The Tucker Carlson Show - Matt Walsh： Dave Smith⧸Douglas Murray Debate, Transgenderism, and What It Really Means to Be a Man

00:00:00.000 Okay, so I'm going to – I'm not on X all that much, but I do read you.

00:00:05.480 And sometimes I read your tweets and I'm like, Matt Walsh, ladies and gentlemen, spinning people up.

00:00:11.000 Here's one.

00:00:12.620 We've been saying for many years that gay adoption and surrogacy should be illegal.

00:00:16.660 Now, everyone else seems to be catching on.

00:00:18.520 This is an abomination.

00:00:21.100 We've been saying for many years that gay adoption is an abomination.

00:00:24.560 I've never heard anybody say that.

00:00:26.840 Wow, we're just diving right in.

00:00:28.180 We're diving right in.

00:00:29.220 Gay adoption is an abomination.

00:00:50.880 Yeah, well, I think there I was referring to social conservatives because social conservatives

00:00:57.700 still somehow get a bad rap, so-called social conservatives, even among other conservatives

00:01:04.840 and other people on the right, it seems to me.

00:01:08.340 But – so when I say we, I mean like so-called social conservatives?

00:01:11.980 I've never heard them say that.

00:01:13.260 I've never heard anybody – I think I agree with what you said, but I'm not – I don't

00:01:18.940 think I've ever heard a single person say that.

00:01:20.820 But everyone seems to be afraid to say that.

00:01:23.040 Yeah, most people are.

00:01:24.080 That's why I think – but, you know, so-called social conservatism is – that's why it's

00:01:29.840 not popular even on the right.

00:01:33.860 Can I ask you what?

00:01:34.860 Is there anything more hated on the right than social conservatism?

00:01:38.680 I don't think so.

00:01:39.780 So you could say like, I think we should drop an atomic bomb on a bunch of people and just

00:01:43.520 like kill them all and their kids, and people are like, well, that's a really good idea.

00:01:46.640 But if you're like, actually, we should like save some kids, then they hate you.

00:01:50.160 What is that?

00:01:51.120 Yeah.

00:01:51.600 Or we should – we should – we should probably – we should look at the way that human

00:01:58.040 society was structured for thousands of years, and we should probably consider that they

00:02:04.540 were right about a lot of that stuff, you know.

00:02:07.760 Maybe not everything.

00:02:08.780 Right.

00:02:09.040 Maybe not everything, but there are just certain basic civilizational truths that we have moved

00:02:15.200 away from in recent decades, but I don't think there was any good reason to move away

00:02:20.040 from them.

00:02:21.440 And so if human beings did something a certain way for literally millennia in every civilization

00:02:29.140 that we know of, it's probably right.

00:02:33.560 I mean, there's probably – there's probably a lot to be said for it.

00:02:36.120 Again, not in every case, but in most cases.

00:02:39.040 It's worth pondering anyway.

00:02:40.200 It tells you something if – right, if every civilization, none of which that we know

00:02:45.200 have had contact with each other, came to the same conclusions.

00:02:48.320 Exactly.

00:02:48.820 So it's something like the, you know, gay adoption.

00:02:53.060 That – and this isn't the only argument against it, but I think it is a worthwhile argument

00:02:57.540 that there's never been a society anywhere on earth, anywhere, period, where they have

00:03:03.700 had two men in a romantic relationship starting a family.

00:03:08.360 That's just – that's never existed.

00:03:10.580 It's always been a man and a woman start a family, or in certain ancient civilizations,

00:03:16.260 and even some primitive ones today, you might have a man and several women.

00:03:19.060 You might have polygamy.

00:03:20.860 Mm-hmm.

00:03:21.940 That's pretty – that's a pretty common feature, I would say.

00:03:24.240 Yeah, certainly common.

00:03:24.920 But you never had – and why do you have polygamy?

00:03:27.640 I'm not – I don't support polygamy, but there was a logic to it, especially in ancient

00:03:30.660 times.

00:03:31.180 Yes.

00:03:31.560 You got to create people, you know, and the whole point is to create – the whole point

00:03:35.520 of the family is to make children and care for them.

00:03:39.920 And, you know, a family that's headed up by two gay men is – that's why it's an abomination.

00:03:48.800 It's just –

00:03:49.100 Well, it never happened before, and now it's happening, and that's why we call it progress,

00:03:52.660 right?

00:03:53.440 This is progress.

00:03:54.440 It's something that's never been done.

00:03:56.380 Yeah.

00:03:57.400 And –

00:03:57.760 Well, it's progress in the way – it's progress in the way that cancer progresses.

00:04:03.460 You know, so when I hear about progressivism, I think of – I think of progressivism, it

00:04:09.020 is progress.

00:04:09.800 So we're at stage four gay right now, would you say?

00:04:11.880 Oh, yeah.

00:04:13.740 Full-on stage four.

00:04:15.020 Yeah.

00:04:16.420 Terminal.

00:04:17.140 It's a terminal case.

00:04:18.880 Yeah.

00:04:19.240 So – yeah, I just figured why not just jump right into it.

00:04:22.580 So – but what is – so I think you make an obvious and very fair and smart point.

00:04:29.060 We should pay attention to the way things have always been done, because maybe we can

00:04:31.720 learn something.

00:04:32.240 It's like discarding it all.

00:04:34.200 French Revolution style doesn't end well.

00:04:35.780 I totally agree.

00:04:36.320 But what's the more affirmative, detailed case against it?

00:04:41.620 These kids don't have homes, and here are two loving parents to watch over the child.

00:04:46.960 Why is that bad?

00:04:48.160 Yeah.

00:04:48.360 Well, I think that there are a couple of things.

00:04:50.300 First of all, it's interesting to note that when this conversation about gay parenthood first

00:04:56.300 started really in earnest like 10 years ago, most of the conversation was focused on adoption

00:05:01.340 and gay men want to adopt.

00:05:04.540 But now what's happened is there's been a shift, and now you've got a lot of these gay

00:05:09.280 couples that are turning to surrogacy.

00:05:10.940 So they're renting wombs, you know.

00:05:12.580 They're renting – they're purchasing the body parts of women and renting them, using them

00:05:18.360 like an Airbnb rental.

00:05:20.480 Wait, I thought we got rid of slavery.

00:05:22.740 Yeah, I would have thought.

00:05:24.040 But this is – exactly.

00:05:26.440 This is the – in a very literal sense, the objectification of a human being, treating

00:05:30.380 them like an object, using them as an object.

00:05:32.740 So it's just interesting.

00:05:33.460 There was a study done recently, a survey a couple years ago, actually, that found that

00:05:38.320 it was like 60-plus percent of gay couples, when they think about parenting, they would prefer

00:05:44.860 surrogacy.

00:05:46.360 So it's a slight of hand trick you see on the left a lot, where they want to bring about

00:05:50.720 some social change, and they present an argument for it.

00:05:53.980 But then once they get what they want, they abandon that.

00:05:57.880 And then you kind of – you figure out what they actually wanted.

00:06:00.080 So it's kind of like adoption has given way to surrogacy.

00:06:05.260 And then the whole argument, which I never bought, which is that we're rescuing kids who

00:06:09.900 are in these terrible situations in foster care, that's out the window.

00:06:13.080 Because these are not kids that you're rescuing.

00:06:15.120 You're creating them.

00:06:16.380 Rather than rescuing a kid from an unfortunate situation, you're creating them to be in

00:06:22.180 an unfortunate situation from birth, which is a different thing.

00:06:27.400 So that's the first thing.

00:06:28.180 And the second thing is that even if we're talking –

00:06:30.420 But would you concede that one upside to a collapsing post-industrial economy is there

00:06:36.160 are a ton of poor people who are willing to have babies for profit?

00:06:39.140 I don't know that I would call that an upside.

00:06:43.560 I'm just like, this is so – people don't take three steps back.

00:06:47.840 If this were happening – if Dickens were writing about this in the 1850s, you'd be

00:06:52.160 like, wow, London's a very screwed up place where we're taking advantage of the poor.

00:06:59.060 That's the step beyond prostitution.

00:07:01.580 I mean, it really is treating someone, as you said correctly, as an object.

00:07:04.920 But there's also – the fundamental point, whether it's surrogacy or adoption, the fundamental

00:07:11.300 point is what does the child have a right to?

00:07:17.340 We keep hearing about – we hear about this right to parenthood.

00:07:22.140 I mean, you have gay couples now that are demanding insurance cover fertility treatments

00:07:27.480 as if the reason why two men can't make a baby is because of fertility problems.

00:07:32.500 No, it's because of the laws of nature.

00:07:34.660 But – and that is cloaked under this – it's sort of under this umbrella of why I have a right

00:07:40.140 to parenthood.

00:07:41.440 You don't have a right to – what does that mean?

00:07:43.280 No one has a right to be a parent.

00:07:46.400 It's great to be a parent if you can, but you're not born with this, like, entitlement.

00:07:50.480 You're entitled to a child.

00:07:52.140 What the hell does that mean?

00:07:53.620 Rather than talking about the right of the parent, let's talk about the right of the

00:07:57.060 child.

00:07:57.480 And this also – this applies to so many of them.

00:07:58.980 This applies to abortion.

00:08:00.020 This applies to a lot of topics.

00:08:02.460 What does the child have a right to?

00:08:03.920 And I would say a child has a right to a mother and a father.

00:08:08.200 A child has a right to the basic fundamental setup that, you know, billions of kids throughout

00:08:18.720 history have had, which is a mother and a father.

00:08:21.780 Now, if through the course of events, through no one's fault, that is taken away from a child,

00:08:28.860 I mean, you can have a parent that dies.

00:08:30.300 You end up with a single parent.

00:08:31.300 You can have a divorce, which I think is terrible.

00:08:33.140 But it's not supposed to work that way.

00:08:38.400 So if you have a child in foster care, you're looking for a mother and a father.

00:08:44.120 And to just say, okay, well, we'll give this child to two dads.

00:08:47.200 You're basically giving up on that child.

00:08:48.840 You're saying, well, yeah, we couldn't find the right setup for you, so instead you're

00:08:52.220 getting this.

00:08:53.380 And I just reject that.

00:08:54.440 I reject that totally.

00:08:55.920 And I also think, frankly, that, you know, a lot of people won't like this, but I think

00:09:05.940 we've passed the point.

00:09:06.940 Yeah, right.

00:09:07.440 No one likes anything that we're saying.

00:09:09.840 A child being in foster care is far from an ideal scenario.

00:09:14.660 It's very, very sad.

00:09:16.620 A child going to two gay parents, I think is worse.

00:09:21.480 I think it's easily worse, actually.

00:09:23.240 Why?

00:09:23.480 Um, it's just more disordered.

00:09:26.880 It's more confusing for the child.

00:09:29.160 Um, again, neither, neither scenario was good.

00:09:32.200 We don't like either thing, but, um, I, I don't see going to, you know, gay parents as

00:09:41.520 an improvement over the, the, the, what they had before.

00:09:45.260 So do we know that it screws kids up or we just sort of intuitively know it?

00:09:49.540 I think we intuitively know, but also there's been plenty of studies done about, um, the

00:09:55.920 mental health effects of kids that grow up in these, you know, single sex, same sex parent

00:10:01.920 homes.

00:10:02.280 There's been a lot of studies done about it, but, but honestly, I don't, you can look at

00:10:06.380 the studies, people will fact check and they're there.

00:10:08.680 I just, I don't need studies for this.

00:10:12.640 It's, it's the same thing with the trans topic, you know, from the very beginning, when we started

00:10:19.520 talking about that, you had all these people saying, well, where are the studies?

00:10:23.220 Where are the studies showing that we shouldn't chemically castrate a five-year-old or, you

00:10:28.640 know, or, or a 12-year-old?

00:10:29.780 Well, there are studies now that will bear that out, but I didn't, we don't need a study

00:10:37.240 to tell us that it should be, this should be intuitive.

00:10:40.840 We just intuitively know it.

00:10:42.420 There are certain things as human beings that we just know.

00:10:47.220 And one of them is that sexually mutilating a child is bad.

00:10:52.180 Another one is that a child needs a mother and father.

00:10:54.460 We just intuitively know that I don't need any study.

00:10:57.900 I don't care what any academic says about it.

00:10:59.660 I don't care.

00:11:02.500 So when you were born, the AIDS, the AIDS crisis, AIDS was sort of in its early years.

00:11:09.140 And there were famous people who had AIDS, who died of AIDS, who lied about why they were

00:11:13.880 dying because they don't want to admit that they were gay.

00:11:16.200 So that was the world you were born into.

00:11:19.940 Now being gay is like an advantage in college admissions and a lot of schools and in hiring.

00:11:26.320 So like we've, it's moved completely.

00:11:27.920 It's like the opposite of what it was in 40 years.

00:11:32.180 Why do you think that happened?

00:11:34.560 And what do you think its effects are?

00:11:36.320 Uh, yeah, I think that's, um, it's the collapse of, well, it's just this war on, it's kind of what we started with.

00:11:52.200 It's this war on normalcy on, on, on, on civilization, really.

00:11:55.880 It's part of the anti-family agenda.

00:11:58.880 Um, the anti-human agenda.

00:12:02.000 Uh, uh, and I think that, and that's, that's always been there.

00:12:06.840 Why did it catch on though, to such an extent?

00:12:10.000 I think that the, the side that was supposed to stand up for the family and stand up for civilization largely failed and abdicated their responsibility to do so.

00:12:22.660 You know, you know, conservatives, uh, the church, uh, has just largely failed and not even failed, not even tried really.

00:12:32.200 Not, not even tried.

00:12:33.580 Why is that?

00:12:36.000 Fear, cowardice, um, uh, hypocrisy.

00:12:44.560 I mean, I mean, hypocrisy in the, in the, in the actual sense, in the literal sense of not someone who's, you know, says something and does another, but someone who claims to believe something they don't, which is what actual hypocrisy is.

00:12:54.040 Um, and so we have a lot of hypocrites on the right and in the church, unfortunately, who are just claiming to believe things they don't really believe.

00:13:03.520 And so I think that the answer is, it's like, why, why don't, why, why aren't there enough pastors in any church, in any denomination standing up and talking about these issues and leading, you know, leading on these issues?

00:13:17.000 And, uh, the answer is, well, there's a lot of cowards, but also a certain portion of them don't really believe it.

00:13:23.440 I mean, they don't believe, it's like, whether or not they really believe in God is a question.

00:13:28.240 So I think that that's a, that's a part of it too.

00:13:32.460 What do you think the fact of it has been?

00:13:35.980 Not, not just the acceptance of homosexuality, but the celebration of it.

00:13:39.960 Like what, I remember hearing, you know, 30 years ago when this was gathering steam, people saying, well, it's not a threat to you.

00:13:49.140 You know, gays aren't going to break into your house and, you know, forcibly make you gay or something.

00:13:53.340 Like, why do you care?

00:13:54.900 And I thought that, you know, it kind of made sense to me at the time.

00:13:58.420 Um, but I, there's a sense that's just not true, actually, that it did have a big effect on everybody else.

00:14:07.240 Do you think that?

00:14:08.440 It certainly did because, because it's always a lie, obviously, when they say, oh, this isn't, we just want to do what we want to do.

00:14:16.160 And we're not, it does, it won't affect you.

00:14:17.980 And we, we, we don't need you to be involved.

00:14:21.080 Um, this is just what we're doing in the privacy of our own homes.

00:14:26.700 That was a good argument, though, don't you think?

00:14:29.240 In, in theory, in principle, it's a good argument.

00:14:31.340 I'm just saying as a, as a kind of matter of slogans, you know, like, that's better than just do it for Nike or have a Coke and a smile.

00:14:38.640 That's like a really effective ad campaign for Americans because that matches the American instinct, like, you know, live and let live.

00:14:46.840 And there's, and there's a certain, it, it, it makes sense to an extent that if someone across the street from me is in their home doing some freaky weird stuff and that's it, they're just in their home doing it.

00:15:01.560 And I never even know about it or see it.

00:15:03.580 My children don't see it.

00:15:04.680 My children don't know about it.

00:15:05.940 Uh, then, yeah, it's hard to make an argument that I'm somehow impacted by that because I'm not, except maybe in the most indirect sort of way.

00:15:14.920 But that's not, that's not how it actually works.

00:15:17.200 That's just the slogan.

00:15:18.280 That's not what really happens.

00:15:19.700 And so we follow the trajectory and we've seen this time and time again.

00:15:24.220 It always starts with tolerance.

00:15:27.680 They say, well, just, just tolerate this, which, which is, which I guess we're supposed to think means, you know, just people are doing this on their own.

00:15:38.780 You don't have to, you could just stay out of it and they'll stay away from you and tolerate it.

00:15:43.220 Right.

00:15:44.100 Um, tolerance.

00:15:46.000 So it starts there, but then it goes to very quickly acceptance.

00:15:51.720 And then they start saying, well, you should accept this.

00:15:54.500 Well, accept and tolerate are not exactly the same thing.

00:15:58.200 How are they different?

00:15:59.400 Well, tolerate means I just like put up with it.

00:16:01.660 I allow it.

00:16:02.240 I allow it.

00:16:02.960 I put up with it.

00:16:03.680 I don't try to stop it.

00:16:04.960 Right.

00:16:05.580 Is what tolerance means in the most literal sense.

00:16:09.100 Accept means I'm embracing it.

00:16:12.940 Right.

00:16:13.660 You know, it means I'm embracing it and, but then they don't stop at accepting because then they go to, well, okay, now actually we need you to celebrate it, you know?

