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March 14, 2023 - Dennis Prager Show

01:18:06

Destroying Doctors

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	Hello everybody, I'm Dennis Prager and it's rare that I have guests in studio.
	Sometimes I have a guest, but it's really rare that I have guests.
	But I have two distinguished doctors here.
	I am, of course, coming to you from California, where I live.
	I'm asked all the time why I continue to live here.
	It happened yesterday with 1,200 folks at the Mother Station's event, and people always ask that question, including my fellow Salem hosts who have moved outside of California and want to know why I'm still here.
	There are many parts to a life, including one's human ties, and they are very deep, the ones I have here.
	But California is deteriorating, and an example is, and that is why I'm having these two doctors on right now.
	Well, they'll tell you precisely what law has been passed.
	I have reported it to you about doctors who provide misinformation.
	We have two doctors here.
	One is in, I guess, every form of medicine except psychiatry, and one is in psychiatry.
	Dr. Mark McDonald is the psychiatrist, and he has been on, including his books.
	And so has Dr. Jeffrey Barkey, I should reveal, right?
	I mean, he is my doctor.
	Full disclosure is important.
	He is my doctor.
	He is also the author of a book to which I wrote the foreword.
	Yes, you did.
	It was an honor for me to do so.
	All right, gentlemen.
	Why don't one of you describe what the law that California passed is?
	Well, first of all, Dennis, thank you so much for having us on.
	It's an honor to be here in studio, which is a...
	Very special treat.
	And for those of you that are listening, I just want to be clear that I have a suit and tie on to honor Dennis being in studio.
	So the law is AB 2098. It was signed by Governor Newsom.
	It goes into effect January 2023. And the law allows the Medical Board of California, that's our licensing board for all physicians in California, It allows the Medical Board of California to sanction physicians, in effect remove our license, for spreading misinformation and disinformation.
	Now, it's important to understand because they define what that means in the bill, and I'm reading, quote, misinformation means false information that is contradicted by contemporary scientific consensus, contrary to the standard of care.
	January 2023 for me and Mark to remain in compliance with this law will require us to take into account the state's narrative as it relates to COVID-19.
	So I need to basically argue on behalf of the state in order not to be in violation of the law.
	And you should remember that The so-called consensus, which is a sham, it doesn't exist, is always changing.
	Just August, the CDC changed their COVID recommendations, and they said, no longer, if you have no symptoms, do you need to be tested.
	Now, remember, Dennis, that was the premise upon which all the draconian shutdowns occurred.
	We told the kids they couldn't go to school.
	Why?
	Because asymptomatic kids, we were told, could spread the illness to their friends and their teachers, and then everybody would go home and kill grandma and grandpa.
	Well, we spoke out against that.
	We said nonsense.
	There's little, if any, evidence that people that have no symptoms can spread the illness.
	I mean, think about it.
	Can you catch a cold from somebody that doesn't have a cold?
	Yet that's why we shut down the schools.
	Now the CDC comes along and says, just kidding, it's actually not a thing.
	So this so-called consensus doesn't exist, but that's what the law says.
	It says, follow the state's narrative or we'll take your license away.
	So Mark and I, represented by Liberty Justice Center, decided to sue.
	We're suing specifically the Medical Board of California.
	By the way, half of whom are attorneys, not even physicians.
	The president of the Medical Board is a lawyer.
	That's fascinating.
	Can you imagine for a minute if the California State Bar president, the attorneys organization, the State Bar, the president was a physician?
	I mean, it would be unheard of.
	They'd be rioting in the streets.
	They'd never let that to happen.
	But yet, the medical board is filled up with attorneys.
	So we're suing the Medical Board of California and the Attorney General of California, and we're suing in federal court.
	We're saying this is unconstitutional, federally speaking.
	It's right now sitting on the judge's desk.
	Because of freedom of speech?
	Freedom of speech.
	It's not a medical challenge.
	No, it's freedom of speech.
	Doctors, just like any other citizens, have the right to render their opinion freely.
	We have a right to speak to our physicians, speak to our patients, freely and openly, based on our knowledge, our experience, our wisdom, the totality of the case that the patient presents to us.
	And this law says, no, you can't do that.
	You only have to follow the state's narrative.
	Who's pushing for this law?
	Who pushed for this?
	Well, listen, it was passed by both houses in Sacramento.
	Well, that's all Democrats.
	And then it was signed by the Attorney General.
	But did Pfizer push for this, to the best of your knowledge?
	Well, I don't know that the pharmaceutical companies, that the vaccine companies necessarily pushed for this.
	But they hate it that there's doctors like me and Mark that speak the truth, that speak our opinion, that's often different than the unelected healthcare bureaucrats that have almost ruined this country.
	So Mark McDonald, psychiatrist, good question.
	If a doctor...
	I always try to ask from the perspective that I don't agree with.
	So if a doctor said...
	I want you to know that if you walk in your underwear in the snow for an hour, barefoot, it will prevent cancer.
	Could that doctor, in your view, do you think that doctor should have his or her medical license jeopardized?
	Well, first of all, dziękuję and dziękuję for having me on.
	Yes, indeed.
	We're a Polish audience.
	That's right.
	I'm not wearing a tie because psychiatrists can be strangled in ties.
	And that's actually why we don't wear them, because we go into inpatient units with people who want to kill us, psychotic, and they take the tie and they strangle us.
	So that's my excuse for not wearing a tie.
	It's not out of disrespect to you.
	Now in law enforcement, they wear clip-on ties, so if that were to happen, the tie just...
	Okay, don't give you any excuses because now I'm going to be asked to work.
	Well, they're not the only ones who want to kill you with this lawsuit.
	I don't want to look like a circus performer.
	The answer to your question is no.
	And the reason is that unless you are giving advice to a patient that is so absolutely both egregious and immediately putting that patient into harm and will likely lead to harm.
	There really isn't any grounds, I'm not speaking from a legal perspective, from a medical perspective, in having the doctor sanctioned or having the license suspended.
