The Matt Walsh Show - Ep. 409 - Democrats And Media Devastated By Peaceful Gun Rights Rally

00:00:00.000 You know, I got to say, I'm a big supporter of gun rights, but frankly, I am ashamed of the gun

00:00:05.740 rights advocates who were protesting in Richmond yesterday. I am just embarrassed by them. I mean,

00:00:14.620 think about it. The media had been rooting so hard for there to be violence during this rally.

00:00:22.280 Democrats were pushing for it. The governor of Virginia was really pushing for it,

00:00:26.520 declared a state of emergency ahead of time. And then the rally happens and there's no violence

00:00:33.180 at all. No violence. You people at the rally, if you went to the rally, you really thought it was

00:00:39.100 polite to embarrass the media and Democrats by being peaceful and just having a normal rally

00:00:45.420 and then going home. I think it's pretty tacky. I have to say it's almost as tacky as the time when

00:00:51.260 nobody shot up a screening of the Joker, as the media had obviously been hoping for. I mean,

00:00:57.420 you couldn't have at least burned a car or, you know, shot out a window or something, maybe attacked

00:01:02.600 somebody with a crowbar. You know, the kind of stuff that Antifa does. Of course, when Antifa does it,

00:01:07.460 the media never notices. But if you had done it, the media would have loved that. It'd be the only

00:01:11.900 thing they talked about for the next three weeks. And you took that opportunity away from them.

00:01:17.280 They banked so much on it. And then you just, you, you, I don't know. I found it rude. I just

00:01:24.260 find it rude. Maybe I was raised differently. I was raised, what my parents always told me is,

00:01:28.800 if somebody has a negative opinion of you, don't embarrass them by refusing to live down to it.

00:01:35.580 And, you know, but that's an old fashioned way of being raised. I guess it's just, it's just,

00:01:38.820 kids aren't raised that way anymore. And it's really sad. Um, just had to get that off my chest.

00:01:43.500 Anyway, yes, the gun rights rally did happen in Richmond yesterday in response to the gun control

00:01:49.140 measures by Democrats in the state. And it was a peaceful event. Um, one where not only was it

00:01:54.580 peaceful actually, but they, but they, they cleaned up after themselves, which is another thing that

00:01:58.620 oftentimes, oftentimes at left-wing protests, uh, little things like cleaning up after yourself

00:02:04.240 doesn't, that maybe they don't focus quite as much on that. Um, but

00:02:08.660 cleaned up after themselves and, and, and went home and, uh, and that was it. And it was indeed

00:02:13.160 very frustrating for the media. And I want to talk about that and about what, um, also what I think

00:02:18.360 is an extremely significant political scandal attached to this or related to it. And we're

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00:04:53.120 the gun rights rally happened yesterday, huge turnout. Um, but not much to say about the rally

00:05:01.460 itself. It went off without a hitch. You know, there was, there was a bunch of people there. Yes,

00:05:06.480 they were carrying weapons. No, it didn't devolve into violence. These were lawful gun owners,

00:05:11.920 responsible gun owners, and they're perfectly capable. It turns out of, uh, of, of coming together

00:05:19.080 and, um, and, uh, assembling without randomly shooting people. You know, if, if, if you didn't

00:05:25.620 know that's, uh, that they, they are capable of that. So they, they made their point, they made

00:05:29.940 their voice heard and then they went home. I think the notable stuff, the stuff worth talking about is

00:05:35.360 everything surrounding it, namely the governor of Virginia who tried to gin up fear and paranoia

00:05:41.540 about this rally. And when the, the fear mongering was proven to be baseless, he tried to take credit

00:05:48.020 for the fact that it was peaceful. So yesterday after, after the rally, Northam put out a statement

00:05:54.140 saying, quote, we are all thankful that today passed without incident. The team successfully

00:06:00.460 deescalated what could have been a volatile situation. I will continue to listen to the voices

00:06:05.700 of Virginians and we'll do everything in my power to keep our Commonwealth safe. Yeah, I really love that.

00:06:11.420 This is great. This is, I'm going to do this from now on. Whenever I go somewhere and there's no

00:06:18.520 violence, I'm going to take credit for deescalating. So, you know, I just got back from Kroger, got the

00:06:25.580 toilet paper we needed. Don't worry. Everything stayed calm. Nobody was hurt. I was able to successfully

00:06:33.040 deescalate the situation. Don't worry. Um, no, that's, he says it was a potentially volatile situation. Now I wasn't

00:06:43.140 there, but I did follow it pretty closely on social media. Um, I saw plenty of footage of the event. I didn't see

00:06:50.720 anything that looked even remotely volatile. I didn't just, what I saw were, were people, uh, mostly

00:06:59.780 cheerfully making their voice heard, getting their point across about gun rights. Uh, there was chanting

00:07:07.420 and singing. They said the pledge of allegiance, which was very upsetting for some leftists on Twitter,

00:07:13.940 it turns out, but I didn't see anything volatile. I didn't see anything. I didn't even see anything

00:07:20.300 that looked like it almost could have turned violent, but all of this would be more funny.

