Ben Shapiro: “Taking the foundational text of Western civilization, the Ten Commandments, and putting it on the wall in a Texas school is not, in fact, theocracy”
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From the April 23, 2026, edition of The Daily Wire's The Ben Shapiro Show
BEN SHAPIRO (HOST): This is — even the ones who are masquerading as moderate are not in fact moderate. James Talarico, who again, is being trotted out by Joe — Joe Rogan said he'd vote for James Talarico for president, which is pretty insane, pretty crazy.
Well, James Talarico is now saying that putting the Ten Commandments in Texas schools is a form of theocracy. No, it isn't. No one says that you must actually become a practicing Jew or an observant Christian in order to go to Texas school. Taking the foundational text of Western civilization, the Ten Commandments, and putting it on the wall in a Texas school is not, in fact, theocracy.
By the way, having Christmas pageants in a public school is also not theocracy. When I went to public school when I was a kid, I was in the Christmas pageant. So was my younger sister who's now married to a rabbi. But one of the reasons, by the way, we might want to put the Ten commandments in Texas schools or in public schools in general is because it says a couple of things that now seem to be in controversy. Thou shalt not steal. Thou shalt not murder. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's property. There are at least three commandments the Democrats are very much against these days, apparently. Here's James Talarico, pseudo-moderate.
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SHAPIRO: Again, the the the idea that they're putting the Ten Commandments in Texas schools is full-scale theocracy is totally insane. Of course, it comes from the same person, a pseudo-Christian. I say pseudo-Christian because it seems to me that every Christian that I know — and, again, I'll let Christians speak for themselves here. It seems to me that if you say that you believe in Jesus as a Christian and then you proceed to overthrow every single principle that he stood for while mis-citing the New Testament, that doesn't seem like amazing practice.