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Sept. 13, 2019 - The Matt Walsh Show
47:50
Ep. 331 - The Most Embarrassing Debate Yet

Last night's debate was great entertainment but also a huge embarrassment for the Democrat Party. Bernie screamed until he lost his voice. Yang tried to bribe the audience. Kamala appeared to be drunk. We'll sort through it. Also, I'll answer your emails. Date: 09-13-2019 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Okay, I just wanna say, I saw this story this morning, it's from the Daily Star, a very reputable news outlet,
and it tells us that there have been these sightings of UFOs, like snake-like, snake,
basically look like snakes in the sky, I guess, across the country, and according to someone
who was interviewed by the Daily Star, the US government is investigating this,
and they're looking into it to figure out if we're being invaded by aliens.
They're very concerned about it, about the snake crafts that are in the sky,
and I just wanna say that, especially after watching the debates last night,
I am rooting so, so hard for an alien invasion at this point.
Not foreign aliens, we already got that going on, but extraterrestrials basically coming here and enslaving mankind.
I really am rooting for that.
I think that would be great.
If any aliens happen to be listening to this broadcast right now, I plead with you, I invite you, please come.
and enslave us all. The whole humanity thing honestly isn't working out very well. So if you
want to just, you know, you're not going to encounter a lot of resistance is all I'm saying.
Now as for the debate, it was depressing and disturbing on a number of levels, but I must
admit it was also entertaining as hell. And that's the main thing that matters, right?
Is that we're entertained when we watch these debates because so often the entertainment factor just isn't there.
I really enjoyed it.
In fact, there was one point in the debate, and this always happens, right?
You always have the goody two-shoes who does this when you've got people screaming at each other and the audience is enjoying it.
We're eating our popcorn, loving every second of it.
And then someone always jumps in and says, hey, guys, guys, guys, let's, this isn't what the American people want to see.
So last night, I think it was Buttigieg who stepped in during the screaming match and said,
this is not why Americans tune into debates.
And of course we're all thinking, no, that's exactly why we tune into debates.
This is exactly what we wanna see.
Now, if you're part of the Democrat party, it's probably not good for you, it's pretty embarrassing.
But for the rest of us, I really like it.
You had Bernie shouting until he lost his voice.
You had Kamala, I think was basically drunk and erupting into laughter at inappropriate times.
You had Andrew Yang tossing money into the crowd.
Castro calling Biden an old fart.
This is basically what was happening.
Not literally what was happening, but this is basically what was happening.
So we're going to go through and talk about the debate.
and try to figure out just how deeply into despair we should plunge at the thought of these people
controlling the country, at the thought that this is a major political party
in America and this is what it has become.
We're gonna talk about all that.
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Okay, so the debate last night.
A debate where Jorge Ramos is an American citizen.
He's about 60 now.
from Univision, he helped to moderate the debate, breaking into Spanish at various points
for no apparent reason.
And here's the thing, Jorge Ramos is an American citizen.
He's about 60 now, he became a citizen when he was 50 years old.
But he is, and I was reminded of this last night when I was slightly critical on Twitter
of Jorge Ramos' involvement in the debate.
And my criticism stems from the fact, not from the fact that he's of Mexican descent,
but the fact that he is staunchly opposed to American sovereignty, very clearly, and always has been.
So I have to admit that it rubs me the wrong way.
It does.
I mean, I was told last night, this makes me racist.
You're a racist, how dare you?
But it doesn't seem racist to me, that it does rub me the wrong way when people come here, and even if they move and become citizens, and then turn around and lecture us about American sovereignty and tell us why we shouldn't have borders.
I don't like that.
You know, I don't like it.
I admit.
And that was Ramos' function at the debate, was to sit there and lecture the presidential candidates and to try to prompt them to essentially disavow American sovereignty, which this is a Democrat debate, so they were more than happy to do, but that doesn't make it any less of a repulsive spectacle, in my view.
I mean, what do you think?
Do you think... Hold on a second.
I feel like Bernie at the debate last night.
Losing my voice.
Do you think Mexico, for its debates, do you think it brings in American journalists to lecture its candidates about its border enforcement?
Do you think they do that?
I sort of doubt it.
Do you think any country in the world has candidates who break into English?
Do you think any non-English country in the world has candidates who break into English just to try to impress everybody?
I really doubt it.
This is all unique to our situation, because America is the only country in the world that's supposed to feel ashamed of enforcing its borders.
