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March 14, 2023 - Dennis Prager Show
01:32:21
LA Left
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Dennis Prager here.
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Hi everybody, Dennis Prager here.
A thought about life not being fair.
Are you ready for example 84493?
I'm the guy waiting for the elevator.
I pressed the button.
The elevator is dawdling.
Finally arrives and a woman shows up exactly then, enters the elevator and presses the floor under my floor.
Do you understand the level...
You know how much this calls for theodicy?
The reconciling of God's existence with unjust suffering?
It would be funny, actually, to make a list in the course of a month of all the times you think something unfair happened to you.
And then, the next month, All the times you benefited from an imbalance in fairness.
Welcome to the show.
I'm Dennis Prager.
These are the things I think about.
If most people entered my brain, they would be going to terra incognita.
Unknown territory.
Well, well, Nancy Pelosi has stepped down.
I heard her talk, or at least part of the talk.
The honor she had to represent the people of San Francisco.
Here's a question meant completely seriously.
Name one way in which the people of San Francisco have benefited from her supremely powerful position in Washington, D.C. Are the citizens of San Francisco safer?
Are there more or fewer stores open?
Did more people move in or more people move out?
Are there more homeless or fewer homeless than when she started?
Is there more free speech in America or less free speech?
Entirely thanks to her party.
Fair questions?
Talk about fair.
The woman has only done bad things.
It's a phenomenon.
We're living in an age of phenomena.
And then they re-vote for her.
The new mayor of Los Angeles, a radical who has expressed adoration for the thug, tyrant, dictator known as Fidel Castro.
Because in their hearts, every leftist, every leftist yearns to be a dictator.
A left-wing dictator, needless to say.
Not liberals, leftists.
Once again, for the benefit of those who are annoyed with me for making a distinction, since liberals do vote the same as leftists, I am not talking about voting.
I am talking about values.
Liberals have values that are the opposite of leftism.
They vote left out of cowardice and brainwashing.
But they don't hold the values of the people for whom they vote.
All they've done, these people, like Nancy Pelosi, is damage.
Onward to more, oh yes, Karen Bass, sorry.
Karen Bass.
So what was it you told me?
What is her statement that I wanted to analyze?
Karen Bass' statement?
Yeah.
Karen Bass said something.
Ah, bummer.
I got so taken aback.
Not taken aback.
I got so preoccupied with explaining a liberal left difference.
I will get back to Karen Bass, the new mayor.
Oh, yes.
Yes, she has announced.
You didn't tell me this.
She has announced that we can't just house the homeless In non-affluent areas.
Did you hear that announcement?
No.
So when she starts forcing Beverly Hills, well Beverly Hills is not Los Angeles, okay, so Encino, or Pacific Palisades, or give me more rich areas, Brentwood in L.A. Bel Air.
Well, Sherman Oaks is wealthy.
Studio City.
All right, great.
So that's the valley.
She starts putting homeless into those neighborhoods of people who voted for her.
The rich voted for her.
It will be very interesting for sociologists to analyze the reaction of these people.
But it won't matter.
They still vote left.
People in Minneapolis see stores closed down, stores that have been there for decades closed down because of the crime, completely the result of democratic left-wing apathy and even encouragement over the course of 2020. And since the great majority of the store lootings are taking place by young blacks,
and nobody can say it because truth is not a left-wing value, so it's not dealt with.
I assure you if it were done by anybody or any gangs wearing Trump hats, that would be trumpeted, no pun intended at all, from the rooftops.
We live in the age of the lie because the left lies.
I proved it in my column this week.
How do you know who's lying between left and right?
It's very simple.
And I wish I had thought of it years ago, but I didn't.
Those who censor lie.
Those who don't lie don't censor.
It's very simple.
Google lies.
Google is a lying factory.
I told you I put in Google a Trump speech in Mar-a-Lago.
I wanted to find a transcript, but amazingly there was no transcript.
Isn't that odd?
And except for Fox News, virtually every single thing that came up was an analysis of the lies told by Donald Trump in his speech.
Google has algorithmed.
To deprive you of truth.
And if you don't believe that, let's put it this way.
To deprive you of anything that is not left-wing kosher.
That's it.
You've got to have a certificate of purity from the left to be one of the first search engine results to come up in Google.
You know they're lying because they censor, as does Facebook, as did Twitter.
Why are they afraid?
You know, just the other day I read that Putin has announced a clampdown in Russia on misinformation.
The left hates Putin, but they are like Putin.
There is no difference between Putin, war on misinformation, And the left's war on misinformation.
None whatsoever.
You differ with us.
We crush you.
If you're a professor, if you're a student, if you are a tweeter, if you are a writer, if you are a lecturer.
Here's an interesting story that just came to my attention.
I actually find it almost impossible to believe, and yet I do believe it, because it's from the College Fix, which is a very reliable source about what's happening at schools.
Catholic Gonzaga prohibits pro-life event with Liz Wheeler.
Gonzaga is putatively a Catholic school.
So, I... You now know why I say to religious groups, Christian, Jewish, Protestant, evangelical, I don't care what religion you're a member of as long as you're ashamed of it.
The acceptance of left-wing and secular doctrines by mainstream Catholicism, Protestantism, and Judaism is of historic significance and tragic.
Gonzaga University, a Jesuit Catholic institution, refused to allow a pro-life event by the campus Zags for Life group.
We return in a moment.
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Catholic Gonzaga University Prohibits Pro-Life Event with Liz Wheeler.
Zags, that's those who go to Gonzaga are Zags.
Zags for Life wanted to host Catholic pro-life speaker Liz Wheeler with assistance from Young America's Foundation, but the campus ministry office denied the request.
