The Matt Walsh Show - Ep. 424 - Time For A 100 Dollar Minimum Wage

00:00:00.000 Welcome to the show, everybody. So there's this guy, Tom Steyer. I don't know if you've heard of

00:00:04.760 him. According to some reports, he's been running for president since December. And he was having

00:00:09.540 a campaign block party over the weekend, a campaign party that was attended by some of

00:00:14.760 his most high-profile supporters, like his mom and his cousin. And during this campaign event,

00:00:20.520 he announced, apparently, that he wants to raise minimum wage, just like every other Democrat. But

00:00:26.560 most Democrats want to raise it to $15. What he's saying is, forget about a measly $15 an hour.

00:00:32.260 I'm going to raise it to $22. He wants to raise the minimum wage to $22 an hour. If you're keeping

00:00:37.780 track at home, that works out to about $42,000 a year at a minimum. That's the starting guaranteed

00:00:42.620 minimum amount you can make for full-time work. Now, if you're a small business that can't afford

00:00:48.900 to pay full-time employees that amount of money, well, too bad. Guess you don't get to have any

00:00:54.180 full-time employees in that case. And if you can't have a business without employees, well,

00:00:58.080 then you don't get a business. Your business goes out of business. And that's just the way it is.

00:01:02.580 You see, we're going to make sure that everybody has a living wage by shutting down businesses.

00:01:09.820 We're going to make sure everyone has a living wage by making sure that lots of people don't have

00:01:14.200 any wage at all. It makes sense when you think about it. Actually, when you think about it,

00:01:18.960 it doesn't make sense. So don't think about it at all. That's the key.

00:01:21.240 Why am I talking about the campaign pledges of a man who will get fewer votes for the Democratic

00:01:26.940 nomination than I will? Well, because his plan proves a point, not the point that he wants to

00:01:34.320 make. That if we had a real news media, which we don't, but if we did with real journalists,

00:01:41.840 all the Democratic candidates would be asked if they support Steyer's plan. And if not, why not?

00:01:48.780 See, if they say, no, that's too much. I don't support that. Then they're admitting that you

00:01:55.260 can't just shout living wage and demand that employers pay a certain amount to their employees.

00:02:00.740 It's not that simple. They'd be admitting that it's not that simple. They don't want to admit that.

00:02:05.520 After all, 20 to an hour is a much better living wage than 15 an hour. So if this is just about

00:02:11.740 making sure people have a living wage, which is all the Democrats want to talk about when it comes to

00:02:15.940 things like minimum wage, they want to talk about all the, all the benefits, all the good things they

00:02:19.900 want to do. They don't want to talk about the costs. They don't want to talk about the practical

00:02:22.900 implications, logistics, or any of that. This would force them to talk about that. If it's all about

00:02:29.140 the living wage, then they would have to support Steyer's plan. But if there are other practical

00:02:34.660 economic concerns to take into account here, then they're admitting that there are other practical

00:02:40.140 economic concerns to take into account. And now we're having the minimum wage discussion

00:02:43.920 on that playing field, which is on a field they don't want to be on. Because if they admit,

00:02:50.120 look, if you force employers to pay 20 to an hour, lots of them won't be able to do it. Jobs will be

00:02:54.940 lost. Positions will be automated. If they admit that, then the obvious rejoinder is, yes, and that will

00:03:01.200 happen with 15 an hour. And it is happening. So what about that? So it brings the minimum wage discussion

00:03:06.440 into a realm where the Democrats don't want it to be, which is the realm of reality. But then what if

00:03:14.480 they say, okay, sure, 20 to an hour, let's do it. First of all, the question is, why didn't you propose

00:03:19.940 22 an hour to begin with? What, does Steyer care about low-wage employees more than you do?

00:03:26.180 Second, well, if we can do 15, nay, 22, then why not 25? Why not 30? Why not 45? Why not 15?

00:03:39.900 All of a sudden becomes like an auctioneer thing where you just keep going up and up and up. The

00:03:43.740 price keeps going up. Why not? Most small businesses are just as able to do $50 an hour as they are 15

00:03:52.080 an hour, which is to say, not at all. They aren't able at all. So why not? Why not keep raising it?

00:03:59.220 It's all very uncomfortable for the Democrats. It's an uncomfortable position for them to be in,

00:04:05.060 which is why the media won't put them in that position by asking them the question.

00:04:13.260 But I do appreciate Steyer doing his part anyway. Speaking of uncomfortable positions,

00:04:17.560 I'm sure you've heard the Bloomberg audio already, but I'll play it again for you if

00:04:23.600 you haven't. There's leaked audio of Bloomberg that's making the rounds online, going massively

00:04:29.720 viral, talking about stop and frisk and violent crime and all these things. And here's what

00:04:35.320 Bloomberg said.

00:04:36.180 95% of your murders and murderers and murder victims fit one in a month. You can just take

00:04:44.820 the description and Xerox it and pass it out to all the cops. They are male, minorities, 15,

00:04:50.140 25. That's true in New York. That's true in virtually every city. And that's where the real

00:04:55.900 crime is. You've got to get the guns out of the hands of the people that get killed. If you want to

00:05:01.040 spend the money, put a lot of cops in the street, put those cops where the crime is, which means

00:05:05.880 in a minority neighborhood. So this is one of the unintended consequences is people say,

00:05:12.960 oh my God, you are arresting kids for marijuana. They're all minorities. Yes, that's true. Why?

00:05:20.360 Because we put all the cops in a minority neighborhood. Yes, that's true. Why do we do it? Because that's

00:05:24.980 where all the crime is. And the way you get the guns out of the kids' hands is to throw them

00:05:30.300 against the wall and Frisco. And then they start, they say, oh, I don't want to, I don't want to

00:05:35.500 get caught. So they don't bring the gun. They still have a gun, but they leave it at home.

