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March 30, 2018 - The Ben Shapiro Show
55:05
Conservatives Not Welcome | Ep. 507
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Time Text
Parkland survivor David Hogg goes after Laura Ingraham's advertisers, the media seek to bar conservatives on any grounds possible, and we check the mailbag.
I'm Ben Shapiro.
This is the Ben Shapiro Show.
All right, well, we have a lot to get to.
I want to talk a lot about what's been going on with Laura Ingraham and this AstroTurf boycott by Media Matters and why it has nothing to do with civility or decency and has everything to do with politics.
We'll go through all of it in just one second.
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The big story over the last 24 hours has been that many advertisers have now dropped Laura Ingraham's show on Fox News.
And the reason they dropped Laura Ingraham's show is because she tweeted something out yesterday, which we discussed, in which she suggested, I'm going to quote her directly, she said, David Hogg rejected by four colleges to which he applied and whines about it.
And we played the clip of David Hogg, who is the Parkland shooting survivor, who's obviously made a name for himself saying pretty vicious things on television about Second Amendment advocates, Dana Lash, GOP-ers.
He's been pretty brutal to everyone who disagrees with him, and he's wanted to have it both ways, David Hogg.
And again, this is not a criticism of his right to speak.
Obviously, he has the right to speak, and he should speak however much he wants.
And this isn't a criticism of his status as a survivor.
Obviously, something awful that never should happen to anybody of decency happened to David Hogg, and that's awful and unforgivable.
But he's now in the political debate, and that means that there's some slings and arrows that come with the political debate.
I know this, okay?
When I was 17 years old, same age as David Hogg, I started writing a syndicated column.
And I got clubbed about the ears for it.
And a lot of that was deserved, because guess what?
At 17, you don't know everything, and sometimes your perspectives are wrong.
And if you join in the political debate, then it is open season on your politics.
And by the way, it's not to be gauche.
Insults are bad.
People saying silly, stupid things about you, that's nasty.
But it does happen on a relatively regular basis.
For years, I was called the Virgin Ben in the left-wing press.
That is not a joke.
From the time I was 17, there were people who were calling me the Virgin Ben because obviously I was a nerd who had never had sex.
And I was proud about the fact that I hadn't had sex and I was a virgin until I was married, but I was called the Virgin Ben.
Not once did I ever call for the people who were calling me the Virgin Ben to lose their advertising base.
And my retaliatory response was always, OK, let's talk about ideas or you're an idiot.
OK, that's the way that politics works.
David Hogg, however, called immediately.
For an advertiser boycott on Laura Ingram and all these advertisers complied.
A lot of advertisers comply with this stuff because they're afraid that they don't really want the controversy.
They're concerned that any controversy associated with their product is going to hurt their sales.
The reality is these boycotts don't really work very well.
When they tried an actual boycott against Chick-fil-A, for example, it failed immediately.
I remember just a few weeks ago, months ago, when Keurig Coffee was bullied into dropping Sean Hannity as an advertiser.
Sean fought back and Keira Greene stated their advertisement within like a week.
So all this talk about advertisers really feeling the impact of politics, it's just not true.
People don't not buy products because they don't like the programs that advertisers advertise on, right?
Secondary boycotts generally do not work.
That's worth noting.
One of the questions I want to ask here is what is this boycott against Laura really about?
She's come out and apologized now.
So if you said that it was about civility, if you said it was about decency, she shouldn't have said what she said.
I don't think she should have said what she said either.
I said that yesterday on the show.
But if you think this boycott is about civility or decency, you got another thing coming because now she's apologized.
OK.
Status quo ante restored, right?
We're all supposed to be cordial with the Parkland survivors, which we should be.
We should be decent with the Parkland survivors, which we should be.
I've been very focused on doing that throughout this entire, entire horrible mess that's happened in the aftermath of an even more horrible, horrible incident, obviously.
But decency was restored, right?
Well, not right, because after Laura Ingraham apologized, David Hogg said, I want to continue to boycott Laura Ingraham, right?
He said, I want to continue to boycott Laura Ingraham.
So here is Hogg rejecting Laura Ingraham's apology.
That they cannot push us around, especially when all we're trying to do here is save lives.
And when people try to distract, like Laura's trying to do right now, from what the real issue here is, which is gun violence in America, it's not only sad, it's just wrong.
From a journalistic standpoint, I would say that she needs to be more objective and needs to stand down, because I am not the issue here.
The issue needs to be gun violence in America, but what she's trying to do is to distract from that.
OK, well, first of all, I seriously doubt that David Hogg hates the attention.
I think that, you know, when it comes to him pushing a boycott that's successfully working, I think, against Laura Ingraham's advertisers, I really doubt that David Hogg laments that.
And as far as who's taking us off focus on the gun control stuff, You know, none of this has to do with gun control.
Laura shouldn't have said what she said.
Hogg shouldn't have made an issue out of it.
It's really, like, none of this really has to do with gun control or saving lives, pretty clearly.
I don't know what he means when he says that Laura should be more objective.
She's obviously conservative and she says so.
Even Alison Camerota jumps in at that point and says, well, she's not an objective host.
That's not him just rejecting her apology.
Here's, it's clip three where Hogg rejected Ingram's apology.
He said, I 100% agree.
An apology is an effort just to save your advertisers is not enough.
I will only accept your apology only if you denounce the way your network has treated my friends and I in this fight.
It's time to love thy neighbor, not mudslinging children.
So this tweet is really telling.
What Hogg is doing here is wildly inappropriate.
First of all, He doesn't have to accept her apology.
You never have to accept an apology.
But if we're going to pretend that this is some sort of principled non-acceptance of an apology, it is clearly not.
When he says that, I mean, he's thanking, he's thanking all of the advertisers that are dropping Laura Ingraham because he likes the fact that he is wielding this sort of power against Ingraham for engaging in what is, by any sort of political standard, rather mild stuff.
He's tweeting at her, hashtag shut up and be objective.
And be objective.
