The Matt Walsh Show - Ep. 471 - There Is No Such Thing As A Non-Essential Business

00:00:00.000 Today on The Matt Walsh Show, we hear a lot about non-essential businesses these days,

00:00:04.040 but I want to talk about why I think there is no such thing as a non-essential business.

00:00:08.480 I think that's a category that doesn't actually exist. I'll explain why. Also, five headlines,

00:00:12.840 including a mother arrested on a playground in front of her kids for bringing her kids to a

00:00:18.640 playground, and airlines are coming up with, it looks like, a pretty horrifying way to reconfigure

00:00:25.020 their seating arrangements in response to the coronavirus, plus the daily cancellation and

00:00:29.060 your emails, and a lot more all coming up on the show. But first, I want to tell you about our

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00:02:02.540 slash Walsh. Expressvpn.com slash Walsh to learn more. Okay, so, well, first of all, this isn't what I

00:02:11.380 originally wanted to talk about to begin the show, but I did want to just mention this controversy

00:02:15.700 involving the lieutenant governor of Texas, Dan Patrick. Now, if you didn't hear, he's getting a

00:02:21.500 ton of criticism and blowback for something that he said on Tucker Carlson a few days ago

00:02:27.860 when he was discussing the coronavirus response. He was advocating, you know, as he's been an advocate

00:02:33.740 all along for opening the economy up. He made the point that the mortality rate, especially in Texas,

00:02:39.300 is very low and we're killing the economy and there's going to be serious consequences from

00:02:46.160 that. So that's his point. And in the process of making that point, he said this.

00:02:53.580 We're crushing small business. We're crushing the markets. We're crushing this country. And what I

00:02:58.420 said when I was with you that night, there are more important things than living. And that's saving this

00:03:03.360 country for my children and my grandchildren and saving this country for all of us. And I don't want to

00:03:08.320 die. Nobody wants to die. But man, we got to we got to take some risk and get back in the game and get

00:03:13.000 this country back up and running. Now, there's been a huge freak out over this because he said there are

00:03:18.180 more important things than living. And to a lot of people these days, apparently that is a scandalous

00:03:23.640 thought. So so people are very upset about that. Of course, meanwhile, he's exactly right.

00:03:31.940 Of course, of course, he's right. Yes, there are more important things than living

00:03:37.060 without even knowing the context. If you just told me he said that and I had no idea of the

00:03:42.700 context, even without the context, I would I would I would agree. I would say, well, of course,

00:03:48.940 there are more important things than living. I can rattle off a list of things right away

00:03:53.440 that are more important than living faith, integrity, dignity, love. You know, I mean,

00:04:01.480 basically anything you would rather die than forfeit, anything you would hold on to until

00:04:08.520 death. Like if somebody put a gun to your head and said, give up this or I'll kill you. 1.00

00:04:15.600 If there's anything that even in that scenario, you would say, well, then kill me. 1.00

00:04:19.900 That means that you believe there are more important things than living. Now, if you have no such

00:04:26.520 things, if somebody put a gun to your head and you would give up anything at all that they ask for

00:04:31.060 and do anything that they want you to do for the sake of just continuing to breathe, then yes, for you,

00:04:37.520 there is nothing more important than living. And that isn't that's an understandable attitude from a

00:04:41.560 sort of primal self-preservation standpoint. But it's also cowardly and pathetic. OK, so there's 1.00

00:04:49.640 nothing wrong with this statement. This is ideally, you know, I mean, we can never know exactly how we

00:04:54.020 would respond if we had a gun to our heads. But ideally, I think most of us should be able to

00:04:58.700 agree that in an ideal scenario, there are going to be things more important to us than living.

00:05:04.360 And it becomes so. So the statement is not wrong. The statement becomes even less wrong and more right

00:05:11.620 when you look at the context, because what he's saying, he's saying as an older man,

00:05:16.940 somebody in a vulnerable group, he would rather risk death for himself for the sake of preserving

00:05:25.580 our civilization for his children and grandchildren and everybody else's children and grandchildren.

00:05:31.000 And that is also the right attitude. In fact, I would say if you're a parent and you don't have

00:05:38.940 that attitude, if you are not willing to risk death for yourself for the sake of preserving your child's

00:05:45.560 future, then you're a bad parent. You don't love your kids enough in that case. 0.81

00:05:52.860 I'm not saying you have to agree with him about the shutdown if you love your kids, but you should

00:05:56.600 at least agree with the basic principle that you're willing to take on a risk for yourself for the sake

00:06:01.720 of your kids. In principle, you should agree with that or you're not a good parent.

00:06:08.020 And that's all he's saying. So what's the controversy here? What are people freaking out about?

00:06:15.560 Uh, well, they're freaking out because they're stupid, because we live in a very stupid time 1.00

00:06:20.000 and even very basic, easy to understand points become a reason for people to panic. 1.00

00:06:30.480 Uh, now, so, so what are you saying for, for him, the preservation of his own life is not the most

00:06:37.700 important thing. It's important, but it's not the most important. And in his mind, we are doing

00:06:43.680 something with these shutdowns that will cause enormous damage to future generations and, and,

00:06:49.600 and to him, that is not a price worth paying to preserve his life. And yes, the life of, of many,

00:06:57.000 you know, of, of the lives of people in his peer group, his age group, what he's saying is

00:07:02.080 that's not worth the cost of destroying our civilization for our kids and grandkids.

00:07:10.300 Um, and again, that I, I, how do you see that as anything but an admirable attitude?

