Ep. 264 - Why Religious Married Couples Are Happier
Today on the show, in a shocking development, the NYT published an article claiming that religious women are happier in their marriages than non religious women. I believe this is true, but why is it true? We’ll talk about it. Also Republicans want to raise the smoking age to 21. 18-year-olds can still die on the battlefield or be executed, but they aren't old enough to buy tobacco products apparently. I’ll talk about why this is very stupid. And finally, what’s the preferable living situation — urban or rural?
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Today on the Matt Wall Show, in a shocking development, the New York Times publishes an article claiming that religious women are happier in their marriages than non-religious women, which is only shocking because it's the New York Times saying it.
I'm not shocked at all by the claim.
I think it's probably true, and I want to talk about why.
Also, Republicans want to raise the smoking age to 21, which is very stupid, and I'll explain why there as well.
Also, what's the preferable living situation?
City or country?
Urban or rural?
This apparently is a controversial topic and we'll talk about it today on the show.
Well, do not be alarmed, folks.
I did, as you can see, transition to the summer beards.
I took quite a bit off.
And you know, whenever you, when you have a beard and you make a beard change, people always feel entitled to give their opinions and to tell you that they liked it better before or whatever.
Well, let me just say, I have beard autonomy, okay?
My beard, my choice.
And you can't make decisions with my beard.
And I believe that strongly.
Although there are times when You know, someone likes the change of beard and that's offensive too.
So like, you know, I cut this down this morning and then I came out of the bathroom to show my wife and I said, Hey, it's a lot shorter.
What do you think?
Kind of shocking, right?
And she said, no, I think it's great.
I like it a lot.
It's good.
And I said, oh, so you didn't like the beard before, is what you're saying.
You thought I was ugly before, is what you mean.
You hated my beard before, just like you hate me.
And then I ran back into the bathroom and wept into a pile of beard clippings.
Kind of a weird way to start the day.
But I start every day by weeping in the bathroom, actually.
All right.
Let's...
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All right, let's begin with a story that you would never expect to see in the New York Times, but indeed it was in the New York Times.
The headline is, this is what it said, it turns out that the happiest of all wives in America are religious conservatives.
You know that the New York Times is readership.
They're going to be a big fan of stories like that, and we'll get to how the readership reacted in a minute.
But the article begins, blue marriages are better, or at least that's the conventional wisdom.
Couples who live according to egalitarian values, sharing domestic responsibilities like housework and cooking, have long been seen as superior by most academics, journalists, and public intellectuals engaged in a national conversation about the American family.
Well, there's your problem right there, first of all, that we've got intellectuals, public intellectuals, journalists, and academics who are apparently leading the conversation about the American family.
Well, I don't really trust what any of them have to say on the subject of what makes the healthiest family. I don't trust them on a
lot of things, but especially on that subject. So it's no surprise that they were wrong. The
whole problem with this equal marriage idea, the egalitarian marriage, is that the problem is not, let's
be clear what the problem isn't.
The problem isn't that spouses are sharing household duties.
Of course spouses should share household duties.
I cook.
I clean.
I do all that stuff.
I'm not a baby.
I'm going to contribute to the house.
Clearly, everybody in the house should be contributing.
Kids too, right?
Husband, wife, kids.
So that's great.
But the egalitarian approach is generally, the way it works, is it ends up being a 50-50 thing.
Kind of a splitting Solomon's Baby situation where I'll do 50, you do 50, if I ever have to do 52 and you're doing 48, that is a travesty and an injustice.
And so then there's always this bean counting going on, that we have to be exactly equal all the time, where I go this far, you go that far, neither of us have to go further than the other person goes.
And that approach doesn't work.
And it doesn't work because it's selfish.
And therefore it's not sacrificial.
And in a marriage, the thing that makes a marriage tick and work, and the thing that's going to make a happy marriage, is when you have sacrificial service.
When you are sacrificially serving your spouse.
Which means that you're not always Keep in track to make sure that they're doing equal to you.
And there are going to be times when you do 52% and they do 48.
There are going to be times when you do 80% and they do 20%.
There are going to be aspects of running the family in the house where you're doing almost everything and your spouse is doing almost nothing in that area.
