Ep. 755 - Stop Assaulting Me With Your Violent Opinions
Today on the Matt Walsh Show, the American Booksellers Association apologizes for a “violent incident” where they promoted a book that leftists don’t like. We’ll talk about this story, and more broadly about the idea that words, books, and opinions can be “violent.” Also Five Headlines including the Surgeon General’s pledge to start putting warning labels on speech it doesn’t like, the White House says it is working with Facebook to tamp down “misinformation,” Pope Francis continues his war against conservative Catholics, leaked audio proves that Sharon Osbourne was set up and framed as a racist before being kicked off her talk show, and in our Daily Cancellation, we’ll talk about the new efforts to combat the negative stereotypes of sharks.
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Today on the Matt Wall Show, the American Booksellers Association apologizes for a violent incident where they promoted a book that leftists don't like.
We'll talk about this story and more broadly about the idea that words, books, and opinions can be violent.
What does that even mean?
Also, five headlines, including the Surgeon General's pledge to start putting warning labels on speech it doesn't like.
The White House says that it's working with Facebook, working with Facebook to tamp down misinformation.
Pope Francis continues his war against conservative Catholics, and leaked audio proves that Sharon Osbourne was indeed set up and framed as a racist before being kicked off her talk show.
And in our daily cancellation, we'll talk about the new efforts to combat the negative stereotypes of sharks.
All of that and more today on the Matt Walsh Show.
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In the Matt Walsh Report, you'll find, of course, information, insight, unmatched wisdom, And also violence, because as we've learned, words and ideas are violence, which brings us to the American Bookseller Association, a trade organization that works with booksellers in the country, hence the name.
And recently they sent out what they call their white box mailing, which sounds a little racist to me, frankly, to 750 bookstores.
One of the titles in that package was Abigail Schreier's excellent book called Irreversible Damage, The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters.
If you want to hear more about that book, you can check out my interview with Stryer on my YouTube channel.
But the mere sight of this book was apparently quite traumatizing to some of the people who received it, and that led to backlash, and that led to the American Book Sellers Association releasing one of the most pitiful, embarrassing, self-flagellating, groveling apologies we have yet seen.
Yesterday afternoon, they put this out on Twitter.
This is what they said.
Quote, an anti-trans book was included in our July mailing to members.
This is a serious, violent incident that goes against ABA's policies, values, and everything we believe and support.
It is inexcusable.
We apologize to our trans members and to the trans community for this terrible incident and the pain we cause them.
We also apologize to the LGBTQIA plus community at large and to our book selling community.
Apologies are not enough.
We've begun addressing this today and are committed to engaging in the critical dialogue needed to inform concrete steps to address the harm we caused.
Firstly, I'm offended because in their statement they did not include the phrase lived experience and they also didn't include the phrase do the work.
And we know that in these kinds of statements, those two phrases are required.
You know, it's an interesting thing, though, about the LGBTQIA plus community.
We're told that they're strong and proud and brave and stunning.
And yet we're also told that they're so fragile as to be harmed by merely looking at the cover of a book they don't like.
So which is it?
Is it strong and brave and proud or fragile, prone to collapsing into puddles of tears at the sight of a book?
It's kind of got to be one or the other, right?
Now, the next part of the story is so predictable that you can fill in the blanks yourself.
I'll ask you, do you think that the ABA was forgiven for this grave offense?
Was the apology accepted?
Did the groveling and self-abasement achieve whatever end they had in mind?
Of course not.
Publishers Weekly reports, quote, Booksellers said the apology fell short, calling out the organization's use of the passive voice in the opening sentence.
They also demanded greater transparency about how the decision to include the book was initially made and called for demonstrable steps to restore trust with trans book workers And authors.
Some called on the ABA to offer promotions for trans authors' books at no cost.
Just straight up extortion.
You want our feelings to not be hurt anymore?
Just give us promotions at no cost.
That'll heal our emotional wounds.
And also $500,000 in unmarked bills.
Okay, anyway, back to the statement.
It says, ABA Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee member Louis Correa, who works as a bookseller at Avid Bookshops in Athens, Georgia, was first made aware of the issue when fellow booksellers emailed him Morrissey's tweet.
Correa identifies as a queer Latino and fat-bodied person.
Oh my gosh.
Identifies as a fat-bodied person.
Well, you either have a fat body or you don't.
But what's the point of saying that?
You're either a man or you're not, right?
He said he thought the apology was flawed.
I'm disappointed with the use of the passive language at the beginning of the statement and the shift in blame.
They really should have said that we included this book.
Korea said.
So the apology was not enough.
So what do they do?
Apology is not enough.
What do you do now?
Well, you keep apologizing.
More from Publishers Weekly.
They say, in an email late Wednesday, ABA CEO Allison Hill issued an additional statement to booksellers.
She apologized not only for the promotion of Schreyer's book, but also for a racist incident last week in which the organization featured blackout by Danielle Clayton, Tiffany D. Jackson, Nick Stone, Angie Thompson, Ashley Woodfolk, and Nicola Yoon on its indie next bestseller list, but included an incorrect cover image.
