# Ben Shapiro

Benjamin Aaron "Ben" Shapiro (born 15 January 1984, is a American conservative political commentator, nationally syndicated columnist, author, radio talk show host, and attorney.

## Quotes
### Porn Generation: How Social Liberalism Is Corrupting Our Future (2005)

* A man may be judged by his standard of entertainment as easily as by the standard of his work.
* Nihilism, narcissism, and hedonism are natural results of the chaotic existential subjectivism popularized by the Left. If the hallmark of the baby boomers was rebellion, the hallmark of my generation is jadedness. Nothing really matters—we're cosmically alone.
* Baby boomers and their music rebelled against parents because they were parents—nurturing, attentive, and overly present (as those teenagers often saw it) authority figures. Today's teenagers and their music rebel against parents because they are not parents—not nurturing, not attentive, and often not even there.
* Real-life teens wish they could live like the teens Hollywood promotes. Everyone has sex, and relationships are deep and meaningful, even if they only last a couple episodes. There are never any consequences to any action, except for experiencing the angst of teenage life alongside the characters. When a generation becomes desensitized to the ramifications of the culture around them, it's natural to seek out any sort of feeling, even angst.

### How to Debate Leftists and Destroy Them (2014)

    How to Debate Leftists and Destroy Them: 11 Rules for Winning the Argument, Sherman Oaks: David Horowitz Freedom Center, 16 April 2014
* As a general matter, the left's favorite three lines of attack are (1) you're stupid; (2) you're mean; (3) you're corrupt. Sarah Palin is supposedly stupid; Mitt Romney is supposedly mean; Dick Cheney is supposedly corrupt. Take away those lines of attack and watch the discomfort set in.
* There will be no conversation in which you call me a racist, and I explain why I'm not a racist. That's a conversation for idiots.
* When someone calls you a racist, sexist, bigot, homophobe because you happen to disagree with them about tax policy or same-sex marriage or abortion, that's bullying. When someone slanders you because you happen to disagree with them about global warming or the government shutdown, that's bullying. When someone labels you a bad human being because they disagree with you, they are bullying you. They are attacking your character without justification. That's nasty. In fact, it makes them nasty.

### The Right Side of History: How Reason and Moral Purpose Made the West Great (2019)

* We believe freedom is built upon the twin notions that God created every human in His image, and that human beings are capable of investigating and exploring God's world. Those notions were born in Jerusalem and Athens, respectively.
* We receive our notions of Divine meaning from a three-millennia-old lineage stretching back to the ancient Jews; we receive our notions of reason from a twenty-five-hundred-year-old lineage stretching back to the ancient Greeks. In rejecting those lineages—in seeking to graft ourselves to rootless philosophical movements of the moment, cutting ourselves off from our own roots—we have damned ourselves to an existential wandering.
* Evil may so shape events that Caesar will occupy a palace and Christ a cross, but that same Christ will rise up and split history into A.D. and B.C., so that even the life of Caesar must be dated by his name. Yes, "the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice."
** Shapiro quotes Martin Luther King Jr.

