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- [00:00]
Michael Knowles
2 Islamic terror attacks took place yesterday, one at a Virginia university, another at a Michigan synagogue as the Iran war entered its 13th day. We'll get into all the details. Some amazing details came out about this, especially at the university. But it all raises a major question in the minds of Americans. If one of the justifications for war in the Middle east, one that we have heard for decades, is that we fight them there so we don't have to fight them here, why do we keep having to fight them here? I'm Michael Knowles. This is the Michael Knowles Show. Welcome back to the show. The United Kingdom is removing Winston Churchill from its money. They're removing Churchill, who is too controversial, apparently. The removal they consider to be long overdue. They are replacing him with a hedgehog. I assume they not only have to run the new characters for the banknotes by the PC police, they also obviously have to run them by whatever bureau determines whether or not the images are halal or haram. We'll get to the new UK money. We'll get to the culture we used to call British. First, though, want to tell you about Ave Maria mutual funds. Go to ave mariafunds.com Michael I love Ave Maria mutual funds because, well, for many reasons, actually. But one is I think that you should not have to compromise your values when it comes to investing. Why would you put your money into companies that go against what you believe in? Ave Maria Mutual Funds allows you to uphold your integrity and to make money investing. This is one of the reasons that I'm very proud to serve on their board. I was just at the board meeting for Ave Maria mutual funds. They're great people with a great vision and they've done great work. They've been around since 2001. Founded by George Schwartz, today they manage nearly $4 billion in assets with more than 100,000 shareholders. What sets them apart is simple. They refuse to invest in companies tied to abortion, pornography, embryonic stem cell research or those tied to Planned Parenthood. Whether you're saving for your retirement, kid's education or you just want to grow your wealth responsibly, Ave Maria Mutual Funds offers a range of options so you do not have to compromise. Learn more at avemariafunds.com Michael avemariafunds.comm Michael all mutual funds are subject to market risk, including possible loss of principal. Request a prospectus which includes investment objectives, risk, fees, charges and expenses, and other information that you should read and consider carefully before investing. The prospectus can be obtained by calling 1 866-283-627, 4. It can be viewed at avimariafunds.com, ave Maria Mutual funds are distributed by Ultimas Fund Distributors, llc. Two terror attacks, really, really awful stuff. It's always the ones you most expect, of course. So it's two Islamic terror attacks, one in Virginia, one in Michigan, same day, one against a school, one against a synagogue. We'll start with the school in Virginia. This is Old Dominion University. The guy who committed the attack is a former member of our military. So this guy was a Virginia National Guard member and he's also an ISIS supporter. Now that alone is pretty crazy. We have guys in the military who could go on to support isis. No, it gets crazier actually, because this guy has not just now been identified as an ISIS supporter. This guy was already convicted of trying to aid isis. So this guy with a foreign sounding name. Let's just say we try not to name people who commit these kinds of attacks. It ain't John Smith, okay? This guy was convicted 10 years ago of attempting to aid ISIS. And he somehow remained in our country for 10 years. Somehow we did not throw this guy out of the country, run him out of our country with tar and feathers. So he was here and then he did the thing that you would expect the guy who was convicted of trying to aid ISIS to do. He shot up a school. So he killed one person, he injured two others. The guy he killed was the ROTC instructor. ROTC instructor. However, the silver lining in the storm cloud of this attack is that the ROTC students, these civic minded future members of our military, neutralized the threat. That's the euphemism that people are using what they actually did. These kids were unarmed. The guy comes in there armed to the teeth, but it didn't matter because even though he had an arms advantage, they beat him to death. How was he deceased? There were students were in that room that subdued him and rendered him no longer alive. I don't know else to say it, but they basically are able to terminate the threat. So he was not shot. He was not shot. He shot three people.
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Interviewer/Co-host
Correct.
