Ep. 297 - Squad Member Makes Outrageously Bigoted Statement
Today on the show, the Left continues to eat itself. Now the president of Planned Parenthood has been kicked to the curb for the crime of believing that only women can get pregnant. Also, Ayanna Pressley made one of the most bigoted statements we've heard from an American politician in decades. And I asked a left wing doctor to define the word "man." He couldn't do it. Date: 07-17-2019
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Today on the Matt Wall Show, the left continues to eat itself.
Now the president of Planned Parenthood has been kicked to the curb for the crime of believing that only women can get pregnant.
Also, Ayanna Pressley, one of the members of the squad, made one of the most bigoted statements we've heard from an American politician in many decades, and that is not an exaggeration.
I'll play the clip and talk about it today.
And I asked a left-wing doctor to define the word man for me.
And he couldn't do it.
So we'll talk about that exchange today also on The Matt Wall Show.
Now this is just perfect in so many ways.
I know that I'm always pointing out, you know, crazy stuff the left is doing and saying, well, see, this shows where we are as a society.
But that's my impression of myself.
This is where we are as a society.
That's Matt Walsh as Matt Walsh.
But this really does show you.
This is amazing.
The president of Planned Parenthood, Leanna Nguyen, was ousted from her job yesterday.
Fired.
Aborted after only 10 months.
Terminated.
Though thankfully she was terminated in a safe and legal environment.
I'm sure she could take some solace in that.
You wouldn't want to have any back alley firings.
You know, you wouldn't want to, you're going to fire someone, you'll be fired, you want to be fired in an office, in a clean, safe place, rather than in a back alley.
And certainly rather than with a coat hanger.
But she's gone.
And honestly, I couldn't be happier that she lost her job.
I think it's a wonderful thing that she lost her job.
Well-deserved.
And it's also best for her, I think.
It's best that she lose that job, maybe try to recover whatever is left of her soul.
But listen to the reason she was fired.
A reporter, Emma O'Connor, reports that Wen was given the boot because she's not extreme enough or aggressive enough.
She's not radical enough.
I mean, this is a woman who was willing and eager to take on a job, did take on a job, at Planned Parenthood, where she's overseeing the butchery of 300,000 children a year.
Anyone who's willing to do that, anyone who wants to do that, would have to be a radical extremist, militant, abortion fanatic.
And she is, but not enough for Planned Parenthood, apparently.
And O'Connor reported this last night.
Here's one issue where they apparently differed.
says two sources told us that when also refused to use trans inclusive language
for example saying people instead of women telling staff that she believes
talking about transgender issues would isolate people in the Midwest I mean my
god they really got rid of her because she wouldn't renounce her belief in
biology Well, her partial belief in biology.
She already would have told you that unborn children aren't people, so she already rejected partially biology.
But whatever was left of her belief in science had to go out the window, and she wasn't willing to do that, so they got rid of her.
Modern leftism is truly an insane cult.
It is utterly insane.
The doctrines it requires you to believe are just maniacal.
And we'll talk more about pregnant men in a few minutes, actually, but I just wanted to bring this to your attention because it's incredible.
And it proves yet again something I've been talking about for months, the victim hierarchy on the left.
The LGBT cabal reigns supreme.
They take priority.
All of their demands must be met, no matter what, without exception.
Whatever they want, they get.
Whatever they say goes.
They are the uber victims.
They are the head honchos in terms of victimization.
So much so that a minority woman can be fired from her job for refusing to pay homage to men who dress like women.
It is remarkable.
That if the LGBT folks tell you that you have to renounce science, science is evil, science is bad, you're not allowed to talk about science.
If the LGBT folks tell you that, it doesn't matter if you're a minority woman.
If you refuse, you're getting kicked out.
Alright, so I wanted to tell you about that.
As I said, we'll get back to pregnant men.
In a minute, but before we do, Representative Ayanna Pressley is sort of the Ringo Starr of the squad, the squad that consists of AOC and Omar and Tlaib, the ones that have been feuding with President Trump.