### Articles, shows, talks, debates and tweets
#### Articles

* President Obama is, however, a man who embodies all the personal characteristics of a fascist leader, right down to the arrogant chin-up head tilt he utilizes when waiting for applause. He sees democracy as a filthy process that can be cured only by the centralized power of bureaucrats. He sees his presidency as a Hegelian synthesis marking the end of political conflict. He sees himself as embodiment of the collective will. No president should speak in these terms—not in a representative republic. Obama does it habitually.
** "Obama's Philosophically Fascist State of the Union Address", Townhall.com, 3 February 2010
* Is Donald Trump the best Republican candidate for president out there? It would be tough to argue otherwise. He's got all the makings of a breakout star; he's got bravado and the cash to back it up.
** "The Magic of Donald Trump", Townhall.com, 13 April 2011
* The answer is deceptively simple: The Jews who vote for Obama are, by and large, Jews In Name Only (JINOs). They eat bagels and lox; they watch Schindler's List; they visit temple on Yom Kippur—sometimes. But they do not care about Israel. Or if they do, they care about it less than abortion, gay marriage and global warming.
** "Jews in Name Only", Townhall.com, 25 May 2011
** This is a pun on the term RINO, which stands for "Republican In Name Only".
* The Jewish people has always been plagued by Bad Jews, who undermine it from within. In America, those Bad Jews largely vote Democrat.
** Twitter, 2011-11-08, quoted in Jordan Weissman (22 August 2019), "What Republicans Really Mean When They Call Jews Disloyal", Slate
* This is a clarifying election. We've learned that certain media members were willing to sell out long-held principles for ratings. We've learned that certain conservative voters were willing to let conservatism go by the wayside to hero worship a godking. Now we're learning that the Republican leadership is everything we thought they were. We will remember their names. It's time for a new brand of conservative leadership—and those who kowtow to Trump shouldn't be a part of it.
** "Conservative Leaders Who Back Trump Shouldn't Be Leaders Of The Conservative Future", The Daily Wire, 4 May 2016, retrieved on 2019-09-03
* Conservatives used to care too much about values and republicanism to buy ends-justify-the-means logic. But it increasingly appears that political expedience now outweighs basic morality. At least one side of the political spectrum seemed to care about truth. Now both sides are competing to see who can race to the bottom fastest.
** Is Truth Becoming Irrelevant to Conservatives?, The Daily Wire (December 5, 2016)
* This is pure ends-justify-the-means logic. And the means are pushing falsehood. The notion here seems to be that Trump is helping America avoid perdition, and thus must be given leeway to lie; if we didn't allow him to lie, the left would continue to do so, and then they'd win and drive us straight into Hell. But that suggests that truth no longer has the capacity to drive voters or Americans. If that's true, republicanism is finished as a principle—if we can only lie to voters to get them to vote for us, that undermines the decency of republicanism altogether.
** Is Truth Becoming Irrelevant to Conservatives?, The Daily Wire (December 5, 2016)
* These demagogic non sequiturs undercut conservative claims to value the truth. And that has policy consequences: the supposedly conservative Pence and company have been pushing the lie for a week now that the free market is a failure and case-by-case economic fascism from above is the solution to lost American jobs. When truth doesn't matter, lies about policy are sure to follow.
** Is Truth Becoming Irrelevant to Conservatives?, The Daily Wire (December 5, 2016)
* Just because the left has ignored and disparaged truth for years is no excuse for the right to do so as well. And unfortunately, truth-free politics seems to be growing exponentially on the right.
** Is Truth Becoming Irrelevant to Conservatives?, The Daily Wire (December 5, 2016)
* Very often these days, we hear about the wonderful richness of the international community. Americans are chastised for failing to go along with the international community on climate change; failing to follow the consensus of the international community on health care; failing to mirror the priorities of the international community in foreign policy.But here's the reality: There is no international community. There is merely a group of states motivated by self-interest. Sometimes those self-interests overlap. Other times they don't. But let's not pretend that the international community somehow maintains a sort of collective moral standing merely by dint of numbers. In fact, precisely the opposite is often true. … Hamas isn't hiding the ball. It is evil. It celebrates evil. It pays terrorists to commit acts of evil. But the international community isn't hiding the ball either when its members refuse to condemn terrorism as terrorism when it is directed against disfavored members of the international community.
** "The 'International Community' Isn't A Community. It's A Rogue's Gallery.", The Daily Wire, 12 December 2018, retrieved on 2019-09-03
* Here's the truth: Radical Islam is dangerous. The Islamic world has a serious problem with radical Islam. And large swaths of the Muslim world are, in fact, hostile to Western views on matters ranging from freedom of speech to women's rights.
** "The Left Capitalizes On Terrorism To Target Political Opponents", The Daily Wire, 20 March 2019
* So, what would tempt the New York Times to print an illustration directly from the mind of Julius Streicher? The fact that the Times, like many of today's mainstream media outlets, has been completely and utterly willing to cover for and, indeed, engage in anti-Semitism, so long as it is disguised as anti-Zionism. … Back in 2015, the New York Times printed a list of lawmakers who voted against the anti-Israel Iran deal—listing them by the percentage of Jews in their districts and noting which ones were Jewish themselves. Back in 2014, the public editor of the newspaper, Margaret Sullivan, advised reporters to cover the Palestinians as "more than just victims," thanks to the paper's insanely one-sided coverage. … The mainstream Left has engaged in self-flattering blindness when it comes to Jew-hatred. And all too often, that blindness veers into outright anti-Semitism.
** "The New York Times' Anti-Semitism Is Shocking, but Not Surprising", National Review, 30 April 2019
* 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.
** "Ben Shapiro: Why Celebrity Politics Matters", The New Revere, 22 June 2019

