The Matt Walsh Show - May 06, 2020


Ep. 481 - The Cost Of The Government's Failure To Protect Nursing Homes


Episode Stats

Length

41 minutes

Words per Minute

165.67001

Word Count

6,843

Sentence Count

434

Misogynist Sentences

6

Hate Speech Sentences

9


Summary

A huge portion of coronavirus deaths across the world have been in nursing homes. So why didn t the government focus more on protecting those vulnerable groups in those homes, rather than shutting down all of society? And why did New York actually force nursing homes to take coronaviruses, which is a huge scandal, by the way? We ll talk about that, and five other headlines including a heroic salon owner who now faces jail time for refusing to close her business.


Transcript

00:00:00.000 Today on The Matt Wall Show, a huge portion of COVID-19 deaths across the world have been
00:00:04.040 in nursing homes. So why didn't the government focus especially on protecting those vulnerable
00:00:08.580 groups in those homes rather than shutting down all of society? And why did New York
00:00:12.360 actually force nursing homes to take coronavirus patients, which is a huge scandal, by the way,
00:00:17.540 we'll talk about that, and five headlines, including a heroic salon owner who now faces
00:00:22.540 jail time for refusing to close her business. And she had some words for the judge during
00:00:28.720 her sentencing that you have to hear. So we'll play that for you. But first, on this issue of
00:00:33.640 nursing homes, it was obvious very early on that nursing homes were especially and uniquely
00:00:38.260 vulnerable to COVID-19. Remember back in March when the virus was running roughshod through
00:00:43.560 nursing homes in Washington state, killing hundreds of elderly people. And this was after it had
00:00:48.080 already been made known based on data in China and Italy and other places that this is a virus
00:00:53.720 that particularly affects the elderly. And that's not a fact that anyone, especially anybody in
00:01:00.440 government, can claim to be surprised by. In fact, that's maybe the one fact about COVID that everyone
00:01:07.400 knew early on and that hasn't changed. There are a lot of things about COVID-19 that have changed,
00:01:13.280 a lot of things we thought we knew that turned out not to be correct. This is the one thing that has
00:01:17.860 remained a constant, is that it is something that inflicts especially the elderly and especially
00:01:23.720 those who are nursing homes. This is an important point because when you look around the country
00:01:28.420 and around the world after many weeks of this, months of this, nursing homes still stand out as
00:01:35.080 hot spots for the disease. So here are some facts to put this all in context. The Guardian reported
00:01:39.800 back in April that, quote, about half of all COVID-19 deaths appear to be happening in care homes in
00:01:44.720 some European countries, according to early figures gathered by UK-based academics who are warning that
00:01:50.660 the same effort must be put into fighting the virus in care homes as in the NHS. Snapshot data from
00:01:56.640 varying official sources show that in Italy, Spain, France, Ireland, and Belgium, between 42% and 57%
00:02:04.860 of deaths from the virus have happened in homes, according to the London School of Economics.
00:02:11.880 Half of all deaths. What about in the United States? A report in Business Insider on April 18th
00:02:18.660 says that up to that point, one in every five deaths, 20% of deaths from COVID in the United
00:02:25.080 States have been in nursing homes. When you break this down and look at individual states,
00:02:29.840 it becomes even clearer. Okay? And as I said, it's not like this is getting better either.
00:02:36.180 In Connecticut, last week, nearly 90% of all deaths in Connecticut from COVID were in nursing homes.
00:02:44.080 In Pennsylvania, overall, 80% of deaths have been in nursing homes. In New Hampshire, 75% of deaths have
00:02:51.300 been in nursing homes. In Maryland, it's 50%. In Texas, it's 40%. Okay? The data is very, very clear.
00:02:57.760 If you are in a nursing home, your chance of dying from this disease are astronomically higher than almost
00:03:04.200 anywhere else. And the advantage to that, the good thing about that, should be that nursing homes are
00:03:13.860 contained and isolated, and they are small areas. They aren't cities. They aren't metropolises. They
00:03:20.200 aren't, they don't have populations of millions of people. What that means is that it should be very
00:03:25.500 possible to clamp down, take whatever measures are necessary. This is already a controlled environment
00:03:31.720 in a nursing home. It's already a, at least a semi-medical environment. And so you should be
00:03:39.220 able to clamp down, take necessary measures, protect these vulnerable populations. It's not like these
00:03:45.460 people that are nursing homes are going out into society that often anyway. So you would think it
00:03:52.040 should be very possible to do that. But the bad thing, the very bad thing, the tragic thing, the terrible