00:16:23.120 So it's, it goes from tolerance to acceptance to celebration and, um, pretty fast, actually.

00:16:29.200 Pretty fast.

00:16:30.320 Yeah.

00:16:30.680 I think, I think there, there was a time when that process might've taken, you know, 10 years and now it seems like it takes 10 minutes.

00:16:36.860 Um, so we, we went from decades ago.

00:16:40.480 So it was, Hey, they're just in their private, in their private lives, in their own homes, doing this doesn't affect you to now.

00:16:48.020 Well, they're, I mean, literally marching in the street, you know, in leather bondage gear, like flaunting in front of confused children standing there.

00:16:57.460 Having sex on the street, actually.

00:16:59.060 Yeah.

00:16:59.080 Right.

00:16:59.420 Engaged in sexual acts.

00:17:00.760 And even worse than that, they're going into the school systems.

00:17:05.240 They're putting this stuff in the school.

00:17:06.500 They're, they're trying to tell my kids when my kids aren't in the school system, but you know, they're trying to tell our kids.

00:17:13.140 Do the authorities know your kids aren't in the school system?

00:17:15.620 They do now.

00:17:17.840 We still, I'm in Tennessee.

00:17:19.440 So we still have, we still have that right in Tennessee so far, but then they start going into the school system and they start, they start promoting this.

00:17:24.960 They start trying to tell our kids that, uh, that you should also tolerate this and accept it and embrace it and, and celebrate it.

00:17:34.840 Um, there's this kind of, there's a, you know, what, what, what they're telling kids in school about homosexuality, for example, is not just biology.

00:17:43.920 There's a moral message.

00:17:45.420 They're giving them a moral message and the moral message is, this is okay.

00:17:48.980 There's nothing wrong with it.

00:17:50.200 It's, this is, you know, a gay couple is equal in every way to a straight couple.

00:17:55.060 These are just different variations.

00:17:57.080 You know, it's a, it's morally neutral.

00:17:59.960 That's their message.

00:18:00.880 That's a, that's ideology.

00:18:02.080 That's not biology.

00:18:03.400 And, um, and once you start doing that, then it's like very clear how this affects me.

00:18:09.660 You know,

00:18:10.200 But how does it affect the society?

00:18:13.000 Well, it could fundamentally transform society and our basic priorities, how we live, what matters to us.

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00:18:30.800 Many of our so-called leaders are getting rich, serving you.

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00:18:35.180 So where does it go?

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00:21:16.440 It scrambles the gender roles.

00:21:18.700 That's what I notice and that's what upsets me most because I think everything is built on biology, on nature, and gender roles are a function of nature.

00:21:26.520 And I think if you scramble that, if you confuse that, if you convince people that there's no difference between men and women, like that's when civilization falls.

00:21:35.660 Then you have like women fighting your wars.

00:21:37.620 Yeah.

00:21:38.080 You know what I mean?

00:21:38.840 And gender roles is another one that, again, it goes back to human civilization worked a certain way for thousands of years and it seemed to work.

00:21:53.000 And we went from, you know, mud huts to walking on the moon, if you believe we walked on the moon, which I absolutely do.

00:22:00.560 So, uh, well, you are taking some bold positions.

00:22:03.720 That is bold.

00:22:04.320 That is bold.

00:22:04.840 I know you're taking on the entire internet.

00:22:07.900 We, so we went, we went from, from there to there, uh, with a kind of basic structure with a basic setup.

00:22:15.860 Gender roles is one of them.

00:22:16.960 There's like this base, they were, they were so basic, so fundamental that you didn't even, you didn't have a word for it.

00:22:23.420 You know, if you go back to 1700 and use the term gender roles to anyone, they're not going to have any idea what the hell you're talking about, even though their entire society is structured around it.

00:22:34.880 Exactly.

00:22:35.680 And, uh, and this is true even now, if you go, if you go outside of the kind of liberal Western bubble, which I've done, which I've done once when we were doing, what is a woman?

00:22:44.040 I went to, uh, we went to Kenya and we talked to the Maasai tribe in, in, in Kenya.

00:22:49.500 Did they know what a woman was?

00:22:50.780 They did know what a woman was.

00:22:53.420 They were confused by the question, not because they didn't know the answer, but because they couldn't possibly understand why it would even be asked.

00:23:00.500 Right.

00:23:01.540 Um, but then I even, I remember a lot of this didn't make it in the movie because it was, it wasn't totally connected, but talking about gender roles with them.

00:23:09.120 And again, they had no idea what that term even meant, but their whole society is completely structured around it.

00:23:15.800 It was, if you're a man, this is what you do.

00:23:18.400 If you're a woman, this is what you do.

00:23:20.760 And that's it.

00:23:21.600 And, um, and I remember asking one of the women I was in there in her, uh, her hut, which is actually made of like cow dung.

00:23:30.020 And it's a one room hut and they all sleep on one bed, you know, mud, mud floor.

00:23:35.820 And she was telling me what she does all day as the woman of the house, which is, she takes care of the house.

00:23:41.240 She takes care of the kids.

00:23:42.280 And, uh, I asked her if she was happy doing this and she, she laughed at me because it was such a ridiculous question because of course she is.

00:23:53.660 And then I asked about depression and this might be in the movie.

00:23:57.040 I said, you know, where I come from, there's a lot of people are depressed.

00:23:59.500 And one of the guys said to me, well, we don't have that here.

00:24:03.580 We don't, we don't do that.

00:24:04.520 We don't have, we don't have depression.

00:24:05.880 That's not a thing here.

00:24:07.520 Um, and that's not, and yeah, of course there's unhappiness.

00:24:13.240 It's not like a utopia.

00:24:14.360 I wouldn't want to live there to be perfectly clear about it.

00:24:17.740 But, uh, you do notice that in these societies that are structured around gender roles, there's just, there's a lot of anxiety and hangups that they don't have because they know they have a basic concept of who they are and what they're supposed to do.

00:24:36.080 Well, they're not at war with nature every day.

00:24:37.740 Right.

00:24:38.160 You can't beat nature.

00:24:39.500 If, if I go out into a blizzard with my boxer shorts, I don't care what, you know, my resolve level is or my courage.

00:24:49.240 It's like, I'm going to freeze to death because you can't beat nature because it's bigger than you because God created it.

00:24:54.900 Right.

00:24:55.180 And we're, and, and, uh, and we are certainly discovering that in this, in this culture.

00:25:00.440 And that's why, you know, you, you can go on TikTok any, which I don't recommend, but you can go on TikTok anytime and you can, it's a whole genre of video now on TikTok.

00:25:09.500 TikTok where you've got these young women, it's usually, it's usually young women who do these videos, these selfie videos where they're in tears crying because they went out into the working world and they found it so miserable and depressing and empty and they just hate it and they don't want to work and they don't want to do it.

00:25:30.420 And they just, and they're in despair over it.

00:25:33.340 Um, and, and that's, that's exactly what's, what's happened.

00:25:38.100 I think we were, we were, you know, the message to women.

00:25:40.940 Wait, so you're not only against gay adoption, you're against women working at banks?

00:25:45.500 Uh, yeah.

00:25:48.020 For the most.

00:25:48.940 Where did you get all these opinions?

00:25:50.040 You know, it, it's not the ideal setup.

00:25:53.200 Cause I, I mean, and just to be clear, I don't, uh, I think that there, there are families where both parents have to work.

00:26:05.700 I think there are a lot of families where they think both parents have to work, but they don't actually have to.

00:26:10.140 Uh, it just depends on what your priorities are.

00:26:11.940 And if you're willing to make the sacrifices, I think most families, if you, you know, people say to me all the time, well, I'd love to have, I'd love for it to be one income.

00:26:19.060 I'd love to homeschool.

00:26:20.100 I'd love to have a family.

00:26:21.000 We can't afford it.

00:26:22.840 Um, I mean, but you went to Harvard and had a big trust fund.

00:26:27.200 It's easy for you to say.

00:26:28.240 Right.

00:26:28.440 Exactly.

00:26:28.800 Yeah.

00:26:29.140 Yeah.

00:26:30.180 No, you didn't have any trust fund and you didn't even go to college and you worked at Blockbuster.

00:26:34.040 And then you told me this last night at dinner.

00:26:35.820 I had no idea.

00:26:36.900 You worked at a couple of Blockbusters.

00:26:38.380 I did.

00:26:38.860 Yeah.

00:26:38.980 I was an assistant manager on the boat.

00:26:41.020 Is that true?

00:26:41.780 I was.

00:26:42.920 That's how low their standards were towards the end.

00:26:44.880 It was definitely toward the end.

00:26:46.680 I left Blockbuster and then they went out of business shortly thereafter.

00:26:49.700 So you can connect the dots on that one.

00:26:51.120 It's not the first, by the way, it's not the first company you've worked at that's no longer with us, which is interesting.

00:26:56.060 You are the destroyer.

00:26:57.900 Um, but you, you got, how old were you when you got married?

00:27:01.940 25.

00:27:03.120 Then you're, how long after that did your wife get pregnant with twins?

00:27:06.780 It was about a year.

00:27:08.960 Year and a half.

00:27:09.560 Yeah.

00:27:10.860 Did, um, in that point I assume she was raising the twins, right?

00:27:14.700 Right.

00:27:15.220 Yeah.

00:27:15.520 Yeah.

00:27:15.700 We, we, uh, yeah, I was working, I was making about $40,000 a year at the time, uh, half

00:27:20.860 that when we first got married.

00:27:21.800 But by the time we had kids, I was making about $40,000 a year.

00:27:24.680 And that was the only income in the family.

00:27:26.240 That was the only income in the family.

00:27:27.540 And no trust fund at all.

00:27:28.540 No, no, no, no.

00:27:30.140 Uh, I, no, when we, uh, no savings of any kinds, you know, this was a time there, there was

00:27:39.140 one time I remember I went to the gas station to get gas and my card was declined because

00:27:44.060 I had insufficient funds and, uh, I'm in the gas station.

00:27:48.520 I have no money.

00:27:49.440 I can't, and the gas tank is empty.

00:27:50.940 Cause like when you're broke, your gas is always almost empty.

00:27:53.780 And so I had no gas, I insufficient funds.

00:27:56.840 And I remember thinking, this is after I had two kids already.

00:28:00.300 This is how broke we were.

00:28:01.800 Um, but I remember thinking, I'm going to have to ask someone at a gas station for money.

00:28:07.300 I'm going to have to do this.

00:28:08.180 I can't believe I'm going to have to, but I didn't.

00:28:10.200 I just started looking under the, under the chair for coins.

00:28:13.400 And I found about like a buck 50 in coins.

00:28:15.920 And I went and paid for gas, a buck 50 worth of gas in coins enough to get home.

00:28:20.640 And then we'll figure out the problem.

00:28:21.740 So, but anyway, the point is we, we had no money.

00:28:24.720 Um, we were very broke and you know, money went a little bit farther back then, but not

00:28:29.600 that much farther.

00:28:30.340 I mean, this was, this wasn't 50 years ago, right?

00:28:32.520 How many years ago was it?

00:28:33.360 This was 11 years ago.

00:28:36.820 11 years ago.

00:28:38.520 All of us remember 11 years ago.

00:28:40.340 It was same country.

00:28:42.260 Yeah, it was the same country.

00:28:43.600 And, um, and we had, so we, we had one, we, we decided we wanted to have one income.

00:28:49.260 We wanted to have a one income family.

00:28:50.580 So family of four on one income, it was not a, it was not a, a high income at all.

00:28:55.060 It can be done.

00:28:56.480 I think in most cases, you just have to be willing to make the sacrifices.

00:29:00.100 And a lot of people aren't, and that's fine too, because you have to decide on what your

00:29:03.480 priorities are.

00:29:04.280 And so you might say, look, it's a priority to us that we, um, have a big enough house

00:29:10.120 that each person can have their own room.

00:29:11.880 We don't want to share rooms for kids.

00:29:13.260 It's a priority to us that we have two cars that we can go on vacation, a nice vacation

00:29:17.020 once a year that we can have two or three TVs that everyone can have a smart phone with

00:29:22.980 all the plans.

00:29:23.700 And we want to have, you know, we want to have five different streaming subscriptions and

00:29:27.700 we want to be able to eat out whenever we want.

00:29:29.600 Like that's a priority to us.

00:29:31.700 And okay, if that's a priority, then yeah, in a lot of cases you're going to need a double

00:29:36.020 income, but if you're willing to say, okay, we're going to, we're going to downsize our

00:29:40.680 home.

00:29:41.900 Uh, we're going to share bedrooms.

00:29:44.600 We're going to have one TV.

00:29:45.940 We're going to have one car.

00:29:48.040 We're going to, we're going to go on much more modest vacations.

00:29:52.120 And, um, and we're going to cut things down to the bone a bit because it's worth it to

00:29:58.360 us to be able to keep mom at home and to be able to homeschool or whatever it is.

00:30:03.600 So I think if you're, if you're willing to say that a lot of people could do it, but

00:30:06.340 do you think it is worth it?

00:30:09.000 Yeah, absolutely.

00:30:10.400 Definitely.

00:30:10.940 Why?

00:30:11.560 A hundred percent.

00:30:13.440 Um, because a lot of the other stuff doesn't matter really.

00:30:16.280 It's like, there's no happiness in that.

00:30:18.300 Um, I, I think, I think that's clearly true.

00:30:20.900 Uh, on the other hand, you know, it's, it's a drag not having enough money.

00:30:25.280 I've had more than enough money most of my life, but I have had periods where I didn't

00:30:29.600 have enough and had to sell stuff and everyone goes through that.

00:30:32.340 And it's, it's a, it's a bummer.

00:30:34.640 It's, it's, it's very hard.

00:30:36.240 Like I say, yeah, I, I, having gone through it, it's, it's, it's really difficult.

00:30:41.600 I, I much prefer having money to not having it, but, uh, not at the expense of having

00:30:50.340 someone else raise my kids.

00:30:51.740 So what's the upside of, you know, making the conscious decision to have the mother

00:30:58.420 of your children raise those children?

00:31:01.980 The downside, I mean, you just, you just described it like you're going to sacrifice in order

00:31:05.640 to get that.

00:31:06.260 But if you do get that, what do you get?

00:31:09.340 Uh, happiness in the, in the home is a, is a big thing.

00:31:14.480 Not, not perfectly happy.

00:31:15.520 It's not, you're going to have your, your problems and your struggles and some of them

00:31:19.800 might, may be financial and there can be some real misery that comes from that.

00:31:23.220 I don't, I don't deny it, but it's just a fundamentally happier home.

00:31:28.720 In my experience, uh, when the children are being raised by their mother, by their

00:31:35.460 parents, the kid, the kids are happier, uh, and, and beyond happiness, you can control how

00:31:44.520 your children are raised and you can raise them with a, your value system and maintain

00:31:52.160 that, which, which is almost impossible.

00:31:56.300 If you're putting your kids in public school, let's say it's almost impossible because the

00:32:00.120 kids are going to, they're going to spend five days a week, you know, seven hours a day,

00:32:07.240 nine months a year for 12 or 13 years of their formative years.

00:32:10.180 Uh, not with you or your, or your wife in this government indoctrination center around

00:32:18.560 their peers.

00:32:20.000 And so inevitably they're going to be absorbing, they're going to start orienting themselves

00:32:24.900 to the world based on that by looking at their peers, not even so much what their teachers

00:32:29.120 are telling them, but what their peers are doing.

00:32:32.120 And that's, what's going to happen.

00:32:33.280 So, so, so at a, at a certain point, you're going to lose, you run the risk that you're

00:32:38.860 just going to lose them.

00:32:40.340 And that's why you have these parents who turn around and, uh, everything they've instilled

00:32:45.180 in their kids seems to have just gone out the window.

00:32:48.560 And I think this is a big reason why.

00:32:51.740 But then we're told that if you don't do that, if you don't submit to the culture, then your

00:32:56.500 kids are out of step with their peers.

00:32:59.560 They're weird.

00:33:00.540 They never quite fit in.

00:33:01.920 They're just weird.

00:33:03.080 They're weird.

00:33:05.620 Is that a risk?

00:33:07.040 Is that a meaningful downside?

00:33:08.780 Like, what do you think of that?

00:33:10.420 I don't think it's meaningful.

00:33:12.600 Weird is, there are bad kinds of weird, but this is a good kind of weird.

00:33:18.540 Um, yeah, I hear this a lot.

00:33:21.100 People will say, well, how do you socialize them?

00:33:24.780 Yeah.

00:33:24.940 How do you socialize them?

00:33:27.500 Do you want to have, do you want to keep your kid in a bubble?

00:33:30.040 Yes.

00:33:30.360 And it's like, yeah, I do.

00:33:33.340 I, I absolutely want to keep my kids in a bubble.

00:33:35.540 I really do.

00:33:36.780 Um, not, not, uh, you know.

00:33:40.100 But are they getting enough porn if they're in that bubble?

00:33:43.700 Right.

00:33:44.160 Well, enough porn, enough time on TikTok.

00:33:46.380 I mean, all that, all that sort of thing.

00:33:48.380 That's, that's the point.

00:33:49.700 You, you are supposed to be providing an environment for your child to grow and develop and mature

00:33:57.900 physically, morally, spiritually, uh, to have a childhood, have actual childhood experiences.

00:34:04.760 I hear from people all the time, people my age and older that say, oh man, I remember when I was a kid and we were outside, we would run around in the woods and we would be outside all the time playing tag.

00:34:14.540 And I just wish my kids had that because the kids these days are just on the screens all day.

