The Matt Walsh Show - Ep 256 - Speeding Down The Slippery Slope

00:00:00.000 Today on The Matt Walsh Show, we'll talk about a horrific college course, which seems to essentially be training pedophiles.

00:00:07.300 So we'll discuss that. Also, a man is falsely accused of sexual assault after stopping to help a stranded woman.

00:00:13.260 Is this part of the reason why chivalry is dying in our society? 0.99

00:00:17.500 And we'll talk about the seven dumbest pro-abortion arguments. 0.99

00:00:21.480 There are a lot to choose from, but we'll talk about and try to debunk the seven dumbest today on The Matt Walsh Show. 0.99

00:00:30.000 I've often bragged that I am immune to poison ivy because I got a really bad case of it years ago and then I became immune. 0.96

00:00:42.840 That's what I said. And so yesterday I was I was walking through the woods and I traipsed right through a whole patch of poison ivy because I'm immune to it.

00:00:50.260 Right. And anyway, fast forwarding to the end of the story. I'm not immune, as it turns out.

00:00:56.420 I have I have since discovered over the last day. I don't know.

00:01:01.900 I got it into my head that that's is that even a thing becoming immune to poison ivy?

00:01:05.720 Somehow I got that into my head and I would tell people that and nobody ever corrected me.

00:01:09.700 Why didn't anyone ever tell me like, no, that's not a thing. You're definitely not.

00:01:14.300 No one ever did. So was was everyone just playing along, waiting for this moment?

00:01:18.780 And if that's the case, then then well played. Well played, everybody.

00:01:23.120 But at the very least, I will say that I have suffered this poison ivy rash with quiet, quiet dignity in my house.

00:01:30.460 I've only complained about it incessantly to everybody in this house and now to the whole world.

00:01:35.920 Other than that, I haven't complained about it at all. I've just been I've been very stoic.

00:01:40.600 And so I think in that way, I'm an example to everybody.

00:01:43.820 OK, we begin with just an unbelievable story or maybe it's unfortunately very believable.

00:01:51.440 I don't know. Reported yesterday in the Daily Wire, the report says a professor presented a lesson

00:02:00.100 to students at the University of North Texas titled Sexual Pleasure and Response in Infants.

00:02:07.420 Big League Politics first reported last week. Moreover, as highlighted by the College Fix on Friday,

00:02:12.400 the textbook for the same course, Psychology and Sexual Behavior, suggests that students take

00:02:18.460 take field trips to preschools and elementary schools to observe students' sexual interactions.

00:02:26.080 OK, so this is this is this is real. This is an actual course at a at a at a at an actual

00:02:34.520 university in America. The lesson plan on sexuality and infants, which can be which there's a link to it.

00:02:43.040 If you go and look at this article, you can see the lesson plan. It's from the 13th edition of Our Sexuality.

00:02:49.200 That's the course. The course is listed textbook. That's what Our Sexuality is. 0.99

00:02:55.580 One section of the document, according to the fix titled Teaching Ideas, suggests that instructors

00:03:02.840 take students on a field trip to observe children possibly engaging in sexual interactions during

00:03:08.260 recess hours. The textbook says take the class to a local elementary school playground.

00:03:13.760 Or ask permission for a few of your students to attend various school playgrounds, preschools or

00:03:20.360 daycare centers during recess to observe behaviors of children. Ask students to note interactions

00:03:27.340 between same sex and mixed sex groups. Which group was more frequent? Which behaviors were most

00:03:34.360 frequent? What kind of touching did children engage in? What about teasing behaviors? Were there any

00:03:40.440 overtly sexual interactions? What was the age range of children being observed? Have students write a

00:03:47.600 report comparing their observations with information in the text? It's unclear if the parents of the young

00:03:54.960 students potentially. So we don't know if if when it says ask permission, who is who are we asking

00:04:02.740 permission? The parents or the teacher? Of course, doesn't doesn't whatever the case, it doesn't make it any

00:04:10.160 better. One of the textbooks editors, Carla Bauer, was interviewed by the college fix. And she said

00:04:19.820 that she's, you know, one of the people responsible for this. Although she claims that

00:04:24.940 the the other editor of the textbook who's now deceased, wrote the guide where the field trips

00:04:34.600 were suggested. And so she tried to distance herself from that as she didn't know anything about that.

00:04:41.760 And if you're wondering what the course objectives are, the course objectives read as follows. Number

00:04:46.780 one, to describe human sexuality from historical and multicultural perspectives, to define to define

00:04:53.740 major theoretical perspectives that influence the scientific study of human sexuality, to explain the

00:04:59.500 significant research methodologies within disciplines, to examine the socially constructed nature of

00:05:05.040 sexual identities, to describe how sexuality overlaps with various social institutions, to recognize the

00:05:11.740 changing nature of social norms. Okay, so a couple of things here. First of all, you've noticed that

00:05:25.100 there really seems to be a movement afoot to normalize pedophilia. Yet we're always told that no such

00:05:33.420 movement exists. You know, pay no attention to the man behind the curtain. Our eyes are fooling us. And we

