Ep. 390 - The Anti-Porn Argument No One Has Addressed
The debate about porn has been fascinating this week, with conservatives coming down on either side of the discussion. But there's one argument for porn prohibition or regulation that I haven't heard anyone on the other side of the debate address. I want to lay it out today. Also, a depressing video shows college students supporting Medicare for all, even though they have no idea what it entails. And we debate: what is the worst Christmas song of all time?
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So, you know, I'm really fascinated by the debate that has been raging these past several days among conservatives around the issue of pornography.
And I'm happy to accept Part of the blame for helping to start this little scuffle, because I think that it's been a clarifying moment for conservatism.
I think it's been a very interesting conversation as well.
And there was an article in Vox written by Jane Koston, and she called me up and talked to me before writing the article as well to get my thoughts on it.
I thought she did, it's actually very objective and fair and insightful, so I'd recommend
that you go check it out.
But as she, you know, talking to both sides of the conservative divide on this, as she
outlines, the dispute over porn regulation really springs from a more fundamental disagreement
about the purpose and the nature of government.
And so, different conservatives have come down on different sides of this.
Guys like Sarab Amari have come down on the pro-regulation side, while the libertarians over at Reason have, unsurprisingly, come down on the other side.
And then, also, as I'm sure probably you've noticed, if you watch all the shows and you follow everybody here at The Daily Wire, you've noticed that the dividing line on this issue runs Right through the Daily Wire as well.
So Michael Knowles and Josh Hammer are also of the view that government has a legitimate role in battling the porn epidemic.
And then you've got Ben Shapiro and the God King Jeremy Boring say that it should not have a substantial role.
And that any role, if there is one, should not be an outright ban.
So I don't want to say that their position is that the government has no role at all.
I don't think that is their position.
But certainly they don't agree with an outright ban.
They don't think, it seems to me, they don't think there should be a substantial, significant
role by the government in regulating this stuff.
Now, I think everybody who's chimed in has contributed thoughtfully to the discussion.
And I'm not just saying that because two of them signed my paychecks.
I actually think that everyone's been very thoughtful about it.
But through this whole back and forth, and this is why I wanted to, as we started the week talking about this, and it's been a running thread throughout the week, and now we're at the end of the week, so I figure let's put a capstone on the week, at least for me, on this issue.
And putting a capstone on it, what I would really like to do is try to bring the conversation back to what I think is, when it comes to pornography, the central point.
Now, there is a broader, more philosophical point that we've been talking about.
But I want to bring it back to what I think is the central point when it comes to pornography specifically, and what I also think is my strongest argument.
So putting aside for a moment the philosophical discussion about the nature of government, the state's role in preserving the common good, which is an important conversation, also again I think a really interesting one, but it leads us far into the weeds and I think we lose sight of the original subject that we're supposed to be talking about.
And so that's why I wanted to reemphasize a very simple point that I've made about the porn problem.
I want to go back to it because everybody that's chimed in on this, if they have, I haven't heard it, but I have not heard anyone address this point that I'm about to make and that I've already made several times.
And that I think has been lost in the whole, does government protect the common good?
Or is it about preserving liberty?
Are those the same things?
Are they not?
All of that.
The defense of pornography, or at least of its remaining legal and mostly unregulated, seems to hinge on the fact, the alleged fact, that the content in pornography is produced and viewed by consenting adults, right?
If viewers do not consent, to viewing a sexual act, then we all probably agree that a crime has occurred.
So, I think even on the far reaches of extreme libertarianism, I don't think you're going to find very many people who say that you have a right to have an orgy on the subway.
Okay?
But porn is different, it's argued, because you only view it if you seek it out.
If viewers of porn were not consenting, if internet porn, let's just say, were of such a nature that millions of people were forced to watch it against their will every year, then it would seem that the argument against prohibition or regulation starts to crumble.
So the argument against my point, and Michael Knowles' point, and Josh Hammer's point, and Amari's point, I think the argument really hinges on this concept of consent.
You take that out, and I think the opposition argument really falls apart.
Well, I think that it has fallen apart.
I think the argument has already crumbled because, indeed, millions of people are exposed to it every year against their will, against their consent.
And I think those who are defending the legality of porn seem to be ignoring this group and this argument.
And that to me seems like an insurmountable moral and logical flaw in their position.
Children, okay?
That's what I think we've got to bring this back to.
That for me is, as I said, the central point here.
Children are first exposed to porn at the age of 11, on average.
So as we speak right now, there are no doubt millions of minors, some of them as young as 5 or 6, watching adults have sex on the internet.
