Ep. 462 - Rules For Thee, Not For Me
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Summary
Some of the mayors in major cities that are currently under lockdown have decided that they re allowed to break their own rules because apparently, as Orwell wrote famously, some animals are more equal than others. Also, a dad was arrested in front of his 6-year-old daughter in an empty park because they were playing t-ball, which is against the law now. And today we cancel the media outlets that have become propaganda arms for the Chinese government.
Transcript
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Today on the Matt Wall Show, some of the mayors in major cities that are currently under lockdown
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have decided that they're allowed to break their own rules because apparently, as Orwell wrote
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famously, some animals are more equal than others. So we'll talk about that. Also, five headlines,
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including a dad being arrested in front of his six-year-old daughter in an empty park in Colorado
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because they were playing t-ball, which is against the law now. So that will also be discussed.
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And today we cancel the media outlets, all of them that have decided to become propaganda arms
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for the Chinese government. And it's only getting worse, and they're being more and more blatant
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about it. So the latest example of this is really blood curdling. So all of that today on the way.
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where life meets legal. Also, before we get into the meat of things here, I also wanted to mention
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we are, a programming note, we're unveiling a new segment on the show that I'm pretty excited about.
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Because you know that, as you know, I'm a theocratic fascist dictator, and my word is gospel.
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Everything I say goes. My word is infallible, you know, and I must be obeyed, always, upon penalty
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of death. So that makes me, you know, sort of a trusted advisor and someone whose advice you can
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trust, and in fact, must trust. You have no choice. So the new segment, eventually you're
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going to have the ability to actually call in, which will be pretty exciting. You can call into
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the show and you can solicit my advice that way. But for now, if you want to, you can send a video.
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You can send it to mattwalshshow at gmail.com. If you have any kind of question, anything at all,
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you need guidance, you need advice, you have a dispute, a dilemma, really anything at all,
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just record a video, make it short. Don't go babbling forever like I do. Maybe just under 30
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seconds. You can send it to mattwalshshow at gmail.com. And then maybe I'll play your video on
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the show and impart my infallible decree upon your dilemma. Okay. It will perhaps not surprise you to
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learn that our fearless leaders in government who have shut down nearly every aspect of our daily
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lives are not terribly interested in following their own orders. Mayor Bill de Blasio, just as one
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example, you may recall that he, a couple of weeks ago, was working out still at a gym. He was going
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to a gym to work out. Everyone else was told to stay inside. And if you want to work out, you know,
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you could do crunches or pushups or something, but no, he had to go work out in a gym. And then
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this week, it turns out after getting criticism for that, Mayor de Blasio stopped going to the gym,
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but he has decided to replace the gym with instead going to walk in a park each day.
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And the problem there is that the park is 11 miles from his house. Now, why can't he walk
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around his house around where he actually lives? Or I'm sure there's a park closer to his house
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that he could work or a treadmill. I'm sure he has a treadmill, but no, he says that, uh, he was asked
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about this and he said that he needs to go to this particular park and walk because it helps him be
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effective. Now I'm almost tempted to say that if this is his version of effective, then he should
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probably keep doing the walks because I'd hate to see him ineffective. If this is what he looks like
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effective, then can you only imagine, can you imagine how downright catastrophic his ineffective
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must be? But of course, whether he needs it, quote unquote, or not, um, is irrelevant because everybody
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else is told not to drive those kinds of distances for non-essential reasons. In most of the states and
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cities that are locked down, uh, you can't drive 11 miles to go to a park. If they find out you're
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doing that, you're going to be in trouble. And then we get to the mayor of Chicago. She has, like
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most other mayors around the country, put her city on lockdown as well, of course, to close non-essential
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businesses, quote unquote, non-essential businesses. She's even told her residents how long they're allowed
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to spend outside and for what reasons they're permitted to be outside. So she has said that,
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uh, that, you know, be outside is not for five K's. So if you're running five K five kilometers,
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it's not for that. So she, she's telling her residents what the outside is for outdoors is for
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a certain purpose. And she'll tell you what that purpose is. This is how long you're permitted to walk
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and no longer. Now, as part of this shutdown, obviously hair salons are closed and residents
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are forbidden from getting a professional haircut. And if you are a professional hairstylist or a
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barber or something, you're forbidden, forbidden from, from operating your business. But guess what
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mayor Lightfoot did? That's right. She went and got her haircut this weekend and here she is,
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uh, justifying that decision. Listen, I'm the public face of the city. I'm on national media
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and I'm out in the public eye and you know, I'm, I'm, I'm a person who I take my personal hygiene
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very seriously. As I said, I felt like I needed to, um, have a haircut. I'm not able to do that
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myself. And so I got a haircut. Um, you want to talk more about that? You really got to love that
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note of indignation at the end there where she says, you want, you want to keep talking about
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this? You really want it? You want to talk about this? Really? This is what you want to talk about?
