The Matt Walsh Show - Ep. 420 - The Rip Heard Round The World

00:00:00.000 Welcome. Welcome to the show, fellow citizens. Trump's State of the Union address was last night.

00:00:05.320 I'm not sure if you heard about it. It was sort of a little minor understated event. I think maybe

00:00:10.580 they aired it on C-SPAN or something. And here's what I'll say about the State of the Union. I'm

00:00:15.180 not going to spend a lot of time on it because, in fact, I assume that you have heard plenty of

00:00:20.360 coverage about it. But it was, as everybody on the right agrees, and even some on the left seem

00:00:25.940 to be saying, a wonderful speech. Donald Trump, as I've argued from the beginning,

00:00:32.500 Donald Trump is much better scripted. His unscripted campaign speech ramblings seem to play

00:00:39.880 very well to the audience that's physically in the room with him. And I think his base still likes it,

00:00:44.600 but I think most people outside of that are pretty bored with it at this point. But his scripted

00:00:48.820 speeches are often brilliant. And it's true that he doesn't write his scripted speeches. So this

00:00:55.780 could be seen as another way of saying Donald Trump is brilliant when he's not acting like

00:01:01.760 Donald Trump. It seems like a backhanded compliment in some ways to say, oh, you know what I love about

00:01:05.940 him is when he's scripted. That's the best part. But that wouldn't be the correct interpretation

00:01:11.240 because even if he doesn't write the speech, these are still Trump speeches through and through

00:01:16.580 in that he is willing to say things and present things in a certain way that most other politicians

00:01:26.020 are not, especially Republican politicians, which is why, and this is why I wish you to give more

00:01:32.640 scripted speeches because as opposed to the unscripted where he's kind of rambling and going

00:01:37.180 in a million different directions, you don't really take anything from it. There's no message.

00:01:41.400 There's no coherent message in it. With the scripted speeches, if he stays on the script

00:01:46.160 and he's willing to let someone help him formulate it, he's willing to say things. He can get a

00:01:52.160 message across and he's willing to put things in a certain way that can be very valuable and that

00:01:58.760 other politicians, other Republicans won't do. So during the State of the Union address, not just

00:02:06.280 this one, but his other State of the Union addresses, we hear things about abortion, protecting life,

00:02:11.120 the family, protecting religious liberty, that we wouldn't hear from other Republicans, except in a

00:02:17.360 very roundabout way. They would allude to it. But Trump just goes right into it and talks about it

00:02:23.640 in a style we wouldn't hear from anybody else. And sometimes though, it's kind of subtle,

00:02:29.920 which is surprising because you don't expect to hear the word subtle and Trump used in the same

00:02:34.300 sentence. But I'll play a clip for you from last night. I'm only going to play a couple of clips,

00:02:40.200 but this is him talking about late-term abortion. And there was something subtle in this, maybe you'll

00:02:46.560 pick up on, that I thought was really good. Listen to this. That is why I'm also calling upon

00:02:52.280 members of Congress here tonight to pass legislation finally banning the late-term abortion of babies.

00:03:04.300 Whether we are Republican, Democrat, or independent, surely we must all agree that every human life

00:03:14.880 is a sacred gift from God. As we support America's moms and dads, I was recently proud to sign

00:03:21.560 the law providing new parents in the federal workforce paid family leave, serving as a model

00:03:28.620 for the rest of the country. Okay, so he's talking about late-term abortion, which is something that

00:03:42.420 no other Republican would do in a State of the Union address. That's not the subtle part. But notice how

00:03:48.340 he throws in the word, the phrase, of babies. He says, late-term abortion of babies. That's, as I said,

00:03:57.680 subtle, but it's a very important thing to add. Because what are we talking about when we say

00:04:05.280 abortion? Because the word abortion sounds impersonal, sounds abstract, detached. Abortion

00:04:12.500 just sounds like this thing that's hanging out there. It doesn't really affect anybody. But in fact,

00:04:20.260 it is an act that happens to someone, right? And to whom? Babies. So to say that, to make sure you say 0.75

00:04:31.200 that, the late-term abortion of babies, not late-term abortion in general, not late-term abortion of

00:04:38.360 fetuses or of pregnancies, but of babies. So I thought that was good. And then there was his addressing

00:04:48.160 of religious liberty. And this is not so subtle, which is good. I'm glad it wasn't. In fact,

00:04:55.820 he's going right at the issue using phrases like, in America, we celebrate faith and cherish religion.

00:05:02.620 And this, again, is handled in a way that I think only Trump would handle it. Listen to this.

00:05:06.060 In America, we don't punish prayer. We don't tear down crosses. We don't ban symbols of faith. We don't

00:05:15.060 muzzle preachers and pastors. In America, we celebrate faith. We cherish religion. We lift our voices in

00:05:23.500 prayer. And we raise our sights to the glory of God. Just as we believe in the First Amendment, we also

00:05:31.460 believe in another constitutional right that is under siege all across our country. So long as I am

00:05:38.920 president, I will always protect your Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms.

00:05:51.000 So for me, these are the highlights. These are the take-homes, right? These are the things that

00:05:56.440 we should remember. Although I think most people, of course, will remember, as far as what happened in

00:06:03.000 the speech, most people are going to remember this the most. For the past seven months, she has done

00:06:07.760 it all while her husband, Sergeant First Class Townsend Williams, is in Afghanistan on his fourth

00:06:13.500 deployment in the Middle East. But Amy, there is one more thing. Tonight, we have a very special

00:06:20.780 surprise. I am thrilled to inform you that your husband is back from deployment. He is here with

00:06:27.160 us tonight. And we couldn't keep him waiting any longer.