Well, and with Nancy Pelosi and with everybody else.
Ayanna Pressley, kind of.
She's the, yeah, the Ringo Starr, the Joey Fatone, if you will, of the squad, kind of.
Well, maybe that's not fair to Joey Fatone.
I think Joey Fatone was, he was, you know, he had personality and I think he was a lot of people's maybe second favorite NSYNC member.
So I think Ayanna Pressley is more, she's nobody's favorite squad member.
You kind of forget that she's there.
So she's more, who's the other NSYNC guy with the goatee?
That nobody knew who he was or no one remembers him.
No one knew what his function was.
Anyway, so she's kind of that.
But they've all been in spasms of outrage over President Trump's stupid tweet that we've talked about.
But as they...
Uh, continue to express their outrage.
We have to bear in mind that when it comes to denouncing bigotry, none of these four women have a leg to stand on, especially Presley, who now owns what I believe is one of the most outrageously bigoted statements that we have heard from an American politician in several decades.
Speaking at a, you know, Joe Biden said yesterday that President Trump said the most racist thing that any president has ever said, which of course is completely insane.
And I pointed out at least one extremely racist thing that a president said that was certainly way worse than any tweet that President Trump has sent.
But this really is, and I'm not saying this is the most racist thing any politician has ever said in America, but it is one of the most bigoted in the last few decades at least.
Speaking at a progressive political convention a few days ago, Presley launched into a diatribe that If she belonged to a different political party, or a different race, or certainly both, it would end her career.
But instead, given her political party and her race, and her gender too, doesn't hurt, it prompted exuberant applause from the audience.
But it is so extraordinarily bigoted.
I want you to watch this.
Yes, I do quote Shirley Chisholm a lot, who said, if they don't give you a seat at the table, bring your own folding chair.
But I've amended that.
Because I don't want to bring a chair to an old table.
This is the time to shake the table.
This is the time to redefine that table.
Because if you're going to come to this table, and for all of you that have aspirations of running for office, For whatever lived experience and identity that you represent, if you are not prepared to come to that table and to represent that voice, don't come.
Because we don't need any more brown faces that don't want to be a brown voice.
We don't need black faces that don't want to be a black voice.
We don't need Muslims that don't want to be a Muslim voice.
We don't need queers that don't want to be a queer voice.
Come on, speak it.
And if you're worried about being marginalized and stereotyped, please don't even show up.
Because we need you to represent that voice.
The midterm elections of 2018, they spoke a lot about each of our magic.
I would never give short shrift to any of our magic, but this is work and we put it in every day.
Now, someone who is not well acquainted with liberal speak, May be more confused than horrified by those comments because you think, well, what is a brown voice?
What is a black voice?
Do voices have colors?
What do you mean brown black voice?
What she means, of course, is that a brown or black person should have the opinions that are properly representative of their racial communities.
And what she means by properly representative of their racial communities is that their opinion should be resoundingly leftist.
So put more simply, Presley is telling brown, black, Muslim, and gay people to keep their traps shut.
if they aren't going to conform to her ideological expectations.
You're not needed, she says.
You're not needed.
I mean, that's worse than saying, keep your trap shut.
You're not needed?
We don't need you?
You are just an unneeded person.
Your whole existence, certainly your opinions, we don't need them.
Shut up.
It's such a demeaning thing to say.
And she is making these statements on racial and ethnic lines.
So leftists like Presley feel perfectly entitled to issue these directives, authoritatively sort of instructing the plebs as to what they may or may not say and what they may or may not think based on the demographic and identity groups to which they belong.
Her talk of brown voices is pretty telling because she doesn't see brown, black, Muslim, quote, queer people as distinct individuals with their own voices and their own perspectives and opinions.
She sees them as Monoliths.
These groups are monoliths, and every member of the group is a mindless, faceless representative of the whole.
