The Matt Walsh Show - Ep. 352 - Maybe We Should Actually Build The Wall

00:00:00.000 So Mexico has descended into a total chaos. I mean, Mexico, of course, has been in a state of

00:00:06.300 chaos for decades now, but descended further, I suppose, is what I mean. The catalyst for this

00:00:12.380 recent wave of anarchy and violence was the Mexican government capturing Ovidio Guzman

00:00:19.180 Lopez, who is one of the most powerful drug lords in the country. Also the son of El Chapo,

00:00:26.040 who recently was arrested, well, arrested for the third or fourth time after escaping each time.

00:00:32.100 Now he's in a federal prison and maximum, maximum security. So Mexican government, 0.66

00:00:38.740 they captured this guy in the northern Mexican city of Culiacan. Hopefully I'm pronouncing that

00:00:43.920 right, but probably not. Well, what led up to this? Well, the immediate events leading up to this,

00:00:48.860 anyway, apparently some drug gang guys started from a house, started firing onto police.

00:00:56.040 In the city of Culiacan, police went into the house, they surrounded it, they found Guzman there,

00:01:02.460 and then they successfully captured him, which is a very impressive accomplishment that they've got,

00:01:08.800 like I said, one of the most powerful drug lords in the country. Well, because this is someone who,

00:01:14.900 you know, wanted to stay in the family business, and so he's a drug lord as well. But then the cartel

00:01:19.280 retaliated, full force, and the city turned into a war zone. And I'm going to play for you just a few 0.90

00:01:25.860 of the sights and sounds out of Mexico over the last 24 hours to give you a feel of what it's been

00:01:32.740 like. So here's, we'll start with this. You can't see much, but you can hear it. So again,

00:01:39.560 sounds, sounds like a war zone. Listen to this.

00:02:09.560 And this video has been circulating a lot on social media. You see gunmen patrolling the streets

00:02:32.340 of the city as if they've taken over, which they basically have.

00:02:49.440 And then here's, here's what it looked, here's what it looked like. We say it was a war zone.

00:02:54.260 Here's what it looked like last night.

00:03:02.340 Okay, now we get to the really sad, pitiful, terrifying part, which is that the government

00:03:29.920 decided to release the drug lord. They released him. They arrested him. The cartel showed up,

00:03:37.160 started shooting everybody. And the government said, okay, you can have him back. Nevermind.

00:03:42.480 And so the cartel wins. This is the kind of thing that happens in a failed state where you no longer

00:03:47.860 have any real system of government. It's just, it's a free for all, which is what it is.

00:03:53.860 The rule of law is completely broken down and criminals are running the show.

00:03:57.800 And that's the situation in Mexico has been for a long time. It's only getting worse.

00:04:01.880 And that leads me to this. Hey, maybe actually the wall is a good idea. I don't know.

00:04:10.180 When you see videos, that's what I wanted to play some of that footage for you.

00:04:13.140 When you see that footage and you think that's what's going on directly south of our border,

00:04:19.260 that's what's happening in the country that is directly to the south of us. And you think, well,

00:04:26.860 maybe building a wall on the southern border makes a lot of sense. When you've got a crime-riddled,

00:04:33.460 cartel-infested, failed state where gunmen patrol the streets with machine guns directly to the south

00:04:40.080 of you, you build a wall. It's not going to solve all the problems, but it makes sense to do that.

00:04:45.500 Might be a good plan. It would be nice if we actually did it, because we haven't yet.

00:04:50.020 The wall has not been built. We have, Trump has replaced some of the existing fence with nicer

00:04:56.060 fence. So we've done that. But that is not quite the big, beautiful wall with the one nice,

00:05:01.440 beautiful door that we were promised. I would like the big wall with the big door. Or maybe no

00:05:05.700 door at all, in fact, would be even better. But we haven't gotten that yet. There really is no

00:05:11.520 argument against this. What are the arguments against building the wall? People have been

00:05:19.040 arguing against it for years, and I don't know what the argument actually is, because there isn't

00:05:24.440 one. It's emotion. The argument is emotion. It's, well, it makes me feel weird to have a wall down

00:05:30.940 there. It makes me feel claustrophobic, kind of closed in. That's not an argument. And so we should

00:05:38.320 just build the wall, in conclusion. All right, let's talk about this case. Really sad, concerning

00:05:45.480 case, especially considering the timing. We have now another situation of a police officer shooting

00:05:53.220 an innocent person in their own home. We're all familiar with the Amber Geiger case. That's the

00:05:58.140 Dallas cop who went into a man's apartment last year, shot him dead, said she thought it was her

00:06:04.300 apartment. She was in the wrong apartment. And rather than try to figure out what's going on

00:06:09.700 or think maybe I made a mistake, she just decided to shoot the guy. Well, now she's going to jail for 1.00

00:06:15.420 10 years. Only a week or so, maybe two weeks after that verdict and sentencing was passed down,

00:06:24.200 we've got something eerily similar in the same general geographic area, though with a few key

