The Matt Walsh Show - Ep. 205 - Climate Alarmism Has Turned Into A Cult

Episode Date: February 25, 2019

Today on the show, environmentalism has turned into a doomsday cult. A basketball announcer is suspended for making a completely innocuous comment. Bill Maher sneers at small town Americans. And Michael Jackson’s cultish followers insist that a man who shared his bed with little boys couldn't be a pervert. We discuss all of that and more. Date: 02-25-2019 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Today on the Matt Walls show, environmentalism has turned into a doomsday cult. So we'll talk about the apocalyptic fervor that is now gripping the climate alarmist. Also, a basketball announcer has been suspended for making a completely innocuous comment that disingenuous people have interpreted as racist. We'll talk about that. Bill Maher is sneering at small-town Americans, but he's doing so in a way that is really embarrassing for him and shows how out of touch he is. And finally, Michael Jackson's cultish followers have been coming after me insisting that a man who shared his bed with little boys wasn't actually a pervert.

So we'll talk about why they're completely wrong and also perhaps crazy today on the Matt Wall Show. Well, folks, the Oscars were last night, and it's pretty exciting stuff. It appears that this and that movie won, and people were upset because this happened and that happened. this person wore an outrageous outfit, so on and so forth, yada, yada, et cetera. That's my coverage of the Academy Awards. I couldn't make myself care about this kind of thing if you paid me. And, well, actually, I guess I am paid to care about the news. But I still don't care about this.

I just can't manage to do it. All I ever think about when I see that something like the Academy Awards is on, all I ever can think is what must the space aliens think? The space aliens that I'm sure are somewhere out there on planet Galgatron or whatever, and they're watching our television feed and they see something like the Academy Awards and they see, you know, three and a half hours of people congratulating themselves and then other people sit around in their homes and watch those people congratulate themselves. What must the aliens think? They must be very, they must be very very. confused about it as they plot their mission to come and take over the world and enslave

mankind, which is an eventuality that I personally welcome. Now, I do have a lot to, a lot of, I think, more interesting things to talk about today, though, and we're going to get to all that. But before we do, let's check in with policy genius. You know, getting life insurance can feel like a jigsaw puzzle sometimes. It's very confusing. especially in my case, because I'm a very easily confused person. Like, I wanted to toast a bagel yesterday, and I had to look up a YouTube tutorial and spend three hours studying before I toasted the bagel. So I'm very easily confused.

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an environmentalist group, they went into Senator Feinstein's office, Diane Feinstein. They went into her office in D.C. to harass her for not supporting the insane Green New Deal. Feinstein, who, as I'm sure you know, is no friend to the conservative movement. I'm not a fan of hers at all, to put it mildly. But she, for the last few days, has been unfairly maligned for allegedly being disrespectful to these poor little children who went to her office to talk to her about the Green New Deal. That's the impression that was supposedly given by the two-minute video that I'm about to show you. a video that, of course, what do you know, has been edited to make her look bad,

because the full video tells a different story. And I'll get to that in a minute. But for now, let's just take a look. Let's take a look at the deceptive video. Here's the two-minute video that this environmentalist group put out. We are trying to ask you to vote yes on the Green New Deal. Okay, I'll tell you what. We have our own Green New Deal. Some scientists have said that we have 12 years to turn this around. Well, it's not going to get turned around in 10 years. What we can do is what ourselves...

Senator, if this doesn't get turned around in 10 years, you're looking at the faces of the people who are going to be living with these consequences. The government is supposed to be for the people and buy the people and all for the people. You know what's interesting about this group is I've been doing this for 30 years. I know what I'm doing. You come in here. here and you say it has to be my way or the highway I don't respond to that I've gotten elected I just ran I was elected by almost a million vote plurality

and I know what I'm doing so you know maybe people should listen a little bit I hear what you're saying but we're the people who voted you you're supposed to listen to us that's your old are you I'm 16 I can't vote for me I'm going to be It doesn't matter. We're the ones going to be impacted. I understand that. I have seven grandchildren. I understand it very well.

