The Matt Walsh Show - Ep. 6 - The Left's War On Inanimate Objects

00:00:00.000 Hey everybody, welcome to the show. Thanks for watching. So London's mayor is dealing with a

00:00:06.820 pretty big problem. They have this wave of violence in the city. Its murder rate has now topped New

00:00:12.820 York City's. And this is in spite of the fact, or maybe partly because of the fact, that they have

00:00:19.620 banned guns in the city. Some of the strictest gun laws in the entire world, yet the murder rate

00:00:26.440 is spiking and there's all this violent crime. You took away the guns and now people are just

00:00:30.600 running around stabbing each other left and right, apparently. So Mayor Kahn, the mayor of London,

00:00:37.720 you know, he got his brain trust together and they were talking about it. And they said,

00:00:42.520 what can we do about this? We took away the guns. Now people are just stabbing each other. What do

00:00:46.460 we do about all the stabbings? And then someone said, I don't know who, but somebody said, oh,

00:00:50.540 I've got it. Listen to this brilliant plan. What we do is we ban the knives. And everyone else said,

00:00:57.540 oh, why didn't I think of that? Perfect. Yeah. We just get, let's just keep getting rid of objects

00:01:02.340 until there are no objects left. So Mayor Kahn sent out a tweet a few days ago where he said,

00:01:09.620 no excuses. There is never a reason to carry a knife. Never a reason. He can't think of a single

00:01:17.980 reason. Um, Mayor Kahn has never been to an Outback Steakhouse. He's never been to any other

00:01:25.080 restaurant at all. Um, he's never been in a kitchen. Okay. He can't think of a reason why

00:01:32.460 anyone would ever use a knife. Um, now I'm a member of the, the knife carrying community, I admit. Um,

00:01:41.400 and here's, here's the crazy thing I can think of. I come across probably dozens of different uses

00:01:47.560 in a day for this knife and none of them involve killing anybody. It's just that now I've never

00:01:54.700 killed anyone with this knife, even though I've carried it around. Instead, I just do other things

00:01:58.980 with it. By the way, I'm going to swing this knife around the, for the rest of the video. Um,

00:02:04.580 which actually I probably shouldn't do that because someone will call the cops. They'll see me,

00:02:09.960 they'll see a guy in his car swinging a knife around and yelling to himself and they'll call the

00:02:14.800 police. So I won't do that. But, um, I find many uses for the knife that don't involve killing

00:02:19.360 people. In fact, I would probably argue that almost every human adult in the world

00:02:25.540 uses a knife for non-murdering activities on a relatively frequent basis. A knife is one of the

00:02:33.660 most basic tools that mankind has had at its disposal for thousands of years. So if we're going to start

00:02:41.040 going after knives, then, uh, well, then it's, then pretty much it's, it's game on. And that's

00:02:47.320 where, I mean, we can have a lot of fun with this and try to mock and parody, but it's hard to do.

00:02:52.480 It's, it's, it's, it's the, the gun grabbing on the left has now transcended parody. I mean,

00:02:59.400 I wrote something yesterday. I wrote a piece yesterday where I was listing, okay, here are seven

00:03:03.520 other items that, um, London will have to ban next after it gets rid of the guns and the knives

00:03:09.880 and just obvious things like for instance, other kitchen utensils, forks. I mean, you have no idea

00:03:17.960 how, and I did some research into this. Okay. I took this seriously. I really did some research

00:03:22.740 and I discovered that fork violence is an epidemic across the West. There are so many cases of people

00:03:30.200 using forks to stab people. Um, chairs, chair violence is a huge problem in our schools.

00:03:37.240 Also a big problem among WWE wrestlers. It's just, people are using chairs all the time to hit each

00:03:42.660 other. Uh, rocks, obviously people die from rocks being thrown at them, rocks falling on them. They

00:03:47.960 die in rock climbing accidents. They die at rock concerts. Uh, a rock killed all the dinosaurs. I

00:03:53.920 mean, rocks are, you could argue that the rock is the most deadly object

00:03:59.140 in, in history. And so we're gonna have to start digging up all the rocks from under the earth and

00:04:05.360 take all the rocks from on top of the earth and get rid of them. Hands. I mean, that this is the

00:04:11.500 most easily the deadliest, most objectionable weapon in the world, even more so than the rock

00:04:17.720 is the human hand. Hands kill, uh, at least in America, hands kill more people every year than

00:04:24.600 rifles or shotguns. And not to mention the fact that the hand is involved in every act of violence,

00:04:29.940 even when you're using a gun. So now I'm not proposing that we actually confiscate all the

00:04:35.760 hands. That would be ridiculous. What I'm saying is you get your hands registered ahead of time. You

00:04:41.660 go through a licensing process. There are certain, you know, state sanctioned activities that you can

00:04:47.700 use your hands for. If you use your hand in a non-sanctioned activity, then you get your hands

00:04:53.040 confiscated temporarily until you take a few classes. We could even call it hands-on classes

00:05:00.340 or something like that. We could work with that, but, and you can take some classes and then you get

00:05:04.020 your hands back for a probationary period. I mean, these are just some ideas. Okay. Um, but we could

00:05:10.640 get into all that, trying to highlight the absurdity of this. What I really like to do instead is to try to

00:05:17.500 understand where this comes from. Why do some people put this incredible emphasis on objects?

