The Matt Walsh Show - January 13, 2020


Ep. 403 - Worse Than A Slippery Slope


Episode Stats

Length

54 minutes

Words per Minute

170.7155

Word Count

9,330

Sentence Count

619

Misogynist Sentences

5

Hate Speech Sentences

24


Summary

Joseph Goldbrick was arrested in 2018 for child sexual abuse. During the search of his home in Grand Rapids, Michigan, police recovered child pornography from his computer. But that wasn t all; police found more than 50 illicit images that included actual victims known to the police.


Transcript

00:00:00.480 Okay, another great week. Welcome, welcome everybody. Welcome to another week. I hope
00:00:06.220 you had a wonderful, joy-filled weekend. Mine, sadly, was mired by the fact that for some
00:00:12.920 reason I'm a football fan, a Ravens fan even worse. And of course they lost. To put it
00:00:18.600 mildly, they lost in the divisional round of the playoffs. And the thing is, I was emotionally
00:00:22.920 devastated. I was tormented, traumatized, broken, ruined, which is basically how I feel at the end
00:00:31.140 of every football season, except for the two where we went to the Super Bowl and won. But then there's
00:00:36.140 this moment the next day, and any sports fan I think can probably relate to this. There's a moment
00:00:42.080 the next day, maybe two days later, after the season is over, and it feels like you're waking
00:00:47.920 up from hypnosis or something. And I always think, you know, a couple days later, after I have a
00:00:53.720 little bit of distance, I think, why do I care so much about this again? Why do I have emotional
00:01:00.040 capital invested in the outcome of a game played between people I don't even know? Like, what
00:01:06.900 difference, how would my life be improved if my favorite team won a championship in the sport that
00:01:13.840 I like? How is my life damaged when they don't? Why does any of this matter to me? And I can't
00:01:21.040 answer those questions. I really can't. I don't know why it matters. Except to say that I think
00:01:25.100 being a sports fan is a form of psychosis. I think it could be diagnosed. I'm sure eventually it will
00:01:30.240 be diagnosed. In fact, I'm sure eventually the psychiatric industry will come up with a pill.
00:01:37.280 They've come up with a pill for everything else. So they'll come up with a pill to cure
00:01:40.900 sports fan-itis. And you know what? When they come up with that pill, I will take it because it's
00:01:47.320 just, it's not worth it. It really isn't. I wish I didn't care about sports. I could, you know,
00:01:51.600 I could get my Sundays back. I could start, I don't know, gardening or something. I don't know. I'd
00:01:56.340 figure out something to do at the time, but it's, it's just better than sitting there caring so much
00:02:01.460 about this nonsense. All right. Speaking of psychosis, we have to begin on a Monday with,
00:02:10.640 unfortunately, not the kind of story you want to start your week with, but I think it's important.
00:02:17.100 So there's this guy in Michigan, pedophile, is going to be spending the next 10 to 20 years in
00:02:22.940 prison after being caught with child pornography. Now in court, he offered two defenses of his behavior
00:02:30.360 and the defenses fortunately were not successful, but they are kind of interesting. One, he said that
00:02:37.500 child pornography is protected under the first amendment. Two, he claimed that he himself,
00:02:43.440 though he is a, I think, 45 year old man, he claimed that he's really an eight year old girl.
00:02:49.040 So let's take a look at a report done by the local ABC affiliate down in, over in Grand Rapids,
00:02:55.060 Michigan, where this case happened. Here's a, there's their, their report on this watch.
00:03:00.800 Joseph Goldbrick argued that his drawings and computer images did not constitute child pornography.
00:03:07.760 Now, during a recent court appearance, he even compared his felony child porn convictions
00:03:12.600 to the horrors of Auschwitz.
00:03:16.020 I have always been an eight year old girl and even my drawings and fantasies, I am always an eight year old girl.
00:03:21.440 Bizarre statements in a case that was unique to say the least.
00:03:26.360 Joseph Goldbrick was arrested back in 2018 for child sexually abusive material found on his home computer.
00:03:33.360 Now that came amid an investigation into a runaway 17 year old girl from Ohio.
00:03:38.680 He had a minor runaway at the house.
00:03:40.520 During the search of Goldbrick's home on Pine Avenue Northwest in Grand Rapids,
00:03:44.620 police recovered child pornography from his computer.
00:03:47.360 Goldbrick contends it was not real child porn, but rather computer animated.
00:03:52.740 And Goldbrick says he identifies as an eight year old girl.
00:03:57.340 Whenever we did this, there were adults having sex with me in and on my form as an eight year old girl.
00:04:05.080 Kent County Assistant Prosecutor Dan Helmer says more than 50 illicit images were on Goldbrick's computer.
00:04:12.040 They included actual victims known to police.
00:04:15.260 But that wasn't all.
00:04:17.640 Even during the trial, the defendant continues to draw drawings by them to be saying the problem about raising babies in the Kent County Jail.
00:04:26.060 Okay, so the judge was not convinced by that excuse.
00:04:32.140 And he shouldn't be, obviously, because it's insane.
00:04:36.260 But, based on the precedent in place, the precedent of accepting the self-identification of a person who claims, you know, a man who claims to be a female.
00:04:48.780 Well, we have to accept that self-identification.
00:04:53.960 In other words, if you're going to accept that a man can be a woman,
00:04:58.660 exactly on what basis do you reject his claim to being an eight year old girl?
00:05:05.420 See, that's the problem.
00:05:06.440 So, if you're going to do the first thing, if you're going to say, yeah, this biological male is a woman in some mysterious sense,
00:05:15.480 then why can't he in the same sort of mysterious sense really be an eight year old girl or a 12 year old boy or whatever he wants to be?
00:05:26.600 So, we know in this case, according to left-wing gender theory, which is now mainstream gender theory,
00:05:34.880 promoted by the media and Hollywood and academia and everywhere else, corporations.
00:05:40.920 So, we know that we can't reject this scumbag's claim to being a female.
00:05:45.120 That part he's allowed to have, right?
00:05:46.780 We have no basis.
00:05:47.700 If he says that he's a female, then we have to just give him that, don't we?
00:05:52.280 The fact that he's a creepy old bald dude is irrelevant.
00:05:55.520 He says he's a female and so he is.
00:05:57.420 That's the way it goes.
00:05:59.500 What about age, though?
00:06:01.440 Well, remember, by the way, we've seen this before.
00:06:03.740 There was that, a few years ago, there was that 50 plus year old man who left his family,
00:06:08.320 left his wife and kid to live as a six year old girl.
00:06:12.120 Maybe you remember that case.
00:06:14.900 Maybe you've blocked it out of your head, probably a better thing to do.
00:06:18.720 But on what basis do we reject their claims to being young girls
00:06:23.320 if we accept the idea that a man can be a woman?
00:06:27.740 See, we can't say, well, as sane and reasonable people,
00:06:33.280 our response when a 45-year-old man says he's an eight-year-old girl,
00:06:38.060 we could say, well, he's just not.
00:06:41.220 He's physically not an eight-year-old girl in any sense of the word,
00:06:45.300 so that claim is nonsense.
00:06:46.500 We can reject it on that basis.
00:06:49.060 It is just factually, biologically, chronologically, physically, in every sense untrue.
00:06:56.160 And therefore, it's untrue.
00:06:59.080 But the problem is that same argument also disqualifies any man who claims to be a woman
00:07:05.040 because we can look at them and see that they are biologically, physically,
00:07:08.980 chromosomally, you know, hormonally, in every sense, a male.
00:07:15.620 And so, therefore, that's what they are.
00:07:17.320 It's just not true that they're a woman.
00:07:20.240 But if we're not, if we can't do that,
00:07:23.400 if we can't look at someone physically and make these determinations
00:07:26.720 based on science and biology,
00:07:30.220 then, again, we're left with the same problem.
00:07:34.460 How do we disqualify someone who says that they're a child
00:07:38.560 when they're really an adult?
00:07:39.760 Because we've already established that physical and biological realities are irrelevant.
00:07:47.500 And we can't say, well, gender is fluid, but age is not.
00:07:52.340 First of all, gender is not actually fluid.
00:07:54.620 There's just two of them, biologically speaking.
00:07:56.680 There aren't any others.
00:07:58.140 It is a binary system.
00:08:00.460 We just pretend that it's not binary, that it's fluid.
00:08:04.500 So, why can't we do the same with age?
00:08:07.260 In fact, here's the thing.
00:08:08.700 Age actually is fluid, in a sense.
00:08:11.880 In the sense that nobody stays one age forever.