Go back to the original tweet for just a second.
The first one, right?
So he's when he says here, it's time to love thy neighbor, not mudslinging children.
Two things that David Hogg is saying here.
Again, none of this is an attack on Hogg as a person, right?
Hogg might be a fine, upstanding person, although I think that his behavior here is really questionable.
And I think that his behavior for the last couple of weeks in labeling all of his enemies evil has been really quite vile.
But maybe he's maybe he's a good person.
He seems like a smart kid, but This last line, it's time to love thy neighbor, not mudslinging children.
Once you step out in the public debate and you start speaking publicly on issues of consequence, you no longer get to hide behind the title child.
Like Kyle Cashew, who is a classmate of Hogg's in a younger class than David Hogg, right?
I don't think that Kyle is, Kyle's not a senior.
I think he's a sophomore, right?
Kyle, or a junior.
Kyle came out, he said, you don't get to pretend you're a child and then at the same time say that you're an adult who ought to be ruling the world with regard to these policies.
And when it comes to David Hogg saying you ought to love thy neighbor and that he's standing up for civility, again, I'm not defending Laura's comment.
I'm not saying she shouldn't have apologized.
I am saying that David Hogg pretending to be an advocate of civility is pretty astonishing.
And launching a boycott on behalf of civility as David Hogg is pretty astonishing because here are all the things that David Hogg has said just in the last two weeks about his political opponents as Clip 10.
Pathetic f***ers that want to keep killing our children.
They could have blood from children spattered all over their faces and they wouldn't take action because they'll still see those dollar signs.
I'm gonna start off by putting this price tag right here as a reminder for you guys to know how much Marco Rubio took for every student's life in Florida.
$1.05.
Okay.
I mean, do you think that's unnecessarily provocative?
No, I think it's not enough provoc- I'm not- I don't think it's even provocative enough.
When you're your old parents, like, I don't know how to send an iMessage, and you're just like, give me the f***ing phone.
Sadly, that's what we have to do with our government, because our parents don't know how to use a f***ing democracy, so we have to.
What Dana's trying to do, the- I believe she's the CEO of the NRA, she's trying to distract people.
If you listen to her talk, she's not- She's a national spokeswoman for the NRA.
Exactly.
She owns these congressmen.
She can get them to do things, it's just she doesn't care about these children's lives.
It just makes me think, what sick If you can't get elected without taking money from child murderers, why are you running?
And that's the great thing about it, because those fuckers aren't going to get re-elected.
when you want to see more f*cking money than children's lives.
What type of s*cking person does that?
If you can't get elected without taking money from child murderers, why are you running?
With Rick Scott, it's like, "When I get elected to Senate, we're not gonna let that f*cking happen." And that's the great thing about it, because those f*ckers aren't gonna get re-elected.
When you start hearing from your political aides that there's a s*ckload of angry future voters, you start to worry a little bit.
Okay, love thy neighbor, love thy neighbor, OK, I'm sorry.
You don't get to play the love thy neighbor card when this has been your shtick for the last couple of weeks.
You really don't.
It just doesn't wash.
So what's the boycott really about?
The boycott, of course, is about politics.
It's about political opponents of Laura's who see an opening, and now they're going to club her.
Because this is how Media Matters operates.
This is how the left operates with their boycott tactics.
That if somebody makes a boo-boo, then no apology is sufficient.
And they will jump in and they will attempt to remove your advertising base.
And you can see this from the way that the media continued to treat this entire issue.
So over on MSNBC, right, the MSNBC panel says that Laura Ingraham is losing advertisers over her casual cruelty, right?
MSNBC is jumping on this because MSNBC is a Fox News competitor.
This is all political.
To pretend this is not political is to ignore reality, obviously.
And you don't want to be in business with Laura Ingraham because of her easy and casual cruelty that she inflicts out on people on a daily basis.
And again, to John Heilman's point, what you see is another example of an adult acting terribly.
Okay, and what you're seeing here is what the media have done, and they've been doing this since the shooting, and I object to it, what they've done is they've taken these kids who really don't necessarily know anything about gun control, they haven't evidenced tremendous knowledge about the issue, and they are using them as stand-ins for their own opinion, and then if those kids' opinions are attacked, the media jumps out in front and says, and then if those kids' opinions are attacked, the media jumps out in front and says, "Hey, And the media's pretty much admitting this, right?
Brian Stelter on CNN says, listen, we're not treating these kids as we would treat any other guest on our program.
We're not calling them when they say things that are blatantly, factually erroneous, right?
He was questioned about this by S.E.
Cupp on CNN Headline News.
This is clip 11.
Here's Stelter explaining, yeah, we don't ask them real questions.
We just have them come out and trot out their political point of view.
And then if anybody attacks their political point of view, then we basically say those people are bad people.
When I was interviewing David Hogg only 10 days after the massacre, there were a few times I wanted to jump in and say, let's correct that fact.
That's so interesting.
Let's make sure we're more... And one of the times I did, and other times I did not.
And, you know, there's always that balance.
Yes, it's a very tricky thing because this is a victim on one hand who is entitled to his own emotional response.
But at the same time, as news people, when we hear something demonstrably untrue, you want to go in and say, but that's not right.
So when he called Dana Lashley, NRA CEO, interrupted and corrected that.
But there are other times when I think all of us can agree.
Any of these students, any of these parents, we want everybody to be as well informed as we can about the contours of this debate.
Okay, but you didn't stop this kid when he was out there saying that Dana Lash ran the, that she ran Congress, right?
You didn't stop, nobody, Alison Camerota didn't stop David Hogg when he went on the air and he called everybody who opposed him akin to a child murderer, right?
This is what CNN has done.
This is what, CNN's been awful on this.
I said this directly to Brian Stelter last week, right?
This is nothing that I haven't said publicly on CNN to CNN.
So I'm going to talk a little bit more about this in just a second, because I think the ultimate example of this was Allison Camerata this morning on CNN.
I will show it to you.
It's pretty egregious.