00:07:16.200 Now, the only problem with this line from the, from the lieutenant governor is that it sounds like

00:07:21.900 he's sort of conceding that the lockdowns are saving lives, but, uh, and, and what he's saying

00:07:27.480 is that even if they are, it's not necessarily worth the price. And he would still be right,

00:07:31.840 even in that case, but it's actually not true necessarily that the lockdowns are saving lives.

00:07:36.640 Um, they may in fact be doing more harm than good, even with respect to fighting the virus itself,

00:07:41.240 they may be doing more harm than good. So it's not a choice between saving lives or not. It's a

00:07:47.020 choice between, between a dubious method of saving lives that will also be certain to crash the

00:07:51.940 economy and bring with it all sorts of horrific consequences, uh, as well, or it's a choice between

00:07:59.520 that or keeping the economy going, continuing to live our lives while taking precautions and, and

00:08:08.060 thus trying to stave off the worst case scenario with the virus, as well as the worst case scenario

00:08:13.020 with an economic collapse. So those are the two choices. It's not true at all that if you're in

00:08:20.020 favor of the lockdowns, you're necessarily in favor of the method that will save more lives because it

00:08:25.300 may in fact not. And in fact, I've got some stuff coming up in the, uh, in the headline section

00:08:30.280 that I think shows that there, the consequences of this shutdown may well kill not just more people

00:08:40.440 than will die from the virus, but a lot more people, exponentially more people speaking of

00:08:45.160 exponential growth. So we'll, um, we'll talk about, we'll, and we'll talk more about that in the, uh,

00:08:51.380 in the, in the headlines, but I do have something else I wanted to talk about at the, at the front

00:08:54.860 front. Before we do, um, a quick word from rock auto. You know, if you're having car trouble right

00:09:01.620 now, this is a, it's a kind of a bad time for it. I've gone through this already with both of our

00:09:05.880 cars. Uh, you might not be able to go out to get out of the house. Uh, maybe the places around you

00:09:10.820 that sell the auto parts aren't open, whatever the case may be. Well, the good news is, uh, rockauto.com

00:09:16.600 is there. The rockauto.com catalog is unique and remarkably easy to navigate. Rockauto.com is so much

00:09:21.220 easier than walking into a store. So even if you could go to a store, uh, it still is better to go

00:09:25.660 to rockauto.com. And, uh, besides when you go to the store, you know, they're going to ask you a lot

00:09:30.480 of confusing questions. They probably don't have what you need. They're going to end up ordering

00:09:34.160 it online anyway. Why not just cut out that whole middleman process and go there yourself.

00:09:38.820 Rockauto.com has everything from engine control modules and brake parts to tail lamps, motor oil,

00:09:43.320 new carpet, whatever you need, uh, for whatever kind of car you have, they're going to have it there

00:09:48.600 at rockauto.com always offering the lowest prices possible rather than changing prices based on what

00:09:54.260 they think the market will bear. And these days, especially, right? We all need to save money,

00:09:58.180 um, as much as possible. So go to rockauto.com right now, see all the parts available for your

00:10:03.660 car or truck, right? Walsh in there. How did you hear about us box? So that they know that we sent you.

00:10:09.160 Um, now one other point I wanted to make or idea I wanted to, um, uh, talk about, I, I thought about

00:10:19.240 this when I drove to, I had to run some essential errands over the weekend and, uh, had to specifically

00:10:25.100 go to an essential grocery store to buy some essential food. And on the way there, I noticed,

00:10:31.500 and I hadn't noticed this before, but Best Buy was still open. There's still people, a ton of people

00:10:38.220 actually in the, in the parking lot at Best Buy, going to Best Buy. Um, I also passed a Dunkin' Donuts

00:10:43.260 still open. Um, I passed a Dairy Queen still open, all of these open. So apparently donuts, ice cream,

00:10:53.000 TVs, these are all considered essential services and essential businesses, which, which doesn't

00:10:58.280 surprise me in modern America, nor do I necessarily disagree. I mean, these donuts, ice cream, and TV

00:11:03.300 have certainly been essential components of my own life. I will, I will certainly admit, but it does

00:11:10.000 raise a question about what the government actually means when it declares a business essential, thus

00:11:16.660 allowing it to stay open or inessential, thus forcing it to close and possibly driving it

00:11:21.660 irretrievable, irretrievably into ruin. Um, now I'm not arguing that the stores that I mentioned

00:11:27.140 Best Buy, Dunkin' Donuts and stores like it, or for that matter, the liquor stores that are open

00:11:32.260 or any of the other businesses that are benevolent overlords have allowed to stay open. I'm not

00:11:36.740 arguing that they should be closed. That's not my point. I'm glad they're open. I'm happy about that.

00:11:41.960 My point is that every other business should be open too. Um, because the government's system of

00:11:49.060 designate, designating something essential or inessential is arbitrary, unjust, absurd, and subjective.

00:11:55.680 And I don't think it's a coincidence that the wealthy and politically connected big corporations

00:12:02.640 are so often allowed to stay open while it's the small businesses that don't have a lot of money

00:12:07.740 and don't have connections that don't have power that are, uh, are being, are being destroyed,

00:12:11.920 being wiped out. You know, I don't think that's a coincidence. So I think we've accepted this

00:12:18.380 essential versus non-essential designation without, without much question. We should have questioned

00:12:23.360 it a lot more and ask the question of very basically, what, what do you mean by that?

00:12:30.780 If the term essential has any objective meaning when applied to a business, it would have to be,

00:12:38.100 as far as I could tell, that an essential business is one that people depend on for survival.