00:06:40.620 Obviously, a beautiful moment there. And this is what's worth talking about.

00:06:45.060 Now, the routine thing that we do after a State of the Union address is we complain about the Democrats

00:06:53.640 not applauding this or that. Every year we do this. The opposition party doesn't applaud the

00:07:01.160 president's accomplishments. And the supporters of that president, whoever it is, act outraged.

00:07:07.380 How could you not applaud that? And that's a topic of conversation, maybe for half a day or so at most,

00:07:14.000 and then everybody forgets about it. And all of that, the applauding and everything and deciding

00:07:19.600 when to applaud and when not to, it's pageantry, doesn't really mean anything. Speaking of which,

00:07:26.580 speaking of pageantry, I'm going to be very much in the minority on this, I understand. So I'm taking

00:07:32.040 a minority position, which is something you're probably not surprised by. I do it somewhat often,

00:07:38.260 much to the chagrin of some people who watch this show. The thing people are really talking about

00:07:45.120 today, of course, is this moment.

00:07:47.660 So there's Nancy Pelosi, after the speech, on camera, tearing up her copy of Trump's speech.

00:08:07.580 Now, my personal feelings on this are that I don't really care. I actually find it kind of funny. I

00:08:15.680 laughed when I saw that. Pelosi and Trump hate each other's guts. They're constantly cutting each

00:08:21.920 other down, ripping each other apart, taking petty digs at each other. I mean, Trump calls her crazy

00:08:26.960 Nancy. That's his name for her that he refers to her by, which I know we take this for granted,

00:08:32.160 but that has not been normal decorum for presidents in the past, where they have a nickname like crazy

00:08:40.600 so-and-so for their political, not just their political enemies, but the people they're supposed

00:08:45.380 to be working with, calls her crazy Nancy. Now, okay, it doesn't really bother me that much that

00:08:50.280 he says that, and he's not wrong either. But I see this as another volley in that feud,

00:08:58.300 and it doesn't bother me. And the outrage for people on the right, well, how dare she do that?

00:09:04.320 How dare she? It's like, come on. First of all, you don't really care. You're not that offended by

00:09:08.860 it. And you can't, I mean, considering he's, it's in line with the stuff they do and say to each other

00:09:16.020 all the time. It's not that much worse than anything he's done or said in regards to her. So

00:09:21.080 who cares? And before that, you know, she put her hand out, tried to shake his hand.

00:09:26.360 He left her hanging, didn't shake her hand. You could make an argument. Maybe she didn't,

00:09:30.780 he didn't see that she was trying to do that. I don't know. I'm sure I really buy that. I think

00:09:35.100 he, I think he did. He did leave her hanging on purpose, but, but who cares? Yet there's been,

00:09:43.800 as I said, quite a bit of the sort of performative outrage on the right about this, this moment.

00:09:49.040 Um, a lot of, we have to respect the office. She has no respect for the office, which for the 1.00

00:09:57.560 record, the respect the office shtick is something that people only ever say when it's their guy in

00:10:05.780 office. Nobody says that. So the right is now saying respect the office. Nobody on the right

00:10:10.960 was talking about respecting the office when Obama was in there. That was something the left said,

00:10:14.900 respect the office. Now they don't respect the office. So it's just back and forth. And I just,

00:10:19.260 can we just put that aside? Can we all admit, can we all please admit that we, none of us really

00:10:24.180 respect the office. And in fact, none of us even know what that means exactly. What do you mean

00:10:29.120 respect the, how do you respect an office? It's, it's, and if you are going to respect an office,

00:10:35.260 why would you have a blanket respect for a politician's office? This, this, this is not a monarchy.

00:10:42.960 This is not a King or an emperor that we're talking about here. This is a, it's a politician

00:10:47.940 and they're supposed to work for us. There are employees. That's the way it's supposed to go.

00:10:52.740 Doesn't really work that way, but ideally that's how it's supposed to be. And when you say respect

00:10:57.100 the office, you're talking about ideals. Well, I say the ideal is no, they are our employees. They

00:11:02.860 respect us. That's a lot more important than us respecting them. Um, I think with politicians,

00:11:10.880 it's the same with anybody else, you respect them if they earn it and you don't, if they don't,

00:11:17.000 that's it. Whether or not you think Trump has earned respect is up to you. That's how each

00:11:21.120 person decides that whether or not you think Obama earned respect, it's up to you. Uh, but the idea,

00:11:26.300 the fact that the, the, the notion that they're owed respect somehow, just because they desperately

00:11:33.440 wanted to run the country and enough people voted for them. I, I don't, I don't see it. Um,

00:11:41.080 personally. So it didn't bother me. That's not my point though. I think, and this is the part where

00:11:46.320 I'm really in the minority. I think this was a rather brilliant political move by Nancy Pelosi.

00:11:53.500 It was a very Trumpian move in a way. What she's done is she's made the whole conversation after the

00:12:00.900 speech, the whole news cycle about her ripping up the speech. The news cycle is about her ripping 0.95

00:12:08.140 the speech rather than Trump giving the speech. She's got people on the right. Most, most, most

00:12:14.480 media people on the right talking about her ripping the speech rather than amplifying and highlighting 0.87

00:12:21.700 the content of the rather spectacular speech that Trump gave. So she stole the news cycle.

