The Matt Walsh Show - Ep. 161 - Bring On the Shutdown

00:00:00.000 Today on the Matt Walsh Show, the media wants us to panic over a government shutdown, but in my opinion, the only real problem with the shutdown is that it's only temporary. 0.99

00:00:08.240 Also, some people are upset because I said superhero movies are stupid.

00:00:12.440 I will elaborate on this very crucial point that is so important to all of our lives today on the Matt Walsh Show. 0.93

00:00:19.540 So California state regulators have looked into a plan to tax text messages, not only tax text messages, but even tax them retroactively.

00:00:30.880 So they'd be taxing the last five years of text messages that were sent.

00:00:34.740 And this, of course, is California for you. I have no idea why anyone would choose to live in this state.

00:00:38.820 And I say this state because that's the state that I'm in right now as I speak.

00:00:42.580 And I can't I can't wait to get back to the to the liberty and sanity and conservative values of Maryland.

00:00:50.480 It is it's unfortunate, though, really, because every time I come here to California, it's such a it's such a geographically beautiful state, minus the trash and the smog and everything.

00:01:01.060 But if you can dig if you can literally dig through that, you you will uncover quite a lot of beauty.

00:01:07.520 But this is the way that it often goes.

00:01:09.480 You know, it's it seems like liberalism infects some of the most beautiful states.

00:01:14.500 It's the same thing in the Northeast. I'm wearing a New Hampshire shirt.

00:01:17.360 So it infects it and disfigures it.

00:01:20.860 And next thing you know, text messages are being taxed.

00:01:24.880 All right. Speaking of.

00:01:28.520 Of the government, I want to talk briefly.

00:01:32.640 Great transition, by the way.

00:01:34.280 I want to talk briefly about the shutdown because it looms.

00:01:37.280 The government shutdown looms.

00:01:39.480 Looms is the the word that the media very ominously uses.

00:01:43.980 It's looming. The shutdown is looming.

00:01:46.020 We're only two weeks away from a shutdown, a shutdown that Donald Trump has threatened.

00:01:50.860 They tell us if he doesn't get funding for the wall. 0.55

00:01:55.040 I must say that the hype that we give to these shutdowns or to these potential shutdowns is really is is really so silly. 0.80

00:02:03.920 It's one of the silliest things in modern politics. 0.76

00:02:06.280 And I know that that's saying quite a lot.

00:02:08.820 The media wants us to tremble in fear at the possibility of some portion of the government not operating for a few days.

00:02:17.080 And in this case, they would be it would be not operating over the holidays when it probably wouldn't be operating anyway. 0.83

00:02:21.980 So it's even more ridiculous. 0.67

00:02:23.840 Also, it's 75 percent. 0.77

00:02:26.700 In this case, 75 percent of the government is already funded.

00:02:30.120 So the Pentagon has been funded.

00:02:31.780 The Department of Homeland Department of Health and Human Services has been funded.

00:02:34.980 Department of Labor.

00:02:35.680 However, military pay most likely will not be affected.

00:02:39.060 Seventy five percent of the government is funded.

00:02:40.820 So we are supposed to be worried.

00:02:43.340 We're supposed to somehow be worried that 25 percent of the government may shut down for a limited number of days over the holidays.

00:02:51.300 That's what we're that's what we're supposed to be worried.

00:02:53.560 We're supposed to care about that for some reason.

00:02:56.620 Why should we care about it?

00:02:57.860 How is it going to affect any of our lives?

00:03:00.360 I have no idea because I never explained that part because it won't affect us at all.

00:03:05.040 It really is embarrassing.

00:03:07.280 I'm always embarrassed by this.

00:03:09.120 I'm always embarrassed by the hand wringing over government shutdowns, the the panic.

00:03:16.200 Now, not the panic on the part of most regular people, because we don't care, but the but the panic on the part of the media.

00:03:22.340 What would our founding fathers say?

00:03:24.420 OK, what would they say if they saw a government comprised of millions of people with a budget in the trillions of dollars, trillions?

00:03:36.280 And yet rather than working towards permanently shutting down wide swaths of this of this monstrous behemoth,

00:03:45.780 we instead are trying desperately to avoid shutting down even a small smidgen of it for a few days.

