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Aug. 23, 2022 - Dennis Prager Show

01:23:42

United States of Despair

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	I'm alright today.
	That's the perfect lyric for what I want to talk to Julie about.
	Hi, Dennis Prager with Julie Hartman.
	It's the Dennis and Julie podcast.
	What number are we at?
	Can our podcast rank yet?
	24. We're at 24. No, this is the living example of one of my pet, not peeves, pet advocacies in life.
	Do anything regularly, even if it's short, and the accomplishment is enormous.
	The trick is to do it regularly.
	Alan Estrin, the most disciplined human being I know, and perhaps on Earth.
	Dennis' producer, for those of you who don't know.
	The living martyr, as he's well known.
	The ability that he has in self-discipline.
	So he has written one page of diary.
	For half a century.
	Since he was a kid.
	Every day.
	Every day.
	It could be a boring day.
	It could be a fascinating day.
	Oh, that motivates me hugely.
	Oh, I should do that.
	That's the way to do it.
	It's a perfect example.
	Do a little.
	Study Portuguese 15 minutes a day.
	You'll speak Portuguese in a year.
	15 minutes.
	Gosh, I can't believe that we're 24. I started this, let us not forget, out of my college dorm room.
	Can you imagine?
	I'm well aware.
	Oh, the charm of that room.
	Julie, it's painful to think.
	Well, the room was configured.
	I actually got lucky.
	It was configured such that you couldn't see my bed.
	So it sort of did look professional.
	But it's funny.
	I'll let you all in on a secret.
	Before the podcast, I would get all of these things off of my shelf and throw it to the other side of the room so that the background looked really clean.
	And it's so funny because it looked pristine.
	But if you saw the other side of the room...
	Oh, no, that is right.
	It was like...
	Oh, what is the...
	Potemkin Village.
	You ever hear that term?
	No.
	Oh, you'll love this.
	I love teaching Julie some historical fact.
	She knows a lot.
	And some colloquialisms like the monkey's uncle.
	That's true.
	I like that too.
	Correct.
	Which I have used since you taught it to me.
	Did anybody react?
	My dad said, how do you know what that is?
	Oh, you did.
	You said, I'll be a monkey's uncle?
	Yes.
	That's the phrase.
	So a Potemkin village was something the Soviets set up to have visitors think that the people were happy and prosperous.
	It was a fake village.
	So you did that to your dorm room.
	That's a great term.
	Oh, Potemkin village is a very great term.
	It's even better than I'm a monkey's uncle.
	Or I'd be a monkey's uncle.
	Correct.
	So now, what did I want to say to you?
	Hope.
	The issue of hope.
	No, that I know.
	That we discussed beforehand.
	I thought there was a continuum here.
	Oh, no.
	Yeah, okay.
	Sean's trying to help us here.
	Yes, he is trying.
	Okay, so do you see the mess on my desk?
	I did not do what Julie did to her dorm room.
	Oh yes, people can see it.
	It's so funny, when the music was coming in, you frantically just pushed it over.
	That's true.
	Very gently.
	Sean just said people should know that's clean.
	It is.
	No, it's clean, but it's messy.
	So I am now about to tell you, Julie, if you don't know this story, I would say that In a gigantic series of hilariously embarrassing things in my life, I think this is number one.
	Ready?
	So I was still living in New York.
	I was your age.
	I left New York when I was 25. So I was living, I had lived in Brooklyn, I had lived in Manhattan, and then I had lived in Queens, my last borough.
	I was in my Queens apartment, and it was a very bad time, like now, in terms of crime.
	So bad that New Yorkers would leave their doors open to the car, unlocked, and put a sign, unlocked, please don't smash glass.
	Really?
	Yes.
	My God.
	So, sure enough, even though parked at my apartment building in Whitestone, Queens, the window was shattered with a rock.
	A guy threw a boulder through it and took out my car stereo.
	Okay, which were always separate units in those days.
	Oh, yes.
	Okay.
	So I reported it to the police, and it was a time when police actually responded even to theft.
	Today, they'll tell you to have a great day.
	I get a knock on the door one night, New York City police.
	I open up.
	They stop.
	They look around, and they go, holy s***, did they do a job?
	You gotta bleep it, Sean.
	Yeah, you'll bleep it, yeah.
	Is that hilarious?
	Did they do a job?
	They thought my apartment was ransacked.
	Oh, my gosh.
	Oh, my God.
	Honestly, I totally believe it.
	No offense.
	Seeing your office at home.
	No, no, no, that's correct.
	Yes.
	Oh, that is hilarious.
	Does Sue know this story?
	Oh, of course.
	She would put that in her pipe and smoke it.
	It's the greatest single.
	I have a lot of embarrassing stories.
	That is number one.
	Oh, my God.
	They came from my car being robbed.
	They thought the apartment was ransacked.
	You go, no, this is just me.
	Oh, that's hilarious.
	So I spent ten minutes embarrassedly telling them, officers, it really wasn't the apartment.
	You should have replied, oh, I know, my God, can you believe it?
	Well, again, I just want to tell all of you at home, Dennis' office is...
	No offense.
	I'm sorry.
	It is a nightmare.
	Your desk, I should say.
	Your desk.
	We spent last summer, I think it was a week-long project.
	Seriously, it took two hours a day for five straight days.
	We tried to clear off the desk.
	Heaps and heaps of newspapers and magazines and classical music books and notes.
	Checks I had not ever, ever deposited.
	Seriously, like birthday cards from the 70s, cigars, ashes from the cigars, fountain pens, leftover peanut butter M&Ms.
	Like, you name it, it's under there.
	And we finally got it.
	My wife calls it a tell.
	It's an archaeological dig.
	It really is.
	So you find things from the past.
	It's actually interesting.
	No, you would pull it out and go, oh my god, my 65th birthday card from Alan!
	Or, you know, people would send PragerU checks and it would be under there.
	So ready for this?
	We clear it off.
	It was the happiest moment of my life.
	I think I have a picture.
	I'm going to send it to Sean and have Sean put it up for those of you watching on YouTube.
	I was so delighted I took a picture.
	I think I went away for a week.
	I went to New York to visit some friends.
	I come back and...
	You had texted me or called me saying, just a warning, your work has kind of gone to waste.
	I came back and the desk was...
	You should not ever think of it as having gone to waste.
	Well, how could I not?
	Because the dig would be deeper if it had you not come.
	Fair enough.
	Yes.
	So I got a question, a super serious one, which sort of plagues me.
	And we've discussed this, obviously, privately, so it's time to discuss it publicly.
	Things are uniquely bad in America, uniquely, certainly since the Civil War.
	And I often think that is horrible, and the Civil War was horrible.
	Americans putting slavery aside, which is a huge thing to put aside, admittedly, but putting that aside, Americans and the North and South had a lot in common.
	They both loved the country.
	Even the Confederate flag was, after all, stars and stripes and red, white, and blue.
	It was just a different configuration.
	There were a lot of shared things other than the horror of slavery.
	Today we share nothing.
	Nothing.
	Not music, certainly not politics, but even going down to music, art, the way we dress.
	Not whether an adolescent girl's breasts should be removed.
	So it's scary.
	So that's the issue, the scary part.
	So I'm worried about the country, but I fight, obviously.
	And I don't despair.
	I have...
	Recently, I mentioned this on my show, but I'd like to tell you this.
	You don't like stuff you'll read, whether it's me or anybody, and you go, whoa, that is a life-changing point.
	I had one.
	So I'm going to get it to the Bible for a second to explain this.
	So I'm working on the fourth book of the five books of the Bible, of the first five books of the Torah, and it's the book of Numbers, the fourth book.
	And there's a story there of the Israelites, Moses specifically, sending in 12 spies to come back and speak about attacking Canaan in the upcoming war for the land of Israel, known then as Canaan.
	Ten of the spies give a terrible report.
