The Matt Walsh Show - Ep. 1590 - This Man Was Just Arrested For Murdering A Retired Cop. Now He’s Being Hailed As A Hero.

00:00:00.000 Today on the Matt Wall Show, this will sound like a rerun. A guy committed cold-blooded murder,

00:00:04.060 and now the social media mob is rallying around him. In this case, the victim was a retired

00:00:08.200 police officer. This is the third killer in the past few months to find a cheering section

00:00:12.220 on social media. What the hell's going on? Also, Trump delivers a perfect response to the totally

00:00:17.080 fake AI Pope Trump controversy. And the state of Virginia passes a law restricting social media use

00:00:23.000 for kids. I'm told this is a slippery slope and government overreach. I'm not persuaded.

00:00:27.380 We'll talk about all that and more today on the Matt Wall Show.

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00:01:31.520 spice. That's balanceofnature.com, promo code Walsh. Around 10 o'clock in the morning on Friday,

00:01:37.760 a man named Rodney Hinton went to his lawyer's office in Ohio and watched body camera footage

00:01:42.860 of his son's death. And in particular, the footage shows Hinton's 18-year-old son,

00:01:47.300 Ryan, emerging from a stolen vehicle while carrying a handgun. At one point,

00:01:51.380 Ryan drops the gun and then picks it up. And soon afterward, he's shot and killed by a police

00:01:56.900 officer. None of these facts are in dispute. The video makes it all very clear. Watch.

00:02:02.740 He's got a gun. He's got a gun on your right, on your right.

00:02:05.320 In a matter of seconds,

00:02:06.780 it all began with a stolen vehicle, a Kia from Edgewood, Kentucky.

00:02:12.780 GPS tracking led the investigation here, a condo complex in East Price Hill.

00:02:17.720 Officers arrived, and Chief Terry Fiji explains what happened next.

00:02:21.780 Yes, all four individuals get out and start running.

00:02:24.340 No, you're right. No, you're right.

00:02:25.580 Some in different directions. So officers decide which individual they're going to pursue.

00:02:31.980 One officer decides to pursue the individual who we now know had a firearm in his hand.

00:02:37.840 At some point, the person with the gun slips.

00:02:40.360 They heard the metal from the firearm, hit the concrete.

00:02:43.660 This individual gets up, still has a firearm in his hand, and continues to run through the dumpster.

00:02:52.200 Now, the reason the Hinton family was watching this footage in an attorney's office is that,

00:02:59.720 of course, they were contemplating a lawsuit against the city for wrongful death.

00:03:03.600 That was certainly what their attorney was thinking about.

00:03:05.580 In fact, even after viewing this footage, the family's lawyer, who incidentally works for the Cochran firm,

00:03:10.740 as in the late Johnny Cochran's firm, maintained that they had a case.

00:03:14.240 And here's what the family's lawyer said as a way of arguing that the police officers were somehow responsible in this scenario.

00:03:19.560 Quote,

00:03:19.760 Now, admittedly, it's not quite as catchy as if the glove doesn't fit, you must acquit,

00:03:33.100 but it's still a pretty remarkable line of argument from the Cochran firm, all things considered.

00:03:37.700 After watching the footage of Ryan Hinton exiting a stolen car with a handgun,

00:03:41.720 then dropping the handgun and picking it up as police chased him,

00:03:44.480 and then turning towards the officers, the conclusion from these lawyers is that Hinton

00:03:47.680 was murdered simply for open-carrying a firearm.

00:03:51.960 He got the death penalty for doing nothing wrong whatsoever.

00:03:55.620 Even though his gun wasn't holstered, and even though he was waving it around while committing a felony,

00:04:02.100 and even though all of this is recorded, we're supposed to conclude that Ryan Hinton was open-carrying,

00:04:07.540 and that's why he was shot.

00:04:09.800 Now, this is a level of shamelessness that, in another era,

00:04:14.080 would lead to a flurry of lawyer jokes on late-night television,

00:04:17.760 but it's not a joke to millions of people at the moment.

00:04:21.220 It certainly wasn't a joke to Rodney Hinton, the father of the teenager who was killed.

00:04:25.620 And just hours after he viewed the body camera footage of his son's death,

00:04:29.220 Rodney Hinton got in his car with the intent of executing a police officer.

00:04:33.660 He saw it as an act of revenge, and ultimately, he found a target.

00:04:37.180 He ran over a recently retired sheriff's deputy who was directing traffic

00:04:41.160 outside the commencement ceremony at the University of Cincinnati.

00:04:44.240 The slain officer, a Hamilton County deputy named Larry Henderson,

00:04:47.880 had never met the killer before.

00:04:49.320 They'd never exchanged words.

00:04:51.280 Watch.

00:04:53.120 Recently retired sheriff's deputy is dead.

00:04:55.360 after police say a driver intentionally hit him.

00:04:58.800 Thanks for joining us tonight.

00:04:59.780 I'm Tricia Mackey.

00:05:00.580 And I'm Rob Williams.

00:05:01.440 Cincinnati police say the driver is the father of an 18-year-old

00:05:04.900 who was shot and killed by police yesterday.

00:05:07.620 Cincinnati police say the father of the 18-year-old

00:05:10.320 who was shot and killed by Cincinnati police on Thursday

00:05:13.200 was driving the car that hit and killed a deputy Friday afternoon.

00:05:17.100 Rodney Hinton, Jr., is now charged with aggravated murder for the deputy's death.

00:05:21.640 Cincinnati police say the deputy was directing traffic ahead of UC's graduation ceremony

00:05:33.400 when he was struck by a vehicle entering the intersection.

00:05:36.900 It happened around 1 p.m. at the intersection of Martin Luther King Drive

00:05:40.000 and Burnett Woods Drive near UC's campus.

00:05:44.980 Now, Rodney Hinton knew that the police were justified in killing his son

00:05:49.640 because they had just watched the body camera footage.

00:05:51.920 He knew that the police did nothing wrong.

00:05:55.460 If the father wanted to revenge, take revenge on anyone for causing his son's death,

00:06:01.500 well, he should have taken revenge on himself.

00:06:04.800 I mean, if your 18-year-old son is out with a gun stealing cars,

00:06:08.900 it means you failed as a father.

00:06:10.740 Even a minimal amount of fatherly guidance would avoid a situation like that.

00:06:17.840 Kids make bad decisions doesn't always mean that it's an indictment on the parents.

00:06:21.800 But if a kid's only 18 and he's already out with a gun committing felonies,

00:06:25.060 then, like, yeah, you failed in the most basic way imaginable.

00:06:29.380 So blame yourself.

00:06:31.240 You know, it's on you.

00:06:32.940 But instead of taking revenge on himself,

00:06:34.920 Rodney Hinton decided to kill a police officer who was directing traffic.

00:06:37.640 So this should be an open and shut case in every sense. 0.98

00:06:41.420 The father is a murderer.

00:06:42.740 His revenge, obviously, cannot be justified legally.

00:06:47.360 And any hope of defending it morally is destroyed by the fact that,

00:06:52.420 I mean, it's murder.

