The Matt Walsh Show - Ep. 906 - Jail Time For Jussie

00:00:00.000 Today on the Matt Wall Show, Jussie Smollett's attacker has been sentenced to jail time,

00:00:03.820 but the sentence was still too light, I think, as Smollett's insane behavior in the courtroom

00:00:08.320 demonstrated. We'll talk about that. Also, our big tech overlords have gotten together and decided

00:00:12.500 that it's actually okay for you to call for the murder of certain people, depending on their

00:00:17.040 nationality and ethnicity. Nothing troubling about that at all. Plus, Kaepernick compared

00:00:21.760 the NFL to slavery a few months ago, and now he says he still wants to play in the NFL. He wants

00:00:25.540 to be a slave, I guess. And Rihanna is pregnant and speaking eloquently about the beauty of pregnancy 0.91

00:00:30.740 and the preciousness of her unborn life, which seems to contradict her previous

00:00:35.060 pro-abortion activism. This is a pretty common thing with pro-abortion celebrities. We'll talk

00:00:40.360 about that. And a new poll says that Americans are under an unprecedented level of stress. Is that

00:00:45.780 true? Are we more stressed out than anyone in history? Is life that hard, or do we just see

00:00:50.680 it that way? We'll talk about all that and more today on the Matt Wall Show.

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00:02:10.280 and see all the parts available for your car or truck. And remember to write Walsh in their How

00:02:15.320 Did You Hear About Us box so they know that we sent you. So last night, the years-long saga of

00:02:21.280 Jussie Smollett finally reached its exciting conclusion. I feel a certain sadness, the same

00:02:26.460 bittersweet feeling, you know, that you experience after watching the last episode of a great television

00:02:31.240 series. And this has been a great television series in its own right. Certainly the most compelling

00:02:35.860 thing that Smollett has ever starred in. Although his performance, I think, still needs a little bit

00:02:40.200 of work. You know, the story of Smollett's hate crime hoax, it really has almost everything that

00:02:44.220 you could want in a story. It's got comedy, it's got drama, it's got action. The action's a little

00:02:49.160 bit too choreographed and also not that convincing. There's no romance, which is probably for the best,

00:02:54.180 unless you count Smollett going to a gay bathhouse with his fake attackers before the attack.

00:02:59.100 That's a subplot that we can hopefully leave out of the film adaptation. Although, who am I kidding? 0.56

00:03:02.880 Hollywood is going to turn that into a 45-minute sequence. In any case, all of this culminated last night

00:03:08.320 at Smollett's sentencing hearing. Now, Cook County Judge James Lynn listened as Smollett's defense team

00:03:15.140 presented the testimonies of a whole parade of character witnesses, a whole litany of people all attesting

00:03:20.880 to the fact that Smollett is kind and generous. He's got a great heart. He has an undying concern for

00:03:27.380 social justice. And the interesting thing is that tactic seemed to backfire big time when it was time

00:03:33.540 for Judge Lynn to finally render the sentence. Because the judge noted how Smollett's alleged

00:03:39.240 activism and his alleged charitable endeavors only make his hypocrisy even worse. Because if he's 0.60

00:03:45.060 really so concerned with racial justice, then he would, of all people, know what sort of damage this

00:03:51.820 hate hoax would do. So Lynn pointed out that this only underscores Smollett's arrogance, narcissism,

00:03:57.420 his callous disregard for the harm that he would cause. The judge explained all this in an extremely

00:04:03.240 long monologue where he went back over the entire case, offered his reflections and analysis,

00:04:08.600 probably more detail than any of us needed. But the good thing is that it was all the more

00:04:12.480 embarrassing for Smollett to have to sit there and listen to it all over again. Now, before getting

00:04:18.840 to the sentence, my one qualm with Lynn, the judge, is how he focused so intently on the way that Smollett's

00:04:26.720 hoax would, as he said, denigrate and degrade real hate crime victims. For him, that's the main

00:04:32.440 point, right? That's the, that's why this is so bad. He said that hate crimes are the worst thing

00:04:37.720 anyone can do. And it was sick and twisted for Smollett to exploit them for the, for attention

00:04:42.920 the way that he did. Now, yeah, it's true that it was sick and twisted, no doubt about that.

00:04:47.940 It's true that hate crime hoaxes, like false rape claims, do have the effect of discrediting real

00:04:53.860 victims. And that's a serious problem. And that's something you have to weigh as well. But it's not true

00:04:58.720 that a hate crime is the worst thing a person can do. Okay. I would say that crimes against children

00:05:03.440 are the worst thing. It's also not true that the denigration of hate crime victims is the most salient

00:05:10.960 aspect of this case. What the judge didn't mention, what almost nobody mentions, is that this hate

00:05:17.820 crime hoax was itself a hate crime. This was a crime targeting white people. If any group is the real 0.81

00:05:24.740 victim, that's it. I mean, he was for his own selfish reasons, trying to inflame hatred against

00:05:29.540 whites. He was furthering the false media narrative that white racists are patrolling the streets, 0.96

00:05:35.420 even in Chicago, and attacking and trying to kill black people. If that seems like a stretch or 1.00

00:05:41.400 something to just imagine if a white actor had made up a story about two stereotypical black men 0.97

00:05:49.640 assaulting him and yelling, die whitey or something in the middle of the night. If that were to happen, 0.96

00:05:55.960 everyone would agree that this is, that the hoax itself is anti-black and racist. There would be 0.82

00:06:02.120 no disagreement on that point. Well, the same logic applies here. Now, it's somewhat amazing that nobody,

00:06:08.240 not the prosecutors, not the judge, nobody has mentioned the fact that if two white people had

00:06:16.220 happened to be anywhere in the vicinity and had ended up getting blamed for this fake crime,

00:06:22.040 Smollett would have absolutely let them take the fall and spend decades in prison on federal hate

00:06:27.520 crime charges. Now, of course, it was very unlikely that two white people would be like hanging around 1.00

00:06:34.720 Chicago at that time of night, just walking around and end up getting pinned for this. We know that

00:06:40.340 that's unlikely. That's what made the whole story ridiculous. But Smollett didn't think it was 0.92

00:06:44.620 ridiculous. He thought he'd get away with it. So for him anyway, it was at least possible that two 0.90

00:06:51.900 white people would be hanging out outside. Now, you don't stage a fake hate crime unless you are prepared

00:06:57.580 to let a fake culprit do the time for it. And in fact, this is why it's significant that he said that

00:07:04.100 the culprits were wearing masks, which means that he wouldn't be able to tell if two people end up

00:07:13.400 getting, end up getting fingered for this thing. And the cops go to Smollett and say, are these the

00:07:20.880 guys? Well, Smollett wouldn't be able to say, oh, no, it's not them because he didn't know what they

00:07:25.860 look like. So he had specifically set it up so that if two people, innocent people end up getting

00:07:33.700 pinned for this crime, there's nothing he'd be able to do about it. A hate crime hoax is like throwing a

00:07:38.040 grenade into a room, you know, knowing, not knowing if there's anybody inside or not. Maybe you think

00:07:43.560 it's empty. Maybe it's not. Somebody might get hit with the shrapnel. You may not have been

00:07:47.680 intentionally targeting that specific person, but you know that someone might get hit and you did it

00:07:51.880 anyway. That's the worst thing about this crime. And nobody involved in the case pointed that out.