And then there are going to be other areas where your spouse is doing almost everything and you're doing almost nothing.
It's not equal, so you're not focused on equality, you're just focused on serving the house, serving the family, and doing what needs to be done.
I think that's the only way to have a healthy marriage.
Like in my family, you know, we're a single income family, so I earn the income.
And as far as earning income goes, I do basically 100% of that.
But my wife, when I'm gone, she's doing basically 100% of the parenting for that period of time.
I can't really say, actually, that I'm earning 100% of the income because I couldn't do this if my wife wasn't doing what she's doing.
And she couldn't do what she's doing if I'm not doing this.
And so I think that's the way that it works.
The other problem with the equal marriage thing, and I'll get back to the article in a second.
It'll take forever to get through this if I pontificate for 30 minutes about each sentence that I read.
One other thing, though.
The problem with equal marriage, fundamentally, is that marriages are not equal and cannot be equal because husbands and wives are not equal.
And they're not equal because they're different.
I'm not saying that one is superior to the other.
It's not the point.
Non-equality is not always about inferiority and superiority.
Sometimes it just means that two things aren't the same.
Equal means the same.
Non-equal, therefore, means not the same.
If you were to ask me, are trees and flowers equal?
I would say, well, that's a really stupid, weird, non-sequitur question.
No, they're not equal.
And then if you said, well, you're saying trees are better than flowers?
No.
What does that even mean?
Better.
I don't know.
What does that mean?
No.
They're just different.
I like them both.
They're both great.
I like having them both in my yard.
They both serve a purpose.
It's just they're not the same is all.
And it's the same with husbands and wives.
They're not the same.
So they're not equal.
But it doesn't mean that one is better than the other.
Alright.
Going back to the article, it turns out the happiest of all wives in America are religious conservatives, followed by their religious progressive counterparts.
Fully 73% of wives who hold conservative gender values and attend religious services regularly with their husbands have high-quality marriages.
When it comes to relationship quality, there is a J-curve in women's marital happiness, with women on the left and right enjoying higher-quality marriages than those in the middle, but especially wives on the right.
When we look just at women's political ideology using the General Social Survey, another nationally representative survey of American adults, we see a similar curve in marital happiness for American wives.
It turns out the bluest and reddest wives are most likely to report that they are very happy in their marriages.
To be sure, the General Social Survey curve is closer to a U-curve as the level of marital happiness for the group of extreme liberals and liberals and the group of extreme conservatives and conservatives is essentially the same.
Together, these two groups account for about one-third of American wives.
All right.
The point is, what they're saying is that the people on the so-called extreme ends of the spectrum are the happiest, while people in the middle are less happy.
So you've got religious conservatives who are the happiest, and then second place are progressive religious women, and then the people in the middle are miserable, it turns out.
Now, the article suggests some reasons for that.
It says maybe folks in the middle don't have the same community support because when you're affiliated with a group, a religious group, a church, you're going to have that community support will make you happier.
There's probably some truth to that.
They also talk about how the men on both ends of the spectrum tend to be more involved, which makes the wives happier, which obviously is true.
And I think all that's true.
We'll get back to the men in a second, but I think there's something else at play here.
And it's much more foundational.
Marriages are happier and healthier when they are structured around something, around something greater than the marriage itself.
So the marriage has to have a point to it that goes beyond itself.
And it's the same for people.
We have to have a point that goes beyond ourselves, that looks outside of ourselves, above ourselves.
Religious couples answer to a higher authority.
They have a higher purpose that they look to and that they call upon.
So they're not winging it as they go.
They're not making it up as they go along.
They're not confused as much.
And it means that, ideally, that there's going to be humility as well.
Because both partners realize that they are not the ones in charge.
Right?
I think non-religious couples aren't always sure about the grand plan.
Ultimately, they don't know what direction they're going as a family.
They make up their purpose every day.
They try to build a new foundation for their family every day and from scratch.
And it just doesn't work.
There's going to be confusion and resentment and competition and all of that.
It all creeps in when you don't have that religious foundation.
Now, the part about men is important, too.