Grant Haberzetzer, a student and board member of Gonzaga's pro-life Zags for Life, told the College Fix, that's this wonderful website about college news, That he was notified the event was cancelled by an email from Director of Mission and Ministry, Luke Lavin.
Luke Lavin.
Wasn't Superman's...
What was Superman's girlfriend's name?
Lois Lane.
Yeah, LL. They were all LL in Superman.
My friends...
I have never said anything less significant than what I just said now.
The ministry director said he was unaware that the group was working with YAF on the event.
Haberzitzer already had received approval from the Center for Student Involvement.
However, the campus ministry office claimed oversight of the ProLife group.
Levin eventually told the group he was canceling the event due to some of the ambiguity around the requests around advisor change and club status.
Did you get that?
Huh?
Maybe if I read it again, we'll get it.
The event was being canceled because of, quote, some of the ambiguity around the requests around advisor change and club status.
Okay.
Exactly who was in charge of funding was made clear in Lavin's email.
Now, this is my favorite line in the sick story.
I am not comfortable approving this request for funding.
You know what a wimp this guy must be?
I am not comfortable.
The language is mind-boggling.
It is so non-masculine.
Do I give a damn if you're comfortable?
But that's it.
The left has made wimps.
It is.
It has.
Women and men.
Feminism made women weak.
And leftism has made men weak.
Any strong man is called toxically masculine.
He is not comfortable.
In other words, I'm not denying you funding.
I'm not comfortable approving the request.
Why is your comfort important to anyone but you?
I thought that was a great moment in this piece.
He's not comfortable with funding them.
Well, that's significant.
Well, anyway, there you go.
Catholic University shuts down a speech by a Catholic who is pro-life.
That's amazing.
Habersesser agreed that Gonzaga has the power to cancel club events, but only if the event is not aligned with the mission of the university.
Rather than support pro-life events that follow the Catholic mission of the university, Gonzaga has supported Planned Parenthood and supplied contraception.
They promote the LGBTQ plus agenda in masses.
That's amazing.
Imagine that.
I guess they don't read the chapter in Deuteronomy that prohibits men from wearing women's clothing and women from wearing men's clothing.
In the fall of 2020 they hosted a paranormal investigator who hosted a demonstration of a quote spirit box to communicate with spirits which is an occult Well,
such is life in America today.
Believing Catholics send their kids to Gonzaga thinking they're sending their child to a Catholic university.
I have no idea what the answer is.
I would assume that most traditional Catholics are aware of the fact that it has little to do with it, but they do say Mass.
It's okay.
It has as much to do with Catholicism as the ADL does with fighting anti-Semitism.
It was once its mission.
His mission today is to be woke.
Well, whatever the left touches, it ruins.
Gonzaga seems to be on that list.
While I was at the college fix, I came up with this one.
Ready?
You probably didn't see this.
Music professor calls his black father racist for liking Bach.
Did you see that?
It bothers me when you see everything I mention.
Maybe I'll just go to the men's room.
What do you mean, it's his job?
We quit praising Alan.
You know, this stuff.
The best in the country?
You're excluding like 200 other countries from your praise?
Oh my God.
I hope you're not hurt, Alan.
There is a guy in Albania.
That's right.
That guy in Albania.
We met him.
A music theory professor at Hunter College at City University of New York says his father was a white supremacist because he liked Bach.
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You know, the very young woman, she's 23, that I have a podcast with, the Dennis and Julie podcast. - If you enjoy me, you will go nuts because these are not about politics.
These are about life.
I can't believe how...
I mean, I'm open anyway, but you should really try it.
The Dennis and Julie podcast.
You can watch it.
On YouTube, and you can listen to it.
Where do they go to listen, Sean?
To Dennis and Julie?
Salem Podcast Network.
What about the usual...
I know YouTube is for seeing it.
Salem Podcast Network.
And anywhere you get your podcasts.
Spotify, iTunes, exactly.
And it's like an hour and a half.
I mean, this is...
This is major stuff.
Anyway, I'm mentioning her because she is not here this weekend, here being in L.A. where she lives and where I live, and she went to the Harvard-Yale football game.
It's like a big, big tradition.
She just graduated Harvard in June.
No, graduated from Harvard.
Do you get that right?
I'm sure I don't.
You're sure you don't either?
Yeah.
That's interesting.
She graduated from Harvard in June.
So, who do you think I'm rooting for?
It's a tough one.
It's a tough one.
You're entirely right.
I'm going to say Harvard.
You're right.
I'm rooting for Harvard because Yale is a cesspool.
If Yale closed, America would be a better place.
That's true for most colleges.
But here's another proof that I didn't even expect.
I just saw this headline.
Music professor calls his black father racist for liking Bach.
By the way, the father, it turns out, was a communist.
So his father is black and communist, but he's a racist because he likes Bach.
And who wrote this?
A music professor.
At Hunter College of the City of New York.
But he made the claim, Professor Philip Ewell, made the claims in a profile piece in the Yale Daily News.
The university recently, listen, this is the key.
Aside from, if you like Bach and you're black, you're a white supremacist.
By the way, I want to explain why they think this way.
That's the question that always plagues me.
Why?
Why?
Of anything, the university recently gave Professor Ewell its Wilbur Cross Award for, quote, making the whiteness of music theory a topic of conversation.
That's Yale, my friends.
Yale is a cesspool of sick, bad ideas.
I pity the kids who go there, even though they think that they are the top of the world.
Oh, I'm at Yale.
I'm a Yale graduate.
Oh, I went to Yale.
And it's true.
They will be rewarded for going to Yale.
They don't realize what has been done to their soul.
Ewell is so good at identifying whiteness and white supremacy, he even saw it in his own father, who, quote, believed deeply in the tenets of communism, unquote.
Wow.
Tenure, Ewell wrote, is the citizenship of the music academia world.
