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Dec. 14, 2018 - The Matt Walsh Show
24:47
Ep. 162 - The Media Exploits The Tragic Death Of An Immigrant Child

A young child died of dehydration after crossing the border illegally. The media and the left have blamed Border Patrol. That's nonsense. We'll discuss why. Also, a college student is under investigation for saying positive things about white people. Date: 12-14-2018 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Today on The Matt Walsh Show, a young child crossed the border illegally and then died of dehydration.
But the media is cynically twisting this story in a really terrible way.
We're going to talk about that.
Also, a college student is under investigation for saying positive things about white people.
And finally, there is one thing that ties every president of the last 100 years together, and it's a very bad thing.
And we have to discuss it today on The Matt Walsh Show.
Well, we're going to begin with a terrible and sad story.
A seven-year-old girl entered the U.S.
illegally with her father last week.
She died while in the custody of Border Patrol.
There's a lot more to that story, and it's important that you look at the rest of the story before coming to conclusions, but it's obvious what the media wants you to take from the story.
So let's just look, before we get into this, let's look at some of the headlines that the media has used when reporting on this story.
The Washington Post headline says, seven-year-old migrant girl taken into Border Patrol custody dies of dehydration exhaustion.
The AP is even worse.
It says, 7-year-old immigrant girl dies after Border Patrol arrest.
NPR's headline is, 7-year-old migrant girl dies of dehydration and shock in U.S.
Border Patrol custody.
Now clearly from the way these headlines are worded, you are meant to conclude that the child died because of something awful that happened to her while she was in custody.
That obviously is what you're meant to take from that, right?
You're meant to immediately place the blame on Border Patrol, yet if you look at the full story, you see that this is an obvious misdirection and misrepresentation and a really disgusting and just And just awful one as well.
In reality, as it turns out...
The child died.
It is true that she died in the custody of Border Patrol.
But to phrase it that way is clearly misleading.
Because she died only eight hours after being taken into custody, and she died of dehydration and shock, which is not something that happens to a person in the span of eight hours.
You cannot dehydrate someone to the point of death in the span of eight hours.
But you have to read four paragraphs down into the AP story to learn that she hadn't eaten or had anything to drink in several days as she was making the trek across Mexico with her father.
Now, so that is where the... that is how she got to the point of fatal dehydration and exhaustion.
It's because she had not eaten or had anything to drink in days.
The AP, of course, tries to pivot this right back to the Border Patrol.
So the article says, reading from the article for a minute, it says, the girl's death raises questions about whether Border Patrol, about whether Border Agents knew she was ill and whether she was fed anything or given anything to drink during the eight plus hours she was in custody.
But wait a second.
Doesn't it more so raise questions about why she wasn't given anything to eat or drink for days leading up to this?
Isn't that really the question?
If a child dies of dehydration, do you ask, well, what has she been doing for the last 8 hours?
Or do you ask, what's been going on with this child for the last 3, 4, 5 days?
Now, I don't know anything about her father.
It says that she came across the border with her father.
I don't know anything about her father.
I don't know anything about the situation other than what's being reported.
And what's being reported is that she hadn't had anything to drink or to eat in several days.
So a decision was made, apparently, to make this journey.
From Guatemala, without proper provisions, a decision was made, apparently, to continue along, keep going, even though the girl obviously was not being provided with the basic necessities that she needs to live.
This was not a decision that the US government made.
By the way, here's another question.
Was the father starving and dehydrated?
I don't know the answer to that question.
I didn't see it mentioned anywhere.
But if he also went days without drinking water, he also should have been on death's door.
Obviously, a child, a seven-year-old child, is going to be more susceptible and more frail than a grown man.
But even a grown man, if you don't drink for three, four days when you're hiking, when you're on this perilous journey, you're going to also be very sick and probably needing hospitalization.
It doesn't say anything about that.
So if he himself was not dangerously dehydrated, if he did drink, then you really have to wonder why his daughter had nothing to drink while he cared for himself.
But we don't know.
These are just questions that should be asked.
And they should be asked about the father, not about border patrol.
It's of course being implied by some on the left that Border Patrol must not have given her any water or done anything to treat her while she was in their custody, but there's no basis for that assumption whatsoever.
