The Matt Walsh Show - December 12, 2019


Ep. 389 - A Hate Crime The Media Doesn't Want To Talk About


Episode Stats

Length

45 minutes

Words per Minute

172.90668

Word Count

7,871

Sentence Count

545

Misogynist Sentences

22

Hate Speech Sentences

11


Summary


Transcript

00:00:00.000 Well, you know, I always enjoy, um, a, a news cycle focused around a Trump tweet and by enjoy,
00:00:06.520 I mean, it makes me want to jump in front of a cement truck. Uh, but that's, that's the big
00:00:10.920 topic today that Trump trolled Donald Trump, uh, trolled Greta Thunberg on Twitter tweeting in
00:00:17.360 reaction to her winning the person of the, of the year. Trump tweeted so ridiculous. Greta must work
00:00:22.540 on her anger management problem. Then go to a good old fashioned movie with a friend. Chill,
00:00:27.220 Greta, chill. The media saying that this is terrible, evil, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
00:00:35.440 Uh, because he's, uh, he's, I even saw there was at least one blue check Mark on Twitter saying that
00:00:41.120 he should be impeached just based on this tweet alone because he's attacking a child and everything
00:00:48.000 else. And, uh, and some people are pointing to, some people are pointing to, man, I'm, I'm boring
00:00:56.500 myself already just talking about this. Why am I doing it? Uh, well, because there, there, there is
00:01:01.020 a point I want to make, there is a point I want to make about the tweet and I just have to get to it.
00:01:04.220 So bear with me. Some people are pointing to the perceived hypocrisy of the right and Trump
00:01:10.020 attacking a kid while at the same time, the right freaked out last week about that dumb joke that the
00:01:15.380 woman told at the impeachment hearing about Baron Trump. And so they're saying, well, that's hypocrisy.
00:01:19.000 Okay. So here's my point with the stipulation ahead of time that none of this matters at all.
00:01:24.660 My point is that first of all, I, you know, I personally continue to be not a fan of the
00:01:30.900 president trolling on Twitter. I do actually think that presidents should be above that and should have
00:01:36.780 more important things to do. I troll Twitter all the time. So when I bring this up, someone always
00:01:41.820 says, well, what are you doing on Twitter? Yeah, no, I, I troll Twitter all the time. I'm a petty and
00:01:46.880 immature person. Uh, but importantly here, I'm not the leader of the free world. So I like to think
00:01:53.280 that the president has more important things to do than I do. Uh, though, of course that will change
00:01:58.600 when I, as you know, ascend to my, uh, rightful throne. So I'm not a fan of it, no matter what
00:02:04.180 he's saying. I'm just, I'm not a fan. I, I don't think he's winning converts this way. I think more
00:02:08.980 people are turned off by the dumb tweeting than are turned on by it. Well, I hope nobody's turned on by
00:02:14.140 it, but you get what I'm saying? Um, I, I, I think that he's, he's more likely to, uh, repel people
00:02:22.340 than he is to win them. I, I, I don't think that there's anyone, I don't think there's anyone out
00:02:27.180 there saying, you know, uh, I don't really like anything about Trump, but man, that tweeting,
00:02:33.860 I love it. I hate everything about him, but the tweeting I love. On the other hand, there are a lot
00:02:39.360 of people saying, you know, I, I kind of like a lot of the stuff Trump's doing, but the tweeting,
00:02:43.200 I just, I really hate it. So there are a lot of people saying that I don't think there's anyone
00:02:46.420 on the other side of that fence. Maybe there's one or two weird weirdos on that side of the fence.
00:02:51.600 But, um, so I, I just politically, I don't think there's a lot of benefit to it. With that said,
00:02:56.960 when it comes to this attacking a child thing, and look, I, I thought that the conservatives who
00:03:04.200 are fainting over the Baron Trump joke were being extremely dumb and embarrassing. That was just
00:03:09.340 very stupid. There was, there was not a big deal. They weren't, nobody was attacking Baron Trump,
00:03:13.500 but there is a difference between going after a kid who's not in politics and going after a kid who
00:03:23.000 is an activist out on the public stage, making a case, making an argument. And it's important to
00:03:30.920 acknowledge this distinction because the left's move has been recently, especially whether it's
00:03:36.420 with Greta or David Hogg or whoever else, the move has been to elevate these kids to the spotlight,
00:03:42.220 use them as mouthpiece pieces, insist that we all take their ideas seriously.
00:03:47.800 And even to point to them as an example of why the voting age should be lowered to 16,
00:03:52.300 because that would look how competent and insightful and intelligent these kids are.
00:03:56.240 But then when we criticize, then they go, well, how dare you? She's a child, you monster.
00:04:03.920 Well, if you're going to do the, she's just a child thing, then stop expecting me to take her
00:04:09.660 seriously and get her off the stage. You can't have it both ways. And this is why I'm firmly against
00:04:16.500 getting kids involved in politics. I don't like to see kids getting attacked,
00:04:20.920 whoever they are. I don't care who they are. I don't, I don't like to see it. But when you put
00:04:27.320 a kid on the public stage to argue a case, to get involved in the public debate,
00:04:31.700 um, and especially when you're using that kid, as was the case with David Hogg, who's not a kid
00:04:38.780 anymore, but when you're using the kid as a means to argue for taking away people's constitutional rights,
00:04:46.240 well, then you are putting that person in the line for criticism.
00:04:53.580 And there is a line between just attacking somebody and criticizing them. But the problem
00:04:59.480 is that the left says you can't criticize or attack, you know, attacking is wrong, but criticizing