00:07:58.700 That's because all of them are beholden to the leftist racial narrative, which says that non-white 0.61

00:08:03.340 people are always the primary victims of everything, even of hate crime hoaxes perpetrated 0.92

00:08:08.100 by non-white people. Now, of course, as it happens, Smollett throws like a girl. So the grenade only 0.97

00:08:14.400 made it about three feet and then rolled back in his direction and he blew himself up instead. But his

00:08:19.540 intentions were the point. So with all this factor together, it was kind of hard to predict what the

00:08:25.820 sentence would be from the judge. What sentence would he pass down? And then the time arrived. Let's

00:08:30.840 listen to the moment. I'm fashioning the following sentence, and here's your sentence.

00:08:36.140 I'm sentencing you to 30 months felony probation, and the probation is going to be to this court.

00:08:42.500 You're going to be allowed to travel wherever you want. You do not have to live in the state of

00:08:46.620 Illinois. You can report by phone. I know that if you're going to try to make a living and do some

00:08:52.620 of the things you do, you may have to go to other places, New York and Los Angeles. You can do those

00:08:58.420 things. You will pay restitution to the city of Chicago in the amount of $120,106. You are fined

00:09:07.160 $25,000, which is the maximum fine. And you will spend the first 150 days of your sentence in the

00:09:15.240 Cook County Jail. And that will start today, right here, right now. I do appreciate how he saved the

00:09:21.600 jail time for the end because Smollett thought, because he went right and said, oh, well, you're going to

00:09:25.460 have a probation, 30 months of probation, whatever it was. And so Smollett was thinking, oh, thank God.

00:09:30.520 And then at the very end, he said, oh, yeah, by the way, you're going to jail for the next six months

00:09:33.060 right now. So I appreciate that. That was a lot of fun. But probation, first of all, is meaningless

00:09:38.160 because he can still go and travel and do whatever he wants. A small fine, minor restitution, you know,

00:09:44.560 for him, that's not a lot. 150 days in jail. Some people are calling this a stiff sentence or a harsh

00:09:51.100 sentence. But the judge admitted before giving the sentence that the law technically allowed for

00:09:55.860 three years in prison on each conviction. He was convicted of five charges, which means he could

00:10:01.100 have got 15 years in prison. Now, the fact that he has, and he should have, he should have gotten 15

00:10:06.080 years in prison. The fact that he has no remorse whatsoever, as we'll see in a minute, no remorse,

00:10:11.260 plus the extensive premeditation that went into it, the callous disregard, the fact that he was

00:10:17.220 prepared to send innocent people to jail, including his friends, by the way, that's the other thing,

00:10:21.860 the friends that he roped into this thing is patsies. After they turned against him,

00:10:29.060 then Smollett's narrative changed and said, oh, yeah, well, they attacked me, but I didn't tell

00:10:33.060 them to. So he was ready to send them to prison for this, even though he's the one who got them to do

00:10:37.660 it. So the fact that he was going to send people to jail, now, the brothers aren't exactly innocent,

00:10:42.080 but still, the fact that he was trying to cause more racial tension in the country, along with

00:10:47.460 the fact that hate crime hoaxes are an epidemic and somebody needs to be made an example of if

00:10:52.520 we're going to stop this, all of this warrants the maximum penalty, as far as I'm concerned.

00:10:56.840 A few months in jail is about the minimum that could possibly be justified, and so Smollett got

00:11:01.760 the minimum. He got the bare minimum of what you could possibly expect. And here is how he thanked

00:11:07.440 the judge for it. Listen.

00:11:09.820 No, I would just like to say to your honor that I am not suicidal. That's what I was going to say.

00:11:17.140 Okay.

00:11:17.700 I am not suicidal.

00:11:19.460 Okay.

00:11:19.980 I am not suicidal. I am innocent, and I am not suicidal.

00:11:25.220 If I did this, then it means that I stuck my fist in the fears of black Americans in this country

00:11:30.300 for over 400 years and the fears of the LGBTQ community. Your honor, I respect you, and I respect

00:11:35.360 the jury. But I did not do this, and I am not suicidal. And if anything happens to me when I go

00:11:40.700 in there, I did not do it to myself. And you must all know that. I respect you, your honor. I respect

00:11:48.780 your decision. Jail time. I am not suicidal.

00:11:55.500 Okay.

00:11:56.180 Now, this man cannot stop acting, and he's so bad at it, too, which is the problem. He's in court,

00:12:01.800 a convicted felon, going to jail, and he's still putting on a performance.

00:12:06.440 Like, he thinks this really is a TV show. Obviously, the point of the whole I'm not

00:12:10.740 suicidal thing was to suggest that there's some kind of conspiracy against him. He might be killed

00:12:15.540 in jail. No one's going to kill you. They're just going to laugh at you, you dummy. In fact,

00:12:21.140 this guy, he's such a damned attention-seeking narcissist that I wouldn't be surprised if he 0.99

00:12:25.760 actually does hurt himself in jail. He might even kill himself, just so that he can still be the 1.00

00:12:29.720 victim in the end. But the reaction from Smollett was interesting, because you can tell

00:12:34.060 that he's a man who has never been held accountable for anything in his entire life. He's a man

00:12:39.460 completely absorbed in himself, in his own sense of entitlement. He's a spoiled, rotten child. 1.00

00:12:45.160 Never faced any consequences for anything. The fact that he must now face a real consequence, 0.99

00:12:51.100 even though it's a much lighter consequence than what he should face, is just, it's

00:12:55.580 incomprehensible to him. The greatest part of that diatribe was at the end where Smollett

00:12:59.720 scoffs and says, jail time? Jail time? And he's speechless at the thought. Well, yeah, Jussie,

00:13:05.260 you were convicted of five felonies. Did you really think that there would be no jail time at all?

00:13:10.260 He did think that, because he's been coddled his whole life. Why should it stop now, he thought.

00:13:16.680 Smollett really, in many ways, I think is the perfect mascot for our culture, for this generation. I think

00:13:21.920 that's the lesson we could take away at the end of all of this, at the end of all things. At the end

00:13:26.580 of all things, Jussie, that's what we could take away from it. That's what makes this story relevant,

00:13:29.900 actually. We know what makes it hilarious, and it is, but it's relevant because Smollett

00:13:34.820 is the prototypical product and representative of modern American culture. A self-entitled, 0.58

00:13:42.140 phony, performative, pampered hypocrite who has lived such a comfortable and luxurious life 1.00

00:13:47.120 that he's developed a fetish for oppression. It is a fetish for him. He's been given everything in 1.00

00:13:53.520 life, except he's been given everything you could possibly want, except for a genuine opportunity to

00:13:59.640 be a victim. That's the one thing he was not given. That's the one gift that life never gave him.

00:14:05.080 And so he went seeking it out. And when he couldn't find it, he created it for himself. If you want to

00:14:10.000 hate crime against yourself done right, do it yourself, he thought. Except he can't do anything right

00:14:14.700 because he has no skills or talents or abilities or intelligence of any kind. And so he botched it

00:14:18.820 and made a fool of himself. The whole story is so quintessentially modern and Western. 0.98

00:14:27.120 Smollett, he should replace the bald eagle as our national mascot because he's the sort of man

00:14:31.900 that our culture produces. When you think about it like that, the story isn't quite as funny anymore,

00:14:38.920 though it's still pretty funny, let's be honest. Now let's get to our five headlines.