This is an indisputable fact.
That's how large the numbers are.
Millions of kids watching this stuff.
I don't think anyone would deny that.
But does that fact not Really destroy the consent excuse offered by the other side?
Because our legal system rests on the assumption that minors cannot consent to engage in sexual acts.
Cannot.
Not that they don't.
That they can't.
By their nature.
If an adult has sex with a child, the adult is guilty of rape, no matter if the child verbally agreed to it or not.
In our society, we understand that children lack the mental and emotional faculties to consent.
They cannot consent.
To deny that is to literally defend pedophilia.
Well, if children cannot consent to engage in a sexual act, does it not inevitably follow that they cannot consent to witness such an act?
If they cannot consent as a second-party participant, does it not follow that they cannot consent as a third-party participant?
And in pornography, the viewer is the third-party participant.
Thus, if my logic is correct here, and I think it is, I think I'm drawing, I'm connecting the dots pretty logically here.
So that means that every child who watches porn does so, by definition, without consent.
I don't see how you can quibble with this argument without also quibbling with the logic for criminalizing pedophilic behavior.
Now, I'm not saying that the people on the opposite side of this issue are trying to legalize pedophilia.
I'm not saying that.
I'm saying that they fail to appreciate how our laws against pedophilia already provide a basis for pornography regulation.
That's my point.
This all means that every consenting adult who posts hardcore sex videos to the internet does so knowing that children can very easily access it and view it.
They are putting it, as it were, within reach of a child.
If the child reaches for it, who do we blame?
Is it the child's fault?
Or the fault of the person who put it there?
I would argue That every child who has viewed internet pornography is a victim of abuse.
And the abuser is the person who posted the content where a child with no trouble at all could find it.
Now, it's even more serious than this because the internet porn industry makes hundreds of millions of dollars a year on children.
Each hit to a site like Pornhub is monetized.
And we know, the numbers show, that millions of children are looking at porn.
So millions of children, minors, kids that are 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, they're going to that site just focusing on Pornhub for a moment.
Pornhub is monetizing those hits.
So Pornhub, this is inescapable, Pornhub is making millions of dollars off of showing porn to kids.
If you don't think the government has an interest in protecting the common good, broadly speaking, will you admit that it at least has an interest in preventing people from making millions on providing pornography to 12-year-olds?
I mean, can you at least acknowledge that?
I mean, can you at least entertain the possibility that maybe the government could have some interest there?
And there is not- there just- there is nothing- if- if- Pornhub.
All you do is just go to Pornhub, and that's it.
And you gotta click a little thing that says, are you 18?
That's it.
That's the whole- Okay, that's- that's- that's the whole- that- that's- that's all- that's all the protection that are put in place.
Shouldn't it at least be a lot more than that, in terms of protection?
And when you get into all the, well, what about alcohol?
What about cigarettes?
What about this and that?
Yeah, all of that stuff, there's much more regulation and protection.
And yes, kids still can get their hands on it, but there is much more, there are many more protections put in place for all of that.
Now, the obvious dodge here, as I've been trying to tackle all week, is to lay the blame at the feet of the parents.
And I really, And I get, you know, I know the argument.
You'll say, well, it's not the pornographer's fault.
It's up to the parents to stop their kids from seeing this stuff.
I just, I think that this rejoinder is very lazy.
And I also speculate that a good number of the people making this argument either aren't parents or, you know, they had young kids a long time ago before the internet was really a problem.
I think that if you are a parent of an 11, 12, 13 year old kid, you probably have a greater appreciation than a lot of people seem to have for how overly simplistic that argument is.
Now it's true that parents should be doing everything they can to shield their children from the filth on the internet, but it's also true that the internet is ubiquitous and parents cannot on their own do a sufficient job in shielding their kids from it.
They just can't.
It's not that they won't or that they don't feel like it, they can't.
That's the reality of the society we live in.
If the child has no phone, no internet access at home, I mean, you're going as extreme as you possibly can, which isn't even that extreme, but these days, I mean, having no internet at home, that's pretty extreme.
And in terms of protecting your kid from internet porn, what else can you do?
That's as far as you could possibly go.
But let's say that you go as far as you could possibly go.
Well, he can still go almost anywhere and access the internet dozens of different ways.
So short of moving into a cave in the desert, which maybe isn't such a bad idea, but short of that, a parent can only provide partial cover, but partial cover in the end is only a little better than no cover at all.
Besides, none of this does anything to relieve the responsibility of the person posting the content in the first place.
