Ep. 440 - The Hypocrisy of Wealthy Socialists
Episode Stats
Words per Minute
176.97577
Summary
A prominent socialist who rails against the rich is actually very rich, and we ll talk about it. Also, an update on the ongoing civil war over toilet paper, and a call-in from a woman who thinks I m a "sexist bigot." Finally, I'll be speaking at the University of Maryland on the left's war on reality.
Transcript
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Welcome to the show, everybody. Much to cover today. We'll begin with a prominent socialist on YouTube and social media, a guy who regularly rails against the rich, really doesn't like rich people.
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Well, he says they have no credibility to speak on anything and we shouldn't listen to them.
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Well, you'll never guess where this is going. Big, big twist ending. Turns out the guy himself is extremely wealthy.
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His family owns multiple mansions, on and on and on.
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So we'll talk about that. There seems to be a theme here. This seems to be a trend where you've got these prominent socialists who end up being rich.
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Why is that? We'll talk about it. Also, five headlines, including an update on the ongoing civil war over toilet paper that is happening in the aisles of our supermarkets, spurred on by the coronavirus.
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Why is it that everybody is rushing to the store to get toilet paper because of the coronavirus? We'll try to figure that out as well.
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Well, and a coronavirus-related daily cancellation that we'll get to. Finally, some of your emails, Pat writes in to tell me why I'm wrong about abortion.
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So he believes he's got a great argument. They'll debunk everything I say about the subject, and we'll get to that. We'll read it. We'll see if he succeeds or not.
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By the way, I'd be remiss if I didn't take a moment and wish you a belated happy International Women's Day.
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International Women's Day was yesterday. I hope you celebrated it.
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As you know, I believe in celebrating women. I'm something of a reputed feminist, and it's just something I believe in.
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It's as simple as that. Celebrating women, celebrating progress, it's something that's important to me.
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And so I went up to my wife in honor of the holiday, and I said, listen, Toots, it's International Women's Day, and I want you to really enjoy it.
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So I'm going to let you make me whatever you want for dinner. It's up to you. Go crazy with it.
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And then I said, you can even make a little for yourself, too. You can even have half a portion if you want.
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And the look in her eyes was, well, it just made it all worth it, I have to say.
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And that's what supporting women is all about, folks. So, again, I hope you had a great day there.
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Before we get to the rich socialist, not Bernie Sanders, but the other rich socialist.
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No, not Michael Moore, the other rich socialist.
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Before we get to that, speaking of me being a sexist bigot, I'll be speaking at the University of Maryland tonight, wanted to mention.
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I'll be giving my talk on the left's war on reality, focusing especially on their assaults on life, marriage, and gender.
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Well, maybe. I don't know. We've got Pat's email on abortion, so maybe he'll convince me otherwise.
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I'll have to take the life part out of it. We'll see.
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But that's probably what the talk is going to be about.
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And it turns out that some of the students don't want me there, which is really surprising because I'm such a lovable guy.
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And there's this poster going around that was put up on campus.
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It says, fascist bigots out of Maryland stand with LGBT plus UM.
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University of Maryland students against bigotry and hatred on their campus.
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First of all, for a poster, you need much better font than this.
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It's hard to read, at least for me. I'm also half blind.
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Matt Walsh of Daily Wire speaking at Stamp Student Union.
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Then it offers a quote from me. It says, if there is trans acceptance in society, Western civilization is over.
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I don't think that's a direct quote. I don't think I said that exactly.
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Help us show opposition to Walsh's dangerous rhetoric.
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All I wanted to say about this is I find it a little bit hurtful because, you know, calling me a fascist bigot.
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I have made it very clear I am a theocratic fascist bigot.
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So that's the particular flavor of oppression and tyranny that I personally support.
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And I would appreciate it if you would respect my self-identification.
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Anyway, I'll be there at seven tonight, so hopefully I'll see you there.
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One other note at the top here before we get into everything else.
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00:06:00.640
Of the end of history has to be grasped as an enormous opportunity.
00:06:06.280
The very oppressive pervasiveness of capitalist realism means that even glimmers of alternative political and economic realities can have a disproportionately great effect.
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The tiniest event can tear a hole in the gray curtain of reaction, which has marked the horizon of possibility.
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From a situation in which nothing can happen, suddenly anything is possible.
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You can tell he's smart because of the big words.
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Actually, he was quoting a book there, which makes him even smarter.
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And Maza, you may remember him from when he was trying to de-platform Steven Crowder a while back.
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In fact, his motto is, be gay, do socialism, de-platform bigots.
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You know, you can't put it any better way than that.
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He's also, as it turns out, a filthy hypocrite.