00:34:19.260 They don't have a real childhood.

00:34:20.220 And I say that your kids can have that.

00:34:22.480 There's no reason why they can't have it.

00:34:24.660 My kids have that.

00:34:26.560 I, I work in media and, and yet my kids have exactly that kind of childhood because we just determined from the beginning that our kids aren't, they're going to have a real childhood.

00:34:36.500 They are going to run outside and scrape their knees and, and climb trees.

00:34:41.600 And that's what they're going to do.

00:34:42.980 That's the kind of, that's the kind of childhood they should have.

00:34:45.640 And it is possible to have it.

00:34:47.200 The only difference now is that it has to be a choice.

00:34:49.100 You know, I think, I think 30 years ago, that was just the default setting.

00:34:54.580 More than a choice.

00:34:55.440 I mean, you have to organize, well, you're the one with six kids who are homeschooled.

00:34:58.320 So you tell me, but it, it sounds from the outside, like you have to reorganize your entire life around that goal.

00:35:06.100 You do.

00:35:06.980 It doesn't happen naturally, right?

00:35:08.720 Right.

00:35:09.000 It doesn't happen naturally.

00:35:09.840 That's why I said it has to be a priority.

00:35:11.500 If it's an actual priority, if you really are lamenting that kids today don't have a real childhood,

00:35:18.160 which I agree, I think that many of them don't.

00:35:20.480 And I think it's a horrible tragedy.

00:35:22.760 It really is.

00:35:23.600 But if you really care about that and if it troubles you, then yeah, you have to, you have to make.

00:35:32.280 So what have you, I mean, if you don't mind, if this is too personal, just, just say, stop being so creepy and I'll pull back.

00:35:37.760 But if you don't mind, like describe in specific terms, the steps that you've taken to protect your children and allow them a childhood and in a world that would deny them one.

00:35:47.620 Like, what have you done?

00:35:49.160 Well, it starts with, but we don't send them to public school.

00:35:53.160 You know, we, we have always homeschooled from the beginning.

00:35:55.600 So that's a big step.

00:35:56.520 Uh, they don't have phones.

00:35:59.200 They don't have access to any screens except for our family TV.

00:36:04.600 We have a family TV.

00:36:06.300 Uh, we don't do, there's a policy my wife and I have had since the beginning is we don't do screens.

00:36:13.380 There will be no screens in a room that has a door on it.

00:36:16.900 Uh, so we have one TV and it's in a very public area of the house where anyone can hear it when they walk in and, and that's it.

00:36:27.540 So I, we do have that.

00:36:28.380 Like our kids can watch TV.

00:36:29.820 They can't watch it all day, but they can watch it.

00:36:32.240 And we're going to know anything that they watch.

00:36:34.500 You know, they're not going to just sit there on the TV and choose something and tell us what you want to watch.

00:36:38.440 If it's something I never heard of, well, you're not watching that until I can watch it first.

00:36:42.320 Um, and they don't have any internet access at all.

00:36:49.240 You know, no phones, no tablets, nothing like that.

00:36:53.300 Laptop.

00:36:53.820 No laptop, no, no computer at all.

00:36:56.780 And, uh, our oldest kids are almost 12 now.

00:36:59.380 The, the only exception we make is if we go on long car rides, which for us is four hours plus, then we have tablets that are for the car, four hour plus car ride.

00:37:10.600 And there's no internet on it.

00:37:12.580 It's books and like educational games.

00:37:16.020 And, and, and the tablets have that.

00:37:17.920 And in the car, if it's four plus hours, you can use those tablets.

00:37:21.960 Um, and then when we get to our destination, we're taking the tablets back.

00:37:25.700 And I, and I've, and I've, and I've noticed this, that, that even this, this little bit of access to this, that kind of technology that we do give to our kids in the car in this really, in this really specific scenario, you see how this, it just has this pull on them.

00:37:42.180 Yeah.

00:37:42.480 And it becomes, uh, especially if it's one, you know, we, we sometimes go places.

00:37:47.440 It's a 15 hour, 16 hour ride over a couple of days.

00:37:50.560 So during that time, they do have the tablets for a while.

00:37:54.420 And when we get there, it's almost like a detox.

00:37:56.620 Yeah.

00:37:56.820 They, they, they're, they're just, they're, they're jonesing for the tablet.

00:37:59.340 It's like giving them one jelly bean.

00:38:01.200 They want more.

00:38:01.660 Exactly.

00:38:02.280 Exactly.

00:38:02.780 And I had, uh, and I've had to take, you know, what some people would consider extreme steps,

00:38:07.140 uh, to get them over that, how, how extreme, well, to me, it's not extreme.

00:38:12.840 Cause it's like what my dad would have done.

00:38:14.240 But I remember it was last year we had just come back from a long car ride.

00:38:19.560 And, uh, so we took the tablets away.

00:38:21.820 And then my, my son, it was seven at the time, freaked out.

00:38:27.160 Like he, he want, he started screaming that he wanted his tablet.

00:38:30.320 Yeah.

00:38:30.800 And I said, no, we don't, we're not that family.

00:38:34.360 We don't, we don't have seven year olds screaming about tablets.

00:38:36.440 We're not going to do that.

00:38:38.180 And so I, I said, come here, bud, come over here.

00:38:40.440 I brought him over to the, where our trash can is in the kitchen.

00:38:43.480 And I said, here's where the tablet's going.

00:38:45.080 It's in the trash.

00:38:46.480 And, um, and that's it.

00:38:48.340 We're throwing it away.

00:38:49.240 You're not getting it back.

00:38:50.180 Did he have a funeral for it?

00:38:52.180 Uh, you know, emotionally in his heart, he did.

00:38:55.000 He was, he was shocked.

00:38:57.340 I mean, he was, he was distraught.

00:38:59.960 Um, but we threw it away.

00:39:02.200 I didn't give it back to him.

00:39:03.100 It went in the trash.

00:39:03.940 And, uh, like a year later, he got a new one, um, for the car and he freaked out.

00:39:12.940 And about 10 minutes later, he was fine.

00:39:14.580 And he was running around outside using a stick, like a lightsaber or whatever.

00:39:18.200 But it shows you why most parents, despite, I think, wanting to do what you do.

00:39:23.580 I do think a lot of parents will hear this and say, man, I would like to do that, or I

00:39:27.600 should have done that.

00:39:28.840 Um, but the reason they don't is the pushback from the kids is really intense.

00:39:34.480 Denying kids electronics, denying them what all of their peers, what all their friends

00:39:40.340 have.

00:39:40.720 Like it's, it's hard.

00:39:42.220 It is hard.

00:39:43.140 It is hard.

00:39:43.560 And especially if it's easier, uh, we have it a little bit easier because our kids are

00:39:48.460 homeschooled and most of their friends are like homeschool Christian families.

00:39:54.720 And most of them are on the same page.

00:39:56.760 Not all of them, but most of them are.

00:39:58.520 And it just, it does make it easier.

00:39:59.940 It certainly does.

00:40:01.120 Uh, if your kids in public school, it's going to be a lot harder because they are there.

00:40:05.600 There's a whole culture, you know, that comes out of these, out of the screens, out of the

00:40:10.440 devices, there's a language that comes out of it.

00:40:13.780 And when I, when I see one of my kids, like one of the 12 year olds or the, or the eight

00:40:19.520 year old around one of their peers who are not part of the homeschool community, but just

00:40:24.120 like a, you know, a kid from public school or something, the difference is, is stark.

00:40:29.840 Uh, it really is in, in every way you can just, the way that they speak, like I said, they

00:40:33.960 have a different language that they pick up.

00:40:36.300 Um, the way that they carry themselves.

00:40:38.640 I think a lot of these kids are a lot more just sort of jaded and cynical.

00:40:44.420 They seem a lot harder to impress.

00:40:47.300 They're overstimulated.

00:40:49.140 Yes.

00:40:49.760 They're not interested in things outside of the screen.

00:40:55.700 Um, you know, my son, my 12 year old son is, and I was the same way when I was, when

00:41:01.540 I was his age, I'm still this way, but he goes through these phases where he becomes really

00:41:06.220 obsessed with a certain topic and it changes.

00:41:09.560 It'll, it'll change every four to six months.

00:41:11.720 He picks a new topic that he's just obsessed with.

00:41:14.980 It's the only thing he cares about is this topic.

00:41:17.540 And it could be anything from, he went through a phase where, where he was obsessed with India,

00:41:22.000 Native American culture.

00:41:23.960 It could be Lord of the Rings.

00:41:25.580 It could be, uh, anything space.

00:41:29.020 You know, he did a dinosaur thing as a lot of boys do.

00:41:32.200 And anyway, uh, so when he's around his friends or he's around other kids, he wants to talk

00:41:38.400 about whatever that is.

00:41:40.060 He wants to talk about this, this thing that he's really interested in and he'll learn

00:41:42.520 everything there is to know about it.

00:41:44.160 He'll end up knowing more about the subject than I do.

00:41:46.460 I'm learning from him about it.

00:41:49.000 Um, but I'll be around these other kids and he wants to, that's what he wants to talk about.

00:41:52.360 He wants to talk about, Hey, let me tell you this really interesting thing I learned.

00:41:57.560 And, uh, with some of these kids, they'll look at him like he's like, he's weird, you

00:42:00.720 know, because that's just not, they don't do that.

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00:43:58.120 What do you think of video games?

00:44:02.080 I've gotten a lot of trouble with some in my audience.

00:44:05.220 You're not allowed to criticize video games or marijuana.

00:44:07.380 Those are the two things I'm not allowed to criticize.

00:44:09.440 You really can't.

00:44:10.360 You really can't.

00:44:11.280 Um, which, which to me only validates a lot of the criticisms that people are that attached to it.

00:44:17.580 Because here's, here's my thing with video games.

00:44:19.700 I don't think there's anything intrinsically wrong with them.

00:44:23.440 We don't, we don't do video games with our kids because it's a screen-based activity.

00:44:27.780 And we've just decided that we're not, our kids are not going to have a childhood dominated by screens.

00:44:34.480 And so we're just not going to do that.

00:44:36.280 That's a decision that we made.

00:44:37.340 But there's nothing intrinsically wrong with them.

00:44:41.520 Uh, I, I think I would, a lot of the, the gamers, they'll, they'll, anytime I, I offer some mild criticism of, you know, video games or anything.

00:44:53.460 What's your mild criticism?

00:44:54.440 It's not about the game itself.

00:44:58.600 It's about, it's about the attachment to it.

00:45:01.260 You know, it's about, it's about revolving your whole life around it.

00:45:07.320 And so the, when we get into this conversation, the, uh, video game fans will say to me, well, this is no different.

00:45:13.320 You know, you're a football fan, which I am.

00:45:14.820 I'm a big NFL fan.

00:45:15.840 And, uh, they say, well, what's, what's the difference between playing a video game and watching football on a Sunday afternoon?

00:45:22.180 And I think that's a valid point.

00:45:23.500 I think that there probably is little difference.

00:45:25.540 I think there's a little bit of a difference, but not much.

00:45:29.920 And I would say the same thing about being a sports fan, that it's fine to like sports.

00:45:34.540 I do.

00:45:35.500 I love football.

00:45:36.520 It shouldn't dominate your life.

00:45:37.920 And there are people out there who it's just dom, their sports fandom is the central thing about them.

00:45:45.440 It's their whole personality.

00:45:47.000 And that's excessive.

00:45:48.140 That should not be your personality.

00:45:49.680 You know, your, your affinity for some group of guys playing a game should not be your personality.

00:45:55.540 It shouldn't be your identity.

00:45:57.060 And I, and I, and that's my point about video games.

00:45:59.400 That's it.

00:45:59.780 So that's why I say it's a very mild criticism.

00:46:01.640 You want to play the games?

00:46:02.700 That's fine.

00:46:03.900 You don't need my permission.

00:46:05.020 But it should not be the central fact of your life.

00:46:10.040 It shouldn't be your number one priority.

00:46:12.340 You shouldn't have an, um, a, a, a, an attachment to it.

00:46:17.700 You shouldn't have a, you know, a, a, an excessive attachment to it.

00:46:22.300 That's it.

00:46:24.520 And I think that's pretty reasonable.

00:46:27.800 You know, why are people touchy about that?

00:46:32.640 People are, they, they,

00:46:34.120 it's part of the culture.

00:46:35.920 People take their, people take their entertainment and their recreation very seriously.

00:46:40.280 And I think for a lot of people, it just, that is their, the central fact of their identity.

00:46:44.820 And so they kind of take it personally.

00:46:47.160 They take it as a personal attack, which is not how I mean it.

00:46:51.380 Where are you on marijuana?

00:46:52.480 Uh, I, I think it's awful.

00:46:56.460 I think it's terrible.

00:46:57.840 I used to have a more kind of libertarian view of it.

00:47:00.900 Yeah.

00:47:01.660 Uh, if you were to go back 10 years, 15 years, my view was, I don't like it personally, but

00:47:08.320 you were never a weed smoker.

00:47:10.500 Uh, I, I've had it.

00:47:11.920 I've never been, uh, years and years and years ago.

00:47:14.340 Not, not, not in adulthood.

00:47:15.820 Uh, it's not for me.

00:47:18.240 It's not for me, but, and my view used to be, well, it's not for me, but probably all

00:47:25.500 this, I kind of bought into the war on drugs thing and all this money that we're spending

00:47:29.920 to try to stop people from smoking it as a waste.

00:47:32.420 And so it should probably just be legal.

00:47:35.880 Even if I don't like it, uh, there's this argument from the marijuana fans that, well,

00:47:43.280 it's no different from, uh, than, than alcohol.

00:47:46.280 And we know how prohibition of alcohol worked out.

00:47:48.980 And so if we're going to allow people to go out and get a drink, why shouldn't they be

00:47:51.720 able to go out?

00:47:52.380 It worked out pretty well, I think.

00:47:53.400 I think cirrhosis deaths went way down, didn't they?

00:47:56.000 I mean, they did.

00:47:57.160 Yeah.

00:47:57.500 Yeah.

00:47:58.000 So I'm not, I'm not convinced by the argument for that reason.

00:48:00.680 I'm also not entirely convinced that alcohol and marijuana are, are comparable, uh, for,

00:48:08.140 for one thing, and alcohol can be really bad and there's addiction and it destroys, it can

00:48:13.060 destroy families and lives.

00:48:14.860 Alcohol is though at least a more social, it's a social lubricant.

00:48:21.980 So if you're with a group of people and you're, you're having a drink, it can help you have

00:48:28.000 kind of loosen up.

00:48:29.260 You have a better time.

00:48:29.980 As long as you're not being excessive.

00:48:31.580 Now, if somebody gets trashed, then it kind of ruins the time for everyone.

00:48:35.100 And that can happen.

00:48:36.440 I think marijuana is not like that.

00:48:38.460 It's, it, it, it, it kind of turns you inward.

00:48:43.200 It makes you antisocial, you know?

00:48:46.860 So if you're sitting around a table with some people and a couple of them are drinking a

00:48:52.320 beer, even if you're not drinking, you can have a perfectly nice time.

00:48:56.100 But if you're sitting around a table and a couple of the people are stoned, it's like,

00:49:01.060 that's, it's lame.

00:49:03.560 You don't even want to talk to that person.

00:49:04.880 They've got nothing to contribute.

00:49:06.240 Yeah.

00:49:06.800 Um, it does seem to isolate people.

00:49:09.460 Yeah.

00:49:09.580 I think it's isolating.

00:49:10.420 I think it turns you, I think it turns you inward.

00:49:12.520 But regardless of all that, my, my, my opinion was, yeah, it should probably just be legal.

00:49:17.660 But I also believe in, when you get new data, you get new facts, you need to analyze them.

00:49:23.800 You need to be willing to change your mind.

00:49:26.640 And so we, we have legalized it in many places across the country, in many cities.

00:49:32.440 And I've been to these cities, as many of us have, where, where weed is now, it's like

00:49:39.000 cigarettes were 30 years ago, everybody's smoking.

00:49:41.040 And I think the early returns are not good.

00:49:46.220 You don't think Denver and New York are pretty great?

00:49:48.580 I really don't.

00:49:49.940 I think they're quite, it's, it's quite terrible.

00:49:51.980 It's not all because of weed, but just the experience of walking around, everybody's high,

00:49:58.540 it reeks of weed everywhere.

00:50:01.380 How has this made anyone's life better?

00:50:03.220 That's my question.

00:50:04.200 That's what I want to know.

00:50:05.040 I, I'd be willing to adjust my view on this.

00:50:07.660 And I've asked this question before.

00:50:08.900 I haven't gotten a satisfactory answer.

00:50:11.640 But we've made weed legal in a lot of these places.

00:50:15.180 In what way has it, has it, has it measurably improved life anywhere now that it's legal?

00:50:23.920 Well, I don't know.

00:50:24.460 I mean, it's degraded people to the point where they're very easy to control.

00:50:28.940 Don't you think that's an upside?

00:50:30.240 So if you're like running a criminal enterprise posing as a government and you don't want people

00:50:34.540 to rebel violently against you, then you give them drugs.

00:50:38.160 So they won't.

00:50:39.040 And if I was, if I was in a position of power politically, then maybe I'd feel that way.

00:50:44.760 But for me, that, that does like take three steps back.

00:50:47.680 Like, what is this?

00:50:49.220 The whole population is like addled with something, you know, ladies are on benzos.

00:50:55.600 The kids are on amphetamines.

00:50:58.240 The young men are on weed.

00:50:59.840 Yeah.