00:03:57.400 thing, the outrageous thing, is that the government, state governments around the country failed to do
00:04:03.040 that. They failed. They could have, in some cases, cut their fatalities in half, or cut them by 70%,
00:04:11.980 or 80%, or 90%, just by focusing obsessively on protecting the nursing homes, whatever means
00:04:20.100 necessary. Okay? They didn't do that. They were too busy arresting salon owners and sending SWAT teams
00:04:28.120 to take down peaceful protesters outside of bars in Texas. And it's worse than that, actually. Okay?
00:04:35.320 It's worse than a mere failure to protect. It's a lot worse than that. I want to play something for
00:04:42.400 you. But before I do, some context on this. The AP reports. New York State reported more than
00:04:49.840 1,700 previously undisclosed deaths at nursing homes and adult care facilities in a tally that
00:04:55.720 included, for the first time, people believed to have been killed by the coronavirus before their
00:05:00.620 diagnoses could be confirmed. The tally released late Monday emerged as state officials faced scrutiny
00:05:07.280 over how they protected vulnerable residents from the coronavirus. At least 4,800 people have died
00:05:12.240 from COVID-19 in the state's nursing homes since March 1st, according to the new totals. Okay,
00:05:18.440 now, that's almost 5,000 deaths in nursing homes in New York that we know of, which means at least
00:05:23.600 25% of their deaths, as far as we know, could be a lot higher, have been in nursing homes.
00:05:31.240 Mayor Bill de Blasio, who is, I'm not sure if I've mentioned this before, a piece of garbage,
00:05:36.960 was asked about all of this, and here's what he had to say.
00:05:43.160 As you look at going forward now and you say improving conditions for seniors in nursing homes,
00:05:47.660 would it be a good idea to no longer send elderly patients who've tested positive for coronavirus
00:05:53.680 or are suspected to have coronavirus, would it be a good idea to not send them back into their
00:05:59.160 nursing homes where they then expose other vulnerable people?
00:06:02.200 Well, again, if the better care in that individual case is a hospital, of course,
00:06:07.340 that should be the go-to option. But there's going to be times where the nursing home is the
00:06:12.040 place that can better care if it's set up that way. Remember, a lot of these are for-profit
00:06:15.940 organizations. I think there's going to be a lot of questions about whether they
00:06:18.940 put their residents first or whether they put profit first. But I don't like what's happening in
00:06:26.580 the nursing homes. I want to see change. But I think in terms of each individual, it's a case
00:06:31.760 by case. You got to figure out what's right for each senior.
00:06:34.220 Just look at that smarmy doofus. I absolutely can't stand him. But listen to what the smarmy
00:06:40.940 doofus is saying. He's trying to blame the fact that someone said that this is happening. They're
00:06:46.140 trying to, he's trying to blame it on for-profit organizations because he knows, you know, as a,
00:06:52.440 as a, as a leftist, all he has to do is say the word, oh, they're profit. This is for-profit
00:06:56.380 capitalists. That's what this all is. Well, it's interesting because a report in the city,
00:07:01.580 which is a local news site in New York, says that a state-run nursing home in Queens, just as one
00:07:06.560 example, run by the health department, failed to follow coronavirus protocols, failed to isolate
00:07:12.520 the infected, even kept coronavirus patients in rooms with roommates who didn't have coronavirus.
00:07:19.220 But then many of them, I'm sure, quickly got coronavirus. That's in a state-run facility,
00:07:24.360 not a for-profit facility. But it's worse even than that. Nursing homes in New York were forced
00:07:31.200 by the state to take coronavirus patients. The state sent coronavirus-infected people into nursing
00:07:39.040 homes intentionally. And do you know what they sent alongside, along with those coronavirus patients?
00:07:45.640 Body bags. Okay, I'm not kidding. Let me read. This is from the New York Post. This is from a few
00:07:51.740 weeks ago. But this should be all over. I mean, this should be the biggest story, I think, in the
00:07:56.900 country right now. It says, the first coronavirus patients admitted to a Queens nursing home under a
00:08:04.020 controversial state mandate arrived, along with some grim accessories, a supply of body bags, the Post has
00:08:10.060 learned. An executive at the facility, which was previously free of the deadly disease, said the
00:08:16.860 bags were in the shipment of personal protective equipment received the same day the home was forced
00:08:20.880 to begin treating two people to discharge from hospitals with COVID-19. The exec told the Post
00:08:26.780 Thursday, my colleague noticed that one of the boxes was extremely heavy. Curious as to what could
00:08:31.840 possibly be making that particular box so heavy, he opened it. The first two coronavirus patients were