00:08:15.040 I'm a 33-year-old man now.
00:08:16.860 I'm not going to be a 33-year-old man two years from now.
00:08:19.200 I'm still going to be a man, but I won't be 33 anymore.
00:08:23.820 I wasn't a 12-year-old boy forever.
00:08:25.660 I was only that for one year, right?
00:08:27.540 So, age does change.
00:08:29.200 Moreover, a man who says that he feels like a woman has no frame of reference.
00:08:35.300 He's never been a woman, and therefore he doesn't know what it's like to feel like one.
00:08:40.900 And so, whatever feelings he's having, he has no way of knowing if those are actually woman feelings.
00:08:45.400 And so, therefore, it becomes this circular logic, where he says he is a woman because he feels like one.
00:08:49.820 Well, how does he know that he feels like one?
00:08:51.080 Because he is one, right?
00:08:52.320 It's a circle.
00:08:52.840 It doesn't make any sense.
00:08:53.660 But with age, at least an adult who claims to feel like a child, whatever that means, can at least say that he has some frame of reference.
00:09:01.500 He was, at one point, a child, so he sort of knows what that feels like.
00:09:05.380 Moreover, we know that there are psychological and neurological conditions that cause adults to essentially have the brain of a child.
00:09:14.760 That is a thing that happens.
00:09:16.500 There are people who are severely mentally delayed, and even though their body is that of an adult, they have the mind of a child.
00:09:26.600 So, therefore, claiming to be a child stuck in an adult's body actually can have some truth to it.
00:09:34.540 Whereas claiming to be a woman stuck in a man's body just has no truth to it whatsoever.
00:09:38.940 However, now, I don't think that's the case for this scumbag, who, by the way, should be going to prison for life, not just for 10 years or 20 years.
00:09:50.620 But I'm just trying to make the point here that trans age actually has a better scientific basis and is more justifiable than transgenderism.
00:10:01.760 It's still BS.
00:10:03.180 It's still bogus.
00:10:04.300 It's still nonsense.
00:10:05.980 It's still madness.
00:10:07.600 But if you're going to accept transgenderism, there just is no logical and coherent argument for rejecting trans ageism.
00:10:18.480 There just isn't.
00:10:20.260 Whatever argument you make against the claim that an adult can identify as a child would apply, would even more so apply to the claims that a man can be a woman.
00:10:32.440 So you have to choose.
00:10:34.680 It's as simple as that.
00:10:35.860 And this is not a slippery slope argument because I'm not talking about slopes, you know, about one thing, one thing leading to a more extreme thing.
00:10:44.920 That's not what I'm saying.
00:10:45.600 I'm not saying that transgenderism is leading to or will lead to the more extreme case of an adult claiming to be a child.
00:10:56.200 What I'm saying is that transgenderism is already a more extreme thing than trans ageism and trans racialism, by the way, for that matter.
00:11:07.040 I'm saying that those things are higher up on the slope.
00:11:11.220 And if we're on this slippery slope into crazyville, you know, you've got trans ageism and trans racialism like somewhere around here on the slope.
00:11:19.320 And then transgenderism is like down here.
00:11:21.300 Because it makes less sense than these other things over here.
00:11:27.460 Or, you know, in fact, putting slopes aside entirely.
00:11:30.020 Basically, this is really a question of categories.
00:11:33.320 There are certain things about yourself that you can change.
00:11:38.360 Your hairstyle.
00:11:40.000 Your weight.
00:11:41.860 You can learn a new language.
00:11:44.300 Your personality can change.
00:11:46.440 And it does for everybody to some extent.
00:11:48.940 These things are, in some sense, fluid.
00:11:51.860 They change.
00:11:52.840 They can be adjusted.
00:11:53.680 You can choose to make changes to them.
00:11:58.100 But then there are other things that you cannot choose to change.
00:12:02.860 Because they're simply facts about you.
00:12:05.680 They just are.
00:12:07.340 Your sex.
00:12:08.360 Your race.
00:12:09.200 Your age.
00:12:10.340 My point is this.
00:12:12.400 If you're going to extract anything from that second category of unchangeable things and try to put it into the first,
00:12:20.440 then everything else in that category comes with it.
00:12:26.900 Because the logic that keeps one thing in that category keeps everything there.
00:12:32.200 And if we're abandoning that logic, then there is no basis anymore to keep anything in that category.
00:12:37.720 And now we have to say that that category doesn't exist.
00:12:41.140 The category of things that you can't change about yourself now simply doesn't exist.
00:12:46.660 You can change everything.
00:12:48.060 Especially when it comes to sex.
00:12:53.980 Because, in fact, your sex is the thing that most belongs in the second category.
00:12:58.840 It is the most unchangeable thing about you.
00:13:01.580 It is the brutest of brute facts.
00:13:04.500 Your age will change on its own.
00:13:06.800 Your race can be a mix of many different things.
00:13:09.700 But your sex just is.
00:13:11.760 If that, if that of all things is now relative, then so is everything else.
00:13:18.860 And that's the problem here.
00:13:25.060 So what the left will do, because they haven't even really gotten to the point yet where they're accepting transracialism, maybe a little bit.
00:13:35.460 I think we see movement in that direction, but they're not there yet.
00:13:38.460 They certainly aren't accepting trans-ageism, but they've already made the arguments for it.
00:13:47.300 And this is what we see with the left a lot.
00:13:48.920 Where they make a certain argument because they're trying to justify one particular thing.
00:13:57.240 But the problem is that that argument also justifies a whole bunch of other things.
00:14:01.260 And it takes them a while to circle back around and say, oh yeah, you know that other stuff?
00:14:08.260 Yeah, maybe that stuff is good too.
00:14:10.240 At first they'll always say, no, no, no, no, no, we're not trying to justify that other stuff.
00:14:13.260 No, no, no, this is different.
00:14:14.860 They can't tell you why it's different.
00:14:16.480 They can't explain it.
00:14:19.160 But they'll say that it is.
00:14:23.040 Same thing with, you know, another obvious example is with marriage.
00:14:27.460 They say marriage is not between one man and one woman.
00:14:29.480 And originally they said, oh no, you know, we're not trying to justify things like polygamy.
00:14:35.760 Now, now we're at the point where I think most leftists will say, yeah, sure, who cares?
00:14:39.480 Polygamy is fine.
00:14:41.160 But at first they claimed, if you recall, when we were having this argument,
00:14:45.740 especially in a lead up to the Supreme Court decision on gay marriage,
00:14:49.260 the claim for most leftists was, no, no, no, we're not trying to justify it.
00:14:51.840 Polygamy, no, that's not the point here.
00:14:53.380 But of course, every argument you've made for getting rid of the idea of one man, one woman marriage
00:15:01.680 would apply to polygamists just as much.
00:15:06.520 Even more so, actually.
00:15:08.060 That's another example where polygamy is a little bit further up on the slope, not further down.
00:15:17.760 It just took them a while to circle back around.
00:15:19.800 And the same thing is going to happen with the trans stuff, where they're transing everything.
00:15:25.040 They started with gender.
00:15:26.400 That is the most extreme thing to trans.
00:15:30.820 Of all the things to trans, that's the most extreme.
00:15:33.980 But they started with that, and now it's just a matter of circling back around and saying,
00:15:38.020 yeah, that too.
00:15:38.660 Oh, sure, yeah, that also.
00:15:41.820 All right, before we move on, let's hear a word from our friends over at Duke Cannon.
00:15:48.080 Here's a fact.
00:15:50.160 Most resolutions don't last, right?
00:15:52.220 Mostly because dramatic self-improvement is really hard.
00:15:54.980 And that's why Duke Cannon's supply company wants you to consider lowering your expectations this year.
00:16:00.680 And see, this is what I like.
00:16:02.040 It's like, let's be realistic, okay?
00:16:04.660 Lower the expectations with the moderate self-improvement box.
00:16:08.900 It's a one-step program to achieving a slightly better version of yourself.
00:16:12.640 This is not a total transformation, folks.
00:16:14.480 This is just a slight improvement.
00:16:16.960 Baby steps.
00:16:18.120 This box is packed with over $80 of premium American-made grooming goods designed to help you feel,
00:16:22.960 look, and smell just a little bit better in 2020.
00:16:26.380 Usually this is $84.
00:16:27.740 You're getting it for $50, though, for only a limited time.
00:16:30.660 And so you can improve things like you'll have less stink, right?
00:16:35.020 Where they've got the Trench Warfare antiperspirant and deodorant,
00:16:39.780 where you get that clean, sort of subtle scent of fresh air and maybe a little bit of lumber as well,
