Mr. Right: What Matt Walsh Gets Wrong
This week, conservative commentator Matt Walsh ignited an online firestorm for praising intolerance as a virtue.
By John Loftus and Dylan Housman
Welcome back to Mr. Right, a newsletter about navigating modern manhood for normal guys in a not-normal world. This week, we discuss whether intolerance is a virtue, and why you should never eat out for breakfast – unless you’re going to a Waffle House.
What Matt Walsh Gets Wrong About Intolerance
This week, conservative commentator Matt Walsh ignited an online firestorm for praising intolerance as a virtue.
During a discussion about socialist candidate Zohran Mamdani, Islam, and mosques cropping up across America, Walsh said that he is not afraid to condemn Muslims and show them zero tolerance. (Socialist Mamdani Hits Campaign Trail At Terror-Linked Imam’s Mosque)
“You know what, I’m not even going to tolerate this. I am actively opposed to this. I think it’s bad. I don’t want it in my community, and I don’t want it in my country,” Walsh said. “We need to be intolerant. Intolerance is a virtue. Intolerance is good, intolerance is holy, intolerance is Christian, intolerance is moral and courageous.”
There’s a lot to unpack here, but I want to focus less on what sparked his argument in the first place – the debate about Islam in America – and more on how treating intolerance as some “holy” virtue can quickly turn into a slippery slope.
Walsh does have a point that intolerance can be moral and courageous. For example, the people who eventually stood up to Harvey Weinstein were intolerant of his grotesque behavior. A whistleblower who calls out government malfeasance is intolerant, yet deeply moral and courageous.
He also seems to understand the minority rule, which is that a small band of intolerant people can force a larger but passive group into accepting their preference. We see the minority rule in daily life all the time. There is always that one kid in class who has a peanut allergy and forces the teacher to ban peanuts for everyone else.
So, yes, there are times when intolerance is of the utmost necessity. Being intolerant in all facets of life, though, is simply a better-sounding word for being an a**hole.
For example, if your kid cannot bring a PB&J to class because his peer goes red in the face when peanut products are nearby, are you going to be intolerant and raise hell at the parent/teacher conference to repeal the ‘tyrannical’ peanut ban? Of course not. That would make you a Karen.
Should you get mad at your spouse because they left an empty coffee mug on the nightstand? Should you tell the old lady holding up the entire checkout line at the grocery store to move faster? The list of examples is endless.
Walsh probably gets this – at least I’d hope so. When he discusses intolerance as a virtue, he’s talking about it in a political context. But he speaks to a large audience, mostly young, impressionable men who may take his point too far into their personal or professional lives. Walsh often talks about how the left needs to be destroyed and dismantled. But should a devoted Walsh fan really treat an anti-Trump liberal who shares a cubicle with him at work as an existential enemy?
My view is this: Intolerance only for the intolerant. Never punch down. Follow the silver rule: don’t do to others what you would not want them to do to you. And, to borrow from the great and late Christopher Hitchens, “A gentleman is never rude except on purpose.”
He Has A Point: Eating Out For Breakfast?
This week’s He Has A Point goes to the great O.W. Root, a writer from Michigan, for his take on eating out for breakfast.
For Root, breakfast is “the worst meal” to have at a restaurant, and I couldn’t agree more.
Most breakfast foods at a sit-down restaurant could be easily made at home. Scrambled eggs? Omelette? Breakfast potatoes? Pancakes? These are not only simple to make, they are cheap.
Of course, there are some exceptions, like Waffle House. The food at Waffle House isn’t great, to say the least. But you are going there for the electric atmosphere. The booths. The counter. The old school diner feel. The people-watching.
You are better off eating a light breakfast or just skipping it and waiting for the lunch menu. Or, better yet, whipping up some breakfast at home.
O.W. has a point.
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