The Matt Walsh Show - Ep. 222 - We Should Never Be Fans Of Politicians

00:00:00.160 Today on the Matt Wall Show, we'll talk about this merging of celebrity and politician that we've seen going on.

00:00:07.340 It's a very disturbing trend. More and more politicians are attracting fans rather than supporters.

00:00:14.160 And I'll explain why, in my opinion, we should never be fans of politicians.

00:00:17.980 We should always be skeptical of them, no matter who they are.

00:00:21.580 Also today, a video of a hunter killing a sleeping lion in Africa is provoking, as you can imagine,

00:00:29.140 and outrage online. We'll discuss the ethics of big game hunting.

00:00:34.100 That and other topics today on the Matt Wall Show.

00:00:42.840 Okay, so before we get started here, I thought it would be a good idea maybe to begin the show with a little bit of motivation.

00:00:50.820 Because, you know, things can get kind of heavy here on the show sometimes.

00:00:54.040 We get into some difficult topics.

00:00:55.140 And so I thought we could begin with a little pep talk, some inspiration.

00:01:01.720 So I'm going to play this for you briefly, and I hope that you find it as inspiring as I did.

00:01:07.140 She just shoots up that big spirit or presence or soul or whatever word you like to use for it.

00:01:16.520 Foreground zero planet Earth just squeezes up and out.

00:01:23.600 I'm moving her up so it doesn't get stuck in all the astral currents.

00:01:29.180 It doesn't get tangled.

00:01:30.900 Yeah, so there's that.

00:01:36.780 There's that anyway.

00:01:40.460 That's all.

00:01:41.540 I can't.

00:01:42.260 That's moving on.

00:01:43.980 I wrote an article yesterday making a point that I've made before on the show, but I think it bears repeating.

00:01:49.800 I was thinking initially about the cultish support that Beto O'Rourke is inspiring.

00:01:57.520 And you can't really call it support, actually, because support is conditional.

00:02:01.460 When you support a politician, that usually means that you like what they stand for and the policies that they propose.

00:02:08.900 But if they betray those principles, then you'll stop supporting.

00:02:15.380 That's what usually support means.

00:02:17.300 So what Beto has are groupies who create, you know, if you go online, you go to YouTube, you'll find the people that have written songs about Beto O'Rourke.

00:02:26.840 So that's, these are groupies.

00:02:29.120 And this is how you know, as I've said before, this is how you know that Beto will be the Democratic nominee, just because he gets that out of people.

00:02:37.520 He doesn't have any policy proposals to speak of, no discernible vision for America, no qualifications, really.

00:02:45.200 But he makes people swoon for whatever reason, and they climb over each other to get autographs and things like that.

00:02:51.420 And that's all you need these days in America.

00:02:53.660 America, it's why, it's why, you know, Drake or Bradley Cooper or, or Tom Brady, any of them could be president if they wanted to be.

00:03:01.900 The only thing saving us from a Cardi B presidency is that she's not old enough and she could probably make more money in rap music. 1.00

00:03:08.640 But we really are at a point, I believe, where any pop star, any famous athlete could be president.

00:03:16.380 And you might say, well, it's always been that way.

00:03:18.020 I don't think it necessarily has always been that way.

00:03:20.160 I think it's, I think it's that way now, where if you have someone who's just, it really, the qualifications really don't matter at all anymore.

00:03:30.000 Now, I think is where we are.

00:03:32.720 It's great for politicians if they can provoke that sort of reaction, but it's terrible for America and it's deadly to democracy.

00:03:43.060 No American, and I will keep beating this drum because someone needs to, I think, no American should ever be a fan of a politician.

00:03:56.480 Politicians should never have fans.

00:04:00.160 Conditional, skeptical, critical support is the most that these people should ever get from us, ever.

00:04:08.780 Fandom is, is something that's meant for sports.

00:04:12.540 It's meant for Hollywood, but it's not meant for D.C.

00:04:17.760 It's not meant for politics.

00:04:19.500 And this is not, I'm not just talking about Democrats here.

00:04:21.800 Trump, also, Donald Trump has many fans of his own, obviously, as you know.

00:04:27.360 And, and when I say fans of Trump, I'm talking about the sicko fans who, when it comes to the president, they lose all capacity for critical thought.

00:04:35.920 Now, sorry, I'm not talking about the president.

00:04:40.320 I'm saying, no, they don't, they don't call it, you know, the people that they don't say, oh, the president, Donald Trump.

00:04:46.560 No, they say, they say my president.

00:04:49.700 Have you noticed that?

00:04:52.340 This is something that you see, you see it from, from Trump fans, even more than you saw it from Obama fans.

00:04:57.600 Uh, but Trump's most loyal fans, when they refer to him, they'll say something like, they'll say something like, uh, you know, the establishment is always attacking my president.

00:05:09.620 My president deserves support. 0.92

00:05:12.600 My God, it's disgusting. 0.97

00:05:14.860 You, you talk about him like he's literally your boyfriend or something. 0.95

00:05:18.620 Yeah, he is, in a sense, your president in the, in the, in the, in the sense that you're an American citizen, but my president.

00:05:26.280 See, the thing is, you would never, when Obama was president, you never said that.

00:05:30.420 You never said, my president, Obama.

