The Matt Walsh Show - Ep. 348 - The Great Columbus

Episode Date: October 14, 2019

Today we remember the great Christopher Columbus and talk about why it's important to acknowledge and appreciate those who built western civilization, no matter what the PC brigade says. Also, controversy over a new pro-Trump meme. But the outrage is absurdly hypocritical. I'll explain why. And should parents spank their kids? We'll discuss. Date: 10-14-2019 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Happy Columbus Day, everybody, and congratulations to anybody out there who actually gets to take off on Columbus Day. I think that's a group that's now limited to public school teachers and post office employees. I don't know if anyone else gets off anymore for Columbus Day, but it is a day to remember a great man. And yes, I say a great man. Christopher Columbus was a great man. Why was it great? Well, because he sailed across uncharted waters to an unknown destination, and then he did it three more times. and in the process he vastly expanded our knowledge and understanding of the world. He planted the seeds of Western civilization.

He changed the globe. He changed the course of history. He had an impact on civilization that has lasted for 500 years and will last for 500 more and 1,000 years after that. I would say that's something, isn't it? That's kind of impressive. Maybe worthy of a statue. Maybe worthy of your own day.

Now, if you want to have your own day in the future, you want to have your own statue, then do the same thing. Change the course of history. Go ahead and try if it's so easy to do. One thing I'll say about Columbus, that he certainly had an impact on history that far exceeds the impact that his ungrateful modern critics

who enjoy the bounty of Western civilization while whining about the men who provided that bounty to them will have. Because those people who sit on Twitter and complain and say, Christopher Columbus, he was a genocidal maniac, those people are going to die and be forgotten. Nobody's going to remember them because they're not doing anything with their lives. Christopher Columbus is remembered 500 years later. All I'm going to say is this, is that if,

and hopefully maybe we can at least agree on this score, if you can't even drive to the neighboring state, I forget about that. If you can't even drive to your neighboring town, if you can't even drive to your local grocery store without the help of a satellite orbiting the earth giving you step-by-step instructions saying turn left here, turn right there, go 1.2 miles, turn right, okay.

If you can't even do that, if you can't even get to your CVS five blocks away without having to call upon the satellite, satellite help me. then maybe you can at least admit that it's kind of impressive that Columbus and his crew managed to make a voyage across thousands of miles of open ocean and then make it to a certain area on the map that wasn't even on the map yet because the map hadn't been drawn yet, and then make it back there three more times. Using routes, by the way, that are still used today. 500 years later. Oh, but he thought he was going to Asia. Stupid Columbus.

I thought he was going to Asia. I didn't know where he was going. Yes, it's true that Columbus committed the sin of not already having a completed map in front of him. Do you know why you have a completed map? Well, in fact, if you had a completed map, you couldn't use it. Because these days, even with a map, even if someone gives us a map, we are so ineffectual that even if someone gives us a map and shows us where to go, we couldn't do it. We can't even read a map.

If you live in Cincinnati, Ohio, and I get a, you. you a map to show you how to get to Lexington, Kentucky. If you're like a modern American, you couldn't even do it. You wouldn't have any idea. What's this line mean? What is that? No, you need the satellite to say, listen, dummy, make a right here, left there, okay, go one. That's what you need. But Columbus, he didn't have the satellite. He didn't have a map either. And the reason he didn't have a map is because no one had made a map of the world yet. And the reason no one had made a map of the world is that no one had seen. seen the entire world. Okay, there were large swaths of the planet that nobody had seen.

And so how could he know? Oh, but the Vikings found North America. Yeah, the Vikings did find North America, but they didn't establish lasting settlements. They didn't build upon that discovery. And so that's how nobody knew. The Vikings didn't understand what they had discovered. But yeah, Leif Erickson, I mean, give the Vikings credit too. I give all these guys credit. it's very impressive to get into a ship having no idea really where you're going and to just sail that way that's how they that's how the map was originally drawn is that someone had to get in a ship and just go that away and just like hundreds of years later when they when when when when when it was time to make a you know a comprehensive map of the continental united states someone had to

just go that away across the entire expanse of the continental U.S. I mean, this took there had to be courageous, pioneering men to do this. And I am grateful that they did.

