Ep. 447 - The Ethical Dilemma Of The China Virus Response
Today on the show, I have a question that deals with the ethical issues tied up in the response to the China Virus. Lots of people think the response is overblown and will do more harm than good. They might be right. Which is why I hope this question might help clarify things. Also, Five Headlines, including some expert medical advice from the esteemed scholar and thinker Vanessa Hudgens. And the Philadelphia police department has officially canceled itself.
Check out The Cold War: What We Saw, a new podcast written and presented by Bill Whittle at https://www.dailywire.com/coldwar. In Part 1 we peel back the layers of mystery cloaking the Terror state run by the Kremlin, and watch as America takes its first small steps onto the stage of world leadership.
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Today on the Matt Wall Show, I have what I hope will be a clarifying question that deals with the ethical issues tied up in the response to the China virus.
Lots of people think that the response is overblown and that we're going way overboard and it's going to do more harm than good.
They might be right, which is why I hope that if you're in that camp, you'll listen to the show today and think about how you would answer The question that I'm going to pose because I think it's an important question.
Also, five headlines, including some expert medical advice from the esteemed scholar and thinker, Vanessa Hudgens.
And in your daily cancellation, well, I'm not canceling anybody today, but the Philadelphia Police Department has essentially canceled itself.
And so we're going to talk about that today as well.
All of that's on the way on the Matt Wall Show.
So, a question.
I'm going to ask a question.
It's a real question.
And what I mean by that is it's not something that's meant to be smarmy or that I'm just asking rhetorically to prove a point.
It's not a bad faith question.
I really want to hear the answer because I want to have this conversation.
I don't know the answer myself.
So when I say I'm asking a question, I mean that in the most direct and literal sense of the phrase.
It's a question.
And that is, and I pose this primarily to those who are on the this-is-all-a-massive-overreaction side of the debate.
And it's this.
How many deaths would be enough?
What death toll would you need to see before you would agree that drastic, economy-damaging, possibly economy-ruining measures should be taken?
And whatever that number is, if you have a number, and I don't think you would have an exact precise number in mind, but whatever that ballpark estimate is, why that and not something else?
Why do you draw the line there and not somewhere else?
So again, this is a sincere question.
I really want to hear your answer.
And actually, the question is more complicated than that, because if you say that you would need the virus to kill, say, a million Americans in order to justify this kind of response, if your position is, look, I mean, this response might send us into a Great Depression.
This is something that this country has never done before, anything like this on this scale.
To be doing something like this, it would have to be Like something really cataclysmic and apocalyptic.
You know, millions, a million, two million Americans die.
Okay, well if that's your answer, presumably you wouldn't wait for those people to die before you respond.
The response would be to prevent those deaths, not in reaction to them.
So, you would need, not for it to kill that many, but for it to threaten to kill that many.
But then, the problem is that some models tell us that this virus would kill that many, if not more, if we didn't do anything and just treated it like the common flu.
So, how would you know?
What would you need to see to know that this other virus, this hypothetical virus, really is threatening that many, considering you've decided, or you're theorizing, that the one we're dealing with actually is not?
threatening that many.
So what would you need to see?
This to me fundamentally is the philosophical kind of dilemma at the heart of the whole
debate surrounding the China virus and our reaction to it.
I've already said that I'm going to leave the analysis of the thing itself, the disease
itself and predictions of what it might do or how it might spread, I'll leave that to
the experts.
But this question of where we should draw the line for an acceptable casualty count
is not one that I think doctors alone should be trusted to answer.
We don't want to get to the point where a question like dealing with the value of human
life and life and death, these sorts of things.
We don't want to say that, oh, only experts can speak on that.
That has very negative consequences when you have that kind of mentality.
So this is a human problem.
But I haven't really heard or seen anybody try to address it directly.
There are many people who seem to be rather confident that we're taking measures that cannot be justified considering the number of people who are dying.
It's not enough.
It's not enough death to justify it.
The death toll isn't high enough.
I mean, this is the argument that lots of people are making.
I haven't seen any of them say what they think, where they think the line should be drawn.
So, we've all heard arguments like, well, the flu kills 60,000 people a year in this country.
This has only killed 100.
Actually, it's 115, 116 last I saw.
Or people will say, yeah, the death toll in Italy was bad, but it was only .00 whatever percent of the total population.
