Ep. 274 - Congress Has Done Absolutely Nothing To Deserve A Raise
Congress wants to give itself a raise. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez insists that they need a raise or else they’ll be corrupt. We'll talk about why that argument is insane. Also, Justin Trudeau babbles nonsensically. I'll play that clip because it’s hilarious. And 60 percent of male managers say they’re uncomfortable around women in the workplace. Gee, I wonder why. Date: 06-12-19
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Today on the Matt Wolf Show, Congress wants to give itself a raise, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez says that they need a raise, because if we don't give them a raise, then they're going to be corrupt.
Well, I have a different idea, which I will share with you today.
Also, Justin Trudeau babbles nonsensically.
We'll play that clip just because it's really funny.
And finally, 60% of male managers say that they are now uncomfortable working with women.
And mentoring women one-on-one.
Gee, I wonder why.
We'll try to get to the bottom of that mystery today on The Matt Wall Show.
So, there's a debate raging in Congress right now about whether Congress should get a pay raise.
A $4,500 pay raise, to be exact.
Or, as it's being called, a cost of living increase.
You know, it's not a pay raise, it's a cost of living increase.
Yes, it's a It is a raise in pay, but that's not what it is, just cost of living.
Because you see, Congress has not gotten a cost of living increase in a decade, and now apparently they think they're due for one.
Although some members of Congress are concerned that it will be politically disastrous for them to be seen giving themselves more money, especially when their approval ratings are so low.
So there's kind of a game being played out right now, a game where politicians who are sort of safer politically are advocating for the raise and
those who are in a more precarious position politically are pretending to be against it but of
course at the end of the day they all want to have more money. One of the people advocating for
the raise is the lovely Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and her argument for her own raise is really
I mean it's really pretty awful.
So listen to this.
You know, it may not be politically popular to say, but honestly, this is why there's so much pressure to turn to lobbying firms and to cash in on, on member service after people leave because, um, because precisely of this issue.
So it may be politically convenient, and it may make you look good in the short term
for saying, oh, we're not voting for pay increases, but we should be fighting for pay increases
for every American worker.
We should be fighting for a $15 minimum wage pegged to inflation so that everybody in the United States
with a salary, with a wage, gets a cost of living increase.
Members of Congress, retail workers, everybody should get cost of living increases
to accommodate for the changes in our economy.
And then when we don't do that, it only increases the pressure on members to exploit loopholes like insider trading loopholes to make it on the back end.
So first of all, you see what she's doing here, right?
She's whining for a raise.
But she's positioning it as an act of courage on her part.
She's saying, hey, it may not be politically convenient to say this, okay?
I know a lot of people don't have the guts to say this, but, uh, I should get more money.
Uh, you know, listen, it's easy for someone to say, don't give me money, but I'm standing here saying, give me money.
Okay.
I've got the guts to say it.
Um, so that's a, that's an interesting, it's an interesting strategy.
Second, she says that if you don't give us a raise, we're going to be corrupt and we'll end up finding other ways to make money.
We're going to look for, you know, we're going to make deals with lobbyists and we're going to find loopholes and all this stuff.
What kind of argument is that?
Can you, can, could you ever use that at work?
Okay.
If you're working at Burger King, could you go up to your, to your manager and say, uh, Hey boss, give me money or I'm going to start stealing from the register.
All right.
It's your choice.
Okay.
It's up to you.
Ball's in your court, champ.
I mean, you can give me money or I can steal from the register, but either way... So really, if you don't give me money and I steal from the register, it's your fault.
You forced my hand, so that's the way it's gonna be.
No, that's... See, that's only an argument.
That's the kind of argument that you could only find in the halls of Congress.
It doesn't work anywhere else in the actual working world.
I've got an idea, though.
Here's an alternative.
Maybe these people can just make do with the paltry $174,000 a year that they're already paid.
That's a good salary.
That's like three times the national average.
Should our representatives really be paid more than three times what the average citizen makes?
Should they make even that much?
When a representative On the, you know, rare occasion that a representative leaves DC and actually comes home to their own district, and they hold a town hall or something, what few even do that anymore.