00:05:39.980 Now, this is of course, trending on Twitter with the hashtag Bloomberg is racist. And that is not

00:05:47.340 the kind of hashtag you want to see as a candidate. There's my searing political insight. That's why,

00:05:53.100 that's why I should be a professional political analyst because of, because of analysis like this.

00:05:57.800 You don't want to have a hashtag calling you racist as a political candidate. That's,

00:06:03.120 that's all I'm saying. Bold, bold suggestion. And Bloomberg has spent a ton of money cultivating

00:06:08.840 a brand online and it has now been undone almost completely in one fell swoop by this.

00:06:16.600 Is it actually racist though? Is Bloomberg really a racist because of what he said there?

00:06:22.540 Of course not. Of course not. He's saying that violent crime disproportionately happens in minority

00:06:29.740 neighborhoods. And that's true. That's an accurate statement. You could argue that stop and frisk

00:06:36.900 is, is, you could argue against that. You could, you could say it's unconstitutional. You could certainly

00:06:42.840 argue against the general tone that Bloomberg is displaying there. But the basic point he's making

00:06:49.680 can't be racist if it's based in statistical realities. Now he says 95%. I don't know if it's

00:06:57.180 that high, uh, in New York, but it's certainly just disproportionate in terms of the violent crime and

00:07:02.520 which neighborhoods that happens in. He probably could have gotten away with, with all of this if

00:07:08.020 he just had not brought up the racial element of it. If he kept it just speaking in geographic terms,

00:07:14.060 um, then, then probably it would have been fine.

00:07:19.680 But he said the other part out loud and that's where the problem comes from.

00:07:24.680 And it's obviously not going to fly in the democratic party in 2020.

00:07:29.040 And Bloomberg decided to try and win the democratic party, uh, democratic nomination in 2020. And that

00:07:34.800 was his choice. And, uh, so here's the thing. I'm, it's, it's not like I'm going to go to the mat for

00:07:41.280 him to defend Bloomberg and defend his honor. No, Bloomberg is a wonderful man. He's a wonderful

00:07:46.860 man. You, you people leave him alone. I'm not going to do that because I don't think he is a

00:07:51.940 wonderful man. I think he's an awful person and would be an awful president. I think he's a,

00:07:56.160 he's a megalomaniac billionaire nanny statist. Uh, and, and I have really nothing good to say about him.

00:08:04.560 However, I'm not going to jump into the fray and say, this is racist because I don't think it is.

00:08:12.120 And I, there's, there've been a lot of conservatives who are taking part in the

00:08:16.620 Bloomberg is racist hashtag and have jumped on that bandwagon. And I understand why they're

00:08:22.260 doing it strategically because they're trying to take Bloomberg out. Okay. I get that.

00:08:25.580 But in the process of trying to take out this particular guy who was never going to win

00:08:30.740 anyway, in the process of taking him out, you're agreeing with the left that it is racist to talk

00:08:37.720 about the statistical realities of violent crime. So you're giving up the argument in order to beat

00:08:44.560 one guy. That is not a good strategy. And this has been my, my gripe with a lot of conservatives for

00:08:52.380 a while now, where in order to, when they get a chance to, to, to score a point against somebody,

00:09:00.000 they, if it, they'll, they'll forfeit their entire position. They'll completely agree with the left

00:09:05.280 in order, in order to, in order to win this one little battle here.

00:09:10.440 But you're, you're, you're giving up the, the gen, the, the greater war in order for the sake of,

00:09:15.660 of winning this battle. That's, that's not a good strategy.

00:09:18.300 See, when you give up the argument for the sake of taking down a person,

00:09:25.420 then fine, you've taken down the person, but you've lost the argument.

00:09:30.640 And the thing that separates the left from the right, and, and oftentimes the separation is,

00:09:38.140 is not always obvious, especially these days. But if anything separates those, if, if, if these two

00:09:42.920 sides mean anything, it comes down to the arguments. We're making different arguments. We believe

00:09:48.320 different things. Well, if you give up the argument and get rid of the people you don't

00:09:54.860 like, then what happens in the end is that you've replaced the people you didn't like with people you

00:10:00.440 do, but it's all leftism anyway. And I don't think that's a good strategy.

00:10:08.120 So what do we say about, about Mike Bloomberg? Well, I don't think we have to say anything.

00:10:16.640 As I said, I don't think we have to come out stridently to defend him at all. But I also don't

00:10:25.100 think we agree with the left on things like this, on points where they're wrong.

00:10:31.720 And, and we know that there are terms of service that come with trying to win the democratic

00:10:39.400 nomination. And according to those terms, when audio like this comes out, you're branded a racist

00:10:45.300 and that's it. Bloomberg played the game and lost. He knew the fine, fine print. He knew what was in

00:10:50.980 it. And, uh, and that's it. And he loses. Okay, fine. I'm not crying any tears for him. All I'm saying

00:10:59.040 is I'm not going to come out now, um, for the sake of, of, of, uh, getting my shot on Bloomberg

00:11:05.480 and say, Oh yeah, that's totally racist to say that kind of stuff. Totally, totally racist. Oh,

00:11:10.260 I'm, I'm so offended. I'm offended by this racism.

00:11:16.140 The problem is, especially as a Trump supporter, um, it gets kind of awkward because if,

00:11:22.500 if Trump's they're coming here, they're bringing drugs, they're rapists line, you know, that he,

00:11:31.680 he was kicked off his campaign in 2016. If that line was not racist and I don't think it was,

00:11:37.580 but if that line wasn't racist, then there's no way this is.

