The Matt Walsh Show - Ep. 197 - It’s Time To Get Rid Of The ‘Hate Crime’ Category

00:00:00.000 Today on the Matt Wall Show, we'll talk about why we need to get rid of hate crimes as a category.

00:00:05.900 There is no reason why crimes motivated by hate should get special treatment from the legal system, and I'll explain why.

00:00:11.680 Also, a lot of people are whining because their tax refunds are smaller, and they're blaming Donald Trump for it, of course. 0.91

00:00:18.620 But we'll talk about why it's incredibly foolish to complain about a smaller tax refund.

00:00:24.800 A lot of people don't understand, apparently, how taxes work.

00:00:27.200 So we'll talk about that today as well on the Matt Wall Show.

00:00:34.880 Well, it had been snowing here for the last several days, and then to top off all the snow, we got about a day's worth of freezing rain.

00:00:42.240 So there was probably an inch of ice on top of the snow.

00:00:45.180 So yesterday, I was the one who suggested to my kids, hey, let's go out and sled down the big hill outside out back,

00:00:55.460 because with all the ice, we'll be able to go super fast, and it'll be fun.

00:00:59.660 So we went out, and then I was the one who suggested, hey, let's build a ramp out of the ice,

00:01:06.180 because we'll be able to go really high off of the ramp, and it'll be awesome.

00:01:11.800 Now, I'm told that in most situations, at least my wife tells me, that usually it's the children who suggest dangerous things,

00:01:20.620 and then the responsible adult, being the responsible one, says, no, let's not do that.

00:01:25.320 But I find that in my case, sometimes it's sort of the opposite.

00:01:28.320 So we built the ramp, and anyway, the end of the story is that my back is really hurting today badly.

00:01:34.540 My kids are fine, but I am not.

00:01:38.500 So I would like to say I learned my lesson, but I didn't.

00:01:42.380 All right, welcome to the Matt Wall Show, by the way, and remember that if you want to get the whole show,

00:01:46.380 if you're watching on Facebook, you only get 15 minutes.

00:01:48.020 If you want to get the whole show, go to iTunes and subscribe.

00:01:50.980 You get the whole show there, or you can become a premium member of the Daily Wire.

00:01:55.320 Okay, I want to talk, to begin with, about hate crimes.

00:01:58.680 I'm following up on something we discussed yesterday, with this alleged hate crime against Empire actor Jussie Smollett, or Smollett.

00:02:11.620 I'm actually not sure how to pronounce his last name.

00:02:13.860 I'm going to say Smollett, because it sounds better.

00:02:16.380 Now, look, there is, as I said yesterday, there's a chance, there is technically a chance that he really was a victim of a hate crime, as he claims.

00:02:28.300 We cannot, at this point, conclusively prove the negative, and maybe we'll never be able to.

00:02:33.540 It is notoriously difficult and oftentimes impossible to prove a negative, to prove that something did not happen.

00:02:39.540 But we can use our faculties of reason, and we can use our common sense, and we can look at the available evidence, and we can arrive at a plausible conclusion.

00:02:51.200 And I think the most plausible conclusion with this story is that it is a hoax.

00:02:55.360 It is fake.

00:02:58.040 In fact, absurdly fake, actually.

00:03:01.140 So just to review the claim briefly, Smollett says that he was walking back from a Subway restaurant at 2 a.m. in Chicago in the middle of winter, and it was sub-zero temperatures, but he was going for a nice walk back from Subway.

00:03:17.120 And he was suddenly attacked by two racist assailants, and he says that they assaulted him, they poured a mysterious chemical on him that apparently was bleach, they tied a rope around his neck, and they shouted,

00:03:28.920 this is MAGA country, along with anti-black and anti-gay slurs. 0.62

00:03:34.520 Smollett says that he fought off his assailants, and he was able to attack, able to get away from the attack.

00:03:41.720 And impressively, he made it home with his Subway sandwich, his tuna sandwich still intact, and he still had the rope that they put around his neck.

00:03:49.560 He still had it.

00:03:50.260 He was wearing it around his neck like a necktie.

00:03:51.960 Eventually, he called the police, although according to the police report, he was hesitant to call them, but he did call them.

00:04:00.980 And eventually, he went to the hospital, and he took a selfie in the hospital bed, which is when everyone found out about this.

00:04:07.460 And the selfie shows a small scratch under his eye, but not much else in the way of bodily injury.

00:04:13.700 Now, there are many reasons to doubt this story.

00:04:17.040 Number one, I think the first reason is just that it's absurd.

00:04:21.000 It's a crazy story.

00:04:24.800 And it would be hard to believe, no matter where it was supposed to have happened, but in Chicago, Chicago is most certainly not MAGA country.

00:04:34.240 When you think of MAGA country, I don't think you think of downtown Chicago.

00:04:39.180 Not only is it Chicago, but it's one of the most liberal areas in one of the most liberal towns in the country.

00:04:50.080 So you may as well claim that you were assaulted by MAGA terrorists at a vegan convention in Portland or something. 0.58

00:04:59.500 It's the last place in the world that you would expect to encounter a roving band of homicidal, Trump-loving bigots prowling the streets. 0.91

00:05:08.100 You wouldn't expect that. 0.87

00:05:11.940 You wouldn't expect to run into them anywhere, but least of all in Chicago.

00:05:18.460 And the question is, what were these alleged violent bigots doing out in sub-zero temperatures in the middle of the night in the first place?

00:05:27.560 And why did they have a noose and a bottle of bleach ready on hand?

00:05:31.580 A bottle of bleach, which, by the way, would have frozen within minutes, so they couldn't have been out for very long.

00:05:38.140 And if this is supposed to be a random attack, well, then how did they know that Smollett was gay?

00:05:42.720 They say that he says that's part of the reason he was attacked.

00:05:45.140 Well, you know, he's just a guy walking down the street with a Subway sandwich.

00:05:49.140 If it's a random attack, how would they know that he's gay?

00:05:51.920 There's no way they could have known that.

00:05:53.160 Or was it supposed to be targeted?

00:05:57.720 And is he saying that, well, they knew him because he's a celebrity?