00:12:45.080 Right now, I, and, and the government must be taking a pretty broad view of that

00:12:51.060 because no one's going to die without Dunkin' Donuts or Best Buy, uh, or, or Dairy Queen or Taco Bell.

00:12:59.500 But, you know, the fast food places, they sell food and Best Buy sells stuff that you might need

00:13:05.260 for work. So in it, from a very, understanding this in a very broad way, they sell things that

00:13:11.800 you might need, you might depend on, right? Okay. Um, but then every other business fits that bill as

00:13:18.380 well. That's the point. Every business has people depending on it. Even if a business is expendable

00:13:25.880 as far as the customers are concerned, and even that might not be the case. I mean, to, to whatever

00:13:33.160 extent customers depend on Best Buy, I bet there are people who depend on, you know, even like

00:13:38.940 barbershops just as much. I would put those, as far as the, the, the products and services they provide,

00:13:45.580 I would put those about on the same level in terms of how essential they are. But taking a broader view

00:13:53.560 of it, uh, what, whatever the customer, however the customers look at it, the fact is that any

00:14:00.880 business is going to have people depending on it. Uh, certainly the employees and the people that run

00:14:06.840 the business depend on it. And that is why every business is in a very real and urgent sense,

00:14:12.860 essential to somebody. So it's obviously ludicrous to suggest that Walmart and Target are essential to

00:14:19.620 me because that's what they're saying, right? When they, when the government says this, this business

00:14:23.840 is open because it's essential. What they're really saying is it's essential to you as a member

00:14:28.700 of the community. Target, Walmart are essential to you. Whether or not that's the case, your job

00:14:37.100 and your income are more essential to you. It doesn't make any sense to say that Walmart is

00:14:41.580 essential to you, but your own job is not essential to you because the essentialness of a product is

00:14:48.020 kind of irrelevant. If you don't have the money to buy it, which means that your income will always

00:14:53.360 be more fundamentally essential than anything you might find at a store. So as we speak, there are

00:14:59.800 thousands of people across the country waiting in line for hours at food banks because they can't

00:15:05.280 afford the so-called essential services that these businesses are providing. Their source of income has

00:15:13.240 been declared less essential than the items they would use their income to purchase. That doesn't make any

00:15:21.480 sense. The insanity of that kind of system, I think should be readily apparent to everybody.

00:15:27.740 If a product or service is essential, then the means by which I purchase that product or service

00:15:35.660 must also be essential. If you remove the latter, then you've also removed the former. If you deprive

00:15:43.000 me of the latter, you deprive me of the former. Because again, the word essential doesn't mean

00:15:49.880 anything if it doesn't, if we're not talking about essential to people. And nobody can deny that one

00:15:54.580 of the most essential things to a person is his job. So all businesses are essential, which means that

00:16:01.120 it's time to open them up again. And I'm glad that some states are starting to do that. We're going to

00:16:06.280 go to, we have a number of important news stories we're going to go to in just a second. But speaking of

00:16:10.800 important before we do that, uh, you know, even during this time when people are locked at home,

00:16:17.680 uh, your beard hygiene and the, your facial hair appearance are still very important. You can let

00:16:25.220 everything else go to hell, but at least have as a man or a woman, if you have a beard, you know, 0.73

00:16:31.100 I don't, I don't judge. You got to have enough self-respect to keep the beard in tip-top shape.

00:16:35.660 If you're sitting at home, giving the quarantine beard a shot, um, you, you probably already know 0.91

00:16:40.180 that it's, uh, it's not as easy a look. It's not as easy as it looks to have. I mean, this beard that

00:16:46.660 I have here, and I've got it trimmed a little bit short right now, but there's a lot of work that

00:16:50.480 goes into this to look this good with the beard. It's not that easy. Okay. Beards can dry out.

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00:17:26.840 earth directly onto your beard. Plus, they come in tons of great smells like the woods,

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00:17:48.280 show listeners 25% off. Just go to BeardSupply.com and use the promo code Walsh. Again,

00:17:52.540 that's BeardSupply.com, promo code Walsh. So this is going predictably viral. So we go to our first

00:18:00.920 story here. It's a footage of a mom at a playground in Idaho arrested for being on the playground with

00:18:06.800 their kids.

00:18:15.180 Okay, this is not officer. You don't want to do that. Officer, you don't want to do

00:18:32.180 that. Officer, you don't. Am I being arrested or detained? Am I arrested or detained? Someone call

00:18:40.600 Idaho Freedom Foundation right now and get them on the phone. Call now. I'm recording. Someone else

00:18:44.820 call. Okay, can you call? Her kids are here. That again is in Idaho, where there have been

00:18:54.520 less than 2,000 confirmed or probable cases, as the Idaho.gov website puts it, and about 50 deaths.

00:19:02.160 Yet, they don't want you to go on the playground. Now, the defense I've seen of this, of the cop

00:19:07.200 anyway, the defense that some people have offered, is that he's doing his job. He didn't make the rule.

