Ep. 233 - Toilet Seat Oppression
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Summary
Is it white nationalism to expect immigrants to assimilate? No, obviously, but some people seem to think so. We ll talk about that. Also, a feminist in a college newspaper says that leaving the toilet seat up is patriarchal oppression. And what about the economic argument for abortion that people use sometimes? I ll try to respond to that. And finally, I ll also respond to some angry emails about using the Bible in arguments.
Transcript
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Today on the Matt Wall Show, is it white nationalism to expect immigrants to assimilate?
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No, that's stupid, obviously, but some people seem to think so.
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Also, a feminist in a college newspaper says that leaving the toilet seat up is patriarchal oppression.
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And what about the economic argument for abortion that people use sometimes?
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I'll try to talk about how we can respond to that.
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And finally, I will also respond to some of the very angry emails
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that I received from our discussion yesterday about using the Bible in arguments.
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So, I had a great time at Boston University last night.
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Next stop will be Baylor University, which I was told last night that, you know,
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Boston University, Baylor University, the real BU is Boston.
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So, I'll be there next Tuesday, and I suspect that that will not be quite as easygoing as it was here in Boston,
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Interesting enough, I come up here to Boston to a liberal area, secular school,
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There were some people that showed up at the talk that disagreed,
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But then going to Texas to a Christian school, that's where there's apparently going to be some problems.
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The point is, what I wanted to mention from last night,
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is I went out to eat with some of the students afterwards,
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But at this restaurant, on the menu, in the taco section, there was a little note that said that the corn tortillas are gluten-aware.
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Does that mean that the tortillas will, like, give you a speech about gluten to raise awareness?
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Or is the chef back there lecturing the tortillas about gluten to make them aware of it?
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I tried to ask the waitress, but it wasn't much help.
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So, I want to touch on a number of topics here,
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and then leave time for a bunch of emails at the end on a Friday.
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So, first, Tucker Carlson is taking some heat today because he had the audacity, the gall,
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to suggest that immigrants should assimilate into our country.
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And he's been accused of white nationalism for making this case in his monologue on a show last night.
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I'll play you a clip, but just a warning, if you've got little kids in the room,
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maybe usher them out because this is pretty disturbing stuff.
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What's the ideal level of education an immigrant to this country should have?
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Big business doesn't want you to ask this question.
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They like their immigrants low-skilled and cheap.
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But what happens when technology kills their jobs?
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All the major Democrats running for president take money from the technology barons.
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So, what do you do with hundreds of thousands of unemployed immigrant cab drivers?
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And speaking of, what sort of government services are immigrants entitled to, exactly?
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Do we have enough doctors and nurses and hospitals to treat the number of immigrants we want to admit?
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Because, as of today, we have no idea how many immigrants live illegally in the United States.
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Shouldn't we find out before we make more plans?
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And once we do find out, what do we do with them?
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What if the real number of people living here illegally is north of 25 million?
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That's bigger than the population of 48 out of 50 states.
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It's enough to change this country completely and forever.
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Do all of them get citizenship and voting rights?
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And do they immediately start paying into the reparations for slavery fund that Democrats are now promoting?
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Democrats are always talking about values when the subject of immigration comes up.
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They quote from the poem on the Statue of Liberty and tell you about their grandparents.
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Well, previous wave-shaped immigrants were asked to buy into this country's most basic ideals.
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Religious pluralism, free speech, political freedom, equality under the law.
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Our schools made them learn English and tried to instill patriotism.
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We thought it was critical to our social cohesion.
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Oh, wait, no, no, no, actually, that's not horrifying.
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And the bit about immigrants contributing to reparations was pretty good.
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Because I suspect that liberals would say that immigrants should not pay into reparations.
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But if they don't, then what about people who immigrated here 10 years ago?
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And if they don't have to contribute, then what about people whose parents immigrated here?
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And if they don't have to contribute, what about if your grandparents did?
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It seems like if the answer is that, well, no, of course, an immigrant wouldn't pay in
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because they weren't even in this country when any of this stuff was happening.
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But first of all, none of us were in this country when slavery was happening.
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And second of all, most of us, our families weren't even here.
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So it seems like if they're off the hook, then we all should be.
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But the greater point is about assimilation, which, no, is not a white nationalist conspiracy.
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In fact, it may surprise some leftists to learn that, you know, there are 195 countries in the world.
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And the thing is, if you immigrate to any of those non-white countries, you will be expected to assimilate.
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This is the case in any country, white or non-white.
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So assimilation is not a code word for white nationalism.
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Leftists pretend not to understand this basic idea that assimilation is not about racism.
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We want a country, not just a geographic area where a bunch of us happen to live.
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We want an actual country, a real-life country, meaning a place with a shared culture, a shared language, shared values, shared traditions, all of that.
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Yes, I don't use the word very often, but we are entitled to that.
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We are entitled to live in a country that is a country.
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One of the most basic rights that we have as Americans is America itself.
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And when I say we have a right to that, what I really mean is that our leaders, our politicians, have a responsibility to protect that, to protect our national identity.
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You know, it's often said that we are a nation of immigrants.
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But the difference is that immigrants in the early days of America came here and they helped to form our cultural identity.
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Immigrants today, though, it's a very different situation.
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They are not building the country because it's already built.
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And oftentimes, they're not even interested in being part of our culture.
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They want to have their own little country unto itself, their own language, their own culture, values, history, traditions, everything.
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So rather than building a country, they are balkanizing the country, which is an entirely different thing.
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I've made this point before about the advantage of marrying young.
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So the advantage of marrying when you're like 20 years old or something, even though I did.
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But even then, that was pretty young by today's standards.
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The advantage of marrying young is that you sort of get in on the ground floor with your spouse.
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You form a common identity rather easily because you enter each other's lives when neither of you really have anything.
