Matt Walsh (19:46)
You can see there the severe facial injuries that she has. And she said at another point in the press conference that she's in excruciating pain all the time, which, which she certainly looks at. She has brain injuries. Her doctors are surprised that she's even alive. She easily could have died, which is very clear now. There are two, two notes on this one. First of all, she's right. This. This incident could have easily been avoided. And that's not just by having more police officers around, although that would help, but by the criminal justice system actually punishing criminals. I mean, it's no surprise that the people who attacked her had criminal records and they could have and should have already been taken off the street, and they weren't. And people are fed up with it. They're completely fed up with it. Because now the average American is looking at this and asking, why are we choosing leniency and compassion for violent criminals at the expense of law abiding citizens? I think people are asking why? Why do we have to suffer for the sake of the scum of the earth, which is a very good question. That's the question we should be asking. As I always say, compassion for criminals is cruelty to the innocent. Why are we choosing cruelty to the innocent? Why we should demand answers to that? And second, on a more positive note, I think it is very significant that this case has gotten all this attention. You know, corporate media is obviously not really paying attention. They're paying attention begrudgingly because we forced them to, but it is still getting a lot of attention. And that's a positive sign because up until very recently it would have, it would have been pretty inconceivable that a white victim of a violent crime committed by a non white person would end up giving a press conference that is widely covered. I mean, up until recently, this, this case would have gotten no attention at all, right? We, we'd never hear about it and that would be it. We just wouldn't hear. But Austin Metcalfe is another one. And there have been a lot of Austin Metcalfs, right, over the years, a lot of victims like him. We don't know, we don't know any of their names, but we do know Austin's name and we know Holly's name. And that's because things are changing. And that change is fueled again by the fact that people are fed up as they, as they should be. And I think people are starting to ask the, the right questions. Questions that for the people in charge who've created this situation are basically unanswerable questions like again, you have a violent criminal and you have to choose between prioritizing his compassion for him or prioritizing the safety of the community. It's, it's, it's one or the other. And yet you choose not to prioritize the safety of the community. Why is that? Why would you do that? These are unanswerable questions for them, but we should keep asking them. All right, here's a story from a few days ago and I'm not even going to read it, but it's a, it's a, it's another story about. I'm not going to read an article about. But it's another story about a girl who I guess was famous or moderately famous on social media as a child who just turned 18 and then started an only fans and immediately made like a million dollars or something in, in five hours or whatever it was, the first 24 hours she made a million dollars. And I'm not going to read the story or say the person's name because I don't want to advertise her porn business for her. Although you can easily find out the name or maybe you already know it, but, but I, in my own way, I'd like to not participate in it. I did want to mention the story because it's yet more proof for my point that, that, which is that only fans should not be allowed to exist. I mean, here's, here's another important question we should be asking. Why does that, why do we let this exist? Why does this, why do we allow this to exist? We don't have to. Now what's actually happening here is that this girl, immediately upon turning 18, excitedly went out and became a prostitute. And not because she was desperate and poor and, you know, being sex trafficked or whatever. It's just because she wanted to. And this is what makes OnlyFans so distinct. This is why you can't compare it to anytime I talk about this. And now you've got all these women on OnlyFans. I always have people that are trying to downplay the significance of it, downplay the problem by saying, oh, prostitution's always existed. Do you know how many women were prostitutes in Victorian England? Well, this is very different, okay? This is a new era of whorish ness in our culture because now we have a whole generation of prostitutes who cannot be in any way considered victims. Now, 30 years ago, 40 years ago, really, any time until right now, if a woman was a prostitute, that usually meant that she was poor, she was drug addicted, she was being exploited, which doesn't mean that she bears no blame at all, no moral guilt at all. But it usually meant like, this is someone in a desperate situation. Usually there was a pimp, you know, who would backhand her across the face if she didn't come back with enough money. I mean, that's the way that these things cross, unquote. Traditionally, we're done. But these days, these women are their own pimps, right? There's no one, there's no one whoring them out. They're doing it to themselves now. I mean, only