Ep. 389 - A Hate Crime The Media Doesn't Want To Talk About
Episode Stats
Words per Minute
172.90668
Summary
Trump attacked Greta Thunberg after she won the Person of the Year award. Some are calling for him to be impeached because he attacked a child. Others are pointing to the hypocrisy of the right and the left. I m here to make a point.
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,
00:07:19.200
a word from policy genius. If you're a homeowner, you know how tough it is to find the right home,
00:07:24.920
um, uh, right, right. Find the right home insurance coverage. Even if your rates have crept up over the
00:07:30.160
years, the idea of replacing your policy can seem pretty exhausting. It can seem overwhelming. You
00:07:36.160
don't know where to start. And it doesn't help that December is one of the busiest months of the year.
00:07:40.560
That's why policy genius re-imagine the entire process. So you can get the right coverage at the
00:07:45.200
best price. Here's all you need to do first head to policy genius.com, answer a few quick questions
00:07:50.140
about yourself and your property. Then policy genius will compare your policy against options
00:07:55.660
from top insurers to make sure that you're getting the right home insurance coverage, uh, at the best
00:08:00.740
possible price. They've saved their customers an average of $690 per year doing just that. So think
00:08:07.460
about what you could do with that extra 690 bucks. If policy genius finds you a better rate than what
00:08:13.180
you're currently paying, they'll do all the work to get you switched. So you're saving money. You're
00:08:16.380
saving time. You're saving the hassle. There's this, you don't stand to lose anything. You just
00:08:22.340
stand to gain. Whether you need home insurance for a new place, or you just want to reshop your
00:08:26.700
current policy, head to policygenius.com today. You can start on your smartphones right now. Go to
00:08:32.200
policy genius, policygenius.com policy genius. When it comes to home insurance, it's nice to get it
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
00:19:36.440
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.
00:24:17.860
It's the best gift anyone could ask for. And the good news for you from now till January 1st, all Insider Plus gift memberships will be 25% off.
00:24:25.960
That means your loved ones will get all the fantastic perks, plus the majestic Leftist Tears Tumblr, and you're going to get all the savings.
00:24:34.820
That's 25% off all Insider Plus memberships this holiday season.
00:24:38.020
Go to dailywire.com slash gift to get your 25% off. Again, that's dailywire.com slash gift to get your 25% off.
00:24:46.740
Give them a gift. They'll thank you for, all year long, 25% off when you're buying a gift, you cheapskate.
00:24:55.240
Couldn't even pay full price, could you? But no, seriously, go take advantage of that right now.
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
00:26:36.880
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.
00:27:24.340
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.
00:27:41.320
I knew what a computer was, didn't know what the internet was.
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.
00:28:13.580
And then within just a few years, it became this massive other universe that was slowly encroaching on.
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.
00:29:19.480
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.
00:29:35.780
I think most video games in moderation are fine.
00:29:39.300
Some of them do go overboard on the violence, certainly.
00:29:43.440
But again, I don't think it's the same as pornography.
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.
00:30:03.100
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.
00:30:19.760
Because we talk about politics is downstream from culture.
00:30:30.620
And as conservatives, I think we get so hyper-focused on how to change the culture, you change politics.
00:30:41.920
We're saying, oh, there's no point in trying to change things through government.
00:30:46.860
Okay, well, when are we going to get around to doing that?
00:30:50.020
We're just changing nothing while the entire culture moves on without us.
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.
00:31:23.300
When they were kids, everybody smoked cigarettes.
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.
00:31:44.500
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.
00:31:57.100
Now, as I've said before, though, you're probably not ever going to stop kids from
00:32:03.120
So now, yeah, they don't smoke cigarettes, but there are a lot more people smoking weed
00:32:14.100
I'm not convinced that that's the same kind of serious health drawback that, you know,
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.
00:32:37.200
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.
00:32:54.140
I can't sit here and say it's never going to have a health drawback, but I'll probably
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
00:33:22.980
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.
00:33:44.620
It's not going to affect him emotionally and psychologically.
00:33:52.660
But I think that pornography is different just by its nature.
00:34:00.120
And I've gotten this argument from people many times.
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.
00:34:27.180
Was it really fought over slavery or is that an oversimplification?
00:34:32.800
no, I don't think we're going to fight any kind of civil war in this country anytime soon.
00:34:39.900
It involves two sides, two armies meeting on the battlefield.
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.
00:35:00.560
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.
00:35:15.800
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.
00:35:43.300
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.
00:36:43.740
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,
00:37:01.920
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.
00:37:19.780
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.
00:37:33.080
Now, does that make it a simple slavery-caused-it sort of thing?
00:37:40.180
For one thing, there were other causes cited by these states,
00:37:48.580
They were upset about, they were concerned with states' rights.
00:37:51.780
There were issues relating to tariffs and taxes and the economy.
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.
00:38:50.540
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,
00:39:08.920
And his reason was not, oh, no, I've got to defend our right to own people.
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.
00:39:25.460
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,
00:39:37.380
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.
00:40:13.040
And then you look at the infantry, the men on the field,
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.
00:40:28.100
you know, a gang of traitors who were trying to destroy the Union.
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,
00:40:46.340
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.
00:40:57.320
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,
00:41:09.560
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.
00:41:21.600
because at that time, the North did control states, slave-holding states.
00:41:28.880
So basically, the document says the slaves that the federal government has the power to free right now
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,
00:41:59.680
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.
00:42:16.740
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
00:42:27.720
ever considered themselves to be fighting to keep slaves.
00:42:31.160
Especially considering almost none of them had slaves
00:42:41.760
for the sake of some rich plantation owner's right to own slaves.
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
00:43:02.880
So it's, look, it's a fascinating period of history.
00:43:12.760
especially given where we are right now in our culture.
00:43:24.020
it's rarely as simple as people try to make it out to be.
00:43:40.600
And you just, you have to be willing to look at it
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
00:44:26.860
Also, be sure to check out the other Daily Wire podcasts,
00:44:34.080
The Matt Wall Show is produced by Sean Hampton,
00:44:56.160
Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz