Ep. 303 - Ilhan Omar Is A Bigot Living In A Fantasy World
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Summary
Ilhan Omar, the unapologetic bigot, says that people should fear white men because white men cause most of the deaths in this country. This is not only bigoted but false, and I will correct the record today. Also, is America one of the worst countries for women in the world? Experts, quote unquote, say so.
Transcript
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Today on the Matt Wall Show, Ilhan Omar, the unapologetic bigot, says that people in this
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country should fear white men because white men cause most of the deaths in this country,
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she says. This is not only bigoted but false, and I will correct the record today. Also,
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speaking of correcting the record, is America one of the worst countries for women in the world?
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Experts, quote unquote, say so. We'll look at the facts today on the Matt Wall Show.
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Well, put your conspiracy caps on, folks, because Jeffrey Epstein was found injured in prison,
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in his prison cell. He was found injured. Not much else is known other than that. He was found
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laying in his cell, marks around his neck. Poor guy. Was he assaulted? Did he try to kill himself?
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Did he fake a suicide attempt in hopes of being transferred or something like that?
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We don't know. Based on what little we know, I tend to suspect maybe the third option,
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but who knows? Yet, of course, the wild conspiracy theories start online. Maybe the Clintons tried to
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off him because he knows too much. Maybe Trump tried to off him. Maybe it was aliens. Well,
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I hate to be the one to ruin all of these cinematic plot lines, but I think if a powerful person
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is sending a hitman to prison to kill you, you aren't going to end up with minor lacerations around
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your neck. I think that's one ineffective assassin. I don't really know. My experience with hiring
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prison assassins is admittedly limited. For me, it's sort of a once in a while type of thing that
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I do that. But when the wife really nags you about it, it says, hey, did you hire that prison assassin
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yet? I said I would. I'll get around to it. Get off my case. That kind of thing. So I'm not an expert
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is the point. Here's a general rule, though, that I think people need to understand, even if it is
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kind of depressing. Of all the possible explanations, and this is a general statement, of all the possible
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explanations, the most boring one is always right. Every time. Whatever the situation is, the most
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boring possible explanation is going to be correct. And I think if you remember that, life will start to
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make a lot more sense to you, even if life is a little bit less interesting when you start looking
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at it that way. That is going to be, most of the time, correct. All right. I want to begin with
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something that I think is instructive. Our friend Ilhan Omar, there's a video, another video from last
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year that has resurfaced, resurfaced, as they say. She was on Al Jazeera, and she was asked whether
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Islamophobia can't be, in some sense, justified based on the fact that radical Muslims kill so
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many people, and so maybe people are afraid for a reason, given all this terrorism and violence.
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And she responded by, of course, as she tends to do, spewing ignorant bigotry. Watch this.
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A lot of conservatives in particular would say that the rise in Islamophobia is a result,
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not of hate, but of fear, a legitimate fear, they say, of quote-unquote jihadist terrorism,
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whether it's Fort Hood or San Bernardino or the recent truck attack in New York. What do you say to
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them? I would say our country should be more fearful of white men across our country because they are
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actually causing most of the deaths within this country. We should be profiling, monitoring,
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and creating policies to fight the radicalization of white men.
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Okay, now, she could have said to that question, I don't expect her to say that, oh yeah, well,
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Islamophobia is totally justified. Muslims are just the worst, man. I don't expect that answer,
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okay? She could have said, we shouldn't fear anybody based on their race or ethnicity. We
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should judge people on a case-by-case basis, so on and so forth. That's the answer that a non-bigot
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would have given. Instead, she says, no, we should fear the white man. We should be fearful of white
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men because white men are causing most of the deaths in our country. That's what she said,
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causing most of the deaths in our country. Now, it is not this woman now, God help us,
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is a lawmaker. She's also, God help us, one of the more influential voices in politics today.
