Ep. 426 - The Absurdity Of The Equal Rights Amendment
Democrats in Congress are trying to revive the Equal Rights Amendment, which supposedly will guarantee equal rights for women in America. The problem is that women already have equal rights, so what will this amendment really do? We'll talk about it. Also, are people who recline their seats on airplanes sociopaths? We discuss. And I answer emails from some listeners who think I'm a bad Christian for saying that we should teach our children to fight back against bullies.
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Welcome to the show, friends, neighbors, companions, consorts.
I apologize for my absence yesterday, not to get too graphic, but I did wake up Thursday morning a sweaty, coughing, feverish mess.
Fortunately, today I woke up just a sweaty, coughing mess, but without much of a fever.
So I think we can get through this.
I'm going to give it a go.
I think we'll be okay.
If I hack up a lung in the process of the show, Don't be alarmed, I do have a backup log, so I should be fine.
I really wanted to do the show today because I need to talk about the Democrats in Congress trying to pass, trying to revive, I should say, the Equal Rights Amendment.
And you probably know, one of my favorite pastimes is to debunk the silliness of feminists.
And there is nothing sillier than the Equal Rights Amendment.
Silly being one hell of an understatement here.
Before we talk about this, something that you need to understand, if you don't already, which I'm sure you do, is that feminism has become the most vacuous, useless movement known to humanity.
These women, these feminists, are desperate to be oppressed, but sadly for them, they live in the freest and most prosperous nation on earth.
unfortunate for them. Such is their luck. They want to be oppressed but they can't
be because they're free and even in the context of even within the context of
this free and prosperous nation they are arguably among the freest and most
prosperous inhabitants inside it so but they can't abide this.
They just can't.
They want to be persecuted.
They need to be persecuted.
And their greatest persecution, really, is that they aren't persecuted.
But they can't say that, so instead they go out looking for boogeymen to fight.
Which brings us to the Equal Rights Amendment.
There was an attempt in the 70s to get this ratified, but it failed.
Now Democrats are trying to pick it up again.
And they're trying to do it literally by picking up where they left off in the 70s.
They needed one more state to ratify In order to pass it, now they have that state, and they want to just take that and run with it, rather than going through the whole process of getting all the states, all 38 that are needed, getting them all again.
Now this obviously, it seems to me, from a procedure standpoint alone, is totally illegitimate.
It's been five decades.
If you want to do this again, you need to start from scratch.
In fact, even Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who is a fan of the amendment, has said that if you want to do this, you've got to start over.
You can't just pretend the last five decades didn't happen.
So that's the procedural end of it.
What about the amendment itself?
Well, here's what it says.
It says, equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex.
Simple enough.
Sounds harmless, right?
On its own.
Except that, at a minimum, just to begin with, it's entirely useless and pointless.
It's already illegal to discriminate based on sex.
This is already illegal.
Not only is it illegal, but there are no examples that anyone can provide of actual legal sex-based discrimination against women.
Not only that, but women in America today have it very, very good.
Better than almost anybody else.
Point being, the system and the laws are working quite well for women, so that this amendment, at a minimum, is redundant and useless.
But it's worse than that, of course, because it actually opens the door to a number of far-left agenda items, which is why they want to pass it, and we'll talk about that in a minute.
Before we get to that, Let's actually listen, lest I be accused of making a straw man out of my opposite, or a straw woman, I suppose, out of my opposition in this case.
Let's actually listen to the Democrat women on the House floor explaining why we need this amendment.
We're going to listen to what they have to say.
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Okay.
Now here are the Democrat women in Congress explaining why this Equal Rights Amendment is needed.
We'll start with The renowned legal scholar, Debbie Wasserman Schultz.
Here's what she has to say.
After nearly a century, the Equal Rights Amendment is on the cusp of ratification.
At America's founding, women were intentionally left out of the Constitution.
As second-class citizens, we lack the right to vote, hold most jobs, or even own property.
Today, we still receive less pay for the same work, and we face violence and harassment just for being a woman.
But the ERA will prohibit all of that.
In the eyes of our most sacred document, we will finally be equal.
Women's rights should not depend on congressional whims or who occupies the White House.
These basic fundamental rights must be guaranteed.
But if we want to hand a more perfect union over to our daughters, and I have two of them, we must seize this moment to end sex discrimination.
We owe it to the women who sacrificed before us and all of our daughters and sons who deserve a life of true equality.
So I urge my colleagues to vote yes on this resolution to remove the arbitrary and outdated deadline for ratifying the ERA.
I yield back.
Okay, so what reason does she give us?
Women are paid less for the same work.
Well, that's not true.
Okay, that's a lie.
And you're gonna hear this lie from every Democrat arguing for this amendment.
In spite of the fact that Even aside from it being a lie, there's already an Equal Pay Act on the books.
In fact, sex-based wage discrimination is illegal from about 10 different directions already.
