The Matt Walsh Show - December 13, 2019


Ep. 390 - The Anti-Porn Argument No One Has Addressed


Episode Stats

Length

48 minutes

Words per Minute

176.19841

Word Count

8,530

Sentence Count

550


Summary


Transcript

00:00:00.000 So, you know, I'm really fascinated by the debate that has been raging these past several days
00:00:05.820 among conservatives around the issue of pornography. And I'm happy to accept
00:00:10.760 part of the blame for helping to start this little scuffle, because I think that it's been
00:00:16.380 a clarifying moment for conservatism. I think it's been very interesting conversation as well.
00:00:22.500 And there was an article in Vox written by Jane Koston, who, and she called me up and
00:00:29.520 talked to me before writing the article as well to get my thoughts on it. I thought she did. It's
00:00:34.040 actually very objective and fair and insightful. So I'd recommend that you go check it out. But
00:00:39.560 as she, you know, talking to both sides of the conservative divide on this, as she outlines,
00:00:45.840 the dispute over porn regulation really springs from a more fundamental disagreement about the
00:00:52.620 purpose and the nature of government. And so different conservatives have come down to
00:00:59.180 different sides of this. Guys like Saurabh Amari have come down on the pro-regulation side,
00:01:05.000 while the libertarians over at Reason have unsurprisingly come down on the other side.
00:01:11.680 And then also, as I'm sure probably you've noticed, if you watch all the shows and you follow
00:01:16.380 everybody here at The Daily Wire, you've noticed that the dividing line on this issue runs
00:01:21.520 right through The Daily Wire as well. So Michael Knowles and Josh Hammer are also on, of the view
00:01:30.900 that government has a legitimate role in battling the porn epidemic. And then you've got Ben Shapiro
00:01:36.880 and the God King Jeremy Boring say that, you know, it should not have a substantial role
00:01:43.340 and that any role, if there is one, should not be an outright ban. So I don't want to say that
00:01:49.160 their position is that the government has no role at all. I don't think that is their position,
00:01:52.940 but certainly they don't agree with an outright ban. They don't think, it seems to me,
00:01:56.300 they don't think there should be a substantial, significant role by the government in regulating
00:02:01.160 this stuff. Now, I think everybody who's chimed in has contributed thoughtfully to the discussion.
00:02:10.600 And I'm not just saying that because two of them signed my paychecks. I actually think that
00:02:15.020 everyone's been very thoughtful about it. But through this whole back and forth, and this is
00:02:20.120 why I wanted to, as we started the week talking about this, and it's been a running thread throughout
00:02:23.680 the week, and now we're at the end of the week. So I figure let's put a capstone on the week,
00:02:27.440 at least for me, on this issue. And putting a capstone on it, what I would really like to do
00:02:35.820 is try to bring the conversation back to what I think is, when it comes to pornography,
00:02:45.720 the central point. Now, there is a broader, more philosophical point that we've been talking about.
00:02:53.080 But I want to bring it back to what I think is the central point when it comes to pornography
00:02:56.340 specifically. And what I also think is my strongest argument. So putting aside for a moment
00:03:02.820 the philosophical discussion about the nature of government, the state's role in preserving
00:03:08.260 the common good, which is an important conversation. Also, again, I think a really
00:03:12.380 interesting one. But it leads us far into the weeds, and I think we lose sight of the original
00:03:18.840 subject that we're supposed to be talking about. And so that's why I wanted to reemphasize a very
00:03:23.620 simple point that I've made about the porn problem. I want to go back to it because
00:03:28.000 everybody that's chimed in on this, if they have, I haven't heard it. But I have not heard anyone
00:03:36.360 address this point that I'm about to make and that I've already made several times. And that I think
00:03:41.940 has been lost in the whole, does government protect the common good or is it about preserving liberty?
00:03:47.220 Are those the same things? Are they not? All of that. The defense of pornography, or at least of
00:03:53.920 its remaining legal and mostly unregulated, seems to hinge on the fact, the alleged fact,
00:04:01.080 that the content in pornography is produced and viewed by consenting adults, right? If viewers do
00:04:09.680 not consent to viewing a sexual act, then we all probably agree that a crime has occurred. So
00:04:15.380 I think even on the far reaches of extreme libertarianism, I don't think you're going to find
00:04:20.880 very many people who say that you have a right to have an orgy on the subway, okay? But porn is
00:04:28.060 different, it's argued, because you only view it if you seek it out. If viewers of porn were not
00:04:35.080 consenting, if internet porn, let's just say, were of such a nature that millions of people were forced
00:04:41.700 to watch it against their will every year, then it would seem that the argument against prohibition
00:04:47.060 or regulation starts to crumble. So the argument against my point and Michael Knowles' point and
00:04:57.880 Josh Hammer's point and Amari's point, I think the argument really hinges on this concept of consent.
00:05:05.880 You take that out, and I think the opposition argument really falls apart. Well, I think that
00:05:14.480 that it has fallen apart. I think the argument has already crumbled, because indeed, millions of
00:05:20.860 people are exposed to it every year against their will, against their consent. And I think those who
00:05:29.040 are defending the legality of porn seem to be ignoring this group and this argument. And that to me seems
00:05:37.400 like an insurmountable moral and logical flaw in their position. Children, okay? That's what I think
00:05:44.440 we've got to bring this back to. That, for me, is, as I said, the central point here. Children are first
00:05:52.660 exposed to porn at the age of 11, on average. So as we speak right now, there are, no doubt, millions of
00:05:59.520 minors, some of them as young as five or six, watching adults have sex on the internet.
00:06:03.500 This is an indisputable fact. Okay? That's how large the numbers are. You've got millions of kids
00:06:08.880 watching this stuff. I don't think anyone would deny that. But does that fact not really destroy the
00:06:17.760 consent excuse offered by the other side? Because our legal system rests on the assumption that minors
00:06:23.640 cannot consent to engage in sexual acts. Cannot. Not that they don't, that they can't, by their nature.
