The Matt Walsh Show - Ep. 1377 - The Only Solution To The Violent Crime Epidemic

00:00:00.000 Today on the Matt Walsh Show, an actor in Los Angeles is killed after he catches someone stealing the catalytic converter from his car.

00:00:05.880 Now a friend of the victim is speaking out, declaring that the solution to these violent crimes is to come together and love each other.

00:00:11.140 But that is not the solution. In fact, that attitude is a big part of the problem. We'll talk about that.

00:00:15.260 Also, Chelsea Handler speaks out about the Harrison-Butker controversy.

00:00:18.760 She always has great insight to offer, and this is no exception, of course.

00:00:22.140 And a new report finds that teens and young adults today have little to no interest in getting their driver's licenses.

00:00:26.700 That makes us all safer on the roads, of course, but is it really a positive trend?

00:00:30.680 We'll talk about all that and more today on the Matt Walsh Show.

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00:02:00.340 You know you're living in a state of total lawlessness when criminals start pulling off heists that, under normal circumstances, they don't even attempt.

00:02:07.680 Think of the train robberies in the Wild West with Butch Cassidy, where they detach the rail car and dynamite the safe and so on.

00:02:15.640 Brazen crimes like this only happen when law enforcement isn't doing its job for one reason or another.

00:02:20.920 Otherwise, the risk of getting caught is just too high, so the thieves don't even try.

00:02:25.900 Now, post-BLM, there's been a lot of coverage of crime rates increasing as police retreat and criminals become emboldened.

00:02:32.840 But there hasn't been much coverage of the dramatic increase in one specific kind of crime, which used to be relatively rare.

00:02:38.220 I'm talking about the theft of catalytic converters.

00:02:40.700 Stealing catalytic converters doesn't take very long, but it's highly conspicuous.

00:02:44.940 Thieves typically slide under cars and then start sawing, or they lift cars for easier access.

00:02:49.420 In either case, it's a loud and very noticeable process.

00:02:53.300 It's brazen.

00:02:54.320 It's definitely not the kind of thing you'd try if you thought there might be any police officers around.

00:02:59.060 But there aren't many police officers left in major cities in this country, which is why thefts of catalytic converters have skyrocketed.

00:03:04.200 To give just one prominent example, in the city of Los Angeles, from 2018 to 2023,

00:03:09.200 the number of catalytic converter thefts per year has increased by more than 720%.

00:03:16.120 Put another way, Los Angeles went from having 970 catalytic converters stolen every year to more than 8,000 stolen every year.

00:03:25.700 And the numbers are similar in many other major cities.

00:03:28.220 Nationally, catalytic converter thefts jumped by more than 900% from 2019 to 2023.

00:03:34.180 Thieves want these converters because they have precious metals that they can sell for hundreds of dollars.

00:03:39.200 And now that they know that police aren't interested in stopping them,

00:03:41.700 they're just lifting cars in the middle of the street and removing the converters.

00:03:45.460 And that's what happened in the early hours of Saturday morning to actor Johnny Wachter,

00:03:49.480 who was a regular in the show General Hospital for two years.

00:03:52.640 He also appeared in the show Westworld.

00:03:54.580 Around 3 a.m., Wachter and a co-worker were leaving a rooftop bar in downtown Los Angeles,

00:03:58.740 where Wachter served as a bartender.

00:04:00.020 And that's when Wachter noticed that three individuals had raised his Toyota Prius with a floor lift,

00:04:05.340 and he initially suspected that his vehicle was being towed.

00:04:08.320 And by the way, thieves target Priuses and other hybrids because their catalytic converters

00:04:11.600 have a higher concentration of precious metals than gas cars, makes them more valuable.

00:04:15.660 But when Wachter confronted the group, according to police, he was shot.

00:04:20.460 Quote, without provocation, the men fled and Wachter died shortly afterwards.

00:04:25.680 Watch.

00:04:25.960 The brother of beloved soap opera star Johnny Wachter tells us the 37-year-old was shot to death

00:04:33.000 in downtown L.A. early Saturday morning, killed while trying to stop a catalytic converter theft in progress.

00:04:40.060 He, I guess, was seeing them do it in the act and was standing up for what he believed was right

00:04:45.300 and, you know, protecting his vehicle and his car, and he was being brave.

00:04:49.720 And, you know, you never anticipate someone would kill someone for that.

00:04:53.520 Tessa Farrell says Wachter was her friend and former fiancée,

00:04:57.480 that he moved to L.A. from South Carolina to follow his dreams and accomplish them

00:05:02.040 as a main character named Brando Corbin on General Hospital,

00:05:05.860 where he filmed 164 episodes between 2020 and 2022.

00:05:11.220 The LAPD says investigators are still searching for three male suspects in connection with the fatal shooting,

00:05:17.040 and right now they're not releasing a description of them or how they got away.

00:05:21.000 But Tessa says Wachter's co-workers at a downtown L.A. bar were witnesses to the attack.

00:05:26.640 She says she hopes this killing shines a light on violent crime occurring in L.A.

00:05:30.960 So I will actually always think of him as this spirit that loved to celebrate life and be alive

00:05:36.400 and push the limits of experience and be, he was an amazing actor, he was really funny.

00:05:40.880 Now, the woman you just saw, Tessa Farrell, is Wachter's ex-fiancée.

00:05:46.080 In a video she posted to TikTok on Monday, Farrell states that she hadn't seen Wachter in a few years prior to his death.

00:05:52.240 She also indicates that she hasn't been talking to him lately because she's been busy working on a movie.

00:05:56.820 She then goes into some detail about their relationship, how much she cared about him.

00:06:00.040 But as the video goes on, Farrell reveals how little she understands about what happened to Wachter

00:06:04.740 and about violent crime in general.

00:06:06.120 And before I show you the rest of the footage, I want to make it very clear that my intention is not to mock a woman who's grieving, obviously.

00:06:12.420 The point here is not to demean Tessa Farrell in any way.

00:06:15.080 But the fact remains that the ideas she promotes in this video must be addressed because they are a cancer on society

00:06:22.340 that has cost many people their lives and will continue to cost people their lives unless these ideas are rejected.

00:06:28.460 So with that in mind, here's the rest of Tessa Farrell's video.

00:06:33.680 Watch.

00:06:33.940 It's not okay.

00:06:38.020 This can't keep happening.

00:06:41.360 So many lives are being lost to just us not being smart.

00:06:45.900 We have to be smarter as a community.

00:06:48.680 And guys, even if you're watching this, we have to stop being so mean to each other.

00:06:54.240 Like, I saw some of the comments yesterday, and it's like, guys, let's love each other.

00:07:00.520 Let's not steal, you know?

00:07:04.520 Johnny's up above now looking down, and I'm so happy that I think he found happiness before he went because that was his dream in life, is to be happy.

00:07:17.360 But I'm just so proud of the man he's become, and it's so sad that crime in L.A. had to do this.

