Ben Shapiro Quotes - 39 quotes

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Ben Shapiro

Ben Shapiro is an American conservative political commentator, author, and lawyer. He is best known for his role as the co-founder and editor emeritus of The Daily Wire, a conservative news and opinion website. Shapiro hosts "The Ben Shapiro Show," a popular daily political podcast and live radio show. He was born on January 15, 1984, in Los Angeles, California. Shapiro showed an early interest in politics and writing, becoming the youngest nationally syndicated columnist in the United States at the age of 17. He graduated summa cum laude from the University of California, Los Angeles, with a degree in political science, and later earned a Juris Doctor from Harvard Law School. Throughout his career, Shapiro has authored several books, including "Brainwashed: How Universities Indoctrinate America's Youth" and "The Right Side of History: How Reason and Moral Purpose Made the West Great". He is known for his outspoken conservative views on various social and political issues, often sparking debate and controversy.

quote icon And human life doesn’t begin at 20 weeks. This is a picture of a baby at 12 weeks — barely three months. You can see this baby with his hands near his chest, this is not a cluster of cells; this is not a ball of goo. His genitalia have already been formed; his liver and spleen produce red blood cells. This is an unborn human being. Not a single, federally elected Democrat would vote for an abortion ban that would protect this baby’s life.

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quote icon "If all that putting the pencil together requires is basic use of your prefrontal cortex," Shapiro interjects, "then, yes, your labor is alienable at lower rates than if you were a doctor. That's not the fault of the person who owns the machinery."

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quote icon This philosophy is both idiotic and perverse. It's idiotic because all human groupings -- literally all of them -- will result in differential outcomes. Draw a line down the middle of any room in random fashion and the result will be unequal income distribution, criminal records, educational histories. When culture takes a hand, disparities can be more deeply rooted than random chance. Discrimination would still not be the cause of such disparity. As a basic logical matter, discrimination is not the cause of all disparity.

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quote icon We, however, live in an age of true heroes — people who live outside of time; people of sterling quality who need no context, require no nuance and brook no dissent. All who stand before them must bow or be canceled. Old tweets will be resurfaced; old comedy sketches will be censored. All those who came before were complicit in the system, and thus, must pay.

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quote icon Shapiro reiterated that the issue is Rapinoe feigning victimhood as an LGBT woman (i.e. kneeling for the anthem) while simultaneously being rewarded for her identity by an overwhelmingly accepting society. He then asked Duca: "Are you really suggesting that people are watching women’s soccer less because of sexism? Isn’t it just possible that people are watching women’s soccer less because it is not played as high a skill level as men’s soccer? It’s the reason people don’t watch the WNBA the same as they watch the NBA; nobody can dunk in the WNBA." "Ben, this is so incredibly tired," Duca said. "You’re making a biological difference about skill level on a playing field. I don’t really feel the need to entertain that …" "I know you don’t want to entertain it, but why not?" Shapiro asked.

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quote icon "Who do you think put more in?" Shapiro asks. "The guy who spent millions of dollars buying all the machinery, leasing the place, making sure there was a management structure, doing the LLC formation, making sure all the tax code was in compliance — or you because you can stick a piece of graphite into a piece of wood?"

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quote icon And what of Sanders' claim that we "starve little children"? Shapiro dismantled that hyperbolic assertion as well, citing a report by Robert Rector and Rachel Sheffield of the Heritage Foundation: "A poor child is more likely to have cable TV, a computer, a wide-screen plasma TV, an X-box, or a TiVo in the home than to be hungry.” According to Pew Research, “The US stands head and shoulders above the rest of the world” in terms of wealth: 56% of Americans were high income by global standards, and 32% were upper-middle income. Only 2% of Americans are poor by global standards.

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quote icon Equity, you see, is the word of the day. Not equality -- that would be a traditionally American concept. The Declaration of Independence declares that "all men are created equal ... endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights." The 14th Amendment to the Constitution provides that all citizens must receive "equal protection of the laws." Equality, in the traditional understanding, means something simple and easy to implement: the protection of the rights of all individuals, along with the invasion of none of those rights.

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quote icon Equity means something different. The two words are separated by one syllable -- but that syllable represents the difference between justice and injustice, rights and infringements, individualism and tribalism. Equity, in the common political parlance, means that each group should receive the same outcome as every other group. Ibram X. Kendi, the chief expositor of the new Democratic "racial equity" theory, explains that "Racial equity is when two or more racial groups are standing on a relatively equal footing." Because race is a social construct, says Kendi, the chief indicator that two races are on unequal footing can be found not in proof of differential treatment by race but in differential outcome by race.

