The Matt Walsh Show - Ep. 447 - The Ethical Dilemma Of The China Virus Response

00:00:00.000 Today on The Matt Wall Show, I have what I hope will be a clarifying question that deals with

00:00:04.220 the ethical issues tied up in the response to the China virus. Lots of people think that the

00:00:09.120 response is overblown and that we're going way overboard and it's going to do more harm than

00:00:14.080 good. They might be right, which is why I hope that if you're in that camp, you'll listen to

00:00:18.140 the show today and think about how you would answer the question that I'm going to pose,

00:00:22.120 because I think it's an important question. Also, five headlines, including some expert

00:00:25.900 medical advice from the esteemed scholar and thinker Vanessa Hudgens. And in your daily

00:00:31.860 cancellation, well, I'm not canceling anybody today, but the Philadelphia Police Department

00:00:35.960 has essentially canceled itself. And so we're going to talk about that today as well. All of

00:00:42.100 that's on the way on The Matt Wall Show. Now, so a question. I'm going to ask a question. It's a real

00:00:49.660 question. And what I mean by that is it's not something that's meant to be smarmy or that I'm

00:00:54.420 just asking rhetorically to prove a point. It's not a bad faith question. I really want to hear

00:01:01.260 the answer because I want to have this conversation. I don't know the answer myself. So when I say I'm

00:01:07.720 asking a question, I mean that in the most direct and literal sense of the phrase. It's a question.

00:01:12.640 And that is, and I pose this primarily to those who are on the this is all a massive overreaction

00:01:18.700 side of the debate. And it's this, how many deaths would be enough? What, what death toll would you

00:01:30.000 need to see before you would agree that drastic economy damaging, possibly economy ruining measures

00:01:37.680 should be taken? And whatever that number is, if you have a number or, and it'd be like, I don't,

00:01:44.080 I don't think you would have an exact precise number in mind, but whatever that ballpark estimate

00:01:48.020 is, why, why, why that and not something else? Why do you draw, draw the line there and not somewhere

00:01:55.540 else? So again, this is a sincere question. I really want to hear an answer. And actually the question is

00:02:00.860 more complicated than that, because if you say that you would need the virus to kill, say a million

00:02:05.980 Americans in order to justify this kind of response, if your position is, look, I mean, this response

00:02:12.320 might send us into a great depression. This is something that we've never, this country has

00:02:17.060 never done before anything like this on this scale. To be doing something like this, I, you know, it

00:02:22.480 would have to be like something really cataclysmic and apocalyptic, you know, millions, a million,

00:02:29.560 two million Americans die. Okay, well, if that's your answer, presumably you wouldn't wait for those

00:02:36.440 people to die before you respond. This, the response would be to prevent those deaths,

00:02:42.420 not in reaction to them. So you would need not for it to kill that many, but for it to threaten to

00:02:49.120 kill that many. But then the problem is that some models tell us that this virus would kill that many,

00:02:54.540 if not more, if we didn't do anything and just treat it like the common flu. So how would you know,

00:03:00.260 what would you need to see to know that this other virus, this hypothetical virus really is

00:03:07.000 threatening that many considering you've decided, or you know, you're theorizing that this, that the

00:03:12.240 one we're dealing with actually is not threatening that many. So what would you need to see? This to

00:03:18.600 me fundamentally is, is the philosophical kind of dilemma at the heart of, of the whole debate

00:03:22.940 surrounding the China virus and our reaction to it. I've already said that I'm going to leave the

00:03:27.540 analysis of the, uh, of the, the thing itself, the disease itself and predictions of what it might

00:03:33.840 do or, or how it might spread. I'll leave that to the experts. But this question of where we should

00:03:38.400 draw the line for an acceptable casualty count is not one that I think doctors alone should be trusted

00:03:44.960 to answer. You know, we don't want to get to the point where a question like, you know, dealing with

00:03:50.380 the value of human life and life and death, these sorts of things. We don't want to say that,

00:03:55.660 oh, only experts can speak on that. That, that has a very negative consequences when you have that

00:04:02.260 kind of mentality. So this is a human problem, but I haven't really heard or seen anybody try to

00:04:08.220 address it directly. There, there are many people who seem to be rather confident that we're taking

00:04:13.820 measures that cannot be justified considering the number of people who are dying. It's not enough.

00:04:20.220 It's, it's not enough death to justify it. The death toll isn't high enough. I mean, this,

00:04:25.460 this is the argument that lots of people are making. I've just, I haven't seen any of them say

00:04:30.020 what they think, where they think the line should be drawn. So, you know, we've all, we've all heard

00:04:36.520 arguments like, well, the flu kills 60,000 people a year in this country. This has only killed a hundred.

00:04:41.600 Actually, it's 115, 116 last, last, last I, last I saw. Um, or people will say, yeah, the death toll

00:04:48.320 in Italy was, was bad, but it was only 0.00, whatever percent of, of the total population. Or

00:04:55.740 they'll say, hey, you know, just putting this in perspective, not saying that the death toll isn't

00:04:59.800 high for the China virus, but however many, you know, however many people died from this, uh, here's how

00:05:07.060 many more people will die from car accidents or, or something else every single day. All of these

00:05:12.600 arguments are saying rather explicitly that the virus death toll is not high enough. It's not where

00:05:20.460 it would need to be to make the reaction defensible. Maybe it isn't. So again, how high is high enough?

