The Matt Walsh Show - April 09, 2018


Ep. 5 - The Pro-Abortion Position is Disgusting and Ridiculous, and That’s How it Should Be Treated

Hosted by
Matt Walsh
Mentioned
Kevin Williamson
Ep. 4 - The Real Reason Christianity Is Declining In America Ep. 6 - The Left's War On Inanimate Objects

Episode Stats


Length

22 minutes

Words per minute

143.08

Word count

3,273

Sentence count

204

Harmful content

Misogyny

7

sentences flagged

Toxicity

39

sentences flagged

Hate speech

6

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

Kevin Williamson has been fired from The Atlantic, which is a leftist publication, for writing a column about abortion. I discuss why this happened and why pro-lifers should not be offended by it. Also, I talk about why I don't believe abortion should be executed.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
00:00:00.000 Hey everybody, welcome to the show. Hope you had a great weekend. As you can see, I am dressed in my all black outfit. Again, just in case, you know, I happen to run into a funeral today or a bank I want to rob or I want to enter the matrix or anything like that, then I've, you know, I'm ready to go. I've got the, I've got the costume on.
00:00:21.240 Now, I want to talk about this Kevin Williamson situation. Maybe if you're not on Twitter, you maybe haven't even heard about it. Kevin Williamson was hired by, he's a conservative writer, right-wing writer at least, and he was hired by the Atlantic, which as you probably know is traditionally a leftist publication, hired by them a few weeks ago, has now been fired.
00:00:43.260 Before, I believe, he even wrote anything for the Atlantic, he's already been fired because of a coordinated and relentless smear campaign against him by the left, and the Atlantic caved to that pressure after only a couple of weeks.
00:00:58.520 This, in spite of the fact that Kevin Williamson is one of the most talented writers in America, and he really is one of the most talented. I'm not just saying that. He's one of the most talented writers in America and one of the most interesting writers because he doesn't, he doesn't pander.
00:01:15.340 And that's a very rare quality among commentators and pundits and colonists and writers on both sides of the spectrum. Most of what you get on both sides of the spectrum with these paid opinion givers, most of them, all they do is just pander.
00:01:33.080 They have their audience, and they've got their base of support, and they just tell those people, they just echo, they figure out whatever those people are already thinking, and they echo those thoughts back to them in even simpler and less nuanced terms than they're already thinking.
00:01:49.880 So they're just kind of, they're just a wall to bounce your own opinions off of, and that makes them bland and boring and just painfully, painfully dull. Williamson doesn't do that. That's what makes them interesting.
00:02:03.080 But he's been, he's been fired. The thing that got Williamson into trouble, well, really the thing that got him into trouble is just that he's not on the left, that he's considered part of the right wing, and so that's why they hate him.
00:02:18.540 But, and they would have wanted to destroy him and get him kicked out of the mainstream anyway. He was a part of the national, he was writing for the National Review before then.
00:02:27.220 If you're a conservative person, and you try to leave the conservative sphere and go to something considered more mainstream, then the left is going to react against that and try to get, they're going to find a reason to kick you back to the conservative camp. 0.75
00:02:43.960 The reason that they found for Kevin Williamson is that he has stated on a few occasions that he believes that women who have had abortions should be hanged.
00:02:56.600 Now, I don't think he meant this literally, okay? It's kind of clear to me that he's not actually stating his plan or something, and he's not saying that women right now, today, who have had abortions should be hanged.
00:03:12.980 So, what he's talking about is, well, if abortion is illegal, and it's legally murder, well, that means what it means. That's what he actually said.
00:03:23.760 Now, most pro-lifers, myself included, would oppose the idea of executing women who get abortions.
00:03:31.260 However, it's not an irrational or delusional point of view, because in a world where abortion is illegal, it would and should be treated as murder, which is the point he's trying to make.
