The Matt Walsh Show - Ep. 417 - Fighting The Coronavirus With Diversity And Tolerance

00:00:00.000 Welcome to the show, everybody. So you know how I always say, many conservatives always say that

00:00:04.800 the left is beyond parody at this point? Well, that's not a mere platitude or a slogan. There

00:00:10.540 is a deep and terrifying truth here, and the truth is that they actually are beyond parody,

00:00:14.420 as in it's becoming impossible to satirize them because satire requires that you take the idea

00:00:19.940 you're satirizing and you bring it to an absurd conclusion so as to highlight the flaws within

00:00:25.200 the logic that you're trying to make a satire of. But if the idea that is being proposed to begin

00:00:30.900 with has already been brought to its most absurd conclusion, then what can you do? All you can do

00:00:36.160 to satirize it is to point to it and say, look, and that's what satire is increasingly becoming.

00:00:42.400 Case in point, CNN. I suppose I could just stop right there, but let me give you a specific example.

00:00:49.420 Here's a headline of a real article on CNN.com right now. This is real, I assure you.

00:00:55.200 Written by a certified genius named Brandon Tensley. Headline,

00:00:58.800 Coronavirus Task Force, Another Example of Trump Administration's Lack of Diversity.

00:01:05.300 No, it gets better, I assure you. The expectations set by that headline are fulfilled within the text

00:01:13.120 of the article. Let me read it to you. It says, it's a statement that's as predictable as it is

00:01:17.900 infuriating. President Donald Trump's administration lacks diversity. On Tuesday, Trump tweeted photos of

00:01:23.620 a briefing he'd received on the new coronavirus spreading out of China. The president said in

00:01:30.200 his post, we will continue to monitor the ongoing developments. We have the best experts anywhere

00:01:34.280 in the world, and they are on top of this 24-7. Who are these experts? They're largely the same sort

00:01:40.480 of white men and a couple of women on the sidelines who've dominated the Trump administration from the

00:01:45.020 very beginning. By contrast, former President Barack Obama's circle of advisors in the face of 2014's

00:01:52.260 Ebola outbreak in West Africa was hardly so monochromatic. Neither was it so abysmal in terms of gender 1.00

00:01:59.380 diversity. Of course, to contextualize, Obama administration's, on the other hand, on the whole, was far more

00:02:04.480 diverse than Trump's. And yet, as unsurprising as the diversity issue in the Trump era has become, it's still worth

00:02:11.880 pointing out from time to time, especially as the country approaches the 2020 presidential election

00:02:16.060 in earnest. That's partly because the recent photos of the best experts telegraph the kinds of people

00:02:21.960 the administration deems worthy of holding power, and even being in close proximity to it.

00:02:30.060 They communicate a patronage network that everyone is operating under, as Eric Yellen, an associate

00:02:35.320 professor of blah, blah, blah, okay. But the visuals have come to define the Trump administration,

00:02:40.600 and they say something else too. They signal which people in a multiracial, half-bemale country Trump 0.93

00:02:47.300 values the opinions of. Mostly white men who are mirror images of the president himself. Now look,

00:02:54.700 the easy thing to do here would be to show you the page on CNN's own website with photos of their

00:03:02.680 anchors and their correspondents. And, you know, you would see, if you look at this page, that,

00:03:09.380 geez, I mean, that's a lot of whiteness right there. Wow. Look at this. Just white, white, 1.00

00:03:16.360 white, white, white. I need sunglasses looking at this. It's so much whiteness. I haven't seen so 1.00

00:03:22.680 many white people since I went to a clearance sale at HomeGoods. Or, you know, in fact, I haven't seen this

00:03:28.040 much whiteness since I watched the Democratic debates. This is just a lot of whiteness. 0.85

00:03:34.960 So we could do that and point out that CNN is not holding itself to its own standard, but that

00:03:41.440 wouldn't be fair. It's not fair because it's not fair to hold them to their own standards. Totally

00:03:47.540 unfair. They get a special standard, you see. We all have one standard, and they're special. They have a

00:03:53.200 different one. All right? That's just the way it is. It's the way it is, and it's the way it should be

00:03:57.600 for some reason. I can't explain why, but it is. What I really want to say is, all joking aside,

00:04:03.200 because this is a serious issue, and we shouldn't joke about it. So completely sincerely, my first

00:04:10.060 reaction, yeah, is to mock and laugh at this article. But I think you should resist that urge. We all

00:04:15.700 should. And we should try to listen to what this man is saying, because he's actually right.

00:04:19.620 You know, the whole point of a task force is, of this task force, is to help monitor and contain

00:04:26.900 this disease and to stop it from spreading here. But let me ask you this. Do you really want,

00:04:32.940 and you have to think about this, do you really want a bunch of cisgendered white men to protect 0.98

00:04:38.920 you from a deadly virus? Sure. If they're successful, the positive is that you don't die a horrible 0.99

00:04:44.840 death, leaving your children orphaned and your spouse destitute. That's the positive.

00:04:53.100 But does that even come close to compensating for the lack of diversity? Is it worth the cost,

00:04:59.340 is what I'm trying to ask you. You continuing to live and not get a deadly disease,

00:05:04.620 is that worth the cost of the lack of diversity? That's quite an ethical dilemma, you have to admit.

