The Moral Necessity of Choosing Courage and Happiness with Dennis Prager
Charlie sits down with one of his mentors and a great American thinker, radio host, biblical scholar, and founder of PragerU, Dennis Prager. In this wide-ranging discussion, Charlie, an evangelical, and Dennis, a Jew, discuss the importance of faith in the pursuit of wisdom, the virtue of choosing happiness, and the moral and medical disaster of the lockdowns. The two also discuss how everything the left touches they destroy, why transgender women athletes are cheats, and the necessity of choosing to be courageous. Finally, Charlie and Dennis reflect on a topic Charlie has been wanting to discuss with Dennis for a few months–the relevance of emails, conversations, or texts sent in private as epitomized by the firing of NFL coach John Gruden. Support the show: http://www.charliekirk.com/supportSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Transcriber: nvidia/parakeet-tdt-0.6b-v2, sat-12l-sm, and large-v3-turbo
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Taking Faith Seriously00:14:43
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Dennis Prager is here.
Buckle up.
Here we go.
Charlie, what you've done is incredible here.
Maybe Charlie Kirk is on the college campuses.
I want you to know we are lucky to have Charlie Kirk.
Charlie Kirk's running the White House, folks.
I want to thank Charlie.
He's an incredible guy.
His spirit, his love of this country, he's done an amazing job building one of the most powerful youth organizations ever created, Turning Point USA.
We will not embrace the ideas that have destroyed countries, destroyed lives, and we are going to fight for freedom on campuses across the country.
That's why we are here.
Hey, everybody, welcome to this episode of the Charlie Kirk Show.
With us is one of my mentors and heroes.
Wow.
Dennis Prager.
Well, let me just say, if I am one of your mentors or one of your heroes, I've accomplished a lot.
Because you, you.
I was telling somebody about you, and you'll probably get embarrassed, but it doesn't matter.
Every generation throws out exceptional people.
It's just a fact of history.
You're one of them.
Thank you.
That does embarrass me.
I knew it.
I knew it.
It was said to embarrass you.
I'm almost done with the rational Bible, Genesis.
It's very good.
That's the work of my life, my Bible commentary.
If every one of your viewers, if half of them read it, I think it's, I do believe, as awful as it is for the author to say, it's transformative.
It really is.
The rational Bible is the name, by the way.
So Genesis and Exodus.
Right, Deuteronomy is coming out next year.
It would have come out this year, but they didn't have paper.
All the shortages, isn't that amazing?
And there's another reason.
Do you know you'll find this interesting?
In my contract with every publisher is a paper quality clause.
Really?
I will not allow a book of mine printed on fish paper, fish wrapping paper, which is what most books are published on today.
Of course.
Right.
So the book is beautiful aside from meaningful.
But it needs to be.
Yes, it does.
It's a very important thing.
I couldn't agree more.
So I thought you'd find that of interest.
Anyway, it's called The Rational Bible.
I pray that you people will.
It really is.
Yes, it is.
And it's written for people of no faith.
Correct.
Or Christians, Jews.
It's irrelevant.
Irrelevant.
Do you know who I have in mind while I write the book?
This will blow your mind.
I'm not kidding.
A Chinese peasant who never heard of the word Bible.
Really?
Yes.
Can I make this explicable to this person?
Then I've achieved my goal.
And so you found that through, what, your whole life of Torah study, that there's rational explanations.
Correct, for everything.
For everything.
Yeah, my route to faith is purely through reason.
It's a blessing.
Sometimes it's a curse.
I'm not mystical, to be honest.
And I don't find appealing, non-rational things, things that don't make sense, don't appeal to me.
And I make sense of everything in the first five books of the Bible, which are the most important books to a Christian or a Jew.
As I point out to Christians, Jesus only knew the Torah.
And he quoted Deuteronomy.
Well, he certainly did.
Satan.
Loving God and loving humans.
It comes from there.
You know, it's whatever your faith or no faith.
Anyway, it's written so that you will get wisdom from the greatest book ever written.
And so Leviticus is down the road.
Correct.
And then Numbers is.
Numbers is next.
I'm working on Numbers now, which is the worst name for a book possible.
It's like one Christian Bible scholar said, you might as well title it a phone directory.
It's so unappealing.
Do you know what the Hebrew name for the book is?
No, I don't.
In the wilderness.
Isn't that a little more inviting?
Of course.
So how did we get to numbers?
Oh, because there's a census in the first chapter.
Really?
Yes.
But in the Hebrew, the title is...
The title is In the Wilderness.
That's much more inviting.
No kidding.
No.
I have to compliment you, though.
