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Jan. 4, 2016 - The Ben Shapiro Show
39:55
Ep. 48 - When Is Armed Resistance The Right Response?

The Hammonds are right and the Bundys are wrong -- but that doesn't mean there will never be a time when armed resistance is necessary. Ben talks about that, Hillary vs. Trump, and the new "Star Wars"! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Here we are.
We're back.
It's a brand new year.
There's so much going on.
We'll get to things I like, things that I hate.
I'll tell you how I spent my New Year's Eve.
It was boring.
And I'll also get to all of the news, but there's so much to talk about.
I'm Ben Shapiro.
This is the Ben Shapiro Siding Back.
Tend to demonize people who don't care about your feelings.
We're back.
And I know you're all depressed.
I'm depressed too.
I mean, it's just depressing to be back, but I know that there are lots of you who are waiting for the show to come back, and whoopee!
We're here, and there's gonna be a full year of shows.
There'll be many years of shows, we hope.
Thanks to all the people By the way, who do download the show, you can go to dailywired.com, and if you want to subscribe, buy yourself a New Year's subscription.
That should be a resolution for you, because we look great.
Not just me, the whole set looks great, although particularly me, I look great.
But make sure that you subscribe, because we do appreciate your subscribership, and it's what helps fund this entire program, and that's wonderful.
We do have, I think we're verging on 15,000 listeners for each episode now, so we're definitely We're definitely increasing the number of people who listen, and that's really without us pushing it too hard.
So we're going to start pushing it this year.
It's going to really expand by leaps and bounds, and you're part of it.
You're on the ground floor, so it's great to have you along for the ride.
Okay, so the big news story.
There are a couple big news stories that lead off the year.
First of all, we'll do a quick recap of where we are in terms of the polling, because we are now less than a month away from Iowa.
Donald Trump is still running neck and neck with Ted Cruz in Iowa.
Cruz in the latest polls tends to be up in Iowa.
Cruz will probably win Iowa.
Trump is still leading in New Hampshire.
Cruz and Rubio and Kasich and Bush and Chris Christie are all tied together at second.
They're all within margin of error in second place in Iowa.
And so how this whole thing ends up going down is going to come down very much to, can they consolidate any sort of base of support behind Rubio in New Hampshire?
If the answer is no, if the answer is no, then probably Donald Trump or Ted Cruz will end up winning the nomination.
If the answer is yes, if somehow Marco Rubio pulls out a victory or a second place finish in New Hampshire, then this is gonna be a three-way race all the way to the end.
Quick rule of thumb, as far as this election cycle goes, Don't pay any attention to the national polling.
The national polling makes no difference.
At this point in the national polling in 2008, Rudy Giuliani was leading the way.
At this point in national polling in 2004, on the Democratic side, Wesley Clark was leading the way.
So national polls don't mean anything.
The only polls that mean something are the primary polls in Iowa and New Hampshire, and really more specifically in Iowa, because the polls in New Hampshire will move after we find out what happens in Iowa.
So keep your eye there.
And we'll get to More election news.
Trump versus Hillary.
That's become the big battle.
We'll get to that in just a little while.
We will also get to, in just a little while, a new ISIS recruitment video, which reinforces something I said late last year, which is that the Obama administration has been the best recruiting tool that ISIS ever had.
ISIS is using all of the propaganda points of the Obama administration to recruit.
So there's a new ISIS video that apparently shows Donald Trump today, but there's a difference between how ISIS videos treat Trump and how they treat Obama.
In ISIS videos of Trump, Trump is the enemy.
Trump is the bad guy.
Trump is the guy we're gonna fight.
In ISIS videos where Obama's in them, Obama's just evidence that they can win, right?
Obama's not somebody that they can fight.
Obama's somebody they can win, right?
Trump is the big bad guy who they're gonna fight, but Obama is the guy who's a coward and runs away and gives them the impetus to fight.
And when they repeat political points, they're always mirroring the political points of the left.
America is weak.
America is racist.
America is terrible.
America is exploitative.
And we have an ISIS video that shows exactly that, so we'll get to that as well.
But I want to start with the situation up in Oregon, because it really is quite telling.
The situation up in Oregon, for people who have missed what's going on up in Oregon, you should take a closer look at what's happening in Oregon.
Sorry, before it's hit my mind right now, so I'll mention it.
If you have not had a chance, pick up the Rush Limbaugh letter.
The Limbaugh letter this month, I am interviewed by Rush Limbaugh.
So that's a New Year's thing.
That's kind of fun.
Anyway, so the Hammonds are this family who live up in Oregon.
And Stephen and Dwight Hammond are really the two leaders of the family.
Stephen is the son.
Stephen is the son, Dwight is the father, Dwight is 73, and Stephen is 48, I think.
Dwight is the father.
I think he's in his mid-40s.