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So when she says something like that, it's not splitting hairs or being pedantic to analyze that
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claim. That's a startling claim, and it's a claim that people believe. You'd be amazed if you try,
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maybe you wouldn't be. You have this conversation, as I have been online this morning. There are a lot
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of people who think that's true, who actually believe that, because they hear it from people
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like Ilhan Omar, and they think, oh yeah, well, but white men by far kill the most people.
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Now, when she says causing most of the deaths, I'm going to assume, now I will do her one favor.
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I'm going to do her a favor, and I'm going to assume that she doesn't mean that completely
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literally, because the leading causes of death are heart disease, car accidents, respiratory disease,
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stroke, cancer, diabetes. These are the leading causes of death. I assume she is not suggesting
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that the white man is engineering all of that, although honestly, who knows? I mean,
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I wouldn't put it past her to make that claim, but I'm going to assume, I'm going to be generous
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and assume she didn't mean that. I'll assume that what she meant is that white men are responsible
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for most of the murders in this country, causing most of the death, to cause death. I'll assume
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she means that in a sense of murdering people. And if that's what she means, then she's still wrong.
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She is still catastrophically, insanely, incredibly wrong. According to the Bureau of Justice
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Statistics, white people in general, not just men, but people, because women do kill people too,
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despite what you may have heard. And in fact, we are in this whole conversation, we're just leaving
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out the 800,000 or 900,000 babies who are killed every year in this country. If you were to allow that
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into evidence, if that could be submitted into evidence, then in fact, the leading murderers in
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America would be women. But we're going to look at law enforcement statistics for this. So I'm doing
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Ilhan Omar a lot of favors here. I'm ruling that out. I'm trying to see her comments in the most
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sensible light possible. So what do we find? White people in general commit 45% of all murders,
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according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics. Black people commit 52% of all murders. Now,
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this is remarkable because white people are 75% of the population. Black people are 13%.
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75% of the population commits 45% of the murders. 13% commits 52%. Those are facts. Okay. White
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people are way, way, way, way underrepresented in the murder stats. Again, that's a simple fact.
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And that's all it is. If we're going to talk specifically about terrorism, that's not what
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she said. She said, we should fear the white man because they're, they're the ones killing most of the
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people. And when we look at that statistic again, it is proven utterly bogus, no basis in reality
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whatsoever. Let's look at terrorism though. If we're looking specifically at terrorism and if we
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take a global view of the problem, well, let's just put it this way. According to the global terrorism
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index, far right groups killed, so-called far right groups kill. And we won't even get into how they
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judge far right. Um, for instance, you know, any antisemitic, anytime a white person commits an
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antisemitic hate crime, which we know does happen, they're going to call that far right, which
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personally, I think we can quibble with that, but, um, I won't for this. So they say, they say far
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right groups killed 66 people across the entire world, uh, between 2013 and 2017 is according to the
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global terrorism index, 66 people in four years, 2013, 2017. Um, meanwhile, in 2017 alone, just that
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year, 18,000 total people were killed by terrorists. So you've got 66 people in four years across the
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entire world killed by right-wing terrorists, but 18,000 were killed total in just one year in 2017.
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Who do you think is responsible for almost all of that? I'll, I'll, I'll put it to you this way.
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That same index finds that nine of the 10 worst countries for terrorism, nine of the 10 countries
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most, uh, plagued by terrorism are majority Muslim countries with one outlier, uh, number 10 being India.
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India is like 15% Muslim. So again, those are the facts. Um, in order to make white men,
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the greatest danger, you have to really do some serious special pleading. And you do hear this
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from people. Like I said, I've been hearing it this morning that, uh, white men are the biggest
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dangers. Right-wing groups are more dangerous in America than Islamic terrorists or any other
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terrorists in, in order to, now you can make any statistic work. If you, if you whittle down the
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parameters in a really specific way in order to make it work, that's called special pleading.
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And if you do that, then sure, you can make that happen. So, so how do, how do people do that?
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How do they reach the conclusion? If you, if you wanted to claim that right-wing terror groups,
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white people, uh, in other words, are the deadliest, the most dangerous, how are you going to do that?
