Ep. 345 - True Communism
Episode Stats
Summary
Elizabeth Warren is telling more fables, a group of parents are suing a video game developer because they say their kids are addicted to video games, and Justin Trudeau makes the most hilarious video on the internet. Plus, China is punishing the NBA for a tweet sent by one of their employees.
Transcript
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All right, we have several things to talk about today. Elizabeth Warren is telling stories again.
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She's making up fables. It's become its own genre now of Warren fables. She loves to tell them.
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And so we're going to talk about that. Also, a group of parents are suing a video game developer
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because they say that their kids are addicted to video games. We're going to discuss this,
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and what we'll try to get to the bottom of is this question. If you're a parent and your kids
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are playing too many video games, what's the best way to handle that? Yeah, you could sue the video
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game company, but is there a more direct and possibly less expensive path you could take
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to control how much time your kids spend playing video games? Well, we'll talk about that. Also,
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Justin Trudeau, you know that I love Justin Trudeau videos on this show. He is a source of never-ending
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hilarity, and I have now what I think is not just the most hilarious Trudeau video yet,
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but I think that may be the most hilarious video to ever be posted on the internet. And I don't
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think I'm hyping that up too much. Maybe a little bit too much, but not by much. So we're going to
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talk about all that today and more. But first, a word from Rock Auto. You know, chain stores have,
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get to the Warren thing, just another thought on this issue with the NBA and China. At this point,
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all of the NBA's Chinese partners, according to CNN, all of them have now cut ties with the NBA
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because of one tweet sent by one guy that works for one team. One tweet saying,
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fight for freedom, sent by one employee on one basketball team, has led to all this. I read
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somewhere that the NBA stands to lose like a billion dollars, a billion dollars they stand to lose
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because of this one tweet. Now, I want you to think about that for a second. Think about
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how China is reacting to one tweet sent by one guy in Texas. They're just coming down like an avalanche
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of bricks. They're coming down on the NBA for this. And even though the NBA is groveling and apologizing
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and licking their boots, it's still, they're, they're, they're being punished. Now you think
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about that. Now consider what it must be like to actually live as a citizen in this country,
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entirely subject to the whims of the communist government. Imagine if you were a citizen
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who sent out that tweet. China has, has brought all of its forces to bear to punish the NBA
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multi-billion dollar American company. Um, now think about if you're just a lowly Chinese citizen
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expressing your free speech rights, which, which of course you don't actually have free speech
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rights in China. And that's exactly the point. So in conclusion, communism is bad folks. Communism
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is very, very, very bad. Not just bad in practice. Um, not just bad when instituted incorrectly,
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which just so happens to be every single time it's been instituted. According to some people,
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it's always incorrect. It's never the real communism, but no, that's not, see, communism is bad to its core.
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It is bad in theory. It is bad in practice. It is bad as an idea. It is bad as a policy. It is bad
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all around because there is no room for freedom in communism. And that's the point as we are clearly
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seeing freedom and, and communism are in two different directions. Freedom is that way. And
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communism is that way going in two different directions. Now I know that this should all be
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obvious. It's, it's, it's, it's not, I'm, I'm not the first person to point out that communism is
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bad, but it, it does unfortunately need to be pointed out because, um, it seems that it's not
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obvious to a lot of people in this country. According to any survey that's been done recently on the
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subject, a large percentage of millennials, I read one survey that claimed it was like half of
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millennials, 50% around there have a positive view of communism. So that's why we have to point to this
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and state the obvious that here's what communism is. This is why it's a terrible thing. That doesn't
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mean that capitalism is flawless, that there are no problems with it that you could point out. Of course
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there are. It is a human system. It's a human economic system. And so it's going to be flawed.
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And there are going to be downsides to it. That's the way it is with any human institution or human
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system. Um, but communism is evil to its core. Yet people, a lot of people, my generation, they have
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faith that communism is a beautiful and wonderful thing. And that faith endures despite all evidence.
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Every example we have of communism throughout history and in the world currently, it's all terrible.
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Um, but there's this faith that people have that they say, well, no, it's still, you know, it's,
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it's, it's still this great idea. We're just waiting for, uh, it's, it's, it's, it's full and
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correct manifestation. No, this is Chinese communism is communism. This is the, this is the correct
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version. This is real communism. And, um, this is what communism is in all of its glory or lack thereof.