00:14:44.700 All right, so The Daily Wire is creating a universe of woke, free entertainment just for you. That

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00:16:41.660 dailywire.com slash watch today. Help us build a universe of news and entertainment that reflects

00:16:47.140 your values. Again, go to dailywire.com slash watch today. Well, I think we should start with

00:16:54.020 this. I mean, this to me seems like a big deal. You may recall how I've pointed out a couple of

00:17:00.840 times. There's a contradiction here, a bit of hypocrisy in the way that we are. You think about

00:17:08.720 Asian people after the China virus spread throughout the globe and killed 5 million people

00:17:14.420 or Muslims after 9-11 and how there was this intense focus in our country and making sure

00:17:20.760 that people who had nothing to do with it are not subject to hate of any kind because of it.

00:17:28.580 So there was this real focus on Islamophobia. We don't want to be Islamophobic. We don't want to

00:17:34.380 have anti-Asian hatred and all of that. And then Russia invades Ukraine and all of that sort of goes

00:17:40.700 out the window. And now it's open season on Russians literally now. Okay. So this is the report from

00:17:46.220 Reuters. It says Meta Platforms, which is now the parent company of Facebook, will allow Facebook and

00:17:53.220 Instagram users in some countries to call for violence against Russian soldiers and Russians,

00:17:59.080 okay, not just the soldiers, in the context of the Ukraine invasion, according to internal emails seen

00:18:03.420 by Reuters on Thursday, in a temporary change to its hate speech policies. The social media company is

00:18:09.540 also temporarily allowing some posts that call for the death of President Vladimir Putin or Belarusian

00:18:15.340 President Alexander Lukashenko in countries including Russia, Ukraine, and Poland, according to a series of

00:18:20.580 internal emails to its content moderator. So depending, you can call for the deaths of certain

00:18:26.440 people depending on where you live. This is all geographically based. So if you live in these

00:18:29.760 certain countries, then you are allowed to want these individuals to die. If you live outside that

00:18:34.640 country, then you can't. Of course, any other individuals, you can't want them to die. But these

00:18:38.420 specific individuals, you're allowed to. We're going to put that into the hate speech policy now.

00:18:43.280 Um, these calls for the leader's deaths will be allowed unless they contain other targets or have

00:18:49.140 two indicators of credibility, such as the location or method, one email said. What? In a recent change

00:18:55.280 to the company's rules on violence and incitement. Okay. So if you live in these particular areas,

00:19:00.140 you can call, you can call for these particular people to die. Um, and it can be, there can be one

00:19:06.440 indicator of credibility, but not two. So you could say like, for example, um, Hey, uh, Vladimir Putin

00:19:16.540 is in this particular location. Someone should go kill him, but you can't say Vladimir Putin is in 0.84

00:19:23.040 this particular location. Somebody should go shoot him. Okay. Because then you've got location and 1.00

00:19:27.820 methods. You want to be more, uh, circumspect about one of those things. Or you could say, I hope,

00:19:34.980 or rather someone should go poison Putin's breakfast. And you can say that, um, as long

00:19:43.240 as you don't say where they should poison the breakfast. Like you don't say, Oh, next time he's

00:19:47.220 at Denny's, they should do it. Just be, be general about that part of it. This is the policy. Now

00:19:51.860 the email said calls for violence against Russians are allowed when the post is talking about the

00:19:58.180 invasion of Ukraine. They said the calls for violence against Russian soldiers were allowed 0.61

00:20:01.800 because this was being used as a proxy for the Russian military and said it would not apply to

00:20:06.280 prisoners of war. Um, the temporary policy changes on calls for violence to Russian soldiers

00:20:11.380 apply to, and then there's a whole host of Eastern European countries that you're allowed to do this.

00:20:17.980 And, um, many major social media platforms have announced new content restrictions around the

00:20:22.700 conflict, so on and so forth. So there are new, uh, restrictions because we want to make sure we

00:20:28.120 don't have any of that Russian propaganda. Uh, now Ukrainian propaganda, of which there's been

00:20:33.140 plenty, that of course is allowed. So we allow certain types of propaganda, not other kinds,

00:20:37.280 and you could call for the deaths of certain people, but not others. It, it should, um, it should 0.98

00:20:42.940 freak you out that social media platforms, people running these platforms, all, they all had to sit

00:20:50.740 or think about, imagine being a fly on the wall in this meeting. They had to sit down and have a

00:20:56.540 meeting about this. This was at some point they actually sat in a room. There were individuals

00:21:01.280 sitting in a room talking about the policies for who you're allowed to want to kill.

00:21:10.020 And they sat around and agreed to this. It should freak you out that our big tech oligarchs,

00:21:16.120 our big tech overlords are now putting themselves in the position of deciding, you know, who is worthy

00:21:22.800 of death and who is worthy of life. And of course, again, this will, this will, this would never apply

00:21:31.340 in any other circuit. The only reason why this is being allowed is because Russians are perceived as

00:21:37.900 white, even though a great many of them really are not, but they're perceived that way. And so that's

00:21:43.580 why this is allowed. Um, would you be allowed to call for the death of, um, you know, any, uh,

00:21:54.540 anyone in the Chinese government? Of course not. You wouldn't because they're, they're not white. 1.00

00:22:00.320 All right. Ron DeSantis once again is, uh, putting on a clinic for us and for other Republicans showing

00:22:07.280 how it's done. Um, this is like episode 500 of Ron DeSantis showing how it's done. So this, but, but, but

00:22:14.780 this is, this is worth really thinking about and looking at because, um, it's very rare that we see this

00:22:20.780 from Republicans. In fact, we've seen Republicans many times, many examples, especially governors and

00:22:26.040 especially in the last, you know, several months, uh, caving immediately, uh, prep because of pressure

00:22:34.020 from the left and especially pressure from corporations and especially corporations in

00:22:39.660 their own States that donate money to them and their campaigns and whose business, you know, um,

00:22:44.880 you know, the, the, the powerful corporations in their own state. Most Republicans are not,

00:22:50.080 especially Republican governors are not able to withstand that kind of pressure. Now, Ron DeSantis,

00:22:54.900 on the other hand, has Disney, the most powerful corporation in his state and one of the most

00:23:01.980 powerful corporations in the entire world, putting pressure on him because of this so-called don't

00:23:06.360 say gay bill. And it's called that because of all the propaganda and lies being told about it.

00:23:11.880 And he has refused to cave. So here he is. Uh, this is a video from Fox talking again about this

00:23:18.920 and just showing once again, showing Republicans how they should handle these situations. Let's listen

00:23:22.620 to some of this. So here's what I can tell you, uh, in the state of Florida, uh, we are not going to

00:23:30.600 allow them to inject transgenderism into kindergarten. First graders shouldn't have, uh, woke gender 0.99

00:23:45.020 ideology imposed in their curriculums. And that is what we're standing for. Cause we're standing for

00:23:50.120 the kids and we're standing for the parents. Uh, and I can tell you this, uh, they're the chance that

00:23:56.640 I am going to back down from my commitment to students and back down from my commitment to

00:24:03.660 parents' rights simply because of fraudulent media narratives or pressure from woke corporations.

00:24:11.060 The chances of that are zero.

