The superstitious cultists on the Left are canceling JK Rowling for saying that biological sex exists. We'll discuss the Left's continuing plunge into collective madness and its campaign against science and reason. Also, the LGBT lobby is now demanding that Hallmark put a gay character in one of its movies. And I answer your emails.
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Welcome to the last show before Christmas, the last show before the end of the year, in fact.
So there was a debate last night.
There was a debate last night.
And that's the end of my analysis on that subject.
So, moving on, we'll talk about J.K.
Rowling and leftism's increasing plunge into the realm of being a superstitious cult rather than a political ideology.
Many examples could be presented, of course, to prove that point, but this week's controversy, quote-unquote controversy, surrounding J.K.
Rowling, I think, should suffice.
So, for a little bit of background, there's this woman named Maya Forstater.
And she's a researcher in the United Kingdom who recently lost her job for stating the scientific and indisputable fact that men cannot turn into women.
That's what she said.
Men cannot turn into women.
And Forstater lost her job.
She went to court to win her job back, but an employment judge ruled against her this week and said that Forstater's belief in biological science is, quote, not worthy of respect in a democratic society.
Actually, let me quote from this judge a little bit more at length, because I think you need to hear this.
This is Judge James Taylor.
No relation, I assume.
He says, If a person has transitioned from male to female and has a gender recognition certificate, more on that in a second, that person is legally a woman.
That is not something Ms.
Forstater is entitled to ignore.
Ms.
Forstater's position is that even if a trans woman has a GRC, she cannot honestly describe herself as a woman.
That belief is not worthy of respect in a democratic society.
Even paying due regards is still the judge.
To the qualified right to freedom of expression, people cannot expect to be protected if their core belief involves violating others' dignity and creating an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating, or offensive environment for them.
I mean, this is shocking.
And let's not be so jaded by the left's insanity that we don't appreciate how extra insane this is.
First of all, you have the Gender Recognition Certificate.
I went to the website The government website where you go if you want to get a gender recognition certificate.
So if you want to get your gender recognized in the UK, go to this website.
This is how they describe the process of getting a gender recognition certificate.
It says, apply to get to the gender recognition panel.
The gender recognition panel for a gender recognition certificate.
No, by the way, I'm not reading something from a dystopian fiction novel.
This is real.
This is an actual thing.
Okay.
Apply to the gender recognition panel for a gender recognition certificate.
If you want your acquired gender to be legally recognized in the UK, there are three different ways to get a certificate.
Which one you use depends on your situation.
Here's the standard route.
Apply by the standard route if all of the following are true.
You're 18 or over.
You've been diagnosed with gender dysphoria.
You've lived in your acquired gender for at least two years.
And you intend to live in your acquired gender for the rest of your life.
Okay.
That's how you get a certificate.
Now, lived in your acquired gender.
Lived in.
Acquired.
Gender.
What the hell does any of that mean?
Could anyone give me, I don't know, three sentences explaining exactly what that means?
How do you live in a gender?
How do you live in a gender?
And how do you acquire one?
And from where do you acquire it?
Just think of how this would sound in normal conversation.
Oh, I acquired my male gender when I was 22.
Yeah, I've been living in it for 10 years.
So, not bad.
Maybe a little problem with the transmission.
Might have to take it back to the dealership.
Again, where are you acquiring this gender from and how do you acquire it?
And what does that mean to acquire it?
And living in a gender... This is part of the superstition of the modern left.
What they have created is the weirdest kind of dualism that the world has ever seen.
Where they're sort of separating the person, where you as a person, you are this kind of genderless, amorphous entity, sort of floating around, and then your gender is something that you select out of the ether.
And put on like a sweater or get inside like a car and just drive it around.
That's the way they're presenting how this works.
The only thing you can call that is religious doctrine.
It's certainly not science.
And it makes no logical sense.
And what is the judge saying?
Is he saying that the government's decision to recognize your acquired gender, whatever that means, magically makes you into that gender, turns you into that gender?
Because Forstater's point was not just about the government's recognition.
Forstater's point was about what a person actually is.
