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March 14, 2023 - Dennis Prager Show
01:20:12
Martyrdom
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Dennis Prager here.
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Good morning, everyone.
This is the Dennis Prager Show.
But, as you no doubt immediately noticed, this is not Dennis Prager.
Dennis Prager will be here shortly, but I'm not exactly sure how shortly.
So in the meantime, there are all kinds of things we can talk about.
So let's get right to it.
There's an interesting piece.
That is not new, but is significant from Bjorn Lomburg, who for a long time has been trying to talk common sense about all manner of issues relating to global warming, but especially lately about electric cars, electric vehicles.
So you all know that California has Recently passed a law signed by the governor that all vehicles by 2035 will have to be electric.
Why are we doing this?
It's all apparently because we want to save the planet, we want to save the environment, and somehow it's been determined that electric vehicles are the way to do it, or are going to play some kind of huge role.
But as Lomberg points out in the Wall Street Journal, this is not a new piece, it's from earlier in the month, but I just found it today.
It's a total wash, meaning that electric vehicles have no impact.
If all cars and trucks were electric, it would essentially have no impact on carbon emissions.
It kind of evens out.
And the reason is very obvious if you just think about it a little bit.
First, electric cars.
By the way, I have one.
I drive a Tesla and I love it.
I love the car.
But in Lombard's article, there's a great opening line to this article.
Here's what he says.
We constantly hear that electric cars are the future, cleaner, cheaper, and better.
But if they're so good, why does California need to ban gasoline-powered cars?
Why does the world spend $30 billion a year subsidizing electric ones?
So it's, again, a common-sense question.
If electric cars are so good, they're so much better.
If consumers really wanted them, what's the issue?
The only reason electric cars are a thing is because of government subsidies.
If you pulled the government subsidies away, which by the way they did in Nevada, I'm talking now about solar panels for homes, as soon as the subsidies went away, people stopped using them.
It didn't make a lot of sense.
So, the issue of electric cars, I mean, it's...
Why are we so obsessed?
If electric cars are so great, and I think my Tesla's a great car, then people will buy electric cars.
But California apparently doesn't think they're that great because they have to pass a law insisting on it.
And then we get into the issue of the metals that go into electric cars.
Obviously, electric cars are run by batteries, and batteries have a certain makeup.
And that makeup includes mostly what you hear about is lithium, but many other metals too, like well-known metals like copper and nickel.
There was just a piece earlier in the week, Dennis didn't get to it, but there's been a study that in order to get the minerals we need to make all these electric cars, we're going to have to open...
Over 300 mines to mine the copper, the nickel, the lithium.
Do you know the last time a major mine was opened in the United States?
I'm not sure there has been one in years.
Mines are like nuclear power plants.
They just don't happen.
Why don't they happen?
Because the moment anybody...
Files an effort to start a new mine.
A mining company tries to get permission from the government to start a new mine.
There's a hundred lawsuits filed.
It takes years and years to get the mine.
And earlier this year, after years of such action, a new mine in northern Minnesota, Opened up probably 500,000 new jobs was cancelled by the Biden administration.
They just said, now we need to do some more environmental studies, no new nickel mine, no new copper mine here.
It doesn't happen.
It not only doesn't happen in the United States, it doesn't happen in Africa for the same reasons.
Because organizations...
International banking operations and so on, they won't finance these mines in foreign countries.
And when they do, when they already exist, as Lomberg points out in his article, they often involve child labor and all kinds of conditions that we wouldn't consider safe in the United States.
So, you see the problem here.
You want something, but you haven't thought How are you going to get it?
How are we going to build all these electric cars?
Where is the metal going to come from?
Well, it's not going to come from the United States because no one will let you build a mine in the United States.
It'll happen in Africa, maybe.
Even that's hard.
Could happen in China.
That doesn't sound too good for us.
We don't want to become more dependent on China, do we?
But that's where we're headed.
And it all goes back.
To this idea that somehow the solution to our global warming problem, if for a moment you admit that there is a problem, which Bjorn Lomborg, by the way, does, it all comes back to electric cars and getting rid of fossil fuel.
Here's another statistic that you'll find, as Dennis would say, of interest.
In the last twenty years we spent trillions of dollars trying to convert our power systems as much as possible from fossil fuel which is gas, coal and oil of course.
Trillions of dollars subsidizing these efforts and we have gone from 87% of the world's power is derived from fossil fuel to 84% in 20 years.
