The Matt Walsh Show - Ep. 278 - When The Smear Merchants Win, We All Lose

Episode Date: June 18, 2019

A Conservative activist has his Harvard acceptance rescinded because of bad things he said privately to his friends two years ago. The dirt merchants who dug up dirt for political reasons win again. I'll explain why that’s a loss for all of us. Also, OJ Simpson joined Twitter and 700 thousand people followed him. What does that say about our culture? Finally, a trans poet is "rearranging the alphabet." It’s as ridiculous as it sounds. Date: 06-18-2019 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Today on the Matt Walls show, a conservative activist has his Harvard acceptance rescinded because of bad things he said to his friends privately two years ago. The dirt merchants who dug up dirt on him for political reasons win again, and I'll explain why I think that's a loss for everybody. Also, O.J. Simpson has joined Twitter, and 700,000 people are following him. What does that say about our culture? And finally, a trans poet is rearranging the alphabet. It's as nonsensical as it sounds.

We'll talk about that today also on the Matt Walsh show. Okay, well, I don't want to, you know, get too cheesy here to start with, but I do have to begin by wishing a happy birthday to a very special person. This is someone who I love deeply, someone who, I mean, they're going to be embarrassed by this. But honestly, someone who's just really smart and generous, funny, kind, extremely good looking. maybe the best person in the world. This is someone who means the world to me. So happy birthday to me. It's my birthday. I turn it 33 today. It's no big deal. I don't want you. I think it's a big deal. I don't even, don't even worry about it. It's not like you guys have to, you know, send me presents and money or anything like that. I wouldn't want that. I mean, I take the

presents and money if you send them to me. I would take them. But don't feel like you have to do that. It's, you know, it's, it's really no big deal. It's just a birthday. So forget I said anything. But, you know, it is my birthday. That's all I'm saying. It's just that's all. That's all I'm trying to tell you. Okay, Harvard has rescinded its acceptance of a prominent gun rights activist, Kyle Cashew. And we're going to talk about that in just a minute. But first, I have to let you know that today's podcast is brought to you by Ventero watches. No matter what you consider your style to be, if you have a style, you know, sometimes I don't even know what my style is. But I do know that I like a quality. classic wrist watch. And I think that's something that every guy needs. There's always going to be an occasion where you want to look sharp and impress. I was at a wedding over the weekend. And so that's an occasion where maybe you don't want to have that Apple watch, which is just like a computer, you know, attached to your wrist. Maybe you want the style and the class of a watch. We're partnering with, partnering with Vincereaux so you can get a truly stunning watch at an even more impressive

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All right, as you may have heard yesterday, Parkland shooting survivor, gun rights advocate, Kyle Kachshiv's Harvard admission has been rescinded. He had been accepted in Harvard. Now it's being taken away. That's what rescinded mean in case you didn't know. Over comments that he made privately to his friends when he was 16 years old. And the comments in question, I'm not going to repeat them here because I can't. Just suffice to say, if you haven't seen them, they are gross, stupid, racist. But they were also the comments of a high school boy joking around with his buddies and trying to be as shocking and outrageous as possible. It's pretty obvious to me when you see the comments that that's what they're doing.

Now, teenage boys are known to do that. I don't mean to scandalize you if you weren't aware of this. but boys, especially at the age of 15 or 16, this is what they do. They say the most outrageous and offensive things that they can think of to each other privately. Now, he was not a public figure at the time, and he would have had no idea that a couple of years later, he would be in the limelight due to a massacre at his school. This was not, as a 16-year-old kid, that was not anywhere on his radar any more than it would be on any of our radars. Now, he has apologized for his comments, which were leaked to the media in a transparent effort to destroy him for his Second Amendment advocacy.