00:05:29.060 Not a trick question, not a gotcha. Um, it's a question that I think we absolutely have to be able

00:05:35.260 to answer because if, if you believe that X cannot justify Y, then you must have some idea,

00:05:42.120 some, at least general vague idea of what would justify Y. Because if you don't, if you have no

00:05:49.660 idea, then you can't know that X doesn't justify it. So this just seems like a logical conclusion to

00:05:55.160 me. And this is what I've been thinking about because many of the people claiming that this is

00:06:00.240 an overreaction, uh, it's, they can make a compelling argument, especially when you think

00:06:05.420 about how bad this could get economically and all of the people that are going to lose their jobs and

00:06:09.860 might not get them back. Um, you know, what do we, what does the economy look like a month from now,

00:06:15.060 two months from now? How many people are out of work? I just read something saying, I wish I had it

00:06:21.100 in front of me. I think it was something like 20% of Americans already, uh, either have lost their jobs

00:06:25.820 or have had their hours cut. And it's only been a week. Now, I think that tells us something about

00:06:32.380 our system that a week of people staying home just collapses everything. That's what we were

00:06:38.880 talking about yesterday that I think that, you know, what we should be thinking about is a

00:06:41.860 fundamental restructuring of the way we've set up society so that we're so dependent on people

00:06:46.740 being consumers that they stop being consumers for a week. Everything goes to hell, but that's the way

00:06:51.400 it is now, right? And changing that's going to take, that's a long-term generational plan,

00:06:56.320 which I hope that we will endeavor to do, but it's not something we can do every night, overnight.

00:07:00.580 So, uh, you point that out and you say, it's not justified. It's too much. Again, that a compelling

00:07:07.900 argument can be made for that. I admit, but if you're making that argument, I think you have to have

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00:09:09.700 Now, um, so we're talking about

00:09:16.660 what, uh, you know, if this is an overreaction, what would make it so that it's not an overreaction?

00:09:26.600 And this is focusing just on the death toll, by the way. I think, uh, people who support the

00:09:31.460 measures that are being taken and the one, the people in government who are enacting those

00:09:36.680 measures would say that it's not just about the death toll. In fact, it's mainly about the strain

00:09:40.420 on the healthcare system. And what they would say is if we don't at least control the spread of this,

00:09:45.720 that is, that is in fact, the phrase they're using now less than contain, they're saying control the

00:09:49.680 spread. If we don't control the spread, everybody gets sick at once. Uh, we don't have enough hospital

00:09:54.040 beds. We don't have enough ventilators and that could collapse the healthcare system,

00:09:56.780 but putting that to the side, which we really can't do, but, but focusing just on the death toll.

00:10:02.120 However, that death toll would come about because if you collapse the healthcare system,

00:10:06.040 then there's going to be even more people who die. People who don't even have coronavirus are going

00:10:09.840 to die as well. Um, but if we focus on that, the death toll, we get back to the question of how much

00:10:15.620 is too much. And there's an interesting point about these comparisons that are made. Oh, it's like the

00:10:21.020 flu or you're comparing it to the car accident deaths or talking about the overall percentage of

00:10:27.620 people versus the number of people who are dying. An interesting point. People say that

00:10:32.560 it's no worse than the flu may even be ultimately not as bad. Well, it seems from what the doctors

00:10:39.500 are saying, that's actually not true. But my point is this, what, what if the virus is only as bad as

00:10:46.620 the flu or, you know, even ultimately half as bad. Let's go with what seems like a very conservative

00:10:52.440 estimate. Actually, it's not even an estimate because I'm pulling it out of thin air. It's just

00:10:55.500 a hypothetical. Um, but let's say that, uh, it's, it's half as bad. Let's say the flu kills 60,000

00:11:02.320 Americans per year, rough, rough, roughly. Uh, let's say that this would kill 30,000 people in a

00:11:08.480 year, half as many as the flu. Now I want to really dig into this apparent assumption that the fact that

00:11:15.400 60,000 people are dying of one thing means that we shouldn't take extraordinary measures to protect

00:11:21.240 the 30,000 who would die of this other thing. Does that assumption actually make sense?

00:11:28.620 Why have we decided that the flu is sort of some sort of litmus test or is the bar? And as long as

00:11:37.160 it's under the flu deaths, it's, uh, you know, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's not a huge problem.

00:11:42.120 Certainly not a problem that would justify this kind of response. Why is that?

00:11:46.240 I understand it. This on a visceral level, I understand the argument because we're so used

00:11:53.560 to the flu, but does it actually make sense? And what if only a thousand people died of the flu

00:12:00.700 every year and 30,000 were going to die of the coronavirus? Well, then we would all agree that

00:12:06.360 the latter is extremely serious. I mean, probably we, probably we would all agree that agree with

00:12:11.660 that, but why, why would the death toll of one thing make the death toll of something else better

00:12:18.160 or worse? What difference does that make? I mean, there's another way of looking at these flu comparisons.

00:12:24.220 People say it's just the flu. The other side gets angry at that statement. Uh, I'm tempted to say,

00:12:30.120 okay, it is, it is just the flu, but the flu is really damn serious. It kills 60,000 people.

00:12:36.800 Everyone's saying, oh, it only kills 60,000. 60,000 people is a lot of people. It's a really

00:12:41.960 serious illness. So maybe we shouldn't be putting the word just or only in front of it.

00:12:50.960 Now, isn't, isn't that when we do that, aren't we sort of taking the flu? Uh, we're taking the same

00:12:56.060 approach to the flu that people do to, to, you know, someone who's a jerk at the office, Bob at

00:13:00.980 the office, who's a jerk to everybody. And then you make excuses for them and you say, ah, it's Bob being Bob.