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You're worried about my haircuts. So she's trying to get indignant about it. Meanwhile,
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uh, if you were caught at a barbershop getting a haircut in Chicago, you could be arrested and the,
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and the person cutting your hair could be arrested. So that's what happens if you're,
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if you get your haircut, but if she gets her haircut, she doesn't even want to talk about it.
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It's such a silly thing to even talk about. Why are we talking about this? Yeah, I've only shut
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down every hair salon in the, in the city forcibly. And if any of them are caught open,
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uh, then I'm going to send the Calvary out and there's going to be a rest made, but no,
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don't ask me about that. Why? This is, this is silly. By the way, here's a, here's a PSA she did
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a couple of weeks ago, telling people all the things that they don't need to do. And there's one
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thing in particular that she mentions that I think is, is, is, is of note now. Uh, listen to this.
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The data shows that social distancing works. Please pay attention, stay home, save lives.
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Here's what's up. If I make this shot, you got to stay home.
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Debbie, getting your roots done is not essential. Your dog doesn't need to see its friends. You can
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work on your jump shot inside. Yeah. Just a cute little stylish, relatable PSA of, of the, the,
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the mayor telling you all the things you'll be arrested if you do, but it's okay because you
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see the thing where she took the, the, the, with the basketball hoop. Oh, that was funny. That was
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cute. That was nice. It makes it okay. Everything that she's saying is okay. Then we wouldn't want to
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question it, but she does say getting your roots done is not essential. So getting your roots done is
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not essential, but getting your haircut for a TV appearance is, that doesn't make a lot of sense.
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But of course the answer is that her haircut is essential because she's important.
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Yours is not essential because you're a peon. In fact, listen to the reasoning she gave. She said,
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I'm someone who takes hygiene very seriously. Think about that justification. Well, I take hygiene
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very seriously. Okay. And the rest of us don't. Are you saying that all the rest of the people in
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Chicago don't take hygiene seriously? Now I've been to Chicago and I can say that some of them
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clearly don't, but, uh, but, but still, what, what, what is the insinuation here? That she takes
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hygiene seriously, but the unwashed masses don't. So she's saying you guys can all be dirty and unkempt
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because you're the peasants. I, on the other hand, am on television, national television,
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for God's sake. What do you want me to do? I would tend to think that actually, uh, appearing on TV
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as the mayor with uncut hair would be a great example to set. The fact that she's on TV, I would
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say is all the more reason not to get your haircut so that you can show all the, all the good people of
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your town that you are following your own rules. So we think what's a, what, what, what's if you're
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in Chicago and you're watching TV and you see the mayor on TV, what is more important for you to see
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for you to see her with a freshly cut hair or for you to see that she's following her own rules?
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What is better leadership? What's something as a, as a citizen that you would more like to see? I
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think probably you want to see the mayor following her own rules, but here's the really frustrating
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thing that the excuses that are given by these mayors for what they're doing, the excuses are
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actually completely legitimate in a vacuum. I mean, uh, without context, they're legit. De Blasio says
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he wants, he likes to go to a park and walk and it's something he needs to do, uh, for his physical
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and psychological health. And it helps him be effective and never mind the fact that he's not
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effective, but, but still, uh, and I get that. The mayor of Chicago says, look, I need a haircut.
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Um, I like to take care of my appearance. I'm in the public eye and I don't want to, I don't want
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to come off like a slob. And, and she also, she stipulated that the hairstylist was wearing a mask
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again in a vacuum. That reasoning is perfectly coherent and perfectly understandable.
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Yeah. Okay. I understand. Yeah, I get that. The problem though, is that the reasoning only applies
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to them and nobody else. That's, that's the issue because that reasoning makes a lot of sense for
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them. It would also make a lot of sense for everybody else. The way they're operating in their
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personal lives is exactly what the policy should be. So there's the frustration.
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Yes, that's exactly it. There's no reason why you can't go 11 miles and walk around a park.
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There's no reason why de Blasio can't do it. There's no reason why anybody else can't do it.
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And yeah, you know what? If you want to get your haircut and, uh, you're, you're both practicing
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good hygiene, you're washing your hands, the hairstylist washes her hands and she's wearing a
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mask. Maybe you wear a mask too. Um, uh, it's, it's probably okay. What, what, what are the chances?