00:07:24.920 And I'm hoping that, um, change some legislation to prevent this from happening.

00:07:29.940 These criminals can't keep being on the street, and they can't keep being sent back and have no repercussions for their actions.

00:07:37.300 Because, you know, if you're the person who did this, if you're watching, I'm sorry, but you shot the wrong guy.

00:07:46.180 Like, you know, you can get a real job.

00:07:51.120 Like, I know the job market's hard, but we're all in it together.

00:07:55.060 You don't have to steal.

00:07:58.340 You know?

00:07:59.040 And especially take a life over it.

00:08:05.360 Like, human life is disregarded too easy, guys.

00:08:11.000 We gotta make some changes as a community.

00:08:14.080 We gotta support each other and come together.

00:08:19.200 Maybe that's what Johnny's gift is for us.

00:08:21.940 Maybe he's gifting that to all of us.

00:08:23.840 Because he was full of gifts.

00:08:28.560 Okay, now, um, so there's the video.

00:08:31.260 And as I said, uh, the point here is not to, uh, you know, uh, criticize this young woman.

00:08:38.260 I mean, there are aspects of this that are kind of strange.

00:08:41.200 The line about you shot the wrong guy is a really weird thing to say.

00:08:46.020 It just is.

00:08:46.620 I don't know what, what do you mean, shot the wrong guy?

00:08:49.340 Uh, she also, you know, she hasn't, according to her own testimony,

00:08:52.900 hasn't even talked to the guy in years.

00:08:55.560 And yet, she's the main one on TV and now doing videos talking about this.

00:09:01.460 Uh, so there are some aspects of it that are kind of strange.

00:09:03.780 But that's not really the point.

00:09:05.640 Uh, we can't see inside her heart to know what her, what her motivations are. 0.95

00:09:09.300 The attitude on display here, though, is deeply sick.

00:09:13.700 Yet, it's also entirely pervasive.

00:09:15.260 And she implores the criminals who just murdered a loved one, I guess, to stop being so mean

00:09:21.800 and to love each other and not steal.

00:09:24.080 She acknowledges that the job market is hard, but she says, well, they don't have to steal.

00:09:29.480 We're all in this together, she says.

00:09:33.160 To the guys who just shot, uh, Johnny Wacker.

00:09:37.320 We need to support each other.

00:09:40.280 So, violent thugs have been allowed to take over our communities precisely because of this

00:09:45.740 just utterly delusional liberal approach to crime.

00:09:52.480 You know, and if Tessa were just one naive woman crying out in the wilderness, 0.71

00:09:56.300 or in her bathtub, as the case may be, again, for whatever reason,

00:10:00.040 then this wouldn't be worth responding to.

00:10:02.860 But she's one of millions of people saying this.

00:10:06.100 Again, this attitude is why lawlessness has claimed hold of so many communities.

00:10:10.060 People with this view elect people who have the same view, or at least who express the same view.

00:10:14.780 And those people usher in more chaos and criminality.

00:10:17.660 And the cycle repeats over and over again, while thousands more fall victim to these crimes.

00:10:21.260 So we have to address it and be honest about it.

00:10:25.520 And being honest about it means this.

00:10:27.400 Because here's the reality that these people just can't wrap their minds around.

00:10:33.080 Okay, these criminals cannot be redeemed with a lecture about the value of teamwork.

00:10:39.320 They're not committing crime because they're poor and desperate.

00:10:43.560 And I want to say that again.

00:10:44.540 They are not committing crime because they're poor and desperate.

00:10:48.860 The job market has nothing to do with it.

00:10:52.420 At all.

00:10:54.580 Okay. 0.98

00:10:54.800 They steal and kill because they enjoy it. 0.95

00:10:59.120 They want to do it.

00:11:01.040 So they do.

00:11:02.860 Mike Cernovich put it succinctly on Twitter yesterday when he tweeted,

00:11:05.380 criminals like crime.

00:11:07.880 It sounds overly simplified.

00:11:10.140 It's not.

00:11:10.560 It really is as simple as that.

00:11:12.000 They like it.

00:11:12.740 They do it because they like it.

00:11:13.840 They act this way because they want to.

00:11:15.720 You take anyone in America right now who's currently stealing a catalytic converter from a car.

00:11:24.520 I don't care who they are.

00:11:26.280 Take that person.

00:11:27.740 Hand them a million dollars.

00:11:29.960 And say, your life has changed.

00:11:31.540 Here's a million dollars.

00:11:32.260 You don't have to do this anymore.

00:11:34.400 They'll be back on the street committing petty and not-so-petty crimes by next week.

00:11:39.640 Probably by tomorrow.

00:11:40.940 You could give them a high-paying job in a corner office downtown.

00:11:45.840 They'd never even show up for work.

00:11:47.520 Not a single day.

00:11:48.460 They'd rather be on the street stealing pieces from people's cars to sell for drug money.

00:11:54.240 Now, there are observable reasons for this.

00:11:56.680 And one of the major ones, though certainly not the only one,

00:11:59.980 but one of the major ones is simple.

00:12:02.620 People with high IQs tend to be more empathetic

00:12:05.280 because they have the intellectual capacity to consider what other people might be thinking or feeling.

00:12:11.600 We think of empathy as an emotion, but it's also an intellectual exercise.

00:12:16.440 People with very low IQs often have little or no empathy.

00:12:20.380 A few years ago, there was a study published in the journal Psychological Science

00:12:23.320 that came up with a finding along these lines.

00:12:25.080 And as the New Haven Register reported at the time,

00:12:27.640 one of the psychologists behind the story remarked,

00:12:29.220 quote, there may be cognitive limits in the ability to take the perspective of others into account.

00:12:33.700 In other words, the less intelligent you are,

00:12:35.840 the harder it may be for you to put yourself in another's shoes.

00:12:40.220 So with that in mind, guess where criminals who steal catalytic converters rank on the IQ spectrum?

00:12:46.320 We can assume it's not very high.

00:12:47.520 In fact, we don't have to assume because based on the data we have,

00:12:50.340 chronic adult offenders have an average IQ of around 85,

00:12:54.200 which is a full standard deviation below the population's average. 1.00

00:12:57.680 In other words, the people committing much of the crime in this country are very stupid. 1.00

00:13:03.320 They're often so stupid they don't feel empathy, 1.00

00:13:05.840 at least not to the degree that normal people do. 1.00

00:13:07.580 It's not that they're psychopaths, although that's certainly true in some cases. 1.00

00:13:11.100 It's that by and large, they're like morons. 1.00

00:13:15.060 There's no reasoning with them because they don't care what you think. 1.00

00:13:19.040 And they don't even like the idea that they should

00:13:22.460 think about someone else as another human being and put themselves in their shoes and all.

00:13:28.720 They just, they don't do that.

00:13:30.640 They don't care.