But in any case, the two of them are now going to JLS.
And this has driven an enormous amount of media scrutiny and media attention, because Cliven Bundy, you remember Cliven Bundy?
Back in 2014, Cliven Bundy was a rancher who had a run-in with the Bureau of Land Management with the federal government, and he refused to pay fines that the federal government wanted him to pay.
And so a bunch of militiamen came and stationed themselves around the SWAT teams with their guns drawn, presumably ready to shoot people, and it was an armed standoff.
That was happening in the middle of the desert between the federal government and this one rancher.
Well, now the Bundy family is getting active in this Hammond case.
So let's first explain the background of the Hammond case, because you're going to hear today a lot of misinformation about what exactly is going on in Oregon.
The first thing is you're seeing this hashtag trend on Twitter, Oregon under attack.
Okay, Oregon is not under attack.
Okay, Oregon, the state government will live, the federal government will live, no one is going to be killed.
You know, when they say hashtag Oregon under attack, they're not looting So, we'll talk about the Bundy's behavior in a second, because that's what the media want us to focus on.
And it is interesting.
they and a bunch of their supporters took over basically an abandoned house in the middle of the forest in Oregon.
There are no federal agents there.
It's a federal facility and they took it over and said they're gonna occupy it until the federal government backs off the arrest of Stephen and Dwight Hammond.
So we'll talk about the Bundys' behavior in a second because that's what the media want us to focus on.
And it is interesting.
But I wanna focus first on the Hammonds.
Should you have sympathy for this rancher family that the Bundys are now expressing support for?
And the answer is yes, you really should.
You should have a great deal of sympathy for the Hammond family because they are just a microcosm of the growing power of the federal government and how it's going to touch off actual violent conflagration sooner or later, probably sooner.
Over the break, you may have missed it, but the Klein family, these two bakers from Oregon, This is the family, the religious Christian family with seven kids, and they didn't want to cater a lesbian wedding.
They didn't want to bake a cake for a lesbian wedding.
They were fined $140,000 by the state of Oregon for not catering the lesbian wedding.
They were fined and then they were sued by the lesbian couple for pain and suffering, which is insane.
And they were given $140,000 judgment against them.
They ponied up the dough so that they could file their appeals.
So basically a Christian family is now at point of gun being forced to pay enormous sums of money So that they don't have to cater a lesbian wedding, and if they do it again, presumably they'll be put out of business.
So keep that in mind when we talk about what's happening with the Hammonds.
So here's what's happening with the Hammonds.
The Hammonds are an old ranching family in Oregon.
Now the Bureau of Land Management, the federal government, controls a huge swath of territory in the western United States.
In the eastern United States, most land is privately held.
It's not owned by the federal government.
If it is owned by the government, it's owned by the state government.
State ownership of land is the rule, not the exception under the Constitution of the United States.
I mean state versus federal.
The way that it works under the Constitution is that there are only really two provisions dealing with federal ownership of land.
One is in Article 1 with regard to the legislature and what Congress can do to buy land.
And the second is with regard to Article 4.
There's a provision in Article 4 of the Constitution talking about how the federal government can treat the land that it owns.
Can the federal government just confiscate land from a state?
The federal government cannot do that under the Constitution of the United States.
Well, regardless of that, the Bureau of Land Management controls, these percentages are really quite stunning, 84.5% of all land in Nevada is controlled or owned by the federal government.
Right?
85% of all land in the state of Nevada is controlled by the federal government.
53% of all land in Oregon is controlled by the Bureau of Land Management, meaning they own all of that land.
And even in California, nearly 50% of all land in the state of California is controlled by the federal government, and specifically, the Bureau of Land Management.
Well, because the federal government controls all of this territory, it says it does so for environmental reasons.
We're all gonna die unless the federal government controls all of this territory to protect the birdies and the beads and such.
What's happening in Oregon, and this has been happening in Nevada too, is that the federal government wants to expand its ownership of land.
It's not enough for them to own 85% of Nevada or 53% of Oregon.
They want to own more.
So what they've been doing is they've been going and buying up all the land around particular ranchers, land that used to be privately held, and then they are restricting the land use for the ranchers who remain.
So if you're a rancher, your cows need to be able to graze in surrounding fields.
Most of the time when you see cows grazing, many states, I think a majority of states, a large number of states in any case, many states have rules that say your cows can graze outside of your land on public property because obviously they're not going to do much damage, they're just eating grass and we have an interest in cows being able to graze off land, we don't want you to have to buy thousands and thousands of acres just to feed your cattle.
You know, buy your cattle, keep your cattle on your land, make sure you gather your cattle back to you so they don't damage the environment too much, but they're allowed to graze.
Free grazing has been a rule, not the exception, in the United States since the founding of the United States.