Senator, the cost of not taking this action is far higher than the cost of what the Green New Deal will be. And there is enormous popularity for this bill around the whole country. And we're asking you to be brave and do this for us and for your grandchildren. I'm trying to do this for us. I'm trying to do. to do the best I can, which was to write a responsible resolution. Any plan that doesn't take full transformative action is not going to be what we need.

Well, you know better than I do. So I think one day you should run for the Senate. Great. I love. And then you do it your way. But in the meantime, I just won a big election. Okay, now, as I said, that of course is not the full story because it never is. And here's the thing.

At some point, we all have to learn this lesson, and I'm not sure why so many people still struggle to understand that, listen, when you see a video online that everybody's getting outraged about, and you see the video is a two-minute or 30-second or one-minute clip of some sort of out-of-context discussion or event or altercation, just assume right away, just assume from the very beginning that it's misleading and that there's more to the story. Just every single time assume that. So whenever people are getting outraged over a two-minute, out-of-context clip that you can tell has been, there were parts cut out and there was parts before that and parts after that that you don't see, just assume that there's, just assume it. Don't join the outrage. You could just know right away there is definitely more to this story.

Okay, somebody took this part of the exchange and they left out the rest, and there's a reason for that. So if you look at the whole video is like 15 minutes, and if you look at that, you see that Feinstein was actually incredibly patient with these kids, way more patient than I would be. She even offered one of them an internship, which, what do you know,

the good folks at the Sunrise Movement decided to cut that part out? I wonder why they cut that out, because obviously they have an agenda. But here's the thing. even in that short two-minute video, even if that's all there was to it, I'm still totally on the side of Diane Feinstein, and I don't get to say that very often, but I am in this case. She was not the one being disrespectful. Those kids were being disrespectful to her.

She's the adult in this situation, remember? She's like 85 years old, and these are little kids, teenagers and little kids that have come into her office and are lecturing her and trying to instruct her on what she needs to do. Did you hear that? The one girl in particular was I couldn't even watch it. The first time I saw that video, I had to look away because I was just cringing. And especially as a parent, I was just, I mean, that one girl particular was a, your job, let me tell you what your job is. although I did appreciate the part when they said, but were your voters? You need to listen to us. And she said, well, but you're 16. You're not my voters. You didn't vote for me. Now, you know, I'm old-fashioned. So I still believe in respecting your elders. And that's something that you got to teach kids. So kids don't talk to adults that way. That's not how I'm raising my kids. You don't go and talk to an adult. It doesn't matter if she's a senator or if she's a janitor. It doesn't matter who she is. You don't talk to an adult that way. You need to have her. respect for adults.

Yeah, cool. A Lego set is a gift that always clicks. And clicks. The end of the final lap. And we've got a champion. And clicks. For kids who love everything on wheels, choose a Lego set. A gift that always clicks.

Now, but I don't blame the kids, really, for their awful and embarrassing behavior. And it was awful and embarrassing. And if those are my children, I would be totally ashamed. I would be ashamed of their behavior. I'd be ashamed of myself. I'd be ashamed of myself especially. So, you know, I blame the parents for this. When I was a kid, if I ever spoke to an elderly woman like that, I'd be at home right now grounded and writing a heartfelt letter of apology, a letter of apology that my dad would be, you know, checking and then making editorial comments and making me go back and write it again. Like, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, you know, That's how I'd be spending my day is working on this letter of apology to the woman that I had terribly disrespected. But I had competent parents, you know, who actually cared about forming me into a at least somewhat respectable adult, but these children apparently don't. And when you don't have competent parents guiding you and instructing you on how to behave, especially around your

elders, then you can't really be expected to figure it out on your own. Kids don't figure that kind of stuff out. Like if you don't tell a kid and work with a child to be respectful, they're not going to just figure it out. Then it just becomes Lord of the Flies, and you're going to end up with brady kids like that. So I blame this on the parents. And I'll tell you something else that I blame on the parents and on the adults around these kids. And this is the thing that really jumped out of me. This is what makes that video so disturbing. More than the utter disrespect of these brady kids, it's how truly scared they seem to be. I mean, these kids really think the world's going to end. They really do. And they think that because that's what they've been told.

climate alarmism, climate alarmism has become a doomsday cult. It is more than just alarmism now. It is a, it is like doomsday, you know, Jim Jones territory that we're in now. These maniacs, and when I say maniacs, I'm not talking about the kids, I'm talking about the adults. These maniacs are running around screaming that the world is going to end. That's literally what they're doing. They're saying the world is coming to an end. For example, here's a, here's a clip from good old AOC, Alexandria KZo Cortez. Here she is last month saying that the world is coming to an end.