00:05:33.400 Uh, no, you reserve it for Trump because he, because of this weird affection you have for him. 0.84

00:05:37.420 It's really just gross. 0.80

00:05:40.860 Nauseating.

00:05:41.300 But this kind of support, by the way, it's just as bad on the other side when you've got, uh, people say, oh, he's not, not my president.

00:05:52.580 Right?

00:05:53.560 Well, he is, he's all of our president.

00:05:55.760 He's not your president.

00:05:57.040 He's not not your president.

00:05:58.180 He's just the president.

00:05:59.540 He's the president of the United States.

00:06:00.700 He doesn't belong to you.

00:06:02.820 You can't disown him either.

00:06:04.520 He's just the guy who's the president.

00:06:06.600 That's all.

00:06:08.300 Um, this is the kind of support though.

00:06:10.900 The kind of fandom that Trump provokes in some people, whatever they do, he supports, whatever he says, they agree with, uh, whoever he villainizes, they hate, whoever he promotes, they love.

00:06:22.300 It really is as simple as that.

00:06:23.900 They would quite literally drink the Kool-Aid Jim Jones style if he asked them to.

00:06:27.920 I really believe that.

00:06:29.180 They are not conservative.

00:06:30.540 They're not right wing.

00:06:32.080 Um, it would be, it would be inaccurate to classify them that way.

00:06:35.000 They are Trumpists who subscribe to Trumpism and the doctrines of Trumpism can change from moment to moment, depending on what the president or what my president happens to be tweeting at the moment.

00:06:46.000 Um, I remember last week, just as an example, whenever, I think it was last week, maybe the week before when Trump randomly started, uh, criticizing the, the airline industry, right?

00:06:58.440 Trump, uh, Trump, Trump came out and said that, um, planes are too complicated and we need to go back to old and simple planes because right.

00:07:07.640 That's what you want.

00:07:08.380 When you sit down, uh, you know, for a flight and the captain comes on the speaker, what you want to hear him say is, all right, uh, folks, thanks for joining us.

00:07:16.840 Uh, I hope you'll enjoy this flight on this old and simple plane, but Trump says we need old and simple planes.

00:07:24.660 And so all of his fans though, decided in that moment, they said, Oh, you know what?

00:07:32.080 Yeah, we do actually.

00:07:33.300 Yeah.

00:07:33.440 I think we do need all, there's a, there's a huge problem.

00:07:35.700 Now that you mentioned it, there is a huge problem of planes being too complex.

00:07:39.760 We need older, simpler planes.

00:07:41.320 These are people.

00:07:42.320 They never thought that before.

00:07:43.720 None of them ever said that before.

00:07:45.340 This is never an issue they ever thought about, but now they have adopted that position wholeheartedly and they will defend it passionately just because Trump said it.

00:07:54.760 If Trump had said the opposite, if Trump, if Trump came out the next day and said, you know what?

00:07:59.200 We need more complicated planes.

00:08:01.600 These same people would say, yes, this is what I've been saying all along.

00:08:04.380 We need more complicated planes.

00:08:07.400 Uh, many of these same people spent eight years criticizing this mentality among Obama's most dedicated admirers.

00:08:14.940 And for good reason, Obama was worshiped with religious fervor.

00:08:18.700 I'm sure you remember that.

00:08:19.820 The religious devotion that Obama had was, was, uh, horrifying to witness and it did enormous damage to our country.

00:08:30.880 And it prevented Obama from ever being held accountable for anything he did.

00:08:36.020 But the celebrityification of DC, if we can call it that, if I can coin a word, it didn't end when Obama rode his, uh, white steed out of town into the sunrise, um, or the sunset, I suppose.

00:08:50.860 It didn't end there because those who had been busy decrying the celebrity presidency, a lot of those very same people became basically giggling schoolgirls as soon as Trump arrived on the scene.

00:09:05.240 And, um, so it, it, it, it, it is all very sickening.

00:09:12.180 It is a disorder in the human mind that causes us to venerate politicians in this way.

00:09:20.120 We should identify this disorder within ourselves and do our best to set it into proper order.

00:09:29.580 If we, if we recognize within ourselves, this instinct, this desire, this, um, inclination to worship a politician, to see them as more than just a politician, to have excessive admiration for, if, if we see that within ourselves, we should try to get rid of it. 0.94

00:09:48.600 We should try to kill it because it's not healthy.

00:09:52.020 Our first reaction to every politician, always, no matter their party, should be suspicion. 0.97

00:09:59.480 We should be suspicious of all of them.

00:10:01.860 I think a good American is always suspicious of any man or any woman who seeks to gain power over him. 0.96

00:10:08.040 Because when someone is running for president or they're running for any political office, what they're saying is, I want to have control over you.

00:10:17.100 I want power over you.

00:10:18.580 Now, they might not say it in terms quite that direct, although I would almost respect them more if they did.

00:10:24.260 But that is really what they're saying implicitly.

00:10:26.400 What they're saying is, I want control and power over you.

00:10:30.000 Now, anyone, anyone who says that, anyone, we should stop and say, hey, whoa, whoa, whoa.

00:10:37.520 Okay, but hold on.

00:10:40.060 And immediately we should be giving them the side eye.

00:10:42.380 Okay, it's possible that a person might seek this power for benevolent reasons.

