The Matt Walsh Show - Ep. 49 - How Conservatives Can Win Back The Culture

00:00:00.000 So I think one of our problems, one of our big problems, one of our primary problems in the

00:00:06.580 culture today is cowardice, moral cowardice, especially. I think we, you know, we can look

00:00:12.120 at the state of things in our world and we could try to provide ourselves with excuses and come up

00:00:18.980 with reasons as to why it is the way it is while dancing around the real issue. And the real issue

00:00:25.920 is that most of us are cowards, plain and simple. Not all of us, certainly, but many, most. And so 0.96

00:00:33.880 you may be wondering, well, how do I know if I'm a coward? How do I know if I'm a moral coward?

00:00:39.460 What's the test? I think we can figure out if we ourselves are moral cowards by asking ourselves

00:00:46.580 just a few questions. Okay, so this is what you can ask yourself. When was the last time I did something

00:00:55.300 that I really didn't want to do, but I did it anyway because it was morally right? Or the inverse

00:01:03.320 of that, when was the last time I didn't do something that I really, really wanted to do and

00:01:09.240 had the opportunity to do, but did not do it because it would have been immoral? Or when was the last

00:01:15.440 time that I took some kind of moral stand that I knew was going to bring about humiliation and maybe

00:01:21.980 even worse consequences than that? And especially a moral stand that I knew could potentially alienate

00:01:27.860 me from even my own friends and people on my side. And so I'm not talking about going on Facebook and

00:01:35.380 writing some Republican things, you know, some talking point from Fox News that you know all your

00:01:42.220 Republican friends are going to agree with. No, I'm not talking about that. That takes no courage

00:01:45.500 whatsoever. I'm talking about taking a stand on something that may alienate you from everybody

00:01:51.920 practically, where you have no guarantees that anyone around you is going to agree. I think if

00:01:58.420 we honestly ask ourselves those questions, if we're really honest about it, so I'm asking you,

00:02:04.320 like, really think about this. Ask yourself honestly those questions, just as I'm asking myself those

00:02:10.600 questions. And I think if we do that, a great many of us would have to admit that we've never done any

00:02:17.520 of those things, or not done them, as the case may be. I think if we're being really honest, many of us

00:02:24.900 cannot think of one actual example of us doing something we really, really didn't want to do, but

00:02:33.900 doing it because it was moral, or especially not doing something that we really, really wanted to do,

00:02:39.640 but we didn't do it because it was immoral. And I really think that most of us probably can't think

00:02:44.800 of one honest example of us in our own lives, standing up, taking a stand, and really going out

00:02:53.340 on a limb, and exposing ourselves to humiliation and other consequences because of it. I just, I think

00:03:00.400 most of us can't come up with an example of that. And I feel safe making that assumption, because if a

00:03:06.260 majority of us had the willingness to act with moral courage, then we wouldn't be in the shape

00:03:12.060 that we're in, in our society. We've arrived at this point through the consent, and often the active

00:03:19.540 participation of most people. That's just the sad reality. And that's why I'm not a populist. Okay,

00:03:26.020 I know populism is very popular these days, not surprisingly, but I can't jump on board with this

00:03:33.500 kind of right-wing populism thing. Because what I notice in populism is this, is this instinct to

00:03:40.880 blame everything on institutions and on the kind of elite, shadowy villains in academia, and the

00:03:48.820 government, and the media, and they, they're the ones, they did everything, it's their fault. And it's true

00:03:54.580 that they deserve quite a lot of the blame, and I spend a lot of time blaming them for things, and they

00:03:58.560 deserve it. But it's not just them. The sad fact is that most regular people participate, have participated

00:04:08.700 in the degradation and destruction of our culture. And if they were not participating, or at least

00:04:15.280 consenting to it through silence, if most of us weren't doing that, then we wouldn't be in this state.

00:04:21.260 All of those elites and everything, they only have the power that we give them. Hollywood only has any

00:04:27.280 power, because we, if we didn't pay attention to Hollywood, it would have no power whatsoever.

