Ep. 284 - The Compassionate Answer To The Border Crisis
Leftists are finally realizing that there is a crisis on the southern border. But their solution only makes the problem worse. What's a real solution? We’ll talk about it. Also, a liberal film critic says that Toy Story is racist because there are no black toys in the movie. And San Francisco is banning e-cigs and vape pens. When are we going to realize that you won't stop kids from smoking by making it illegal? Date: 06-26-2019
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Today on the Matt Wall Show, there is a crisis on the southern border, but what can we do about it?
Well, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's answer is to go down there for photo ops, but what's a better answer?
What's a compassionate answer to the problem on the border?
We'll talk about that today.
Also, and this is not a joke, folks, but a liberal film critic says that Toy Story 4 is racist.
Because there are no black toys.
Yes, she really said that.
We'll talk about that today and other interesting topics on The Matt Wall Show.
Okay, so a guy named Pierre, or Yvonne Pierre Aguirre posted some photos to Twitter yesterday.
These are photos of a trip that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez took to the border a year ago, apparently, and we're told that she took the trip to the border not for publicity.
In fact, she took a break from campaigning.
A break from campaigning.
to go to the border to protest our immigration system, basically.
The photos are so transparently staged and phony that it's almost physically painful to look at them.
It's difficult to look because they are so contrived.
But let's take a look at them anyway.
So here you go.
Here are the photos that were posted.
I got a lot of retweets and likes and people were saying that, oh, well, in fact, some people were We're very touched by these photos, but there are a lot of people, even apparently AOC supporters, who said, come on, you know, I like you, but this is ridiculous.
So there's AOC, you see her standing next to a fence, looking right into the camera, very sad, disappointed, kind of concerned look on her face.
That look right there, you see right?
That is a look that I get from my wife a lot, especially when I make puns.
It's a very familiar look.
And then we have her right after she looked into the camera.
Now she's covering her face in despair.
And then now she's doubled over.
Okay, so now she's really going in for the, this is the dramatic moment, the climax.
Utterly overcome by despair, now she's doubled over, covering her face.
This actually looks like, this looks like me when I go to a bar and find out that they only have Miller Lite and Coors on tap.
It's a very similar, like, no, why, why, why?
Those beers taste like watered-down goat urine.
So I do the same kind of thing.
I understand that, actually.
Okay, and now here she is again.
Now she's regained her composure, but she's still looking quite sad and now, though, angry and disturbed.
This is the look that I give when I'm stuck in the car with all three kids and they started singing songs from The Wiggles.
This is the look—actually, no, that's—go back to the one of her doubled over.
No, that's me.
That's actually me when I'm in the car and the kids are singing.
So it's difficult to drive.
It's a little bit dangerous for me to be doing that while driving.
Anyway, so those are the pictures.
I mean, it's just a joke.
Now, the crisis down on our border is not a joke.
That is a serious problem.
We're going to talk about that today.
But she is making a joke out of it by using it as a... You know, this is very similar.
Remember those stories a couple weeks ago of the Instagram influencers?
Who are showing up at Chernobyl to take selfies, sometimes half-nude selfies.
This is very similar to that.
This is essentially a glorified Instagram influencer going to the site of a real human travesty for a photo opportunity.
Disgraceful.
Well, as I said, there's more that needs to be discussed about our border.
But first, a word from Wise Company.
You know, Wise Company freeze-dried food is very easy to prepare, and the best part is that it can be stored for 25 years.
25 years.
That is longer than I've been alive.
I'm only 20 years old, in case you didn't know.
There are a lot of practical benefits of that, but I think maybe the greatest benefit to having that 25 years is the peace of mind that comes with being prepared with food.
in case of an emergency.
Emergencies come in many forms, you know, hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes, flood, wildfires, wildfires, power outages, even job loss, something like that.
You may need to be prepared for all of those.
Wise Company takes an innovative approach in providing dependable, simple, and affordable freeze-dried food for emergency preparedness and outdoor use.
You can't know what tomorrow is going to bring, you don't know what the future is going to hold, but you can have peace of mind knowing that you'll be ready for Whatever is on the way.