00:06:02.680 Were they out searching the streets and risking hypothermia in order to find and attack a relatively obscure supporting character from a show that they've almost certainly never seen?

00:06:13.540 I mean, I can tell you one thing.

00:06:15.360 If these people exist, they are certainly not the kinds of people who are going to be watching the show Empire.

00:06:21.900 I think there's a pretty good certainty of that.

00:06:27.600 But even if we allow for the possibility that these attackers exist and we overlook all of the questions about why and how they were out in the middle of the night in Chicago in the first place,

00:06:38.140 that still leaves us with the very odd fact that Smollett went home with the rope still around his neck, which just, you know,

00:06:48.600 if that were to happen to you and you were assaulted in the middle of the night and someone put a rope around your neck,

00:06:54.080 as soon as you escape, the first thing you do is take the rope off, right?

00:06:57.960 And then the second thing you do is call the police right away.

00:07:00.560 You don't wait 45 minutes.

00:07:02.160 You don't go home and talk to your friend, finish your tuna sandwich.

00:07:06.140 You call them right away.

00:07:08.140 So it just doesn't make any sense.

00:07:11.200 And it couldn't have been.

00:07:12.820 And I think he claimed that he wore the net.

00:07:14.440 He wore the rope to preserve evidence.

00:07:16.700 Well, no, you could still preserve it if you take it off.

00:07:21.080 And anyway, he wasn't even sure if you wanted to call the police right away.

00:07:24.460 So if you're not even sure you want to call the police, you're not going to be worried about preserving evidence.

00:07:29.600 Second thing is the video footage doesn't support the claim that he's talking about.

00:07:33.440 Police have been able to piece together most of his jaunt to and from Starbucks or a subway and through security camera footage because it's a big city and there are security cameras everywhere.

00:07:43.680 They there's only a 60 second gap that they can't see.

00:07:49.820 So there's no footage of the attack and there's no footage of the assailants either.

00:07:53.540 And Smollett says that conveniently the the attack happened in that 60 second span, which is possible.

00:08:00.960 You know, it is police say that it's possible that the the assault, as described, could have began and concluded within one minute.

00:08:09.820 He could have had this fight for his life against two psychotic racists in the span of one minute, 60 seconds.

00:08:20.120 It's possible.

00:08:22.120 Possible.

00:08:24.320 It's also possible that he was assaulted by a unicorn.

00:08:28.340 It's it's possible that that he got into a fight with a leprechaun.

00:08:31.700 And it's possible that, you know, a giant climb down Jack's beanstalk and kicked him in the face.

00:08:40.360 I mean, it's possible.

00:08:41.680 I can't say it's impossible.

00:08:45.160 60 seconds that we can't see.

00:08:46.900 I mean, literally anything could have happened.

00:08:49.240 Right.

00:08:50.900 But possible and plausible are two different things.

00:08:53.420 Third thing is Smollett has not been eager to help the investigation, which is suspicious.

00:08:57.680 He didn't want to hand over his phone records or his phone.

00:08:59.820 And finally, he did hand up hand over his phone records after about two weeks of stonewalling them.

00:09:04.400 But they were heavily redacted.

00:09:05.940 So redacted as to be useless.

00:09:08.500 Fourth thing is Smollett is not acting like the victim of a vicious beating.

00:09:14.080 Just a couple of days after suffering, he says bruised ribs.

00:09:17.280 He was on stage singing and dancing and not showing any sign of physical impairment whatsoever, which doesn't make any sense.

00:09:23.860 I mean, if you've ever bruised your ribs before now, broken ribs.

00:09:26.880 Okay, it's not as bad as a broken rib, but if you've ever bruised your rib before, you know that it hurts to breathe or move, let alone get up and perform a musical number.

00:09:37.120 It's just a couple of days later, you're at the very least, you're going to be in visible pain.

00:09:43.220 Right.

00:09:43.560 And then the fifth thing is that his neighbors don't even believe him.

00:09:46.540 His neighbors have come out and said that, in fact, quoting one of his neighbors, Agent Muhammad, who lives in the same building as the supposed victim, told the New York Post, I don't believe it.

00:09:58.420 Not around here. 0.97

00:09:59.260 Half the people are gay and the other half are black.

00:10:01.200 So it's just, that's significant because if this, look, if his neighbors came out and said, yeah, this kind of stuff happens all the time, that would be kind of strange that it's the first time we're hearing of it.

00:10:14.100 But if the neighbors were saying that, then I would say, okay, well, okay, well, that's the plausibility dial just ticked up a few notches then in that case.

00:10:23.760 But no, they're saying the opposite.

00:10:25.540 They're saying this kind of stuff never happens around here.

00:10:31.080 So all we can do is just use our heads and decide if this seems like something that actually happened, even if we can't totally disprove it.

00:10:44.060 As I said, it's hard to disprove anything.

00:10:45.980 We can't, there have been many alien abduction stories that people have claimed over the years.

00:10:53.040 And we can't really disprove any of those alien abduction stories.

00:10:59.200 If some guy says that he was getting out of his pickup truck one night, heading to his house, and he was abducted by an alien, we can't really disprove it.

00:11:08.020 It could have happened.

00:11:10.760 But again, we can use our heads and look at the evidence and decide whether or not it's plausible.

00:11:15.720 But here's the thing.

00:11:16.880 Okay, so that's the specifics of that case.

00:11:19.120 Hate crime hoaxes are pretty common.

00:11:23.480 And that's the other thing we have to weigh here with this case.

00:11:28.900 We know that hate crime hoaxes happen.

00:11:31.200 We know that that's a thing that happens.

00:11:32.980 But two Trump-supporting racists wielding bleach and a rope in the middle of the downtown Chicago in 2019, we don't know of anything like that happening.

00:11:51.260 So that's something that's completely unknown.

00:11:53.440 Versus the other explanation, which is a hate crime hoax.

00:11:58.380 Well, that kind of stuff happens all the time.

00:12:01.860 And I think there are many reasons why hate crime hoaxes happen.