00:51:00.000 Like, no one's in his right mind, but everybody's kind of grooving out to his own music and

00:51:07.580 testosterone levels have just like dropped to the floor.

00:51:10.640 And so probably not going to have an insurrection when everyone's high.

00:51:14.880 Right?

00:51:15.720 Yeah.

00:51:16.000 It makes people compliant.

00:51:17.220 It makes them apathetic even more than I think people just sort of naturally are these days.

00:51:23.260 And of course, in reality, these are all bad things.

00:51:27.780 So it kind of goes back to how has it made anyone's life better?

00:51:32.400 Right.

00:51:32.520 And I don't know, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm a simple person.

00:51:36.460 Maybe I can be guilty of being simplistic sometimes.

00:51:41.020 So if that's the case, then guilty as charged.

00:51:43.680 But to me, it's like, I think a policy is bad if it makes people's lives worse and doesn't

00:51:53.180 improve anything.

00:51:54.240 What if it works in theory?

00:51:55.360 What if it's a beautiful theory?

00:51:57.880 Well, theories are great.

00:51:58.900 Then we get, it's, then we can talk about it.

00:52:00.520 Then it's a lot of fun to talk about.

00:52:01.820 But it's like that, that famous, the DeGaulle line, which I think is probably fake.

00:52:05.980 We know it works in practice.

00:52:07.080 The question is, does it work in theory?

00:52:09.320 Yeah.

00:52:09.960 And I do feel like that's in, in operation in the United States.

00:52:12.940 It's like, well, you know, people have the right to X, Y, or Z.

00:52:15.840 Therefore, we're doing this.

00:52:16.620 And it's like, actually, that's a disaster.

00:52:19.220 But people have a right.

00:52:20.440 You know what I mean?

00:52:20.980 It's like, there's no reference point in reality there.

00:52:23.900 It's just like, the theory makes sense.

00:52:25.360 Let's go with it.

00:52:26.160 Yeah.

00:52:26.300 And that's why I increasingly, I, I, when people start talking about their rights,

00:52:30.040 it, it, it doesn't mean a lot to me.

00:52:33.920 I don't even know what people mean when they say it.

00:52:36.880 You know, I'm not trying to be pedantic, but the next time someone says, well, I have a

00:52:42.320 right to this, just ask them, well, what do you mean you have a right to it?

00:52:45.300 What does that mean?

00:52:45.960 Oh, I know.

00:52:47.680 They really have no, they don't know what they're saying.

00:52:49.860 I think the vast majority of people talking about their rights, if you ask them to define

00:52:54.160 the word right, they would not be able to do it.

00:52:57.260 Define anywhere.

00:52:57.760 What's white supremacy?

00:52:58.880 What's racism?

00:53:00.200 What's, what's antisemitism?

00:53:01.580 What is any word used as a cudgel to make people be quiet and control them?

00:53:06.380 No one ever is forced to define what the term means.

00:53:08.840 Right.

00:53:09.600 In fact, there are even laws that I'm, you know, around those questions that are laws.

00:53:14.860 They carry punishments.

00:53:16.320 It's, and the term is never defined.

00:53:19.040 Yeah.

00:53:19.540 I just, I feel like this is a trend where language isn't used to communicate, it's used to control

00:53:25.580 and therefore it has to remain not fully defined.

00:53:28.800 Right.

00:53:29.300 And that's why I think all I can do in response to that is if it's one of these terms that doesn't

00:53:35.720 mean anything anymore, then it, then it's not persuasive to me in an argument.

00:53:42.700 Right.

00:53:42.960 Um, it, it, it's a term that has become not useful and it may have been useful at a time.

00:53:49.820 It may even be a term that used to have a definition or should have a definition.

00:53:53.440 Right.

00:53:54.720 But there are a lot of terms that are just not useful anymore in a conversation because

00:53:59.440 they don't clarify anything.

00:54:00.760 They don't, what, well, right, you know, rights, that's one.

00:54:05.120 It's just not, it's not, it, I'm not saying rights don't exist.

00:54:07.940 I'm saying it's not a useful term in a conversation most of the time because when somebody says,

00:54:13.500 oh, I have a right to this, I don't know what they mean by that.

00:54:16.300 And I think they don't know what they mean by that.

00:54:18.720 Um, I don't think they care actually.

00:54:21.940 And, uh, and, and, but also racism, uh, white supremacy, anti-Semitism, any, any of the,

00:54:28.940 the isms, these are all, these are not useful terms anymore because, you know, when you're

00:54:35.200 calling someone racist, that doesn't tell me anything about him actually.

00:54:40.180 It could be if you're, if you're pointing to a guy saying that guy's racist, maybe he

00:54:44.860 thinks that all black people are inferior and should be enslaved.

00:54:47.840 That's racist.

00:54:48.860 So maybe that's what you're telling me about him, but you could be trying to tell me that

00:54:53.460 that's a guy who understands that, you know, young black males are disproportionately

00:54:58.320 violent and he's, and he has pointed that out.

00:55:02.080 So you could be using the term to describe that also, which is not actually racist at

00:55:06.580 all.

00:55:07.360 So when you say racist, I don't know what you mean.

00:55:09.440 So it's just, it's not a useful term.

00:55:10.720 You need to be more specific.

00:55:11.960 It means something I don't like.

00:55:13.900 Right.

00:55:14.720 Like something that gets in my way.

00:55:16.160 Right.

00:55:16.420 There's, there's, yeah, exactly.

00:55:17.880 You're saying there's something about that guy that I don't like.

00:55:21.320 Yeah.

00:55:21.680 Right.

00:55:21.980 I want this thing and you're between me and this thing.

00:55:25.400 And how do I get you out of my way?

00:55:27.360 How do I incapacitate or destroy you so I can get what I want?

00:55:30.800 You're racist or any of those other terms.

00:55:33.440 Right.

00:55:33.640 You're in the way.

00:55:34.540 Exactly.

00:55:37.120 I should have asked you this, but I'm interested if you don't mind.

00:55:39.960 What is your spiritual practice at home?

00:55:42.180 Like you, you educate your children, you and your wife, I assume your wife primarily educates

00:55:46.600 your children.

00:55:48.720 But as head of household, how do you think about your requirements as like the spiritual

00:55:52.880 leader of your home?

00:55:54.440 Yeah.

00:55:54.780 Well, we're Catholic.

00:55:57.940 So, and we pray together every night as a family, which I think is, and we can get lazy

00:56:03.660 about that.

00:56:04.200 I think a lot of families do, but I think it's really important.

00:56:08.520 It doesn't have to be anything, you know, it doesn't need to be a two hour routine, but.

00:56:14.820 But you say your prayers before bed.

00:56:16.200 Right.

00:56:16.900 Yeah.

00:56:17.080 As a family.

00:56:18.820 All of you, all eight of you.

00:56:20.840 Yeah.

00:56:21.080 Well, not the babies.

00:56:21.900 The two year olds, they get out of it for now, but.

00:56:24.300 But basically you've got a whole congregation.

00:56:25.940 Yeah, we do.

00:56:26.600 Yeah.

00:56:28.080 On, you know, it's, I think it's important to be on your knees.

00:56:31.480 This is just a bodily.

00:56:33.020 Physically?

00:56:33.640 Yeah.

00:56:33.840 Physically on our knees.

00:56:35.060 And, you know.

00:56:35.320 Why?

00:56:36.440 Because it's a, it's a, it's a symbol of humility and submission before God.

00:56:44.160 Now you don't have to be on your knees to pray.

00:56:45.740 There's a perfectly valid prayer if you're not on your knees, but if you can, I think

00:56:51.460 you should be.

00:56:52.120 And I think it's a good, and I think it's a good image for the kids to see.

00:56:57.280 It's a good image.

00:56:58.060 It's a good, it's good for my kids to see me on my knees praying.

00:57:02.100 It's good for them to see.

00:57:03.200 Why?

00:57:03.400 Um, because to my kids, I am the authority figure in the home.

00:57:12.680 Uh, I don't answer to anybody in the home.

00:57:16.760 I don't have to ask anyone's permission for anything.

00:57:20.640 And I, I'm ultimately like the source of discipline in the home as the father, as I should be.

00:57:26.620 Um, but for them to see that, oh, even, even that guy, even dad, who in the home, you know,

00:57:33.640 this is his castle, but even he is, um, showing submission and obedience and humility

00:57:41.400 toward, toward some power above him.

00:57:45.160 I think that's a really powerful image for, for my kids to have.

00:57:49.600 And that I had with my, with my own dad growing up.

00:57:52.600 So, uh, so we do that.

00:57:57.600 And I think this is also, I think I'm, I'm at the point where my, it's kind of like my, my,

00:58:04.600 my whole ideology, my political ideology at this point is that I want my kids to go to heaven.

00:58:13.360 I want my kids to go to heaven and I want them, I want them to be good and happy people.

00:58:16.900 That's what I want.

00:58:18.480 Uh, yeah.

00:58:19.840 So everything that we do in the home and we're not perfect, we don't get this right.

00:58:24.080 Perfectly, not even close to it, but everything we do in the home should be tailored towards

00:58:30.080 that end to help our kids be good and happy people.

00:58:36.480 And, uh, and that's also, those are the policies that I support.

00:58:41.840 You know, I, I, I, this is, this is, that, that's my, that's my, those are my politics.

00:58:46.220 Sounds like Christian nationalism, Matt.

00:58:48.480 Guilty as charged.

00:58:49.140 I'm a nationalist, I'm a Christian, so.

00:58:51.960 Another term I have never heard defined.

00:58:54.920 Um, well that's, wow, what an interesting way to frame it.

00:58:57.720 What a, what a great way to frame it.

00:59:00.060 What do you think of as your duties as a husband and father?

00:59:04.400 Um, I think it's, um, provide, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm, we talked about gender roles.

00:59:17.700 So I, I do believe that the father should be the provider in more ways than one, you know,

00:59:24.280 you're providing financially, like bringing home the bacon is a, is, is a really important part of that.

00:59:29.860 And I think that the father should do that.

00:59:33.160 Um, but you're also providing, uh, safety, security.

00:59:39.800 You're protecting.

00:59:41.040 Protecting.

00:59:41.400 And it, and, and, and, you know, I know when you say that, it sounds like, well, that's, that's easy.

00:59:46.880 Cause like, what, what are the, what are the chances that I'm actually going to have to fight off some bad guy that breaks in the house?

00:59:51.280 It's not, it could happen.

00:59:52.280 It's not impossible.

00:59:53.120 They're increasingly high.

00:59:53.980 Increasingly high, increasingly high, but I haven't had to do it yet.

00:59:58.440 Uh, and maybe I'll never have to do, I hope I never have to do it, but, but, but it's not just about that.

01:00:04.980 You know, as a man, you should be, I believe, a, a, a stabilizing presence to your family.

01:00:13.700 Like when they're around you, they should just feel safer and calmer and not necessarily because they're worried that a bad guy is going to, there's, that's part of it, but it's not just that.

01:00:23.980 Like they're, they're, the world's a confusing place.

01:00:27.460 The world is a dark place.

01:00:29.300 Everyone has anxieties.

01:00:31.140 And when you're there, they should just feel calmer and better having you around.

01:00:38.160 And if something goes wrong, if there's, um, you know, the shit hits the fan, there's, there's a problem.

01:00:47.000 They should be able to know that, okay, well, thank God dad's here or thank God my husband's here.

01:00:51.920 And I think that's, that's one of the central duties of, of a father, which, which means, which means that, you know, we've gotten away from, in a large part in this society, we've gotten away from, uh, we, we don't talk about stoicism as a virtue anymore at all.

01:01:08.180 Uh, no one really talks about that.

01:01:10.300 I happen to believe in it a lot.

01:01:12.240 I may take it a little bit too far.

01:01:14.220 I, you know, I, I, maybe I err too much in that direction, but I, if you had cancer, you wouldn't tell anybody.

01:01:21.760 Correct.

01:01:22.120 I admire that.

01:01:25.920 Yeah.

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01:01:32.540 And I would never tell anybody.

01:01:33.860 Why?

01:01:34.400 Um, cause it's not your burden.

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01:03:27.780 I have seen this firsthand, including recently, and I vehemently agree with you.

01:03:32.900 And I think it's a gender-specific thing.

01:03:35.560 I think that's a man's burden.

01:03:37.000 Absolutely.

01:03:37.440 Not to whine.

01:03:38.760 But I, and I, again, I've seen it in a very profound way.

01:03:43.180 It changed my life actually seeing it.

01:03:45.180 But I haven't thought through why it's important, but I know that it is.

01:03:49.940 It sounds like you have thought through why that's important.

01:03:52.200 Why is it?

01:03:53.880 Well, it goes back to what I said, that as the man...

01:03:57.780 You should be a stabilizing, protective force in the house.

01:04:01.000 You should be a calming force in the house for your family.

01:04:04.760 You should be relieving their anxieties to the extent that you can.

01:04:12.840 If you are verbalizing all of your many complaints and your anxieties, then you've inverted that.

01:04:21.560 You know, now you're looking to your wife and your children...

01:04:24.260 Exactly.

01:04:24.920 ...to sort of carry that burden for you.

01:04:26.500 It's your emotional support animals.

01:04:27.880 Right, right.

01:04:28.600 And you're turning to them to carry this.

01:04:30.900 No, that's totally right.

01:04:32.060 And I just, I don't believe in that.

01:04:34.260 And I think that...

01:04:35.600 That...

01:04:39.600 It's just different.

01:04:42.420 You know, women...

01:04:43.600 It's not the same for a woman.

01:04:44.760 I think that women have...

01:04:46.500 Are much more relational.

01:04:48.320 Women share.

01:04:50.160 They're, you know, they're feminine.

01:04:52.560 It's...

01:04:52.920 We used to say the fairer, gentler sex.

01:04:55.760 And so it's just a different thing.

01:04:57.620 And I also think for women...

01:04:59.460 Now, most women...

01:05:00.700 I think I've been conditioned that they aren't allowed to say this part out loud.

01:05:04.420 But I think it's true that they also don't really want a man who's going to complain and open up to them too much.

01:05:14.860 I know they...

01:05:15.700 Can you say that one more time?

01:05:17.760 They don't want a man...

01:05:18.340 At a higher volume because I think that people need to...

01:05:21.160 Men need to hear this.

01:05:22.620 Right.

01:05:23.540 Women will...

01:05:24.600 We have been conditioned to believe that opening up and sharing your emotions is just a good thing.

01:05:29.600 Crying in front of your girlfriend.

01:05:30.840 Right.

01:05:31.360 She really wants you to cry.

01:05:32.700 That's what we've been told.

01:05:34.420 And your girlfriend might tell you that.

01:05:38.800 She might tell you, oh, you know what?

01:05:39.860 I really want you to open up more.

01:05:42.460 But what's she thinking inside?

01:05:43.800 Right.

01:05:44.040 He's such a bitch.

01:05:45.380 Yes.

01:05:46.860 That's why you never cry in front of your wife or your girlfriend.

01:05:50.740 Like, never.

01:05:52.260 I mean, in the rarest of cases.

01:05:55.520 You have a close family member dies.

01:05:58.500 That's one thing.

01:06:00.540 Your daughter walking down the aisle.

01:06:02.160 But other than that, just never cry in front of them.

01:06:08.920 Especially not because you're stressed out.

01:06:13.920 Because you're just dealing with some kind of anxiety.

01:06:17.840 You know, and people think that this is extreme.

01:06:19.580 Or they want to pretend that, well, if women can cry, the men can cry.

01:06:24.540 But just imagine a scenario.

01:06:26.580 So, let's say you're in the car and the weather gets really bad and then you get lost.

01:06:37.280 Maybe the GPS goes out and you're lost.

01:06:41.120 Weather's bad.

01:06:42.320 It's really stressful.

01:06:42.960 One of those stressful things.

01:06:44.060 It's dark.

01:06:44.820 You know, it would not be uncommon in that scenario for, if you're with your wife, she might start crying.

01:06:53.060 Like, she's very nervous.

01:06:54.400 She starts crying.

01:06:55.300 Oh, my gosh, we're lost.

01:06:56.880 What are we going to do?

01:06:58.760 And that would not be an uncommon thing.

01:07:01.320 And as a man, you don't think less of your wife for that.

01:07:03.760 Hopefully, you're there to comfort her and say, no, I got this.

01:07:07.700 We're going to be fine.

01:07:08.200 We got it.

01:07:09.520 Now, you as the man, if you started crying because you're stressed out and lost and it's dark and it's raining and you don't know where you're going.

01:07:19.180 And your wife saw that, she will never look at you the same way again.

01:07:23.880 She will always remember that.

01:07:25.740 She'll remember the time when it was stressful and she needed you to take over and be in control and figure it out.

01:07:31.900 And you started crying like a little bitch.

01:07:34.440 She will always remember it.

01:07:37.860 And I think we, again, I think we all intuitively understand that.

01:07:40.420 We understand that it's, okay, in that scenario for the woman to cry is normal.

01:07:44.280 For the man to cry, it's ridiculous.

01:07:46.100 It's shameful.

01:07:47.160 But it's interesting that you said at the outset we've been told the opposite.

01:07:51.560 And it's almost like, well, it's not almost like it is, that all the ingredients in a successful marriage and family and, in fact, in a successful life,

01:08:01.780 have been systematically targeted by the people in charge and their proxies for destruction.

01:08:09.480 So, like, everything you need to know to have a successful life has been undermined.

01:08:13.900 Like, no, you definitely cry in front of your wife.

01:08:16.140 Like, show your feelings.

