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March 14, 2023 - Dennis Prager Show
01:22:52
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Hello, everybody.
Welcome to the Friday Show.
The weeks go by fast.
January goes by fast.
I won't bring you up to the obvious conclusion to be drawn.
Life goes by fast.
However, it does, and therefore...
Since there's nothing you can do about it, you might as well use the time as best as possible.
And that includes fighting.
I'm not kidding.
What is my favorite line from the Bible?
Those of you who love God must, it's a command, must hate evil.
You have to fight.
Who would have ever thought that the United States of America could be brought down, could be destroyed so rapidly, although it isn't rapid.
It's been taking place for a century and certainly at least a half century.
Nevertheless, who would have thought of that?
You know the nostalgia I look at?
Just the other day...
I was watching, who was the big host?
Letterman, Dave Letterman.
I wonder how many college students heard of Dave Letterman.
Anyway, Dave Letterman was a very, very, very popular nighttime host on CBS. I think he didn't begin at CBS, but he was at CBS for much of his career.
Started at NBC. Remember in the beginning, he would throw a bowling ball from many stories up?
Do you remember that at all?
Yeah, watermelons.
Yeah, exactly.
Well, I saw an interview that he conducted.
It was in the 1980s.
It was on YouTube.
He was obviously very young.
And it was a nostalgia-inducing interview.
I was never a big fan of his, but it doesn't matter.
The lack of anger.
If there's one trait that distinguishes the left, it is anger because of a bigger trait that distinguishes the left, being ingratitude.
Ingratitude produces anger.
And cynicism and all of the darkness with which we see in the society, you must have people in your life who bring lightness.
In the sense that to be around them is to have a feeling of gratitude.
That's the difference.
A difference.
Maybe the difference in my own life.
I have such people.
And I try to be such a person in others' life.
One source of that has generally been church and synagogue.
And I will have that opportunity again next week.
I'd like to share with you something before I get to...
Do we have the faculty letter?
I do have it.
Okay.
All right.
And I wanted to share with you a realization.
I've had this realization for so long, but it really hit home last Saturday.
So Saturday is the Jewish Sabbath.
And I go to synagogue each week.
It's actually a synagogue that I and two others founded.
And it's filled with wonderful people.
Non-Jews attend, too.
Some Christians who love it or watch it on Zoom, but certainly in person as well.
Anyway, about 150, 140, 150 come in person.
About the same number are on Zoom.
And last week, for the first time since the lockdowns, the enforced lockdowns, we violated lockdowns whenever logistically possible.
We don't have our own building, though.
So we were at the mercy of others to a certain extent.
So last Saturday, the city of Los Angeles was doing electrical power work on the block which the building is located, and so we had no ability to attend synagogue.
Instead, I taught on Zoom.
And I mentioned in my talk, anyone who thinks Zoom or Skype or whatever it might be, gives you anything near the experience in person, is fooling themselves and or fooling you.
If you think that electronic transmission comes anywhere near in person, then the only possibility is that you are electronically communicating with people whom you don't care about.
Let me add, I live in the world and I understand, for example, my grandchildren live where my son and daughter-in-law live in Florida.
So I live on the other coast.
I live in the police state and they live in a free state.
So I do a Zoom link most weeks to talk and study.
With my grandson, who is 12, and let me say it is far superior to a telephone.
There's no question about that.
So I understand its uses, but it was so obvious to me that the experience paled.
You need to know that.
All this loneliness now.
Oh, we don't have to go into the office.
We can work from home.
You pay a price.
Maybe it's a good price because you could be home with kids and so on.
Next Wednesday night, I am speaking on a panel at the Arizona State University.
Not the, at Arizona State University.
So, is it up at IM, the specific one here?
It's up at IM. It's all over the place.
Oh, okay.
Wow.
Oh, I see.
You copied it over.
That's right.
All right, I'll just copy it over because in IM, it's the bottom line of an eye chart.
So, needless to say, members of the faculty of Arizona State University Object to the fact that I will be coming and that Charlie Kirk will be there.
And so here is the letter written by 35 members of the faculty of Arizona State University.
We, dear Dean Williams, we the undersigned Barrett faculty, Barrett is part of, it's a, what would you call it?
An institute?
Within Arizona State University.
We, the undersigned Barrett faculty, write to condemn the Health, Wealth, and Happiness event.
The T.W. Lewis Center for Personal Development is scheduled to host on February 8, 2023, and to express a vote of no confidence in the leadership of the Lewis Center.
We do not take this position lightly.
That's a lie.
They do take the position lightly because they have no heaviness in their charges.
Virtually everything that they cite, as you will see, is taken from a radical left-wing woke source that lied about me originally.
There are whole left-wing...
Places, like Media Matters, whose dedication is to smear conservatives.
That is all they do.
They take what we say out of context.
I'll give you one of the better-known examples.
Dennis Prager said it is crazy or stupid or something like that that we cannot say the N-word.
Dennis Prager wants to say the N-word, and we're inviting him.
So, of course, not one of these so-called scholars, they're all frauds.
They should all be fired, but if we fired professors who were frauds, morally and scholastically, there would be almost no professors left.
And many of you heard it.
A man called my show and asked essentially, how come you can say the word kike, which is the equivalent about Jew, but you can't say the N-word?
And I said, it is an entirely valid question.
Why can't you?