- [05:26]
Michael Knowles
We have information that he shot three people. The one that went to Virginia. I love that. This woman, you can tell she actually takes some pride in what those students were able to do, their heroic actions. You can tell, you see a little smirk there. But she's trying to use the neutral clinical language that we all use as euphemisms to cover up harsh realities. But there's no way really to hide the reality of beating someone to death. So she says the students rendered him unalive. Rendered him unalive. That's a new one. That's a new. You're gonna say someday. Johnny, I've got really bad news. Your grandfather was rendered unalive today. What. What does that mean, rendered unalive? They neutralized the threat, and they didn't have guns. And he did. They beat him to death. So unfortunately, they were only able to do that after he killed their RATC instructor. But our conclusion from this remains a consistent one. Our military, past, present, and future. Look at these students is very strong. We can have a lot of hope for our military. They are tough as nails. Tough as ever. Our political order is not our political order. The one that in 2016, Barack Obama's president, liberal immigration enforcement, liberal prosecutors, all galore. This guy pleads guilty to attempting to aid isis. And they say, okay, well, don't do it again. Mohammed, Mohammed, Abdul, Abdul, Abdul, Mohammed, Mohammed, don't you do it again. Okay, we're gonna let you stay in this country, but that's very naughty of you to try to aid the terrorist organization that we're at war with. Very, very naughty. We're very disappointed in you. You better not do it again. And then he does it again. The second terror attack yesterday took place in Michigan. It was against a synagogue. This is another guy who I guess was American. He's an American citizen, but he was born in Lebanon. And he's not what I really like the Lebanese people. I like some of them. I spent a little time. I traveled to Beirut once. The people were lovely. The Christians are great, and the more moderate Muslim types are great. But there are also some not so moderate Muslim types in Lebanon. I guess this is one of them. He rammed this synagogue in his car with explosives. The authorities are already saying that this is related to the Iran war. Authorities are investigating those reports that he apparently told multiple family members that this was because of the Israeli strike on Lebanon which killed his family. Reportedly, that's according to law enforcement officials talking to cnn. Those two terror attacks, one just from a guy who's been talking about how much he loves ISIS for 10 years. Another, a Lebanese guy who's apparently upset about the Israeli strike on Lebanon, which comes in the context of the Israeli and US Strikes on Iran. Attacking the synagogue in Michigan. This after the Austin shooter, don't forget, right after the American strikes on Iran, you have this Muslim guy in Austin shoot up a bar wearing an Iran T shirt pledging allegiance to isis. This after the Muslims go from Pennsylvania to New York to throw I IEDs over the heads of a liberal counter protest at the conservative protesters in New York City the year that's the 25th anniversary of 9 11. And I have a big question. If we fight the wars in the Middle east in no small part so that we fight them there and therefore we won't have to fight them here, why do we keep having to fight them here? Clearly fighting them there is not preventing us from fighting them here. There is a simple answer as to why we have to fight them here. It's because of our immigration policies. The only way you can make the argument we gotta go fight em there so we don't have to fight them here. The only way you can make that argument is if we actually limit immigration and enforce our border. So Trump closed the border. Biden threw the border wide open. Trump has closed the border. The border is effectively shut down. You really can't get in. But we still have a million people a year come in through legal immigration. We still have tens of millions of people here. We don't even know who they are. What we do know about them is that at least some of them are quite hostile and support Islamic fundamentalism and jihad. So you can't, in that world where you got a bunch of people here and you have a porous border, at least when the Democrats are in charge of then fighting them there actually makes it more likely that we're gonna fight them here. That's the flaw in that argument. This is why, by the way, this is one of the reasons why it seems to me that reasonable minds can disagree on the Iran war. There are two views. There are two views that are out there in public right now. One is this pacifist view that says that we should never go to war and war is always terrible and it's never justified and that America should never do anything abroad and we should only focus at home. And none of that is a serious view. None of that has described US policy going all the way back to, I don't know, the Louisiana Purchase in the first Barbary War. Not serious. Pacifism is not a serious moral position. It's not a serious political position. So forget that. Okay? Then there are the war hawks who make these sweeping, grandiose ideological and moral arguments that we must intervene everywhere from Iran to Iraq to Timbuktu, we must, on the abstract grounds of democracy or freedom, even on certain security grounds, we must do it. It's our obligation. I don't really take that all that seriously either. My view, and I might be the only one saying this which is, you know, it's very unpopular and therefore may be true, is I think reasonable minds can disagree over the wisdom of going to war in Iran. There are strong arguments for doing it. It had been part of US grand strategy since 1979 at least really since 1953, to maintain or to install a friendly regime in Iran. We had wanted to do that for something like 80 years now. And Iran does pose a threat to us. And Iran is buddies with our geopolitical adversaries like Russia and China. And Iran does destabilize the Middle east and our all in the Middle east, not just Israel, but the Gulf states want us to neutralize Iran. And, and, and, and there are all sorts of good arguments for it. And Iran would have hit us after the Israeli strike and maybe we could have stopped the Israeli strike. Maybe we can't stop the Israeli strike. End, end, end, end. However, I've said if I had been on the nsc, I would have made the arguments against the strike just based on the information that is available publicly. Maybe there's classified information that would have changed my mind. But just going on, all I can go on is what I know. I would have made the argument against hitting Iran. Not because war is always bad, not because we should never be involved overseas, but because practically this is very hard to pull off. If anyone can do it, Trump can do it. He's got the best record on foreign policy of anyone in my lifetime. Probably better than George H.W. bush.
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Listener Jessica
Yes.