00:05:12.680 Personally, here's my thing. I'm in agreement with CNN on this. When you're dealing with a

00:05:17.760 potential pandemic, the key is to make sure that the people combating it, the people

00:05:23.000 that are tasked with containing it, are adequately representative of every demographic. So if it were

00:05:31.480 me, as someone who is not a bigot, I'm going to have a task force with, of course, black people, 0.98

00:05:37.800 Latinos, women, lesbians, pansexuals, transgenders, probably I'll throw a couple of Asians in there, 0.99

00:05:45.960 bisexual Asians, just to be safe. If a white person makes it on the team, 0.83

00:05:54.320 they damn well better be drag queens at a minimum. What about a gay white man? Sorry, 1.00

00:06:00.800 not progressive enough. You're going to need to do a lot better than that. Now you want to talk about

00:06:06.600 a disabled gay white man? Okay, maybe now you're talking. What if these people though don't have 0.95

00:06:13.980 expertise in containing deadly viruses? What if there are other people who would have more expertise

00:06:20.880 and perhaps would be better suited for the job? Doesn't matter because that's not the point.

00:06:25.320 The point always is to promote diversity in every situation, no matter what. And that way,

00:06:32.680 my diverse, progressive, tolerant task force, if it fails to contain the virus, because none of them

00:06:41.580 have any relevant expertise or any relevant experience in the field of epidemiology, well then

00:06:46.020 as you're lying there dying, you at least will have the peace of mind of knowing that there are no

00:06:53.100 straight white males on the coronavirus task force. And you know something? I think that will 0.98

00:06:59.180 bring you a lot of peace and comfort in your final moments. So thank you to CNN for that. Really,

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00:09:04.480 That's T-E-C-O-V-A-S.com slash Walsh. Tecovas.com slash Walsh. All right. Here's some more

00:09:14.200 unintentional satire because these are fun. Article from Gizmodo. Billionaire Jack Ma has

00:09:21.680 donated $14 million to develop a coronavirus vaccine, roughly the equivalent of an average

00:09:26.640 U.S. family donating $33. Now the article from Matt Novak reads, in part, tech billionaire

00:09:32.640 Jack Ma has donated $14.5 million to help develop a vaccine. The coronavirus, Ma is China's wealthiest

00:09:40.020 person with an estimated $41 billion, which means that his donation is roughly equivalent

00:09:44.540 to the average American household donating 33 bucks. Ma founded Alibaba, the world's largest

00:09:50.100 online retailer, and is often compared to Amazon. Alibaba and Amazon both treat their employees

00:09:57.280 like S, like crap. Their owners both own major media outlets. Bezos, who's worth an estimated 0.99

00:10:04.660 $117 billion, recently donated $690,000 to help Australia battle its bushfires. That bastard. 1.00

00:10:12.080 The equivalent of an average American donating less than a dollar. How generous, coming from a guy who 1.00

00:10:17.200 says he doesn't know how to spend his money. Bezos and Ma would get along just swimmingly.

00:10:21.540 Um, it's good when extremely wealthy people give their money to worthy causes, but you know what's

00:10:27.600 great? Taking that obscene wealth through taxes and spending it to make the world a healthier place

00:10:32.300 for everyone. Yet again, yet again, we have an article here. This is a leftist expressing their

00:10:40.500 actual point of view. But if you were to take this article, headline everything, and put it on the Babylon

00:10:46.700 Bee, it wouldn't seem out of place at all. You could take this article verbatim and put it on a

00:10:51.900 satire site, and everybody would have a nice laugh. The only reason I'm acknowledging this particular

00:10:59.120 tripe is that this is a common attitude these days. This thing where a billionaire gives a million

00:11:04.100 dollars or gives millions of dollars to a cause, and then people go, well, that's like if I gave 15

00:11:09.760 cents. Except it's not. Okay? $14 million to fight a disease is the equivalent of $14 million to fight

00:11:18.200 a disease. The money isn't suddenly worth less because it comes from a rich guy. That's not how

00:11:24.200 it works. $14 million is $14 million is $14 million. This is like if I was starving, and a guy pulled up

00:11:31.980 with a truck full of sandwiches, with 600 sandwiches, and he gave me one sandwich so I didn't starve. And then

00:11:37.100 I say, hey, you giving me one sandwich is like a guy with two sandwiches giving me three crumbs. 0.97

00:11:43.500 And I throw it back in his face and starve to death in protest. No, see, the nutritional value

00:11:49.780 of the sandwich doesn't fluctuate depending on the relative sandwich wealth of the person who hands

00:11:54.800 it to you. The sandwich is the sandwich. By the way, did the author of this article,

00:12:01.580 he says it's like a normal person donating 33 bucks. Okay, well, did you, as the author of the

00:12:10.000 article, did you donate 33 bucks? Because if he didn't, then Jack Ma is still more generous even

00:12:18.600 by his bizarre math. I can tell you that, and I will admit, I don't know about you, I have donated

00:12:25.760 $0.0 to developing a coronavirus vaccine. I have given no money to that effort. I have not contributed

00:12:34.640 to that effort at all. I haven't done anything for it, personally. I'm ashamed to admit.

00:12:42.520 So anything that a billionaire does is going to be infinitely more than I have done, because I've done

00:12:49.080 nothing. And I think that's probably true of the guy who wrote this article. It's probably true of

00:12:57.240 almost all of us. Almost everybody watching right now, or listening, I bet you have done almost

00:13:03.740 nothing with respect to the coronavirus. That's the thing about these people who try to dismiss the

00:13:09.680 charitable endeavors of billionaires. They say, yeah, him giving $600 billion is like me giving

00:13:16.100 three quarters in a TG Maxx gift card, making up these arbitrary equivalencies. But these people

00:13:23.840 doing that, how many of them are actually giving any money to any charitable causes at all? I mean,

00:13:30.980 even $33 or $10 or $5. I bet many of them are giving zero. None. I'm betting you they sit there,

00:13:39.540 arms crossed, rolling their eyes at people who are helping while doing nothing. Not just sitting

00:13:46.780 there, but they're doing less than nothing. Because they're sitting there criticizing those

00:13:54.220 who are helping while they don't contribute at all. They're like somebody sitting down at a

00:13:58.180 construction site, eating a candy bar, watching men lug heavy things around and saying, that's easy

00:14:05.520 for them. Look how big they are. That's easy to pick up heavy stuff. While they lift nothing,

00:14:11.020 do nothing, contribute nothing of value whatsoever. I think that's probably what happens.