	So the presupposition of your question is that this is potentially a valid argument from a medical perspective, but the reason why this happened had nothing to do with medicine.
	It had to do with politics.
	That's the problem.
	That's the core issue.
	And we often, as I've said on your show, I've said in my books, In Freedom from Fear and the United States of Fear, there's a presupposition in a lot of these arguments that I think are really distractions from the bigger issue.
	And that is that we're getting bogged down, and we're not doing that here on this show, but a lot of Americans, a lot of my patients, are getting bogged down in these arguments about medical details and medical facts.
	And I said from the very beginning, not only is this medically wrong, but there's a much bigger agenda here that has nothing to do with medicine.
	This law is not about making patients safer.
	It's about silencing dissent within one giant profession, and very respected one, which is physicians, which will then spread throughout the country.
	And our attorney, Daniel Surr of Liberty Justice Center that Jeff just mentioned, is actually hoping that this case will go on to a higher court, and ultimately the Supreme Court, to resolve the bigger issue, which is the restrictions on professional speech.
	He already told us that the law firm, the bar association that manages...
	Lawyers is doing the same thing to the legal assistants, the attorneys, and all the staff in the law firms.
	They're threatening to disbar attorneys for speaking out against positions that the bar holds.
	So this is not just about doctors.
	It's not just about medicine.
	It's about respected individuals in America being silenced and having their voices taken away who speak against a political narrative which happens to be in power.
	That is critical.
	Yeah.
	Dr. Jeffrey Barkey and Dr. Mark McDonald, lawsuit against the state of California for trying to suppress doctor's speech.
	It's as simple as that.
	There's a lot of fight in the United States of America.
	The left is not having its way, and it drives people like Juan Williams crazy.
	That's what this is all about, my friends, and we are bringing it to you with great delight on the Dennis Prager Show.
	Hi, everybody.
	Dennis Prager here. - Sure.
	The greatness of this hour with these two doctors is that you realize that unlike almost any other country, there is so much fight in the United States against the left.
	This is really important for people to understand because a lot of people are fighting despair, and you shouldn't.
	There are a lot of people fighting, my friends.
	You.
	I get a lot of letters because I noted to you that one of the Bible commentaries that I used in writing my own Bible commentary had this great line which really shook me up, that God regards despair as a sin.
	And I won't tell you the context because I don't want to take away from the time with the doctors, but I thought that was powerful.
	You're not allowed to despair.
	And that's entirely accurate.
	Not just a beautiful thought, it's entirely accurate.
	So California has passed a law that if a doctor provides misinformation, which of course is determined by the Democratic Party and the doctors who are allied with it, that's it.
	That's all it is.
	It has nothing to do with science.
	And let's give some real-life examples, doctors.
	I have Mark McDonald, a psychiatrist, and Jeffrey Barkey, an internist.
	What would I describe you?
	Family practice.
	Family practice, right.
	My family is part of this practice, just for the full disclosure element.
	So, for example, let us say, I'm going to throw out just examples.
	Tell me if you think this would qualify.
	Now, to have your license removed in California as of January 1st, 2023, you say to a patient who has COVID, I think you might want to give a try with regard to hydroxychloroquine and zinc and or ivermectin.
	Would that qualify you to lose your license?
	Yes.
	Yes, I would.
	If I had a patient just last week came in and was asking about COVID vaccines for their children.
	And I said, under no circumstances should your child get a COVID vaccine because they're not at risk, and you'd be putting an experimental product in their body that has no long-term safety studies.
	January 2023, that would qualify as a reason for the medical board to take away my license, if I say that.
	It's already happening.
	I just completed an interview two weeks ago with the Medical Board of California investigator.
	For having posted on social media, not to a patient, on social media, 18 months ago, that ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine should be considered as first-line treatments and as prophylaxis against infection from the Chinese Wuhan virus.
	That led to an investigation one year later, which is still ongoing.
	It's not January 1 of 2023 yet.
	The law is not even taken into effect.
	And I'm already being investigated, as are many other physicians in California.
	So they're simply going to double down now as a legal standard, not just as an internal decision that they made with me.
	So he's absolutely right.
	It's just going to get worse.
	I want to analyze this one for a moment.
	Given the fact that ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine are on the World Health Organization's list of the hundred most useful drugs ever made, they've been used for decades completely safely with tens of millions.
	Maybe hundreds of millions of people.
	What is animating their hostility?
	That's a good question.
	Obviously, I don't know.
	I can't speak for those that are pushing this narrative.
	But in order for emergency use authorization to occur for the vaccination, there's two requirements.
	One, there has to be an emergency.
	By the way, there is no emergency now for anything related to COVID. Especially with children.
	So when you look at the COVID vaccine for children, it's a fraud.
	Number two, there has to be no other effective treatment available to treat that illness in order to authorize something under emergency use authorization.
	So if the government, CDC, FDA, National Institutes of Health were to say Yes, ivermectin has a role to play or hydroxychloroquine.
	We think under the right circumstances with early treatment, with other multipurpose medication that it can be effective.
	It would eliminate the need for an emergency use authorization for the vaccination.
	Emergency use authorization umbrella allows for those vaccine companies to be immune from all liability.
	And this is important.
	Without emergency use authorization, They would have liability.
	You could sue the vaccine company if you were injured.
	So what's happening now, the ACIP, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, last week or the week before, 15 to 0 recommended that the COVID vaccine be added to the childhood vaccine schedule.
	Almost always the CDC will follow suit with their advisory committee.
	Why is that important?
	Because the loophole to liability protection is if the vaccine is added to the childhood immunization schedule, definitionally, those vaccine companies have immunity from liability.
	So, as the emergency is eventually removed, President Biden eventually is going to have to say there's no longer an emergency.
	Gavin Newsom has already said is if he can predict in February he's going to remove his emergency dictate for California, then those vaccines would be subject to liability because then they would be used under approval status as opposed to emergency use status.
	Add it to the childhood vaccine schedule, complete liability protection continues.
	That's the fraud.
	That's the follow the money.