00:03:45.080 So, if you are someone who supports capital punishment, and a lot of pro-lifers don't, which is the first reason why they wouldn't execute anybody involved with abortions, is because they don't believe in executing anyone at all.
00:03:57.980 But if you believe in capital punishment, and you believe in capital punishment for people who commit murder, particularly murder of children, well, then there's kind of an obvious connection here.
00:04:05.740 Personally, I wouldn't support that, because I believe capital murder charges should be reserved for the abortionists who not only carry out these killings, but also take advantage of and exploit women and young girls who are often ignorant, they're scared, and the abortion industry takes advantage of them.
00:04:32.820 That doesn't alleviate their moral guilt entirely, and there's no doubt that many of them go into the procedure with very clear eyes, they know what they're doing, and calloused hearts, and there are women who get multiple abortions, and they just don't care at all about the lives of these children, and so there's just that callousness there.
00:04:53.560 But I also think that a lot of people don't understand the level of exploitation that goes on.
00:05:01.620 And this is a really important part of the pro-life message.
00:05:05.800 This is something we need to communicate.
00:05:09.480 People don't understand the level of exploitation and just the scare tactics that these abortion clinics use, and the ways in which they ensure that these women remain in the dark and remain ignorant.
00:05:24.520 They don't want them to have any information, that's why they're always opposed to, oh no, we can't let them see a sonogram, we can't give them any information.
00:05:32.700 If you try to pass any law at all, imposing any standards on these clinics, or saying, look, you need to equip these women with at least some information about what you're doing to them.
00:05:43.860 Any amount of that whatsoever, the clinics react against, even though they consider themselves a medical, right?
00:05:51.680 They're a medical clinic.
00:05:53.500 Well, any other medical clinic you go to, there are all kinds of laws and regulations, and if they're going to perform any procedure on you whatsoever,
00:06:01.120 they have to give you, there are all kinds of laws requiring the clinic or the medical establishment to provide information.
00:06:09.160 There are not nearly as many such laws for abortion clinics.
00:06:14.840 Why is that? 0.54
00:06:16.000 Because the abortion clinics want these women to be ignorant, they want them in the dark. 1.00
00:06:21.500 Because if you're in the dark, and you're ignorant, and you're already in the situation where you're pregnant, and you don't know what to do, then that's going to breed fear. 0.98
00:06:29.420 And then the abortion clinic, they take that fear, and they use it, and they profit off of it, and they turn it into death.
00:06:35.180 And that's how they convince these women, oftentimes, to kill their babies, and to give up this precious gift, this gift of motherhood. 0.98
00:06:47.620 And to give it up without fully realizing what they're doing.
00:06:51.020 And that's why, if we're going to give first-degree capital murder charges to anybody, it should be the abortionists and the officials in these abortion clinics.
00:07:01.120 But however you feel on that subject, and whether you think that Williamson's position is correct, or horrifying, or somewhere in between.
00:07:13.280 I think there are two things that are immediately clear here that I want to cover.
00:07:17.040 First of all, it's very chilling, and this is the thing that most people are focusing on.
00:07:27.340 It's very chilling that a writer can be fired for his political beliefs, especially when he was hired to communicate those beliefs, after a coordinated assault on his character.
00:07:42.740 And especially when, by the way, it's not like he was hired for the Atlantic, and then the first thing he did was write an article about executing women.
00:07:53.460 This is something that he mentioned in a tweet and in a podcast well before he was ever hired by the Atlantic.
00:07:59.980 And as far as I know, he's never proposed it in any kind of writing that anyone has paid him to write.
00:08:05.780 So really, he's getting fired for his opinions and his personal beliefs after this assault that was waged against him, which was completely politically motivated.
