The Matt Walsh Show - Ep. 1251 - Gen Z Is Finding Out That Being An Adult Is Hard

00:00:00.140 Today on the Matt Walsh Show, Gen Z is leading the charge against the 9-5 corporate grind,

00:00:04.760 and that's all well and good, but what are the other options?

00:00:06.980 There are a few, and we'll talk about them today.

00:00:08.900 Also, Republicans elect a new Speaker of the House.

00:00:11.600 There's reason to be encouraged, but also reason to be discouraged by this election.

00:00:15.400 Plus, the Adderall shortage has some people turning to meth to get their fix.

00:00:19.400 And the ACLU is suing Tennessee for trying to prevent prostitutes from spreading HIV.

00:00:23.660 We'll talk about all that and more today on the Matt Walsh Show.

00:00:30.000 Since the overturning of Roe v. Wade, the left has lost their minds.

00:00:54.780 Leftism is their religion, and abortion is their official sacrament.

00:00:57.520 Meanwhile, pro-life efforts, which are now more important than ever, are booming.

00:01:00.940 As one of the largest pro-life organizations in the world,

00:01:02.960 no one is in a better position than 40 Days for Life to end abortion state by state. 0.66

00:01:07.120 They've opened a record number of locations since Roe has overturned,

00:01:09.700 and they continue to grow in volunteers.

00:01:11.520 They now have 1 million volunteers in 1,500 cities.

00:01:14.800 40 Days for Life holds peaceful vigils outside abortion facilities

00:01:17.280 in an effort to change hearts and minds in the most blue pro-abortion states.

00:01:21.000 You can help 40 Days for Life fight ongoing legal battles

00:01:23.560 to protect free speech for their volunteers by giving a tax-deductible gift of any amount

00:01:27.960 at 40daysforlife.com.

00:01:30.460 That's 40daysforlife.com.

00:01:32.560 One of humanity's great traditions is for older people to complain about the work ethic of younger people. 1.00

00:01:38.340 We've seen this pattern repeat with every generation in modern history,

00:01:41.320 and we would probably see something similar if we could go back to a time before modern history.

00:01:46.020 It seems likely that if you talk to a, I don't know, 45-year-old in the year 1200 B.C., 0.72

00:01:51.300 they would tell you that kids those days are a bunch of lazy, ungrateful whippersnappers.

00:01:56.520 In fact, we don't have to speculate about this.

00:01:57.920 We know that Aristotle, some 300 years before Christ,

00:02:01.040 complained that young people of the day were high-minded and had not yet been humbled by life.

00:02:05.900 Meanwhile, the Roman poet Horace in the 1st century B.C.

00:02:09.100 chastised young people as beardless and accused them of squandering their money,

00:02:13.720 which tells us that the epidemic of beardless men goes all the way back to ancient Rome, 0.80

00:02:18.620 which is kind of a shocking and troubling discovery.

00:02:21.480 The point is that there's nothing new under the sun,

00:02:24.060 and complaints by old fogies like myself directed at the youth

00:02:27.620 certainly are no exception to that rule.

00:02:30.500 However, just because a complaint is common, that doesn't make it necessarily invalid.

00:02:34.520 In fact, if anything, it would seem to suggest the opposite.

00:02:37.140 And these days, when it comes to concerns over a lack of work ethic among the current crop of young adults,

00:02:42.840 all signs indicate that the concerns are well-founded.

00:02:46.860 I don't know if they were true in Rome or Greece 2,000 years ago,

00:02:49.820 but I know that here in the year 2023, we do seem to have a problem, and it is a serious problem.

00:02:56.680 Time reported in 2021 that young people are leaving their jobs in record numbers,

00:03:00.860 and many of them are not getting new jobs at all.

00:03:02.940 This trend doesn't seem to have slowed down.

00:03:05.080 At the beginning of this year, CNBC reported that 70% of Gen Z and millennials are planning to leave their jobs.

00:03:10.940 And of course, 70% is a large number.

00:03:13.940 Plenty of them will get new jobs, or try to.

00:03:16.600 But the number of young adults who have no job and are not in school has been trending upwards.

00:03:20.820 As of 2022, over half of Gen Z adults are living at home with their parents.

00:03:25.240 The statistics are pretty familiar to most people.

00:03:27.560 It goes on and on.

00:03:28.340 We get the idea.

00:03:29.740 But the issue isn't simply Gen Z refusing to get jobs.

00:03:34.180 It's how they behave once they have the job.

00:03:36.700 A survey of 1,300 employers and managers revealed a significant consensus among these employers

00:03:43.620 that this current group of young adults tend to be extremely difficult in the workplace.

00:03:48.800 The New York Post reports, quote,

00:03:50.360 Some American business owners and managers hold a dismal view of Gen Z workers.

00:03:54.880 Shocking new research has revealed.

00:03:56.900 Resume builders surveyed 1,344 people in managerial positions across different industries in the U.S.

00:04:03.480 earlier this month, asking them about their experiences working with those born in 1997 or later.

00:04:09.100 Almost half, 49%, of respondents declared it difficult to work with Gen Z all or most of the time,

00:04:15.160 while a staggering 79% said they find them to be the most difficult generation to have in the workplace.

00:04:20.940 Of that majority, 59% said that they have had to fire Gen Z employees,

00:04:25.520 and 20% even claimed to have axed one of the young workers within a week of their start date.

00:04:30.540 Managers and owners commonly cited entitlement and a lack of effort, motivation, and productivity

00:04:35.960 as reasons why they were given the boot.

00:04:39.060 Now, this brings to mind all of the Gen Z-led trends we've discussed on this show,

00:04:44.180 quiet quitting and bare minimum Mondays and resenteeism, etc.,

00:04:48.680 all just trendier and slightly more subtle ways of describing laziness.

00:04:54.140 And it's not always subtle, though.

00:04:55.680 The quiet quitting trend has recently been supplanted by loud quitting,

00:05:00.260 which is exactly what it sounds like.

00:05:02.900 Here's a TikTok video promoting this fun new fad. 0.96

00:05:06.520 Hey, I'm going to need you to come back early from your break.

00:05:10.020 It's crazy out there.

00:05:11.900 Oh, no.

00:05:13.980 Sorry.

00:05:14.700 I'm actually applying to jobs right now.

00:05:16.600 I'm super busy.

00:05:17.440 Trying to make sure I never have to come back here again.

00:05:20.120 What?

00:05:20.640 Why?

00:05:22.220 Oh, because I'm miserable? 0.99

00:05:24.840 Mainly because of you. 1.00

00:05:25.940 You're the worst. 1.00

00:05:27.820 Excuse me? 0.99

00:05:28.600 If I had a dollar for every time you make me question my sanity,

00:05:32.020 I think I'd be retired and be able to escape this perpetual state of misery.

00:05:37.240 You take advantage of us like a corrupt politician makes false promises.

00:05:40.380 Okay, that's enough.

00:05:41.380 Hello?

00:05:42.140 Oh, my God.

00:05:42.760 Hi.

00:05:43.760 Yes.

00:05:44.420 Yes, I am available tomorrow for an interview.

00:05:48.160 Okay.

00:05:49.040 Yeah.

00:05:49.800 Really looking forward to it, too.

00:05:51.640 Okay.

00:05:51.920 Thank you.

00:05:52.540 Thank you.

00:05:53.180 Okay.

00:05:53.720 All right.

00:05:54.320 Okay.

00:05:54.760 Bye.

00:05:56.700 Oh, my God.

00:05:57.260 I'm glad you're still here.

00:05:58.260 I won't be able to make it to work tomorrow.

00:06:01.700 Sorry.

00:06:02.880 Just a heads up.

00:06:04.480 Veronica, this is on a...

00:06:05.660 Oh, it's time for me to clock in.

00:06:07.200 Hopefully for the last time.

00:06:08.400 Am I right?

00:06:09.880 Okay.

00:06:10.360 See you out there.

00:06:12.300 Okay.

00:06:12.760 So that's what loud quitting looks like.

00:06:14.060 It's when you quit loudly.

00:06:16.020 Apparently.

00:06:17.080 Now, just to be clear, the good guy in that scenario is supposed to be the gratingly obnoxious

00:06:21.920 and disrespectful employee.

00:06:23.520 She's meant to be like the sympathetic character in this little skit,

00:06:27.100 which perhaps tells you everything you need to know, I guess.

00:06:29.140 And, of course, the quiet quitters and loud quitters and bare minimum Mondayers have excuses

00:06:33.960 for their lackadaisical approach.

00:06:35.680 As Business Insider reported a few weeks ago, Gen Z employees say that their perceived laziness

00:06:41.300 can be explained by the fact that they feel unfulfilled at work, that they are burned out,

00:06:46.400 that they are unhappy with their wages, that they're looking for a better work-life balance,

00:06:51.440 or some combination of these excuses.