Obviously, obviously they should have given her water, but we have no reason to think
that they didn't.
In fact, when she began having seizures, she was airlifted to a hospital where unfortunately
she died anyway.
But the point is, if this was pure neglect, if this was how the left is trying to paint
it, obviously will paint it, of the Border Patrol.
They just don't care about the livelihood of these people.
They're just leaving them to die.
Well, if that was the case, why was she airlifted, which is obviously an extreme measure.
That's something that you do when you're trying desperately to save someone's life.
So why was she airlifted to the hospital if she was being neglected?
It would seem, because they sought out medical attention for her and they did it in such an urgent way, it would seem like this was not a case of neglect on the part of Border Patrol.
It would seem as though they were doing everything they could to save her, but perhaps by the time she got to them, it was too late.
You know, if you're being dehydrated, at a certain point your organs start shutting down and everything, and at that point, even if you drink then, it may be too late.
So again, if we want to know how this happened, we have to look at the days leading up to this.
Days in which she apparently was given nothing to eat or drink.
Now, the left is saying that this very sad story shows why we need to be more welcoming of illegal immigrants and of illegal immigration generally.
But of course, in truth, it shows the exact opposite.
That is the exactly wrong message to take from this.
If we encourage illegal immigration, Then we encourage people to make this dangerous journey a journey that killed a child and has killed many others.
It obviously would have been better for this girl if her father had determined that crossing the border illegally would be impossible and so therefore there's no reason to try.
This is a very dangerous journey.
She is not the first child or the first person to die in the process.
There are many dangers along the way.
It is a hazardous track, a hazardous path.
So it is the compassionate thing, it is the right thing and the moral thing to discourage people from doing that to themselves and from doing it to their children especially.
Because that's always what's missed in all of this.
When we hear about the children that are coming across the border, children are being detained, and we're told that the government is doing something evil by the way they're handling these children.
Well, what about the people who are dragging these kids across the desert only to try to sneak in across the border illegally?
What about the people who are doing that?
It's not the government bringing these kids across.
These are other adults, whether it's parents or unrelated adults, who are doing this.
And so it seems clear to me, for the sake of children like this girl, that the moral and right thing is to have the border shut down.
You know, so that you can only cross legally in an orderly fashion, and then maybe people will be discouraged from doing this.
We're being told, you know, we need answers about this.
I agree we need answers, but I think the answers are going to be found by looking at what happened to this girl, as I said in the days and weeks leading up to this.
All right.
Here's another Story where the media has shockingly misconstrued things.
The Daily Wire reported yesterday on this case.
A Columbia University student was put under investigation and has been the target of widespread outrage and hatred and a huge backlash after he was caught on video praising white people.
The video shows the student.
The student's name is Julian Von Abel.
I'll say Abel.
Julian Von Abel.
Proclaiming his love for himself and for his race.
At one point he shouts that white people invented science and industry.
He says, I'll quote a little bit more from this student in the video.
He says, we saved billions of people from starvation.
We built modern civilization.
White people are the best thing ever.
I love myself and I love white people.
F yeah, we're white people.
We did everything.
I don't hate other people.
I just love myself.
Not the most eloquent way of putting that point across, but there you go.
It also seems like, if you watch the video, I don't know, it seems like there may have been some drinking involved.
I don't know.
But as he's saying this, the student is being heckled by a group of other students who are shouting at him, flipping him the middle finger.
They're weirdly poking his face and his chest while he's talking.
I don't know why, but that's what they were doing.
Despite the student being accused of assaulting minority students, the footage never shows him lay hands on anyone.
It shows the opposite.
It shows people in the angry crowd putting their hands on him multiple times.
Non-consensually.
He did not consent to being touched by them, but that's what they were doing.
He never threatens anyone.
He's not harassing or attacking anyone.
As far as the video shows, he is just stating his favorable opinion about his own race.
And this is enough to get him investigated and denounced by a school and called a racist by multiple news outlets.
Now the student has responded to the controversy and he posted a statement to Twitter a couple days ago, yesterday I think, and he clarified that he's not racist, he doesn't harbor any animosity towards members of other races, he admitted that what he was saying is theatrical, it was theatrical and sarcastic, wasn't meant to be taken 100% totally literally, but he's frustrated at the guilt and the shame that's constantly heaped on white people, and so that's where this came from.
