The Matt Walsh Show - Ep. 1276 - States Are Now Passing Laws Against ‘Fatphobia’

00:00:00.000 Today on the Matt Wall Show, there's a movement growing to ban fat phobia nationwide, but

00:00:04.580 how do these insane laws actually work in practice, we'll discuss. Also, when it rains,

00:00:08.760 it pours for the president of Harvard. Now she finds herself embroiled in a plagiarism scandal,

00:00:12.800 and a woke Hollywood actress tries to explain to Bill Maher why it's, quote,

00:00:16.320 not funny to joke about trans people. Finally, Will Ferrell declares that it's time for women 1.00

00:00:20.740 to run the world, but would that actually make anything better? We'll talk about all

00:00:24.320 that and more today on the Matt Wall Show.

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00:01:49.020 That's Walsh to 989898. I'm going to begin the show today with a topic that's not quite as heavy

00:01:55.840 as some of the topics we've covered recently, but still one that is heavy in a different sense of

00:02:00.040 the word. Without a lot of fanfare, a movement has been underway in this country for some time

00:02:04.640 to outlaw the idea of being fatphobic, which of course literally means fear of fat people. Now,

00:02:11.380 of course, like most of the other new phobias that have been discovered in the past 15 minutes or so,

00:02:16.660 fatphobia is a misnomer. It doesn't exist. I mean, no one's really afraid of fat people,

00:02:20.940 just like no one's afraid of people who call themselves transgender. People are afraid

00:02:25.060 of being fat, however, which makes sense. A fear of obesity is really just a fear of heart disease and

00:02:32.660 early death, which are both things that a normal person is afraid of, or at least interested in

00:02:38.380 avoiding. But this is still not a fear of other people who are fat. Now, it's true that many

00:02:45.200 Americans have, let's say, an aesthetic aversion to morbid obesity, but that's also understandable.

00:02:52.460 For lots of deeply ingrained biological reasons, humans have come to value traits like physical

00:02:57.540 fitness. We also tend to prefer that women look like women and men look like men, because that's how

00:03:02.560 the species propagates itself. This is human nature. The only way to outlaw it is to outlaw

00:03:07.500 humanity. And increasingly, it looks like that is indeed the goal. Earlier this year in New York

00:03:12.580 City, fat activists successfully campaigned to enact a law that makes it illegal to discriminate

00:03:18.060 against people on the basis of their weight. And what this means in practice is that every employer

00:03:23.060 that fires a fat person in the city of New York can now look forward to an investigation from the

00:03:27.760 city's commission on human rights, because it might be a human rights violation to fire someone who

00:03:32.820 happens to be fat. Watch. Another fight for equality across the board. New York City taking steps to ban

00:03:39.500 discrimination based on someone's weight or height. Iowa Decision reporter Darla Miles has the story.

00:03:45.700 I prefer fat. I think that using that, you know, it takes away any of the negative connotations.

00:03:53.360 Embracing the word fat. That's what Victoria Abraham does on her social media accounts 1.00

00:03:58.480 using the handle Fat Fat Feminist. The 22-year-old has the attention of more than 120,000 followers.

00:04:06.980 In most places in the United States, you can get fired for being fat and have no protection at all,

00:04:13.800 which is crazy because this is a very fat country. The passage of the bill Thursday means New York now

00:04:19.700 joins four other cities with weight discrimination laws on the books, and Michigan and Washington

00:04:24.660 state. Are there gaps in this bill? For sure. But I think this is a perfect first step.

00:04:31.440 So there are still gaps in the bill, remarks the fat activist. And if there's one thing that fat

00:04:36.660 activists want to ensure, it's that there are no gaps anywhere. They want to fill that space. They want

00:04:42.500 to fill every space. And they're going to expand their ranks until they've accomplished that objective.

00:04:48.380 They certainly don't want anyone to lose weight. They don't want to reduce the number of people who

00:04:52.140 die due to obesity in this country, which is one in six by some estimates. That would make too much

00:04:57.860 sense. The last thing they want is to encourage Americans to become less obese. Instead, as you just

00:05:03.620 heard, they want to reorder all of society so that we can accommodate the morbidly obese. And to that end,

00:05:10.960 the New York legislation bans discrimination on height and weight in the areas of housing,

00:05:17.040 the workplace, and public accommodation. Now, the only real exception is for jobs where,

00:05:22.020 in the eyes of New York City politicians, it is, quote, essential for people to be physically fit.

00:05:27.620 Now, what does that mean exactly? And how often have people actually been fired for being obese in New

00:05:34.620 York? Well, those are good starter questions when you're talking about passing a sweeping new law like

00:05:40.040 this, which has ramifications for every business in the city. And yet no one has any answer to either

00:05:46.420 of them. What little data we do have doesn't seem very credible. For example, there's one study on

00:05:51.860 fat phobia that was cited by the Washington Post recently. And using data from 1979, the paper concludes

00:05:59.120 that, quote, a woman's hourly pay can drop by almost 2% for every one unit increase in BMI. 1.00

00:06:07.220 You know, it's a standard story. We've all heard it. A woman gets called into the boss's office and 0.96

00:06:12.740 told that she's getting a pay cut because she's too fat. Happens all the time, right? Except for the 1.00

00:06:17.660 fact that it never happens at all. And if it did, by the way, like if your pay dropped by that amount

00:06:24.960 for every one unit increase in BMI, well, lots of people in this country would be getting paid like

00:06:30.180 negative $50,000 a year at this point. They would be getting charged money to go to work if that's

00:06:35.560 actually how it worked. The whole premise is absurd. And yet, as the Daily Mail reports this

00:06:40.320 week, these laws against fat phobia are becoming increasingly common. Even Colorado, which is the

00:06:46.120 thinnest state in the entire country, the one that is presumably the least fat phobic, is now about to

00:06:52.340 pass a law outlawing discrimination on the basis of weight. And that would be the first time a law like

00:06:57.340 this has been passed statewide in decades. Michigan apparently passed a law banning discrimination

00:07:01.020 based on weight around 50 years ago, followed by Washington state. But now it's becoming trendy.

00:07:06.100 And so Vermont, Massachusetts, New Jersey are all looking to do the same, along with a bunch of

00:07:10.520 other cities as well. They're looking to pass their own ordinances. But Colorado is unique because it's

00:07:15.420 a state that even accepting these fat activist standards would seem to need these protections the 0.69

00:07:21.700 least. Their obesity rate is just 25%, which is sadly quite low by US standards.

00:07:29.260 But they're about to get some new regulations for the benefit of the morbidly obese. According to

00:07:34.120 The Hill, quote, the law aims to prevent landlords from denying rentals based on weight limits

00:07:39.520 and to implement workplace accommodations for overweight Americans.

00:07:45.800 Now, you're supposed to accept that explanation of the law on face value, but it does raise a couple

00:07:52.180 of obvious questions. First of all, how big do you have to be to exceed the weight limit for an

00:07:58.760 apartment building? And second, what kind of accommodations are workplaces supposed to make

00:08:04.580 for the obese? Well, it's hard to get a straight answer to either of these questions. But if you look

00:08:09.700 around on social media, you will find some more specific proposals. You might have seen this TikTok

00:08:14.960 video that was everywhere a few weeks ago. We played it on the show. It features Jalen Chaney,

00:08:19.800 who's a self-described travel and lifestyle creator based in Vancouver. And here she is to give you some

00:08:25.700 idea of what these fat activists want and what kind of accommodations they're looking for. 0.96

00:08:30.520 Let's watch that again.

00:08:31.420 I'm on a mission to revolutionize the travel industry and make it a more accessible, accepting,

00:08:36.640 accommodating place for all. The needs of plus-size travelers matter just as much as anybody else. And

00:08:40.740 today I'm going to cover what we are looking for in accessible, size-inclusive hotel amenities.