00:06:32.500 If an adult has sex with a child, the adult is guilty of rape, no matter if the child verbally agreed
00:06:38.420 to it or not. In our society, we understand that children lack the mental and emotional faculties
00:06:43.740 to consent. They cannot consent. To deny that is to literally defend pedophilia.
00:06:50.620 Well, if children cannot consent to engage in a sexual act, does it not inevitably follow that they
00:06:57.580 cannot consent to witness such an act? If they cannot consent as a second-party participant,
00:07:04.500 does it not follow that they cannot consent as a third-party participant? And in pornography,
00:07:11.760 the viewer is the third-party participant. Thus, if my logic is correct here, and I think it is,
00:07:19.740 I think I'm connecting the dots pretty logically here. So that means that every child who watches
00:07:29.120 porn does so, by definition, without consent. I don't see how you can quibble with this argument
00:07:36.840 without also quibbling with the logic for criminalizing pedophilic behavior. Now, I'm not
00:07:41.460 saying that the people on the opposite side of this issue are trying to legalize pedophilia. I'm not
00:07:45.620 saying that. I'm saying that they fail to appreciate how our laws against pedophilia
00:07:51.020 already provide a basis for pornography regulation. That's my point. This all means that every
00:07:59.460 consenting adult who posts hardcore sex videos to the internet does so knowing that children can very
00:08:06.000 easily access it and view it. They are putting it, as it were, within reach of a child. If the child
00:08:13.140 reaches for it, who do we blame? Is it the child's fault or the fault of the person who put it there?
00:08:22.040 I would argue that every child who has viewed internet pornography is a victim of abuse,
00:08:29.860 and the abuser is the person who posted the content where a child with no trouble at all could find it.
00:08:36.600 Now, it's even more serious than this because the internet porn industry makes hundreds of millions
00:08:46.360 of dollars a year on children. Each hit to a site like Pornhub is monetized, and we know the numbers
00:08:55.400 show that millions of children are looking at porn. So millions of children, minors, kids that are 8, 9,
00:09:01.820 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, they're going to that site, just focusing on Pornhub for a moment. Pornhub is
00:09:07.580 monetizing those hits. So Pornhub, this is inescapable, Pornhub is making millions of dollars
00:09:13.380 off of showing porn to kids.
00:09:19.300 If you don't think the government has an interest in protecting the common good, broadly speaking,
00:09:23.400 will you admit that it at least has an interest in preventing people from making millions on
00:09:27.280 providing pornography to 12-year-olds? I mean, can you at least acknowledge that?
00:09:33.520 I mean, can you at least entertain the possibility that maybe the government could have some interest
00:09:37.900 there? And there is not, there just, there is nothing, if Pornhub, all you do is just go to
00:09:47.220 Pornhub, and that's it. And you got to click a little thing that says, are you 18? That's it.
00:09:50.340 That's the whole, okay, that's, that's, that's the whole, that's, that's all, that's all the
00:09:55.140 protection that are put in place. Shouldn't it at least be a lot more than that in terms of
00:10:01.440 protection? And when you get into all the, well, what about alcohol? What about cigarettes? What
00:10:07.960 about this? Yeah, all of that stuff, there's much more regulation and protection. And yes,
00:10:13.080 kids still can, can, can get their hands on it, but there is much more, there are many more
00:10:17.580 protections put in place for all of that. Now, the obvious dodge here, as I've, as I've
00:10:24.320 been trying to tackle all week is to lay the blame at the feet of the parents. And I, and
00:10:30.460 I really, and I get, you know, I know the argument. You'll say, well, it's not the pornographer's
00:10:35.760 fault. It's up to the parents to stop their kids from seeing this stuff. I just, I think
00:10:41.480 that this rejoinder is very lazy. And I also speculate that a good number of the people
00:10:50.980 making this argument either aren't parents or, you know, they had young kids a long time
00:10:58.060 ago before the internet was really a problem. I just, I think that if you are a parent of
00:11:06.100 a, you know, 11, 12, 13 year old kid, you probably have a greater appreciation than a
00:11:12.400 lot of people seem to have for how overly simplistic that argument is. Now it's true
00:11:20.540 that parents should be doing everything they can to shield their children from the filth
00:11:23.240 on the internet, but it's also true that the internet is ubiquitous and parents cannot on
00:11:28.300 their own do a sufficient job in shielding their kids from it. They just can't. It's not
00:11:33.700 that they won't or that they don't feel like it. They can't. That's the reality. That's
00:11:39.020 the reality of the society we live in. If the child has no phone, no internet access at home,
00:11:45.240 I mean, you're going as extreme as you possibly can, which isn't even that extreme. But these
00:11:49.460 days, I mean, having no internet at home, that's pretty extreme. And in terms of protecting
00:11:54.000 your kid from internet porn, that's, what else can you do? That's as far as you could possibly
00:11:58.780 go. But let's say that you go as far as you could possibly go. Well, he can still go almost
00:12:05.620 anywhere and access the internet dozens of different ways. So short of moving into a cave
00:12:11.260 in the desert, which maybe isn't such a bad idea, but short of that, a parent can only
00:12:16.740 provide partial cover, but partial cover in the end is only a little better than no cover
00:12:22.060 it all. Besides, none of this does anything to relieve the responsibility of the person
00:12:28.640 posting the content in the first place. Even if every child exposed to porn has ineffectual
00:12:33.880 and inattentive and lazy and bad parents, which most emphatically is not the case, but even
00:12:38.740 if it was, that still does not explain why anyone should have the right to post sex videos
00:12:42.660 on a public forum where children can easily access them. You're talking about, oh, parents,
00:12:47.720 parents, that doesn't, well, what about this? Let's look at an adult, okay? Forget about the
00:12:52.220 parents for a second. Let's think here about an adult who has a sex video, a depraved graphic
00:12:59.780 sex video, and he is now making the choice to upload this to the internet, send it out into the world
00:13:06.320 for anyone to see. What about him? Does he have no responsibility? What is he, some kind of animal
00:13:11.320 he can't control himself? You're really going to put all of the responsibility on the parents,
00:13:15.480 none on this creep at all? None on this scumbag who's putting this on the internet? I mean,
00:13:21.940 just, here you go, anyone that wants to see it. So you're telling, no responsibility for that guy,
00:13:27.840 all on the parents. I mean, that's the feedback I'm getting, is that we're not, no, we're not even
00:13:31.900 focused on that guy at all. He can do whatever he wants. I find that to be so morally obtuse,
00:13:38.660 that position that I, I, I, it's, I, I can't, it, I have trouble believing that anyone really
00:13:44.260 thinks that. You know, let's talk about children that are, that are physically abused, that are
00:13:53.040 molested. You know, it's probably true that, that, that some children who are molested, some
00:13:58.200 could have been saved from that trauma had their parents been more vigilant, but that does nothing
00:14:06.440 to excuse the man who did the molesting. I mean, think about the, the worst pedophile in American
00:14:14.760 history was a, was a pediatrician in Delaware. This was not, this was only a few years ago, um, abused
00:14:21.860 hundreds of, of young kids and kids as young as, I mean, we're talking babies to toddlers. Okay.
