The Matt Walsh Show - July 30, 2018


Ep. 72 - Voters Should Be Required To Take A Civics Exam


Episode Stats


Length

19 minutes

Words per minute

173.46548

Word count

3,331

Sentence count

195

Harmful content

Hate speech

4

sentences flagged


Summary

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

Jimmy Kimmel's dumb guy on the street segments get old after a while, but this one is even more depressing than usual because it's based on a video in which a map of the world is given to people and they can't even point to one country on the map.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 So I saw a video floating around on Facebook that I think was originally published last week,
00:00:05.500 and it was another one of those Jimmy Kimmel, dumb guy on the street segments. And yeah,
00:00:10.980 these things get old after a while, because first of all, we get it, right? I mean,
00:00:14.900 there are a lot of idiots in America. We understand. We get it. You don't need to
00:00:17.720 keep proving it to us. We're on board. We know. Yes, it's kind of depressing. So I'm not really
00:00:23.580 in the mood to laugh about it anymore. Maybe the first few times we saw it, we started seeing
00:00:27.060 these videos. It was kind of funny. Now it's just, it's not funny anymore. It's just really sad.
00:00:32.100 And, um, and that's all. And also we know that these are not exact, this is not scientific research
00:00:37.600 here because, uh, anytime you see one of these segments and the implication obviously is, oh,
00:00:43.880 we, we went down to the streets and we had this really simple question and we couldn't find anyone
00:00:47.620 who could answer it correctly. Well, no, you definitely found some people who could answer
00:00:51.440 correctly, but you didn't put them in the video because then it detracts from the humor and it
00:00:55.340 detracts from the point you were trying to make. The point is that people are stupid. Um,
00:01:00.120 so we get, so that, that all of course is true. However, as cynical as I am and as jaded as I am
00:01:06.300 by these dumb guy interviews, this one still jumped out at me and was even more depressing than usual.
00:01:14.420 In this video, maybe you've seen it. Um, people were at, they were given a, a map of the world
00:01:20.840 without any of the countries named on it. And they were asked to just point to one country on the map,
00:01:29.560 just one. And it could even be their own country. And they were able to find that Jimmy Kimmel's
00:01:35.300 producers were able to find several presumably literate and presumably educated adults who could
00:01:42.420 not point to one country on the map, not even their own country. Now they were, they did find several
00:01:47.620 people who pointed to Africa, which of course is not a country, but they were not able to find, um,
00:01:53.420 or, or they were able to find a number of adults who could not point to one single country. And that
00:01:59.140 is, that truly is incredible because if you can't point to one country on the map, that means that you
00:02:06.200 have zero knowledge of geography. That isn't, that's one of the most basic academic subjects and you
00:02:13.040 have zero knowledge of it. None. I mean, it's incredible. And it, it brings me back, back to a
00:02:23.800 point that I, I have made many times and I will now make again. And I know that this is, you know,
00:02:30.060 when you see these videos, the first thing that you think is, wow, these people vote. That's the
00:02:34.860 really scary and depressing thing is that these people can't point to a country on the map, yet they go
00:02:40.940 and vote. And my point is, and I know this scene, this seems very scandalous and it's very upsetting,
00:02:46.980 um, to a lot of Americans with their modern sensibilities, but I really believe that we need
00:02:54.720 to find some way to legally stop these kinds of people from voting. We could see so many improvements
00:03:03.900 in our system, in our culture, in our society, if we could just stop ignoramuses from voting.
00:03:11.380 Now, if you're like the majority of Americans, then you probably labor under the faulty assumption
00:03:16.440 that everybody should have the right to vote, that this is one of the most essential, fundamental
00:03:21.740 rights and everyone should be able to do it. You may even think, and I'm, I'm always shocked when I
00:03:26.960 encounter people like this, but there seems to be a popular view that somehow America is improved.
00:03:31.980 Our society is improved by high voter turnout and high voter participation. You always hear this in
00:03:39.040 the media every, every, um, every election season where we got to get the voting. We got to get
00:03:44.780 voter turnout. We got to get more people involved, more people voting. It doesn't matter. It doesn't
00:03:49.040 matter if they, if they have any knowledge, it doesn't matter. We just need to get more people
00:03:52.800 there. We just need warm bodies in the polls. We just need people voting. They could be voting
00:03:58.600 based on absolutely nothing. We just need them there. This is this idea we have that somehow
