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July 10, 2019 - The Matt Walsh Show
48:15
Ep. 292 - The Largest Teachers Union In America Comes Out For Abortion

The largest teacher’s union in America just came out for abortion. Also, the effort to make kids stop vaping has gotten hilariously corny. And is air conditioning sexist? I can't believe we have to have this conversation, but we do, so we will. Date: 07-10-2019 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Today on The Matt Walsh Show, the largest teacher's union in America has just come out full throttle for abortion.
We'll talk about that.
Is it officially time to get out of the public school system and homeschool?
Well, I would say yes, but we'll discuss it.
Also, the efforts to make kids stop vaping have gotten hilariously corny.
We'll talk about the latest example there.
And is air conditioning sexist?
I can't believe it's necessary to have that conversation, but it is.
So we will today on the Matt Wall Show.
We begin today with extremely sad news.
I never thought I would have to say this.
I never thought it would come to this, but the great Eric Swalwell has ended his campaign for president.
Swalwell was our last hope.
He was the only light left shining in the dark.
He was the lighthouse on stormy shores, guiding us home.
And now that light is out.
And we are floating, drowning in the dark ocean.
I remember only a few days ago, my six-year-old son came up to me and we had a very real conversation.
He said, Daddy, it feels like there's no hope in the world.
It feels like we're all doomed.
Like we are just spinning chaotically through the void of space with no reason or purpose or destination in mind.
And I looked at him and I said, we do have hope.
We have Swalwell.
And he looked at me and he said, what is Swalwell?
And I said, stop talking back, go to your room.
What am I supposed to say to him now?
That Swalwell has ended.
Am I supposed to say to him, oh, never, nevermind.
You're right.
There is no purpose in life.
There is no hope.
We are doomed.
I.
You know, Swalwell left a campaign that excited the nation, a campaign that, at its zenith, polled at .5%.
How could you leave something like that, when so many people, literally tens and tens of people, wanted this man to be president?
Yeah, he still drops out.
So I just want to begin as a matter of respect with a moment of silence for Eric Swalwell and his campaign and also the future of the nation.
A moment of silence, please.
Thank you.
Okay.
You know, the interesting thing is that I I think Eric Swalwell's audience, oftentimes when he would give speeches, his audience somehow I think sensed, they had a premonition, maybe his audience was as sort of prophetic as Swalwell himself, they had a premonition that this moment would come because sometimes, I think very respectfully, beautifully, they would give him moments of silence during his speeches, like maybe you remember this moment.
But I will always be real with you.
I will be bold without the bull.
My wife and I, we fight insurance companies.
Bold without the bold.
Or bold without the bull.
Bull without the bold.
I'm not really sure what he said there, but it was very profound.
And to hear that moment of silence afterwards, just immense respect for this man.
Um, who has unfortunately left us all to die.
Okay.
Well, um, what we actually are going to begin with today is, is, uh, I want to talk about, uh, why, well, I think where this is going to lead is, uh, why you should consider homeschooling, which is something I've talked about many times.
There are about 80,000 chapters to this particular book about why you should homeschool rather than send your kid to public school.
Today we're going to focus on just one chapter, that is this.
The largest teachers union in the country just came out to passionately defend abortion.
And we're going to get to that in a moment.
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All right.
Alexandra DeSanctis over at National Review, and she's one of my favorite writers, by the way.
She's really on top of the abortion issue, a great pro-life advocate.
She has this story.
I'm going to read the first paragraph or two to you.
It says, over the weekend, the National Education Association adopted a new business item Declaring its support for, quote, the fundamental right to abortion under Roe v. Wade.
The NEA is the most influential teachers' union in the United States, with more than 3 million members.
It's also the nation's largest labor union of any kind.
Here's more from the document.
It says, the NEA will honor the leadership of women, non-binary, and trans people and other survivors who have come forward to publicly name their rapists and attackers in the growing international MeToo movement.
Furthermore, the NEA will include an assertion of our defense of a person's right to control their own body, especially for women, youth, and sexually marginalized people.
The NEA vigorously opposes all attacks on the right to choose and stands on the fundamental right to abortion under Roe v. Wade.
The statement goes on to assert that this new stance is necessary because, quote, the most misogynistic forces under Trump want to abolish the gains of the women's right movement.
And it goes on there.
So there you have it.
This is not a shock, of course.
We know that the NEA is a rabidly left-wing organization, has been forever.
Still, the NEA has affiliates in every state.
It has, as was mentioned there, three million members.
Three million.