00:14:28.860 How was he able to do that in the, in the doctor's office? Well, parents would send their kids back,
00:14:34.920 their two or three year old kid back with this monster who they didn't know was a monster, but,
00:14:39.240 but still they would send this, their kids back with the doctor alone. Now, most parents know you never
00:14:47.460 leave your child alone with a doctor. I mean, you should be in the room. If the doctor's telling
00:14:53.420 you leave the room, then that's, it red flags all over the place. Okay. Unless, unless this is a
00:14:59.640 surgery and they're putting the kid under for some kind of serious surgery, obviously you got to leave
00:15:03.920 the room. But then, but then even in that case, it's not going to just be one person in the room with
00:15:07.400 an unconscious child. Right. Um, but so, so, uh, you know, the, the, the parents who, who allowed their,
00:15:14.300 their kids to go back with this, this scumbag, this monster, this animal, uh, they were tragically
00:15:22.380 not as vigilant as they should have been. But, but here's my point that the blame still is not on
00:15:32.260 the parents. Okay. Who have to live with this for the rest of their lives as well. The blame is not
00:15:38.600 on the parents. They're also victims. The blame is on the, the, the scumbag, monstrous, despicable
00:15:45.360 human garbage that did this. He's the guy who did it. It's his blame. So what I'm saying is,
00:15:53.680 and I'm not drawing a direct moral comparison. I'm not saying that someone who uploads a sex
00:15:57.420 video to the internet is exactly like the serial, you know, the, the worst serial pedophile in history.
00:16:03.020 I'm not saying that I'm trying to make a point about responsibility.
00:16:10.340 And so when you make that choice to upload that content to the internet,
00:16:14.020 knowing that anyone can see it, you're not an idiot. You know that kids are all over the internet
00:16:21.700 and they will be able to view it. And not only that, but you're going to profit. If you're Pornhub,
00:16:26.460 you're going to profit off of that viewership. So I say all the responsibility really is on you.
00:16:33.020 All of it. How could it not be?
00:16:39.840 So the question is this, do we have a natural human right?
00:16:46.080 And I want you to focus, don't focus on the viewers here for a moment.
00:16:50.060 Focus on the people who, who distribute this content, who put the content on the internet.
00:16:54.600 These are the pornographers. So be a pornographer these days. It doesn't just mean
00:16:58.800 you work for a, you know, a studio that does pornography films and you're a director or
00:17:03.440 something. I mean, you're, you're a pornographer. If you, if you work at Pornhub, you're a pornographer
00:17:07.560 because you're distributing this content. So let's focus on the people distributing it.
00:17:13.100 Do they have a natural human right to post hardcore sex videos online where children can see them?
00:17:18.140 Is that a natural human right? Would you say? Is that, is that something intrinsic to their human
00:17:21.680 nature? Just you take that ability away and they're not able to live a fulfilling human life
00:17:25.740 anymore. Is that, I mean, is it something just utterly essential to, to, to your nature as a human
00:17:31.420 to be able to do this? Would anyone argue that? I mean, anyone who says yes has an extremely confused
00:17:37.400 and hopelessly ambiguous conception of human rights, but I think rational people will say no.
00:17:45.500 And, but the people who say no must then weigh whether a person's privilege to post this kind
00:17:52.460 of content on the internet outweighs the right of a child to be free from sexual abuse and trauma.
00:17:58.280 Um, so this does not have to be a debate about philosophies of governance and so on. This can
00:18:09.140 be much simpler. You do not have a right to expose children to sexually explicit content.
00:18:15.540 You just, you don't have that right. You don't have a right to do it. Children do have a right to be,
00:18:21.800 to, to certain basic legal protections. I think that fact alone, in my view,
00:18:28.280 settles the argument. And, and I would be really interested, um,
00:18:33.940 in someone engaging with that specific argument that I just have laid out.
00:18:40.820 Now, by the way, when I made this argument on my piece yesterday, just to anticipate some of the
00:18:44.020 objections, I wrote a piece yesterday making the same argument and, um, a bunch of people counter
00:18:50.540 that, well, you know, if a child, a child seeing porn, uh, if that's automatically abuse, I mean,
00:18:56.560 if a child is an abuse victim for seeing porn, then, um, what about a child who walks into the
00:19:01.060 bedroom while his parents are having sex? This, this, now maybe you hear that, that response and
00:19:07.300 you think, well, that's really stupid. And it is, but a lot of people, that was their immediate
00:19:12.260 response. So I, I feel like I have to address it. Uh, and this is what porn defenders always seem to do.