00:05:03.540 is wrong too. You can't do that. You just can't. This person's making an argument. It doesn't matter
00:05:07.760 how old they are. I'm going to respond to it. If, and if you don't think that the child should be
00:05:15.580 involved in that kind of dispute, if you don't think that we should be taking the argument seriously
00:05:21.900 enough to criticize it, then probably that person shouldn't be on the stage making the argument in
00:05:29.020 the first place. That's the point. And so get kids off of the stage. Uh, and, and I, I don't like it
00:05:39.240 when the right does it either. They do it less often. It does happen sometimes, but I don't care
00:05:45.200 if it's right or left. I don't think kids should be. And, and also I just, a kid doesn't know anything
00:05:55.960 about politics or about the way the world works. I have never, and I say this with all due respect.
00:06:03.200 I was a kid once myself, but I've never heard a 14 or 15 or 16 year old say anything that made me go,
00:06:12.240 Oh wow. I never thought of it like that. Well, that's, that's a great insight. I've never heard
00:06:17.000 that. And maybe on occasion, there's a really super insightful, brilliant 16 year old who says
00:06:23.240 stuff like that. But for the most part, they just don't know anything. They're still at a,
00:06:28.380 at a point in life where they're learning from us. They're turning to us to tell them things,
00:06:32.600 which is what kids do. Um, but it's, it's, and that's why we, we don't, we don't, but,
00:06:43.680 but when the left puts these, these kids on the pedestal, it's not because they've got some great
00:06:49.200 insight into the, the issue. It's because they're using the kids as human shields.
00:06:56.260 These kids are, uh, puppets. We're agurgitating the talking points that the left assigns to them.
00:07:03.500 And then the left hides behind these kids because we're not allowed to respond because then we'd be,
00:07:10.620 we'd be attacking a child. I am, uh, just not a fan of that at all. Okay. Enough of that. In fact,
00:07:15.240 I do have an actual important story to discuss today before, before we, uh, before we do that,
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00:08:38.160 right. Okay. So there was a mass shooting on Tuesday, a hate crime that left six people dead,
00:08:47.100 including a police officer. The two shooters were both killed as well. Probably haven't heard much
00:08:52.460 about it. Maybe you've heard something about it. Hopefully you've heard something at least, but,
00:08:56.280 but not much. Uh, the media is not focused very intently on this story. Let's try to figure out
00:09:02.980 why. First, let's look at what happened. A kosher supermarket in New Jersey, uh, in Jersey city
00:09:07.640 actually was targeted, shot up, uh, three Jewish customers that grocery were killed. When police
00:09:13.880 responded, there was a shootout and it was during the shootout that the cop was killed. And finally,
00:09:19.060 thankfully the suspects were taken down. Tragic story. Also pretty dramatic. It's the kind of thing
00:09:26.620 that you'd think would be big headline news, except there's a problem from the media's perspective.
00:09:34.000 The problem is that the assailants are linked to the black Hebrew Israelites. The black Hebrew
00:09:40.300 Israelites are essentially a cult, an antisemitic racist cult. Uh, and as it says right there in the
00:09:47.140 title there, these are black people. So you have two black people committing a racist antisemitic hate
00:09:52.820 crime. And they are linked to a hate group, a black supremacist hate group. The media doesn't
00:09:58.380 want any part of that now. And maybe you've, if I don't know how widespread these people are. I know
00:10:05.300 that I see them in Baltimore, you see them in DC all the time and they stand on the street corner,
00:10:11.460 just shouting at people going by shouting racist stuff to white people walking by. That's their whole
00:10:15.940 thing to make matters even worse for our, for our, uh, warriors of truth in the media, this group,
00:10:22.740 the black Hebrews, you may remember that name. Maybe it's from seeing them on the sidewalk screaming
00:10:29.820 at you, or maybe it's because they were the people who started the altercation in DC that was blamed
00:10:36.200 infamously by the media on the Covington Catholic kids. So you remember that, of course, we got that
00:10:42.500 out of context clip of Nathan Phillips banging his drum in the face of Covington kids. Uh, and then next
00:10:49.580 thing, you know, the media is going after these kids and there's bomb threats and death threats
00:10:53.180 and everything. And they're trying to destroy their life. What we didn't see initially is that
00:10:57.080 the black Hebrew guys got the ball rolling by screaming racist, anti-gay, anti-white, anti-Native
00:11:04.400 American rhetoric at the Covington kids and at the Native Americans. And so they're the ones who got
00:11:09.500 this altercation going. Someone went, cut all of that out and just left it with a short clip of the
00:11:15.720 kids and the Nathan Phillips. And they got blamed for something that was the fault of, uh, the black
00:11:21.440 Hebrews. And now we have the same group linked to a terror attack, a hate crime in New Jersey.
00:11:29.020 And so for the media, this is, this is bad news because it doesn't hit, doesn't fit the narrative.
00:11:35.860 Uh, it doesn't fit what they're trying to do politically. And it also brings to mind
00:11:39.540 one of the worst things they ever did, which was to completely slander, uh, these Covington
00:11:48.320 Catholic kids and try to destroy them for something that they did not do. So that's why the media
00:11:54.320 doesn't want to emphasize this. And when I say doesn't want to emphasize this, because I brought
00:11:58.280 this up yesterday online and, um, some people responded saying, well, what do you mean? I, I saw the
00:12:05.160 media covering this. Yeah, of course they're going to cover it. That's not how fake news works. Yes.
00:12:10.000 They're going to cover. They're going to, they're going to, they're going to do their, they're going
00:12:13.700 to cross the T's and dot the I's and they're going to do their story about it. So you can always claim
00:12:19.200 and they can always claim that, Hey, we did, we did stories on it. What are you talking about? See,
00:12:23.780 uh, the point is on the emphasis it's about, and that's what so much of what fake news is. It's what
00:12:29.020 do they choose to emphasize and what do they choose to de-emphasize? And on this story, yeah,
00:12:34.840 they're, they don't have any choice, but to talk about it. Obviously it's a mass shooting. It's a
00:12:38.460 hate crime in New Jersey. What else are they going to do? But they're, they're not going to emphasize
00:12:43.620 it the way that they would, if this was a white supremacist group, um, that was responsible for
00:12:51.900 this. And that's, that's fake news. Okay. I thought this was pretty interesting. Uh, reading now from the
00:13:00.180 daily wire, it says the women's liberation front, W O L F or Wolf, I suppose for short,
00:13:09.100 a group that views itself as a radical feminist organization wants to hold an event at the Seattle
00:13:15.060 public library, but the library is considering the complaints of another group that calls Wolf
00:13:19.340 a hate group. And that group is not some kind of Christian group or right-wing group, but the
00:13:26.460 gender justice league, which my Northwest host, Jason Rantz terms a far left LGBT group. They're
00:13:33.420 upset because Wolf's events titled fighting the new misogyny, a feminist critique of gender identity
00:13:39.360 intends to offer quote, a critical analysis of a gender identity of gender identity. Rantz notes that
00:13:45.100 Wolf dislikes, uh, instances where biological women are disadvantaged by trans women, thus the
00:13:51.240 gender justice league. So we've got the women's liberation front versus the, the gender justice
00:13:57.100 league. Can we stop for a minute and focus on gender justice league? Quite a name for an organization.
00:14:04.680 Uh, imagine unironically putting justice league in your, in the name of your organization. Thus the
00:14:11.840 gender justice league granted the end result of a hate group using the library as a venue
00:14:16.940 to critique the existence of a minority group creates a hostile environment and is unacceptable.
00:14:23.420 The gender justice league wrote, uh, we recently find out, found out that an anti-trans organization
00:14:28.080 has booked an event at the Seattle public library with the express purpose of arguing to take away
00:14:33.040 legal rights for trans people. The library has put out an immediate response to continue to look at
00:14:37.420 their options of the situation. And then the gender justice league added a legal threat as well. And so
00:14:43.620 anyway, you get the idea there, uh, they're trying to shut down this event. And so what you see here is
00:14:49.860 the, the, the burgeoning civil war on the left between what I guess we now would call radical feminists
00:14:58.320 and, um, and the people who are proponents of, of the gender ideology and gender identity.
00:15:04.760 But think about what's happened here where now it is, you're a, you're a radical feminist.
00:15:14.060 If you simply take the position that only human beings with female reproductive organs are in fact,
00:15:23.120 women, that is now a radical feminist position to take. But these are, uh, and, and I'm, I'm no,
00:15:33.900 I'm certainly no defender of feminism by any stretch of the imagination, but these feminists and, and
00:15:40.560 they, they, I, I have no doubt that they are radical in other areas. If we, if we started talking about
00:15:46.500 abortion, I'm sure that their, their true radical nature would come to the forefront. But what they're
00:15:51.680 saying about the trans stuff is not at all radical. That's just science. But also what they realize
00:15:59.100 is that this group of, of feminists, and I think it's a relatively small group within the larger
00:16:03.580 feminism. Um, but what, what, what they're doing is they're trying to preserve and protect the gains of
00:16:13.420 feminism over the last several decades. Many of those gains I'm, I'm not a fan of, and, and I would like to see
00:16:22.600 them lose those gains, such as the gain, the quote gain of being able to kill children. But they do
00:16:28.800 realize that what's happening with the gender identity stuff, gender ideology is that all of that
00:16:36.300 now is threatened because what feminists have been doing, it's, it's, it's all about drawing this
00:16:44.280 distinction between men and women. It's about painting, you know, women as, as victims. Um,
00:16:51.580 it's about this, creating this tension, this competitiveness between men and women. Um,
00:16:58.400 you know, uh, presenting women as a, as a, as a group that is, uh, has to struggle against this other
00:17:05.460 group of men, the patriarchy and everything. In order for any of that to work and make sense,
00:17:12.380 we need to know what women are. And it needs to be the case that only women can be women,
00:17:19.620 because if men can now be women, then everything feminists have been doing is blown to smithereens.
00:17:27.220 So, um, you've got these two groups now destroying each other. And it's, it's a, it's a weird situation
00:17:36.660 for someone like myself or anybody on the right, because on one hand, I think radical
00:17:42.280 feminists are what they stand for is vile and evil, destructive. Uh, these are often just,
00:17:52.140 I don't think there's any word for it, but bloodthirsty people. When you look at their
00:17:56.920 approach to their, their utter disregard for the unborn and their support for killing babies at any
