The Matt Walsh Show - May 22, 2019


Ep. 265 - The Shocking Attack On The Press That The Press Is Ignoring


Episode Stats

Length

45 minutes

Words per Minute

174.67677

Word Count

8,025

Sentence Count

557

Misogynist Sentences

9

Hate Speech Sentences

3


Summary

We hear a lot about attacks on the press, but this is a real one. Only this is one that the press itself is ignoring or even defending. Also, Kamala Harris embarrasses herself in awkward fashion, demonstrates that maybe he should have been given a job in government that actually relates to his field, and finally, we ll ask the question, why have we decided that it s smart for young married couples to begin their lives together by bankrupting themselves to buy expensive rings and fancy wedding receptions?


Transcript

00:00:00.000 Today on the Matt Wall Show, let's discuss a real attack on the press. How about that?
00:00:05.040 We hear a lot about attacks on the press, but this is a real one. Only this is one that the
00:00:10.080 press itself is ignoring or even defending. Also, Kamala Harris embarrasses herself in
00:00:15.940 awkward fashion. Ben Carson, a world-renowned surgeon, demonstrates that maybe he should have
00:00:21.340 been given a job in government that actually relates to his field. And finally, we'll ask
00:00:25.200 the question, why have we decided that it's smart for young married couples to begin their
00:00:29.820 lives together by bankrupting themselves to buy expensive rings and fancy wedding receptions?
00:00:35.520 We'll try to answer that question today as well on the Matt Wall Show.
00:00:42.140 Okay, we're going to talk about a real attack on the press, on journalism, on free speech,
00:00:48.480 on the First Amendment, but this is one that the press itself has no interest in reporting on.
00:00:54.000 We're going to talk about that in a minute, but first, let me tell you about Lightstream.
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00:02:04.340 credit approval, rate includes 0.5% auto pay discount, terms and conditions apply. Okay, so we hear that the
00:02:12.380 press is under attack, that journalists are courageous martyrs, that the government is
00:02:20.960 stomping on the First Amendment to hinder the work of these brave, you know, warriors for truth.
00:02:28.600 The only problem is that most of the time when you hear this stuff, the people who make this claim
00:02:34.280 have difficulty citing any examples. They'll say this, but then what examples do they give you?
00:02:39.840 Well, they'll say, well, you know, Trump says mean stuff about CNN, or they'll talk about some of the
00:02:46.680 mean gifs, and it is gif, not jif, that Trump retweets about the media. But as for actual legal
00:02:54.360 persecution of the press, they don't seem to have very many examples of that that they can provide,
00:03:01.000 right? Or at least, I should say, there aren't very many examples that they would want to provide
00:03:08.520 in the left-wing media. But here's one. This is one of the ones they don't like. But we've got one.
00:03:16.080 This is a real live example here. Okay, we caught one here. This really is an attack on the press.
00:03:21.620 This is an attack on the First Amendment. It is chilling, terrifying, potentially disastrous for
00:03:29.200 the First Amendment itself. It is an assault on the work of journalists. So here it is right here,
00:03:35.460 guys. If you're looking for an example, you found it. It's right here. Except, even though it's
00:03:42.140 the best example of government persecution of journalists in America, it's also the one
00:03:47.720 example that journalists in America will ignore, or even defend. David Daleiden and Sandra Merritt
00:03:54.860 are two journalists with the Center for Medical Progress. Maybe you recognize their names. You should,
00:03:59.740 if you don't, they're the people who infiltrated Planned Parenthood in an undercover investigation
00:04:05.500 a few years ago. And they revealed widespread criminal conduct at every level of the organization.
00:04:10.080 They revealed, among other things, that Planned Parenthood haggles over and sells the body parts
00:04:16.960 of the babies that they kill. And we'll get to this in a second. But I know that if any liberal that's
00:04:25.100 watching this will say, oh, it's deceptively edited. No, it wasn't. We'll get to that in a second. But
00:04:29.860 that's what it proved. Rather than it leading to the prosecution of the crooks at Planned Parenthood,
00:04:37.900 who are engaged in this macabre form of human trafficking, it has led to the prosecution of the
00:04:45.160 journalists who discovered the crime. And which is, basically, if you look up shooting the messenger
00:04:51.960 in the dictionary, you're going to find this case. That's what's happening here. The state of
00:04:56.040 California, first when Kamala Harris was attorney general and now with Xavier Becerra, both absurdly
00:05:04.880 and openly biased in favor of Planned Parenthood and against these journalists, both recipients of
00:05:11.340 donations from Planned Parenthood, both who have pledged to stand with Planned Parenthood. Nonetheless,
00:05:17.520 the state of California, led by these two partisan minions of the abortion industry,
00:05:24.600 has been trying to punish Daleiden and Merritt for years now for exposing these crimes, for engaging in
00:05:31.060 journalism, the kind of journalism that other journalists aren't going to do, trying to exact
00:05:36.740 vengeance on them, essentially, for embarrassing Planned Parenthood. Now, they claim, the state of
00:05:44.740 California claims that Planned Parenthood's privacy has been invaded, and that that's the great crime
00:05:53.380 here. But of course, privacy is always invaded in undercover journalism. That's part of the point,
00:06:00.320 right? If there's some truth that's being hidden from the public, some truth that the public has a
00:06:06.140 right to know about, and that's what undercover journalism is supposed to do, is to tell the