Yeah, these guys, they weren't perfect. In some ways, they had to not be perfect. Because do you have any idea what it would, what kind of person you have to be to get on a ship leading a fleet of ships with a bunch of men and go across unknown

waters. You have no idea how long you're going to be gone or how far you're going to have to go. You have no idea if you're going to survive. There's a very good chance you won't. There's a very good chance you'll die. But to maintain order and discipline and to prevent, you know, mutiny and to prevent them from throwing you overboard when they get sick and tired of being on the ship. And to make sure that everyone doesn't starve to death or die of scurvy, do you know what's required? It takes men who are, yes, a little bit brutal, a little bit dictatorial even. That's what was required. Without that, without those kinds of men doing those things, Western civilization, as we know it, does not exist. And I, for one, am quite glad that it does

exists because I like living here. It's not perfect. There are problems. I'll be the first to point out those problems and criticize those problems. But I prefer living in Western civilization than anywhere else. And here's what I'll say to you. If you feel terrible about living here, if you feel like, if you feel guilt-ridden, we have no right to be here. We stole this land. We're on stolen land, so on and so forth. Well, if you really feel that way, then you are welcome to leave. And I don't, I don't mean that. This is not, if you don't like it, get out. That's not exactly what this is.

Well, that's a little bit what this is. But it's true that it's not even if you don't like it. It's more if you feel like there's a real moral problem with us even being here, then I think you are morally obligated to leave. If you really feel like this is stolen property, then why are you staying here? Go somewhere else. I hear the Middle East is very nice this time of year. Of course, the problem is if you go anywhere else on the globe, especially in the Middle East, but really anywhere,

you are inevitably going to end up on quote unquote stolen land. Because no matter where you go, unless you're going to Antarctica or something, okay, unless you're going to some place where nobody lives, if you're going to a place where there are people, you are more than likely going to end up, no matter where it is, no matter what continent doesn't matter, you're going to end up in a place that has been, quote, unquote, stolen, historically, probably multiple times. The people living on that plot of land,

their ancestors probably stole it from the people who were living before. And those people were probably stole it from the people before that. Because for thousands of years of human civilization, that's the way the world worked. it was a time of conquest where if you wanted to live on a certain plot of land you fought for it and that's the way it worked everywhere

it's not pretty it's not nice but that's the way it worked and it's very easy for us in the year 2019 to sit here and say well that that feels wrong I don't like that that makes my tummy hurt to think that people did that I don't like it okay well you know what that's what your ancestors did

that's what everybody's ancestors did. I mean, coming to the new world, what do you think the Indian civilizations were doing? You think they were just living peacefully with each other, just playing patty cake? What do you think they were doing? How do you think the Aztecs, when Cortez came across the Aztec civilization and what is now Mexico, how do you think they got all that land they were living on? How do you think they got it? You think they just, they just, they just, they just came in and asked the inhabiting tribes nicely. Hey, would you guys mind if we set up a civilization here? Would you mind? Oh, you would? Well, never mind. See you later. No, you know what they did? They came in. They killed almost everybody. And of the survivors, they would take some of the children and some of the women, some of the women they'd take as sex slaves, and some of the children they would take. And they would cut out their hearts as human sacrifices. and then cut off their limbs and eat them. That's what the Aztecs did.

That's how they gained land. It was a brutal time. Very brutal. And nobody's ancestral hands are clean. Nobody. But again, if you feel bad about it, if you're real torn up, I would respect that. I would respect someone who says,

you know what, I really feel this is stolen land, and I'm going to give my land back. You could call up an Indian reservation. You could say, hey, I've got property. I want to donate it to you. And I'm going to go live in, I don't know where. I don't know where you're going to go. Like I said, there's nowhere you can really go that isn't stolen.

But you could find someplace. Maybe you will go down in Antarctica. They have research facilities down there. You could see if you could set up shop in one of those, build an igloo or something maybe. So that was my yearly annual Columbus rant. And now a word from Rock Auto. You know, the thing about the chain stores that you go to for auto parts is that they have all kinds of, you know, little tricks they pull to get more money out of you. And one is that they'll have different price tiers depending on if you're a professional or not.