00:04:04.360 it's a, it is an objective good to just have a bunch of people voting. Even if half of them
00:04:11.180 have no idea where they are, they're just wandering in, in some kind of half drunk stupor.
00:04:17.600 It's just, it's good. It's good because it's participation. In what other context would we
00:04:24.520 suggest that participation in and of itself is like some kind of good thing. As long as you're
00:04:31.020 participating, it doesn't matter what the reason is of your participation. It doesn't matter the
00:04:34.500 quality of the participation, just participate. Um, it should be of, of interest that our founding
00:04:45.000 fathers, that would be the people who came up with our system. They never had this idea in mind.
00:04:52.380 They never, they never thought that the best way to run the country is to just have everybody voting.
00:05:01.360 Um, they only gave the vote to landowners. And of course that had the effect of automatically
00:05:05.980 disenfranchising black people and women, which was very bad. Thankfully, over the course of the, 1.00
00:05:11.120 of the, of the, you know, the, uh, the next century and a half voting has been opened up, um,
00:05:16.660 to, to, to, to those groups. And now we no longer discriminate based on race or based on gender,
00:05:23.400 which is great, but somewhere along the line, we got it into our silly little heads that
00:05:28.520 because we shouldn't discriminate based on race and gender, that means we shouldn't discriminate
00:05:34.800 based on anything. So we rightly did away with racial and gender discrimination at the polls.
00:05:40.700 We ran way too far in the other direction. And then we did away with all forms of discrimination
00:05:46.880 at the polls. And I think that's where we went wrong. We went way to the other end of the way
00:05:52.860 to the other extreme, way too far. I think it's very clear that voting should be a discriminating
00:06:00.780 process. And you absolutely should be subjected to some forms of discrimination when you go to vote.
00:06:10.700 In fact, you're already subjected to, to, to, to some forms of discrimination at the polls
00:06:15.500 that most people agree should be there. Think about age discrimination. Now, there are some
00:06:20.320 people who want to lower the voting age, which I think is a very stupid idea, but you rarely hear
00:06:24.900 anyone say that we should just get rid of the voting age and anyone of any age should vote. Like
00:06:29.580 let's have eight year olds vote. Almost everyone agrees that eight year olds should not vote. Now, why, 0.98
00:06:35.540 why do we all agree that an eight year old shouldn't vote? What's the reason for that? 0.52
00:06:39.500 Well, the reason is that eight year olds don't know anything and, um, they are not in any way
00:06:45.360 whatsoever contributing to society. They are entirely dependent on their parents. So let their
00:06:51.640 parents vote, but not them. So it's, so it's interesting. We all agree for that reason. That's
00:06:58.560 the reason that eight year olds shouldn't vote. But then we have to ask ourselves, are there in America
00:07:06.020 a significant number of people who essentially have the maturity and intelligence of eight
00:07:15.060 year olds and who are about as self-sufficient and who contribute as much to society as eight
00:07:21.160 year olds? And if those people exist, should we allow them to vote? And if we do allow them to
00:07:27.440 vote, on what basis do we stop eight year olds from voting? When they're basically the same. 0.75
00:07:31.360 Um, now remember something, our politicians, you'll never hear a politician say what I'm saying right
00:07:40.620 now for obvious reasons, be probably political suicide, but also politicians for the most part,
00:07:48.080 especially the bad politicians, they really love it. When a lot of people vote, they want to get those
00:07:54.900 numbers up. They want to drive people to the polls, right? Why is that? Because they know that the
00:08:01.680 majority that, that, that, that, um, I should say informed, intelligent, mature voters are in the
00:08:09.040 minority. And those are the scary ones to the politicians, especially the bad politicians, the bad
00:08:15.080 politicians. If you are an informed, mature, intelligent voter, the bad politicians, especially are
00:08:20.560 afraid of you and they hate you. And they would love it if they could stop you from voting, but they
00:08:24.600 can't. So instead their plan is we're going to take your vote and we're going to drown it in a sea of
00:08:31.440 stupidity. We're going to cancel it out by having a bunch of ignoramuses vote so that your vote no
00:08:37.060 longer matters. That's why they like having high voter turnout. And that's why they're afraid of low
00:08:42.620 voter turnout. Because when they know that they know that when the voter turnout is low, that means
00:08:47.720 that, that, that, um, it's going to predominantly be the really invested and interested people who
00:08:55.140 voted. And those are the scary ones. Those are the ones you don't want. They want the high voter
00:09:00.140 turnout. And that's why you'll even see like, they're going to, they're going to, you know,