00:10:53.140 It's possible, but it's extremely unlikely.

00:10:55.800 There have perhaps been a few benevolent rulers in American history.

00:11:04.200 Maybe there have been a few.

00:11:05.800 There are none today in Washington, not a single one.

00:11:09.000 The best we can usually hope for and the best we have available on the current scene are vain, self-serving politicians whose vanity and self-interest are regulated by certain useful qualities and some correct ideas about laws and policies.

00:11:27.740 That's the best we can usually hope for, and that's the best we're going to get right now, is that.

00:11:35.020 Now, most politicians have the first base covered.

00:11:38.340 So they've got the vanity and they've got the self-interest.

00:11:40.600 The problem is they don't have any of the rest of the stuff.

00:11:42.340 They don't have any positive qualities to speak of, and they don't have any correct ideas, really, to compensate for all of the vanity and the self-interest.

00:11:48.980 So that's most politicians.

00:11:51.260 A few of them have a somewhat acceptable but tenuous balance of the two, where, yeah, they're definitely vain as hell. 0.81

00:12:01.100 They definitely are self-interested.

00:12:03.800 They certainly are primarily concerned about their own power, but they do also have some positive qualities and they do have correct ideas about this.

00:12:13.900 So there are a few politicians that we can say, who we could say that for.

00:12:22.760 I might be, maybe I'm being slightly unfair.

00:12:26.420 There might be like two or three who are even a little better than that.

00:12:32.980 And maybe, you know, maybe there are a few who are slightly better than that.

00:12:41.820 But this is generally the case.

00:12:43.900 So, these people can earn our support.

00:12:50.320 I'm not saying that we can never support a politician. 0.96

00:12:52.660 That would be ridiculous.

00:12:55.140 They can earn our support.

00:12:56.520 But if we're wise, and if we have the good of the country always in mind, then our support will only ever be shaky and cautious.

00:13:09.060 And we will remain ever ready to scold them like untrained puppies if they go wrong.

00:13:16.300 And if they, if, and we should be prepared to abandon our support for them completely, to drop them, to kick them to the curb. 1.00

00:13:25.000 We should be prepared to do that if they reveal themselves to be vacuous idiots or morally corrupt scumbags without even a hint of the positive qualities that we imagined we originally detected. 0.99

00:13:38.800 So, that's the, that's the, I think the approach we should have. 1.00

00:13:42.840 But there's a great J.R.R. Tolkien quote.

00:13:46.580 And this was a guy who obviously knew something about the way that power corrupts because he wrote a whole book series about it.

00:13:52.800 But this is what Tolkien said.

00:13:55.160 He said, the most improper job of any man, even saints, who at any rate were at least unwilling to take it on, is bossing other men.

00:14:04.880 Not one in a million is fit for it, and least of all, those who seek the opportunity.

00:14:10.960 So, there's an important truth here.

00:14:15.320 Almost nobody is really fit to lord over other people, to rule them.

00:14:22.800 To have the sort of control over them that our politicians in modern America have over us.

00:14:30.520 Almost nobody is fit for that.

00:14:34.920 Very, very, very, very few people have the moral character and the integrity and even the wit or the intelligence, competence, skill, to be fit for that kind of job and that kind of responsibility and that kind of power.

00:14:50.480 And the problem is that if they go seeking the job, that's a pretty good sign that they aren't fit for it.

00:14:57.980 So, that's the paradox here.

00:14:59.400 That, you know, the number one way you could tell that someone isn't fit to have that kind of power is if they want it.

00:15:08.840 And almost everyone in Washington today, they're there because they wanted it.

00:15:15.640 But someone has to do it, right?

00:15:18.000 And we do need a government, unfortunately.

00:15:20.620 Otherwise, we would have anarchy.

00:15:21.800 But this is just all the more reason to have skepticism and caution when it comes to these people.

00:15:29.100 Yeah.

00:15:29.460 If a political candidate is asked in a softball question, if they're asked, like, you know, why are you running?

00:15:36.060 What attracted you to public service or whatever?

00:15:39.060 The kind of question that a Democrat would be asked on CNN or a Republican would be asked on Fox.

00:15:44.760 And when they're asked that question, they'll always say something like, well, I've always wanted to help others.

00:15:49.240 I just have a passion for helping.

00:15:50.840 Or they'll say something like, well, there are a lot of problems in America, and I want to, you know, get in there and help fix those problems.

00:16:00.860 I'm running because I love my country, and I want to do what's best for my country, and blah, blah, blah.

00:16:09.200 You can tell the real fans, the real sicko fans, if they actually believe that nonsense when their favorite politician says it.

00:16:18.400 The ones who actually believe that, the ones who say, oh, yeah, Beto's running because he just, he really wants to solve our problems.

00:16:27.760 Or when Trump fans, I hear from Trump fans who will say that, well, you know, Trump ran because of his deep, abiding love for America and his self-sacrifice.

00:16:39.360 And he just loves America and American people so much, and that's why he ran.

00:16:43.180 And, oh, please, I mean, good, good Lord, you can't be that naive.

00:16:52.600 It's embarrassing.

00:16:55.660 No, that is not why either of those guys ran for office.

00:17:01.340 And we need to understand that, or we will lose our republic.