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Well, a report from the government accountability office in 2017 found that right-wing terror groups
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were responsible for more deaths than Islamic groups. Uh, and, and in fact, when you, when you hear
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this claim, it's most of the time, if they will, well, most of the time, they're not going to cite it.
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They're not going to give you a citation at all. Whoever's making the claim, you ask for a citation,
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they won't have one, but if they do have one and they provide it to you, probably it's going to be
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this or something based on this. Well, how do they arrive at that conclusion? Um, I'll, I'll quote now
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from their report says of the 85 violent extremist incidents that resulted in deaths since September 12th,
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2001, far right politics, violent extremist groups were responsible for 62, um, of the deaths,
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73% total while radical Islamist violent extremist groups were responsible for 23, that's 27%. The
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total number of fatalities is 106 for far right violent extremists and 119 for radical Islamist
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violent extremists over the approximately 15 year period. However, 52% of the deaths attributable to
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radical Islamist violent extremists occurred in a single event, an attack on Paul's nightclub in
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Orlando, Florida in 2016. Okay. Hmm. Since September 12th, 2001, why such a specific date? I mean,
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why not since the turn of the millennium? Why not in the past 20 years? Um, or past 30? I mean,
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it says they're approximately 15 year period. Well, why not a 15 year period from when this study was
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done? This, this study counted 2001 to 2016 said approximately 15. Why not fit? Why not just make
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it 15, 2001 to 2016? Well, um, we know why, of course, because the deadliest attack on American
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soil in history happened on September 11th. And that was brought to us courtesy of Muslims. So in
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other words, if you don't count the deadliest attack on American soil ever in history, which
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happened in this century, it's not ancient history. Now, if it happened a hundred years ago and you
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weren't counting it, then, then fine. Okay. So if you were doing 2001 to 2015 or 2016 and the, the worst
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attack in history was done by Muslims, you know, in 1907 or something, then I think that's fair.
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But when you are specifically making the parameters to start the day after that attack, um, and to go
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and, and to go 15 years before it, it's, as I said, I mean, this is the definition of special pleading
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you're, you know, what conclusion you want. And so you're engineering it to get that conclusion.
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It's just a worthless statistic. Um, if we include the deadliest attack in American history,
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which is recent history, still recent, then you find that, um, deaths by Muslim terrorists
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way outnumber. I mean, then it's, then it's, uh, over 3000 verse, what do they say?
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106. Well, since this report, there've been, there've been other, uh, there've been other,
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uh, mass casualty events. So, you know, what, let's say one, one 20 or something verse over 3000.
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I mean, it's, it's just, it's not even close. And the really absurd thing is that even in this report,
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they're also, now they know they can't do it, but they also say, well, also keep in mind that, uh,
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that half of the deaths by Muslims was, was just at one event. So what they really want to do is
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they want you to exclude that one too. That's what, that's kind of what they're saying. It's
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like, well, you know, that one. So let's exclude that. That's an outlier. Let's exclude 9-11. And
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then, uh, and then it's like a Muslim haven't killed anybody practically. I mean, if you exclude
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all of the incidents of them killing people, they haven't killed anybody. It's just,
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you see what has to be done to make the white man, the biggest threat. You see how ludicrously
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specific and tailor made the parameters have to be in order to get to that conclusion.
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Now this is instructive. And here's really the point to me is that what you see here from Ilhan Omar,
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um, this is bigotry. Okay. What Omar is saying is bigotry. And I know you could say, well, how she said
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the white men, uh, kill the most people and you're saying that's bigotry, but you just said that
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black people are responsible for 52% of murders, even though the 13% population isn't that bigoted
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on your part to bring that up. No, it's not. And I'll tell you the difference because what I said
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is true. Okay. So a fact can never be racist. I want to say that again. A fact can never be racist
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because it's a fact. Now you could use a fact to come to a racist conclusion. That's true.
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It's very possible for a racist person to take facts and then arrive at racist conclusions.