00:07:27.460 I suppose, if it weren't for the corruption involved here, the governor of Virginia Northam,

00:07:33.360 he of a blackface and infanticide fame, as I said, declared a state of emergency leading up to the 0.98

00:07:40.260 rally, even though there's no apparent reason for it. Here's what he said in part, uh, when he declared

00:07:47.140 the state of emergency last week, he said, um, the anticipated effects of the potential convergence of

00:07:55.580 tens of thousands of demonstrators on Capitol square, some of whom may not come to assemble

00:08:00.000 peacefully constitutes an emergency as described in, uh, the code of Virginia. Therefore, by virtue

00:08:06.820 of the authority vested in me by the constitution of Virginia, uh, so on and so forth, I proclaim that

00:08:12.700 a state of emergency will exist starting on January 17th through January 21st. Okay. Some of whom may

00:08:18.700 not have come to, to assemble peacefully. Did he have any credible intelligence that

00:08:25.460 there were people coming who weren't going to be peaceful? Did it, did he have anything other than

00:08:31.420 a prejudice against gun owners? If he had no such intelligence, then he just declared a state of

00:08:37.840 emergency as a political tool to gin up fear towards a group of citizens who were exercising

00:08:41.740 the first amendment, right? Unless you're going to tell me that every time there's a protest,

00:08:45.860 he declares a state of emergency because who knows, maybe some of them won't be peaceful,

00:08:50.440 which is true in general. I mean, every single day, you know, people come to the Capitol of

00:08:55.020 Virginia and for all, you know, some of them might not be peaceful. So why not declare a state of

00:08:59.720 emergency every single day? Um, if you're declaring, declaring a state of emergency, it should be for

00:09:05.300 a specific reason, like a specific threat, uh, a credible threat that you received.

00:09:10.840 If there was, again, if there was no such threats, if there's no credible specific reason for declaring

00:09:19.100 a state of emergency, then this is a scandal. This is an abuse of power far worse than anything Trump

00:09:26.340 has done in office. Now, of course we know that Northam is never held accountable for anything he

00:09:35.040 says or does. This guy is like, we talk about Teflon Don, Teflon, uh, uh, Donald Trump, but this guy's

00:09:42.860 Teflon too. You got blackface and fantaside gets reelected. And now we know that this isn't going to 0.97

00:09:49.980 hurt him either. But if we had a real media, if we had a real news media, they would demand that the

00:09:54.440 governor of Virginia release whatever intelligence, whatever threats he supposedly had, you know,

00:10:01.180 whatever, whatever justifies the state of emergency that he declared he should release. And if he

00:10:07.000 can't, um, or he doesn't, then we're going to know that this was, that there was either no reason for

00:10:15.000 it or there was very flimsy reason. And the real reason underlying all of that is just that it's just,

00:10:22.080 it's very obvious. He's trying to make people afraid. He wants you to think that when a bunch of,

00:10:27.500 uh, gun owners get together, well, it's an emergency, you know, it's a powder keg and we're

00:10:34.760 just on the verge of, of chaos every moment. But to be declaring a state of emergency officially

00:10:42.120 for that reason is again, a, an enormous abuse of power.

00:10:49.520 Speaking of power, um, switching gears here, here's, uh, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez speaking recently at

00:10:55.800 some kind of event. And she had a, she made an interesting, I think admission, listen to this

00:11:02.260 to be ethical. If you're a billionaire today, the thing that you need to do is give up control

00:11:08.160 and power. So I don't want your money as much as we want your power, the people, not me.

00:11:17.740 That's going to get cut and clipped.

00:11:19.160 Yes. Uh, yes, it will. AOC. Yes. Yes, it will. It will get cut and clipped.

00:11:26.300 We want your power. She says, which is one of the most horrifically honest things we've heard

00:11:32.100 from a politician in quite some time. It's always, we say we want politicians to be honest

00:11:36.740 and I, I want them to be honest, but it's always horrifying when they are because then you hear

00:11:42.800 stuff like that. And yeah, fine. She corrects herself and says, no, no, no, not me. I don't want your

00:11:48.100 power. Fine. All right. I'll, I'll let her correct herself. We don't want to jump on someone's case

00:11:53.420 for a slip of the tongue, but what actually does she mean when she says we, who is we,

00:12:01.380 you know, she says, well, she, she says the people she's referring to the people. All right. Well,

00:12:06.820 what do you mean by the people are the people, a monolith that can be given power, whatever that

00:12:16.020 means. Can you take power from one individual person and then give it to the people? Well,

00:12:25.140 we know from past experience that generally when Democrats, especially socialists talk about not

00:12:32.300 that there's much difference between the two anymore, when they talk about the people, what

00:12:36.020 they mean is the government, the state. So she's saying that she wants the power of billionaires,

00:12:41.940 not just, not just the money, but the power to go to the people. But what that means, what we know

00:12:46.320 that means is the government. So when she said we, she really did mean herself because she's a part of

00:12:52.360 the government. She's an agent of the state. And I think this brings up an important point,

00:12:56.500 which is, which is this, um, all of this demonizing of the wealthy, all of this stuff about taking

00:13:03.120 money from the wealthy, uh, taking power from them. Well, okay. But when you advocate for that,

00:13:12.400 you're advocating that the government get bigger and stronger and more powerful.