And the whole, Presley has decided, must vote Democrat, must support things like abortion, affirmative action, universal healthcare, must affirm every last leftist doctrine without exception.
And if they don't, if they fall outside of the ideological box that Presley has created, they are anathema.
At best, they're useless.
At worst, they are heretics who should be burned at the stake.
Or bludgeon to death with a crowbar, as is Antifa's preferred method.
Now, this is way worse than just your sort of simple-minded, run-of-the-mill bigotry.
Because a run-of-the-mill bigot will feel that his race or ethnic group is superior to others.
He's going to be sort of tribalistic.
And it is a stupid and harmful view, to be sure.
To be bigoted in that way is stupid and harmful.
But it's child's play compared to the sort of bigotry that Presley is promoting here.
She wants to erase the individual and live in a world consisting only of these homogenous, amorphic identities where every person is but a mere mouthpiece for an ethnic hive mind.
It is a bigotry far more insidious, far more horrifying than the kind of bigotry that she constantly and often fallaciously seems to find in the hearts of other people.
I cannot even put into words how gross, how degrading, how demeaning this is, that she would sit there and say, If you are in this identity, if you are this race or this ethnicity, here are the opinions you're allowed to have.
Otherwise, we don't need you.
By the way, do you think, imagine if a Republican ever made a statement that began with the phrase, we don't need queers.
That's what she just said.
We don't need queers.
Now, she qualified it, and she explained what sort of quote-unquote queers we don't need, but it doesn't matter.
I mean, there's no way to end that statement that is going to make it non-bigoted.
And do you think there's any way a Republican could ever say that?
It doesn't matter how they end it.
It doesn't matter what they say next.
You make that, you're done.
You're finished forever if you say, but she, as a liberal Democrat, can actually say that.
She can actually get up there and say, she can say, well, here are the kinds of quote unquote queers we need.
And if you're not in that, we don't need you.
Get out.
It's amazing.
And she gets away with it.
Nobody even, on the left, they don't even think to have a problem with it.
Oh my, oh my goodness.
It goes without saying, if Donald Trump were ever to say anything like that, To start to explain, like, listen, if you're a black person and you're not conservative, we don't need you.
Get out.
We don't need you at the table.
Can you imagine him?
What would have happened if he said that?
Yet again, if you're on the left, you can say stuff like that all the time.
And nobody bats an eye.
It's... Alright.
So, let's go back to men having babies, shall we?
A radical left-wing doctor named Eugene Gu tweeted a few days ago, and he was explaining.
Well, I'll read what he tweeted.
He said, That men can get pregnant and also have abortions.
Trans men and non-binary individuals are human beings who deserve to be acknowledged by society.
They choose their own identity.
Not me, not you, not any doctor, and certainly not any politician.
Well, of course, I agree that I don't choose their identity.
Doctors and politicians don't either.
Biology chooses their identity.
Nature chooses it.
But he says, a scientific and medical fact.
Okay.
This is a doctor saying it is a scientific and medical fact that men can have babies.
Well, if you've listened to this show for a while, you know that I've argued that the entire case for transgenderism can be defeated, completely debunked.
Of course, it can be debunked in any number of ways because it's just without scientific basis whatsoever.
But you can easily defeat it Easily debunk it.
You can easily shut down anyone who begins to justify it or argue for it.
And you can shut it down not by shouting at them, not by insulting them, but really by asking them a question.
A very fair, very necessary, elementary, fundamental question.
All you have to do is ask them, very simply, what is a man?
Or, of course, alternatively, what is a woman?
Either one will do.
In this case, he says, men can have babies.
What is a man?
Extremely fair question.
So I've been asking this question, I've left this for months, and not one, not a single one, has been able to provide anything close to a definition.
I've put it out there on Twitter, I've said it on the show, I've written an article saying, listen, If you're a leftist and you believe that transgenderism is a legitimate thing, this is it.
Just what's a man?
What's a woman?
Just give me a definition.