00:16:47.100 a little bit of lumberjack.
00:16:48.600 You can have better hair.
00:16:49.800 They've got the News Anchor 2-in-1 hair wash.
00:16:51.880 And then you can also have the – so you get rid of the bad scent,
00:16:56.340 and then you add a little bit of the good scent with the big-ass brick of soap,
00:16:59.800 which I have right now in my shower as I speak.
00:17:02.820 This is a program that I think anyone can follow because, again, it's not about a 180 turn.
00:17:10.800 It's like let's start with maybe, I don't know, 10 degrees.
00:17:14.320 Complete the program, and you'll receive a certificate of completion demonstrating your marginal commitment
00:17:19.020 to moderate self-improvement, and this is something that everybody wants.
00:17:22.160 By the way, it's free shipping to the lower 48 states.
00:17:25.140 All products are tested by active-duty military,
00:17:27.100 and 5% of the net profits are donated to causes benefiting veterans and active-duty military.
00:17:32.760 Duke Cannon prides itself in making its grooming goods work as hard as you do.
00:17:36.700 They're champions of builders, farmers, soldiers, sledgehammers, teachers, first responders,
00:17:42.300 holders of doors, and fixers of toilets, and they want you to feel right at home in Duke Cannon country.
00:17:46.940 Visit dukecannon.com. Use the promo code Walsh for 15% off your entire order.
00:17:51.920 That's dukecannon.com, promo code Walsh.
00:17:55.180 All right, Bernie Sanders sent out a tweet that says, the tweet, the caption is,
00:17:59.980 there are only 22 days until the Iowa caucus. It's time to get rolling.
00:18:04.820 Can you take a trip to help our campaign win in the essential early states? Sign up here.
00:18:09.220 And then, so that's a, okay, pretty normal caption,
00:18:12.140 but it's a caption of a video of him, Sanders, pulling out of the driveway of one of his three houses.
00:18:21.560 And, I don't know, just watch this clip.
00:18:22.900 Why, I don't know if this is self-deprecation.
00:18:45.120 And if so, then I respect it, but I can't quite figure out why Bernie Sanders released a video of himself
00:18:54.540 charging out of his driveway, backing out of his driveway, swerving wildly,
00:18:59.360 and then backing out of the driveway at full speed without stopping to look both ways,
00:19:05.400 like a stereotypical old person.
00:19:06.940 This is the stuff of stand-up comedy routines going back 40 years of how old people back out of their driveways.
00:19:14.300 And then, now you have it.
00:19:15.880 Bernie Sanders, 78-year-old man, however old he is, doing exactly that.
00:19:21.980 That's, you know, backing out of the, you saw there was very little visibility
00:19:25.360 because it's all the cars parked on the road there.
00:19:28.500 And he just charges right out.
00:19:30.220 Doesn't stop to look.
00:19:31.320 Like, I don't, why would, I'm not sure what the point there is in showing us that.
00:19:38.600 Other than, I guess, just embracing it and saying, look, I'm, I am very old.
00:19:42.860 That's true.
00:19:44.180 This is how I back out of the driveway.
00:19:46.120 Deal with it.
00:19:47.260 And if that's his message, then I respect it.
00:19:49.780 All right, so last week, I don't remember why this came up exactly,
00:19:52.480 but last week we were talking about how so many people in our culture today value their pets.
00:20:01.920 Over fellow human beings.
00:20:04.240 And one of the emails I received in response to that discussion inspired me to put up an online poll.
00:20:10.000 And that poll has revealed some disturbing findings.
00:20:14.040 So the email from Trinity says,
00:20:16.520 Hi, Matt, I agree with everything you said on the show regarding people valuing dogs more than humans.
00:20:20.720 I asked many people what, what would they choose, a random person or their pet,
00:20:25.340 if they were both found drowning.
00:20:28.200 Surprisingly, everyone answered their pet.
00:20:30.100 What do you think is the underlying reason for this?
00:20:32.680 Is it the lack of religion and unclear morals?
00:20:35.160 So I thought this was a good question.
00:20:37.240 So I stole the question, adjusted it a little bit.
00:20:40.480 I put it on my Twitter.
00:20:41.400 I posed a version of this.
00:20:43.720 And my question was, very simple.
00:20:46.560 Your favorite pet and a grown man you don't know are trapped in a burning building.
00:20:50.380 You can only save one.
00:20:51.660 Who do you choose?
00:20:53.160 Now, as of this morning, I haven't checked in a few hours,
00:20:55.620 but as of this morning, there were almost 30,000 votes tabulated.
00:20:58.520 Out of that, out of 30,000 votes, 40%, 40%, 40% said they would let a human being burn to death in favor of saving an animal.
00:21:12.940 40%.
00:21:13.820 Now, you might say, this is not a scientific result.
00:21:18.940 This was not a scientific poll.
00:21:20.280 This is a Twitter poll.
00:21:21.400 It's not even, it's not exactly a random sample, right?
00:21:24.620 These are people who mostly follow me on Twitter.
00:21:26.600 So is there some bias there or whatever?
00:21:30.100 And that's true.
00:21:31.580 But listen to this, because this is kind of remarkable.
00:21:34.360 I looked this up after the fact.
00:21:36.060 I found that a psychologist conducted a similar survey in a more scientific setting to find out, you know,
00:21:45.280 whether people will put their pet above the needs of a human.
00:21:51.700 And his results are exactly the same.
00:21:56.600 So this psychologist named Richard Topolsky surveyed people and asked them,
00:22:04.080 in this scenario, it's a person and a dog, and they're both about to be hit by a bus,
00:22:08.620 and you could only save one.
00:22:10.760 And again, in this case, 40%, the same exact percentage,
00:22:14.840 40% said that they would save their dog over a human.
00:22:18.320 What are the chances, you know, that two surveys conducted separately would coincidentally
00:22:23.200 come to the same conclusion in terms of the percentages?
00:22:26.600 I think it's more likely that this 40%, the reason why we both came to 40% is because that really is representative.
00:22:33.280 40% of people in this country do put their pets' lives above human life.
00:22:38.680 And what makes this even more depressing is that my followers skew heavily in the direction of conservative Christians.
00:22:47.700 So, you know, maybe if you had just seen this poll result from the psychologist,
00:22:52.360 you would say, oh, you know, well, maybe that's a whole bunch of liberal, godless atheists,
00:22:56.460 you know, nihilists who don't value human life at all.
00:23:01.140 No, this is not that.
00:23:03.180 This apparently doesn't matter what your ideology is or religion, you know, there's the same tendency.
00:23:09.800 Now, as expected, in Topolsky's study, he found that the 40% figure dips significantly
00:23:17.540 when people are asked to choose between their dog and somebody they know.
00:23:22.640 So if it's a stranger, then, yeah, 40% are saying, screw that guy, let him get splattered by the bus.
00:23:28.240 But if you say, okay, what if it's a, and in fact, the number is still really high if it's a distant cousin.
00:23:35.560 So it could be a family member, but if it's a distant cousin, I think it was, I don't know,
00:23:38.680 I don't have it in front of me, but it was a high percentage of people said, even in that case, see you later, cousin.
00:23:45.260 Now, if you get down to, like, best friend, grandparent, best friend or grandparent,
00:23:51.280 or maybe both if your grandparent is your best friend,
00:23:53.380 in that case, the vast majority of people are going to save the best friend or the grandparent.
00:23:59.100 But still, there still were a minority of people, according to this study,
00:24:04.520 a small minority, but still they're there.
00:24:07.560 There's a minority of people who said that they would let their grandmother
00:24:11.480 get run over by a bus rather than their dog.
00:24:17.620 Now, this speaks to something that I've been talking about for years,
00:24:22.420 and it annoys people whenever I talk about it,
00:24:25.260 and I can already feel through the camera,
00:24:28.020 I can feel people getting annoyed at me right now as I speak.
00:24:31.380 It's a common feeling for me.
00:24:35.660 But I'm going to keep talking about it because I think it's actually important.
00:24:39.360 I think our, in, in, this is really kind of a troubling trend.
00:24:43.200 It's not good to have so many people who don't understand that their pet's life is not as valuable as human life.
00:24:56.440 There is a problem in this culture of people failing to understand
00:24:59.280 that human life is more important and more precious than animal life.
00:25:02.880 The pet obsession has gotten to this pathological state
00:25:07.760 where it's turning people into sociopaths
00:25:10.260 who no longer recognize the inherent value of human life.
00:25:13.380 I don't know how else to describe that.
00:25:15.120 I mean, all these people, at least on my Twitter,