00:11:44.140 And I know that as you know, a lot of times when it comes to Trump, we've, we've gotten used to this

00:11:49.460 notion that he, that he exists in this kind of bubble where he's immune to everything.

00:11:55.840 And so you can have a double standard with him and it's okay. But I, I don't think you want to

00:11:59.880 get too comfortable with that. It's not going to last forever. Uh, and it's not hard for people to

00:12:07.240 say, if you come out as a conservative and say, yeah, Bloomberg is a racist for this. Well, it's,

00:12:11.420 it's, it's not a hard connection for people to make. They're going to say, now, wait a second.

00:12:14.720 Okay, that's racist. Then, okay, let's look at the stuff that Trump said. So now you're saying

00:12:17.880 that's racist too. And your response is, Oh, no, no, no, no, no. That's different. That's

00:12:22.020 totally different. How's it different? It just is. I don't know. It just is not a compelling argument.

00:12:29.860 All right. Um, moving on. We were talking before about, about small businesses.

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00:13:34.340 code Walsh, legal zoom, where life meets legal. Okay. So we're talking about, uh, things that aren't going to

00:13:41.640 fly in the modern democratic party. Here's another example of such a thing coming from Andrew Yang

00:13:46.900 this time, uh, over the weekend, Yang was at an event talking about so-called reproductive justice.

00:13:54.520 So, so-called reproductive rights. And this is what he had to say. Listen, I think we have to get back

00:14:00.520 to the point where no one is suggesting that we be celebrating an abortion at any point, um, in the

00:14:06.460 pregnancy. That there was a time in democratic circles where we used to talk about it being something

00:14:11.880 that, like, you don't like to see, but that should be within the freedoms of the woman and the mother

00:14:17.540 to decide. And so, to me, I think there is a really important tone to set on this, where you don't just

00:14:24.480 say, like, we're absolutist about it. Though I have to say, I am relatively absolutist on this. Like, I think that it

00:14:31.120 should be completely up to the woman and her doctor and the state should not be intervening all the way, uh, through

00:14:35.840 pregnancy. But it's a tragedy to me if someone decides that they don't want to have a, a child

00:14:44.960 and they're on the fence and that maybe at some point later, I mean, it's a very, very difficult

00:14:48.760 personal decision. Um, and it should be something that we're very, very sensitive to. I think that

00:14:54.100 celebrating children, family, like, these are universal human values. And if we manage to lead on

00:15:02.180 that and then say, but we also stand for women's reproductive rights, I believe we can bring

00:15:06.380 Americans closer together on a really, really important personal issue.

00:15:10.880 Yang is, unsurprisingly, getting a lot of grief for that from the left. And the response from the left

00:15:22.540 is, is, is, seems to be there, there, there are two responses, as always, when this kind of thing is brought

00:15:28.700 up. One is to say, nobody celebrates abortion. What are you talking about? That's crazy. Saying we shouldn't

00:15:35.240 celebrate abortion. Nobody does. So this is a, this is a right-wing talking point that you're engaging in.

00:15:40.720 Nobody celebrates it. That's one strategy. The other strategy is to say, we, yes, we should celebrate it.

00:15:49.880 Yeah, this is horrible for you to say we shouldn't celebrate it. Of course we should celebrate it.

00:15:54.320 And so if you go on, on Twitter where this video is, this clip has gone viral, it's, it's pretty funny

00:16:00.780 actually, in a very irritating sort of way, to look at the comment thread under the, the video clip,

00:16:07.680 because it's kind of this rotating, it rotates between the two talking points, where you have

00:16:11.900 one person saying, no one's celebrating it, and then right below them, you have someone saying,

00:16:15.960 yes, we should celebrate it. The left can't get their talking point straight when it comes to abortion.

00:16:21.480 And they, they don't, they feel like they don't need to, because it's not really about making a

00:16:26.000 rational argument. It's all about emotion and, uh, and, and deception. So it's not about being

00:16:32.900 reasonable, rational, consistent. That doesn't matter. Um, of course the reality is that people

00:16:39.240 do celebrate abortion. That's what the shout your abortion hashtag is all about. It's about people

00:16:43.400 celebrating it. But there was a time, as Yang points out, there was a time when the, the motto on

00:16:54.360 the left with respect to abortion was safe, legal, and rare, safe, legal, rare. Well, they still talk

00:17:02.560 about the, the mythical safe abortion, which doesn't exist because there's no such thing as a, as a safe

00:17:07.780 abortion. In every abortion, at least one person is, is killed. Uh, and the other person, the mother is

00:17:14.200 damaged, uh, sometimes physically in obvious ways, oftentimes physically, but every time emotionally,

00:17:22.800 psychologically, even if she doesn't experience that damage or realize it, or she's able to suppress

00:17:27.500 it for a time. So, but they still say we need a safe abortion. Uh, they still obviously want

00:17:33.020 abortions to be legal. They want all abortions to be legal, but the rare part, you don't hear that

00:17:38.440 anymore. Now, if, um, if the, the leftists who say that, well, we never celebrate abortion, if they're right

00:17:47.080 that it isn't celebrated, then why don't you hear most Democrats or most abortion advocates on the

00:17:55.800 national stage? Why don't they talk about rare abortions, reducing the number of, they don't talk

00:18:01.240 about it. And the reason is that they're saying, this is nothing to be ashamed of. This is something

00:18:07.880 to celebrate. This is an expression of a woman's autonomy. This is an expression of a woman's power

00:18:15.380 over her own body and her own life and her own reproduction. And so, uh, should there be fewer