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What are the, what are the chances of, uh, of the virus being passed? I asked, I asked this exact
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question before. What are the chances of the virus being passed between two people? Let's say a barber
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and a guy getting his haircut. If both of them wearing masks, both of them wash their hands and both
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are not showing symptoms. And I know that you can still pass the virus when you're not showing
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symptoms, but that is still something that lowers the probability, right? So if you've got all those
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things working in your favor, what's the chance that you're still going to pass the virus? It's not
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non-existent, but I would think it's pretty negligible. And the mayor of Chicago must think
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that it's negligible. Otherwise she wouldn't have done it. So this is the point that a lot of us have
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been making the way, the way that these people are operating. That's exactly what the rest of us
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should be able to do. That's the point. Just taking reasonable precautions. But otherwise,
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if you're asymptomatic and if you don't have preexisting conditions, and if you're not elderly,
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go about your life while taking those precautions that may include even something like wearing a mask.
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That's what these people are doing. Why can't we?
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That would be reasonable. And you can keep the economy going.
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Now, all this stuff we hear from the mayor of Chicago, these other mayors about stay home and
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save lives. And they're saying that if you go out and do something like get a haircut,
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that you're putting people's lives at risk. You may be directly responsible for killing people.
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Well, then she goes and gets her haircut. So either she's okay with killing people,
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either she really believes that you might kill someone by getting your haircut,
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and yet she did it anyway. So she's a sociopath, in which case she's not fit for office. Or she
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doesn't really believe that. And she knows that, look, if you're taking precautions, you're not
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a serial killer because you leave your house. I'm thinking it's probably the latter.
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In which case, a lot of the things that she's saying, she doesn't really believe,
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These are the supposedly, they believe, the noble lies, quote unquote noble,
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that they're telling the public for our own good.
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It's just like the thing with the mask. The CDC and who, and even the surgeon general
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told us weeks ago that masks are ineffective. And that was a lie. The only reason they said it was
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for our own good, because they knew that we're stupid. And if they tell us that masks are effective,
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we're going to run out and buy masks. And there's not going to be any available
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for medical professionals. Just a straight up lie, but for our own good.
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How many other lies are they telling us for our own good?
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The lie that if you drive too far and go walk around at a park, or if you're, you know,
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if you're going about your daily life, but wearing a mask, you're putting lives at risk or whatever.
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Now, if you don't think that what we're seeing here is a power trip and more about control
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than about safety and about saving lives, and I don't know what could convince you at this point.
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That is exceedingly clear. Yet, I still talk to people all the time who are skeptical of that.
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You tell them that these politicians and bureaucrats are on a power trip,
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and they'll say, no, no, no, they're just, they're trying to help us. These are good people.
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They're saving our lives. We should be grateful to them.
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I can't imagine being that ignorant and dense and gullible.
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But it's, it's, of course, that's going to happen, right? Of course, it's going to be a power trip.
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When you give people this kind of control and power, the majority of people will go insane with it.
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Think about the amount of power these mayors have right now over every aspect of your life.
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Down to telling you how long you're allowed to be outside when you exit your home.
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That's an incredible amount of power. And unless you are a person of, of, of great integrity and
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humility, it's going to go to your head and you're going to become a petty tyrant like these people
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have. And we know that Mayor Lightfoot and Mayor de Blasio and a lot of the other ones,
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they certainly are not people of great integrity and humility. That much is clear.
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All right, let's move on to headlines. At the White House press briefing yesterday,
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Dr. Birx made an interesting admission. I thought this was really worth paying attention to. Listen to
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this. So I think in this country, we've taken a very liberal approach to mortality. And I think
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the reporting here has been pretty straightforward over the last five to six weeks. Prior to that,
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when there wasn't testing in January and February, that's a very different situation and unknown.
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There are other countries that if you had a pre-existing condition, and let's say the virus
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called you to go to the ICU and then have a heart or kidney problem, some countries are recording that
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as a heart issue or a kidney issue and not a COVID-19 death. Right now, we're still recording it. And we'll,
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I mean, the great thing about having forms that come in and a form that has the ability to market
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as COVID-19 infection, the intent is right now that those, if someone dies with COVID-19, we are
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counting that as a COVID-19 death. A liberal approach to mortality. Okay. So she says, and I want to get
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the exact quote, right? She says, if someone dies with COVID-19, we are counting that as a COVID-19
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death. The problem with that should be obvious. That's her exact quote. That's what she said.
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The problem is that just because someone has a virus and then dies doesn't mean that they died of the
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virus. And that's just like with anything else. If somebody dies and it turns out they had pancreatic
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cancer, doesn't necessarily mean they died of the cancer. They could have died of something else.
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They could have died of the cancer, but doesn't mean they did automatically.
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And considering that so many of the COVID-19 deaths, the vast majority of fact are people
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with preexisting conditions. You have to wonder how many of them died from the virus as opposed to
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merely with the virus. And what she's telling us plain as day is that they're not making a distinction
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in this country. Anyway, we're not making a distinction between dying with the virus and
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dying from the virus, even though there is a very, very clear and important distinction.
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Number two, a father in Colorado was playing t-ball with his daughter in a park and wound up getting
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handcuffed and arrested for it. Supposedly, he was violating social distancing. Despite
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being with his own family in apparently an empty park, playing t-ball, they were arrested. So this
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is where we are now. A man being cuffed in front of a six-year-old daughter, put in a squad car.