00:12:05.220 But one reason that I think we need to look at is certainly that these things happen because of the designation of hate crimes themselves.

00:12:20.760 The very fact of the hate crime designation seems to encourage this kind of thing.

00:12:26.540 So hate crime hoaxes happen because the category of hate crime exists.

00:12:34.040 That's one way we can get rid of hate crime frauds is just getting rid of the category.

00:12:38.320 And then there are no more fake hate crimes, right?

00:12:41.560 Of course, that won't stop people from making up stories.

00:12:44.740 He still could have made up the same exact story, but it wouldn't be a fake hate crime.

00:12:48.740 They were treating this and still are treating this as a potential hate crime, which they shouldn't be because that category should not exist.

00:12:58.740 The problem with hate crimes is, first of all, not every kind of hate counts for a hate crime.

00:13:12.320 Not all the crimes that are done out of hatred count as a hate crime, which is absurd and arbitrary.

00:13:23.040 So, for instance, if somebody slashes a black man's tires because they hate him personally, they have some sort of grudge against him as an individual and they hate him, they hate his guts personally.

00:13:35.940 Well, that's a crime and that's a crime committed out of hate, but it wouldn't be treated as a hate crime.

00:13:45.360 Now, if somebody were to slash the same black man's tires, let's just say he's this guy's having a bad week and his tires got slashed, you get new tires.

00:13:54.720 Now they're slashed again by somebody else.

00:13:56.580 And and this time they're slashing his tires because they hate the demographic, the category he belongs to. 0.99

00:14:02.620 They hate him because he is a black man, not because he's that particular black man, because but because he's a black man. 0.98

00:14:09.740 Now, in that case, that's a crime. 0.99

00:14:11.360 Same exact crime.

00:14:12.880 Also committed for hate.

00:14:14.260 And now all of a sudden we're going to call that a hate crime.

00:14:17.560 That's going to get the special little tag of hate crime.

00:14:21.760 But why why though?

00:14:23.360 Why that distinction?

00:14:24.440 Is it really somehow not as bad to be targeted because because the person targeting you hates you personally?

00:14:34.600 I mean, would it make you feel better as a victim to know, oh, no, he doesn't hate my race.

00:14:40.300 He just hates everything about me personally.

00:14:42.100 That's all.

00:14:42.980 Well, never mind then.

00:14:44.120 I mean, that's OK.

00:14:46.120 That's so much better.

00:14:47.240 No, I don't think so.

00:14:50.700 If anything, wouldn't it be worse?

00:14:52.940 I mean, wouldn't it.

00:14:55.080 Wouldn't it feel worse?

00:14:56.580 Wouldn't it make you feel even more violated to know that this this crime happened out of a special disgust and hatred for you as a person?

00:15:07.140 Look, there are many crimes that are motivated by hate.

00:15:09.700 But we have this completely frivolous ranking of the kinds of of the kinds of hate that really count. 0.85

00:15:18.700 And to rank them is ridiculous in the first place.

00:15:21.500 But I don't even think we rank them correctly.

00:15:25.280 Not only that, but the second problem with the whole hate crime idea is that hatred isn't even the worst kind of motivation to have for a crime.

00:15:34.520 Hate crimes, most of the time, aren't as bad, in my mind, as other kinds of crimes, like take a crime of indifference.

00:15:45.880 So if you kill a guy for his shoes, it's probably true that you don't hate him.

00:15:52.440 In fact, not only do you not hate him, but you don't feel anything for him at all.

00:15:56.060 You were just totally indifference to his existence as a person.

00:15:59.540 You were willing to throw away his life for a pair of shoes because his life meant nothing to you.

00:16:05.800 Or someone who goes in, robs a liquor store, and shoots the clerk in the face and kills him.

00:16:11.960 Or someone who gets mugged and killed for their wallet.

00:16:15.200 I mean, these are crimes of indifference.

00:16:18.480 You are killing somebody because you want their money or you want whatever they have, and you just do not care about their life.

00:16:25.740 The fact that they are a living human being does not register with you at all.

00:16:30.800 Now, I would say that that attitude, an attitude of violent indifference, is not only worse, not only more vile, less human, more animalistic, but it's also far more dangerous.

00:16:46.480 It is far more dangerous to have somebody who is totally indifferent to human life as opposed to someone who's filled with hate.

00:16:56.220 I mean, neither are ideal, but look, I'll tell you this.

00:16:59.680 If I had to choose between sitting next to one of them on a bus, I guess I'd take the hateful person over the person who just has no regard for human life whatsoever.

00:17:09.280 Because you never know what someone like that's going to do.

00:17:11.140 There was a case in Baltimore a few years ago.

00:17:15.320 A white tourist was down in, I think it was Fed Hill, which is the part of town with all the college bars and stuff.

00:17:24.000 And it was St. Patrick's Day.

00:17:25.360 This was back in 2012 or 2013.

00:17:28.100 And the guy was drunk, you know, as people tend to be on St. Patrick's Day in the middle of the night. 0.87

00:17:34.960 And so there's video of this guy, maybe you remember this guy, this guy was walking down the street and he was assaulted, beaten, knocked down, stripped naked and robbed by a group of black people. 0.94

00:17:49.220 I think it was four black people did this.

00:17:53.880 Now, the culprits were eventually arrested and they were sentenced.

00:17:57.020 I think they each got like a year in prison with time served and all that kind of stuff.

00:18:02.560 Pretty light sentence considering the crime.

00:18:06.000 But the reason why the sentence was so light is that it was not considered a hate crime.

00:18:10.960 Even though the victim was white and the assailants were black.

00:18:13.660 And we obviously know that if you reverse the races, I mean, can you imagine, can you imagine a video footage of the races reversed of four white people doing that to a black guy?

00:18:25.060 There would be hate crime charges.

00:18:28.020 There would be riots in the street.

00:18:30.280 There would be laws being passed.

00:18:33.080 It would be the only thing we talked about on the news for days at a time.

00:18:37.100 Except this happens and hardly anyone hears about it.

00:18:39.620 And, you know, they get a year in prison or whatever.