00:08:35.980 accompanied by five body bags. Within days, three of the bags were filled with the first of 30
00:08:42.340 residents who could die there, who would die there after Governor Andrew Cuomo's health department
00:08:46.580 handed down its March 25th directive that bars nursing homes from refusing to admit medically stable
00:08:52.700 coronavirus patients, according to the executive. Like clockwork, the nursing home has received five
00:08:59.840 body bags a week, every week from city officials. Cuomo has blood on his hands. He really does.
00:09:05.560 There's no way to sugarcoat this, the health executive added. And then later on, it says the
00:09:10.320 Queen's story is painfully repeating at a Manhattan nursing home. Administrators there told the Post
00:09:15.320 they'd also received body bags and weekly shipments of supplies, which City Hall confirmed the Department
00:09:20.940 of Health and Mental Hygiene was distributing to nursing homes. One of the Manhattan administrators
00:09:26.080 said the state's admission mandate came with no warning or even time to prepare facilities for an
00:09:32.420 influx of coronavirus patients, who the state says must be quarantined inside nursing homes and treated
00:09:38.220 by separate staffers. By the time I even, this administrator said, by the time I even got to work
00:09:45.300 the next day, I had phone calls, emails from just about every hospital in the area. Previously, the person
00:09:51.780 added the facility had required two negative test results before we'd even consider taking somebody
00:09:56.520 into the building. And then it goes on from there. This is a shocking scandal. Not only did New York
00:10:06.620 fail to protect its nursing homes, but it sent the virus, literally directly sent the virus into these
00:10:15.360 homes with extra body bags in a direct admission that they knew what the deadly impact would be of
00:10:20.800 this decision. These politicians, these bureaucrats, these incompetent lying, murderous bastards, pardon my
00:10:29.280 French, are trying to blame everyone and everything else. For-profit organizations, the American people,
00:10:37.160 small businesses, freedom. You know, they're pointing the finger at everything all over the place.
00:10:43.000 Meanwhile, it was their job, their job to protect the most vulnerable people. And they could have done it
00:10:50.560 and they didn't. Now, reverse the clock, okay? Go back in time. Imagine things going differently.
00:11:00.540 Imagine our governments across the country, state governments. Imagine that they're not populated
00:11:08.300 and staffed and run by nitwits and narcissists and petty tyrants and morons. And imagine instead
00:11:16.480 that they do the smart thing. And they fully lock down nursing homes. They go into, I'm talking DEFCON 1
00:11:24.180 to protect the nursing homes while encouraging for everybody else, social distancing, masks for the
00:11:30.880 general public, keeping schools open. Because all the data says that kids are all but immune from this.
00:11:38.440 I mean, not completely, but the chance of a child dying from this is vanishingly low. And the chance
00:11:46.240 of them spreading it is vanishingly low. And again, by the way, that's not new information. We knew this
00:11:52.680 from almost the beginning. There are two things we knew about this all along. The elderly are dying from
00:11:58.620 it and kids are not. In fact, young, not just kids, young and healthy people are generally not dying
00:12:04.800 but the elderly are dropping like flies. We've known that from the beginning. So they can't claim
00:12:09.660 we didn't know. And when I say we knew, I meant idiots like me, okay? And just normal peons like
00:12:18.480 the rest of us. We knew out in the general public this stuff about the virus. We have to assume that
00:12:24.380 the government knew everything we knew and probably some additional stuff too.
00:12:28.120 So what if they had done that? Shut down the nursing homes, totally shut them down.
00:12:36.560 Anybody has coronavirus, you get them out of there, okay? You certainly don't send coronavirus
00:12:41.900 patients into them. You don't let anybody in from the outside, so on and so on and so forth. What if
00:12:48.920 they had done that? Keep the economy going, tell people, encourage people to wear masks where
00:12:53.740 appropriate, you know, isolate the infected, keep the schools open. What does a death toll look like
00:13:01.120 if they had done that? Is it worse? I mean, could you possibly argue that it would be worse than it
00:13:06.120 is now? No way it's worse. What about the economy, the jobless rate, the suicide rate, the overdose rate,
00:13:11.660 domestic violence, all of that, all of that which is tied to the economic collapse. What about all that
00:13:18.900 stuff? This is something they could have done and didn't. We should be way angrier at the government
00:13:31.660 than we currently are, most of us anyway. Because there are a lot of people in America who are still
00:13:40.560 looking at Americans who are, you know, at the beach or sitting outside in a park in New York or something.
