The Matt Walsh Show - Ep. 1074 - How Social Media Is Destroying Our Kids

00:00:00.000 Today on the Matt Wall Show, another deadly TikTok trend once again highlights the danger

00:00:04.300 that social media poses to children. When are we finally going to take action to protect kids from

00:00:08.960 the insanely destructive effects of the internet and social media? Also, Elon Musk, speaking of

00:00:13.200 social media, releases documentation proving that the Hunter Biden laptop story was suppressed at

00:00:17.540 the behest of Democrat political operatives. Plus, religious liberty is back on trial at the Supreme

00:00:22.120 Court. The left invents an insane conspiracy theory to explain a power outage in North Carolina.

00:00:26.720 And our daily cancellation, what exactly is a dink and why are they being canceled? We'll find out

00:00:31.660 about that today and so much more on the Matt Wall Show.

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00:01:42.800 Well, needless to say, the big social media story of the week is Elon Musk's release of internal emails

00:01:48.720 and documents at Twitter, proving beyond a shadow of a doubt that big tech has been censoring and

00:01:53.180 suppressing information at the behest of political campaigns in order to influence the outcome of

00:01:58.460 elections. And for other reasons, just as nefarious. We'll talk more about all that in a few minutes.

00:02:03.800 There's another social media story that has caught my attention, though, as well. It may not have the

00:02:09.180 same political implications, but it points to what I think is an even bigger problem. In fact, a much

00:02:14.060 bigger problem. Reading from The Independent, it says, the fatal blackout challenge on TikTok has

00:02:18.840 reportedly been linked to the deaths of at least 20 children in the past 18 months. The popular

00:02:23.720 challenge on the social media platform encourages people to choke themselves with household items

00:02:28.700 until they become unconscious and then film the adrenaline rush once they regain consciousness.

00:02:35.060 At least 15 of those children who died while filming the challenge were aged 12 or younger.

00:02:39.960 According to data compiled by Bloomberg Businessweek, five of the victims were aged 13 or 14. The blackout

00:02:46.140 challenge is a modern incarnation of choking dares that have been around for years, but have been

00:02:49.980 made more accessible to children through social media platforms. The choking game, quote unquote,

00:02:55.300 killed 82 minors when it first appeared in 2008, according to data from the CDC. TikTok and its parent

00:03:01.060 company, ByteDance, have been sued by parents who claimed their children died as a result of the fatal

00:03:07.100 challenge. Now, Bloomberg goes into more detail about one of the victims and one of these stories,

00:03:12.440 and it is, as you might expect, horrific. It begins, the five-year-old boy's panicked cries echoed down

00:03:19.100 the hallway of the Arroyo's three-bedroom clapboard house in Milwaukee. It was February 2021, and he'd been

00:03:25.600 playing with his nine-year-old sister, Ariane, before bedtime. Their mother was at a Bible study class,

00:03:31.140 and their father was in his basement workshop out of earshot. The boy had watched Ariane climb atop a toy

00:03:36.120 chest, wrap a metal dog leash around her neck, and hook the buckle to the wardrobe door hinge. Now,

00:03:42.240 she was hanging two feet from the ground, kicking and desperately scratching at her neck.

00:03:46.540 A few days later, after Ariane was buried wearing a princess dress and tiara, her nails freshly

00:03:52.620 painted, the boy told his parents what had happened. They were playing a game, he said, like they saw on

00:03:58.460 TikTok. Now, this is, of course, just the latest dangerous trend to spread to kids through social

00:04:05.400 media platforms like TikTok. Every week, it seems, there's another one. And it's not as though, as the

00:04:09.980 first article mentioned, it's not as though kids weren't doing hideously stupid and dangerous things

00:04:14.020 before the internet existed. The blackout challenge itself predates social media, but social media

00:04:20.620 spreads these ideas at the speed of light. Not only spreads them, it provides enormous additional

00:04:26.280 incentive for kids to participate in them, because now they can do it for the likes and the shares and

00:04:32.680 the views. And also, when they're doing these stupid, reckless things, not knowing that they're

00:04:39.600 stupid and reckless, they're often going to be isolated by themselves while they're doing it.

00:04:44.900 And they do it, why? Again, for the dopamine hit that they get from all the attention, attention that

00:04:49.180 comes in measurable quantities that they can see. And speaking of measurable quantities, the impact

00:04:55.360 of the internet and social media on children obviously goes way beyond reckless and sometimes

00:05:01.220 deadly challenge trends on TikTok. Kids today are more depressed, more anxious. They suffer more

00:05:06.860 from mental illness. They're more suicidal than any generation of children before them in history.

00:05:11.780 They're also fatter, less healthy, more isolated. They spend less time outside. They spend less time

00:05:16.640 participating in group activities. They spend less time with sports. They have fewer real-life friends.

00:05:21.620 They have worse social skills. And there are many factors contributing to this, but nearly all of the

00:05:27.320 research and also just basic common sense points to one thing as by far the biggest factor, and that is

00:05:34.780 their phones, the internet, social media. The average kid over the age of 13 spends nearly 10 hours a day

00:05:41.240 staring at various screens. And that's just recreational screen time. It doesn't even take into account the

00:05:46.900 time spent using screens for schoolwork or homework. So when all is said and done each day, there is barely

00:05:52.080 any time left for anything that doesn't involve looking at a glowing rectangle. This is their life. And we have

00:06:00.880 barely begun to contemplate and confront the consequences of a life lived like this so young. In fact, most

00:06:09.600 adults don't seem to be contemplating it at all. According to a survey a few years ago, and these numbers have

00:06:14.400 probably all gotten worse as they, as that's what the trends indicate. A few years ago, the vast majority of kids

00:06:20.080 were given their first cell phone before the age of 13. And nearly 40% have a phone before they turn 10. And nearly 20% have

00:06:28.880 a phone by the age of eight. About 10% have a phone by six. There is even a not insignificant portion of three-year-olds

00:06:37.100 who are given smartphones. Three-year-olds. I mean, the best we can say about kids who are given this kind of technology

00:06:45.500 so young is that they'll become very good at using the technology. But that's not saying much, as smartphones are not

00:06:52.920 difficult to use. We don't call them smartphones because you need to be smart to use them. Quite the opposite, in fact.

00:06:58.420 They can be mastered in about five minutes, even by someone who's never held one before. There's a reason why a three-year-old can

00:07:03.240 figure out how to use it.

00:07:05.320 So it's not like you need to get them on it early so they'll know how to keep up with a technology-based

00:07:10.340 society. You could never hand your kid a phone until they turn 18, and they'll have it figured out

00:07:17.720 by lunchtime. And for the sake of getting our kids up to speed on the latest technology, the cost is

00:07:26.000 that their chance of depression, mental illness, suicide, obesity, isolation, exposure to grotesque

00:07:31.300 and harmful images like hardcore pornography, all of that skyrockets. They will become overstimulated,

00:07:37.720 easily bored, in need of constant distraction, entertainment, a problem that will then often be solved by

00:07:44.120 psychotropic medication. They will become dumber, less interesting people than they otherwise would have been.

00:07:52.080 But at least they'll be able to type really quickly with their thumbs. Now, the messages that they're typing

00:07:56.520 with their thumbs will be inane and semi-literate, even into adulthood, but they'll learn to say them very fast.

00:08:04.280 They're going to learn to say really stupid things quickly. That's the benefit.

00:08:10.700 So what's the solution here? Well, an unlikely person has stepped into that conversation. The actress Kate Winslet

00:08:15.700 got some attention this past week while promoting her new film, which apparently deals with social media

00:08:20.280 addiction among children. And she called for the government to get involved. Let's listen to this.