That's all I'm asking for.
And so far, not a single one has been able to provide a definition.
So, I decided to try this again.
And lest anyone accuse me of only picking on the dumbest common denominators on the left, I decided to go toe-to-toe here with a doctor.
This is a doctor, he's a surgeon.
He obviously holds some rather, let's say, eccentric views, but he did go to medical school, and he certainly knows more about medicine than I do, let's hope, if he's a surgeon.
So I said, I'll throw this, if anyone can answer, if anyone in that camp who believes in this stuff, if anyone can answer it and really shut me down, then this should be the guy, right?
So I tweeted him in response.
I said, this is what I said, I said, Doctor, what is a man?
Please provide a definition, thank you.
He responded to me.
Credit to him, at least, for responding.
And he said, So that was his first attempt at an answer.
person who is genetically male with a Y chromosome.
But some intersex individuals with a Y chromosome can have female sexual characteristics and
even give birth.
Some say a man is anyone who identifies as a man regardless of female sexual characteristics."
So that was his first attempt at an answer.
But that's not an answer.
He's not giving me a definition.
So it's already concerning here that this is a doctor.
And I said, what is a man?
And he couldn't just give me a straightforward answer.
Should be the easiest thing for him to answer as a doctor or just as a literate adult.
My six-year-old could answer that question.
What he just said there is not an answer.
He's just telling me what some people say.
Okay, if you look up the definition of a word in a dictionary, the definition is not going to begin with, some people think, or some people say, it doesn't matter what people say, what's the definition?
So the first definition, the first potential definition he mentions, is of course correct.
But that's not his definition.
He's just acknowledging that that definition exists.
Yet, that's not the one that he goes with.
He has specifically rejected and denounced that definition in his original tweet.
He said that men can have babies.
So, the first definition he mentions, that's not his.
The second definition he mentions is not a definition at all.
Okay?
And, you know, a man, what is it?
A man is anyone who identifies as a man.
Well, that's not a definition.
You can't use the word you're defining in the definition.
You can't do that.
That's a classic fallacy there.
You cannot do that.
That's circular.
If I ask you a definition of an apple, you can't say an apple is an apple.
I mean, an apple is an apple, of course, but that's not a definition.
That's just a circular statement.
So, I tried again.
And I asked.
What is the thing they are identifying as?
You say a man is anyone who identifies as a man.
Okay, well, what is that, though?
Yes, they're identifying as a man.
What is that thing?
And I said, don't just say man again.
You have to tell me what a man actually is.
Or do you not know?
He responds, I define a man as anyone who identifies as a man.
Gender is a social construct, and even though humans are a sexually dimorphic species in a bimodal distribution, biological sex does exist on a spectrum with intersex individuals who are 1.7% of the population in between.
This, again, is not a definition.
It's like defining circle as anything that looks like a circle.
Which, of course, is wrong, because you're using circle in the definition.
It's a circular definition of circle.
And also, it's possible for something to look like a circle without actually being one.
Okay, your eyes can deceive you.
Depending on what the angle you're looking at, it's possible you think something's a circle and you get a closer look.
It's not a circle.
It's an oval or it's a you know, it's a or it's just it's a an uneven sort of
circle like object but not a circle So I responded to him
I said, you still haven't told me what a man is.
You've just told me that anyone who says they are one, is one.
Which is absurd, of course, but also it's not a definition.
When someone identifies as a man, what are they identifying as?
What is a man?
You haven't defined it yet.
So we go back and forth a few more times.
I'm not going to read all of them.
He keeps insisting that he gave me a definition, and I try to explain over and over again that his definition is obviously circular and tautological, and therefore invalid.
Finally, he offers this.
And this is his last word on the subject.
This is the last thing he says.
This is the closest thing to a definition that he gives me.
Again, to remind you, this is a doctor.
Okay?
He says, you want to define a man as a human with a Y chromosome, external male genitals, male gonads that produce sperm, has more testosterone than estrogen, and does not have any female reproductive structures.