00:19:13.400 He tried to be nice. The woman was being difficult. All of that is true. But what happens,

00:19:20.300 let's say, if all or most of the cops in a department just said, to stand up and say,

00:19:26.080 we're not going to enforce these kinds of rules. Okay, we're not going to go and put a mother in 1.00

00:19:34.200 handcuffs for having her kid on a swing. What if the cops say that? Are they going to fire all the

00:19:41.140 cops in the town? I think what we need is police officers to step up here, do the brave thing in

00:19:47.920 these cases, and simply refuse to enforce policies like this. Because as we know, following orders

00:19:54.480 is not always a sufficient excuse. Number two, here's a fascinating case. Speaking of kids,

00:20:02.820 you know, on playgrounds and elsewhere, this is interesting. From The Guardian, reading now from

00:20:06.740 The Guardian, says, a nine-year-old boy who contracted COVID-19 in eastern France did not pass

00:20:12.240 the virus on despite coming into contact with more than 170 people. According to research that

00:20:17.760 suggests children may not be major spreaders of the virus. The boy was among a cluster of cases linked

00:20:23.140 to Steve Walsh, the businessman who became the first person in Britain to test positive for

00:20:30.500 coronavirus. After attending a sales conference in Singapore in January, Walsh, unwittingly, as far

00:20:38.240 as I know, as I know, but who knows, passed the infection on when he joined 10 British adults

00:20:41.880 and a family of five at a chalet in a ski resort region. It goes on from there. But anyway, the

00:20:51.500 point is, just summarizing, we don't need all the details. This was a young child, showed moderate,

00:20:59.040 you know, mild symptoms. He wasn't very sick. Came in contact with 170 people, didn't pass it on to

00:21:04.760 anybody, apparently. Now, this is just one case, but it is very interesting. And if it holds true,

00:21:11.820 then this would mean that we already know that kids are not personally affected by this very,

00:21:15.800 very much or very often. And if they also are not likely to spread the virus, then you have to start

00:21:21.320 to wonder why the school is still closed. Why are the playgrounds closed, right? Number three,

00:21:28.740 I hope you're ready to be severely creeped out. Because here's a poll that was posted by Morning Joe,

00:21:33.680 Morning Joe on MSNBC. They posted a poll. The poll question, should non-essential workers be allowed

00:21:42.220 to move freely outside? Results, 75% of the respondents to the poll say no, they should not.

00:21:53.120 How much of a bootlicking submissive do you have to be to say no to that question? Should they be 0.83

00:22:00.720 allowed to move freely outside if they're non-essential? What an absolutely creepy question.

00:22:10.340 Everything about that. It's not even just, should non-essential workers be allowed to go to work?

00:22:16.000 Saying no to that, in my view, is bad enough. Another thing, should they be able to move freely

00:22:20.260 outside? No. Now, let's go to something a little bit more inspirational and positive. Mayor Bill

00:22:27.200 de Blasio of New York set up a tip line, a phone number, where people could call or text to report

00:22:32.480 any violations of social distancing that they observe in their communities. A snitch line,

00:22:37.180 basically, for godforsaken tattletales. That's not the inspirational part. The inspirational part

00:22:43.100 is that people really stepped up to the plate, did the right thing, and flooded the tip line with

00:22:49.320 obscene pictures and prank calls. Beautiful. I mean, God bless America. This is the America that

00:22:56.140 I know and love. This is not all the people snitching on their neighbors, but this is what

00:23:00.960 America is all about. So reading from the Daily Wire says, the New York Post reports that New Yorkers

00:23:05.080 and other assorted de Blasio critics flooded his new tip line with crank complaints, including 0.93

00:23:10.900 photos of genitalia and people flipping the bird. Photos of extended middle fingers, the mayor dropping the 0.84

00:23:17.640 Staten Island groundhog, and news coverage of him going to the gym have all been texted to a special

00:23:23.100 tip line that de Blasio announced Saturday, according to screenshots posted to Twitter.

00:23:28.340 The outlet adds that it is not immediately clear whether the offenders, the offending texters all

00:23:33.640 live in New York. Some of the mayor's detractors took particular delight in reporting de Blasio

00:23:38.660 himself to the tip line, especially given that the New York mayor dragged his feet in instituting

00:23:44.740 shelter in place orders and so on. And he was like, they say he was going to the gym. He's driving

00:23:50.000 whatever it is, 12 miles to go to walk in a park. So it looks like he was the main, he was the main

00:23:56.000 one reported to his own tip line. Beautiful stuff. Now we go from that to very tragic again, reading

00:24:04.660 now from CNN, it says the world is facing multiple famines of biblical proportions, quote unquote, in just

00:24:10.560 a matter of months, the UN has said, warning that the coronavirus pandemic will push an additional 130

00:24:16.220 million people to the brink of starvation. Famines could take hold in about three dozen countries in

00:24:21.860 a worst case scenario. The executive director of the World Food Program said 10 of those countries

00:24:28.980 already have more than a million people on the verge of starvation. He cited conflict, economic recession,

00:24:34.100 a decline in aid, and a collapse in oil prices as factors likely to lead to vast food shortages and

00:24:40.800 urge swift action to avert the disaster. So 100 million people on the brink of starvation because

00:24:46.840 of this. And by the way, remember the collapse in oil prices. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said she loves to

00:24:55.360 see, she absolutely loves it. She loves that the oil prices are collapsing. And yet millions of people

00:25:00.640 will be on the brink of starvation because of it. So she loves that. But beyond that, I mean, this is

00:25:06.820 a large part of the reason here is because of the shutdowns, not just in America, but across the world,

00:25:14.300 the disruption in the supply chain. And that's going to spur on potentially mass starvation.

