Ep. 549 - The Truth About The Police Shooting In Wisconsin
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Summary
Another police shooting caught on tape, another round of rioting. Once again, the shooting is declared a racist murder right away as soon as the video comes out. But as we always try to do, we'll look at the actual facts of this case and see what they say. Plus, 5 headlines including an NHL announcer getting suspended for an utterly innocuous joke that feminists have labeled sexist, and in our daily cancellation, we ll talk about the incredibly misleading CBS poll that has the media accusing Republicans of murderous nihilism.
Transcript
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Today on the Matt Wall Show, another police shooting caught on tape, another round of
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rioting. Once again, the shooting is declared a racist murder right away as soon as the video
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comes out. But as we always try to do on this show, we'll look at the actual facts of this case
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and see what they say, because they tell a different sort of story. Also, five headlines,
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including an NHL announcer getting suspended for an utterly innocuous joke that feminists
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have labeled sexist. And in our daily cancellation, we'll talk about the incredibly misleading CBS
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poll that has the media accusing Republicans of murderous nihilism. So all of that on the way.
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Okay. Well, so let's get into this. As we continue to live through this never ending
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Groundhog's Day, rioting and looting broke out in yet another city this weekend. Black Lives Matter
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protesters in big scare quotes there in Kenosha, Wisconsin, burned, pillaged, destroyed, stole,
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all in the name of justice, of course. Here's what some of that looked like. Take a look.
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Rioters also burned an entire car dealership, so you can take a look at the footage there.
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And I think by far one of the most disturbing incidents from this round of rioting and really
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any of the rioting we've seen is the apparent attempted murder of a police officer who was hit
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directly in the head with a brick during the melee.
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Now the rationalization, the excuse being offered for this latest round of rioting,
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of rioting and chaos, is the police shooting of a man named Jacob Blake on Sunday. At this point,
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not much is known about the circumstances surrounding the shooting, but we'll show you
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now the video that has gone viral and prompted, allegedly, all of this widespread rioting.
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Now, media reports indicate that police arrived on the scene in response to a domestic disturbance.
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They tried to arrest Blake, who resisted even after a taser was used on him. Blake then walked
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around his car with multiple officers pointing their weapons at him, as you saw, and he opened
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his door and reached inside, and he was shot seven times at that point. He's currently alive,
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though in critical condition. Neighbors claim that Blake was trying to break up a fight between two
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women before the cops showed up. That hasn't been confirmed, but it does appear that Blake,
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that there were multiple warrants out for Blake for multiple alleged crimes. Were cops arresting him
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because of his involvement in the disturbance, or because of the warrants that were out for him,
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or both? Who knows? Apparently, Blake has had other violent run-ins with police as well,
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including an incident in 2015 when he had to be subdued by a canine unit after pulling a gun at a bar.
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Now, it's not clear, again, whether police on the scene on Sunday knew about his violent history,
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or his warrants, or anything else. What we're left with, for now, is a man who chose not to comply
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with lawful orders, instead opened his car door and leaned inside even as police guns were pointed
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at him at point-blank range. As always, the dearth of evidence and context has not stopped
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the media, protesters, politicians from leaping to drastic and firm conclusions. The governor of
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Wisconsin, Tony Evers, has already tied the case to racism and essentially accused the officers of
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carrying out a racist hit on an innocent man. Evers tweeted in part,
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Tonight, Jacob Blake was shot in the back multiple times in broad daylight in Kenosha,
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Wisconsin. Kathy and I joined his family, friends, and neighbors in hoping earnestly that he will
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not succumb to his injuries. While we do not have all the details yet, what we know for certain is
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that he is not the first black man or person to have been shot or injured or mercilessly killed
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at the hands of individuals and law enforcement in our state or our country. I have said all along that
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although we must offer our empathy, equally important is our action. In the coming days,
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we will demand that just that our elected officials in our state who have failed to recognize the
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racism in our state and our country for far too long. Okay. Needless to say, a decent human being
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who is interested in providing leadership rather than intentionally fanning the flames of anarchy
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would never use phrases like mercilessly and racism to describe an officer-involved shooting
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before he even has the details by his own admission. But Tony Evers is not a decent human
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being or a leader or a good man. I mean, these are really bad people that are doing this,
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that are intentionally causing chaos and rioting, even after he knows that one of his police officers
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was nearly killed. The people in the media and politics encouraging the chaos that, again,
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has nearly killed a Kenosha police officer also are not decent or good people. Putting the politics
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and narrative aside then, what should we really think about this situation? Well, the first thing
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we should keep in mind is that we've only heard one side of the story and there's quite a lot we
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still don't know. Here's a rather significant detail that's being treated as irrelevant somehow.