	And by doing that, they're saying, hey, listen.
	God brought the plagues on Egypt.
	It's true.
	God took us out of Egypt.
	God split the sea.
	God had the sea go over the Egyptian army.
	God feeds his man every day.
	God provides light at night and a special cloud in the day.
	Nevertheless, we don't trust that he'll get us into Canaan.
	Okay.
	So God gets annoyed.
	Really annoyed.
	And this, one of the commentators, On this chapter, wrote brilliantly, he said, God can tolerate a lot of sins, but the sin of the spies was despair.
	And that God doesn't tolerate.
	And I have adopted that.
	And I say now regularly, despair is a sin.
	Well, that's your whole point on your Happiness Hour, that we have a moral responsibility to be happy, a point that I never encountered or even thought of prior to reading your work.
	Yeah, that's key.
	That's the key to that book.
	Thank you.
	But you're totally right.
	It's related.
	But right now, I have to address the issue of people despairing.
	So I could despair.
	I'm immersed in what the left is doing to this country.
	It's our job to talk about it every day.
	Yes, that's right.
	And you will see.
	It will weigh on you.
	It already does.
	That's why you're going to need a Sabbath every week.
	That's right.
	I'm not joking.
	I know you're not joking.
	And it really does help.
	It's my anti-burnout mechanism.
	The Shabbat dinners have, I think, really made me healthier.
	Oh, I believe that.
	There's no, you know...
	Again, I grew up...
	I'm getting off a little bit.
	We'll come back to this.
	But I grew up in a secular household.
	If anything, it was Christian.
	We went, I think, once or twice a year to church.
	And I really appreciate how in Judaism there's something like the Shabbat.
	There really is no counterpart in Christianity.
	It's a tragedy.
	It is a tragedy.
	They should make one.
	Well, every Christian that I talk to about this agrees with you.
	And then, you know, nothing really much changes.
	Why is it uniquely Jewish?
	Okay.
	Sorry, we're going to come back to what Dennis is saying.
	So you're going to find this fascinating, what I'm about to tell you.
	It's one of the Ten Commandments, right?
	Okay.
	So I have asked Catholic priests and Protestant ministers all of my life, since my first radio show 40 years ago, which involved the priest, minister, and rabbi, different ones every week.
	Religion on the line.
	Right.
	So I would ask privately, now privately, then publicly, To Christians, Catholic or Protestant, are Christians obligated to observe the Sabbath commandment?
	And believe it or not, in decades of asking this, it's roughly 50-50.
	50% say we're not, 50% say we are.
	Why are they...
	It's the only commandment that they say that about.
	Right, yes, because of course you're obligated to the other nine.
	Yes, so they would say it was specifically given to the Jews or to the Israelites, Hebrews, whatever term you want to use, and that it is not repeated.
	All the others are repeated in the New Testament, but that is not.
	That's their argument.
	I'm not arguing with them.
	I'm only saying that the loss to Christians is monumental.
	It is.
	As someone who grew up, again, secular-slash-Christian, and then only in the past year have come to Shabbat dinners, it is a loss.
	Not average, but the typical response from any non-Jew, not just clergy, any non-Jew coming to Shabbat dinner, and I've always had non-Jews at my Shabbat dinner, was...
	You have this every week?
	You say it's like Christmas and Thanksgiving every week.
	But it really is.
	Especially with the right crowd.
	God knows we have the right crowd.
	And the preparation of the food.
	It is like Christmas slash Thanksgiving every week.
	It is.
	Do you know, I learned a lot of my ability to speak and think.
	From the Shabbat table.
	I'm learning.
	That's right.
	Well, you see.
	You see how long it goes.
	Every Jewish home, at minimum.
	That's exactly right.
	So, my father and brother, I only had one sibling.
	He's six years older than me.
	And my father and brother would talk and talk and talk.
	My mother would sometimes chime in.
	She generally would listen in these matters.
	And I would listen to them.
	It was a mixture, just like on our table, of the trivial and the monumental.
	That's what they would do.
	And then, when I felt, I don't know, by 8th grade, 9th grade, or 8th grade, I guess, 7th grade, anywhere around there, I started to chime in.
	So here's the beauty I'll never forget.
	My father looked at me one time, very early on in my speaking up at the table, and he goes, Dennis, that's nonsense.
	And I remember thinking, believe it or not, I was not hurt.
	I believe it.
	Good.
	Knowing you, I believe it.
	That's right.
	And I just thought, he's right.
	It was nonsense.
	What I said did not make sense.
	My father's voice remained in me, speaking publicly almost my whole life.
	Dennis, are you saying anything that's nonsense?
	Wow.
	All from the Shabbat table.
	Where do kids have that ability today?
	What table?
	Supposedly the dinner table, but people are increasingly lackadaisical about having a set time.
	I love the way that you position the benefits of Shabbat in your Torah commentary.
	You say, first of all, it's really the only time of the week where...
	Not just time of the week.
	The only time where time is sanctified.
	That's a unique invention of the Torah.
	And second of all, I loved how you phrased it.
	You said, it allows you to consider what you're doing on the other six days of the week.
	Like God, you are taking a rest and you are looking back at what you created or what you did in that time.
	And it's a reset for you.
	And I have certainly found that coming to your Shabbat dinners because it's like a guidepost for me.
	That's probably not the right word.
	A marker for me every week.
	When I go to Shabbat, I think, okay, what have I accomplished in this past week?
	I think about the things that I was ruminating about the week before, the things I wanted to accomplish, and then the next week when I'm at Shabbat, I think, did I do that?
	So it's so helpful to have one set thing a week that you look forward to and that, again, serves as a marker.
	Now that you're a regular, by the way, should it happen, you are.
	And when it will happen, it will undoubtedly happen, for whatever reason, that you won't come one Friday night, you'll miss it.
	I can't come this Friday night.
	I didn't even tell you.
	We have a birthday dinner for a family friend.
	You'll miss it.
	I'm really sad about it.
	Dennis has this great saying.
	You've said it to me on the phone recently.
	You said, you know, the worst thing about missing a Shabbat...
	No, the punishment.
	Oh, that's right.
	The punishment of missing a Shabbat is that you missed a Shabbat.
	Exactly right.
	And boy, is that true.
	And you know what else is so great specifically about our Shabbat?
	You talk very much, and I really appreciate it, about the concept of non-blood love, loving people who aren't in your family.
	I have really come to adore the people at our dinner table.
	And the ages are from a, what, how old is Sasha?
	Six months old?
	Right.
	A six-month-old infant to someone in their 70s or 80s.
	Right.
	We have under 10 teenage 20. 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, sometimes 80. And no one gives a damn.
	And everyone participates equally.
	Exactly correct.
	And it's so nice because I've really gotten to know the other families and they remember things in my life and they listen to this podcast and they know when my birthday is and I know when they're...
	You know, it just...
	It's so special.
	It...
	It's sort of...
	That embodies a theory of mine.
	If you want to be truly human, get religious.
	Oh, God.
	I'm telling you.
	I think the biggest thing that you've given me, and that's, you know, it's hard to say what the biggest thing is, is an appreciation for religion.
	I am infinitely happier, healthier, more principled.
	And I was pretty principled before, but religion has really revolutionized my life in so many ways.
	And by the way, this is...
	A separate conversation.
	I do want to, as Jen Psaki would say, circle back to the concept of it's a sin to feel despair.
	But I am actually, for myself, I am grateful that I grew up secular.
	Because one of the things that you talked about at your shul, which is every Saturday, for those who don't know, it's a synagogue.
	You talked about how...
	Religion can be taught to people in such a bad way and it can really turn people off.
	I am lucky that I didn't have that.
	That's very interesting.
	I had zero slash neutral.
	I didn't have bad.
	So then, thank God, the first really exposure to religion I had was your Torah commentary, which is the best first exposure you could get.
