Matt Walsh thinks (just like the lefties he despises) that he's God

Last year, I wrote about the “pendulum” aspect of politics. I said that the left has gone so insane and so authoritarian that there would be an inevitable right-wing reaction. Most people on the center-left who might have agreed with my analysis probably thought Donald Trump was that “right-wing” reaction.

Nope. Not even close.

Trump is a ripple. The tsunami is still to come.

Lefties have a tendency to shriek that Trump (or anybody who disagrees with any of their insane government policies) is “literally Hitler” and “trying to usher in The Handmaid’s Tale” or some equivalent hyperbolic hysteria.

This is nonsense, of course. But as I warned in my previous article, something like that could well be on the way. There are harbingers of it in two of the conversations Tucker Carlson has had recently. One with Oren Cass, the other with Matt Walsh.

These conversations are fascinating and I recommend you take the time to listen to both. Bob Murphy and I are going to discuss the Oren Cass one in a podcast that comes out this week, but I’ll address the Matt Walsh conversation here.

My biggest complaint with Cass and Walsh is that, from a liberty-loving perspective, they are basically the same as a left-wing progressive. They are the right-wing version of someone who has an opinion about how other people ought to conduct themselves (and what they should be forced to subsidize) and want to use government force to achieve their goals.

I despise left-wing authoritarianism and theft, not because it is left-wing, but because it is authoritarianism and theft. I don’t want the right-wing version of authoritarianism and theft either, guys.

Morality and law are (and must) be different things.

One of the good things about conservatives is that then tend to have a pretty good idea about what set of morals and values and norms tend to be “good” for our species. They’re not always right, in my opinion, but they are often right. When they give advice and demonstrate by their actions the “right” way to be, I stand up and applaud.

In fact, I largely agree with the “vision of the good” as portrayed by Matt Walsh. I think he’s living his life in a good, virtuous way. I think the values he demonstrates and talks about in his work are largely good ones. If that was all his program was, I’d consider him a great force for good in the world.

But then he, like many of these wannabe right-wing authoritarians, picks up a gun and wants to force others to also “do right”. That’s pure poison. That’s the opposite of virtue.

All that demonstrates is that you aren’t actually so virtuous after all. You think you’re some kind of god who has the right to dominate other people and subjugate them to your will. Even worse, in your mind you’re doing it for their own good.

“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.”

— CS Lewis

I've often heard conservatives criticize the left because with their government policies they are "playing God". It’s a good criticism. It’s so tragic, then, to see right-wingers making the exact same error.

You aren’t the God you worship, folks. It is not your place to force other people to “live right”. If you try, you aren’t virtuous, you’re tyrannical. Lead by example, not by fiat.

I am saddened to my core to observe that so many “conservatives” have fallen for the poisonous temptations of the ring of power. Watch the Lord of the Rings again—or better yet, read it. The ring of power corrupts and weakens and destroys. Abandon it for your own sake as well as the sake of all the rest of us.

At one point in this conversation, Matt muses on his personal opinion of alcohol vs. marijuana. Which has social use and which doesn’t? On this basis, he’s prepared to have the government throw people in cages for ingesting the wrong substance, as Matt Walsh sees it. He mocks his former self for ever thinking the War on Drugs was bad, or a net harm on society.

Can’t he hear himself? He sounds just like a progressive leftist deciding for all of us that electric vehicles should be promoted and gas vehicles prohibited. After all, one is a societal good and the other is evil. It’s the exact same analytical framing.

It turns out that Matt Walsh is just another progressive authoritarian, just with a different set of opinions about what is “good” for the rest of us, and what he therefore is justified in forcing us all to do. Way to crack the whip, leftie!

It’s tragic. I’m with him (in spirit) on so many important issues. But then he wants to pick up a gun and poison all his virtue with the sinful lust of power. What a shame.

They’re all post-modernists.

At another part of the conversation, Matt briefly considers how his preferred policies might violate other people’s “rights”. He immediately dismisses the concern by saying that he doesn’t even understand what the word “rights” means.

This exactly mirrors the left’s descent into post-modernism as an excuse for their tyrannical ambitions. Rights aren’t a thing. Words have no meaning. Concepts are garbage. All that matters is the opinions of "my" group and the amount of power we can wield vs the “out” group.

Good lord. Again, can they not hear themselves? They sound exactly like the left.

Near the end of the conversation, Tucker asks Matt why the GOP pushed away social conservatives “like they were circus freaks”. This is why. Because the social conservatives weren’t content to live well and demonstrate their conception of the good to the rest of us.

Instead (much like the evil, poisonous, authoritarian left they despise) these social conservatives decided to pick up the ring of power and use the coercive state to force their beliefs on everybody else. The GOP* got sick of trying to defend this obvious injustice, so they began to ignore this part of their base.

Virtue becomes vice the second you decide to force it upon other people. Until we recognize this essential truth, we are lost as a society. And because we are lost, we will continue to be pounded by left-wing tsunamis followed by right-wing tsunamis, on and on until we are destroyed.

Let’s not, shall we? Let’s figure out the problem here—hint, it’s that lust for power—and stop the cycle. Who’s with me?

Naturally,

Adam

*Please do not confuse this as an endorsement of the GOP. It is not.