The Matt Walsh Show - Ep. 339 - Cancel Culture Is A Cancer

Episode Date: September 25, 2019

The infamous transcript has been released. Does it live up to the hype? Also, reporters sets out to randomly destroy a guy who raised money for sick kids. This is psychotic behavior by the media. Date: 09-25-2019 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Wow, well, this is incredible, folks. This is really, this is something else. The transcript of Trump's call with the Ukrainian president has finally been released, as I'm sure you've heard. But I don't know if you've read this whole thing yet. It is, it is damning. Wow. Trump is finished. Okay. He's done. Toast. Now, I want to read for you. I'm not going to read the whole transcript, but there's one part that I think, I'm not an expert, but for me, this is the key part. It's a little bit subtle. It's hard to pick up on. But there's one exchange in the entire conversation that, to me, I read it and I say, this is a real problem. So let me read this part to you. Stunning. This is absolutely stunning.

Okay. Trump, I'd like to do an illegal deal with you. Zelensky. illegal, you say? Trump. Yes, I'd like to work out a totally criminal illegal arrangement. Zelensky. Is this for your personal political gain?

Now listen to this part. Trump responds, yes, it is. It is for my personal political gain. It is not in the nation's interests. It is in my own. Again, I stress the illegal nature of all of this. Zelensky, okay, I'm game. Let's do the illegal stuff.

Trump. Great. Sounds good. Wow. They got him. Ladies and gentlemen, they got them. That's, I don't know if you picked up on that, but, you know, the part where he talks about, we're going to do illegal stuff, that to me is an indication that they're planning on doing illegal stuff. And that could really be a problem. Wait, actually, I'm sorry. That's, okay, let me just a brief editor's note here. Okay, that actually was not the transcript. I apologize. That was a transcript that I just made up off the top of my head. Innocent mistake, sometimes I make up transcripts by accident. I don't know. I just, we all do that sometimes. It's just, it's slip of the tongue. The real transcript was, though, released today. And actually, after all this buildup, the real one, the anonymous claim that, you know, Trump offered a quid pro quo to the Ukrainian president in exchange for dirt on Biden. or that he threatened to withhold aid or whatever else,

or the Democrats even beginning impeachment proceedings beforehand just based on the anonymous reports. After all of that, the transcript comes out and it's just a total nothing, actually. It is a big fat nothing. It actually makes Trump look good, if anything. If anything, I think it makes them look good. Because what it documents is a friendly, cordial call

between two world leaders. Trump is pretty professional, conducts himself reasonably well. He comes off, here's what I'll say, he comes off way better in the call than he does on Twitter. And so I think the normal, the average normal person who reads the transcript, that's what's going to jump out at them. That's what they're going to think. They're going to say, oh, okay, hmm, all right, well, all right. That's going to be the reaction from average normal people.

And yeah, the pundit class, the political class, folks in D.C., they're going to read it, and they're doing it now, and they've been doing it all day, parsing it and finding this and that red flag and so on and try. But certainly from a political perspective and how this plays with the voters, I think the average person reads it and says, whatever. And I think I'm a pretty good barometer on this one because yeah, look, if you're a Trump sycophant, if you're a Trump groupie, then it really didn't matter what the transcript said. You were going to be honest. In fact, the transcript could have been the one that I made up and you would still say, that's fine, whatever. And on the other end of the spectrum, if you are a deranged Trump hater, then it didn't matter what the transcript said. You were still going to say, this is damning, let's impeach him. I, as you know, I'm neither of those things. I wouldn't call myself a Trump fan. I wouldn't call myself a fan of any politician. I'm also not a deranged leftist. Even if I am deranged, I'm not a leftist at least. And so,

I have no problem criticizing Trump at all. I do it all the time. No problem with it. If this transcript really did appear to be clearly wrong, illegal, inappropriate, whatever, I would say so. I have no problem saying so. I didn't really go into this rooting one way or another. whatever. The transcript says what it says. But I read it and I say, it's really nothing. And I think that's what most people are going to say. All he does in the call is ask the president of Ukraine to look into illegal activity, some of which, yes, involves Joe Biden. But, but okay, then isn't that Joe Biden's fault for allegedly doing the illegal things that involve Ukraine, which is why Ukraine's being asked to get involved in it or to investigate it? There isn't a part

in the call where Trump says, okay, do this for us and we'll do this for you. Or do this for us. And if you don't, we're going to have this or that consequence. That doesn't happen in the call. If you want to look at this like a Rorschach test, or if you want to get out your decoder glasses, look at the invisible ink, I'm sure you can find, oh, no, this part here really is, it really is a quid pro quo. It's just he didn't say it. Sure, you can look at it that way if you want, but that's not how