As a Christian, it has been so helpful and written very fairly and just really, really wise and insightful.
So I got in a debate last night with some friends of mine that we were having dinner after all of this, really good friends and really big supporters of the organization.
I say, okay, your dog is stranger.
Fascinating.
Which would you say first?
Right.
And they chose the dog.
You're trying to tell me you wouldn't save Otto and the stranger?
That's correct.
I would save the stranger.
That's the best example you could give of do you follow your values or your heart?
See, this is, are they Christians the people you debated with?
Yes.
Right.
So I thought so.
So here is a perfect example of how seriously do most people take their religion?
And the answer is not very.
That's correct.
It's not an attack.
It's not a criticism.
People are human.
But that's a perfect example.
If the Bible warns us against anything repeatedly, it's following our heart.
And here are Christians telling you, I would follow my heart and let a human drown.
Humans are created in God's image.
Dogs are not.
And I'll let the human drown because my heart prompts me to my dog.
And you say this is a dog lover.
Of course.
Because the accusation, some people that would say that.
No, no, listen, you better understand the attachment.
Most dogs like I do.
Right, okay.
Which is a silly argument.
It's a totally silly argument because, well, the better example than me is my wife, who's who will bend down to the ground and give Otto a kiss.
And Snoopy.
And Snoopy.
Thank you.
It's amazing that people know both our dogs since only one is on camera.
And Nate the Great.
I'm very touched that you know the fireside show.
I know you know every single one.
Nate the Great.
What were his parents thinking is the real question?
Okay, so let me explain to those who don't know.
They have no idea.
I do a weekly fireside chat.
Which is another game changer, I have to say.
And it's a brilliance behind it, and it's the fact that you guys are so intent on time.
That's right.
It really leaves you demanding more.
I'm not kidding.
Anyway, go ahead.
No, no, you're right.
We ended a half hour.
Sometimes Otto walks out a half hour.
It's hilarious.
Sometimes he snores.
Oh, that's often.
Nate the Great is the videographer.
And he's single, if anyone's listening.
Yes.
So he can't believe that the country knows that his parents nicknamed him Nate the Great.
And now even more people know it.
And now even more people know it.
I love the guy.
And like everywhere, as you know, I try to get everybody married.
Yes.
I do.
You know, talking about, here's a great example of taking your faith seriously.
I had dinner recently at a speech of mine.
I won't even say what city.
And I was with, they put me wonderfully with five young people, all in their early, under 25, okay?
And who were big fans of mine and who were all committed Christians, some Catholic, some Protestant.
And I asked them about the marriage issue.
I asked them if you can get one guarantee.
I asked the women because it's particularly of interest to me.
I asked the three girls or women.
A question I ask almost any woman I meet, even in an elevator.
And that is, if you could have one guarantee, a guaranteed great marriage or a guaranteed great career, doesn't mean you can't have the other.
Only one's guaranteed, however.
Which guarantee would you take?
All of them, the three women took the marriage, which was a good sign.
So one of them is with a guy for five years.
I said, why aren't you married?
She said, well, I don't have all my ducks in a row, meaning my profession's not ready and I'm not making enough money.
And I said, I don't understand.
Why can't you make that money and get your ducks in the row while married?
And it was fascinating.
She had never been asked the question.
And I mentioned that they're all religious.
Doesn't you don't do Deo-Christian values push you to get married and make a commitment?
You would think.
You would think.
Well, and without prying into this person's personal life that I haven't met, marriage is all supposed to be a place that you save yourself for in that.
Well, I'm not claiming that she's had sex with this guy.
I'm not sure that.
I'm not saying, but just in the hypothetical, if that isn't the case, then why get married?
I mean, why not wait?
Here's the key.
She had no answer.
To her great credit, she didn't make up an answer.
And I said, I don't understand why you think you need to have all your ducks in a row.
What does that mean?
And by the way, forgetting religion, isn't it wonderful to grow in the marriage?
We started out and we counted every penny and we had a little apartment and now look where we are now to go through life together like that?
There's so much non-clarity.
Anyway, marriage is in decline in America, unlike at any time in its history.
It's a tragedy beyond words.
And we mentioned this on our show quite often, and I give you credit for it.
We locked down the country.
We never should have.
Worst mistake in human history, Western history.
In international history.
And I want to ask you about that in a second.
But the reason I bring it up is that some thought the birth rate would go up after everyone's talk about that.
And I don't know, has it?
I don't know what the answer.
It went down dramatically.
Interesting.
Lowest ever.
500,000 less babies this year than last year.
And that's with people stuck together.
That's fascinating.
Look, we're living through the age of the absurd because generally because people with PhDs are directing the country.