00:06:11.180 public things that we should know, but we're not being told because it's being kept from us. Such
00:06:16.340 as, by the way, Planned Parenthood, which gets $500 million a year in welfare payments from the
00:06:24.260 government, is selling body parts. That's something we should know. Our money is going to this organization.
00:06:30.900 We have a right to know it. But if it's being kept from you, if lies are being told, if secrets are
00:06:36.180 being kept, then the only way to reveal it is to invade the privacy of this organization, which is
00:06:42.060 what they did, which is what undercover journalists, again, always do. And if this is a criminal case of
00:06:48.540 invasion of privacy, then nobody can ever do undercover journalism again. That's what's at stake
00:06:54.780 here. Not that the media cares. There was a, I believe it was in California, where there was a few
00:07:03.380 years ago, an undercover investigation done at, I think it was like meatpacking plants.
00:07:10.540 And you hear about this kind of stuff all the time, where someone infiltrates one of these
00:07:15.880 organizations to try to find out what's happening so that they can tell the public. That's undercover
00:07:21.440 journalism. If Dave Daleiden and Sandra Merritt can't do that, then nobody can do it. So these two
00:07:29.640 journalists have been charged with 15 felony counts. The case was stayed by the California Supreme
00:07:34.840 Court a few weeks ago, but now it's moving forward. And now California will have the ability
00:07:40.840 to try to lock these people in prison for doing this. So just to review, okay, a partisan attorney
00:07:48.520 general who is a supporter of Planned Parenthood and a recipient of Planned Parenthood money is leading
00:07:55.160 the prosecution against two undercover journalists who expose legal activity within Planned Parenthood,
00:07:59.900 the organization that gives him money. Attack on the press, on journalism, on speech. Yeah,
00:08:09.360 I would say that's what it is. Now, a few points. It will be said, as I referenced earlier, that,
00:08:17.000 and it has been said a million times, that the undercover Planned Parenthood videos were
00:08:21.840 deceptively edited. This has been the slogan of abortion apologists for years now, ever since
00:08:27.040 these videos came out. They say it reflexively, almost like a hiccup. They can't even help
00:08:32.900 themselves. The moment you bring it up, they're deceptively edited, deceptively edited.
00:08:37.840 And if it were true that Daleiden and Merritt basically went in there and, you know, using camera
00:08:43.260 tricks or something, they made up a bunch of stuff and lied about what they discovered and made it seem
00:08:49.220 like Planned Parenthood was selling baby parts when really they weren't, which when someone calls it
00:08:54.420 deceptively edited, that's what they're implying. That, no, they didn't really discover that. They
00:08:58.640 just made it seem like that. Which already, there should be red flags there because, you know, I feel
00:09:05.960 like you could do an undercover investigation of me and record everything that I say secretly
00:09:14.460 um, and then deceptively edit it. And in doing that, you may be able to accuse me and make it seem
00:09:23.000 like I said a lot of things I didn't say. I don't think even with, with, with the most deceptive of
00:09:28.100 editing, you could make it seem like I ever tried to sell a baby's kidney, right? Because I just,
00:09:35.340 I, unless you're hiring voice actors to come in and dub over what I actually said, I, there's no way,
00:09:43.940 just anything that I say, there's no way you could slice it up in any form that would make it sound
00:09:48.160 like I'm trying to sell a dead body. Um, that'd be very, that's a, that's a difficult form of deceptive
00:09:55.620 editing. So that should have been red flag when you hear this, um, claim of deceptive editing. But
00:10:05.820 the point is, if it was deceptively edited, then, then yeah, in that case, um, this would not be an
00:10:11.920 undercover investigation. This would just be a smear campaign. And yeah, sure. Go ahead and
00:10:16.500 prosecute them. Just like Chris Hansen used to do those undercover stings, uh, to catch child
00:10:21.940 molesters. I think he might still do them actually. And, and he invaded their privacy. He lied. He met
00:10:28.820 them under false pretenses. He did all that, but it was considered okay because it was an undercover
00:10:34.720 investigation to expose child predators. And it's sort of understood that unless you are secretive
00:10:41.060 about it and, um, and, and sneaky, you're not going to be able to, no child molester is going to show
00:10:47.760 up if he knows that he's going to be on TV in the middle of an investigation. But if Hansen had
00:10:53.500 edited the tape to make someone look like a child molester who really was there to deliver a pizza
00:10:58.160 or something, then he would have gotten in trouble for that, obviously. So were the Planned Parenthood
00:11:02.980 videos deceptively edited? No, no, they were not. It has been proven that they weren't. I want to
00:11:09.140 emphasize that it has been proven that they were not deceptively edited. The people who say that
00:11:14.980 they were deceptively edited are either ignorant or lying. There is no third option. Um, now they
00:11:22.600 weren't deceptively edited. Were they edited at all? Well, obviously they were. It was hours and hours of
00:11:27.500 video footage and a lot of irrelevant material has to be cut out so that it's digestible. And so that
00:11:33.620 it's something that people will watch. If they just release 13 hours of tape and say, Hey, sort through it
00:11:38.540 and find what you find, uh, then it's going to have no impact because no one's going to watch it.
00:11:44.140 You're just, you're not going to do that. You're going to release the highlight, the point.
00:11:49.660 And as long as you put it in context and you properly represent it, then it is not a deceptive