And I think that the part of it that is generational is that millennials and people and, you know, Gen Z and all these folks that come after us are looking up and we're like, the world is going to end in 12 years if we don't address climate change. And your biggest issue is your biggest issue is how are we going to pay for it? And like this is the war, this is our World War II. The world is going to end.

In 12 years, she says, 12 years, she even put a time limit on it. I mean, that's what the doomsday cultists do. That's what the cult leaders do is they give you an exact, you know, date when the world's going to end. and that's what she's doing here. These are doomsday prophets, predicting the exact date of the end of the world. Where did she get that from? Where did she get 12 years from? Well, she didn't get it from science.

I'll tell you that. She just got it from her fevered imagination. And you and I can listen to this kind of hysterical nonsense, and we can sift through it, and we can see it for what it is. But kids are not able to do that. which is why climate alarmism is child abuse, because it is psychologically traumatizing to kids who don't know any better. You know, when you tell a child that the world is going to, and the ice caps are going to melt, we're all going to drown in a few years, that's abuse.

That is psychological abuse. It's traumatizing for a child to be told that. I mean, I know when I was a kid, I can remember that the big thing was deforestation. And I was told in school that all the trees are being cut down, and soon enough, there's not going to be any oxygen left in the world, and we're all going to die. And that was terrifying. Because when you're a kid and now when you're an adult and you have a brain in your head, and you hear that, you think, okay, all right, calm down. Like, yeah, I mean, we should try to not cut down all the trees and, you know, we should try to plant new trees when we cut down. I mean, yeah, fine, but don't tell me that we're all going to die because the Amazon rainforest is being cut down. Don't tell me that.

that. So as an adult, I can say that, but as a child, I can remember being in third grade, sitting in a classroom, being told this stuff. And it was just absolutely horrifying to hear. And it scared me a death. And it's not fair to do that to kids. Even if you think you're doing it for a good cause, it still does not make it okay to lie to children. It was the same kind of thing. I don't want to get off track here, but it was the same kind of thing. when I was growing up, the anti-smoking crusade. And so they were really, you know, they're really intent on making sure kids don't smoke cigarettes, which is a good goal because it's good to stop kids from smoking cigarettes.

But what they told us, I can remember being told. The impression that I was given as a kid is that if you are even in the same room for a few minutes as someone who's smoking a cigarette, you could get cancer and die. That is the distinct impression I got. Is that, you know, it's like ingesting anthrax or something like that, which of course is completely ridiculous. But I guess what they thought is, well, let's just scare these kids, scare them straight, lie to them. And if in the end they don't end up smoking, then it was worth it. But that is an ends justify the means just wrong way of going about things.

And it's the same sort of situation here. it is hysterical nonsense to say that the world is coming to an end or anything like that, these apocalyptic predictions. And I'm not saying that we should be messing up the environment or dumping chemicals into rivers and throwing trash everywhere. Recycling is fine. I mean, all that stuff is fine, but you can advocate for that without lying and without being hysterical. Speaking of being hysterical, Eric Halthouse is a meteorologist with, for some reason, a huge social media following.

This guy has like hundreds of thousands of followers on Twitter. And here's what he tweeted over the weekend. He said, preventing the earth from descending into a lifeless husk of a planet in a geological blink of an eye, is technologically possible, experts say, but it will require confiscating unearned wealth from billionaires and ending the pointless wars we've been fighting for generations. Now, this tweet got like 7,000 likes on Twitter. The earth is descending into a lifeless husk. And the only way to stop it is to confiscate wealth from billionaires. Now, even if I agreed that the Earth is descending into a lifeless husk, how does taking money from