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Did Blake have a gun in his car? Media is reporting that he was unarmed, but they don't appear to have
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any firm basis for that characterization. Blake went back to his car for something, for some reason,
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right? Was it to retrieve a firearm? He has a history of pulling guns. Did he try it again here?
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If he did, then case closed. No honest person could possibly claim that a police shooting is
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unjustified when the suspect is reaching for a gun to use against the officers.
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But what if there was no gun? Then we're back to the original question.
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Why was Blake going to his car and reaching inside? Could there be any plausible or even imaginable
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innocent reason to resist arrest, walk to your car as police point their guns at you and tell you to
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stop and then open your door and reach inside? Is there a version of this story where Blake's actions
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are justified or innocuous? I can't see what that version would be. And more important than how I see
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this or how you see it, we have to ask whether the police on the scene had good reason to suspect
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that Blake was reaching into his vehicle to grab a weapon. The answer there is, without question,
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yes. Again, why else would he be reaching into his car in that situation? If you can scarcely come
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up with an innocent reason as you sit pondering it on your couch out of harm's way, how can we expect
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the officers to imagine an innocent reason while they're in the thick of it? And even if they could
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imagine an innocent reason, are they expected to assume that his actions are innocent and stake their
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own lives on that gamble? You know, anyone who doesn't understand why police would want to prevent
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you from reaching into your car during an arrest need only watch this dash cam video from a highway
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stop in Pennsylvania for that, for clarification on the matter. And just a warning, it's very graphic
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here, but I think this is important because it's, it's additional context for the way police are
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looking at this. Look at this. Okay, sir. You're going 87 miles an hour. All those costs are
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associated with the traffic citation. Okay. Okay. Are you okay? All right. I mean, it's okay. Do me a favor.
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Come over here. Place your hands behind your back.
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the shooter there daniel clary resisted arrest um even threw zaps from a taser eventually made
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it back to his car where he drew his gun and nearly killed two police officers the clary arrest
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and the blake arrest are eerily similar in many respects except that in one case it's the cops
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getting shot in the other it's a suspect one excuse i've heard offered for blake is that he was going
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back to his car because he wanted to get inside and drive away well i would note that driving away
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while there's a warrant for your arrest and cops are attempting to detain you is not a legal option
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driving away in that case would be far from innocent also the family's lawyer benjamin crump who manages
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to involve himself in every high profile police shooting in the country um says that blake's
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kids were in the car now this is supposed to make blake more sympathetic but it does the opposite
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why was blake bringing the officers back to his car where his kids are sitting he knew they had
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their guns out why would he want to put his own children in harm's way and if his plan was to drive
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away and get into a high spade high speed chase with kids in tow um that would in itself be justification
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for opening fire because uh before he could get inside and endanger his children's lives in that way
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i don't see any excuse for blake here i see a number of reasonable possible excuses for the police
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officers now it's possible that more details could emerge that change the equation and if so then i'll
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change my opinion to comport with the facts the protesters on the other hand form their opinions
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completely separate from the facts and no additional evidence or context can sway them
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from the conclusion they drew within five seconds of seeing the original video
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that is why our society is falling apart at the seams not because of police shootings or racism or anything
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like that but because a certain very large segment of the population doesn't care at all about the truth
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and it really is as simple as that and that's what we're witnessing and that is what is burning our
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reporting from cnn here white house counselor kellyanne conway announced sunday uh evening that she will
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leave her post at the end of the month while her husband george conway said he was withdrawing from
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the lincoln project both citing a need to focus on their family uh cnn continues quoting from kelly
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and conway statement i will be transitioning from the white house at the end of this month george is
