Ben Shapiro answers audience questions. Ben Shapiro is editor-in-chief of The Daily Wire and host of “The Ben Shapiro Show,” the top conservative podcast in the nation. Shapiro is the author of seven nonfiction books, including The New York Times bestseller Bullies: How the Left’s Culture of Fear and Intimidation Silences America (Simon & Schuster, 2012).
so i know you’re in favor of the
legalization of marijuana
based on like your past yeah
decriminalization yeah
but um what is your opinions on like any
regulations we should impose on it
so obviously i think you need age
regulations uh i think you have to
ensure that the weird thing about
decriminalization of marijuana is that
this free price is so cheap
that decriminalizing it to the point
where it’s still not beneficial to buy
it illegally is is a little bit
difficult
uh the reason i’m for decriminalization
of marijuana by the way is not because i
like marijuana i think people who smoke
it are losers
uh and
it smells terrible and you’re wasting
your brain cells the reason that the
reason that
i’m in favor of decriminalization is
because the government is terrible at
everything
and the and whatever levels of
criminalization have taken place have
done nothing to prevent
the access to marijuana for young people
they’ve just done nothing i mean
when i was in junior high in public
school walter reed middle school people
were selling it on the playground
uh so that’s not so it’s you know um
i i think that criminal treating it like
cigarettes is probably the best way to
do it
you know a heavy tax and uh and
decriminalization to the point where if
you’re above a certain age you can use
it like alcohol or cigarettes makes
the sense to me thank you all right
thank you next question
how do we stop the media with what
they’re doing dividing us they’re
dividing us greatly how could we
exchange something to make it different
what can we
do well i mean i think the first thing
you can do is stop watching cnn and
msnbc
i don’t i i figured i figured from your
question i was assuming that
um but i mean the the good news is that
i think that the
the age of a dominant left media is
basically over the fragmentation of the
media is is one of the reasons i’m
hopeful
the fragmentation of the media has taken
place like our website which didn’t
exist three years ago now gets 140
million pages a month
so this is so and we’re not unique in
that area like there are a lot of places
that are getting
more viewership also i think more
long-form engagement is happening too
and one of the problems that i have with
cable tv as in general is that you have
to make an argument in two minutes flat
or three minutes flat which encourages
you to make the broadest possible
version of the argument
and also to straw man the arguments uh
yeah we’re we’re all better off watching
you know hour-long exchanges than than
we are watching sort of the cable news
cycle
uh and right now it seems like the the
polarization that’s happening on cable
news
is largely driving a lot of the hatred
because the easiest way but the easiest
shortcut in politics to victory is to
attack the character the people you’re
talking about
and it’s something i’ve been trying to
work on myself because it’s so hard not
to just call people stupid
but it’s but but with that said
uh yeah there’s a there’s a jewish
principle called don the cuffs close
which is to suggest that
you have to assume the best of
intentions on the part of people uh
as general rule that doesn’t happen too
much uh in cable news but
i think the threat of the mainstream
media is waning i think president trump
has demonstrated that’s one thing
president trump has demonstrated full
scale
uh you know this is what i’ve always
said about president trump
is that president trump is a hammer in
search of a nail sometimes he gets a
nail
i mean sometimes it’s a nail sometimes
it’s a baby but when he hits it
but when he when he hits a nail it’s
deeply satisfying and when he and when
he’s hitting the media for being
dishonest it’s obvious that they are not
only being dishonest
in how they cover some stories but that
they are dishonest about their
central reason for being they say that
they’re there to objectively cover the
truth and they are not
which is why there’s a poll just last
week showing that well 58 percent of
americans didn’t trust president trump
to tell the truth
64 of americans thought that the media
were more polarizing than trump
which is an amazing statistic so yeah i
think the media are on their way out i
think they got a problem
hi ben i had a question regarding the
current state of the republican party
back in august matt walsh you know
contributor to you
wrote that the greatest betrayal of the
republican party was the fully funded
planned parenthood
and their obvious spending bill we have
a republican
house a senate and a president and he
still signed that bill yep and one of
their main pledges was that they were
going to defund planned parenthood
and now our party is complicit in
funding the largest
provider of abortions so i’d like to get
your comment on that yeah i mean i think
that the real question for president
trump was was he willing to actually
veto
because the fact is that this one came
down to the senate there’s such a slim
margin in the senate and you have people
like susan collins and lisa murkowski
obviously
uh who were going to vote against any
budget that withdrew supposedly
but in my view is it worth trying to
hold their feet to the fire you bet
there’s no there is no reason that the
house ever should have passed a bill
that included funding for planned
parenthood
and if the senate wished to pass its own