The article says, in fact, in listening to the happiest secular progressive wives and their religiously conservative counterparts, we noticed something they shared in common—devoted family men.
Both feminism and faith give family men a clear code.
They're supposed to play a big role in their kids' lives, and it shows.
Both culturally progressive and religiously conservative fathers report high levels of paternal engagement.
Now, I have to be skeptical about the idea that feminism gives men a code.
I mean, the code for men in feminism is shut up and get out of the way, which is exactly the opposite of what you want husbands and fathers to be doing.
But it is true that men do need a code.
John Wayne said, a man's got to have a code.
Something to live by, and he's exactly right about that.
Religious men have that code to live by, which gives them purpose and meaning, and they bring that purpose and meaning into the family, and it gives their family purpose and meaning, and I think that's where a lot of the happiness comes from.
I thought it was interesting reading the comments about this article on social media, because the comments are filled with people insisting that there's no way religious people are actually this happy.
Let me read a few of these comments.
It says...
This is hilarious.
They all asked their spouses if it was okay to answer the survey in the first place.
Then they made it a dinner table conversation to make sure they answered the questions correctly.
I know evangelicals.
Women do not have separate lives.
Does this person sound like someone who knows evangelicals?
Yeah, they're all sitting around.
The wife was afraid to answer the survey, so they all sat around the table, and the wife said, gee, what should we say, folks?
Should we all say that we're happy?
Is that what we should tell the survey person?
And the husband is sitting solemnly at the head of the table?
You will say you're happy!
We are a happy family, dammit!
That is, that's how progressive, secular progressives see religious people.
That's how they imagine our families work.
It's not, by the way.
Someone else says, Can confirm what all other ex-evangelicals are saying.
Self-reporting on this is not a reflection of reality.
Conservative women are taught that being anything other than happy is a spiritual and moral failure.
I have never heard that taught.
Ever.
In a church.
Someone else says, What Christian wife is going to fill out a form with anything but extremely happy?
It's in the Bible to state things that might not be true to bring them into fruition.
And on and on and on.
What you notice about unhappy people, and I can call these people unhappy because it's very clear, and I know that they're unhappy because unhappy people cannot accept and don't want to hear that anyone else is happy.
If other people's happiness makes you cynical and ticks you off, that's a pretty good indication that you are a very unhappy person.
And that's what you see happening here.
All right.
Let's move on.
So the Republicans have decided to do a little bit of nanny stating.
They just can't help themselves.
You know, Republicans have a few good weeks and they got to follow it up by going back to the nanny state.
Well, and this actually proves This particular bill I'm going to talk about proves my theory that bipartisanship is actually bad.
Because this is a bipartisan bill brought by McConnell and Tim Kaine, a Democrat.
And this bill would raise the minimum age for buying tobacco to 21 from 18.
And the idea here, we're told, is to stop the epidemic of teenage vaping.
Because there's always gotta be an epidemic of teenagers consuming something that they're not supposed to consume and that's gonna kill them.
And so we gotta have laws and pass laws and everything to stop teenagers from doing it.
And it never works.
Ever.
Never works.
So let's get into this a little bit.
Raising the tobacco age to 21.
Okay, so first of all, at 18, you are a legal adult.
Okay, your parents are no longer responsible for you.
They can kick you out of the house, they can kick you to the curb, and it's not child endangerment anymore because you're not a child.
You can go overseas and die in combat.
You can be executed.
You can earn a life sentence.
You can vote.
You are an adult and treated like an adult by the law in every way except you can't buy a beer and now they want to say you can't buy tobacco products either.
And that's absurd.
It's simply absurd.
If a person is old enough to fight and die for their country, they are old enough to buy a beer, period.
I think that's a pretty straightforward and logical equation.
If you are psychologically competent enough To take on that responsibility of fighting for your country, or to be held responsible for committing a crime to the point of death, or to vote and participate in our democracy, if you're psychologically competent for all of that, then you're psychologically competent to drink, and certainly to buy a tobacco product.
I have never heard a good argument explaining why a person should be able to die for their country at 18, but not buy a beer.
I have never heard a good argument for that.
Because every argument always goes back to, well, I personally don't like it.