And again, this isn't even about Hogg anymore, right?
Hogg is a kid who is using a platform that's being given to him by the media, and he seems like a smart kid.
He seems like a motivated kid.
He also seems like somebody who's saying things that are deeply immoral, and the media are using him as a prop in order to say those things.
And I think that the media are the really problematic people here.
I think it's quite disgusting what they're doing.
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OK, so the worst example of media bias, obviously, is CNN.
And the worst example on CNN has been Alison Camerota, who's just been awful on this.
She's had on survivor after survivor all on the left.
She wouldn't have on Kyle Cashew because Kyle Cashew once tweeted out that CNN was fake news.
Well, speaking of fake news, here was here was Alison Camerota questioning David Hogg this morning about all of this college hubbub.
So remember, this whole thing started with with him going on TMZ.
And talking about being rejected by four colleges and handling it pretty decently, I thought, except at the very end, he said that if colleges don't want to help us out, well, we were still changing the world.
The implication being the colleges were rejecting him for his political viewpoint, which is just asinine.
OK, colleges, I promise you, the colleges that rejected David Hogg did so long before this happened.
Right now, if David Hogg were to reapply, probably half the colleges that didn't let him in would let him in.
Now, Hogg said, I mean, he said in the interview, I believe, that he has a 4.1 GPA and a 1270 SAT, which is a fine score.
That is not the average score of the people getting into UCLA.
I know that my sister didn't get into UCLA, and she had well into the 1300s and about a 4.1 GPA.
So again, there are plenty of reason-neutral rationales for why Hogg didn't get into these particular colleges.
And it has nothing to do with him being stupid or anything.
He's not stupid.
He's obviously, again, for the 1,000th time, a smart kid.
There are lots of reasons why you wouldn't get into UCLA with a 1270 average.
I mean, with a 1270 SAT.
In fact, I want to look up right now the average SAT score for UCLA admittees.
It is certainly not a 1270.
Right now, let's see.
So, let's see.
I'm looking up prepscholar.com.
So, according to their admission statistics, The average SAT score composite at UCLA is 1370.
A full 100 points higher than David Hogg.
So that's why he didn't get into UCLA.
It's a very selective college.
Doesn't mean he's not going to go to college.
He will go to college.
But watch this clip where Allison Camerata demonstrates that now the media views these kids as cult figures.
Cult figures, right?
If anybody crosses David Hogg, it's not because maybe there's a reason that they did so, like a value-neutral, they-don't-hate-David-Hogg reason.
It must be because they hate David Hogg and hate his agenda.
I mean, this clip from Camerata just says so many things in so little time.
Let's play it.
David, I am stunned that four colleges rejected you.
What kind of dumb ass colleges don't want you?
I mean, you've taken the country by storm.
Okay, this is insane.
Okay, what kind of dumb ass colleges would reject you?
How about colleges that were like just looking at his scores before any of this started?
But again, treating these kids as totems is what this is all about.
This is all about treating these kids as totems, and then suggesting that anyone who crosses these kids must be cast out in sackcloth and ashes, even though they're UCLA administrators who are leftists, okay?
I know the administrators at UCLA.
They are leftists.
This is so silly.
By the way, if you think that David Hogg is a victim of the colleges, forget about what happened at Parkland.
If you think that a white middle class kid, upper middle class kid, from Parkland, Florida, A cis white male, right, a white privileged kid, according to, let's put it this way, if Kyle, if the shooting had not taken place in Parkland, and they were talking right now about the admissions for this guy, would they really be suggesting that the colleges had discriminated against him, or would they suggest that if he got into UCLA he'd be taking a spot that better go to an ethnic kid with a bad background?
With a hard background?
Apparently cis privilege goes right out the window as soon as a political agenda is at stake.
This is about the media.
It really isn't about these kids.
These kids are saying what they're saying because they're on camera and because they're kids.
I don't blame them for that.
I do blame the media for making them totems that can never be crossed under any circumstances.
Okay, so.
Yesterday, I had the opportunity to sit down with Thomas Sowell.
And I wanted to bring that to you because it was really cool.
Thomas Sowell is, of course, one of the foremost economists in America.
He's a terrific thinker.
And more importantly, Thomas Sowell is, I think, a real ethical guide for a lot of folks because he thinks about issues rationally.
He has a brand new book out.
I had a chance to sit down with him yesterday.
Here's what it sounded like.
Welcome to the show, Thomas Sowell, the leading economist in the United States and one of the great thinkers of the modern American scene.
He has a brand new book out.
It's called Discrimination and Disparities.
I had the pleasure of reading it over the last couple of weeks.
I've actually referenced it at least twice on the show since I read it.
I think it's quite brilliant.
Professor Sowell, thanks so much for joining us.
Thank you for having me.
So let me start with what I think is the most important part of the book.
You make an argument with regard to the definition of discrimination, because people tend to lump all sorts of discrimination together.
You talk about Discrimination 1, 1B, and Discrimination 2.
Can you just explain what those are and what the difference is between them?
Yes.
Discrimination 1 is used in the sense of people who have discriminating tastes, meaning that they are very good at comparing things and making decisions accordingly.
Discrimination, too, means almost the opposite, namely that once you've identified someone's identity, then that person's individual qualities don't matter.
You will treat them negatively on the basis of that.
And it's discrimination, too, that anti-discrimination laws have been passed to deal with.
And discrimination 1B is a different type of discrimination that you discuss as well.
This would be the use of group data in order to make individual decisions in the absence of individual information.
Is that right?
That's right.
Discrimination 1A would be judging each person as an individual.
1B would be judging individuals by the group that they come from.
in the absence of high cost of information that would have a prohibitive cost.
And the reason that distinction is so important, you talk about it in the book, is because what people tend to do is lump all of these things together.
So if you, for example, are a taxi driver in New York City and there's a higher crime rate in the black community and so you don't pick up a particular black customer, people accuse you of being a racist as opposed to simply you're using the information available to you.