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Here's the report done by Fox 31 in Denver. Watch.
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Matt Mooney says his family just wanted some fresh air. So they went to an open space to play some
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t-ball, never guessing it would land him in the back of a police cruiser. Now he wants a public
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apology. Brighton police are apparently arresting a dad for throwing a ball to his daughter.
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It was a former city council member who could not believe what he was recording.
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In a park of about, I don't know, 30, 40 acres. But apparently that is not allowed by Brighton.
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Well, if you don't give us your information, we're going to put you in handcuffs in front
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of your six-year-old daughter. Matt Mooney is the 33-year-old dad who assured his daughter
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they were doing nothing wrong when police approached and told them they were violating the state's
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social distancing guideline. She's like, Daddy, I don't want you to get arrested. And, you know,
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at this point, I'm thinking, there's no way they're going to arrest me. You know, there's no way.
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This is insane. And, you know, so I'm telling her, I'm like, don't worry, Daddy's not going to get
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arrested. You know, I've done nothing wrong. You know, don't worry about it. And then they arrest me.
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The sign at Donaldson Park says closed. But in smaller print says in groups of no more than
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four persons, parks remain open for walking, hiking, biking, running, and similar activities.
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Matt was just there with his wife and six-year-old. He says it was the officers
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who were violating social distancing guidelines.
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During this whole contact, you know, none of the officers had masks on. None of them had
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gloves on. You know, and they're in my face, handcuffing me. They're touching me.
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Now, first of all, this isn't really the most important point here, but what the hell kind
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of camera was he recording on? What, how do you even get footage like that these days?
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And was he jumping around on a trampoline while he was recording it?
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It was just the grainiest and jumpiest footage of something I've seen in a long time.
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It looked like battlefield footage from, from like World War I or something.
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Dude, dude's out there with a, with a video camera from 1917.
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1917. I guess he got it from the same store that all the people who, uh, have spotted Bigfoot
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get their, get their cameras. Um, but anyway, that's not the point. Uh, the, the excuse you'll
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hear is that the guy was arrested, uh, not because he was playing T-ball in a park, but because he,
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which, which it even said there in the, in the package that that's, you're allowed to do that.
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Even by the draconian laws that they've put in place there in Colorado, you're still allowed
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to go to a park as long as you don't have more than four people and you're doing some approved
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activity, which it would seem that, you know, a guy going with his daughter. And I think it was
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the mom was there playing T-ball would be a fine activity. So he wasn't actually arrested for that.
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He was arrested because he wouldn't show his ID. A cop came up to him and asked for his ID and he
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wouldn't provide his ID. But why should he have to give his ID when he's in a park playing with his
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daughter? Why would a cop even ask for it? What does your ID have to do with anything? Do you need
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a license to play in a park with your daughter? What are you asking for the license in the first
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place? And in America, it's supposed to be that a cop needs to have a reason to ask you for something
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like that. I mean, what is it? Basically it's now a cop is coming up and demanding to see
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your papers. That's essentially what this is. Number three, here's the headline from the New
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York Times. It says environmentalists are using these strange times to make a point.
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Pollution is not something that can't be reversed. We've just reversed it. And I bring this to your
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attention again, only as further support for the point that I was making a couple of weeks ago and
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that many people have made. That this, what we're seeing now is setting a precedent that the left is
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absolutely going to use. And they are advertising the fact that they're going to use it.
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And so here they're saying, look, we can stop pollution. Of course, all you have to do to cut back
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on pollution is just to grind the global economy to a halt and send millions of people plunging into
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destitution, but it can be done apparently. So look out for the next democratic administration.
00:24:17.600
Number four, the White House is now saying that it would like to start reopening the economy
00:24:21.100
in four to eight weeks is what they're saying. Now it's, of course, there's a lot of vagueness as
00:24:27.180
usual, and it's indicated that it could be earlier than that. It could be later than that. Who knows?
00:24:33.940
But they're shooting for four to eight weeks. Of course, the problem is four to eight weeks.
00:24:39.660
If you try to reopen the economy in four to eight weeks, there's not going to be an economy to reopen.
00:24:45.500
That is much too far in the future. That is way too long. It's already been too long.
00:24:51.980
And this vagueness, again, this vagueness, the ambiguity is a big part of the problem.
00:25:02.960
It's, you just, you can't do this. You can't put people's lives on hold indefinitely and not tell
00:25:09.380
them when it's going to be over. Businesses need to plan ahead if they have any chance of surviving.