Even if every child exposed to porn has ineffectual and inattentive and lazy and bad parents, which most emphatically is not the case, but even if it was, that still does not explain why anyone should have the right to post sex videos on a public forum where children can easily access them.
I mean, you're talking about, oh, parents, parents, that doesn't, well, what about this?
Let's look at an adult, okay?
Forget about the parents for a second.
Let's think here about an adult who has a sex video, a depraved graphic sex video, and he is now making the choice to upload this to the internet, send it out into the world for anyone to see.
What about him?
Does he have no responsibility?
What is he?
Some kind of animal?
He can't control himself?
You're really going to put all of the responsibility on the parents?
None on this creep at all?
None on this scumbag who's putting this on the internet?
I mean, just, here you go, anyone that wants to see it.
So you're telling, no responsibility for that guy.
All on the parents.
I mean, that's the feedback I'm getting, is that we're not, no, we're not even focused on that guy at all.
He can do whatever he wants.
I find that to be so morally obtuse, that position, that I can't, I have trouble believing that anyone really thinks that.
You know, let's talk about children that are physically abused, that are molested.
It's probably true that some children who are molested, some, could have been saved from that trauma had their parents been more vigilant.
But that does nothing to excuse the man who did the molesting.
Think about the worst pedophile in American history was a pediatrician in Delaware.
This was only a few years ago.
Abused hundreds of young kids.
Kids as young as, I mean, we're talking babies to toddlers.
Okay, how was he able to do that in the doctor's office?
Well, parents would send their kids back, their two or three-year-old kid back with this monster, who they didn't know was a monster, but still, they would send their kids back with the doctor alone.
Now, most parents know you never leave your child alone With a doctor.
I mean, you should be in the room.
If the doctor's telling you, leave the room, then that's red flags all over the place.
Unless this is a surgery, and they're putting the kid under for some kind of serious surgery, obviously you gotta leave the room.
But then even in that case, it's not gonna just be one person in the room with an unconscious child, right?
So, the parents who allowed their kids to go back with this scumbag, this monster, this animal, They were, tragically, not as vigilant as they should have been.
But here's my point.
That the blame still is not on the parents.
Okay?
Who have to live with this for the rest of their lives as well.
The blame's not on the parents.
They're also victims.
The blame is on the scumbag, monstrous, despicable human garbage that did this.
He's the guy who did it.
It's his blame.
So what I'm saying is, and I'm not drawing a direct moral comparison, I'm not saying that someone who uploads a sex video to the internet is exactly like the serial, you know, the worst serial pedophile in history.
I'm not saying that.
I'm trying to make a point about responsibility.
And so when you make that choice to upload that content to the internet, knowing that anyone can see it, You're not an idiot.
You know that kids are all over the internet and they will be able to view it.
And not only that, but you're going to profit.
If you're Pornhub, you're going to profit off of that viewership.
So I say all the responsibility really is on you.
All of it.
How could it not be?
So the question is this, do we have a natural human right And I want you to focus.
Don't focus on the viewers here for a moment.
Focus on the people who distribute this content, who put the content on the internet.
These are the pornographers.
So be a pornographer these days, it doesn't just mean you work for a studio that does pornography films and you're a director or something.
You're a pornographer if you work at Pornhub, you're a pornographer.
Because you're distributing this content.
So, let's focus on the people distributing it.
Do they have a natural human right to post hardcore sex videos online where children can see them?
Is that a natural human right, would you say?
Is that something intrinsic to their human nature?
You take that ability away and they're not able to live a fulfilling human life anymore?
I mean, is it something just utterly essential to your nature as a human to be able to do this?
Would anyone argue that?
I mean, anyone who says yes has an extremely confused and hopelessly ambiguous conception of human rights.
But I think rational people will say no.
But the people who say no must then weigh whether a person's privilege to post this kind of content on the internet outweighs the right of a child to be free from sexual abuse and trauma.
So this does not have to be a debate about philosophies of governance and so on.
This can be much simpler.
You do not have a right to expose children to sexually explicit content.
You don't have that right.
You don't have a right to do it.
Children do have a right to certain basic legal protections.
I think that fact alone, in my view, settles the argument.
And I would be really interested in someone engaging with that specific argument that I just have laid out.
Now, by the way, when I made this argument on my piece yesterday, just to anticipate some of the objections, I wrote a piece yesterday making the same argument.
And a bunch of people countered that, well, you know, if a child seeing porn, if that's automatically abuse, I mean, if a child is an abuse victim for seeing porn, then what about a child who walks into the bedroom while his parents are having sex?