00:06:53.220 It's destroyed by that.

00:06:54.440 But also, the shooting of Ryan Hinton was justified.

00:06:57.660 So it's not even like, you know, he's taking revenge on someone who murdered his kid.

00:07:02.600 And also, the cop he killed had nothing to do with it anyway.

00:07:05.980 So this is not like a Gary Plochet situation where a father ambushed and killed a man who kidnapped and molested his son.

00:07:14.260 This is an act of premeditated, cold-blooded murder against a random white cop who is entirely innocent and had nothing to do with the situation at all.

00:07:25.560 And yet, stop me if you've heard this one before,

00:07:28.880 this murderer is being lionized and defended on social media.

00:07:33.220 The father who just executed a sheriff's deputy in order to avenge his criminal son who flashed a gun to the cops

00:07:39.160 is the latest celebrity in certain corners of social media.

00:07:44.960 The viral clips defending this murderer are all over TikTok.

00:07:48.700 I mean, you can go to TikTok if you want and see it.

00:07:50.380 It's all over.

00:07:50.940 Just type in his name and you'll see nothing but these kinds of videos.

00:07:53.980 So here's just one example.

00:07:58.360 And mind you, the kid is only 16 years old.

00:08:03.520 You know, if they said he had a gun, this is what they said.

00:08:06.680 But in that picture, it looked like he was running away.

00:08:08.860 So I don't see the threat.

00:08:09.960 But sad as it may sound, when this happened, they actually showed his father the video of them unloving his son.

00:08:21.160 And that's what led to this.

00:08:23.100 As you can see, it's a bunch of officers.

00:08:26.720 It's a bunch of them in the courtroom surrounding the father while he's in an orange jumpsuit.

00:08:32.060 Now, why is this father in an orange jumpsuit?

00:08:35.180 Police didn't shoot him.

00:08:37.660 You might ask, right?

00:08:39.500 Because the very next day, he took justice in his own hands and went and unloved a police officer.

00:08:49.120 Well, he gets the age of the so-called kid wrong as he's, you know, showing these sympathetic photos in the background.

00:08:54.540 Ryan Hinton was 18, not 16, when he jumped out of the stolen car with the firearm.

00:08:58.180 But the bigger issue with the video is the claim that the father, quote, took justice in his own hands by murdering a random police officer.

00:09:07.460 Notice how there's no pretext here about how the officers did something wrong or violated procedure or any of that.

00:09:13.220 There's no explanation of how it's justice to kill a random traffic cop or to unalive a traffic cop, as this guy puts it. 0.97

00:09:20.580 It's just assumed that killing a random white police officer is an appropriate response to the death of a black criminal. 0.96

00:09:25.560 And millions of people find this reasoning persuasive at the moment. 0.97

00:09:29.340 I mean, that's the situation we're in right now.

00:09:32.400 You know, for the past half century or so, every aspect of American civic life has been devoted, at least superficially, to preventing a situation like this.

00:09:39.320 I mean, if you spend trillions of dollars enacting a regime that rigidly enforces the seemingly laudable goal of racial equality,

00:09:46.620 and then, you know, surely, eventually, you know, you'll arrive at a point where all men are judged based solely on the content of their character.

00:09:55.040 I mean, that was supposed to be the idea anyway.

00:09:56.580 That's the grand experiment we've all been participating in for our entire lives.

00:10:00.560 And with each passing day, it's becoming more and more clear that this experiment is crashing down all around us.

00:10:05.280 We are heading very directly towards open and overt, overt racial conflict.

00:10:10.420 And to that end, here's another similar video, which has more than 20,000 likes on TikTok.

00:10:16.900 We'll mute the audio because it's just obnoxious rap music.

00:10:20.000 But here's what it looks like.

00:10:21.560 It shows Rodney Hinton in court in a jumpsuit, surrounded by a bunch of police officers.

00:10:26.060 And there's the caption that the uploader has added, quote,

00:10:30.300 they really tried to use over 30 deputies to intimidate Rodney Hinton, but he kept his head up, close quote.

00:10:37.420 Again, this post has more than 20,000 likes.

00:10:40.540 It's not some random troll that didn't get any attention.

00:10:43.640 It's one of the most popular posts about Rodney Hinton's arrest.

00:10:46.100 And people are responding to it because they genuinely believe that Hinton is a hero,

00:10:50.600 or at the very least, he was justified, or at the very least, he's a sympathetic figure.

00:10:56.220 There's no rational argument that he's innocent, or that he was actually justified, or that his son was innocent.

00:11:03.420 So this is just pure racial resentment spilling right out in the open.

00:11:07.320 I mean, that's all it is.

00:11:09.240 Another post with roughly 70,000 likes on TikTok describes Rodney Hinton as a mourning father,

00:11:15.000 complete with somber music.

00:11:17.340 We'll play part of that.

00:11:26.060 Now, you look around any social media platform, and you'll find plenty of posts like this.

00:11:36.920 It's not just TikTok.

00:11:37.740 On X, here's a post with roughly 700 likes, quote,

00:11:41.280 Rodney Hinton had no criminal record before he killed an Ohio cop in retaliation for the cops killing his son.

00:11:46.720 The police department brought 30 cops to his hearing to intimidate him, close quote.

00:11:51.640 So apparently you get to kill a cop if you have no prior criminal record,

00:11:54.400 and the police aren't allowed to guard you either, even after you've just murdered somebody.

00:11:58.880 Then there's this post with more than 1,000 likes, quote,

00:12:01.160 All I'm saying is, if a cop killed my son, I'm airing out the precinct.

00:12:05.300 Rodney Hinton Jr. is a saint and a hero, close quote.

00:12:10.740 Now, yesterday we discussed the story of Shiloh Hendricks,

00:12:13.960 the woman who has now raised hundreds of thousands of dollars after using a racial slur at a playground. 1.00

00:12:20.840 What's happening now with Rodney Hinton is yet another example of why Shiloh Hendricks raised all that money.

00:12:27.640 You know, if you're saying that justice is somehow served by the execution of a random white police officer

00:12:33.100 in the name of defending a thug who stole a car and flashed a gun, and many people are saying this,

00:12:39.860 then you don't get to clutch your pearls because of Shiloh Hendricks.

00:12:44.000 I mean, the standards are so wildly out of whack that it's just not sustainable.

00:12:50.740 That's what we're experiencing right now.

00:12:52.620 Okay, like saying, it's okay if we kill people, but not okay if you use naughty language.

00:12:59.340 That's not just a double standard.

00:13:01.040 That's flat out madness.

00:13:02.840 That's a kind of moral schizophrenia.

00:13:06.060 And again, it's an unsustainable approach.

00:13:09.120 It can't continue this way.

00:13:11.720 And with every day, it becomes more and more apparent that we simply cannot continue on this trajectory.

00:13:17.780 You know, people are tired of it. 0.98

00:13:19.180 If large numbers of black people are openly defending and cheering for actual murderers who kill white people in cold blood, 0.96

00:13:26.120 then you cannot tell white people that they have to make a big show of condemning a woman who said a bad word. 0.94

00:13:32.700 And that's especially true as more and more white people are executed without any media attention whatsoever.