00:06:30.120 differences. In this case, Officer Aaron Dean, Fort Worth officer, so like I said, very close to where

00:06:40.180 the Dallas shooting happened, he shot and killed Atitiana Jefferson in her home at two in the

00:06:48.720 morning a few days ago. She was entirely innocent, did nothing wrong. She was apparently in her house

00:06:55.740 staying up late with her nephew playing video games. Next thing you know, she's dead at the hands

00:07:01.380 of a police officer on the job. In some ways, this case is even worse than the Amber Geiger thing

00:07:07.780 because this guy was on the job. In some ways, it makes it even worse. Although I guess it's

00:07:13.740 supposed it's hard to rank it when you've got innocent people being gunned down by the government

00:07:17.660 agents that are supposed to be protecting them. It's hard to rank which is worse. They're all terrible.

00:07:21.400 What led up to it? Well, obviously, there's going to be an investigation. More facts will come out.

00:07:26.920 Dean was arrested, charged with murder. So there's going to be, we don't know everything yet. And all

00:07:32.540 these things are going to come out. But we do know enough to say, I think, that Jefferson certainly

00:07:36.560 did not deserve to be shot. That's for damn sure. We can say that much. So what led up to it? A neighbor

00:07:41.800 of Jefferson noticed that her door had been left open and it was late at night. So the neighbor was

00:07:47.300 concerned. He's just trying to be a good neighbor. And think about how this, they did an interview,

00:07:51.400 with the neighbor. And he was devastated and said he felt like it was his fault, partly his fault,

00:07:56.880 which of course is not his fault at all. He was being a good neighbor. How was he supposed to know

00:08:01.720 the police were going to show up and shoot the woman? But he saw the door open and he was a little

00:08:07.820 bit concerned. So he called a non-emergency number, as I understand it, and said, hey, my neighbor's door

00:08:13.220 has been left open. She doesn't usually leave it open. Not sure what's going on. Can you send someone

00:08:16.780 to check it out? I'm paraphrasing, but that was the vibe. That's generally what he said. So

00:08:20.900 Dean and his partner got the call. They are told that it's an open structure. So it's an open

00:08:26.860 structure call, which, and anyone with law enforcement experience right now, you can

00:08:32.660 probably offer more of an insight into what an open structure call is. And so you can email me with

00:08:36.720 that. I'd be interested. But as I understand it, an open structure call is kind of a vague,

00:08:42.620 non-specific thing, but it does mean that it could be a burglary. So open structure, as in there's a

00:08:51.760 structure that's someone left open and who knows why. Could be bad, could be neutral, who knows.

00:08:59.000 So Dean and his partner show up. They see the door open. They see the lights on in the house.

00:09:07.860 Apparently they see, you know, toys and things around because there's a kid there. Rather than

00:09:14.720 go up to the door, rather than announce themselves, maybe ring the doorbell or shout into the door,

00:09:23.040 hey, is everything okay in there? Rather than doing anything like that, they sneak around back

00:09:28.900 in a poorly lit part of the yard and they try to peer through a window. Now Jefferson inside,

00:09:34.500 try to try to put yourself in her shoes. It's two o'clock in the morning. She's minding her own

00:09:38.900 business. She hears someone outside her house in her yard, right near the window. And so she gets

00:09:48.320 scared, you know, understandably so. And she pulls a gun out of her purse.

00:09:58.480 Keep in mind, this is happening through a window. Okay. So she's in her room. Here's someone outside the

00:10:04.080 window. Window is, as I understand it, closed. There's a glare. Nobody can really see exactly

00:10:09.040 what's happening, what's going on, which means that Jefferson's actions are totally warranted.

00:10:13.640 Again, she's in her house. She knows that there's somebody in her yard. She has every right to assume

00:10:18.320 that they mean her harm. She pulls a gun. Totally an appropriate response. But the officer,

00:10:26.240 on the other hand, also doesn't know exactly what's going on because he can't see.

00:10:29.860 Which means that his actions are completely unwarranted because he has his gun out and he

00:10:38.240 yells, apparently, put your hands up, show me your hands. And seconds later, he opens fire

00:10:42.460 through the window, kills her. Now he's charged with murder. And that put your hands up thing.

00:10:51.400 First of all, I'm not sure that the guy ever announced himself as a police officer.

00:10:56.860 So the quote that I saw in the media was, put your hands up, show me your hands, not

00:11:00.880 police, put your hands up, show me your hands. So when someone starts shouting, when you're in your

00:11:07.800 house in the middle of the night, minding your own business, and all of a sudden you hear someone

00:11:11.800 shouting at you, put your hands up, you, again, have every right to assume they mean you harm and

00:11:18.400 you are under no obligation to obey that order. You don't know who the hell this is or what they want.

00:11:23.020 But you're not going to say, oh, he wants me to put my hands up. I guess I'll do it.