And it's not like those laws have proven somehow ineffective.
Women are not paid less for the same work.
The 70 cents on a dollar or 80 cents on a dollar, whatever figure they're pulling out of a hat.
The way that they get that, if it's based on any kind of reality at all, it's based on a broad comparison of all females versus all males in all kinds of jobs.
In other words, we're looking at the general average of what all women make and comparing it to the general average of what all men make across the board.
This is, most assuredly, not comparing the same work.
So when they say, you know, it's unequal pay for the same work, that is, again, that is a bald-faced lie.
That's all it is.
They're just lying to your face about it, making no attempt to conform what they're saying with reality.
When you actually compare women and men doing the same work, the same kinds of jobs in the same industries, And then you further control for factors like experience level, skill level, hours worked, that sort of thing.
The wage gap all but disappears.
The only way to get this wage gap is to make a comparison without taking into account the type of work, the industry, hours worked, experience level, skill level, or anything else.
The only way to get the wage gap is to ignore all of the things that might reasonably explain a wage gap without sexism.
So you have to throw those out to begin with, in totality, and then look at the wage gap.
In other words, the only way to see a sexist wage gap is to assume, going in, that the only explanation for a wage gap is sexism, and thus discard everything else.
And then, what do you know?
Look, we've just proven sexism.
In reality, of course, men Generally speaking, tend to work more hours.
They tend to take on more dangerous jobs, which often means higher pay.
They tend to gravitate towards higher paying jobs.
They tend to prioritize higher pay more than women do, whereas women are going to be more focused on having more time with their family and that sort of thing, which is great, by the way.
Men also tend to negotiate for more.
Women are more reluctant to negotiate for a higher salary during the hiring process.
Now, there's nothing preventing a woman from negotiating for a higher salary.
There's nothing preventing a woman from, you know, taking on more dangerous jobs.
There's nothing preventing a woman from moving to North Dakota to work on an oil rig.
A woman could do that, it's just that almost no woman does do that because they don't want to.
So all of these feminists saying, oh, you know, we don't get paid the same.
Okay, I don't see you going out to do these dangerous jobs that men are doing and getting paid for them.
You could do them, you just don't want to, and that's fine.
But admit that the reason you're not getting paid like that is because you don't want to do the job.
So this wage gap thing is absurd.
It has nothing to do with sexism whatsoever.
By the way, are there examples of industries where, in general, men make more than women, even within the actual industry itself?
Sure, probably.
There are also examples of industries where women get paid more than men.
The modeling industry, for example.
The highest paid female model makes like 40 or 50 times what the highest paid male model makes.
A similar situation in the reverse can be found in sports.
And we hear about this all the time.
That if you compare the highest paid WNBA star to the highest paid NBA star, you're going to find a similar disparity.
40 to 50, if not more.
Why are these disparities in place?
Well, because female models are simply worth more.
They bring in more revenue.
The market is more interested in them.
Same for male athletes.
It's not sexism.
It's the marketplace.
Now, what else did Shultz mention as evidence that we need an equal rights movement?
Well, she said women are victims of violence in America.
Okay, true.
Actually, men are victims of at least some forms of violence more often than women are.
Men are more likely to be victims of homicide, for example.
But in any case, violence against women is illegal.
It's already illegal to commit violence against a woman.
We don't need an Equal Rights Amendment to prohibit violence against women because it's already prohibited.
Yes, it still happens because people break the law, but an amendment to the Constitution is not going to stop people proactively from breaking the law.
Okay, next we're going to go to Ayanna Pressley, whose arguments for the Equal Rights Amendment are about as crazy as you might expect.
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Okay.
Here's what Ayanna Pressley has to say about the Equal Rights Amendment.
Listen.
The year is now 2020, and here we women are, still in so many ways, not fully free.
Still shackled.
Today, I rise to affirm the humanity and the dignity of all women.
I rise in strong, unapologetic, righteous support of H.J.
Res.
79, which will strike the arbitrary deadline for ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment, an amendment that should already be the law of the land.
Women are strong, hardworking, bright, and resilient.
We are the backbones of our families, our communities, and our democracy.
We do not live in checked boxes.
We live in an intersectionality of lived experiences and identities.
Our issues are everyone's issues because our destinies are all tied.
Tomorrow's vote on H.J.
Res.
79 is a vote for the preservation of our collective humanity.
First of all, can we just, uh, can we back up?
within our households and on the job, we're still paid less than our male counterparts.
In addition to pay discrimination, we face pregnancy discrimination, discrimination in
the criminal legal system, sexual and domestic violence, and inadequate health care access.
But this isn't an accident.
The American Constitution is sexist by its very design.
First of all, can we just, can we back up?
Did you catch where she said, we live in an intersectionality of lived experiences and
Did you catch that?
We live in an intersectionality of lived experiences and identities.
Do you know what that sentence means?
Nothing.
Doesn't mean anything.