Well, what the federal government has been doing is they've been buying up all the fields around the Hammons' estate, their farm, and then they've been restricting their access to water and they've been restricting their access to the grass.
So they've forced them out of the cattle business and they've been trying to restrict their access to water.
And they've been doing this with a lot of ranchers in the state of Oregon as well as Nevada, all over the United States.
The feds are doing this.
They want to control the land, and they want to prevent the ranchers from being able to afford their land.
Because if you can't ranch, if you can't keep cattle, if you can't do what you do, then you're going to be able to – the bank will foreclose, and then the government comes in and buys from the bank.
So they're purposefully depriving these farmers and these ranchers of rights that they had formerly held specifically so they can undercut them.
So this is what's been going on.
The federal government has been doing this to the Hammond family.
They've bought all the land surrounding the Hammonds.
And then apparently they began choking off their access to water and grazing rights.
And the proof is in the pudding, okay?
The Hammonds were convicted, and we'll get to their conviction in just a second.
The Hammonds have been convicted in 2001 and 2006.
They were convicted for two arson offenses, which we'll discuss in a moment.
In their plea bargain in 2012, their plea bargain, one of the provisions of the plea bargain was that if the Hammonds had to sell their property, the right of first refusal went to the federal government.
Now think about that for a second.
Normally when you have a plea bargain, and as somebody who's worked in criminal law a little bit, I did a summer with the Los Angeles District Attorney, when you do a plea bargain, you're typically bargaining that you will serve a given sentence, and you won't take us to court, right?
We won't go through the rigmarole of a trial, and we won't have to drag in witnesses, and maybe you'll give up testimony on somebody else, and we will, in turn, reduce your sentence, right?
That's usually the deal that's cut.
I've never heard of a plea bargain before where the federal government got to buy your stuff.
That's kind of a shocking plea bargain.
Imagine, for example, that you killed somebody and the federal government came in to do a deal with you and they said, OK, we're not going to go death penalty, we're going to go life sentence on the condition that you sell us your house.
Right?
Wouldn't you think that that's kind of weird?
And wouldn't it suggest sort of that they were trumping up the charges just to get your house?
Well, that's sort of what happened here.
In 2012, the federal government had a provision inserted in the plea bargain that says that the Hammonds, if they sell, have to sell to the federal government.
So why were the Hammonds convicted?
In 2001, And the Hammonds initiated a burn on their property.
This is something that ranchers and farmers apparently often do.
They have to burn out bad crops.
So if there's not even bad crops, bad plants.
Apparently there are juniper trees and various other types of weeds that are growing up around the property.
And these are succulents.
They suck up all the water.
They take as much water as possible, and they dry out the soil, so you have to burn them off.
So the Hammonds initiated a burn on their property, and it proceeded to go out of control.
It went onto federal property.
It burned 138 acres of property.
Nobody was hurt.
Nobody was killed.
No federal resources were expended to put out the fire.
The Hammonds did it, and the federal government then tried to prosecute them for arson.
In 2006, there was a lightning strike, and they did what's called a backburn, which is you burn actually stuff on your own property in order to prevent the fire from spreading onto your property because, as anybody who's ever lit a match knows, ash doesn't light, right?
Once you've burned the match, you can't relight the same match.
It only burns fresh wood.
So you do a backburn.
You burn parts of your own property so that the fire won't rage out of control, escape its lines, and come onto your property.
So they did a backburn.
They proceeded to accidentally burn one acre of federal property.
And again, they were brought... criminal charges were brought against them for arson.
Now, all of that would be kind of questionable.
What makes it super-duper questionable is that the federal government, when they brought the charges, they brought the charges under the Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996.
They didn't bring it under just federal arson charges.
They brought it under an Anti-Terrorism Act.
An Anti-Terrorism Act that has, as its standard, its criminal penalty standard, a mandatory minimum of five years in prison.
Right, so for burning your own property and then it gets out of control a little bit and burns some worthless land and we expend no resources, the federal government wanted to put both these guys away for five years.
Well, the judge in that particular case, he said, and there's a quote from the judge in that case, he says, With regard to character letters and that sort of thing, they were tremendous.
These people have been salt in their community and liked, and I appreciate that.
I am not going to apply the mandatory minimum, because to me, to do so under the Eighth Amendment would result in a sentence which is grossly disproportionate to the severity of the offenses here.
And with regard to the Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996, This sort of conduct could not have been conduct intended under that statute.
In other words, he's saying that that anti-terrorism act, the arson provision, was designed for, for example, we've had suspicions that some of the California wildfires were set by terrorists.
That was the idea.
It was for that.
It wasn't for a rancher who sets a fire on his own property, it goes out of control, burns a little bit of land on federal property, and no harm is done.
Right?
It was not intended for that.
Well, the 9th Circuit, the prosecutors, Because the prosecutors wanted to make an example of the Hammonds for having the temerity to try and ranch near federal property, they decided that they were going to appeal the judge's decision.