00:05:29.020 Why do they set out to fight violence and evil by banning the objects that are sometimes used in those

00:05:36.380 acts of violence and evil? Why can't they see what you and I see, which is that once you start down this

00:05:41.960 road, you really do have to get rid of all objects on earth because anything can be used in a, in an

00:05:49.560 act of violence. Um, but why do some people struggle with this? Why do they infuse all of this moral

00:05:57.160 significance into an object? And I think the answer is very simple. There are a few answers, but I think

00:06:04.900 the primary thing is a misunderstanding of human nature. And this is really what, what, what lies

00:06:12.140 at the, at the root. This is the source of many of our debates in this culture. It's that the left

00:06:18.040 does not understand human nature. It doesn't understand how human beings work, which is kind

00:06:24.940 of fascinating because they are human beings themselves. So all they have to do is look within

00:06:29.540 themselves and they should be able to answer a lot of their questions, but they don't, for whatever

00:06:34.840 reason, they don't, they don't have a lot of introspection. So it's kind of ironic or it seems

00:06:40.040 ironic anyway, that those who understand that human beings are corrupted, prone to evil, often can't be

00:06:47.780 trusted. You know, the people in that camp, they're the ones who are saying, no, don't take our guns

00:06:53.660 away. They're, they're the ones who are pro gun rights. While the ones who believe that human beings are

00:06:58.260 not a fallen race and are not corrupted and are kind of these blank slates, morally speaking,

00:07:04.180 they're the ones who are saying, you got to keep us away from guns. You would think it would be the,

00:07:08.560 the opposite, but it isn't because those of us who understand human nature understand two things.

00:07:14.180 Number one, uh, very simply, we know that we have to have a means to protect ourselves from our fellow

00:07:19.840 fallen man. We have a healthy suspicion of other people because we know how people are and how

00:07:27.240 they've always been and always will be until the end of time. We know that because we can see other

00:07:32.940 people. We've read history. We know how people are. We also have a healthy suspicion of the state

00:07:37.360 because the state is comprised not of these benevolent gods, but of people of fallible

00:07:45.680 fallen people. So we have, and now we've put them in positions of power and control. So that makes us

00:07:50.820 even more suspicious of them. Uh, we don't hate people. We just understand them. And so we wish to

00:07:58.380 equip ourselves accordingly. But the second thing, this is the more important thing. We know that fallen

00:08:06.600 men will always be prone to hurt each other. A man, I think even more so a man who wants to do harm

00:08:16.480 to another person will do it or at least attempt it. There's not a lot you can do. This is human

00:08:23.100 nature. The reason why the vast majority of people on earth have never committed a murder, have never

00:08:29.520 raped, have never done some hideously violent thing. You know what the reason is? Why haven't most

00:08:34.160 people done that? It's not because the law. It's not because of regulations. It's not because they

00:08:40.720 didn't have access to this or that tool. It's because they never wanted to. The vast majority

00:08:47.680 of people have never used a gun to kill anybody. It's not because they couldn't get their hands on

00:08:51.520 a gun. It's because they just never, they have no interest in killing anyone. They, it's just not

00:08:57.460 something that ever comes up. They have, they haven't, they don't even have any temptation in

00:09:01.680 that regard. So it's not even that they have a moral objection to it. They have a moral objection to

00:09:07.160 it as well. But the primary reason why they haven't killed anyone, it's that they just, it's never even

00:09:12.260 comes up. They don't want to. They are stopped, not by the law. They are stopped by the fact that

00:09:17.480 they are not so depraved as to desire to kill another person. But here's where the problem comes

00:09:24.900 in. When you've got a man who has descended into that state, when he's gotten to the point where he

00:09:32.340 really wants to kill somebody. Now just imagine being in this state psychologically and spiritually.

00:09:37.540 And I know people will joke around and say, Oh, I want to kill that guy. Um, I'm going to kill you.