most people are going to look at it. This isn't even the Mueller report, right? Where, sure, with the Mueller report, they didn't nail Trump on explicitly illegal behavior like they wanted to and like they thought they would. But he did certainly do and say a bunch of dumb borderline stuff. There's no doubt about that. So it didn't really make them look good. It made them look bad. The Mueller report made them look bad. The only reason why it worked out worse for the Democrats is that they way overplayed their hand, as they always do. But it didn't make Trump look particularly good. It made him look bad. This wasn't even that. I was, if I had to guess ahead of time, I would have, I would have guessed that it would be something Mueller report-ish, where, yeah, it's not, it's, it's, it's not

what the anonymous report said about explicit quid pro quo. And it wasn't going to be that. Of course not. But, but, but, but, yeah, it'll be kind of a, definitely inappropriate, makes you uncomfortable. It wasn't, it didn't even rise to that level. So it just, it's incredible that the Democrats, it's incredible what they're doing. They're going to get this guy reelected. They're really going to do it. He should be, and I know if you're a big fan, you're not going to like this. You'll try not to agree with it, but it is true, that he should be really easy to beat because he leaves open so many legitimate lines of attack. are so many things about him and about the way he governs and conducts himself that a person

could reasonably criticize. And if you're an opponent of Trump and you point those things out, a lot of people, most people are going to agree with you. They're going to say, yeah, that's true. I mean, a lot of the Twitter stuff is an example. We've talked about this before. If you're a big Trump fan, you love the Twitter, fine. Most people don't. And so when the Democrats point out, oh, this guy's unhinged on Twitter, he runs his mouth, kind of. constantly? I mean, what does he, does he do anything but tweet? He should, you know, he should be governing, not tweeting. That, whether you like those lines of attack or not as a big Trump fan, doesn't matter. Most people agree with that. And so that's an effective line of attack.

It's not the most important thing in the world, but it's effective. Because most people agree, most people don't like it, it annoys most people. So they could stick with that kind of thing. Trying to paint Trump as a little bit unhinged, a little bit unbalanced, incompetent, doesn't have control over his own White House. They could do all that. They could even throw in the racist stuff. Now, I don't agree with that. I don't think he is racist. But I think those lines of attack when played correctly and not overplayed can be effective, even if they're not true. So the Democrats could stick with all of that. And meanwhile, stick with their, mostly just stick with their normal campaign talking points.

and they'd probably walk into a victory in 2020 without much trouble, but they just can't help themselves. Even though Trump leaves open these legitimate lines of attack, they always go for the worst, most illegitimate, shakiest lines of attack they can possibly find because they still haven't figured this guy out after three years. Somehow, Trump is not a very complicated guy. Okay, most, I'm not either. Most guys aren't.

After three years, they still haven't figured him out. They still want to make him out to be some sort of criminal mastermind. He's not that. Opponents of Hillary Clinton could go that. That's what Trump did with Clinton. And there was a lot of truth to it. And the Clintons really have been overseeing a criminal enterprise for decades now. I don't know if I call them masterminds, but they were as close to that as you could get as a

as a modern American politician could really get. So that, yeah, that worked with them. Because there was truth to it, and that's how the public sees them, and fine. That's not Trump. That's just not how he operates. That's not how people see him. It's not what he is. But they can't help themselves, and they're going to get, it's, it is really amazing.

All right, you know, but I'm not going to spend a lot more time on this because it's, what else is there to say? The transcript is what it is, and that is it wasn't much. So what I really want to move on to is let's talk about a story that infuriates me. What I saw this last night, not the transcript thing, totally now we're on a different subject. I saw this last night, and I was livid. Okay. I was tweeting so angrily about it. I was just seething with my tweeting.

Angry tweeting. I was there with my phone, like, you, That's how I tweet, if you can imagine. You know this guy, Carson King? King is a college football fan who went viral a few weeks ago because he had a funny sign that he was holding, which was highlighted, I guess, on an ESPN morning show, pregame show, that is, where he had his Venmo information

and he was asking people to send him beer money. And that a bunch of people actually did send him beer money, which was a genius plan, really, because you figure, hey, you put it on the sign and, you know, many people are watching. And even if everybody just, because it's funny, sends you a buck, you still get a lot of money out of it. And, hey, why not?

So, you know, people were sending the guy money. And then the guy decided, Carson K. decided to donate the money. I don't know if all or most of it, to a children's hospital. Now, I hope he took a little bit for himself and actually went and got himself some beer because I think he deserved it. But he gave, at a minimum of the lion, I don't know what they, he gave the money to a children's hospital. And didn't have to do that.