00:18:42.600 But it wasn't a hate crime, the police said, because, well, they said, well, it's just an opportunistic crime.

00:18:47.520 It was a crime of opportunity.

00:18:48.880 Okay, so they beat him, humiliated him, stripped him naked and robbed him just for the hell of it, just for fun?

00:18:57.680 Well, that's so much better.

00:19:00.020 Or is it?

00:19:02.720 Why is that somehow better?

00:19:05.480 Why is that somehow not as bad as attacking him for his race? 0.93

00:19:10.040 Attacking him because they have a total disregard for him as a person and they're just looking for a quick thrill so they strip him naked and beat him and take his money?

00:19:18.880 And you're telling me that's less egregious?

00:19:21.740 And those people are less of a threat to society?

00:19:26.240 No, if anything, it's more egregious.

00:19:30.020 At least if they'd beaten him because they hate him for his race, at least that's a reason. 1.00

00:19:33.820 It's a bad reason.

00:19:35.360 But to attack someone for no reason is just animalistic.

00:19:40.880 I mean, as I said, it's subhuman.

00:19:44.740 Think of serial killers.

00:19:45.980 Think of serial killers who kill just for the sake of killing.

00:19:50.900 These are the most dangerous kinds of criminals and also the most vile and savage and vicious kinds of people because of that.

00:19:59.820 Because they have no reason.

00:20:00.900 They just do it for the sake of it.

00:20:02.100 So we need to get rid of the hate crime designation.

00:20:06.520 But I will say that if we're going to have hate crimes, which we shouldn't, but if we are, then I think hate crime hoaxes, false hate crime reports should be treated as hate crimes themselves.

00:20:22.800 Much in the same way that I think a false rape accusation, that someone who makes a false rape accusation and is proven to have made a false rape accusation should get the same sentence that the rapist would have gotten.

00:20:35.920 And I think the same thing for hate crime hoaxes, because think about what you're doing.

00:20:40.640 You're engendering, you're fostering suspicion and hatred against an entire group of people who you made this story because of the story that you made up. 0.94

00:20:48.880 You know, if Smollett made this up, then he's trying to paint white people as a dangerous, psychotic, you know, violent racist. 0.83

00:21:00.620 And that in and itself should be treated as a hate crime. 0.81

00:21:03.660 But it won't be because, again, the hate crime designation is arbitrary, politically charged, ideological, and totally absurd for that reason.

00:21:15.620 All right.

00:21:16.960 What else?

00:21:18.880 OK, I wanted to a lot of people are are whining.

00:21:25.140 I guess I could just leave it there.

00:21:26.660 A lot of people are whining.

00:21:28.940 That's all.

00:21:30.600 Now, in this case, a lot of people are whining because they're getting a smaller tax refund this year.

00:21:35.820 And there have been a lot of stories about this in the news, including a there's this headline from The New York Times.

00:21:42.040 Smaller tax refunds surprise those expecting more relief.

00:21:45.420 And so it's just a kind of sob story about all these people that thought they were going to get a bigger tax refund.

00:21:51.640 And now they're not.

00:21:52.320 And they're blaming Trump saying that the tax bill screwed them over because they're getting a smaller refund and so forth.

00:21:57.260 So this is one of my great pet peeves.

00:22:01.800 And speaking as someone who has a lot of pet peeves.

00:22:05.120 Let me just explain something here very, very simply.

00:22:11.100 A smaller refund is a good thing.

00:22:19.260 OK, you should want a smaller refund.

00:22:23.260 You should not want a big refund.

00:22:25.440 A smaller refund just means that the government took less money from you during the year, so it owes you less at the end.

00:22:34.700 A big refund means that you gave the government too much money and they held on to your money without interest and then just gave it back to you.

00:22:44.280 A tax refund is not a gift.

00:22:46.780 It's not a bonus.

00:22:48.540 It's not a winning scratch off ticket.

00:22:50.780 It's a refund, a refund.

00:22:52.860 They are refunding you.

00:22:54.060 The government is giving your own money back to you.

00:22:59.980 The goal here should be to only give the government what you owe the government.

00:23:06.220 And I hate even using that word owe.

00:23:08.500 What you owe them according to the law.

00:23:12.300 So that should be the goal.

00:23:14.240 To give the government what you owe during the year and not much more than that so that you can keep the rest for yourself and save it or invest it or do whatever you want with it.

00:23:22.660 You know, build a deck or do whatever you want to remodel, whatever you want to do.

00:23:27.500 Go to Disney World.

00:23:28.400 I mean, it's your money, right?

00:23:30.800 To give them more than you owe just means that they're going to hold on to your own money.

00:23:35.540 They're going to hold it hostage and they're going to pay it back without interest.

00:23:39.180 That's not a good thing.

00:23:44.000 That's not something to be excited about.

00:23:46.840 When people are excited about their tax refunds, it's the most pitiful thing. 0.97

00:23:50.560 Our founding fathers are getting heartburn in the grave when they see these foolish Americans celebrating their tax refunds. 0.96

00:23:59.180 Oh, I got a tax refund. 0.99

00:24:01.460 That's your money that was taken from you.

00:24:04.880 You could have had that months ago.

00:24:06.740 That should have been in your pocket all along.

00:24:08.680 What are you excited about?

00:24:09.760 They took that from you and you didn't even owe it.

00:24:15.240 Complaining about a small tax refund.

00:24:17.480 It's like if you lend somebody 50 bucks and then they give you the 50 bucks back and then you're upset because you wish it was a thousand.

00:24:25.220 Well, wait, so you wish that you had lent them a thousand dollars?

00:24:29.300 Why?

00:24:30.160 Wouldn't you rather only lend them 50 and then you could keep the other 950 for yourself?

00:24:34.740 It's your money after all.

00:24:36.960 No, you see, it's better to not be owed money unless people are paying you interest, okay?

00:24:43.080 If you're a loan shark and people are paying you interest on it, then I guess you're going to make a profit.

00:24:47.420 But to have people who owe you money and aren't paying you interest, that's not a good thing.

00:24:53.440 I mean, that's not an ideal sort of situation.