00:18:23.560 abortions? No, if anything, there should be more abortions. It should happen more often because it

00:18:27.080 is this, this, this, this glorious, beautiful expression of this woman, of a woman's liberty and

00:18:33.220 freedom. That's the attitude now. So Andrew Yang is, is discovering, and it always shocks me when

00:18:42.460 Democrats, when you see Democrats learn this, like they didn't know it already, especially when it's

00:18:47.780 a Democrat running for the Democratic nomination, but he's just now learning that this kind, this,

00:18:57.280 this attempt to be somewhat reasonable as a pro-abortion person, which isn't really possible

00:19:03.940 because the pro-abortion position is inherently unreasonable. But he's trying to inject a little

00:19:10.260 bit of reason and sanity into it, even as he advocates for killing babies legally. He, so he

00:19:17.660 wants to do that, but he also wants to say, okay, guys, all right, fine, I'm with you on that, but

00:19:22.100 let's, let's not take it too far now. He's trying to do that. And what he's discovering is that doesn't

00:19:27.320 work anymore. It may have worked back in the nineties. Okay. But times have changed and it just

00:19:32.060 doesn't fly. That's what Andrew Yang is discovering. All right. Before we move on, a quick word from

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00:21:03.900 ZipRecruiter.com slash Walsh. So Beto, Beto O'Rourke, if you remember him, he said the other day

00:21:15.260 that, this is what he said, though this is the darkest of times for our country, we cannot give

00:21:22.400 in to despair. We must be honest about the unprecedented threat we face and then do everything

00:21:28.120 within our power to overcome it. I wanted to mention this because this kind of rhetoric,

00:21:35.120 we're in the darkest times, darkest times, the worst times. It's never been worse. Unprecedented.

00:21:43.280 Unprecedented. This kind of rhetoric is obviously very common, but I really wish that we could

00:21:51.820 develop some perspective. I understand the inclination to want to say that we're living

00:21:58.500 in the worst time ever, everything is the worst it's ever been, et cetera and so forth. And no doubt,

00:22:04.900 I've been guilty of that myself on plenty of occasions. And I think that you can legitimately

00:22:10.440 look at certain individual facets of modern life and say, and say about that particular thing

00:22:16.140 that it's unprecedented or for better or worse, you know, the internet is an example of that,

00:22:21.780 certainly. Nothing like the internet has ever existed before. And society has been reshaped

00:22:27.140 around this technology. Many volumes could be written and will be written and some have been

00:22:31.880 written analyzing the effects that it's had on us. And I think that those effects in the end prove to

00:22:37.600 be a net negative and a pretty profound net negative. But that's not the same as saying

00:22:43.700 that generally speaking, these are our darkest times as a country. Yeah, this is what people

00:22:48.600 want to do. People want to always be living in the worst times, the end times, the end of all things,

00:22:54.740 the apocalypse is upon us. This is an impulse, not just among religious people, but against,

00:22:59.380 but among non-religious people too, as the climate doomsayers clearly show. People want

00:23:07.720 the time that they're living in to be the worst and in fact, be the end, be the, with Armageddon

00:23:15.800 around the corner. Why is that? Well, I think partly, of course, there's a political motivation.

00:23:22.980 The opposing party always wants things to be terrible under the president they're trying

00:23:29.540 to get rid of. Republicans do this too, obviously. Trump did this, you know, the way he described

00:23:35.440 America sometimes under Obama, although things weren't great, but the way he described it made

00:23:40.360 it sound like a, like a, like a post-apocalyptic hellscape, like, like the road or something,

00:23:45.560 Cormac McCarthy. And this is what? So part of it's just standard politics. Okay, fine.

00:23:51.240 But there's an even baser impulse, something underneath that. And I think a lot of it is a

00:23:59.980 simple kind of vanity where we don't want to look at things, take things into perspective,

00:24:08.500 into historical context and say, eh, we're living in moderately bad times. Things have been much worse

00:24:14.700 than this. They've, they've also been better, but we're sort of in the middle. No one's going to

00:24:18.660 remember our struggles really, because there's nothing to write home about. It's just, they're

00:24:22.360 not great, but eh, not the worst. Nobody wants to think that. Nobody wants to think that we could,

00:24:28.840 that we're going to, we're going to get like a C plus on our suffering report card. We want our plight

00:24:35.240 to be one of deep earth shattering importance. We want our experiences to be unprecedented in a bad way.

00:24:43.920 And we can't settle for the aspects of our experience that actually are unprecedented. We want the whole

00:24:50.680 thing. We want all of it to be unprecedented. You see this on the personal, on a personal level too.

00:24:54.700 It's like when you see it even in really petty ways. And I'm sure you've had the experience before

00:25:01.300 where you're in a group of people and you happen to mention, just as an aside, you say something like,

00:25:07.100 oh man, I didn't get any sleep last night, right? I didn't sleep much. I'm pretty tired.

00:25:12.560 And then what happens? It immediately becomes a contest to see who has slept the least.

00:25:18.100 So the next person goes to tell me about it. I haven't slept. I haven't slept in two days.

00:25:22.560 Someone else, I haven't slept since last Wednesday. Funny story. I haven't slept since the Carter

00:25:28.100 administration. Oh yeah. Well, I'm a vampire. Okay. I turned into one back in 1783. I've been up

00:25:34.200 every night since then, sucking blood. It's pretty exhausting. For some people, people have this,

00:25:40.080 they can't stomach even admitting that they get enough sleep. They want it. They get, they don't

00:25:46.820 get any sleep. They're so busy. They're so stressed. Everything's the worst. It's so terrible.