	There's been nine, I think now it's up to 12, new billionaires made in the vaccine industry as a result of COVID. You follow the money, and it leads directly to the fraud that's going on with COVID-19.
	Wow.
	Okay, I just want people to understand the corruption.
	I mean, that's the only, if you're right, the corruption is the only term that can be used.
	That's right.
	And these three-letter agencies, the CDC, the FDA, the NIH, in my opinion, are captured agencies.
	By the way, I just want to say, for myself, I never in my life thought a minute about dangers of vaccines for children.
	I never, I thought it was a lunatic fringe of society.
	I now believe that they were probably right in many ways.
	I think that's right.
	And unfortunately...
	Fortunately or unfortunately, I don't know which, a lot of parents are now saying, well, wait a second.
	If they're fraudulently pushing this COVID vaccine, what about the other vaccines?
	Back in a moment with two remarkable, courageous California doctors.
	Hi, everybody.
	Dennis Prager here at...
	As of January, which is two months from now, January 2023, California, because it's governed by the Democratic Party, has announced that if a doctor is regarded as a California physician,
	is regarded as saying anything that the AMA or the California Medical Board Or whatever authority thinks is non-medically sound, he or she can lose his or her medical license.
	It means that they become unemployed.
	So I gave as an example, if a doctor were to recommend to a COVID patient that in the early stages, you might want to try ivermectin or hydroxychloroquine with zinc.
	Vladimir Zelenko claimed and I believed him from the beginning.
	I had him on in early 2020. He has passed away from cancer tragically since.
	And he was an Orthodox Jew with a beard.
	And I only mention that because knowing his religious...
	Identity and values.
	The idea that this man would consciously lie or kill patients was inconceivable to me.
	And I believe he saved the hundreds that he claimed to have saved.
	Hydroxychloroquine and zinc, and then later ivermectin.
	Which, by the way, I announced on the radio, over and over, I and my wife were taking.
	And I have had COVID twice.
	Zero repercussions.
	I broadcast a couple of days later and I was fine and I was not vaccinated.
	Have you heard that our friend Ben Shapiro has announced that he retracts his years of Commending the vaccine.
	I've heard that, and I respect him for it.
	And I respect him for it, totally.
	I agree with you, but it's important that people know he now says he was lied to the whole time.
	And his wife is a doctor.
	It is not easy to say that doctors lie to you when you're related to a doctor.
	And he is a Harvard-trained attorney.
	He is not just some average person.
	Good point.
	And his wife is trained at UCLA. Is that right?
	In pediatrics.
	This is all important stuff.
	So if you say ivermectin or hydroxychloroquine, two of the safest drugs ever made, you can lose your license.
	Let's go to another one.
	I want my listeners, and for that matter, viewers, to understand.
	If, starting two months from now, a doctor were to say to a parent who has a child who says she's 12 years old, she says she's a boy, and the parent takes you, I'll say to you, the psychiatrist.
	And you say to the girl, listen, my heart goes out to you, but you are a boy.
	I mean, you are a girl, and it is best that you work to make peace with that, and I will try to help you do that.
	It would seem to me you could lose your license to practice psychiatry in the state of California as of January.
	That is correct.
	I said those exact words to the first patient.
	Age 14, about five years ago, who came to my office, girl, who announced that she had discovered the cause of all of her mental illness, anxiety, depression, obsessive compulsive disorder, and that it was she was actually a boy.
	And I said those exact words to her.
	I said, no, you're not.
	You're a girl.
	I am very sympathetic to your struggle.
	I will continue to help you, continue to refer you to therapists, but you cannot blame your emotional problems.
	On this confusion, which I believe was actually introduced by a group adolescent therapist.
	It was just like it is now.
	It's coming in from the outside.
	She got up and walked out of my office.
	I never saw her or her mother again.
	Were I to say that today to someone like her, I could be reported to the medical board, an investigation could be opened, and then by law, not just by internal medical decree by the board, but by law.
	I could have my license taken away and probably would if I did it several times and if it were reported.
	And now you know, folks, why some of us think the Democrats, not the Republicans, are the threat to our society.
	This is a living example.
	Drs.
	Brocky and McDonald, I will be back with you in a moment.
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	Have a holly jolly Christmas.
	It's the best time of the year.
	For whatever reason, this is one of my favorite Christmas songs.
	And it's gotta be for our lives.
	Nothing else works.
	So what if he was a big leftist?
	Say hello to friends you know.
	And everyone you meet.
	Hi everybody, the happiness hour.
	We didn't have that regular happiness theme because it's Christmas season.
	And every...
	Friday, since 1999, I've had the Happiness Hour.
	Happiness is a virtue, not just an emotional state.
	The pursuit of happiness is listed along with life and liberty as the essences of life.
	The wise, infinitely almost wise people who wrote the Declaration knew what was important.
	And the...
	The rule of life is the happy make the world better and the unhappy make it worse.
	So this is a big deal.
	On rare occasions, I have a guest and the one I have had the most on the Happiness Hour over these, what is it now, 23 years, is Dr. Stephen Marmer.
	Wow, you're getting a standing ovation, Dr. Marmer.
	That's from Sean.
	Yeah, it's from Sean.
	That's true.
	He's standing.
	Yeah.
	Dr. Marmer is a psychiatrist in Brentwood in Los Angeles, and he is on the faculty of the UCLA Medical School.
	He's a clinical professor.
	Is it of medicine or of psychiatry?
	Psychiatry.
	So if one is a specialist in pediatrics, is there such a thing as a clinical professor of pediatrics?
	Right.
	Oh, that's the way it works?
	That's the way it works.
	Okay, great.
	So clinical professor, and as I always say, I know how lucky your patients are, and I mean that very sincerely.
	I hope some of them are listening.
	I hope so.
	Okay.
	So, Dr. Marmer is one of the handful of guests that I just, I either raise a topic spontaneously, or he comes in with a topic.
	He has come in with a topic today, and I didn't know what it is, and I still don't know what you'll say.
	That's how much I trust you.
	So the floor is yours, Dr. Marmer.