00:11:30.680 But here's the thing. Even if she knew that it was a police officer, which we have no reason to

00:11:36.800 think she did know that. But even if she did hypothetically know that it was a police officer,

00:11:41.700 she still did nothing wrong in having her gun. She has every right to defend herself in her own

00:11:53.500 home. Police officers don't have the right to just come to your home and shoot you. They aren't gods.

00:11:59.340 They aren't kings. They aren't. They are supposed to have laws they obey. And there are laws against

00:12:05.060 that. And this is where the gun some this is where some gun rights advocates seem to take their eye off

00:12:12.740 the ball a little bit, because we hear all the time from gun rights people that, you know, we need we

00:12:19.680 need guns not just to protect ourselves from burglars and bad guys, but to protect ourselves from the

00:12:24.840 government. And in fact, we hear from gun rights people that I am a gun rights person. I say this

00:12:29.360 myself all the time that this is the Second Amendment is not just or even primarily about

00:12:35.900 protecting yourself from fellow citizens. It's about being able to protect yourself from the

00:12:39.540 government. Yet many of those same people would say that if an agent of the government comes with a

00:12:46.920 gun, no matter the context, no matter anything, you have to obey everything they say, even in your own

00:12:55.120 home. And if you don't and you get shot, it's your fault. And this is what confuses me. So what

00:13:02.120 the hell happened to the Second Amendment protecting us from tyranny? It just really confuses me when

00:13:06.720 these people who always are going on about how we need the Second Amendment to protect us from the

00:13:10.700 government. Yet they're the same people who say cops tell you to do something doesn't matter what it is

00:13:16.940 in what context, where you are, you do everything doesn't matter. And if you if you disobey even a

00:13:23.480 little bit and get killed, it's your fault. I am not making a straw man. I'm not exaggerating.

00:13:28.420 That really is the position that a lot of people, unfortunately, on the right have not everybody.

00:13:33.860 But I've had this conversation before. I've gotten emails. That really is how a lot of people feel.

00:13:39.060 If you disobey police officers, it doesn't matter. Any failure to follow orders, you get shot,

00:13:46.420 your fault. It's done. It's kind of amazing. You know, that people can abandon their their support for

00:14:00.740 liberty at the drop of a hat in order to in favor of their more statist impulses. But anyway, I think

00:14:10.540 hopefully we can all agree that she had every right to pull a gun and defend herself in this case. And he

00:14:15.460 had no right to fire blindly through a window into a woman's home and kill her in her own home.

00:14:22.840 I would hope that's not controversial. The crush. The question that's raised, though, is why do these

00:14:29.060 things happen? Yes, we should stipulate, as always, that the majority of cops are good, competent.

00:14:35.900 They aren't going around shooting innocent people. They aren't shooting through windows.

00:14:39.500 They aren't going into guys' apartments and shooting them. This is obviously a small minority of cases.

00:14:45.460 Of course. But we all see the news. We know these kinds of cases do happen. They happen way too

00:14:54.460 often. One time is too often. And they've happened a lot more than once. I think we could agree.

00:15:00.520 So we don't need to get into a contest or exactly how many. The point is, it happens too much.

00:15:10.240 Hopefully we can agree with that. Where people are needlessly killed in situations where the officer

00:15:16.960 involved obviously had other options. Not happening in the majority of cases, but it does happen. Why?

00:15:24.100 Well, it, of course, has been pointed out that Jefferson was black, the officer is white.

00:15:30.860 Just as Geiger is white and her victim was black. So the racial angle has been highlighted,

00:15:37.180 I would say exploited by the media, which we knew was going to happen. I don't think race had anything 0.84

00:15:42.160 to do with this whatsoever. In fact, part of the outrage here is that the officers in both of these

00:15:48.160 particular cases couldn't even really see who it was. They couldn't see what they were doing,

00:15:54.340 which is, which is why partly why they shot because they were scared. And that's also what

00:15:59.720 makes it so outrageous and wrong. But I don't think there's any, it's, we have no idea if, if the

00:16:07.620 officer in this case could even see, um, Jefferson tell anything about her, same for the victim in,

00:16:17.520 in the Amber Geiger case. So I don't think that race really had anything to do with it. I think

00:16:23.300 I'm, I'm in fact, I'm in agreement with the Dallas Morning News today. Uh, they had an article

00:16:28.980 saying that Jefferson's death is a result, first of all, of an officer who didn't follow proper

00:16:33.900 procedure because none of that was proper procedure. He didn't announce himself. He didn't

00:16:38.300 go to the door first, snuck around back in the dark, shooting through a window. That's just not

00:16:43.060 what you do. Um, but second, it also has to do with police training that emphasizes the safety of

00:16:54.380 the officer over the safety of the community. And this is something that I've noticed for a while

00:17:00.600 now. I've commented on it before. People get upset when I talk about it, but it's true. Uh, we, we,

00:17:06.460 we hear all the time, every time a questionable shooting happens and this, this shooting we're

00:17:11.900 talking about now is not questionable. This is a bad shoot period, but, uh, completely wrong and

00:17:16.480 outrageous. But, but anytime there's a bad shoot or a questionable one, what we hear from apologists

00:17:22.220 for the cops is that, well, look, they can't take any chances. They're protecting themselves.

