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April 5, 2019 - The Matt Walsh Show
56:24
Ep. 233 - Toilet Seat Oppression

Today on the Matt Walsh Show, is it “white nationalism” to expect immigrants to assimilate? No, obviously, but some people think so. Also, a feminist in a college newspaper says that leaving the toilet seat up is patriarchal oppression. And what about the economic argument for abortion? How do we respond to that? Finally, I will address some very angry emails. Date: 04-05-2019 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Today on the Matt Wall Show, is it white nationalism to expect immigrants to assimilate?
No, that's stupid obviously, but some people seem to think so.
We'll talk about that.
Also, a feminist in a college newspaper says that leaving the toilet seat up is patriarchal oppression.
And what about the economic argument for abortion that people use sometimes?
I'll try to talk about how we can respond to that.
And finally, I will also respond to some of the very angry emails that I received from our discussion yesterday about using the Bible in arguments.
So, pack show today on the Matt Walsh Show.
So, I had a great time at Boston University last night.
Next stop will be Baylor University, which I was told last night that, you know, Boston University, Baylor University, the real BU is Boston.
They were very clear about that.
So I'll be there next Tuesday, and I suspect that that will not be Quite as easygoing as it was here in Boston, which was nice.
Interesting enough, I come up here to Boston to a liberal area, secular school, and there's no problem at all.
It's perfectly respectful.
There were some people that showed up at the talk that disagreed, but we had a respectful exchange.
But then going to Texas, to a Christian school, That's where there's apparently going to be some problems.
Anyway, that's not really the point.
The point is, what I wanted to mention from last night, is I went out to eat with some of the students afterwards, and they were all very nice and I enjoyed it, but at this restaurant, on the menu, in the taco section, There was a little note that said that the corn tortillas are gluten aware.
Not gluten free, they're gluten aware corn tortillas.
So I don't know what that means exactly.
Does that mean that the tortillas will give you a speech about gluten to raise awareness?
Or is the chef back there lecturing the tortillas about gluten to make them aware of it?
I don't know.
I tried to ask the waitress, but it wasn't much help.
Maybe it's just a Boston thing.
I have no idea.
So, I want to touch on a number of topics here and then leave time for a bunch of emails at the end on a Friday.
So first, Tucker Carlson is taking some heat today because he had the audacity, the gull, to suggest that immigrants should assimilate into our country.
And he's been accused of white nationalism for making this case in his monologue on a show last night.
I'll play you a clip, but just a warning, if you've got little kids in the room, maybe usher them out because this is pretty disturbing stuff.
Watch this.
Who should we prefer?
What's the ideal level of education an immigrant to this country should have?
Big business doesn't want you to ask this question.
They like their immigrants low-skilled and cheap.
Ocasio-Cortez does too.
But what happens when technology kills their jobs?
And it will.
All the major Democrats running for president take money from the technology barons.
Many of them support self-driving cars.
So what do you do with hundreds of thousands of unemployed immigrant cab drivers?
Do they all go on welfare?
And speaking of, what sort of government services are immigrants entitled to exactly?
Democrats promise universal health care.
Do immigrants get that too?
Who pays for it?
How many immigrants can our system support?
Do we have enough doctors and nurses and hospitals to treat the number of immigrants we want to admit?
Same question for schools.
The real answer is, of course, nobody knows.
Because as of today, we have no idea how many immigrants live illegally in the United States.
Shouldn't we find out before we make more plans?
And once we do find out, what do we do with them?
Who gets deported?
Anyone?
Or do all of them get to stay?
What if the real number of people living here illegally is north of 25 million, and that's entirely possible?
That's bigger than the population of 48 out of 50 states.
It's enough to change this country completely and forever.
Do all of them get citizenship and voting rights?
What about gun rights?
And do they immediately start paying into the Reparations for Slavery Fund that Democrats are now promoting?
How will you explain that to them?
Can we watch that conversation?
And finally, what about America's ideals?
Democrats are always talking about values when the subject of immigration comes up.
They quote from the poem on the Statue of Liberty and tell you about their grandparents.
Well, previous waves of immigrants were asked to buy into this country's most basic ideals.
Religious pluralism, free speech, political freedom, equality under the law.
Our schools made them learn English and tried to instill patriotism.
We called it assimilation.
We thought it was critical to our social cohesion.
Are we still for that?
Do we still think we have values to impart?
Oh, dear God.
What a horrifying—oh, wait, no, actually, that's not horrifying.
That actually makes perfect sense, and it's totally reasonable.
And the bit about immigrants contributing to reparations was pretty good, because I suspect that liberals would say that immigrants should not pay into reparations.
But if they don't, then what about people who immigrated here 10 years ago?
And if they don't have to contribute, then what about people whose parents immigrated here?
And if they don't have to contribute, what about if your grandparents did?
What about if your great-grandparents did?
It seems like if the answer is that, well, no, of course an immigrant wouldn't pay in because they weren't even in this country when any of this stuff was happening.
Well, yeah, I agree.
But first of all, none of us were in this country when slavery was happening, and second of all, most of us, our families weren't even here, so it seems like if they're off the hook, then we all should be.
But the greater point is about assimilation, which, no, is not a white nationalist conspiracy.
In fact, it may surprise some leftists to learn that You know, there are 195 countries in the world.
Most of them are not white.
And the thing is, if you immigrate to any of those non-white countries, you will be expected to assimilate.