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Absolutely. But to simply cite a fact, uh, especially in, in, in contradiction of, of a,
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of an, of a falsehood in order to correct the falsehood, that's not racist. It just is. It
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that's just is the fact I'm not, I'm not arriving at any conclusion. I'm not saying anything beyond
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this is, these are the facts. That's it. Here you go. Arrive at your own conclusions.
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Um, Ilhan Omar on the other hand is, is saying something that is untrue, um, about,
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uh, a racial group other than her own, uh, in order to stoke fear and suspicion of that group.
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That is classic bigotry. That that's, that's, that is dictionary textbook dictionary, right? Uh,
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bigotry right there. Yeah. I just said it's text, it's dictionary textbook dictionary.
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I can barely even speak. It's so bigoted. It's, it's, it's rendered me almost speechless,
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uh, but it really is. That's, that's just textbook stuff right there. You are, you're,
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this is fear mongering. You're making up, uh, these untrue statements about another racial group
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in order to fear monger. And she was explicit with it too. She said, we should fear them.
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So let, let, let's imagine for a moment that a, uh, right wing white politician were to say,
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Hey, you know, um, black people, uh, they, they, they're, they've killed 98% of the people,
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98% of murders in this country from black people. Uh, and so we should fear them.
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Now, if a white politician were to say that, first of all, they'd be run out of office in 30 seconds.
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You would never see or hear from them ever again on a public stage. That would be it.
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And that would be bigoted because you were explicitly trying to stoke fear against another
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racial group and you're doing it with falsehoods. In fact, even if a white politician were to stick
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with the facts and were to say, look, black people commit 52% of murders, even though the 13% of the
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population, therefore we should fear them. So you started with a fact, but you arrived at a racist
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conclusion. You're stoking fear. You're saying we should fear an entire race based on this fact.
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That would be racist too, even though it's based in effect. But when you combine the falsehood
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with the fear mongering, I mean, good Lord, good Lord. You just, you can't get more racist than that.
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All right. Speaking of, I'm trying to pull something up as we are speaking of false claims.
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Want to look at another one today. An article on the website, Big Think, which is ironically named,
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and we'll see why in a minute, has been making the rounds today. Let me read a little bit of this
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The worst countries in the world to be a woman, places torn apart by war or societies stifled by
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centuries of male patriarchy. A recent survey by the Thomson Reuters Foundation show. So which
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category does the United States fall into? Because the U.S. made 10th place, the old, I'm sorry,
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this article is so poorly written, I'm having trouble reading it coherently. Because the U.S.
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made 10th place, the only Western country on the list, conducted online by phone and in person
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between March 26th and May 24th, the survey polled 548 experts on women's issues spread evenly across
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Europe, the Americas, Asia, and the Pacific. Those surveys included academics and policymakers,
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healthcare staff, and NGO workers, aid and development professionals, and social commentators,
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social commentator, they're experts. They were asked which five of the U.N.'s 193 member states,
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what does it even mean? Let me stop for a minute. Experts on women's issues, what does that even
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mean? I mean, how are you, you're an expert on women? What? Can I be an expert on men?
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So if you want to know about men's issues, can you call me up? I'm a social commentator and I'm a man,
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so that makes me an expert. It says, they were asked which five of the U.N.'s 193 member states
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they thought were the most dangerous for women in six areas, healthcare, economic resources,
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culture, cultural or traditional practices, sexual violence and harassment, non-sexual violence and
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human trafficking. So, okay, I'm just gonna, I'll stop reading from the article, which as I said,
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is abysmally written. This is from Big Think. Worst countries to be a woman. Most dangerous
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countries for women. Let's look then at the top 10 that this, that these experts give us. Number one,
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India. Number two, Afghanistan. Number three, Syria. Number four, Somalia. Number five, Saudi Arabia.