	I was so receptive to it.
	I don't know if I would have been as receptive to it if I had gotten a bad version of religion.
	It is a fact of life that for a lot of Jews, Catholics, and Protestants, the religiosity that they got was an inoculation against religiosity.
	That was the situation for my parents.
	My mom grew up in an incredibly Catholic household.
	They went to church every Sunday.
	They had the holy days of obligation.
	She would talk about being six or seven years old sitting in the church, and they would read aloud.
	And the first nail was put into Jesus's arm, and they went through each stage of his crucifixion.
	And she went to a Catholic girls' high school, and she really felt like religion was shoved I think my father felt the same way.
	Of course, you know, my parents, they're healthy people, they have respect for religion, and they were the beneficiaries of their religious instruction in many ways.
	But I think they were...
	Determined to raise my sisters and me as secular because they got sort of too militant.
	You're isolating the stigmata issue, right?
	The wounds of Jesus on the cross.
	For a six-year-old, that's a lot.
	Well, yes, but my point is a different one, which is really worthy of its own hour, if not week.
	So the strength of Christianity is faith, and the strength of Judaism is law.
	So it's just true.
	It's just a given.
	Very often in life, if not done properly, your strengths become weaknesses.
	It's like I give the example of real beauty in a woman.
	A stunning woman, like a very wealthy guy.
	They have very real problems.
	The guy goes, does anybody love me because of me or do you want my money?
	Does anybody love me because of me or because you love my beauty?
	So, look, it's better to be beautiful than ugly and it's better to be rich than poor.
	But it's better to be good looking than gorgeous and it's better to work to earn money than be given a lot of it from your father.
	So, what does that have to do with this?
	The strengths of these two religions are also their curses.
	What is the danger for a guy who inherits a fortune of money?
	He relies on it.
	What is the danger for a beautiful woman?
	She relies on it.
	Not a good idea.
	You better develop other stuff or it's over.
	Christianity came to rely entirely, almost entirely on faith.
	Judaism almost entirely on halakha, Jewish law.
	And it didn't work out great for either of them.
	What they both need to do is, I'll be totally honest, why my Bible commentary is important.
	I make it relevant.
	Totally.
	You learn about Jesus' suffering on the cross, but I need to understand as a Catholic kid, why does that matter to me?
	This is a tragedy.
	God gave his son, etc.
	But how does that affect me?
	Right now they're saying that boys and girls are malleable.
	What does my religion have to say about that?
	If it doesn't have anything to say about the most important issues of your day, it's irrelevant.
	That is absolutely the strength of your commentary.
	And another thing I know I've said many times, but it is always worth reiterating, is in your introduction, you say, I'm not trying to make you a Jew.
	I'm not trying to make you a Christian.
	I'm trying to make you an ethical monotheist.
	And I'm telling you, when I read that introduction, that is what made me continue into the rest of the book.
	Because it wasn't filled with an agenda.
	And it was focused on the most important thing.
	And that's what I wish I could impart with...
	The utmost respect for Christians and Jews alike.
	That you can't start off by saying Jesus is going to save your soul.
	You can't start off with that pitch.
	You've got to moderate the pitch.
	Why is God important?
	That is what every religious figure should be talking about.
	You have to make it modern.
	Yes, or modernly relevant.
	Modernly, right.
	It's ancient, and I'm happy with it being ancient.
	Of course.
	I mean, the greatest part of it is that it's ancient, but yes, you have to make it relevant.
	By the way, it's called the Rational Bible.
	I have no compunction about saying it.
	Nobody writes a Bible commentary for 12 years to make money.
	But it's life-changing, and it's meant to be.
	By the way, you pick up on everything I've got to say.
	It gives me joy, even in the introduction.
	The introduction is important.
	Oh, and you wrote that in the beginning.
	You said if you read this introduction, it will enrich your understanding of the book.
	And I said, okay, I'm going to give this guy a shot.
	And we did it.
	I read your Torah commentary before I read Still the Best Hope.
	I didn't know that until you just mentioned it, I think, last week.
	I was very moved.
	That's right.
	I did.
	And I learned about the Torah commentary through listening to your show because you publicized it.
	So sometimes we get a little annoyed repeating and publicizing it, but it really is worth it.
	Bless you.
	You know, I've sent autographed copies to many of my friends.
	You're always so sweet, Dennis, about writing a note at the beginning to people.
	But people who I send it to love it.
	Because, again, it's not really...
	It's not holy.
	It's about life.
	I mean, it is holy, but you know what I mean?
	It's not excessively holy.
	It's just, it's life.
	An atheist would get a lot out of it.
	And when you talk, I mean, the thing that just astounded me was, again, every single story, you took away a lesson about human nature.
	I go back to one of my favorites, the Cain and Abel story.
	Do you choose to envy or emulate the people who are better than you?
	The Noah and the Ark story, you know, Noah was righteous among...
	We have to judge people based on the context of their time.
	God, do I wish religion...
	Because so many people would adopt it if it were taught this way.
	It kills me.
	It really does kill me, too.
	I always felt I had the antidote to evil.
	Right.
	And my only issue from high school on was how do I get it out to people?
	Well, I think you've done a pretty good job.
	Well...
	I've done a pretty good job, but the job is so immense that I don't sit and celebrate.
	Well, I hope to chip in a little bit.
	Anyway, if I got you, you know I mean that, but I want everybody to know who's listening.
	So the despair issue.
	So there is reason to despair, but you cannot do it.
	That's my one sentence.
	Reaction to the question, watching what is happening to America, that the first time in its history, freedom is truly being assaulted.
	Truly.
	And the most important of all, the freedom of speech.
	And the dismissal of humans on the basis of the color of their skin.
	The evaluations of humans.
	That's why I say liberals are so weak.
	They're sweet.
	They're bright.
	They're weak.
	I almost...
	I just want to make that point.
	Sorry.
	Okay, not an issue.
	Just remember what you wanted to say.
	It is the opposite of liberalism to say that color matters.
	The opposite.
	The Ku Klux Klan said color matters.
	The Nazis said color matters.
	And now the left says color matters.
	And liberals are okay with it.
	I have to tell you increasingly, this is the point that I was going to make when I rudely interrupted you.
	I am more annoyed nowadays with liberals than I am with leftists.
	Usually it was the other way around, where the leftists are the more militant ones and the liberals are the moderate ones.
	But perhaps this is a bit heavy-handed or unkind to say, I really do believe a lot of leftists are sick.
	We talked about that last week, about sort of an internal part of their nature that's gone awry that compels them to these bogus, destructive ideas.
	I really think there's, again, a sickness among the militant leftists.
	But among the liberals, it's more cowardice.
	I'm not as convinced that they're sick, but they acquiesce to the demands of the left or they ignore them.
	And I think that's almost worse.
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	Because it doesn't come from conviction.
	Right.
	The leftists have conviction.
	Yeah.
	The liberals don't.
	If they had any liberal convictions, they'd vote against the left.
	It's almost the question of who's worse, the bully or the bystander.
	As bad as the bully is, the bully may just, again, truly be sick or truly have some deep issues.
	But the bystander, almost worse than the bully.
	Well, and they're not bystanders.
	Right.
	They're encouragers.
	Right, exactly.
	Right.
	Well, you know, I... I'm so grateful for my parents in many ways, but I think on this point of despair, as we've talked about, I have an older sister with very severe autism, and it's just, from day one, in so many different ways, been difficult for our family, not just processing the hardship of having their child, my sister.
	Have her life essentially taken away, but also her care has been so horrible.
	There are many reasons for my parents to despair, and they never, ever did growing up.
	I really saw just—they really imparted to me, you never ask for pity.
	You never burden other people with your sadness or moping around.
	You deal with it stoically and with resilience.
	And I just—I think seeing that example and having that put into me has— Because?
	Because I think I don't let my emotions take over.