00:11:56.800 edit. The fifth circuit court of appeals ruled recently. Of course, you didn't hear this in the
00:12:03.440 news. They ruled that the videos were not deceptively edited. Here's what the court said.
00:12:08.940 Uh, reading now the record reflects that OIG office of inspector general had submitted a report
00:12:15.160 from a forensic firm, concluding that the video was authentic and not deceptively edited. And the
00:12:20.380 plaintiffs, Planned Parenthood did not identify any particular omission or addition in the video
00:12:25.040 footage. There is no question that the OIG here made factual findings after viewing the videos and
00:12:31.160 related evidence on the basis of the administrative record. Um, and so it goes on from there.
00:12:37.000 So they did a forensic analysis and they did not find any deceptive editing, but it gets better.
00:12:42.020 Okay. Planned Parenthood itself hired its own investigators, hired fusion GPS. Actually,
00:12:48.960 you may, you may remember them hired them to do an analysis and prove that the, that there were
00:12:54.660 deceptive edits. Again, this is an analysis that was, that was paid for subsidized by Planned
00:13:02.680 Parenthood. And now, um, I'll read, let me, let me read from their report. Once again, this is from
00:13:10.980 Planned Parenthood or at least the people they hired. They're going to try to dress this up as favorably
00:13:15.300 for themselves as they can. Here's what they said. Fusion GPS analysts reviewed all four of the full
00:13:21.160 footage videos released by the center for medical progress, totaling more than 12 hours of tape.
00:13:27.000 This analysis did not reveal widespread evidence of substantive video manipulation,
00:13:34.840 but we did identify cuts, skips, missing tape and changes in camera angle. A forensic video expert,
00:13:40.280 Grant Frederick's reviewed segments of tape identified as suspicious during this preliminary
00:13:44.920 review. This professional analysis revealed that the full footage videos contain numerous
00:13:49.400 intentional post-production edits. While many of these edits removed likely irrelevant content from
00:13:55.160 the beginning and end of the interviews, all four videos also contained intentional edits that
00:13:59.560 removed content from the middle of the videos. Okay. Did you get that? This analysis did not reveal
00:14:06.280 widespread evidence of substantive video manipulation. This is from like three years ago that Planned Parenthood
00:14:12.280 admitted that there wasn't deceptive edits. And you still hear this from the media that there were
00:14:17.400 deceptive edits. The best they could do is say, well, there weren't deceptive edits, but there were
00:14:23.720 intentional edits. Well, of course there were intentional edits. Yes, there are cuts and skips because
00:14:28.680 obviously you're, you're going to make cuts to any video that you film and then release to mass
00:14:33.320 consumption. Almost every piece of footage you have ever watched on the news on any channel at any point,
00:14:39.400 anywhere has been, uh, has, has, has cuts and skips and missing pieces of it because that's the way it
00:14:46.600 works. The question is whether those cuts and skips are meant to deceive, meant to give a false impression,
00:14:54.600 meant to make it seem like something is happening when it's not really happening.
00:14:58.520 The answer that we get now from two forensic investigations into the footage, one funded by
00:15:06.280 Planned Parenthood is that no, the edits were not deceptive. They're just irrelevant, cutting out
00:15:13.560 irrelevant stuff. So that's it. That's the end. You, you, you cannot claim anymore that these videos were
00:15:21.680 deceptively edited unless you are willing to be a blatant, despicable liar. And I know that a lot
00:15:28.640 of pro-abortion people are willing to be that, but I mean, really look in the mirror and ask yourself,
00:15:33.040 are you, are you happy being that? Because I wouldn't be. No, you, no matter how you feel on
00:15:42.000 the subject, you just have to deal with it. This stuff is on tape. This is, it's when you watch the
00:15:47.920 tape and you hear someone from Planned Parenthood trying to sell a body part, that's what happened.
00:15:54.560 You might not like it. You might wish it didn't happen. I wish it didn't happen too, but it did.
00:16:00.240 Period. Okay. So if the video was not deceptively edited, then what does that mean? It means that
00:16:10.480 when Planned Parenthood officials are caught on tape, haggling over the price of a dead baby's liver,
00:16:15.960 it's real, it happened, and it's illegal. And these journalists exposed actual illegal activity,
00:16:23.000 and now they're being prosecuted for it. Because that, that's, that really is what this all comes
00:16:27.940 down to. If, if the, if, if the videos are real, then this is a legitimate investigation.
00:16:36.440 And they uncovered, um, at a minimum, they uncovered, uh, widespread unethical activity,
00:16:46.520 at a minimum, when really it is federal crimes they uncovered. That's investigative journalism.
00:16:54.920 Uh, even if you don't like the results. And so this is, again, if they, if they are successfully
00:17:07.160 prosecuted for this and they go to jail or they, they face, you know, some kind of legal penalty,
00:17:12.520 um, the, the, the implications for all of journalism are vast and troubling.
00:17:26.680 All right. Um, let's move on. I've got to lighten the, lighten the mood a little bit. I've got two
00:17:32.460 extremely awkward videos to play. Uh, one courtesy of Democrats and one courtesy of Republicans. We're
00:17:39.280 going to be bipartisan. And, uh, so here's the first from Kamala Harris. We have a little fun
00:17:46.640 kicker that we like to do with all of the presidential candidates that come on eBay.
00:17:52.860 It's called candidate mixtape. That was the musical sting for it. And we'd like to talk a lot about
00:17:58.280 music here on this program. So what is your favorite musical genre? Oh, I mean, I'm, I'm hip hop.