00:25:23.180 It's like we were talking about before. It is by no means a foregone conclusion that the shutdowns

00:25:31.980 have actually saved lives. There seems like a pretty significant likelihood that it will lead to

00:25:39.800 many more deaths. This is one aspect we haven't talked about. We've talked about suicide rates going

00:25:45.300 up, drug abuse going up, domestic violence, things like that. And just even people in this country who

00:25:53.160 are not able, you know, homelessness and all of these factors on the rise, and that puts lives

00:25:58.860 at risk. And then when you look, when you step back and you look at it on a global scale, and you

00:26:02.900 think about the potentially tens of millions, hundreds of millions of people who could be on the brink of

00:26:06.940 starvation, it's looking like the shutdowns could be a humanitarian disaster, unlike anything we've seen

00:26:15.780 in recent times. Six, finally, a bonus story here that I wanted to mention. Airlines are trying to

00:26:23.100 figure out how to reconfigure their seating arrangements in a post-corona world. And here's

00:26:28.380 what one manufacturer came up with. This is a potential model that could be used by airlines.

00:26:34.420 So take a look at the picture. You see there, you've got, I mean, my God in heaven, I would,

00:26:43.420 you get the middle seat. Middle seat was already bad enough. And now it already dehumanizing and

00:26:51.820 claustrophobic enough. Now they want to imprison the middle seat in a plastic case so that there's

00:26:58.440 definitely no space for your elbows or anything. And then even worse than that, I mean, that's bad

00:27:02.920 enough. But then now they want to flip the middle seat around so that you're directly facing the

00:27:08.180 people in the aisle, in the aisle and window seat behind you. And then what happens if you have to

00:27:14.720 cough? Now you're coughing towards other people. This is their solution. Now, I would say that at

00:27:25.380 least this works out if you're on an aisle or a window seat, because then the person next to you is

00:27:30.000 encased in glass. So that would avoid, you think, okay, that's going to avoid unwanted conversation,

00:27:35.220 which is great. But the problem is that the middle seat in front of you, now you've got their dumb 0.99

00:27:41.920 face looking at you for the entire flight. So this is going to mean that the most coveted seat on the 0.92

00:27:47.260 entire plane will be the window seat at the very front of the plane. Because now you've got the privacy

00:27:54.440 because you've got the glass case on one side, you've got the window on the other, no one's talking to you,

00:27:58.740 no one can. And then there's nobody in front of you facing you. So that's going to be a very coveted

00:28:05.040 seat. There's going to be violence, riots over that seat. Plus, there's going to be an upcharge,

00:28:11.220 of course, it's going to be $700 upcharge just to sit in that one in that one good seat left on the

00:28:15.340 plane. Of course, if the airlines really cared about reducing transmission of diseases and everything,

00:28:22.980 rather than finding ways to keep people crammed together, what they might consider doing is like

00:28:28.060 removing the middle seat even, in some cases, to give people more space. And now we could be

00:28:33.600 socially distanced on the plane. But they don't want to do that because that means they're going

00:28:36.880 to sacrifice money. All right, let's go to our daily cancellation. I'm going to be canceling

00:28:43.280 the brand Burt's Bees, which I think makes lip balm and some other stuff. Actually, this specifically is

00:28:51.260 the Burt's Bees Baby brand. And they make, I don't know, lip balm for babies. I'm not sure.

00:28:57.040 But anyway, Burt's Bees Baby posted something on Instagram. Now, especially on Instagram,

00:29:04.260 brands will often attempt to be inspiring, you know, relatable, encouraging. And these attempts,

00:29:11.080 as the kids would say, are cringe, almost always. Now, here's the thing, brands, if you are a brand,

00:29:17.380 brand, just be a brand. Sell your product. Don't try to inspire me. I'm not going to a brand for

00:29:25.220 inspiration. I'm not looking at an advertisement to be inspired. Just sell what you came here to

00:29:32.340 sell and be on your way. All right, just get to it, sell your product, and be done with it.

00:29:37.380 But the reason Burt's Bees Baby is getting canceled in particular is because they went,

00:29:41.720 when it comes to trying to inspire people, they went way, way, way, way over the top.

00:29:47.380 In this desperate attempt to be encouraging and inspirational. So I want you to look at this

00:29:52.460 post. Here's the picture. This is on Instagram, their Instagram page. This is the picture.

00:29:57.680 Then the caption from the brand, this is what it says.

00:30:01.340 This is not what you had planned. This is not what you'd envisioned. There are no visits from friends,

00:30:07.520 no loving doula bringing you soup, no mommy and me yoga classes, no coffee dates, no stroller walks

00:30:14.120 through the park. There is empty space where you had planned comfort and company. There are long days

00:30:19.560 with no one but your little one to talk to, and this big transition to navigate all alone.

00:30:24.940 I know it's lonely, mama. I know the... Mama. Isn't that creepy to have a brand talking to you this way?

00:30:31.480 I know it's lonely, mama. I know the walls of your house feel tight and the days feel so long and you

00:30:38.460 crave a warm hand on your knee and the soft embrace of a friend. You wish for someone by your side to

00:30:44.480 marvel at this beautiful baby of yours and to wrap an arm around you when the feelings get too big and

00:30:49.980 scary. I remind you, this is a brand that makes lip balm, okay? We were never meant to do this alone.

00:30:55.460 Motherhood has never been a solitary sport, and yet here we are in this odd chapter of isolation

00:31:00.720 and distance with no choice but to do it by ourselves. But mama, know this. We are alone

00:31:06.160 together. You are surrounded by all the other mothers who are navigating this tender time in

00:31:11.040 isolation. You are held by all of us who have walked the path before you and who know how much

00:31:16.800 you must be hurting right now. You are wrapped in the warm embrace of mama earth as she too settles

00:31:22.800 into this time of slowness and healing. This too shall pass, and when it does, hugs and coffee dates

00:31:30.000 and visits from friends will taste so much sweeter. Soft kisses on your cheek and arms around your waist

00:31:36.020 and gentle laughter in your ear will be the joyful medicine after this trying time. Until then,

00:31:43.220 hunker down, mama. Find the coziest, warmest spot on the couch. Sink into the pile of unfolded laundry 1.00

00:31:49.320 and spend this spring with that sweet babe, warm, on your chest.