00:13:37.540 For example, you probably haven't heard of this story of a 22-year-old woman named Logan Federico in South Carolina.

00:13:46.120 Here she is on the left.

00:13:48.160 And according to the authorities, Logan Federico was, quote,

00:13:50.940 randomly murdered by a career criminal who was on a spree of thefts, break-ins, and credit card fraud.

00:13:56.120 And that career criminal named, a 30-year-old named Alexander Dickey, allegedly broke into a neighboring home around 3 a.m.,

00:14:04.060 stole a firearm, credit card, and debit cards, and keys to a vehicle.

00:14:07.460 He then allegedly entered the house where Federico was staying, entered a room, shot her before fleeing the scene in a stolen vehicle, close quote.

00:14:14.760 So this is yet another person that, you know, has committed multiple crimes, given chance after chance after chance,

00:14:23.760 because what the justice system says to people like this is that we're going to keep putting you on the street,

00:14:28.200 keep putting you back on the street until you do something so heinous that we have no choice but to put you in prison for an actual, like, significant length of time.

00:14:37.760 That's been the approach. 0.90

00:14:39.380 It's basically like, we're going to let you keep going and criminal and victimizing people until you kill someone. 0.97

00:14:44.400 We're just going to wait for that to happen, and then we will deal with you.

00:14:48.460 Now, somehow that story didn't get much national attention, and neither did this one involving the execution of Tara and Taylor Jones

00:14:54.500 in front of their home in the affluent neighborhood of Wellington, Florida, last year.

00:14:58.960 Surveillance footage shows that Tara and Taylor Jones were shot to death by a 63-year-old mechanic named Norman Scott

00:15:04.380 without any provocation of any kind.

00:15:06.900 Again, there was no outrage.

00:15:07.920 There was no public show of support for these victims.

00:15:09.720 Instead, we're now at the point where three, count them, three, cold-blooded killers in the span of a few months

00:15:18.360 have found large cheering sections on social media, including Rodney Hinton, Carmelo Anthony, and Luigi Mangione.

00:15:27.200 In fact, one of these viral TikTok videos supporting Rodney Hinton with more than 20,000 likes

00:15:32.360 actually brings up Luigi Mangione in this context.

00:15:36.360 Watch.

00:15:37.880 That silent rage, and you know, people mistake black Americans sitting out. 0.93

00:15:44.120 People mistake that black Americans sitting out doing line dances and stuff. 0.90

00:15:48.360 That's a dangerous thing. 0.97

00:15:50.380 When I tell you, that's a dangerous thing.

00:15:53.020 And this happened with more than just black Americans months ago.

00:15:58.200 Yet, this happened with Luigi.

00:16:00.640 Silent, never been in trouble.

00:16:02.720 Just like Mr. Rodney Hinton Jr.

00:16:06.080 Silent rage.

00:16:07.780 That's some serious stuff.

00:16:09.280 The laws of this country and what's going on in this country pushing things to the brink.

00:16:16.640 People can say it started with a stolen car.

00:16:19.040 People can say, oh, listen, no, it didn't start there.

00:16:21.240 It didn't start there at all.

00:16:22.320 It doesn't start on the streets.

00:16:24.420 Mm-mm.

00:16:27.140 It didn't start on the streets when Luigi did it.

00:16:29.800 It didn't start on the streets when Mr. Hinton did it.

00:16:33.780 Mm-mm.

00:16:34.280 It started right with the lawmakers and the rich folk who are always putting too much pressure

00:16:43.080 on everybody else for decades and decades.

00:16:47.960 And when that pressure has nowhere else to go, it points back to set itself free.

00:16:55.640 It's a dangerous game.

00:16:58.480 The lawmakers are responsible.

00:17:00.260 So what?

00:17:01.080 So what?

00:17:01.680 The law against stealing a car?

00:17:04.180 Is that what we're blaming?

00:17:05.600 The law is what pushed Rodney in.

00:17:07.400 So it's, I mean, because that's the law.

00:17:08.820 The law is you can't steal a car.

00:17:11.040 And this guy did.

00:17:12.560 And that's why the cops were there.

00:17:13.900 And then you can't brandish your gun at the cops.

00:17:16.020 And they're trying to arrest you for committing a felony.

00:17:18.520 So those are the laws that are responsible for this.

00:17:20.460 The law that says you can't steal a car.

00:17:21.840 And also the law that says you can't brandish your gun at the cops.

00:17:25.500 Right.

00:17:25.980 Well, there is one useful aspect of this totally inane video that we just watched,

00:17:31.020 which is that it makes the point that the situation isn't all about race.

00:17:33.880 Luigi Mangione was obviously white, and plenty of people justified his actions too.

00:17:40.380 In fact, as you probably recall, some people who call themselves conservatives also justified

00:17:44.600 Luigi Mangione's actions.

00:17:46.540 And that tells us that we're witnessing a general breakdown of law and order on top of the racial 0.98

00:17:54.300 violence.

00:17:55.800 You know, decades of justifying and excusing criminality have led us to a point where people

00:18:01.740 who commit blatant first-degree murder are celebrated, at least if they're viewed as allies

00:18:07.620 of the political left.

00:18:09.180 And again, we've had now three of these cases in five months.

00:18:14.240 So as you continue to hear the high-pitched outrage over Shiloh Hendricks, keep in mind

00:18:18.220 that nothing she did in any universe could ever end your life or the life of anyone you care

00:18:23.600 about.

00:18:24.680 The people cheering the execution of an innocent police officer or a CEO or a white high school

00:18:29.140 student at Attract Me, on the other hand, are actually dangerous.

00:18:34.560 I mean, they're the ones you should be hearing about nonstop.

00:18:37.360 They're the actual threat to you and your family.

00:18:40.120 They're the ones who are trying to bring about a complete breakdown in law and order.

00:18:44.320 They're the ones who want racial conflict. 0.96

00:18:47.460 And as the execution of this police officer in Cincinnati once again demonstrates, even if

00:18:52.080 they can't destroy somebody like Shiloh Hendricks, they will still do everything in their power

00:18:56.140 to destroy you. 0.90

00:18:58.640 Now let's get to our five headlines.

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00:19:59.980 Let's begin with this clip.

00:20:01.320 The conclusion to the Trump as Pope saga that we discussed yesterday.

00:20:05.040 Trump himself was finally asked about it.

00:20:08.040 And here's what he said.

00:20:10.720 Catholics were not so happy about the image of you looking like the Pope.

00:20:15.060 Oh, I see.

00:20:16.140 You mean they can't take a joke?

00:20:18.480 You don't mean the Catholics.

00:20:19.440 You mean the fake news media.

00:20:21.220 Not the Catholics loved it.

00:20:22.680 I had nothing to do with it.

00:20:24.940 Somebody made up a picture of me dressed like the Pope, and they put it out on the Internet.

00:20:29.500 That's not me that did it.

00:20:30.720 I have no idea where it came from.

00:20:32.640 Maybe it was AI.

00:20:34.180 But I know nothing about it.