Fans as an organization, as a company is. But only Fans isn't like coming into their home, forcing them into it. Only Fans is the platform is, is providing them a platform to be their own pimps. It's like a franchise, a franchise opportunity. So now you have women, girls who just turned 18, women in their 20s, soccer moms in their 30s and 40s, you know, women of all types, Women who are not poor, are not desperate, are not necessarily drug addled or anything, who choose to themselves out. They Exploit themselves for, for no reason other than making some extra spending money and getting attention from, from strangers on the Internet. It's very bleak, you know, I mean, the fact that women were given the opportunity to become prostitutes in the comfort of their own home and so many millions of them eagerly took advantage of it, that's bleak. That's the kind of thing that really gives ammo to the, the red pill guys. That gives them a lot of ammo. When you look at that and say, okay, well, this opportunity was given to women and said, hey, you can be a prostitute. And millions jumped at it. I mean, that's. You look at the numbers. There are like three and a half, four million women selling their bodies and only fans. If you break it down, you find that it equates to like 2% of all women in America between the ages of 18 and 45. 2%. Now maybe you'd want to say, well, 2% is not that bad. You know, it's not, it's not a really high number. No, that's bad. 2% of all women in that age, that's hard. That's a nightmare. You kidding me? 2% of all women in the country in that age bracket, that is staggering. Especially again, when you consider that these are elective prostitutes. These are all women who by no means have been forced into it. They could all get real jobs, or in a lot of cases, they don't even need a job. Like, we're not talking about 2% of women who are sex trafficked, which would be a different kind of horror. We're talking about 2% of women who are sex trafficking themselves for fun. And that goes back to my question, which is, why do we allow this? Why is it legal? There's so many things that we allow in this country. And because we sit back and say, well, there's nothing we can do about it. Well, we wouldn't want to pass a law, but we wouldn't want to do that. We wouldn't want to like, stop someone from doing something they want to do. That's the worst thing in the world. So many people, including many conservatives, have been brainwashed by this garbage, by this, by this libertarian nonsense that as long as someone wants to do something, we can't stop them. The greatest sin in the world is to stop someone from doing a thing they want to do. This is the mindset that so many people have. And really the ultimate, the ultimate red pill is to get past that. I don't want to hear anyone's red pilled until you, until you realize that, you know, we can act. It's like laws are good. Doesn't mean every, there's a lot of bad laws. But in general, laws are, it's a good, it's a good thing to have laws. And just because somebody wants to do something, that's actually not a good enough reason why they should be allowed to do it. There are a lot of things that people want to do that they shouldn't be allowed to do. Why? Because we're a, we're, we're civilized people. We want to be in a civilized society. Which means that your justification for doing something has to be more than I wanted to do it. And when your behavior is objectively, deeply detrimental to, to the country as a whole, to the, to, to the, the well being of, of, of the country, then you, you just shouldn't be allowed to do it. And there's really no argument in response other than what's the other argument? Oh, I have a right. I have a right. Here's the other red pill. Realizing that like 90 of the rights people are constantly claiming don't exist. It doesn't mean anything. I have a right to be a prostitute. What do you mean? What do you mean you have that right? Like from where, where are you deriving that? What does it mean? Right? What are you talking about? Yeah, but see, so you're like born with this like mystical entitlement to go to be a whore. Is that, is that what you're saying? Where does that come from? If I go looking for that? You have a right to be a prostitute. Okay, well where is that right? Where can I find it? Oh, it's invisible. It's like this invisible thing that you, it's like your imaginary friend doesn't, it's not real, doesn't exist. Okay? The only, the only right that means anything are like the God given. And this is a, this is a, obviously a doctrine that our country is founded on God given, God given rights that are, that are specifically imbued by the creator God. Okay, and did God, did the creator God imbue us, imbue women to go with the right to go be prostitutes? No. So this is clearly prostitution. The fact that it's being done through a screen is irrelevant. You know, whatever it is that women are doing on only fans. Now imagine that they were doing that, putting on that show in person in a motel room for some guy. In that case, nobody would have any trouble, you know, accurately assessing it as prostitution. So then you put a screen in between them and suddenly it's not prostitution. What if she was in the room with him, but she was doing this on video and he was only watching the video? Is it now not prostitution? So just like the presence of a video camera