00:19:18.340 This seems to be the only trick in their bag is to draw these equivalencies.
00:19:21.540 Obviously there's a difference for one thing. What, what a child briefly witnesses when he walks
00:19:27.180 into a bedroom at night, um, before presumably his parents immediately usher him out, what he
00:19:34.600 witnesses will, will not really be the same as what he will witness if he sits on Pornhub for a few
00:19:40.460 minutes. Okay. Also there's the matter of intent, a private act that is meant to be private and then
00:19:47.320 is accidentally witnessed by someone is very different from an act that is broadcast on
00:19:53.360 the internet to a potential audience of millions. Obviously those are two different things. And
00:19:59.940 there's a difference in kind. Also, if a child walks in on his parents, that's awkward, that's
00:20:04.700 embarrassing. That's not what you want, but what he has witnessed, what he has unfortunately witnessed
00:20:11.700 is still the healthy and properly ordered expression of love and devotion between two married people.
00:20:20.160 You definitely would prefer for him not to witness it if you're the parents, but if he does,
00:20:25.880 the parents can explain, they can have the awkward birds and the bees conversation. And they can explain
00:20:30.720 that when a man loves a woman, they get together, they get married, et cetera, and so forth.
00:20:34.920 What he will see in a porn film though, is a woman being used and degraded for the pleasure of
00:20:39.500 anonymous bystanders. That, again, is very, very, very different. Another thing people have countered
00:20:49.980 with is, well, what about other bad stuff kids might see online? What about vulgar or violent
00:20:56.180 content, hateful content, graphically violent content? And as to that, well, as to that sort of stuff,
00:21:04.820 it kind of depends on what it is because there's other, yeah, there are other kinds of really
00:21:10.600 disturbing, sick content online that should be illegal and oftentimes is, and we'll get to that
00:21:17.480 in a second. But this whole what about thing is so weak because it would be kind of like if I said
00:21:26.900 it should be illegal for a parent to punch a child in the face, okay? Which it is, obviously,
00:21:33.100 but what if it wasn't? And then I were to argue that it should be.
00:21:39.060 And then you go and you say, well, wait a minute, but what about a parent who smacks a child in the
00:21:45.020 back of the head? And then it's like, yeah, well, that's, I mean, that's probably abuse too, but it,
00:21:51.460 maybe it depends a little bit on context. Is this a dad with his teenage son? He's kind of horsing
00:21:56.320 around and, you know, he doesn't just kind of joking around a little. Is it that, or is this,
00:22:00.300 is this a toddler being smacked in the back of the head in anger by a parent? I mean,
00:22:04.540 those are two very different things and so it might depend. And then you go, well, okay,
00:22:08.900 but what about, what about someone who, a child who's spanked very hard with a belt?
00:22:14.260 And again, it's just what you're doing is you keep coming with these what abouts and what ifs
00:22:19.140 and hypotheticals and you're dragging the conversation further and further and further
00:22:22.600 into the gray area. But remember where we started. We started with something that is
00:22:27.700 obviously bad and should obviously be illegal. Now, if you keep going further and further down
00:22:32.680 into the gray areas, into the fine distinctions and all this stuff, it's going to be harder and
00:22:36.820 harder to draw those lines. Yes, but we started with something that is very obvious. I mean,
00:22:41.640 that we all in fact would agree is bad and terrible and should be illegal.
00:22:46.720 A parent punching a child in the face.
00:22:48.480 And, but what you've done is you've seemingly intentionally prevented us from addressing
00:22:53.380 that issue by trying to make it seem like physical abuse itself is so ambiguous and so
00:22:59.020 hard to legislate that there's just no point in punishing or prohibiting it in any form whatsoever.
00:23:04.560 You've tried to water down the discussion in order to stop us from talking about a very obvious
00:23:11.000 and clear cut form of abuse. Okay? So any of the what abouts you can draw here,
00:23:18.480 that does nothing to address what porn is. And it is something that is damaging and traumatic and
00:23:27.160 harmful to kids. There's no getting around that. Is there other stuff in that category?
00:23:35.260 Maybe, but can we talk about this category first? And if there is other stuff that should also
00:23:43.000 be addressed, does that, does that mean we can't address this? Why are you so afraid to have this
00:23:49.980 conversation? And speaking of the other kinds of content that are illegal, um, in fact, someone
00:24:01.960 brought this up yesterday. I don't remember if it was on Twitter or, or, um, or I don't remember
00:24:08.760 where, maybe it was in a comment section, email, it's all, it's all blurred together. But somebody
00:24:13.140 said, well, what about, uh, uh, you know, there's so many other horrible things. Uh, what about
00:24:18.560 crushing videos, animal crushing videos? Now, I don't know if you're familiar with animal crushing
00:24:24.360 videos. If you aren't, I'm sorry. I have to tell you about them, but they are a form of video and
00:24:30.240 there's a lot of them apparently online. There's a, there's a whole deranged, sick community of
00:24:37.200 people who post this stuff. And it, it, it's exactly what it sounds like. It's videos of,
00:24:41.820 of animals being crushed or otherwise tortured and killed. And these videos are posted online.
00:24:47.560 People watch them and, uh, because they get some kind of sick enjoyment out of it.
00:24:53.880 So someone brought that up to me, said, what about the crushing? And to that, I say, yeah, okay,
00:24:58.140 now here we go. Yes. I would say that is definitely as harmful to watch if not more so. I mean,
00:25:04.380 now it kind of depends on what, but, but that is definitely at least in the same category.