01:08:17.540 No, she should go get a higher paying job than you.

01:08:21.620 Like, you should do more of the housework.

01:08:24.100 Like, you need to be the woman actually in the relationship.

01:08:27.240 No, it's totally fine to spend all Saturday playing video games while getting high or whatever.

01:08:33.660 Like, we're getting not just, like, three degrees off good advice, but we're getting 180 degrees opposite advice.

01:08:41.460 It's like our society, I'm not, it's not like our society has been targeted intentionally for destruction.

01:08:48.680 And I'm wondering why.

01:08:50.460 Where does that come from?

01:08:51.300 If you read The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan, which came out, I think, in the early 60s, you know, over 50 years ago,

01:08:58.620 that book is like a recipe for destroying a society, and yet it was promoted.

01:09:05.920 That's sort of the root of modern feminism.

01:09:09.520 What is that?

01:09:10.460 Is it spiritual?

01:09:12.000 Are these, like, spiritual forces working to destroy the West?

01:09:16.200 Are they, what, do you have any clue?

01:09:18.020 It's so comprehensive.

01:09:20.600 Yeah.

01:09:20.720 Everything you've said is the opposite of what your kids are taught in school.

01:09:26.540 It's certainly a spiritual attack.

01:09:29.280 This all feels demonic because it is, in my opinion.

01:09:34.760 It's also, it's all an effort, I think, to destroy the family, to upend the fundamental societal institution, which is the family.

01:09:43.420 Anyway, because all of the, you know, nefarious forces that want to control us, want to control what we do, control what we think, control what our children think, the family is an enemy to them.

01:10:01.900 The family is the one thing standing in the way.

01:10:05.360 Yeah.

01:10:07.080 And so, it's all about destroying the family.

01:10:09.880 Even the things that seem little, like, it's okay to cry in front of your wife.

01:10:14.460 No, it's not.

01:10:15.320 It's not.

01:10:16.180 And that, again, that's an attack on the family.

01:10:18.060 Because if a man takes that advice and starts acting feminine and emotional, it's going to hurt his marriage.

01:10:25.600 It might destroy his marriage.

01:10:26.980 Yes.

01:10:27.280 And so, that's the ultimate goal.

01:10:30.440 And I think a lot of it, I mean, you mentioned feminism.

01:10:34.120 I think a lot of this does go back to feminism.

01:10:36.280 I think that.

01:10:38.500 It was way more destructive than any plague in history.

01:10:42.800 Feminism, by far and away, is the most destructive ideology in human history.

01:10:46.500 It's not even close.

01:10:47.760 I agree with that.

01:10:48.480 Why do you say that?

01:10:49.880 Well, let's start with the body count.

01:10:52.200 There are 60 million dead babies since Roe, just in this country.

01:10:58.540 And if we're talking worldwide, you know, hundreds of millions.

01:11:03.320 But in this country, 60 million children were killed through abortion, which is the feminist sacrament.

01:11:11.340 So, you don't even need to go beyond that.

01:11:13.260 That's kind of enough, I think, to make the point.

01:11:16.120 But, of course, you can.

01:11:16.880 Ever since feminism took hold, divorce rates have skyrocketed, birth rates have plummeted.

01:11:27.240 I mean, we're watching the disintegration of the family unit in real time.

01:11:31.760 And people are less happy.

01:11:33.900 They're unhappy.

01:11:35.080 I mean, as much as there's this cliche kind of image of the 1950s housewife who, you know,

01:11:41.520 was depressed and all the Hollywood films are always, like, with this image of the housewife

01:11:51.520 was depressed and she was on whatever drugs secretly and, you know, the husband was off

01:11:57.400 having sex with the secretary.

01:11:59.700 And most of that is just Hollywood.

01:12:02.120 It's a Hollywood cartoon.

01:12:03.820 And in reality, it's kind of the opposite.

01:12:07.520 Now is when all that is happening.

01:12:09.920 The women are depressed, anxiety riddled, on antidepressants, men too.

01:12:18.400 So, birth rates plummeting, 60 million dead babies, divorce rates skyrocketed, people are

01:12:28.540 unhappy, they're on antidepressants.

01:12:33.680 You don't need to go much farther.

01:12:35.740 No, you don't.

01:12:36.280 So, let's say you're emerging from adolescence into the world you're describing now.

01:12:41.800 You're 18, 18-year-old male, American-born.

01:12:47.440 What's your program?

01:12:48.420 What's your advice to that kid?

01:12:51.720 How do you make your way in this world?

01:12:52.980 What do you do?

01:12:53.660 How do you live a happy, meaningful life that gets you in the end to heaven, given that,

01:13:01.060 you know, you're facing these cultural headwinds?

01:13:04.940 What would you do if you're 18 right now?

01:13:09.500 I would do the same thing that I, a version of what I did do, you know.

01:13:18.220 The roadmap is the same.

01:13:21.960 Some of the obstacles are different.

01:13:24.020 Some of the challenges are harder.

01:13:26.120 Not all of them.

01:13:27.200 In some ways, it's, you know, there are some things that are easier about today than 300

01:13:32.200 years ago, certainly.

01:13:34.400 So, a lot of the challenges might be different, but the basic path is the same.

01:13:39.500 And you can't give up on it because to give up on it is despair.

01:13:45.360 I mean, that's just giving up.

01:13:46.540 So, hold fast to your faith, number one.

01:13:54.380 Number two, figure out what your vocation is, you know, and, and, you know, you'll have

01:14:05.640 a professional vocation, something you're supposed to be doing with your life and go

01:14:09.260 and pursue that no matter what it is and no matter how hard it is.

01:14:12.160 And also keep in mind that if you're 18 years old, and I say this to younger guys all the

01:14:16.600 time, in many ways, I'm, I'm, I admit, I'm quite happy that I'm not 18 years old, 20 years

01:14:23.300 old in this environment.

01:14:24.220 I am happy for that.

01:14:25.360 And I'm certainly happy.

01:14:26.860 Thank God that I'm already married.

01:14:28.600 Certainly.

01:14:30.140 But you do have one huge advantage, one enviable advantage, which is that, which is the same

01:14:38.460 advantage that, that, that every young man has had, that you're, you're young, you're

01:14:42.160 hopefully physically healthy.

01:14:45.280 You're not married, you have no kids, you have no dependents.

01:14:49.160 So you can, it's very low stakes and you can go anywhere and try anything, right?

01:14:58.260 Like you don't, if you're looking around and saying, well, there are no jobs in my town.

01:15:03.220 I can't find any jobs, go to a different town, go anywhere.

01:15:09.520 Um, you can go and if you end up living in your car for a week or two months, it's not

01:15:14.600 great.

01:15:15.700 That sucks, but you, you can do that because it's just you.

01:15:20.380 Now for me, when I got six kids, so if things fall apart for me, it's much higher stakes and

01:15:26.680 it's not as simple as I can't just like go anywhere and try to do anything at this point.

01:15:30.680 I can't just like, okay, well, I'll go get a job at McDonald's.

01:15:33.300 It's not going to work.

01:15:33.980 I got all these kids to take care of, but for you, you, you can go anywhere and do anything

01:15:39.400 and you can take risks.

01:15:40.700 And if it doesn't work out, it'll be hard, but it won't be disastrous.

01:15:46.600 Um, so that's one thing.

01:15:50.100 And, and that's your, whatever your professional vocation is, but there's the personal vocation

01:15:55.640 that I think for all men is the same, which is that every man is called to be a father.

01:16:03.200 Every man.

01:16:05.660 For most men that will come in the form of biological fatherhood, not all, there are other forms

01:16:10.920 of fatherhood.

01:16:12.100 There's spiritual fatherhood.

01:16:13.400 I think some men are called to religious life.

01:16:16.080 If you're Catholic called to the priesthood, you don't get married, but you're, you were

01:16:19.620 still a father in a spiritual sense.

01:16:21.040 But every man is called to fatherhood in some sense, no man, no man is called to, to live

01:16:25.960 for himself only and serve only himself.

01:16:28.840 No man is called to live a life where they go to work, come home, play video games, have

01:16:34.680 no one depending on them.

01:16:36.760 Um, no one that they love, no one is called to that life.

01:16:42.500 So go and pursue that, you know, go pursue that and go pursue it fearlessly and know what

01:16:48.800 you're looking for and realize that there, there are a lot of women who are also looking

01:16:54.320 for the same thing.

01:16:55.200 I hear from conservative Christian men all the time saying, I'm conservative.

01:17:01.340 I'm Christian.

01:17:01.840 There are no good women left.

01:17:03.160 Yes.

01:17:03.840 There are no, there are no women out there who share my values.

01:17:06.260 Constantly you hear that.

01:17:07.580 But then I also hear from women all the time who are conservative Christians saying, I'm

01:17:11.020 conservative.

01:17:11.480 I'm Christian.

01:17:12.220 There are no good men.

01:17:13.400 There are no men who share my values.

01:17:14.740 And I'm like, well, you know, you guys, you're both out there.

01:17:19.240 You, you both exist.

01:17:20.340 I know you're out there.

01:17:22.160 Um, so you just have to pursue it and pursue it fearlessly and know what you're looking for.

01:17:27.980 And, um, and, and don't waste your time as a man, like don't waste your time with women

01:17:33.520 who, you know, don't share your fundamental values.

01:17:36.440 When I, when I met my wife, we got engaged six months later, we got engaged.

01:17:44.600 So it was a quick, it was quick.

01:17:47.460 And, uh, we talked about in our first date, we talked about everything.

01:17:52.300 We talked about religion, politics, everything.

01:17:56.380 Just got it all out in the open because at that point we were both, you know, I was 25,

01:18:00.700 she was 24, but, uh, so young.

01:18:02.720 You're getting old.

01:18:03.540 Yeah.

01:18:04.500 But, uh, by today's standards, that's, that's, you know, young to, to be, um, getting married,

01:18:11.220 but we didn't want to, we just didn't want to waste time.

01:18:13.840 It's like, what's the, what's the point?

01:18:15.620 If we, if we have, if we, if our fundamental values don't align, then this, this can only

01:18:20.900 end in heartbreak.

01:18:22.300 So there's no point.

01:18:23.440 I'm not going to waste my time.

01:18:24.320 I'm not going to waste two years of my life dating this person when there's no future.

01:18:29.580 And I know for a fact that the heartbreak is coming.

01:18:32.980 It's the only way it can end.

01:18:34.560 And I'm just delaying it for no apparent reason.

01:18:37.940 Uh, I'm not going to do that.

01:18:39.140 So we laid all that out really early on and, um, people ask like, well, how do you know

01:18:47.500 that someone's values align with yours?

01:18:50.400 Ask them.

01:18:51.420 I mean, that's, that's one way to find out.

01:18:53.700 Now somebody can lie, but you can weed out a lot of people just by asking.

01:18:58.520 And then, and then after you've done that and you go to the polygraph stage, right?

01:19:04.120 Polygraph.

01:19:05.140 Uh, well, that's where dating comes in and you kind of, you, you, you get to know them

01:19:11.260 a little bit.

01:19:11.820 It doesn't have to be that long.

01:19:13.040 You don't need to date them for five years.

01:19:15.140 It doesn't take that long to get to know someone to, to know what they're really about.

01:19:18.480 I think.

01:19:20.240 And if somebody is a total fraud, if they're a terrible person, most people are not good

01:19:25.000 at hiding it.

01:19:25.580 Like, I think most of us can tell, I could talk to someone for two hours or less.

01:19:29.920 Of course.

01:19:30.460 I can talk to someone for 20 minutes.

01:19:32.140 Easily.

01:19:32.960 Um, and if you're dating someone for six months, that's more than enough time.

01:19:37.200 I mean, all the time you spend with them, it's more than enough time to figure out what

01:19:41.660 they're really about.

01:19:43.460 So, and it's still possible.

01:19:45.960 And, uh, and, and, and my, my, that's my main message to, to young men is that, uh, you

01:19:52.440 know, there's this kind of, what do they call it?

01:19:55.160 Big towel.

01:19:56.220 Men go their own way movement online among like some right wing men in the, what the

01:20:01.300 manosphere.

01:20:02.700 What does that mean?

01:20:03.540 Men go their own way.

01:20:04.800 I, I guess it, it basically means, uh, the whole system is rigged against men and the

01:20:11.140 family courts are rigged.

01:20:12.760 Yeah.

01:20:13.100 Everything's rigged.

01:20:13.800 It's all true.

01:20:14.140 Which is true.

01:20:15.040 Yeah.

01:20:15.720 That's true.

01:20:16.600 I don't deny it.

01:20:17.820 What I deny is their conclusion, which is that it's hopeless.

01:20:22.140 Men just need to go their own way, do their own thing.

01:20:25.160 Like, like go be gay.

01:20:28.680 I don't think that they would.

01:20:29.800 Sounds pretty gay to me.

01:20:30.840 To me, it does.

01:20:31.440 To me, it does.

01:20:32.700 Uh, I think in practice, I don't know if it involves that in practice.

01:20:35.340 I think often practice just means, uh, go get a job, live your life on your own and

01:20:40.100 give up on the hope.

01:20:41.140 With no girls?

01:20:42.400 Yeah.

01:20:42.740 Give up on the hope of, uh, of, of ever like having a happy marriage.

01:20:47.880 Cause it's not possible.

01:20:48.660 Wake up by yourself every day.

01:20:49.920 Exactly.

01:20:51.240 That sounds like a lot of fun.

01:20:53.640 That's the, that's, and that's despair.

01:20:55.560 That is.

01:20:55.980 It's also, it's also, it's also weak.

01:20:57.940 I mean, look, I think everything is rigged against men, obviously, particularly white

01:21:01.320 men, obviously, but okay.

01:21:05.500 Then, you know, you've had tough tasks before, like make it your, your job, your duty to help

01:21:12.140 fix it.

01:21:12.640 Like give the, give the middle finger to the people who are oppressing you and be happy,

01:21:18.120 build a great, happy life, have decent children.

01:21:21.460 Like that's the greatest possible.

01:21:23.760 Yeah.

01:21:24.340 I think that's, that's exactly right.

01:21:26.860 And that's exactly the right message is when someone says, well, everything's rigged.

01:21:33.600 It's not fair.

01:21:35.320 It's really hard.

01:21:37.080 I might fail.

01:21:39.800 Right.

01:21:40.400 Okay.

01:21:41.500 That's the answer.

01:21:42.460 Yeah.

01:21:43.460 Yes, you're right.

01:21:45.260 Okay.

01:21:47.340 What now?

01:21:48.440 Now that we've established that, now that we've established how bad it is, which we have,

01:21:53.500 what's next?

01:21:54.360 What are you going to do tomorrow?

01:21:55.740 Now we're all on the same page.

01:21:57.140 It's rigged.

01:21:57.680 It sucks.

01:21:58.400 It's bad.

01:21:59.780 I hate it.

01:22:00.600 I wish it wasn't this way.

01:22:02.020 And yeah, even after everything I just said, you could still get married and somehow you

01:22:07.200 end up with a sociopath who was able to hide it, which I think is rare, but it can

01:22:10.720 happen.

01:22:11.640 And then you have kids and she cheats on you and she takes the kids.

01:22:14.960 She ruins your life.

01:22:16.160 Yep.

01:22:16.420 Yep.

01:22:16.820 I've seen all that.

01:22:17.760 That can happen.

01:22:19.040 Yep.

01:22:21.540 Okay.

01:22:22.540 Now that we've established all of that, when you wake up in the morning tomorrow, what are

01:22:28.020 you going to do?

01:22:29.520 What are you going to do with that information?

01:22:31.200 What are you actually going to do with your life?

01:22:33.460 You're going to say to yourself, I'm not afraid because I'm a man.

01:22:36.060 I get hit by a bus.

01:22:37.340 I could get ALS.

01:22:39.140 Like the number of bad endings that are possible in your life is like limitless.

01:22:45.220 And by the way, the end will be bad.

01:22:46.840 Like you're going to die in pain and afraid.

01:22:48.800 Okay.

01:22:48.920 We know that.

01:22:49.680 But knowing all of that, you still like have to be courageous and just jump face first

01:22:55.700 into it anyway.

01:22:56.520 I mean, that's kind of the whole point, right?

01:22:58.440 Right.

01:22:59.160 And especially when you have kids.

01:23:00.660 Once you have kids, the possibility of tragedy increases exponentially.

01:23:07.840 Oh, yeah.

01:23:08.360 Wow.

01:23:08.880 I mean, now you, because before it was like all the tragic things that can happen to you.

01:23:13.940 Now it's, what are all the tragic things that can happen to my kids?

01:23:16.660 Oh, yeah.

01:23:17.640 And then times that by however many kids you have.

01:23:19.700 Yeah.

01:23:20.820 And then you've got your wife and it's like, there are so many horrible ways that this

01:23:25.600 could go.

01:23:26.520 Oh, yeah.

01:23:27.820 And may.

01:23:28.580 And may.

01:23:29.040 Right.

01:23:29.500 But then if any of that happens, what's the end result?

01:23:33.320 The end result is, could be misery and despair.

01:23:38.480 Okay.

01:23:39.940 So then your solution is just to embrace misery and despair at the outset?

01:23:44.420 Yeah.

01:23:44.820 Because you're afraid that it might happen?

01:23:46.740 I agree.

01:23:47.000 And I, you know, I would rather, for me, if I'm going to end up miserable and in some tragic

01:23:58.100 scenario, which I hope doesn't happen, I'd rather it be because I went out and like lived

01:24:05.020 a life.

