The Matt Walsh Show - Ep. 543 - Why Biden's Nationwide Mask Mandate Idea Is Stupid, Arbitrary, and Illegal

00:00:00.000 Today on the Matt Wall Show, Joe Biden has proposed a nationwide mask mandate. This idea

00:00:05.180 is very stupid on a number of levels, and we'll dissect each of those levels today. Also, 0.99

00:00:09.180 five headlines, including a wave of depression and suicide due in part to the coronavirus

00:00:13.420 lockdowns. We'll discuss that. And the New York Post reports on something called erotic weight

00:00:18.220 gaining, which is a thing now, apparently. And of course, we have to talk about it. Finally,

00:00:22.480 in our daily cancellation, I will cancel human rights. I have my reasons. I'll explain them. 0.67

00:00:28.460 All of that on the way. But we start here. The newly formed Biden-Harris team has presented

00:00:33.840 their first federal mandate proposal, a preview of things to come, should this ticket win.

00:00:37.780 Democrats love nothing more than federal mandates, provided, of course, that they're the ones in

00:00:43.080 charge of the federal government. If they aren't, then naturally actions taken by the federal

00:00:46.920 government are literally fascist, literally tyrannical, literally what literal Nazis would

00:00:51.820 literally do. In any case, their mandated proposal is a nationwide mask requirement. Everyone in the

00:00:58.200 country, all 330 million people, must wear masks outside all over the place. So if you live in

00:01:04.140 like North Dakota with a population density of approximately half a person per 50 square miles,

00:01:09.300 you must wear a mask to walk down the street. That's the idea. And here they are explaining

00:01:14.440 their idea in more detail. This is not about Democrat, Republican or independent. It's about saving

00:01:21.700 Americans' lives. So let's institute a mask mandate nationwide, starting immediately, and we will save 0.98

00:01:30.360 lives. The estimates are we'll save over 40,000 lives in the next three months if that is done.

00:01:37.020 Now let me turn it over to my colleague and running mate. She has a few comments to make. 0.94

00:01:42.700 Thanks, Joe. That's what real leadership looks like. We just witnessed real leadership,

00:01:49.580 which is Joe Biden said that as a nation, we should all be wearing a mask for the next three months

00:01:58.560 because it will save lives. And the thing about Joe that the American people know is that his role

00:02:06.580 of leadership in our country has always been about doing what's best for the people of our country.

00:02:11.540 And it's also been about racism, right? Isn't that what you said, Kamala? It's about what it's doing

00:02:17.040 what's best, but also racism. I mean, you definitely said the racism part. He's racist. You said that.

00:02:21.060 That was part of it. Only just a few months ago, you said that. Anyway, putting that aside,

00:02:25.580 somehow they are, they are saying three months, everyone wears a mask. If you're a farmer in

00:02:30.440 Nebraska, wear a mask while you milk your cows. If you're hiking the Appalachian trail through West

00:02:34.980 Virginia, wear a mask. Wouldn't want to infect a deer or I don't know, a tree. Now there are a few

00:02:41.120 issues here. The first is a simple fact, rather perhaps irrelevant these days that the federal

00:02:46.000 government doesn't have the authority to require that 330 million people wear a certain article of

00:02:50.860 clothing or a certain accessory. I understand we're way past the point of worrying about

00:02:55.580 silly little things like constitutional authority, but even so, I just want to note for the record,

00:03:00.760 the federal government doesn't have it in this case. Second point, the efficacy of masks is far

00:03:09.700 from settled science, despite the way it's presented in the media. The New England Journal of Medicine,

00:03:16.080 for example, an article published in May says this in part, and this again was in May, so not all that

00:03:21.220 long ago. It says, we know that wearing a mask outside healthcare facilities offers little,

00:03:26.300 if any, protection from infection. Public health authorities define a significant exposure to

00:03:30.340 COVID-19 as face-to-face contact within six feet with a patient with symptomatic COVID-19 that is

00:03:36.160 sustained for at least a few minutes, and some say more than 10 minutes or even 30 minutes.