00:25:10.560 But here's the thing. Those videos are illegal. In fact, it just so happens that they were very
00:25:17.780 recently made illegal on the federal level. Donald Trump just signed something into law,
00:25:22.800 making it illegal to distribute. And there were other things involved in this law too. It wasn't
00:25:26.800 just targeted at animal crushing videos, but that was included. It is now illegal on the federal level,
00:25:31.540 as I understand the law to distribute post distribute, whatever, uh, these animal crushing
00:25:38.340 videos. It's illegal. Now that's very interesting, isn't it? Because now you could easily say, well,
00:25:46.740 that's totally different because you're torturing and killing an animal. And so something's being
00:25:51.060 killed. That's different from pornography. Um, which again, that's, that's not always different
00:25:57.260 from pornography because very often, uh, in, in many cases you have trafficked women and children
00:26:03.780 who are in these videos and, and you may not know it as the viewer. So there is torture and torment
00:26:09.900 going on in these videos as well. But leaving that aside, the point is, uh, it's not, it's not,
00:26:17.180 it wasn't made illegal to record the videos that was already illegal. Obviously, obviously it's illegal
00:26:22.040 to torture an animal. So that was already illegal. But the question is once that's happened and there's
00:26:27.980 footage of it and the footage is out there, I mean, unfortunately the animals already dead. So
00:26:33.120 sharing the video is not gonna hurt the animal. The animal has already been killed. Um, technically
00:26:38.880 that video itself doesn't hurt anybody. It's footage of something being hurt, but the video doesn't hurt
00:26:45.340 anybody. What the law says now is that you, even if you weren't the one who did that, you still
00:26:52.320 cannot distribute this video. So if someone were to send me a whole, a load of files of animal crushing
00:26:57.520 videos, I didn't, I didn't hurt the animals. The person who sent the videos didn't hurt the animals.
00:27:02.500 The person that he got the videos from didn't hurt the animals. I mean, down the line, we're, we're 20,
00:27:06.960 50, a hundred steps removed, a million steps removed. Who knows? But I have these videos now.
00:27:12.160 Well, I cannot post them online and I shouldn't be able to, in my opinion. But I wonder if you're,
00:27:22.240 you know, a defender of the legality of porn, how do you deal with that? Because if you're saying
00:27:27.120 that pornography is, and please, I would ask you to deal with it aside from just scoffing. That's
00:27:32.200 totally different. So stupid. It's not totally different. There are some similarities here that
00:27:37.260 I think you have to deal with. One is the issue of speech. I mean, if pornography is speech,
00:27:41.680 then why isn't this speech? Again, not the act, but what about, why is it not speech for me to
00:27:47.040 distribute these videos? Maybe there's a message I'm trying to send. May not be a message you like,
00:27:52.540 but I mean, aren't, am I not expressing myself in some way with this video?
00:28:00.220 I mean, if that's, if that's not free speech, if that doesn't count as speech, if you're not going to
00:28:04.800 buy that that is expression, then why would a, you know, a, a, a porn video, a rape porn video,
00:28:15.160 even if everyone's acting and it's not really rape, but why is that expression?
00:28:21.000 So I think it touches on the, on the speech issue. It also touches on the issue of,
00:28:25.600 of the effect of viewing content. I mean, what exactly is the problem with having videos of
00:28:33.500 animal crutch, crushing and animal torture all over the internet? What's the problem? What's
00:28:36.900 the problem with having kids view it? I mean, again, the, the, the, the being that was unfortunately
00:28:43.080 hurt is already dead, is not, cannot continue to be hurt by it. So that's already done and over with.
00:28:47.580 So what's the harm? I mean, do you think that a child is going to watch a video like that and
00:28:53.760 immediately go out and kill his dog? Maybe, but probably not that directly, but no, we're okay
00:29:02.620 with those videos being illegal. I assume you're probably okay with it. I certainly am. We're okay
00:29:06.840 with it because number one, it's just depraved and horrible and ugly and wrong and just intrinsically
00:29:13.720 evil. Number two, the, the, the, the, the traumatic effect it would have on, on the viewer, especially
00:29:22.120 children traumatized by it, but also the influence it will have on them. It probably, you know, if a,
00:29:29.820 if a kid's exposed to that video one time, he's probably not going to go out and kill his dog. But
00:29:32.880 if he, if he watches that stuff enough and starts to find it appealing for some reason, yeah, I think
00:29:40.200 he is going to be influenced. Obviously, clearly he's going to be influenced. Even if he never
00:29:44.580 actually hurts an animal, he's going to be influenced in that direction. What about all
00:29:50.480 these videos online? And some of the most popular search terms, um, for pornography are things like
00:29:56.440 rape, incest, teenager. And yeah, these videos, the legal ones anyway, are, it's just pretend. Okay.
00:30:03.800 It's not really incest. They're just, they're actors. Maybe that's not really a 15 year old. It's
00:30:08.440 just, it's just someone that looks 15. But what is the effect? Okay. You watch animal
00:30:14.400 crushing videos enough. You might be inclined to eventually go and, and, and mistreat an
00:30:19.160 animal. I think we all understand that you watch these kinds of videos enough. Is that
00:30:24.460 not going to sway you? Is that not going to influence you towards maybe being inclined to
00:30:29.780 act out these things that you already obviously find appealing and you have been feeding that
00:30:35.960 dark part of your soul and your mind? Okay. So switching gears here for a minute. Um,
00:30:44.480 it's switching gears a little bit actually, because I think this sort of relates to the,
00:30:48.860 some of what we've been talking about this week. Uh, but there's this video that's been going around
00:30:53.620 online. Maybe you've seen it. It's from campus reform. Another, another classic, you know,
00:30:58.480 interviewing clueless students on the street bit. Those are always fun, but this one, um,
00:31:03.980 there, the students are asked if they support Medicare for all. And then they all say yes,
00:31:09.240 of course. And then there, and then, and then we find out if they still support it once they
00:31:13.760 discover what's actually in that bill, what it actually entails. So let's, uh, let's watch a
00:31:18.960 little bit of this. The policy right now they're proposing is Medicare for all, which is, you know,
00:31:23.220 the idea of government funded healthcare for everyone. Um, is that a concept you view favorably
00:31:27.420 or unfavorably favorably for sure? I do support Medicare for all. I do. I do think that every
00:31:32.960 American deserves healthcare. I do support that. I think it's a important form of universal healthcare.
