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Sept. 1, 2022 - Dennis Prager Show

01:40:05

Unjust Suffering

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	I hate interrupting this opening It's such a wonderful theme.
	It's like...
	I'm a classical music guy and I love this one.
	You know why?
	Because it's optimistic.
	Oh, you know what?
	What did it say, Sean?
	Okay, my mic wasn't on.
	That helps.
	There's no question.
	She didn't have the mic on.
	You say it's optimistic?
	Yes, that's why I like it.
	So I have a confession to make at the outset.
	By the way, hello everybody.
	Dennis Prager and Julie Hartman, the Dennis and Julie podcast.
	This is a unique thing that two people of such different ages, different sex, we only believe in two sexes for the record.
	Yes.
	Okay.
	And the chemistry and the enjoyment of each other and everything.
	Anyway, it's just...
	It's huge.
	So here, I'm going to react immediately to your first comment.
	I don't have a clue about any of the words, and this is the 25th podcast.
	I just love the music.
	Well, the words say, I'm alright today.
	Oh yeah, I'm alright today.
	I don't know any of the other words.
	Oh, you don't?
	I think we discussed this once.
	The reason why I like most songs isn't because of the lyrics.
	It's because of the melody and what it makes me feel.
	Yes.
	Oh, okay.
	The music.
	Well, that's entirely me.
	I almost never hear lyrics.
	There's only one exception to that rule.
	It's Frank Sinatra.
	One of his genius aspects is that you cannot not hear the words.
	So many singers.
	I can't understand most of the...
	Oh, you are like that too?
	Yes.
	Oh, I think most people are.
	Oh, I think we're in the minority.
	I think people make out words.
	Well, there's a Taylor Swift song.
	Do you know who Taylor Swift is?
	I'm almost certain.
	Yes, I do.
	Yes, yes.
	Is she the one who insured her legs for a million dollars?
	Did she?
	I don't know.
	I think...
	Sean, am I right?
	Check that out, God, if I know that.
	That's incredible.
	I admit it.
	I would like to remind the audience that when I asked Dennis once to name five female celebrities, the one thing he could come up with was, Hill!
	Hill!
	Who's that person?
	And it was Fiona Hill.
	Do you remember that?
	No.
	Oh.
	Oh, it was Faith Hill.
	That's why.
	I don't know who Faith Hill is.
	I'm honest.
	That's right.
	Yeah, you were testing me.
	Did you say Rihanna?
	No, I said Taylor Swift.
	Rihanna's the one who insured her legs for a million dollars.
	Why did Rihanna insure her legs?
	Rihanna?
	What is that?
	I know the R-I-H-A-N-N-A, correct?
	Well done, Dennis.
	Thank you.
	So wait a minute.
	She insured her legs for a million dollars?
	Is that right?
	Sean just said, oh, na-na.
	That was cute.
	All right, continue.
	So there's this Taylor Swift song, and there's a line where she says star-crossed lovers, and she kind of mumbles it, or the music overpowers her words, and everyone thinks that she says Starbucks lovers, and it's like a viral thing.
	Oh, is that funny?
	So in high school, we would all sing, da-da-da, Starbucks lover, and then we looked it up, and it's star-crossed.
	I think that happens a fair amount, because these singers need to enunciate.
	This will mean nothing to you, but I'll say it anyway.
	So there's a rock and roll song.
	I don't remember the name, but I remember these lyrics.
	See the pyramids along the Nile.
	My voice is not great today.
	I heard it for all of my, half of my life, as see the pyramids of love, my dear.
	Oh, that's funny.
	Well, actually, when you hear a line like that and then you look it up and it has a darker sentiment or meaning, it really kind of ruins it for you.
	Well, that wasn't dark, but you're right.
	I agree with you.
	Anyway, so much for lyrics.
	So, you were deeply affected by my radio show, so why don't you share it?
	I was too, by the way.
	There a minute along the Nile Watch the sunrise on a tropic isle Just remember, darling, all the while You belong to me You like this?
	Does it sound nice to you?
	I do.
	It does.
	Before we move on to your radio show, I actually have an important point to make about music that I've been thinking about recently.
	So many...
	People my age listen to the exact same type of music.
	It's Drake or Rihanna or Taylor Swift or are you familiar with Lil Wayne?
	I know how to spell it.
	Okay, but they listen to the same few singers and I was just reflecting recently that People my age don't listen to sad songs anymore or slow songs or just anything.
	When you just played that, it made me think of it.
	We would never listen to anything like that.
	We listen to music that is A, violent, B, energetic, and C, Every song that we listen to has the vibe of making you feel like you're walking into a stadium and the entire crowd is yelling your name.
	It's self-aggrandizing music.
	And I was wondering why that is.
	And I really think it's because many of us don't have the emotional depth or sophistication to be able to listen to a song like the one you just played.
	Or to listen to a sad song.
	We really shy away from that.
	Anyway, I just thought it was worth noting.
	I think that's very important stuff you just said.
	Do you know anyone your age who's into classical music?
	No.
	No.
	Not a single soul.
	Do you know it's funny that I should have asked that because you know how much that means to me.
	It's sort of like my drug.
	Classical music.
	And music equipment to play the classical music.
	Correct, exactly.
	So, I know you're not into it, right?
	Well, I actually listened to Mozart on the way to work today.
	You did?
	Yes, I'm trying to combat.
	That's interesting.
	So, here's what I want you to know.
	I thought about this from the...
	Earliest times in my life, because I fell in love with classical music.
	You know, like falling in love at first sight?
	I fell in love at first hearing.
	I had a dollar ticket in my sophomore year in high school to Carnegie Hall because I wanted to try everything.
	I went to ballet, I went to opera, I went to Shakespeare.
	Whatever the teacher had a dollar ticket to, I bought the dollar ticket.
	A dollar ticket, my God.
	Well, yeah, but even then that was cheap, but it was for students.
	I went to Carnegie Hall, and I went out of my mind.
	It was love at first sight and first hearing.
	The next day, I went back to Manhattan.
	This is a long trip from Brooklyn.
	I went back to Manhattan, to Carnegie Hall.
	I spent my next month's lunch money.
	I literally did not have lunch, just to buy concert tickets.
	So, this is...
	A prelude to the following.
	My closest friend at the time was still my dear friend, Joseph.
	Joseph Telushkin, prolific writer.
	And I thought, oh, I can't wait to introduce Joseph to classical music.
	It didn't occur to me that wonderful, deep people...
	It would not like classical music.
	It didn't seem possible.
	He doesn't like it?
	No.
	In fact, he...
	It's sort of like an air conditioner noise.
	What kind of music does he like?
	He's not a big...
	I think he likes some popular music, but he's not into music.
	But he opened my mind to something I now...
	Take as a given.
	That not every deep person will fall in love with classical music.
	So I don't judge people.
	If you, Julie, whom I adore, crazily adore, if you just didn't react to classical music, I would have zero judgment of that.
	I hope you fall in love with it for your sake, but I don't judge the depth of a person.
	Do they love Beethoven?
	Well, I'm just getting used to listening to it.
	I really like it, but you have to understand, I mean, I never heard it for the most of my life.
	Well, this is a disgrace that schools don't teach music and art.
	Instead, you know, how to put a condom on a banana.
	Yeah.
	The deterioration.
	This precedes wokeness.
	I know.
	I know it does.
	But I'm trying to train my brain out of listening to the kind of music that I just mentioned my generation listens to.
	And by the way, I count myself in that.
	I was looking at my Spotify playlist the other day and I was thinking, oh my gosh, what is this kind of music?
	It's so, again, it's so self-aggrandizing.
	There's no sophistication to it.
	Of course, the lyrics are not only...
	Well, they're vapid.
	Of course.
	They're just vapid.
	And so I'm trying to diversify my listening.
	Give me...
	What is the most popular...
	Give me...
	There's no such thing as Demo, but give me a popular song right now.
	Because I'd like to spontaneously look at the lyrics.
	It would interest me.
	Oh, my gosh.
	Why don't we do Drake?
	Can we, I guess, just look at...
	Isn't there like a...
	Yeah, I can pull some up.
	No, no, no, no.
	Oh, iTunes, like top ten?
	Yeah, is that where you would look?
	iTunes?
	Yeah.
	Sean, what's the top five on iTunes right now?
	Yeah, take a look, Sean.
	And then I want to read...
	I just want to see what the lyrics have to say.
	Oh, you're going to be appalled.
	I think so.
	I have looked at that.
	You're actually going to be blown away.
	So, by the way, and with regard to rap, See, the problem with rap is it's not music.
	No.
	It's beat.
	Yes.
	And that's not sophisticated.
	No, it's not.
	And look, I enjoy listening.
	Again, when I listen to these songs, I'm not listening to the words.