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I think it's important for us to realize that. All right. So Elizabeth Warren is, um, up to her old
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tricks again, it seems possibly telling stories that are possibly not altogether true. Um, lies
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would be another way of putting it a less polite way. Warren on the campaign trail likes to claim
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that she was fired from a teaching job in 1971 for being visibly pregnant. And she's told this story
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countless times. Turns out shock of the century, maybe not exactly true. There are two things that
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contradict her story. The first thing is herself. She herself has contradicted the story because she has
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told this story of leaving the teaching job very differently in the past. There are kind of two
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different versions of it. So, um, let's look at this students for Trump put out, uh, they put
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together a comparison of how Warren tells the story now in 2019 verse how she told it 10 years ago. And
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there's a, there's a not so subtle difference. Watch this. So my first teaching position was as a
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special needs teacher. There we go. Uh, I worked, it was in a public school system, but I worked with
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the, the children with disabilities. I loved that job. But by the end of the first school year, I was
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quite visibly pregnant. And I was pregnant with my first baby. So I had a baby, uh, and stayed home for a
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couple of years. And I was really casting about thinking, what am I going to do? Um, and, uh, my
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husband's view of it was stay home. And the principal didn't invite me back for the next school year. And, um, I
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did that for a year. And then that summer, uh, I, I actually didn't have the education courses. So I was on an
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emergency certificate, it was called. And I went back to graduate school and took a couple of courses
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in education and said, I don't think this is going to work out for me. Okay. Two versions here in both
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versions, she ends up not having the job. So that's the conclusion. Um, and that's the same in both
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cases, but in one case she's fired or at least not invited back because she's pregnant. And in the other
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case she leaves on her own accord. Um, there's a principle here that is, that's very helpful. I think
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which says that if a story changes over time, you can generally be confident that the earlier version
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of the story is going to be correct because that's how stories stories usually grow in the telling and
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they become more dramatic and more elaborate, not the other way around. And so if we have to choose
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between the two versions of the story, it seems like probably the one she told 10 years ago is the
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correct one, but we don't even need to guess. There's no guesswork here because the Washington
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Free Beacon, um, has come with receipts. They have, uh, let me read a little bit of, of their report.
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Um, uh, the Washington Free Beacon says minutes, minutes of an April 21st, 1971 Riverdale Board of
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Education meeting obtained by the Washington Free Beacon show that the board voted unanimously on a
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motion to extend Warren a second year contract for two, uh, days per week teaching job.
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That job is similar to the one she held the previous year, her first year of teaching minutes from a
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board meeting held two months later, uh, on June 16th, 1971 indicate that Warren's resignation was
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quote, accepted with regret. So that would seem to be pretty conclusive. The story she told 10 years
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ago matches the documentation. The latest story does not. Um, I'm not going to say she's lying though.
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Let's just say that it is a loose interpretation of an event or an L I E for short. Let's just say that
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now, um, here's really what I want to talk about. Let's, let's put Warren's fibs to the side here for
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a moment because what the issue we're talking about here is, is how pregnant women are treated in the
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workforce and, and, uh, and how much they are accepted in society and how much we accommodate and
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all of that. I totally agree that pregnant women should be accepted and accommodated as much as
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feasible. We should make it as a society easier, not harder for people to have kids and to grow their
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families and so on. You know, we pro-lifers, we on the right who, who, uh, are pro-life. We're the ones
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who are all about welcoming and accepting pregnancy, new life, mothers, families, you know, that's our
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thing. We, we're all about that. Um, we, we can't let the left claim that as their own. Like this is
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their hobby horse. It isn't. You see, the left pretends to care about pregnant women, but really
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what they're doing is they're using pregnant women, much like Elizabeth Warren uses this story
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that she, it would seem made up. Um, they use it as a means to an end. And on the left, it, it,
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everything is a means to an end, especially women and especially pregnant women. Most of all,
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of all the people they enjoy using politically, probably there's no group that they enjoy using
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more than pregnant women. Um, because for the left, it's all about control for the state and
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everything comes back to that. And that's the end, um, that everything for which everything is being
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used. So, whereas I would say, I think it's very good for companies if they can to offer maternity
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leave and the more generous to leave the better, I think that's a great thing. Um, that's what I
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would say. And that's what most people on the right would say, but then the left comes in like
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Kamala Harris a few days ago. She said, this is literally her plan. She said that, um, there should
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be six months of paid family leave that all companies should be required to offer. She wants the
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state to impose as mandatory six months of paid family leave. Now that obviously is absurd.
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And when we say that that's absurd, we're going to be accused by the left of, Oh, you don't care
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about families and pregnant. You say you're pro-life, but no, um, because many companies simply cannot
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afford that. They simply cannot afford to pay someone to not work for half a year. There are basic
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financial realities here. And they can't afford to hire someone. If you leave, if you're going to
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leave for six months and come back, that means they need to hire someone for six months to do your job
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that they're going to pay. And then they're also paying you to not do the job. And so they're paying
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the job for the job twice. It's double the pay for six months. They can't afford it. But the left
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likes plans like that because it represents an enormous amount of control by the state over private
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enterprise. And because of course, companies can't afford this, that means that they're going to
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need to rely on the state. There's going to need to be a, you know, a subsidy kind of situation where
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the state is subsidizing this. And that's even more control for the state. And that's what it always
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comes back to. Pregnant women are a means to an end and the end is state control. That's it.
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That's always it. That's what it always comes back to. Because on the basic point that, again,
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we should be accommodating and accepting as much as possible of pregnant women, we should be welcoming
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of that and celebrate that. There's no disagreement. In fact, we're the ones, again, we're the ones
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as pro-lifers. That's how we really feel about it. We really do see pregnancy as a beautiful and
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miraculous thing. It's the left that says that a pregnant woman is basically, a pregnant woman is,
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she basically has a tapeworm infestation because what she has is a parasite in her body that she
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could expel or destroy at any time and it wouldn't matter. That's what the left says. That's not us.