00:31:39.600 I do support free healthcare for everybody in general. I would say yes, I do favor Medicare.
00:31:45.500 I don't think, um, there's anything that you could really tell me that would make me, uh,
00:31:49.280 view it unfavorably. I'm going to give you a few of those things. I want to see if you view them
00:31:52.000 favorably or unfavorably within the plan and just see if it changes your opinion at all. So first off,
00:31:56.180 uh, it is mandatory. So it would be, uh, over a hundred million people right now have private
00:32:00.680 insurance plans that they like. They would be removed from those plans, um, by the government.
00:32:04.920 It'd be mandatory and they would be put on the government plan, even if they didn't want to.
00:32:08.620 Is that something that concerns you at all? Um, probably. Yeah. Do you view that element
00:32:13.240 favorably or unfavorably? I think I would say unfavorably for that. Unfavorably. I mean,
00:32:20.480 they shouldn't be like kicked off of it. I guess that's not really, that doesn't seem fair. I would say
00:32:24.640 the government can't force them to have healthcare with them and it's just like, God. Well, that's
00:32:29.180 what this would do. Yeah. Um, I definitely think everyone should have healthcare, but I think those
00:32:33.880 who are able to get private healthcare don't necessarily, like shouldn't have to necessarily
00:32:38.140 be removed from it. Yeah. I mean, as a Bernie supporter, I think you do have to, um, give up
00:32:42.620 some choice just for the benefit of everyone in society. So the second part, uh, it would eliminate
00:32:48.140 private health insurance, the entire industry. It would be just under a million jobs would be
00:32:52.420 eliminated because all insurance moved to the government. Unfavorably. Unfavorably.
00:32:58.740 Okay. Very inspiring. Gives you a lot of hope for the future of our country, doesn't it? So,
00:33:01.960 so how do, how does this relate to our discussion this week? Well, I think it relates this way
00:33:05.460 because what you find is that these students initially support Medicare for all because they
00:33:11.820 find the moral argument for it appealing. And that's, and that's how it's sold to them.
00:33:16.400 You know, um, and that's how the left sells all of its policy ideas morally. So you heard
00:33:23.480 the first student say something like people deserve it or something, something along those
00:33:27.140 lines, which is a moral statement talking about what people deserve. Then it all starts to fall
00:33:32.340 apart. Not when they're told about the financial cost, although that does come later in the video
00:33:38.020 when they discover that the free Medicare isn't actually free because the taxpayers have to pay for
00:33:42.860 it turns out nothing is free in life. Uh, I guess their, their dad's never told them that they
00:33:47.360 never gave him the, the old, uh, money doesn't grow on trees stick. But, um, I think you see their
00:33:55.140 dreams for Medicare for all start to die in their eyes, start to fade a little bit when they're
00:34:00.580 presented with a fuller view of its moral implications. People will be forced off of their
00:34:05.540 private plans. People will lose their jobs. Now there are economic issues there as well, but mainly I
00:34:12.320 think for these liberal students, it's the moral problem. And so this is just a small example,
00:34:18.060 but it's very important. And I've been saying this not just this week, but for years that
00:34:23.160 the left makes moral arguments for all of their positions, all of their policy ideas, all the laws
00:34:31.680 and legislation they support everything. They always make those arguments on a moral basis.
00:34:37.440 Just pay attention. Next time you hear a leftist, whoever it is, AOC, Bernie Sanders,
00:34:42.400 Elizabeth Warren, I mean, listen to the, to the democratic debates. Every argument they make is,
00:34:48.660 is moral in its character. Now, when I say moral, I don't mean morally good. I don't agree with their
00:34:55.360 arguments, but they're of a moral character. They're making the argument based on morality,
00:35:01.320 based on what they believe, what they are claiming is just the right thing to do.
00:35:05.280 And that's how they argue for everything. It's not about how much it's going to cost.
00:35:10.380 It's not about, it's not really about economy. It's, those are peripheral. Those are secondary
00:35:14.760 issues for them. The way they present it is, listen, this is just the right thing to do.
00:35:20.100 And it's effective. It's persuasive. Maybe not to you, maybe not to me, but to a lot of people it is.
00:35:31.600 Especially people in my generation and younger. They find it very persuasive.
00:35:36.380 Because these are the arguments they care about. These are the arguments everybody cares about.
00:35:42.140 When it comes down to it, nobody really cares about any argument that isn't moral.
00:35:45.700 I mean, yeah, you could talk about, you could start getting into the financials and pull out
00:35:50.580 the calculator and show how this is going to be more. But nobody, I mean, this whole idea that
00:35:55.440 people vote based on their pocketbook, I don't know who came up with that originally,
00:35:59.120 but it is such nonsense. People do not vote on their pocketbook or their wallet.
00:36:04.880 They vote on morality. That's how people vote. What drives you to the polls?
00:36:09.720 It's because you, you, you think you're standing for what's right, or because you're afraid of
00:36:15.100 someone else who's going to do the wrong thing. Take America down the wrong path, the morally wrong
00:36:20.300 path to a dark and evil future, right? That's what gets you there. It's not about the, it's not,
00:36:29.840 it's not about the money. So what's happened is the left, they have hectored the right for years
00:36:35.920 saying, you can't legislate morality. You can't legislate morality. Stop trying to legislate
00:36:39.260 morality. And then, but they turn around and they make moral arguments for everything. So they say,
00:36:45.560 don't legislate morality. And then they turn around and unabashedly try to legislate morality.
00:36:52.120 But the right, you know, you see we on the right, we, and I'm sorry, this is the case, but we tend to
00:36:57.180 be pretty gullible and clueless. And it takes us a long time, apparently to pick up on things.
00:37:02.540 And so we got suckered into this where the left for someone said, don't legislate morality. And
00:37:07.980 then eventually conservatives said, Oh, you're right. Yeah, no, no, we don't want to do that.