And I say this with no exaggeration, no humor.
For most people, college makes you stupid and graduate school makes you a fool.
It's not always true.
There are people.
Let's put it this way.
Nobody is wise because of college.
You can be wise if you went to college because you have somehow not let it affect you.
Like Hillsdale, maybe.
That's right.
No, of course there is.
Incredibly rare, yes.
Yes.
You're talking to the right person about college.
I know that.
You are a perfect example.
You are the poster boy for how much wisdom you can gain not going to college.
Will Witt at that Prager U dropped out of college.
I don't know if Amala is sidekicked now.
I don't know if she went to college.
I do know that she has a Black Lives Matter tattoo.
Really?
Isn't that amazing?
I didn't know that.
Isn't that?
I know.
I didn't know it.
I was with Amala.
So we have Will and Amala at Prager U. She's very talented.
She's another one that just the generation throughout a great human being.
And Amala is the child of an African father, not African-American, African, and a white left-wing mom.
The dad left them very early.
So she was raised by the single white leftist mother who totally influenced her.
And to the point that she was so left-wing, just so recently, she has a BLM tattoo.
I didn't know this.
We were at a fundraiser for Prager U in the Midwest or in this, I don't remember where, Texas, I think.
And she announced it in the speech.
And I couldn't believe it.
I was stunned.
I didn't even know it.
That gives you an idea of how far she traveled in such a brief period of time, in part because she's just a thinker and in part because of Prager U. Wow.
So I don't know if she went to college, but I'll tell you this.
If you apply to work at Prager U, we don't hold it against you if you went to college, but it's certainly not in your favor.
Same at turning point.
I mean, without a doubt.
Exactly.
Yes.
Well, if you didn't go to college and made a lot of yourself, you just started a little company or something.
Doesn't that tell me infinitely more than a BA in sociology from Brown?
Well, and I tell this to young people.
I say, in any market, differentiation is desirable.
Not going to college is like the new Sloan fellow.
Everyone looks at you.
You didn't go to college?
Really?
Can I have coffee with you?
Can I learn from that?
That's fascinating.
Good.
I'm glad to hear it.
It's the ultimate way to stand out.
By the way, one of the advantages is you don't have debt.
That's correct.
That's squashing.
But anyway, you mentioned about the started with the lockdown and people not having college.
Yeah, I really want, because I want to say, Dennis, I have to interrupt briefly here.
Your leadership on the topic, I don't think you get enough credit for.
Because you were.
No, but you were early.
You were clear.
I get attacked for it, but I don't know how often I get praised.
But everyone acts as if we were always against lockdowns.
There's a lot of memory.
American Medicine's Stance00:12:48
Right.
In March of 2020, I said it was the greatest mistake in history, not the greatest evil.
So can you explain the difference between an evil and a mistake?
Yeah, I mean.
Well, evil is the Holocaust is evil.
Stalin is evil.
Stalin is evil.
So I'm not putting it in that category.
Those are not mistakes.
Those are deliberate evils.
This is a mistake.
This is a colossal error.
The damage it has done is not even yet calculated.
The number of lives ruined, the number, you know, last year, just in America, don't even start me on poor countries.
Just in America, the last year, this past year, had the most deaths from drugs, drug overdose.
100,000 plus.
Yes.
And they're mostly young people.
Whereas overwhelmingly, the deaths of COVID are old people, just for the record.
And I'm on the old side, not the young side.
You had COVID.
And I had COVID, and it was nothing.
My colds are worse than the COVID I had.
I broadcast three days later, and I know why, or I am almost certain, I should say, because I was taking therapeutics for a year and a half.
Ivermectin.
Ivermectin, hydroxychloroquine, zinc, and vitamin D. Exactly.
Selenium, that's exactly right.
It was a catastrophe and it was all hysteria.
According to Dr. Harvey Risch of Yale Medical School.
So I'm giving you a doctor.
I'm giving you an epidemiologist.
The medical profession in America killed hundreds of thousands of Americans.
I believe that.
This is what American medicine said.
You have COVID.
Hopefully you'll get better.
We're going to give you nothing to make you better until you are so sick as to be hospitalized.
Then we'll give you a ventilator and you will die.
American medicine did nothing, nothing to prevent people from getting sick.
To prevent them to getting sick to begin with, but that's irrelevant.
You'll get COVID no matter what.
But to prevent it from being serious.
It is the first time in American medical history that doctors gave you nothing to help you when you got COVID.
The scandal is so great.
American med, my beloved brother, and he's a special human being and a special doctor.
You have to understand, I grew up venerating medicine in this country.
I now have contempt for the profession.