That really is an incredible generosity, actually. I think most people, they come into a windfall like that, they're going to keep the money for themselves. He says, I'm going to give it to a children's hospital. Great story. This became a big viral story. King is very popular now in Iowa for good reason. He's an Iowa football fan. And then Anheuser Bush, the beer manufacturer, they decided to jump on the bandwagon.

And they started working with King to raise money for the children's hospital. And it's, again, a heartwarming story. It's just great. Positive stuff. We don't have enough positive stories in America these days. It's the kind of story where you read it and you go, oh, that's really nice. That's cool. And then you move on.

You know, and then you move on with your life. And that's it. Well, that's not what our intrepid media does, though. You and I, we see a nice story. We kind of smile and say, that's great. And that's all, and that's it. Our intrepid media, it's not what they do. No, that's not how they perceive this kind of thing.

They see a guy, especially a white guy, getting positive attention. and they think to themselves, how can we destroy him? Let's think of a way to destroy him. Because he is the proverbial blade of grass, the tall blade of grass that has reached out, peaked its head above the other blades of grass. And so let's cut that one down to size. How can we take this great moment from him and turn it into a nightmare? How can we ruin his life?

that's how the media looks at it, because they are gutless, soulless vultures. And so somebody at the Des Moines Register, a reporter named Aaron Calvin, decided to go, look through his Twitter history to see if they could dig up some racist tweets. And sure enough, King, eight years ago, when he was a sophomore in high school, supposedly tweeted a couple of racist jokes. Though apparently they were, he was, not that it even matters, okay, but he was referencing or quoting a Comedy Central show, Tosh Point O. But they went back eight years and they found this.

The reporter confronted King about the tweets. King apologized, then did a press conference. This is where we are now. He had to do a press conference. This is just some guy. I mean, this isn't a public figure. This is just a guy who we're talking about for a couple of weeks because he did this funny stunt and now he's giving money to a children's hospital.

He's doing a press conference to address, to get in front of the story. I don't blame him for doing it. I think it was smart. He's trying to get in front of it. He does a press conference. Next thing you know, Anheiser Bush pulls out of their relationship with King, and then the register publishes the profile with the bit about the tweets. Now, I want to read for you the part of the register story about the tweets, and not because I want to embarrass King, but because I want to embarrass the register. But it's important. Here's the part. I think it's important that we read this. just to understand what they're doing here. So, Aaron Calvin says,

a routine background check of King's social media revealed two racist jokes, one comparing black mothers to gorillas and another making light of black people killed in the Holocaust. The jokes tweet date back to 2012 when King was a 16-year-old high school student. When asked about the tweets, King was remorseful and thanked the register

for pointing them out, saying they made him sick. He has since deleted them. That's not something I'm proud of it all, he told the register. Tuesday evening, King spoke to local television stations about the now-deleted tweets, said, I am embarrassed and stunned to reflect on what I thought was funny when I was 16 years old. I want to sincerely apologize. Now, we'll circle back to that in a second, because there's something there that's important, but we'll circle back to it. Just to get through the rest of the story here, some industrious folks on Twitter went through, decided to go through

the reporter, who used to work at BuzzFeed, by the way, big shocker. They just decided to go through the reporter Aaron Calvin's Twitter history to see what's going on with him. And what do you know? They found all kinds of racial slurs and homophobic content content, way more than he found on Carson King. They found way more on Aaron Calvin. So Calvin shuts down his Twitter account, has to post an apology, and he's facing intense backlash for the hit piece. People are calling for him to be fired. He should be fired, in my opinion. And not because of his old tweets, but because of this hit piece that he did for no reason on this innocent guy. And then the register published a note, a note from the editor last night, explaining why they decided to try and humiliate this guy for no reason.

And here's what they said. This is the note from the editor trying to tamp down the backlash and the outrage, which is pretty significant. It says, on Monday evening, Register reporter Aaron Calvin was assigned to interview King for a profile on Tuesday as he worked to write the story. He did a routine background check, there's that phrase again, on King that included a review of publicly visible social media posts, a standard part of a reporter's work on a profile. Calvin found two racist jokes that King had posted on Twitter in 2012. Calvin asked King about them, and he expressed deep regret. That prompted a discussion involving several register editors about how to best proceed. Should that material be included in the profile at all?

The jokes were highly inappropriate and were public posts. shouldn't that be acknowledged to all the people who had donated money to King's cause or were planning to do so? But the decision about how to use this information was preempted when King held a news conference to discuss his tweets and express his remorse. The news conference was covered by a local TV station, so on and so forth. Reasonable people can look at the same set of facts and disagree on what merits publication, but rest assured such decisions are not made likely and are rooted in what is perceived

as the public good. Okay. So there's the story. A couple things here. First of all, let's get one thing straight. The routine background check line, which is in the editor's note and in the profile, so they obviously thought that this is going to give them cover. It is utter horse crap. Okay. Why are you doing a background check on someone who is raising money for a children's hospital? Is he applying for a job at the FBI, a routine background check? And why would that routine involve searching through tweets he posted almost a decade ago? Why is that part of the routine?