But should, and they're surrounded by their constituents at this town hall, should they be the highest paid person in the room, conceivably?
You know, in the year 1815, members of Congress were paid the equivalent of $20,000 a year in today's money.
In 1795, they made $1 a day.
And of course, that means they weren't paid anything on the days when they weren't in session.
It was a part-time job.
So when you say, well, how do they survive on that?
They didn't survive on that.
They had other jobs.
They did other things.
This was not a career.
It wasn't something that you were supposed to, you know, settle down and spend 50 years doing.
AOC says that lower salaries lead to more corruption, but is that real?
Is there evidence of that?
Is that really how we see the trends working?
Because salaries for members of Congress went up dramatically into the 20th century and the 21st century as well.
And I don't see any evidence that corruption went down in the meantime.
Now, I'm not saying there wasn't corruption in 1815, of course there was, but is there evidence that there was more back then than there is now with lower salaries?
I don't think, if anything, it seems that the trend works in the opposite direction.
And why is that?
Well, because if someone is inclined to be a money-grubbing, greedy, selfish, dishonest charlatan, you aren't going to satiate them with a higher salary.
Okay.
If someone is a, is a morally corrupt individual, you aren't going to solve that problem by giving them more money.
It just doesn't, it doesn't work that way.
Um, just like going back to the Burger King example, if someone is, if someone's a thief and they're inclined to steal, even if you raise their salary to $15 an hour, uh, they're probably still going to steal because they're a thief.
If anything, what happens is when you give them more money, you only wet their appetite.
That's the way that it works with thieves.
And higher salaries are more likely to attract those kinds of people in the first place.
If congressmen were paid, let's say, $40,000 a year, Most likely the selfish money-grubbers wouldn't run in the first place.
Now they might, some of them still might, but I think that there's a higher likelihood that the selfish money-grubbing types would not be inclined to run in the first place.
Because of the lower salary, and because it's less money, practically speaking, but also because with a lower salary, I think it It takes away some of the, uh, some of the esteem, some of the, uh, clout, uh, that you get from being a member of Congress.
If everyone knew that these people are paid $40,000 a year, and so they're, you know, basically just based on that salary, they're, you know, they're middle class, really kind of lower middle class, uh, people based on their salary.
If, if that's how we started to see Congress, which, and there's nothing wrong with being middle class.
But if that's how we started to see them, then the people who are after money and clout, which I think accounts for probably 95% of people who run for Congress these days, I think those people are more likely to go somewhere else.
I think in that case you would end up with two types of people running.
You would have people who are already wealthy, thus they don't need the salary, and then you would have people who actually are interested in doing public service for the sake of public service.
People who will either make do with the 40 grand a year or will work another job to supplement it at the same time.
You would also find that people are less inclined to stay in the job for 40 or 50 years, and that would be a good thing.
So here's my recommendation.
Congress should, I think right now, take a $100,000 pay cut.
And then that would leave them with $74,000 a year, which is still a good salary.
That's double the national average, which I think is very generous considering Congress's approval rating right now is at about 20%.
It hasn't been above 30 in a decade.
It hasn't been at 50 in almost 20 years.
Now, do you think you'd get a raise at your job if your bosses rated your performance at 20%?
If you went in for a performance evaluation and they gave you a 20%, do you think you'd be in line for a raise?
No, you would probably be fired, but at a minimum, you'd be looking at a pay cut.
So that's my thought.
$100,000 pay cut for all members of Congress.
If some of them quit because of it, great.
That's fantastic.
I think that'd be wonderful.
If they cry and whine because of it, great.
I think it's great to see politicians crying.
I'm a big fan of that.
I think it's very American to take pleasure in the discomfort of politicians.
And then I think we leave it at that.
And then once Congress's approval rating makes it above 50%, Then we could talk about a raise.
That should be the law.
That should be the rule, that you can only even consider a raise once your approval rating gets above 50%.
Considering it's been, as I said, about almost 20 years, I think 2002 was the last time since they had an approval rating that high.
Since it's been almost 20 years, I think they've got a lot of work to do before they get back to 50%, but that's the way it should be.
They should be doing some work.
Congress right now is utterly dysfunctional.