The judge sentenced one of them to three months and one of them to a year after they had completed their sentence.
After they completed their sentence, the prosecutors then went to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, appealed the judge's decision, and said the mandatory minimum is five years.
We want them back in prison for another four years and four years, nine months respectively.
And they won.
The 9th Circuit Court of Appeal said, OK, we're going to put these people back in prison.
They'd already been in prison.
We're going to put them back in prison now.
Right?
That's what this is really about.
And the Oregon Farm Bureau, again, a lot of this is specifically designed to prevent the farm from running so that the federal government can buy it.
The Hammonds are supposed to pay a grand total of $400,000 to the federal government as part of this whole settlement.
And not only that, now the farm has to run without the two heads of the farm, right?
It has to run without Stephen or Dwight, who are the two heads of the family.
The Oregon Farm Bureau protested the convictions.
They said this prosecution will have a chilling effect across the West among ranchers and others who rely on federal allotments and permits.
It will harm the positive relationship many ranchers and organizations have worked to forge with the Bureau and the hard work that has been done on the range.
It is hypocritical given BLM's own harm to the range, which goes without consequence.
It is unjust.
And it is unjust.
Okay, so this is why, forget whatever you think about the Bundys, the Hammonds are being just jacked here.
I mean, there's no question that the Hammonds are being jacked.
The idea of being sent to jail for five years because you did a controlled burn that went out of control is ridiculous.
The federal land management rules and laws and regulations are out of control themselves.
Okay, now this brings us to the second question.
And that is the question of the Bundys.
So, first of all, it is worthwhile noting, again, as with the Klein case in Oregon, and the Hammond case, The bigger the government, the more intrusive the government, the better the shot that somebody is going to feel the necessity to fight back against the government.
That's just the way that this works.
If you have a government that is intruding in every aspect of your life, that is taking away rights that you thought that you had, and more importantly, rights that you actually did have, In the case of the Kleins and in the case of the Hammonds, if the government is taking away those rights or attempting to deprive you of your rights so as to make a better bargain on your property, well at a certain point people are going to react badly to that.
A bigger government risks more resistance from the public.
A bigger government risks more resistance from the public.
You want to avoid situations like this, you actually need a smaller government, not a bigger government.
So here's what happened now.
Ammon Bundy and his brother, they got together a bunch of militia guys.
And Oregon is an open carry state, so you can carry around your gun there.
It's not illegal what they're doing, at least carrying the guns.
They went and they illegally occupied a federal facility, which is basically an empty house in the middle of the woods in this wilderness preserve that is next to the Hammonds.
And they said, we are going to stay here until the Hammonds are released.
We're going to stay here until the Hammonds are released.
And the truth is that they have precedent for the federal government backing down.
People tend to forget.
For all of the crap that the Bundys got and for all the crap the militias got in the original Cliven Bundy case, the federal government ended up backing down and basically cutting a deal with the Bundys, you know, for good or ill.
So, they're doing all of this, and the media are going nuts.
People on the left are saying, we should shoot these people, they're terrorists.
I don't remember the last time terrorists took over an empty building and sat there.
I don't remember that.
That's usually not a high terrorist priority.
Idiot Cenk Uygur, who does a YouTube video show, used to have a show on MSNBC, The Tanked, he was saying that if these were Islamic terrorists who would have killed them already, Islamic terrorist gangs don't take over empty buildings and sit there waiting for things to happen.
They go into highly populated buildings and murder people.
That's what they do.
So these people are sitting out really in the middle of nowhere with their guns, and Cliven Bundy's son, Amin, he cut this tape he put up on Facebook and told people that he wants them to come join him.
Are you calling for more people to come up?
Absolutely.
For those that understand what is going on, and those who want to and feel a need to stand, we're asking them to come.
We have a facility that we can house them in.
We have plenty of work to do to start to unwind all of these unconstitutional land transactions and controls.
We have plenty of work to do.
We need you to come and be unified with us so we can be protected and be together.
And we're calling people to come, absolutely.
And so what would you say to law enforcement agencies potentially trying to kick you off here?
Well, we pose no threat to anybody.
There's no person that is physically harmed by what we are doing.
This facility is owned by the people.
And so if they come to bring physical harm to us, then they will be doing it only because of a facility or a building.
And I don't believe that warrants killing people or trying to basically stop people from expressing their rights and doing what they know is right.
Okay, so there are a couple things that are really interesting about what he's saying here.
He's saying, basically, this isn't worth anybody getting killed over, so the federal government really ought to take a second look.
So far, it is important to mention, no violence has actually been done, right?
This is no different than a student takeover of a building on a college campus, which we've seen a thousand times before, and the left loves.
This does raise a couple of questions.
One is, is he actually threatening violence against members of the government?