00:13:06.800 As if the fact that he's been a jerk all along somehow makes his jerkiness on any given occasion,

00:13:12.840 uh, less obnoxious and more acceptable. Well, we seem to be doing the same thing with the flu.

00:13:18.560 As if the fact that the flu has been killing people for a long time suddenly makes it more

00:13:23.320 acceptable and less serious. That's just the flu being the flu is what the argument seems to be

00:13:30.380 saying. So again, I say, what if, what if it is just the flu? Isn't there an argument to be made?

00:13:37.460 That we should all the more do whatever we can within our power to stop it, given how utterly

00:13:42.120 devastating we know the flu to be. What if we could go back in time and stop the flu in its tracks?

00:13:48.060 What if we could stop just the flu? What if we could go back many, however, however long we would

00:13:53.000 need to go back, um, to stop the flu? Wouldn't we do that even with extreme measures? Wouldn't we do it

00:14:01.800 considering how many people it kills? Forget about in a year, but in a decade.

00:14:07.180 So, um, that's a question. And I, I, I often wonder if we talk about flu-like symptoms.

00:14:18.320 I wonder if, if the phrase flu-like symptoms has become so common and banal or banal, as

00:14:24.160 Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez would say that we just, we can't help, but not take it that

00:14:28.380 seriously. So I wonder what if the China virus had the exact same mortality rate, the exact

00:14:34.060 same infection rate, everything was exactly the same, but instead of it being flu-like

00:14:39.240 symptoms, what if you, what if the main symptom was you, let's say, bled out of your eyes,

00:14:44.160 something scary like that? And people who die from it, rather than dying of, uh, of flu-like

00:14:49.340 symptoms, they die convulsing on the ground. Do you think, would we all take it more seriously then?

00:14:57.920 My point is, what if everything was the same with this virus, except that the symptoms were weird

00:15:02.920 and foreign and way scarier sounding than respiratory illness? I wonder how that would

00:15:08.980 change the calculation, or if it would, maybe it wouldn't. Or think about the percent, the, the, um,

00:15:16.660 percent of population argument. The coronavirus has only killed 0.0000, however many zeros percent

00:15:23.860 of the population. Right. But there have so far been like 8,000 deaths. That's a vanishingly small

00:15:31.180 percentage of the overall population. That's true. But so what? Is death less tragic because there are

00:15:38.440 still a lot of people left over? Isn't that, looking at it that way, isn't that to commodify human

00:15:44.980 life? To say that its value is somehow lessened by the fact that there are so many other humans still

00:15:50.600 living on the planet, so we shouldn't be as concerned? Isn't that to assume human life is a, is a,

00:15:56.260 is a, you know, as I said, some sort of commodity? What if 8,000 people represented 20% of the globe?

00:16:02.920 Would that make the deaths more tragic? Would that give them more moral weight?

00:16:09.520 I mean, why does it matter how many people are left over? Isn't that the wrong way of looking at

00:16:13.840 human life? Of course, you could argue that if 20% of the population were to die, that would have a

00:16:19.700 greater effect on the, on the lives of everybody else, considering it's such a, a huge percentage,

00:16:25.340 where, as opposed to if 0.000, whatever, 1% of people die. And that's true. But that doesn't

00:16:30.500 really answer the question. I still find it a little bit troubling. Because that means that

00:16:36.120 arguably, if a million people die of a disease across the globe, as long as those deaths are

00:16:40.240 spread out the right way, it's still not a huge deal, because it's still an extremely small percent

00:16:45.160 of the Earth's population. And so we seem to be saying that as the Earth's population grows,

00:16:50.700 the value of human life is lessened, because there are so many of us. And now we can sort of tolerate or

00:16:58.520 deal with more people dying all at once of some horrible illness. Now, you could throw this right

00:17:06.360 back at me. And, and I think if you're listening, you're probably screaming at this point at the

00:17:10.500 screen, saying that there's another side to this very argument that I'm making, or this question

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00:18:34.760 wrong. Better get life insurance right. Okay. So these questions I'm asking, where do you draw the

00:18:40.980 line and everything? There's another side to it. You could throw it back at me from the other direction

00:18:45.080 and you could say, okay, well, how many deaths are too few? If you think the death toll and threat to

00:18:50.560 human life right now from the virus justifies all of these draconian measures, then where's the limit

00:18:56.840 on the other side? What if only 10 people had died so far? And from that pace of death, it seemed like

00:19:03.960 only a few hundred would die across the world. Would you then support all these lockdowns and everything

00:19:09.320 and shutting down the entire economy to stop it? What if only one person had died? And it looks like

00:19:16.300 just a handful across the world will die. Would you then say, shut everything down to save those

00:19:21.580 people? And if I say to that, no, and that is my answer, of course, no, I wouldn't support it.

00:19:27.900 Then you could respond, well, isn't every life infinitely valuable? You know, I thought you just said that

00:19:35.240 we can't measure death tolls as if lives are commodities. So where's the cutoff line? If one

00:19:42.440 death is too few to justify the measures and 8,000 is enough, where was the line crossed?