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also making changes we disagree about plenty but we are reunited on what matters most to kids
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our four children are teens and tweens starting a new academic year in middle school and high school
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remotely from home for at least a few months as millions of parents nationwide know kids
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doing school from home requires a level of attention and vigilance that that is unusual at these times
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um and then george conway also tweeted that he'll be leaving the lincoln project um
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so and this all happens uh while one of and cnn says one of conway's high school age daughters has
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generated attention on social media about her family and their political views over the last several
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months now the high school age daughter by the way i believe is 15 and this is all newsworthy
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because of conway's position and the fact that she's she's leaving it so you know fine that that part is
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newsworthy but all the rest of it the family drama the stuff with the child all of that is none of our
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business and not relevant to anyone else but them and the way the media is using a 15 year old girl to
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attack her parents um well it's it's redundant at this point to say but the media of course has behaved
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disgracefully not that they care but just for the record once again it's happened and also you just
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you know a 15 year old girl um professing to hate her parents there is nothing new about that okay she
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can she can join the club with all the other 15 year old girls in the country now it's unfortunate that
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this is a normal phase of of adolescence in in modern society and we could talk about why that is and
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and you know because i don't think it should be as normal as it is but but it is normal um so i you
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know the fact that her her parents are high profile doesn't necessarily have anything to do with that
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whatsoever okay nhl announcer mike millberry has been taken off of all nhl broadcasts for the remainder
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of the year because of a terrible horribly offensive thing that he said while calling a hockey game
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on friday we're gonna roll the tape on that it's pretty rough i'm just telling you hopefully i can
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play it without bleeping it out i don't know uh but this is really outrageous stuff really bad take a
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listen come here and play hockey and if you think about it it's a terrific environment with regards to
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if you enjoy playing and enjoy being with your teammates for long periods of time it's a perfect
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place not even any woman here to disrupt their concentration yeah that's it that's the whole thing
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that was it um millberry said that it's good there aren't women there because uh then they won't
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be disrupting the hockey players concentration that was all that was the joke harmless innocuous
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nothing to it but that was shared by a female i believe it was a female nhl reporter who was deeply
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offended and then a bunch of other women all chimed in to say they are deeply deeply offended uh here's
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emily caplan another nhl reporter talking about her own deep offense which she feels so deeply and so
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offendedly listen to be honest it's highly disappointing it undermines anything that any
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woman who is in this industry does you know the athletic came out with their 40 people in hockey
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under the age of 40 and i was just impressed by how many women were on that list whether it was from
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scouting ranks analytics um now we have an agent who's going to represent the likely number one pick
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and when i look at meg milberry this is a pattern of behavior this is not the first time he's made
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sexist comments it was so cavalier and natural the way he said it and he's in such a position of
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privilege and power there's so few people who do what he does and i just think it's a shame that we're
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giving someone like that a platform when they continue to say these things and alienate large swaths
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of people who can be hockey fans and can enjoy this great sport um and you know i hope that nbc
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takes that into consideration you know he said well there's no distractions to women in the bubble
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and i think he's talking about wives and spouses but also at press conferences and i think okay i'm
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a woman that shows up for the press conferences he considered me a distraction if i'm in the locker
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room like that's bs that's my job um so yeah you know that makes me feel like hockey is not for me or
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i'm not welcome and you know we have these conversations a lot about race we do have it about
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gender we have it about sexuality and i think the important thing is that we keep having these
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conversations and we keep the league needs to keep their eye on the prize and keep their eye on the
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ball and keep doing with initiatives even if we don't have change right away um that doesn't mean
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we can stop oh my gosh uh you know this the irony here is that all of this only proves millberry's