She was saying that a biological male can't actually turn into a woman.
So if this judge is disagreeing, he must be saying that a man who gets this certificate is actually now a woman.
That again is a supernatural claim.
That is religious dogma.
This is like a perverse version of transubstantiation or something.
Instead of the Eucharist turning into the body and blood of Christ, this is a man supernaturally transforming into a woman by the incantation of a government bureaucrat.
That's what they're saying.
In fact, here's one of, just so we understand, The context here, here's one of Forstater's tweets specifically.
Here's what she said.
That's what she said.
of at fair play women that radically expanding the legal definition of women
so that it can include both males and females makes a meaningless concept and
will undermine women's rights and protections for vulnerable women and
girls. That's what she said. And keep in mind this judge didn't just say that she
was wrong in this blatantly obvious assertion on her part.
The judge said that there's it's so wrong it is so vile so disgusting so
horrible that there's no place for it in society.
But can anyone respond to the point she made?
Can any of the superstitious cultists who believe in the fluidity of gender actually respond to the point that she made?
The point she's making is that if, yes, if you expand this, if you expand woman to include males, then the word woman doesn't mean anything anymore.
What does it mean?
Now we'll get back to that in a second as well.
He also ruled that her views on biology do not have the protected characteristic of philosophical belief.
And on that point, I think he's actually correct, because it's not a philosophical belief that men can't transition into women.
That's not a philosophical belief.
That is a scientific fact.
But a fact that, these days, just cannot be stated publicly without being punished.
So, here's where J.K.
Rowling comes in.
And this is where she gets in line for cancellation.
The author came to Forstater's defense, but did so in the mildest and most leftist friendly way possible.
Or so she thought.
So, she wrote on Twitter, Rowling did, um, dress however you please, call yourself whatever you like, sleep with any consenting adult who will have you, live your best life in peace and security, but force women out of their jobs for stating that sex is real?
Question mark.
That was it.
That's what she said.
Rowling here, she affirms the relativistic, libertine position on every point, except she is not willing to profess biological sex as a figment of our imagination.
So, simply for suggesting that sex exists, Rowling has found herself in the middle of a leftist firestorm, and you've got thousands of these science-hating lunatics who are calling her bigoted and transphobic and on and on and on, all because she relayed a fact, an indisputable fact.
By the way, there have been a lot of comments to Rowling.
A lot of the responses would be hilarious if you didn't consider the fact that this is That these people exist in the millions out there.
People that are this insane.
But here's one example.
There's a lot of comments like this.
This one is from Shamir Sani on Twitter.
It's got a blue check so you know that his opinion matters.
He says, As a gay man that found safety in Hogwarts throughout my childhood, knowing that trans people wouldn't be able to have that safety breaks my heart.
Again, there's a lot of that kind of stuff.
A lot of people heartbroken to discover that trans people aren't welcome at Hogwarts.
Which is a school for wizards and which, by the way, doesn't exist.
And I would make fun of them.
I guess I know a little bit how they feel because I'll never forget when I first discovered that Batman won't let me into the Batcave.
Very difficult to deal with.
It crushed me.
But hey, at least we can all go to the Shire and hang out with Bilbo Baggins.
We still have that at least.
Now, you could argue that J.K.
Rowling deserves to be eaten by the alligator she's been feeding all these years.
She's a leftist herself.
She's been encouraging and jumping in with the leftist pitchfork mob.
She's done that many times.
And so maybe she has all this coming, and probably she does.
But it is worth highlighting her plight, I think, because it underscores the point That I made at the top, which is that leftist gender theory is a superstition and leftism is a cult.
And I have no doubt that, uh, certainly anthropologists of the future, when they're sifting through the wreckage of our once great civilization, that is the conclusion they will come to.
You know, when they're going through and discovering things like, uh, Oh, wow.
Those ancient people in 2019 thought that they could literally change boys into girls.
The only conclusion I can come to is that this was some sort of insane supernatural cult that grabbed hold of American society, and that's exactly what happened.
Now, on a related note, and inspired by the latest bit of madness that we've been talking about, I would like to repeat again a challenge I've made to the left several times.
