The Matt Walsh Show - Ep. 49 - How Conservatives Can Win Back The Culture

Episode Date: June 13, 2018

Conservatives lost the culture because they stopped fighting for it. Now we brag about our "silent majority" while we cower in the corner, too terrified to meaningfully resist the Left and its agenda. If only we had a little bit of courage. That is all we need, and it would be enough to change everything. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

So I think one of our problems, one of our big problems, one of our primary problems in the culture today is cowardice, moral cowardice especially. I think we can look at the state of things in our world and we can try to provide ourselves with excuses and come up with reasons as to why it is the way it is while dancing around the real issue. And the real issue is that most of us are cowards, plain and simple. not all of us certainly but many most and so you may be wondering well how do i know if i'm a coward how do i know if i'm a moral coward what's the test i think we can we can figure out if we ourselves are moral cowards by asking ourselves just a few questions okay so this is what this is what we can ask yourself when was the last time i did something that i really didn't want to do but i did it anyway because it was morally right. Or the inverse of that, when was the last time I didn't

do something that I really, really wanted to do and had the opportunity to do, but did not do it because it would have been immoral? Or when was the last time that I took some kind of moral stand that I knew was going to bring about humiliation and maybe even worse consequences than that? and especially a moral stand that I knew could potentially alienate me from even my own friends and people on my side. So I'm not talking about going on Facebook and writing some Republican things, you know, some talking point from Fox News that you know all your Republican friends are going to agree with. No, I'm not talking about that. That takes no courage whatsoever. I'm talking about taking a stand on something that may alienate you from everybody practically. or you have no guarantees that anyone around you is going to agree.

I think if we honestly ask ourselves those questions, if we're really honest about it, so I'm asking you, like, really think about this. Ask yourself, ask yourself honestly those questions, just as I'm asking myself those questions. And I think if we do that, a great many of us would have to admit that we've never done any of those things, or not done them, as the case may be. I think of what we're being really honest, many of us cannot think of one actual example of us doing something we really, really didn't want to do, but doing it because it was moral, or especially not doing something that we really, really wanted to do, but we didn't do it because it was immoral.

And I really think that most of us probably can't think of one honest example of us in our own lives, standing up, taking a stand, and really going out on a limb and exposing ourselves to humiliation and other consequences because of it. I just, I think most of us can't come up with an example of that. And I feel safe making that assumption because if a majority of us had the willingness to act with moral courage, then we wouldn't be in the shape that we're in, in our society. We've arrived at this point through the consent and often the active participation of most people, That's just the sad reality. And that's why I'm not a populist.

I know populism is very popular these days, not surprisingly. But I can't jump on board with this kind of right-wing populism thing. Because what I notice in populism is this instinct to blame everything on institutions and on the kind of elite shadowy villains in academia and the government and the media. and they're the ones. They did everything. It's their fault. And it's true that they deserve quite a lot of the blame.

And I spend a lot of time blaming them for things and they deserve it. But it's not just them. The sad fact is that most regular people participate, have participated in the degradation and destruction of our culture. And if they were not participating or at least consenting to it through silence, if most of us weren't doing that, that we wouldn't be in this state. All of those elites and everything, they only have the power that we give them. Hollywood only has any power because we, if we didn't pay attention to Hollywood,

it would have no power whatsoever. It also wouldn't have any money if we didn't give them money. We all sit back and like, how does Hollywood have so much power? This is ridiculous. Meanwhile, we're giving them, we're just handing our, we're literally handing our cash to Hollywood and saying, I can't figure out why Hollywood is so powerful. I'm so sick of Hollywood. And yeah, oh, what is that for the movie ticket to $27? Well, here you go. I mean, and then we go in and we vote these people into office and then we say, I can't figure out, where do these politicians come from? I can't figure out why they're controlling everything. And then we complain about academia and say, well, academia is destroying society. Meanwhile, we push our kids into these liberal colleges and universities,

and we send our kids to public school. We're like pushing, we're pushing our kids into the academic system while complaining about academia. So yes, I blame us. We are not innocent little victimized snowflakes who are just trying to live our lives and are being bullied by those mean elites. That's not what's happening. So I mentioned yesterday, just by way of example, the story of the two biological boys who were permitted to compete against and ultimately defeat girls at a state track and field championship in Connecticut. And I talked about this on the show yesterday. The reason I bring it up again is because it's what, it's what.

It's what got me thinking about the issue of courage. This story is just a perfect example, a perfect microcosm of how things always go in our culture. When you have radical leftists imposing their will on moral cowards. So as I said yesterday, just in that example, just as one example, if every parent who silently disagreed with allowing boys to steal medals from their daughters, and every coach who privately felt disgusted by it, and every school official who harbored serious reservations about the whole thing in their minds,

if they all would just speak up and refuse to participate in or facilitate any competition that involves boys, then the problem would be solved, just like that. And that's the case for most of these problems. if everybody who silently disagreed with it would just say something and do something about it, the problem would go away. It would really be that easy for most of these things.