00:37:11.180 No, we won't argue about morals anymore. No, yeah. Let's not argue about that.
00:37:16.080 Then we went off over here and started arguing about financials and everything else.
00:37:21.380 While the left, they cleared the field. They're sitting there saying, you stupid suckers.
00:37:26.980 I can't believe you fell for that. And now they just continue. Now they make every argument on a
00:37:30.500 moral basis. And they can say that, look, you see those people over there? They're not even arguing
00:37:34.340 for what's right. They don't care. They just care about their money. Those greedy scrooges.
00:37:39.180 You see what they did? They convinced us to vacate the moral premises and make arguments on
00:37:45.740 economy or whatever else. And, uh, while they continue to make those arguments so that we look
00:37:52.500 like unfeeling, uh, sociopaths and automatons and nobody is persuaded, nobody finds it compelling.
00:38:01.180 No one cares. We're not convincing anybody.
00:38:06.760 I mean, worse is when you run into conservatives who are so, I'm sorry, stupid that they think,
00:38:13.340 especially you can't make moral arguments to young people. That's what they think. They think,
00:38:17.800 well, you got to especially stay away from that with young people. No, with young people,
00:38:22.260 you especially have to make the moral arguments. They're the most persuaded by those. When you're
00:38:28.120 young, you're the most likely to be idealistic. Uh, you care about, you know, fighting for what's
00:38:33.400 right and you're willing to make sacrifices. You just, you, you care more about that when you're
00:38:38.220 younger. When you get older, I think you become a little bit more practical and you start making
00:38:42.680 compromises, some of them good and some of them bad. You stop caring as much about some of the,
00:38:47.480 you start being, you stop being as convicted as you once were on moral issues. I think now that's
00:38:53.720 not, I don't think that's good. I don't think it should be that way, but that is how it kind of
00:38:56.720 works. But again, the left, they, they, they suckered us. They fooled us. They said, oh no,
00:39:03.500 young people don't care about that. Yeah. Talk to young people about tax policy. They're really
00:39:07.360 going to be, they're really going to be convinced by that. Then they start go laughing at us. Did you
00:39:12.480 hear them? I just told them that I just told them to talk to young people about tax policy and they
00:39:15.920 believed it? Those idiots. That's what's happening. I mean, we need to, we need to wake up and realize
00:39:22.980 every, all laws entail legislating morality. Every law does. The left knows that the only people who
00:39:36.800 don't know it anymore are conservatives. When it used to be that conservatives were the ones pointing
00:39:42.180 this out. It really is brilliant. I mean, you almost have to respect it. It's, it's so brilliant
00:39:48.840 when you realize what the left has done. It is really genius. The way that over a few decades,
00:39:57.060 they have convinced conservatives to completely abandon their own principles and their own
00:40:03.240 position. Wow. Incredible. Also very depressing. Here's something that's not depressing. This holiday
00:40:11.740 season, do your friends and family a solid by getting them a Daily Wire gift membership. And
00:40:15.520 the good news for you from now till January 1st, all Insider Plus gift memberships will be 25% off.
00:40:21.040 That means your loved one will get all the fantastic perks, plus the majestic, glorious, beautiful,
00:40:27.020 profound, leftist tears tumbler, and you'll get the savings. That's 25% off all the Insider Plus
00:40:31.960 gift memberships this holiday season. Go to dailywire.com slash gift to get your 25% off. Again,
00:40:36.480 that's dailywire.com slash gift. Get your 25% off. Just don't tell your loved ones that you
00:40:41.060 saved 25% on their gift. In fact, tell them that it was 25% more that we charged just on principle,
00:40:47.740 but you'll be giving them a gift that they'll thank you for all year long. Let's go to emails,
00:40:51.900 mattwalshowatgmail.com. This is from Samantha says, hi, Matt, big fan of the show. Yesterday,
00:40:56.600 you talked about the new baby. It's cold outside. I agree that that song is horrid, but also hilarious,
00:41:01.120 but it doesn't hold a candle to Santa baby, which is the worst Christmas song ever. Hands down.
00:41:07.640 Samantha, I'm afraid you're incorrect. The worst Christmas song ever, hands down,
00:41:11.900 is Wonderful Christmas Time by Paul McCartney. There is nothing that comes close to it. This
00:41:16.320 song is so bad that everything McCartney has done in his career or ever accomplished is erased by it.
00:41:22.040 None of that matters because he will forever and always be the guy who made the terrible,
00:41:25.940 redundant, pointless, empty, awful song that plays over the intercom at the department store or every
00:41:30.760 12 minutes on the Christmas radio station, your local Christmas music radio station. I'll tell you
00:41:35.940 what makes the song so bad. It's stupid and lazy. So other bad Christmas songs are just stupid.
