The Matt Walsh Show - Ep. 1295 - Dem-Controlled Cities Legalize Shoplifting, Shocked When Businesses Flee

Episode Date: January 17, 2024

Today on the Matt Walsh Show, activists protest in Boston as Walgreens closes another location. Businesses are being run out of cities because of rampant crime. But of course the activists aren't protesting the crime, or the politicians who allow it. Also, the Biden Administration is using counter terrorism funds to disseminate self-described propaganda. RuPaul defends drag queen story hour at the Emmys, which were apparently held this week. And a bunch of Gen Zers say that the thought of making a phone call reduces them to tears. This is a sign of crippling social anxiety rampant in the younger generations, but do they also have a point?   Ep.1295   - - -    DailyWire+:   Unlock your Bentkey 14 day free trial here: https://bit.ly/3GSz8go   Become a DailyWire+ member to gain access to movies, shows, documentaries, kids entertainment and more: https://utm.io/ueMfc   Shop my merch collection here: https://bit.ly/3EbNwyj    - - -    Today’s Sponsors:   Birch Gold - Text "WALSH" to 989898, or go to https://birchgold.com/Walsh, for your no-cost, no-obligation, FREE information kit.   Tax Network USA - Seize control of your financial future! Call 1(800)245-6000 or visit http://www.TNUSA.com/Walsh   - - -   Socials:   Follow on Twitter: https://bit.ly/3Rv1VeF   Follow on Instagram: https://bit.ly/3KZC3oA   Follow on Facebook: https://bit.ly/3eBKjiA   Subscribe on YouTube: https://bit.ly/3RQp4rs Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Today on the Matt Wall Show activists protest in Boston as Walgreens closes another location. Businesses are being run out of cities because of crime and shoplifting. But of course, the activists aren't protesting the crime or the shoplifting or the politicians who allow it. Also, the Biden administration is using counterterrorism funds to disseminate self-described propaganda. Rupal defends Drag Queen Story Hour at the Emmys, which were apparently held this week. And a bunch of Gen Zers say that the thought of making a phone call reduces them to tears. This is a sign of crippling social anxiety rampant in the younger generation. But do they also have a point in this case?

We'll talk about all that and more today on the Matt Walls Show. As we head towards a presidential election in November, there's one thing you can be sure of. 2024 will be a tumultuous year. How will your hard-earned savings fare? Well, you already see the impacts of inflation at the pump and the grocery store. The dollar continues to lose buying power faster than wages can increase. How are you protecting your savings? Consider diversifying with gold from the birch gold group.

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with an A-plus rating with the Better Business Bureau, thousands of happy customers, and the exclusive gold company of the Daily Wire for seven years running. You can trust Birch Gold. Walsh to 98-98-98-98 to claim your free info kit. That's Walsh to 98-98-98. And secure your savings now. You know, it's easy to get the idea that the city of Boston has lost maybe its creative spark a little bit. This is the place that once brought America a lot of first, the first public park, the first subway system, the first tea party, the first massacre, and so on. But now whenever you hear Boston in the news, it's usually pretty uninspiring stuff by comparison. You're hearing about the mayor and how the mayor is banning white people from holiday parties

or the fact that the president of Harvard has never had an original thought in her life or the decision by Mass General to bring back mask mandates, you know, stuff like that. Despite all that, it would still be a mistake to say that Boston has given up on innovation. You know, they're still doing pretty groundbreaking stuff up there, at least if you ask them. So, for example, back in 2019, Suffolk County, Massachusetts, which includes the city of Boston, embarked on a first of its kind, real-life social experiment.

Under the leadership of their new district attorney, Rachel Rawlins, Suffolk County decided to stop prosecuting criminals who were accused of most non-violent misdemeanors, including disorderly conduct and shoplifting. And the cops would arrest the shoplifters, and the prosecutors would just let them off the hook. And this was a relatively new strategy

for a major American city at the time, because remember, this was before the, racial reckoning of 2020, as they called it. The theory was that these kinds of prosecutions did more harm than good, and it's better to refer these criminals to counseling sessions instead of throwing them in prison. Disincentives, the idea that a negative response to a certain behavior will result in less of that behavior is a basic rule of psychology and one of the most tried and true facts of life. But the city of Boston decided to reject everything we knew about human psychology and human behavior in favor of this new strategy.

Well, how did that work out? A few years after that policy went into effect, leading researchers at major universities, including Rutgers, Texas A&M, NYU, published a lengthy paper declaring that, in fact, Boston's strategy had been a major success. They found that, quote, the recent policy change in Suffolk County imposing a presumption of non-prosecution for nonviolent misdemeanor offenses decreased the likelihood of subsequent critical. criminal justice involvement. In other words, if you let criminals get away with shoplifting, they're less likely to get in trouble with the law in the future. And in left-wing circles, this is known as restorative justice. And officials in Boston said it was proof that their idea

had worked. Success. What no one seemed to grasp at these universities is that this is the exact result you would expect when you legalize shoplifting, and it's not a good result. Like, it's not surprising that shoplifters don't get in trouble with the law anymore if you stop prosecuting them for petty crimes. If you don't punish people for crimes, fewer people will be punished for crimes. It's like if you stopped all cancer screenings, then claim that cancer had been cured because no one's getting diagnosed with it anymore. The point is that Boston didn't stop people from shoplifting and committing petty crimes. In fact, if anything, when you do this, it means people will be shoplifting a lot more, because why wouldn't they? If they can get away with it,

then more people will do it. And indeed, they're going to shoplift so much that it becomes impossible for businesses to stay open, which means that very quickly, so-called disadvantaged communities will lose access to convenience stores and pharmacies. They'll become even more disadvantaged, which is supposedly the opposite of restorative justice. You're not restoring anything whatsoever. And we don't have to speculate about this. All we have to do is look at what's happening right now in Boston. Walgreens has just announced that it's closing its fourth location in Boston in just the past year. Four locations closed in just a year. And every single time, it's been a low-income community, mostly black or Hispanic, that has been affected. And this time, they're closing a store