And I wrote a piece yesterday reiterating this challenge.
I put it up on Twitter.
Only now I'm going to, I'm going to up the ante a little bit.
As I announced on Twitter yesterday, I will, this, this is my offer.
Okay.
I will give, and I'm dead serious about this.
I will give a hundred dollars.
Not saying it's a ton of money, but Hey, it's this is a hundred bucks.
I'm willing to give somebody for, for really nothing for no effort.
I mean, why wouldn't you take it?
Here's all you have to do for a hundred bucks.
And I'll Venmo it to you, I'll PayPal, whatever you want to do.
I will give a hundred dollars to the first leftist who can provide me with a coherent definition of the word woman that permits biological males to be included, yet still maintains womanhood as a distinguishable and objective category.
A hundred bucks.
Okay.
Around the holidays, you could use a hundred bucks.
Couldn't you?
Now it's, it is my contention that this simple question, as I have said many times, and I'll keep going back to it over and over and over again, but this simple question, what is a woman?
I believe completely dismantles left-wing gender theory in its entirety.
I claim that everything the left says about gender can be discredited just by posing this question.
All you have to say is, what is a woman?
And you win the argument.
Because after all, a statement like, I identify as a woman, can have no meaning if the word woman has no meaning.
And certainly, if there's no difference between women and men, then for a man to identify as a woman is redundant.
He might as well identify as a man.
When he identifies as a woman, he's identifying as a man.
And when he identifies as a man, he's identifying as a woman.
So the whole thing is redundant and pointless.
In fact, all statements, all statements that anyone has ever made about women become incoherent if we don't have a working definition of the term itself.
This is not a trick question.
This is not a gotcha moment.
This is a very fair, very basic question.
You are using the word woman, not just using the word, but you are making an extraordinary claim about the nature of womanhood by saying that this biological male with functioning male reproductive organs can be a woman.
How else could I possibly respond to that but by asking, what do you mean by woman?
What do you mean by that?
That's all I want to know.
Now, the problem for the left is that they need the word woman to mean something in order for feminist and LGBT rhetoric to have any relevance whatsoever.
But any attempt to define the word woman must result automatically in the exclusion of biological males.
There simply is no available definition of woman that legitimizes transgenderism.
If it means anything for a woman to be a woman, then it cannot mean anything when a man says that he is one.
So this is what I'm getting at.
And I think this is so important.
This stuff about transgenderism.
It's not just scientifically invalid.
It is scientifically invalid.
But it's more than that.
It is logically invalid.
It is illogical.
Which is very important.
Because it's not just that the left is promoting a crazy new scientific theory.
It's that they're making a claim that is logically incoherent and thus dismissible out of hand.
What they're saying is the equivalent of claiming that a circle has four sides.
There's nothing to even talk about.
That is just nonsense.
That cannot be true.
Even if you had supernatural powers, God himself could not make it so that a circle has four sides.
Because it's illogical.
It doesn't mean anything.
And that's what I'm saying with these claims.
Forget about the science for a second.
It is simply illogical.
But, you know, if I'm wrong, then prove that I'm wrong.
Just give me a definition.
That's all.
Just a definition.
I'll give you a hundred bucks.
You got nothing to lose.
So far, no one's been willing to do it or able to do it.
And that's what's so amazing about this is that the left's gender theories, transgender ideology and all that, it is absolutely indefensible.
They can't defend it.
They can't even begin to defend it.
They can't even define the words they're using.
The most basic follow-up question to their claim, they can't answer.
Well, this biological male's a woman.
What do you mean?
That's it.
What you're saying, what do you mean?
They can't answer that question.
When you just ask for a clarification, what do you mean by that?
You've already won.
They're already defeated.
They can't even go that far.
It's incredible.
Um, and that's why, you know, in my experience, and I, as you know, I've talked about this many times and I've had many debates about it, many arguments.
And in my experience, this is not a straw man.
I have honestly in my life of talking about this.
I have only ever heard, ever, two defenses of this, of the transgender ideology, you know, the left's gender theory generally.
