The Matt Walsh Show - Ep. 137 - Why The Democrats Deserve To Lose

Episode Date: November 6, 2018

It’s Election Day. We’ll discuss why the Democrats deserve to lose. Also, is voting a civic duty even for uninformed and oblivious people? And we will follow up on a discussion from yesterday about a teacher who punched one of his students. Finally, I have a cautionary tale that every married man needs to hear. Date: 11-06-2018 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Today on the Matt Wall Show, it's Election Day. So we'll talk about why voting isn't actually necessarily your civic duty. We'll also discuss what's at stake if the Democrats win today. And we'll dissect the popular modern idea that violence is never justified. Is that true? We'll talk about it. Finally, I have a very serious and very important cautionary tale that all married men must hear. So stick around for that as well on the Matt Wall Show. Now, I feel like I should begin with the biggest news of the century that nobody else is covering for some reason. Scientists recently discovered a strange, elongated, large tube that it was careening through the solar system. Apparently came from another solar system and then was going around and then it left the solar system.

Okay. And they dubbed it, they called this thing, oh, muamua. Omuamua, is what they called it, which means a weird space tube in Hawaiian. I don't know if that's really what it means. But anyway, the thing, as I said, it came from another solar system, ended up in ours left. And now, researchers at Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics just wrote a paper theorizing, you guess, that this may have been aliens who came to this solar system on a reconnaissance mission and will return to enslave mankind. Now, they didn't extrapolate it all the way there, but they did say it could be, there could be aliens behind this tube thing. So, I mean, it just seems kind of silly for us to be sitting around worried about elections when we're about to be enslaved by these malevolent super aliens. It just doesn't make any sense.

Why are more people talking about this? Anyway, I guess as we await our fate and we await the arrival of the aliens, which is, by the way, not something is not a result that I would find particularly displeasing. I'm kind of looking forward to it, honestly. but as we await for that, I do have a couple things I want to say about voting day. The first thing is, you know, today on voting day, people are encouraged, really more than encouraged. They are cajoled, harassed, emotionally blackmailed, bribed, threatened into voting. And many people will respond to that and they'll go out and vote and, and,

they have already gone to vote many people, and they'll announce it proudly on the internet and say, hey, I voted. The idea is that voting is some kind of civic duty, and if you vote, you fulfilled that duty, which of course means we know in modern society that anytime you do something you're supposed to do, the first thing you do is you tell everybody about it. that's why the internet exists. Now, I agree that voting is a civic duty, but I just think we should clarify, because it is not clarified enough, that it is a secondary civic duty. It is, maybe I should say, a contingent duty.

It is a duty that depends first on fulfilling another responsibility, a primary responsibility, and that responsibility is to be knowledgeable and informed and engaged as a citizen. And as I've said many times, this is my problem with the get out the vote campaigns where we're told to go vote, just vote, vote, vote, vote, just go vote, go vote, that's all. But nobody ever mentions, oh, you know what, by the way, maybe you want to, maybe you want to to learn a couple things about our country and about our system of government. Maybe you should know, like, for instance, what the branches of government are and you should have a basic fundamental idea of how they operate so that when you vote for someone, you know, not only

should you know who they are, but you should know what job you're putting them in and what it is that they're going to be doing. Like, these are things you should know before you go vote. but the message that we send is that basically knowledge is irrelevant and information is irrelevant. You know, it doesn't matter how much knowledge you have, how much information you know, but that's simply not true. You not only have a duty to vote, or I should say you only have a duty to vote if you have fulfilled the duty of being an engaged, informed, contributing member of society. If you haven't done that yet, if you have not gotten past first,

base yet, if you haven't rounded first, that's first base, then you can't go on to the next base. If you haven't bothered to inform yourself, then I think voting is actually not only not a duty for you, but I'd say it's an act of supreme recklessness and selfishness, because you are, in that case, inflicting your obliviousness on the rest of us. You're making a decision based on nothing. You know, so you are. we'd like to say that, well, voting is a really important decision. It's the most important decision you'll ever make, which of course it isn't. But if it's an important decision, then obviously it should be a decision that you make based on something. If you're not making it based on anything,

then you shouldn't be making it at all. You'd be making a mockery of the system, abusing it in that case. I think the problem in America, one of the problems, anyway, among many, is that many people approach voting in the same way that they approach like the game of pool, you know, if you've ever played pool against someone who doesn't know what they're doing. And so what they do is that they'll, they know if their stripes are solids. And so they just kind of wind up with the pool queue and smack the white ball in the general vicinity of the assigned ball. And I have found that very often, just like with fantasy football, the person in the fantasy football doesn't know what they're doing always wins.