00:13:31.840 And this is not an excuse for them.

00:13:33.180 It's not remotely excused.

00:13:34.240 I'm just trying to explain that there are deep-seated problems here,

00:13:38.420 and poverty and desperation have not nearly as much to do with it as people think.

00:13:44.980 And of course, the other major factor, even more significant,

00:13:47.260 is that many of these criminals were raised in homes without any parental guidance,

00:13:50.780 where there was no effort put into their moral formation.

00:13:53.200 After all, you know, even if you are low IQ,

00:13:57.380 that doesn't mean that you have to become a violent criminal.

00:14:00.140 Being raised correctly, no matter how smart you are,

00:14:03.520 can guard against that sort of outcome pretty effectively.

00:14:06.620 But these were not, these people were not raised correctly or raised at all, really.

00:14:11.280 And so here we are.

00:14:12.080 But all these factors together create a very disturbing situation.

00:14:16.540 The lack of moral guidance, the lack of proper adult supervision growing up,

00:14:20.160 the lack of spiritual formation, the lack of intellect,

00:14:22.660 altogether mean that no matter what Tessa Farrell says to these people, it won't matter.

00:14:28.960 Now, she understands the concept of empathy.

00:14:30.860 They don't.

00:14:32.440 She doesn't really understand human nature.

00:14:35.660 That's one of the problems.

00:14:36.860 And that's why everything she says in that video is pointless.

00:14:41.660 It's also why every politician's effort to rehabilitate these people is a waste of time.

00:14:46.460 They quite literally don't even know what rehabilitation means.

00:14:48.880 And that's why the only thing you can do with them is remove them from society,

00:14:53.860 put them in prison, lock them away.

00:14:55.520 It's the only thing.

00:14:56.600 It's the only thing that can be done.

00:15:00.020 Now, is it possible for these sorts of people to be redeemed?

00:15:05.320 The type who casually kill another human being after stealing from his car?

00:15:10.180 The sort of person who would kill somebody over a catalytic converter?

00:15:14.620 Can that person be redeemed?

00:15:17.400 Well, as a Christian, I have to believe that they can as a matter of faith.

00:15:21.780 But it takes a supernatural intervention to bring that about.

00:15:25.840 And the simple fact of the matter is that the vast majority of violent criminals

00:15:29.400 will never be functional members of society ever in their lives.

00:15:34.200 That's a fact, whether we like it or not.

00:15:38.580 Which is why our only choice is to lock them away forever and let God be the judge at the end.

00:15:44.400 That's not for us to do.

00:15:46.800 But we can make judgments about them in this life.

00:15:49.420 We have to.

00:15:49.920 And one of the judgments is, 0.99

00:15:50.900 you are a dangerous, dysfunctional person. 0.99

00:15:55.920 We cannot live around you. 1.00

00:15:59.220 Now, even leftist politicians understand this to some extent,

00:16:01.740 which is why they never blame criminals for their own actions.

00:16:04.760 They find others to blame, sometimes to comical effect.

00:16:07.020 A year ago, there was a video of a Los Angeles city councilwoman named Nithya Rahman

00:16:11.840 that made the rounds.

00:16:12.840 And she was announcing her decision to vote against a measure that would have,

00:16:15.960 quote, made it unlawful for any person to possess a detached catalytic converter

00:16:19.340 unless valid documentation or other proof of lawful possession can be produced.

00:16:24.100 The point of the measure, obviously,

00:16:25.600 is to help prevent the kinds of thefts that led to the death of Johnny Wachter.

00:16:29.360 Ultimately, the measure passed.

00:16:31.340 But before it did, Rahman explained why she opposed it.

00:16:34.620 She said that Toyota was responsible for the thefts of catalytic converters,

00:16:38.120 not the thieves, because they made the catalytic converters too easy to steal.

00:16:43.460 So it's their fault.

00:16:44.480 Watch.

00:16:45.960 We have a company, you know, the Prius, whatever, Toyota,

00:16:51.220 who made the Prius, that essentially has a device on their cars,

00:16:57.500 which is super easy to remove.

00:16:59.960 It's basically the value of a MacBook, right,

00:17:03.240 that is put in a place that is incredibly easy to access in your car.

00:17:08.920 And then the thefts related to this issue have essentially all of the costs of that

00:17:13.740 are given to us to bear instead of them having to manufacture a car

00:17:18.420 that actually is not so easy to be stolen.

00:17:21.940 So the government requires car manufacturers to place catalytic converters on cars with the Clean Air Act.

00:17:28.980 And now the government blames car manufacturers for making these converters too easy to steal.

00:17:33.060 Now, to be fair, it's true that a lot of cars have their catalytic converters in the engine bay now where they're less accessible to thieves.

00:17:38.960 But the reason these thefts have increased in the last six years has nothing to do with their placement on vehicles.

00:17:43.260 If it did, the thefts will be declining, not increasing, as more manufacturers place the converters in the engine bay.

00:17:49.020 Now, the reason these thefts are skyrocketing is that the police have stopped enforcing the law

00:17:53.380 and DAs have stopped prosecuting crime.

00:17:56.400 Rather than admit that, Los Angeles politicians are blaming car manufacturers.

00:18:01.200 These are the lengths that leftists in Los Angeles will go in order to absolve criminals' responsibility for their own actions.

00:18:07.600 They'd rather blame Toyota than hire more police to prevent these crimes,

00:18:11.580 which are brazen in pretty much every case.

00:18:13.420 And the family and friends of the victim, in turn, are hopelessly confused about why their loved one is dead.

00:18:19.120 And by the way, whether you think these criminals are responsible for their actions or not,

00:18:23.720 it actually shouldn't even matter.

00:18:25.980 Like, you could make the argument that if most of these criminals are low IQ,

00:18:29.080 they were raised in dysfunctional, neglectful homes,

00:18:31.640 then to some extent, it isn't their fault they turned out the way they did.

00:18:35.560 You could say that, hey, if I was in the exact same situation,

00:18:38.700 maybe I'd be out stealing catalytic converters too.

00:18:40.720 Maybe.

00:18:41.940 Now, I think the argument only goes so far.

00:18:43.600 Ultimately, we have free will.

00:18:44.720 We all make choices, and we should be held accountable for them.

00:18:47.520 But it actually doesn't matter.

00:18:49.320 It's all academic, because either way, the violent criminals must be removed from society.

00:18:54.100 And in fact, I would argue that if they are indeed not responsible for their actions,

00:18:58.000 that's all the more reason to remove them,

00:18:59.840 because it means all the more that they probably can't be rehabilitated.

00:19:04.800 So this is usually how it goes after a senseless murder.

00:19:07.320 It's exactly what you saw in that video.

00:19:08.560 We hear from friends and family calling on the community to come together.