00:17:28.000 That's what we hear. Okay. But maybe they should take a little bit of a chance because not taking

00:17:38.600 a chance is just another way of saying, shoot a civilian just to be safe. Even if it's not

00:17:44.040 strictly speaking necessary, shoot them just to be safe. Shoot first, ask questions later.

00:17:49.120 Um, think of that horrible case in Arizona that we talked about a couple of years ago of a cops

00:18:02.820 gunning a guy down. In this case, it was a white guy. Again, not that the race matters,

00:18:07.360 but they, they gun this guy down in, in, in the middle of a hallway in a hotel while he was crawling

00:18:16.580 on his hands and knees, literally begging for his life. And you had three cops in a hallway,

00:18:24.640 guns trained on this guy while he's crawling on the ground on his hands and knees.

00:18:29.660 And they shot him and killed him. And even in that case, which to me was so obviously outrageous

00:18:41.920 and wrong and was murder. What I heard from apologists was, well, Hey, uh, you know, he,

00:18:48.140 he had it coming cause he, he reached, he reached for his, uh, he reached for his waistband. He could

00:18:51.960 have been going for a gun. And yes, he did reach for his waistband, but that's because his pants were

00:18:57.140 falling down. And he was trying to preserve a little bit of his dignity. He was already on

00:19:02.080 the ground crying, begging for his life while these two, these three agents of the state are

00:19:06.820 shouting at him, giving him contradictory, conflicting orders. It don't make any sense.

00:19:11.500 His pants are falling down. So reflexively he goes to pull up his pants. Yeah. Uh, which,

00:19:18.220 which to me seems perfectly reasonable. And, uh, so they shoot him dead.

00:19:21.260 Now, now you, you, you, you could say, well, he could have, he could have been going for a gun,

00:19:28.380 could have been, can't take any chances. Well, okay. But number one, you can really probably see

00:19:36.520 pretty well. He doesn't have a gun. Uh, number two, you can tell that he's trying to cooperate with

00:19:43.760 you. He is totally submissive. He couldn't be any more submissive. Number three, even if on some

00:19:49.960 off chance, he really did have a gun hidden in his basketball shorts, and he really was going for

00:19:57.120 that gun. Well, he is on his hands and knees. You are standing five feet away from him with your guns

00:20:04.580 already trained on him. There's three of you. You're in a 10 foot wide hallway. Even if he does

00:20:09.320 grab a gun on that off chance, you'll be able to shoot him before he can get a shot off at you.

00:20:15.440 Unless you're the worst shots in the world, unless you are, unless you are, unless you totally skipped

00:20:22.960 all that whole part of police training, that all three of you would somehow miss this guy

00:20:27.540 in a 10 foot wide hallway when he's on his ground, on the ground, uh, hands and knees.

00:20:33.740 So even if he went for it, so you have to think what are the chances percentage wise? What are the

00:20:39.340 chances that he actually is going for a gun and not just trying to pull his pants up? Very small

00:20:43.060 percentage. Even if he has a gun, what are the chances that he could actually do any damage to

00:20:48.640 you before you get a chance to just pull you? Cause he needs to grab his gun, bring it up before you

00:20:54.700 just do this with your fingers. So overall percentage wise, what was the percentage chance

00:21:04.040 that these officers would have been at all physically harmed by this guy?

00:21:07.340 I don't know. Obviously any percentage we put on it is basically arbitrary, but it's a small

00:21:13.520 percentage. 1%. 0.05%. Very small. Um, this idea that police have to protect themselves at any cost,

00:21:24.260 even the cost of killing innocent people just to be on the safe side is to me, the antithesis of what

00:21:29.320 cops are supposed to do. Their job is to protect the community. You don't protect the community by

00:21:34.660 shooting at it. Oh, it's easy for you to say that, Matt. So easy for you to say while you're sitting.

00:21:40.500 Yeah. You know, it is easy for me to say, you're right. It is totally easy for me to say,

00:21:44.140 but I didn't sign up for that job though. So to say, it's easy for me to say, okay, I,

00:21:51.960 I didn't sign up for it. That's not the job I signed up to do. If you signed up to do a job,

00:21:57.280 I think we can expect you to do it without killing innocent people. I think, I don't think that's

00:22:01.180 much too much to ask. Just like, uh, if we talk about negligence among, uh, medical professionals,

00:22:08.620 well, it's really easy for you to say, if you're not a surgeon, that, uh, that surgeon shouldn't

00:22:15.860 have been negligent during a surgery and killed someone really easy for you to say, you don't

00:22:19.900 know anything about being a surgeon. You've never been in that situation. You don't understand how

00:22:24.000 high pressure and how stress it is. Um, so it's easy for you to say, sitting there on your butt,

00:22:29.160 eating Cheetos saying, Oh, that's that surgeon shouldn't have done that. Yeah. It's really

00:22:34.480 easy for you to say, but you aren't the one who signed up for the job of being a surgeon.