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Number six, Pakistan. Number seven, Democratic Republic of Congo. Number eight, Yemen. Number nine,
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Nigeria. Number 10, the United States. One of these does not belong. That's a fun game to play. Which
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of these is not like the other? The U.S. then, according to experts, is more dangerous for women
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than Iran, Iraq, North Korea, China, Ethiopia, Egypt, Libya, Sudan. In fact, in our hemisphere,
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we are the worst place for women, according to experts. Worse than Mexico, El Salvador, Guatemala,
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Brazil, Nicaragua. We're worse than all those places. Which is weird, because all of those places
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are places where women are fleeing to come here. Turns out we're worse. You know, it turns out we're
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doing them a favor when we stand at the border. We got, and if we were to ever build a wall, which
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looks like it's not gonna happen. If we have, we built a big wall that Donald Trump promised and
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hasn't delivered. And we stood there and we said, no, turn around. We'd be doing them a favor. It's
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so much worse here. Especially if you're a woman. Now, this is obviously completely ridiculous with
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no basis in reality. There's a reason why they're doing this study by polling so-called experts.
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Rather than looking at the statistics, you could look at the stats and see murder rate,
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rates of sexual assault and rape, poverty rate, rates of, you know, people being in prison without
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trial. I mean, violence against women, domestic, but you could, these things are, these are all
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statistics. And in some of these countries, it's going to, because some of these countries are,
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are just hell holes, it's going to be harder to get statistics from. But, but you, you could,
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you could do it that way, but they're not doing it that way. Instead, they're just going to,
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they're going to call up 538 random women and say, Hey, what do you think about this?
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Well, just give us your opinion and we'll, we'll make a list.
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So how could anyone actually make this claim? Well, I think for one, what you see here is a very
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weird kind of self-centeredness. Um, I guarantee that the experts in America, the so-called experts,
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they were the ones probably saying that America is so bad because they just assume that their own
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experience, their own trials, their own tribulations, however petty must be the worst possible thing.
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When you hear Americans talk about America as if it's the most dangerous and sexist and bigoted and
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homophobic place on earth, what you're hearing in part is narcissism. They're saying that because
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they live here. And so they just assume it has to be whatever they're going through. It's gotta be,
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it's gotta be the worst or among the worst things that anyone could go through. So a woman,
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a feminist in America, uh, she, if you're a feminist in America, living in a, you know,
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living in a, in an urban center or whatever, um, and you're going about your day, what,
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what's the sort of everyday incidents of sexism and, and, and what, what, what, what's the kind
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of persecution and oppression that you could expect to experience on an everyday basis?
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Cause you know, you can, you wake up in the house you own because you're allowed to own property in
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America, which isn't the case in a lot of other countries, especially in the middle East.
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You go to your job because you're allowed to have a job in America, not the case in many other
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countries. Also, we have an economy that allows pretty much anyone to get a job if you really
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want one, which is not the case in many other countries, including South of the border, which
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is why they're coming here. You have a nice breakfast, which in many countries, there's not
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going to be a lot to eat. Venezuela being one of them, you leave your house, you go to your job,
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you walk down the street, you don't have to really worry. You get on the subway. Okay. Well,
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now that you're on the subway, uh, now we've got our first incident because there might be man
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spreading on the subway, right? You get on the subway. There might be, you want to sit down.
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There might be a guy, uh, is spreading his legs a little bit too much and encroaching on your space
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a little bit. Now there's also going to be women who take up entire seats with their purses,
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but that's okay. You know, you're allowed to now a guy who needs to spread his legs a little bit
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because of, because of the equipment that men carry around. That's not okay. But a woman takes
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up an entire seat with her purse, with her stuff that she loves. Oh, that's fine. Anyway. Uh, but
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that's, so there's oppression right there. That's your first incident. It's, it's nine 30 in the
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morning. Uh, you've already, you've already been oppressed. Okay. Then you get off the subway,
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you walk to work, you're fine. You get to work. Um, uh, and then maybe a male coworker,
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uh, talks to you and maybe he's a little bit too friendly. Maybe he comp, maybe he compliments
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you. If you could, uh, worst case scenario, maybe, maybe, maybe even compliments what you're
00:25:57.100
wearing. Says you look nice today. Maybe he asks you how you, how your weekend went, you know?