00:20:36.180 I just saw it last evening.

00:20:39.580 Actually, my wife thought it was cute.

00:20:41.420 She said, isn't that nice?

00:20:42.780 My question about it is...

00:20:43.980 I would not be able to be married, though.

00:20:47.040 That would be a lot.

00:20:48.000 I'd have to...

00:20:49.360 To the best of my knowledge, popes aren't big on getting married, are they?

00:20:53.740 Not that we know of, no.

00:20:55.460 No.

00:20:55.860 I think it's the fake news media that, you know, they're fakers.

00:20:59.440 My question, though, sir, was about the fact that it was put out on the White House account,

00:21:03.720 even though it was AI-generated, it was a joke, it was a meme.

00:21:07.040 Does it at all diminish the substance of the official White House account to have it go

00:21:12.240 out on fact?

00:21:12.840 Give me a break.

00:21:14.240 It was just, somebody did it in fun.

00:21:18.140 It's fine.

00:21:19.080 You have to have a little fun, don't you?

00:21:21.980 Well, that's exactly the right response.

00:21:23.840 Give me a break.

00:21:24.600 It's fine.

00:21:25.280 That about sums it up.

00:21:26.700 That could be the response to about 85% of the questions that the media asks Trump, or,

00:21:31.540 I mean, actually, probably 99%, give me a break.

00:21:35.280 Just give me a break.

00:21:38.420 And that's all that really needs to be said.

00:21:40.060 And he's also right, of course, that the Catholics were not offended.

00:21:44.200 Catholics are not easily offended, in my experience, certainly not by jokes.

00:21:49.780 I mean, as I said yesterday, Catholics tend to have a kind of morbid, pretty edgy sense 1.00

00:21:53.520 of humor, and this AI Pope thing was neither morbid or edgy.

00:22:00.440 So you've got to try a lot harder to offend Catholics, I mean, actual believing, practicing 0.98

00:22:07.240 Catholics.

00:22:09.160 I'll tell you what does offend us, though.

00:22:12.060 It's not that nothing can offend us.

00:22:14.360 I'll tell you one thing that offends us deeply is, for example, seeing a Democrat politician

00:22:20.860 on the one or two occasions when they go to church in a year, all for show, of course,

00:22:27.240 when they do show up, like on Easter and Christmas, if they even go then.

00:22:33.020 But on those occasions, when they go up and receive communion, that offends us, because

00:22:40.320 that's sacrilegious.

00:22:42.060 Someone who is not actually a practicing Catholic, who rejects church teaching, who promotes 0.94

00:22:47.820 mortal sin, who is guilty of the sin of scandal, their entire public existence is scandal.

00:23:00.900 Existing as someone who calls yourself Catholic and yet promotes and supports the murder of 0.93

00:23:08.140 babies and the destruction of marriage and so on, that is scandal.

00:23:12.800 So seeing them receiving communion and desecrating the Eucharist in defiance of church teaching,

00:23:20.300 we're offended by that.

00:23:22.720 That's what offends us.

00:23:25.320 Not a meme.

00:23:27.520 Okay?

00:23:28.780 A Democrat politician receiving communion, Joe Biden or Nancy Pelosi or Kathy Hochul, who

00:23:36.540 we just found out yesterday because she was pretending to be offended by this thing. 0.99

00:23:39.520 I think it's the first time she's mentioned allegedly being Catholic.

00:23:44.360 But any of them receiving communion is approximately 10 billion times more offensive than a Pope meme.

00:23:55.280 I mean, it's infinitely more offensive.

00:24:01.960 But when it comes to that, of course, the media doesn't.

00:24:05.000 And so it's always this weird, and this happens like every once in a blue moon when it's convenient

00:24:10.400 to them.

00:24:11.080 But so it's one of these weird occasions where the media, not only do you have Democrats who

00:24:16.700 are Catholic pretending that they care about their faith, but the media pretending to care

00:24:21.280 about how Catholics feel, pretending to care about the feelings of Catholics, pretending to 0.96

00:24:28.120 stand up for their Catholic brothers and sisters is very funny.

00:24:35.900 But they're not going to care.

00:24:37.040 When it comes to this issue, which is something Catholics, again, actual practicing, which is

00:24:41.700 to say real Catholics, this is something we've been complaining about and talking about and

00:24:46.520 outraged about, outraged in a real kind of deep, justified sense forever, which is these

00:24:54.700 Democrat politicians receiving communion when they shouldn't be.

00:24:57.240 According to church teaching, they shouldn't be.

00:24:58.800 According to church law, they should not be.

00:25:01.920 But when it comes to that, the media, like that's what we're actually offended about.

00:25:05.000 The media in that case would, you know, just scoff at us.

00:25:11.900 Speaking of people who like to scoff, David French was on MSNBC doing his whole shtick.

00:25:19.960 And there's a couple of things here that I want to respond to, but let's first watch

00:25:25.920 David French on MSNBC if we can, if we can bear to watch it.

00:25:30.120 Here it is.

00:25:32.180 Barbarians are at the gate.

00:25:33.460 You need a barbarian to fight back against you. 0.95

00:25:36.140 And what I'm getting from you is you don't really believe that, that the barbarians aren't,

00:25:41.440 you know, the traditional barbarians.

00:25:43.500 It's just, I don't like the left.

00:25:45.520 Oh, it's very anti-left.

00:25:47.100 I mean, look, if Donald Trump wouldn't be a barbarian in this scenario, you know, and 0.72

00:25:51.300 think about how contrary this is to the example of Jesus, because Jesus comes to ancient Israel

00:25:56.820 when it's under Roman occupation, where the people of Israel are deeply oppressed and

00:26:02.060 he doesn't come and overthrow the government.

00:26:04.040 He doesn't come and rule in the way that these Christian right people want to rule. 0.81

00:26:08.260 He comes in and he loves other people.

00:26:09.960 He serves other people and even forgives the people are executing him as they're executing

00:26:14.880 him.

00:26:15.140 And yet you look at this Christian right, the MAGA Christian right, it is will to power. 0.86

00:26:20.340 It is cruelty.

00:26:21.280 It is dominance.

00:26:22.760 Look how they applaud as Trump is cruel to immigrants, just vicious, depriving them of

00:26:28.120 their constitutional rights.

00:26:30.000 This is nothing about this is drawn from historic Christian theology.

00:26:34.340 So.

00:26:35.760 All right.

00:26:36.480 Uh, so a few things here, speaking of things that are actually offensive to Catholics and

00:26:42.440 Christians generally, uh, here's another one when you're using the name of Christ as 0.51

00:26:49.060 a, uh, as a, you know, as a, as when you're using, uh, the, the example of Jesus allegedly

00:26:57.180 to make some, uh, uh, inane and false political point that misrepresents Christ's actual teachings

00:27:09.180 like that, that's outrageous to us.

00:27:11.380 And that's what David French does here because he says, he says, he says, well, you know, Jesus

00:27:19.440 didn't come to be a political leader.

00:27:22.380 He didn't come to rule in a political sense.

00:27:25.160 And, and that's true.

00:27:28.640 Like that, that part's true, right?