00:03:40.080 The chance of catching COVID-19 from a passing interaction in a public space is therefore minimal.

00:03:44.540 In many cases, the desire for widespread masking is a reflexive reaction to anxiety over the pandemic.

00:03:51.620 End quote. And I think the other fact you have to take into account here is,

00:03:56.740 even if you succeed in getting everyone to wear masks, which you won't, but if you do,

00:04:01.460 what you certainly will never succeed in doing is getting everyone to practice good mask hygiene.

00:04:06.260 The CDC says if you have a cloth mask, which most people do, and we've been told not to wear the

00:04:11.520 surgical masks anyway to save them for healthcare providers, then you should be washing it in hot water

00:04:17.560 in your washer or with bleach by hand after each use. How many people are doing that?

00:04:23.960 I have no idea, but it ain't everyone or even close to everyone. I'm sure of that. So

00:04:28.480 by requiring everyone to wear masks, the reality is that a certain large preponderance of people

00:04:33.200 will be walking around with dirty, germ and spittle-soaked pieces of cloth affixed to their faces.

00:04:38.480 How healthy is that? See, all of the studies on masks seem to assume that you're properly wearing

00:04:47.100 a clean mask. Well, what about a dirty one, which is what millions of Americans are wearing and will 0.99

00:04:53.640 wear no matter what? That's just the reality. And our policies have to deal with and in reality.

00:05:00.140 Third point, and here's, I think, a basic argument or observation that those in support of these mask

00:05:07.020 measures cannot answer and haven't even really tried to answer. If masks would save whatever,

00:05:13.740 40,000 lives or whatever probably arbitrary figure Biden gave us there, it would save that many,

00:05:20.400 and it would save that many in three months, he says. Then how many lives could we have saved if we'd

00:05:24.560 had a nationwide mask mandate for the last 10 years or 20 or however long to protect against the flu and

00:05:29.500 other illnesses? Yes, COVID has a higher mortality rate than the flu, yes, but you can't deny if masks

00:05:35.300 could save thousands of lives from COVID, then they would also save thousands from the flu, wouldn't

00:05:40.500 they? And a life is a life, isn't it? This is about saving lives, didn't you say? So why didn't anyone

00:05:45.800 anywhere ever at any point even mention the idea of a mask mandate to save lives during flu season?

00:05:51.540 Literally thousands could have been saved. Why wasn't it ever suggested? Why? I mean, let's use some hard

00:05:58.000 numbers to frame this. Arbitrary, yes, but so is the 40,000 figure, I suspect. So let's say just for

00:06:03.420 the sake of argument that a mask mandate over the last three years would have saved 40,000 lives from

00:06:09.480 the flu and another 10,000 from various other illnesses spread through coughing, sneezing,

00:06:13.680 talking, et cetera. So let's say it's 50,000 lives, three years. It seems like a very conservative

00:06:19.780 estimate if Biden is telling us 40,000 can be saved in three months from COVID. So again, let's just say

00:06:24.900 it's 50,000 lives over three years. If you're using the it's worth it to save one life argument

00:06:29.560 for a mask mandate, would that three years of a mask mandate have been worth it to save

00:06:35.580 a life? In fact, 50,000 lives, let's say. If it wouldn't be worth it, then why is it worth

00:06:41.160 it now? And if it would be worth it, then why didn't you ever suggest it? And whatever your

00:06:45.080 reason for not proposing a mask mandate before and thus tacitly supporting the deaths of so many

00:06:49.500 people by your logic, why don't you propose a permanent mask mandate going forward? Because

00:06:55.000 whatever time period you suggest for the mask mandate, three months, six months, whatever it is,

00:07:01.140 what happens when that period is up? Let's, you know, let's say we have a mask mandate for six