00:18:03.440 stage of development for any reason, it's vile, violent, bloodthirsty, brutal, barbaric. So on one
00:18:13.100 hand, there's that on the other hand, when it comes to the gender stuff, they're absolutely right.
00:18:19.960 Uh, so I don't know, I don't know who to root for. I guess it's one of those, you just root for both
00:18:26.120 sides to lose, I suppose. All right. So I'm late to this, but I was speaking of feminism.
00:18:31.440 I was reminded about it yesterday when Emily Zanotti, a colleague of mine at the daily wire
00:18:35.380 tweeted about it. It's the woke version, the woke version of baby, it's cold outside. John Legend
00:18:40.840 and Kelly Clarkson recorded a progressive version of the song because they were concerned that the
00:18:45.780 original is offensive in the me too era. So you're familiar probably with the criticism of the
00:18:50.620 original baby. It's cold outside. People say that it sounds like the man is trying to violate the
00:18:55.360 woman's consent, all of that. When, when really in reality, it's just a song about a man and woman
00:19:01.080 flirting. The woman is playing hard to get. She's clearly dropping hints that she wants to stay and
00:19:06.100 the man's trying to convince her. And so it's this back and forth flirtatious, flirtatious thing.
00:19:12.120 That's the song. These days though, it's, it's problematic. So they, uh, they did this new version
00:19:18.840 and I heard it about a month ago and I thought it was hilarious. Really? I laughed hysterically and then I
00:19:24.800 forgot about it, but it really is very funny unintentionally. So I don't know if you've
00:19:30.120 heard it yet, but I want to play, I want to play a part of it for you. And so that we can all enjoy
00:19:35.120 this together. Take a listen.
00:19:36.440 I really can't stop. Baby, it's cold outside. I've got to go away. I can call you a ride. This evening has been so
00:20:06.420 time spent with you. It's paradise. My mama will start to worry. I'll call the car and tell them to hurry. My daddy will be pacing the floor. Wait, what do you still live at home for? So really I'd better scare you. Your driver, his name is Murray. Oh, we're both adults, so who's keeping score? What will my friends think? Oh, I think they should.
00:20:36.400 Rejoice. If I have one more dream. It's your body and your choice. Oh, you really know how to despair. Your eyes are like starlight now. One look at you and then I fail.
00:20:53.880 If I ought to say no, no, no, no. Then you really ought to go, go, go. At least I'm gonna say that I tried. Well, Murray, he just pulled up outside. I really can't stay. I understand, baby. Baby, it's cold outside.
00:21:12.880 Yeah, I love that. That's great. I love it for none of the reasons that John Legend probably intended because it's another example of trying to go woke but going broke instead. It's another example of something getting woked even though it wasn't broke.
00:21:31.860 And now you end up with a progressive version of a song that's less progressive than the version it's trying to improve. So they tried to make it unsexist and they ended up with something that's way more sexist than what was originally there.
00:21:44.700 Because now, rather than the man pursuing the woman and the woman playing hard to get and dropping hints at everything, which is what the original song is, now, because they didn't change the woman's lines in the song, right, it sounds like, isn't it, I don't think the lines changed at all.
00:22:02.000 So she's still saying the same things. It's the same lines. So now you've got the woman dropping hints, saying that she wants to stay, but, you know, she shouldn't stay, she kind of wants to stay, while the fed up man is trying to kick her butt out.
00:22:18.000 So the whole song is the woman saying, gee, I really shouldn't stay, but, you know, maybe. And the man going, no, no, no, no, you should definitely leave. Definitely just, no, seriously, go. Just go.
00:22:30.760 Are you sure? Because, I mean, I shouldn't stay, but, no, yeah, I'm definitely sure. Please, just, please. I mean, I've already called you an Uber. Just please get the hell out.
00:22:38.340 Meanwhile, he calls her an Uber, and the Uber driver, Murray, poor guy, is outside freezing his butt off, waiting, while this chatty woman keeps going on and on and on about all the reasons she can't stay, but she really wants to.
00:22:52.420 So there are a few ways to interpret this, and none of them are particularly progressive. One is that the girl is a mistress, and the dude's trying to get her out before his wife comes home.
00:23:03.380 And that seems to be the working theory among most people on the internet. The other is that he's just annoyed with her, and is not into it, and trying to get her to leave.
00:23:12.900 And the other theory is, the other possibility is maybe he's paranoid in the Me Too era, and he doesn't want to express any desire for her, because he's afraid that he'll be accused of assault.
00:23:23.100 And so, you know, none of the, I don't think any of that is what they were going for when they made this song.
00:23:28.440 So I tend to think of those options, it's probably the second one. He's not into it, she is, and now he just wants this girl to leave.
00:23:36.980 My favorite line, you heard at the end there, is when the girl says, I ought to say no, no, no, and then the guy goes, then you should really go, go, go.
00:23:47.120 You see what they've done? Rather than the man pursuing the girl who's interested, now we've got a girl pursuing the man who is not interested.
00:23:55.320 So now it's like we're eavesdropping on a super awkward conversation after a date didn't go well.
00:24:02.120 It went from a love song to an anti-love song, and that is completely fantastic.
00:24:09.180 All right, before we get to some emails, you know, this holiday season, do your friends and family a solid by getting them a Daily Wire gift membership.