00:19:51.200 That would be a good rebuttal. And I don't really have an answer to it. That's why I'm asking the

00:19:56.160 question and trying to get people to start thinking about it in these terms. Because one thing I know for

00:20:01.440 sure is to criticize, nothing wrong with criticizing what we're doing now and the steps that are being

00:20:10.200 taken, but to simply just criticize it and say, this is crazy, we shouldn't be doing it, and to offer

00:20:16.200 no alternative or no better vision, that's just not very helpful. And so I want to start thinking

00:20:26.020 along those lines. Here's maybe one way of framing the question. I think of the six principles of just

00:20:37.020 war theory. Just war theory is a set of principles that are supposed to help determine when it is just

00:20:43.560 and right and good to go to war, to wage war in a given circumstance. There are six principles which

00:20:48.800 should be applied to determine the permissibility of war itself. And this could be relevant to us

00:20:54.280 because we are sort of, I guess, waging a war on this virus. And there is, in this case, as there

00:20:59.240 is in any war, significant collateral damage that we're seeing right now, and it's only going to get

00:21:04.560 worse. So I was thinking about this last night. You can kind of think of it in those terms, maybe.

00:21:12.020 So I go through items four through six, principles four through six, the six principles that are supposed

00:21:17.500 to just tell us whether a war is justified. Principles four through six. Number four,

00:21:24.160 reasonable prospect of success, meaning that you have a particular goal in mind, and there's a

00:21:29.020 sufficient probability that you'll actually achieve that goal by taking these steps. And then number

00:21:35.120 five is proportionality, which means the moral good that you hope to achieve outweighs the bad that

00:21:41.060 might be done or caused in the process of pursuing that good aim. And then number six is necessity or

00:21:48.140 last resort. So whatever the goal is and whatever good you want to achieve, you have to be sure that

00:21:53.380 there isn't any less extreme, less violent way that would be nearly as likely or just as likely or more

00:21:59.120 likely to achieve that aim. Because if there is a less extreme strategy, then you should do that first.

00:22:04.840 War should be the last resort. So we could see how this could apply to fighting a war, obviously an

00:22:12.060 actual war, but I think it might also apply to this antiviral war as well in some ways.

00:22:18.160 What we're doing now, is there a reasonable chance that it will succeed?

00:22:24.580 How do we even know what success will look like? Do we know what success will look like?

00:22:30.440 Um, is this a proportional response in that the good it might reasonably achieve outweighs the bad

00:22:39.020 that it might reasonably cause? And then is this necessary or is there a less extreme method that

00:22:46.580 might achieve the same end? I think maybe if we run this all through that filter system,

00:22:53.660 we get an answer. Although I still don't know, as I said, what the answer is. That's the,

00:22:58.120 I suppose, the theme that we keep coming back to is that I really don't know the answer. But these

00:23:03.720 are all questions. And I would like to hear your answer to everything I've posed. So you can leave

00:23:09.320 a comment if you're watching on YouTube or send me an email. But I'd like to hear it. Now, before we

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00:24:32.380 Number one, reading now from the AP, it says,

00:24:34.400 In a massive federal effort Tuesday, President Donald Trump asked Congress to speed emergency

00:24:38.240 checks to Americans, also enlisted the military for MASH-like hospitals and implored ordinary

00:24:43.820 people, particularly socially active millennials, to do their part by staying home to stop the

00:24:48.440 spread of the coronavirus. His proposed economic package alone could approach a trillion dollars,

00:24:53.360 a rescue initiative not seen since the Great Recession. Trump wants checks sent to the public

00:24:58.640 within two weeks and is urging Congress to pass the stimulus package in a matter of days.

00:25:03.920 So what they're talking about doing right now is sending $1,000 checks out to

00:25:08.300 most people. I guess the question still is who exactly gets the checks? How do you decide?

00:25:14.900 And if they take a means testing approach where they tried to be more directed in who they're

00:25:20.220 sending the checks to rather than just sending them to everybody, isn't that going to slow down

00:25:23.860 and complicate matters? And that's a problem because people need the money now. So I saw somebody

00:25:29.100 propose one solution, which is send the checks to basically everybody and then ask those who don't

00:25:36.040 need the checks to pass them along to somebody else. Of course, that might sound massively naive

00:25:43.420 because you think, well, people get the money, they're going to keep it for themselves. But I think a lot

00:25:47.320 of Americans would be more than happy to pass the buck, as it were, to someone who needs it more than

00:25:52.920 they do. I think that might, that might be the right way of doing this. Because, you know, if you leave

00:26:01.340 it up to communities and individuals to find the needier people who actually could use it more than

00:26:08.240 others, I think that's going to be more efficient. And it's going to give you access to those needier

00:26:13.860 people rather than asking the government to do it. One other point here, I've heard people argue that

00:26:19.080 this somehow proves that Andrew Yang was right all along because Andrew Yang was proposing the

00:26:26.180 universal basic income where everybody gets $1,000 a month. This is not that at all. Andrew Yang

00:26:33.880 wanted to give people $1,000 a month in perpetuity, just as a system. This would be an extraordinary

00:26:40.980 measure in a national emergency, presumably one time, or even if it happens more than once.

00:26:46.940 The point is, it's a, it's a, it's a limited scope and scale in a national emergency, which was brought

00:26:53.520 on by a pandemic. So I think it's a very different sort of thing. Now, I'm usually the last guy to

00:26:57.820 support handouts by the government. But I think in this case, in this case, I would absolutely support

00:27:06.200 it because people need money. It's really that simple. What other choice do we have? And I think

00:27:10.280 it's also relevant to note that the reason why so many people right now are not working is because

00:27:16.540 the government has told them they're not allowed to. And so it's not a choice that they made.