#### Television shows and podcasts
##### The Ben Shapiro Show

* If tyranny is going to come in the United States, it's going to come from people who are so fearful of the liberty of Americans, that they believe that the government should shut down all sorts of freedoms that we hold dear.
** "Is The Second Civil War Coming?", The Ben Shapiro Show (593): 38:35, 1 August 2018
* Okay, well, the fact is that if you had to work more than one job to have a roof over your head or food on the table, you probably shouldn't have taken the job that's not paying you enough. That'd be a you problem.
** "Practicality vs. Moral Character?", The Ben Shapiro Show (839): 45:21, 4 August 2019
** Responding to Kamala Harris's assertion, "In our America, we must agree nobody should have to work more than one job to have a roof over their head and food on the table."
* They're talking about this dumb story that President Trump wanted to nuke hurricanes. Which, by the way, I don't care whether it does anything, I just think it sounds cool. I mean, what if there are sharks in the hurricanes? What if it's a sharknado? What then, guys? Have you thought about that? Just the idea—any time you're talking about nuking a random thing that's not really going to hurt anybody, I'll admit, the 13-year-old boy in me is kinda for it.
** "Real Fake News", The Ben Shapiro Show (850): 9:28, 29 August 2019 , quoted in Farron Cousins (30 August 2019), "Ben Shapiro Is Getting Dumber Right In Front Of Us", Ring of Fire Radio
* There was a national apology for slavery. It was called the Civil War where 700,000 Americans died.
** "The Ben Shapiro Show", The Daily Wire, 26 August 2019 , quoted in "Ben Shapiro: "There was a national apology for slavery. It was called the Civil War"", Media Matters for America, 26 August 2019, retrieved on 2019-09-02
* Meanwhile, the polarization of the American public continues apace with wokescolds doing their best to ruin every aspect of American life. I'm very excited that Merriam-Webster Dictionary has now added the non-binary pronoun they to the dictionary. Because when I look at a book for definitions of words, what I want is a made-up definition of a word that has never been used this way in all of human history: a plural noun, used as a singular noun, to refer to a singular gender. We're gonna use a plural noun, and Merriam-Webster is gonna go along with this, which just demonstrates once and for all that logic has gone out the window. People are tailoring science to meet politically correct demands, people are tailoring language to meet politically correct demands.
** "The Israel Impassse", The Ben Shapiro Show (863): 47:15, 18 September 2019 , quoted in Nick Duffy (20 September 2019), "Ben Shapiro just got publicly owned by the Merriam-Webster dictionary", PinkNews, retrieved on 2020-03-12
* "I am a Jew." Those have been the words of the Jewish people for three millennia. Those were the words of the men, women and children of Masada. Those were the words of the followers of Bar Kokhba. Those were the words of Jews in Granada in 1066, and the Rhineland in 1096, and Khmelnytsky from 1648 to 1657, and Kishinev in 1903, in Hebron in 1929. Those were the words of Jews in Auschwitz and Treblinka. Those were the last words of Daniel Pearl. And those are my words, too.
** "I Am a Jew" (2023-10-10). Excerpt from "The Face of Absolute Evil" (2023-10-09), about the 7 October attacks. Also published in Jewish World Review, Jewish Press and The Daily Times.

##### Appearances on other shows

* There are a lot of Jews in Hollywood who feel the obligation—they have a perverse leftist view of history, pushed by the Soviet Union, that what really destroyed Europe was Christianity. It was not fascism, it was not communism, it was not leftism, it was Christianity. And therefore, the cure for intolerance is to bash the hell out of Christianity.
** Primetime Propaganda: The Hollywood Story of How the Left Took Over Your TV, 12 March 2014
* There certainly is a war on Christianity. It's coming from some people who are secular Jews. It's coming from a lot of leftists. Most Jews in America don't care about Judaism.
** Primetime Propaganda: The Hollywood Story of How the Left Took Over Your TV, 12 March 2014
* Ben Shapiro: Why are we mainstreaming delusion? Drew Pinsky: It's not delusion. Samantha Schacher: Why would you call it delusion? Ben Shapiro: Because Bruce "Caitlyn" Jenner—I'll call him Caitlyn Jenner, because that's… Samantha Schacher: No, it's her. You're not being polite to the pronoun. Disrespectful. Ben Shapiro: Okay, forget about the disrespect. Facts don't care about your feelings. It turns out that every chromosome, every cell in Caitlyn Jenner's body, is male, with the exception of some of his sperm cells. It turns out that he still has all of his male appendages. How he feels on the inside is irrelevant to the question of his biological self.
** Dr. Drew On Call, 2015-07-17
* Ben Shapiro: I don't frankly give a damn what you think of me, since I've never heard of you. Andrew Neil: And I've never heard of you before I briefed myself for this, but that's not the issue. You haven't— Ben Shapiro: Then why the hell are you interviewing me, sir? Andrew Neil: It's an interesting book. But my point is, your book claims that society— Ben Shapiro: Well, it would be nice if you would quote it from time to time.
** Interviewed by Andrew Neil, Politics Live, BBC, 10 May 2019
* And as far as the free speech situation, what I will say is that no company has the obligation to literally pay anyone. The Daily Wire is a publisher, it is not a platform. I have never called for Candace, or anyone else, for that matter, to be banned from YouTube, to be banned from X, to be banned from any platform. That is a different story, obviously, when it comes to any publisher. Any publisher gets to make decisions about what it wishes to purvey and not.
** "Piers Morgan vs. Ben Shapiro: On Israel–Hamas, Candace Owens and More" (11:40–12:04). Piers Morgan Uncensored (2024-03-26).