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00:25:00.440 Emails, mattwalshow at gmail.com, mattwalshow at gmail.com.
00:25:06.020 This is from Kevin, says, Matt, the porn podcast is the first podcast I've ever even slightly disagreed with you on.
00:25:11.820 I absolutely agree it should be regulated, but banned I disagree with.
00:25:16.440 Maybe that's a bit libertarian of me as a self-described conservative, but here are a few things in society that we regulate,
00:25:22.140 but have no positive good to society and could potentially be banned based on this same reasoning.
00:25:27.700 Number one, probably the most directly applicable, violent video games.
00:25:32.320 You did a podcast on this yourself not long ago. Should they be outright banned or should we have better restrictions on them?
00:25:37.920 Number two, cigarettes slash cigars. There's no positive in my opinion.
00:25:41.040 They're harmful to the user as well as non-users in the vicinity.
00:25:44.560 Now, you could make the argument that like alcohol, nicotine has a calming, relaxing effect on the user,
00:25:48.420 but many porn viewers could make the same claim about masturbation.
00:25:52.080 You could make the argument that nicotine has certain side effects that help with anxiety and attentiveness,
00:25:56.300 but the porn defenders could also make the argument that masturbation is good for prostate health.
00:26:02.140 I don't mean to come off like I'm defending porn.
00:26:04.560 Again, I absolutely agree that we should be far more strict about regulating it.
00:26:09.040 I think we're reaching an era with the internet where users, and more importantly parents,
00:26:12.920 have far better controls over what they and their kids can and cannot access or be unwillingly exposed to.
00:26:18.940 The internet blindsided the boomer generation with no idea what content was available, how available it was,
00:26:26.180 how to control it, what effect it might have on their children.
00:26:29.000 Today, we have controls at our fingertip, and I think, I hope, I pray,
00:26:31.780 parents will use the tools at their disposal to shield their kids from pornography and violent video games
00:26:35.500 and cigarettes and drugs and alcohol.
00:26:36.880 But ultimately, I think it's up to the family, not the government, to raise our children.
00:26:41.360 Okay, Kevin, first of all, the point you make about our parent, you know, as a millennial, I'm the same age as you,
00:26:48.580 so our parent's generation blindsided by the internet, I think it's very true.
00:26:54.380 It's a very unique, not unprecedented, but very unique time in history when this new technology exploded onto the scene.
00:27:03.160 And nobody, except for people who are working in the industry, you know, knew all about this.
00:27:09.380 Most of the people in society didn't see it coming.
00:27:13.560 And so parents were scrambling in real time trying to figure out how to deal with this new thing that's taken over the world.
00:27:23.160 And it really was.
00:27:24.340 I mean, I can remember, I still remember the first time I ever encountered the internet.
00:27:30.920 And I was in, I don't know, I was in elementary school, I don't remember when, maybe third or fourth grade.
00:27:35.080 And I was at a friend's house, and he had a computer.
00:27:38.220 I didn't have a computer at the time.
00:27:39.700 I knew what it was, at least.
00:27:41.320 I knew what a computer was, didn't know what the internet was.
00:27:44.560 And I guess he had AOL 1.0.
00:27:46.480 And that was when the entire internet was contained.
00:27:49.460 You remember AOL, I think my first AOL was 3.0 when we finally got it at our house.
00:27:55.340 But even then, the entire internet is contained on this one home screen.
00:28:00.120 And remember, you could go, you could click here for sports, if you want news.
00:28:04.640 Then there's a kids section where you go play games or whatever, or whatever you did there, I don't remember.
00:28:11.500 And that's what the internet was.
00:28:13.580 And then within just a few years, it became this massive other universe that was slowly encroaching on.
00:28:23.500 And devouring our universe.
00:28:26.700 Whereas now, the two are indistinguishable.
00:28:31.300 So that's kind of neither here nor there.
00:28:34.560 But I think you're right in the situation that our parents' generation faced.
00:28:40.920 And at least we're a little bit more prepared for it.
00:28:42.840 But as for your arguments, I think we can always get into the, what about this, what about that game?
00:28:50.080 So even if you're right about that these other things you mentioned are similar in their corrupting influence,
00:28:56.660 I don't see how that in itself is an argument against banning porn.
00:29:03.040 And as for the things you mentioned, I think both of them, alcohol too, like someone said yesterday, and as you mentioned,
00:29:10.200 those things are not intrinsically disordered the way that pornography is.
00:29:16.960 They are not perverse.
00:29:19.480 They do not corrupt psychologically and emotionally the way pornography does.
00:29:24.660 They are not an affront to the dignity of the participants and the viewers in the same way.
00:29:30.180 And on and on.
00:29:30.760 I just, I think they're not the same.
00:29:33.280 I think that they're not even really similar.
00:29:35.220 Video games.
00:29:35.780 I think most video games in moderation are fine.
00:29:39.300 Some of them do go overboard on the violence, certainly.
00:29:41.720 I'm not a fan of that.
00:29:43.440 But again, I don't think it's the same as pornography.
00:29:45.180 And that stuff is already regulated.
00:29:47.960 There has to be ratings and everything.
00:29:49.800 And the way it's supposed to work is you can't be, you're not supposed to be able to be,
00:29:53.540 a 12-year-old shouldn't be able to go to the store and buy a video game that has the M label on it.
00:30:00.220 So it's not exactly the same.