That's every argument, basically, is, I don't like drinking, it's better if you don't, in my opinion, and so therefore, yeah, 18-year-olds shouldn't be able to do it.
Well, there are a lot of things that you might not personally like, and that you might not think personally people should do, but that doesn't mean that we can set arbitrary age limits and prohibitions.
And it certainly doesn't mean that we should do that, or that those efforts by the government are going to be at all effective.
So, raising the age, it accomplishes nothing.
Think about the drinking age at 21.
What has that accomplished?
Has it prevented a single teenager from drinking?
I hate to scandalize you with this information, but college kids are binge drinking every night in this country.
Eighteen-year-old college kids are drinking as much as they could possibly want, and way more than they should want, every single night, and the laws against it have accomplished nothing at all.
Sixteen-year-olds are playing beer pong in their friends' basements.
This is a common occurrence.
The law is not stopping it.
Because alcohol is everywhere, because it's legal for everyone else, which means that there's no shortage of it.
And even if you did make it illegal for everyone else, there still wouldn't be a shortage of it, as prohibition conclusively showed us.
So, what does a higher age limit for this kind of stuff do?
If it doesn't actually accomplish what it's supposed to accomplish.
Well, I think it does two things.
Number one.
When you make the, when you heighten the age limit for something, you make it seem cooler to teenagers.
Now this is one of the basic truths of life and of teenagers.
When you tell them they can't do something, it's just going to seem cooler to them.
Which doesn't always mean that you should tell them they can do it, but it is something to keep in mind.
That whatever you're telling them not to do, you've just made it cooler.
Something to remember.
It's a fact.
If you know any teenagers, or if you were a teenager yourself at one point in your life, and most people were, I'm told, then you must know this.
Drinking beer seems really cool when you're 16 and 17 years old, largely because you can't do it legally.
Now, when you get older and you're of drinking age, you know, I'm 32 years old, I drink beer, I enjoy beer.
I don't see it as this cool, impressive thing with a mystique to it, where whenever I drink I gotta brag about it, take pictures of myself drinking, post it online, tell everyone, hey man, guess what I had last night?
A beer.
Yeah.
Pretty cool.
I had three beers.
That whole thing.
Grown adults don't do that.
Kids do that.
Because they think it's so cool.
Because it's illegal, is the point.
And so not only have we made it this forbidden elixir, which is now cool to kids, but because they can't do it legally in full view of everybody else, what we've ensured is that they're going to go down in their friend's basement to drink.
Because every teenager has a friend whose parents are neglectful and don't pay attention to what they do in the basement.
So they're going to go to that kid's basement and they're going to drink.
They're going to go to house parties.
They're going to drink in a parking lot somewhere at 10 o'clock at night.
I mean, they're going to find a place to do it and they're going to do it.
And so all you've done is you have ensured that they aren't going to learn responsible drinking from adults because adults are now legally prevented from teaching them responsible drinking.
So instead of looking up to adults and saying, oh, that's how you drink responsibly, they're going to look parallel to their friends and they're going to learn drinking habits from their other irresponsible, stupid friends.
That's the way it goes.
And then, as I said, once you hit the drinking age, Alcohol loot is the mystique.
And pretty quickly, in most cases, people stop doing keg stands and they just have a drink of wine with dinner because it's a normal, everyday thing.
It's not a big deal.
That's the point.
We make a big deal out of alcohol in this country.
We make a huge deal out of it.
And that only makes it worse.
Whereas I think you'll find in some countries where they don't make a big deal out of it, and where kids are drinking wine with dinner at the age of 13, Again, not every case, but in many cases, you're not going to have all this binge drinking.
Because it's normal to them.
So that's what the drinking age does, makes alcohol seem cooler, ensures that kids are not going to learn responsible drinking.
And I think a similar thing will happen with tobacco.
Do you realize how cool you'll make vaping seem to 18-year-olds if you tell them they can't do it?
They already think it's cool.
I don't.
Personally, if you're going to have tobacco, I think a cigar is the way to go.
But I guess I'm not going to be doing any anti-tobacco PSAs anytime soon with that message.