00:13:48.280 They're still pointing at them. All of their anger is pointed and directed at those kinds of people.
00:13:54.020 Or like we'll talk about in just a second here, business owners who dare to open up their business
00:13:59.700 so that they can make a living and feed their families. There are a lot of Americans, all of
00:14:05.500 their ire and anger and outrage is directed at those people. What about the bureaucrats and politicians
00:14:12.480 who could have prevented so much of this and failed to do it?
00:14:22.220 That's what we should be looking at. And this thing about the nursing homes, them sending patients
00:14:28.040 into nursing homes. Like I said, this is a scandal that should be the front pages everywhere.
00:14:33.700 But not only is it not front page news, Governor Cuomo, who came up with this mandate,
00:14:44.200 he still hailed as like the hero of the coronavirus. Why? Even before I knew this stuff about the
00:14:51.920 nursing home, I never understood why everybody is kissing Cuomo's butt. What has he done that's so great?
00:14:59.300 He's got the worst death toll of anybody in the, of any state in the country. I'm not saying that's
00:15:06.000 all his fault, but where's the evidence that Governor Cuomo has been some sort of brilliant
00:15:11.600 coronavirus fighter? I don't see it. You have these morons who are so smitten with, they see him in
00:15:19.660 press conferences. He's so great in the press conference. Who cares what he does in the press
00:15:23.380 conferences? Yeah, he's great in the press conferences. And then on the other hand,
00:15:29.720 he's sending coronavirus patients into, into nursing homes. All right, let's move on to news.
00:15:36.920 As referenced just a moment ago, a salon owner in Dallas, Shelly Luther was sentenced to jail time,
00:15:42.640 a week in jail for operating her salon for the crime of being a salon owner, for the crime of cutting
00:15:48.280 people's hair, for the crime of doing her job, for the crime of feeding her kids in America.
00:15:53.500 She's now going to jail, but Shelly Luther, and I don't say this lightly, she is a hero. I don't
00:15:57.920 mean it ironically. She is actually a hero standing up to tyranny, standing up for her rights, standing
00:16:02.940 up for her right to feed her kids. Um, and I want you to listen to her. She's talking to the,
00:16:08.060 she's at the, in court at sentencing. And she's told that if she simply apologizes
00:16:14.580 and admits that she's wrong and promises not to do it again, okay, admits that she's wrong,
00:16:20.920 like a bad little girl and, and, and, uh, says she'll never do it again. She won't have to go to
00:16:24.860 jail, but she refuses. And her refusal, uh, must be heard. Listen to this judge. I would like to say
00:16:31.800 that I have much respect for this court and laws and that I've never been in this position before.
00:16:40.860 And it's not someplace that I want to be, but I have to disagree with you, sir. When I,
00:16:49.200 when you say that I'm selfish because feeding my kids is not selfish. I have hairstylists that
00:16:57.380 are going hungry because they'd rather feed their kids. So, sir, if you think the law is more important
00:17:04.620 than kids getting fed, then please go ahead with your decision, but I am not going to shut the salon.
00:17:10.140 That woman is a, is a badass. And every word of what she said is true and right and moral and good.
00:17:20.480 Her defiance is moral and good. So I think that's great. Uh, number two, New York city is very proud
00:17:29.680 of itself because for the first time in 115 years, it shut down overnight service to do a thorough cleaning
00:17:37.140 of, uh, of the trains. So here they are cleaning. You can see the footage. Uh, now speaking of
00:17:44.720 for-profit organizations versus government run organizations, for-profit institutions clean
00:17:51.620 on a daily basis, sometimes on an hourly basis, depending on the establishment. But the New York
00:17:57.540 city subway system is doing a good thorough cleaning for the first time since the Wright brothers took
00:18:03.340 their first flight and they're so proud of it that, you know, they're, they're putting the propaganda
00:18:08.740 video out so they can show, look at what we're, look what we're doing. I mean, there's another simple
00:18:15.620 thing. Speaking of simple things that New York could have done. How about clean your, how about clean?
00:18:22.040 How about that for an idea? Or even why not shut down the subway system? I mean, the subway system
00:18:28.780 is still operating. It's been a vector for this disease this entire time and they keep it going.
00:18:35.820 You know, they get mad at people for going to the park and meanwhile, they've got these cramped,
00:18:41.360 poorly ventilated capsules where they're cramming people in.
00:18:45.220 Number three, here's a headline in New York magazine that I love. Um, it says Joe Biden is at his best
00:18:57.600 when he's neither speaking nor appearing in public. Will his campaign have to abandon its most effective
00:19:03.840 strategy? This reminds me of, uh, what I said to my high school principal when I got in trouble for