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all the parts of your car that you're ever going to need. It's all there. Rockotto.com. Go to rockado.com right now. See all the parts available for your car or truck. Write Walsh into their, how did you hear about us box? So they know that we sent you. Again, that's rock auto.com. Okay, let's see. What's the controversy of the day? Well, Columbus, Columbus is one controversy, because 500 years later, of course, people still haven't quite gotten over things. But the other controversy is over this meme. And I could hardly say that without laughing because, of course, a controversy over a meme is just really, that's very worthwhile, isn't it, for us to have a controversy over a meme. There was an event for Trump supporters a few days ago, hosted by a group

called American Priority. And it was held at a Trump resort in Miami. Apparently, during this event, from what I've heard, in one of the side rooms at the resort, there was a session about memes. And I don't really know why, but there was. And a bunch of memes were being played. And one of the memes has people very upset today because it shows President Trump murdering a bunch of news media logos and a few people too, not real people, but the faces of people transplanted on other people. And I'm not sure how much of this they'll let me play, but I wanted to give you a quick sampling of this controversial meme that has people very upset today. So here's a little bit of that. Watch. How dare you separate them from their parents? We're going to rip your son from his

mother's arms and throw him in a cage full of pedophiles and let them have. So the video as I said, it shows Trump in what looks like a church, shooting a bunch of media logos and media people. From the reports I've read, this was played in, as I said, a side room. Most of the attendees didn't see it, weren't aware of it. They learned about it in the media reports. Trump himself obviously had nothing to do with this. He didn't put it together. His campaign had nothing to do with it.

Someone played it in a mostly empty room. A few people saw it. And now everyone has seen it because the media ironically has amplified this message, a message that they think is so dangerous and horrible, yet they're the ones putting it out there for everybody to see. Now, it is in poor taste, certainly. It's in poor taste. It's stupid. It's stupid on a number of levels. And it's even dumber for a supporter to play something like that at an ostensible Trump event. Because who do you think? think you're helping? Like, what good do you think's going to come of that? So whoever it is that put that together and then decided to play it out of Trump event, you're definitely not helping

the guy that you're ostensibly trying to support. There is no universe where that's helpful. Best case scenario is that it makes a few Trump supporters laugh, but that's it. You're not going to win any votes or win any favor that way, so it's a very stupid thing. But I can't help but think. You know, this meme uses what is obviously a scene from a movie. And it turns out that the movie is called Kingsman, a movie well-known, blockbuster movie. And now it's a franchise. How many Kingsman movies? There have been two or three Kingsman movies now.

I haven't seen them, but apparently there's a scene in that film where a guy, Colin Firth, slaughters a bunch of people at a church. And apparently in the original movie, the, um, these, are Westboro Baptist Church type people. So basically it's a parody of what Hollywood thinks, you know, all churches are like. This is a parody of, of according to Hollywood, every church, especially in the South. And the protagonist, Colin Firth, murders almost everybody in the building in the original scene. And I do have to wonder if this meme is so offensive. and so potentially dangerous and in such poor taste,

why isn't the original scene also offensive and dangerous and in poor taste? So if a guy is slaughtering a bunch of media members, it's a problem, but if you slaughters a bunch of rubs at a church, it's okay. That message is fine. This scene has been out there for almost five years now. Nobody ever complained about it. In fact, in fact, it's more than that. It's not just that nobody complained about this scene when it first came out.

It's that they actively celebrated it. Let me read a relevant passage from a 2015 Washington Post review of Kingsman. This is what the Washington Post in 2015 had to say about that scene when it was just Christians getting murdered and not media members. They said, of course, this being a modern movie, there's loads of violence, though most of it is bloodless and support. apprisingly balletic, balletic, ballet, you know, like a ballet is what they say. It's like a ballet. One massacre set in a conservative Christian church in the American Deep South is a masterclass in cartoonish fight choreography. A masterclass. Now, I was trying to find out more about the context of this original scene, and I found an article on the ringer.com from a few years ago, which says that

this scene of Colin Firth slaughtering churchgoers is the most, quote, well-weller. regarded scene in the movie. And then the article goes on to use a lot of very glowing language to talk about it. The article says, quote, it's an unquestionably brilliant kinetic scene. One that, without doubt, is a masterclass in fight timing and filming. Masterclass. This was the favorite phrase apparently used to describe this scene. So again, when it's a British guy shooting a bunch of parodies of of Christians, it's a master class. It's ballet. It's kinetic. It's enthralling. It's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's dangerous, all of these things. Now the fact that these characters who are being killed in the original scene, and not even characters, they're just meat puppets who, whose only function is just to get shot in the head. But the fact that they're supposed to be Westboro Baptist types just makes it worse in some ways. Because one, that's how Hollywood again sees all Christians, especially in the South.