This is the case in any country, white or non-white.
So assimilation is not a code word for white nationalism.
It's got nothing to do with whiteness at all.
Leftists pretend not to understand this basic idea that assimilation is not about racism.
It's about social cohesion.
It's about maintaining an actual country.
And it really is that simple.
You see, some of us want an actual country.
We want a country, not just a geographic area where a bunch of us happen to live.
We want an actual country, a real live country, meaning a place with a shared culture, a shared language, shared values, shared traditions, all of that.
That's what we want.
That's what a country is.
And we Americans are entitled to that.
Yes, I don't use the word very often, but we are entitled to that.
We are entitled to live in a country that is a country.
One of the most basic rights that we have as Americans is America itself.
We have a right to that.
And when I say we have a right to that, what I really mean is that our leaders, our politicians, have a responsibility to protect that, to protect our national identity, and to protect the social cohesion.
You know, it's often said that we are a nation of immigrants, and that's true in a sense.
But the difference is that immigrants in the early days of America came here and they helped to form our cultural identity.
They helped to build our country.
Okay?
Immigrants today, though, it's a very different situation.
They are not building the country because it's already built.
And oftentimes, they're not even interested in being part of our culture.
They want to come here and do their own thing.
They want to have their own little country unto itself, their own language, their own culture, values, history, traditions, everything.
So rather than building a country, they are balkanizing the country, which is an entirely different thing.
It's actually the opposite.
I've made this point before about the advantage of marrying young, and I think there's kind of a parallel here.
So the advantage of marrying when you're like 20 years old or something, Even though I did.
I married when I was 25.
But even then, that was pretty young by today's standards.
The advantage of marrying young is that you sort of get in on the ground floor with your spouse.
And you build a life together.
You start from scratch together.
And you do all of this together.
You form a common identity rather easily because you...
You know, you enter each other's lives when neither of you really have anything.
You don't own anything.
You don't have anything.
You don't have much of a life of your own.
And so you form that together.
But when you marry late, which plenty of people marry late and have wonderful marriages, but there's a challenge.
And the challenge is when you marry late, you already have your own life, you have your own identity, your own house, your own finances, your own car, your own job, your own goals, your own history, maybe even your own kids.
And so now you're trying to combine these two separate identities at that point and form one thing, which isn't impossible, but it's harder.
Well, I think a similar thing is happening with immigrants, right?
Immigrants 200 years ago, well, they're like marrying young, right?
Because they're getting in on the ground floor when we were still sort of figuring out what America is, what it's all about, building it, forming it.
Immigrants today, though, are different.
That's like a late marriage.
They are coming when everything is already formed.
They've got their own thing going on.
We've got this thing already happening.
And so they come here and it's already established.
And many times they're coming here to take advantage of the system that's already been built, rather than to contribute to it.
That doesn't mean that we should prevent everyone from coming, but it does mean that we need to focus all the more on assimilation, because we need to realize that there are already going to be, just naturally, certain challenges that we have to face with immigration today as opposed to
200 years ago.
And then it makes it all the more challenging when you factor in all the illegal immigration
and the welfare systems that they can take advantage of and everything else.
Okay, so this is kind of funny. And I want to read, by the way, I am a little under the weather
today. So if my I feel like my voice sounds like a dying buffalo or something. And it's because of
it's because of that. So I apologize for that.
So, someone sent me an editorial from their college newspaper.
This is from Luther College.
And I love when people send me crazy editorials from their college newspapers, and so I encourage you to do that.
If you stumble across a crazy editorial in your college newspaper, please send it to me.
I want to do a regular segment, and we'll call the segment, you know, just brainstorming, we'll call it Crazy Editorials in College Newspapers.
And so if you ever happen to cross one, please send it.
This was sent to me by a concerned citizen of Luther College, and I will read it to you.
It's written by a woman who's upset by the goings on at Legends, which I guess Legends is the building on campus where people go to work, go to work out and stuff like that.
And so the article is titled, an open letter to whoever left the seat up in Legends the other day.
You know this is going to be good.
It says, I work out a lot when I'm stressed.
So naturally, I was in Legends almost every day last week.
And upon spending a lot of time there recently, I have discovered some of my new favorite things about Luther's state-of-the-art workout facility.
I just think it's great how I can walk in there and be instantly transported to a front row seat at a country music festival because of how loud the music is playing.
It's also so cute when guys stare at me less than three feet away while I'm finishing using the machine.
And while we're on the topic, it's awesome when men don't clean machines after they use them.
And by great and cute and awesome, I mean that it's extremely problematic and it needs to be addressed.
Because this is not about the toilet.
It never was.
This is about the toxic masculinity that plagues the Legends for Life Fitness Center and the fact that I cannot work out on campus without stepping into a Reformed Gentleman's Club.
And when you do things like bounce around from machine to machine with little disregard for others using it, shout and yell on the floor as your friends lift weights, or leave the toilet seat up in a unisex bathroom, the titular event of this opinion piece, you perpetuate the stereotype of many workout facilities that women are a secondary thought when it comes to athletics.
Don't believe the history of sexism that plagues athletics and Luther specifically?
I encourage you to look through the recent series of Women in Motion and Chips for countless examples of how female student-athletes have been historically marginalized by the athletic department.
The last time I identified as an athlete was my sophomore year of high school as a middle hitter for the junior varsity volleyball team.
So you could say that I'm more than a little removed from the world of athletics.