And so it's the same thing with pool. Like those people, for whatever reason, often are very successful. But in pool, you know, that's a fine way to go about it. The just sort of hit and pray method of like, I don't know what I'm doing. I'm just putting a ball in that direction. But I think we should approach voting with a bit more knowledge and competence. in C. If you're not informed, if you're not prepared to cast a meaningful vote, then your patriotic responsibility is to stay home and try again on the next go-round when you have, you

know, learned a thing or two. I know that sounds harsh, but it's true. And no one else will say it, so that means every time there's an election, I have to be the one of the size of it. Now, for those who are informed and prepared to cast a meaningful vote, maybe we should talk a little bit about what's stake here, what happens if Democrats take the House or the Senate? And they probably won't take the Senate. I've learned not to make any predictions when it comes to politics. So I'm not going to, you know, I have no idea what's going to happen. But if they make gains and take control of either the House or Senate, what happens then? Well, I think a few things happen, and we should keep this in mind. First thing that happens with Democrats in control of, let's say, the House is the first thing

happens is a lot of nothing, gridlock. We know that basically nothing substantial will get done with Democrats in. It's already hard enough to get anything substantial done with just Republicans, but with Democrats in, then we really know that that's it. And this is where we are now with politics in America. And it really has not always been this way. I think we take it for granted that, well, you know, this is all it always has been. Politics has always been this sort of rough and tumble sport and there's always been this division. And yeah, that's all true. But there did used to be a time when the parties could agree, at least on some things. But that's not really the case anymore. Democrats will simply obstruct and interfere with anything that Trump and the Republicans try to do.

So it will be total dysfunction. That's what politics has become now. It's just become whatever party is not in power. They just disagree with whatever the in-power party is trying to do. So that's the first thing that will happen. That's the first thing we can look forward to if Democrats get in there. The second thing is it will be presented as a historic indictment of Trump's presidency. No matter how silly that characterization may be, that's what the media is going to do. Now, granted, if the Democrats did take the House and the Senate, then yes, it would be not

a historic indictment, but quite an indictment anyway. But there'd be nothing especially remarkable about Republicans losing just the House. I don't think it will be a really significant statement about Trump or about his agenda. That's how the media will present it. But it would just, if that's the case, it'll just be kind of how these midterms usually go. But the third thing, and this is the most important, I think, and I touched on it yesterday, a Democrat victory will reward, and this is the worst thing about it, it will reward their deceit. Their deceitful, immoral obstructionist tactics will be rewarded. Now, I'm under no illusion that if they're defeated, it may cause them to rethink their whole way of approaching things and they'll have it come to

Jesus moment and, you know, they'll reform themselves. Of course, that's not going to happen. But at least it would be a rebuke. It would be a righteous rebuke. A victory of any sort for the Democrats allows their evil to prevail. And so I think that's reason enough to, as they themselves might say, resist. I think that's reason enough to resist them because they need to be,

they cannot be rewarded for the way that they have carried on, especially over the last two years, and especially in the last couple of months. Now, with all that said, Let me also just mention one other thing, and I think it's crucial, and I know this might sound like contradictory, but I don't think it is. This election is very important, and in a sense, it really is the most important in our lifetime. They say that every election is the most important in our lifetime, and in a sense that's true, because the election that we have now is the most recent, and therefore is the most pressing and will have the greatest importance. on our lives because it just so happens to be the most recent one.

And though I do hope that Democrats are rebuked and resisted as they need to be, I do also think that as we vote, we need to keep in mind that our entire lives and our well-being and our happiness is not hinged on the results of an election. For the most part, our lives, the significant part of our lives, significant part of our lives anyway, the most important parts, are not noticeably affected by political outcomes for most people. Now, that isn't to say that we shouldn't vote, or that voting doesn't matter.

I'm just trying to caution against this attitude that this belief that politicians hold in their hands the key to our very existence, to our satisfaction with life, to our joy and fulfillment, and they can end civilization as we know it. They can end our happiness and ever, they can make life a barren nihilistic wasteland of meaninglessness if, you know, that they have the ability to do that and they don't. Now, those egoists, they would certainly like for us to see it that way. They play this up because they want you to think that they have that kind of control over your life. But they really don't.