Tenured professors do not want their studies and positions potentially undermined by a reframing of the discipline.
Quote, they want to believe it's the KKK, and that's it.
Ewell noted with heavy sincerity, he brought up his own black father's white supremacy as a counter-argument.
The hierarchies he imposed entailed white supremacy by definition, and Ewell bore witness to them firsthand.
Okay, so what is my theory on the why?
Bach is the greatest composer who ever lived.
Bach is the father of Western music.
If Bach wasn't gifted by God, then I don't know if there's such a thing as a God.
And the fact is he's white, which nobody ever bothered noting before because it's not important.
But since...
Classical music is dominated by whites.
The woke are angry about the greatness of classical music.
That's it.
There is no such thing as great music.
There's only such thing as what race the composer was.
That's what they teach at Yale.
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Hi everybody.
I have no problem.
I don't care if it sounds like I'm bragging.
I don't care how it sounds.
It's more important.
The issue is more important than me.
I was right the whole time about lockdowns, about vaccinations.
I was right the whole time.
April 2020, I said it was the greatest universal mistake ever made.
Sweden proved me right, and the decimation of young people in this country proved me right as well.
The sick world of the hypochondriac.
Left-wing teachers of this country, what they produced, the damage they did to your children, desecrated the word teacher.
It's okay.
The number of people in medicine who've desecrated the word medicine is also very high.
So here's another one.
Gradually, in the sick world of the New York Times, which lied to you about...
People who oppose the vaccine as fanatics or people who oppose lockdowns as fanatics and supported the firing of people for not getting vaccinated and supported kicking out the best of our military who refuse to be vaccinated.
Why a healthy person, and you don't get physically healthier than the average person in the military, like 22 years old and in great shape.
Why they should get this.
The chances of their being hurt by the vaccine were greater than their chances of being helped by the vaccine for a healthy young person.
So here's today's headline in the New York Times.
Will COVID boosters prevent another wave?
Scientists aren't so sure.
Will it make any difference among the subscribers of the New York Times?
That they were misled?
They were given misinformation, disinformation, crappy information, no information for the last two and a half years by their revered newspaper?
Nope.
Nope.
As winter looms and Americans increasingly gather indoors without masks or social distancing, oh my God, are you going to do that?
I just want to say that I gathered Indoors, without masks or social distancing, the entire time.
The whole time.
And I am not a young American.
I am a rational American, which is an increasingly small minority.
A medley of new coronavirus variants is seeding a rise in cases and hospitalizations in counties across the nation.
The Biden administration's plan for preventing a national surge depends heavily on persuading Americans to get updated booster shots.
If you're healthy and your doctor advises you to get a booster shot, you should consider getting another doctor.
Your doctor may be one of the nicest human beings in your life, and I say this with no tongue-in-cheek.
I have no doubt that that is possible.
You may have a real bond.
But you're not getting good medical advice, and that is the purpose of a doctor.
Now some scientists are raising doubts about this strategy.
By the way, you know what I want to see?
So here, I didn't look yet.
Does the New York Times have comments on this article?
I know, I know you don't generally look.
I always look.
Generally, in the New York Times, where there's stuff that runs against New York Times thinking, they're among the only columns or articles without comments.
So, I am very curious to see if they allowed comments on this article.
And the answer is...
I keep scrolling and scrolling and scrolling.
It's a long article.
Holy crow.
Okay, come on, boy.
They do!
Look at that!
I'm very curious.
I'm going to see what the most popular comment is.
Reader pics?
Okay, let's see.
That's too long.
New York's death rates dropped dramatically after vaccines came out in 2021.
Florida?
The elderly got their shots quickly and then Florida had their two biggest death waves after vaccines were available to all who wanted them.
Florida's young and middle-aged played a big part in how the state caught up with New York in deaths per capita.
Do you understand the point he's making?
Sounds like that's a point against vaccines.
He thinks it's a point against vaccines?
That's what it sounds like.
Alright.
Hmm.
Oh, here's the perfect.
The second most popular comment.
And then I'll move on.
So, the person Jeff in Brooklyn, two hours ago, quotes from the article, but the picture is less clear for healthy Americans who are middle-aged and younger.
They are rarely at risk of severe illness or death from COVID. And at this point, most have built immunity through multiple vaccine doses, infections, or both.
Unquote.
And here is what Jeff from Brooklyn, the second most popular comment, says in the New York Times.
Once upon a time not long ago, this was an extremely controversial statement.
People lost their jobs because of statements like this.
That's the second most popular comment.
It's like, this is a liberal, obviously, not a lefty.
It is amazing the cognitive dissonance.
The New York Times supported people losing their jobs because of statements like this, but I'm sure Jeff in Brooklyn has no problem with the New York Times.
Jeff in Brooklyn would have problem with those who said these things, like us, because we're conservatives.
And we don't believe the New York Times on anything controversial.
We believe the New York Times on reported deaths.
From an earthquake in Fiji, if Fiji has earthquakes.
So now, are they warning, by the way, people not to get together Thanksgiving if they're not vaxxed?
What is the official position with Thanksgiving coming up next week?
For the record, we never miss Thanksgiving.
My wife's whole extended family, my family is back east.
My wife's whole extended family, which lives here, thinks rationally.
And here's something from the New York Times piece today. - Hey.
I'm laughing a bitter laugh for the record.
The FDA authorized the boosters for use at least two months after a previous dose or infection.
Ready?
This is the New York Times.
But boosting again so soon may backfire, some studies suggest.
May backfire.
Meaning, in real language, it may hurt you.
In other words, the FDA is recommending something that may hurt you.
New York Times, now those of you left of center, can believe it.
Because you don't ask what is true, you ask who said it.
Because truth is not a left-wing value.
The New York Times is a left-wing value.
But truth is not a left-wing value.