00:03:54.420 And can we just I don't want to I don't want to gloss over that because let's just circle back around trillions of dollars.

00:04:01.880 I know we hear this.

00:04:02.720 We hear these numbers a lot, billions, trillions, and it just kind of goes over our head.

00:04:07.060 But the federal budget is something like three or four trillion dollars, trillion, a thousand billion, a billion, a thousand times.

00:04:18.780 Do you know how much a trillion is?

00:04:21.940 Can you conceive of how much money a trillion dollars is?

00:04:27.460 If you were to make a stack of a trillion dollar bills or of a trillion one dollar bills, I should say,

00:04:33.880 it would reach the one just the one stack of one trillion dollars would reach about a fourth of the way to the moon.

00:04:41.340 That's sixty seven thousand miles, which means that the whole federal budget would literally reach the moon.

00:04:46.880 If there was a guy sitting on the moon right now and for some reason he needed a few bucks,

00:04:53.480 all we could easily get it to him.

00:04:54.980 All we'd have to do is just stack the federal budget one dollar on top of another and then it would reach him on the moon.

00:05:01.760 He would just have to stand up and just grab a couple of the of the dollars.

00:05:05.420 I'm not sure about the physics in that.

00:05:07.100 I don't know if the physics really work out, but you get the idea.

00:05:10.280 It's a lot of money.

00:05:11.200 It is a whole lot of money.

00:05:12.520 The government is so massive that we can't even conceive of it.

00:05:18.340 We can't even wrap our our heads about it.

00:05:20.340 We can't get our minds around it.

00:05:21.940 It's reached a point of being so big that we don't even notice it anymore because the bigness is too much to comprehend.

00:05:30.400 We're using these words that don't mean anything.

00:05:32.780 When we hear a trillion dollars, it may as well be, you know, they may as well say the federal budget is a boogle smooogle dollars.

00:05:39.440 It's a word that just means nothing, though.

00:05:41.920 A trillion doesn't mean anything because it's so much.

00:05:45.860 But a trillion is a real number.

00:05:49.400 It's a real concept.

00:05:50.720 And the government is so wasteful that the word wasteful doesn't describe it.

00:05:57.440 So shut down.

00:06:00.380 Yes, please shut down more than 25 percent.

00:06:04.820 When Donald Trump said a few days ago that he's going to shut down the government, it was one of the greatest things that I've ever heard a president say.

00:06:15.460 I think that statement alone was greater than the Gettysburg Address.

00:06:19.460 It was one of the best things any president could ever promise to shut down the government.

00:06:24.220 Shut down, I mean, shut down more than than than 25 percent of it.

00:06:33.360 Shut down 75 percent of it forever.

00:06:36.880 That's what we should be asking for.

00:06:38.820 That's what we should be demanding.

00:06:40.280 Twenty five percent is nothing.

00:06:41.600 That's chicken feed.

00:06:42.800 They could shut down 25 percent, never open it up again.

00:06:46.440 And you would never notice that it had been shut down if it weren't for the media, you know, having a meltdown over it.

00:06:55.740 So, no, I say I say I say shut down shut down so much of it that we do notice it and then never open it up again because enough is really enough.

00:07:06.120 If a four trillion dollar government is not enough, then what then we we really are saying at that point that it can never be too big, because if a four trillion dollar government isn't too big, then what are we waiting for?

00:07:19.680 A zillion dollars?

00:07:21.580 When does it get to the point when if a trillion dollars doesn't do it, then what will do it?

00:07:26.480 No, this is a just so can you can you just imagine what Thomas Jefferson would say if he could see if he could see this now?

00:07:37.000 He would have a heart attack and then die again.

00:07:39.040 So he wouldn't even be here for very long to witness it.

00:07:42.100 Mercifully so.

00:07:43.640 Want to mention something else?

00:07:44.720 Some some some people, quite a few people are upset at me again, as per usual.

00:07:49.740 But this time, because I wrote a piece on The Daily Wire yesterday, arguing that comic book movies are terrible.

00:08:01.640 Now, what prompted me to write this piece, first of all, is that it's true because comic book movies are terrible.