And I said, which they never quote, it is evil to refer to a black person, to call a black person the N-word.
Evil.
Okay?
That is never, ever reported.
It was in the exact same...
I said, however, it is crazy.
The only word in English you can never say is the N-word.
What if you're quoting Mark Twain?
What if you're quoting David McCullough, who spoke about the use of the N-word by Harry Truman?
He uses the actual word in his book, but I can't quote a sentence from the Truman biography.
And so these lying faculty say, I want people to go around saying the N-word.
You hear?
That's what they do.
This is the extent of their research.
So that when they lie at the outset...
By the way, I'm going to say this at Arizona State University.
These 35 should be fired.
They are a disgrace to the words, professor.
Every one of them is a moral and intellectual fraud.
But that's who teaches your kids for the most part.
Every day when I pass a mirror, I still can't believe it.
It's me!
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Dennis Prager here.
You may recall when I conducted the Santa Monica Symphony Orchestra in a Haydn symphony.
It would have been four years ago.
I believe that would be correct.
At the Disney Concert Hall, and there were seven members, I think virtually all of them academics, who said to their orchestra, fellow members, don't play for Dennis Prager.
As many of you know, I conduct orchestras as an avocation, as a passion.
I'm well into music.
I, by the way, just for the record, to show you how much they, which is typical, they hate more than they love on the left, I raised that evening, I didn't take a penny, I raised the entire year's budget of the Santa Monica Symphony Orchestra at Disney Concert Hall the evening we played.
August of 2017?
Oh, so it's six years ago this summer, huh?
It's six years ago.
This summer, yeah, wow.
Six years ago.
Wow.
And the former mayor of Santa Monica told people not to go.
He was prepared to have the orchestra struggle financially rather than, God forbid, play a Haydn symphony.
I didn't utter a political word at rehearsal or that night, but it doesn't matter.
My desire was to show that music can soar above political differences.
For the left, politics is life.
Every leftist is an empty bag, an empty soul, filling it with environmentalism, feminism, wokeism, transgenderism.
We name the ism.
They fill their emptiness, and they hate those of us who have a full life.
They hate the happy.
Leftism is a very, very bad thing.
It's completely destructive.
They were prepared to destroy the orchestra, lest they play for a conservative conductor.
So we have the same thing now at Arizona State University.
Therefore, oh by the way, the punchline is, it was the first time, and only time since, that I know of, that the Disney Concert Hall sold out for a regional orchestra.
It's easy to sell out for the Los Angeles Philharmonic, but regional orchestras don't sell out.
They almost never even play there.
It's too big a burden financially to rent out the concert hall.
But I sold out the place.
And that's how they raised so much money.
And I would like you, who are anywhere within hours of Phoenix, I am paid for the evening irrespective of how much they sell.
So I have no financial interest in this.
By the way, I wasn't paid for the conducting, just for the record.
I think I mentioned that.
And please get tickets and please fill the place.
You can get the tickets at DennisPrager.com.
There's a link there.
For Arizona State University next Wednesday night.
Robert Kiyosaki, rich dad, poor dad, one of the most helpful, famous authors in the country, is on the panel with Charlie Kirk and me.
But this disturbs these left-wing professors who condemn the center for inviting us.
You should only have leftists.
Our concerns with the appearance of Robert Kiyosaki, whose key claims in his best-selling book have been widely debunked.
This is their favorite term, widely debunked.
Just like it's widely debunked that the Hitler-Biden laptop was real.
That's been widely debunked.
51 heads of intelligence, after all.
announced that this was Russian disinformation.
Widely debunked when leftists use the term means we're lying to you.
It means that fellow leftists have debunked it.
That is what widely debunked means.
Robert Kiyosaki has probably helped more people on any given day than any of these professors in their lives.
And whose public speaking engagements on wealth generation have been exposed as sales schemes.
Oh, really?
They've been exposed as sales schemes?
Capitalism is bad.
Capitalism is bad.
Our objections to two of the scheduled speakers, however, exceed those previous worries by an order of magnitude.
Dennis Prager and Charlie Kirk are purveyors of hate.
Really?
And how exactly are we purveyors of hate?
The purveyors of hate charge me.
The guy who has a happiness hour, who's written a Bible commentary, three volumes, another one coming out within a year.
The most widely read, I believe it is, English Language Introduction to Judaism, and who has helped couples have a better marriage through the male-female hour, who has written about goodness, who's devoted his life to it.
But I am a purveyor of hate.
You know why?
Because if you differ with the left, that's what they call you.
Is there anyone who attacks the left who is not called a purveyor of hate?
I can't think of one.
Let's see.
How so?
Publicly attacked women.
Did they give a link to my public attack?
There were no links in what I copied over.
Is there a link under women?
I have, by the way.
I have publicly attacked women.
And men.
I have said, that's true, I wrote a column on it.
Given the role that overwhelmingly women are playing in telling children that they may not be a boy or a girl and taking them to drag queen story hours, women are disproportionately doing a disservice.
Just like men disproportionately use violent crime.
You know, the only thing that really bothers me I'm not bothered when I'm attacked.
I'm only bothered when I'm misquoted.
But I'm not bothered by that.
I'm bothered by the low moral and intellectual level of these 35 professors at Arizona State University.
I can't wait until Wednesday night.