00:08:26.340 Do you think there needs to be more regulation? I mean, should we just say social media shouldn't be available

00:08:31.380 to people under a certain age? Or what might be the answer? It's a difficult one, because when you're

00:08:36.300 an individual in something of a high-profile position, you know, we do have to be careful that

00:08:41.320 we're using our voices wisely, hopefully telling stories that resonate, speaking with integrity and

00:08:46.920 leading with the truth. Those things are very important to me.

00:08:50.620 I really do struggle with social media. I struggle with the impact it's clearly having on teenage mental

00:09:02.160 health. I do wish that our government would crack down on it. I do wish that there would be certain

00:09:07.440 platforms that were banned before a certain age. I wish that security checks would be much more rigorous.

00:09:13.820 You know, teenagers, where there's a will, there's a way. So if they want to get on that platform,

00:09:21.880 they will. But I do believe that there needs to be a lot more protection and accountability

00:09:29.060 because parents are left flailing, going, well, thank you so much, government. Look what just

00:09:34.040 happened to my child. Now, later on, she says that parents feel utterly powerless to help their kids

00:09:40.160 overcome their social media obsession, which is why she says the government has to step in. And

00:09:45.680 she's not wrong. I mean, the law cannot solve the problem on its own, but it can at least do

00:09:51.040 something, whereas now it's doing nothing at all. There should be laws banning social media companies

00:09:57.780 from allowing minors on their platform. That should exist. Now, the harm that social media does to the

00:10:03.940 developing minds of children, it's clear enough to anyone willing to look. We don't need to spend

00:10:09.380 another 15 years sitting around hoping that it will work itself out in the end. We know all that

00:10:15.460 we need to know right now to justify taking action, drastic action. How can social media companies

00:10:21.980 prevent kids from using their services? Well, not perfectly, but they can do more than they're doing

00:10:26.620 now because, again, right now they're doing nothing. So anything at all would be better than the

00:10:32.520 nothing that they're doing. As it stands, TikTok welcomes all kids ages 13 and over.

00:10:40.120 So they're not even trying to stop 13-year-olds. They're welcome, 13-year-olds, to use it.

00:10:45.720 So the age limit by law should be moved up to 18, and they should be required to take steps to

00:10:51.840 ensure, however imperfectly, that the age limit is respected. This is possible. You know, there are

00:10:56.440 websites, like if you want to use a gambling website, for example, that you have to take. Now,

00:11:00.380 there are ways around that even then, but there are steps that have to be taken to verify your age.

00:11:04.920 If we were really serious, though, we would actually have laws banning anyone under the

00:11:11.340 age of 18 from owning a smartphone in the first place. Now, this idea only seems over the top and

00:11:20.880 shocking to people today because we ourselves are mindless, phone-addicted zombies, and we cannot

00:11:26.740 imagine a life apart from our beloved devices. So even the adults, when we hear that, well,

00:11:31.180 banning minors, it's like we can't even conceive of that because we, again, cannot conceive of what

00:11:37.220 it means to live without this stuff. But there is no God-given constitutional right to a smartphone,

00:11:44.040 especially not for minors. And we know that smartphones are addictive, and they're harmful

00:11:49.800 on every conceivable level. So what exactly is the argument for not banning their sale to children?

00:11:56.760 Like, what's the argument for allowing Apple to sell iPhones to kids?

00:12:04.340 No child has ever been harmed by not having a phone with internet connection.

00:12:09.600 That's never happened. Many, many millions of children have been harmed by having it. So

00:12:14.900 what seems unthinkable to unthinking Americans banning smartphones outright for minors is, in fact,

00:12:21.740 the obviously correct course of action. It's obviously the right thing to do, which is why

00:12:27.940 it will never happen. So we're left then with the other obvious solution, although it too is only a

00:12:34.720 partial solution, and that is for parents to step up and start taking the issue seriously.

00:12:41.960 You know, you give your kid a smartphone because it's the easiest thing to do,

00:12:46.740 because it keeps him quiet, keeps him entertained, because all of his friends have one,

00:12:53.300 because he says that if you don't give him one, he's going to hate you,

00:12:55.920 because you feel powerless to do anything different, as Kate Winslet says.

00:13:01.440 But you're not powerless. I mean, you're the parent. It's your money. It's your house.

00:13:07.240 You hold all the cards. You have all the power, all the leverage. Your kid has none.

00:13:12.580 Your child will not volunteer to radically depart from his peers by living a phone-free life.

00:13:20.160 Even if it's the life that every kid on earth lived up until the last couple of decades,

00:13:24.120 it now seems radical and unthinkable. He's not going to volunteer for that,

00:13:28.840 which is why you can't follow his cues on this. You have to take the lead,

00:13:33.420 which means taking the phone away. It is a problem. If any of this seems extreme,

00:13:42.220 well, the problem is extreme. Again, we cannot even fully conceive. We know about so much of the

00:13:50.100 damage, but we cannot fully conceive of what it will be like to eventually have a society filled

00:13:56.600 with people who have been on these devices and addicted to them practically from birth.

00:14:04.940 And here's the thing. You take the phone away from your kid, I guarantee, once he's older,

00:14:08.760 he's not going to look back on his childhood and wish that he'd spent more time on his phone.

00:14:14.000 No one wishes that. None of us on our deathbeds are going to look back and say,

00:14:18.600 you know what? My one regret is that I didn't spend more time staring at that damn thing.

00:14:23.480 Your kid's not going to regret it. You're not going to regret it for him. You're not going

00:14:28.380 to look back and say, well, man, I only wish I, I just wish I had put him on the phone earlier.

00:14:34.260 No, he will thank you eventually for saving him from becoming a fat, depressed zombie like all of

00:14:41.960 his peers, even if he hates you in the meantime. But that's a price worth paying. Now let's get to

00:14:50.040 our five headlines. Men, is it time to stop mindlessly scrolling? If you listen to what I

00:15:00.660 just said in the opening there, you know that it is time to finally gain that higher quality of life

00:15:05.280 you know you're missing out on. If this sounds familiar, then on January 9th, join thousands

00:15:09.700 of men all over the world to embark on a 90 day journey together in search of a better life. It's

00:15:14.620 called Exodus 90, and it was built to help men enjoy the freedom of becoming who they were truly

00:15:19.320 made to be. Exodus 90 guides you in removing the attachments that are holding you back from a

00:15:24.080 better life, and it actually works. Independent research shows Exodus 90, the men that participate

00:15:29.340 report considerable shifts after the 90 days, including stronger satisfaction rates in their

00:15:33.860 marriages, more meaningful prayer lives, and dramatic decreases in time spent on their phones.

00:15:38.560 For the past seven years, Exodus has helped more than 60,000 men build a roadmap for living with

00:15:44.260 virtue and a culture that offers far too many paths to self-destruction. So is it time for your

00:15:49.280 Exodus? We start January 9th. Find resources to prepare for Exodus at exodus90.com slash Walsh. That's

00:15:55.720 exodus90.com slash Walsh. As mentioned, the other big social media stories from Daily Wire says Twitter

00:16:03.840 CEO Elon Musk released information through journalist Matt Taibbi Friday afternoon showing

00:16:08.500 that Twitter was working in conjunction with then-Democrat presidential candidate Joe Biden's

00:16:12.140 team, removing tweets that team Biden wanted deleted. Musk said that he decided to release the

00:16:17.440 information because it was necessary to restore public trust in the platform after it censored the

00:16:21.660 New York Post's bombshell report about Hunter Biden's laptop just weeks before the 2020 presidential

00:16:25.720 election. Musk, quote, retweeted Matt Taibbi's multi-tweet thread on Twitter, writing,

00:16:31.540 here we go. Taibbi began by explaining the company was slowly forced to add tools for controlling

00:16:37.040 speech that were designed to combat the likes of spam and financial fraudsters. Slowly over time,

00:16:42.060 quoting now from Taibbi, Twitter staff and executives began to find more and more uses for these tools.