Instead of using the actual cover, the ABA used a book cover by an author who Hill described as, quote, a different black author, a right-wing extremist.
Editor's note here, the right-wing extremist is our very own Candace Owens, who also wrote a book called Blackout.
Apparently it's racist to promote Candace Owens, who, you may have noticed, is black.
But the apology said, We traumatized and endangered members of the trans community.
We erased black authors, conflated black authors, and put the authors in danger through a forced dissociation.
We further marginalized communities that we want to support.
Hill wrote, she reiterated that the organization will take steps to address both instances in the coming weeks, adding that, quote, there is nothing that I can say that will make this right.
This should not have happened.
I want to apologize for both of these harms and for the pain that ABA caused.
But I know only action matters.
These were egregious, harmful acts that caused pain and violence.
One negligent, irresponsible, and racist.
The other negligent, irresponsible, and transphobic.
She then took out a knife and committed Harry Carey on the spot.
Perhaps not literally, but figuratively at least.
And even if she had done it literally, the left still would not have been satisfied.
They would have said that, like, that form of suicide isn't painful enough.
She should have done something more progressive, like throw herself into a wood chipper.
Their whole gig, the whole point, is to be offended and victimized and traumatized all the time, always, by everything.
Anything you do to relieve the trauma will only further it.
But that won't stop the gutless, spineless blobfish among us from trying.
Now as for the book itself, you will notice that none of the people complaining about it have bothered to articulate any sort of criticism about the content of the book itself.
What is your problem exactly with the book?
What's wrong about it?
What does it get wrong?
Well, they can't say.
That's because the book itself is well-researched, balanced, almost entirely non-polemical, and it focuses specifically on the explosion of trans identification among adolescent girls who are so often pushed along the path to full medical transition without anyone stopping to even consider why else a young girl might feel dysphoric about her body.
Nor do they worry about any of the long-term effects that they are consigning her to.
In other words, the book, from a content perspective, is unassailable.
It is unassailable, factually, scientifically, and morally.
Which is why they assail it, in general terms, on an emotional level, based on the title and the cover.
But the most interesting and disturbing thing about this story is the use of the word violence, I think.
ABA called the mailing of a book, of the book, a violent incident.
And they kept using, you know, violence, harm, pain, all these kinds of words.
I can see how mailing something might be violent if, you know, Ted Kaczynski is the guy sending the package.
But how can a book be violent?
How can words and ideas be violent?
I think the answer refers us back to the opening of the show yesterday when we talked about the left's intense, obsessive, nearly exclusive focus on the self.
Specifically, on how the self feels about itself.
According to the leftist religion, nothing matters so much as that.
Your self-perception is more important even than your own physical health, which is why people mutilate their physical bodies in order to conform to their self-perception.
If there's a lack of correlation, if there's an incongruity between the self-perception, the mind, the emotions, and the physical body, Rather than try to conform the self-perception to the physical body, they go the other way around.
Literally chopping pieces off of the body in order to make it conform with the self-perception.
Everything must be enslaved, subjugated by the self's perception of itself.
Everything is in service to that perception.
Everything and everyone must affirm that perception.
And the problem is that self-perception is a fragile, fickle, ever-changing thing.
Emotions change.
How you feel about yourself changes.
How you see yourself changes.
Which means that the world's affirmation must be unyielding and unconditional.
This is what's meant by violence.
This is how speech and opinions and ideas become violent.
They're violent because an opposing idea, an argument, a fact presented might undermine or cause you to question your self-perception, or at the very least, it may fail to enthusiastically affirm that perception, which is to do it harm, which is violence.
Everything that matters to a leftist is happening in the realm of emotions and thoughts, in the ego.
Actual reality is irrelevant to them.
And so, when you hurt their feelings or cause them to think uncomfortable thoughts, you have hurt them in the way that matters most to them.
You have committed violence.
That's where this is coming from.
Which is not to defend it.
I mean, this is all quite insane, deeply disordered, not a way for any human to live.
It's a recipe for confusion and despair and a life wasted, trapped in your own ego, looking in the mirror, smelling your own farts.
But this is the life that a leftist leads, and it's the life he wishes for you, and especially for your children, to join him in his psychosis.
And that is an invitation that I think we should all certainly decline.
Now let's get to our five headlines.
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All right.
You know, It is interesting.
Talk about perceptions.
It's interesting to see how your priorities change your perceptions in different phases of your life, your desires.
And so I'm in a phase of my life right now raising a bunch of young children where I really appreciate loud and sort of technically unpleasant dining experiences.
And people who don't have young children probably can't understand or appreciate the comfort that we as parents of young children take when we walk in.
This is why we love chain restaurants.
A place like Texas Roadhouse, you go in there and it's loud, there's loud music and everyone's Being loud, and they're talking to each other at a decibel that could drown out a jet engine, and they're throwing trash on the floor.
I mean, they give you a bucket of peanuts, and you just toss the shells on the floor.
There's trash everywhere.
And it's cheap, and they give you crayons, and there's a kid's menu.
And in a certain way, it's deeply unpleasant, but also it's great, because you have kids.
It's a low-pressure, low-anxiety situation.
And you know that you're around your own people.
You're with your kind, and you don't have to worry about anything.