This week my listeners get any Wise Emergency or Outdoor Food product at an extra 25% off the lowest mark price at wisefoodstorage.com when entering Walsh at checkout or if you call 855-475-3089 plus Shipping is free, so this can't get any better.
WISE has a... Well, in fact, it does get better because WISE has a 90-day, no-questions-asked return policy, so there's no risk in taking the initiative to get yourself and your family more prepared today.
But I don't think you're going to want to return it because I don't think you're going to get the food and then say to yourself, you know what?
I don't actually want to be prepared for an emergency.
I'll send it back.
If you love your family anyway, you wouldn't do that.
That's wisefoodstorage.com promo code WALSH to get any WISE emergency or outdoor food product at an extra 25% off and free shipping.
All right, the company Wayfair has been the target of protests and outrage by the left because it's selling furniture to migrant detention centers.
In fact, a bunch of employees of the company, over 500 of them, are planning to walk out today in protest of it.
But wait a second, I thought we were upset That the kids at these centers don't have beds to sleep in.
And that is upsetting, I agree, because they should have beds, right?
So, now the centers are getting beds, and that's a problem too?
You're protesting that they don't have beds, and then they get beds, and you're protesting also.
It just, it doesn't make any sense.
Over 500 employees signed a letter to the company.
The letter says, in part, This particular order for over $200,000 worth of bedroom furniture is destined for Carrizo Springs, Texas to a facility that will be outfitted to detain up to 3,000 migrant children seeking asylum in the United States.
So it sounds like this detention facility is trying to be prepared.
It is outfitting itself, knowing, you know, the people running the facility know that there's going to be an influx of children.
So they're trying to prepare and make sure that they've got places for the kids to sleep and stay.
That's good.
That's what we want, right?
It continues, the practice of detaining children and adults on our southern border has been condemned since its inception, but since the acceleration of the practice in 2018 and the increase in death and injury that has come with that acceleration, we have seen more vocal condemnation of the practice.
We, the undersigned, are writing to you from a place of concern and anger about the atrocities being committed at our southern border.
They said condemned since its inception.
No, it has not been condemned since its inception.
Because the left was not condemning it during the Obama administration, and it was happening then also.
Now, the way they get around it is they try to say, oh yeah, it was happening during Obama's administration, we didn't talk about it then, we didn't care.
In fact, not only did we not talk about it, but it wasn't just that the left wasn't talking about the crisis on the border back in the Obama administration, it's that they were actively denying that there was a crisis.
So now they're condemning it.
The way they get around it is they say, well, uh, you know, it's, it's, it's, uh, the problem's gotten worse since then.
Okay.
The problem's gotten worse, you claim.
Um, but so you're more concerned now than you were before that, that would justify being more concerned, except that you weren't concerned at all.
Before you went from zero to a hundred, there was no 25 or 50 in between, like there should have been.
Which really makes it seem like this is political partisanship and the only reason you're pretending to care now is that Trump is president.
And they also say that, what are they phrasing?
The practice of detaining children is condemned.
Well, the mere fact that we are detaining people is obviously not a problem.
And you didn't think it was four years ago, and you were right.
The simple act of detaining people is, there are scenarios where you need to do that.
It's a problem when the conditions at these facilities aren't up to par, and sometimes they're not.
But that's where getting furniture, getting food and all that, that means that we're improving conditions and that's what we're supposed to want.
The hypocrisy on this issue, the partisanship, the lack of real concern Um, is infuriating because there is a real crisis down there, as I said, and that crisis comes with a significant human cost.
In fact, there's a photo, um, that has been all over social media for the past day that really shows that cost.
I think it shows two immigrants from El Salvador, El Salvador, uh, excuse me.
Um, father and daughter apparently and They're washed up on the shores of the Rio Grande both have died Lying face down in the water the young girl two years old has her arm around her father's neck.
It's just a it's a it's a devastating gut-wrenching photo that you can't I mean if you're a human being you can't help but be moved when you see it and Um, especially as a father myself.