00:25:16.880
Families need to be able to plan ahead and budget. And they need to know, if you've got a family without
00:25:21.400
an income right now, they need to know, how long am I going to be without an income? I might have
00:25:25.400
some savings, but I got to know how I'm rationing this thing out. Number five, legendary songwriter
00:25:31.360
John Prine died at the age of 73 from, we're told, according to reports, complications related to
00:25:37.120
coronavirus. This one I'm pretty broken up about, personally. John Prine has been one of my favorite
00:25:44.320
artists, just a brilliant songwriter. He has this, he had this incredible ability to tell stories
00:25:50.380
through song. But what was unique about John Prine, and there's a startling number of people
00:25:58.020
I discovered last night, and I was talking about this online, startling number of people who've
00:26:02.260
never heard of John Prine. I don't know how you, but if that's the case, go look him up.
00:26:07.440
He tells, he's a great storyteller through song, but what was unique is that he would tell other
00:26:12.720
people's stories, much of the time. Music today often rears much more towards the self-referential,
00:26:20.040
where the artist is constantly talking about himself, which there's not anything wrong with
00:26:25.620
that necessarily, but I think most of John Prine's greatest songs were about other people.
00:26:30.440
So he was, I suppose, America's most empathetic songwriter, you might say. Angel from Montgomery,
00:26:37.340
probably his most well-known song, beautiful song. It's a song about an aging woman in a
00:26:41.160
loveless marriage. He wrote that, despite not being a woman himself, and he wrote that as a
00:26:45.380
young man. Hello in There is a song about the elderly, another beautiful song, and about the
00:26:51.940
loneliness of aging, but he wrote that when he was in, I think, his 20s. A song called Sam Stone,
00:26:57.800
another great song. John Prine's song, a song about a drug-addicted veteran. So just songs with depth and
00:27:03.980
meaning, very lyrical. And I would put John Prine probably above Bob Dylan as a personal preference.
00:27:13.740
Certainly, I would say John Prine was writing great songs for longer than Bob Dylan has,
00:27:21.140
again, in my opinion. Number six, a bonus story, just to lighten things up a little bit. Some,
00:27:26.780
just to give us something to point and laugh at, because it's been pretty heavy up until now. So some
00:27:30.040
Democrats in Congress have been trying to set a good example, walking around in masks. Okay,
00:27:36.360
good for them. The only problem is that, well, look at these pictures here. We've got Chuck Schumer
00:27:41.780
and Sheila Jackson Lee wearing masks. What's the problem here with the way they're wearing them?
00:27:48.320
There seems to be a conceptual problem. They seem to be having an issue with the very concept of the
00:27:53.100
mask. Covering... Sorry, I missed that. Could you say it again, please? Why is Siri talking to me?
00:28:01.740
Hold on. What do you want, Siri? Interesting question. Siri, what do you want? Why are you talking to me?
00:28:12.420
Are we all going to die, Siri? Siri? Siri! Okay. That was creepy. They're listening.
00:28:22.280
She's listening. She's listening to every word I say. Anyway, we're worried. Okay, so yeah,
00:28:28.600
they don't know how to wear masks. They're leaving the nose uncovered, but the mouth... It's kind of
00:28:33.320
like a football player wearing a face mask, but no helmet. Kind of defeats the purpose. Let's go to
00:28:41.220
your daily cancellation. This will be a quick one. People's Daily is a propaganda outfit for the
00:28:46.180
Chinese government, and it poses as a news outlet, of course, as all propaganda outfits do.
00:28:52.280
Yesterday, it posted a video of... I think this video deserves to be mentioned in the dictionary
00:29:02.420
under tone deaf, because look at this screenshot. They've deleted it, apparently. I'm just discovering.
00:29:09.880
So they took it down, but here's a screenshot. It says, have a taste of Wuhan.
00:29:16.220
Let these mouth-watering specialties in Wuhan satisfy your stomach. A taste of Wuhan. Mouth-watering
00:29:24.760
specials. Yes, yes, we've had a taste of Wuhan all right. We've had quite enough of Wuhan. I think
00:29:31.520
the entire world has. What do you think, though? You see that dish there. What is that dish in the
00:29:38.440
picture? Because it's got some sort of dark black substance. I'm thinking it looks maybe like a ground
00:29:49.020
bat over pasta with scallions, which is a pretty good dish, by the way. Definitely a staple in my
00:29:55.140
house. Kind of a comfort food. I grew up with it. Though I do prefer usually my bat to be seared in a
00:30:03.040
cast iron skillet and then just lightly baked. So what you're going for is that crispy crust of the
00:30:09.260
bat, and then inside you want a nice, medium-rare cook. That's how I prefer it. Really delicious.