It just cannot do anything, cannot achieve anything.
And even the most basic things they can't do.
So their pay ought to reflect that.
The way this country was set up, I mean, we call them public servants, right?
That's what they're supposed to be.
Uh, and, and, you know, we always say, well, we're the boss, you know, and they'll, they'll pretend to believe that too.
They'll say, Oh, the American people are my boss.
Well, can you imagine if we actually lived in a country where it really worked that way?
Well, that's not just something we say, but that's actually how it worked.
That these people really were public servants and that we really were their bosses.
Well, it's something, uh, Nice to dream about, in any case.
All right, let's lighten the mood a little bit.
This is, well, Justin Trudeau, one of the great minds of our time.
He was talking recently about what he does to save the environment.
In fact, he was asked by, I guess, by a reporter, what he and his family, what they're doing specifically on a personal level to help save the environment.
And I thought that his answer was, and again, I say this as someone who's not usually a Trudeau fan, but I thought his answer was deeply, deeply profound.
Listen, listen to this.
What do you and your family do to cut back on plastics?
Okay, here's the transcript of that.
If you didn't catch it, here's his answer.
to drinking water bottles out of water, out of when we have water bottles,
out of plastic, sorry, away from plastic towards paper, like drink box water bottles sort of things.
There's a number.
Okay, here's the transcript of that.
If you didn't catch it, here's what his answer, I transcribed it just so that this could live on
as one of the great things ever said.
He said, we, we, uh, we have, uh, we have recently switched to drinking water bottles out of, uh, water, out of, when we have water bottles, out of, uh, plastic, sorry, away from plastic, towards, um, paper, um, like, drink box water bottles.
I don't mean to laugh.
I'm laughing.
I'm giddy with, I'm just so taken by the profundity of this and the eloquence of this.
I'm blown away.
Just incredible.
I mean, I can see how this man has had the political success he's had.
Someone as smart as this.
I mean, how could he not?
By the way, one other clip I wanted to play for you.
You may hear today that there, especially if you're on social media, Which I don't know why you would be at this point.
Kind of a waste of time.
But if you are, you'll hear that there's a scandal involving Tim Allen.
Because Toy Story 4 is coming out, and Tim Allen, of course, Buzz Lightyear.
So he's doing the press junket, doing the press tour for the movie.
And what you're going to hear is that Tim Allen is racist.
There's a racism scandal brewing about Tim Allen.
And those racism claims apparently were sparked by a disturbing video of an answer that he gave.
on doing one of his press interviews.
And this is very disturbing, I warn you, but watch this.
When I search your name on YouTube, the first thing that comes up is Black Jeopardy with Tom Hanks.
Oh, OK.
41 million views, huge post.
So I want to play a little game.
If you have a black card, because I feel like you guys both have black cards.
You're playing spades.
You got four in a possible.
Your partner says he got four in a possible.
The guys you've been playing with, they've been talking crap the whole game.
What do you do?
Do you bid nine, or do you bid 10, go wheels, and go all out for it?
Ten.
Go all out.
I've been working Vegas 30 years.
I don't gamble.
There's not necessarily money involved in spades.
You know, it's just credit.
I throw deep, baby.
I go deep.
I don't know what you guys are talking about.
I don't have any idea what you guys just said.
You don't know how to play spades?
I'm going to say I do, just because I want to move on.
Now, when I was in Oakland, California, they all played whist.
It's like, you see, and then it was a boom, bam, boom, boom, boom.
Should I get a cup of coffee or something?
Kids were playing whist, man.
Yes, you see, Tim Allen doesn't know how to play the game spades, and this makes him racist, apparently.
How does it make him racist?
I mean, look, I don't know, which I guess means I'm racist.
I mean, I'm so racist, apparently, that I didn't even know that spades Was a game associated with black culture.
I mean, I've played spades.
I thought it was just a card game.
I didn't know that there was any real racial dynamic to spades.
Personally, I prefer hearts.
I think hearts is a better game.
I think it's probably racist for me to say that, I guess.
So I this is new to me.
I didn't know that there was any.
So I think a lot of people are in this in this boat.
But the thing is, if you're surprised to find out that it's racist not to like spades, then that just makes you extreme.