Well, even if I wasn't a father, obviously I know I would still know that it's tragic for people to die, especially children.
But as a father, I see this kind of stuff and inevitably I'm going to think of my own kids and imagine my own kids in that situation.
It's unspeakable.
I'm not going to show you the photo here because it's extremely upsetting and not everyone wants to see something like that.
But if you do want to see it, you can easily find it online.
Um, now this photo is being used.
And we could stop right there.
The problem is that the photo is being used.
It shouldn't be used for anything.
It's not a political tool.
This is real life.
This is real death.
This is something real that's happening.
It's not a ammunition to be used in an argument.
Or it shouldn't be.
But that's how people are treating it.
So it's being used to, of course, make the case against Trump's immigration politics or policies.
Even though, again, the problem didn't start with Trump.
But aside from that, Trump is not responsible for this poor child's death.
He didn't do that.
There are many authorities, many entities that you could point the finger at.
Trump is not one of them.
So how do we prevent more of these tragedies?
We need to do everything we can to discourage illegal border crossings.
Crossing the border illegally is incredibly dangerous, especially for children.
To sneak across the borders of a country, it's a very hazardous undertaking.
And the best way to protect human life is to discourage people from undertaking it in the first place.
There are a lot of ways to do that.
For one thing, people... I think the first thing that needs to happen, and this is not something that we can primarily do, but people should be working within these Central American countries to improve conditions and punish crime, thus encouraging people to stay.
I mean, rather than having everyone abandon ship and leave their countries, which I understand the instinct to do that.
And as again, as a father, um, you know, if I had kids and I happened to have the bad luck of being born in one of those countries and living in one of those countries, uh, I'd want to leave too.
I think I would.
So on one hand, if everyone leaves, then it makes it difficult to clean up the problems
Yeah.
within the countries.
But so that's a problem.
But if I was a father, I think I would say, you know what, I'm more concerned about taking care of my own children than I am about enacting change generally in the country.
My first responsibility is to my kids.
So that's the case.
And I understand that.
But the fact remains that it's a self-perpetuating problem.
Because these countries are in terrible shape.
Everybody wants to leave, but everyone's leaving, so there's no one sticking around to fix the problems, and so then it just perpetuates itself.
Now, when Trump famously said back when he launched his campaign that they're not sending their best, which is true in some cases.
In some cases, we are getting criminals and drug dealers and so on.
Not all of them, of course, but there is some of that, and it's a problem.
But when he said that, leftists were very outraged and they insisted that no, they are sending their best.
And I agree that a certain significant portion of these people fall into that category.
But you see the problem here.
Those people are coming here If they are good, law-abiding, hard-working, then those are exactly the kinds of people that these countries need in order to clean themselves up.
Especially when you've got... Now, we talk about the kids and the families coming over, because that's what affects us emotionally the most.
But the fact remains, when you look at these caravans of people and everything, many of them are single young men.
And those people especially are the kinds of people, they're physically healthy, strong, capable, don't have any dependence, young men, people like that, those especially are the people who need to stay Or whose countries need them to stay there and help rebuild it.
But how do we get people to stay?
It's a self-perpetuating problem.
People are leaving.
Makes the problem worse.
How do we get people to stay?
Well, we'll talk about that.
But before we get into that, I want to thank our sponsors over at Dynatrap.
Dynatrap is the leading manufacturer of outdoor mosquitoes and insect traps.
And now they've come up with a solution for indoor pests because You know, in the summertime, this is one of the most annoying things you have to deal with.
Summer is great.
I'm not actually a big fan of summer, but some people like the summertime for some reason.
If you like it to be hot and you're sweating all the time and if you enjoy that.
And also, if you like insects inside your home, because that's another thing that comes with summer.
It's a very annoying problem.
And when you have those insects flying around, especially flies, you know flies, when they land on your food, they vomit on your food.
Did you know that?
I'm pretty sure that's true.
I saw it on Wikipedia, I think.
Either way, you don't want them on your food, so what do you do about that?