	I'm going along with the beat.
	Usually I play it when I go on a run and I just need a lot of energy.
	I need adrenaline.
	But when I look closely at those words, I've started removing songs from my Spotify playlist because I just do not in any way want to be associated with that or support that.
	That's funny.
	Seriously.
	I look at the lyrics and I go, how the hell did I listen to this for so long?
	And just let it go over my head how misogynistic and vile and violent this stuff is.
	It all makes me wonder what In the life of your generation would be characterized as deep.
	Well, I've started listening to Elton.
	I've always loved Billy Joel, as you know and our listeners know, because my mom would play it for me in the car.
	I'm so grateful to her for that.
	So I listened to Billy Joel a fair amount.
	I've started listening to Elton John, and my favorite Elton John song is, I guess that's why they call it The Blues.
	Are you familiar with that one?
	No.
	Oh my gosh, I should play it for you.
	I love it.
	Wait, what is this?
	Oh, it's Elton John.
	I'm in front.
	This is benign.
	This is benign.
	Yeah, this is not a representation for people listening to.
	Right.
	What's number two?
	Well, I can't make out any of the lyrics.
	Right.
	Well, exactly.
	Do you know the lyrics?
	No.
	Anyway.
	Harry Styles, then Evanescence.
	One Republic.
	Who's Evan?
	And then Blackpink.
	- Okay, all right, we're good, we're good.
	You should...
	Okay.
	Oh my gosh.
	I have a song in mind that a lot of people listen to, but I actually can't even say the words of it because it is so bad.
	Well, generally speaking...
	It's a Kanye West song.
	Yeah.
	Well, generally speaking, public cursing...
	Is a substitute for thought.
	You're right.
	Generally speaking.
	I mean, with certain comedy, it's fine.
	It's called for.
	I understand that.
	But I was saying about this Elton John song, I guess that's why they call it the blues.
	I would play it for some of my friends and they would go, boring, puts me to sleep.
	And again, it's because it's sort of a somber song.
	We don't have the emotional sophistication to enjoy something like that.
	And crucially, we don't like feeling vulnerable.
	We discussed this maybe two or three episodes ago.
	And those songs do make you feel vulnerable.
	They make you think about sad things.
	They make you feel about your parents' deaths or your death.
	You know, just uncomfortable stuff.
	And so instead of going there, people would rather listen to songs that, again, as I said, make you feel like you're walking into a stadium and everyone's screaming your name.
	That's important stuff.
	It opens my mind to this crisis.
	So I reported on my radio show that at the podcaster, what is the movement?
	Podcaster movement is gigantic podcaster movement.
	A lot of people have podcasts.
	Yes.
	So they had their big convention last week in Dallas.
	Daily Wire had a booth there.
	Just a booth.
	And Ben Shapiro spontaneously went to visit the booth because a lot of his fans were there.
	And the head of Podcaster Movement wrote a groveling apology that Ben Shapiro even showed up.
	But...
	We have a video of what?
	Oh, really?
	Oh, I'm curious.
	Let's play it.
	Yesterday afternoon, Ben Shapiro briefly visited the PM22 Expo.
	Though he was not registered or expected, we take full responsibility for the harm done by his presence.
	We agreed to sell The Daily Wire a first-time booth based on the company's large presence in podcasting.
	The weight of that decision is now painfully clear.
	During event planning, the dangerous nature of the company's messaging was overlooked.
	The voice you're hearing is reading from the...
	Those of you who called this unacceptable are right.
	Podcast movement has made mistakes.
	The pain caused by this one will always stick with us.
	So the reason I raise this is this.
	You made me, you triggered this thought.
	Pain was a feature of the podcast movement tweet.
	We apologize for the pain we caused by Ben Shapiro showing up at his booth.
	He didn't even speak.
	So this...
	You've made me realize something.
	All this talk about pain, it's constant.
	That's why the movie I made with Adam Carolla, No Safe Spaces, the pain you will feel if a conservative comes to your campus.
	It necessitates you're going to a safe space where you can play with Play-Doh and have hot chocolate, watch videos of kittens playing.
	I'm serious.
	That's what they have.
	No, I know.
	I'm well aware.
	What that means is what you were talking about.
	The lack of strength to confront real pain means you construct fake pain.
	Absolutely.
	I have been stunned as to how often the left...
	You know, universities and the media use these terms that are so exaggerated, like trauma, pain, trauma.
	Are you kidding me?
	I mean, people like this tweet about how, you know, having a conservative speaker inflicts trauma.
	Do you know how unkind that is to people who really do experience trauma?
	I think about that all the time.
	And it's become so mainstream.
	I mean, people use trauma in their everyday language.
	So I'm going to give you an autobiographical tidbit that I think you'll find of interest.
	It was very, very hard for me to find a girl that I would be in sync with.
	And I'm not blaming them or anything.
	It wasn't like I found a lot of guys either.
	But I did find, thank God, always one or two that I bonded with.
	I always had very close male friends.
	Who really were lifesavers.
	Emotionally.
	So I remember on dates, I'm talking now my early 20s.
	And by the way, I'd have gotten married if I'd have met the right woman.
	It didn't matter whether I made an income or not.
	So I'll live with a low income.
	I mean, I always made an income, but I mean, not a big one.
	So what?
	I'll live with somebody and I'll start my life, you know, not rich.
	Anyway, I remember, because this is germane to our topic, I was always obsessed with human suffering.
	Always.
	Evil in particular.
	Now, let me tell you something.
	I'm laughing because it's so obvious to me and probably to anybody now listening or watching.
	And certainly to you, because you're a kindred spirit.
	The thought of my opening up on a date about my preoccupation with human suffering and evil.
	Well, it's your ethical monotheism story.
	Oh, that's exactly right.
	It's...
	So it's not new.
	That's all I'm saying to you.
	It was true even when I was your age.
	You know, I have something that...
	Again, it's going to make me sound like I'm...
	Complimenting myself, but it really is true.
	I have such empathy for people that when I hear, for instance, that someone has a pain somewhere in their body, I feel that pain in that exact spot of my body.
	For instance, my mom, on her left arm, ever since she got her fourth dose of the Moderna vaccine, I know I've told you this and your wife Sue this, she's had horrible pain in the vaccine spot.
	In fact, she can't.
	She can't even lift her arm high at all.
	To this day.
	To this day.
	And she got it back, I believe, in January because it is so excruciating for her.
	She can't open the fridge with that arm.
	We have to help her open the fridge.
	Sometimes she wakes up and she says she's in pain in that particular area of her arm.
	Now, of course, it's my mom, so I'm especially attuned to her suffering.
	But whenever she says she has that pain, I feel pain in that left part of my arm.
	I believe you.
	And I was reading about a Vietnam War vet that got a bullet through his leg.
	And when I was reading about it, I felt this pain in my right leg.
	So I have it to a bit of an absurd degree.
	I'm curious, is there an echo of what I had in dating in your life?
	Oh, absolutely.
	I would so much rather sit on a date and talk about American history, the Puritans, ethical monotheism, your Bible commentary than just every day.
	Oh, how did you like college conversation?
	It is.
	So this is not new.
	I only told you my story to tell you that part isn't new.
	I wonder...
	My parents aren't around, obviously, but I would ask them if in their generation, the World War II generation, it was more common to speak about heavy-duty stuff on a date.
	I don't know the answer to that.
	Oh, I think it is.
	Even in friendships, my favorite thing to do when I'm just sitting and having lunch with a friend is to ask them, you know, who was someone that was influential in your life growing up?
	Or what is so far your biggest regret in life?
	Certainly at the end of college, I would ask all of my friends, looking back on these four years, what would you tell yourself at the beginning?
	I love asking those kinds of questions.
	My friends call them Julie questions.
	And some of them, you know, of course, the friends I have enjoy those questions too.
	That's why we're friends.
	But sometimes I'll have people saying to me, like, why do you go so deep?
	Or what?
	You know, they think it's a bit bizarre.
	But I just can't stand the surface-level conversation.
	You can't help it.
	When you're made that way, you're made that way.
	Yep.
	And for whatever reason, and I'm not going to get into this now, but we should another time, the issue of the nature you're born with.
	It's for whatever reason, in the last couple of years, it's preoccupied me.
	Everybody knows, you know, what do we mean?
	Everybody asks the question, or anyone who thinks, are we more influenced by genes or nurture?
	Right?
	Nature or nurture?
	Right.
	So I've always had an answer you'll like.
	We're influenced by nature 100% and influenced by nurture 100%.
	So nevertheless, the power, and by the way, I still stand by that.
	They're both huge.
	But the power of the nature you're born with...
	I'm reading a book.
	It's a 900-page book on the resistance to the Nazis in occupied Europe.
	Oh, what's it called?
	Just came out.
	I don't remember the name.