00:08:44.520 Size-inclusive hotel amenities are crucial for ensuring that plus-size travelers feel welcomed,

00:08:48.660 accommodated, and comfortable during their stay. We deserve an environment that respects our needs

00:08:52.980 and body diversity. These are the exact steps that hotels can take to be more size-inclusive and

00:08:57.400 accessible for travelers of all sizes. Number one on the list, provide sturdy, wider chairs without

00:09:01.860 armrests in guest rooms, lobbies, and common areas to accommodate different body sizes and types.

00:09:07.220 Number two on the list, ensure beds with strong support and a higher weight capacity,

00:09:11.140 along with providing reinforced chairs and wider backing facilities. Number three,

00:09:15.240 make elevators and hallways spacious to allow for easy movement of larger individuals and those

00:09:19.500 utilizing mobility devices. Number four, install grab bars and showers and near toilets. Offer adjustable

00:09:25.420 handheld shower heads and raised toilet seats for added accessibility. Number five, train staff to

00:09:30.740 be respectful, understanding, and accommodating to travelers of all sizes.

00:09:35.740 So Cheney is basically demanding that every hotel and restaurant in the United States be raised to

00:09:41.800 the ground and rebuilt with new super wide hallways and wide bathrooms and elevators. She also wants to 1.00

00:09:48.940 make sure, make life worse for everyone else, including by removing chairs with armrests and rooms,

00:09:53.420 common areas, etc. Separately, she's also demanded that airlines provide extra free seats to obese 0.90

00:09:59.340 people so that they have room to spread out. She said, quote, as plus size travelers, my partner and I

00:10:05.560 have unfortunately experienced discrimination and discomfort while flying. Now, she doesn't care about

00:10:10.860 the discomfort that she causes non-obese passengers on the plane. Really, what she's saying is that she

00:10:16.120 doesn't want those people on the plane at all. She wants their seats for free. And she's not alone.

00:10:21.840 The DEI website, Feminuity, assembled a list of similar demands on behalf of fat activists. And

00:10:27.460 here are just a few of them. Quote, communal spaces like dining areas, conference rooms,

00:10:32.260 and relaxation rooms should have furniture like chairs, desks, sofas, and tables that are inclusive

00:10:37.580 of fat people. It's best to avoid stools, tiny benches, or chairs with rigid armrests. Creating a fat 0.98

00:10:45.380 inclusive office also means rethinking every inch of space. Avoid tight corners. Yes, rethink every inch

00:10:55.460 of space. Remodel your entire building for the sake of people who have eaten so much that they can no 1.00

00:11:02.000 longer comfortably walk down the hallway or sit in a chair. These are the demands, and they're actually

00:11:09.920 being met. In London a few years ago, the mayor banned ads featuring attractive women in swimsuits 0.91

00:11:15.560 from appearing on public transit. One of the ads asked, are you beach body ready? And that's hate

00:11:22.600 speech in London now, evidently. Tens of thousands of people signed a petition to get the ads removed.

00:11:27.880 They even vandalized it with graffiti. And ultimately, they got what they wanted. In this country,

00:11:33.860 the School of Public Health at the University of Illinois, Chicago, recently proposed that the word

00:11:38.020 obesity should be banned entirely. As the Independent reported, the university claims that

00:11:42.560 weight discrimination remains, quote, one of the only forms of discrimination actively condoned by

00:11:47.360 society, which is obviously not remotely true. And the university knows it's not true because they

00:11:54.520 had an affirmative action plan which discriminates against whites and Asians in all aspects of

00:11:59.280 admissions and hiring. I mean, that's one of the most blatant forms of discrimination imaginable.

00:12:05.060 And also one of the worst because it's based on something people can't control.

00:12:10.500 But they condone that. They participated in that. They practiced it. That's the thing about alleged

00:12:16.240 discrimination against the obese. Now, most of these examples of discrimination are just made up and

00:12:20.740 ridiculous. But even if there was some discrimination that was actually going on, you know, it wouldn't be

00:12:27.220 in the same ballpark as discrimination based on something like race. Because obesity, no matter what

00:12:32.960 anybody says, is a choice. It is the result of a deliberate lifestyle. Obesity is a consequence of

00:12:41.680 behavior. If you are 400 pounds and feeling discriminated against, well, you put yourself in

00:12:50.700 that position. And the good news is that you can get yourself out of it. A white man facing affirmative action 0.53

00:12:56.720 discrimination can't do anything to be not white. But an obese person can and should and for his own 0.85

00:13:05.060 health must do something to make himself not obese. You know, obese people have become the next big

00:13:12.120 victim group in America. But they are, like so many of the new modern victim groups, victims of their own

00:13:18.700 behavior. And that's why this is such a growing and popular victim group. Because, you know, anyone can

00:13:26.780 eat their way into it. Just lie on the couch and gorge yourself on Pringles. And very soon, you too will

00:13:32.340 be able to recast any criticism of you as bigotry. You too will be handed a get out of accountability free

00:13:39.240 card. You too can claim that anyone who upsets you or disagrees with you or annoys you is some kind of

00:13:45.140 ist or phobe. And in this way, the fat acceptance movement is no different from any other faux victimhood

00:13:52.660 movement in the country. But it does stand apart to some extent as perhaps the most farcical example of modern

00:14:00.200 society's kind of me first ethos. The whole idea behind the movement is that the world should rearrange itself

00:14:09.120 for the sake of making room for the morbidly obese. And they mean that literally. We need to literally

00:14:14.360 rearrange the furniture so that these people can fit inside the room. So it's really on the nose to the

00:14:21.160 point of absurdity. And of course, the much easier, more cost-effective, fairer, more sane approach

00:14:29.820 is for the morbidly obese to make some simple lifestyle changes so that they can more easily include

00:14:37.600 themselves in these spaces. Like if you walk into a space and you say, I can't be included in the

00:14:42.860 space because I literally can't fit here, then there are things that you can do and changes you

00:14:51.600 can enact immediately that will fix that problem. The problem is that that puts the onus on the

00:14:58.640 individual. That requires willpower and sacrifice. And that can never be allowed. You know, in our age,

00:15:07.800 everyone else must sacrifice so that the individual sacrifices nothing. The self reigns supreme.

00:15:16.100 Everyone else must bow to the self. Society must change for the sake of the self. Civilization must

00:15:24.340 reorder itself. The world must stop on its axis and spin the opposite direction if that is what the

00:15:32.080 self demands. The self must be required to do nothing, and the world has to do everything.

00:15:39.260 Now, the problem, of course, is that every individual is part of the world, which is how you end up with

00:15:45.460 these self-serving laws that hurt the people they're supposedly trying to help.

00:15:50.260 When you try to have a society where each individual is a god whose wishes and proclivities

00:15:55.640 and demands trump the good of humanity of society, you end up with a predictable mess.

00:16:00.860 You end up with decay and collapse and confusion. And we've seen this confusion for a while now.

00:16:07.480 A decade ago, New York banned large sodas in order to make everybody skinnier.

00:16:12.640 And now they're mandating that everybody treat obesity as if it's natural and healthy.

00:16:16.500 But no matter what, the one thing politicians don't want to do because it would diminish their power

00:16:23.460 is to let people make their own choices. And yeah, that includes the freedom to eat and drink to

00:16:29.640 extraordinary excess. But also, more importantly, it includes the freedom to criticize those who do.

00:16:37.300 Now, let's get to our five headlines.

00:16:46.580 Since Roe v. Wade was overturned, the left has lost their mind, making abortion their official

00:16:50.280 sacrament. But the grassroots pro-life efforts, which are now more important than ever, are booming.