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point all of these women getting emotional and crying about a joke or it proves a similar point i
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should say i think what millberry was getting at was that women can distract men sexually which
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actually is a compliment to women if a man says that he's distracted by your beauty that's a
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compliment you know i think i think um any any man in the country would love to be told that by women
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you know you know how any man would feel if they walked in and there's a group of women and and he
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was there he's told that he's a distraction because he's so good looking um that's uh that's a compliment
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so and i sometimes wonder the type of women who get offended by these kinds of jokes
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are they getting offended because they never hear comments like that and are jealous is there some
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envy going on i don't know it's just it's one theory but um there's another reason why a group
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of men might want to just have some time without the girls and the reason is this so they can joke
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around and have some fun and say what they want without anyone getting emotional or taking things
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too seriously now granted with the state of masculinity in this country that's no guarantee
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anymore just because it's a bunch of guys doesn't mean that you're not going to end up with someone
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crying and getting emotional these days uh but still the the likelihood is is reduced dramatically
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if it's just the guys around so as i said the irony is that these feminists are only proving the
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point exactly and i'll tell you another thing if you're a female sports reporter and you want to be
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accepted then pretty much the last thing you should do is start crying because a harmless innocuous
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comment that you heard is sexist according to you like when you start ranting about male privilege
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do you really think the guys are going to want you around why would they they're trying to play hockey
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why would they why would they particularly want someone around to lecture them about about the patriarchy
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and and sexism and male privilege and and you know toxic masculinity um it's just it's probably not
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something they want any more than if you're a woman and you're out with the girls do you want a guy
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around to tell fart jokes like when you're sitting around at the at the the winery or whatever you're
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doing is anyone at the table saying hey you know i wish there was a guy here to fart that's what we're
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missing probably not so okay uh let's go to our next one i think this is what is this number three
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uh i hate to be the bearer of bad news here but you may have heard about this asteroid that might hit
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the earth the day before the election day great timing of course but turns out it's only six feet
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long and um has less than a one percent chance of hitting and you know so it's like it's six feet
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even if it hits what are the chances that it does any significant damage um so i'm sorry to ruin your
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monday at this point i feel like the universe is just toying with us sort of tormenting us
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dangling these asteroids in front of us like hey bet you like this wouldn't you sorry it's hitting
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mercury instead and then and then we you know to make it worse we we look out at the night sky
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and we see the moon over there flaunting its crater covered body bragging at all the time
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and and we have to see that and it's just really it's really it's difficult for me i'm sure it is
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for you as well okay let's go uh number four here police arrested two women in delaware who stole a
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seven-year-old's trump hat outside the dnc um the boy and his mom were were protesting outside the dnc
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and uh then here's the altercation that was caught on tape by the boy's mom and led to the arrest watch
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that's can you get off my property get off my property are you destroying my property yes we are
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you know that's a felony that one too get away from
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get your hat back baby look at what you just did to my son get your hat back baby get your hat back
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I'll follow you to your car and get your license plate
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okay so I'm I'm glad that the the two trashy women there got arrested and they were obviously wrong
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for taking the boy's hat. Bullying a seven-year-old boy when you're an adult is
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clearly, I don't know how to explain why that's wrong, but the mother is no victim in this. Let's
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just be clear about that as well. The boy is a victim, but he's a victim of all three women
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involved, the mother and the two others. So let me just state this very simply. There is no good
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reason, no good reason ever to involve your young children in politics. Bringing a seven-year-old
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boy to counter-protest the DNC convention and dressing him in Trump gear is an absolutely
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inexcusably crappy parenting decision. I would never in a million years do that.