It's the only country that isn't allowed to have borders.
Everyone else can have borders.
Mexico has borders.
They enforce it.
As is discussed sometimes, Mexico has its own southern border.
They enforce it.
But no, we're not allowed to do that.
And someone from Mexico can come here, even if they move here, and tell us, no, you can't have borders.
Shame on you!
And we're not allowed, but you can't have any problem with that.
All you're allowed to do is just sit silently and say, okay, sir.
Yes, sir.
I'm sorry, sir.
Yes, sir.
If you try to speak up and say, what are you doing coming here and telling us, right?
If you do that, racist!
That's racist!
All right.
For my tweets last night, I've had all these people saying, are you going to delete that tweet and apologize?
When's the apology?
No, I'm not going to delete an apology.
Do you know why?
Because I don't care about your opinion, if you're offended.
I don't care about your opinion and your outrage means nothing to me.
So that's why I don't apologize.
I'm just being frank with you.
Alright, on a lighter note, for me, the highlight of the night was the fact that Kamala Harris appeared to be drunk.
That's the sense I got.
She appeared to be drunk as a skunk.
I don't know, but she was the whole night.
She was like your drunk aunt at Thanksgiving, laughing for no reason while everyone just stands, sits there awkwardly.
You know, you're in the middle of a conversation, the ant pipes in, laughs, everyone's like, okay.
Anyway, that's what it was the entire night.
I think maybe chugging Chardonnay before the debate probably wasn't a great idea.
I guess they told her she needs to loosen up.
She's got this whole image as the, she's got the cop image, right, as someone who's, and that doesn't do well for Democrats, so they told her to loosen up, and I think she loosened up a little bit too much.
And she tried to turn the debate into a stand-up special, which I have to say, out of recent stand-up specials, the way I would rank them is probably Bill Burr number one, Dave Chappelle number two, and then Kamala Harris would be a distant three.
Now, here's one of her jokes, and I want you to pay attention to the moderator's response to the joke.
Here it is, watch this.
Donald Trump, in office, on trade policy, you know, he reminds me of that guy in The Wizard of Oz, you know, when you pull back the curtain, it's a really small dude.
Okay.
Okay, the clip cuts off so you don't get to see Kamala laughing hysterically at her own joke for the next seven minutes.
But I just, I love the okay from the moderator.
Trump is like, Trump is like the Wizard of Oz.
You know, the little small dude from Wizard of Oz.
Okay.
Small dude, did you get it?
Small dude.
All right, moving on.
But here's I think, this I think is Kamala's drunkest moment.
And, well, you tell me.
You watch this and you tell me if this looks sober to you.
Watch this.
Today's former Vice President Biden has said about executive orders, some really talented people are seeking the nomination.
They said, I'm going to issue an executive order.
Biden saying there's no constitutional authority to issue that executive order when they say I'm going to eliminate assault weapons, saying you can't do it by executive order any more than Trump can do things when he says he can do it by executive order.
Does the vice president have a point there?
Some things you can.
Many things you can't.
Let's let the senator answer.
Well, I mean, I would just say, hey, Joe, instead of saying, no, we can't, let's say, yes, we can.
Let's be constitutional.
We've got a constitution.
And yes, we can.
Instead of saying, instead of saying we can, let's say, yes, we can.
Now, actually, the transition Because what you didn't pick up in that clip there, what the clip cut off, but the transition from that joke to the point she really wanted to make is what we need to focus on because this is my favorite transition I've ever seen in a debate.
Let's go back to that clip and we're going to play it from when the last one left off.
Watch.
Can.
And yes we can, because I'll tell you something.
The way that I think about this is I've seen more autopsy photographs than I care to tell you.
Yes we can.
But seriously, I've seen so many dead people.
It's very traumatizing.
That was her transition.
Laughing hysterically, and she went from there to talking about autopsy photos.
That was good.
Now, what else happened?
A few points, let's see, a few points I want to go through here.
First, the candidates were given about 20 minutes to talk about how much they hate racism,
which wasn't even the biggest softball of the night.
The biggest softball of the night was the final half hour when they were all given the chance to tell flattering stories about themselves, which we'll talk about a little bit later.
But that was, seriously, the last, it was a three-hour debate, God help us, the last 30 minutes.
And I was wondering, why did it, three hours?
How are you gonna fill all that time?