I say a man is anyone who identifies that way, including trans and intersex.
And that's it.
He doesn't respond anymore.
That's his definition.
As a doctor.
So let's delve into this a bit here.
A man is a human with a Y chromosome, external male genitals, male gonads that produce sperm, and does not have any female reproductive structures.
Yes, good, exactly.
That part, yes, that's exactly what a man is.
That's a man.
Okay, that's a man, baby, you got it.
But then he says, he throws all that away, because then he says, or anyone who identifies that way.
Wait a second, what?
Now, see, this is really interesting because normally leftists would say that identifying as a man or a woman, they talk about identifying as a man or a woman, they don't usually want to explain what that actually means.
They just say it.
It's like, well, what do you mean identify as that?
What does that mean?
Explain to me what that means.
It does not have a self-evident meaning.
To say that someone is something but they identify as something else, therefore, what do you mean identify as that?
I think generally, although they are very hesitant, and we're seeing why, they're very hesitant to explain what they mean, but I think generally in a vague way they mean it in an emotional, spiritual kind of way where in some mysterious sense a person is one sex but sort of has the mind of another sex.
And so that's what it means.
Again, it's very vague and fluid for them.
It doesn't, I don't think they spend a lot of time thinking about it.
It's not well formed, but that's basically what they mean when they talk about identifying as a man or a woman.
But Dr. Gu knows that he can't say that.
That can't be the definition.
There is nothing remotely scientific or medical about that.
That is religious.
That is an almost religious, cult-like concept.
Right?
This whole idea of a man trapped in a woman's body, or a woman trapped in a man's body, that is intensely religious.
It's not a religion I subscribe to, but that is... There's no science there.
One kind of person trapped in another person's body?
Now you're getting into things like souls and spirits, and that's the only way to read that.
There's no way to read that in a scientific way.
So, um...
He says, so he can't say that.
Instead he says that a man is a biological male with a Y-chromosome and male reproductive organs, or anyone who identifies as having a Y-chromosome and male reproductive organs.
But how can you identify as having a certain chromosome?
What the hell can that possibly mean?
And even if you do identify as having a chromosome, even if a person could somehow feel like they have a Y chromosome, even though, you know, I don't know what chromosomes feel like, so I don't, what does that mean?
But even if they identify as having it, yet they don't have it, then isn't that the end of the discussion?
You know, sometimes people can think things that aren't true.
It happens all the time.
It's not a complicated concept.
People can think that something is a certain way, and they're just wrong.
So that's the other option here.
When you say, well, what do you mean?
There are people like that.
They're wrong.
That's it.
We could talk about why they're wrong.
We could talk about what's going on psychologically.
They think something that isn't true.
If you're telling me, oh, well, they identify as having a Y chromosome, okay, well, let's do a test.
Do they have one?
No?
Well, then they don't.
That's it.
It has no bearing on the definition.
But Gu says that being a man depends on the biological physical reality of having a certain chromosome.
Yet, if you don't physically have it, but feel like you do, Then suddenly you do?
How does that work?
Does the chromosome magically materialize in some invisible and spiritual way just because you feel like you have one?
Or does the definition all of a sudden get suspended in your case because your feelings override it?
But if that's the case, then haven't you just gotten rid of the definition completely?
Aren't you really saying a man is anyone with male reproductive organs and a Y chromosome?
Or not?
Isn't that really what Gu is saying here?
A man is this, or not that.
Either way.
Which is another way of saying, a man is anything.
Which is another way of saying, the word man has no definition.
And that, at the end of the day, is what they really believe.
It's what they want to say, that these words have no definition.
Now leftists, they don't like definitions.
Definitions are limiting, they're objective, they impose themselves on you, you're not able to make them up as you go along.
So they don't like, especially from a relativistic standpoint, the one thing you hate the most is a definition, so you want to get rid of them.
But they can't really say that these words have no definition.