00:12:27.520 This is a news cycle that rightfully belongs to Donald Trump. And, but she took it, which is

00:12:34.360 something Trump does. She, she stole it with something negative. Yes, but so what her base

00:12:40.800 will love it. Uh, she's not at any political risk because of this. The only people really pissed

00:12:46.020 are Trump fans who hate Democrats anyway. So no loss. The point is just to make the conversation

00:12:54.760 something else, anything else instead of the positive points of Trump speech. So think about

00:13:01.320 it. Um, this is, you know, the, I, I, I would go on Twitter this morning, the top three trending

00:13:11.120 topics on Twitter were about Nancy Pelosi. One of them was hashtag Nancy the Ripper, which just makes

00:13:19.540 her sound like a bad-ass. Another was Nancy rocks with the leftist, uh, uh, defending her. And then 0.99

00:13:25.840 there was another one Nancy Pelosi tantrum or something like that. And that was the negative

00:13:29.720 one, but who cares after the speech, big speech, everyone's in a lot of, a lot of big viral moments

00:13:35.800 in that speech, all the trending topics on social media about Nancy Pelosi. Now, of course, 10 months

00:13:44.320 from now, um, when it's time to vote, nobody's going to care either way about any of this.

00:13:51.080 And the people saying that swing voters will be swayed against the Democrats because of this,

00:13:55.240 uh, I think are living in a fantasy land. Nobody's going to 10 months from now, no one's going to the

00:14:01.840 polls and voting based on the fact that Nancy Pelosi ripped a piece of paper. That's, that's not 1.00

00:14:07.120 going to motivate anybody at the polls to 10 months from now. And that's, that's, that's part of the

00:14:11.420 harsh reality of the world we live in now is that nobody remembers anything or cares about anything

00:14:16.540 for more than 48 hours. And most 10 months from now, you're not going to be thinking about any of

00:14:21.460 this. You're hardly going to remember it. Okay. Now, you know, Trump has given now three brilliant

00:14:29.140 state of the union addresses. Can you remember anything about the one he gave last year? And can

00:14:34.220 you remember any of the outrages afterwards about what Democrats did? Can you remember any of the great

00:14:38.740 lines he had in that speech? Anything he talked about? Can you remember anything about it? No,

00:14:43.160 you can't. Uh, because we have very short attention spans and memories now because there's so much

00:14:48.920 information coming at us constantly from all directions. And we're absorbing so much information

00:14:54.240 all the time that we don't have room. It's a, it's a logistic problem. We don't have room to store all

00:15:01.240 of these distant memories by distant. I mean last week. So those get discarded leaving only dim remnants,

00:15:08.080 maybe to, to make room for the new stuff. Uh, so, which means that 10 months from now, I say that

00:15:13.760 this was a brilliant political move on Pelosi's part. I think it was, but 10 months from now,

00:15:18.660 I don't think it's going to hurt her. I don't think it's going to help her. It's only about

00:15:21.240 winning this particular news cycle. And that's always been Trump's strategy. Trump strategy has

00:15:27.000 always been that you win a news cycle. If you make it about you, even if it's bad, as long as it's about

00:15:34.340 you, you're sucking up the oxygen and you win. It doesn't matter what it is. That's how Trump got

00:15:42.900 elected in 2016 is that he made almost every news cycle about him for nine months leading up to the

00:15:50.400 election. It was, he just took all the, there was no room for anybody else. Now Pelosi isn't going to

00:15:58.680 be making every news cycle about her for the next 10 months, but she did win this one. 0.99

00:16:05.440 I know we don't look, I know for on the right, we don't want to admit it. Um, but, uh, I think

00:16:11.700 that's the fact. I think, I think people played right into her hand and you know, if, if, if she was

00:16:19.540 on the other foot and Trump had done something like that, I know he couldn't have done that exact

00:16:24.960 thing because Nancy Pelosi isn't giving the state of the union address, but if Trump, if Trump had

00:16:29.120 done something like that and stolen the attention, I think everybody on the right would be hailing his,

00:16:34.620 his political brilliance. Um, so I would say the same thing here. Okay, let's move on. Here's something

00:16:43.600 that I talk about this already. I don't think I did. It's been in a queue for a while now.

00:16:49.920 There is a, uh, slate.com has an advice column for people. Now, how far do you have to fall in life

00:17:02.240 that you would be going to slate for advice? That's a different question, but they have an

00:17:08.200 advice column. People write in with questions. There was a question somebody wrote to slate a few

00:17:12.540 days ago that got some attention and, um, I'll read it to you. This is from someone who signs the

00:17:21.060 letter radical. It says, I'm a cis woman in kind of a classic millennial sex pickle. I'm really repelled

00:17:30.340 by heterosexuality politically and personally, but I'm also really into the expletive, but she means men.

00:17:38.360 She's really into men. I've been thinking maybe I should look for by dudes slash by curious gay 0.99

00:17:44.340 dudes, but I'm not sure how best to do that. Rich, that's the name of the guy who gives the advice.

00:17:49.740 Rich, what do you think of a woman being on grinder or scruff? I do want to be respectful of gay men's 0.98

00:17:55.300 spaces and not horn in where I'm not welcome, but I really would love to find a verse guy with queer 0.99

00:18:01.380 politics. Verse. I have no idea what that means. A verse guy with queer politics who would be up for 0.74

00:18:07.460 casually dating a woman. What do you think? If you were me, where would you look? Okay. Now

00:18:13.820 getting the obvious out of the way, um, millennial sex pickle would be a great name for a band. Maybe

00:18:22.400 just the sex pickles would be a wonderful name for, um, for some sort of indie punk band possibly.