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But when you marry late, which plenty of people marry late and have wonderful marriages, but there's a challenge.
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And the challenge is when you marry late, you already have your own life.
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You have your own identity, your own house, your own finances, your own car, your own job, your own goals, your own history, maybe even your own kids.
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And so now you're trying to combine these two separate identities at that point and form one thing, which isn't impossible, but it's harder.
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Well, I think a similar thing is happening with immigrants, right?
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Immigrants 200 years ago, well, they're like marrying young, right?
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Because they're getting in on the ground floor when we were still sort of figuring out what America is, what it's all about, building it, forming it.
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They are coming when everything is already formed.
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And so they come here and it's already established.
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And many times they're coming here to take advantage of the system that's already been built rather than to contribute to it.
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That doesn't mean that we should prevent everyone from coming, but it does mean that we need to focus all the more on assimilation.
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Because we need to realize that there are already going to be just naturally certain challenges that we have to face with immigration today as opposed to 200 years ago.
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And then it makes it all the more challenging when you factor in all the illegal immigration and the welfare systems that they can take advantage of and everything else.
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And I want to read, by the way, I am a little under the weather today, so I feel like my voice sounds like a dying buffalo or something.
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So, someone sent me an editorial from their college newspaper.
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And I love when people send me crazy editorials from their college newspapers.
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If you stumble across a crazy editorial in your college newspaper, please send it to me.
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And we'll call the segment, you know, just brainstorming, we'll call it Crazy Editorials in College Newspapers.
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And so if you ever happen to cross one, please send it.
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This was sent to me by a concerned citizen of Luther College.
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It's written by a woman who's upset by the goings-on at Legends, which I guess Legends is the building on campus where people go to work, go to work out, and stuff like that.
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And so the article is titled, An Open Letter to Whoever Left the Seat Up in Legends the Other Day.
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So naturally, I was in Legends almost every day last week.
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And upon spending a lot of time there recently, I have discovered some of my new favorite things about Luther's state-of-the-art workout facility.
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I just think it's great how I can walk in there and be instantly transported to a front-row seat at a country music festival because of how loud the music is playing.
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It's also so cute when guys stare at me less than three feet away while I'm finishing using the machine.
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And while we're on the topic, it's awesome when men don't clean machines after they use them.
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And by great and cute and awesome, I mean that it's extremely problematic and it needs to be addressed.
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This is about the toxic masculinity that plagues the Legends for Life Fitness Center and the fact that I cannot work out on campus without stepping into a reformed gentleman's club.
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And when you do things like bounce around from machine to machine with little disregard for others using it, shout and yell on the floor as your friends lift weights, or leave the toilet seat up in a unisex bathroom, the titular event of this opinion piece, you perpetuate the stereotype of many workout facilities that women are a secondary thought when it comes to athletics.
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Don't believe the history of sexism that plagues athletics and Luther specifically?
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I encourage you to look through the recent series of Women in Motion in Chips for countless examples of how female student-athletes have been historically marginalized by the athletic department.
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The last time I identified as an athlete was my sophomore year of high school as a middle hitter for the junior varsity volleyball team.
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So you could say that I'm more than a little removed from the world of athletics.
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So the fact that I, someone who only steps foot in regions a few times a week for a quick workout, can pick up on the sexism in that building is incredibly upsetting.
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I could not even imagine what it would be like for that to be a more integral part of my life.
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There are small, tangible things that Lutheran legends can do to change the sexist workout culture.
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Maybe start with a sign reminding everyone to put the toilet seat down after they're done using it.
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It's great that both of those bathrooms are unisex, and I don't want that to change, but we need to start treating them like the gender-neutral spaces that they are.
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Could we also set a limit to the noise level of teams when they're lifting weights on the main floor?
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I understand that team camaraderie is important, but that does not mean that the music should be turned up as loud as possible and that loud yelling should ensue every five seconds.
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There's a lot of loud yelling that ensues in my home because I have three kids, and so I understand that.
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It is completely disrespectful to everyone else in the room.
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There are some small things that I believe would help, but there are also larger structural things that need to change.
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I know this is hard, but your friends need you to advocate on behalf of them when we aren't in the room.
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Push your teammates to change the way they talk about women.
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Think about the implications of your actions when working out.
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To my fellow women, non-binary friends, and everyone else who may feel marginalized in regions or legends, please, please do not be complicit.
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So, my friend who left the toilet seat up, I hope you can now understand how this one seemingly small act is so much more than that.
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You should not leave a mark of your masculinity on a space like you're a dog urinating marking its territory,
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especially when that's supposed to be a gender-neutral and inclusive area.
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We're supposed to have gender equality at Luther in 2019, so let's all start acting like it.
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Really, I should have been wagging my finger through the whole thing, because just imagine the finger wagging.
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Well, now you've just made me want to leave the toilet seat up even more,
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because I feel like I want to leave a mark of my masculinity on a space, in any space that I'm in.
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First of all, the toilet seat thing, I, you know, who, who says?
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Why is it that men should put it down, but women shouldn't?
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Maybe women, after you're done, you should put the toilet seat up for us.
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Well, stop leaving marks of your femininity all over the bathroom.
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And, and, but really, I think when it comes down to it, see, when I walk into a bathroom,
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and I see that the toilet seat is down, but I want it to be up,
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I don't break down in tears and say, what is this doing down?
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You see, you see, what I do is I just, I just, I just lift it up.
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So, and it, it takes like one and a half seconds.
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In fact, I want, if you're, if you're watching right now, pull out a stopwatch.
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I want you to time me because I want to, we're going to do an experiment here.
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And let's, I'm going to mime putting a toilet seat down and see how long it takes.
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In fact, I bet if you add it up, cumulatively, all of the time that this woman has spent
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putting toilet seats down in her entire life, it would not add up to the amount of time it
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took for her to write this article complaining about it because it really doesn't take any
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Now, and really, I know that, you know, if you're in a public restroom, you're not going
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to use your hands, you're going to use your foot.