He's taken over federal property, right?
No question.
And that is a violation.
That's a trespass.
I think that, by the way, what he's doing is wrongheaded and silly.
I should mention that up front.
I think that this is, it's a foolish thing.
I think that there are ways to protest and bring attention to issues without taking over federal buildings.
I don't think that that's the best use of the public's time and money is doing all of this.
But it does raise a question.
And the question is, when should the fed... and I think it's a question that the federal government really does need to ask.
And I think that all of us need to ask when it comes to making laws.
What laws are you willing to kill someone over?
What laws are you willing to allow the government to kill somebody over?
Before you make a law, ask yourself, are you willing to kill somebody if they resist that law?
Right?
And the Bundys are a perfect example of this, and so are the Hammonds.
Are you willing to get somebody killed, right?
Let's say... Some of the left refuses to acknowledge, but it is true.
Every law in the end is backed by the power of the government gun.
The left loves guns, so long as it's the government wielding them against the populace.
As long as it's the people who are actually having the guns and controlling their own fates, the left doesn't like this.
But...
What this brings into stark relief is the fact that not every law, and once you ask that question, it becomes pretty clear what kind of laws are worthy of being on the books and what kind of laws are not, right?
Like, for example, let's take a simple law, okay?
Red light laws.
Is that worth killing somebody over?
Well, kind of.
I mean, if you have somebody who's just routinely running red lights, for example, that is endangering the public and the cops would rightly shoot them.
You are endangering the public.
Is it really worth shooting somebody over them grazing their cattle on public land as they have historically done because you want to protect a desert tortoise as they did in Nevada.
Is it really worth shooting somebody over taking advantage of rights that they already had like the Hammond family?
Is it worth shooting somebody?
Is it worth shooting the Klein family for not catering a lesbian wedding?
If the answer is no, Then why are those laws on the books in the first place?
Because every law, you have to at least consider that eventuality, that the government is going to have to come in and enforce the law, and if somebody resists that enforcement, then that person could get shot.
Right?
And if you think about it in that way, then what the government ought to do and what the government ought not to do, that actually becomes a relatively simple enterprise.
Ought not to do very much because the government is not enabled or empowered to shoot people on behalf of that many laws.
Or at least they shouldn't be if we're right-headed.
The fact that the left is so gung-ho about going in and shooting... I'm in Bundy and I'm talking Jonathan Chait over at the New Yorker has been writing this.
There are a bunch of people on the left who have been saying, yeah, just go in and shoot these guys.
You're really willing to shoot these guys for sitting in an empty building in the middle of a wilderness?
Is that really what you're willing to shoot these guys over?
Now, if they took over a populated building, they posed some threat?
That'd be one thing.
Let's say, for example, that they posed a threat to the water supply.
Let's say that they were actually just using all of the water.
Well, now they're threatening the livelihood and the lives themselves of thousands of people.
Yeah, you're willing to shoot people over that.
They did it in the Old West all the time.
But unless you're willing to ask yourself the question, that is the critical question.
Is this a law, the enforcement of which is worth shooting people over?
See, the left doesn't ask that question.
The left asks the opposite question.
The left asks, Would the law be something that you oppose?
Is the law okay?
They always come from the perspective of, what rights do you have against the government, as opposed to, what rights does the government have against you?
The left's question is, why shouldn't we pass this law?
They ask the reverse question.
It's not what law is worth shooting somebody over, it's what law is not worth shooting somebody over, right?
Because they feel like most laws are worth shooting somebody over in the end, right?
If they want to shoot somebody, they'll shoot somebody.
And this brings us to the bigger issue, right?
And the bigger issue is twofold.
One is, when is armed resistance necessary and when is armed resistance not necessary?
And two is, how far is the left going to push here before things become necessary?
So, is armed resistance necessary with regard to the Hammonds?
No, I don't think armed resistance is necessary with regard to the Hammonds.
The Hammonds themselves say that armed resistance is not necessary with regard to the Hammonds.
They don't want any part of what the Mundies are doing.
They're trying to work out a deal with the government.
But I could foresee a scenario in which armed resistance to the government was necessary.
Let's say, for example, that the state of California, I've said this before, the state of California has already said that it is mandatory that public schools teach gay and lesbian history to your kids.
Let's say you decide to homeschool your kids.
And let's say the leftists in California say we're not going to accredit any homeschooling program that doesn't educate your children in the decency and beauty of the homosexual lifestyle.
And let's say that they go a step further and they say well because we're not accrediting your kids are now truants and we are going to grab your kids and put them under the care of Child Protective Services if you don't allow us to educate your kids the way we want to educate your kids.
Would that be a time for armed resistance?
Yeah, probably.
Probably.
And this is actually beginning to hit the fan a little bit because President Obama is really going directly at it when he's trying to push now executive orders on guns.