billionaires and giving it to other people, how does that help the environment exactly? What do you, how is that? I don't understand what that has to do with the environment. But of course, the bigger point here is that the Earth is not descending into a lifeless husk. Yes, eventually the Earth will be a lifeless husk, but it's not going to be in the blink of an eye. and it's not going to be because you were driving an SUV. That's not going to be the reason. How arrogant do you have to be to believe something like that? So not only is it hysterical,

nonsensical, dishonest, but it's also so egotistical. The Earth has been around for 4.5 billion years. It has survived asteroid strikes, super volcanic eruptions, ice ages, countless other cataclysmic events. but you think a couple hundred years of industrialized society will turn it into a lifeless husk? Do you have any idea how resilient the earth is? Do you have any idea what it would take to make the earth a lifeless husk? It's going to take a lot more than a smokestack on a factory. I can tell you that. I mean, the asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs didn't even make the earth a lifeless husk.

It made the earth inhospitable to many forms of life for a while, but lifeless husk means the earth is dead. That's what a husk is. It's a corpse. It's just dead. It's done. What he's claiming is that the earth is going to die and be totally destroyed. You know, destroying the planet, right? That's what we hear from environmentalists.

We're destroying the planet. We could not destroy the planet if we tried. The sun can destroy the planet. The sun could burp tomorrow and we would all be incinerated. That's how powerful the sun is. A big enough asteroid could destroy the planet. A collision with another planet could destroy our planet. It takes a cosmic scale event to destroy a planet. That is not something we could do. As I said, even if we tried, we could not do that. And we're not going to do that, which again does not mean that we should just do what we want and and, you know, ruin, cut down all the trees that we want and throw trash everywhere. And all it's no one is saying that. But it's possible to advocate for conservation and responsibility and recycling and not being wasteful and all that. it's possible to advocate for those things, for those worthy, worthwhile things, without being a chicken little running around screaming that the sky's falling. It's possible to do. And so that's what I would suggest. All right. A basketball player, a basketball play-by-play announcer, I should say,

for the University of Iowa, Gary Dolphin is his name, has been suspended for the, the rest of the season and possibly it could be done forever. It could be an indefinite kind of suspension because of a comment that he made at the end of an Iowa versus Maryland game over the weekend. And this allegedly was a racist

comment that this guy made, Gary Dolphin. And I'll tell you what the comment was. He was talking during the postgame show, analyzing the game, and he was talking about Maryland forward Bruno Fernando. And Dolphin, in an effort to be complimentary,

Dolphin said 12-3s and 22 made baskets, that's some pretty good long-range shooting. And then Fernando was King Kong at the end of the game. So Fernando was King Kong at the end of the game. And now maybe his career is over because of that. Because you could interpret that as a racist comment if you wanted to. And the key part of that being, if you wanted to.

If you were intent on seeing that as racist, then you could certainly see it as racist. Because, but if instead you decided that you wanted to cut the guy even a little bit of slack and have even a little bit of charity, just the smallest amount of charity in the way that you interpret that comment, you will instead see that this is meant to be a compliment.

and it of course was not supposed to be racist. He was not referring to the guy's race, obviously, but he was just saying that the player was tough, unstoppable, strong, dominant. It's like saying that somebody was a monster on the court. Is that racist? Yes, if you go around saying, you know, people of this race are monsters, well, that's racist.

But if somebody's playing a game and you say, well, that's guy, the guy was a monster out there, That's not racist. Totally different context. Or if it's like comparing them to the Hulk or Superman or any other mythical creature, that's the point. And this is what just infuriates me to no end is with this kind of thing. We all know, you know, if you were watching the postgame show and you saw the full clip in context, unless you're crazy.

When you saw that, you would know exactly what he meant. There's just no way that a halfway intelligent and honest person could listen to that comment and actually think that he meant to say something racist. There's just no way. There's just no way that Dolphin decided right then and there to end his career by randomly making a racist comment for no reason. It's like we can pretty much assume with 99.999% certainty that that was not his intention. But yes, you could interpret it that way if you want.