00:13:19.480 And this is something I, you know, I wish especially Democrat voters would be able to understand that

00:13:24.780 you as a peon, me as a peon, we remain peons in both scenarios. So whether billionaires have all

00:13:36.660 that money in power or the government takes it either way, you know, we're, we're still the peasants

00:13:42.740 in the situation. Unfortunately, I don't like it, but that's, that's the reality. Um, AOC and Bernie and

00:13:51.300 her ilk, they aren't going to make, they're not going to make us any richer or us any more powerful

00:13:55.640 than we already are or aren't. Uh, they're talking about this for themselves.

00:14:01.940 You know, this is something they benefit from.

00:14:06.120 It's like we talked about last week with the student loan. Um, and this week too, I think

00:14:11.180 the so-called student loan forgiveness. And we talked about how it's not really forgiveness,

00:14:16.260 it's transfer. You're taking the debt, student loan debt, and you're transferring it from the

00:14:22.480 people who took out the loan. And it would seem by all rights should be the ones to pay back.

00:14:26.880 And you're transferring that debt to somebody else. And by Elizabeth Warren's plan and Bernie

00:14:33.060 Sanders plan, it's going to be those dreaded billionaires and millionaires again. So it's really

00:14:38.080 a transfer. And with this, with what, uh, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is talking about again, it's a transfer.

00:14:44.140 It's not, it's not taking away the wealth or the, and the power from billionaires. It's transferring

00:14:48.920 it from billionaires to herself and the government. And if you think you're going to be any better off

00:14:56.560 with the government being more powerful than it is, then I think you just haven't been paying

00:15:00.620 very close attention. Um, before we move on, I want to tell you about something that we're doing over

00:15:07.040 here at the Daily Wire that's really important. If you're a regular listener, you have, of course,

00:15:11.060 heard me talk about pro-life issues and my unwavering position on pro-life issues. Uh, and, and the

00:15:18.180 reason why I focus on it so much is that, you know, since Roe v. Wade passed, over 60 million

00:15:24.620 unborn children have been killed in the womb. 60 million. Okay. That's, that's a, that's a number so

00:15:29.860 large that it's hard for us to conceptualize, but 60 million people we're talking about. And last year,

00:15:37.800 the left went even further off the cliff, passing the New York state law that allows abortion up to

00:15:42.500 birth. There was a law in Illinois that would allow partial birth abortion, which is an utterly

00:15:48.420 barbaric procedure. And to make matters more intense, pro-life advocates are actively being

00:15:52.940 targeted by the pro-abortion left. Uh, when Ben Shapiro spoke at the March for Life last year,

00:15:57.920 our advertisers were targeted by the left and, uh, several of them pulled their ads from the program

00:16:02.700 because of it. This was not the first time. It's not going to be the last time that we are attacked

00:16:07.320 in an attempt to shut down pro-life voices. We're also not the only targets. Of course,

00:16:10.960 live action is one of the biggest voices in the pro-life movement. I'm a big fan of live actions

00:16:15.740 work. I have been for a long time. Um, they do some of the most important work in the pro-life

00:16:20.560 movement, whether it's raising awareness and education on the abortion issue, uh, undercover

00:16:25.780 videos that expose Planned Parenthood. That, that was my first, like a lot of people, that was their

00:16:29.860 first introduction to live actions work several years ago when they were doing these undercover

00:16:33.920 videos. Um, and they were one of the first groups to go in and do these undercover videos

00:16:39.860 of Planned Parenthood. So, um, and they're paying the price for it. They've been banned from advertising

00:16:45.540 on Twitter. Uh, they have seen their advertising efforts and their online distribution restricted

00:16:52.080 on, on several platforms across the internet because of the work they do. That is why our dailywire.com

00:16:58.360 members are really important. Your membership helps us say no to advertisers who, you know,

00:17:04.400 cave to left-wing ideologies. If there are advertisers that, uh, are going to cave or going to try to

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00:17:15.400 you know, it's, it's, it's, it's easy for us to say we don't need them. We keep our pro-life message

00:17:20.920 from being, you keep our pro-life message, I should say, from being, from being canceled. And instead it

00:17:25.560 grows even louder. That's why from now until January 31st, a portion of any dailywire.com

00:17:31.500 membership will be donated to live action with promo code live action. Uh, that's of course,

00:17:37.780 L-I-V-E-A-C-T-I-O-N live action to support awareness and education around the world on this issue. So join

00:17:44.340 dailywire.com and make your pro-life voice heard. Okay. One other thing, um, one other thing to mention

00:17:52.900 before we read some emails, I happened across this on Twitter. Someone posted a screenshot of a,

00:18:02.760 of a tweet. Um, don't know who, who posted this originally. It doesn't really matter.

00:18:08.400 It's more the, uh, the sentiment that I want to address a common sentiment. And so this tweet says,

00:18:14.840 male privilege is wearing the same outfit multiple times to events while girls can't wear the same 1.00

00:18:20.600 dress twice, no matter how cute it is. Okay. So, uh, that was the tweet talking about male privilege

00:18:28.760 and the, the, the, you know, you hear this kind of thing a lot. It's related to the unrealistic beauty

00:18:34.380 standards that women deal with all the supposed pressure on them to be stylish and trendy and all 1.00

00:18:41.020 that, et cetera, and so forth. Here's my point. Um, I want to say this maybe for the benefit of some

00:18:48.780 female listeners, if they weren't aware. And my message is this as men, you know, we don't care

00:18:58.020 one bit at all, really how stylish your clothes are. We don't care about you being trendy and stylish.

