Ep. 430 - Lie Or Be Fired
Episode Stats
Words per Minute
168.53932
Summary
Trump thinks Parasite should not have won Best Picture. And a transgender student is being forced to use the preferred pronouns of a female student. Plus, a new plan to help eligible full-time employees pay off their student loan debt.
Transcript
00:00:00.180
President Trump has given us the controversy for the day, like a teacher handing out the
00:00:04.640
homework assignment. The controversy is, should the movie Parasite have won Best Picture and
00:00:10.720
is Gone with the Wind a better movie? So Trump at a campaign rally last night decided to go on
00:00:15.560
an extended riff on this subject, which is great because a lot of people don't realize this, but
00:00:19.960
actually constitutionally, the president is considered the nation's chief film critic.
00:00:25.740
That's one of the enumerated roles of the president of the United States. So it says so right in the
00:00:31.140
document. So, you know, that's good. And it happens that he did get this one right, I have to say.
00:00:36.540
He said that Parasite should not have won Best Picture. Now his problem is apparently is that
00:00:40.500
Parasite is South Korean. It's a foreign film. That to me is not the issue. The issue is that it just
00:00:47.420
is not a very good movie. I watched it myself this past weekend, in fact. Now, in fairness,
00:00:52.240
I was in a delirious half dead state with the flu. So maybe that affected my judgment of the movie.
00:00:59.580
I don't know. But it really seemed to me to be a sort of okay movie. That is also a metaphor about
00:01:07.160
class struggle. But the filmmaker beats you over the head with the metaphor that there's just no
00:01:12.380
subtlety. It has all the subtlety of one of the speeches that the dad and Full House gives at the end
00:01:19.520
of each episode to the daughter sort of, okay, here's the message of today's episode, boys and
00:01:24.820
girls. Except that in this case, in the film, there's a whole lot more stabbing than there
00:01:29.100
typically is in a Full House episode. So anyway, Trump is right about Parasite. And I'm glad that
00:01:34.040
we could have that conversation because it is indeed, without question, one of the most pressing
00:01:39.760
issues that our country faces. As for the less pressing issues, I want to begin today with
00:01:45.940
a case at Shawnee State University in Ohio. A professor is being told by a judge that he must
00:01:52.680
use the preferred pronouns of a transgender student or he can be fired if he doesn't. The professor
00:02:00.420
claims that this requirement is discriminatory against him. It violates his free speech. It
00:02:05.260
violates his religious liberty. But the court said, no, you can be forced to pretend that a male
00:02:12.040
student is female. The court said it is reasonable for you to be made to participate in the delusion
00:02:18.560
of a gender-confused student. So there's a lot to discuss here with this case. So we're going to get
00:02:22.640
into it. But first, before we do, a quick word from Fairway. You know, Fairway is a family-owned
00:02:28.980
grocery chain and a top 10 employer in Iowa. And they've been in business since 1938. So they've
00:02:34.560
been doing this for a long time. They have over 11,000 employees. They service five states with
00:02:39.080
brick-and-mortar locations. And they did all that before launching Fairway Meat Market to service
00:02:44.140
the rest of the U.S. In December 2018, Fairway announced a new plan to help eligible full-time
00:02:49.460
employees pay off their student loan debt. What I love about this, before we even get to the product,
00:02:54.140
which is so amazing, is that Fairway is just a great company. They're a great American company.
00:03:00.640
And they're solving problems like student loan debt. But they're doing it in, I think,
00:03:05.640
the American way, which is they're choosing to help their employees. They're doing it
00:03:11.820
independently. You don't need the government for that. The Fairway Meat Department has always been
00:03:15.620
considered the backbone of their operation. What customers can expect from fairwaymeatmarket.com,
00:03:20.760
it's still hand-cut by Fairway employees to ensure the best quality. And it's the same quality they
00:03:26.460
promise at the counter, now delivered right to your home. Okay, that's all the great stuff about the
00:03:31.100
company and everything. All of that's wonderful. But to me, the real point is the meat is fantastic.
00:03:36.660
It's just a great product. Okay. Now, the guys over at Fairway were nice enough to ship us some of the
00:03:43.520
meat, which is a great thing to come home to at the end of the day when you've got a big box of meat.