Now, maybe you hear that response and you think, well, that's really stupid.
And it is.
But a lot of people, that was their immediate response.
So I feel like I have to address it.
And this is what porn defenders always seem to do.
This seems to be the only trick in their bag, is to draw these equivalencies.
Obviously, there's a difference.
For one thing, what a child briefly witnesses when he walks into a bedroom at night, before presumably his parents immediately usher him out, what he witnesses will not really be the same as what he will witness if he sits on Pornhub for a few minutes.
Also, there's the matter of intent.
A private act that is meant to be private and then is accidentally witnessed by someone is very different from an act that is broadcast on the internet to a potential audience of millions.
Obviously, those are two different things.
And there's a difference in kind also.
If a child walks in on his parents, that's awkward, that's embarrassing, that's not what you want.
But what he has witnessed, what he has unfortunately witnessed, is still the healthy and properly ordered expression of love and devotion between two married people.
You definitely would prefer for him not to witness it, if you're the parents, but if he does, the parents can explain, they can have the awkward birds-and-the-bees conversation, and they can explain that when a man loves a woman, they get together, they get married, etc.
and so forth.
What he will see in a porn film, though, is a woman being used and degraded for the pleasure of anonymous bystanders.
That, again, is very, very, very different.
Another thing people have countered with is, well, what about other bad stuff kids might see online?
What about vulgar or violent content, hateful content, graphically violent content?
And as to that, well, as to that sort of stuff, it kind of depends on what it is.
Because there's other, yeah, there is other kinds, there are other kinds of really disturbing, sick content online that should be illegal and oftentimes is, and we'll get to that in a second.
But this whole whatabout thing is so weak.
Because it would be kind of like if I said, it should be illegal for a parent to punch a child in the face.
Okay?
Which it is, obviously, but what if it wasn't?
And then I were to argue that it should be.
And then you go and you say, well, wait a minute, but what about a parent who smacks a child in the back of the head?
And then it's like, yeah, well, I mean, that's probably abuse too, but maybe it depends a little bit on context.
Is this a dad with his teenage son?
He's kind of horsing around and, you know, just kind of joking around a little.
Is it that?
Or is this a toddler being smacked in the back of the head in anger by a parent?
I mean, those are two very different things, and so it might depend.
And then you go, well, okay, but what about a child who's spanked very hard with a belt?
And again, it's just what you're doing is you keep coming with these whatabouts and what-ifs and hypotheticals and you're dragging the conversation further and further and further into the gray area.
But remember where we started.
We started with something that is obviously bad and should obviously be illegal.
Now, if you keep going further and further down into the gray areas, into the fine distinctions and all this stuff, it's going to be harder and harder to draw those lines.
Yes, but we started with something that is very obvious.
I mean, that we all in fact would agree is bad and terrible and should be illegal.
A parent punching a child in the face.
But what you've done is you've seemingly intentionally prevented us from addressing that issue by trying to make it seem like physical abuse itself is so ambiguous and so hard to legislate that there's just no point in punishing or prohibiting it in any form whatsoever.
You've tried to water down the discussion in order to stop us from talking about a very obvious and clear-cut form of abuse.
Okay?
So, any of the whatabouts you can draw here, that does nothing to address what porn is.
And it is something that is damaging and traumatic and harmful to kids.
There's no getting around that.
Is there other stuff in that category?
Maybe, but can we talk about this category first?
And if there is other stuff that should also be addressed, does that mean we can't address this?
Why are you so afraid to have this conversation?
And speaking of the other kinds of content that are illegal, In fact, someone brought this up yesterday.
I don't remember if it was on Twitter or... I don't remember where.
Maybe it was in a comment section.
Email.
It's all blurred together.
But somebody said, well, what about... You know, there's so many other horrible things.
What about crushing videos?
Animal crushing videos?
Now I don't know if you're familiar with animal crushing videos.
If you aren't, I'm sorry I have to tell you about them.
But they are a form of video and there's a lot of them apparently online.
There's a whole deranged, sick community of people who post this stuff.
And it's exactly what it sounds like.
It's videos of animals being crushed or otherwise tortured and killed.
And these videos are posted online.
People watch them.
And because they get some kind of sick enjoyment out of it.
So someone brought that up to me, said, what about the crushing?
And to that I say, yeah, okay, now here we go.
Yes, I would say that is definitely as harmful to watch, if not more so.
I mean, now it kind of depends on what, but that is definitely at least in the same category.
But here's the thing.
Those videos are illegal.