#### Talks and debates

* So the only other reason you should ever have a conversation, or be friends, with anyone on the left is—and not even be friends—if you are in public in front of a large audience, and then your goal is to humiliate them as badly as possible. That is the goal of the conversation. The goal is not to convince the person. The goal is not to make friends with that person.
** Speech to Young America's Foundation at Reagan Ranch, 2015-11-13
* So let's say, let's say, for the sake of argument, that all the water levels around the world rise by, let's say, five feet over the next hundred years—say, ten feet over the next hundred years—and it puts all the low-lying areas on the coast underwater. Which—let's say all of that happens. You think that people aren't going to just sell their homes and move?
** "Ben Shapiro VS Climate Change", YouTube, 2017-01-08, 5:37
** On the Lex Fridman Podcast #336, Shapiro has clarified what he meant by this statement: "The argument that I am making is over time. I don't mean that if a tsunami is about to hit your house, you can list it on eBay. That's not what I mean, obviously. What I mean is that human beings have an extraordinay ability to adapt, it's actually our best quality, and that as water levels rise, real estate prices in those areas tend to fall. That over time, people tend to abandon those areas. They tend to leave. They tend to, right now, sell their houses, and then they tend to move. And eventually, those houses will be worthless, and you won't have anybody to sell to. But presumably, not that many people will be living there by that point, which is one of the reasons why the price will be low, because there is no demand."
* But, what we can't do, is suggest, as the Bernie Sanders left does, that healthcare is an inalienable right and therefore you can put a gun to my wife's head—she's a doctor—and you can force her to provide care at any cost you wanna pay. You can't do that and hope to increase the supply of healthcare.
** Debate with Cenk Uygur, Politicon 2017, 2017-07-30
* You can't magically change your gender. You can't magically change your sex. You can't magically change your age. … Trump won the nomination because he was anti-left, not because of any political viewpoints, he was slapping people on the left and people on the right went, 'Yeah, those people need to be slapped!'
** As quoted in Ben Shapiro, a Provocative ‘Gladiator,’ Battles to Win Young Conservatives (November 23, 2017) by Sabrina Tavernise, The New York Times.
* The left believes in a hierarchy of victimhood, if you are L.G.B.T.Q., then we suggest that you are very top of the victimhood hierarchy. You have been most victimized in the United States and therefore your opinion must be taken with the most gravitas. … Black folks have been historically victimized in the United States, which of course, is true. But the idea that every black person now is being individually victimized by the United States is not true. … Way down at the bottom are white straight males. Those are people whose opinions do not matter at all. Because those are the people who are the beneficiaries of the system. They don't get to talk about the system because they were the ones who built the system.
** About reverse racism, as quoted in Ben Shapiro, a Provocative 'Gladiator,' Battles to Win Young Conservatives (November 23, 2017) by Sabrina Tavernise, The New York Times.
* The argument, I guess here, is that would you kill baby Hitler? And the truth is that no pro-life person on earth would kill baby Hitler, because baby Hitler wasn't Hitler, adult Hitler was Hitler. Baby Hitler was a baby. What you presumably want to do with baby Hitler is take baby Hitler out of baby Hitler's house and move baby Hitler into a better house where he would not grow up to be Hitler, right? That's the idea.
** 2019 March for Life, 2019-01-18
* Questioner: So, I figure you've probably heard this before, but C. S. Lewis makes the argument that because of Jesus' exclusive claims, that he is either a liar that intentionally led people astray, a lunatic that believed he was the son of God and he wasn't, or he is Lord. Would you put him in one of those categories, or would you put him in another, separate category? Ben Shapiro: So, I mean, because I'm a Jew, I'm just gonna, I mean… look, I'm a Jew, so obviously, for those who are not particularly versed in Judaism, the reason we are not Christians is because we don't believe that Jesus was the Messiah or a physical iteration of God. … So the option from within Judaism is to suggest that Jesus was actually a historical figure who was saying a lot of things which Jews would agree with, because if you read a lot of the New Testament, it, as you would expect, mimics a lot of things in the Old Testament; and that he was actually a political figure; and that the Romans crucified him because he was a political figure who was attempting to lead a rebellion against their tyranny. That's the Jewish historical claim about Jesus.
** Q&A session at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro (40:00)