00:30:15.480
But you know, if I'm going to cancel anyone for Chinese propaganda, actually, it shouldn't be a
00:30:19.700
Chinese propaganda outlet, because that's their job, right? Is to just do Chinese propaganda,
00:30:24.300
and so you can hardly blame them for it. But I think our media, our media doing propaganda for
00:30:32.180
the Chinese government, that's a much bigger problem. So for example, there are many examples
00:30:36.340
of this. Here's the latest, one of the most egregious. ABC News this morning posted a video
00:30:41.140
from China of a light show that the government put on to celebrate that they're opening Wuhan again.
00:30:48.580
And here's the video. This is a video that ABC News posted on their Twitter account. Watch.
00:31:02.180
Okay, so that is literal Chinese state propaganda that ABC News is passing along. They're not
00:31:19.940
reporting on it. They're not offering commentary on it. They're just passing it along like the Chinese
00:31:27.180
propaganda outlets in China do. The Chinese government comes up with the propaganda piece,
00:31:33.520
the video package, and they just assign it. They hand it out, and now even our media says,
00:31:38.620
okay, we'll go ahead and amplify that message for you. Absolutely despicable.
00:31:46.420
Let's move on to emails, and you can email the show. You've got to become a Daily Wire member.
00:31:50.180
If you're a Daily Wire member, you have access to the mailbag, and you can send your emails.
00:31:53.740
Um, and as always, I do enjoy emails telling me why I'm wrong about things
00:31:58.880
so that we can argue with each other, which is my favorite pastime. So I've got a why I'm wrong
00:32:04.660
email, but first, a couple others I want to read briefly. This is from Liz. It says,
00:32:08.480
I just wanted to say, I too suffer from the fear of elevators shooting out of the top of the building.
00:32:13.720
I was, I divulged that irrational fear of mine, uh, yesterday, and then immediately regretted
00:32:20.840
saying it out loud. Although I've gotten a few emails from people saying that they,
00:32:25.660
this is apparently a, a more common fear than I thought. Liz says, I was recently,
00:32:29.600
well, not too recently, in a hospital and needed to go to the top floor. Unbeknownst to me,
00:32:33.640
the attached parking garage was not as tall as the hospital itself. I get in the elevator,
00:32:37.700
one with a glass side that's exposed, uh, to said parking garage. As the elevator climbed,
00:32:42.540
it began going above the parking garage, and I lost my mind. My brain ceased functioning,
00:32:47.140
and, and as I saw the parking garage get farther below me, I thought for sure my fear was coming
00:32:52.080
to fruition. Rest assured, the elevator stopped safely at the top of the hospital. Let me out,
00:32:56.860
and I haven't stepped foot on one since. I'm, I'm just glad to know I'm not alone, Liz.
00:33:03.720
So it's me, Liz. I think it was two other people that emailed and said they have the same fear.
00:33:08.920
Not of the, I never worry about an elevator crashing. That would be way too reasonable to
00:33:13.880
worry about that. My, my worry is that something malfunctioned, it just blasts out the top of the
00:33:18.840
building. This is from Chad. It says, thank you for bringing up the article about the virus reactivating
00:33:25.680
and how the science does not support this. I am a biochemist in Michigan that predominantly studies
00:33:31.420
pediatric cancer. However, with the current situation, the local hospital system has elicited
00:33:35.900
support from the university I work for to do literature reviews for scientific papers involving
00:33:41.460
COVID-19 so as to help emphasize what literature should be reviewed by local clinicians as they
00:33:48.160
prepare to care for infected patients. I was eager to be involved in the process in a, in a, to in a
00:33:53.440
small way contribute in helping the healthcare workers that are sacrificing every day to help
00:33:57.360
those that are sick. On a side note, my sister's a nurse in Detroit and my niece is a nurse in the
00:34:02.480
Bronx. So from conversations with them, I am very aware of the sacrifices they're making while doing
00:34:07.000
these literature reviews. I've been sadly disappointed in the poor level of science that is being
00:34:11.300
exhibited in most of these articles. I know this pandemic is new and evolving very quickly and
00:34:16.700
there's a need to get literature out quickly, but I have found that most articles are either simply
00:34:20.620
opinion pieces or straight propaganda from Chinese scientists proclaiming how well their country
00:34:25.800
handled the situation. Having done science for close to 20 years, I would normally shrug this off
00:34:30.440
as papers that were submitted to low quality journals. However, I've noticed that even high quality
00:34:34.720
journals such as the New England Journal of Medicine and Nature have published papers that are low in
00:34:39.180
quality and scientific value. I am saddened that the scientific community seems to be divulging into
00:34:44.020
propaganda. Maybe I am naive and believing this is only happening now. As scientists, we often live
00:34:49.700
in a bubble of our specific field and a certain set of journals. Anyway, long story short, I'm grateful
00:34:54.800
that you're using the platform to inform others to be more skeptical of the literature that is being
00:34:58.240
presented to us. Well, Chad, I appreciate that insight. That's, that's interesting to hear from someone
00:35:03.560
with actual scientific expertise of which I have none myself. All right. Why I'm wrong. This is from
00:35:11.680
Tony says, Hey Matt, thanks for a great show. You always have interesting and unique perspectives. I was
00:35:17.140
listening to your recent all access live show and was a, which you can hear at 8 p.m. Eastern, 5 p.m.