00:16:55.320 Pro-lifers have not gone away. In fact, they've increased in number. One of the efforts that I

00:16:59.220 support is 40 Days for Life because they're changing hearts and minds in blue pro-abortion states

00:17:04.220 with one million volunteers in 1,600 cities. 40 Days for Life holds peaceful vigils outside

00:17:09.500 abortion facilities. 40 Days for Life has opened a record number of locations since Roe was overturned,

00:17:14.060 and they've grown in volunteers. This success has come with new, unwanted attention from the DOJ.

00:17:18.940 40 Days just made national headlines because they're suing the DOJ on behalf of their volunteer,

00:17:22.680 Mark Houck, who had his house raided by the FBI. They're going on offense against our compromised

00:17:27.620 FBI and DOJ. And you can help them fight their ongoing legal battles and pursue to free speech for

00:17:33.440 their volunteers, including Mark Houck, by giving a tax-deductible gift of any amount

00:17:38.080 at 40daysforlife.com. That's 40daysforlife.com. Well, it's been a tough time for the people running

00:17:44.960 Ivy League schools recently. You have to feel sort of sorry for them. And by feel sorry for them,

00:17:50.640 I mean laugh hysterically in their face. So let's start with the most recent controversy from the

00:17:55.540 Daily Wire. It says, embattled Harvard University President Claudine Gay responded Monday to mounting

00:18:00.720 allegations of plagiarism, saying that she stands by her work. Journalist Chris Ruffo, a senior fellow

00:18:07.440 at the Manhattan Institute, published a report on Sunday outlining what he indicated to be three

00:18:11.660 instances of Gay plagiarizing, per Harvard standards, in the dissertation, Taking Charge,

00:18:18.320 Black Electoral Success and the Redefinition of American Policies. Now, notably, Gay is already facing 1.00

00:18:24.040 mounting pressure to be removed since her shocking testimony during a congressional hearing on

00:18:27.240 anti-Semitism in colleges and universities. Gay told the Boston Globe, quote, I stand by the 1.00

00:18:32.820 integrity of my scholarship. Throughout my career, I have worked to ensure that my scholarship adheres to

00:18:37.300 the highest academic standards. In addition to other questionable instances, Gay is accused of

00:18:43.360 lifting nearly verbatim work from Lawrence Bobo and Franklin Gilliam in their paper called Race,

00:18:50.040 Sociopolitical Participation and Black Empowerment. Ruffo cited Harvard's own policy on paraphrasing and

00:18:55.880 plagiarism to underscore his point. And there are, you know, you can look at his report, which I'd

00:19:00.380 recommend doing for all the specific examples. I mean, it's clear cut. Like, she didn't, she, you can

00:19:08.460 find, you know, verbatim, she takes something that was written here and then she puts it in her work and

00:19:15.120 she doesn't put quotes around it, which is, that's plagiarism. You know, I didn't go to college,

00:19:20.880 I'm not a scholar, but even I know that that's plagiarism. And there's a lot more to this story and

00:19:26.380 as is often the case with these kinds of things, there are more and more revelations and stories

00:19:31.480 coming out about Claudine Gay. So this plagiarism revelation from Ruffo appears to be the tip of the

00:19:39.700 iceberg. And usually, you know, plagiarism is one of those things that if it turns out that somebody did

00:19:46.300 it one time, you can be pretty certain that there are going to be many other examples of it.

00:19:53.420 It's just one of those things, you know, you probably don't dabble in it

00:19:55.980 for the first time in your PhD dissertation or whatever. That's probably not the first time or

00:20:01.540 the last time. So, you know, it appears to be a pretty open and shut case. Of course, predictably,

00:20:08.460 so far, Harvard is standing by Claudine Gay. Everybody is kind of circling the wagon and

00:20:15.920 that's what you expect because they absolutely cannot admit that Harvard's first black president

00:20:22.300 and a woman, a woman at that first black president, also a female president is actually a plagiarist.

00:20:29.320 They can't admit it. I mean, they will never admit that because then they'll be tacitly admitting

00:20:36.760 that this black woman got the job because she's a black woman. She was not fit for the job. She got 1.00

00:20:43.800 it because of her identity. She is a diversity hire who made her way to the top. And when I say made 0.91

00:20:49.520 her way to the top, I really mean she was carried, she was escorted to the top because her identity is

00:20:55.860 convenient and it's what they want. And you know what? There are a lot of conservatives who are

00:21:02.100 upset that Harvard is circling the wagons around their university president. I'm fine with it. In

00:21:11.520 fact, I'm glad that they, honest to God, I am glad. I'm glad that Harvard, Harvard's board just put out

00:21:17.500 a statement unanimously standing by Claudine Gay. We don't care if she's a plagiarist. She's a, 0.91

00:21:23.400 she's our plagiarist. That's not exactly what they said. I'm paraphrasing.

00:21:28.780 And, and that's, that's fine. It's good actually. And I'll tell you why it's good because it gives

00:21:34.820 the system nowhere to hide. It shows you exactly where these universities stand. I mean, if Harvard's

00:21:41.780 board had come out and issued some kind of perfunctory condemnation of the plagiarism or even

00:21:49.780 kicked her to the curb and whatever, then I think what would happen is that very clueless people

00:21:55.040 might be fooled into thinking that the universities are cleaning up their act.

00:22:00.460 But, but they're not and they never will. So hopefully now even the most clueless people can

00:22:05.940 see what's actually happening. And, and, and that is the system is lost. The universities are lost.

00:22:14.380 The Ivy League universities, the whole university system is lost. It's, it's just done. It's over.

00:22:22.440 And, um, if there's any solution now, it is just burning the whole system to the ground and starting

00:22:30.120 over. There is no reform. This is not something where they can fire a couple of people and then,

00:22:39.500 uh, and everything will be fine. I mean, even if they were to fire Claudine Gay, which I mean,

00:22:45.460 she deserves to be fired. So that would be good because then she individually gets the disgrace 1.00

00:22:49.980 and shame that she so richly deserves. But so who are they going to put in her place? You think

00:22:56.420 they're going to put, they're going to find somebody better to put in her place? 0.95

00:23:00.360 You think they're going to go out and find some like a highly qualified, uh, white male to take her 1.00

00:23:05.580 play? It would never happen. In fact, they'd find some other diversity hired to replace this one. 0.91

00:23:14.340 So the more obvious, I'm at the point now where with the university system, the more obvious they

00:23:22.120 make it to everyone, the better it is. Cause that's a really our only hope. Cause when people look at

00:23:28.940 this system and they say, it's, it's just, it's hopeless. I'm not going to send my kids into this.

00:23:36.380 I'm not going to give this system my money.

00:23:40.900 Meanwhile, there is this antisemitism scandal, which is also encompassing, um, the Ivy League,

00:23:46.300 the New York post with the latest on that. Former university of Pennsylvania president Liz McGill's

00:23:50.680 resignation has been met with celebration and calls for the heads of Harvard and MIT to also step down

00:23:56.140 over their failures to condemn antisemitism on campus. Many saw McGill's resignation on Saturday

00:24:01.180 is the beginning of woke university presidents facing consequences for failing to condemn

00:24:05.880 students, uh, and their calls for the genocide of Jews. Though others believed it was a win for 0.70

00:24:11.500 the censorship of pro-Palestinian voices. One down, two to go. New York representative,

00:24:17.520 Elise Stefanik posted on, on X following McGill's announcement. So this, by the way, is basically

00:24:22.280 exactly what I'm talking about. One university president steps down and everyone celebrates.

00:24:27.900 Yeah, you see, we won that one. One down, two to go. Okay. Who, who was that? That's Liz McGill.

00:24:36.080 Is that who's taking her place? Somebody better? Really? You think so?