Hey kids, try cigars instead, you know?
No, but kids already like it.
So if now you go and say, oh, you're not allowed to do that till you're 21, it's illegal now.
You'll get a citation if we catch you vaping.
All you've done is you've ratcheted up the vaping cool points by like 50.
It's completely stupid.
All right.
Before we get to emails, Sally Goldenberg is a reporter, City Hall Bureau Chief at Politico New York.
She's been traveling through Iowa, apparently, venturing outside the safe confines of the concrete jungle.
And she's been shocked by what she's encountered.
And she wrote this over the weekend.
She said, observations from Iowa, it is very flat, driving is monotonous, there is more unbuilt land
in one block than New York has in an entire borough, dirt roads are terrifying, no one carries
almond milk, and caucus goers are extremely well informed.
So at least she put a one positive in there. I could do something similar for, you know, for New
York.
I could say, observations from New York.
It's crowded.
It smells weird.
Driving is impossible.
There are more billboards in a city block than Iowa has in the entire state.
Homeless people pee on the sidewalk.
People drink almond milk for some reason.
You can walk 27 miles and never see a tree.
The gas stations don't sell live bait.
Much more horrifying experience, in my opinion.
You know, Sally is getting a lot of flack for this, and rightly so, because it's a problem that the people who are tasked with reporting the news, and with keeping us informed, with telling us what we need to know, don't understand us.
That's what we get from this.
They literally do not understand us.
They only understand life and culture in their urban bubble, Because if you're surprised and horrified by dirt roads and a lack of almond milk, then that's a problem.
That tells me that you don't understand the country well enough to speak to it.
I don't want to get into the culture war thing about urban versus rural, although I did inadvertently get into that and I'll talk about that in a second.
When it comes to the people, I think it's a stupid thing to get it.
Are there better people in the city or in rural?
I've been, I've been all around the country.
I've lived on the East coast most of my life.
I've spent a lot of time in Baltimore, New York, Washington, Philly, you know, um, up and down that, that corridor.
And, uh, I've also, I've lived in the country.
I've lived in Kentucky.
I've visited probably 30 or so States in the last few years for everywhere from North Dakota to LA to California, Alaska, uh, Ohio, Montana, all around.
And people are people everywhere you go, in my experience.
There are good people, bad people, nice people, mean people, everywhere you go.
But in terms of personal taste, in terms of the environment that you're in, I can't see how anyone would prefer the city over the country.
I don't get that.
And I made this point in response to Sally Goldenberg.
I made the point that out in the country you have open spaces, grass, trees, wildlife, privacy, quiet.
And I just, how could you prefer crowds and concrete to that?
And then I wrote that tweet and I found out this morning that apparently the tweet sparked a backlash, which I do sometimes.
I spark backlashes.
I don't mean to, but I do.
And this one did.
I didn't even know it.
But this New York news channel, they did a story about my tweet.
Watch this.
This is from a provocative right-wing blogger named Matt Walsh.
So maybe it was meant to get this reaction, but here's what he wrote.
Yeah, how can anyone actually prefer living in a crowded city over a more rural area with open space, green grass, trees, privacy, and quiet?
I mean, do you really need to have 98 stores within walking distance?
Is proximity to retail really the most important thing?
I don't get it.
Walsh often says outlandish things, looking for a response, and he got a response from a bunch of New Yorkers, including New York One's Jillian Jorgensen.
Who said, imagine thinking the only thing an urban lifestyle offers is proximity to retail.
I mean, shaking my head at this whole thing.
Darla said, the opportunities to be exposed to other cultures, lifestyles, religions, and creative hubs, all also within walking distance.
Arguably part of the problem of America right now.
Robert says, oddly enough, people over the age of four understand that not everybody likes exactly the same stuff they do.
Hear, hear.
Newsworthy stuff there, folks.
That is newsworthy material.
I don't like cities.
You know, halt the presses, let everybody know.
I don't like cities.
But I stand by it.
I stand by it, number one, because I have found out that apparently people in cities are kind of whiny and sensitive, especially New Yorkers.
That is the one critique I'll make of the people.
Not true of all of them.