Some doctors are giants, but the profession stinks.
Well, what changed?
What changed?
Two things.
They all work for somebody instead of being self-employed.
And two, that what was the other?
This is really important that I remember this.
What changed is, oh yes, the left has influenced medicine.
Whatever the left touches, it ruins.
That is one of the themes of my life.
There is nothing the left touches from late night television to football to universities to classical music and art and architecture and sculpture and Boy Scouts and medicine.
The American Medical Association announced this past year, I know you know this, that birth certificates should not list the sex of the newborn.
There is no male and female in the human species, according to the American Medical Association.
That's how woke medicine has become.
And it's hard for some people to process that doctors aren't doing what's best for their patients.
It's very hard.
And they certainly don't mean to run into this difficulty all the time.
I'm explaining it to people.
It's horrific.
That's correct.
These people care for their patients.
I don't deny that.
It just shows you that good intentions mean nothing in the history of the world.
So I don't believe your doctor want.
I don't think American doctors wanted to kill hundreds of thousands of Americans.
But I don't care what they want.
And that was going to be my question.
I'm glad you answered it before I asked it, which is, does it matter if this was a mistake or if this was diabolical?
Okay.
Diabolical, you mean intentional or literally diabolical?
Essentially both.
Okay, I mean, I don't need to go there.
I don't need to go.
Oh, no, no, no.
I'll go anywhere.
You know that.
So does it matter?
It only matters in that I want people to understand I am not attacking doctors as nice people.
I'm attacking them as doctors.
They failed.
American medicine failed and hundreds of thousands of people probably died as a result of that failure.
Not to mention the millions that have had permanent life adjustments negatively.
Yes.
And the sheep-like behavior where the medical associations will take your license away if you prescribe two of the safest drugs known to humanity.
Ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine.
Yes.
And you had on your show early, early than we did, Dr. Zelenko.
That's right.
Upstate New York.
Who they call a quack.
Yes.
He saved hundreds of people's lives with this.
He's treated 7,000 people, has only lost three patients.
Yes.
So what makes him a fraud?
Did he not treat those people?
He's more of a threat, I think.
He's a threat.
That's exactly right.
And I'm a threat, and you're a threat.
So looking at it from... you know, doing this for multiple decades, this is a pretty interconnected network, if you think about it, from the lockdowns to the vaccine mandates to the unwillingness to even look at therapeutics.
And Dennis, you're exactly right.
I say this to our audience all the time.
I encourage everyone to go to the NIH website, NIH.gov, and just type in COVID.
What do you do if you get COVID?
And I want you to read what is written very carefully.
Don't skim it.
And it's basically, go home, and if it gets bad, go to the hospital.
That's right.
That's what I said.
And it's exactly.
And you know what?
There's a sentence that says, if you are unvaccinated, you should go get vaccinated.
It says that on the website as if we have nothing for you.
No, ivermectin, hydroxychloroquinqucertin, which is also potentially very helpful.
That's right.
Yeah, it's hard for me not to believe there isn't some malevolent intentions.
But what you're saying is that it's not the most relevant question.
It's not relevant.
The amount of evil done by people who thought they were doing good, the people who spied for Stalin to give him the atom bomb, this mass murderer murdered more than Hitler did, these people, they thought they were advancing world peace.
That is why we can't make up our own moralities.
Do you know that NPR, this is to me one of the most important signposts of our time.
NPR had a woman who...
The case for looting.
Okay, that's right.
Yeah.
In defense of looting.
Yeah.
It was Hertzweil or Kurzweil.
Was that the woman's name?
It was a Hispanic girl who wrote the article, and it was a review.
It was a review.
It's a book?
It was an NPR book review of Kurtz Weil's book, The Case for Looting.
And it was this fawning.
Right, fawning.
Yes.
By the way, it's very interesting.
I have invited the author of the book onto my show.
The chances of that happening are less than winning the lottery twice.
You know why?
They don't debate.
This is a very important point for all of your followers to know.
Do you know that I've offered tens of thousands of dollars to any New York Times columnist on the left to debate me anywhere?
They can choose the moderator.
They could choose the venue.
They could give the money to charity.
We'll pay it to BLM if necessary.
They wouldn't do it.
They would not.
They wouldn't.
Tell me a black thinker with Tanahese Coates or Ibram X. Kendi debate Larry Elder.
It would end their career.
Their ignoramesis compared to Larry Elder on the race issue.
These buffoons who write columns at the New York Times, not everyone's a buffoon.
Brett Stevens was wrong on Trump, but is generally right, in my opinion.
And we're friends, and we've debated on the New York Times website.
But other than him, they don't debate.