In fact, it just so happens that they were very recently made illegal on the federal level.
Donald Trump just signed something into law making it illegal to distribute, and there were other things involved in this law too, it wasn't just targeted animal crushing videos, but that was included.
It is now illegal on the federal level, as I understand the law, to distribute, post-distribute, whatever, these animal crushing videos.
It's illegal!
That's very interesting, isn't it?
Because, now, you could easily say, well, that's totally different because you're torturing and killing an animal, and so something's being killed that's different from pornography.
Which, again, it's not always different from pornography, because very often, in many cases, you have trafficked women and children who are in these videos, and you may not know it as the viewer.
So, there is torture and torment going on in these videos as well.
Leaving that aside, the point is, it wasn't made illegal to record the videos.
That was already illegal, obviously.
Obviously, it's illegal to torture an animal.
So that was already illegal.
The question is, once that's happened, and there's footage of it, and the footage is out there, I mean, unfortunately, the animal's already dead, so sharing the video is not going to hurt the animal.
The animal's already been killed.
Technically, that video itself doesn't hurt anybody.
It's footage of something being hurt, but the video doesn't hurt anybody.
What the law says now is that...
Even if you weren't the one who did that, you still cannot distribute this video.
So if someone were to send me a whole load of files of animal crushing videos, I didn't hurt the animals.
The person who sent the videos didn't hurt the animals.
The person that he got the videos from didn't hurt the animals.
I mean, down the line, we're 20, 50, 100 steps removed, a million steps removed, who knows?
But I have these videos now.
I cannot post them online.
And I shouldn't be able to, in my opinion.
But I wonder if you're, you know, a defender of the legality of porn, how do you deal with that?
Because if you're saying that pornography is... And please, I would ask you to deal with it aside from just scoffing, like, that's totally different, so stupid.
It's not totally different.
There are some similarities here that I think you have to deal with.
What is the issue of speech?
I mean, if pornography is speech, then why isn't this speech?
Again, not the act, but what about, why is it not speech for me to distribute these videos?
Maybe there's a message I'm trying to send.
May not be a message you like, but, I mean, am I not expressing myself in some way with this video?
I mean, if that's not free speech, if that doesn't count as speech, if you're not gonna buy that that is expression, Then why would a porn video, a rape porn video, even if everyone's acting and it's not really rape, but why is that expression?
So I think it touches on the speech issue.
It also touches on the issue of the effect of viewing content.
What exactly is the problem with having videos of animal crushing and animal torture all over the internet?
What's the problem?
What's the problem with having kids view it?
I mean, again, the being that was unfortunately hurt is already dead, cannot continue to be hurt by it, so that's already done and over with.
So what's the harm?
I mean, do you think that a child is going to watch a video like that and immediately go out and kill his dog?
Maybe.
But probably not that directly.
But no, we're okay with those videos being illegal.
I assume you're probably okay with it.
I certainly am.
We're okay with it because, number one, it's just depraved and horrible and ugly and wrong and just intrinsically evil.
Number two, the traumatic effect it would have on the viewer, especially children.
Traumatized by it, but also the influence it will have on them.
Probably.
If a kid's exposed to that video one time, he's probably not going to go out and kill his dog.
But if he watches that stuff enough and starts to find it appealing for some reason, yeah, I think he is going to be influenced.
Obviously.
Clearly, he's going to be influenced.
Even if he never actually hurts an animal, he's going to be influenced in that direction.
What about all these videos online?
Some of the most popular search terms for pornography are things like rape, incest, Teenager.
And yeah, these videos, the legal ones anyway, are, it's just pretend, okay?
It's not really incest, they're just, they're actors.
And maybe that's not really a 15 year old, it's just, it's just someone that looks 15.
But what is the effect?
Okay, you watch animal crushing videos enough, you might be inclined to eventually go and, and, and mistreat an animal.
I think we all understand that.
You watch these kinds of videos enough, is that not going to sway you?
Is that not going to influence you towards maybe being inclined to act out these things that you already obviously find appealing, and you have been feeding that dark part of your soul and your mind?
Okay, so switching gears here for a minute.
Switching gears a little bit, actually, because I think this sort of relates to some of what we've been talking about this week.
But there's this video that's been going around online.
Maybe you've seen it.
It's from Campus Reform, another classic interviewing clueless students on the street bit.
Those are always fun.
But this one, the students are asked if they support Medicare for All.
And then, they all say yes, of course.
And then we find out if they still support it once they discover what's actually in that bill, what it actually entails.
So let's watch a little bit of this.