It has no meaning.
It is a sentence without content.
These are just words thrown together as a signal.
It's a signal to other far leftists that she's a compatriot of theirs.
The phrase intersectionality of lived experiences and identities means nothing other than, I am an enlightened leftist, please listen to me and take me seriously.
Now, really it becomes, that's what it's a signal to other far leftists, but to everybody else, to normal people, to rational people, it becomes a signal of, I am a vapid, Empty-headed person just spouting meaningless words to sound intelligent.
Please don't take me seriously.
That's how everybody else interprets it.
I mean, the moment you say intersectionality of lived experiences, I'm done.
I couldn't take you seriously at that point.
There's no way I could.
Is there any such thing as an unlived experience?
What's the point of saying lived?
What's the point of attaching lived to experience?
Considering that, by definition, all experiences must be lived.
If you had an experience, it means you lived it.
By definition!
Saying lived experience is like saying vehicular automobile.
You're attaching words to other words to sound smart, because you think that if you use more words than you need to, it's a sign of intelligence.
It's actually quite the opposite.
In any case, what reasons does she give for the amendment, other than the fact that we live in an intersectionality of lived experiences and identities?
Well, she says the equal pay thing, which we've covered, and then she says the Constitution is sexist by design.
This is false.
Again, women have all the same rights that men do, and even some additional rights that we don't have, such as the right to kill their children.
If the Constitution was sexist, that wouldn't be the case.
She also says that women are discriminated against in the legal system.
This is also false.
In fact, women receive lighter sentences for the same crimes and are more likely to receive no jail time at all for crimes that send men to jail.
And that is after controlling for things like criminal history.
Aside from that, she has a bunch of sort of general platitudes about the horrors of being women in modern America, and I'll respond to those in a minute.
But first, let's add Rashida Tlaib into the mix.
Thank you so much.
I rise very proudly, the first Muslim woman ever elected in Congress in support of House Joint Resolution 79.
Mm-mm-mm.
I swear, what's even more interesting is what I've been hearing about is this obsession to control and oppress women in the United States of America.
And I cannot believe it's 2020.
We're still debating the merits of Equal Rights Amendment.
It's beyond time.
I want you all to know this is about women of color, women with disabilities, transgender women, immigrant women, all these women are affected by issues like unequal pay, sexual violence, Okay, so again, the unequal pay thing.
That's really all they have.
of what we're doing here in trying to promote women's equality is about gender, racial and
economic justice.
So I would ask you all know this, a no vote today is condoning oppression of women in
the United States of America.
And I urge support and yield the balance of my time.
Okay.
So again, the unequal pay thing, that's really all they have.
And they don't even have that.
She talks about violence against women, which once again is already illegal.
We don't need an amendment for that.
Did you know there's also no specific amendment that makes it illegal to attack men?
There isn't a specific anti-violence against men amendment.
Because that's already covered under the basic concept of human rights.
And every state in the country has laws against assault and murder.
And there are federal laws against it too, and everybody is covered by that, unless you're an unborn child.
In which case, women, specifically, have the unique power to kill you, without any legal repercussions whatsoever.
And then she goes on, Rashida Tlaib as well, goes on about this oppression of women, saying people are obsessed with oppressing women.
Who?
Give me an example.
Give me a real-life, actual example, in the United States, Of oppression against women.
Now, you could—of legal, legal oppression against women.
Now, you could give me many examples, which Rashida Tlaib seems reluctant to do, but you could give me many examples in Muslim countries of legal oppression of women.
That's a real problem.
But feminists aren't too focused on that.
Instead, they want to find it in the United States.
They can't find it.
Here's the reality.
Now that we've heard the feverish fantasies of these ridiculous feminists, the reality is this.
Legally, women have, as I said, all of the rights that men have.
You cannot give me an example of a right that men have that women don't.
I can, on the other hand, and have already given examples, in the opposite direction.
One that I've already given, a big one, men have no rights at all as... They have no parental rights when their children are in the womb.
That's a pretty big example.
Nothing like that exists on the other end of the spectrum.
Discrimination.
Well, I already told you that statistics show that in the legal system, women get lighter sentences than men.
Can you show me legal discrimination going in the other direction?
And this is to say nothing of the family courts, where women are far more likely to be awarded custody in divorce battles than are men.
Now, you could argue That there's a reason for that.
You could say that it's not about anti-male bias.
I mean, you can't deny that women are far more likely to be awarded custody.
That's the truth.
That's the statistical reality.
But you could say, oh, it's not about any kind of broad bias against males.
It's just that, you could argue, men are less likely to fight for custody.
You could argue that if a child is going to be predominantly raised by one parent or another, it's better, generally speaking, that it be the mother.
You could argue these things.
But if you do, you'd be admitting, number one, that men and women are different and must therefore be treated differently, even sometimes in a systemic sort of way, a legal way, and that it's possible to do that in a way that is not bigoted.