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So it's going to be more like, you know, like, uh, you're raising your foot up.
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Um, but my Lord, this is like machine gun nagging.
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Uh, it was just one after another, one after, and another thing.
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Uh, can you imagine what this gal's boyfriend must have to cope with on a daily basis?
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Honestly, I, I, and I don't mean this as an insult, but I really, really don't understand
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how feminists ever manage to find boyfriends or spouses.
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I mean, how could a man tolerate this for even one day?
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Can you imagine having to sit there and, and listen to her complain about sexism at the
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Can you imagine, because you just, can you even imagine what that would be like?
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This is why I, you know, my wife is not a feminist.
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I, I, we would not have worked if she was a feminist.
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It's one of the first things I asked when we sat down for dinner on our first date, because
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if she had told me she's a feminist, I would have said, all right, you know what?
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I'll let you pay because you're a strong, independent woman.
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And let's just cut this thing off now because this isn't going to work.
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Um, but actually I think the first time I asked my wife, if she's a feminist, she laughed.
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Uh, she laughed and then she launched into a whole argument, a whole rant about, about
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In fact, just based on that, I will, let's just cut out the rest of it and let's just
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Um, I mean, that almost literally would happen.
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And I proposed to her after like six months, it's, it's, you know, this, this woman says
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And so that's why I'm saying to other men, don't date feminists.
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Don't do that to yourself and don't do it to them either because they obviously hate men.
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So don't, don't inflict yourself on them and don't allow them to inflict themselves on
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Uh, one other thing before we get to emails, I said, I was, I was speaking at Boston university
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The talk was on abortion and, uh, I went through and I tried to thoroughly respond to what I
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consider to be the top four pro-abortion arguments.
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Um, one, you know, the first argument that unborn babies, aren't people to bodily autonomy,
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And then four, that people are going to get abortions anyway.
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So you might as well have a safe and clean place for them to do it.
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I tried to debunk them and I have to say credit where credit is due, uh, to myself in
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Now there's another argument for abortion that I consider to be so weak that, uh, I didn't
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spend really any time at all on it, but it came up a lot in the Q and a.
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And then again, at dinner, um, not so much because the people bringing it up were themselves
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making the argument, but because they said they encounter this argument a lot and they
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Um, and that is the argument from socioeconomics.
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The idea that we need abortion because it helps the economy.
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And if you get rid of abortion, it would hurt the economy because now you have more poor
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people and poor mothers with babies that they, that they can't feed and so on.
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Um, so that's, that's the, that's the argument.
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The next time I give a talk on this, I guess I'll spend more time on it.
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Um, even if I think the argument is silly, uh, it, it, it is, it's apparently convincing
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to a lot of people, but I will address it here very quickly.
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Um, so there are two basic responses to the socioeconomic argument for abortion, um, to
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It is, it is never acceptable to justify murder for economic reasons.
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The pro-life case is that babies are human, um, that all living humans are people and that
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it is never okay to intentionally directly kill an innocent defenseless human being.
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It doesn't, it doesn't change one way or another, depending on what's going on with
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And so even if you could look into a crystal ball and show me that abolishing abortion would
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plunge our country into poverty and destitution, I would still say without hesitation, absolutely.
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Because I would rather live in a poor country that does not kill babies than in a rich country
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And throughout history, um, it has always ended in massive amounts of bloodshed once countries
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start to justify murder for socioeconomic reasons.
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But slavery was, was, was, was justified on largely socioeconomic reasons, uh, on a largely
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It was not just that the racist slave owners, although of course they were racist, uh, but
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it wasn't just like on principle that they thought that, um, you know, these black people
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Uh, you know, they did have that attitude, but, but more important to them was, it was
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That's what it always comes down to for, for people, especially evil people.
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And they said, look, slavery helps the economy.
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You get rid of slavery, our entire economy is going to collapse.
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Uh, not only do you, do you, do you collapse our means of, of, uh, of, you know, production,
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but, um, you also then create all of these new mouths to feed, uh, what are we going to
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And, and that's where other racist, uh, white people who are not quite as racist about a
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slave, slave owners, but still pretty racist said that, well, we should just ship them all
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back to Africa, even if they've never lived there before they were born here.
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Uh, you know, their family's been here for hundreds of years.
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That was, that was Abraham Lincoln solution originally.
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Um, but, and, and you know what, here's the thing, the slave owners who made that point
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that destroying, that getting rid of slavery will destroy the Southern economy, you know
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It would, and it did destroy the Southern economy, but so what?
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Your economy shouldn't be based on slavery in the first place.
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And if it is, then you just need to deal with that.
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That is not, it's, it's, it's, it, it, it, it does not affect it one way or another.
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Um, we, I, we are not going to be even a little bit swayed by this.
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The simple fact of the matter is slavery means you are dehumanizing a person.
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You are forcing them to work for you like, like, uh, like cattle.
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You're treating them like farm animals and that is never okay, no matter how much it helps
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You're killing 60 million human, 60 million human beings over the course of 45 years.
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But the second point is that actually it does not help the economy because, um, what you
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have now is, is in our culture, the sexual act has been severed, you know, or, or, or the,
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the life giving aspect of the sexual act has been severed from the sort of pleasurable aspect
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of it and because people know that they can be reckless and they can just do whatever they
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And, uh, and they know that push comes to shove.
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Um, even if they don't call it killing a baby, but they know that.
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And so that encourages people to be sexually irresponsible.
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And so then you end up with even more unwanted pregnancies, STDs and all the rest of it.