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quote icon This philosophy is perverse because it attributes malice to those who have none; it fosters policy that actively discriminates, supposedly in order to alleviate unproven discrimination. Kendi himself explains: "The defining question is whether the discrimination is creating equity or inequity. If discrimination is creating equity, then it is antiracist. If discrimination is creating inequity, then it is racist."

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quote icon Unfortunately, this idiotic and perverse philosophy has become the root of Biden administration policymaking. "Equity" has been used as the keyword from environmental to economic to COVID-19 policy. Susan Rice, Biden's domestic policy adviser, explained this week, "(W)e're focused on racial justice and equity...It's for everybody who has not had the benefits of a system that has not served everybody. ... This is not about serving one group to the detriment of another." This, of course, is a lie. It is utterly about group equality, which requires individual injustice.

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quote icon Last month, Daily Wire editor emeritus Ben Shapiro similarly went after the Left and their allies in the media for COVID-related flip-flops. Shapiro listed ten things the Left has flipped on “once it became clear that covid was not in fact a pagan god visiting vengeance on the unwashed Trump voters alone”: 1. Cloth masks are ineffective against omicron (Leanna Wen, CNN); 2. The vaccinated can spread and get covid; 3. The death rate is comparable to the flu (Chris Hayes); 4. Many people are entering hospitals with covid, not from covid (Fauci); 5. Natural immunity is a reason omicron hasn’t been as virulent (Fauci); 6. We have to take into account societal needs, not just spread prevention (CDC); 7. The asymptomatic should not be tested (NFL); 8. We should focus on hospitalizations and deaths, not case rate (Biden); 9. Children are not at risk and schools should remain open; 10. Covid is predominantly an illness affecting the immunocompromised and elderly and we should not shut down society.

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quote icon Perhaps we have truly reached the apex of humanity. Or perhaps we are living in a particularly arrogant and self-serving moment when dissociation from America's history and from other Americans substitutes for actual decency; when canceling others is the point, not a means to an end; when joining the woke mob isn't about building something better but merely signaling your own saintliness. Perhaps in reality, those who pull down statues of Washington and Jefferson have accomplished little other than feeling special at the expense of the most special country in human history, and at the expense of their fellow citizens.

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quote icon To prove racial inequity, therefore, one need not show animus or discriminatory policy. All one must show is unequal outcome. Kendi explains in his massive bestseller, "How to Be an Antiracist": "A racist policy is any measure that produces or sustains racial inequity between racial groups. An antiracist policy is any measure that produces or sustains racial equity between racial groups." And, says Kendi, "There is no such thing as a nonracist or race-neutral policy." All policies either forward equity or oppose it. Any policy not explicitly designed to rectify unequal outcome is therefore racist.

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quote icon But in economics, once one heresy has been advanced, a slew of other heresies follow. Coverage of pre-existing conditions has to be subsidized somehow. Democrats propose to mandate that people buy health insurance; this violates freedom of choice and artificially increases premiums for the healthy in order to pay for the sick. Republicans propose subsidies to encourage purchase, artificially creating demand without allowing the competition among health plans that would keep premiums down.

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quote icon ...many on the right tend to value manners; good religious men and women studiously avoid causing offense if they have the capacity to do so. It’s worked, too. The Left has wielded the Right’s preference for manners as a club against the Right, claiming offense in order to cow them into silence. Of late, however, the Left has simply gone too far. No longer do they ask whether objectively offensive statements ought to be made; they now take each statement and ask whether it is subjectively offensive to anyone.

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quote icon "The hard Left believes America is an awful, evil place, founded in racism, sexism, bigotry, homophobia. All of our pretentious talk about all men being created equal with inalienable rights – all of that is just cover for the patriarchy, heteronormative, cisgender power structure that deprives outsiders of their due. That's the view of Howard Zinn, of Hollywood, and of Bernie Sanders. It’s why many on the Left kneel for the flag. The flag is the symbol of a uniquely bad nation with a uniquely bad idea," he continued.

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quote icon "This is all absolutely wrong," Shapiro stressed. "America’s founding creed – the belief in God-given individual rights protected by a limited government and enshrined by a virtuous people – has achieved precisely the opposite of what Sanders says. No, America does not starve little children. America lifts little children from poverty. The power of the America-led free trade and free market economy has alleviated global poverty faster than any force in human history. We are the engine of the world’s prosperity – and that engine is going strong. According to the World Bank, over the last three decades, extreme global poverty has dropped by 74.1 percent. Literally hundreds of millions of people have been lifted from poverty by the power of the American economy and its involvement in the world economy."