And since taking on this new role as a gun rights champion, he hasn't said or done anything to demonstrate racism. So when he says that he's changed and that he's not the same person than he was when he was 16, well, there's no evidence to dispute that claim. because he hasn't done or said anything since we've known about him to indicate racism. Also, we know that in between the age of 16 and right now, he did experience a traumatic event. A school shooting is a traumatic event. And those kinds of events can have transformative effects on people. So when he says, I've changed in the meantime, there's nothing absurd or unbelievable about. that. In fact, it'd be kind of unbelievable if he hadn't changed, considering what he went through during the shooting. But despite his efforts to repair whatever damage, the gross jokes he told to his

friends, you know, might have done to the people who were exposed to them two years later because of a coordinated effort to destroy his reputation, whatever damage that might have done. And despite his apology for that, he was still punished anyway. I think this move by Harvard is craven. It's nakedly partisan. Every sane person knows that Kyle's affiliation with the conservative movement weighed heavily against him. Would his omission have been provoked? Had he been an anti-second amendment advocate, like his classmate, David Hogg? Well, we can't know that for sure, but we have reasons to be suspicious. And the reason we have to be suspicious is that we know the rules are not applied equally.

So one example people I've been using, which I think is a good example, is you take the governor of Virginia. Now, the governor of Virginia, his, you know, he had college yearbook photos, which surfaced months ago showing somebody in blackface and somebody in a KKK hood. And he originally said, oh, now remember, the way he originally responded to that was he said he wasn't sure. Like he wasn't sure which one, who, if he was in the picture or who he was. Maybe he

wore a clan outfit, maybe he wore blackface. He wasn't sure. Now, me, I can say definitively that I have never worn a clan outfit or blackface. I can say that because I would remember doing that. The fact that Northam couldn't remember would seem to indicate maybe that either

he's lying or he dressed that way so often that he can't remember who he was in the picture. But then later he denied it. But then he came out and said, okay, well, I wasn't that guy, but I did wear blackface at another point when I was dressing up like Michael Jackson for a talent show. He said he smeared a shoe polish on his face to look like Michael Jackson. Yet, Northam is still governor. Despite the fact that he engaged in racist behavior and that he engaged in that racist behavior in his 20s when he was adult, an adult, he's still the governor of Virginia. Now, if you want to miss the point, which a lot of people do these days, you could argue that, well, these two cases are unrelated. The Harvard admissions office has nothing to do with the governorship of Virginia, right? Governor, you know, it's not like the people at Harvard can revoke or rescind the governorship from Northam. Also, governships are a lot harder to revoke from someone than would be the excess.

their acceptance to a college. But that's not the point. Harvard made its decision because of the relentless pressure placed on it by leftists and the media. Northam, on the other hand, survived his racism scandal because there was not that kind of pressure. Now, in the first couple of days after the blackface photo came out, you did have Democrats issuing statements and condemning Northam and so on and so forth. But, you notice that, you know, within two or three days, they moved on and they don't talk about anymore. The media doesn't bring it up. They don't bring it up. They don't talk about it. Why is that? Well, I think, number one, it's because he's a Democrat. But also, when the blackface photo

scandal first started and Democrats were issuing statements, well, they thought that, okay, we'll just get rid of this guy. The lieutenant governor is also a Democrat, so we'll just get him in there. Also, Lieutenant Governor is a younger guy, is a black guy. We'd prefer him over Northam anyway. So it was self-serving. But then it comes out that the lieutenant governor is multiple-accused and credibly accused of rape. And then the third in command, the Attorney General comes out in midst that he also dressed in Blackface as a younger man. So then Democrats start realizing that, wait a second, you know, if we get rid of Northam for Blackface, well, then we also got to get rid of the attorney general for blackface. And then we've got this lieutenant governor

who's accused of rape. Who knows where that's going to go? Fourth in command is a Republican. So, you know, we don't want to, we're just going to forget about it. We're going to drop this and forget about it. That's why they moved on. Because they never cared about the blackface thing. They never cared about the racism. It was all self-serving. And then they realized that it's not in their best interest, actually, to get rid of Northam. The best thing is just to move on from this and pretend it never happened. And that's what they've been doing. So, it is selective outrage, of course. Now, if we were interested in developing a more consistent approach to these kinds of controversies, which I know a lot of people are not interested in that,

but if we were, I would suggest that we take a few things into consideration anytime we have one of these controversies or scandals where offensive stuff from someone's past comes up. I think we should take a few things in consideration. Number one, how old was the person when they did or said the offensive thing? Number two, did they do or say the offensive thing publicly? Number three, were they public figures when they did or said the offensive thing? Kyle was 16. He said or wrote, actually, the things privately.