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Um, if abortion was illegal, um, now in, in the short term, it, it, it would have, it would
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create challenges economically, socially, but that's just something we got to deal with
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I think long-term we'll, we'll end up in a better spot economically because people are
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going to have to start being responsible and maybe, you know, don't have sex with whoever
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Uh, maybe wait until you're in a devoted and committed relationship called a marriage.
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Before you have sex, I think people will be more and more encouraged to do that.
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And when you start doing that, it helps the culture.
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This is from a Matt wall show, uh, Matt wall show at gmail.com is the email.
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Matt wall show at gmail.com is the email address.
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From Leonard, Matt, I like your opinions on politics, but you are awful on Christianity.
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That's probably because you are not a Christian.
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What you said on your show yesterday was insane.
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Christians can never deny the authority of the Bible.
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Every argument does go back to the Bible and it should.
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If someone has the presupposition that the Bible is false, they need to re-examine that
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Uh, um, they, they will never be convinced of anything anyway, until they accept the gospel
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First, everyone knows that God is real, even if they don't admit it.
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That's why biblical arguments are always valid.
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You are horrible on theology and you should really shut up about it.
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I won't be listening anymore, but I wanted to set you straight.
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Well, you apparently have run away with your fingers in your ears, so I guess there's no
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Anyway, um, let me try to help you out a little bit, because I suspect, Leonard, that you probably
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have never persuaded anyone of anything in your entire life.
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And I arrive at that assumption based on how you have just framed your argument here.
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Uh, maybe you're having a bad day or something, so maybe this doesn't represent how you normally
00:27:51.460
I hope it doesn't, because you begin with a series of insults, um, which already shuts
00:27:56.880
You see, you see, now I am going to overlook those insults so that I can engage with you.
00:28:00.680
But most of the time, when you begin with an insult, whoever you're talking to is not
00:28:07.980
And especially if you're ostensibly, supposedly pretending that you're trying to advance the
00:28:13.000
gospel and get someone to believe in the Bible, um, well, now they're definitely not going
00:28:17.920
to listen to you, and they shouldn't, because of how terribly you frame the argument.
00:28:23.800
Um, why, why should someone listen to you about the Bible when you begin by insulting
00:28:32.860
Uh, so, uh, so, but you begin with insults, then you get into straw men, distortions, uh,
00:28:42.400
lies, confused thinking, and it's just a mess, really, all the way down the line.
00:28:47.040
Um, and if you're wondering why you have probably never succeeded in convincing anyone of anything
00:28:51.800
ever in your life, this is probably the reason when you insult people and lie about their positions,
00:28:56.360
you just will not be able to connect. So let me try to respond piece by piece here.
00:29:00.220
And by the way, if you, if you, if you didn't hear the show yesterday, what he's responding
00:29:03.800
to is that I said that Christians should not argue about cultural and political issues with
00:29:09.040
non-Christians by throwing Bible verses at them. If a person doesn't believe in the Bible,
00:29:13.560
they will not find an appeal to the Bible to be convincing. Therefore, it's better to find common
00:29:18.460
ground with them, which is a basic essential aspect of persuasion, engage with them on that
00:29:24.140
level with logic, reason, and science rather than just shouting verses from a book that they think
00:29:28.860
is mythological. That was the point that our friend Leonard thinks is not only wrong, but insane.
00:29:34.420
Now he thinks it's insane to try to find common ground with your opponent and talk to them in
00:29:39.840
language and using terms and appealing to authorities that they understand and respect. He thinks that
00:29:44.460
that is actually insane. Like he doesn't even understand how you could even think that that's
00:29:48.560
the right way to go about it. Um, and he's not alone. I got a lot of email like this and, uh,
00:29:54.320
most of it was equally as insulting. And, um, uh, you know, I, I, I gotta say, honestly, and I,
00:30:02.760
you know, I, I've mentioned the show plenty of times, the, the hate mail, angry emails I get,
00:30:09.300
that doesn't surprise you. Right. I mean, anyone in this line of work gets a lot of hate mail and it's not
00:30:13.400
a big deal. Um, doesn't, doesn't, you know, doesn't, uh, doesn't really hurt my feelings.
00:30:19.200
I'm pretty impervious to it by now, but I really have to say that some of the nastiest and most
00:30:25.460
vicious emails I get without a doubt are from, um, supposedly Bible believing Christians without
00:30:33.700
question. You know, the times in, in, in my, uh, in my writing or in my show, when I have tried to
00:30:41.500
challenge Christians on something, or I have brought up a theological topic that they found
00:30:44.920
challenging, that is when I get the most of vicious emails. And what you just read there is
00:30:50.920
nothing compared to some of the other stuff that I get. Um, although that is, that was pretty damn
00:30:56.340
vicious. Now he didn't cuss me out or anything like that, but you begin now I'm Christian, right?
00:31:04.440
My, my faith is, is the most important thing to me. So you begin by just trying to, to spit all over
00:31:10.300
that and say, well, you're not even a Christian. You don't even believe this. You're, you're, you are,
00:31:15.000
you begin by pretending that you can peer into my soul and just call me a fraud about the thing
00:31:19.860
that is most important to me in my life. Now it doesn't, again, it doesn't hurt my feelings. I'm
00:31:23.040
used to it, but that is such a despicable and vicious and pointless and stupid thing to do.