But two, making them Westboro Baptist people is just a cheap narrative trick, which allows the viewer to find sick joy in watching Christians get killed. You just make that one little, you know, make them racist, and all of a sudden we can all watch it and enjoy it. when in reality, of course, yes, the Westboro Baptist people are scumbags. I think we could all agree, though, that it wouldn't be okay to go and shoot 50 of them in the head. Right? But this allows people, especially media elites, they can watch a scene like that and play out their sick fantasies of killing Christians,

and they can feel okay about it because the Christians in this movie are racist. Never mind that, again, the media thinks that all Christians are racist. So as far as they're concerned, those could be anybody, any Christian. And I mean, I don't know how else to interpret it. Because if you're someone who saw the original scene and you loved it, and then you see this meme and you say, this is terrible because it allows people to fantasize about killing media members, well, then I can only assume, okay, well, so that's how you see it. So then why did you love it before?

I can only assume it's because it allowed you to fantasize about killing Christians. But if you're going to say that, oh, no, the original scene, it's just a cartoon, it's a joke, it's not, you know, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's not, it's not, it's not, it's nothing to it, it's, it's, it's, it's not, it's not, it's serious. It seems to me, then how do you not say that about the mean? couldn't the same excuse be made for the meme couldn't anyone say well it's just a joke it's not anything serious no one's taking it seriously seems to me you need to have a consistent narrative a consistent approach um all right so let's see what else here this was fun look at this headline from Forbes the headline says why Pakistan should be on every solo female traveler's bucket list why Pakistan should be on every solo female traveler's bucket list I'm just waiting for the follow-up of this, like why a back alley in West Baltimore is a great place for any solo female

or female to go camping. Or maybe why the shark tank at the aquarium is a great place to bathe your toddler. Or maybe why the microwave is a great place to stick your head. Just wonderful advice from the media, as always. And the media is so desperate to be woke that they're going to encourage a bunch of women to go out and get kidnapped or imprisoned or murdered just to prove how woke they are. So that's, that's, that's wonderful. Now, this was kind of interesting. I wanted to play this for you really quick. Here's Bernie Sanders in an interview trying to differentiate himself from Elizabeth Warren. Elizabeth Warren has been a friend of mine for some 25 years, and I think she is a very, very good senator. But there are differences between Elizabeth and myself. Elizabeth, I think,

as you know, has said that she is a capitalist through her bones. I'm not. I think the situation today that we face in this country of the greed and the corruption that is existing in Washington, that is existing at the corporate elite level, where you have massive amounts of price-fixing going on in the drug companies,

where we're the only major country on Earth, not to guarantee health care to all people. Where we have right now, as we speak, in the fossil fuel industry, you've got companies making billions of dollars a year in profit, doing what? Oh, by the way, they're destroying the planet. All right. And I think business as usual and doing it the old-fashioned way is not good enough. It's not regulation. Now, what we need is, in fact, I don't want to get people too nervous. We need a political

revolution. I am, I believe, the only candidate who's going to say to the ruling class of this country, the corporate elite, enough enough with your greed and with your corruption, we need real change in this country. So you don't think that's where Elizabeth Warren's Well, Elizabeth is a friend of mine. She will speak for herself. I've just told you what I do. But you've said there are differences. And you just mentioned a label.

Well, I guess, well, it's not a label. I mean, Elizabeth considers herself, if I got the quote correctly, to be a capitalist to her bones. I don't. And the reason I am not is because I will not tolerate for one second. The kind of greed and corruption and income and wealth inequality and so much suffering that is going on in this country today, which is unnecessary.

I love how on the left these days, You can accuse your opponent of supporting freedom too much. That's basically the accusation, right? Well, you know, the difference between me and her is that she still sort of believes in liberty a little bit. That's her problem. Now, it used to be that the left gave lip service to freedom. They supported and enjoyed and loved freedom in theory, but not in practice. now they've kind of dropped, they've torn off the mask, they've dropped the act, and they don't even

support freedom in theory anymore. They're just anti-freedom. And that's Bernie Sanders, that's his whole campaign, really. That's his whole campaign saying, you know, you don't need freedom and liberty. He cares about that. What you need is the government to take care of you. My children, that's what you need. They're there. Pat on the head. Okay, one other thing, before we get to emails, media matters. You know, I love Media Matters. Here at the Daily Wire, we all love Media Matters. They do so much to promote us

for free. All these companies are stuck sort of paying for marketing while we have Media Matters to market for us for free. And my favorite thing that Media Matters does is they'll watch all the Daily Wire shows. They're watching this one right now, so whoever you are watching, whatever media, Matters. Minion is watching. I say hello and thank you for being here. Welcome to the show.