	It's funny.
	I'll tell you next time.
	He's cursed with names.
	Totally.
	It's a 900-page book and I don't even remember the name.
	But you remember the content.
	I do.
	I do.
	That's correct.
	So I realized the people who had the courage...
	I mean, to defy the not, that people who fought Trump called themselves the resistance made me sick.
	You're talking about the misuse of the word trauma?
	Oh, I know.
	The misuse of the word resistance?
	Resistance?
	I know.
	Were you threatened with Gestapo torture?
	In this country, if you resisted Trump, I mean, these people have no idea about life and suffering.
	There is a naivete across all of leftism, all of it.
	They're naive people, they're children.
	People think that they are engaging in resistance when they post a graphic on how to be an anti-racist on Instagram.
	Right, yes.
	I mean, our standards are below floor level.
	Right.
	It's meaningless.
	So back to these people who did fight the Nazis in Poland and in France and whatever occupied country by the Germans.
	And I realize I've been studying good people all of my life because evil makes more sense to me than goodness, believe it or not.
	Because I understand why people are bad.
	I don't understand why people sacrifice.
	For strangers, you know, like the resistance in Europe.
	Anyway, I realize they were asked, I remember this, because an earlier book I read on altruism is about rescuers of Jews in the Holocaust.
	Non-Jews who hid Jews.
	And they would be asked, so why did you do this?
	And they'd go, I had no choice.
	I couldn't live with myself if I didn't.
	It's both depressing and sweet.
	The depressing part is we can't just rely on a handful of people with natures.
	And I don't know what I would have done in World War II. Nobody does.
	Unless you're tested, you don't know.
	But I do know, on a totally different level, I couldn't feign small talk on a date.
	I would have fallen asleep.
	Right.
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	Yep, well, I hear you.
	Yes, I know you do.
	You have that nature.
	That's exactly why.
	And you know what?
	I think I would actually be...
	Well, actually, I don't know about this.
	I really love that I have this nature.
	But in some ways, I think I would be a happier person if I didn't have it.
	I don't know that that's true.
	Yeah, perhaps not.
	But I mean, certainly with my awareness that I've gained of how down the tubes this country is right now, I think I would just be happier if I weren't so aware.
	I know that for sure.
	Because this is just unbelievable what is going on.
	Speaking of which, this segues nicely into what we were going to bring up at the start of the show, and then I segued with the music conversation.
	I was very impacted today listening to Dennis' show.
	I try to catch as much of your show as I can every day.
	And in the second hour, you interviewed an inmate in a federal prison who was a January 6 rioter.
	What was his name?
	John Mellis.
	M-E-L-L-I-S. Those of you who did not hear it, I cannot encourage you enough to go back to it and listen.
	It was one of the most devastating things I've ever heard in my life.
	Seriously.
	This individual, first of all, you even remarked this on the air.
	He really does seem like a good-natured person because he kept deflecting the attention away from himself.
	From his own suffering, yes.
	And talking about that woman who is, of course, whose name.
	Now I'm the one who's bad at the news.
	I can't remember her name.
	There was a new name to me, too.
	Rebecca something?
	One of the women.
	Who were killed on January 6th.
	On January 6th, beaten to death by the police officers there.
	He kept deflecting the attention away from himself onto that woman.
	He said that he has been in prison for 19 months.
	He has been in solitary confinement for almost a year of those 19 months.
	He has no bond, and they keep pushing back his trial date.
	And bond hearing.
	In Bond hearing, and he talked about how they bleach his food, how they don't allow him and the other January 6ers in their visitors.
	He says that he sees the other inmates going for visitation hours, and then specifically the other January 6 prisoners are kept away.
	He can't even have video visits.
	No, he can't.
	And also it was very weird at the beginning when you talk to him, he mysteriously got disconnected.
	I thought that was odd.
	I'm sure that the...
	Prison is monitoring his calls, and perhaps they didn't want him speaking to you.
	He said that in his solitary confinement cell, there's black mold everywhere, and when he turns on the faucet, brown water comes out.
	He says that he has been subject to regular beatings, and he has witnessed other Jan Sixers be beat by the, he said, racist guards there.
	One of them had his eyes gouged out.
	One of the other January Sixers in there.
	And he said, and this is what was fascinating to me, the head warden, a female, of course I'm forgetting her name, tweeted out these Really horrible racist tweets about how white people should be gone from the earth and how Trump supporters are evil.
	And this was the assistant warden of the prison.
	Yes, the assistant warden of the prison.
	By the way, nobody's eyes were gouged out, just for the record.
	But he was blinded in one eye.
	But by the beating?
	Yes.
	By the beating.
	Okay.
	And I was just listening to that, and you know, Dennis, I'm not a crier, but tears are streaming down my face.
	I had to fight back tears.
	Oh, my God.
	I actually could tell listening to you that you were fighting back tears.
	It was hard for me to speak.
	How could you not?
	And, I mean, I told you I have some questions to ask you about the Torah, and one of them is about the Adam and Eve story in The Serpent.
	And you write here, this is in Genesis chapter 3, You say, or not you say, the Torah says, now the serpent was the shrewdest of all of the wild beasts that the Lord God had made.
	And you highlight the fact that the Torah says that God made the serpent.
	My question for you is, if God made the serpent, then did God make evil?
	Yes.
	Certainly God made the possibility of evil.
	And by the way...
	I know very few verses by...
	I know a lot in the Bible, obviously, but...
	Roseanne Boylan, thank you.
	Yes, that was the woman who was beaten to death.
	I do know this one by heart, Isaiah 45, 7, that God, I God, or God created good and evil.
	Why did he create you?
	Well, I know why that's written there.
	This was a polemic against Zoroastrianism.
	Zoroastrianism posits a good god and a bad god.
	Zoroastrianism is a very sophisticated religion, by the way.
	The first.
	It was wiped out to a large extent, of course, by Muslims conquering Iran.
	But it is a very sophisticated religion.
	And it had...
	Ahura Mazda was one, and I don't remember the other one.
	But there was a good God and a bad God, which is completely understandable that people would think that way.
	Because if there's one good God, why is there so much evil?
	Well, there is one good God and there's one bad God.
	It's somewhat analogous to the Christian belief in Lucifer, in the devil, that there's this independent force of evil.
	So it's very hard to have monotheism and a good God.
	I totally get that.
	But we have to be honest.
	Look, I believe God is good.
	I believe he's disgusted by evil.
	He obviously is.
	He destroyed the whole world.
	I mean, whether you take it literally or not, that's the story.
	And the story of Noah.
	And this God made a world with the possibility of evil.
	And it wasn't introduced by Adam and Eve, as many religious people contend.
	The very fact that they could disobey God and eat from the tree that he told them not to eat means that it was already inherent.
	Rebellion against God was inherent in Adam and Eve.
	It wasn't created by Adam and Eve.
	So why do you think God, and by the way, we will relate this back to the January 6th point, but the reason why I'm bringing up the Bible right now in conjunction with that point is that if God created evil, then God essentially created this kind of treatment or created humans capable of doing this.
	And I just I can't understand why.
	I understand the Christian notion a bit better that, you know, Satan is someone who exists outside of God and is essentially a challenge to God's goodness.
	But then you read the text and it is very clear that God did create the serpent.
	The serpent isn't this outside figure.
	You got it.
	Bless you.
	You got it.
	Right, but I mean, I got it, but I don't get it.
	There's no...
	Look, so I have one answer my whole life and it's not mine.
	A rabbi named Milton Steinberg came up with this great line.
	You know what I'm going to say?
	Yes.
	It's in your Torah commentary.
	The believer has to account for the existence of unjust suffering.
	The atheist has to account for everything else.
	Okay, folks.
	Now you know why I smile half the time she speaks.
	That's correct.
	It's a great line.
	It's a great line.
	It's done it for me.
	I could live with not having an answer.
	Okay.
	I'm struggling with that.
	But, you see, what's the alternative?
	The alternative is that we couldn't do evil.
	Right.
	But that would end the human condition.
	Right.
	Then we wouldn't have free will.
	And then what's lovable about people?
	Right.
	It's like, do you love a robot?
	Mm-hmm.
	It's precise.
	See, people say it's the existence of evil that makes good possible.
	No.
	It's the possibility of evil that makes good possible.
	Or that makes good, good.
	That's why we value it.
	People...
	God made a creature.
	I'll put it in car terms.
	Silly way, but I'll put it in car terms.
	Everybody could be a Bentley, a Porsche, a Rolls Royce.
	But it takes a lot of work to become such a car.
	So it's there.
	If you chisel, we're all this smooth stone.
	You can chisel a gorgeous sculpture out of anybody.
	Well, almost anybody.
	I assume that there are some people who have horrible natures.
	That's a problem.