00:25:18.620 it's not just that people were answering the survey,
00:25:21.320 but they were justifying it openly,
00:25:24.000 announcing and saying, yeah, sure, yeah, no, I'd totally,
00:25:26.500 I'd let a person die for the sake of my dog.
00:25:28.560 And it's like, you do realize that that's,
00:25:32.460 you have the moral insight of a psychopath, right?
00:25:36.040 You do realize that you couldn't possibly justify that morally on any level.
00:25:41.540 You realize that, don't you?
00:25:44.340 I don't know.
00:25:45.180 It's not even a rhetorical question.
00:25:46.860 I don't know if these people realize it or not.
00:25:48.380 Are they just embracing the fact that they're psychopaths?
00:25:55.120 Now, look, I'm not saying
00:25:56.740 that having a pet automatically does that to you.
00:26:02.320 Okay, I'm not saying that every person who has a pet
00:26:04.000 is a psychopath.
00:26:09.200 Maybe you can make an argument, but no,
00:26:10.700 that's not what I'm saying.
00:26:12.460 I'm saying that the obsessive, pet-focused,
00:26:16.940 pet-centered life that some people lead
00:26:20.320 has contributed to, has caused, has fed this delusion.
00:26:25.240 That animals are more,
00:26:27.900 not even as important as people,
00:26:30.020 but more important.
00:26:32.220 And when people go around calling their pets their children
00:26:34.900 and that sort of stuff,
00:26:36.820 it seems like, after a while,
00:26:39.540 some of them really start to believe it.
00:26:42.900 And I didn't put this poll up,
00:26:44.500 because honestly, I don't even want to know the answer.
00:26:48.000 But I was tempted to ask,
00:26:49.620 what if it was your dog and your child?
00:26:51.620 Who do you choose?
00:26:52.260 I'm betting you.
00:26:55.800 Now, I think it'd be small minority,
00:26:57.780 but there are people who would choose the dog.
00:27:01.400 We already know from this psychologist
00:27:02.960 that there are definitely people
00:27:04.180 who choose the dog over the grandparent.
00:27:08.900 This also, by the way, this is not,
00:27:10.840 and before we try to make excuses and say,
00:27:12.860 oh, this is natural, you know, people,
00:27:14.700 this is how they are with their dogs.
00:27:16.220 It's not natural.
00:27:17.380 This is actually the opposite of natural.
00:27:20.180 This is completely unnatural.
00:27:22.620 Our natural inclination is to prefer our own species.
00:27:26.880 And every species is like this.
00:27:28.900 Your natural inclination is supposed to be
00:27:31.200 to prioritize your own species.
00:27:33.960 We are all naturally speciesist,
00:27:36.420 and we should be.
00:27:38.460 That is a good prejudice to have.
00:27:41.740 Every other species has it.
00:27:45.460 I can guarantee you,
00:27:46.520 dogs care more about other dogs.
00:27:49.780 Lions care more about other lions.
00:27:51.380 Gorillas care more about other gorillas.
00:27:53.320 They are naturally inclined in that direction.
00:27:57.680 So, if you're tempted to say,
00:28:01.100 well, of course people feel this way about their pets.
00:28:03.180 That's how it's always been.
00:28:04.320 No, it's not of course.
00:28:06.840 It's not how it's always been.
00:28:08.620 This is a distinctly modern and Western phenomenon,
00:28:11.800 as I said last week.
00:28:14.760 Now, to answer the question posed by the person in the email,
00:28:17.520 saying, you know, why is this happening?
00:28:20.360 Why are so many people now essentially psychopaths
00:28:23.520 who don't even understand that human life
00:28:25.260 is more important than animal life?
00:28:27.280 Why do we live in a country where so many people
00:28:29.660 would let a human being,
00:28:31.520 likely a father and a husband,
00:28:33.120 burn alive in favor of saving their stupid pets?
00:28:35.940 Because, well, here's my theory to that.
00:28:38.020 Actually, I'll give my theory a second.
00:28:39.420 But I really want to dwell on this.
00:28:41.260 Because I know that it's a hypothetical.
00:28:43.860 And you can say that all day long.
00:28:45.080 You can say, oh, it's just a hypothetical.
00:28:46.340 Yeah, it's a hypothetical.
00:28:47.300 But there's a point here.
00:28:49.080 It's a thought experiment
00:28:50.440 to try to figure out what your priorities are.
00:28:53.040 So, if you're in the 40%,
00:28:55.860 think about what you're saying.
00:28:57.560 You're saying that you would let
00:28:59.920 a conscious, self-aware, human adult
00:29:04.840 who certainly has a family
00:29:07.840 and is most likely a husband and a father,
00:29:10.360 you would let him burn alive
00:29:12.560 an absolutely torturous, horrific death
00:29:18.480 that he will be fully aware of.
00:29:21.660 And you will let his family be,
00:29:24.220 his children be orphaned.
00:29:25.900 And you'll let his wife be widowed
00:29:28.500 for the sake of your dog.
00:29:32.140 My God.
00:29:35.000 Just, and I want to believe that most,
00:29:37.880 maybe you're just not thinking it through.
00:29:39.120 I don't know.
00:29:40.980 Really think about that.
00:29:45.780 And then I had a lot of other people saying,
00:29:47.440 oh, you know, you can't really answer this question.
00:29:49.340 It's a difficult call.
00:29:50.040 It's one of those things you have to be,
00:29:51.000 you don't know what you'll do in the moment
00:29:52.380 until you're there.
00:29:53.360 No, I know what I would do.
00:29:54.920 I can tell you right now,
00:29:55.740 I have a cat.
00:29:58.400 And if that cat is trapped
00:30:00.020 in a burning building
00:30:00.700 and there's a human there,
00:30:02.280 see you later, cat.
00:30:03.540 That's, I don't even have to think about it.
00:30:04.980 It's no hesitation,
00:30:06.600 not even a second.
00:30:08.020 There would not be one second of me going,
00:30:10.100 you know, I've got the guy there
00:30:11.900 is trapped.
00:30:14.300 And then I've got the cat.
00:30:15.300 There wouldn't be one second of me going,
00:30:17.280 should I get the cat?
00:30:18.720 And then the guy looks at me
00:30:20.780 and guilt trips me into,
00:30:21.760 no, that wouldn't happen.
00:30:22.660 I just, I'm going right for the guy.
00:30:26.500 So why, you know, why is it?
00:30:27.960 Why do people put their pets
00:30:29.400 above their,
00:30:30.200 above humans?
00:30:32.020 I think it comes down to selfishness.
00:30:34.920 And when you think of it that way,
00:30:36.140 it's a lot less mysterious.
00:30:37.320 Once you start to realize
00:30:38.720 that most of the bad stuff,
00:30:40.540 you know, in life,
00:30:41.680 most of the bad things we do,
00:30:43.240 most of our bad priorities,
00:30:45.680 it always comes down to selfishness
00:30:47.280 in the end.
00:30:49.220 Because this pet obsession,
00:30:50.640 and again, when I say obsession,
00:30:52.680 I mean obsession.
00:30:53.920 I'm not talking about
00:30:55.000 if you have a pet
00:30:55.780 and you love your pet,
00:30:57.160 but the love you have for your pet
00:30:59.520 is in a proper perspective
00:31:01.080 and it's proportionate
00:31:02.340 and you obviously put humans
00:31:04.300 above your pet
00:31:05.060 and you put your family
00:31:05.900 above your pet
00:31:06.500 and you put strangers above,
00:31:07.580 you know, if you're in that category,
00:31:09.220 then go in peace.
00:31:10.340 God be with you.
00:31:11.060 I have no problem with you.
00:31:12.720 I am also a pet owner.
00:31:14.220 So I'm, you know,
00:31:15.340 we're on the same page, right?
00:31:18.200 I'm talking about the wackadoodles
00:31:20.280 who openly announced
00:31:21.680 that they would save their cat or dog
00:31:23.460 and let a human being burn to death.
00:31:25.280 That's what I'm talking about.
00:31:28.300 And for those people,
00:31:29.620 I think it is selfishness,
00:31:31.460 which is very different
00:31:34.000 from normal sort of animal lovers,
00:31:38.100 meaning the people in the first camp,
00:31:40.360 people who love animals,
00:31:41.480 but not more than they love people.
00:31:44.800 And people like that,
00:31:47.260 people who have a very,
00:31:50.300 you know,
00:31:51.040 have a great passion for animals
00:31:53.100 and are animal lovers,
00:31:55.060 but still it's all in proportion
00:31:56.420 and they would never value
00:31:57.940 an animal over a person.
00:31:59.400 Those people I admire
00:32:00.520 because I think, you know,
00:32:01.660 that comes from a,
00:32:03.440 from a,
00:32:04.440 in a,
00:32:05.140 in a biting,
00:32:06.000 an abounding,
00:32:06.520 just compassion
00:32:08.160 for all living things
00:32:09.720 and I think that's great, right?
00:32:13.240 But the people who put the animals
00:32:15.920 above other people,
00:32:17.940 I think for them,
00:32:19.660 it is a sort of a selfishness
00:32:22.040 and I think the reason is,
00:32:23.820 you know,
00:32:23.960 what is it that they like about the pet?
00:32:27.040 Well, it's because the pet
00:32:27.840 makes them feel good.
00:32:30.040 The way people talk about dogs,
00:32:31.480 you know,
00:32:31.700 the dog worships the ground you walk on,
00:32:33.820 they're so excited when you come home,
00:32:35.140 it's like,
00:32:35.380 yeah, all that is fine.