So the fact that I Someone who only steps foot in regions a few times a week for a quick workout can pick up on the sexism in that building is incredibly upsetting.
I cannot even imagine what it would be like for that to be a more integral part of my life.
There are small, tangible things that Lutheran legends can do to change the sexist workout culture.
Maybe start with a sign reminding everyone to put the toilet seat down after they're done using it.
It's great that both of those bathrooms are unisex, and I don't want that to change, but we need to start treating them like the gender-neutral spaces that they are.
Could we also set a limit to the noise level of teams when they're lifting weights on the main floor?
I understand that team camaraderie is important, but that does not mean that the music should be turned up as loud as possible and that loud yelling should ensue every five seconds.
Loud yelling ensuing.
There's a lot of loud yelling that ensues in my home because I have three kids.
And so I understand that.
It is completely disrespectful to everyone else in the room.
There are some small things that I believe would help, but there are also larger structural things that need to change.
To my male allies, do not be a bystander.
I know this is hard, but your friends need you to advocate on behalf of them when we aren't in the room.
Push your teammates to change the way they talk about women.
Think about the implications of your actions when working out.
To my fellow women, non-binary friends, and everyone else who may feel marginalized in regions or legends, please, please do not be complicit.
So, my friend who left the toilet seat up, I hope you can now understand how this one seemingly small act is so much more than that.
You should not leave a mark of your masculinity on a space like you're a dog urinating marking its territory, especially when that's supposed to be a gender-neutral and inclusive area.
Be better.
Do better.
We're supposed to have gender equality at Luther in 2019, so let's all start acting like it.
Really, I should have been wagging my finger through the whole thing, because just imagine the finger wagging.
So there you go.
I love that phrasing there.
It was great.
Leaving a mark of your masculinity on a space.
Well, now you've just made me want to leave the toilet seat up even more, because I feel like I want to leave a mark of my masculinity on a space, in any space that I'm in.
Oh my lord.
First of all, the toilet seat thing.
Who says?
I've never understood.
Why is it that men should put it down but women shouldn't?
Maybe women, after you're done, you should put the toilet seat up for us!
Have you ever thought about that?
Stop leaving marks of your femininity all over the bathroom!
But really, I think when it comes down to it, when I walk into a Bathroom.
And I see the toilet seat is down.
But I want it to be up.
I don't break down in tears.
And say, what is this doing down?
Oh no!
Oh Lord, what am I supposed to do?
The toilet seat is down!
Help!
Help!
No, I don't do that.
You see, what I do is I just lift it up.
So I just do that, right?
And it takes like one and a half seconds.
Really, that's all it takes.
In fact, if you're watching right now, pull out a stopwatch, okay?
Pull out a stopwatch.
I want you to time me, because we're gonna do an experiment here.
Okay, so pull it out, and I'm going to mime putting a toilet seat down and see how long it takes.
Alright?
So, okay, ready?
Go.
How long did that take me?
Two seconds?
Maybe one and a half?
In fact, I bet if you added up, cumulatively, all of the time that this woman has spent putting toilet seats down in her entire life, it would not add up to the amount of time it took for her to write this article complaining about it because it really doesn't take any time at all.
And really, I know that, you know, if you're in a public restroom, you're not going to use your hands.
You're going to use your foot.
So it's going to be more like, you know, like, uh, you're raising your foot up.
Um, but my Lord, This is like machine gun nagging.
It was just one after another.
And another thing!
I'm tired of the loud music in this room, too!
Can you imagine what this gal's boyfriend must have to cope with on a daily basis?
Honestly, and I don't mean this as an insult, but I really, really don't understand how feminists ever manage to find boyfriends or spouses.
I mean, How could a man tolerate this for even one day?
Can you imagine having to sit there and listen to her complain about sexism at the fitness center?
Can you imagine?
Can you even imagine what that would be like?
This is why I, you know, my wife is not a feminist, thank God.
It would not have worked if she was a feminist.
It's one of the first things I asked when we sat down for dinner on our first date.
Because if she had told me she's a feminist, I would have said, alright, you know what, I'm gonna leave, I'll let you pay, because you're a strong, independent woman, and let's just cut this thing off now, because this isn't gonna work.
But actually, I think the first time I asked my wife if she's a feminist, she laughed.
She laughed and then she launched into a whole argument, a whole rant about her problems with feminism, and I said, okay, this, now, this is, yes, this is, marry me now.
Let's just get married now.
In fact, just based on that, let's just cut out the rest of it and let's just get married.
I mean, that almost literally happened.
I proposed to her after like six months.
You know, this woman says that men need to hold each other accountable.
I agree.
And so that's why I'm saying to other men, don't date feminists.
It's not worth it.
Don't do that to yourself.
And don't do it to them either, because they obviously hate men, so don't inflict yourself on them.
And don't allow them to inflict themselves on you.
All right.
So that was good.
That was good fun, though.
I appreciated that.
One other thing before we get to emails.
I said I was speaking at Boston University last night.
The talk was on abortion.
And I went through and I tried to thoroughly respond to what I consider to be the top four pro-abortion arguments.
One, you know, the first argument that unborn babies aren't people.
Two, bodily autonomy.
Three, rape and incest.
And then four, that people are going to get abortions anyway, so you might as well have a safe and clean place for them to do it so it doesn't end up in a back alley.
So I responded to all those arguments.
I tried to debunk them.