00:16:46.960 Outsiders began petitioning the company to manipulate speech as well, first a little,

00:16:51.200 then more often, then constantly, Taibbi said. By 2020, requests from connected actors to delete

00:16:56.680 tweets were routine. One executive would write to another, more to review from the Biden team.

00:17:01.320 The reply would come back handled. Taibbi's post shows that on October 24th,

00:17:05.980 team Biden asked five tweets to be removed. According to Andrew Kerr of the Washington Free

00:17:09.500 Beacon, those tweets were either drug-related photos of Hunter Biden or pornographic photos of him.

00:17:16.700 Which, by the way, those two things obviously are not the same. Like, you could make an argument

00:17:20.620 for deleting pornographic images. I mean, I think all pornographic images should be banned from Twitter.

00:17:28.220 But images of him using drugs, you don't have the same argument for that. That's damaging to him

00:17:38.280 and to Biden for people to see. But you can't hide behind, well, this is part of our anti-pornography

00:17:44.080 policy. Which, by the way, since when did Twitter even have an anti-pornography policy?

00:17:51.620 Continues, celebrities and unknowns alike could be removed or renewed at the behest of a political

00:17:55.360 party, or reviewed, rather, at the behest of a political party. Both parties had access to these

00:17:59.100 tools. For instance, in 2020, requests from both the Trump White House and the Biden campaign were

00:18:03.840 received and honored. However, the system wasn't balanced. It was based on contacts. Because

00:18:08.700 Twitter was and is overwhelmingly staffed by people of one political orientation, there were more

00:18:12.980 channels, more ways to complain, open to the left, Democrats, than the right.

00:18:19.880 Taibbi continues, Twitter took extraordinary steps to suppress the story about the laptop,

00:18:25.020 removing links and posting warnings that it may be unsafe. They even blocked its transmission via

00:18:29.640 direct message, a tool hitherto reserved for extreme cases, like child pornography.

00:18:37.340 White House spokeswoman Kayleigh McEnany was locked out of her account for tweeting about the story,

00:18:43.080 prompting a furious letter from Trump campaign staffer Mike Hahn, who was obviously furious about it.

00:18:49.860 But they continued, of course, banning people. We know about that part of the story.

00:18:54.040 And he goes into a lot more detail. Now, the thing is,

00:18:57.820 what is the overall story here? Well, the story is nothing important, really. No big deal. Just

00:19:04.600 political powers using big tech as an end run around the First Amendment, using censorship to

00:19:10.880 influence the outcome of an election, suppressing information to manipulate public opinion.

00:19:17.260 The other thing we have to remember here is it wasn't just the suppression of the story,

00:19:21.040 as bad as that was. It was also the lying that went on. Okay, we heard from people who knew better

00:19:26.500 that this was Russian misinformation, all this kind of stuff. Hacked materials. We heard this from

00:19:34.740 people who knew that wasn't true, or at a minimum knew that they didn't know whether that was true or

00:19:41.480 not. They were just assuming or hoping. So no big deal, except for the fact that this is a very big

00:19:48.160 deal. Is it a revelation? As in, is this new information? Not exactly. And people that wanted

00:19:57.980 to downplay this story and the Twitter files that were released, they took a couple different tacks,

00:20:03.780 and we'll play some of the cable news footage so you can see what different strategies they took

00:20:10.460 to downplay this. But one of them was to say, well, we knew about all this already. This is all

00:20:14.380 already known. We knew about a lot of it sort of in broad strokes, but this is confirmation. This is

00:20:22.860 documentation of what was going on, and that matters. You know, that's a story. That matters a lot.

00:20:31.180 And what Elon Musk has done here is extremely important. You know how important it is based on

00:20:37.580 how little the corporate media is talking about it. In fact, I was out of the loop on social media

00:20:44.620 myself over the weekend because I tried not, you know, speaking of like trying to get a hold of

00:20:48.260 your social media addictions, I tried not to use it over the weekend because I want to be with my

00:20:51.520 family. And then getting back on on Sunday, trying to figure out what I'm, you know, doing some show

00:20:57.120 prep, I wanted to read about, read up on this story. And I went and not that I thought I would see

00:21:02.300 anything honest in corporate media outlets, but I wanted to see what they were saying about it.

00:21:05.680 And what I found is that, of course, they were saying almost nothing about it.

00:21:09.160 Like, according to them, none of this even happened.

00:21:13.840 Mostly they tried to ignore it. And when they did talk about it begrudgingly,

00:21:18.700 it's been to sort of justify their own lack of interest. So here's how MSNBC handled it

00:21:23.480 with contributor Matthew Dowd, who had gave his thoughts. Let's watch that.

00:21:30.500 The release of these internal Twitter files, right, that were related to this controversy

00:21:34.900 surrounding a 2020 New York Post article on Hunter Biden. And here's what the Washington Post

00:21:39.600 says. By the time the dust settled Saturday, even some conservatives were grumbling that it was a

00:21:46.160 dud. Musk's Twitter files produced no smoking gun showing the tech giant had bent to the will of

00:21:53.060 Democrats. The Twitter thread based on internal communications posted by sub stack writer Matt

00:21:59.500 Taibbi showed the company independently decided to limit the spread of the article without

00:22:04.200 Democratic politicians, the Biden campaign or FBI exerting control over the social media network.

00:22:10.500 This happened, I believe it was October of 2020 when Trump was president, right? Biden was, in fact,

00:22:17.200 at that point running for office. What do you make of what Elon Musk did, right? And the dissemination

00:22:24.500 and distribution now of so much misinformation, what we have become really, Matthew?

00:22:32.660 Well, I mean, I think ever since Elon Musk took over Twitter, we've seen it devolve into something

00:22:39.180 that is nothing close to truth and nothing close to unifying in the country as we see it today.

00:22:44.260 What amazes me is Elon Musk might have spent a little more time reading the First Amendment and what

00:22:50.360 it said, because his immediate thing was this was a violation of the First Amendment when,

00:22:54.840 as far as I can tell, no government authority told Twitter not to do something. To me, this is,

00:23:00.240 and it seems like they were upset. They're upset that somehow some pornographic or some revealing

00:23:05.860 pictures of Hunter Biden weren't revealed in this, which.

00:23:09.960 OK. So you get the idea there. So first of all, we get this harrowing and horrifying image of what

00:23:19.400 Twitter has become. It's the wild, wild west all over again, which which is great to me. I mean,

00:23:24.820 that sounds great. But in actuality, if you if you go on Twitter, what you're going to find is that

00:23:30.060 it's just like very strikingly normal. It's what it's always been. You would never without apart from

00:23:36.840 all of the hysteria from the media about Elon Musk taking over. If you didn't know about any of that,

00:23:43.440 you had no background knowledge and you use Twitter, you say, well, this is it's no different.

00:23:47.300 It's like the user experience is slightly improved. And but for the most part, it's like the same.

00:23:54.780 And as far as actual misinformation, like people saying untrue things,

00:24:00.420 that's there's the same volume of that that there's always been.

00:24:04.820 And it's always been a pretty high volume. Because social media is made up of it's a social

00:24:11.060 platform. It's made up of people. And people say a lot of things that aren't true.

00:24:16.780 It's actually not the platform's job, much less it is the government's job to police

00:24:24.580 like and discern truth from falsehood and tell us what we're allowed to say based on what they think

00:24:31.740 is true. It's actually not their job. And one of the reasons why it's not the platform's job,

00:24:38.860 it's not the government's job, aside from, of course, the obvious free speech concerns.

00:24:42.960 But the other reason is that then is like that assumes that we can trust them to discern

00:24:48.020 truth from falsehood. And we know we can't do that.