So you ask who said it.
That way you don't have to think.
You learn who said it, and that tells you if it is true or false.
Pravda said it.
Sean, we have to conclude this hour with my favorite quote of the last two years from the Prime Minister of New Zealand.
If you didn't hear it from the government, it isn't true.
This is the left-wing mentality.
By the way, she was the speaker.
You can trust us as a source of that information.
You can also trust the Director General of Health and the Ministry of Health.
COVID-19.govt.nz.
Otherwise, dismiss anything else.
We will continue to be your single source of truth.
We will provide information...
That's it.
I have to memorize it.
That's enough.
We will continue to be your single source of truth.
She was the graduation speaker, Julie told me, at Harvard this year.
Just on the basis of that line, Harvard would love her.
Remember that unless you hear it from us, it is not the truth.
Oh, I got that one.
So there were two great comments.
We will continue to be the single source of truth, and unless you hear it from us, it is not true.
Left people on the left do not ask if something is true.
They ask who said it.
If I said this...
Or if Jordan Peterson said this or Ben Shapiro said this, it isn't true.
But if the New York Times says, hey, wait a minute, the FDA is misleading you, oh, maybe it's true.
That's right.
That's what the New York Times said.
Studies suggest that what the FDA recommends may backfire.
The FDA, CDC, and NIH stink.
They have, as Jordan Peterson said when I asked him this question when we were together in Miami last year, can you really know people unless they're tested?
And he said, absolutely not.
People were tested last year, and so are our institutions.
It's the happy, happy, happy, happy happy, happy end.
Hey everybody, welcome to the Happiness Hour on the Dennis Prager Show.
The reason I devote an hour every single week and a half for 23 years to happiness is that the happy make the world much better.
And the others make it worse.
Original lyrics.
It's the happy, happy, happy, happy hour.
Hi everybody, I'm Dennis Prager.
I have given very serious thoughts to happiness.
You know I get letters all the time.
Well, what does all the time mean?
Regularly.
All the time.
All the time sounds 24-7.
I don't.
But regularly from people whose lives were changed by my book on happiness.
I don't usually mention the book because it eludes my thinking.
I will admit, though, that if the Happiness Hour has positively affected your life, I don't know why you wouldn't read the book.
I know it sounds like a book sale, and what am I going to do?
Deny I wrote it?
It's called Happiness is a Serious Problem.
So Thanksgiving is coming up!
And some of you missed, let's see, people would not have missed 2019, because that was months before, a few months before.
The panic, that's how I refer to it.
Not the pandemic, the panic.
And so they would have missed 2021 and...
No, excuse me.
Let me get this clear.
Yeah, they would have missed 2020. November 2020. Is already eight months after the lockdown.
Am I correct in my...
Yeah.
Of course.
November 2020. They would have missed that, and many missed November 2021. If you look up on the internet, you may get honest results because it's not political.
So Google...
Doesn't have an algorithm to suppress conservative thought and put it in its eighth page of results.
If you put in happiness and health or happiness and immunity, happiness and the immune system, most of you intuit that happiness contributes to health.
I may have mentioned this, but whether I did or not, it's an interesting little factoid in my life.
In eighth grade, we had a generally useless class in elementary school called health, which I spent most of my time just doing hilarious things in the classroom.
Like taking the, at that time we had briefcases, they were called, or backpacks, which came later, you know, and switching them around.
And then when my fellow students went to grab something from it, they had the wrong one.
Brought me great joy.
I earned the name Dennis the Menace.
That's what I did during health.
However, there was one thing in health, a book assigned to us.
I've got to look it up because this is a long time ago I was in 8th grade.
A book was assigned to us that changed my life and I didn't even read it.
Or I read very little of it.
I think it was titled Stress Kills.
And I have relied a lot in life on common sense.
If things make sense to me, it goes a long way in having me believe them, or having me believe it.
So, I think that was the name of the book, and I remember I made a resolution.
I will try to lead as calm a life as possible.
And I have kept to it.
Now, I am in the thick of attacks in life, but they have no effect on my inner peace.
Most of the attacks on me are actually beneficial to me because it means that I'm hitting my targets, the liars of the society.
So, it's not an issue.
Anyway...
I've long believed that inner turmoil has a terrible, and it's not a revelation, I think most of you intuit this or simply know it, that your tension, your lack of joy, your lack of happiness is likely to have a deleterious effect on your physical health.
I am very healthy, thank God.
Or thank luck, okay?
I don't know if God is involved and I'm the believer in God, so I try to be intellectually honest.
I thank God and or a whole host of other things.
But I'm very healthy and I have the same energy that I had 50 years ago.
The same.
I know me.
And I know what I do.
Do you know that last week, when I flew back from Denmark, it's a long flight from Denmark to Los Angeles.
When I flew back, within 10 minutes of arriving at home, I was on Megyn Kelly's podcast.
Then I went on for an hour with the Daily Wire people.
I'm only making this point to give you an idea of how blessed I am in terms of energy and health.
And I am convinced that one reason, hardly the only, but one major reason is that I have a happy life.
I've constructed a happy life.
I'm surrounded by people I adore.
Indeed, love.
What does this all have to do with the happiness hour?
Well, it's obvious.
That if you deny yourself the joy of a Thanksgiving, given how few holiday get-togethers there are in American life, basically Christmas and Thanksgiving, if you deny yourself one of those or both of those, you have adversely affected your health.
The fools who run epidemiology in America, the fools who run the CDC, FDA, and NIH, and they're fools.
They may have great knowledge, and they're fools.
Why people take advice from fools, I know why.
Because they confuse expertise with wisdom.
One has nothing to do with the other.
Nothing.
You can be an idiot savant, hence the term.
An idiot who knows a lot.
Well, people were told to worship expertise.