Well, it's because they wanted to leave the last half hour to give the candidates a chance to say nice things about themselves, which they were more than happy to do.
But for the racism thing, Buttigieg and O'Rourke You know, being as they were at a historically black college, and this is a Democrat debate, they really, and they themselves, of course, are white dudes, they really turned the pandering mode up to turbo.
I mean, they really turned it on.
But I think there's a problem with the sort of pandering that we see on this particular issue that we see from Buttigieg and O'Rourke.
But we'll play the clip first.
Watch this.
I believe what's deepened divisions in the country is the conduct of this president, and we have a chance to change all of that.
Look, systemic racism preceded this president, and even when we defeat him, it will be with us.
That's why we need a systemic approach to dismantle it.
It's not enough to just take a racist policy, replace it with a neutral one, and expect things will just get better on their own.
Harm's compound.
In the same way that a dollar saved compound, so does a dollar stolen.
And we know that the generational theft of the descendants of slaves is part of why everything from housing, to education, to health, to employment, basically puts us in two different countries.
I have proposed the most comprehensive vision to tackle systemic racism in every one of these areas.
Marshalling as many resources as went into the Marshall Plan that rebuilt Europe, but This time, a Douglas plan that we invest right here at home.
To make sure that we're not only dealing with things like the over-incarceration of black Americans, but also black solutions.
Entrepreneurship.
Raising to 25% the target for the federal government to do business with minority-owned businesses.
Investing in HBCUs that are training and educating the next generation of entrepreneurs.
We can and must do that.
That means transcending this framework that pits us against each other, that pits a single black mother of three against a displaced autoworker.
Because where I come from, a lot of times that displaced autoworker is a single black mother of three.
We've got to say that and bring people together.
Okay, there's but a jidge on racism, but I think, again, there's an issue with the way that O'Rourke and Mayor Pete try to address this particular issue, and we'll talk about that in a second.
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All right.
Here's the issue.
When you've got Buttigieg and O'Rourke talking about racism and so on, systemic racism, Okay, but you're two white dudes running for president.
If you're really concerned about systemic racism, wouldn't you drop out and throw your support behind one of the candidates of color that are running for president?
Someone like Kamala or Booker or Yang?
Aren't you?
Because aren't you basically saying if you think that there's systemic racism in this country, that it is ingrained in our system, then aren't you really saying systemic racism is a huge problem and the best person to fix it is me, a white man, rather than a black man or a black woman or an Asian man?
See, that doesn't make much sense to me.
It's the same problem that these pandering men have, like Biden, when they say, oh yeah, I'm going to pick a female VP because it's about time that we had a female in the White House.
Just, she shouldn't be at the top, though.
She should be right below me.
She shouldn't be at the top of the food chain.
She should be one step below it.
Um, if you really feel that way, but if you really feel like it's so important we have a woman in the White House that I'm going to make her my VP, then, then why are you trying to take votes from female candidates?
Why not offer your services as a woman's VP?
Okay?
Rather than trying to make it the other way around.
That's what doesn't make any sense.
And that's where the, the, I think the pandering comes back to bite them in the butt.
Um, now, Healthcare.
They talked a lot about healthcare.
I'm not going to play any clips, but there was an interesting blow-up over healthcare, and we see this every time there's a Democrat debate, where you've got Warren and Sanders insisting that everybody will magically get free healthcare, and meanwhile you've got a few remaining not-yet-full-blown socialists who at least sort of understand that you have to be able to pay for things.
And so they're demanding that Warren and Sanders explain how they're gonna pay for this stuff, and they can't do it.
Because there is no way to pay for it, other than massively raising taxes on everyone.
But Sanders doesn't understand.
Sanders is just yelling and screaming and waving his arms around like a maniac.
He doesn't understand anything.
Warren, too, is completely out of touch with reality.
And I thought that Warren's problem of being out of touch was profoundly demonstrated
by her opening statement.
Let's give a listen to that.
So I was born and raised in Oklahoma, but I'm sure glad to be in Texas tonight.
All three of my brothers served in military bases here in Texas.
That was their ticket to the middle class.
Me?
I got my big opportunity about a half mile down the road from here at the University of Houston back when it cost $50 a semester for a price that I could pay for on a part-time waitressing job.
I got to finish my four-year degree and I became a special needs teacher.
And after law school, my first big job was back here in Houston.