00:19:07.840 We don't need you to wear a bunch of makeup, right? I mean, the makeup industry is multi-billion

00:19:13.020 dollar industry. So women are spending lots of money on makeup. And I guess a lot of women feel 1.00

00:19:18.900 like they, you know, feel pressure, like they have to put a lot of makeup on before they leave the

00:19:22.240 house. You're not doing that for us because we really, we don't need that. We don't care.

00:19:29.120 And I really am speaking for all men when I say, I think I can speak for, you know, maybe there are

00:19:33.520 a few outliers, but I can speak for almost all men. And in fact, we would actually prefer it if,

00:19:39.120 if you cared less than you do about, uh, about what you wear. So my point is, but you can care

00:19:45.520 however much you want to care. It's up to you. My, I'm just, my point is the pressure that you

00:19:51.100 feel, it's not from us, you know, it's from you guys. That's pressure you're putting on each other.

00:19:59.720 So there's this, this thing that I've noticed of, uh, in this culture of women putting pressure on each 1.00

00:20:06.840 other to act a certain way or do a certain thing or buy a certain product or dress a certain way,

00:20:14.620 putting pressure on each other and then blaming men for the stress that their own self-imposed rule

00:20:21.460 causes them. Meanwhile, we're over here like, we don't care if you do that or not. It's like,

00:20:26.340 don't, don't, don't look at us. I mean, uh, this is women who, who, who are, you know, very focused

00:20:36.500 on, on how they look when they go out in public. Uh, maybe for the men get, end up getting blamed

00:20:42.140 for it. So I guess at some level their women feel like they're doing it for men, but I also feel like 0.63

00:20:46.800 they must know that really they're doing it for each other. They're not really doing it for us

00:20:50.620 because as I said, we don't notice and we don't care. And the reason why, so it's not male privilege.

00:20:58.840 Yeah. A man, um, I guess now, I mean, a woman who feels like what she, she can't wear the same 1.00

00:21:07.180 outfit twice ever. I mean, that seems pretty extreme. That's going to get very expensive,

00:21:13.040 but it is true that men, you know, as men, like, you know, I, we, we're, we, we don't have much

00:21:19.540 compunction about wearing the same outfit multiple times as we're not worried about it.

00:21:23.760 We don't have that stress, but if that's a privilege that we have, it's a privilege that

00:21:29.180 is available to you as well. It's just, we've, we've taken advantage of that privilege because

00:21:34.620 we just don't care about it. And we're not looking at each other and judging each other for that.

00:21:39.280 Now, you know, I mean, I could be around a guy every day for two weeks and he could wear the same

00:21:46.120 outfit every single day. And it would, it would probably take me about seven or eight days before

00:21:50.660 I noticed he could get away with seven or eight days of wearing the exact same outfit. And I

00:21:55.760 probably wouldn't notice after a while I might. And then when I do, I might start putting it together

00:22:01.900 and say, wait a second, I don't think I've seen him wear anything but that now that you mentioned

00:22:05.160 it. And then once I noticed it, yeah, I'm going to make fun of him because it's my, it's my duty as a

00:22:09.080 man to make fun of him for that, but it's not a big deal. And we just laugh about it. And I don't

00:22:14.180 think he goes home and cries in his bathroom that he got made fun of. I think it's just,

00:22:17.580 he understands that he's been wearing the same outfit and so he's going to get made fun of for

00:22:20.640 it. It's fine. It's just what men do. My point is that as women, I mean, you could have the same

00:22:26.580 approach if you wanted to. So I just, I wouldn't, I think there are a lot of things and it's not just

00:22:32.600 this. There's a lot of pressure that women feel in society, a lot of oppression that they might feel. 1.00

00:22:44.180 That again, gets blamed on men, but I think really comes mostly from themselves, from other women.

00:22:51.860 Another example would be in the workplace. I always, this is one of the, one of the

00:22:58.780 common tropes that you hear from feminists is on top of the unrealistic, unrealistic beauty standards, 1.00

00:23:04.860 which again are almost entirely made by women for women. Those, those beauty standards.

00:23:13.080 But another common trope is, uh, this thing you hear about in the workplace where women feel, 0.96

00:23:17.620 uh, you know, uh, hostility if, if they speak too much and they get talked over a lot. That's a big

00:23:24.220 thing that you hear. It's a trope that women are getting talked over in the workplace. 1.00

00:23:28.200 Every time I hear that, I think, I mean, I don't doubt that you get talked over, but is it really

00:23:34.500 by men doing that? Women, they've done studies on this and women's on average, they say like 20,000

00:23:42.660 more words a day than men. They do a lot or no, maybe it's 20,000 words total. It'd be a lot of

00:23:47.100 words. Uh, but they, women use, speak a lot more than men. They're much more verbal than men are.