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There's a fascinating piece in the New York Post from John Levine.
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And the price that he paid for it, Levine did, is that he got suspended from Twitter.
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Suspended him, let him back, suspended him again, and then said that he could come back if he deletes some of his reporting about Carlos Maza.
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Now, as Levine reports, Maza is not only a socialist, but he's taken to publicly criticizing people for being wealthy.
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Here he is attacking James Carville for being rich.
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Says, just found out James Carville, who spends his time lecturing Democrats for being too far left, lives in an absolutely obscene four-story mansion.
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And, dear God, can we stop taking political advice from the ultra-wealthy?
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And then he continues, you really have to respect this guy's grift.
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Constantly dressing in normal clothes on TV to feign relatability while living like this.
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In another quote, another post quoted by Levine, he apparently wrote,
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We should treat gay people the same way we treat straight people, eating them when they get too rich.
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Meanwhile, Maza also fundraisers from his followers, hits them up for cash,
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calls them his comrades, the ones who donate to him, donate to him through Patreon.
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All of this, despite being himself, apparently, enormously wealthy.
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Through his clan, the Millennial Firebrand is connected to multiple Florida mega mansions.
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A $7.1 million pad on the Upper West Side, purchased under an LLC,
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I've got a couple, and that's, if you're going for a yacht, definitely go for the Donzi.
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He says, Mazza's mother, Vivian Mazza, was one of the first employees at Ultimate Software,
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a Florida-based behemoth, which now employs more than 5,000 people.
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Starting in 1990, as an office manager, she ultimately rose to become the group's chief people officer in 2004.
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In addition to her day job, Vivian Mazza has developed a very close personal relationship
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with the company founder, Scott Sher, so close that an independent assessment of the company in 2016
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cited the relationship as a corporate governance concern.
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The report said they believe the pair to be more than just coworkers and have a familial relationship.
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The two later became engaged, and the couple has lived together for years,
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with Sher being a de facto stepfather to Carlos.
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Public records show Vivian, Scott, Carlos, and sister Isabel all registered to vote
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at a five-bedroom, eight-bathroom waterfront palace in Boca Raton, Florida.
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First of all, what do you need eight bathrooms for?
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I mean, why would you need more bathrooms than you have?
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The property sold in 2018 for $10.8 million, according to realty website Zillow.
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Sher also unloaded a four-bed, four-bath home in 2015 in Weston, Florida, for $1.8 million.
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Vivian currently resides full-time in a $4.4 million two-bed, three-bath luxury condo in Fort Lauderdale,
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which she lists as her primary residence, according to a 2020 report filed by LCH-23 LLC, which she controls.
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The same LLC purchased a $7.1 million condo on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in November 2017.
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So I bet there's a little bit of socialist jealousy going on there.
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It's not clear how much Vivian and Sher actively support Mazza's lifestyle,
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but Evans suggests the family has been happy to pitch in to help spread his socialist message.
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Both Sher and Vivian Mazza are listed as comrades at the end of Carlos' most recent YouTube video.
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And the younger Mazza himself admitted in an interview with Mel Magazine that his family was there to financially back him if he needed it.
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Vivian and Scott also have pitched in on the rent for Carlos' chic East Village pad just across from Tompkins Square Park.
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Rents for about $3,000 a month, according to the Post.
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Now, if I were to attempt some kind of long-distance psychotherapy here, I would say that maybe Carlos has some mommy and daddy issues.
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And so his eat the rich stuff is really about his resentment for his parents.
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We've talked about what's the reason why socialism has become so popular with the younger generation.
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I think one issue that does play a part is this, mommy and daddy issues.
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Why is it that so many of these young socialists are, you know, they're college educated.
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They don't come from dirt poverty, a lot of them.
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Probably a lot of them, you know, their parents, two parents or one probably divorced, both working full-time.
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They were latchkey kids, came home to empty houses.
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They had all the electronics that they could ever want.
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But, you know, they felt emotionally neglected.
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They felt emotionally neglected by their rich parents growing up.
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And now they're taking that out on those parents by saying, let's eat the rich.
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At the same time, though, they've got no problem accepting help from their parents.
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Yes, you could pay my rent and you could pay for my cell phone and everything else.
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But generally, we find this with, of course, with many of the prominent high-profile socialists out there.
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We find that socialism is a grift, speaking of grifts.
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And in many ways, it's very similar to the snake oil televangelists who get rich preaching their own self-serving version of the gospel.
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These guys are like the Jim Bakers of socialist politics.
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He was the one who was arrested for fraud, went to prison for it, and then got out and got right back into it.
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Got right back into being a wolf in sheep's clothing.
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Put the sheep's clothing right back on, dove right in, has a big following again, is on TV.