Well, that's where the Dynatrap Fly Light comes into play.
Forget those disgusting fly strips, the little sticky things where the flies land.
Forget about that.
The Dynatrap Fly Light looks like a subtle night light that plugs into any indoor outlet.
I've been using the Dynatrap Fly Light for a couple days now, a couple weeks now, really, and it's just insane the number of insects that these things catch.
And they really do clean up the problem.
Get yours at dynatrap.com.
That's d-y-n-a-t-r-a-p.com.
Enter the promo code Walsh and receive 15% off any of their products.
Dynatrap is the safe, silent, simple solution to household insect control.
All right, so we're talking about what can be done to minimize The human cost, the human tragedy, crisis on the border.
And one of those ways, I think the main way, is to get people to discourage illegal immigration in the first place.
And the way that you do that is we shut down the border.
We enforce our immigration laws.
We deport people, yes.
We stop offering entitlements to illegals.
In fact, we make it clear that if you come here illegally, you're not going to get entitlements.
We make it clear that if you come here illegally, it's not going to work.
You won't be able to sneak in.
Yes, we build a wall.
We build a physical barrier.
That's going to make it even more difficult.
It's just yet another roadblock in the way.
We do all of that.
That's how we preserve human life.
We want people to think that this is, to try to come here illegally, is a dangerous, potentially fatal decision.
If we care about human life, and if we're compassionate, if we care about these people, then we want to discourage them from doing that.
and this is how we discourage them.
But if we insist on On keeping the borders open, on just welcoming anyone, not enforcing our immigration laws, saying anyone can come in, then all you're doing is you're encouraging more people, like that father, to try to bring their children on such a dangerous journey, and more people are going to die.
All right.
Let's talk about this.
As we have established repeatedly, the left is now beyond parody at this point.
You can't satirize them anymore.
It's just impossible to do.
And here's Exhibit 45,000 to demonstrate that.
BBC Radio 4's Saturday review show did a segment on Toy Story 4, which just came out last week and which I'm looking forward to taking my kids to.
But apparently maybe I shouldn't take My Kids because it is a racist, sexist movie that also discriminates against disabled people, apparently.
That's according to Stella Duffy, who's a film critic, I guess.
She came on the show to share her thoughts on the film.
A film that, in case you didn't know, is animated.
It's an animated children's movie about talking toys.
In case you were unaware of what Toy Story is, that's what it is.
And this is what she had to say about it.
Listen to this.
Hello, my name is Stella Duffy, and I didn't like Toy Story 4.
I'm the Grinch who hated it.
Seriously, it's 2019.
What on earth are Disney doing?
Having a film that, for a start, has no leads that are black characters.
Yes, there are black actors here, but they're yellow and they're green and they're plush.
How can they possibly think it's all right now?
I mean, yeah, maybe 1995, which was also wrong then as well, actually.
But now, to be seriously, every single humanoid toy is white.
It's just shocking.
Then let's talk about the white feminism on display here.
Oh, look, Bo Peep's a feminist.
No, she's not.
She's still going to fall in love.
She's still going to get all happy.
Not spoiling.
Still going to get all happily ever after.
That's not feminism.
That's a woman kicks off her skirt to reveal bloomers, has a couple of thoughts, does some high wire acts, and it's disablist.
Okay, so it's covering every base.
Okay, so there you go.
It's racist, sexist, disablist.
Disableist.
I thought ableist was the term.
So ableist is when you discriminate against disabled people.
So then disableist, I guess, is when you discriminate against non-disabled people.
Well, anyway.
She's upset that there are also no black leads.
Okay, but all the leads are toys, which means they're all Chinese.
Either Chinese or they have no race at all, because they're toys.
I mean, one of the lead characters is a toy slinky dog.
Another is a green dinosaur.
Another is a pink piggy bank.
Another is a Mr. Potato Head.
What ethnicity is a Mr. Potato Head?
Irish?
I mean, that doesn't make any sense.
Should the film... What do you want?
Do you want the film... So, even though we've got all these toys who have no race, no ethnicity, you're saying there should be a black lead in the film.