00:07:06.220 months, okay? 180 days. What happens on day 181? Are lives not worth saving anymore? Save lives for

00:07:12.980 180 days, but not 181 days? See, this doesn't make sense. Now, I personally don't care that much if

00:07:19.920 people want to wear masks or if individual stores want to choose to require it, their property, their

00:07:24.500 business, their choice. But a mask mandate, especially a federal mask mandate, is absurd, arbitrary,

00:07:31.800 onerous, and almost certainly unconstitutional. And that's the point. Now, let's get to our five

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00:08:53.660 know that we sent you. Okay, number one, journalists today, journalists today are celebrating another

00:08:59.360 journalist who asked a question. It's a little bit of scare quote overload here, overload, but

00:09:07.160 basically this, it's all bullcrap is what I'm saying, but he asked a question and is being hailed

00:09:12.560 and celebrated for, uh, this question. Listen to it here. After three and a half years, do you regret

00:09:19.720 at all, all the lying you've done to the American people? All the what? All the lying, all the

00:09:24.500 dishonesties. That who has done? You have done. Uh, tens of thousands. Yeah, go ahead, please, please.

00:09:32.600 Go ahead. I wanted to ask about payroll tax. So what we have here is what we've seen for, uh,

00:09:39.820 especially during the Trump. Now it's, it's been this way for, for decades really, but especially

00:09:44.340 during the Trump era, this is journalism as performance. Uh, it's not journalism at all.

00:09:50.680 It's just, it's a performance. He's, he's, he's performing for the camera. What other point would

00:09:55.180 there be to that question? But, but, you know, you're asking the president of the United States

00:09:58.860 a question. You're in a press conference. Um, this is, this is supposed to be a service that you're

00:10:04.200 providing for the people so that we can get answers and that sort of thing. Kind of answer,

00:10:08.080 what kind of answer do you think you're going to get from that? No, what he was hoping for. In fact,

00:10:11.820 this was just antagonism. Uh, this was, he was hoping for some kind of angry response from Trump

00:10:18.400 and then he could mix it up and, uh, try to embarrass Trump and at the same time, elevate

00:10:22.520 himself. Of course, that's what this is all about. But, uh, that's, you know, I didn't go to journalism

00:10:27.140 school, but admittedly, but I don't think that's what journalism is actually supposed to be. Number two,

00:10:32.200 David Blaine is back. The magician, performance artist, uh, I guess that's what we call him. He's got a

00:10:36.280 new stunt planned. Big deal. Hasn't done anything in 10 years. Okay. What has he cooked up for us now?

00:10:42.060 A decade later. He's been working on this. We're told for a decade. What is it? He had, well,

00:10:48.580 what he's going to do is he's going to hold on to some balloons and float really high.

00:10:53.520 Okay. That's the plan. Here's the preview.

00:11:23.520 All right. I, doesn't it strike you as a bit egotistical to call this stunt the Ascension?

00:11:35.140 But you know, the, the real problem is, is that a guy already did this. Remember there was that guy

00:11:40.160 that tied balloons to his lawn chair and floated up to like Mars or something, I believe, if I remember

00:11:46.340 correctly. Uh, in fact, multiple people have done this. They made a, they made a Pixar movie about this.

00:11:51.860 In fact, which is based on a true story. So this is, this just, I, to me, this is disappointing 10

00:11:57.180 years. And this is what you come up with. I'm going to hold a balloon and float. Cool. I, you know,

00:12:03.220 I would love to do that too, but I just don't know if it quite is worth the hype. Um, number three,

00:12:08.140 reading from the daily wire says more than 25% of, uh, young Americans age 18 to 24 have seriously

00:12:14.520 considered killing themselves during the last month. According to the morbidity and mortality weekly

00:12:18.660 report released on Thursday by the centers for disease control and prevention, uh, says the

00:12:23.240 coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic has been associated with mental health challenges related to the