00:24:56.560 And this is why the withholding system is one of the most brilliant and most insidious and most deceitful devices ever conceived by the government.

00:25:11.020 I think the withholding system might be the best trick the government has ever pulled.

00:25:16.160 It really is brilliant and evil.

00:25:19.280 Well, the withholding system where the government takes your money automatically with each paycheck and then holds on to it if they take too much and pay it back at the end.

00:25:32.680 Again, the withholding system has made it so that the government can take even more than it's owed and people are grateful for it.

00:25:40.600 People are grateful to have the government take too much money.

00:25:45.700 In fact, they're disappointed if the government doesn't take too much.

00:25:49.300 You know, they only get back 100 bucks or something at the end of the year and they say, oh, no, that means that the government didn't take too much money from me.

00:25:59.200 I got to keep my own money.

00:26:01.140 Oh, no, I got to keep my own money throughout the year.

00:26:03.900 This is a tragedy.

00:26:04.760 We have no concept of how much we're really paying or how much it really affects us and how damaged we really are by the waste in government.

00:26:18.380 Tax day should be a painful, miserable, horrible experience for everyone.

00:26:27.480 We should all hate tax day the same way we all hate the dentist and we all hate going to the DMV.

00:26:34.240 We should all hate tax day.

00:26:36.660 But again, because of this brilliant and insidious ploy on the part of the government, people are excited for tax day.

00:26:46.200 Not because, you know, the government isn't taking their money, but just because of the way that now they get their money back on tax day and they feel like it's a profit.

00:26:54.060 I was I was self-employed for one year.

00:26:58.340 I still have self-employed income, but I'm primarily paid through my job now.

00:27:04.520 But I was solely self-employed for one year and being self-employed was utterly eye opening.

00:27:11.000 And I mean, everyone should experience it, at least for a short time.

00:27:14.100 It was eye opening.

00:27:15.260 It was shocking.

00:27:16.100 It was it was traumatizing.

00:27:18.460 I still have PTSD from it.

00:27:20.740 Now, I always hated the IRS like any good American.

00:27:24.060 But never more so than when I actually had to sit there and like pull out a checkbook and write a check for X amount of money.

00:27:34.940 And I had to watch my money march out the door and into the coffers of a wasteful, bloated, behemoth, monstrous government.

00:27:44.940 I'm telling you, that will make a libertarian out of anybody.

00:27:51.940 Just actually pay your taxes for one year and you'll be a libertarian.

00:27:57.360 You will be a radical libertarian bordering on anarchist by the end of it.

00:28:02.120 I guarantee it.

00:28:02.940 But with the withholding, and so if everyone had to do that, if everyone had to write a check to the government, you're not getting any money back.

00:28:16.280 They're not going to take it out automatically.

00:28:17.800 You have to sit there and write the check.

00:28:19.540 It's still the exact same amount of money.

00:28:21.280 So the same thing is happening.

00:28:22.480 It's just you are actively involved in the process.

00:28:25.380 And if everyone had to do that, they would understand.

00:28:27.800 They would be able to conceptualize and get their minds around how much money they're paying.

00:28:34.620 It would become palpable and tangible and accountability.

00:28:38.280 There would be real accountability.

00:28:40.420 People would be really upset by government waste and by a $22 trillion national debt and by all of this stuff.

00:28:50.160 People would be really upset about it.

00:28:52.260 But the system now is meant to insulate you from the pain of being bilked by the government.

00:28:57.820 It doesn't insulate you from the bilking.

00:28:59.420 The bilking is going on.

00:29:00.540 There's bilking either way, right?

00:29:02.360 But in this case, you just don't feel it because that's how they've structured it.

00:29:07.580 And that's bad.

00:29:08.760 It's bad to not feel it.

00:29:10.220 For the same reason that it would be bad to take a bunch of Oxycontin and then press your face against a hot stove.

00:29:20.920 Now, yeah, the Oxycontin, the drugs will insulate you from the pain, but they're not going to insulate you from the damage being done to your face.

00:29:28.800 And so the withholding system insulates us from the pain of paying all this money, but it doesn't insulate us from the actual damages, the actual effect of having all this money taken from us.

00:29:40.920 You know, the system now reminds me of, um, I don't know if you've ever, if you've ever been on a cruise before.

00:29:49.280 And, uh, I don't know if I would even recommend it.

00:29:52.680 I went on one cruise once for, it was on our honeymoon.

00:29:55.180 We went on a cruise and, um, and I, I don't, I assume this is how most cruises work.

00:30:01.120 But at this cruise, they, they, they give you, uh, this little card at the beginning of the cruise.

00:30:11.060 And this is what you use to get drinks.

00:30:15.580 So you're not using your own credit card.

00:30:17.120 You don't pay with cash.

00:30:18.160 You just, they just give you this nice little, you know, it's a nice little, uh, cute little card.

00:30:23.440 And it's really easy.

00:30:24.460 Like you go and you get your, your drink and, um, you give them the card.

00:30:29.120 It takes two seconds.

00:30:31.120 And you're not paying any money right away.

00:30:34.820 But then at the end of the week, they give you your bill, uh, for, for all that, all that drinking you've been doing.

00:30:41.860 And then it's okay.

00:30:43.040 Now I owe 700 bucks.

00:30:45.420 But the fact that they made the process, the whole reason they give you that card.

00:30:49.740 I mean, they could just as easily have you use a credit card, a debit card, paper cash, but they give you their own little card because they just want to kind of separate you from the realization of what you're doing.

00:31:01.100 They want to make the process of buying drinks as easy and painless as possible so that you'll buy more and you won't notice it.

00:31:10.900 Um, similar thing with the government.

00:31:12.480 Although in this case, again, there's really, uh, you know, at the end of the cruise, you do have to write the check.

00:31:17.400 And, but with the government, for a lot of people, they never write the check, but imagine, imagine a system.

00:31:21.520 Imagine something like, um, if you went on a cruise and they give you a card, but it's more of like a debit card so that the money does come automatically out of your account, but you don't feel it.

00:31:33.360 You don't realize it's happening.