00:26:04.400
I mean, in a nightmare scenario, nightmare, maybe he even say, asks what you're doing later and
00:26:13.780
sees if you want to hang out. God forbid, God forbid. Okay. There's your second incident of,
00:26:21.280
uh, of oppression. And then you go about your day, you're working, um, you go home. I mean,
00:26:28.340
so, so we, I don't know, maybe we've got two incidents there, persecution for women on an everyday
00:26:33.760
basis. Um, but from a, from the perspective of a feminist in America, that has to be the,
00:26:42.740
that has to be among the worst. Of course, there are countries where you could essentially as a
00:26:49.300
woman be legally raped. There are countries where you're not allowed to drive. There are countries
00:26:54.080
where you, you can't, if you walk down the street with anything more than your face showing,
00:26:58.460
you could be stoned to death or beaten. Uh, there are countries where if you're raped,
00:27:03.900
you could be killed for it, but no, the man spreading on the subway, that's, that's just
00:27:10.320
as bad. It's gotta be, you know why? Because it happened to me. I think, and then the other
00:27:18.020
problem that we have is, and this is of course is related, but the other problem is people in this
00:27:23.860
country just having no understanding of no appreciation of the state of things in other
00:27:30.040
parts of the world. And that's become a big problem that people in this country are so privileged and
00:27:37.420
so comfortable and have just, we were, we're so fat and happy and, and maybe not happy, but fat
00:27:45.420
and satiated and comfortable living in luxury. We just, we have no idea what it's like in other parts
00:27:53.120
of the world and certainly throughout history. So we, we, we don't appreciate the fact that in
00:28:04.100
this country, you know, we have problems in this country. That's true. But when it comes to racism,
00:28:09.080
sexism, poverty, all those things, it's pretty much as good in this country as it's ever been
00:28:16.440
anywhere. It could still be better. We could still work on making it better,
00:28:20.300
but it says it's as good as it's ever been anywhere, but we have no appreciation for that.
00:28:30.480
And thus, and thus we have, um, we have no gratitude either. And that's, I think a big part of the
00:28:36.840
problem. All right. Um, let's see here. I think we'll move on to emails, mattwalshowatgmail.com,
00:28:44.800
mattwalshowatgmail.com. This is from Bridget says, hi, Matt. I just wanted to share a word.
00:28:50.400
I found that you were describing your podcast. You were talking about the feeling of recognizing,
00:28:54.560
uh, that everyone around you has their own life. That is as important as central as your,
00:29:00.140
as yours is to you. The word for that is sonder. The definition is the realization that each random
00:29:05.300
passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as your own. What a humbling feeling. It's pretty cool
00:29:10.080
that enough people have encountered that emotion, that there's a word to describe it.
00:29:13.020
It sort of feels like a proof of shared humanity to me. Anyways, when I found that word,
00:29:17.080
I thought it was awesome. And I just wanted to share it with you. Uh, yeah, we were talking
00:29:20.040
yesterday on the show about, I was having my, I was essentially like a, like a stone 16 year old
00:29:25.760
in, in, in his friend's basement trying to get philosophical. Hey man, have you ever thought
00:29:30.220
about how like everybody is a, is a person, man? I was having that moment. Um, free of drugs though.
00:29:37.580
I should mention, I didn't know there was a word for it. Sonder. Is that, so where does that
00:29:41.220
word? Is that in the dictionary? That's, that's interesting that there's actually a word for that,
00:29:44.420
um, for that experience. And that just shows, I guess, what we're talking about that, that,
00:29:48.940
you know, you, you have these experiences, these internal experiences, you have this internal life
00:29:52.680
and you think, you sort of think you're alone with it. And then you recognize that all these
00:29:57.700
thoughts that you think were unique were other people have experienced the same thing,
00:30:01.120
which, um, I think, uh, is, is comforting. If you look at it the right way, this is from Nick
00:30:06.440
said, uh, yesterday, someone sent me the following quote in enjoy life to the fullest. It has an
00:30:12.480
expiration date. This saying obviously echoes many other, many others with a similar sentiment.