00:12:27.540 morbidity and mortality caused by the disease and to mitigation activities, including the impact of

00:12:31.460 physical distancing and stay at home orders. Um, symptoms of anxiety disorder and depressive

00:12:35.740 disorder increased considerably in the United States during April to June of 2020 compared with

00:12:39.400 the same period in 2019. Now this is many of us warned that this was going to happen. You're not

00:12:45.980 only taking away people's jobs and livelihood, you're isolating them, um, keeping them shut

00:12:51.120 away from contact with other people. And so of course you're going to have now, especially for

00:12:55.660 someone who's already dealing with depression, dealing with, uh, anxiety, mental illness, whatever

00:13:01.440 it is, shutting them away. And on top of that, you're also bombarding them every single day

00:13:07.460 with, uh, with you're going to die. It's a disaster. It's the end of the world type of stuff. So

00:13:11.380 it's just, it, it, it's not surprising. It's tragic and horrible. It's not surprising that

00:13:16.940 it would have this effect. Remember Trump brought this up months ago. And again, the, our truth

00:13:22.780 seeking truth, uh, finding journalists in the media mocked him for it and fact checked him.

00:13:30.720 Trump brought up months ago that this is going to lead to suicide and depression. And then we got all

00:13:35.340 the fact check. Oh, no, it isn't. They said, well, here we are. Although I do think we should also note

00:13:40.660 it, because it's important that, you know, and this is, this is one of the reasons why, um,

00:13:51.040 the, this, the, the lockdowns and the effect on mental health has been so bad is because we,

00:13:56.920 we already live in a culture that is very depressed and much more suicidal than at other

00:14:05.660 points in history. And it's a problem that goes down into very young ages. Um, so this is, this is,

00:14:12.640 this is part of a cultural trend, a longstanding cultural trend, which isn't to downplay it, but

00:14:18.740 precisely the opposite to say that this is, that we've got a, a, a serious problem. And even when

00:14:23.320 we get past the lockdown insanity, there's still going to be this problem. Um, and we could talk

00:14:29.440 about, you know, dissecting this and, but, but one of the, one of the, I think fundamental things

00:14:36.380 feeding it is that we live in a culture, um, that is at its core quite empty and people have

00:14:43.240 no sense of purpose, no sense of any greater reason for existence. Um, it's a, it's a very nihilistic

00:14:53.160 culture. And so that's what is going to lead in part to this as well. Number four, Brett Favre,

00:14:57.880 speaking to the USA today, shows us, uh, shows us what courage truly looks like. This is Brett Favre.

00:15:03.420 He says, um, and he was asked about the kneeling issue. He says, I know from being in an NFL,

00:15:08.480 NFL locker room for 20 years, regardless of race background, money you grew up with,

00:15:12.680 we were all brothers. It didn't matter. Guys got along great. Will that be the same with the

00:15:17.380 kneeling scenario? I don't know. If one guy chooses to stand for his cause, another guy chooses

00:15:21.540 to kneel for his cause is one right and the other wrong. I don't believe so. We tend to be fixed on

00:15:26.380 highs. I don't know what it's like to be black. It's not for me to say what's right and what's 1.00

00:15:30.720 wrong. I don't know. We should all be treated. I know we should, I do know we should all be

00:15:34.180 treated equal. If you can't do that, you shouldn't be in America. There's no right answer. Other than

00:15:38.140 that, the right answer is that we all get along. It seems like the more people try, the more damage

00:15:44.020 is done. This is, you know, yeah. What a, what a courageous answer from Brett Favre, but all these,

00:15:48.980 all these athletes are proving they may be physically tough, but, uh, when it comes to moral

00:15:54.820 courage, there's a real deficiency there. Your answer is, oh, no, there's no right. There's no

00:15:59.920 wrong. Here's all I'll say. We should all get along. That's all. I'll take a stand and say we

00:16:05.980 should be getting along. Great insight from Brett Favre. Number five, here's something that I just

