#conservative l's

[talkingpointsusa]

Michael Knowles Can't Handle Five Seconds Of A Show For Toddlers:

Michael Knowles is among the dumbest of these guys, like for crying out loud!

I figured we could use a break from AmFest (which is code for I could use a break from AmFest) so I figured that we should engage in one of our favorite past times here at Talking Points, dunking on Daily Wire third banana Michael Knowles.

The other reason why I wanted to do this episode is because Michael is once again on his deranged "They're turning you gay" soapbox and this time is targeting CocoMelon. It's just as stupid and hilarious as one might expect.

Warning: Transphobia, homophobia, and stupidity. These aren't my opinions, obviously.

00:00, Michael Knowles: "A popular kids show, quite possibly the most popular kids show in the world, is apparently trying to turn your child into a tutu wearing, mama denying, gender-bending dancer, as evidenced by this recently viral clip."

Let the stupidity begin.

So, depicting a child being raised by gay parents isn't "denying mothers", it's just a child in a different situation. Studies have shown that children raised by same-sex parents fare just as well as ones being raised by heterosexual ones. But these are the guys who are against gay parents even existing so this take is unsurprising.

As for the "child-crossdressing", a child wearing a tutu is a total "who cares" for me. It's a brief scene, really only lasting about five seconds, and the kid tries on multiple other costumes throughout the scene. This isn't weird at all, the only people making it weird are right-wing ghouls like Michael who are using it to justify their own homophobia.

01:00, Michael Knowles: "Why shouldn't kids shows depict little boys wearing tutus and dancing for the pleasure of homosexual men who have somehow gained custody of them, huh?"

Michael's mind is clearly in an extremely perverted gutter if that's the first thing he thinks of when seeing a five second clip from a CocoMelon video.

"Dancing for the pleasure of homosexual men", what?! Or it's a scene of him playing a game of dress-up with his dads. Even by Michael Knowles standards this is such a stupid take.

01:13, Michael Knowles: "Until the mid to late 20th century anyone who ever considered creating a scene like that for adults would have been ostracized from polite society and likely prosecuted."

Yeah, black people would also have been ostracized and likely prosecuted if they sat in the non-colored seat on the bus, what's your point?

Society actually does this thing called "change".

01:30, Michael Knowles: "This is just what kids are watching these days."

Yeah, a five second clip of a kid in a dress which is all of a sudden being turned into a dirty thing because the kid in this show happened to have gay parents.

Also now would be a good reminder of that time in college where Michael starred in a gay sex scene.

02:28, Michael Knowles: "I just assume that anything modern and popular and praised by the libs is poison, now we have proof."

This sums up Michael's entire mindset in one sentence. Michael, if he had his way, would drag us back into a backwards and Handmaid's Tale-esque world to "own the libs".

Racial equality is modern and popular and praised by the left, guess Michael doesn't like that. How about cell phones? Affordable healthcare? Women having the right to vote? I could go on and on.

My point is that this is an insanely stupid thing to say unless you want to go back to a Medieval feudal society.

Also your proof is just five seconds from a kids show that look innocent to anyone that doesn't have an extremely dirty mind.

02:35, Michael Knowles: "That's why we launched our own kids platform BentKey."

So, a lot of this fearmongering is mainly just to advertise the Daily Wires kids platform. This really shows how much of a grifter Michael is. Build up the fear about your kids being indoctrinated into...turning gay I guess and then BANG, ad pivot.

Most of the right uses these kinds of tactics to drive sales.

05:11, Michael Knowles: "I can already hear the objection to my criticism of CocoMelon. They're going to say, the libs of course, they're going to say 'Michael, what's wrong with a kid being himself? What's wrong with a nice supportive loving family encouraging a kid to be himself? Just be yourself!'"

As a person Michael would consider a "lib", that's the least of my objections to this. My 3 main objections are as follows:

This is a dumb thing to spend time on. There are so many important things going on in the world that spending this much time talking about five seconds of a kids show is a complete waste of energy.

2. As stated prior, it was only five seconds. The kid even tries on some more traditionally "masculine" costumes such as a firefighter one. There is no way that a child would be paying attention enough to even register it! Keep in mind that Cocomelon is targeted at ages 2-4.