Because if the word man doesn't mean anything, Then it doesn't mean anything for a woman to identify as one.
You see, that's the problem.
If we're saying that, oh, well, a man is any—it's a fluid concept, doesn't really mean anything.
Well, then what does it mean for a woman to say she is one?
Then that statement has no meaning.
Then for her to say she's a man is exactly the same thing as her saying she's a woman, which—why are we calling her a man, then?
What's the whole point of this?
If the word man has no meaning, then it's nonsensical for a woman to say that she is one.
But if it does have a meaning, then it's also nonsensical for a woman to say that she is one.
Leftists lose either way with this, and they know it.
Or the smart ones know it anyway.
The other problem is, if these words have no definition, if they don't mean anything, then identity politics goes out the window.
It's a very weird thing with leftists, where on one hand, they want to make everything fluid, they want to put everything on a spectrum, they want to say nothing means anything, there are no definitions.
On the other hand, they want to say, they want to...
Emphasize these differences and these definitions for the purposes of identity politics.
So they can constantly say, well, you belong in that group, therefore you should think this and do that.
You belong in that group over there, so therefore you should think this and do that.
So they want to do both at the same time.
They want to put everyone on a spectrum, blend everyone together, while at the same time dividing everyone very harshly, very, very, in a very, you know, sort of defined way, and then make up rules for people's groups based on that.
They're trying to do both, and you can't do both.
So where are we left?
Well, we still have no definition.
Dr. Gu, a doctor, could not define the word man, a word that, again, my six-year-old could define, because his ideology will not allow it.
Defining man as a biological male, or anyone who identifies as being a biological male, is exactly like defining Mark Zuckerberg as the current CEO of Facebook, or anyone who feels like they are the current CEO of Facebook.
Which means that Mark Zuckerberg is either Mark Zuckerberg or anyone.
That's what it means.
Which means that he is no one in particular.
That is not a definition.
That is an anti-definition.
That is the exact opposite of a definition.
So we have a man, which is a certain thing.
And then we have people who are not men, yet think they are.
That's a completely separate thing.
Because Those people identifying as a man, in order for them to do so, they can only do that if the word man has a solid objective definition.
So, whatever they are, however we define those people, that definition depends inherently on the word man having itself an objective, solid, non-negotiable definition.
But if it does have that sort of definition, then whatever you call those other people over here, you can't call them men.
They're something else.
You can call them whatever you want.
Call them trans, call them... Whatever you want to call them, you can call them.
You just can't call them a man.
One last point.
Dr. Gu kept bringing up intersex people.
Kept saying, well, it's intersex people.
This is completely irrelevant.
And this is a move you're going to see from leftists all the time on this where they say, Oh, what about intersex?
Intersex people are irrelevant to this discussion for two reasons.
Number one, an intersex person, and these are very rare that you have intersex people, but a goose has 1.7%.
It's not that high, but even that is very low.
So intersex person, they do not prove that biological sex is on a spectrum.
Um, They don't prove that.
An intersex person is a person whose biological sex is harder to identify just by looking.
This is someone who externally, physically, their biological sex is going to be more ambiguous because of mutations, because something went wrong.
This is someone who suffers from a mutation, from a deformity.
There's an illness here.
This is an aberration.
That doesn't mean they don't have a biological sex.
You could still determine it through a DNA test.
You could still find out what their biological sex is.
It's just harder to... With almost everyone, you could tell what they are just by looking at them.
With so-called intersex people, it's harder to tell just by looking, and so you might have to dive deeper, as it were.
Second point.
Even if I were to concede that intersex people somehow exist on a spectrum and they're in between man and woman and they're sort of neither, they're a separate thing, I don't concede that.
But if I did, it would have nothing, it has no bearing at all on trans people.
Because a trans man is a biological woman who says she's a man, who identifies as a man.
A trans woman is a biological man who identifies as a woman.
If it was an intersex person, we wouldn't call them trans, we'd just say they're intersex.