00:24:43.480 Oh, it's, it's finally a backlash against the woke. Really? You think they're going to put a non-woke

00:24:47.940 university president in her place? Of course not. But still, there is this, uh, full court press

00:24:56.560 against the Ivy League system and, um, really against the university system as a whole right

00:25:00.660 now, all because of, of, uh, the antisemitism. And it's not just Republicans that are going after

00:25:06.280 the system right now. Lots of Democrats have joined in. The corporate media is on board, at least to some

00:25:12.000 extent. So for example, Fareed Zaharia, a, um, guy on CNN, anchor on CNN, he had a long monologue over

00:25:20.240 the weekend calling out the university system for being too political and ideological. And I want to

00:25:26.940 just watch a little bit of this monologue. Let's watch. When one thinks of America's greatest strengths,

00:25:32.880 the kind of assets the world looks at with admiration and envy, America's elite universities

00:25:38.700 would long have been at the top of that list. But the American public has been losing faith in these

00:25:45.220 universities for good reason. Three university presidents came under fire this week for their vague

00:25:52.420 and indecisive answers when asked whether calling for the genocide of Jews would violate their

00:25:57.940 institutions' codes of conduct. But to understand their performance, we have to understand the broad

00:26:04.780 shift that has taken place at elite universities, which have gone from being centers of excellence

00:26:11.200 to institutions pushing political agendas. People sense the transformation. As Paul Tuff has pointed

00:26:19.160 out, the share of young adults who said a college degree was very important fell from 74% in 2013

00:26:27.200 to just 41% in 2019. In 2018, 61% of those polls said higher education was headed in the wrong direction

00:26:37.820 and only 38% felt it was on the right track. In 2016, 70% of America's high school graduates were headed

00:26:45.740 for college. Now that number is 62%. This souring on higher education makes America an outlier among all

00:26:54.140 advanced nations. American universities have been neglecting a core focus on excellence in order to

00:27:01.080 pursue a variety of agendas, many of them clustered around diversity and inclusion. It started with the

00:27:07.620 best of intentions. Colleges wanted to make sure young people of all backgrounds had access to higher

00:27:13.100 education and felt comfortable on campus. But those good intentions have morphed into a dogmatic ideology

00:27:20.360 and turned these universities into places where the pervasive goals are political and social

00:27:26.300 engineering, not academic merit.

00:27:29.300 Okay, so, yeah, you think? Which is kind of my reaction when I see stuff like this. And this,

00:27:38.360 the reason I'm playing that is because, well, it's notable on one, sort of. It seems on the surface

00:27:44.980 notable because this is on CNN and they're saying all this. Universities are too political. I mean,

00:27:52.100 like five years ago, it's unthinkable that anybody in CNN would say this, especially not in a six-minute

00:27:56.480 monologue. And that goes on for another four or five minutes where he elaborates on this.

00:28:06.340 And also, he's getting a lot of props from conservatives. The way that I saw this monologue

00:28:12.460 is on Twitter, a bunch of conservatives sharing it and saying, yeah, this is great stuff on CNN. I can't

00:28:19.380 believe it. But I don't give it a lot of credit. Now, everything he says here is correct.

00:28:30.600 But, well, not everything. He's wrong about one big thing, which is he says that, well,

00:28:36.960 all this stuff is well-intentioned. Well-intentioned. It's well-intentioned, but it's just gone.

00:28:41.820 It's gone too far. That's why you find people on the left, even when they sort of start to, it seems,

00:28:50.200 wake up to the problems of what we're calling wokeness, which is really just leftism itself,

00:28:56.880 they're not really waking up to it. Because they only see it as, well, it's well-intentioned.

00:29:03.920 It's basically pointed in the right direction, but it kind of goes too far,

00:29:10.640 which is not accurate. The problem with what we call wokeness is in the premise of it.

00:29:20.320 It's a fundamental problem. And it is also not well-intentioned at all.

00:29:26.100 Well, you know, the university is becoming these ideological

00:29:34.260 left-wing brainwashing zones. That was not the unintentional result of well-meaning

00:29:46.000 changes that were made in the system. That is the intention. That's what they were trying to do

00:29:53.440 and are still trying to do and have done.

00:29:58.820 But mainly, I just have trouble with this sudden willingness to criticize the universities.

00:30:03.520 I'm not going to get into it in any detail right now because

00:30:05.920 I'll probably want to do a longer, discuss it in greater length tomorrow.

00:30:13.220 But for now, I'll just say that the universities have been ideologically captured for decades.

00:30:17.820 They've been a disaster for decades. They have viciously, blatantly discriminated against

00:30:25.580 and heaped hatred on white people and white men in particular for decades.

00:30:33.760 And yet none of that provoked the ire of CNN or Congress or any of these people.

00:30:39.160 They weren't having congressional hearings on it.

00:30:44.320 Like none of these people noticed the problem until the subject was anti-Semitism.

00:30:49.820 So now we're having this awakening moment and congressional hearings and this whole national discussion

00:30:58.660 because of anti-Semitism running rampant on college campuses.

00:31:03.700 And, you know, if you're focused on that problem, if you're talking about that problem

00:31:10.740 and you were also talking about what is the far more prevalent and ubiquitous epidemic

00:31:18.460 of anti-white hatred on college campuses, if you were talking about that

00:31:22.020 and now you're also talking about this, fine.

00:31:23.560 But for most of the people, especially in places like CNN, that are discovering this willingness

00:31:33.180 to criticize the university system based on their anti-Semitism, they said nothing about

00:31:38.280 that other stuff.

00:31:39.880 They don't care about that.

00:31:40.740 And as I said, was there ever a congressional hearing on anti-white bigotry in the university system?

00:31:54.280 Can you even imagine there being a congressional hearing on that?

00:31:58.360 These Republicans in these hearings that get all this credit for calling you out, calling you to the carpet.

00:32:02.900 Like, okay, fine.

00:32:03.920 But that doesn't take any guts.

00:32:06.760 I'd like to see Elise Stefanik calling university presidents to the carpet and saying,

00:32:13.000 what about this anti-white brainwashing you guys have been doing for the last 30 years?

00:32:18.360 Will you condemn that right now?

00:32:21.420 Hey, you guys have actually brainwashed millions of people into believing 0.96

00:32:26.660 that the white race is inherently bigoted and racist 0.97

00:32:31.860 and that no non-white people can be racist. 0.88

00:32:37.500 You have made millions of white college students who then graduated and became adults.

00:32:46.420 You have made them resentful and feeling guilty for their own racial identity.

00:32:55.100 Will you denounce that?

00:32:56.640 Will you pledge to change that?

00:33:00.180 What changes are you making?

00:33:01.860 No, they're not having a hearing on that.

00:33:04.880 They didn't notice the problem until the subject was anti-Semitism,

00:33:07.900 which tells me that they still don't notice the problem or understand it.

00:33:14.780 And all this stuff about anti-Semitism on college campuses,

00:33:17.700 you've got politicians scoring some points based on it.

00:33:22.220 Nothing is really going to happen.

00:33:23.640 Yeah, a couple people will get fired and they'll be replaced with people who are worse.

00:33:27.760 And nothing will change.

00:33:30.180 Because they're not actually interested in changing anything.

00:33:32.980 They don't want to get to the heart of it.

00:33:36.200 Which also means, by the way, that the anti-Semitism piece of it also isn't actually going to change either.

00:33:42.920 Because, you know, that part of it is closer to the surface when it comes to the issues on college campuses.

00:33:51.340 And if you're just up here at the surface and you're not getting down to the core, right?

00:33:56.920 Like, there's the surface here and down here is like the core of the problem.

00:34:01.380 And if you're not digging down to the core of the problem,

00:34:03.920 then whatever changes you make up here are going to be temporary at best.

00:34:10.840 Superficial, cosmetic.

00:34:11.740 And that's the problem as far as I see it.

00:34:17.020 All right.

00:34:18.060 What else do we want to mention here?

00:34:20.120 So I thought this story, and we've seen a lot of this recently.