00:16:12.100 found out existed, um, proving the old adage that ignorance is bliss. Erotic weight gaining is

00:16:19.640 a thing. Unfortunately, the New York post reports on the important story of a guy named Brian,

00:16:25.300 nicknamed Gainer Bull, who, uh, has intentionally gained over 300 pounds. He eats 10,000 calories a

00:16:32.540 day. One meal for him is like three combo meals, five or six sides now has a stomach the size of a

00:16:39.300 small asteroid. And again, all of this is on purpose, uh, some kind of like fetish. And he

00:16:45.740 apparently has a legions of fans who watch him eat and just enjoy gazing upon his bulbous

00:16:52.660 physique. Uh, one fan on Instagram, for example, left a comment saying you are one perfect inflating,

00:16:59.060 huge, handsome bear. By the way, the words inflating and handsome really don't go together,

00:17:06.060 but, but here's my point. Um, do I have a point? I think I do. The point is that the internet should

00:17:14.840 be destroyed. Uh, it is a cancer. It is a virus. Um, and this is, this is part of the problem.

00:17:21.700 This guy, Brian clearly mentally ill, his fans clearly mentally ill, uh, and, and mentally ill 0.99

00:17:30.280 people have always existed. Presumably fat fetishists have always existed in some capacity, 0.99

00:17:35.740 but now with the internet, people like this are, are able to congregate. They're able to form

00:17:40.340 communities where they encourage each other in their perversion and their degeneracy.

00:17:45.080 And that's maybe the worst thing about the internet. And there's a lot of competition for

00:17:49.000 that title, but perhaps the worst thing is what it has done to the concept of community. Because it

00:17:55.720 used to be that your community was the neighborhood where you live, uh, or, or you form a community as a

00:18:03.020 church or around some other sort of solid, healthy thing, real world thing. Now a community just

00:18:11.920 becomes a collection of people who enjoy the same thing. And often the thing they enjoy is repulsive

00:18:18.040 and self-destructive and bizarre. So there's no edification. There's no growth. Well, there is

00:18:24.100 growth, just not, not emotional and spiritual growth, uh, is what I'm talking about. There's nothing,

00:18:29.060 nothing positive to come of, of the community other than this mutual encouragement to continue being

00:18:35.300 weirdos. And that's most of the community on the internet. That's really what it is. Just a bunch

00:18:41.620 of weirdos getting together and encouraging each other and telling each other that they're not really

00:18:44.980 weirdos. Um, you know, you, it's, it's, someone has some, some freaky gross thing they're into.

00:18:51.500 They can just Google it and boom, they find a whole collection of other lunatics just like them.

00:18:57.060 Whereas in the past before the internet, you, you know, they would have hidden that part of

00:19:03.160 themselves in shame as they should maybe seek counseling for it. Either of those options are

00:19:08.640 better than what we have now. Um, and it's cause now you can, you can, you know, it's certainly

00:19:14.100 preferable to the, or preferable to go in on Instagram and getting your kicks by watching a morbidly

00:19:19.080 obese man eat a burrito, which is what's where we are now. And, and, and by the way, this cheapening of 0.91

00:19:25.180 the idea of community, it doesn't just apply to this fetish type type of stuff. I mean, I think

00:19:30.820 it applies even to, you know, people that say they're in a community because they all like

00:19:36.120 the movie star Wars or something like that. Um, or, you know, communities of people that play video

00:19:42.480 games. There's nothing wrong with playing video games or liking star Wars. That's not really a

00:19:46.700 community though. That's just, you enjoy the same thing. Great. That shouldn't be a community

00:19:52.480 because there's no other, there's no shared value system there. Um, the, the only shared experience

00:19:58.260 is just this recreational thing you like doing. Uh, it's not really what a community is supposed to

00:20:04.320 be. And we, we as humans do need community, but we're finding we are, we are, uh, fulfilling that

00:20:14.320 need in these kinds of communities around some one little thing that we like, even if it's a

00:20:20.460 perfectly fine thing rather than fulfilling that need to a real, real life, um, you know,

00:20:30.040 community. All right. Let's, let's go to our daily cancellation today for our daily cancellation.