00:30:02.700 Tobacco.
00:30:03.100 Well, here, obviously, again, we have something that is very heavily regulated.
00:30:09.380 And those regulations have succeeded in preventing most kids from smoking cigarettes and certainly cigars.
00:30:17.040 This is a good example, actually.
00:30:19.760 Because we talk about politics is downstream from culture.
00:30:23.560 And I agree.
00:30:24.240 I say that all the time.
00:30:25.320 I think it's true.
00:30:26.920 But politics can also influence the culture.
00:30:30.620 And as conservatives, I think we get so hyper-focused on how to change the culture, you change politics.
00:30:36.660 Meanwhile, we're not changing the culture.
00:30:38.440 We're failing utterly in that regard.
00:30:40.220 So we're not changing anything.
00:30:41.920 We're saying, oh, there's no point in trying to change things through government.
00:30:44.360 Won't work anyway.
00:30:45.680 Let's focus on the culture.
00:30:46.860 Okay, well, when are we going to get around to doing that?
00:30:49.100 Because we're not doing that either.
00:30:50.020 We're just changing nothing while the entire culture moves on without us.
00:30:54.900 But it's also a mistake.
00:30:57.800 Because, yeah, you don't want to focus.
00:31:00.900 You don't want to see government as the ultimate end here, the ultimate goal.
00:31:07.840 And it is true that culture is ultimately what determines things.
00:31:12.400 But laws and politics and government, they can have an influence on culture.
00:31:16.740 I think that the cigarettes is a great example of this.
00:31:21.200 Our parents' generation, right?
00:31:23.300 When they were kids, everybody smoked cigarettes.
00:31:26.120 And it was cool.
00:31:27.140 It was the coolest thing to do.
00:31:27.980 And then you have all these laws and regulations and all these campaigns and PSAs and trying
00:31:36.220 to focus on getting kids to stop smoking cigarettes.
00:31:38.580 Cigarettes aren't cool.
00:31:39.520 They'll kill you.
00:31:40.060 They're bad for you.
00:31:41.000 And it took some time, but it actually worked.
00:31:44.500 And if you look at the numbers now, people still smoke cigarettes.
00:31:47.360 But the vast majority of cigarette smokers are older.
00:31:49.800 They're the people who, in previous generations, had started smoking.
00:31:53.980 Most kids aren't smoking cigarettes.
00:31:55.940 So it does have an effect.
00:31:57.100 Now, as I've said before, though, you're probably not ever going to stop kids from
00:32:01.360 smoking something.
00:32:03.120 So now, yeah, they don't smoke cigarettes, but there are a lot more people smoking weed
00:32:06.440 now, I think.
00:32:07.860 And vaping certainly is very popular as well.
00:32:12.580 But I'm not convinced with vaping.
00:32:14.100 I'm not convinced that that's the same kind of serious health drawback that, you know,
00:32:19.500 cigarettes have.
00:32:20.640 I don't think there's enough literature to demonstrate it.
00:32:23.180 But again, tobacco in and of itself is not an evil thing.
00:32:28.000 It's not perverse and corrupting and degrading in the same way.
00:32:32.040 It's just not the same.
00:32:34.140 It can be very dangerous, obviously.
00:32:37.200 But with tobacco, alcohol, sugar, fast food, chocolate, video games, all of those things,
00:32:43.580 we're talking about things that are basically harmless in moderation, even tobacco.
00:32:50.400 I smoke a cigar like once a month, right?
00:32:54.140 I can't sit here and say it's never going to have a health drawback, but I'll probably
00:32:57.440 be fine.
00:32:58.480 It's not enough volume to do much damage.
00:33:02.000 And, you know, same with having fast food.
00:33:06.000 It's probably better if you never eat at McDonald's.
00:33:08.880 It's not like it's healthy to eat at McDonald's.
00:33:10.600 But if you have McDonald's once every few weeks, you'll probably be okay.
00:33:15.860 Unless you develop some other health problem, some digestive issue where that's going to
00:33:21.500 exacerbate it, then that's different.
00:33:22.980 But for a normal, healthy person, have McDonald's every once in a while, it's not a big deal.
00:33:26.440 So I think these are things that are basically harmless in moderation.
00:33:32.160 They're not intrinsically disordered or corrupting or evil.
00:33:36.180 And they don't have any kind of traumatic effect on kids just by being exposed to them.
00:33:41.560 So a kid has a Happy Meal one time.
00:33:43.520 It's not going to ruin his life.
00:33:44.620 It's not going to affect him emotionally and psychologically.
00:33:48.860 You know, a kid even has a cigarette one time.
00:33:51.500 It's not going to have that effect.
00:33:52.660 But I think that pornography is different just by its nature.
00:33:58.740 And so that's going to continue.
00:34:00.120 And I've gotten this argument from people many times.
00:34:04.440 What about this?
00:34:05.360 What about that?
00:34:06.060 Why aren't we banning this?
00:34:07.460 And my response is always going to be, I don't think those things are the same.
00:34:13.540 I think that pornography is a different kind of thing.
00:34:18.080 From Thomas says,
00:34:19.320 Hi, Matt.
00:34:19.720 There's been a lot of talk of a new civil war.
00:34:21.980 My question for you is twofold.
00:34:23.800 Do you think that that's where we are headed?
00:34:25.460 And what is your take on the first civil war?
00:34:27.180 Was it really fought over slavery or is that an oversimplification?
00:34:31.340 Well, Thomas, as to your first question,
00:34:32.800 no, I don't think we're going to fight any kind of civil war in this country anytime soon.
00:34:36.400 Keep in mind, a civil war is, well, a war.
00:34:39.900 It involves two sides, two armies meeting on the battlefield.
00:34:43.260 So I don't see that happening.
00:34:44.160 We don't have millions of people amassing into armies on either side and getting ready for coordinated campaigns against each other.
00:34:53.840 That's not happening.