00:24:13.120 When you have companies that have made a fortune off being family friendly and catering to families

00:24:26.980 and young kids, you know, they should understand that parents of young kids do not want this

00:24:33.520 injected into their kid's kindergarten classroom. Uh, they do not want their first graders to go

00:24:39.040 and be told. I'm glad he got to that. Cause that's another good point about Disney. That is not

00:24:42.900 appropriate for those kids. So there's, there's Ron DeSantis. That's another good. Another good point

00:24:46.820 about Disney is that they are, they produce content for children and now they have come out so strongly

00:24:54.260 in favor of sexually grooming children. And so if you let your children, um, consume content from

00:25:01.700 Disney, that might be something worth thinking about in the future. Of course, we should have been

00:25:05.340 thinking about it before because Disney has been crazy leftist for a long time. Um, but that's,

00:25:10.820 that's Ron DeSantis. I mean, he's, I'll, I'll keep on saying it until it, until it manifests and

00:25:16.620 becomes reality, but he's, he's gotta be the guy. I mean, we're, it's crazy to consider anybody else

00:25:24.560 at this point. There's just, there's just nobody else who's on his level. Um, and that of course includes

00:25:32.940 Trump. Ron DeSantis, what you saw there, that's, that's, he's got all of the, the upside of Trump

00:25:38.040 and none of the downside. The only thing that Trump has that Sanders doesn't have is all the

00:25:43.760 name recognition. Of course, Trump is one of the most famous people in the world and he was even

00:25:47.120 before he ran for president. So Sanders doesn't have that to that extent, but if he's the guy and,

00:25:55.060 and, uh, he's the Republican nominee, then he's going to get a lot of that name recognition.

00:25:58.600 So that's, that's a, that's a problem you can solve. But when it comes to qualities as a

00:26:05.720 politician, it comes to that, like what he brings to the table in terms of his skill. Um, he's got

00:26:12.580 anything Trump has. And, um, and then there's a lot of downside that Trump has that he doesn't have.

00:26:20.400 Um, and he's also able to, which I think is really important, you know, using the bully pulpit,

00:26:27.360 as they say, being able to talk about these issues in, um, you know, you don't have to be

00:26:33.500 Shakespeare and Ron DeSantis isn't. He comes off like a, basically a normal guy and that's,

00:26:39.940 that's good actually. But he's able to talk about these issues in a, in a coherent way.

00:26:45.440 Like he can focus. You get the sense that you could sit down from across the table from Ron DeSantis

00:26:51.240 and talk about an issue, um, for 30 minutes and he could stay on topic and, and talk about it and

00:26:58.720 offer some insight, you know, whereas with Trump it's, it's all over the place. He's, he's, he's not

00:27:05.120 able to stay on message at all about anything. And, um, you just don't, you don't get the sense that

00:27:11.360 he quite is, is quite as engaged with these issues or cares about them. Um, the same way that you do

00:27:17.840 with, with Ron DeSantis. All right. Adam Schefter over at ESPN reports, he's got, he tweeted out a

00:27:25.340 little video of Colin Kaepernick out on the football field. Kaepernick tweeted it saying

00:27:30.900 still working. And then, uh, Schefter says, Colin Kaepernick is still working out. And it's said to

00:27:34.960 me in the words of one source in the best shape of his life, he wants to play. He's ready to play.

00:27:39.560 He would be a great fit for teams with QB vacancies to fill, uh, who want to win a Superbowl.

00:27:44.680 Now this is, it's always been the case that most of the people pushing the, uh, Kaepernick

00:27:51.320 narrative. I mean, Schefter works for ESPN, but a lot of the people, a lot of people in the peanut

00:27:54.840 gallery pushing this narrative and the ones, the ones who are still saying, oh yeah, why does

00:27:58.700 someone give Kaepernick a shot? A lot of them have no idea, don't know anything about football,

00:28:02.160 don't follow it, have no clue whatsoever. Um, and you, you would have to know nothing about football

00:28:07.100 at all to believe any part of that, to believe first of all, that he's in the best shape of his life

00:28:11.940 at 34 years old and he hasn't played in what, six, seven years. He's in the best football shape

00:28:18.980 of his life at 34. Almost nobody is in the best, even the people that are star quarterbacks have

00:28:24.600 been in the league this entire time. It's, it's very rare that someone is in the best shape of

00:28:28.880 their life at 34. Like Tom Brady is one example. He was in the best shape of his life for like 10

00:28:33.080 years. Um, but 34 is where the drop-off happens and sometimes very steep drop-off for almost all,

00:28:42.000 even the, even the star quarterbacks who have been playing this whole time. So the, the, the idea that

00:28:46.580 this guy could come in at 34 hasn't played his last time in a league, he was a bench warmer riding the

00:28:52.960 bench behind Blaine Gabbert. And he went like one in 10 with the San Francisco 49ers. The idea that he

00:28:58.760 could come in six or seven years later and win a Superbowl is absurd. And everybody knows about

00:29:04.640 football knows that. Um, the other absurd thing is the claim that he wants to play because here's the,

00:29:10.000 here's the dirty little secret about Colin Kaepernick, which is not much of a secret at all.

00:29:14.160 Um, he doesn't want to play at all. He doesn't actually want to play. That was clear a couple of

00:29:17.380 years ago when the NFL actually held a workout for him specifically in the middle of the season,

00:29:22.880 which they never do for anybody. And, um, and he boycotted the workout because there wasn't enough

00:29:28.340 media there and then held his own. And then he spent the entire workout workout railing against

00:29:32.780 the NFL and calling him a bunch of racists. Like this is not someone who wants to play for the NFL.

00:29:36.840 Also, if you wanted to play football, he could be playing football right now. He could have been

00:29:40.880 playing this entire time. There are other professional football leagues out there that

00:29:45.640 they don't have the same star power or, or, uh, or, you know, they're not, people don't care about

00:29:50.900 them the same way they do at the NFL. But if you're, if you're out of the NFL for any reason,

00:29:54.920 and you want to get back in and you want to play football, then you just go play for

00:29:58.100 another league and you show people that you can still do it. Now with an eight second video of

00:30:02.540 you running around the football field by yourself, throwing a football. So he could be playing.

00:30:07.660 He doesn't want to play. And that's really like the best case scenario for him is that it's a lie

00:30:14.960 that he wants, that he wants to play. He's actually just a con man. And this is all part of the con, 0.88

00:30:19.460 of course, because then you'd have to think, well, if he does really want to play, what does that say

00:30:23.760 about him considering the fact that he just did a Netflix special where he compared the NFL to

00:30:29.860 slavery and said that NFL owners are slave owners? And now, now he wants to, he wants to,

00:30:37.000 what's he wants to be a slave? You guys are a bunch of racist slave owners. Can I please work for you? 1.00

00:30:42.060 What does that say about him? So no matter how you cut, no matter how you slice it, this guy is a

00:30:47.840 fraud and a con man. If you're still buying into this, then I think there's just no, no hope for 0.97

00:30:54.260 you. All right, let's go here. Rihanna, big music star is, shows you how plugged into the culture I am

00:31:04.860 that I can tell you that about Rihanna. And she's a big musical star, Rihanna, and she's also pregnant. 1.00

00:31:09.520 So congratulations to her. That's very exciting. Um, here she is, uh, on some red carpet somewhere

00:31:13.880 talking about her pregnancy. Listen, do feel very beautiful. It's from inside, you know,

00:31:20.860 like all these changes that your body are going through is for, you're creating this person like

00:31:28.780 a life. And, and even when I'm reading like all the apps, I don't find out what my body's doing

00:31:33.620 and what the baby's doing this week. It freaks me out. Like God really does not make a mistake.