00:31:56.840 Jeez, Burt's Bees. Take it down a notch. Take it down several notches. Just calm down a little.

00:32:03.880 You sell lip balm, okay? This is what we're talking about here. Take it easy.

00:32:07.480 By the way, crave a warm hand on your knee? Is that? Now, look, I'm not a woman as far as I know.

00:32:17.360 But who knows? I mean, anybody could be these days. So, but maybe I'm a little bit ignorant of this.

00:32:22.440 I tend to doubt that, I guess you tell me, ladies, do you crave a warm hand on your knee? Is that a 0.99

00:32:29.260 thing that, I mean, is any woman sitting around craving a warm hand on the knee? I mean, any kind

00:32:37.440 of hand at all would be bad enough, but a warm hand? We know you want a warm, sweaty, clammy hand

00:32:43.600 creepily caressing your leg. Who, did Joe Biden write this thing? Now, in fairness to Burt's Bees,

00:32:51.160 I looked at the comments on this Instagram post, and there were, I have to admit, a lot of women 1.00

00:32:56.440 commenting with stuff like, wow, I needed this today. Thank you. Or, I'm in tears. Thank you so

00:33:03.600 much. But I refuse to believe that those people are real. I think that they're bots, or they work

00:33:09.920 for Burt's Bees. I refuse to believe. Who goes to Burt's Bees' Instagram account looking for solace

00:33:17.640 and comfort? I really needed to feel a human connection, so I went to a brand's social media

00:33:24.600 page to find it. I guess that's a sign that you really are lonely. Maybe you could use a warm hand

00:33:29.720 on the knee. Who knows? So, Burt's Bees is canceled, and so is anybody else who got inspired by what I

00:33:36.880 just read there. You're all canceled. Okay, let's go to emails. But before we do that, you know,

00:33:45.140 during this quarantine, we've been trying to find ways to, little ways to keep people entertained and

00:33:52.340 help people out a little bit. Well, here's a great deal. When you become a Daily Wire Insider Plus

00:33:58.340 or All Access member, right now, you will get not one, but two of the highly coveted Leftist Tears

00:34:03.640 Tumblers. And this is a Tumbler that, you know, there are a lot of Tumblers out there on the market,

00:34:09.120 but none of them can do what this Tumbler does, which is it holds liquid, okay? And now you can hold

00:34:17.580 one liquid and another liquid because you've got two of these things. Daily Wire members get many

00:34:23.600 amazing benefits along with the magnificent Leftist Tears Tumblers. You also get an ad-free

00:34:28.220 website experience, access to our live broadcast show library, the full three hours of Ben Shapiro

00:34:34.340 show every day, access to the mailbag, and now exclusive election insight op-eds from Ben Shapiro.

00:34:39.180 Daily Wire members also get to ask us questions during the backstage, and you also get to participate

00:34:43.560 in the All Access Live shows as well. So you just get a ton of benefits here, along with, as I said,

00:34:50.120 the two Leftist Tears Tumblers, not just one, but two. So become a Daily Wire Insider Plus or All Access

00:34:56.900 member, and you also get 10% off if you use coupon code Walsh. Speaking of the backstage events,

00:35:02.800 tune in today, 7 o'clock Eastern time. There will be a backstage live show, which are always a lot of

00:35:09.340 fun. I'll be stopping by virtually for that as well, and so tune in for that. Now, let's go to

00:35:15.980 emails, and you can also email if you become a Daily Wire member. You can email using the mailbag.

00:35:20.580 This is from Mike. It says, can a guy cry during a movie while you are supreme and ultimate emperor?

00:35:27.860 For example, I couldn't help but shed a tear during the movie Crash, specifically when the little girl

00:35:32.640 was shot and the dad cried in pain. Couldn't help but think, what if that happened to one of my

00:35:37.240 children? That's a sign from Mike. Okay, well, Mike, we've talked about this, and it is acceptable

00:35:43.720 for a man to cry during a movie, but that movie has to be, I mentioned Rudy. Okay, Rudy's an example.

00:35:50.580 You could cry during that movie. There might be a few other examples. Some people say Old Yeller.

00:35:55.460 Now, I think crying over an animal as a man is not acceptable. When my pets die, I don't cry. I

00:36:00.980 harvest them for meat and fur like a real man. Okay, that's how a man should respond to that. But there 0.97

00:36:05.720 are movies, is the point where you could cry. Is Crash one of them? Absolutely not. In fact,

00:36:12.580 you could not have chosen a less manly movie to cry over. This is probably the worst movie

00:36:19.020 that you could possibly cry over. I can't think of a worse, I mean, maybe a worse one would

00:36:24.240 be if you cried over like the Devil Wears Prada because Meryl Streep is being so rude to her 1.00

00:36:32.240 employees and you cried over that. That might be a little bit worse, but only a little bit.