But I have noticed this about New Yorkers, that if you don't bow down and worship New York, and talk about, oh, it's the greatest city in the world, such a wonderful city, oh my gosh, New York!
New York, it's wonderful!
If you don't do that, they get very offended.
They need you to tell them that New York is great.
They need to hear that from you.
And if you don't say that, God forbid you go to New York and you say, eh, you know, it's alright.
That's kind of my feeling about New York.
I visited.
It's fine.
There are a lot of people.
There's stuff.
There's buildings and there's restaurants.
And yeah, it's nice.
It's fine.
It's okay.
I'm happy to leave.
I'm happy to be there for a few hours or a couple days, but I'm also happy to leave.
And a lot of New Yorkers can't handle that reaction.
They don't like it.
They need you to love it.
A little bit needy, in my opinion.
I think people out in the country, a little bit less needy, they definitely don't care.
That's one thing I'll say.
As far as the people go, if you go out into the country, into rural areas, those people do not care if you like it.
Or if you like them.
They're friendly people.
They're nice people.
But your opinion of them and of their lifestyle, they couldn't possibly care less.
They're not going to try to convince you.
If you say, oh, I don't like it.
There are too many cows.
It smells like cow poop.
They're going to say, well, you're free to go.
See you later.
Um, but in the responses to this, to what I said, the one thing that jumped out at me is when people are talking about why living in the city is better than living in the country.
One thing that kept coming up is convenience and how the city is much more convenient.
And I think that's interesting because yeah, I agree in some respects.
Now traffic is not convenient, but.
Yeah, in a city, depending on where you live, you could walk outside, walk right down the street to the convenience store.
You've got everything you want.
Depending on where you live, you could have everything you want within a couple of blocks.
Whereas if you live out in the country, you might have to drive 20 or 30 minutes to get to a grocery store, God forbid.
So that's convenient.
But I don't think we want to structure our lives around convenience.
GK Chesterton said that an adventure is an inconvenience wrongly considered.
Meaning that, yeah, you could look at it as an inconvenience or, you know, if you've got to drive 30 minutes to the grocery store, you could look at it as an opportunity.
If you live out in the country, you look at it as an opportunity to see the view.
You can look at it that way.
And if you live in a rural setting, here's what I know.
You walk outside your house in the morning.
You're going to hear birds chirping.
You're going to hear wind rustling the trees.
If you have a brook on the property, you might hear water gurgling.
You'll hear, maybe faintly in the distance, you'll hear a cow mooing or a dog barking or something.
And it's serene.
And it's beautiful.
And it's, to use a New Agey phrase, it's very centering.
It helps you center yourself, whatever that means.
It's human, I guess.
It feels like a more human experience.
Whereas in the city there are a lot of other humans, so it's human in that sense, but I don't think people are meant to live in grey and concrete all the time.
I feel like this is a need.
You need trees and air and you need that.
At least I do.
Alright.
It is interesting, though, when you think about it, that so many of the people who live in cities identify as environmentalists, yet they're nowhere near a natural environment.
Whereas out in the country, nobody calls themselves an environmentalist, yet they live in the environment all the time.
I mean, I am an environmental conservationist.
I'm a beekeeper.
Okay?
I am helping the environment.
I would never describe myself that way, but that's what I'm doing.
All right.
By the way, yesterday was World Bee Day, and none of you jerks wished me a happy World Bee Day, even though you know that I'm a beekeeper.
And I'll tell you something, I am not going to forget that.
How dare you?
All right, this is from Paul.
mattwalshow at gmail.com.
mattwalshow at gmail.com.
From Paul says, Mr. Walsh, you poor, poor, wretched creature.
I wonder what could possibly have happened in your childhood to make you such a sniveling coward.
Did a few girls reject you in high school, you poor baby?
I know that stings, right?
But reacting to such a blow to your fragile little ego by spewing hatred towards half of the species that knows how unappealing you are will only make matters worse for you.
I understand from your stupid little bio that you found a woman who was willing to be with you.
That's not what he said.
He used a more vulgar phrase.
So why are you still so sad and scared and angry?