00:23:52.640 So most of the time what I notice, you know, whether it's in a work environment or socially,

00:24:00.000 yeah, people get talked over, but it seems to me that the people who do the talking over

00:24:05.660 more often are women just because they have more to say. So they've, they've just got more words. 1.00

00:24:12.100 They have to get out in a day. And so they're going to end up trampling over each other in the

00:24:15.760 talking. Whereas men, I mean, me, I could go, I could go six days and say nothing. 0.80

00:24:22.640 If it were up to me now doing this job, it's kind of hard, but if I didn't, you know, if I was

00:24:27.660 living in a cave or something by myself and I had no one to talk to, I'd be fine. I don't, I could,

00:24:32.960 I could go indefinite amount of time and say nothing. Honestly. Um, I think a lot of men are

00:24:38.960 like that. Now there are talkative men, but a really talkative man, you notice, like if you, if you, if you,

00:24:44.680 if you encounter a really talkative man, you think, wow, this guy doesn't shut up. It really,

00:24:48.140 you really notice it because it's not usually, it's not common for men. Whereas women are more 1.00

00:24:53.500 talkative, which is fine. But again, that's, so if you're getting talked over, you feel like you

00:24:57.780 can't get a word in edgewise, probably it's because of other women that are doing that to you. 1.00

00:25:02.720 It's probably not men. So I'm not saying that, um, you know, men can be jerks and they can be 0.99

00:25:09.540 judgmental and all those things as well. But I think we need to stop and reassess 0.98

00:25:14.500 the, the, the, uh, obstacles that women face, especially socially. We need to stop and reassess 1.00

00:25:23.780 and see how much of that actually is coming from the patriarchy from men and how much of it is

00:25:27.700 actually is coming from, you know, from inside the house, as it were inside the, the, the female 1.00

00:25:32.300 house. I think a lot of it is, is imposed on women by women. All right. Um, let's move on 0.99

00:25:45.120 to emails. Matt wall show at gmail.com is email address from Andrew. I had some questions yesterday

00:25:53.420 about star Wars. And so I got a lot of emails, uh, which I appreciate from star Wars fans,

00:25:58.160 um, answering my questions. This is one from Andrew says, let's start with the helmet thing.

00:26:04.680 First, I'd like to point out that, uh, I made the point that only in star Wars, I couldn't figure out

00:26:09.620 why only the bad guys wear cool helmets and masks. And I, I said, maybe that's why people go to the

00:26:17.820 dark side is because they want to wear the cool costumes and all the cool costumes are with the

00:26:22.500 bad guys for some reason. Andrew says, let's start with the helmet thing. First, I'd like to point

00:26:28.140 out that good guy characters have cool helmets. In episode six, Leia gets a sweet bounty hunter

00:26:33.720 helmet. In episode two and three, the clone trooper follow the same customs as the storm troopers and

00:26:38.860 wear their sweet helmets all the time. Now the reason Darth Vader wears a helmet is because he

00:26:43.620 has to, his head is permanently disfigured as it isn't even functioning properly anymore.

00:26:48.220 Well, he doesn't have to, right? It's a, that's a, that's more of a vanity thing. He just doesn't

00:26:51.680 want people to see a disfigured head, which I don't get that either. Cause if you're a bad guy,

00:26:55.340 you're a super arch villain, if there's any time you can get away with having a disfigured, 0.99

00:27:01.120 disgusting, scarred face, it's when you're a supervillain. So if you're a supervillain, just 0.98

00:27:05.940 embrace it. Um, Kylo Ren has a cool helmet in, in canon because he idolizes Vader and wants to be

00:27:13.840 like him in the real world. JJ Abrams wanted to mirror star Wars four with star Wars seven. So he

00:27:18.420 created a character with a cool helmet to be the antagonist. Well, he certainly succeeded in that

00:27:23.040 because star Wars seven is just, it's just a, basically a shot for shot remake of other star

00:27:30.860 Wars films. Next, I need to touch on this. It is such a common mistake. When they say they're

00:27:34.920 jumping to light speed, they're really entering another dimension in which the, in which the space

00:27:38.980 is compressed. They calculate their route and exit elsewhere. If they couldn't do this, it would

00:27:43.880 still take decades to travel across the galaxy. And lastly, the lightsaber thing. First, let me start

00:27:48.840 by saying that some of the characters thought of this too, such as the leader of Death Watch from

00:27:53.380 Star Wars, the Clone Wars, Ezra from Star Wars Rebels. I don't even know what these are. And even

00:27:58.440 Luke has a blaster and a lightsaber in episode five. Finn in the battle of the forest planet,

00:28:04.580 on the forest planet, even wishes he had a blaster. He fights with a lightsaber against the storm

00:28:08.760 trooper with the riot control ax because the storm trooper wanted to make it personal. The reason

00:28:13.480 that force users don't fight with blasters is for two reasons. One, while the lasers fly

00:28:17.500 slowly, in episode two, we see Jedi reflecting lasers in a chaotic battle scene. They have a

00:28:23.080 sense that allows them to block and deflect the lasers. This gives them lasers whenever their

00:28:26.900 opponent does. Additionally, they have better ranged offensive abilities, that being forced

00:28:31.960 telekinesis. They do not use it on each other because they cancel each other out. And lastly,

00:28:36.440 they use lightsabers because it is Jedi tradition and it's been going on since early times.