00:17:04.920 We will lose our freedom unless we have some healthy skepticism about these people.

00:17:09.460 We need to just understand human nature.

00:17:12.980 That is not why the vast majority of people seek power.

00:17:16.700 It is not because they love you and they really want to help you.

00:17:20.300 It's not what it's about in, you know, in almost every case.

00:17:29.560 So am I being cynical?

00:17:31.780 Yes, absolutely I am cynical.

00:17:34.080 But if you are not cynical at this point about our leaders, then you have not been paying attention.

00:17:44.100 All right.

00:17:45.560 So let's take a look at something a little different here.

00:17:49.300 I'm going to play a video for you with warnings ahead of time that you might find it a little bit upsetting.

00:17:55.500 It's not graphic or bloody or anything like that, but it does show an animal getting killed.

00:18:00.960 So this is a video that's been going viral on social media.

00:18:05.460 Not sure how it ended up on the internet going viral, but it's, well, presumably the hunter put it on the internet.

00:18:14.880 But it's a video of a big game hunt in Africa.

00:18:18.300 And this hunter, I'm not going to give his name.

00:18:20.240 His name has been put out there now, but I'm not going to do that.

00:18:24.140 But he flew over from Illinois to do this.

00:18:30.960 So you want to be behind that shadow of his front leg coming down.

00:18:53.240 Watch it.

00:18:53.820 That was too low initially.

00:19:01.420 Okay.

00:19:02.320 Okay.

00:19:03.600 Don't do any more.

00:19:06.820 That, Mr. Goni, is a very nice line.

00:19:10.820 Well done.

00:19:12.660 Very nice line.

00:19:19.000 Well done, sir.

00:19:20.240 Very nice line.

00:19:21.260 Beautiful.

00:19:21.640 That is an exceptional line.

00:19:26.240 Okay.

00:19:26.740 So he, he, he kills a, uh, a sleeping lion and he seems to be rather impressed with himself after killing the sleeping animal.

00:19:36.580 This video, as you might expect, has provoked a strong reaction from people.

00:19:40.620 And, uh, listen, I'm not much of an animal rights activist.

00:19:46.260 I'm really not.

00:19:47.500 Uh, I, I, I, PETA is not going to be accepting me into their ranks anytime soon.

00:19:53.080 I have no problem with hunting.

00:19:54.580 I don't really hunt myself.

00:19:55.900 It's just not, I, you know, I don't have anything, I don't have anything against it.

00:19:59.700 I just don't do it.

00:20:00.840 I do fish.

00:20:01.880 I like to fish, as I've mentioned before.

00:20:03.380 Uh, where I live, there's a lot of hunting, a lot of fishing.

00:20:07.800 And so it's not like I'm some sheltered urban dweller scandalized by the whole concept of outdoor activities.

00:20:14.520 Um, I, I have also made the point in the past, just to say this upfront, that people seem to get more outraged about a video like that of a, of a lion being killed than they do about the 60 million babies who have been slaughtered by abortion since Roe.

00:20:32.440 And that is a deep, um, sickness in our culture, a sign of a deep sickness that we care more about the lion than we do about the babies.

00:20:40.260 So those are two sort of preliminary disclaimers.

00:20:44.520 With that said, however, the idea of flying all the way to Africa to kill a lion while it sleeps is just completely bizarre and weird. 0.59

00:20:57.020 And, and, and it does seem awfully cowardly.

00:21:01.700 Um, the worst part is that if you kill a sleeping animal, then for you, the, the thrill of it must simply be killing, right?

00:21:13.080 There's no sport, there's no pursuit, there's no challenge.

00:21:16.300 Anyone can kill a sleeping animal. 1.00

00:21:18.340 Any, any idiot can do that. 1.00

00:21:19.780 It's not difficult to do. 1.00

00:21:21.540 Um, it would be like, as I said, I, I like fishing.

00:21:24.880 So it would be like if I were walking down to the lake to go fishing and, uh, I happened to see a big old eight pound bass flapping around on the bank that somehow got itself, uh, stranded.

00:21:38.480 And it would be as if I, I walked up to that bass and I just stabbed it in the head.

00:21:44.140 Now, if I was starving or if I was, uh, even if I was, I don't know, out in the woods or something, I didn't have anything to eat and I needed to eat and I saw the bass there, I would certainly kill it. 0.96

00:21:57.980 And, and, and I would eat it.

00:21:59.000 Um, and I would be thankful for that, for, for it being so easy.

00:22:04.060 But if I'm just going out to fish for fun, I'm not going to randomly kill the thing.

00:22:10.360 I, what I'll do is I'll throw it back and then I'll go and try to catch it again because that's the whole fun of it.

00:22:15.560 And if I catch it, I'll throw it back again because I don't, I'm not actually going to kill it.

00:22:19.160 Um, for me, the point of fishing is not to kill fish.

00:22:22.920 It's just, it's for me, the, uh, with fishing, it's fun to be outside in the water, in nature, um, trying to find where the fish are.

00:22:30.620 So there's kind of the game, the gamesmanship there.

00:22:33.580 Um, the, the challenge of actually catching them.

00:22:36.520 There's the thrill of getting the pull on the line and everything.

00:22:39.040 And so I just find all that really fun.

00:22:42.600 And yeah, the bragging rights of catching a really big fish, but, but what I'll do is I catch a really big fish.