Incidentally, the phrase theocratic fascist is an oxymoron, and if you truly believe in your deluded little noggin that you're somehow carrying the message of Christ, I've got news for you.
If this mythical figure were an actual one, he'd have you earmarked for an eternity in hell for being such a baby.
F you, please die.
Hi, Paul.
Thank you very much for that feedback.
Valuable, as it is.
I don't have much to add except this.
Perhaps I am as terrible as you say.
Maybe that's true.
Maybe I'm an awful person.
Who knows?
But then how does it make you feel?
That you are over in your corner, stewing over me, thinking about me, hating me, writing to me, describing me to myself, and yet I don't know who you are, or care.
And I never will know who you are, or care.
And after this moment right here, this moment, this is your moment to shine, this is the moment I'm speaking to you, but after this moment, I will never think about you ever again as long as I live.
And yet, I'm stuck in your head.
That's gotta stick, doesn't it?
Thanks, Paul.
All right.
From Patrick says, let's see.
Hi, Matt.
On the show, you were discussing your view on capital punishment.
I'm curious what you think of the argument that capital punishment shouldn't be allowed given that there is, although small, a chance of a wrongful conviction.
I do believe there are some horrendous actions one may take that deserve death as punishment, but since our judicial system is not flawless, I'm unsure whether or not the government should be trusted with the power of sentencing people to death.
Keep up the good work on the show.
I'm a big fan.
Thanks, Patrick.
Yeah.
Our justice system is not, you're correct, it is far from flawless.
And that is a concern, obviously.
It's a big concern.
Maybe the number one concern with the death penalty.
To put an innocent man to death is unspeakably unjust.
And we know that it has happened in America.
But I think you can get You can be really, really, really, really certain that somebody is guilty.
Um, or I should say, Becca, you can get really, really, really, really close to certainty that someone is guilty.
So you can be very, very close to certain.
You'll never be a hundred percent certain in the sense that I can, I can't even be a hundred percent certain that this desk exists.
I am very, very, very close to 100% certainty, but I'm like 99.99999%.
But there's a chance I'm dreaming, there's a chance I'm hallucinating, there's a chance I'm high on LSD.
I've never done LSD, but who knows?
I mean, maybe if you did it, you'd forget that you did it, and I don't know how it works.
There's a chance that I'm in the Matrix.
There's a chance that this is actually a transformer, you know, that'll turn into a giant wooden robot.
Who knows?
Technically, those are all possibilities.
But they're so remote, so slim, that you effectively don't have to consider them, and for all intents and purposes, you're certain.
I think you can get close to that with a guilty conviction these days, because you've got DNA evidence, you've got even, like, video, GPS, I mean, cops can check on your phone, see where you were.
They can see you were there, DNA, they got a murder weapon.
Now, There are plenty of times people are convicted without all this stuff, but what I'm saying is we can theoretically get very close to near certainty.
And then also people will admit, there are plenty of people on death row who have admitted that they did the crime.
Now, but here's my point.
Is it possible that someone, you could have DNA evidence, video, GPS, a confession, and the person is still innocent?
Yes, it's possible, but it's probably about as possible as, you know, the idea that this death doesn't exist because I'm dreaming.
It's like in that same realm, which is why the standard is to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, not beyond any doubt.
If we have to prove guilt beyond doubt, then we could never convict anyone of anything because you can never be technically beyond doubt, especially about something that someone did.
That you weren't there to see.
And even if you were there to see it, we know that eyewitness testimony is notoriously unreliable.
So it's reasonable doubt.
If you're beyond reasonable doubt, then I think that's enough to put someone in prison.
And if it's enough to put someone in prison, I think it's enough to execute them as well.
Because it's certainly almost as bad, it would seem, to put an innocent man in jail for his whole life as it is to execute him.
So either way, it's horrific.
Which is why you want to be beyond a reasonable doubt.
Got a few other emails.
I think we will save these for tomorrow.
MattWalshow at gmail.com.
MattWalshow at gmail.com.
Thanks everybody for watching.
Thanks for listening.
Godspeed.
Today on the Ben Shapiro Show, a court targets President Trump over his accountant's records, plus Trump moves to stop his former White House counsel from testifying.