He was not a public figure. All three of these factors, in my mind, would seem to call for grace and forgiveness. Northam was an adult. his behavior was not private. He did it in a talent show by his own admission. But he wasn't a public figure at the time either, and it happened a long while ago. So I can see an argument for letting Northam off the hook on this one. But I can't see an argument for letting Northam off the hook while holding Kyle to account. It seems that you only have the intellectual credibility to call for forgiveness for Northam if you also call for forgiveness for Kyle. There's no reasonable argument

that can make Kyle the bigger bad guy here. You see, that's the problem. Now, for another comparison, consider Samantha B and Roseanne. Okay. B called Ivanka Trump a feckless C word on her show. Roseanne compared Valerie Jarrett to the planet of the apes. Both of these women are adults. both made their comments publicly as adults in front of millions of people. Both were public figures at the time that they made their comments. Both should have known better. Both put their employers in a difficult position by their own choices. So there's a reasonable argument in favor of firing both of them.

There is no reasonable argument in favor of firing Rosanne, but not Samantha. B. Yet again, that's exactly what happened. Roseanne was punished. Her career is destroyed, kicked off her show, which was the number one show on TV. Samantha B is, even though nobody watches her show in the first place and nobody cares about her, she still didn't lose her job and her career is not destroyed. If anything, she actually benefited from that and she has more credibility and street credit among leftists. So why is that? Well, of course, because B is a liberal, Roseanne is actually liberal too, but she's considered a conservative by default because she likes Trump. And that's all that matters in the end. Really, that's all that matters.

But, you know, I think as I've thought more about this with Kyle, you know, I'm talking about his age and the fact that he wasn't a public figure, so on and so forth. I think that's, that is part of the point. But maybe that's not even the main. point here. Because I'm thinking over the last day, I know that the situation with Kyle having his acceptance revoked, it makes me very uncomfortable. And I'm trying to put my finger on what exactly makes me so uncomfortable about it. I've already mentioned a few of the things. And I know any liberal who's watching was, oh, it's only because he's a conservative. That's why you're uncomfortable. You wouldn't care if he was a liberal. Well, that's just not true. You know, I, I, I, Roseanne, as I said, when Roseanne was fired, I said, yeah, she probably deserved it.

So I don't make these, I don't, personally, I don't judge these things on a partisan basis. I don't care about that. I'm looking for a more consistent way to evaluate these kinds of cases. So the thing, aside from age and all of that, because I agree that the age excuse does seem, on the surface kind of week, considering he was 16 at the time, but he's 18 now. So it's not like this was 25. It's not like he's 30 now, and he was 16 at the time or 40. That was only two years ago. But the gap between 16 and 18 is actually very significant or can be. It's much bigger than the gap between 33 and 31. Between 16 and 18, because of in that age, you're just growing a lot,

you know, physiologically. There's a lot of changes happening. And so, So someone can have a transformative change between 16 and 18, whereas between 40 and 42, that's going to be a lot less likely because you're kind of stuck in your ways at that point. But you're not at 16, especially when you undergo a traumatic experience in the middle of that. But that's not really the point. The point is this, the sorts of people who dig up dirt against their political or personal rivals should not get their way. The only reason we know about this with Kyle is because these private conversations were leaked and they were leaked by, I guess, friends who don't like him anymore because of his political

advocacy. And they were, and it was, it was, these messages were taken and, uh, and amplified by dirt merchants in the media and others who, again, are trying to, to destroy Kyle because they don't like his politics. And that to me is very relevant. You know, I think the court of public opinion should, in this regard, operate a lot like a court of law, where we should treat ill-gotten evidence as inadmissible. Now, I know it doesn't work that way because the court of a public opinion is not a court of law, but I'm saying in this particular situation, I think it should. If we only know about something because of a smear campaign against someone where private conversations are being leaked in order to destroy them,

I think, again, I know it will never happen, but I think what we should do is say, you know what, I don't want to hear that. We have no business hearing that. That's why I never actually thought that Northam should resign for the blackface photo. I thought he should resign for publicly advocating infanticide when he was an adult and governor. Now, that's something that he did on the radio as a governor. Now, that we can hold him accountable for. But we should be very wary of dirt dug up from the past because when the target of a smear campaign is destroyed, it's the dirt merchants who win. Not justice, not tolerance, not inclusivity, raw vengeance and opportunism. That's what wins the day.

