The Matt Walsh Show - Ep. 410 - AOC's Cartoon Version Of Reality

Episode Date: January 22, 2020

Today we'll discuss the Left's cartoonish demonization of "the rich." And we'll also talk about the Right's response to that demonization, which is to present a sometimes equally cartoonish narrative about the free market. Somewhere in the midst of all of this oversimplification is the truth. Also, speaking of cartoonish ideas, a gay media outlet has dubbed a male trans MMA fighter "the bravest athlete in history" for beating up a bunch of women. If you like The Matt Walsh Show, become a member TODAY with promo code: WALSH and enjoy the exclusive benefits for 10% off at dailywire.com/Walsh Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Okay, great to see you all again. Thanks for being here. Thanks for coming back for another round of this. I'm not sure why you do, but you do. Since you're here, let's have a conversation. I want to begin today by talking about impeachment. Just kidding, of course, I haven't really followed that story for about four weeks. So instead, I want to talk about everyone's favorite socialist, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

She was speaking, being interviewed for an MLK-day event. Monday and had a few things to say that have provoked conversation and consternation. I want to go over what she said, and my take on it might not be entirely what you expect. There's a point I want to make about this, about her, about what she's saying, about what all of the socialists and the Democrat Party are saying that maybe hopefully is a little bit more nuance than, you know, they're stupid and bad, which they might be. But I want to go deeper than that and have a fuller conversation in that. So first, let's listen to a clip of this.

Here she is talking, again, their favorite subject, of course, the evil, terrible billionaires. Listen to this. You sat on a couch while thousands of people were paid modern-day slave wages. And in some cases, real slave, real modern-day slavery, depending on where you're you are in terms of food production. You made that money off the backs of undocumented people. You made that money off of the backs of black and brown people being paid off of a living wage, under a living wage.

You made that money off of the backs of single mothers. And all of these people who are literally dying because they can't afford to live. And so no one ever makes a billion dollars. you take a billion dollars. And I'm not here to villainize and to say billionaires are inherently morally corrupt. But they are...

Some disagree with me, clearly. I mean, I think there is a case. But it's not to say that. It's to say that this system that we live in, life in capitalism always ends in billionaires. If you don't do it, someone else will. Right, yeah, she's not trying to villainize. She would never do that.

Billionaires are useless, lazy, thieving slave drivers that are killing people, but she's not trying to villainize. And I don't mean to villainize. I mean, they're, you know, they're just, I would never villainize those slaving scumbags. I would never do that. Never, no. So what we have here as always, from AOC is a gross oversimplification. A cartoon that she is drawing for us. It's the same cartoon that Bernie Sanders draws, that Elizabeth Warren draws, that all Democrats draw it to some extent. This cartoon where you can almost imagine in your head, you can imagine in your head the image that they have in their head, which is of a, of a, of a, of a, you can imagine.

a, you know, a billionaire with an evil grin, chomping on a cigar, big pot belly, you know, holding a huge bag of money with a dollar sign on it, and laughing maniacally as he watches his destitute enslaved employees dying on the factory floor. That's the image that they are painting, and that's what they want us to take away from it. AOC says that billionaires sit on their couch and don't make any of the job. And don't make anything. They just sit on their couch. That's what she thinks billionaires do. Sit on their couch all day. Now, it's true that billionaires probably have nicer couches to sit on. So, you know, who wouldn't love to sit on a billionaire's couch? But I'd wager that they spend less time sitting

on the furniture in their home than the average person, far less. I would wager that the average billionaire spends a lot less time sitting on his expensive couch than. than you spend sitting on your cheap one, or that I spend sitting on my cheap one. You don't become a billionaire by sitting on your couch. That's not how billionaires are made, despite what we are told by AOC and Sanders and others. That's not how you make a billionaire by just putting somebody. You don't just plunk somebody on the couch and, ooh, they're a billionaire. Now, unless you were born into it, okay, if you inherited your billions, then fine.

Yeah, you could inherit it just by sitting on the couch. But Bill Gates didn't inherit his billions. Jeff Bezos didn't inherit his billions. Elon Musk didn't inherit it. Mark Cuban didn't. Peter Thiel didn't. Mark Zuckerberg didn't inherit billions of dollars. On and on.

I mean, basically any of the actual billionaires that come to mind, any of the actual people who are billionaires that we know of, that come to mind when you say billionaire, those people, they didn't inherit the money. They did in fact earn it. They all started off with far less than a billion dollars. Some of them had more than others, but they started off with a lot less than a billion, and then they had a billion, and then they had a lot more than that.