00:19:12.780 Sometimes they advocate on behalf of the murderer, 1.00

00:19:15.480 telling us to be understanding and forgiving of the scumbag who murdered their loved one. 0.99

00:19:18.920 We see this kind of thing all the time. 0.99

00:19:20.060 Well, you know, as important as forgiveness is,

00:19:26.660 just once, I'd like to see someone in that situation calling for justice and punishment,

00:19:35.220 like showing real righteous anger.

00:19:39.160 I'd like to hear something like this.

00:19:41.920 This criminal killed somebody I love.

00:19:43.540 I hope that he's brought to justice and that justice is swift and severe. 0.75

00:19:46.560 I want him punished severely.

00:19:48.360 I want him removed from society. 0.97

00:19:50.040 That's what I want.

00:19:52.460 That's a much healthier response.

00:19:54.040 And it would actually solve the problem, too,

00:19:55.640 because a very small percentage of the population is responsible for an overwhelming amount of violent crime.

00:19:59.940 But you rarely hear anyone talking about that anymore.

00:20:03.440 The people committing these crimes don't understand much,

00:20:06.080 but they understand exactly what's happening right now in cities like Los Angeles.

00:20:11.280 And at the expense of innocent men like Johnny Wachter,

00:20:14.640 they're taking full advantage of the opportunity.

00:20:18.740 Let's get to our five headlines.

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00:21:14.240 We'll start with this from Daily Wire.

00:21:16.200 Trans-identifying women, biological women who identify as men,

00:21:18.960 are suffering menopausal symptoms after taking testosterone.

00:21:22.820 A new study shows symptoms like incontinence, sexual dysfunction,

00:21:26.540 and even bedwetting were found among women in their 20s. 0.90

00:21:30.340 We tried to medically transition with cross-sex hormones, 0.97

00:21:32.740 according to a study published last month in the International Eurogynecology Journal,

00:21:38.220 and led by researchers at the Federal University of Parnambuco in Brazil.

00:21:42.400 The researchers looked at 68 trans-identifying women who were taking testosterone.

00:21:46.160 The women were as young as 18, but had an average age of 28. 1.00

00:21:50.020 The study found that more than 94% of the trans-identifying women

00:21:52.480 experienced some type of pelvic floor dysfunction.

00:21:55.280 About 87% experienced urinary symptoms, such as incontinence,

00:21:58.620 frequent bathroom visits, including during the night, and bedwetting.

00:22:02.860 Women taking testosterone were about three times more likely to suffer from urinary continence 0.81

00:22:06.220 or urine accidentally leaking than women not on the drug.

00:22:09.440 About 25% of trans-identifying women had this symptom compared to 8% of other women,

00:22:13.540 the study found.

00:22:15.020 About 74% of the women had bowel issues, such as constipation 0.98

00:22:18.540 or being unable to hold in stool or flatulence.

00:22:20.940 Other symptoms included burning sensations and difficulty urinating and defecating.

00:22:27.420 Elaine Miller, a pelvic health physiotherapist who has worked with around 20 detransitioners,

00:22:32.900 noted that bladder issues are embarrassing,

00:22:34.540 a profound impact on the lives of these young people, of course.

00:22:38.580 She says, quote,

00:22:39.520 It's really sad when we hear people say,

00:22:41.120 nobody ever told me this,

00:22:43.240 and they should have been informed of the risks in the gender clinics.

00:22:48.840 Okay, so yet another study showing the horrible effects of these drugs.

00:22:54.880 And I say effects and not side effects for a reason,

00:22:57.660 because I actually disagree with the last thing that I read there.

00:23:01.460 Miller says they should have been informed of the risks in gender clinics.

00:23:09.820 Now, it's a little bit of semantics here, I suppose,

00:23:12.120 because the overall message is correct, obviously.

00:23:14.800 I agree with her overall message.

00:23:16.300 But it is worth noting that this stuff, it's not a risk, right?

00:23:25.740 It's not a side effect.

00:23:27.780 It's not what might happen if things go wrong when you start the transition process.

00:23:34.120 It is the point.

00:23:35.760 The point is to harm your body.

00:23:37.760 It's to cause dysfunction.

00:23:39.740 That is literally the point.

00:23:41.200 You are a female, and your body is functioning as female bodies are meant to. 1.00

00:23:44.900 And the point of the drugs is to interfere with that, to stop it, to suppress it.

00:23:51.620 Okay, there's nothing, if you're going for gender transition, 0.79

00:23:54.420 it's not because there's anything wrong with your body.

00:23:56.900 It's not because your body's doing things that it's not supposed to do,

00:24:00.320 which is usually when, that's what a doctor is supposed to actually,

00:24:03.080 that's what medicine is really meant for.

00:24:06.120 It's to heal or treat some sort of dysfunction with the body.

00:24:09.800 But there's no dysfunction.

00:24:15.000 So, in fact, you are causing it.

00:24:17.180 You're causing the dysfunction.

00:24:19.400 So, it's like if, you know, somebody said that a side effect of diving headfirst into an empty pool

00:24:28.720 is that you might end up paralyzed.

00:24:31.820 They said, well, that's a side effect.

00:24:33.520 That's a risk.

00:24:34.160 Yeah, I mean, in a certain sense, it's a risk, but it's not how you phrase it.

00:24:41.460 It's not a side effect.

00:24:42.380 The paralysis, in that case, is a perfectly natural consequence of the thing that you are doing.

00:24:48.760 It is a direct, natural consequence of the thing,

00:24:52.620 and the thing is diving headfirst into an empty pool.

00:24:55.420 Okay, it would actually be much more of a side effect or an unintended consequence

00:24:58.740 if you dove headfirst and were not injured.

00:25:02.280 That would be the anomaly.

00:25:03.460 You know, that's like what should be in the fine print.

00:25:09.700 It's like you dive headfirst into the pool.

00:25:11.520 Here's all the stuff that's almost certainly going to happen

00:25:13.420 because it's an inherently dangerous act and an inherently self-destructive act to do that.

00:25:18.180 And then like in the fine print, it's like, oh, yeah, I mean,

00:25:20.780 I guess there's a chance that you'll be okay.

00:25:24.280 It's possible.

00:25:25.160 I mean, it's possible you could dive headfirst and not be injured.

00:25:28.680 It's possible you could dive headfirst into an empty pool

00:25:30.760 and even somehow have a positive experience.

00:25:33.640 I mean, I'm certainly not encouraging it, but it's not logically impossible.

00:25:43.300 It is possible.

00:25:44.240 It's possible in the same way that pigs could actually fly.

00:25:46.900 Like, it is possible, logically speaking.

00:25:49.180 And so it is possible to do something harmful and yet somehow not be harmed.

00:25:57.040 But being harmed by the harmful thing, that is what should be expected.

00:26:03.180 That's not any sort of anomalous, strange, unexpected result.