00:36:37.080 This is pretty bad. Crash? Come on. This is a permanent revocation of the man card. You're

00:36:44.820 never getting it back. You might as well transition at this point because the man card's never coming

00:36:50.000 back to you. Sorry. From Brian says, despite often agreeing with you, I have to say I disagree

00:36:54.360 with your take that our elected officials are implementing these extreme lockdown measures

00:36:57.720 simply out of greed. I believe it is out of a fear of appearing to not take the coronavirus

00:37:03.280 seriously enough. I live in Pennsylvania, so let's use that as an example. Once all is said and done,

00:37:08.040 the governor of PA is going to be judged by the public and the media by the statistics in the state,

00:37:13.480 number of deaths, death rate, hospitalizations, etc. Therefore, whether or not these lockdown

00:37:18.240 measures work, he's implementing them so that he can point to all of these extreme policies and at

00:37:22.540 least say, hey, look, we tried our best. Sure, some politicians may be power hungry,

00:37:26.540 but it is more out of a risk aversion than anything else. Yeah, Brian, I don't disagree.

00:37:30.480 It's not an either or here. Anytime you've got disastrous policies from the government,

00:37:37.520 there are going to be multiple things going into it. And the various bureaucrats and politicians

00:37:43.420 involved in bringing that plan and that policy to fruition are going to be motivated by different

00:37:48.200 things. So I don't think it's an either or. I do believe there's a huge element of, as you're

00:37:53.560 talking about here, a CYA cover your ass move here by the politicians who they see everybody else 0.83

00:38:00.680 locking down and say, figure, I got to do it too. And they also think, okay, let me do this. And then 0.95

00:38:07.680 I won't be liable for the deaths. And then also you can't blame me for destroying the economy because

00:38:13.260 everybody else is doing it too. And so there's this security they find in numbers, basically.

00:38:20.800 So that's part of it. But it's also very clear that a lot of these bureaucrats and politicians

00:38:25.920 are having a power, are power drunk, are high on their own power, are enjoying all the power they've

00:38:32.760 been given and want to exert that and express it for its own sake. So I think that's also happening.

00:38:40.300 Let's go to Julia, also my daughter's name, by the way.

00:38:43.160 Hi, Matt. This isn't really a why you're wrong thing, because I'm only partially sure that you

00:38:48.220 are wrong. But in your diatribe defending homeschooling, you seem to avoid the best

00:38:53.260 argument against it and for formal schooling, and that is socialization. What would you say to

00:38:59.160 the argument that parents should send their kids to school to be socialized?

00:39:03.640 Okay. Yeah, we talked about homeschooling a few days ago on the show because Harvard had

00:39:10.740 published, Harvard Magazine had published an article advocating banning homeschooling. They're

00:39:15.460 also doing a summit on the dangers of homeschooling, where they're going to talk about regulations that

00:39:19.980 should be put on homeschooling to protect kids from the horrible dangers of homeschooling.

00:39:24.300 You bring up the socialization argument. Well, first of all, not to get into semantics here,

00:39:29.000 but I don't agree with your dichotomy between formal schooling or homeschooling. Homeschooling

00:39:38.520 is a form of formal schooling. It is formal. Now, there is something called unschooling,

00:39:43.960 which I'm not an expert on it, so I can't speak very intelligently about it. But from what I

00:39:49.860 understand of the unschooling strategy, that is essentially informal schooling, where there's

00:39:55.660 no formal structure. But that's not what homeschoolers do. If somebody is an unschooler,

00:39:59.960 then they're unschooling, and that's what they'll say. So homeschooling is formal. That's the first

00:40:06.420 thing. In terms of being socialized, what I always say about that is if the public school system

00:40:15.720 is the best way to socialize your kid, then I say the proof should be in the pudding.

00:40:25.880 So show me the pudding. Let's take a look. We've got multiple generations of kids,

00:40:32.820 many of them now grown adults, multiple generations of people who were largely shaped and formed by the

00:40:39.100 public school system. They were public schooled, right? Or at least they were in the private school.

00:40:42.540 They were in the education system in some capacity. So let's just look around at society,

00:40:46.760 and you tell me, does it appear that people are very well socialized? I would say no.

00:40:55.200 So we don't need to theorize about whether or not the public school environment is a good way to

00:40:59.860 socialize kids. We don't need to theorize about it. I could say we have enough data at this point

00:41:04.200 that you can look around and see. Clearly, it's not working. And then when you look in the schools,

00:41:09.560 and you see the bullying problem, I mean, it's the media, the people who are advocates of the

00:41:14.180 public school system, they're the ones who are constantly telling us about the bullying epidemic

00:41:18.800 and so on. So according to them, there's a bullying epidemic. There's peer pressure. There's,

00:41:24.940 I mean, we know that things like suicide, the suicide rate among kids is way higher now than it's been in

00:41:31.240 the past. And we, you know, and, and so I just, I don't see the evidence that kids are becoming

00:41:40.960 well-adjusted, quote, socialized people through the public school system. I don't see the evidence for

00:41:48.240 it. And I don't see the evidence that homeschooling is turning kids into weirdo recluses. I know that

00:41:55.500 that's the stereotype, but in my experience, that is simply not the case. So there's just,

00:42:01.580 there's no evidence for this. And when you get beyond that, it's, I think it's pretty clear

00:42:08.200 that the public school system is not a great way to socialize kids. And here's why. Because

00:42:13.800 when we talk about socializing our kids, what do we mean? I guess we could, maybe we need to define

00:42:20.660 our terms a little bit. We could mean different things by it. But when I think about socializing a kid,

00:42:24.740 what I mean by that is helping them to become mature, well-adjusted people who can function

00:42:34.340 in society. That's what I mean. Well, what's the best way to do that? I mean, or maybe a better way

00:42:42.480 of putting it, who is best equipped to socialize a kid, to get them to a point where they are mature

00:42:51.120 and well-adjusted and ready to be functioning members of society. My answer is adults. Adults

00:42:58.360 should be the ones socializing kids, teaching them how to become well-adjusted people. Problem

00:43:05.860 though, in the public school system is you're throwing kids into a school. There's 30 kids in

00:43:09.520 a class. You know, the kids way outnumber the adults. And so who is doing the socializing in the

00:43:17.780 public school environment? The answer is other kids. So the kids are being socialized by other kids,

00:43:24.240 by that sort of peer culture. They're being oriented to the world by their peers. And the thing is,

00:43:31.840 they're looking at their friends for social cues and for cues on how they're supposed to act and what

00:43:37.900 kind of person they're supposed to be, while their friends are looking back at them. So they're just

00:43:42.080 running in circles and nobody has a, it's a classic blind leading the blind scenario.