00:14:20.920 But what is this all in service to? It's all in service to insisting on, as they say at the end

00:14:27.680 of the article, take the money through taxes. They say their position is we need the government

00:14:34.940 to take control, take the money, because we can't trust these people to be charitable with their own

00:14:41.360 money. And then when they are charitable with their money, because that interferes with the narrative,

00:14:47.640 now we're going to say, well, yeah, they were charitable, but it doesn't really mean anything

00:14:52.980 because X, Y, Z. It's extremely pathetic. But I will anxiously await Matt Novak, the author of 0.99

00:15:03.700 that article. I'll be anxiously awaiting to hear how much you have donated personally to develop a

00:15:10.440 coronavirus vaccine. All right. What else do we have here? One other article or subject to tackle

00:15:21.240 before we get to emails. And I want to leave some time for emails because we were talking about

00:15:25.180 the issue of corporal punishment, spanking during the email portion of the show. And then I was

00:15:32.480 getting into it on social media, which is always a good use of time arguing about complex, important

00:15:37.900 issues on social media. Anyway, I got a lot of emails about that. And I want to, so I want to get

00:15:42.360 back into that subject. But first, this reading from an article in the New York Post by Andrea Pizer,

00:15:47.700 titled Far Left Adjut Prop for Pre-K Tots, What NYC Schools Have Come To. I'm not going to read

00:15:56.080 much of this, but just to give you the gist. In an email says, in an email to parents and caregivers

00:16:02.420 on January 16th, teacher Rosie Clark lays out lessons based on the Black Lives Matter week of

00:16:08.060 action for a pre-kindergarten class at PS58, located in the well-regarded District 15 in Carroll Gardens.

00:16:15.140 This from teacher Clark writes, this year, who is white, by the way, this week, this year,

00:16:24.040 the week, February 3rd through 7th, we're starting to talk about these ideas now as we approach Martin

00:16:29.380 Luther King Jr. Day, which was January 20th. And as we prepare to go into February, Black History Month.

00:16:39.100 I am lucky enough to work at this wonderful school where we strive to help our students understand the

00:16:43.240 complex world around them and think critically about how they can participate in improving it.

00:16:47.340 One of the ways I do that in my classroom is by exploring the 13 principles of the movement for

00:16:51.940 Black Lives. So this is a white preschool teacher who is teaching her preschool students. So preschool, 0.99

00:17:00.520 you're talking like four years old. Teaching a bunch of four-year-olds the 13 principles of

00:17:05.460 Black Lives Matter. Because this is what we want our preschool teachers to be doing, right?

00:17:10.260 The author of the article continues, some of the 13 points are unobjectionable, preaching diversity

00:17:16.720 plus acceptance and empathy to children who, the dad argues, naturally love their neighbors.

00:17:21.160 Oh, this, by the way, is coming from a dad who alerted the author of the article that this was

00:17:25.000 going on. Then there's principle six. Transgender affirming. Everybody has the right to choose their

00:17:33.880 own gender by listening to their own heart and mind. Everyone gets to choose if they're a boy or a girl,

00:17:38.860 or both, or neither, or something else. And no one gets to choose for them. Then number seven, queer 1.00

00:17:45.080 affirming. The principle here is that everybody has the right to choose who they love and the kind of family

00:17:50.460 they want to, they want by listening to their own heart and mind. And then there's number 12, black 0.99

00:17:59.600 women. The teacher writes, there are some people who think that women are less important than men.

00:18:04.120 We know that all people are important and have the right to be safe and talk about their feelings.

00:18:08.420 Now, who are these people who think that women are less important than men? I don't know. But this

00:18:14.660 is what we're telling preschoolers. Okay. There's more to this article. You can go to nypost.com and

00:18:19.140 read it. It's worth the read. Of course, I'm mainly zeroing in on principle number six, transgender 1.00

00:18:24.860 affirming. Everybody has the right to choose their own gender by listening to their own heart and mind.

00:18:29.620 Everyone gets to choose if they're a boy or a girl, or both, or neither, or something else,

00:18:33.700 and no one gets to choose for them. Now, I talk a lot about how left-wing gender theory is inherently 0.72

00:18:39.100 nonsensical and impossible to explain or defend. And I've speculated that most people who believe

00:18:46.920 or who pretend to believe this, who espouse it, don't really believe it. And most of the people who

00:18:56.020 pretend to believe the ones that are espousing it don't themselves actually believe it.

00:19:01.140 And I base this on the fact that 10 years ago, almost nobody thought that a dude could really

00:19:09.040 be a woman magically if he feels like one. Almost nobody thought that 10 years ago. 10 years ago and

00:19:15.380 any time prior, almost nobody was advocating for men to be allowed in the women's locker room or to be

00:19:20.880 allowed on the women's track team and so on. And then almost overnight, there's this shift.

00:19:26.100 And it, it, it, it, I really doubt that all of these people who had lived their lives up to that

00:19:34.200 point, believing that biological sex exists, it seems unlikely to me that they overnight could have

00:19:40.840 really authentically, sincerely changed their minds. So I don't think that really happened. I think

00:19:45.840 that they're pretending. But here's, here's the other part of this. Because the left knows that they

00:19:53.040 can't defend their position. They know that most sane adults don't believe it, never will.

00:19:58.660 They know that if they asked almost any adult whether a dude should be able to play on a girl's

00:20:03.580 basketball team, and if that adult was able to be honest, felt safe and, and, and felt that they

00:20:09.540 could, they could answer honestly without, without facing some sort of repercussion, almost any adult

00:20:13.920 would say, no, they shouldn't be allowed to. And that's why they're focusing on children.