And I have to say, credit where credit is due.
To myself, in this case, I did a great job.
Now, there's another argument for abortion that I consider to be so weak That I didn't spend really any time at all on it, but it came up a lot in the Q&A and then again at dinner.
Not so much because the people bringing it up were themselves making the argument, but because they said they encounter this argument a lot and they wanted to know how to deal with it.
And that is the argument from socioeconomics.
The idea that we need abortion because it helps the economy.
And if you get rid of abortion, it would hurt the economy because now you have more poor people and poor mothers with babies that they can't feed and so on.
So that's the argument.
The next time I give a talk on this, I guess I'll spend more time on it.
Even if I think the argument is silly, it's apparently convincing to a lot of people.
But I will address it here very quickly.
So, there are two basic responses to the socioeconomic argument for abortion.
To the idea that it helps the economy.
Abortion helps the economy.
Number one.
So what?
It doesn't matter.
It's irrelevant.
It is never acceptable to justify murder for economic reasons.
Murder is never okay for economic reasons.
The pro-life The case is that babies are human, that all living humans are people, and that it is never okay to intentionally, directly kill an innocent, defenseless human being.
That's our whole case.
That's all we're saying.
It's very simple.
And none of that is affected by the economy.
It doesn't change one way or another, depending on what's going on with the economy.
It doesn't make a difference.
And so even if you could look into a crystal ball and show me that abolishing abortion would plunge our country into poverty and destitution, I would still say without hesitation, absolutely, let's do it.
I'm ready.
Because I would rather live in a poor country that does not kill babies than in a rich country that does.
And throughout history, um, It has always ended in massive amounts of bloodshed once countries start to justify murder for socioeconomic reasons, and we are not the first ones to do it.
Slavery was justified on a largely socioeconomic basis.
It was not just that the racist slave owners, although of course they were racist, but it wasn't just on principle that they thought that You know, these black people deserve to be enslaved.
Uh, you know, they did have that attitude, but, but more important to them was it was about the money, right?
It was about the bottom line.
That's what it always comes down to for, for especially evil people.
And they said, look, slavery helps the economy.
You get rid of slavery.
Our entire economy is going to collapse.
Uh, not only do you, do you, do you collapse our means of, of, uh, of, you know, production, but, um, You also then create all of these new mouths to feed.
What are we going to do with all of the black people?
And that's where other racist white people, who are not quite as racist as slave owners, but still pretty racist, said that, well, we should just ship them all back to Africa, even if they've never lived there before.
They were born here.
They've been here.
Their family's been here for hundreds of years.
We just ship them back to Africa.
That was Abraham Lincoln's solution, originally.
But, and you know what?
Here's the thing.
The slave owners who made that point, that destroying, that getting rid of slavery will destroy the Southern economy.
You know something?
They were right.
It would and it did destroy the Southern economy.
But so what?
Okay, your economy shouldn't be based on slavery in the first place, and if it is, then you just need to deal with that.
It doesn't matter.
It does not affect it one way or another.
We are not going to be even a little bit swayed by this.
The simple fact of the matter is, slavery means you are dehumanizing a person, you are forcing them to work for you, like cattle.
You're treating them like farm animals, and that is never okay, no matter how much it helps the economy.
And it's the same thing with babies.
You're dehumanizing them, you're treating them like parasites, you're killing 60 million human beings over the course of 45 years.
I don't care how much it helps the economy.
It's wrong.
But the second point is that actually, it does not help the economy.
Because what you have now is, in our culture, the sexual act has been severed You know, or the life-giving aspect of the sexual act has been severed from the sort of pleasurable aspect of it.
And because people know that they can be reckless, and they can just do whatever they want, be irresponsible sexually, and they know that push comes to shove, they can always just kill the baby.
Even if they don't call it killing a baby.
But they know that.
And so that encourages people to be sexually irresponsible.
And so then you end up with even more unwanted pregnancies, STDs, and all the rest of it.
If abortion was illegal, now in the short term it would have, it would create challenges economically, socially, but that's just something we got to deal with.
Long term though, I think long term we'll end up in a better spot economically because people are going to have to start being responsible.
And maybe, you know, don't have sex with whoever you happen to meet on the street corner.
Maybe wait until you're in a devoted and committed relationship, called a marriage, before you have sex.
I think people will be more and more encouraged to do that, and when you start doing that, it helps the culture, it helps everybody, and it helps the economy.
Strong families are good for the economy.
Absolutely, 100%.
Alright, so let's go to emails.
This is from Matt Walshow at gmail.com is the email, mattwalshow at gmail.com is the email address.
From Leonard.
Matt, I like your opinions on politics, but you are awful on Christianity.
That's probably because you are not a Christian.
You are an idol worshiper.
What you said on your show yesterday was insane.
Christians can never deny the authority of the Bible.
When we do, we have already lost the argument.
Yes, every argument does go back to the Bible, and it should.
If someone has the presupposition that the Bible is false, they need to re-examine that presupposition, and until they do, there's no hope anyway.
They will never be convinced of anything, anyway, until they accept the gospel message first.
Everyone knows that God is real, even if they don't admit it.
That's why biblical arguments are always valid.
You are horrible on theology, and you should really shut up about it.
I won't be listening anymore, but I wanted to set you straight.
I wanted to set you straight on this.
Okay, Leonard.
Well, you apparently have run away with your fingers in your ears, so I guess there's no point in responding to you, but I will anyway.