00:18:29.320 So there's that. Now what's the advice that she gets from Rich here on, uh, on slate? Well,

00:18:35.880 his advice is kind of lengthy. I won't read the entire thing, but it does boil down to this.

00:18:39.820 He actually recommends that she go to gay sex parties. And that's the advice that she's given. 0.82

00:18:44.900 That's, that's what it's, it's not often. This may be the first time in the history of advice columns

00:18:50.180 that the advice has been go to a gay sex party, but that's what he, that's, that's the advice he gives.

00:18:56.240 Okay. The only thing I take from this, and I know this is obviously an extreme example. That's why it

00:19:03.240 went viral. But I think what you see here is identity politics as a religion. This is someone for whom

00:19:15.340 identity politics has become a religion, a cult. It has taken over her life to such an extent

00:19:22.340 that she can't even have normal romantic relationships.

00:19:29.120 And she's going to embrace a weird kind of abstinence of sexual abstinence, at least abstaining 0.84

00:19:37.480 from straight men who she's attracted to, uh, because of her, because of her, her political

00:19:42.760 feelings as she's, she's politically opposed to heterosexuality. What does that even mean?

00:19:49.600 How can you be politically opposed to a sexual orientation? I have no idea.

00:19:56.800 And at any rate, whatever it means, aren't we not supposed to be that? Isn't that been, hasn't,

00:20:00.660 hasn't that been the whole point of the last 15, 20 years? You're not supposed to be opposed to

00:20:06.600 sexual orientations. Well, yes, there's a lot of contradiction there, but the real point I take

00:20:13.580 from this, as I said, is this is what identity politics does to a brain. This is identity politics

00:20:19.200 taken to its, its logical yet extreme extent. And this is what it does to your brain. So stay off

00:20:29.140 identity politics, kids. Speaking of brain damage, I wanted to get to emails in a second, but first I

00:20:35.780 wanted to, uh, just tell you maybe as a disclaimer, if I've seen maybe a little bit off these past few

00:20:42.860 days, there's a reason for that. I think it may be because I have suffered brain damage. Well,

00:20:48.280 additional brain damage on top of the brain damage I'd already suffered probably as a, as a baby. Um,

00:20:54.020 at least that's what most people assume when they hear me share my opinions on things. Anyway,

00:20:59.220 you see over the weekend, um, I was downstairs in the living room and I heard, and the kids, the twins

00:21:06.300 were upstairs and I heard from upstairs, this, this thumping sound. It's like kind of dull thud thump

00:21:12.120 banging sort of sound. And, and then I, as I was listening closer, I heard every, after every thump,

00:21:18.920 it was followed by cackles of laughter. That's never a good sign. Okay. Because that means my kids are

00:21:25.980 banging something and finding it funny. And so that, that's a, that's a combination of noises as

00:21:32.580 a parent of young children, especially that you simply never want to hear.

00:21:39.180 As most parents know, the, the worst noise to hear when your kids are in the other room is no noise.

00:21:44.880 The absence of noise is, is the most terrifying, but laughter and banging is, is a, is a pretty bad

00:21:52.040 one. So I go upstairs. I find my son literally banging his head on the ground, on the hard wood

00:22:02.660 floor ground and laughing hysterically. And I come to find out that they're playing a game that

00:22:08.560 they've invented. And I don't know how many times they've played it in the past. Hopefully not too

00:22:12.180 many, but, um, uh, they're playing a game they invented called hard or soft. That's the name of

00:22:18.280 the game. And the way it works is like this. One of them flips a coin. And if it lands on tails,

00:22:24.180 then the other has to bang his head on the soft carpet. If it lands on heads, you have to bang

00:22:29.600 your head on the hard ground. That's hard or soft. Now, of course, this was a, this, the way that this,

00:22:36.400 this was being played is that his twin sister, my daughter, she was the one doing all the coin

00:22:41.260 flipping and he was doing all the head banging unsurprisingly. And so of course I did play the game

00:22:47.500 with them for a few rounds. Um, I ended up getting hard like two or three times in a row.

00:22:52.040 I think they, I'm pretty sure they rigged it. So they found a way to trick daddy into banging his

00:22:56.600 head on the ground. They did do that. And, uh, I should stipulate that my wife did not find this

00:23:02.180 game funny at all. I told them to go downstairs and show it to my wife and, um, show it to mommy. 0.99

00:23:07.780 And, uh, she, she was not, not amused something about concussions or something or other. I don't know.

00:23:13.380 Honestly, I was impressed by the ingenuity. It was sort of like a, it's like a child's version

00:23:18.260 of Russian roulette. And I, and maybe I should be disturbed that they came up with that, but I was,

00:23:23.520 it was, I was somewhat proud. All right. Let's, uh, these, these are the kinds of games that kids

00:23:28.340 come up with. And I guess, you know, we have a whole thing where we don't let them watch a lot

00:23:32.420 of TV. So we're one of those parents. We're very, we tend to be strict with the TV. Maybe this is the

00:23:38.020 lesson we learned. You don't let them, you don't let them watch TV. They're going to just literally

00:23:40.740 beat their heads against the floor. Maybe the TV is better. Let's go to emails. MattWalshow at

00:23:46.100 gmail.com. MattWalshow at gmail.com. This is from Adam says, you say ketchup is for kids, but what

00:23:51.640 if ketchup is put on meatloaf before baking it? Or do you prefer ketchup free meatloaf? Why in God's

00:23:57.620 name would you put, I've heard of this custom, but why would you put ketchup on meatloaf? Now, you know,

00:24:05.900 you're not putting ketchup on meatloaf because you're supposed to be topping the meatloaf with bacon.