By then, I had two little kids, and when child care nearly brought me down, my Aunt Bea moved in and saved us all.
The paths to America's middle class have gotten a lot smaller and a lot narrower.
Today, service members are preyed upon by predatory lenders.
Students are crushed by debt, and families cannot afford child care.
I know what's broken, I know how to fix it, and I'm going to lead the fight to get it
done.
Ticket to the middle class.
Paths to the middle class.
What she doesn't understand, probably because she's not middle class, she's upper class, what she doesn't understand is that being middle class is not anybody's goal, okay?
Nobody gets a job and says, woohoo, this is my ticket to the middle class!
Watch out, middle class, here I come!
I'm making $65,000 a year.
My goals are complete.
I am in the middle class.
Smooth sailing from here on out.
No, people, that's not, that's, people aspire to more than that.
OK, most of us end up in the middle class sort of by default.
That's the thing.
All of this sucking up that candidates do to the middle class and the middle class is so great.
Everyone in the middle class, you end up there by default.
You didn't want to be middle class.
It's just that's where you are.
But the point is, everyone, you know, people aspire, they strive to move up.
That's what everyone wants to do.
And there's not anyone saying, well, let me get to middle class, let me get to, you know, right there, right in the middle, and I'm done, I'm good to go.
It's not the way it works.
If you're poor, you'd rather be middle class than poor, but you'd also rather be well off than middle class.
Because that's where people's aspirations and dreams and goals go, whether or not they're ever achieved.
But what we hear from Democrat politicians is what they're telling us is, well, we should get to middle class, you should be satisfied with that.
Now, I, as a Democrat politician, I can be rich and have three houses or whatever, but you, you should be satisfied and happy right there.
We're gonna keep you right there.
That, to me, is a very concerning attitude.
Speaking of concerning attitudes, the whole conversation about guns and gun violence, Beto O'Rourke went off on his whole thing.
He's going all in on gun confiscation, saying, yeah, we're going to take the guns, we're going to buy them back, which is to say, we're going to steal your guns and then compensate you with whatever amount of money we decide.
Which is, like we talked about last week, it's really your own money.
So we're going to take money out of your pocket and use it to buy your gun from you by force, and then you're supposed to be happy with that.
So Beto's talking about gun confiscation, and there's a lot of conversation about gun violence and gun deaths and all these statistics flying around about how many gun deaths there are.
And the only thing I want to say about that, because I think it bears repeating every time this subject comes up, when you hear all these scary statistics about gun violence and gun deaths specifically, we should always remember the gun death figure, whatever it is, whatever they're going to say it was for 2018, whatever it ends up being 2019.
Nearly two thirds of those gun deaths are suicides.
Which is tragic and terrible.
And what we really learned from that is that there is a suicide epidemic in this country.
There are a lot of people committing suicide.
And that's something we should be talking about.
But the reason we don't talk about that is that it would be absurd, obviously, to blame suicide on a gun.
Even Democrats aren't at the point yet where they would do that, because they realize that, look, if somebody wants to kill themselves, there are many ways to do it, and if they don't have a gun, there are dozens of other ways that they could potentially kill themselves.
So to blame it on the gun, just, you can't do it.
It makes no sense.
Now, it also makes no sense to blame a mass shooting on a gun, necessarily, and they have no problem doing that.
But to blame a suicide on it is even more of a stretch, which is why they don't want to talk about that.
Instead, they lump everything together.
But two-thirds are suicides.
Um, the problem of people killing other people with guns, it just, you cannot lump suicides in with that.
That's a different category of thing.
Tragic, sad, terrible, something that we need to talk about and address, but it's, it, you cannot put it in the same category as a mass shooting.
It's a completely different phenomenon.
So we should always remember that.
Um, all right.
Putting, uh, Putting the issues to the side for a moment, I want to say one other thing about the debate.
I want to say something about Joe Biden, because Joe Biden, I think, had a fairly disastrous performance.
I think all of his performances at the debates have been bad.
I think his performance in general on the campaign trail has been pretty bad.
And this is a guy that 15 years ago, if he was out on the campaign trail, I think he would have been formidable.
He did run for president other times and didn't succeed.
But I think he was a formidable politician, at least.
He was a formidable politician for most of his That's what happens to everybody.
just he was, even though I didn't agree with and I don't agree with his policies,
relatively charming guy, good on his feet, all that kind of stuff, right?
Quick thinker.