	Well, thank you, Dennis.
	And obviously, I'm always glad to be here.
	And in Dennis Prager's style, because you like to number the points that you're going to make, I came in today with five items, which, if you master these five items, I guarantee your happiness will be enormously increased.
	Wow.
	The first one is, how much anxiety and stress can you contain without turning it into a destructive emotion and having to act out?
	And the acting out could be kicking the dog, it could be taking a drink or drugs, it could be exploding at somebody, it could be doing something harmful to yourself.
	How much anxiety and stress can you contain without turning it into a destructive emotion?
	That eventually causes you to act out.
	So do you want to list the five and then I'll ask questions?
	Sure.
	Okay.
	Because obviously I'll have a million.
	Go ahead.
	Well, we might not get to number five.
	That's right.
	You're right.
	So go ahead.
	The second one, can you keep the good thoughts about people in your mind and a picture of the good side of another person you care about, even in an argument or when they disappoint you?
	If you can...
	Remember that the person that you're having a troubled relationship with at this moment is actually somebody you like or love and you remember all the good qualities about them.
	That's going to make you much happier and it's going to allow you to preserve relationships through periods of strife.
	The third is how much do you see yourself as fundamentally responsible for your own life and how much do you see yourself as a passive, helpless victim?
	Victims can never be happy.
	Only those who feel that they have some autonomy, however large or small it is, even as Viktor Frankl would say, even in a concentration camp, if you don't emphasize the extent to which you are in charge of your life, you're not going to be happy.
	The fourth thing is how much do you fill your life with positive events?
	Whether it's beautiful music or profound art, festive holidays, great literature, worship, transcendent spiritual moments, a favorite mentor, most of all loyal friends.
	Such positive events not only build up a reservoir of happiness, but actually it's been shown that children who are deprived of Sufficient number of positive events in their life have stunted brain development, and you can actually help people develop neuronal connections by providing for them positive experiences in their life.
	And by the way, we don't have to go very far to think of how these draconian lockdowns of the past few years have ruined our opportunity to have positive events and why so many people are depressed and unhappy and irritable now.
	And finally, last but definitely not least, if you aren't grateful, you can never be happy.
	Gratitude is an absolutely indispensable ingredient to being happy.
	And yes, of course, we all have undeserved bad things happen to us.
	But if you are honest and you do a real inventory, and you look at all of the undeserved bad things that happen to you, and you compare them to the unearned good things that have happened to you, I can guarantee you the unearned good things outnumber the bad at least ten to one in my life, perhaps even a thousand to one.
	And just to give a couple of examples, on no merit of mine, my grandparents migrated to the United States.
	That was an unearned good thing that happened to me.
	On no merit of mine, penicillin was available when, as a two-year-old, I had pneumonia.
	And those are just a couple of things.
	That's a great example.
	Nobody would think of that because they always think about the specific done to them.
	That's right.
	But if you spend more of your time thinking about the unearned good things that have happened to you.
	Your grandparents moving to the United States meant you would be born.
	That's correct.
	Given the Holocaust.
	That's correct.
	That's correct.
	So these five things, containing stress, don't split.
	In other words, remember the good even when you're upset with somebody.
	Agency instead of victimhood.
	Filling your life with positive events.
	And gratitude.
	If you master the majority of these, I guarantee your happiness will be increased.
	That's a terrific list.
	So, let me pose the most obvious question I think anybody listening would.
	Alright, let's say, as you know me so well, I'm not an anxious person.
	Thank God.
	Number one, how much anxiety and stress can you contain without acting out is not an issue for me.
	We all have our own issues, but that's not one.
	But what if it is an issue for somebody?
	That is their nature.
	How do you control that?
	Well, there are kind of simple things like count to ten or...
	Meditate on the good events of your life or think about the unearned good things or think forward to the damage that could be done if you do act it out or you do succumb to your anxiety.
	In other words, that's not something that comes naturally.
	People have to actually work on it.
	But if they do work on figuring out ways of relieving stress that are not destructive...
	It will pay dividends for it.
	Do you have an example of a way to work out stress that's not destructive?
	Take a time out.
	Open a book of poetry or biblical verse to calm you down.
	Memorize a few sound bites of mantras to tell you that it's going to be better if you don't act out.
	Take a walk.
	Take a walk.
	Exercise.
	Call a friend.
	This is in the 12-step programs.
	When you're overwhelmed with stress, call your sponsor rather than punch your neighbor or get into a fight with your wife or take a drink.
	1-8-Prager-776 is the number.
	The $64,000 question in life, well, there are two.
	What is stopping me from being happier?
	And B, now that I know what it is, will I act on it?
	Is that a fair way of looking at this?
	Right.
	Yes.
	So what do you do?
	Is a therapist's job both or primarily number one?
	Identify your issues.
	That's the prerequisite.
	You need to identify what's driving you that you don't know about.
	Almost always, there's a force multiplier in your childhood that...
	Is adding oomph to the misery that you're having right now.
	And if you can disconnect that force multiplier from childhood, from whatever the present situation is, and just know that it is merely the present situation and not the entirety of your life, that will be better.
	But once you do that, you then have to turn from identifying the negative to how do you...
	Enhance the positive.
	Back in a moment with Dr. Stephen Marmer, UCLA Medical School, 1-8 Prager, 7-7-6.
	The Dennis Prager Show.
	Howdy all.
	This is the Happiness Hour on the Dennis Prager Show.
	Every Friday, the second hour of the show, on rare occasions, a guest.
	The most frequent guest on the Happiness Hour for the last decades has been Dr. Stephen Marmer, a psychiatrist in Brentwood, L.A. Where he has a private practice and he is also a clinical professor of psychiatry at UCLA Medical School.
	So he came in with a list of five things that he assures you if you master you will be happy.
	I love the list.
	How much anxiety and stress can you contain without acting out?
	Can you keep a picture of the good?
	Oh, on that one, the person you're having an issue with Usually within the family, let's say, or even a friend.
	Yes.
	I have the chills because I know how important that is.