00:20:17.740 Leftists play the long game. They've always played the long game. They've never been overly

00:20:22.760 concerned with a short-term situation, to their credit. They're looking at this from a generational

00:20:28.160 perspective. That's why they win. That's why they've won the culture. Because they're looking

00:20:32.800 generations down the line. And they know that if they can get to the, if they can get to the kids,

00:20:37.520 if they can convince the kids, it's not going to matter what you think or what I think. It's irrelevant.

00:20:42.300 Who cares about us? Get to the kids, recruit the kids, brainwash them, and then you have the

00:20:48.380 culture. You have everything. And the good thing for them, for the left-wing brainwashers, is that

00:20:54.220 kids, especially preschool-aged kids, can be convinced of literally anything. So I say convince

00:21:00.660 the kids. That's really easy. You know, you know what's involved in convincing a four-year-old of

00:21:05.600 something? Tell them. Whatever you want to convince them of, tell them, and that's it. They're

00:21:11.860 convinced. That's all you have to do. Because four-year-olds lack the cognitive tools to discern

00:21:18.860 truth from fiction, plausibility from implausibility, reality from fantasy. They can't do that. All that

00:21:25.280 a child at that age can do is rely on the word of the adults in his life. That's the most rational

00:21:32.040 thing for him to do, because he doesn't know anything about the world. And so he's going to rely

00:21:38.380 on the adults around him. He has to do that. Because they're not going to understand the whys

00:21:47.900 of things. You know, the other day I caught my three-year-old trying to put his finger in a power

00:21:55.200 outlet. And of course I stopped him, and I was very stern with him. And I explained to him that he

00:22:00.400 can't touch it because he'll get very, very hurt. But of course he had no idea what I was talking

00:22:06.220 about. Electricity, shock, death, injury. What does any of that mean to a three-year-old? It doesn't.

00:22:14.320 It doesn't mean anything to him. He just, he has my word, and that has to be enough.

00:22:19.800 And to him, there's no difference between one incomprehensible claim that an adult might make

00:22:28.500 and any other. So if, you know, he'll take my word for it on the outlet thing. If I were to tell

00:22:35.040 him, don't walk on the grass because a dragon will come out of the ground and eat you, he'd believe

00:22:40.660 that too. He'd believe it just like he believed the outlet story. To him, they're exactly the same.

00:22:46.620 He doesn't see a difference. He can't measure plausibility versus implausibility. So if you

00:22:54.440 get to them, the left knows this, convince them, then it doesn't matter. Then you don't have to

00:23:02.780 define it. You don't have to defend it or define your terms. I'm always talking about, can you

00:23:07.340 define the word woman and how that is a pretty conclusive counter-argument to all of this gender

00:23:12.400 madness? And it is. But what the left is saying is, who cares? Yeah, we can't defend it. We don't

00:23:19.760 need to, because we're going to get your kids. And here's the other part of this. Many of us, I think,

00:23:28.480 still don't understand this about ourselves. The thing is, when you get to a kid and you tell a kid

00:23:35.800 something, they're going to believe it, but they're going to continue believing it in perpetuity

00:23:44.360 unless you tell them otherwise or unless they're convinced otherwise by other adults.

00:23:53.560 You see, telling a kid something at that age, it has such a lasting, long-term impact

00:24:01.400 that kids will, all the way into adulthood, could continue believing something that is completely

00:24:08.880 absurd and nonsensical just because they were told it as a kid. Unless somebody else comes back

00:24:16.600 around and can deprogram. But if that deprogramming never happens, they're going to live their whole

00:24:22.360 life believing that. And that's the truth for a lot of us, too. That what we're taught as a child,

00:24:32.540 whether true or not, whether defensible or not, whether reasonable or not, whatever you're taught

00:24:38.440 will maintain a very strong hold over you well into adulthood and possibly forever.

00:24:43.700 It is very, very, very hard for an adult to break away from the indoctrination that he experienced as a

00:24:50.180 youth. Because that stuff gets seared into the brain. The mind forms around it. And to extricate

00:24:57.380 it is extremely difficult. Point being, tell preschoolers that boys are girls and they'll 0.98

00:25:03.580 believe you because you said it. And they lack the capacity to know the difference. And then if you

00:25:08.720 keep telling them, most of them will continue believing it. Just as strongly, you know, at the age of 26 and

00:25:15.480 36 and 56, as they did when they were six. Most people go their whole lives basically believing

00:25:24.740 everything they were taught as kids. Most people with most things. Not all. But if you can convince

00:25:36.440 this young generation of kids, if they can convert them, then the game is over.

00:25:47.320 Because indoctrinated at that age, even as adults, it's going to be almost impossible

00:25:53.980 at that point to convince them otherwise.

00:25:56.000 All right. I want to get to emails. Before we do, we've been talking for the last several weeks

00:26:02.940 about the pro-life issue and how important it obviously is and what the left has been doing

00:26:11.520 to shut down and censor those of us who stand for the pro-life cause. And we've gone through it

00:26:19.720 ourselves with people coming after our sponsors and so on. And we've been telling you about live

00:26:25.720 action, which is one of the biggest, most important voices in the pro-life movement.

00:26:30.260 And they've, in terms of attacks from the left, they get it worse than almost anybody.

00:26:35.140 And that's why until January 31st, which is today, a portion of any Daily Wire membership will be

00:26:40.580 donated to live action with promo code liveaction. And that's today is your last day to do this.