Was there any acknowledgement that there is a staggering trade-off between having no holidays with loved ones and isolation?
Maybe isolation, even if you believed that it helped, and if you believed that by November of 2020, you really bought the whole package, I will say.
It took me two weeks to know that this was a bad idea.
Starting in, what is it, March?
So starting in March, after two weeks, Of having Shabbat dinner alone with my wife, we resumed our Shabbat dinners, Sabbath dinners, Friday night with our dozen or so regulars and never stopped.
So I'd like you to think for a moment, what helped my health more?
A vaccine that is not a vaccine?
It's an inoculation, but not a vaccine.
The definition of vaccine has been changed now twice, and anybody who points that out is called giving people misinformation.
But that is, in fact, what has happened.
It's been redefined.
The vaccine now prevents the worst consequences of what you are vaccinated against.
It no longer prevents the disease.
But that's a new definition.
Smallpox vaccines prevented smallpox.
They didn't prevent the worst manifestations of smallpox.
Anyway, between my weekly dose of joy with friends on Friday nights, not to mention holidays, both religious and secular, I got a big dose of health.
We continue.
That means it was the century after the 19th century.
It gives you an idea of how long ago I began the Happiness Hour.
My topic today is happy people are healthier.
You know, I never actually use this as a topic, and I don't know why.
I've always said, of course, happier people are better people.
They do more good in the world.
But what has raised this subject for me is that this may be for many of you, and at least some of you, the first Thanksgiving since 2019 that you are getting together with family and friends.
And I'd like to know why.
I'd like to know a few things when you call.
One, in retrospect, do you think your health benefited from not having Thanksgiving and or Christmas with friends and relatives?
1-8 Prager 776. I want you to be honest and open with me.
Do you think that you benefited from the isolation if you were isolated?
1-8 Prager 776. This is truly a happiness topic.
Happiness boosts your immune system.
I know it because it makes sense.
I know it because of my own life.
It's not a guarantee.
There are happy people who get cancer.
I fully acknowledge that.
There are unhappy people who live till 107 and make people's lives miserable for decades.
But in general, because you have to give generalizations, this is the way it works.
So it's actually a big health subject.
But I really want you to call in to tell me if you did, in fact, isolate, or maybe it was imposed upon you by some relatives.
Don't come over.
You'll kill me.
Right?
I want to know, in retrospect, do you think you benefited from the isolation on the holidays and in general?
Or not.
My argument is that in this instance, between the very ambiguous benefits of the vaccine and the ambiguous defects of the vaccine,
on the one hand, and happiness and joy, on the other, There's no question which would have contributed more to your health and to that of your children.
That children were kept from other children was a form of child abuse.
If child abuse has any meaning, that's what it was.
Children could be abused even if the people abusing them think they're protecting them.
There is an objective definition to abuse.
It doesn't only involve intent.
If I run you over unintentionally, you're still dead.
In terms of assessing me, the driver, that's different than if I intentionally or under the influence of alcohol or drugs killed you.
That's true.
But you're dead.
The thought that people would not get together for Thanksgiving?
Thanksgiving happens once a year.
America is not filled with family and friend holidays.
I have one every single week.
It's one of the reasons I so passionately advocate the Ten Commandments, including the Sabbath.
Every single week.
With the handful of exceptions like listener cruises or I have to be away like I was two weeks ago in Denmark.
But let's say 47 of the 52 times a year I'm with people.
Enjoying myself immensely.
It boosts my immune system.
That's a fact.
I mean, that's not just my belief.
That's a fact.
Why didn't doctors, MDs, epidemiologists, and the like, why didn't they weigh the two?
Just telling people, don't get together for Thanksgiving is only one side of the equation.
The other side is the unhappiness that it induced, the tensions that it induced, the inner anxiety.
Alright, 1-8 Prager 776. So here's another question that I will raise it on a regular hour.
I don't need the happiness hour for this one.
If they told you to isolate again, would you listen?
It's an interesting and important question.
Did people, and I say people, not just Americans, did people learn any lessons about the misguided, destructive policies advocated by the quote experts, by the quote authorities?
Did they learn anything, or will they do it again?
Will you really mask your two-year-old?
What do people learn from the past?
Is the ongoing question of life.
The lack of learning history is a calamity, but those are not happiness subjects, so I'll leave them for now.
For now, I just want you to understand that if you missed a Thanksgiving, let alone two Thanksgivings, you hurt your health.
I just want you to know that.
Will any of you even miss a third one?
That really interests me.
Okay, let's see here.
Crowley, Texas.
David, hello, David.
Hey, how's it going, Dad?
Okay, thanks.
So, yeah, I just had some comments about the Thanksgiving.
Last year...
My father's family got together down near Houston, and it was kind of a tough ordeal because I'm more of a conservative Christian, and my other side of the family is more democratic.
All right, hold on.
Hold on, I'm very curious to hear.
Hi, everybody! everybody!
Do, do, do.
Dennis Prager here.
Happiness Hour.
So, not only do the happy make the world better, the happy make themselves better.
That's the theme.
And if you missed Thanksgiving for the last two years, you may have hurt your health.
I believe that deeply.
Between the vaccine for most people, Maybe for anyone, I don't know.
And having Thanksgiving with loved ones?
I believe that missing the Thanksgiving would have hurt you more than missing the vaccine.
Missing two Thanksgivings and two Christmases?
Hard to believe you didn't do damage to your health.
So when you look back at it, are you...
In agreement with me?
Or do you think the net gain was greater not having Thanksgiving?
Because it's coming up, that's why I'm using the topic.
Alright, so back to David in Texas.
So did you have Thanksgiving or not with the family?
We did not, no.
They had actually...
You know, I know that there's this polarization between those who are unvaccinated and those who choose to vaccinate and choose to unvaccinate.