I'm thinking of reading all the 35 names and saying they're a disgrace to the academic profession.
There was a time in American history where a professor, when you heard the word, you assumed some level of intellectual honesty.
And every left-wing professor is a liar.
Not every liberal one.
They're all cowards.
Because liberals say nothing or support the left.
But they're not on the same moral level as the leftists.
One day, maybe not in my lifetime, people will understand what the left has done.
Generally speaking, people are much more capable of acknowledging evil after it happens than while it happens.
It's really, it's an ode to human cowardice.
The trick in life is to acknowledge evil while it is happening, not once it's over.
And they've lost.
Okay, so let's see here.
They don't want us to come, Charlie Kirk and I, purveyors of hate, who have publicly attacked women, people of color, the LGBT community, as well as the institutions of our democracy, including our public institutions of higher education.
Well, the last is really true.
I have, in fact, attacked our institutions of higher education because they have people mostly like these 35. Lying, left-wing, America-hating frauds.
That's why.
The chances of your child returning from Arizona State or any college, a worse human being than the one you sent...
The chances are real.
What else can I say?
Very few people get a child after four years of any college, whether it's Arizona State or, in particular, Yale, which is a cesspool, come back a finer human being than the one who left your house four years earlier.
By platforming and legitimating their extreme anti-intellectual and anti-democratic views, I will happily debate any one of these.
Anti-intellectual?
You are the anti-intellectuals.
I love the life of the mind.
I'll put up my books for their intellectual content any day against any books you have written, if yours are even readable, or if you have written any.
Barrett will not be furthering the cause of democratic exchange at ASU. Oh, really?
Of course not.
Because they're afraid.
Why do leftists object to our appearing for two hours at a campus?
For good reason.
We can undermine in two hours, in 90 minutes, in an hour, almost everything that these people have pervade.
For the last four years.
We will undermine democratic exchange in ways that could further marginalize the most vulnerable members of our community.
While their national media profiles are familiar to most, beneath our signatures we have compiled some of Prager and Kirk's most recent bigoted and anti-democratic Public positions.
What is anti-democratic?
Is that listed?
Is that one of the listings?
What I've said that's anti-democratic?
I guess, you know what?
They're right in the sense that I support the Electoral College, which is anti-democratic.
I support the U.S. Senate.
The composition of the U.S. Senate.
Two senators for every state, no matter the population.
That's thoroughly anti-democratic.
I assume they're talking about January 6th.
How are Barrett faculty members to impress upon our students the value of an honors education when Barrett is promoting an event by the authors of You Want to Be Rich and Happy?
Don't Go to School and The College Scam.
Notice they didn't mention any of my books.
Not one.
I have ten.
They could have taken one.
That would have been great publicity for my Bible commentary.
You don't want to listen to the author of a commentary on Deuteronomy.
There's a lot of talk about the Great Reset and digital currencies.
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Do you want to fight?
Go to the ASU event.
Buy tickets.
Just as I asked you to for the concert when I conducted at the...
The Santa Monica Symphony Orchestra at the Disney Concert Hall.
And they tried to shut that down as they're trying this.
They claim that they don't want it cancelled.
They just want it condemned.
But they really want you to go.
Be that as it may, you can get tickets for the event.
We've got a lot of listeners in Arizona.
You can even drive there or fly there from Southern California.
It'd be a great event, aside from everything else.
But if there's standing room only, it is a real statement.
It's up at DennisPrager.com.
It's next Wednesday night at Arizona State University.
What kind of impression does it give?
Our BIPOC students and potential students to see that during Black History Month, Barrett is hosting two white nationalist provocateurs.
Boy, are they evil, these leftists, which is redundant.
If they weren't evil, they'd be liberals or conservatives.
Leftism makes you evil.
I'm a white nationalist provocateur.
Is there a hint of that in 40 years of broadcasting?
A white nationalist?
What does that even mean?
I celebrate white nationalism.
Who have decried the social prohibition on using the N-word It shows they did no research.
If you read something that has the real word in it, you shouldn't have to say N-word.
You should read the word.
You should never call a black person the N-word.
You shouldn't call a Jew a kike.
But look, I'm allowed to say kike on the radio.
Because I'm not calling anyone it, and I'm talking about how bad the word is.
And that makes me a white nationalist provocateur to these 35 professors at Arizona State University.
They disgrace the word university.
And called for the cancellation of Black History Month.
I don't think there should be any history months except American history.
That should be 12 months a year.
That should be 12 months a year.
If American history is taught honestly, then by definition black history is taught.
I don't want a Jewish history month.
I'm a Jew.
I've written Jewish history books.
I don't like dividing Americans like the left does.
Is there a Christian history month?
Thank you.
Played a pretty important role in the founding of the United States.
By the way, is there an American History Month?
Huh.
How are Barrett faculty to provide a welcoming community for our LGBTQ students when we are hosting speakers who regularly employ anti-trans slurs on air?
Have you ever heard me employ an anti-trans slur?
They don't back this up, do they?
What do they have me saying?
They have a whole list of things that I've said, let's see.
On LGBTQ, monogamous heterosexual marriage should be a prerequisite to adoption.
Yes, I do believe that.
Unless there is, if those are the actual words that I said.
If you have, I said this on CNN with Kamala Harris when she was running for Attorney General, you can see it on YouTube.
My gay friends agree.