00:27:32.620 But then he's applying that to Donald Trump and the MAGA movement and, and saying that

00:27:39.880 somehow that means that, you know, Donald Trump and the MAGA movement aren't following

00:27:43.260 the example of Jesus.

00:27:44.660 Okay.

00:27:45.240 But Donald Trump is a political leader.

00:27:48.100 The MAGA movement is a political movement.

00:27:50.780 So of course we want to rule in the sense of governing, in the sense of controlling the

00:27:57.540 government, in the sense of enacting our agenda through law and policy.

00:28:04.000 Yeah.

00:28:04.580 I mean, you're correct, David, that Jesus was not interested in that, but that doesn't mean

00:28:09.240 that we can't be.

00:28:11.260 Okay.

00:28:11.360 Jesus wasn't set.

00:28:12.320 Jesus did not come to be a political ruler of the earth.

00:28:17.400 Uh, Jesus did not come to run for office, right?

00:28:20.280 Or to be, uh, you know, or, or to be a, a, a political ruler, but that doesn't, so what

00:28:27.640 are you saying?

00:28:28.140 I mean, it's like nobody can, is that, is it, it's anti-Christian somehow if you're, if

00:28:32.900 you want to have political control, if you want to run for office, I mean, it's incoherent.

00:28:40.680 Like we still, we have a government and we have elections.

00:28:43.440 So if conservatives will not rule, quote unquote, then the left will.

00:28:53.040 Those are the options.

00:28:56.060 And meanwhile, you'll sit on the sidelines and not get involved in any meaningful way in

00:28:59.940 that struggle.

00:29:00.420 And then you'll exclusively criticize the people on the right who are in the fight.

00:29:04.800 So, I mean, exclusively, these guys like David French, they don't even pretend to do the

00:29:12.480 both sides thing anymore.

00:29:14.040 That's how it started, right?

00:29:15.280 It started with when you got these guys that used to be basically conservative and they were

00:29:21.740 defending conservative ideas and promoting conservatism.

00:29:26.240 And then they moved away from that.

00:29:28.320 They started moving left.

00:29:29.420 And for a while, on their way to just being full blown left or left this way, on their

00:29:35.300 way to it, there was a while where they were like in the middle, sort of pretending to be

00:29:38.520 in the middle of those both sides are wrong.

00:29:40.580 We're going to call out both sides.

00:29:42.860 Not even pretending to do that anymore.

00:29:46.000 He's exclusively focused on criticizing one side and one side only.

00:29:49.800 And it's not the side that actively despises Christianity and wants to see it wiped from

00:29:56.640 the face of the earth.

00:29:57.420 It's not that side.

00:29:58.560 That's not the side that he's talking about.

00:30:01.500 And that's the part that David always leaves out.

00:30:03.980 And I'm using him as, you know, an example.

00:30:06.120 But he's also, he represents this kind of, what still identifies itself as conservatism would

00:30:18.380 pretend to be a kind of, I guess, moderate, above it all conservatism, but it's not conservatism

00:30:24.000 at all.

00:30:25.760 But, you know, he takes exception to the way that the quote unquote Christian right fights

00:30:30.760 for power.

00:30:31.920 He wants us to not fight for power.

00:30:33.800 He wants us to be peaceniks and pacifists.

00:30:36.920 And then what?

00:30:38.680 Okay, what's the result?

00:30:39.900 Utopia?

00:30:41.340 Global harmony?

00:30:44.560 No, if the Christian right doesn't fight for power, then the anti-Christian left,

00:30:48.380 will remain in power because that's the other option.

00:30:52.480 The other option is that the side that has murdered 60 million babies and castrated thousands 0.97

00:30:57.140 of children, and that opposes every single bit of Christian moral doctrine, the side that

00:31:02.500 sees the institution of the family as the enemy, as a thing that must be destroyed, right?

00:31:09.440 As a patriarchal, oppressive construct.

00:31:14.800 That's the side that will have power.

00:31:16.300 But David doesn't contend with that at all.

00:31:20.920 Doesn't even contend with it.

00:31:23.200 And then we hear him, of course, lamenting cruelty, cruelty to immigrants.

00:31:28.200 And what is that cruelty exactly?

00:31:29.620 It's the cruelty of enforcing the border, the cruelty of defending our national sovereignty,

00:31:34.520 the cruelty of law and order.

00:31:36.900 I mean, none of these things are actually cruel.

00:31:38.680 Cruelty means by definition that you're sadistic, that you take pleasure in causing pain and suffering.

00:31:45.640 That's cruelty.

00:31:46.300 Cruelty is doing something.

00:31:48.800 Cruelty is not.

00:31:49.820 Okay, here's the distinction.

00:31:50.800 Cruelty is not doing something that causes pain and suffering.

00:31:54.660 That's not necessarily cruel.

00:31:56.420 You can do things that cause pain and suffering that aren't cruel.

00:31:58.760 If you're doing it in order to cause pain and suffering, if you're doing it because you

00:32:02.620 enjoy the pain and suffering, if the pain and suffering is the end that you're trying to

00:32:08.780 attain, then that is cruelty.

00:32:11.440 Well, that's not, nobody who supports America having borders and laws does so because they

00:32:20.560 enjoy causing pain to immigrants. 1.00

00:32:23.500 Okay, if you think that Americans want strong borders and immigration laws just because they

00:32:27.220 enjoy seeing immigrants in pain, then first of all, you have no understanding of these 1.00

00:32:32.640 issues at all.

00:32:33.300 And you obviously harbor a deep, deep resentment and hate towards a huge number of your fellow

00:32:41.040 Americans.

00:32:43.400 And you are assuming the absolute worst in them.

00:32:46.440 Is that what Jesus would do, David?

00:32:51.080 Is that the example of Jesus?

00:32:54.060 Assuming the absolute worst and people will disagree with you.

00:32:59.940 And again, what's the other option?

00:33:01.900 The other option, as we've seen, is a country flooded with criminal aliens, gangs, drugs.

00:33:06.960 The other option is untold misery, death, violence, destruction.

00:33:11.300 But David doesn't contend with that either.

00:33:16.760 You know, these people never do.

00:33:18.700 He just wants to sit on the sideline and nitpick and criticize the people who are actually in

00:33:22.220 the fight.

00:33:23.520 And there's a lot of that going around.

00:33:26.800 I've dealt with a lot of this in the last days.

00:33:28.800 We talked about the Shiloh Hendricks case yesterday.

00:33:30.360 And of course, I've been, you know, as you would expect, I've been getting plenty of grief

00:33:34.900 about it, you know, from people.

00:33:37.200 Well, many of them, you know, the left obviously is upset about it because, you know, but I

00:33:44.860 don't even care about that.

00:33:45.800 That's not, that's irrelevant.

00:33:47.360 I'm not paying attention to them.

00:33:50.500 I've also been getting a lot of grief from people ostensibly on the right who were, you

00:33:58.360 know, shocked and appalled by my position.

00:34:00.440 My position, if you watched yesterday, you know, it's that, it's that, yeah, it's bad to

00:34:04.960 use a racial slur to a child to say a racial slur to a child is a bad thing.