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I have seven-year-olds. I go into contentious environments where there might be serious
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pushback, whether it's a protest or I'm speaking out of college or something. I would never bring
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my kid. And it's not that if I brought my kid and my kid was attacked, it's not the fault of
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the protesters for doing it. No, it would be their fault. But I'm not going to bring my kid
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in as some sort of guinea pig. I'm not going to take a gamble, take a chance. I would never,
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ever do that. Why? Because I love my kids. I want to keep them out of harm's way. There's just no
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possible way that this could benefit them. It's, you know, there's only downside. There's no upside
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whatsoever. So leave your kids out of politics. Just leave them out of this garbage. And using your
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kid as bait to get a reaction so you can film it for clicks, which I believe is what happened here,
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let's not be naive, is disgusting. And I hate it. I hate everything about it. I mean, notice how the
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mom actively involves the kid every step of the way. Go get your hat back, baby. Go get your hat
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back. No, you get it back. You're the adult. What do you send a seven-year-old to go retrieve
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his stolen property from an adult? That'd be like if I was in my house and I looked out my window and
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I saw, you know, my kid's bike is on the front lawn. I see a man drive up and try to steal the
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bike. And I yell to my seven-year-old, hey, go get your bike. Go get your bike. Go get it. I'll wait
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in here and film it. This will be good for YouTube. No, I wouldn't do that because, again, I care about my
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children's well-being. I'm the adult. If there's an adult situation, I will handle it. I keep my
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kids out of it. And that's what we should all do. Let your kids be kids. Your seven-year-old doesn't
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need to be spending his nights holding signs outside the DNC. He doesn't even understand what
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the signs say or anything. He doesn't know anything about this. He's seven years old. He should be
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running around the yard, you know, making a tree fort or something. Even playing video games would be
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better than this. Let him be a kid. Just let him alone, for God's sake. All right. Finally, let's
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go to this. I thought this was just wonderful in many ways and also relatable. I've never related to
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LeBron James really at all until I saw this clip. So you're holding the autobiography of Malcolm X
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along with Alex Haley. I don't know how far you are into the book, but what's your biggest takeaway
00:25:29.660
so far? I kind of just started a couple days ago, but I've read a lot of notes over the years.
00:25:38.240
This is my first time actually reading this from start to finish, but just a very, very smart man.
00:25:46.160
Very, very, very, very smart man. And basically, his words in the 60s and what was going on is actually
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what's going on today still. Him understanding how powerful the Negro can be. He used that word a lot.
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How powerful we are. But we have to unite and we have to be together. We have to stand strong
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because there's always going to be obstacles. There's always going to be
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things that's going to be thrown at us where they try to weaken us.
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They try to make us feel like we're not kings and queens. And it's going to come from all
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different races and different shapes and sizes and things of that nature.
00:26:44.240
That's just great there. I mean, he didn't read the book at all, obviously. And the first clue is
00:26:48.680
that he's holding it during the post-game conference. Why does he have his book with him?
00:26:54.160
Did he think he was going to be able to read a few chapters in between each question?
00:26:57.140
Um, but like I said, I relate to that painfully. So it reminds me of, well, pretty much every day
00:27:02.380
in English class when I was, when I was a kid, a teacher would call on me. So, so Matt, we were
00:27:07.780
supposed to read chapter three of To Kill a Mockingbird last night. What, what were your impressions of
00:27:11.540
the chapter? Um, chapter three? Oh yeah. Well, geez. Whew. Chapter three. My goodness. Chapter three. Am I
00:27:21.460
right? Chapter three. It's just, you know, the main thing about chapter three is just like, it's,
00:27:25.460
it's, it's, it's, it's like, it's, you're, you're part of the way into the story, but you're not,
00:27:29.920
but there's still so much of the story. And so like, there's so much that's, that's happening
00:27:33.600
that has happened. And, but there's a lot that will happen. And so the main thing is just like
00:27:38.420
the threeness of chapter three is what jumps out at me, you know? Um, and it never, I, I never got,
00:27:46.600
I got better at BSing as I got older. Uh, but, uh, I never got much better than that,
00:27:51.420
unfortunately. And neither did LeBron James. And, but I will mention just one note for the
00:27:55.240
kids. Uh, if, when you have school reading, you should actually do it. Don't take your lessons
00:27:59.740
from me. And actually I discovered, um, when I left school that I really enjoy reading,
00:28:05.700
I just enjoy it when I'm not being forced to do it and I can read books that I really care about.
00:28:09.860
So it's funny how that works. Anyway. Uh, so there's maybe, uh, we'll have to check in with
00:28:14.300
LeBron James in a little bit to get his full book report. We're going to go to daily cancellation
00:28:19.320
just a second. But, um, if you haven't heard by now, Joe Biden is officially the Democrat
00:28:23.700
party's presidential nominee for 2020. Very exciting. We know this because they made me
00:28:27.560
watch his acceptance speech at the DNC last week. And it was the worst thing I've ever had to do.