all of a sudden means not prostitution? That. That makes no sense. It's actually not hard to define. People act like it's hard. How do you define pornography? How do you define prostitution? Not that hard. Not hard to define. Prostitution is performing a sex act for money. That's prostitution. Okay? It's not. Well, anything you do for money is. No, performing a sex act for money is prostitution. So in any form doesn't matter. If you're in your own home, you're in someone else's home, you're In a Motel 6, you're on a street corner, you're in a back alley. It doesn't matter. No matter where you are, you're performing a sex act for money. Women and only fans are performing sex acts for money. So they are prostitutes. Prostitution is already illegal in 49 of 50 states. So why in the world would we not apply that to OnlyFans? Why do we have this weird carve out where we say prostitution is illegal? You can't do it unless you're. Unless it's a subscription model, then it's okay. None of that makes any sense to me. None of it makes any sense. A few days ago, we talked about the interview that washed up former CNN anchor Jim Acosta did with a dead child. This is a interview in quotes, of course. This is a kid who died in a school shooting, but was, quote, unquote, brought back to life by AI. And he and Jim Acosta interviewed the AI. And speaking of bleak, I mean, it's one of the bleakest things you'll ever see and creepiest. And now the father of the kid is speaking out, and he's defending their decision to reanimate the sun with AI and saying that if you disagree with that decision, then you're the problem. Listen. Hello, everyone. This is Manuel Oliver. I am Joaquin Oliver's father. Today he should be turning 25 years old. And my wife Patricia and myself, we. We asked our friend Jim Acosta to make an interest interview, have an interview with our son, because now, thanks to AI, we can bring him back. It was our idea. It was our plan, and it's still our plan. We feel that Joaquin has a lot of things to say, and as long as we have an option that allows us to bring that to you and to everyone, we'll will use it. So stop blaming people about where is this coming from? Or blaming Deem about what he was able to do. If the problem that you have is with the AI, then you have the wrong problem. The real problem is that my son was shot eight years ago. So if you believe that that is not the problem. You, you are part of the problem. Now listen, I'm not going to go too hard on, on this father or their family. I don't, I don't. I don't like how they're pushing gun confiscation laws. I hate this AI thing. I think it's a horror show. But I'm not going to attack parents who lost a child. If that happened to me, who knows what I would do? I mean, I think I'm strong enough to withstand a lot of stuff, but that would, that would break me. That would just destroy me. I, I would never be the same again. So there's no telling what I would. I mean, I can't pass judgment. I can't look at that and say, I would never do that. If I. Because I have no clue what I. I'd be a different person. I'm a totally different person at the other side of that experience. And so I just can't. I really can't judge. I can't pass judgment on parents who lose their children, you know, unless they do, unless their behavior is so gratuitous and over the line that it's the kind of thing that you have no choice but to speak out against. But, but, but generally speaking, with something like this, it's hard to pass judgment. So all that said, what I really want to say is that I understand the temptation to use this technology to try to reconnect with a lost loved one. We talked about this a few days ago, how the dad said that his wife, the child's mother, spends hours a day talking to this AI. And that is very sad. I mean, that's like one of the saddest things I've ever heard. And again, I'm not going to judge the mom. I might do the same thing in her shoes. I might be so totally desperate and broken that I would do that. I don't know. And that's why I'm just very worried about this technology. I've expressed my worries about AI many times. And here's another level of worry, another dystopian sort of awful application of it. And it makes me ask again, here's another area. Where are we going to even attempt to do anything to prevent the nightmare that we're currently waltzing into? Like anything I know you might tell me, well, we can't, we can't stop all of it. And this is an AI is an unstoppable force. And in many ways that's true. But does that mean we're not going to do anything? No guard rails? Nothing. Nothing at all? You're telling me we can, that we can, we can do 0%? I don't buy that. At the very least, we can try. So are we going to pass any laws at all to govern this technology and the companies that produce it, or are we just going to sit here slack jawed, watching in horror as they do whatever they want and they do these things that we all recognize are terrible. Like, you look at this, a grieving mother spending hours a day trying to reconnect with her dead child through an AI. You look at that and you go, that is one of the worst things I've ever heard of. I can easily see that the, the slippery slope that this leads to. It'll be really bad for everybody now that you'll have AI hucksters out there promising that they can reanimate your, your dead child, your dead parent, your dead loved one. I