00:18:09.280 And reggae and jazz. Um, those are, those are some of my favorites. Okay. Do you have a favorite band
00:18:16.060 or a favorite musician? I'd say one of my favorites is Bob Marley. Good choice. Uh, you can't go wrong
00:18:22.980 with that. That's a crowd pleaser on your mixtape. What would be like your favorite three songs?
00:18:28.900 Oh, okay. Let's see. Um, I, Aretha Franklin, um, uh, anything, Aretha Franklin. Um, I would say Bob Marley.
00:18:42.580 And then, um, I don't know. I love Cardi B. Okay. As she says, um, those are great. Thank you for playing
00:18:54.900 along. Oh man. Lord, help us. Lord, save us. Yeah. That I, I, I can't, I could barely get through that
00:19:04.060 the first time I, it took me like five tries to watch that whole minute long clip because it is
00:19:10.520 the secondhand embarrassment is so extreme that, uh, I, I, I could, I can't, I can't stomach it.
00:19:18.560 Um, I, and I'm going to leave aside the fact that a presidential candidate lends her endorsement to
00:19:23.740 Cardi B, a woman who admits to drugging and robbing men. Uh, so let's, we'll put that to the
00:19:29.320 side, even though really we shouldn't, but I will. Uh, it's obvious that Kamala Harris has never
00:19:35.220 listened to music in her life. And, you know, she lists Aretha Franklin and Bob Marley as two of her
00:19:42.020 favorite songs on her mixtape. And I'm not sure if she knows what a mixtape is. I'm not even sure if
00:19:48.000 she knows what a song is. Uh, my favorite song is, um, Elvis Presley by the Beatles from the album
00:19:56.980 Radiohead. Hi kids. I'm cool too. It's, you know what? Let me just say, if, if you don't like music,
00:20:07.720 just say that you don't listen to music. It's okay. Because I, she's not the first person to fall
00:20:14.080 victim to this. When you've been in a conversation, you're talking about your favorite bands or
00:20:17.840 whatever. And someone turns to someone out, Hey, what do you listen to? And you could tell
00:20:22.240 they're trying to come up with, because you can tell they don't listen to anything, which is fine.
00:20:25.500 You don't have to listen to music. It's not, it's not a requirement. I think it's a little weird to
00:20:29.620 not listen to music. It's for me, it seems like a really human, it's like a human need almost music
00:20:34.220 is. But, um, if you don't listen, you don't listen. It's fine. It's okay. You're not, you're not a bad
00:20:39.120 person. You can just say, Oh, you know, I don't really listen to anything. It's just, it doesn't
00:20:43.000 interest me, but then you've got, but people don't want to say that because they feel like
00:20:47.180 they're going to be judged, which they will be a little bit. If you, if you don't listen to music,
00:20:52.560 I'm going to judge you a small amount, not that, just a little bit of judgment. I'm going to throw
00:20:56.380 at you and it'll fade. Don't worry. Just a, it's just a little, little moment of judgment. No big
00:21:01.500 deal. Um, but that's better than the alternative where you start making up your favorite genre off the
00:21:09.880 top of your head. And now the judgment is heavy. Now it is just, these are just, it's like a, a
00:21:17.660 machine gun of judgment coming at you. Whereas before it was just a little squirt gun. So that
00:21:23.520 was pretty bad. All right. Now let's be bipartisan. Ben Carson is the head of housing and urban
00:21:28.180 development for some reason. The word housing is right there in the name. So you'd think he'd be
00:21:34.360 familiar with super basic real estate terms that even I know. And, um, and I don't know anything
00:21:40.940 about real estate, but you know, he was, he was, uh, he was at a hearing for the house financial
00:21:46.160 services committee. And here's how that went. As you look it up, I'd also like you to get back to
00:21:52.480 me if you don't mind to explain the disparity in REO rates. Do you know what an REO is?
00:21:57.700 An Oreo. No, not an Oreo. An R-E-O. R-E-O. Real estate. What's the O stand for? E-organization.
00:22:09.100 Owned. Real estate owned. That's what happens when a property goes to foreclosure. We call it an R-E-O.
00:22:15.060 And FHA loans have much higher REOs. That is, they go to foreclosure rather than to loss mitigation
00:22:20.980 or to non-foreclosure alternatives like short sales than comparable loans at the GSEs. So I'd like to
00:22:27.640 know why we're having more foreclosures that end in people losing their homes with stains to their
00:22:33.880 credit and disruption to their communities and their neighborhoods at FHA than we are at the GSEs.
00:22:40.320 Now that one, see, that's not even funny so much as just baffling. One of the weirdest decisions that
00:22:47.920 Trump ever made was taking Ben Carson, a world-renowned surgeon. And rather than making him
00:22:54.780 surgeon general or head of health and human services, making him the head of housing of all
00:23:02.760 of the jobs to give him, he obviously has no basis of knowledge at all. Even now, after two years,
00:23:10.700 he doesn't know basic real estate terms. But, you know, that's okay because he's literally a surgeon.
00:23:18.040 There's a whole job in government set aside for somebody like that. Why not give him that job?
00:23:22.340 If you feel like you got to give him a job in the government in the first place.
00:23:26.520 I actually think, see, I take this kind of personally because
00:23:29.100 this whole Ben Carson thing to me is very sad.
00:23:34.300 I mean, this guy is a medical genius, one of the great surgeons in history.
00:23:40.760 And that gets lost in this. When people talk about Ben Carson, he's become this joke,
00:23:45.000 but he's not. He's a genius. What this guy was able to do in the medical field,
00:23:50.960 he's a pioneer in the medical field. He was performing, you know, he was separating
00:23:59.240 conjoined twins, conjoined at the head before anyone was doing that. He's doing medical marvels
00:24:05.900 this man was pulling off for decades. This is also a guy who came from nothing,