And I consider that a loss. So when you think about Kyle having his Harvard acceptance revoked, who wins? well, the people who leaked this stuff and tried to destroy them, destroy him. They're the ones who win. And I don't see how that's a win for society or for our culture or for anyone, except for those people. I think it's best for society when smear merchants and dirt merchants lose. I think it would be best for society when the dirt merchants come with dirt and they say, oh, look at this dirt. We dug up on this guy. And the rest of us go, yeah, you know what? I don't care. that's uh you know we that's that wasn't meant for our years we weren't meant to see that and if you

think that sounds unreasonable well well how do you respond or how should you respond um and if you think that sounds unreasonable well how how would you respond or how should you respond if a gossip comes up to you in your person just on a personal level let's say someone you know who's very gossipy comes up to you and says hey you're never going to believe guess what i found out about you know so and so uh guess what they said to to someone else two years ago. Listen to this. I got some dirt on this, but you want to hear this?

Now, if you're someone who likes to engage in gossip, you might say, oh, yeah, give me the dirt, let me hear this. This sounds good. But I think we all know that the proper response to that is to say, I don't want to hear it. Don't tell me. It's not relevant to me. You have no business telling me that. I'm not going to engage in gossip.

I don't want to hear it. I think most of us know that's how we should respond to gossip is I don't want to, even if it's true. Now, gossip doesn't always mean that it's lies or it's not true. It could be true. But most of us understand, even if we don't follow through all the time, most of us understand that the way to respond to gossips is to shut them down and say, I don't want to hear it. I'm not having this conversation. And so I think on a public level, what we should do basically the same thing and say, I don't want to hear that. And that's, so that's, that's what it comes down to for me, is I don't like the fact that we are emboldening people like this. All right.

Here's, here's something else. Famous murderer, O.J. Simpson is out of jail now and, and on Twitter, if you didn't hear. He sent out a tweet a few days ago announcing his arrival to the platform. and everyone responded with disgust. Oh, people say, oh, this is so gross. OJ. Simpson is tweeting now. He should be in prison. This is disgusting.

You know, Twitter is assessful. That's what everyone said. But here we are two or three days later. And it will come as no surprise that OJ is still tweeting. And he now tweets to 700,000 followers. So while everyone pretended to be disgusted by OJ on Twitter, 700,000 of those people decided to follow him. And think about what following someone on Twitter means.

It means that every time you sign on to Twitter, you want to see what this person is saying, right? You want to follow them around in cyberspace and hear everything they're saying. Whatever thoughts happen to pop into their head, you want to hear it. Whatever comes in their mind, you want to have immediate access to it.

you want those thoughts posted in your feed so that you can see them right away. A shortcut. And 700,000 people so far want that kind of access to O.J. Simpson. A man who at this point is, now he's a famous football player before this. He was in Hollywood for a while. But the only reason he's really famous now when you hear OJ. Simpson, first thing you're thinking is that he decapitated two people. And that's what people wanted to follow this guy. I just, the only reason I bring this up, I just can't think of a better, and it kind of relates to what I was just talking about, really. I can't think of a better encapsulation of our culture than this. And, or everyone pretends, like, oh, I'm so outraged.

O.J. Simpson, I'm so outraged this guy. And then all these people go, it's like, yeah, but I'll follow him anyway. You know, I mentioned this on Twitter a couple days ago, and people told me, well, I follow him so that I can be up to speed. or I follow him so that I can see what crazy and stupid things he's tweeting. And you see, that's exactly the problem. First of all, why do you need to be up to speed on what O.J. Simpson is saying? We've got this culture now of people feeling like they need to be in the loop, no matter what the loop is. never stopping to think, is this a loop that I actually need to be in or want to be in? How is my life going to be enriched by this?