	And especially you don't push your emotions onto other people.
	So I just want to repeat.
	We both recognize that it is a legitimate response.
	Of course.
	And of course there were days when my parents had despair.
	Of course there were days when we had despair about America.
	I'm referring to America.
	By the way, certainly for your parents.
	Certainly.
	I salute them too.
	It's a very beautiful analogy that you gave with regard to them.
	By the way, it's lackadaisical, not laxadaisical.
	Did I say laxadaisical?
	Oh, I do know better.
	Sounds like laxative.
	Oh, God.
	So this is hilarious.
	Oh, I'm sorry.
	The reason that I thought of it was, I made a mental note when you said it, but I didn't want to interrupt that.
	By the way, you and you do it to me for graduate from.
	Yeah, I know.
	I did it last week.
	So for the record, you have two...
	Resilient human beings at these microphones who actually welcome being corrected.
	Oh, of course.
	You say of course, but this is the weakening of the American, your generation, but even before your generation.
	The whole thing of trigger, the whole thing of a safe space, of going to hide if a conservative speaker comes to college.
	Instead of, you're so weak, you hide?
	Leftism is the celebration of weakness.
	Of meekness, yes.
	Well, that's what Nietzsche says about Christianity, that liberalism has taken the worst parts of Christianity.
	I don't know if Nietzsche fully criticizes Christianity as a whole.
	I'd have to go back and read him.
	But he says that liberalism has taken what he sees to be the worst parts and pulled them out and celebrated them.
	Spell Nietzsche.
	N-I-E-T-Z-C-H-E. It's not S-C-H-E? You may be right.
	Wait.
	I actually...
	Hold on.
	N-I-E-T-Z... Oh, God.
	C-H-E. N-I-E-T-Z-C-H-E. Yeah, that's what I think it is.
	Yeah, that's what it is.
	Mietzcha.
	Mietzcha.
	Yes.
	Is that what you said the first time?
	Well, we'd have to go back and listen to it.
	I don't know.
	Oh, there's an S. I was right.
	I said S. I think I said yes.
	Oh, I can't wait for people to...
	That's hilarious.
	We both go, I was right.
	That's funny.
	Oh, my God.
	N-I-E-T-Z-S-C-H-E. Right.
	I think I may have said that at the beginning.
	We're going to go back and...
	People can rewind it pretty fast.
	Sean, you've got to go back and look and let us know.
	This will fascinate.
	We're going to battle it out.
	So you know what?
	This is really a great topic.
	The weak.
	The weakening of the American child.
	It started with my parents' generation raising the baby boomers with Dr. Spock.
	Do you ever hear of him?
	Benjamin Spock, who probably did more harm than a lot of people not meaning to.
	But it was the, oh, listen to your child.
	It was the antithesis of a strict upbringing.
	Let's put it that way.
	So the best thing you could do, one of the best for your child, is make them resilient.
	Yep.
	Do you know my favorite?
	You don't know my favorite story.
	You'll love this.
	This is so up to the rally.
	Besides the police thinking that your apartment had been ransacked.
	That's the most embarrassing, yes.
	It was a good one.
	Very good one.
	And so makes sense, given your desk.
	You understand.
	So, I'm in high school.
	And the only reason I made the basketball team in my sophomore year was my height.
	I was the tallest kid in the school.
	It was a Jewish school.
	And the coach...
	Who is not a sweet man, let's put it that way, announces the final cuts and then says to the entire team and everyone assembled in the gym, well, Prager made the team.
	We really scraped the bottom of the barrel.
	Oh, gosh.
	Oh, my.
	People today would cry.
	Their parents would sue the school.
	Exactly.
	Forget about it.
	So this is how I know what I was like.
	Because I could tap into certain reactions to special moments.
	I remember thinking exactly what I'm going to tell you.
	This guy is an a-hole.
	And he's right.
	I thought both thoughts.
	Okay, so...
	I have had, I don't think I've ever talked to you about this.
	You know that I was a very serious athlete in high school.
	I was actually a very serious athlete starting from the time I was five.
	I was in swimming every single day after school, starting at five years old.
	Then I went on to play soccer.
	Not to brag, but here I am bragging.
	My team, when we were, I think I was 12 years old, we were third in the state.
	We were, yeah, the third best team, which is, you know, you gotta get to a...
	That's a big state.
	It's a big state, and also, given the weather and the size, there are a lot of people playing sports.
	So to get to that level, you have to practice a lot.
	So I did soccer, I did swimming, and then I did water polo.
	So I have had probably a dozen to two dozen coaches, and I can think of maybe two or three coaches who were nice.
	All the other coaches I had were...
	Camp guards.
	Yes.
	Like, would scream at you.
	I have so many memories, again, from the time that I was little, of...
	Being on the soccer field and making a bad pass or a bad play or not running fast enough and the coach screaming at me in front of the parents on the sidelines, the whole team, the opposing team, their parents, the referee.
	I mean, it was public humiliation.
	And this would happen to me in water polo.
	It would happen to me in swimming.
	And I just...
	You know, when the coach would scream at me, I'd think I would never do this to someone else.
	If I were a coach, I would never scream at them.
	I mean, I had coaches that would take their clipboard and throw it on.
	I had a coach kicked out of the game once.
	I mean, you would not believe the gamut of people I have seen in my life.
	But you survived.
	But I survived.
	And you know what?
	My parents, if the coach ever got really bad, would intervene.
	They didn't just allow me to be ridiculed and abused.
	I'm grateful that they kept me in those sports, especially now as I'm getting older.
	And I'm oddly grateful that I had those coaches because it made me develop tough skin.
	I remember being on the soccer field sometimes and the coach would be screaming at me and I'd feel the tears start going up.
	Really?
	Only, I mean, I got thick skin really fast.
	But I do remember one time, because it's more, your parents are right there.
	You know, it's mortifying enough to make a bad play.
	And then on top of it, to have the coach scream at you for it and draw more attention to the fact that you did it, it was awful.
	God, am I grateful because I think to myself, no matter what boss I have, luckily I got very lucky with a great boss, but whoever I encounter in my life or whatever I encounter, I know that I can handle it.
	So it's an interesting question.
	Do you think that your thick skin is built in or you learned it?
	I think it's both.
	Yeah.
	So I don't think I learned it.
	I think it was just built in.
	Because I think so rationally, when I'm insulted, my first question is, is there any truth to it?
	And what he said was disgusting in terms of meanness, but 100% true.
	Having me on the team was scraping the bottom of the barrel.
	I knew that.
	You know what?
	When I first became conservative, if you will, I want to change my description of that.
	I think it's more that when I realized or was awoken to my conservative instincts, I obviously went down this rabbit hole of listening to different pundits.
	And sometimes, for instance, you know that I'm a big fan of Candace Owens.
	Sometimes at the beginning when I would watch her, I thought that she said things in a particularly incendiary way, like she could have...
	I rephrased it or toned it down a little bit.
	But then I thought to myself, am I going to throw out all of what she's saying just because I don't like the way that she's saying it?
	There must be, and there is, I realized that there were huge kernels of truth.
	And again, I think I got that from my time in sports.
	Because when I did make a bad play, even though the coach was screaming at me, I mean, he was right.
	Well, anyway, what is the coach supposed to do?
	Obviously, insulting is wrong, but a tender approach is not as effective.
	Oh, Julie, you're such a wonderful player, but I just want to point out that...
	By the way, I never asked you that.
	I know you swam, not professionally, but competitively.
	Almost professionally.
	What stroke?
	Freestyle.
	I was a sprint freestyle swimmer.
	You know, I'm interested in everything, so I have a question for you.
	What percentage of your victory or defeat depended on the initial dive?
	So interesting you ask that, because that was one of the things that I wasn't particularly good at.
	My swim coach said that I had a rainbow dive.
	I tried to get a lot of height.