Or they'll say, hey, you know, just putting this in perspective, not saying that the death toll isn't high for the China virus, but however many, you know, however many people died from this, here's how many more people will die from car accidents or something else every single day.
All of these arguments are saying, rather explicitly, That the virus death toll is not high enough.
It's not where it would need to be to make the reaction defensible.
Maybe it isn't.
So again, how high is high enough?
Not a trick question.
Not a gotcha.
It's a question that I think we absolutely have to be able to answer because if you believe that X cannot justify Y, Then you must have some idea, some at least general, vague idea, of what would justify why.
Because if you don't, if you have no idea, then you can't know that X doesn't justify it.
So this just seems like a logical conclusion to me, and this is what I've been thinking about.
Because many of the people claiming that this is an overreaction, they can make a compelling argument, especially when you think about how bad this could get economically.
And all of the people that are going to lose their jobs and might not get them back.
What does the economy look like a month from now, two months from now?
How many people are out of work?
I just read something saying, I wish I had it in front of me, I think it was something like 20% of Americans already either have lost their jobs or have had their hours cut.
And it's only been a week.
Now, I think that tells us something about our system, that a week of people staying home just Collapses everything that's what we were talking about yesterday that I think that you know What we should be thinking about is a fundamental restructuring of the way we've set up society So that we're so dependent on people being consumers that they stop being consumers for a week everything goes to hell But that's the way it is now right and changing that's gonna take that's a long-term generational plan Which I hope that we will endeavor to do but it's not something we can do every night overnight so you point that out and you say oh
It's not justified, it's too much.
Again, a compelling argument can be made for that, I admit.
But if you're making that argument, I think you have to have some kind of response to the question I'm asking.
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Now, so we're talking about
what, you know, if this is an overreaction, what would make it so that it's not an overreaction?
Thank you.
And this is focusing just on the death toll, by the way.
I think people who support the measures that are being taken and the people in government who are In acting those measures would say that it's not just about the death toll.
In fact, it's mainly about the strain on the health care system.
And what they would say is if we don't at least control the spread of this, that is in fact the phrase they're using now, less than contain.
They're saying control the spread.
If we don't control the spread, everybody gets sick at once.
We don't have enough hospital beds.
We don't have enough ventilators.
And that could collapse the health care system.
But putting that to the side, which we really can't do, but focusing just on the death toll.
However that death toll would come about, because if you collapse the healthcare system, then there's going to be even more people who die.
People who don't even have coronavirus are going to die as well.
But if we focus on that, the death toll, we get back to the question of how much is too much.
And there's an interesting point about these comparisons that are made.
Oh, it's like the flu, or you're comparing it to the car accident deaths, or talking about the overall percentage of people versus the number of people who are dying.
An interesting point.
People say that It's no worse than the flu.
May even be ultimately not as bad.
Well, it seems from what the doctors are saying that's actually not true.
But my point is this.
What if the virus is only as bad as the flu?
Or, you know, even ultimately half as bad?
Let's go with what seems like a very conservative estimate.
Actually, it's not even an estimate because I'm pulling it out of thin air.
It's hypothetical.
But let's say that it's half as bad.
Let's say the flu kills 60,000 Americans per year, roughly.
Let's say that this would kill 30,000 people in a year.
Half as many as the flu.
Now, I want to really dig into this apparent assumption that the fact that 60,000 people are dying of one thing means that we shouldn't take extraordinary measures to protect the 30,000 who would die of this other thing.
Does that assumption actually make sense?
Why have we decided that the flu is some sort of litmus test?
Or is the bar?
And as long as it's under the flu deaths, it's not a huge problem.
Certainly not a problem that would justify this kind of response.
Why is that?
I understand it on a visceral level, I understand the argument.
Because we're so used to the flu.
But does it actually make sense?
And what if only 1,000 people died of the flu every year, and 30,000 were going to die of the coronavirus?
Well, then we would all agree that the latter is extremely serious.
I mean, probably we would all agree with that.
But why?
Why would the death toll of one thing make the death toll of something else better or worse?
What difference does that make?
I mean, there's another way of looking at these flu comparisons.
People say it's just the flu.
The other side gets angry at that statement.
I'm tempted to say, okay, it is just the flu, but the flu is really damn serious.
It kills 60,000 people.