00:34:08.400 We shouldn't do it.

00:34:09.040 I don't condone it.

00:34:09.640 I wouldn't do it.

00:34:11.940 However, the fundraiser is a good thing.

00:34:16.760 And I'm glad that she raised all this money.

00:34:18.220 And, you know, my argument, it's like, it's, it's, I went into it in great detail for 20,

00:34:22.760 25 minutes.

00:34:25.360 The main thing is that this is, this is repudiating cancel culture, that if you want to destroy

00:34:31.320 cancel culture, there have to be disincentives attached to it because that's how human beings

00:34:35.880 work.

00:34:36.720 Human beings are, they, they, they operate based on incentives and that's how the mob works

00:34:41.740 too.

00:34:41.860 The mob especially works that way.

00:34:43.280 And so you have to disincentivize it.

00:34:44.800 And if the mob knows that, you know, making someone famous, as they say, putting their name

00:34:49.420 and likeness all over the place, finding all their personal information, publishing it,

00:34:53.020 if they know that that might actually have a positive impact on the person's life in the end,

00:34:58.360 then they're going to be less likely to do it.

00:35:02.540 So that's the main thing to me is that the, the fundraiser part of it was, you know, going

00:35:11.660 on the offense against cancel culture and also going on the offense against these utterly

00:35:19.060 insane racial double standards.

00:35:21.300 So that's the two things to me.

00:35:22.720 It's the, it's the cancel culture and racial double standards.

00:35:25.560 That's what this is award.

00:35:26.580 That's what it's about.

00:35:28.300 It's not even about what happened on a playground, but in any case, uh, plenty of so-called conservatives

00:35:35.940 that took issue with it.

00:35:41.640 And, but my question to them, and, and, and I noticed that a lot of them obviously didn't

00:35:45.820 even listen to the whole monologue.

00:35:47.080 They weren't engaging with the argument, but even, and some of them did, there were some,

00:35:50.740 a few people that tried to thoughtfully engage with my arguments.

00:35:53.700 But the one thing that was missing was, was, okay, what would you have us do instead?

00:36:01.120 So what I'm saying and what a lot of people are saying is that this is a, this is a, an

00:36:06.360 effective and really devastating way to fight back against cancel culture and racial double 0.99

00:36:11.300 standards, uh, which are both great evils in society that have harmed people and harm society

00:36:19.020 in immeasurable ways.

00:36:21.820 So that's our argument.

00:36:24.040 Okay.

00:36:24.400 You don't like that.

00:36:25.660 You don't, you don't feel right about it.

00:36:27.780 It feels, as I said yesterday, it feels icky.

00:36:30.040 It's an icky thing to you.

00:36:32.680 Okay.

00:36:33.040 So what's your plan?

00:36:34.920 What's your plan for, how are you going to destroy cancel culture?

00:36:38.860 What are you going to do about these racial double standards that we've all been complaining

00:36:41.940 about forever?

00:36:44.520 Well, what are we, what are you going to do?

00:36:45.860 You don't want to do this.

00:36:46.700 This is not, this to you is not, you don't like it.

00:36:48.580 It doesn't make you feel right.

00:36:49.360 It makes your tummy hurt.

00:36:50.020 Fine.

00:36:50.700 So what's your plan?

00:36:52.300 What, what would you do?

00:36:55.100 And, uh, from these people, there's, there's really no answer to that.

00:36:59.660 The answer is always something like, well, uh, well, you know, nobody should, this

00:37:06.480 shouldn't be happening, right?

00:37:09.560 That's it's no one should engage in, in a cancel culture.

00:37:12.820 There should, you know, there should be no racial double.

00:37:14.680 Well, yeah, we know that talking about the way things should be is not a plan.

00:37:19.760 Okay.

00:37:21.000 What's your actual plan.

00:37:24.640 And that's why to me, this is the dividing line.

00:37:28.200 You know, people have a lot of different ways of dividing conservatives, different labels

00:37:32.180 that they use for the type of conservative that they don't like.

00:37:36.480 Uh, woke, right, for example, is one label that's used now by certain people on the right

00:37:43.900 or ostensibly on the right towards other people on the right that they don't like.

00:37:48.080 As far as I can tell, woke, right, what it really means, I don't even know exactly what

00:37:52.160 they want it to mean, but what it really means is this person is too far to the right.

00:37:56.500 You know, I'm on the right.

00:37:57.740 They're, they're, they're farther to the right than I am.

00:37:59.560 That makes me uncomfortable.

00:38:00.480 They're woke, right.

00:38:00.980 That's basically what it means.

00:38:01.840 But to me, so that's not a useful category.

00:38:06.460 It doesn't mean anything.

00:38:08.500 To me, there are two groups, generally speaking, among conservatives.

00:38:13.680 And I would borrow from Teddy Roosevelt to explain these groups.

00:38:18.400 The groups are, on one hand, the men in the arena.

00:38:22.040 And on the other hand, the critics, you know, as Roosevelt said, it's not the critic who

00:38:27.500 counts.

00:38:27.880 It's not the, the man who points out how the strong man stumbles.

00:38:30.540 Uh, the credit belongs to the man who's actually in the arena.

00:38:33.300 And that's the dividing line.

00:38:34.560 The dividing line really is between the people who are in the fight, who have, who have actual

00:38:39.980 influence, who are trying to, you know, cultivate and wield actual influence.

00:38:44.940 Um, who are shifting the culture to the right, who are doing the hard, sometimes, sometimes

00:38:52.020 ugly work of shifting the Overton window by force of will.

00:38:57.460 Um, there are people on the right doing that.

00:39:00.880 There are those types.

00:39:03.540 And then there are the people standing on the sidelines and going, eh, I don't know about

00:39:07.620 that.

00:39:08.000 That, that makes me uncomfortable.

00:39:09.420 I don't really like that.

00:39:10.480 Can we not do it that way?

00:39:11.780 I don't like, I don't like how you're doing it.

00:39:13.360 Can we do it?

00:39:14.220 Oh, what way do you want to do it?

00:39:15.460 Well, I don't know.

00:39:16.200 We just, I just don't like that way.

00:39:18.920 It's like, you know what?

00:39:19.660 It reminds me of when, when you're, when your wife asks you to carry some really heavy piece

00:39:23.660 of furniture up the steps and then inevitably you get to the top of the steps and she sees

00:39:28.860 what it looks like in the room and says, eh, nevermind, I actually wanted it downstairs.

00:39:32.220 But anyway, as you're carrying this big bulky thing, uh, and she's standing there saying,

00:39:38.060 oh, don't hit the wall.

00:39:38.840 No, no, don't hit the banister.

00:39:40.340 Don't put it down too hard.

00:39:41.260 It'll scratch the floor.

00:39:41.980 And it's like, okay, this isn't helpful.

00:39:44.760 This is not, I know not to hit the wall.

00:39:46.520 It's not, but it's not, I'm like, I'm the one actually carrying this thing.

00:39:49.560 So just let me, let me, let me do this.

00:39:52.360 Right.