00:27:22.200 I think there are a great many Americans who, if they had a choice in the matter, they'd still be

00:27:26.180 going to work and taking the risk. If the government comes in, whether they're justified or not, and

00:27:30.020 says, you're not allowed to take that risk, you have to stay home, and therefore they lose a lot of

00:27:34.500 money. I think it's up to the government to compensate them. So I don't consider this. This is not,

00:27:40.600 you know, an entitlement or welfare or socialism. It's an entirely different sort of thing.

00:27:45.340 Number two, there were primaries last night. Joe Biden swept Arizona, Florida, Illinois. For all

00:27:50.280 intents and purposes, this now makes him the nominee. Not officially, but there's really no path

00:27:55.260 for Bernie Sanders. But as we learned yesterday, we know that Bernie Sanders probably would have won

00:28:01.420 all those states in a landslide if not for the voter suppression. I don't know how the votes were

00:28:05.740 suppressed, but I'm sure they were. And if we talk to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez or one of his other

00:28:11.160 surrogates, they'll probably be happy to explain it. Number three, I'm going to give you just the

00:28:15.180 headline here from Rolling Stone. It says, porn industry calls for shutdown due to coronavirus.

00:28:23.820 Lots of people sent me this article and said, it sounds like your plan is working perfectly, Matt.

00:28:30.160 And I have no comment. Number four, fortunately noted scholar and medical expert Vanessa Hudgens has

00:28:39.580 finally chimed in during this, this trying time. People don't know what to do. Vanessa Hudgens is

00:28:45.760 here, actress in, I think what, high school musical and maybe some other movies, but I'm not sure.

00:28:51.120 She's here to offer guidance and reassurance to a world in crisis. Listen.

00:28:55.420 Yeah. Till July sounds like a bunch of bulls**t. I'm sorry, but like, it's a virus. I get it. Like,

00:29:02.580 I respect it. But at the same time, like, even if everybody gets it, like, yeah, people are going to

00:29:11.420 die. It's just terrible, but like, inevitable. I don't know. Maybe I shouldn't be doing this right now.

00:29:20.160 Yeah. Like, I mean, like, like this virus. So like, it's just weird, you know, like the virus is so

00:29:27.580 like, it's just like, it's like this like thing that like, is just so weird. You know, people are

00:29:33.380 going to die. All I want to do here is remind you, I don't even, I'm not even going to respond to what

00:29:39.460 she said because who cares. But I want to remind you that the person you just listened to there was

00:29:44.800 born in 1988, two years after me. That makes her 31. She is 31 years old and talking like that.

00:29:53.020 I don't even care about what she, what she actually said. The substance of what she said,

00:29:57.000 if we could even call it substance, is not the point. I'm more focused on, she's a 31 year old

00:30:02.080 grown woman, wealthy, successful, who speaks like that. And I hate to keep beating this drum, but this

00:30:11.200 is exactly what I was talking about yesterday about voting. You think she could pass a middle

00:30:16.260 school civics exam or English exam? Would the country be a better or worse place if she was

00:30:24.380 not allowed to vote? That's the question. Number five, an aquarium in Chicago has shut down because

00:30:30.140 of the China virus. This week, they decided to let their penguins, because I figured, I guess nobody's

00:30:34.980 here. So might as well let the penguins roam free and check out the other exhibits. And they put that

00:30:39.880 video online and it went viral, as you can expect, because all penguin and kitten related videos do.

00:30:46.000 Selfish penguin bastards just enjoying their time while the rest of us deal with Armageddon.

00:30:53.100 That's all they care about. Enormously selfish creatures are penguins. People don't realize that.

00:31:00.020 You know, they're, they, I think they're, they're, they're massively overrated. Actually, on second

00:31:03.680 thought, do we even, everyone assumes they're enjoying themselves, but do we, how, how, do we know

00:31:12.340 that they are? I mean, aren't they probably just now realizing that they live in an exhibit along with

00:31:19.400 hundreds of other enslaved and imprisoned creatures? So isn't this, isn't this for them kind

00:31:24.240 of like their Truman show moment? Remember, remember at the end of Truman show, Jim Carrey learns that he's

00:31:29.940 part of a reality TV show. But in that case, uh, he got to leave and it was the heroic inspirational

00:31:38.100 moment where he finally left and chose freedom. But for these penguins, their whole world is turned

00:31:45.020 upside down. They learned that everything that they had previously believed was a lie, that they're

00:31:51.120 nothing but circus freaks in an exhibit and they have to go right back into the cage. They don't get

00:31:59.900 freedom. And you think you're doing them a favor and look at the, everyone sees the expression on

00:32:06.600 their faces and thinks that that's an expression of, of joy. But I think it might be an expression

00:32:10.200 of mental anguish. Horrifying. Uh, all right, let's move on to your daily cancellation. In fact,

00:32:18.860 as I said, this is not me canceling anybody. This is a self-imposed cancellation that I think will lead to

00:32:25.780 horrible consequences. And we'll talk about that in just a second. But, uh, you know, I hope you've

00:32:31.020 had a chance to see some of the, some of the new show we launched this week. It's called all access

00:32:35.400 live over at dailywire.com. Ben Shapiro and Jeremy Boren kicked off Monday evening. And then he and

00:32:41.080 Michael Knowles followed up, uh, uh, last night. We're going to be doing an episode the rest of this

00:32:46.700 week, every night at 8 PM Eastern. And the deal is, if you haven't seen it, all access live is, is kind

00:32:52.200 of unique programming at the daily wire because usually our podcasts are highly produced on

00:32:57.720 stunning, beautiful sets like the one you see here. Just a lot of work went into this and that

00:33:03.460 bookshelf behind me, you have no idea. In fact, that's a, those are, that's camera tricks. That's

00:33:08.220 CGI. That's how nice it is. Um, also because I don't really read books. Those are all fake,

00:33:14.980 but, uh, that's because the focus, you know, with, with this show is going to be a lot more casual,

00:33:20.440 a lot more relaxed. Uh, the focus isn't on production as it is on connecting with you

00:33:25.140 guys, the audience, the show is actually intended for our all access members, but in order to help

00:33:29.660 us all feel a little bit less lonely during this time, we have accelerated the launch and open it

00:33:33.400 up to all of our daily wire members for the time being. So please let us know if you like the show

00:33:38.680 and, uh, what would you, what would you, what you would like to see more or less of with the show.