00:03:50.460
And I tried, what did I try? I tried the sirloin, the ribeye, a couple of the cuts of pork,
00:03:57.680
and it's just, it's delicious. It tastes like, it tastes like restaurant quality stuff
00:04:03.000
that you can make at your own home. You don't need to be a culinary genius like myself to do it.
00:04:08.780
You can do it even if, even as just a regular, a regular chef. This week, my listeners can get
00:04:14.260
the Heartland package valued at $230 for just $99.99. Okay. So that's over half off that you're
00:04:20.920
getting plus free shipping when entering Walsh at checkout. The Heartland package includes eight,
00:04:25.360
eight ounce, all natural boneless pork chops, six, eight ounce USDA choice ribeye steaks,
00:04:30.380
one mouthwatering side dish. It's loaded potato bake, gourmet cheesy corn, or brisket baked beans.
00:04:36.520
You get all of that for more than half off. That's more than 50% off the best meats in America,
00:04:41.420
plus free shipping. That's fairwaymeatmarket.com, promo code Walsh, and look for the Heartland
00:04:47.640
package. Okay. So Shawnee State University philosophy professor, Nicholas, Dr. Nicholas Merriweather
00:04:53.680
has gotten himself into trouble at his work. Here's the background. Dr. Merriweather last year
00:05:01.240
was responding to a male student's question during class. And in responding, Dr. Merriweather said,
00:05:07.900
yes, sir. He apparently refers to all of his students as sir or ma'am and calls them Mr.
00:05:12.960
or Ms. And then their last name when referring to him. If you can imagine it, this guy apparently
00:05:17.700
believes in actually being polite and courteous and having etiquette. Okay. He's one of those,
00:05:23.100
one of those weirdos. Anyway, so he's been doing this, referring to people this way, presumably his
00:05:28.380
whole life, just about. But this time it was a problem. Turns out the sir that he was addressing
00:05:34.540
prefers to be a ma'am, even though he is in fact a sir. He was a biological male who identifies as female.
00:05:41.400
So the trans student approached the professor after class and demanded to be referred to
00:05:47.040
by female pronouns. Dr. Merriweather said he couldn't do that. Now, according to the Alliance
00:05:53.620
Defending Freedom, which is the organization that's been representing Dr. Merriweather,
00:05:58.560
the student then, quote, became aggressive, circling around him, getting in his face in a threatening
00:06:03.280
fashion while telling him that I guess this means I can call you a C word. See you next Tuesday.
00:06:09.640
Except he said the word. Before walking away, the student promised to get Dr. Merriweather fired
00:06:15.200
if he did not agree to the student's demands. Sounds like a lovely, lovely young man.
00:06:21.600
Reading more from ADF, here's what happened next. They say, quote, the student filed a complaint with
00:06:26.360
the university, which launched a formal investigation. As a Christian, Dr. Merriweather
00:06:30.340
believes that God has created human beings in his image as a male or female, and that God does not
00:06:35.640
make mistakes. To call a man a woman or vice versa would be to say something that is just not true,
00:06:39.300
and to endorse an ideology that conflicts with his religious beliefs. So Dr. Merriweather offered
00:06:43.840
a compromise. He would refer to the student by a first or last name only. Perfectly reasonable
00:06:48.920
compromise that respects the freedoms of everybody involved. But that was not enough for university
00:06:52.820
officials. Instead, they formally charged Dr. Merriweather, claiming that he created a hostile
00:06:56.960
environment for the student. Later, they placed a written warning in his personnel file that threatened,
00:07:02.520
quote, further corrective actions if he did not refer to students using pronouns that reflect their
00:07:07.120
self-asserted gender identity. The university warned Dr. Merriweather that he'd be in violation of its
00:07:11.800
non-discrimination policy if he agreed to refer to men as women while putting a disclaimer in his
00:07:19.880
syllabus saying he was being compelled to do so against his beliefs. So apparently that was another
00:07:24.280
compromise that Dr. Merriweather offered. He said, apparently, okay, I'll use the pronoun,
00:07:32.280
the incorrect pronoun, but I'm going to put something in the syllabus saying that I'm being
00:07:37.480
forced to do this. That was no good either. The message from the university is loud and clear.
00:07:42.560
You must endorse the university's favored ideology or be punished. There is no room for dissent.
00:07:51.040
Okay, so that's the lead up to the lawsuit. And then eventually Merriweather filed a lawsuit.
00:07:58.140
All that Dr. Merriweather wants to do, just to be clear, just to reiterate this, all he wants to do
00:08:04.480
is his job. He wants to do his job as a professor and not be forced to tell a lie. That's it. He wants
00:08:12.380
to do his job without being forced to lie. That's it. That's his only request. He's not asking this
00:08:19.420
student to do anything. He's not trying to take anything away from this student. He's not trying
00:08:24.880
to impose anything on this student. He's even offered compromises. There are ways that the
00:08:35.380
professor could refrain from lying while also refraining from using any pronouns that this poor
00:08:41.260
student might find traumatic. But even those compromises aren't good enough for the student
00:08:45.560
or for the university. No, they need the lie, the full lie. So help you God. Now that brings us to the
00:08:53.140
court. The latest news is that the court has dismissed Dr. Merriweather's case saying that he
00:08:57.320
can, he can indeed be fired for refusing to lie. The court ruled, quote, plaintiff's refusal to
00:09:03.040
address a student in class in accordance with the student's gender identity does not implicate broader
00:09:07.760
societal concerns and the free speech clause of the first amendment under the circumstances of this
00:09:12.640
case. Reading now from a report in the Daily Wire says the court rejected the professor's religious
00:09:17.660
objections saying the reasonable person standard would not consider using preferred pronouns as
00:09:23.760
unreasonable and that the anti-discrimination policy is, quote, neutral and therefore not
00:09:29.600
specifically affecting any religious group or belief. Most shockingly, the court upheld the
00:09:34.420
university's position that it could not accommodate the professor due to his religious objection as it
00:09:38.920
would then be required to make similar accommodations for racist or sexist views as well.
00:09:42.920
Now, we should stipulate. Actually, hang on, because there's another important point here
00:09:51.980
that we need to mention. But first, before we do, a quick word from Rock Auto. RockAuto.com is a
00:10:00.020
family business serving auto part customers online for 20 years. Go to RockAuto.com to shop for auto and
00:10:05.700
body parts from hundreds of manufacturers. And they've got everything that you could possibly need.
00:10:11.000
Engine control modules, brake parts, tail lamps, motor oil, new carpet. It doesn't make any sense
00:10:17.180
in the internet age to go in physically to the auto parts store when you could just go online and get
00:10:24.560
what you need. It's so much quicker. They've got the entire selection of everything you could possibly
00:10:28.300
need. I dare you to find something that they don't have on the website because they got everything,
00:10:33.240
you know. And it's the convenience. You just do it at your house. You order it. They send it.
00:10:38.560
It gets there in a couple days. Simple as that. RockAuto.com catalog is unique and remarkably easy
00:10:43.680
to navigate. Quickly see all the parts available for your vehicle and choose the brand, specifications,
00:10:47.940
prices you prefer. They've got amazing selection. They've got reliably low prices. All the parts
00:10:52.060
you're ever going to need, RockAuto.com. Go to RockAuto.com right now. See all the parts available
00:10:56.540
for your car or truck. Write Walsh in there, how did you hear about us box, so that they know that
00:11:01.720
I sent you. Okay. Back to this case. We should stipulate that although the professor offered the
00:11:07.400
compromise of calling the student just by their first name or their last name, which presumably
00:11:15.440
means that, you know, if this student chose a traditionally feminine name, you know, I don't know.
00:11:22.220
I mean, let's say the student wanted to be called Sally or Jennifer or something. Presumably, the professor
00:11:26.820
would call him that. Um, because the thing with the name is you could choose any name you want.
00:11:33.840
So if you say that something is your name, if that's what you want your name to be, then that's
00:11:37.980
your name. Okay, fine. Um, not a problem because you own your name in that sense. You could choose
00:11:47.760
any name and it's your name. That's how names work. They're very specific to you personally.
00:11:54.460
Pronouns aren't like that. Any more than a verb is like that or an adverb or a noun or these,
00:12:03.540
these are parts of speech. These are grammatical constructs. You don't own them in that same sense.
00:12:10.720
You don't decide how they are applied to you. That's not the way that language works. It can't work
00:12:17.840
that way. Now, um, but there was another compromise that was offered by the university.