01:24:05.540 It's one of the saddest things about this country.

01:24:07.240 The country is getting sicker.

01:24:08.300 Despite all of our wealth and technology, Americans aren't doing well overall.

01:24:12.980 Obesity, heart disease, autoimmune conditions, all kinds of horrible chronic illnesses, weird

01:24:17.840 cancers are all on the rise.

01:24:19.520 Probably a lot of reasons for this.

01:24:20.720 But one of them definitely is Americans don't eat very well anymore.

01:24:24.100 They don't eat real food.

01:24:25.020 Instead, they eat industrial substitutes.

01:24:27.120 And it's not good.

01:24:29.380 It's time for something new.

01:24:30.560 And that's where masa chips come in.

01:24:33.000 Masa has decided to revive real food by creating snacks, how they used to be made, how they're

01:24:37.840 supposed to be made.

01:24:38.620 A masa chip has just three simple ingredients, not 117.

01:24:43.060 Three.

01:24:43.980 No seed oils, no artificial additives, just real delicious food.

01:24:47.440 And I know this because we eat a ton of them in my house.

01:24:50.260 And by the way, I feel great.

01:24:52.100 So you can still continue to snack, but you can do it in a healthy way with chips without feeling

01:24:57.020 guilty about it.

01:24:58.200 Masa chips are delicious.

01:24:59.440 They taste how a tortilla chip is supposed to taste.

01:25:02.020 But the thing is, you can hit them really, really hard, and I have, and not feel bloated

01:25:06.940 or sluggish after.

01:25:08.340 You feel like you've done something decent for your body.

01:25:11.080 You don't feel like you got a head injury or you don't feel filled with guilt.

01:25:14.860 You feel light and energetic.

01:25:16.160 It's the kind of snack your grandparents ate.

01:25:18.180 Worth bringing back.

01:25:19.060 So you can go to masachips.com.

01:25:20.700 Masa is M-A-S-A, by the way.

01:25:22.560 Masachips.com slash Tucker to start snacking.

01:25:25.020 Get 25% off.

01:25:26.140 We enjoy them.

01:25:26.920 You will too.

01:25:28.020 Well, you are going to end up miserable in some tragic scenario at some point.

01:25:31.020 That's just a fact.

01:25:32.260 Like, we shouldn't hide that from ourselves, actually.

01:25:34.480 Like, that's something horrible is going to happen to you, for sure.

01:25:37.180 You're going to get the diagnosis of someone you love, is going to get the diagnosis, or

01:25:39.820 worse.

01:25:41.360 And the whole point is, you know, you're a dad.

01:25:44.780 You're not afraid.

01:25:46.120 Yeah.

01:25:47.040 Right?

01:25:47.360 I mean, you're running toward the sound of gunfire and away from it.

01:25:50.500 That's like your whole role.

01:25:51.840 Yeah.

01:25:51.960 I totally agree.

01:25:53.780 That's, of all the unpopular messages that we've talked about, that's probably the most

01:25:59.100 unpopular.

01:25:59.900 Why?

01:26:00.140 Is that, like, it's going to end in tragedy no matter what.

01:26:02.920 We're all going to die.

01:26:03.720 Like, we're all going to die.

01:26:05.160 Oh, yeah.

01:26:05.560 It's bad.

01:26:08.420 It's bad.

01:26:09.760 That's the thing that nobody wants to think about and talk about.

01:26:12.280 We should probably think about it and talk about it a lot more than we do.

01:26:15.040 Oh, the more you think about it, the lighter you're bearing and the more cheerful you are.

01:26:20.820 If I was, I was reading someone recently who said, you know, meditating on death every

01:26:27.180 day is the most certain way to joy and cheerfulness and lightness.

01:26:32.000 I think that's right.

01:26:32.700 But I kind of agree with that.

01:26:35.280 I mean, I read a book.

01:26:37.880 There's this, there was a book that was written years ago called Denial of Death.

01:26:42.540 You ever read that?

01:26:43.620 No.

01:26:45.180 And I'm blanking on the name of the guy who wrote it.

01:26:47.600 It'll come to me.

01:26:48.380 But anyway, the book is called Denial of Death.

01:26:50.700 I don't agree with, it's kind of psychoanalytical.

01:26:53.860 There's a lot of psychobabble in it.

01:26:55.060 It was written by an author who ironically wrote this book, published it, won, I believe, a Pulitzer

01:27:04.160 and died and died of cancer.

01:27:06.860 I think he didn't know that he had it when he wrote this book, but then he published the

01:27:10.260 book and he died.

01:27:10.700 But anyway, his kind of theory was that like all of modern society is actually fundamentally

01:27:20.940 set up to distract us from the fact that we're going to die.

01:27:25.080 Of course.

01:27:25.400 That terror of death is what drives everything.

01:27:31.240 And he takes that farther than I would probably take it, but I think there's actually a lot

01:27:37.220 of truth to that.

01:27:37.740 I remember I read this book and I could see a lot of that in my own life.

01:27:42.340 Of course.

01:27:42.880 But then I discovered that once I started actually thinking about that and meditating on it, maybe

01:27:49.360 not literally meditating, but really thinking about it, I did become, I became less fearful

01:27:54.440 somehow of it.

01:27:56.220 Of course, because you've, you've looked the monster in the face and like accepted, you

01:28:00.240 know, there is something snuffling under your bed, you know?

01:28:04.120 Okay.

01:28:05.000 So how have your, well, two part question, how have your views changed and how has the

01:28:12.400 definition, speaking of definitions of conservatism changed in say the past 20 years?

01:28:16.440 Let's start with you.

01:28:19.360 I don't know that any of my views have, they haven't fundamentally changed.

01:28:25.760 I've, I've become more radical.

01:28:27.120 I've certainly become radicalized on pretty much every issue.

01:28:30.220 I'm just farther to the right on everything.

01:28:33.260 My whole life I've just been, I started on the right.

01:28:36.000 I come from a conservative Catholic family.

01:28:38.920 And so I'm already starting like way over here and everything that's happened in the country

01:28:45.280 and also in my personal life has only just moved me farther and farther.

01:28:49.360 So that's the only way that my views.

01:28:51.140 And where does that lead at the end?

01:28:52.740 Like what's your view of Francisco Franco?

01:28:57.280 Where does it lead in the end?

01:28:58.760 I don't know.

01:29:00.040 Like, I mean, so if you start right and you keep going, right, where do you wind up?

01:29:03.820 Are we still filming is the question.

01:29:04.900 Where is the 80-year-old Matt Walsh on the issues?

01:29:13.180 That'll be interesting.

01:29:14.020 It'll be interesting to check in.

01:29:15.000 I don't know.

01:29:15.240 I'll be long gone.

01:29:16.440 But I think, so that's my own personal trajectory.

01:29:21.000 The definition of conservatism, though, has only changed in that I think it's, in that

01:29:34.640 it has no definition.

01:29:36.920 I think it's, like so many, we talked about the words that don't mean anything anymore.

01:29:40.460 Words that used to be useful and maybe used to mean something and they just don't anymore

01:29:44.380 because of how they've been misused and abused and overused.

01:29:48.020 And I think conservatism is another one of those words.

01:29:50.560 I just, when you tell me now that someone is conservative, I don't, it doesn't tell me

01:29:59.020 a lot about them.

01:29:59.700 I don't know what you mean.

01:30:01.320 It generally means I'm not going to like them.

01:30:03.980 Yeah, well.

01:30:04.580 They're going to be some kind of fraud, you know, on the internet, luring people with false

01:30:11.000 prophecy.

01:30:11.560 That's kind of what I think.

01:30:12.240 That's my gut reaction.

01:30:13.720 So discredited has that word become.

01:30:16.560 But I mean, what, the reason I ask this, it's a moving target.

01:30:20.700 Of course, it means something different in every generation or maybe every year.

01:30:23.820 But because Donald Trump just got elected after four, probably the worst four years since the

01:30:29.260 American Civil War under Joe Biden, there is this like large group, tens of millions of

01:30:35.420 people who are aligned in this thing, this movement, this block of voters, this ideology.

01:30:40.660 And what is it?

01:30:42.100 And how has it changed?

01:30:48.100 These are big questions, Matt.

01:30:49.340 So I'm going to let you, I'm going to give you a second to pause.

01:30:51.040 Okay.

01:30:52.680 Because I don't know what it is exactly is my point.

01:30:54.860 I don't know what it is.

01:30:55.480 I think it's, I know what it isn't, I think.

01:30:58.840 So one thing that unites us is that we have this general idea of wokeness, leftism, whatever

01:31:06.940 you want to call it.

01:31:09.040 And we don't like that.

01:31:11.360 So I think we all have that in common.

01:31:13.280 You know, when we look at a woman with blue hair and a nose piercing, everyone on the right,

01:31:22.100 we could look at that woman and we could say, we probably don't like her.

01:31:24.580 And we probably don't agree with anything she thinks.

01:31:28.220 So we, we don't agree with the blue hairs.

01:31:30.700 That's one thing we have in common.

01:31:32.280 And the main thing that we don't agree with them on is that we think free speech is like

01:31:37.360 a foundational concept, the foundational concept of the United States.

01:31:40.400 And if you have an opinion, you ought to be able to express it.

01:31:43.140 And I thought this was what everybody agreed on.

01:31:45.580 I thought this is why they voted for Trump.

01:31:46.900 Shows you how dumb I am.

01:31:47.860 And then I wake up and I see these people, many of whom I know, scolding Rogan, me, just

01:31:55.280 scolding in general.

01:31:56.880 You, you're not supposed to platform that person or that set of ideas or that those are words

01:32:01.060 that shouldn't be spoken.

01:32:03.360 And I'm like, what, you know, we're a hundred days into this and already people I thought

01:32:08.380 were on my side are mad because of like naughty words or concepts or ideas or questions, questions.

01:32:16.040 Literally people on the so-called right are mad about asking questions.

01:32:21.000 It's like a parody or something.

01:32:23.000 I thought that's like we made fun of the left.

01:32:24.920 Like they'd be like, just asking questions.

01:32:27.140 Your questions are more than questions.

01:32:28.840 They're assaults on me.

01:32:30.740 And I'm literally hearing people on the right say that about me.

01:32:34.620 So it pisses me off, but not, it's not just me.

01:32:36.900 Like what the hell is going on?

01:32:40.020 Yeah.

01:32:40.160 I don't take you seriously.

01:32:41.160 Honestly, if you use the word platforming as a negative, I don't, I don't take you seriously.

01:32:48.120 I've already lost respect for you.

01:32:49.940 I agree.

01:32:50.700 That to me, that's a leftist thing that to me, that's the blue.

01:32:53.300 When I think of the blue hair woman with the nose piercing, I think of her as someone

01:32:57.540 who scolds you for why did you platform that person?

01:32:59.980 Well, that's why I don't like her in all things being cool.

01:33:02.780 I'd feel sorry for her.

01:33:04.060 She's got blue hair in a nose ring.

01:33:05.820 There's no man who loves her.

01:33:06.960 Like I feel sad for her.

01:33:07.840 That would be my default view.

01:33:09.140 The only reason I don't like her is because she's scolding me for platforming people she

01:33:13.080 doesn't agree with.

01:33:13.940 Right.

01:33:15.460 Well, I don't like her for a lot of other reasons too, but I don't feel so true.

01:33:18.500 You're a lot nicer than me.

01:33:20.740 But yes, that, so using that term as like a pejorative, as this forbidden thing is that

01:33:27.900 that should be a leftist.

01:33:29.160 I mean, that should be one of the quintessential, we think about wokeness.

01:33:32.020 That's one of the quintessential features of wokeness, whatever that is exactly, is this

01:33:36.820 idea you don't want to platform people.

01:33:38.860 I just don't agree with it.

01:33:40.340 I mean, what does that even mean?

01:33:44.540 And also, usually when someone is accused of platforming someone else, it's like, it

01:33:52.660 doesn't even make sense to begin with because the person that they're saying is being platformed

01:33:56.720 already had a platform.

01:33:58.380 Like we all have platforms.

01:33:59.720 We're all, we're, we're out there saying what we think already.

01:34:02.960 So usually when they say platforming, what they really mean is you talked to that person.

01:34:08.560 It's not that we don't want you to platform that person.

01:34:10.460 They already had a platform.

01:34:11.420 We don't want you to speak to that person and have any kind of conversation with them.

01:34:17.040 But what they're really trying to do is set guardrails around my mind and treat me like

01:34:21.800 a slave, a non-human being.

01:34:23.080 They're, they're trying to tell me you're not allowed to think certain things.

01:34:26.140 And I reserve the right.

01:34:27.340 I think it's an absolute right to think whatever I want, A. B, if you disagree with what I

01:34:31.620 think, it's incumbent on you to convince me that I'm wrong through reason, like show

01:34:37.080 me the countervailing evidence.

01:34:38.460 It's not enough to say my views are naughty.

01:34:41.960 The person I'm talking to is naughty.

01:34:44.220 They're discredited.

01:34:45.300 They're bad.

01:34:46.100 I mean, that's like a species of religion and a false religion, I would say.

01:34:49.420 And yet I'm seeing that impulse, that, that reveals a way of thinking that is totalitarian

01:34:54.180 and low and dumb and embarrassing and that I associate with the left, but I'm seeing

01:34:59.220 it everywhere on the right.

01:35:00.400 Like, what the, I'm trying not to use the F word.

01:35:02.080 What the heck is going on, Matt Walsh?

01:35:05.480 Like, if I disagree with you, Matt Walsh, I would say, I disagree with you and here's

01:35:09.460 why.

01:35:09.960 Right.

01:35:10.140 And I would pay you the respect of taking your ideas seriously and trying to dissuade you

01:35:14.200 from those ideas.

01:35:15.140 I would not say, how dare you, Matt Walsh, think that?

01:35:18.420 Because that's insulting, not simply to you, but I'm insulting my own intelligence.

01:35:22.840 That's how dumb people communicate, right?

01:35:25.600 Yeah.

01:35:26.560 And, and I, I believe in free speech in principle.

01:35:29.300 So people should, and to me, free speech is, it's not a complicated idea.

01:35:36.080 Free speech means that you have the freedom to express whatever opinion or perspective

01:35:41.440 you want.

01:35:43.320 I can agree or disagree.

01:35:46.100 It doesn't matter.

01:35:47.360 Now that doesn't extend to things like, in my mind, hardcore pornography.

01:35:51.220 That's not speech.

01:35:52.500 That's not an opinion that's being expressed.

01:35:54.520 That is digital prostitution.

01:35:57.100 But if it's an opinion, if you're just sending a message about what you believe, you should

01:36:01.700 be able to do that, period.

01:36:05.220 So that's the first thing.

01:36:07.180 But then also strategically, you know, when you start complaining about platforming, it's

01:36:12.980 just a, it's a bad strategy.

01:36:14.660 Because all you, when, when you point to someone and you say that person shouldn't be

01:36:18.280 platformed, uh, all you're doing, if you're worried about what that person is saying, all

01:36:23.800 you're doing is making people more interested in what that person says.

01:36:27.060 I know I'm that way.

01:36:28.420 If I hear that there's a controversy because so-and-so was platformed and I've never heard

01:36:35.520 of that person, I immediately say, oh, what's this person all about?

01:36:37.720 I got to look into them.

01:36:38.600 Yeah.

01:36:39.040 I always do that.

01:36:40.360 Oh, I take it one step farther and then book the person on the show.

01:36:43.580 Yeah.

01:36:43.800 Yeah.

01:36:43.980 Always.

01:36:44.560 Of course.

01:36:45.360 Because it's, it's like, whatever it is you said that upset, upsets people, I'm interested

01:36:50.080 because people are so upset.

01:36:51.160 I might not agree with it, but I'm interested.

01:36:54.460 Uh, and I, I just reject in principle.

01:36:57.000 Like if you are telling me that I shouldn't hear that person or talk to them or take them

01:37:02.280 seriously or listen to their ideas, just in principle, I want to say, no, F you.

01:37:06.920 Now I'm going to listen even more.

01:37:09.960 You know, now I'm going to listen to a two hour podcast that I wouldn't have listened

01:37:12.460 to otherwise just because you said that.

01:37:14.760 And especially if you don't explain the person's ideas and why they're wrong.

01:37:18.640 I mean, I think a lot of ideas are wrong and there are a lot of poisonous people out there

01:37:22.320 selling crap, poisonous crap.

01:37:25.900 Um, I completely agree with that.

01:37:27.760 I just think it's important.

01:37:29.420 It's essential.

01:37:30.300 It should be required to explain why it's wrong.

01:37:32.600 Not just that it's bad.

01:37:33.820 What did you think of the debate?

01:37:35.740 A lot of this kind of broke through the surface in the debate between Dave Smith and, um,

01:37:43.120 Douglas Murray on Rogan a couple of weeks ago.

01:37:45.780 Did you watch that?

01:37:46.840 And what you did, I watched, uh, I ended up watching the, I wasn't planning on watching

01:37:49.700 the whole thing, but I watched the whole thing, uh, over the course of a few days.

01:37:53.740 It was a long debate.

01:37:54.460 And, you know, I, I have a, a different, I come in with a different perspective than maybe

01:38:03.280 some people who are really interested in the debate in that I don't have a dog in the fight.

01:38:06.740 I don't, everyone is, I'm constantly hearing from the peanut gallery demanding that I, um,

01:38:16.500 kind of give my, my verdict or my take on Israel and Israel versus Palestine and all this kind

01:38:22.320 of stuff.

01:38:23.020 And I have given my take and my take is I don't care that much.