How did they earn it? Well, most of the names I just mentioned got there, got to the point of being a dreaded billionaire by founding or helping to found a business that became very, very very, very important. very, very, very, very successful. And how do you get a business to be that successful? By sitting on the couch? Really? By exploiting slave labor? No, that's not it either.

And I'm not denying, by the way, that there are corporations that do essentially exploit slave labor, but that happens later. It doesn't begin that way. So how do you get there? well it takes for one thing an insane amount of work I mean these guys have all I would say worked longer hours longer days and endured more professional pressure than most of us will ever experience that's the fact and this is

what AOC's black and white cartoon version doesn't account for can't account for can't admit those those those evil millionaires are extremely smart, extremely hardworking, extremely innovative, and that's how they got where they are. She can't admit that. And her version of the world can't account for that. It's not just circumstance. Put the average person, put me, let's say, in Elon Musk's circumstance, going back to the beginning from birth. am I going to make a billion dollars?

You're taking me, you're putting him in his situation from birth. Do I get to make a billion dollars? Probably not. Because I don't have his mind or his work ethic or any of the other things that make him a unique person. Put me and Mark Zuckerberg's position from birth. Do I go on to make billions and billions of dollars on a website? Probably not.

As much as AOC says she doesn't want to villainize. Her whole worldview, her whole shtick depends on villainization. She cannot admit that these people at all earn their money or that they have any skills, any abilities, certainly any virtues that the average person lacks. She says, you don't make a billion, you take a billion. Well, that's a really catchy, nice little applause line. So if you say that in front of the right audience, you're going to get an applause. But that's all it is. It's an applause line. If you stop and think about it for a second, it just takes a second of thinking about it. You say, what the hell does that mean? Yes, it rhymes,

and it sounds nice, but you don't make a billion, you take a billion. What do you mean? What's the difference between those two things? And how exactly did they do that? How did Bill Gates, I would say, made billions, but you say he took it. Well, how did he take it? He had this idea of, he presented to the marketplace a product, personal computer, that a lot of people really liked and wanted to buy. And then he made a lot of money off of it. Now, yes, that is a, that's a, that's a, that's a very whittled down version of that story. But that's, at its essential ingredients, that's what it was. He had a product that a lot of people really wanted, and they bought it, and he made a lot of money.

You're saying he took it, he didn't make it. so what, he forced the people to buy it? Here's a fact. If nobody wanted to buy a Microsoft computer, Bill Gates wouldn't be a billionaire. But they wanted to buy it so he is. So to say that he didn't make it, he took it, you'd have to argue that he forced people to,

what he had, he put a gun to their head. Now, see, that's what the government can do. See, everything she's saying about billionaires is actually true of the government. The government doesn't make money. they take it. They take the money from you by force. If you don't give it to them, they can put you in jail. Okay, that's what taking money looks like. And they don't have to do anything for it, actually. In fact, there are a whole lot of bureaucrats in the government who essentially just sit on a couch.

Really don't do anything. You could erase their job from existence and nobody would notice. okay if you erased bill gates from existence starting back in the 80s the whole history things would look different things would look very different we would notice the difference not to mention an entire huge very influential and significant company wouldn't exist probably without them but so many positions in government you erase those positions nobody would know you continue your your life you never know that that position doesn't exist. Entire departments of the government you could do away with and nobody would notice because they don't really do anything. That is something that is possible

in government. It is possible. I mean, talk to someone who works in government or has worked in government and they'll tell you. It is possible to work in government and really just do nothing. it's not really possible if you're going to be a successful business person. So it doesn't make any sense. You know, if what AOC is left to claim, she's left to make the really psychotic claim that anyone could have started a billion dollar business in their garage like Bill Gates. anyone could have done that in the right circumstance.

In fact, I guess she would say, we all did do it. Bill Gates didn't do it. He didn't make Microsoft. That's not his. We all did it somehow. He didn't do anything. He just sat on his counts. We did it.

Society did it. So we all own it, not him. That's her claim. And again, it's psychotic. And not only that, but morally repugnant. not just intellectually vacuous, but ethically and morally repulsive on top of it. And it's also greedy. As much as she accuses others of greed and the billionaires of greed,

she is exhibiting it herself and engendering greed herself. By encouraging people to look at a successful business person and people who did nothing to contribute and say, that's mine. I deserve a piece of that. What the hell did you do for Microsoft? You didn't do anything. You don't deserve any of that. You did absolutely nothing.