How is this actually going to make my day better or my life better? We've got this obsession with being informed without any care for the relevance or the quality or importance of that information. That's one of the reasons why when people talk all the times, oh, we need to be more informed. people aren't informed enough. No, people are informed enough. People aren't informed too much, probably. We live in the most informed civilization ever in history, without a doubt. I mean, people have access to tons of information,

and people have tons of information bouncing around their heads. The problem is that most of that information is useless and pointless, and there's no reason why anyone needs to know it. And the problem also is that we have information. We are informed rather than being knowledgeable and smart. Because there's a difference between having knowledge and having information. And then people say, well, I want to see crazy and stupid stuff that he tweets. Well, why, though?

This is a very unhealthy impulse that we have. And it seems to be an insatiable appetite that we have for this way. I want to have, I want to see all the crazy and stupid stuff. Do you not, do you really not already have enough crazy and stupid in your life? Isn't there enough crazy and stupid out there? You can turn on the TV anytime and see crazy and stupid. You can go anywhere on the internet and see crazy and stupid. There's crazy, you can, you can walk outside of your house and see crazy and stupid. You can maybe even look in the mirror if you're me and see crazy and stupid. So you could see crazy and stupid anywhere. Do you really need more of it?

But it really is an insatiable addiction we have. It's like, oh, more crazy and stupid. I need more, more, more, more. We see another source of crazy and stupid and we've got to get our fix. We just need it. We need to surround ourselves by it all the time. Why is that?

I don't get it. Well, I do kind of get it. I think it's, I think we want a lot of crazy and stupid in our life because, number one, it's just distraction. and it prevents us from having to think or contemplate anything. And I think number two, it makes us feel better about ourselves. It makes us feel smarter. It makes us feel more sane, more rational.

But that's the thing. Is it really smart, sane, or rational to go seeking crazy and stupid stuff and immerse yourself in it? No, you see, that is both crazy and stupid. So in our efforts to make our selves feel better for not being crazy and stupid, we have actually become crazy and stupid. That's the moral of the story. Sounds like an A-Supps fable or something like that. Okay, I have one more thing to mention here.

If I can, I'm just stalling for a minute as I pull it up. Okay, here we go. So on the website,queerty.com, that's the name of the website. Not a website I check very often, but it's been, this certain article has been all over social media. The headline of the article is trans poet Joss Charles rearranges the alphabet to survive its ferocity against her body. I feel like I should read that against because it might have been confusing. trans poet Joss Charles rearranges the alphabet

to survive its ferocity against her body and then this so it's an article about this poet who is rearranging the alphabet I'll read a little bit of the article for you speaking of crazy and stupid you see all all the topics now are just blending into each other this is this is pretty good what I'm doing I hope you appreciate

it says Charles has reworked the structure language to capture the trans experience, establishing her as one of the most promising poets of her generation. Charles combines a deep understanding of poetic traditions with her own personal experience to create works that address gender and identity issues in a unique and moving way. Her second volume of poetry, field, the name of the poetry book is field, that's F-E-E-L-D, not felt, field, creates a language resembling Middle English to challenge our limited vocabulary to describe the trans experience. In the process, Charles has won praise as one of the most important young poets today and the appropriate recognition. Field was chosen by the New Yorker as one of the best poetry books of

2018. Field challenges readers and not just because of the language, it is at once lyrical and pointed. Here's a couple of lines they give us from the poetry book. Here's a line. Did you know not a month goes by? A Tran, I know, doesn't die. And that's U spelled with just the letter U, no spelled K-N-O, a month spelled M-O-N-T-H-E, and Bai spelled B-Y-E. And then some more lyrics here. Gender is not the Tran or gain. Gender is, yes, a hemorrhag. Well, I just, that doesn't mean anything. That's just, that's, that's literally just nonsense. I don't know. Gender spelled G-E-N-D-R-E.

Orgaine spelled O-R-G-A-N-E. I don't even know, I don't know what that word is. This is a made-up word. And anyway, it's, it, it goes on from there. You know, this is, there's so much that it can be said about this. Or maybe there's not much. It's just, it's just utter nonsense. But you see a few things happening here.