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Right now, he's hawking a liquid that he says can cure the coronavirus.
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And you can buy it for the low, low price of $300.
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They've got their own calibrated, self-serving message of salvation that they sell, literally sell, to the dazed and confused and credulous masses.
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And the only difference, I guess, is while the snake oil televangelists are preying often upon the elderly, the snake oil socialists are preying upon the young and dumb.
00:15:15.700
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Number one, Dwayne Wade posted on Instagram last night reintroducing his son as his daughter.
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His son, at just 12 years old recently, transitioned, quote unquote, into a girl.
00:17:06.540
And by transition, we mean he remains a boy, totally a boy in every sense, but he's pretending
00:17:12.440
to be a girl because he's confused, the child is.
00:17:15.660
And Dwayne and his Hollywood actress wife are more than happy to foment and encourage that
00:17:19.800
confusion because it helps them feel trendy and progressive and end up with the times.
00:17:28.020
It says, everyone allow her to reintroduce herself.
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Last night was Zaya's first red carpet, and we couldn't have been prouder of how she handled
00:17:40.040
She has emerged as one of the young voices and faces for the LGBTQ plus community.
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Okay, again, this is a boy in every sense, a boy, very straightforward, only the boy is
00:18:07.480
That is a boy wearing women's pants and a green jacket.
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And in no way do the pants or jacket make him a girl.
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In no way does anything make him a girl or could anything.
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Now, and his own confusion, his own feelings, those don't make him a girl either.
00:18:37.540
And if you think that confusion and feelings is what makes somebody a girl, well, then I
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would suggest that, you know, you are a sexist.
00:18:48.320
And that's something you need to think about in International Women's Week.
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Now, the other question is, how is he a face and voice for the LGBTQ community?
00:19:06.720
And why are you trying to put your child forward at the age of 12 as the face and voice for a
00:19:14.100
This was a red carpet for something called the Truth Awards, by the way.
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The Truth Awards are an award show for LGBT people in the arts.
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So the kid just, quote, came out as trans a few weeks ago.
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Already, they're bringing him to award shows and they've got him on a red carpet.
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And you're going to tell me this isn't about the parents wanting to feel trendy?
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I mean, even if you think that a 12-year-old can become a girl, okay, even if you know absolutely
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nothing about science, even if you know less about science than my six-year-olds do, so you
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think that a boy can become a girl, you should still agree that when a 12-year-old is going
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through this process, you don't bring him out to a red carpet and traipse him in front
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of cameras and start saying they're, he's emerged, she's, quote, unquote, she's emerged
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She has emerged as one of the young faces and voices.
00:20:22.700
He's only that because you're forcing him to be that, because you're putting him in front
00:20:32.320
When you, when you stick your kids in front of cameras, all of a sudden they become a face
00:20:39.020
Number two, it turns out that someone was infected with the coronavirus at CPAC.
00:20:43.000
Ted Cruz, Ted Cruz and, uh, and representative Paul Gosar, um, are going into voluntary self-quarantine,
00:20:51.820
they say, because they apparently interacted with this individual.
00:20:54.760
A reasonable precaution as, um, the, uh, the, the virus is thought to have as much of a, as a,
00:21:06.320
So they're going in for the remainder of the 14 days.
00:21:09.020
They say they have no symptoms, just precautions, which is great.
00:21:12.740
Um, now if the virus is, has a 14 day incubation period and it's contagious for that whole time,
00:21:27.680
And it would seem like maybe your chances of, of getting the virus may become, might become
00:21:33.340
If that's the case, fortunately, according to the CDC, I was reading about this and what
00:21:37.780
they're saying is it looks like right now, a lot of this is tentative because we still
00:21:41.280
don't know a lot about the virus, but what they're saying is, um, they think it's possible
00:21:45.960
for someone that for number one, for the virus to incubate for 14 days.
00:21:50.240
And it's possible for someone to transmit the virus when they're asymptomatic, but they're
00:21:55.320
also saying that it's much more likely that you'll contract it if you do from someone who
00:21:59.480
is showing symptoms and from direct personal contact with them.
00:22:03.980
Um, as long as that remains the, the, by far the primary way that the virus is, is, uh,
00:22:10.820
spread that I would think that containment is a real possibility.