00:31:30.760
Um, and the only reason you do it is just to make yourself feel better. It's got nothing to do
00:31:35.880
with anything else. It's not, you're not trying to spread the gospel. You're not, this isn't about
00:31:39.660
Jesus. This isn't about, no, this is just about you making yourself feel better. That's all it's
00:31:43.960
about. Um, so you start by saying that I am denying the authority of the Bible and thus losing the
00:31:54.220
argument already. Um, first of all, if we're not arguing about, if we're not arguing about the Bible,
00:32:00.200
then I don't see how I lose the argument, which is not about the Bible. When I don't even bring up
00:32:05.100
the Bible in the first place, that just makes no sense. Um, but just because you fail to cite
00:32:11.680
an authority doesn't mean that you're denying the validity of that authority. And by the way,
00:32:20.020
I, I also said, I just said, I referred to the Bible as an authority. And I guess I did that
00:32:25.460
yesterday too. And I got a ton of email about that. It says you call the Bible an authority when
00:32:30.400
you should have said the authority. Oh my gosh. I mean, can you, uh, what are you just sitting
00:32:35.800
there with like a notepad ready to, I'm going to, anytime he, if he slips up with one little
00:32:40.120
word, I'm going to get him. Oh, he said, and not the, I got it. Well, I'm writing an email on this
00:32:44.100
one. Can you just try to listen and engage with the whole point instead of trying to pick apart
00:32:50.100
every little thing that you can find? Um, so when you fail to cite an authority doesn't mean that
00:33:00.220
you are denying the validity of that authority. Uh, and I'm not saying that in an argument with an
00:33:09.860
atheist, we should begin by apostatizing just to find common ground. I'm not saying that we should
00:33:14.360
begin the argument. If we're arguing about abortion, I'm not saying we begin by saying, uh, just so you
00:33:18.680
know what it's at the outset here, I deny the authority of the Bible. No, I, I absolutely
00:33:23.320
agree with you that that would be a bad way for a Christian to begin an argument. Um, no, I'm saying
00:33:28.400
that if you're going to make an argument against abortion, just point out the biological fact that
00:33:34.820
babies are human people. That is a biological fact. And then explain how killing them is murder.
00:33:41.080
And if you're talking to someone who already thinks that murder is wrong, which you definitely are,
00:33:45.660
um, it's just that they think that isn't murder. So no, you don't need to convince them that murder
00:33:50.720
is wrong. They already think that now you could say, well, they have no real basis for thinking
00:33:54.380
that because they don't believe in, in the Bible. That may be the case, but they still think it.
00:33:59.640
So, so seize on that common ground, that common understanding that they already have.
00:34:06.080
And then try to explain to them how abortion fits into that category of murder. If you can do that,
00:34:11.720
you have convinced them it's possible. Um, you aren't denying the Bible. You just aren't bringing
00:34:18.880
it up. If your opponent brings it up, then yeah, well now game is on. They brought it up.
00:34:24.760
When you're arguing with someone, if you want to persuade them, you generally want to appeal to
00:34:29.540
authorities. They themselves recognize and respect because if you appeal to an authority,
00:34:33.860
they don't recognize your argument will carry no weight, even though it should, it still won't.
00:34:37.800
It should, I agree, but it doesn't. It carries weight with me. If you, if you know, a biblical
00:34:43.420
argument for me carries weight, it should carry weight for everybody, but it doesn't. That's the
00:34:47.980
reality deal in reality, not how you think it should be, but how it is. Um, so I cannot stress that
00:34:56.780
enough. Just because you fail to cite a particular authority, that is not the same thing as denying that
00:35:04.460
authority. In any argument, there are probably millions of authorities you could cite, but you
00:35:10.440
don't have a million years to make the argument. So you pick one or two. For example, if I was arguing
00:35:16.580
with a fellow Christian about say biology, um, some biological topic, I would not cite Richard Dawkins
00:35:26.360
as an authority. Now Dawkins is a world renowned biologist. He certainly knows more about the
00:35:33.320
subject than you do or I do. Um, he is a, he's a, he is a scientist. Um, I think he's wrong about a lot
00:35:41.220
of very important things, especially when he ventures outside of biology to get into religion
00:35:45.040
and philosophy. That's when he goes way off the rails. But the point is because he is known for his
00:35:49.600
atheism. I would not cite him as an authority on a biological topic. Even if he is an authority, I
00:35:56.220
wouldn't do that because I know that the other person in the discussion doesn't consider him an
00:36:01.000
authority and, and, and doesn't like him. And there's a lot of baggage there. And so bringing his name up
00:36:07.500
would only muddy the waters. It would turn into an argument about Richard Dawkins instead of about the
00:36:12.040
thing that we're talking about, whatever that happens to be. So I just wouldn't bring his name up.
00:36:15.780
It's not that I would be denying his biological expertise. I've just, I'm just not bringing it
00:36:21.280
up. I just don't bring it up. We don't talk about that. We talk about this instead.
00:36:25.880
Same for if I'm arguing with a liberal on something and, uh, they ask for a citation on a certain point.
00:36:32.420
I say, you know, this or this thing happened. They say, oh yeah, well, when did that happen?
00:36:37.380
Show me an article. Okay. Well, uh, I am not going to pull an article from Fox news for this liberal.
00:36:46.680
Even if the article on Fox news is true, I still won't pull it. Not because I'm denying that it's
00:36:52.600
true, but I know how that person feels about Fox news. And, and so they're not going to be convinced
00:36:58.920
by that. Even if they should be, they won't. And my goal here is to convince them. I actually want
00:37:04.440
to persuade them. The reason that I get into discussion, maybe it's different for some people,
00:37:07.860
but I get into discussions and debates with people because I really want them to understand.