	I mean, when I read about a man raping a five-year-old, I want you to know as a man, you're a woman and you're baffled by it.
	But I am as baffled as you are.
	And I'm a guy.
	I'm not baffled by the rape of a grown woman.
	It's evil, but I'm not baffled by it.
	Right.
	I am baffled.
	This guy who does that has as different a nature from me as a giraffe does.
	So do you think, for instance, these guards that are beating the...
	Jan Sixers.
	We know that it's very prevalent in prisons to have guards beat prisoners.
	Look at what I talk about with my sister.
	Many of her caretakers have been physically abusive to her.
	There are evil people everywhere.
	And that's not prison.
	And that's not prison.
	In some ways it is prison because they don't take her out.
	But they don't take her out.
	It's horrible, the caretakers that she's had in the past.
	Anyway, there are evil people everywhere, needless to say.
	Do you think that those people are just born with 100% evil natures?
	Or do you think that there's...
	I mean, all of us to an extent are born with bad natures.
	I read a book many years ago.
	I don't remember its name either, but it was really very riveting.
	It was a book about the murder of one or two people.
	And among the other things that the murderer did was force one of his victims to drink Drano.
	I'm sorry, what is...
	Drano is to clear drains.
	It burns...
	Can you imagine how powerful it is?
	It burns the residue in pipes.
	So imagine what it does to your esophagus and stomach.
	So it burned this man's innards.
	No, it's horrific.
	I'm sorry to even tell it to you because it's a horrible imagery.
	And it stayed in my mind all these years.
	This must be 25 years ago.
	Anyway, the mother said about her son, the one who killed them after making them drink Drano, he was bad from the outset.
	No, not the hi-fi murders.
	I'll remember the name if you find it.
	Okay.
	Sean's trying to find what the names are.
	I'll figure it out and say next podcast.
	So to answer your question, I think there are people.
	So how does God judge them?
	I think there are people who just have this nature.
	I can't speak about the outliers on the bell curve.
	I can't address it.
	I don't know where they come from.
	But the vast majority of people have free moral will and can be profoundly influenced by society.
	I think these guards that are beating these January 6th people, this is not just, they can't help it, that's their nature.
	I think that a lot of blacks in America have been taught to hate whites.
	Oh, of course.
	To deny that is to lie to oneself.
	Well, we had an interesting discussion recently on the phone.
	By the way, I just want to tell our listeners, we should record our phone conversations and then make them into a twice-a-week podcast.
	Sometimes we will ask each other questions and then we'll say to each other, oh gosh, we should save this for the air.
	I really enjoyed our discussion the other day because I was asking Dennis, does God know?
	Obviously God gives us free will.
	The knowledge of right and wrong and the ability to choose between right and wrong.
	But what I was asking Dennis is, do you think that God knows what decision we're going to make?
	Or do you think that he doesn't know and just watches it play out?
	I used to think it was the former.
	After rereading your Genesis commentary, specifically the story of Noah, I am starting to think that it is the latter.
	That is, that God gives us free will and he doesn't know how we are going to behave.
	Yeah, a lot of religious people find that impossible to accept, but I don't understand why.
	Well, it's in the text because he says he was sad.
	His heart was saddened when he saw how horrible the world had turned out and that's why he decided to destroy it with a flood.
	So the only...
	I always challenge my own thought.
	So can you be disappointed slash saddened?
	And no.
	And no.
	So the answer might be yes.
	As an example, everybody knows their parents will die.
	Everybody knows that.
	But it doesn't mean you don't get sad when it happens.
	Right.
	Well, another thing is that he says, you know, Seeing how, this is again at the beginning of the Noah story, he said, you know, seeing how the evil inclinations of man, he, again, his heart was saddened.
	But again, that implies that he didn't know how evil men were going to turn out.
	Because he's saying, when he says that he's seeing how evil people are, again, that has the connotation or the implication that he's seeing it for the first time.
	Right, that was the implication.
	Right.
	That's correct.
	So in that case, he wouldn't know.
	Right.
	Yeah, but it doesn't matter to me in the final analysis.
	Well, it actually, well, yeah, I don't think it matters to me either, but actually, I'm going to amend that.
	In a way, it kind of does, because one question I've been asking myself recently, and I certainly asked it today when I was listening to that testimony from the prisoner.
	Why is God doing this to America?
	Or why is God allowing this to happen to America?
	This meaning the presence of political...
	That I have an answer to.
	Okay.
	Okay, that...
	I mean, look, as a Jew who grew up...
	I was born only a few years after the Holocaust, which blows my mind when I think about that, that Auschwitz was operating a few years before I was born.
	I know.
	It's hard for me to...
	That my older brother was born in the year Auschwitz gassed the most people.
	My grandparents were in their 20s when it, I mean, it's unbelievable.
	Yes, it's unbelievable, exactly.
	So, God allows people to do evil.
	I don't, I don't find that, I find that sad, but I don't find it theologically troubling.
	Right.
	What's he supposed to do?
	Right.
	America's committing suicide.
	There's not homicide from Russia or China or anybody else.
	This is suicide.
	Americans vote to kill the country when they vote Democrat.
	I'm sorry to say because most of my family are Democrats and I love them.
	And mine too.
	They're voting to destroy America when they vote Democrat.
	They are.
	Okay?
	And I was a Democrat much of my life.
	And when it was liberal, I had no problems with it.
	It is not liberal.
	It is leftist.
	Everything is being destroyed.
	Children's hospitals are being destroyed.
	What they're doing to children now.
	And broadcast proudly that from near birth, Broston Children's Hospital, the most prestigious children's hospital I think in the country.
	And the National Children's Hospital in Washington, D.C. Yes, but they're all in Pittsburgh.
	They're all saying this.
	From nearly birth.
	Kids know that they're transgender.
	What are you talking about?
	You're lying to yourself, which is the worst form of lying.
	And then you're ruining children with these hormones.
	So you vote Democrat.
	You vote to enable the hormonal castration of children.
	Thank you.
	And that's just one of the dozens of things that are equally as destructive.
	What I have...
	Anyway, God allows it.
	I'm sorry, I'm sorry.
	No, no.
	I'm coming back to your question.
	God allows us to commit suicide.
	Right.
	Well, to your point, again, recently I've been asking myself the question, why is God doing this or why is God allowing this to happen?
	And I don't really say that to myself anymore after reading the Noah passage because instead what I'm thinking is, oh my gosh, God must be so disappointed.
	He must be so saddened seeing this.
	He allowed the possibility of evil, and I'm starting to become convinced, and you said this to me on the phone and I agree with you, that he had no idea really what he unleashed.
	He maybe thought that he created a better human being than he turned out to be.
	It's only on the sixth day of creation that it said, and he saw it was very good.
	Every other day was good.
	But when he created a human being, it was very good.
	Yeah, maybe God was too optimistic.
	Yes, right.
	You know, let's say God is, again, I don't think he's necessarily trying to do this to us, but let's say he's playing a hand in this.
	I think perhaps all of this is going on in America to teach us that we are not somehow better than the rest of the world.
	Meaning we are not...
	Inherently better.
	Inherently better, yes.
	Well, obviously, America is better from the rest of the world.
	But we Americans are not.
	It's not our birthright to be entitled to this prosperity.
	That's right.
	That's a beautiful thought.
	I mean, it's a profound thought.
	I think that's what's going on right now.
	And this is the biggest lesson that we have to take away.
	And I talked about this, I believe, in our last podcast.
	So many of us, especially in my generation, thinks even for as much as people decry America, we...
	Interestingly, paradoxically, have this sense of security that America will always take care of us.
	And we've reached this level of prosperity.
	We're never going to have to encounter the wars that our predecessors had to fight in or endure.
	We're never going to experience something like the Great Depression.
	We're never going to have something like a 9-11, you know, with the advent of all of these technologies, the iPhone.
	We live in this great society that...
	We've hit our peak and we're going to maintain it.
	We have this very false notion that that is the case.
	And many people my age are not seeing that that is going to go away very fast if we continue down the route that we're going on.
	Well, many in your generation...
	We think we're entitled to this.
	Well, no.
	Well, they don't even...
	No.
	They don't...
	I wish.
	It's worse than that.
	Entitled to means it's good.
	They don't even think America's good.
	See, I agree with you, but I do think there is a subconscious notion that they do know that America is good.
	A, because they're not denouncing their citizenship or leaving.
	No, they know America is rich.
	Right.
	Okay.
	I don't think they think America is good.
	Actually, I don't know.
	I think I disagree with you.
	I think in their heart of hearts they do know that it's good.
	How could a systemically racist country...
	I don't know if many of them really believe that though.
	I think that they are just saying that because it advantages them in some way.
	It makes them feel, hold a victim card or gets them a job or a college application essay.
	I don't know the answer.
	I could tell you that for...