mean, we could all see that. This is horrific. I mean, it is absolutely horrific. And, and yet there are very few people saying, hey, maybe we should think about some laws. Like, maybe there are some things we, maybe there's a few things we can do here, rather than sitting here impotent, just assuming at the outset that there's nothing we can do to prevent or mitigate the dystopian nightmare scenario that we are again, are just like strolling into. So I'd like to think about that finally staying on AI. You know, there have been some stories recently about a worrying but totally predictable trend, a rise in people using AI, specifically ChatGPT as a therapist. And now changes are being made, supposedly to curb this kind of usage. USA Today reports. In a case of it's not you, it's me. The creators of ChatGPT no longer want the chatbot to play the role of therapist or trusted confidant. Sure they don't. OpenAI, the company behind the popular bot, announced that it had incorporated some changes, particularly mental health focused guardrails designed to prevent users from becoming too reliant on the technology, with a focus on people who view ChatGPT as a therapist or a friend. The changes come months after reports detailed negative, particularly worrisome user experiences raise concerns with the model's tendency to validate doubts, fuel anger, urge impulsive actions, or reinforce negative emotions and thoughts. Meanwhile, Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, has recently warned people that if they use ChatGPT as a therapist and they reveal private personal information, that none of that stuff is confidential or protected. It is when you say it to your therapist. It is when you say it to your doctor or your lawyer. But the ChatGPT is none of those things. It's not a person. So none of that stuff is protected, which means that it can be revealed. If there was a lawsuit or subpoena or something. All that stuff is out there. It can be revealed at any time, which should be obvious, but apparently this was a revelation to a lot of people. But the funny thing is, to me, aside from the privacy problems, is, you know, rather than, than spending another 10 minutes lamenting AI, I will say that I don't think using ChatGPT as a therapist is any worse in most cases than going to an actual therapist. I mean, I'm not recommending it. I don't think you should use ChatGPT as a therapist. I'm just saying that human therapists oftentimes are not any better and can be worse. It's funny because what, what, what the article said about, well, they'll validate. All they do is validate and affirm. Well, yeah, that's. Welcome to therapy. I mean, that's 95 of all therapists. Affirmative therapy has been the, the, the way now for a long time. So when you have something you're struggling with, really what you should do in most cases, not all, not all, but most, what you should do is forget about therapy altogether. I mean, the urge to sit down and tell your life story and run through your list of grievances and whine and complain and sulk and wallow in your misery, that urge is an urge that should be rejected. It should be suppressed. You know, you don't need therapy. You need to go for a run, you need to lift weights. You need to go outside and get some fresh air. You need to. Need to start a, start a project, do something with your time, right, that I, I found that to be effective. I find all these things to be effective, but I find that I'm, I'm always in a much better place mentally. My, my head, my headspace. I hate that phrase. Is, is in a, is better when, when I, when I've got like a project that I'm working on, you know, because that, that's, it's something to focus on. So it's like something to focus on. It gives you clear, like this is the thing that I'm doing. It gives you something to look forward to, to the completion. So that can be helpful. I think all these things, all this stuff is helpful, but most of all. But what all these things have in common. You're working on a project, you're going. You're lifting weights, you're going for a run, whatever it is. All these things are therapy and much better than talk therapy most of the time. What do they have in common is that you stop thinking about yourself when you do them. Going for a run can be cathartic because especially as you get into it and you're running it and, and it's. It's hard and you're out of breath and all of that, you're not. You can't. You're not focused on yourself anymore, right? When you're saying, when you're lifting weights, when you're. When you're doing. When you're working on some project, working on something creative, you're not. You're not just obsessing about yourself. You're not like, staring back at yourself in your internal mirror, just gazing at your own reflection. And 95 of the time, that is the solution, right? I mean, there is no solution to everything you're going to struggle with mentally. But the best way to, quote, unquote, treat it most of the time is just to not. Is to stop thinking about it, stop obsessing over. And problem is that talk therapy requires the opposite. It's you. All you're doing is sitting there talking about yourself the whole time. That's why you're there. And it's this narcissistic urge, I think, that drives people to therapy most of the time. The desire to talk about themselves and vent every petty frustration and anxiety they have in their