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Yet, we also recognize certain realities. And although it would be nice, I mean, look,
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it would be nice if when a woman gets pregnant, has a kid, it'd be nice if she could take off for
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five years and get paid and take off until the kid goes into kindergarten, spend those five years
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with her family and get paid the whole time. That would be fantastic, right? I mean, who wouldn't
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like a deal like that? It'd be really great. But it's not possible because there is this thing
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called reality and it just wouldn't work because that money has to come from somewhere. Someone has
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to pay it. As my dad always told me, money doesn't grow on trees. And so there's no magical money tree
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that money's got to come from somewhere. Either you're going to be bankrupting a company by forcing
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them to pay it for someone who's not working, or it's the state's going to come in and basically take
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over. Okay. A couple of funny videos to play for you real quick before we get to this video game
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topic. First, well, I'm not really sure what this is. I think it's another environmentalist protest,
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a climate protest in London, I believe. But the video, I guess, speaks for itself. Watch this.
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Press yourself. Pull your heart into the gun. This is our practice. This is our practice.
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You know, I watch that and I'm really concerned because those people are clearly having seizures
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and everyone else is just standing around rather than calling an ambulance. But I guess they can't
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get the ambulance there because they're also blocking the road when they're having their
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seizures. So that's sort of disturbing to watch. But if you keep playing the video,
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so, you know, you saw their dance moves, but you keep playing the video for a few more seconds.
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So there you go. Great, great dancing all around. Who do you think is a better dancer,
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Spicer or the hippies? That's a tough call. I guess if I had to choose, maybe technically Spicer is a
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little bit of a better dancer. He is choreographed at least. I wouldn't go anywhere near close to saying
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that he's a technically good dancer because he's not. But I think technically he's got it over the
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hippies. But, you know, the hippies are also there's more life to what they're doing, mostly
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because of all the drugs they're on. But, you know, to me, it feels freer, more in the moment.
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So I don't know. It's a tough call between those two. All right. Forget about all that,
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actually, because without further ado, I want to I'm going to finally play what I think is maybe
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the funniest video ever recorded. And I I hope I'm not overselling it too much. But this is
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brilliant. Watch. And Salara, you want to stand up and ask a question? What did you paint your face
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down? Oh, it was something I shouldn't have done because it hurt people. It's not something that
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you you should do. And that is something that I learned. I didn't know it back then, but I know it
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now. And I'm sorry I hurt people. But did you paint your note in your hands, man?
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Mm hmm. Yeah. And it was the wrong thing to do.
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I just I I I love everything about that video. I I love the awkward pause at the end. It's like
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something out of the office, but in real life, it's it's great. And you know what I think happened
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here? Because a lot of people I posted this video last night on Twitter. A lot of people were saying,
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oh, this is staged. It's clearly he staged it. He had these two young girls ask this question so he
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could give his canned response. And I I think probably that is what happened. I think the first
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part was staged, which is but it's still hilarious. It actually makes it funnier because he comes off
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like a clown. He staged he staged this thing where somebody would ask him an embarrassing question and
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he still came off really awkward and funny. But then it seems to me if I I don't want to speculate
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too much, but it seems like the follow up question from the girls was off script. So that's that's my
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guess is that they were coached. OK, stand up, ask this question of the nice prime minister and then
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sit down. And but they're kids. So, you know, they stood up, they asked the question they were told to
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ask. And then they started ad libbing a little bit. And that's where Trudeau got flustered. That's
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where the awkward pause came in, because when they said, but did you paint your nose and hands brown
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too? And that's where you get the pause where he's going. Mm hmm. No, sit down, sit down. It's just
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it's amazing. I love that. So that's great. That brings a smile to my face. And not many things do
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these days. All right. I almost I got to say, because I don't live in Canada and it's no skin
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off my nose. So no offense to Canadians, but I really hope that Justin Trudeau stays in office
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for as long as as possible. I just I hope that he's in office for the next 50 years because he's
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such a source of of joy for me personally. OK. Now, I want to I want to read now from a little
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bit from the US from from USA Today dot com an article about a about a certain lawsuit that
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brings up an interesting question. The article says roughly a quarter of a billion mostly obsessed
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gamers are battling it out on Fortnite. There's a darn decent chance kids, you know, are among them.
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This again is a this is a USA Today article and and it says there's a uses the word darn darn decent
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chance in a USA. OK, anyway, this is journalism for you. A Montreal based law firm launched a
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proposed class action lawsuit in Canada on behalf of two Quebec parents who claim that Fortnite publisher
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Epic Games needs to pay the price for a third person shooter they allege is as addictive and
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potentially harmful as cocaine. The firm Calix Legal represents plaintiffs who are identified
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only by their initials FN and Jay Z. Not that Jay Z, a different Jay Z. They're they're the parents
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of a 10 and 15 year old respectively. Written in French, the legal action alleges that when a person
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is engaged in Fortnite for a long period, the player's brain releases the pleasure hormone dopamine and that
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Fortnite was developed by psychologists, statisticians and others over four years to develop the most
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addictive game possible. Also, Epic could reap lucrative profits. So the accusation here.
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Very startling accusation. What they are alleging. Get this.