If there are two couples equally wonderful for a child to be adopted, the adoption agency should prefer the mother and father.
But on the left, mother and father is not preferable to two mothers or two fathers.
There are terrific parents that I know of who are two of the same sex.
There are terrific parents who are single parents.
Is it hateful against single parents if I say a child should have two parents?
I guess to the left it is.
They want a drag queen to get attacked and they want to make a huge amount of hay of it and they want to create summer 2020 again.
I don't know, where did they get that quote?
Do you know?
I don't, maybe I said I have no idea, but why is that a smear of LGBTQ? The transgender movement is an introductory phase to get you to strip yourself of your humanity to mesh with machines.
Do you recall me ever saying that?
I'm not sure.
I don't even know what it means.
Maybe that's from somebody else?
Yeah, that sounds like Charlie.
Yeah, but I thought that the list goes by the person.
So they've conflated my comments with others?
And what you sent me?
Under on the LGBTQ community.
I have no idea what it means, so I have no idea when I would have said it.
The transgender movement is an introductory phase to get you to strip yourself of your...
Huh?
That's not you.
It's not me, exactly.
But it's listed under me.
No, they go into Charlie after they go into Charlie.
I know!
It's not on the Charlie part.
I'm sorry.
Oh, yeah, I'm sorry it is, but I apologize to you.
So it has nothing of me on LGBTQ. Oh, yeah.
YouTube removed anti-trans PragerU videos from violating hate speech policy.
So it's nothing I said.
They prove the smear of me.
By saying YouTube removed, but YouTube removes leftists, the left YouTube removes people.
I was removed from YouTube, or I was put on the list that people have to filter out violence and porn.
What is that called?
When I went to the hearing in Washington.
Restricted list.
Restricted list.
We have standards in the U.S. military.
You shouldn't be serving there as a transgender person.
Yeah, I stand by that.
Here we go.
It's the happy, happy, happy, happy, uh, yes it is.
Ladies and gentlemen, the happiness hour has been coming to you since 1999. And now it is.
The 21st century.
The original lyrics.
It's the happy, happy, happy, happy air.
My friends.
The happy make the world better.
The unhappy make it worse.
It's, you know, you think, because you...
You hear it from me virtually every week.
It's sort of a throwaway line.
It is a line of such significance that it's life and world changing.
If everybody were happy, the world would be a wonderful place.
The unhappy make it worse.
Not all unhappy people make it worse.
I want to make that clear.
But generally, all those who make it worse are unhappy people.
And the more unhappy, the more bitter, the more angry, the more jealous, the more...
What else can I put?
Oh yes, the most important, ungrateful.
Gratitude is everything.
My father wrote his autobiography.
It used to be online.
I'm going to check if it still is.
Wrote his autobiography.
And he called it Attitude and Gratitude.
And he was tested at the end of his life because when my mother died, his link to happiness died.
It was a very, very difficult few years.
Alright everybody, welcome to the Happiness Hour.
I'm Dennis Prager and today's subject is the number of people who are happy through their children.
And that's a mistake.
That's the subject.
You can't live through your children.
It's not fair to them, and it's not good for you.
Since I mentioned my parents, I will note...
You can start calling now, by the way.
1-8 Prager 776. I will note that I said at the time, my parents...
My mother died at 89, my dad at 96. And I frequently noted how lucky I was that they were independently happy.
That their daily happiness derived from the other.
And from whatever else brought them happiness in their lives, for my mother, many friends, and for my father scouring the internet for interesting articles and the like.
He became very much attached to it.
I was the one who begged him to get a computer.
I was the one who begged him to get it because I wanted him to write his autobiography.
And he writes in it, thank you to my son Dennis for persuading me over the course of years to finally write this down.
And it's a wonderful book.
And I was delighted that I had convinced him to write it.
Everybody should write their autobiography, incidentally.
Even if you're the only reader, it's actually worth it, but for none of you will you be the only reader.
And every one of you has an interesting story.
You might be boring, but your story isn't.
How's that?
Wouldn't that be a great blurb on somebody's autobiography?
So-and-so is actually a boring person, but his autobiography is quite interesting.
Anyway, I was very lucky.
They got a lot of pleasure from me.
I mean, I have no doubt about that.
It's not a matter of I have no doubt.
I know that.
Of course it was true.
They got a lot of pleasure from my brother, a professor of medicine.
But I can say that I was so happy that they derived so much happiness.
I know people, I know adults whose happiness is completely wrapped up in their children.
So is that true for you?
Is it true for you as the parent?
Is it true for you as the child of such parents?
1-8 Prager 776 877-243-7776 Sean, give me the jingle, will you?
I haven't heard it in a while and it cheers me up.
Which is a good thing on the Happiness Hour.
877-243-7776 There we go.
877-243-7776 So do you live through your children and if you are an adult child, Do your parents live through you?
Now, obviously, the ability of children to make a parent's life miserable is very real.
And I have addressed that on a number of occasions.
I don't believe that that should be allowable.
The way I term it...
You should not allow yourself to be held hostage.
Your happiness should not be held hostage by your child.
But that's not my subject.
My subject is your happiness, not your unhappiness with regard to children.
Do you live through them?
What was the movie, Errol Flynn?
My good friend Robert Florzak, who's done two PragerU videos on art, is the world's leading expert on the life of the actor Errol Flynn.