00:43:47.140 In homeschool, even if you have a big family, which a lot of homeschoolers do, the fact is,

00:43:53.000 you know, the ratio of kid to adult is much lower. And on top of that, it's also, you know,

00:44:00.760 it's a parent rather than being some stranger, a teacher who has the kids for 45 minutes for a

00:44:05.240 period. And then they go for, and you know, they have another teacher. So I think there's a much

00:44:11.100 better chance in homeschooling of a, of a child being socialized and oriented to the world and to

00:44:17.740 society by an adult taking cues from adults. And so it's, and I know this is anecdotal. Okay. I don't

00:44:24.800 have any studies in front of me. Although I'm sure I could probably dig some up, but in my experience,

00:44:30.720 it seems like homeschooled kids are way more mature, way more mature than public school kids are.

00:44:36.840 And this is, and I've got a lot of experience. You know, I went to public school myself.

00:44:41.880 I've met, I know plenty of public school families, but I've also been in the homeschool

00:44:46.240 environment for a long time. Even before I homeschooled my own kids, I've been to tons of

00:44:51.180 homeschool conferences and conventions and everything, speaking at them or attending them myself.

00:44:56.340 And so, you know, pretty, pretty big sample size. My experience is homeschool kids are way more

00:45:02.420 mature. Um, even things like I've noticed things that are subtle or maybe not so subtle, but things

00:45:09.700 like homeschool kids, it seems to me much more likely to shake your hand and look you in the eye

00:45:14.520 or just in general, look you in the eye when you speak to them. Whereas other kids, often when you talk

00:45:20.220 to them, they've got, they're looking down like this. They don't want to look at you. So things like

00:45:23.580 that, uh, public homeschool kids tend to be better at it. And I think my anecdote, my anecdotal evidence

00:45:30.120 probably holds true because of this reason that I'm giving that it is. You think about the environment

00:45:35.140 that they're in, they're learning from their parents. They're being oriented to the world by

00:45:38.800 the parents. They're taking social cues from the parents. They're learning from adults rather than you

00:45:43.700 throw them into, uh, this sea of other kids. And they're just caught up in all that chaos and trying

00:45:50.260 to figure out, you know, um, what kind of person to be based on, on, uh, their peers. And they also

00:45:56.020 become, because they're in this peer culture, they become very desperate, uh, to be accepted by their

00:46:04.720 peers. And they're going to do whatever they can to be accepted because to be in public school

00:46:09.180 environment, you know, if you're a young kid in public school, you know, you're going to be in this

00:46:13.160 environment for 12 years, uh, uh, starting in kindergarten or 13 years, starting in kindergarten

00:46:18.440 longer than that for some kids, but you know, you're going to be in this environment for a long

00:46:21.160 time. And so if you're ostracized, if you're not accepted, then that's going to be very hard to deal

00:46:28.060 with for, for, for, through your entire formative, the formative years of your childhood. And so kids

00:46:33.940 become desperate to become accepted. And when they're not accepted, that's why we have the suicide

00:46:40.880 epidemic. And it's not as simple as a kid is bullied and they feel bad about themselves and

00:46:45.480 they go home and kill themselves. It's not that simple at all. What it is, is kids are,

00:46:51.320 uh, their entire world becomes their peers. And when they are not accepted, when they're rejected,

00:46:59.500 then it feels to them like they're being rejected by the entire world. And they don't know how to handle

00:47:04.680 that. They don't know how to cope with it. And sometimes they resort to horrific things.

00:47:10.880 Um, and even if it's not suicide, drug abuse and other things, you know, as in that desperation

00:47:15.560 to be accepted. So that's what the socialization process involves in public school. And I, I just

00:47:19.400 don't see it as superior at all to homeless school, homeschool. In fact, it is this, for me, the number

00:47:25.480 one argument for homeschool. You asked me what's the, what's the, if I could give you one reason why

00:47:30.540 you should homeschool your kids, it would be exactly this. Socialization is the reason that I

00:47:35.460 homeschool, uh, more than anything else. All right. But thanks for that question. Uh, very interesting

00:47:40.840 topic and we'll leave it there. Thanks for watching everybody. Thanks for listening. Godspeed.

00:47:45.280 Thank you.

00:48:15.280 Edited by Danny D'Amico. And our audio was mixed by Robin Fenderson.

00:48:20.180 The Matt Wall Show is a Daily Wire production. Copyright Daily Wire 2020.

00:48:25.140 Hey everyone. It's Andrew Klavan, host of the Andrew Klavan Show. Donald Trump has become

00:48:29.180 the smartest man in America. I know I, even I can't believe I'm saying that, but it's true.

00:48:33.580 And I'll tell you why on the Andrew Klavan Show.

The Matt Walsh Show - April 22, 2020

Ep. 471 - There Is No Such Thing As A Non-Essential Business

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