00:28:37.820
And you might say that speaks to a very comfortable life maybe, or it could just speak to how horrible
00:28:43.680
the DNC convention was. Maybe both. Um, they said that they had a good reason for me doing this though.
00:28:48.900
Uh, because I was, you know, I was hosting all access live over at dailywire.com with our all
00:28:52.900
access members. Daily wire is most exclusive membership tier. All access members get to join
00:28:56.400
these all access live sessions where one of our hosts hops on every night to chat with you both
00:29:00.440
in live stream and in the comments. Usually these sessions are casual hangouts, but on special
00:29:04.500
occasions, we host watch parties like that one this Thursday, August 27th. We'll do it again.
00:29:09.260
Live stream and all access live watch party for the final night of the RNC hosted by Michael
00:29:12.740
Knowles. The live stream will start at eight 45, uh, a few minutes before the convention kicks off.
00:29:17.840
So make sure you tune in for that dailywire.com slash walsh right now to get signed up 20% off
00:29:22.560
all access with coupon code access at dailywire.com slash walsh with coupon code access to get 20%
00:29:27.500
off your membership today for our daily cancellation. We will be canceling the pollsters at CBS. Uh,
00:29:33.960
now the media and the left were engaged in more of their customary performative hysterics yesterday
00:29:38.220
over the results of a recent CBS poll as a quick side note here. This is, this is yet another poll
00:29:43.660
for which I was not contacted. I have never been contacted about any poll or survey
00:29:47.640
ever in my life. Neither has anyone in my family or anyone I've ever asked. Do they just pull the
00:29:53.060
same 600 people? Where do they keep these? Are they being held in a dungeon somewhere or maybe like
00:29:58.020
a robotic womb a la the matrix? But these are questions for another day, I suppose. Um, in any
00:30:03.920
case, this poll asked respondents about the coronavirus. Um, I don't know how they would even
00:30:08.960
know about the virus from their matrix womb, but that again is beside the point. One of the questions
00:30:13.080
was this is how it was. It was framed. The number of us deaths from the coronavirus has been,
00:30:18.880
and then the options are acceptable or unacceptable. And as you can see, 50% of Republicans said it was
00:30:26.480
acceptable while 90% of Democrats bravely took a stand and said, no, no death is unacceptable,
00:30:33.680
entirely unacceptable. I will not accept it. Uh, and I guess this explains why I don't get called
00:30:40.120
for polls because if they had asked me, I would have said option C the poll question is unacceptable
00:30:47.660
because the poll question is unacceptable because it's, it's stupid and incoherent and has absolutely
00:30:52.480
no function or purpose except to trap Republicans into saying exactly what 57% of them did say
00:30:57.800
acceptable. What, what the hell could that possibly mean in this context to call something acceptable
00:31:04.780
is to say that you accept it. And to say that you accept it is to say that you will allow it,
00:31:10.040
you will tolerate it, you will bear it. So what else could a death toll be other than acceptable?
00:31:17.060
Phrased another way, what choice do I have, but to accept it? 1500 people died when the Titanic sank.