He says that he wants executive orders on guns.
He wants to be able to control the buying and selling of guns.
Now I was asked this morning, I do a morning radio show in Los Angeles, I was asked by my leftist colleague Brian Whitman, I was asked am I in favor of background checks?
And what I said is background checks are wonderful in theory and do pretty much nothing in practice.
President Obama wants to push universal background checks, which effectively criminalizes any sort of gun transaction, but only post facto.
Because the fact is, if I sell a gun to you, the federal government isn't going to know about it unless you go shoot somebody, and then they'll prosecute me.
So it stops no shootings, right?
The background checks don't stop any shootings whatsoever.
As far as generalized background checks, again, I don't really have a problem with them conceptually.
I just don't think they're that useful professionally.
President Obama is pushing executive orders on guns because President Obama really does not like guns, and he doesn't like guns in the hands of the public.
And so, Greg Abbott, right?
Greg Abbott is the governor of the state of Texas, and Greg Abbott came out and he said if President Obama tries to enforce his unlawful gun grab in the state of Texas, we will resist.
He said, come and take them.
This is when the rubber is going to hit the road.
As the federal government expands, forget the federal government versus the individual, eventually there will be state actors, like Texas, who say, you can't try to enforce that on our property.
You try to bring that in here, and we will forcibly stop you.
We will meet you at the border with guys with guns.
The bigger the government gets, the more likely you're going to get these kinds of scenarios.
And by the way, the more likely that the scenario will actually be justified.
Because if the government gets that big and is violating that many rights, there will be people who eventually say, look, I'm not going to let you take my kid from me without a fight.
I'm not going to allow you to take my land from me without a fight.
I'm not going to allow you to take my gun from me without a fight.
This is becoming more common.
Do I think it's that eventuality with regard to the Hammonds?
No.
Do I think that it's that eventuality with regard to the Bundys?
No, I don't.
Do I think that as the government gets bigger, and unchecked, and feels no qualms whatsoever about shooting people over this stuff, that it's going to risk further violence?
I do, and there's a reason why there's been a big run on guns during the Obama administration.
The bigger the government gets, the more people feel the need to defend themselves against the possibility that that giant, powerful machine of government Okay, I want to talk a little bit about the Trump vs. Hillary race right here.
So let's talk about the Trump vs. Hillary race.
Trump has been doing a great job of turning the narrative on Hillary.
So Hillary made the mistake during the last debate of calling Trump a sexist.
Which, of course, unleashed Trump.
Trump in battle mode.
It's sort of like... When Trump is in battle mode, do you remember Super Mario Bros.?
When I was a kid, I used to play this at my grandmother's house.
She had the Super Nintendo, you know, like the 64-bit.
And it was...
Old school Super Mario Brothers.
You remember when Mario got the star?
And he runs through all the enemies and they're popping off the screen?
So that's basically Trump when he's given a bone.
And so here is Donald Trump going after Hillary Clinton on her critique of him as a sexist.
I needed votes for things.
I got many things done.
I needed votes.
And I would have these people on my side.
So I wasn't going to get involved in the Monica Lewinsky thing.
And I wouldn't get involved in it now.
You're bringing it up!
I don't really care about Monica Lewinsky other than...
I think that, you know, Hillary was an enabler, and a lot of things happened that were, you know, obviously very seedy.
I mean, he was impeached, for heaven's sake.
He was impeached over this stuff.
But that was a political process, right?
The Senate wound up not going along with it.
He wound up being one of the most popular presidents in history.
He paid a massive fine on one of the cases, like a massive fine.
He was, I think his law degree was even taken away.
He wasn't able to practice law.
So, obviously, it was a big thing.
As a businessman, I would always stick up for various people, whether they were friends or not, because in many cases I needed them, I needed their votes to get things done.
Okay, and Trump went on to say that Hillary was basically an enabler for Bill, which is correct.
And Hillary is having a tough time with this.
So Hillary was at a New Hampshire town hall meeting, and this lady got up and started heckling her.
They said that she was heckling her.
Now, it's funny.
Hillary, when it comes to Black Lives Matter protesters, she'll let them heckle her all day, she'll meet with them.
This lady, however, Hillary got very upset with, and you will see why in this particular clip.
Let's start with the questions, and I'll try to get as many in.
Well, I'm going to call on people.
Wait a minute.
I'm not going to take your question, because other people have been... Yes, go right there.
Okay, let me see.
Right back there, this man right there.
Here we go, right there.
You are very rude, and I'm not going to ever call on you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
I asked her how in the world she can say that Juanita Broderick and Kathleen Willey are lying when she has no idea who Juanita Broderick is because she told me this summer that she doesn't know who she is and she doesn't want to know who she is.
And how can she assess that they're lying, which is what she told someone last month.
And she says that rape victims should be believed.