We debate.
You would have anyone on your show.
I would have anyone on the left.
I had, what's his name?
The People's History.
Yeah, Howard Zinn.
I had Howard Zinn on before he died, which is a funny thing to say because you have anybody you have on, you have on before they die.
But nevertheless, I.
I had someone on, they were breathing.
Yes.
And he's as far left as you can get.
To his credit, he came on my show.
And I treated him respectfully.
And I got him to say what he really believes.
World War II was not a moral war.
He so hates America that even fighting Hitler and the fascist in Japan was not moral.
So there's a lot of things I want to touch on with you, and you have to go speak soon.
I want to ask about happiness.
Yes.
And you know, I've been texting back and forth with you.
Oh, by the way, did you want me to speak on happiness?
That's what I want you only to talk about today.
Oh, really?
How to lead a happy life.
Oh, that's fascinating.
Remember, we chatted about this.
Yes, we did.
And I wasn't sure about that.
So I will redo.
You could do whatever you want.
No, I know that.
No, no, no.
I care what you care.
So let me bounce this off you, which is funny to do on your show.
So I have two ideas.
I had two ideas, one macro, one micro.
The macro is eight arguments the left gives and what responses you need to know.
I think that's very helpful.
I think so too.
That's the thing.
Don't do that.
All right.
And the other one was, which is right up your alley as well, because you love the happiness talk.
And I'd love to give it.
It pains me.
But we're in a war now, and I have to acknowledge that.
The other one was, everything in life is a choice.
Most people do not know that.
I didn't know that till later in life.
Everything, whether you are happy is a choice.
Whether you are religious is a choice.
Whether you get married is a choice.
Whether you have children is a choice.
It is amazing that people don't think that way.
And when you do, whether you're courageous is a choice.
And the second part of it that you always say, which is equally as important, everything is a choice, know the price.
That, yeah, yeah.
You know what?
That made my day.
You really know me.
I'm very touched.
I really am.
I want you to know.
It gives me so much peace to know that I've affected a person like you, who now affects so many.
I mean it.
Thank you.
It means, well, it is a compliment to you, but it's really just a statement of the peace that I live with, knowing that I've touched people like you.
That's all I wanted to do in my life.
As you too, at a very early, look, we both started super early.
I started speaking at 21.
When did you start TPUSA?
18.
18.
Oh, you beat me.
No, no, it's just.
I didn't go to college, so I had a headache.
Oh, yeah, you're so right.
You were at Columbia.
That is so right.
Before you went to.
Which, by the way, you want to hear the joke about that.
No God, no wisdom.
Yeah, you got it.
Oh, my God.
I love it.
No God, no wisdom.
That was the revelation at Columbia.
So here's a joke about Columbia.
Not a joke.
It's a bad joke.
Columbia doesn't celebrate Columbus Day, but it's named after Columbus.
Why don't they drop their name?
I haven't heard this.
Isn't that important?
They're phonies.
Because they'll lose so much money if they change it.
What are they going to call it?
Indigenous university?
They'd have to redo all the branding.
What?
They'd have to redo all the branding.
Yes, exactly.
I went to Indigenous University.
Well, that's what they should.
Because they changed Columbus Day to Indigenous Peoples' Day.
Why is it an Indigenous People's University?
That should be the new name of the Washington football team.
The Indigenous Peoples Football Team.
Yes.
Yes.
Don't start me on the ER.
I like the name Washington football.
I think they should keep it.
Happiness vs Ingratitude00:06:21
Do you know why I like it?
It's an open-air mockery to political correctivity.
It's so stupid.
Stupid.
And everyone knows.
The commentators know it's stupid.
Everyone knows it's dumb, and they know that this is the price of.
Right.
Why did it get that name?
Because they took away its real name.
By the way, the Washington Post did a super duper intense survey of American Indians, of Native Americans.
Overwhelmingly, they said we couldn't care less.
80 to 90%.
Yes, that's the Washington Post, the leading voice against Redskins.
So I really do want to nail you down on happiness.
Yes, sir.
So I re-listen to the book.
When I can't read, I do audiobooks, which I think is, for some people, I actually learn better at times.
I love audiobooks.
And you narrated this audiobook, actually, if I'm not mistaken.
Oh, did I?
I don't know.
I don't remember.
I'm 95% sure.
Okay.
So it's called Happiness is a Serious Problem.
Right.
And the story of how you got to do it is hilarious.
You were invited to speak about it at UCLA.
Oh, isn't that a great story?
It's a great story.
And then the shysters in New York City who illegally, you know, maybe contrabanded your speech.
You know all of that.
That's right.