I did absolutely nothing to contribute to the success of Microsoft other than buying some of their products, which gives me a right to the product that I bought, but that's it. So there's a lot of greed there as well. But with that said, here's the part, this is the point that maybe not everyone is going to agree with,

at least the listeners of this show. I do have a point to make on the other side of the discussion because there is oversimplification that happens, I think, on the other side when we talk about this sort of thing. And I want to talk about that. But first, a word from honey. Listen, speaking of buying things, everybody shops online, right? That's how we all

buy everything. And certainly how I buy most things these days. Well, I'm telling you, if you're buying stuff online without honey, there's just no excuse. You're leaving money on the table. You may as well literally be burning your money. You might as well just do that because it's the same thing. Honey is a free browser extension that automatically finds the best promo codes whenever you shop online.

This means you always get the best deals without even trying on over 20,000 sites, Amazon Target, Best Buy, all the big sites. It's included in all that. I've been using honey for weeks myself now. I've saved, I don't even know how much. I've saved a significant chunk of money. And I just order, for example, a new blender, which, by the way, has been life change. I'm the smoothie king now. You gotta, I mean, if, this is one of the most essential kitchen items is to have a nice blender.

And I don't know, so many kitchens in America are deprived of it. And I don't know how they, I mean, once you have, anyway, that's not the point. I'm not selling a blender. But the point is, I got the blender and I saved a lot of money using honey. Honey has found it's over 10 million members over a billion dollars in saving. Saving, honey supports over 20,000 stores online. And it's got over 100,000, five-star reviews on the Google Chrome store. So you don't have to take my word for it.

You just go look at what the users are saying about it. If you're buying gifts, whatever it is, then you need honey. And if you're not, then you probably know someone who is, so do them a solid. Tell them about honey. Honey can help make sure that you're getting the best price for whatever you're buying. It's free to use. It installs in just two clicks. Get honey for free at joinhoney.com slash walsh.

That's joinhoney.com slash walsh. Okay, so AOC, Warren, Sanders, etc., they demonize billionaires and they paint a picture of the world that is disconnected from reality. But a word of caution, I think, for conservatives.

I think we make a mistake when we do nothing but wave off and dismiss, and I see this too often, where we wave off and dismiss concerns about the exploitation of workers and the plight of poor people who are essentially screwed by the circumstances they're born into. We make a mistake when we act like anyone can just bootstrap their way into the American dream. When we act like the free market is entirely free for everyone. When we act like luck has nothing to do with it. And I think sometimes

we are guilty of that kind of simplification. The left has a simplistic, absurdly simplistic narrative where billionaires are evil and were all their slaves. Okay, well, that's not true. There's no nuance there. There's no attempt to understand. There's no thought put into it. And that's not good. But, and we can't have a conversation that way. You know, the way that AOC opens the conversation about income inequality or whatever we're talking about, it's just, there's, We can't, you've begun by accusing all rich people of being slave owners. And so where can we go from there? But we don't want to respond to that with our own oversimplification.

And this is what most debate in America these days consists of. One side oversimplifies, demonizes, villainizes, the other side does the same in the other direction. And nothing is accomplished. So what I notice on the right sometimes is an oversimplification where we say, no, you know, the free market provides equal opportunity to everyone and nobody is being exploited. If you don't like your job, it's always as simple as just going and getting a different job. There is this worship of the free market that you find sometimes, this unwillingness to admit that there could be any problems at all with free market and capitalism and everything.

and this unwillingness to admit that there are real moral and ethical concerns when it comes to billionaires living in luxury and buying five houses and yachts and everything else. In other words, it's a mistake to allow the left to be the only ones talking about the exploitation of workers. the only one's talking about greed, the only one's talking about the moral implications of an uber wealthy person

owning seven houses and three private jets and the rest of it. When we react to their cartoon version of the world with our own, the effect is that, first of all, nobody's dealing with reality. And second, from a political perspective, we become the ones defending billionaires while they're the ones defending the working class and the poor.