00:28:40.920 Okay, Andrew, your answer on the helmet was sufficient. That's fine. I'll accept it.

00:28:47.180 I still think the good guys could do more with the costumes. They could do themselves a favor by

00:28:53.000 adopting not just helmets, but even capes. In Star Wars, a lot of the bad guys walk around in capes

00:28:59.740 for some reason. So if you're going to do that, I mean, in the Star Wars world, if you can get away

00:29:09.080 with wearing a cape and people don't make fun of you for it, it seems like in the real world,

00:29:14.600 if you saw a guy come out with a cape, you'd say, what are you wearing a cape for? But if you can do

00:29:18.920 that, then I don't see why the good guys don't do it too. As far as the ships jumping into another

00:29:24.980 dimension instead of going into light speed, okay, fine. But again, that still requires advanced

00:29:29.600 technology, obviously. And this is a galaxy where such technology, you got a ship that can jump into

00:29:35.440 another dimension and travel across the galaxy in an instant. And this ship was sitting in a junkyard.

00:29:41.580 That's how common this technology is, which brings us to the lightsaber bit. And I feel like you

00:29:45.920 haven't answered my challenge, which is that in a world with this kind of technology, it should be

00:29:52.080 extremely easy to come up with a weapon, a personal weapon, like a type of gun that could defeat a dude

00:29:59.200 holding a lightsaber. Like I said, the only reason the laser guns don't work is because the lasers move so

00:30:04.600 slowly. But if you just came up with a regular, with a gun that shoots lasers at a faster speed, or even you

00:30:11.380 just use a regular gun with lead bullets, and that travel at a regular bullet speed, then no Jedi in the 0.75

00:30:20.660 galaxy would be able to move fast enough to deflect all those bullets. So I could see using lightsabers in a

00:30:27.700 ceremonial way if it's part of your tradition and your culture. But to actually use it in battle, given the

00:30:35.440 kind of technology that exists in this world, doesn't make any sense. It's like if, it'd be like if Japanese 1.00

00:30:42.380 soldiers still used samurai swords in battle. Now they might use them ceremonially, but they're not going to

00:30:50.480 actually go into battle in modern times with a sword. And by the way, going back to the technology

00:30:58.360 bit, here's another thing that bothers me. C-3PO is apparently a conscious, sentient robot. I mean,

00:31:06.940 it's extremely advanced. If C-3PO existed in this world, he would be, I mean, easily, far and away,

00:31:13.420 the most advanced piece of technology, the most advanced piece of equipment in the world. I mean,

00:31:18.420 not even close. The operating system that C-3PO is using is just beyond anything we can imagine

00:31:25.980 because it is capable of human thought. And yet, he's externally, he's like the tin man.

00:31:34.980 So he's got the external build of like a robot that maybe Toyota would have come up with in 1992.

00:31:42.140 But then internally, his, his, his, his, his operating system is way, it's like a thousands

00:31:49.660 of years in the future. That doesn't make any sense to me. I mean, if you have the technology

00:31:54.920 to make a robot like that, why wouldn't you make him, why make him useless physically?

00:31:59.660 Uh, it would be like if I had the most advanced engine anyone's ever made and I put it in Fred

00:32:10.940 Flintstone's car. It doesn't make any sense. So that's a problem. This is from Seth says,

00:32:17.940 Matt, you talk last week about social media and how much damage it does and the compulsion you feel

00:32:23.020 towards it. I have a very strong compulsion. I'm embarrassed to admit, but I'm probably on social

00:32:27.580 media six or seven hours a day. I don't even like it that much. I just feel drawn to pick up my phone

00:32:32.180 and scroll mindlessly. My question is, why do we do this? Why are people so obsessed with social

00:32:37.080 media? Why are we on it all the time when it doesn't even make us happy? What's the reason?

00:32:44.000 Um, so I was thinking about this yesterday, Seth, after I read your email and, and the easiest answer

00:32:49.580 is to say that social media is an addiction, but that doesn't really clarify anything. You just chalk

00:32:55.900 something up to an addiction and say, Oh, it's an addiction. It doesn't clarify it. And also I

00:33:00.020 think it's not really true. I think we, we talk about a social media addiction. I think we mean

00:33:04.560 it in a sort of colloquial way, but I don't see how using social media could really be a clinical

00:33:10.380 addiction. Now you might find in the medical community that psychiatrists and they, they maybe

00:33:18.060 will pretend it's a real addiction, but I don't think, I think you've got to draw a real distinction

00:33:21.720 between say heroin addiction and the compulsion you feel to use heroin and the compulsion you feel

00:33:29.020 to get on Twitter. I just don't think they're in the same universe or same ballpark. Um, so I don't

00:33:34.280 think that answers it. I think part of what draws us to mindlessly scroll the internet, uh, social

00:33:43.320 media, same thing that draws us to mindlessly binge Netflix and watch TV all the time and so on and so

00:33:49.760 watch, um, watch reality TV and all this stuff. I think it's that we fear, um, we fear thought,

00:33:59.380 you know, we don't want to think, we don't want to contemplate things too seriously or too deeply.