That's the progress we've made.
Now, if you think about what we could have done with those trillions of dollars, infrastructure, education, or how about this?
What if we did nothing, nothing at all, and just let people keep The money that the government has spent on our behalf.
Maybe that would be a good thing.
But no, that's not where we're headed.
Everything is geared toward the movement of power from fossil fuels to power from wind and solar.
Watch very carefully what happens this winter in Europe.
We are about to get a very serious real object lesson in the movement of fossil fuel to electric power from gas and wind.
The Dennis Prager Show.
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Welcome to the Dennis Prager Show.
My name is Alan Estrin.
And I am the executive producer of the Dennis Prager Show, also the executive director of PragerU, Prager University.
And Dennis has been delayed a little bit today.
He will be here for the Happiness Hour.
Please know that.
But until then, I'll be in charge.
So a lot of stuff happens, a lot of stuff that I simply can't get to.
As the week goes by.
So I'm going to review a few things for you here.
Things that happened yesterday and maybe even earlier in the week that we just didn't get to.
Kimberly Strassel writes a great piece in the Wall Street Journal today.
She always writes great stuff.
You've heard Dennis talk many times about the Wall Street Journal editorial page.
There is a...
There's a real difference between the editorial page and the reporting in the Wall Street Journal.
The reporting in the Wall Street Journal is not like the New York Times, but it's not conservative.
It leans clearly to the left on the reporting side, and there have been all kinds of rumors about conflict between reporters, the reporting side and the editorial side of the Wall Street Journal, but the editorial part of the Wall Street Journal does remain conservative. but the editorial part of the Wall Street Journal does They're not MAGA for sure.
It's more, let's call it establishment conservatism, but they have great columnists.
Dan Henninger's on the show a lot, and so is Kimberly Strassel.
And Kimberly Strassel's piece today could be subtitled...
The Democrats cheat any way they can.
And the point of her column today is what the Democrats do, how they use 501c3s to promote Democratic candidates.
Now, PragerU is a 501c3, so I know a lot about the 501c3 designation.
And very much part of that designation is that you can't be overtly...
Politically, you can't promote specific candidates.
You can take a position, PragerU does, about various political issues, but you can't promote specific candidates.
But that's what the Democrats are doing through 501c3s, and she goes through it in significant detail today.
And you might ask yourself, well, how can they do it?
If it's against the law, how can they do it?
And the answer...
As with so many things related to this issue of voting, is they have nothing to fear.
They're not going to be prosecuted by anybody.
No one's going to come after them.
No one has.
So they just do it.
And they're very successful doing it.
The kind of perverse aspect of it is that people donate money to these 501c3s, get a tax write-off, and then the 501c3s that Kimberly Strassel is talking about use the money for political purposes.
There's another designation called 501c4, which is overtly political, but you don't get the charitable donation tax.
The benefit that you do for a 501c3.
So democratic activists give money to these 501c3s, get a tax write-off, and their money is used for overtly political purposes.
That's in the Wall Street Journal today.
You should check that out.
Here's an interesting thing that Corey DeAngelis, who is an advocate for school choice and...
Recently did a PragerU video on the issue of school choice, points out in a piece on his Twitter account, which is that the California schools are delaying the publication of test results for the state.
Didn't really say why.
It's all usually the usual excuses, round up the usual excuses, which are, oh, because of COVID and all these other things, we're all backlogged.
But Corey DeAngelis makes an interesting observation, which was, gee, isn't that a little bit coincidental?
We're not going to get the results of the California student test results until after the election?
Could it be, I'm just guessing now, that they're going to be so bad, it's going to reflect so badly?
On the Democrats who run the state, and when you say the Democrats run California, I mean, you're saying the Democrats run California.
It's a supermajority state, like New York, only worse.
There's no policy.
There's no Republican policy in California.
Everything that happens in California is a product of Democratic politicians, like what we were talking about earlier.
Meaning in the last segment about electric cars.
California now is mandated that there will be no gas-powered cars sold by 2035. Okay, that's a Democrat policy.
And that's what we're looking at.
If Biden doesn't run in 2024, and we don't know whether he will or he won't, can't predict the future, you can bet.
Gavin Newsom will run.
And all he can run on is California policies, like what we see in Los Angeles and San Francisco and the crime going up and the homelessness going up and somehow this is supposed to be a model for the country.
It is a model for the country.
It's a model for...