And the proper solution to that would be the Uber or Lyft solution where you can actually profile the criminal backgrounds of potential customers, presumably.
Yes, and in fact, black taxi drivers do that Justice White taxidrivers do.
So, Professor Sowell, one of the things that's great about the book, and I think the most important thing, is that you point out that just because there are disparities between racial groups, which is, of course, the most important thing people talk about in the country, that doesn't necessarily mean that there's some sort of vicious discrimination going on.
There could be an informational-based discrimination 1B going on.
There could be a behavioral discrimination type 1 going on.
How is it that we should approach separating out the types of discrimination that are Really insidious from the other types of discrimination when we just see a headline in the newspaper that says black folks have fewer homes than white folks or black folks are committing more crimes than white folks, for example.
Well, I think that the crucial implicit assumption is that in the absence of discrimination and in the absence of any genetic differences, that people would be more or less randomly or equally spread out.
And therefore, there wouldn't be these differences.
And point of fact, there are innumerable differences One of the simplest ones that gets ignored all the time is that groups have different ages.
That is, the Japanese Americans have a median age that is 20 years older than the median age of Mexican Americans.
And so if you're talking about jobs that require, you know, either long years of education or 10 years of experience or something like that, then just the demographic differences means you have no chance from the outset, even if Japanese Americans and Mexican Americans were absolutely identical in every other aspect.
And one of the things that this makes clear, your discussion of this discrimination, your book Discrimination and Disparities and the Differences Between Groups, one of the things this makes clear is that virtually all government programs that are directed at direct redistribution between groups are probably bound to fail because they're not taking into account the real reasons for the disparities in the first place.
That's very true.
So the book is Discrimination and Disparities.
Professor Sowell, obviously, has written a number of books.
I've recommended probably 10 to 15 of his books on the program already.
His latest is really timely and really effective.
Professor Sowell, one final question for you, because I know that we're a little short on time.
There was a New York Times study that came out a couple of weeks ago, and the claim from the New York Times is that it showed that black boys particularly are facing discrimination in the United States, that black girls are not, and that among rich households, even household income is not a good predictor of future performance.
The suggestion from the New York Times is that America is just more racist against black boys than black girls.
What was your take on that study if you had a chance to look at it?
I haven't had a chance to look at it, but I see no reason, whatever, that once you expect boys and girls to behave the same, any more than we would expect Japanese Americans to be, Again, the book is Discrimination and Disparities.
Professor Saul, thanks so much for taking the time.
I really do appreciate it.
It's always a pleasure to have you.
It's always an honor.
And we always appreciate that you take the time to be on the program.
Well, thank you.
Thanks so much.
Well, in just a second, we are going to get to some other issues with regard to how the left is utilizing power in order to keep conservatives out of media.
I haven't really discussed in depth the Kevin Williamson issue over at The Atlantic.
I want to talk about that a little bit.
Plus, I want to get to your questions in the mailbag.
We'll do it a little bit early today.
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Alright, so...
If the Laura Ingraham boycott is really more about politics than it is about decency or civility, which clearly it is.
I mean, obviously this is about... It's not about decency.
It's not about civility.
If it were, then everybody would be saying, okay, Laura shouldn't have said what she said, and David Hogg should not be saying what he says.
And by the way, other folks should not be saying what they say.
So I want to show you some video of an actor who is attacking Laura Ingraham.
This guy is... I'm trying to remember his name.
This is...
Michael Rappaport.
So you've seen him in various TV shows.
He's one of those guys where you just recognize his face.
Here he goes attacking Laura Ingraham.
Is he going to lose a single job for attacking a woman like this?
Of course not.
Here's Michael Rappaport.
Laura Ingraham.
The Fox News reporter.
You filthy pig.
You dog-faced animal.
Remember Laura Ingraham just a year ago at the Republican National Convention throwing up the Nazi salute?
Look at this.
Check this out.
Look, look at the Aryan pinup girl.
And now Laura Ingraham, this savage, this dog, this mutt.
And this has nothing to do with her looks.
It has to do with her behavior, the things that she exudes.
She's a sweaty pig.
She's going after this high school student.
OK, so this guy, again, was this about civility or decency?
I miss the part where this is about civility and decency.
Because supposedly what Laura's great sin was was not being civil to these kids, right?
Not being decent to these kids.
But this has never been about civility or decency.
This has always been about power and the use of power in order to shut down opposing points of view.
People don't like what Laura had to say.
And so they're attacking Laura's business.
That's what they are doing right now.
And it really is pretty gross, especially after she apologized.
But.
That's not unusual because what the left is also trying to do is say that Kevin Williamson can't work at the Atlantic.
So Kevin Williamson is very conservative.
He's libertarian in orientation.
He was also extraordinarily anti-Trump, like more anti-Trump than anyone else probably on the right.
And the Atlantic decided to hire him away from National Review.
And so what the left did is they dug through all the millions of words that he'd written, and they found something they didn't like, and they said he should not be allowed to write for our publications because that would just be terrible.
There are two op-eds out today about Kevin Williamson and The Atlantic from leftists saying, here's why Kevin Williamson should not be allowed to write for us.
Now, the only people that the left will accept writing for them are people who openly disagree with large planks of the Republican platform and the conservative platform at this point.
First of all, if you voted for Trump, forget it.
You will never work for a mainstream publication.
It's just not going to happen.
Even the supposedly conservative people who work for the mainstream publications are conservatives who do not, who did not vote for Trump.
Right, those people are welcomed into particular circles in the mainstream media specifically because they didn't, right?
Bret Stephens can write for the Wall Street Journal and then move over to the New York Times.
The New York Times says it's okay for him to be over there because he didn't vote for Trump, obviously.
Even Bret Stephens was ripped up and down for being too conservative.
So they're doing the same thing to Kevin Williamson over at the Atlantic, even though he's the biggest Trump critic in the world.
Michelle Goldberg, who writes for the New York Times, even though she's egregiously awful.
I mean, all of her columns are just sheer garbage.
Here's what she writes.