heads. It's not healthy to actually do that. The more. The more you do it, the more you want to keep doing it. It's kind of like a drug. It's. It's like crack, which is why you got these people that go to therapy for decades and never stop going and never get better. But the reason they keep going back is that they're actually addicted to it. You know, you have the psychological industry that pathologists, everything, pathologia, path, whatever the word is, tripping over it. They make everything into a pathology and they talk about everything as an addiction. You don't hear them talk about therapy, addiction, which is his own pathology. Now, does that mean that therapy is never effective? I'm not saying that it could help you. Maybe in some Limited circumstances. But the problem with therapy, as I've argued many times, is that the effectiveness of the therapy depends entirely on whether the therapist possesses deep personal wisdom and insight. Because a therapist is not a doctor treating a medical disorder. A therapist is, is there to deal with problems of the mind and the spirit, problems of the soul. The therapist is basically a soul doctor. We don't call him that, but that's what it is. Which can be fine in theory, but only those with great wisdom can do that. And by the way, somebody with great wisdom, the first thing they're going to do is they're going to tell 90% of people that come in their office that you shouldn't be here, go lift weights, right? 90, 95 of people that come in, if they have wisdom, they're going to tell them to leave. Because you don't need, you actually don't need this, this will hurt you sitting around talking about your problems and whining like you, you will hurt you. You'll be better off. Go, go paint a picture. Go do, just do anything, right? Get, get a hobby. And for the 5 to 10% who are left, it, it, it, you know what you, what you, if you're going to therapy, to actually receive therapy to get something in return to get some insight into your problems, that again, you need someone with deep wisdom. If all you want is a sounding board to someone to just sit there and, and, and not move as you pummel them with your problems, well then why not? You might as well just use chat gbt. But if you want to receive therapy, if you want actual insights, then you need somebody with deep wisdom. And many therapists do not have that. You know, they just don't. A degree is no guarantee of wisdom. And you know, of course for millennia people consulted when they had these kinds of, you didn't have. For thousands of years in human history, there was no such thing as a therapist didn't exist. That didn't exist. That hasn't existed for the last 100, 200 years. You know, this is a relatively modern phenomenon. And what did people do before that? Well, they would consult the elders in their families or their villages for wisdom. They talk to their parents, their grandparents, their great grandparents. Well now you've got like a 45 year old adult turning to some random 29 year old woman with a degree in social work who has far less life experience and wisdom than most of the people she's advising. So it's totally absurd. And not only that, but to make matters worse, a lot of therapists get into that line of work because they themselves have psychological problems. The thing that drove them into the field is their obsession with their own problems, which is why, for a lot of therapists, if you get to know them in their personal life, these are, like, dysfunctional people. I'm not saying again, I, I, I'm just speaking in general terms. This is a comm. This is common, though. This is, this is a common phenomena that you get to know someone as a therapist, and they're totally dysfunctional in their personal life. Their personal life is a mess. And they got all kinds. And you know them personally. Like, this person is worse than. I mean, this. If anyone needs therapy, it's this person. So how could they possibly be giving it? So that's the, that's the problem. And when I've talked about this, I've been, I've been told that, well, hey, what else are you supposed to do if you have childhood trauma? If you were the. Someone said to me the other day, they said, well, haven't you ever, you know, you're speaking like someone who's never been the victim of something. Well, if you've been the victim of something, then this is what you need. Therapy. Okay, well, no, you know, you're speaking like someone who spent way too much time in therapy. That's what you're speaking like. Because otherwise you would know that everyone's been the victim of something. Not all. Not, not, not to the same degree. I mean, some things are worse than other things, but everyone's been the victim of, of, of many things. Everyone has been the victim in situations, like, thousands of times in their lives. Everyone has. Literally everybody. And most of the time, sitting around and thinking about that is not going to help you. Your childhood. This is your childhood. It's. It was what it was. It's over. It's over now. You're an adult now, like, sitting around and still thinking about, oh, my dad. He. I was, I did Sock. I did soccer for five years. My dad only came to one soccer match. Yeah, well, when, what age is what, how old were you? 10? What are you now, 45? What are you still thinking about that for? Okay, he should have been to more soccer matches. He should have done a