Let me try to help you out a little bit, because I suspect...
Leonard, that you probably have never persuaded anyone of anything in your entire life, and I arrive at that assumption based on how you have just framed your argument here.
Maybe you're having a bad day or something, so maybe this doesn't represent how you normally approach things.
I hope it doesn't, because you begin with a series of insults, which already shuts everything down.
You see, now I am going to overlook those insults so that I can engage with you, but most of the time, when you begin with an insult, whoever you're talking to is not going to want to hear it.
And especially if you're ostensibly, supposedly pretending that you're trying to advance the gospel and get someone to believe in the Bible, well now they're definitely not going to listen to you, and they shouldn't, because of how terribly you frame the argument.
Why should someone listen to you about the Bible when you begin by insulting them?
Why should they take you seriously?
So, but you begin with insults, then you get into straw men, distortions,
lies, confused thinking, and it's just a mess, really, all the way down the line.
And if you're wondering why you have probably never succeeded in convincing anyone of anything ever in your life, this is probably the reason.
When you insult people and lie about their positions, you just will not be able to connect.
So let me try to respond piece by piece here.
And by the way, if you didn't hear the show yesterday, What he's responding to is that I said that Christians should not argue about cultural and political issues with non-Christians by throwing Bible verses at them.
If a person doesn't believe in the Bible, they will not find an appeal to the Bible to be convincing.
Therefore, it's better to find common ground with them, which is a basic essential aspect of persuasion.
Engage with them on that level with logic, reason, and science, rather than just shouting verses from a book that they think is mythological.
That was the point that our friend Leonard thinks is not only wrong, but insane.
Now, he thinks it's insane to try to find common ground with your opponent and talk to them in language and using terms and appealing to authorities that they understand and respect.
He thinks that that is actually insane.
Like, he doesn't even understand how you could even think that that's the right way to go about it.
And he's not alone.
I got a lot of email like this, and most of it was equally as insulting.
You know, I gotta say, honestly, I've mentioned the show plenty of times, the hate mail, angry emails I get, that doesn't surprise you, right?
I mean, anyone in this line of work gets a lot of hate mail, and it's not a big deal.
Doesn't really hurt my feelings, I'm pretty impervious to it by now.
I really have to say that some of the nastiest and most vicious emails I get, without a doubt, are from supposedly Bible-believing Christians.
Without question.
You know, the times in my writing or in my show When I have tried to challenge Christians on something, or I have brought up a theological topic that they found challenging, that is when I get the most vicious emails.
And what you just read there is nothing compared to some of the other stuff that I get.
Although that was pretty damn vicious.
Now, he didn't cuss me out or anything like that.
But you begin, now I'm Christian, right?
My faith is the most important thing to me.
So you begin by just trying to spit all over that and say, well, you're not even a Christian, you don't even believe this.
You begin by pretending that you can peer into my soul and just call me a fraud about the thing that is most important to me in my life.
Now, it doesn't, again, it doesn't hurt my feelings, I'm used to it.
But that is such a despicable and vicious and pointless and stupid thing to do.
And the only reason you do it is just to make yourself feel better.
It's got nothing to do with anything else.
It's not, you're not trying to spread the gospel.
You're not, this isn't about Jesus.
This isn't about, no.
This is just about you making yourself feel better.
That's all it's about.
So, you start by saying that I am denying the authority of the Bible, and thus losing the argument already.
First of all, if we're not arguing about the Bible, then I don't see how I lose the argument which is not about the Bible when I don't even bring up the Bible in the first place.
That just makes no sense.
But just because you fail to cite an authority doesn't mean that you're denying the validity of that authority.
And by the way, I also, I just said, I referred to the Bible as an authority.
And I guess I did that yesterday too.
And I got a ton of email about that.
It says, you called the Bible an authority when you should have said the authority.
Oh my gosh.
I mean, can you, what, are you just sitting there with like a notepad ready to, I'm going to, anytime he, if he slips up with one little word, I'm going to get him.
Oh, he said, and not the, I got it.
Well, I'm writing an email on this one.
Can you just try to listen and engage with the whole point instead of trying to pick apart every little thing that you can find?
So, when you fail to cite an authority, it doesn't mean that you are denying the validity of that authority.
And I'm not saying that in an argument with an atheist, we should begin by apostatizing just to find common ground.
I'm not saying that we should begin the argument if we're arguing about abortion.
I'm not saying we begin by saying, just so you know at the outset here, I deny the authority of the Bible.
No, I absolutely agree with you that that would be a bad way for a Christian to begin an argument.
No, I'm saying that if you're going to make an argument against abortion, Just point out the biological fact that babies are human
people.
That is a biological fact.
And then explain how killing them is murder.
And if you're talking to someone who already thinks that murder is wrong,
which you definitely are, it's just that they think that isn't murder,
so you don't need to convince them that murder is wrong.
They already think that.
Now you could say, well, they have no real basis for thinking that
because they don't believe in the Bible.
That may be the case.
But they still think it.
So seize on that common ground, that common understanding that they already have.
And then try to explain to them how abortion fits into that category of murder.
If you can do that, you have convinced them.
It's possible.
You aren't denying the Bible.
You just aren't bringing it up.
If your opponent brings it up, then yeah, well, now game is on.
They brought it up.
When you're arguing with someone, if you want to persuade them, you generally want to appeal to authorities they themselves recognize and respect.