00:39:52.780 And you check back in once it's done.

00:39:55.600 And, um, David French is the equivalent of that really on a cultural level.

00:40:01.500 And all these people are the people complaining about woke, right?

00:40:04.000 And all this, all this, uh, they're the equivalent of that.

00:40:07.220 They're not carrying the heavy thing.

00:40:10.680 They're, they are not going to actually, you know, roll their sleeves up and get in there

00:40:14.760 and say, okay, let's, let's carry this thing.

00:40:16.580 Let's do it.

00:40:17.280 They're not going to do that.

00:40:19.020 Instead, they're going to stand on the sideline and they're going to criticize the way those

00:40:24.160 people are doing it.

00:40:24.960 They're not going to help, but they don't like the way you're doing it.

00:40:31.260 And so to me, that's the dividing line.

00:40:32.720 And when I, uh, when I think about who I respect among conservatives and who I would consider

00:40:39.340 my, you know, friends and allies, it's, it's the former group, the men, the men in the arena.

00:40:46.400 Uh, that's who I care about.

00:40:47.660 And all the critics who are on the sidelines who have not done anything, who have no real

00:40:51.120 influence, who are just talking to themselves, who, you know, have no wins under their belt

00:40:56.800 at all.

00:40:58.020 I mean, the right has some real wins, especially in recent years.

00:41:03.840 Uh, the fight continues.

00:41:05.320 Obviously there's still a lot to be done, but we have some real wins.

00:41:08.000 There are some real successes.

00:41:08.940 Like things have changed in the culture and the culture has, I think, generally shifted

00:41:13.360 to the right in, in some areas and, and, and significantly in some areas.

00:41:17.180 And so when you look at that, there are certain people you can point to and say, okay, well,

00:41:22.880 those people had something to do with that.

00:41:24.400 Clearly there's not, there's not one person you could point to and say though, well, they

00:41:28.700 did it all, obviously, but there are certain people you can look at and say, yeah, well,

00:41:33.760 they, they really had something to do with that.

00:41:37.480 And then there are a lot of other conservatives.

00:41:38.840 And now, and by the way, I'm talking about all the, this is exclusively talking about the

00:41:42.260 conservative sort of commentariat, the, uh, the, the pundits, the, the, the influencers,

00:41:47.220 the people in the public eye.

00:41:48.580 So in that group, there are certain people in that group you can look at and say, okay,

00:41:52.600 well, yeah, they clearly had something to do with that.

00:41:57.120 And then there's another group who had nothing to do with it, that they, they could have never

00:42:01.400 existed.

00:42:01.960 They could have never gotten into public life at all.

00:42:04.220 They could, uh, have just gotten a job, you know, somewhere else, not on the public stage.

00:42:09.160 And the culture would look exactly the same as it does right now, because they have done

00:42:13.680 nothing at all to help.

00:42:17.880 And so I have no use for those people at all. 0.99

00:42:22.020 Um, absolutely no use for them because they are useless, just useless. 0.94

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00:44:05.480 Get your copy today at store.dailywire.com.

00:44:09.900 Now let's get to our daily cancellation.

00:44:17.320 Our daily cancellation today begins with the news of a new law just passed in Virginia.

00:44:22.120 The Daily Wire reports, Republican Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin signed a bill into

00:44:26.080 law on Friday to limit the social media use of minors under the age of 16 to one hour per

00:44:30.660 day.

00:44:30.900 The Consumer Data Protection Act, supported by both Republican and Democrat state lawmakers,

00:44:35.200 will require social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram to limit minors' time

00:44:39.180 on social platforms.

00:44:41.260 Platforms will use neutral age screen mechanisms to determine the age of users and then limit their

00:44:46.340 screen time accordingly.

00:44:47.840 Parents, per the law, will be required to give verifiable consent if they want their child's

00:44:51.760 time on such apps increased or decreased.

00:44:54.940 Now, to be clear about my own position, I'm in favor of this law.

00:44:58.720 Won't surprise you.

00:44:59.340 Learn.

00:44:59.500 I think laws like this should be passed in every state.

00:45:02.720 Kids are addicted to social media.

00:45:04.340 They're addicted to screens.

00:45:05.380 The average 11-year-old kid in America spends nine hours a day on a screen.

00:45:08.840 The average five-year-old spends three hours a day.

00:45:10.860 Children of all ages spend on average five hours a day just on social media.

00:45:14.460 And keep in mind that these are averages, and the numbers are skewed by the minority of

00:45:21.200 kids who have mean parents like me who won't let them use any screen but a TV, and then

00:45:26.440 only sparingly.

00:45:27.900 So, you know, nine hours a day of screen time on average means that millions of kids are

00:45:33.200 on screens for 10, 11, 12, 13, 14 hours a day.

00:45:35.700 And it means that a huge number of kids are quite literally spending every waking moment

00:45:39.920 staring on a screen.

00:45:41.820 And all of that is bad enough.

00:45:43.440 A childhood dominated by screens, a childhood lived in a digital world rather than the actual

00:45:48.440 physical world, a childhood spent sitting and staring into a little glowing box, that

00:45:52.520 is a tragedy with immense and terrible consequences.

00:45:56.180 And that's without considering what these kids are actually doing on the screens.

00:45:59.860 And among the worst things they can do, second only to watching, is social media.

00:46:03.820 The impact of social media on kids is widely, but I still think only partially understood.

00:46:10.100 We know that it makes kids more depressed, more anxious, more miserable, less healthy.

00:46:14.640 We still don't have the full picture because the first generation of screen children, children

00:46:20.660 of the screen, we might call them, have only just hit adulthood.

00:46:24.480 I mean, these are kids who were born into a world where everybody walks around with screens

00:46:27.780 in their pockets.

00:46:28.900 Many of them have been raised on the screen from birth.

00:46:31.180 And we're only just beginning to see the consequences of that.

00:46:35.300 And the early returns are quite bad.

00:46:38.420 I mean, it's clear beyond any dispute that a child using a screen for hours every day,

00:46:42.480 especially if he's on the internet, can only harm him.

00:46:45.500 I mean, there is zero chance that your 10-year-old child's life will be improved by social media.

00:46:49.460 It can only damage him mentally, emotionally, psychologically, spiritually.

00:46:52.840 It's only bad.

00:46:53.860 It's just a question of how bad.

00:46:56.760 And yet, whenever there's an attempt to pass any kind of law to deal with this problem,

00:47:00.980 there will always be people, many of them, again, conservatives, panicking about government

00:47:07.040 overreach and slippery slopes.

00:47:09.340 And I've seen a lot of commentary along these lines in response to this legislation in Virginia.

00:47:13.740 You can take a glance at the comments under that Daily Wire article I just read about this law.

00:47:19.040 And you'll see many of these sorts of objections.

00:47:21.940 So here's just a quick sample, just as an example.

00:47:25.260 Quote, seems like a slippery slope of government control doesn't end well.

00:47:28.880 Start with something good that everyone agrees on, but the box has been opened. 1.00

00:47:32.420 Another comment says, this is stupid. 1.00

00:47:33.660 This is a parent's job, not the government's. 1.00

00:47:35.040 How could this be enforced?