00:31:34.060 Like, and imagine, imagine this, imagine if a cruise, I don't want to give anyone any ideas, but imagine if they gave you a little debit card thing.

00:31:40.940 And, um, but for every drink, they charge you 5% more than it really costs.

00:31:46.720 And they take that out of your account.

00:31:48.300 And then at the end of the cruise, they give you a refund.

00:31:52.200 They pay you back the extra that they took.

00:31:55.920 Well, then you would feel like you're getting paid to drink.

00:31:59.060 Then you'd buy twice as many drinks because you get that nice check at the end, even though it's your own money that they just took from you.

00:32:07.600 Um, so it's, that's basically how it works.

00:32:10.340 So please stop complaining about your small refunds and, uh, be grateful.

00:32:14.840 That just means the government didn't take that from you in the first place.

00:32:19.360 All right.

00:32:20.020 Um, let's answer a few emails here.

00:32:22.600 Um, you can email the show, Matt wall show at gmail.com at wall show at gmail.com.

00:32:27.440 Um, so this is from Colin.

00:32:30.960 He says, Hey, Matt, I've come up with a drinking game for your show.

00:32:34.320 Um, one shot for having to defend a tweet from yesterday.

00:32:37.800 One shot for having to explain a position you stated on your podcast from yesterday.

00:32:42.200 Okay.

00:32:42.560 So you've already had to take a shot for this episode.

00:32:45.540 Um, one shot for defending, having a beard.

00:32:49.360 One shot for reading hate mail from your inbox.

00:32:52.300 One shot for making fun of Ben Shapiro.

00:32:54.920 Now I don't really do that a lot, do I?

00:32:56.460 I don't think I, I, I mean, except for the time when Ben said that shop strawberry daiquiris

00:33:00.920 are better than whiskey.

00:33:02.140 Um, and I threatened to resign because of it, but, but I think in that case, he, he, uh,

00:33:07.080 he certainly deserved the criticism.

00:33:10.080 Um, one shot for a sarcastic comment.

00:33:13.760 Okay. 1.00

00:33:14.200 Well then you'll just be, you'll be dead within 90 seconds.

00:33:16.620 If, if you're doing that one shot for quoting your own employer, the daily wire, and one

00:33:21.700 additional shot, if the article is written by Amanda Preston Giacomo, uh, yes, I do steal

00:33:27.540 a lot of her content for this show.

00:33:29.340 That's true.

00:33:30.320 Uh, you're doing great work, but I'm, I'm not, but I'm not since starting to participate

00:33:34.500 in this drinking game.

00:33:35.860 I like that, Colin.

00:33:36.880 That's a great, in fact, if anyone else has suggestions for a Matt Walsh show drinking

00:33:40.600 game, you can make them.

00:33:42.000 Um, but yeah, I would say that, uh, it's, it's pretty dangerous because I do a lot of

00:33:48.260 this multiple times every single day.

00:33:50.680 So, you know, but I'll tell you this, maybe one day we can all do a Matt Walsh show drinking

00:33:59.940 game together and I'll participate.

00:34:03.120 I, I don't know if I'll get the approval for that from the higher ups, but I can ask anyway.

00:34:08.740 This is from Chris.

00:34:09.760 Hi, Matt.

00:34:10.140 Love the show.

00:34:10.700 Yesterday, when you were commenting on the case for Christ, uh, the book case for Christ,

00:34:15.620 um, that you would hope to have the other side's point of view.

00:34:18.880 I was curious if you've seen Bill Maher's religious movie and, um, think this may be the

00:34:24.340 other side's point of view prior to finding my way to Christ.

00:34:26.920 I believed a lot of what it was in that movie.

00:34:29.100 I am curious if you could speak on this in depth.

00:34:31.840 Thanks for all you do.

00:34:32.720 God bless you and your family.

00:34:34.300 Uh, hi, Chris.

00:34:35.220 I have seen it.

00:34:37.360 I found it to be extraordinarily worthless.

00:34:40.300 It definitely was not any sort of serious, thoughtful counterpoint to biblical claims.

00:34:48.020 I wasn't really expecting it to be because it's Bill Maher after all.

00:34:52.320 Uh, it, it, it is nothing but one long snide sneer at religious people.

00:34:56.620 That's all it is.

00:34:57.200 It doesn't, it does not, I'm not just saying that because I disagree.

00:35:00.180 It just does not advance any serious arguments at all.

00:35:04.320 It doesn't take, because it doesn't take religion seriously at all.

00:35:09.040 And so the whole, if you've never seen the movie, the whole movie consists of, of Bill

00:35:14.860 Maher just going around the country, laughing at religious people.

00:35:18.840 That's it around the world, actually, not just the country.

00:35:21.400 Um, now, so it's, it's, I have, I have, I really, I've, it's kind of incredible.

00:35:27.160 I've never seen someone pluck so many low hanging fruits one after another, after another, because

00:35:35.500 he interviews two, maybe three intelligent and knowledgeable and kind of scholarly Christians,

00:35:42.920 um, and them only very briefly.

00:35:46.780 And for the rest of the time, he goes out and he purposefully finds Christians who clearly 1.00

00:35:51.840 haven't thought too deeply about these kinds of things. 0.99

00:35:54.440 That's stupid, but they just, he finds Christians who just, they're, they're not experts and 1.00

00:35:58.780 they haven't thought much about this. 1.00

00:36:00.220 The very first scene in the movie, if I remember correctly, is him at a truck stop chapel in a

00:36:07.240 chapel that's, um, that's, uh, you know, literally in the back of a truck and that's his first

00:36:14.860 stop, right?

00:36:16.800 He's trying to find out about religion, talk to religious people.

00:36:19.740 And that's the first place he goes is to a truck stop.

00:36:23.320 Okay.

00:36:23.840 This is clearly somebody who's not interested in, in having a serious conversation that he

00:36:29.040 interviews a Jesus impersonator at some kind of biblical theme park.

00:36:33.000 Um, he interviews a guy who, who runs a pawn shop or something.

00:36:38.180 And, uh, this guy claims that he, he made it rain once by sticking a cup out a window.

00:36:42.760 Okay.