00:34:24.040 And of course, we've talked about the rise of AI.

00:34:29.260 I mean, everyone's been talking about that.

00:34:32.140 Here's one of the latest innovations in AI.

00:34:34.860 This is from Time.

00:34:35.680 It says, apps and websites that use artificial intelligence to undress women in photos are soaring in popularity, according to researchers.

00:34:44.420 In September alone, 24 million people visited undressing websites, according to the social network analysis company, Graphica.

00:34:52.480 Many of these undressing or nudify services are popular social networks for marketing, according to Graphica.

00:34:59.940 For instance, since the beginning of this year, the number of links advertising undressing apps increased more than 2,400% on social media, including on X and Reddit.

00:35:11.620 The services use AI to recreate an image so that the person is nude.

00:35:15.960 Many of the services only work on women.

00:35:18.560 These apps are part of a worrying trend of non-consensual pornography being developed and distributed because of advances in artificial intelligence.

00:35:25.760 So that's the technology is that they can take a photo of a real person and then run it through the AI thing and then create pornography of that person.

00:35:42.500 Like, it goes without saying that this, like, we already know, we could guarantee that this technology has been seized upon by child predators as well.

00:35:54.500 We could guarantee that.

00:35:57.460 And when you see this kind of thing, it's, and I've said this before, I know, but with a lot of these AI innovations, like, this should obviously be illegal.

00:36:06.500 I mean, clearly, it should, and I know that you make it illegal, that's not going to, that's not going to, that's not going to solve the problem outright.

00:36:14.900 And it's difficult to enforce and, or can be difficult to enforce and all that, but it should still be illegal, clearly.

00:36:25.040 Like, technology that specifically is invented to create non-consensual pornography of real people should obviously just not be legal.

00:36:38.200 And we got to figure out how to enforce it.

00:36:41.760 You figure out how that works, but there should just be wide agreement.

00:36:46.960 If we're having any discussion about it, it should be a discussion of how do you enforce it?

00:36:50.380 What can we do to root this stuff out and find these companies that are producing this kind of technology, companies that are marketing it?

00:36:58.700 How can, what can we do to shut them down legally?

00:37:00.800 Obviously, that should be the conversation.

00:37:05.040 There shouldn't be any discussion about whether or not it should be legal.

00:37:08.300 Obviously, it should not be legal.

00:37:11.140 And yet, there isn't any conversation about whether or not it should be legal, because most people, like, we just accept this.

00:37:15.580 We say, okay, well, that's, this is what the perverts are doing now. 0.87

00:37:21.300 And we've decided that perverts have just the absolute right to do whatever they want on the internet.

00:37:26.560 That's, that's basically what we've decided.

00:37:30.920 And we've decided that the internet will be, and even, you know, every social media platform, everywhere you go on the internet will be infested with the most degenerate kinds of filth imaginable.

00:37:41.760 And there's nothing that can be done about it or nothing that should be done about it, because it's all, it's our human right.

00:37:48.500 And all the people that are peddling this filth have a human right to peddle it.

00:37:52.020 And, this is the notion that's been widely accepted by almost everyone, it seems.

00:38:03.220 We have made ourselves impotent in the face of this sort of thing.

00:38:10.400 And we don't have to be.

00:38:11.960 That's my point.

00:38:14.380 Like, there are a lot of things that are happening that we accept.

00:38:18.220 We don't have to accept them.

00:38:22.020 And I know for a lot of conservatives, and I've been, and I've been running up against this and fighting against it for years.

00:38:28.180 But for a lot of conservatives, they just kind of instinctively believe that we should never be advocating for laws against anything.

00:38:36.320 They have this small government, you know, motto and mantra that they cling to.

00:38:46.320 And so they believe that advocating for any law at all is some sort of betrayal of their alleged small government principles.

00:38:56.600 You've got to get out of that mentality.

00:39:01.360 You have to get out of it. 0.88

00:39:03.120 Or otherwise, the smut peddlers and the degenerate freaks are just going to simply take over everything. 0.93

00:39:11.200 You can argue they already have. 0.91

00:39:13.300 But it's only going to get worse.

00:39:15.760 And this, to me, is just nuts.

00:39:16.960 It's nuts that we even allow this.

00:39:21.720 And it's also nuts that I'm already anticipating that, based on what I'm saying right now, there's going to be a bunch of people.

00:39:28.180 I'm going to get a whole bunch of comments and messages.

00:39:30.040 You know, Matt, I agree with you on most things, but we can't make that illegal.

00:39:33.760 That's a slippery slope now.

00:39:35.440 Come on.

00:39:37.480 A slippery slope into what?

00:39:39.580 Like sanity?

00:39:41.960 Decency?

00:39:43.640 A culture that is actually, a culture where you can actually live and thrive and have a happy and well-adjusted life in?

00:39:51.760 Is that what we might slip and slide our way into?

00:39:55.820 Oh, no.

00:39:56.500 Imagine that.

00:39:58.940 Okay, Bill Maher had a woman named Bella Thorne on his podcast. 0.92

00:40:02.100 And I guess Bella Thorne is an actress. 1.00

00:40:04.800 I don't know.

00:40:05.560 But, yeah, she's an actress. 1.00

00:40:07.940 And this exchange on the podcast is going viral.

00:40:10.920 It's interesting, though not really for the reason that most people are saying, but let's watch it.

00:40:15.660 There's a lot of trans, you know.

00:40:17.680 I always see that in the paper about somebody who has switched their sex, which I'm all, that's what makes you, is that what blows your dress up? 0.73

00:40:25.980 All the way.

00:40:27.320 Who?

00:40:28.580 Bad. 0.99

00:40:29.420 Fat.

00:40:30.260 Why are we? 0.75

00:40:31.340 Bad.

00:40:32.080 Bad.

00:40:33.040 Be who you are.

00:40:34.740 Yes.

00:40:35.080 Claps, claps, claps, claps.

00:40:36.720 Makes me happy. 1.00

00:40:37.520 I mean, I think there's some money to be made in some sort of exchange with everyone switching where, like, you know, if you need a penis, take a penis. 1.00

00:40:48.020 If you have a penis, give a penis. 1.00

00:40:49.580 You know, like, if people are becoming, like, men to women, they're going to cut off their penis. 1.00

00:40:55.080 And then there are women transitioning who are going to need a penis. 1.00

00:40:58.340 I feel like if there was some exchange, maybe Bitcoin could be involved and you could, you know, no? 0.99

00:41:09.680 I just don't like joking about.

00:41:13.460 Oh, Bella.

00:41:14.720 I know that you like to, but I don't think it's funny. 0.98

00:41:20.080 Oh, for f***ing sake. 0.95

00:41:21.520 I think it's funny. 0.99

00:41:22.000 What a shame.

00:41:23.200 That is where you're at.

00:41:24.160 I'm sorry.

00:41:24.600 You don't have to be sorry, but I'm not sorry either.

00:41:27.400 I don't think it's funny.

00:41:27.860 And that is where your anxiety comes from.

00:41:30.260 There is nothing wrong with joking.

00:41:32.420 Nothing wrong about that.

00:41:34.300 It's not everybody is that sensitive.

00:41:36.660 Not everybody needs to be that sensitive.

00:41:38.440 Even the people who are doing that, I don't think would need to be offended by that.

00:41:42.720 Everybody is so easily offended.

00:41:44.480 You kids, you wake up offended.

00:41:47.080 You should get off Twitter, get off social media, and maybe you wouldn't, like, have this anxiety.

00:41:55.040 This, like, because I don't know if you're really offended or you're just worried that you're going to look offended.

00:42:00.840 No, I'm 100% offended.

00:42:03.800 Like, when I think about, you know, someone's trauma and someone, the videos that I have seen that are so, like, so bad.