00:24:10.740 Obviously, do you make meatloaf without bacon? Is that a thing that people do? Why would you ever

00:24:15.420 do that? What would be the point of that? So no, ketchup does not belong anywhere near meatloaf

00:24:21.460 or anywhere near any other kind of food. Ketchup is a sugary, sweet, faux tomato mucus. It does not,

00:24:33.660 if it enhances the food, it's only, that only tells you that the food is bad.

00:24:39.340 If you're, if you know how to properly make a hamburger, properly seasoned french fries or anything

00:24:44.580 else, you might put ketchup on it. If you know how to really make those dishes, it shouldn't need

00:24:48.680 ketchup. This is from Aaron says, dear Matt, I think you are completely wrong about the girl who talked

00:24:55.940 her boyfriend into killing himself. What she engaged in while morally atrocious was pure speech.

00:25:01.860 She did not assist him in any way or other than by encouraging him. When it comes to legal situations,

00:25:07.840 we have to put our own feelings aside and look at the constitutional issue. The first amendment says

00:25:11.480 that Congress can make no law abridging freedom of speech. Go back and read it. There are no

00:25:16.020 exceptions whatsoever mentioned. The 14th amendment says that the rights in the constitution apply to the

00:25:21.540 states. It does not leave an exception for free speech. So this girl was exercising her first

00:25:25.800 amendment rights. When she said what she said, I fully acknowledge that you personally disapprove of

00:25:30.220 the way in which she exercised them, but that's irrelevant. She was exercising them. That's all that

00:25:35.140 matters. As for the slippery slope, because you don't seem to understand, here's what it is. If the

00:25:40.460 government is allowed to punish people for saying things, even deeply offensive things, and things that

00:25:44.800 result in people doing horrible actions, what's to say that some judge in the future doesn't come

00:25:49.200 along and decide that your opinions and your beliefs are too offensive to be allowed to be said?

00:25:53.140 What if you're the one being carted off to prison for incitement 20 years from now, or hate speech,

00:25:57.260 or harassment, or any other such nonsense? I can't wait to hear the, well, that's different.

00:26:02.120 Everyone is conveniently, everyone conveniently believes that their own beliefs and opinions

00:26:05.640 are deserving of protection. If and when they come for you using the same rationalizations to

00:26:09.780 destroy your constitutional rights as they did to her, maybe then you'll understand the slippery slope.

00:26:14.300 You don't have to agree with what the girl said. I certainly don't. And I agree with you that

00:26:17.800 she's an atrocious human being, but the issue being explored here is whether or not she had a

00:26:21.160 constitutional right to do what she did. And in that case, she certainly did. The punishment for 1.00

00:26:25.100 these sorts of things should be done at the social level, not at the legal level. The law should stick

00:26:29.320 to punishing actions, not speech, that really, really, really, really hurt our feelings. I know you're

00:26:34.060 going to say that speech is an action, but I am talking about the expression of an opinion.

00:26:38.340 And the sentence, you should kill yourself, is not an action, it's an opinion. And even if it's said

00:26:42.460 a thousand times to the same person, it remains just that in opinion. Aaron. Okay, Aaron.

00:26:50.540 So you're presenting a concept of free speech wherein literally anything that is said out loud,

00:26:58.040 anything is legal, is, as you say, pure speech, as long as it's not accompanied by physical action.

00:27:07.200 And even if it is, I would assume you would say it's the physical action that's the problem,

00:27:10.840 not the speech. I'm not strawmanning you, right? That's what you just said. That is what you said.

00:27:16.960 Okay. That's the vision of free speech that you are presenting here. Correct? But I noticed you

00:27:24.660 didn't actually engage with my strongest argument, which had to be a calculation on your part because

00:27:31.260 there's no way you missed it, which is that what Michelle Carter did was very similar, almost identical

00:27:39.080 in kind, to what Charles Manson did. The death toll for Manson was larger, but that's irrelevant for

00:27:46.980 our purposes. The fact is, he, using words, brainwashed a group of followers, of groupies of

00:27:56.020 his, and convinced them to go out and kill people. And they did. So you're saying that Charles Manson

00:28:02.160 never should have gone to jail. You're saying that in fact, a dangerous, charismatic psychopath

00:28:06.720 willing to, and capable of, and guilty of already brainwashing others to commit violent acts

00:28:13.340 should be allowed to remain on the street free, even after he sends his millions to go, his minions

00:28:19.320 to go kill people. That's what you're saying. You, you made no attempt to draw a distinction

00:28:26.660 between this, this version of free speech you're articulating and Charles Manson's. I can only

00:28:33.100 assume that you think he's covered. He has to be according to what you said. And then what about

00:28:39.280 calling it a bomb threat? If there's no bomb, it's just speech, right? What about slander? No physical

00:28:45.900 damage is done. If somebody goes out in public and calls you a child molester, for example,

00:28:51.100 well, they aren't, they aren't physically doing anything. It's all verbal. And maybe it's their

00:28:57.740 opinion that you are. Now you're not, but it's their opinion that you are. That's their opinion,

00:29:05.040 right? I mean, are you going to say that it's okay to express your opinions as long as the opinions are

00:29:12.200 true? Well, that's a slippery slope, isn't it? I assume that's not a stipulation you would put on this.