If you just were determined to see the absolute worst in this guy and you wanted to destroy his life, then yeah, you could do that. You could say, yes, you know what? His intention was to sacrifice his whole career, everything he worked for in order to throw a casual, jab at a player in the guise of a compliment. If you're intent on destroying this man, that's how you'll interpret it. But why would you be intent on destroying him? Dolphin issued a statement, by the way, apologizing. This was a statement. He said, during the broadcast, I used a comparison when trying to describe a talented Maryland basketball player. In no way did I intend to offend or disparage the player. I take full responsibility

from my inappropriate word choice. I offer a sincere apology to him and anyone else who was offended. I wish the Iowa Hawkeye players, coaches, and fans, all the very best as they head into the final stretch of the season. I will use this as an opportunity to grow as a person and learn more about unconscious bias. You know, he's groveling here because, I mean, I don't blame him. He wants to get his job back. And he's, and, and, but as much as I would love to see this guy issue a statement and say, you know what, you idiots, you know what I meant. You despicable idiots. You're going to destroy me for no reason just because, you know, just, just for fun. You're going to, you're going to intentionally misconstrue what I said and try to destroy everything I've worked for in my whole career.

How dare you? You people owe me an apology. Now, if it were me, that's the kind of statement I would probably issue, but, you know, maybe that wouldn't be the most prudent step. But why isn't that enough? So he apologized. You said, look, you know, it's not how I meant it. If you took it that way, I'm sorry. I didn't mean it that way. So why isn't that enough? Why can't people just say, okay, all right, well, you know, fine.

Even if somehow you were really offended by that, and if in some way you really thought that he meant it in a racist way, well, why can't that be enough? If somebody says something that most likely could be interpreted in an innocuous way, but there's a possibility that maybe it was racist, then why can't you just say, no, hold on a second. What did you mean by that? What you just said there?

I mean, it sounds maybe you could have meant something racist. And then let the person say, oh, no, no, no, no, that's not what I meant. Let me tell you what I meant. And once they clarify it, just move on with your life. They've told you what they meant. That's not what they meant. You interpreted it wrong. So what?

On some kind of technicality, we're going to say, well, yeah, you didn't mean that, but I mean, you said the words, King Kong. and technically, I mean, technical foul, right? You're done. Your whole life is over. It's just inhumane. It's to treat people this way. I mean, I don't know anything about Gary Dolphin. But, you know, just randomly destroying people that, I mean, Gary Dolphin, he's just an Iowa play-by-play announcer. It's not even like this is some politically significant person. He's simply a guy who calls basketball games. And we're saying, all right, yeah, we're going to ruin him.

This is what I keep saying it over and over and over again. But there's a very simple concept here that I think a lot of people struggle to understand. And that is that you as the listener, okay, you don't get to decide when somebody is speaking, As the listener, you don't get to decide what they meant by what they said. You hear it. You interpret it, how you interpret it. But only they can speak to their intentions. You cannot read their mind.

You don't have ESP. You don't have psychic powers. So they are the only people. The person who says something is the only person on earth. who can really speak to the intention behind those words. And so if something is said by a speaker that you find offensive, the only thing you can do is ask them what they meant. And when they tell you what they meant,

you have no choice as a rational person, but just to take that and believe it and move on. That's all. And if they say something that you know could be interpreted in an offensive way, but you also know they didn't mean it like that, yet you still call for them to be fired anyway, then you're just a scumbag. You're just a horrible person. You're a horrible, vindictive person. I mean, you're a sociopath in that case. And it seems like there are a lot of sociopaths in America. All right. Speaking of sociopaths, I have to mention one other thing.

and I'm loath to give this guy any attention, but Bill Maher on his show launched into a lame, absurd, elitist attack on Red States. And I want you to watch this. I'm going to give you a clip of it. And it's really interesting because you're going to feel like you unearthed some kind of elitist time capsule from 1994.

So here is Bill Maher on his show mocking Red Staters. The blue parts of America are having a big prosperity party while that big sea of red feels like their invitation got lost in the mail. And they still use the mail. They turn on the TV and all the shows take

place in a few hip cities. There's no real housewives of Toledo or CSI Lubbock. There are no red carpets in Wyoming and no one ever asks you, who are you wearing? Because the answer is always

Target. There are two Americas, and it seems like one is where all the cool jobs are, where people drive Teslas and eat artisanal ice cream. We have orchestras and theater districts and world-class shopping. We have chef Wolfgang Puck. They have chef Boyardee. Our roofs have solar panels. Theirs have last year's Christmas lights.