00:30:17.800
YOLO comes to mind. Uh, you only live once kids used to say that my question for you is from a
00:30:24.120
Christian worldview. Do you think this is a good, this is good or bad advice? Perhaps the answer
00:30:28.080
hinges on what constitutes a living life to the fullest taken to its logical conclusion. The mindset
00:30:32.080
could be used to justify immoral actions like infidelity, theft, or shaving off a perfectly
00:30:37.160
healthy beard. On the other hand, recognition of one's own mortality and finding joy in life seem
00:30:41.880
perfectly in keeping with the Christian worldview. I'm only asking you to wax philosophical, consider
00:30:46.040
yourself lucky. This isn't Canada. Yeah. Um, I think if we keep the proper perspective on it, I mean,
00:30:55.840
there there's truth to it. It's a cliche. There's when it comes down to, there's really no reason to say
00:31:00.560
it for the simple reason that it's a cliche. There's really no reason to say a cliche. That's
00:31:06.580
a cliche for a reason. We all know it already. We, it's all, it's in our head. We've encountered it
00:31:10.180
before. Uh, so there's no reason to say it for that reason. But yeah, I think that, um, leaving the
00:31:19.080
cliche nature of it aside, there is truth to the, to the fact that you should enjoy your life. You only
00:31:24.880
get it once. Now there is, we believe obviously as Christians that there's a life beyond this one,
00:31:29.200
but that doesn't make this life worthless. And I do think that's an important point.
00:31:34.220
And sometimes the way Christians sometimes can tend to talk about it. It's as if they think that
00:31:40.060
this life doesn't mean anything. Well, of course it means something. God gave us this life to live.
00:31:47.140
Uh, and so, and that's why when someone is killed, it's, it is a tragedy. That's why if you lose a loved
00:31:54.120
one, you mourn, even if you know that they hopefully went on to a better place, that there
00:31:58.940
is a life beyond this, but you still mourn because you recognize that something has been lost. Um,
00:32:03.580
one of my favorite CS Lewis books is a grief observed. And that's the book that he wrote after
00:32:07.740
his wife died. Uh, one of his, one of his last book during towards the end of his life, he wrote
00:32:13.040
this book. And, um, and I believe the book originally was not, he didn't intend to publish it.
00:32:18.900
He was just sort of his own, he was writing a journal and, and expressing kind of working
00:32:25.420
through his trauma that he was feeling after his wife died of, of, I believe it was cancer.
00:32:30.440
And this is, and at the beginning, it's a very short book, but at the beginning of the book,
00:32:34.560
he's angry at God. He's seems almost on the verge of giving up on faith by the end. He,
00:32:39.800
he doesn't, uh, spoiler alert, but this is one thing that he talks about. There's a great quote
00:32:46.200
in there that I'm going to have to paraphrase, but he says that, um, you know, even, even though he
00:32:51.040
knows that his wife has gone on to the next life, he also knows that this world, this physical world
00:33:00.240
is, is, is completely devoid of her. And that if he were to search the entire universe, every crack
00:33:05.320
and crevice of the universe, he would not find her anywhere. She is, she is in a very real sense gone.
00:33:11.000
And that is, that's, that's not an illusion or something. She really is gone
00:33:15.380
for all intents and purposes from this world. And that is a sad thing. So, um, the, the, the point
00:33:24.380
is that, that life is meaningful. And, uh, and so I don't think there's anything wrong with saying
00:33:28.260
live it to the fullest, but if by that you mean, um, throw morality, throw discipline,
00:33:36.940
throw self-control to the side, because when you die, you're just going to decay and, and, and fade
00:33:43.200
into nothingness and there's nothing beyond it. If that's what you mean, then, then obviously there's
00:33:47.200
a problem. Um, this is from Josh says, hello, Matt, short version of my question. Would you ever leave
00:33:54.280
Twitter? Even though I assume doing so would adversely affect your career as immediate personality,
00:33:58.460
what would Twitter need to do to make you leave? Uh, I I've gotten this question several times
00:34:03.600
as we've talked, I think it was yesterday or two days ago, we talked about what I think is the most
00:34:08.100
egregious thing Twitter has done. And they've done a lot of egregious things in terms of their bias
00:34:12.140
against conservatives, uh, or their bias in favor of far left ideology. The most egregious thing is, uh,
00:34:20.180
the case with this man who's trying to sue women in Canada to get his, uh, genitals waxed. And, um,
00:34:27.200
he has been harassing women online and the women who have stood up to him, one in particular,
00:34:31.940
who he harassed and mocked in a sexually degrading way. She stood up to him and responded in kind
00:34:38.340
and was perfectly justified to do it. She was banned from Twitter permanently. And he's still there.