Everyone's saying, oh, it only kills 60,000.
60,000 people is a lot of people.
It's a really serious illness.
So maybe we shouldn't be putting the word just or only in front of it.
Now, isn't that, when we do that, aren't we sort of taking the flu, we're taking the same approach to the flu that people do to, you know, someone who's a jerk at the office, Bob at the office, who's a jerk to everybody, and then you make excuses for him and you say, ah, it's Bob being Bob.
As if the fact that he's been a jerk all along somehow makes his jerkiness on any given occasion less obnoxious and more acceptable.
Well, we seem to be doing the same thing with the flu, as if the fact that the flu has been killing people for a long time suddenly makes it more acceptable and less serious.
That's just the flu being the flu, is what the argument seems to be saying.
So again, I say, what if it is just the flu?
Isn't there an argument to be made that we should all the more do whatever we can within our power to stop it, given how utterly devastating we know the flu to be?
What if we could go back in time and stop the flu in its tracks?
What if we could stop just the flu?
What if we could go back, however long we would need to go back, to stop the flu?
Wouldn't we do that?
Even with extreme measures, wouldn't we do it?
Considering how many people it kills?
Forget about in a year, but in a decade?
So, that's a question.
I often wonder if we talk about flu-like symptoms.
I wonder if the phrase flu-like symptoms has become so common and banal, or banal, as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez would say, that we can't help but not take it that seriously?
So I wonder, what if the China virus had the exact same mortality rate, the exact same infection rate, everything was exactly the same, but instead of it being flu-like symptoms, what if you, what if the main symptom was you, let's say, bled out of your eyes?
Something scary like that.
And people who die from it, rather than dying of flu-like symptoms, they die convulsing on the ground.
Do you think, would we all take it more seriously then?
My point is, What if everything was the same with this virus, except that the symptoms were weird and foreign and way scarier-sounding than respiratory illness?
I wonder how that would change the calculation.
Or if it would, maybe it wouldn't.
Or think about the percent of population argument.
The coronavirus has only killed .0000, however many zeros, percent of the population.
Right.
But there have so far been, like, 8,000 deaths.
That's a vanishingly small percentage of the overall population.
That's true.
But so what?
Is death less tragic because there are still a lot of people left over?
Isn't that, looking at it that way, isn't that to commodify human life?
To say that its value is somehow lessened by the fact that there are so many other humans still living on the planet so we shouldn't be as concerned?
Isn't that to assume human life is a, you know, as I said, some sort of commodity?
What if 8,000 people represented 20% of the globe?
Would that make the deaths more tragic?
Would that give them more moral weight?
I mean, why does it matter how many people are left over?
Isn't that the wrong way of looking at human life?
Of course, you could argue that if 20% of the population were to die, that would have a greater effect on the lives of everybody else, considering it's such a huge percentage, as opposed to if .0001% of people die.
And that's true.
But that doesn't really answer the question.
I still find it a little bit troubling.
Because that means that arguably, if a million people die of a disease across the globe, as long as those deaths are spread out the right way, it's still not a huge deal because it's still an extremely small percent of the Earth's population.
And so we seem to be saying that as the Earth's population grows, the value of human life is lessened.
Because there are so many of us.
And now we can sort of tolerate or deal with More people dying all at once of some horrible illness.
Now, you could throw this right back at me.
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Okay, so these questions I'm asking, where do you draw the line and everything?
There's another side to it.
You could throw it back at me from the other direction and you could say, okay, well, how many deaths are too few?
If you think the death toll and threat to human life right now from the virus justifies all of these draconian measures, then where's the limit on the other side?
What if only 10 people had died so far?
And from that pace of death, it seemed like only a few hundred would die across the world.
Would you then support all these lockdowns and everything, and shutting down the entire economy to stop it?
What if only one person had died?
And it looks like just a handful across the world will die.
Would you then say, shut everything down to save those people?
And if I say to that, no, and that is my answer, of course, no, I wouldn't support it, then you could respond, well, isn't every life infinitely valuable?
You know, I thought you just said that we can't measure death tolls as if lives are commodities.
So where's the cutoff line?
If one death is too few to justify the measures, and 8,000 is enough, where was the line crossed?
That would be a good rebuttal, and I don't really have an answer to it.
That's why I'm asking the question and trying to get people to start thinking about it in these terms.