00:19:10.440 skipping class. I said, you know, I'm at my best when I'm neither completing assignments
00:19:15.560 nor attending school at all. Are you really going to force me to abandon my most effective strategy?
00:19:22.340 Of course, that tactic didn't work for me and I don't think it worked for Biden either.
00:19:25.820 Number four, put your conspiracy hats on. The Daily Wire reports, uh, a well-respected scientist at the
00:19:31.180 University of Pittsburgh Medical Center who was on the verge of making quote, very significant findings
00:19:35.980 in the fight against the coronavirus was murdered over the weekend inside his home.
00:19:39.660 Dr. Bing Liu, 37, who's from China, was shot multiple times around noon Saturday inside his home
00:19:45.900 in the 200 block of Elm Court, says the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Police believe that Mr. Liu was
00:19:52.520 shot by another man, identified later by, uh, the Allegheny County Medical Examiner's Office as
00:20:00.260 Hao Gu, 46, of Pittsburgh, who then got into his car, parked about 100 yards away, and killed himself.
00:20:06.760 Um, now police are saying that he was home by himself, the two men knew each other, law enforcement
00:20:16.600 says there's investigation still going. I mean, uh, murder, suicide, they knew each other. I don't think
00:20:23.480 there's, uh, reason for conspiracy theories, but you know, you know they're going to definitely be,
00:20:31.780 be coming on strong with, with something like this. Number five. And finally, Science Times tells us,
00:20:37.620 um, it says researchers from the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis
00:20:41.420 have successfully disabled a gene in specific mouth cells, preventing mice from becoming obese,
00:20:47.620 even after being fed a high fat diet. Um, and then it gets into a lot of sciencey stuff with words that
00:20:54.420 I can't pronounce. So basically what they're saying is that scientists may soon be able to disable the
00:20:59.560 obesity gene, curing obesity for good. But you know, I hate to be that guy, but there is another
00:21:07.260 way to disable the obesity gene and cure obesity. Uh, that's called going for a jog, uh, skipping the
00:21:15.300 Cinnabon stand at the mall when the mall's open again. I mean, things like that, eating a few
00:21:25.860 salads, stuff like that, I think can cure obesity. We're going to go on to emails in just a second,
00:21:31.300 but before we do, um, I want to take a moment to tell you about daily wires, newest, most exclusive
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00:23:04.280 We're going to do some, um, emails and you can always email the show. Uh, if you become a daily
00:23:11.480 wire member, it's another, even if you're just a regular daily wire member peon, uh, you know,
00:23:16.760 not, not even an all access to your person, you could still have access to the mailbag. So this is
00:23:22.140 from Seth says, Matt, I very much enjoyed your coronavirus music reviews and would like to suggest
00:23:26.640 that you review music every week on your show as a weekly segment, but I'm also very much disappointed
00:23:31.360 that you neglected to review the new Drake coronavirus video that just came out. Here's
00:23:36.620 the link. I think you'll enjoy it. Okay. Let's, um, I did neglect. We did, we did some coronavirus
00:23:40.500 music reviews last night because a lot of bands have put out coronavirus songs. And so we went
00:23:43.800 through some of them and, uh, you know, I was, I was largely disappointed as I am with most things in
00:23:49.080 life, but, um, there were a few, a few, uh, a few bright spots and I got several emails actually
00:23:55.440 saying that Drake had a music video and how could I not include that? This is Drake we're talking
00:24:01.120 about. So let's, uh, take a listen to that black leather glove, no sequins buckles on the jacket.
00:24:18.460 It's a leash Nike crossbody got a piece and got a dance, but it's really on. So street. I'm a show
00:24:26.400 you how to get it. It go right foot up, left foot slide, left foot up, right foot slide. Basically
00:24:33.960 I'm saying either way we about to slide. Hey, can't let this one slide. Don't you want to dance
00:24:39.860 with me? No. I could dance like Michael Jackson. I could get you the passion. It's a thriller
00:24:47.820 and a trap. Where we from? Baby, don't you want to dance with me? No. I could dance like
00:24:53.860 Michael Jackson. I could get you satisfaction. And you know, we out here every day with it.
00:25:01.260 I'm a show you how to get it. It go right foot up, left foot slide, left foot up, right foot
00:25:08.020 slide. Basically I'm saying either way we about to slide. Can't let this one slide.
00:25:14.680 Okay. Stop it right there. Let's, let's stop right there. Uh, what does this have to do with
00:25:19.640 coronavirus? He's in his mansion dancing. I understand he has a mask on. That's how Drake
00:25:28.820 addresses the pandemic by dancing in a mask. I thought this guy was supposed to be some sort of