00:22:14.520
But when you start talking about 14 days incubation contagious the whole time, that's where, um,
00:22:22.600
Number three, uh, and it may be early on, but we've already reached the fistfights over
00:22:44.200
Yes, toilet paper has become a hot commodity. In fact, my wife went to the grocery store
00:23:06.080
yesterday, not, not panic buying, but we, we actually just needed groceries just for normal
00:23:10.860
thing to go to the grocery store, which is what we do every week. But she went, she said it was,
00:23:15.200
she, she attested. It was like the apocalypse. It was entire shelves cleaned out, very difficult
00:23:21.620
to find basic items, especially things for our kids, which is concerning. So we, so, but here's,
00:23:25.880
here's what happens now. So we go to the store and we need stuff for our kid. We need toilet paper
00:23:30.700
also like everybody does, uh, to civilized society. We also need wipes and diapers and things for our
00:23:35.700
kids, but those things are being scooped up. And so now we have to stock up on them too.
00:23:42.040
And we've got to go and start, it's not, I wouldn't call it panic buying. We're not panicking,
00:23:45.700
but we've got to do that too, because we want to make sure we have that available for our kids if we
00:23:49.580
need it. Um, and this is what, this is, this is how panic works. This is how mass hysteria works.
00:23:56.800
It is self generating. People are asking, why is everybody running out to the store for toilet
00:24:01.560
paper? Well, everyone's running out to the store for toilet paper because everybody else is running
00:24:05.240
out to the store for toilet paper and you don't want to be the one left without a toilet paper.
00:24:08.600
And so that's what happens. There's not any real reason why the coronavirus should, should cause
00:24:15.080
this, um, there's no reason why the coronavirus would lead to people running out of toilet paper,
00:24:21.860
but it just starts. People go out, they panic, they scoop it up. And then other people say,
00:24:26.980
well, I, I need some. So then, and then it's a self generating, it's mass hysteria,
00:24:31.220
it's panic. And we're watching it play out right in front of our eyes. This is what it looks like.
00:24:35.420
Number four, Kamala Harris endorsed Joe Biden. Here she is. Here she is in, in what seems to be a
00:24:40.620
bunker recording an endorsement video with, it appears a toaster.
00:24:45.080
So I just wanted you guys to know, cause you've been supporting me for so long. And, um, I just
00:24:50.200
wanted you guys to know, I have decided that I am with great enthusiasm going to endorse Joe Biden
00:24:56.920
for president of the United States. I believe in Joe. I really believe in him and I have known him
00:25:02.440
for a long time. One of the things that we need right now is we need a leader who really does care
00:25:08.920
about the people and who can therefore unify the people. And I believe Joe can do that. Um,
00:25:15.160
I am supporting Joe because I believe that he is a man who has lived his life with great dignity.
00:25:20.600
Um, he is a public servant who has always worked for the best of who we are as a nation. And we need
00:25:28.320
that right now. There is so much at stake in this election guys. So join me in supporting Joe and
00:25:33.960
let's get this done. That's gotta be the most begrudging endorsement video I've ever seen.
00:25:38.340
And it's even worse because she had to stipulate verbally that she has enthusiasm. I am
00:25:50.040
the guy I said was racist. Yeah. A lot of enthusiasm there. Remember she did in the debates
00:25:58.360
not long ago, try to tie Joe Biden to segregationists and she got very tearful about it. That was her one
00:26:04.280
big moment where she was tearfully accusing Joe Biden of befriending segregationists. And now she's
00:26:09.300
saying he's the guy for the job. His, his dignity, his great dignity, the great dignity of this man
00:26:14.660
that I said, uh, a few months ago was befriending segregationists, the great dignity of this man.
00:26:21.100
Finally, number five, an article on study finds.org tells us, here's just the headline. It says
00:26:26.360
seniors who walk for 30 minutes daily cut risk of death from any cause.