I've only ever heard two defenses of it.
That's it.
I'll tell you what those two defenses are.
These are the only ones I have ever heard.
Aside from, you know, the most common one is just screaming at me and calling me a bigot.
But the only actual sort of attempts at a defense I've ever heard are, one, What about intersex people?
And two, this doesn't affect you while you care.
Those are the only responses.
Those are the only defenses.
I have never heard anything else aside from those two.
Intersex and how does it affect you?
So let me, let me just very quickly, um, deal with those because I know even, you know, that's the responses I'm going to get to this.
First of all, with, with intersex people, um, This is a response, an argument, that is both incorrect and completely irrelevant.
Incorrect and irrelevant.
Why is it irrelevant?
Well, because when we talk about this, we're talking about transgender people.
Transgender people are biological males who identify as women, or biological females who identify as males.
That's what a transgender person is.
So the existence of intersex people does nothing whatsoever to validate the claims of a transgender person.
These are two different categories.
So it's completely irrelevant.
So when I say that, you know, that if you're a biological male, you're a man and that's it, how does it validate the claims of a biological male that he's actually a woman when he points to someone else Who is allegedly intersex and has ambiguous genitalia.
Okay.
That's someone else.
That's not you though.
So if we, if we were just talking about intersex people, then we would be talking about intersex people, but we're not, we're talking about trans people and that's a completely separate category.
So it's irrelevant, completely irrelevant.
Um, this would be like, if somebody said, if someone made a claim and said, I have three arms.
Okay.
What if I, what if I right now claim that I have three arms?
Okay.
Well, I think you can look and see that I don't really have three arms.
I only have two.
But then what if I said, oh yeah, well, what about that person over there?
He has three arms.
And then I could present you with someone with three arms.
Even if I could do that, that doesn't mean that I have three arms.
That doesn't validate my claim to having three arms because someone else does.
Obviously.
So that's why it's irrelevant.
Why is it incorrect?
Well, it's incorrect because, actually, sex is still binary.
Biological sex is a binary proposition.
Intersex people are not an exception to that.
They do not represent some third biological sex.
They don't represent an in-between state.
They don't destroy the binary at all.
Again, even if they did, that does absolutely nothing whatsoever to validate the claims of transgender people.
But it's not even true.
They don't.
An intersex person suffers from a deformity, an illness, a genetic mutation.
And what that means is that their biological sex is harder to discern because it's not so immediately obvious because of their physical genetic mutation.
That doesn't mean they don't have a biological sex.
It just makes it a little bit harder to tell.
That's it.
Just like you take someone, let's take somebody with one arm.
There are people born with one arm.
Okay, that doesn't mean that it's no longer valid to say human beings have two arms.
It is a valid statement to say human beings have two arms.
They do.
Okay, just like you can say spiders have eight legs.
We can say that.
If you present me someone born with one arm, well, I know automatically that this is somebody with a genetic mutation or something went wrong.
And if we're to look at that person and, you know, and do a medical checkup and all that, and we'll discover that sure enough, something went wrong.
So this is not a new type of person who undermines the statement that people have two arms.
This is just someone who was supposed to have two arms, but something went wrong and their right or left arm just didn't show up.
And so it's the same thing with intersex people.
This is something went wrong.
We say the exception proves the rule, that's the exception that proves the rule.
Because when you see an intersex person, you automatically know there's some sort of genetic problem here, there's some sort of physical problem, and sure enough.
And then the other claim is, how does it affect you?
Again, irrelevant and incorrect.
So both of these responses are irrelevant and incorrect.
Even if it doesn't affect me, that does nothing to legitimize the claims of fact that are being made.
So if we're having an argument about what is the capital of Maryland, and you're saying it's Baltimore, and I'm correctly pointing out that it's Annapolis, and then I pull out a map and show you, sure enough, it's Annapolis, you can't say Well, how does it affect you that I'm saying Baltimore is the capital of Maryland?
It might not affect me, but you're still wrong.
We're not talking about how... The argument is not, how am I affected by your claim about the capital of Maryland?