in the mostly black neighborhood of Roxbury. Now, you might think that this development would prompt some reflection from the media in Boston or from the politicians or from activists in the local community. You might think that they'd ask whether allowing people to rob stores is in fact, you know, maybe a bad idea. But that's not what's happening. Instead, we're getting reports like this one from CBS Boston. Listen. The store shelves are empty and the signs are up. Allerting customers at this Roxbury Walgreens will be closed for good at the end of the month. supposed to go get their medicine. It's sparking concern and outrage from residents who rely on the Warren Street drug store in this predominantly black neighborhood. What happens to our seniors

and our single parents that have no way to get to a Walgreens or another pharmacy anywhere near their home. And so we think it's insensitive. It's unjust. Reverend Minyard Cole Pepper points to the senior housing developments just steps from the Walgreens and questions how the elderly will get their medications, especially after the pharmacy chain, closed their stores in Hyde Park, Newbian Square, and Matapan about a year ago. Walgreens says they're downsizing, but the Reverend calls it nothing short of corporate greed. Why do you think they target black and drought? I think because they get no pushback, but they're now getting pushed back. Protesting alongside dozens of other frustrated customers fighting to keep this Walgreens open. Don't we need to have something in the community to help

the black, the elderly, the sick, you know what I'm saying? They can't go far. The problem boils down to accessibility, says former Boston NWACP president turned health care advocate Michael Curry. The communities where they're closing these pharmacies are communities where people are disparately impacted by disease, you know, two or three times higher rates in cancer, diabetes, heart disease, where life expectancy can be 15, 20 years less. While this isn't the only Walgreens or pharmacy chains set to close location in the coming weeks, Curry says it begs this question. What is your obligation?

What is your expectation as a corporate citizen to do us right for those communities beyond what's right just for your bottom line? Well, you know, that question is pretty easy to answer. Walgreens, just like every other private business, has no obligation to lose money. They don't have to stay open to provide any kind of service to the local community. They're not soup kitchens. These are not charitable organizations. Their job is to make money. That's not greed.

It's called economics. It's called reality. A business like Walgreens can't stay open if it's losing money. It just can't. That's why it's the government's job to make sure that there's law and order so that thugs don't just walk into Walgreens and take everything and end up shutting these stores down. But there's no sense anywhere in that entire segment that Boston's policy of encouraging. charging shoplifting might be to blame. You can go online and watch the whole clip if you want and see for yourself. It's just not there. They don't even, they don't mention it. They essentially

legalized shoplifting, convenience stores were summarily run out of town, and the media doesn't even mention the connection between these two events. There's also no sense that Boston's recent decision to defund its police department could be playing a role. Instead, we're left with the implication that Walgreens just doesn't like black people. The argument appears to be that Walgreens should keep its business open as a charity where it keeps bleeding money in order to provide various services to the local community. But if you do some digging, it's not hard to conclude why Walgreens is shutting down this Roxbury location. Here, for example, his footage taken by a citizen journalist in Boston a couple of years ago, he films as police finally arrest a woman,

They caught shoplifting three separate times in one day. Now, watch this to get a sense of what it's like at these Walgreens locations in that area and what they're dealing with. Here it is. Shoplifting. I still got the stuff in the book. I still got the stuff in the book. I'm asking you Hey sir, sir, have you talked to?

This is just ridiculous. Shoplifting is a big thing over here too, just so you guys know. It's a big problem, I know. Big problem. I see. Especially when it's the same person. I know, trust me, I see it. And then they want three times today.

In one day? The same person, three times? Wow. It's not even the other people. Right. Just the same person. Try to get her to be nice and let her out. Yeah, you try to be nice.

Yeah. Three times in one day they're saying that she, uh, she did this. So that's, that's the problem with, a lot of these businesses are losing a lot of revenue because of the shoplifting thing. And a lot of people don't realize that. You go to some of these shelves, especially in the Rocksbury area, some parts of the door chest as well. A lot of shelves are becoming empty because of the shop. I heard the AutoZone is having that same problem with people shoplifting in the stores. So it's not like they're making it up. It's definitely a problem.

This is right over at the Walgreens, right on Washington Street. So this is how common shoplifting became in Roxbury and the surrounding areas after Boston's big push to legalize shoplifting. The cops, you know, don't arrest the shoplifters anymore for the most part. They released this woman several times before arresting her out of exasperation. And when they finally feel compelled to make an arrest, everyone knows it doesn't matter. The shoplifters know that they're not going to be prosecuted, so they keep on coming back. That woman will be, you know, ripping off stores again, probably within a few hours. And that's why Walgreens is now shutting down all these stores in Boston.

This is a massive problem, as the cops say in that video. According to one study, shoplifting in Boston is up roughly 40% since June of 2019 when the city's experiment began. And that's in the city overall. In neighborhoods like Roxbury, the figures are presumably a lot higher. And it's not just shoplifting that's out of control. Recently, the Boston Globe ran a story that was intended to portray Boston, rather portray Walgreens in a bad light, and make them seem like an evil, greedy, mega-corp foreclosing the Roxbury location. But they included this information in their report, quote,

The generational impact is felt by Roxbury residents like Lucille Culpeper Jones. She doesn't see herself visiting the Columbus Avenue drugstore a mile away because she doesn't feel safe walking there alone. So this is a neighborhood that's so dangerous that elderly women, women don't want to go outside. And yet we're expected to believe that businesses should stay open in these kinds of neighborhoods where their stores will get robbed, their employees will get attacked, people aren't safe outside of the store, or in it, it would seem. And that's just an assumption that CBS and NACP demand that you make. So naturally they're telling everybody to protest Walgreens instead of the politicians that CBS and NACP support who have caused this problem. Of course, protesting Walgreens' decision to pull out of this neighborhood, it's a bit like protesting the laws of gravity. You can whine all you want, but basic economic principles still exist.

businesses exist to make a profit, and when they can't make a profit, they have to close down, even if they don't want to. And most businesses don't want to close locations. It's not something that they celebrate doing, but if they do it, it's probably because they had no choice. And yet the other day, the residents of Roxbury decided to gather together to protest anyway, and no, they were not protesting shoplifting, they were not protesting the politicians who legalized it. They were not protesting their own community members who are very. victimizing these businesses and running them out of town. No, instead they were, of course, protesting Walgreens itself. Watch. So this Walgreens is critical, not just to this community, but the surrounding communities and the seniors. Walgreens is downsizing nationwide, telling us,

quote, when faced with the difficult decision to close a location, several factors are taken into account, including our existing footprint of stores, dynamics of the local market, and changes in the buying habits of our patients and customers, among other reasons. But after sitting in the parking lot observing for hours, I can tell you this location has a consistent stream of customers and sits next to a dialysis center. That's 300 people from Harvard Street Health Center that comes to this Walgreens in our community. That's elderly. That's parents. This group says they'll continue to rally until Walgreens changes their mind. In Roxbury, I'm Tiffany Chan, WBZ News. We should point out, CVS also announced that it's closing pharmacies inside Target stores.