00:29:18.680 Well, you didn't, you said pure speech. If you're saying it, it's fine. That's what you said. So

00:29:22.900 if somebody goes out and accuses you of child molestation, rape, any man, the most horrible

00:29:28.360 things in the world, damages your reputation because of it, uh, you get fired from your job,

00:29:34.920 whatever. Well, they didn't do that. They're not the ones who fired you. They're not the whatever

00:29:38.660 happened. Even if, even if, uh, you know, you're, they, they whip up your neighbors against you.

00:29:43.900 And then one of your neighbors kills you on the belief that you're an abuser of children. Well,

00:29:48.680 they didn't do it. All they did was they said it. They expressed an opinion. According to you,

00:29:54.440 perfectly, uh, perfectly legal, or at least it should be. What about somebody who shares secrets

00:30:00.140 with a foreign enemy? What about someone in the government share secrets? Well, as long as those,

00:30:05.320 as long as they are sharing it by saying it, all verbal, pure speech, lending no material support

00:30:13.580 to them, it's all verbal, just expressing themselves. Should that be legal? According to

00:30:18.860 you? Yes. I could go on and on here. Okay. The point is that obviously you can't literally say

00:30:25.600 whatever you want in all situations. There are limits. And obviously our founders never intended

00:30:32.420 free speech to be an absolute unyielding dictum that legalizes literally anything and everything

00:30:38.760 that a person might verbally say or, or write. Okay. Just like the right to bear arms. It says

00:30:47.040 right to bear arms. Yes. But I assume, like we talked about a few days ago, I assume you would

00:30:50.940 agree that there are some limits on that. For example, I assume you would agree that your neighbor,

00:30:58.700 Jim should not be allowed to own a nuclear missile. Uh, uh, I, I, I, I would assume that that's a,

00:31:08.980 maybe I'm, I could be assuming wrong. Maybe you think that right to bear arms means that you can

00:31:13.520 even walk around with nuclear missiles, or maybe you couldn't really walk around with them and be a

00:31:16.480 little heavy, but you can have them in your garage. But that is not what our founders intended.

00:31:23.040 And you know what, even if they did intend it that way, which they didn't, but even if they did,

00:31:30.580 that would be crazy. And there's no reason why we should have to live by their craziness in

00:31:35.960 perpetuity for all eternity, just because it was their opinion. They're not gods. I mean,

00:31:41.300 they wrote what they wrote, but, uh, whatever their personal opinions were, that doesn't, doesn't

00:31:45.360 necessarily mean we're beholden to that forever and it could never be changed. But anyway, that's

00:31:51.140 irrelevant. I don't want to get hung up on that because, uh, it's, it's, it's clear that that's

00:31:55.460 not what they intended to do. They didn't intend to legalize slander or death threats or, um,

00:32:01.600 things of that nature. So we have in this country restricted many kinds of speech,

00:32:06.360 all the kinds I listed, and we have to be able to restrict them. Otherwise, imagine living in a

00:32:13.120 country where slander is legal, where verbal treason is legal, death threats are legal, on and on,

00:32:20.860 all the things I would imagine, imagine living in a country where you can do all of that without any

00:32:24.420 kind of penalty. Um, but that's not the kind of country we live in or have ever lived in ever.

00:32:33.900 And yet, and, and yes, I know you get, I know you might say, well, then it's not free speech.

00:32:40.280 And yeah, I agree with you. This is what maybe, I don't know if you watched the show a few days ago,

00:32:44.220 but we were talking about this and concepts like equality rights, free speech, free, you know,

00:32:50.460 that we attach the word free to think these are not, um, these are, these are imprecise words and

00:33:00.060 they're not literally true. And I think we need, we should probably be using different words.

00:33:06.480 Um, we're, we're grasping at a concept. We're trying to describe something, but I think we're

00:33:14.720 describing it in a way that is confusing. Because yes, I would, I would openly say that we talk about

00:33:21.540 free speech. We don't really mean it literally. Now there is a truth there. There is a certain kind

00:33:28.460 of speech that should be free, but not all speech is free. Um, and what, so what kind of speech? Well,

00:33:40.220 we happen to live in a country where you can go out and express pretty much any point of view you want

00:33:46.980 without reprisal by the government, pretty much any point of view, any sort of idea about culture or

00:33:55.140 politics, um, critical opinions of the government, so on and so forth. We still live in a country where

00:34:01.360 you can go and do that. Now you may be in for it when it comes to the big tech companies. You may

00:34:05.760 get kicked off of Twitter or Facebook or whatever, and I'm not a fan of that, but that's a different

00:34:09.640 thing. So your slippery slope hasn't really panned out. This thing with Michelle Carter, it's not going

00:34:17.380 to make the slope any slipperier. Hers was an extreme case of her not just saying kill yourself one time,

00:34:25.140 but of a, of a prolonged campaign to manipulate a mentally ill person to kill themselves.