00:08:06.760 But second, because this Aquaman movie is coming out and I just feel like.

00:08:13.740 Come on, with haven't we reached our limit yet with with with Aquaman?

00:08:20.100 Can't we at least at least agree that the superhero movie thing has gone way too far now that we're getting movies about Aquaman?

00:08:29.280 Aquaman is a he's a guy that has a magical trident.

00:08:33.140 He lives in the ocean.

00:08:34.020 He lives in a pineapple under the sea with SpongeBob.

00:08:36.940 He has a fish scale suit that he wears.

00:08:39.520 He rides a dolphin or a shark around, I assume.

00:08:42.200 It's just it is it is the kind of character that an eight year old boy would invent and invent in his head while he's daydreaming during math class.

00:08:52.100 And then he would doodle like a picture of it on his binder.

00:08:55.500 That that's that's the kind of character we're dealing with now. 0.99

00:08:58.580 So if you're if you're doing Aquaman as a straight comedy meant to be completely stupid and ridiculous and you're supposed to laugh at it the entire time, then fine. 0.94

00:09:08.540 But if if we're supposed to take this at all seriously, even a little bit, then it's too much. 0.97

00:09:15.580 It's too much is what I'm saying.

00:09:17.300 The movie studios have mind way have just mind all the way down to the point now where we've got Aquaman and Wonder Woman.

00:09:27.220 Right. Right.

00:09:27.980 A superhero called Wonder Woman who flies around in an invisible in an invisible airplane.

00:09:34.260 And what's worse is that these movies are critically acclaimed.

00:09:36.940 Wonder Woman is treated as this cinematic masterpiece. 0.99

00:09:40.640 What is just an incredibly stupid movie with with with really nothing going for it whatsoever. 0.95

00:09:46.200 But people go and watch it and the critics watch it and they find this they find this deep, significant meaning underneath all of it. 0.99

00:09:52.580 There is no meaning to it. And it's it's not just Aquaman or Wonder Woman.

00:09:58.460 Superhero movies in general are bad and meaningless.

00:10:02.100 And it's it's there have been maybe two good ones in the last 20 years.

00:10:06.880 Batman Begins and Dark Knight.

00:10:09.200 And those were the really the only good ones.

00:10:11.920 And even those are massively overrated.

00:10:14.720 Dark Knight is a good film.

00:10:15.800 But if you take if you take Heath Ledger's performance out of it, it's mediocre or put another way.

00:10:21.320 If you take Heath Ledger's performance and you put it into literally any movie at all, that movie would be it might not make sense with that performance stuck into the middle of it.

00:10:32.520 But that movie would be worth watching because of his performance.

00:10:36.700 That's how good the performance was.

00:10:38.080 But in terms of plot and general execution, even Dark Knight has serious problems.

00:10:42.640 But I will I will say it was it was a good movie.

00:10:44.920 The rest of these movies, though, are pretty awful.

00:10:48.860 And my biggest gripe with them is that they aren't really movies.

00:10:52.940 OK, they are actually commercials for merchandise.

00:10:56.920 They that's what I that's why they exist.

00:10:59.460 They exist really to do two things.

00:11:01.320 Number one, to sell merchandise because that's really where they make their money.

00:11:05.800 And number two, to perpetuate themselves like a virus.

00:11:09.660 So each new superhero movie exists to set up the next superhero movie so that there can never be any kind of resolution or any kind of conclusion or triumph or defeat or anything.

00:11:23.520 Which means there can never be any real stakes.

00:11:27.340 There can never be any real danger for the characters because there always has to be the next movie.

00:11:33.040 It always just it always has to come back to square one.

00:11:36.240 There can never be any progress.

00:11:37.900 No matter what happens, it always just has to circle back to the beginning.

00:11:41.120 And then we could do it all over again for the next movie because the franchise must live on.

00:11:46.560 Each individual movie exists to extend the franchise and the franchise exists mainly to make to sell merchandise and in general to make billions of dollars, which is fine.

00:11:59.220 OK, there's nothing wrong with making billions of dollars.