- [13:05]
Michael Knowles
If anyone can do it, he can do it. And if he does it well, it will be the greatest foreign policy achievement since the fall of the Berlin Wall. However, my view would have been Iran is not Venezuela. The regime is not very likely to fall. The mullahs have reigned in Iran twice as long as the CIA backed regime after 1953. Despite all of the propaganda that we in part put out. Iran is not just this bubbling cauldron of liberalism and secularism. You know, the oppressed people of Iran wanna rise up and overthrow their government, some of them do. But probably 30 to 40% of the population likes their Islamic government. And because of our stupid immigration policies, it's gonna create problems at home for us. So those would have been my arguments against the war in Iran. Now again, there are very strong arguments for the war in Iran. And as President Trump has such a good record on foreign policy, I'm willing to give this guy some grace on it. And I think he has a lot of credibility on foreign policy. Trump said this strike this military operation's gonna take five weeks. We're only in day 13. But we're beginning to see these complications. Iran threatening the Strait of Hormuz. An American plane just went down over Iraq. Doesn't seem like it was shot down. It seems like there was some other issue. There's an investig pending that you're getting the bad optics out of the mistaken strike, which appears to be from the US but it's still a little bit unclear on that school in Iran. And now you're seeing increased terror attacks at home, which all could lead this war to spiral. If anyone's not gonna let the war spiral, it's gonna be Trump. But nevertheless, nevertheless, this shows you the complexity of war. It shows you that anyone on either side who tells you there can't be any upsides to this war or, oh, it's gonna be easy, it'll be over in 15 minutes. No one can really say that because no one really can predict the future. You just have to make risk assessments here. I would have come down a little bit on the side of risk aversion. The admin obviously came down a little bit on the side of willing to take the risk. We'll get to some updates on what's going on in Iran for a second. First, though, I want to tell you about Balance of nature. Go to balanceofnature.com this episode is sponsored by Balance of Nature. Does anyone else feel like nutrition is getting way too complicated? We used to eat food. You remember that? Now we eat a science experiment. I don't know. You need a PhD to read the back of a cereal box. We have all been told since we were kids to eat our fruits and veggies. Now I force my own children to eat their fruits and veggies. Usually they want. Usually they want to. Nobody really explained what you're after in those foods. What you're after are the phytonutrients, the natural compounds your body uses to adjust, repair and respond every single day. 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Balanceofnature.com According to the Daily Mail, there's a leaked US intel which suggests that the Iranian government is not at risk of collapse, that its leadership remains broadly intact after almost two weeks of US And Israeli bombing. Now, you could read this as a good thing. I know a lot of people, especially the hardcore war hawks and the liberals and the interventionists, they want a total revolution in Iran. They want to completely decimate the Iranian regime. Curiously, that is not exactly what Trump signaled that he wanted. On the one hand, he did. On the one hand, he said, hey, Iranians, rise up, take control of your country. But then on the other hand, he keeps making comparisons to Venezuela. Don't forget, in Venezuela, they did not replace the regime. They did something a little more conservative. They took out the top of the regime, then they put a gun to the head of number two and said, hey, you're gonna cooperate with us or we're gonna blow your head off. Which is not the prettiest kind of foreign policy. It's not the most idealistic foreign policy, but it's worked out very well in Venezuela. And so there is a world in which you say, look, you don't want the whole Iranian Islamic regime to crumble. You just want it to cooperate more with us. But then here again, the theory collapses into the political reality. There is a world in which the end of this war leaves us with another Ayatollah Khamenei. Because the guy that the Iranians just picked to be their next leader is the son of the guy we just took out. Now, it's a little unclear how injured that guy is, whether or not he's even still talking or walking or anything like that. However, he is currently the Ayatollah, the supreme leader of Iran. And so if at the end of this military campaign, you get another Ayatollah Khamenei, who's even angrier than the first guy because we just killed his dad and most of his family, that might not be great for the U.S. according to the new Ayatollah, he says Iran will not refrain from avenging the blood of its martyrs. He's apparently in intensive care at Sina University Hospital in Tehran's historic quarter, surrounded by security officials. Makes sense. Yeah, I don't know. Maybe. Who knows? Maybe that's the next target. We still have a few weeks of this thing left, probably. So the question then is, what does victory look like? And there are a few ways to declare victory. One would be the total removal of the regime. And you put in someone like Reza Pahlavi, the Crown Prince of Iran, son of the Shah, pro Western. Great. Okay, that would be great. That would be a massive triumph. A thousand ifs and ands and buts as to whether or not that could actually happen and whether he could hold the country together. But that would be great. If it worked out, that'd be great. Or you have Iran basically keep the regime in place, but they're neutralized because we sink their navy and we get rid of all of their missiles and we bomb some of their oil, and I don't know, we just really mess up their country. That's second best case scenario. Worst case scenario is we just irritate them. But we don't seriously cripple the regime. We don't seriously cripple their capabilities. This seems very unlikely, but in that case, certainly it was worse to go in than it would have been to refrain. So if the most likely scenario is number two right now, then the question is, how hard are we going to cripple them? Even this is not totally clear because some people would say, go in there and just glass the place. Just really just mess them up. So it's very hard for them to recover there. However, you could risk Iran, the people of Iran, actually becoming further entrenched with the regime. If you take away their electricity, if you take away their ability to eat and feed themselves and heat their homes, you could be in a really, really bad position here. But if you don't weaken them enough now, you've just irritated a guy and killed his dad, and you're gonna have to face more problems. So here is President Trump weighing those different possibilities.