The argument is, what is the capital of Maryland?
And you're wrong.
So, affect me?
Who cares?
What difference does that make?
The argument here is about the nature of biological sex and gender.
What are the facts of the case?
It's not about who's affected by it.
So that's why it's irrelevant, but it's also incorrect.
Because if we were having an argument, say, and I think this is more analogous, if we were having an argument about basic arithmetic, and you were claiming that 2 plus 2 equals 7, and I'm pointing out that no, 2 plus 2 equals 4, and then I pull out four apples and I demonstrate it for you, or I get out a calculator and I show you, and then you say, how does it affect you?
It doesn't affect you that I'm saying 2 plus 2 equals 7.
Well, irrelevant.
Okay.
You're still wrong.
I'm right.
But it really would affect me if you then turn around and organize a nationwide campaign to convince everybody that 2 plus 2 equals 7 and to punish those who claim that 2 plus 2 equals 4.
And to indoctrinate our kids into the belief that two plus two equals seven.
When you start doing that, it very much affects me because now you're trying to reorganize society around a delusion.
You're trying to dismantle arithmetic, which is a pretty useful thing.
You're trying to get rid of that and destroy it and reorganize society around this delusional claim that you're making.
Does it affect me?
Yeah.
Yes, it does.
Obviously.
It's the same thing here.
And it is directly analogous, really.
Trying to deny the biological realities of men and women is just as crazy as denying that 2 plus 2 equals 4.
And trying to reorganize society around the delusional, superstitious claim That biological males with functioning male reproductive organs can be women is just as damaging to society as trying to dismantle basic arithmetic.
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Uh, here's something.
The New York post headline says flirting with coworkers helps reduce stress.
According to new study, flirting with coworkers helps reduce stress.
And, you know, I know that sounds crazy and people were reacting to that online saying, Oh, this is nuts, but there's a lot of truth to it.
I think because.
Think about it.
If you get fired for sexual harassment, it will really reduce the stress of having to get up early for work.
So, in a way, I can see how that would work.
All right, a couple other stories to hit on before we read some emails and then call it a year.
As the Daily Wire reports, After Hallmark Channel pledged its allegiance to GLAAD, the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, in the wake of its decision to pull an ad that featured two lesbians kissing, the site IndieWire has now called upon the channel to make its first LGBT movie.
Jude Dry, writing for IndieWire, says, If Hallmark really wants to make an impact and show the LGBTQ community its commitment to inclusivity, it should greenlight an LGBTQ script ASAP.
Jew Dry's call echoed that of GLAAD President Sarah Kate Ellis, who said that LGBTQ people are and will continue to be a part of advertisements and family programming, and that will never change.
According to Dry, a more inclusive Hallmark channel would be like the company's greeting card wing, which already features a robust offering of LGBTQ-friendly holiday cards.
The writer said, After all, Hallmark has perfected its tried-and-true formula, generic, cozy, formulaic over years.
It wouldn't be hard to simply swap one gender in its pile of unproduced scripts.
Better yet, solicit an up-and-coming LGBTQ writer to craft the script, hire an LGBTQ director, and cast the movie with LGBTQ actors.
And etc and so forth.
So what we see here, once again, And this is related to what we talked about at the top of the show.
So it's all part of the same theme.
What we see once again, is that all the stuff we heard from the left for decades about, we're just trying to live our lives.
Leave us alone.
We'll leave you alone.
Live and let live.
Right?
That was all a big pile of BS.
As many people, myself included, have been warning for years.
It's BS.
It's not true.
That's not their intent.
Never has been.
Hallmark isn't hurting anyone by making their corny movies the way that they've been making them.
Doesn't hurt anybody.
Has anyone been actively hurt by the fact that there isn't a gay character in a Hallmark movie?
I mean, Hallmark is about the least threatening company in existence.
You don't get more harmless than Hallmark.
Um, And the writer doesn't even seem to like Hallmark movies.
Calls them formulaic, generic, which they are, of course.
So what he's saying is, eh, you know, these things are bland and formulaic, not very good, but just put some gay actors and characters in there anyway.
