The Matt Walsh Show - Ep. 252 - The Great Purge Has Begun

Episode Date: May 3, 2019

Today on the show, Facebook massively steps up its censorship efforts. We’ll talk about the great purge of supposedly “dangerous” right wingers and discuss both the ethical and legal implications. Also, objectivity is now a tool of white supremacy, according to a college course. We’ll discuss how the left has made “white supremacy” into a meaningless concept. Finally, Burger King has solved the mental health problem in America. Date: 05-03-2019 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Today on the Matt Wall Show, Facebook steps up its censorship efforts. We'll talk about the great purge of supposedly dangerous right-wingers. And we'll talk about both the ethical and legal implications. Also, it is now white supremacist to be objective. That's what we're being told. We'll discuss how the left has made white supremacy into a completely meaningless concept. And finally, Burger King has figured out a cure for the mental health problem in America. And we'll talk about that as well today on the Matt Wall Show.

So Facebook yesterday stepped up its censorship campaign. In one giant purge, they permanently banned a number of high-profile accounts. The ban includes Milo Yianopoulos, Laura Lumer, Paul Joseph Watson, along with Farrakhan, and a few others. But it goes beyond that, even, because Facebook banned any representation of these people, meaning you can't share content by them. So no info wars content is allowed on Facebook at all anymore. No Alex Jones content, presumably nothing produced by Milo or Watson either. So a Facebook spokesperson said that in explaining this sudden purge of people who all coincidentally,

except for Farrakhan, happened to exist on the right-to-explan. end of the spectrum. In explaining it, they said that the spokesperson said that these people were banned for, quote, engaging in violence or hate. Facebook also said that they are dangerous. And then there's a report on the BBC's website, which has more information. It says a spokesperson at Facebook said the ban will apply to all types of representation of the individuals on both Facebook and Instagram. The firm said it would remove pages, groups, and accounts set up to represent them and would not allow the promotion of events when it knows the banned individual is participating. So you can't even promote an event if one of these guys are going to be there. In an email, or woman as well,

Laura Lumer, in an email, Facebook explained its rationale for banning the users. Listen to this. It said Alex Jones had hosted on his program Gavin McGinnis, leader of the proud boys, who, although I believe Gavin has stepped down from the proud boys, I think. whose members are, this is according to reading now from the BBC, whose members are known for racist, anti-Muslim, and misogynistic rhetoric. Mr. McGinnis has been designated a hate figure by Facebook. Facebook said this year, Milo Yianopoulos had publicly praised both Mr. McGinnis and English Defense League founder Tommy Robinson, both banned from the network.

Laura Lumer also appeared with Mr. McGinnis, and Facebook said she also praised another band figure, Faith Goldie. a Canadian nation of Islam, a Canadian, sorry, I almost said a Canadian nation of Islam leader. I'm blending sentences together. Next sentence, Nation of Islam leader, Lewis Farrakhan was banned for making several anti-Semitic remarks earlier this year. Okay. I mean, this is just, I'm, it's somewhat bewildering. So, Milo was banned, according to Facebook, because he spoke positively in public.

about Gavin McGinnis. So that's a violation of the rules. Now, if you express support in public, not even on Facebook, but just anywhere in public, if you express support for someone that Facebook has targeted, then you'll be banned also.

That's what they're saying. These are the sins committed by these individuals that Facebook mentions. But if these people really have violated the rules, then why are you banning them all on the same day? Why are you doing this big dramatic thing where you're frog marching them in front of the cameras? If you're just objectively enforcing the rules,

whatever they may be, then wouldn't you have banned, you know, Paul, when he violated those rules, whenever that was? And wouldn't you have banned Milo whenever he happened to violate those rules whenever that was? And Alex Jones, whenever he violated them? Now, with Alex Jones, Alex Jones was banned on Facebook like a year ago, right? But now it's going even further that if you're, you know, his, his website, everything,

if you're associated with him, no content associated with him is allowed on the site. Well, you know, I think they could have, Facebook could have made an argument for banning Alex Jones back when he was promoting the insane Sandy Hook conspiracy theory, which led to death threats against the parents of children, and it was a conspiracy theory that was completely invented and believed exclusively by morons and brain-dead idiots. So just be really clear about that. It was not only a stupid conspiracy theory, but a really evil, despicable one, which led to, as I said, the targeting of parents whose children had just been murdered, and now they have these whack jobs coming after them. Now, look, That was five years ago, though.