00:12:02.040 If I can make billions of dollars making a superhero movie, I would certainly do it. 1.00

00:12:07.620 But movies that exist solely or primarily for that purpose are going to be, by definition, lifeless, boring, pointless, dull, redundant, stupid. 1.00

00:12:16.440 That's all I'm saying. 1.00

00:12:17.460 I'm not saying you shouldn't watch them.

00:12:18.600 I'm just saying that's what they are.

00:12:20.420 10,000 years from now, these things are so it just continues on forever.

00:12:24.620 So that 10,000 years from now, as the next installment of the Avengers saga is released to the screens that I assume at this point will be implanted directly into our eyeballs, philosophers are going to be debating whether these superhero franchises even had a beginning at all.

00:12:41.160 And I bet they might conclude that the Marvel and DC universes had no first cause, no prime mover.

00:12:47.360 They just existed since the beginning of time and they just go on and on and on into the infinite abyss.

00:12:54.620 That is my opinion about superhero movies.

00:13:00.120 You don't have to agree.

00:13:01.520 It's just my opinion. 1.00

00:13:02.480 And as I said, I don't begrudge anyone the right to watch stupid movies. 1.00

00:13:08.060 I just think we should expect more out of our stupid movies. 1.00

00:13:11.520 And it bothers me that Hollywood can just toss a superhero movie at us and it will automatically make a billion dollars. 0.99

00:13:18.980 They don't even have to try anymore because they're not trying with Aquaman.

00:13:22.740 Let's get real.

00:13:23.600 They're just like, all right, here's Aquaman.

00:13:26.020 Give us our billion dollars.

00:13:27.360 And we say, sure, here's a billion.

00:13:28.860 Here's another billion.

00:13:31.620 It's there's something cynical about it.

00:13:33.420 So I don't that's what I don't like.

00:13:35.440 But on the part of the movie studios, the cynicism on their part is really what I don't like. 0.95

00:13:39.220 So that's why I get my stupid movie fill by watching Liam Neeson movies, the Liam Neeson movies where he plays a, you know, the grizzled ex-FBI agent slash assassin assassin who has to recover slash revenge a kidnap slash murdered family member. 0.96

00:13:57.680 For those kinds of movies, there have been 15 of them. 0.99

00:14:00.180 I watch all of them.

00:14:01.340 They're great. 1.00

00:14:01.860 And they're incredibly stupid. 1.00

00:14:03.820 Incidentally, there's there's a movie coming out in a couple of months. 1.00

00:14:07.340 I'm not making this up.

00:14:08.220 This is true.

00:14:08.700 There's a movie coming out called Cold Pursuit, where Liam Neeson plays a vengeful snowplow driver who has to track down and kill the drug cartel members who murdered his son.

00:14:21.120 OK, so that's I'm not that's I'm serious.

00:14:23.820 And I will be there on opening day, probably without my wife because she'll refuse to watch it.

00:14:28.200 Am I being hypocritical because I criticize comic book movies even while waiting with breathless anticipation to watch a movie where Liam Neeson kills drug lords with a snowplow?

00:14:39.560 I don't think so.

00:14:42.280 Or maybe you could call me a hypocrite, you know, because I also love Tom Cruise action movies.

00:14:48.640 I'm a proud apologist for Tom Cruise movies. 0.99

00:14:51.600 So you might say those movies are just as stupid, just as pointless as superhero movies. 1.00

00:14:56.280 Maybe they are. 1.00

00:14:56.840 Maybe you're right.

00:14:57.320 Maybe I'm a hypocrite, but that doesn't mean that I'm wrong about superhero movies doesn't make what I'm saying wrong.

00:15:03.520 And at any rate, the thing I don't understand.

00:15:07.380 OK, so forget about the movies for me.

00:15:08.940 But the thing that I really don't understand is just how incredibly angry people get when you criticize their entertainment choices.

00:15:20.000 That's this is always when I get into the most trouble is when I venture into even even light sort of half teasing criticisms of entertainment, which is really what this what I'm saying here with the Superman superhero thing.

00:15:36.700 People get very, very upset and I don't I don't I don't have to get into details because I know you can imagine it, but I'll just say that the superhero fans have been coming after me over the last day.