00:31:25.020
Is that acceptable to me? Well, it's sad. I don't like it. I wish it hadn't happened,
00:31:29.380
but now that it has, do I accept it? I suppose so. What other choice do I have? If I say, no,
00:31:35.820
I don't, I don't, you know, no, I don't accept the Titanic death toll. Okay. Then what does that
00:31:39.840
mean? What does that amount to? Can I cause those lives to regenerate by refusing to accept their
00:31:45.340
loss? Will the ship emerge from the icy depths fully intact because Matt Walsh has announced that
00:31:50.860
it's, it's sinking was simply unacceptable to him. Everything that has happened in the past
00:31:56.560
is acceptable to you because it must be. It might also be horrible, infuriating, outrageous,
00:32:04.380
tragic, terrible, a million other things, but it must also be acceptable because you have
00:32:08.940
literally no other option besides begrudging acceptance. You know, try conducting a poll
00:32:15.100
on an airplane after both engines have failed and it's plummeting to the earth. Ask the passengers
00:32:20.680
if gravity is acceptable to them. I'm sure a lot of them will say no, but sadly,
00:32:25.260
gravity will still be gravity and they're still going to be going down whether they accept it or
00:32:28.920
not. So the dichotomy of acceptable versus unacceptable is meaningless here. There's a
00:32:34.580
reason why nobody ever polls, you know, to ask how many cancer deaths are acceptable or diabetes
00:32:39.460
deaths or heart disease or car accidents. If they did, you might think on one hand, no deaths are
00:32:44.640
acceptable. Death itself is unacceptable. But on the other, if you possess even the slightest capacity
00:32:49.980
for honest self-reflection and assessment, you will see that inevitabilities don't care whether you
00:32:55.180
accept them or not. Now you could argue that what this question is really trying to ask is whether
00:33:00.900
the respondent respondents think the response to the coronavirus was acceptable, whether more could
00:33:08.740
have been done, whether steps could have been taken to save some of those lives, whether the policies
00:33:12.700
put in place were effective or not, et cetera. But those are not the questions that were asked.
00:33:17.820
Those questions could have been asked, have been asked, but this question is different. This is
00:33:23.160
asking whether you accept what has already occurred. They might as well ask you whether you accept that
00:33:31.400
the color blue is not the color red. You might say that I'm playing a game of semantics here, splitting
00:33:37.100
hairs, missing the larger point. But if you say that, I would say that it is you who is missing the larger
00:33:41.060
point. Because the fact that the question makes no real sense is exactly the point. It's why it was posed in
00:33:47.760
the first place. There is no right answer to a nonsense question. And there can only be one reason
00:33:55.420
why pollsters would pose a nonsense question. It's because they can frame the answer however they want.
00:34:01.840
It becomes like some sort of strange reverse Rorschach test type of thing. But let's pretend for a moment
00:34:07.540
that this question had been posed about the future. Rewind the clock back. What if they'd been asked
00:34:14.060
whether 170,000 potential deaths in the future would be acceptable? Maybe if you want to be
00:34:20.560
generous, you'd say that that's what the poll question is getting at. It's asking, if you could
00:34:24.260
go back in time to before the deaths occurred, would you consider 170,000 plus deaths acceptable? Of
00:34:30.720
course, again, if that's what they meant to ask, they could have asked it. But let's pretend they did.
00:34:35.560
Would that make more sense? No, not at all. Past deaths obviously can only be acceptable to us
00:34:43.640
because they are facts. And one can only accept facts or shut his eyes and think happy thoughts
00:34:49.320
instead. But not a lot of good that does. What about future deaths? Those aren't facts yet. Can
00:34:56.380
we talk about acceptable versus unacceptable in that context? No, we can't. Or we can, but it will be a
00:35:02.400
totally arbitrary and meaningless conversation. 170,000 deaths is a lot. You say it's unacceptable. Fine.
00:35:10.080
What amount of death from the coronavirus would have been acceptable to you? And how did you arrive
00:35:15.260
at that figure? Would you have insisted that zero people are allowed to die from this? Even one death
00:35:20.440
is unacceptable? Okay, but was that ever an option? Was there ever even a theoretical possibility of no
00:35:26.660
one in America dying from the global pandemic? Probably not. So what is your acceptable figure?
00:35:33.020
And how did you arrive at that number? Let's pull something out of the blue. Let's say 50,000.