00:22:47.560 I'll take a picture of it.

00:22:49.300 Um, and, uh, and then I'll have the picture and that's the bragging rights. 0.79

00:22:53.560 I almost always throw it back because for me, it's the enjoyment is, is just in catching it.

00:22:59.940 And all the things I just said, it's not in killing something, even if it is just a fish.

00:23:05.800 But as I said, I have no problem with hunting.

00:23:08.280 As long as the meat is used for something, killing a deer and eating it is perfectly ethical, I think.

00:23:13.600 And helpful.

00:23:14.280 There's definitely a problem of, uh, overpopulation of deer, especially in some parts of the country, like where I live.

00:23:19.440 You know, you get deer all over the place and there are danger too.

00:23:21.780 People run into them.

00:23:22.440 People are killed and driving down the street.

00:23:24.660 So, but even with a deer, um, you know, I would think that if you were going hunting for a deer and you saw one sleeping,

00:23:38.020 you're not going to kill a sleeping deer, are you?

00:23:41.700 Unless, unless, again, unless you really need the meat and you got to feed your family, in which case, yeah,

00:23:46.060 you'll take whatever you can get, however you can get it.

00:23:48.100 That makes total sense.

00:23:49.980 But if it's about the sport of it, it would be completely lame and unethical and wrong to just kill a sleeping deer.

00:23:56.320 Um, so tell me that you love hunting because you're out in the woods and you're pursuing it and you're tracking

00:24:03.600 and you're dealing with, uh, with all the challenges and so on.

00:24:06.200 I understand that.

00:24:06.980 That makes sense.

00:24:07.680 But if you like hunting because you really just want to kill something, well, then there's, that's disturbing.

00:24:13.700 I think in that case you have psychological problems.

00:24:15.660 Um, yes, killing is part of hunting inevitably, but it shouldn't be the point.

00:24:22.140 It shouldn't be an end in itself is the point.

00:24:26.100 And besides, I think there is a difference between a lion and a deer, right?

00:24:33.420 Um, just like we see a difference between a deer and a dog.

00:24:38.160 There's a difference between these animals. 0.99

00:24:40.000 So if you go out killing dogs for sport, people will think that you're a sick maniac. 1.00

00:24:46.540 And, and in that case, you would be a sick maniac. 0.99

00:24:50.040 We have a kind of hierarchy of animals that we've established. 0.98

00:24:53.760 Uh, I don't fully understand the hierarchy.

00:24:56.420 Nobody really does, but it's there.

00:24:58.720 Um, certain animals we form a closer bond with like dogs, other animals we see as being more

00:25:04.640 beautiful, more majestic, like lions and elephants.

00:25:07.940 Are these subjective judgments?

00:25:10.400 Yeah, I suppose they are, but that doesn't make them completely arbitrary or meaningless

00:25:14.360 either.

00:25:15.560 And the thing is, the lion hunter obviously shares that feeling.

00:25:19.920 He obviously also thinks that the lion is especially majestic and beautiful.

00:25:25.220 That's why he goes all that way and pays all that money to kill it.

00:25:29.100 It's just that most of us, when we see an animal and we think, wow, that's a majestic,

00:25:33.060 beautiful animal.

00:25:33.780 We just want to look at it and maybe take a picture and tell our friends about it.

00:25:37.680 Um, whereas this, you know, these people, what they say is, oh, that's a majestic,

00:25:41.840 beautiful animal. 1.00

00:25:42.360 I would love to shoot it in the head. 1.00

00:25:44.680 And that just, I find it bizarre. 1.00

00:25:48.460 Um, look, I can't completely explain why a dolphin is necessarily more valuable or more

00:25:56.440 precious or whatever than a bass.

00:25:58.340 Um, it has something to do with the dolphin's intelligence.

00:26:01.920 It's assumed capacity for pain and so on, but there is more to it than that, isn't there?

00:26:07.160 And I can't explain it exactly yet.

00:26:08.960 I'm not going to go out and kill a dolphin because even if I can't explain why we have

00:26:14.760 this ingrained priority system, that doesn't make it okay necessarily to just toss it out

00:26:19.320 the window and go kill whatever we want. 0.98

00:26:21.820 You know, it's, I don't think that justifies it.

00:26:24.680 Now, I know people will say, oh, but lions are a problem in Africa and they kill people.

00:26:29.920 They're dangerous.

00:26:30.880 Um, and besides, uh, these rich white dudes, they go and they, they pay big money and, and,

00:26:36.120 and they help the economy and they give the meat to the villagers and all that.

00:26:40.540 All right.

00:26:41.440 Fine.

00:26:41.940 That's, that's noted. 0.99

00:26:42.800 But first of all, Africans are perfectly capable of killing dangerous animals themselves. 1.00

00:26:49.440 Uh, they've been doing it for thousands of years. 0.99

00:26:52.340 The idea that they need to have a rich white dude come and kill the lion for them is paternalistic 0.95

00:26:57.880 in the extreme. 1.00

00:26:58.760 And it's frankly just ridiculous. 1.00

00:27:00.860 You think a couple of Africans can't figure out how to kill a sleeping lion? 1.00

00:27:04.940 You think they need, well, they need to call, uh, you know, whoever this guy was in Illinois. 0.86

00:27:08.700 Hey, get over here. 1.00

00:27:09.240 We got a sleeping lion.