And I think we've lost this perspective over time. It's like we are incapable of. having any kind of perspective. So even what I'm saying right now, I know there are going to be people who say, well, how could you say that you're discouraging people from voting? I'm not discouraging anyone. I'm just saying it's possible to encourage someone to do something

without claiming that it's the most important thing in the world that if it goes wrong, their life will be over. You know, it is possible to have some little bit of perspective on these things. Or yes, it's super important, but it's not, you know, 95% of your, life will go on as normal, no matter what party is in control. Now, the 5% that is affected, that's important. That's 5% of a life. It's an important portion, but the fact remains that I just, I want to get rid of this notion that I think is really just un-American and harmful, this notion that politicians have that much control over us.

And you saw this with, I mean, look at the way Democrats reacted when Trump was elected. They were, and still are, just utterly traumatized, falling to their knees in the streets screaming. Meanwhile, although various policies have been put through that they disagree with and all of that, their lives have gone on as normal. Their life has been basically, for them, their lives have been almost exactly what their lives would have been, had the election gone their way. There's very little difference, actually, substantively,

because as you go about your, you know, you wake up, you know, you have your kids, you have your spouse, and maybe you go to work, you come back to your family. I would hope that most of your joy and meaning in life is derived from that, from your family, from your faith, from these things that you still have no matter who is in office. So I just want to keep that in mind as well. All right. So much for the election. All we can do now is after we have voted. All we can do now is hope and pray. I want to go back to a topic we covered yesterday.

I mentioned this story of Marston Riley, who's the high school teacher in California, arrested for punching a student. And the student was asked to leave the classroom. He refused. Then he got in the teacher's face, began threatening him, cussing him out, hurling racial slurs.

He threw a basketball at the teacher at Riley. Finally, Riley had enough, punched the student, then a fight broke out, and now Riley is being charged with child abuse. Now, I said that I have sympathy for the teacher. I have no sympathy for the punk kid whatsoever. I'm sorry, I just don't. I understand, as I said yesterday, I understand that the school can't officially condone punching students, but I hope that they just suspend Riley with pay for a week or something like that, then send them back to work while expelling the student.

So I hope they come down much harder on the student than they do on the teacher. And my reason for that is twofold. Number one, Riley's a human being. And humans can reach a breaking point, especially when they're abused and harassed all the time by punks like this kid, which apparently is the case with Riley.

And I'm guessing it's probably the case with a lot of teachers at the school. I know we're kind of used to, we say, well, that's just what it means to be a teacher. Yeah, maybe that is what it means to be a teacher these days, but it shouldn't be that way. That's not how it's supposed to be. That's not normal. That's not how schools are in many other countries.

Where it's just like, yeah, well, the kids are totally out of control. I have no respect at all. They're complete delinquents. They act like animals. You know, it's just how it is. You just have to deal with that. Do you ever think that maybe our attitude towards it is why it is that way? schools were not like that 50 years ago and I know there are many reasons for that we could talk about

but I'm just saying schools have not always yes there's always been delinquent kids there's always been behavior problems it hasn't always been like this it just hasn't but the second thing is the point I made is I think it would be a terrible message to fire this teacher The message would be that students can treat teachers however they want, and if the teacher defends himself or reacts in a human way, he'll be fired. His life will be over, essential. I mean, his career anyway, let's say, will be over. So the delinquent student wins twice over.

He wins by harassing the teacher, and then he wins by seeing the teacher's life destroyed because he was able to provoke this human reaction. And I just think that's untenable. Students should understand that if they behave this way and a teacher responds, they, the student, will not win. I think that's got to be the message from the school to a student like this. You are not going to win when you act this way. Sorry. Actually, not sorry.

You're just not going to win. The students should know that if I act like this, and that is just way over the top in someone's face, screaming, racial slurs, throwing things. You know, if I act that way and I am able to elicit a response, if I'm able to provoke the teacher and the smack of me in the face, guess what's going to happen? Yeah, that teacher's going to get a slap on the wrist, and I'm going to get expelled.

And I think that's the message that student should, as I said yesterday, what is the downside to students knowing that? I can think of many downside to the opposite scenario where they know that they can do whatever they want. There will be no immediate consequences. And if they are able to provoke an immediate consequence in the form of a smack to the face or something like that, then the teacher is the one who's going to suffer the harshest consequence. I can think of many problems with that scenario, which is the scenario that we have in almost every school in the country right now. There are many problems.