00:34:06.360 Um, we don't want to dwell on anything very serious. Uh, we certainly don't want to think about our

00:34:12.180 mortality, um, about, about the, our basic human condition. So I, I am becoming increasingly

00:34:22.000 convinced that so much of our culture, so much of what we do is at some level driven by our desire

00:34:28.640 to prevent ourselves from thinking. We're trying to prevent ourselves from thinking. And I think that's

00:34:33.740 what explains so much of what we do in this culture. It's a defense mechanism. We do all of this

00:34:42.460 and we entertain ourselves relentlessly, almost obsessively because it stops us from thinking.

00:34:50.380 We, we are very troubled by thought and it seems that we'd rather not have very many of them,

00:34:56.620 very many thoughts that is. I think we in general are becoming very frivolous people.

00:35:04.200 That's what you find in the culture, but especially in the internet, in internet culture,

00:35:09.540 frivolity and irony and cynicism. We obsess over dumb things, irrelevant things. We're always ironic 0.83

00:35:16.460 about everything and cynical about everything. And I know it's kind of hypocritical for me to be

00:35:21.100 complaining about that of all people. But again, it's, it's hard for me not to see that as at least

00:35:26.240 at some level, a defense mechanism, a way to deny, to turn our heads from the really serious business

00:35:32.580 of living and thinking and being. I mean, think about this. Speaking of thinking prior to, prior to

00:35:42.140 modern media. So, you know, I'm talking about prior to internet, TV, radio, even. So for, I don't know,

00:35:52.300 the first 10,000 years, give or take, of human civilization, there was, there was none of that.

00:35:58.060 Nothing to listen to, nothing to watch or scroll through in terms of media. None of that existed.

00:36:05.040 So what did people do? You ever thought about that? What did they do? Well, they, they worked. Okay.

00:36:11.100 They worked a lot. They toiled and they worked fine. And that was a lot of their day.

00:36:17.080 And maybe they read. Although, um, if you go back far enough, literacy was pretty uncommon and,

00:36:23.160 and they didn't have the same access. And you go all the way back to before the printing press,

00:36:25.920 they didn't, you know, people didn't have access to books unless you were a monk or a,

00:36:30.020 uh, you know, someone in the elite class. So maybe you read, maybe you did some reading.

00:36:34.800 Um, and, uh, but what else, what else do they do with their free time at the end of the day?

00:36:41.040 You got your work done for the day. It's not time for bed yet. What are you doing? I'm sure they

00:36:47.560 talked to each other. I'm sure they spent time as a family. They played games and so on.

00:36:51.760 But the point I'm getting to here is that there was probably time. There's probably lots of time

00:36:57.340 cumulatively where, um, they sat there and didn't do anything. There was probably a fair amount of

00:37:08.580 sitting silently and doing nothing. That was probably a relatively normal part of human existence

00:37:14.960 for thousands of years. Where there'd be times in the day when, you know, you, there was nothing

00:37:21.660 really to do. So you've sat there and, you know, maybe you just did nothing. Maybe not for, not for

00:37:26.620 six hours, but there would be time in the day because you didn't have a phone to pull out and

00:37:31.460 distract yourself. You didn't have a TV to turn on and you're sitting on a piece of furniture in

00:37:35.920 your living room and you're just sitting there thinking. Now, when was the last time that you did

00:37:43.320 that? When was the last time that you sat somewhere, no phone, no TV, not talking to anybody,

00:37:50.660 not doing anything, not flipping through a magazine, nothing. You just sat there and you

00:37:57.380 thought, when's the last time you did that? I bet for a lot of us, it's been like years since we've

00:38:03.680 done that. And in the times when we feel like we're forced to it, to do it, we panic. Like,

00:38:10.300 have you ever been in a situation, maybe you're in a waiting room and there's no good magazines to

00:38:15.880 read and your phone is dead and they don't have a TV and you're sitting there waiting for the

00:38:22.160 dentist to call you back and you've got nothing to do. And, you know, you've got your phone in

00:38:26.820 your hand and you feel this compulsion to look at it, but it's dead. It creates a real sense of

00:38:32.360 almost like panic. Like you've been disconnected from something. And the idea that all you can do

00:38:38.300 is simply sit there is, is overwhelming. We're really uncomfortable with it. And why are we

00:38:45.920 uncomfortable with it? The only explanation I can come up with is that, uh, it, it allows for a lot

00:38:50.780 of unadulterated, unfiltered thinking. And we don't like that. Uh, we're afraid of our own thoughts.

00:39:00.840 Uh, so that, I, I think that's, that's part of it. Maybe we've even forgotten how to think in some ways.

00:39:08.300 Because we've outsourced our thinking to the internet. We let the internet think for us.

00:39:14.140 I mean, we let the internet literally complete our sentences for us.

00:39:20.820 All right. Um, from Lee says, hi, Matt, love the show. Wanted to know how you feel about

00:39:26.260 reincarnation. If you believe in the afterlife, why do you rule out the possibility of reincarnation?