00:05:40.520 see stuff like this. And and and we say, well, it looks like this is a normalization of pedophilia. And yet

00:05:46.280 we're always a no, no, no, that's not happening. That's not happening. Well, I think this makes it pretty clear,

00:05:51.240 doesn't it? And it's, it's not, although I started by calling this unbelievable. I don't mean that in a

00:06:00.680 literal sense, because it is very believable, unfortunately, because this is what happens

00:06:05.800 when you begin to break down sexual boundaries. GK Chesterton talks about, as I've, I've mentioned this

00:06:16.160 quote for him before, because it's so relevant to what we see going on in our culture, especially as

00:06:22.020 it pertains to sexuality. And what he says is, you know, you're walking down the street, and you come

00:06:27.000 across a fence. You're not going to just tear down the fence without knowing why the fence is there and

00:06:36.740 what it is meant to contain. Right? You're not, you're not going to just, just, just announce that

00:06:45.660 we need to take down this fence. First, you want to know, why is that fence there? What's, what purpose

00:06:49.840 does it serve? Is it holding back some sort of rabid dog or something like that? I mean, there could be a

00:06:56.480 lot of good reasons for a fence. Now, the point is, what we've done in our culture with sexual 0.71

00:07:01.540 boundaries is we've just started tearing down fences without ever stopping to consider why those

00:07:10.600 fences were there and what sorts of rabid dogs they were trying to contain. And the other problem

00:07:19.760 is once you begin this project of tearing down sexual boundaries, it becomes really hard to erect

00:07:26.680 them somewhere else. Once you've said, no, we're going to tear down this boundary and that one,

00:07:31.540 right? This is all about social norms where we're getting rid of all the social norms.

00:07:36.200 Well, there are some things are social norms for a reason. And when, when, uh, when a phrase like

00:07:44.000 social norm becomes a dirty word, like it's a bad thing, it's a bad thing to uphold social. Now we

00:07:51.000 need, we need to tear down social norms just because they're norms. Well, it, it was a social norm

00:07:57.600 in our society that pedophilia is wrong, that you don't sexualize children. That was a social norm.

00:08:04.180 That's a good social norm. It's a norm for a reason. But once you start tearing down those fences,

00:08:11.680 uh, and, uh, it, it becomes difficult to go somewhere else and rebuild a fence.

00:08:19.500 And that's what's happening here. And as part of this, so you have the, the tearing down of

00:08:28.840 boundaries, but you also have is, I mean, just reading through the course objectives that I, 0.96

00:08:34.040 that I just read through, um, sex, sexuality, sex, sex, sex. There's, there's this obsession with sex 0.96

00:08:41.660 and sexuality and in, in, in, in seeing everyone, all people as these inherently sexual beings, 0.89

00:08:51.980 including children. And that's another thing that you find on the left is this upset. Everything is

00:08:58.980 seen in sexual terms. As much as they claim that, Oh, my, my sex life is, is none of your business.

00:09:06.600 Sex is a private thing. As much as they claim that the, they actually believe the exact,

00:09:12.560 the exact opposite. Now I believe that, that your sex life is none of my business, uh, as,

00:09:18.920 as long as you're not abusing or raping or molesting anyone. Um, but other than that, it is, 0.97

00:09:26.060 I don't want to know. Don't, don't talk to me about it. You don't, don't advertise it.

00:09:32.280 You don't need to go marching down the street, telling everybody we don't need to know.

00:09:36.600 Now that's how I feel about it. The left, they, they claim that they say that's none of your

00:09:43.900 business, but then they go out in the street and they march and they, and they announce it and

00:09:48.200 they tell everybody they advertise their sexuality. And this is where it ends up. The second thing,

00:09:56.120 um, to note here is, although I believe this is part of a movement in our society to normalize

00:10:03.940 pedophilia, we also have to understand that this is not new. Um, this is the kind of research that

00:10:10.460 Alfred Kinsey used to do in the early part of the 20th century. And Kinsey is considered a pioneer,

00:10:16.940 a hero, even to the left. Alfred Kinsey is, he's, uh, the godfather of modern sex education

00:10:24.200 and, and sex education, modern sex education is, is based on his work, but he was a pervert and a 0.97

00:10:31.200 deviant who, who studied the sexual responses of molested children. Very similar to what you just 0.96

00:10:39.220 read here. He would have Alfred Kinsey would have pedophiles rape children and record their experiences 0.99

00:10:48.040 in like a journal. And then they would come in and they would have meetings with Kinsey where they 0.99

00:10:52.700 would talk about the, their experiences, raping children and how the children responded to it.

00:10:57.400 And Kinsey would study, uh, the, these, these interactions. He didn't, he never reported it

00:11:02.220 to police. He didn't tell police about it. A pedophile would come to him and say, you know,

00:11:07.080 I raped children. And Kinsey would say, okay, great. Here's a notebook. Next time you do it, 1.00

00:11:12.220 uh, make sure you take notes. Now I'm not making that up. That's, this was what Alfred Kinsey would

00:11:17.980 do. That's the kind of work, if we can call it that, that this psychopath did. And yet our public 0.89

00:11:24.600 school sex education courses are based around his work. And this thing that I just read from this,

00:11:32.760 this, uh, university in, in Texas, that's exactly the kind of thing that he would do.