3. Really all this is is a massive dogwhistle. Michael is talking about this because it gives him a way to paint gay parents as perverts and trans identifying kids as "groomed victims" to his audience.

Anyway, Michael argues against this strawman.

05:31, Michael Knowles: "I guess what's wrong with this is the assumption that that makes about human nature which is that there's this true self at the core of an onion, we just need to peel away the layers of society and norms and standards and practice and morality and tradition and ritual. We need to peel away all those layers and we will get to the true core of the self and the true core for that little boy is wearing tutus and dancing for a couple of homosexuals."

Again, mind in the absolute gutter. Michael absolutely would not give a shit if this was a straight imaginary couple. It's just a kid playing dress up, nothing perverted about it!

The episode doesn't even end with the child wearing the tutu or deciding to be trans or whatever Michael is saying it does!

This is also a stupid argument because it ignores the fact that those standards have CHANGED for everyone but Michael and other conservative reactionaries like him. While a child wearing a dress is appalling for reactionary trolls like Michael, the rest of society truly could care less.

06:24, Michael Knowles: "A lot of human behavior, and especially human desire, comes from imitation."

Yeah, a five second clip of a kid in a tutu is gonna make your two to four year old trans. Here I thought that the PornHub thing was a stretch, Michael is seriously grasping at straws to justify this being a big deal.

07:17, Michael Knowles: "We are mimetic when it comes to our desires as well. I mentioned this on the show yesterday in a different context, the reason people want the Rolex watch is not because they know anything about how the watch works, it's not because they no anything about the history of the company or the mechanics of watch gears, it's because other people want the Rolex watch."

Your sexuality isn't the same thing as a wristwatch, if that were true we'd all be running around banging inanimate objects.

Man this is one of the dumbest things I have ever watched for this blog, I'm almost beginning to miss AmFest....almost.

08:15, Michael Knowles: "So if a kid is raised by a lumberjack and his traditional wife in the mountains of who knows where, somewhere in the western United States, and they've got really traditional values and the dad goes out and chops wood and the mom churns butter and I don't know, I'm probably getting into some kind of fairy tale fable of a traditional life, but that kid is going to be more likely to go chop wood or if it's a girl go out and churn butter."

This removes all individual agency. What if that child doesn't want to chop wood or churn butter? It completely removes individual personality and hitches how a person is entirely on their parents.

08:45, Michael Knowles: "And if a child is raised by a couple of homosexual men who purchased the child from scientists and impoverished women in the third world through IVF and surrogacy then that kid is more likely to mimic their behavior."

Yes, there are some ethical concerns about cross-border surrogacy depending on the nation but a majority of surrogates are in the United States and a lot of cross-border surrogates are in other first world countries. The regions with the most surrogacies are India, Ukraine, California, and Central America. The most concerning on that list to someone would probably be India, but they've banned commercial surrogacy.

Also, what behavior is that? This statement is running on the homophobic myth that gay couples are inherently hypersexual which is false and rooted in harmful stereotypes.

9:02, Michael Knowles: "And if a kid is told that it is oppressive for a boy to play with G.I Joe and it's wonderful and liberating a boy to wear a tutu and dance for the pleasure of his 'fathers', quote on quote, he's gonna do that too."

When did the show even say that?! It never said it was oppressive for a kid to have traditionally masculine interests because nobody is saying that. Like I said earlier, the episode actually has the kid dressing up in more masculine costumes like a fireman before these five seconds that triggered Michael occurred.

I'm also getting really sick of Michael implying to his audience that all gay fathers are pedophiles. Like I've been saying from the very beginning all the way back when this blog was still called "Wired", this rhetoric can and will inspire violent attacks against the people these goons are targeting.

Since Michael is so obsessed with the concept of mimicry, here's something to chew on. What happens if someone sees this episode, decides to "do something about it", and shoots and kills a gay couple to "save the kid". Obviously Michael would have to take responsibility because that person was spurred on by Michael’s bigoted rhetoric, but Michael won't because he cares about his paycheck and not about who gets hurt.

Has Michael ever met a child by the way? Children usually rebel against what their parents want from them! If strawman child is being denied his G.I Joe doll, odds are he'll want it more!

09:12, Michael Knowles: "And if a kid is raised watching that absolutely degenerate cartoon than that kid is more likely to mimic those behaviors."