	About 25 years, I have wondered if people on the left believe their lies.
	Did they really believe that Russia colluded with the Trump campaign, which turned out to be a two-year lie?
	I think they did because the media pushed it so hard.
	Okay, so there you go.
	I think they believe it's a systemically racist.
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	Let's put it this way.
	In the beginning, they may not have.
	There was nothing repeated often enough that you will not believe.
	But here's the thing.
	For instance, when I look at people who say that climate change is a huge threat, I don't believe...
	Existential threat.
	Existential threat.
	Right, exactly.
	I don't believe that they really believe that because their behavior does not match their words.
	The analogy that I like to draw is I am terrified of spiders.
	Absolutely terrified.
	I like spray things in my room.
	I mean, I'm sort of neurotic about them.
	I hate spiders.
	I take precautions to prevent myself from encountering spiders because I'm genuinely afraid of them.
	If these people are as afraid of climate change as they proclaim to be, they would not drive the cars that they drive.
	They would not live in the homes that they live in.
	They wouldn't even use the iPhone, which takes up so much energy and water, etc.
	So again, they're not taking the precautions to insulate themselves from this threat or to combat this threat.
	So I don't really believe them.
	So, it's a good question.
	And, well, you can even really make it more powerful.
	The leaders fly in their own jets to Davos for the World Economic Forum to decry the existential threat while they have just emitted more carbon dioxide in their airplane than a thousand Americans do flying...
	Commercially.
	But wait, forgive me.
	But here is the argument for their believing it.
	A lot of them aren't having children.
	That's a biggie.
	See, I actually don't think that's because of climate change.
	I think that's because of selfish reasons.
	You actually write about this in your Torah commentary.
	You say that a lot of the reason why people are not having children is because they are selfish and they want to enjoy the material world.
	And children impede your ability to enjoy the material world.
	So you think they use global warming as an excuse?
	Yes, I do.
	Because A, I think they're not capable of getting married or having kids or they don't want to.
	You may be right.
	Here's my evidence to the contrary.
	And I wrote one of my columns on this last year.
	New York Times had a piece about not having children because of climate change.
	First, you're adding to climate change by having a child.
	Human beings are ruining the planet.
	B, they may not even live through adulthood.
	Because they'll boil to death.
	Okay.
	So in the comment section, and all the commenters in a New York Times piece have to be a New York Times subscriber to be able to comment.
	Writer after writer, parents of these adult kids said, all of my life I dreamed of being a grandparent.
	But I agree with my daughter's decision.
	Not to have a child because of climate change.
	I bet you that daughter has a child.
	You mean eventually?
	Yes, I do.
	It sounded to me like the daughter was already married and into adulthood.
	Okay, you may be right, but it doesn't matter.
	The issue is the grandparent.
	They're willing to forego being a grandparent.
	Well, that's just unbelievable.
	Totally.
	Look, I mean, obviously there are some people who truly believe it, some people who don't.
	But I, from what I've observed, at least in my cohort, I really firmly believe that these individuals do not, deep down, believe what they are saying.
	They may on a surface level, for instance, believe that there is some systemic racism in America.
	But if they really believed that America was systemically racist, they would get, I mean, for instance, if you're black, you would get a gun, you would carry it around to fend yourself off from the white supremacists.
	I mean, think about the precautions that you would take if you seriously thought you were living in an oppressively systemically racist country.
	Again, on the surface, I think in some ways they think that they believe it, but not wholeheartedly.
	They don't challenge themselves the way you are challenging them now.
	I mean, my favorite question to ask them is, if America is systemically racist, what do you think of the three million blacks who moved here in the last few decades from Africa and Caribbean?
	Are they stupid?
	But they're never asked it.
	That's why they can't listen to us.
	See, we don't have any problem with their speaking their minds.
	But they fear confronting us.
	I think a lot of this is just blabber.
	I think that they espouse these ideas because they think that it is going to personally or professionally advantage them and secure them a spot in the American elite.
	That's true for Disney, American Express, Nike.
	I believe that.
	And everyday Harvard.
	I personally know Harvard students who I can tell.
	You know when you're having a conversation with someone and you can sort of see in their eyes that you've had a light bulb go off?
	I have had conversations like that with my peers, and I can tell that there's a part of them...
	At least that is inclined to agree with me, but they won't go the full way because they're afraid of what people are going to think of them if they say that they agree with me.
	Okay, so I think that at a given point they talk themselves into believing what they're saying.
	People don't want to live with cognitive dissonance.
	It's very hard to say, I'm saying X, Y, and Z, but I don't believe it.
	Well, the cognitive dissonance point is a good one.
	I was thinking about it.
	Within the context of the Bible, because so many of these questions, obviously, because I either call you or ask you about them on this podcast, there are so many question marks I have about God and the Bible.
	And when I try to talk to my peers or my friends about how much I love reading the Bible and how I've gotten more religious and how much it's influenced me, almost always their response is, see, I don't...
	I want to read the Bible because I just think there are too many contradictions or so many things don't make sense.
	Why would God allow evil in the world?
	Why would God allow, you know, crucify his own son?
	Why this?
	Why that?
	Why when he says in this chapter this one thing and then he says, you know, why with Cain does he punish him to become a wanderer and then Cain ends up founding the first city?
	That doesn't make any sense.
	And my response to them is...
	Those contradictions don't deter me from the Bible.
	They bring me closer to it.
	I want to try to resolve those.
	And also, even if I can't resolve them, I like living with those contradictions.
	I think that's what makes you a full, textured, intellectually curious person.
	But people want things to be easy and simple.
	It's like the statement about the contradiction of America's founding.
	What do you mean he's a...
	These are great people, Jefferson and Adams and Washington.
	They had slaves.
	It's like, you can't chew gum and walk at the same time.
	Right.
	You can't understand that in those days, slavery was universal.
	What made these people different was not having slaves.
	It was that they created the freest country in the world that abolished slavery.
	Yes.
	And you know what I also say to people who bring up that argument?
	I say, okay, so you believe that someone who commits a crime cannot be judged for their crime because of the way that they were brought up, the household or the lack of education.
	Bravo!
	When it comes to criminals nowadays, you adopt the argument.
	But when it comes to people 300 years ago who couldn't even imagine the kind of world we live in now had just a totally different life, you don't apply that same standard to them.
	I love calling them out.
	I'm sorry.
	It's so fun.
	They deserve it.
	That's a beauty.
	That is what...
	You've got to catch them in their own logic.
	That's a grand slam home run in the bottom of the ninth in the World Series.
	Sorry for using a male baseball analogy.
	You know that means nothing to me.
	But I'm gathering that it's a good thing.
	It's a good thing.
	Yep.
	That's right.
	We judge the murderer, the inner city murderer, gangbanger, fentanyl dealer.
	Do you know that they just, they just, oh, what was it?
	They just found enough fentanyl.
	Do you know that the state of Montana, I was just reading this article in the Daily Wire, the Attorney General of Montana says that fentanyl is the number one threat to the state.
	Of course, Montana is a northern state.
	It borders Canada.
	So far in this year, which is eight months, the Montana law enforcement has seized 58% That is how bad this fentanyl epidemic is.
	It is the number one cause of death in ages 18 to 45. You know what's interesting, Dennis?
	I actually wanted to talk about this when I guest host for you.
	By the way, shout out.
	I'm guest hosting for Dennis on Thursday, September 1st.
	Very excited.
	You would not believe how many people my age do not know About not only this fentanyl epidemic, but so many of the horrible things that are going on in this country.
	I remember one of the last weeks of school, I made some comment in the dining hall about the fentanyl pouring across our border, and there was a girl sitting across from me, and she kind of scoffed at me.
	Like, the way she laughed made it seem like, what are you talking about?
	That's crazy, you know?
	Getting that from QAnon or something.
	She basically thought what I was saying was a conspiracy theory.
	People my age, especially these elite institutions, have no idea of the crises affecting most Americans.
	They have the luxury of being unaware.
	When I talk to people about the Hunter Biden story, they honest to God think it's a conspiracy that I got from QAnon.
	By the way, what the hell is QAnon?
	Yes, I know.
	I have no idea.
	They think that QAnon is this big right-wing thing.
	What the hell is QAnon?
	I've never seen it.
	I don't know what it is.
	I'm with you, and I would take a lie detector test on that.
	Me too.
	The ignorance of what...
	This self-desired ignorance.
	That's why I said, when I said earlier, if you vote for the Democrats at this time in history, you are voting to destroy the country.
	This is not a political statement.
	Either I'm lying, or I'm telling the truth.
	Okay, let's be clear here.
	I put my entire credibility on the line.
	Me too.
	Well, except I have a whole lifetime.
	Which is longer than yours, but I appreciate that, that you are too.
	But they don't want to hear that.