	You're actually supposed to get into the water as quickly and as forcefully as possible.
	I thought that you should try to leap.
	You have to go distance.
	It's not distance?
	It's more about, I mean, you want a good amount of distance, but you want to get into the water as quickly as possible, and you want to go underwater.
	So you sort of want to hover over the water, not go like this.
	You don't want to do a rainbow.
	You want to do sort of a straight shot.
	Okay.
	Maybe with a little arc, but a straight shot.
	Go on.
	And the key is that you're supposed to go under the water and get to the water that's not turbulent.
	The still water like a few feet under so that you can dolphin kick and emerge because you have other swimmers in different lanes that are also diving in and then the water becomes choppy and when the water is choppy you don't swim as fast.
	So when you dive you're supposed to get under the water where it's relatively calm and then that way when you're kicking you go faster.
	Does that make any sense?
	Totally, but...
	But are you kicking underwater?
	Yeah, you're doing dolphin kicks.
	So is it ideal to be underwater as long as possible?
	It's kind of a happy medium.
	Well, why not as long as possible?
	Because when you use your arms, it's just way more power.
	When you're under the water, you're only using your legs.
	You have to be streamlined with your arms.
	So my dive, the dive was not terrible.
	You could recover from a bad dive, but it was important.
	What's way more important is the flip turn.
	Right, I understand that.
	So, I always wonder whether it's track or it's swimming.
	But the time between, is it a shot?
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	Take your marks.
	Beep!
	Do you train to do it exactly when you hear it, or is that instinctive?
	So, I'll tell you a story.
	The answer is that my coach would say, when you hear the announcer go take your marks, the next sound you hear, go.
	Because you want to get in the water immediately.
	Well, you don't have to wait for the sound to end.
	Just hearing the beginning of the sound.
	Yes, just go.
	Oh, that's interesting.
	So, at CIF, which is the big state meet every year that you qualify for, I was in the final heat in high school, which is the fastest heat for both the 50 and the 100-yard freestyle.
	So everyone for the final heats at these events, I mean, there's a huge crowd of parents and supporters, and it gets really rowdy, and people are yelling names.
	So when you're standing up on the block, I remember, oh God, I was so nervous.
	I had just that morning taken my AP World History AP exam, and then I drove to Riverside and did this meet.
	I'm standing up on the block.
	I'm super nervous.
	They go, take your marks.
	And someone yelled out, you know, a swimmer's name.
	Oh, and you thought that...
	And you're supposed to have silence.
	Oh, God.
	You're supposed to have complete silence so you can hear the beat.
	So did anybody jump?
	And so two or three girls just dove in.
	And what happens then?
	I mean, it's mortifying for them.
	So what happens, though?
	Some meets, you're disqualified if you do that.
	But this meet, you weren't.
	So then they just had to get back out of the water and do it again.
	Did the yeller know that it was wrong or they just spontaneously...
	What they said was...
	I mean, the yeller, I think, did know that it was wrong.
	With the...
	What the announcer does is they go, take your marks, and then you're supposed to hear beep, but what actually happens is they go, stand, if there's a sound, meaning you have to get back up.
	I understand, yes, right.
	But I remember being up there, I was already so nervous, and I'm clenching, ready to dive in, and I'm expecting to hear the beep, and I hear stand, and it was like, oh my god, my body just went numb.
	So I have another question.
	When you're racing, how aware are you of other racers?
	You're aware of them at the flip turn.
	You're supposed to keep your eyes dead at the bottom of the pool.
	And why are you aware of them at the flip?
	Because your head is to the side when you flip, so you can see the people in the other lanes.
	In the 50 and the 100-yard freestyle, I wasn't really aware because it's so damn close.
	I mean, swimming gets you down to the millisecond.
	Yes, exactly.
	Sometimes you're aware of them when you breathe because you turn your head to breathe.
	Yeah.
	Gosh.
	Swimming days.
	Did you ever do the butterfly?
	I did it in practice.
	It's a killer, isn't it?
	Oh, it is brutal.
	I don't know how they do it.
	We would have, if we messed up...
	Men who do the butterfly?
	They're like weightlifters.
	I know.
	They're chiseled, gigantic.
	But they're also super thin, too.
	Yeah, well, there's no body fat.
	There's no body fat.
	In practice, our punishment for messing up a set, i.e.
	That's hilarious.
	Was to do, ready for this?
	Yeah.
	500 yards of butterfly.
	No, you're kidding.
	20 laps.
	20 laps of butterfly was your punishment.
	Did you have to do whatever?
	Oh, yeah.
	And you couldn't stop.
	This is what I'm talking about with the coaches.
	I mean, they would...
	Oh, that's sadism.
	I mean, I gotta tell you, some of the coaches I had were truly sadistic.
	20 laps of the butterfly.
	That's not even done in racing.
	Oh, and that's just in a two-hour practice.
	Then you have to continue practicing.
	And that was if you messed up.
	What is the chief muscle you use in the freestyle?
	I have no idea.
	Oh, you don't know?
	No.
	That's interesting.
	No.
	But I was, I tell you, I was jacked.
	I'm sure you were.
	Very toned.
	Yeah.
	As fun as the swimming discussion is, I have a point that I want to get back to about the...
	Resilience?
	Yes.
	Yeah.
	Well, it's actually a great way to go into it because I really do think that my time in swimming and water polo taught me huge resilience.
	Nowadays, you know I reflect a lot on why people are so weak.
	And I really think it's because, as we've mentioned so many times, in America we've just gotten to as close to an on-Earth utopian place as is humanly possible.
	I'm fascinated by this idea because I think the reason why we're so weak is that we don't think that we have to be strong.
	I mentioned this last podcast that I'm reading Paul Johnson's book about the history of America and how there was this understanding throughout American history that we were to carry on the torch of civilization.
	And now I think that there's this understanding.
	And by the way, I'm saying this because I actually think I had it a little bit when I was younger.
	America is always going to survive.
	Because we've reached such a high level in so many ways, even though the leftists say that America is so bad, they really know that we have reached such a great level, especially compared to other places on Earth.
	But I think, again, we have this idea that, oh, the other generations had to go through the Civil War, World War I, World War II, the Cold War, 9-11, but...
	We've kind of hit a steady period of our history, and now with the iPhone and all of these inventions we have, we've kind of, again, reached this part of time where we're insulated from all the other things that the world has to go through.
	And it's this weird, false sense of permanence, of our prosperity, that I think is especially prevalent among people my age.
	So that's why we're weak.
	Because we have the luxury of being able to be weak.
	We don't think we have to be strong.
	There are no mountains to climb.
	No.
	We think this is our birthright.
	We think it's somehow guaranteed to us by virtue of being Americans.
	Right.
	That might explain, it does, I think, the weakness.
	Because there's so few challenges.
	Yes.
	You don't even have to work in college.
	No.
	Anybody who went to college in my parents' generation worked.
	It was a given.
	But it doesn't explain, and you're not aiming to explain it, the leftism, the wokeness, that is from boredom.
	Yes, that is from boredom and too much prosperity, I think.
	Right.
	Because with prosperity comes leisure.
	Plus secularism equals boredom equals leftism.
	Totally.
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	Well, one of the things that I said about Rousseau when I read him this past semester in my political philosophy class, which was, by the way, a killer.
	Oh my gosh.
	Those old guys are so difficult to read.
	Very.
	Especially Rousseau.
	They didn't go for clarity.
	No, they did not.
	And Nietzsche, who we just mentioned, boy, he was the one that was the most difficult to read.
	Machiavelli was the easiest.
	Must be a vacation when you read me.
	Oh.
	Let me tell you, it really is.
	It's funny, I was thinking earlier in this episode, it's fascinating to me that your physical life is so chaos, like your desk and these newspapers over here is such chaos, but your mind is so clear, and your writing is so clear.
	Anyway, it's an interesting paradox.