00:12:28.840
They said, okay, well, if you want, you could stop referring to all of your students according
00:12:35.580
to their gender. Stop calling everybody, sir or ma'am. Um, and, and that will be acceptable,
00:12:43.400
but this compromise gives the whole game away, doesn't it? Because it shows that this student,
00:12:50.800
it shows what he's really up to and what the university is really up to. What he really wants
00:12:55.400
is control. Okay. He's an egomaniac control freak, just like the people at the university
00:13:03.080
trying to exercise power and domination over somebody else. That's it. That's what this really
00:13:12.160
is. That's what's really happening. Every time somebody freaks out and demands that you adopt
00:13:17.880
different pronouns, trying to control the language you use when speaking to them. And even when they're
00:13:26.520
not in the room, okay, that's, that's, that, that is an egomaniac on a, on a power trip.
00:13:35.220
If the student has some issue with not being called ma'am, how would that issue suddenly be
00:13:41.680
magically resolved if nobody else is being called ma'am? I mean, what difference does it make to him
00:13:47.740
what the professor calls other people? How would that solve his, whatever emotional trauma he
00:13:54.140
supposedly experiences from not being called ma'am or she or her? How is that trauma alleviated
00:14:02.320
by, by controlling what other people are called? Is this about the trans student trying to stand
00:14:10.880
for his alleged rights or is it just about controlling language? It would seem to be the
00:14:16.560
latter in this case, which is why he'd be fine if he could force the professor to change the way he
00:14:21.400
talks to everyone. A few additional points here. Um, there are two ways really to threaten, uh, or
00:14:32.760
impose upon free speech. One is to prevent people from saying what they believe. The other is to force
00:14:41.680
them to say things they don't believe. This case represents the latter. Well, it represents both
00:14:47.680
actually, but primarily the latter. And the latter is the far more extreme kind of free speech
00:14:53.740
infringement. It's one thing to punish people for, for, for what they say or to tell them they're not
00:15:00.220
allowed to say such and such. It's another to punish them for what they don't say and to tell them they
00:15:05.340
have to say such and such. And even worse in this case is that the school wants to force the professor
00:15:11.120
not just to say something that violates his beliefs, but to say something that violates reality.
00:15:18.640
They want to force him to lie, to speak untruth, right? To be dishonest. I'm not a huge fan of the
00:15:27.220
ADF and this professor making this a religious liberty issue. Uh, I'm, I'm not saying it isn't a
00:15:32.460
religious liberty issue. It is, but in a sense it is, but, uh, because it's true that the Christian
00:15:38.860
faith forbids lying and it's true. The Christian faith says that God created us male and female,
00:15:43.560
but you don't need to be a Christian to see that men are, are men and not women, right? Uh, the,
00:15:51.080
the fact that individuals with a male reproductive organs are men, that's not a Christian fact. That's
00:16:00.600
not a, it's not a, it's not a matter of faith or of, of doctrine. That's just, that's reality.
00:16:06.640
That's scientific reality. And I'm, I'm wary of, in a sense, reducing our position on this subject
00:16:13.420
to one of, uh, religious doctrine, because I think the other side would like everyone to believe
00:16:21.380
that we're only resisting their gender ideology because of what the Bible says or what our churches
00:16:26.760
say. They want everyone to believe that our point is a religious one. It's a religious point. And so
00:16:33.700
when we refuse to do what they want, we are imposing our religion on them. That's what the
00:16:38.340
other side wants people to believe. But it's not true, uh, because it's got nothing to do with it.
00:16:46.460
Everything that I say on the gender issue, all of it, I would say, even if I wasn't a Christian,
00:16:51.480
if I was Muslim, Jewish, Hindu, if I was atheist, Buddhist, pantheist, whatever, it doesn't matter.
00:16:58.460
I'd, I'd be saying the exact same thing because this is about reality first and foremost. It's
00:17:03.820
about truth versus fiction. So this is really not actually a, a, uh, religious liberty issue. It's,
00:17:11.140
it's even more fundamental than that. This is just about the reality that we live in. And what's
00:17:16.840
happening here is, um, it's not that the, that the university is trying to get a professor to deny
00:17:23.440
his faith. We, that would be bad enough. The university is trying to get the professor to
00:17:29.400
deny reality. And given that this is a university, supposedly in a place of, of education, that's a
00:17:38.760
pretty big deal because you could all, there are always going to be people who claim that, well,
00:17:45.220
it's no big deal for universities to get professors to stifle their religious views because it has no
00:17:50.900
place in the classroom. Anyway, people are always going to be saying that, but, uh, okay, but should
00:18:00.300
universities be, be telling professors to stifle their understanding of biological realities too?