00:37:12.040
And I really do want to persuade them, even if it doesn't happen in the end, that is what
00:37:16.040
I want. That's the only reason I'm doing this. And so I'm going to find an article somewhere
00:37:21.340
else that they, from an authority that they will recognize that will carry more weight
00:37:27.260
with them. Um, I just think that that is really logical, honestly. And I guess, I don't know
00:37:34.360
how else to put it. Like I, I don't even understand. It's hard for me to wrap my head around how
00:37:39.240
anyone could disagree with anything I just said there. It's just, it's the most, this
00:37:43.740
is basic level persuasion. Um, so next you say that, um, we can't, we can't help to convince
00:37:51.460
people of anything until we convince them about the Bible. That is just false. You are, you
00:37:57.780
are wrong. Um, that tells me that you have never succeeded in convincing anyone of anything,
00:38:03.180
which again goes back to the terrible framing of your arguments. I'm trying to help you figure
00:38:06.740
out maybe why you don't convince anyone. I have in my career heard from many, many, many
00:38:14.360
people who told me that I did convince them on a variety of topics. And I'm not saying
00:38:20.400
this to brag. I'm just, there are people who really think that you, that you're never going
00:38:24.120
to convince anyone of anything, especially if they don't believe in the Bible. That's
00:38:27.020
not true. I have done it. I have heard from those people. What were they all lying to me
00:38:30.540
when they come up and say, Oh, you convinced me on this? They're all lying. Um, just last
00:38:36.840
night, it's probably on video just last night, a woman got up. I mean, I couldn't have scripted
00:38:42.620
it any better, although I didn't script it. A woman got up and said that a year ago she
00:38:47.640
was pro abortion, but today she's pro life because of the arguments that I presented and
00:38:53.780
that Ben Shapiro presented. So there you go. She was convinced. And do you know what she
00:38:58.960
was convinced by? She told me what it was. She didn't say, Oh, I was convinced by her
00:39:02.420
theological arguments. I was convinced by the Bible. She said, I was convinced by science.
00:39:07.580
She said, you brought up the scientific arguments. I looked at it. I realized there's no way around
00:39:11.760
it. And she was convinced. So you say it can't be done. It can. I've done it. Okay. A lot of
00:39:19.980
people have done it. Ben Shapiro does it all the time. Okay. Do you know how many college
00:39:25.560
students, atheist, liberal, conservative, Christian, Jewish, Muslim, whoever, do you know how many
00:39:31.480
college students have been convinced by Ben Shapiro's arguments, which are not based on
00:39:35.820
the Bible and which are not even coming from a Christian? So he's done it. I've done it.
00:39:42.860
I hear from these people. They are nice enough to email me. And I really appreciate it when
00:39:47.000
they do, because it encourages me. It makes me feel like this is all, this is, maybe this
00:39:50.880
isn't all just pointless actually. Um, or, or what do you think? Do you think it's better
00:39:58.020
for that woman who, who, who now she's now pro-life and she embraces, uh, life and it's
00:40:02.800
a beautiful thing. Do you think it's, is it better for her to remain pro-abortion until
00:40:05.880
she figures out her theology? Is that what you think? So all the people that I have managed
00:40:11.500
to convince of the pro-life case, are you saying it's better for them to all be pro-abortion?
00:40:14.680
Really? Then you talk about presuppositions and how people need to re-examine them. I
00:40:23.360
agree. They do need to examine their presuppositions. We all need to examine our presuppositions. We
00:40:28.300
need to be aware of them. We need to analyze them. We need to know about them. But how do
00:40:31.480
you get someone to do that? How do you get someone to re-examine their presuppositions?
00:40:37.600
Do you get them to re-examine their presuppositions by shouting at them, examine your presuppositions?
00:40:44.680
Uh, I, I suppose that would be one strategy, but it won't work. No, you must get someone
00:40:51.660
to examine their presuppositions in a more nuanced and subtle way. Examining your presuppositions
00:40:58.660
is a difficult and scary thing, and you won't get anyone to do it by shoving it down their
00:41:04.020
throat. It, you just won't. It will not work. So if you can, for instance, succeed in changing
00:41:13.720
someone's mind on something like abortion, a very fundamental, important issue like
00:41:19.600
abortion, then the examination of presuppositions will flow naturally from that because they're
00:41:26.000
going to say, wow, I was wrong about that. What else was I wrong about? You know, if,
00:41:33.240
if somebody is, if you manage to convince someone of something, that means that that is someone
00:41:38.740
who is open-minded, that they're willing to listen, uh, that has intellectual integrity
00:41:43.760
and intellectual courage. Um, and so if they have all those things, which they must, if
00:41:52.280
they were willing to listen to you and be convinced, then they are naturally going to go from there
00:41:57.220
and say, what else am I wrong about? They're going to begin to look at the flaws in their worldview.
00:42:02.560
They will do this on their own without you hectoring them about it. You spark that process
00:42:09.620
by not by demanding it, but by throwing a wrench into their ideological framework, by convincing
00:42:15.960
them on their own terms, using language they understand that they are actually wrong about
00:42:21.120
something. To really convince someone that they're wrong, to really do it, that will inevitably
00:42:27.520
be a revolutionary moment for that person. And they will begin to re-examine things automatically.
00:42:33.120
Um, again, I have been told by people many times that they began the process of becoming
00:42:39.300
Christian and became interested in Christianity, not because of any religious argument I made
00:42:44.700
or any Bible verse I quoted, although I've made many religious arguments and I've quoted
00:42:49.560
many Bible verses. But what I've been told multiple times is, um, is that they decided that I was
00:43:01.360
right about other topics, unconnected from religion. And then this made them think, well, wait a second,
00:43:08.540
what else is he right about? You know, you introduce a little bit of light into that darkness.
00:43:16.060
You get them thinking, re-examining, um, you, you make them understand that they're actually wrong
00:43:25.820
about something and then everything else could flow from there. They begin to take religion more
00:43:31.620
seriously. You know, here's the thing. Atheists, secular people, um, whether they're avowed atheists
00:43:38.440
or not, and most people aren't, they're just secular, right? They don't think much about these things.
00:43:42.280
When they see religious people who they know are religious, when they see them making logical,
00:43:51.620
rational, common sense, compelling, scientifically sound arguments, um,
00:44:01.980
that is very, it's a very compelling example for them because it lets them know that it's okay to be
00:44:09.080
religious. Smart people can be religious. You don't have to put your reason and your rationality
00:44:14.240
and your logic to the side to be religious. You don't have to reject science to be religious. I
00:44:18.640
mean, these are things that, that a lot of secular people think. They think that I'm never going to
00:44:21.720
be religious because in order to be religious, I have to essentially be a, an irrational moron
00:44:25.820
who hates science and thinks science is from the devil. That's what a lot of secular people think.