00:32:36.520 Now, personally,
00:32:37.200 I don't need to be worshipped
00:32:38.040 every second of the day.
00:32:39.260 It's a little bit much,
00:32:40.680 honestly,
00:32:41.620 to have a dog following me around
00:32:42.880 all hours of the day
00:32:43.720 worshipping me,
00:32:44.420 a little bit much,
00:32:45.100 don't really need that.
00:32:46.020 I need a little space,
00:32:46.940 but,
00:32:48.380 um,
00:32:49.020 it can be nice sometimes,
00:32:50.380 I suppose.
00:32:52.420 But that's really what people
00:32:53.680 love about their pets.
00:32:56.200 And then they'll say things like,
00:32:57.680 oh, a pet will never betray you
00:32:59.160 like a person will,
00:33:00.100 a pet will never lie to you
00:33:01.180 like a person will.
00:33:02.000 What they're really saying is,
00:33:03.940 you know,
00:33:04.200 I want to be in a relationship
00:33:05.820 with someone
00:33:06.380 where it's all about me
00:33:08.400 and I am getting nothing but,
00:33:10.540 but, uh,
00:33:11.200 it's, it's,
00:33:11.600 I'm getting nothing but,
00:33:12.520 but pleasure out of it.
00:33:13.980 Um,
00:33:15.140 and I,
00:33:15.720 I never have to deal with any,
00:33:17.020 you know,
00:33:17.220 the other person never
00:33:18.380 sort of intrudes their own
00:33:19.780 personality on me.
00:33:20.860 I never have to do,
00:33:22.640 you know,
00:33:23.040 I never have to do anything
00:33:23.720 like forgive.
00:33:25.660 That's what they're saying.
00:33:26.920 That's why they prefer
00:33:28.040 animals over humans.
00:33:31.660 Because the relationship
00:33:33.060 you can have with a human being
00:33:34.260 is much richer
00:33:36.240 and much deeper
00:33:37.360 and much more meaningful
00:33:38.520 as anybody who's ever had
00:33:41.080 a real relationship
00:33:41.720 with another person knows.
00:33:44.100 But,
00:33:44.720 yeah,
00:33:45.440 it is a person.
00:33:46.960 And so they have
00:33:47.440 their own personality,
00:33:48.460 they have their own goals,
00:33:49.600 they have their own priorities,
00:33:50.860 they have moral weaknesses,
00:33:53.420 they are going to do things
00:33:54.480 sometimes like,
00:33:55.140 like lie to you.
00:33:56.300 They might betray you.
00:33:57.700 These are you,
00:33:58.100 and so then you need
00:33:58.660 to forgive them.
00:33:59.460 And it takes more work
00:34:00.740 on your end.
00:34:02.640 And I think there are
00:34:03.360 a lot of people
00:34:03.940 who are so weak
00:34:05.000 and so selfish
00:34:06.200 and so pathetic
00:34:07.620 that they don't want
00:34:08.820 to do that work
00:34:09.760 for another person.
00:34:11.260 They just want to,
00:34:12.060 they'll just,
00:34:12.660 you know,
00:34:12.940 they'll substitute a person
00:34:14.080 for a dog
00:34:14.800 and they don't have to
00:34:15.720 worry about any of that
00:34:16.500 and the dog will just
00:34:17.200 worship them,
00:34:17.820 it'll be all about them.
00:34:20.160 And, uh,
00:34:20.720 you know,
00:34:20.860 the dog's always there,
00:34:21.720 they can keep the dog
00:34:22.340 at home when they go to work,
00:34:23.400 they come home,
00:34:23.860 the dog is there,
00:34:24.380 they can always just
00:34:24.780 put the dog
00:34:25.260 where they want the dog
00:34:26.020 and it's always really
00:34:27.400 just about them
00:34:28.120 in the end.
00:34:30.040 I also think there's
00:34:30.880 the Disney effect.
00:34:32.000 I think a lot of adults
00:34:32.980 still think they're
00:34:34.400 in a Disney movie.
00:34:36.140 Um,
00:34:37.420 and,
00:34:38.380 and I guess
00:34:39.060 because they grew up
00:34:39.600 watching this
00:34:40.180 and so they ascribe
00:34:41.140 noble intentions
00:34:42.220 to their pets.
00:34:43.700 They talk about their pets
00:34:44.960 as if their pets
00:34:45.660 are virtuous,
00:34:46.640 saintly creatures.
00:34:48.240 you know,
00:34:49.360 they,
00:34:49.640 they,
00:34:49.860 they really do
00:34:50.660 ascribe
00:34:51.180 virtuous motives
00:34:53.600 to their pets.
00:34:55.700 But you notice
00:34:56.420 it never goes
00:34:56.900 on the other end.
00:34:58.860 Like,
00:34:59.480 they would never
00:35:00.080 accuse their dog
00:35:00.960 of knowingly stealing,
00:35:02.660 you know,
00:35:02.860 they would never
00:35:03.280 think that their dog
00:35:04.220 should be held
00:35:04.800 morally responsible
00:35:05.920 for stealing something
00:35:07.720 from the counter,
00:35:08.540 maybe,
00:35:08.820 you know,
00:35:09.140 stealing some,
00:35:09.860 some,
00:35:10.380 some food from the counter.
00:35:12.140 Even if their dog
00:35:13.000 goes and bites someone,
00:35:14.380 they immediately
00:35:15.080 make an excuse.
00:35:15.760 Oh,
00:35:15.980 it's just a,
00:35:16.340 he's a dog.
00:35:17.000 You know,
00:35:17.140 he doesn't know any better.
00:35:18.960 So when it comes
00:35:19.640 to something bad,
00:35:21.180 um,
00:35:21.700 their dog doesn't
00:35:22.400 deserve any moral guilt.
00:35:24.600 But on the other hand,
00:35:25.540 with the good stuff,
00:35:26.480 it's,
00:35:26.700 oh,
00:35:26.760 no,
00:35:26.920 he's loyal,
00:35:27.680 he's loving,
00:35:28.420 he's,
00:35:28.700 so what they've,
00:35:29.520 they've made the dog
00:35:30.540 out to be,
00:35:31.240 um,
00:35:32.360 this morally perfect
00:35:34.340 angelic creature,
00:35:36.460 which,
00:35:38.280 of course,
00:35:38.600 is insane.
00:35:39.580 And in reality,
00:35:41.620 with animals,
00:35:42.880 um,
00:35:44.000 most of what they do
00:35:45.100 is instinctive.
00:35:46.520 You know,
00:35:46.740 they do it because
00:35:47.540 they've been programmed
00:35:48.280 that way biologically
00:35:49.380 by nature.
00:35:50.860 Uh,
00:35:51.260 most of the love
00:35:52.040 they show to you,
00:35:52.880 it's only because
00:35:53.380 you feed them.
00:35:54.780 And,
00:35:55.260 um,
00:35:55.740 and if you stop
00:35:56.420 feeding them,
00:35:57.020 they'd probably eat you
00:35:57.900 instead.
00:35:58.300 That's the thing.
00:35:58.920 You know,
00:35:59.180 it's,
00:35:59.440 that's,
00:36:00.200 that's the,
00:36:01.660 that's really the test.
00:36:03.840 You say your dog
00:36:04.680 loves you,
00:36:05.100 I mean,
00:36:05.400 maybe there's a certain
00:36:06.340 emotional sense of that
00:36:07.720 where he does have
00:36:08.220 some affection for you,
00:36:08.960 but if you stop
00:36:09.800 feeding your dog,
00:36:10.720 he'll eat you.
00:36:12.320 And then he just will.
00:36:14.280 Uh,
00:36:14.720 your kids probably won't.
00:36:16.640 But your dog will.
00:36:19.020 Because he's a dog.
00:36:20.360 And that's fine.
00:36:21.300 You know,
00:36:21.520 it's fine for dogs
00:36:22.220 to be dogs.
00:36:23.060 But,
00:36:23.320 uh,
00:36:23.500 let's just,
00:36:24.440 let's just keep it in,
00:36:27.860 let's just keep it in perspective
00:36:30.960 is all I'm trying to say.
00:36:32.540 All right,
00:36:32.800 let's go to emails.
00:36:34.000 mattwalshowatgmail.com,
00:36:35.440 mattwalshowatgmail.com.
00:36:36.940 Um,
00:36:37.460 this is from Carlos,
00:36:38.540 says,
00:36:39.100 Matt,
00:36:39.460 great show,
00:36:40.080 great columns,
00:36:40.920 great everything,
00:36:41.760 et cetera.
00:36:42.340 On Twitter,
00:36:42.940 you were discussing thinkers
00:36:44.000 who have different worldviews
00:36:45.940 from your own.
00:36:47.840 You gave a favorable mention
00:36:49.180 to Sam Harris
00:36:50.060 and even said
00:36:50.680 you found his argument
00:36:51.360 against free will persuasive.
00:36:53.100 Can you elaborate on that?
00:36:54.640 I have to say,
00:36:55.140 I was shocked to read this
00:36:56.180 from you,
00:36:56.680 given that you've so often
00:36:57.680 defended free will.
00:36:59.320 Um,
00:37:01.900 yeah,
00:37:04.340 uh,
00:37:05.260 we were talking about that
00:37:07.300 on,
00:37:07.520 on,
00:37:07.840 on Twitter.
00:37:08.680 Um,
00:37:09.480 and I do appreciate Sam Harris.
00:37:11.540 I've read many of his books.
00:37:13.900 I didn't say,
00:37:14.860 and he wrote a book,
00:37:15.520 uh,
00:37:15.900 against,
00:37:17.160 you know,
00:37:17.480 arguing against the concept
00:37:19.280 of free will.
00:37:19.820 Pretty short little book.
00:37:21.300 Uh,
00:37:21.620 and I think it's worth reading.
00:37:23.800 Now,
00:37:24.300 I didn't say
00:37:24.980 that his argument
00:37:26.060 against free will
00:37:26.820 was persuasive,
00:37:27.960 let alone did I say
00:37:29.420 that I was persuaded by it.
00:37:31.080 So I didn't say
00:37:31.800 that I read his book
00:37:32.920 and said,
00:37:33.240 you know what,
00:37:33.500 there is no free will.
00:37:35.280 I said it was,
00:37:36.140 it was a more formidable argument
00:37:37.960 that he presented
00:37:38.720 than I expected.
00:37:41.420 And,
00:37:41.820 and part of my point here
00:37:42.760 is that we have to be
00:37:43.460 willing to admit
00:37:44.420 when somebody makes
00:37:46.200 a formidable,
00:37:47.260 i.e.
00:37:47.800 credible,
00:37:48.420 intelligent,
00:37:49.060 plausible argument
00:37:49.860 that we disagree with.
00:37:51.500 Because I think
00:37:52.200 if we've never encountered
00:37:53.760 a formidable argument
00:37:55.100 that we disagree with,