00:26:45.960 So if you go right now, you sign up, use the promo code liveaction to support awareness and

00:26:52.280 education around the world on this issue. Join Daily Wire. Do it right now. Make your pro-life

00:26:57.140 voice heard. And at the same time, you're also going to be a member of the Daily Wire. So it's a,

00:27:00.680 it's a win-win for everybody. Go do that right now. Well, not right now. Wait till the show's over

00:27:04.340 and then go do it. Okay. Bundles of mail talking about the spanking issue.

00:27:11.120 MattWallshow at gmail.com. MattWallshow at gmail.com.

00:27:13.940 I was going to read a bunch of the emails. I think I'll just read one that lays out the

00:27:19.180 objection to my arguments pretty well. And I'll respond to those. And, uh, and, and that will be

00:27:25.200 the conclusion of this topic for now. Okay. This is from Joel says, hi, Matt. I love your show,

00:27:30.620 but totally disagree with your spanking take. I think to say that those of us who spank our kids 0.99

00:27:34.860 are bad parents is very wrong and judgmental. You say that spanking is do as I say, not as I do,

00:27:40.360 but don't you do many things your kids can't do? You put them in timeout, but you don't,

00:27:44.420 you wouldn't let them do that. You take their toys, but you don't let them take from other people.

00:27:49.300 Also, you say that spanking is hitting. You call that the dictionary definition. It's not.

00:27:53.100 This is the dictionary definition of spanking to strike a person, usually a child with the open hand, 0.93

00:27:58.600 et cetera, especially on the buttocks as in punishment. What about shouting? It's easy to judge 0.83

00:28:04.020 parents who spank, but I say shouting is worse slash abusive. You can make all the arguments you want,

00:28:09.780 but those of us who spank our children have seen the results. We know that it's effective.

00:28:13.760 You're trying to tell us we're wrong about what we ourselves have observed. It comes off as haughty

00:28:18.420 and arrogant. I'll still listen to your show, but I'm disappointed in your position on this.

00:28:22.820 P.S. How do you reconcile your position with the Bible, which clearly gives parents the authority to

00:28:27.360 spank? Okay. So let me go through your points here, Joel, and then I'll circle back around and make

00:28:34.480 a few more general points. First of all, importantly, I never said that parents who spank are bad

00:28:42.040 parents. Never said it. Never implied it. Never said anything close to that. Judging by some of my

00:28:50.120 emails, you would think that I said it, but I didn't. I simply did not say that. And I don't think it.

00:28:56.520 Obviously, there are plenty of very good parents who spank, clearly. I have always, through my whole

00:29:03.860 career, I have urged grace and understanding for parents. I've been very consistent about this

00:29:07.900 because parenting is hard. I know. I have four kids. I get it. And just because a parent makes

00:29:14.820 a mistake, it doesn't make them bad. If it did, then I'd be an awful parent because I make mistakes

00:29:20.280 all the time. Am I saying that spanking is a mistake? Yes, that's my position. That's what I believe.

00:29:27.020 But to say that I think someone's making a mistake as a parent, it doesn't mean I'm saying that they're

00:29:31.800 bad. It's two different things, right? Or at least two things that don't necessarily go hand in hand.

00:29:40.160 Second, do as I say, not as I do. The point here is that we don't want to undermine our authority by

00:29:47.740 exhibiting the very behavior we're trying to curb in our children. So let's take a less contentious

00:29:54.840 example of this. I always tell my kids to clean their rooms and to clean up after themselves and

00:30:01.380 to be responsible and don't leave stuff laying all over the place. Like every other parent in the

00:30:07.400 world, I'm telling my kids that all the time. Well, I am not the neatest person. I'm pretty

00:30:13.320 disorganized. My office right now, you can't see it, but there's stuff strewn all over the place,

00:30:17.840 a little behind the scenes. And so my kids, they come into my office and they see what it

00:30:25.940 looks like. I'm undermining my own authority because they can see that I'm not following

00:30:31.420 my own instructions. They can see that I must not take what I'm saying very seriously because

00:30:36.900 I don't do it. So that's something I need to work on. It doesn't mean that they're excused

00:30:42.020 from cleaning their room. They still have to do it because that's their responsibility. 0.96

00:30:47.780 And just because one person is not fulfilling their own responsibility doesn't mean it doesn't

00:30:50.700 get you off the hook to fulfill yours. But I need to do better. I know that. And as parents,

00:30:56.700 I think we're all guilty of some do as I say, not as I do things.

00:31:00.020 is spanking one of those things. I think it is. And I'll explain why.

00:31:06.260 First of all, putting a child in timeout is not, doesn't qualify because for one thing,

00:31:12.380 I'm not having to constantly tell my kids not to put each other in timeout. I don't know about you,

00:31:16.480 but that's not the kind of thing that you're constantly having to correct in your children,

00:31:20.960 is it? Hitting is. Hitting is a big thing that you have to get your kids not to hit each other.

00:31:26.660 Putting each other in timeout, that doesn't happen very often. But

00:31:29.660 for me, on occasion, actually, it has happened. And my daughter, who's very, very maternalistic

00:31:34.900 and technically the oldest, even though she was a twin, but she was the first to come out.

00:31:40.260 And this is a fact that she's very aware of and makes other people aware of all the time.

00:31:45.540 So she tries to mother the other kids. And on occasion, she's actually tried to put them in 0.55

00:31:49.660 timeout. And her brothers have listened to her and actually gone in timeout. But,

00:31:54.420 and I tell her, you can't do that. My reason, though, the reason I give is that she doesn't

00:32:02.820 have the authority to do it. It's not that putting people in timeout is bad. It's just that

00:32:08.440 it's a matter of authority. And she doesn't have the authority. And actually, you could even argue 1.00

00:32:14.220 that timeout as a concept, I guess, as adults, we do put ourselves in timeout sometimes just in the,

00:32:22.840 in the, in the sense of, okay, I, I need some space. I need to step back. I need to calm down.