He's put out a gigantic, really terrific book documenting almost every day in Errol Flynn's life.
It's a Herculean task.
And even if you don't know Errol Flynn, it's just fascinating, the pictures, the descriptions.
So he got me interested in Errol Flynn, and Errol Flynn was one of the handsomest actors in acting history.
And he was known as a ladies' man.
But in his last years, he had fallen in love with a girl in her teens.
The mother of that girl lived through her daughter's life.
She had an unhappy life, a miserable marriage.
I think they divorced eventually.
So she lived through her daughter.
And to see her daughter succeed in Hollywood was everything to her.
I wonder what percentage of parents Do live through their children.
I have no idea.
That is one of the reasons why it is so important to be happy, period.
And not depend on another for your happiness, especially your child.
The burden on a child is so great.
If the child knows the parent lives through him or her, that is a very bad scene.
All it does in the final analysis is have the child resent the parent.
You have really hurt your relations.
This goes to...
One of my core beliefs in life.
Your aim as a parent and as a parent-in-law should be to be as easy as possible in the life of your children and children-in-law.
That is such a beautiful goal.
Then they will love you.
And then they will remember you fondly.
Living through one's children is the subject of today's Happiness Hour.
We resume momentarily.
The Dennis Prager Show.
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Sean may bleep me.
Alright, here it goes.
The happy organ.
Can't believe I said it.
Okay, I'm going to leave it at that.
And as the, uh, what is it?
it, there's a Hebrew saying, he who understands will understand.
Welcome to the happiness hour on the Dennis Prager Show.
Welcome.
And this is a biggie, but they're all biggies.
When you realize how many big subjects there are in happiness, you realize it's a challenge.
Can you imagine a happiness hour on a left-wing show?
Isn't that interesting to think?
Hi, this is Charles M. Blow, and we're going to talk about happiness today.
Paul Krugman here.
Our subject is a happy and grateful life.
What is that guy?
Manju?
Something Manju?
Farood?
Is that right?
Yeah, Manju, I know.
He's a real...
Oh, it's a they?
I'm sorry.
They is...
They is not happy.
Alright, let's go to thine calls.
Living through your children.
Bad, bad, bad idea.
You know, now that I'm talking about it, it's somewhat like when you write, writing forces your mind to think.
So to speaking about, especially publicly, because you know that you're being monitored.
Not in a bad sense, just being monitored.
So, does the living through your children begin with helicoptering?
Does helicoptering lead to living through your child, your happiness dependent on them?
Well, by the way, happiness dependent on them and living through them are not identical.
Because a lot of people do derive happiness from children, and a lot of people derive unhappiness from children.
I think that those need to be conquered.
But nevertheless, I mean, derive happiness.
I have happiness from my children.
But they know, and thank God they know, my happiness is also in my life.
I don't look to them to make me happy.
They happen...
To contribute in a beautiful way to my happiness.
When my younger son got married, was it a year ago?
Man, God, hard to believe.
At my older son's home, I really cried like a baby out of happiness.
It was really something.
So, I'm hardly immune and don't want to be to deriving joy from my children, but I don't live through them, and they know that, and they're happy about that.
I have an independent life, which brings me joy.
And I was thrilled that that was true for my parents.
It is such a burden.
I do know adult children whose parents live through them.
And that is a terrible burden.
And let's take your call.
Simple as that.
Where is my Oregon call?
Yes, Matthew in Portland.
Hello.
Hello, Matthew.
Sean, are we having phone issues?
Yes.
Can you hear me?
And now Sean needed to push up a button.
Oh, am I there?
Yep, yep.
Go ahead.
He feels terrible.
Yep.
Hi, Dennis.
Thank you for taking my call.
I was in the Marines, and I was a dad of three, and I just focused too much on them and taking care of them.
My wife kind of fell to the side, and all of a sudden I was...
I was booted from the house just because she wasn't getting what she needed, and I was not giving it to her.
I almost got divorced twice until I screwed my head on straight.
And now we're at nine years, and I love my wife ten times more than I did when I married her.
And we do have that independent life you were talking about.
It shows our kids.
The love that they need to see in a family.
When you turned your life around, this is an important call for which I'm grateful.
When you turned it around, was it completely self-motivated?
Did you see a therapist?
How did you do it?
I love to know how people turn their lives around.
I looked at the other side of the coin.
What would it be like without my wife?
So you took your wife for granted, really?
Yes, I did.
Well, you're a good man for acknowledging it and for calling.
So they almost divorced twice.
So I know that this is controversial, and I live with that fact, but I say it because I believe it to be true, that the existence of Of the possibility of divorce helps marriages.
You know what?
Did I ever do that on a male-female hour?
I mean, that's a pretty big subject.
Let's do that.
You see, I look at it in a very simple, not simplistic.
They have nothing to do with one another, simple and simplistic.
In a very simple way.
If you can't be fired from a job, the odds are overwhelming that you will do it more poorly.
You have a job as a husband, you have a job as a wife to treat your spouse in certain ways and to desist from treating them in certain ways.
And if you fail at the job, there is the possibility you will be fired.
And in marriage, it's called divorce.
You might as well say that at a job.
Yes, we're divorcing you, sir.
Here's your pink slip.
He got the message.
You continue to overly focus on the children and you'll have to find yourself another spouse.