	So I'm thinking of these wonderful relatives that I have who vote Democrat.
	Oh, I know.
	And if they heard me say it, they would just go, oh, there's, you know, I can't believe it's over the top.
	That's what they would think.
	That's what my relatives said to me.
	How large the list of left-wing destructive things in America, elementary schools, high schools, synagogues, churches, everything they touch, they ruin, but they're oblivious to all of them.
	I said to a very profound, deep, highly successful relative of mine, I said, oh, you know, I'm going to be going to Miami to spend eight days.
	Doing this big thing for Daily Wire on the Book of Exodus with Jordan Peterson.
	And he said, who's Jordan Peterson?
	They have no idea who any of our people are.
	That was revelatory.
	Name me a major left-wing equivalent to Jordan Peterson that I don't know or you don't know or any conservative doesn't know.
	We know them all.
	I was thinking about this recently because, you know, I've been thinking a lot about...
	My life before I encountered your work.
	Because it was so revolutionary for me when I found it, but it also at the same time wasn't.
	Because I really just felt like I had these conservative instincts and then finding you gave me the vocabulary to express it.
	But I remember in high school, I just had no idea what conservatives really thought.
	I thought, okay, they're...
	Super, super religious.
	They're against abortion because of their religious views.
	They're anti-gay marriage because of their religious views.
	They like guns because they're, you know, Southern.
	Like, I had these.
	That's right.
	And now that I've...
	Obviously, you know, I read all the time and I've really beefed up and under...
	I've tried to understand the origins of conservatism, not just in the United States, but going back to Edmund Burke and all of the early conservative writers.
	I'm telling you, people on the left and liberals, they just fundamentally don't know what we think.
	We know what they think.
	I never thought about the constitutional arguments or the human nature arguments ever in high school when I thought of conservatives.
	And so that's why Finding Your Work was revolutionary, because even though I had the instincts inside of me...
	Having it explained and having a vocabulary attached to it, I went, oh my gosh, this is what conservatives believe?
	I'm totally conservative.
	That's right.
	By the way, before you answer, I've been meaning to tell all of you listeners a few episodes ago, I mentioned a study that supports this point that I just made, where...
	Conservatives were given a series of questions and asked to respond as if they were liberals.
	And liberals were given a series of questions and asked to respond as if they're conservatives.
	And the conservatives imitating liberals nailed it.
	And the liberals imitating conservatives got everything dead wrong, had no idea.
	Where did you see that?
	It was in Jonathan Haidt's book, The Righteous Mind.
	Oh, really?
	Yes.
	I couldn't remember at the time where I got it.
	People have been emailing me.
	I'm so sorry I haven't mentioned it.
	Jonathan Haidt's book, The Righteous Mind.
	Tell them how to email you.
	Julie at julie-hartman.com.
	You can find that on my website.
	H-A-R-T, not H-E-A-R-T. H-A-R-T-M-A-N. I love, love, love hearing from all of you, and I read everything, and I try to respond.
	I'm pretty damn good about responding, I think.
	Been on a date lately?
	No, but I have been talking with some men on Hinge and J-Swipe, and in fact...
	I just mentioned this to you before the show.
	I can't believe I'm saying it right now.
	Some guy on J-Swipe recognized me from this podcast.
	I love that.
	It brings me so much to it.
	Oh, by the way, I think our listeners will like this.
	On my dating app, they have these prompts for you, and one of them is your job.
	Something along those lines.
	And I said, I'm an aspiring conservative talk show host.
	And then I wrote, sorry, LA liberals!
	And guys think that's really funny that I write that.
	Well, of course you should.
	Oh my God, yes.
	I don't want to waste my time.
	Well, exactly.
	Hiding who you are on a dating app is about as stupid an idea as I could think of.
	Right.
	So you want them to discover who you are on the fourth date, and you then...
	Wasted three dates?
	I have a picture with me and the American flag on my date.
	I make it very clear that I'm conservative.
	Just do podcasts with Dennis Prager.
	I know I should.
	Yes, of course.
	Of course you should.
	I should take a selfie with you and put it on my date.
	Oh my God.
	But we would have to take 50 selfies because I'll probably look like a whale in most of them.
	Don't start me on my contempt for your self-description.
	It's okay.
	All beautiful women think they're...
	No, I wonder.
	That's...
	By the way, I've got to do that as subject.
	What percentage of beautiful women...
	Forget beautiful.
	Of attractive women.
	I won't even go to beautiful.
	What percentage of attractive women think they're attractive?
	I say 5%.
	See, I... By the way, that...
	Oh, forgive me.
	No, it's okay.
	That, I might catch you.
	You, who've been talking about if they really believe it, I'm not sure that attractive women who say they look like a whale really think they look like a whale.
	Okay, I will be honest about this.
	I actually think that attractive women know that they're attractive, but they don't know the extent, and they can have really bad days.
	Yeah, 363 of them.
	I don't know.
	Well, look, my wife's a good example.
	You know she's a beautiful woman.
	She is.
	Right.
	And I'm saying because I'm her husband.
	No, she really is.
	She is.
	Every time she sees herself in a photo...
	Hideous.
	That's the word she used.
	She means it.
	This is not...
	She's not kidding.
	She's not joking.
	Hideous deleted.
	And I have said to her, as far as you're concerned, you would be happy if there were no photographic evidence of your having lived.
	Probably.
	Yes.
	Well, I look back at photos of myself in high school, and of course in high school I thought I was hideous, and I go, oh my gosh, you were so beautiful back then, and now you've aged, and now you don't play water polo, so you're not as jacked as you were.
	That's actually a good lesson for me because when I see photos of myself now that I don't like, I go, okay, Julian, 10 years.
	You're going to wish that you had appreciated that.
	That is entirely accurate.
	My wife looks at pictures from her 20s and goes, yeah, okay, all right, then.
	But she didn't think that then.
	So do men just...
	See, Dennis is great for so many reasons, but you teach me so much and the female listeners so much about male nature.
	Do men just totally not care?
	Like if they take a bad photo or...
	Because when we take photos as a family, my dad doesn't even look at himself.
	That's right.
	So we know, most men know, certainly after high school, let's put it that way, or maybe even after college, but at a very early age, We know that unless we're either stunningly handsome or hideously ugly,
	in other words, we're in the 98th percentile of men, that it is our personality, brains, humor, charm, ambition, success, money, that gets a woman.
	Oh, totally.
	Of course it is, exactly.
	I know I keep bringing it back to the Bible, but that's one of the reasons why I love the Bible, because it is so honest about human nature.
	When God is giving his—see, you point this out to me, or in the book you point this out to me—not punishment, but consequence of their eating from the tree of knowledge.
	He says that men shall rule over women.
	And you have this fabulous essay about how that's not— God didn't mean that the way that people would think it now.
	They don't mean it like you know.
	Men will oppress women or men will control women.
	But it's that men will be dominant.
	And females like a dominant male.
	They would so much rather, to your point, have a male that is ambitious or wealthy or charismatic.
	And isn't intimidated by her.
	Exactly.
	That drives women crazy.
	But most men, especially today, are intimidated by their wives, girlfriends.
	That's right.
	Another point that I made to you on the phone about how just brutally honest the Bible is, I was astounded rereading the Noah story.
	Again, I tell you, and I know I've mentioned this here, but it can't be said enough.
	Every time I reread Genesis, I find, and I've read this book probably four or five times over.
	The reason why I keep rereading it is because I find new things every single time, or I have new revelations.
	And one of them is, what is the story of Noah and his son Ham, chapter 10 or chapter 9, really early on in the book, where Ham, Noah's son, either sexually humiliates Noah or sexually assaults Noah.
	The Torah's language is ambiguous.
	I said to you on the phone, how remarkably, brutally, and somberingly, if that even is a word, honest that is.
	Look at what that one story indicates about human nature.
	Some people have inclinations towards incest.
	Some people have inclinations towards homosexuality.
	Some people have inclinations towards sexual violence or humiliation.
	Sexual violence and humiliation brings great shame.
	I mean, in that one story, which is really dark, God shows so much about human nature.
	It's unbelievable.
	Look, I love the Torah.
	The first five books are the most important books of the Bible.
	And for Christians who are watching and listening, Jesus would have agreed.
	There's no question.
	Everything is in there.
	Love your neighbor, love God.
	It's all in the first five books.
	The rest of the Bible is great, but this is...
	This is everything.
	And I love the Torah, the first five books, so I'm writing my commentary for so many years.
	In large measure, because of what you said, it is unflinchingly real about human nature.
	Everything.
	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 II 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 racial tension and replace God with government, the NAACP's sinister agenda, the fall of black Harlem, the NAACP's sinister agenda, the fall of black Harlem, The truth behind Black Lives Matter and the demoralization of America for political power.