00:26:32.560
Your risk of death could be, I read these headlines and I immediately think maybe I'm a, maybe I'm a
00:26:39.580
pessimistic a little bit, but I think I, you know, I don't think you can cut your risk of death
00:26:45.520
from any cause. I think all of our, our risk of death from some cause or another is 100%. We are 100%
00:26:53.420
all going to die. Absolutely. Again, maybe pessimistic. I could be wrong about that, but I think that's,
00:26:59.740
so cutting your risk of death. I think we need to find another way of phrasing that in the headline
00:27:04.560
because you see these headlines all the time. This or that thing supposedly will make you less
00:27:10.060
likely to die. In fact, I read that in the headline. I think it was phrased exactly like that
00:27:13.800
recently. Less likely to die if you do this or that. I don't know. I'm skeptical. I'm skeptical,
00:27:19.840
but maybe I'll go for a walk. It's worth, worth a shot. Let's go to your daily cancellation. Today,
00:27:25.700
we're canceling the folks in media who are claiming that calling the coronavirus, the Wuhan virus is
00:27:32.420
racist. So just a couple of examples. Here's David Gura of NBC making this claim. He says,
00:27:38.880
FYI, calling COVID-19, the Wuhan virus is racist. And then Chris Hayes jumps into the action. He says,
00:27:45.600
just astoundingly gross to call it the Wuhan virus. And they're reacting specifically to Congressman
00:27:51.480
Gosar, who announced, as I said, he's going into self-quarantine, called it the Wuhan virus in the
00:27:56.000
process of announcing that. And that's where leftists in the media jumped in and said, how dare
00:27:59.720
you call it the Wuhan virus? It's worth noting the media itself was calling it the Wuhan virus when
00:28:05.500
this all first started. CNN used this phrase consistently. Look at these headlines. They used
00:28:10.620
this phrase consistently for weeks. Now, all of a sudden, the term has gone out of fashion, at least
00:28:15.660
according to our betters in the media. But I wonder if Wuhan virus is racist, then what about
00:28:20.580
Spanish flu, Stockholm syndrome, West Nile virus, Zika virus, Lyme disease, German measles? Are all
00:28:33.740
those racist too? And anyway, there may be a very good reason to call this the Wuhan virus, aside from
00:28:41.480
the fact that that's where it originated, which is reason enough, and that's how we've named these sorts
00:28:46.260
of things in the past. But take a look at this tweet from China Daily two years ago, May of 2018.
00:28:54.320
Okay, I don't, I don't, this is not conspiracy. This is what this was, this is a tweet. This is what it
00:28:58.500
says. And there are some, some pictures of people in surgical masks and lab coats. And it says,
00:29:03.480
take a look at the largest virus bank in Asia, Wuhan Institute of Virology, Virology, Virology,
00:29:12.700
Virology? Virology? Anyway, Wuhan Institute of Virology in central China's Hubei province
00:29:21.200
preserves more than 1,500 different strains of virus. Yeah, I think it might be 1,499 now,
00:29:28.980
guys, not 1,500. You may, you may have dropped one back there. Accidentally, I'm sure. Now,
00:29:35.700
I don't know if there's any connection here. All I know is that apparently the largest virus bank in
00:29:40.560
Asia was located in the exact place where a viral pandemic originated. Could be a coincidence,
00:29:48.060
I suppose. It could be. Or not. But I guess asking this question is racist. Can't ask it. Can't talk
00:29:55.640
about it. It, you know, it's, it's, even though there's a, the largest virus bank in Asia is located
00:30:04.140
at the epicenter of this viral pandemic, it's still, of course, way more likely that the whole
00:30:10.740
thing started with a, with a bowl of soup, of bat soup. Started there, you know. How did the bat get
00:30:17.600
it? Who knows? Nobody knows. Okay. Moving on to emails. Remember, you can subscribe. I urge you to
00:30:27.160
go subscribe today so you can submit questions to the mailbag. We've got, let's see how much time we
00:30:34.720
have. Yeah, we've got one quick question from Kate, and then we're going to go to why I'm wrong,
00:30:38.580
an email from somebody telling me why I'm wrong about, in this case, about abortion. This is from
00:30:42.560
Kate says, my younger brother, 17, has a fun hobby of taking his coon hound hunting Friday nights with
00:30:48.260
the dog's litter mates and their owners. My dad, stepmom, and I were talking about this the other
00:30:52.760
night after he left. Come to find out one of the other owners is a young girl his age. Well,
00:30:57.960
naturally, the topic turned to my brother and his lack of dating habits. My dad made a comment about
00:31:01.840
how he's 17 and it's okay for him to date. My stepmom suddenly snaps, well, what's the difference
00:31:06.160
between him and his sister? The running joke of the family is that we daughters can't date until
00:31:11.680
we're married. His defense seemed to be along the lines of he trusts my brother not to be the kind
00:31:16.180
of guy he's afraid of us daughters getting involved with. I understood what he meant, but his
00:31:20.740
explanation was a bit fumbled and my stepmom is still annoyed, even saying that she was
00:31:23.960
genuinely upset about his stance. If you got, uh, never good when you get that from the wife.