00:06:53.340 But whether the excuses are valid or not, and we'll get to that in a moment,

00:06:57.940 it seems that even many Gen Zers themselves will not deny their general lack of effort. 1.00

00:07:03.940 It's just that they think they have a good reason for it.

00:07:06.500 And that brings us to this extremely viral video that, if you spend any time on social media,

00:07:10.960 you've likely already seen it over the last day or two.

00:07:13.380 In the video, we hear a young woman giving her perspective on her first 9-to-5 job.

00:07:18.780 And she is, to put it mildly, not thrilled with it.

00:07:22.160 Watch.

00:07:23.100 I know I'm probably just being so dramatic and annoying, but this is my first job,

00:07:27.340 like my first 9-to-5 job after college.

00:07:29.460 And I'm in person, and I'm commuting in the city, and it takes me forever to get there.

00:07:35.060 There's no way I'm going to be able to afford living in the city right now,

00:07:38.040 so that's off the table.

00:07:39.560 Like, duh!

00:07:40.480 If I was able to walk to work, it'd be fine.

00:07:42.800 But I'm not.

00:07:43.540 So it literally takes me, like, I leave here, like, I get on the train at 7.30,

00:07:46.900 and I don't get home till, like, 6.15 earliest.

00:07:50.200 And then, like, I don't have time to do anything.

00:07:52.720 I don't, I want to shower, eat my dinner, and go to sleep.

00:07:55.920 I don't have time or energy to cook by dinner either.

00:07:58.760 Like, I don't have energy to work out.

00:08:00.620 Like, that's out the window.

00:08:01.920 Like, I'm so upset!

00:08:04.600 Oh my god!

00:08:05.740 Nothing to do with my job at all, but just, like, the 9-to-5 schedule in general is crazy.

00:08:11.120 Being in the office 9-to-5, like, if it was remote, you get off at 5,

00:08:14.080 and you're home, and everything's fine.

00:08:15.920 But, like, I'm not home.

00:08:17.040 It takes me long to get home.

00:08:19.400 And, like, people that drive to the office, like, it doesn't, you don't get off at 5.

00:08:24.260 And I know it could be worse.

00:08:25.460 I know I could be working longer.

00:08:26.780 But, like, I literally get off.

00:08:28.420 It's pitch black.

00:08:29.220 Like, I don't have energy.

00:08:30.700 How do you have friends?

00:08:31.680 Like, how do you have time to, like, meet, like, a guy?

00:08:35.820 I don't know.

00:08:36.460 Like, how do you have time for, like, dating?

00:08:37.860 Like, I don't have time for anything.

00:08:39.560 And I'm, like, so stressed out.

00:08:42.540 Now, as always with these viral videos, the story isn't really the video itself, but the general reaction to it.

00:08:48.720 And from what I've seen, although there are some people telling her to stop whining and get to work,

00:08:53.940 a large percentage of people, seemingly on the left and right, have taken her side and are scolding those who are criticizing her.

00:09:01.540 They say that she's entirely justified in being so upset about the 9-to-5 grind, that the work hours, the lifestyle, the commute are indeed very difficult, if not completely soul-crushing.

00:09:11.900 And according to this side of the discussion, those being unsympathetic to this young lady are needlessly cruel and heartless.

00:09:19.240 Meanwhile, plenty of young people about her age have chimed in to echo her complaints, and they say they're done with the 9-to-5 routine.

00:09:26.120 It's time to abolish it for good.

00:09:29.200 Okay, well, here's what I say, and a few points about this.

00:09:31.300 First of all, I personally would not want to work a 9-to-5 corporate job.

00:09:38.120 Even if it was a 9-to-noon corporate job, and my commute was 10 minutes, and I was paid a million dollars, I would find it unbearable.

00:09:46.020 And nothing against the people who work those kinds of jobs, if that's how you feed your family, more power to you.

00:09:50.740 If you find a way to be fulfilled in it, even better.

00:09:53.860 But for me personally, I think I'd rather be in a prison camp.

00:09:57.020 So I understand anyone who sits in a cubicle all day and laments it.

00:10:01.480 I would lament it too.

00:10:02.560 But the thing is that the thing that's often missing from the Gen Z lamentations about the modern working world is any discussion about the alternatives. 0.66

00:10:13.720 It's not just Gen Z.

00:10:14.600 It's like anytime anyone is complaining about the modern working world, okay, what are the alternatives?

00:10:23.100 And if someone is, especially for young people who are saying, this is so difficult, I don't want to do it.

00:10:27.680 It's very important to quickly transition that complaint into a, all right, well, you don't like that.

00:10:34.060 Here's what else you could do.

00:10:36.360 Now, as I so often preach, we all, well, most of us, have to work.

00:10:40.440 Life is work.

00:10:41.260 Work comes in many forms.

00:10:42.660 But no matter what, if you are like the vast majority of humans who have ever lived on Earth, then you will have to pick some form of work.

00:10:49.360 Life requires work to sustain.

00:10:51.040 There's no way around this outside of enslaving others and forcing them to do all the work for you.

00:10:56.060 So if you're not going to be a slave owner, then you're left with working.

00:11:00.780 And if you don't want to jump on the nine to five racket, then there are some other options.

00:11:07.320 And here they are.

00:11:09.480 One, if you're a woman, you could become a stay-at-home mom. 1.00

00:11:13.400 And it is certainly not a coincidence that so many of these TikTok videos of people complaining about hustle culture and the daily corporate grind feature women. 0.91

00:11:21.360 Not all of them.

00:11:22.060 But, like, most of the time, if we play a video like this on the show, you notice these are usually women. 0.96

00:11:29.100 And that's because, you know, the gender angle cannot be ignored here, although it often is.

00:11:35.900 Women are not wired for this the way that men are. 0.99

00:11:39.440 That's the reality, whether we want to admit it or not.

00:11:41.780 What many women actually desire, even if they feel they aren't allowed to articulate that desire, what they actually desire is to be mothers and homemakers. 1.00

00:11:50.560 The drive to leave the home and ruthlessly compete to earn a living, that is an inherently masculine drive.

00:11:59.100 Lots of women simply don't have that in them. 1.00

00:12:01.260 And that is not a bad thing.

00:12:03.600 It's not like they're lacking something.

00:12:05.600 They're just different.

00:12:06.540 And so I wouldn't respond to a video like that by saying, no, go out and be a corporate girl boss. 1.00

00:12:11.720 It's what you're meant to do.

00:12:12.480 That's not my message.

00:12:14.740 Men and women are different.

00:12:17.120 Women are women. 1.00

00:12:18.300 They're not men.

00:12:19.560 So if this push against the nine-to-five grind leads more women to embrace their calling as wives and mothers, that's a great thing. 1.00

00:12:27.840 But there is a caveat here.

00:12:30.080 Okay?

00:12:30.540 Being a stay-at-home mom is work.

00:12:32.900 It's not a job.

00:12:34.060 It's not a job.

00:12:35.180 But it is work.

00:12:36.540 In fact, it requires a lot more work than the average nine-to-five job.

00:12:41.700 That's partly because the work begins much earlier than nine, unless you are incredibly blessed and your kids sleep till nine.

00:12:49.240 But probably the work begins much earlier than nine, and it goes much later than five.

00:12:53.780 As I said, life is work.

00:12:55.700 Leaving the nine-to-five behind does not mean leaving work behind.

00:12:58.460 In many cases, it means more work, harder work, more exhausting work.

00:13:03.240 Work with much more on the line, a lot more pressure.

00:13:06.980 But the good news is that the work is more fulfilling and more important.

00:13:10.080 But it is work all the same.

00:13:11.360 Two, the second option, you can get a job outside of the nine-to-five structure.

00:13:17.700 The easiest version of this option would be a remote job.

00:13:20.600 The only problem is that many companies are trending away from remote work.

00:13:23.680 Also, if you choose to work from home and you do care about climbing the ladder in your industry, you'll likely be hindered by the lack of physical in-person interaction with your coworkers and bosses.

00:13:33.660 I mean, when it comes down to it, society tried this for a couple of years.

00:13:37.940 And what we discovered is that many jobs really cannot be performed at a high level when you're sitting at your home in your pajamas.

00:13:46.540 There are still some jobs like that.

00:13:48.180 If you get one of those jobs, then good for you.

00:13:49.800 But most people won't.

00:13:52.840 So the next part of that option is you could leave the corporate world behind entirely and you could become an entrepreneur or you could pursue a career in a creative industry, an industry where the nine-to-five is not relevant.

00:14:05.280 And that's what I decided to do.