00:15:49.880 And they've been making their opinion known and it is not a flattering opinion.

00:15:54.040 They are very, very angry at me for not liking superhero movies.

00:15:57.740 In fact, there was there was a one person who accused me of bullying.

00:16:02.100 He said I was bullying comic book movie fans by not liking comic book movies.

00:16:08.640 And my favorite my favorite are always the people who angrily shout.

00:16:13.160 They'll say, why do you care about this so much?

00:16:15.000 Why is this even worth talking about?

00:16:16.360 And then they proceed to launch into a six thousand word rant explaining why the Avengers are actually super awesome.

00:16:22.860 The truth is, I don't care about it that much.

00:16:25.500 I've written hundreds of articles in my time and precisely one of them has been on this subject.

00:16:29.920 So I don't think that qualifies as me caring a whole lot.

00:16:33.460 That qualifies as me not caring that much, caring enough to just say something about it.

00:16:39.100 But a lot of other people really do care about this subject.

00:16:44.200 And they care about it a lot.

00:16:46.360 Many people take their entertainment very seriously and will defend it passionately if you dare criticize.

00:16:53.600 Why is that?

00:16:57.320 That's not a rhetorical question.

00:16:59.580 I guess it has to be because I'm talking to a camera.

00:17:02.560 But I really don't know the answer.

00:17:08.140 Why people care that much.

00:17:09.660 Why they take their entertainment that seriously.

00:17:11.720 If somebody made fun of Liam Neeson movies or of Tom Cruise movies,

00:17:15.180 I wouldn't be offended.

00:17:16.760 You know, I wouldn't I wouldn't cry about it.

00:17:18.520 I wouldn't yell at them.

00:17:19.520 If I did cry, I would have the decency to do it in private.

00:17:22.380 I would lock myself in the bathroom and cry like any man would. 0.62

00:17:26.240 But I wouldn't do it publicly.

00:17:27.480 Probably it would make no difference to me at all.

00:17:30.820 And I may even agree with the mockery that's being heaped on my entertainment choices.

00:17:36.380 You can make fun of the things that I like to watch for entertainment.

00:17:40.900 And if if what you're saying is true, I might agree with it even.

00:17:45.560 Same with the NFL.

00:17:46.660 I'm a big NFL fan. 1.00

00:17:49.380 If you come along and say that football is stupid, you're wrong. 1.00

00:17:54.480 But it doesn't hurt my feelings. 1.00

00:17:56.400 And I wouldn't blame you for saying it. 1.00

00:17:58.040 If you really think that it's stupid, great. 1.00

00:18:00.040 Make your case. 1.00

00:18:00.780 State your opinion.

00:18:01.620 Maybe you'll convince me. 1.00

00:18:02.800 Like explain to me why it's stupid. 1.00

00:18:05.200 You won't because you're wrong. 1.00

00:18:06.760 But I won't care.

00:18:07.920 It won't make me mad.

00:18:09.260 A lot of things do make me mad.

00:18:10.820 But this isn't one of them.

00:18:11.720 So I just I don't understand. 0.99

00:18:13.320 There's nothing wrong with enjoying stupid things, as I said. 0.99

00:18:16.920 And I never said you shouldn't enjoy superhero movies. 1.00

00:18:19.880 I'm just establishing that they are stupid and boring and pointless. 0.99

00:18:24.040 But it seems to me as though in this country, we do more than enjoy our entertainment. 1.00

00:18:30.840 I think that's really the problem.

00:18:32.120 We don't just enjoy it.

00:18:34.480 We adopt it as a kind of like lifestyle.

00:18:37.940 We see it as a statement about ourselves.

00:18:41.280 We identify ourselves with it.

00:18:43.960 That's the weird phenomenon that I've noticed is how we we get so defensive of our entertainment choices.

00:18:52.640 As if we ourselves had written the script.

00:18:55.920 We cling to it and we we develop this intimate relationship with it.

00:19:01.160 Someone actually told me yesterday that the superhero fans get upset when you criticize superheroes because it's their culture and you are criticizing their culture.

00:19:14.780 And you see, that's the problem because it's not a culture.

00:19:17.340 It's a product.

00:19:19.840 Products are not culture.