And then you would also be admitting that there could be non-bigoted reasons for gender disparities.
But if you admit that, then you have to go back to any gender disparities where women are on the losing end, potentially, and ask yourself if this applies to that as well.
So if you're going to, and I have heard this justification from feminists for this family court thing, where they say, for example, well, men are less likely to fight for custody.
I don't even know if that's true, but if it is, Okay, let's go back to the wage gap.
Women are less likely to fight for a higher wage in the hiring process.
So if the one is not anti-male bias, then this is not anti-female bias.
And in terms of just the general condition of women versus men, here's what else I know.
Women, females, are more likely to graduate, more likely to go to college, Less likely to get suspended or expelled in school.
Less likely to be put on drugs for supposed mental disorders like ADHD in their schooling years.
Men make up the majority of murder victims, the majority of workplace injuries, the majority of homeless people, the majority of drug addicts, and the majority of suicides.
So, I'm not saying that women don't have their own challenges in society.
They do.
But men do as well.
And given everything I've just laid out, it's going to be very difficult to actually prove that women somehow have it worse.
Have it so bad, in fact, that we need a whole new amendment to the Constitution to remedy the problem.
I just don't think you can.
Now, I have given you real, actual, statistical, evidence-based examples.
of unique ways that men struggle in society.
If you have similar examples for women, then present them.
But you notice that none of these people did.
They have lies, they have half-truths, they have platitudes.
They have no evidence.
And if they do, they haven't presented it.
Now, so what is the Equal Rights Amendment actually going to do?
Well, at best, it's just redundant and useless.
So at best, you've added an amendment to the Constitution that's redundant and useless.
But one thing we know about redundant and useless laws is that they end up getting exploited.
Because usually there's a reason why the people who are fighting for the redundant and useless law want it.
It's not just for symbolic reasons.
They intend to do something with it that they haven't been able to do with the current laws that are on the books.
So the law looks on the surface to be redundant, but actually it's not, because they're going to use it as a vehicle for something.
What are the far- what are the- what are leftists going to use this as a vehicle for?
Well, a number of things.
First of all, this could be used as a- as a- a justification.
A legal basis for ending all sex segregation in every aspect of life.
Bathrooms, sports, those would be two big ones.
Now we know this is something the left has been trying to do with respect to trans women, that would be men who are claiming to be women.
But you get rid of the segregation completely and now men don't even have to go through the trouble of claiming to be women in order to get access to these spaces.
Why would feminists want to do that?
Thereby putting women in danger?
Well, that's a good question.
But many of them want to.
Of course, we know right away that women are going to be eligible for the draft under a law like this, an amendment
like this.
But I think the primary thing they're looking to do with this amendment is to ensure government
funding for abortion across the country.
Because what they're going to do is they're going to claim that, you know, we have government
funding for other medical things and not allowing it for abortion is now sex discrimination
because women are the ones getting abortions and it's a legitimate, they say, medical procedure.
And so, according to this amendment now, you're violating this amendment if you don't give government funding for abortion.
So I would say that ending sex segregation in bathrooms and sports, putting women in the draft, that's probably more of a side effect.
I think there are some feminists who really want to do that.
Again, I can't imagine why, because it's going to be very harmful to women.
But we know that this is the irony of left-wing feminists, is that they're constantly arguing for policies that are harmful to women.
I don't think that's the main point.
I think the real main primary point is this.
It's government funding of abortion.
So this would really be the government funding of abortion amendment.
And that's what they're trying to do.
All right, let's, um, let's move on.
I, okay, I needed to talk about this.
Do we have to?
Yeah.
Uh, before emails, this is because this is a subject that's very important to me and very, very near and dear to my heart.
Personally, as a tall person who flies on planes a lot.
I don't know if you saw this video that was online yesterday.
It's a confrontation between two passengers on a flight.
The one passenger, the woman, is reclining her seat into a guy's lap.
He doesn't like that, so he's punching the seat to register his protest, yet she keeps it reclined.
And anyway, watch this.
There you go.
Now, you could argue that they're both being jerks, they're both being childish.
Some people have asked, why didn't the guy simply ask her to put the seat back up rather than punching her seat?
Well, maybe he did.
How do we know he didn't?
We're doing this thing again where we see an out-of-context clip on the internet of an altercation between two people, and it's 10 or 15 seconds long, and we assume there's no other context whatsoever, which always ends up being incorrect, because there's always some kind of context.
Whether that context will ultimately absolve one person or another, that's a different question, but there's always going to be a context for what you see.
It's not like it just happened randomly out of nowhere.
So, I agree that he should have asked her to put her seat up.
If he didn't ask and instead just started punching at her seat, then yes, he's a jerk.
But so is she.
If he did ask, and she refused or ignored him, which is a situation that many of us have been in in the past, I've been in it, where you ask nicely, hey, would you mind putting your seat back up?