00:11:38.460 And now we're seeing that come to the forefront again, more explicitly, uh, just completely

00:11:46.340 horrific. All right. Um, speaking of horrific, there's a story, uh, out of, out of Australia,

00:11:54.200 a man, 36 year old man was arrested, put in jail, charged with sexual assault after he stopped to

00:12:02.360 help a woman whose car was broken down. And, uh, and, uh, he stopped and helped her. And then he was

00:12:08.220 later accused of stalking her and assaulting her. The problem is that he did no such thing.

00:12:14.900 Uh, he did stop to help her. He worked on her car for two hours, apparently trying to help this woman

00:12:19.580 who was stranded, but he did not assault her. And evidence, including security cameras revealed,

00:12:24.440 uh, and confirmed that he was innocent. So this guy performed this good deed going out of his way for

00:12:31.640 a fellow human being. And she turned around and accused him of rape. He was put, he spent some

00:12:37.880 time in jail, uh, before he was finally cleared of charges. He lost his relationship. His, his name

00:12:42.980 was, was, was, uh, run through the mud all because he did this good thing for another person.

00:12:52.800 And there was, there's a quote from him. Um, let's see if I can find, there's a quote from him that

00:12:58.960 is just so sad, but also kind of profound. And it sort of sums up where we are. Um,

00:13:07.600 he was, he was interviewed about his experiences after finally being, after finally being, um,

00:13:13.740 vindicated. And he said, I always helped people all my life. Um, and this was the first time a snake

00:13:21.140 bit me. He said, he'll, he'll probably never help again. I don't want that to happen again.

00:13:27.300 I'll probably never help again is what he said. This is a guy who is a good Samaritan used to

00:13:35.740 helping out his fellow human beings. And now he's saying, well, never gonna do that again.

00:13:40.040 I don't blame him. I mean, I, I certainly couldn't possibly blame him for that,

00:13:43.600 but I think you've, that's, that's what we're finding now is, uh, you have a lot of otherwise

00:13:50.860 chivalrous and good men who don't, who are afraid of, uh, of, of, you know, going out of

00:14:02.520 their way, putting themselves out there to help another person, especially a woman,

00:14:05.580 because they don't want to be accused of anything. They don't want to be accused of

00:14:09.720 being a sexist. They don't want to be accused of it. And, and, and worst case scenario, they

00:14:13.200 don't want to be accused with a, with a situation like this. And that's yet another problem with,

00:14:21.840 as I've, as I've pointed out many times with something like the me too movement,

00:14:25.160 but the, this, you know, hysteria, um, that we found in the me too movement is that it engenders

00:14:33.680 suspicion between the sexes on both sides where women begin to believe that, you know, every man 0.87

00:14:43.060 is, uh, is a potential rapist out to assault her and men begin to believe that any woman could 0.93

00:14:49.960 potentially falsely accuse him of something. And so you have this suspicion and both groups kind

00:14:56.240 of avoiding each other and trying not to be around each other. And that's a, not a healthy

00:15:01.380 situation for society. So that's, that's pretty terrible. All right. Um, so I wrote something

00:15:06.120 yesterday that I wanted to, I wanted to go through here. Um, as we talked about on the show yesterday,

00:15:12.420 after that law in Georgia was passed, which makes abortion basically illegal after six weeks with

00:15:19.860 exceptions, the left obviously reacted as you were expecting them to react. And there was a woman on, 1.00

00:15:25.080 on CNN. We played the clip of the, of this woman, uh, Christine Quinn, I believe was her name,

00:15:28.980 who, who, who was so overcome with anger that she, she became delusional. She started screaming about

00:15:35.980 how, uh, unborn babies are not human beings. They're part of the woman's body. And I talked about why 0.94

00:15:42.620 that's obviously a ridiculous and stupid argument. Clearly the unborn child is a human being, but that 1.00

00:15:50.060 is one of the really stupid arguments that pro-aborts put forward. Uh, it's only one though. 0.99

00:15:56.840 There's a whole list of really bad, dumb pro-abortion arguments. I wrote something yesterday 0.98

00:16:02.020 going through what I consider to be sort of the top seven dumbest pro-abortion arguments. I thought 0.98

00:16:07.120 I would, I would do that here on the show as well. I'll go through them. Uh, so this is the top seven

00:16:11.800 dumbest pro-abortion arguments, uh, aside from the one about not being a human being, we already 0.99

00:16:16.380 covered that. That's probably kind of the Mac daddy of dumb arguments that probably would be number 0.99

00:16:21.520 one, but putting that to the side, we'll go through the list, uh, seven to one. So starting 0.77

00:16:26.220 at number seven, dumb argument, you can't be against abortion unless you're willing to adopt 0.99

00:16:31.680 unwanted babies. We've talked about this before. Um, uh, that's, that's the argument. And of course, 0.97

00:16:38.860 a great many pro-lifers do indeed adopt unwanted babies. Um, but none of us can adopt all of them.