Here's what she writes.
Where his words resonated with me, it would make me aware of hidden currents of cruelty in my own thinking.
I grew up in a conservative Rust Belt suburb and hated it, and I loathe populist sanctimony that treats my stultifying hometown as more authentically American than the vibrant city I escaped to.
So I feel a guilty shudder of satisfaction reading Williamson's vituperative 2016 attack on the dysfunctional small towns that supported Donald Trump.
The way Williamson's contempt spoke to me made me think about how my fury over Trump's rise and my devotion to cosmopolitanism was curdling into the very elitism people like me are constantly accused of.
The ability to prompt such uncomfortable self-recognition is a good quality and a polemicist.
So I almost understand why the Atlantic Magazine, seeking to add a provocative right-wing voice to its roster, recently hired Williamson.
Okay, so in other words, she likes Williamson because she realizes that Williamson is evil, and when she reads Williamson and agrees with him, it's because she was realizing her own evil.
Great way to start a piece there, Michelle.
Yeah, you're obviously very into ideological diversity at the Atlantic.
And then she goes on and describes why it is that Williamson shouldn't be allowed to work for the Atlantic.
She says it's just terrible.
They've done the same thing now to Barry Weiss at the New York Times.
They've done the same thing to various other conservatives who've been hired by mainstream publications.
It's just absurd.
It's just absurd.
And there's another piece in the Huffington Post that is called, Bad Ideas Aren't Worth Debating, with a giant picture, of course, of Kevin Williamson, and talking about how nobody who has ever had a bad idea should ever be allowed to write for an institution like the Atlantic.
Now listen, if the Atlantic wants to be left-wing national review, that's fine.
But the Atlantic is trying not to do that.
They are purporting to be an in-house place for a variety of opinion, for various modes of debate.
Listen, I'm not hiring anybody on the left over at Daily Wire, but we're very clear about that.
It's ideological.
Because it's ideological.
Like, I'm not gonna hire Ta-Nehisi Coates over here at the Daily Wire, number one, because I can't afford him, but number two, because I disagree with him.
But the Atlantic is saying that they want a wide variety of opinion.
The folks on the left don't want a wide variety of opinion.
The folks on the left want no variety of opinion.
Their goal is to have no opinion variety at all.
That is the point.
And that is why they don't want Kevin Williamson involved in any of this.
That is the entire goal here.
The entire goal here is to have no conservatives involved at all.
Okay, I'm gonna get to the mailbag in just a second.
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Okay, so we are now going to get to the mailbag.
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All righty, so let's jump into the mailbag.
So David says, "Dear Ben, from one fan to another, Well, I'm excited enough about my White Sox this year that I actually went out and got a subscription to MLB TV and I watched their opening day game in the background while I did my work.
They had six home runs yesterday.
Matt Davidson had three in one game, which is just awesome.
Realistically?
Maybe an outside shot at the wild card?
Maybe.
I think maybe 80-85 wins?
You know, maybe they get 87 wins?
Something like that?
That's if everything goes right.
If everything goes wrong, then in two years they'll win the World Series, because they have a really good young core.
They have a bunch of players who are coming up from the minors.
Look, they're a team that's probably two years away, but teams that have been two years away have outperformed before.
Look at the Houston Astros, who weren't really expected to win anything until maybe a couple of years from now, although Sports Illustrated had it right on the money.
Tyler says, how do you atone for sins in Judaism?
Big fan.
So, okay, so here's how you atone for sins in Judaism.
You atone.
Really, I mean, we have like an entire day for it.
It's called Yom Kippur, where we spend the entire day fasting and praying to God to atone.
Now, if you sin between yourself and another human being, you have to ask Those other human beings for forgiveness.
And you have to ask them three separate times, at least, before God can even consider whether he ought to forgive you.
You ask for forgiveness every day, three times a day in Judaism.
So, you know, before I come into the show, I dive into what's called Shacharis.
Shacharis is the morning service.
And in that service, there's an entire paragraph in what's called the Silent Amidah.
There's part of the service that's silent.
You stand there and you're talking directly to God.
It's kind of the most intimate part of the service.
And there's part called Selach Lanu, right?
It's all about God forgiving us.
We do that three times a day.
So Judaism is all about the forgiveness.
And the way you are forgiven is you have to also commit to not make the same mistake again.
So it's not enough to just say, Christianity is the same way as I understand it.
It's not enough to say, I'm sorry for that bad thing that I did.
You also have to say, I understand my sin.
I'm not going to do that again in order for God to consider it.
I think that the possibility of a primary against a sitting U.S.
president is very, very risky for the party.
I think that it probably tears the party apart.
I don't see any of those people beating Trump in a primary.
I think they know that, which is why they're not going to try it.
But a lot can happen between now and 2020.
If Trump turns out to be a total disaster, if things really go to hell in a handbasket, Then maybe you could see a real primary.
I mean, you saw that in 1968 among Democrats between LBJ and Eugene McCarthy and various other folks.
So you could see something like that, right?
That's why RFK was expected to be the nominee in 1968 after LBJ bowed out.
But, Trump would have to be a lot worse than he's been.
If he just governs like he has so far, there's not going to be any primary.
So, number one, the idea here is that when the government arrests you, the government has now placed an onus on you to go to court.
The government does not place an onus on you to get healthcare.
it could grant you the right to the services of a healthcare professional.
Is that an appropriate analogy or if it fails, in what respects?
So number one, the idea here is that when the government arrests you, the government has now placed an onus on you to go to court.
The government does not place an onus on you to get healthcare, that is your decision.
And it's not your decision whether you go to court.
It is your decision whether you're going to get health care, and it should be on your dime whether you get health care.
Now, there is some significant argument in legal history in the United States as to whether right to counsel means that I have to provide you counsel.
In my opinion, it probably doesn't.
It probably means that I have the right to hire a counsel, right?
The public expense doesn't require that we go out and hire you a counsel.
But, you know, if we are going to hire you a counsel, the reason for that is because we have put you in the system, not through any willpower of your own.