00:22:41.540 You're not the one getting paid to do it. You don't get any of the perks and the respect

00:22:45.960 that comes with that job because you don't do it in a, in a, in a society. We expect the people

00:22:54.260 who sign up for a particular job to do that job. And in fact, as citizens, especially when the job

00:23:02.920 is something that has to do with the state and government and authority as citizens in a supposedly

00:23:08.200 free country, we have every right to expect and demand that you do that job without killing

00:23:13.480 innocent people. So this idea that, that, you know, we as citizens should just sit here silently

00:23:20.980 and submissively because, Oh, well, well, you know, we, we're not the ones doing the job.

00:23:25.020 That's not how it works. They're supposed to protect and serve us. They're supposed to work

00:23:30.160 for us. We pay their, we, yeah, I don't do the job. I pay the, for that job though.

00:23:38.320 Um, so the job of a police officer is serve and protect the community. And it seems to me that

00:23:44.100 the emphasis should be on that over protecting, you know, for a police officer, the emphasis should

00:23:52.300 be on protecting the community over protecting himself. Now that doesn't mean that he should

00:23:59.240 have to charge into gunfire unarmed or that he should have to be suicidal or do anything that is

00:24:06.060 reckless or put himself in harm's way for, for, uh, for, you know, reckless reasons. I'm not saying

00:24:14.240 that. I'm just saying that like, Hey, if there's a 95% chance that this person is not a threat and a

00:24:21.660 5% chance that they are. Yeah. Shooting them just in case will make you safer, but maybe don't.

00:24:30.140 Right. I guess that's the way that the way that I would look at it. Um,

00:24:38.820 and there are so, you know, we could go on and on with examples to mirror rice, another classic

00:24:45.260 example, 12 year old child shot and killed by a police officer. He had a fake toy gun. And yet

00:24:51.100 again, you heard, you hear from apologists that, uh, well, Hey, they didn't know it was fake. And,

00:24:56.500 and you know, he, he, uh, he could have been a threat. So they just shot him. All right.

00:25:03.960 Again, though, what are the chances that the 12 year old kid is playing with a real gun on the

00:25:08.520 playground? Not impossible. And, uh, in some parts of the country, that chance is going to be much

00:25:14.880 higher than you would like it to be. It's certainly not a 90% chance. You know, what are the chances?

00:25:20.260 If it's a child with a gun on a playground, what are the chances that it's a real gun versus a fake gun?

00:25:25.480 I mean, at most you can do 50, 50, but it's probably not even that. It's probably more like

00:25:29.800 70, 30, 90, 10. I don't know. And then even if it is a real gun, um, what are the chances

00:25:37.560 that this child will be able to get off a shot at you, you, the trained law enforcement officer

00:25:44.580 before you are able to neutralize that threat?

00:25:48.320 So in that case, I think the cops should have taken the chance and not killed the child,

00:25:57.700 even if it meant that they were putting themselves in harm's way a little bit,

00:26:02.320 because it is just a little bit. But when it's a choice between putting myself in harm's way

00:26:07.680 a little bit or shooting and killing a child, probably you want to put yourself in harm's way.

00:26:15.060 Like, shouldn't we expect that of our law enforcement officers?

00:26:20.620 I mean, isn't that, isn't that why we say, oh, these people are heroes? It's because they

00:26:26.160 put themselves in harm's way. Well, if we're also saying, well, no, don't put yourself in

00:26:28.620 harm's way. Just kill everybody just in case.

00:26:34.280 That, uh, it's just not right. Okay.

00:26:37.640 A couple other things. Um, there's an article in the guardian, not going to spend much time on

00:26:45.900 this, but an article in the guardian that says the, the, the headline is you don't have to settle

00:26:51.300 the joy of living and dying alone. And then it says data confirms more women have realized there 0.53

00:26:59.180 are far worse, worse things than dying alone, which is bad news for the patriarchy. And this

00:27:04.260 whole article is about the, how wonderful and joyful it actually is to, to, to live alone and not have

00:27:11.900 a family and, and all of these things. When I, when I read this article, which is obviously just

00:27:17.680 something it's, it's more sad than anything. This is obviously written by someone who themselves is

00:27:22.760 alone and lonely, um, not capable of forging a meaningful relationship. And that's how they ended

00:27:29.520 up alone like this, because that's really, if you end up alone in life, there are only a few ways to

00:27:34.340 end up alone, totally alone. Um, one is through tragedy and people around you have died or something,

00:27:40.660 which is terrible. That's not what we're talking about here. Uh, or you could, maybe you go into,

00:27:46.360 it could be monastic. You're going into religious life and taking a vow of celibacy. Okay. That's,

00:27:51.600 that's perfectly wonderful. But then if it's not one of those options and you ended up alone in life,

00:27:59.520 probably it's because you are not capable of forming human relationships because you are a