00:44:31.720
And that's why they won't even look at religion. They're not even going to listen to you
00:44:34.980
because that's how they think of religion. But when they see that's not the case, it completely
00:44:41.320
blows everything apart from them, for them. And they realize that, Oh, wait a second.
00:44:45.880
You mean you can have all of that logic, reason, science, and still be religious? Whoa,
00:44:51.960
hold on a second. And then they start looking. But if you reinforce their view that religious
00:44:58.740
people are irrational, science denying idiots, if you reinforce that by just screaming Bible
00:45:04.860
verses at them in topics where it's not even directly related, then all you've done is you've
00:45:09.560
just pushed them away from religion and they'll probably never look at it again. Congratulations.
00:45:15.000
You have not only not convinced them, but you have maybe made it so that they will never
00:45:19.040
be convinced because you reinforced all of the negative, bad stereotypes and false stereotypes
00:45:26.680
most of the time about religion that they had in their mind. So finally, you say that,
00:45:35.400
and this is why I get so heated about this and so passionate, because I just, you can be logical,
00:45:41.900
rational, reasonable. You can love science. You can understand. You can be all of those things
00:45:46.620
and religious. I want people to know that. And I, and I hate it when these Christians are out there
00:45:50.460
essentially saying the opposite, basically saying, no, you know what? The atheists are right.
00:45:54.040
You got it. You can't do that. You're not, no logic and reason. That's idol worship. You're,
00:45:57.880
you're a Satanist science. No, these are a bunch of, they're all a bunch of liars. It's a conspiracy
00:46:02.860
to take down the Bible. When I hear, when I actually hear this from Christians, I get so angry because
00:46:07.540
you have no idea how much damage you're doing. Do you realize how many souls you have just consigned
00:46:15.520
forever to secularism? Finally, you say that everyone knows God is real. I agree. That knowledge
00:46:26.660
is innate, natural law. And that's why all people everywhere in the world, all cultures have
00:46:33.940
independently come up with God concepts on their own. But all cultures around the world have not
00:46:40.880
independently on their own come to the conclusion that the new Testament is correct. And Jesus is
00:46:45.240
Lord. Why is that? Because those truths are revealed. They are not innate. And when I say
00:46:53.000
innate, not innate, I mean, they are not conclusions. You just come to on your own. You don't, you didn't.
00:46:59.480
You are a Christian today because someone told you about it. Someone convinced you to be Christian.
00:47:04.740
That's why you're a Christian today. If nobody ever had, you would not be a Christian.
00:47:08.740
Christian. That's a fact. People have to be told these truths. Nobody knows these truths
00:47:16.480
without being told. People can figure out God or some kind of God without being told. But
00:47:21.340
not a single person, you know, not a single person in North or South America believed in
00:47:26.960
Jesus until people came here on boats and told them, convinced them. So conflating our innate
00:47:35.380
knowledge of God with an innate recognition of the validity of Holy Scripture is absurd.
00:47:46.360
Jesus says, go preach the gospel to all nations because, because they won't know it unless you do.
00:47:52.740
And we should, and so we should, we should tell them we should preach it. I'm not saying we shouldn't,
00:47:56.520
but we should also be prudent and wise and rational and convincing, persuasive, and not a bunch of
00:48:05.860
unthinking, self-righteous, pretentious, insulting, irrational Bible thumpers, which is how we are
00:48:12.320
portrayed. And it's actually how some of us really do behave, much to the embarrassment of the rest of us.
00:48:19.520
The point is that somebody will believe in the Bible if, number one, you tell them about it.
00:48:28.440
And number two, you give them reasons to believe it. You can't just say, here's the Bible, believe it,
00:48:36.020
you heathen. That's not going to work. You have to give them reasons. And there are good reasons.
00:48:42.880
But the point is, that's a case you have to make. And you do have to make it. And you can't appeal to
00:48:50.640
the Bible until you have made that case and the other person has been convinced of it. So if that
00:48:55.700
case has not been made and they have not been convinced of it, your appeals to authority,
00:48:59.680
even though it is valid authority, will fall on deaf ears, will have no impact at all.
00:49:05.620
And that's just the reality. Listen. Have some humility. Listen to what non-religious,
00:49:18.840
atheist, secular, non-Christian people tell you. Every single one of them, without exception,
00:49:24.460
will tell you that when you just throw Bible verses at them and there's no logic, there's no
00:49:29.180
reason, there's no science or anything in your argument, you just throw Bible verses,
00:49:32.300
they just tune you out and it doesn't convince them. Every single one of them will tell you that.
00:49:35.740
Listen to them. Instead of sitting there and saying, no, you know what? I know more about
00:49:40.220
what's happening in their mind than they do. That is so unbelievably arrogant. And who do you think
00:49:47.620
you are? What do you think? You're God? They're telling you what they find convincing. You're like,
00:49:52.800
no, you know, I know what you find convincing. You don't know what you find convincing. I'll tell you
00:49:56.540
what you find convincing. And then you wonder why they shut you down and shut you out. They should.
00:50:02.040
All right. Let's see here. Well, I spent a lot of time on one email, so I guess that kind of a...
00:50:16.400
Let's see. I'm trying to get one more. One more email. All right. This was from Brian says,
00:50:21.680
Oh, semi-benevolent, highly corrupt, theocratic future dictator, may you live forever.