	My way of putting that, tell me if you would agree it's the same thing, just different words, is please remember everyone as a package.
	Yes.
	Yes.
	And especially if you have a long-standing relationship.
	Yes, exactly.
	Then there's way more good.
	In that.
	And you mustn't forget all the good in another individual just because at this moment you're having...
	Right.
	And if you can't remember all the good, get a new friend.
	Yeah.
	Fair enough.
	Fair enough.
	You know, it's either one way...
	Either you are right to have this person as a friend or you're not.
	But if you're right...
	Take the time that they didn't call to say that they weren't coming in stride.
	Yeah, and when I work with couples, I frequently say, well, didn't you once love each other?
	You do?
	Yeah.
	Oh, wow.
	Didn't you once love each other?
	What did you love about each other?
	Did those things completely disappear just because you're arguing about such and such?
	And you have found that to be a helpful question?
	Yes.
	Yes.
	That's real.
	Oh, my God.
	What you must see in your room.
	Indeed.
	Yes.
	Oh, wow.
	What a question.
	You caught me off guard.
	Third was, how much do you see yourself as responsible for your life and how much do you see yourself as a victim?
	Listen with me.
	You can't be happy if you think of yourself as a victim.
	So I know somebody.
	What would you say?
	I know somebody.
	And it's almost incredible to me, who will not speak to a parent.
	It's not my child, just for the record.
	Thank God.
	And what he raises is that all the bad things, and I don't mean, none of them are abusive, but the bad things he remembers from when he was 7 and 8 and 9 and 10, is that common?
	Sadly, it is far too common.
	And right now I know of several families in which that's the case.
	Right now.
	OMG. Yeah, it's very painful.
	And, of course, that kind of number two and three sort of go together because if you feel that you've been a victim of your parents, then you only remember the bad.
	You don't remember any of the good.
	And you also don't see yourself as responsible for making your life better.
	Okay, they did this or that or the other bad thing to you.
	Okay, maybe it did happen, maybe it didn't happen, maybe it's an exaggeration.
	Now what are you going to do about it?
	Do you have any responsibility for the way you make your life today?
	If you don't feel that you have any responsibility for the way you make your life today, how can you possibly be happy?
	Excellent.
	Since you say that is common, which drives me crazy, do these people really believe that if God made a list of all the good things the parents did for them and all the bad things, the bad things would outweigh the good?
	I don't think they think about it that way.
	But if you did challenge them...
	I would hope that they would...
	That gets back into gratitude.
	Are they capable of being grateful for all the good things that have happened?
	They are interrelated, these things.
	And unfortunately, all the good things that happened to us, we assume we were entitled to.
	And like, are we grateful that the air is clean?
	Are we grateful?
	I remember hearing once George Burns got his friends to roll over in laughter when he would meet them at the country club and he would say, you've got to try the water.
	It's really delicious.
	And they would laugh, because why would anybody think to be grateful that the water is delicious?
	But if we did that more often, we would be happier.
	And if we did that more often with our parents, we would realize that a lot of the things they did, the sacrifices that they made, the fact that we had a roof over our head, the fact that we had meals, the fact that they encouraged us in various ways, that would rise to the top.
	The other things would go to the bottom.
	I'm going to ask you the giant question that is true for all five things, and it's been gnawing at me in my thinking of what I call ultimate issues.
	All of these five presuppose that people have free will.
	I can choose not to act out.
	I can choose to remember all the good this friend did and not just be preoccupied with this bad instance.
	So, if anybody has thoughts on free will, it would be a therapist.
	Because you see, that's what you deal with.
	In a nutshell, because this is as much philosophical as scientific, but it's both.
	How much free will do people have?
	A considerable amount if you think about it in terms of compound interest.
	I can't choose to have been born in a different century or to have had different parents.
	I can't choose as an adult to be three inches taller.
	But I can make little teeny tiny choices which, one leading to another to another, over time make a difference.
	So, another 12-step phrase that I, there are great wordsmiths in the 12-step programs.
	You might not be able to choose your illness, but you can choose your cure.
	You can choose your recovery.
	So, in little tiny ways, you can choose.
	You can choose to bite your tongue.
	You can choose to count to 10 before you lash out.
	You can choose to acquaint yourself with good literature.
	You can choose to find a good therapist.
	You can choose to go out and exercise.
	You can choose to decline that third drink.
	And those choices, by compound interest, one leading to the next to the next, each time you choose something good, a variety of better choices opens before you.
	Here's a toughie for you.
	What's your batting average with patients, getting them to master their life?
	I would say 75-80%.
	Really?
	Wow.
	Now, of course, these are people who come to me willingly, so they already have a predisposition that they want to make their life better.
	All right, I'm going to amplify that and take calls.
	Dr. Stephen Marmer, UCLA Medical School.
	I'm Dennis Prager.
	This is the Happiness Hour.
	The Dennis Prager Show.
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	I saw mommy kissing Santa Claus.
	They would never make a song like this today.
	It's so amazing.
	People were so much freer in supposedly the suppressed 50s and early 60s.
	That is Prager here, the Happiness Hour, 1-8 Prager 776.
	I don't think I even announced the number.
	Then I Dr. Stephen Marmer is a clinical professor of psychiatry at UCLA Medical School, been for years, and he is in private practice.
	My last question to you, I had no idea what you would answer, because you have such...
	Excellent ideas about people helping themselves, which is of course why we have you on the Happiness Hour.
	And your answer to my question, what's your batting average with your patients?
	About 75%.
	You don't even have to comment.
	You're certainly free to.
	I can't believe that the average therapist is 75% batting average.
	So many people...
	Whom I hear from or see or hear about got worse in many instances at their therapists.
	They got more, and I'll be very specific, they saw themselves more as a victim in therapy.
	Any comments?
	That's exactly the fulcrum point.
	That's why it was on my list.
	Until you get the individual...
	To agree that at least to some extent they are the architect of their own misery and therefore they have the power to change it, you're not going to get anywhere.
	If you stay as a victim, you're helpless and the whole situation is helpless and so why bother?