01:38:26.800 Uh, so I don't, I just don't care that much.

01:38:29.860 I, I'm a, I'm not just America first.

01:38:31.560 I'm a, I'm an American chauvinist in that I only care about my own country.

01:38:35.800 I honestly don't care about other countries.

01:38:37.840 I wish them well.

01:38:39.340 I don't, I don't wish any of them.

01:38:40.860 I don't wish them ill.

01:38:42.140 I wish the people of other countries well.

01:38:43.820 Uh, I think they all have a right to defend themselves and they should.

01:38:48.260 I think that if you can't defend yourself as a nation or if you can't survive without,

01:38:52.400 um, being propped up by another government, say ours, then you shouldn't exist as a country.

01:38:59.600 Uh, that's just the way of the world.

01:39:01.400 So.

01:39:02.120 Wait, wait, wait.

01:39:02.980 If you, if you can't exist without being propped up by another government, say ours, you shouldn't

01:39:08.400 exist.

01:39:09.780 Yeah.

01:39:09.900 Israel cannot exist without being propped up by the United States.

01:39:13.260 You think so?

01:39:14.980 It's nuclear program came from the United States.

01:39:17.040 It's weapons come from the United States.

01:39:18.300 It's economy supported by the United States.

01:39:19.800 I'm not talking Israel.

01:39:20.560 I'm just saying in point of fact, I think that's true.

01:39:23.700 And I mean, Israel thinks it's true or they wouldn't have armies of lobbyists and influencers

01:39:28.280 in the United States.

01:39:29.160 BB wouldn't have shown up twice in the past three months.

01:39:32.080 Yeah.

01:39:32.640 I mean, the way, from my perspective, it seems like they can handle themselves quite fine.

01:39:40.080 Uh, but any country.

01:39:42.960 If there is any country out there that fundamentally cannot exist without being subsidized by American

01:39:52.500 taxpayers, then not only should that country not exist, but that country already does not

01:39:58.260 exist.

01:39:58.840 It's, it's not really.

01:40:00.180 That's interesting.

01:40:01.680 It's not really a country.

01:40:02.780 Right?

01:40:03.060 No, it's.

01:40:04.160 Um, and unless we want to go back to the old way, which was, you know, back in, in the

01:40:09.300 bad old days, uh, when we did real empires, you know, if you want to just be conquered

01:40:16.300 and, and you're going to be a, you're, you're, you're going to be a vassal state of ours and

01:40:21.380 we're going to sort of own you, then, uh, then that's, that's one system, but we don't

01:40:25.360 really do that.

01:40:25.960 At least not directly anymore.

01:40:28.480 So if, if you.

01:40:31.400 Can I just ask you, that's such an interesting, not only does it have no right to exist, it

01:40:34.980 already doesn't exist.

01:40:36.380 It's not a real country.

01:40:37.640 Yeah.

01:40:37.840 Not a real country.

01:40:38.560 If any country that that.

01:40:40.580 Right.

01:40:40.880 That's true of.

01:40:41.800 Yeah.

01:40:42.440 Now I'm, I'm not convinced at all that that is true of Israel.

01:40:44.980 I'm not convinced at all.

01:40:45.880 I mean, I don't know either, by the way.

01:40:48.000 And I think Israel seems like a perfectly functional and strong country, including with a strong

01:40:52.320 economy that goes up and down, but basically, I mean, they have a robust tech sector.

01:40:56.440 They've got a lot going for them.

01:40:57.540 And so I think I kind of agree.

01:40:59.920 I'm just saying they don't seem to feel that way, but who knows what the truth is.

01:41:03.220 I think that if we were to withdraw, I think we should withdraw, withdraw all federal,

01:41:08.460 all, uh, uh, foreign aid from every country.

01:41:11.240 You know, I, I don't think we should be doing it at all.

01:41:13.680 I think if we, yeah.

01:41:15.280 And I think if we did that, I think Israel would still exist.

01:41:18.360 I think, I think if we took away all the foreign aid tomorrow, next week, two months

01:41:23.080 from now, Israel would still be.

01:41:24.580 I agree with that.

01:41:25.420 A country.

01:41:25.880 Yes.

01:41:26.500 There are probably other countries on the planet that just would not exist anymore.

01:41:30.700 But countries have to make more realistic decisions when there's no backstop in the

01:41:35.040 same way that people do.

01:41:36.160 And in the same way that people on welfare or people with trust funds equally kind of

01:41:41.160 tend to make terrible decisions about their own lives.

01:41:44.420 I think it's also true for countries.

01:41:46.500 You get way overextended when you're dependent.

01:41:50.020 Yeah.

01:41:50.140 And this is, and by the way, this is when I say that a country that can't survive without

01:41:54.460 us shouldn't exist or doesn't exist, that's not any kind of like moral judgment.

01:41:59.160 It's just, this is the way of human civilization.

01:42:03.840 You have to be able to, you have to be able to stand on your own two feet to, to be, to

01:42:10.760 even qualify as a country.

01:42:13.300 Right.

01:42:13.540 And, um, I think the American taxpayers have been saddled for many years now with propping

01:42:19.700 up country after country after country.

01:42:22.940 Um, when that, that is not a responsibility that should fall to me or you or to my kids.

01:42:31.960 Um, our responsibility is, is to our, is to ourselves.

01:42:35.520 And it's also true of us.

01:42:36.620 If we could not exist.

01:42:38.240 Well, I agree.

01:42:38.840 You know, if, if, if, if we were depending on, uh, welfare from some other country in

01:42:44.400 order to exist, then I would say that like, we're not a country anymore.

01:42:48.940 So, you know, take it away and like, let whatever happens, happens.

01:42:51.780 Let, let the thing fall apart.

01:42:53.180 And maybe from the ashes, we can build a real country.

01:42:55.720 That would be my take if it was true of us.

01:42:58.160 So.

01:42:59.440 How did we get, um, I, I vehemently agree with you.

01:43:04.760 I don't think I've ever heard it as well put.

01:43:06.340 Um, but I don't think anything you said is radical.

01:43:10.480 I think it's, as you just said, it's the way of human civilization.

01:43:13.460 How do we get to a place where that qualifies as a radical view?

01:43:18.800 I think it's, it's, people have been conditioned that, um, you know, xenophobia is a, is a, is

01:43:26.840 a great sin.

01:43:29.280 And so, I don't know, it's this, I don't really understand it cause I've never felt it, but

01:43:33.780 for a lot of people, they just feel, it, it, it feels wrong to them to actually prioritize

01:43:39.500 their own country.

01:43:40.320 It feels, it, I guess it feels unnatural to people, which is crazy.

01:43:44.920 It's bizarre.

01:43:46.560 Uh, because to me, it's the most natural thing in the world.

01:43:48.720 Like I, it's not, it should not be controversial to say I care more about my country than I

01:43:57.760 care about anybody else.

01:43:58.480 I care more about the people in my country than I care about anyone else.

01:44:03.780 And the amount that I sort of care about you, it increases the closer you are to me.

01:44:11.360 That that's the way people work.

01:44:14.840 So I care the most about my own kids.

01:44:17.260 I care more about my own kids than anyone else.

01:44:20.680 If my kids are in a fire and someone else is in a fire, I'm saving my own kids a thousand

01:44:24.920 times out of a thousand.

01:44:26.600 Um, if I had to choose between one of my kids and a thousand other people, I'd save my

01:44:31.540 kid over the thousand because that's, that's my, you know, they're my kids.

01:44:38.440 That's my blood.

01:44:40.240 And, and then, you know, branching out from there, I care about my, my family, my, my larger

01:44:46.660 family, I care about from there, my community where I live.

01:44:53.200 Um, and then, you know, there's a subsidiarity and then, and then branching out from there.

01:44:57.640 I care about centric circles of obligation.

01:44:59.520 Exactly.

01:45:00.500 And that's, that should just be so natural.

01:45:04.340 That's, that's how people work.

01:45:06.200 And that's how everyone works.

01:45:07.540 It's like, if I told you, anyone who hears this and thinks that it sounds cruel or something.

01:45:15.260 Well, if I came to you and told you that your friend's child died, you would be really broken

01:45:24.760 up.

01:45:25.020 I would assume.

01:45:26.260 In tears.

01:45:26.580 Yeah.

01:45:26.940 You'd be in tears about it.

01:45:28.560 If I came to you and said, you know, just a few minutes ago, a child in China, uh, was hit

01:45:35.820 by a car and died, you would say, uh, it's, that's too bad.

01:45:41.820 It's sad.

01:45:42.600 And then you would not think about it again.

01:45:45.140 Correct.

01:45:45.660 You would move on with your life and never even think about it.

01:45:48.540 Even though that's a child, it's a child, the child died.

01:45:51.520 It's a terrible thing.

01:45:52.500 It's really sad.

01:45:54.420 Objectively, that child in China dying objectively is as terrible as your friend's child dying.

01:46:00.640 But your attachment to that child in China is much less, is, is basically non-existent.

01:46:08.960 Um, your obligation to that child is non-existent.

01:46:12.640 But the idea is that what you're describing is sentiment, sentimentality really, and that

01:46:19.480 it's our job as evolved beings to override that false sentimentality with like a clearer

01:46:26.140 moral code.

01:46:27.640 I don't think it is sentiment.

01:46:29.240 I think it's the opposite.

01:46:30.240 I think the idea that we should, you know what I mean?

01:46:32.360 Like, yeah, that's what they say.

01:46:33.320 This is effective altruism.

01:46:34.440 Actually.

01:46:34.960 It's like, no, that every human life has equal value, which I think you would agree with as

01:46:40.180 a Christian.

01:46:40.900 Absolutely.

01:46:41.640 Yeah.

01:46:42.160 Therefore, our obligation to every human being is identical.

01:46:48.520 And I, and, and you're right that they would, so what I'm saying, they would call false

01:46:52.500 sentimentality, but, but that is false sentimentality.

01:46:54.980 This idea that we're citizens of the world and we value everyone the same is a false sentiment.

01:47:01.660 No one actually thinks it, you know, you would save your own child from the fire.

01:47:06.140 Is it because you think your child has more moral worth than anyone else's child?

01:47:11.040 No.

01:47:11.660 Is it because your child dying in a fire is objectively more sad than someone else's child?

01:47:18.380 No, but that's your blood.

01:47:21.360 That's not sentiment.

01:47:22.780 That's your blood.

01:47:23.740 That's your family.

01:47:24.960 But that means something.

01:47:26.320 But blood doesn't matter.

01:47:27.460 Genetics aren't real.

01:47:30.420 I think it's the most, it's one of the most real things there is, you know, and, and, and

01:47:36.460 it's obligation, you know, it's, it, it should also be, it should be inherent.

01:47:39.960 It's instinctual, but it's also, you have an obligation to your child.

01:47:43.420 And then branching out of the concentric circles, you have, you have an obligation to your country

01:47:49.220 and you have an attachment.

01:47:50.580 You should have an attachment to your country and a pride in your country.

01:47:54.800 These are your people.

01:47:55.920 This is your history.

01:47:57.320 These are your ancestors.

01:47:58.460 And, and, and so that's it.

01:48:06.080 I mean, and, and to me, it's the most, it's the most natural thing in the world.

01:48:09.940 And, um.

01:48:10.900 So nationalism is, is not really an ideology.

01:48:14.740 It's just like nature.

01:48:16.800 It's just the default position.

01:48:18.400 It's like.

01:48:19.280 Yes.

01:48:19.720 It's the natural state of human being.

01:48:22.180 The natural state of human being.

01:48:22.780 It's the natural way that societies are organized.

01:48:24.500 That's all national.

01:48:25.160 Why is everyone afraid of it and against it?

01:48:27.240 But I think it's, it's, like a lot of it is confusion, not understanding what nationalism

01:48:36.380 even is.

01:48:38.120 Um, it's part of the kind of globalist agenda.

01:48:41.640 It's part of this destructive, like I said, a lot of it comes down to destroying the family

01:48:46.380 and, and, and we do that by inverting everybody's priorities.

01:48:50.940 Yeah.

01:48:51.620 So that like, they want to get you to the point where you're, where you're more concerned

01:48:57.020 about peace in Ukraine than you are about, uh, protecting your own child.

01:49:04.800 Well, they've absolutely succeeded, by the way.

01:49:06.760 They go on social media, which I really try to avoid, but whenever I go on it and it's

01:49:11.960 all right wingers or whatever they are now, but it's all Trump voters, right?

01:49:15.280 In my feed.

01:49:16.260 And they're yelling at each other over mostly about Israel, but also about Ukraine, but

01:49:22.480 about foreign countries.

01:49:23.400 That's what they're mad at.

01:49:24.260 I mean, they're totally obsessed.

01:49:27.140 And I, by the way, I think it's legitimate to have views on all four.

01:49:30.100 I've got a million views on a million different foreign countries, including those two, but

01:49:33.080 that's their overriding concern.

01:49:36.040 It does seem, I hate the word op, but it does seem like by design, someone has sapped the

01:49:41.380 vital energy from Trump's voting base by convincing them that what's happening in these foreign

01:49:47.400 countries is more important than what's happening in their own.

01:49:49.360 That's what I see.

01:49:51.160 Do you see this?

01:49:52.520 I do see it.

01:49:53.460 And, uh, and, and I don't, I don't understand it.

01:49:57.500 I don't understand why, how do we get to a point where the, the, the dominant conversation

01:50:05.920 in this country is about what's happening in other countries?

01:50:09.920 I don't, I don't understand it.

01:50:11.820 I don't understand the people that are obsessively focused on it on either side of it, really.

01:50:16.640 I agree.

01:50:17.560 Um, because.

01:50:20.520 And can I say America's role in the world is a different question.

01:50:25.240 Like we play a role in the world.

01:50:26.840 We certainly have.

01:50:28.360 What's the appropriate role is a question that Americans should be concerned with because

01:50:33.300 it's our money in the lives of our young men.

01:50:36.100 So, but this is something different.

01:50:38.100 You're saying people's like obsession about a foreign conflict between two like foreign

01:50:42.760 actors.

01:50:44.180 Is that what you're saying?

01:50:45.140 Or I don't want to put words in your mouth.

01:50:46.240 Yeah.

01:50:46.500 Yeah.

01:50:47.040 Obsession with a conflict.

01:50:48.240 Um, taking any foreign country and making it the centerpiece of our, our, our, our, our,

01:50:55.240 our political debates makes no sense to me.

01:50:59.940 Uh, and, and I think people on either side do that.

01:51:04.740 My sense is.

01:51:05.620 When I go on Twitter, go on X and no matter what the topic is, it seems it's like, you

01:51:14.260 know, it used to be six degrees of Kevin Bacon or whatever.

01:51:16.180 Yeah.

01:51:17.120 Uh, now it's two degrees of Israel.

01:51:20.120 It's like, no matter what the topic is, it always comes back for a lot of people to Israel

01:51:23.340 one way or another.

01:51:25.240 And, um, that's not how I see it.

01:51:28.380 I don't see Israel as the, as the, the, the centerpiece of any of these debates at all.

01:51:34.160 It does seem like it's blowing or blowing up is probably too strong, but it's definitely

01:51:37.920 dividing the, you know, Trump's voter base big time.

01:51:43.100 Do you feel that?

01:51:44.040 I do.

01:51:45.380 And it's a shame because why are we being divided over that of all things?

01:51:50.080 Let's be divided over fentanyl or tariffs or whatever, something, you know what I mean?

01:51:55.660 Yeah.

01:51:55.900 So that's going, going all the way back to what actually your question that I never answered.

01:52:00.440 I don't think I gave you a chance.

01:52:01.860 I was often.

01:52:02.620 So I was, I was also off, uh, but about the, the Dave Smith and Douglas Murray debate.

01:52:08.740 Uh, my point was, I'm going into it.

01:52:10.400 I don't really have a dog in the fight.

01:52:11.420 I don't know why these guys either.

01:52:13.680 And, uh, I don't know either of the guys.

01:52:15.500 I'm, I don't really, I'm not following the issue that closely.

01:52:18.240 I'm just not, I'm focused on America.

01:52:22.540 And so I'm, I'm really just interested to see how this turns out.

01:52:26.620 I, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm listening to both arguments.

01:52:29.000 And I thought that, um, Douglas Murray, who seems like a really smart guy, I thought he

01:52:39.360 made a crucial mistake in the debate by starting.

01:52:44.260 It seemed like the first 45 minutes to an hour was this kind of this litigation over

01:52:50.100 who's an expert and who isn't.

01:52:51.480 And that's just not, you're not going to win the argument that way.

01:52:55.400 Nobody wants to hear it.

01:52:56.860 Nobody should want to hear it.

01:52:59.380 Credentialism.

01:53:00.400 You're not an expert.

01:53:02.300 You know, we've seen what the expert class has given us, especially over the last five

01:53:08.740 years.

01:53:09.120 Pretty good job or no.

01:53:10.420 I would, I would give it a solid D minus.

01:53:14.080 Very generous.

01:53:15.020 Very generous.

01:53:15.540 Uh, so nobody wants to hear it.

01:53:18.680 Nobody wants to hear about, about, um, calling yourself an expert goes back again to words

01:53:24.340 that don't mean anything anymore.

01:53:26.140 That's a word that should mean something.

01:53:28.240 It should, it is possible.

01:53:30.400 Expertise is a real thing.

01:53:32.180 There are people who can be experts on a subject.

01:53:36.080 I would hope that the pilot of my plane is an expert in flying a plane.