CBS says the closures will begin in February, so next month, and will be completed in April. We do not have a list of those pharmacies yet, but we're told there will be dozens nationwide. So CBS does some investigative reporting in that segment, by which I mean their reporter sat in the parking lot for a little while and noticed a steady stream of customers at the Walgreens. And we're apparently supposed to conclude from this that the store is doing fine and has no reason to close. I mean, they saw people going in, and so that must mean everything. I mean, how could a business be doing poorly if there are people going inside of it? But the problem with shoplifting is that it's not that nobody goes in the store. It's that too many people go in the store and then don't pay.

That's the issue. You know, it's generally difficult to shoplift without physically entering the store. I'm sure criminals are working on a solution to that problem. I guess you could do like online scams and that sort of thing. But generally speaking, like if you want to shoplift an item that's on the rack at a certain store, you have to go in and do it or you have to send someone else. It does require a physical presence in the store. But the reporter cannot explore that avenue.

So instead they just decide that it must be racist. Never mind, of course, that the racism theory here, Makes no sense whatsoever. I mean, leave aside everything we know about the shoplifting problem. Like, what is the claim exactly that Walgreens is actually making money at that location and everything is fine? But they're closing down anyway and choosing to lose money just to spite black people? Like, is that actually what we're suggesting? Did the Walgreens CEO at some corporate meeting say, shut down that location, Rocksbury, shut it down?

And somebody on the executive team said, but, sir, they're turning. huge profits. Their profits are up 25% in the last year. I don't care. I don't want black people in my store. Shut it down. Is that the theory? Do you think that's what's happening? The theory is that Walgreens would rather close down a store than provide services to black people? If that's the case, you'll have to explain, I don't know, literally every other Walgreens location in the country that's still open, considering they all provide services to large numbers of black people. which is why you might argue that of the two possible explanations, racism or shoplifting, the shoplifting one makes a lot more sense.

But in fact, in their own statement, Walgreens itself couldn't really blame shoplifting either. They had to give some coded language about marketing, market dynamics and so forth. And that's a contrast to what we saw last year when Target shut down nine stores, including its store on Folsom Street in San Francisco and one location in Harlem. And in that instance, Target explicitly blamed, quote, theft and organized retail crime, which are threatening the safety of our team and guests and contributing to unsustainable business performance.

Now, after Target made that decision, various left-wing publications, including CNBC, attacked Target. They rushed to point out that Target was closing stores with relatively low reports of shoplifting compared to stores that Target was leaving open. And from this data point, we were supposed to conclude that Target was racist.

Now, I'm not one to defend Target, and I don't really care if the whole company is shut down. And it should be, but for entirely different reasons, you know, for the reasons of, like, sexualizing kids and all the degenerate, disgusting stuff that they sell. But, you know, the racism charge, of course, is entirely absurd. Like, one of the problems with this analysis is that stores where shoplifting is common don't report it. So that led to a comical moment, for example, 2021, when a single Target store decided to start reporting shoplifting incidents, and that doubled the entire city's shoplifting rate

in the entire month. One day of reporting, of reporting, or rather one store reporting shoplifting incidents doubled the rate for the entire city, which shows you that prior to this, they just weren't reporting it. So once again, the startling math works out the same. If you don't report something, then you will end up with fewer reports about the stuff you are not reporting. Imagine that. Now, none of this is compatible with social justice narratives, though, so you never hear about it. Now stores like Walgreens have learned to just avoid mentioning organized theft entirely, but that has not appeased activists.

They still want you to conclude that there is a vast conspiracy afoot among various pharmacies to pull out of black communities just to spite them. You're supposed to believe that this is why in just the past two years, you know, between Walgreens and Rite Aid and CBS, more than 1,500 stores have closed. They're all choosing to close profitable stores and lose money on purpose just out of their sheer hatred of their black customers. This is the actual thing that is being claimed.

It's completely insane, but it's not just activists in Boston who are pushing this narrative. We're seeing this denial of reality everywhere, including San Francisco. And once again, the NAACP is involved. Watch. Ridicose store.

This is like the store for, all the elderly in the neighborhood that can walk over here. There's no stairs. Easy in, easy in, easy out. It's not helping the black community. It's not helping the homeless. It's not helping us at all. Tonight, it's the very real human cost of a neighborhood closure.

The safe way in San Francisco's Fillmore district is set to shut down. And the community says it's more than just a bag of groceries. Neighbors in the Fillmore and Western Edition neighborhoods are still angry tonight, saying if this plan goes through, it will have long-term negative implications on the city's black community. The announced closure for that store in the heart of the city on Webster Street came late last week. Tonight, ABC 7 News reporter J.R. Stone is hearing the calls from neighbors and community leaders and brings us this story. In less than two months, this Safeway grocery store will close, according to executives.

You're gutting it. You're just gutting the neighborhood. Community members are outraged, saying seniors and handicapped individuals have been forgotten about. Those with Safeway say they have entered into an agreement to sell three-plus acres site to a real estate company for a mixed-use development project to include housing and commercial retail space. They need to really do things about taking things from the inner city that we need. And then you're developing housing. Housing for who? The homeless? you need to do better in that. It is a destruction of a community.

And those thoughts from Dr. Amos Brown of the NAACP are echoed by those that live in the Western Edition. So they're going to get rid of the business and replace it with housing, probably because housing is a little tougher to steal, I guess. But once again, in that news report, there's not even a suggestion that San Francisco's policies might be to blame.