Well, that, you know, he's 77 years old now and he's lost a lot of that.
And that's just, that's what happens to everybody.
If you live long enough, it's gonna happen to you.
Where you get older and your mind doesn't work as quick anymore
and your body starts shutting down.
That's it.
Most men die before the age of 85.
At 77, you are probably only a few years from death.
That is the sad reality of being puny mortals, living in the physical world.
So, I think it's been a sad performance overall.
And at the debate last night, it was especially bad because he wasn't even making sense for most of the time.
For instance, watch this clip right here.
Nobody should be in jail for a nonviolent crime.
When we were in the White House, we released 36,000 people from the federal prison system.
Okay, so he says nobody should be in jail for violent crimes?
So embezzlement, child pornography, burglary, those are all nonviolent crimes, so you're telling me those should be legal?
Well, no, obviously Biden doesn't think that, one would assume.
It's just that he's not thinking clearly, at all, is the problem.
Now here he is, here he is making a point, I'm not sure what the point is he's trying to make, but he does seem confused about what decade we're living in.
We bring social workers into homes and parents to help them deal with how to raise their children.
It's not that they don't want to help.
They don't want, they don't know quite what to do.
Play the radio, make sure the television, excuse me, make sure you have the record player on at night, the phone, make sure the kids hear words.
A kid coming from a very poor school, a very poor background, will hear four million words fewer spoken by the time they get there.
There's so much, I'm going to go like the rest of them do.
Yes.
Uh, record players.
He's talking about record players.
And this is what made it really sting when Castro essentially accused him of having dementia.
Be enrolled, they wouldn't have to buy in.
That's a big difference because Barack Obama's vision was not to leave 10 million people uncovered.
He wanted every single person in this country covered.
My plan would do that, your plan would not.
They do not have to buy in.
They do not have to buy in.
You just said that.
You just said that two minutes ago.
You just said two minutes ago that they would have to buy in.
You said they would have to buy in.
Are you forgetting what you said two minutes ago?
Are you forgetting already what you said just two minutes ago?
I mean, I can't believe that you said two minutes ago that they had to buy in, and now you're saying they don't have to buy in.
You're forgetting that.
I said anyone like my grandmother, who has no money, you're automatically enrolled.
enrolls people regardless of whether they choose to opt in or not. If you lose
your job for instance, his his health care plan would not automatically
enroll you, you would have to opt in. My health care plan would. That's a big
difference. I'm fulfilling the legacy of Barack Obama and you're not.
I'll be surprised to hear.
Honestly, I can't laugh at that.
That's brutal and sad.
And there's also a clip floating around out there of Biden appearing to lose his dentures while something weird is happening in his mouth while he's talking.
I'm not going to play it.
I don't get it with Biden.
You're very old.
You're rich.
You've had a successful life.
I mean, most people will never be vice president.
Most people will never be senator.
So you've done that.
You've achieved more than a lot of people.
Why not go home and enjoy your remaining years?
Go home with your family.
Why put yourself through this?
He's not only having all these gaffes on the campaign trail, but at the first debate, he's accused of being racist by Kamala Harris.
At this debate, he's accused—he's essentially called senile by Castro.
The guy's being embarrassed up there, and there's no reason—at least if he was a younger man, and you might say that, okay, this is his first foray, it's not working out, he could try again.
That's not going to happen for Biden, so why not go just be retired?
Go play golf, take up fishing.
You know how much I would love if I could just go fish every day and do nothing else?
Well, that's what Joe Biden could do at the age of 77.
I mean, it's similar to how I felt about Hillary Clinton, although Hillary Clinton is certainly a more repulsive human being, so it was a lot harder to feel sorry for.
But even with Hillary Clinton, she was falling apart, having all these health problems.
She's an old woman grasping desperately for this last chance at power, and you think, Why?
What is it really worth it for all of this?
Even if you win, you're going to only be in office probably for four years.
That's all your body's going to be able to take.
And then you die soon after.
You won't even be able to enjoy the fact that you had all this power.
So I don't get it.
And here's one thing I want to say about Biden in all seriousness.
At the end of the debate, as I mentioned, they had this softball segment that went on for way too long where they asked everybody, they gave everyone a chance to tell a flattering story about themselves.
And they asked them, the question was, name a time when you overcame adversity.
It was an actual question asked at a debate.
The kind of question that, of course, will be asked of Democrats, but you'll never expect to see a question like that asked of Republicans.