	Only if you are willing to say, yes, I was responsible for some of my own happiness, but then vested in me is the power to do it, the power to change it.
	Right.
	What has happened, if anything, maybe it was always a problem in the therapeutic world, what has happened that they now reinforce victimhood?
	It's been a culture shift in the entire culture, but especially in mental health, that to emphasize the victimhood of the patient and the overwhelming bad...
	Influence of the previous generation or society or one or another of a hundred isms.
	And with the idea that you mustn't blame the victim.
	Well, I take exactly the opposite approach.
	As I just said, if you don't think that you have leverage over your life, and if you don't think that you're responsible in your reactions for causing some of your own misery, then who are you going to look to to change?
	This is a spontaneous question and maybe a silly one.
	Do patients ever get angry with you?
	Yeah, sometimes.
	And is it over this issue?
	Frequently.
	Or sometimes it's because they think I didn't understand them properly or I'm not crediting them.
	I'm not saying, oh, you poor thing, enough.
	Yeah, that's why I asked the question.
	Yeah.
	Wow.
	Is there a difference in patients by age?
	Is it more likely that people at 40 think they're victims than at 75?
	That's complicated because you're asking, do people change over the course of life?
	Oh, I'm really thinking more.
	Or is it generational?
	Yes, it's generational.
	Patients who were born in the 40s and 50s and 60s are more likely...
	To feel guilty and responsible for things, and people who were born in the 80s, 90s, and 2000s are more likely to feel gypped that they don't start out as the senior vice president in their first job.
	Yeah, that's what I thought.
	All right, I'm going to repeat, of course, the list of five things before we end this hour, but let's take some calls.
	Marietta, Georgia, and Annette, hello.
	You're on with Dr. Stephen Marmer and me.
	Hello there.
	Hi.
	Hi.
	I'm so thrilled that Dr. Marmer is on.
	I have heard him before on your show, Dennis.
	I'm kind of the poster child for the anxiety-driven person that has been described today.
	I'm a little bit over 70 years old, and I never had counseling.
	I grew up in an Air Force family.
	We were always somewhere in the world, no extended family around us.
	And later in life, I learned my dad had been having affairs on my mom.
	So in our nuclear family, it was kind of like, you know, we were almost all...
	I think us three kids were close to mom, but still, none of us three kids are close to each other or our dad, etc.
	In other words, it really deprived us that upbringing.
	Right, and you ended up the anxious individual.
	We'll have you comment.
	Dr. Marmer, back in a moment.
	Happiness Hour.
	Let's break your show.
	I'm just listening and enjoying it.
	Welcome to the show, everybody.
	Dennis Prager here.
	here, good Friday to you.
	Remember a rule that I recently brought to your attention, wrote a column on, devoted a fireside chat to, how do you know who's telling the truth between left and right? how do you know who's telling the truth between left and right?
	The best single guideline I can offer is which side suppresses dissent?
	Which side censors?
	It is not always the case, but it is nearly always the case that the liars censor others.
	Because liars can't handle, whether it's in your family or it's in the nation, can handle the people who say that's a lie.
	They have no response except to further lie.
	If that is correct, and I cannot see a single coherent argument against it, the left is the one that lies overwhelmingly.
	Or, as I say every single day, truth is not a left-wing value, it is a liberal value.
	Liberals vote for leftists, but they don't share their values.
	The day that the liberal wakes up and realizes that...
	America will be saved overnight.
	The tragedy in America is that liberals do not vote their values.
	They vote for the left.
	But truth is a liberal value and a conservative value.
	It is not a left-wing value.
	It has never been.
	I called it yesterday the official liars, well, one of them, many.
	What is it, Media Matters?
	Right.
	So this is a left-wing group that assigns people, assigns conservatives to them to find a statement that they can then deny or ridicule.
	And I knew it.
	I actually called it when I said it, when I spoke of the disproportionate role women are playing in The harming of children in our society as teachers, as librarians, and in the medical sphere.
	It's just a fact that women are disproportionately involved in this.
	95% of librarians where the drag queen story hours often take are female.
	And 85% of kindergarten teachers are female.
	75% of all teachers are female.
	And the teachers' unions are generally run by females, dominated by females.
	It's interesting.
	The same people who lie, all whites are racist.
	That's permissible.
	But to say that women disproportionately, very big difference from the word all, are involved as a wrecking crew in the lives of children, that is not permitted.
	You are called a misogynist, which is exactly what they did.
	With my comment on this yesterday, so I'm repeating it today so that they can replay it.
	It proves that truth is not a left-wing value because they don't ask, did what Prager say meet the standard of truth?
	Or was it untrue?
	So they do it exactly what I said yesterday.
	They smear you, but they don't debate you.
	Because the issue of whether it is true or not doesn't matter to Media Matters or to the Daily Kos or, for that matter, to the mainstream media.
	Is it true is not a question that they ask.
	Can we smear the truth-teller?
	That is the question that they ask.
	So, the proof is, of course, coming from Twitter.
	Where conservatives were in fact shadow banned and outright banned.
	This all came, by the way, PragerU really blew the whistle on it with our lawsuit.
	Am I right?
	I would say yes.
	That's why the Wall Street Journal about three years ago had four editorials about PragerU and what Google, which owns YouTube, has been doing.
	We've been shadow banned as well.
	We're not outright banned.
	We've been shadow banned.
	There is a group that is trying to get us banned.
	What is the group we just had?
	News Guard.
	Yeah, News Guard.
	Yes, that's right.
	Another left-wing hate group.
	And for them too, the question, is it true, is irrelevant?
	Can we suppress dissent?
	NewsGuard is unknown to most people, it was unknown to me, but they are known to groups that handle media and thereby suppress media that NewsGuard gives a red light to.
	There isn't a truth-telling left-wing institution because it's not a value.
	Again, I make that point.
	I wish it were not true.
	Can we defeat dissenters?
	That is the question on the left, not what is true.
	So Twitter is just the latest proof.
	It should shock the nation.
	Is it even reported?
	I'm curious.