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Donald Trump
Very good shape. The main thing is we have to win this. They win it quickly, but win it. And there are many people. I'm just watching some of the news. Most people say it's already been won. It's just a question of when. When do we stop? We don't want to let it regrow and ideally would like to see somebody in there that knows what they're doing. In other words, they could build a country. Now, one other thing, we can hit sections of Tehran and other places that if you do it, it'll be almost impossible for them to rebuild their country. And we don't want that. But we can hit electric. We could Take apart their electric capacity within one hour, and it would take them 25 years to rebuild it. So ideally, we're not going to be doing that. Thank you very much.
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Michael Knowles
I love the way he talks. I love, you know, talk about cool, calm and collected. As we said at the very outset of the Iran war, this is the highest stakes thing that this man has done in 10 years. This is not just Venezuela. This is not just dropping the Moab. This is a major assault on a real country that is the most destabilizing force in the Middle east that's been a thorn in our side for many decades now. And this guy goes in there for real, says, this isn't gonna be a five hour or a five day campaign. This could be a five week campaign. He goes in and things are starting to get shaky. And they're planting mines in the Strait of Hormuz and the price of oil is going through the roof. And it goes up to 115, then it goes down to 76, and it goes up to 90, and it's all over the place. Serious risk of a global recession because of this military action. Small, but nonetheless real terror attacks popping off at home because of this. And this guy remains cool as a cucumber. And he reminds us, and this is, I have to remind people, too, I'm quite skeptical of the intervention in Iran. He said it was gonna take five weeks. I don't start freaking out until week six. He said it was gonna take five weeks. We're under two weeks right now. And the way he speaks, he says, look, this is how you reconcile the two comments coming out of the White House. One, the war is basically over. Two, we've just begun to fight, which is what the Department of War put out. Those are not contradictory statements. They're the same statement. Trump just said them both right there. He said, look, some say the war has already won. We've already achieved our objective. What exactly is the objective? What exactly does victory look like? It's a little bit of a moving target. There are a few options for that. But, yes, it could almost be over. And also, we haven't really begun to fight. Look, Iran, we could obliterate your country. And I'm not talking about dropping nuclear weapons, saying we could hit your electricity grid. You would be in trouble for years. You would not seriously be able to build back for years. We don't want to do it. We could do it. We don't want to do it. We're very restrained right now. Maybe we won't be so restrained it's up to you. That is the way that you would speak. Some people are reading this as vacillating or desperate or whatever Trump said out the gate. This is going to take a little over a month. Do you really think if you open with that claim that there are not contingency plans, that this is not part of an operation we're in? You know, what is it, day 13? So it's a very, very bumpy ride. No one said otherwise. But at this point, the arguments to say, well, we just really shouldn't have gone to war. It was just a really bad idea. That's totally useless, totally useless. We're in it now. How does it work out? What is the best move? What does victory look like? What do we want the next year, five years, 10 years in the Middle east to look like? Those are the pertinent questions right now, but that's it. I really hate the abstractions and the hypotheticals and the ideology that comes into politics. And unfortunately, I've been a little tough on my fellow podcasters recently. With right wing podcasters like we have, who needs the left? You know, they're just very unhelpful in many ways when it comes to trying to win the midterms, trying to achieve political results. They go on all sorts of digressions and abstractions and weird rabbit holes, and it doesn't really serve any political purpose. It gets a lot of views. It's titillating, it's scintillating, it's trash tv, but it doesn't serve real political goals. The question that I have is, get rid of this stupid ideology nonsense. Here's the real politics here. What happens next? What do we do now? How do we achieve real political results? This is, you know, obviously a lot of people, we're all still reeling from the death of Charlie. The American right is seriously reeling from the death of Charlie. Assassinations work. That's why people keep doing them. And it had a very deleterious effect, not just on Charlie and his friends and his family, but on the American right. But one of the many things I always loved and admired about Charlie, that guy cared about real politics. He didn't care about debate club. He conducted political debates for a purpose. He didn't care about stupid, abstract hypothetical what if, what if that, what if this. He cared about real politics. What do we do now? This is a guy, he would make strong arguments against some policy to the president, but then whatever the president decided, then he goes in and he tries to work it, he defends it. He tries to keep the coalition together. He just really got real politics. And unfortunately a lot of the influencer, podcaster, live streamer, and even activist class just either doesn't get it or doesn't care. Very, very frustrating if you want to see real political results. Okay, speaking of debates and religion, there's a lot of big religious component to the Iran war. Great new survey out of Pew. Really vindicates being a conservative and a Christian. Not that it needs to be vindicated, but it really vindicates that over being a secular lib. We'll get to that survey, but first I want to tell you about Policygenius. Go to policygenius.com knowles