00:26:07.440 And it's the same thing with this, although I think I'm even kind of underselling it

00:26:15.700 by comparing these gender transition drugs to diving headfirst into an empty pool. 0.99

00:26:20.040 Because like I said, if you dive headfirst into an empty pool,

00:26:22.140 there is a possibility that you could actually walk away totally unscathed.

00:26:26.160 Not at all likely, but there's a possibility.

00:26:29.080 When you start taking the drugs, like, you're not, it's actually basically impossible

00:26:33.220 that you will walk away.

00:26:34.020 Something, it is going to have an effect on your body and that effect is going to be harmful.

00:26:41.700 No matter what.

00:26:42.540 It's just how harmful is it going to be.

00:26:44.860 That's the only question.

00:26:46.040 It's a matter of degrees.

00:26:48.440 And for a lot of people, it's going to be deeply harmful.

00:26:54.300 And the only question, really, this is the only question.

00:26:59.220 The only question is, yes, you're going to be harmed by this.

00:27:04.020 But for how long will you be able to convince yourself that you like the way you've been harmed?

00:27:19.840 So what story about that harm that you're doing to your body will you tell yourself?

00:27:25.420 And all of the people who go through this process and claim at the end of it that they feel good about it

00:27:37.160 and it turned out great, a lot of them are just straight up lying directly, explicitly lying.

00:27:42.420 But all of them are lying, at least to themselves.

00:27:47.200 So if they're reporting positive outcomes, then it's only because they have told themselves a story.

00:27:52.100 They've come up with a story about what they've done to themselves.

00:27:55.180 And to some extent, they believe their own story.

00:27:58.640 But it's only a question of for how long will they believe it?

00:28:00.800 How long will they believe the story they're telling themselves?

00:28:03.260 And when they stop believing that story, they're going to look at themselves and their bodies and say,

00:28:08.480 Oh, my God, what have I done?

00:28:10.800 And that will happen to almost all of them.

00:28:16.580 I just want to, we've mentioned this a few times, but I feel the need to mention it again because May 27th.

00:28:24.180 Well, here's the website Vancouver City News put out this article, and this was on May 27th, a couple of days ago.

00:28:34.000 May 27th marks a grim anniversary.

00:28:36.320 Three years ago, on Monday, hundreds of suspected unmarked graves were discovered at a residential school site in Kamloops.

00:28:43.340 The graves of 215 children, some as young as three years old, were found on the site,

00:28:47.300 what was once Canada's largest indigenous residential school.

00:28:51.600 And I don't even need to read the entire article.

00:28:53.520 The point is that this article exists, that it was published on May 27th of this year.

00:29:01.360 I'm not reading something from last year or two years ago.

00:29:05.420 And I'm not going to go into great detail again about the fact that this is all completely false.

00:29:08.880 We've talked about that, including very recently, last week even.

00:29:11.880 But it is completely false.

00:29:14.260 It's all a lie.

00:29:14.760 The Mass Gray story is a hoax.

00:29:16.240 It's not true.

00:29:17.060 And we know that now.

00:29:17.800 What's interesting to me here is the fact that a few days after another round of articles saying, again, that this is debunked, it's a hoax, it didn't happen, there's no evidence of it.

00:29:33.960 A few days later, you got a media outlet putting out another story, like as if none of that happened.

00:29:39.520 Just pretend it doesn't exist.

00:29:40.860 They chug right along with the lie as if it hasn't already been debunked ten times over.

00:29:49.240 And this is what it means to live in a post-truth society.

00:29:54.040 Which, when I say a post-truth society, I'm not saying that we live in a society, we live in a period after truth as if truth doesn't exist.

00:30:03.820 Truth still exists, but rather we live in a society where the dominant ideology believes that truth is whatever they say it is.

00:30:12.920 So this is the consequence of that.

00:30:15.400 This is the consequence of living in a, you know, all the my truth stuff.

00:30:19.660 This is a consequence of that point of view.

00:30:24.040 So, really the only question is when you hear, when these media outlets continue, whether it's this false narrative or we talked last week about Michael Brown, George Floyd.

00:30:36.580 We've had, in fact, May, the end of May is quite a time for anniversaries of left-wing hoaxes.

00:30:45.380 And we've had quite a few of them recently.

00:30:49.680 But when they continue to spread these falsehoods, the only interesting question, it's not interesting to ask whether or not it's true.

00:30:57.200 We know that it's not true.

00:30:58.640 The only interesting question is the people that's spreading it.

00:31:01.020 To what extent do they believe what they're saying?

00:31:05.280 Are they just fully consciously lying?

00:31:11.220 I think certainly there's plenty of that going on as well.

00:31:15.060 But we also have to remember that when you hear stuff like, this is my truth, that isn't just some corny, cliche slogan that you hear online all the time.

00:31:25.840 We're dealing with a society where millions of people really believe that.

00:31:29.500 That's how they look at the world.

00:31:30.420 They really do think that the truth is just, that's what the truth is.

00:31:33.540 It's whatever you happen to want the truth to be, whatever you happen to feel, that is truth, because it's what you want.

00:31:42.160 And so the point is that I think there are actually a lot of people who truly struggle to see the distinction between what is true and what I want to be true.

00:31:56.800 To them, those two things are inextricable.

00:32:00.920 They're the same.

00:32:02.360 They struggled.

00:32:04.180 If you try to separate those two concepts, what you want to be true from what is true, their brain breaks.

00:32:09.940 They don't understand how those two things can be separate.

00:32:14.000 And it is, to say the least, a very troubling thing to live in a society where you've got plenty of adults, you have millions of adults, really, who think this way.

00:32:24.360 But that's the situation we're in.

00:32:26.800 It's the kind of thinking that used to be relegated only to very young children.

00:32:37.260 Okay, like my four-year-old daughter is, she's already at the age of four, at an age where, she's well into the age where she can start to understand the distinction between those two things.

00:32:51.580 A two- or three-year-old can't.

00:32:54.520 Like for a two- or three-year-old, they want something to be true, and so therefore it is.

00:32:58.540 And they really don't, the idea that, well, okay, I can want this to be true, but it isn't, even though I really want it to be.

00:33:08.140 They don't, two or three years old, they just don't, they can't grasp that.

00:33:12.660 They don't have that level of discernment.

00:33:14.440 They don't have that level, that very basic level of insight into just kind of like the nature of reality.

00:33:21.460 And that's fine at two or three years old.

00:33:25.880 Once you get to four years old, you're starting to understand that, okay, like there can be things about the world that I wish weren't true, but actually are, and that's really unfortunate.

00:33:34.200 And then you get to five and six, and once a kid is five, six, seven years old, they should fully grasp this.

00:33:40.900 They should be able to fully grasp it.

00:33:42.420 They might have trouble dealing with it emotionally.

00:33:44.140 That's why you might still get kids who have meltdowns and that sort of thing, because they can't deal with the, they have trouble dealing with the frustration of living in a world where they don't get to determine what the truth is.