00:09:42.220 I'm talking about actually being in a state of mind where you really literally want to end somebody's

00:09:48.860 life. That's a very dark place to be in. Once you get there, it seems like it's not a far leap to go

00:09:56.860 from there to, I don't care about the repercussions. In fact, with these mass killers and serial killers,

00:10:03.300 the repercussions, that's part of the appeal. They want to die. They want their life to be over.

00:10:07.820 Um, or they want to go to jail. They want attention. And so there's no, there's no disincentive

00:10:13.700 there at all. So once you get to that point, once you get to the point where you want to kill somebody,

00:10:20.440 you don't care about the punishment after the fact, or in fact, you want the punishment,

00:10:26.860 then there's just the law. Really? There's, there's almost nothing the law can do at that

00:10:33.140 point with somebody like that. That is just a dangerous person who's a ticking time bomb is

00:10:40.040 going to, and is going to explode. The only way the law can really do anything preemptively

00:10:44.620 is if the person announces ahead of time that, Hey, guess what I'm going to do? I'm going to kill

00:10:49.220 somebody. But what we found is that even when they do that, which is basically what the, what the,

00:10:54.240 uh, the guy in Florida did, even then the law seems impotent. The law seems unable to do anything,

00:10:59.720 even when they have an opportunity. But most people who are violent, they never make that

00:11:04.020 announcement ahead of time. They just do it one day. So that's the fact, no matter what you do,

00:11:09.220 you could take away my knife. You can take away my gun. But if I decided that I'm going to kill

00:11:15.140 somebody today, I can do it. I can get out of the car right now and do it. In fact,

00:11:20.240 I don't have to get out of the car. I could use the car. It'd be very easy to do. Anyone can.

00:11:25.060 The only thing that stops me or the primary thing that stops me is that I have, I just,

00:11:31.480 I'm no desire to do that whatsoever. I'm not a murderous person, but there are people who are

00:11:38.120 murderers. What do we do about them? That's the question. That's the way we have to frame this

00:11:46.440 discussion. We have to acknowledge that there are violent, um, people out, out there with a very dark

00:11:56.260 evil in their souls and a very dark desire. What do we do about those people? The gun control side says,

00:12:06.120 well, we got to stave them off with the law. That's what we do. We, uh, you know, that that's

00:12:11.340 the, the fortress that we've set up around ourselves is the law. And maybe after a while,

00:12:17.140 we can even change them with the law. And, uh, if we become a gun-free society, they're going to

00:12:23.380 become less violent because there are, there are fewer violent objects around. And so they're not

00:12:29.440 going to be influenced in that direction and they'll become better people. And so we have the law and

00:12:34.100 that's what we're going to do. The second amendment side says, well, the law is ineffective.

00:12:40.060 Once we get to this point, once a guy has crossed this threshold within himself,

00:12:44.880 psychologically and spiritually, once he's gotten to the point where he really wants to kill somebody

00:12:49.380 and he doesn't care about the repercussions, that's the threshold. Once he's crossed it,

00:12:53.860 there's nothing the law can do. I can't, you know, I walk it down the street. I pass by people.

00:12:58.340 You go somewhere in public, you go to a movie theater, you send your kids to school.

00:13:03.300 You can never know whether, whether or not somebody that you're passing by on the street

00:13:08.780 is a person who has crossed that threshold. There's no way of knowing. So I don't want to

00:13:16.140 be reliant on the law to stop them because the law can't follow me around. The law itself is not a

00:13:22.540 physical barrier protecting me. And I can't have cops following me around every second of the day,

00:13:26.960 unless you're a celebrity or a famous or a politician, then you're not blessed enough

00:13:30.880 to have an armed security detail. But even just think about that for a minute. Think about

00:13:34.560 the president of the United States has this whole small army of people who are dedicated to keeping

00:13:40.880 him alive. And why is that? It's because the president of the United States, no matter who the

00:13:45.340 president is, it's because of his office, that the president of the United States is somebody who

00:13:50.480 many other people in the world want to kill. Every second that the president is alive, there are

00:13:58.160 probably hundreds, if not thousands of people in the world who are actively plotting his demise.

00:14:04.040 And if they ever got the opportunity, it would absolutely kill him. So think about the effort.

00:14:10.600 Even though it's definitely illegal to kill the president, so we've got all the laws in place,

00:14:15.060 but even in spite of that, still there is this incredible effort required just to keep this one

00:14:22.320 guy alive. You got to have this, he has this whole small army that surround him. And then anytime he

00:14:28.180 goes somewhere in public, the army has to go there ahead of time and sweep the area and set up security

00:14:33.120 details and everything else. It's just an enormous round the clock, 24 seven, uh, never sleeping effort

00:14:39.720 to keep this man alive, which just shows you how necessary it is to have a means to protect

00:14:44.840 ourselves. The, the only, you want to know why you and I are still alive for most of us. The only

00:14:50.440 reason why we're, why you and I are still alive, it's because nobody has ever wanted really to kill

00:14:55.600 us. But if anyone ever made up their minds and said, I want to kill that guy. And if they ever said

00:15:00.600 that about you, then you're in trouble. That's why. And certainly the law is not going to be able to do

00:15:06.580 anything for you. The moment you come face to face with that guy who wants to kill you,

00:15:11.200 the law just melts away and it's gone. It might as well, it might as well not even exist.