version of the bill then the house
simply should have said we refuse to
take it up
if we have to shut down the government
in order to defund planned parenthood
then shut down the government
uh over the last few years uh we’ve had
i think about what five million people i
think leave california
to go to places like oregon nevada uh
arizona including myself actually
uh do you think that the massive
migration of like middle class people
who moved out of the state do you think
that also had some
has something to do with a lot of the
policies that have been passed over the
last few of course
yeah there’s no question that’s the case
the people who are middle class upper
middle class
if you’re very wealthy in the state of
california it’s still possible to
survive in the state of california
particularly if you’re not really doing
it a lot through income right if you’re
doing it through a lot of passive income
then it’s possible to still live here
and it’s a beautiful place to live like
you’re not going to see people who are
exorbitantly wealthy
moving from malibu out to dallas it’s
human in dallas
but it’s
and if you’re very poor then there are a
lot of social benefits to stay in
california but we do have an
extraordinarily bifurcated state
the changing demographics of the state
of california do obviously have a
massive impact and i think that’s less
true in terms of racial demographics
than economic demographics i think that
bifurcation has created a bunch of very
wild left rich people and a bunch of
poor people who
are looking at the rich people and
saying okay give us a hand here and
that’s and that’s been
a serious problem for sure
hi um so i know the migrant caravan is a
really big issue right now and i just
wanted to know what how do you think
that the u.s should respond do you think
that it should be like how trump is
saying how we should
once they come we should greet them with
military or do you believe in a more
peaceful approach so first of all
so i will say and i don’t know you know
this is not popular necessarily in a lot
of conservative circles these days i
think the the
quote unquote threat of the migrant
caravan has been wildly exaggerated
what i mean by that is not that illegal
immigration is not a threat i spent half
the speech talking about illegal
immigration
what i mean is that there was a migrant
caravan last year by the time it reached
the border it was like 300 people
they went to a port of entry about 100
of them ended up being able to be
granted asylum and 200 of them were
deported
okay the idea that there are 10 000
people who are arriving armed with guns
and rocks and they’re just going to try
to break through the border i haven’t
seen the evidence of that
and if that evidence were to occur then
i think that
the kind of troop search that president
trump is talking about at the border
then you might think maybe that’s that’s
worthwhile right i mean this this troop
surge is legitimately the size of the
last troop surge in afghanistan
uh to meet what will probably be a
couple of thousand people who arrive at
points of entry
now i’ve been in favor of the wall i was
in favor of a physical
border a hardened barrier between the
united states and mexico before
president trump was i will when he no
longer is right i mean i think that
that that that is a necessity and the
same way that israel has a border
uh so it’s it makes perfect sense to me
to have that border but
this notion that is being played up that
this is a crisis
the migrant caravan itself is a crisis i
think that that’s being played up for
political purposes now what president
trump has done that smart
is he’s trolled the left into responding
in the stupidest possible way so what
the left has said
like really this is this is one of his
areas of genius president trump will say
something
i don’t think that it’s advertent i
don’t think he’s doing it on purpose but
he’s really good at it
he says something
he says something that there’s like a
center core of truth to it
but it’s wrapped up in this bundle of
manure and
what and and then the left responds to
the bundle of manure and in the process
they throw out the central truth so
trump says stuff like the migrant
caravan is a crisis
we have to send people to the border now
if people show up with rocks we should
shoot them
right i mean he says these sorts of
things and then the left goes
what this guy’s a racist he’s a ra and
everybody who agrees with him is a
racist and illegal immigration is not a
problem at all there is no problem with
illegal immigration why are we worried
about our southern border at all anybody
who is worried about our southern border
is a racist
so now if you’re a voter you have a
choice you can either go with the guy
who says illegal immigration is a crisis
or you can go with the people who say
that illegal immigration not only is not
a crisis it’s not a problem
at all and anybody who believes that it
is a problem is a racist
and so you end up with these two
positions that are both like if
democrats had a brain in their head what
they would say is
listen illegal immigration is a problem
here are some sane ways of handling
illegal immigration there’s no reason to
exaggerate
the problem of this migration we should
have people on the border to stop
it people should go to ports of entry we
have ways of handling this but
exaggerating it is obviously a ploy for
political purposes democrats won’t do
that because they hate trump so much
that anything he does
they just like themselves on fire so
it’s
hey hey ben uh big big fan i know you’re
for defunding planned parenthood
what part just the abortion part uh well
if you defend the abortion part then the