00:31:30.640
I'm genuinely upset. I'm really upset about this. Never good. Never good. Um, if you got through that
00:31:37.300
and it made sense, could you possibly provide some arguments or bullet points on why my dad is right
00:31:41.000
or possibly wrong? On a side note, my dad's position on the subject has never changed. And I feel like
00:31:44.960
that's the reason why I didn't date until 21 and married my first boyfriend who holds the same
00:31:49.200
position when it comes to our daughter and son. Thanks for reading this saga. And I look forward
00:31:53.820
to your advice. Kate, um, first of all, you know, I appreciate how you did the woman thing there and
00:32:01.140
provided narrative details that weren't at all necessary to the point. I'm not, it's not a criticism. I just,
00:32:06.320
I do enjoy it. That's my wife does the same thing. All women do. If you want to tell a story,
00:32:11.420
right, you start the story much further back in the timeline than you need to. And you work your way
00:32:17.660
up the windy road to get to the thing you want to discuss. My wife will sometimes begin the story
00:32:23.520
19 or 20 years before the events she wants to describe. So she'll bump into a friend at,
00:32:28.220
at Kroger and, uh, you know, the grocery store and she'll want to tell me about it, but she'll start with
00:32:34.200
the friend's infancy narrative. And then she'll, she'll go through leading up through the years
00:32:39.020
and decades, their time in school and everything at all. And then eventually culminating in this
00:32:43.360
fateful encounter, uh, in aisle 12 of the grocery store. So here you told me about your brother who
00:32:49.320
enjoys hunting with his coonhound and then took me on a windy, twisty trail before finally getting to
00:32:54.760
the question of whether I think it makes sense for parents to let their sons date earlier than their
00:32:58.780
daughters. Uh, you're right that that was a saga. Now, this was a man asking this question. He would
00:33:03.720
have just dove right into the question. That's it. One sentence question done, but you, you set the
00:33:10.080
stage for me and I appreciate that. And now I guess I'm sort of doing the same thing that you did. I'm
00:33:15.100
doing the same thing I accused you of doing. I've started with a preamble. The difference is I start
00:33:19.700
everything I say with a preamble, which always involves my opinions about things. And then I get
00:33:24.980
to what I want to say. Women start with a prologue. So it's sort of narrative verse editorial.
00:33:29.940
Okay. Uh, uh, do I think it makes sense to be a bit more protective of our daughters when it comes
00:33:36.360
to dating? Well, yeah, I think it does. And for, for the reason that your, your, your, uh, dad gives
00:33:40.660
of, um, uh, you know, of, of, we have to protect our daughters potentially from bad guys and, and, uh,
00:33:49.380
that's something we have to do. I also think we want to protect our sons from certain girls. We can't
00:33:55.000
lose sight of that. There are, there are bad dudes out there. They're also bad girls. And those girls
00:33:59.660
can do a lot of psychological and emotional damage, sometimes worse, especially when you think about
00:34:03.480
the false accusations and everything that are so common these days. But all the same, when it comes
00:34:07.420
to the physical safety angle, uh, yes, I think there's a reason to be more protective of our
00:34:12.520
daughters. That said, while, while I believe that directionless dating is pointless and ultimately
00:34:18.280
bad, that is dating that does not have as its intended end, the contemplation of marriage,
00:34:24.620
which doesn't mean, of course, as you know, that I'm saying that if you date someone, you
00:34:29.000
must marry them. But the point is that if you date someone, you should at least be discerning
00:34:33.460
marriage. And if you're not discerning marriage, if you've ruled the possibility of marriage
00:34:36.300
out to begin with, there's really no point of dating because you're doing something that
00:34:40.240
you know absolutely will end in heartbreak. There's no other possibility. And probably soon
00:34:45.020
it will end that way. So you're not really practicing marriage or practicing having healthy
00:34:49.400
relationships. You're practicing divorce. You're practicing having dysfunctional relationships.
00:34:53.240
And that's a lot of what the dating scene is. So I think that's the case. But at the same time,
00:35:00.380
I also think it's not necessarily wise for parents to tell their 17 year olds that they can't date,
00:35:08.580
which it sounds like that's what your daughter, your, um, your daughter. It sounds like that's what
00:35:12.100
your dad did with his daughters, told them even at 17. I'm just context clues. It seems like that's
00:35:18.440
what you're saying. If that's the case, then, um, I believe you have to give kids some kind of freedom
00:35:24.880
and ability to make decisions before they become adults. Because at 17, you're one year away from
00:35:31.500
legal adulthood and you want to ease your kids into adulthood a little bit and give them some freedoms
00:35:37.640
and, and, and, and the ability to make choices, um, which doesn't mean you let your kids do whatever
00:35:42.900
they want. It doesn't mean that you, you, you know, you, you have your kid dating at the age of 11.