00:04:31.680 It also wouldn't have any money if we didn't give them money. We all sit back, like, how does Hollywood

00:04:36.580 have so much power? This is ridiculous. Meanwhile, we're giving them, we're just handing our, we're 0.99

00:04:41.540 literally handing our cash to Hollywood and saying, I can't figure out why Hollywood is so powerful.

00:04:46.520 I'm so sick of Hollywood. And yeah, oh, what is that for the movie ticket? $27? Well, here you go.

00:04:51.600 I mean, and then we go in and we vote these people into office, and then we say, I can't figure out,

00:04:56.360 where did these politicians came from, come from? I can't figure out why they're controlling

00:05:00.220 everything. And then we complain about academia and say, well, academia is destroying society.

00:05:05.520 Meanwhile, we push our kids into these liberal colleges and universities, and we send our kids

00:05:10.700 to public school. We're like pushing, we're pushing our kids into the academic system while

00:05:16.980 complaining about academia. So yes, I blame us. We are not innocent little victimized snowflakes

00:05:24.840 who are just trying to live our lives and are being bullied by those mean elites. That's not

00:05:29.600 what's happening. So I mentioned yesterday, just by way of example, the story of the two biological

00:05:35.120 boys who were permitted to compete against and ultimately defeat girls at a state track and

00:05:42.180 field championship in Connecticut. And I talked about this on the show yesterday. The reason I bring

00:05:47.240 it up again is because it's what got me thinking about the issue of courage. This story is just a

00:05:53.820 perfect example, a perfect microcosm of how things always go in our culture when you have radical 0.96

00:05:59.480 leftists imposing their will on moral cowards. So as I said yesterday, just in that example,

00:06:08.240 just as one example, if every parent who silently disagreed with allowing boys to steal medals from

00:06:16.260 their daughters, and every coach who privately felt disgusted by it, and every school official who

00:06:22.040 harbored serious reservations about the whole thing in their minds, if they all would just speak up

00:06:28.160 and refuse to participate in or facilitate any competition that involves boys, then the problem

00:06:36.240 would be solved just like that. And that's the case for most of these problems. If everybody who silently

00:06:45.220 disagreed with it would just say something and do something about it, the problem would go away.

00:06:52.960 It would really be that easy for most of these things. But in that case, too many people were afraid.

00:07:01.240 Too many of them were cowards. And so they let the smallest minority pushing the craziest ideology 0.93

00:07:08.500 prevail because they were too afraid.

00:07:11.140 I hear all the time about the so-called silent majority. There is supposedly a silent majority

00:07:18.120 who allegedly opposes and despises radical leftism. You know, they're not on board with any of this

00:07:26.180 stuff. They're the silent majority. And conservatives will often talk about this majority with some kind

00:07:32.960 of like pride. You know, conservatives will talk about this majority as if we're proud of the fact.

00:07:38.260 We'll say, well, you know, we're the ones really in the majority. We're the ones. There's more of us

00:07:42.920 than there are of them. Did you know that? Well, I don't understand the pride because if this majority

00:07:48.780 exists, and I think it probably does, then their status as a majority just makes their cowardice all

00:07:55.420 the more shameful. I mean, you're telling me that we're in the majority and we know we're in the

00:08:01.020 majority, yet we still won't say anything. We still sit back and let all this stuff happen.

00:08:06.680 We've allowed the relativists and the hedonists to upend and reshape and reform and destroy our

00:08:14.560 civilization and dictate terms to us and get their way on almost everything, even to the point of

00:08:19.620 intruding into our daughters' bathrooms and sports teams. And what do we do in response? We just kind

00:08:26.240 of shake our head and we furrow our brows and we mutter quietly to each other and we complain about it

00:08:32.200 whispering in our living rooms to each other when nobody, you know, we're whispering to each other

00:08:36.820 in our living rooms with the doors locked. We're looking around and, hey, you know, I really disagree

00:08:41.440 with this transgender stuff. You know, I honestly, I think it's crazy, but oh, shh, shh, shh, someone's 1.00