And Bernie talked about when he ran for mayor in Vermont.
That was his overcoming adversity.
Buttigieg talked about the fact that Mike Pence is mean.
And everyone had pretty pathetic examples of the adversity that they overcame.
Cory Booker said his tires were slashed one time.
Well, Biden talked about losing his wife and child in a car accident, and then losing his son to brain cancer years later.
And that's a reminder that—and there you have—he was the first person to ask the question, so he gave his answer, which is a real answer.
I mean, you want to talk about adversity, well, there you go.
Everybody else's answers were pathetically embarrassing by contrast.
But it's a reminder that no matter how you feel about Biden, and I don't like him, but he has nonetheless gone through the most painful thing any human can possibly endure.
And every time I see Biden at one of these debates, I always think about that.
He's gone through the most painful thing anyone can go through.
Twice.
Twice.
Twice he's gone through it.
And he managed to keep moving.
He managed to at least pick himself up and move on.
And that counts for something.
I don't think I could do it.
I don't think I could keep living.
God forbid I lose my wife and child in a car accident, I don't think I'd want to be on this planet anymore.
And certainly, I wouldn't be able to function at any level anymore in society.
Or at the very minimum, it would take me years to be able to do that.
But Biden has marched on, and I admire that on a human level.
I wouldn't be human if I couldn't admire that.
I made this point on Twitter, and of course there were sociopaths responding with, ah, it's nothing special.
What are you doing giving Biden credit?
I mean, come on, let's be human beings.
You go through something like that, that is, as I said, pretty much the worst thing that can happen to a person.
Not pretty much.
That is the worst thing that can happen to a person, to lose a child and a spouse, and then to have it happen again.
And that's all the more reason why I think the guy should really just drop out and go home and be with his family and enjoy his remaining years.
He doesn't need this.
There's no reason for it.
And I find it sad all around.
I really do.
All right.
Matt Walshow at gmail.com.
Matt Walshow at gmail.com is the email address.
This is from Matt.
This is from Adam, says, hey Matt, I agree with your take on the proposed e-cig ban, even though I think vaping is a dumb thing to do.
I also want to comment on what you said concerning your own habits of cigar smoking and drinking.
You said you don't mind having a few years of your life shaved off from these habits.
I totally get where you're coming from, but you should also take quality of life into consideration, not just quantity.
I work in healthcare on a daily basis.
I see people with poor life quality caused from poor choices, especially those who have long smoking histories.
They have low energy, frequently are short of breath, And often have to carry O2 tanks around everywhere they go.
It doesn't look fun.
I think most of us have room for improvement when it comes to taking care of our bodies.
I know I do.
The more we take care of ourselves, the more fulfilling our lives can be.
That's my two cents on the matter.
Keep up the good work.
Yeah, well, that's certainly true.
And that's why I say that the luxuries in life, whether it's alcohol or smoking an occasional cigar or having chocolate cake, whatever it is, and we all have things like that we enjoy, I think you've got to do it in moderation, of course.
But the point is, and if you don't do it in moderation, then as you say, not only are you going to die sooner, but your life leading up to death is eventually going to become absolutely miserable because of the choices you've made.
And so that's no way to have a healthy, happy and fulfilling life.
I guess my point only is that You could say, well, listen, yeah, you could have a piece of chocolate cake every once in a while and it's not going to kill you, or have a drink in moderation and it's not going to kill you, but you'd probably live longer if you didn't do that stuff at all.
So, from a health perspective, there really is no health benefit to any of that.
Arguably maybe with alcohol, in very small doses maybe there is, depending on what study you listen to, but probably overall, with all of those things, whether it's junk food or tobacco or alcohol, probably you'll live longer if you just don't touch it at all.
And that's where I say, yeah, maybe that's true, but it also brings you a little bit of joy, a little bit of happiness.
It helps you relax a little bit.
And so to give all that up your whole life, just to tack on a few more years at the end, I don't see how that trade is worth it.
Although, yes, the trade of, I'm going to do this in moderation so that I don't die at the age of 50, that trade is definitely worth it.
All right, this is from Jenny, says, Dear Matt, I wanted to weigh in on the question of human suffering.
You had mentioned that it's hard to understand why God doesn't just remove the suffering of innocent children.
Or suffering caused by natural disaster.
I am a Christian and I believe that God does end suffering for us either through some sort of temporary relief and eventually through our death.