00:24:52.680 Given that, as we know, the people that want to put themselves and have already put themselves in

00:24:56.400 position of being the arbiters of what is true, you know, these are the people that would look you

00:25:01.020 straight in the eye and tell you that men can get pregnant. You know, men can have men have

00:25:06.700 menstrual cycles. Like, these are the people that want to be in the position of telling you what's

00:25:10.920 true and what isn't. When they hold beliefs that are arguably more deranged than any belief system

00:25:24.480 held by any other group of people in the history of the earth. Okay, like more deranged than flat

00:25:31.780 earthers than, you know, you want to go back to pagan cults and they were sacrificing humans to

00:25:37.820 the sun god and everything else. But we know the left, they engage in their own form of human

00:25:41.740 sacrifice. But their belief system, the modern left belief system, is even more deranged and

00:25:47.440 divorced from reality than any of that. So they're not in the position to do it. As far as free speech

00:25:54.020 goes, you know, Dowd says, well, this is not a First Amendment issue. Well, it is because,

00:25:59.300 again, it's political actors and the government. We already know about the reports of the FBI

00:26:04.920 going to Facebook and the other social media platforms and telling them, hey, look out for

00:26:08.960 misinformation having to do with Hunter Biden and all that. Russian misinformation. They're doing this

00:26:14.940 in order to get around the First Amendment. But it's still an attack on the First Amendment.

00:26:22.920 It's just a, it's a, it's a more subversive rather than a direct attack. They also brought

00:26:30.940 Republican gimp, Michael Steele. I think he still calls himself a Republican anyway. And let's listen

00:26:36.880 to what he has to say for some reason. What are your thoughts on all of this tomfoolery over the last

00:26:43.000 24 hours? I guess with Musk is to prove that, hey, I'm the right kind of Republican, meaning I'm a

00:26:49.620 Trump Republican. I'm a, you know, election denying Republican. I don't know what kind of Republican

00:26:55.220 he is. I mean, probably next year he'll be an independent or a Democrat, depending on how the

00:26:59.620 wind blows. But the, but the reality of it is putting those things back on the platform,

00:27:06.020 juxtaposition with the argument that he's all about free speech really undermines the central,

00:27:14.700 some of the central tenets of free speech is that it is, it is about, yes, the freedom of you to say

00:27:20.280 things, but not at the harm or expense of someone else. And so when you're perpetuating lies and so

00:27:26.400 forth, you're really kind of laughing in the face of this idea of what the platform he claims is supposed

00:27:32.080 to be. For the party, they love it. I mean, they got, they got the world, one of the world's richest

00:27:37.480 men helping them foment the kind of distrust of the system and disinformation where their

00:27:46.160 fingerprints don't necessarily have to be on it. Like a little plausible deniability, if you will.

00:27:52.140 Yeah, well, Elon said. Exactly. It wasn't me, it was Elon.

00:27:57.860 This is, who's watching this? Who's actually sitting down and watching this on purpose?

00:28:02.080 I mean, we know based on the ratings, basically nobody. This is a level of intelligence that we

00:28:06.680 get. This is the, this is the analysis. What do you make of all this tomfoolery on Twitter?

00:28:13.100 And, but I, I liked his answer, actually. I liked his answer because it was quite revealing

00:28:17.520 in ways that he didn't intend. And what does he say at the end there? What does Michael Steele say?

00:28:22.800 He says, well, this is going to foment distrust of the system. Well, yeah, exactly.

00:28:32.080 And this is what is, as even if he calls himself a Republican still, as a member of the left,

00:28:37.680 he is a, he is the system. He's a defender of the system. He's a member of the system. He's a

00:28:41.500 defender of the system. And so he's going to be opposed to anything that makes you, we're way past

00:28:46.320 the days, of course, of rage against the machine down with the system. That's, that's all the people

00:28:51.160 that we're talking about that became the system. And so now you have to protect the system at all costs.

00:28:55.860 And anything that causes distrust in the system is, is a threat, is dangerous, dangerous to them and

00:29:02.960 to their perceived authority and to the control they have over the population. Which is why

00:29:10.340 transparency, what they're actually complaining, this is transparency. It's just letting the users

00:29:15.020 of the site see what's going on behind the scenes. But this is a problem. You know, somehow transparency

00:29:21.800 is anti-free speech. Stopping government actors from suppressing speech is anti-free speech.

00:29:29.440 Up is down, left is right, water is dry, and so on. And of course, this is what we come to expect from

00:29:34.100 the corporate media because they are part of a conspiracy. This is an actual conspiracy, conspiring

00:29:40.880 to suppress information, to suppress speech. The Hunter Biden laptop stuff is an actual conspiracy,

00:29:48.180 a far-reaching conspiracy. When you have the corporate media, big tech, political actors,

00:29:56.780 the government, conspiring to suppress this story. That's an actual conspiracy in real life.

00:30:03.740 And it is also how the First Amendment is attacked and will ultimately be destroyed in modern society.

00:30:09.960 It's not any sort of direct way. The First Amendment is destroyed in the end by mid-level lackeys at tech

00:30:19.560 companies who list their pronouns in their bio. They're the tyrants who destroy our liberty and

00:30:26.440 effectively rig our elections by rigging the information that we're able to see. Which is why

00:30:31.900 the only remedy here is to turn the fire hose on and let all the information out. I mean, Elon has been

00:30:36.040 talking about doing this, and that's what he should do, release all the Twitter files, all of them.

00:30:42.820 Selfishly, I'm interested also to see my own file over there, which I can imagine is quite extensive.

00:30:49.000 I'd like to see the conversations that they had where they decided to allow death threats against

00:30:54.180 me to remain on the platform, which was a decision that they clearly, very obviously made.

00:30:58.580 The ones where they decided that doxing me is okay, as long as I'm the target.

00:31:05.460 I'd like to see the conversations they had where they decided that my film, What is a Woman,

00:31:09.580 isn't allowed to show up in Twitter trends. That was an actual, that was a decision that they made.

00:31:14.040 And when we first announced it, it was trending like number, you know, the top 10, and then it

00:31:17.340 just disappeared just like that, and the blink of an eye never returned to the trends. It was a decision

00:31:21.420 that was made. And of course, many higher profile conservatives have similar complaints,

00:31:25.800 and also, you know, lower profile conservatives have similar complaints. I think we want to see

00:31:30.180 it all. That's the only path forward here, is complete transparency. Release it all, let us dig

00:31:38.420 through it, and see everything. Okay, this is from Reuters. It says, the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday

00:31:44.120 will hear arguments in a major case pitting LGBT rights against the claim that the constitutional right

00:31:49.760 to free speech exempts artists from anti-discrimination laws in a dispute involving an evangelical

00:31:55.220 Christian web designer who refuses to provide her services for same-sex marriages. That's all one

00:32:01.080 sentence, by the way, from Reuters. The justices are set to hear Denver area business owner Lori

00:32:06.240 Smith's appeal seeking an exemption from a Colorado law that bars discrimination based on sexual

00:32:11.060 orientation and other factors. Lower courts ruled in favor of Colorado, including the Denver-based

00:32:15.700 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in 2021. Smith contends that Colorado's anti-discrimination act

00:32:21.140 violates the right of artists, including web designers, to free speech under the U.S.

00:32:25.160 Constitution's First Amendment by forcing them to express messages through their work that they

00:32:29.140 oppose. The case, of course, follows the Supreme Court's narrow 2018 ruling in favor of Jack Phillips,

00:32:34.060 a Christian Denver, a Christian Denver area baker who refused on religious grounds to make a wedding

00:32:38.360 cake for a gay couple. The court in that case stopped short of carving out a free speech exemption

00:32:42.860 to anti-discrimination laws. So in the, in the Masterpiece Cake Shop decision, really the court just

00:32:49.080 punted on the whole issue entirely and did so pretty explicitly and said, you know, worse to the effect

00:32:55.100 of maybe another case will come along in the future that we'll decide what they, but they came, they came

00:33:00.300 down in favor of Jack Phillips because they found that the so-called Human Rights Commission in Colorado

00:33:05.940 had, had been targeting him and like bullying and harassing him to an, to a, to an extraordinary extent.