00:33:54.760 But they should at least understand it intellectually.

00:33:58.920 The problem is that, I mean, at seven years old, you should understand that, but we have 37-year-olds walking, we have 57-year-olds walking around who don't get it, they don't understand this.

00:34:09.200 And that's one of the ways that these false narratives continues to spread.

00:34:17.060 All right, Chelsea Handler has some thoughts on the Harrison Butker situation.

00:34:23.280 We can always turn to her for speaking of insight, for a great insight and great discernment.

00:34:28.820 Let's listen to this.

00:34:30.980 As you may have heard, there's a man by the name of Harrison Butker who's talking more than I typically like for a male.

00:34:37.360 He's a kicker for the Kansas City Chiefs, and I learned that kickers rarely get tackled.

00:34:41.880 So based on his misogynistic rant during a recent commencement address, I'm guessing this Bible-thumper thumped himself a little too hard with his Bible and gave himself CTE.

00:34:52.000 Some of you may go on to lead successful careers in the world, but I would venture to guess that the majority of you are most excited about your marriage and the children you will bring into this world.

00:35:00.500 And embrace one of the most important titles of all, Hallmaker. 0.99

00:35:03.220 First of all, Harrison, you're a kicker, so you have one important part of your body, and it's not your f***ing brain. 0.78

00:35:08.820 I can tell you that my beautiful wife, Isabel, would be the first to say that her life truly started when she began living her vocation as a wife and as a mother. 0.98

00:35:14.000 Isabel's dream of having a career might not have come true, but if you asked her today if she has any regrets on her decision, she would laugh out loud without hesitation and say, heck no.

00:35:20.720 Isabel, please blink twice if you need us to call for help.

00:35:23.660 But the real kicker is that Harrison Butker's mother is a renowned physicist who has a degree in chemistry and a master's in medical physics.

00:35:32.660 So, who paid for all those youth athletic team fees and uniform fees and equipment fees when Harrison was a kid so he could grow up to have a career making millions of dollars for f***ing kicking things?

00:35:44.700 My guess is a working woman. 0.99

00:35:46.880 Harrison, this is the first time I've heard about you and hopefully the last.

00:35:49.720 And after this, I'm going to go ahead and do what your fellow teammate does and just pretend like you don't exist.

00:35:55.320 I don't talk to Harrison all year long, man. I just let him do his thing.

00:35:58.100 We sit right beside each other in team meeting and I don't say one word.

00:36:04.240 Okay, so Harrison Butker's mom is a physicist.

00:36:07.620 Oh, wow. Well, that completely debunks what Harrison said, apparently.

00:36:12.420 Doesn't it?

00:36:13.480 Yes, it refutes it in so many ways.

00:36:15.520 Ways like, well, oh, that's right.

00:36:20.400 Yeah, that's complete nonsense.

00:36:21.580 It doesn't refute it at all.

00:36:22.980 Because Harrison never said that women can't be physicists. 1.00

00:36:26.520 He never said that women shouldn't get jobs. 0.82

00:36:29.120 He only said that many women in that audience at that Catholic school are most excited to become wives and mothers.

00:36:36.180 He said that homemaker is one of the most important titles.

00:36:40.020 All of that happens to be true.

00:36:43.280 And it doesn't present any kind of mutually exclusive choice.

00:36:46.340 A woman could go out and get a job while also being most excited about becoming a wife and a mother. 1.00

00:36:52.320 Both of those things can be true at once.

00:36:55.860 And, you know, the funny thing about all this and what makes this never-ending controversy so especially absurd is that Harrison,

00:37:02.020 while he gave a great speech, and it was a very good speech, he didn't go nearly as far or as trad, quote-unquote, as he could have.

00:37:14.220 You know, that's maybe the saddest thing about this is that, like, it was a pretty, you know, again, good speech, pretty safe, pretty kind of, you know, down, like I say, down the middle.

00:37:28.220 But it was conservative, but it's, you know, pretty mainstream, all things considered, especially on this particular topic.

00:37:37.300 And yet, even that can get this kind of reaction.

00:37:44.160 He's being accused of saying a lot of things that he could have said and would have been justified in saying, but he didn't actually happen to say those things.

00:37:53.040 He could have said, for example, that society needs mothers much more than it needs female CEOs.

00:38:01.900 He could have said that, and it would have been true. 1.00

00:38:04.520 But he didn't say that.

00:38:07.820 He didn't say it.

00:38:08.740 He could have offered an explicit defense of gender roles.

00:38:14.100 Like, he could have got up there and said, gender roles are actually good. 1.00

00:38:18.580 And the more that we get away from those in society, the more that society breaks down.

00:38:23.140 There actually is no functional option outside of some notion of gender roles.

00:38:27.640 We've discovered that.

00:38:30.060 He could have said that.

00:38:31.060 But, but, but he didn't, he didn't, that's just not what he said.

00:38:35.020 He's, he's being, he's being condemned as though he had said that, but he didn't say that.

00:38:41.080 He could have said that, in fact, he could have said that all women, all women are called to a maternal role, just as all men are called to a paternal role.

00:38:53.800 And for most men and women, that will take a biological form.

00:38:58.760 In some cases, there are some women and some men who will fulfill that vocation of motherhood or fatherhood in a different way.

00:39:05.660 But any man or woman who just flat out rejects that vocation entirely and instead pursues a life of self-service, that that person will have failed at life and also will be destined and doomed to be miserable.

00:39:27.580 He could have, he could have said that, but he, he didn't even say any of that.

00:39:32.420 And, you know, I'm not criticizing his speech, by the way.

00:39:35.700 I'm only pointing out that he really gave the most mainstream sort of moderate version of this message.

00:39:43.020 And he tailored the message in such a way that it's, it's really impossible for any intelligent person to honestly disagree with, in particular, that part that Chelsea Handler played there.

00:39:57.720 And that was a smart strategy, by the way, given the occasion, given the audience, given who he is, he is an NFL player.

00:40:05.700 Like, given all of that, I think the way that he framed it and the way that he approached it, it's very smart.

00:40:10.420 It was a smart way to do it.

00:40:11.460 But people are still reacting to it as if he'd said all the stuff that, like, I would have said, for instance, you know, which, which just goes to show that there is, there's no way of approaching this message that will not end with you being condemned as an extremist by the left.

00:40:36.160 And this is a situation that they have created.

00:40:41.460 Where on the left, they're not willing to listen to any, like, you cannot venture outside of their framework, even a single inch.

00:40:51.260 And if you do, it's not just that, like, if you go an inch outside of their framework, they'll be a little bit peeved.

00:40:59.020 It's that anything that's an inch outside of their framework is automatically the most extreme right wing position in the world.

00:41:06.180 Everything is.

00:41:06.840 And so they've created a situation where there's really no incentive at all to try to compromise with them.

00:41:13.940 Not that I'm saying that Harrison was taking a compromised position, but my point is just more broadly now that it's like, well, why would I even try to appeal to you at all?