00:08:17.340 And that's a pretty chilling thing.
00:08:20.200 But here's the bigger point.
00:08:21.760 Every pro-abortion columnist and pundit in the country harbors views that are infinitely more offensive and disgusting and outrageous and shocking than Williamson's.
00:08:43.880 Now, he may hypothetically be suggesting capital punishment for people who kill their babies, but pro-abortion people, pro-abortion people, and there are obviously millions of them out there, and there are hundreds of them in the media, pro-abortion people support the actual real-life execution of human children.
00:09:10.240 Let me ask you, which position is more shocking, supporting the hypothetical execution of people who kill their kids, or supporting the real-life, actually-happening-now mass execution of 60 million human babies?
00:09:30.520 Because that's the position that every pro-abortion person in the country holds.
00:09:34.920 60 million babies have been executed, and executed in ways that are far more gruesome than hanging, by the way.
00:09:42.980 If you look into how these abortion procedures are carried out, it's not a—you know, when we say that these babies are slaughtered and butchered and ripped apart, that's actually what happens.
00:09:56.620 That's how these procedures are carried out.
00:09:58.760 But the pro-abortion crowd, they not only support this wholesale slaughter of babies, but they applaud it. 0.56
00:10:08.760 They applaud it.
00:10:10.140 They applaud it as this victory for womanhood, this victory for, you know, self-actualization.
00:10:22.600 Autonomy.
00:10:23.360 Autonomy.
00:10:25.200 So that's what's so ironic here.
00:10:27.980 That's what's ironic, that only pro-lifers, only pro-lifers have any ground to stand on when it comes to criticizing Williamson.
00:10:40.160 Now, we can criticize each other within our own movement.
00:10:44.340 We have the moral leg to stand on because we're the ones opposed to killing babies.
00:10:50.600 But guess what? 0.99
00:10:51.640 If you support killing babies, you don't get to act shocked or outraged at anyone's opinion on any subject because you have the most disgusting, awful, indefensible position available in the world. 0.99
00:11:11.680 So you don't get to do that. 0.99
00:11:13.520 You don't get to turn to anyone else and say, how could you possibly believe that?
00:11:16.980 You don't get to do that while you stand on the graves of 60 million dead babies.
00:11:24.020 Sorry.
00:11:26.200 But pro-lifers, while they will and many of them have criticized Kevin Williamson's position, argued against it, they would never call for his firing. 0.99
00:11:35.980 It's only the pro-baby-killing hypocrites who would join that chorus. 0.99
00:11:42.140 And that's why they should be completely ignored. 0.99
00:11:45.580 But you see here, you see the strategy that the left employs.
00:11:51.680 What the left does, especially when it comes to abortion, but really when it comes to any position at all that they don't like.
00:12:08.480 You'll notice, when you articulate a point of view that they don't like, they're not just going to say, oh, I disagree with that.
00:12:19.080 I understand where you're coming from, but I disagree with it.
00:12:22.420 Let's engage in a discussion.
00:12:24.440 They're not going to say that.
00:12:25.500 They're going to recoil in horror, okay? 1.00
00:12:30.680 They're going to act like what you just said is the most disgusting, insane, idiotic thing that anyone has ever uttered. 1.00
00:12:41.220 They're going to say that not only is this position wrong, but it is not fit for human civilization. 1.00
00:12:47.880 It is not a position that anyone should hold in a human society, in a civilized society.
00:12:54.140 They're going to shriek.
00:12:55.900 They're going to snarl.
00:12:57.360 And they will generally give off the impression that the person who said whatever this thing is, is just completely delusional and horrific and evil.
00:13:08.440 That's how they act.
00:13:10.820 And it's a smart strategy, okay?
00:13:14.120 It works.
00:13:15.700 It obviously works.
00:13:18.680 The only problem is that it's dishonest.
00:13:23.960 There's not necessarily any problem with reacting to somebody's opinion that way. 1.00
00:13:30.160 Because if they really do have a horrifically stupid and awful opinion, well, then it should be treated that way. 0.99