Because I say so.
Because it'd make me feel better.
It would make me feel better to know that you're following my every demand.
Even if I don't watch the movie, I just want to know that you're doing what I say.
And that's what the LGBT lobby has been up to for years now.
And that again is why their claims of it doesn't affect you.
It does affect us.
You want to affect us.
You want to control what we say.
You want to punish us for saying things you don't like.
You want to indoctrinate our kids into your belief system.
So I guess my point is at least be honest about it.
Be honest about what you're doing.
Especially with the T on LGBT.
That part of the lobby.
I mean, this is the most aggressive, hostile lobby in the country.
If you defy them, they will try to rip you to shreds and treat you like scum.
Look at what they're doing to J.K.
Rowling, who's... I read for you what... That's all she said!
That's it!
She said, you know, let's not fire women for saying that sex is real.
And for that, you should see the things they're saying about this woman.
And again, you know, I know you might not be sympathetic because she's a leftist, she brought this on herself, and I agree with that, but still.
The hostility.
The vitriol.
The attitude is, how dare you defy us even a little bit?
How dare you think for yourself at all?
You know, here is your assigned point of view.
And if you stray from that, even the slightest bit, we will ruin you.
And yet these people still want to claim that, oh, we're not trying to affect you.
We're just trying to... Oh, please.
Please.
Just be honest.
That's all I'm asking.
All right, let's go to emails.
Matt Walshow at gmail.com.
Matt Walshow at gmail.com.
This is from Henry, says, Hi Matt, I completely agree with you about expecting others to say Merry Christmas instead of Happy Holidays.
Getting triggered when a non-Christian doesn't say Merry Christmas is like saying he is risen at Easter and getting upset when a non-Christian doesn't say risen indeed.
Yeah, Henry, I got a lot of emails on this topic and several of them in disagreement with us.
But my feeling is always, the whole thing, the whole controversy about happy holidays or Merry Christmas, who cares?
Who cares?
Makes no difference.
Let people say what they're comfortable with saying.
You know, trying to force people to say something.
And especially just when someone is trying to be friendly and they have no ill intent, to get offended by that, to complain about it, If somebody says Happy Holidays, that's a friendly greeting.
They're not trying to attack you.
It's not an attack on Christmas.
They're trying to be nice.
So take it in that spirit and move on with your life.
And I think that's what most people do.
I think on both sides.
I think there are very few, actually, people on either side who either get offended by Merry Christmas or get offended by Happy Holidays.
But there are some.
And the problem is they're very loud.
All right.
This is from Colin says, Matt exclamation point.
What are your top 10 movies of 2019?
I don't think I've, I don't think I've seen 10 movies in 2019.
I especially, I especially have not seen 10 movies in 2019 that were released in 2019.
So I can't really give a top 10 or even a top five.
I will tell you, I saw one movie I saw in 2019 that I really liked.
What was, uh, Ad Astra, the, the Brad Pitt space movie.
And I thought it was a gorgeous film.
I thought it was thoughtful.
I thought it was interesting.
Uh, I thought it was fundamentally about the bond between a father and son, or rather, I suppose about the son's longing for that bond.
Um, a long, a longing that goes frustrated, frustrated ultimately, but it's really a beautiful and sad movie.
And, um, and I liked it a lot.
I thought Ad Astra was basically what Interstellar wanted to be, but wasn't.
Let's see.
Uh, this is from Thanos.
Says, hello, Matt.
First time sending you an email.
I'm a fan from Thailand.
You said it doesn't have to be Star Wars if you want to tell the story about space and it doesn't have to be Spider-Man or Iron Man if you want to tell the story about someone with supernatural powers.
I don't think that was the only point why people want to see them.
It's not just about space or supernatural power stuff but also about the characters growing that we grow to love and after we see them within those movies.
We want to see What's going on with the Skywalkers in their space?
We want to know what is Spider-Man doing with his powers.
We want to know what is going to happen in this new movie that they are in.
I mean, sure, it might be the same story again and again.
We may like it or hate it, but that doesn't change the fact that we love to see these characters in action.