00:14:06.360 I've never once regretted it in my life, but as I said, desks and cubicles and busy work have just never been my strong suit.

00:14:13.560 If I had a corporate job, maybe I would be crying about it on TikTok too.

00:14:17.880 But again, there is the caveat that this path will almost always require far, far more work.

00:14:25.820 The nine-to-five setup is irrelevant in my line of work, but that's because I work a whole lot more than eight hours a day.

00:14:32.380 For me, it's more like 12 or 13 hours a day.

00:14:34.240 In fact, in my business, you're basically always on the clock.

00:14:37.620 I wouldn't trade it for a corporate job under any circumstance, which is probably a good thing because no corporation would touch me with a 10-foot pole at this point.

00:14:46.060 But it is more work ultimately.

00:14:49.320 So if your fundamental complaint is you don't want to do the work, you don't want to work, or you want more free time, then the second option really isn't good either.

00:14:58.220 Three, finally, if you're done with capitalism and the modern working world entirely, as many Gen Zers claim to be, they say, we're done with all of this. 0.95

00:15:08.220 It's all a societal, human construct, nine-to-five.

00:15:12.420 We don't need it.

00:15:14.740 Okay.

00:15:15.680 Well, there is a way around that too.

00:15:19.160 And this is the third option.

00:15:20.200 It's really your only real option if you're completely done with all of this.

00:15:23.760 You can get away from it all.

00:15:25.960 You can drop out of modern society to the extent that it's possible to do such a thing.

00:15:30.340 You can move out to the wilderness somewhere.

00:15:32.620 And you could try to live a self-sustaining life.

00:15:35.020 Build your own home.

00:15:35.900 Grow your own food.

00:15:37.780 Hunt.

00:15:39.060 Fish.

00:15:39.560 You know, all of that.

00:15:40.960 I mean, this is how nearly everybody lived before the invention of the nine-to-five.

00:15:44.680 And the way to reject that modern system entirely is to go back to a pre-industrial lifestyle, which is still technically possible.

00:15:53.660 There are people who do it.

00:15:55.360 Maybe like five people, but there are people who do it.

00:15:58.640 But this, out of all the options, will be by far and away the hardest and require the most amount of work.

00:16:05.460 That's because people prior to the industrial age worked essentially every minute of every day, sunup to sundown, with no breaks on weekends and no federal holidays.

00:16:16.760 I would greatly admire anyone who attempted to live this way today.

00:16:19.740 But if you're doing it because you want more free time, well, you're going to be in for a very unfortunate surprise.

00:16:25.840 Now, if you don't want any of these options, you don't want to be a stay-at-home mom, you don't want to work in an industry outside of the nine-to-five system, you don't want to be a pioneer out in the woods, well, then the corporate slog is all you have left.

00:16:40.940 That or winning the lottery.

00:16:43.160 But you're not going to win the lottery, so the corporate slog is it.

00:16:45.620 As you've probably noticed, that slog may be a slog, but it's also the easiest and least arduous path and requires the least amount of work and gives you the most free time out of all the possibilities.

00:17:02.160 You notice in that video, she talks about, oh, I go to work at 7.30, I get home at 6.

00:17:07.220 7.30 to 6, well, that leaves you, you know, you could have four hours of free time, go to bed at 10 p.m., sleep for eight hours.

00:17:14.640 Wake up in the morning, have an hour and a half before you have to leave for work.

00:17:18.500 That is a lot of free time.

00:17:19.420 That's 20 hours of free time a week, not counting the weekends.

00:17:23.560 That's a lot of free time, a ton of it.

00:17:26.540 And if that's what you value most, well, that's, like, the nine-to-five is, of all possible options, the easiest one.

00:17:37.920 It's just that it won't make you as fulfilled, probably.

00:17:41.440 If you want more fulfillment, you have to do more work.

00:17:46.560 If you want less work, you'll get less fulfillment.

00:17:50.960 This is the way life is set up.

00:17:52.620 There is no way around it.

00:17:54.340 There just isn't.

00:17:55.760 Is it fair?

00:17:57.100 I don't know.

00:17:57.540 I guess not.

00:17:58.460 Is it worth complaining about?

00:17:59.760 Probably not.

00:18:01.020 Can you change it by complaining?

00:18:03.020 Definitely not.

00:18:05.000 Either way, this is life.

00:18:06.660 This is what it means to be a person.

00:18:08.160 You have to work one way or another.

00:18:11.720 So make your decision.

00:18:13.160 Choose your path.

00:18:15.180 And get going.

00:18:17.560 Now let's get to our five headlines.

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00:19:14.820 That's taxnetworkusa.com slash Walsh today.

00:19:19.080 Okay, I hesitate to talk about this story because it's changing so rapidly that by the time you listen to this, it may have changed again.

00:19:25.600 But, of course, it's the biggest news of the day.

00:19:27.180 The Daily Wire has a report.

00:19:29.180 The man police named as a person of interest in the murder of nearly two dozen people in Maine on Wednesday night

00:19:33.520 is a trained firearms expert in the U.S. Army Reserves, according to a state police bulletin.

00:19:39.340 The bulletin was released after 22 people were reportedly killed in dozens more injured in shootings

00:19:43.040 at a bar and grill restaurant and the spare time recreation in Lewiston, Maine.

00:19:48.620 The Associated Press noted that the bulletin said that the person of interest identified as Robert Card

00:19:53.700 was a trained firearms instructor believed to be in the Army Reserve.

00:19:59.620 According to law enforcement, Card recently reported mental health issues to include hearing voices

00:20:04.400 and threats to shoot up the National Guard base.

00:20:07.780 Card was also reported to have been committed to a mental health facility for two weeks during summer 2023

00:20:12.860 and subsequently released.

00:20:15.120 The fact that Card was committed to a mental health facility for a period of weeks indicates that it was an involuntary commitment,

00:20:19.400 which means that he would have been banned from owning or possessing firearms.

00:20:23.080 Okay, so if this guy was committed to a mental institution, then he was already banned from, as I just said,

00:20:30.920 from owning or purchasing firearms, which means that this obviously is not something that could have been avoided with more gun laws.

00:20:39.160 The existing laws are already supposed to prevent this, and if they didn't prevent it,

00:20:44.600 it's hard to see how more laws would have made a difference, you know, and it's just like anything else.

00:20:50.000 It's like if somebody is driving drunk and they kill another person,

00:20:54.160 you probably wouldn't suggest passing a second law making drunk driving illegal again as a means of addressing that issue.

00:21:03.180 Or maybe plenty of politicians would suggest that.

00:21:05.480 I'm sure they have.

00:21:06.160 I'm sure they've done it, but it's not really a solution.

00:21:08.960 Especially when you remember that this mass killer didn't just break the law against owning a firearm

00:21:20.960 when you've been involuntary committed for mental health issues, but he committed dozens of other crimes.

00:21:27.160 There was like dozens of laws that are supposed to prevent exactly what he did, and he did it anyway.

00:21:32.600 But, you know, as always with these kinds of cases, we get hung up on the how, right?

00:21:37.480 How did he do this?

00:21:39.520 Most of the time, that's not too complicated.

00:21:42.440 He ignored the laws, the gun laws.

00:21:44.920 He ignored all the laws against mass murder, and he just did it.

00:21:48.980 That's basically the how.

00:21:52.000 The why, I think, is more important.

00:21:54.460 And by why, I mean, why do people want to commit these heinous crimes?

00:22:04.180 Okay, because for most of us, right, there is no law that is preventing us from committing mass murder.

00:22:13.920 Okay, I have never been prevented from committing a mass murder by the law.

00:22:18.620 What prevents me from doing it is that I have no desire to do something like that.

00:22:23.560 So the law is irrelevant, and that's the case for almost all of us.

00:22:28.440 It's like, you never have to check the books, check the laws to see what laws apply to it.

00:22:32.840 You have no desire.

00:22:34.040 It's just, it's not in the realm of possibility for you.

00:22:38.460 What stops you from doing it is that you have absolutely no desire to do something like that to begin with.

00:22:42.480 But for the people who do, like, once you get to the point where you have someone who desires to commit mass murder, no matter what the laws are, we're already in a very dangerous situation.

00:22:58.280 Society is in a dangerous, that person's community, whether they know it or not, and they don't know it until the person lashes out.

00:23:04.320 But the people around that person are in grave danger the moment he gets it in his head that he wants to do this.

00:23:11.820 No matter what the laws say, strict gun laws, if you have strict gun laws, no gun laws, it doesn't matter.

00:23:17.220 The moment someone decides that they want to do that, society is in danger.

00:23:28.520 So what we should be asking ourselves is, where does that desire come from?