00:25:52.000 It's this competitive martyrdom that we all do. It's the weirdest thing. And at the same time,

00:25:58.560 we hate suffering. We do everything in our power to avoid it.

00:26:04.200 But we also crave it. And we envy it. We see something sexy in suffering. Something enticing.

00:26:10.600 We figure it's a personality enhancer. It's a, it's a, it's a resume builder. And then of

00:26:17.400 course, the thing is, you meet someone or you read about someone who has really suffered.

00:26:23.940 I mean, really, really suffered. Been through the worst sort of thing a person can experience. You

00:26:30.380 read like night or a man's search for meaning about concentration camps. Or you talk to someone

00:26:39.360 who's lost a child to cancer or something like that. Unimaginable suffering. And you see very

00:26:46.040 quickly that it's, it's not what we make it out to be when we trivialize it with our martyrdom

00:26:51.840 act. Real suffering is, is bleak and dreary and it can break you. It's not true that this idea that

00:27:02.480 whatever, whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger. If you, if you suffer, you'll come out

00:27:06.320 stronger at the end of it. It's not true. There are people that come out a lot of most,

00:27:11.740 probably most people who really suffer come out worse in the end because of it. It, it breaks

00:27:18.400 them. It wears them down. They come out as a shell of themselves. Real suffering is the kind

00:27:26.500 of thing that at the end of it, you're probably not going to say it was super hard, but I'm glad

00:27:32.460 I went through it because I'm a stronger person now. Concentration camp survivors aren't saying

00:27:38.300 that. People who lose children certainly aren't saying that. Now you do hear this from cancer

00:27:46.420 survivors themselves sometimes and, and, and having advanced stage cancer obviously qualifies as real

00:27:52.640 serious suffering. Some of the worst suffering I imagine a person can experience, but that I've

00:27:57.900 also, I've also heard from some cancer survivors who say in their opinion that the way that we talk

00:28:03.600 about cancer, the sort of rosy tint that we put on it and we say things like he's fighting,

00:28:09.940 he's a fighter, he'll, he'll, he'll beat cancer, he'll kick cancer's butt, um, is wrong. I've heard

00:28:16.660 from some cancer survivors who say that, that, that, that cancer, um, you know, they'll, they'll point

00:28:22.640 out that cancer is something that, that happens to you and it's miserable and it's horrible and

00:28:27.280 it's not necessarily a matter of fighting. And I was actually, I was talking to somebody recently

00:28:33.260 about this and they were saying this to me and I, and I thought, yeah, you know, I have always felt

00:28:38.740 a little bit uncomfortable with people saying stuff like he beat cancer, you know, he, he fought it,

00:28:46.700 he kicked cancer's butt. Because what about the millions of people who die from it? Were they weak?

00:28:53.780 Were they not fighting hard enough? Is it their fault? In fact, we do often put it like that. We,

00:29:00.060 we, we say, and you read it in the headlines after a famous person dies of cancer, it'll say so-and-so

00:29:05.500 lost his battle with cancer. Putting this oddly, oddly victim blaming sort of spin on it. No, he didn't

00:29:16.680 lose. He just, he died like we all will. He wasn't bested on the field of battle. He is more

00:29:23.760 mortal and he died because he had no choice. Anyway, I'd be interested to know how cancer

00:29:30.480 survivors feel about this kind of rhetoric because I've heard different, I've heard both

00:29:33.860 sides of it and I've never been through it myself, so I can't speak to it. In any case,

00:29:38.160 the point is that maybe we collectively in modern culture don't need to win the suffering Olympics

00:29:46.060 all the time. Maybe we can admit that things, generally speaking, and as, you know, on an

00:29:54.300 individual basis, there certainly are people in this country that are going through the worst kind

00:29:58.100 of suffering imaginable, but generally as a culture, as a society, we can admit that things aren't nearly

00:30:05.180 as bad as they could be. And they've been a whole lot worse. When people talk about how divisive

00:30:13.100 our politics are, things are so divisive and hostile and the way people are to each other,

00:30:19.740 there's just no dignity anymore. Well, if these people would open a history book and skim through

00:30:27.940 it for three seconds, you would see how completely, almost laughably tame things are in comparison

00:30:36.400 to how they've been throughout the entire course of human history, leading up to modern times.

00:30:44.520 It wasn't all that long ago when, as a matter of course, you would settle a dispute with someone

00:30:50.820 by shooting at each other, having a duel. It wasn't all that long ago that politicians would beat each

00:30:57.420 other with canes in Congress, okay? These days, a couple mean tweets are exchanged. There are some

00:31:06.300 mean gifs. And we say, this is unprecedented. This last lack of decorum. The country's never seen this

00:31:14.960 before. Oh, come on. It's actually not that bad at all. But we don't want to say that. It has to be

00:31:23.360 the worst. It always has to be the worst. And I'm not saying we should be complacent or content and we

00:31:27.280 shouldn't try to improve things. We should, but we could do it with some perspective, is my point.

00:31:32.940 All right. Last week, I told you all about this terrific new podcast, The Cold War, What We Saw.

00:31:38.120 Over the weekend, this podcast reached number one in history podcasts, number five on all of Apple

00:31:43.060 podcasts. So you don't have to take my word for it because there are hundreds of reviews out right now

00:31:47.240 that'll tell you the same thing. Go read them for yourself. Be sure to check out The Cold War, What We Saw.