Because if you appeal to an authority they don't recognize, your argument will carry no weight.
Even though it should, it still won't.
It should, I agree, but it doesn't.
It carries weight with me if, you know, a biblical argument for me carries weight.
It should carry weight for everybody, but it doesn't.
That's the reality.
Deal in reality.
Not how you think it should be, but how it is.
So, I cannot stress that enough.
Just because you fail to cite a particular authority, that is not the same thing as denying that authority.
In any argument, there are probably millions of authorities you could cite, but you don't have a million years to make the argument, so you pick one or two.
For example, if I was arguing with a fellow Christian about, say, biology, some biological topic, I would not cite Richard Dawkins as an authority.
Now, Dawkins is a world-renowned biologist.
He certainly knows more about the subject than you do or I do.
He is a scientist.
I think he's wrong about a lot of very important things, especially when he ventures outside of biology to get into religion and philosophy.
That's when he goes way off the rails.
But the point is, because he is known for his atheism, I would not cite him as an authority on a biological topic, even if he is an authority.
I wouldn't do that because I know that the other person in the discussion doesn't consider him an authority.
And doesn't like him.
And there's a lot of baggage there.
And so bringing his name up would only muddy the waters.
It would turn into an argument about Richard Dawkins instead of about the thing that we're talking about, whatever that happens to be.
So I just wouldn't bring his name up.
It's not that I would be denying his biological expertise.
I'm just not bringing it up.
I just don't bring it up.
We don't talk about that.
We talk about this instead.
Same for if I'm arguing with a liberal on something.
And they ask for a citation on a certain point.
I say, you know, this or this thing happened.
They say, Oh, yeah, well, when did that happen?
Show me an article.
Okay, well, I am not going to pull an article from Fox News for this liberal.
Even if the article on Fox News is true, I still won't pull it.
Not because I'm denying that it's true, but I know how that person feels about Fox News.
And so they're not going to be convinced by that, even if they should be, they won't.
And my goal here is to convince them.
I actually want to persuade them.
The reason that I get into, maybe it's different for some people, but I get into discussions and debates with people because I really want them to understand and I really do want to persuade them.
Even if it doesn't happen in the end, that is what I want.
That's the only reason I'm doing this.
And so I'm going to find an article somewhere else from an authority that they will recognize, that will carry more weight with them.
I just think that that is really logical, honestly.
I don't know how else to put it.
It's hard for me to wrap my head around how anyone could disagree with anything I just said there.
This is basic level persuasion.
So, next you say that we can't help to convince people of anything until we convince them about the Bible.
That is just false.
You are wrong.
That tells me that you have never succeeded in convincing anyone of anything, which again goes back to the terrible framing of your arguments.
I'm trying to help you figure out maybe why you don't convince anyone.
I have in my career heard from many, many, many people who told me that I did convince them on a variety of topics.
And I'm not saying this to brag, I'm just... There are people who really think that you're never going to convince anyone of anything, especially if they don't believe in the Bible.
That's not true.
I have done it.
I have heard from those people.
What, were they all lying to me?
When they come up and say, oh, you convinced me on this?
They're all lying?
Just last night, it's probably on video, just last night, a woman got up, I mean, I couldn't have scripted it any better, although I didn't script it.
A woman got up and said that a year ago she was pro-abortion.
But today, she's pro-life because of the arguments that I presented and that Ben Shapiro presented.
So there you go.
She was convinced.
And do you know what she was convinced by?
She told me what it was.
She didn't say, oh, I was convinced by her theological arguments.
I was convinced by the Bible.
She said, I was convinced by science.
She said, you brought up the scientific arguments.
I looked at it.
I realized there's no way around it.
And she was convinced.
So you say it can't be done.
It can.
I've done it.
Okay, a lot of people have done it.
Ben Shapiro does it all the time.
Okay, do you know how many college students, atheist, liberal, conservative, Christian, Jewish, Muslim, whoever, do you know how many college students have been convinced by Ben Shapiro's arguments, which are not based on the Bible, and which are not even coming from a Christian?
So he's done it, I've done it, I hear from these people.
They are nice enough to email me and I really appreciate it when they do because it encourages me, makes me feel like maybe this isn't all just pointless actually.
Or what do you think?
Do you think it's better for that woman who now, she's now pro-life and she embraces life and it's a beautiful thing.
Do you think, is it better for her to remain pro-abortion until she figures out her theology?
Is that what you think?
So all the people that I have managed to convince of the pro-life case, are you saying it's better for them to all be pro-abortion?
Really?
Then you talk about presuppositions and how people need to re-examine them.
I agree.
They do need to examine their presuppositions.
We all need to examine our presuppositions.
We need to be aware of them.
We need to analyze them.
We need to know about them.
But how do you get someone to do that?
How do you get someone to re-examine their presupposition?
Do you get them to re-examine their presuppositions by shouting at them, examine your presuppositions!
I suppose that would be one strategy, but it won't work.
No, you must get someone to examine their presuppositions in a more nuanced and subtle way.
Examining your presuppositions is a difficult and scary thing.
And you won't get anyone to do it by shoving it down their throat.
You just won't.
It will not work.
So if you can, for instance, succeed in changing someone's mind on something like abortion, a very fundamental, important issue like abortion, then the examination of presuppositions will flow naturally from that, because they're going to say, wow, I was wrong about that.
What else was I wrong about?