00:08:46.640 coming. How many schools have instituted these insane transgender policies while a majority of parents 1.00

00:08:54.900 and teachers and everybody opposes it yet says nothing? You've got this in these cases with the

00:09:02.900 transgender stuff, there's definitely a silent majority who are totally against it and think

00:09:08.420 it's nuts, but they won't say it. They just stay quiet. And that's just one example. I mean, in my

00:09:15.160 piece yesterday, I mentioned the story of a CrossFit executive. Now, this is an example on the other end of

00:09:20.380 the spectrum. This is an example of courage. This is what courage looks like. So a CrossFit executive

00:09:25.400 got fired after saying that gay pride parades and gay pride festivals are sinful, which is true. They 1.00

00:09:34.600 are sinful. And he said this on his own Twitter account and he was fired for it. But that made me

00:09:42.040 think, well, how many communities have hosted these sinful spectacles known as pride parades while the 1.00

00:09:51.700 majority of residents in these communities are absolutely opposed to the whole thing, but they

00:09:58.680 don't say a word of protest against it. They just kind of stand off on the side and maybe they even

00:10:07.100 wave one of the rainbow flags just so nobody, because they don't want anyone to know that they're 0.54

00:10:11.700 opposed to this in their head. They're so terrified. How many people feel very upset about

00:10:17.580 the Holocaust of the unborn that happens in abortion clinics across our nation and the one 0.98

00:10:22.380 million babies that are killed every year? And yet, although they feel upset by it, they do and say

00:10:28.100 nothing in opposition to it. How many people complain, as I said, about complain about Hollywood

00:10:34.000 and all the filth on TV and everything, yet they keep on watching it, watching the filth and letting their

00:10:39.580 children watch it, and on and on and on and on. We let all of this stuff happen. We stand by while

00:10:46.660 it happens. We say nothing. And then we claim that our silence is rooted in some kind of principle.

00:10:53.440 This is my favorite thing, when conservatives are trying to justify their cowardice and their silence,

00:10:58.920 and so they'll try to make it about freedom, about respecting other people's privacy. And they'll say,

00:11:06.380 well, I don't agree with it, but we all have freedom and, you know, the free market and freedom

00:11:11.500 and free market. That's become, look, I believe in freedom and I believe in the free market, but it

00:11:15.600 has become a crutch for cowardly wusses in the conservative movement who just want, they want, 0.58

00:11:23.020 they lean on that for everything, to give them an excuse so they don't have to fight back ever about 0.97

00:11:28.440 anything. So, for instance, I remember I wrote an article a few months ago about porn, and I said

00:11:35.860 that porn should be banned. It should be illegal, which is a position, the idea that it should be

00:11:42.140 illegal to publish hardcore pornography that children, that like eight-year-olds can access.

00:11:49.040 Now, that is not a radical position, or at least up until very recently, it would not have been

00:11:53.320 considered a radical position. And almost anyone who considers them conservative, consider themselves

00:11:58.620 conservative, and certainly anyone who consider themselves Christian, would agree. Obviously,

00:12:04.180 yes, that stuff should be illegal. So I wrote this article, and what I found is that the majority of

00:12:09.520 conservatives in the audience absolutely disagreed with making hardcore pornography. On the basis of

00:12:16.600 freedom, they said, we, no, we need, it's freedom. So, yes, because of freedom, we have to let our

00:12:22.120 eight-year-olds watch hardcore pornography. That's what we need. It's freedom. That's what Thomas

00:12:26.720 Jefferson would have wanted. You know something? I know this is going to be very scandalous for a lot

00:12:31.380 of conservatives in the audience. I don't care what Thomas Jefferson would have wanted. Thomas

00:12:38.120 Jefferson is not God. Now, I actually don't agree. I think that our founding fathers never intended for

00:12:45.320 the First Amendment to cover hardcore pornography. And if they could have looked into a crystal ball and

00:12:50.260 solid situation where the First Amendment was being used to give pornographers the freedom to, you know,

00:12:59.360 shove this filth into the faces of children, I think our founding fathers would have been very much against