This is a revealing way of framing it, though, because sure, yeah, I believe that it is routine. I actually believe that. But it is routine then for these scavenging hacks in media to take end. anyone who's getting positive attention and find a way to ruin them for clicks. That's the routine. And it's a bad routine. The fact that it's a routine just makes it worse. What you're essentially saying is, yeah, we treated him like this, but this is how we treat everybody. It's like if you catch two people gossiping viciously about somebody else and you say, hey, you know, you shouldn't gossip. And they say, oh, no, no, no, this is fine. This is our routine.

And this is what we do every day. No, it's totally fine. I don't know. You don't understand. We get together every day and we spread. vicious rumors and say horrible things about people for fun. That's a total routine. It's just a routine. Don't worry about it. Yeah, it's your routine. It's your routine because you're a bad person. That's what it is. But you shouldn't be a bad person. You see, that's the thing. I want you to really think about this. Think about what they did. Think about the process here, because you have to imagine yourself as a fly on the wall watching this process of a background check, quote, unquote, to really get a feel for just how psychotic it is.

So Carson King is in the news for giving money to sick kids. Again, the only reason he's in the news, because he had a funny sign and he gave money to kids. That's it. then Aaron Calvin and his editors decide to go and here's what they do. They, and I guarantee this is how they did it. They did a keyword search. They went to King's Twitter. They pulled up his Twitter.

Probably his Facebook too. Probably didn't find anything there. That's why it didn't come out. Pull up his Twitter and they did a keyword search of certain racial terms and words and phrases. They plugged those in and it's a fishing expedition. See if anything comes up. but probably they tried a few different words. Nothing came up.

They kept trying until they got something. And then they got it. And then they publish it. But who even thinks to do that? That's why I want you to really, because I call it psychotic. It really is psychotic. Would you ever even think,

you see somebody in the news for some heartwarming human interest story, would it ever even occur to you to go to their Twitter account and check to see if they said anything racist 10 years ago? Why? Why would that ever occur to you to do? The Register's editor, Carol Hunter, is her name, by the way. She called this the public good. Tell me exactly precisely, Carol, how this helps the public good.

How does it in any way serve the public good by digging up old tweets from some guy who held a sign to raise money for sick children? How does that serve the public good? Take me through the steps. Okay. Step one, dig up dirt on random guy who did nice things for kids. Step two, fill in the blank. Step three, public good. What happens in step two? How do you bridge that gap? Because I don't see the connection between digging up dirt on this guy and public good.

So something must happen in between so that this translates into public good. Tell me, Carol, what's the public good? Here's the thing. I don't give the slightest, tiniest, smallest little damn what Carson King tweeted when he was 16. It doesn't matter. It could be the most racist thing you could ever possibly imagine. It could be utterly horrible.

It could be like he could have pledged allegiance to Hitler. He could have come out and endorsed slavery. Hey, slavery is good, everybody. He could have done that. He didn't do that, to be clear. do that. But I'm saying it could be that bad. It could be that offensive. And I would still say it is not relevant at all. It is not newsworthy at all. And there's absolutely no reason to report it. None. He's only in the news for doing a nice thing for a kid. He's not a public figure. He's not

running for office. He's not going to be Pope. Nothing. So nothing he said at 16, no matter what it is. could possibly be relevant or newsworthy. It's impossible. I cannot stress this enough. The problem here is not just that what they discovered is not a big deal or whatever. And in reality, he was just referencing jokes made by a comedian on TV, even if they're inappropriate. of jokes, apparently that's what he was doing. So don't blame him. If you're going to blame anyone, blame the comedian. But I'm trying to stress, that's not even the point. It's like that doesn't matter. I've seen some people on Twitter and they mean well, but they're trying to say, they're trying to defend it based on the, no, it does, none of that matters. Doesn't matter

what he said. I don't care what he said. Doesn't matter. There is no reason to report it. It is not newsworthy. There is no reason to have ever looked for it in the first place. Carol says, oh, well, people might want to know, you know, this person who's fundraising, they might want to know what. Why would anyone want to know that? You're telling me that if somebody is fundraising for sick children, before you give to the cause,

you want to know what he said on Twitter when he was 16? Why? You know, if you walk outside the grocery store and there's a group there fundraising for, you know, I don't know, they're a little league coach fundraising for uniforms for the little league or whatever they do outside of Walmarts and grocery stores, you know, when they guilt you into giving them, you know, your change or whatever. But do you stop and say, hold on a second, what's your Twitter handle? What you say, okay, let me look it up here. like a keyword search. Do you do that? Does it matter? Now, if you have reason to believe that they're not really giving the money to the cause they say they're giving it to, then sure. Now, that's an issue. That's not the case here. No one's accusing Carson of that. This is insane.