00:33:43.320 And in general, we're going to help you get through this and, uh, we're all going to be stronger as a

00:33:47.360 nation and as a community when we do. So if you're around at 8 PM Eastern, 5 PM Pacific tonight,

00:33:52.300 you can join us at, uh, all access for the all access live show over at dailywire.com to watch

00:33:58.040 the live stream and also join the chat, because as I said, this is a very, uh, interactive sort of

00:34:02.920 thing. That's the whole point that you can take part in the discussion. It's not just a one-sided

00:34:06.820 where we're pontificating in your face. Okay. Now to the daily cancellation. Uh, the Philadelphia

00:34:12.500 police department has canceled itself reading now from the Fox 29 website. They're the local,

00:34:18.020 affiliate there in the city. It says in response to the COVID-19 outbreak, Philadelphia police

00:34:23.480 officers have been instructed to stop making arrests for certain nonviolent crimes. The

00:34:29.280 department said individuals who would normally be arrested and processed at a detect at a detective

00:34:33.260 division will be temporarily detained to confirm identification and complete necessary paperwork.

00:34:39.060 The individual will then be arrested on a warrant at a later date, which means in between they're

00:34:43.400 going to be released back into the public. Fox 29's Steve Keeley reports the nonviolent crimes

00:34:48.580 include the following all narcotics offenses, theft from persons, retail theft, theft from auto,

00:34:56.080 burglary, vandalism, bench warrants, stolen auto, economic crimes, and prostitution. That's 10

00:35:01.460 categories right there. I just counted them. Um, fraternal order of police lodge. Number five,

00:35:06.620 president John McNesby says we are supportive of commissioner outlaws, uh, commissioner outlaw.

00:35:13.260 Is that really his name? Okay. We'll just go with it. Of a commissioner outlaws directive on making

00:35:20.440 arrests during the coronavirus crisis. The directive was released to keep officers safe during the public

00:35:24.860 health crisis. Meanwhile, violent offenders will be arrested and processed with the guidance of a

00:35:28.380 police supervisor. Okay. So we have two issues here. Number one, they've decided not to prosecute

00:35:35.740 these crimes for the time being. Number two, they announced it to the public, which even if the

00:35:43.160 first can be justified, which I think it almost certainly cannot be. I mean, I would love to hear

00:35:49.360 the argument for it, but even if you could, why do you need to tell people this? This is nothing less

00:35:54.460 than a written invitation telling you to go rob from, from, from people. And I would say, you know,

00:36:00.100 I'll defer maybe to any police officers watching and understands more what these crimes entail. But

00:36:05.480 theft from a person seems like that could be a violent crime or it could get very close to

00:36:11.680 violence. Now, uh, stolen auto. I mean, yeah, okay. There might not be violence involved. So I assume

00:36:20.160 that doesn't include a carjacking, but even so, these are actually serious crimes. Theft is a serious

00:36:26.420 crime. It's not, it's not like they're saying for the time being, we're not going to arrest 16 year

00:36:31.740 olds for smoke and weed. These are serious crimes that they have announced. They're not going to

00:36:37.120 arrest you for it. And on top of that, this is during a time when the economy is taking a massive

00:36:45.400 hit. People are losing their jobs. People are going to start getting desperate. And if you live in that

00:36:52.220 city, you've just been told that you're not going to be arrested, at least for the time being,

00:36:57.700 if you go and steal from somebody. Hey, this is a, this is just pulling a pin from the grenade and

00:37:06.340 tossing it into a crowd. That's what this is. It's unbelievable. Uh, we'll talk more about that

00:37:11.980 maybe tomorrow. Let's go to emails. Um, this first is from Dan says, hello, sir. I really enjoyed your

00:37:19.660 show today. I wanted to share my opinion with you. I work as a psychiatric nurse practitioner.

00:37:23.400 This is a very similar job to that of a psychiatrist. My job is to diagnose and treat

00:37:27.920 mental health conditions, including attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. I don't work

00:37:32.240 with kids and I'm not really comfortable doing so, but it struck me that your opinion about treating

00:37:35.480 somebody, someone into something that, um, that they should be rather than what they are was very

00:37:41.800 prescient. I've never considered this as a philosophical question, but I think you're a little

00:37:46.120 bit mistaken here. You seem to be talking about children that have more benign conditions or lesser

00:37:50.440 forms of ADHD and other mental health disorders. What most people don't see. And what I think you

00:37:55.060 have little experience in is the severe forms of these disorders that can't, um, of, uh, that

00:38:01.680 sometimes require hospitalization. There really are kids out there that can't stop hurting themselves

00:38:05.340 without intervention. There really are children out there who have command, uh, hallucinations, uh,

00:38:11.280 that make them want to kill their parents. If they stopped taking anti-psychotic meds, there really

00:38:15.680 are kids out there who simply cannot sit still and function in this world without stimulant medication.