00:37:56.020 that's a pretty good indication
00:37:56.960 that we're living in a bubble.
00:37:57.960 So I thought he made
00:38:00.460 a pretty good case
00:38:01.120 for his view,
00:38:01.840 but I still disagree
00:38:02.860 with his conclusion.
00:38:04.460 Let me tell you
00:38:05.140 why I disagree,
00:38:06.040 first of all.
00:38:06.900 And then I'll get
00:38:07.400 to the formidable aspect
00:38:08.520 of his argument.
00:38:10.060 I disagree with anybody
00:38:11.240 claiming that free will
00:38:12.120 doesn't exist.
00:38:13.600 Um,
00:38:13.880 and this is determinism
00:38:14.900 if you want the fancy
00:38:16.000 ism name for this view.
00:38:18.860 I disagree because
00:38:20.080 as far as I can tell,
00:38:22.480 you just can't get around
00:38:24.740 a simple fact.
00:38:26.380 And that simple fact
00:38:27.380 is that like,
00:38:28.260 I am choosing
00:38:29.380 to do this right now.
00:38:30.540 Okay?
00:38:31.400 Raising the mug
00:38:32.080 up and down.
00:38:33.180 Which, by the way,
00:38:33.900 you can get these,
00:38:35.360 the Deli Wire store.
00:38:36.700 Um,
00:38:37.120 I'm choosing to do this.
00:38:39.560 I could not be doing this.
00:38:42.140 I could be doing
00:38:42.880 any number of other things.
00:38:44.200 Rather than doing this,
00:38:45.020 I could go downstairs
00:38:46.340 and make a grilled cheese sandwich.
00:38:47.980 I could go jump in a lake.
00:38:49.940 I could go in a killing spree.
00:38:51.840 I could,
00:38:52.200 I could do all of those things.
00:38:54.160 But instead,
00:38:54.860 I'm sitting here right now
00:38:55.640 raising my mug up and down
00:38:56.920 like an idiot.
00:38:58.440 That's a choice
00:38:59.100 that I'm making.
00:39:00.480 And,
00:39:00.920 when I say that I could
00:39:02.100 be doing those things,
00:39:03.180 what I mean is,
00:39:03.940 those are theoretical options
00:39:05.500 available to me,
00:39:06.580 and there is nothing
00:39:07.480 actively,
00:39:08.340 physically preventing me
00:39:09.320 from doing them.
00:39:10.940 So I could do them.
00:39:13.340 And if I could,
00:39:14.180 and, you know,
00:39:14.880 I can do anything
00:39:16.000 within the laws of physics.
00:39:18.540 And if I can do anything
00:39:19.840 theoretically within
00:39:20.560 the laws of physics,
00:39:21.400 then I have free will.
00:39:23.060 At least that's what I mean
00:39:24.500 when I talk about free will.
00:39:26.540 Now,
00:39:27.180 here's an example
00:39:27.940 of true determinism.
00:39:29.840 Computers.
00:39:31.120 So,
00:39:31.600 I could build a fancy robot.
00:39:32.980 Well,
00:39:33.160 I couldn't build a fancy robot
00:39:34.060 because I'm stupid.
00:39:34.880 But,
00:39:35.460 a smart person
00:39:36.160 could build a fancy robot
00:39:37.160 that can,
00:39:39.260 you know,
00:39:39.560 walk across the room,
00:39:40.880 pour a cup of coffee,
00:39:41.840 bring it back to you.
00:39:43.220 Something really impressive
00:39:44.220 like that.
00:39:45.460 But that's programmed.
00:39:47.300 The robot has no choice.
00:39:48.940 Literally no choice.
00:39:50.540 It could malfunction
00:39:51.540 and go and do something else.
00:39:53.560 But again,
00:39:54.080 that's not a choice.
00:39:54.900 That's just a malfunction.
00:39:57.280 It can't choose
00:39:58.420 to do something else.
00:39:59.920 And with all due respect
00:40:01.000 to Terminator
00:40:02.100 and The Matrix,
00:40:03.200 it couldn't actually choose
00:40:04.680 to go out
00:40:05.180 and kill people
00:40:05.920 or enslave mankind
00:40:07.180 or do any of that stuff.
00:40:09.040 It can only do
00:40:09.840 what it's programmed to do
00:40:10.920 or else it can break.
00:40:12.660 Those are kind of
00:40:13.340 the two possibilities.
00:40:15.800 My computer
00:40:16.720 could not even
00:40:17.420 theoretically
00:40:18.400 become a Buddhist.
00:40:21.540 I could theoretically
00:40:22.740 become a Buddhist.
00:40:23.720 That's an option
00:40:24.500 open to me.
00:40:25.500 I could do it
00:40:26.300 because I have free will.
00:40:28.140 The only reason
00:40:28.760 I'm not a Buddhist
00:40:29.720 right now
00:40:30.280 is because I haven't
00:40:31.060 chosen to be one.
00:40:31.780 So I think free will
00:40:34.420 stands.
00:40:35.380 But here's the
00:40:36.020 formidable aspect
00:40:37.080 of Harris's argument.
00:40:40.480 And I'm summarizing
00:40:41.560 it very briefly.
00:40:42.280 Try not to make
00:40:42.920 a straw man out of it.
00:40:44.500 So if I do make
00:40:45.560 a straw man out of it,
00:40:46.420 that's unintentional.
00:40:48.120 But I think his point
00:40:48.980 is basically this.
00:40:51.240 So take a murderer,
00:40:53.160 for example.
00:40:54.000 Okay.
00:40:57.460 That murderer
00:40:58.320 chose to be a murderer,
00:41:00.760 I would say.
00:41:01.600 Chose to shoot up
00:41:02.360 the movie theater.
00:41:02.880 And you would say
00:41:07.820 that, well,
00:41:09.020 he chose to do that
00:41:10.520 and you chose
00:41:12.460 not to do that.
00:41:13.540 And that's the reason
00:41:14.620 you're not a murderer
00:41:15.660 and he is.
00:41:17.640 But Harris says,
00:41:18.900 hold on a second.
00:41:20.420 Wait a minute.
00:41:22.000 What if you had
00:41:22.940 the exact same genes
00:41:24.360 as that guy?
00:41:25.880 Not like pants,
00:41:27.180 but genes,
00:41:27.940 genetics.
00:41:28.860 What if you had
00:41:29.200 the exact same genes
00:41:29.860 and the same
00:41:32.140 psychological
00:41:32.700 makeup
00:41:33.140 and the same
00:41:34.680 mental illnesses
00:41:35.340 if he has any
00:41:36.020 and the same
00:41:38.480 family background
00:41:39.700 and the same
00:41:41.660 childhood traumas
00:41:42.660 and every other
00:41:44.420 thing that's happened
00:41:45.300 to that guy
00:41:45.980 that he didn't choose,
00:41:48.220 let's say all of that
00:41:49.700 happened to you also.
00:41:53.100 Can you be so sure
00:41:54.320 in that case
00:41:54.900 that you wouldn't
00:41:55.420 also be a mass murderer?
00:41:57.660 And the answer
00:41:58.600 we have to admit
00:41:59.260 is no.
00:42:00.220 You know,
00:42:00.400 we can't be so sure.
00:42:01.180 In fact,
00:42:01.720 probably we would be.
00:42:02.700 If we were in the
00:42:05.380 exact same situation
00:42:06.940 as that guy,
00:42:07.880 exact same,
00:42:09.200 from birth,
00:42:11.200 everything is
00:42:12.400 exactly the same.
00:42:13.860 We'd probably do
00:42:14.620 the same thing.
00:42:15.140 In fact,
00:42:15.500 we would probably
00:42:16.200 be that guy.
00:42:17.580 I mean,
00:42:17.880 then we would
00:42:18.460 essentially be him
00:42:19.840 and we'd probably
00:42:20.780 do everything
00:42:21.420 that he does.
00:42:23.340 Another example,
00:42:24.640 I think maybe
00:42:25.280 even a better example
00:42:26.500 would be,
00:42:27.700 an easier example
00:42:29.840 would be suicide bomber.
00:42:32.520 And, you know,
00:42:33.020 with a suicide bomber,
00:42:33.960 we could take even
00:42:34.620 genetics and stuff
00:42:35.400 out of it
00:42:35.880 and let's just say
00:42:36.780 that, you know,
00:42:38.300 you grew up
00:42:39.280 in Iraq
00:42:40.440 and you were
00:42:41.860 indoctrinated
00:42:42.520 into militant Islam
00:42:43.860 every day of your life
00:42:45.060 from birth
00:42:45.560 and you were told
00:42:46.700 every day of your life
00:42:47.560 from birth
00:42:48.120 that, you know,
00:42:48.860 if you become a martyr,
00:42:49.700 you'll get 72 virgins
00:42:50.720 and you had
00:42:52.580 all that same conditioning
00:42:53.620 for years and years
00:42:54.480 and years and years
00:42:55.040 and years.
00:42:56.620 Would you become
00:42:57.340 a suicide bomber too?
00:42:58.620 Probably.
00:43:01.860 And, you know,
00:43:02.860 and that's a good point
00:43:03.780 that he raises
00:43:04.300 and I think we have
00:43:04.960 to grapple with it.
00:43:06.500 That's not a point
00:43:07.140 that you can just
00:43:07.560 gloss over.
00:43:09.060 It's a point that we,
00:43:10.060 and Harris makes,
00:43:12.840 goes back to this theme
00:43:13.840 in his book
00:43:14.300 where this is like,
00:43:15.520 this is something
00:43:15.980 we want to gloss over
00:43:17.180 because it makes
00:43:17.660 us uncomfortable
00:43:18.240 and we start to feel
00:43:20.260 the foundations
00:43:21.840 of our justice system
00:43:23.140 sort of begin
00:43:23.820 to collapse around us
00:43:25.060 where if now
00:43:26.360 we're saying
00:43:26.900 that like we would
00:43:27.720 probably do
00:43:28.320 all of the bad things
00:43:29.300 that bad people
00:43:30.020 have done
00:43:30.420 if we were in
00:43:30.900 their same exact situation
00:43:31.940 like then what basis
00:43:33.340 do we have
00:43:33.720 to even put them
00:43:34.220 in jail
00:43:34.580 and all these questions
00:43:35.700 come rushing in
00:43:36.440 and it's very disturbing.
00:43:38.380 But here's my response.
00:43:41.020 What Harris is talking about,
00:43:44.060 these factors
00:43:45.960 that he's talking about
00:43:46.820 are influences
00:43:48.280 they are things
00:43:50.920 that can influence you
00:43:52.160 in one direction
00:43:52.920 or another