00:19:21.480 They may be an element of a culture, especially a consumerist culture like ours, but they are not themselves a culture.

00:19:26.820 So me making fun of Captain America or Spider-Man is is not the same as if I were to say mock all Italians.

00:19:37.820 The Italians have a culture in identity.

00:19:40.820 Captain America, Spider-Man.

00:19:42.140 These are just make-believe characters.

00:19:44.940 There is no culture there.

00:19:46.420 So I think this is a sign of of of the emptiness that's so common in modern times.

00:19:55.760 I'm not saying that people who watch these movies are empty.

00:19:58.720 That's not what I'm saying.

00:19:59.400 I'm saying the people who take the stuff so seriously and care about it so deeply and cannot stomach any criticism of it.

00:20:08.840 They, I think, have a have a have a hole within themselves that they have filled with with this stuff.

00:20:16.880 And when I say this stuff, I don't just mean superhero movies.

00:20:19.580 I mean, I mean entertainment, any kind of entertainment, movies, TV, video games, music, sports.

00:20:26.700 As I said, I love sports.

00:20:29.060 But this is another great example.

00:20:30.820 There are people who for them, their sport fandom is their whole life.

00:20:36.300 It's the most important thing to them.

00:20:38.900 And they take it way, way, way too seriously. 1.00

00:20:42.800 Think of all think of the idiots who get into physical fights with with fans of other teams. 1.00

00:20:49.940 You know, insult their team and they'll act like you insulted their mother. 1.00

00:20:55.280 So you find this.

00:20:57.120 It's I'm not playing favorites here as a sports fan.

00:21:00.340 I certainly noticed that myself.

00:21:02.540 And it's a it's a it's a very strange thing.

00:21:06.300 And I don't think it's healthy.

00:21:07.960 I think it's it's fine for us to be entertained.

00:21:11.160 It's fine for us to enjoy mindless entertainment.

00:21:16.300 I think we probably enjoy mindless entertainment a little bit too much.

00:21:20.260 We you know, we say, well, it's nice to turn off your brain every once in a while.

00:21:23.480 The problem is we turn off our brains and we don't turn it back on.

00:21:25.800 Or we go home, you know, and we sit down on the couch at 7 p.m.

00:21:30.260 And we turn off our brains and it's off because we're watching five hours of TV and it doesn't

00:21:36.020 it doesn't go doesn't turn back on until until the next day.

00:21:38.880 The problem is when you're turning off your brain too much, eventually you'll lack the mental

00:21:43.880 energy and capacity to turn it back on.

00:21:46.400 And then you end up with these zombies walking around.

00:21:50.400 But in principle, nothing wrong with mindless entertainment.

00:21:53.540 I think when we find ourselves so attached to it and taking it so seriously.

00:21:59.080 That if somebody criticizes or makes fun of or, you know, teases an imaginary character that

00:22:07.280 we like to watch on the movie screen and if someone does that, we we get personally offended.

00:22:12.840 Once we notice that, I think it's clear that it's gone too far.

00:22:16.320 Maybe at that point we should pull back and like go for a walk or something.

00:22:23.940 Bring ourselves back into the real world.

00:22:25.740 Because we are certainly an entertainment obsessed culture.

00:22:34.440 But if you do go watch Aquaman, I hope you enjoy it and I hope that he, you know, wins

00:22:42.200 his battle against, you know, the mutant squid or whatever he's going to be fighting.

00:22:49.260 Thanks for watching, everybody.

00:22:50.340 Thanks for listening.

00:22:51.160 Godspeed.

00:22:55.740 I'm Michael Knowles, host of The Michael Knowles Show.

00:23:00.280 New evidence emerges that disgraced FBI employees used ugly, if not illegal tactics to entrap

00:23:05.840 Michael Flynn.

00:23:06.580 Democrats admit that they want to censor speech and a mother imagines the lullaby her child

00:23:11.020 sang to her before she aborted him.

00:23:13.120 We will analyze how the left gets everything exactly backwards.

00:23:17.760 Check it out at DailyWire.com.

The Matt Walsh Show - December 13, 2018

Ep. 161 - Bring On the Shutdown

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