So if while Alex Jones was promoting that conspiracy theory, which he did, if they had said, no, we're not allowing this on. This is false information. It's dangerous to the parents who are now being targeted for violence. We're not going to allow it on our platform. And we're going to ban you for promoting it. If they had done that, then we could say, okay, well, that seems like a consistent enforcement of the rules doesn't appear to be politically motivated, but they didn't is the point.

They didn't do anything. When this conspiracy theory was actually being promoted on Facebook, they didn't do anything about it. Five years later, retroactively, they decided to punish him for past sins. And that, to me, seems to be a problem. So, you know, why did you wait five years? if you're going to ban Milo, why are you banning him now? Why do you wait until now to do it? What has he done recently to earn this? Oh, that's right.

He spoke in support of Gavin. I mean, he said something nice about Gavin McGuinness. Well, that makes sense, right? No, it doesn't. But even if that's the reason, why didn't you ban him whenever he said that? I'm pretty sure I assume Milo has publicly, he's appeared in public with Gavin McGinn.

Guinness in the past. So if that's a violation of the rules, why don't you ban him as soon as he did it? And, you know, Paul Joseph Watson, what has he ever done to earn a ban? I mean, whatever it was, whenever it was, why not ban him when it happened? Well, the answer here, of course, is that this is a PR stunt by Facebook, and the reason why they don't give more specific reasons for the bans, other than this weird thing about Gavin McGinnis, is that they don't. have specific reasons. This is political censorship. They're saying that Paul Joseph Watson engages in violence or hatred. They don't give any examples of it whatsoever because there are no examples. They don't have any examples. This is political censorship, plan and simple. Yeah,

they tossed Farrakhan in there because they needed to have someone, if they're going to do this big thing, they need to have somebody who's not, you know, on the quote, far right. although the media has tried to lump Farrakhan in with the far right as a far right figure, which of course is ridiculous. Farrakhan is a leftist, but he's kind of his own weird thing, too, right? The fact is, Facebook, they don't target people who are really associated with the actual far left. No, this is all focused on one side. And I could go through a laundry list of far left accounts on Facebook right now that are on

Facebook and they're spreading far-left content, hateful, extremist, whatever. But let's just remember. There are many examples, but let's remember one just from this past week, because we just talked about it recently. And remember, we talked about this. Here's the picture again. That's an account, a Facebook account, run by a burlesque performer. And there she is half naked with a young girl stuffing dollar bills into her underwear.

Okay. That was posted on Facebook, that picture. And the picture was taken down, but as far as I know, it was taken down by the person who posted it, not by Facebook. And this account, which proudly depicts the exploitation and abuse of children, is still on Facebook. So that's not, what you just saw there in that picture. Okay, that's not dangerous. That's not extremist or whatever. No, that's okay. That's okay. And why is that? Because she's a, she's a burlesque performer who's, you know, promoting public nudity and, you know, the sexualization of children. That is a far left agenda item. And so that's why Facebook leaves it alone. So there are two questions. There are two questions that we have to ask here about this. Number one is. is is Facebook right in censoring these people? And the second is, does Facebook have the right to censor them? And those are two different questions with not necessarily the same answer. But whatever the answer is to number two, before we get to that, I think the answer to number one is very clear that, no, they are not right in doing it. And every conservative should be up in arms about this speaking out about it, because this is absolutely political censorship.

Facebook says that it will ban people who are dangerous and hateful, yet the only litmus test, apparently, for what's considered dangerous and hateful, is ideological. So by their standards, you are dangerous and hateful, or you're at least close to being dangerous and hateful if you're on the right. So you can hope that they eat you last. You can hope that you get eaten last, but you will get eaten if you're a conservative.