00:09:04.360 organize campaigns to have buses show up and just, you know, like pick people up, people that are just
00:09:10.720 laying on their couch, watching reality TV with Cheeto crumbs on there. They're going to send people in
00:09:15.060 to, to, to, to lift them up and carry them. They can still be in their pajamas. It doesn't matter.
00:09:19.060 Keep staying in your pajamas. We will lift you into the poll, carry you. So you have to, so you,
00:09:24.860 it requires no effort from you whatsoever. And we'll just bring you in. And we, yeah, we want those
00:09:30.180 people to vote people who, who, who otherwise would, would make no effort whatsoever. We want them
00:09:34.740 from the politicians perspective. We want them in the polls because those are the ones who are easily
00:09:39.980 manipulated. And those are the people who aren't going to hold us accountable because they have no idea
00:09:44.660 what's going on. Now we may say that, uh, and, and I hear this a lot that, well, you know, it's,
00:09:50.620 it's, it's, it's our civic duty to go vote. It's a civic duty. No, not exactly. Or it is, but with
00:09:59.560 qualifiers, you see your first civic duty is to be informed, aware, invested, and contributing.
00:10:09.120 So your first civic civic duty is to be an informed, aware, invested, contributing member
00:10:15.240 of society. That is your first civic duty. If you have not completed that duty, if you have not
00:10:22.060 completed step one, then you absolutely should not graduate to step two, which is voting.
00:10:29.580 And it's crazy. I think for us to say that, well, even if you haven't done the first thing,
00:10:34.260 you should definitely still do the second thing. What, why your duty is not to just vote. Your duty
00:10:41.080 is to make informed, intelligent votes. That's your duty. Voting in and of itself is nothing.
00:10:48.900 So all these people that, Oh, they, they put on, they go vote based on nothing. They go vote based
00:10:53.100 on like whose last name they, uh, they think sounds the coolest. And then they put their, I voted sticker
00:11:00.600 on and they say, I voted. You shouldn't be proud of that. You should be ashamed. You should be ashamed
00:11:05.900 that you went and voted based on nothing. You should be ashamed that you just canceled out
00:11:10.760 somebody's informed vote just so you could get a sticker. It's shameful. It's embarrassing.
00:11:17.080 You didn't do your duty. You did the opposite of your duty. If you're not informed, if you're not
00:11:21.080 aware of anything, if you can't point to a country on the map, if you don't know anything about our,
00:11:26.160 our system of government, then your duty is to stay home and not vote and then learn something.
00:11:33.700 And then next time around, go vote. So here, I think if we wanted to correct the problem,
00:11:39.140 if we wanted to make some improvement, if we wanted to make drastic improvements to, uh, to,
00:11:42.960 to our society and our system overnight, I think we could instate three changes.
00:11:50.980 And I know that these three things will never happen, but I'm going to suggest them anyway.
00:11:56.160 The first two things I'll just say quickly. Um, the first thing is, I think we have to get rid of
00:12:02.060 early voting. You know, when we refer to voting day, in reality, it's more like voting week or
00:12:11.140 voting month because it's, it's too ambitious, I guess, to expect citizens to get to the polls
00:12:17.080 during a particular 12 hour span. And so we want to give people the chance to just leisure leisurely
00:12:23.640 kind of saunter in and vote whenever they want. And, you know, we're trying to make it as easy
00:12:28.140 as possible for everyone. I think that, uh, that that's the wrong way of going about it.
00:12:34.240 We want to make it a little more difficult. We want to require people, if they're going to vote,
00:12:39.000 they got to make some sacrifices. They got to really put it in their schedule. We got to,
00:12:43.380 we make it a little bit harder because that way only the people who really care are going to vote.
00:12:49.720 And those are the only ones we want voting. The ones who really care. So if, um, look, I don't
00:12:58.780 know, maybe, maybe we still allow a day early, two days, but, uh, if, if, if the only way you're
00:13:04.680 going to vote is if you have like a whole month to do it, well, then you obviously don't care that
00:13:09.520 much. In which case, what's the point? So I think we do away with early voting. Um,
00:13:15.180 I think the second thing is, uh, is we only allow taxpayers to vote. That would be, uh,
00:13:25.780 people who are contributing only taxpayers can vote. And I would stipulate by the way, that, um,
00:13:32.800 we would include, you know, married couples. If, if you're a married couple, then both can,
00:13:40.620 and, and, and at least one of you is working, then you can both vote. Right. Um, but the point is we
00:13:47.060 want people who are contributing or chipping in and, but more importantly is we want people who have
00:13:56.820 something at stake because taxpayers, they're the ones who are really invested and they're the ones