00:32:29.280 Right. That's what timeout is. Sit down, calm down. You need to settle down. That's what timeout is all

00:32:35.800 about. And as adults, we do kind of do that. We don't, we don't call, we don't say I'm putting

00:32:40.660 myself in timeout, but it's a similar sort of idea. You could argue taking toys. Yes. I don't

00:32:48.000 let my kids take other people's toys yet. I do take theirs as punishment sometimes. Is that a

00:32:53.320 contradiction? No, because their toys aren't really theirs. Their toys are mine. And I've told them

00:32:59.280 that this is, I think it's important for them to know all of their toys are mine and my, and my wife's

00:33:04.560 those toys belong to mommy and daddy. Those are not your toys. We graciously are allowing you to play

00:33:10.340 with them, but we bought them. You know, we, we, we are the ones who, if they're, if they're,

00:33:16.100 we buy them, if they're broken, we fix them. We pay for them. We pay for everything, the house,

00:33:20.260 everything. So this is all ours. And we are, because we are nice parents, we let you have toys.

00:33:28.300 It's your responsibility to take care of them. This is a privilege you've been given. We can

00:33:32.960 retract the privilege, the TV, you know, I, I, we let you watch TV sometimes, but that is our

00:33:40.320 TV and our couch. And so you have to be grateful. And the idea here is not to have a sense of

00:33:47.340 entitlement. So no, I don't take their toys. I take my own toys back from them, which yeah,

00:33:54.160 they're allowed to do. If somebody has one of their toys, they're allowed to take it back.

00:33:58.760 They shouldn't be rude about it, but yeah, so I don't see that. Now spanking is different.

00:34:02.960 And here's the issue. You spank young children, right? Assuming you're not spanking a 12 year old 0.93

00:34:07.520 kid, because that would, I hope we all agree would be really weird and inappropriate. Most people spank 0.64

00:34:13.260 kids like two to six or thereabouts. So you have to think about what they can understand. That's

00:34:21.900 what's important. Is, is there a distinction between a parent spanking a child and a child

00:34:27.420 hitting another child? Yes, obviously there's a distinction, but if the child can't see that

00:34:31.980 distinction, then in his mind, when you spank him, you, you are hitting and you are doing what you say 0.93

00:34:37.360 not to do. And this is going to undermine your authority, not to mention make him feel less safe,

00:34:42.120 less secure, because your rules and your words seem arbitrary to him. And that's a problem.

00:34:49.720 So, um, finding some, some fine sort of nuanced distinction between spanking and hitting isn't going

00:34:56.840 to do the job. The child doesn't see fine nuances. So here's the, here's the question. Here's what you

00:35:02.000 have to ask you. When you're explaining to your kid why they shouldn't hit, what do you say? Assuming

00:35:08.820 you don't just give the, because I said so deal. Assuming hopefully you've given them a reason why

00:35:14.580 they shouldn't do it. Not because you have to justify yourself to them, but because they should

00:35:19.120 understand why your rules are in place. You tell them don't run into the road. If they ask why,

00:35:23.080 of course you're going to tell them because a car might hit you. So if you tell them don't hit,

00:35:27.860 hopefully you give them a reason so they can understand the rules. And I don't know what

00:35:32.740 you say. Here's what I say. Um, here's the reason I give, I say that they should use their words first

00:35:38.360 and express how they feel with their words. If they're upset or mad or frustrated, use your words,

00:35:45.120 communicate. Oh, but he was mean to me. He did. It's okay. I understand he was mean to you.

00:35:50.720 I'm not saying that he was right, but hitting is not the correct way to communicate your frustration

00:35:57.980 with him. You use your words, you communicate. We don't hit, we use our words. That's, that's the

00:36:03.200 refrain I use with young. Remember you're talking about three and four year old kids. You can't get

00:36:08.720 into some academic dissertation about the differences of this and that. It has to be very simple. They have

00:36:13.400 to be able to understand it. Um, so that's the simple explanation. I also say that hitting is wrong

00:36:20.560 because it hurts people and we don't hurt people. Again, simple. A three-year-old can understand it,

00:36:25.400 which is important because I'm saying it to a three-year-old. So they should be able to understand

00:36:28.980 it. Now here's the issue. The reason that I've given, use your words, don't hurt people. This

00:36:35.100 reason would seem very much to apply to spanking. It would seem that as the spanking parent, I am not

00:36:40.780 using my words and I am hurting the child. Maybe not hurting him very much, but when a child hits

00:36:46.660 another child doesn't hurt very much either. When my, when my daughter slaps her brother or

00:36:51.440 something, it doesn't hurt hardly at all. But that's not the point. It's not about the degree

00:36:56.400 of injury. It's just, it does hurt a little bit and we don't do that to people. So, and spanking does 0.95

00:37:01.860 hurt at least a little bit. Otherwise, why are you doing it? Um, and even if you use your words

00:37:07.400 before and after spanking, it still seems like you are trying to communicate with violence,

00:37:12.660 with hitting rather than with your words. Um, and, and so from the, at least, at least from the

00:37:21.280 child's perspective, it is going to seem very much like a double standard. Um, and so that's

00:37:30.520 something you have to take into account. Is the spanking so important to you? Is it, is it, is it,

00:37:35.360 is it, is the, is the plus side so much of a plus that it can outweigh the appearance of a double

00:37:43.380 standard when it comes to violence? Now I argue that it doesn't just appear to be a double standard.