00:50:26.020
Thank you. Finally, someone addresses me how I should be addressed. During the required listening
00:50:29.880
to your show from yesterday, I came up with a bit of a different perspective to the idea of trying to
00:50:33.420
argue with an English speaker in Chinese or literally throwing the Bible at someone who
00:50:36.560
does not hold it as an authority. Besides, in some cases, there is no exact language. But as the
00:50:41.120
first and most life-affirming collection of writings ever created, calling the ancient Jews to be the
00:50:45.020
first people not to build some God and sacrifice children to it, the clarity is in the context.
00:50:49.580
I'll not go down that rabbit hole, the rabbit trail that killing your children has usually been
00:50:53.040
the norm for those not in covenant to God, and that in abortion culture, we're simply seeing those
00:50:57.800
who reject God returning to the carnal natural desires of the flesh. Back to my point. That was a
00:51:04.060
good point. Imagine you meet a screechy socialist-loving high school teacher. You know the type. If a student
00:51:09.920
has anything pro-America to say, they get shouted down. You want to argue with this person that
00:51:15.300
capitalism is a good thing. Would you use the Constitution as an authority with them? Would
00:51:20.880
you use the Magna Carta or the Federalist and anti-Federalist papers to convince them? As a teacher,
00:51:26.380
there's some chance that they have read those documents. Even if this teacher hasn't read them,
00:51:30.300
they have expressly dismissed these writings in coming to their socialist conclusions while living in
00:51:34.280
the United States. They prefer the shoddily written Green New Deal over the Bill of Rights.
00:51:38.080
How are you going to convince them of anything worth thinking? The difference with the atheist
00:51:42.560
is that if you show them some respect, you have some chance of a step in your direction.
00:51:46.660
You also need to pick your battles and know when you're dealing with a pig that just wants to roll
00:51:50.180
around in the mud. It's the same way that you would not be able to use the Koran or Hindu,
00:51:54.700
Buddhist, Scientologists, or any other religion's writings with me because I have dismissed them.
00:51:59.000
The difference is I don't dismiss the people who believe those things. What do you think?
00:52:03.200
It is my hope that the above-fawning gesticulation will ensure my high-ranking position when you come to power.
00:52:08.080
Or at the least, the keeping of my head. Brian, well, as for that last point, I'm afraid
00:52:13.560
I cannot promise you that because you did call me semi-benevolent.
00:52:21.500
And I would be interested to find out where you think the semi comes from.
00:52:25.560
And so it is for that comment that you will probably have to pay with your life. But until that point,
00:52:30.980
I'll address your email. And you'll have time to get your affairs in order before you're executed.
00:52:36.960
Yeah, I think, well, I agree with much of what you're saying here. And, you know, the
00:52:42.520
example you give of the socialist-loving high school teacher,
00:52:49.000
well, there's another example, right? And this is a political conversation. So
00:52:54.180
there are many authorities, you know, on these issues that normally you would use.
00:53:04.620
But you wouldn't be able to use with this person because they don't accept those authorities.
00:53:10.660
And it's just not going to carry any weight with them. And so, yeah, it makes it more difficult.
00:53:16.060
But you see, that's the whole art of persuasion and of argumentation. You've got to figure out,
00:53:22.800
you've got to understand the other person, figure out where they're coming from, where they're
00:53:26.100
beginning. And yet, the more common ground you share with them, the easier it's going to be to
00:53:31.160
convince them. It's very difficult. If you have almost no common ground, it's going to be really
00:53:36.740
difficult to launch a campaign of persuasion from there. It can be done. It's just more difficult.
00:53:43.460
But you do have to go through this process. So, I mean, just, we were talking yesterday at dinner,
00:53:52.440
someone said, you know, what do you do when talking about abortion? What do you do with
00:53:58.620
someone who does admit that abortion is murder, but doesn't care? How do you convince them?
00:54:06.080
Well, yeah, that's a really difficult. Now, here's an example. Here's someone.
00:54:09.340
Now, most people you talk to, they will share the presupposition that murder is wrong. But they
00:54:15.260
will just try to claim that abortion doesn't fall into that category. So then all you have to do is
00:54:19.020
convince them that it does fall into that category. It's not easy to do, but it's easier than this,
00:54:23.480
where this person doesn't even think that murder is wrong. And so, how do you start there?
00:54:30.580
What common ground can you find with this person?
00:54:32.540
Well, the point is, you got to find something. Because if you can't find anything, well,
00:54:37.300
then there's nothing you can say to them. But it does become difficult. Yet, it doesn't,
00:54:47.180
you know, doesn't relieve you of the duty of having to do it. And the point is, yeah, with something
00:54:53.460
like abortion, well, look, I mean, the whole argument against abortion, basically, is that it's
00:54:58.620
murder. So that's the argument. So if they don't share that presupposition, then that is a case where
00:55:04.980
you probably can't move forward in the conversation until they share that presupposition. But the point
00:55:11.020
is, so now you have to argue for that. You have to make your case for that. You have to try to
00:55:15.620
explain to them that murder is wrong. You can't just continue in the discussion as, regardless of the
00:55:24.040
fact that they don't agree with you on that point. And you cannot just continue in the discussion and
00:55:28.840
keep appealing to this idea that murder is wrong with a person who doesn't share that point of view.
00:55:36.480
You can't go anywhere. You have to first convince them of that so that you can then appeal to it.
00:55:42.800
Convince them first that, oh, no, murder is definitely wrong. Here's why. And if they go, oh,
00:55:47.160
okay, yeah, I see what you're saying. Now you could go forward. The job isn't done yet. Now you have to go
00:55:52.220
and figure out, well, here's abortion. Here's how that fits into that category of wrong things,
00:55:55.780
which we call murder. All right. We'll leave it there. I guess I'll save the rest of the emails
00:56:04.440
for next time. And thank you all for listening. Godspeed.
00:56:07.120
Today on the Ben Shapiro Show, Facebook looks to the government for help censoring viewpoints,
00:56:23.980
and it gets ugly. That's today on the Ben Shapiro Show.