00:16:46.160 And some of us can't adopt any of them. The fact that we are limited in our resources does not

00:16:51.740 prove that we're hypocrites. And even if it did prove that that in itself would not prove that

00:16:57.800 our position is flawed. Even if you could prove that we are hypocrites and we, you know, we,

00:17:02.640 we should be out adopting babies and we're not, um, that doesn't mean anything about what we're

00:17:10.620 claiming about the nature of abortion. But in any case, it doesn't make any sense because if we can

00:17:19.580 only oppose the murder of those who we are able and willing to personally care for and subsidize,

00:17:25.700 that would mean that we cannot oppose the murder of almost anyone on earth because we can't care for

00:17:31.820 and subsidize the vast, vast majority of people who currently live. There are 7 billion people on

00:17:38.080 earth. You cannot care for all 7 billion. So if this is the standard and you know, you or I can

00:17:46.580 only feed and clothe a vanishingly small percentage of people on earth, then that would mean that we

00:17:52.180 can only really care about the fate and oppose the murder of that very small percentage. And that

00:18:00.220 would mean that we have to remain silent about things like genocide and school shootings because,

00:18:04.400 hey, we, you know, we, we're not stepping up to care for those people, but that of course doesn't

00:18:10.280 make any sense whatsoever. So that's a bad argument. Um, number six, no uterus, no opinion. 0.85

00:18:17.080 Now leftists of course, can't really make this argument anymore because they also say that,

00:18:22.040 you know, your possession of a uterus has nothing at all to do with your gender. It means nothing 0.99

00:18:27.020 anyway. So they've already made that. They have neutralized that argument themselves. They've ruled

00:18:31.980 that argument out, which is probably for the best because it's a dumb argument anyway. Um, abortion 0.98

00:18:36.880 is a moral and legal issue. So we use our brains to sort through it, not our reproductive organs. 0.96

00:18:43.220 So what the, what the, what the motto really should be is no brain, no opinion. Now that's true. If you

00:18:48.340 don't have a brain, then you shouldn't be voicing your opinion on this issue or any other. Um, but I'm 1.00

00:18:53.520 afraid that that might rule out a large portion of the pro-abortion side. So that's the problem

00:18:57.640 there. Number five, um, you, you, you, you can't force a woman to reproduce. Now I agree with that 0.63

00:19:05.560 statement. It's, it would be, it would be horrific to force women to reproduce. Um, unfortunately

00:19:12.820 that has nothing to do with abortion though, because a woman does not reproduce when she gives birth 0.98

00:19:20.140 in the hospital. Reproduction occurs at conception. So the, the, when a baby is born, that is not an act

00:19:27.460 of reproduction. Reproduction has already happened. It is the product of that reproduction. The thing

00:19:34.620 that has been reproduced, that is what's being born. So the question isn't, should women be required to 0.99

00:19:40.400 reproduce? Obviously they shouldn't. The question is, should a woman be allowed to purposefully kill 1.00

00:19:45.920 that which has already been produced? And the answer to that is no. Uh, number four, pro-lifers want to

00:19:53.540 control women's bodies, right? We hear this all the time. Well, of course the body that's directly 1.00

00:19:58.460 in dispute is not the woman's it's, it's the child's. Um, it's true that the woman uses her 0.98

00:20:04.680 body to sustain the child's body, but that's just as much the case after birth as it is before. I use

00:20:10.420 my body to care for my born children. I use my body to do that. I use my body to, to clothe them,

00:20:18.320 provide for them, feed them. I mean, whatever I do for my kids or for anyone else, I'm using my

00:20:24.240 body to do it. I, because I am my body. I can't do it any other way. I can't just sit back and with

00:20:29.840 the power of my brain, make things move around. And I'm not professor X in X-Men. So, um,

00:20:35.300 I have to do that. Everything I do for my kids, I use my body to do it. What's more, the law requires me

00:20:43.140 to do those things for my kids to care for them, provide for them, which means the, which means the

00:20:49.940 law requires me to use my body to do those things. Um, I'm not allowed to claim bodily autonomy and

00:20:56.440 then just cease all parental activities. If I did that, my body and myself altogether, we would all

00:21:03.160 go to jail if I did that. Uh, now does that mean that the laws against neglect and endangerment

00:21:10.940 control my body? Uh, you know, it may be in a very weird and indirect sense,

00:21:16.880 but the point of the laws certainly is not to control my body. The point of the law is to protect

00:21:23.340 children. And so the point of making abortion illegal is not to control women's bodies. Um,

00:21:30.920 but to protect children. That's, that's the point. Number three, um, this is a classic pro, uh,

00:21:36.960 pro-lifers are only pro-birth, right? They don't care about babies after their 1.00

00:21:40.940 born. Once again, this is irrelevant, even if it's true. Um, but it isn't true. Our whole

00:21:48.440 point is that there's no difference between a baby inside the womb and a baby outside of

00:21:53.660 the womb. We cherish them both. So if we didn't care about babies outside the womb, then we

00:21:58.980 wouldn't be constantly insisting that a child inside the womb is just like a child outside

00:22:03.500 the womb. Now follow the logic here. What we're saying is a child inside the womb is like a child 0.91

00:22:09.120 outside the womb. Therefore the child inside the womb should be treated with value and dignity.