00:14:04.580 who can get primarily screwed. If we get bad politicians in there. I think it's, it's always
00:14:10.240 been recognized that it's a bad situation when people can go to the polls and vote themselves
00:14:16.160 money, right? When they, when they can vote for benefits and entitlements for themselves without
00:14:23.040 having any skin in the game whatsoever, that's a bad situation. So when people who aren't contributing
00:14:30.460 at all to the public treasury, when they get to go to the polls and decide what happens with everyone
00:14:37.380 else's money, I think that's a bad situation. Um, and then the third thing, and this, this to me is
00:14:43.480 the most important thing. And if we could only do one of the three suggestions that I'm making right
00:14:46.960 now, and again, I know we'll do none of them, but, um, if we could only do one, I would say
00:14:50.740 we should require every voter to take and pass a very basic fifth grade civics exam.
00:15:00.460 Just like 10 questions, fifth grade level. So you don't need to be a genius. You don't need to
00:15:06.900 be an expert. Um, it's not AP level stuff we're talking about. It's just, it's just,
00:15:12.160 do you know, um, are you smarter than a fifth grader? Basically, do you know about as much
00:15:19.340 about our system of government as we would expect a 10 year old to know? And if you don't,
00:15:25.840 then obviously you shouldn't be voting, right? If you think that airplanes fly on pixie dust,
00:15:35.280 then you shouldn't be in the cockpit. If you, if you don't know, um, the, the, the, the right
00:15:46.280 temperature for, for, for, for chicken, if you don't know what, what, what temperature chicken
00:15:51.100 supposed to be at before it's consumed, then you shouldn't be cooking in a commercial kitchen
00:15:56.300 or any kind of kitchen, uh, uh, really. And in, in a similar way, if you can't name the branches
00:16:03.120 of government, then you don't belong in a voting booth. I don't even think this is really a debatable
00:16:10.580 position. This is just right. Isn't this self-evident? If you lack even basic fundamental knowledge
00:16:17.960 about our government and about our laws and about the current political scene, um, you should not be
00:16:24.520 anywhere near a polling station on voting day. Look, nothing, it's nothing personal. I have nothing
00:16:29.460 against you. You're, you're, you are a person equal in dignity and value to all other people,
00:16:36.260 but your vote is not equal in value. Your vote has no real actual value because it's based on nothing.
00:16:44.700 Now, I'm not suggesting that every voter should have a degree in American history or political
00:16:49.980 science. I'm just saying that every voter should have a basic grasp on the system that they're,
00:16:58.260 that they are now taking part in. So I would suggest just a simple 10 question quiz, um,
00:17:06.520 covering some really basic questions. And, um, if you answer, let's say seven out of 10 correctly,
00:17:14.200 and you show your, your ID, then you can vote. Um, if you answer, if you can only answer, let's say
00:17:21.820 four to six questions correctly, then your voting privileges will be suspended for, let's say two
00:17:27.800 or three years to give you time to kind of catch up and learn a few things. Um, and if you can answer
00:17:34.400 zero questions correctly, then you should be deported to Canada. Sorry, Canada. Uh, that would be the,
00:17:41.820 that's anyway, if I were dictator of the country, that's the system I would have in place.
00:17:45.960 Maybe a more realistic goal would just be answer seven out of 10 correctly. And you can vote.
00:17:51.340 Think of now it'll never happen, but think about the changes that would occur
00:17:57.840 to our system. If just, if something as simple as this were instated,
00:18:03.860 if every person voting just had a fifth graders understanding of our, of our system and of the
00:18:11.200 world, think about the changes and all of the changes would be for the better. I can't think
00:18:16.500 of one single negative change that would happen because of this. There'd be a lot of negative
00:18:20.780 changes for bad politicians who are now being held accountable. And of course, that's the reason
00:18:25.920 why this will never happen because it would require politicians to come up with this idea
00:18:29.400 and instate it, which they will never, ever do. So we're kind of stuck with the system as it is,
00:18:34.240 but I think it's, it's helpful to have this conversation because it helps us understand,
00:18:38.200 you know, how voting is supposed to work and, uh, and, and what the point of voting actually is.
00:18:46.940 And so that even if, even if there's never a system put in place to weed out the ignorant people,
00:18:52.140 maybe at least we can encourage people who know that they are ignorant,
00:18:55.720 we can encourage them that when voting day comes around, just stay home until you have cured yourself
00:19:02.580 of your ignorance. And then you could partake in this wonderful thing called voting. That's my
00:19:09.100 suggestion. Thanks for watching everybody. Thanks for listening. Godspeed.