00:31:38.640 Everything is for a reason. I'm enjoying it and I'm appreciating everything. Uh, God does not,

00:31:44.740 everything she said there, of course I agree with quite profound actually. Um, and it's a,

00:31:49.480 and you would like to say it's a wonderful thing to have, uh, women who have this kind of cultural

00:31:54.540 credibility, uh, and a lot of legions of younger fans when they're pregnant and they're proud of it.

00:32:01.060 And they're out there talking about God. She says, God doesn't make mistakes. She's referring to the

00:32:05.640 child in her womb as, as a life, you know, it's a precious, beautiful life. All of that is really

00:32:10.040 great and wonderful, but it raises some questions. Like for instance, a couple of years ago, um,

00:32:16.160 here she is tweeting about a law in, um, Alabama, which restricted abortion. And here's what she said

00:32:22.600 about that. She said, uh, take a look. These are the idiots making decisions for women in America. 1.00

00:32:30.460 Governor Kay Ivey, shame on you. So Rihanna was very upset about a law restricting abortion. 1.00

00:32:36.540 She's a pro abortion. She's a pro abortion. She's an outspoken pro abortion activist. 1.00

00:32:42.080 And that's what she has been up till now. And now she's saying, God doesn't make mistakes

00:32:47.120 and it is a life in the womb. Now, how can you possibly, how do these two things fit together?

00:32:52.320 I mean, if you're saying God doesn't make mistakes, which he doesn't, then that means that,

00:32:57.040 and you're saying that the unborn child is a life. Then, then, then that means that every child

00:33:01.440 who is conceived is a human life that God has sent here to earth and he didn't make mistakes.

00:33:10.440 So you can't say anything about, oh, it was an accident or is a, this is an unwanted,

00:33:14.740 this is a child who's not supposed to live. You can't say that. But God wants all of these children

00:33:22.100 to live. That's why he created the life in the womb of the mother in this miraculous moment of

00:33:27.320 conception. How can you, how can all these things fit together? I mean, how can you think that

00:33:33.020 but also be in favor of abortion? Because now you, if you're, if you, if you hold all of these

00:33:40.080 views in your mind all at once, then that would mean, you know, it's not that you have convinced

00:33:45.020 yourself that the unborn child is a meaningless clump of cells, but that would mean that you

00:33:50.240 actually know that this is a human being, a precious human being created by God. And yet

00:33:56.500 you still are in favor of killing 60 million of them since Roe v. Wade. That's even worse. 1.00

00:34:02.660 So it seems like a, like a contradiction and a hypocrisy and, you know, in a, in a certain way

00:34:09.400 it is, but in a certain way it's not actually. Because the view held by Rihanna and all of these

00:34:17.960 celebrity, you know, these left, leftist celebrity women who get pregnant and they decide they want

00:34:23.120 to be pregnant, thankfully. And, you know, they taught, they say all these wonderful things about

00:34:27.280 pregnancy, yet they're pro-abortion. The view that they all hold, the view held by Rihanna

00:34:32.340 is that her baby has worth because it's her baby and she wants it. So it's everything she's saying,

00:34:45.160 that doesn't, she does not mean that to apply to all children. No, no, no, no. This, this is my child

00:34:52.260 and I'm Rihanna. So, and I want this child. And so because it's me and, and because I have

00:35:00.360 a desire to have this child, that means that the child now has worth and is a, is a life

00:35:05.820 given to us by God. So really it all comes back to me.

00:35:10.540 And this is something that the left, if you listen to them, they've been pretty open about

00:35:17.620 this, in fact. There was a famous, I think it was someone on MSNBC a few years ago said

00:35:22.980 that, you know, life begins whenever the mom wants the life to begin. And that's how they 0.99

00:35:28.100 see it. It's actually not about God at all. The woman is God. And you can decide through 0.73

00:35:35.400 your own desires, your own emotions, whether that life has worth or not. It's worth is contingent

00:35:43.080 upon how desirable the life is to you as the mother. That's how she sees it. Speaking of twisted

00:35:50.340 and perverse, that's, that's how she sees it. All right. One other quick thing I want to, I have to,

00:35:54.360 I just, I have to play this for you. I can't, I can't not play it. Tess Holliday is a plus size 0.98

00:36:00.240 model, is how she self-identifies. And she also has recently, we've, I think we mentioned this

00:36:08.120 before a few, a few months ago when the news came out that Tess Holliday, who weighs, you know, she 0.99

00:36:12.640 weighs, I, by the looks of it, she weighs 350 plus pounds. And, but she's, she has, she's anorexic, 1.00

00:36:19.880 she says. And so she was on a talk show this week talking about her, her battle with anorexia.

00:36:28.560 Um, and here she is talking a little bit about, about overcoming and the courage it took her to

00:36:33.760 overcome anorexia. Listen, Liz. I, I feel immense gratitude and pride that I am able to sit here

00:36:41.900 with you and talk about such hard things and know that there's somebody on the other side that feels

00:36:46.740 less alone, that maybe says to themselves, I'm going to get help, asks for help, uh, starts taking

00:36:53.240 care of themselves in the way that they deserve. Because, you know, plus size or not, we all,

00:36:58.600 everybody deserves food. Everybody deserves to eat. You know, it's, we deserve to take care of

00:37:06.340 ourselves. We deserve to live without judgment. We do. We do. Yes. That's the biggest thing in all

00:37:11.660 of it. Are you currently in therapy? How often are you? Yeah. So, um, I see my dietician once a week

00:37:17.460 and then I have my therapist once a week. Uh, and I have a lot of people in my life who lovingly

00:37:24.200 just nudged me, nudged me along the right path and yeah, I'm, I'm doing it.

00:37:31.460 She sees her dietician once a week. Uh, might want to ask for a refund on that. I mean, in some

00:37:43.880 ways, you know, it's, it's inspiring, I think, to see someone who has so thoroughly beaten anorexia.

00:37:51.400 I mean, she has dominated and crushed her anorexia. Um, this is a, this is like Mike Tyson

00:38:03.380 in his prime. Okay. That's how, that's how much is a first round knockout of anorexia.

00:38:11.000 Um, man. Now look, everything she's talking about, she, she's, uh, she says that, you know,

00:38:20.660 uh, talking about eating disorders and people, and she needs, it's okay to ask for help.

00:38:25.820 All of that is, all that's of course true. And, um, it is also true that you could say that she

00:38:32.540 has an eating disorder in the sense that she's eating way, way too much in a, in a, in quite a

00:38:40.840 disordered way, in fact, in a, in a self-destructive way, but that's not what she means. Okay.

00:38:46.920 She actually, she's claiming to have anorexia, which by definition, anorexia is, you know,

00:38:53.020 with not eating, you know, keeping yourself away from food to the extent that it actually causes

00:38:59.660 you to be, you know, famished where you're like starving yourself. That's what anorexia is. 0.99

00:39:04.680 And I, you know, you can't judge a book by its cover, but I am pretty sure that Tess

00:39:11.840 Holliday is not starving. All right. I'm just going to stop while I'm ahead. Let's get to

00:39:19.380 the comment section. All right. Uh, dailywire.com slash sweet baby comments. Let's play clip 11.