And that's odd, given that San Francisco's policies mirror Boston's. According to NBC, San Francisco, quote, under current state law, shoplifting merchandise valued under $950, is considered a misdemeanor and often not investigated. Could that be the issue, perhaps? Let's see.

Chicago is another city that stopped prosecuting shoplifters unless they steal more than $1,000 worth of goods. And even then, cops aren't allowed to chase them. How are things going there? Well, last year, the mayor at the time, Lori Lightfoot, had to respond to Walmart's decision to pull out of the south side of Chicago. And you'll never guess what she said.

Watch. Walmart is moving out, closing half of its stores in Chicago, saying they haven't been profitable in 17 years and lose millions of dollars a year. Mayor Lightfoot calls a decision disappointing. In a statement released today, she wrote in part unceremoniously abandoning these neighborhoods will create barriers to basic needs for thousands of residents.

While near-term arrangements will be made for workers, I fear that many will find that their long-term opportunities have been significantly diminished. And Southside elected officials are also responding, issuing a joint statement, and it reads in part, closing four stores in five days is unethical, especially since Walmart claims these stores have not been profitable since 2006. If Walmart cared about the community they belonged to for nearly two decades, they would have implemented strategies to combat their rising prices, the likely root cause of their decline in Earth. earnings. The four stores being closed are the Chatham Super Center Walmart and the neighborhood markets in Kenwood, Lakeview, and Little Village. Each store is slated to be closed by this Sunday.

It's really amazing just how unified the messaging has been on this issue going back years. This is nothing new. And still, there is no self-reflection at all. There's no accountability for the people who have actually made these communities into dead zones for businesses. These Communities are actively destroying themselves, actively making their own neighborhoods untenable for businesses, unsafe for people to even walk down the street at night to go to a business, even if it is open, and they will look anywhere but in the mirror for people to blame for it. So the next time you hear complaints about food deserts or pharmacy deserts, keep in mind that this is what's causing the problem.

it's a systemic issue plaguing every city that's implemented the bold experiment that Boston launched back in 2019. And they will also tell you it's a systemic issue, but what they're missing is that this is the systemic issue. So now one of two outcomes is possible. Either this experiment can finally end, and we can enforce the law, and people living in these black communities can get their prescriptions and their groceries,

Or these residents can continue to vote for politicians who will only make the problem progressively worse, who are promising to make it worse. And these communities can continue victimizing themselves by constantly pillaging and stealing from their own businesses, until elderly women are quite literally dying in the streets because they can't get their medication. Those are the choices. It's clear what the NAACP and corporate press want, And unless these communities start taking some responsibility, that's exactly what they'll get. Now, let's get to our five headlines.

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So this is real journalism. This is from Luke Roziak, excellent journalist for the DailyWire. And the report says, and I'm not going to read the entire thing, but you can go in DailyWire.com and read it. The Department of Homeland Security paid an activist group, $700,000. to create self-described propaganda

that attacked conservatives according to a new investigation. Again, this is self-described propaganda. This is not like we are saying, oh, that's just propaganda. They're saying this is propaganda. DHS used a grant program intended to combat terrorists called the Targeted Violence and Terrorism Prevention Program

to pay activists to write blog posts that criticized Donald Trump and other conservatives under the guise of media literacy, according to the Media Research Center, which found this through public records requests. In its funding application, the University of Rhode Island's Media Education Lab, declared that propaganda and misinformation

concerning topics, including immigration and racial justice, have become disruptive. It asked DHS for funding to run community-created counter-propaganda. Counter-propaganda is what they're calling. The grant application said, propaganda can also be used for socially beneficial purposes, Indeed, because the public has long been recognized as being suggestible, the United States has long made use of beneficial propaganda during World War I, World War II, and the Cold War.

There's bad propaganda, but there's also benefit. This is the good kind of propaganda, you see. The findings position the University of Rhode Island's Media Education Lab and a closely linked activist group Media Literacy Now at the center of a sprawling government-funded campaign to run propaganda on Americans to create a mandate. for increased censorship. The Daily Wire reported last week that the same groups were also paid by the State Department, which had them arranged for German anti-disinformation activists

to train U.S. school teachers on the techniques used in that country, which has some of the most anti-free speech policies in the West. MRC said the grant shows that Congress must abolish all domestic censorship programs. The DHS grant led to an entity

known as Courageous R.I., helmed by University of Rhode Island Professor and Leftist activist Renee Hobbs, which said that its program would use the funds to manipulate the public and policymakers into demanding policies to crack down on misinformation. Okay, so this is all under the guise of combating so-called disinformation. We have the Biden administration weaponizing the government, working with radical left-wing activists to suppress conservative speech and spread left-wing propaganda,

which, again, in this case, they actively or they openly refer to as propaganda. And this is all being done by the Department of Homeland Security, which, by the way, and I think this is probably not said enough, but we can thank George Bush for a lot of this. He's the one who created the Department of Homeland Security. It's one of the many massive expansions of the federal government under Bush, which happened supposedly in response to 9-11, even though this department would not have done a single thing to prevent 9-11,

even if it had existed prior to it. And the whole objection to this agency from the beginning, is that it's not remotely needed. It doesn't do anything that wasn't already being done, supposedly, or supposed to have been done, by a dozen other federal agencies. And the fact that none of them are doing those things well

or at all or effectively isn't going to be health by just adding more bureaucracy on top of it. But that's what George Bush did, and he created this utterly useless agency, which is supposedly in charge of securing the homeland, I guess. Again, something that was already supposed to be done by countless other agencies and departments, not to mention the military.

And since this agency exists and has no functional purpose whatsoever and nothing valid to do, instead it simply becomes a political tool for the president. Now, granted, these days, every aspect of the federal government is used that way. Every aspect is used as a political tool for the president. But the point is that DHS really has no other purpose. I mean, that's basically why it's there. And how is Biden using it? Well, he's using it to secure the homeland against misinformation. What is misinformation in his world? Well, it's information, whether false or true, that Biden's handlers don't want people to be exposed to. And that's how they've decided to use it. As I've tried to explain many times, this whole idea that the federal government should be controlling the spread of information is completely wrong.