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Is that the developers of Fortnite tried to make a game that people would really want to play if you can
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believe it. Now, I've heard stories. I can't confirm this, but I've heard stories that, you know,
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clothing companies will oftentimes get together and come up with schemes of, you know, how can they make
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clothing that people are really going to want to wear? I've even heard fast food companies that
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they'll sit around, I imagine, in darkened rooms with smoke billowing from their cigars and and they
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they're sitting there and then they're saying they're they're concocting these plans to come up with food
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that people will really want to keep eating. So that's anyway, that's the allegation. I'm not sure
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if it's true or not, but it does raise this question of, OK, you're a parent.
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And your kid plays video games way too much. He's 10 years old as one of these kids is.
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What can you do about it? And this is a relevant question, because although there's only two parents
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right now involved in this proposed class action lawsuit, there are lots of other parents out there
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who complain about this. In fact, I get emails sometimes. I talk about video games sometimes
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and the pros and cons of video games. Mostly I talk about the cons, really. But and I'll sometimes
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get emails from parents talking about how their kids play video games way too much and they don't
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know what to do about it. So this is a this is a problem a lot of parents have. So what do you do
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if your kid plays is playing video games all day? Here's my idea. I mean, yeah, you could file a lawsuit.
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You could complain, you know, to somebody like me. You could shake your fist at the heavens.
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You could cry yourself to sleep. All of these strategies could work, maybe. But here's a
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different idea. Maybe your kid's playing video games all day. Maybe we could do is stop allowing him
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to play video games all day. There's an idea. So all these parents are like, I don't know what to
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do. I don't know what to do. My kids, they play video games. They they've they're on their phone
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all the time. What do I do about this? You know, maybe be a parent, possibly just do a little
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parenting. Have you considered that just as has that thought? Have you sat down maybe with your spouse
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and talked about this? Have you said, hey, maybe do you think we should do some parenting actually
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for a change here? I mean, we've had this kid for 10 years. We haven't parented him yet. Do you think
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maybe it's time? I OK, all sarcasm aside is as as difficult as it is for me to do. I really don't
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understand. I just I don't get parents who act like these neutered puppy dogs, like the ineffectual,
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impotent. They have no ability to you are the parent. You control everything in your house,
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everything that's in your house you bought with your money. Your kid doesn't have anything
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unless they're much older, they have a job or whatever. But that's not that's mostly not what
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we're talking about here. They want to take the example of the 10 year old kid.
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Everything that 10 year old child has, it's because you bought it for him.
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Or for a few of those things, maybe someone bought it as a gift or whatever.
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Almost everything you bought it. Probably the TV you bought, the video game system you bought,
00:26:33.580
the video game you bought, the clothes on his back you bought, the couch that he's sitting in when he
00:26:38.440
plays the games you bought, the electricity that feeds the TV that allows him to play the video games.
00:26:43.860
You bought all of that. You control all of it. Just exercise your control as a parent.
00:26:54.480
What is this? Oh, I told him not to and he still does it. How is that an option? He's 10. How is it
00:27:00.660
even an option for him to do it if you told him not to? Take the you know what? Take the video game,
00:27:05.900
remove it from the system, throw it in the garbage can or break it first. So he can't. So just take
00:27:16.280
it and smash it if you have to take the TV outside. And if there's really, if there's no other way,
00:27:21.160
if he really is addicted and you can't stop him, take the freaking TV and smash it in the driveway.
00:27:27.680
I mean, you could do that. It's legal. It's yours. You can do whatever you want with it. And it's fun
00:27:34.760
too to smash a TV. Have you ever tried it? It's a lot of fun. I just don't get this. I really don't.
00:27:44.760
I mean, I understand that kids don't always listen to us as parents and we can't control everything
00:27:52.120
they do, especially when they're not around us. They go to school or whatever. They're with their
00:27:55.680
friends. They're not our puppets on a string, right? They have free will. They make choices
00:28:00.140
and decisions and all of that. So I, I, I, I understand all of that, but, but when it comes
00:28:05.600
to the things that they spend all day doing in your home and when it comes to the products that
00:28:12.600
they use, you have so much control over that. I mean, forget about smashing the TV or taking the
00:28:19.160
video game away. You could just not buy it in the first place. That is also an option.
00:28:24.560
And I know that the kid will say, Oh, but all my friends are playing it. Who cares? Why is that a
00:28:29.380
convincing argument for my kid? I hear this from parents, parents who are really concerned that
00:28:34.400
they have to buy their kid, the latest gadget or phone or video game because all their friends have
00:28:39.080
it. How are you as a parent concerned about that? Why do you care? You're telling me that your,
00:28:44.820
your child goes to you and says, Oh, I want this. And you say, no, I don't know. And your child goes,
00:28:49.540
well, all my friends have it. And that convinces you. You're convinced by that. You say, Oh, well,
00:28:54.820
all your friends have. Well, okay. Well, in that case, go ahead and go. I will. Let me,
00:28:58.480
let me go right now. I'm going to drop everything I'm doing right now. And I mean,
00:29:00.900
why didn't you say earlier, your friends do it too? Well, geez. Hey dad, I want to go shoot up
00:29:07.120
heroin in a back alley. Well, no, you can't do that. Well, my, my friends are doing it though. Oh,
00:29:11.680
they are. Okay. Well then go ahead. I'll drive. Which back alley? I'll drive you.