00:22:16.060 This line of reasoning clearly indicates that we think that children outside of the womb have value 0.97

00:22:22.140 and dignity. Our, our whole case is, is that's sort of the linchpin of our entire case. Um, also of

00:22:29.240 course, pro-lifers are exceedingly charitable. They, they, um, we give to people in need all the time.

00:22:34.320 Um, and if you're going to make this claim about pro-lifers don't care about kids after birth,

00:22:39.100 you have to come forward with some sort of data, some information to prove that.

00:22:45.980 Um, prove for instance, that pro-lifers, uh, you know, don't give the charity and don't help the

00:22:53.200 less fortunate. Again, even if you could prove that that would not prove anything about abortion,

00:22:58.920 but you can't even prove that. So this is a, an argument that is not only irrelevant and stupid, 1.00

00:23:07.140 but fabricated out of thin air. Number two, um, the pro-life movement is just a bunch of men bossing 1.00

00:23:13.880 women around, you know, pro-lifers are a bunch of men. This clearly is, is once again, irrelevant.

00:23:21.300 Um, because either the pro-life position is wrong or it's right. And if it's right, it would still be 0.80

00:23:27.080 right. Even if men were the only ones arguing for it, but men are not the only ones far from it.

00:23:33.360 The pro-life movement is run predominantly by women. Um, it's mostly women working at pregnancy 1.00

00:23:40.080 centers. It's mostly women at the March for life. Um, it's mostly women praying outside of abortion 0.91

00:23:45.600 clinics. And, uh, so it's, it's the idea that the pro-life movement is some sort of male dominated

00:23:51.980 thing is a, once again, completely baseless. Number one, uh, and this is, maybe this is the

00:24:00.100 biggest one of all, even more than unborn babies aren't, aren't human. Um, women have the right to 1.00

00:24:05.740 choose the right to choose. Yeah. We hear that phrase so often that we take it for granted, but

00:24:14.400 it actually is a, is a, is a concept without meaning, without content. It doesn't mean anything.

00:24:21.980 Do women have the right to choose? Uh, no, of course they don't. 1.00

00:24:29.200 It's your, your right to make a choice depends entirely on the nature of the choice. Now,

00:24:36.920 physically you can choose to do whatever you want within the laws of physics, but legally there are

00:24:43.020 hundreds upon hundreds of things you cannot choose to do. Um, you can't choose arson or rape or theft or,

00:24:50.800 or tax evasion or burglary or vandalism. Um, you can't choose murder either, unless your victim

00:24:57.120 happens to be still inside the womb. But when someone insists that women have the right to choose, 1.00

00:25:03.000 you know, that statement, the right to choose is a, is an absolute universal statement. I have the right

00:25:11.360 to choose, but of course in an absolute and universal way, uh, nobody has that right because

00:25:20.520 that would mean that you have the right to choose to do literally anything you want to do. You have

00:25:26.400 the right to make any choice at all, which of course you don't. So when, when someone says women have the 1.00

00:25:32.440 right to choose, what they really mean is they mean it in an, in a very limited sense. They mean

00:25:37.940 specifically in their mind that a woman has the right to choose to end the life of her child

00:25:43.060 before the child emerges from the birth canal. So they put it forward as an absolute unqualified

00:25:50.820 statement, but it actually is a very qualified statement because they are talking about one

00:25:57.280 particular choice that they believe a woman should be able to make. Um, but if that choice to kill a 1.00

00:26:07.080 child is defensible and ethical, it's not defensible and ethical just because it's a choice. The fact

00:26:14.940 that it's a choice is irrelevant. The question with abortion is not whether a woman can choose,

00:26:21.020 but whether an unborn human has a moral claim to existence and personhood. Now, if he doesn't,

00:26:29.180 then a woman can choose abortion. Um, if he does have that claim, then the choice of abortion belongs to

00:26:36.900 the same category as the choice of murder or child molestation. Then that would be a choice that

00:26:44.200 yeah, physically you can do, but you have no moral right to do it. And you shouldn't therefore have

00:26:49.880 a legal right to do it either. Now you'll, you'll notice something, you know, um, gun rights activists

00:26:55.340 will, uh, will, will talk about, uh, their right to bear arms, but they never talk about the right to

00:27:02.500 shoot, right? Gun rights activists aren't going to go around saying I have the right to shoot.

00:27:09.080 They have the right to bear arms, but their right to discharge those arms depends quite significantly

00:27:14.040 on why the arms are being discharged and in what context and at what target. So no, you don't have

00:27:21.640 the right to shoot. Generally speaking, uh, you have the right, you, you, you have the right to bear the

00:27:27.520 arms, but as far as shooting them, that really is, is very qualified. It really depends on why and where

00:27:36.040 and in what direction you're shooting. And a choice is like that. You know, um, your right to choose is

00:27:42.260 contingent, not absolute. So to defend a choice on the basis that it is a choice is very stupid. 1.00

00:27:50.360 All of these arguments are very stupid. Uh, but the pro-abortion side, of course, doesn't have any, 1.00

00:27:56.300 any other sort of argument at, at its disposal, unfortunately. All right. Um,

00:28:01.840 we'll go to, uh, yeah, we'll go to emails, mattwalshowatgmail.com, mattwalshowatgmail.com.