Trans is a completely separate category.
So if we were to establish that intersex people biologically, physically are, you know, there's something else going on with them, that doesn't change anything with trans people.
These two things aren't related.
Because with a trans person, again, we know biologically, we know what they are.
That's not ambiguous.
So it's just, it's a completely irrelevant point.
All right.
And of course it's a self-defeating point because when you bring intersex people into it and you're saying, well, yeah, look at them.
I mean, biologically, there's some different stuff going on.
Okay.
So are you now conceding then that in order for a person, you know, to, that you're conceding that the biology does matter?
Because if it does, then that's going to disqualify the trans people.
But if you're saying, no, no, no, no.
Well, biology still doesn't matter.
Okay.
If that's the case, then why are you bringing up intersex people at all?
All right, we'll get to emails.
Well, before we get to emails, one other thing quickly.
You know, I don't usually get into all the apps and whosey-whatsits that the kids use these days, but on their infernal cellular device contraptions.
But someone did tell me about this thing called FaceApp, where you can upload a picture of yourself or anyone, and then you can age it or do whatever you want to change it and to try out a bunch of new looks, right?
In a virtual setting.
So I was bored last night.
I did give it a shot.
And you know, I found a look for myself that I'm just putting it out there because I want to get your opinion.
Honestly, I think I might go with it in real life.
But I want to kind of get a feel for the room here.
So I'm going to show you this and you tell me, should I go with this look or not?
Look at this here.
So there it is.
What do you think?
Honestly, let's just be honest here.
I look amazing in that picture.
I just do.
The mustache with the stubble, the long flowing locks.
I look like I used to sing for the Bee Gees, but then I got addicted to crack, so I got kicked out.
And then eventually I cleaned myself up and started writing erotic fiction novels while working part-time at a Spencer's Gifts in San Diego.
Which is to say, it's a great look.
And I really, I don't know if I can get my hair to that point where it would be so magnificent, but I can try anyway.
All right, let's do a few emails.
MattWalshow at gmail.com.
MattWalshow at gmail.com.
This is from Elise, says, Hi Matt, because I volunteer in children's ministry and youth group at my church, I've been exposed to all different kinds of schooling, including methods I never knew existed, like unschooling, which, quote, encourages exploration of activities initiated by the children themselves, believing that the more personal learning is the more meaningful, well understood, and therefore useful to the child.
While courses may occasionally be taken, unschooling questions the usefulness of standard curricula, conventional grading methods, and other features of traditional schooling.
She's quoting now from Wikipedia.
I first thought it was kind of free-range homeschooling, but the more I learn about it, the less similar it seems.
I'm not sure what to think about it.
While unschooling can equip kids to handle certain real-life situations better than their peers, I see some of them falling behind in academic areas like reading and math.
It's awesome that they're able to fully engage in their interests, and I often hear that unschooling allows for kids to learn things normal school wouldn't give time to, but I question the balance and apparent lack of structure.
I also know kids can learn things not traditionally taught in school without unschooling.
Do you have any experience with or thoughts on unschooling?
Yeah, I understand the philosophy behind it and I agree in many ways with the philosophy.
That a lot of kids learn better, maybe all kids in some ways, learn better in a non-structured environment when they're able to pursue their own interests.
And so sort of an unschooling lesson would be, it's like when I, if we're going on a hike with my kids in the woods, and they'll just pick up random leaves and bugs and point out random trees and sort of ask about them.
And we'll, as we go along, we'll tell them, oh, that's what that is.
And so we're talking and learning and walking and we're in nature and it becomes a kind of lesson in biology and things like that.
So that's unschooling, and I think that's very important for kids.
And I also agree that the modern curricula that you find in public schools are often counterproductive and ineffective, and I think even harmful to some kids.
Which is why a lot of kids have to be drugged, basically.
Have to be sedated with drugs in order to sit there and just regurgitate the information that they're told.