00:31:52.200 Not only is it a very compelling story, but it's also an important reminder of what it's like to

00:31:57.360 live with no future, which is where we end up when the far left takes the presidency. The Cold War,

00:32:04.040 What We Saw captures what it was like to live through major events like the Berlin airlift,

00:32:08.080 the Korean War, the Cuban Missile Crisis, the space race. And the story ties all of these milestones

00:32:13.600 together to create this picture of the apocalypse that never happened. The story is so well told

00:32:19.400 and the setting is so brilliantly descriptive that as you go through these events, you start to

00:32:24.000 understand the battle, not just for capitalism, but for civilization itself. They've released two

00:32:29.320 episodes of this 12 part series already. So this is a perfect time to catch up. Just go to

00:32:33.720 dailywire.com slash cold war and start listening to this incredibly important story. That's dailywire.com

00:32:39.240 slash cold war. One other thing I wanted to mention, um, very important. I, I had been thinking

00:32:49.180 about this, dealing with it internally, praying about it, and I just need to talk about it with

00:32:55.180 someone. I have to tell you what, what I witnessed. I was on a flight yesterday, flying home last night

00:33:05.540 on a, on a, on a prestigious spirit airlines flight. And I'm in the exit row window seat that,

00:33:15.800 which I have paid a $6,000 upcharge for. There's a woman about my age in the aisle seat. There's nobody

00:33:22.760 in the middle. Okay. About 30 minutes into the flight, she suddenly gets out of her seat and then

00:33:30.600 she gets on her knees. Okay. On the plane facing her seat. If you can imagine, picture this.

00:33:38.680 And so she's, she's, she's like in praying position at the, on her knees facing seat in sort of praying

00:33:44.800 position, which, which I would never begrudge anyone praying, especially on a flight, but it did make me

00:33:49.680 a little nervous. It's like the time I was not long ago, I was on a flight and the woman next to me

00:33:54.100 was clutching a rosary and, and, and muttering all throughout the flight. Oh Jesus, Jesus, Jesus,

00:34:01.180 Jesus. Oh Jesus. Like that. And I got a little nervous because I thought, do you know something?

00:34:06.580 I don't know. Have you had a premonition or a vision or something? Anyway, she wasn't praying

00:34:11.520 because she then rested her head directly on the seat, on the butt of the seat, her head on it,

00:34:20.200 rested, and she went to sleep. And she slept like that for an hour, knees on the ground,

00:34:26.680 head on the seat. On the seat were literally thousands of butts. Okay. Thousands upon thousands

00:34:34.520 of butts. Just think of all the, of all the, of all the, the butts, all of the many diverse and often

00:34:39.380 quite large butts that have been pressed with a person's entire body weight against that seat.

00:34:45.540 And she's breathing that in. She's inhaling that. Think of the, excuse me, but butt fumes

00:34:51.440 that have soaked into the cushion over the years. You think they ever wash it? You think after you get

00:34:58.480 off the flight, the flight attendants come by with, with Clorox and, and, and clean all the seats? No,

00:35:03.800 they don't. They never wash the seats. There are things on planes that are never washed.

00:35:09.380 Just for years, the germs accumulate. And there are other things that are washed sparingly every

00:35:16.800 couple of months. The tray tables, by the way, the tray tables that you eat on, they rarely wash

00:35:23.060 those things. Just so you know. So she's got her, her, her head in the butt fumes and in the flight

00:35:31.900 attendants are walking by and, you know, never say anything. Seatbelt sign is on. There's turbulence.

00:35:40.340 She's in the exit row on her knees with her head in the seat. Flight attendants are walking by,

00:35:47.040 say nothing to her. How is that allowed? Could I just, could I stretch out in the aisle if I wanted

00:35:53.120 to? Could I, could I get a, like a pillow and a sleeping bag and just, and maybe, maybe crack the

00:35:58.880 door open a, a smidge just to let some, a breeze in? Can I do that? Make yourself at home, I guess.

00:36:05.940 Apparently the inmates are running the asylum and the asylum is 30,000 feet in the air going 500

00:36:10.420 miles an hour. That's not concerning at all, is it? I was of course horrified by this, but then I also,

00:36:16.880 I, this weird, this, this whole flight I was, I, I was thinking about it. And by the way, I also had the

00:36:22.620 distinct urge and I am, I am steadfastly opposed to the thing that people do online where they take

00:36:28.160 pictures of strangers who are doing weird and awkward things and then post those pictures

00:36:32.960 online to shame the person. I'm steadfastly opposed to that. I've never done it. I was very

00:36:39.520 tempted here to do it because I felt like there needed to be documentation of this. Anthropologists

00:36:44.340 in the future are going to want to see this and study it so they can understand our period of,

00:36:48.840 of, of history. But I, I resisted the urge. Plus I also thought that, uh, what if I forgot to take,

00:36:55.260 it was dark on the plane. What if I forgot to take the, uh, the flash off and then it would be

00:37:00.820 obvious I took a picture and you don't want to deal with that. So anyway, didn't take a picture,

00:37:03.940 but I'm, I'm, I had a lot of time to think about this and I was, I, I was revolted. I was horrified.

00:37:09.580 I was confused. I was scared, honestly. But then I also had this weird admiration that I felt for this,

00:37:15.720 this person. And, and there are people in airports and planes, and this is the worst I've ever seen,

00:37:21.500 but it's common that you see people who seem to have just given up on life. They've given up on

00:37:27.360 life. They've given up on society. They're sprawled out in the terminal, you know, sucking their

00:37:32.660 thumbs, pajamas on, sleeping. Hundreds of strangers are milling about and they're just, they're just

00:37:41.140 camped out, you know, and this is weird, emotionally stunted behavior, but it's also strangely confident.