And at a minimum, I mean, your table just has to be less obnoxious than the most obnoxious table in the building.
And so, again, very low pressure.
But things can go horribly awry when you miscalculate.
And this is something, again, if you're not a parent, if you don't have young kids, you might not understand the just anxiety and panic attack that ensues when you miscalculate and you go into a restaurant that's way quieter and classier than you thought.
So this happened to my To my wife and I a few days ago.
We were driving.
We stopped in this restaurant.
And based on my brief preliminary investigation, it seemed like a family-friendly place.
And by family-friendly, you know, I mean loud, dirty, obnoxious, and cheap.
And I walk in and immediately I'm suspicious because we go up to the hostess stand and there are no crayons and no children's menu.
And that should have been the clue right there to turn around and walk out.
But we didn't.
Rookie mistake.
They lead us back to our table.
The whole building is quiet, you know, no one is making a sound.
And there's a little bit of music on the speaker, but they take us to the quietest place in the quiet restaurant with all these quiet childless couples sitting there having their nice meals and at a place where you couldn't even hear the faint music.
It was just dead quiet.
Now people sitting at their tables weren't even talking to each other.
They were just sitting there in stone silence.
It was like being at a wake or a funeral or something.
And then we sit down and every single noise that our kids make just reverberates.
The one-year-old throws her apple juice on the ground and then starts crying because the apple juice that she threw on the ground is now on the ground, and everyone can hear it.
Everyone can hear every single noise.
Everyone, you know, all they do is we just get the icy glares the entire meal.
And by the way, I get it.
If you're at a restaurant without any kids, someone walks in with kids, I get it.
You don't have to stare.
I understand how you feel.
Moral of the story.
If you walk into a restaurant with your kids and there are no crayons and no children's menu, turn around.
It's not worth it.
That's the moral of the story.
All right.
So, some news from 1984.
First, the Surgeon General said that they're going to start putting, you know, Surgeon General warnings.
You see them on cigarette, boxes of cigarettes.
Usually it's associated with things that you eat and, you know, things that could cause physical harm to you.
But now they're going to start putting Surgeon General warnings on speech.
So staying on this theme of speech causing physical harm or some sort of harm, speech being violent, that's the plan now.
And here is the Surgeon General explaining.
Today, I issued a Surgeon General's advisory on the dangers of health misinformation.
Surgeon General advisories are reserved for urgent public health threats.
And while those threats have often been related to what we eat, drink, and smoke, today we live in a world where misinformation poses an imminent and insidious threat to our nation's health.
Health misinformation is false, inaccurate, or misleading information about health, according to the best evidence at the time.
And while it often appears innocuous on social media apps, on retail sites, or search engines, the truth is that misinformation takes away our freedom to make informed decisions about our health and the health of our loved ones.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, health misinformation has led people to resist wearing masks in high-risk settings, It's led them to turn down proven treatments and to choose not to get vaccinated.
This has led to avoidable illnesses and death.
Simply put, health information has cost us lives.
Misinformation takes away our freedom.
If that's not an Orwellian statement, I mean, that is, that is, we have to read the book again.
It sounds like something that would actually be in the book itself.
So misinformation takes away our freedom.
In other words, a statement that you don't like takes away your freedom.
So that's free speech.
Free speech takes away our freedom.
Free speech undermines our freedom, is what's being claimed here.
I thought it was really fascinating that he specifically mentions, the Surgeon General saying that, well, misinformation about masks made people reluctant to wear masks.
Okay, well, yeah, do you know who, at the beginning of the pandemic, was telling people not to wear masks?
The Surgeon General!
Sent out a tweet, the Surgeon General's office, not the same guy, but Surgeon General's office sent out a tweet back in whatever it was, March of last year, saying, stop wearing masks in all caps.
Public health officials, Dr. Fauci said, don't wear a mask.
Now they say, wear the mask.
But the point is, and I think they were right the first time, by the way, but the point is that when on this, On this basis here, when the Surgeon General had said a year ago, don't wear the mask, if you said, no, I think you should wear a mask, that would have been tagged as misinformation.
And now they say, wear the mask, and you say, no, you know what, I think you were right the first time.
Now that's misinformation.
Opposing views, both are misinformation because what is misinformation?
It's not, we don't label things or they're not labeling things misinformation based on its relation to truth.
It's misinformation based on its relation to the claims that they are making.
And that is the very obvious problem with the government's campaign against misinformation.
It's the problem with labeling misinformation, some sort of public health threat.
Many problems with it.
Once again, equating speech with violence, which is a direct attack on the very concept of free speech.
But the other issue is that what do they consider misinformation?
They have made themselves the scientific authority.
And to trust the science is to trust them.
Conflating the two, it's exactly the same.
If you don't trust them, then you don't trust the science.
Think about vaccines.
Sure, there could be misinformation, claims that are made about vaccines on either side of the debate that are simply wrong.
Sure, that exists.
But much of what is labeled vaccine misinformation is really a matter of priority.
Right?
It's someone expressing their priority, the risk level that they're comfortable with.
Many of the people who have not gotten the vaccine, It's because if you listen to what they're saying, okay, just most of the average people haven't got it.