Now, this clarification will obviously make no difference whatsoever because a white man just is not allowed to say the things that he said without being branded as a horrific bigot.
But that brings us to the forbidden question, which is, what actually is wrong with what he said?
Why can't a white person say that?
Now, I know what's wrong by the current standard and the current way of thinking, but what's actually objectively wrong with the content of what he said?
I haven't seen anyone, all the people that have reacted to this, I haven't seen anyone actually explain why it's racist.
They just declare it racist as if it's kind of self-evident, like they don't even need to explain it.
Well, obviously, if a white guy says that, he must be racist.
There's no other explanation.
What's actually racist about it?
Again, he says white people invented science and industry.
We saved billions of people from starvation.
We built modern civilization.
White people are the best thing ever.
I love myself.
I love my people.
F yeah, we're white people.
We did everything.
I don't hate other people.
I just love myself.
I don't hate other people.
I just love myself.
He says it right there.
Okay, so he gives white people credit for inventing science and industry.
This is obviously hyperbole, okay?
Just like white people are the best thing ever is obviously hyperbole.
People often describe things as being the best thing ever.
That's a common expression in modern times, and it's not meant to be a literal statement, okay?
They're not literally claiming that whatever this best thing is, that it is actually the best thing in all of the world.
I had pizza last week, that was a very good pizza, and I said, well, this pizza is the best thing ever.
But I didn't mean, I wasn't trying to say, this was not meant to be an actual qualitative judgment where I'm saying that pizza is actually the best thing in all of the cosmos.
If I were being literal, I would say that pizza is maybe the fifth or sixth best thing in the entire universe, maybe not the best thing though.
So, if we could see past the hyperbole, which he admits was hyperbole,
there is nothing factually or morally wrong with the thrust of his comments.
White people may not have invented the concept of science or industry,
but the fathers of modern science and the fathers of modern industry
are certainly predominantly white.
There's no denying that.
White people did not build modern civilization alone, but statistically speaking,
they were predominantly responsible for building it.
White people may not be the best thing ever, but they have often been a very good force in the world.
Okay, just every race has people who have done great things and people who have done terrible things, but the fact is that white people have done Some great things and often bit a force of good in the world.
That's not arguable.
That should not be a controversial statement.
You should be allowed to say.
The fact that you can't even say that is beyond absurd.
But here's where the hypocrisy comes in, because we all know this, right?
I don't even need to say it, that if this student was a member of any other race, and he had been caught on video making the exact same theatrical statements about himself and, quote, his people, There would be no outrage at all.
In fact, scratch that.
There would be a lot of outrage, but the outrage would be at the people who were harassing him.
The outrage would be directed at the crowd that he was talking to and who were reacting angrily.
So if you were to switch this scene around, okay, and so you have a black student Who is making all these declarations about himself and his race.
And then you have a crowd of angry white people who are flipping him off and calling him racist and poking him and everything.
If that were the scene, the outrage would be directed entirely at the crowd, right?
Not at the person saying it.
We all know this is true.
It can't be denied.
There is no chance, there is just no chance that a person with darker skin would ever be attacked for saying the things that this student said.
And this is the double standard that we're all supposed to simply accept and live with, but people get tired of double standards after a while, and this is the thing that I think people on the left need to try to understand.
People just get sick of the hypocrisy, and they get sick of the double standards, and they don't want to They don't want to play by those rules anymore.
They don't want to play that game anymore.
Especially when the double standard demands that a whole race of people have to express nothing but shame for themselves and their ancestors, as all other races of people express nothing but pride in themselves and their ancestors.
White supremacy is clearly a stupid, depraved, ugly, hateful thing.
But white guilt is not the antidote to white supremacy.
You don't combat white supremacy by saying, oh no, white people aren't superior, they actually are inferior.
That's not the way to go.
You're not going to cure racism with guilt and resentment.
You only breed more of it.
That is exactly what causes racism.
That is exactly what lies at the root of racism.
So if we were actually serious about fighting racism, we would recognize that no race is
superior or inferior.
.
And that whatever your race is, you should not be made to feel ashamed of it or like you're inferior or anything like that.