You're right, you know, you're in my space, I'm sure.
And they just ignore you.
So if he asked, and she refused or ignored him, and then he started punching the seat, well, then he is a hero.
Speaking of equal rights, he's a pioneer for the equal rights of tall people on planes.
This is the point.
Yes, the seats on most planes have a recline function.
But most planes also come with no spare legroom, especially for taller people.
And by taller people, I don't mean seven feet tall.
Okay, I just mean slightly taller than average.
If you recline your seat and there is someone behind you, you are, especially if they're over, let's say, 5'8", you are completely taking away all of their spare legroom.
And now their legs are going to be pushed up against your seat.
And if they need to, like, do some work on a laptop or something, Forget it.
They're not going to be able to because they can't even open up their laptop enough because your seat's right in their space.
You have removed that possibility.
So what you're doing is, in order to increase your personal comfort by a minimal amount, you are robbing someone else's comfort by a relatively significant amount.
And if you don't think it's significant, then try flying for six hours with your knees jammed up against somebody's seat.
And tell me that it's not a significant discomfort.
So you are increasing your own comfort, minimally, by removing significantly the comfort of somebody else.
How could this be justified?
In favor of the seat recliner?
Because the seats can recline, therefore it's okay to recline them?
That's the argument I've heard.
There's a whole debate now online about who's in the right, who's in the wrong.
And everybody trying to take the woman's side, the entire argument seems to boil down to, well, the seats can recline, so that means it's okay to recline them.
What kind of logic is that?
That is the logic of my three-year-old.
I can do this, therefore it's okay for me to do it.
See, a three-year-old doesn't understand that there are a lot of things you can do and yet shouldn't.
Adults are supposed to understand that.
Yes, you can do it, but you shouldn't.
Just like if you're sitting on the aisle or window seat and there's someone in the middle seat, you can take both of the armrests.
I mean, the window guy and the aisle guy can take both of their armrests, thereby depriving the middle guy of any armrest at all.
You could do that, but you shouldn't.
You can slam a door shut in somebody's face rather than holding it open for them.
You can hit the button to close the elevator instead of hitting the button to keep it open as a person's running to it to get on.
You can use FaceTime loudly at a coffee shop while people are trying to work.
There are so many things you can do.
You can swerve into a parking space right as somebody's about to back into it.
You can ditch your shopping cart in the middle of the parking lot.
There are so many things you can do and yet you shouldn't because we live in a society, a civilized society, and if you care about not being an a-hole, if you care about being a decent human and not a jerk, then you don't do these things that you can do because they're inconsiderate and they're boorish and they're rude.
Reclining your seat is one of those things.
Yes, you can do it.
The seats have that function.
They shouldn't have that function.
But what you are saying is, just so I can have this little bit of comfort, I'm going to make the person behind me extraordinarily uncomfortable.
There's no justifying that.
There just isn't.
And this is why When I am dictator of the country, and my rule begins, finally, mercifully, I am going to take everyone who reclines their seats on airplanes, everyone who ditches their shopping carts in parking lots, everybody who uses FaceTime in public, I'm going to round them up at gunpoint, stuff them into a capsule, and shoot them directly into the sun.
You know what?
Maybe not even the sun.
I'll be merciful.
I could shoot you if you want to go to a different planet.
You know, you want me to shoot you to Mars?
Mars might be a little too close.
You want me to shoot you to, I don't know, Neptune?
Or something?
We could talk about that.
But you just... You are rude on a level that means you're not fit to live among civilized people.
All right.
Now, I want to read some emails, but before we do that, a quick word from our good friends over at Rock Auto.
I tell you about Rock Auto all the time, and I'm a huge fan of what they provide, and I just think that Going into an auto parts store, if you're having trouble with your car, if you need anything for your car, going in physically to an auto parts store in the internet age just doesn't make any sense at all.
Because what I'm always pointing out is that, and you know this if you've been to one, most of us have, that nine times out of ten, what you're looking for, they don't have, they got to order it.
And so you're going through this whole process, there's no point.
Why not just go to rockauto.com?
It's a family business serving auto part customers online for 20 years.
Go to rockauto.com to shop for auto embodied parts from hundreds of manufacturers.
They've got everything from engine control modules, brake parts, tail lamps, motor oil, new carpet, whatever kind of car it is.
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It's very easy to navigate the site, very simple, and they've got a lot of unique parts that maybe you can't find other places, and it's also reliably affordable and cheap.
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Go to RockAuto.com right now.
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Write Walsh in their How Did You Hear About Us box so that they know that we sent you.
Okay.
All right.
My voice is holding up relatively well as we go to emails.
This is from Daniel.
Says, Matt, this is urgent.
My dad is legit eating peanut butter with mayonnaise.
What in the world do I do?
Well, Daniel, the first thing I would say is calm down.
Don't panic.
There may be a reasonable explanation.
Maybe your dad is engaged in some sort of performance art.
