The Matt Walsh Show - December 13, 2019


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

Topics
pornographers animal crushing videos
Hosted by
Matt Walsh
Mentioned
Paul McCartney Michael Knowles Show Ben Shapiro Show Josh Hammer Elizabeth Warren Robert Sterling Bernie Sanders Austin Stevens Donovan Fowler Saurabh Amari Jeremy Boring Mathis Glover Mike Coromina Donald Trump Sean Hampton Jonathan Hay Julian Castro Godspeed Matt Lift
Ep. 389 - A Hate Crime The Media Doesn't Want To Talk About Ep. 391 - Everyone Is Owed A Punch

Episode Stats


Length

48 minutes

Words per minute

176.2

Word count

8,530

Sentence count

646

Harmful content

Misogyny

2

sentences flagged

Toxicity

30

sentences flagged

Hate speech

3

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

I m fascinated by the debate raging among conservatives over porn, and I m happy to accept part of the blame for helping to start this little scuffle, because I think it s been a clarifying moment for conservatism. In this episode, I try to bring the conversation back to the central point: Does government have a role in protecting the common good or is it about preserving liberty?

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
Topics generated with Qwen2.5-3B-Instruct.
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
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 0.97
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, 0.99
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 0.81
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 0.97
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 1.00
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, 1.00
00:15:53.680 and I'm not drawing a direct moral comparison. I'm not saying that someone who uploads a sex 0.81
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, 0.98
00:16:14.020 knowing that anyone can see it, you're not an idiot. You know that kids are all over the internet 0.84
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 0.95
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? 0.94
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 0.99
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 1.00
00:20:39.500 anonymous bystanders. That, again, is very, very, very different. Another thing people have countered 0.53
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 0.79
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 0.94
00:24:37.200 people who post this stuff. And it, it, it's exactly what it sounds like. It's videos of, 0.94
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 1.00
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. 1.00
00:37:26.980 I can't believe you fell for that. And now they just continue. Now they make every argument on a 1.00
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 0.94
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, 1.00
00:38:13.340 especially you can't make moral arguments to young people. That's what they think. They think, 1.00
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 1.00
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. 1.00
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 1.00
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 0.99
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, 0.86
00:45:58.740 repetitive, stupid country song, but you never say anything in the song about blue jeans or pickup trucks 1.00
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 1.00
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 1.00
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 0.98
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 0.91
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.