What the country wants to avoid.
I mean, if you want to see where we're headed and where we don't want to go, look to California.
Yeah, we do have, the state does have a lot of money for the time being because it has an amazing tax base in Silicon Valley and to some extent in Hollywood.
If that goes away, It's all grim.
It's all grim.
Because anybody who lives here is going to tell you crime is worse, homelessness is worse, the economy is worse.
Can you imagine anybody, any manufacturing company opening a business in California with its labor laws and now all these regulations about energy?
I don't know why people don't get this, but it takes a lot of energy to run a factory.
One reason that factories are directly connected, major manufacturers are directly connected to natural gas lines is because there's no loss of power between the gas line and the gas and the manufacturing.
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Hello, everybody.
I'm Dennis Prager.
I want to thank Alan Estrin, whom I told when I entered, he has a future.
We all have futures.
That's how you reacted.
Join me!
It's the happy, happy, happy, happy hour.
Yes, it is.
Boy, is happiness important.
Oh my God.
And I'm not violating the commandment of not taking God's name in vain, by the way.
Which I have a whole explanation of in my forthcoming Deuteronomy.
Coming out in two weeks.
Biggest project of my life.
Commentary on each of the first five books of the Bible.
The Rational Bible.
You can pre-order it at the Prager store or at Amazon or wherever you order your books.
The Rational Bible.
It's a big deal.
If you take my ideas seriously, please know this stuff can...
What I've written in these books is meant to change lives.
Well, my friends, the happiness hour today...
It's almost inevitable if you look at a calendar that features Jewish holidays as well as American and Christian holidays.
This is the opening Sunday night of the Ten Days of Penitence and the High Holy Days of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, or Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, as it's said in the vernacular.
The New Year and the...
The Jewish New Year is a serious affair.
It's celebratory, but it is serious.
It is not like New Year's.
New Year's is for revelry.
Rosh Hashanah is for introspection.
What kind of person have I been this year?
And what kind of person will I be next year?
Do you realize the implied statement of Penitence.
Of turning your life around.
The implied statement is that you have free will.
One of the most important questions of life.
And I, frankly, I do wonder about free will often.
I see people who sabotage their lives, as so many people do, and I think, did they freely choose to do that?
It's a very tough question, free will.
The only arena where I really believe we have free will, or the most free will, I should be more precise, is in the moral arena.
I think we are free to choose good and evil.
I don't think we're free to choose our temperament, free to choose our nature.
There's so much that is built in.
And I acknowledge that.
Although you should even then work on yourself.
Having said that, however, this is a big deal coming up.
So my subject for the Happiness Hour is one that I do, I don't know, maybe once a year.
Right?
Would you say that?
Once a year, religion and happiness?
At least, yeah.
Yeah.
Those of us...
In Judaism and Christianity, I'm not going to address other religions, not out of any antipathy, it's just the religions that formed this country, and of course Christians are the overwhelming majority, although I just read that by 2070 Christians, at the rate they're going, will no longer be a majority, which I think is a catastrophe.
And I don't use catastrophe easily, and I'm a Jew saying that.
If you welcome Christians becoming under 50% of this country, then what you're saying is that what they founded was a bad thing, which the left says.
There are tough signs ahead.
Religious people are happier.
Every poll indicates that.
So I have a...
I have a question and a suggestion.
My dear listener, this is addressed to my irreligious, non-religious listeners, of whom there are many, and you can be a wonderful human being if you're not religious, and you can be an awful human being if you're religious.
I say that all the time.
It's never quoted when I'm attacked from...
The left or from atheists?
He says, oh, you can't be good if you're not religious.
I've never said that in my life.
I don't believe it.
Why would I say it?
So this is addressed to you, and if I told you that I can promise you that you will be a happier, more fulfilled human being, if you Did...
What can I think of?
If you walked around the block every day, just around the block, while singing...
Give me some song.
While singing...
Any song?
Any song.
Singing in the Rain.
Singing in the Rain.
Get it up there, Sean.
Get up singing in the rain.
Let us say that I could show you scientific evidence that if you walked around the block singing, I'm singing in the rain.
You don't need an orchestra.
I'm singing in the rain.
That's right.
There we go.
Okay.
By the way, now that I think of it, if you walked around the block singing this every day, I think you would be happier.
*laughter* Oh, maybe it's a bad choice.
Maybe I have to pick out something absurd.
Like if you did...
Four sit-ups, you know, with your eyes closed.