And these are people that are teaching our children.
It's not just that they have a left-wing bias, but that they're comfortable.
They feel obliged, even, to be so blatant and so loud and proud about their bias.
So think about that for a moment.
If this is what the NEA says publicly, what do you think these teachers And by that I mean the true believers in the organization, the true left-wing believers, and they're not all true believers, all three million of them, but what do you think the true believers are saying to your kids when nobody else is around and when they don't have any other adult supervision?
What do you think they're doing with your kids psychologically?
It should go without saying, but I think it needs to be said anyway.
Teachers have immense power.
That's one of the reasons why I'm an advocate for homeschooling, because the teachers have such power that it's just... Is that power you really... Power over your kids, specifically.
Is that... Are you really going to trust another person with that kind of power?
If teachers are given a receptive, attentive mind, then they are going to have immense power over that mind.
And here's the problem.
If our kids go to school, we need for them to have receptive and attentive minds.
If they're not receptive, if they're not attentive, then school's a total waste of time and there's no point in even going.
And it is, therefore, a waste of time for many kids.
And there are a lot of good teachers who have to deal with the fact that a lot of the kids in there just aren't receptive to anything they're saying, and it's just a difficult situation.
But as for the kids who have, in a sense, the right mentality, that of receptiveness and attentiveness, now, for those kids, we need teachers to be extremely responsible and honest and respectful in how they handle those minds which they have been given for molding.
And many teachers, no doubt, are responsible and honest and they have integrity and they're respectful in how they deal with those minds.
I had some teachers like that myself growing up.
But listen, if all three million members of the NEA were responsible and honest, then there's no way the NEA would be the left-wing extremist organization that it is now.
I mean, it may not represent ideologically everybody in the organization, but it does represent a significant chunk of it.
If it didn't, then it wouldn't be a left-wing organization.
So, you have to think about that.
That there are, therefore, plenty of actual left-wing radicals in that organization.
They're the ones who have this power over your child's mind.
And just think of what they can do.
What they do, in fact, do.
with the receptive and attentive minds that they're given for molding.
It's a chilling thing to contemplate.
And that's why I think we should all at least consider the possibility that maybe we just can't trust.
I mean, you may, hopefully, if you send your kid to public school, there are some teachers at your kid's school that you do trust.
But there's no way you could trust all of them, especially if it's a large school.
You can't even know all of them.
Now, of course, you could ask the question.
Putting all that to the side, why the hell is the NEA chiming in on abortion at all?
What do they have to do with this issue?
They aren't teaching unborn children.
All the children they deal with are already born.
It is disturbing and creepy that they are so in favor of killing their future students.
But the fact is that abortion should be irrelevant because they don't have anything to do with it.
So why are they making official statements on abortion in the first place?
Doctrinal statements about it, really.
Well, Alexandra DeSantis in the article, she points out correctly that this is what intersectionalism, intersectionality or whatever you call it, is all about on the left, where no issue is allowed to stand on its own.
Everything is related to everything else.
And you must constantly prove you're bona fides, constantly present your left-wing resume to prove that you're in line with everything they think about everything.
You have to always, the way they put it, is you have to prove you're an ally.
You have to be an ally to all of the various different victim groups and all the special interests and everything.
And you have to prove that by reciting the doctrines of the left.
And that's what the NEA has become.
It's just, it's...
I don't know.
At what point we can complain about—this is one of the things that annoys me, because we as conservatives, we spend a lot of time complaining about the state of the culture, the state of society, so on and so forth.
I complain about it too.
At what point, though, Do we say, OK, you know, enough complaining.
I'm going to step up now and just and do something.
I'm just going to I'm going to.
Yes, I realize that I mean, the schools are a mess.
You've got this left wing idea indoctrination that goes on.
At what point do we say, OK, Rather than notice that fact and continue to send my kids into that environment and just whine about it online, at what point am I going to say, I'm going to make a radical change?
Even if it's a change that requires an enormous adjustment to my lifestyle, it requires enormous sacrifice, I'm going to make that change because my kids are worth it.
At what point do we say that?
Now, I know that there are People out there who literally just cannot homeschool.
It's just not an option.
Public school is the only choice for them.
It's the only thing they could do.
I know there are people in that situation.
Single parents, you know, they have to work.
So what are they going to do?
And if they can't afford private school or if there aren't any good private... And there are plenty of private schools that charge you a lot of money, but in the end are no better than public school.
So if you can't, you know, you got to work, can't afford a good private school, Or there just aren't any good ones in the area, then what choice do you have?