You actually listen to what they're saying.
What they're saying is, you know, I'm worried about potential side effects, I'm worried about we don't know about the long term, and I'm judging this base, and then I'm also comparing that to the threat posed to me in my own demographic group.
By COVID, and I'm making a judgment.
And that's why I don't want to get the vaccine.
Now, you could disagree with that decision.
You could say that you think it's a foolish decision or whatever.
That's your own personal opinion based on your own priorities.
But that's what we're talking about.
So how can that be misinformation?
It's just someone weighing risks, balancing everything out, and saying, you know, here's how it all shakes out for me, personally.
Here's the risk level that I'm comfortable with.
Here are the risks that I'm worried about, and then these risks over here I'm not as worried about.
How can that even be misinformation?
It is a matter of personal priority.
That's it.
Meanwhile, Jen Psaki, kind of on the same theme here, dropped this bomb rather casually.
Let's listen.
This is a big issue of misinformation, specifically on the pandemic.
In terms of actions, Alex, that we have taken or we're working to take, I should say, from the federal government, we've increased disinformation research and tracking within the Surgeon General's office.
We're flagging problematic posts for Facebook.
That's nice of them.
They're flagging misinformation for Facebook.
Really helpful.
doctors and medical professionals to connect, to connected medical experts with popular,
with popular, who are popular with their audiences, with, with accurate information and boost trusted content.
So we're helping get trusted content out there.
That's nice of them.
They're flagging misinformation for Facebook.
Really, really helpful.
They're trying to help out.
So this is something to keep in mind.
And I like how she, she mentions that, like it's no big deal, nothing controversial about it.
Oh yeah, we're doing this with Facebook.
We are telling, as the White House, as a political entity, we're telling Facebook what qualifies as misinformation or disinformation.
And she says that like it's no big deal.
Like, it's obvious that they would be doing that.
Actually, it is kind of obvious that they would be doing that.
That doesn't make it okay, though.
But it's something to keep in mind when you hear about how Facebook is nothing but a private company.
That's all.
No different from the small-town baker.
And so, if you think that the small-town baker should be able to bake whatever cake he wants, then Facebook should be able to do whatever they want.
Of course, the absurdity of that argument is that the people who make it don't think the baker should be able to bake whatever cake he wants.
They think that the decisions made by a baker in Colorado are more significant and carry with them a deeper national and global consequence.
Then the decisions made by these multi-billion dollar corporations that control the way that people communicate and the ideas that are allowed to be communicated.
That's the utter absurdity of it.
The same people who make that comparison, you're the one who said they bake whatever the cake they want.
Yeah, no, you see, the conflict here, the irrationality, it's on your end.
Because it's very easy for me to explain how Facebook is different from a baker.
Literally, it harms no one.
If a baker just bakes whatever cake he wants, doesn't want to bake a gay wedding cake, or he'll sell you a cake but he's not going to cut it, that's really what the issue was, right?
It's not even, we're refusing service to gay couples, it's just, We're not going to make a customized cake for this particular event.
You can still buy a cake from us and customize it yourself, or you can go to any of the dozens of other bakeries around and get the cake that you want.
Now, in that scenario, it harms no one.
There is no national consequence whatsoever.
What happens when these multi-billion dollar big tech companies that control the way that billions of people communicate, What happens when they have political bias, ideological bias?
I would say the consequences are quite a bit more severe.
All right, let's move on here.
Nicole Hannah-Jones of 1619 and just sort of general race-baiting fame.
Back a couple of years ago, she was talking about Cuba in a podcast.
And you may have noticed, I've talked about the Cuba thing a little bit on this show.
I haven't spent a lot of time on it.
And not because it's not important.
Part of it is just my focus is always on issues that are happening right here in America that affect, you know, American families.
That's my focus.
It's always been the focus of the show.
And I bring that up because I've been asked actually by several people, why haven't I talked about the Cuba thing more?
And that's one of them.
I just, I don't talk about international issues all that much.
It's not where my focus is.
It's certainly not where my, if I have any expertise at all, it's not there.
But I also have to confess, I get a little annoyed in some ways to see all of these Republicans, especially a lot of elected Republicans, coming out very strongly against the communist Cuban government in a very direct way.
They're coming out against it aggressively.
Aggressively opposing communism in the Cuban government.
And that's fine.
I agree with them that the communist Cuban government is bad.
Fully agree.
But then I noticed that a lot of these same Republicans, they're not nearly as aggressive or outspoken about the communist takeover of our own country.
Because to me, that is the bigger problem.
That's what I'm worried about.
That's my thinking there.
But there are still some relevant issues to be discussed surrounding that.
And so this brings us back to Nicole Hannah-Jones.
She was on a podcast a couple of years ago, and the subject of Cuba came up.
And this is what she said about Cuba back then.
Are there candidates right now, or even just places, that you think have a viable and sufficiently ambitious integration agenda?
And if so, what is it?
That laughs at a lot.
I mean, one, let me just, I'm definitely not an expert on race relations internationally.
And it's also hard to look at countries that didn't have, you know, large institutions of slavery and compare them to United States.