You know, this is, it obviously was never intended. This is obviously not in the Constitution. It was never intended by the founders of this country. Now, back then, we didn't live in a country where you had this. where you had people being exposed every single day, it's like thousands of bits of information, again, whether false or true. We didn't live in the information age, and now we do.

So it was a decision to be made about what is the government's role in the information that's being passed around. And the decision that was made is that, well, they're going to decide. They'll decide what information we can see and what we can't, which is totally wrong. And it's not just that once the government takes up that role, it will become politicized, it's that that role is fundamentally politicized

from the very beginning. I mean, there's no chance of it being done any other way than that. And that's what we are now. Post-Millennial has this article. During Monday's episode of ABC's The View, co-hosts conversation about Martin Luther King Jr. Day led to sparring over how learning about slavery and other human rights abuses in American history should make white students feel, while Anna Navarro argue that nobody should feel bad while being taught about the past,

simply because of the color of their skin. Sarah Haynes was adamant in her belief that white children must feel responsibility for the actions of their forefathers. Here's the clip. I think there's more to it than that. Look, I think what it is is that, Black history and other things. Banning books has been weaponized for political purposes to drive people to the polls based on outrage because my poor little white kid is feeling bad because he's learning about slavery.

That's ridiculous. Learning about history should not make anybody feel bad. We learn about history. Oh, it should make you feel bad. But it's important that it makes you feel bad. I don't think it should make you feel bad. I mean, I don't think a white child that's had nothing to do with slavery should feel bad about slavery.

I think we need to learn history so that we don't repeat the same mistakes about history. The thing that people are focusing on in that clip is the conversation about how white kids should feel. But even before you get there, you know, just even the phrase

poor little white kid, oh, your poor little white kid. This is once again, this total contempt and scorn being heaped on white people without, you know, without, without hiding it, without covering it, without feeling the need to hide, to hide it at all. And all you have to do is imagine what it would sound like for someone

to say, oh, your poor little black kid, your poor little black kid, boo-hoo. Like, you just, you can't imagine anyone on television using that phrase, like, in any context. You just can't imagine it. It would never happen. And yet there is no compunction. There's no, don't hesitate at all to use this kind of language and talking about white people. And, you know, it can, it's not sustainable, I guess, is the point.

And people like me have been warning this for a long time, and you can reject the warnings. But it is just not sustainable. you cannot take one, and I think history has taught us this. History has taught us this again and again and again. It's maybe one of the primary lessons that history teaches us. You cannot take a group of people and make them the villains, make them the bad guys, and just heap nothing but scorn and contempt on them all the time,

and expect it to just continue that way without any blowback, without any pushback, and everything's going to be fine. You can't expect that. And it's really as simple as that. Now, obviously, the stuff about slavery is completely ridiculous. Now, if you mean that kids should feel bad in the same way that you feel sad

when you read about any bad thing that happened in history, Like, if you read about the Titanic sinking, does that make you feel bad? I mean, it doesn't make you feel good, right? It's a sad thing, so you have feelings of sadness when you hear about a tragedy that occurred in history. But feel bad usually means feeling responsible, feeling guilty. It's like when you've done something, you say, I feel bad about that. Which is why nobody would ever say, I feel bad about the Titanic's sinking. I feel really bad about that.

geez, sorry about that. I feel bad. Because it makes it sound like you're holding yourself responsible for the sinking of the Titanic, which, of course, makes no sense. It equally makes no sense to say that about slavery. I feel bad about it. What with me?

I feel bad. I have nothing to do with it. So, no, in that sense, of course, white kids shouldn't feel bad about slavery in the sense of feeling guilty and responsible, which is the sense that it was meant there. But, of course, the whole premise of the conversation is totally false.

and we keep it you know it's what's one false premise after another from the left this is this is maybe the most among the most absurd of all of them is this that there are people out there who are objecting to the to to to slavery being mentioned in historical context at all which is not happening nobody objects to white kids or kids of any race learning about slavery in history class i've not heard one single person ever say that, which is really saying something, because you can take any idea, any like, nutty, crazy idea, these days especially, you could probably find at least somebody who believes it. But in this case, I have not heard this anywhere. I have not heard one single person ever say that we shouldn't be teaching about slavery in school. I've never heard that. The point about slavery, aside from the one that I've made many times, which is that a real study of slavery should be far more expansive to include, you know,

The fact that slavery was a global institution for millennia. So if anything, my point about it is that, no, we shouldn't be saying less about slavery. We should be saying more about it, actually. I mean, it is one of the significant facts of the history of human civilization, is that this institution existed for thousands of years. And it's very interesting to think about why that was the case. How did this come about in the first place? How is it that for thousands of years

humanity took this for granted? And for thousands of years really almost nobody even thought to object. Honestly, for thousands of years, it really didn't even occur to anyone that there might be a problem here. And that includes many of the great geniuses of history. It didn't appear to have a fundamental issue

with the institution of slavery all across the world. That is an interesting fact. You know, it's also a tragedy. It's terrible. But it's interesting. It's like that's something you can try to figure out. How is it? How could you have this kind of global blind spots that so many people share it for thousands of years?

So yeah, that should be a subject of historical investigation. But it's not because when we talk about slavery, we only talk about it in the most limited way possible. because we are not allowed to admit that every other race of people are also guilty for this institution that existed for thousands of years. But aside from all that, at a more fundamental level, the point about slavery is that it is a historical subject. It is a matter of history, and it should be studied and viewed that way. And so as far as I'm concerned, as long as we're doing that, it's a historical subject. It's not something, at least in this country that exists today or that people today are responsible for, at least in this country. have to keep qualifying that way, because it does exist in other parts of the world,

especially of non-white parts of the world. And it was a much more expansive phenomena than what we're told. So, like, those are my two points about slavery. And that's the point that most people make, if they have any objection at all, about the way that it's, to the way that it's taught. Okay, this is not exactly a major headline, but I do need to address it. I don't know if I need to, but I will. Yesterday, the Babylon B posted an article with this headline.