00:28:07.540 selfish, miserable, narcissistic person. And I think that's the category we're talking about with

00:28:13.380 an article like this. Uh, and that is the category that some feminists advocate and celebrate your life 1.00

00:28:24.000 is all about you. Don't worry about anybody else. Just be a miserable, selfish jerk. They don't say

00:28:30.560 that part, but that's implied. It reminded me when I was reading this article, it reminded me of a,

00:28:35.840 of a great quote, um, from, well, from that, that I saw in the movie into the wild, but it was actually

00:28:43.220 a true story. If you've never seen that movie, I think it's a great movie about Christopher McCandless,

00:28:48.980 who's the guy who abandoned society, decided to go on this journey of, of self-discovery and,

00:28:57.120 and burned his social security card and his license and set off across the country, uh,

00:29:02.980 on this huge adventure, ended up in Alaska by himself. And, uh, he ends up getting trapped up

00:29:07.840 there in Alaska in the wilderness, can't get out. And, uh, he ends up essentially starving to death

00:29:12.540 and he dies. And this really happened. They made a movie about it, but, but right before he died,

00:29:16.800 uh, he wrote in a book, in one of his journals, he wrote, happiness is only real when shared,

00:29:25.400 which is, I think a really powerful, especially when you consider what he went through to go through,

00:29:29.860 to, to come to this realization where he was out searching for happiness and fulfillment,

00:29:33.520 but doing it completely alone. And then he died out there alone. And what he realized is,

00:29:40.600 okay, this is, this is, this is great that I can find my own fulfillment, but I don't have anyone

00:29:45.500 to share it with. It's just me. And this is not how people, man is not meant to be alone. We're

00:29:49.860 told in the Bible and that's true. Um, and that's what it comes down to for everyone. You know, the fact

00:29:55.920 is when you see older people who are alone now because they've alienated everyone in their life. 0.95

00:30:05.020 And again, there are, there are older people who are alone for other reasons that are not their fault.

00:30:10.600 But there are, there are some who are alone now because they've alienated everyone because they've

00:30:14.520 been selfish, miserable people their entire lives. And no one wants it. Their, their kids don't want

00:30:18.160 anything to do with them. Their spouses have all left them. Their multiple spouses have left them.

00:30:22.580 And now they're alone. These are not happy people. That is not a recipe for happiness.

00:30:26.080 Unhappiness. That's the definition of unhappiness. That is the picture, the illustration of, of

00:30:33.240 unhappiness. Um, because I think when it comes down to it, we, it's, it's a, it's part of our nature.

00:30:42.180 You know, it's in our nature. We are not capable of being truly happy if we are completely and totally

00:30:48.260 alone. Which is why, in fact, even in those monastic traditions, even where someone's in a religious

00:30:53.920 life and they take a vow of celibacy and they don't have a biological family, they're still not

00:30:58.400 alone. They still are in a community and that community becomes their family and it becomes

00:31:01.980 very important to them. Uh, but as people, we are not, you cannot just live completely alone. You

00:31:07.140 need people. Happiness is a shared experience. Um, finally, oh, well, there was this headline in the

00:31:17.640 Washington Post. It says new study, uh, according to a new study, excessive brain activity is linked

00:31:23.140 to a shorter life, which all I can say is this is great news for Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

00:31:30.600 That's all I had. I just had that one joke. I have nothing else to say about that study.

00:31:33.380 I didn't even read it. Okay. Let's go to emails. MattWalshow at gmail.com. MattWalshow at gmail.com.

00:31:38.480 Um, from Lynn, Lindsay says, hi, Matt, thank you for the discussion on the survey of biologists who

00:31:43.420 nearly unanimously agree that life begins at conception. It was encouraging to hear that,

00:31:47.760 uh, that even though most of the surveyed professionals were either pro-choice, non-religious

00:31:51.900 or Democrat, in fact, most of them were all of those things, uh, Lindsay, they were still able

00:31:56.860 to admit that life begins at conception. My worry is that as conservative pro-life movement convinces

00:32:01.060 more people of this truth, there will, there will still be way too many people who admit to this fact,

00:32:05.320 yet say that a woman's right to choose is more important societally than a pre-born infant's right to

00:32:10.220 what do you think we can do about it when hearts are that hardened? Um, yeah, well, I think actually,

00:32:19.440 Lindsay, that's exactly the direction that the pro-abortion movement is headed. That's the

00:32:24.620 direction that it has to head. That is strategically the, the smartest direction for it to head because

00:32:32.180 they have lost the biological argument. Um, as, as science has progressed and as we've learned more

00:32:40.600 about what happens in the womb and essentially where babies come from and, and, and how babies come

00:32:48.720 about more specifically, as we learn more and more about that, uh, it just continues every step, every

00:32:55.180 discovery just more and more vindicates the pro-life position because what we find is that every single

00:33:01.860 discovery confirms this fact that these are human beings. And so the pro-abortion side has lost the,

00:33:08.660 lost the, um, biological argument. It, the pro-abortion argument, the biological argument for

00:33:16.440 pro-abortion people was a lot more tenable 50 years ago, 60 years ago, 70 years ago. It still was not

00:33:23.080 tenable. It still wasn't a good argument, but it was more tenable than it is now. Now it just doesn't

00:33:27.000 work. So as you point out, I think the, the move is to say, well, okay, fine. It's a human being.