00:29:16.740
Oh, you want to hitch a ride with someone first? Let's go ahead. Are your friends doing it too?
00:29:20.300
Oh, well then go ahead. What? I, what is that? I just, I don't understand it. I
00:29:24.600
just have some control over your pain, over your freaking kids. Okay. Do society a favor.
00:29:34.740
Just say no every once in a while, you know, every once in a while, at least just start with that
00:29:44.420
every once in a while when they want to do something, tell them no.
00:29:50.700
Just for the sake of it. Sometimes I think sometimes it's good to say no to a kid just,
00:29:54.740
just because you don't even have a good reason. Maybe sometimes my kids will come to me and say,
00:30:01.000
Hey, can I have a snack? And I'll say, no, not right now. And they'll say, Oh, why can't I have
00:30:07.000
a snack? Well, just because, just because you can't, I don't know. You just can't because I'm
00:30:11.360
the father. And I decided that right now you're not having a snack because this is my house and my
00:30:15.880
kitchen and my food. And I've decided that right now you're not eating it. You can eat it later,
00:30:20.540
but right now you're not. That's my entire reason. I have no other reason. And you're going to
00:30:25.500
respect that because you're my child. And that's the way this relationship works.
00:30:31.820
I don't have to explain myself to you. I don't have to justify myself. I am the adult. You are
00:30:36.700
the child. That's the relationship. All right. Let's, um, let's go to emails.
00:30:45.240
MattWallShow at gmail.com. MattWallShow at gmail.com. Uh, this is from Travis says,
00:30:52.700
Dear fearless bearded dictator, congratulations on the birth of your fourth child. I too am in the
00:30:57.660
four kid club. Here's my advice. When things get crazy, fall on the floor and play dead. The kids
00:31:02.160
will then start to crawl all over you. Other option is to run out of the house and start screaming.
00:31:06.320
You may want to put tape over your mouth. If you live in town, otherwise the neighbors will think
00:31:09.740
you're nuts. The best part of having four kids is each child has a play playmate. Congratulations
00:31:13.760
again. Um, yeah, all of those strategies I have already tried and, uh, to varying effect.
00:31:19.480
This is from Allison says, hi, Matt, congrats on the new baby. My family is very excited for your
00:31:24.440
family. Actually, my family also consists of two girls and two boys, plus me and my husband.
00:31:29.240
Have you started to get the comments yet? I never got comments or looks until we had our fourth.
00:31:34.160
And some people, uh, react almost disgusted that we have so many kids. Has that been your experience?
00:31:40.780
Yeah, I was just taught, I was talking about this last night. Um,
00:31:44.320
and I was talking about this with my wife too. And, and, and she was saying that she already is
00:31:48.140
getting looks and comments. Um, and she actually did use the word disgusted.
00:31:55.540
And I think that this just shows you why the West is dying, honestly, because four kids is not a lot.
00:32:04.060
And I do believe this is, this is somewhat geographically based. It kind of depends on
00:32:08.080
where you live. There are some places in the country you could live and have four kids. And if
00:32:13.100
anything, people are gonna look weird at you because you don't have enough kids like in Utah,
00:32:16.020
for example. But, um, depending on where you live, it can change. And I think in a lot of places,
00:32:21.540
certainly more liberal kinds of places, uh, yeah, having four kids, people look at you like
00:32:26.940
a Ripley's believe it or not exhibit. And, uh, but four kids is, that's not a big family.
00:32:33.560
Really? I don't think you count as a big, and I have, you know, so I don't think I wouldn't,
00:32:38.400
I would say that I have a moderately sized family at this point with four kids.
00:32:41.780
I think a big family, you, you reach big family, uh, territory when you can no longer fit inside a
00:32:50.260
standard minivan. Once you've gotten, once you have to go buy a special van to fit all your,
00:32:55.520
your kids, that is a big family. I think that's the, um, that's the cutoff. So that's not, you know,
00:33:01.120
my, my sister has nine kids. Um, my brother's wife, my, my sister-in-law comes from a family,
00:33:08.380
I think of, of 12 kids, I believe. And there are much bigger families out there than that.
00:33:13.240
Even, um, a family of six is not that big, but we've gotten so used to families that are below
00:33:19.920
replacement rate. The families with their 1.7 kids or whatever it is now that we really,
00:33:24.600
that we see a just normal sized family as somehow bizarre. Um, and that is, uh, not a good sign for
00:33:32.580
the future of our civilization. Actually, it's been kind of interesting because everyone told me
00:33:37.320
that this is what I heard from many people that when you hit four kids,
00:33:42.500
that's when you start hearing the classic comments like, Oh, it looks like you got your hands full
00:33:48.080
or, uh, well, you need to get a TV. Um, or do you know what causes that? Or, you know, all of those,
00:33:55.140
any, any family with a lot of kids, you, you know, you know, all the comments you get from people.
00:33:59.280
And I always heard that once you hit four, that's when the comments start coming in.
00:34:05.220
And that has been exactly my experience. It's actually been pretty amazing. I've had four kids
00:34:09.700
for a week and I've already heard all of those comments. In fact, I, the, um, the, you look like
00:34:15.020
you have your hands full one. I got that eight hours after the fourth kid was born in the food
00:34:20.660
court of the hospital. I got the, it looks like you got your hands full. And I never got that one
00:34:25.180
time with three kids, not once, all of those comments. I never heard once directed at me.