when the weather finally starts to thaw, the days get a little longer. People do all sorts of spring cleaning. You clear out your closet, you tackle that junk drawer, maybe you venture into the garage. But the most important spring cleaning is not in your house at all. It's in your long term to do list. Protecting the life that you are building and the people who depend on you. That responsibility can feel very weighty, can feel overwhelming. It should not be the insurance jargon, the tax receipts, this is where policygenius comes in. They help you finally check this off your list. Policygenius is an online insurance marketplace that lets you compare quotes from some of America's top insurers side by side for free. So you can see the coverage amounts, the prices, the terms, without any guesswork, just clarity. They work for you, not the insurance companies. It's gonna get you what you need. Then you get that peace of mind. You're gonna sleep better for the rest of your life. You're not gonna have to worry about it again. Just get it done right now. Now is the season. Best day was yesterday. Second best day is today. Protect the life you built with Policygenius. See if you can find 20 year life insurance policies starting at just $276 a year. For a million dollars in coverage, go to policygenius.com knowles compare life insurance quotes from top companies. See how much you could save. Policygenius.com Knowles Pew survey going around Twitter right now, and I think these are relatively older data, but it's making the rounds yet again. Maybe because religion is in the news. This is according to the Pew American Trends panel and it shows that conservative Christians who go to church go to religious services weekly. But in America generally, that means going to church are the least crazy people in the country. And liberals who don't go to church are the craziest people in the country. The question is, has a doctor or other healthcare provider ever told you that you have a mental health condition? They ever told you? And when you look, it divides it between liberal, moderate and conservative. And also by religious service attendance. Never go to church, seldom, yearly, monthly, weekly. The craziest people in the country, 28% have had a doctor diagnose them with a medical condition, a mental medical condition. 28% are Libs who never go to church. The next craziest people in the country, libs who sometimes go to church. The next craziest people in the country, libs who go to church monthly. Now it's religious service, so it could be some woo woo kind of lib thing. Keep that in mind because liberal churches are, are not real. They're not real churches. They're these heretical systematic sects that promote infanticide and creepy sex stuff. So even to call that a church is kind of silly. The next craziest people in the country, libs who go to church once a year.
- [30:25]
Interviewer/Co-host
Only.
- [30:27]
Michael Knowles
Only at this point do you start to get, okay, the next craziest. Sorry, no, no, no. The next craziest group are moderates who never go to church. Then the libs who go to church once a year. Then it. But it breaks down you all the way. Get down to the conservatives who go to Church weekly. 8% have had a healthcare provider say they have a mental condition. So what does this mean? Do we just use this to dunk on the libs and the atheists? We can do that a little bit. Not like we dunk out of love. It's a loving dunk. It's a dunk intended to bring them over to our side. This is also just a vindication of John. The gospel according to St. John 1. The very first verses in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God, and the Word here being the Logos, the divine logic of the universe. So the gospel of St. John begins. Unlike the synoptic gospels, the gospel of St. John begins with this grand theological statement that Christ is the Word is the Logos is the divine logic of the universe and God and he is God. God is the divine logic of the universe. So faith and reason go together. That would seem to be backed up by this survey. What we were told during New Atheism, and really for the last hundred years or so, more than 100 years, is that religious people are crazy, they're illogical, they're irrational, they believe in their sky daddy or whatever, all these straw men, nonsense descriptions of religion because the secularists and the atheists don't want to deal with what we actually believe. But that's what we were told. These religious people, they're crazy. I don't want to vote for some religious person. He's probably crazy. Actually, the data say the opposite. The religious people are the sanest people. The irreligious people are the craziest people among the religious people, the conservatives, you can't really break it down as conservative or liberal, but let's just recognize that really maps onto the most orthodox versus the most heterodox. The most orthodox religious people, the ones who believe the religion most accurately, most fully. Those people are the least crazy people in the country. So when we're talking about this country, we're not talking about Islam. Talk a little bit about Judaism, but Judaism is a real minority religion. We're talking about Christianity. The conservative Christians are the least crazy people in the country, clinically speaking. And the atheist libs are the craziest people in the country. Which is a vindication of the claims of orthodox religion. One of the chief claims being that God is the divine logic of the universe. I know that these are. It seems like I'm preaching to the choir. And you know what? The choir needs preaching sometimes. But this could be an evangelical kind of argument. Cause I think a lot of people like me when I fell away from religion for 10 years, fell away. Cause I thought religion was for stupid people. Only stupid people believed in God and the smart people knew that God didn't exist. And that just isn't true. The sane people, they didn't believe in God, but the crazy people they believe in, that isn't true. Actually, the opposite is true. It's a good argument. I love that. I love that poll. Okay, before we get to the mailbag, I must, I must get to the uk. Removing