00:33:39.480 It's even a person. It doesn't matter because I'm getting an abortion because it's what I want to do

00:33:46.400 and it's my body and I can do what I want. This is the bodily autonomy argument. That's what this,

00:33:52.020 that's what this is all about. So the scary thing about that argument is that number one,

00:33:58.200 it requires someone to, uh, it requires them to have morally and spiritually descended to this state

00:34:07.780 where to the, into this darkness where they can even admit to themselves. Yeah. You know what?

00:34:13.760 An abortion is, is killing a human life and I'm okay with that because at least when, when, 1.00

00:34:21.180 when you have a pro-abortion person who's trying to argue that, oh, it's not really a human,

00:34:25.180 it's not really a person, that's a bad argument and it's bad that they're making it, but at least

00:34:30.340 it shows that they still recognize at some level that it's wrong to kill humans. And so what they

00:34:35.600 have to do to, to, to rationalize it is pretend that it's not really a human. So that gives you

00:34:42.280 something to work with because that shows that they still have some moral sense within them. They

00:34:46.760 still have some, they still have some moral compass a little bit. They still have a conscience.

00:34:50.480 And so now that gives you something to hold onto, to grasp onto. And to, if you can only really get

00:34:56.680 them to put their defenses down and see it for what it is, maybe you can convince them. But if someone

00:35:00.940 says, I don't care about that, it's just about bodily autonomy. Yeah. That makes it a little bit

00:35:03.740 more, a little bit more difficult to, um, to deal with. And I have, I'm not going to go into a whole

00:35:08.720 30 minute thing about it. I could, I've talked about the bodily autonomy, autonomy argument. I've

00:35:13.340 written about it. I wrote about it in my book a few years ago. I've, I've dealt with it many

00:35:17.400 different places. So you could go look up any of those places where I've talked about it. But the

00:35:21.440 bodily autonomy argument is, it's not a good argument. It's a stupid argument. Um, it just

00:35:27.860 takes, it takes a little bit more nuance to diffuse it as you go through step-by-step to show that it is

00:35:34.980 a, when it comes down to it, still fallacious. Uh, and even with so-called bodily autonomy, you are,

00:35:42.640 it is still murder. You are still killing an innocent, defenseless human. Now, if someone on

00:35:47.980 the pro-abortion side is willing to throw all of that to the side and say, fine, it's a human,

00:35:52.380 fine, it's a person, fine, bodily autonomy, whatever, it doesn't matter. Uh, but yeah, it's

00:35:56.920 murder, fine. I don't care. If they're at that point, then there's no argument anymore you can

00:36:03.960 present. This is someone who has forfeited their soul. And until they make an attempt to reclaim it,

00:36:10.960 there's not much you can say to them. Another way of putting it is once a pro-abortion person

00:36:18.220 is saying that, then you've won the argument. Even if they don't admit it, that's the argument's

00:36:23.300 over. You won. And, uh, that's all. Okay. This from Adam says, what is your opinion of the

00:36:31.000 libertarian argument that discrimination while ethically abhorrent should be protected under

00:36:34.840 the freedom of association clause in the first amendment? Well, there are a few problems with

00:36:39.020 your question, Adam. Um, one problem really, it depends on what kind of discrimination you're

00:36:44.400 talking about and in what context. I don't agree that all discrimination should be, uh, uh, well,

00:36:51.240 I don't agree that all discrimination should be protected under the first amendment. And on the

00:36:55.160 other hand, I also don't agree that all discrimination is ethically abhorrent. It really

00:36:59.240 depends. Keep in mind that discrimination is simply, or can be simply, the act of choosing one

00:37:05.520 thing over another, or even simply recognizing the differences between one thing and another.

00:37:11.180 It is a word related to discernment in this context. So that's what discrimination can just

00:37:16.940 be that. It can also be prejudicial treatment against someone based on race or creed. It all

00:37:23.340 depends on the context. And this is why the idea that I, I don't mean to be, to get into semantics

00:37:29.660 or be, or be pedantic about it, but this is really important because you hear people say,

00:37:33.880 ah, discrimination is evil. Discrimination is terrible. Anti-discrimination, all of this

00:37:38.080 stuff doesn't make any sense. We all discriminate constantly every day, all the time. And most of

00:37:44.640 that discrimination is perfectly ethical, uh, or at least morally neutral. Something as simple as

00:37:51.780 putting on a red shirt rather than a white shirt. That's, that's discrimination. Um, and then there

00:37:58.800 are more, there are more morally engaged forms of discrimination than that, that are still perfectly

00:38:05.960 fine. Just as we go through our lives, right? We make decisions, we choose one thing or another,

00:38:11.000 we come in and that's, that's all discrimination. As for the prejudicial context, prejudicial against

00:38:16.180 race or creed or whatever, I agree that, uh, it's usually unethical, but yes, I do think that in the 1.00

00:38:21.740 context of two private individuals or private entities, it is protected by the first amendment,

00:38:27.480 or at least it should be. Now for the state to treat people prejudicially, that is unconstitutional.