00:43:53.440 and they may be
00:43:55.020 very strong influences,
00:43:56.460 very strong.
00:43:57.420 You know,
00:43:57.620 brainwashing from birth
00:43:59.000 is an indoctrination
00:44:00.680 from birth
00:44:01.460 into a certain worldview.
00:44:03.120 It doesn't have to be
00:44:03.600 Milton, Islam,
00:44:04.300 it could be anything.
00:44:05.680 But being indoctrinated
00:44:06.800 into it from birth
00:44:07.780 is a very,
00:44:09.080 very strong influence.
00:44:10.300 It is very hard
00:44:11.940 to, you know,
00:44:14.740 be born into
00:44:15.600 a certain worldview,
00:44:16.520 a certain way of thinking
00:44:17.260 and to break out of that.
00:44:18.980 It is very hard to do.
00:44:21.800 Most people can't.
00:44:24.960 And the only way
00:44:25.760 that you know
00:44:26.360 if you can
00:44:26.860 is if you've done it.
00:44:28.180 If you have never have,
00:44:29.900 now hopefully
00:44:30.600 you didn't need to
00:44:31.920 because you were
00:44:32.520 sort of indoctrinated
00:44:34.080 quote unquote
00:44:34.500 into the right way
00:44:35.320 of thinking.
00:44:36.840 But if you've never
00:44:38.500 had to make that effort
00:44:39.380 of breaking out of that
00:44:40.220 then you don't really know
00:44:40.960 if you could or not.
00:44:42.380 Probably you can't
00:44:43.400 because most people can't.
00:44:44.260 But my point is
00:44:47.720 you still have a choice.
00:44:49.300 You aren't literally
00:44:50.500 programmed.
00:44:52.400 You could theoretically
00:44:54.220 do something else.
00:44:56.060 And that's all I mean
00:44:57.120 by free will
00:44:57.740 which is why I say
00:44:58.760 that free will
00:44:59.380 still stands.
00:45:01.900 Right?
00:45:03.260 You take somebody
00:45:03.960 in the inner city.
00:45:06.300 Someone born,
00:45:08.060 you know,
00:45:08.900 with no father in the home,
00:45:10.180 born in the projects,
00:45:12.260 the projects,
00:45:13.640 nothing but bad influences
00:45:15.240 all around,
00:45:16.760 nothing but crime
00:45:17.740 and drugs all around,
00:45:18.680 terrible school system,
00:45:19.720 all of that, right?
00:45:21.100 And then they go
00:45:21.920 and become a drug dealer.
00:45:24.060 And Harris would say,
00:45:25.260 well,
00:45:25.460 if you were in that
00:45:26.180 exact same situation,
00:45:27.400 wouldn't you also
00:45:28.020 be a drug dealer?
00:45:29.100 Probably.
00:45:30.320 Yes, probably.
00:45:31.740 But that doesn't mean
00:45:33.300 they don't actually
00:45:33.980 have a choice.
00:45:34.520 They do have a choice.
00:45:36.120 The choice is still there.
00:45:37.140 You could choose
00:45:37.860 something else.
00:45:38.540 And we know that,
00:45:39.520 one way we know that
00:45:40.340 is that some people
00:45:41.260 do choose.
00:45:42.820 You know,
00:45:42.980 there are a lot of people
00:45:44.220 who are grown,
00:45:45.140 who are born
00:45:45.740 into terrible situations,
00:45:47.660 frankly,
00:45:48.580 end up being terrible people.
00:45:50.020 And that's the horrible
00:45:51.040 thing about it.
00:45:52.480 Just like there are
00:45:52.940 a lot of people
00:45:53.540 who, you know,
00:45:54.220 suffer all kinds of trauma
00:45:55.700 as children
00:45:57.480 and then go on
00:45:58.500 and become
00:45:58.980 sexual abusers
00:46:00.180 and pedophiles.
00:46:00.780 I think if you look
00:46:01.300 at most pedophiles
00:46:02.100 and you look at
00:46:02.480 their family background,
00:46:03.960 you're going to find
00:46:04.540 that a lot of horrible
00:46:05.800 things happened to them
00:46:06.840 when they were kids.
00:46:07.420 But that doesn't mean
00:46:10.960 that there is still
00:46:12.180 a choice.
00:46:12.540 You can break out
00:46:13.480 of that.
00:46:14.280 And we know
00:46:14.780 there are plenty
00:46:15.380 of people who are
00:46:16.100 born in these
00:46:16.720 horrible situations,
00:46:17.660 whether they're born,
00:46:18.600 you know,
00:46:18.960 into militant Islam
00:46:19.800 and they're trying,
00:46:21.200 people trying to
00:46:21.920 condition them
00:46:22.360 into being suicide bombers
00:46:24.040 or they're born
00:46:24.940 into a situation
00:46:25.600 where a lot of people
00:46:26.140 become drug dealers.
00:46:27.240 There are people
00:46:27.600 born in those situations
00:46:28.480 who do break out
00:46:30.000 of that and make
00:46:30.740 better choices
00:46:31.420 and prove.
00:46:32.520 And it takes a whole
00:46:33.260 lot of courage
00:46:33.840 and guts and everything.
00:46:35.060 more than probably
00:46:36.700 I have or you have.
00:46:38.320 But it is possible.
00:46:40.500 Let's look at
00:46:41.100 another example.
00:46:42.380 Let's say someone
00:46:43.100 puts a gun to your head.
00:46:45.680 Let's say that you're
00:46:46.400 sitting at a desk,
00:46:47.100 there's a button
00:46:47.640 on the desk,
00:46:48.360 and if you press
00:46:48.880 that button,
00:46:49.500 it's going to set
00:46:50.400 off an explosion
00:46:51.180 across town
00:46:52.280 that kills
00:46:52.760 a thousand people.
00:46:54.640 And let's say
00:46:55.000 someone literally
00:46:56.000 puts a gun
00:46:56.540 to your head
00:46:56.980 and says,
00:46:58.200 press that button.
00:47:00.440 Actual gun
00:47:01.060 to the head.
00:47:02.700 Now I guess
00:47:03.480 Sam Harris would say,
00:47:04.360 your free will
00:47:05.140 has been taken
00:47:05.660 from you.
00:47:06.380 Well,
00:47:06.740 you never had
00:47:07.180 free will
00:47:07.460 to begin with,
00:47:08.140 but,
00:47:08.680 you know,
00:47:09.040 according to him,
00:47:09.820 but you have
00:47:11.060 no choice,
00:47:11.640 he would say.
00:47:12.220 You have a gun
00:47:12.620 to your head.
00:47:13.900 And on one level
00:47:14.820 it makes sense.
00:47:15.460 Yeah,
00:47:15.620 there's a gun
00:47:16.080 to your head.
00:47:16.460 What choice
00:47:16.740 do you have?
00:47:17.760 But my point is,
00:47:18.700 you actually
00:47:19.100 do have a choice.
00:47:21.200 The gun
00:47:21.780 represents a
00:47:22.680 very,
00:47:23.260 very,
00:47:23.760 very,
00:47:24.200 very strong
00:47:25.100 influence
00:47:25.920 in one direction.
00:47:28.540 But you could
00:47:29.540 still choose
00:47:30.160 not to press it.
00:47:32.060 There's going
00:47:32.500 to be a horrible
00:47:32.900 consequence for you.
00:47:33.720 You're going
00:47:34.000 to be killed
00:47:34.380 probably.
00:47:35.680 But you could
00:47:36.580 make that choice.
00:47:37.540 That choice
00:47:37.940 is still available
00:47:39.000 to you.
00:47:39.980 It is still
00:47:40.520 a theoretical
00:47:41.220 option.
00:47:41.820 It may take
00:47:42.160 a lot of courage,
00:47:42.860 a lot of guts,
00:47:43.580 but you could do it.
00:47:45.400 And so you have
00:47:46.200 free will.
00:47:47.520 And so really,
00:47:48.260 all of these things
00:47:48.960 that Harris brings up,
00:47:50.340 even though they're
00:47:51.080 good things to consider,
00:47:53.100 and it's interesting
00:47:53.820 to talk about them,
00:47:55.140 they actually have
00:47:55.820 nothing to do
00:47:56.660 with free will
00:47:57.280 at all.
00:47:57.960 because they have
00:47:58.860 no bearing
00:48:00.420 on the fact
00:48:01.200 that we can still
00:48:03.060 make whatever choice
00:48:03.860 we want to make.
00:48:06.940 You know,
00:48:07.540 it is true,
00:48:08.360 and I've talked
00:48:08.840 about it myself,
00:48:10.140 that most of the
00:48:13.500 choices we make
00:48:14.300 in life are
00:48:15.180 determined by
00:48:16.680 desire and
00:48:18.300 opportunity.
00:48:19.640 In other words,
00:48:20.460 most of the things
00:48:22.080 you've done in your life,
00:48:23.600 you've done them,
00:48:24.760 good or bad,
00:48:25.300 you've done them
00:48:26.340 because you wanted to,
00:48:28.020 number one,
00:48:29.320 and number two,
00:48:30.280 because you had
00:48:30.740 the opportunity to do it.
00:48:32.560 And by opportunity,
00:48:33.380 I mean not just
00:48:34.000 the physical opportunity
00:48:34.780 to do it,
00:48:35.200 but also a chance
00:48:36.480 to do it without
00:48:37.100 there being,
00:48:37.820 in your mind,
00:48:38.940 horrible consequences
00:48:39.880 for it.
00:48:41.280 So good or bad,
00:48:42.200 let's just focus
00:48:42.780 on the bad for a minute.
00:48:44.240 Every sin you've committed,
00:48:45.600 every bad thing you've done,
00:48:47.560 big or small thing,
00:48:50.100 why did you do it?
00:48:51.500 You did it because
00:48:52.320 you wanted to,
00:48:53.520 and because you had
00:48:54.100 the chance to.
00:48:56.300 And that really is,
00:48:57.420 and same for the good stuff.
00:48:59.860 And that really does
00:49:01.040 seemingly determine
00:49:02.460 most of the things
00:49:03.660 that we do in life.
00:49:05.900 And in fact,
00:49:06.780 most of the times
00:49:07.840 when you decline
00:49:09.280 to do a bad thing,
00:49:11.800 and maybe you want
00:49:12.820 to give yourself
00:49:13.340 moral credit for it
00:49:14.500 and say,
00:49:14.860 oh, I didn't do that
00:49:15.400 because it's wrong.
00:49:16.180 But really, no,
00:49:16.840 that's not really
00:49:17.440 the reason you didn't do it.
00:49:18.380 The real reason