Trump promises Vivek an administration position running the White House 7-Eleven. And you can see the screenshot there with the picture, with the accompanying photo. And the photo is what really sells it, I think. That's what takes it over the top. And taken together, you know, you have to admit, like, it's kind of funny. I mean, it has to at least get a smirk out of you. right? And yet, if you look at the comments under this post, you'll find that lots of people are offended by it. And to be clear, the people offended are, for the most part, people on the right,

conservatives. Okay, a bunch of conservatives are, in fact, I think the Babylon Bee is trending right now. Because a bunch of conservatives are complaining that this joke is racist and in bad taste. And not ironically. I mean, there are some complaining ironically. I did leave a comment saying I was reporting the Babylonia of the FBI for hate crimes. But many of these comments are not ironic and not meant to be a joke. So let me just read a few of the... Thousands of them, but let me just read a few. I'm 100% Trump and think Babylonese a national treasure,

but this one is just stupid. You can and should do better. A public retraction seems appropriate here, but I'll still look forward to your stuff. Someone else says, I like the bee, but this was kind of in poor taste. low blow from the Babylon B. Someone else says, So is the joke that Trump values him so poorly

that he only sees him as a clerk at 7-Eleven? Or that you think he's a clerk at 7-Eleven because of a tired stereotype about Indian people. And there's a bunch of that say, not funny. This is not funny. And someone, I love this. These types of jokes aren't helpful. Aren't helpful.

You know, because, you know, The most important thing about comedy is that it's helpful. We've all been to like a stand-up show and then you leave and somebody asks you how it was and you go, oh, it was great. It was super helpful. So helpful. I just love the comedy show because it was so helpful. Anyway, lots of comments like that.

Echo, it's like this is the left's language, you know, do better. Do better. This is how you define. I mean, this is like, number one way you can spot a left as many times is if they respond to a joke with that phrase specifically, do better. Not funny. Do better next time. And again, these are comments for the most part, not from the left. I mean, these are people on the right, actually offended by this very tame joke. So let me just clarify three things. One, this is an old school, you know, ethnic stereotype joke. It's like it's an oldie.

It is. But old school ethnic stereotype jokes are almost always at least mildly amusing. I don't think I've ever heard one that wasn't at least kind of amusing. It's a classic.

Like these are classics for a reason. And, you know, these, in fact, these dated ethnic stereotype jokes are only becoming funnier. Like they're increasing in funniness. So, you know, these old ethnic stereotype jokes have always been like kind of funny. And then, you know, you could follow the trajectory. And then they kind of, I'd say they were the least funny about 20 years ago.

Because that was about 20 years ago was like everybody was saying them. And so they're not as funny anymore. They're still pretty funny. But they're not as funny because everyone. But now people are actually offended by them again. And so that just makes them more funny. Like the fact that nobody else would make that joke anymore, even the Simpsons has apologized, right?

That whole, what was that documentary? The problem with Apu. And someone put out of a documentary, talk about how the whole documentary about how Apu, the Indian character, is problematic. And so they, like, apologized. And I think they took him

out of the show, or they, he doesn't run in the 7-Eleven anymore. I don't know. I don't watch, I stopped watching The Simpsons 25 years ago. And so in that environment, it only becomes more funny. So that's the first thing.

And second is that most of the people offended by this joke are Vivek fans. And you should know that Vivek Ramoswamy himself is not offended. He put out a tweet laughing about it, as you would expect. Like, you would not expect him. I mean, if he had been offended, if he had tweeted himself saying, do better guys, this is not. This is too far. My opinion of him would have entirely changed. I would go, that alone, this is everything good I've said about him in that moment, I would say, never mind.

But he didn't say that. As expected, he thought it was funny. So you don't need to be his white knight galloping in on your gallant steed to defend him from the Babylon B headline. And also in general, being a supporter of a politician, this to me is the most important thing. Being a supporter of a politician should not mean that you are offended by Joe. about that politician. All politicians should be mocked as a general principle. And that is as American as it gets, even the ones you like. And I like that Graswamy. I guess he's not technically a politician at the moment because he just dropped out. But even so, this is this is what makes us

America, what sets us apart or used to is that we are cynical towards our politicians and we love making fun of them. If we like them, we make fun of them too. And that's, and that is one of the things that's supposed to be uniquely American, right, in our approach. And so to me, it's almost like complaining when a politician is made fun of. It's anti-American, in my mind. Now, if the joke is not really even a joke, like a lot of the jokes, quote-unquote, that you hear about Trump on late night shows and stuff, you can complain about those jokes, because not because you're offended on Trump's about it, but because they're actually not funny because they're not even really jokes. There's no attempt to make a joke here. They're like Jimmy Kimmel for the 50th time

doing a monologue where it's supposed to be a joke, but it's just a one long wine. Yeah, that's just not funny. That's actually not funny because there's no joke being told anywhere in it. So I couldn't laugh even if you wanted to. That's one thing. But this is, Clearly, it's coming from the Babylon B, you know, that's a friendly source. Like, clearly it's a joke. That's what it's supposed to be. And that's how it should be taken. And the third thing is just, and this is, I admit, people reacting to a Babylon B headline,

it's a pretty minor issue, all things considered. But it is a small microcosm of something that worries me a lot, which is that some corners of the right are truly becoming as woke as the left. This is one little Another bit of evidence If you were worried about that It's just one little One small bit of evidence

That would seem to confirm That very disturbing suspicion That this is happening On the right There is this mentality And to me it seems to be getting worse over time You got some on the right who are They're kind of backing a lot

away from some of these cultural issues. They don't want to talk about them anymore. They're softening their stances. They're getting offended or pretending to be offended by really tame ethnic jokes and that sort of thing. So that's something that we should watch out for. It's very concerning. Okay, two other quick things. RuPaul, RuPaul's.

Drag Race won. So the Emmys happened, first of all, a couple days ago. I legitimately had no idea that they even happened, but they did. And RuPaul's Drag Race won an award for a best horrible piece of a program or whatever the category was. And here's what RuPaul had to say when accepting the award. Listen. If a drag queen wants to read you a story at a library, listen to her because knowledge, Knowledge is power. And if someone tries to restrict your access to power, they are trying to scare you. So listen to a drag queen. We love you.