Winston Churchill from the banknotes, really, really frustrating. They're removing a bunch of figures from the banknotes. That includes Jane Austen, I guess she was on there. That includes anyway some other big figures, but notably Winston Churchill. This is based on a public consultation held in 2025, revealing that the people thought nature would be the most popular theme for money. So you're going to replace Winston Churchill, one of the great figures in your thousand year national history, with a hedgehog. And doesn't that seem nice? 60% of respondents chose nature animals ahead of architecture and landmarks. You know, the Parliament building or I don't know, Westminster Canterbury Cathedral. Notable historical figures, arts, culture and sport innovation are noteworthy milestones. So they're Removing Churchill in part because he's controversial, because Churchill defended the British Empire, because Churchill believed in the superiority of British people over other peoples. Maybe not the moral superiority, the ultimate superiority, but the cultural superiority. He said things that were a little, you know, a little edgy. According to Harold Macmillan's diaries, he apparently endorsed a slogan for running for office which was keep Britain white. And you weren't allowed to say that. Now, certainly, maybe then you were allowed to. The Brits are white people, you know, So I don't know why. I mean, it is a. England is the country of the Angles. Angles and the Saxons and the Normans come in. But anyway, you're not allowed to say that he has to be canceled because he's controversial, because they don't like his policies in India or whatever. This man, one of the saviors of the United Kingdom, gonna be taken off the money. And he's going to be replaced by not some left wing political figure, but by a hedgehog, by an animal. And so what's really worse than this, what's really worse than this being the replacement of the right with the left is it's just the infantilization of the whole society. This is worse than evil or immoral or worse than ideologically backwards. It's worse than all that because it's insipid. This is what you do to children. A serious civilization puts its leaders on money, puts its achievements on money, not just money on any monument, recognizes what it has done, understands not only its history, but the meaning of its history, has a point of view about its history, and only in so doing has a vision for its future. Children want to play with the hedgehogs. An adult society puts Winston Churchill on its money. A, a toy game, children's Monopoly puts Mickey Mouse on the money. And the UK is saying, we want Mickey Mouse, give us Mickey Mouse. That's really. That's the deeper problem here. At least when you have these stupid debates in America, should we replace Andrew Jackson with Harriet tubman on the $20 bill? First of all, no, we shouldn't. But second of all, at least that's a debate. At least Harriet Tubman is a political figure really. More mythical than historical, but whatever, she's a political figure nonetheless. At least there you're having a debate about ideas and the meaning of American history and what we're gonna be moving forward. And with this, it's just. You're gonna put a mongoose on the dollar or something on the pound. And I know, I know some would say, well, look, in British Heraldry, animals play a role, family crests and things like that. Yeah, yeah, but that's not what they're doing here. They're not gonna be putting family crests on the money. They just kicked all of the hereditary aristocrats out of the House of Lords, like yesterday. This is the infantilization of the country. A country that doesn't believe in the meaning of its history, doesn't believe in its future. Pretty soon, what you're going to get on the banknotes is going to be a little bit different. It won't be Muhammad because you're not allowed to have pictures of Muhammad, but it will. I don't know, maybe they'll put the ayatollah. Maybe the new ayatollah is going to be on the banknotes in the uk. Okay. Hey, do you want to hear what Ben Shapiro and Andrew Klavan and my pals here at Daily Wire think about the Iran war and the stupid podcaster wars, which I hate so much, and the Oscars and do you wanna hear what they think? Maybe not. But do you wanna hear what I think and then me tell them why they're wrong about what they think? Well, the only way to do it is to watch Friendly Fire Live today, 2pm Eastern, only on DailyWire.com and the DailyWire app. You have to get the Daily Wire app. I am. I'm not begging you. I'm not gonna lower myself to that. I'm inviting you to get the Daily Wire app. It's an amazing experience and you can follow me on there and you get the notifications and whenever we got cool stuff coming out, you can go get it. Dailywire app right now. My favorite comment Yesterday is from ChristianGamerGuy6447, who says I really need to see a conglomeration of clips of Michael being silly while mocking someone. It would be awesome out of context. I didn't pick this. The producers picked this comment. I didn't pick the comment. I don't know. Do I really? What? Go back to that? Let me see if I actually agree with that comment. A conglomeration of being silly while mocking someone. What do you mean? I would mock someone? No, I might have a little fun. Do you mean someone like Professor Jacob or do you mean someone like, you know, James Talarico? I don't know. Sometimes I do that occasionally. During the Fauci years, I got really into it. Finally. Finally, we arrive at my favorite time of the week, when I get to hear from you in the mailbag. Our mailbag. Is sponsored by Pure Talk. Go to purertalk.com knowleskentywlas. You will save 50% off your first month. Take it away.
- [40:02]
Listener Isaac
Hey, Michael, it's Isaac. I had a question about the war with Iran. I can see why people, including yourself, felt like it wasn't a wise move to go in yet we. We went ahead and did so. But what do you think about the folks who I would consider are on the alt right or maybe what some refer to the new right, calling the United States a terrorist nation for going into Iran or bombing parts of Iran. And what are your thoughts about that?