I mean, you're basically in the Klan.
It's one thing not to like spades, but to not even know That you're supposed to like spades?
I mean, you are the Grand Dra- What is it?
The Grand Wizard of- Who's the head of the KK?
Grand Wizard?
Grand- The Dragon Wizard?
You are the Dragon Wizard of the clan, basically, if you didn't know that you're supposed to like spades.
Uh, so how dare you?
How dare all of us?
Alright, uh, before we get to emails, this is one other thing I wanted to talk about.
This is kind of interesting.
Reading now from CNBC.
An article on CNBC says the Me Too and Time's Up movement have brought huge attention to the challenges that women face at work.
But a new survey finds that 60% of male managers say they're uncomfortable participating in regular work activities with women, including mentoring, working one-on-one, or socializing.
According to the survey, released by LeanIn.org and SurveyMonkey, that's a 33% increase from last year.
Senior-level men also say they're 12 times more likely to be hesitant about one-on-one meetings with a junior woman than they are a junior man, 9 times more likely to be hesitant to travel with a junior woman for work than a junior man, and 6 times more likely to be hesitant to have a work dinner with a junior woman than a junior man.
LeanIn.org founder and Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg calls the results totally unacceptable.
First of all, how do you rate?
I never understand with these surveys.
So the men say they're 12 times more likely to be hesitant about this or nine times.
How do you rate your likelihood of doing something with that specificity?
I am 7.6 times more likely.
I don't know how you do that.
But anyway, Sandberg says that it's totally unacceptable.
Okay, Cheryl, you think it's unacceptable.
That's great.
But I would say it's totally unacceptable to just disregard what 60% of people in a position are telling you.
I mean, is that how you operate as a manager yourself at Facebook?
Probably is.
But if 60% of your subordinates were reporting that they feel a certain way about their work environment, would you conclude that their perspective is unacceptable?
Or would you maybe consider the possibility that the environment is unacceptable?
What if 60% of women reported that they were uncomfortable with male mentorship?
Well, then the reaction would be, see, this is why we have the Me Too movement.
Clearly, there's something wrong with men.
But when 60% of men are uncomfortable, it's still, see, this is why we have the Me Too movement.
Clearly, there's something wrong with men.
Do you see how what we end up with is a lose-lose situation for men?
And can you see how that might make men uncomfortable when they know that they lose either way?
The problem is that we have expanded the word sexism to include almost anything.
And we have expanded the word harassment to include almost anything.
We have expanded the words rape and assault to include almost anything.
And the defining factor for all of those words is how the woman feels about it.
Okay, if she feels that it was sexism or harassment, then it was.
That woman who consensually hooked up with Aziz Ansari but afterwards felt like it was assault, well, we say, okay, so it was because afterwards she felt like it, so it was.
So you see the problem here?
A man has no way of knowing how the woman is feeling at the time or how she might feel later if she doesn't say it.
The only way he can really know for sure is if she tells him.
But if she won't say anything, if she won't say, for instance, this conversation is making me uncomfortable, or I'm uncomfortable doing this with you, I want to leave.
If she won't say that, then he's not going to know.
Now, unless it's something that's clearly wrong or inappropriate.
Okay, well, if that's the case, then he should know.
If it's in the workplace and it's clearly an R-rated conversation, just totally inappropriate for the workplace or for anywhere really, then yeah, he should know.
No one should have to tell him.
And there are people, men and women, who have just have no, and I always marvel at these people who have no just social awareness whatsoever.
They appear to just, they could make everyone around them extremely uncomfortable and they have, apparently they're totally oblivious to it.
I don't understand that because I'm someone who's, I'm sort of the opposite.
I'm very hyper aware of how everyone You know, the sort of the vibe in the room, I become very aware of that, probably too aware.
So it's hard for me to understand people on the other side of the spectrum.
But that's men and women can be that way.
So in that situation, sure, you know, you shouldn't need to be told.
But if it's something that is arguably more innocuous, Or if it's something where the woman appears to be going along with it, whether it's a conversation or, you know, as with Aziz Ansari, you know, a consensual sexual encounter, you know, if it's something where the woman appears to be participating, then there's no way for anyone to know what's going on in her mind and how she really feels unless she says something.