Okay?
It's possible.
So the first thing I would do is I would ask him.
Give him a chance to explain himself.
And I really think that's important.
That's what I'm talking about.
It's all about context, right?
I was just saying before.
And so maybe there's a context.
Could be performance art.
Could be a science experiment.
Could be some sort of penance.
I don't know if you're Catholic, but maybe your dad went to confession.
Confess some horrible sin, and the priest said, as penance, I need you to go home and eat peanut butter with mayonnaise.
That's possible too.
So I would ask him, if what you discover is that he's eating peanut butter with mayonnaise because he likes it, well now it's time to put dad in a home, I think.
He is just not, you know, I don't know how old you are, it's possible your dad's like 50, but whatever, however old he is, I don't care.
It's just, he is not, someone who eats peanut butter with mayonnaise, Just and does it because they enjoy it, you know, this is a form of Self-destruction that I think at that point you would need to get medical professionals involved.
So thank you though for that email My thoughts and prayers are with you and your family during this time. This is from Amanda, says,
my sister has always struggled with her mental health. We were raised in a dysfunctional
family, but us siblings have always managed to stay close throughout adulthood. However,
as I've healed and moved on, my sister's declining mental health is getting harder and harder to
tolerate. I have a family and I'm happy and I feel more and more that I, that I shouldn't keep justifying
the drama she brings into my life.
She lies almost constantly.
She's actively trying to ruin siblings' marriages.
She lies about abuse.
She spreads rumors about infidelity within the family.
She hates that I'm religious, and she spreads rumors that I'm being forced into it by my husband.
And that's just the tip of the iceberg.
She's addicted to drama.
She can't go five minutes without telling an obvious lie.
She explains away every confrontation, never takes responsibility.
I think she could be classified as delusional, telling people she's a psychiatrist when she's never been to school.
She's been spiraling, and her marriage is ending, and she has alienated almost everyone in her life.
I'm almost all she has, and I feel immense guilt at the thought of abandoning her, especially when she seems so sick in her mind.
But I'm at my wit's end.
What should I do?
I need a non-emotional perspective.
Well Amanda, I can only go based on what you've told me, and there are two sides to every story, or at least most stories anyway.
But I can't imagine what the other side of this would be.
But if what you're telling me is totally accurate in terms of how it represents your sister, not accusing you of lying, but of course in family disputes, things get emotional and people can find it difficult to see past the emotions of it.
But if that's all accurate, then I would say you should drop this person from your life like yesterday.
It's not even a difficult decision to make.
It may be emotionally difficult, but in terms of knowing what the right thing to do is, this to me seems obvious.
Because your relationship with your husband and your children is way more important than your relationship with her.
And if she is coming in between marriages, she's trying to destroy families, that's it.
That's done, in my view.
Maybe you don't have to write her off forever, but for now, until she gets her act together, if she ever does, I wouldn't have a damn thing to do with her.
Period.
Lying, claiming that a sibling was unfaithful to try to break up a marriage?
That's a one-strike-and-you're-out kind of deal.
It's one of the worst things You could do to somebody.
That's not one of those things where you patch it up and you try to move on from it.
No, no, no, no, no, no.
That's one of those things where you have to get the hell away from this poisonous, toxic person.
And by the way, I don't think that mental illness gives people carte blanche to be narcissistic a-holes.
To be terrible humans.
I think that those two things are in some ways separate.
Mental illness is a real thing.
But character defects are also a real thing.
And character defects is not a medical condition.
It's just that you have a bad character because you've chosen to be a terrible person.
And so, your sister may well have psychological problems, but there's also a separate issue in that she just sounds like a bad person.
Even separate and apart from the mental issues.
Trying to break up somebody's marriage, like that, that's not a... I don't see that as a symptom of a mental disorder.
I see that as a symptom of, you're just a horrible human being.
And so, you just, you can't be around it.
In fact, even if you could argue that this is all because of mental disorder, so it's not her fault at all, even if that was the case, there's still no reason for you to be around it.
Because there are more important things in your life, there are more important relationships.
Your husband is more important than your sister, in terms of your relationship to him.
It's more important to protect your relationship to your husband than it is to protect your relationship to your sister.
Your relationship to your children, again, more important.
So, that's what I would do.
Just... I would have nothing to do with her whatsoever.
Cut her off completely.
And tell her why.
It sounds like you've got many, many very good reasons.
And I would tell her that, and I would not talk to her for a while.
Okay.
Now, we talked, last show I did, we were talking about bullying, and...
What we should teach kids in terms of how to stand up to bullies, and I made the argument that we need to teach our kids not to be doormats and to fight back against bullies, rather than always telling them to, quote, be the bigger person and run away, tell an adult.
I got a lot of emails in response to that, so I'm gonna read a few of them, kind of in a row, and then I'll have a general response to all of them, so.
Okay, this is from Ben, says, Hi Matt, I enjoy listening to your show.