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quote icon Shapiro also debunked the idea that the "One Percenters" don't pay their "fair share," noting that the top 1 percent "pay 39 percent of federal income taxes. The top 10 percent pay 70.6 percent of federal income taxes. The bottom 50 percent of income earners pay less than 3 percent of our federal income taxes. America’s tax system is more progressive than any other developed country in the world, according to The Washington Post."

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quote icon Shapiro then took Sanders' ugly "we go bomb houses and buses of children" smear to task. "Let’s just remind Senator Sanders that America defeated slavery and Nazism and communism – well, to be fair, he might still be a bit torn about that last one," he said. "America has spent more blood and treasure defending the freedom of others than any country in world history. The Union lost some 365,000 soldiers in the Civil War to free the slaves; 117,000 in World War I to keep Europe free of German imperialism; 405,000 Americans died in World War II to keep the world free of fascism; 37,000 died to keep the South Korean people free; 58,000 died in a vain attempt to keep the Vietnamese people free; more than 2,000 in a continuing attempt to free Afghanistan of its terror-masters; and yes, 4,500 in a continuing attempt to free Iraq."

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quote icon "That doesn’t mean America hasn’t made mistakes," he continued. "But the American fighting men and women have been more humane in their pursuit of liberty for others than any other fighting force in human history, and the world has trended toward democracy and freedom because of it."

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quote icon In all of the chaos regarding the nomination of Judge Brett Kavanaugh, we should remember one simple fact: if Kavanaugh were pro-choice, he would have been confirmed with 100 votes. He’s clearly not an advocate for abortion, but Democrats didn’t have the votes to stop him so instead, Democrats decided to slander him as a gang rapist. Remember, Democratic opposition to Kavanaugh started not with Christine Blasey Ford, but with women in Handmaid's Tale outfits occupying the Senate confirmation hearing room, and pro-abortion protesters being dragged out of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

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quote icon Abortion to the vast majority of the political left is a sacrament. It’s not merely a political issue, it is a defining character issue. If you are pro-abortion, you’re a good, generous, decent person who values women. If you are pro-life, you are an evil, repressive, nasty person who wants to control women’s bodies. It’s that view that leads to incidents like this one, in which a pro-life advocate was kicked in the face by a pro-abortion nutcase this week.

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quote icon Shapiro asserted that the word "abortion" is itself a euphemism used to ignore the barbarity of the procedure: "The pro-abortion movement suggests that pro-lifers are extreme. In reality, the extreme position on abortion is held by the Democratic Party. Their platform calls for legal abortion all the way until point of birth. But pro-abortion extremists get away with their rhetoric because they use euphemistic language to describe what exactly abortion is. In fact, the word abortion is itself a euphemism. The procedure of abortion isn’t an anodyne polyp removal; it involves doing terminal violence to an unborn child. Ignoring that fact allows abortion advocates to avoid looking reality directly in the face."

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quote icon So, for just a few moments, let’s look reality in the face. This is a picture of a 19-week-old baby. This is a human child; this is not a ball of goo; this is not a cluster of cells. In January, 44 Democrats in the United States Senate voted not to protect the rights of babies older than this unborn child. Only three Democrats — Joe Manchin, Joe Donnelly, and Bob Casey voted to protect children at 20 weeks. Only two Republicans voted against such protection, Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski. Take a good look at that baby. That is a human being with zero rights, according to the mainstream of the Democratic Party.

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quote icon And life doesn’t begin at 14 weeks. This is a picture of an unborn human being at eight weeks. You can identify the head of this unborn human; you can see where the small buds are forming for arms and legs, but guess what, life doesn’t begin at eight weeks either. It begins at fertilization, when a new human life is formed. A new human being with its own DNA. This human being is not its mother; it is not its father; it is not a polyp.

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quote icon Human life is a continuous process of growth, from the moment of fertilization onward. Abortion is the killing of this human life. The later the abortion takes place, the more brutal the procedure, but no matter the brutality of the procedure, it is obvious that abortion is not some mere optional surgery to be performed for convenience. And it’s even more obvious that those who want to protect the lives of the unborn aren’t trying to control women’s bodies.

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quote icon Those who cherish abortion are trying to control and dismember the bodies of the unborn. Think about that next time you see a radical feminist in a Handmaid's Tale outfit suggesting that you’d better respect her right to carve apart an unborn baby in the womb or you’re some sort of fascist.