We've got legal buzz. They've got Bud. Okay, now the worst part of that video, of course, is the cackling audience. To all these lame jokes, they're like, they're just so happy that they can pretend to be sophisticated by laughing at those red state plebs, you know? Except, ironically, if they, the audience, or Bill Maher himself, if they actually knew anything about food culture or the craft beer scene, or any of the things that he mentioned, they would know that those insults stopped being relevant like 25 years ago. I mean, chef Wolfgang Puck,

that's your example of some kind of, you know, some sort of really trendy, fancy chef that we can't even conceal. Chef Wolfgang Puck. You can go to Concourse E in the Charlotte Airport right across from the Cinebun and get a stale ham sandwich from a Wolfgang Puck restaurant. It is not, there's nothing impressive about it whatsoever. Like you go, you just walk through an airport.

You grab a ham sandwich from Wolfgang Puck and get a bottle of water from the convenience store. It's like that's, and that's who you choose? It's, and actually some of the best food states in America are red states, Texas, Louisiana, Tennessee, Wisconsin, and beer. I mean, he said, well, you know, red states, all they do is drink Budweiser. North Carolina, Missouri,

Texas, Indiana, Montana, these are all great states for beer. In fact, the last time I was at a bar that only had Budweiser and Miller on tap was in Pennsylvania, and that is not a red state. And Target? You think Target is a red state thing?

There are plenty of targets in red states, but I live on the East Coast. I live in Blue Territory, And there's a target every 14 blocks. Okay, target, if anything, it's more of a blue state thing. So Marr is a snob who's been cryogenically frozen in time since the early 90s. And now he's coming with, you know, Budweiser and Wolfgang Puck references. It's really embarrassing, actually.

I'm actually embarrassing. I almost feel bad for him because that was such a lame, just such a lame bit. I mean, anytime you see a comedian dying on stage, you can't help but feel for them a little bit because it's so humiliating. But I will say this to Bill Maher, that you should, and I say this as someone who, you know, as a conservative, you should definitely keep that up. I would even recommend doing a segment like that every single week on your show until 2020. because if you want to ensure that Donald Trump gets reelected, then keep on, keep up with that. Keep heaping scorn and disdain on the vast majority of the country geographically.

Keep on doing that. Because, yeah, that's how you're going to make sure that Donald Trump gets reelected. This is... It's not a good strategy for the left to alienate a majority of the country and to make everyone who doesn't live in a city feel like there or to try to make them feel like a bunch of like a bunch of stupid bumpkins. All you're going to accomplish is making sure that your ideas and your politicians are, you know, never see power again. And by the way, I don't, you know, I just, I think this whole back and forth about, oh, the cities versus small towns and where is real America, you know, real America's in the cities or real America's in the, in the Midwest. I think the whole thing is stupid on both sides personally. I mean, real America is everywhere in America. America is a diverse place. and I think it's I've spent plenty of time in cities I spent but spent plenty of time in in

small towns and everything you know personally I'm not a big fan of the cities I prefer the small town I prefer having space and trees and things like that a little bit of wildlife you know I I I prefer that but I also think it's dumb and sometimes you hear this from people in the you know small people in the small towns will will act like everybody in the city they're all a bunch of elitist that's not real America no that's not true either the whole thing is stupid. It doesn't really matter where you live. No matter where you live, you can be a real American and a patriot.

So indulging on that on either side is just foolish, I think. All right. Let's get to a few of your emails. Matt Wall Show at gmail.com. Matt Wallshow at gmail.com. If you want to email with your questions, concerns, comments, hate mail. This is from Michael. He says, hi, Matt.

I'm a long-time listener. Always enjoy your insights. On today's show, you talked about how you enjoy smoking cigars. I have many friends who also enjoy cigars. However, as a faithful Catholic, I have always believed that smoking cigars or cigarettes, for that matter, is akin to desecrating the Temple of the Holy Spirit. As smoking is very unhealthy, especially cigars, I'd love to hear you take on this. God bless.