The policy right now they're proposing is Medicare for All, which is, you know, the idea of government-funded healthcare for everyone.
Is that a concept you view favorably or unfavorably?
Favorably, for sure.
I do support Medicare for All.
I do.
I do think that every American deserves healthcare.
I do support that.
I think it's an important form of universal health care.
I do support free health care for everybody.
In general, I would say yes.
I do favor Medicare.
I don't think there's anything that you could really tell me that would make me view it unfavorably.
I'm going to give you a few of those things.
I want to see if you view them favorably or unfavorably within the plan and just see if it changes your opinion at all.
So first off, it is mandatory.
So it would be over 100 million people right now have private insurance plans that they like.
They would be removed from those plans by the government.
It would be mandatory and they would be put on the government plan even if they didn't want to.
Is that something that concerns you at all?
Probably, yeah.
Do you view that element favorably or unfavorably?
I think I would say unfavorably for that.
Unfavorably.
I mean, they shouldn't be, like, kicked off of it, I guess.
That's not really... That doesn't seem fair, I would say.
The government can't force them to have health care with them, and they just, like... Well, that's what this would do.
Yeah.
I definitely think everyone should have health care, but I think those who are able to get private health care don't necessarily, like, shouldn't have to necessarily be removed from it.
Yeah, I mean, as a Bernie supporter, I think you do have to give up some choice just for the benefit of everyone in society.
So the second part, it would eliminate private health insurance, the entire industry.
It would be just under a million jobs would be eliminated because all insurance moved to the government.
Unfavorably.
Unfavorably.
Okay, very inspiring.
Gives you a lot of hope for the future of our country, doesn't it?
So how does this relate to our discussion this week?
Well, I think it relates this way because what you find is that these students initially support Medicare for All because they find the moral argument for it appealing.
And that's how it's sold to them, you know?
And that's how the left sells all of its policy ideas, morally.
So you heard the first student say something like, people deserve it, or something along those lines, which is a moral statement, talking about what people deserve.
Then it all starts to fall apart, not when they're told about the financial cost,
although that does come later in the video when they discover that the free Medicare isn't actually
free because the taxpayers have to pay for it. Turns out nothing is free in life. I guess their
dads never told them that. They never gave them the old money doesn't grow on trees shtick. But
I think you see their dreams for Medicare for all start to die in their eyes, start to fade a little
bit when they're presented with a fuller view of its moral implications.
People will be forced off of their private plans.
People will lose their jobs.
Now, there are economic issues there as well, but mainly, I think, for these liberal students, it's the moral problem.
And so this is just a small example, but it's very important.
And I've been saying this not just this week, but for years.
The left makes moral arguments for all of their positions, all of their policy ideas, all the laws and legislation they support, everything.
They always make those arguments on a moral basis.
Just pay attention.
Next time you hear a leftist, whoever it is, AOC, Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, I mean, listen to the Democratic debates.
Every argument they make is moral in its character.
Now, when I say moral, I don't mean morally good.
I don't agree with their arguments, but they're of a moral character.
They're making the argument based on morality, based on what they believe, what they are claiming is just the right thing to do.
And that's how they argue for everything.
It's not about how much it's gonna cost.
It's not really about economy.
Those are peripheral.
Those are secondary issues for them.
The way they present it is, listen, this is just the right thing to do.
And it's effective.
It's persuasive.
Maybe not to you, maybe not to me, but to a lot of people it is.
Especially people in my generation and younger.
They find it very persuasive.
Because these are the arguments they care about.
These are the arguments everybody cares about.
When it comes down to it, nobody really cares about any argument that isn't moral.
I mean, yeah, you could talk about, you could start getting into the financials and pull out the calculator and show how this is gonna be more, but nobody, I mean, this whole idea that people vote based on their pocketbook, I don't know who came up with that originally, but it is such nonsense.
People do not vote on their pocketbook or their wallet.
They vote on morality.
That's how people vote.
What drives you to the polls?
It's because you think you're standing for what's right, or because you're afraid of someone else who's gonna do the wrong thing.
Take America down the wrong path, the morally wrong path, to a dark and evil future, right?
That's what gets you there.
It's not about the money.
So what's happened is the left, they have hectored the right for years saying, you can't legislate morality, you can't legislate morality, stop trying to legislate morality.
And then, but they turn around and they make moral arguments for everything.
So they say don't legislate morality and then they turn around and unabashedly try to legislate morality.
But the right, you know, you see we on the right, and I'm sorry this is the case, but we tend to be pretty gullible and clueless and it takes us a long time apparently to pick up on things.