Because one thing I know for sure is to criticize, nothing wrong with criticizing what we're doing now and the steps that are being taken, but to simply just criticize it and say, this is crazy, we shouldn't be doing it, and to offer no alternative or no better vision That's just not very helpful.
And so I want to start thinking along those lines.
Here's maybe one way of framing the question.
I think of the six principles of just war theory.
Just war theory is a set of principles that are supposed to help determine when it is just and right and good to go to war, to wage war in a given circumstance.
There are six principles which should be applied to determine the permissibility of war itself.
And this could be relevant to us because we are sort of, I guess, waging a war on this virus.
And there is, in this case, as there isn't any war, significant collateral damage that we're seeing right now.
And it's only going to get worse.
So, I was thinking about this last night.
You can kind of think of it in those terms, maybe.
So I go through items four through six, principles four through six.
The six principles that are supposed to just tell us whether a war is justified.
Principles four through six.
Number four, reasonable prospect of success.
Meaning that you have a particular goal in mind and there's a sufficient probability that you'll actually achieve that goal by taking these steps.
And then number five is proportionality, which means the moral good that you hope to achieve outweighs the bad that might be done or caused in the process.
of pursuing that good aim.
And then number six is necessity, or last resort.
So whatever the goal is, and whatever good you want to achieve, you have to be sure that there isn't any less extreme, less violent way that would be nearly as likely, or just as likely, or more likely to achieve that aim.
Because if there is a less extreme strategy, then you should do that first.
War should be the last resort.
So we could see how this could apply to fighting a war, obviously an actual war, but I think it might Also apply to this antiviral war as well in some ways.
What we're doing now, is there a reasonable chance that it will succeed?
How do we even know what success will look like?
Do we know what success will look like?
Is this a proportional response in that the good it might reasonably achieve outweighs the bad that it might reasonably cause?
And then is this necessary?
Or is there a less extreme method that might achieve the same end?
I think maybe if we run this all through that filter system, we get an answer.
Although I still don't know, as I said, what the answer is.
That's the... I suppose the theme that we keep coming back to is that I really don't know the answer.
But these are all questions.
And I would like to hear your answer to everything I've posed.
So you can leave a comment if you're watching on YouTube or send me an email.
But I'd like to hear it.
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All right, let's go to your five headlines.
Number one, reading now from the AP, it says, in a massive federal effort Tuesday, President Donald Trump asked Congress to speed emergency checks to Americans, also enlisted the military for MASH-like hospitals and implored ordinary people, particularly socially active millennials, to do their part by staying home to stop the spread of the coronavirus.
His proposed economic package alone could approach a trillion dollars, a rescue initiative not seen since the Great Recession.
Trump wants checks sent to the public within two weeks and is urging Congress to pass The stimulus package in a matter of days.
So what they're talking about doing right now is sending $1,000 checks out to most people.
I guess the question still is, who exactly gets the checks?
How do you decide?
And if they take a means testing approach, where they try to be more directed in who they're sending the checks to, rather than just sending them to everybody, isn't that going to slow down and complicate matters?
And that's a problem because people need the money now.
So I saw somebody propose one solution.
Which is send the checks to basically everybody, and then ask those who don't need the checks to pass them along to somebody else.
Of course, that might sound massively naive, because you think, well, people get the money, they're gonna keep it for themselves.
But I think a lot of Americans would be more than happy to pass the buck, as it were, to someone who needs it more than they do.
I think that might be the right way of doing this.
Because You know, if you leave it up to communities and individuals to find the needier people who actually could use it more than others, I think that's going to be more efficient.
And it's going to give you access to those needier people rather than asking the government to do it.
One other point here.
I've heard people argue that this somehow proves that Andrew Yang was right all along.
Because Andrew Yang was proposing the universal basic income where everybody gets a thousand dollars a month.
This is not that at all.
Andrew Yang wanted to give people $1,000 a month in perpetuity, just as a system.
This would be an extraordinary measure in a national emergency, presumably one time, or even if it happens more than once.
The point is, it's a limited scope and scale in a national emergency, which was brought on by a pandemic.
So I think it's a very different sort of thing.
Now, I'm usually the last guy to support Uh, handouts by the government, but I think in this case, in this case, I would absolutely support it because people need money.
It's really that simple.