00:34:30.520
Fourth kid comes and immediately it's like a, it's like the, uh, uh, you know,
00:34:35.160
turning on a tap or something and all the, they all come, um, doesn't offend me or anything. I
00:34:41.000
actually, I'm impressed by how on the money those predictions were. So also coming, I, you know,
00:34:47.340
I come from a family of eight. I had five, uh, siblings, four sisters, one brother. And so,
00:34:53.400
uh, we grew up in a pretty liberal area. So, uh, the comments and the looks and everything,
00:34:58.920
I, I got used to that as a kid. So I'm kind of impervious to it now. It doesn't bother me that
00:35:02.780
much. And of course, also we should remember that not every comment that a person, people can make
00:35:10.320
comments that are kind of awkward and might be annoying because you've heard them a million times.
00:35:16.820
It doesn't mean they're malicious. So when someone says, looks like you got your hands full, I don't,
00:35:20.580
that's not an insult necessarily. It could be, it could be a passive aggressive way of telling you,
00:35:26.180
Hey, control your kids. Uh, but maybe not necessarily. So not all those comments are,
00:35:31.540
um, in any sense malicious, but the fact is, and people who don't have a lot of kids or,
00:35:36.620
or don't come from large families when they hear this, sometimes they don't believe it,
00:35:41.020
but the, it is true that big families, again, depending on where they live, you do get actual
00:35:50.660
dirty looks and malicious mean comments from people. It's, it's kind of amazing. If you've
00:35:55.600
never experienced it, you think, ah, would someone really come up to you? Some stranger come up to you
00:36:00.780
and make a, make a, a malicious comment about how many kids you have. Yeah, people do that. They
00:36:05.420
actually do it, believe it or not. Um, but who cares? All right. From, uh, Nate says, uh, I like
00:36:15.780
your show when you stick to the issues, but when you go on and on about some story related to your
00:36:19.640
kids or wife, I tune out. I don't care enough about your personal life to listen to that stick
00:36:24.060
to the topics people care about. Well, Nate, thank you so much for that email and that feedback.
00:36:29.460
I want to assure you that your feedback means a lot to me. Um, I'm going to take it into account
00:36:36.880
and make sure to do the exact opposite of what you have suggested. Um, I have to assume, Nate,
00:36:44.800
that this is reverse psychology. I have to assume that you actually want me. You can't get enough
00:36:49.980
of me rambling about my kids and wife and you want me to do it more because you must know that
00:36:55.460
the number one way to ensure that I talk more about something is to send me a snide email
00:37:02.280
demanding that I talk less about it. The moment someone says to me, don't talk about this. I'm
00:37:09.700
going to talk about it even more. Is that a mature way to respond on my part? No, but I'm not a mature
00:37:17.300
person. You should know that by now. So yes, now I'm going to tell more stories about my family out of
00:37:24.140
spite, out of spite against you personally. That's the way this goes.
00:37:31.940
Or, you know, you could just stop listening entirely. That also is an option. I welcome
00:37:37.140
you to explore that option. It always amazes me when I get emails from people saying, I don't like it
00:37:45.100
when you spend too much time talking about this or that. Well, then don't listen. I don't, it's never
00:37:50.200
occurred to me. Look, there are so many podcasts out there. And, you know, these, it's a wonderful
00:37:56.520
thing. There's so many podcasts, so many options. There's a podcast on any topic imaginable. It's
00:38:03.380
never occurred to me to listen to a podcast with content that I don't find interesting and then
00:38:10.660
write an email to the host of that podcast telling them to change the content because I personally
00:38:17.320
don't like it. It's just, I, I would never do that. It's such a weird thing to do. You know,
00:38:24.180
there are, there are home improvement podcasts out there. I don't personally care to listen to a home
00:38:28.440
improvement podcast. I would never write an email to somebody with a home improvement podcast. Like,
00:38:33.300
stop talking about this. I personally find it uninteresting. I just wouldn't do that.
00:38:38.620
Um, okay. From Lewis says, hi, Matt, honest question. How do you justify going to see a
00:38:47.600
movie like Joker when you're a Christian? Why expose yourself to that debauchery and violence? I don't
00:38:53.940
get it. That movie, like most Hollywood movies exists only to glorify sin. And yet you encourage
00:38:58.900
people to go see it. You are not being a good shepherd of souls. Just being honest.
00:39:02.840
Well, Lewis, you say that, and I got a few emails like this after talking about the Joker yesterday.
00:39:09.300
Um, you say that the movie exists to glorify sin. Did you come to that conclusion from seeing it?
00:39:18.160
Did you actually watch it before deciding that it only exists to glorify sin? That's quite an
00:39:23.000
indictment of the movie. Um, it could be true. I, I'm not saying that there are movies that like that
00:39:29.160
out there, but I did agree with you on, on that score. But how do you know that this movie is one
00:39:35.220
of them? I assume that you haven't seen it since you're taking issue with the fact that I saw it at
00:39:41.060
all. So I, I, the very fact that I watched it, you're saying I, I, that can't be justified as a
00:39:46.280
Christian, which tells me you haven't watched it, which tells me that you have come to the conclusion
00:39:52.200
about, about the, the main purpose of this movie based on what the name of a preview. Did you even,
00:40:01.320
did you watch it? You saw a two minute preview when you came out? What are you basing us on? I'm
00:40:05.100
really, I'm perplexed. Um, and it sounds like you're taking the position based on your email
00:40:13.620
that Christians should just never expose themselves to violence and debauchery in any context.