Number one, we see the continued disintegration of language, of poetry, of art, where something like this, this gimmicky, ridiculous, nonsensical garbage is named, you know, one of the poetry, or this person, one of the poets of the year, poetry of the year, whatever it was. But you also find, here's what jumps out at me. is, we can't lose sight of this. It's the incredible arrogance of this person, of the left, especially of gay activists, trans activists. You know, this person is saying, oh, you know what, the regular language isn't good enough for me. Regular language, I mean, there are thousands of words in the English language, it just doesn't, it doesn't, it doesn't capture my experience.

My experience is so transcendent and so beautiful and so, so deep and perplexing and wonderful that there's just no, I have to invent new words for it. And even regular words that already exist, you know, it's beneath me to use those words. I am going, I'm going to, I'm going to rearrange the letters because that's just, that's, that's, that's for, that's for the plebs, you know, that's, that's for the, that's for the peasants to use word, regular words. I need new words. That's really what's going on here. It's just incredible arrogance that you find.

I'm so constrained by the alphabet. You know, I have lived my whole, I've lived 32, well, now 33 years of life, because it is my birthday, by the way. I don't know if I mentioned that. I've lived 33 years of life, and I have been able to express everything I've wanted to express using the regular alphabet and regular words. And just everyone I know has been able to do that. Almost everyone in the world has been able to do that.

And, but not you, of course. You need, you need special words. You need special words. Because everything needs to be special for you because you're so special. All right. Let's move on to some emails. Matt Wall Show at gmail.com. Matt wallshow at gmail.com.

This is from Peter says, Matt, I think I call you in an inconsistency. You say that you think people have the right to burn the flag because it's free speech, but you've also previously said that you think pornography should be banned. I know those two things are not the same, but how can you be a free speech advocate with one and not the other? Yesterday, it seemed like you were taking a free speech absolutist position, but your previous statements reveal that you are not a free speech absolutist. How do you explain the contradiction? Yeah, we talked about yesterday about the burning the flag issue.

I said it's free speech. I have said in the past that I think porn should be banned. So that's a good point. You know, that's a good thing to bring up. Did you catch me in a contradiction? I don't think you did. And let me explain the difference. I think when deciding whether something is covered by free speech, we need to consider two things. All right.

Number one, is the thing in question speech? okay, in order for it to be free speech, it has to actually be speech. Is the primary point of the thing in question to convey a coherent message, right? That's what speech is. That, to me, is speech. It is conveying a message. That's speech. So if someone is arrested for, you know, for instance, urinating in public, well, they can't claim free speech because the primary point of urinating,

is not to convey a message. You're not trying to get a message across when you're urinate. You're just doing it because you have to. So that's not free speech. It is speech, in my mind, even if it doesn't involve spoken or written words, if the people who witness it can see it and say,

okay, okay, yeah, I get the message. So that's why I think burning the flag is speech. But we'll get to that in a second. So then the second thing to take into consideration is, does the speech in question cause real active harm to other people? So this is why slander is illegal. Because, yeah, slander is speech. It conveys a message. But the point of the speech is to cause direct and intentional harm to another person. And so that's why it's illegal. Okay, now let's let's apply this. Is burning a flag speech? Yes, I think obviously it is. We all know it is because that's exactly why people are against it. You're against it because you hate the message that it sends.

This is what I was explaining yesterday. Now, if you see someone burning a flag, it's not the simple act of burning a flag that you oppose, right? Because you could burn a flag for good reasons. You could be disposing of the flag. That's a proper way to dispose of a flag. So it's not the burning of the flag you have a problem with. It's the message that's being sent. That's what you have a problem with. And that's what everyone says. Everyone says, oh, you know, you burn the flag. It's a symbol of, you're showing ingratitude. It's a disgrace to our country. You're spitting all over the sacrifice that our troops made. I agree that, yes, that's what it does. But so, but you get the message, right? So it is conveying a message. You clearly understand the message. Now, I don't agree with the

message. It's a bad message. It's a stupid message. It's an offensive message, but it is a message. So it is speech. In the same way, on the opposite end, if someone flies a flag, we all understand the message they're sending. They're saying, I love America, I'm proud to be an American. We all get that. We know that's the message. We all understand that. Burning the flag is the opposite message. We all get that too. Is pornography speech? I would say no. know what message is being conveyed by two people having sex? If you watch a guy burn a flag for two seconds, you know exactly what he's trying to say. If you see two people having sex, what are they