I think your stance on the bigger man is exactly right.
I was verbally bullied a lot when I was a kid and was taught by my parents and teachers to be the bigger man and not say anything.
Additionally, I employed the... God bless the Catholic Church, but man, the Catholic schools are a nightmare.
Additionally, I employed the tactic continuously Excuse me, to join in with the bully on insulting myself, to beat them to the punch, if you will.
It was hell, and I developed some serious personal and relational problems with my peers because I was never taught to stand up for myself.
It is only now, after going to therapy for a while, that I have been able to move past that hurt from my peers and be able to stand up for myself.
I totally agree with you.
So that's from Ben.
Parents need to teach their kids, sons especially, to stand up for themselves.
If they do not, then I can personally attest that those kids will have a hard time being
respected by their peers and feeling secure in masculine relationships, friendships.
Again, thank you for sharing this.
My wife is pregnant with our first and I hope that I can support my child the way that you
have."
So that's from Ben.
Okay.
That was an agreement.
Not all the emails were in agreement, as you might expect.
This is from Leo, says, Hi Matt, it's Leo.
First, I would like to mention that you are my favorite host from all the Daily Wire shows.
You mentioned on the last show the topic of standing up against bullies and that it will make you a bigger man by doing so.
I've been listening to you for not too long, and I formulate an opinion that you are just a nominal Christian.
It saddens me, since I very much enjoy listening to your arguments and how you base them.
I would love and be happy to be disproven, even though I know you don't care what me or other people think about you, nor should you.
Christ's teaching on this topic is so clear, in my opinion.
Turn the other cheek, for instance.
I was quite surprised that a mere, nay, elementary Christian idea hasn't even been considered by you, a self-professed Christian.
When you made your argument, I was tempted to bash you with all the passages from the Bible that come to mind, but it wouldn't be consistent with my argument that you are a nominal Christian, so I'm not going to.
In my experience, as someone who was bullied a lot in school, I have been able to develop a way of not getting bullied that is just ignoring the bullies.
It's simple as that.
Bullies will always pick on someone they know they can beat physically.
In that regard, they are, quote, smart.
I have tried retaliating like you said kids should, but got my ass kicked every time.
And this goes on, that's the gist of it.
This is from Isaac, says, wow, such stunning pillar of ethics you have with your stance on insulting back.
After all, the Bible teaches us that our self and image of ourselves is very important, and that when people trample on you, that you should trample back.
Meekness, humility, turning the other cheek, many would say is virtue, but is almost certainly just cowardice.
Keep up the strong moral stance for the exemplification of the self.
Sarcasm aside, I find your statement that if you don't insult back when people insult you because you're a coward is so absurdly false.
I can't believe you actually think that.
As someone especially bullied in my life, I have had the overwhelming desire to insult slash fight back and it takes strong willpower to reel those desires in.
Are you really going to tell me in your experience where you have insulted people in your life or got into arguments with others?
Got into arguments with others that get personal.
Don't insult slash yell back, but rather just cower away.
I don't deny that people don't insult back when insulted, but I think you have the motivation completely wrong.
The more obvious reason is they think that insulting back will lead to more insults and more people thinking less of them than if they stay quiet, which is still wrong because it is motivated by self-interest.
All the best.
Hopefully you change your mind or at least come up with a reasonably measured response.
Okay.
So, you get the gist of it.
A lot of emails saying, turn the other cheek, and why didn't I take that into account when I'm saying fight back against bullies?
I'm aware, yes, the Bible says turn the other cheek, but we understand that this is not a maxim that can be applied generally, universally, to every situation.
For example, I assume you'd agree that we shouldn't simply turn the other cheek When a loved one is being mocked or abused.
In that case, we turn our face towards the situation, not away.
That's what we should do.
This shows that, obviously, turn the other cheek is something that we need to understand with some nuance.
Especially when you consider that the Bible is chock full of people, most assuredly, not turning the other cheek.
And this includes insulting people, as Paul was prone to do.
It also includes killing people, and not always in direct self-defense either, by the way.
These are things that happen in the Bible, sometimes with either the explicit endorsement of God or implicit.
So, I reject the idea that the Bible calls for us to be meek and mild in all situations.
It certainly does not.
And such a view cannot survive an honest reading of the text.
That's the problem.
When you come away with this very simplistic idea that the Bible calls for us to be peaceniks, basically, never responding in kind at all, never shouting, raising our voices, getting angry, using violence or whatever.
Yes, if all you do is read the Sermon on the Mount and nothing else in the entire Bible Then I can see where you come away with that impression, but the rest of the Bible exists.
So, unless you think the Sermon on the Mount cancels everything else out that came before it, and some of the stuff that even came after it, such as in Paul's epistles, unless you think that, then I don't know how you can come away with that impression, that that is all the Bible wants us to be, is peaceniks.
So, I think it comes down to context.