What other choice do we have?
And I think it's also relevant to note that the reason why so many people right now are not working is because the government has told them they're not allowed to.
And so it's not any choice that they made.
I think there are a great many Americans who, if they had a choice in the matter, they'd still be going to work and taking the risk.
If the government comes in, whether they're justified or not, and says, you're not allowed to take that risk, you have to stay home, and therefore they lose a lot of money, I think it's up to the government to compensate them.
So I don't consider this, this is not, you know, an entitlement or welfare or socialism, it's an entirely different sort of thing.
Number two, there were primaries last night.
Joe Biden swept Arizona, Florida, Illinois.
For all intents and purposes, this now makes him the nominee.
Not officially, but there's really no path for Bernie Sanders.
But as we learned yesterday, we know that Bernie Sanders probably would have won all those states in a landslide if not for the voter suppression.
I don't know how the votes were suppressed.
But I'm sure they were, and if we talk to Alexandre Ocasio-Cortez or one of his other surrogates, they'll probably be happy to explain it.
Number three, I'm going to give you just the headline here from Rolling Stone.
It says, Porn Industry Calls for Shutdown Due to Coronavirus.
Lots of people sent me this article and said, it sounds like your plan is working perfectly, Matt.
And I have no comment.
Number four, fortunately, noted scholar and medical expert Vanessa Hudgens has finally chimed in during this trying time.
People don't know what to do.
Vanessa Hudgens is here, actress in, I think, what, High School Musical and maybe some other movies, but I'm not sure.
She's here to offer guidance and reassurance to a world in crisis.
Listen.
Yeah, till July sounds like a bunch of bullsh**.
I'm sorry.
But, like, it's a virus.
I get it.
Like, I respect it.
But at the same time, like, even if everybody gets it, like, yeah, people are gonna die.
It's just terrible.
But, like, inevitable?
I don't know.
Maybe I shouldn't be doing this right now.
Yeah, like, I mean, like, like this virus?
So, like, it's just weird, you know?
Like, the virus is so, like, it's just like, it's like this, like, thing that, like, is just so weird.
You know, people are gonna die?
All I want to do here is remind you, I don't even, I'm not even gonna respond to what she said because who cares, but I want to remind you that the person you just listened to there was born in 1988.
Two years after me.
That makes her 31.
She is 31 years old and talking like that.
I don't even care about what she actually said.
The substance of what she said, if we can even call it substance, is not the point.
I'm more focused on she's a 31-year-old grown woman.
Wealthy.
Successful.
Who speaks like that.
And I hate to keep beating this drum, but this is exactly what I was talking about yesterday about voting.
You think she could pass a middle school civics exam?
Or English exam?
Would the country be a better or worse place if she was not allowed to vote?
That's the question.
Number five, an aquarium in Chicago has shut down because of the China virus.
This week, they decided to let their penguins, because they figured, I guess nobody's here, so might as well let the penguins roam free, and check out the other exhibits, and they put that video online, and it went viral, as you can expect, because all penguin and kitten-related videos do.
Selfish penguin bastards.
Just enjoying their time while the rest of us deal with Armageddon.
That's all they care about.
Enormously selfish creatures are penguins.
People don't realize that.
I think they're massively overrated.
Actually, on second thought, everyone assumes they're enjoying themselves, but do we know that they are?
I mean, aren't they probably just now realizing that they live in an exhibit?
Along with hundreds of other enslaved and imprisoned creatures?
So isn't this for them kind of like their Truman Show moment?
Remember at the end of Truman Show, Jim Carrey learns that he's part of a reality TV show?
But in that case, he got to leave.
And it was the heroic, inspirational moment where he finally left and chose freedom.
But for these penguins, their whole world is turned upside down.
They learned that everything that they'd previously believed was a lie, that they're nothing but circus freaks in an exhibit, and they have to go right back into the cage.
They don't get freedom.
And you think you're doing them a favor.
Everyone sees the expression on their faces and thinks that that's an expression of joy, but I think it might be an expression of mental anguish.
Horrifying.
All right, let's move on to your daily cancellation.
In fact, as I said, this is not me canceling anybody.
This is a self-imposed cancellation that I think will lead to horrible consequences, and we'll talk about that in just a second.
You know, I hope you've had a chance to see some of the new show we launched this week.