00:38:20.660 We can have a discussion about whether medications are appropriate for these kids, but when things

00:38:24.860 get really difficult, that discussion needs to be put on hold and treatment needs to begin

00:38:28.740 immediately. Just something to consider when talking about these disorders. Well, Dan, I certainly never

00:38:34.720 said that there is never a circumstance where a child should be on anti-psychotic medication.

00:38:40.580 That's not my view. Um, I didn't say that it's impossible for a child to get a mental, uh,

00:38:46.860 health disorder, mental illness. When you're talking about hallucinations, you're talking about

00:38:50.800 a kid who wants to kill his parents, that sort of thing. That to me is clearly a mental health

00:38:56.220 condition, but that's not ADHD. And if you tell me that in extreme cases that can be part of ADHD,

00:39:04.320 well, I would say again, but we probably shouldn't be calling that ADHD in that case. That sounds like

00:39:08.860 something completely different. There's just no, no question that the vast majority of kids who are

00:39:14.420 diagnosed with ADHD are not killing their parents or, or threatening to, and are not having

00:39:18.700 hallucinations. They just can't sit still. And you included, you included that. You said there

00:39:25.020 are kids that really can't sit still. Well, but you included that along and lumped it in with

00:39:30.760 seemingly things like hallucinations and violent, uh, you know, wanting to kill the parents. And that's

00:39:36.100 what I just, I don't think it's below. It's, I don't think it's anywhere in the same ballpark.

00:39:39.820 A kid who really can't sit still. That's my point, especially with young boys.

00:39:45.480 I actually do have experience with this. The first two things you mentioned, you're right. I have no

00:39:49.100 experience there, but with, with a, with a young boy who really cannot sit still, I have experience

00:39:56.780 with that. That's my son. He's six years old. That's him. That's also me, by the way. Uh, even now I'm,

00:40:03.300 that was me when I was a kid. That's even me now in a, in a lot of ways, but yeah, I'm dealing with

00:40:08.140 that right now with my son. Um, but to me, he, he seems very much like most of his friends. It

00:40:15.480 doesn't seem that at, yeah, it's, it's difficult. It's challenging. It could be very hard to get him

00:40:20.780 to focus on things. Uh, it could be overwhelming at times. I like that he has so much energy, but

00:40:26.640 there are times when you want to say, okay, kid, just please calm down, please, please. Right. That,

00:40:31.640 that have, I have that feeling a lot. In fact, so I understand, I understand the challenges, but

00:40:36.400 I still say it's pretty normal. And even if it's not, who am I to say that my son isn't supposed

00:40:45.620 to be like that? What is really the problem with it? Other than it's annoying to me and it makes it

00:40:51.240 difficult for him to sit in a classroom for eight hours a day. Well, the fact that it's a note that

00:40:55.100 it can be annoying to the parents is kind of irrelevant. Uh, you just have to deal with it as

00:40:59.860 a parent. And the fact that it makes it difficult for him to sit in a classroom for eight hours a day,

00:41:03.520 well, that might mean that he shouldn't be in a classroom for eight hours a day. That

00:41:06.420 might mean that that form of education isn't for him. And so you have to make, and that's why we

00:41:10.260 don't, it's one of the reasons why we don't have our kids in the public school system. Uh, so I think

00:41:14.440 you have to make a decision about, you know, are, are you going to try to force your kid to conform

00:41:22.420 with that system? Or are you going to try to educate him in a way that conforms more to his needs

00:41:30.000 and to who he is? I think the latter approach is better. I understand that not everyone can do it,

00:41:35.960 but I do think it's better. And I, I, I just don't think there could ever be a scenario

00:41:45.680 where it's okay to give someone an anti-psychotic medicine just so they can pay attention in school.

00:41:52.800 If they're having hallucinations, all these things, then yeah. But if that's the only issue,

00:41:57.460 I don't care how extreme it is. I don't think it's the right move. Uh, let's go finally quickly

00:42:04.140 to Steve who says, Matt, I was really disappointed in your show yesterday. You seem not to care about

00:42:09.240 the financial hardship. So many are going through stay and stay in quarantine forever in quotes.

00:42:14.140 Really? Yeah. It might be easy for you because you haven't felt the effect, but we can't all become

00:42:19.020 farmers overnight. It seems like you're completely dismissing, uh, and unconcerned about what people

00:42:24.360 are going through. It's all good. It's all good to you and your comfortable life. That's what I took

00:42:29.440 away from your show. That's what you took away from it, Steve. Did you listen to what I was saying

00:42:35.020 or did you just base that on the title of the episode? Obviously I don't think we should literally

00:42:42.160 stay in quarantine forever. Yes, that was the title of the episode. It's just a snappy little title

00:42:47.020 supposed to encourage you to listen. Very often I use titles that are not entirely literal. That's

00:42:52.720 kind of common for headlines and titles, especially for things that are opinion-based.

00:42:57.500 The idea is listen to what I have to say. Now, if you don't want to listen, that's perfectly fine.

00:43:03.740 But then why, why are you reacting to the title? Just ignore the title in that case.