00:40:22.200
That seems to be your point. Not trying to make a straw man here because, but I, but, but if you
00:40:27.640
thought that there could be a context where it's okay to, for Christian to expose themselves to this
00:40:33.480
kind of content, then you wouldn't be making these judgments about a movie you haven't seen. So I can
00:40:38.380
only assume that what you know about this movie is that there's violence in it and debauchery,
00:40:46.060
as you say, although I don't, I don't know if debauchery is really, well, I guess there is
00:40:48.900
debauchery. Yeah, there is. Um, so you know that about this movie and you're saying based on that
00:40:54.060
alone, don't watch it, which seems to be mean what you're arguing is that we should just not expose
00:40:58.740
ourselves to that stuff at all. Um, and, and you're not alone in that view, by the way, a lot of
00:41:06.520
Christians feel that way, but I disagree with it. First of all, I'll tell you why I disagree.
00:41:14.680
Uh, first of all, I know it's not exactly the same, but it should be mentioned that the Bible,
00:41:20.100
um, the old Testament in particular contains a lot of very bloody and gory violence and sex
00:41:27.620
and debauchery and rape and incest and so on. Um, I mean, if, if you were to make the Bible
00:41:34.380
into a movie, it would be a very long movie, but if you were to make it into an accurate movie,
00:41:40.180
um, it would be NC 17 at a minimum because of the content in it. And that's the truth.
00:41:48.420
Yet you would say, and I agree. Okay. You would say, well, that's different. Um, because you know,
00:41:56.620
it's okay to expose yourself to the violence and debauchery and gore and death and blood and incest
00:42:03.380
and rape and everything in the Bible. It's different to expose yourself to that is okay because of the
00:42:07.600
context. Now I'm not suggesting that the Joker is like the Bible or something. I'm not saying that
00:42:14.020
I'm simply establishing that context matters. And, and, and so it would seem like you actually
00:42:20.160
would agree with that because you know, it's okay in the Bible context. It's all about the context.
00:42:25.440
And that would mean that a statement like Christians shouldn't expose themselves to violence
00:42:29.960
is actually a meaningless statement. It's a silly statement because of course there are some contexts
00:42:36.020
where it's okay to do. So I think you have to abandon that general position that you seem to be taking
00:42:41.740
and find a more nuanced one. And here's the more nuanced one, which you did touch on.
00:42:48.860
Christians should not engage in the glorification of violence and sin. And that's true. You know,
00:42:55.440
I, they shouldn't, I agree with that, but not every movie that depicts violence glorifies it.
00:43:02.580
And, and I think there is a place for art that deals with and depicts and discusses and wrestles with
00:43:09.380
very serious adult things like violence and sex and, and all of that. Um, kids should not be watching
00:43:16.960
that. But as adults, as mature adults, if we can handle it, um, there can be a value in it as long
00:43:24.400
as it is not the glorification. But you, you seem to be conflating as again, a lot of Christians do.
00:43:29.180
I've found you're conflating the depiction of violence with the glorification of it. And those are not the same
00:43:35.460
things. And, you know, why would you depict violence, uh, in art? Well, because it's part of life, right?
00:43:45.520
And, and art at its best helps you to understand life more. Um, art, if it is art has to reflect
00:43:54.180
life in some way. And, uh, and, and hopefully if it's really good art, you, you, after being exposed
00:44:03.280
to it, whatever kind of art it is, you leave with a somewhat greater insight, um, into certain facets
00:44:09.860
of life. Now, uh, I'm not going to try to flip this around and say that, uh, you know, no, actually
00:44:17.880
Christians have an obligation to go see Joker. That's how good it is. No, I'm not. I wouldn't go quite
00:44:22.060
that far. Um, in fact, I would put this movie aside for a minute because there's a discussion
00:44:27.440
that can be had about whether or not, uh, this movie does engage in glorification or, or of violence.
00:44:34.400
I don't think it does, but it is at least complex enough that you would have to watch it before,
00:44:40.200
before arriving at any sort of informed conclusion. But putting this aside for a minute, um, I just,
00:44:46.780
I think it's a mistake for Christians to retreat entirely from forms of art that deal with difficult
00:44:52.940
things. I think this is a trend in Christianity that's been going on for decades now. I think it's
00:44:58.020
a very bad trend. The attitude that, you know, you should only watch Kirk Cameron movies, uh, or wait
00:45:03.660
for the next, uh, God is not dead installment and watch that sort of thing. Um, we should, you should
00:45:08.760
only listen to the, to the sorts of music that you would, you would hear at a mega church.
00:45:12.060
That attitude is, I think, very damaging, uh, to the faith because it makes Christians,
00:45:19.080
frankly, more shallow, um, and more bland, not to mention less engaged in the culture.