00:35:24.420
Pacific every single day, all access live. And this is open to, if you're daily wire member, you don't have
00:35:30.280
to be an all access member for now. And we do these every day. Nice little, little bit of companionship, a way
00:35:36.560
of breaking up the isolation. So I did one on Monday. And one of the questions I was asked, it's just kind of a
00:35:42.780
back and forth Q&A type of thing. But one of the questions I was asked by somebody was, what do I think
00:35:48.620
are, is the best argument for God, for the existence of God? And I gave what I thought was the best and, and what I
00:35:57.720
thought were, I gave a few examples of arguments that I thought were not very persuasive. And, and I
00:36:04.980
said that I think the cosmological argument, the argument from first cause, you know, any version of
00:36:09.120
that, I find those to be unpersuasive arguments. Whereas the argument from consciousness, in my
00:36:14.420
opinion, is one of the best arguments for God. Okay. You said the cosmological argument was not a strong
00:36:20.040
argument when in fact it is generally cited as one of the strongest, if not the strongest argument for
00:36:24.060
God's existence by many Christian apologists. In response to your objections saying that the
00:36:28.560
universe can be eternal, I think you missed the point that the universe is in itself a physical
00:36:33.980
quantity. The universe is composed of time, space, and matter, which points to a timeless, spaceless,
00:36:39.380
and immaterial cause of the universe. Furthermore, if the universe somehow extended into the past forever,
00:36:44.940
we would never have arrived at this current moment. The idea of the eternal universe,
00:36:48.700
therefore, becomes nonsensical. And finally, all current scientific evidence points to a beginning of the
00:36:52.880
universe, i.e. the Big Bang Theory. Not to criticize you too much, but your argument from
00:36:57.340
consciousness didn't quite square with me either. Could you not say that we evolved to have a
00:37:01.380
consciousness to help us survive? I've read some things about how consciousness helps us run
00:37:06.040
simulations in our head, which ultimately help us to make better decisions. Looking at it this way,
00:37:11.080
couldn't an atheist easily say we evolved consciousness because it is beneficial to our
00:37:14.700
species? Of course, this would be to commit the genetic fallacy, but that's another story.
00:37:19.100
Thanks, Tony. Okay, Tony, well, I would say, yeah, I know that I'm taking the contrarian view here,
00:37:24.840
which probably shouldn't surprise you, and I'm playing devil's advocate, okay? So we're talking
00:37:28.320
about what I think is, just from my perspective, what are the best arguments for God? And I know
00:37:36.460
that there are some Christians, many Christians probably, who you talk to who would basically say
00:37:41.220
that every argument for the existence of God is great and persuasive and compelling and decisive.
00:37:45.300
But that's just, you know, that's obviously our bias talking, because some arguments are better
00:37:52.300
than others. And you say that the Christian apologists all say that this is a really compelling
00:37:57.820
argument. Well, okay, but of course they're going to find it compelling. But when you're making an
00:38:03.840
argument, apologetic argument, you're not trying to convince Christian apologists, because they
00:38:08.900
already share your assumptions. There are certain basic assumptions we bring to the, obviously,
00:38:14.040
we have a certain worldview, we bring it to every discussion. And so if a certain argument
00:38:18.540
is compelling to people who share your basic assumptions, that doesn't necessarily mean it's
00:38:25.320
going to be compelling to people who don't share that assumption. And so I think it's interesting if
00:38:30.820
you can get an atheist, a thoughtful atheist who's going to be honest about it, and ask them what do
00:38:37.720
they think the strongest theistic arguments are. And I've heard, you know, many atheists give their
00:38:43.740
opinion on this. And you're not going to hear them say the cosmological argument. What they will say
00:38:48.760
oftentimes is a fine-tuning argument. That was, in fact, Christopher Hitchens said that he thinks
00:38:52.100
that's the strongest argument for theism. Which that doesn't mean that it's necessarily the best
00:38:58.160
argument just because Christopher Hitchens said it. But if someone who does not share your underlying
00:39:02.300
assumptions, even they say, okay, that's a pretty strong argument, then that should tell you something.