	But with Rousseau...
	Wait, there was a line about that with Einstein, who had a messy desk, at least it might be apocryphal.
	I'm terrible at memorizing anything, let alone funny lines, but it went something like...
	This is why we have Sean.
	Yes, it is, but I don't know if he knows this one.
	It's something to the effect where somebody said, oh, you know, Einstein, you have such a messy desk and such a clear mind.
	Just like what you just said to me.
	And then he spit about somebody else.
	Well, they have a very clear desk.
	Who is a very clear desk?
	No, no, he was saying about a guy who he didn't like.
	He has a really clear desk.
	Well, I was just thinking as you were saying it, a lot of my peers who are left-wing are exceptionally clean and tidy.
	Oh, that's fascinating.
	Wow.
	Yeah.
	Anyway, it's just a cute line.
	So with Rousseau, one of the things that I observed, he, of course, was the person who said that people are born perfect in the state of nature and then they become corrupted by civilization.
	And some of his assessments, I think, of how people become corrupted are apt.
	For instance, he talks about the way that we become conventional creatures and we care too much about, I think he calls us herd animals, how we care too much about what other people think.
	Some of the things he says are actually...
	Pretty good descriptions.
	But overall, he's saying that civilization has not been good for us.
	I mean, that's ridiculous.
	And I thought to myself as I was reading him, you know, he actually is an embodiment of what he is talking about.
	He is the living embodiment of how civilization can corrupt you by becoming to a place that is so good that it gives you enough leisure time to come up with crackpot ideas like the ones that he wrote down.
	So that's just relating to the point of wokeism.
	It's a very affluent society that can have departments of gender studies with people making $80,000, $100,000, $150,000 a year.
	And the irony is that these people all day, every day, incessantly talk about privilege.
	Are you kidding me?
	They are the living embodiments of privilege.
	So to go back to what we were originally saying, I have to tell you, I am terrified for the future.
	I am very worried about America.
	I don't know.
	If we keep going down the road that we're on, I don't think there is going to be the United States of America.
	In a few decades.
	So what there will be, I never make predictions, but I want to react to what you're saying.
	So there is, there will be a solution.
	And that is truly dividing the country.
	Where conservative places that believe in liberty, free speech, God, raising children with obligations, not just rights.
	I mean, I could give a whole 50 examples.
	They will just have their own place.
	And maybe it'll be a hundred different countries.
	Maybe it will have to be, because it's not contiguous.
	Because every big city has lousy values, and yet they're not contiguous.
	Why is that?
	Okay, so I have a theory on that.
	Shocking.
	Yeah, it's shocking.
	Exactly.
	We were talking about why I have theories.
	I have a theory why I have theories.
	You have a theory on the design of cutting knives and forks and cloud configurations.
	So the theory I have...
	What was the question now?
	Why are cities the places where bad values occur?
	So I have a historical and I have a contemporary.
	So both historically and contemporary, cities...
	Enable you to be anonymous.
	It's a very bad thing.
	True.
	People love New York precisely because they don't know anyone and nobody knows them.
	And so you can do whatever you want so they think.
	Not on a deep level, but you can.
	You're not anonymous if you live in an Oklahoma town.
	I give a very telling example.
	Every so often, I speak every week, literally, and so I stay at a hotel almost every week.
	Every week, seriously.
	Yes, correct.
	It's remarkable how much you travel.
	And when I am at a hotel that's having a convention, some company, some industry, Some sport.
	They wear a thing, hi, I'm, and their name.
	People act a lot better when they wear a badge with their name.
	It's very important for people to know.
	Anonymity doesn't breed kindness.
	That's an excellent point.
	Okay, so that's why most New Yorkers I don't care for.
	I didn't care for.
	It's one of the reasons I left.
	Obviously, there are wonderful people in New York, but in general, the rudeness that is generally associated, the coldness, is because of the anonymity.
	It's also, by the way, which I'm not happy to report, but truth matters, because there are so many different groups there.
	One of the many lies of the left is diversity is our strength.
	If diversity were our strength, why would Finland, Norway, and Sweden, and Denmark always be voted the happiest countries?
	Right.
	Well, you wrote in one of your books, diversity is not our strength.
	The way that we historically have been able to deal with our diversity...
	That's a pluribusunum for many one.
	Melting pot, which the left hates, the concept of a melting pot.
	So that's one reason big cities are awful.
	It doesn't breed kind people.
	It also breeds terrible ideas.
	Partially because they don't deal with reality.
	Because they're not interacting on a deep level like you might have in a rural area where you know your neighbors.
	They come up with ideas.
	Like Marx.
	He spent his whole life in the London Library.
	Came up with some of the worst ideas in human history.
	It was in large measure because he didn't live reality.
	Cities allow you to live in a make-believe world more than rural areas do.
	Then finally, and this is in my Genesis commentary, so fewer and fewer people know Bible stories, but some people watching or listening know the story of the Tower of Babel.
	So this happens in the beginning of Genesis.
	People decide, we're going to build a building who...
	The top of which hits the heavens, which is typical of humans.
	I want to make the biggest building.
	And they make it, and God doesn't like what they're trying to do.
	It's too much hubris.
	But very few people know this.
	Happily, I pointed out.
	It's not original to me.
	I learned it.
	Every time the Tower of Babel is mentioned, every...
	It says, and the city attached to it.
	Oh, wow.
	Wow, wow, wow.
	The Torah is very ambivalent about cities.
	Wow.
	And the Torah also, this is kind of a separate point I learned from you, is a bit ambivalent about first children.
	They prefer second children.
	Because it doesn't believe...
	Cain and Abel is an example.
	Well, they're all examples.
	Jacob and Esau, Cain and Abel, Moses and Aaron.
	It's endless.
	There's no example where the older one outshines the younger one.
	And it is the Torah's way of saying, stop this notion that the first is always better.
	It's just like, don't think blood is that important.
	The mother of Moses...
	Is Pharaoh's daughter.
	And polygamy.
	That's such a great point.
	The thing that I love about the Torah, and what you alerted me to, is that without overtly in your face saying it, they dispel notions that were held in pagan or ancient societies, like that polygamy is a good thing, this notion of elevating the first.
	Nature is God.
	And the reason why it's so great and why it requires someone like you, who's...
	Obviously, extremely well-read and knows the Torah in and out to explain it, is that, again, as I just said, it's not overt.
	It's not thrown in your face.
	It's taught through lessons and through stories, and that's a much better way to remember things.
	Right.
	Your point of anonymity made me think about...
	I think that is...
	I really got to think about that more.
	That is a really excellent point.
	And I think one of the reasons probably why we have gotten to such a bad place in society is that people are increasingly anonymous.
	Because look at what we were just talking about a few minutes ago with how much I enjoy our Shabbat dinners.
	I am not anonymous at those tables.
	Everyone there knows me, they know about my life, and it just creates another...
	Community that I, as an individual, am a part of and that I'm valued in.
	That's one of the benefits of religion.
	When you go to your church, you can't really hide.
	People know who you are.
	They know about your family.
	When you are known, it does impel you to behave better because more people are obviously going to find out if you don't behave well.
	So anyway, that's just a quick point that I wanted to make.
	One of the other points I want to say...
	Is that what scares me the most about our situation now and why I really think we're heading down a bad path if we continue is, and this actually relates to the point that I was saying about why I am more annoyed with liberals than with leftists,
	is It's not so much the crazy ideas that have taken hold, but it is everyday people who know that these are crazy ideas and lack courage at all to stand up against them.
	And I saw this all the time in college.
	Actually, most people around me knew that things like defunding the police or the COVID diktats...
	Were bad things, but they were just silent.
	Sex is not binary.
	And I don't understand why that is.
	Why can they not just muster up one tiny drop?
	It really doesn't require that much courage to say that, look at what I talked about last week, the Boston Children's Hospital allowing these hysterectomies for 18-year-olds.