00:24:14.400 came from destitute poverty and climbed his way up and became one of the most
00:24:21.840 respected, world-renowned pioneering surgeons in the world, in history.
00:24:27.720 But then he decides to get into politics. And now he'll be remembered as this kind of
00:24:34.040 bumbling political figure, even though he's a man of incredible brilliance and accomplishment.
00:24:40.480 Yet he decided to become a bureaucrat. So you see, this is the lesson here. You become a
00:24:46.500 bureaucrat and this is what happens. If bureaucracy can make even someone like Ben Carson look like
00:24:54.800 that, who is a genius, again, for the third time, and certainly has a much higher IQ than any of the
00:25:04.860 people making fun of him. But if it can do that and make him look like that, then what do you think
00:25:09.240 it could do to the rest of us? I just, that's why when, you know, Ben Carson, he, he, you know,
00:25:19.280 he retired from his, from the medical field, fine, well-deserved retirement. And then he's,
00:25:26.420 you know, he, he appears, he does a few speaking engagements. He appears here and there. And, uh,
00:25:31.040 he, he says a few things critical of Obama, I guess. And he makes a few political statements that
00:25:36.020 conservatives agree with and that's fine. But then everyone seizes onto this guy. And, uh, next thing
00:25:44.040 you know, he's running for president and it's like, no, we don't, we don't just, just because
00:25:49.680 he said a few things we agree with, we don't need to make him a presidential candidate. Uh, he's not,
00:25:56.200 there's not necessarily a lot of crossover between what it takes to be a great president and what it
00:26:02.160 takes to be a great surgeon. Both take a lot of skill, but they're not the same skills at all.
00:26:07.860 So there's no reason for that. Why, why couldn't Ben Carson have just remained a retired surgeon
00:26:15.460 who comes out and speaks and engages in the national conversation, but he's not a political
00:26:20.100 figure. He's not a bureaucrat. He's not running for office, nothing like that. He's just his home man.
00:26:26.460 Why couldn't he have just been that? It's a damn shame. All right, let's discuss something,
00:26:33.440 uh, something else non-political before we go. Well, that was political. So we'll discuss something
00:26:37.300 non-political for once before we get into emails. Let's talk about jewelry, girls. We'll have a
00:26:43.920 little girl talk because there's nobody better to lead that conversation than me. I know when you're
00:26:48.420 thinking about, let's have a girl talk, let's talk jewelry. The first person you think is you want me
00:26:52.720 to be the one to lead that discussion. Um, a few days ago, somebody on Twitter, I'm not going to
00:26:57.440 throw her name and Twitter handle out there because I'm not trying to add to the dog pile. Uh, but I do
00:27:02.300 want to talk about this subject. So I'm just using this as the entrance into the subject.
00:27:07.300 Um, she, uh, so this woman on Twitter said, uh, I would dump a guy if he got me a nasty cheap
00:27:13.360 Pandora ring for my engagement. A guy spends 20% of his yearly salary on a ring. Don't you agree,
00:27:18.780 girls? Now I'm not even, this might even be a parody account. Honestly, I'm not sure. It's
00:27:25.080 hard. It's impossible to tell anymore. What's parody? What isn't? I don't know. It doesn't really
00:27:28.740 matter. The point is, um, I want to talk about this whole thing, this tradition of buying a very
00:27:35.320 expensive piece of jewelry because dirt during before, you know, before you get married during
00:27:41.820 this discussion on social media, some people, and these were real people for sure, um, basically
00:27:47.260 came to this woman's defense and told me that the rule is, this is the rule, the tradition,
00:27:54.220 the custom is that you're supposed to spend two months salary. So four to eight pay periods
00:28:00.240 worth on an engagement ring. That is the tradition. Two months salary. Now let's, let's, let's be clear
00:28:09.600 that the tradition of spending two months salary on a ring is like the tradition of going to a
00:28:15.020 designer clothes store and spending $86 on a t-shirt. It may be something that people do out of
00:28:20.640 vanity. It may be something that a lot of people do. It may be something that people have been doing
00:28:23.840 for a little while now, but it's not some sort of deep, ancient human custom that we have to
00:28:28.560 preserve at all costs. Most humans on earth throughout the history of the earth, um, have
00:28:34.360 not spent that kind of money on t-shirts and they don't spend that kind of money on jewelry. So it's,
00:28:38.700 it's, it is, this is not really a human tradition that dates back very far. These are customs invented
00:28:44.580 by the companies who sell the stuff. Okay. Uh, the keepers, the preservers of the two month salary
00:28:51.800 for a ring custom are jewelry stores. Not surprisingly because they profit from it. The custom was, the custom
00:28:59.680 was invented somewhat recently by jewelry stores. And it is totally crazy. It is just completely crazy. Um,
00:29:10.700 you, you're starting out your life together. You're beginning the journey.
00:29:16.840 Probably you don't have a lot of money. Most young married couples don't, some do. Uh, and you know
00:29:24.020 what, if you're a million, if you're a multimillionaire, then everything I'm saying,
00:29:27.300 put to the side, I mean, do what you want. It's, you know, you've got the money, I guess, but
00:29:31.040 talking to normal people in a normal situation, you're getting married, you don't have a lot of
00:29:35.220 money or start your journey together. This is the way it was for me and my wife. We got married
00:29:39.140 seven years ago. Um, and you're going to start out in a financial hole so that you can spend four to
00:29:46.460 eight paychecks on a fashion accessory. If you're think about the saving that that requires