00:39:08.940
So there's that. In general, though, with the cosmological argument, I think, okay, here's the
00:39:15.800
basic problem I have with it. When you argue that, well, the universe had to have a beginning because
00:39:24.580
it's just, it's illogical, right, for something to have no beginning, for it to exist forever. So it had to
00:39:29.760
have some sort of cause, and then God is that cause. Well, it seems like what you're trying to do
00:39:36.240
is to say that it is illogical, it is a logical impossibility for something to have no cause or
00:39:44.920
no beginning. But if it is a logical impossibility, then that would also apply to God, right? Because
00:39:51.040
even God cannot do things that are logically impossible. God cannot make a rectangular square,
00:39:58.160
right? Or a circular triangle. It's a logical impossibility. It's nonsensical. So the whole
00:40:03.640
thing about can God make a boulder too heavy for him to lift? You know, that's, it's a logical
00:40:10.620
impossibility. And so sort of the answer is no. And that's, there's no real problem there saying no.
00:40:16.880
So it seems like the argument's trying to make a logical case, but then that would apply to God.
00:40:22.220
So what, if you say, well, you know, something has to have a beginning, or, you know, something has to
00:40:29.440
have a beginning, and then that's, then God is the beginning of the universe, then of course the
00:40:34.840
atheist response is, well, then who started God or who caused God? And typically this is where most
00:40:41.340
theists will kind of scoff at that response and say, that's silly. It's actually not a silly response.
00:40:46.800
It's a, it's a totally legitimate, logical response to your argument, because you just said that
00:40:52.180
everything has to have a beginning. Well, God is something, isn't he? So it, it, it seems like it's
00:40:59.660
trying to make a logical argument that it then abandons when it comes to God, and that, and that
00:41:04.260
doesn't quite work. Also, look, you know, there are ways, atheists have ways around this. Well, they'll,
00:41:10.980
they'll say, yeah, well, we know that there was a big bang. We know that the observable universe has
00:41:16.700
a beginning, but we don't know what happened before then, and we also don't know, you know,
00:41:20.180
we could live in a multiverse. We could live in a, in a bubble universe where there are, there are
00:41:24.500
trillions, maybe infinite number of universes, and we're just living in one little, one little
00:41:29.020
section, one little bubble that started 14 billion years ago, but that doesn't mean that the entire
00:41:32.800
thing started 14 billion years ago. Maybe, you know, and maybe every black hole contains its own
00:41:39.600
universe. There's all kinds of maybes and what ifs, and that, all that sounds implausible. It sounds
00:41:44.360
implausible to me too, but it's not impossible logically. It could be true, and I think all the
00:41:54.180
atheist needs to do is, is, is, is say, is argue that it's at least possible that we live in an
00:42:00.180
eternal multiverse. That's a, it's a possible thing. It's not scientifically impossible, and if you
00:42:06.120
agree to that, which I think you have to, because it is scientifically possible, then it kind of destroys
00:42:10.400
that argument, I think. But, um, going to the argument for consciousness. Now, as I said, I think
00:42:16.240
that that is the strong, at least one of the strongest arguments for theism, along with the
00:42:21.660
fine-tuning argument, I think is strong, and there are others too. Uh, the argument for morality, I
00:42:26.600
think, is strong. But the consciousness argument, now you say the atheist response to that is, um,
00:42:32.460
is, well, you know, we, we would have evolved consciousness because it's very useful. Well, yeah,
00:42:37.940
I could see how consciousness is useful, but this is not a question of why is consciousness
00:42:41.620
useful. It's, it's how could inanimate matter first become animate, become life, and then
00:42:49.520
develop somehow, um, a sense of its own self. Because on a, on a, on a, on a purely materialistic
00:42:59.740
basis, we are all just atoms, right? We're all just collections of atoms. So how could it be
00:43:05.860
that a collection of atoms could come together in a certain way to develop an experience, an
00:43:13.420
awareness of its own self? Uh, that to me seems like it is impossible, even almost a logical
00:43:20.720
impossibility. And so it demands some other kind of immaterial explanation, especially when
00:43:29.920
consciousness itself appears to be an immaterial thing. And so that, I would argue, gets us away
00:43:37.600
from, uh, or it pokes a huge hole in, at least, materialism. And now you've opened the door for
00:43:44.340
God. And that's why I think that's a compelling argument. But again, you know, I'm, I'm speaking
00:43:49.680
as someone, obviously, with a huge bias. So that's just from my, my own perspective. But
00:43:55.500
thanks for that, uh, email. Thanks for everybody for watching. Have a great day. God bless. Godspeed.
00:44:04.540
If you enjoyed this episode, don't forget to subscribe. And if you want to help spread the
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00:44:41.420
Our exalted experts want to hold us prisoner to coronavirus for another 18 months, while prosecutors
00:44:47.540
dish out felony charges to formerly free Americans who have the goal to go outside for a walk.
00:44:53.760
We will examine the junk science behind the most outrageous political power grab of our lifetime.
00:44:58.600
Then China infiltrates a White House press briefing. President Trump threatens to cut funding to the
00:45:03.020
World Health Organization. And Joe Biden steps up and addresses the nation about his weakness
00:45:07.480
for Fig Newtons. All that and more, check it out on The Michael Knowles Show.