And that's how a lot of people see it. They think of the conservatives and Republicans as the ones who are on the side of billionaires and Democrats are the ones on the side of the working class. That's been the impression for a long time that a lot of people have had. And it's not good to put it mildly, politically. Here's the way I look at it. It's true that low-wage workers are often exploited by these big, corporations. It's true that some of these corporations do essentially, especially the ones that the ones that outsource overseas, do essentially use slave labor. It's true that lots of people

are born in the situations where it's not as simple as just climbing the ladder. A kid, for example, born in the inner city, no father, no role model, bad education, emotional turmoil, crime all over the place. A kid like that, you know, he can't bootstrap his way to a billion dollars or a million dollars. He has been born into a nearly impossible situation, one that you didn't have to deal with, and I didn't have to deal with. We have advantages, yes, privileges that he doesn't have, through no fault of his own. That's true. And you could always point to some examples of people who are born in dirt poor poverty and manage to climb their way out of it and become extremely wealthy and successful. There are examples of that, but for every example of that, I could give

you a million examples where it didn't work that way, right? It's, you know, you take someone like Mark Zuckerberg. Okay, you take Mark Zuckerberg with his intelligence. and creativity and ambition and all of that. And you take him out of his, the circumstance that he was born into, and you put him in, I mean, if you take him out of that circumstance, is he going to be successful in any other circumstance you put him in? Probably not.

Now, he'd probably be successful in a lot of circumstances. Take him out of his circumstance, put him into mine. He'd probably be just as successful, even though, you know, I wasn't born into a family as well off, as his and I didn't have the same educational opportunities and all that, but I'm not, you know, not that far off, comparatively speaking. So put him in my situation, probably be just as successful, but put him in the inner city, put them in a trailer park with a meth-addicted mother, is he going to end up founding Facebook and being worth $60 billion or whatever it is? Probably not.

maybe I mean there's a slim chance probably not there's also a good chance he doesn't even survive to be as old as he is now if he's born in a situation like that and I think we have to acknowledge that it's an obvious thing but it's important to acknowledge it

it's also true that living in a 15 bedroom mansion with just yourself and your wife and one kid and a dog and all your butlers and maids and having a fleet of luxury cars and two private jets and a yacht, et cetera, that is greedy. That's materialistic. That's vain. That's grotesque. That's immoral. You know, I admit, I have times when I've been traveling and I drive through a really, really, really, really wealthy neighborhood and with just mansions all over the place. And one thing

you think is wow these houses are awesome but then you also think these houses are gross i mean who would live in this you would you need this castle to yourself with rooms you never even go in so i've had that thought right i think we all have um and it it is uh it is very hard to morally justify living in a house like that with rooms you don't even use or see while there are people starving and living on the street and freezing to death, that's going to be very difficult to morally justify. And if you're a Christian, by the way, it's impossible. And you just can't do it.

There's no getting around it. I mean, especially in the New Testament, it's Jesus constantly talking about the moral implications of being very wealthy and greedy. And so, you know, you really can't. get around it. Now it's true that Jesus isn't saying that no wealthy person can go to heaven or, you know, the way that it's sometimes portrayed. But certainly, you know, it's hard to imagine that Jesus would endorse somebody living in a 15-bedroom house. So all of that is true, right? But it's also true that most wealthy people, most billionaires, worked extremely hard to get what

they have. They have skills and abilities in a mental capacity that most people don't possess. It's true that they earn their success. It wasn't merely given to them by circumstance. Even if there could have been circumstances where they could have not, that would have foreclosed their opportunity to earn that success. That's not the same thing as saying that the circumstance gave them the success. They did earn it. It's true that they employ lots of people. and sometimes they employ people who would not be employed otherwise.

You take Walmart, for example, with Walmart greeters. These are people who, if not for Walmart, probably wouldn't be able to get a job anywhere. It's true that when they buy things like yachts to satisfy their vanity, people are hired to make those yachts and staffed them, and so there are jobs there. And it's true that if you have $6 billion to throw around, you have a right to spend it however you want within the bounds of the law. Even if it's greedy, you still have that right. It's also true that coming up with some limit of the amount of money a person can make and the amount of things they can buy and the material possessions they can have, that limit is going to be arbitrary and you're going to run up against the problem of who has the right or

the authority to come up with that limit. Who is the person who can put themselves above everybody and say, no, this is the limit? Where are you coming up with that limit? Who says it should be there and not somewhere else? And besides, that limit will have to be enforced by the even more powerful and wealthier and more wasteful and more morally ambiguous force called the state, the government. So you could take money from billionaires for the sake of fairness, but all you've done is made the state wealthier. And the state has guns and armies and a power to put you in jail if they want to and to take away your rights. So it's true that Bill Gates is less of a threat to us.