00:29:53.520 and you're going to take all of that saving that you've been doing leading up to your wedding and
00:30:00.080 you're going to dump it all into a little rock that someone's going to wear on their finger until
00:30:05.360 it gets knocked into the, you know, into, into the trash can accidentally thrown away. Um, so I, I
00:30:15.540 just, I don't get it. I, I think it's, I think it's completely crazy. If I, if I went out and bought
00:30:20.100 my wife a ring and I gave it to her and it was beautiful and she loved it. Um, and then, and then
00:30:25.680 she asked, which she would eventually. And then she asked, well, how much was this? And I said, oh,
00:30:32.440 you know, just two months salary. Uh, don't worry. Just two months salary. I mean, you know, the kids,
00:30:36.660 uh, kids don't need to eat for a couple of weeks. It's, it's, it's fine. She would have me committed
00:30:41.100 to an institution if I did that. Uh, she, she wouldn't, she wouldn't even be angry about it.
00:30:46.240 She would be terrified. She would be scared. She would assume that I'd gone crazy to do something
00:30:51.600 like that. And, and, and I would have to be crazy to ever do something like that. We've got this idea
00:30:56.200 that, uh, in order to enter into some new important phase of life, you have to spend tons
00:31:03.240 and tons of money first. And this is completely artificial. This is one of the reasons why so
00:31:10.080 many young people are putting off adulthood and putting off the entering into these new and exciting
00:31:16.860 phases because they think that you need to have tons of money to do it. When you don't, it is
00:31:23.120 completely artificial. You can get married for free. If you want getting married, doesn't have
00:31:29.780 to cost you anything. You could do it for free. Um, or you could spend a few hundred bucks and have
00:31:34.900 a cookout and, and, you know, you could buy an inexpensive ring on clearance. Uh, you can have
00:31:41.680 a cookout with, with your family and friends, and you can spend a few hundred bucks and be done with it.
00:31:46.780 Um, you could get through the whole thing and you can get through the whole thing for less than a
00:31:51.440 grand easily. Or you could spend thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars putting
00:31:55.980 yourself into debt, your parents into debt, probably all so that you can what show off to
00:32:00.680 everybody. And so you can have the pageantry and the really nice thing and the really nice
00:32:04.380 table arrangements and everything's really nice. Everyone will talk about how nice it is and they'll
00:32:08.420 put it on Facebook. And then you can put your picture of your ring on Facebook and all of that.
00:32:13.600 Um, or you could do something in between, which is what me and my wife did. Uh, you know, our,
00:32:18.360 our whole wedding experience definitely didn't cost only a thousand bucks. I'll say that it was
00:32:23.080 probably too expensive. It wasn't nearly as expensive as what some people do, but it was
00:32:28.940 probably too expensive. And, and, and that's because there's a, there's a lot of pressure and
00:32:32.400 force, uh, as a, as a young person, as a young couple kind of pulling you in the direction of
00:32:39.120 spending a ton of money on everything. And you're kind of tricked into thinking, well, this is really
00:32:44.140 important to you. Then you're going to spend this month. Oh, so this woman, you want to marry her?
00:32:49.580 She's not worth it. She's not worth spending $12,000 on a ring. Isn't she worth it to you?
00:32:56.300 Or, or it's, it's a special, it's most, it's a most special day of your life. It's a special day.
00:33:01.980 So of course you got to spend $40,000 on a wedding. It's a special day. Well, yes, it is a very special
00:33:08.680 day. Uh, it is, it is going to be one of the most special days of your life alongside when you're,
00:33:13.420 when your kids are born. But, um, since when does that mean you have to spend tens of thousands of
00:33:18.720 dollars? Since when does special mean have to mean expensive? It doesn't, you know, it's the same
00:33:25.700 kind of thing with college. College has, you know, has to be a hundred thousand dollars. Weddings have
00:33:31.020 to cost tens of thousands of dollars. I mean, just to get married and get educated, we're saying that
00:33:35.640 young people have to, you need to either be children of oil tycoons or they need to go into debt.
00:33:42.440 And I think that's crazy. Uh, here's, here's the point. A ring is not going to keep your marriage
00:33:50.280 together at all. A fancy wedding is not going to keep it together. No marriage in history has ever
00:33:59.740 been permanently sustained by the financial commitment that went into it, except maybe Bill
00:34:05.760 and Hillary. So maybe there are a few exceptions, but, um, for most of us, for the vast majority of
00:34:11.500 marriages, the thing that's going to sustain it is no matter how much your wedding costs, no matter
00:34:16.140 how much your ring costs, what sustains the marriage is love, devotion, sacrifice, duty, service,
00:34:22.040 faith. Uh, that that's, what's going to do it. And if you don't have those things, but you've got
00:34:28.240 the nicest ring and you had the fanciest reception, you know, your marriage won't last six months.
00:34:33.540 And then on, on, not only do you have a devastating divorce, but you've also wasted all this money
00:34:38.500 that you can't get back. So don't do it kids. Um, keep, keep it, get married for cheap. That's my
00:34:47.020 recommendation. Do everything involved in the marriage. Do it for cheap, save the money, spend it
00:34:52.800 on something more important, uh, build a nest egg. You won't regret it. I don't think anyone has ever
00:35:01.860 after getting married, look back and said, I wish we spent more money on that wedding. You know,
00:35:05.800 that's my one regret. My one regret in life is that we had, we, we got married for $2,000 forever. I wish
00:35:12.160 we had spent a 45,000. No one ever says that. And I also don't think that there are a lot of women