00:34:54.920 Where we are headed, I think, is civil unrest.
00:34:58.440 Not civil war, but civil unrest.
00:35:00.560 So I could see a situation like what we saw in Ferguson and Baltimore, the stuff that Antifa is doing.
00:35:06.980 I could see something where that becomes much more common, widespread, more violent, more devastating, has a larger impact.
00:35:14.760 I could see that happening.
00:35:15.800 In fact, I sort of think it's inevitable that we are headed there, unless there's some massive, miraculous, sudden cultural shift.
00:35:23.800 I think that's where we're headed, but not to actual war, I don't think.
00:35:27.820 Now, as for the actual civil war, the first civil war, as you call it,
00:35:32.000 yeah, it would be an oversimplification to say that it was fought over slavery, in my view.
00:35:35.700 It would also be an oversimplification to say that it wasn't fought over slavery.
00:35:40.820 So either thing is an oversimplification.
00:35:43.300 There's no question that one of the primary motivations of the southern states in seceding,
00:35:49.200 especially the first batch of seceding states, so South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Texas,
00:35:56.020 there's no question, especially for them, that slavery was a primary concern.
00:36:05.160 Now, for the later states, Virginia, Tennessee, North Carolina, I think it's a little bit more complicated.
00:36:13.300 But all of the states issued articles of secession, and four of the early states, Texas, Mississippi, Georgia, South Carolina,
00:36:23.820 they issued something called, documents called a declaration of causes.
00:36:28.240 And these four documents, all, that's a declaration of causes.
00:36:32.180 They're telling us what caused them to make this split.
00:36:36.940 And all of them prominently cite slavery as a reason, a cause.
00:36:41.620 So there's no getting around it.
00:36:43.740 The people who claim that it was all states' rights, it was nothing to do with slavery,
00:36:48.040 I mean, you can't claim that, because we have primary sources of these states saying,
00:36:53.500 yeah, slavery is a reason.
00:36:54.800 Not the only reason, but a big reason.
00:36:58.620 So you do have that.
00:36:59.660 I think there's this reaction.
00:37:01.920 You've got this oversimplification that happens, especially in the school system,
00:37:05.320 where it was all about slavery, and all the Confederates are a bunch of evil scumbags.
00:37:09.200 So there's a reaction to that, where we oversimplify on the other side,
00:37:14.340 and say, no, slavery didn't have anything to do with it whatsoever.
00:37:16.760 These were, no, no, no, no.
00:37:17.600 So, no, we can't do that.
00:37:19.780 And if you do any kind of research into the history of it,
00:37:24.280 you can't escape the fact that slavery was all over this conflict.
00:37:29.760 It was definitely an issue, a big one.
00:37:33.080 Now, does that make it a simple slavery-caused-it sort of thing?
00:37:37.460 Can we just say the war was over slavery?
00:37:39.400 No, absolutely not.
00:37:40.180 For one thing, there were other causes cited by these states,
00:37:43.120 and the other states that joined as well.
00:37:45.700 They were upset about political things.
00:37:46.980 They were upset that Lincoln was elected.
00:37:48.580 They were upset about, they were concerned with states' rights.
00:37:51.300 They were.
00:37:51.780 There were issues relating to tariffs and taxes and the economy.
00:37:56.180 More broadly speaking, culture.
00:37:59.060 I think, essentially, these two, this North and the South,
00:38:02.080 had already turned into two different countries, basically, in their culture.
00:38:06.680 And so these were two sides looking at each other,
00:38:09.360 and they just felt like they had nothing in common, culturally,
00:38:12.240 and no interest in sticking together for that reason.
00:38:14.860 Also, we have to distinguish between the causes of secession
00:38:20.040 and the causes of the war, which aren't necessarily the same.
00:38:25.040 Early in the war, right up until the aftermath of Antietam,
00:38:28.780 which was, so right, Antietam was fought in, I think, September of 1862.
00:38:35.860 So up until that point, the war was most certainly, most emphatically not about slavery.
00:38:43.360 Lincoln made it clear that he was fighting to preserve the Union, not to free the slaves.
00:38:48.360 He was very explicit about this.
00:38:50.540 And in the South, leaders like Robert E. Lee, they were very clear, too,
00:38:54.600 that their motivation in fighting was to defend their homes.
00:38:57.840 Famously, Robert E. Lee was asked by the North at the start of the war to lead the Northern Army,
00:39:06.100 and he considered it, but he declined.
00:39:08.920 And his reason was not, oh, no, I've got to defend our right to own people.
00:39:13.320 No, his reason was, this is my home.
00:39:15.760 Virginia is my home.
00:39:16.660 You're going to be marching an army into Virginia.
00:39:18.520 I can't lead that army against my own home, against my own family, my own sons.
00:39:23.760 I can't do that.
00:39:25.460 We have to understand culturally, this, again, is the cultural difference.
00:39:29.320 In those days, especially in the South, when people talked about their country,
00:39:33.820 they meant their state.
00:39:35.440 That's just how people saw it.
00:39:37.380 And I would argue that that is how it was originally intended to be,
00:39:42.320 where people identified first and foremost with their state and their local community,
00:39:46.900 not with the federal government or with the overall conglomeration of states.
00:39:50.800 And I think that's certainly how the South saw it.
00:39:53.900 I don't think they were wrong for seeing it that way.
00:39:57.560 Okay, so you have the leaders on both sides, the military leaders,
00:40:02.660 and even the political leaders, at least on the North.