00:34:31.760 This is so obviously illegal, so clearly a crime that the only way to think otherwise is to have

00:34:38.360 a laughably simplistic idea of free speech and one that completely ignores how free speech is

00:34:42.920 actually interpreted legally and has always been interpreted legally. I mean, what if I, I mean,

00:34:50.160 I could spend all day talking about the absurd, um, extremes that you would now justify with your,

00:34:57.820 with your vision of free speech, but what if I were to go up to somebody, um, let's say a mentally 0.53

00:35:06.160 insane meth addict who's currently high on meth, and I were to go up to him and I would start whispering

00:35:12.660 in his ears, in his ear, telling him that, you know, all these bad things that you've done to him.

00:35:19.240 You can say, yeah, that guy over there, you know, that guy, he insulted your mother. Yeah.

00:35:24.640 That guy, he, uh, oh yeah, he was, he was over there. He was talking a lot of, a lot of stuff about

00:35:29.140 you. Yeah. You should go, you should go over there and tell him and show that guy. Yeah. You should,

00:35:33.700 you should go over there and teach that guy a lesson. Yeah. He was saying a lot of horrible stuff.

00:35:37.100 You should, you should really, yeah, you should go. And then he goes over and beats you within an inch of your life.

00:35:43.420 You're saying I have no response. I am totally legally in the clear. I have purposefully incited

00:35:50.260 this mentally unstable drug addict to come and beat you half to death. And it worked. And he did 0.80

00:35:56.200 exactly what I wanted him to do. You're saying I'm good to go. I'm clear. I should face no reprise,

00:36:02.900 no legal penalties whatsoever. That's, that's, that's just crazy. I'm sorry. That's absolutely crazy.

00:36:09.880 Uh, but if that is really how you feel, then I think you, you know, you could write another email

00:36:14.740 and just it and acknowledge it because I, I, you know, acknowledge that you think Charles Manson

00:36:20.880 never should have gone to jail, that the same scenario I just described of sending a crack

00:36:25.680 addict or meth addict to come and beat you up should be perfectly legal. Slandering you should

00:36:30.660 be perfectly legal, calling it a bomb threat to your work, perfectly legal. If you're going to 0.80

00:36:37.260 say that any of those things should be illegal, then you are admitting that there are some

00:36:42.380 restrictions on speech. And if you're admitting that there are some restrictions on speech,

00:36:46.460 now we just have to talk about whether or not this thing with Michelle Carter should be one of

00:36:50.600 those restrictions. But you can't take this absolute principled, uh, stance anymore of saying,

00:36:55.620 well, no, it's, it's based on free speech. We get that, that is, that argument is gone. Now you

00:37:02.180 have to look at the specifics of this case and think, well, should that kind of thing should be

00:37:06.140 legal, be legal in this country? The kind of thing of purposefully, really actively trying to encourage

00:37:12.860 someone to kill themselves. Should that be a legal thing to do? And I'm saying, no, why should it?

00:37:17.700 Here's the only, by the way, here's the only, if this, uh, if we're on a slippery slope with this,

00:37:26.400 if this is going to lead to anything, because I don't think it leads to it being illegal for someone

00:37:32.020 to just say, kill yourself online. And there'd be no way to enforce that anyway. And, uh, and

00:37:37.020 there's obviously a clear distinction to be drawn between what Michelle Carter did and someone just

00:37:42.720 anonymously, uh, kind of by instinct as a, as a, as a reflex reflexively saying, kill yourself.

00:37:50.220 Like people do online. There's a difference between those two things that I think any sane

00:37:53.680 person can recognize, but think about the cases. And there, this, there have been plenty of cases of

00:38:01.340 this, of a disturbed person killing themselves and live streaming it on the internet. And in those

00:38:08.640 cases, what you often find is that people are watching and encouraging the person to do it saying,

00:38:15.520 yeah, I do it. Yeah. Kill yourself. Right. And in this case, it's, it, this is not a reflexive

00:38:20.320 thing saying to somebody on Twitter, because you don't like their opinion. This is someone who's

00:38:24.100 really wants to kill themselves and you are really trying to encourage them to do it.

00:38:30.500 Maybe we're leading to a place where the people who do that are prosecuted. And I say, fine,

00:38:36.300 great. I don't, I don't see that as any dystopian nightmare. I don't see that as oppression or

00:38:43.320 persecution. Oh my gosh. I can't, you mean, I, I can't actively encourage a mentally unstable 1.00

00:38:47.860 person to kill themselves. I'm, I'm oppressed. I'm persecuted. Come on. Uh, let's see.

00:38:57.760 This is from Matthew says, dear Mr. Walsh. My name is Matthew. I've been a supporter of the daily wire

00:39:01.780 for some time. I love that you discuss topics outside the mainstream and political realm. I wanted to

00:39:05.640 tell you that I've been inspired by the new book you've written about the church of Christ and more

00:39:08.940 importantly, the body of Christ and how we can't wash the gospel for the good of the world. I'll

00:39:13.860 be looking forward to reading it soon. I want to leave you with this thought of mine about the

00:39:17.220 state of the union last night. Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated. What's upsetting. What's

00:39:21.940 upsetting, um, is it's, it isn't going to be about the best speech of president Trump's term so far,

00:39:27.220 but about the nonsense speaker Pelosi did. Thanks. Uh, yeah, well, I agree with you. Your last

00:39:32.540 statement there. I absolutely agree. And that's what I was saying at the beginning of the show.

00:39:36.320 And, uh, I appreciate your thoughts about the book, which I will take this opportunity to,

00:39:40.420 uh, remind everyone that my new book, which comes out February 25th, went on pre-sale yesterday.