That's like saying eating one piece of broccoli will turn you into a vegetarian. Michael is breaking new ground in the world of right-wing stupidity.

09:39, Michael Knowles: "The more bad stuff we take in the worse we're gonna feel, the more it's gonna twist our desires and our sense of identity."

Yeah, five seconds of a toddlers show is gonna twist our "sense of identity". God, did Ben Shapiro OK this? Michael is making the Daily Wire look like a bunch of idiots who can't handle a toddlers show.

09:54, Michael Knowles: "That's probably clearest when we talk about porn, it's even worse than Cocomelon."

I don't think I've laughed as hard at one of these right-wing ghouls as I just did. The comparison between porn and COCOMELON, oh my God that is funny but also sad when you remember that people believe this shit.

10:23, Michael Knowles: "The company was called MindGeek but of course the company is so disreputable and so despicable that they have to keep changing their name because like the euphemism treadmill bad connotations just glom on naturally to whatever this company is called."

That's not how companies work. Even if MindGeek changes their name, it's not like a hard reset button that wipes the companies slate clean. Everybody knows that Aylo is the same company as MindGeek.

Michael then plays a clip of another PornHub employee that runs counter to his narrative. Michael chalks it up to him "not being one of the writers". He then, after an ad-break of course, drops a "rule for life".

14:41, Michael Knowles: "Don't let your behavior stop you from acknowledging the truth. Don't become a captive to your own bad behavior."

You lie to people on the internet for a living, get off your high horse when it comes to "the truth". Michael is a captive of both his own bad behavior and his audiences.

Michael basically says the same thing in different ways for three minutes. Who the hell cares?! He talks about the Trump and Colorado thing for a bit, mainly by playing clips of people who disagreed with Trump who don't agree with the Colorado decision, Michael reacting to CNN isn't something we need to dwell on. Ad pivot. And then he drops this amazing line.

24:05, Michael Knowles: "Peppa Pig, Blues Clues, Muppet Babies, and more continue to aggressively push radical leftist propaganda"

BAHAHAHA. I was drinking some coffee while listening to this in the background and this legitimately made me snort coffee out of my nose. Yeah, Blues Clues and Muppet Babies, well known radical leftist TV shows. They're not even making Muppet Babies anymore, the show ended in 2022.

The Daily Wire is legitimately a parody of itself at this point.

He then advertises BentKey a bit, gotta prevent kids from being exposed to the radical leftist ideas contained in Muppet Babies right? He talks about Vivek's PR stunt where he declared that he'll pull his name off the ballot in Colorado and how DeSantis didn't do it. I really don't care, again it's Michael reacts to CNN. We probably will have to do a blog post addressing the Colorado thing, everyone except Ezra (which makes sense because he's too busy yelling about Trudeau) did something on it. Anyway, here's Michael yelling about a diversity initiative.

33:06, Michael Knowles: "Now we found out that the Harvard president once created a taskforce on visual culture and signage to make white males less visible at Harvard."

First of all, white males don't need the extra representation at Harvard. According to Harvard's demographics, the student population at Harvard is 34.6% white. This is the vast majority as the second largest demographic is Asians which make up 13.6%.

Out of those white people on campus, 18.9% (the majority again) are males. So if they are trying to erase white males from Harvard they are doing an insanely crappy job.

As for this "taskforce" thing that Michael is talking about, it was just about making the campuses symbols (such as portraits) more diverse. It's completely innocent and a total who cares news story.

33:39, Michael Knowles: "The recommendations included a mandate to change quote 'spaces whose visual culture is dominated by homogenous portraiture of white men'. Homogenous, you know all those white guys look the same. You know how all those black guys look the same, hold on you’re not allowed to say that!"

I can't tell if Michael is trying to be stupid or if it just comes naturally.

It wasn't saying that all white people look the same, it was saying that the portraits and visual materials on the campus were all of white males.

Anyway, we already talked about the Congress thing with Tim Pool but essentially it's just an example of grandstanding and highly loaded questions meant to provoke the exact response the congresswoman got.

Michael says super dumb crap about climate change but I can't be bothered. Apparently some study said that breathing contributes to climate change, he didn't link it and I couldn't find it on Google but Michael's conclusion that it means that climate change advocates want you to kill yourself is stupid as hell.