00:23:32.680 What makes someone into this sort of monster?

00:23:35.220 What can be done to make it so that there are fewer people who have this deranged, psychotic, murderous, evil desire in the first place?

00:23:50.300 Yes, mental illness plays a part.

00:23:52.260 That's clear.

00:23:52.840 But there's also, and if he's hearing voices, I mean, as you know, I can often be skeptical when mental illness is used as a scapegoat when someone commits an evil act.

00:24:07.820 Because I think it lets them off the hook too often.

00:24:09.700 I think we too often let people off the hook when we act like they have no agency over their actions. 0.96

00:24:14.960 However, if he's being committed for hearing voices, well, that's, I mean, very clear this person is crazy.

00:24:22.840 But there's also the evil in the human heart. 0.56

00:24:25.780 I mean, there are plenty of people who are mentally ill, even hear voices and don't do something like this.

00:24:31.060 There's the evil in the human heart, the indifference to human life, the desire to inflict suffering just for the sake of it.

00:24:38.740 And there appears to be a lot of that in our culture.

00:24:41.220 We seem to breed it.

00:24:44.420 And, I mean, that's the conversation we need to have eventually.

00:24:50.800 That's how you actually solve that.

00:24:52.300 I mean, there's no way to solve it completely because there's always going to be evil and there's always going to be people out there who do terrible, awful, violent things.

00:25:00.820 But if we really want to make a dent in this problem, then that's the conversation we have to have.

00:25:05.860 All right, Daily Wire has this.

00:25:07.100 The GOP-led House-elected Representative Mike Johnson as its 56th speaker, ending a week's-long stalemate in which three Republican nominees failed to win the gavel after Representative Kevin McCarthy got pushed out of the speakership.

00:25:18.120 In the first House floor ballot, Wednesday, Johnson defeated Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, the nominee for the Democrats.

00:25:24.180 The final tally was 220 to 209.

00:25:26.960 A simple majority was needed for the victory.

00:25:28.560 And so Mike Johnson was elected.

00:25:32.020 Now, I'll be the first to admit, I don't know anything about Mike Johnson.

00:25:37.840 When he was elected speaker, it was the first I'd ever heard of him.

00:25:40.280 And I follow politics pretty closely, so I'm guessing that for most people it's the same.

00:25:48.960 And yet, you know, as always, right, as soon as his name was announced, it was like everyone on both sides knew everything about him magically.

00:26:01.740 Just by his name being announced, everyone was infused with this knowledge about Mike Johnson.

00:26:08.180 And so you had people on both left and right saying he's great, he's terrible.

00:26:16.140 Right away, without knowing, what are they basing this on?

00:26:20.820 Really nothing at all.

00:26:23.180 I haven't followed his tenure at all until now.

00:26:26.740 So, you know, I'm starting from scratch, like figuring out who is this guy.

00:26:32.500 I haven't known anything about him.

00:26:34.100 And I will say that as I'm kind of working through this, at first I was encouraged because, well, for one thing, the left seems to really hate him, which is a low bar to get over, I know.

00:26:45.340 But, you know, so that's a good sign.

00:26:48.280 Also, people like Bill Kristol.

00:26:49.900 Not that he's certainly, he's indistinguishable from the left, right?

00:26:53.560 I'm repeating myself now.

00:26:54.420 But he, Bill Kristol was attacking him.

00:26:56.980 Bill Kristol posted Johnson's Ukraine report card, which is a thing that exists apparently.

00:27:03.580 And evidently, Johnson got a, received an F for his grossly insufficient support for Ukraine.

00:27:11.840 And that's great.

00:27:12.840 That's very good.

00:27:13.440 So that was encouraging.

00:27:15.340 Everybody should get an F on their Ukraine report card. 0.96

00:27:18.580 Also on the encouraging side, you have Johnson's open, unabashed Christian faith. 0.92

00:27:23.140 Watch.

00:27:24.420 I want to tell all my colleagues here what I told the Republicans in that room last night.

00:27:29.660 I don't believe there are any coincidences in a matter like this.

00:27:33.060 I believe that Scripture, the Bible, is very clear that God is the one that raises up those in authority.

00:27:40.040 He raised up each of you, all of us.

00:27:41.980 And I believe that God has ordained and allowed each one of us to be brought here for this specific moment in this time.

00:27:48.040 This is my belief.

00:27:49.340 I believe that each one of us has a huge responsibility today to use the gifts that God has given us to serve the extraordinary people of this great country.

00:27:57.120 And they deserve it.

00:27:58.180 Okay, so that's great.

00:27:59.960 And that's the kind of thing that I think we want to hear.

00:28:03.040 Of course, he was getting attacked for that from the left, you know, predictably.

00:28:09.800 It's a theocracy, all the rest of it.

00:28:11.740 And I guess the people are also taking issue with the fact that he seemed to imply that he was, that God had appointed him to a position of leadership.

00:28:19.560 Which, that's his, what he's referencing in Scripture is accurate. 0.77

00:28:27.100 Everything he said is accurate.

00:28:28.740 This is just the Christian faith.

00:28:30.040 So, but we know many on the left despise the Christian faith.

00:28:33.300 So they didn't like that.

00:28:36.120 Mike Johnson also appears to be strongly pro-life.

00:28:39.840 All that is good.

00:28:42.040 But, of course, we have to get to the but.

00:28:46.180 That's all the good stuff.

00:28:47.180 On the not good part of it, and this is very not good, here is Mike Johnson on PBS back in June of 2020.

00:28:59.360 So, not all that long ago.

00:29:00.580 Okay, this is not 10 years ago or 20 years ago.

00:29:02.720 This is just a few years ago.

00:29:04.900 And here's what Mike Johnson had to say.

00:29:07.280 Watch.

00:29:08.940 What did you feel when you watched the video of George Floyd being killed?

00:29:14.940 I was outraged.

00:29:16.000 I don't think anyone can view the video and objectively come to any other conclusion but that it was an act of murder.

00:29:24.040 And I felt that initially, as everyone did.

00:29:27.800 It's so disturbing.

00:29:29.360 And, you know, the underlying issues beneath that are something that the country is now struggling with.

00:29:35.780 And I think it's something we have to look at very soberly and with a lot of empathy.

00:29:40.100 And I'm glad to see that's happening around the country.

00:29:42.660 You know, what it's taught me is we now have four other children of our own.

00:29:46.400 And my oldest son, Jack, ironically, this year is 14.

00:29:50.100 And I've thought often through all these ordeals over the last couple of weeks about the difference in the experiences between my two 14-year-old sons,

00:29:57.600 Michael being a black American and Jack being white Caucasian.

00:30:02.320 And they have different challenges.

00:30:05.360 My son, Jack, has an easier path.

00:30:07.680 He just does.

00:30:08.440 The interesting thing about both of these kids, Michael and Jack, is they're both handsome, articulate, really talented kids gifted by God to do lots of things.

00:30:17.580 But the reality is, and no one can tell me otherwise, my son, Michael, had a harder time than my son, Jack, is going to have simply because of the color of his skin.

00:30:25.740 And that's a reality.

00:30:26.640 It's an uncomfortable, painful one to acknowledge.

00:30:28.880 But people have to recognize that's a fact.

00:30:30.880 What should we do about that?

00:30:33.140 I think that we need, we really do need systematic change.

00:30:36.500 I think we need transformative solutions.

00:30:39.540 Okay.

00:30:40.460 Needless to say, everything you said there is wrong.

00:30:42.200 But there he is throwing Derek Chauvin under the bus, saying George Floyd was objective, objectively he was murdered.

00:30:49.840 You couldn't possibly think anything else.

00:30:52.700 And then repeating BLM talking points.

00:30:55.500 Well, the whole thing is BLM talking.

00:30:56.800 The whole thing is indistinguishable from what anyone in BLM would say or was saying at the time.

00:31:01.640 And you have him affirming systemic racism and calling for systemic changes.

00:31:06.880 It's full on left wing BLM stuff. 0.77

00:31:11.240 And one thing you should know here is that what he said there, that was not a one-off.

00:31:15.260 Okay.

00:31:15.420 He also posted about this on Twitter at length at the time.

00:31:20.100 He even says in this interview that he was just giving a talk about it from the pulpit on Sunday.

00:31:25.340 So he's at church.

00:31:26.420 He's on social media.

00:31:28.160 He goes to mainstream left wing press to say he's all over the place at the time with the BLM stuff.

00:31:34.740 So does that tell us the whole story about Mike Johnson?

00:31:37.980 No.

00:31:38.300 But the fact that he talks about God and says nice things about his faith, that also doesn't tell us the whole story.

00:31:44.500 Okay.

00:31:44.740 So what I'm trying to do is like there's more here that we should talk about.