entire
organization collapsed well hold on wait
a minute wait wait wait wait hold on
what is the vast majority of money that
they make is based on performance
performances
so you’re against welfare uh against
wic against food stamps right we don’t
want to give any money to those people
right
well what i’m in favor of is local
societal help for folks who are in
trouble i don’t believe in
broad-based federal programs that create
bad incentive structures
okay so so let me let me let me say it
this way so somebody okay
last statement so somebody could go to
plan
i’d be for rather paying than for
food stamps or welfare or wic which i
don’t want to pay for anyways
okay uh you’re against my tax dollars
our tax dollars going for
free condoms and birth control to say
that anybody’s not going to have sex
until marriage that that’s an ignorant
statement people are going to have sex
regardless so
could you give them free birth control
and condoms and our tax dollars pay for
that
all right we’re going to okay so let’s
let’s answer that so
my my general rule is if you don’t want
me in your bedroom then let me stay out
of your bedroom
meaning that i’ve been told that it’s
none of my business what you do in your
bedroom and i’m totally cool with that i
don’t want to be in there man that’s
that’s wild
you know but but it’s
but that also means that i’m not going
to subsidize your sex life if you
and frankly i am bewildered i’m just
bewildered by the argument that it is
difficult to obtain birth control in
this country
that’s an insane contention it’s an
insane contention i mean have these
people been to a cvs
i i also will say just on a moral basis
on a moral basis i really don’t like the
argument ah people are gonna have sex
anyway yeah people are gonna do a lot of
stuff anyway doesn’t mean i have to
subsidize it like i was
you know as
as um as the man who was in all
likelihood the most prominent
and open virgin in america until
marriage uh like i
like really this is you know it’s it’s
not even a laugh line it was a point of
pride for me it’s a moral
because i believe that it i believe it’s
a moral thing like
because i believe that marriage was
designed to contain sex like this was
this is what marriage was designed to do
and separating marriage from sex has led
to
such significant ramifications for the
society in terms of single motherhood in
terms of the demeaning of women
in terms of the rise of pornography in
terms of the destruction of
relationships between men and women
it’s been absolutely terrible so i’m
so i don’t i was 24 when i was gone
when i got married which means i was a
virgin until i was 24. my wife was a
virgin until she got married
that is a good thing and the fact that
and just because popular culture has
decided to mock people who i think try
to make good moral decisions about their
sex life
popular culture is full of crap
oh hey what’s up ben my name is joel
piggybacking on that
mom and dad taught you that my wife and
i proud virgins
my brother and his wife proud virgins so
i’m good with that i’m proud of it
uh this question stems actually from a
debate we had last week with california
professional firefighters union
president
polls show that 70 percent of firemen
and policemen are conservative and
they’re republican
but yet we give our votes constantly to
the democratic party we throw our names
out for this crappy gas tax
for the you know the dialysis center
just a bunch of nonsense
that obviously unions have a bad look at
but
as a cow as a fireman as a policeman we
again have been giving our vote out what
can we do what can i do
to bridge that gap of those 70 percent
of conservatives
and win that vote how can we bridge the
gap with the republicans and go hey
i know there’s a bad rap with unions but
what can we do in order
to change that vote and change the
demographic i mean the
the fact is that i mean obviously you’re
right that the money that is being spent
by all of these
unions uh is going toward democrats
because there’s a corrupt bargain
between the unions and the legislators
in the state of california and the
corrupt bargain is that if we spend a
lot of money getting you guys elected
you will then sign pension rich
contracts
that do not pay out over time simply
because the money’s not there i mean
they’re lying
about listen here’s the reality they’re
lying to the police they’re lying to
firefighters when they say that this
money is in the pension funds they are
lying to you it is nonsense
they’re saying that stuff is accruing at
like eight percent a year okay if i
could get eight percent a year on my
money i’d put my money in there
like the calper and this is true for
virtually every public
union in in the state of california
which is why what you’re seeing in
cities like stockton is that the first
people who are getting nailed are the
police and the firefighters
right this is this is what’s happening
all over the state of california so
listen i’ve been long in favor of of
right to work states
i think that getting rid of a corrupt
system by which the state
takes wages out of the pockets of
professionals and then gives them to
unions to be spent on
the election of those legislators again
that is corrupt and terrible
and the only way that’s going to stop is
if people are able to actually
you know form voluntary associations
without the imprimatur of the state if
you want to negotiate with your boss
that’s fine but
if you want to negotiate with the state
of california on the basis of
legislation that is promulgated
that’s a that’s a real problem that’s a
real problem the unions are public
sector unions are a threat and i know
that
it’s become unpopular even in