00:20:37.640 I will be canceling human rights. Uh, no more human rights. So you don't, you don't get human

00:20:43.100 rights anymore. They're canceled. No, that's not exactly the point. I'm not canceling human rights

00:20:47.020 per se, as much as I'm canceling human rights as the foundation of our moral and political arguments,

00:20:52.180 especially as conservatives. I'm going to suggest that when we're making arguments,

00:20:56.480 advocating our position, we should be grounding our argument in something other than this incessant

00:21:01.140 appeal to human rights to sort of set things up here. I want to go back to Biden at that press

00:21:06.860 conference yesterday to something else that Biden said while pitching his plan to muzzle the country

00:21:10.480 with masks. I didn't play this earlier. Um, but, but this was, this, this was something else he said

00:21:15.340 during that press conference that I thought was interesting. Listen to this today. I want to talk

00:21:20.640 about one thing, very straightforward. Doesn't have anything to do with Democrats, Republicans or

00:21:26.920 independence. It has to do with a simple, simple proposition. Every single American should be wearing

00:21:36.740 a mask when they're outside for the next three months. Every governor should mandate. Every governor

00:21:47.400 should mandate mandatory mask wearing. The estimates by the experts are it will save over 40,000 lives

00:21:57.440 in the next three months, 40,000 lives that people act responsibly. And, uh, it's not about your

00:22:07.360 rights. It's about your responsibilities as an American. It's not about your rights. It's about

00:22:12.920 your responsibility. It's a rather extraordinary thing for a presidential candidate to say, especially

00:22:17.880 one on the left. Now, some on the right, some conservatives are acting quite scandalized and

00:22:23.100 outraged by this comment from Biden. Um, but I'd like for us to, rather than putting our hands up

00:22:27.920 against our foreheads and fainting like Victorian women over this comment, I'd like for us to stop

00:22:31.740 and really think about what's being said here. I obviously disagree with the mask mandate idea.

00:22:37.500 And so I disagree that it's our responsibility to all wear masks all the time everywhere, but, uh, I,

00:22:43.560 I appreciate the framing. And I think this is a good strategy by Biden to flip this rights thing

00:22:48.620 around and focus on the other R word, which is responsibility. And this is exactly what 0.51

00:22:54.040 conservatives should be doing, not about masks, but in general, in the battle of ideas, we should

00:22:59.020 be making responsibility much more of the foundation, the centerpiece of our political, uh, and, and

00:23:05.860 moral arguments rather than constantly going on about rights. Because that's all, all it ever it is

00:23:11.080 now. So we're talking about our rights. The problem with human rights is that it's an incredibly

00:23:15.740 vague concept. There's no agreed upon definition of it. And I suspect that the vast majority of

00:23:21.020 people, even on the right who talk about their rights, couldn't offer any definition if you ask

00:23:26.880 them, at least not a coherent one. Now, a conservative will, will tend to give a definition

00:23:31.600 like this. This is, this is usually about the best you could hope for. They'll say, they'll say

00:23:35.540 rights are inalienable and endowed by the creator. Okay. I agree. Uh, I agree with the founding

00:23:41.180 fathers on that, but that's not a definition. That doesn't tell me what sorts of

00:23:45.560 things actually are rights. That's a description of the source of rights, not a definition of

00:23:50.560 the term itself. It's like, if I asked you to define the word flower and you said, well,

00:23:54.420 they're pretty and they grow, they grow out of the ground. That's an accurate description.