Thank you. Yeah, knowledge is power. That's true. Knowledge is power. And listening to stories, listening to adults read stories as a young child is great. I read to my kids all the time. I am very much in favor of it. But one of my favorite things to do is to read books to my kids.

But when it comes to the drag queen story hours, why does the adult need to be dressed like a woman to do it? And what you need to do is explain that extra step. And someone like Rupal, he's never going to do that, does he never does that? He never explains the extra step. When talking about the value of drag queen story hour, all they really want to talk about is the value of story hour. So the story hour part of it, they say, well, of course you should read it. And if you object to it, they say, what? You have a problem with kids being hearing stories?

No, it's not the story hour part. It's the drag queen part. That's the part we're having a conversation about, or we need to anyway. But once again, I think on the right, we have approached this issue all right. because only because we are on the defensive and we're constantly explaining why we are opposed to cross-dressing fetishists reading books to kids. We feel the need to constantly explain that as if it needs to be explained, as if anyone's actually confused, right? But what we should be doing is saying to them, why do you need to cross-dress to read books to kids?

You, so you first. I'm happy to tell you why I don't want a cross-dressing fetishes reading books to my kids. Happy to explain that to you, if you really need to explain. But given that you started this, given that you invented this whole thing, whether it's drag queen story hour or drag queens being, the kids being exposed to drag queens in many other contexts, this is something that you decided to do. Society was humming along fine. Well, we had plenty of other problems unrelated to this. But things were moving along. And there were no drag queens reading stories to kids and no drag queens really being around kids.

And that was the case forever, basically. And that was not causing any problems. Society had plenty of problems. But none of them could be traced to a lack of drag queens reading to kids. Okay. And so you came along and said, no, this is something we should start. doing. And since you have proposed this and enacted it and are doing it, the burden of proof is on you. It's not on us. You have to explain why this needs to be done. Why is it that we had librarians

or reading stories to kids for ever since libraries existed, right? And it was fine. And then you came along and said, no, no, I think the person who's reading the story should be a man dressed like a woman. Why? Why that part? Why are you adding that to this? Can you explain that? And if you're a drag queen who does drag with story hour, why do you need, okay, you like to read stories of kids, that part is fine on the surface anyway. Why do you need to put on the drag first? Why is that something that you feel compelled to do? Explain your compulsion. to putting on women's clothes to read books to kids. Like, what joy do you find in that? Why do you enjoy that so much? Why is it so important to you? And that any conversation about this or anything related to it

should begin and end with that question. Like, you explain it. Why do you need to do this? Why do you need to cross-dress in front of kids? And they can't, because now it's not that they can't answer that question, is that they will not answer it. all of the answers are things that they do not want to say out loud,

which is why the question should be posed. Yeah, these people have reasons why they really feel strongly, why they have this strong desire to play out their fetish in front of kids. They've got their reasons, but they don't want to explain those reasons, and they should be forced to. And any conversation, any debate about this should just be centered around forcing them. Why do you need to do this? What do you get out of this? Why do you enjoy cross-dressing in front of kids so much? Well, guys, this is a no-brainer. If you want to protect your kids from the leftist indoctrination that's rampant in the mainstream media, this is how you do it.

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Well, it's going to seem like this is shaping up to be another segment where I rip on Gen Z, but it's not. Well, at first it will be, but then, but not for the whole time. And that's the best I can do. So we begin with this article from New York Post, headline Gen Z speaks out on the simple act that brings them to tears. I would freak out, in quotes. And the fun, clickbait game we're supposed to play is to guess which simple everyday activity brings these young adults to tears. And it's sort of a trick question, though, because literally any simple everyday activity has that potential. but in this case the activity is making a phone call.

So reading, the simple act of making a phone call has emerged as one of Gen Z's greatest weaknesses. With phones being so easily accessible and attached to almost every young person's hand, you might expect Gen Z to be able to perform one of the most mundane tasks, picking up the phone and dialing. Unfortunately, the reality is the very thought of making a call is often accompanied by a sense of dread and impending failure for some. Most subject matter experts believe this apprehension to phone calls is associated with social anxiety.

Social anxiety stems from the fear of judgment or humiliation. Texting and using apps such as Snapchat prevents mistakes from being made. Texting allows Gen Z to proofread and keep track of their conversation. Now, hang on one second. If anyone of any generation is proofreading their text messages or any other message that they post or send on the internet,

that's definitely news to me. Because Gen Z very clearly is not proofreading anything. Although they're still better in that regard than baby boomers who are for some reason renowned for their spelling syntax and punctuation errors, not to mention their inordinate love of the ellipsis, which I don't quite understand, but that's neither here nor there. Let's continue. News.com.com.A.U spoke to high school and university students to explain their fear. If I had to make a phone call, I would freak out, one said. When I do make a call, I usually sit down and write potential responses to what I think they'll say to me, just so I'm. prepared. Another said that it was best just to stay away from phone calls. It feels like I'm not reinforcing the statement, Stranger Danger, she said. It's been a warning we've all grown up with. Aaron McGovern 21 told news.com.com.com that any thought of making a phone call is anxiety-inducing.

If I'm tasked with calling someone important, the prospect might bring me to tears, she said. The sense of fear of failure contributes to my heightened sense of stress associated with phone calls. typically I'll prepare by jotting down what I want to say on paper and imagine what the other person might say, she said. If the other person doesn't respond, how I imagined, my reaction and response becomes awkward. We then hear from testimonials, from various other people, including younger people, some kids who are also reduced to tears by the very thought of communicating through spoken language on a phone. Tate Bevin, 16, said if he has to call someone, he'd be stressed. out about how the conversation would play out. I would be worried about what I'll say and what I need to say, he said, I wouldn't want to miss anything. Similarly, Georgia O'Grady 16 said she'd also be

worried. I get very nervous when I make a call, she said. I'll probably avoid doing something important if it meant I had to make a call. Now, so you get the idea. Very, very upset, reduced to tears by phone calls. And it continues with more examples of young people who go to elaborate lengths to avoid phone calls or who prepare for a phone call, like it's the MCATs or something. I'm not sure I've ever spoken on the phone to someone in Gen Z before for any extended period of time, but I'm sure I have. But if I ever do again, now that I know that they're writing their responses ahead of time, like it would be fun to throw some stuff at them that they didn't prepare for,

you know, start the conversation like, hey, how's it going, by the way? Did you know that a reindeer's eyeballs turned blue in winter? Just a curvebuzzle. Something they didn't, like they don't have anything in their notes for that. You can be pretty sure. Have them scrambling and looking through their notes for a response. Hang on. Blue, you say.