I think that's becoming clear. The problem is that some conservative, as I've been watching the reaction from other so-called prominent conservatives, is that I see some of them who are basically saying, well, I don't like Alex Jones. I don't like Paul or Milo, so I'm fine with this. You know, I'm not going to say anything about this because I don't like those particular guys. That is very short-sighted thinking right there.

Again, it would be entirely different in my view. If Facebook had clear rules, clear terms of search, service, and they enforce those rules equally. Now, that would be different. If Facebook decided they were going to ban everyone who has extreme views, everyone who could be called hateful, everyone who is radical and what have you, then okay, the site would be boring as hell in that case, because all the interesting people would be gone, but at least it would be consistent. And then Facebook would become a place, kind of like LinkedIn or something, just a bland sort of meeting place. where basically no ideas are welcome.

And if that's what they decided they want to do, then I think there'd be no room to complain. But when it claims to be a forum for the exchange of ideas, and it claims to be not politically biased, but then it labels only those on one side as being hateful and dangerous and extreme, and then bans them, bans them in one big PR stunt,

smearing them in the media in the process, that's a whole different ballgame. So as for the second question, do they have the right to do this? Well, I'll say one thing. I don't see how a company, as powerful as Facebook, has the right to smear anyone as being dangerous and hateful without justification or reason. Okay, that seems like liable to me, like defamation. And it has a very real effect on people's lives. This is not just any old person saying, oh, you're hate. It's not just some Twitter trolls saying, oh, you're hateful and dangerous. When you've got one of the most powerful companies in the world blacklisting you and then going to the media and saying these are violent, hateful, dangerous people, that's going to affect your life. That's going to affect your career.

That's going to have a devastating effect on you. And not just because you don't have a Facebook account anymore. I mean, try getting a job. when you have been publicly smeared by one of the most powerful companies in the world as dangerous and hateful. Think about how that's going to affect your professional prospects. So if you're going to make those kinds of claims about someone, I think you need to provide evidence. You need to provide justification. And just giving a couple of examples of some of these people, you know, hanging out with Gavin McGinnis, that's not enough. Okay.

that's not going to do it. Facebook does not have the right to defame anyone, any more than anyone else has the right to do it. If they have evidence to support the claim that Paul Joseph Watson is dangerous and hateful and violent, then they should present it. If they can't present it, then I think Paul has a case against them

because they're defaming him. So that's the first thing. Now, as for their right to ban whoever they want, even on a politically motivated ideological basis, well, that kind of hinges on what Facebook is exactly. And that's the debate, right? And so you'll hear arguments about whether Facebook is just a platform or is it a publisher or is it a public utility. If there are a utility like the phone company, then no, they can't ban just anyone they want. from using their platform. Are they a utility?

Well, I can see the argument for it. After all, phones are a utility, and they're a communication tool. Facebook is a communication tool used by over a billion people across the globe. On the other hand, you could argue that Facebook is really just an app on your phone, so it's more like a channel on your television, not the cable provider itself, thus not a utility. I tend to side with that point of view. Are they a publisher, though? Well, if they're exercising this kind of editorial control, that would seem to make them a publisher.

The trouble is, if they're a publisher, then they're going to be responsible for everything that's posted on their site. And they don't want to be responsible for that. They don't want to be responsible for all of it. But if they don't want to be responsible for it, then they need to be just a platform, just a kind of benign, you know, stage. that's provided upon which people can stand and express their views. But if they're just a platform, then they can't exercise this kind of editorial control over it. If they are exercising the editorial control, then that makes them a publisher. So the trouble seems to be that Facebook is dancing between all of these different lines. One minute it's a publisher, the next it's a

platform, the next it's a utility. I think it has to be one thing or the other. It has to decide what it is, and then it has to behave that way, it seems to me. For now, though, I will say that, sure, they have the right to ban people, generally speaking, but they don't have the right to smear anyone without basis. And putting rights aside and looking instead at what is right, this is not right. What they're doing here is not right. It's not a war on extremism. It's not an effort to stop hate. Okay, it's not any of that. This is political censorship, plain and simple. That's what it is. And we need to be speaking up against it. All right. So a woman posted this on Twitter, approvingly posted, I should add. It's a photo of a lecture slide from some class,

not sure where. I assume a college class. And anyway, look at this. the slide lists what it calls characteristics of white supremacy. And it lists characteristics of white supremacy. And it lists, among other things, as a characteristic of white supremacy, it lists objectivity. And then, as you can see, other kind of banal or positive quality. Being objective, I would think, is a positive thing. The idea of objectivity being a characteristic of white supremacy is, apparently it's a thing now on the left. This isn't the first time I've seen this.