We're looking at the problems. I don't see any problems with the other way of doing it. Now, and as I said, I think the kid deserved it. You know, I just think he did. I think he needed it, too. Now, anyway, kind of, kind of shockingly, I was, you know, I was contacted last night, kind of late last night. I was contacted by the organizers of an event that I'm supposed to be speaking at soon,

and they uninvited me from the event. They told me I'm not welcome anymore, apparently. because of my opinion on this issue. Which I have said so many things that I think are way more controversial than this, but this was enough to get me on invited. Apparently my defense of the teacher and my lack of sympathy for the out-of-control delinquent who was hurling racial slurs and basketballs at them, that's just unacceptable, apparently.

Kind of strange, considering many students at the school are supporting the teacher, and his fellow teachers are supporting him, and someone set up a go-fund me that raised like $70,000 in a day. So it seems like most people like me are simply fed up with this kind of behavior. And they're especially fed up with it being tolerated from kids,

and they just aren't going to cry any tears when one of these delinquents gets punched in the face. I think that's the attitude of most people. So that's why I do. didn't even think that what I said was all that controversial. It seemed like there was wide agreement on the point. And, and, you know, honestly, I think some of these kids, this is a lesson they need to learn. And I think for their own safety, it's better that they learn it like that than maybe through something that's a bit more severe than a punch to

the face. Because, you know, this kid, if he doesn't learn now, one of these days he's going to run his mouth to the wrong person in the wrong situation, and the consequences of that are going to be significantly worse than getting punched in the face. And so it really is for their own safety. These kids got to learn that you cannot act that way. Not everyone's going to tolerate it. and people have different ways of not tolerating these things. And you need to know that. But, you know, I was uninvited, and there were other people, not a majority, but some

who expressed disapproval of my unchristian position on this topic. One thing that I heard quite a bit is that it's never okay to hit anyone, right? It's never okay to hit. And that's the refrain that you often hear in these situations. Well, it's never okay to hit. It's never okay to use violent. But is that true? And why is it true? Now, let's put this particular incident aside for the moment and just deal with that blanket statement, which is so common these days. In the case of the teacher, my argument was that the teacher's actions were understandable and I'm sympathetic to it. And in the long run, I think it'll even better. benefit the kid who needed to be taught a lesson. But I didn't, you know, there's a difference between saying that an action is understandable and saying an action is okay. So we could debate about whether it was okay. In fact, you know, we have to say officially it's not okay. And that's what the school has to say, which is why, you know, there has to be some minor consequence.

But it is, in my view, understandable. But so I don't want to deal with whether it can be understandable. Let's talk about the people that say it's never okay. Well, you know, it's never okay to respond to words with violence or whatever. Where does that come from? We take it as this obvious, self-evident truth, but why? Can you explain that? Why is it not okay? Where are you getting that idea from? You're not getting it from the Bible, I'll tell you that much. Now, yeah, Jesus did say turn the other cheek. He also used a whip against the money changers in the temple. And the Bible is filled with examples of force being used and sanctioned by God. So it's just not true that the Bible calls us to be nonviolent at all times.

And honestly, I can't believe that anyone who thinks that way has actually opened the book. I mean, just open it and read it. This is not a peacnic. religion that we're in. I mean, it's certainly not a violent religion either. I'm not saying that, but it is not a hippie, peacock violence is never justified religion. It just simply isn't. Old or New Testament. There is very little justification you can find,

theologically, for that point of view. So where do we get this idea? Now, I have to assume that the people who say it's always wrong to hit someone, they must agree that physical self-defense is an exception. I have to assume that you agree with that. But are there other situations where it could be okay, not just understandable, but okay, morally, to hit somebody who has not hit first? These days, we say no. I think most of human society up until recently would all agree that, of course there are situations where it could be okay. But now we say, no, never okay, never okay.

Can you explain that, though, without just restating the premise? Well, it's violence. Okay, fine, it's violence. So what? So, what's your point? Why is it always worse? Why is it always unjustified? Can you actually explain it without just restating it?

Let's take one hypothetical. Let's take an hypothetical that isn't, I mean, it's not, people have encountered situations like this, is not totally outlandish. let's say you're out with your wife and a man comes up and doesn't physically touch your wife or you, but screams in her face, harasses or calls her various sexually demeaning names. As the man, as the husband, would it be completely not okay, completely wrong for you to respond to this behavior by punching the man in the face? to defend your wife's honor and your own and to teach this man a lesson, I think it would be.