00:28:10.180 Um, this is from Isaac says, Hey Matt, you said something yesterday that I'm not sure I agree with.

00:28:16.380 Um, in that you said that loving oneself is a by-product of loving others, but doesn't scripture

00:28:23.180 say otherwise in that you need to love others as much as you love yourself. The second greatest

00:28:27.820 commandment, there's a saying that that's a bit of a spinoff of that commandment, which is you grace

00:28:32.680 others as much as you grace yourself. And don't people who struggle with self-hatred also struggle

00:28:37.500 with loving others as a result. Um, love your show and you're down to earth and say it as it is

00:28:41.840 approach. Yeah. Well, I think that there's a misunderstanding, Isaac, about that

00:28:45.560 verse in scripture where it says, uh, love others, you know, as you love yourself. Jesus there is not

00:28:53.140 saying that your, you know, your, that self-love is the foundational love and that you should calibrate

00:29:00.760 your love for other people based on how much you happen to love yourself. That's not what Jesus is

00:29:05.320 saying. What he's saying is, I think more just pretty simple that you, you know, you look out for

00:29:11.820 your own interests. Um, and in a similar way, you should consider other people's interests to be

00:29:18.760 like your own. You know, Thomas Aquinas says love to love is to will the good of the other. Well,

00:29:25.080 you, you kind of naturally will the good for yourself. You want what is good for yourself.

00:29:31.340 You may have some wrong ideas about what's good, but, um, to the extent that you understand what's

00:29:37.280 good. You want that for yourself, right? Um, well, what Jesus is saying is, yeah, do the same for

00:29:44.940 other people too. Want what is best for others and try to help them achieve what is best. That's the

00:29:51.280 point. Um, and so you want what's best for yourself, really regardless of how you happen to feel about

00:30:01.000 yourself. You may be feeling kind of down about yourself. You may be struggling with your self image

00:30:05.440 or whatever, but you still want what's best for yourself. Unless you get to the point of total

00:30:11.400 self-loathing where you're at the, you know, where you're, uh, you know, at the point of, of being

00:30:16.860 almost suicidal. Well, now that's, that of course would be someone who doesn't want what's best for

00:30:20.920 themselves. Um, and that is bad. I mean, I'm not advocating self-loathing. Obviously we don't want to

00:30:25.940 hate ourselves. We should, we shouldn't hate anyone, including ourselves, ourselves. But, um,

00:30:33.440 um, the point is we can't hold other people hostage according to our own emotions, where we're

00:30:42.340 saying, you know, how I treat you is going to depend entirely on how I happen to be feeling.

00:30:49.460 And there are a lot of people who operate that way in relationships and it's deadly for a

00:30:53.860 relationship. And that is not what Jesus is saying. And by the way, keep in mind, that's the second

00:30:59.240 greatest commandment. What was the first greatest? First greatest was love God. So that's the first

00:31:06.340 thing. The foundational love is not the love for yourself or the love for your neighbor. The

00:31:12.560 foundational love is your love for God. And through that love, you know, that love becomes sort of the,

00:31:19.220 the fountain, um, from which our love for ourselves and for other people sort of springs. So that's the

00:31:27.980 way that I would, I would look at it. But I do still believe that if you're struggling with self

00:31:36.280 image, if you're feeling down about yourself, whatever the case may be, I think the best remedy

00:31:42.540 for that is not to sit around trying to conjure good feelings about yourself. The best remedy is to

00:31:49.420 focus on loving other people and loving God, just focus on loving outwardly rather than inwardly.

00:31:55.020 And I think if you do that, you're going to find that you start to feel better too.

00:32:02.900 Um, when you really focus on, you know, you say, I want to put this aside. I'm just going to go play

00:32:06.520 with my kids, spend some time with my kids, focus on loving them, being with them. And I'm not going

00:32:12.820 to think about myself. And in the midst of doing that, of kind of losing yourself in, in, in that

00:32:18.080 moment of, of being with, with, with someone else that you love, you may stop for a second and

00:32:22.540 realize, Oh, wait a second. I'm actually feeling pretty good about myself right now. And the moment

00:32:26.280 that you realize that don't dwell on it, just say, okay, that's great. Put it to the side,

00:32:30.760 focus back on other people. I think the more we focus on how we feel about ourselves, the worse

00:32:36.180 we end up feeling. That's the point. We, we end up kind of caving in on ourselves because we're so

00:32:41.100 inwardly focused. I think we should be more outwardly focused. And, uh, that was the whole point

00:32:46.060 I was trying to make there. Um, this is from Jamie says, hi, Matt, I love your show. Agree with almost

00:32:51.000 everything you say. I have a question though, about homosexuality. C.S. Lewis says that he can't

00:32:55.000 judge gay people because he's never struggled with that issue himself. It seems like a lot of 1.00

00:32:59.160 Christians like to condemn the sins that they've never been tempted to commit. Meanwhile, they say 0.99

00:33:03.560 nothing about the sins they do struggle with. What do you think about C.S. Lewis's attitude? I know

00:33:07.740 you're a big fan of his. Um, hi, Jimmy. I am a big fan of C.S. Lewis and I'm familiar with the

00:33:13.380 passage you're referring to, though. It doesn't say exactly that. Um, here's, here's what he says.