In a sane world, okay, we'd agree, we'd agree that really, and I really mean this, nothing you say, this is what in a sane world and I just said it's insane we live in an insane world so this is not the case but in a sane world we would all agree that nothing you say before like the age of 20 matters okay

because teenagers routinely say offensive horrible, vulgar outrageous outlandish things that's why they say it. That's the point. Do we all forget what it's like to be a teenager? You say it for attention,

you say it's because it's funny, you say it because you're trying to impress your friends, whatever. None of those are good reasons, but there's not a good reason for 95% of the things that teenagers say and do because they're teenagers. In a sane world, we would all recognize this. In a sane world, we would say, oh, geez, I don't want anyone to know the worst thing I said when I was 16. I mean, do you kidding me? In a sane world, we would all. world, that's what we would say. It just, it does, I don't care. In fact, he could even, he could be Pope. He could be the president. He could be running for office. And if you came to he's out, guess what he said at 16? I would say, don't even tell me. It doesn't matter. He was 16.

Now, what about what happened to this reporter Calvin with his own racist tweets being drudged up in retaliation? Well, I go back to, and I have to admit, I really enjoyed that. I admit, I it. I did enjoy it. Maybe it's vindictive, I guess. But, man, that was satisfying. It was. And, but I go back to what we've been talking about over the past few weeks. It is perfectly fair and consistent in my view to hold a person to their own standard. Not your standard. Aaron Calvin, this is his standard. He's the one who thinks that what people said years ago on Twitter, jokes they made are relevant, and that exposing those things is for the public good. So really, it's for his own sake. I mean, unless he's a total hypocrite, coward phony,

and he couldn't possibly be that. I would never accuse him of that. So really, by giving the benefit of the doubt that he's sincere in that belief, then I think it's the right thing to go through his own Twitter and find these things and give him the opportunity to apologize. Because, again, he thinks that this is relevant. I don't think it is, but he does. And so you pull it up and you say, oh, you know, I mean, for your own seg, you said that this is relevant. So here's your stuff. You know, you said this and that, this racist thing. Here you go.

I mean, did you want to apologize for that? I because look I wouldn't want to deprive him of the opportunity to apologize he's a big fan of that right he's also a big fan of making people apologize for stuff they said a long time ago and I'm sure he would love to be a part of that I would really hate to

so I think that's it you know you hold people to their own standard and I think that's what we need to do while making it clear that it's not our standard but maybe, and this is, this is, if you have an unreasonable bad standard or principle that you have adopted or that you believe in, it might be that the only way for you to discover how bad it is is for you

to be held to it, is for you to experience its ramifications. And then maybe you'll go, oh, this is actually horrible. And the rest of us can. and go, exactly. And I'll say one other thing. I believe a big problem in our society these days, one of many, is the lack of forgiveness, the lack of giving people a chance to redeem themselves. And so I think if Aaron Calvin were to come out and apologize, I mean, apologize sincerely, publicly, mainly to Carson King,

then I think the rest of us should say, okay, you know, we forgive you. It's not really for us to forgive, but I'm sure Carson's a really decent guy. He'll forgive you. And then we'll move on. So I believe in that. Now, the Des Moines Register, that is a graciousness, a mercy, a grace that they did not give to Carson King. Because even if you believe somehow that these tweets that he wrote eight years ago, nine years ago, matter, well, they confronted him about it. He apologized.

They even admit he apologized. He was remorseful. That should have been enough. Then they should have said, oh, okay, well, you know what? Then we're not going to post it. We're not going to publish it. We're not going to. This isn't about that.

We don't want to hurt you. and we don't want to hurt your reputation. And you can tell that, you know, obviously you've changed it unsurprisingly since you were 16. And so we're just going to put this to the side. Don't worry about it. That's what a graceful, merciful person would have done. Well, a graceful, merciful person wouldn't have looked for the stuff in the first place. But if you had it, that would have been the right response.