So, do you want... Should the film feature, like, a miniature, real-life black person?
Should this suddenly become Honey, I Shrunk the Kids?
And a black person the size of a doll walks on and, you know, interacts with the toys?
Just so we can check off that demographic box?
It's obviously absurd.
And this is...
This is really mental illness.
That person you just heard is mentally ill.
Clearly.
And I mean that sincerely.
I mean I'm concerned about her.
And she has a problem because Little Bo Peep falls in love.
The characters fall in love.
Imagine how bitter and sad and lonely you have to be.
To get ticked off that the characters in an animated children's movie fall in love.
But this is... You know what?
I like to write satire articles sometimes.
I'll write satirical pieces for the Daily Wire.
And if someone had suggested to me Two weeks ago.
That I write a satirical article complaining that Toy Story is racist because there are no black leads.
I would have said, no I'm not going to do that because that's obviously too absurd.
That's too far out there.
For satire to work, it has to be a little absurd.
Whatever you're satirizing, you're taking that line of thinking, that philosophy, and you're just taking it to an absurd extreme to demonstrate the inherent absurdity of that line of thinking.
But I would have thought, well, that's too extreme.
You know, that's it.
I mean, they wouldn't read it.
Come on.
Like, that's a straw man.
They wouldn't really.
But no, they really are complaining that Toy Story is racist because there are no black.
There are no black toys.
By the way, Toy Story 4, you might try to justify this by saying, well, maybe she means that there are no black voice actors, but that isn't true.
Key and Peele are in.
They are voice actors in this movie.
They voice two plush Plush dolls.
But the problem is that the dolls are not black.
The dolls are like blue and pink or something.
Just absolutely ridiculous.
All right.
So, one other thing to mention before we get to emails.
San Francisco, a city that resembles a large outhouse at this point, has decided to really focus on the important issues.
It has banned the use and sale of e-cigarettes and vape pens.
Now, I'm pretty sure that you can essentially legally shoot up heroin in San Francisco.
I don't know if that's actually a law in the books.
I'm not recommending it.
I'm just saying that people do that anyway, and they don't seem to be arrested for it.
They also defecate on the sidewalks.
So you could do all of that without much fear of legal repercussion.
But no, you can't smoke an e-cigarette or vape.
Um, the mayor, this is the reason the mayor gave for the ban.
The mayor said, there's so much we don't know about the health impacts of these products, but we do know that e-cigarette companies are targeting our kids and their advertising and getting them hooked on addictive nicotine products.
Okay.
So did you catch that?
We don't know the health impacts and that's why we're going to ban it.
Eh, we don't know much about this.
Better ban it just in case.
Well, you know, there could be a problem with it.
We don't know.
So let's just ban it.
Ban it and ask questions later.
That's the philosophy now of the nanny staters.
Listen, I don't smoke e-cigarettes.
I don't vape.
I do tend to think that vaping... It's not for me.
I think vaping looks kind of ridiculous.
If you're going to smoke, I think, you know, smoke like a man, smoke a cigar.
That's not a real recommendation, kids.
I mean, don't smoke at all.
I'm just saying that if you, I mean, if you had to choose, if someone put a gun to your head and said, smoke one of these, I would say, go for the cigar.
So, you know, this is not, it's not like I'm trying to defend something that I do because I don't, I don't use these cigarettes, but it's just, when are we going to get it through our heads here?
That this kind of nanny state, Um, approach does not work.
You're only, when you do this, um, you're only making whatever you're banning or just making it seem cooler.
And maybe at a certain point we have to just accept the fact that we're not going to ever stop all the teenagers from smoking something.
It just, it's the reality, it seems like, I mean, just looking at the human history, At least modern human history.
The teenagers, some of them are always, there's going to be something that they're smoking.
So yeah, we got them, we got them.
So it used to be back in the, you know, 70s and 80s that all the teenagers smoked cigarettes.
And then we, we embarked on this 20 year campaign to stop people from smoking cigarettes.
And that kind of worked.
And so then they just graduated to e-cigarettes and vape pens.