00:25:33.680 lyrical genius. This is what he comes up with. The cha-cha slide essentially is what that that's his
00:25:39.460 coronavirus. That's, that's it. And the dance itself is the most, is the most pitiful, lazy thing I've
00:25:48.100 ever seen. Let me tell you, here's a, here's a general rule for dances. Um, if you're coming up
00:25:55.280 with a dance, if it's one that I could easily do, then it's a bad dance. You need to add some more
00:26:01.460 bells and whistles to it. I can't even do the hokey pokey without twisting my ankle. All right.
00:26:06.460 I tried to do the electric slide at a wedding and people thought I was having a seizure. They called
00:26:09.740 9-1-1. So if I can, I'm the most uncoordinated person on planet earth, bar none, I could do that
00:26:17.200 dance. So what is it? What is he teaching preschool? That's like a, that's like a dance
00:26:22.840 that a preschool teacher comes up with before nap time so that the, all the preschoolers get all
00:26:27.720 their energy out and then they can go take a nap on the alphabet rug. In fact, I skipped the daily
00:26:33.120 cancellation today. Uh, I realized so this, this is it right here. We'll do it. Drake is canceled for
00:26:39.040 that. I'm canceling Drake. Um, he's my cancellation today. I mean, if you're gonna, that's totally
00:26:47.060 unacceptable. I would expect much more from him. Uh, let's go to Hannah says, Matt, I just watched a
00:26:52.760 video by breaking in the habit on YouTube about why protesting during the lockdown is anti-Catholic
00:26:57.980 and selfish. I think his heart is in the right place, but as a, but he has a distorted view of
00:27:02.560 freedom. Um, I was just wondering if you could take a look at this and offer your opinion on this
00:27:07.280 view. Thanks for all you do. Your human perspective has been a great relief for my husband and me during
00:27:10.820 the situation. Um, okay. So Hannah, thanks for passing this along, Hannah. We'll, we'll take a look
00:27:15.360 at this video. I hadn't seen it before, um, until you had passed it along, but I'm always interested
00:27:21.380 in engaging with the other side of this and with their arguments. Um, and so here's an,
00:27:29.100 seems like an intelligent person making an argument about why you shouldn't be protesting
00:27:33.780 the lockdown and, um, why you should just, you know, stay home and listen to the government.
00:27:39.200 And I'll, I can't play the whole thing cause it's like eight minutes long, but here's a,
00:27:42.580 here are some of the relevant portions of it right here. This has got to be the most reckless,
00:27:48.360 dangerous, selfish thing I've ever seen in my life. Thinking about all those hospital workers
00:27:53.780 and public servants, putting their lives at risk and seeing this, it really just makes me sick.
00:28:00.400 But it goes deeper than that. I hope that none of them are Catholic because what's causing people
00:28:05.580 to protest in this way, the core ideology that they're expressing is a sense of freedom that
00:28:10.820 is far more individualistic, even anarchist than it is Christian. And so I think it's worth addressing
00:28:16.880 for the rest of us. What does it mean to be free? To get at that, let me pose a hypothetical scenario.
00:28:23.460 Two people are dying of thirst. Without a drink in the next few minutes, they're going to pass out
00:28:28.380 and ultimately die. The first person can choose between drinking motor oil, hydrochloric acid,
00:28:33.600 the liquid inside of a lava lamp, a bottle of Windex, and a leaky battery. Five options.
00:28:38.900 The second person has clean water and that's it. Just one choice, take it or leave it.
00:28:43.680 Based on your definition of freedom, which of the two people is more free?
00:28:49.080 Most people are willing to give up some freedoms to live in society, agreeing to laws like not to
00:28:54.140 murder each other or steal each other's property. But there's only so much one can take. Which is why
00:28:59.780 some people are protesting today. They are being told that they have to wear masks, that they can't go
00:29:05.000 to church, that they must stay six feet apart in small groups. And that's just too much for them.
00:29:10.240 Their choices are too limited and so they don't feel free. They're like the person given only one
00:29:15.660 choice of a glass of water. But given the scenario, isn't that actually the better choice? At that
00:29:22.460 moment, we would want the water, even if it is our only choice, right? The point of the hypothetical
00:29:27.780 scenario is to show that the quantity of choices is not the only thing that matters to freedom.
00:29:33.200 The quality of choices is equally, if not more, important.
00:29:36.600 If you're thirsty, having five toxic liquids doesn't make you free. Heck, having a hundred
00:29:41.920 toxic liquids doesn't make you free. When all of the choices are bad, against the thing that you
00:29:46.800 actually want and need, it doesn't matter how many choices you have, you are not free to make
00:29:52.200 the right one. As odd as it may sound, the person given only one choice of water is infinitely more