Yet under the new rules, She can say nothing and go along with it and participate and appear to be an accepting and enthusiastic participant, but then later on complain about it and get him fired or worse.
Those are the new rules.
And so you're surprised that male managers don't want to be around women one-on-one?
I mean, of course they don't.
That's the point we're at now with all this stuff.
If you are in a position of authority as a man, it's suicidal for you to be around a woman in a work environment one-on-one.
You never should be.
There should always be another person in the room.
And the feminists can laugh at that all they want.
And men just being paranoid.
It's hard for me not to conclude that the reason why feminists laugh at those kinds of precautions is because they want men to put themselves in those precarious positions so that they can then be accused and blamed and everything.
It's hard for me not to conclude that.
Because otherwise, I mean, no matter how you feel about the Me Too movement, Time's Up, whatever, no matter how you feel about it, Wouldn't you celebrate this?
I mean, if, or I should say, if you're a feminist and you think there is some huge epidemic of harassment and so on in the workplace, well, now you're hearing that men, you know, they always want to have another person around.
They're being hyper, hyper aware and very, very careful.
Isn't that what you want?
Shouldn't you be happy with that?
Why would that make you angry?
It doesn't make any sense to me.
Now, me, I'm not happy about it, but it's just the way it is.
And as I said, I, you know, if I were a male manager, I'd be the same.
I'd be taking the exact same precautions.
It's just not worth it.
And the other aspect of this is remember the, uh, remember the slogan, believe all women, right?
Believe women, believe women.
Well, again, if that's the slogan to believe women, just blanket statement, just believe that whatever they say, believe it because it's a woman.
Well, can you really not understand how that might make a man feel a little bit worried and uncomfortable?
When he knows ahead of time that if there's any dispute, if there's, you know, if anything goes sideways, everyone's going to believe the other person and not him automatically, no matter who's telling the truth.
Can you really not understand how that might make men feel uncomfortable?
Is it really mysterious?
I don't think it should be.
All right, let's go to emails.
MattWalshow at gmail.com.
MattWalshow at gmail.com is the email address.
This is from Adam, says, I mostly agree with your three arguments against euthanasia.
However, there is an argument made in favor of euthanasia that I find compelling.
We euthanize our pets out of compassion to eliminate their suffering.
Why not our human loved ones?
Seeing a dog or cat suffer is hard.
Seeing a person suffer is hard.
Why can veterinarians put down pets when physicians can't put down people?
Well, Adam, we spay and neuter our pets, right?
We don't do that to humans.
We feed our pets out of bowls on the floor.
We don't do that to humans, generally.
We lock dogs in cages at night.
We don't do that with our kids.
We put them in beds.
I guess some people let their dogs sleep in bed with them.
I find that to be gross, personally.
Why would you want your... You know if you do that, you're... I don't want to get sidetracked.
You let your dog sleep in bed with you.
You do understand that your bed will smell like dog, and then therefore you will smell like dog all the time?
You do understand that, right?
I mean, you just... I know you don't smell it, but you will smell like dog always.
All the time.
And everyone will smell it.
And they won't tell you that you smell like dog, but they'll think it.
So why would you want that in your life?
That's what I don't understand.
Anyway.
So we don't... Generally, you know, we don't do that with... We do that with animals, not humans.
The point is we treat animals like animals, or at least we should.
And I think euthanizing is part of that.
In fact, that's one of the main reasons why I'm against euthanizing people is because it treats a human being like a dog who we just put down.
So at a certain point with a dog or a cat or any other, a horse or whatever, At a certain point, if they're in a lot of physical pain, and they're immobile and all of that stuff, we will essentially say, well, there's no point to this existence anymore.
There's no point to this being living.
And so we might as well just put it out of its misery.
And I think with an animal, that's a logical and compassionate thing to do.
But I think with people, I think we treat people with more dignity.
So when we refrain from putting down people, from euthanizing people, it's not that we're treating them with less dignity, it's more, it's to transcend it.
Our treatment of other people transcends our treatment of animals.
Or again, at least it should.