00:27:10.100 Get over here quick. 1.00

00:27:11.060 We need someone to kill. 0.99

00:27:12.100 Well, we don't know how to do it. 1.00

00:27:13.000 We need you.

00:27:14.320 No, I don't think so.

00:27:16.160 Um, okay.

00:27:18.340 But the, the white dude is paying fine.

00:27:20.560 I get it.

00:27:21.080 You know, he's paying, he's paying a lot of money financially.

00:27:23.960 It's helpful, but that doesn't really explain why the white dude wants to go all that way 0.98

00:27:30.920 and kill a lion.

00:27:32.720 And it doesn't necessarily make it ethical either.

00:27:35.820 So think of it this way.

00:27:37.160 What if your friend had to put down his dog, right?

00:27:40.560 Um, the dog is, uh, is, is sick in pain, suffering, got to be put down.

00:27:46.820 That makes sense.

00:27:47.940 Totally ethical.

00:27:50.340 Uh, but then imagine that you offer to pay your friend $10,000 so that you can be the 1.00

00:27:58.180 one to shoot it in the head. 0.98

00:27:59.620 Um, well then all of a sudden this ethical mercy killing goes from ethical mercy, mercy 0.99

00:28:07.360 killing to snuff fetish.

00:28:11.340 Um, even if the dog needs to be killed, even if the 10 grand will help your friend, that's 0.91

00:28:16.760 all great. 0.78

00:28:17.220 But the fact that you're so desperate to kill something and that you would find pleasure 0.98

00:28:22.120 in killing this dog, that, that says something really disturbing about you.

00:28:28.200 Um, and then it is unethical on your, now it wouldn't be unethical to take the pet to

00:28:33.140 the vet to do.

00:28:33.840 Uh, but for you to do it, all of a sudden is unethical because of your motivation for

00:28:39.880 you. 0.98

00:28:40.200 It's just, it's your killing for the sake of killing.

00:28:42.400 And that is, that is always killing for the sake of killing is always unethical always,

00:28:46.520 no matter what you're killing.

00:28:48.100 I mean, if you saw an ant crawling across the ground and you just stepped on it for the

00:28:52.220 sake of it, um, that would be unethical.

00:28:54.620 Whereas if you've got a, if you have an ant infestation in your house and you bring an

00:28:58.700 exterminator and you kill thousands of ants, that's not unethical at all.

00:29:01.720 The point is just killing to kill is, is no matter what it is, is wrong.

00:29:06.980 I mean, we, we, we walking by and, and, and, you know, pulling up a flower just, just because 0.99

00:29:12.480 just to kill it.

00:29:13.260 I mean, that would also be wrong. 0.98

00:29:14.720 It is a varying degrees of immoral, certainly, and not all the same, but, um, the point is

00:29:20.800 killing for killing is wrong.

00:29:22.900 And in this case, killing, it's killing for killing and also killing because what you're

00:29:29.180 killing is majestic and beautiful and exotic.

00:29:31.500 And I think that that just makes it even more wrong because our, you know, whereas if it

00:29:38.380 were the African villagers doing it, no problem, you know, because they're the ones threatened

00:29:43.720 by the lion, uh, for them, it's not just about killing the thing.

00:29:47.740 Um, it's, it's a totally, totally different situation.

00:29:50.060 So I don't know, I, I, it does seem to me to be, um, problematic.

00:29:56.580 I guess there's a, there's a larger conversation that could be had about big game killing.

00:30:02.460 Uh, and I'm not saying that it's wrong in every context, uh, but definitely killing a 1.00

00:30:07.140 sleeping animal.

00:30:08.040 It's just, yeah.

00:30:11.500 All right.

00:30:12.220 Uh, let's see here.

00:30:13.520 Uh, maybe we'll say, okay, here's one more thing to play for you.

00:30:19.700 Also disturbing.

00:30:20.760 Uh, this is from, uh, something called now, this news and it's a news or a news organization

00:30:28.600 that clearly, as you'll be able to tell approves of, uh, what you're about to witness.

00:30:33.740 So watch this.

00:30:34.740 Okay, so we've got a drag brunch, a brunch where people brought their kids so that cross-dressing 0.96

00:30:56.560 men with stage names like Cummings could dance for them.

00:31:00.300 Um, did you notice that, that boy's father, you know, boy appeared to be sitting on his

00:31:08.860 dad's lap and his dad was filming the whole thing.

00:31:12.540 Uh, and that's the most tragic thing about that video clip is that boys need and deserve

00:31:20.940 real fathers.

00:31:22.360 And instead it appears that this young boy, unfortunately has a, not a real father, but 0.99

00:31:29.000 a, an effeminate, emasculated, uh, coward as his father. 0.91

00:31:38.380 Uh, I mean, I, there are a lot of other ways I could describe this guy, the kind of man that 0.98

00:31:43.680 would bring his son to something like that.

00:31:46.440 And then, and then, and then be delighted when this cross-dressing person is dancing in 1.00

00:31:54.220 front of them.

00:31:54.600 I just, I can't wrap my head around it.

00:31:56.060 Um, but what you find there again is, uh, you know, this, this in insistence.