00:29:58.160 free than the other because that person has the ability to choose what is good.
00:30:02.440 Okay, a lot of problems here. Where to begin? First, the example he gives of the water and
00:30:10.980 poisonous liquids has nothing to do with freedom in either case. Okay, the people are dying of thirst,
00:30:17.960 right? So you give them water. Yeah, they could decline it, I guess, but really their body will
00:30:24.740 compel them to drink. So that's not much of a choice there at all. And also in the case of the poison,
00:30:29.820 telling someone they can choose which poison to drink is not freedom. And yes, that was his point,
00:30:35.300 of course. But my point is that the whole example misses the point because it has little to do with
00:30:40.580 freedom in either case. In both cases, the choice of what to drink was made really by the person
00:30:47.820 offering the drink. The choice was made for the thirsty person. They can simply decline or accept.
00:30:56.540 That's the only choice they have. There's some freedom in that, but not a whole lot.
00:31:01.880 And then he relates that to the coronavirus. And in this analogy, the people protesting
00:31:05.820 and wanting to open the economy are drinking poison. And the people who listen to the government
00:31:10.960 very obediently and stay home are drinking nice, fresh, life-preserving water. And he says that
00:31:17.880 the people protesting are only protesting because they don't want to socially distance and they don't
00:31:22.880 want to wear masks. And that alone destroys his entire point, destroys it. And this is the part
00:31:30.260 where many of the arguments against the protests and against ending the lockdowns, this is where many
00:31:37.420 of those arguments fall apart, just explode in a blaze of glory. Because the people making these
00:31:46.260 arguments invariably, like this person here, refuse to engage with the actual reason people are
00:31:53.660 protesting. The main thing people want to do, you heard it from the salon owner just a minute ago.
00:32:02.140 What did she say? She didn't say, your honor, I'm upset I have to wear a mask. I don't want to wear a
00:32:07.380 mask. Or I don't want to have to stay six feet from people. No, she said, I want to feed my kids.
00:32:12.860 I, I, and I've got employees and they need to feed their kids. So I want to take care of my kids and
00:32:19.240 I want to take care of my employees. That's the main reason people are protesting.
00:32:26.340 And so if you're trying to engage with the argument and you don't, you don't even acknowledge that
00:32:30.360 and you pretend that all, all of this is just about people not wanting to wear masks.
00:32:37.040 Well, then it's just, um, it's, it's a straw man. There's, there's no argument there.
00:32:42.860 You know, what's really at stake here is economic collapse and the protesters want to stave off
00:32:52.480 economic collapse, both their own personal financial collapse and the financial collapse
00:32:57.620 of the entire society. This video, again, doesn't engage with that concern at all,
00:33:02.320 or even acknowledge it. Um, to him, these are idiots who are mad that they have to stay six feet
00:33:08.020 apart from other strangers. And I assure you that is not what protesters are mad about. In fact,
00:33:13.520 personally, that's the only part of this. I like, I prefer my personal space. So the six feet apart
00:33:18.860 from other people, I'm fine with that. I could do that forever. Um, it's everything else that I don't
00:33:25.820 like. And I think that's the case for most of the protesters, but the real issue is that in this
00:33:29.980 analogy, again, the people who want to open the economy are choosing poison and the people who don't
00:33:36.420 are sipping nice, clean, refreshing water, which is saving their lives. But the whole point here is
00:33:41.920 that the people who want to open the economy are arguing that opening the economy is not poison.
00:33:48.380 That in fact, the poisonous path ultimately is to remain shut. So, so making the protesters into
00:33:55.360 poison drinkers begs the question. This is what begging the question is. Begging the question,
00:34:01.200 by the way, doesn't mean raising a question. That's a pet peeve I have when people say,
00:34:03.980 when people say, beg the question, but what they really mean is that something raises it. Anyway,
00:34:08.440 um, this begs a question and it begs a question because, um, it only, it only works. The argument
00:34:13.740 only works if we accept the premise that opening the economy is bad. So this is an argument,
00:34:20.080 you know, they're trying to make an argument by embedding the premise into the argument itself.
00:34:27.360 Um, but that's the very premise that the guy in the video has to defend.
00:34:35.220 You can't just have us assume for the sake of your argument that opening the economy is poisonous.
00:34:42.300 That's exactly the thing we're arguing about. I'm saying it's not in re and I've given many,
00:34:47.500 many reasons for that. So here's an analogy that gets a little closer to reality.