Like there's always going to be something.
And I think at a certain point we have to just realize that and accept it doesn't mean we doesn't mean we stop discouraging it.
It just means we stop trying to stop it by force of law with regulations and fines and penalties and all that.
Because really at the end of the day that's regulations and fines and penalties and laws.
That's not actually what what stopped kids from smoking cigarettes.
I think the main thing was just discouraging it, just by pointing out, like, yeah, you can do it, but it causes cancer, it's going to make your teeth yellow, so on and so forth.
Just hammering on that, and then people chose not to.
And also I think when it did have an effect when you stopped seeing so much smoking on TV and the celebrities weren't doing it quite as much that it didn't seem as cool to the kids and so they didn't do it.
But what I'm trying to point out here is that the cool factor is big with kids.
And that's the reason why they were all smoking in the 80s because it was just a cool thing to do.
The problem is and trying to make something less cool is difficult.
When you are an uncool adult, and which we all are uncool as adults, and you notice something that kids are doing that is destructive, yet they think is cool, and you're saying to yourself, I want to make that thing uncool, it's really difficult to do because you're uncool.
So whatever you say about it, the more you complain about it, you're just making the thing cooler.
You see, that's the way the equation works.
So it's a difficult trick to pull.
I think that it was basically pulled off with cigarettes.
It took a long time.
But one thing I know for sure is that you're not going to make something less cool by making it illegal.
That I'm 100% certain.
All right, we're going to talk about it.
We're going to get to some emails here in a minute.
But before we do, a quick word about shaving.
Did you know that the average guy spends 3,000 hours of his lifetime shaving?
Which is an interesting statistic.
I don't know where they get it from.
I've always thought to myself that, this is one thing that I hope, that when we die and we're, you know, kind of in that big waiting room in the sky, waiting to go in and talk to the big man and find out which direction we're headed, right?
And we're all just kind of, I imagine it being like a big dentist-like waiting room.
There's a couple of old magazines.
So maybe out-of-date magazines from 1730 or something.
But what I hope is that while we're there, maybe they give us a fun little packet that has a bunch of just interesting statistics about our life.
Like, this is how many hours you spent shaving.
This is how many days you spent sleeping.
That kind of thing.
This is how many gallons of orange juice you drank in your life.
Just random things.
So I always hope that.
Anyway, 3,000 hours of the life shaving.
Don't waste four months of your life overpaying for poor performing razors.
That's where Harry's comes in.
Get Harry's, a razor that's so sharp, you can shave less often and you'll save money.
It's just $2 per blade.
I use Harry's myself because I do shave contrary to popular belief.
I got to shave the neck and around here so I don't look like Chewbacca.
And the thing I love about Harry's is that number one, the price.
Razors are ridiculously expensive.
Usually these are not.
Number two, it's a very smooth and close shave.
I don't even have to use shaving cream when I do it.
You could join the 10 million people who have tried Harry's.
Claim your special offer by going to harrys.com slash Matt Walsh.
You know, Harry's founders were two regular guys tired of getting ripped off, paying for overpriced gimmicks,
vibrating heads, flex balls, handles that look like something from a sci-fi movie
Harry's makes quality, durable blades at a fair price.
That's just $2 a blade.
You can get a trial set that comes with everything you need for a close, comfortable shave.
Weighted ergonomic handle for an easy grip.
Five blade razor with a lubricating strip.
A trimmer blade for a close-up shave.
Listeners of my show can redeem their trial set at Harrys.com slash Matt Walsh.
And if you prefer to shop in store, you can go to Walmart and Target and get Harry's there as well.
All right, let's answer some emails.
MattWalshShow at gmail.com.
MattWalshShow at gmail.com.
This is from Denise, says, Hi Matt, thank you for the witty sarcasm you add to my life every day.
I am wondering if you believe in spanking young children as a form of discipline.
Do you spank your own children?
Well, Denise, that's a tough question because I'm of two minds when it comes to this.
Well, I can tell you what we do.
That's not tough.
We don't spank.
Am I against spanking on principle?