better job, Right? He should have. But he, but he didn't. But he didn't. So that happened. It's over. You can't redo it. You want to join a soccer league now and, like, force your dad to come watch, Watch your old fat ass play soccer? Is that, Is that the way you're going to rectify this? Probably not. So it's over. It already happened. This is what the therapist should most of the time be saying, like, what do you want me to do about that? Oh, that ha. Oh, that happened for 35 years ago when you were seven. What do you want me to do about it? It's over. It already happened. So are you going to move on with your life or not? The answer to the bad things that happened to you when you were younger, the answer is nothing like this. What? The solution to those things is nothing at all. There is no solution. You cannot. That already happened. You can't solve it. So it's already happened. It's all baked in now. And that just is what it is. So move on with your life. Or don't. Or spend your whole life, like, revolving around, just like spiraling around these, this, this list of grievances. Many of them may be legitimate, but you can spend your whole life in a spiral orbiting right now, now you're like a moon. You're not even the planet and you're all. You're a moon orbiting around this, this giant cluster of complaints and grievances and past harms and hurts. And that's all you ever do. You could live that way or you could move on. I suggest moving on. You may have noticed that I don't shave much. I do, however, have opinions about men pretending to be women and women pretending to be men. And so does Jeremy's Razors. When Harry's pulled their advertising from the Daily Wire for saying that boys are boys and girls are girls, we launched Jeremy's Razors to be the sole company in the industry that isn't afraid of biological reality. Well, right now you can try Jeremy's razors for just $7.99. You heard that, right, 7 99. That's their lowest price ever. And look, you know, I don't recommend shaving, but if I did, it would be the Jeremy's Razors that I'd be recommending. Go to Jeremy's razors.com today and join the fight against radical gender ideology. But don't tell them I sent you. That's Jeremy's Razors dot com. There's a lot coming to Daily Wire plus, and it's not inclusive, it's not safe, it's not moderated by NPR. You'll love it. On August 13th, the Pope and the Fuhrer unburies the lie they hoped we never fact check. And it exposes how Pope Pius XII didn't stay silent during World War II. And now the Vatican's receipts are wide open. This fall, Isabel Brown's new show joins the lineup alongside the most trusted voices of conservative media, all ad free, uncensored with live chat. So you're not just watching, you're part of the conversation. We built this because no one else would. Now it's yours too. Go to dailywire.com and become a member today. Now let's get to our daily cancellation. There has been a discourse raging on X over the past couple of days. Not important or intelligent or worth your time or mine. And that's exactly the kind of content this segment was made for. So here we are. A few days ago, the right wing commentator Sarah Stock, who we mentioned before on the show, apparently got engaged. She posted a picture of her hand bearing the new engagement ring with a caption that says I won. Pretty standard thing for a woman to post after getting engaged. Nothing provocative or particularly notable about it. I won is like a slightly aggressive caption, but who cares? Not, not anything. No big deal. If one feels inclined to respond at all, you'd think that something along the lines of congratulations would be the only response worth making. But that is not how certain other female right wing influencers, quote unquote, decided to respond. Instead, a number of them chimed in by mocking the size of the ring and laughing at it because it isn't by their standards, too small. There are a couple of male influencers, homosexual alleged conservatives for the most part also joined in the mockery. And I'm not going to say any of their names or put their comments up on the screen. You've probably never heard of them, so their names won't mean anything to you. And also, I don't want to reward this kind of engagement bait pun sort of intended by giving them free publicity on my platform. Suffice it to say, these are some of the most shallow and useless conservative influencers in a market crowded with a whole lot of shallow useless ones. This sniping about the size of the ring devolved quickly into a female right wing influencer cat fight and very soon a whole bunch of them were taking shots at each other, spreading embarrassing gossip. Again, I'm not gonna repeat repeat any of it. I don't know what's true and what isn't. Basically they're all accusing each other of being low class sluts and I have no idea who's right, but when it comes to that, I suspect they all are. All in all, it has been a humiliating week for the right wing E girl community, which is a Change of pace from all the weeks up until now, which have also been humiliating. As embarrassing and ridiculous as all this is, I do think there are two mostly unrelated points worth making. Or maybe they aren't worth making, I don't know. But we will anyway. And first of all, you know, this is kind of like a, I suppose a pet peeve of mine. But this, this thing about ring size. Let's make this clear. Unless