00:43:09.880 Um, if you did actually listen, then you would know that I fully understand and appreciate the

00:43:14.320 financial hardship. I, I, I'm not going to go into details about it, but my family actually has felt it

00:43:19.120 already. Uh, we have lost, are looking to lose a significant amount of money. In fact, already from

00:43:26.180 this. And, uh, now I don't have it nearly as bad as a lot of other people do. So that's, that's not

00:43:30.400 my point. Okay. And if I get that check from the government, I will pass it along because we, we

00:43:35.020 don't, we don't have it as bad as that or anywhere, anywhere close to it. But, um, you know, I've got,

00:43:39.700 I have four kids and a wife and I'm the primary bread winner in the family. And so, yeah, it's, I am

00:43:45.420 feeling it. I am, I'm feeling it in a not insignificant way. Right. Um, so you're wrong

00:43:51.520 about that. That's an assumption you made that you're wrong about my point yesterday. And, and

00:43:56.220 in general, I'm very sympathetic to the economic hardship angle of it. And I'm very worried about

00:44:01.900 how bad this could get the idea of us going through a great depression. Of course, I'm worried

00:44:05.860 about that. Who wouldn't be? I'm not, I'm not, I'm not psychotic. And let me tell you something.

00:44:10.140 If we go through something that bad, it's going to touch almost everybody, unless you're

00:44:15.620 extremely wealthy, which I am not. My point yesterday, and I said this explicitly, and

00:44:22.540 I don't know what else I can do, but make my point explicit and just tell you what I'm

00:44:26.720 saying. And if you refuse to listen to that, there's nothing else I can do. I can't force

00:44:30.240 you to listen to it. So I said explicitly, explicitly that I think this crisis has helped to reveal

00:44:36.480 some serious structural flaws in the way that we have set up society and our economy.

00:44:41.160 I think it would be a good move to slowly, gradually over a long period of time, move

00:44:47.820 us towards a society where people are more self-sufficient and less dependent and more

00:44:51.940 family oriented, a society in the future where it would not be cataclysmic if people have

00:44:56.660 to stay in their homes for a week or two. Now I said multiple times, this would have to

00:45:01.140 be a gradual change. You can't do it overnight. If you do it overnight, like tap, like it's

00:45:04.800 happening right now, very bad things happen. And I don't like that these bad things are

00:45:11.060 happening. I'm worried about them. So when I say stay quarantined forever, what I mean

00:45:15.580 is, as I explained very clearly, that we should try to move gradually to a place as a society

00:45:22.000 where many of the kinds of things that we do in quarantine, like spend more time with our

00:45:26.980 family, cook meals at home, homeschool the kids, are more normal and common parts of everyday

00:45:31.920 life. And my claim is that if we do that and we have a society like that, people are going to be

00:45:38.920 happier, more fulfilled. It's a better way to live. And we're going to be far more prepared for

00:45:43.620 things like this because our economy and society is not nearly as dependent on people being dependent

00:45:50.680 and therefore needing to buy everything, you know, needing to fill all of their necessities in

00:45:56.140 the marketplace by buying things because they can fend for themselves a little bit more.

00:45:58.920 That's my point. But this dream scenario that I'm painting, this is generations down the line.

00:46:06.800 If we even moved in that direction as a society, it's not something I would see come to fruition.

00:46:11.540 Probably my kids wouldn't see it either. We're talking about many years down the line.

00:46:14.860 What I'm saying is maybe we should start moving there. In the meantime, though, in the short term,

00:46:22.300 there's a very serious economic problem here. And that's why I just said, I think to begin with,

00:46:29.640 the idea of a stimulus checks, not to corporations, but to individual people who are suffering is a good

00:46:36.060 idea. And then we need to start thinking about other things that can be done as well. And I do think

00:46:42.400 that ultimately, you know, there are some things the government can do and should do. But ultimately,

00:46:47.500 this is going to be an issue of communities helping each other. And we have to be willing

00:46:51.160 to do that. If we're not going to do that, then there's been it's it's it's there's really no

00:46:56.180 limit to how bad it can get. But I think we will. You know, that's a I can be cynical, but I still

00:47:02.580 believe as Americans, we do have a sense of community. And when push comes to shove, we tend to band

00:47:08.220 together, I think, at least on maybe not on Twitter. But and maybe not in Washington, but in

00:47:14.120 communities anyway. So I hope that happens here. All right. We'll leave that at that. And I hope

00:47:18.780 you guys have a great day. Stay safe. Godspeed. If you enjoyed this episode, don't forget to

00:47:25.020 subscribe. And if you want to help spread the word, please give us a five star review. Tell your

00:47:29.260 friends to subscribe as well. We're available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, wherever you listen to

00:47:33.920 podcasts. We're there. Also, be sure to check out the other Daily Wire podcasts, including the Ben

00:47:37.580 Shapiro show, Michael Knowles show and the Andrew Klavan show. Thanks for listening. The Matt

00:47:41.960 Wall show is produced by Sean Hampton, executive producer Jeremy Boring, supervising producer

00:47:47.180 Mathis Glover, supervising producer Robert Sterling, technical producer Austin Stevens, editor Danny

00:47:53.260 D'Amico, audio mixer Robin Fenderson. The Matt Wall show is a Daily Wire production, copyright Daily Wire

00:47:59.540 2020. As the U.S. death toll from the Wu flu hits 100, some experts are wondering whether grinding the

00:48:06.240 global economy to a halt might have been something of an overreaction. We examine the scientific data

00:48:12.280 and the philosophical reasons why the left never lets a crisis go to waste. Then President Trump

00:48:18.060 officially secures the Republican nomination for president. And Joe Biden is set to sail to his

00:48:23.220 own party's nomination if he can only remember who and where he is. All that and more. Check it out

00:48:28.160 on the Michael Knowles show.

The Matt Walsh Show - March 18, 2020

Ep. 447 - The Ethical Dilemma Of The China Virus Response

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