Public school is it, right?
And there could be, I'm sure, plenty of homes out there with two parents, where just economically, financially, they both have to work, at least right now, in order to survive.
So there are people in that situation who have to send their kids into public school, unfortunately.
But I think that's how we have to look at it.
Where public school is, I'm not saying it can't be an option for anyone or that you're doing something objectively, morally wrong by sending your kid to public school.
What I'm saying is, I think we have to look at it as last resort.
If there is literally no other option, then we do that.
But if there is any other option, we take that other option.
I think we have to look at it like that.
And if we all looked at it like that, then I think there would be, right now, a mass exodus from the public school.
Because there are plenty of parents who send their kid into the public school system, even though they really do have other options.
All right.
Okay, this is great.
I have to... I can't ignore this.
Representative Joyce Beattie is a Congresswoman from Ohio.
She's a Democrat, I believe.
She's 69 years old.
Her name is Joyce Beattie.
Okay, so she looks and has the name of and is the age of someone's grandmother, which is great.
She's, I'm sure, a wonderful grandmother.
But that context is important so that you can appreciate the comedy of what I'm about to show you.
You see, Joyce, she wants teens to stop vaping.
She thinks that vaping is bad and she wants people to stop doing it.
And so she put out a tweet yesterday and the tweet is supposed to encourage kids to stop vaping, but I'm not sure if it's going to do that, yet the tweet is a work of art.
Watch, I'll put it up on the screen.
Look at this.
It says, it says, hey teens, which actually, let's stop for a minute.
You're already on the wrong foot.
If you begin a statement with, hey teens, Then they're already tooting you out, okay?
They already think you're out of touch and you're a nerd.
It's just, if you want to talk to teens, never address them as teens.
You should never do that.
Hey, teens!
Alright, it says, Hey, teens!
Vaping isn't fleek or fire.
Fire emoji.
That's why the state of Ohio launched My Life, My Quit to show you that you don't need fat clouds to be radical. 100.
Gee willikers.
I mean, that is one groovy tweet.
That tweet really makes me want to raise the roof.
That is, I mean, Joyce Beatty is da bomb, yo.
Cowabunga.
No, actually, that tweet is, it's a youth pastor on steroids.
That is, I imagine, that's basically how a youth pastor speaks after downing a whole wine cooler.
That's a youth pastor on one box of wine, right there.
It's incredible.
And, you know, it goes back to a point I made a few weeks ago.
I guess we give Joyce Beatty some points for trying.
Or maybe we don't.
We are...
But it goes back to a point I made.
We are just making vaping seem even cooler by trying to stop teens from doing it.
Okay, so when you want to stop teens from doing something, you need to be as, you know, as inconspicuous as possible in your aims.
Um, especially if you're trying to make the thing seem less cool.
And you have to remember that you as an adult are not cool.
And so if you just come charging into the room and say, Hey, teens, that's not cool.
Let's do something cool.
Instead.
If you do that, you, it's just, it's not going to wait.
You just, whatever the thing is, you said it's not cool.
You just increased its cool points by about 50.
You just added 50 cool points to it.
You can't do that.
Um, Joyce has just made not vaping.
She's made not vaping so uncool that now I want to take it up, and I'm an adult.
I actually want to vape for the first time because of that tweet.
I now have the sudden urge to vape.
Now, you know what?
If my kids came to me at the age of six And said, hey daddy, I want to start vaping.
I feel like I have to say, well, okay.
You know, I understand.
Do what you need to do because it's just, I mean, all right.
In fact, this tweet is so bad that I might require my kids to vape.
It may be a requirement.
Kids, did you vape today?
Don't go to bed without vaping.
Finish your vape before bed.
It's just, that's bad.
That is bad stuff.
All right.
Here's one other discussion I regret we have to have today, but we do.
Every year, as the temperature rises, we have this conversation now.
And when I say we, I don't mean me, but society.
People.
We always have to hear, in the summer, that air conditioning is sexist.
I don't know if you've encountered this yet, but it's a thing now, and every summer you hear it, especially if you're online.
Air conditioning is a sexist conspiracy against women, apparently, evidently, and this is one of the new frontiers of feminism.
Feminism, of course, in this country is so privileged, so frivolous, so stupid, so silly, that it's so desperate to find a reason to exist anymore that now they're focused on this, the fight against air conditioning.
Feminists will say that women tend to be less comfortable in cooler temperatures, which is true.
They get colder easier.
Yet many buildings and offices have A.C.
and they set the A.C.
very low and this makes women chilly and therefore it is sexist.