00:49:18.860 you didn't do it
00:49:19.480 is probably because
00:49:20.280 you didn't want to.
00:49:21.760 Like I went into
00:49:22.380 a store recently,
00:49:23.580 kind of a mom and pop shop,
00:49:25.300 and I was looking around
00:49:26.980 and whoever was supposed
00:49:28.320 to be at the cash register
00:49:29.080 was in the back
00:49:29.840 for like 10 minutes.
00:49:31.040 Store was unattended.
00:49:32.560 There were no cameras.
00:49:35.240 And I thought to myself,
00:49:36.540 anyone could just walk in here
00:49:37.700 and steal whatever they want.
00:49:39.220 I could have stolen
00:49:39.980 whatever I wanted.
00:49:41.140 I didn't steal anything.
00:49:42.480 Why didn't I steal something?
00:49:43.980 I had the opportunity.
00:49:45.520 Why didn't I steal it?
00:49:46.440 Is it because stealing is wrong?
00:49:47.740 Well, stealing is wrong,
00:49:48.700 but that's not why
00:49:49.340 I didn't do it.
00:49:49.840 I didn't do it
00:49:50.220 because I didn't want to.
00:49:50.940 I just had no desire to steal.
00:49:53.600 That's not something
00:49:54.340 I want to do.
00:49:54.760 I don't want to steal.
00:49:56.060 No desire.
00:49:57.020 Didn't even cross my mind.
00:49:58.640 It crossed my mind
00:49:59.200 as an option for someone else,
00:50:00.580 and I was hoping
00:50:01.220 the guy would come out soon,
00:50:02.540 so that wouldn't happen.
00:50:04.860 Now,
00:50:06.120 what if I was in that store,
00:50:08.920 same situation,
00:50:10.240 I got all the opportunity
00:50:11.600 in the world,
00:50:12.220 but I really, really,
00:50:13.840 really want to steal.
00:50:15.160 Maybe I'm a kleptomaniac.
00:50:16.680 Maybe I've just been raised
00:50:17.860 that stealing is okay.
00:50:18.940 Maybe I have a, you know,
00:50:21.280 I've fallen on hard times,
00:50:22.940 and I, you know, whatever.
00:50:23.720 Like,
00:50:24.080 what if I really had
00:50:25.600 that strong desire?
00:50:26.500 Would I have stolen?
00:50:27.880 I don't know.
00:50:29.400 Maybe.
00:50:31.700 You know,
00:50:32.260 I think
00:50:32.660 in order to know
00:50:34.560 if
00:50:36.220 we are essentially slaves
00:50:38.300 to opportunity
00:50:39.300 and desire in our life,
00:50:40.440 we just have to look
00:50:41.180 and see,
00:50:41.760 you know,
00:50:42.380 how many occasions
00:50:44.800 have there been in my life
00:50:46.060 when I've really wanted
00:50:47.540 to do something bad
00:50:48.580 and I've really had
00:50:49.980 the chance to do it
00:50:50.920 without there being
00:50:51.640 any consequence
00:50:52.340 and I didn't do it.
00:50:55.740 And I think
00:50:56.360 if we do an honest assessment
00:50:57.740 and we realize that,
00:50:59.720 you know,
00:51:00.340 pretty much every time
00:51:01.600 I want to do something
00:51:02.380 and I have the chance
00:51:03.040 to do it,
00:51:03.320 I do it.
00:51:04.620 If that's the case for us,
00:51:06.600 then that means
00:51:07.480 that
00:51:08.520 that's pretty much
00:51:10.200 100% confirmation
00:51:11.280 that if you were
00:51:12.140 in the situation
00:51:12.900 of the drug dealer
00:51:13.700 or the bank robber
00:51:14.600 or the suicide bomber,
00:51:15.860 you'd be doing
00:51:16.680 that stuff too.
00:51:20.340 But,
00:51:21.160 but,
00:51:22.640 opportunity and desire
00:51:24.900 often do determine
00:51:26.960 our actions
00:51:27.980 as human beings,
00:51:28.780 but they don't
00:51:29.920 have to.
00:51:31.040 You can overcome that.
00:51:33.560 I mean,
00:51:33.920 you can have
00:51:34.820 the desire
00:51:35.240 to do something bad
00:51:36.140 and the opportunity
00:51:37.460 and not do it.
00:51:39.520 Just like
00:51:40.300 you could do
00:51:41.420 something good
00:51:42.200 even though
00:51:42.820 you really don't want
00:51:43.840 to do the good thing
00:51:44.600 and it's a big hassle
00:51:45.520 to do it
00:51:46.420 and you could still
00:51:47.120 do it anyway.
00:51:48.840 Most people
00:51:49.380 don't act that way
00:51:50.180 because most people
00:51:50.860 lack virtue
00:51:51.660 and lack courage
00:51:52.620 and strength.
00:51:53.940 I'm one of them.
00:51:55.880 That doesn't mean
00:51:56.580 it has to be that way.
00:51:57.600 You can overcome that
00:51:58.740 and that's,
00:51:59.240 that's the beauty
00:52:00.140 of free will.
00:52:01.220 That's what it means
00:52:01.840 to be free.
00:52:03.900 You know,
00:52:04.500 and,
00:52:04.660 and,
00:52:04.840 and so that,
00:52:05.460 that's really the point.
00:52:06.520 I think what,
00:52:07.280 what Harris is really
00:52:08.020 getting at
00:52:08.400 is that we are
00:52:09.040 weak,
00:52:09.540 selfish people
00:52:10.100 and on that point
00:52:11.480 I have,
00:52:11.860 I,
00:52:12.100 I have no
00:52:13.560 disagreement
00:52:15.200 and he's also
00:52:17.180 making the point
00:52:17.760 that,
00:52:18.180 hey,
00:52:18.360 you know,
00:52:19.100 you're a weak,
00:52:19.900 selfish person
00:52:20.560 and so maybe
00:52:21.580 slow your roll
00:52:22.480 a little bit,
00:52:23.460 you know,
00:52:23.960 in,
00:52:24.460 in,
00:52:24.740 in feeling superior
00:52:25.780 to all these other people
00:52:26.540 that have done bad things
00:52:27.480 because you probably
00:52:28.180 do the same thing.
00:52:29.760 You like to claim
00:52:30.560 you wouldn't
00:52:30.920 but you probably would
00:52:31.800 and on that point
00:52:33.320 I agree,
00:52:33.860 it's a good point
00:52:34.400 but I just,
00:52:36.220 I wish he could make
00:52:37.060 that point
00:52:37.540 without bringing free will
00:52:38.480 into it
00:52:38.880 because,
00:52:39.320 you know,
00:52:40.560 free will is also
00:52:41.360 the thing that is,
00:52:42.500 is,
00:52:42.820 is,
00:52:43.280 that is the,
00:52:45.260 it's freedom.
00:52:45.980 I mean,
00:52:46.200 it's also the,
00:52:46.980 the escape offered
00:52:48.620 to people in these
00:52:50.260 horrible situations.
00:52:52.560 What about,
00:52:53.220 what about the kid
00:52:53.840 who is brought up
00:52:54.500 in a situation
00:52:55.020 where most people
00:52:55.660 become drug dealers?
00:52:56.760 Don't we want
00:52:57.520 to say to him,
00:52:58.780 look,
00:52:59.500 you don't have to do this,
00:53:00.860 you can make
00:53:01.720 a better choice,
00:53:02.460 you don't have to be
00:53:03.200 a slave to this,
00:53:04.000 you can do something better?
00:53:06.120 Sam Harris seems
00:53:06.880 to be saying,
00:53:07.340 and anyone who's a determinist
00:53:08.280 is basically saying,
00:53:09.360 no,
00:53:09.580 there's no point
00:53:10.000 of even,
00:53:10.880 of even,
00:53:11.500 of even relaying
00:53:13.180 that message
00:53:13.740 to that kid
00:53:14.300 because he has no choice
00:53:15.300 and I think
00:53:17.040 that's a horrible,
00:53:17.940 horrible mistake.
00:53:19.960 All right,
00:53:20.780 so that's free will
00:53:22.480 and I also chose,
00:53:25.520 it was my free will
00:53:26.200 to spend 30 minutes
00:53:27.100 babbling about that
00:53:28.520 so there you go.
00:53:31.200 We all make choices.
00:53:32.600 That was mine
00:53:33.060 and I think
00:53:34.060 we'll leave it here.
00:53:34.500 Thanks everybody
00:53:34.940 for watching.
00:53:35.480 Thanks for listening.
00:53:36.380 Godspeed.
00:53:39.780 If you enjoyed this episode,
00:53:41.200 don't forget to subscribe
00:53:42.060 and if you want
00:53:42.740 to help spread the word,
00:53:43.560 please give us
00:53:44.000 a five-star review
00:53:44.980 and tell your friends
00:53:45.660 to subscribe as well.
00:53:46.800 We're available
00:53:47.200 on Apple Podcasts,
00:53:48.500 Spotify,
00:53:49.400 wherever you listen
00:53:50.040 to podcasts.
00:53:50.800 Also,
00:53:51.100 be sure to check out
00:53:51.960 the other Daily Wire podcasts
00:53:53.320 including
00:53:53.700 The Ben Shapiro Show,
00:53:54.720 Michael Knowles Show
00:53:55.460 and The Andrew Klavan Show.
00:53:57.320 Thanks for listening.
00:53:57.940 The Matt Wall Show
00:53:59.820 is produced by
00:54:00.880 Sean Hampton,
00:54:01.840 executive producer
00:54:02.580 Jeremy Boring,
00:54:03.760 senior producer
00:54:04.400 Jonathan Hay,
00:54:05.300 supervising producer
00:54:06.180 Mathis Glover,
00:54:07.480 supervising producer
00:54:08.240 Robert Sterling,
00:54:09.580 technical producer
00:54:10.320 Austin Stevens,
00:54:11.520 editor Donovan Fowler,
00:54:12.960 audio mixer
00:54:13.480 Robin Fenderson.
00:54:15.180 The Matt Wall Show
00:54:15.940 is a Daily Wire production,
00:54:17.520 copyright Daily Wire 2020.
00:54:19.580 Hey everyone,
00:54:20.520 it's Andrew Klavan,
00:54:21.360 host of The Andrew Klavan Show.
00:54:23.100 The Iranians
00:54:23.760 have taken to the street
00:54:24.660 to protest
00:54:25.240 their oppressive government
00:54:26.220 which overturns
00:54:27.300 the media narrative
00:54:28.080 that Trump's killing
00:54:28.900 of a terrorist leader
00:54:29.740 united them.
00:54:30.980 But the question
00:54:31.540 isn't whether
00:54:32.160 the media lies,
00:54:33.360 it's whether the left
00:54:34.260 wants to hear the truth
00:54:35.500 at all.
00:54:36.300 You will hear it
00:54:37.000 on The Andrew Klavan Show.
00:54:38.220 I'm Andrew Klavan.