00:36:43.220 So this is the level of argumentation that Bill Maher is interested in, um, in engaging with.

00:36:52.100 And it's just designed to generate cheap laughter at the expense of normal, decent people who

00:36:57.860 maybe don't have the best religious education.

00:37:00.060 So I honestly hated the movie.

00:37:03.000 Okay.

00:37:03.960 Last email.

00:37:04.660 Again, you can email the show, mattwallshow at gmail.com.

00:37:07.700 Uh, this is from Josh says, hi, Matt, I have a two part question.

00:37:13.820 One, do you think that the sexual exploitation in the Christian church is caused primarily

00:37:17.820 by either leaders with good intentions who succumb to sin or wolves who enter the church

00:37:23.280 because they recognize a way to easily gain trust from vulnerable congregants to in either

00:37:29.200 scenario, the result is a person in power who exploits the trust of church members.

00:37:33.300 This got me thinking about my own church up until now.

00:37:35.920 I've had nothing but absolute trust in our church leadership and elders, but in light

00:37:39.440 of the recent scandals, I can't help, but feel that, um, no one can be trusted.

00:37:43.020 I have no reason to believe that anyone in my church would ever do a thing like this, but

00:37:46.520 I'm sure that's exactly what every other victim thought must we as church goers be ever

00:37:51.280 present with our children, never letting them alone with any church leader or member for that

00:37:55.460 matter.

00:37:56.280 Love the show.

00:37:57.860 Josh.

00:37:58.700 Hi, Josh.

00:37:59.460 Josh.

00:37:59.700 I definitely don't think that the first option is the case.

00:38:03.020 Uh, the people who commit or help to cover up or ignore sex abuse definitely do not have

00:38:09.080 good intentions.

00:38:09.740 Um, that doesn't mean that every bishop or church elder or whoever who looks the other

00:38:15.960 way on sex abuse necessarily actively wants there to be sex abuse.

00:38:21.240 For most of them, it's simply cowardice and self-interest, but I wouldn't call self-interest

00:38:27.540 a good thing.

00:38:28.920 Um, and that also doesn't mean that every single sex predator in the church necessarily join

00:38:36.520 the church in order to have access to victims.

00:38:38.780 Although I think that's probably the case for a lot of them.

00:38:43.240 Um, and it, you know, it also depends on, there are different levels of abuse, different

00:38:49.300 kinds of abuse, uh, you know, so it's, it's sort of to try to talk about what leads to this

00:38:54.420 and motivations to talk about in such a general way is a little bit difficult to do, but either 0.99

00:39:00.120 way, these are, these are evil, evil scumbags. 0.99

00:39:03.860 Uh, as to your second question, that is tough. 1.00

00:39:08.780 Because of course we have to keep in mind that sex abusers are still a very small minority

00:39:14.840 in the church, very small, yet it is a problem that exists and we have to account for it.

00:39:19.560 We can't ignore it.

00:39:20.860 Um, we, we can't be untrusting and suspicious and paranoid all the time, but we should be

00:39:27.760 cautious.

00:39:28.800 So there is definitely a fine line between caution and paranoia.

00:39:33.560 And that is, and I admit as a parent, that's a, sometimes a very difficult.

00:39:38.780 Line for me to draw.

00:39:40.660 Um, here's what I would suggest.

00:39:44.520 We should treat church leaders or pastors or priests like we would anyone else.

00:39:50.340 Um, we shouldn't implicitly trust them with our kids completely and automatically any more

00:39:56.340 than you would trust a stranger.

00:39:57.480 Because if somebody is a member of a church, leader of a church, and you don't know them,

00:40:03.540 well, then they're still a stranger.

00:40:06.480 But as you get to know someone better, then you're, you're more equipped to make judgment

00:40:11.440 calls about them.

00:40:12.660 Uh, of course those judgment calls can be wrong, can be tragically wrong, but that's the best

00:40:16.640 we can do really.

00:40:17.300 Uh, we can only make judgment calls about people and then, and then go from there.

00:40:22.440 The only other option is to keep our kids locked in their rooms until they turn 18, which obviously

00:40:26.820 we can't do.

00:40:28.240 I think the main point is that we can't trust a person just based on the office or position

00:40:36.380 they hold.

00:40:36.980 If there's any practical lesson that we can take from all of these sex abuse problems

00:40:43.180 and all these different institutions, that's it.

00:40:45.760 That you, just because someone holds a certain position or they have a certain title or a

00:40:50.420 certain office or, or whatever else that does not mean they can be trusted, which isn't

00:40:56.660 to say we can't trust any of them, but we can only trust people really through getting

00:41:02.240 to know them on a personal level.

00:41:04.580 That's how we can trust them.

00:41:06.980 We cannot assume that, oh, he's a fill in the blank position and therefore I can trust

00:41:12.760 them or he's a, you know, he does this.

00:41:15.480 And so therefore he would never do that.

00:41:18.900 It would be nice if we could say that about pastors and priests and church leaders and

00:41:24.620 church members, uh, but we can't.

00:41:27.220 And, and that's the mistake I think a lot of people have made.

00:41:29.960 I think back, um, in the Catholic church, back when the, the, the, the abuse situation

00:41:35.820 was really, really bad back before it had been exposed back in the seventies and eighties,

00:41:40.640 many parents would leave their kids alone with priests who they did not know, uh, but

00:41:46.820 they didn't think anything of it because it just didn't occur to them that a priest, a

00:41:52.460 priest of all people would do something like that.

00:41:55.100 Now, after these kinds of things come out and it's big news and everything, well, then

00:41:59.560 it's easy to have more caution.

00:42:02.580 But before that happens, I think people just, it's, they don't even, it just doesn't occur

00:42:07.780 to them.

00:42:09.200 This is true of other positions as well.

00:42:11.000 It's true of any position.

00:42:11.980 Think of doctors.

00:42:12.860 Uh, there's a big sex abuse problem in the medical field, which doesn't, which it doesn't, 0.91

00:42:17.760 isn't talked about very often.