You just, you cannot Tell people that they have to hate themselves and they have to hate their ancestors and they have to constantly apologize for these historical sins that they had nothing to do with.
And at the same time, while apologizing for the historical sins, they're not allowed to take any pride whatsoever in the good things.
That have happened in the past.
You just can't do that.
Or you can, but the message isn't going to resonate.
And it's going to have the exact opposite effect.
And I think you're going to see more and more people like this student at Columbia who are saying, you know, I'm just not going to play that game.
I'm just not going to play it.
I can't live that way.
You want me to live with shame and guilt?
I can't do it.
I'm not going to do it.
Any more than I would expect you or any member of any other race to.
It's bull.
It's bullcrap.
All right.
Last thing before we head into the weekend.
I need to break my silence about something that I haven't really talked about, at least not in this forum.
Ted Cruz's beard.
Cruz famously has grown a beard.
I don't know if you've seen it, but you can go on Google and you can see Ted Cruz has grown a beard.
It's been headline news.
It's been a big topic of conversation.
Now, Cruz has gotten a lot of grief for his beard.
He has faced discrimination, as all beardsmen, and that's what we call ourselves in our community, all beardsmen have faced discrimination at various points in our lives.
But actually, his beard is great.
He looks significantly better with the beard.
And in fact, if he had grown the beard in 2016, I think, if he had grown the beard before the 2016 primaries, I think it's very likely that we would have a President Cruz right now.
That is the transformative power of the beard.
And that's why all men should grow beards.
All men look better with beards than without.
That is a simple fact.
Now, I'm not saying, just to be clear, I'm not saying that all men look better with all types of beards.
I'm not saying that any beard whatsoever will improve your look.
I just mean that for every man, this is kind of my philosophical position on facial hair, for every man there is an ideal beard form out there in the abstract and it only needs to be realized.
Okay, this is kind of the platonic theory of facial hair.
And so, for every man, if you're a man, you think to yourself, should I grow a beard?
The answer is, the question is not, should I grow a beard?
The question is simply, what sort of beard should I grow?
Because you absolutely should grow one.
And you might say, well, I can't grow a beard.
You know, it comes in blotchy or whatever.
Well, maybe you should look into surgery for that.
I mean, there are ways to solve that problem.
But this brings me to another point.
The objective beauty of the beard, given the superiority of bearded men over non-bearded, and given the fact that men with beards inspire confidence and admiration.
Why is it, and I'm thinking about this now because of Ted Cruz, politician, grown-up beard, why is it that presidents in modern times are always beardless?
Have you ever thought about that?
Now, I want you to listen to this very disturbing fact, okay?
It has been over 100 years since any president has had any kind of facial hair whatsoever.
And it seems unbelievable, like you can't even believe it.
How it's been 100 years and no president has grown any facial hair?
Yeah.
Taft, in 1909, 110 years ago, had a luxurious mustache.
He was the last one.
And the last president to sport a full beard was Harrison in 1889.
Folks, that is 130 years.
It has been 130 years since a president has been bearded.
So, do you want to know why things are falling apart in this country?
Look no further than this one startling statistic that nobody talks about.
It has been 130 years since a president has had a beard.
Now, through the first 130 or so years of our country's history, facial hair was extraordinarily common in the White House.
Whether it was Van Buren's luscious mutton chops, or Abe Lincoln's iconic mustacheless beard, or Roosevelt's dignified and masculine mustache.
It seems that facial hair had grown synonymous with our nation's highest office, but then something happened.
And historians have spent decades, volumes have been written by scholars trying to figure out what happened that presidents stopped growing facial hair.
Just consider this.
The last president with facial hair took office in 1909.
The Great Depression happened in 1929.
That's 20 years.
Only 20 years of baby-faced presidents and suddenly we're in a depression.
You think that's a coincidence?
I don't think so.
And the rest of the 20th century was, in many respects, unfortunate, and obviously there is a connection here.
So I say that it's time to put men And women, to be fair, with facial hair, back in the positions of power.
I think if we're looking to solve our problems in society, that's it.
We need bearded men running the show.
I might be a little bit biased, but that doesn't mean that I'm wrong.
Alright, I'll leave you guys with that deep and insightful point to ponder over the weekend as you begin to grow your beard and you start your beard journey.
And I'll talk to you on Monday.
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