And so we got suckered into this.
Where the left for so long said, don't legislate morality.
And then eventually conservatives said, oh, you're right.
Yeah, no, no, we don't want to do that.
No, we won't argue about morals anymore.
No, yeah, let's not argue about that.
Then we went off over here and started arguing about financials and everything else.
While the left, they cleared the field.
They're sitting there saying, you stupid suckers.
I can't believe you fell for that.
And now they just continue.
Now they make every argument on a moral basis.
And they can say that, look, you see those people over there?
They're not even arguing for what's right.
They don't care.
They just care about their money, those greedy scrooges.
You see what they did?
They convinced us to vacate the moral premises and make arguments on economy or whatever else.
And while they continue to make those arguments so that we look like unfeeling sociopaths and automatons, and nobody is persuaded, nobody finds it compelling, no one cares, we're not convincing anybody.
I mean, worse is when you run into conservatives who are so, I'm sorry, stupid.
That they think especially you can't make moral arguments to young people.
That's what they think.
They think you got to especially stay away from that with young people.
No!
With young people you especially have to make the moral arguments.
They're the most persuaded by those.
When you're young, you're the most likely to be idealistic.
You care about, you know, fighting for what's right and you're willing to make sacrifices for it.
You just, you care more about that when you're younger.
When you get older, I think you become a little bit more practical and you start making compromises, some of them good and some of them bad.
You stop caring as much about some of the, you start being, you stop being as convicted as you once were on moral issues.
I think, now that's not, I don't think that's good, I don't think it should be that way, but that is how it kind of works.
But again, the left, they suckered us, they fooled us.
They said, oh no, young people don't care about that.
Yeah, talk to young people about tax policy.
They're really gonna be convinced by that.
Then they start go laughing at us.
Did you hear them?
I just told them to talk to young people about tax policy and they believed it.
Those idiots.
That's what's happening.
I mean, we need to wake up and realize all laws Entail legislating morality.
Every law does.
The left knows that.
The only people who don't know it anymore are conservatives.
When it used to be that conservatives were the ones pointing this out!
It really is brilliant.
I mean, you almost have to respect it.
It's so brilliant when you realize what the left has done.
It is really genius.
The way that over a few decades, They have convinced conservatives to completely abandon their own principles and their own position.
Wow.
Incredible.
Also very depressing.
Here's something that's not depressing.
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That means your loved one will get all the fantastic perks, plus the majestic, glorious, beautiful, Profound leftist tears tumbler, and you'll get the savings.
That's 25% off all the Insider Plus gift memberships this holiday season.
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Again, that's dailywire.com slash gift.
Get your 25% off.
Just don't tell your loved ones that you saved 25% on their gift.
In fact, tell them that it was 25% more that we charged.
Just on principle.
But you'll be giving them a gift that they'll thank you for all year long.
Let's go to emails.
mattwalshow at gmail.com.
This is from Samantha, says, Hi Matt, big fan of the show.
Yesterday you talked about the new Baby It's Cold Outside.
I agree that that song is horrid, but also hilarious.
But it doesn't hold a candle to Santa Baby, which is the worst Christmas song ever, hands down.
Samantha, I'm afraid you are incorrect.
The worst Christmas song ever, hands down, is Wonderful Christmas Time by Paul McCartney.
There is nothing that comes close to it.
This song is so bad that everything McCartney has done in his career or ever accomplished is erased by it.
None of that matters, because he will forever and always be the guy who made the terrible, redundant, pointless, empty, awful song that plays over the intercom at the department store or every 12 minutes on the Christmas radio station, uh, you know, your local Christmas music radio station.
I'll tell you what makes this song so bad.
It's stupid and lazy.
So, other bad Christmas songs are just stupid.
Santa Baby is stupid.
Last Christmas is stupid.
But at least they've got their own kind of vibe to them, their own sort of... They aren't good, but it sounds like maybe the people involved put a little bit of effort into it.
Maybe.
Wonderful Christmas Time, you can tell that McCartney wrote it in 95 seconds, scrawled it on a used paper plate, took another three minutes to come up with the melody, and that was it.
So just, I mean, let's listen to the lyrics.
I'm not going to sing them, but let's just go through.
I think it helps sometimes to read them, like spoken word poetry.
The moon is right, the spirit's up, we're here tonight, and that's enough.
Simply having a wonderful Christmas time.
Simply having a wonderful Christmas time.
Okay, what does that mean?
The moon is right.
And who evokes images of the moon for Christmas?
The imagery here is not even relevant.