And, you know, within the family, you know, I can be in agreement with you that it hurts your health.
I think that even your emotional health, seeing grandparents, loved ones.
Especially when there's distance between you and this is the time that you come together.
And then it just creates further hostility in that you don't even know if you're welcome even as time goes on because you haven't even talked to them since.
So what are you doing next Thursday?
Next Thursday we're having Thanksgiving ourselves, our own family.
We're not even going down there.
And the reason?
Well, to be honest, inflation has really taken a toll on our finances, so we definitely can't afford to go, and then also just don't want to cross the tensions during the time that my wife wants to just cook and be happy.
So how many of you will there be?
In my family, four.
But down there, there's probably going to be 10. So if there were no inflation, would you have gone?
I think so.
However, I do think that, you know, I can speak for my wife that she's a little hurt, and she would rather stay away just out of spite sometimes.
If I had your family members who refused to have you come because you weren't vaccinated and ask them, do you think you did the right thing?
Do you think today that you did the right thing then?
What would they say?
I think they would still stand by being vaccinated.
And disinviting you.
That's the key.
I'm not asking if they agree with their being vaccinated.
Oh, if they would disinvite?
I'm not sure.
Do you think they think they did the right thing?
I'm not sure.
Ask them.
I would be very curious.
That's a really interesting question.
I haven't thought to pose it till now.
Ask relatives who would not have you if you were not vaccinated.
In as non-judgmental, non-accusatorial a manner as possible, just say, listen, I'm not judging your answer.
I just want to understand you better or whatever preface you want to give.
Do you think that was the right idea, that was the right policy, not having relatives whom you love?
Or at least like over on Thanksgiving or Christmas because they weren't vaccinated.
I would love to know what such people would say today.
We continue the Happiness Hour, Dennis Prager Show.
The Dennis Prager Show.
It's the Happiness Hour, second hour every Friday.
And it's the one before Thanksgiving.
So I'm reflecting on a very big deal.
If it's true, evidence suggests it.
They haven't proven it yet on the molecular level, as I read about it.
But I wouldn't wait for molecular proof to embody this idea.
Happier people have a better immune system.
Joyful experiences add up.
To a better immune system.
It's not true for everybody.
Obviously, very few things are true for everybody.
But they are true in general.
So, it was an interesting test for the last two years on Thanksgiving.
Do you get together with family and boost your immune system?
and your psychological health and so much more or do you stay home alone and don't risk being among contagious people with COVID but increase your loneliness or unhappiness because on one of the two family holidays of the year in America You simply omitted
one.
That's the question.
Philadelphia, Chris, hello.
Hi, Dennis, how are you?
Well, thank you.
Likewise.
Dennis, I want to share a phrase that my grandmother Helen taught me.
People need people.
And I've kept that by my heart for my entire life.
When COVID hit, hysteria came over many people who I love dearly.
And we were disinvited from family gatherings and were told we're not welcome because we were unvaccinated.
And all of the people who have been vaccinated and double and triple and quadruple boosted, all of them have gotten COVID. I got COVID and I have natural immunity and I told them my natural immunity is actually more powerful than your immunization and they still will not visit.
Wait, you mean still meaning this week?
This coming week?
Correct.
I would not be welcomed to visit some of the relatives because they do not think natural immunity is sufficient.
The hour was worth it for your call.
I feel for you.
To have relatives who are that irrational and ignorant is an achievement, I have to say.
You hit the jackpot.
I love them dearly, but there's nothing that I can do.
By the way, I'm just curious, since you love them dearly, which I totally believe and I hope you continue to, if you were asked to predict this, somebody gave you the whole scenario, or to put it, would you have predicted it?
Or to put it another way, is their behavior surprising you?
That's a great question.
And I would say, in most instances, yes.
But over the past two years, from how I've seen the pattern of behavior in response to a variety of things that are transpiring in our society, now I'm not surprised.
Well, it shows that the...
Jordan Peterson's answer to me, do you really know people until they're tested?
And his affirmatively negative answer, you don't know people until they're tested, would seem to be, sadly, accurate here.
I agree.
Wow.
So who are you going to spend Thanksgiving with?
Walmart.
My wife and my children and I are flying to Phoenix, Arizona to spend Thanksgiving with my 86-year-old mother, and we're going to the Grand Canyon.
So, you know, well, good, because the Grand Canyon should be large enough to protect you against contagion.
That was a good choice.
So, what relatives are you not seeing?
No, I mean, I don't want to get too specific.
No, no, I don't need their names.
I understand.
I mean, it's your family or her family.
Mine.
One final question.
Am I jumping to a silly conclusion in assuming that they vote Democrat?
You are not jumping to a silly conclusion.
You have hit the bullseye, my friend.
Sean, keep that.
That was a great moment.
You're a terrific guy to talk to.
I try to put it in as elegant a way as possible, as inoffensive a way as possible.
Am I jumping to an irrational conclusion by assuming they vote Democrat?
Pratt.
They're not seeing their own relative for a third year because he's not vaccinated.
Okay.
Okay.
Again, the topic, you're hurting your immune system by minimizing joy and happiness.
That's why it's the happiness topic.
And that's why I chose it the week before Thanksgiving.
Well, taking his 86-year-old mother to the Grand Canyon.
You certainly have social distancing in the Grand Canyon.
That will work out.
Back in a moment.
The Dennis Prager Show.
Let Dennis be Dennis.
It's a great theme for this hour.
Who chose it, Sean?
You did?
Or are you just raising your hand to show me?
You did?
You chose it?
I like it.
Hi, everybody.
This is the Aries something general.
Whatever's on your mind about you, about me, about life, about death.
Let's get the music.
Let's get the band going.
Come on, guys.
Give it to me.
Take it away, everybody.