I hope you found something useful. What I would recommend actually, Media Matters guy, is go, I'm sure you've probably already done it, but my opening thing about Columbus, I'm sure the stuff you can find there. Maybe cut a clip of that, put it on, accuse me of racism or whatever, whatever you're going to do, xenophobia, whatever your thing is. Who knows, maybe even homophobia. Maybe there's a way you can make that homophobic. I don't know. It's always fun to see what you guys do with it. I really enjoy it because I enjoy, I do the show and, you know, I make my points. And then I love to see how the media matters. They can take something that I've said and find a point that I didn't make. And I just, I love to see how they do it. Kind of putting the pieces of the puzzle together. So I'll look forward to that.

because I know what my show is about, but then I go to Media Matters and I find out what they think it was about. So I can go and say, what was my show about today? Anyway, they... So last week, they were going after Ben because he had the audacity to say

that he would physically defend his child against forced indoctrination by the state. A sentiment shared by literally any loving parent in the country. What he said about that, that he would physically defend his child from forced indoctrination. Any parent would feel that way. Now, they also came after me, and I thought this was great. Jason Campbell at Media Matters posted this clip of my show from Friday.

He posted it because he thought it was really bad and controversial and outrageous, and he thought people would be mad at me about it. And let me play. I hope this isn't too self-indulgent, but I want to play for you the clip of my show. that Jason Campbell for Media Matters put up. Watch this. It's almost like these parents are conditioning their kids

to have gender confusion so that they, the parents, can parade their children around like fashion statements. Saying, look at me, look how woke I am. My own kid is transgender. Look, look! It's horrifying. It really is.

That young girl, and she is a girl, she is being abused. This is psychological and emotional abuse of the worst kind. because you're depriving her of a childhood. You're depriving her of an identity. You are forcing her to have an identity crisis. I just love that because, and if you go and you,

if you go to Twitter and you see that post from Jason Campbell, you're going to find, you read and you look at the comments, most of the comments are saying, well, yeah, I agree with him. Absolutely. Because what I'm saying there is just, it's not any great. sight. There's nothing, there's nothing terribly insightful or, or, or, or, or, smart about it. It's just, it's just, it's just really basic common sense that any sane normal person agrees with that trying to impose gender confusion on your child is abusive.

It is psychological and emotional abuse. I 100% stand by that. I make absolutely no apology for it at all. I'll just continue to reiterate the point. And, um, And what's more, this is, again, any normal person agrees. So you find how the left is just, they're getting to the point now where they don't even understand how normal people think. Where they see a clip like that and they think, so here's the great thing, is that media matters, they didn't even try to twist it or usually they'll twist what one of us says and they'll try to. like I said, they'll try to find racism or homophobia or whatever where it doesn't exist. But in this case, they thought that what I said was so self-evidently terrible that they didn't even have to explain it.

They would just quote it, put the clip up in context. I'll admit, that's totally in context. And they thought it's just self-explanatory. Put it up and people would see it and think how horrible that man is. When really it's the opposite. 90% of people hear that and think, well, yeah, of course. That's how I feel. They're going so far off the cliff that they're not even capable of understanding how normal people think. It is, it's remarkable. And now we've gotten to the point now on the left where, you know, having a child who, a seven-year-old transgender child, that on the left now is this mainstream thing, where, you know, having a child, a seven-year-old transgender child, that on the left now is, is this mainstream thing, where, Everyone's supposed to accept it. Nobody can question it.