you're rich, you should not be spending tens of thousands of dollars on an engagement ring. Putting yourself into five figure debt for the sake of buying jewelry is not a flex. It's not something to brag about things. Makes you a. Now, you've probably heard the rule quote unquote that a man is supposed to spend three months salary on an engagement ring. Well, that rule was invented by, you guessed it, a jewelry company. And you can see why they like the rule. In fact, every company has a rule where you as the customer are supposed to spend a lot of money on whatever they're selling. If you walk into a car dealership, you'll discover that there's a. There's kind of a rule where you're supposed to buy the most expensive type of car with all the features and upgrades. They're very insistent on it. Isn't that funny? Isn't that weird? It's a funny thing about people who sell stuff, they want you to buy the stuff. They want you to spend as much money as they're able to convince you to spend. That's their rule. But your rule as a rational adult should be different. Your rule should be that you buy only what you can afford. Your rule should be that you aren't going to begin your life as a married couple by plunging yourself into staggering debt for the sake of buying a slightly bigger diamond. Spending three months salary on jewelry is insane behavior. I mean, spending three months salary on anything other than a down payment on a house is insane behavior. If you want an actual rule to govern your ring shopping, or at least some kind of guide for it, it's all totally arbitrary. But I'll make us something that at least is more reasonable. If it is still arbitrary, how about this? Spend no more than a week's salary. No more than a week. And now if you're rich, that's enough to buy a sizable ring. If you're not rich, it's enough to buy something extremely modest. And if you're not rich, you shouldn't be pretending that you are rich when you're at the jewelry store. In fact, of all the places to pretend to be rich, that's the worst place. Now, here's another arbitrary, but I think reasonable guidelines. Don't spend five figures on a piece of jewelry unless you have, say, half a million liquid in the bank. You know, even if you have a hundred thousand in the bank, a $10,000 ring, which is the lowest level of five figures, obviously is 10% of your liquid assets. That's foolish to spend that much. Now, when I proposed to my wife, I was very broke. I bought her a discount ring for a few hundred bucks because it was all I could afford. And years later, when I was in a significantly better financial position, I bought her a much more expensive ring. And now I buy her jewelry all the time. I can afford it now. I couldn't back then. I had to earn my way to that position. It took a long time. Took a long time. Most people, if you'll ever get to a point where you can afford $15,000 on a ring or a necklace or something, and a lot of people, you'll just, you'll never be in a spot where you can afford it, which is fine, you know, that's also fine. But if you're going to be in that spot, it's going to take a long time to get there. It takes a long time and a lot of hard work. And you can't cut the line. You cut the line, you're going to pay for it. There are very few like 20, 20 somethings out there who actually can afford 15 grand for a thing that you're going to wear right now. My wife never complained about the modest ring or showed any disappointment at all. And for the first several years of our marriage, when I never bought her any expensive gifts of any kind, she didn't whisper a word of complaint. And. But here's a note for young men. If you're about to propose to a woman who actually expects an expensive ring, who will be disappointed if you stay within your budget, well, here's the good news. You could save your money. Don't propose to her. Break it off right now and go find a woman who is not a superficial, materialistic bimbo. I mean, find a woman who, when you propose, will see you as the prize, not the ring. If, if, if you don't have a lot of money, but you have to pretend you do for her sake. She's not the one, okay? That's a woman who will screw your life up. Run away while you still can. Now, for me, my wife knew that I was broke. There was no hiding it And I never tried to. She got in on the ground floor with me. We built a life together, and that's what you should be looking for. You don't, you don't need a lot of money to get married, but you do need, if you're a man, a woman who isn't materialistic and shallow. And if you have that, then marriage doesn't need to be a great expense. You, you know, these days people have the idea that this is one of the reasons we talked at the start of the show about the declining marriage rates. This is obviously not the whole picture, but part of the picture, part of the reason I think that the rates are declining is that people have this idea that, well, I can't afford to get married. I hear this all the time. I can't afford to get married. What do you mean, afford? There's no entry fee. What do you mean, afford? If anything, you can't afford not to get married. If anything, like teaming up with somebody and working together to build a life that should be more affordable. You should find that life is more affordable after you get married than it was before. But the problem is that these days people have the idea that