And that means we at least have to provide you with enough of a defense that you can defend yourself.
That's not the same thing as health care, where it is up to you whether you want a doctor or not.
Well, and then this letter continues.
It says, Yes.
I mean, it depends on the level of the contagion.
But yes, this is why I'm in favor of mandatory vaccination.
Therefore, it should be kept in the hands of individuals.
But there are certain externalities when it comes to contagious diseases.
Does that warrant the government's involvement?
Yes.
I mean, it depends on the level of the contagion.
But yes, this is why I'm in favor of mandatory vaccination.
Actually, it's one of the areas where I have significant differences with some more libertarian-minded folks in the Republican Party because vaccinations do have externalities.
Libertarians don't suggest that you can't regulate for externalities, by the way.
Well, actually, the opposite.
Congrats on landing the radio gig.
Got an important question, though.
How will this affect the podcast?
Will it continue as is and the radio show be a separate thing?
Or will the podcast be a rebroadcast of the radio show?
Well, actually the opposite.
So we're doing something brand new in radio history.
And that is the podcast is the podcast.
And then later we take it and we reformat and we use it for radios.
So the podcast will sound exactly like it always has.
Nothing changes about how you access the podcast or how it sounds.
It is not radio that is just, you know, repackaged in a podcast form with commercial breaks cut out or anything like that.
It is the podcast.
How it sounds today is how it will sound next week is how it will always sound.
Well, I can't believe that I wrested the title away from Clavin.
I said that Woodrow Wilson was one of them, probably.
James Buchanan, obviously, up there.
LBJ is up there.
Woodrow Wilson was seriously damaging because he completely shifted the way that people thought about the workings of American government.
So before Woodrow Wilson, American government had been based on foundational principles like eternal, immutable rights protected by limited government.
That's what America was about.
Woodrow Wilson, based on the thoughts of German progressivism.
I'm literally writing about Woodrow Wilson this week in my book.
Woodrow Wilson thought completely differently.
He thought that the Declaration was antiquated.
There was no such thing as an immutable right, as an unalienable right.
Instead, there were just wise men in the bureaucracy who could decide for you how to live, right?
And that the president ought to be as big a man as possible.
It's a direct quote from Woodrow Wilson in order to sort of Embody the general will this Rousseau in general will that unfortunately has become the way the government is done Okay, the idea of foundational limited government that protects your immutable rights that has gone by the wayside and the idea of a bureaucratic regime run by the wisest and best among us has taken hold among entirely the Democratic Party and probably large swaths of the Republican Party as well is really damaging that way also
His intervention in World War I was late, or he shouldn't have done it.
But in any case, there are questions about when we should have intervened in World War I. Let's put it at that.
And the way that he used World War I as a club to club his political opponents into submission is pretty incredible.
Go read Liberal Fascism by Jonah Goldberg.
He talks at length.
About the fact that Woodrow Wilson came very close to being the first fascist president in the history of the United States.
John says, Ben, do you still have time to play the violin?
The answer is lately, no, because I've been traveling so much.
But I did get myself an amazing violin.
So I don't spend a lot of money.
I'm pretty frugal.
But I went out and I splurged and I got myself a really, really nice violin.
And this thing is magnificent.
And I have a nice piano in my house, a grand piano.
My dad plays piano.
So he comes over and we play Brahms together.
So the answer is yes, still one of my dreams.
We're trying to make it happen.
I want to play Brahms with Condoleezza Rice.
I just think this would be an amazing life experience.
I'd love to interview her too, but I'd be more interested in playing Brahms because she's a really good pianist and I'm a pretty good violinist.
Blake says, hi Ben!
What are your thoughts on Crowder's impression of you?
Well, I think that Crowder makes me out to be a little less personable than I am in his impression.
Let's put it that way.
His impression is sort of on the autism spectrum.
Is that fair, Mathis?
Yeah.
I think that's sort of what he does.
But I get a kick out of it.
I think that Crowder is hysterical.
And I think when he makes fun of me and does all of his parodies, Yeah, Crowder's really nice about this.
He always lets me know that he's going to do these parodies beforehand, and gets my permission so that he's not saying anything that I would find offensive.
And invariably, I would say, do whatever you want, dude.
I trust you.
You're really funny.
I thought you were going to say comic books of all time, which we can do another time.
your top three comic book movies of all time.
I thought you were gonna say comic books of all time, which we can do another time.
Top three comic book movies of all time.
Well, I mean, all three of the Batman movies, all three of the Nolan movies, but others that are in the mix.
I really liked the original Superman.
X-Men First Class is really excellent.
I'm trying to remember some of the others that are good.
I think some people put Logan up near the top.
I did like Logan, but I like the first two thirds of it a lot.
I thought the last third of it sort of fell apart.
Hmm.
There's so many of them now, it's hard for me to come up with my list.
I actually did come up with a list at one point.
I'll have to look it up, but I believe that that was something close to the list.
And by the way, I like Black Panther a lot.
I mean, I told you that.
I didn't like the politics of it, but I thought it was really well made and compelling.
Bailey says, what is your favorite part of Passover?
Mine is always tricking the kids into eating lots of horseradish.
Chag Sameach!
That's pretty brutal, my friend.
You know, you're tricking kids into eating it.
If you've ever eaten raw horseradish, that sucker burns.
The favorite part of Passover, the whole thing is great for kids.
It's designed for kids because the whole thing is, how do you teach children?
And the way that you teach children is through ritual and questioning.
So this morning, we burned the hamed.
So this is one of the Jewish rituals where you do a ceremonial thing.
You clean out your entire house so you don't have any more leaven.
Right?
On Passover, because when the Jews left Egypt, they didn't have time to let the bread rise, and it was matzah.
And so, they just left matzah.
That's why we eat matzah on Passover.
That's the story.
So, what we do is we clean our house of all leaven, and then we take the night before, we do kind of a final check of the house for leaven, and then we burn it the next morning to signify that we've done, we've completed the task.