Conclusion:

So, that was one of the dumbest things I have ever watched for this blog. I love how the same people who are complaining about leftists being "triggered" are the same ones who can't handle five seconds of a show geared at toddlers. The fact that ANYONE could take Michael Knowles seriously after this is honestly baffling.

[o-uncle-newt]

I just got a bit more time in my schedule and I'm hoping to get started on a Sayers-and-Jews reading list, if anyone has any suggestions! I just really feel like I've never seen anyone talk about how WEIRD the apparent received wisdom is of "Sayers was in a relationship with a completely secular Jew who tried to convince her to have premarital sex she was religiously uncomfortable with, which NATURALLY made her start writing about Jews, but a totally different kind of basically fetishized ultra-conservative type than Cournos was." There are clearly missing links there- not an obvious or intuitive connection at all- and I have my own ideas of what they are and am so curious if it's already been written about.

[4denthusiast]

Aristotle: How are my theories of physics faring here in the future? Completely correct and forming the foundation of your society, right?

Physicist: Well, matter can be broken down into more fundamental parts, and those parts themselves broken down and so on, and there's a limit at which you reach things that are always preserved.

Aristotle: Yes, yes. The prima materia, I'm aware.

Physicist: There are four of them, not just one. Well, four scalars.

Aristotle: So each element is its own prima materia? How curious.

Physicits: The four things are energy, electric charge, baryon minus lepton number, and colour charge.

Aristotle: What?

Physicist: Of these, ordinary matter never contains any colour charge, you can get pure energy without any of the others but not vice versa, and B-L alone technically can be destroyed, but only by black holes.

Aristotle: ...

[crystalitecloudie]

OH MY.

GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOD-

I was just about to go to bed but NOW I CANT SLEEP

WE FINALLY GOT ON SCREEN KISSES WITHOUT THE CUT OFF SHIT IM GOING FERAL

[lightyaoigami]

can people please stop tagging their dn hot takes with every single ship and character they can think of. yes i am aware of the block button and use it liberally but sometimes it feels like playing whack a mole on here.

[bibuckleykinard]

how many times do we need to learn as people that irony and hyperbole can be harmful because 'jokes' aren't easily distinguished from genuine thoughts and feelings until we stop rewarding people for speaking or posting about violence

like even if you're joking/don't actually believe that/think whoever you are insulting is bad/immoral/fictional therefore deserves it - ad hominem attacks always do more harm to the people who share those characteristic then the individual you intend to cause harm to or discredit

[dreamyeyedrose]

listen if we brat summer our way out of fascism I'll fuckin take it

[connectingconstellations]

Meanwhile, in 1803

James: Have you heard the latest news from the Supreme Court?

Sarah: The Supreme Court? Surely they shan't destroy the very fabric of democracy we have fought so hard to gain.

James: Alas, they have determined that it was illegal for Secretary of State James Madison to withhold the writ of mandamus from William Marbury.

Sarah: So Marbury shall commence his appointment in the federal government?

James: No, the Supreme Court also decided that they get to determine when laws are unconstitutional, and they decided that the law saying that the new administration is required to give Marbury his commission is unconstitutional.

Sarah: So, it's a judicial power grab.

James: But Sarah, what could possibly go wrong in a system where 9 unelected men with lifetime appointments get to determine which laws congress can or cannot write?

Sarah: ...

James: Okay, yeah, I heard that.

Sarah: Well, but surely there would be some mechanism for appointing these justices that did not involve them predicting ahead of time whether or not they are likely to die or want to retire during an administration that agrees or disagrees with their political views.

James: And surely even if a President appointed a nominee, congress would vote on that nominee and not blatantly commit a power grab to keep the seat open until a President with opposing views was elected so they could steal that Supreme Court seat.

Sarah: Yes, and surely if a nominee to the court were credibly accused of sexual harassment the Senate would not confirm them to avoid the specter of impropriety? And surely if a different nominee were accused of sexual assault and then threw a temper tantrum about it the Senate would not confirm them, either? I mean, this is giving these people a massive amount of power and surely the President could nominate someone who was not an alleged criminal?

James: And surely these would be men of great wisdom, whose lifetime appointments would prevent them from partisan sway? Surely they would not be beholden to bribery?