That's what I get from the Bible.
When I look and I see, turn the other cheek, but then I also see, you know, much more aggressive tactics endorsed or even used.
Jesus himself uses aggressive tactics at some points.
Flipping tables and so on.
And more aggressive tactics than that, especially in the Old Testament.
Okay, so when I see all of this, and I'm trying to make sense of it, the only thing I can determine is that it comes down to context.
Now, Isaac, You said that your decision not to respond to your bullies was not motivated by cowardice.
You say it's because you had strong willpower.
But then you admit that really the reason you didn't respond is because you didn't want to be insulted even more.
So do you see where I'm going with this?
That's the same as someone who doesn't punch back because they assume a return punch will only lead to more punches from the bully.
This isn't willpower, Isaac.
That is indeed cowardice.
It's not courage.
And I'm not saying that responding is always the right thing.
There can be situations where you just can't respond, or it'd be very foolhardy to respond, depending on the situation.
But I am saying that what you want to consider courage and willpower simply isn't.
I'm sorry, it is cowardice.
And I know that's a harsh thing to say to someone who was bullied, but there it is.
And we've all been bullied, okay?
But yes, you chickened out, it sounds like, a lot in your life, by your own admission.
But we all have.
Okay?
I have.
I can distinctly remember times in my life where I was being insulted, mocked, ganged up on, whatever, especially in school.
Everyone went through stuff like this.
And in some of those situations, I didn't say anything.
I just absorbed it.
Took it.
Was this courage?
I told myself afterwards it was.
You know, I told myself I was being the bigger person.
I was being mature.
But I know the truth.
No.
It was a total lack of will.
It was submission.
It was cowardice.
The bigger person stuff, the willpower stuff, that is after-the-fact rationalization of cowardice.
Listen.
I'm not saying that when someone insults you or bullies you that you should seek to destroy their lives and tear them to shreds and, you know, destroy everything.
I'm not saying that.
Okay?
That's not what I said.
All I said is that we should teach our kids to stand tall, to give back what's dished to them, command respect, and not shrink away from confrontation.
And this idea that you should never respond to an insult with an insult is wrong.
I'm sorry.
I don't think there's any real basis for it, other than an absolutist and simplistic reading, or misreading, of some of the texts of the Bible, while discarding many of the other parts of the Bible.
So, again, context is key.
And I'm also saying that with our kids and school especially, you know, that is a context where a little backbone, a little bit of a quick wit, a sharp wit, is called for and is right.
Why do we think we have a bullying epidemic?
Maybe it's because we've given bullies free reign by teaching our children to wilt in their presence like fragile little tulips.
Maybe that's the reason, or part of the reason.
And as one of the emails mentioned, it's not even true that failing to respond to a bully is the prudent or safe course most of the time, because otherwise you might risk escalating.
That's the one argument you could make.
For not responding to a bully.
Is that if you respond, you're going to escalate.
That's got nothing to do with courage, though.
That's just prudence.
And that might be true sometimes.
But often it's not.
Because bullies bully because of the high they get from domination and power over another person.
If you make yourself a reliable source of that high, they'll keep coming back to you for a fix.
And suddenly this idea of the high road takes on a new connotation.
And when you're in an environment with the same people for years and years, like our kids are in school, if you make yourself a reliable source for that fix, for that high that bullies get, it's going to make your experience unrelentingly miserable.
Why do certain kids get bullied relentlessly all throughout school?
It's because they are easy targets.
And a kid who was an easy target for 12 or 13 years through all of his formative years of childhood, who was just torn down and belittled and mocked every day ruthlessly, a kid like that is going to have serious psychological damage for the rest of their lives.
They aren't going to be stronger for it.
They aren't going to be better for it.
They aren't.
Experience of being a weak submissive does not make you strong.
It just makes you weaker.
They're going to be worse for it.
The only way, I mean, we could have all the anti-bullying policies and measures and PSAs and seminars, and we could do all of that that we want.
But at the end of the day, when our kids are actually in school experiencing this on a day-to-day basis and trying to get through the day, the only reliable protection we can give them is to teach them to have the courage to stand up for themselves.
And if they do that, you know, it's not going to be perfect.
It's not like they're never going to have anyone coming after them.
But if they make it clear to the bullies that, listen, yeah, you could try it with me, but it's not going to be easy.
And you might end up embarrassing yourself in the process.
A kid who does that is going to experience bullying a lot less.
They're going to have a lot more confidence in themselves.
And I think that's what we should want of our kids.
And I think it's what Jesus wants of our kids too.
I don't think Jesus intends for our kids to be just torn down and ripped apart for 12 to 13 years of their formative childhood years and come out as someone with no sense of self-worth or anything at all.
I don't think that's what Jesus wants for our kids.
I really don't.
All right, and we will leave it there, but thanks for all the emails for that interesting discussion, and have a great weekend, everybody.
Godspeed.
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