But they didn't do that. Even after he apologized, they said, we're going to post it anyway. My God. Sociopaths. Really. All right. Let's go to emails. Matt Walshow at gmail.

com. Matt Walshow at gmail.com. This is from Ben. I wanted to start with this very important question. Says, hi, Matt. Are boneless wings acceptable? I personally prefer them over traditional bone-in wings. They are less messy to eat and you typically get more chicken per wing. Everyone acts like I'm a terrible person when I order them. I figured I'd check with you so I know whether or not I need to flee the country when your theocratic dictatorship is established. Thanks, I'm a big fan of the show. Ben, I think we all know that boneless wings are better for all the reasons that you give. You get more meat. It's easier to eat. So therefore, you can eat more of them, particularly when it's an appetizer situation. And, you know, there's a whole bunch of boneless wings at the center of the table for everybody. Well, with boneless wings, you can scarf them down real quick and then get your grubby paws on even more and hog more of the appetizer for yourself. So that's an advantage. But you're a man, Ben, and men eat bone-in wings, period.

Men don't order boneless wings. You order the regular wings. Why? Just because. Boneless wings are for children and women. Why? Just because. I don't know.

That's just how it is. They just are. There are a lot of things in life, Ben, that men have to do that they don't want to do. It's part of being a man. And one of those things is choosing bone in wings when you're you really want boneless wings. And that's all there is to it. Okay?

This is, you know what it is? It's chivalry. Somehow. In some way, it probably is. From Elias says, Supreme Bearded Overlord of the known universe and universe is yet unknown. You mentioned a few days ago that if a man goes to the restroom and uses a urinal right next to another man when there are others open, it should be a criminal offense. I completely agree.

However, does this rule apply when there are dividers between the urinals or when you are at a ballgame in between innings? would love your feedback. First of all, Elias, I stipulated the death penalty for such offenders, just to be clear. This is not just a criminal penalty. This is the ultimate penalty, which is well deserved. And this was applying to people who choose the urinal right next to you when there are other urinals available. And in those cases, divider's not going to save you. There's just no good reason ever to choose that urinal right next to somebody else when there's somewhere else you could go in the bathroom. Now, what if there is no other urinal available?

Well, in that case, if it's me and I'm already occupying a urinal and the only available one is right next to me, then you need to go find a sink, go outside and find a tree. I don't know. Take care of it somewhere else because I still don't want you right next to me. I need my space. All right. Let's go. Let's see here.

Let me tell how much time we have because I had a big, well, this is one is from June. Says, hi, Matt. I love your show and your Twitter, but I've noticed that you use the S word sometimes on Twitter. Twitter, why do you do this? It seems unnecessary to me. Hi, June. Yeah, I guess I do. Well, to be, to be honest with you, and I hope I don't scandalize my good Christian audience, but I, you know, I do like the word. It just fits sometimes, especially, you know, a well-timed bull S. I mean, BS just doesn't capture it. You need that, you know, it's really that hard syllable at the end that you just need. The it at the end is what you need. And sometimes it just doesn't.

just captures what you're trying to say better than any other word. And, and, you know, I really don't think it counts as a cuss word. And I feel pretty strongly about this, because I feel strongly about a lot of dumb things. I really don't, the S word. Like, why is that, who cares? Why is that a cuss word? The distinction between that word and say crap or, or even stuff, is arbitrary. It's not a profanity. Let's be clear about that. It's not a profanity because it's not. not blaspheming anything sacred. That's what a profanity is. It doesn't take the Lord's name in vain. It's not a word that's scandalous or anything. It doesn't insult anyone. I mean, it's just a word that's come to take on many different meanings, none of them terribly objectionable. And frankly,

can I just say also that when it comes to these sort of scatological words, I think that the S word is way less offensive and gross than poop. To me, poop is, I don't even want to say it. That's a grossware. That's disgusting because it sounds way too much like the thing it describes. And so that's how I feel about that. All right. Now I'm going to awkwardly transition into a deeply theological email from that, because that's how we do things on the Matt Walsh. This is from Ethan says, hello, Mr. Walsh. My name is Ethan. I'd like to further discuss the doctrine of election with you. The doctrine of the elect and the idea of once saved, always saved, has nothing to do with the nature of man, but the nature, will, power, and actions of God.

Many relevant verses and the cited verses are available in their entirety at the end of this email. The once saved, always saved doctrine is an extension of the doctrine of election, also known as unconditional election. The doctrine of election has everything to do with God and nothing to do with man. He draws us, he chooses us, not the other way around, as God gives us the desire to be saved, as well as the salvation that results from election and the actions that result from that desire. If God truly chooses us, even if we stray during our lifetimes, we will return to him before death. The Book of Life has the names of the elect written in it since before the world began, as seen in Revelation 178.