00:42:12.780 And what people have to worry about, walking on the street, just being themselves, like, that's anxiety.

00:42:20.640 That's why I don't like to, like, joke about it because, you know, someone hears it and on a public platform is so bad because you're, like, kind of low-key spreading like this, like, oh, ha, ha, ha, ha.

00:42:33.620 First of all, I think Bill Maher's idea is kind of innovative and interesting.

00:42:37.380 I think he's on to something, you know?

00:42:38.280 I mean, it's not a business I could find myself being involved in for matters of principle. 0.98

00:42:46.040 But, you know, yeah, he's kind of take a penny, leave a penny, take a penis, leave a penis, this exchange of body parts. 0.96

00:42:56.080 Maybe eventually that's where we'll end up. 0.99

00:42:58.200 But I just want to, I want to quote Bella Thorne's reasoning for why we shouldn't joke about trans people, okay? 0.74

00:43:10.240 Because I transcribed it.

00:43:12.560 Just to quote what she just said there.

00:43:14.680 She said,

00:43:15.140 I'm 100% offended.

00:43:18.220 Like, when I think about, you know, someone's trauma, the videos that I've seen that are so, like, so effing bad.

00:43:25.200 And when people have to worry about walking on the street just being themselves, like, that's effing anxiety.

00:43:31.380 That's why I don't like to, like, joke about it because, you know, someone hears it and on a public platform it's so bad because you're, like, kind of low-key spreading like this, like, oh, ha, ha.

00:43:40.920 And it's, like, it's not funny.

00:43:45.140 Okay, that's not English.

00:43:47.060 I don't know what that is.

00:43:49.680 I mean, it's not Spanish either.

00:43:50.960 It's not French. 0.51

00:43:52.580 It's not German as far as I know.

00:43:54.240 It's not a language.

00:43:56.840 Do you understand that?

00:43:57.720 That is not human language.

00:44:00.920 It's not.

00:44:03.240 Okay, I'm not, we won't get into the actual topic they were discussing because only one of them was discussing a topic.

00:44:12.720 The other was rambling incoherently.

00:44:15.140 Now, of course, she's wrong about the idea that we shouldn't joke about gender ideology.

00:44:19.820 Obviously, we should joke about it.

00:44:22.000 But I'm not going to dignify her by responding to the point that we can only assume she was trying to make.

00:44:27.700 Instead, I want you to think about the fact that this is, I guess, a prominent, relatively prominent, relatively successful actress.

00:44:38.260 And she can't speak.

00:44:41.720 She cannot speak.

00:44:43.100 She's not the only one.

00:44:44.600 We have millions of people in this country who cannot speak.

00:44:48.380 They cannot express their thoughts through spoken language.

00:44:52.320 It's a problem.

00:44:54.720 I'm telling you, it is a problem.

00:44:58.000 This is not just old guys shouting at the clouds thing.

00:45:03.980 It might be that, too, but it's also true.

00:45:06.920 We've got now generations of Americans who can barely convey a thought through words.

00:45:15.480 Now, I know you might say, oh, she's an actress. 1.00

00:45:19.500 Of course, she's stupid. 0.99

00:45:20.340 But, yeah, go back and watch interviews with actresses from, like, the 50s, okay? 1.00

00:45:25.120 Go back and watch an interview with Audrey Hepburn or something.

00:45:29.260 She could speak.

00:45:30.600 She could articulate.

00:45:33.400 She could communicate.

00:45:34.660 Even athletes and football players back then could communicate.

00:45:39.620 Everybody could.

00:45:42.380 Now we have this.

00:45:43.400 I don't even know what this is.

00:45:46.000 Actually, I do know.

00:45:46.880 You know what this is?

00:45:47.560 You know what you just heard that?

00:45:49.720 What Bella Thorne sounds like? 0.99

00:45:51.940 Honestly, she sounds like someone talking in their sleep.

00:45:56.160 That's what it sounds like.

00:45:57.140 Have you ever heard someone, we all have, you hear someone talking in their sleep?

00:46:05.400 And it's always kind of a little bit bizarre and mumbled and jumbled and it's disjointed.

00:46:13.800 And you can only sort of vaguely understand what they're saying and you're not in their dreams.

00:46:18.900 You're kind of guessing at what the context might be and what it is that they're dreaming about.

00:46:26.100 And that's how people speak now.

00:46:30.040 That's Bella Thorne. 0.82

00:46:30.780 She could have been sleeping that entire.

00:46:31.900 For all I know, she was actually asleep that whole interview.

00:46:34.060 She could have been in a coma for that interview and there'd be no difference.

00:46:40.620 Bill Maher could be sitting there interviewing her while she is sleeping and it would sound the same.

00:46:47.420 And be just as intelligible or unintelligible as the case may be.

00:46:53.480 And if it was just her, I would say it doesn't matter.

00:46:55.960 It's just Bella Thorne.

00:46:56.760 Oh, you know, Bella Thorne, up to her old tricks again. 1.00

00:47:01.020 You know Bella Thorne.

00:47:02.060 You know how she acts, whoever she is. 0.99

00:47:05.380 But it's not just her.

00:47:08.560 Again, her whole, it's millions of people.

00:47:11.400 This is how they, they all are walking around asleep.

00:47:16.340 Unable to project their voices and communicate their thoughts and ideas and their desires and wants and fears.

00:47:27.120 Like, they can't communicate it.

00:47:30.140 And it's not like they can communicate it through written word either.

00:47:34.120 Okay, if we, you know, if we were just evolving to become or devolving to become a nonverbal species,

00:47:43.680 but that could still communicate through writing, I could live with that.

00:47:49.200 In fact, I might even prefer that.

00:47:51.060 That might be, that might, that wouldn't be so bad.

00:47:53.620 But we can't, but they can't write either.

00:47:57.740 You know, they, they communicate through written word.

00:47:59.560 They, they use pictures to communicate.

00:48:02.260 So I'm telling, like, we are going back to, we are going back in time.

00:48:08.580 We are losing our capacity for human communication.

00:48:13.320 And I, I shudder to think what the world will look like and sound like even a hundred years from now.

00:48:20.600 Can you imagine?

00:48:23.100 A hundred more years of progressing or regressing in that direction.

00:48:27.940 What in the world?

00:48:28.960 I mean, we are going to be walking around a hundred years from now grunting.

00:48:33.740 We'll still have podcasts.

00:48:35.500 There'll still be podcasts and it will just be two people grunting at each other.

00:48:41.960 All right.

00:48:43.920 Let's get to Wes Walsh Rome.

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00:50:02.280 David says, hi, Matt.

00:50:03.620 For the second time, you are, in fact, wrong about absolute rights.

00:50:06.800 For example, the prohibition of torture, the prohibition of inhumane and degrading treatment,

00:50:11.320 the prohibition of slavery, the right to no punishment without law.

00:50:15.460 Sincerely, David.

00:50:17.560 I like when people sign their tweets like that.

00:50:19.100 I'm not even being ironic.

00:50:20.440 I was just complaining about people who can't communicate. 1.00

00:50:23.280 I enjoy the boomer communication.

00:50:26.440 Well, boomers can go either way when it comes to how they communicate online. 0.85

00:50:29.360 They can sometimes be even less articulate somehow.

00:50:31.600 Or it can go this way, where you're signing your tweets with sincerely,

00:50:34.500 which I really do appreciate, unironically.

00:50:36.980 Anyway, okay, so I said that all rights are conditional and can be lost.

00:50:43.520 And you're saying that there are some rights that are absolute and that you can't lose them.

00:50:48.820 And you gave an example of, or several examples of rights that you think are absolute.

00:50:55.700 I don't know if I necessarily agree, though.

00:50:57.480 Because I could envision scenarios where it may be necessary to infringe on all of the rights you just mentioned,

00:51:08.140 depending on how you define them.