00:41:43.120 Santa baby is stupid. Uh, last Christmas is stupid, but at least they've got their own kind of vibe to
00:41:48.800 them, their own sort of, uh, uh, you know, they, they, they aren't good, but it sounds like maybe the
00:41:54.900 people involved put a little bit of effort into it. Maybe wonderful Christmas time. You can tell them
00:42:00.040 McCartney wrote it in 95 seconds, scrawled it on a used paper plate, took another three minutes to
00:42:05.280 come up with a melody and that was it. So just, I mean, let's, let's listen to the lyrics. I'm not
00:42:10.280 going to sing them, but let's just go through. I think it helps sometimes to read them like spoken
00:42:14.260 word poetry. The moon is right. The spirit's up. We're here tonight and that's enough. Simply having
00:42:22.120 a wonderful Christmas time, simply having a wonderful Christmas time. Okay. What does that
00:42:27.340 mean? The moon is right. And who evokes images of the moon for Christmas? The imagery here is,
00:42:34.960 is, is not even relevant. We're here tonight and that's enough. Has there ever been a more obvious
00:42:40.200 throwaway line? Well, there has been in this song because every line is a throwaway. He's just filling
00:42:46.500 space. He's biding his time until he gets to the end of the song. The party's on the feelings here,
00:42:51.780 that only comes this time of year. Simply having a wonderful Christmas time, simply having a
00:42:55.960 wonderful Christmas time. Aside from wonderful Christmas time, has he even said anything that
00:42:59.760 has anything to do with Christmas? And what is the feelings here mean? The feeling just arrived to
00:43:06.220 the party. Hey guys, the feeling's finally here. What took you so long? The choir of children sing
00:43:11.920 their song. They practice all year long. Ding dong, ding dong, ding dong, ding dong. Simply having a
00:43:19.220 wonderful Christmas time. Simply having a wonderful Christmas time. I mean, come on,
00:43:22.980 you can tell exactly what happened here. He had one line in mind for this verse. That's all he could
00:43:27.400 come up with. He could only think of one line. The choir children sing their song. Couldn't think of
00:43:32.620 anything else. Thought about it though for 10 seconds. And in fact, it's not even, it's not obvious to me
00:43:39.780 that Paul McCartney even knows what Christmas is. Do they have Christmas in England? Is that the
00:43:46.740 problem here? I don't think he knows what it is. That's what I'm getting from the lyrics. He has no
00:43:49.960 idea what this thing is. Someone called him up and says, can you make a Christmas song? And he said,
00:43:54.180 a Christmas what? A Christmas? And then he said, I don't know what that is, but do people have a
00:44:03.280 wonderful time on it? Yeah, yeah, they do. Okay, I got it. I got you. I'll call you back in five
00:44:08.900 minutes. So he puts down choir, you know, choir sings the song. Then he's like, yeah, choir sings a
00:44:16.560 song. Choir sings a song. They practice all year long. And now he needs another, he needs another
00:44:22.180 two, he needs another two lines to fill out the verse. And so, so he thinks, uh, practice all
00:44:27.280 year long. They sing the song. Ding dong, ding dong, ding dong, ding dong. The word is out about the
00:44:36.160 town to lift a glass and don't look down. Don't what? Well, now he's given up. Okay. This at the end,
00:44:41.860 he's given up. It is actually a very depressing, morbid song because at the end he's given up on
00:44:47.900 music. He's given off, given up on himself. He's given up on life. With this verse, the word is
00:44:54.640 out around the town. What word? The word that Christmas, that's Christmas time. Like people
00:45:00.200 are calling it. Hey guys, you know, it's Christmas time. Did you guys know that? Lift a glass and don't
00:45:05.720 look down. Well, what do you mean? Don't look down at the glass? He needs, but he needs a, he needs a
00:45:13.100 word that rhymes with town. And so he's, he says, well, town, down, brown. No, down, down. Yeah.
00:45:21.720 Don't look down. Don't look down. That's it. Yeah. We'll go with that. Simply having a wonderful
00:45:26.100 Christmas time. Simply having a wonderful Christmas time. Simply having a wonderful Christmas time.
00:45:29.740 Simply having a wonderful Christmas time. Again, take the chorus out and you have no clue that this is a
00:45:35.440 Christmas song. There is no Christmas imagery at all in this song. I'm not, I'm not even asking for
00:45:41.260 religious content. That's not my point. Okay. I know he's not going to start talking about the
00:45:44.680 Christ child, but I mean, no sleigh bells, no eggnog, no tree, no mistletoe, no holly, no nothing.
00:45:54.760 This is, you know what this is like? This is like if you're going to make a crappy, pointless,
00:45:58.740 repetitive, stupid country song, but you never say anything in the song about blue jeans or pickup trucks
00:46:04.600 or cornfields. Like if you're going to give us that kind of song, then give us that song. Don't
00:46:12.060 give us a bad country song that doesn't even have the stuff in it that makes it a country song.
00:46:17.800 So now we're having, we have a bad country song that isn't even country. It's just a bad song.
00:46:21.580 It's just a blad generic song that isn't even country.
00:46:24.440 So don't give us a bad Christmas song that lacks even the Christmas parts of it because now we have
00:46:33.260 a bad song that I don't even know what to do with. Well, apparently we play it all the time on
00:46:38.080 Christmas. I have no idea why. So all the other bad Christmas songs you can name, they're bad,
00:46:44.520 they're stupid, they're annoying, but they are Christmas. Santa Baby. I don't know what's going on
00:46:49.920 on that song. I get what she's, this is like a love song to Santa. Pretty weird. Okay. Santa's a,
00:46:56.440 what? 1800 year old fat, morbidly obese man who breaks into, he's a, he's a serial burglar
00:47:06.740 breaking into people's homes. And she's, so that's strange, but at least Santa, so you got Santa and
00:47:12.460 at least, at least there's, at least we've got Santa. So there's some Christmassy stuff going on.
00:47:16.300 All right. I actually had more emails I was going to do, but then I spent 15 minutes on
00:47:22.320 why I hate wonderful Christmas time. So I think we'll just have to wrap it up there
00:47:25.720 and hope you guys all have a great weekend. Godspeed.
00:47:30.780 If you enjoyed this episode, don't forget to subscribe. And if you want to help spread the
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00:47:51.260 Thanks for listening.
00:47:53.360 The Matt Wall Show is produced by Sean Hampton, executive producer Jeremy Boring,
00:47:57.760 senior producer Jonathan Hay, supervising producer Mathis Glover, supervising producer Robert Sterling,
00:48:03.920 technical producer Austin Stevens, editor Donovan Fowler, audio mixer Mike Coromina.
00:48:09.400 The Matt Wall Show is a Daily Wire production, copyright Daily Wire 2019.
00:48:13.600 If you prefer facts over feelings, aren't offended by the brutal truth,
00:48:17.400 and you can still laugh at the insanity filling our national news cycle,
00:48:20.720 well, tune in to the Ben Shapiro Show. We'll get a whole lot of that and much more. See you there.