You know, if somebody is, if you manage to convince someone of something, that means that that is someone who is open-minded, that they're willing to listen, that has intellectual integrity and intellectual courage.
And so if they have all those things, which they must, if they're willing to listen to you and be convinced, then they are naturally going to go from there and say, what else am I wrong about?
They're going to begin to look at the flaws in their worldview.
They will do this on their own without you hectoring them about it.
You spark that process by, not by demanding it, but by throwing a wrench into their ideological framework by convincing them on their own terms, using language they understand, that they are actually wrong about something.
To really convince someone that they're wrong, to really do it, that will inevitably be a revolutionary moment for that person.
And they will begin to re-examine things automatically.
Again, I have been told by people many times that they began the process of becoming Christian and became interested in Christianity not because of any religious argument I made or any Bible verse I quoted, although I have made many religious arguments and I've quoted many Bible verses, but what I've been told Multiple times, is that they decided that I was right about other topics, unconnected from religion.
And then this made them think, well, wait a second.
What else is he right about?
You introduce a little bit of light into that darkness.
You get them thinking, re-examining.
You make them understand that they're actually wrong about something, and then everything else could flow from there.
They begin to take religion more seriously.
Here's the thing.
Atheists, secular people, whether they're avowed atheists or not, and most people aren't, they're just secular, right?
They don't think much about these things.
When they see religious people, who they know are religious, When they see them making logical, rational, common sense, compelling, scientifically sound arguments.
That is very, it's a very compelling example for them because it lets them know that it's okay to be religious.
Smart people can be religious.
You don't have to put your reason and your rationality and your logic to the side to be religious.
You don't have to reject science to be religious.
I mean these are things that a lot of secular people think.
They think that I'm never going to be religious because in order to be religious I have to essentially be an irrational moron who hates science and thinks science is from the devil.
That's what a lot of secular people think.
And that's why they won't even look at religion.
They're not even going to listen to you, because that's how they think of religion.
But when they see that's not the case, it completely blows everything apart for them, and they realize that, oh, wait a second.
You mean you can have all of that logic, reason, science, and still be religious?
Whoa, hold on a second.
And then they start looking.
But if you reinforce their view that religious people are irrational, science-denying idiots, if you reinforce that by just screaming Bible verses at them in topics where it's not even directly related, then all you've done is you've just pushed them away from religion, and they'll probably never look at it again.
Congratulations.
You have not only not convinced them, but you have maybe made it so that they will never be convinced.
Because you reinforced all of the negative, bad stereotypes, and false stereotypes most of the time, about religion that they had in their mind.
So, finally, you say that, and this is why I get so heated about this and so passionate, because I just, you can be logical, rational, reasonable, You can love science, you can understand, you can be all of those things, and religious.
I want people to know that.
And I hate it when these Christians are out there essentially saying the opposite.
Basically saying, no, you know what?
The atheists are right.
You can't do that.
No, logic and reason?
That's idol worship.
You're a Satanist.
Science?
No, they're all a bunch of liars.
It's a conspiracy to take down the Bible.
When I actually hear this from Christians, I get so angry because you have no idea how much damage you're doing.
Do you realize how many souls you have just consigned forever to secularism?
Finally, you say that everyone knows God is real.
I agree.
That knowledge is innate.
Natural law.
And that's why all people everywhere in the world, all cultures, have independently come up with God concepts on their own.
But all cultures around the world have not independently, on their own, come to the conclusion that the New Testament is correct and Jesus is Lord.
Why is that?
Because those truths are revealed.
They are not innate.
And when I say innate, not innate, I mean they are not conclusions you just come to on your own.
You don't.
You didn't.
You are a Christian today because someone told you about it.
Someone convinced you to be Christian.
That's why you're a Christian today.
If nobody ever had, you would not be a Christian.
That's a fact.
People have to be told these truths.
Nobody knows these truths without being told.
People can figure out God, or some kind of God, without being told.
But not a single person Not a single person in North or South America believed in Jesus until people came here on boats and told them, convinced them.
So, conflating our innate knowledge of God with an innate recognition of the validity of Holy Scripture is absurd.
Jesus says, go preach the gospel to all nations because they won't know it unless you do.
And so we should.
We should tell them.
We should preach it.
I'm not saying we shouldn't.
But we should also be prudent, and wise, and rational, and convincing, persuasive, and not a bunch of unthinking, self-righteous, pretentious, insulting, irrational Bible-thumpers.
Which is how we are portrayed.
And it's actually how some of us really do behave.
Much to the embarrassment of the rest of us.
The point is that somebody will believe in the Bible if, number one, you tell them about it, and number two, you give them reasons to believe it.
You can't just say, here's the Bible, believe it, you heathen.
That's not gonna work.
You have to give them reasons.
And there are good reasons.
But the point is, that's a case you have to make.
And you do have to make it.
And you can't appeal to the Bible until you have made that case and the other person has been convinced of it.
So if that case has not been made and they have not been convinced of it, your appeals to authority, even though it is valid authority, will fall on deaf ears, will have no impact at all.
And that's just the reality.
Listen.
Have some humility.
Listen to what non-religious, atheist, secular, non-Christian people tell you.
Every single one of them, without exception, will tell you that when you just throw Bible verses at them, and there's no logic, there's no reason, there's no science or anything in your argument, you just throw Bible verses, they just tune you out and it doesn't convince them.
Every single one of them will tell you that.
Listen to them.