- [40:40]
Michael Knowles
All right, thanks, Mike. Yeah, that's not a serious position because what it means is not only do whoever is making that claim, not only do they not understand what we are doing in Iran, but they don't even understand the meaning of terrorism. Terrorism targets civilians to achieve a political end. That's what terrorism is. Terrorism is not accidentally hitting civilians while conducting war. Every belligerent who has ever engaged in war more or less does that. It's a sad fact of war. Terrorism is when you target civilians to achieve a political purpose. Ironically, that is what Iran has done and has brazenly done. Openly done. There's no secret, there's no debate over that. That's what Iran has done since 1979, which is why Iran has always had one foot in the global order and. And one foot outside of it. In some ways, it resembles a legitimate nation state. In some ways, it appears to be an illegitimate terror organization. Whereas the United States has uniformed soldiers. We target military targets, not civilians. We abide by the rules of war. There's no way to make that argument. So that's just not a serious argument. Sometimes people will say, you know, why don't you debate so and so? And it's some mouthy lunatic on Twitter or YouTube or something. And occasionally, look, occasionally I do it because it can be fun clips. But often I will say, well, why would I do that? I'm not a free speech absolutist. I'm not one of these people who thinks we just constantly need to grow the public marketplace of ideas. I don't think that's true. I think marketplaces need limits. And I think that one does not want. One wants healthy debate and dialogue. One doesn't want cacophony like in a sandbox at a playground. You know, there's no point in debating a toddler over. And so to have a debate with someone who doesn't even have the capacity to understand what is happening or the willingness to understand what is happening, that's not serious. There are lots of good arguments against going to war in Iran, but to say, oh, the US is a terrorist nation and war is always evil, and, you know, it's just very silly, that's not even worth engaging. Okay, next question.
- [42:58]
Interviewer/Co-host
Hello, Michael. This is Landoncourt, your resident member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. While the church prefers to refrain from overtly supporting political parties or candidates, the values it promotes causes most of my religious brothers and sisters to be some flavor of right wing. At the very least the majority of the politically active ones. However, in the past few years, during the same time period that the right has gained ground against the. The godless left, my contemporaries have noticed an increase in religious hatred from the right. The worst of which appears in events like last September where a Michigan man burned down one of our churches, slaughtered our people, even though he likely submitted a very similar ballot to his victims. This leads many of my brethren to prefer candidates who appear moderate and end up being more squishy or to throw their votes away on third party long shots. My question for you, Michael, is can you make the case for why we Latter Day Saints should continue to support the rite? And what can the right do to promote interfaith cooperation when the need for religion has never been higher in this nation?
- [44:03]
Michael Knowles
Good, Good question. Yeah, I've seen that a little bit too. I mean, you know, the Mormon jokes have been around basically as long as that religion has been around. So I'm sure it's deeply unpleasant if you're lds, but, you know, that's not new. Sometimes it gets a little hot, or sometimes it's less hot. And there's this paradox, which is that when people don't take religion seriously, you're going to be pilloried and mocked and derided. But when people do take religion seriously, your religion is going to be examined. And so religious differences are going to become more pronounced and hotter. So, you know, you're kind of damned if you do and damned if you don't, politically speaking. Not internally, however. What do we do about this? Why should Mormons keep voting for the right? I don't know. I would say. Well, as I have said to my LDS friends, you're not gonna vote for the left. You're not gonna vote for the left. They wanna put all of us in the Gulags. They wanna put us all on boxcars. So you're obviously not voting for the. You're not voting for infanticide and weird sex stuff and open borders and you're not voting for any of this. So then what do you do when some people on the right are prejudiced or opposed to your religion? Well, I would say one thing the right could do is just emphasize its long standing commitment to subsidiarity. So a Protestant Midwest or South or Catholic Northeast might not agree. Or Jewish New York, I don't know, might not agree with the LDS religion, but I don't think they're gonna go invade Utah, are they? So recognition that different localities are gonna look a little bit different, that's one way that I think the right could without betraying her principles, actually digging even deeper into her own principles could ease some of those fears. But that's always going to be a tension. You don't want to live in the secular liberal society. You guys are done for in the secular liberal society. But you are going to have challenges in a society that takes religion more seriously because they're going to examine the claims of the various religions. Okay, next question.
- [46:15]
Listener Jessica
Hi, Michael. My name is Jessica. I come from a small town down in South Texas and I was raised heavily in the church, mainly non denominational and Methodist. My mother is currently working on a doctorate from a Methodist university in theology. So safe to say I was heavily ingrained in biblical teaching. I have been attending a Catholic church for the past year and I am now considering beginning my catechism. Of course, my Methodist family is pretty against this. So what would your advice be to someone who is battling in the face of opposition from those that she holds most dear? And how do I show respect and devotion to my mother and father while still pursuing my love for God? Any advice would be helpful. Thank you so much.