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quote icon America was rooted in equality and freedom. Equity requires freedom to be curbed. It's therefore a national tragedy to watch equality of rights abandoned in favor of equity. If freedom is discarded to achieve equality of outcome, we no longer live in an America defined by the Declaration of Independence. We live in an America defined by tribalism and leveling -- and, in short order, tyranny.

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quote icon Politics used to be the art of educating the public about reality and pushing for change where change is possible. Now politics is the art of convincing the public that you can make reality disappear if they votes for you. Sadly, our politicians can't make reality disappear. And every time they try to do so, reality comes rushing back with a vengeance.

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quote icon Our definitions of bravery have shifted rather dramatically… Now, courage lies in authenticity. Authenticity has not been, until recently, conflated with courage. In fact, authenticity very often cuts directly against the virtue of courage: After all, wallowing in the solipsistic generally involves ignoring the demands of a higher noble goal. But now, our higher virtue isn’t in upholding and defending some standard for civilization at risk to ourselves. Higher virtue lies in finding our personal truths, and then demanding applause from the rest of the world. Heroism lies in forcing the world to bow before our subjective ideas of truth and decency. Or perhaps there’s another possibility. Perhaps the new definition of bravery does serve some higher goal: the goal of tearing down the old definition of the good. True courage lies in personally rejecting old systems of thought and objective truth and in joining with others to demand that all systems of power be brought low. In this fight, the personal is political: Subjectivism isn’t the enemy of courage but a new form of courage, since the final good to be sought is the destruction of truth itself.

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quote icon "No, those are people who are investing the risk," he says of shareholders. "So if they carry the risk, then they get the benefit. The owner of the factory carries the risk; therefore, he gets the benefit."

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quote icon We all ought to behave with decency and truth. Those are the twin pillars of conservatism, after all: virtue and reason. Discarding reason undermines virtue by replacing virtue with emotion-based reactivity; discarding virtue undermines the social fabric necessary to undergird the effectiveness of reason. Yes, let’s behave with manners. But let’s recognize that only a society that values truth can afford manners.

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quote icon Here’s the truth: men are looking for meaning in a world that tells them that they are perpetuators of discrimination and rape culture; that they are beneficiaries of an overarching, nasty patriarchy; that they are, at best, disposable partners to women rather than protectors of them. Giving men purpose requires us to give them purpose as men, not merely as genderless beings. There’s a lot to be said for the idea that our culture has ignored the necessity for men to become gentlemen — but that’s a result of a Left-wing culture that denigrates men, not a traditional masculinity built on the idea that men were born to defend, protect, and build.

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quote icon And it’s worse than that. According to the APA, traditional masculinity bumps up “against issues of race, class and sexuality,” maximizing both interior and exterior conflict. Ryan McDermott, psychologist from the University of South Alabama who helped draft the new APA guidelines, suggested that gender is “no longer just this male-female binary.” Rather, gender is a mere social construct that can be destroyed without consequence. Here’s the APA, making the extraordinarily dishonest statement that gender differences aren’t biological at all, in contravention of all known social science research: “Indeed, when researchers, strip away stereotypes and expectations, there isn’t much difference in the basic behaviors of men and women.”

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quote icon Traditionalists always argued that physical intimacy and emotional intimacy ought to be linked. But they were accused of removing female agency with such linkage and condemned for "mansplaining." How about this: no feministsplaining and no mansplaining when it comes to sex? How about we instead focus on communication between men and women? How about sexual partners demand more from one another than physical release so they aren't disappointed that they're being treated as sex objects? A system prizing love and commitment doesn't require nearly the amount of explanation as a system that dispenses with both.

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quote icon A pluralistic democracy requires three factors to function: a shared cultural space; a shared belief in key ideas, largely embedded in the Constitution; and a shared willingness to leave one another alone. As each component erodes, so, too, does the possibility of a united country.

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quote icon If we found a human embryo on another planet, the headlines would rightly scream, 'Human Life Found On Mars.

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quote icon But her actual proposal the one that's being praised quote we demand at this year's World Economic Forum participants from all companies banks institutions and governments immediately halt all investments in fossil fuel exploration and extraction immediately end all fossil fuel subsidies and immediately and completely divest from fossil fuels every company is supposed to stop using fossil fuels every government is supposed to stop using fossil fuels every institution is supposed to stop using fossil fuels she says we don't want these things done by 2050 2030 even twenty twenty-one we want this done now it may seem like we're asking for a lot and you will of course say that we are naive but this is just the very minimum amount of effort that is needed to start the rapid sustainable transition

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