00:39:32.880 Hey Matt. Uh, I'm at work sitting in my car here, uh, kind of memories of the old days.

00:39:40.520 Anyways, I wanted to ask a hypothetical question that as a Christian, do you think it is morally

00:39:48.680 justified to have a desire or thoughts or, you know, a want to physically handle these

00:39:58.360 sexual predators, people who are hurting children yourself, like wanting to take care of the problem

00:40:04.200 yourself? Um, do you think that is morally justified? Um, I, uh, I have, uh, family members 0.94

00:40:13.800 that seem to think that it's, um, wrong when people, you know, like there was that recent case

00:40:22.280 about the UFC fighter or whatever that hurt, hurt the guy that touched his kid. Um, what do you think?

00:40:29.060 Do you think that that could be a godly and righteous anger inside of a person, a justified action?

00:40:36.940 Uh, or do you, you know, what, what do you think? Sweet baby king for life.

00:40:41.080 Uh, yeah. So is it, is it, is it, uh, godly or is it right as a Christian have violent anger towards 1.00

00:40:48.640 sex predators? I think, I think probably part of the reason you're asking that question is, uh,

00:40:52.480 we talked yesterday about, you know, the case at the, at the Dunkin' Donuts where the customer was

00:40:57.280 berating the Dunkin' Donuts employee and, uh, screaming at him, called him a racial slur, uh,

00:41:01.520 and then he got punched in the head and then he ended up dying. And I mentioned how it turns out,

00:41:06.480 not that the Dunkin' Donuts employee would have known this necessarily, but that this guy, uh, 0.99

00:41:11.060 Vanell Cook, I think was his name, was a sex predator and child molester. Um, and so that means 0.98

00:41:15.680 that, uh, putting everything else about the case aside, like, I don't care that he's dead. It

00:41:20.040 doesn't, doesn't make, make me sad that he's dead because that's how I feel about people who, um,

00:41:23.940 who harm kids. So anyway, now, so is that all consistent with, with being a Christian to feel that

00:41:30.840 way? And I would say absolutely yes. Um, I mean, the whole idea that, that we as Christians are never

00:41:35.920 supposed to be angry about anything that, that, that concept just doesn't hold up, um, upon any

00:41:43.640 deeper reading of the scripture or not even deep reading, just pick up scripture and read it like

00:41:49.720 any New Testament, Old Testament, just, just flip, flip open the book sometime and, uh, read a few

00:41:54.780 pages and you're almost certain, especially in the Old Testament, but in the New Testament also,

00:41:59.120 you're almost certain to be given examples of righteous anger. Um, which is, which in fact,

00:42:04.140 is like all over the Old Testament, the, the, the, the Bible, including again in the New Testament.

00:42:09.320 I mean, Jesus is, shows anger, um, on several occasions and not just the, you know, famous case

00:42:20.260 of, of clearing the temple, which in that case he fashioned a whip. I mean, he used physical violence

00:42:25.260 and not in self-defense, you know, it wasn't physical self-defense. He wasn't being attacked

00:42:31.160 physically, but he used violence, uh, himself. And, and there's many other cases of, of showing

00:42:39.060 anger. So there's nothing, there's nothing in and of itself wrong with, with being angry. Um, I think

00:42:43.860 the question is, what do you do with that anger? And also what, why are you angry? So if it's personal

00:42:49.340 resentment, personal grudges, that's not good anger. That's not, that's not wholly righteous anger.

00:42:54.120 Um, if it's your own pride, that's been hurt or damaged, that's, that's not righteous anger. If

00:43:01.620 it's just irritation that you're allowing to get out of control, you're, you're flipping out because

00:43:06.420 you're stuck in traffic and you're angry at everybody. And maybe there's a traffic jam. And,

00:43:10.480 uh, for all you know, there's the traffic jam is because there was an accident a mile up and

00:43:14.260 someone's dead. And, and all you're thinking about is yourself and you're getting angry. None of that

00:43:18.520 stuff is righteous, but the anger that you feel towards someone who harms children, why do you feel

00:43:23.440 anger? Because that, that anger is rooted in your love for the victims. It's the same anger that I

00:43:30.400 feel when I think about, um, abortion, the anger I have towards abortionists. It's the anger I have

00:43:35.060 towards, uh, these, these quacks who chemically castrate children, mutilate kids, gender confused 1.00

00:43:43.840 kids. I feel intense anger towards them because it's not, they're not doing it to me, right? Like you're 0.96

00:43:50.520 not talking about someone who is, who has preyed upon you. It's because of what they're doing to

00:43:55.240 innocent people. And it's an anger that is, that is grounded in love. It springs from love. And so, yes,

00:44:03.760 love can lead to anger. In fact, I'll go farther than that. I would say that, um, if you don't feel

00:44:10.060 angry, if you do not experience intense anger, um, when someone is being victimized, then you don't

00:44:18.960 love that person. All right. Good question though. Um, let's go to Robert. He says, I've read the story

00:44:27.140 of Sodom and Gomorrah a few times and have pondered how in the world, a couple of large populations got

00:44:31.580 to the point of mass sexual gratification hysteria. Now the pieces are beginning to fall into place.

00:44:37.000 Um, we're becoming ripe for destruction. He kind of fits in with what we were just talking about.

00:44:42.900 I couldn't agree more. Um, Zachary says, Matt, I disagree with you on the Dunkin' Donuts story.

00:44:47.780 If the employee punched the guy for yelling and disrespecting him, that would be one thing, 0.97

00:44:51.300 but punching him because of a single word, that's pretty pathetic. Well, I'm not sure that you disagree 0.96

00:44:56.960 because that's basically what I said. I mean, the, the problem I have with the sentence,

00:45:03.700 the guy got house arrest when he punched a guy and killed him. You know, the issue I have with

00:45:07.920 that sentence is that it wasn't because the vanilla cook, the child molester was screaming

00:45:16.380 and carrying on and everything else. It wasn't that generally, it was because of that one specific

00:45:21.380 word. And so the precedent that you're setting in the court system is that if someone says a word,

00:45:28.700 one particular word, one magical word, then you could kill them. And so that was, that was my, 0.57

00:45:34.220 that was my take on it. So I think we, I don't know how much we disagree. Uh, there was one other

00:45:38.500 thing about the Dunkin' Donuts. Okay. Ethan says, honestly, I bet Matt has never been in a fight.

00:45:43.340 Why else would he feel not only comfortable, but justified in hitting someone who says something

00:45:47.280 he doesn't like? Sounds like a totalitarian response. SBG dude, but you have a ridiculous take

00:45:53.480 on this fight story. If you could call it a fight more like a cowardly cheap shot. Okay. Ethan, 0.99

00:45:57.780 first of all, not a cheap shot. Cheap shot is when you run up to someone, you know, and you,

00:46:01.320 and you surprise them out of nowhere and punch them. It's not a cheap shot. When you're fate,

00:46:05.260 when you're squaring off with a guy and look at him in the face. And especially in this case,

00:46:09.180 the Dunkin' Donuts employee warned him, said, said, you know, get out of him. He was warned

00:46:12.920 and the child molester kept, kept going. So you're, you're squaring off. You're looking him dead in

00:46:19.000 the face. You've warned him. Like, I'm going to hit you if you don't back away. And then you hit him.