00:39:45.320 It's called church of cowards go on Amazon and, uh, and order it on pre-sale right now.

00:39:51.720 And finally, this is from Austin says, Hey Matt, I saw you talking about sentencing differences

00:39:57.020 between men and women. And I wanted to get your opinion on other sentencing issues

00:40:00.240 on another sentencing issue. I saw the study from the university of Michigan

00:40:03.900 that, uh, you cited, and she also had a paper on sentencing differences between whites and blacks.

00:40:10.100 It showed that blacks receive 10% longer sentences than whites while holding all variables like the 0.71

00:40:15.360 crime committed and criminal history constant. I found a similar study from the U S sentencing

00:40:19.580 commission that showed blacks received 19% longer sentences than whites with the same variables held

00:40:25.460 constant. I'm a conservative and don't believe in the mystical racism hanging over everything in our

00:40:30.060 lives, but I'm looking at the data from what seem to be credible sources. And it appears there could

00:40:34.580 be some racial bias and sentencing. I hope conservatives can look at issues with an objective

00:40:38.520 eye and not be so loyal to our ideology. Like the left so often is, what are your thoughts on this

00:40:42.940 subject? Well, I haven't seen Austin, the studies that you mentioned, I'll look at them, but if it holds

00:40:49.440 that black people, when controlling for all variables received sentences up to 20% longer than white 0.79

00:40:55.300 people for the same crimes, then I think it'd be impossible to deny a racial bias. I did after all, 0.78

00:41:03.900 just allege a gender bias based on the same sort of statistic. So if that's the case, then I'm not

00:41:11.240 all of a sudden going to deny it here. There'd be no reason to look. It's never been my position that

00:41:16.340 racism doesn't exist. And I don't consider it a conservative position to deny all cases of racism.

00:41:22.120 At least that better not be a conservative position. It'd be a very stupid, foolhardy

00:41:26.420 position to take. It's certainly not my position. I think racism doesn't exist, of course. Obviously,

00:41:34.420 it does. And the whole problem with people on the left who look for racism everywhere and in everything

00:41:44.180 and manage to find it everywhere and in everything, and the ones who say things like all white people

00:41:51.640 are inherently racist, the problem, one of the problems is that buried under this avalanche of

00:41:58.700 absurd hyperbole and generalization are actual cases of racism that get lost in the shuffle,

00:42:05.220 and the word racism itself loses all meaning because of its chronic overuse. If you take any

00:42:13.960 word and apply it to too many things and use it way too much and expand it into oblivion,

00:42:20.700 it's going to lose its meaning. And that's what's happened with racism, which is very unfortunate

00:42:25.260 because racism is a real thing. It's an important thing for us to talk about. But now it's hard for us

00:42:31.340 to talk about it. Because when you say the word racism, me as the listener, I have no idea if

00:42:38.860 you're talking about real racism or just a white person doing or saying something completely innocuous,

00:42:50.120 which according to the racial theories of the left, literally anything a white person does is,

00:42:57.300 in a sense, a racist act. Because they are inherently racist as part of their nature,

00:43:03.680 embedded in everything they do, or nearly everything. It's the same thing with false

00:43:09.480 rape claims. The position has never been, at least I've never heard anyone express the position,

00:43:14.700 that rape never happens or doesn't exist. That would obviously be insane. It does.

00:43:19.440 And clearly when it happens, it is a terrible, terrible evil. But when you have all these false

00:43:37.760 rape claims, and when the word rape is used to describe things that are not rape, when, for example,

00:43:44.500 we're calling an awkward and regrettable yet consensual sexual encounter rape, the problem

00:43:51.640 there is that, once again, real cases of rape are minimized or forgotten, and the word rape begins to

00:43:57.720 lose its meaning. And when someone says rape, now, without any context, I don't know if you're talking

00:44:04.720 about someone being forcibly, you know, being violently forced into a sexual act, which is what most of us

00:44:13.580 would consider rape to be? Or are you talking about, you know, a guy and a girl getting together

00:44:19.640 and having sex consensually, and, but it was kind of awkward, and the girl regretted it the next day?

00:44:26.300 Just based on the word rape, I don't know which way, which, which, what you're talking about.

00:44:31.100 And that's a big problem, because I should know. And, you know, up to about 10, 15 years ago,

00:44:38.180 we knew, if you said the word rape, we all immediately knew what you meant.

00:44:41.320 Same for racism. So, but yeah, I'll take a look at those studies, and we will leave it there.

00:44:47.920 Thanks for watching, everybody, and listening. Godspeed.

00:44:50.220 If you enjoyed this episode, don't forget to subscribe. And if you want to help spread the

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00:45:10.140 Thanks for listening.

00:45:11.860 The Matt Wall Show is produced by Sean Hampton, executive producer Jeremy Boring, senior producer

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00:45:27.500 The Matt Wall Show is a Daily Wire production, copyright Daily Wire 2020.

00:45:32.040 Hey, everyone. It's Andrew Klavan, host of The Andrew Klavan Show. Well, that was the state

00:45:36.460 of the kaboom as Trump dropped a word bomb on the teensy, tiny little Democrats who were running 0.78

00:45:42.680 for their lives. We'll have that plus the mailbag so all your problems will be solved on The Andrew

00:45:48.120 Klavan Show. I'm Andrew Klavan.

The Matt Walsh Show - February 05, 2020

Ep. 420 - The Rip Heard Round The World

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