00:31:48.960 And it does make me wonder, like, you know, Kevin McCarthy, I'm not a fan of, that were his, but he had to be kicked out of office, right?

00:32:01.440 He had to be, not kicked out of office, but he had to be unseated from his role as speaker.

00:32:06.220 Did, did he, did he commit any sins that were worse than that?

00:32:10.920 Maybe he did, but like, that's pretty bad.

00:32:13.900 And, you know, the thing is the people that wanted to get rid of Kevin McCarthy, if Kevin McCarthy had said that, they would be using that as evidence that we need to get rid of him.

00:32:21.040 And then we replace him with a guy who said that. 0.74

00:32:23.360 So if nothing else, it shows how pathetic the situation is in the Republican Party. 0.52

00:32:28.820 Like, if this is the best guy we could get, somebody who during the BLM hysteria was out there promoting it, then that really shows you the situation in the Republican Party.

00:32:40.600 And look, I'm not interested in the excuses, and I've heard a lot of excuses from people who are convinced that Mike Johnson's the guy for the job, even though, again, almost everyone's saying that.

00:32:52.720 Like, you don't know anything about him.

00:32:54.540 Nobody does.

00:32:55.860 Okay, no one was talking about Mike Johnson prior to yesterday.

00:32:58.620 Okay?

00:33:01.180 But there are those making excuses for him, and one thing I've heard a lot is, well, everybody, oh, what he said there, that was 2020.

00:33:08.360 Everyone was saying that in 2020.

00:33:09.780 Were they?

00:33:11.120 Everybody was saying that?

00:33:12.100 Everybody was going out repeating BLM talking points after George Floyd?

00:33:15.660 Everybody was?

00:33:17.020 No, they weren't.

00:33:18.840 Not everybody was.

00:33:20.720 And if you're telling me that, and that's not an excuse, and if you're telling me that, well, no, but only when there's intense public pressure would he ever go along with something like that.

00:33:30.920 Oh, well, okay, that makes it okay then.

00:33:33.020 Oh, no, he's a great leader, unless there's incredible public pressure in the other direction, in which case, what are we supposed to expect?

00:33:40.840 No, it's in those moments when you most need leadership.

00:33:45.100 Most of the time, being a leader in a position, most of the time as a politician, you're only a leader in a symbolic sense.

00:33:55.620 Nothing's really required of you. 1.00

00:33:56.940 You're just sitting on your ass not doing anything. 0.98

00:33:58.460 There are specific moments when we really need you to lead, and 2020 had several of those kinds of moments. 0.99

00:34:07.880 And there are certain people who failed every single one of those tests.

00:34:13.560 And what I'm saying is if you failed all of those tests, then there's no evidence that you're a good leader.

00:34:18.120 Like, anyone can say, I mean, anyone can get up now and talk about BLM, for example, being a corrupt organization.

00:34:23.840 It's good to point out.

00:34:26.000 We should point it out.

00:34:26.720 Anyone can do it now.

00:34:27.600 But if you wouldn't do it when it was unpopular, then what does that tell me about your leadership or lack thereof?

00:34:37.120 And when it comes to Chauvin, yeah, I mean, the time to stick up for him, the time to say, hey, wait a second, guys, wait a second.

00:34:49.780 You know, there's more to this than meets the eye.

00:34:53.500 The time to say that was in June of 2020.

00:34:57.180 Saying it now, it's too late, unfortunately.

00:35:00.540 Again, we should still say it because it's the truth, but that was the time.

00:35:05.360 And so if you threw this innocent man under the bus at the time, because it's what everyone else was doing,

00:35:12.660 that tells me something about your leadership.

00:35:16.260 And also, I hold, you know, we should, I know it's almost, it's a shocking thing to hear about Republicans because there's such a low bar for them.

00:35:28.160 But Republican politicians, in theory, again, these are supposed to be leaders, public servants.

00:35:35.940 In theory, they hold important positions.

00:35:38.720 So we should hold them to a higher standard.

00:35:42.420 You know?

00:35:43.000 Which means that if you're someone who, back in the summer of 2020, you fell into the BLM hysteria yourself, if you did, let's say,

00:35:55.060 and maybe you think, well, but I, so if I did that, I can't hold, I can't expect anything better.

00:35:58.820 No, you can, actually.

00:36:01.580 That's what leadership's supposed to be.

00:36:04.520 So you should hold them to a higher standard.

00:36:06.100 And I don't know, as I said, you know, that's the kind of, it seems like, as conservatives, the standards that we hold our elected leaders to, it's totally arbitrary. 0.82

00:36:18.580 And so you take exactly what he said there, and if that comes out of the mouth of Mitch McConnell or some, you know, establishment guy, we would all happily use that as evidence that this person is a milquetoast coward.

00:36:32.880 And yet, if it comes out of the mouth of some politician that you like for whatever reason, then it's, well, that's totally understandable.

00:36:39.200 It's, it's, it's completely arbitrary.

00:36:40.980 All right, Daily Mail has this, America's Adderall shortage is driving ADHD patients to use meth in its place, social workers have claimed.

00:36:49.540 The U.S. Food and Drugs Administration announced an official Adderall shortage in October 2022,

00:36:55.420 but people are still struggling to get their hands on the medication over a year later.

00:36:58.520 People can become reliant on the drug, meaning that if they stop taking it suddenly, they cannot think or function properly.

00:37:04.680 This dependence can drive people with ADHD to the black market to get their dopamine hit.

00:37:08.980 Both meth and Adderall are amphetamines and central nervous stimulants, which help redress the dopamine imbalance in people with ADHD.

00:37:17.420 The whole thing about dopamine imbalance, that's all fake, but that's not true.

00:37:21.980 That's misinformation.

00:37:24.100 There is certainly no well-established link between dopamine, chemical imbalance and ADHD.

00:37:30.280 We hear about the chemical imbalance with all kinds of these different mental disorders, and they're just stated as a fact.

00:37:36.580 Oh, there's an imbalance.

00:37:38.980 Okay, well, I have to ask again, if that's the case, then why don't they diagnose ADHD with a brain scan?

00:37:45.680 They don't, do they?

00:37:48.240 No, they diagnose ADHD, and then maybe they'll go back later and look at the brain,

00:37:53.300 and then try to kind of like reverse engineer it.

00:37:58.540 Oh, well, okay, we've already established this person as ADHD, right?

00:38:01.660 Now we're looking at the brain, and let's find in the brain the things to prove the determination we already made,

00:38:06.960 regardless of what's happened chemically in the brain.

00:38:09.680 Anyway, Garrett Roycher, a licensed social worker in New York who counsels people who use drugs,

00:38:16.220 told the Daily Beast that clients who have ADHD but have never tried meth before have started inquiring about safer meth use,

00:38:23.100 inquiring about the effects, saying, I can't get my medication, I need to find something to help me function.

00:38:29.120 Okay, well, this is great, isn't it?

00:38:32.920 We've got a bunch of people looking for methamphetamine.

00:38:36.560 Thank you, Big Pharma.

00:38:38.400 Have we had enough of this yet?

00:38:42.020 Have we?

00:38:42.680 Are we done with it yet? 0.52

00:38:44.260 We've created a nation of drug addicts.

00:38:46.320 Big, well, we.

00:38:48.480 No, it's not we.

00:38:50.040 Big Pharma has created a nation of drug addicts.

00:38:54.040 And they've done it by convincing healthy people that they're sick.

00:38:57.860 And convincing parents that their healthy children are sick.

00:39:00.940 And then prescribing stuff that will actually make them sick to cure the fake illness.

00:39:07.760 And now we've got a bunch of meth addicts who think they need meth to cure them of being easily distracted.

00:39:15.940 I mean, think about that.

00:39:17.020 It's madness.

00:39:17.700 I can't focus.

00:39:18.760 Let me get some meth.

00:39:21.180 Here's what everyone needs to understand.

00:39:23.380 We are never going to be free from the clutches of Big Pharma.

00:39:26.720 As long as you take some weak sauce stance like, oh, yeah, those disorders are overdiagnosed.

00:39:33.980 ADHD is overdiagnosed.

00:39:35.680 No, it's not overdiagnosed.

00:39:37.740 For the same reason that I would never say that sightings of the tooth fairy are overreported.

00:39:45.040 Okay?

00:39:45.420 No, it's just made up.

00:39:47.420 Okay?

00:39:47.780 It's manufactured.

00:39:49.940 ADHD is a manufactured illness.

00:39:52.640 Just like so many other illnesses, especially psychiatric illnesses, that Big Pharma has invented and then monetized.

00:40:01.860 Oh, no, ADHD isn't made up.

00:40:03.740 You don't understand.