That's the argument.
I'm not making it up.
That really is the argument.
The New York Times published one of the yearly required think pieces on the subject with the title of, Do Americans Need Air Conditioning?
Answer yes.
A staff writer for The Atlantic, Taylor Lorenz, shared it with her followers and added her own little mini rant to it.
This is what she says.
She says, Air conditioning is unhealthy, bad, miserable and sexist.
I can't explain how many times I've gotten sick over the summer because of overzealous AC in offices.
Hashtag ban AC.
Dying at all the men in my mentions having a literal meltdown because I suggested raising office temps a few degrees in the summer.
No amount of AC on the planet will help men online chill.
Like, buy a fan.
You're not gonna die lol.
I should be able to wear dresses in the summer and not get hypothermia.
Weird that making women slightly more comfortable and productive at work causes so many men to have a mental breakdown.
And then her rant continues.
I like how she says, this was a staff writer at the Atlantic by the way, I don't know if I mentioned that.
This is someone who has an actual job writing in media.
At a supposedly, you know, prestigious publication.
Supposedly.
Emphasis on supposedly.
I like how she says, uh, you're not gonna die, lol, and then the very next sentence says she's gonna get hypothermia if she walks into a building in the summer that's set at 68 degrees.
She's gonna get hypothermia indoors in July, yet she's mocking men because they supposedly say they're gonna die without AC.
Well, here's the thing.
A few things here.
Number one, no, the fact is you're not going to die from 68 degrees indoors in the summer.
You're not going to get hypothermia.
You're not going to die.
You're not going to get sick.
Air conditioning doesn't make you sick.
Okay?
Now, on the other hand, you say, oh, you're not going to die.
Yes, you will!
People die from the heat all the time, you nincompoop.
What are you talking about?
I mean, just imagine how privileged you have to be as a first-worlder to sit there and say, you're not going to die from the heat.
Meanwhile, literally thousands of people are dying from the heat every single year across the world, including in this country.
You will definitely die.
You can die from heat.
AC really does save lives.
That's not an exaggeration.
If you are anti-AC, I mean, just think about, especially in very hot areas, somebody is outside, they're on the verge of heat exhaustion, too much exposure to the heat, and then they go inside, and it's air-conditioned, and they cool down.
I am sure that, in fact, many lives have been saved.
Because they were on the verge of heat exhaustion and then were able to get into a cooler temperature.
If you don't have any AC in the world, then there's not going to really be any cooler temperatures.
Everything's going to be pretty hot.
And so it's going to be harder to recover from or stave off heat exhaustion.
But if you are anti-AC, I have to assume That either you're just totally full of it and you're a hypocrite and you claim to be anti-AC while you use AC all the time in actuality, which I'm sure is probably the case with Taylor here.
Or maybe you live in Maine or something.
Because I guarantee you that no human being south of, say, New England, could possibly really be against air conditioning.
It's just not possible.
And if you go down to Texas or Arizona, Um, this is just, this is someone who's never been South at all.
I mean, there's no way you could go South, Texas, Arizona, you go anywhere in the South and still have this opinion.
The idea of living without AC down there is just utterly absurd.
Of course, people did it for thousands of years, and people still do it today.
But you know what?
People live without running water.
People live without plumbing.
People live without proper hygiene.
Okay?
People live without washing their hands or bathing for months on end.
I mean, that also... People live with malnutrition.
People live without clean water.
People live in a lot of different ways.
But that's, you know, fortunately in modern civilization, we have improved on some of these areas greatly.
And we have made for better living conditions, healthier living conditions, more comfortable living conditions that will preserve your life and your health.
AC is one of those modern inventions that is just absolutely positive, absolutely good, and there's no drawback.
Look, I'm all about criticizing modern society.
And criticizing certain modern innovations and inventions.
I mean, you want to talk about the Internet, for example.
If you want to make an argument that the Internet has really been a net negative for mankind and we'd be better off without it, then I would probably have to agree with you, even though I make my living on the Internet.
But AC is one of those things that, no, that's just, that is a net positive all the way.
There's really nothing bad about it, other than what it costs you to run it.
And that's all there is to it.
Now, as for, because I really want to address this also, okay?
What I've said so far, if you're a sane person, you agree.
Let's move on to the more contentious element of this debate.
As for the temperature at the office, okay?
Here's the deal, ladies, and I'm mansplaining now, 100%.