But in that case, too many people were afraid. Too many of them were cowards. And so they let the smallest minority pushing the craziest ideology prevail because they were too afraid. I hear all the time about the so-called silent majority. There is supposedly a silent majority who allegedly opposes and despises radical leftism. You know, they're not on board with any of this stuff. They're the silent majority. And conservatives will often talk about this majority with some kind of like pride.

You know, conservatives will talk about this majority as if we're proud of the fact. We'll say, well, you know, we're the ones really in the majority. We're the ones. There's more of us than there are of them. Did you know that? Well, I don't understand the pride because if this majority exists, and I think it probably does, then their status as a majority just makes their cowardice all the more shameful. I mean, you're telling me that we're in the majority and we know we're in the majority, yet we still won't say anything. We still sit back and let all this stuff happen. We've allowed the relativists and the he's, to upend and reshape and reform and destroy our civilization and dictate terms to us and get their way on almost everything, even to the point of intruding into our daughters' bathrooms and sports teams. And what do we do? In response, we just kind of shake our head and we furrow our brows and we mutter quietly

to each other and we complain about it whispering in our living rooms to each other. We're whispering to each other in our living rooms with a doors lock. We're looking around and, hey, you know. I really disagree with this transgender stuff. You know, I honestly, I think it's crazy, but, oh, shh, shh, shh, someone's coming. How many schools have instituted these insane transgender policies, while a majority of parents and teachers and everybody opposes it, yet says nothing that you've got the, in these cases with the transgender stuff,

there's definitely a silent majority who are totally against it and think it's nuts, but they won't say it. They just stay quiet. And that's just one example. I mean, in my piece yesterday, I mentioned the story of a CrossFit executive. Now, this is an example on the other end of the spectrum. This is an example of courage.

This is what courage looks like. So a CrossFit executive got fired after saying that gay pride parades and gay pride festivals are sinful, which is true. They are sinful. And he said this on his own Twitter account, and he was fired for it.

But that made me think, well, how many communities have hosted these sinful spectacles known as pride parades, while the majority of residents in these communities are absolutely opposed to the whole thing, but they don't say a word of protest against it? They just kind of stand off on the side and maybe they even wave one of the rainbow flags. just so nobody, because they don't want anyone to know that they're opposed to this in their head. They're so terrified. How many people feel very upset about the Holocaust of the unborn that happens in abortion clinics across our nation and the one million babies that are killed every year?

And yet, although they feel upset by it, they do and say nothing in opposition to it. How many people complain, as I said about Hollywood and all the filth on TV and everything, yet they keep on watching it, watching the filth, letting their children watch. And on and on and on and on. We let all of this stuff happen. We stand by while it happens. We say nothing. And then we claim that our silence is rooted in some kind of principle. This is my favorite thing when conservatives are trying to justify their

cowardice and their silence. And so they'll try to make it about freedom, about respecting other people's privacy. And they'll say, well, I don't agree with it, but we all have freedom and, you know, the free market and freedom and free market. That's become, look, I believe in freedom and I believe in the free market, but it has become a crutch for cowardly wusses in the conservative movement who just want, they want, they lean on that for everything to give them an excuse so they don't have to fight back ever about anything. So, for instance, I remember, I wrote an article a few months ago about porn. And I said that porn should be banned. It should be illegal, which is a position, the idea that it should be illegal to publish hardcore pornography that children, that like

eight-year-olds can access. Now, that is not a radical position, or at least up until very recently, it would not have been considered a radical position. And almost anyone who considers them conservative, consider themselves conservative, and certainly anyone who consider themselves Christian would agree. Obviously, you. Yes, that stuff should be illegal. So I wrote this article, and what I found is that the majority of conservatives in the audience absolutely disagreed with making hardcore pornography. They, on the basis of freedom, they said, no, we need, it's freedom.

So, yes, because of freedom, we have to let our eight-year-olds watch hardcore pornography. That's what we need. It's freedom. That's what Thomas Jefferson would have wanted. You know something? I know this is going to be very scandalous for a lot of conservatives in the audience. I don't care what Thomas Jefferson would have wanted. Thomas Jefferson is not God.

Now, I actually don't agree. I think that our founding fathers never intended for the First Amendment to cover hardcore pornography. And if they could have looked into a crystal wall and saw a situation where the First Amendment was being used to give pornographers the freedom to shove this filth into the faces of children, I think our founding fathers would have been very much against that. And the fact that there were decency laws on the books in almost every state up until recently, I think that kind of speaks to that. But here's the point. I think it's pretty clear that the First Amendment does not protect hardcore pornography,

and it does not exclude individual communities and states. It doesn't prevent communities and states from having standards of decency and decency laws. So as far as the law goes, I think that's clear. But as far as what our founding fathers individually would have wanted in their own heads, I don't care. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter to me. I mean, Thomas Jefferson was also...