00:15:16.640 And you have to have the means to protect yourself and your children. The left does not understand the

00:15:24.060 fallen nature of man, does not understand how evil functions, doesn't even understand that evil exists

00:15:30.040 in the first place. And so it has this, uh, this abiding faith in the state's ability to change human

00:15:37.300 behavior and to cure what ills man deep down in his heart. So they think it's as simple as the

00:15:43.660 state banning weapons and, and, and, and setting up gun-free zones and maybe putting out some PSAs

00:15:48.700 where they say, tsk, tsk, tsk, don't shoot people now. Okay. Don't do that. It's bad. And that will be

00:15:54.240 enough in their minds to sway, to control the collective, which is comprised of these individuals

00:15:59.180 who are not, you know, inherently corrupted, but are these blank slates who just are waiting around

00:16:04.940 to be herded or, or sent in one direction or another. The intrinsic corruption in the mind

00:16:12.020 of a leftist, the intrinsic corruption is in the object, not the person. And so the object,

00:16:18.500 a gun in the mind of a leftist is kind of like the ring in Lord of the Rings. And it will do to a

00:16:24.140 person what the ring did to Gollum. You take an innocent person, you put this object in their hands

00:16:29.380 and it starts to change them. But obviously it's not actually that simple. So here is what can be

00:16:37.800 done aside from giving us the tools to protect ourselves because the law can do very little,

00:16:42.940 but I agree that preferably we don't even want to get to that point. It would be nice if there was

00:16:49.020 something preemptively we could do so that a guy doesn't even get to the point where he wants to

00:16:55.220 kill another person. And the only thing that'll stop him from killing me is if I can shoot him

00:16:59.240 first. I'd prefer if it never got to that point. So what can we do aside from arming ourselves to

00:17:05.560 defend ourselves and our family? I think after we've done that, if we really want to cut down on

00:17:10.860 violence, then we have to cut down on the inclination towards violence, which means we have to give people

00:17:18.240 a proper moral formation. Okay. The proper moral formation of the individual. The inclination to

00:17:25.880 violence is a problem of moral and spiritual formation or deformation. We need to be morally

00:17:32.400 formed, which starts in the family, especially with the fathers who often are not in the picture when

00:17:37.980 it comes to violent people and also the church. You know, the problem, the real problem is that we live

00:17:43.680 in a disordered, depraved, degenerate, empty culture and people are born into it and they're

00:17:49.500 born into these broken homes and they go out looking for moral formation. All they find is moral

00:17:54.040 mutation and they end up with disordered desires, degenerate desires, and they have no reason not to go out

00:18:03.240 and try to fulfill those desires. So I'll tell you what the state can really do. It can realize that the

00:18:10.420 institutions in the culture who should primarily be in charge of moral formation are the family and

00:18:16.420 the church. And so the state can offer proper support to the family and with the church, it can

00:18:22.300 just stay out of the way. This is what religious liberty is all about. Stay out of the way and let

00:18:26.600 the church do what the church does or is supposed to do. That's what we should be relying on those two

00:18:32.140 institutions. If you really want to cut down on violence, that's where you have to turn. Not to the

00:18:38.240 government, not to the law. I think that's a pretty great combination when it comes and it won't be

00:18:42.880 perfect, but when it comes to combating violence and the combating evil generally, give individuals

00:18:49.240 the ability to protect themselves, strong families, strong churches. I'm telling you, if you have that

00:18:54.520 going for you, if you have those three things going for you, you're going to be in the safest possible

00:19:00.600 human society. It will not be utopian. It won't be perfect, but it will be the safest and most

00:19:07.100 ordered society possible. But unfortunately, the left is kind of trying to do the opposite

00:19:13.860 of that. They want to have it both ways. They want to destroy the church, break down the family,

00:19:20.160 the two institutions that are in charge of moral formation, are most in charge of it.

00:19:26.780 And then they react with shock and horror when they see all of these sociopaths and killers and

00:19:34.240 evil people in our midst. But it goes back to a misunderstanding of human nature.

00:19:39.260 All right, that's it for me today, guys. Thanks for watching and have a great day.

The Matt Walsh Show - April 10, 2018

Ep. 6 - The Left's War On Inanimate Objects

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