00:37:50.180 I think it actually is a double standard, but my point is the most you can do is say, oh, it only

00:37:55.160 appears to be one. Well, I would say even that though, even if it's only the appearance of,

00:38:02.640 it's still a problem. Okay. Then you say spanking isn't hitting. You provide a definition. You say

00:38:08.820 the definition to strike with the open hand, et cetera. Well, Joel, what's the definition of

00:38:14.020 strike? I'll tell you dictionary to deal a blow or stroke to a person or thing, semicolon hit. So

00:38:21.920 a strike is hit. So the definition of spanking is to hit with the open hand. Spanking is hitting. 1.00

00:38:30.740 Obviously it is impossible to spank a child without hitting them unless you're a Jedi using 1.00

00:38:34.840 the force. Here's the distinction. All spanking is hitting. Not all hitting is spanking. So there's 0.73

00:38:42.600 a lot of very violent and abusive forms of hitting. Spanking may not be one of those forms, but it is

00:38:48.020 a form of hitting. That's undeniable. Just as all bourbon is whiskey, not all whiskey is bourbon.

00:38:53.320 Jupiter is a planet. Not all planets are Jupiter, right? Spanking is a subset of a category,

00:38:58.060 which is hitting. The category is hitting. It is a subset of that. So it is hitting. And this means

00:39:02.160 it is perfectly accurate to say that when you spank your child, you hit them. That is perfectly 1.00

00:39:06.740 accurate. You are hitting your child. Yes. There is no denying that. You can't deny it. It's in the

00:39:13.140 definition you provided. My point is, if it makes you super uncomfortable to think of spanking as

00:39:19.060 hitting, if it makes you angry when someone says that you hit your child, then maybe that's a hint that

00:39:27.060 you shouldn't be doing it. If you need the euphemism, then maybe that should tell you

00:39:33.440 something. And it's not like I've found some absurd roundabout way of describing spanking to make it

00:39:40.420 sound bad. I had some people say that, oh, you can describe any punishment and make it sound bad.

00:39:45.560 Putting someone in timeout is imprisonment, right? Okay, but that's not what I'm doing with spanking.

00:39:54.680 I'm not finding some roundabout, elaborate, absurd way of describing it. I'm just defining it. There is

00:40:01.000 no way to define the word spank without the word hit or a synonym. So spank is just a euphemism. It's

00:40:09.540 just a word that means exactly the same thing. And so what I'm saying is, if the definition of it

00:40:20.640 makes you uncomfortable, maybe that should tell you something.

00:40:26.900 You say, what about shouting? Yes, I think shouting and screaming at a kid in anger is bad. We

00:40:30.520 shouldn't do it. I've done it. We shouldn't do it. I agree. We shouldn't do it. You know, of course,

00:40:36.640 there are extreme cases. You shout, hey, don't run in the road kind of thing. But for the most part,

00:40:41.140 shouting and screaming in anger, you are venting your frustrations at your child or about your child,

00:40:45.360 or at least in front of your child, and you shouldn't be doing any of those. I do it. I have

00:40:49.100 done it. I shouldn't. You know, my point here has never been that I'm the perfect parent. That is not

00:40:53.760 my point. And then you bring up the Bible. What does the Bible say? Well, what does the Bible say

00:40:58.920 about disciplining children? Well, here's what Proverbs says, okay? It says, withhold not correction

00:41:04.020 from the child. If thou beatest him with the rod, he shall not die. Thou shalt beat him with the rod

00:41:10.000 and shalt deliver his soul from hell. Okay, Joel, let me ask you. Do you beat your kid with a rod? 0.99

00:41:17.840 Do you? If you don't, and I understand what the Bible says, but I hope you don't,

00:41:25.180 beat him with a rod. I mean, what if, do you beat your kid with a rod? And what would you say if, 0.90

00:41:31.440 you know, one of your kid's friends came over and they had welts on them and you asked them where

00:41:37.640 the welts came from and they told you that they were being beaten with a rod by their parents?

00:41:43.140 And don't tell me that beating with a rod doesn't make welts. It does. And there's no way to beat

00:41:47.040 with a rod that doesn't cause bruises. It just doesn't. You can't. What would you say? Would you

00:41:54.820 say, oh, that's biblical. That's nice. Or would you potentially call the police?

00:41:59.960 So here's my point. If you're not beating with a rod, and if you, in fact, would be horrified by a

00:42:10.100 parent who beat their three-year-old with a rod, then you are not taking Proverbs as a literal step-by-step

00:42:17.840 guide for parenting in the modern age. You are not doing that. Now, I admit that I'm not. If your

00:42:23.000 accusation to me is that I am not, you know, I am not literally following Proverbs in the Old Testament

00:42:29.400 as a guide for disciplining my children, you're right. I'm not. But neither are you. And if you

00:42:39.480 want to say that I'm, you know, cherry-picking, maybe I am, but you're cherry-picking within the

00:42:44.920 verse itself, which seems a lot more arbitrary. Now, it's one thing to look at the entire verse and say,

00:42:50.640 you know, I think this must be non-literal. There must be some metaphor here because I just,

00:42:55.540 you know, I can't square the idea of beating my child with a rod. I'm not going to do it.

00:42:59.340 No way. My conscience just will not allow that. And so it's one thing to say that, which is what

00:43:09.000 I'm saying. But what you're doing is you're looking at this, you're picking apart the sentence itself

00:43:14.060 and cherry-picking certain words. And, you know, you like this, you don't like that. I don't like

00:43:18.200 rod. So I'll make rod metaphorical. Beating. I don't want to call it beating. I like spanking. 0.99

00:43:23.320 So that to me seems a hell of a lot more arbitrary than what I'm doing. And I admit that even what 0.67

00:43:29.820 I'm doing is, it's a little arbitrary. I do admit that because the main reason why I'm going to look

00:43:37.620 at that verse as metaphor or non-literal, it's not because of the context of the verse or because

00:43:42.840 of my understanding of the original Hebrew or anything like that, it's just because it strikes 1.00

00:43:48.200 me as barbaric to beat a child with a rod. Okay? That's my reasoning. But again, my point is,

00:43:53.980 you have the same reasoning unless you are actually beating your child with a rod. And I hope you don't.