And then you wrote it.
It's a great story.
But you fell backwards into this topic of happiness, which is a unique topic, quite honestly.
It's not something.
Well, I take credit for this.
I have made happiness what it should be, a moral obligation, not an emotional state.
It's a moral issue, happiness.
The founders were right.
Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, the pursuit of happiness is noble.
Noble.
Happy people make the world better.
Unhappy people make it worse.
I say that every week on my radio show on the happiness hour.
And by the way, that is totally tied into the left.
And this I mean literally, I never exaggerate.
I don't believe there is a happy leftist.
I know that there are happy liberals.
There are happy conservatives, unhappy liberals, and unhappy conservatives.
There are no happy leftists.
If you're unhappy, the left is your home.
There are students listening to this, young people, and they look around.
It's the most miserable generation in American history by every metric, most oppressed, most suicidal, most drug addicted.
And some of them say, well, Charlie, what do I have to be happy about?
What's your approach to that?
Well, happiness begins with gratitude.
And if you can't answer, what do you have to be grateful about?
That is a very big problem.
Are you grateful for your health?
Are you grateful for your family?
Are you grateful for whatever liberty is left in America in what was the freest country in the world's history?
Are you grateful for the fact that you are able to choose a profession and not have one imposed upon you?
It's a very sad state if you don't know what you're grateful for.
There are people who have terrible suffering who walk around as grateful human beings.
By the way, in that regard, I do believe that when you go to college, you get an undergraduate degree or a graduate degree first and foremost in ingratitude.
I now say, in addition to ingratitude, what is your BA in?
That's what I ask young people.
You're told to be ungrateful.
Yes.
And you can't be happy if you're an ingrate.
In fact, you're an SOB.
You're pretty much a scumbag if you're an ingrate.
And that's what the left produces.
If you're a black, you should be an ingrate.
If you're a woman, you should be an ingrate.
If you are anything but a white, heterosexual Christian male, cisgender, I might add, then you have nothing to be grateful for.
That is sick.
And it's not circumstances that need to determine your happiness.
That's one of the takeaways of that.
You determine your happiness, not your circumstances.
That's exactly right.
And if you can't start acting happy, because I'm a behaviorist, if you act X, you'll feel X.
And at first, for some people, it might take effort.
Of course, it takes effort.
What good in life doesn't take effort?
This is the appeal of the left.
You don't have to do anything.
Just vote for us and we'll give you everything.
People don't want to make an effort.
As I've pointed out frequently, people don't want to be free.
They want to be taken care of.
That was one of the unfortunate lessons of the lockdown.
That is exactly right.
Yeah.
Dennis, you're a student of Soviet history.
I am.
That was my feel.
You made a statement that the Soviet Union was freer than Australia is today.
In certain ways, clearly not in all ways.
And I said in certain ways.
For example, you couldn't leave the Soviet Union without permission.
Same was true in Australia.
But you could travel within the Soviet Union basically where you wanted.
You wanted to visit your mother in Siberia when you took the Trans-Siberian Railroad or your flu Aeroflop.
But that was not the case in Australia.
You could leave your house.
Australia, there was a period you couldn't leave your house.
As far as freedom of speech, how's this from New Zealand?
I play it on my show regularly.
The Prime Minister of New Zealand saying, if it doesn't come from the government, it is not true.
That was the Soviet position.
But they were never as brazen as the Prime Minister of New Zealand.
Isn't that amazing?
All truth comes from the government.
You would say it's Orwellian, but it's just beyond.
We have transcended Orwell.
Yes.
That is exactly right.
Men give birth as, that's Orwellian.
But all truth comes from the government as transcended it.
Or saying it's fair for a man, a biological man, saying that he's a woman, to compete against women in women's sports.
The Courage to Be Free00:02:59
He's a cheat.
Period, end of issue.
I have nothing against his being transgender at all.
If that's his natural self or choice, it is not for me to judge.
I do judge him a cheat.
Leah Thomas is his name or her name, L-I-A Thomas.
She or he is a cheat.
If you can't say that, you are a coward.
How did we get to a place where we tolerate that?
People are cowards.
Let's talk about courage.
It's one of your favorite topics.
Yes, it is.
I've actually never talked to you about this.
Okay.
Well, it is.
It takes courage to stand out from the masses.
Okay?
It's very easy to say what the masses say.
It's easy to go along with the media.
It's easy to go along with your college, with your teachers, with your fellow students.
It's tough to stand alone.
It is tough.
There are massive rewards, but it's very tough.
So look, if courage were common, we wouldn't even have a word for it.
You said courage is a choice.
What do you mean by that?
Everything is a choice.