00:41:28.960 Why would I, no matter what I say, unless I'm totally agreeing with you on everything, no matter what I say, I'm a right wing extremist by your, by your telling.

00:41:39.440 So, like, why would I, so, okay, I'll just be a right wing extremist then.

00:41:41.960 Why not?

00:41:42.560 Like, I am no matter what, so I might as well take, there's, you've created no incentive to listen to anything that you say or to try to compromise or whatever.

00:41:59.660 Now, even if they created incentives to compromise, I would still be against compromising with them.

00:42:03.400 But my only point is that this is what they've, like, everything, there's a, there's a, there's a wide array of views on all of these topics that have now all been put in the box of right wing extremism.

00:42:21.160 To the extent that even if you simply say that most women at a Catholic school are most excited about getting married, that's all you said.

00:42:31.380 You didn't even say anything else outside of that.

00:42:33.400 Everything else is a conclusion people are drawing.

00:42:37.880 That even that is treated this way.

00:42:40.920 And as for Chelsea Handler, of course, she is, continues to be, I think, a cautionary tale for women everywhere.

00:42:50.520 That this is what, you know, this is what bitterness turns you into.

00:42:55.240 She's just such a bitter, unappealing person on, you know, across, in every way, that's what she is. 0.65

00:43:03.400 And the funny thing is that, you know, Harrison Butker in his speech gave, you know, a vision of what he considers rightly to be the good life.

00:43:18.300 And he says that, you know, most women, they become mothers and wives, and it's one of the most important roles that they'll fulfill, and you'll find purpose and meaning in family.

00:43:29.360 Same for men, you know, men and women both.

00:43:32.200 That will be, not that men will also become mothers and wives, but men also will find purpose and meaning in family life, playing their own role.

00:43:39.480 And that is one basic vision for the human person.

00:43:47.260 Chelsea Handler displays, like, the other vision, really.

00:43:52.360 She's kind of, this is the diametric opposite.

00:43:55.700 This is the other path you could take.

00:43:59.900 And who could look at that?

00:44:02.600 I mean, who can look at Chelsea Handler and say, oh, yeah, I want to be like that.

00:44:06.580 By the time I'm 50, I want to be Chelsea Handler.

00:44:09.960 I want to have her life.

00:44:12.120 I want to be the way that she is.

00:44:14.320 Who could say that?

00:44:15.560 Nobody can say that.

00:44:16.520 And I think that's all, in a way, that's all that needs to be said, I suppose.

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00:44:55.680 Now let's get to our daily cancellation.

00:45:03.580 I still vividly remember when I got my driver's license.

00:45:06.560 I jumped in the driver's seat of my parents' green Ford Escort, popped in a CD with a mix of songs I'd downloaded from Napster for this very occasion, sped off down the road feeling like the freest person on earth.

00:45:18.400 Of course, I didn't really have anywhere to go, so I ended up driving around aimlessly for a little while, and then I eventually stopped at CVS and bought some Red Bull and gum and then headed back home.

00:45:27.920 So it wasn't much of an adventure, but I pulled back into my driveway feeling like I'd returned from some sort of expedition.

00:45:34.000 I'd only gone to the pharmacy and purchased $3.50 worth of items, but the important thing is that I went there.

00:45:40.260 I went there myself, alone, independently.

00:45:43.200 It was just me, the open road, and my illegally downloaded early 2000s alt-rock playlist.

00:45:48.440 Every adult my age or older has a similar experience and remembers it well.

00:45:53.620 It's one of the iconic moments of your teenage years, your first time driving on your own, the first time being or at least feeling fully independent.

00:46:04.040 Of course, a lot of people also remember their high school proms and graduations and stuff like that.

00:46:08.160 I remember those only vaguely and as overall sort of lame and overrated experiences.

00:46:13.000 But this, driving, this lived up to all the hype.

00:46:17.800 It is the real modern American rite of passage, or at least it was, because all of this seems to be changing.

00:46:24.740 And like so many other changes these days, not for the better.

00:46:27.300 According to a new study, Gen Z seems to be the first generation of young people to have little to no interest in driving.

00:46:34.620 The New York Post reports, quote,

00:46:35.860 Zoomers are seemingly rewriting the teenage rite of passage script, opting for tech over tires as they steer a cultural shift away from the traditional rush to the open road. 0.98

00:46:45.380 New research from MarketWatch Guides found that the youngest group of drivers, ages 19 and under, make up only 1 in 25, or approximately 3.6% of licensed drivers in the U.S.

00:46:55.320 Taking all drivers under age 25 into account brings the combined percentage to 11% of the driving force.

00:47:01.440 In the past, getting a license at 16 was an integral milestone in the journey toward adulthood.

00:47:05.880 But 2021 data from the Federal Highway Administration indicated the percentage of 16-year-olds who had a license had dropped to 25% from 46% in the 80s. 0.93

00:47:14.540 Now, I fully understand that you as an adult, an adult driver on the road, might be thinking to yourself, okay, fewer dumb kids driving. 0.66

00:47:26.120 What's the problem? 0.92

00:47:27.320 And I certainly understand that attitude, but it is actually a problem.

00:47:31.520 And I'll explain why.

00:47:32.540 But first, it's important to understand that this is a real observable trend, not just a matter of anecdotes.

00:47:37.140 In a report a few months ago, Newsweek also noted that Gen Z is choosing not to drive.

00:47:40.960 You don't have to go all the way back to the 1980s to see how stark this decline has been.

00:47:45.200 Reading from the article, quote,

00:47:46.600 Gen Z, the generation born after 1997, appears to be less enamored by the prospect of driving than previous generations,

00:47:51.020 according to consulting firm McKinsey, with potential implications for the future of the car industry.

00:47:55.760 This group of Americans is less likely to have a license than its older counterparts at the same age.

00:47:59.660 McKinsey points out that in 1997, 43% of 16-year-olds and 62% of 17-year-olds held a license.

00:48:04.880 But those numbers have dropped substantially.

00:48:06.580 And by 2020, only 25% of 16-year-olds and 45% of 17-year-olds have a driver's license,

00:48:12.920 consulting firm said, citing data from the U.S. Federal Highway Administration.

00:48:16.560 And the question, of course, is why the Zoomers have given up on driving. 1.00

00:48:21.080 Some of the reporting on the trend seems to want to position this as a bold, revolutionary new approach to life.

00:48:26.900 But there's nothing bold about it, and very much the opposite, in fact.

00:48:30.600 What's fueling this trend is the same thing fueling every other aspect of life for the younger generations.

00:48:36.700 They're lazy, they're scared, and they're addicted to their phones.

00:48:40.460 Gen Z isn't driving because it takes effort to learn, and they don't want to make the effort. 1.00

00:48:44.740 There's risk involved, and they don't want to take the risk.