All right, whatever's on your mind, especially about cigars, classical music, audio equipment, photography, classical music, audio equipment, photography, and fountain pens.
Hey, hey, hey.
I did a major upgrade of my audio system this week, Sean.
It's part of the reason I have great immunity this week.
If you knew what I got, you would think I'm out of my mind.
What I spent on interconnects.
The wires that...
Attach the units of your audio system.
The preamp to the amp, the DAC to the preamplifier.
Let Dennis be Dennis.
Yep, that's correct.
I really love it.
I actually feel the secretion of endorphins.
That's the term to use, the happy hormones, when I listen to the system.
Music is a gift of God.
I can't say it's a gift of nature, because outside of us, there's very little music.
I mean, you know, birds chirp and so on.
I get it, I understand.
But there really is a gulf between any of...
Boss fugues and bird chirping.
It's a little...
I'm not blaming birds here.
I could just see tomorrow the left-wing media going, Dennis Prager attacks birds.
I got that.
I attacked fifth graders because I thought the sign in a fifth grade class, the world is better because you are in it.
Was overstating things and that it would have been far superior to have, is the world better because you're in it?
The trick is to challenge kids to be better human beings, not to announce that they're terrific all the time.
This is a subtlety that eluded the entire left-wing media that attacked me.
Oh, you could see it.
Just put in Google.
Prager attacks fifth graders.
What is not widely recognized is the superficiality of left-wing thought.
Forget the immorality, just the superficiality.
These things are too complex, apparently, that you challenge kids to be better human beings and get better results than constantly telling them how terrific they are.
1-8 Prager 776, whatever is on thine mind, if I let you go, if I let you, don't take it personally, there could be a dozen reasons, none of which reflect upon you, just for the record.
All right, y'all, let's see.
Kevin, North Hollywood, California, hello.
Yes, yes.
Hi.
This is Kevin from North Hollywood.
I have a nice little question for you about vaccines and COVID and the holidays.
So you said it's very important to always be with your family, you know, on the holidays because that's where joy comes from.
But my point is even without COVID, when there was no COVID at all, it's still half the country.
Had a lot of stress during the holidays with family.
That's a very valid point.
You're right.
That's true.
My contention was only that if it does bring you joy, the times together.
It's a very valid point.
That's why friends generally bring more joy than some members of your family, because you choose friends and you don't choose family.
We don't have any difference of opinion on this.
Oh.
Okay.
Well, that's fantastic.
Maybe we'll talk some bad mitten next time.
I don't know.
But thank you so much for your time.
Well, we could talk bad mitten, good mitten, all sorts of mittens.
I always get a kick out of it when it turns out the caller and I agree.
And he handled it well.
Sometimes I think people are disappointed.
They took the wind out of their sails.
My friends, I live on earth just as you do.
And I know that family situations can be stressful.
In fact, I go so far as to say the following.
The biblical law, you shall love the stranger.
It's first and foremost about some family members.
Bet you never heard that before.
It's probably easier to love strangers, in fact, than it is to love some members of your extended family or even immediate family.
So I have a wonderful recommendation to people about how to...
Guide their lives in light of the call and what I just said.
You know one of the things people should aspire to be?
You know, obviously we should aspire to be good people, grateful people, honorable, all sorts of important ethical aspirations.
But here's one you never hear and is really up there.
I should do an hour on it.
You should aspire to be easy in people's lives.
Easy.
so that when people know you are coming, when family knows you're coming to some occasion, they don't fill with anxiety.
I really do need to do that for at least one of my hours.
Be easy.
Nevertheless, having said all that, I don't believe that for most people being alone for the last two Thanksgivings, if they were alone...
Was a happier experience than even being with family that they may not adore.
Okay, here we go.
More of your calls.
And let's see.
Robert in Long Beach, California.
Hello.
Hi, Dennis.
I've often heard you say that man is not basically good.
And since man is the crowning achievement of God's creation, supposedly, doesn't that also mean that God is not good?
And how do you resolve that logical disconnect that this perfect creator created such imperfect creatures?
They're not good.
I'm sorry.
It all makes sense to me, and it's a very important question, and I'll offer you my answer for whatever it's worth.
But I don't understand why the fact that we're not basically good reflects on the possibility that God is not basically good.
Well, if an engineer and architect builds a bridge that collapses, it kind of says that the architect and the engineer are not very good either.
Well, right, but what if it's the bridge's fault?
Which, of course, doesn't exist, because that's why the analogy is not accurate.
Bridges don't have free will.
Human beings have free will.
Well, who made free will?
I mean, free will is the product of God, too.
So you're saying that the fact that God made human beings who could choose to do bad shows that God is not good.
Is that what you're saying?
Okay.
To me, that's a non sequitur.
Anyway, if we have no choice, there is no such thing as good.
Is there such a thing as a bridge that is a moral bridge?
The idea is absurd, obviously, because bridges have no free will.
The interesting thing is, God thought we would turn out better.
He thought that even with free will, we would do more good.
In my commentary on the book of Genesis, I deal with the issue of God being disappointed in man.
It's what it says.
It's fascinating, which suggests that God doesn't know what a free-willed creature will necessarily do.
back in a moment.
Dennis Prager here at It's the What Is On Your Mind Hour.
And Tom in Alvin, Texas.
And when I say the famous Tom of Alvin, I ain't kidding.
At the Dennis Prager Show, you are famous.
Well, it's a burden, but I can handle it.
I believe you can.
I have a question about debates.
You have debated the Young Turks, and you've often offered to debate any leftists who will come on your show.
Well, not any leftists.
No, no, it's important.
And any leftist columnist at the New York Times or Washington Post.
Okay, okay.
What about debating Republican, never Trumpers?