You know, when you become courageous, I've thought about this a lot.
Some people are born sort of courageous.
It's in my nature to fight.
And if you hate me, you hate me.
And I sleep well.
But most people, it's not in their nature.
So what do you do if it's not in your nature?
There's a very basic answer, like everything else.
The first thing to becoming courageous is to say, I want to be courageous.
If you say that, you will be.
People are what they want to be, as a general rule.
So I want to be happy.
You work on it.
You'll be happy.
The war literature teaches us that courage is very unique because it doesn't take a special skill or anything that you're necessarily born with.
Right.
Some are evil can evil, I assume.
Well, meaning that an individual, any individual, can be courageous.
That's correct.
It's not like saying I want to be the best basketball player in the NBA.
Right.
I have a friend who loves classical music like I do.
And at the age of 30 or 35, took up, he's now, I think, 45.
He took up piano.
He's not going to be a world-class virtuoso, but he'll be a wonderful pianist.
He is already because he put his mind to being it.
He doesn't have a natural gift like some of the giant pianists have.
That's how people should aspire to being really good at something, and that includes courage.
George S. Patton said that moral courage is the most necessary yet absent characteristic in men.
Policing Thoughts and Actions00:08:16
It really is the issue of the West.
Do you think that at this point, whereas we look at the West in general, the lockdowns taught us a lot about where we are?
What gives you hope?
What gives you optimism?
I'm not going to ask you whether or not you think we're going to win because it's completely irrelevant because both answers are bad.
But what gives you hope that you're seeing?
By the way, you know me so well that you're speaking shorthand because most people I know I have to preempt it.
That's right, but I'll have to explain it.
I'm asked all the time if I'm an optimist or pessimist, and I say both are useless because neither fights.
The optimist thinks things will turn out well, he doesn't fight.
The pessimist thinks things will turn out lousy, he doesn't fight.
So I'm neither pessimistic nor optimistic.
What gives me hope?
All the thousands of people that you've brought to this convention give me hope.
All the people, especially the young ones watching Prager U videos, those are obvious signs.
We remain, America remains the last best hope on earth.
There are bigger demonstrations for freedom in Europe.
We've had none, which is tragic.
But we have a much larger force fighting the left than anywhere on earth.
And it's getting better organized.
Yes.
It's getting better funded.
That's right.
And also getting more principled, I think, too.
Well, they're waking up.
Yes.
The day you realize how vicious the left is, how destructive, how chaos-loving it is, you can't just sit back.
So people want to deny.
That's what liberals do.
Liberalism has nothing in common with leftism except big government.
Every other value, they differ.
Liberals are against all black dormitories.
The left is for all black dormitories because the left is the only large-scale racism in the country.
But we are seeing an awakening and it's driving the left crazy.
We should have disappeared under the onslaught of the media and education.
That's so correct.
Especially this calendar year.
Yeah.
They're really annoyed that we're vibrant.
As much as Twitter will suppress us, we're still there.
And there's no left-wing analog to TPUSA or Prager U. None.
What would it be?
Let's hate the right convention?
What would it even be about?
I was with a wonderful man, Alain Lambert from Canada, who's done a pregnant UV.
That's a French name.
It is.
Or Alan Lambert, if you want to anglicize it.
And he was saying, I would love to be at an analogous convention of young leftists.
What would it be like?
Angry.
That's right.
That's what I said.
Angry and unhappy.
Happy conservative is almost redundant.
Unhappy leftist is almost redundant.
We're at our worst when we're unhappy, I believe.
I really.
It's true for everybody.
Yes.
No matter what.
Look at your family.
Do you feel more attached to your unhappy relatives or happy relatives?
By the way, it's my argument on religion.
Happy religious people are the greatest argument for religion, and unhappy religious people are the greatest argument for atheism.
I tell unhappy religious people, stop being religious.
You're giving us a bad name.
And you might be happier.
I don't know.
But they're not taking their religion seriously or else they...
Well, that's another issue.
Yes.
So I want to ask you about a cultural story.
I meant to have you on.
Then you got COVID, and it really interests me because you're the only person that I think is equipped to talk about it.
I'm going to totally surprise you when I bring this up.
And it's a story that I've been obsessing about.
And it's a National Football League story of the former head coach of the Las Vegas Raiders, John Gruden.
I don't know if you're following the story or not.
I didn't.
It'll really interest you.
So John Gruden signed a 10-year deal with the Las Vegas Raiders a couple of years ago.
He was an ESPN commentator.
He won a Super Bowl with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
I'm not a big fan of him.
He's kind of a smart Alec jerk.