It's called All Access Live over at DailyWire.com.
Ben Shapiro and Jeremy Boren kicked off Monday evening, and then he and Michael Knowles followed up last night.
We're going to be doing an episode the rest of this week every night at 8 p.m.
Eastern.
And the deal is, if you haven't seen it, All Access Live is kind of unique programming at The Daily Wire, because usually our podcasts are highly produced.
on stunning, beautiful sets like the one you see here.
Just a lot of work went into this in that bookshelf behind me.
You have no idea.
In fact, that's camera tricks. That's CGI.
That's how nice it is.
Also because I don't really read books. Those are all fake.
But that's because the focus with this show is going to be a lot more casual, a lot more relaxed.
The focus isn't on production, as it is on connecting with you guys, the audience.
This show is actually intended for our All Access members, but in order to help us all feel a little bit less lonely during this time, we have accelerated the launch and opened it up to all of our DailyWire members for the time being.
Please let us know if you like the show and what you would like to see more or less of with the show and in general.
We're going to help you get through this and we're all going to be stronger as a nation and as a community when we do.
So if you're around at 8 p.m.
Eastern, 5 p.m.
Pacific tonight, you can join us for the All Access live show over at dailywire.com.
To watch the live stream and also join the chat because, as I said, this is a very interactive sort of thing.
That's the whole point.
You can take part in the discussion.
It's not just a one-sided, we're pontificating in your face.
Okay, now to the daily cancellation.
The Philadelphia Police Department has canceled itself.
Reading now from the Fox 29 website, they're the local affiliate there in the city.
It says, in response to the COVID-19 outbreak, Philadelphia police officers have been instructed to stop making arrests for certain nonviolent crimes.
The department said individuals who would normally be arrested and processed at a detective division will be temporarily detained to confirm identification and complete necessary paperwork.
The individual will then be arrested on a warrant at a later date, which means in between, they're going to be released back into the public.
Fox 29's Steve Keeley reports the nonviolent crimes include the following.
All narcotics offenses, theft from persons, retail theft, theft from auto, burglary, vandalism, bench warrants, stolen auto, economic crimes, and prostitution.
That's 10 categories right there.
I just counted them.
Fraternal Order of Police Lodge No.
5 President John McNesby says we are supportive of Commissioner Outlaw's... Commissioner Outlaw?
Is that really his name?
Okay, we'll just go with it.
Of Commissioner Outlaw's directive on making arrests during the coronavirus crisis.
The directive was released to keep officers safe during the public health crisis.
Meanwhile, violent offenders will be arrested and processed with the guidance of a police supervisor.
Okay.
So, we have two issues here.
Number one, they've decided not to prosecute these crimes for the time being.
Number two, they announced it to the public.
Which, even if the first can be justified, which I think it almost certainly cannot be, I mean, I would love to hear the argument for it, but even if you could, why do you need to tell people?
This is nothing less than a written invitation telling you to go rob from people.
And I would say, you know, I'll defer maybe to any police officer who's watching and understands more of what these crimes entail, but theft from a person Seems like that could be a violent crime or could get very close to violence.
Now, stolen auto?
I mean, yeah, okay, there might not be violence involved, so I assume that doesn't include a carjacking.
But even so, these are actually serious crimes.
Theft is a serious crime.
It's not like they're saying for the time being, we're not going to arrest 16-year-olds for smoking weed.
These are serious crimes that they have announced they're not going to arrest you for.
And on top of that, this is during a time when the economy is taking a massive hit, people are losing their jobs, people are going to start getting desperate, and if you live in that city, you've just been told that you're not going to be arrested, at least for the time being, if you go and steal from somebody.
This is a...
This is just pulling a pin from the grenade and tossing it into a crowd.
That's what this is.
It's unbelievable.
We'll talk more about that maybe tomorrow.
Let's go to emails.
This first is from Dan, says, hello sir, I really enjoyed your show today and wanted to share my opinion with you.
I work as a psychiatric nurse practitioner.
This is a very similar job to that of a psychiatrist.
My job is to diagnose and treat mental health conditions, including attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.
I don't work with kids and I'm not really comfortable doing so, but it struck me that your opinion about treating somebody, someone into something that they should be rather than what they are was very prescient.
I've never considered this as a philosophical question, but I think you're a little bit mistaken here.