When, of course, 10 years ago, even people on the left would have said, well, hold on a second. This is, that's, hold on. I mean, they're kids. Let's calm down for a second here. So you're taking this position that 10 years ago, even on the far left, would have seemed radical, kind of absurd, way too far. And now it's mainstream. And if you question it, then you are self-evidently a bigot in their mind. All right.

let's go to emails Matt Wall Show at gmail.com. Matt Wall Show at gmail.com. This is from Jessica says, Hi, madam, big fan of your show. I listen to it every day while I'm at work. I heard about a joke that S&L made about Pope Francis saying that there were going to be discussions about lifting the celibacy requirement for priests. I looked up the article, and I believe it was in response to a specific situation in parts of South Africa, where the church, or South America, rather, where the church is underrepresented. As a Catholic, I've often wondered if allowing priests to be married and have families would be such a big deal. I feel like since there's a priest shortage in general,

not just in South America, but allowing them to be married and have families would make priesthood a more realistic option for people, and more men would be interested in becoming one. Yeah, Jessica, I find myself more and more amenable to this idea. I think the desire to have a family, to have a wife is a good and healthy desire for a man to have. The church is ruling out a lot of potentially good priests

simply because they have a good and healthy desire. And I think maybe that's not a good strategy. I think to remain celibate your whole life requires a superhuman self-control. And it's obvious that a lot of priests don't have that self-control. But they're being set up to fail, you know, they're being set up to fail in service of an extraordinary requirement that in and of itself is not really necessary and maybe not even beneficial. So you're setting up all these priests to fail simply because they can't manage to, what, reject the very natural desire to have a family? And that is what, and that's what a lot of people don't understand. In the church, the problems in the priesthood, you know, when we talk about this, now, when we're talking about the, the,

the pedophilia in the priesthood. Well, with that, getting rid of the celibacy requirement, that's not going to do anything for that. If you've got pedophiles coming in the priesthood, whatever the celibacy requirement is, you're not going to solve the pedophile problem. And people always point that out. They say, well, the celibacy requirement has nothing to do with it.

It's not going to solve the problem. Yeah, it's not going to solve that issue, but that's been the minority of cases. the more common and more widespread problem, even if it doesn't get media attention because the media doesn't really care about it, but if you talk to any priests, they'll tell you that the more widespread issue is just priests

who end up in consensual relationships with other adults, men or women. And that is a big issue in the priesthood. across the board. And it probably always has been to a certain extent because again, when you're telling people that they have to be celibate their whole lives, there's going to be a certain, probably significant percentage

who just can't do it. They can't live up to that. But I just wonder if this is creating a lot of chaos and turmoil and everything that isn't necessary. And so maybe the church could say, yeah, if you're a married man, faithful to your wife, you have a family, sure, we welcome you. Maybe that's exactly the kind of man we want in the priesthood, it turns out. All right, let's go to from Nathan says, Matt, what did you think of the new Breaking Bad movie?

Yeah, El Camino, the Breaking Bad movie came out. I know a lot of people were disappointed in it, came out on Netflix on Friday. I really liked it. I thought it was a very good epilogue to Breaking Bad series. It didn't reinvent the wheel, but it wasn't supposed to. I enjoyed going back and revisiting those characters. I think Vince Gilligan is a genius, the writer of the show, creator of the show, to be able to go back after, what, five or six years and reclaim, you know, kind of,

not just go back into that world, but really capture that world again. I think a lot of people couldn't do that. And you see so often where you have these shows that are resurrected or whatever after many years, and they fail to capture the feel of the original show. And in this case, I think Gilligan did a great job of that. And so I liked it. All right, this is from Mitchell says, hi, Matt, love the show, and seeing as though you're a new father once more,

I'm wondering what your thoughts are on spanking your children. I'm 25 and not thinking of having a child yet. However, I am torn on this topic and hope that you can shed some insight. Yeah, Mitchell, it's a great question. So there are two sort of different questions here. One is, am I against spanking in principle? And the second is, do I, do I myself choose to spank my kids? The answer to the second one is no, I don't. We don't spank. But that doesn't necessarily mean that our answer to the first question is yes, that we're against it in principle. Okay, so this is really our thought process. Well, my wife and I are on the same page, but I'm not going to speak for her, so I'll just speak for myself. This is my thought process. I don't spank our kids, and I'll tell you the reason. I think that spanking can be a valid, legitimate, constructive form of discipline.

I also think it can be abuse, right? And I think we'd all agree, right? that, I mean, nobody thinks, no decent person thinks, that parents just have carte blanche to hit their kids whenever they want, however they want, for whatever reason, in whatever way. Obviously, there is such a thing as physical abuse. No, I don't think that spanking in principle is physical abuse, but I think it can be. And I think the line between constructive discipline and abuse is somewhat subtle. And that scares me because, again, on one side of that line is constructive discipline. On the other sign is, well, you're physically abusing your kid. And so, you know, it's a, it can,

it can be a somewhat fine line sometimes. But the fact that on one side of that line is something so horrific, like physical abuse of a child, that, that, you know, scares me a little bit. So here's what I think it comes down to. If you're hitting your child in anger, call it spanking if you want. But if you are spanking your child because you're pissed off and you're, you know, you had a long day. You're overwhelmed. You're at the end of your rope. Whatever.