00:18:09.020
By the way, in this same, uh, vein, Elizabeth Warren, the pander queen sent out a tweet yesterday,
00:18:15.840
uh, reacting to a proposed bill in Arizona. The bill in Arizona would require that
00:18:20.620
males, uh, play sports against other males, and it would ban males from playing on female sport teams.
00:18:28.920
Elizabeth Warren reacted to it saying, trans athletes are not a threat. We need to protect
00:18:33.560
trans kids and all LGBTQ plus kids and ensure they feel safe and welcome at school. I urge the Arizona
00:18:39.960
legislator to reject this cruel bill. This is, is just cynical, dishonest, stupid nonsense.
00:18:50.620
Elizabeth Warren knows damn well. This has nothing to do with, with, uh, the safety of trans kids
00:19:00.460
or, or any, or anything or trans kids being quote a threat. That's not the point. Everybody agrees
00:19:07.700
that all kids should be welcome at school. All kids should feel safe at school. That's our point.
00:19:15.020
Our point is that when you put men on the, when you put boys on the girls teams, not to mention the
00:19:22.860
girls locker rooms and bathrooms, now the girls are being made to feel unsafe and unwelcome. And like
00:19:29.260
they don't belong in their own areas and their own spaces. That's our point. You see, here's the,
00:19:37.920
and this is the way I think it should be framed. Um, when you've got them, uh, we've got a small
00:19:46.000
minority of males who are demanding access to female sports, female locker rooms, female bathrooms.
00:19:53.920
And they say that they will be emotionally traumatized if they don't, if they are not granted
00:19:59.400
that access, they say even that they feel unsafe if they're not given that access. Okay. On the other
00:20:07.500
hand, you've got a much greater number of actual biological females who say they don't want men in
00:20:14.980
these spaces because, uh, they feel emotionally, uh, vulnerable when that access is granted, they feel
00:20:27.080
unsafe and they feel like their privacy is being taken away. Here's the point. We've got two competing
00:20:33.700
claims being made. In essence, somebody has to win and somebody has to lose. We've got the small
00:20:41.380
minority of males and we've got the majority of females. One of these groups, we're going to have
00:20:47.560
to say to them, sorry, SOL, you're out of luck. You got to just deal with it. We have to say that to
00:20:55.860
one of these groups. Now, let me ask feminists, Elizabeth Warren, who are you going to say it to?
00:21:03.880
You're really going to say it to the females? You're saying in this, in this competing, uh,
00:21:08.460
in this competition, you're going to put the emotional needs of the men over that of the,
00:21:16.120
of the women. Is that what you're saying? Well, that is what you're saying, but, and fine,
00:21:20.940
go ahead and say it and make that case. But that is in fact the case that you're making and, and then
00:21:26.440
don't claim to be a feminist at the same time, because if that's feminism, then the word really
00:21:31.300
just has no meaning anymore. Okay. One other thing, uh, I want to talk about today, and I'm going to
00:21:39.900
once again, take, uh, the minority position on something as I, as I so often do, uh, I want to
00:21:46.460
talk about a certain viral video clip that's been making the rounds online. Uh, and I don't want
00:21:52.040
to play the video itself because given my position on this, it would be rather contradictory for me to
00:21:56.780
do so. So I'll just give you the gist. If you haven't seen it, there's a viral video, massively
00:22:01.820
viral. Last I saw, there was overall, I think the original video on Facebook had gotten like 300,000
00:22:07.480
plus shares alone, which is a lot. And, um, it's a video of a, of a young child with Dorfism, um,
00:22:17.580
crying, devastated, saying that he wants to kill himself because of the bullying that he suffered
00:22:24.400
in school. He's sitting in the back of, I guess, appears to be his mom's car and his mom is filming
00:22:30.700
him and filming it for Facebook live, talking about her son being bullied. And the child, as I said,
00:22:36.380
has just wrecked, uh, talking about killing himself and he's nine years old. Right now,
00:22:43.480
obviously for a child, uh, that age to be having thoughts like that for any person to be having
00:22:49.540
suicidal thoughts is terrible. But for a child that age, you know, at nine years old to be thinking
00:22:54.760
about that is, is, is unimaginable. My oldest kids are not too much younger than, than this kid.