00:13:37.720 So the problem is not quite, it's not really their reaction. 1.00
00:13:41.320 It's what they're reacting to.
00:13:44.100 It's that they react to the truth that way.
00:13:47.880 And the truth does not deserve to be treated that way.
00:13:51.480 Kevin Williamson, even if you disagree with his position on executing people who get abortions, it's grounded in the truth.
00:14:00.820 And it's grounded in the belief that it's completely wrong and awful to kill babies.
00:14:06.500 And that's what the left is really reacting against.
00:14:09.600 That's what they don't, it's that that they want to, it's, that's what they're punishing.
00:14:13.560 I think that pro-lifers would do well to adopt a little bit of this approach.
00:14:24.320 And in their case, it would be okay.
00:14:29.320 In our case, it would be okay because it would be honest. 0.99
00:14:34.000 The pro-abortion position is actually and really horrific, disgusting, crazy, irredeemable. 0.93
00:14:42.920 And it should be treated that way. 0.96
00:14:47.920 That's how we should treat it.
00:14:50.980 One of the problems among pro-lifers, especially the kind of nominal pro-lifers, but even many sincere and active pro-lifers,
00:14:58.940 is that we listen to the pro-abortion side and we like take it seriously.
00:15:03.440 And we treat, we treat the opinion with respect. 0.99
00:15:08.820 We've got someone up there saying, yeah, 60 million dead babies, let's kill more. 1.00
00:15:13.240 And we sit there and we listen and we say, oh yeah, okay, well let's, you know, let's engage in a dialogue about that. 0.85
00:15:20.800 We should be the ones recoiling in disgust.
00:15:25.700 We should be the ones saying, I'm not even going to entertain that view.
00:15:30.320 If you have that view, then I can't take anything you say seriously.
00:15:39.140 The problem is that there are many conservatives, pro-lifers, who say that, for instance, they'll say that,
00:15:49.960 well, we shouldn't call abortion baby murder and so forth.
00:15:54.620 We shouldn't call pro-abortion people pro-abortion.
00:15:57.520 We shouldn't use words like slaughter and butcher.
00:16:01.600 We shouldn't do that.
00:16:03.380 We should adopt the language that the left has assigned to us.
00:16:07.940 We should play the game on their terms. 0.95
00:16:10.540 We should adopt all the same code words that they use.
00:16:13.880 We should help them cover up their evil deeds in all of these nice little sanitary euphemisms. 1.00
00:16:20.500 We should be polite.
00:16:21.940 We should be reasonable.
00:16:23.240 We should afford their position, respect.
00:16:26.180 You know, we should lead by example and be the mature and respectable ones.
00:16:30.800 No.
00:16:32.200 Our position, okay, I have no problem saying this. 0.99
00:16:36.140 Call me a hypocrite. 0.95
00:16:37.620 On abortion, my position is due respect. 0.95
00:16:41.660 I am due respect as a pro-life person.
00:16:47.520 My position is respectable, and you should respect it.
00:16:52.360 If you're pro-abortion, your position is not respectable, and it is not due respect, and I do not respect it.
00:17:00.500 I'm going, that's what I, guess what?
00:17:02.300 I'm going to demand that you respect my position, even while I don't respect yours, because your position is not respectable. 0.98
00:17:10.280 You are arguing for murdering babies.
00:17:12.240 I'm not going to respect that.
00:17:13.560 I'm saying we shouldn't.
00:17:14.900 You should respect that if you're a decent and civilized human being. 0.98
00:17:20.360 Your position in that case is murderous and wicked and ridiculous and anti-science and not grounded in any kind of reality or logic at all. 0.95
00:17:32.300 Now, I know that obviously different occasions call for different approaches, and there are plenty of situations when you're a pro-lifer when you've got to be more gentle, and maybe you don't go throwing around words like slaughter and butcher and baby killing. 0.95
00:17:50.560 For instance, sidewalk counselors who just have a wonderful and godly ministry where they're the ones who go to the clinics, and they're trying to approach these women as they're walking into the clinics and minister to them and provide them with information and show them love and show them support.
00:18:08.400 So a sidewalk counselor is not going to run up, no matter how, no matter the caricature of pro-lifers that pro-abortion people use, the reality is that sidewalk counselors, they're not going to run up to a woman and say, oh, you're killing a baby and so forth.