00:32:05.440 In combining drag queens and kids. 0.53

00:32:08.640 It's like everywhere.

00:32:10.400 You said, we talked about it earlier this week.

00:32:12.260 They, they have, they had a cross-dresser come into a kindergarten classroom and read

00:32:15.440 a book about, about transgenders.

00:32:17.040 Uh, and then they've got the drag queen story hours and they've got, I mean, and now this

00:32:21.840 is a, they're, they're constantly, the left is trying to combine kids and drag queens as 0.97

00:32:27.200 much as possible.

00:32:28.420 Now, why do you think that is?

00:32:31.920 Well, we know what it is.

00:32:33.320 It's about brainwashing them while they're young. 0.89

00:32:35.280 And it's a, this, this is, you know, what you saw in that video there, this is, these

00:32:39.780 are, these are kids who are being groomed.

00:32:41.740 This is the grooming of children happening right in front of our eyes.

00:32:48.460 All right.

00:32:49.020 Let's go to some emails.

00:32:50.260 Uh, Matt wall show at gmail.com.

00:32:51.960 Matt wall show at gmail.com.

00:32:54.960 This is from Lisa says, Hey Matt, I appreciate how you approach topics.

00:32:58.800 So I thought I would ask your take on a topic.

00:33:01.020 Allie Beth Stuckey, the conservative millennial mentioned on our podcast on Monday.

00:33:05.740 Allie believes the left is trying to change the narrative of the pro-life movement.

00:33:09.800 The left is trying to convince pro-lifers that abortion is just merely one facet of pro-life,

00:33:15.960 that if you were really pro-life, you would fight for the babies in cages at the borders,

00:33:19.860 the immigrants, transgender, the women who need the abortion, et cetera.

00:33:23.740 Uh, what about their lives?

00:33:24.960 Don't they matter too?

00:33:26.160 I tend to agree with her opinion in that, um, the more I look around my social circles,

00:33:30.060 I find this to be true.

00:33:31.500 My philosophy on that though, is if you compromise on the killing of innocent children, where else

00:33:38.480 can you go from there?

00:33:39.360 Abortion has to matter more because, uh, there will be literally nothing left if it doesn't. 1.00

00:33:44.480 Of course, I would love your take on this idea of expanding the definition of pro-life

00:33:47.780 and possibly some ways to combat this way of thinking.

00:33:51.100 Um, yeah, Allie is, is right about that.

00:33:54.380 Now it's, it's true that the pro-life movement, and it's important to stipulate, I think the

00:33:58.900 pro-life movement is not necessarily a movement limited only to abortion.

00:34:03.240 Though abortion is the central fight, it's the most important fight, but there is a pro-life

00:34:08.700 ethic that extends beyond abortion.

00:34:12.660 Um, the point is that life is sacred and valuable.

00:34:15.380 That's our message as pro-lifers.

00:34:16.820 That's what we're saying.

00:34:17.560 Life is sacred and valuable.

00:34:19.760 Which life?

00:34:21.020 Any life.

00:34:21.800 All life.

00:34:22.140 All human life, um, is, is sacred and valuable.

00:34:25.680 And it's never okay to kill a human being.

00:34:31.280 It's never okay to kill an innocent human being.

00:34:34.760 You know, never okay.

00:34:36.020 Um, that's our principle.

00:34:39.660 That's the banner that we wave, right?

00:34:42.160 The problem is that the left is trying to, it's not even that they're just trying to expand

00:34:47.040 what pro-life means.

00:34:48.520 It's that they're trying to misapply that ethic to misappropriate it and claim that,

00:34:56.600 for instance, if you oppose illegal immigration, then you're doing something that is in opposition

00:35:01.460 to the pro-life ethic.

00:35:03.080 But that, of course, is absurd.

00:35:04.200 It's absurd for, for many reasons.

00:35:06.340 First of all, nobody is advocating killing immigrants. 0.96

00:35:09.820 No one is saying we should murder them.

00:35:11.240 So this is not a, so this is not a life or death thing.

00:35:14.100 All we're saying is that if you want to come to this country, you should come legally.

00:35:17.540 And in fact, that, if, if we can apply the pro-life ethic to the immigration debate at

00:35:23.340 all, I think we apply it on the side of immigration enforcement, uh, because when you don't enforce

00:35:30.720 the borders and when you've got porous borders, then you've got, uh, as president Trump has

00:35:35.620 pointed out many times, you've got, um, you know, drug dealers coming across human traffickers.

00:35:41.760 Illegal immigration is deadly to human beings. 1.00

00:35:45.800 Many people have been killed, not just by illegal immigrants, but in the process of immigrating 1.00

00:35:51.700 illegally.

00:35:53.800 So it is about protecting law and order.

00:35:57.360 And it's also about preserving human life.

00:35:59.480 And, and some of these other issues they mentioned just, again, have nothing at all to do

00:36:04.000 with, uh, with, you know, with the issue at all.

00:36:09.320 It's just a separate issue entirely.

00:36:10.800 Like, yeah, they'll throw in something, uh, you mentioned transgenders. 0.74

00:36:15.040 Well, I thought you're pro-life, but what does that have to do with?

00:36:17.480 So because I'm pro-life, that means I have to agree that, uh, a man can be a woman if

00:36:22.380 he puts on a dress.