00:51:09.560 So, for example, if you define slavery as just forced labor, which many people do,

00:51:17.420 then no, I don't think you have the absolute right to be free from forced labor.

00:51:22.040 Because I think prisoners should be used for forced labor.

00:51:26.280 I think if you commit a crime and you go to jail, you should be, I think we should bring back forced labor in a big way.

00:51:34.480 And I don't just mean like walking down the highway and throwing garbage into a bag.

00:51:40.260 So, if that's how you define slavery, then I would say, I'm not sure that I would define it that way.

00:51:45.960 But that is how some people define it.

00:51:51.140 Prohibition against torture.

00:51:52.520 I think, again, there could be a scenario where if you have a bad guy and he has some piece of information that will save hundreds of lives

00:51:59.760 and you need to torture him to get it, I think that could be okay.

00:52:03.620 Now, obviously, many people have been tortured under those pretenses and they were false pretenses.

00:52:08.200 So, in practice, it often doesn't work out that way.

00:52:13.400 But I'm saying, in theory, I could see a scenario where that would be morally justified.

00:52:17.560 Think about like, obviously, this is a fiction, it's a Hollywood film.

00:52:20.680 But Liam Neeson in Taken, you know, he's trying to find his daughter who's been kidnapped by sex traffickers

00:52:26.920 and he's going through wherever he was, I think it was in France.

00:52:29.720 And he's just like shooting and torturing people to get the information he needs to rescue his daughter before it's too late.

00:52:34.600 Totally fantastical scenario, but, you know, I think, in theory, that could be justified.

00:52:44.860 Prohibition against punishment without due process.

00:52:48.460 Yeah, in almost all circumstances.

00:52:49.980 But again, I mean, let's say society breaks down.

00:52:52.320 We're back in the Stone Age.

00:52:54.220 We don't have a system of law in place, but we need a way to punish dangerous people,

00:52:58.800 segregate them from society or get rid of them entirely for the sake of, you know, of keeping the order.

00:53:05.060 And then you need to be able to punish people without any kind of a court system in place.

00:53:08.520 Like, so these are, you know, I'm just talking about, we were talking about absolute, right?

00:53:11.760 I'm talking about the extreme cases in theory.

00:53:16.420 But I still think there's a point here about rights not being absolute.

00:53:22.580 It's an interesting question anyway.

00:53:25.200 Let's see.

00:53:26.220 Stephen says, quoting me, most of the great things of history were done for the sake of legacy.

00:53:31.100 Then he says, sometimes I swear Matt is this close to becoming an atheist.

00:53:35.000 He almost gets it.

00:53:35.840 Men like Michelangelo and Mozart weren't trying to glorify God, but themselves.

00:53:40.600 And what else does greatness need, really?

00:53:42.580 So you are, you're just presuming to know the intentions of men who created beautiful art, you know, centuries ago.

00:53:53.260 But if you're listening, if you listen to their own testimony, in particular, Michelangelo, he was in fact trying to glorify God.

00:54:01.940 So this is, I guess this is what you do if you're an atheist.

00:54:04.200 You just take an example like that and say, yeah, they said, Michelangelo, he may have claimed that he was creating all these beautiful, amazing, jaw-dropping, historically significant works of art to glorify God.

00:54:17.920 But I know what he was really up to.

00:54:22.220 And the other comment says, I don't think you understand what stereotype means and how that can be harmful.

00:54:27.540 Stereotyping is generalizing about a group of people.

00:54:30.680 When you generalize about someone because they're part of a group, that doesn't mean that that person fits the stereotype.

00:54:35.540 That's not what stereotyping, stereotyping is not, does not have to mean that you're taking an individual and saying, oh, they must behave this way because they're part of this group.

00:54:49.500 In fact, that is not what a stereotype is.

00:54:51.100 Stereotypes are about groups.

00:54:53.920 Now, people may come to false conclusions based on stereotypes. 0.94

00:55:00.140 Stereotypes may be applied in ways that are unfair and sort of ridiculous. 0.55

00:55:03.860 That can happen.

00:55:06.920 But a stereotype is just, yeah, it is a generalization about groups.

00:55:15.160 But you can only speak about groups in general terms because it's a group.

00:55:21.320 And it's not going to be, whatever you say in general about a group isn't going to be specifically true about each individual down to the last man.

00:55:31.240 But you can look at groups of people, whether it's a demographic group or any other group.

00:55:37.620 You can look at a group of people and you can observe tendencies, behavioral traits, all kinds of things.

00:55:44.640 And you can say, in general, this group of people tends to act this way, which is one of the things that makes this group distinct.

00:55:54.480 I mean, the very fact that you can talk about a group at all, that you can say, here's this group and then that group.

00:56:04.540 Being able to do that in the first place means that you're able to stereotype because you are making generalized observations that distinguish this group from another.

00:56:15.200 And my only point about stereotyping is that that's all that a stereotype is.

00:56:22.820 It is an observation that has been made about the tendencies of particular groups.

00:56:29.500 It's really kind of, it's a morally neutral thing.

00:56:32.220 Whether the tendency that's being observed is negative or positive, it's been observed.

00:56:40.960 It's just, that's the tendency.

00:56:44.820 And, you know, although people can come to false conclusions based on stereotypes,

00:56:52.360 when you ignore the stereotypes entirely and you pretend that they don't exist,

00:56:58.440 that's going to lead you to many more false conclusions, I would say.

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00:57:58.200 Also, if you've seen the number one streaming comedy in America, Lady Ballers,

00:58:01.960 then you might have seen us mention the creation of a women's razor by Jeremy's.

00:58:06.740 In case you missed it, check it out.

00:58:09.560 My man, looking smooth.

00:58:11.660 Man, you guys weren't kidding.

00:58:13.940 These Jeremy's razors are amazing.

00:58:16.280 And did you know that Jeremy's now offers a razor specially designed for women?

00:58:22.480 And don't forget about Jeremy's shampoo.

00:58:25.460 And conditioner.

00:58:26.880 They keep our hair silky and smooth.

00:58:30.280 Well, that wasn't just a scene in the movie.

00:58:32.620 That was an actual commercial for a real thing.

00:58:35.600 Introducing the all-new women's razor and personal care line by Jeremy's.

00:58:39.140 Because Jeremy's razors is all about equal opportunity to shop in the woke-free economy.

00:58:43.320 And women deserve the same quality, woke-free blades as men. 1.00

00:58:46.620 Jeremy's will make another razor when God makes another gender, which he won't. 1.00

00:58:50.200 So, it's just going to be the two razors for two genders. 1.00

00:58:52.300 Plus, we have a new line of personal care products for our better haves, including moisturizing, shave cream, lotion, body wash, and deodorant.

00:59:00.880 Ladies, go to jeremysrazors.com to get your Jeremy's razor and personal care products today. 1.00

00:59:06.880 Now, let's get to our daily cancellation.

00:59:08.380 Well, there are many candidates for today's daily cancellation.

00:59:17.160 But ultimately, when faced with a surplus of potential cancelees, I have to simply go with whichever one I find the most personally annoying.

00:59:24.760 And for that, we turn to Will Ferrell, an actor who, as it happens, and I went back and checked,

00:59:30.720 hasn't starred in a good comedy since 2008 with Step Brothers.

00:59:34.940 But that's not why he's canceled today.

00:59:36.300 He's canceled for this, as the Blaze reports, quote,

00:59:39.420 Actor Will Ferrell told a group of mostly women that it's time for them to take over the world 1.00

00:59:43.540 when he gave opening remarks for the Women in Entertainment Gala hosted by the outlet The Hollywood Reporter.

00:59:49.420 Ferrell likely earned a spot at the gala because he co-owns a production company focused on female-led television and movie productions

00:59:55.500 called Gloria Sanchez Productions, founded in 2014 as a division of his existing production company.