his power is less of a threat to us than the state's power. All of these things are true, seems to me. But this picture that I painted doesn't fit neatly into the narrative of either side. Because I think the truth rarely does. But I think we need to acknowledge this is the whole picture. And decide where to go from there. And once you've acknowledged that, then yeah, now there's a whole conversation we had about policy and about everything. right? You haven't really settled any of the debates that we're having, but at least you're starting

from a place of reality where we aren't pretending that billionaires are a bunch of villainous slave drivers who don't do anything. We're not doing that, but we're also not pretending that the American dream is equally open to everyone and your circumstance and luck has nothing to do with it and nobody's being exploited and, you know, all of that. we're in the realm of truth now and then we can go from there all right if you're a regular listener to the show you've heard me talk many times of course about the pro-life issue because it's the most important issue it's the it's the defining issue of our time it's hard to come to any other conclusion when you consider the fact that 60 million people have

have died since ravi wade it is abortion is the number of one cause of death in America. It is the, you know, the abortion industry has killed more people than any dictatorship or any tyrannical government ever has in history. And so it's hard to come to any other conclusion than this is the most important issue. And but we live in a culture that is, has embraced the culture of death and is going deeper and deeper into that abyss to make matters worse, you know, you have pro-life advocates who are being targeted by the pro-abortion left. Sometimes in very direct ways, you look at what's happening to Dave Delighton and Center for Medical Progress, how they're being legally persecuted. If you come after the pro-abortion, if you come after

the abortion industry, there's going to be a price to pay. That's what we've learned. And sometimes the price can be as significant as that. Other times, more commonly, you know, you've got, you know, look at what happened with Ben Shapiro at the March for Life last year. Or our advertisers were targeted by left-wing media watchdogs, and we lost some revenue just because he spoke at the March for Life and spoke up for the unborn. But we're not the only targets. Of course, live action is one of the biggest voices in the pro-life movement. One of, I think, the most influential voices.

And I would say one of the sort of founders in a way of the new, of the new pro-life movement, of the modern pro-life movement of the last decade or so. And they continue to do some of the most important work in that space from raising awareness and also education on the abortion industry, undercover videos that expose Planned Parenthood and other abortion clinics for horrific human rights abuses. But they've also been targeted. They've been banned from advertising on Twitter for their calls to defund Planned Parenthood.

They've been banned from Pinterest altogether. for spreading medical misinformation, which is actually just the truth that they're spreading. They've also seen their advertised efforts and their online distribution restricted depending on the platform. That is why our DailyWire.com members are so important. Your membership helps keep our cameras on and it helps keep our microphones turned up, even when the left pressures our sponsors. That's why from now until January 31st, a portion of any DailyWire.com membership will be donated to live action with promo code live action

to support awareness and education around the world on this issue. So join DailyWire.com and make your pro-life voice heard. All right, let's see here. One other thing to mention before we get to do some emails. You know, when Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in 1947, he was subjected to racist jeers from fans, discrimination from some of his teammates, death threats, physical abuse. I mean, there are many examples of that.

example is in his first year on the Brooklyn Dodgers, a player from an opposing team intentionally slid into him, cleats first, and gashed his leg open, just as a racist assault, because he didn't like the fact that Jackie Robinson was black. Now, his willingness to endure that kind of abuse and that sort of treatment and the heckles and the taunts and the death threats and everything while blazing a trail for other black athletes, that has led many people to consider him perhaps the bravest athlete in sports history, certainly in American sports history. But here's the news that his reign has come to an end.

He is no longer the bravest athlete in history. According to the gay sports outlet, out sports, and yes, that's a thing. There's gay sports media. There's a gay sports outlet. Out sports is what it's called. according to them, you know, forget about Jackie Robinson. There's a new bravest athlete in American history. Sid Ziegler, writing for outsports.com, has declared that the bravest athlete of all time,

the sports figure who best embodies, you know, the virtues of courage and heroism, is a biological male who beat up a bunch of females in MMA. The bravest. Ziegler gave the trans athlete Fallon Fox, the moniker of, bravest athlete ever in a recent article, and I wrote a piece about it. You could find it on Dailywire.com. And he explains that the professional woman beater is, quote, an indelible part of LGBTQ sports history and has open possibilities for trans athletes and women's sports that will be felt for generations. Now, why that requires courage, much less the most courage of any athlete ever,

is not actually explained in the article. It also is an example. It also is an explained how it requires courage when a biological male with his testosterone and his greater muscle mass and his denser bone structure fractures the skull of a female opponent, which is what this Fallon Fox person did to one of the opponents that he faced in the ring, left her lying on the mat, concussed and bleeding. Now, one would think that if there's any courage involved, it's all on the part of the woman who's willing to get into the ring with a man and try her best. But no, what we're told by out sports is that, no, it's more courageous for a man to beat up a woman than it is for a woman to fight a man. That's what they're saying.