#### Twitter

* Renewable energy: dumbest phrase since climate change. See the first law of thermodynamics, dumbass.
** Twitter, 2011-06-25, quoted in Judah Weinerman (23 October 2018), "Prager University's slick production masks deep-seated hatred", The Justice
* Occupy Wall Street is just like the Arab Spring. Both are run by people who don't shower, hate American capitalism, and despise Israel.
** Twitter, 2011-10-10, quoted in Eddie Krassenstein (20 March 2019), "Ben Shapiro's Homophobic, Islamophobic Tweets Contradict His Claim of Not Being 'Alt-Right'", HillReporter.com
* So Jason Collins is a hero because he's gay? Our standard for heroism has dropped quite a bit since Normandy.
** Twitter, 2013-04-29, quoted in Eddie Krassenstein (20 March 2019), "Ben Shapiro's Homophobic, Islamophobic Tweets Contradict His Claim of Not Being 'Alt-Right'", HillReporter.com
* If you wear your pants below your butt, don't bend the brim of your cap, and have an EBT card, 0% chance you will ever be a success in life.
** Twitter, 2011-09-20, quoted in Rebecah Jacobs, "There's A Twitter Account For A Dog Who Sniffs Out Racism, And It's Absolutely Glorious", Foxy NC
* Trayvon Martin would have turned 21 today if he hadn't taken a man's head and beaten it on the pavement before being shot.
** Twitter, 2016-02-05, quoted in Frank Dale (13 July 2018), "These facts don't care about Ben Shapiro's feelings", ThinkProgress, retrieved on 2020-03-12
* Your "safe spaces" should be renamed "fascist areas," you jackbooted intellectual weaklings.
** Twitter, 2016-02-23, quoted in Christine Rousselle (23 February 2016), "University President Cancels Pro-Life Advocate's Speech: "It's Best for Our Campus"", LifeNews
* Hey, @SusanWojcicki, would love to discuss this with you. Do you think your employees should be cavalierly labeling those who militantly hate white supremacy "Nazis," and then shaping algorithms on the basis of such lies?
** Twitter, 2019-06-25 in response to Project Veritas' leaked e-mail, highlighted by Washington Examiner

## Quotes about Shapiro

* The New York Times … called him "the cool kid's philosopher" and a "brilliant polemicist," who "does not attack unfairly, stoke anger for the sake of it, or mischaracterize his opponents' positions."
** Peter Beinart: "Why Doesn't The New York Times Mention Ben Shapiro's Islamophobia?" (November 30, 2017)
* Shapiro, a popular conservative pundit with half a million Youtube subscribers and 1.86 million Twitter followers, is known for his mantra "facts don't care about your feelings." … A New York Times profile called Shapiro "the cool kid's philosopher."
** Aisling McCrea (15 February 2019), "The magical thinking of guys who love logic", The Outline
* The Daily Wire was co-founded by one Ben Shapiro, perhaps the world's bestknown Orthodox Jew, and a good friend of mine.
** Jordan Peterson: "My Message to the Jews". The Evening Standard (2024-10-04).
* [T]he conservative pundit Ben Shapiro has referred to liberal Jews as "JINOs" and "bad Jews" who "vote Democrat" and therefore "undermine [the Jewish people] from within." … This is why Shapiro, himself a frequent target of anti-Semites, has drawn the interest of white-nationalist terrorists … he is saying what they want to hear.
** Adam Serwer, The Cruelty is the Point (2021)
** Serwer references Shapiro's 2011 essay "Jews in Name Only" and a 2011 tweet.
* If Rush Limbaugh is someone your dad listens to on his car radio, Mr. Shapiro, 33, a graduate of Harvard Law School, is the cool kid's philosopher, dissecting arguments with a lawyer's skill and references to Aristotle.
** Sabrina Tavernise (23 November 2017), "Ben Shapiro, a Provocative 'Gladiator,' Battles to Win Young Conservatives", The New York Times

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