I suppose I'm not.
The Bible does say, spare the rod, spoil the child, and people use that as a justification for spanking, or even people will use that to make the case that we are morally obliged to spank.
But the problem though is that If you're claiming to take that verse totally literally, then that means that you must hit your kid with a rod.
Do you use an actual rod?
Do you take out like a metal rod to spank your kid?
Because if you don't, and probably you don't, hopefully you don't, then you are literally sparing the rod.
I mean, in a literal sense, you are defying that particular passage because you are not using a rod to hit your kid.
So my point is that I think even those of us who spank, I think we all kind of take that passage In a more general way to mean don't spoil your kid, don't coddle your kid too much, instill discipline.
That's the way that I take it.
I don't take it as we are somehow committing a sin if we don't spank our kids.
I'll just tell you my thing with it.
I could never quite bring myself to see violence as a parenting technique.
And I know that calling it violence is going to upset people who spank their kids.
It seems extreme.
Maybe it is an extreme way of putting it.
I mean, it is, but it is, you're physically hitting someone, right?
So that are, I don't know.
I mean, it is violence, technically speaking.
Now, spanking, if it's really spanking and not beating, spanking is, and this is where maybe you say, well, it's not really violence because it's not about inflicting physical pain.
Now, there may be a little bit of physical pain, but that's not the point.
The point isn't, look, if you're just grabbing your kid because you're ticked off and you're just looking to let out your aggression and so you start spanking him, well, then that's physical abuse.
You're abusing your kid.
You're a physical abuser in that case.
In fact, I would go so far as to say, if you spank your kid angry, you are physically abusing them.
That is, you're hitting your kid because you're pissed off.
That's what that is.
And that is definitely wrong.
But what about a scenario where you're not angry, you're calmed down, you're not doing this because you're trying to make your kid hurt.
But it's just, it is a form of discipline and you approach it yourself in a disciplined way, in a sort of business-like way, like, look, this is the penalty.
So I'm going to spank you.
I'll give you a hug afterwards because I love you, but this is the penalty.
I think if we talk about the non-abusive spanking, that's what it has to be.
Unfortunately, though, just from talking to people, it seems like a lot of parents, that's not really what spanking is for them.
They may say that it is, but really, they're ticked off.
And that, again, is abusive.
But let's talk about the spanking where you're approaching it from a disciplined perspective, and it's not just anger.
Well, no, I don't think that the parents that spank that way are abusing their kids.
But I still just choose not to do it.
And I think because I could never, for me it always seemed like if I spank and I get the kids to behave based on that, then basically the implied threat is, do what I want or I'll hit you.
And again, I know that's not what parents are literally saying to their kids, at least I hope they're not.
That's not the intention.
But I personally couldn't get past seeing it that way.
And one thing that I've learned as a parent Is if something just doesn't feel right to you, if it, if it doesn't, if it doesn't feel right for your family, um, for your situation, then listen to your gut, follow your instincts.
I think if you follow your gut, um, if you follow your instincts, you'll be right about 98% of the time as a parent, it seems to me.
So I'm, um, I'm not sitting in judgment of parents who do use corporal punishment.
My parents did.
Not that much, but they used it.
I'm not traumatized by it.
I don't feel like I was abused.
I survived.
I'm fine.
But still, it just didn't seem right to me.
So, I don't do it.
I have my reasons for not doing it, which I've tried to, in a babbling way, explain.
But I do believe that there is an appropriate way of going about it.
And parents who do that have my blessing.
Not that they need it.
All right, from Rebecca, says, Hi Matt, do you believe in ghosts?
Just curious if it's a belief that clashes with our Christian faith.
Yeah, I think it does clash with our Christian faith.
Now, if by ghosts you mean demonic spirits, then yeah, I believe in that.
That doesn't clash.
But if you mean the souls of dead people who are just sort of wandering around on earth randomly, then I think it does present a contradiction, or at least a problem theologically, because you die and You stand before God and then it's decided which direction you're going to head.
It's hard for me to see how God would allow some souls to just walk around on Earth scaring people.