Hi, Michael. I think that's a perfectly valid perspective. and if you decide to avoid alcohol or tobacco, that's great. It's fine with me. I don't personally consider it to be a desecration of the temple within moderation. I mean, of course, it's possible to abuse any substance. Now, addiction to a substance is never good. So somebody who smokes three packs of cigarettes a day, yeah, that's something that they need to obviously try to stop.

because it's killing them. But tobacco, even nicotine, it's not like heroin. It's not like you do it one time and you're an addict. I've been smoking cigars casually for a long time. I'm not addicted. I can go five months and not smoke one, especially in the winter. I tend not to because it's cold out.

I don't feel like sitting out there. It takes a while to smoke a cigar. So, you know, it's just a casual thing for me. Is it a desecration of the temple to smoke casually? No, I don't see how that's any more of a desecration than someone who has a sweet tooth or something. someone who is, you know, a little bit too sedentary or somebody who eats too much red meat or something, if it's possible to eat too much red meat, which I don't think it is. Although I'm

not a doctor. So I think we're allowed to enjoy life. And I do think that, look, tobacco was not invented by the devil. That was God's doing. And I don't think the first people who figured out how to brew beer were possessed by Satan. No, they were using hops and other things. They that God gave us. Is it crazy to think that maybe God has given us these things to enjoy them? Maybe God isn't quite the Puritan that we sometimes make him out to be? Again, he did invent tobacco, after all. He did make grapes that can be turned into wine. So aside from the fact that Jesus has drinking wine in the bian in the gospels all the time, God also invented the grape, which is this very complex fruit that it just so happens, you can turn into this delicious beverage.

Now, I know that this logic only goes so far. Psychedelic mushrooms exist in nature too, right? Does that make it okay to take shrooms? Poison frogs exist in nature, but does that mean we should go around licking them for a buzz? Opium exists in nature. Does that make it okay to shoot up heroin? I think the difference here is moderation. It's not possible to do heroin in moderation.

There's no such thing as a casual social heroin user. One time could kill you, and it will certainly hook you, and you can't do heroin without getting high. So that's why, obviously, heroin is just bad. Alcohol isn't like that. you will not become an alcoholic from a glass of beer. A glass of beer won't kill you. It won't make you drunk.

It's perfectly possible to enjoy it within reason and in a totally healthy way. I know there are plenty of people who struggle with that. And if they do, then they've got to stay away from it. But there are also many millions of people, probably billions throughout history, who have managed to drink it casually, socially, not have a problem. So why shouldn't they? Tobacco also, not going to kill you with one cigar. It won't make you high.

It won't hook you. I'm not recommending it. Like, hey, hey, kids, go out and have tobacco. It's not what I'm saying. But moderation is perfectly possible. So that's where I stand. If God gave us something that can be enjoyed in moderation without losing our senses, without possibly killing us from one dose, and that thing is enjoyable, relaxing,

helping maybe to facilitate social interaction or whatever, then why not? I mean, isn't that a pretty good indication that that's why God put it there to begin with? If it falls into that category. I know there are people who say, well, you know, you shouldn't need alcohol to relax. You shouldn't need to, you know, have some booze in order to have a good time at a wedding or something like that. Well, I mean, yeah, you shouldn't need it. It's not a need per se, but it does help. And so what?

What's wrong with being relaxed by a substance? Who said that there's something wrong with that? Is it wrong to take Tylenol when you have a headache? I mean, where do you draw the line? And why? It just seems like a really arbitrary line to draw. I can say that some of the most edifying and enjoyable conversations that I've had, especially with other men, is when we're all sitting around having a cigar and drinking some whiskey.