Kind of like how we enjoy listening to your speech again and again, even though it's the same stuff.
So, is it really that bad for us to get attached to those kind of movies?
I'll wait to hear your answer.
Love your show.
You do raise a good point.
Me, as someone who tends to repeat myself constantly, I guess I can't really blame Star Wars for doing the same thing.
But, first of all, as I have stated many times, I have one standard for myself and another standard for everybody else.
I've been very clear about that.
So, I can do what I want, but I expect other people to be better than me.
I don't see the big deal.
Now, I'm not saying it's bad to like Star Wars.
In fact, I said I totally understand that people have a nostalgic attachment to the movie.
So, you know, that's totally understandable to me.
If you grew up with this movie, you have that sort of relationship with the story and with the film, and I don't begrudge that at all.
What I'm talking about is just the actual quality of the movie.
I'm saying that the Star Wars movies generally have below average acting.
The scripts are below average.
The stories are repetitive.
And that's it.
And so maybe it's time to move on.
Right?
It's not like this is a story or that the original trilogy was of such a nature that it was just so incredible.
So deep.
So rich.
That it's a never-ending source of additional stories.
Because obviously it's not.
The well has run dry.
And so, let's move on and tell other stories in space.
What's wrong with... Here's what I would like to see happen.
You have filmmakers, this generation of filmmakers, who grew up with Star Wars, love the movie, Have been influenced by it.
Great.
So what I would love to see is for them to go and make a different space movie that's not a Star Wars movie, but that is influenced by it.
So whatever happened to that?
See, I think that's the way it's supposed to go.
It's not supposed to be, oh, I was influenced by Star Wars, so I'm going to make my own Star Wars movie.
No.
You're influenced by it.
It's one of the influences you had as a filmmaker, along with other films.
And so go and tell a space movie that, yeah, is reminiscent of Star Wars in some ways, but it's also a completely different story.
It's like if you're a filmmaker coming up and you loved The Godfather when you were younger, you're very influenced by Francis Ford Coppola and The Godfather.
You're not going to go and try to make Godfather 4.
You might have a mob movie that is reminiscent in some ways of The Godfather, but it's still its own thing.
So that's what I'm saying.
You had, who was the guy, the director that made the last, Rian Johnson?
He did, I think it was, I don't know, I think it was the last, not this latest entry, but the one before that.
Well, he's, this is the same guy who did Looper, which I thought was a very interesting and good movie.
He did a movie called Brick.
I think it was his first movie.
It came out years ago.
Low budget, kind of indie movie with Joseph Gordon-Levitt.
Also a really interesting movie.
I would have loved to see that filmmaker, who I think is a very good filmmaker, I would have loved to see him tell a sci-fi space movie, not a Star Wars one, not one that has to fit into that cookie cutter mold, but I would love to see a guy with those talents and that perspective, influenced by Star Wars and other films, tell his own space movie.
That would've been great.
Instead he told a Star Wars movie, you know, he made a Star Wars movie, he told a Star Wars story, and it was, you know, it was kind of eh, bland, middling.
Uh, let's see.
Alright, moving on.
This is from Jacob, says, Hey Matt, I listen to your show daily, came for Ben, my subscription isn't up yet, so I can't say stayed for Matt, but if it makes you feel better, sure.
It does make me feel better.
I'm a 24-year-old Orthodox Jew.
As such, I take off 10% after-tax income for charity.
A guy my age I haven't seen in years messaged me asking how I was.
Obviously, he wanted something, so I asked, what's up?
He told me his dad had two strokes and he had to move in with him, blah, blah.
Can I help?
I like how he just blah, blah-ed over dad had two strokes.
I felt bad and figured, even if it was bull, the guy obviously needs help, so I sent him $150.
He was over the moon, thanked me a thousand times.
Okay, good night.
Next day he tells me that he thinks the reason his life is going so bad is because he isn't religious.
Can I give him money to get food for Shabbat?
I thought about it.
I want him to keep Shabbat, but I don't want to now be his wallet.
I'm interning with barely an income myself, so I sent him another 70.