What's the point?
Does God really do that?
Because there can't be any ghosts who are here by accident.
That has to be through God's will.
So does God really send a soul back to Earth?
Back to some old creepy house to walk around and scare children?
Um, you know, if I was God, then maybe I would do that just for fun, but I'm not God.
And I think that God is not nearly as petty as I am.
Thankfully.
Uh, this is from.
Johnny says, hello Mr. Lord Walsh.
Well, you don't have to call me that.
Lord Walsh is fine.
This is a very upfront but difficult for me question.
It's something that I've been struggling with for a while and I think it's something that might have ruined my past relationship of three years.
What is love?
Is there an objective definition?
Can scripture back it up?
Well, if you want an answer to that question, I think Cher.
Listen to that Cher song, What is Love?
She really provides the answer.
If I had to elaborate on that answer, I would say, I would second, secondarily, I would quote after Cher, Thomas Aquinas, who said that love, to love is to will the good of the other.
And I think that's the best definition that anyone has ever come up with.
And I think that if you read scripture, uh, you're going to find that that's the, that's the definition offered.
Not a direct, not directly, but all throughout scripture, you know, and that's one as, as I, as I, as I sometimes say about quoting from the Bible or using the Bible, um, we can't always look for one sentence, which just sort of parrots, whatever point we're trying to make.
I think we have to look at the totality of Scripture.
We have to look at the whole sort of story that's being told, and we have to take a more comprehensive view of it.
And so with a question like, what is love?
I think you're going to find that this answer, love is to will to good of the other, that is all throughout the Bible.
That's the answer that you get.
That's how love is portrayed.
And what that means is, I mean, it's pretty straightforward.
It means that if you love someone, then you want what is best for them.
And you not only want it, but as Aquinas says, to will it, meaning you're going to do what you can to help bring about what is best for them.
Now, in order for you to have a properly ordered and healthy and good love, Then you have to have a correct understanding of what is best for someone.
I think there are people who have an incorrect understanding of what is best.
So they love people, but they have an incomplete, sort of misdirected love because they don't understand what's actually best for the human person.
The ultimate goal of the human person is to go to heaven.
So ultimately, if you love someone, that means you want them to go to heaven and you're going to do whatever you can in your own way to help them In that quest.
That's what it means to love someone.
Now we can get into the Greek and start breaking down the different... Are we talking about agape love?
Are we talking about eros?
What kinds of love are we talking about?
There's the charitable love, there's the erotic romantic love, brotherly love.
The Greeks had different words for love, which is good because we only have the one and it can get confusing sometimes.
But the common thread That ties together all of those forms of love is that you are willing the good of the other.
As a follow-up to that, I think the sad reality is that there are a lot of people out there who don't love anyone.
Because I think there are a lot of people who really don't will the good of anyone but themselves.
At the end of the day, I think there are a lot of people who really don't care that much if anyone else ends up going to heaven or gets the good things in life.
I think there are a lot of people who just don't care about that.
They're focused on themselves.
And so they might will the good for you insofar as it will help them.
So if you're a selfish person in a marriage, you may sometimes act in a way that looks loving.
It has the appearance of love, but really what you're doing is you're just trying to make the other person happy because it's easier for you if they're happy.
So you're trying to sort of satiate them because it's going to be easier for you.
Or you're doing them a favor.
You're doing a good thing for them because you want them to do you a favor.
Or because you just want credit for it.
Or because you want to emotionally blackmail them later.
And you can say, remember when I did that thing for you and now you're doing this to me?
How dare you?
So there's a lot of that that goes on in marriages.
I think there are a lot of marriages where really there is no love.
Because neither spouse is really willing the good of the other for the sake of the other.
Maybe that's the addendum we should add to.
To will the good of the other for the sake of the other, not for your own.
So that is, I think, Love.
Thank you for the question.
Oh, and thanks for watching, everybody.
Thanks for listening.
Godspeed.
Today on The Ben Shapiro Show, we prepare for the first Democratic debate and the media get hypocritical about illegal immigration and crisis.