00:23:00.600
And I simply cannot fathom ever hearing them say they want to kill themselves.
00:23:07.280
So like any person with a soul, right? When I saw this video, I felt a very deep mix of sadness
00:23:16.100
and anger at the bullies and, and, and many other emotions because it's just, it's just so,
00:23:20.180
it's so terrible and it really gets to you. Now, as often happens, because this video went viral,
00:23:27.420
celebrities have gotten in on the action. Hugh Jackman sent out a video to the kid supporting him.
00:23:31.580
The child is, is Australian and, and Hugh Jackman's Australian. So I guess he felt
00:23:35.980
especially called to respond, which is, which is great. And then of course, uh, someone started a,
00:23:41.240
a GoFundMe, uh, uh, campaign as, as always happens with these things. And now they're going to send
00:23:49.600
the kid to Disney world with the money, the GoFundMe account earned many thousands of dollars in just a
00:23:54.600
few hours. Okay. So all that is, is nice, but I also have another thought and it's the same thought
00:24:02.100
I have every time I see stuff like this online. And I don't understand why more people don't have
00:24:08.380
this thought, or maybe they do. It's just, they don't feel, they don't feel secure in, in, in saying
00:24:13.820
so because they're afraid they're going to get shouted down by everybody. And that is this, what
00:24:19.640
kind of parent records their child during such an emotionally vulnerable moment and puts it online
00:24:26.900
for public consumption? You know, and I don't want to hear about raising awareness.
00:24:34.460
What kind of parent uses their child's emotional trauma for awareness?
00:24:42.360
Is that really your first thought when, when your child is emotionally devastated by something? Your
00:24:49.020
first thought is, oh, this would be great for an awareness campaign. What, what kind of parent thinks
00:24:54.700
like that? And what right do you have as a parent to decide for your child that their most intimate
00:25:02.480
and devastating moments are going to be shared and consumed by millions? What right do you have to
00:25:10.760
decide that this is going to be a public spectacle? 10 years from now, let's think about this.
00:25:20.040
This child, nine years old, 10 years from now, he's 19. He's a grown adult.
00:25:23.080
Do you think he's going to be happy that the time when he threatened to kill himself at the age of nine
00:25:28.400
is documented and online and has been seen by millions of people?
00:25:34.440
Do you think he's, he's, he's really signing onto that? You think he understands what he's signing
00:25:39.800
on for? If he even did sign on for it? And don't tell me that he agreed to be filmed because first of
00:25:46.720
all, we don't know if he did. And even if he did, he's nine. He has no clue what he's agreeing to or
00:25:52.360
what it means or how any of this works. That's what a parent is supposed to be there for.
00:25:59.140
So I'm trying to figure this out because as a parent, I have, I've had difficult moments with
00:26:03.480
my kids. Nothing, nothing quite like this, thank God. But I've had, there have been times when they've
00:26:09.680
been very upset about things and, uh, and I've, I've been in the position of consoling them and
00:26:13.980
comforting them like all parents do. It has never occurred to me to pull out my phone and stick it
00:26:22.300
in their face and then put it on Facebook. I can't imagine how that would occur to you.
00:26:31.960
I mean, that thought process needs to actually, your, your kids sitting there crying, inconsolable.
00:26:37.620
And so you have to think to yourself, Oh, hold on a second. Let me get my phone. Let me get this on.
00:26:41.240
Let me get, let me get this on tape. Not everything has to be done in public. Not everything is
00:26:47.460
everybody's business. Let your child have privacy. Not to mention there are a lot of very cruel trolls
00:26:55.940
online also. So even more so than in school, people online are even worse than they are in school.