And we're also assured that it's okay for a male to physically brutalize a female because, you know, females sometimes brutalize each other. This is what Fox was interviewed for this story, and this is the justification that he offered. He said, I'm not the first female MMA fighter who's broken another fighter's bones, and people will, of course, because I'm trans, hold it up as this devastating thing that couldn't possibly happen if I weren't trans. But there are many different examples of similar things happening. Now, he's right, of course. He's not the first female fighter to break another fighter's bones, mostly because he's not a female fighter. So he can't be the first female fighter to do anything because he's not one. But you notice again here, as I've been pointing out for months, the arbitrary sex versus gender distinction has been completely collapsed.

He's not saying, he's not identifying himself as, you know, a male fighter who identifies as female. He's saying, I'm a female fighter. Female is a biological sex. And that's what he's claiming. But don't count on Ziegler to grapple with that difficulty because, of course, we're just supposed to dutifully applaud, accepting at face value, whatever lame justification or explanation or excuse is put forward. He doesn't present actual arguments at all in favor of allowing men like Fox to fight women because there are no arguments available to him. There's literally nothing you could say. It is objectively wrong on every conceivable level, morally, ethically, scientifically.

There is nothing. There's not even the semblance of a reasonable argument that you could make for allowing Fallon Fox into the ring to fight women. The most that the other side of the debate can do is make vague emotional appeals, hoping we'll forget that the women have emotions also. and they probably don't feel too emotionally good about being cheated and abused for the sake of the LGBT agenda. But their emotions are irrelevant, we're told. Just as science is irrelevant, fairness is irrelevant. All that matters for some reason is how this one guy feels.

It's never explained why that should take precedence over everything else. I mean, why should the feeling of one guy take the precedent over, you know, take precedence over everyone else's feelings, let alone science and truth and everything else. Why should it? Well, that's not explained. It just does. What we're told by the LGBT left is it just does. That's it. It just does. And, you know, his insistence, Fallon Fox's insistence on doing what makes him feel good at any cost. Just same for the, the man who insists on barging into the female locker room or bathroom, their insistence on doing what makes them feel good, what makes them feel comfortable at any cost is admirable.

Not only admirable, but heroic. And not only heroic, but the most heroic thing anyone has ever done or could ever do. Heroic, courageous, beautiful. You see, this is the point here. when you've got an outlet, the media outlet calling Fallon Fox, the man who beats up women, the most courageous athlete ever, the point is, you know, that's not just, that's not simply pointless hyperbole. It is hyperbole. It's several steps beyond hyperbole. But there is a point to it.

And the point is to, because they know they don't have any arguments, they know they couldn't possibly justify this. So instead it is overcompensation. It is, they hope that if they scream loud enough and if they use language that's hyperbolic enough, that you will, that will all be intimidated and keep silent for that reason. Or we'll be so impressed

with how confident they are in their position that will figure they must be right. You know, we'll say, oh, well, I mean, it doesn't make any sense to me, but if he's saying that he's the bravest athlete ever, then there must be some reason why he's saying that. And maybe I'm just too stupid to see it. That's what they're hoping. But we should not fall for that trick. And I think, fortunately, at least on this issue when it comes to men and women's sports and men in women's bathrooms, I think this is one issue where most people, I think, have woken up to it and aren't falling for it. which is great, but now the next step is to stop this crap from actually happening. Because if we all know that it's wrong and we're willing to say that it's wrong, well, now the next, then the next question is, why is it even happening? All right, let's go to emails, Matt Wall Show at gmail.com, Matt wallow at gmail.com.

Let's see here. This is from Grant, says, hi, Supreme Leader Matt. I was hoping to seek some guidance from you. I have recently learned that my girlfriend of five years thinks Elvis Presley is better than Johnny Cash. She has even gone so far as to say Johnny Cash is a bad singer. I've been blindsided by this betrayal. I'm not sure where she was brainwashed by this false indoctrination, but I am currently working to write this wrong. Would this type of false claim be punishable by death under your regime?

Thanks for any input. Well, Grant, to answer your question, of course it would be. You know, I think that Elvis Presley was obviously a very significant figure in American pop culture, influential. But who's sitting around? Is your girlfriend really sitting around and listening to Elvis Presley songs? Who's doing that? Who under the age of 70 is doing that? I feel this way about a lot of Beatles stuff too.