00:35:47.740
I think that there's probably some room in between that and giving your kid no freedom at all until
00:35:54.040
they're adults. So I think that, um, there's room in between there for, I think, a wiser and more
00:36:00.160
prudent approach. You do have to worry about if you take the ultra strict stance with your kids and you
00:36:06.540
say, Oh, no dating. Uh, eventually they're going to be adults and they're going to be out of your
00:36:11.080
control. And, um, there's a good chance that they're going to run out and do everything you
00:36:16.560
didn't want them to do in one repressed explosion because you were far too strict. Um, and I say
00:36:25.020
that as someone who believes generally, you know, that, that so-called, at least what, what, what our
00:36:29.800
culture considers to be strict parenting often is, is the right approach, but it can go, you can go
00:36:34.440
overboard with it. Uh, thank you for the question though, Kate. Finally, why I'm wrong. This is
00:36:38.680
from Pat says, dear Matt, you're wrong about abortion. You say an embryo is life. So what a
00:36:44.480
virus is life. Should we not kill viruses? I know you'll say human life is more valuable than other
00:36:49.400
kinds of life, but you have to defend why that would be the case. And anyway, the point is that
00:36:54.280
the simple fact of a thing being life does not in and of itself mean much of anything. You must agree
00:36:59.000
with this stance since you were cheering on capital punishment on Friday. Okay, Pat, first of all,
00:37:04.340
I don't claim to be a biologist. Um, but I think most biologists will tell you that viruses are not
00:37:10.020
life. Actually, they're not alive because they lack some of the basic hallmarks of life. They're not
00:37:15.360
self-sustaining. They don't grow. Uh, they can't replicate, replicate without hijacking a living thing,
00:37:21.200
an organism. Um, they can't do it on their own. So what are they? This is the question. And this is a
00:37:28.320
live, uh, pun intended debate among biologists and scientists. What is a virus exactly? How do
00:37:34.680
you classify it? We like to classify things as people. It helps us sort of understand the world
00:37:39.300
around us. Not everything can be classified. So what is a virus? Is it dead? Obviously not. Uh,
00:37:45.440
dead means that it was living once and is no longer. Is a virus inanimate? Well, it doesn't seem so
00:37:51.580
probably doesn't seem like it would fit that qualification. So it seems that viruses are in some
00:37:55.880
sort of gray area between alive and not kind of like biological robots or something. Your,
00:38:03.300
your argument then is actually much weaker than it could have been. And so I'm going to improve
00:38:08.200
your argument for you. And then I'll address the better version of your argument. What you should
00:38:13.040
have said is that viruses are in a gray area between alive and not alive, proving that such gray areas
00:38:19.640
can exist. And therefore it's possible, you would argue that human embryos could occupy a gray area.
00:38:26.980
They could be sort of in between. Um, and in which case, you know, why wouldn't it be okay to kill
00:38:34.260
them? I think that argument would have been much stronger if you had offered it as for that stronger
00:38:38.980
argument. Now, as I argue against myself, um, it's true that there, there might be a gray area,
00:38:44.280
but, but, but the organisms or rather the entities, the things that occupy that gray area are there by
00:38:51.320
their nature. What I mean is the gray area is not something that an organism passes through on its way
00:38:59.260
to being alive. Viruses are always viruses. They aren't growing into living things. They aren't,
00:39:04.840
they aren't becoming anything. And, uh, and, and that's one of the reasons why scientists would say
00:39:10.420
they're not alive because they lack that capacity. Um, if they were growing into a recognizable level
00:39:17.860
living thing, then we would have, there'd be no ambiguity. We would say they're alive. Um,
00:39:23.760
if, if virus was a stage of development for some organism, there would be no question that it is alive.
00:39:32.160
So, you know, when it comes to us, we're alive. You are a life, Pat. I'm sure you would agree.
00:39:39.680
You currently are alive. You were once an embryo, just as you were once a toddler. These are stages
00:39:46.900
of development for you that you passed through. So you must've been living the whole time.
00:39:53.960
You were a life the whole time. This is if, if I were to, as I've explained it many times, if I were
00:40:01.580
to take you and go back through your timeline in reverse, if I, if I were to hit reverse, right?
00:40:07.920
On the remote control of your life and follow you backwards, there would be an unbroken chain of
00:40:15.180
you-ness connecting the you of today to the you that was in the womb. I mean, it's you the whole
00:40:21.040
time, right? And therefore you were living the whole time. As for human life being more valuable
00:40:28.680
than other kinds of life, well, you actually agree with me on that, whether you pretend to or not.
00:40:32.740
And I know that you agree with me. I am, yes, I'm going to read your mind and say that you
00:40:38.560
absolutely agree with me on that. And I know you do because if you saw someone step on an ant,
00:40:44.900
or if you stepped on an ant yourself, as I'm sure you have, you do not react the same way as you would
00:40:52.240
if you saw someone shoot another person. Or if you saw someone run over a child in their car,
00:40:59.620
okay, you would react to the latter much, much stronger than you do react to the former.
00:41:05.960
Just like you're driving down the road, you see a dead deer, dead raccoon on the side of the road,
00:41:10.680
I'm assuming you don't pull over and weep every time you see that. You don't even think about it.