00:40:04.780 My seven-year-old son is always really distracted all the time.

00:40:08.760 Oh, really?

00:40:09.180 Your seven-year-old son?

00:40:10.500 Your seven-year-old boy is high energy?

00:40:13.440 Has trouble focusing?

00:40:14.480 You mean like every other seven-year-old who's ever lived?

00:40:19.520 And oh, wait, your kid is distracted while living in a world surrounded by screens and noise and lights and sounds and images all the time.

00:40:29.520 So he's distracted while being totally surrounded by distractions.

00:40:35.480 Same for you.

00:40:36.500 You might say, no, me, I have ADHD.

00:40:40.820 And I know that I have ADHD because I'm so distracted all the time.

00:40:44.980 Of course, I could ask you, like, what's your control group?

00:40:47.540 Right?

00:40:47.800 You know how your brain functions?

00:40:50.460 How do you know that it's not supposed to function that way?

00:40:53.280 Well, I know my brain.

00:40:54.420 I have difficulty.

00:40:55.500 My brain functions this way.

00:40:56.900 I know that it's not supposed to function that way.

00:40:59.100 Based on what?

00:40:59.840 Have you ever been inside of anyone else's mind?

00:41:02.640 How do you know that this is not how minds just work?

00:41:06.400 Right?

00:41:06.880 I mean, that's a very basic question, but it's something to think about.

00:41:11.000 If you look around and you respond, especially to modern society, by being very distracted, unable to focus, and you declare that, well, it must mean that you have ADHD.

00:41:20.100 Well, how do you know?

00:41:20.940 But you don't know anyone else's mind.

00:41:22.420 You haven't lived inside anyone else's body or experienced their mental states or their inner life.

00:41:27.600 So you have no idea whether your way of responding to the outside world is normal or not.

00:41:35.540 You don't know.

00:41:37.580 And I got news for you.

00:41:38.960 The psychiatrists and counselors and therapists you go to, they don't know either.

00:41:42.660 Okay?

00:41:43.080 They're not experts in the human condition.

00:41:45.020 They're not, these are not gods.

00:41:46.900 Okay?

00:41:47.160 They're not living inside anyone else's mind either.

00:41:48.880 They have just come up with an arbitrary idea of how minds are supposed to work and how people are supposed to behave.

00:41:57.240 And that's the standard that they're holding you against.

00:42:00.240 And then they drug you.

00:42:01.600 Like, they have their standard that they've made up, and then they give you drugs to bring you up to that level.

00:42:08.480 It's worth asking, like, how do you know?

00:42:11.120 So you go to a therapist and you say, here's how I am, here's how I function.

00:42:15.360 And they say, well, you're not supposed to function that way.

00:42:18.480 How do you know that?

00:42:19.680 Who told you that?

00:42:24.000 And especially with something like this, right?

00:42:26.760 Now, again, I mean, there are obvious cases.

00:42:28.680 Somebody's hearing voices, having hallucinations.

00:42:30.620 Like, clearly, that is not normal.

00:42:32.140 It's not supposed to be that way.

00:42:32.780 But if it's something like, I have trouble focusing, I'm distracted, well, yeah, everybody.

00:42:39.880 That's true of everybody.

00:42:40.820 Yeah, but for me, it's extra.

00:42:42.060 It's, like, more than normal.

00:42:43.600 So this is a totally normal.

00:42:44.940 Like, hearing voices and hallucinating, that's not normal in any degree at all.

00:42:49.340 If you do that at all, then it's not, there's a problem.

00:42:51.860 But being distracted, not being able to focus, that is totally normal.

00:42:55.040 Everybody in the world struggles with it.

00:42:57.860 But what we're being told is that it's normal, but there's a baseline.

00:43:01.680 And if you go a little bit above the baseline, now it's a mental illness.

00:43:05.380 It's not just a variation of personality, right? 0.63

00:43:08.780 It's a mental illness. 0.99

00:43:12.100 You don't have to think about that very long to realize how ridiculous it is and how arbitrary it is 0.99

00:43:18.560 and how just impossible to quantify it is. 0.98

00:43:23.740 So we can continue with this strategy, with creating a nation of meth addicts.

00:43:31.680 Or we can consider that maybe this is all made up, okay?

00:43:36.540 Like, maybe big pharma and psychiatric industry, they are making up illnesses.

00:43:43.100 And why would they do it?

00:43:44.520 Because they make billions of dollars off of it.

00:43:47.120 It's not, this is not a far-fetched, far-flung conspiracy theory.

00:43:52.660 Maybe a conspiracy theory, but it's, it's, you don't have to speculate about what the motivations would be.

00:44:01.500 Okay, we have people in these positions who, if there's some new mental illness that comes along,

00:44:07.880 that means billions of dollars for them.

00:44:10.620 And so are they motivated to come up with these mental illnesses and diagnose them?

00:44:15.140 Hell yeah, they are.

00:44:16.000 So what's your, what's our response to that?

00:44:18.680 Well, that's, they would never do that.

00:44:21.360 That's, big pharma would never do that.

00:44:23.560 Come on.

00:44:26.040 Well, not only would they do it, we know they do it.

00:44:29.060 Many people are victims of it.

00:44:30.820 Like, many people who are otherwise very skeptical of big pharma, you know, sort of,

00:44:36.040 are theoretically skeptical of big pharma, have themselves fallen victim to this.

00:44:40.700 And they don't realize how it, how it applies to them and their own kids.

00:44:45.920 Okay, let's get to Was Walsh Wrong?

00:44:51.560 Anna says, costume making can be a fun hobby for adults.

00:44:54.860 This year, my costume had a very intricate mask made out of wood.

00:44:57.820 As such, I learned how to woodwork.

00:44:59.920 It turned out quite well.

00:45:01.580 And isn't this from a guy who was selling a costume of himself for adults just last year?

00:45:07.580 Fair enough, but I have little control over that.

00:45:09.880 I never approved of it.

00:45:11.800 Matt doing his grumpy old man shtick again.

00:45:14.820 He can't handle the fact that some adults like to have fun.

00:45:18.020 Cassie says, hi, Matt.

00:45:19.120 How do you feel, or why do you feel the need to attack people who wear costumes on Halloween?

00:45:23.880 It's a fun holiday and it isn't hurting anyone.

00:45:26.540 And then last one says, Matt, what about adults who wear costumes with their kids?

00:45:29.980 The family has a costume theme, et cetera.

00:45:33.540 Okay, well, see, that is allowed.

00:45:35.920 I will permit that.

00:45:37.060 I will allow you to do that.

00:45:38.220 I am a merciful and generous fascist.

00:45:41.620 And so that is one thing that will be allowed.

00:45:44.700 You can wear a costume as an adult if you're doing it for or with your kid.

00:45:50.960 And that's my whole point.

00:45:52.780 Like all of these comments, as usual, accusing me of hating fun, of being against adults having fun.

00:45:57.480 No, all I'm saying, right, is that toys and games and TV shows and recreations of, the toys, games, TV shows, and recreations of childhood, for the most part, belong in childhood.

00:46:12.340 And there's a reason for that.

00:46:15.360 But as adults, we can experience those things again, but we should experience them as adults.

00:46:20.480 You don't have to stop having fun as an adult, but you have fun in a different way and in a way that I think is more fulfilling and deeper and more joyful.

00:46:28.120 So, for example, I mean, there are a million examples I could give of this, but here's just one.

00:46:33.340 Over the summer, actually, when we were on vacation, we had a night where my wife and I, we pulled up some of our old Nickelodeon favorites for the kids to watch.

00:46:46.580 And, you know, we played them for the kids, and we watched, I don't know, a few different Nickelodeon shows from back in the 90s.

00:46:52.660 We watched, we ended up watching three episodes of Legends of the Hidden Temple, and my kids liked that show.

00:46:58.080 We also watched Guts, and my kids weren't into that one, which I have to say, after watching it now, doesn't hold up quite as well.

00:47:04.960 Kids in the 90s just were not very athletic, it turns out.

00:47:08.760 And, anyway, I enjoyed watching that show with my kids.

00:47:12.560 It was nostalgic for me, and it was fun to kind of experience something from my childhood through their eyes.

00:47:19.920 And so it was a fun, like, family activity and all of that.

00:47:23.580 But here's the point.

00:47:25.920 I would never sit by myself and watch Legends of the Hidden Temple as a 37-year-old man, okay?

00:47:35.580 Like, you know, that's not what I would choose to do.

00:47:38.720 It's not, if all, my wife's, you know, kids and wife are in bed, I have the house to myself at night, I'm thinking of what I want to do to relax.

00:47:48.440 I'm not going to put on Legends of the Hidden Temple and just sit there and watch it by myself.