00:45:28.200
Yeah. As it turns out, um, there are actually non-Christian artists out there who have insights
00:45:36.560
to offer, um, who actually have wisdom and artistic brilliance. Even I've, it's no secret that I think
00:45:45.320
Breaking Bad is, uh, the best television show ever produced in history. And, um, Vince Gilligan,
00:45:53.580
the creator of, of that show is not a Christian. I think he might be an atheist actually, um, or
00:45:58.520
agnostic. I'm not sure exactly, but he's certainly not a Christian.
00:46:01.400
And yet, um, he brings more moral insight into that show. And he says more about human nature
00:46:10.620
than any Christian movie ever has. And it's not close. I mean, there, there simply is no Christian
00:46:18.620
movie or show that comes anywhere even close to the depth of moral insight offered by a show like
00:46:24.380
Breaking Bad. Now it doesn't have to be this way. Uh, Christian artists used to have more depth
00:46:33.360
and that was because they, they didn't always try to keep everything PG. And they understood that,
00:46:40.100
um, that not all art has to be appropriate for everyone between, just between the ages of eight
00:46:45.160
and 80. You know, it doesn't have to be that way. There can be adult oriented art that is, is meaningful
00:46:52.180
and good, but deals with difficult things. Dostoevsky, greatest novelist of all time,
00:46:57.220
in my opinion, his books are not for kids. They deal with death and murder and betrayal and adultery
00:47:03.620
and sex, crime and punishment. One of the best novels ever written period, a great Christian novel
00:47:12.000
as well. But it, it starts the very first chapter. It starts with the protagonist on his way to go
00:47:19.320
murder an elderly woman. And the book, uh, describes the, that murder in, in, in gory detail.
00:47:27.760
And it's very upsetting and disturbing and it's supposed to be, but the whole point is you're not
00:47:33.280
going to read that book and come away from it thinking, Oh, I'd like to be, uh, yeah, I I'd be,
00:47:38.440
I'd like to be more like him. I'd, I'd like to do what he did at the beginning. No, that's not,
00:47:42.260
that's you're, you're going to come to the exact opposite conclusion.
00:47:44.560
And, um, so that's, I think that's the important thing. It's after you read the book or watch the
00:47:54.100
movie or watch the show, um, if, if it depicted and dealt with evil things, does it make those evil
00:48:05.160
things seem appealing? Does it make you feel like you want to try that stuff yourself because it looks
00:48:11.420
so cool and everything and sexy and everything based on, uh, based on the way that it was
00:48:15.360
portrayed. There are a lot of movies that do have that effect, which isn't to say that, you know,
00:48:20.960
watching a movie that glorifies violence will cause someone to go and commit violence. It's not a,
00:48:26.140
as I said yesterday, it's the causal relationship is not nearly that clear if there even is any kind
00:48:31.900
of causal relationship, but still it, it, it, it will have a negative influence influence on us
00:48:36.320
psychologically and spiritually to watch things that glorify violence and sin and everything.
00:48:39.980
Um, but if at the end of it, you have the opposite feeling where you feel repulsed
00:48:49.160
and you feel even more determined to avoid making the mistakes and doing the things that you saw the
00:48:55.120
people in the show or the movie doing, then that means that it was not glorified.
00:48:58.460
Um, you know, I, I don't think that anyone could get to the end of Godfather part two
00:49:06.540
when Michael Corleone is, is, is standing there looking out the window as his brother is being taken
00:49:13.720
out, you know, into the lake to be murdered. Uh, and, and, and, uh, you know, and then he's looking
00:49:19.620
over his, his empire that is of just death and destruction where his family's gone. His wife hates
00:49:26.020
him. His kids hate him. His brother's dead. He killed his brother. The other brother's dead.
00:49:29.720
I mean, everyone's dead. Um, I don't think anyone watches that and says to themselves,
00:49:34.980
Oh, I would really like to join the mafia. So not glorification. All right, we will,
00:49:43.020
but thank you for, uh, that email. It's definitely, it's a, it's an interesting discussion. Um,
00:49:47.540
but again, you gotta, you can't really meaningfully participate in this discussion. If you've never
00:49:53.860
watched any of these things, you just don't know what you're talking about. And, um,
00:49:59.500
and that's part of the problem. All right. Thanks everybody for watching. Thanks for listening.
00:50:03.720
If you enjoyed this episode, don't forget to subscribe. And if you want to help spread the
00:50:10.600
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00:50:19.660
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00:50:24.480
Thanks for listening. The Matt Walsh show is produced by Robert Sterling, associate producer,
00:50:28.660
Alexia Garcia del Rio, executive producer, Jeremy Boring, senior producer, Jonathan Hay.
00:50:34.100
Our supervising producer is Mathis Glover and our technical producer is Austin Stevens edited by
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Donovan Fowler. Audio is mixed by Mike Coromina. The Matt Walsh show is a Daily Wire production
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copyright Daily Wire 2019. Hey everybody. It's Andrew Klavan, host of the Andrew Klavan show.
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You know, some people are depressed because the American Republic is collapsing. The end of days is
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approaching and the moon has turned to blood, but on the Andrew Klavan show, that's where the fun just
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gets started. So come on over to the Andrew Klavan show and laugh your way through the apocalypse with