Sarah: Yes, and surely if there were to be the appearance of impropriety -- for example, if their wives had advocated for overturning the results of an election or flew flags demonstrating their support for said coup (or just had generally bizarre flag-related opinions) -- they would do the honorable thing and recuse themselves from cases involving the former President who had tried to overthrow the government, right?

James: Yes, and surely they would respect that this country was founded upon the principle that no man is above the law, and therefore Presidents do not have blanket immunity for using their official powers to commit crimes, right? Otherwise, a President could command the military to assassinate his political opponents or attempt a coup d'etat and not face any consequences, and every reasonable person understands that that's an absolutely bonkers way to interpret the constitution, right?

Sarah: Yes, and surely this Marbury v. Madison decision will not allow extremist Supreme Court justices to go about each June blatantly destroying hard-won civil rights and snatching more power for the federal judiciary, right?

James: Of course not. We have a system of checks and balances, so there must be some sort of check on the Supreme Court's power.

Sarah: ...

James: Oh, did they forget that part?

Sarah: It's alright. Surely, 221 years from now, the Supreme Court Justices will recognize that the men who wrote the constitution were just, like, regular people and not demigods.

James: Yes, surely they will not rely on some flimsy premise that we must always and only do things written in the Constitution, and that society and laws can never change.

Sarah: I mean, half of the framers think they can own other people. Surely no one would rely on them as the absolute arbiters of how our nation's laws should work.

James: ...

Sarah: Oh God, we're so totally fucked.

[twinkskeletons]

oh my god fob shoutout from hooters guy.. they made it

[reshirfuse]

oh good lordt it's "anti trans conservative bitches acting like they're oppressed cause it's political season" time of year

[girderednerve]

hey speaking of the comics code authority, if you're interested in that history you should read my favorite article about how it worked in practice, shawna kidman's 'self regulation through distribution: censorship and the comic book industry in 1954.' it's interested in industry structure, mechanisms of enforcement, and the specifics of comic book distribution, rather than focusing on content changes, which are widely covered elsewhere. it is also a good time

abstract below cut

In 1954, comic books faced a public controversy over allegedly immoral content and simultaneously suffered a sharp decline in sales. The major publishers responded to both of these problems with the implementation of a code of censorship that enabled and justified aggressive self-regulation. Although most accounts of censorship focus on texts and cultural contexts, this article shows the extent to which the regulation of mass media necessarily involves vast and powerful infrastructures of enforcement. In particular, it highlights the critical role that distribution played by organizing the industry’s basic infrastructure and by functioning as a central mechanism of self-regulation.

[fanvoidkeith]

my (cis) mom, who knows three (3) trans people total, including me: so… what if someone… decides they're not trans anymore? and goes off hormones?

me, trying to make sure she understands: that's fine, it's their choice

mom: but what if they get health issues from… taking hormones?

me: that sucks, and it does happen. that is, unfortunately, a possibility

[makedamnsvre]

thinking abt my ocs like ahh i like them so much but theyre lame . and so i dont warnma talk about them.

[empty-blog-for-lurking]

I wasn't able to talk about it because my internship went from 9 to 9 and i just got home..... But like y'all have no idea how much of a shitshow voting count today was. Nov 5 ass type of elections

[moth-boi-lycan]

@kiwi-smug-silvalina hmmmm interesting information... thank you for this ehehehehehe.

[comradeupdog]

Free speech absolutists are absolutely insane. Like I get the principle you’re working on but as someone who has worked in libraries and seen what people can and want to access, I just think we should come up with a rational and democratic way to say “no, you can’t print and present race “science” as fact.” And “No, you fucking pervert (negative), you can’t read Mein Kapmft, cause you’re a “historian,” cause your fucking not! Name one fucking German from the mid-20th century that wasn’t a Nazi and then maybe you can get access that book because you might actually need to read it.”

And I get that right now the right is trying to ban books for talking about LGBTQ people and that it might seem like we just need to say that all information is protected and needs to be as available as possible but what’s the point of having LGBTQ books if we are creating Nazis at the same library? What’s the point of fighting injustice in the library and diversifying our collection if our collection has calls to and defense of genocide as easy to access as books about not being a total pos?