The answer is probably going to be surprising that I'm going to give, which is if you want to see the most equal multiracial, it's not a democracy, most equal multiracial country in our hemisphere, it would be Cuba.
Cuba has the least inequality between black and white people of any place really in the hemisphere.
I mean, the Caribbean, Most of the Caribbean, it's hard to count because the white population in a lot of those countries is very, very small.
They're countries run by black folks.
But in places that are truly at least biracial countries, Cuba actually has the least inequality.
And that's largely due to socialism, which I'm sure no one wants to hear.
Now, I do want to hear this, in fact, and I'm glad that you brought that up.
Now that this clip has resurfaced, she's being criticized for that, again, claiming that Cuba has the most equality, Cuba has more equality than the United States.
But she's right.
She is absolutely right.
At least the fundamental point she's making there is that there's more equality in Cuba than there is here.
True.
Because almost everyone is impoverished and oppressed in Cuba.
So that's what we mean.
When everybody is poor and miserable and oppressed, there is equality.
We are all equal down here in the gutter with this boot on our neck, right?
So equality in that sense.
She is right about that.
You're going to find, and that's one of the reasons why I don't talk about equality as much.
Quality is not a priority for me.
It's not a value.
Like a lot of people claim to think it is for them.
You know, when we talk about the kind of equality we should strive for, we mean equality, or we should mean equality, in a highly qualified way.
What's the kind of equality that we should have in this country?
I'll tell you what it is.
This is it.
Equality under the law.
And all that means is that no one should get any special favors.
Everyone should be treated the same, should get the same amount of justice.
The laws should be the same for everybody.
Maybe just simply put it that way.
The laws should be the same for everybody, no matter who you are, what your demographic is, how much money you have or don't have.
That's the way it should be.
That's oftentimes not the way it really works here, but that's the equality we should be striving for.
In an ideal scenario, that should be the goal.
And that's it.
Same laws for everyone.
That's it.
That's all of the equality that we should want.
That's all the equality we should be talking about.
Because equality in any other context is, in practice, a horrific thing.
The most equal countries, when we talk about equality of outcome, equality in terms of the way people live, the success that they have or don't have, if you want equality there, well, you're going to find that kind of equality in places like Cuba, in places like North Korea, where most people, except for the top of the top, the elites, a relatively small group, almost everyone else is impoverished and oppressed.
That's where you find equality.
In a country with true freedom, there's no equality to be found anywhere except for in the law.
But everywhere else, because you have freedom, outcomes will vary.
People are all different.
There is no equality among people.
Because equality means sameness.
We are not the same.
We are all different.
We have different strengths, different weaknesses.
Some of us are smarter.
Some of us are dumber.
Some of us are stronger.
Some of us have more talent.
You know, all these things vary.
Some of us have more ambition.
Some of us try harder.
And so on and so forth.
All right, next we have from the AP, it says, Pope Francis cracked down Friday on the spread of the old Latin mass reversing one of Pope Benedict's 16th signature decisions and a major challenge to traditionalist Catholics who immediately decried it as an attack on them and the ancient liturgy.
Francis reimposed restrictions on celebrating the Latin mass that Benedict relaxed in 2007 and went further to limit its use Paul just said he was taking action because Benedict's reform had become a source of division in the church and been exploited by Catholics opposed to the Second Vatican Council.
The new law requires individual bishops to approve celebrations of the Old Mass, also called the Trinity Mass, and requires newly ordained priests to receive explicit permission to celebrate it from their bishops in consultation with the Vatican.
Under the new law, bishops must also determine if the current groups of faithful attached to the Old Mass accept Vatican II, which allowed for Mass to be celebrated in the vernacular rather than Latin.
These groups cannot use regular churches for their services.
Instead, bishops must find an alternate location for them without creating new parishes.
So, Francis is doing everything he can here.
To shut down the Latin Mass without saying, I'm shutting down the Latin Mass.
He's putting as many hurdles as he can.
There were already plenty of hurdles.
And now, putting many more hurdles, some of them are going to prove to be, in many cases, insurmountable.
And that's the idea, to just shut it down.
He doesn't want it.
Now, one thing you should know, if you don't follow these kinds of things in church, because you're not Catholic, or even if you are Catholic, a lot of Catholics don't follow it, to begin with, This almost never happens, where you have one pope coming immediately after another pope and so directly contradicting him and just reversing something that he did, one of his most signature moves that he made.
So that's highly unusual.
And meanwhile, as far as the Latin Mass, here's what you need to know about that.
You know, as a Catholic, either kind of Mass is legitimate.
I don't judge people, whether you go to the Novus Ordo Mass, which is the normal Mass that most people go to, the only kind of Mass that Pope Francis wants anyone to go to, or you go to the Latin Mass.
One doesn't make you a better Catholic than the other, but the Latin Mass has proven to be deeply appealing, especially to young people.
And it's pretty incredible.
A lot of this is anecdotal, but I've been to plenty of Trinitin Masses, and I walk into these churches, and my experience almost always is, and you talk to almost anyone else in any other part of the country who goes to Latin Mass, and they'll tell you the same thing.
You walk into these churches, which are very conservative, doing this ancient liturgy, In a language that most of the people sitting there don't fully understand.