getting married is expensive because we choose to spend thousands of dollars on the ring, tens of thousands on the wedding reception, thousands more on the honeymoon. We've decided as a culture that, you know, we have to put a six figure price tag on this milestone. It doesn't have to be that way. You, you, you know, in fact, what we've done is we put a six figure price tag on going to college, another six figure price tag to get married. So that if you are, you know, if you're taking the culture as the cue, it seems like, well, you can't do anything. You can't even begin your life unless you're already a millionaire. It's crazy. The whole thing is nuts. I mean, in reality, you can get the ring, the wedding reception, the honeymoon without breaking five grand total, all in. You could do it for less if you wanted to. I mean, you could get married almost for free if you want to. That is, is. It's legal to do that. Did you know you can actually do that? It's, you know, there might be a few bucks you got to spend on the marriage license and that sort of thing, but you can get, I mean, you could get married for like 100 bucks. It's just a question of whether you're willing to be modest and stay within your means or do you insist on relegating all the wedding related expenses into this weird alternate reality where even though you make 55 grand a year, you pretend that you're a wealthy oil baron. And that's entirely up to you. Secondly, a brief note about these female influencers who started all this trouble. There are, at this point, a lot of right wing commentators, podcasters, influencers. I realize I'm one of them. We are legion. Our numbers grow by the day. We are a giant parasitic blob, expanding, threatening to consume the entire country. Pretty soon, half the world's population will be conservative influencers. Okay, it's. It's a highly saturated field, and it's hard to know which of these people you should pay attention to, if any. So let me suggest a few filters that you might use. Filters that would at least sift out the kinds of vain, frivolous airheads that have spent the week, you know, gossiping about each other and making fun of a woman's engagement ring. Okay, so number one, if you're considering listening to any conservative commentator, podcaster, pundit, etc, ask yourself, does this person have any relevant life experience at all? Are they married? Do they have kids? Do they have responsibilities outside of generating content? Number two, has this person ever had an original thought? Have you ever heard or read something from this person and thought to yourself, that's an interesting idea? Hadn't thought of it that way. Or even like, wow, I really disagree with that. That sounds insane, but, you know, I hadn't actually thought about that. That's kind of interesting. Have you ever thought that about this person, whoever it is? Has this person ever offered any kind of unique insight into anything, ever at all? Do they present you with new ideas? Do they help you clarify your own ideas? Is there any evidence that this in any way is a thoughtful person with unique or worthwhile insights at all? And finally, number three, has this person contributed meaningfully to the conservative cause? Can you point to some kind of cultural or political victory that this person played an integral part in? Does this person have any wins under their belt at all? Is there any evidence that this person is an effective cultural or political warrior? If this person didn't exist, if they, if they had never posted a single thing to the Internet, if they had gone off and become a Walmart greeter instead of a conservative influencer, would anything on the cultural or political landscape be different right now? Now, if the answer is no to any of those questions, much less all of them, then this is not a person worth listening to. I mean, they should not have an audience or a platform. And I'm not saying they should be deplatformed. I'm saying that they should be shouting into the wind. They should be ranting in an empty forest with nobody listening because they have absolutely nothing of value to say or contribute. That's the first thing that came to mind with these women that are going on about the ring. It's like I'm. I'm. Some of them never heard before, but I'm looking at them, apparently they're influencers. And I'm running through these. I always do this with someone new, pops up on the scene, or someone at least new to me, new on my radar, and I go, what is this? Are they. What do they do? Do they do anything? What do they have? What have they ever said that's interesting? What are they contributing at all? Have they took apart they? Have they. Have they been involved in any of these wins? Have they done anything? And. And the answer is no. And I think that describes a substantially high number of the people in this space, not just the ridiculous women who've spent all week mocking an engagement ring, but certainly describes them, too, first and foremost. And that is why ultimately, they are today canceled. I'll do it for the show today and for this week. Have a great weekend. I'll talk to you on Monday. Godspeed. ICE offers big money to help them deport illegals. President Trump threatens a federal takeover of Washington, D.C. last I checked, it's already Federal District. And Jim Acosta interviews a dead teenager. Check it out on the Michael Knowles Show.