00:47:53.680 And if I did, that would be a very strange thing.

00:47:56.100 It would probably show that, like, there's something not exactly right going on here.

00:47:59.900 There's a sort of certain lack of maturity because that's not the proper way to experience something like that as an adult.

00:48:10.920 It's just, I mean, like I said, there are a million examples of it.

00:48:13.900 I play hide-and-seek with my kids all the time, and I enjoy it.

00:48:18.540 I like playing this game with my kids, okay?

00:48:22.560 But it would be very strange if there was a bunch of adults in the house, right?

00:48:28.140 And if I suggest, a bunch of adults are over for a dinner party, and I said, hey, you know what you should do after this?

00:48:33.140 We should play hide-and-seek.

00:48:34.760 I got some super fun hiding spots, guys.

00:48:36.760 You're going to love this.

00:48:38.360 If I suggested that, you would think I was insane.

00:48:41.560 And why is that?

00:48:42.580 Because that's a game for kids.

00:48:44.240 And it's not enough to say, well, you hate fun.

00:48:47.980 No, I'm an adult.

00:48:49.680 And adults don't behave that way unless you're doing it with a kid.

00:48:53.820 And it makes it fun because it's really about the child.

00:48:56.880 It's like the game is fun for the child.

00:48:59.300 And because the child is having fun, you're having fun.

00:49:04.180 So that's my only point.

00:49:05.760 You know, I don't know how else to explain it.

00:49:07.580 I think it should be pretty clear cut, I think.

00:49:12.100 And there are a lot of things that fall into that.

00:49:17.920 Not everything.

00:49:18.480 I mean, there might be some things that you enjoyed doing as a kid that's perfectly acceptable to do now.

00:49:23.420 You know, when I was a kid, I liked going for hikes.

00:49:25.820 And now I still like going for hikes.

00:49:27.520 So things like that are kind of, and I would go on a hike by myself, right?

00:49:34.240 But many of these things that you enjoy doing as kids, they are, again, the activities of childhood.

00:49:42.100 That we are meant, actually, to experience again from a different perspective.

00:49:47.320 The problem is, in my generation in particular, because we're the worst with this,

00:49:53.740 is holding on to those things, kind of like hogging them, you know,

00:49:59.600 not wanting to pass them on to the next generation,

00:50:02.540 and wanting to continue to experience them as children.

00:50:06.140 We want to experience them with the mentality of children.

00:50:10.900 And that's where it becomes an issue, in my opinion.

00:50:15.480 Well, it's time for the final episode of Convicting a Murderer.

00:50:18.260 And let me just say, if you are still not convinced that Stephen Avery is guilty, you will be now.

00:50:23.580 Candace finally brings an end to the nightmare making a murderer created. 0.78

00:50:26.960 They claim Stephen Avery was a victim of corrupt law enforcement.

00:50:29.960 This is what they always do, right?

00:50:31.060 They demonized the police.

00:50:32.440 But Candace is going to show you who the real villain is in this final episode.

00:50:36.500 Take a look.

00:50:37.420 Coming up on the finale of Convicting a Murderer.

00:50:40.160 How were these filmmakers able to convince so many people that a man like Stephen Avery is innocent?

00:50:46.460 The only story they wanted to tell was one of police corruption.

00:50:50.380 They were committed to a story.

00:50:53.060 She's doing a good job.

00:50:54.360 She's doing a lot of investigation.

00:50:55.840 They were looking into things for him.

00:50:57.920 She's doing more than the public defender and my investigator.

00:51:01.720 They were Stephen Avery's PR team.

00:51:03.700 They convinced millions of people that they were innocent.

00:51:07.520 Emails show that they were providing plenty of direction, that the Averys were to look like a close-knit family.

00:51:13.140 Manitowoc County officers were to look suspicious.

00:51:15.500 I think I will forever be obsessed with the media's ability to turn a villain into a hero or a hero into a villain.

00:51:22.960 If they could do it to me, they can do it to anybody else.

00:51:27.920 You can binge all 10 episodes now, but only if you're a Daily Wire member.

00:51:37.240 So sign up today at dailywire.com slash subscribe to watch the entire series.

00:51:42.300 Now let's get to our daily cancellation.

00:51:43.700 It was just a few weeks ago that the ACLU took the state of Tennessee to federal court and lost horribly.

00:51:56.200 The ACLU tried to get the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeal to strike down a law that banned child genital mutilation.

00:52:02.340 Specifically, the ACLU argued that there's a constitutional right for parents to sterilize and castrate their own children.

00:52:07.780 And this backfired spectacularly for the ACLU, as we discussed on this show at the time.

00:52:13.180 And as today, mutilating children in the name of gender-affirming care remains illegal in Tennessee.

00:52:18.400 So they failed.

00:52:19.720 And these procedures have been halted.

00:52:21.740 Now given that recent history, you might think that the ACLU would think twice before it filed yet another agenda-driven lawsuit against Tennessee.

00:52:27.940 You'd assume that, at the very least, they'd ensure that they had an airtight case to make sure that, you know, that everything's fine before they ever step foot in another courthouse in the state.

00:52:38.420 That's what they would do if they were a serious civil liberties organization that took the law seriously.

00:52:42.660 But the ACLU isn't a serious civil liberties organization, and it hasn't been one for some time.

00:52:48.900 Now it resembles a cult.

00:52:50.600 And like so many other so-called liberal institutions that people used to take seriously, it is basically a left-wing cult.

00:52:57.940 Now if there's one thing we know about cultists, it's that they don't have any shame whatsoever.

00:53:02.080 They're not deterred by failure or humiliation.

00:53:05.300 They just press on at all costs to promote their ideology, come what may.

00:53:09.160 So this week, predictably enough, the ACLU boldly announced that it's once again suing the state of Tennessee.

00:53:14.820 And this time, they're not seeking to castrate children.

00:53:17.160 Instead, they're fighting for the right of HIV-infected prostitutes to knowingly spread their infection to their clients. 0.99

00:53:25.100 Yes, really.

00:53:25.620 That's why they want a court to strike down Tennessee's statute on aggravated prostitution. 1.00

00:53:31.680 Now I'll get to the ACLU's arguments for this in a moment.

00:53:34.120 But just to be crystal clear about what the ACLU is objecting to here.

00:53:38.080 I want to read the Tennessee statute on aggravated prostitution.

00:53:42.380 This is what they don't like.

00:53:43.380 This is what they're suing against.

00:53:45.480 Here it is.

00:53:45.960 Quote, a person commits aggravated prostitution when knowing that such person is infected with HIV, the person engages in sexual activity as a business or as an intimate or as an inmate in a house of prostitution or loiters in a public place for the purpose of being hired to engage in sexual activity.

00:54:01.920 Aggravated prostitution is a class C felony.

00:54:04.600 Now, unless you're a prostitute who wants to knowingly infect other people with HIV, it's hard to see what conceivable problem you could have with a law like that.

00:54:15.460 Prostitution is already illegal in Tennessee for obvious reasons.

00:54:18.700 And all this law does is attach extra penalties if you engage in prostitution when you know that you have a deadly, highly transmissible disease that causes a progressive failure of the human immune system.

00:54:30.440 So that seems pretty reasonable, right?

00:54:32.960 But for more than a year, activists in Tennessee have been campaigning against this law.

00:54:37.480 In the interest of full disclosure and because it's honestly pretty amusing, here are their arguments.

00:54:42.400 This is a professor from the University of Memphis named Robin Lennon-Deering, and here's what she says.

00:54:49.240 Watch.

00:54:50.180 Can you tell me a little bit more about your research and the main takeaways?

00:54:56.240 Yes.

00:54:56.940 The biggest thing that people don't understand is that the HIV criminal laws do not require people to actually transmit HIV.

00:55:07.140 At least that's the way it is here in Tennessee.

00:55:09.140 In fact, they don't even have to have physical contact.

00:55:13.220 For example, we have two laws.

00:55:15.800 One of them is aggravated prostitution.

00:55:18.900 And with this particular felony law, all they have to do is get into an undercover police officer's car or agree to talk to someone who is an undercover police officer, and they are arrested.

00:55:34.740 So, number one, it doesn't mean that you've transmitted HIV.

00:55:39.240 And number two, the people that are arrested are usually financially insecure, perhaps homeless, living on the street.

00:55:47.960 They have no money to fight the charges.

00:55:50.760 Okay, so the first argument you just heard is that people can be arrested for aggravated prostitution even if they don't actually succeed in transmitting HIV.

00:56:00.360 This is a tremendous injustice, according to this professor at the University of Memphis.

00:56:04.320 Notice how she describes her hypothetical scenario.

00:56:06.780 You know, she says all you need to do is get into an undercover police officer's car.