00:33:19.120 This is from surprised by joy. I believe he says, um, I have said the sin in question, homosexuality 0.99

00:33:24.840 is one of the two gambling as the other, which I have never been tempted to commit. I will not

00:33:30.100 indulge in futile philippics against enemies. I have never met in battle. So that's not the same 1.00

00:33:36.280 thing as saying. I can't judge rather. What he's saying is he has no real insight into that struggle

00:33:41.260 because he's never experienced it. And it's rather easy for him to rail against it because it is,

00:33:46.500 as he says, an enemy that he's never met in battle. So it's easy for him. And I think we can

00:33:51.300 and should still stand in opposition to all sin, including the ones that we've never been tempted

00:33:56.280 to commit ourselves. And I don't think C.S. Lewis would disagree with that, but I agree that there

00:34:01.020 is a tendency among Christians and among all people to focus on the sins of others. Uh, that's what the 0.89

00:34:06.760 whole, you know, uh, splint, splinter in your brother's eye beam in your own eye. Um, he without

00:34:14.620 sin, throw the first stone, you know, all of that in the gospels. That's what all that is about. Jesus

00:34:18.380 spends a lot of time on this concept. So here's how I look at it. Every bad thing that you've ever done

00:34:26.020 and we've all done bad things, right? So every bad thing you've ever done,

00:34:30.880 you've done because two factors converged desire and opportunity. You did the bad thing

00:34:40.240 because you had the desire to do it and you had the opportunity to do it. Desire and opportunity.

00:34:47.860 We know what desire means opportunity in this case means not only the chance to do it physically,

00:34:52.820 but the ability to do it, uh, in our minds without consequence. That's what opportunity means.

00:34:59.020 So we've all told lies, right? We've all told lies. Well, why did we tell those lies? We told the lie

00:35:06.620 because we wanted to, because we thought that we would get something out of it.

00:35:11.180 And because we encountered a situation where we believed we could tell the lie and get away with

00:35:16.560 it. And oftentimes we find out in retrospect, we were wrong about that, but, um, but still we,

00:35:22.300 we, that's why we did it. So here's the point. You don't deserve credit

00:35:27.440 for not doing things which you've never had the desire and opportunity to do in the first place.

00:35:36.320 Um, think about all the bad things you haven't done. Think of the worst kinds of things. Murder,

00:35:42.100 for instance. Okay. Why haven't you murdered anyone? Assuming you haven't. Well, you might say,

00:35:47.980 oh, I've never murdered anyone because it's wrong, but is that really why you haven't done it?

00:35:53.220 No, you haven't done it because you never wanted to. You've never once been seriously tempted to

00:36:01.340 kill someone. And that's why you haven't done it. Now it's true that it's wrong and you're aware of

00:36:05.740 that fact, but you've never been in a situation where the only thing stopping you from killing

00:36:12.240 someone is that, you know, it's wrong. The thing that stops you from killing someone every day and

00:36:17.600 every moment of your life is that you, you just, it's not in the cards. You just, you've never had

00:36:23.040 that temptation. Um, so the first sort of dam that holds us back from committing a particular sin

00:36:30.520 is that we don't want to commit that sin. That's the number one thing that stops us from doing

00:36:36.000 most of the bad things we don't do. The second dam, not as strong as the first,

00:36:41.920 especially if the first breaks is opportunity. So there may be a really bad thing that we want to

00:36:49.980 do, but then, so that dam breaks, but then we have that second one holding there of, well,

00:36:56.680 we don't have the opportunity to do it. The problem though is, is once the first dam breaks and the

00:37:02.580 only thing stopping you is that you don't have the opportunity to do it, then eventually you'll find

00:37:06.200 an opportunity. Think about, you know, a guy, an unfaithful man in an unhappy marriage who

00:37:12.440 is a candidate for adultery. Like he, he, he, he would like to commit adultery. He would like to

00:37:18.760 be with another woman. Um, but he just has never found an opportunity where he thinks he could do it

00:37:24.660 and get away with it. Well, then that's what's then in that case, opportunity is what's stopping him,

00:37:29.220 but most likely eventually he'll find an opportunity for himself because that's what people end up doing.

00:37:36.200 And then what happens? Okay. So let's say you want to do the bad thing. You have the opportunity

00:37:43.240 to do it. Now, what's the only thing that can stop you now? Okay. Now this is where morality

00:37:51.500 and virtue come into play. They didn't really come into play before because it, it, it, it didn't

00:37:57.380 really matter because you didn't want to do the thing anyway. Now the, now the, the last and final,

00:38:04.400 uh, the, the fail safe is morality and virtue. And that's going to be the only thing that prevents

00:38:13.420 you from doing that thing because you want to do it. You have the opportunity. Now you, now you need

00:38:19.380 to call on morality and virtue. Um, I think CS Lewis's point is that if on any particular sin,

00:38:28.840 you've never, you know, face those raging waters. You've never been under that waterfall.