00:46:23.640 It's whatever else you call it. You cannot call it a cheap shot.

00:46:25.720 Um, but yes. And, and also, by the way, you say it's a totalitarian response. Well,

00:46:31.680 I am a theocratic fascist dictator, so you shouldn't be surprised by that.

00:46:35.520 Uh, but also what, so, so you're, you're claiming that there's, there's never an occasion

00:46:40.800 where it's appropriate to hit someone unless they hit you first.

00:46:45.180 I just don't know where we get that. And why is that treated as if it's self-evident?

00:46:49.120 And I don't even think that you believe that. I mean, let me just give an example. I don't know

00:46:53.360 if you're married, but what if you were out in public and somebody came up and was, uh, sexually

00:46:58.060 harassing your wife? Doesn't, doesn't touch her. Okay. But it's like sexually harassing your wife 0.89

00:47:02.740 and you're sitting right there. Are you going to go up and excuse me, sir, will you please leave? I, 0.78

00:47:07.080 I, sir, I do not preach, sir. I need you to leave. Okay. I do not appreciate this. If I, if you don't

00:47:12.300 mind me saying, in fact, I, I, I, I'm a little bit peeved in the way you're treating my wife. 1.00

00:47:16.020 Like, no, if you're, if you're a man, you're going to walk up to that guy and punch him in the face 0.99

00:47:19.680 because that's what he deserves. That is behavior that warrants violence. I didn't say you're going 0.99

00:47:26.880 to pull out a gun and shoot him. Okay. Not all violence is the same. There are, there are gradations 0.91

00:47:31.600 here. So your response has to be proportional, but that is a proportionate response. That is someone,

00:47:37.520 are they a victim? I mean, the way they're behaving, are you really going to say they're a victim?

00:47:40.840 They didn't have it coming. They didn't bring it on themselves. And yeah, putting everything

00:47:45.620 about racial slurs and everything else aside, when you go in and start screaming at someone,

00:47:51.920 getting in their face and cussing them out because you're upset that service has taken too long

00:47:55.720 and you're getting in their face and screaming at them. Um, yeah, you, you, you brought that on

00:47:59.940 yourself. You deserve to get punched. And that's why I said, if you, if you're in a physical state 1.00

00:48:06.260 where getting punched might kill you, or one, if you're so fragile that one punch in the head 1.00

00:48:11.180 might kill you, then maybe watch your stupid mouth. There's an idea. Okay. Um, let's get to 1.00

00:48:20.660 the daily cancellation. Well, a new survey from the American Psychiatric Association has led to some

00:48:29.420 dramatic and startling headlines. NBC news reports that Americans are besieged by stress. And the Hill

00:48:36.160 says that we are experiencing alarming levels of stress. And then there are the headlines from,

00:48:40.780 um, NBC and Yahoo claiming that we poor souls in America today are afflicted by unprecedented levels

00:48:46.960 of stress. Yahoo reports, quote, financial woes coupled with a barrage of horrifying scenes from

00:48:52.320 Ukraine or as Russia continues its invasion have pushed a majority of Americans to unprecedented

00:48:57.220 levels of stress. According to a new report from the American Psychological Association,

00:49:01.540 the association's annual stress in America poll published Thursday found that the U S adults

00:49:05.400 already weary from two years of COVID-19 are now overwhelmingly troubled by inflation and the

00:49:10.720 war in Ukraine. According to the results, 87% of those surveyed cited rising costs of everyday items

00:49:15.900 such as groceries and gas as a significant source of stress. The same high percentage said that their

00:49:20.980 mental health was greatly affected by what was, by what has felt like a constant stream of crises

00:49:26.600 without a break over the last two years. Maybe 4% said that the Russian invasion of Ukraine is

00:49:31.040 terrifying to watch. Now, um, I don't mean to get into semantics here, but I think it's worth pointing

00:49:38.220 out a couple of things. And one is that our stress in modern times is certainly not in any way historic or

00:49:45.020 unprecedented. Americans have lived through actual world wars, um, pandemics also we've lived through that many

00:49:52.500 times. And many of those pandemics have, have especially afflicted children as opposed to COVID, which

00:49:56.980 especially spared our children. Thank God. Uh, you want to talk about stress. How about hopping a time

00:50:01.440 machine, go back to a nine to a, let's say 1862, ask Americans back then about the stresses of living

00:50:07.140 through a civil war where 600,000 Americans died. 2% of the population, the equivalent of losing 7 million

00:50:13.340 people today in a war. Can you imagine that a civil war, 7 million men are killed in, in, if you,

00:50:20.960 if you look at it in proportion, 2%. Um, so you want stress, try that or try living out on the frontier

00:50:27.440 out in Comanche country in the 1840s or being a subsistence farmer during a drought or really try

00:50:34.400 living in any time period before modern times back when you actually had to try to survive and you

00:50:39.080 were surrounded by death all the time. And the child mortality rate was exponentially higher than it

00:50:43.460 is now. And women died during childbirth all the time. You know, if you were, if you were a 0.99

00:50:49.500 60 year old man with eight kids, if you, if you live that long, it's almost certain that you've,

00:50:55.860 you know, you've had two or three wives by now because the other ones died. You've probably had

00:51:00.020 two or three kids who have died. Um, literally every aspect of life was significantly harder

00:51:05.060 and more grueling than it is for us today. Now, as I said, not, not semantics, but when we start

00:51:09.940 talking about unprecedented stress, I think it's important to remember that history did not begin last

00:51:15.220 week. Perspective is what we're missing. And I think our lack of perspective is one of the things

00:51:20.020 that contributes to our stress. You know, we, we really think that like everything we go through,

00:51:24.220 every, every little thing we, we, we, every little or big thing that we go through, we think it's,

00:51:29.000 well, this is the worst thing ever. This is the worst thing that's ever happened to anybody.

00:51:33.060 And it can be helpful to realize that nothing we're going through is new.

00:51:36.100 people have been experiencing and surviving in spite of all of these sorts of things all through

00:51:41.860 history. There has never been a time of utopian peace and tranquility. That sort of existence is

00:51:48.000 simply not on offer. It's not available to us. It's not in the catalog, right? Of a, of when you're

00:51:54.100 a mortal human being, life has never been easy. The life that we're given right now is as close to easy

00:51:59.960 as humanity has ever gotten. And we can't stop complaining about it. So what does that tell you?

00:52:05.580 Now, I don't mean to dismiss all the sources of stress mentioned in the poll. Certainly inflation,

00:52:10.820 high gas prices, that causes stress. When you can't afford to put gas in your car and go to work,

00:52:15.020 when it's financially backbreaking simply to fill your shopping cart at the grocery store,

00:52:19.260 you're going to feel stressed about that. And rightfully so. And that's not a small stress either.

00:52:22.800 That's a big stress. And when we're being led by feckless incompetents who cannot fix these

00:52:28.400 problems and don't seem particularly interested in fixing them, that's only going to add to the

00:52:32.400 stress as well. But should we be under intense stress because of Ukraine? 80% of Americans said

00:52:39.420 that they're living in terror because of Russia's war in Ukraine. Are they really? Now, I find it hard

00:52:45.340 to believe because I have not met one single person in real life who appears to be terrified by what's

00:52:51.040 happening 5,000 miles away. But if they are, is that kind of emotional reaction justified?