00:56:10.880 Now, in case you haven't guessed, she's leaving something out here, which is that the law requires that you knowingly have HIV when you get into that undercover car and then knowingly offer sex to that undercover police officer.

00:56:31.780 So, yes, you don't actually have to successfully transmit HIV, but if you try to, then that's still a crime, which means that it's pretty much like any other felony.

00:56:43.660 Like, if you successfully commit a felony, then that's a crime.

00:56:47.580 If you try to in most cases, but you fail, that's still a crime.

00:56:51.540 If you try to kill someone, even if you don't succeed in killing them, it is still a crime.

00:56:57.440 And I think for most people, that's not hard to grasp.

00:57:03.380 And all of this, you know, these seem like important details, but the professor with two last names and pink glasses somehow forgot to mention them.

00:57:10.480 By the way, this professor, Robin Lennon-Deering, bills herself as a social work educator who uses, quote,

00:57:16.520 an anti-oppressive practice framework and intersectional perspective to increase awareness of social injustices.

00:57:22.640 So if you send your child to the University of Memphis, that's what you're paying for.

00:57:26.080 In fact, if you pay taxes in the state of Tennessee, that's what you're paying for, because it's a public institution.

00:57:32.120 Let's get back to this professor's other argument.

00:57:34.020 She also says that many people arrested under this prostitution law happen to be financially insecure.

00:57:39.800 They're often homeless and, quote, have no money to fight the charges.

00:57:43.700 Of course, this isn't an argument at all.

00:57:45.260 It makes absolutely no sense to legalize immoral and dangerous behavior,

00:57:49.560 because most people engaging in this immoral and dangerous behavior also happen to be poor.

00:57:54.300 I mean, if that's the standard, then we can't be too far from legalizing murder,

00:57:58.780 because the vast majority of people who commit murder aren't exactly rich.

00:58:03.480 It'd be one thing if, you know, it were just one lefty faculty member at the University of Memphis who talked like this,

00:58:09.200 but this is now a common view on the left.

00:58:11.120 In fact, the reasoning gets even worse.

00:58:13.560 When it announced the lawsuit against Tennessee over this aggravated prostitution law, 0.99

00:58:17.320 the ACLU made this argument, quote,

00:58:19.920 breaking or suing Tennessee for their aggravated prostitution statute that targets people with HIV with harsh punishment

00:58:25.280 and lifetime sex offender registration.

00:58:27.580 This law is unconstitutional and disproportionately affects black and transgender women.

00:58:32.820 Now, I'll read the rest of their statement in a second, but let's pause for just a moment.

00:58:37.180 They're saying that the law targets people with HIV.

00:58:39.980 Just like that professor, they're ignoring the fact that the law only applies to prostitutes with HIV who know they have the virus.

00:58:49.400 Okay, so unless we're saying that everybody with HIV is a hooker, then it does not target people with HIV.

00:58:56.420 It targets prostitutes who have a deadly virus who are knowingly attempting to spread it. 1.00

00:59:01.940 But ACLU, they're not the only ones playing this game.

00:59:06.600 Here's a statement on this law from the executive director of OutMemphis, a woman named Molly Quinn.

00:59:11.820 Quote, this statute solely targets people because of their HIV status and keeps them in cycles of poverty

00:59:16.460 while posing absolutely zero benefit to public health and safety.

00:59:20.480 Yeah, preventing the spread of HIV has zero benefit to public health.

00:59:24.680 This is how pretty much every institution on the left argues now.

00:59:27.160 They don't just lie.

00:59:28.100 They also omit every relevant detail to push their agenda.

00:59:31.940 The other part about that statement from the ACLU is revealing in ways that the ACLU probably didn't intend.

00:59:38.080 They say the law disproportionately affects black and transgender women, meaning men.

00:59:42.520 Now, two things about that.

00:59:43.340 First of all, it's fine for a law to disproportionately affect certain groups as long as that's not the purpose of the law.

00:59:51.360 If you're passing a law with the intent of oppressing a certain racial group, well, that's not good.

01:00:01.040 You can't do that.

01:00:01.960 That's unconstitutional.

01:00:02.640 But if the law applies to everyone, then its disproportionate impact is irrelevant.

01:00:10.280 Again, laws against murder, you would argue, disproportionately affect black communities 0.97

01:00:15.400 because violent crime is more common in the black community.

01:00:20.600 It doesn't make the law unconstitutional. 0.73

01:00:22.060 In fact, here's the thing.

01:00:24.820 Laws against any crime will disproportionately impact those who want to do that crime.

01:00:31.520 That's the way laws work.

01:00:33.640 Laws against stealing disproportionately impact those who want to steal.

01:00:37.580 It's just that's the way it goes.

01:00:40.020 But the really interesting thing about the ACLU statement is that they're claiming that, by and large,

01:00:44.340 black men are the demographic group that's knowingly spreading HIV within their communities. 1.00

01:00:48.840 They're not saying the police are enforcing this law in some racist way.

01:00:52.620 They're not claiming that the cops are fabricating evidence or anything like that.

01:00:56.000 They're saying that black men are the ones who are doing this.

01:00:59.520 And they're supposed to be the anti-racist side, I suppose.

01:01:04.820 Now, here's what the ACLU says Tennessee should do instead of this.

01:01:08.220 Here's what they say.

01:01:09.300 Instead of criminalizing HIV, which disproportionately targets people who are already socially and financially marginalized,

01:01:14.180 lawmakers should invest in evidence-based public health support for people with HIV.

01:01:17.860 Tennessee, we'll see you in court.

01:01:21.140 Again, there's the arrogance from an organization that just lost badly to Tennessee in court.

01:01:26.140 First, they tell voters in Tennessee that they can't ban child castration.

01:01:29.840 Now, they're telling voters that they don't have a right to punish prostitutes for knowingly transmitting HIV in their state.

01:01:36.120 Instead, they're saying Tennessee should adopt evidence-based public health support,

01:01:40.280 which is doublespeak that means precisely nothing.

01:01:42.740 I mean, to the extent that you can divine any meaning from those words,

01:01:44.880 it actually sounds a lot like what Tennessee is already doing.

01:01:47.920 Jailing people who knowingly spread HIV is evidence-based public health support.

01:01:53.800 It's maybe the most logical, most evidence-based method imaginable when it comes to dealing with this problem.

01:01:59.520 What the ACLU is really saying is something that, you know, the left hates to admit outright,

01:02:06.480 but it's also something they believe very strongly.

01:02:08.680 And this is what it all comes down to.

01:02:10.080 And we've seen this kind of thing in states, not just in Tennessee, 0.52

01:02:13.080 where they, whether it's prostitutes or anybody else,

01:02:15.240 they're trying to decriminalize the knowing, intentional spread of HIV.

01:02:20.040 And in all those cases, what that is really rooted in is the left's belief that the highest good

01:02:28.040 is to follow your sexual impulses all the time, everywhere, with no limitations.

01:02:35.360 You know, they value unbridled, irresponsible sex, whatever the consequences might be. 1.00

01:02:40.080 If you conceive a child in the process, then just kill the child, they say. 0.99

01:02:43.560 If you get HIV, no big deal. 0.99

01:02:45.040 If you spread HIV, no big deal. 0.51

01:02:48.060 Just keep on having sex and spreading HIV so that everyone else can join in the fun. 1.00

01:02:52.280 I mean, this is hedonism. 0.87

01:02:53.280 It's what the left values far more than the so-called minority communities 1.00

01:02:56.280 that they claim to care so much about.

01:02:58.400 They would rather encourage prostitution and contribute to the spread of HIV in these communities

01:03:03.080 than actually do something to help them.

01:03:05.680 And without any kind of higher guiding purpose or belief in any higher power,

01:03:09.740 leftists are fixated entirely on raw sensory pleasure.

01:03:13.300 They're as prideful and self-assured as everyone else who's settled on that purpose in life

01:03:18.140 throughout all of human history.

01:03:19.620 They're not unique or special.

01:03:21.980 That's why, like the hedonists of the past,

01:03:24.540 soon enough, they'll be defeated, dead, and forgotten.

01:03:28.440 And that is why the ACLU and its many left-wing supporters 1.00

01:03:31.780 who desperately want black men with HIV to prostitute themselves and spread HIV 1.00

01:03:35.640 are today canceled. 0.99

01:03:39.100 That'll do it for the show today.

01:03:40.080 Thanks for watching.

01:03:40.620 Thanks for listening.

01:03:41.520 Have a great day.

01:03:42.160 Godspeed.

01:03:43.280 Godspeed.

The Matt Walsh Show - October 26, 2023

Ep. 1251 - Gen Z Is Finding Out That Being An Adult Is Hard

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