So this morning, my kids were very into that.
We took them out into the side of the house, and we burned the oven.
It was a nice big fire, and they were totally into the fire.
My son is just getting to speak full sentences, and I think his first full sentence came out this morning, and it was something like, And I thought, oh, that's not great.
But my son is very into the ritual.
Judaism is very much about ritual.
It's one of the things I like about Judaism.
I think that religion, sans ritual, actually, it's hard to train people to be better people without ritual, right?
Aristotle says this, and Judaism takes it to its extreme, I think.
I think that the ritual is great.
Obviously, the Haggadah, the retelling of the Passover story, is very much based on having kids ask questions.
Right, the four questions that are asked to Mani, Shanaha, Lailaha, that whole thing that you may have heard of before.
My four-year-old daughter is going to sing that tonight.
It's really cool.
Well, it depends in which kind of mode you're talking.
In terms of foreign policy, they were probably equivalently conservative.
Churchill hated the communists.
He hated the Nazis.
Reagan hated the communists.
In terms of domestic policy, Reagan was much more conservative than Winston Churchill because America is much more conservative generally than Great Britain.
Let's see, Dylan says, What is the legal argument for allowing certain religious groups to defy the law while disallowing it for others?
I'm in favor of religious liberties, but if we allow one group to go against a law, what is stopping another group from citing that case as a reason to do whatever they want to do?
I.e., the case of the Little Sisters of the Poor fighting Obamacare birth control rules, and then another group wanting to hold group marriages and or child marriages.
These are just examples, maybe you have better ones for a more apt comparison.
So, this is a serious question.
It's one of the reasons why I actually believe that religious liberty is protected by broader liberty.
So, to take an example, right now there are a lot of people who are talking about the fact that you're... Here's a perfect example of what you're talking about that people are asking about.
So, you say a religious bakery doesn't have to cater to a same-sex wedding or doesn't have to serve gay people or something.
So, based on religious exceptions.
OK, but what if that person wanted to what wasn't religious and they just wanted to turn down service to a black person?
So my feeling is you can turn down service to whomever you want.
This is not a religious question.
It's a liberty question, right?
Religious liberty is protected not because we have to have specific carve outs, but because the government should be so small and so non intrusive that religious people should be allowed to live their lives just like secular people.
I don't think that the Constitution was designed to discriminate in favor of exceptions for religious people over secular people.
I think the Constitution was designed to protect against encroachments on liberty by the government against anyone, religious or secular.
The smaller the government, the less the chance that the government is actually going to encroach on liberty.
So what I would say is freedom of association is the issue with regard to Christian bakers, not freedom of religion.
I've said this many times on the program.
OK, Nathaniel says, Ben, regarding the Second Amendment, by the way, just a quick note on that.
This does not mean that I think every aspect of discrimination is good.
I think much discrimination is totally morally wrong.
That doesn't mean the government gets to crack down on it.
We all discriminate in our lives in various ways, good and bad.
I'm not sure that it's the government's role to determine how I run my business with regard to my clientele, especially because the market tends to take care of me if I am too discriminatory and too awful.
Nathaniel says, Ben, regarding the Second Amendment, I find it concerning that U.S.
citizens aren't allowed more freedom in their choice of guns for protection.
For example, how could a well-armed militia defend its nation against a tyrannical government that used weapons of mass destruction if the citizens only have AR?
So this is a question that's very often asked by the left, saying, well, if you say that the purpose of the Second Amendment was to protect against government tyranny, shouldn't everybody have a tank?
Shouldn't everybody have an F-16?
Shouldn't everybody have a gun?
No.
OK, the idea here is that you need the weaponry that is sufficient to deter government tyranny.
And if it came down to it, by the way, small arms are a capable deterrent against even the most major weaponry, because if the if the if the United States government has to legitimately nuke the state of Texas, that war is never happening.
It's just not happening.
So there's that.
Also, the militia, the Texas State National Guard, I believe probably would have access to nuclear weapons.
So there's that as well.
But as far as private ownership of firearms, The point of private ownership of firearms is to deter potential conflicts, just like the point of having nuclear arsenals that you never have to use it.
Here's what you should say.
You should say, OK, fine.
My name is Nick, I had a quick question on how to combat those at my university who use the argument of look at all the other countries who have gun control, we need to try it.
How does one respond to when all the left wants to do is compare the US to Europe regardless of the topic?
Here's what you should say.
You should say, okay, fine.
How about we look to Europe for guidance on abortion?
America has significantly less restrictive abortion laws than much of Europe.
Abortion is banned in the second two trimesters in virtually every European country, and it's been across the board in several European countries.
So they're pretty selective about when they want to copy Europe and when they don't.
I'm not a fan of copying Europe, because I think Europe has gotten it all wrong for a fair bit of time.
I think that the last century and a half should show us that Europe is not worth imitating.
I'd like my son to be introduced to Christianity for those reasons, and I'm considering going back to church, but I don't want to be a non-believing interloper.
I have a young son and really like the Christian community and moral messages taught in the church.
I'd like my son to be introduced to Christianity for those reasons, and I'm considering going back to church, but I don't want to be a non-believing interloper.
Do you think it would be okay to take him to church, even if I may not believe everything myself?
Yes, I think you should.
I think you should absolutely take your son to church.
I think social fabric is important.
I think teaching your son is important.
Now, I think that you should decide what you want to teach your kid.
I would not teach my kid agnosticism because I think that agnosticism is the idea that you don't know whether God is there is something even religious people feel, right?
Religious people wonder whether God is there and knows what he's doing.
But you have to decide what you want to teach your kid.
Don't confuse your kid.
Don't bring him to church and then take him home and say, everything you're learning in church is bunk, but I like the social programs.
Figure out what you want to teach your kid and then live along those lines.
But I think that church is the number one social fabric builder in the United States.
And the fact that we've lost that social fabric is contributing to serious problems among individuals and communities as well.
OK, so now time for a couple of things that I like and a couple of things that I hate.