So logically, if the names of the elect have been written in the Book of Life since before any of us were even born, and God controls whose names are written in the Book of Life, then we cannot add or subtract our names to or from it. This preordained drawing confirmed by the Book of Life does two things for us. First, it assures us that God is in control of our salvation, not us. God uses tools like evangelism described in the Great Commission to draw those he has preordained to himself. If we are destined to be drawn to him, he will make it happen and it will be eternal. Second, it assures us that our sinful nature cannot separate us from him once saved. We strive to be more like Christ through sanctification, but our failure cannot separate us from him once drawn. To address your point on the Old Testament, first, Adam and Eve sinned because it was in the plan in the plan that God had designed to glorify himself. Same with the fall of the third of the angels.

The fall of man through sin created the old covenant, which works of man as outlined by the law credited righteousness to them. The situation changed with the new covenant. We are dead to the law and it's hold over us, but still charged with pursuing some of the moral tenets of law. The relationship with law and God changed under the new covenant. It's no longer works based as it was under the old covenant, but now is faith-based. These ideas lead to the once-saved, always-saved doctrine. This doctrine is less of a new idea in the 1500s, but rather a return to biblical truth that had been lost or ignored under Christendom. We may change our minds or appear to change our minds on earthly matters, but God does not change his mind on spiritual matters. God has chosen us

before creation, and as a result we will choose, although it is God doing the choosing from our perspective. We have a role to play in accepting Christ to follow him and be saved as he has preordained. God gives us the salvation, desire to be saved, and we act upon the desire receiving that salvation. It's all God, not us. We perceive choice here, but the will of God is undeniable, and we will choose him before we die if he has ordained it. Okay. Ethan, I selected your email from a gaggle of similar Calvinistic email, so I wanted to have that point of view represented, and I appreciate the email. I will just say I very much reject the doctrinal assertions that you have made here,

as you might expect. I'm sure it doesn't surprise you. I think that you have really made God into a, and not just you, okay, I know this is Calvinism, but you have made God into a cruel, capricious puppet master. someone who from the beginning of time has designed certain people, billions and billions, let's remember, I'm sure you'd agree. You talk about the elect, the save, the ones written, you would agree, I assume, that the vast majority of people are not in that book, right?

And the vast majority of people don't even claim to be Christian. So I assume on your theology, they're all definitely screwed. Okay, so according to you, God from the beginning of time has designed certain people billions to burn in hell for all eternity. Now, I know you might quibble and say, well, he didn't design them for that.

Okay, he designed them and then destined for them for that with no choice on their part. So I don't see the distinction. He designed them for it. Even now today, you would say, most of the infants on earth right now, as we speak, are doomed to roast in hell. forever, whether they die, you know, tomorrow or in 80 years. They are doomed to eternally

suffer, never ending torment, because God has designed them for that destiny, and they never had a choice. I don't even know, from a Calvinist perspective, I don't even know how you celebrate birth and, you know, childbirth and new babies. Isn't that sort of, how do you even celebrate it as a good thing? Knowing that there's a, that almost all of these people are going to roast in hell forever because God's designed it that way and destined them for it, isn't, isn't, you know, the continuing of the human race a great tragedy? Isn't it really a horrible thing? And why does God keep making more people? He keeps making more and more people to send to hell. Why does it just stop? This is not love. If this is love, then the word love has no meaning. If this is a loving God,

then there is no functional difference between a loving God and an evil God. So I just cannot possibly express strongly enough my rejection of that idea. I don't believe in an evil God. But the God you describe is evil. Now, you can call him whatever you want. You could say, oh, no, by his nature, he's good. Okay, but that's, that is, that,

then the word good, apparently, can also essentially mean evil. If, if, if good includes the possibility of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of hell for eternal suffering based on no choice or no action on their part. If good is included in that, then again, there's no distinction between evil and good. You say that Adam and Eve fell because God engineered it that way to glorify himself. So he gave them the illusion of choice, then engineered their fall, engineered a human history of suffering and death and torment and

pain leading for so many to eternal damnation and agony forever, all just for his own sake, for his own glory. That's it. What could I possibly call this version of God but utterly morally bankrupt and repulsive and horrifying? How could you even worship a God like this? How could you worship a God that made billions of people and doom them forever to hell? what is there even to worship in that kind of God? Now, you say that God still sends us out to preach the good news and evangelize as a way of calling his elect. But his elect don't need to be called according to you. They're already saved.