00:34:44.880
Even though this guy is a creep and a, and a predator and just a monster in many ways with,
00:34:50.760
from the way that he treats women and, uh, and other things as well.
00:34:56.660
After we talked about that, I had a lot of emails like this, people saying, well, okay,
00:34:59.900
if you think Twitter is so bad, why don't you sign off? Why don't you leave? Why don't you boycott it?
00:35:03.780
And, uh, and I understand that question. And that is something that I struggle with.
00:35:07.940
I think the easy cop-out answer is that for me with my job, I really, I have to be on it.
00:35:12.520
I can't leave it, at least not by my own choice. That's the cop-out answer. But even, um,
00:35:20.180
even if I didn't have sort of a professional obligation to, to be on Twitter and to be on social
00:35:24.580
media, given my job, uh, I don't know if I would leave it because if I can use the platform,
00:35:34.300
if I'm able to use the platform to undermine Twitter's own ideological agenda,
00:35:40.440
if I can use this platform to get the truth out there, um, to get conservative ideas out there,
00:35:47.800
then why wouldn't I use it? I'll use it until I can't anymore, until they take it from me.
00:35:52.560
Um, so what I've decided, and I've long ago decided this with Twitter, with Facebook too,
00:35:58.120
but especially with Twitter, that, um, as long as I have this platform and I can use it to speak the
00:36:05.600
truth, I'm going to do that. I'm not going to censor myself at all. So that is my personal
00:36:11.280
pledge. I'm not going to, now, if you're, if you're, if you're on Twitter, you're on these social
00:36:14.860
media sites and you're censoring yourself, uh, in order to maintain that platform, well,
00:36:23.240
then there's really no point. Okay. Then you might as, then the best thing in that case would
00:36:27.920
be just to leave, but I'm not going to censor myself at all. Um, and I'll just continue. So I
00:36:38.500
don't know, maybe it's, it's, it's kind of a kamikaze mission. I'm just going to continue using it,
00:36:41.620
not censor myself in the least bit. And, uh, if they eventually come along and ban me, then they
00:36:46.860
do. But if they don't, I'm going to continue using it, uh, to undermine their own ideological
00:36:52.120
agenda. That's, that's the way that I, that I look at it. Um, you know, even when we've been
00:36:58.900
talking about this issue with this guy in Canada and when I'm on, when I'm, when I'm using Twitter,
00:37:03.960
you know, I'm, as I said, I'm going to, I'm going to speak the truth. I'm not, I'm not going
00:37:08.320
to, uh, say something that's not true just to follow the rules of a social media site.
00:37:14.580
So for instance, I'm going to refer to this man as a man. Um, even if Twitter says, oh,
00:37:21.020
you're not allowed to do that, that's misgendering. Well, I'm not going to lie for Twitter's sake.
00:37:27.100
And if they want to ban me too, in order to protect this predator,
00:37:30.160
if they want to keep doing that, then they can. But, um, until that time comes,
00:37:37.020
I'm just going to continue with what I'm doing. All right. Uh, I think we'll leave it there.
00:38:00.160
If you can still laugh at the nuttiness filling our national news cycle, well tune on into the
00:38:05.900
Ben Shapiro show where you'll get a whole lot of that and much more. We'll see you there.