They give you a book, though, that you can read to follow along, and you learn it as you go along.
And you walk in, and so often the place is packed with young families, little kids, young parents, energetic people.
By far the youngest and most energetic parishes I have ever been to.
Latin masses.
No, it's when you go to the Novus Ordo masses, and you find, very often, these old parishes of, you know, average age of 72, and people are sitting there silently, and everyone is bored to death, and there's no energy, there's no... There are very few young people, very few young families.
You could see the parish going extinct in front of your eyes.
What Pope Francis is saying is, we want more of that.
I don't know, we don't want, you know, the last thing we want are parishes that are young, energetic.
We don't want any of that.
Now, average age of 72, at the youngest, Pope Francis is saying.
Well done.
All right.
I wanted to hit this quickly before we move on to reading the YouTube comments, if we have time here.
I think we do.
Sharon Osbourne.
We've talked about this story.
You may remember what happened to Sharon Osbourne, formerly a co-host of the show The Talk.
She was forced off the air and condemned as a racist after an argument that she had with some other women on the show who are not white.
It was an argument stemming from her defense of Piers Morgan, who himself was forced off the air for criticizing Meghan Markle.
And Sharon Osbourne, all she said was that he's not a racist for doing that and he shouldn't be cancelled.
This whole issue was brought up to Sharon Osbourne live on the air, and she claimed at the time, and after, that it was a setup.
That they were putting her on the spot, supposedly giving her a chance to defend herself against charges of racism, but really framing her as a racist in the process.
Because when you go on TV, and you're put on the spot, and someone says, you're accused of being a racist.
Care to defend yourself?
There's nothing you can say.
I mean, the only thing you can say is, nah, I'm not gonna play that game.
But she's not going to say that.
That's the correct response, is to refuse to play the game.
If you endeavor to actually prove that you're not a racist, all you're doing is proving that you are a racist.
And so she felt that she was set up.
The other women on the show have said that it was not a setup at all and that this was all her fault.
Two of the other women involved are Cheryl Underwood and Elaine Welter Roth.
And they both, after Osbourne left the show, they threw her under the bus.
They said publicly that it was not a setup and that Sharon Osbourne was at fault for all of this because she refused to listen to them, etc., etc.
And now this from the Daily Mail.
So this was immediately after all that happened.
can be heard consoling a distraught Sharon Osbourne and telling her, "I know you're not racist,"
moments after the British TV star's heated on-air confrontation with Cheryl Underwood.
In a newly unearthed audio recording obtained by the Daily Mail,
Welter Roth, 34, is heard apologizing to her former co-star and reassuring her
that no one thinks she's racist in a conversation in Sharon's dressing room
after the explosive March 10th show.
So this was immediately after all that happened.
They're in the dressing room.
One of them still has their mic on, And that's how this was caught on tape.
And we have a little clip of that.
Let's play that.
Hold on.
What exactly are we doing right now?
Help me understand.
They asked me to ask that question.
I said, no, I'm not going to ask that question.
I said, wait, what's the intention of this conversation?
Because this can go left so fast.
I'm like, they go, let me call you back.
I said to them, this is going to be a train wreck.
Oh, look at this sweetheart.
He can tell.
I know.
Sharon, I'm just so sorry that that went the way that it went.
Do you know what it is, though?
When you have to sit there and defend yourself, it makes you look guilty because you can't get out of it.
It's like Jack always says.
It's like, come look at my web browser.
I'm not a pedophile.
There you hear Welteroth in the dressing room saying, yeah, you were set up.
I'm sorry it went that way.
And then Sharon Osbourne's kicked off the show, and that same woman, Welteroth, goes on the air and throws her into the bus.
Eh, it wasn't a set up.
And that's clearly what it was.
This is what happens.
I mean, these snakes just put her in this position.
Because why?
You know, she's an easy target because she's an older white woman, and she was a sacrificial goat, and also it was just good publicity and all the rest of it.
And you almost want to feel sorry for Sherrod Osborne.
Even though, you know, she's a rich celebrity, she'll be fine.
Even so, for a person to be treated this way and betrayed in this way, of course you want to feel some pity, you feel sorry for them.
And normally I would, but you know what my policy is.
I can't feel sorry for you, I can't defend you, if you are, you know, submitting yourself to this madness.
If you go to the altar and you bow before the altar, then there's nothing I can do.
Sharon Osbourne, there's nothing anyone can do.
Sharon Osbourne, prior to all this, according to the Daily Star, according to her, she says that she donated $700,000 to Black Lives Matter.
Of all the things to donate to, $700,000.
That we know that they didn't put to any good use at all, we know that for sure.
So she goes and bows her head at the BLM altar, only to have them chop it off right there.
We've seen this story a million times.
People need to wake up and smarten up.
All right, let's move now to reading the YouTube comments.
A bunch of comments that are all in a similar vein.
Matt should cancel himself for the banjo trap.
Shameful liar.
Matt is cancelled for that poor display of banjo skills.
I think we can all cancel Matt for not actually playing the banjo.
Matt, I'm now converting to Sour Baby Gang after your banjo stunt.