	Don't miss Uncle Tom, too, from executive producer Larry Elder and director Justin Malone, with Brandon Tatum, Votie Bauckham, and Chad O'Jackson.
	Watch the movie on demand or buy the DVD now at SalemNow.com.
	That's SalemNow.com.
	So, what is it?
	The servant of Isaac sees Rebecca.
	And it says, and she was beautiful.
	And that mattered.
	I'm sorry, folks.
	The Torah is not going to give you the line, it's only a woman's heart that matters.
	Right.
	This is why you asked me, I think on your radio show, if I am happier as a result of becoming a conservative.
	And obviously the answer is yes.
	I feel like...
	I feel more like myself.
	It brought me to you.
	It brought me to this great gig.
	It made me grateful to be an American.
	But most of all, paradoxically, I am happier understanding how bad human nature is.
	And conservatism and finding you and reading the Bible has brought me to that.
	Of course it's discouraging to read that story of Noah.
	I just want people to know I'm taking out my phone to read you with text on that matter.
	Go on.
	See, I think a lot of leftists and liberals, their battle isn't with conservatives, their battle is with reality.
	That's right.
	And when you understand reality, even when reality is really dark, it gives you a weird sense of peace and understanding about the world instead of fooling yourself that people are better than, or the world is better than it is.
	So anyway, I just wanted to make that point.
	Read the text.
	So exactly to that point.
	The editor of a major Jewish newspaper, I'll just put it that way, sends me this text.
	I finally saw your debate with that rabbi.
	I debated.
	All of you watching, by the way, should see my debate.
	It's on YouTube.
	Great debate.
	About are people basically good?
	And I attended with some friends.
	Yes, and I loved your friends, which says a lot about you.
	So he writes this, of all your gems, my favorite was your amazement when you see goodness.
	So we who have a realistic view of human nature are constantly joyful at meeting good people as opposed to constantly disappointed at meeting bad people.
	I'm never disappointed by people who are bad.
	I don't expect that has been one of the most powerful things that you've imparted to me because I have to admit I said I said as you know I set absurdly high expectations for myself and my conduct and everything.
	And I also, I don't set as high expectations for other people as I do with myself, but I do nevertheless set high expectations.
	And I have often in life been disappointed.
	So I've really benefited from that piece of advice that you can't expect as much.
	I want to bring up one thing just because you mentioned that debate which I attended and it was so much fun.
	And I said I brought friends and...
	You were so kind to spend time with them backstage.
	It was really a joy in my life bringing these groups together.
	In the Cain and Abel story, there is literally a line that explicitly says that human beings are basically not good.
	When Cain is upset at Abel for offering a better sacrifice to God, God says, this may have to be one of my favorite lines that I've read so far in the Torah.
	Surely if you do right, there is uplift.
	But if you do not do right, sin couches at the door.
	Its urge is towards you, yet you can be its master.
	I love that for so many reasons because...
	That's all of life in one sense.
	That's all of life, yes.
	But with all due respect to the rabbi you debated, I don't understand...
	His position that people are basically good, A, for many reasons, because the evidence is everywhere, that people are basically not good, but B, it's right here.
	It literally explicitly says...
	It so annoyed me.
	This all started because he wrote a piece for...
	He's an Orthodox rabbi.
	I'm so sorry that he's a rabbi.
	No, no.
	Rabbi expected from.
	Orthodox rabbi would not expect it from.
	The non-Orthodox, unfortunately, are naive because...
	Because they've taken in, they've assimilated a lot of left-wing views, and leftism is naive.
	But that an Orthodox rabbi would say people are basically good when there's no biblical or Jewish basis for the idea just drove me crazy, which is why I had to debate.
	So why?
	Why would he believe that?
	As a rabbi who's clearly read this, I hope.
	Since I see no benefit in believing it, it is a puzzle.
	I have asked myself that question.
	The best answer I could give is there is a personality that exists that does not wish to be confrontational.
	This is what I said about liberals.
	That's right.
	They don't want to be.
	And this goes along nicely with what we just discussed about people's natures.
	The further left you go, the less confrontational with evil they are.
	That's why I knew I was not a leftist in high school, because they didn't hate communism.
	They hated Republicans, but they didn't hate communists.
	Same thing today.
	They hate Christians.
	The New York Times must feature...
	At least every other week, a big piece about how Christians are killing the country.
	And they just published an editorial about someone was advocating for suspending the Constitution or outright eliminating it.
	No, not suspending.
	Eliminating it.
	A professor of law at Yale and a professor of law at Harvard.
	Oh, God.
	Yeah.
	I mean, look, it would be an oh God anywhere, but just, oy.
	Yes, your alma mater.
	Okay, so I, I mean, I have so many questions to ask you, but...
	Just because a few minutes ago you mentioned that even Jesus would admit that all of the important parts of the Bible are stated in the first five books in the Torah.
	You have often remarked, and it's sort of blown my mind, that Jesus never read the New Testament.
	What do you think he would have thought about the New Testament?
	It's an interesting question.
	I started radio as the moderator of a very popular program in Los Angeles with a priest, rabbi, minister as guests each week for two hours and different ones each week.
	So periodically, and people would call in.
	I wasn't the only one asking questions.
	So people would call and say, I'd like to ask the priest and minister, if Jesus came back today, where would he go to pray?
	Every single Catholic priest, every single Protestant minister said a synagogue.
	That was his religion.
	That was all he knew.
	He did not know Christianity.
	So I can't answer how would he react if he saw Christianity.
	I have no answer.
	I can only tell you what he did see, and that was only Judaism.
	And indeed, he said he came only to address the Jews.
	Well, you say in the introduction that...
	Jesus said that he endeavored to change not one something.
	Yeah, that's the very beginning.
	Yes.
	Not one part of the...
	Not a jot or a tittle.
	Yes.
	That's the way it's translated.
	Of the Old Testament.
	Yes.
	Do you know how much better and richer and happier I am as a result of finding...
	Again, you know...
	Right now, I'm in the stage of, I don't know exactly theologically what I believe.
	I know certainly that I believe in God.
	I know certainly that I'm an ethical monotheist.
	But even just at the start of this journey, I just, I'm so much happier being a religiously engaged person.
	So...
	It's just, it's changed the way I view everything.
	I know.
	Well, it's a credit to you, and it's a credit...
	As well, to my commentary on it.
	It certainly is.
	Yes, so I just have to say, and obviously I'm self-conscious, but I didn't write this to make money.
	Nobody writes a Bible commentary to make money.
	I wrote it to change lives, and I think if almost anyone reads the Rational Bible, any of the volumes, it'll change their life for the better.
	So I just wanted to say that.
	I don't know why...
	If somebody's watching, I ask myself this question.
	I have a lot of people who love me, and I have a lot of people who hate me, and I understand that.
	I live with it, and I'm fine.
	But I don't understand why you would love me and not read the Bible commentary.
	So I have a theory.
	Even many people who really root for me and support me and listen and read, they have basically bought the idea that the Bible is for Bible-thumpers.
	It's not for sophisticated Certainly not for secular people.
	Maybe the super religious would like this, what Prager wrote on the Bible.
	Oh, they're so wrong about that.
	Well, that's the point.
	Well, that's one of the things.
	So, my show on Salem starts in two weeks.
	In either early or mid-September, depending on, you know, if we can get the set in order.
	Either by September 6th or that next week.
	And, obviously, I think all the time about...
	What I want to talk about and what my priorities are, and one of my biggest priorities is to talk about religion to my audience, because I think especially hearing it from a young person who grew up in a secular environment, who isn't an extremely religious person at this point, but who has deep reverence for it, I really hope it coming from me will show people exactly what you just said, that it is so relevant to everyone, not just religious thumpers.
	That's the point.
	Look, the truth is, to be honest, religious people have not done a good job in selling religion.
	I don't blame them, but they didn't.
	It just is a fact.
	Sean, what's our timing here?
	An hour and 24 minutes.
	I swear to you.
	If you paused this and said how long, I would say 35 minutes.
	Meanwhile, when I'm running on the treadmill and I have, when I'm like two minutes in, I'm like, that was the longest two minutes of my life.
	And I think about this podcast and I go, so it flies when I'm on the podcast, when I'm on the treadmill.
	That's a very good sign.
	If we went like the treadmill, that would be a very bad thing.
	So it's funny.
	People ask me, so what's your podcast with this girl about?
	And it's very hard for me to answer.
	Me too.
	Me too.
	I was asked that the other day.
	My answer is, actually, you may find this to be interesting.
	My answer is not politics.
	Right.
	It's minimal.
	It's truly minimal.
	I answer it's about everything.
	But that doesn't mean anything.
	Everything and nothing are related.
	I think it's about wisdom.
	Yeah, but you can't say that.
	I know.