conservative circles to talk about
public sector unions for cops and
firefighters because we love cops and
firefighters but the fact is that the
logic is no different than it is for any
other
public sector employee and if we’re not
willing to say that
then that’s what we’re gonna get we’re
gonna get a lot of money that is spent
by you know unions that don’t even
represent their own constituents
politically now there can be regulations
that are put in place
that prevent the the use of those monies
for politics themselves uh which would
be another way of doing this if you
don’t want to actually just get rid of
the unions then what you do is you say
they’re not allowed to spend this money
on politicking they can only spend this
money
on services for their own members
hi i just wanted to ask you if there was
ever a specific point in your life
where uh you just got really into
politics
and what should young people like me do
to start a career in politics
okay so
so i honestly can’t remember a time when
i wasn’t into politics i was always very
into history
the first chapter book i remember
reading was i think i was four and a
half and i was reading
like a chapter bio of benjamin franklin
so i was always into this stuff
um it’s uh yeah i i
like i found a paper that i wrote when i
was 12 about the impeachment of bill
clinton
so
at 12 even at 12 i was in favor by the
way um
but i i think that to
you know the way to get involved
professionally in politics there are a
couple of different
paths right if you want to be involved
in electoral politics then getting an
internship with a congress person
uh going to work for a think tank like
the heritage foundation is great
if you want to be sort of in the
commentary what i always say is that
you have to you have to have a
comparative advantage
where are you an expert that nobody else
is an expert pick a field get really
good at it and suddenly you’re offering
facts that nobody else has because
the truth is that uh you know in the in
the clean version
opinions are like armpits uh everyone
has them but that’s it but
uh but
but people start listening to your
opinion if you actually have facts at
your disposal that nobody else has
and so learning a lot reading
incessantly is the best way to get into
this and then when you get old enough
when you go to college
uh and you are at college what i’ve said
to every college student is if you
is what one of my mentors andrew
breitbart told me which is
if you have a cell phone you’re now a
reporter right you’re in a you’re in an
area where you can report on things that
are of relevance to a huge swath of the
public and you should be reporting on
that if you can get away with it
um but you know learning and reading
incessantly like i put on my podcast i
recommend basically a book a day or a
book every couple of days
uh and i am people kept asking me to
post a reading list i’m going to have to
but you should read economics in one
lesson by henry haslet to give yourself
a basic
understanding of economics basic
economics by thomas soules another one
you should read uh uh probably a people
a a history of the united states by paul
johnson
which is a really good thick history of
the united states
you should read the federalist papers
like there’s certain foundational
documents that are worth reading and
getting to know
hey bang big fan um first i want to
thank you for being you
um well you’re you’re awesome dude well
thank you
um i really have a choice in the matter
thank you
it’s a blessing um i’m i’m assuming that
you’ve read
tolstoy’s the kingdom of god is within
you i know actually
no oh jeez i don’t know sorry i didn’t i
didn’t mean to destroy yourself
a lot of other tolstoy but go ahead um
he posits um basically a radical
teaching of um
christ turned the other cheek which is
like no violence
in any way whatsoever and i was
she’s not enough this is no it’s fine i
i can get your premise that’s it yeah
um i was wondering if you agreed with
that and also how you would rectify that
with the second amendment
so this is one of the areas where i’m
real fortunate to be a jew um
[Applause]
so
so the reality is that you know my
understanding and
this is this is where i’ll actually ask
for a hand but
tell me if my if my understanding of
this is correct my understanding of turn
the other cheek is not that if somebody
is violent to you
that your job is to be pacifist in the
face of violence it’s that you’re
supposed to
is that in seoul you’re supposed to be
humble enough to understand a rebuke
the new testament and the old testament
support the second amendment
the turning wait wait the turning of the
other cheek was when you’re personally
insulted
versus attacked maligned somebody
breaking into your home
the bible says new testament says that
if you do not provide for your family
you are worse than an infidel and that
also means self-defense
so i have to say i’m really liking this
format i can like tag out for a
christian
that’s great it’s like macho man randy
savage coming in from the top rope right
there
generation z is probably more
conservative than baby boomers
how are we supposed to convince our
peers that a uh
a life full of responsibility and uh
judeo-christian values
is going to be more beneficial to our
souls in the long run than engaging in
immediate pleasures so i think that
that’s something we have to be
it’s a great question and this is the
only question that really matters right
um i think that
the the key is that kids have to be
taught from a very young age that
responsibility falls on them and that
that’s a good thing
you know it’s really interesting when
you bring up young kids right now i have