And, as I said, many comments like that.
I'm personally offended by it.
I tried to play it.
I really did.
I only had a few minutes.
Do you want me to start playing the banjo when it's not properly tuned?
And I haven't checked to make sure that there are no squirrels or anything hiding inside it.
These are the basic things that any banjo player does before playing the banjo.
I had to run through all those steps.
That is proper banjo etiquette.
And then I ran out of time and I couldn't play it.
And then for you to turn around and attack me in this way, when you know that there's nothing more important to me than the banjo and my music that I love to play and absolutely can play, And I wanted to share that with you, that gift.
And I wasn't able to.
Think about how bad I feel about that, and now I'm being attacked.
Unbelievable.
Christine says, you've always had to have a license plate on the front of your car in Minnesota, as well as the back.
It's the law.
They'll pull you over, anyone for that.
Probably has to do with the visibility, since in the winters here, there is snow caked all over your car all the time, and dirt and salt with two plates.
It might increase your odds of at least being able to see one of them.
Yeah, that is the law with the plates in Minnesota, and that's why the state legislature was pulled over.
There might be a reason for it.
I happen to agree.
I think it's ridiculous to have a law where now you're pulling people over because they have one license plate instead of two.
I think it's absurd.
I think the police should be focused on other things.
But that's not the cops' fault.
As we talked about yesterday, they are law enforcement.
They're not lawmakers.
Their job is to enforce the laws that are made.
And yes, if a law is immoral, If the law is calling them to do something immoral, then they should refuse to do it, even if it costs them their job.
But a lot of these traffic laws and stuff, they're not immoral.
It's not morally objectionable to have a law requiring two license plates instead of one, but it's just silly and stupid.
It's the cop's job, though, to enforce that.
So if you don't like that, then you talk to your legislators about changing the laws.
If there is a law that we would say it's not worth the cops enforcing it, then the law shouldn't exist.
General rule there.
And finally, Tony of Scrub Nation says, my dream is that Matt will read one of my comments someday.
There you go, Tony.
Your dream is fulfilled.
This is the generosity that I display on this show, even as I am ruthlessly attacked And yet still.
You're welcome.
Well, we were just talking earlier about the dangerous extremist Candace Owens.
We've got a few dangerous extremists on the staff here.
I like to think that I myself am quite dangerous.
At least I try to be.
Candace Owens certainly is dangerous with her controversial opinions that might hurt people's feelings.
And if you have not had a chance to check out Candace Owens, well, Now's your chance to do it.
Just go to dailywire.com.
Her latest episode, Cuba, Communism, and the Democratic Death Cult, is available right now on demand for Daily Wire members.
If you haven't subscribed yet, get 25% off a new membership with code Candace.
And also, you know, as political dissidents are thrown onto no-fly lists by the federal government and children are consistently being exposed to the left's obsession with identity in classrooms, it's become incredibly clear American culture is becoming authoritarian.
That's why there's no better time to learn about what authoritarianism looks like.
Even eventually I'll learn how to say it, which will be good too, why it happens and how to stop it.
It may sound like a tall order, but Ben Shapiro explains it all in his new book, The Authoritarian Moment.
In it, he helps people understand as much as they can about how we reach this point and how we can all begin to fight back.
So order a copy of The Authoritarian Moment today at Amazon or any bookseller.
Let's get now to our daily cancellation.
You know, sometimes I reflect on the fact that people have been complaining about political correctness for my entire life.
I can remember hearing criticisms of our PC culture in the 90s, and those criticisms were obviously prescient, but in hindsight, PC culture back then was mere child's play compared to now.
You had to put in some effort to run afoul of it in those days.
It took a little elbow grease.
You had to be enterprising to earn the label politically incorrect in the 90s.
For example, Eminem.
Was politically incorrect, but he also made songs about murdering his own wife, okay?
That was politically incorrect.
The situation is different now.
You can be politically incorrect with a pronoun.
You can be politically incorrect by reciting basic facts about biology.
You can be politically incorrect by saying something objectionable like, I think criminals should be arrested.
Or, hey, please don't loot my store and burn it down.
Or, sir, the men's locker room is that way.
Or, sir, that's not where tampons go.
The speech codes aren't just stifling and oppressive, but also irrational and morally ridiculous.
25 or 30 years ago, a politically correct person was someone who was polite, if a bit too sensitive and cautious.
Now a politically correct person is a lunatic, or at least pretends to be one.
We have truly put the political in politically correct.
What is politically correct now is really only politically correct, ideologically correct.
In other words, it is in accordance with the prevailing political and ideological dogmas of our day.
It is correct in that sense, but rarely correct in any other sense.
And of course, these codes invade every aspect of our lives, everywhere we go, including now into the sea.
The speech police have decided that they cannot limit themselves to dry ground and have now begun instituting speech codes to govern the aquatic realm as well.
So we have two recent examples of this.
One is really stupid and the other is really very extremely profoundly stupid.
We'll start with the really stupid one.
NBC News has the story, quote, Minnesota State Senator Fung Hodge was never a fan of the Asian carp label commonly applied to four imported fish species that are wreaking havoc in the U.S.
heartland, infesting numerous rivers and bearing down on the Great Lakes.