	Is the New York Times reporting this?
	You have a copy there?
	Yeah.
	Here's the front page.
	And is it on the front page?
	It is not on the front page of the LA Times or the New York Times.
	All right, so I have two newspapers from today.
	Is it on the front page of the Wall Street Journal?
	Here, take a look.
	Unwrap it.
	I'm very curious.
	Twitter kept a secret blacklist, this Daily Mail, quote-unquote secret blacklist, of topics and accounts to prevent them from trending.
	According to data obtained by journalist Barry Weiss, with conservative commentators deliberately downplayed in what one called Soviet-style Bull S, while another said he was treated with, quote, more censorship than Hamas.
	Conservative commentators such as Dan Bongino and Charlie Kirk would deliberately put on a Sikh search blacklist.
	No?
	Interesting.
	So that is interesting.
	Look, you should all know the news division of the Wall Street Journal is barely more conservative than the New York Times.
	The Wall Street Journal is two newspapers.
	The editorial pages, opinion pages on the one hand, and the news pages on the other.
	Which is not surprising because...
	The journalism schools produced these journalists, and the journalism schools produced left-wingers.
	Now we have evidence to show that's exactly why my Twitter account the last couple of years has been down 95% in engagement.
	That was Charlie Kirk of Turning Point USA. Those who questioned the prevailing COVID orthodoxy of lockdowns and mask mandates Such as Stanford University's Dr. Jay Bhattacharya.
	Did we have him on?
	Yeah, that's what I thought.
	So this man is an MD, he's an epidemiologist at Stanford University, but he spoke about the idiocy.
	No, idiocy is, I retract that word.
	It is an idiocy, but that is, so what?
	It was anti-science.
	And profoundly, profoundly harmful to society.
	The masks and the lockdown mandates.
	Stanford University Medical School Dr. Jay Bhattacharya argued that lockdowns harmed children.
	Placed by Twitter on the search blacklist.
	Top officials such as Yoel Roth, the global head of trust and safety, you know what that even means?
	They come up with titles.
	Wrote in internal messages that he wanted more creative ways of censoring and muffling specific accounts and content.
	Another society wrecker, a man named Yoel Roth.
	The Jay Bhattacharya is the giveaway.
	A doctor who dissents is to be suppressed.
	A prominent epidemiologist will also not have full access to Twitter.
	That was their attitude.
	We have the proof.
	I know how important saving money is to so many people today.
	So I'm delighted to remind you about Pure Talk, which I tried out because I couldn't believe I'd get the same service as on T-Mobile, AT&T, or Verizon for just $30 a month with unlimited text and unlimited talk and a lot of gigabytes of data.
	$30 a month.
	I thought that was unrealistic.
	Well, it is realistic.
	I've now had a second phone with them for a year.
	By the way, you've got a phone for a great rate as well.
	If you want to, you can keep your phone and keep your phone number.
	It's a US-based customer support team.
	They share our values.
	Dial pound 250, say Dennis Prager.
	That's it.
	Pound 250, say Dennis Prager.
	And make the switch.
	To pure talk in as little as 10 minutes.
	You also get 50% off your first month with the magic name Dennis Prager.
	Pound 250. Well, I'm really surprised.
	It doesn't make any sense to me that the Wall Street Journal, it doesn't even have it down the left side.
	Do you have an explanation?
	I think you gave it.
	You think I gave it?
	Well, that's really a smoking gun.
	It's not even on Watts News.
	Well, it's got business and finance.
	Okay, that wouldn't be there.
	And worldwide.
	Wouldn't that be considered worldwide?
	Let's see how this is working out.
	Well, we'll look over the weekend.
	Well, there's a big piece by Rob Wiesenthal, Elon Musk slashes bureaucracy, giving Twitter a chance to soar.
	At least they have that.
	Anyway, it's clear that left-wing destroyers took over Twitter and suppressed dissent.
	That's what they do.
	That's pretty much what the left is in business to do, suppress dissent, because they can't survive dissent.
	So this guy Roth that they're writing about in Daily Mail, he was the global head of trust and safety.
	Roth messaged colleagues on Slack to say that spam enforcements had been used as a way of circumventing the safety team under enforcing their policies.
	The group would need to intervene if any action was taken to limit the popular account.
	Libs of TikTok.
	Libs of TikTok is a fantastic account.
	All they do, they don't editorialize, they just publicize what the left does, like to your children at schools.
	It's the perfect proof that the left is the lying mechanism of the society, as it has been in every society.
	Is what Libs of TikTok revealing true, they just want it suppressed?
	Well, the group, according to Roth, the group would need to intervene if any action was taken to limit the popular account Libs of TikTok, whose account was tabbed internally, do not take action on user without consulting with SIPPES. That's the special unit, right, to monitor what they're going to do about...
	People they don't agree with.
	Barry Weiss said that account was suspended six times in 2022, and the author, Chaya Rechik, blocked from her account for at least a week each time.
	Weiss said that their response was in sharp contrast to that when Rechik was doxed with her home address.
	Published online.
	Did you know that?
	The libs of TikTok, her address was published online?
	Yeah, it's a big deal.
	Rachel complained, but Twitter refused to take the tweet down.
	You have to understand, that was the purpose of Twitter.
	Suppress the right.
	Suppress anybody who isn't left.
	They kept it up, the address of the woman who runs libs of TikTok.
	And it remains on the site to this day.
	Does she go on any programs, Chaya Rechik?
	I don't know.
	We should definitely give it a try.
	Rechik tweeted, They suspended me multiple times knowing I never violated any policies.
	This is what happens when you talk about things that they don't want you to talk about.
	Exactly.
	That's exactly right.
	So glad those days on Twitter are over.
	Thank you, Elon Musk.
	Musk replied, you're welcome.
	Twitter won't be perfect in the future, but it will be much better.
	Wow.
	Weiss also singled out Roth for criticism, saying he was active in censoring accounts.
	Guys like Roth and the others at Twitter, you have to understand, like the people at NewsGuard, they sleep well at night.
	It proves the conscience is a very, very weak mechanism in most people.