This is a mansplaining moment because I feel like, as a man, I think there are some women, Taylor being one of them, but not just Taylor, who maybe don't understand why men like to turn the AC down, especially in an office environment, and I'll tell you why.
And it goes like this.
You can always put on a sweater, okay?
You can put on a layer and you can bring a blanket to work.
I mean, you can do anything.
Or just put on a sweater.
Or don't, you know, Taylor said, I like to wear a dress to work.
Well, it's great that you like to wear that.
But if you're not comfortable in it, maybe wear something else, okay?
You can't dress like you're going to the beach and then whine that the temperature indoors isn't set to reflect beach conditions.
I think nine times out of ten, when you have a woman saying, it's too cold in here, you look at what they're wearing, it's like, okay, we'll put on a little bit more clothing and then you won't be as cold.
It's like, it's not rocket science here.
Hot people, this is, this is the way it works.
Cold people can put on layers.
Hot people Can only take off so many layers before they go to jail.
So that's why in the summer with the AC, the hottest person gets priority because they can't do much with their hotness.
Whereas you, you really have, it's unlimited.
I mean, you could put on as many layers as you want, but probably if the AC is set at 67, God forbid, um, and you're really cold, one layer is all it's going to take and you'll be fine.
Okay.
If you need six layers because it's 67 or 68 degrees, then you really do have a medical, you need to go to the doctor.
There's something wrong.
Um, so that's all there is to it.
Another thing to keep in mind, Men, especially in an office environment, are often required to wear suits.
And if not suits, they have to wear long pants, and oftentimes they have to wear long sleeves, and they might have to wear a tie.
It's pretty common in an office environment.
Business attire for a man is long sleeves and long pants at a minimum.
And oftentimes also a suit, depending on where, especially if you're in a place like D.C.
This is where a lot of these complaints come from, is these privileged, whiny women in D.C.
is, oh, it's so cold in here.
Yeah, but if you go to D.C., where it can get really hot in the summer, and you look around, all the men are wearing suits.
And they're not wearing suits because they want to, they're wearing suits because they have to.
If it's 105 degrees in D.C., you're going to see men walking around in jackets that they have to wear.
It is a requirement.
So, yet again, they are, you know, depending on the office policy, they have to dress that.
They can't dress down any more than they already are.
Whereas you, as a woman, you can—I mean, see, this is one area.
I know that we have this competition about, oh, you know, who has it worse as a gender?
Women have to deal with menstruation and child labor.
That's true.
Okay, you do have that on us, and that is one difficulty that you have that I do not Envy, and I'm very happy that as a man I don't menstruate, although we're told that maybe it's possible that I could as a man, because who knows, gender is a construct anyway.
But as it stands right now, I cannot get pregnant, I don't menstruate.
I admit I'm happy about that, and I'm glad that I don't.
I'm sorry that you Are the one that has to carry that burden, but you gotta give us, I mean, this is one area where you do have it easier, and that is when it comes to formal attire or business attire.
I mean, you have so many options for what you can wear, and you can change.
Here's the main thing.
Depending on the season, you can adjust your outfit to the season.
Do you realize men can't do that?
We're not allowed.
It doesn't matter if it's 5 degrees or 500.
We have to wear the same damn thing.
So.
If we want to turn the A.C.
down a little bit, then just, why not just be cool about it, pun intended, and bring a sweater to work, leave it at your desk, okay, or wear warm, it just, there are so many things you can do about it.
There's not a lot we can do.
And that's all.
Okay.
That's it.
All right.
Um, and don't say, well, you could always bring a fan.
Yeah.
Well, you know what a fan just, all that does is if it's hot inside, the fan just shoots hot air at you faster.
It doesn't actually help.
So the AC, the thing about the AC is actually, it actually creates cooler air, which, which again, when it's summertime, that's normal.
People want it to be cooler inside when it's 95 degrees outside.
All right.
Very important issue.
I'm glad that I was able to spend 45 minutes on it, approximately.
All right.
The emails I'm going to get from that conversation.
Oh, my gosh.
All right.
This is from Lizette.
matwalshowatgmail.com.
Matwalshowatgmail.com.
This is from Lizette, says, Hi Matt, in response to the anxiety issue brought up in Tuesday's episode, I don't think the line about when it becomes a disorder is that arbitrary.
Anxiety becomes a disorder when it affects your daily life and your ability to function and do basic tasks.
Naturally, all humans have anxiety, but they also have healthy coping mechanisms that allow them to continue about their day.
For example, many people get anxiety about job interviews.
But if you just don't show up for any interview or never even apply because of that anxiety, then that's a disorder, right?