And that's the whole point.
So with a human life, We, at least with an innocent human life, we shouldn't reach a point where we say, well, there's no point to this existence anymore.
Might as well just put them out of their misery.
Because human life transcends those kinds of judgments.
There is always a point to existence, to living, as long as God has allowed you to continue.
And For the other side of that perspective, this is from Lindsey, says, Dear Matt, in response to your listener who asked about euthanasia on Tuesday's episode, I'm a strongly pro-life critical care doctor.
Many patients with terminal cancer spend their last days in the intensive care unit going through a terrible ordeal.
I work hand-in-hand with an outstanding group of palliative care physicians, and many of them are horrified by the perverse euthanasia practices in other countries.
This is intended to make your remaining time comfortable.
They do not believe in just putting someone out of their misery.
The medications and treatments given to alleviate pain are deadly when given in lethal doses.
Just slugging a lethal dose of opioids at someone is horrifying, unethical, and the antithesis of compassion.
Being pro-life in this regard is simple when you recognize that euthanasia for a terminal condition is a fundamental misunderstanding of medical capabilities.
And yeah, I think it's very well put, Lindsey, and I'm glad to hear it from a doctor.
And that was my whole point, that a doctor's, the goal of it, the point of medicine, the point of a doctor is to alleviate suffering and to protect life.
Those two things together.
Um, not separate.
Those aren't mutually exclusive.
And I think we want our doctors and we want people to go to medical school and enter into that profession.
We want them to always be sort of pointed in that direction.
We want them to look at every situation.
Anytime someone comes in with any illness or sickness, no matter how severe we want our doctors always to be thinking, how can I alleviate this person's suffering?
While at the same time, preserving and protecting their life.
That should always be the goal.
And of course, but you're going to reach a point where a person dies and you can't stop that.
So notice I'm saying preserve and protect life.
That does, it's not the same thing as saying, well, the goal of a doctor should always be to extend a
life at any cost using any method for as long as possible.
Because no, I don't think that.
I mean, you can reach a point where someone would die if not for extraordinary means
that are used just to keep them around.
And I don't think that we're called always to employ extraordinary means indefinitely just to keep someone alive.
I mean, there is a certain point where it's just someone's time to go.
We all have to die.
No one wants to, but we all have to.
And certainly none of us want our loved ones to die.
But there's a point where it's just it's time.
And no matter what Matter how we feel about it.
Of course, we feel terrible about it.
So I don't think that's it's not the same thing There is a point where a doctor might say, okay, we have to let this patient go and That is the most merciful thing to do for them but there is never a point where a doctor should say we should kill this patient and Those are two different things All right This is from Justin, says, Hey Matt, first of all, thanks for all you do.
I've been listening to your show for the past few months and I admire your sense of sarcasm and humor and dealing with serious issues as well as your frankness.
I live in Alberta, Canada, where we recently voted in a conservative provincial government to replace a socialist.
Provincial government.
When the old government was in, they made a law that prohibited school teachers from telling parents if their kids were in a GSA, which is a gay-straight alliance, basically a safe space for LGBTQ, MNOP people.
This was to protect students in the alliances from any consequences they may or may not receive at home.
The new conservative government has changed the law to allow teachers the option to tell parents if they feel like it's a safe thing to say.
I feel that it is a right as a parent and a taxpayer to know what my kid is doing at school.
Some people think it's the right of students to not have to share that information with their parents, which I guess is freedom of speech.
Is it possible that these two rights infringe on each other, making a conundrum, or am I mistaken to think that these are both rights?
I realize that our constitutional rights are different up here in the Great White North, but any thoughts or clarification would be appreciated.
P.S.
I hope your Achilles heals quickly.
Prayers for you and your family.
And the bees.
Thanks, Justin.
I assume this is not Trudeau I'm talking to here because that was way too coherent and rational to be Trudeau.
I think that this isn't really about the free speech or privacy of the students versus parental rights.
I think that's kind of a false dichotomy.
I don't think you're talking about competing rights.
Are these rights in competition?
I don't think they are because that's not really what we're dealing with here.
I think the crux of it is this, that the schools know, right?