It's difficult to understand because we want suffering to end immediately.
We may suffer for a maximum of 80 to 100 years if you have a very bad life and suffer the entire time.
But since we have immortal souls, if we only suffer for 80 to 100 years at an absolute maximum, what is 80 to 100 years is a percentage of eternity.
My point is that those who are saved will have their suffering removed immediately as compared to the timeline of eternity.
A lot of math, heavy subjects, but to lighten it up, I really enjoy your show.
Thanks for the work.
Thanks for your work.
Well, Jenny, the point you raised, and I got several other emails making a similar point as we were talking about the problem of suffering yesterday on the show, and I said that I do find it to be a profound problem that is not easily Answered and I don't think can be debunked by Christians.
I don't think there's an answer we can give we say well That's problems done.
We came up with an answer for The point you raise is a good one, and I don't disagree with it, but I think it doesn't quite answer the problem of suffering It's part of an answer It's part of the picture, certainly.
It's relevant, obviously, but it isn't enough to diffuse the question entirely, in my view.
And I'll tell you why.
First of all, if you're meeting this challenge from an atheist, and generally when someone raises the problem of suffering in a In a debate context, that's going to be someone who's an atheist, and they're giving one of the reasons why they don't believe in God, where they say there's a lot of suffering in the world, a loving God wouldn't allow this, that's their argument.
Now, I think there are various different ways to address it, even if it can't be answered 100%, you know, completely.
But I think in that context, bringing up heaven isn't going to work, because they don't believe in heaven.
So in order for that answer to work, you first have to prove the existence of heaven, which in and of itself is a tall order, and so that's the first thing to keep in mind.
Now, second, talking as two Christians, I think the answer, the heaven answer, still leaves something to be desired, because for one thing, For one thing, not everybody goes to heaven, right?
So some people will go on to eternal suffering.
So what about the people who suffer immeasurably in life and then go on to suffer immeasurably in the afterlife?
Okay, so I think bringing the afterlife into this question really only makes the problem of suffering more pronounced.
It really adds to the problem of suffering.
Where, yeah, some people are going to heaven, but not everybody is.
And so what about the life of misery and suffering for people who don't go?
It's just misery and suffering the whole time, forever.
And so I think, in a way, you've added another layer to the problem of suffering, and a more even difficult layer, I would say.
But even in the case of someone, so, but let's put, okay, let's put that to the side, and let's put to the side, if you're having this conversation with an atheist, let's talk for a minute about someone who suffers greatly here, but then does go on to heaven.
Okay.
Well, certainly, it will have been worth it in the end.
I think we would all agree.
But that still doesn't quite tell us why God doesn't, for example, make children impervious to cancer, as he obviously could do, being all-powerful.
So think about it.
If your child is in pain, if your child is hurting, is suffering, are you going to say, well, it's okay that my child's in pain today because we're going to an amusement park tomorrow and they're going to have a lot of fun and forget all about this?
Now that's true of course.
He will forget all about it.
That's the thing about kids.
They get very wrapped up in their emotions and they get very wrapped up in the moment for good and bad.
And they can act like they're completely traumatized by something.
Like if you told them they can't have a snack and they break down in tears and melt down.
30 seconds later, they're over it.
And so, let's say your kid is really in pain or really suffering in his way over something.
Are you going to say, that doesn't matter because I know he'll be over it soon?
Probably not.
You still take his pain in the moment seriously.
And if you could stop it, I imagine you would.
If you had the ability to snap your fingers and make it go away, make the pain go away, make the suffering go away, you would.
You probably wouldn't say, eh, let's just wait for tomorrow.
He'll be fine by then.
I'll give you an example.
My son, when he was about two years old, well, maybe about a year and a half, he fractured his leg on the playground.
And he was in a lot of pain, as you can imagine.
I've gone through that myself recently, and it's very painful.
And we didn't realize at first what had happened to him, because he couldn't tell us.
He wasn't old enough yet to tell us.
And all we knew is he came down a slide, and he started crying.
And we picked him up, and he was crying.
My wife put him down for a second to try to talk to him, not knowing he hurt his leg.
And then he screams out in pain and starts limping.
And of course, my wife immediately scoops him up again.
It was a temporary pain, and he's over it by now.
It was a year and a half ago.
Doesn't even remember it, I imagine.