So things that I like.
Let's let's do that.
So a couple.
Number one, I want to recommend Dennis Prager's new book that comes out on Monday.
We're going to do an interview this week.
We just ran out of time.
I want to do a full hour interview with Dennis about his new book.
His new book is a commentary on the Bible.
And it's really fabulous.
It's called Exodus, God, Slavery, and Freedom, and it's the Rational Bible.
It's an amazing thing that Dennis got this done.
He literally takes Exodus verse by verse, and then he breaks down what he thinks is the logic and the reason behind it.
I have some arguments with Dennis on some of this stuff, but it's really deeply researched.
It's really well done, and it's worth reading.
You should put it by your bed stand, and you should read a little bit every night.
It'll make you a better person.
Dennis is a really profound thinker, and he's writing about the greatest document in the history of civilization, so this is well worth getting.
Go pre-buy it now, and you'll get it in the middle of Passover if you're Jewish, and just after Easter if you're not.
So Dennis Prager, or if you're not Christian, then you'll get it in the middle of your regular week.
Dennis Prager says it's, again, the name of the book is Exodus, God, Slavery, and Freedom.
Go check it out on Amazon.
Okay, other things that I like.
Since tonight begins the holiday of Passover, I think that now is a good time to use the best Exodus music ever.
No, it's not from The Prince of Egypt, although there's some really good numbers in The Prince of Egypt.
Maybe we'll have to play one next week.
I think next Monday I'll do some Prince of Egypt.
Particularly the opening number, Deliver Us, is fantastic in Prince of Egypt.
But we'll start the Exodus feel with the actual theme music from the movie Exodus.
The movie isn't that great, but the theme music's fantastic.
And here's what the theme to the movie Exodus sounds like.
The End
The End This is by Ernest Gold.
It's a beautiful theme.
The movie, of course, is not actually about the biblical exodus.
It's about the formation of the state of Israel based on the Leon Uris novel of the same name, which is a really good novel.
So check that out.
Check out the novel rather than the movie, because the novel is much better.
And the obvious connections between Passover and the foundation of the state of Israel are clear and obvious.
I mean, the Seder finishes with us shouting, next year in Jerusalem, the reason being the long time Hope of the Jewish people has always been a Jewish state in Jerusalem, and that has not changed throughout history.
That is the biblical hope always, right?
Okay, time for a couple of things that I hate.
So, everybody's been praising Roseanne.
That's all fine and good.
I critiqued Roseanne a little bit earlier this week.
But I just wanted to point out that if people really believe that the folks who make Roseanne, the folks in Hollywood, have suddenly warmed and are being nice to Trump supporters, that's a bunch of nonsense.
Here's one of Roseanne's stars talking about why people voted Trump.
It is not nice.
Can't understand it.
Don't know where it comes from.
Other than, you know, being—I think it's a couple of issues.
It's being either under the thumb of your husband, or it's—for the election, it was being so offended by Hillary Clinton and Bill Clinton's legacy that you turned on her, or feeling inadequate, feeling like, how can somebody be so educated?
How could somebody have brought themselves up from their own experience and You know, gone to the top, educated herself, fought for, you know, for rights, civil rights and equality.
And I think that's threatening to a lot of women.
OK, this is just absurd.
The idea that women are jealous of Hillary Clinton.
I promise you, there's not a married woman in America who's jealous of Hillary Clinton's marriage.
That's not the way that works.
But again, just the idea that Hollywood has suddenly warmed to Trump supporters is a bunch of nonsense.
That's Andrew Bernhardt, of course.
He's a wild lefty.
OK, other things that I hate.
They're releasing Chappaquiddick, okay?
This movie I've already seen.
It is phenomenal.
It's a very, very good movie.
And it is not conspiratorial in any way.
It's a straight retelling of what happened at Chappaquiddick with Ted Kennedy.
It's an amazing thing that this thing got made in the first place.
But there's a story from Variety saying that there was pushback when they first tried to produce the film.
Byron Allen is Entertainment Studios CEO.
He said, unfortunately, there are some very powerful people who tried to put pressure on me not to release this movie.
They went out of their way to try and influence me in a negative way.
I made it very clear I'm not about the right.
I'm not about the left.
I'm about the truth.
This is true about this movie.
This movie is not political.
This is not a rip on Ted Kennedy, okay?
It actually makes Ted Kennedy look somewhat sympathetic, even though Ted Kennedy acted like just an enormous piece of garbage.
But it doesn't go over the rails either.
It doesn't make him out to be an innocent.
It does show that he was manipulative and being manipulated.
It shows that he was... But it does not paint him in a completely unflattering light.
There's a lot to this movie.
I'm going to save my full analysis of the movie for next week.
I got to see a screener of it.
It's really, really well made.
It's really well made.
And they're very careful to only stick with the facts.
Because after watching the movie, I thought, well, they didn't include this and this and this.
And then I looked back and I looked at the evidence.
I said, well, they didn't include that because it was a rumor.
They didn't include rumors, right?
Like all the stuff about him having an affair with Mary Jo.
There's no proof of that, so that's not in the movie.
What it does show is him leaving Mary Jo there to drown, right?
So there's a lot to the movie.
The fact that Hollywood wanted to shut it down.
Again, Hollywood is a lefty town.
Do not trust them to tell conservative stories without resistance, certainly.
And this is not a conservative story.
It's much more an objective take on what happened with Kennedy.
It's just amazing that it took, what, that happened in 69?
So it took them 40, 49 years to do that?
All it took was half a century for them to get around to one of the worst political scandals in the history of the United States.
Well done, Hollywood.
All right, so we'll be back here next week, and we'll be doing so.
We're excited to launch the podcast on a bunch of radio stations, so tell your parents to look out for it, or to listen to it on radio as well.
We are the largest conservative podcast in the nation, and now we're bringing it to radio.
Very excited about that.
Have a wonderful weekend.
Have a great, meaningful Passover.
Have a great, meaningful Easter.
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