00:33:12.600 And so it was kind of a smackdown of Colorado's Human Rights Commission, but it was not

00:33:17.560 an absolute defense of his free speech rights. And now they get a very similar case where maybe

00:33:25.140 we'll finally get a ruling on that. Only this case, it's a web designer who, as far as I understand it,

00:33:32.560 she was, she proactively was suing against, suing this, you know, the, the, the state government

00:33:38.620 because of this anti, so-called anti-discrimination law that would force her to, for example,

00:33:46.000 design a website for, for a gay wedding. So rather than waiting around for her to, you know,

00:33:52.260 be targeted in that way, she's proactively suing and now it made its way all the way to the Supreme Court.

00:33:57.260 A couple of points about this that we should keep in mind. First of all, in all these cases,

00:34:04.900 whether it's web designer, Matt, the, the bakery, there've been similar cases with photographers,

00:34:12.340 wedding caterers, it all, it always centers around the gay weddings. And why does it always center

00:34:17.220 around gay weddings? Well, that's because nobody has actually refused service to gay people. Jack

00:34:26.060 Phillips at Masterpiece Cake Shop, that's not what he did. Okay. It's not like there was a gay couple

00:34:30.880 that walked in and he said, get out. None of your kind are allowed here. It's not what happened. In

00:34:36.180 fact, Jack Phillips was willing to sell anything, any, any, any of the cakes that were available at

00:34:41.340 his store, he would have sold to them. Even if they wanted to use it for a wedding, they could have

00:34:44.700 walked in and said, uh, we want to buy this cake. We're going to use it for our, for our upcoming

00:34:48.680 nuptials. Jack Phillips would have sold them the cake. Okay. He was not refusing service to the gay

00:34:55.240 couple. What he was refusing to do was to make them a custom cake for the wedding specifically,

00:35:02.440 because that would be him participating in this event that he objects to on religious grounds.

00:35:11.680 Now, if you just sell a cake, you know, if you just sell some page pastries to a, to a gay person,

00:35:20.360 or if you're a photographer and you take a picture of a gay person, or if you're a web designer and you

00:35:25.560 design, you know, just any kind of website for a gay person, that's not you participating in something

00:35:31.780 that you find morally objectionable. That's just you providing, providing a good or a service to

00:35:37.760 someone. And the fact that you disagree with their lifestyle choices is like irrelevant.

00:35:41.780 Um, just as you might object on religious ground to divorce, but if a person is divorced and they

00:35:50.540 walk in, they try to buy a cupcake, you're not going to tell them I'm not going to sell you the

00:35:53.180 cupcake because you're divorced. No, it's about the event. I don't want to participate in that event.

00:36:00.040 And although Jack Phillips may not have, uh, refused a divorced person a cake, I could tell you if a

00:36:05.640 divorced person came in and said, I'm throwing a divorce party and I want you to custom make a cake

00:36:10.340 that says, congratulations on your divorce. I want you to make that cake. He would have said no to

00:36:14.860 that too. Because that's an event that he doesn't want to participate in and he has every right to do

00:36:21.860 so. So that's what the Supreme Court is going to rule on. And, you know, I think this comes, it's,

00:36:26.700 it's a freedom of religion thing. It certainly is. But I think it's even more so a freedom of

00:36:31.180 association thing. Because it really doesn't, the reasons, like Jack Phillips didn't want to

00:36:40.360 participate in a gay wedding and his, his personal reason was that it, his religion, because of his

00:36:44.680 religious beliefs. Okay. But I don't see how the reason even matters. It doesn't matter what your

00:36:49.360 reason is. Yeah, you have religious freedom, but I mean, why does he even have to, he shouldn't have

00:36:56.800 to even give a reason. I don't want, I am a free person. I'm not your slave. I don't want to

00:37:04.080 participate in this event because I don't like it. Why don't you like it? Not your business. Maybe I'll

00:37:10.540 tell you, maybe I won't, but I'm an American, damn it. And you can't force me to participate in

00:37:15.960 something I don't want to participate in. And of course, the irony is that the, the advocates for

00:37:22.280 gay marriage for so long have been using freedom of association to make their case. And yet they

00:37:28.260 deny it to everybody else, obviously, as always, because that's how it goes with the, with the

00:37:34.180 alphabet club, with the LGBT activists. They are constantly claiming rights, special rights, and

00:37:40.360 even not special rights that they want to deny to everybody else. And this is another example of that.

00:37:45.640 So there are really two versions of a kind of a right answer that the Supreme Court could come up with

00:37:50.160 here. There's the limited version, which is what, if they, if they come up, and there's also the wrong

00:37:55.580 answer, right? That they could also, I, you know, I feel pretty good that they'll have some kind of

00:38:00.960 mostly correct answer on this case. There's always the option of the wrong answer. But when it comes to

00:38:05.860 the right answer, there's the, and I feel pretty certain that if they have the right answer, it's

00:38:09.040 going to be this, which is the limited version, which is that they, they find that people have the

00:38:13.480 right not to participate in activities that, that those individuals have a religious objection to.

00:38:19.360 So it will be a decision based around religious liberty. And that would be good. That's the

00:38:24.280 right answer. And it would be a big win for religious liberty. The sort of absolutist version

00:38:30.720 of, of an answer, which won't happen, but which I would favor, is that people have the right to

00:38:38.080 refuse service to anyone for any reason, period. You know, if you're a private business owner,

00:38:43.900 you, you know, you have the right to refuse service to anybody.

00:38:49.960 Just like those signs that we often see outside of, outside of, of, of many stores that say,

00:38:55.480 we have the right, we reserve the right to refuse service to anyone. And of course you see the sign

00:38:58.720 there, but in, but in reality, they actually don't have that right. I think they should,

00:39:02.820 but the way the laws are set up right now, they don't.

00:39:05.820 But to me, it's pretty simple. Like that's the, that's the simplest answer.

00:39:12.380 And it's, it's the easiest answer. And it's the answer where, where that maximizes freedom for

00:39:17.080 all involved and that minimizes the chance of, you know, corruption. And because we're not putting

00:39:22.140 the government in the position of getting involved in determining, well, is this a sincerely held

00:39:26.100 religious belief? You know, is this a, we're not getting, they're not in that business.

00:39:29.880 Just, this is your, this is your business. You own it. You're providing a service.

00:39:39.240 You're selling a good, whatever it is. And you have the right to decide who you sell it to. That's all.

00:39:46.080 And of course, you know, whenever you say that, you hear the, um, the dire kind of hypotheticals

00:39:53.460 from people on the other side who said, well, if we allow that, the next thing you know, there's

00:39:57.220 going to be restaurants that, uh, that it'd be just like Jim Crow all over. You're going to be

00:40:01.160 restaurants that have signs up to say no blacks allowed and all that. That's not going to happen.

00:40:07.240 Like there are no cases of any business anywhere in the country trying to do that in modern times.

00:40:12.720 If they did try to do that, they would be out of business in about 30 minutes.

00:40:18.500 Okay. Because the protests and boycotts would be through the roof. And there also be,

00:40:22.340 there wouldn't be anyone who would want to go into a business, be seen walking into a business

00:40:25.580 with a sign like that. So all that would mean is that they'd just be, you know, all of the,

00:40:30.300 all of the supposedly all these store owners and shop owners out there who are just like secret

00:40:35.180 racists and they're waiting for the opportunity to prevent people from other races of walking into

00:40:39.580 their store. As soon as they announced themselves, they're all out of business in like less than a

00:40:44.180 day. Um, but I think there'd be almost no one who would actually announce themselves that way.

00:40:50.100 Because that's not, that's not, you know, that's not actually happening in modern America.