	Advertising it.
	It really doesn't require that much courage.
	We're not talking about, you know, the Puritans sailing across the Atlantic in the high seas and coming to America and having to build a society.
	It's really not that hard.
	Why don't we play?
	It's 48 seconds.
	Sean, play the Boston Children's Hospital ad.
	This is a female doctor, I believe.
	Oh, God.
	Did you see this?
	I didn't.
	I read about it, though.
	I haven't heard it.
	Alan said when we played it, This is the attractive face of the devil.
	I mean, Alan never engages in hyperbole.
	Not at all.
	This is how scary.
	By the way, it's affiliated with Harvard.
	Oh, Jesus.
	Don't tell me that.
	Well, it's not surprising.
	No, it's not, unfortunately.
	Yes, exactly.
	Uncle Tom 2 is the eye-opening documentary everyone in America should see.
	Dennis Prager here and Uncle Tom 2 offers a compelling and brave analysis of the true history of black America.
	The cultural shift from prosperity, integrity, and faith to its current perceived state of anger, discontent, and victimhood.
	Uncle Tom 2 offers historical footage, photos, correspondence, and data to reveal the genuine strides of black America in the 20th century.
	The deliberate Marxist strategy to create...
	The fall of Black Harlem.
	The truth behind Black Lives Matter and the demoralization of America for political power.
	Don't miss Uncle Tom 2 from executive producer Larry Elder and director Justin Malone with Brandon Tatum, Votie Bauckham, and Chad O'Jackson.
	Pre-order it today at SalemNow.com.
	Watch the movie on demand or buy the DVD this Friday at SalemNow.com.
	That's SalemNow.com.
	You got it, Charles?
	I have something to say after this.
	So for those watching, you'll see it.
	For those listening, you'll hear it.
	A child will often know that they are transgender from the moment that they have any ability to express themselves, and parents will often tell us this.
	We have parents who tell us that their kids, they knew from the minute they were born, practically.
	And actions like refusing to get a haircut or standing to urinate, trying to stand to urinate, refusing to stand to urinate, trying on siblings' clothing, playing with the, quote, opposite gender toys, things like that.
	There is more and more a group of adolescents that we are seeing that really are coming to the realization that they might be trans or gender diverse a little bit later on in their life.
	So what we're seeing from them is that they always sort of knew something was maybe off and didn't have the understanding to know that they might be trans or have a different gender identity than the one they had been assigned.
	So that is a growing population that we are seeing and that's being recognized as being trans and able to be treated.
	Boston Children.
	So, by the way, how many kids have refused a haircut?
	100%.
	You saw me shaking my head.
	That is so wrong.
	This idea that you know the second that you're born.
	All of this is socially cultivated.
	I have seen it myself at my high school and just living in Los Angeles.
	By the way, your high school was an all-girls high school.
	They're accepting trans, correct?
	Yep.
	They got rid of all from the description all-girls because it's not all-girls anymore.
	Well, that's odd.
	A huge contingent.
	Wait, wait, wait.
	They think a trans is a girl.
	A trans girl is a girl.
	Why would they drop off?
	Well, because there are girls that are becoming boys.
	And they're allowed to stay?
	Yes, they are allowed to stay.
	No, it's so screwed up.
	Then it's not a girl.
	Oh, so it's not a girl's school anymore.
	I can't tell you how screwed up it is.
	But see, why can't people muster up?
	Any courage to say that this is wrong.
	I'll tell you an example of a way of thinking that has taken hold among liberals.
	And I notice this constantly, constantly at Harvard.
	I talked to one of my friends about...
	Hookup culture, which we've talked a lot about on this program.
	And I was saying, you know, I think that a lot of this comes from feminism.
	The idea that men and women are the same.
	That we as women want casual, meaningless sex as much as men do.
	And so anyway, I don't need to repeat it for the listeners and for you.
	We all know this.
	This idea.
	I was telling it to my friend, though, and she said to me, you know, Julie, I agree with you, but I'm hesitant to criticize feminism because the same people historically who have criticized feminism also think that women shouldn't have rights.
	I'll give you another example.
	Wait, wait, wait.
	So that's an example of?
	The why people cannot muster up any courage to stand up against something.
	It's a brainwash.
	Yes, and they succumb to this idea that we have to think in terms of binary.
	If you're not left, you're a fascist.
	Exactly.
	If you criticize the party line in any way, you're against the party.
	It's not that you're just criticizing one part of it.
	They succumb to this binary way of thinking, and that's what...
	Diminishes their courage.
	Another example is, many of my friends agreed with me that, I mean, it was as clear as day how stupid the COVID restrictions were at Harvard.
	You wear a mask getting your food, you sit down in the dining hall, you can take it off, you wear a mask on the treadmill.
	Lift weights.
	You can take it.
	I mean, it was just beyond, beyond idiotic.
	But when I would talk about it with my peers, they would say, you know, I agree with you that maybe some of these things are stupid, but I'm hesitant to come out fully against it or to criticize masking specifically because the same people who criticize masks are the same people who think that COVID is a hoax, which, by the way, isn't true.
	And also, why can't we just get it right?
	No, that's right.
	That is so important what you just said.
	That shows how effective the brainwash has been.
	You don't want to say the truth because people who say that truth...
	Also say, and then they fill in some lie, by the way.
	Exactly.
	And people focus excessively on implications.
	If you take one view, you are assumed to hold a whole host of other views.
	That's correct.
	Yeah, it's really bad.
	But again, that's the left's really tactic to suppress courage.
	By the way, I hated masks from the beginning because it's nonsense that they were effective.
	By the way, the medical profession said that.
	It's more important for health to demonstrate against racism in the height of the epidemic, theoretically.
	But the thing that people who are pro-mask are oblivious to is what we just talked about a few minutes ago.
	It creates a world of anonymity.
	That's bad.
	Somebody in a store told me at the time, oh yeah, no, no, not a store, a waitress.
	She said, people with the masks on, they don't treat me as nicely.
	Because they have no skin in the game, literally.
	There's no skin in the game.
	I think that's why people like protesting, people my age especially, because they feel anonymous and it allows their impulse to...
	Oh, to be part of the herd is so empowering.
	There are people who I know go to protests and they love the sense of anarchy.
	They love walking with people and no one knows who they are and they can pull out a joint.
	They can take off their clothes.
	Look at all the crap that goes on at protests.
	It's because no one knows who you are and you can let your freak flag fly.
	You can essentially be a hedonist or an anarchist and do whatever the hell you want.
	Boy, that's a great point about anonymity.
	Masks produce that.
	So, I'll ask a personal question.
	So, I totally get the...
	What was the word we were using the whole time?
	Despair.
	Despair.
	I totally get that.
	Because I combat it.
	Effectively, I combat it, by the way, but I have to combat it.
	So...
	I promise, and you know me, but I'm just promising for the audience.
	I'm not asking for a compliment.
	I'm asking for an insight.
	Has our working together helped on the despair issue?
	Oh, of course.
	So why?
	Because...
	I'll tell you, when I go to bed at night before I started working with you, I would think about all of these things and it would bother me so much and I would say to myself, I wish that I could in some way...
	Come out publicly against this or spread the word that this is bad or be an example to people.
	Obviously, you don't need a microphone in a Dennis and Julie podcast to do that.
	You can do that in your own community just by talking with people or writing an article for your school newspaper, etc.
	But certainly to be able to have the platform that we have and to discuss these ideas with you and get emails from listeners and know that it is being disseminated.
	In mass to people, that has made me feel way, way better.
	It's just taken a load off of my shoulders.
	Feeling like I am in some way contributing to turning the tide.
	That's right.
	But I want people to understand the point you made in the middle.
	You were sensitive to your credit.
	To what you were saying.
	You don't have to have a microphone.
	No, you don't.
	It's so important.
	Forgive me.