However, it came out to a total hit job from the National Football League Commissioner, Roger Goodell, some emails that this football coach sent nearly 10 to 12 years ago that they say claimed were racially insensitive.
Private emails.
Should private conversations that people have be judged by public?
Does it matter what you say in private?
Very little.
Very little.
That has to be off bounds.
I'm a Jew.
If somebody said to a friend, you know, I really don't like Jews and never said anything publicly like that and treated Jews fine, it's none of my business what his sentiments are.
I mean, I taught Jewish history at Brooklyn College.
I wrote the most widely used introduction to Judaism in English.
So I know a lot about this stuff.
So here's an interesting story for you.
I'll give you one.
There were anti-Semites among the handful of non-Jews in Europe who rescued Jews in the Holocaust were anti-Semites.
Most were, of course, not.
Why would they recognize that?
Okay, I totally understand it.
This is what they said.
We don't like Jews.
But extermination, that's evil.
So I don't care if you like Jews.
I'm a Jew.
I don't give a damn if you like Jews.
It means nothing to me.
I care how you treat me, and I care how you speak publicly.
Only the left cares what you say privately because they're totalitarian.
Mao cared what you said privately.
I truly don't give a damn what you think about Jews.
I only care how you treat them.
So let me tell you why the story gets more interesting.
So they fired John Gruden because of these emails, destroyed his career.
And one of the, and by the way, the emails were not insensitive.
It was a total mischaracterization.
Well, as soon as I hear insensitive, I know it took me.
But get this.
So they said he was transphobic and homophobic.
Now, he happened to coach one of the only openly gay football players.
So they went to every player that's ever played for him.
Right.
They said, what do you think of John Gruden?
Best coach I've ever had.
Was like a brother to me, father figure.
He's always there for me.
It didn't matter that he was actually wonderful to every single person.
Doesn't matter in the least.
That's correct.
I opposed same-sex marriage.
I thought that marriage should be defined as a male-female.
So I am attacked to this day by the LGBTQ activists.
The alphabet mafia, yes.
Of the alphabet mafia.
I didn't know that term, but yes.
You can use it.
Then why would a gay couple, and this is true, a gay couple has made me and my wife the godparents to their children, a married gay couple.
I think I know who it is.
I'm not going to say that.
Why would they do that?
Because they know how well I would treat their children and how well I treat their children now.
The fact that the left is so unsophisticated and hatred, they have such simpleton views of life.
So if you think that the traditional view, which Barack Obama held until...
Until he didn't.
Yes, right.
That marriage should be defined as between a man and a woman, and you have religious grounds for that, and you don't want to say my religion's been wrong for 4,000 years, 3,000 years, you're a hater.
But then how do you explain the fact that I had a married gay man on our board of directors at Get Gay at PragerU?
Isn't it matter how I treat gays and how I fight for gays?
Not whether or not I have a theological basis for defining marriage.
Defining Marriage Traditionally00:02:22
But this is too sophisticated for them.
There's a belief that if you even have the thought, then it will turn into action and that they need to police that thought, which you said is totalitarian.
Yes, it did lead into action.
I was for preserving the marital definition of male and female.
By the way, and my argument was legit.
The argument was gender doesn't matter.
And let's look at where we got with that argument.
Gender does matter.
The American Medical Association now says gender doesn't matter.
Don't put it even on a birth certificate.
I was right.
That's a very bad and dangerous argument for society to make that gender doesn't matter.
I couldn't agree more.
And I think the movement to try to destroy people's lives based on things that are said in private has turned people into totalitarians.
And people into snitches.
Yes.
And turning in your parents, which is where it's going next.
That's right.
Did they say anything racist at the family table?
That's what emotional social learning is all about.
Social emotional learning.
Yes, yes.
Yes.
So I do think that they were just giving me the plug because the schedule is going there.
So, well, we have to get you on stage.
We do indeed.
I look forward.
I think we're just about there.
Any other closing thoughts?
Well, this is at the risk of sounding self-advertising, which I never am, but nobody writes a Bible commentary to get wealthy.
Please read the Rational Bible, any of the volumes.
I promise it will change your life for the better.
It absolutely will.
And you check out PragerU.com.
Please, yes.
We every time I go, you should know this.
I'll end with this.
Every time I go to a fundraiser for PragerU, I say we're not the only ones doing wonderful work.
Just look at TPUSA.
And vice versa.
I know that.
God bless you, Dennis.
Thank you so much.
Thank you.
Thank you so much for listening, everybody.
Email us your thoughts is always freedom at charliekirk.com.
If you want to support our show, go to charliekirk.com slash support.
Thank you so much for listening, everybody.
God bless.
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