Wow. All right. And then he just burst into tears. And that's how I imagine the conversation going, which would be kind of funny. Now, of course, as far as Gen Z is concerned, this all has very little to do with phone calls per se. The problem is much bigger than that. They are, and this is why I emphasize this all the time, because I think it's something that we still hasn't quite, it doesn't quite sink in for us. They are the first generation of humans in world history to be raised in an environment where a majority of their communication is not done through spoken language.

Okay. For every other generation of humans that has ever existed, almost all of the conversing that they did on a daily basis, almost all of the conversing that they did on a daily basis, almost all of the, communicating they did on a daily basis was conducted, whether in person or by phone, through spoken communication. But for Gen Z, most of them were in elementary school, and the rest weren't even born when the iPhone was introduced. And so they've had smartphones since they were young children, a lot of them. And so a majority of the conversation interaction that they have on a daily basis, since they were small children, has happened through that device using visual communication. Now, millennials are barely in a better position. Smartphones took over our lives right around the time we graduated high school or college, depending on how old we are. And so our adult lives have been dominated by these devices. But for Gen Z, their entire lives have been consumed by them, which is to say they don't really know how to speak to people. They've been conditioned to, and it's not their fault. They've been conditioned. And it's not their fault. They've been. conditioned to communicate through memes and gifts and emojis and choppy internet slang and

run on sentences. And again, communicating almost entirely visually. It's not to say they don't talk to people around them, but if you're on your phone 10, 12 hours a day, you're constantly communicating in one form or another with other people. And again, almost all of it is visual. So it's like expecting a child raised by wolves in the forest to come back to civilization. and hold a coherent conversation with you, it's just not going to happen. And that's the problem. And then, like, how does this problem compound itself? What does the exponential growth look like?

When you've got years from now, when you've got another generation who were also raised on the phones, almost all their communication visually. but they were raised by parents who themselves were raised that way. It's just we are going to get to a point. I think idiocry, people say it's prophetic, prophetic, but idiocracy, from what I remember, they went 500 years in the future, and people, you know, the average IQ was like 70 or 60 or something. I think they were very optimistic.

I think if something doesn't radically change in the next, like 150 years. I think people are going to be communicating, the verbal in-person communication will basically be grunts. You'll basically be grunts and hand gesturing. Like, there's going to be basically no coherent verbal communication at all. That's where we're headed. Now, with all that said, putting all that to say, they are not wrong about phone calls, though. Now, they may be wrong to cry about it. But it is true that there is very rarely a good reason for a phone call to be made or received. And I was out ahead of this curve five years ago when I canceled phone calls on this show. In fact, I think that was one of the very first things I canceled when we first

started this segment. Of all the things I could cancel, like one of the first things, the most important thing is I canceled phone calls, which means that for the last five years, none of you should be making phone calls because they were already canceled. You should know that. And there's no need for me to rehash it because I'm going to assume that all of you have listened to every single episode for the past five years, but on the off chance that a few of you have neglected to your duties in consuming every piece of content that I have ever produced, then I will just reiterate the basic point, which is, you know, I am an advocate of face-to-face human communication. Not necessarily a fan of that either in every context, but from a personal and civilizational

perspective, it is the most worthwhile and productive form of communication. But long-form writing, like writing books and letters, is second to that. And then what you have online is distant behind it. But if you're going to communicate with someone in a non-face-to-face format, it can almost always be handled quicker and more efficiently with a text or email. So, you know, we've all been in the situation where you send somebody a text with a simple question or statement. And horrifically, they call you to respond to it. Like, you send them a text and then you look down and you see their number popping up on your phone.

And there are a few feelings worse than that. Not feelings that you're going to cry, but just like a mixture of irritation and befuddlement. It's just like, what are you, why are you doing this? We're texting. Why are you doing it? And then the response ends up being something that could have been conveyed in one sentence via text. Like, even worse, you'll have someone text you to set up a phone call, to schedule a call. I mean, I'll be honest, I have people in my phone right now that I've been texting me for like months.

Hey, let's schedule a call. It's like, for all this time, you just, whatever you want to say, just say it. It's not, and then we schedule it, and the day finally comes, and we do our little call. And it turns out that whatever needed to be said could have been said in the very text that were used to schedule the call in the first place. So the problem is that most people really have no idea of, and this goes back to a lack of spoken communication. They have no idea how to end a conversation, especially one that's happening on the phone, because a lot of the visual cues are not there. So the discussion that should be, by all rights, 30 seconds long, becomes five minutes or 30 minutes.

As the few sentences they needed to convey have already been conveyed, and now it has to be padded with like 50 pounds of small, small talk. To the extent that Gen Z is objecting to all of that, they're actually fully justified. And I feel it's necessary to point that out. In fact, you can make an argument that phone companies should be mandated to disable the phone function, like the actual phone function on the phone should be disabled because there's really no reason why anyone needs to use it for that purpose anymore. Except for kids. It's the opposite. Like if they do have phones, it should only be to make phone calls and not to do any of the internet stuff. So we, it's You have to adjust the laws accordingly.

Better yet, I guess. I guess what it comes down to is probably we should all just toss our phones in the ocean and be done with the whole thing. Might not be the healthiest for the fish, but it would be better for us. But until that happens, I'm not going to judge Gen Z for their phone call aversion. So who am I canceling? I guess phones are canceled again. Except the one you're using to listen to this right now.

That one is fine, but the rest can go. The rest are canceled. And I'll do it for the show today. Thanks for watching. Thanks for listening. Talk to you tomorrow. Have a great day. Godspeed.