two kids so i can say this
kids like rules and they like
responsibility um
every kid when they’re when they’re
three four or five years old they want
to be an adult
right now that we’re adults this is one
of the big problems we have in our
country is that all the adults now want
to be kids but
all the but kids actually want
responsibility they want to be
given rules they want the idea that they
have been granted the capacity to shape
the world around them it’s empowering
to them kids want to be given the
feeling that their life is an adventure
when you you a kid like small
kids you them when you give them
everything you them when you
tell them
that everything is going to be provided
for them without work and
i think that the human soul resonates to
that i i said this the other day on
my podcast i was talking about the fact
that america is a significantly less
mobile society than we were 30 years ago
and i think it’s a serious problem i
think that it used to be
actually you’ll see a preview so
tomorrow um we air this
uh sunday special that i did with tucker
carlson uh
and and i like tucker but i have some
pretty significant disagreements with
tucker uh
and tucker is uh i will say that tucker
you know calls himself sort of a
populist on economics he’s a lot closer
to bernie sanders than he is to me on a
lot of these issues
uh and you’ll see like when you watch
the sunday special it’s pretty
fascinating he pretty much
and he he’ll admit this he’ll say this
uh and one of the things that he says
is he says you know why should it be
that people who are in towns where
they’re losing jobs you’re asking them
to leave
the the gravestone of their father and
their grandfather and move out to north
dakota
and get a fracking job and i said to him
right because god told abraham leave the
house of your fathers
and go to a land that i will show you
right all you are guaranteed in this
life is adventure
and that’s a wonderful thing to be
guaranteed right that’s what god
guaranteed you when you were born god
said to you
i’m going to put you in a place where
you don’t know what’s coming and you
don’t know what’s coming next and all
you have is the capacity to make choices
that make your life better
all you have is the ability to go out
and shape your future and that’s true
we we are when i say we are privileged i
don’t think we’re privileged because
we’re rich in the united states i mean
we are privileged because we have the
capacity to shape that adventure
we have the capacity to make those
choices in non-free societies you don’t
have any of those choices those choices
are not there
and when you say to a young person go
out and make your own choices
and that’s really when i say facts don’t
care about your feelings that’s really
what i mean because what i mean is that
reality exists you can either embrace it
and you can grapple with it
right you can be you can be jacob
wrestling with the angels meaning
wrestling with fate
you can be you can be jacob wrestling
with reality
and you can overcome right you can
that’s what you can do
and this is a common theme throughout
the bible it’s also a common theme
throughout the history of the
enlightenment western civilization
right the the the the verse in genesis
where god talks to cain
right he says you have an evil
inclination but you can overcome it
right team shall you can overcome it
right that’s a unique idea
and it’s an important idea and i think
that young people resonate to that
because young people do want to change
the world people who are 17 18 years old
don’t want to be told that their future
is going to be reliant
on a universal basic income where
they’re going to sit there and
somebody’s going to send them a check in
the mail and their entire life is going
to consist of them sitting in a darkened
room looking at a screen playing video
games what they actually want to be told
is they can change the world and one of
the dangers in a free society is that 17
18 years olds who are not
you know given a purpose when they think
about changing the world they think okay
bernie you know
single-payer healthcare get involved in
politics what usually what we should be
saying to them is no we mean when we say
change the world
is build something go out and build
something build a family build a
fundamental building block of our
civilization
that’s what’s going to make you happy
hi ben it is very nice to have you it is
my unenviable task to say we have time
for one more question
i uh go ahead it’s it’s okay
okay two more two more two more
questions
i’m so sorry i wish we had more time but
please go ahead we have time for two
more thank you for coming and my
question is
how should the republican party reach
out to uh
latino in hispanic borders considering
that a great majority of
us are actually uh conservatives
i’m one of the few latinas in my
community that are actually republican
and when i reach out to my community
i’m labeled a racist and a traitor so
how do you how how should the republican
party
reach out to a community that is
actually a very
big market for the ideology that the
republican party stands for
and um a follow-up question today
if it’s
[Applause]
yeah i’ll sign that for you um if the uh
as far as the first question
uh you know i spoke at the california
republican party convention in 2012
2011 2012 somewhere in there and one of
the things that i said
at the podium is that as many of us as
possible should work on learning spanish
this is not to say that folks who who
don’t speak spanish shouldn’t learn
english they obviously should
and so we can speak the same language
but the language of conservatism is not
relegated to english
the language of ideas spans all