00:35:37.280
Would that have been acceptable? If you say yes, then I'd have to ask how you know that 50,000 was
00:35:42.900
ever in the cards, ever possible. And whether it was or wasn't, 50,000 is still a lot. It sounds
00:35:49.260
horrible to say that 50,000 deaths are acceptable. Just like it sounds horrible to say that of 170,000
00:35:55.800
deaths or any amount of death. There just is no way to ever attach the word acceptable to death,
00:36:01.560
any death in any number that won't sound bizarre, callous, and somewhat sociopathic. That's because,
00:36:07.780
again, acceptable versus unacceptable is a meaningless dichotomy in this realm. And wherever
00:36:13.080
we draw the line between the two, it will be unavoidably arbitrary. But I do think there's
00:36:19.320
something deeper going on here, deeper than a dumb and pointless question. Our reaction to this
00:36:25.540
pandemic, to this confrontation with a mortal threat, and thus a confrontation with the fact
00:36:30.860
of our own mortality, has revealed again that we are a culture totally unwilling to accept the
00:36:36.560
reality of death or confront it in an honest way. In fact, it turns out lots of us really do think
00:36:42.520
that not accepting death is a viable option, which is why many people support the idea of locking down
00:36:48.100
all of society and hiding in our homes indefinitely. Economy be damned, thousands of small businesses be
00:36:52.920
damned, personal liberty be damned, constitution be damned, everything be damned, as long as we can
00:36:57.920
avoid at all costs any amount of physical risk. We cannot bring ourselves to face the fact that this
00:37:05.380
disease is out there, that it will probably always be out there in some form, and that people will die
00:37:10.360
from it. You know, that we can and should take steps to mitigate the risk to some extent, but that
00:37:15.780
society still must function, and that as society functions, people will die from this and a million other
00:37:21.940
things. We can't face that because we're so terrified of and overwhelmed by the very idea of our own
00:37:27.540
mortality. You know, we will not say to ourselves, I might die, and I accept that. And we mock anyone
00:37:35.840
who does say it as though they're suicidal nihilists, when in fact, those, you know, they're saying it are
00:37:41.680
only acknowledging a fact that applies to us too, no matter what we do, because we cannot escape mortality
00:37:47.740
any more than we can escape the waves on the ocean while we sail across it. Another example of this
00:37:53.460
feeble refusal to accept the inevitable can be found in climate alarmism. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez this
00:38:00.320
weekend tweeted in response to the news that two hurricanes might strike the Gulf Coast at the same
00:38:04.760
time, and she said, talk to me again about how a Green New Deal goes too far to address the problem.
00:38:09.540
This is a woman who really believes that a piece of legislation can stop hurricanes. It's not an
00:38:17.560
exaggeration to say that climate alarmists like her think we can legislate hurricanes away. They
00:38:23.600
believe we can raise our hands and halt the winds and calm the seas like gods. Our utter powerlessness
00:38:30.420
in the face of these natural forces is too much for them to accept. Our smallness and finitude and
00:38:36.360
vulnerability against the scale of the whole earth and cosmos is so terrifying that they try to reduce
00:38:41.080
it all down to a problem for bureaucrats in DC to handle. They might as well hold a congressional
00:38:46.040
hearing to come up with a strategy to stop our galaxy from colliding with Andromeda in 5 billion years.
00:38:51.200
The refusal to face the inevitable and the unstoppable, especially that most inevitable and unstoppable of
00:38:57.480
things, mortality, has been a driving force for human society since the birth of consciousness.
00:39:01.840
But in our society in particular, the force is very strong. And never has that been more obvious
00:39:08.560
than right now. And that is why... Wait, who was canceled at the beginning of all this? Oh yeah.
00:39:15.600
CBS pollsters are canceled. And we'll leave it there. Thanks for watching, everybody. Thanks for listening. Godspeed.
00:39:31.840
Well, we're available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, wherever you listen to podcasts, we're there. Also,
00:39:37.040
be sure to check out the other Daily Wire podcasts, including the Ben Shapiro show,
00:39:39.840
Michael Knowles show, and the Andrew Klavan show. Thanks for listening.
00:39:43.060
The Matt Wall Show is produced by Sean Hampton, executive producer Jeremy Boring.
00:39:46.880
Our supervising producers are Mathis Glover and Robert Sterling.
00:39:50.120
Our technical producer is Austin Stevens, edited by Danny D'Amico,
00:39:56.220
The Matt Wall Show is a Daily Wire production, copyright Daily Wire 2020.
00:40:00.640
Joe Biden declares democracy on the ballot. BLM threatens to kill more people.
00:40:07.300
And President Trump declares war on the deep state over the Wu flu.