That is physical abuse. No question. Now, there's nothing wrong with being angry and being frustrated. You had a long day. You're at the end of your rope. All parents feel like that sometimes. I know that I do. But hitting your child as a way of communicating your frustration or letting off steam is physical abuse, obviously.

There's no way around it. My concern, my worry, is that I think a lot of people who spank their kids spank them like that in anger. That's even the kind of spanking. And this is not necessarily a fair sample. but the kind of spanking that you see in public sometimes, where a mother is, you know, kind of losing her temper at the grocery store and swatting the kid or whatever, we've all seen scenes like that. That's almost always in anger.

Now, it's not necessarily, like I said, it's not a fair sampling because the people who are, who don't spank in anger, are by definition not doing it in public, so we don't really see that happening. But, you know, I often hear people reminisce. about fondly, about their own physical abuse as a kid, it's sort of disturbing. And what it tells me is that they're probably doing the same thing to their kids if they have such a fine, if they think of it in such a positive way, what happened to them. But you know, you'll hear

people, it's like when there's a story about a kid behaving terribly at school. And you'll hear someone say something like, oh man, you know, when I was a kid, if I did that, when I got Oh, my dad would have lost it and beat the hell out of me. Okay, so your dad would have abused you, is what you're saying. Your dad would have gotten angry and taken out his frustration by beating up a child. So you realize that's bad, right? You know, you realize that your dad abused you. That's abuse.

That's not okay. It's to beat up a child because you're pissed off is cowardly and wrong. And it's just, that's not okay. So maybe it's just a figure of speech or something, but the way people sometimes talk about the discipline that they got when they were kids, hearing the story, I think as a parent, that is actually horrible. I would never do that to my kid. Now, I mean, even a phrase like, and you hear this, like, beat the hell out, oh, my dad would have beat the hell out of you. Beat the hell out of you? That's, again, that's not, no, that's not good. That was your dad being a coward. If that's really

what he did. I mean, what, beat the hell out of a seven-year-old? And you're putting that, that's what, that's a manly form of being a parent? I mean, control your emotions. Be a man. Control yourself. That's what you want from your own kids. What do we tell our own kids all the time? Use your words. Control yourself. It's not okay to get mad and hit somebody. I'm telling my own, my own six-year-old son this all the time, because he's a child. And he has a child. And he has a a lot of aggression. He doesn't know how to communicate it. And so he'll get mad. He'll hit somebody. And so I'm always telling him that's not okay. You do not express your anger that way. So how could I turn around and do it if I'm telling him all the time not to do it?

Now, on the other hand, not all spanking is like that. I think there is a healthy form of it. The healthy form is one completely devoid of anger. I think this is so important. There is no anger in it at all. You're spanking your child because that is the penalty and you're taking a very business-like approach and you're saying, okay, here's what you did, here's the penalty. And now I'm going to dole out that penalty. You're not angry. You're not beating the hell out of. You're not anything like that. It's just you are giving the child the penalty and you are in control of your emotions the whole time. I think that kind of spanking is fine. And that is that that's fine parenting. That's good parenting. And I know that there are parents who spank that way.

And I say about that, that, you know, great. We don't do it in our family because it's not right for us, I don't think. But I think that if that's what you do, fine. But I just, you know, I think it's so important to emphasize that there cannot be any emotion or anger in it. and but that's the problem is that we we naturally get angry at our kids and parenting it can be a very emotional thing a lot of the time um not just because you're angry at your kid but because you're you love your kid you're there's a lot of frustration you just you want your you know you just parenting is just a jumble of emotion sometimes and it's hard to sort through it um so i don't know to put those emotions totally to the side

and administer a punishment like that, like as I said, we just don't do it, but can that be difficult sometimes? I don't know. I just, it worries me that, again, the way people talk about spanking, often, the way they talk about, the way they describe it,

either their own experience of it when they were kids or how they dole it out now as parents, for the way it sounds, it sounds an awful lot like abuse, and that concerns me. So that's what I would say. All right, we'll leave it there. Thanks, everybody for watching. Thanks for listening.

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