00:48:47.800 And it's something that requires you to look up from your phone, and they certainly don't want to do that.

00:48:52.240 Back to the New York Post, quote,

00:48:53.440 Social media access and texting have eliminated some of the need to meet up with friends to socialize as teens and young adults might have in the past.

00:49:00.700 Even the workforce has changed, with a larger percentage going hybrid or completely virtual since the COVID pandemic.

00:49:05.180 Mental health could also be to blame, with the anxious generation tag getting slapped onto Gen Z increasingly often.

00:49:09.960 On some level, fear of car accidents could also be the blame for the driver drop-off.

00:49:13.860 Quote, the reality is tens of thousands of people die every year in car accidents.

00:49:18.320 David Straughan, a senior automotive journalist and researcher at MarketWatch Guides, said.

00:49:23.740 That was much more an accepted risk, perhaps, for previous generations.

00:49:27.420 And I think that it's very logical to be scared of driving a car.

00:49:30.760 The most dangerous thing most people do is driving to work in the morning and driving home in the evening.

00:49:34.860 Well, we all learn from that quote is that David Straughan probably should not be on the roads either.

00:49:42.280 Because it is, in fact, not logical to be scared of driving.

00:49:46.920 It's rather the result of crippling and unreasonable anxiety.

00:49:51.120 The Today Show recently interviewed a 23-year-old woman who is representative of this unreasonable driving fear and anxiety.

00:49:58.860 Watch.

00:50:00.520 Nationwide, driving schools report teens are foregoing licenses not just in cities

00:50:04.360 where public transport's easier, but in less populated areas, too.

00:50:08.500 23-year-old Madison Morgan grew up in rural Washington state and still doesn't have a license.

00:50:14.140 Driving is honestly just very anxiety-inducing.

00:50:19.160 When I would practice with my parents, a lot of times it would end in tears.

00:50:24.400 Now working in Seattle, she takes the bus to work, but says her parents still beg her to learn how to drive

00:50:29.820 so she can have more options career-wise. 0.98

00:50:31.920 They want me to get a license so that if I ever wanted to move, I wouldn't be as limited.

00:50:37.960 But why would I want to have my own car when I can just, like, go on an app and someone else in their car can just drive me around?

00:50:45.160 Yes, why would you want to have any semblance of independence or self-sufficiency when you can just be entirely dependent on other people to do everything for you?

00:50:55.420 What exactly is the problem with young people not driving?

00:50:57.660 Well, there are a lot of problems, but let's focus on the two big ones.

00:50:59.940 First, this is another basic life skill that a huge number of adults will now lack.

00:51:06.300 And this decline in life skills has been happening for decades now, of course, but it's now reached a troubling threshold.

00:51:10.800 Many adults in my generation, for example, don't know how to change a tire.

00:51:16.100 A survey back in 2016 measured this and found that even eight years ago, 60% of drivers were not confident in their ability to change a tire.

00:51:24.860 And now we're entering a world where millions of adults don't know how to change a tire on the car and also don't know how to drive the car.

00:51:31.540 Now, it's not as much of a problem for people to lose the ability to operate a piece of technology if that technology itself is antiquated.

00:51:40.000 Almost everybody in Gen Z would be clueless about how to make a phone call with a rotary phone, but they'll never have to deal with a rotary phone, so that's all right. 0.98

00:51:47.260 Who cares?

00:51:47.680 The problem is that Gen Z is just as dependent on cars as people have been for the past many decades. 0.97

00:51:53.500 It's just that they don't know how to operate the cars.

00:51:55.720 They need other people to do it for them, which means that people are increasingly becoming more dependent, more vulnerable, more helpless with each successive generation.

00:52:06.420 There really is no silver lining to a trend like that, at least not one that overrides the downside.

00:52:12.760 Second, older generations have always complained about the younger generation.

00:52:17.800 That's true.

00:52:18.240 This is a time-honored tradition going back to the time of Socrates and long before that, but the nature of the complaints has changed in a disturbing way.

00:52:29.260 You know, old fogies like myself used to complain that the young whippersnappers are too wild, too reckless, too sure of themselves, too prone to taking unreasonable risks, too rebellious, and so on.

00:52:42.560 Well, now that's been flipped entirely on its head.

00:52:44.580 The younger generations now are too scared, too anxious, too risk-averse, too shy, too complacent.

00:52:52.960 These are deeply troubling characteristics because they're so unnatural for young people.

00:52:58.260 For millennia, since the dawn of human civilization, to be young was to be adventurous to a fault, taking unnecessary risks, being a bit foolhardy and arrogant, trying to conquer the world and thinking it could be done all in a day.

00:53:10.260 Now that spirit of adventure has been almost completely extinguished.

00:53:14.080 And the good news, I guess, is that many young people aren't taking foolish risks anymore.

00:53:20.320 So, and that is good news.

00:53:21.700 Like, you don't want to take foolish risks.

00:53:23.740 But that's because they refuse to take any risks at all.

00:53:27.660 Rather than lacking fear, which has historically been the folly of youth, they have far too much fear about everything.

00:53:34.960 Driving is a microcosm of the larger problem.

00:53:37.260 You know, when I was a teenager, my parents got very upset with me because I drove too fast and too far and I stayed out too late with the car.

00:53:47.000 You know, I was very much, too much enjoying the independence of having a car.

00:53:51.580 But now parents are upset for the opposite reason.

00:53:54.380 They're upset because their kids won't drive at all or go anywhere or do anything.

00:53:58.200 Now, yes, this means that they'll be physically safer in a certain sense for now, at least until obesity kills them down the line.

00:54:06.840 The downside of youthful risk-taking and adventurousness is that, yeah, injuries, accidents, even death can occur.

00:54:13.920 And all of that is very bad, obviously.

00:54:15.540 A youth culture dominated by laziness and complacency and anxiety and fear will help you avoid those tragic outcomes.

00:54:25.900 But it will also keep you from living a real human life, developing basic and necessary skills, achieving anything great or anything, period.

00:54:36.420 The energy of youth is supposed to be the thing that propels you into adulthood and sets you on a path to success.

00:54:41.200 What happens when the youth have no energy, when they're content to just sit around and remain dependent and powerless and feeble forever?

00:54:50.960 Well, I guess we're going to find out the answer to that question.

00:54:53.560 And my guess is that we won't like the answer very much.

00:54:56.740 And that is why the driving-averse Zoomers are today canceled. 1.00

00:55:03.440 That'll do it for the show today.

00:55:04.220 Thanks for watching.

00:55:04.740 Thanks for listening.

00:55:05.700 Talk to you tomorrow.

00:55:06.160 Have a great day.

00:55:07.000 Godspeed.

00:55:11.200 Godspeed.

00:55:12.200 Godspeed.

The Matt Walsh Show - May 29, 2024

Ep. 1377 - The Only Solution To The Violent Crime Epidemic

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