00:40:59.700 Freedom of association. That's the answer. All right. Let's see what else do we have before we

00:41:04.780 get to the comment section. I also had this, this is a, so the interesting case, and you'll understand

00:41:10.480 why I'm talking about it in a minute, but this is from Fox. It says a North Carolina sheriff and power

00:41:14.940 company official said intentional vandalism at substations has caused outages for about 40,000

00:41:21.900 customers expected to last longer than 24 hours. Moore County Sheriff Ronnie Fields reported that

00:41:27.160 the mass power outage across the county is being investigated as a criminal occurrence. According to

00:41:32.820 the sheriff's office, Facebook page, just after 7 PM on Saturday, several communities across Moore County

00:41:38.280 began experiencing power outages as utility companies began responding to the different substations.

00:41:42.960 evidence was discovered that indicated that intentional vandalism had occurred at multiple

00:41:47.720 sites. So that's the story. There was some sort of intentional vandals, intentional attack, uh, at a

00:41:53.660 power station, and it put 40,000 people out of, uh, out of, you know, uh, meant that they didn't have

00:41:59.120 power. Well, Andy Ngo, now we go over to Andy Ngo with this report, and you see why I'm, why I'm

00:42:04.520 bringing this up. He says, without evidence, leftists spread a viral conspiracy theory that right-wing

00:42:11.760 terrorists were behind the power substation vandalisms in Moore County, North Carolina to

00:42:16.920 stop a drag show. The sheriff just said at the presser, there is no evidence for that claim.

00:42:22.660 Thousands remain without power. Trans activist Charlotte Clymer recklessly spread the unconfirmed

00:42:27.740 claim to tens of thousands that the vandalism of the power substation in Moore County, North Carolina

00:42:31.520 was to shut down a drag show. The sheriff said they've come across no evidence for this rumor.

00:42:37.240 So Charlotte Clymer said, tonight there are unconfirmed reports, uh, in, uh, Moore County of

00:42:42.240 three substations being shot up with firearms simultaneously to cut power to a drag show.

00:42:48.880 And I saw this claim too. This claim was spreading like wildfire on social media. Um,

00:42:54.560 and you know, if you, if you've been around the block a few times and you see claims like that,

00:43:00.240 you become immediately suspicious. You say, where's the evidence of this? And it turns out,

00:43:04.920 as we hear from the sheriff's office, there's no evidence of that whatsoever. So there was the

00:43:08.480 power, there was a power outage. They are saying that it was something intentional happened,

00:43:12.160 but the left just invented this story that it was right wing domestic terrorists trying to shut down

00:43:18.000 a drag show by attacking the power station, like trying to take down the whole power grid,

00:43:24.780 the local power grid in order to shut down. That doesn't make any sense. If there were,

00:43:30.100 you know, quote unquote, right wing terrorists who wanted to use force or violence to shut down an

00:43:35.900 upcoming drag show, you'd think that they would just vandalize the venue. They would just attack

00:43:41.060 the venue where the thing is going to happen. This would be the most, this would be the most absurd

00:43:47.100 and indirect way of shutting down a drag show imaginable, but it's just made up by the left and

00:43:52.660 it's spread all over Twitter. And, um, of course the truth doesn't matter to these people.

00:43:57.400 And it only goes to show that on the left, they are desperate. They are desperate for some right

00:44:06.920 winger somewhere to attack a drag show. And the more violent, the better, as far as they're concerned.

00:44:13.280 If people die, as far as they're concerned, all the better. This is what they want. They are

00:44:17.520 desperate for, they're hungry, they're eager, which is why they keep inventing these things.

00:44:22.800 Things happen that have, uh, nothing to do with conservatives or, you know, anti-groomer sentiment.

00:44:31.600 And they, they, they draw this connection because this is what they want and they can barely contain

00:44:37.460 themselves anymore. And that goes to very bad places. I'll say that. Let's get to the comment section.

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00:45:53.400 You can join now at PragerU.com slash Club Five today. Angie says, hey Matt, I'm so excited to tell

00:46:00.140 you I just presented a political poem of mine in my college poetry class. It resulted in a liberal

00:46:04.520 classmate crying. I'm impressed I had this effect with my poetry. Now I really need to get myself a

00:46:10.000 liberal tears Tumblr. How can you leave a comment like this, Angie, and not produce the actual poem?

00:46:17.120 I need to see this poem that brought your liberal classmates to tears, although I congratulate you

00:46:22.660 on that. I think that's awesome. But I got to see the poem. Okay, you got to show us the poem.

00:46:28.360 David says, and if you have young children listening, you should turn down the volume for

00:46:31.720 this question because it has to do with the big guy, S-A-N-T-A. All right, he says, Matt, I was

00:46:37.860 disappointed to see your posts on Twitter advocating for parents to lie to their kids about Santa.

00:46:43.240 Lying is lying. We will never lie to our children. We don't have kids yet, but it has always felt

00:46:48.020 dishonest to me to mislead kids in this way, and it will make them distrust you on more important

00:46:52.620 issues. Yeah, we talked about this. I think it was in the members block a few days ago.

00:46:58.780 Okay, so on the Santa thing, first of all, because we got to deal with this every year as we get into

00:47:02.760 Christmas time. First of all, every family is going to do their own thing, right? I'm a big

00:47:07.800 believer in families having their own holiday traditions. I'm a big believer in cultures having

00:47:12.060 traditions that we should protect and cherish, and Santa Claus is a tradition in our culture,

00:47:16.760 which is reason enough, I think, to participate in it. But families have their own traditions too,

00:47:20.920 especially around the holidays. And even among the families that do the Santa thing, there are many

00:47:25.540 different variations of what that means. And if you decide you're not going to do it, that's fine.

00:47:31.100 I don't, you know, teach their own. That's cool. It doesn't bother me. But if you're going to get

00:47:35.200 all melodramatic about families that do the Santa thing, then I do have a problem with that, especially

00:47:40.880 if you don't even have children. So I'm not at all interested in your declarations of what you will

00:47:47.500 or won't do once you have kids, if you, you know, if you ever have them. But here's the way I look at

00:47:52.360 it. Santa is not a lie. It's not like a deception with malicious intent. Santa is,

00:48:00.160 is exactly the same sort of thing as unicorns, fairies, dragons, leprechauns. My kids believe in all

00:48:08.880 those things too. And when I talk about those things with them, I don't go out of my way to like

00:48:15.180 beat these fantasies out of their heads, right? I play along. So when my three-year-old runs in

00:48:20.700 to the living room and says, Daddy, I saw a unicorn. I don't respond, no, you didn't. Unicorns

00:48:26.780 aren't real, you idiot. Do your research. Have you even Googled this? No, I say, you did? Wow,

00:48:34.360 that's awesome. What color was it? I might, I might even call me a hideous liar. I might even tell her

00:48:41.900 a story about a time when I saw a unicorn. See, I enter into this make-believe world with her and I

00:48:48.160 participate in that world. I'm not lying. I'm participating in the fun, in the make-believe.

00:48:53.960 And Santa is the same kind of thing. Jordan Peterson has talked about this and I like the

00:48:58.600 way he put it. He says that Santa is a game. Okay, it's not a lie. It's a game. It's like a play.

00:49:03.360 It's a, it's a story that you're, you know, telling to your kids and a game that you're playing with

00:49:11.900 them. Do they understand that the game isn't 100% real? Well, no, but they also don't understand

00:49:18.620 about any game you play with them at a certain age. You know, and that's all it is. And it's a,

00:49:26.020 it's a, it's a great way for them to use their imaginations. And I also just think like kids have

00:49:31.160 an opportunity when they are kids, when they're young kids to, to live in this,

00:49:38.260 you know, magical world where, where there are dragons and there are unicorns and there are

00:49:44.960 leprechauns and there are, you know, all these fantastical things running around. And there is,

00:49:48.640 and there is a fat guy, you know, flying through the air at light speed with his reindeer. Like

00:49:52.500 they have a, they have an opportunity to live in that world and to really live in it, at least in

00:49:57.640 their own minds. And it's, and it's totally healthy and it's completely normal. Okay. It's not like

00:50:02.360 we're fostering unhealthy, self-destructive delusions. This is normal and healthy for them at their age.