You seem to be talking about children that have more benign conditions or lesser forms of ADHD and other mental health disorders.
What most people don't see, and what I think you have little experience in, is the severe forms of these disorders that can't, um, of, uh, That sometimes require hospitalization.
There really are kids out there that can't stop hurting themselves without intervention.
There really are children out there who have command hallucinations that make them want to kill their parents if they stop taking antipsychotic meds.
There really are kids out there who simply cannot sit still and function in this world without stimulant medication.
We can have a discussion about whether medications are appropriate for these kids, but when things get really difficult, that discussion needs to be put on hold and treatment needs to begin immediately.
Just something to consider when talking about these disorders.
Well, Dan, I certainly never said that there is never a circumstance where a child should be on anti-psychotic medication.
That's not my view.
I didn't say that it's impossible for a child to get a mental health disorder, a mental illness.
When you're talking about hallucinations, you're talking about a kid who wants to kill his parents, that sort of thing, that to me is clearly a mental health condition, but that's not ADHD.
And if you tell me that in extreme cases that can be part of ADHD, well, I would say again, but we probably shouldn't be calling that ADHD in that case.
That sounds like something completely different.
There's just no question that the vast majority of kids who are diagnosed with ADHD are not killing their parents or threatening to and are not having hallucinations.
They just can't sit still.
And you included that.
You said there are kids who really can't sit still.
Well, but you included that Along and lumped it in with seemingly things like hallucinations and violent wanting to kill the parents and that sort of thing.
I don't think it's anywhere in the same ballpark.
A kid who really can't sit still.
That's my point.
Especially with young boys.
I actually do have experience with this.
The first two things you mentioned, you're right.
I have no experience there.
But with a young boy who really cannot sit still, I have experience with that.
That's my son.
He's six years old.
That's him.
That's also me, by the way.
Even now.
That was me when I was a kid.
That's even me now in a lot of ways.
But yeah, I'm dealing with that right now with my son.
But to me, he seems very much like most of his friends.
It doesn't seem that – yeah, it's difficult.
It's challenging.
Could be very hard to get him to focus on things.
It could be overwhelming at times.
I like that he has so much energy, but there are times when you want to say, OK, kid, just please calm down.
Please, please.
Right?
I have that feeling a lot, in fact.
So I understand.
I understand the challenges.
But I still say it's pretty normal.
And even if it's not, Who am I to say that my son isn't supposed to be like that?
What is really the problem with it other than it's annoying to me and it makes it difficult for him to sit in a classroom for eight hours a day?
Well, the fact that it can be annoying to the parents is kind of irrelevant.
You just have to deal with it as a parent.
And the fact that it makes it difficult for him to sit in a classroom for eight hours a day, well, that might mean that he shouldn't be in a classroom for eight hours a day.
That might mean that that form of education isn't for him.
And so you have to make, and that's why we don't, it's one of the reasons why we don't have our kids in the public school system.
So I think you have to make a decision about, you know, are you going to try to force your kid to conform with that system?
Or are you going to try to educate him in a way that conforms more to his needs and to who he is?
I think the latter approach is better.
I understand that not everyone can do it, but I do think it's better.
And I just don't think there could ever be a scenario where it's okay to give someone an anti-psychotic medicine just so they can pay attention in school.
If they're having hallucinations, all these things, then yeah.
But if that's the only issue, I don't care how extreme it is, I don't think it's the right move.
Let's go, finally, quickly to Steve, who says, Matt, I was really disappointed in your show yesterday.
You seem not to care about the financial hardships so many are going through.
Stay in quarantine forever, in quotes.
Really?
Yeah, it might be easy for you because you haven't felt the effect, but we can't all become farmers overnight.
It seems like you're completely dismissing And unconcerned about what people are going through.
It's all good.
It's all good to you and your comfortable life.
That's what I took away from your show.
That's what you took away from it, Steve?
Did you listen to what I was saying?
Or did you just base that on the title of the episode?
Obviously, I don't think we should literally stay in quarantine forever.
Yes, that was the title of the episode.
It's just a snappy little title supposed to encourage you to listen.
Very often, I use titles that are not entirely literal.
That's kind of common for headlines and titles, especially for things that are opinion-based.
The idea is, listen to what I have to say.
Now, if you don't want to listen, that's perfectly fine.
But then, why are you reacting to the title?