That's what most curricula consist of these days.
So I agree with all that.
But I also do think that kids need a more structured environment to learn as well.
I think that the unschooling thing sets up a false dichotomy.
Or it's like we have to choose between, well, do they learn in an unstructured way or do they learn in a structured way?
Well, kids, they can do both.
You have the structured school setting, and I'm all about homeschooling.
I think homeschooling is great.
That's what we do for our kids.
But that's a structured environment.
There's an actual curriculum that you follow.
And also, though, they're also being unschooled all the time.
I mean, constantly.
If you have young kids, they're always asking questions, they're very curious, they're exploring, and so you do that too.
So that's my point.
I think unschooling is great, but there's no reason why it has to replace a structured academic environment, which I think kids also need and will benefit from, as long as it's structured in the right way.
So if we observe that school is often structured wrongly, I don't think the correct response is, well, it shouldn't be structured at all.
It's like if you're in a building and you notice that the structure is wrong, it was built the wrong way, well, that's a good argument for repairing it, for rebuilding it even, but that's not an argument for getting rid of buildings completely.
All right, this is from Tony, says, Hey, Matt, love the show.
On last Thursday's show, you discussed public shaming in relation to the gentleman at the bagel shop that was mocked for his height.
You brought up good and bad public shaming and the prospect of someone who is or may be mentally unstable or having issues subsequently committing suicide after being publicly shamed.
A recent example of this that has gone rather unnoticed might fit your theory. A 70-year-old
runner committed suicide days after being disqualified for the LA Marathon after a
series of articles were written detailing that he cheated while running the race. He posted the
fastest time in the LA Marathon history for his age group. A marathon investigation researched and
investigated his result, determined he cheated, and he was subsequently disqualified.
He remained defiant in defending the allegation, only to commit suicide days later.
The articles accusing him of cheating were published online and posted on various social media and were, of course, met with all sorts of comments, criticism, and public shaming.
I'm interested to hear your take on this.
Does this fall under the category of good public shaming or bad public shaming?
Have we come too far when it comes to social media and public shaming?
I'm also happy to discuss this with you in more detail.
Yeah, I do think, as I said, that we have come too far in many ways with public shaming.
Or maybe not too far, it's just we've gone in the wrong direction where we publicly shame people who don't need it and where it's not appropriate.
So a guy who has essentially a mental breakdown, I don't think he needs to be publicly shamed for that.
Now, this person, I'm not familiar with this case at all.
I don't know anything about it.
If somebody, and I don't even know if he really did cheat, but if someone did cheat or something, and they're guilty of that, and then that information is reported, and they tragically commit suicide later, no, I don't think, I wouldn't even call that public shaming.
If you do something like cheat on a major marathon, it's gonna make the news.
It is a newsworthy event, especially if you're an older person.
If you made the news by winning, And then it turns out you cheated, then that is also going to make the news.
That's completely normal and justified.
And then if that person goes and commits suicide, I think that's someone who, it's a tragic thing, but that's someone who feels ashamed of what they did, if he did in fact do it.
And, you know, there's all kinds of things that go into it.
And I would also say that if you're 70 years old and cheating on a marathon, you're probably already troubled.
It's not a normal thing to do.
So I would say that's what led to the suicide.
It's not public shaming.
So again, if you do something bad, which is newsworthy, And not all bad things are newsworthy, but if you do something that's bad that is newsworthy and it's reported by the news and then you feel deeply ashamed, I don't think that's even, I wouldn't even qualify that as public shaming.
That is simply a natural consequence of the thing you did.
All right.
What else we got here?
I guess, well, a couple other emails that will be long answer, so I think we'll leave it there.
We'll talk again tomorrow.
Thanks everybody for watching.
Godspeed.
It is unclear whether Planned Parenthood used chemicals or forceps to evacuate President Leana Wu from her office.
We will examine what the firing means for the modern left.
Then, Bill Whittle stops by to talk about the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing.