	But for people who get it, they would agree that that's a good characterization.
	But it is hard to describe.
	This I can say.
	And this is not a judgment on anything else out there.
	Some great stuff out there.
	It's unique.
	It's even unique for me, and I do talk about everything on my radio show, but I've never interacted with someone at this level of openness.
	Right.
	I mean, it's rare privately, and it's unique publicly.
	There's no great answer to the question, what's it about?
	I say things on, of course there are things in my life I keep private, and of course there are things in your life that you keep private that, you know, we would never talk about on air.
	But honestly, those are, it's a very tiny list.
	That's right.
	That's key.
	It's really, there isn't like some huge thing in my life that I've kept, you know, secret.
	I mean, in fact...
	And I'm very, as you know, I adore my parents.
	I'm very close with both of them.
	And they'll even say to me, I didn't know that you thought this.
	Oh, that's funny.
	Because I talk about things on here that I don't even talk about with my friends and family.
	For instance, when you just said, have you gone on a date?
	Thanks a lot, by the way.
	Every single damn episode, you ask.
	But, you know, I'm sure when my mom hears this, she's going to go, I didn't know that you were on Hinge or I didn't know that you were on J-Swipe.
	So you should all be honored that I talk about things with all of you that I don't even mention to my parents with whom I have a great relationship.
	I'm honored.
	Yes, of course.
	Yes.
	So there's no way to sell it.
	It's very tough.
	It is hard to sell.
	People, you know what it is.
	People say, or excuse me, I say to people, just listen to one episode and you'll get it.
	Pick any one you want.
	Pick any one you want.
	I actually say pick the later ones because I think that, I mean, obviously the viewers are the judge of this, but I think it's just gotten better and better and better and better.
	Right, but I have no...
	And being in person, there's no substitute for that.
	If you love this podcast, or enjoy this podcast, and didn't hear the early ones, you will really want to.
	True.
	Because you will see how the structure got built.
	We weren't sure what we were going to do.
	We did start off talking about politics.
	Okay, there you go.
	That's right.
	And of course, it's Julie in her gorgeous dorm room.
	With the other side of the dorm room, I mentioned this.
	May I say this...
	Okay, so now...
	It was madness.
	To get to the sensitive issue we raised earlier...
	Oh, no.
	I will say, you do look better in the studio than you did in the dorm room.
	Really?
	Did I look awful?
	No.
	Oh, God.
	You never looked awful.
	HR, HR. Right, HR, exactly.
	But the...
	Look, no one looks good on the notebook...
	Video.
	The notebook camera.
	Well, I was holding my mic.
	I bought a mic because the first episode, you could barely hear me because it was just a Skype call.
	And so I bought this mic and I would stack it on Alexis de Tocqueville's Democracy in America and then the Federalist Papers.
	I'd stack it on those two books.
	Two damn good books for this kind of podcast.
	Wow, I didn't realize that.
	And the other side of my room would have every single other thing that you would have seen in the background just shoved to that.
	And also, it was senior year.
	I was doing classes.
	I mean, I hope I did a good job.
	I certainly made it a priority to research and prepare and present myself as best as possible in this podcast.
	But I'm sure I had dark circles.
	I was barely sleeping those last few months.
	It was the end of college.
	So it's a treat, I think, to help me go back and look.
	How many of the podcasts were done at school?
	Probably a dozen.
	Oh, so it's really half.
	Yeah.
	Wow.
	And you know what?
	I mean, I miss this.
	I just told you.
	I was in Utah last week.
	I miss this when we have to pre-record an episode and we don't do it consistently every week.
	Well, just for the record, we...
	What we do is we double up.
	Yes.
	So you never miss a new broadcast.
	Yes.
	We make sure, yes.
	We make sure that every Tuesday there will be something coming out.
	I mean, in November I'm going to Denmark to give a speech, so obviously we're not going to do it from Denmark.
	Right.
	But I missed, so last week I was in Utah.
	Unfortunately I got altitude sickness, but that's beside the point.
	You're going to Denver when I guest host for you this Thursday, so beware of the altitude.
	I know.
	You're made of steel.
	It doesn't affect you.
	But even in school.
	Some people would view it as a chore.
	I would love our Mondays when Mondays would come around and be able to do it.
	I feel the same thing.
	It's a highlight.
	Where are you going to do your podcast from?
	Right over here.
	This studio.
	You know how crazy that is, Dennis?
	That two years ago, I was reading your stuff on my couch, listening to you.
	Not knowing you personally at all.
	And an email brought me here.
	Now I share a set with you.
	My set is right here.
	So that's worthy of another session.
	Talk about what you open up about.
	So I know the answer to this question because I had it.
	And we're very, very, very similar.
	But it's going to be interesting for people to hear, what does that do to a 22-year-old to have such an enormous level of success?
	I think that that question is worthy of looking into.
	You know, we will look into it more, and I'll elaborate, but...
	I consciously know that what I've achieved and the good fortune that I've had is truly unbelievable.
	But I don't think of myself as a particularly accomplished person.
	I think that's just built in me.
	I remember in high school, and I sort of hate saying this because it sounds like a humble brag.
	Like, oh, I don't think of myself as being as great as I am.
	But you know me, and you know that it's true.
	I don't.
	Even in high school when I would swim and I would do really well at my events, I can't explain it, but it just never...
	It never stuck with me.
	I never was a chest beater.
	So a final thought.
	I just cracked up.
	Yeah, you did.
	I'm wondering why.
	I'll tell you why.
	You have many gifts, and one of them, which is essential to effective communication, which most people who communicate are not, you anticipate...
	What the audience will think.
	Oh, of course.
	I mean, I would be annoyed sitting and listening to a girl going, I don't think of myself as accomplished.
	I have a studio next...
	You know, it sounds...
	I understand how it sounds, but this podcast is all about honesty, and I am being...
	You know me.
	You know I'm being brutally honest.
	I don't feel the...
	I don't feel like I've really accomplished.
	But we're going to go deeper.
	I mean, you've got to reflect on it, forgetting the emotion.
	Oh, of course.
	Well, I think people will be interested.
	Because I had your level of success at your age.
	And so I'll tell you my cute line.
	So I was publicly speaking at your age already.
	And it was constant.
	Even in introducing me, people would say, so extraordinary for his age.
	And now I'm back to that.
	He's so extraordinary for his age.
	I have gone from, he's so extraordinary for his age.
	Do he so extraordinary for his age?
	Hey, take it.
	Yes, I do, but it's hilarious.
	But it's true.
	In both cases, it's true.
	Okay, fair enough.
	Yes, but it is.
	You, I gotta say to the audience, Dennis, I mean, you're extraordinary for your age in many reasons, but Dennis has the energy of, I actually don't even know what to say at this point, of what?
	Who has the energy that you have?
	I'm very blessed.
	Someone who's been injected with, like, or had five-hour energy shots and has gotten so much sleep.
	I mean, you sleep, what, like four hours a night?
	Five.
	You travel two times a week.
	You do your three-hour radio show.
	You do this.
	You do other people's podcasts.
	You do your fireside chat.
	You do your...
	I mean, it's unbelievable.
	I do not have that kind of energy.
	Yesterday, I handed in Chapter 15 of the Book of Numbers, the fourth of the five books of the Torah, my Bible commentary.
	And Sue was in the room when I sent it, and I started applauding myself.
	I was so proud.
	Good for you, my friend.
	Every chapter is so tough.
	Really?
	I work so hard on it.
	Well, you said to me once, the first time I ever met you, I said, I love your books, and I said, I love the clarity.
	And you said, well, I work hard so the reader doesn't have to.
	That's exactly right.
	And as I'm writing my book right now, I have that on a sticky note in front of my computer.
	Is that right?
	I do.
	It's a good line.
	All right.
	I'm sad it's over.
	I really am.
	I'd love to continue talking.
	Oh, yes.
	Sean, I think I already did.
	Sean is pestering me to tell people.
	She already told, but it doesn't hurt.
	No, it doesn't hurt.
	Julie at julie-hartman.com is my email.
	My website is julie-hartman.com.
	And we should really say this at the beginning of the episode, but...
	It's okay, because we're saying it now.
	Our social media accounts on Instagram and Twitter are at DennisJuliePod.
	There's no and between Dennis and Julie.
	It's at DennisJuliePod.
	And we also have a Facebook page that is called Dennis and Julie Podcast.
	So, please check us out.
	If this matters to you, and America and the West matter to you, send a video or two to a young person in particular.
	Yes.
	Please.
	Especially a young person.
	Yes.
	I've been getting more emails from young people, which is very encouraging.
	And I want to thank you all for your emails.
	They are unbelievably touching to me.
	Thank you, Jules.
	Thank you, Denise.
	He winced.
	That's your transgender name.
	We're the cities in the flames.

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