00:38:36.180 You've never felt the force of that water or both of those dams break. And the only thing stopping you

00:38:43.660 from drowning in that sin is just your own moral discipline. CS Lewis is saying is if you've never

00:38:50.940 been through that on any particular issue, then you have no right to feel morally superior

00:38:58.940 because it's not your morals that prevented you from doing it. It's not your morals that saved you

00:39:06.460 from drowning. Your morals didn't come into play. What we need to do is think what happens when I do

00:39:16.660 have the desire and opportunity to do a bad thing, even if we're, even if they're just little things,

00:39:21.200 I think for a lot of us, if we're honest, we have to admit that pretty much whenever we really want to

00:39:28.300 do something and we have the chance to do it, we do it, whatever it is. Um, and, and these may be small

00:39:38.340 things most of the time. I think a lot of us have maybe never or almost never made a real moral decision

00:39:49.280 in our lives. I think there are a lot of us who, who have, who have, who have never really committed a

00:39:55.440 moral act. Uh, not all of us, but I think for many of us, every bad thing we haven't done

00:40:03.000 is because we just so happen to never want to do, to do that thing. Um, and every good thing that

00:40:12.020 we've done, it's because we happen to want to do it. We project the appearance of living a moral life,

00:40:20.340 but really we're only living according to our desires. And the problem is, um, it's only by

00:40:29.020 accident then that we aren't committing the most heinous sins. It's just an accident of circumstance

00:40:36.020 that we happen to not want to do those things. What happens when we wake up one day and we find

00:40:43.520 that we really do want to do one of those things. We have gotten into the habit of living according to

00:40:49.460 our desire of living according to desire and opportunity. And once, once you go down that

00:40:57.300 road, um, you're on the same road as murderers and rapists and everyone. I mean, you're, you're,

00:41:06.080 you may not be as far down the road as them, but you know, those are people who are living according

00:41:11.220 to their desires and their desires happen to be heinous. You're living according to your desires too,

00:41:17.320 which are a little bit less heinous, but unless you learn to, uh, resist doing bad things, even when

00:41:30.380 you have the desire and opportunity to do them, then you're just going to drift down and end up over

00:41:34.820 there in that vicinity eventually, unless you die first. Um, I, I think that's kind of what C.S.

00:41:43.640 Lewis is, is, uh, is getting at. And so what should we do? I think we have to get accustomed to acting

00:41:51.200 against our desires and, and against opportunity. And that means not committing the quote unquote,

00:41:59.880 little sins. That's why the little sins are so important because most of us are only ever tempted

00:42:10.080 to the quote unquote, little sins. And so you have to get accustomed to resisting those temptations.

00:42:18.460 Um, and on the other hand too, on the other hand too, when it comes to virtue, it's sort of the inverse

00:42:23.520 where we have to get accustomed to doing good things, even when we really don't want to do them.

00:42:29.120 Um, and when we won't gain much from doing them and when we, when we, we can't do so without

00:42:36.260 sacrifice and inconvenience. So kind of the subverting of desire and opportunity, I think

00:42:43.340 we need to get ourselves accustomed to doing that. And, uh, that's part of what, uh, you know,

00:42:48.040 just, this is just one example, but that's part of what fasting and those sorts of things are about.

00:42:52.600 You know, the point, one of the points of fasting is, yeah, I mean, I, I want to eat,

00:42:59.520 I can eat, uh, in this case, there's nothing wrong with eating. It's not a, it's not an immoral thing,

00:43:03.800 but I'm kind of training myself. It's, it's, this is moral training where I'm training myself to not

00:43:11.420 do something that I want to do. And that's a, just a, a basic ability that we have to be able to

00:43:21.700 um, develop within ourselves. And I think a lot of us just do not have that ability

00:43:29.600 because we have never once refrained from doing something we really wanted to do.

00:43:37.420 All right. Um, so there's that and we'll leave it there tomorrow. Uh, just to remind you,

00:43:45.540 we will be in Philadelphia for the, for the pro-life rally against bullying, uh, 1144 Locust

00:43:52.640 Street. If I remember the address correctly, 11 AM in Philadelphia, there's gonna be a big group of

00:43:56.740 us there and, uh, it's going to be a great event. So I hope to see you there. And, uh, if not,

00:44:01.000 I'll talk to you tomorrow. Godspeed.

00:44:03.100 Hey everybody. It's Andrew Klavan, host of the Andrew Klavan show. So now the Democrats are going

00:44:21.580 to put on a show. It's the impeachment and constitutional crisis show, except without a

00:44:26.500 real impeachment or a real constitutional crisis because they need a show to replace the reality

00:44:31.240 they've lost. That's on the Andrew Klavan show. I'm Andrew Klavan.

The Matt Walsh Show - May 09, 2019

Ep 256 - Speeding Down The Slippery Slope

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript