and ignorance all the time, their lives are going to get worse. And so it's actually an act of mercy to punish the guilty. It will help them to reform. You might not always like the medicine that the doctor assigns you, but if you don't take the medicine, you're going to die. And if you allow criminals to persist in their crime and to keep getting away with it, they're going to suffer a kind of a spiritual death. It's just like when you're raising kids. You don't want to punish your toddler because it feels bad, and you want your toddler to like you or something, so you let him get away with it. Let him get away with it. Let him get away with it. You're not doing him any favors. You're damaging him and he's going to get worse and worse and worse. It's going to have bad effects. It's. It's the same thing in society. It's the same thing when we think about the relation of the government to criminals. And it's no surprise that Chicago is a third world country under that kind of idea. Well, that idea hasn't worked. Maybe we need to try something else. Laissez faire. Hands off. Let the left threaten to murder us. Hasn't worked. Maybe we need to try something else. Maybe this really is an inflection point. He's not the only one who says it. The mayor of Chicago, Jasmine Crockett, the new AOC in Congress, she goes even further. She says that committing a crime does not make you a criminal.
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Sponsor/Advertiser Voice
I understood what was kind of pushing them there. And so I do want people to know that just because someone has committed a crime, it doesn't make them a criminal. That is completely different. Being a criminal is more so about your mindset. Committing a crime can come for a lot of different reasons.
- [29:22]
Michael Knowles
Said contra. Committing a crime does in fact make you a criminal. And the ideology that she's advancing here is so pernicious, it's so subtle, but you see it throughout liberalism. It says, no, no, what you do has no connection to who you are. Yeah, you might do crimes all the time, but on the inside, if you don't think of yourself as a criminal, if you don't identify as a criminal, you're not a criminal. What makes you a criminal is when you identify As a criminal. It's a mindset. Well, this is what the left says about identity, broadly. Your physical conditions, your actions, your social relations have nothing to do with who you really are. It's just all in the imagination. That's all. The imagination is all that matters. Of course, that is not true. We are what we habitually do. We are creatures of habit. Virtue and vice are habits. Virtuous people do a lot of virtuous things. Vicious people do a lot of vicious things. None of us is good. None of us can be holy on our own. We are born with a fallen nature, and the law exists to show us our sin and to direct us to the need for a savior and to direct us to pray for grace. And then we can cooperate with grace and cultivate habits of virtue. And then we can be still not like good people, but we can be better. We can be more fully human. We can be more fully what we are supposed to be. Or we can persist in our vices and pretend that what we do has nothing to do with who we really are. And then we can live in imagination land, but the reality around us is gonna fall into crime and decay and destruction. And this ties in with the latest update about the alleged shooter, the alleged assassin of Charlie Kirk. There's a report from the New York Post that says that the alleged shooter was a big fan of playing a video game. He was a big video gamer and he was apparently quite addicted to pornography. And so much so that he actually played video games that are pornographic. Apparently there are porn video games now. We will live to see horrors beyond our imagination. As I think Nikola Tesla told us he was a big fan of this porn video game. He played it quite recently. And not only was he gay, and not only was he dating a self identified trans, but he was also something called a furry. A furry is someone who is sexually attracted to human beings in anthropomorphic animal costumes. And so I guess the video game was a gay furry video game. According to the post last week, this account associated with the shooter on the site, had recently watched content not only depicting this kind of stuff, but also created by a user named Redrusker, who is an artist known for furry pornography who has admitted to drawing images showing underage characters having sex. So cover your ears if you know young people are listening to this. We now find out that the shooter was addicted to pornographic video games depicting a kind of sex with animals that was also pedophilic. How did we get there? How did we get there? How did we get to that Point when I was a kid, I remember when I got my first computer and I certainly remember before we had the Internet in our house. In part that was cause we didn't have a lot of money. But there was a time I'm not even all that old. I feel like an old man sometimes, but I'm not that old. But there was a time within living memory when people didn't have computers in their house and they certainly didn't have the Internet. And let's just say they certainly didn't have furry shades of Gay 3 on their computers. There was a time when pornography existed as it's existed since antiquity. But when to purchase it, you had to go into a CD store in a trench coat trying to hide your identity and ask for the magazine that was covered up in foil. There was not assumed to be some constitutional right to pornography in magazines. It was in packaging where you couldn't see it because kids would go into magazine stores and you would have to talk to a human being and hand him some money and buy the magazine that showed naked ladies. It didn't show Fury Shades of Gay 3. It showed like naked ladies. And that was considered obscene enough. Now we've let this problem fester. In the 90s, when computers and the Internet became popular, there were two laws that were passed. The Communications Decency act, from which we get the now famous section 230, which is supposed to regulate the big tech companies, but actually gave them kind of a carve out. It was very important to political debates over speech on the Internet. A few years ago, the Communications Decency act primarily was about decency in communications. And the Child Online Protection act, both of these had broad bipartisan support, were signed into law. Liberal judges gutted them. Everyone at that time agreed we need restrictions on obscenity because it can really pervert people's minds, especially the minds of children. That's why we call it the Child Online Protection Act. And then we just kind of looked away because of liberal judges and because of a laissez faire ideology. I said, what's the big deal? All right, it's some naked ladies on the Internet. Okay, it's some naked men and ladies on the. Okay, now it's some naked. Now it's like animals that look like, okay, now it's underage. Okay, now it's. Now it's in video games now. Whoa, whoa, whoa. You very quickly get to a degree of degeneracy that previously was more or less unimaginable. The laissez faire or hand of the free market hasn't corrected that. The government exists in part to correct these things. And so while everyone's focusing on the ideology of the shooter, on the defenses of political violence that have come from the left, let's not lose sight also of the obscenity, because the guy was a complete sex freak. Our culture, broadly said, you're not even allowed to use phrases like perversion anymore. But he was a profoundly sexually perverted person. I think we all have to admit that, candidly. And he was encouraged in his perversions by public resources like the Internet. And one of the things that is supposed to be kept out of the public square that is not protected by the First Amendment is obscenity. Why? That's for the same reason that we don't allow direct threats in the public square, why we need to deplatform people like the streamer Stephen Bunnell. Because if you allow direct threats in the public square, if you protect those, it undermines the public square. It undermines discourse. It shuts people up. It doesn't encourage people to speak more freely. If you permit fraud, lies, the sorts of lies that Jimmy Kimmel said on public airwaves. If you allow fraud in the public square, that doesn't expand the public square. It doesn't add another voice. It undermines. It shrinks the public square because it undermines market integrity. It tells people that you can't trust what is being said. If you allow obscenity and appeals to the prurient interest into the public square, that doesn't expand the public square. It is not, as some perverts in judicial outfits in the 20th century said, it does not constitute protected speech because it undermines speech. Speech is rational. Speech makes use of our reason and allows us to arrive at the truth and to live in accordance with the truth. That's what it's for. Obscenity appeals to the prurient interest. When you're looking at pornography, don't even think about furry shades of gay. Talk about, like, regular, normal pornography that you'd buy in the magazines in the 1990s, before all of this Internet stuff, even that, any kind of pornographic material. When you see that, does it make you more rational or less rational? We all know it makes you less rational. This is why advertising tries to get up to the line of obscenity, because they know that sex sells, because it prevents you from thinking in a rational way. And it gets you to be more emotional and ginned up and lustful and irrational so that you can be more easily manipulated. It is an open question. Had we properly regulated pornography, as both parties tried to do in the 90s, would that assassin have picked up that gun? He says he was driven by a sexual ideology to protect his trans furry boyfriend. Would he have become so hardened in those deviant desires and in that deviant identity, would he have been exposed to it in the first place? Would that have happened? We sometimes draw a distinction between public and private sins. There's really no such thing. Because society is made up of people and people are the same. People in private and in public. Are we going to take that seriously too? It seems to me the obvious reform that has to come after the assassination of Charlie is a reform to the free marketplace of ideas to protect it, to prop it up again, not to abolish it or something, but to refortify it such that we can have a healthy conversation and a self government. A big part of that is gonna be obscenity too. It's not just a weird, creepy fact that the alleged shooter was a gay furry attracted to transgenders who played porn video games and liked the work of artists who depicted minors. That's not just a coincidence. That's part of the whole degeneration of this person's mind and the degeneration of our public square. For over a week, we paused advertisements and any appeals to Daily Wire memberships to focus on the only thing that really matters in this moment, which is remembering and honoring the legacy of Charlie Kirk. Without even being asked, you still showed up. You watched, you commented, you shared, you supported us by becoming Daily Wire members. You reminded us once again that we are not alone in this fight and that we will not be silenced. And that together, we will keep building the future. Thank you for standing with us. You are what makes America great and inspire all of us here to continue the work we do every day. My favorite comment Yesterday is from sbrowny130 who says what is sad? The left is more upset about someone losing their show than someone losing their life. Yep. Yeah, that's not true for all liberals, but it's uncomfortably true for a broad swath of them. Finally, we arrive at the mailbag. Our mailbag is sponsored by Pure Talk. Go to Pure Talk.comKnowles relish your free one year membership to Daily Wire. Plus take it away.
- [40:48]
Caller/Listener
Hi Michael. I have a bit of a mixed message today. I am saddened by the news of Charlie Kirk, but at the same time, on the same day, nearly the same time as the announcement of his death. My brother is having a baby. I don't know how to feel about this. I'm saddened by the news of Charlie Kirk, and I need some guidance here. I don't know how to feel. I don't know how to act. And I think you're words of wisdom might be able to help. Please help me. Thank you for all you do, and God bless. Godspeed.
- [41:35]
Michael Knowles
Okay, good question. And congratulations on your brother's kid. You're saying, is it all right to be happy about good things even when really bad things happen? Yes, of course, if that were not the case, you could never be happy. I don't mean to make light of anything. I don't mean to be overly reductive, but yes, of course. Very horrible things happen all the time. The assassination of Charlie was a particular national trauma, and the reaction to it was a secondary trauma. But very, very horrible things happen every day in the fallen world. And good things happen, too. And what likely will happen is that the bad thing will depress your spirit just a little bit. You're gonna walk around and you're gonna be a little bit glum. Certainly in the immediacy after. In the immediate days after the tragedy. It would be good, I think, especially that you're a man, not to dwell on it too much, not to sob and sit around and cry all the time, have a little bit of a stiff upper lip. You know, I was saying this after Charlie's assassination a few days later, I really let it wash over me. And I let the tears come right up to my eye. I let them come right up. And then I pushed it all right back down. I let it come up. I let it wash over me, sitting alone in my office at night. But, you know, you're a guy. You gotta be tough. You gotta be tough. You're not allowed to say that anymore, but it's true. So, yes, let it affect you. Mourn, grieve. That's all real. But recognize that the world is not totally lost. And there are, in fact, glimpses of good things in the world. And they point to the ultimate good that we can find. Because there's darkness all over. But light shines in the darkness, and the darkness will not comprehend it. Okay, next question.
- [43:39]
Caller/Listener
Who can be compared like unto God? My brother Michael. Hail Mary. You have been critical of dual citizenship. But you've also stated in the past that patriotism is a duty to one's country, not a conformity of intellect and will to the ideals of that country. But if one is raised in two countries and two cultures with two family ties, then does not one also have a duty to honor both, so long as they cohere to the higher principle of the faith. Second, isn't it interesting how libs will use the violinist argument to justify abortion because the violinist has no right to your your body, but if you are near death, then the violinist has a claim to your organs before you're even dead. Since all arguments are about utility and not principle for them. Your thoughts?
- [44:35]
Michael Knowles
Great observation. I love that observation at the end, the violinist argument. I won't recite it now. It's one of these stupid arguments from the 70s or something about abortion. And it defends a mother's supposed right to murder her kid in the vein that the child has no right to the body of the mother. Just as if you woke up in a hospital strapped to a violinist who was living off of your body, that he would have no right to do that and you would have every right to cut him loose. So they make that argument about abortion, but then the moment anyone's in a car wreck or something, they all claim that they have a right to every single one of your organs, even though the harvesting of those organs very likely will be the thing that kills you. That's a good observation. I like that. I don't like that that happens, but I like that observation. To your first point, though, on dual citizenship, what about people who are raised in two countries with two cultures? Yes. They will feel a kind of a familial draw and reverence and filial piety to those cultures. And that's just not ideal. It's like children of divorce. You might grow up. I mean, divorce is a horrible, horrible evil. And so if parents are divorced, you could have a kid who spends one week at one parent's house and then the next week at the next parent's house. And in principle, they have two homes. Right? But really no, because you can't have two homes. So that will result in competing loyalties and kind of a. I don't know, a kind of a schizophrenia, I guess. So it's just not good. You should not be raised in two countries. It's fine to travel. It's good to have affinity for other cultures. Some of my ancestors come from Italy. I have a great deal of affection for Italy and I like to go visit. But you really should have one home and one culture. To raise someone with two homes is really to deprive them of a home. Okay, rest of the show continues. Now we have the iPad. I will be talking to you. You do not want to miss it. We have more voice mailbag. We have more written mailbag. We have a lot. See you over.