00:43:59.580 Because I think that's abuse. Yes. So what do I do with that verse? As I said, I take it as non-literal.

00:44:08.220 I think you do. I think almost everybody does. Okay. So those were your points. A few other points

00:44:17.600 in summary as we wrap up. I do think it's relevant that nearly all the research I've ever read on this

00:44:23.480 subject has come down against it. Research shows that spanking is highly predictive of violent

00:44:28.500 behavior, antisocial behavior, aggression, mental health problems, negative relationships with parents

00:44:33.300 down the line. It shows that it's predictive even of neurological changes in the brain. When I say

00:44:37.800 predictive, I don't mean causal. We cannot prove the causal relationship. That's true. But you can see

00:44:43.660 high degrees of correlation. And you could say all day that correlation doesn't equal causation. That's

00:44:48.660 true. But it can be indicative of causation. And so there's a lot of very good reason to think

00:44:54.640 that the correlation here is indicative of causation. That's why the Academy of Pediatrics,

00:45:01.000 for example, 67,000 doctors came out against spanking, said it's ineffective and harmful.

00:45:04.940 I'm not saying their word is gospel. I'm not saying that. But you talk about your experience

00:45:09.460 with your child. Okay. But however well-behaved your child is, and I'll take you at your word that

00:45:16.160 he's well-behaved, but how do you know he'd be worse if you didn't spank? Unless you've been

00:45:21.500 conducting parental experiments on your own child. That's the problem with basing this on personal

00:45:27.340 anecdotes. It's better to look at the broader picture, the large picture, not just personally

00:45:31.880 reported data of parents who are looking to justify their own decisions. And if you look

00:45:35.820 at the big picture and the research that's done, almost all of it, really almost all of it that

00:45:41.400 I've ever read, and you go look at it yourself, has concluded nearly definitively that spanking is

00:45:46.820 harmful. And the few outlier studies that I've read, for the most part, at best find that maybe it

00:45:53.980 won't be harmful. But there has been almost nothing finding a positive correlation.

00:46:00.560 Does that settle it? No. But it is a compelling piece of evidence, isn't it? I mean, if you're

00:46:05.460 told that a certain form of discipline you're using with your child, that there's volumes of

00:46:11.180 research done about it, and almost all of that research has found that it's harmful, shouldn't

00:46:15.940 that cause you to at least pause and think, you know, maybe there's a problem here? I don't understand

00:46:21.680 how you could just wave it off. That I don't understand, how anyone could do that. I couldn't.

00:46:26.780 That's why I don't spank, because I have read about it. And the more I've read about it, especially

00:46:31.620 recently, I have found it very persuasive. I have no reason to doubt it other than

00:46:38.940 I would prefer if it weren't true, but that's not good enough. And I think that throws the ball back

00:46:46.820 in your court, considering all the research on this, considering the possibility that you at least

00:46:51.440 might undermine your authority by seeming to contradict yourself, considering your own

00:46:55.300 discomfort with spanking when it is defined in literal terms, considering the risks involved

00:47:00.980 in using this kind of disciplinary method, considering the ethical difficulties that are always going

00:47:05.160 to be inherent any time an adult uses punitive physical force on a small child, considering

00:47:09.700 the possibility that even if it works, it might only work by instilling fear in your child rather

00:47:13.800 than respect and love, considering that many established links have been found between spanking

00:47:18.720 and future aggression. Considering all of this, why do it? What's the risk of not doing

00:47:27.840 it? What's the positive case for it? Can you launch a positive case that outweighs all of

00:47:35.440 the things I just mentioned? I don't think you can. So I'm trying to justify my position.

00:47:41.940 I would say positively justify yours. Tell me why you should do it. Why is it better? What

00:47:47.600 reason do you have to think that it's actually better than the alternative? Aside from your

00:47:54.800 kids are turning out okay. That's not good enough. My kids are turning out okay too, and I don't

00:48:01.140 spank. And I've got four of them. I don't know how many you have. But you know, we don't want 0.98

00:48:04.880 to get into this personal back and forth. That's not what it's about. So there it is. That's

00:48:12.400 my whole case. But I reiterate for the 10th time, because a lot of people seem to be confused

00:48:22.200 on this point about what my personal feelings are. I do not believe or feel that parents who

00:48:29.000 spank are bad parents or anything close to it. I simply disagree with the method. And

00:48:36.840 these are my reasons. All right. Have a great weekend, everyone. Godspeed.

00:48:46.320 If you enjoyed this episode, don't forget to subscribe. And if you want to help spread the

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00:48:58.880 Daily Wire podcast, including the Ben Shapiro show, Michael Knowles show, and the Andrew

00:49:02.880 Klavan show. Thanks for listening. The Matt Wall Show is produced by Sean Hampton, executive producer

00:49:08.620 Jeremy Boring, senior producer Jonathan Hay, supervising producer Mathis Glover, supervising

00:49:13.920 producer Robert Sterling, technical producer Austin Stevens, editor Donovan Fowler, audio mixer

00:49:19.520 Robin Fenderson. The Matt Wall Show is a Daily Wire production, copyright Daily Wire 2020.

00:49:25.140 If you prefer facts over feelings, aren't offended by the brutal truth,

00:49:28.580 and you can still laugh at the insanity filling our national news cycle. Well, tune in to the

00:49:32.540 Ben Shapiro show. We'll get a whole lot of that and much more. See you there.

The Matt Walsh Show - January 31, 2020

Ep. 417 - Fighting The Coronavirus With Diversity And Tolerance

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