saying? What message are they trying to send you? What ideas are they expressing? Now, you might say that the sexual relations, the couple, the people having sex are conveying a message to each other, But that's not pornography. Pornography involves the third-party witness, right? So what message is being conveyed to that third-party witness? I would say there is no real message. And if you say that porn is speech, then you also have to say that prostitution is speech. But prostitution is illegal almost everywhere in the country, and most people agree,

unless you're a hardcore libertarian, you agree that prostitution should be illegal. what porn and prostitution are the exact same thing. It's transactional sex and it's sex for money, which is transactional sex. That's what pornography is. That's what prostitution is. The only difference between prostitution and pornography is that in pornography, the prostitutes are being filmed. So, I mean, if you film a prostitute, is it all of a sudden not prostitution anymore because you're filming it? That's absurd, obviously. It's prostitution because you're paying the person to have sex. In pornography, these are people who are being paid to have sex or are, even if they're not being directly paid, they're somehow probably gaining money from it,

profiting from it somehow. So that's why I think it's not speech. It's prostitution. And prostitution is not speech. It's a transaction. And that's not necessarily the same thing. Number two, harm. What harm does burning a flag cause to any person? Provided it's done safely, it doesn't start a forest fire. What harm is done? If you see a person burning a flag, it makes you angry, you're upset by it, you oppose it, does it harm you? I mean, are you really traumatized by it? Be honest. Like, you see a guy burning a flag. I know it really pisses you off as well it should. All right, is it going to affect the rest of your, you'd be so traumatized by the, by which? witnessing that, you can barely move on with your life? No, it doesn't, it doesn't traumatize people,

it doesn't scandalize the public. It doesn't cause people to become anti-American. In fact, if anything, it galvanizes people the opposite direction to defend America. Whereas with pornography, I would argue that it absolutely does cause real harm, especially to kids. Kids suffer real trauma from their exposure to pornography. It causes real. It causes real. damage psychologically to people. It has a real effect on your brain, which is lasting. And that's to say nothing of the harm the porn industry does to those in it. When you look at the suicide rate, the drug abuse rate, the SED rate within the porn world, you see that it causes a lot of harm to everybody involved. And so that's why I think you could argue for banning pornography, but not

flag burning. All right, this is from Maggie says, hi, my name is Maggie. I'm an 18-year-old from Wyoming. I'm a new listener, and the first show of yours that I happened upon was one in which you claim that adding sour cream to eggs was the best way to achieve the perfect breakfast. I didn't realize, I didn't believe this in the slightest, but after listening to a few more of your shows, I realized that I agree with you and almost everything else, decided that your culinary opinions may also be something that I agree with. After trying it, I concede that you are the supreme leader in the kitchen as well. Keep up the good work. This is from down. Alice. Matt, I'm always looking for better recipes. So I tried your scrambled eggs recipe the other day

that I heard on your show. I don't know if you came up with that yourself or not, but I don't think I'll ever find a better plate of scrambled eggs than the glorious manna I just finished eating. Thank you so much for sharing that. And if you have any more gems like that one, I'd love to hear them. This is from Brian. Salutation's future theocratic dictator, overlord of this realm in any other realm and habitable by human beings. I want to start this email out by saying that I have no culinary experience whatsoever. I'm a notorious egg burner. After listening to your podcast

and your recipe for fluffy scrambled eggs, I decided to give it a shot. I went to the grocery store, picked up butter, not milk, and sour cream. I did everything according to your explanation. And Eureka. Breakfast was served, and it was amazing. I managed to not burn the eggs

and ruin Sunday breakfast as well. My girlfriend and I started calling the recipe Huevo's a la Walsh. Anyway, thank you again and keep up the amazing podcast. those are just that's a small sample of the emails that I got extolling the virtues of my scrambled egg recipe which I shared on the show a couple days ago and if you missed it you have to go back and find it but I really did I think I did change a lot of people's lives

because so many people have been making scrambled eggs incorrectly and humiliating themselves and all of mankind by serving up burnt, crispy, disgusting flakes of eggs that they call scrambled eggs. No floppiness, no flavor. Starting a business can seem like a daunting task, unless you have a partner like Shopify. They have the tools you need to start and grow your business. From designing a website to marketing to selling and beyond, Shopify can help with everything you need. There's a reason millions of companies like Mattel, high, and all birds continue to trust and use them. With Shopify on your side,

turn your big business idea into... Sign up for your $1 per month trial at Shopify.com slash special offer. So many people have been doing this, so I decided to finally share the proper scrambled eggs recipe. And anyway, those are just some of the reviews. That's all.