00:42:19.640 Um, and we are conditioned to trust doctors and many doctors are worthy of trust, but no

00:42:25.740 doctor is worthy of implicit trust just simply because he is a doctor.

00:42:30.460 There's nothing about becoming a doctor.

00:42:32.720 That necessarily requires you to be a trustworthy person.

00:42:37.140 There, there's nothing about any position.

00:42:40.120 Um, there's nothing about the position of pastor or priest that inherently weeds out untrustworthy

00:42:47.480 people.

00:42:49.940 Same for police officers, same for teachers, everybody. 0.91

00:42:54.060 So think of, for instance, the, the worst pedophile, you know, you know, the worst pedophile in American 0.64

00:42:58.700 history, the worst pedophile in American history is a guy named Earl Bradley.

00:43:03.320 And he was a pediatrician in Delaware. 0.88

00:43:05.540 He molested hundreds and hundreds of his patients. 0.96

00:43:08.740 He was, he was like the, the pedophile version of Kermit Gosnell basically.

00:43:14.140 And in fact, his story, uh, this story came out around, around the same time as Gosnell within

00:43:19.400 a few years, I think, um, he molested hundreds of his patients, small children.

00:43:24.020 And he got away with it because parents would leave him alone with their kids.

00:43:31.700 Uh, parents would send their, you know, four or five-year-old kids back with this pediatrician

00:43:36.540 and, uh, and then these terrible things would happen.

00:43:39.780 And, and I'm sure those parents, it just never occurred to them.

00:43:42.780 It never occurred to them that a pediatrician would be a child molester, uh, because he's

00:43:47.780 a doctor after all.

00:43:49.140 And of course, it's very easy for us now to say, well, how could you do that?

00:43:52.560 I mean, as a parent, it's so reckless, but look, I remember I, I lived not far away when

00:43:56.620 this happened and, uh, I was much younger.

00:43:59.220 I didn't have kids at the time myself.

00:44:01.040 So I'd never had to really think about this issue very much.

00:44:04.180 But, um, yeah, I remember when that happened, I was talking to my mom about it and she said,

00:44:09.140 oh yeah, you'd never send your kid back with a doctor and you never leave a kid alone

00:44:13.120 with a doctor.

00:44:14.200 And I remember what she said.

00:44:15.260 I said, really?

00:44:15.720 I didn't, is that, I guess I hadn't really thought I didn't have kids.

00:44:18.700 I didn't really think about it.

00:44:19.620 But, uh, but, um, yeah, it hadn't occurred to me at the time.

00:44:26.540 And I think that's just how it is with a lot of people.

00:44:29.860 People say, well, he's a doctor.

00:44:31.080 Of course you can trust him.

00:44:31.860 And the same kind of mistakes are made in regards to teachers and, you know, scout leaders and

00:44:39.140 any other similar kind of position.

00:44:42.000 So again, the point is, uh, well, the point is not that we have to suspect everybody and

00:44:47.160 we have to think that everyone's a child molester.

00:44:48.580 The point is simply that we can't put our absolute trust and faith in someone just because

00:44:52.680 of the position or office they hold.

00:44:54.260 And sad to say, uh, this is also true in families.

00:44:59.220 Most abuse happens within families.

00:45:02.400 That is the tragic and disgusting fact.

00:45:05.240 Now, hopefully you trust your family, but you trust them because you know them.

00:45:09.820 That's why hopefully you can trust your family uniquely because you're in a unique position

00:45:14.540 to really get to know them because they're your family.

00:45:17.340 But you don't trust them just because they're family.

00:45:23.380 Uh, so you don't trust say your uncle or an uncle with your kids just because he's an

00:45:30.980 uncle that doesn't mean anything.

00:45:35.040 Uh, probably most child molesters in the world are, are uncles of someone, right?

00:45:41.880 So just because you're an uncle doesn't mean anything, but you trust an uncle with your

00:45:46.280 kids if you know him and you have the opportunity to know him well, because he's a close family

00:45:52.380 member.

00:45:53.440 Um, I think there are many, many cases of abuse by family members where the other people in

00:45:59.560 the family, I think maybe, maybe probably do get kind of a weird vibe from this person.

00:46:04.120 They, they hear stories, they catch a whiff of something.

00:46:08.120 And, uh, but they say, no, no, no, he's their uncle.

00:46:10.780 You wouldn't do that.

00:46:11.720 In fact, there are many cases you talk to people who were abused when they were younger and you

00:46:15.100 hear their stories and they'll tell you that sometimes they, they even told their parents

00:46:19.560 or they told people, or they at least hinted at it very strongly.

00:46:24.080 And everyone said, no, he wouldn't do that.

00:46:26.080 No, he's a, he's a, but he's a family.

00:46:27.360 He would never do that.

00:46:29.180 So that logic just doesn't work.

00:46:31.880 Um, you know, all of my, my, my brother and my brothers-in-law, I trust them absolutely

00:46:36.800 with, with the kids, but not because they're uncles only because I know them very well.

00:46:41.080 And I know that they're, they're very good, decent, uh, virtuous, trustworthy people.

00:46:46.820 So that's the reason, um, that, that sort of position or office, if we want to call it

00:46:53.640 of family member in and of itself means nothing, unfortunately.

00:46:59.040 All right.

00:46:59.700 So we will leave it on that somewhat depressing note.

00:47:03.160 Um, have a great day, everyone.

00:47:07.120 Talk to you tomorrow.

00:47:08.280 Godspeed.

00:47:11.080 I'm Michael Knowles, host of The Michael Knowles Show.

00:47:17.380 President Trump waxes philosophic on his beautiful wall.

00:47:20.820 We will analyze the long tradition of aesthetic conservatives and Philistine liberals.

00:47:24.420 Then Howard Schultz calls the Green New Deal immoral.

00:47:26.980 Cory Booker says poor people shouldn't eat meat.

00:47:28.980 And we ask, do animals have feelings?

00:47:30.980 How about white teenage boys?

00:47:32.560 Check it out at dailywire.com.

The Matt Walsh Show - February 13, 2019

Ep. 197 - It’s Time To Get Rid Of The ‘Hate Crime’ Category

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