Just ignore the title in that case.
If you did actually listen, then you would know that I fully understand and appreciate the financial hardship.
I'm not going to go into details about it, but my family actually has felt it already.
We have lost, are looking to lose a significant amount of money, in fact,
already from this.
And now I don't have it nearly as bad as a lot of other people do.
So that's that's not my point.
OK.
And if I get that check from the government, I will pass it along because we don't we don't have it as bad as that or anywhere anywhere close to it.
But, you know, I've got four kids and a wife and I'm the primary breadwinner in the family.
And so, yeah, I am feeling it.
I'm feeling it in a not insignificant way.
Right.
So you're wrong about that.
That's an assumption you made that you're wrong about.
My point yesterday, and in general, I'm very sympathetic to the economic hardship angle of it, and I'm very worried about how bad this could get.
The idea of us going through a Great Depression, of course I'm worried about that.
Who wouldn't be?
I'm not psychotic.
And let me tell you something, if we go through something that bad, it's going to touch almost everybody.
Unless you're extremely wealthy, which I am not.
My point yesterday, and I said this explicitly, And I don't know what else I can do but make my point explicit and just tell you what I'm saying.
And if you refuse to listen to that, there's nothing else I can do.
I can't force you to listen to it.
So I said explicitly that I think this crisis has helped to reveal some serious structural flaws in the way that we have set up society and our economy.
I think it would be a good move to slowly, gradually, Over a long period of time, move us towards a society where people are more self-sufficient and less dependent and more family-oriented.
A society in the future where it would not be cataclysmic if people have to stay in their homes for a week or two.
Now, I said multiple times, this would have to be a gradual change.
You can't do it overnight.
If you do it overnight, like it's happening right now, very bad things happen.
And I don't like that these bad things are happening.
I'm worried about them.
So when I say stay quarantined forever, what I mean is, as I explained very clearly, that we should try to move gradually to a place as a society where many of the kinds of things that we do in quarantine, like spend more time with our family, cook meals at home, homeschool the kids, are more normal and common parts of everyday life.
My claim is that if we do that and we have a society like that, people are going to be happier, more fulfilled, it's a better way to live, and we're going to be far more prepared for things like this.
Because our economy and society is not nearly as dependent on people being dependent, and therefore needing to buy everything, you know, needing to fill all of their necessities in the marketplace by buying things because they can fend for themselves a little bit more.
That's my point.
But this dream scenario that I'm painting, this is, Generations down the line.
If we even moved in that direction as a society, it's not something I would see come to fruition.
Probably my kids wouldn't see it either.
We're talking about many years down the line.
What I'm saying is, maybe we should start moving there.
In the meantime, though, in the short term, there's a very serious economic problem here, and that's why I just said, I think, to begin with, The idea of a stimulus checks, not to corporations, but to individual people who are suffering is a good idea.
And then we need to start thinking about other things that can be done as well.
And I do think that ultimately, you know, there are some things the government can do and should do, but ultimately this is going to be an issue of communities helping each other.
And we have to be willing to do that.
If we're not going to do that, then there's really no limit to how bad it can get.
But I think we will.
I can be cynical, but I still believe, as Americans, we do have a sense of community.
And when push comes to shove, we tend to band together, I think.
At least on, maybe not on Twitter, and maybe not in Washington, but in communities anyway.
So I hope that happens here.
Alright, we'll leave that at that, and I hope you guys have a great day.
Stay safe.
Godspeed.
If you enjoyed this episode, don't forget to subscribe, and if you want to help spread the word, please give us a five-star review.
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Thanks for listening.
The Matt Wall Show is produced by Sean Hampton, Executive Producer Jeremy Boring, Supervising Producer Mathis Glover, Supervising Producer Robert Sterling, Technical Producer Austin Stevens, Editor Danny D'Amico, Audio Mixer Robin Fenderson.
The Matt Wall Show is a Daily Wire production, copyright Daily Wire 2020.
As the U.S.
death toll from the Wu flu hits 100, some experts are wondering whether grinding the global economy to a halt might have been something of an overreaction.
We examine the scientific data and the philosophical reasons why the left never lets a crisis go to waste.
Then, President Trump officially secures the Republican nomination for president.
And Joe Biden is set to sail to his own party's nomination if he can only remember who and where he is.