Anyway, that's just my thought.
Love your show.
Yeah, we talked yesterday about anxiety disorder.
Someone emailed and asked about it.
And I said, I think with the so-called anxiety disorder, like with many mental disorders, I think that we may be dealing with a category error by calling these things mental disorders because they are part of the normal human condition, and it just seems so arbitrary where we draw the line and say, yeah, okay, well, this amount of anxiety is normal, but then if you have this amount, it's not normal, therefore it's a disorder.
Who decides where that line is drawn?
How do you quantify it?
I mean, where are we getting any of this from?
It just seems totally arbitrary.
Now, Lizette says, Well, no, if it negatively affects your daily life, that's where you draw the line.
And yeah, I got other emails from people saying the same thing.
It's the same thing I hear about ADHD.
Now, I've said before, I don't think ADHD exists.
And what I mean by that is, what does ADHD stand for?
Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder.
Okay?
People, I think people who exhibit those characteristics that we label ADHD, those people do exist.
That personality type does exist.
I am one of those personality types, and I know that I exist, so that's how I know that that exists.
My point, though, is that it's not a disorder.
It is a type.
It is just a type of person.
And it's okay to be that type.
It may be harder in some environments, it may be inconvenient at school, but that doesn't mean that it's a disorder.
I think the disorder label, that's what I'm taking issue with.
And I think that that label is subjective.
You want to talk about social constructs?
Well, ADHD is a social construct.
We have decided in our society that those types of people are just not easy to have around.
They cause problems.
Therefore, it's a disorder.
That's the way that that goes.
And I think it's a similar thing with, you know, anxiety and depression, some of these other issues.
Now, the problem is you say, okay, well, if it affects your life, okay, but Of course it is.
We agree that everybody has anxiety, right?
And anxiety is always going to have some kind of negative effect on your life.
There can be scenarios where I guess anxiety is good, like if you have anxiety about doing something dangerous and then you don't do the dangerous thing, that was good.
But for the most part, we all have anxieties about things that, anxieties that cause us to do things or not do things.
You know, that have a negative impact on our life.
Okay, so that's all of it.
Just like with ADHD, it's, oh, well, if you get distracted, it has a negative effect on you and your life.
Well, yeah, of course it has.
We're all negatively impacted.
We all have struggle paying attention sometimes.
We all have times where we have trouble sitting still.
And that always is going to have a negative impact on our life.
So, my point is, You can't get around the fact that there is going to be an arbitrary line somewhere.
But because the line is arbitrary, you don't know where it is.
It could be anywhere.
So we all have anxiety.
You agree with that.
Even though you didn't say it, I assume you agree that we all have anxiety and we have all been negatively impacted in our life by anxiety.
I think that's the case for everybody.
You're not going to find a single person on the planet who doesn't fit under that umbrella.
So then what we're saying is, okay, yeah, everybody has anxiety, everyone's negatively impacted by it, but if you're negatively impacted this much, it's fine, but if you're negatively impacted that much, it's not fine.
So there is somewhere, there's like a, there is a somewhere, there's a line somewhere where, okay, if you're negatively impacted up to that line, it's not a disorder, but if you cross over that invisible arbitrary line that someone just placed there and could place anywhere, but they chose to put it there, then all of a sudden it's a disorder.
It just, It doesn't, it really doesn't make sense.
And this is not, we can say all the time, oh, no, it's a real disease.
This is not how diseases are diagnosed.
Okay, if you have cancer, if you have diabetes, if you have any real physical disease, the doctor isn't gonna look and say, oh, well, how is it affecting your life?
Or, you know, how much of it do you have?
It's like, that doesn't, if you have any amount of cancer, It's a problem.
Now, depending on how much cancer you have, how bad it is, it might determine how they treat it, but there is no healthy amount of cancer.
If you have diabetes, it doesn't really matter how much it affects your life.
It probably will affect your life tremendously, but the doctor isn't going to get into, well, how much does it affect your life?
Oh, okay, well then you don't really have it.
If you have it, you have it.
It's only with mental disorders where we get into this thing of, well, does it affect your life this much?
Does it affect it that much?
Where is it?
Where's the equation?
And it's just, I think that is an indication that we are dealing with something other than a physical disease.
It is not the same thing.
It just isn't.
It is a different sort of thing.
That doesn't mean That I'm trivializing it.
It doesn't mean that it isn't real.
It doesn't mean that it isn't serious.
It doesn't mean that it doesn't affect your life.
I'm not saying any of that.