00:35:19.360 out there. Correct me if I'm wrong ladies, but you get married, you love your husband.
00:35:24.520 He's a devoted, devoted husband becomes a devoted father. Um, if your wedding ring wasn't that
00:35:30.360 expensive or your engagement ring, are you waking up every day distraught that the ring isn't expensive
00:35:35.440 enough? If so, you're a shallow, miserable person. So I'm going to assume that that's not the case.
00:35:40.680 And anyway, down the line, once you've been married and you've saved some money as a man,
00:35:49.440 you know, if you want to treat your wife then and go out and buy her a more expensive ring,
00:35:53.440 now that you've got the money and you can do it, you can afford it. You can always do that. You
00:35:57.360 can buy your wife jewelry anytime. You don't need to do it when you're both broke and not even married
00:36:01.360 yet. All right. Um, let's see. Matt wall show at gmail.com. Matt wall show at gmail.com.
00:36:07.520 This is from Aaron says, hi, Matt. Thanks for doing the show. It's great. On the show,
00:36:12.000 you stated that you don't believe that upping the age to buy tobacco products and vaping should,
00:36:16.440 would be beneficial. Do you feel the same about firearms? I feel there should be one age to do
00:36:20.980 everything. Say 19 buy and carry guns, buy alcohol and tobacco, join the military, drive a car,
00:36:26.600 all other things that adults are entitled to do. 19 would keep all this out of high school's thoughts.
00:36:31.340 I, it is kind of interesting. You think of someone doing all of that all at once in one day. I mean,
00:36:35.880 that would make for a really interesting 19th birthday. Got my gun. I got my cigar. I got my,
00:36:40.680 uh, got my booze. Let's go join the military folks. Um, oh yeah. And I'm driving too.
00:36:48.320 No, I, I, I actually think that, uh, I think it's good to taper some of this stuff so that you're not
00:36:53.500 doing, doing it all at once. I think that if anything, it makes sense to have the drinking age,
00:37:00.860 um, lower than the driving age. So that maybe, uh, you know, you can introduce a teenager
00:37:11.420 to drinking responsibly before they can even drive. So you don't have to worry as much about
00:37:18.080 drunk driving, although they could still do it obviously, but less of a chance. So doesn't that
00:37:23.120 make sense? Doesn't it, doesn't it make sense? Cause again, we go back to you're, you're telling
00:37:29.360 me that at 16, somebody is competent enough to drive a, a, a huge tin box, 70 miles per hour down
00:37:38.820 the highway. They're competent enough for that, but you wouldn't trust them with a Sam Adams.
00:37:44.820 My thinking is if this is someone you really can't trust with a Sam Adams,
00:37:48.360 then, uh, I'm not going to trust them with an SUV. So I think maybe we, you know, the Sam Adams,
00:37:54.480 the beer should be one of the first things when it comes to the adult things that we are allowing
00:38:00.840 teenagers to start doing and introducing them to, I think probably the beer should be one of the
00:38:04.860 first things. Like why don't you get that down? If you're in, if you, unless you don't want,
00:38:09.700 want to drink, which great, but if you do, let's get that down. Let's figure out how to do that
00:38:13.580 responsibly. And, uh, and then maybe we can move on to some of these other things. So I, that's how I
00:38:18.120 would look at. All right. Um, this is from, hold on. This from William says, Hey Matt, I've just
00:38:29.760 recently started watching your podcast. I love them. I've been watching them going backwards now.
00:38:33.280 And one of them, you answer a question. These podcasts will be very confusing if you watch
00:38:38.440 them backwards. So I would recommend, I would recommend the, um, traditional four words method.
00:38:45.140 I've been watching them going backwards now. And one of them, you answer a question saying we should
00:38:49.600 explore outer space. I was curious which one you think is more important to explore space or deep
00:38:53.820 into the ocean because we consistently keep finding strange creatures from the ocean. Thank
00:38:58.540 you for taking the time to read this. And I love your show. Yeah. It is a fascinating thing that there
00:39:02.860 is so much still on earth that we have not explored. There's so much about our oceans that we do not
00:39:07.860 know. The oceans are very mysterious to us because we haven't seen most of it, especially under the
00:39:14.160 surface. And you know what? I wouldn't even rank them, William. I'm all about, I think we should
00:39:19.180 explore everything. I think it's great. Explore the oceans, explore the space, explore the uncharted
00:39:24.720 wilderness, which still exists, jungles, oceans, Antarctica, explore everything. Let's, let's,
00:39:30.660 why not? Let's find out about this world we live in. We're not here for very long. I mean,
00:39:35.040 this is our chance to explore it. So let's do that. All right. Uh, from Rose says,
00:39:40.640 hi, Matt, love the show. I'm impressed by the fact that you have hobbies. You talk about beekeeping
00:39:44.760 and fishing. It seems like you also do a great deal of reading. How do you find time for these
00:39:48.820 hobbies and how do you develop them? I hate being the kind of person with no real interest aside
00:39:52.260 from watching TV, but that's what's happened to me. Did you just decide to become a beekeeper one
00:39:56.760 day and do it? How did it work? Yeah. Um, I, I, good question. I do have, I guess what I would call
00:40:04.340 maybe three hobbies. So fishing beekeeping now that's new. Uh, and, and I've always liked to
00:40:08.880 read. Uh, I actually did kind of just decide one day that I wanted to have hobbies. Like I didn't,
00:40:16.260 I was like you, I didn't have any hobbies. Um, and, uh, and, and I said, I would, I just,
00:40:22.420 I feel like I'd like to have hobbies. I think I, I don't want to be the kind of person who doesn't