Instead of sitting there and saying, no, you know what, I know more about what's happening in their mind than they do.
That is so unbelievably arrogant.
And who do you think you are?
What, do you think you're God?
They're telling you what they find convincing.
You're just like, no, you know, I know what you find good.
You don't know what you find convincing.
I'll tell you what you find convincing.
And then you wonder why they shut you down and shut you out.
They should.
All right.
Let's see here.
Well, I spent all that time on one email, so I guess that kind of...
Let's see, I'm gonna try to get one more.
One more email.
All right, this was from Brian, says, oh, semi-benevolent, highly corrupt, theocratic future
dictator, may you live forever.
Thank you.
Finally, someone addresses me how I should be addressed.
During the required listening to your show from yesterday, I came up with a bit of a different perspective
to the idea of trying to argue with an English speaker in Chinese or literally throwing
the Bible at someone who does not hold it as an authority.
Besides, in some cases, there is no exact language.
But as the first and most life-affirming collection of writings ever created, calling the ancient Jews
to be the first people not to build some god and sacrifice children to it, the clarity is in the context.
I'll not go down that rabbit hole, the rabbit trail that killing your children has usually
been the norm for those not in covenant to God, and that in abortion culture, we're simply
seeing those who reject God returning to the carnal natural desires of the flesh.
Back to my point.
That was a good point.
Imagine you meet a screechy, socialist-loving high school teacher.
You know the type.
If a student has anything pro-America to say, they get shouted down.
You want to argue with this person that capitalism is a good thing.
Would you use the Constitution as an authority with them?
Would you use the Magna Carta or the Federalist and Anti-Federalist papers to convince them?
As a teacher, there's some chance that they have read those documents.
Even if this teacher hasn't read them, they have expressly dismissed these writings in coming to their socialist conclusions while living in the United States.
They prefer the shoddily written Green New Deal over the Bill of Rights.
How are you going to convince them of anything worth thinking?
The difference with the atheist is that if you show them some respect, you have some chance of a step in your direction.
You also need to pick your battles and know when you're dealing with a pig that just wants to roll around in the mud.
It's the same way that you would not be able to use the Koran or Hindu, Buddhist, Scientologist, or any other religion's writings with me, because I have dismissed them.
The difference is, I don't dismiss the people who believe those things.
What do you think?
It is my hope that the above-fawning gesticulation will ensure my high-ranking position when you come to power, or at the least, The keeping of my head.
Brian, well, as for that last point, I'm afraid I cannot promise you that because you did call me semi-benevolent.
And I would be interested to find out where you think the semi comes from.
And so it is for that comment that you will probably have to pay with your life.
But until that point, I'll address your email and you'll have time to get your affairs in order before you're executed.
Yeah, I think, well, I agree with much of what you're saying here.
And, you know, the example you give of the socialist-loving high school teacher, well, there's another example, right?
And this is a political conversation, so there are many authorities on these issues that normally you would use.
But you wouldn't be able to use with this person because they don't accept those authorities.
And it's just not gonna carry any weight with them.
And so, yeah, it makes it more difficult.
But you see, that's the whole art of persuasion and of argumentation.
You gotta figure out, you gotta understand the other person.
Figure out where they're coming from, where they're beginning.
And yeah, the more common ground you share with them, the easier it's gonna be to convince them.
It's very difficult.
If you have almost no common ground, it's going to be really difficult to launch a campaign of persuasion from there.
It can be done.
It's just more difficult.
But you do have to go through this process.
So, I mean, we were talking yesterday at dinner.
Someone said, you know, what do you do when talking about abortion?
What do you do with someone who does admit that abortion is murder but doesn't care?
Uh, how do you convince them?
Well, yeah, that's a, that's a really difficult.
Now, here's an example.
Here's someone.
Now, most people you talk to, they will share the presupposition that murder is wrong.
They, but they will just try to claim that abortion doesn't fall into that category.
So then all you have to do is convince them that it does fall into that category.
It's not easy to do, but it's easier than this, where this person doesn't even think that murder is wrong.
Uh, and so how do you start there?
What common ground can you find with this person?
Well, the point is, you gotta find something.
Because if you can't find anything, well, then there's nothing you can say to them.
But it does become difficult.
Yet, it doesn't relieve you of the duty of having to do it.
And the point is, yeah, with something like abortion, well, look, I mean, the whole argument against abortion, basically, is that it's murder.
So that's the argument.
Uh, so if they don't share that presupposition, then that is a case where you probably can't move forward in the conversation until they share that presupposition.
But the point is, so now you have to argue for that.
You have to make your case for that.
You have to try to explain to them that murder is wrong.
You can't just continue in the discussion as Regardless of the fact that they don't agree with you on that point.
And you cannot just continue in the discussion and keep appealing to this idea that murder is wrong with a person who doesn't share that point of view.
You can't go anywhere.
You have to first convince them of that so that you can then appeal to it.
Convince them first that, oh, no, murder is definitely wrong.
Here's why.
And if they go, oh, okay, yeah, I see what you're saying, now you can go forward.
The job isn't done yet.
Now you have to go and figure out, well, here's abortion.
Here's how that fits into that category of wrong things, which we call murder.
All right.
We'll leave it there.
I guess I'll save the rest of the emails for next time.
And thank you all for listening.
Godspeed.
Today on the Ben Shapiro Show, Facebook looks to the government for help censoring viewpoints, and it gets ugly.
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