00:13:05.060 that. And the fact that there were decency laws on the books in almost every state up until recently, I think

00:13:10.120 that kind of speaks to that. But here's the point. I think it's pretty clear that the First Amendment does not

00:13:16.340 protect hardcore pornography, and it does not exclude individual communities and states. It doesn't

00:13:23.200 prevent communities and states from having standards of decency and decency laws. So that's as far as the

00:13:31.160 law goes, I think that's clear. But as far as what our founding fathers individually would have wanted in

00:13:37.280 their own heads, I don't care. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter to me. I mean, Thomas Jefferson was

00:13:43.880 also, I mean, he ripped apart the Bible and made his own Bible. Okay, so that's what that's from a moral 0.66

00:13:51.260 and spiritual perspective. That's the kind of guy we were dealing with. So I don't really care what his

00:13:55.900 moral and spiritual opinions were. All right. That as a Christian, what we need to be what we need to be

00:14:03.460 worried about is, what would Jesus, it's not like, what were Thomas Jefferson, what were the founding

00:14:10.440 fathers' priorities? What was Jesus' priorities? What would Jesus want for our country and our community

00:14:18.980 and our children? That's who we should be worried about. Jesus is God. Not the people on Mount Rushmore,

00:14:25.960 not the founding fathers, not the people that, you know, signed the Declaration of Independence.

00:14:29.140 They were great men. They were not gods. And I think in the conservative movement, what we've done

00:14:34.660 is we have made a religion out of, we've made kind of a national religion for ourselves.

00:14:42.020 And we have pushed Jesus out of the frame completely. But as Christians, I think it's clear

00:14:50.220 that our first priority is to shape the kind of country and the kind of civilization, the kind of

00:14:56.320 community that God wants for us. That's what we should be doing. And that means standing up

00:15:05.740 against filth and degeneracy and all this stuff. Do you want to live in a culture of filth and

00:15:12.540 degeneracy where your children are eaten alive by this garbage? Is that the kind of culture you want? 1.00

00:15:19.840 If not, say something. Don't tell me, well, I don't want it, but we can't do anything because of freedom.

00:15:24.720 No, that's not freedom you're talking about. It's cowardice. So do something. Stand up.

00:15:32.720 The fact is that most of us are exactly like the parents, coaches, and officials who stood off on

00:15:38.540 the sidelines, politely clapping while a couple of dudes cheated and humiliated their daughters.

00:15:44.580 That's what most of them were doing. They were just kind of, they had a fake smile on their face and

00:15:49.200 they were just standing off on the sidelines. Hey, yeah. Okay. Good job. You go, girl.

00:15:56.880 I mean, why, why, why weren't their parents running onto the track itself and saying, no,

00:16:03.200 I'm not even going to let this race go up. Why wasn't, why didn't some girl's dad go up and 0.99

00:16:08.740 confront these dudes, these cheaters and say, hey, buddy, you got the wrong track. The boy's track

00:16:15.140 meet is that way. Okay. Now get off. Why didn't somebody's dad do that? You think, let me ask you,

00:16:20.080 like 50 years ago, if this had happened, if this happened 50 years ago, imagine like your

00:16:25.080 grandfather. Okay. If 50 years ago, you've got a dude, you've got some muscle bound dude that shows

00:16:31.140 up at a girl's track meet 50 years ago and says, yeah, I'm going to race against the girl. And there

00:16:35.640 are a bunch of dads in the audience. How do you think the dads would have responded to that? Do you think

00:16:39.640 they would have just sat back and said, well, we can't do anything. It's freedom, you know, freedom.

00:16:43.320 Yeah. It's what Thomas Jefferson would have wanted. No, those, those dads would have walked

00:16:47.660 right onto that track and said, Hey, bud, get off. No, you get out of here. But we don't do that

00:16:52.460 anymore. And why is that? Because, because we're afraid. And what do we say we're afraid of? I think

00:16:57.200 the, the, the, one of the excuses that you always hear is, well, we'll lose our jobs. Well, I think

00:17:02.240 there's quite a bit that we could do to stand for our convictions without getting to the point where we

00:17:07.020 might lose our jobs. Like losing our jobs is here and we're over here. We could, we got a lot of room to

00:17:12.200 cover before we have to worry about losing our job. But even if that is a risk, and maybe it is

00:17:17.520 in some situations for some jobs, maybe it is a risk. Okay. Maybe that's a risk we have to take.