In fact, I remembered, I had to go look it up because I remembered seeing this in an article. It was on the National Review a few months ago. And just the first few sentences of the article say, a course that will be taught at Hobart and William Smith colleges next year will teach students that objectivity, meritocracy are examples of white mythologies and social constructs. The description for the class says, this course explores the history and ongoing manifestations of white mythologies, longstanding, often implicit views about the place of white male Euro-American subjects as the norm against which the peoples of the world are to be understood and judged.

The class is titled White Mythologies, Objectivity, Meritocracy, and other social constructions. Now, I'm not sure if this slide is from that particular. class or not. But either way, here's the point. White supremacy does exist in this world. There are real white supremacists. There are real white racists out there. We have seen them. I don't think there are a lot of them, comparatively speaking, but they do exist. They are out there. Yet the left has, and some of them are quite dangerous, legitimately so, which is what makes it so unfortunate that the left has made itself incapable of fighting real white supremacy because it treats everything as white supremacy. This is the thing that I, for some reason, left this failed to

grasp. When you call everything white supremacy, when you call everything racist, when you call everything sexist, when you call everything homophobic, on and on and on, then you're not going to be left with any meaningful words to use or meaningful labels to use when you actually encounter those things for real. If you've called everything white, if you're a white supremacist for trying to be objective and you're going to call someone like that a white supremacist, then what are you going to say about the person who comes along and actually says, I think white people are better than than everyone else and people of other colors are inferior. What do you, you just used white supremacist on the guy who was talking about objectivity.

What are you going to say about this guy? Well, you're going to call him a white supremacist too, but you have just basically let him off the hook because you put him in the same category as that other guy over there, who was just making a benign statement about objectivity. You have made it so that you, there's nothing meaningful. you can say against white supremacy because you have turned everything into white supremacy. And when everything is white supremacy, then nothing is white supremacy anymore because the word has no meaning. That's the problem.

All right, two other things to get to before we read some emails. First, with no setup, just watch this. I can't believe my student loan. I'm never moving out of my parents' home. Just got ghosted. Should have known. Pretty sure I'll end up alone. They say I'm too young to raise my baby girl.

Take your opinions and suck it, world. Yeah, that's a fast food commercial. And they're doing this because they want to promote mental health. This is a campaign for mental health. So they're renaming all of their, all these meals. according to certain moods, because it's going to promote mental health, which I have to say, you know, I was feeling really depressed. But now that I can get a pissed meal at Burger King, everything is better.

You know, I don't even have to go to counseling. Burger King has solved mental health folks. They've done it. Big news. Finally, speaking of mental health, I mentioned before that my wife has a condition. She has a problem, really. She's, as I mentioned before,

she's addicted to decorative pillows. And when I talked about this in the past, people, I think, thought that I was exaggerating to try to be funny. Well, I want to show you something so that you realize I'm not exaggerate.

Okay, look at this picture here. Just look at it. We're doing some spring cleaning. You see those bags there. And my wife, wife is relocating her decorative pillow collection. So those bags, all those bags are, those bags are filled with decorative pillows. All of those bags have pillows in them. All right. Decorative, not even real pillows. Not not pillows that we can use. Decorative pillows. And those, you see those bags? Those are

just the pillows that are not currently on display because those are the non-spring themed pillows. Oh yeah, she has a pillow for every season. So right now we've got the spring pillows. out, those are the winter, fall, and summer pillows. So that's not even all the pillows. Those are just, you know, three-fourths of the pillows. If we traded in her pillow collection, we could buy a new car. All I can say, I hope, is what I was saying to her last night, I can only hope that pillows appreciate in value over time because we aren't going to have any other retirement

savings with my wife spending $47,000 a month on pillows. We're not going to have anything else. It's just, it's really a problem, guys. So you see what I'm talking about. I'm not, you know, I'm not making this up. Last week, my wife said she was going to the post office, and I found her six hours later lying in the aisle at home goods, passed out from pillow fever.