And now he loves his wife ten times more than when he married her.
That's a fun question.
How many times more do you love your spouse now than when you married?
Or how many times less?
The way your fingers fit mine It's 5 plus 5, not a rocket science This daytime, that's hard to find It's true The road we're on ain't a traffic jam It's a sunny drive on a piece of land It's paradise as long as I'm with you It's like 1, 2, 3 Just as easy as can be Just the way you look at me
Hi everybody, I'm Dennis Prager.
This is a new try on the part of our music division of the Dennis Prager Show.
I like country western, but I don't know the relevance of this to the happiness hour.
On the other hand, I don't hear every word.
So, Sean, what is the relevance of this to the happiness hour exactly?
It is...
Simplicity?
Oh, based on a comment that I made about being simple and not simplistic?
Or because this is...
Yes?
No, that's...
Okay, I don't agree.
Okay, fair enough.
Doesn't matter.
It is the way it is.
All right, folks, the happiness hour.
You can't live through your kids for your happiness.
Man, there are so many who do.
All right, let's see here.
Hmm.
Well, here's someone who does.
Good.
Interesting calls.
The guy from Oregon, that was really good.
I thank you, sir.
Wow, he almost lost his wife because he focused so much on his kids.
There's way too much focusing on kids and families.
Part of the reason, by the way, aside from the fact that we live in an age of non-wisdom and we're love-bombed in terms of the importance.
Everything is love, love, love, love.
Not respect or self-control or even like.
Anyway.
These are lessons that need to be learned by people.
One of the reasons I was about to say is families are so small.
You can be a helicopter parent with one or two or maybe three kids.
You can't with five, six, seven, eight, or nine.
You don't have enough helicopters.
They'll crash.
Prescott, Arizona.
Jose, hello.
Thank you.
I was telling the screener that I lived to my son because I used to play soccer.
But my son exceeded on playing soccer a lot.
They actually won a state championship in Arizona.
And that made me very, very happy.
I don't just live to that.
I mean, that's something that we worked together since he was like 10 years old.
So, how old is he now?
He's 18 in college right now.
Are you married or divorced?
Yes, sir.
Okay.
Well, when we were training, my wife was really upset because I used to spend a lot of time at the park.
Right.
But after that, you know.
Well, is he still playing soccer?
No, he actually, he was really good and he could have made some college shots.
Okay, so he achieved a lot in soccer and then he left soccer.
So do you, are you a less happy man?
No, no, not at all.
He wanted to go to college and we're trying to help him and I wouldn't be as happy as he didn't go to college.
But, you know, I was just glad that he accomplished something that I could never accomplish when I played.
Uh-huh.
Okay, I wonder, that's a very important admission.
I'll talk about that in a moment.
Are you and your wife spending more time together now?
Yeah, a lot more, now that the kids are older, yeah.
Uh-huh.
Okay, well, I'm happy for that.
So here is a very good example of what I'm talking about.
Jose played soccer in his youth, and he...
He acknowledges living through his son's soccer excellence greater than his own.
That is a classic example of living through your child.
I didn't accomplish X, but maybe you will.
All right.
Well...
Obviously, I'm not for that.
I think it's a problem.
The question people need to ask themselves, and I'm not asking this at all in an accusatory way.
Excuse me for that.
I should have put this on mute.
I almost deserve the punishment room, Sean.
I just want you to know.
Yep, that's right.
It's not accusatory, but that's the example par excellence of the parent not having enough life-fulfilling things in their own life that they seek their child.
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Let Dennis be Dennis.
Yep, that was what my parents learned at my age of 14. I've been happy since.
Hi, everybody.
Dennis Pringer here.
Great to be with you.
This is the Aries.
Something that's ever on your mind about you, about me, about life, about death, and, of course, about classical music, audio equipment, photography, cigars, and fountain pens.
That was impressive.
Ah, yes.
Perfect theme.
Perfect.
Hello, everybody.
Whatever is on your mind.
And if I don't take your call, don't get offended.
People are offended way too easily these days.
It can't be personal because I don't even know who you are.
So it's nothing to do with you.
There could be a topic I just don't think is of general interest, or I may know nothing about it.
I admit it.
If you, for example, were to call up...
And say, what is your take on the Peloponnesian War?
Or wars?
I would not have an intelligent response.
So I would let the call go.
Or I would put Sean on.
Because Sean has been studying the Peloponnesian Wars for quite some time now.
In fact, he has a Peloponnesian Army t-shirt.
Which he wears with great pride.
All right, let's go.
Let's see what's on your mind.
And good.
We go to Franklin, Kentucky, and Don.
Hello, Don.
Hi, Dennis.
You know I love and respect you.
I've been listening for over 20 years, but I really had a problem with your low view of marriage in that last hour.
Whoa, that's not fair.
I have at least as high of you as anyone living, but I made a comment that I believe divorce is important because if you think that no matter how you treat your spouse, they will never leave you, you might not act as well.
No, I totally got that, and I hope you do have an hour on it someday, but I believe that it's somewhat word rape.
In a Christian church, the relationship is to be a reflection of Christ and His church, who laid down His life for her.
Secondarily, my vow is not first and foremost to my wife, it's before God.
And I make that vow for better or for worse.
My wife has been sick, had been sick, well, for the most part of 11 years.
She underperformed.
Should I have fired her, Dennis?