00:34:52.040 Let's say a guy is thirsty, um, stumbles upon a, I'm going to say he's dying of thirst even.
00:35:03.280 And he stumbles upon a somewhat shadowy figure on the road. And, uh, the figure says here,
00:35:08.920 drink this and puts a glass of liquid, not even a glass. Let's say it's a container. So you can't
00:35:14.420 even tell really what the liquid looks like, uh, puts a container of liquid in front of,
00:35:18.580 in front of the guy's face. It might be water. Um, it might be life-saving life preserving,
00:35:24.940 but let's say that the guy has reason to believe plausible reasons, maybe even good reasons to
00:35:33.840 believe that the shadowy figure might be trying to poison him. Um, that the liquid being offered
00:35:41.460 might actually do more harm than good. So the choice that this person's dying of thirst has
00:35:49.980 is to take the mystery liquid or to decline it and forge on ahead, hoping for a better,
00:35:57.540 more reliable source out there in the great beyond. Okay. That's a, a, an analogy that gets closer to,
00:36:06.600 um, to the situation because yeah, there's a risk. Maybe you die of thirst in the meantime.
00:36:16.020 Maybe you don't, um, maybe you find what you're looking for, you know, uh, and maybe the people
00:36:22.980 who accept the liquid end up worse off than you. That's the choice. That's the freedom.
00:36:28.860 The protesters are saying their whole point here is that the stuff we're being told that we're being
00:36:34.500 told is life-saving and life-preserving this, this stuff we're being told is life-sustaining water.
00:36:39.060 It's not actually that it's an imposter. Okay. It's, it's, it's, it's water that it's poison that
00:36:48.200 merely looks like water. The shutdown is an imposter. It purports to be saving our lives, but actually
00:36:56.420 for reasons that I have presented and many others have presented many times, it is doing more harm than
00:37:02.200 good. That's the argument. So he's right. You know, a choice between different kinds of poison
00:37:10.600 is not freedom, but when two paths are presented and it's not entirely clear, which is best
00:37:17.080 and you're able to choose whichever one you think is best, you're able to weigh the risks,
00:37:24.840 make a calculation, decide which way you want to go, um, and then take the risk. Now that is freedom
00:37:33.660 by any definition.
00:37:39.480 Or really, you know, as I'm thinking about it, maybe, maybe the, maybe an even better analogy
00:37:43.640 because with, with the shutdowns, right, there's actually no denying. I mean, nobody,
00:37:49.900 no rational person can deny that the shutdowns are having catastrophic effects in many aspects,
00:37:56.920 you know, in, in many facets, facets of our society. No one can deny that. Um, the argument
00:38:03.040 though, and I think it's a bad argument is that those catastrophic effects are worth it, that those
00:38:07.960 are bad, really bad side effects, crashing the economy, really terrible side effect, but it's worth
00:38:13.380 it for the benefit. So, um, you know, in this case, what the government is offering us is in fact
00:38:21.860 poison. It's, it's poisoning the economy. It's poisoning our civil liberties. There's no question
00:38:30.040 about that. But what the government says is yes, it's poison, but, um, in the end it will do more
00:38:37.700 good than harm. So you just have to, you have to choke it down and deal with it. Yeah. It's going
00:38:43.820 to kill 30 million jobs. Yes. This, that, and the other thing, but, uh, it's also going to have this
00:38:48.620 positive effect. And so freedom would be able to choose would, would be a choice between, am I going
00:38:55.820 to take that poison? Am I going to trust the government? Am I going to trust that it's doing
00:38:59.800 more good than harm? Or am I going to decline and choose a different path? That's freedom. Okay.
00:39:07.700 And so, yes, this is, this is a matter of freedom. Absolutely. Telling somebody that they can't go to
00:39:15.120 work and feed their families, telling Americans that they cannot worship publicly and go to church,
00:39:22.560 telling pastors that they cannot hold worship services, even outside, even when people are in
00:39:27.700 their cars, um, that is absolutely a matter of freedom. And you are absolutely taking people's,
00:39:34.240 people's freedoms away, not just their freedoms, not, not, not like privilege freedoms. Okay. Um,
00:39:39.600 but, but taking away their essential human liberties. All right. Thanks for passing that
00:39:47.440 along. Interesting argument, but a bad one for reasons I've explained. We'll wrap it up there.
00:39:53.000 Thanks for listening, everybody. Have a great day. Godspeed.
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00:40:34.980 Hey, everyone. It's Andrew Klavan, host of The Andrew Klavan Show. Donald Trump says we have to
00:40:39.100 be warriors to reopen our economy. The media says we have to be cowardly wimps and hide in our homes
00:40:43.720 forever. Time to choose on The Andrew Klavan Show.
00:40:54.720 Thank you.