00:50:07.640 And they have that opportunity and it's a wonderful, magical thing. And I don't understand

00:50:12.740 trying to take it from them. I don't get it. All right. Chris X says, speaking of magical,

00:50:20.820 wonderful things, I hope Matt will post a picture of the walrus once it arrives.

00:50:25.800 I, I absolutely will. And I did. The walrus was delivered as promised on Friday. And I can't tell

00:50:32.340 you what a delight it has been. My kids love the walrus. I mean, they really do. They

00:50:37.300 absolutely love him. They spent the whole weekend playing with the walrus. And I love him too. Here's

00:50:41.940 the picture that my wife took. And it's just to show you how excited I am about the walrus. I never

00:50:48.000 asked her to take pictures. I think, I don't think in my life I ever have asked her to take one. This

00:50:51.340 is the first time in our marriage when I've ever said, you got to get a picture of this. Those words

00:50:56.140 have never crossed from my lips, except for here, because we needed to get the picture. I needed a

00:51:01.180 picture with my cherished walrus. And you can see there, you can see how big it is. It takes up like this

00:51:06.200 whole corner of our, of our living room. And, um, one of the most joyful moments of my life for me

00:51:11.720 and the kids, not so much for my wife. Uh, but the, the great thing is that she threatens to throw it

00:51:18.260 away, but she literally can't because the thing weighs like a hundred pounds and it's way too big.

00:51:24.980 So what she says, I'm going to throw that thing away. Oh yeah. How are you going to do that?

00:51:27.780 You can't even lift it. So it's there. Besides, like I said, he's the kid's best friend.

00:51:34.360 So on Saturday I walked into the living room and I found my six-year-old, um, curled up on the,

00:51:39.800 on the walrus with a blanket sleeping because I didn't put him up to this. He's just like,

00:51:44.380 he wanted to take a nap, which is amazing enough on its own, by the way. He just wanted to take a

00:51:48.540 nap. I don't know. And, uh, and he's curled up on the wall or sleeping there. Isn't that adorable?

00:51:53.880 And I showed my wife, I took that picture. I took, I showed my wife and I know she thinks it's the

00:51:57.900 cutest thing ever, but she can't fully admit it. So she's trying to suppress

00:52:02.100 how cute it is. The most I could get her to admit, she said this last night. She said that

00:52:08.960 the walrus, because my, we were putting the kids down for bed and my three-year-old was hysterical

00:52:15.920 crying because she didn't, she didn't, she wanted to be with the walrus. She was playing with the

00:52:20.020 walrus and she didn't want to go to bed. And, uh, and she was saying, no, no, I want to play with

00:52:24.980 Johnny, Johnny the walrus. And so my, my wife, the most I could get her to admit, she said that it's a

00:52:30.500 blessing and a curse having the walrus. And I said, so you're saying it's a blessing.

00:52:37.100 See, I told you. Well, it's hard to believe, but the holidays are already here. Now I know a lot of

00:52:41.980 you are already Daily Wire Plus members and get to enjoy the great content that we have released

00:52:45.520 this year, like Terror on the Prairie, the greatest lie ever sold in my very own documentary,

00:52:49.640 What is a Woman? For those of you who haven't been able to enjoy it because you're not a member,

00:52:53.480 now it's time to take advantage of our 30% holiday sale. This also applies to a gift membership.

00:52:58.720 So don't miss this opportunity to get everyone on your list, an annual gift membership from

00:53:02.920 Daily Wire Plus with code HOLIDAY at checkout. Since joining Daily Wire Plus, Jordan Peterson

00:53:07.780 has been on fire with a ton of great content. Jordan went with our production team to Washington,

00:53:12.000 DC, filmed a fantastic documentary on the museum of the Bible called Logos and Literacy. In it,

00:53:17.880 Jordan meets with historians, theologians, and philosophers to discuss the history of the

00:53:21.160 Bible and its influence on the world. It's as beautiful as it is engaging. Jordan even sent us a

00:53:25.760 note to say how happy he was with the way it turned out. He actually watched it twice. So

00:53:29.920 remember, this content is only available for Daily Wire Plus members. So sign up today,

00:53:34.360 use code HOLIDAY at checkout to get 30% off your new annual Daily Wire Plus membership at

00:53:39.040 dailywire.com slash Walsh. That's dailywire.com slash Walsh today. Now let's get to our daily cancellation.

00:53:45.620 Well, good news, everyone. There's a new acronym in town, and it's the trendiest one on the market

00:53:54.100 right now. The website PopSugar, where I go for all the most important news, has the story

00:53:58.980 about those living the D-I-N-K lifestyle, DINK. So it says, quote, in the United States,

00:54:05.900 a growing number of couples live a DINK lifestyle instead of the historically traditional family

00:54:10.180 structure that includes having children, at least according to data. The DINK lifestyle,

00:54:14.440 aka dual income, no kids, is generally used to describe a family where neither adult in the

00:54:19.280 partnership has children and both are working paying jobs. According to the latest data from

00:54:22.820 the U.S. Census Bureau, the number of adults living without children has increased by 19% since 1967.

00:54:29.880 In addition, a 2021 Pew Research Center survey found 44% of non-parents between the ages of 18 and 49

00:54:36.260 say it's unlikely they will have children. The figure is up from 37% in 2018, indicating a growing

00:54:42.440 trend of couples delaying having kids or foregoing them altogether. Several factors contribute to the

00:54:48.860 rise of the DINK lifestyle, including a delay in median age at the time of marriage, financial reasons,

00:54:54.420 and shifts in life goals. Now, apparently DINK isn't technically new. The acronym was coined, I guess,

00:55:00.520 in the 80s from what I understand, but has become more popular recently. And it's only further

00:55:05.200 proof of the age-old saying that I just made up, which is this, just because you can make something

00:55:11.340 into an acronym doesn't mean you should. DINK sounds like some kind of slur, you know, it's like not a

00:55:18.300 label that people willingly apply to themselves, yet still I must admit that the name seems to fit the

00:55:23.920 people who have embraced it. This is one dumb, trendy acronym that I will happily use. If you want to be

00:55:31.540 called a DINK, I will call you a DINK. In fact, from my brief research online, I discovered that there

00:55:35.980 are subsets within the DINK community. For instance, there are, I'm not making this up, there are people

00:55:41.600 who apparently call themselves DINKWADs. Dual income, no kids, with a dog. DINKWAD. Once again, I can see

00:55:50.860 that DINKWAD, okay, that the DINKWADs have chosen a name which fits them perfectly. Childless people

00:55:57.680 with dogs, DINKWADs. So what you want to identify yourself as, I will happily call you that. And I

00:56:05.360 will encourage others to do the same. So going back to the article, we're given more specific

00:56:09.440 information about these DINKs and DINKWADs. It says, quote, like any partnership and family

00:56:13.660 structure, the DINK lifestyle isn't a one-size-fits-all term. Instead, couples come to

00:56:18.280 live the DINK lifestyle for various reasons. Jay Zygmunt, PhD, and founder of Child-Free Wealth in

00:56:23.960 Water Valley, Mississippi, tells PopSugar for Zygmunt and his wife, the DINK lifestyle provided

00:56:29.320 more flexibility in creating a life that works best for them, which he's also seen with many of

00:56:33.940 his clients. Zygmunt says that in his experience, those who choose to live a DINK lifestyle do so

00:56:39.140 for three main reasons. They never wanted children, they are focused on financial wellness, and they