00:52:57.300 Is it proportional to the risk that they actually personally face?

00:53:02.060 The same thing with COVID, which has been another big stressor, as the poll indicates.

00:53:06.280 Certainly, many of the things the government did in response to COVID caused stress.

00:53:10.840 Shutting down schools, not to mention the whole economy, is a stress inducer. Yeah.

00:53:14.040 But the virus itself was not a fatal threat to most healthy people. People were certainly more

00:53:20.840 stressed by that than they ought to have been, as all of the outdoor mask wearing indicated

00:53:24.800 and still indicates. Now, I'm in D.C. this week, and there are still people walking around,

00:53:29.680 walking their dogs, jogging while double-masked alone outside. So where does all this stress come

00:53:35.960 from? If we're so historically stressed out, is it because our lives are historically difficult

00:53:40.720 or is it something else? And I'm thinking it's something else. Two something else's specifically.

00:53:46.640 One, our problem is that we don't know what to pay attention to. This is a big problem in America.

00:53:53.200 This is a crisis level problem. A problem of attention. Our attentional priorities are entirely

00:53:59.940 out of balance and in disarray. That is something that is unprecedented. It's never been this bad

00:54:05.060 when it comes to attention. Not being able to pay attention to things. It's not because we all have

00:54:10.400 some mysterious mental illness like ADHD. It's just the way that our culture is. It's the world

00:54:14.320 that we're living in. Not being able to pay attention to important things. Not knowing where

00:54:19.240 to put your attention. You have so many different competing claims on your attention. Americans spend

00:54:25.380 an average of seven or eight hours a day staring at screens. Now, this fact alone would seem to

00:54:29.260 contradict the claim that our lives are unprecedentedly difficult and stressful. Most people

00:54:34.020 in history would not have had the luxury to spend the majority of their waking hours sitting

00:54:38.060 around and staring at screens. If they had any screens to stare at to begin with. But the point

00:54:42.720 about the screens is that our digital diet means that we're constantly having our attention directed

00:54:47.440 towards whatever stressful thing the media and big tech companies want us to think about for whatever

00:54:52.940 reason. So our minds and souls are bombarded constantly every day with a barrage of information

00:54:58.420 and misinformation and events and propaganda and everything else which have the effect of blotting

00:55:02.800 out from our minds the things that are actually closest to us. As we are immersed in these things

00:55:08.360 that we cannot control and don't understand. And which often have little relevance to our actual

00:55:12.800 lives. This is how people end up stressed out by something happening a million miles away only to

00:55:18.180 forget about that same thing a week later. So they can become overwhelmingly stressed out by something

00:55:22.840 else that they'll then forget about. The internet is a stress machine in that way. But many of the

00:55:29.340 stresses are essentially phantoms. Two, finally, the other thing contributing to our stress is that

00:55:34.760 we're so obsessively focused on our own stress. We think about our stress all the time. We talk about

00:55:41.120 it. We like to tell people. We like to say to people, I'm so stressed out. I'm so busy. Here's

00:55:44.900 what's happening in my life. We go around telling people how stressed out we are. You know, I said earlier

00:55:49.300 that you should go back in time in a time machine and ask somebody in 1862 about their stresses. But

00:55:54.020 actually you can't do that because first of all, you probably don't have a time machine. But also because

00:55:57.720 the people in 1862 wouldn't have known what you were talking about. Stress is a modern invention.

00:56:04.240 Prior to the 20th century, nobody talked about their stress. They didn't have that concept.

00:56:09.820 To say, you know, to ask a person if they're stressed, they would have looked at you like,

00:56:13.000 what does that even mean? Now that doesn't mean that they didn't experience stress as we think of

00:56:17.040 stress. It just means that they didn't use the word or think of things in that way, which meant that

00:56:22.980 they certainly weren't intensely focused on the subject like we are today. In fact, the entire

00:56:28.700 category of mental health would seem totally foreign and bizarre to pre-modern people. That's

00:56:35.080 not to say that stress and mental health don't exist or are myths or something. Rather, it's just to point

00:56:39.240 out how we've gone all the way to the other extreme end of the spectrum. We are consumed by the thought of

00:56:47.340 our own stress and our own mental health. We are stuck inside our heads, constantly analyzing how

00:56:53.480 we feel and how we feel about how we feel and how we feel about how we feel about how we feel.

00:56:58.220 This only exacerbates the anxiety and the stress. It's a self-perpetuating cycle. That's why perhaps

00:57:03.640 the best thing to do sometimes, I think, and this is a good thing as we head into the week, turn off the

00:57:08.980 screen, put down the phone, go out and get some exercise, pick up a hobby, do something. I mean,

00:57:15.740 engage in some kind of actual physical activity in the three-dimensional physical world and think

00:57:22.660 about something else, literally anything else, aside from yourself and your feelings.

00:57:29.240 That's the other advantage that pre-modern people had, which probably gave them better mental health

00:57:36.040 in the long run. They didn't have that category. They didn't think of it that way and their lives

00:57:41.080 were much more difficult. Still, they lived in the world, right? They lived in the physical world,

00:57:45.040 for better or worse. They inhabited the spaces where they lived. They actually inhabited. They

00:57:49.680 concerned themselves with what and who was closest to them and spent most of their time thinking about

00:57:57.280 those things. So we should try that for a change. It'll do wonders for your stress and your mental

00:58:03.480 health. Maybe something to do over the weekend. And since I'm supposed to cancel something at the end

00:58:09.200 of the segment, I guess I'm going to cancel our modern obsession with stress. That's what's

00:58:14.340 canceled today. And we'll leave it there for today and the weekend and talk to you next week. Godspeed.

00:58:19.200 Well, if you enjoyed this episode, don't forget to subscribe. And if you want to help spread the

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00:58:32.360 available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, wherever you listen to podcasts. We're there. Also, be sure to

00:58:36.960 check out the other Daily Wire podcasts, including The Ben Shapiro Show, Michael Knowles Show,

00:58:40.880 The Andrew Klavan Show. Thanks for listening. The Matt Wall Show is produced by Sean Hampton,

00:58:44.900 executive producer Jeremy Boring. Our supervising producer is Mathis Glover. Our technical director

00:58:50.040 is Austin Stevens. Production manager Pavel Wadowski. Our associate producer is McKenna

00:58:54.840 Waters. The show is edited by Robbie Dantzler. Our audio is mixed by Mike Cormina. And hair and makeup

00:59:00.500 is done by Cherokee Heart. The Matt Wall Show is a Daily Wire production. Copyright Daily Wire 2022.

00:59:05.740 Hey, everybody. This is Andrew Klavan, host of The Andrew Klavan Show. You know, some people are

00:59:09.920 depressed because the republic is collapsing, the end of days is approaching, and the moons turn to

00:59:14.680 blood. But on The Andrew Klavan Show, that's where the fun just gets started. So come on over to

00:59:19.280 The Andrew Klavan Show and laugh your way through the fall of the republic with me, Andrew Klavan.

The Matt Walsh Show - March 11, 2022

Ep. 906 - Jail Time For Jussie

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