00:23:58.020 Yes, but it's not a definition. It doesn't tell me what a flower is. It gives me part of

00:24:02.200 the picture. But if that's all I know about flowers, then I'm liable to walk through a forest

00:24:05.720 and think that everything I see is a flower, a similar problem with human rights. Um, we as a society

00:24:12.600 are walking through the proverbial forest and thinking everything we see is a human right.

00:24:19.120 I mean, we think that human rights literally grow on trees. It seems like rights are inalienable

00:24:24.260 and endowed by the creator. Okay. Um, then is housing a right? What about college? If you say no,

00:24:29.840 how do you know they aren't rights? And don't tell me they aren't outlined in the bill of rights.

00:24:33.000 So what? The bill of rights was never supposed to be a comprehensive list of every right that belongs

00:24:36.960 to man. Don't tell me the creator hasn't endowed us with that right, uh, or, you know, a right to

00:24:41.960 free housing, um, or something like that. How do you know? Did you ask him? Don't tell me it isn't

00:24:46.780 in the Bible. First of all, our laws aren't based on the Bible, uh, specifically because this isn't a

00:24:51.460 theocracy. Second, there's very little in the Bible that could be construed as an endorsement of say

00:24:55.820 free speech rights or due process rights. So how do you know those are rights? And someone,

00:25:01.580 some of the leftist right claims aren't valid. What is a right? This is the problem. And I firmly

00:25:09.360 believe that all of the strife and disagreement in modern society springs at least partially from

00:25:14.320 this dynamic that we all are always and everywhere talking about our rights yet almost none of us can

00:25:19.180 give a coherent definition of the term. And even if we can, it will be impossible to get even just a

00:25:24.600 preponderance of people to agree with it. What about responsibility? Admittedly, you'll never get

00:25:30.840 everyone to agree on what our responsibilities are or how to define the term, but I'm not suggesting

00:25:35.020 that we can ever get universal agreement on anything. What I'm suggesting is that the concept

00:25:40.240 of human rights is especially obscure and, and, and thus not a great foundation for an argument,

00:25:46.800 a position, or even a philosophy. Responsibility is a little better. Um, we can all define it. You know,

00:25:55.260 a responsibility or duty is a simply a moral or legal obligation. According to Webster, it's an

00:26:00.420 obligatory task, conduct service, or function that arises from one's position. Now, again,

00:26:06.140 not saying we've erased all ambiguity here. I'm saying that we're on firmer and more definable

00:26:11.280 ground than we were before with rights. I think wherever possible, we should be making our case,

00:26:17.140 arguing for a particular thing by framing it in these terms. Joe Biden says that, um, arising from

00:26:23.780 our position as Americans, we have a moral obligation to wear a mask to protect other people.

00:26:28.100 I don't agree, but that's a, that's a strong argument actually, and probably persuasive to

00:26:33.620 a lot of people. So let me give you an example of how this could work. If conservatives were to use

00:26:37.900 the same tack, uh, abortion. Generally, what we say is that an unborn child has a right to life.

00:26:44.380 And I agree that the child does, but we run into this problem. What is a right? How do you know that

00:26:49.500 he has a right to life? What are you talking about? And, uh, are you saying that the right to life is

00:26:53.320 universal and immutable? What about death row inmates? What about someone who breaks into your home?

00:26:58.060 What about enemy combatants on the battlefield? Do they have a right to life? Um, there are ways

00:27:03.980 to meet these rejoinders, but you see how we're already lost in the weeds. And in fact, we have to

00:27:09.520 admit that, well, no, your right to life is not in fact immutable. You can in effect lose it or forfeit

00:27:15.300 it just like any other right can be lost or forfeit. You don't have a second amendment right in prison,

00:27:19.440 for example. So you see how opaque this has all become and how far away we are now from the point.

00:27:27.260 We are just lost out way in the weeds out there. What if we try a different approach?