00:37:47.680 These are people who have utterly disregarded the judgments and opinions of the public. They,

00:37:53.000 they do not care what anybody thinks. So the woman next to me on the plane with her face implanted in

00:37:59.680 the, in the, uh, excuse me, but rectal ejections of, of so many thousands of people, the statement she

00:38:06.860 was making to me was, I could not possibly care less what your opinion of me is. It is of no

00:38:16.400 consequence to me. I know that you're going to judge me for this. I don't care. And though I'm

00:38:22.300 horrified and traumatized by it, I did, I did have a strange respect for it too, uh, because she's

00:38:29.920 exactly right. I, you know, what, what I'm sure she knew was going to happen was definitely happening.

00:38:34.000 I was judging the hell out of her, but what does it matter? And she was comfortable and she slept.

00:38:42.800 So jokes on me, I guess. Let's go to emails. Uh, this is a email address is mattwalshowatgmail.com,

00:38:50.320 mattwalshowatgmail.com. Uh, this is from Tyler says, Hey Matt, love the show. What's your opinion

00:38:58.980 on the morality of eating meat? Or as some people like to put it, killing and devouring

00:39:03.700 innocent animals. Most people like myself say that it's okay to eat meat given that God has

00:39:07.780 granted us dominion over animals. I believe God created animals for our work, our work related

00:39:13.080 uses, enjoyment and consumption. Some people on Twitter will argue that God gave certain

00:39:16.480 commandments in the past that aren't applicable today, such as treating your slaves kindly and

00:39:20.020 the fact that God specifically told us not to eat bacon, um, pork. They also point out that

00:39:26.180 some animals are more emotionally complex than others. The pig, for example, is just as mentally

00:39:30.120 and emotionally aware as a dog. And yet we eat pigs, but not dogs. What would you say to

00:39:34.200 someone that argues that it is more morally appropriate to go vegan than to eat meat? Thanks

00:39:38.420 again. The way I see it, um, the only system of thought, the only belief system, the only worldview

00:39:45.040 that really provides a foundation for being, for claiming that eating meat is immoral objectively

00:39:51.340 would be some of the Eastern religions like Hinduism. Now it depends on which Hindu you talk

00:39:58.140 to, because there are different branches of it, like there are in Christianity. But some

00:40:02.080 Hindus, um, are vegetarian according to their faith on the basis that, as I understand it,

00:40:09.860 you know, there's kind of a life force, a life energy that pervades all, uh, you know, man

00:40:16.480 and animal alike. And so there's an equality that we have with them. And so it would be wrong for them

00:40:21.220 for us to kill them. I may be wrong in my explanation of their belief, but that, but

00:40:25.820 that's how I understand it. My point is in the West where vegetarianism and veganism are gaining

00:40:33.140 ground, there really isn't any available philosophical justification for it. Now, if somebody

00:40:39.480 wants to refrain from eating meat for health reasons or for personal reasons, that that's fine

00:40:45.200 with me. I'm totally fine. I have no problem with that, of course. And, uh, I'm, I'm obviously

00:40:50.440 not arguing that it's, we have a moral obligation to eat meat, but the problem is that here in our

00:40:58.840 country, in the West, generally, most people are either going to be believers in the Judeo-Christian

00:41:04.600 God, or they're going to be basically secular atheist. That's the vast majority. That's almost

00:41:10.420 everybody with, with, with some exceptions. Judeo-Christian people have no foundation to

00:41:16.600 claim that eating meat is objectively immoral, because as you point out, scripture clearly gives

00:41:21.380 man dominion over the animal's authority to use them for meat and labor. God even commands that

00:41:27.100 animals be killed frequently in the, in the Old Testament as sacrifices. Now we don't sacrifice

00:41:32.040 animals anymore, but there's nothing in the Old or New Testament or in the development of Christian

00:41:36.320 thought generally, or as far as I understand it, Jewish thought that would lead us to the conclusion

00:41:40.940 that all meat is suddenly murder, whereas, whereas it wasn't before. Now, obviously Muslims and Jews

00:41:47.500 have dietary restrictions, but that's got nothing to do with the rights of the animal. Far from it.

00:41:52.100 That has to do with the animal not being, you know, being, not being clean. It has to do with the

00:41:55.700 animal being unclean. And then there's the atheist view. And I'm stereotyping here, but I guess that

00:42:01.440 most vegans are probably atheist. Or at least a great number of them are. But here it makes even

00:42:08.300 less sense philosophically, because first of all, there's no basis to say that we are in any way

00:42:13.140 intrinsically superior to other animals. We all evolved out of the same soup. And there hasn't

00:42:20.020 been anything additional added to humans to make them better or superior. You know, there's no immortal

00:42:25.280 soul or anything like that. Now, the fact that we evolved out of the same soup and we're essentially

00:42:30.940 equal, I suppose, is exactly what atheist vegans would point to as a reason not to eat animals,

00:42:35.520 except that the problem is other animals eat animals. And if we're just like them intrinsically,

00:42:42.540 why should we hold ourselves to a higher moral standard? Or maybe why aren't we holding them

00:42:47.480 to a higher moral standard? How can we say that it's arbitrarily wrong for us to do this thing

00:42:53.380 that most other animals do? Now, you could try to argue that we have the capacity to rise above

00:43:00.500 these primitive ways and to do things a better way. But who's to say that this is a better way?

00:43:05.520 Better according to whom? Seems to me that on atheism, we are products of evolution, nothing more.

00:43:15.540 And the highest good, the only purpose really, is to propagate our own species. That's the only thing

00:43:22.360 that other animals are worried about. So why should we be any different?