	Writing a letter to the editor matters.
	These things make a letter to a congressman and that maybe only a staffer will read.
	It all matters.
	And you know what?
	I said this at your shul the other day when Dennis interviewed me at his synagogue which was...
	A huge honor.
	Everyone there is so...
	God, you have such great people in your life.
	I do.
	Really, really excellent people.
	And someone asked, you know, what advice would you give to younger people?
	And I said, look.
	I realize that some people may think that this is a sensationalist statement.
	I hope that they're right.
	I hope that I am being sensationalist right now.
	I think that we are at a do-or-die moment in our country.
	We need people to stand up.
	And I said, I responded to this person saying, look, obviously coming from my position, you go, well, easy for you to say, Julie, you're getting paid to espouse your values.
	And I recognize that that is an enormous privilege, that it is my vocation, it is my job to talk about these things.
	We really do need everyday people.
	Just, again, in conversation or in the newspaper, just in everyday life, trying to stand up against this because it's getting so, so bad to the point of absurdity.
	And the secret here is, or the not-so-dirty secret, is that we're the majority.
	I'm not even necessarily talking about conservatives, people who are moderate, just people who oppose this.
	Alt-left garbage.
	We are in the majority.
	So why are we the ones who are cowering?
	Why are we the ones staying silent?
	Well, they have levers of power.
	No, they do.
	Big business.
	No, it's terrifying.
	Everything big.
	If it's big, they control it.
	How the hell do we get...
	You're right, because they are the minority, but they are at the top, and they hold...
	How do we...
	Oust them.
	How does the everyday person try to oust them?
	Take your kids out of school.
	Totally.
	Stop supporting their institutions.
	Yes, exactly.
	I try to buy whatever I can from a company on the internet rather than Amazon.
	Yeah, I've got to start doing that.
	It's so hard.
	It takes five minutes longer, but it doesn't matter.
	Look at Uber, you know.
	What was with Uber?
	Uber's pledged $100 million to Black Lives Matter.
	Dennis, every single major company in the United States has done this.
	To a hate organization.
	To a racist, communist.
	An anti-black.
	Yes.
	Anti-black organization.
	I just want to make this point, and it almost seems so obvious that it's absurd to make.
	Do people realize what a creepy and weird time we're living in?
	Again, I know it sounds so obvious.
	It is mainstream to have a huge hospital in America advertise cutting off children's breasts and taking out their vital organs because they think that they are not the gender that they are.
	People have successfully eliminated huge contingents of police departments.
	There's this class at Princeton that is saying that free speech is racist.
	Again, I know we talk about this every day, but can we just zoom out a little bit and just...
	And recognize how...
	Imagine if the founding fathers could be told that in 2022 this would be happening.
	I mean, it's like out of a movie.
	You didn't need the founding fathers.
	You told my father.
	I know.
	My father loved this country.
	This is what kids in fairy tales, creepy, dystopian fairy tales would make up.
	And it's mainstream and supported by people at Harvard University and Boston Children's Hospital and the President of the United States is supporting having kids not be given lunch at schools in order to encourage their parents to affirm their gender.
	Did you hear about this with Biden?
	Yes, but say it.
	Yeah, that was probably a convoluted way of saying it.
	President Biden is supporting to have schools stop serving lunch to kids because he thinks that that will somehow – or, sorry, schools that refuse to affirm – or schools that tell parents about the kids' gender transition.
	Right, as opposed to keeping it a secret from the parents.
	Yes, yes.
	Sorry.
	I'm usually pretty eloquent.
	That is why...
	That was true.
	Thanks, Dennis.
	Both were true.
	You're batting 990. I wouldn't complain.
	It was because the details were fuzzy in my head.
	Yes, no, no, it's a non-issue.
	The question is often posed to me when I teach the Ten Commandments, or even when I don't.
	People know I do.
	So Dennis, what do you think is the most important of the Ten Commandments?
	And I've had different answers at different times in my life.
	And now I think it's honor your father and mother.
	That is the antidote to totalitarianism.
	If your parents are your authority, the state is not.
	And that's why the left wants to undermine parental authority, because they want the state to be the authority.
	And the proof is in history.
	Look at what Mao did with the camps.
	It was an agenda of his.
	All the great evil of the 20th century was done by big government.
	Big secular government, I might add.
	That is why it's incredibly important for me to read and really beef up on history.
	Yes, that's the secret weapon.
	I've transitioned from reading political books.
	And you know I've read a lot this summer.
	I've read Douglas Murray's War on the West, Molly Hemingway's Rigged, Candace Owens' book.
	Blackout.
	I love reading those political books, but I actually think I am almost exclusively going to just read history now.
	Because that, especially in this time of the ruling.
	That's why I majored in it.
	I knew it.
	I majored in it.
	I didn't know that you majored in history.
	Yes, history and Middle East studies.
	I had a double major.
	Oh, that's right.
	Okay.
	Well, on that happy note, everyone.
	Well, there is a happy note.
	There is a happy note.
	We're here next week.
	We're here next week and that there are people listening and we're fighting.
	And write to Julie.
	Julie-Hartman.com.
	We really love to hear.
	Julie-Hartman.
	By the way, she used to say hyphen.
	I know.
	And God, there are so many listeners who write in weighing in on the controversy.
	Whether it's dash or hyphen.
	Oh, really?
	I think that the conclusion is that dash is the way to go.
	Yes, because hyphen is breaking up a word.
	Yeah, it is.
	And this isn't breaking up a word.
	Like similarly at the end of the sentence.
	Right.
	R-ly.
	Right.
	No, I really love hearing from you listeners.
	It's unbelievably touching.
	And again, I can't promise that I will respond to every one of you, but I can promise that I read all of them.
	And I send text to Dennis.
	That's right.
	I copy and paste messages that you have.
	And also follow us on social media.
	It's at DennisJuliePod on both Instagram and Twitter and Facebook.
	By the way, you want to do, here's a perfect example of what to do for the country that does not necessitate having a microphone.
	Send our microphone to people.
	Right.
	Especially to young people because she's so young.
	So they'll feel, oh, I have a spokesman here.
	It works.
	If there is one thing I want to do in my career, especially at these early stages, it's that.
	I want to be that person that young people go to and go, okay, if she's doing it, I can do it.
	Good girl.
	Shalom, everyone.
	I said that last podcast.
	That's a riot.
	Shalom, everybody.
	Twitter and Instagram, you want us to say it again?
	Say it again?
	At DennisJuliePod.
	That's Twitter and Instagram.
	Oh, can I just end with a really funny story?
	I'm sorry.
	I thought this was endearing.
	When we were filming the episode last week, one of the people here that work at Salem, he doesn't work for our show, unfortunately, Daniel, who, by the way, is...
	Probably the happiest person I've ever met in my entire life.
	He is never, ever in a bad mood.
	Talk about not having despair.
	He came in to wish you, Dennis, a happy birthday.
	A week late.
	Better late than never.
	It's the same month.
	I'm ribbing Daniel.
	Go ahead.
	And so Dennis turns to him and says, thank you.
	How did you know that it was my birthday?
	And Daniel said, I saw it on Instagram.
	And Dennis' response was precious.
	He goes, my birthday was on Instagram?
	It was all over.
	PragerU posted a month.
	They interviewed your son, David, talking about you on your birthday.
	Was it positive?
	Oh, yeah.
	You think he would say something?
	You think, A, he would say something bad and Prager you would post it?
	Yeah, that's a good point.
	No, no, I didn't think he said anything bad.
	I'm very lucky.
	Oh, that's what we were going to talk about.
	We'll have to do it next time.
	I know.
	Luck.
	It's good we never run out of topics.
	Whenever we're done, I think to myself, oh God, I wish we had another 30 minutes or an hour.
	Yes, exactly correct.
	We will never run out of them.
	I promise.
	See you next week.

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