I agree with her, that's true.
They should be believed and you should assess what they're saying.
She doesn't even want to assess it.
Why doesn't she matter to you?
Because I'm a rape survivor myself.
Of course it would matter to me.
And as a state representative, I have constituents who tell me that they're drug addicts because they were sexually assaulted and overdid everything.
How would I not care about that?
You're a Republican, though.
Yes, I am.
Coming here to question her, though, coming here to question her at an event, putting her on the spotlight, that makes her look, you know, not in a perfect light.
Is that your goal?
Was your goal to make her look silly?
I was a Democrat.
I became a Republican because of this.
What?
Because of this stuff.
Because of what I saw happen in the Clinton years.
That this was the hypocrisy of the so-called women that fight for women.
It was the height of hypocrisy.
Good for her.
And Hillary Clinton is going to have to battle this one off and she's going to have a really tough time.
Fortunately, she has Bernie Sanders out there to save her.
So Bernie Sanders, who spent this entire campaign really just defending Hillary Clinton, is pretty amazing.
Bernie Sanders says there's so much more important than Hillary Clinton's sex life or Bill Clinton's sex life.
I think that Donald Trump might want to concern himself with the fact that he is dead wrong when he says we should not raise the minimum wage.
He's dead wrong when he says that wages in America are too high.
He's dead wrong when he thinks we should give huge tax breaks to billionaires like himself.
And he's dead wrong when he thinks that climate change is a hoax when virtually the entire scientific community thinks it's the great environmental crisis that we face.
Maybe Trump should worry about those issues rather than Bill Clinton's sex life.
Only Bernie Sanders can segue from Bill Clinton's sex life to climate change.
That was impressive, but what is the answer to the question, is it fair game or not?
No, I think we got more important things to worry about in this country than Bill Clinton's sex life.
No, it's not fair game.
It's not fair game.
By the way, I love how Dana Bash treats him.
Only Bernie Sanders could be such a genius as to segue from Bill Clinton's sex life to climate change.
It actually isn't that difficult to segue, but It's more difficult to do without using words like hot and wet and moist and such, and just getting really awkward.
So, in any case, Bernie Sanders is trying to save Hillary Clinton.
She will win the nomination, but this is going to be an issue that dogs her, and Trump is unafraid to attack, so that'll make things pretty entertaining.
Okay, time for some stuff that I like and some stuff that I hate.
This time around, the stuff I like is actually the stuff that I hate, so I'm gonna warn you Ahead of time that there will be spoilers here.
Okay, I'm gonna go I saw Star Wars I finally saw Star Wars I saw it Saturday night and there will be some spoilers in what I'm about to say So if you haven't seen the Star Wars movie yet, and you don't want it to be spoiled Then then you can you can tune out now or you can stick around and be a little bit spoiled The truth is there's there are no really huge surprises in in the new Star Wars film So when I first saw it, I did like the film.
Let me just say that up front.
I liked the film I enjoyed it.
I thought it was an effective relaunch of the franchise.
It was great to see kind of all your favorite characters back from childhood.
It was cool to see Han.
It was cool to see Leia.
It was cool to see Luke.
It was cool to see all these people back to see 3PO and R2-D2.
Everybody sort of makes a cameo appearance.
The movie is really very much about Han.
So Han is a main character in the film, no question.
It's Harrison Ford's best role for probably 15 years.
And it's great in that sense.
So that's the thing that I like.
Now to the things that I don't like.
So, when I watched this film, I came out, and I felt pretty good about it.
I felt like it was a fun film, well done.
Derivative, because the plot is basically the exact same plot as A New Hope.
It's the same plot, pretty much measure for measure, as A New Hope, which is episode 4.
But what really depressed me... I had a tough time sleeping a little bit, and I realized that the reason I had a tough time sleeping because of the new Star Wars film is because it breaks the cardinal rule of the fictional universe.
The cardinal rule of the fictional universe.
And it's not because of J.J.
Abrams.
It's because of the entire concept of a relaunch here.
The cardinal rule of the fictional universe is that there is such a thing as happily ever after.
That when you hit the end of a story, when you hit the end of a movie, you either feel good or you feel bad because it's the end of the movie.
Right?
When you watch a TV show, not so much, because you know there's another episode next week, but eventually there will be a series finale, and people will go off and they will live or they will die, and that'll be the end of it.
Right?
There won't be more.
And one of the most depressing aspects of human life, truly, is the fact that Cinderella and her husband end up fighting over the dishes.
Right?
The fact is that happily ever after, eventually, it ends up becoming just life.
And what's particularly depressing about the Star Wars film is when you end Return of the Jedi, when Return of the Jedi ends, everything has pretty much been square to Ray, right?
Darth Vader has been turned good at the end, and Luke has become a Jedi, and Han and Leia have gotten together, and Han has become a responsible person because he's learned that he has to give up his smuggler ways, and the new movie starts, and you fast forward 40 years, And pretty much nothing has changed.