00:43:26.100 How are we different? We're not different on the atheist view. So I don't see, you know,

00:43:33.600 on the atheistic, Darwinistic view, this idea that we should not eat animals who we have the power to

00:43:43.400 eat and subjugate just as other animals do, it just doesn't make any sense. It seems to be entirely

00:43:52.680 subjective. Which, like I said, if you want to argue that it's not even really an argument. If

00:43:58.120 you're saying subjectively, I don't like it, fine, great. But when you try to go from there to making

00:44:06.080 an objective moral argument, well, now I need to know what is the philosophical foundation,

00:44:12.760 the basis for this objective moral claim. And whether you're going atheism or Judeo-Christian,

00:44:19.100 I don't think there is a basis. This is from Paul, says, as a retired dairy farmer who has

00:44:24.680 artificially inseminated many thousands of dairy cows and stolen too many baby cows from their

00:44:29.000 mothers to count over a long dairying career, I was mortified listening to Joaquin Phoenix's,

00:44:34.360 is that his real name, Oscar speech last night. In my defense, can I tell you that I did what I did

00:44:40.900 in ignorance. I had no idea that my cows were suffering so appallingly. And all this so that I

00:44:45.820 could sip a latte each morning and pour milk all over my cornflakes. Well, actually, so that you

00:44:50.560 could enjoy a latte and pour milk over your cornflakes, Matt. In my defense, can I tell you

00:44:55.780 that I just didn't realize what I was doing to my cows because, you see, every cow I ever stole a

00:45:00.220 calf from was distressed right up until she shoved her nose in the bucket of grain that I offered her

00:45:05.280 as a trade for her loved one. And every calf I ever stole from a cow happily adopted me as its new

00:45:10.700 mother from the first feed I gave it. Also because every cow I ever stole a calf from produced about

00:45:15.480 seven times as much milk per day as her calf was capable of consuming anyway. I thought she

00:45:19.940 wouldn't miss the other 45 liters that her baby couldn't use. Not fully realizing the anguish I

00:45:24.780 was causing, I relentlessly pursued my objectives whilst consoling myself that to the extent that

00:45:29.260 there may have been any anxiety experienced by my cows about their loss of babies, this was balanced

00:45:35.180 by the knowledge that I was allowing you and your friends to enjoy a latte each morning.

00:45:39.200 So, Matt, you are as much to blame for the suffering of my cows as I am. Well, not actually,

00:45:44.380 well, not you actually because I was an Australian dairy farmer and I don't think my cow's milk was

00:45:49.080 finding its way to your breakfast table necessarily, but you know what I mean. Funnily enough, all the

00:45:53.700 cows I milked had four teats. I found this interesting because apart from camels, cows are the only mammals

00:45:58.660 with far more teats than the average number of offspring they produce and far more ability to produce milk

00:46:03.000 than their offspring can use. Because of this fact, I always assumed that God must have created cows to

00:46:07.500 produce milk for more than just their own offspring, so I did not feel too badly about drinking lattes or

00:46:11.720 milkshakes, eating cornflakes, ice creams, cheeses or yogurt. Why putting cream on my peaches was a

00:46:16.340 luxury I was, until last night, still happily enjoying too. I will have to think deeply about

00:46:21.040 Joaquin's concerns and reassess my impact on my environment in the light of his heart-rending

00:46:25.880 speech last night. And when I think that I have only touched on but one of his well-articulated

00:46:31.480 talking points in that speech, well, the mind simply boggles. With renewed determination to make the

00:46:36.520 world a happier, more equitable, cleaner, greener, rainbow-colored, accepting, tolerant, peaceful,

00:46:40.940 victimless, and secure place for cows as well as people, I undertake to never again steal a calf

00:46:45.940 from its mother and to encourage all who cross my path to consider the feelings of all cows before

00:46:51.320 they too decide to steal their calves. That brought a tear to my eye. That was a work of art. Well done.

00:46:59.740 Best email of all time. That was the sarcasm dripping

00:47:06.120 like milk over the cornflakes from every sentence of that email was a thing of beauty. And sir,

00:47:14.620 you have inspired me, Paul. And I thank you for that. And I was, I won't attract from it by rambling

00:47:24.780 myself. So we'll wrap things up here. But before I do, I did want to mention that, you know, January

00:47:29.840 has been a crazy year so far and the election race hasn't even started yet, hate to say. Best way to

00:47:35.760 stay informed on top of all of it as well is, uh, is to become a Daily Wire member with 20% off

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00:48:10.300 live online Q&A discussions with me, Ben Shapiro, Andrew Klavan, Michael Knowles. By the way,

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00:48:42.080 for 20% off. Trust me, you don't want to miss this and, uh, we will leave it there. Have a great day.

00:48:47.760 Godspeed.

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00:49:08.580 Thanks for listening.

00:49:09.220 The Matt Wall Show is produced by Sean Hampton, executive producer Jeremy Boring, senior producer

00:49:15.160 Jonathan Hay, supervising producer Mathis Glover, supervising producer Robert Sterling,

00:49:20.360 technical producer Austin Stevens, editor Donovan Fowler, audio mixer Robin Fenderson.

00:49:25.480 The Matt Wall Show is a Daily Wire production, copyright Daily Wire 2020.

00:49:30.000 Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who studied economics in college and writes economic policy in Congress,

00:49:36.060 can't name the most prominent economists of the 20th century. MSNBC's Katie Turr doesn't know how

00:49:42.860 senators get elected. And Joe Biden wants to ban guns that don't exist. The problem isn't that our

00:49:47.880 alleged elites are ignorant. It's that they know so much that isn't so. We examine the root of their

00:49:52.980 confusion. Then Biden collapses in the polls, Bloomberg surges, and Snoop Doggy Dog gets the

00:49:58.280 media to expose themselves. Check it out on The Michael Knowles Show.

The Matt Walsh Show - February 11, 2020

Ep. 424 - Time For A 100 Dollar Minimum Wage

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