Do you think the second installment was immoral, also creating an issue for myself?
Okay.
Yes to the second question, no to the first.
It wasn't immoral.
You're obviously a very nice charitable guy, so you didn't do anything morally wrong.
Did you create an issue for yourself?
Yes, because this person that you're dealing with is what is known as a leech.
And so I would cut him off immediately.
I mean, the very idea that you're going to ask somebody for money, but you haven't talked to in years, And you reach out to them and almost immediately you're asking them for money.
Okay.
Well, I think this was your thought.
It's like, well, that's definitely tacky, but maybe he's in dire straits.
He needs to reach out to somebody.
He doesn't know anybody else.
He's reaching out to me.
So I'll help him out.
I think I was, I think it was very generous of you.
He comes back the next day and is asking for more money.
And the setup for it is that he wants to be religious and he needs money to do it.
What is this guy?
A televangelist?
Uh, no.
I wouldn't give him another freaking dime, okay?
So I think you've done your part.
This is from Michael, says, last year you mentioned that It's a Wonderful Life was one of your favorite Christmas movies.
The film was considered communist propaganda by many people when it was first released in 1947.
I have had a very long argument with my liberal parents over the holidays about how the movie was full of socialist tropes.
My argument, by the way, it sounds like my family at the holidays.
Not that anyone's liberal because we're all crazy right-wingers, but having a long intense argument about something like whether It's a Wonderful Life is a communist movie.
I think that's great.
You know, I think I probably enjoy hanging out with your family because there are the families that can have arguments like that.
They get very intense and go on for hours.
And then there's the families that can't, and I'm definitely in the can category.
My argument was that George Bailey was essentially giving out subprime loans during the Depression to people who could not afford them while disregarding his fiduciary responsibility to maximize profit to Potter, who is the stockholder.
Potter is then portrayed as an evil, greedy capitalist throughout the film for being solvent during the Depression and supplying free market housing for a competitive price.
I would like to hear you analyze this with your sound reasoning since socialist ideology is now so prevalent in this day and age and old rich white men are castigated in the worst possible light.
I ask this question every year to the Daily Wire team and have yet to receive an answer, so I hope that you can fit it in your final email segment before the year is over while the topic is still relevant.
Well, Michael, I don't disagree with what you're saying, but listen.
You could make the argument that Santa Claus himself Is a manipulative nanny state tyrant.
He watches you, watches you even while you're sleeping.
Think about how creepy that is.
Think about the lyrics of that song.
He knows when you're sleeping.
He knows when you're awake.
My God.
He knows if you've been bad or good.
Then he breaks into your home, he rewards you if you comply with his demands, and if not, he leaves a terrifying threat in the form of a chunk of coal, a black coal.
Now, if you want to be all literal about it, you could say that Santa is a morbidly obese big brother figure who violates our privacy rights, violates our property rights, and violates our free speech rights.
And that would all be true.
But it's Christmas, so we make an exception.
All I'm saying is Santa gets off the hook in the spirit of Christmas.
And it's in that same spirit that I let George Bailey off the hook, even though he is a deadbeat, self-pitying whiner.
Um, but, um, but yeah, I, I, so I really don't have a response for you.
I'm afraid it's, it's, I understand what you're saying.
You're not wrong.
Uh, but, but still that's what, that's the answer I'm going to give you.
I'm going to give you a yeah, but still on that one.
This is from LJ, says, Hey Matt, can you give us a great recipe for bourbon eggnog?
I sure can, LJ.
What you do is, well, I'll tell you the step-by-step process.
What you want to do is take some bourbon out of your liquor cabinet.
You want to pour a generous portion of it into a glass.
And then the next step is drink the bourbon.
The end.
Because obviously the last thing you should ever do with the glorious elixir known as bourbon is mix it with raw eggs for God's sake.
That's my bourbon recipe.
Hope you enjoy it.
I know I'll be enjoying that form of eggnog myself over the holidays and I hope all of you have a great blessed Christmas.
Happy New Year.
I'll talk to you next year.
Godspeed.
Merry Christmas.
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