00:36:23.500 It's just, it makes no sense whatsoever.

00:36:25.920 Um, so yeah, that's the, that's the only thing I would add to that is that it's, it's not

00:36:31.900 even, it's not just expanding, but it is expanding.

00:36:35.160 It is in fact taking the pro-life position and, um, sort of hijacking it, um, for their

00:36:46.920 own purposes.

00:36:47.780 All right.

00:36:48.240 This is from Wes.

00:36:49.000 It says, Hey Matt, firstly, thanks for being a rare and unbiased voice of reason.

00:36:52.380 Your show keeps me sane in regards to current events.

00:36:55.020 Quick question.

00:36:55.680 The recent tragedy in Christ's church has seen the usual conspiracy theorists hard at

00:36:59.360 work.

00:37:00.300 This has been the case, um, with most landmark events in recent history.

00:37:04.160 I find it frustrating and genuinely, um, generally disrespectful of the victims and their families.

00:37:09.640 While I wouldn't consider myself a conspiracy theorist, I can often see the logic and how people

00:37:14.440 might arrive at alternative conclusions given the evidence or lack thereof.

00:37:18.380 I'd love to hear your thoughts on which recent events in fact tread uncomfortably close to

00:37:22.700 conspiracy, i.e.

00:37:24.340 Titanic versus Olympic, uh, jet fuel melting the world trade buildings of in Ghazi cover 0.70

00:37:29.220 up, et cetera.

00:37:30.660 Yeah, there are, um, there are obviously people who look for conspiracies in, in every tragedy, 1.00

00:37:37.700 every shooting, every mass casualty event, like you point out, those people are fools. 0.95

00:37:41.260 Um, and as you say, they're disrespectful to the victims. 0.99

00:37:44.400 I will just clarify that most of the time they have no logic on their side.

00:37:50.400 I think you're being a little bit too generous to them.

00:37:52.360 There is no logic to their position at all.

00:37:55.140 Most of the time they latch on to one or two talking points, one or two little holes that

00:38:01.520 they think they find in the official narrative, which most of the time that those holes can

00:38:05.760 be explained if they were just willing to listen to the explanation, which they're not.

00:38:09.480 Um, and from there they build a mythology, which is based entirely in their imagination.

00:38:16.840 That said, conspiracies do sometimes happen.

00:38:19.660 Benghazi, sure.

00:38:20.680 I mean, that was a conspiracy in a certain sense.

00:38:23.600 Um, there, you know, bad decisions, mistakes were made by the government that led to, um,

00:38:30.560 those people being killed at the consulate.

00:38:33.500 But the conspiracy though was afterwards, um, when, uh, the gut, when certain members,

00:38:42.740 high ranking members of the government got together and decided that their official narrative

00:38:47.020 was going to be, uh, we're going to blame this on a YouTube video.

00:38:50.140 So yeah, that was a conspiracy.

00:38:52.260 It wasn't like a conspiracy that was cinematic in its scope or anything like that, but it was

00:38:58.640 a conspiracy in the sense that, um, they did conspire to blame this on something that it

00:39:05.400 couldn't, it shouldn't have been blamed on.

00:39:07.540 And yeah, I mean, we, we can imagine that they literally sat down and they met and they

00:39:12.560 conspired and they said, what are we going to pin this on?

00:39:15.320 Let's do the YouTube video.

00:39:16.680 That was a conspiracy.

00:39:18.100 The thing is conspiracies in real life oftentimes are, um, not very complex.

00:39:25.780 Don't involve a lot of people.

00:39:28.500 That's one of the problems with the, uh, extravagant conspiracy theory theories that the conspiracy

00:39:35.680 theorists come up with is that invariably they involve thousands of people, um, across

00:39:43.540 decades sometimes like with the moon landing thing.

00:39:46.680 And it just involves, and they're so complicated and it would require so many people to be on

00:39:52.080 the same page and to keep the secret and to not talk about it and to be very competent

00:39:56.380 in the way that they, um, execute it.

00:39:58.300 And it's just, that's not the way it works, especially in government where you've got some

00:40:02.340 of the most incompetent people on the planet in government, and they're simply not capable

00:40:05.940 of something like that.

00:40:07.420 Um, so the Benghazi conspiracy was, was, we know that it was real and it looked real because 0.98

00:40:13.700 it was very incompetent, very clumsy.

00:40:16.260 It involved, you know, a relatively small number of people and, um, at the end of the

00:40:21.860 day, it was easy to detect.

00:40:23.580 So I think that's how you can tell the real, um, so-called conspiracies.

00:40:27.800 All right.

00:40:28.040 I think we'll leave it there and, uh, we'll reconvene tomorrow.

00:40:32.400 Have a great day.

00:40:33.200 Godspeed.

00:40:33.560 I'm Michael Knowles, host of The Michael Knowles Show.

00:40:48.600 Amherst College released an Orwellian common language guide to police students' speech

00:40:53.280 on campus.

00:40:53.980 We'll examine the most perverse definitions and how the left became Alice in Wonderland.

00:40:59.140 Plus the mailbag.

00:41:00.060 Check it out at dailywire.com.

The Matt Walsh Show - March 21, 2019

Ep. 222 - We Should Never Be Fans Of Politicians

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