01:53:41.720 Um, as we've seen, we can't, we can't rely on that being the case either anymore, but that's

01:53:48.520 what it should mean.

01:53:49.740 But we've also used the word expert and applied it to people who are making outrageously false

01:53:56.460 claims.

01:53:57.520 I mean, the experts are the ones who told us that, you know, you can castrate your son

01:54:02.300 and turn him into a girl, but that was the expert opinion.

01:54:04.880 That was the opinion of the expert class for years and, and still is with some of them.

01:54:13.040 So in a world like that, in a world where the experts are telling us that women have

01:54:17.660 penises and men can have babies, the word expert just doesn't mean anything anymore.

01:54:22.940 It should, but it doesn't, which means that if you're going to have this conversation, skip

01:54:27.740 past that.

01:54:28.420 We don't need like, we don't need to litigate what an expert is or who an expert is.

01:54:32.660 You want to begin with the merits of the debate, right?

01:54:34.820 Just, just get into it.

01:54:35.740 It doesn't matter.

01:54:36.300 This guy that you're sitting next to, whether he's an expert or not, makes no difference.

01:54:41.640 I don't care if he's a scholar.

01:54:44.260 I don't care if he's a homeless guy.

01:54:45.260 You just pulled off the street.

01:54:47.480 His arguments are valid or they aren't.

01:54:51.200 And that's all that matters.

01:54:52.800 That's all that anyone cares about.

01:54:54.380 Is this one on for an hour?

01:54:56.700 Yeah, that's, I'd say the first hour was, was about who was an expert and who isn't.

01:55:00.340 What is that?

01:55:00.700 I mean, Douglas Murray is famous for being smart.

01:55:03.540 What do you think that was?

01:55:06.480 I don't know.

01:55:07.800 I honestly don't.

01:55:08.840 I thought it was just a strategic error, a pretty serious one.

01:55:14.500 And then by the time you actually get into the debate, then a lot of people have just

01:55:19.200 kind of checked out because it comes off as kind of snobbish.

01:55:22.240 And it comes off as, you know, as credentialism as, as you're trying to invalidate the argument

01:55:31.560 before it's even presented.

01:55:35.520 So that, that was the mistake.

01:55:38.080 Then when they actually got into the actual conversation, I found it to be, I just thought

01:55:41.700 it was interesting.

01:55:42.300 I really did.

01:55:43.200 And I thought they both made valid points.

01:55:46.060 They both know more about the subject than I do.

01:55:48.120 A lot more.

01:55:48.740 That was very clear to me.

01:55:52.520 And I, I, I think if you could chop off the first hour of the debate, it was an interesting

01:55:57.420 conversation.

01:55:59.260 Who do you think made a more compelling case on the mat once they actually got down to

01:56:02.820 the question at hand?

01:56:14.500 I don't know.

01:56:15.400 I think that, so Douglas Murray said one thing.

01:56:19.160 He made one point that I thought was, was really good, which is a simple one.

01:56:24.220 I like simple points.

01:56:25.460 Me too.

01:56:25.760 And at one point he asked Dave, because once they got into arguing about what happened

01:56:33.960 after October 7th, how Israel responded and Dave has all of his criticisms about what Israel

01:56:41.000 has done.

01:56:41.420 And then Douglas Murray said, uh, said, well, what, what would you, what would you have them

01:56:48.340 do?

01:56:49.460 What would you prefer to have, for them to have done if they want to rescue the hostages

01:56:54.560 and also destroy Hamas?

01:56:58.360 What, what do you want them to do instead?

01:57:01.560 And then from what I remember, Dave, he pointed out that, okay, destroying Hamas and rescuing

01:57:06.800 hostages are kind of, are not necessarily the same objective.

01:57:10.680 Uh, and then they started talking about rescuing hostages.

01:57:13.680 They didn't really circle back to the destroying Hamas part.

01:57:17.160 And I would have liked to see him stick on that point.

01:57:21.200 Like, get an answer.

01:57:22.060 So, so if you're Israel, you have a foreign, you know, these, these foreign enemy that's

01:57:28.640 come into your country, uh, slaughtered hundreds of people, what should, how should you respond

01:57:36.140 to that?

01:57:37.800 Um, and I think he should have, uh, he should have pressed that and he, and he didn't.

01:57:42.780 And so it became, it was sort of unfocused because I would have, I would legitimately like

01:57:48.160 to hear the answer to that.

01:57:49.780 For sure.

01:57:50.840 What, what would you have them do?

01:57:52.680 So we could talk about, maybe there are other ways to rescue the hostages, but do you

01:57:57.220 think they should try to destroy Hamas given what happened?

01:58:00.180 And if you do, how else should they go about it?

01:58:06.160 Um, but they kind of moved on to other things and it became this kind of, it became a sort

01:58:11.360 of unfocused in my mind, sort of like circular conversation as these debates tend to devolve

01:58:17.220 into very often.

01:58:19.060 If you were in control of what people on Twitter debated, what would they be debating right

01:58:23.100 now?

01:58:23.340 Um, everything we talked about for the first, you know, hour of this conversation is, is

01:58:32.180 what, like, let's talk about the war on the family, uh, on marriage, things that affect

01:58:40.700 our kids, you know, how do we, how do we raise healthy, happy kids?

01:58:46.960 Let's talk about that.

01:58:47.880 Any of these issues is like serious, deep cultural issues in our country.

01:58:53.920 Yes.

01:58:54.540 Is what we should be talking about in my mind.

01:58:58.040 You feel like it's very hard to go from affluence to less affluence.

01:59:02.820 It's very hard to move backward.

01:59:04.000 It's like hard for the human brain to deal with it, but it's possible.

01:59:06.660 Um, you feel like the United States could become significantly poor, not poor, but less rich

01:59:14.720 than it is now and still remain cohesive and happy people with meaningful lives who love

01:59:21.840 their neighbors and their spouses and their children.

01:59:24.200 But you, you, you're not going to do that without families.

01:59:29.100 You can't do that if people are living in studio apartments by themselves with their cats, like

01:59:33.140 that's just not going to happen.

01:59:34.100 Right.

01:59:35.000 Right.

01:59:35.140 So I just think objectively, that's the most important issue.

01:59:39.540 Why isn't it the topic of discussion or debate?

01:59:43.520 And why did the Republican party shunt aside social conservatives like circus freaks for

01:59:48.220 40 years?

01:59:49.000 Like what was that?

01:59:51.400 Uh, I think there are a lot of people invested in it not being the topic of conversation because

01:59:56.800 once you start talking about it, you start noticing things that they don't want you to

02:00:01.140 notice.

02:00:01.500 Like what?

02:00:02.060 Well, you start noticing who the, you know, this, the, the, the actual agenda to destroy

02:00:09.700 the family, to destroy marriage.

02:00:11.860 Uh, you start, you start noticing that, you know, we, we veered off, took kind of a left

02:00:21.960 turn veer off away from the way civilization was structured for thousands of years.

02:00:26.420 It hasn't really worked out.

02:00:28.640 Um, you start looking at any of these things and you, and you say, okay, well, we started

02:00:33.120 making all these changes, all these reforms, all this supposed progress.

02:00:36.680 Uh, and a lot of the, these wheels have been in motion for decades.

02:00:43.160 How has it worked out?

02:00:44.840 You know, what, what are the, what's what, what, what, what's by, by its fruits, you shall

02:00:47.940 know it.

02:00:48.340 So how has it worked out?

02:00:50.420 None of it has worked out.

02:00:53.000 Um, and I think you notice that.

02:00:56.120 And, and I think there are people who don't want you to.

02:00:58.080 And also some of these social issues, when you're talking about families and these kinds

02:01:02.280 of things, it hits closer to home.

02:01:05.000 That's for sure.

02:01:06.400 As it should.

02:01:07.420 More than tax rates.

02:01:08.600 You can hurt people's feelings.

02:01:09.620 Yeah.

02:01:09.880 It hits closer to home.

02:01:10.860 And so people feel everyone has, they have their own hangups.

02:01:13.940 They have their own sensitivities.

02:01:15.420 They have maybe mistakes they feel they've made in their own families or their own marriages

02:01:18.960 or with their own kids.

02:01:19.900 And they feel indicted, I think.

02:01:22.980 So I do think for, for some people, it's just feels it's safer to talk about issues that

02:01:28.960 are 10,000 miles away.

02:01:30.880 Um, do you ever get, I mean, there are plenty of conservative so-called influencers who, you

02:01:39.200 know, have personal lives that are what you're describing as bad.

02:01:42.120 Do they ever call you and say, Hey, Matt Walsh, you hurt my feelings?

02:01:46.740 Uh, certainly don't call me.

02:01:48.540 No, they don't call me to say it, but, uh, yeah.

02:01:52.980 Um, plenty of conservative influencers, quote unquote, will, you know, they'll, I'll say

02:01:59.560 something, they'll send out a tweet, they'll attack me publicly.

02:02:02.580 So I'd much prefer the call.

02:02:04.460 I'd much prefer the, it's not hard to get my number if you're in the, you know, business

02:02:08.740 or send me a message or something, but people don't generally do that.

02:02:13.140 That's not how people operate.

02:02:14.600 Have you noticed like a huge percentage of war crazed Republican senators are secretly

02:02:19.160 gay?

02:02:20.080 What is that?

02:02:20.660 Uh, are they?

02:02:24.760 Yeah.

02:02:25.980 Like, what is that?

02:02:28.180 What is the connection between?

02:02:29.560 Which are the ones that are secretly gay?

02:02:31.060 I don't know.

02:02:31.580 They're the ones who are secret about it.

02:02:33.360 Um, but there is some kind of, I guess all I'm saying, I'm not being catty.

02:02:38.460 I'm trying not to be catty or cruel or whatever.

02:02:40.400 But I do think there's a connection to the way that you live at home, connection between

02:02:46.480 the way you live at home and like the policies that you espouse and the impulses that you

02:02:50.540 have and like the vision that you have for the country you lead.

02:02:54.260 Like, I don't, I don't really know if you want people with like truly unsettled, dark personal

02:02:59.840 lives with power.

02:03:01.280 Do you?

02:03:02.800 No.

02:03:03.640 I mean, I, I, I, even outside of the people running the country, I, um, I automatically

02:03:11.640 have at least some semblance of respect for a man.

02:03:15.500 If you know, he's a good husband and a good father and you can't always tell that, but I

02:03:21.140 think often you can.

02:03:21.860 Um, and those are the kinds of people I want to surround myself with.

02:03:25.200 I don't want to be around people who aren't, um, people who have disordered personal lives.

02:03:30.500 I don't, I don't really want to be around them.

02:03:32.120 So if I don't want to be around them, I don't want them running the country.

02:03:34.800 Fair.

02:03:36.200 Last question, broad question, a hundred days into Trump.

02:03:39.660 How's it going?

02:03:41.340 Are you, are you happy with it?

02:03:42.880 I assume you vote, you voted for Donald Trump.

02:03:44.660 Yeah.

02:03:45.400 Yeah.

02:03:46.580 Um, I mean, has it been what you expected?

02:03:49.480 It, it, in some ways it's been better than I expected in some significant ways.

02:03:57.540 I think that my number one criticism of Trump in his first term was despite all the talk

02:04:03.760 about how he's a fascist dictator in reality, in his first term, it seemed to me, he was

02:04:08.360 very shy about wielding his power and his authority.

02:04:12.960 Um, he seemed to be a lot more worried about what people say about him, what the media says

02:04:18.460 about him, a lot more focused on the coverage and all that sort of thing.

02:04:22.720 And this time around, that doesn't seem to be the case, you know, and jumping in with

02:04:26.540 2000 executive orders or whatever it was, dozens, um, touching on some real hot button,

02:04:34.700 controversial issues.

02:04:35.960 What was your favorite?

02:04:36.520 Uh, well, I mean, as someone who's been really invested in this issue, all the, there's several

02:04:44.220 executive orders, uh, dealing with gender ideology.

02:04:47.800 I mean, even something as simple as illegally defining what a man and woman is, we shouldn't

02:04:53.080 have to do that, but we did.

02:04:54.960 And he did, um, prohibiting to the extent that it's possible from his position, the castration

02:05:03.000 and mutilation of children.

02:05:06.400 Now Congress has to follow up with these executive orders and codify them into law, which hasn't

02:05:13.180 happened with, I don't think any of them, which I am worried about because the thing about

02:05:18.720 an executive order is that when the next guy gets in there, if he's a Democrat, he can just,

02:05:22.100 he can undo that as quickly as it was done.

02:05:24.020 So, uh, that's, that's, uh, it's a bandaid.

02:05:27.800 It's not the permanent solution.

02:05:30.140 Um, why hasn't, why hasn't there been a law yet passed by Congress federally banning the

02:05:40.160 mutilation and castration of children?

02:05:42.060 Because they're for it.

02:05:44.060 For it or they, or they don't care that much.

02:05:48.180 Well, same thing, you know, same thing.

02:05:50.460 I think, I mean, if you, you're in a position to stop something, it's not that hard.

02:05:54.440 And you don't, I think it's fair to assume you approve of that thing.

02:05:59.300 You, yeah, you approve of it or you just don't, you don't, you don't, it's, you don't care

02:06:03.760 enough to try to stop it, which effectively it's, it's one in the same.

02:06:08.160 Um, so I, all that was good.

02:06:11.200 I liked all that.

02:06:13.320 And I think that he's using his power as authority.

02:06:16.260 He's not, he's not, he's not afraid to do that this time around, which I think is really

02:06:19.500 good.

02:06:19.780 Um, if there's one major criticism or, or, um, area for improvement, it's, you know, I

02:06:28.020 don't know what the deportation numbers are exactly.

02:06:29.840 I think they should probably be a lot higher, easier said than done, of course.

02:06:38.820 And also we have to, I acknowledge that there are fewer people coming in now, you know, which

02:06:46.040 is going to bring your deportation numbers down.

02:06:47.580 But I think that should be a lot higher.

02:06:50.440 And, and I think, I think that I understand politically focusing on illegal aliens who

02:06:56.740 have committed heinous crimes.

02:06:58.200 We should focus on them, but not just them.

02:07:02.160 I mean, we should be deporting anyone who's in this country is not supposed to be here.

02:07:08.200 You know, I don't care if you had a speeding ticket or a DUI or a manslaughter charge.

02:07:13.600 I mean, I care, that's a big difference, but in any of those cases, or if you had nothing,

02:07:19.180 you shouldn't be in the country.

02:07:20.660 Then what, and, but there are plenty of people, the majority, I would say of people in Washington

02:07:24.600 are arguing the opposite, which is like, you know, it doesn't matter that they're breaking

02:07:28.400 the law.

02:07:29.380 That's what they're arguing.

02:07:30.560 In fact, they should be protected as they break the law.

02:07:32.940 So why are you following laws as someone who was born here, paying all the taxes for

02:07:37.660 all this stuff?

02:07:38.760 Like, are you following the law?

02:07:40.180 As far as you know, I am, yeah.

02:07:42.660 As far as I know.

02:07:44.560 Text your wife and find out.

02:07:46.420 I hope not, because you'd be an idiot to do that, wouldn't you?

02:07:50.060 Yeah, well, well, except that, of course, I realized that this, this, you know, get out

02:07:54.480 of jail free card is, doesn't, is not, does not apply to everybody.

02:07:57.880 But do you feel like a fool?

02:07:59.340 Like, you're propping up a system with at least half of the money you make every year,

02:08:05.300 at least half, more than half, if you total it all up, even in Tennessee.

02:08:09.780 And you're paying for a system in which, like, you're the, it's only downside for

02:08:15.600 you.

02:08:16.820 And it's upside for people who are mocking the laws that you pay to enforce.

02:08:20.620 I don't, like, do you feel like foolish?

02:08:24.440 Yeah, you feel like a sucker.

02:08:25.640 But also, what's the, what's the alternative?

02:08:27.360 Because if I were to say, well, hey, if they don't have to follow the law, then

02:08:30.420 neither do I.

02:08:31.100 Well, really quickly, the system will come along and disabuse me of the notion that this

02:08:36.740 is a, that this is.

02:08:37.640 That you have as many rights as a Haitian.

02:08:39.500 Exactly.

02:08:39.740 Which are legally, yeah.

02:08:40.520 Exactly.

02:08:41.240 Because I don't.

02:08:42.740 So that won't apply to me, especially as a, you know, as a dreaded white man.

02:08:45.860 So, uh, so we're kind of left with no choice.

02:08:49.960 I'm only throwing that out there because you said you were becoming much more radical

02:08:53.780 and I'm trying to accelerate the process by pointing out some things that I want you

02:08:57.360 to think about.

02:08:57.900 Well, I appreciate that.

02:09:00.020 It'd be hard to accelerate it at this point.

02:09:01.940 I can tell.

02:09:04.100 I love it.

02:09:04.880 There's a forest fire of truth within you.

02:09:07.440 Matt Walsh, thank you for submitting to all this.

02:09:09.220 That was, I really enjoyed it.

02:09:10.720 Appreciate it.

02:09:11.220 Thank you.

02:09:11.700 Thank you.

02:09:12.040 We want to thank you for watching us on Spotify, a company that we use every day.

02:09:20.140 We know the people who run it, good people.

02:09:22.040 While you're here, do us a favor, hit follow and tap the bell so you never miss an episode.

02:09:28.140 We have real conversations, news, things that actually matter.

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02:09:36.820 Thanks for watching.

The Tucker Carlson Show - April 30, 2025

Matt Walsh： Dave Smith⧸Douglas Murray Debate, Transgenderism, and What It Really Means to Be a Man

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