00:38:32.620 That's not okay. We're all guaranteed equal treatment under the law. That's a very important

00:38:36.120 guarantee that we have, and that should be enforced. But if I, for example, walk into a store

00:38:42.000 and the owner of the store tells me to get the hell out because I'm not welcome there for whatever

00:38:46.380 reason, my religion, my race, me personally, he doesn't like whatever it is, that's discrimination.

00:38:52.040 Um, I wouldn't like it. I'd probably be angry about it and embarrassed and I would feel inconvenienced,

00:38:59.020 but I think he should have every right to do that for this reason. He owns his labor.

00:39:08.720 He owns his property. And to say that he must serve me would be to violate freedom of association,

00:39:17.420 freedom of speech, and it becomes a form of forced labor. It is literally forced labor. That's not an

00:39:22.920 exaggeration because this person is being forced by law to provide me with a good or service against

00:39:31.900 his will, uh, which is again, by definition, forced labor. And I think it is obviously therefore in

00:39:39.300 violation of both the letter and spirit of the constitution. And, um, so I, I, I think there are

00:39:49.820 exceptions you could get into and talk about where, for example, it's a matter of life and death. Um,

00:39:58.100 I don't know, there, there, there aren't a lot of examples, you know, so for example, a hospital,

00:40:04.460 uh, can't refuse to save someone's life because they don't like their race or creed or, or, or,

00:40:10.980 or whatever. Um, so that makes sense if it's literally life or death outside of a medical context,

00:40:17.060 I can't think of, at least in modern society, modern American society, society, I can't think of a

00:40:21.700 form of discrimination among private entities, uh, outside of a medical context that would put

00:40:29.500 someone's life in danger. And I'm sure there, there probably are, but so I don't know if somebody

00:40:35.160 is, is just stumbled out of the desert and they're dying of thirst and they come into your restaurant

00:40:41.820 and they, they need a drink. Uh, I think you should not be able to say no, because that would be putting

00:40:47.720 this person's life in jeopardy. So outside of those kinds of scenarios, um, I think people should

00:40:53.120 broadly have the right to refuse service to whoever they want. Let's see. This is from Phil

00:41:00.180 says, dear Supreme bearded overlord, far be it for me to refer to you as anything but flawless,

00:41:05.280 but there's a problem that I must address. Someone, a lackey of some sort, obviously has introduced a

00:41:10.480 typo in your end credits. Senior producer is misspelled as senior S E N O I R producer. I noticed

00:41:17.580 this recently and thought I should bring it to your attention. Your lowly servant, Phil,

00:41:21.400 Phil rest assured that for causing me this humiliation, the person who did that typo has

00:41:27.920 been fired because I do have that kind of authority. And for pointing this out and embarrassing me in

00:41:36.340 public, your penalty upon my ascendancy to the throne will be far worse. Let's just say that there

00:41:43.060 will be firing involved for you, but of a different sort. And there goes my phone, whoever just called

00:41:52.000 me and embarrassed me there too. That person also will be executed. And now that I have, um, uh, again,

00:41:59.540 threatened to execute my own viewers, just a normal Friday. I think we can wrap this up for the day.

00:42:05.060 Thanks everybody for watching. Thanks for listening. Have a great weekend. Godspeed.

00:42:08.080 If you enjoyed this episode, don't forget to subscribe. And if you want to help spread the

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00:42:18.680 on Apple podcasts, Spotify, wherever you listen to podcasts. Also be sure to check out the other

00:42:23.840 Daily Wire podcasts, including the Ben Shapiro show, Michael Knowles show, and the Andrew Klavan show.

00:42:28.860 Thanks for listening. The Matt Wall show is produced by Robert Sterling, associate producer,

00:42:32.860 Alexia Garcia del Rio, executive producer, Jeremy Boring, senior producer, Jonathan Hay. Our

00:42:38.460 supervising producer is Mathis Glover. And our technical producer is Austin Stevens, edited by

00:42:43.620 Donovan Fowler. Audio is mixed by Mike Coromina. The Matt Wall show is a Daily Wire production,

00:42:48.900 copyright Daily Wire 2019.

00:42:50.560 If you prefer facts over feelings, if you aren't offended by the brutal truth, if you can still laugh

00:42:56.220 at the nuttiness filling our national news cycle, well, tune on into the Ben Shapiro show where you'll get a

00:43:00.980 whole lot of that and much more. We'll see you there.

The Matt Walsh Show - October 18, 2019

Ep. 352 - Maybe We Should Actually Build The Wall

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