00:27:01.440
And now you're opening your, your bullied child up to more bullying. In fact, when I saw this video,
00:27:07.600
uh, whoever shared it on Twitter, the, the, on, on this particular share, you know, I was looking
00:27:15.460
at the comments, the very first comment under the video was somebody making fun of the child's
00:27:21.740
appearance. Now, clearly to be an adult or anyone making fun of a child's appearance at all, especially
00:27:29.400
in this circumstance, that makes you scum. I mean, you are a human scum. You're, you're the worst of the
00:27:34.680
worst, but there are a lot of scumbags on the internet. And there are a lot of people who say
00:27:42.120
terrible, terrible things about kids even. I mean, there, there are many people on the internet,
00:27:47.880
which is to say there are many people in real life, unfortunately, who, uh, have no compunction at
00:27:54.420
all about anything and have no problem saying the worst things about other people.
00:28:02.680
So your child has already been the victim of ridicule and now you're putting them up for more
00:28:08.960
of it. Who does that? Now the, the justification I've heard is that, well, this mother was at the end
00:28:21.700
of a rope and she didn't know what else to do. There was no other solution. And so this is what
00:28:26.220
she did. What, how is this a solution? I don't understand as a parent, you know, I understand
00:28:34.460
being a parent and feeling like you're at the end of the rope and there's a, there's a certain
00:28:37.960
problem you're dealing with and you don't know how else to solve it. And you're not sure what the
00:28:41.560
solution is. I understand that, but why does that translate to, oh, well, might as well make a viral
00:28:47.140
video, might as well get the mob involved, might as well, might as well put it on Facebook.
00:28:53.440
How is that a solution? Like if you're at the end of your rope with something like this,
00:28:58.880
then I can understand maybe you pull them out, you, you, you put, you find a different school. You,
00:29:02.720
you, I mean, you go into the school, you, you, you kick the damn doors down to find these punk kids
00:29:07.600
that are, that are bullying your son. I mean, there are, there are a lot of things I could see a
00:29:11.820
desperate parent doing, but, but, but pulling out your freaking phone and sticking it in your kid's
00:29:17.160
face and then putting it online. I don't see that as a solution. And I don't see how a loving parent
00:29:25.900
would ever, ever, ever could even consider that quote solution.
00:29:34.120
You know, internet mobs, I have a lot of experience dealing with internet mobs.
00:29:38.800
They don't solve anything. Okay. You don't go to internet mobs for solutions. That's not what they
00:29:46.060
do. There are three things you can get out of an internet mob, fame, shame, money. Those are the
00:29:54.560
three things. Those are the only three things an internet mob can do for you. Fame, shame, and money.
00:30:01.860
Okay. Well, so this mother has gotten money out of the mob. I'm not going to say that that was her
00:30:07.340
number one reason why she did it. Or, you know, I'm not going to say that. It certainly seems like
00:30:12.840
that's possible. I mean, there are parents who exploit their children for internet fame so that
00:30:18.060
they can then get the GoFundMe money and all that. That does happen. It certainly seems like that's
00:30:23.040
what's happening here. I don't know. And they got some fame out of it too. So yeah, you got fame and
00:30:30.520
money out of it. And I guess some shame for the bullies. How does that solve anything? Yes,
00:30:37.420
the child will go to Disney World. Great. And he'll have a nice time. And that's, that is awesome.
00:30:41.500
Okay. So I, I, and I'm sure that will be helpful, but it's not going to stop the bullying.
00:30:48.180
It's, it's a momentary thing. It's going to give, it's, it's a momentary boost at most that the kid
00:30:54.800
will get out of this. He goes to Disney World, he gets the, he sees the nice video messages from
00:31:00.320
celebrities. You get a momentary boost out of that. It's not going to stop the bully. In fact,
00:31:06.720
it only makes it worse because now you've added more bullies into the mix and the bullies who
00:31:11.620
were already bullying the child, you think they're going to stop now? You think, you think a bunch of
00:31:17.280
nine and 10 year old kids are going to stop bullying because they see this kid on, on the news now
00:31:23.620
crying about being bullied. That's not how bullies work. Okay. The bullies aren't going to see the,
00:31:30.820
the segment on, on, on the today show and think, Oh gee, you know, we really, we really screwed up on
00:31:36.500
this one. Uh, yeah, we, we, we, it was really inappropriate. We shouldn't know they're going to
00:31:41.000
see the kid crying and they're going to make fun of him more for it because that's how little,
00:31:46.260
that's how kids work and bullies, especially. So you get a momentary boost, you get money,
00:31:52.860
does absolutely nothing whatsoever to stop the bullying, does absolutely nothing whatsoever to
00:31:59.160
address the, the, the deeper things internally that are happening with your child that are making
00:32:03.560
him think about hurting himself. And, uh, in exchange for that momentary boost, now you have put this
00:32:10.880
online forever for everyone to see. And for the rest of your child's life, he is going to be known as
00:32:20.840
the kid in that video. Who's said those, you know, really sad and horrible things.