00:18:20.320 So they're going to go up and show support and show love, and that's very, very effective in that situation.
00:18:26.000 Because again, these women walking into the clinic, they have been made to be afraid.
00:18:33.720 While the message on the pro-life side is don't be afraid, you know, don't be afraid of motherhood.
00:18:38.740 Don't be afraid of the situation that you're in.
00:18:40.740 It's a blessing.
00:18:41.680 Embrace it.
00:18:42.080 The message for the abortion clinic, their message is be afraid.
00:18:50.380 Be very, very afraid.
00:18:51.940 Your life is over. 1.00
00:18:52.840 All you can do is kill your baby. 1.00
00:18:54.300 It's the only thing you can do. 1.00
00:18:55.720 No other solution is going to work for you.
00:18:59.220 So that's why the sidewalk counselors have to go up with a message of, with a gentle, loving message. 0.87
00:19:07.940 But the national conversation about abortion, okay, when we are generally talking about abortion,
00:19:16.500 or when we as pro-lifers are, you know, generally communicating our position to a large audience, like I'm doing now,
00:19:23.880 that conversation cannot be had in the tone and using the language of a sidewalk counselor.
00:19:31.900 Because the vast, vast majority of people in our culture who are engaging in this conversation,
00:19:38.640 they're not just about to have abortions. 0.85
00:19:40.860 Most of them have never had abortions.
00:19:43.340 What it is for most people, when it comes to abortion, the position that most people have is
00:19:49.800 they just want to live in peace and not be forced to confront the horror of this Holocaust. 0.85
00:19:57.360 And most pro-abortion people, that's all they want. 1.00
00:20:00.780 They just, they want to say, okay, yeah, go ahead and kill the babies. 1.00
00:20:04.500 I don't care. 1.00
00:20:05.500 Let me just sit here and watch TV.
00:20:07.260 Don't bother me about it.
00:20:09.460 And so that's why we as pro-lifers, we have to come in.
00:20:13.900 Okay, they want that peace and that tranquility and they want to ignore what's going on.
00:20:18.140 We have to take that peace from them and take that tranquility from them
00:20:22.520 and force them to confront the horror that they support.
00:20:30.980 We have to force, they have no right. 0.97
00:20:35.220 You live in a country where 60 million babies have been killed.
00:20:40.740 You have no right to look away from it.
00:20:45.520 You have no right to ignore it.
00:20:49.760 You don't.
00:20:52.520 And so as pro-lifers, we have to force you. 1.00
00:20:55.340 We have to take this bored, apathetic, lazy, cowardly, effeminate, ridiculous culture 0.99
00:21:05.140 and slap some sense into it and force them to confront the reality of this Holocaust 1.00
00:21:13.220 that is happening right now all around us.
00:21:16.220 Because that's the strategy and the tactic that we should use.
00:21:21.980 Okay, we have to stop.
00:21:24.680 We have essentially, when I come in the abortion conversation,
00:21:28.840 it's the pro-abortion people who have cornered the market
00:21:33.020 on this kind of moral, righteous indignation.
00:21:37.960 They're the ones who react like, how dare you?
00:21:40.860 I can't believe that you would ever say something like that.
00:21:44.320 And we let them do it.
00:21:47.020 We let them act like they're the ones who not only have the moral position,
00:21:52.840 but their position, but have the position that is self-evidently,
00:21:57.520 obviously the most moral and the most correct. 0.98
00:22:00.500 And they're the ones who support killing 60 million human babies.
00:22:04.680 We need to take that ground from them. 0.99
00:22:07.500 And every single person who supports executing babies, 0.67
00:22:11.840 we should treat their position the way that the left has treated Kevin Williamson.
00:22:18.420 I'm not saying we try to get them fired from their jobs,
00:22:21.840 but we treat that position as just horrific and wrong and not even worth the...
00:22:29.080 You know, it's like we can't even listen to that side of the discussion
00:22:35.080 because it is so completely insane.
00:22:39.740 We have a right to react that way because we're the ones
00:22:42.860 who are trying to protect babies who are being killed.
00:22:46.840 All right.
00:22:48.180 Thanks for watching, everybody.
00:22:50.420 And I'll talk to you tomorrow.