00:40:05.400 In the beginning, certainly were not fighting over slavery, in their minds.
00:40:09.280 That's not why they were fighting.
00:40:10.900 I don't think there was any denying that.
00:40:13.040 And then you look at the infantry, the men on the field,
00:40:15.620 the men that did the bleeding and the dying,
00:40:17.280 the vast majority of them had no notion that they were fighting over slavery.
00:40:21.780 The Southern boys considered themselves to be fighting to protect their homes.
00:40:25.200 The Northern boys were fighting, they thought,
00:40:28.100 you know, a gang of traitors who were trying to destroy the Union.
00:40:32.360 And that's the way they looked at it.
00:40:34.700 And this is what makes the question complicated.
00:40:36.560 That really, by my reading of it, it seems to me that the men on both sides,
00:40:42.360 for the most part, were noble, brave,
00:40:46.340 considered themselves to be fighting for a noble cause.
00:40:50.400 And in both cases, a noble cause that had nothing to do with slavery.
00:40:55.560 But that changed after Antietam.
00:40:57.320 And then Lincoln noticed that the public's faith in the war was starting to wane.
00:41:00.760 He was worried about Europe getting involved and taking to fight alongside the South,
00:41:06.300 which was a very real possibility.
00:41:09.560 And so he issued the Emancipation Proclamation that I think most people know did not free a single slave
00:41:14.640 and was specifically written so that it would not free a single slave.
00:41:18.540 And it stipulates in the document that,
00:41:21.600 because at that time, the North did control states, slave-holding states.
00:41:27.440 And those states are exempted.
00:41:28.880 So basically, the document says the slaves that the federal government has the power to free right now
00:41:36.960 are not freed.
00:41:38.700 It's only the slaves that we have no power over at the moment that are freed.
00:41:43.480 So it was a political document, but a genius one.
00:41:46.440 And the idea was to reframe the narrative of the war,
00:41:49.860 not actually to free the slaves.
00:41:52.360 Lincoln really was not the great emancipator.
00:41:54.100 But his goal here was to preserve the Union.
00:41:59.680 And so by changing the narrative, making it about slavery,
00:42:04.360 now Europe's not going to get involved on the side of the South.
00:42:07.800 It's going to change the perception of the war.
00:42:10.460 And I think that's what it did.
00:42:12.620 And probably from that point on,
00:42:14.600 at least among the leaders in the North,
00:42:16.740 they started to think, okay, we're fighting to free the slaves.
00:42:21.000 But in the South, I don't think there was ever a point
00:42:23.140 where most of the generals
00:42:25.080 or most of the men doing the fighting
00:42:27.720 ever considered themselves to be fighting to keep slaves.
00:42:31.160 Especially considering almost none of them had slaves
00:42:33.380 among the infantry.
00:42:34.820 I mean, these were poor farm boys.
00:42:36.460 Didn't even have shoes, a lot of them.
00:42:38.640 They certainly didn't own slaves.
00:42:40.100 So they're not going to go out and die
00:42:41.760 for the sake of some rich plantation owner's right to own slaves.
00:42:46.200 That's not what they considered it to be.
00:42:48.740 And even on the North, I mean, Grant's own wife owned slaves.
00:42:53.260 So do you think that he felt so strongly about the issue
00:42:55.780 that he was charging in the battle
00:42:57.060 to kill people for owning slaves
00:42:59.060 when his own family owned slaves?
00:43:02.480 No.
00:43:02.880 So it's, look, it's a fascinating period of history.
00:43:09.640 It's an important period of history
00:43:10.780 for us to read about and understand,
00:43:12.760 especially given where we are right now in our culture.
00:43:15.880 But just like with so many human conflicts,
00:43:19.140 whether we're talking about conflicts
00:43:20.280 on a large scale between countries
00:43:21.780 or conflicts between individuals,
00:43:24.020 it's rarely as simple as people try to make it out to be.
00:43:28.260 And there is rarely a clear good guy, bad guy.
00:43:32.260 Sometimes there is, obviously.
00:43:35.480 But I think in most cases there isn't.
00:43:40.600 And you just, you have to be willing to look at it
00:43:42.920 from a more nuanced perspective.
00:43:46.820 And you have to be willing to accept
00:43:49.400 that the answer to a question like,
00:43:52.920 what caused this is not,
00:43:55.800 you're not going to be able to answer it in one sentence.
00:43:58.620 And you're certainly not going to be able to answer it
00:44:00.400 with one word, like slavery.
00:44:02.260 Okay, so that was it.
00:44:05.680 That was my history lecture for the day.
00:44:07.880 Thanks for bringing that up, though.
00:44:09.040 Interesting topic.
00:44:10.440 And I think we'll leave it there.
00:44:11.320 Thanks, everybody, for watching.
00:44:12.200 Thanks for listening.
00:44:13.120 Godspeed.
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00:44:34.080 The Matt Wall Show is produced by Sean Hampton,
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00:44:56.160 Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz
00:44:59.320 testified before the Senate on his report.
00:45:01.760 And it turns out that the mainstream media
00:45:03.900 have been lying to us about everything.
00:45:06.160 On the same day,
00:45:07.160 the media led by the New York Times
00:45:08.680 reported that President Trump
00:45:10.160 was redefining Judaism as a nationality,
00:45:13.480 sparking widespread hysteria
00:45:15.120 before it turned out that report
00:45:16.800 was also completely false.
00:45:18.920 And then,
00:45:19.300 as the cherry on top of the fake news Sunday,
00:45:21.940 CNN's Don Lemon has a meltdown on air
00:45:24.980 over a meme.
00:45:26.560 We will examine how and why
00:45:28.100 the fake news lies so well.
00:45:30.060 Check it out on the Michael Knowles Show.