00:40:25.800 have hobbies. And so what I started by doing is I literally looked up, I Googled a list of hobbies on,
00:40:32.900 and I just Googled like hobby suggestions or something. And I started scrolling through and
00:40:38.540 seeing if anything piqued my interest. And I saw a few things and I tried a few things out.
00:40:42.780 Brewing beer was one I tried gardening. I thought, you know, I, I like garden fresh tomatoes. Maybe
00:40:47.840 I'll do some gardening, try brewing beer, tried a few different things. Um, one hobby I saw suggested
00:40:53.260 was a knife making, and I still might pick that one up. I put that one onto the side. Um, that requires
00:40:59.580 a lot of equipment, but I liked the idea of that. That's cool. Tried something else. Didn't really
00:41:04.180 click. Um, and, uh, ultimately I decided to go with beekeeping because I, I, this is something I've
00:41:09.740 always, it's always been in the back of my mind. I've always been interested in it. And I said,
00:41:12.700 why don't I'll just do it. Why not? And fishing developed a little bit over time because we vacation
00:41:17.560 at lakes a lot. I think, um, although now it's become kind of an obsession for me. So it kind of
00:41:23.180 picked up gradually and now I am somewhat obsessed with fishing. I think it's, it is important to
00:41:30.700 have hobbies and that's why I decided I wanted to develop some. The advantage of having hobbies
00:41:36.560 is that for one, I think it makes you a more interesting person. Not, not saying you're not
00:41:40.220 interesting. Um, but I think just get there, there are more things about you, right? If someone asks
00:41:47.320 you, asks you to, to describe yourself, talk about yourself, you have more things you can say about
00:41:53.700 yourself because that becomes kind of troubling. Doesn't it? When you, you know, have you ever been
00:41:58.540 stumped by that question? When someone, a really basic question, someone says, uh, you know, tell me
00:42:01.880 about yourself and you realize that you have almost nothing to say. You don't even know what you can say
00:42:06.780 about yourself. So I think part of picking up hobbies is just having some things about yourself.
00:42:13.480 Um, so that's good. And it also, it gives you specific specialized knowledge about something,
00:42:22.160 which is important. It makes, I think it's good to be, and that's part of my thinking process with,
00:42:29.540 with a hobby is I, I want to have some subjects that I just know really well. Even if I can't use
00:42:37.020 that information, quote unquote, on a day to day basis, I think it's good to just know things and to
00:42:43.320 have certain areas that you know really well and that you're an expert on. Now I'm not an expert on
00:42:47.500 any of these things yet, but I'm learning about it. And I know a lot more about it now than I did
00:42:50.860 before. And I probably know more than the average person because this is what I've been learning
00:42:55.400 about. Uh, and then what you find is you start building this base of knowledge that seems
00:43:03.180 irrelevant, although it's not irrelevant because no knowledge is irrelevant because it's enriching for
00:43:07.840 you. It's enriching for your mind. So it can't be irrelevant, but you start building this base of
00:43:14.540 knowledge that seems at least not functional. And then what you find is that you, you kind of branch
00:43:20.340 off from there and you start learning other things related to it. And then the knowledge grows.
00:43:26.640 So part of fishing is it starts by learning about the kind of fish that you're, you know,
00:43:30.760 specifically what kind of things do they eat? What kind of lures do you use? So on and so forth.
00:43:34.360 Then you start learning about lakes and different bodies of water and, and, um, you know, different
00:43:41.260 habitats for different kinds of wildlife. You start branching off and learning even more.
00:43:45.720 So that's another advantage. And, uh, I don't know, there's just, um, gives you access to new
00:43:51.120 social communities of people who like the same kind of stuff, teaches you patience. I'm a big advocate
00:43:56.160 for it. So I would say as far as how to get into a new hobby, which I guess was your question,
00:44:00.100 which I haven't answered. Uh, I think you just pick one and start doing it. Find something that
00:44:04.760 seems vaguely interesting to you, pick it up, start doing it. Here's how you'll know
00:44:08.760 that, um, that, that this is a hobby that might click for you is when you, when you first start
00:44:15.740 doing it, you're depending on what it is, you're probably not going to be good at it. You'll probably
00:44:21.180 be very bad at it and clueless, but if you can still enjoy it and even, even kind of mysteriously
00:44:29.240 enjoy it, like you don't even, even know why you enjoy doing this thing, but you do. Um, and you
00:44:35.900 enjoy learning about it and reading about it, then I think that's a hobby that will stick.
00:44:42.000 If you try it for months and you're bad at it and you don't enjoy it and it just is terrible,
00:44:47.440 you know, you can just give it up and find a new one. That one's not for you.
00:44:49.800 But if you can enjoy it when you're bad at it, then that means it's a good hobby. And it also
00:44:55.380 means eventually you'll probably be really good at it. So that's my thoughts on, uh, hobby, hobby
00:45:02.500 swear. All right. Uh, we will, I think, leave it there. Thanks everybody for watching. Thanks for
00:45:07.380 listening. Godspeed.
00:45:19.800 A new survey of IQ scores throughout the West shows us that our intelligence is plummeting.
00:45:26.800 You only have to look around at the 2020 Democrat presidential candidates or the farce of congressional
00:45:31.700 testimony on the Hill to see that this is very likely true. We asked the question,
00:45:35.780 are we all just getting stupider? Check it out at the Michael Knowles show.
00:45:39.120 Thanks you.
00:45:55.120 If you wish to come back to sure, you sure keep bringing that down.