All right, let's do one more. This is from Jasmine, says, Matt, since you're a Christian, I wanted to ask you a question that's been nagging me. As you may know in Acts 432 through 35, it says, now the multitude of those who believed were of one heart and one soul.

Neither did anyone say that any of the things he possessed was his own, but they had all things in common. And with great power, the apostles gave witness to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and great grace was upon them all. Nor was there anyone among them who lacked, for all who were possessors of lands or houses sold them and brought the proceeds of the things that were sold

and laid them at the Apostle. feet and they distributed to each as anyone had need. Although I am a capitalist, I read this, and see the redistribution of wealth in the early church. Does this mean that the Bible advocates for socialism? Jasmine, no, that doesn't mean that it's socialism because notice one element at play, choice. The early Christians chose to live that way. This is not socialism. That's the opposite of socialism. Socialism is compelled by the state. The state comes in, takes charge, takes what it wants, redistributes, that's what socialism is all about. What you find there are people who choose to live a certain way. Personally, I'm a huge critic of socialism, but I think it's great

when people share, when they help less fortunate, when they give to charity, when they live simple lives. I'm a big fan of that, but I just think people should choose that. And so that is, that's free market. It's free. People are living how they want to live. doing what they want with their own money. By the way, why doesn't the Bible call for a giant welfare state? Well, I think for one thing, God knows that the governments are corrupt, and so when you give them too much money and too much power, horrible things are going to happen as we have seen play out

with socialist governments over the last 100 years or so. But even more importantly, what's the point of showing? What's the point of giving to the less fortunate? What's the point of helping those in need? Is the point to cure poverty? Well, no, because Jesus said we're always going to have the poor with us. In fact, even encourage people to be poor. So I don't think Jesus saw poverty as necessarily a problem that had to be solved. Yet he did tell us to give to the poor. So how do you square that? well i think that um the answer is love right that's really the point when you stop on the street and you give some food to a homeless person yeah he gains a meal okay and which is a very practical

and necessary and good thing something that he needs to live but he also benefits from the act of love. You are extending a hand. You are lifting him up. You are noticing him as a human being. You are making him feel more human. And in turn, he makes you feel more human by accepting your charity graciously and with gratitude. And I think that's the real point. That love is the point. The point is to love your fellow man, to let them know that they are loved. to build them up with love. And that's it. And that is lost.

That's completely lost when the government does it. Because nobody feels loved by the government. Nobody is humanized by the government. Nobody is lifted up by the government. The opposite is true. To the government, you're a number. You're a figure. You're a statistic.

So that's why, one of the reasons why people get stuck on welfare and never get off of it. because it's dehumanizing, it's depressing. It's, it just makes you feel like a number. Just they throw an EBT card at you. They send you a check, whatever. They don't care about you. You're dealing with bureaucrats. And bureaucracy, bureaucracy doesn't care about you, doesn't look at you like a person, isn't concerned about you. Yet an individual person who chooses to help you. Well, that is someone who's, that is when you feel the love, as it were. So I think that's the difference. And we will leave it there. Thanks everybody for watching. Godspeed. Hey, everyone, I'm Andrew Claven, host of the Andrew Claven show. What Harvard did to pro-freedom

activist Kyle Kachov sucks. And if you make excuses for Harvard, you suck. But then the truth is, Harvard isn't Harvard anymore, just like the New York Times isn't the Times and Disney isn't Disney. These once great institutions are just the skins of their former selves being worn by an alien being named leftism. We'll talk about it on the Andrew Claven show. I'm Andrew Claven.