00:39:31.180 Billions of people believe that we will be reincarnated after death. Do you think this

00:39:35.000 is possible or have you ruled it out? If so, why? Uh, well, first of all, it's not up to me to rule

00:39:42.080 anything out per se. Uh, I mean, when we die, whatever happens happens. So I can't rule it out

00:39:47.140 or rule it in. It is what it is. Now, as far as what I think about it, well, in a certain sense,

00:39:52.100 yeah, we are reincarnated in the sense that our bodies are made up of atoms, 7 billion,

00:39:58.040 billion, billion atoms to be precise or sort of precise. Um, and when we die, those atoms don't

00:40:04.940 die with us. They are recycled back into the world and they become other things. Uh, just like

00:40:12.400 the atoms in our body right now were other things. And if you trace it back far enough, um, our, you

00:40:20.160 know, as Carl Sagan talks about, we are the stuff of stars. We are literally stardust. We were made

00:40:25.320 from stars. Um, and we are in a sense, you might say reincarnated stars. So if you want to look at

00:40:33.880 it physically at the atomic level, then, okay, I guess, I think it's weird to call that reincarnation,

00:40:41.600 but you could make some sort of argument for that. But that's not what you mean by reincarnation. I

00:40:47.020 assume reincarnation means when you bring talk about it, it means some mysterious, mystical

00:40:52.800 way that your actual essence, your being, you as a person continue to live on in another

00:41:00.500 form, uh, after this form dies, right? That's what you mean. Now, to me, that's disqualified

00:41:06.640 on a logical basis. I don't even need to get anything else. I think it's just, it doesn't

00:41:10.680 make any logical sense and I'll explain why. Because if, if reincarnation is true, then I

00:41:17.300 right now, in just the latest version of myself, I had other selves before this one. And those

00:41:25.240 other selves screwed up so badly that they got sent back to earth in my body, those poor 1.00

00:41:29.920 bastards. Uh, but what does that mean? If I had other selves, yet those other selves had 1.00

00:41:37.300 different physical forms, different personalities, different experiences, different beliefs and

00:41:44.020 different everything, different family, different everything, and I can't remember those past

00:41:49.440 selves, and thus I don't have any of their memories, then in what sense exactly are we the

00:41:56.760 same? Exactly in what sense am I that past self? It doesn't even mean anything. I'm a completely

00:42:04.400 different person with a whole new set of experiences and everything. Where is the continuity?

00:42:12.280 And, and, and what exactly would be, I guess this is really the point, what exactly would

00:42:18.740 be the difference between me dying and being obliterated and me dying and coming back, quote

00:42:24.900 unquote, as an entirely new person with no memory of my past experiences? Isn't it the

00:42:30.120 same thing as obliteration? I mean, think about even if you, let's, let's, let's even make

00:42:36.900 it less extreme. Let's say that, uh, there was a, you know, some sort of technology where

00:42:41.940 you, where, uh, they're able to, uh, you know, obliterate your mind and implant a new mind

00:42:50.520 into, into, into your body somehow. Let's say that technology existed. Um, you know, no

00:42:56.640 memory anymore of your past self, completely new personality, completely new everything.

00:43:00.580 Although you still have the same body. I mean, isn't that the same effect of it? Like leading

00:43:07.840 up to that, you know, as, as you're waiting for yourself to be obliterated and, and have

00:43:11.920 this new self implanted in with this crazy technology, that past, isn't that the same

00:43:17.800 thing as, as death basically? Now, if you were to consider that your body is obliterated

00:43:24.880 too, and now you have a new mind and a new body, then it's okay. That's just, I don't

00:43:31.820 even see how we could call that reincarnation. Uh, so that's, that's my, my issue with it.

00:43:38.540 Uh, I just, I don't see the difference. You know, I know there are people who claim, oh,

00:43:43.080 I have memories of my past selves. First of all, no, you don't. But, uh, second of all,

00:43:46.960 uh, not enough of a memory to, to, for there to be any continuity. Uh, so that it, again,

00:43:54.120 it just ends up being the same thing effectively as there being no reincarnation at all. All right.

00:43:59.720 Um, that's how I feel about reincarnation. And we'll leave on that note. Thanks for watching.

00:44:05.180 Thanks for listening. Have a great day. Godspeed.

00:44:16.960 We're available on Apple podcasts, Spotify, wherever you listen to podcasts. Also be sure

00:44:22.880 to check out the other Daily Wire podcasts, including the Ben Shapiro show, Michael Knowles

00:44:26.600 show, and the Andrew Klavan show. Thanks for listening. The Matt Wall show is produced by

00:44:31.760 Sean Hampton, executive producer, Jeremy Boring, senior producer, Jonathan Hay, supervising producer,

00:44:37.160 Mathis Glover, supervising producer, Robert Sterling, technical producer, Austin Stevens, editor,

00:44:42.600 Donovan Fowler, audio mixer, Robin Fenderson. The Matt Wall show is a Daily

00:44:46.940 Wire production, copyright Daily Wire 2020. If you prefer facts over feelings, aren't offended by

00:44:52.580 the brutal truth, and you can still laugh at the insanity filling our national news cycle.

00:44:56.740 Well, tune in to the Ben Shapiro show. We'll get a whole lot of that and much more. See you there.

The Matt Walsh Show - January 21, 2020

Ep. 409 - Democrats And Media Devastated By Peaceful Gun Rights Rally

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