00:56:43.960 desire freedom. There's another recent article, this one on Yahoo, written by a DINK, and it goes into

00:56:50.400 more detail about the reasons why the DINKs decide to be such DINKs. It says, quote,

00:56:55.140 we've all seen the memes, and even the bumper stickers, colorful displays proclaiming I am a

00:56:59.620 funko, or celebrating being mom to fur babies only. There are countless ways some share that they're

00:57:05.580 enthusiastically certain they're living their best life thanks to being child-free. And once, and once

00:57:11.040 these happy souls, of which I am one, find a partner, there's another term that comes into play,

00:57:15.380 DINK. I'm a proud DINK. My husband and I are both in our late 30s and have chosen the DINK

00:57:20.300 life. And no, we aren't those married to our career types. While we both enjoy success in

00:57:24.780 our fields, we enjoy a deep bond that I can't imagine would be possible if I had to give so

00:57:28.940 much of myself to caring for a child. We are not selfish individuals, but instead selfish with the

00:57:33.380 time we have together for the sake of our relationship. We're then given other examples

00:57:37.940 from the DINK community to show that there are many and varied reasons why a DINK might choose to

00:57:42.440 be a DINK. It says, in recent times, I've discovered that we're not alone. In addition to circles of

00:57:47.660 friends that share this similar mindset, there's an entire online community dedicated to removing

00:57:52.120 the pressures and stigmatism surrounding the subject. Danaya Casales, a 33-year-old microbiologist and

00:57:58.360 online fitness coach, resides in Florida with her partner. Together, they've created a space and a safe

00:58:03.300 and inspiring space on Instagram for others like them to share the daily humorous and often reluctant

00:58:08.380 encounters they face as DINKs. Quote, I knew in my early 20s that I for sure had no desire to have

00:58:14.160 kids, Casales tells Yahoo Life. I don't get excited over babies, but I'm good with kids. I have a silly

00:58:19.600 personality and enjoy being around them, but taking on the huge responsibility of raising someone just

00:58:24.620 doesn't appeal to me. I was told I was crazy, selfish, and that I would regret it. I'm now 33,

00:58:29.180 child-free, and living my best life. The best life she speaks of, Casales spent years living in New York

00:58:34.060 City on a journey of self-discovery, and she and her partner now enjoy the spontaneity that DINK life

00:58:39.760 brings, like making last-minute dinner plans, playing in soccer leagues, and taking trips to

00:58:45.160 Universal Studios Orlando. Now, every example in the article is like this. It turns out that there

00:58:52.140 are not actually many and varied reasons why people become DINKs. All the reasons are basically the

00:58:57.280 same. They want more money, they want more time to go on vacation, and they want fewer responsibilities.

00:59:02.560 And that basically sums it up. It is rather revealing that even in these propaganda pieces,

00:59:06.840 and I've read a lot of them, designed to promote the child-free life, rarely do you hear about

00:59:11.740 someone who uses their, quote, freedom to go on great heroic adventures, you know, nor do you hear

00:59:17.340 about them devoting their free time to serving their communities, nor any other worthy pursuit.

00:59:23.020 Instead, they just buy more stuff, and they take sad little childless trips to theme parks,

00:59:28.360 and they eat at restaurants more often. So they dedicate themselves to being more active and more loyal

00:59:34.560 consumers, in other words. That's what it always comes down to. They choose to not have kids so that

00:59:41.300 they can consume more and become more devoted consumerists. For all the high-minded theoretical

00:59:47.620 talk about what a child-free, quote-unquote, life could free a person up to do, this is what they

00:59:54.100 actually do. This is what it actually means. They're not trudging through unexplored parts of the Amazon,

00:59:59.520 or inventing a cure for cancer, or building homes for poor villagers in Namibia, or whatever.

01:00:04.760 They are rather far more focused on entertaining themselves, and their adventures of exploration

01:00:09.820 will generally be relegated to tourist spots that have already been explored by approximately

01:00:13.540 900 million people before them. That's the reality. And this is the problem with the dink life.

01:00:21.260 One of the problems, anyway. And we must, as always, stipulate, though it should be clear by now,

01:00:25.560 that we're talking about couples who choose not to have children. Okay? Not those who want to,

01:00:30.480 but are unable. The issue is the lifestyle choice. And the first way you can tell that a lifestyle

01:00:37.040 choice is problematic is by extending its logic as far as it will go. So the dinks say that dink life

01:00:45.660 is good and noble and it's wonderful and all that. Something to be proud of. Yet, if everyone

01:00:54.340 chose to be dinks, human civilization would quickly collapse. And in less than a century,

01:00:59.820 our species would go extinct. So if everyone chose to be dinks, like today, within 20 years,

01:01:07.360 there is no civilization anymore. It collapses. It's so top-heavy that it would just fall over on

01:01:12.920 itself. And a few more decades, it's extinct. So if your lifestyle choice can only be adopted by a

01:01:19.860 relatively small percentage of the most privileged members of the human race, or else civilizational

01:01:25.540 catastrophe would ensue, that's a pretty good indication that there's something wrong with

01:01:30.280 your lifestyle choice. Okay? And that applies across the board. If your lifestyle choice cannot

01:01:38.440 be adopted by very many people, or else it will destroy the human race, then there's probably

01:01:46.760 something wrong. At the very least, it proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that your lifestyle

01:01:51.780 is not one we should recommend. Because again, if too many people took us up on the recommendation,

01:01:57.720 the human race disappears. So there are those who are doing the work to ensure that our race survives

01:02:04.340 and thrives, and there are those more interested in taking trips to Universal Studios. Those two choices

01:02:09.460 are not equal by any objective measure. But the truth is that the dink approach does plenty of

01:02:17.440 damage even before it can get to the point of causing a mass extinction event. The point is that

01:02:22.080 when we encourage people to get married and have children, we are encouraging them to look towards

01:02:28.740 the future and to live lives of love and service. Not every parent is going to live up to this calling,

01:02:36.620 of course. You could be a parent and still be a selfish SOB, that's for sure. But at least as a

01:02:42.100 culture, we are pointing people in the right direction. The other option is to point people

01:02:47.240 towards lives centered around themselves, their own comfort, luxury, entertainment. That's no way to

01:02:52.920 build or maintain a thriving society. And on an individual level, it's a recipe for a life that,

01:02:58.280 while comfortable, is ultimately empty and purposeless. Purposeless. You know, the consequence of

01:03:04.960 being sentient, self-aware, relatively intelligent creatures is that we cannot help but search for

01:03:10.520 meaning. No other creature, as far as we know, on earth is bothered by this detail. So great white

01:03:17.060 sharks aren't reflecting on the meaning of it all as they hunt and devour a seal. Ants aren't wondering

01:03:22.040 what it all means as they swarm over a melting popsicle left in the pavement. Only we are left with

01:03:28.020 these questions and we cannot escape them. And what we find ultimately is that momentary pleasures and

01:03:34.360 amusements cannot satisfy our need and longing for meaning. They can only distract us from them,

01:03:41.600 but not forever, not for long. Family life gives us purpose and meaning. And even that is an ultimate

01:03:48.700 meaning in and of itself. Our ultimate meaning, our ultimate purpose is to know God, love him, and serve

01:03:53.620 him. But family life points us in that direction, towards the eternal and the transcendental. It grounds us

01:03:59.840 in something that goes beyond, transcends self-service and self-satisfaction. And the cost of that

01:04:07.140 is that we can't take as many vacations. But that is a price well worth paying. And it's why today,

01:04:15.360 I must say, both the dinks and the dinkwads are canceled. That'll do it for this portion of the show

01:04:21.640 as we move over to the members block. Hope to see you there. If not, talk to you tomorrow. Godspeed.

01:04:25.360 Thank you.

The Matt Walsh Show - December 05, 2022

Ep. 1074 - How Social Media Is Destroying Our Kids

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