- [46:58]
Michael Knowles
Great question. Wonderful to hear it. I'm so glad you're going to begin catechism. I've had plenty of friends who have dealt with this in my own life. Actually I was a cradle Catholic kind of cafeteria a little bit growing up and then cafeteria Catholic, meaning you take this, you do that, sometimes you go to church, sometimes you don't. But then I was an atheist practically for about 10 years and when I came back, even some of my own ostensibly Catholic family thought I was crazy. So it's not even just going for, from the Methodism or non denominational evangelical Protestantism or what? Really, even within Catholicism you might get some strange looks and raised eyebrows. So what do you do? Well, this is where catechism is really great. You keep going to mass, you keep praying. When you have a question, look, your relatives might raise really good questions. Why do Catholics Pray to Mary or venerate saints, or why do they have liturgical feast days? Or why do they take the sacraments so seriously? Or what is transubstantiation or whatever. They might raise good objections. What's great about the Catholic Church is there are answers. You're not just on your own. A lot of modern religion is hyper individualist and relies ultimately on private judgment. And so you have to just kind of come up with your own answers. But with the Catholic Church, it balances private judgment with magisterial teaching. So you can say, look, I have my own ideas, but I'm gonna go see what St. Jerome and St. Thomas Aquinas and Tertullian and maybe Origen and Hippolytus and all these. Justin Martyr and all. I'm gonn what all these people said and the popes and these guys and what's endured and how has this idea been honed in and St. John Henry Newman and, I don't know, development of doctrine. Let's see what they say, and you can actually get an answer. And that will help you grow in your faith. So that's great. I mean, I think. Look, I think you're on the right path. Obviously, I'm quite convinced of that. But you could use it as an opportunity to more seriously understand what you believe, what the church believes, and who knows, maybe persuade your family. Next question.
- [49:03]
Listener Isaac
Smooth, Mickey. Hey, I just want to ask you a question about cloning. Now, obviously there's geneticists thinking about cloning humans, which I totally disagree with. I think it's playing God and it's very messed up. I would love to get your thoughts on that. But on a separate note, what about cloning animals? Animals aren't humans. They don't have rational wills. So is it okay to clone your dog when they pass away and, you know, clone them into a new puppy? Just curious about your thoughts. All right, thanks, man.
- [49:39]
Michael Knowles
Great questions. Okay, so for the first one, why is it wrong to clone humans? Why is that wrong necessarily? Say, well, because we're playing God. But, you know, that argument's a little tricky because we have reason and we do have substantial agency within nature to do things and to make things. So why is it wrong to clone? We make babies the old fashioned way. Why is it wrong to clone human beings? I think what you have to start to examine is all the things. All the wrong things you have to do before you get to the point of cloning. So for one, you have to divorce the conjugal from the reproductive act. If you're a More traditionally minded Christian. Right there, you're committing a mortal sin because the only person said to have a right in procreation is the baby. To have the right to be the product of the specific conjugal act of his mother and father who are joined together in holy matrimony. So right there you got a problem. In order to obtain, I guess depends on how you do it. But in order to obtain the sperm and the egg, certainly the sperm, you would have to commit a gravely immoral and intrinsically disordered action. That right there is a sin. You would have to then commoditize human life. That would be a sin. And ultimately the reason is you would be empowering scientists and entrepreneurs. You would be giving them the domination through technology and science and commerce over the origin and destiny of human life, which is not their right to do. But usually when things get really wacky, like we're talking about cloning, it's not just that you go from normal, ordinary moral society to this tricky moral question, and then it all goes wrong. There is a path. And the path, this is like the phrase the road to hell is paved with good intentions. The path involves all these little moral compromises. Well, you know, look, it's just maybe it's a little easier these days not to constantly have kids, breed like rabbits. So maybe we'll accept some contraception in some cases for married couples. That's what the mainline Protestants did about 100 years ago. That's what the Supreme Court then permitted more recently, actually, in the late 60s, early 70s. And okay, maybe we're going to look, some couples suffer from infertility in part because they've been using contraception too long. But in some cases it's just natural, just happens, fallen world. And so, you know, just to help ease their pain, which is real pain, maybe we're gonna allow people to use IVF and surrogate. We're need surrogates. We're gonna have to, you know, we're gonna have to buy eggs and rent the wombs of women. And look, it's not. But we're doing so much good, aren't we? You know, the ends justify the means and eventually you get to human cloning. So how did we get here? How'd we get here? Because you made a lot of bad decisions along the way that were very tempting. Sin is very tempting. That's how it works. If sin were not tempting, you wouldn't do it. Okay, so then to cloning the animals. Is there anything intrinsically wrong with cloning the animals? I'm not a serious bioethicist or anything like that, but I don't see anything intrinsically wrong with cloning animals. As you point out, they don't have rational souls. I guess you could do it, but I do think there's something wrong with it at a deeper level. The question is, why are you doing it? When you can make animals the old fashioned way, why would you clone them? And the answer is because you really love your dog and you wish your dog didn't die. So you want to clone your dog to pretend that your dog didn't die. That's really why people want to do it. In the 90s they were cloning sheep to see if they could. But really what they want to do now is they want to clone their pets because they don't want their pets to die. That seems wrong, and I think it's wrong because it is a way to delude yourself into denying the reality of death and our role as creatures living in time and space where things in this world pass away. That's what's wrong about it. It's really even the reason that animal cruelty is wrong. It's not wrong exactly because animals have rights akin to natural rights or human rights. It's wrong because it deadens your own humanity. It has a deleterious effect on you. Who is a rational soul. Okay, today, that's a very good question. Today is fake headline Friday. The rest of the show continues now. You do not want to miss it. Become a member. Use code nolscanned wles at checkout for two months free on all annual plans.
- [54:28]
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