I'm just saying we are dealing with a different category of thing.
It's just not a disease.
It's something else.
And I don't know why people get so... And I'm not saying you did, Lisette, but people tend to get very bent out of shape about this topic.
And if you question whether this or that supposed mental disorder is really a disease, people get very upset.
And I don't know why.
Like, I'm not... Yes, if I was sitting here trivializing and saying, oh, you're fine, get over it.
Okay, you should be upset about that because that is dismissive and stupid.
I'm not saying that.
If I'm just trying to figure out what category it actually belongs to, what's the big deal there?
It's kind of like, it's a different thing, not as serious, but when we have this argument about, and we've talked about it on the show before, about is this or that activity really a sport?
And I've said that figure skating is not a sport.
And people say, oh, how dare you?
I mean, how dare you insult figure skating?
I'm not insulting it.
I think it's an art form.
I think it's beautiful.
I think it takes a lot of skill and talent.
I think it's something I could never do.
Um, I think it's, you know, it's not my cup of tea.
I don't really sit and watch it, but, but I think it's an incredible talent.
I have a lot of respect for people that are good at it.
So on and so forth.
I'm just saying it's not a sport.
It's a, it's a different thing.
It's not a, it's not a less important thing.
It's not a, it's not a worse thing.
It's just a different thing.
It's an art form.
In fact, art forms are, you know, arguably, art is a more elevated thing than a sport, arguably.
So, that's the conversation here.
When we talk about people that have the ADHD personality, when we talk about people that struggle with anxiety, which, by the way, I qualify with both of those, okay?
We talk about people that struggle with depression and so on.
What is it?
What's actually going on?
I think it is something deeper than mere chemical reaction.
I think it is something more to the core of a person.
And so, really, rather than trivializing it, I'm doing the opposite.
I'm saying, you know, it's actually more serious than that.
It's more than that.
Now, with ADHD, I would say that, you know, in fact, this is who a person is.
This is how they are.
This is how they operate.
This is how they think.
There's nothing wrong with that.
In fact, there are advantages to it.
And so we need to figure out how to harness that personality and get those people into a lifestyle, into a line of work where it helps to be that way.
That's what I've been able to do.
We need to encourage people to do that.
When it comes to something like a depression and anxiety, I do think, it's just my opinion, You know, I think there are a lot of people out there who are diagnosed with anxiety who really, they just have a normal amount of anxiety.
I mean, whatever normal means.
I know I just said it's arbitrary, but really, I think there are a lot of people that just, you know, I do think there are people who want, essentially, to have a mental disorder.
Maybe because it provides an excuse for them.
You know, maybe in a sense it's become almost trendy where people go around talking, oh, I have anxiety.
People almost brag about it these days.
And so I think there are a lot of people in that category.
I don't know how many, just I think there are a lot.
But then I think there are other people who really do.
And again, we're talking in quantifying terms here, so it's difficult to do.
But whatever this means, there are people who have a lot more anxiety than the average person.
People who do struggle to live a normal life and to go out in public and do normal things because of their anxiety.
Those people do exist also.
Not denying that.
Just like there are people with depression.
I think there are a lot of people diagnosed with depression who actually are just kind of sad and oftentimes for really obvious reasons, like something bad happened in their life, they're sad because of it.
They get diagnosed as depressed, which actually causes them to never address the real source of it.
I think there are people like that.
But then there are also people who it's much deeper than that, much more serious.
The people in that category, I still think when we think in terms of diseases, we may be Failing to get to the heart and the core of the problem.
I actually think it's probably deeper than that.
It's not just about chemicals.
I mean, think about it.
When you have severe anxiety, or when you're very depressed, there are things going on in your mind, right?
I mean, really, when you talk about your anxiety, you're describing thoughts that you're having.
And so are those thoughts really just chemicals or is there something else?
I mean, is it totally illusory?
It's just chemicals or misfirings like a computer?
I think sometimes when you talk to a severely depressed person and they start talking about life, and I've had this experience, they start talking about life, they start talking about, you know, their thought processes.
A lot of what they say is true in a sense.
So my point is they're not hallucinating.
They're not crazy when they talk about some of the inherent misery you find in life and some of the meaninglessness of this and that and the struggle to find meaning.
There's a lot of truth there.
So I think one of the problems when we reduce it to chemicals, we say, oh, they just have a disease, it's chemicals.
We are totally dismissing all of their thoughts and saying, oh, none of that's real.
It's all, just forget about all that.