I mean, I caught her yesterday. She was chopping up pillows and trying to snort them. I mean, literally, okay? But those things didn't actually happen. But they might happen if we don't get this woman to a rehab. Do they have rehab centers for suburban white women who are obsessed with home goods? Is that a thing? Because that should be a thing if it's not already.

All I'm saying is, you know, she put those in trash bags. And I'm, you know, I'm not saying anything. I just, I worry that those things are in trash bags. And there could be a terrible mix-up wherein someone accidentally thinks that those trash bags are filled with trash and puts them on the curb on trash day. that could happen. It'd be a terrible mistake. I just, it could happen though, accidentally.

Of course, then I would worry that my wife might literally stab me in the face, but, you know, it might be worth it, just to declutter a bit. All right, Matt Walshow at gmail.com. Matt Walshow at gmail.com is the email address. This is from, well, I'll keep this anonymous. It says, hi, Mr. Walsh. I'm emailing for your advice on a moral dilemma I find myself in. The guy I eat lunch with every day at work and I have become good friends.

For a while, we talked lightly about politics. I always assumed he had similar views to mine based off what he said. However, I was shocked the other day when he started trying to convince me of the anti-Semitic theory that the Jews are running the world. At the time, I didn't know what to say, so all I told him was, I think he's wrong and that a large part of success with Jewish people comes down to their values, which their religion inculcates in them. However, I still can't shake this uncomfortable feeling I have around this guy

because I believe him to be anti-Semitic. Should I try to tell him further why that viewpoint is dangerous and wrong, or should I just end communication with him? Well, I don't think that we should immediately dump people to the curb and ostracize them for having views we disagree with, even if those are insane and hateful views,

which anti-Semitism is. So what I would do is, I would continue to talk with him and try to show him the light a little bit, as you've been doing. You know, sometimes people, maybe you don't know a lot about this guy yet, but sometimes people will, they'll have an idea in their head, they'll be harboring this idea, but they don't say it out loud because they're rightly ashamed of it. And then maybe one day they finally do say it out loud because they're kind of testing the idea. They're seeing if it holds up to scrutiny. And maybe that's what he was doing there. You know, so I would give it some scrutiny. Sometimes a person doesn't realize, how bad their idea is, how stupid or detestable, until they've said it, and they've kind of put it out there

for to be analyzed and argued against, and then they realize. So I would do him the kindness, do the service of scrutinizing that idea. And if he's an honest guy, then maybe he'll see that the idea is stupid and he'll drop it. it's possible, could happen. And so you've helped him out in that case. I would just, I've just talked to him. Ultimately, if you find out that he really is a committed, passionate, unmovable anti-Semite, then maybe find someone else to eat lunch with.

But I wouldn't assume that right off the bat. I would try to maybe talk with him. All right, this is from Angela. This is, hi, Matt. The more I listen to your show, the more I enjoy it and respect you, keep telling the truth and searching for the truth, even if it's unpopular. Two questions. Number one, if you shaved your beard, do you think your children would

cry and not recognize you. Time for an experiment. Number two, have you been stung by your bees yet? I have not been completely clean-shaven since my kids were born. I don't remember the last time I took like a bick razor to my entire face. It's been, I don't know, probably was like high school was the last time. Although I have in the past cut it down very short, and my kids were disturbed by that. In fact, my daughter thought that someone stole my beard in the middle of the night. and she may have thought that because I told her that a gnome came in the middle of the night and stole my beard

and now I have to go find it. So I told her that and she believes it. As for being stung by bees, yes, I have. In fact, my first time out with the hive, I had the B-suit on, I felt very confident. You feel really powerful in a B-suit. Like, you know, nothing can get you. But then I forgot that I

forgot about my feet. so a bee crawled down in my shoe and stung my foot. All right, this is from Patrick. I started reading this a few days ago, and then I stopped because I thought I already answered it, but then I was informed that I did not already answer it. So here it goes. From Patrick says, future supreme overlord and ruthless dictator of the world. I, your humble and future servant, have a question for you.