00:27:33.400 The other R word. What if we argue very simply that a parent has a responsibility to their child

00:27:40.380 arising from their position as a parent and from the special relationship between parent and child,

00:27:45.460 the parent has a responsibility to provide for and care for their child or to find someone else who

00:27:50.760 can, this is a lot more solid. And everyone, everyone agrees with it. Actually, to a large

00:27:56.680 extent, everyone agrees that the parent of a five-year-old who leaves a child alone all weekend

00:28:01.900 to go party should go to jail. Why? Because she has a responsibility to that child. Um, but, 1.00

00:28:07.840 but why is it that she can't go to a party and leave her kid alone, but her neighbor Jim can?

00:28:12.220 See, if the child is left alone, the mother is arrested, not the neighbor Jim. Why is that?

00:28:18.260 Well, because unless Jim was specifically hired to care for the child, he has almost no responsibility

00:28:23.360 to the child. The mother has almost all of the responsibility to the child. We all agree on this. 0.97

00:28:29.400 I've never heard anyone advocate the revocation of child neglect and abuse laws. So all we're doing

00:28:34.360 now as pro-lifers is making the rather logical and reasonable point that the parental responsibility

00:28:39.380 we all agree with and see and acknowledge starts in the womb. That's all. And the really interesting

00:28:47.260 thing is that the responsibility argument completely neutralizes the bodily autonomy argument from the

00:28:53.180 left. When you make the right to life argument, then it becomes a competition between the child's

00:28:58.000 right to life and the mother's right to autonomy. I suggest that we step out of that back and forth

00:29:02.700 entirely and make this not about anyone's rights, but about their responsibility. A woman has a right to 1.00

00:29:08.460 her body, sure, but she also has a responsibility to her child. It's that simple. Most debates can be

00:29:15.060 framed this way, I would say. Even gun rights can become gun responsibility. It's not so much that I

00:29:20.200 have a right to a gun for myself, but that I have a responsibility to protect my family and my

00:29:24.380 community. And I may need a gun to do that, especially these days. I think that framing in these

00:29:31.280 times in particular is more persuasive. And it goes in the other direction, okay? You say you have a

00:29:37.540 right to have your college debt paid for. Okay, well, I don't have a responsibility to do that.

00:29:43.600 I don't have a responsibility to do that for you. See, rather than making vague claims about your

00:29:49.100 rights, what you really need to explain is why I have a responsibility to pay for your college.

00:29:56.460 That's going to be a much more difficult case to make. We're so conditioned in this country to think

00:30:02.040 always about our rights, talk about our rights, scream about our rights. Rarely do we even think

00:30:07.520 about responsibility, about duty, about what our obligations are as parents, as people, as Americans.

00:30:13.160 Aside from the ambiguity of human rights and all the problems I've already outlined,

00:30:17.080 the other issue is that this obsessive focus on rights at the expense of responsibility has helped

00:30:20.960 to turn us into a bunch of self-entitled whiny children only ever thinking about what we are owed and

00:30:26.320 never about what we owe. There's quite a lot of focus on what other people owe, especially what

00:30:31.620 other people owe us, certainly. Those rich people, those privileged, et cetera, and so forth, they owe us

00:30:36.740 so much. They owe. They owe. What about you? What do you owe? What are your duties? What are you obliged

00:30:44.140 to do? And this is how we should think and how we should encourage others to think and how we should

00:30:49.180 present our arguments. And so, for now, human rights are canceled. At least we have to stop talking about

00:30:58.080 them. Talk about responsibility instead. That's going to do it for this week, everybody. Have a

00:31:03.920 great weekend. Godspeed.

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00:31:22.180 other Daily Wire podcasts, including The Ben Shapiro Show, Michael Knowles Show, and The Andrew

00:31:25.400 Klavan Show. Thanks for listening. The Matt Wall Show is produced by Sean Hampton, executive producer

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The Matt Walsh Show - August 14, 2020

Ep. 543 - Why Biden's Nationwide Mask Mandate Idea Is Stupid, Arbitrary, and Illegal

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