And I find that to be, especially if it's a, you know, during the summer, you're sitting around outside. You've got a fire pit going. You got cigars. You've got, you know, bourbon or whatever. And, you know, you just have really interesting. edifying conversations, just an enjoyable time. No one's getting drunk. It's just you're sitting there having a good time. Why not? All right. This is from Ben. He says, hello. Why do you want to uphold the sentiment that you're innocent until proven guilty but are selective

about who that applies to? Even if you're proven to be innocent, why does Michael Jackson get excluded from that principle? Especially when all the facts stand behind him that his accusers are lying and accusing specifically for money. All right, let me explain this one because I've been getting emails like this from the same small group of people for the last like three weeks. And that's because like a month ago on Twitter, I briefly mentioned the fact that Michael Jackson was a creepy pervert. And I mentioned this in reaction to news about the Michael Jackson documentary documenting all of his creepy perviness, which debuted on the film festival circuit. And I think we'll be airing on HBO, I believe, this week, although his family has been suing to try. to stop the documentary from being aired, but I think unsuccessfully.

So anyway, ever since then, after a couple of tweets about it, I've had MJ's cultish fanatical followers harassing me. And so let me just say, Ben, first of all, with all due respect, you do realize how weird it is, right, to send someone multiple emails defending the honor of a dead celebrity who accused multiple times of pedophilia and the only reason you like him is because he was a good dancer. I mean, you realize that that's weird. To spend your time that way, it's just, it's weird, man. It is. To be completely obsessed with some dead celebrity because he was a good dancer. And for that reason, you assume that there's no way he could have done these things.

Here's the fact of the matter. You take these accusations, everything about Michael Jackson, and you apply that to someone who can't sing and dance, you Ben would not be defending him. And you know it. If this was just some random guy you heard about, all of these things about him, you would not be rushing to defend his honor. You're only doing that because he's a good singer

and a good dancer. That is weird. It just is Ben. Here's what I'll say about Michael Jackson, and I do plan to watch the documentary, which is damning from what I've heard. But Jackson was not proven innocent. The fact that he paid off his accusers to silence them does not prove his innocence, if anything, it indicates the opposite.

And you know what? I think the accusations, especially how consistent they were between the multiple accusers, I think they were very credible, very believable. But I don't even need to get into that, Ben. Jackson admitted sharing his bed with little boys. Okay. He invited little strange boys, not even related to him, over to his house for sleepovers. and he shared his bed with them. That's all I need to know. I don't need to know anything else.

That's it. I don't need any more information. There is a 0.0% chance that a man who invites a young boy to his house to sleep in his bed is not a pedophile. There is a 0.0% chance. In every single case, if you know of any men in your neighborhood

that invite little boys to his house over to sleep in bed, I guarantee you that person is a pedophile. 100%. Call the police, okay, Ben. There is no... And then it just... So it just so happens, also, coincidentally,

that this guy who admits to inviting little boys over to his house for sleepover parties, he just so happens that he's also multiply accused of being a pedophile. You think that's a coincidence? Are you insane, Ben? Are you crazy? Just because you like the way he dances, you're going to pretend that you don't see the connection? A guy invites little boys over, sleeps in his bed.

Oh, and what do you know? He's accused to being a pedophile. He's like, no way. No way, no way. Not a guy who could dance like that. No way. And don't give me, I know Michael Jackson's defender's, they'll say, well, no, he was just a child at heart. He was so sweet and innocent.

He's just look at him. He's such a sweet and innocent guy, and that's why he's a child. I hope you don't have kids with an attitude like that. I mean, would you let your child? Would you let your child go sleep in a grown man's bed on the basis that the man is just a child at heart and is so innocent? Michael Jackson had turned his house into a, you know, Neverland with a, you know, carnival rides and everything. You think it was because he was innocent at heart? I mean, seriously.

You don't need to be a job. genius to figure this out. He had all this stuff to lure children over. Oh, what do you know he's sleeping in their bed? Oh, what do you know he's accused of being a pedophile? That's because he was a pedophile. Definitely. I mean, there is zero doubt in my mind. And honestly, you, Michael Jackson defenders should be absolutely ashamed of yourself. I mean, it's so embarrassing and humiliating for you. And as I said, if you have kids, I, I see. certainly hope. If you have kids, I hope that you're much more cautious with them than you appear to be when you defend Michael Jackson. So that's all. All right. We'll leave it there. Thanks

for watching, everybody. Thanks for listening. Godspeed. Today on the Ben Shapiro show, AOC declares herself the boss. Diane Feinstein, destroy. small children and the Oscars won't stop the politics. That's today on the Ben Shapiro show.