The schools know what clubs the kids are involved in.
So it's not some private piece of information.
And then the real question is, is there anything about your child That the schools have a right to know, but you don't?
Should there be any details about your child's life that any faculty member at school knows or could know, but is unknown to you?
I think the answer is obviously no.
So this really, it's not, it's got nothing to do with free speech or, certainly doesn't have anything to do with privacy, because being involved in a club at school is not a private matter, that's a public matter.
Clubs at schools are not private.
These aren't secret clubs, okay?
Everyone knows who's in the club.
So it's not a privacy thing.
I don't see how it's a speech thing at all.
It's really about who should sort of know the most about a child, the parent or the school.
Now, you said it right there.
You said, protect kids from their parents.
And that was the idea behind, apparently, the law in Alberta originally saying, we're not going to tell the parents because we're going to protect the kids from their parents.
I agree that there are some kids who do need to be protected from their parents, but those are parents who are actually abusive and unfit and should be in prison.
If there's any child out there who really needs to be protected from their parent, that's a parent who should be in jail.
As a general rule, though, schools should not be generally, as a blanket policy, protecting kids from their parents.
That's not the way it should go.
Schools should not be coming in between kids and their parents.
Schools should not be trying to take over the role of the parent.
And I think that's what this is really about, it seems to me.
This is really about schools wanting to have the role of the parents.
Wanting to know things about the student that the parent doesn't know.
Wanting to have the upper hand over the parent.
And that is, I mean, that is a really significant piece of information that, what, the schools think they should know and the parents shouldn't?
I mean, just think about that.
The schools should know more about your child's sexual orientation than you do?
The kid's first period, you know, social studies teacher should know more about that than you as the pets?
It's crazy to me.
It's insane.
And, you know, it's just more reason for me, in my opinion, to, if you can, to get the kids out of the public school system.
This is from A bookaholic anonymous dropout says, Dear Crippled Matt, Frustrated bookaholics across the nation are spending hours and hours trying to figure out what the books are on your shelf.
Would you please relieve our misery and tell us the titles of the books?
A close-up of the bookshelf would work, but I might recommend you remove what looks like a bottle of cough syrup first.
Well, legend has it that I did a show a little while ago where the focus was off on my camera so that I'm not in focus but my bookshelf is in focus.
And as the story goes, the reason why that happened is because I'm an idiot who doesn't know how to work a camera and that's why that happened.
I don't know, you know, I can't I can neither confirm nor deny these stories, but you could go searching for that footage.
And then if you found it, you could see the bookshelf in all of its glory and all of the titles very crystal clear.
By the way, that's not cough syrup.
That is holy water.
All right.
Let's do one.
Let me do one more.
This is from Richard, says, greetings, great overlord and omnipotence of the coming era of your rule.
As a civil war reenactor and military historian, I am curious if you could share with us your top five civil war personalities and why, in your view, it is important to not only study but remember this epic history we all share.
I thought this question timely, seeing as you mentioned you were binge reading the war, and I hope to hear your thoughts.
Speedy and healthy recovery.
Thanks for all you do.
So that's interesting.
So this caught my eye.
You said top five Civil War personalities.
So, you know, not top five Civil War generals or leaders.
You're looking just for the most interesting personalities, I guess, is what you're looking for.
So that's a fascinating way of looking at it.
OK, so in no particular order, I guess I would say, well, I'd put Stonewall Jackson on the list.
Now, he would make my list of top five generals, although he'd probably be number one for me.
But I'd also put him in as a top personality.
Because I find him fascinating.
I've read three biographies about him.
He seems like the kind of person that a novelist would invent.
And that's why I love studying the Civil Wars, because there are so many people, so many events that you read and you think, was that person really like that?
Did that really happen?
It seems like something someone would invent.
It seems like a story that someone made up.
But of course, it's real.
I mean, this really happened.
So Stonewall Jackson, he's this kind of odd, nerdy, soft-spoken guy who all the students at VMI, where he was a professor before the war, all the students sort of make fun of him and don't take him very seriously, tend to laugh at him and tease him.
And then the Civil War comes around and he ends up commanding troops and he reveals himself to be this brilliant, hard-nosed, Um, still eccentric, yet brave leader of men.