So I had one with a longtime friend, Brett Stephens of the New York Times, and he invited me, in fact, onto the New York Times Facebook page, and we did one together in that way.
He wrote a column against me, very respectfully, but against me, and I wrote one in response.
But I will tell you, and I'll be curious how you react, the reason that I don't do it, because I would love to, but the reason is I know every one of them, and it would be too painful.
I admit it.
My disappointment in the conservative Never Trumpers, It's so deep that I, on purely personal, even emotionally selfish grounds, I don't want to let loose on them.
So does that imply that you may have lost some friends over their positions?
Yeah.
No close friends.
I mean, these people were friends, but not close friends.
And, you know, they published me.
They came on my show.
One of them sat in for me on a number of occasions.
I would never, ever have predicted that they would become so irrational and destructive.
It's the Jordan Peterson thesis that you don't know people until they're tested.
But I don't even know why they were tested, to be honest.
I don't know what animates them.
Do you think that they would feel the same way about debating you?
That's a very interesting question.
I had not thought about that.
I don't know.
I don't know.
It would be uncomfortable.
It's not uncomfortable for me to debate a leftist.
It's not uncomfortable at all, because I had no moral expectations of them.
So they're not a disappointment to me.
I have taken on their arguments repeatedly, as I know you've heard.
If there was a formal evening, in other words, not on my show, but if some neutral group, if such a thing even exists in America, but if some neutral group decided to have me and a never-Trumper who I had been friendly with debate, I would do it.
So I should have been more precise.
I wouldn't do it on my own show.
Okay.
But I would do it in a public forum.
So I guess that does answer the question now that I've had to think it through.
I've not reflected on Tom's issues before his call, actually.
I've not reflected on my disappointment in a fair number of these people.
Some of whom I've known for decades, that they would actually believe that Joe Biden would be better for the country as president than any Republican.
I would vote for Mitt Romney, and I don't have great respect for him.
That they would vote for, that they did, they announced, they voted for Joe Biden.
With all the incredibly destructive things being done to children alone by the left?
I didn't realize the full extent of emotions over people until the past couple of years.
I've always known how that emotions are extremely...
And that most political decisions are based on psychology and feelings.
But I didn't know how much it encroached even on my side.
And by the way, I think it encroaches in the other direction as well, which will not endear me to some of my listeners, and I'm sorry, but I have to tell you what I think.
Never Trump is not worse than only Trump.
It means that you are more fixated on Trump than on America.
And I continue to say he was the best president since Abraham Lincoln.
But I never was on the only Trump bandwagon, and I'm certainly not now.
The overriding issue for America's survival as a free country is the defeat of the left.
If you don't understand that, and you call yourself a Trump supporter, then that's all you are, is a Trump supporter.
You're not a liberty supporter or an America supporter.
Back in a moment.
1-8 Prager, 776-877-243-7776.
Hi.
My God, what I put up with here.
You have no idea, ladies and gentlemen.
Dennis Prager, whatever's on your mind, Our, and let's go to 11-year-old Maggie in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania.
Is it true you're 11, Maggie?
Yes, I'm only 11 years old, but I support Donald Trump, and I love listening to your show with my grandma.
You listen to the show with your grandma?
Did I get that correctly?
Hi, Grandma.
How you doing?
Good to see you.
Hi, Dennis.
Hello there.
She has a very important question for you.
Okay, go ahead.
I was just curious, like, what's your opinion on who's going to be Donald Trump's vice president in 2024?
Thank you for calling and thank you for listening.
Well...
It's impossible to answer because we don't know who will be nominated for 2024. And I hope that you and your grandma, like I, will support any Republican nominee because if we don't fight the left, everything beautiful that we cherish from the nuclear family to liberty...
We'll be in jeopardy.
It's already in jeopardy.
So it is an interesting question in any event, who any Republican nominee might choose.
But I want to level with you.
Many of you will have intuited this, and maybe I've even said it, but I don't know if I've said it quite as directly.
I don't have as great an interest in politics as many of my fellow Americans.
I have to be up on it because that is my job, or part of my job.
But I have a happiness hour, I have a male-female hour, I have an ultimate issues hour, I have an anything-on-your-mind hour, precisely because I want to force all of us to think about other things as well.
So I haven't given a minute's thought to who the vice presidential nominee might be.
I'm not saying people shouldn't.
I'm speaking solely about my own idiosyncratic reaction to life.
The political game, as opposed to the consequences of politics, are not of particular interest to me.
But it doesn't make it a non-interesting question, and Maggie, I am very happy that you listen.
Give your grandma a hug for me.
All right, everybody.
Wheat Ridge, Colorado, and David, hello.
How do you expect me to follow that call, Dennis?
It's tough.
It is tough.
Oh, man, I'll try to stand up to it.
I am here to state that I believe King David and King Solomon were the...
How am I going to say this?
That Donald Trump is like David and King Solomon.
And what I mean by that is that the three of them are all womanizers, such that Solomon, in fact, kept 999 other men from having wives, and King David had a man sent to the front lines to be killed so he could have his wife.
Donald Trump not that egregious in his attempts to have women, but that was just one of the things.
Secondly, David was extremely strong in that he took on giants, just like Trump took on the swamp.
And Solomon was terribly wise, and I think Trump is extremely wise in the decisions he has made for our country.
I have no argument with you.
In fact, I used King David as a regular example for people who claimed that they were religious, and I'm not going to dispute their self-assessment, and in the name of Christianity, for example, would be Never Trumpers.
Look at what a sinful character he was.
So I use the example of King David regularly, and I never read a coherent response.
I also use another great example, who God chose to hide the spies and let the Israelites into Canaan.
What Canaanite did God choose to do that holy task?
A Canaanite accountant?
A Canaanite poet?
No, a Canaanite prostitute.
Back in a moment.
Dennis Prager here.
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