00:47:36.000 I agree.

00:47:36.580 Screen time should be minimized, but it's up to the parents how it's done.

00:47:39.340 I don't like making laws just to make laws.

00:47:40.880 It's also a slippery slope, as other feel-good laws have been.

00:47:44.140 Another one says, freedom means having the ability to make bad choices and hopefully learn

00:47:47.420 from them this is really bad.

00:47:48.520 Another one says, this is the parent's job.

00:47:49.800 I don't want the government raising my kids.

00:47:51.160 Even if they agree with their decisions, the government should not control this.

00:47:55.100 And also, it says, this type of government overreach will get a Democrat back as governor

00:47:59.800 of Virginia, very unwise.

00:48:01.900 On a political note, who are you to tell anyone how to raise their kids?

00:48:06.180 Another comment says, there are many things that could cause mental illness in children

00:48:08.820 I believe that this is something that parents should control and not the government.

00:48:12.560 So, these are all the expected objections.

00:48:14.600 You hear them any time there's any attempt to use the force of law to protect children

00:48:17.580 from the manifold harms found on the internet and social media.

00:48:21.180 And I find the arguments extremely unpersuasive.

00:48:24.760 I don't see any overreach here.

00:48:27.200 Multi-billion dollar companies are selling products, smartphones, social media platforms,

00:48:31.820 that basic common sense, and also every study on the subject, tells us can and does cause

00:48:39.000 deep and significant harm to children.

00:48:41.780 It's not overreach for the government to put up minimal guardrails in the interest of protecting

00:48:46.420 kids.

00:48:47.500 The alternative is what?

00:48:49.060 To have no relevant laws at all?

00:48:51.560 And what is the slippery slope exactly?

00:48:54.920 You know, a slippery slope into what?

00:48:56.820 Into kids not using social media at all?

00:48:58.860 The hard, just imagine a dystopian future where an 11-year-old boy isn't spending any

00:49:04.300 time on TikTok.

00:49:06.260 What will he do then?

00:49:07.140 Go outside, run in the grass, play some pickup basketball in the driveway, make actual friends

00:49:10.820 in real life, learn how to talk to actual physical people?

00:49:14.080 What a nightmare.

00:49:15.540 I can only hope that this is a slippery slope.

00:49:17.840 I hope we slip and slide our way into a world where a child spends much more time engaging

00:49:21.700 with the physical world than the digital one.

00:49:24.120 Now, it's true that this is something that parents can and should do themselves, but we

00:49:33.440 need laws, you know, just like we need laws protecting kids from problems, because the

00:49:38.400 reality is that a lot of parents are not doing it.

00:49:41.040 I mean, if your solution to a problem is parents should do it, then you don't actually have a

00:49:45.760 solution.

00:49:46.100 Talking about what people should do is not a solution.

00:49:51.620 People don't, in fact, do what they should do.

00:49:55.540 That's the entire reason we have laws in the first place.

00:49:59.520 Now, if we could totally rely on parents to do their job, we wouldn't need any law against

00:50:04.080 12-year-olds buying liquor.

00:50:05.940 We wouldn't need any law against nine-year-olds driving or smoking cigarettes.

00:50:08.920 I mean, my 12-year-old kids, my 12-year-old twins, they are not buying liquor.

00:50:18.700 They are not getting cigarettes.

00:50:19.620 They're not driving.

00:50:20.780 And even if it was legal, they still would not be doing any of those things.

00:50:23.700 The thing stopping my kids from doing that stuff is not that it's illegal.

00:50:27.540 That's not the thing stopping them.

00:50:28.780 The thing stopping them is me, right?

00:50:32.220 And yet, we still have laws against that stuff.

00:50:35.520 And as a parent, I don't take exception to that.

00:50:38.760 I don't think, well, you're trying to parent for me.

00:50:41.000 No, I recognize that, yeah, I mean, I'm an attentive parent, so my kids aren't doing

00:50:45.140 that stuff.

00:50:45.880 But like, yeah, obviously, we should, if someone, if a kid has a bad parent, if a 10-year-old

00:50:54.080 kid has a bad parent and walks into a liquor store, you know, to buy some vodka, it's like,

00:50:58.920 that still shouldn't, the fact that he has a bad parent shouldn't mean that now we're just

00:51:02.220 going to accept the fact that he's going to get alcohol poisoning, right?

00:51:05.440 So I don't hear people panicking about slippery slopes when it comes to that stuff.

00:51:09.640 We understand, in those contexts at least, that children are not adults, and so there

00:51:12.980 need to be different kinds of laws protecting them.

00:51:14.780 We also understand that people don't always do what they should do, including parents.

00:51:17.800 That's why laws exist.

00:51:19.120 Every law exists because people don't do what they should do.

00:51:22.160 Saying that we shouldn't pass usage restrictions on social media or age limit restrictions on

00:51:26.080 pornography because parents should do that is like saying that we shouldn't have laws

00:51:30.320 against murder because people should just not murder.

00:51:32.920 Well, the statement is correct.

00:51:34.780 People shouldn't.

00:51:35.620 I mean, it's the job of every individual to not murder.

00:51:38.580 You shouldn't need the government to tell you not to do it.

00:51:41.300 You should just not do any murdering regardless, and yet a lot of people do, which is why we

00:51:47.460 have the laws, just like a lot of parents actually do give their young children unfettered access

00:51:51.360 to the internet.

00:51:52.200 They shouldn't.

00:51:53.900 Parents should not be doing that, but they do.

00:51:57.120 So what then?

00:51:58.740 So don't, it goes back to what we said in the five headlines, just saying, well, people

00:52:04.180 shouldn't do that.

00:52:05.120 That's not a solution to the problem that we're talking about, is it?

00:52:09.260 Because they're not, they're not.

00:52:11.440 And they're not ever, like there's never going to be a time when everyone just does everything

00:52:15.900 that they should do.

00:52:17.380 So that's just a fantasy.

00:52:18.740 It's not a solution.

00:52:19.320 All that said, all that said, I do agree that protecting children from the harms of

00:52:25.140 social media and screen addiction is a job that should be handled by parents.

00:52:31.520 And if you do handle it as a parent, then the law will be irrelevant to you.

00:52:36.680 It won't matter.

00:52:37.340 It makes no difference, which is what it should be.

00:52:40.480 And if you're one of these parents who lets your 10-year-old use social media, then you

00:52:46.580 should be ashamed that legislation is required to do what you should be doing yourself.

00:52:52.660 And so ultimately, it's the parents who've made these kinds of laws necessary who are

00:52:57.900 today canceled.

00:52:59.960 That'll do it for the show today.

00:53:00.720 Thanks for watching.

00:53:01.240 Thanks for listening.

00:53:01.780 Talk to you tomorrow.

00:53:02.520 Have a great day.

00:53:03.080 Godspeed.

00:53:10.480 Godspeed.

The Matt Walsh Show - May 06, 2025

Ep. 1590 - This Man Was Just Arrested For Murdering A Retired Cop. Now He’s Being Hailed As A Hero.

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