I listen to your show every day and notice you speak about the importance of religion. I understand the importance of community and morals, but you don't need religion to have those things. my question is why is religion so important? I'm an agnostic former Catholic person. I think I am a very moral person without religion. Since I am not Catholic, I will undoubtedly be executed when you rise to power. I consider it an honor and privilege to die by your hand. I only ask you make it quick and painless. Thanks. Keep up the good work. I really appreciate your attitude there, Patrick. And I cannot promise the quick and painless part, but I do again appreciate the thought anyway. as for morals and community

without religion well are you sure I did not answer this I feel like I've probably just talked about this topic all the time community yeah you can have community without religion you know all

many animals have have form in communities bees like we've been talking about bees have communities ants have communities so yeah you can have a community, in a sense, without a religion, might not be a very strong community. It might not be a very meaningful community, but you can have that. As for morals, though, well, this is the important

distinction here that I think sometimes atheists and agnostics struggle to see, that nobody's claiming, at least I'm not claiming, I don't think any intelligent Christian claims, that as an atheist or an agnostic, you can't behave morally. That's not what's being said. You obviously can behave in a moral fashion. As an atheist or an agnostic, I assume you've never killed anybody. Hopefully, you don't steal things and those sorts of things. You know that it's wrong to do those things. You don't do those things. Fine. But the question is, is there any basis, is there any objective basis for moral action on the atheistic worldview. And then follow-up question is, yeah, you seem to recognize what's right and wrong,

and you can recognize those things just as well as I can. But where do you think you get that recognition from? If it's entirely a social construct, if it's just something that we come up with as people, then why is it that when you look across the world and you look at different civilizations, you find remarkably similar moral systems that manifest themselves in starkly different ways. But if you look all across the world, everyone agrees basically that murder is wrong. Everyone basically agrees that rape is wrong. People still do those things in large number, but they recognize that it's wrong to do it.

which is why almost everywhere those actions are criminalized. So how did that happen? You know, that's interesting, isn't it? And I think as an atheist, you have to have an explanation for that. And the explanation, as I said, cannot be that it's all based on, you know, social constructs because then you would think you'd find dramatically different moral systems in these society, in these different societies. But you don't find that.

we all seem to agree. Why is that? Where did that come from? And you can't say that it's all evolution either. Because it seems to me that evolution is all about survival of the fittest, right? Evolution is doggy dog. Strongest survive. I mean, that's the evolutionary way. Whereas a lot of our moral ideas fly directly against evolution. where we think morally that, for instance, we're supposed to protect the weak and the vulnerable. If we were, from a purely evolutionary standpoint, no, the weak and vulnerable should die because they're dragging the rest of us down

and we want only the strong to survive. But our moral system has us go against that tide, against the grain there, as far as that goes. So again, evolution is not a good explanation. So I don't think you can say that we evolve these moral ideas. I don't think you can say that it's a social construct and where did it come from? The answer from those who believe in God is that this moral intuition is endowed in us by God and that God is the grounding of morality.

God is the foundation of all morality. And it flows from him. And so we, as his creatures, and as rational creatures, we get that recognition from him. We understand it because God has given it to us. That's the theological answer to that problem. And it is, you might not agree with it, but it is an answer anyway. And it seems to me that atheists and agnostics don't have an answer. So you can behave morally as an atheist.

I don't think you can come up with a coherent, objective basis for that moral behavior without religion. And that's the distinction. All right, we'll leave it there. Thanks for watching, everybody. Thanks for listening. Godspeed. Today on the Ben Shapiro show, Facebook, far as Milo Yanopoulos, Lewis Farrakhan, and Alex Jones.

We'll talk about it. That's today on the Ben Shapiro show.