languages so the first thing we can do
is actually communicate in a language
that folks
speak in so that would be helpful now
the second thing that we can do is as i
said before when we see racism when we
see things that are
that are racially tinged we should
forcibly call them out
and separate off from them and that’s
important to do because otherwise people
it lends credence to the lie that
democrats like to promulgate that folks
on the right are racist
uh the third thing that we have to do is
we actually have to talk about what are
the central priorities so i’ve seen some
conflicting polls about the hispanic
community that are kind of interesting
so more socially conservative but also
more in favor of government services
than than some of the
than uh some other immigrant communities
in the united states
and so we sort of have to recognize that
as a fundamental truth
but i really believe that for every
community
what has to be reinforced is that
in a free society you’re either going to
be dependent on private industry or
you’re going to be dependent on
government
and this is where in a state like
california it’s actually deeply
imperative that we reach out and we go
into particularly impoverished
communities of every race
and what we do is we make clear
opportunities for them from the private
sector so for example i think that we
should be going in
and and paying people’s bus tickets and
first months rent to go get a job in the
area where they can get a job
i think that we should be i think that
major corporations should be going into
areas and saying to young students
listen you get straight a’s we’ll pay
for your college and then you come work
for us for three years
right there are programs that exist like
this for some major corporations now all
of this would be would be changing the
math a little bit
but the first thing you have to do is
you have to forcibly fight back on the
idea that you’re a racist so i mean
honestly
my response when somebody says that i’m
a racist is
you’re a jackass pardon the language um
and the reason that i
and the reason that i say that the
reason that i say that is because
you cannot grant them the the premise
that is even rational to call you racist
right you have to say it makes you a bad
person to call me a racist without
evidence
once we take that off the table we can
talk policy but if you’re going to make
a character attack on me i’m not going
to sit here and take that and i’m not
interested in having a conversation with
you
amen
all right one more question final
question of the evening
either ben appreciate you allowing me to
ask my question um
ultimately something i’ve been
struggling with is i’m a very strong
proponent like you of the pro-life
viewpoint
and a big reason that is is because i uh
think that’s god’s job and not ours to
determine the intrinsic value of a life
uh because of that i’ve recently
struggled with the idea of the death
penalty how have you balanced those
contradictions
so um number one i think that babies are
innocent people who kill people are not
um that’s that’s that’s really the the
central contention of death penalty
i think the death penalty exists for a
couple of reasons on a purely secular
level so you know without quoting the
bible and
you know if you shed blood by man shall
your blood be shed and all that um
the the secular rationales for the death
penalty are are twofold one is
the supposed deterrence effect i
actually think that that one is less
important than the second one
which is that there is a certain amount
of retributive justice that is necessary
for a society to function
and if you do not have you see this in
a lot of societies that don’t have rule
of law it’s fair to say that in a rule
of law society like the united states
the death penalty is
a little bit less important than it
would be in other societies but you
particularly see this in societies where
there isn’t
a solid rule of law where if one if a
member of one group kills a member of
another group and there is no death
penalty
and there’s no good jail system for
example then a member of the second
group will then go and kill somebody as
a member of the first group and this is
how you get tribal warfare
uh and this is why the idea of putting
people to death for committing murder
was originally
proposed you know on a secular level by
societies was you commit a murder
the state has it the state has an
interest in killing you because we can’t
have
this lead off a cycle of revenge that
you see i mean forget about
in less developed society you see this
in gang warfare on a routine basis right
i mean this is basically
half the crime in the united states so
that exists on a secular level
as far as you know the morality i i
really don’t think the two are in any
way
similar i think that if if you kill
if if you rape and kill a child you
should die
uh if you are an innocent child in the
womb you should not it’s pretty pretty
simple
logic there as far as the efficacy of
the death penalty in the united states i
think there’s serious questions to be
asked whether the death penalty is
properly applied in the united states
uh in my opinion it’s not applied
consistently or enough uh
if you’re going to actually apply you
have to apply it you can’t do this
routine where people stay on death row
for 40 years
and then and even then it’s unevenly
applied
i think the best case can be made for
abolition of the death penalty is not a
moral case it’s in it’s a government
sucks at everything case because i’m
always warm to that case because
the government sucks at everything okay
well thank you all so much i really
appreciate your time have a wonderful
week