But I still think back to it sometimes, and it still kind of hurts my heart as a parent, thinking of that little guy in so much pain, and so unable to understand why he was hurting, or when it would stop, or if it would stop.
That's the thing about really little kids.
When they're very sick, or they're in pain, or they're scared, or whatever, that's what makes it That's what really gets you as a parent when you see your little children suffering, is that it's the confusion that comes with it, where they don't understand.
And you could try to talk to them and say, it's going to be okay, you know, it'll feel better.
They don't know that.
And so in the moment, for them, they think it's going to be like this the rest of their life.
They have no idea.
Now, but with my son with his leg injury, I knew that he would get over it.
I knew that he would recover.
We'd take him to the doctor, he'd wear the cast, and eventually, you know, he would be over it, and he wouldn't even remember it.
I knew that.
But if I had a magic button I could press that would have made that pain go away, I would have pressed it.
Of course I would.
I wouldn't have said, I wouldn't have said, well, why press the button?
He'll be fine in a few weeks.
Of course I'd push it.
I mean, what kind of parent would I be if I didn't?
I love my child.
I don't want him to suffer and be in pain like that.
So I would take it away if I could.
In fact, if I could push a button that would transfer the pain in his leg to my leg, I would have pushed it.
In a heartbeat.
Without question.
Definitely.
So, that's why heaven doesn't quite answer the problem of suffering, because even if the pain and suffering is temporary, it's still real.
And see, that's the other problem.
That's why I'm sometimes uncomfortable with people saying, well, you know, you go to heaven.
It has a way.
I know you didn't mean it this way, but it has the effect.
Of being dismissive of earthly pain and suffering and saying it doesn't really matter.
It does matter.
It's real.
People are going through it.
It's real and it matters.
And why do children need to get cancer just because there's heaven?
Okay, you would never say of your own child, you know, you're getting a treat tomorrow, therefore you must suffer immensely today.
You would never say that about your own kid.
So, that's all to say.
That I think the problem of suffering remains.
I don't understand.
Yeah, I understand that there's heaven.
I understand that when you're in heaven, you're not thinking anymore about those bad things.
But why do, especially little kids, have to suffer in that way just because there's heaven?
Why can't they just have joy and happiness the whole time?
I don't understand that.
Now I'm just being honest.
Maybe I'm being a little too honest.
But I don't understand it.
I don't have the answer for that.
I don't understand why God doesn't take the pain away from those children right now.
I wish he would.
I would.
But I'm not God.
So I have to have faith that there's a reason.
That there is some answer out there that I just don't understand, and I don't think any of us understand.
I don't think anyone on earth understands it, because I've never heard a person give an answer that was completely sufficient, which tells me that none of us fully understand it.
See, it's really uncomfortable for us as Christians to admit when we don't understand something.
And when we don't have an answer for something, we don't like to admit it and we always want to pretend that we have an answer at least.
But I think we have to be okay with not knowing and with not having the answer.
I think we need to be okay with that.
And I think it's okay to say, I really don't get this and it troubles me.
That's okay, too, because that's real.
We're human beings.
We're trying to sort through this.
And so, when you see a child suffering, and you feel angry, and you feel helpless, and you say, God, why don't you stop this?
That's how we should react.
That's how God wants us to react.
That's a reaction of love.
It's because we love those children, and we don't want to see them in pain.
And so I think God can take that sort of questioning, even the anger we have.
And I admit, I have that anger sometimes at God where I say, you know, when I see a story about a four-year-old child, the one I talked about yesterday, a four-year-old child hunched over a toilet vomiting from his chemotherapy treatments.
And yeah, you know, when I saw that, I felt some anger at God.
I felt like, why don't you?
You have the magic button.
Why don't you press it?
But I think that God can handle that anger.
And I would even say that I think maybe He God wants us to have some anger because where does the anger come from?
It comes from love for the child and a desire for joy for not just ourselves but for others.
And that's where it comes from.
It comes from a good place.
And so I think, far be it for me to say, but I think God is okay with that.
All right, so that got really heavy there at the end.
We will leave it there.
But I appreciate all the emails, by the way.
I got a lot of emails on this, and all of them very interesting.
And so I think it's good that we're talking about this and trying to work through it.
Have a great weekend, everybody.
I'm taking my son to his first Ravens game on Sunday, so I'm pretty excited about that.
Hope you have plans as well, and I'll talk to you on Monday.
Godspeed.
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