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Terms apply. I mean, he ripped apart the Bible and made his own Bible. Okay. So that's what that's, from a moral and spiritual perspective, that's the kind of guy we were dealing with. So I don't really care what his moral. and spiritual opinions were, all right? That as a Christian, what we need to be worried about is, what would Jesus? It's not like what were Thomas Jefferson, what were the founding father's priorities? What was Jesus's priorities? What would Jesus want for our country and our community

and our children? That's who we should be worried about. Jesus is God. Not the people on Mount Rushmore, not the founding fathers, not the people that, you know, signed the Declaration of Independence. They were great men. They were not gods. And I think in the conservative movement, what we've done is we have made a religion out of, we've made kind of a national religion for ourselves. And we have pushed Jesus out of the frame completely. But as Christians, I think it's clear that our first priority is to shape the kind of country and a kind of civilization that, kind of community that God wants for us. That's what we should be doing. And that means standing up against filth and degeneracy and all this stuff. Do you want to live in a culture of

filth and degeneracy where your children are eaten alive by this garbage? Is that the kind of culture you want? If not, say something. Don't tell me, well, I don't want it, but we can't do anything because of freedom. No, that's not freedom you're talking about. It's cowardice. So do something. Stand up. The fact is that most of us are exactly like the parents, coaches, and officials who stood off

on the sidelines politely clapping while a couple of dudes cheated and humiliated their daughters. That's what most of them were doing. They were just kind of, they had a fake smile on their face and they were just standing off on the sideline. Hey, yeah. Okay. Hey, good job. You go, girl. I mean, why, why weren't their parents running onto the track itself and saying, no, I'm not even going to let this race go up?

Why wasn't, why didn't some girl's dad go up and confront these dudes, these cheaters, and say, hey, buddy, you got the wrong track. The boy's track media is that way. Okay? Now get off. Why didn't somebody's dad do that? You think, let me ask you like, 50 years ago, if this had. This happened 50 years ago. Imagine like your grandfather, okay? 50 years ago, you've got a dude, you've got some muscle-bound dude that shows up at a girl's track meet 50 years ago and says, yeah, I'm going to race against the girl. And there are a bunch of dads in the audience. How do you think the dads would have responded? Do you think they would have just sat back and said, we can't do anything? It's freedom, you know. Freedom. Yeah, it's what Thomas Jefferson would have wanted. No. Those dads would have walked right onto that track and said, hey, bud, get off. No,

you, get out of here. But we don't do that. anymore. And why is that because we're afraid? And what do we say we're afraid of? I think one of the excuses that you always hear is, well, we'll lose our jobs. Well, I think there's quite a bit that we could do to stand for our convictions without getting to the

point where we might lose our jobs. Like losing our jobs is here and we're over here. We've got a lot of room to cover before we have to worry about losing our job. But even if that is a risk, and maybe it is, in some situations for some jobs, maybe it is a risk. Okay.

maybe that's a risk we have to take. Jesus says we have to be willing to give up our lives for the truth. So if we won't even give up our jobs potentially for the truth, then how far are we from living like Jesus told us to live? But the thing is, that's not even the real fear, is it? Because it's not just about jobs. I think people are mostly afraid of social alienation. They're afraid of humiliation.

And it's natural to fear those things. but really, when you think about it, who cares about that? Who cares what these cackling drones think about you? So people laugh at you. Who cares? Why be afraid of that? Our lives are not being threatened. We're not being called upon to demonstrate a huge amount of courage,

the kind of courage that you need to demonstrate when your actual life is at risk. Our lives aren't at risk. nobody's coming to our houses and killing us because of our opinions. Maybe eventually we'll be at that point. But well, actually, we're never going to be at that point at this rate because there's no reason for us to ever get to that point. You know, our ideological enemies and the enemies of God in our culture, they don't need to kill us because we're no threat to them. We're just, we're too busy watching Netflix and minding our own business.

So why are they going to come kill us? we're not worth killing basically. The Christians in the Middle East, they're worth killing from the perspective of the satanic persecutors of the church because they're on fire with the faith and they're courageous and they're strong Christians. And so the enemies of the church say,

well, all we can do is kill them. The enemies of the church in this country, they look at us and they just laugh. They say, you guys are no threat. You're not going to do anything. I mean, you won't even stop watching Disney movies, Yet you complain about Disney. You can't even bring yourself to do that.

Yes, you're no threat. You're worried we're going to kill you. Why would we ever do that? So it's not a lot of courage that we need to demonstrate. I think we need to demonstrate just a little tiny speck of courage. And if we all had that, if we all had just our little speck, if we all came equipped into every situation with just that little speck of courage, like you can't hardly even see it.

But if we all have that and we're willing in any situation to demonstrate just that small, speck of courage for only even just a few seconds. That's what most situations call for a small amount of courage that you will demonstrate for a very short amount of time. And if we were willing to do that, then I think everything would change. So that's my challenge to you and to myself. Because by the way, I'm not, I'm saying all this. I'm talking to myself as well, not just to you. I'm talking to all of us.

That's why I'm using the word we and us. I certainly don't put myself forward as some sort of monument of courage at all. So this is a challenge for all of us. And I think if we were willing to, if we're willing to just have a little bit of courage for a short amount of time, little courage in small spurts, basically. If we're willing to do that, then I think things would change. So let's give it a try. It's worth a shot. And who knows, it could be fun.

It could be exciting. That's the other thing. I think if you live with courage, your life is also more exciting and unpredictable, right? So let's just try it and see what happens. Thanks for watching. Thanks for listening, everybody. Godspeed.