We're here tonight and that's enough.
Has there ever been a more obvious throwaway line?
Well, there has been.
In this song.
Because every line is a throwaway.
He's just filling space.
He's biding his time until he gets to the end of the song.
The party's on, the feeling's here, that only comes this time of year.
Simply having a wonderful Christmas time.
Simply having a wonderful Christmas time.
Aside from wonderful Christmas time, has he even said anything that has anything to do with Christmas?
And what does the feelings here mean?
The feeling just arrives to the party?
Hey guys, the feeling's finally here!
What took you so long?
The choir of children sing their song.
They practice all year long.
Ding-dong, ding-dong, ding-dong, ding-dong.
Simply having a wonderful Christmas time.
Simply having a wonderful Christmas time.
I mean, come on.
You could tell exactly what happened here.
He had one line in mind for this verse.
That's all he could come up with.
He could only think of one line.
The choir children sing their song.
Couldn't think of anything else.
Thought about it, though, for ten seconds.
And, uh, in fact, it's not even, it's not obvious to me that Paul McCartney even knows what Christmas is.
Do they have Christmas in England?
Is that the problem here?
I don't think he knows what it is.
That's what I'm getting from the lyrics.
He has no idea what this thing is.
Someone called him up and says, can you make a Christmas song?
And he said, a Christmas what?
A Chris, a Christmas, Chris, Christmas?
And then he said, I don't know what that is, but do people have a wonderful time on it?
Yeah, yeah, they do.
Okay, I got it.
I gotcha.
I'll call you back in five minutes.
So he puts down, you know, choir sings the song.
Then he's like, yeah, choir sings a song.
They practice all year long?
And now he needs another two lines to fill out the verse.
And so he thinks, practice all year long, they sing the song.
Ding dong, ding dong.
Ding dong, ding dong.
The word is out about the town to lift a glass and don't look down.
Don't—what?
Well, now he's given up, okay?
This, at the end, he's given up.
This is actually a very depressing, morbid song.
Because at the end, he's given up on music, he's given up on himself, he's given up on life.
With this verse, the word is out around the town.
What word?
The word that Christmas—that's Christmastime?
Like, people are calling each other.
Hey guys, you know, it's Christmas time.
Did you guys know that?
Lift the glass and don't look down.
Well, what do you mean, don't look down?
At the glass?
But he needs a word that rhymes with town.
And so, he says, well, town, down, brown.
No, down, down, yeah.
Don't look down.
Don't look down, that's it.
Yeah, we'll go with that.
Simply having a wonderful Christmastime.
Simply having a wonderful Christmastime.
Again, take the chorus out and you have no clue this is a Christmas song.
There is no Christmas imagery at all in this song.
I'm not even asking for religious content.
That's not my point, okay?
I know he's not going to start talking about the Christ child.
But I mean, no sleigh bells, no eggnog, no tree, no mistletoe.
No Holly, no nothing.
You know what this is like?
This is like if you're gonna make a crappy, pointless, repetitive, stupid country song, but you never say anything in the song about blue jeans or pickup trucks or cornfields.
Like, if you're gonna give us that kind of song, then give us that song.
Don't give us a bad country song that doesn't even have the stuff in it that makes it a country song.
So now we have a bad country song that isn't even country.
It's just a bad song.
It's just a blad, generic song that isn't even country.
So don't give us a bad Christmas song that lacks even the Christmas parts of it.
Because now we have a bad song that I don't even know what to do with.
Well, apparently we play it all the time on Christmas.
I have no idea why.
So all the other bad Christmas songs you can name They're bad, they're stupid, they're annoying.
But, they are Christmas.
Santa Baby.
I don't know what's going on in that song.
I get what the issue is.
This is like a love song to Santa?
Pretty weird.
Okay, Santa's a, what, 1800 year old, fat, morbidly obese man.
Who breaks into, is a serial burglar, breaking into people's homes.
And she's... So that's strange, but at least Santa, so you got Santa.
At least we've got Santa, so there's some Christmassy stuff going on.
Alright.
I actually had more emails I was gonna do, but then I spent 15 minutes on why I hate wonderful Christmas time, so I think we'll just have to wrap it up there.
And, um, hope you guys all have a great weekend.
Godspeed.
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The Matt Wall Show is produced by Sean Hampton, Executive Producer Jeremy Boring, Senior Producer Jonathan Hay, Supervising Producer Mathis Glover, Supervising Producer Robert Sterling, Technical Producer Austin Stevens, Editor Donovan Fowler, Audio Mixer Mike Coromina.
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