They don't need to be told anything or accept anything. And not only that, but the elect don't need to be called. And those who are not elect, you can't call them because no matter what you say to them to preach the gospel, they can't accept it. because they've been preordained to burn in hell. So the Great Commission is really a farce. It doesn't mean. At best, it's symbolic. But it's functionally pointless. It doesn't really do anything. Because those who are saved are going to be saved no matter what. And those who are not saved are not going to be saved no matter what. And this is why, you know, I could go and quote the same verses I quoted yesterday and so many others. I know I'm going to get grief for this

because again, I'm not quoting Bible verses. Well, take any of the verses I quote it. Here's the thing. Take pretty much any verse in the Bible. Any verse in the Bible, I think, completely refutes Calvinism, just destroys it. Because all of it has no purpose at all if we can't make a choice to accept it or not. if we are puppets on a string, which I know you wouldn't describe it that way,

but that's not how you would characterize it, but that is what you described, if we are puppets on a string and we are destined for one way or another, then there's nothing in the Bible means anything. Every verse in the Bible that exhorts, commands, instructs,

warns all of that. And that is, most of the Bible is like that, or much of it anyway. All of that is pointless. Because you can't, you could read it and, you know, Jesus says do this or that. But according to your theology, you can't choose to listen to it. Either God's going to make you follow it or he's going to make it so you don't. You say at another point that the fall of man through sin created the old covenant, except that wasn't the fall of man by your telling. I mean, if I'm controlling a puppet, a marionette on a string, and my puppet goes and knocks your drink over, can I really then blame the puppet? Can I pass the blame to the puppet and talk about the horrible time when my puppet clumsily

knocked your drink over? No, my puppet didn't do anything. I did. My puppet has no agency, no will of its own. It's all of me. It's everything is me. It's what you said. It's everything.

It's all God. Everything is God. So for God to then, for God to then engineer the fall of man and then blame us for it, all of a sudden you have painted a God who again is capricious, malevolent, vindictive. Now, it's a good thing that such a God does not exist. exist. It's a good thing that actually God is loving and is merciful. And those words do mean something when applied to him. And that is a very good thing. And that's why I don't believe this, because I think scripture refutes it on pretty much every page. And also because I don't believe in an evil God. I believe in a God of real love, real mercy, real justice. And none of that is

possible in the Calvinist system. I think in the Calvinist system, you know, we've been talking about the problem of suffering, the problem of evil. Well, as we've discussed, those are difficult problems, no matter your theology, those are difficult problems to overcome, to deal with, to wrap your head around. But when you allow for personal agency, when you allow for free will, when you allow for a world that God has created in which he allows us to make real choices. And he wants us to make real choices because in the end he wants us to choose love, because love is not love if it is not chosen. In that kind of world, which is the world that we really live in, I believe, the problem

of suffering, although it's still difficult, it's not as hard. because a lot of this stuff can go back to that and can be explained that way, people making choices. Not all of it, but a lot of it can be explained. And certainly when you get to something like hell, eternal damnation, eternal suffering, again, there are some really difficult things there, to put it mildly. But when you consider that it is something people can choose of their own volition because they'd rather have that than in eternity with God, then it becomes a little bit less challenging.

I think on the Calvinist system, the problem of suffering just destroys you. The problem of suffering just completely ruins your whole point of view. The problem of suffering is insurmountable on the Calvinist system because then you look at all the evil, all the terrible things that happen, and then you also factor in the terrible thing that's going to happen to a lot of people after death. And according to you, it really is all God's fault. He's doing all of that. That is all on him.

And then to go from there to say, oh, no, no, no, but God is loving. That just doesn't make any sense. That's just incoherent. You know, that's like a squared triangle. It just, it doesn't work. So, you know, yeah, that's, that's, honestly, I, I'm so perplexed by this. I know that there are a lot of Calvinists. I know plenty of Calvinists. They're good people and faithful people and, and, and all of that. so no personal disrespect intended, but I find this view so perplexing, not just because it is completely unbiblical. And as you say, it was invented 50 hundred years. It was invented. Now, you could say, I know, it was hidden in the text and no one noticed it. No, no, no. John Calvin came along and invented this. This is not from Jesus. This is from him. He made this up. But even aside from

that. If you really think that way about God, how could you possibly worship him? How could you possibly talk about what is there to worship other than the fact that he's very powerful? So then you're worshipping him the way that North Koreans worship their dictator because they have to. You don't have a choice. But there's nothing really inherently there worth worshipping. So that's what perplexes me about it. I just, I just, and I, you know, that's a sincere question. I would really like to hear from a Calvinist. You know, not getting back into debate. debating whether it's true or not, though again, thank God it is not true. But just explain to me in your way of thinking, how do you, in the Calvinist way of thinking, how is God at all worthy

of worship? How is he not just a malevolent evil tyrant directly responsible for all of the awful things that are happening in the world and will happen in the world to come? That's what I'm really curious about that. I'd be interested. I would love to read some emails on that question. But thanks for listening, everybody. Thanks for watching. Godspeed. If you enjoyed this episode, don't forget to subscribe.

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