I can appreciate the influence that it had for better or worse. But on its own, this stuff, taking the historical significance aside. pretend forget about that for a second pretend that you just heard this stuff for the first time and it was you know it was not Elvis Presley or the Beatles it's some other band you never heard of and you hear one of these songs

are you going to think to yourself wow that's a great song that's an amazing great awesome song I don't think so I mean if you hear yellow submarine and you without any of the background it's not the Beatles it's just some other whatever

and it was just recorded back last April Are you going to hear that song and think This is a work of genius? This is genius. Of course or not. You're going to say this is nonsense. This is dumb nonsense. And so now Johnny Cash, on the other hand,

his sound is still relevant today. His songs have real meaning. His songs aren't about Yellow Submarines or for Presley. you know, just repeating a phrase over and over again, like, you ain't nothing but a hound dog. That's not Johnny Cash. And again, I mean, if you heard hound dog for the first time, and it wasn't Elvis Presley, it was Shmelvis Bressley, let's say, who recorded this song in 2016, and you heard that song, would you think this is, this belong, whoever made this, he belongs

in a rock and roll hall of fame. No, you wouldn't. You would think this is one of the dumbest songs I've ever heard in my life. But again, Johnny Cash, that's not the case. If you heard a Johnny Cash song for the first time and it wasn't Johnny Cash, it was somebody else, with a lot of his stuff, I'm not saying all of it, but with a lot of it, you would think this is a great song. I mean, this is a great songwriter. Even something like, one of my favorite Johnny Cash songs is a boy named Sue. It's not a, it's, it's, it's, it's not a, it's, it's not a song with a lot of emotional depth, but it's a storytelling song and he's telling the story and he's, he's telling the story really well. And this, it's, it's the kind of thing that Elvis Presley, the beat or the

Beatles never could have, they couldn't have done that. They couldn't have told a story like that through song in that way. And yeah, if you heard that song for the first time in the year 2020, This episode is brought to you by Redfin. You're listening to a podcast, which means you're probably multitasking, maybe even scrolling home listings on Redfin, saving homes without expecting to get them. But Redfin isn't just built for endless browsing. It's built to help you find and own a home. With agents who close twice as many deals, when you find the one, you've got a real shot at getting it.

Get started at Redfin.com. Own the dream. Maybe it's your cup of tea, maybe it isn't, but you would at least acknowledge that this is a very talented songwriter that's been able to tell this story, a very evocative story with a lot of imagery and, you know, I'm kind of into the story. I want to see how it, to be able to do that through song is brilliant. It takes a lot of talent. And so, yeah, your girlfriend is, she's not just wrong, but I'm afraid to say she is, it would seem a bad person. And I think you should tell her that. Don't tell her that. I'm kidding. This is from Zach says, Hi, Matt. This is a common debate where I work and would like your opinion on the matter.

The question is, could anyone truly be selfless in a particular act? Some argue that this is not possible because all of our decisions grant us some sort of favorable result. For example, a coworker of mine claimed to be selfless because he was taking time out of his schedule to coach a girl's softball team. He claimed that volunteering his time and helping to buy equipment was a selfless act. This was argued to be not selfless due to the fact that he could get some sort of satisfaction or good feeling by coaching the team. Others argued military service and first responders are selfless when they join up knowing they could be put in risky situations. The argument my coworker makes against this is they have peace of mind and are gaining satisfaction knowing that they are saving somebody's life or protecting people. He says they make this choice in the moment knowing the worst case result and therefore are.

are not selfless in the situation. To counter this, I said that if I was in a car wreck and brain dead, it would be selfless of me for my family to make the decision to harvest my organs for potentially life-saving surgery for someone else that is unknown. I would have no knowledge of this going on while crashing, and a person I do not know could potentially be saved by organ donation. None of these arguments have convinced my coworker

and would like to know your opinion. Well, Zach, if selfless means performing an end, act with absolutely no expectation of reward of any kind and with no emotional or psychological benefit and with no boost to the self-esteem or self-image with no pleasure coming from it of any sort of any kind an act which the performer of the act knows that after completing the act he will not enjoy the fruits of that act at all to any degree in any form it sounds like that's what your coworkers are saying. Like, that's what a selfless act would have to be.

And they are arguing that such an act is impossible. Nobody would ever do that or has ever done it. And so there's no such thing as being selfless. Well, I'm going to, I have some real qualms with that definition of selflessness. But even by that definition, I mean, it is possible. So I think, you know, I guess by that definition, of selfless, a selfless act would have to be something like an atheist jumping on a grenade to save his fellow soldiers. Something like that. Because in that case, that would be someone

doing something for the benefit of others while believing that he is not going to receive any reward at all for it and, in fact, will be obliterated upon doing it. So he is trading his obliteration and non-existence for the continued existence of other people. And he's not going to be around to feel good about it in his mind. So, you know, I think that would qualify as a selfless act. But because, of course, the argument you could make is, well, if it's a Christian doing it, they think they're going to go to heaven. And so they believe there will be a reward. And so is that really selfless? So that's their argument, right? So what I'm saying is by that, and maybe this is, maybe this is what they're trying to get at.