00:32:28.860
And you have made that decision for your kid. You have decided for your kid that that's what his
00:32:33.780
life is going to be. Or at a minimum that this video and this incident is going to be a big part
00:32:40.460
of his life from here on forward. You have decided that for him. You have no right.
00:32:43.720
Your kid is not your, your intellectual property that you can just use for, for, for clicks and views.
00:32:56.260
I get so sick of this. It's like, it's not even human. You've got these parents that are barely
00:33:00.820
freaking human that they would look at their kids this way. What do you need the attention for?
00:33:07.960
Great. You got a bunch of shares. Who gives a damn? What does that do for you as a parent?
00:33:16.180
Leave your kids out of it. Let your kids have a life. Just let them exist. Let them have some privacy.
00:33:23.080
Let them have an emotional moment on their own without you sticking a camera in their face.
00:33:28.720
Yeah. You, you, you see a moment and you know that, oh, this would be a, this, this would get a
00:33:43.620
Honestly, I think the same thing with, uh, I probably should stop before I get myself into
00:33:47.240
trouble, into even more trouble. But I say, I think the same damn thing about parents.
00:33:52.660
Even when I see these viral videos of happy moments with kids, uh, you know, of, of intimate
00:34:01.680
personal, but happy moments many times, even with that, I think, why did you need to put it online?
00:34:09.420
I don't understand why you needed to do that. Even something like, forgive me, but even, even these,
00:34:16.620
these, these, these, uh, very nice videos of, you know, things like a child finds out on Christmas
00:34:23.080
that their stepfather is going to adopt them and, you know, and, and, and opens the, the,
00:34:27.680
the gift and season is very, very, very, it's, it's very happy. I mean, I feel, I feel great for
00:34:32.000
the kid. I feel great for the family. It's a wonderful thing. Why did you need to put it on,
00:34:37.560
on the internet though? It's a very personal moment. Why couldn't you just have that moment with
00:34:44.560
your family and cherish it? And, and you have it as a memory. If you want to film it for your own
00:34:50.060
benefit so that you can look back on it later and remember it, then fine. But you don't even really
00:34:55.620
need to do that because you have the memory. You have the moment. It's part of your life now.
00:34:59.840
Why does it do 10 million people need to see it? Give me one good reason why they need to see it.
00:35:05.240
All right. And I say this as someone who is on, I, I spend my whole, my, I spend my whole life on
00:35:17.180
the internet. Okay. So I, you know, I, I, I get it. I get, I understand the, the desire people have to
00:35:27.680
find content and put it on the internet and, you know, but we shouldn't be using our kids for that.
00:35:37.500
So that's it. We'll leave it there. Thanks everybody for watching. Thanks for listening.
00:35:46.680
If you enjoyed this episode, don't forget to subscribe. And if you want to help spread the
00:35:50.420
word, please give us a five-star review. Tell your friends to subscribe as well. We're available on
00:35:54.500
Apple Podcasts, Spotify, wherever you listen to podcasts, we're there. Also be sure to check out
00:35:59.180
the other Daily Wire podcasts, including the Ben Shapiro show, Michael Knowles show,
00:36:02.860
and the Andrew Klavan show. Thanks for listening. The Matt Wall show is produced by Sean Hampton,
00:36:07.820
executive producer, Jeremy Boring, supervising producer, Mathis Glover, supervising producer,
00:36:12.560
Robert Sterling, technical producer, Austin Stevens, editor, Danny D'Amico, audio mixer, Robin Fenderson.
00:36:19.620
The Matt Wall show is a Daily Wire production, copyright Daily Wire 2020.
00:36:23.440
If you prefer facts over feelings, aren't offended by the brutal truth, and you can still laugh at the
00:36:28.600
insanity filling our national news cycle, well, tune in to the Ben Shapiro show. We'll get a whole lot