No.
Well, first of all, I salute you.
And secondly, I said no matter how they treat you, any adverse treatment, so to speak, of you was not in any way done volitionally by your wife.
So, I don't think anybody...
Forgive me, I just want to say, I don't think anybody hearing me say no matter how your spouse treats you thinks...
I'm referring to a spouse who has been incapacitated by illness.
Sometimes they'd be pretty ugly with you, can't they?
I'm sorry.
Your phone blacked out for a good chunk of that.
Say it again.
When that person is incapacitated or ill, they can get pretty ugly character-wise with you, can't they?
Okay.
Well, that's an interesting question.
If somebody is chronically mean to you, I have to say, I don't know how long you are obliged to take abuse.
And why?
Look, I don't...
We have here one of the handful of arenas where there just might be a Jewish-Christian difference.
Judaism, in fact, the Old Testament.
The Torah does allow for divorce.
And the view that no matter how you're treated, you stay there unless there is adultery or some say abandonment of God, really.
Some believe that if they've taken on a pagan religion, let's say, or Anyway, except for one or two circumstances, no matter how mean the person is, you have to stay with them.
I don't believe that's God's will, and you do, and I respect you, but I have to be true to my beliefs.
And removing God from the issue, this is an interesting question.
So, removing theology from the issue, Do you believe that a person is obliged to stay with their spouse no matter how they're treated?
What I believe is that they should separate themselves for a time that it might be able to be worked out rather than go straight to divorce.
I agree with you too.
I was divorced in my first marriage, Dennis.
I was married for 10 years as an unbeliever.
But I have different views now because the only out I have as a Christian Or out, I say out.
I've made the vow before God.
And I don't have to do it because of that, but as you stated, adultery or abandonment.
Then I may divorce.
In God's eyes, it is sanctioned.
Right.
All right, listen.
Thank you.
you're a good man.
Putting theology aside, I think my argument is That if you believe, anyone believes, that no matter how they treat their spouse, the spouse will never divorce, is analogous to no matter how poorly you do your job, you can never be fired.
I regard marriage as a job.
This sounds so unromantic to people, but I don't think romantically.
I don't mean in the sense of romance.
Romantic has a definition philosophically.
Romantically is to make up things to sound sweet but not be realistic.
If you want better romance, treat your spouse well.
Everybody would agree with that.
Don't think romantically.
You want to act romantically, that's fine.
Think rationally.
Okay, let's move on.
That was a good one.
Another disagreement, but not necessarily disagreeable.
Certainly my last caller wasn't.
Arcadia, California.
Steve, hello.
Yeah, hey, Dennis.
Thanks for taking my call.
Let me preface my quick statement with...
A comment that I respect you deeply.
I've listened to you since religion on the line, and I just agree with you 99% of the time.
I think your position on the war in Ukraine at this point is only prolonging the misery and the inevitable defeat of the Ukrainian people.
Why do you feel it's inevitable?
Well, I... They're basically defeated now, in my opinion, based on some of the people that I listen to, professionals and so on.
They're really defeated now.
It's just we haven't admitted it yet.
And by the time these tanks, these Abram tanks that we're sending to Ukraine, it's very likely that by the time they actually get there.
Well, let me ask you an interesting question.
If you did not believe that the Ukrainians' defeat was inevitable, would you then support supporting Ukraine?
It's a tough question, to be honest with you.
My heart would say yes, I think we should support them, but...
My brain tells me otherwise.
Okay, so your brain, we'll focus on your brain.
Your brain then says, even if the Ukrainians might win, I don't want to support them.
So what you called in to tell me, and I know you're not misleading me at all, but you're sort of misleading yourself.
The issue of the inevitability of Ukraine's defeat is irrelevant.
Even if they'll win, you don't want to support them.
Well, you know, I mean, yes, it's partly true in some respects, but I can't overcome.
The brain has taken over the whole rationale for me, and I just think that...
I think that the war was unnecessary to begin with, and I think the warmongers in our government, I think they encouraged this war, and it should never have happened.
Okay, all of that may be true, but we have to deal with the present state.
Why it happened is important.
But not as important as what should we do?
The defeat for America and the inevitable, horrible consequences of a withdrawal from Ukraine?
Okay, I'll address more of that when we come back.
I'm talking about Ukraine.
This is the hour you call in on anything so far.
The two first calls differ with me.
I think they're very important.
You need to hear other points of view, which proves I'm not a leftist.
So, I've heard every argument, I believe, because I am a big Tucker Carlson fan, for example, and they don't deal with the question, Of what would happen if we abandoned Ukraine and let Russia conquer it.
And I'll tell you one thing that is clear.
It would embolden China to invade Taiwan.
They're watching.
And they are...
It's a test of Western resolve whether a nuclear power can...
Do whatever it wants to its neighbors.
I don't care if you like Zelensky or you think that there is Biden-Ukraine collusion and corruption, which I have no doubt there has been and there might still be.
I think all of those issues are secondary to the question of what would happen if we abandoned it.
Look, tragedy has only occurred because we abandoned Afghanistan.
And that was emboldening the Taliban, not Putin or China.
Incidentally, there was a staggering bombing in Peshawar, Pakistan, done by the Taliban just this week.
A staggering number of people were blown to bits, and God knows they were, in some cases, luckier than survivors.