I think there's a lot of reality to it, but we have to figure out how to sort through it, how to harness it, how to, you know, how to put it in proper perspective, all of those things.
So it's a deeper issue.
That's my point.
Last thing I'll say on this topic that I think there are a lot of people on medicine for this stuff who shouldn't be on medicine.
But maybe if you say to me, and people have said this to me about ADHD, now I think we shouldn't be putting kids on medicine for ADHD at all.
We shouldn't be putting kids on it.
We don't know what it's doing to their brain.
It's not fair to them.
But there are adults who say, listen, you say it's not a disease.
Maybe it's not.
All I know is that for me, I take the ADHD medicine.
It helps me at work.
I enjoy life more.
I like My life more when I'm able to take this stuff.
And so that's why I take it.
You know what?
I think maybe that could be a perfectly reasonable reason to take something.
My point is maybe it doesn't necessarily have to actually be medicine for a real disease, but it maybe it's just it helps you and you like how it, you know, how it sort of sorts through your thoughts.
And so you take it.
So that now I think that that Approach could be abused.
We shouldn't always just take anything because it makes us feel good, but that could be a perfectly reasonable justification for taking something for ADHD or anxiety, where even you say, well, maybe it's not a disease, but look, it helps me.
Okay?
Not that it matters if I give my blessing or not, but I do think that that could be a fine reason.
All right.
This is from Luke, says, Hi Matt, Luke here.
I hope you're doing pretty much great.
I have a question for you.
I hope you're doing pretty much great.
Okay.
And I need to start out with a story of an unforgettable morning of mine recently.
My wife and I woke up very early to a bunch of loud chaos in my boys' room.
My boys, Troy and Ellie, were two and four.
I was about to grab my shotgun, but it sounded like it was just them together and they were just having a lot of fun.
Too much fun.
After stepping out of our bedroom in a confused daze, I noticed that the front door was wide open and our rabbits were released outside of their pens and running around.
Then I walked towards my boys' room and suddenly noticed, out of the corner of my eye on the table, something was moving.
All of our fish from our fish tank were lying on the dining room table, still flopping around, gasping for water.
I then proceeded towards my boys' bedroom, thinking that I was simply in some abstract nightmare, and was curious as to where this dream would end up.
I opened the boys' door.
They had opened their window, and the older son went outside and literally threw all nine of our chickens from the pen into their bedroom and shut the window, and they were chasing them around in circles, laughing hysterically, trying to catch them.
Feathers were everywhere, and I mean everywhere, along with a mess from all nine chickens.
There were two eggs on the ground, too.
They froze, looking at me as if they would not live to see breakfast.
I just stared and thought for a minute about everything that had just happened and told them to bring the chickens out.
I went to my bedroom.
I just had to laugh without them seeing.
It was all I could do.
They later told me that they simply wanted to set all the animals free to play.
So they did just that.
So that leads to my question, and that is, do you believe correctly that pineapple belongs on pizza?
Thank you, Luke, for that question and that setup, which I think was very necessary for me to understand the full context of your question about the pineapple and the pizza.
And the answer to your question is that, of course, no.
Fruit does not belong on pizza.
Period.
Ever.
That's all.
And I know you might say, oh, well, tomato's technically a fruit.
No, it isn't.
Okay, I don't care what the scientists say.
Tomato has been adopted into the vegetable family.
It is a vegetable.
Vegetables and fruits, these are social constructs anyway.
And no, you absolutely do not put pineapple on pizza.
It's not that I can't eat pizza with pineapple.
I mean, I can eat pizza with anything.
I can eat anything, period.
And if you give me a pizza, I'll eat it.
I don't care what you put on it.
But it won't improve the situation.
Like, I'm never gonna have a slice of pineapple pizza and say to myself, oh, I'm really glad they put pineapple on this.
I'm never gonna say, oh, I can't think of anything better they could have possibly put on this thing than pineapple.
There are literally dozens of better options.
You went with the worst possible option.
Again, I will still stuff my fat face and eat five of them, but I'm not gonna like it.
All right, that's it for the show today.
Thanks everybody for watching.
Godspeed.
Hey, everyone.
It's Andrew Klavan, host of The Andrew Klavan Show.
Abused children, they only become news when the left can use them for political purposes.
If they can attack Trump's attempts to secure the border, or give the Catholic Church a bad name, or take out a Republican candidate who did something wrong.
But when it comes to the persistent, organized sexual abuse of underage girls and boys, the story always dies.
Let's keep an eye on this Epstein case and see where it goes on The Andrew Klavan Show.
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