00:17:26.180 Jesus says we have to be willing to give up our lives for the truth. So if we won't even give up

00:17:30.680 our jobs potentially for the truth, then how far are we from living like Jesus told us to live?

00:17:36.980 But the thing is, that's not even the real fear, is it? Because it's not just about jobs.

00:17:41.860 I think people are mostly afraid of social alienation. They're afraid of humiliation.

00:17:47.580 And it's natural to fear, fear, fear those things. But really, when you think about it,

00:17:52.380 who cares about that? Who cares what these cackling drones think about you? So people laugh at you. Who

00:18:00.620 cares? Why be afraid of that? Our lives are not being threatened. We're not being called upon to

00:18:09.000 demonstrate a huge amount of courage, the kind of courage that you need to demonstrate when your

00:18:15.380 actual life is at risk. Our lives aren't at risk. Nobody's coming to our houses and killing us because

00:18:22.640 of our opinions. Maybe eventually we'll be at that point. But well, actually, we're never going to be at

00:18:29.260 that point at this rate because there's no reason for us to ever get to that point. You know, our

00:18:32.700 ideological enemies and the enemies of God in our culture, they don't need to kill us because we're

00:18:38.800 no threat to them. We're too busy watching Netflix and minding our own business, so why are they going

00:18:44.400 to come kill us? We're not worth killing, basically. The Christians in the Middle East, they're worth 1.00

00:18:51.020 killing from the perspective of the satanic persecutors of the church because they're on fire with the 0.99

00:18:58.200 faith and they're courageous and they're strong Christians. And so the enemies of the church say,

00:19:03.020 well, we got, well, all we can do is kill them. The enemies of the church in this country, they look 0.99

00:19:07.340 at us and they just laugh. They say, you guys are no threat. You're not going to do anything.

00:19:12.500 I mean, you won't even stop watching Disney movies. Yeah, you complain about Disney. You can't even bring

00:19:16.540 yourself to do that. Yes, you're no threat. You're worried we're going to kill you. Why would we ever do

00:19:21.200 that? So it's not a lot of courage that we need to demonstrate. I think we need to demonstrate just a

00:19:26.460 little tiny speck of courage. And if we all had that, if we all had just our little speck,

00:19:33.160 if we all came equipped into every situation with just that little speck of courage, like you can't

00:19:37.920 hardly even see it. But if we all have that and we're willing in any situation to demonstrate just

00:19:44.120 that small speck of courage for only even just a few seconds, that's what most situations call for

00:19:51.000 a small amount of courage that you will demonstrate for a very short amount of time.

00:19:56.840 And if we were willing to do that, then I think everything would change. So that's my challenge to

00:20:04.000 you and to myself. Because by the way, I'm not, I'm saying all this, I'm talking to myself as well,

00:20:10.000 not just to you. I'm talking to all of us. That's why I'm using the word we and us. I certainly don't put

00:20:16.500 myself forward as a, some sort of monument of courage at all. So this is a challenge for all

00:20:23.080 of us. And I think if we, if we were willing to, if we're willing to just have a little bit of

00:20:27.800 courage for a short amount of time, little courage in small spurts, basically, if we're willing to do

00:20:33.620 that, then I think things would change. So let's give it a try. It's worth a shot. And who knows,

00:20:38.620 it could be fun. It could be exciting. That's the other thing. I think when you, if you live with

00:20:42.100 courage, your life is also more exciting and unpredictable, right? So let's just try it

00:20:46.700 and see what happens. Thanks for watching. Thanks for listening, everybody. Godspeed.

The Matt Walsh Show - June 13, 2018

Ep. 49 - How Conservatives Can Win Back The Culture

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