You know, he just he was someone who was just sort of born for that moment and became this great leader once the war started.
Probably my favorite anecdote about Stonewall Jackson is from his deathbed, kind of famous.
Certainly, if you've studied the war, you already know this.
But after he was shot by his own men at the Battle of Chancellorsville, accidentally, friendly fire accident, and then he's recovering, he gets pneumonia, now he's dying of pneumonia.
And it's a Sunday, he's at death's door on a Sunday, it's about a week after he sustained the wound originally.
And the surgeon comes in and Stonewall says, you know, doctor, my wife tells me that I'm going to die today.
Is that true?
And the doctor says, yes, I'm afraid so.
And he says, good, good.
I've always wanted to die on a Sunday.
And I just, I find that to be, I don't know.
I just, you find that a lot in the civil war, just these men who were incomprehensibly brave and had no qualms about their own death.
Not that they were suicidal or something, but just they, Put honor and patriotism and all that so far above their own physical safety.
And I really just admire that.
I'd also put Abraham Lincoln on there.
Lincoln is a fascinating character in many ways.
I haven't studied him.
I don't, you know, I haven't studied sort of the political leaders as much as the military ones in the civil war, but I think he's another one that prior to his election, uh, was seen as this kind of unremarkable, somewhat strange guy.
Uh, yet he rose to the moment and obviously ultimately will go down as one of the most consequential Americans.
Ever to live.
I would put George McClellan on the list.
Now, he, of course, would not make a list of top generals, but as far as top personalities, I think he's an interesting, he's an interesting personality because he's so diametrically opposed to, he's the exact opposite, basically, of Stonewall Jackson, Abraham Lincoln, Grant, Lee.
He's the opposite of all them in that he's this flamboyant, arrogant guy who got a lot of hype, you know, when he was appointed to Command the army, but then when it came down to it and the boat started flying, he was, you know, he became timid and afraid and he shrank away and he was a huge disappointment.
Grant, as I just mentioned, I think he fits the theme of these guys who prior to the war, you never would have expected to be great leaders, historic leaders.
Grant was a failure in business.
He was an alcoholic.
But and, you know, in fact, even when the war started in the West, even after Shiloh, even after his early victories in the West, he was still doubted by the public, doubted by his superiors.
Yet he would be ultimately the one to take down Robert E. Lee.
And then finally, I guess I would put Nathan Bedford Forrest, I think.
Definitely a very flawed man.
He was a slave trader before the war, but someone with no military training at all.
Very little education of any kind.
Basically illiterate, I believe, or totally illiterate, I think.
Yet he just had this raw talent, raw military genius, and incredible bravery.
Incredible physical bravery, which he was able to use to torment the Union in the West all throughout the war.
His famous quote is, he said, war means fighting, and fighting means killing.
It was just very simple, straightforward, that was his approach, and he said, you know, this is my job, just to kill people.
And so that makes him an interesting, maybe not an admirable character in many respects, but an interesting one in any event.
All right.
And by the way, I know that media matters.
They like to monitor this show and they go through it every day to find Um, parts of it that they can then put on Twitter to accuse me of being a racist or homophobe or whatever.
And my prediction right now is that they're going to take that bit, that what I just said there about Nathan Bedford Forrest, and it's going to, they're going to put that on Twitter.
It's going to be Matt admires slave, Matt Walsh admires slave trader.
Um, Matt Walsh comes out as pro slavery.
So that's my, that's my Nostradamus prediction right there.
Hello again to my Media Matters fans.
And we'll leave it there.
Thanks, everybody, for watching.
Thanks for listening.
Godspeed.
Hey, everyone, it's Andrew Klavan, host of The Andrew Klavan Show.
Hayden Biden came out of Hayden yesterday to attack Donald Trump, and virtually everything he said was distorted or untrue, or distorted and untrue.
But we know the news media will never fact-check him or question him or even allow anyone to object to him without the danger of being deplatformed and silenced.
So, this election is going to be not just a battle between Donald Trump and Biden or some other Democrat.
It's going to be a fight between reality and the Democrats' carefully constructed empire of lies.