Like, anything.
Like, they defeated the Emperor, they defeated Darth Vader, and the new movie starts and nothing has changed.
Right?
The Republic, it's not even clear if the Republic is the dominant force in the universe, it's still called the Rebellion.
Right?
The Rebellion is still called the Rebel Force, so presumably the Empire is still governing, although nobody really knows how, after the Emperor died and the second Death Star was blown up.
And beyond that, we don't know what the Republic is doing, we don't know if the rebel force is governing, and we know that Han and Leia—this is the spoiler-laden part, folks—we know that Han and Leia have now basically had marital trouble.
So the happily ever after didn't happen for them.
And not only did it not happen for them, it really didn't happen for them, right?
They had a kid, and the kid ends up being the bad guy, ends up being Kylo Ren.
And it's really depressing, the idea that Han Solo, who's this great character who you watch transform from a guy who cares only about himself to a general in the rebel army at the end of Return of the Jedi, and presumably a governing force in the new universe, in the new galaxy, That he has basically turned back into a smuggler.
He's regressed.
His son was a loser and is sort of a loser Sith.
He's not the world's most effective Sith.
And Leia has turned into a kind of Hillary Clinton lookalike?
She's kind of wandering around the set being a general?
Which, by the way, was always one of the disappointing aspects of Star Wars.
Yoda makes a big deal, there is another, right?
He says, we've lost, that boy was our last hope.
No, there is another.
Right?
It turns out the another?
She spent the last 40 years learning nothing about the Force.
So she was rich in the forest also, but had no- But it's- What's depressing is the idea that we come back, and Han's journey ends.
And like I said, lots of spoilers here, folks.
Han's journey ends with him being killed by his own son.
Right?
Stabbed through the chest on a mission from Leia that is foolhardy at best.
It's Leia's fault he gets killed, by the way.
Leia says to him, go and bring back our son.
It's like, no, your son just murdered, like, 30 kids.
And your wife's like, oh, go back and bring him back.
It's not typical Han that he would think of, that he would think, oh, well, that seems like a great idea.
But he goes and he does it anyway.
It's a sad ending to a great character.
And that kind of kills my childhood for me a little bit, because when you hit the end of Return of the Jedi, and everything is great, and the teddy bears are celebrating with the golden robots, and everything is terrific, you want there to be an ending.
And violating that, coming back, and for everything to be just as dingy and dark and terrible as it ever was, and for all your heroes who had happily ever after to now be divorced?
I mean, would you really want to go back now and watch Cinderella, if you knew that the prince was gonna cheat on her, and she was gonna throw him out of the house, and then get fat.
Right?
It's not like, would that be a story that's worth re-watching?
And so in a sense, it sort of corrupted the original trilogy.
So I'm, in my own mind, I'm trying to kind of seg off this, this particular, sector off this particular film from the earlier films, just as the first three films don't exist to me.
They just don't exist.
So four, five, and six still exist in their own universe, but this is, it was very, it was very kind of bitter.
For me.
And so I have expectations and hopes for the next film.
If you want to know my theories for the next film, I think that clearly Rey is Luke's daughter.
I think that Kylo Ren killed Luke's wife.
I think that in the next movie Leia will die and in the final movie Luke will die.
So those are all my theories.
But what I like about the movie is that it brought back all this nostalgia.
What I dislike about the movie Is that instead of it just kind of reveling in the nostalgia and giving everybody the happy ending that they deserve, it instead takes those characters and it plunges them back into the chaos from whence they sprang.
I mean, how much fun would it be at the end of Lord of the Rings if it turns out that when Gollum falls into the volcano and the ring falls after him, that the ring actually survived and there's a creature at the bottom of the lava who's gonna take the ring and do something with it, right?
It'd be kind of depressing and you'd go back and say, okay, this whole saga was about what again?
Especially because everybody makes exactly the same mistakes, right?
Everyone makes exactly the same mistakes.
So Luke makes exactly the Obi-Wan Kenobi mistake.
Obi-Wan Kenobi takes Anakin under his wing, Anakin kills everybody, Obi-Wan Kenobi goes off and lives in a cave somewhere, and so does Yoda.
So what happens?
Luke takes his nephew under his wing, his nephew kills everybody, Luke decides he's had it, and he goes off and he lives on an island.
So the only difference between him and Ben Kenobi is that one was in a water environment and one was in a desert environment.
It's kind of depressing.
You wonder why it is that Luke... I mean, Luke lived this, right?
He's been through it before, did he not?
Anyway, those are all my problems with Star Wars, but it is an enjoyable flick.
I hold out hope the next two movies will be good.
And on that note, we'll conclude this first episode of the new year.
I am Ben Shapiro.
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