But the last straw came when an Asian business delegation arriving at the Minneapolis airport encountered a sign reading, Kill Asian Carp.
It was a well-intentioned plea to prevent spread of the invasive fish, but the message was off-putting to the visitors.
Now, some other government agencies are taking the same step in the wake of the anti-Asian hate crime epidemic that has surged during the coronavirus pandemic.
The U.S.
Fish and Wildlife Service quietly changed its designation to Invasive Carp in April.
Quote, we wanted to move away from any terms that cast Asian culture and people in a negative light, said Charlie Woolley, director of its Great Lakes regional office.
The Asian Carp Regional Coordinating Committee, representing agencies in the U.S.
and Canada that are trying to contain the carp, will do likewise on August 2nd, he said.
The move comes as other wildlife organizations consider revising names that some consider offensive, including the Entomological Society of America, which this month dropped Gypsy Moth and Gypsy Ant from its insect list.
Okay, by the way, this may shock you, but the reason we call Asian carp Asian carp is that Asian carp are from Asia.
So this was not a conspiracy meant to encourage anti-Asian hate crimes.
Why is the Asian carp designator necessary?
Well, because there are also other kinds of carp that originate from Europe.
Do you know what we call the carp from Europe?
I'll give you a guess.
Just one.
That's right.
European carp.
It's pretty common to name an animal after the place where it lives or originates.
It's not entirely clear why an Asian business delegation would be upset by a sign calling for people to kill Asian carp.
I mean, these business people were presumably people, If they had any concerns, perhaps someone could have explained to them that they are people, and carp are carp, and that the distinction is rather significant.
Or maybe here's another possibility.
Someone in the delegation... It's possible someone in the delegation was named Carl, and he misread the sign and became understandably disturbed.
I don't know.
But as always with these sorts of things, the move is not just pointless and silly, but self-defeating.
The goal of wildlife conservationists is to reduce the population of these fish because they're screwing up the ecosystem.
One way to do that is to convince people to eat them.
That's already a tough sell because all you have to do is reverse the R and the A in carp to get an idea of what the fish tastes like.
But you're making it harder on yourself when you call them invasive carp.
I mean, Asian carp sounds delicious.
It sounds delicious.
It sounds like something you might get at a Chinese restaurant.
Invasive carp sounds like a disease.
Today our special is invasive carp with a side of parasitic worms.
Not exactly appealing.
So it's a foolish strategy, and yet it seems downright brilliant in comparison to the next story.
Going from freshwater to saltwater, here's the report from the New York Post.
It says, quote, Marine experts and advocates in Australia are urging the public to refrain from using the word attack in reference to sharks, declaring that the majestic predatory fish has been unfairly stigmatized as a deliberate killer.
Instead, officials have suggested that violent run-ins with sharks be dubbed with more neutral words, such as interactions.
Others have suggested swapping the word with the terms negative encounter, incident, or simply bites.
Shark attack is a lie, said University of Sydney language researcher Christopher Pepynneff, who argued that a majority of what people call attacks are merely nips and minor injuries from smaller sharks.
Government agencies have also begun to adopt new language, including the Department of Primary Industries in New South Wales, which has worked with a shark survivor support group, Bite Club, to identify more sensitive vocabulary to describe an audience with a shark.
An audience with a shark.
That's one way to describe the plot of Jaws, I guess.
But yes, we would want to stigmatize the poor sharks, who are famous for their emotional fragility.
And we certainly wouldn't want people to get the wrong idea about the prehistoric flesh-eating death machines that lurk in the darkest depths of the sea.
I mean, when they swim up to greet you on your surfboard and perhaps nibble on a few of your appendages, no big deal, it's not to be considered as any sort of attack.
So don't be rude about it.
Try to see this from the shark's perspective.
He came over to make a little small talk with you, maybe grab a quick bite to eat, only to be met with screaming and crying and the whole production.
It's important to remember this also when you hobble back onto the beach, blood gushing from the spot where your left leg used to be.
Do not scream out, I've been attacked by a shark!
It'd be better and more sensitive to say, I've had an interaction with a member of the ocean community.
And then somebody can ask, was it a positive or negative interaction?
And you could say, you know, I'd probably call it negative, all things considered, hence the catastrophic blood loss.
I admit, I do find it a bit confusing as to why we need a qualifier like negative to go along with shark interaction.
Is there any other kind of shark interaction?
But these questions, I suppose, are based in my own deep-seated anti-shark bias.
A bias that many of us share and which is only perpetuated by shark attack victims, who we should not be calling shark attack victims at all, but rather shark encounter participants.
And it's why, if you ever find yourself participating in such an encounter and you manage to survive it, please don't make a big thing out of it.
Start whining about your missing limbs and so forth.
Think about how this shark feels.
I mean, you've already ruined his lunch by escaping.
Don't add insult to injury here.
And so today, after this long and circuitous journey, which has taken us from land to lake to sea, I think in the end, upon further reflection, it must be the shark phobes who are, in the end, cancelled.
And we'll leave it there for today, and for the week.
Have a great weekend.
Talk to you on Monday.
Godspeed.
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