	I'm sad to say, the amount of people who harm others and sleep well at night is proof about the weakness of the conscience.
	And the ease with which one can manipulate it.
	That is why when I ask people, oh, so you don't feel you have to answer to a god for your behavior, you don't have to obey the Ten Commandments, you just figure it out on your own.
	And they say, yes, I listen to my conscience.
	Oh, that I've got to say, that's really comforting.
	By the way, the quote of the day...
	Indeed, I think of the week.
	Maybe of the season.
	And we're coming to the end of autumn.
	Was given by Harry.
	Prince Harry.
	He's still a prince?
	Doesn't make sense.
	Anyway, Prince Harry.
	I've been reading a lot about the Netflix series and related issues.
	And he said, I should have isolated it, I'm like my mum, the term for mum in Britain and other English-speaking places, and he was speaking about Princess Diana.
	I'm like my mum, I follow my heart.
	Is that perfect?
	Yeah.
	That's what he does.
	This shallow man follows his heart.
	I can't think of a worse way to direct your life.
	As I have said so often, those of us who take the Bible seriously know that it constantly warns about following your heart.
	In October 2020, journalist Dave Rubin asked then-CEO of Twitter, Jack Dorsey, do you shadow ban based on political beliefs?
	Simple yes or no will do.
	Dorsey replied, no.
	Does Jack Dorsey believe he lied?
	It's obvious he lied.
	The question is, does he believe he lied?
	It is hard for me to wrap my head around liars.
	How do they do it with a straight face and then say, I don't lie?
	It's a puzzle.
	Elon Musk has done the nation a service.
	We return.
	The Dennis Prager Show.
	Hi, everybody.
	I'm Dennis Prager, and I welcome you back.
	Thank you.
	Finally on the Twitter issue, Vijaya Gadi, Twitter's head of legal policy and trust, also denied that Twitter operated such blacklists.
	We do not shadow ban, she said in 2018, according to Weiss, speaking alongside Kayvon Baikpur, Twitter's head of product.
	They added, "And we certainly don't shadow ban based on political viewpoints or ideology." Did her parents teach her not to lie?
	I'm not being cute.
	I don't know how you say something, especially publicly, you know not to be true.
	What percentage of people can do that?
	The answer is whatever percentage it is, they're disproportionately on the left.
	There are liars on the right.
	But on the right, there is a fidelity to a code higher than the individual that you don't find on the left.
	The code that is higher is promote the progressive agenda.
	You may recall, it certainly got a lot of play when I testified in the U.S. Senate at the invitation.
	Of the Republicans.
	And it was with regard to Google, which owns YouTube, putting some of the PragerU videos on their restricted list, meaning that any parent who has safeguards against pornography and violence Have access to them.
	Libraries cannot have access to them by definition.
	It's amazing.
	Libraries were not able to see some PragerU videos, but they could have drag queen story hours.
	So when I visited, I was asked, so Mr. Prager...
	No, no, I wasn't.
	The Google representative was there in the same room.
	Why did you suppress Mr. Prager's video on the Ten Commandments?
	Do you have the answer that the man said because it says murder?
	Okay, that's what I really care about.
	He actually said because it mentions murder.
	I hope you all understand the absurdity of that response.
	It also mentions adultery.
	It also mentions lying.
	It also mentions, let's see, theft.
	That's what the Ten Commandments mentions.
	When it was my turn to speak, I said, okay, Prager, you will now release a Google-friendly Nine Commandments.
	The Nine Commandments.
	We will drop, do not murder.
	When that man said that, as an example, this representative from Google in the United States Senate, we suppressed Mr. Prager's video because it mentions murder, his video on the Ten Commandments.
	So here's a perfect question.
	Did he sleep well that night?
	Did he not realize what a moral fool he looked like?
	And the answer, I guess, is no.
	I guess he didn't.
	The ability of people to convince themselves that they are right when they are wrong is almost infinite.
	The ease with which people lapse into, descend into the wrong, the ease...
	Is very, very worrisome, which is why ultimately a God and a divine code are necessary.
	They don't always help either.
	But they help.
	That's right.
	This explains the whole left to you.
	Peace on the hill.
	Well, well read.
	Liberal.
	Opinion site.
	So, it's published today.
	An opinion contributor has written it named Stuart McIntosh.
	Climate anxiety isn't the enemy.
	Embracing it can speed change.
	That's right.
	What are all these kids claiming now?
	That they are suicidal and they're depressed because of the world, right?
	I mean, that's what they're claiming.
	The way forward to a net-zero carbon-neutral or carbon-negative future is global, but it must be fundamentally national and local.
	The urgent, essential, ongoing net-zero shift Will be led by voters anguished, depressed, and alarmed by what they see unfolding in their own communities.
	The rising alarm seen among young voters is potentially politically pivotal.
	Depression and anguish can lead to action.
	The alarmed act, the anguished shift behavior and choice.
	They vote.
	Okay.
	That's right.
	Can't get more clear than that.
	We want to screw with your kids' lives so that we have more wind power and solar power.
	That's right.
	It is a good thing if your kids are depressed and anguished over the staggering hysteria over climate change.
	That's right.
	Oh, and the staggering hysteria over masks and lockdowns.
	We were right then, too.
	Weren't you on the left?
	Weren't you?
	The same people who lied to you about lockdowns, working and keeping your kids out of school for two years and hurt your kids, maybe permanently, at least academically permanently, are doing the same thing with wind and solar.
	And the proof is they don't even back nuclear power, which is non-carbon.
	What the left has done to young people is evil.
	Pure evil.
	And he says it's great.
	We're screwing with your kids' emotions and psychology to get them to vote right.
	He's saying it.
	They're proud of it.
	Just thought you ought to know about that.
	Okay.
	We need it.
	Happiness Hour coming out.
	Coming out.
	Coming next on the Dennis Prager Show.
	Folks, this show is now available on TV. And I urge you to go there and watch it.
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	Salem News Channel, the antidote to the mainstream media.
	Dennis Prager here.
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