Who are brain damaged, paralyzed, blinded, deafened?
Maybe all of them.
Do you know, moving to a more philosophic subject now, if you think people are basically good, good, if you think human nature is born good, there's something wrong with you.
I don't know how to better put it.
You are so naive as to be inexcusable for an adult.
Okay.
Got that out of my system.
Detroit!
Jonathan, hello.
Dennis.
Good to hear you again, and good to speak with you again.
Thank you for taking my call.
Yes, sir.
Well, I wanted to say thank you for many things.
I enjoy you, appreciate your work, just a real light for truth.
And as my Jewish brother, I just want to say thank you.
I'm a Baptist pastor just south of Detroit, and I have been enjoying your Bible commentaries very much.
I've got loads of commentaries.
I love your take.
I love your rational take.
And I just want to say it's been incredibly helpful to me in my study.
Well, you made my day.
That's my great passion, that people read by Bible commentary.
I'll put it to you directly, my dear listeners.
If you do appreciate what I have to say, and therefore tune in for that reason, I don't know why you wouldn't get my Rational Bible commentaries, even if you're an atheist.
It will give you the greatest wisdom in history, biblical wisdom.
It will explain the most important text of the world.
And I don't know why you wouldn't want that in your life.
Anyway, there are three volumes out of the Rational Bible.
Thank you very much.
It means a lot, as I just said.
Okay, let's see.
All right, good.
Another challenge here.
Cypress, California.
Hello, Robert.
Thank you for calling.
You're certainly welcome, Dennis.
I'm usually in Long Beach, but I'm on a sick day today.
I'm sorry.
Last week, you asked me a question.
What harm does it do if people believe in a God that doesn't exist?
I will tell you that throughout history, religions have a history of persecuting people.
We try to impose science and fact over religious dogma.
In many cases, they're executed.
And that's the great harm.
Religion holds everybody back because it embraces fiction over fact and lie over truth.
The sooner humanity throws the yoke of this fiction off of their shoulders, the better off we'll all be.
Okay.
All right.
I won't argue.
I'll only respond.
Since I'm living in the present, I can only tell you that at the present, every damn lie is believed by secular people.
Every single one.
Only secular people say men give birth.
Religious people consider that to be absurd.
The case for religion, if you're an atheist, is as strong as if you're a believer.
Secularism produces our universities.
When they believed in God, there was infinitely more truth and science and fact at our universities.
Secularism is a damn dead end, intellectually and morally.
But you can deny truth all you like, and it takes a denial of truth to deny that.
It is a bloody dead end, secularism.
Some of the most esteemed thinkers on this subject are themselves agnostic.
And they acknowledge that the post-religious world is doomed.
The West is dying thanks to secularism.
The only people upkeeping Western civilization and science.
Are overwhelmingly the religious community.
The latest study that is out is what a lie it was that masks, the biggest study ever made, I'll report it to you on Monday, just released.
Masks are useless.
Useless!
Religious people were far more likely to know masks were useless than the graduates of Yale.
The secular graduates of Yale.
You want to protect science?
Keep religion alive in the West.
That's the truth, Ruth.
Back in a moment.
Hello, everybody.
Dennis Prager, final segment of the week.
I was reflecting on the man.
Let me talk, let me talk.
Let me answer my question.
Just for the record...
I had at least two calls this hour of people who differed with me.
They spoke at least as long as I did.
Of course I let you talk.
It's a manipulative device not to answer a question.
Or not to let me talk.
But I've been doing radio so long I know about it and that's why I let him go even though I brought him back to give him a chance to speak.
So I repeat.
It's only the secular who say men give birth.
So the next time you hear that religious people don't believe in science, it is one of the gigantic lies, well, one of the many, many, many gigantic lies of the left.
I would say that the average religious person in this country trusts science more than the average secular person.
They trust scientists.
We trust science.
And there's a big difference because the number of scientists who are lying because of ideological agendas, like masks work, like ivermectin is dangerous, like men give birth, like sex is not binary, is enormous.
That's not science.
That's scientists.
I don't believe in scientists.
I do believe in science.
Absolutely.
If it's true, I believe it.
End of issue.
Let's see.
What's our timing, Sean?
How much?
All right.
Let's get a quickie.
Hacienda Heights, California.
Mel.
Hello, Mel.
Hello, Dennis.
Thank you for taking my call.
I've been listening to you for decades.
Yes, sir.
I purchased the Genesis book in one of your live events.
And there's one coming up, and I was wondering if, I'm sure you have your books there, I was wondering if I should purchase the Exodus or the newest one, the latest one you wrote?
The Deuteronomy?
Yeah.
Yes.
I would flip a coin.
I would.
There's no answer to your question.
Because I do believe that when you get the second, you'll eventually get the third anyway.
It does not matter which one you get.
And ironically, both have the Ten Commandments.
So that's the most important part.
And both books have them.
Please go to my website and get a ticket if you're in Southern California.
Well, that's a long trip to Phoenix, but...
If you can make it.
Certainly those of you in Arizona, near Phoenix.
Next Wednesday night I'm speaking at ASU. I'm on a panel.
And 35 professors have condemned the university for inviting me.
And let's do what we did with the Disney Concert Hall appearance.
Sell it out.
I don't get your money.
It's not for me.
But it is for free speech.
Have a wonderful weekend.
Dennis Prager here.
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