01:00:01.620 Ferrell went on to plead with actress Kerry Washington to run for president,

01:00:04.560 joking that the gala could start a GoFundMe page to raise money for her campaign.

01:00:08.840 The Anchorman actor noted that Washington would receive the Equity in Entertainment Award

01:00:13.560 in recognition for her work, quote,

01:00:15.720 amplifying the voices of underrepresented communities in the entertainment industry and beyond.

01:00:19.840 Now, it's hard for me to imagine an award that could possibly be more meaningless than the Equity in Entertainment Award.

01:00:28.740 This is an award that would win the award for most meaningless award,

01:00:32.580 which somehow would be a more meaningful award than the Equity in Entertainment Award itself.

01:00:37.980 But also, just for the record, it is, of course, a total misnomer that black people are underrepresented in the entertainment industry.

01:00:45.240 In fact, according to the job site Zipia.com, 13% of professional actors are black,

01:00:50.780 which is precisely in line with the overall black population in the United States.

01:00:55.620 So far from being underrepresented, they are exactly, specifically, correctly represented.

01:01:02.280 But that's not really the point.

01:01:04.020 Yeah, there was a lot of groveling to, quote, unquote, people of color going on at the Women in Entertainment Gala. 0.78

01:01:08.580 But most of the groveling was to women, as you might expect, given the name of the gala.

01:01:13.800 And on that end, here's Will Ferrell.

01:01:16.820 Forget about the entertainment world.

01:01:18.540 Isn't it just time?

01:01:22.040 Isn't it just time for women to run the planet? 1.00

01:01:24.960 I mean, I'm not just trying to placate you, I swear.

01:01:31.080 But I don't know what else to do, because we, men, we've been running the show since, what, 10,000 B.C.?

01:01:42.140 Something like that.

01:01:43.920 And we're not doing so good.

01:01:45.820 So, please, can you guys just take over?

01:01:51.980 Now, I understand this is mostly just the typical Hollywood girl power shtick.

01:01:56.600 I also realize that this is coming from Will Ferrell, who's not exactly known for his wisdom or insight.

01:02:02.960 Still, it's worth pointing out that everything he said there, which is the kind of thing you hear all the time these days, is absolute nonsense.

01:02:10.140 So, let's start at the end.

01:02:11.000 He says that men have been running things since 10,000 B.C., and we, quote, haven't been doing so good.

01:02:18.300 Now, it's a bit of a confusing sentence, even leaving aside the poor grammar.

01:02:21.540 When he says we haven't been doing so good, does he mean that things have started to decline recently?

01:02:27.660 Or is he saying that we haven't been doing so good the whole time?

01:02:31.280 Now, if the former, it doesn't really make sense, because men have never been less in charge than they have been in recent years.

01:02:37.940 So, if you think things that have been going poorly recently, as women have increasingly taken charge, it's hard to see how even more women in charge will fix that. 1.00

01:02:47.140 But we'll get back to that in a moment.

01:02:48.020 On the other hand, if you're saying that men have been screwing things up the entire time since 10,000 B.C., then I guess I need to know how well you think we should be doing at this point.

01:03:00.400 After all, what have men done since 10,000 B.C.?

01:03:04.200 Well, nothing really, I guess, except build civilization.

01:03:07.680 Almost every major advancement and achievement in the history of mankind since the dawn of human society itself has been made by a man.

01:03:18.220 Not all of them, but most of them.

01:03:22.900 I mean, most of them that you can name have been achieved by a man.

01:03:27.100 That's just a fact.

01:03:29.560 Things haven't been perfect, of course.

01:03:31.040 We're talking about the whole span of civilization's existence.

01:03:34.320 It's not going to be a smooth sailing the whole time, but mostly through male leadership, we went from mud huts to walking on the moon in a few thousand years.

01:03:44.520 Now, I have nothing to compare it to.

01:03:45.980 Neither does Will Ferrell, but I think that's pretty impressive.

01:03:49.340 That's not bad.

01:03:51.780 Is that not good enough for Will Ferrell?

01:03:53.440 Is it not fast enough?

01:03:54.660 Is there any reason at all to think that women, if they were solely in charge, would have done better? 0.93

01:04:01.760 Is there any reason to think that humanity's prospects in the future will be improved by getting more women into leadership positions? 0.99

01:04:07.620 Well, we don't really have to speculate about that.

01:04:11.240 You know, society is run through institutions, and those institutions have increasingly elevated women to leadership roles over the past several decades.

01:04:18.120 And on Will Ferrell's theory, and on the theory of any feminist or anyone else who's adopted this line, we should be able to look around and see that these institutions have measurably and significantly improved due to the rapid dramatic rise in female leadership. 0.91

01:04:35.560 But do we see that?

01:04:36.960 Can you name a single institution that has been improved by these efforts to put more women into positions of leadership?

01:04:58.320 It's a question.

01:04:59.920 Now, I posted this question on Twitter yesterday, and predictably lots of people were very upset at me for asking an uncomfortable question.

01:05:05.820 And even more predictable, lots of people missed the point entirely and started naming individual women who were great leaders, like Queen Isabella and Catherine the Great,

01:05:14.600 who both presided over governments comprised almost entirely of men, by the way.

01:05:18.160 But that's besides the point.

01:05:20.040 I'm not asking whether there have ever been any great individual female leaders in the history of mankind.

01:05:25.000 Of course there have been.

01:05:26.680 I'm certainly not asking whether there have ever been any impressive, wonderful, competent, intelligent women in the world. 1.00

01:05:32.280 Obviously, there have been many of those.

01:05:33.720 I should know.

01:05:34.400 I married one of them.

01:05:35.320 But the question is whether any institution has been quantifiably improved by the effort to increase as a percentage the number of women in leadership roles.

01:05:48.320 Perhaps another way of asking this is this.

01:05:52.080 Has the deliberate feminization of any institution helped it succeed? 0.74

01:05:57.100 Can you look at anything now, after years of trying to get women more involved and into the leadership ranks, and say, wow, that institution is doing way better than it was before?

01:06:08.280 If you can give an example, then give it.

01:06:09.860 But I don't think you can.

01:06:11.120 But I don't think you can.

01:06:13.780 I don't think anyone can.

01:06:16.580 I think instead we all recognize, even if we don't want to admit it, that every institution or field that you can name has become less effective and less productive and less competent and less impressive

01:06:28.460 as women have been moved up the ranks and leadership has been diversified.

01:06:34.000 Now, this is certainly true of the military, academia, law enforcement, the sciences, medicine, even the film industry.

01:06:39.920 Now, it's true, you know, and that's true most of all, by the way, of the two most important institutions in society, which is the church and the family.

01:06:50.160 The church in this country has fallen apart as it's been feminized, and the institution of the family has done the same as society has insisted that women should be at the head of it. 0.99

01:06:59.660 You know, you can't deny that the family is much more female-led today than it ever has been in the history of the world. 1.00

01:07:05.340 And you also can't really deny that the family is weaker and more unstable than it's ever been in the history of the world.

01:07:11.920 Now, correlation does not prove causation.

01:07:15.500 But there's a lot of correlation here across basically every institution in the modern world.

01:07:21.500 Enough to, we might say, seriously call into question the idea that the world can be fixed by putting women in charge of it. 1.00

01:07:30.300 And certainly enough to say that Will Ferrell is today canceled.

01:07:36.060 That'll do it for the show today.

01:07:37.220 Thanks for watching.

01:07:37.780 Thanks for listening.

01:07:38.440 Talk to you tomorrow.

01:07:39.180 Have a great day.

01:07:40.160 Godspeed.

The Matt Walsh Show - December 12, 2023

Ep. 1276 - States Are Now Passing Laws Against ‘Fatphobia’

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