00:41:16.340
You just, you just keep along your way. Now, if you were driving along, you saw a dead person on the
00:41:20.400
side of the road. That's going to be something that you remember, and you're going to react to that
00:41:24.160
emotionally. Why is that? So I think what that establishes is that you do see a difference,
00:41:33.240
whether you, whether you acknowledge it or not. The question then is, why do you see the difference?
00:41:40.320
Why is human life more valuable? You can approach that question from two perspectives. One,
00:41:44.740
if you believe in God, in the Judeo-Christian God, at least you say that humans were created in the
00:41:50.100
image of God. We are divine image bearers, and we have rational souls, and this gives us a certain
00:41:54.800
value and dignity that other creatures lack. We were also given a dominion over, over those,
00:42:00.600
over those other animals. Now, if you don't, so it's pretty simple from a, from a God-fearing
00:42:05.720
perspective. If you don't believe in God, even then, humans are still more valuable simply because
00:42:12.580
we're the most evolved. We're at the top of the food chain. That makes us better than everything
00:42:16.420
beneath us. All the organisms beneath us. We're at the top. We're superior. Dog-eat-dog, right?
00:42:22.640
That's the Darwinian perspective. And so we're still more valuable in that case. Now,
00:42:28.580
if, if the, unless you're going to approach this from a totally nihilistic perspective and say,
00:42:37.660
existence has no meaning, nothing has any meaning, nothing doesn't matter. You know,
00:42:43.540
whether the entire earth exists or gets sucked into a black hole makes no difference whatsoever.
00:42:47.880
If that's how you're approaching it, then, then sure. Fine. I guess from that perspective,
00:42:52.200
there's no way to see anything wrong with abortion, but there's also, there's also no reason to keep
00:42:56.800
living. There's no reason to care about anything. There's no reason to do anything. There's no reason
00:43:01.980
to have any priorities whatsoever, right? Given the fact that you've emailed me, I assume you do care
00:43:09.480
about some things, which means you don't, you don't have that fully nihilistic perspective,
00:43:13.340
but actually all of this being said, the fact that we are superior to other organisms doesn't give us
00:43:20.920
the right to treat those other organisms. However, we want, we should still treat them with respect and
00:43:26.540
dignity. In fact, even the ant, I would say even with an ant. Now, if somebody steps on an ant,
00:43:32.800
I'm not going to cry over it, but over it, neither will you, but you shouldn't just on purpose for no
00:43:38.240
reason, step on an ant. I think if there's an infestation in your home, you can kill them for
00:43:43.080
that reason, but you're walking down the sidewalk, you see an ant, uh, you know, it's one thing if
00:43:48.300
you access it, but are you going to go out of your way just to step on the ant for no reason? I would
00:43:51.580
say that's wrong. Shouldn't do that. I don't think it's a serious moral, uh, you know, moral evil,
00:43:59.900
but it's, it's, it's a wrong thing to do because you are destroying life for no reason at all,
00:44:04.440
just for entertainment, I guess. And that's wrong. But when we get to the higher animals,
00:44:08.240
um, you know, puppies and things like that, well, I think we all would be opposed to dismembering
00:44:15.200
puppies or crushing the skull of a, of a, of a kitten. And it would indeed be illegal to do those
00:44:22.260
things because our law treats the offspring of dogs and cats with greater respect.
00:44:29.900
That it treats human offspring. And, and I hope we can both agree that that is definitely not
00:44:36.220
justified, but that's the way our law works. And it's inevitable as long as abortion is legal.
00:44:44.320
That it's inevitable that there's going to be a stage of human development
00:44:47.880
where the people in that stage have less legal protection than dogs and cats
00:44:55.460
and squirrels. And I mean, any other, and, and, and, and, and sea turtles and really any other,
00:45:01.540
um, almost any other life form you can think of. And that's, um, pretty horrific. I hope you would
00:45:09.980
agree. We will leave it there. Thank you for the email. Uh, Pat, everybody have a great night. And
00:45:15.760
remember, I will be at University of Maryland tonight, uh, at seven o'clock talking about the
00:45:19.900
left's war on reality. Hope to see you there. Godspeed. If you enjoyed this episode, don't
00:45:26.980
forget to subscribe. And if you want to help spread the word, please give us a five-star review.
00:45:31.300
Tell your friends to subscribe as well. We're available on Apple podcasts, Spotify, wherever
00:45:35.660
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00:45:39.360
including the Ben Shapiro show, Michael Knowles show, and the Andrew Klavan show. Thanks for
00:45:43.420
listening. The Matt wall show is produced by Sean Hampton, executive producer, Jeremy Boring,
00:45:48.660
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