I think, in fact, a punch to the face all things being equal would be the most appropriate response. All things being equal. My point is that it just seems clear to me that occasions can arise where it is perfectly justified, moral, and just to use physical force

in the face of even nonviolent provocation. That doesn't mean that you just run around punching everybody, or that any time someone upsets you, you can punch them. That's not the point. But there are clearly situations where a physical response is warranted. And I think we just live in this really weak, emasculated culture, where we've got this idea that it's just never okay. I mean, that's like it's almost childish.

It's just you're getting this from children's TV shows, this idea. Lots of places can expose you to identity theft. Oh, no. That's why LifeLock monitors hundreds of millions of data points a second for threats to your identity, which is way more than anyone can do on their own. If we find anything suspicious, like new loans or changes to your financial accounts, we alert you right away, all through text, phone, email, or the LifeLock app. Get the alerts that could make all the difference.

Save up to 40% your first year at LifeLock.com slash special offer. Terms apply. I mean, if a man defended his wife in that situation and were to punch the guy in the faith, lay him out on the ground, would you really go to him and say, yeah, you shouldn't have done that, you should have, I mean, should he, excuse me, sir, excuse me, I really would, I really would, I would prefer if you would stop harassing my wife, sir, please. Would you not, please, if you wouldn't mind, please, please, if you wouldn't mind, stop calling my wife those names, sir, please. Please, please, I'm asking you nicely. Now I'm going to write a formal request that you please stop. Here you go. Here's my, here's my, here's a brood on a sticky note, please. I think at a certain point, you know, at a certain point, a more, let's say, corporal method can be warranted. So I just, that blanket statement that people make, I think, is, to me it's just absurd.

And like I said, it is not, I'm sorry. but it actually is not a statement that is clearly vindicated by Christian teaching. All right. What else? I want to talk about it. Oh, one more thing. Yesterday, people who watch the show, you can't see it if you're listening, obviously, on iTunes, but people who watch the show notice that there's a banjo.

I think you can see it in the, there's a banjo right there behind me. and people noticed it, and there are some people who were asking me if I could even play it and maybe sing a song or something. Well, as for singing, I would never do that to you because my singing voice sounds like the noises a warthog makes when you boil it alive in acid. And yes, I do know what that sounds like. But as for playing the banjo, I cannot do that either. I don't know how to play the banjo, even though I have that banjo right there. And I tell you this as a cautionary tale. Okay, let me just take a quick story here.

You see, about eight years ago, before we were married, my then-fiancee, now wife, asked me what I want for my birthday. And I said, you know, half-jokingly, but I said that I'd really gotten into bluegrass music recently, which I had, and I'd like to learn the banjo. Well, my wife, very thoughtfully, went out, and she bought a banjo for my birthday. And she even, you know, she researched, tried to find the best banjo she could find, and she found a great banjo. And she bought it. So I got it on my birthday.

I said, I'm so excited to play the banjo. So that same week, I went and I got some banjo books and I downloaded some banjo tutorials to learn how to play. And I'm telling you that I spent minute after minute, after minutes, trying to learn the banjo. But after many minutes, I mean, many, many, many minutes. I'm talking 45, even 50 of them, I realized that learning the banjo was really hard. And so I gave up. And now that was eight years ago. That banjo now just sits there staring at me in judgment every single day of my life.

And my wife, because she is a woman, never forgets anything ever. And so she has not forgotten about the banjo. And the banjo that I asked for and never played and gave up on the very single. day that it was given to me. So on occasion, she'll pull out that Trump card and she'll say, oh yeah, well, you never learned the banjo. Or every time she gives me a gift now for eight years, every time she'll always say like the same thing. Well, hopefully you use this one, unlike the banjo. Or anytime someone comes over and they see the banjo, and then there's always that awkward comfort, oh, you know the banjo? You know how to play the banjo? And then my wife, well, let me tell

you a story about the time I bought him a banjo and you never learned it. And she's right. I have no response. I have been, I didn't learn the banjo. I've been tempted over the years to learn it just so that my wife couldn't use it against me anymore. But then I realized that it's kind of weird to learn the banjo out of spite. The banjo is not a very spiteful instrument, unlike, say, the tuba or something. So the lesson here, my only point is the lesson here for men is never ask your wife or the woman in your life to get you an instrument as a gift. that you don't know how to play. Because she will expect you to learn it.

And if you don't, you will suffer the curse of the banjo, which has been my life now. And the only way to put an end of the curse is to learn it. But as I said, it is way too hard. All right. We'll leave it there. Go vote if you haven't. Vote if you are informed.

And you know what you're doing, then go vote. And I'll talk to you on. God's speed.