What they're trying to argue is that really it's only possible for an atheist to be selfless because of the lack of an expectation of reward. I don't agree with that. I say a selfless act is, and even, you know, because even in that case, even there you could argue, well, maybe they're doing it because in the moment they feel good about doing it. And yeah, it would be their last moment on earth, but there still is that reward at least. So it's almost like in order to be selfless what they're saying is you have to be almost like a, you have to be a psychopath. I guess you have to be a psychopath and an atheist.

Psychopathic atheists are the only selfless people by this definition. Because you have to, in order to feel no reward at all for doing a good act, you would have to not feel good about it. According to them, even the atheist jumping on the grenade for the two seconds before it blows up and blows him to Smith. he feels good about doing it. So that's a reward. So I guess that's not selfless either. So we need to be someone who has no, who paradoxically has no concern for anybody else and thus doesn't feel good about saving them, yet does it anyway with no expectation

of reward. So I guess a robot, really in the end is what you need. I don't agree with that definition. I think that a selfless act is one where you must overcome a self-rength. your immediate instinct to pursue self-preservation or comfort or luxury or profit for yourself in order to do something that will benefit someone else. Now, that, in my view, is selfless. In that you have put yourself to the side, right?

It's not literally selfless because you still have yourself. But so, you know, you can't take the word absolutely literally. but what it represents is, I think, the subordination of your own interests in favor of some higher good. I think that's selfless. Not every word in the English language can be interpreted in an exactly literal sense. In fact, many of them can. In fact, language in general is symbolic. Every word you say stands for something.

It symbolizes something. And so I think that's what selflessness symbolizes. But I would agree. I think it is important to acknowledge that a lot of what masquerades as selflessness is not. So if you're, you know, if you're doing something that, yeah, you know, you know at some level you will benefit from, whether morally, spiritually, emotionally. Yet, you have to, as I said, overcome that selfish inclination to go for the more immediate reward, a more immediate luxury or comfort. comfort, in that, you know, you have to overcome that for the greater good. That's selfless. But if you're doing something that will benefit the greater good seemingly, but really your

only reason for doing it is to benefit yourself, if that is like at the end of the day, the number one reason why you did it and your only real motivation and thus helping someone else is a secondary to it is more like happenstance, it's more incidental, then that's not selflessness. I think an example of this, okay, an example would be you see these people online who record these inspirational videos of themselves helping the homeless. You see these videos sometimes, right? Where somebody goes and does a generous act for a homeless person and records it, records themselves doing it and then puts it online.

And I hate to be cynical, but I would say that is not a selfless act. That's not a generous act. Yeah, it's good for the homeless person because they still were helped by it. But the point of it, 100% is just look at me, look at this great thing I'm doing. So the point is self-promotion, self-engendizement, elevating yourself, making people flattering yourself, fishing for compliments. That's the point. The fact that somebody is being helped in the process

is totally incidental. So that, I would say, is a selfish act masquerading as selfless. But not every selfless act is like that. Talk about cynical. That's one hell of a cynical way of looking at the world. We will leave it there. Thanks everybody for watching. Thanks for listening. Godspeed.

If you enjoyed this episode, don't forget to subscribe. And if you want to help spread the word, please give us a five-star review and tell your friends to subscribe as well. We're available on Apple, podcast, Spotify, wherever you listen to podcasts. Also, be sure to check out the other Daily Wire podcast, including the Ben Shapiro show, Michael Nulls show, and the Andrew Claven Show. Thanks for listening. The Matt Walls show is produced by Sean Hampton, executive producer Jeremy Boring,

senior producer Jonathan Hay, supervising producer Mathis Glover, supervising producer Robert Sterling, technical producer Austin Stevens, editor Donovan Fowler, audio mixer Robin Fenderson. The Matt Wall Show is a Daily Wire production, copyright Daily Wire 2020. Hey everyone, it's Andrew Claven, host of the Andrew Claven show. All the nations a stage

and the Democrats and Republicans are putting on the impeachment play, which doesn't mean it won't have real-world effects, so we'll talk about that. Plus, we have the mailbag, so all your problems will be solved on the Andrew Clayton Show.