I don't know what prescription I could offer you.
That would be truly absurd.
In any event, the point is clear, I hope.
If I told you that anything is guaranteed, anything, something, is guaranteed to make you a happier, more fulfilled human being, and probably a bit better.
Probably.
Not definitely.
Wouldn't you do it?
Even if you thought it was absurd, wouldn't you do it?
So I'm telling you that a religious life is available to you and it is a matter of choice, not faith.
This is the approach that I have that is atypical and I know it works because I know people for whom it works.
It was a choice that I made very many years ago.
People think you have to believe religious to be religious.
That is not true.
You can act religious, meaning within a religion.
Not spiritual.
The word means nothing to me.
People say, oh, I'm not religious.
I don't believe in organized religion.
I'm spiritual.
I don't have a clue what that means.
You're spiritual.
Do you have a God in your spirituality?
A God that knows you?
A God that gives a damn about you?
A God that judges you and everybody else?
If you don't have that, then the spirituality is, from my perspective, not deep.
And not significant.
If you're happy with it, be happy with it.
This is a terrible idea that people have in their mind.
I'll act religious.
I'll be an active member of some religion once I start believing.
No.
You've got it opposite.
What you do is you become active and then you may well start believing.
I'm a behaviorist.
Act happy if you don't feel happy.
Act religious if you don't believe religious.
This is so big that if I could send this message in neon lights blinking in front of you or those Incredibly expensive wastes on California freeways, those signs.
That would be my message.
1-8 Prager 776.
Happiness Hour on the Dennis Prager Show.
I'm dancing and singing in the rain.
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Hey, I'm just an old chunk of coal.
But I'm gonna be a diamond someday.
I'm gonna grow and glow till I'm so blue, pure, perfect.
I'm gonna put a smile on everybody's face.
Hi, everybody.
Happiness hour.
Kneel and pray every day.
There was no question coming into the studio today that I would devote the Happiness Hour to happiness and a religious life, which sounds to many of you as scary.
I so understand the secular mind, it's as if I have one.
I so understand...
The language is a turn-off to so many people.
A religious life, oh my god, oh, let me throw up.
That's pretty much how many people react.
A religious life means a life active in a religious community, in a religion.
That's what it means.
Okay?
And I am...
Arguing that it is irrelevant if you don't believe, whether in a religion or in God, it is irrelevant to your becoming active in a religious life.
You do what is good for you and good for society, whether you are committed to every one of its tenets or not.
It's so obvious to me.
I want to choose what will bring me greater joy in life.
And every single indicator, every secular poll says that religious people are happier.
They give more charity, too.
They volunteer more time, too.
They adopt more kids with difficulties, with disabilities.
Not bad, eh?
Not a bad record.
Is every religious person terrific?
It's like people point out, oh, well, she this...
Well, they point out all these things.
The priests who molested children, or the pastors who had affairs, whatever it might be.
And therefore what?
And what is therefore what?
What does one conclude?
Are there no terrific priests?
Are there no terrific pastors?
Why don't you discuss them?
And by the way, in light of this, I'd just like you to know that for the 15th year, I will be conducting major services that are meaningful to Jew, non-Jew, atheist, secularist, agnostic, This is a good opportunity for you to test it out, by the way.
I know it sounds like I'm trying to get you to sign up for something.
I am.
I admit it.
But it's not something I do to make a living.
It's to make a life.
I think you should watch my service.
Wherever you are.
Whatever your religion or no religion.
If you don't find it at all meaningful, it might be an indicator.
You're just not open, and I'm not saying this critically, to taking this stuff seriously.
But it's meaningful.
It's meaningful.
So I have this service.
You can go on DennisPrager.com, and it's right there, cited on the show.
Live stream Dennis' High Holy Day services, Sunday night, Monday, and then Yom Kippur, the following, 10 days later.
And it's got gorgeous music, traditional religious Jewish music.
Every one of the tunes is so gorgeous.
You've never heard this stuff.
It's powerful.
So you can live stream it.
Go to DennisPrager.com or you can come to the service if there are still seats available.
That too is at DennisPrager.com to click on it where it says Tickets for Dennis.
Dennis' High Holy Day service is now available.
It's coming up Sunday night, that's why I'm talking about it today, just two days before.
And I return to my argument.
Waiting to be religious, to become active in a religion, is like waiting for happiness to come without acting happy.
You feel what you act.
In the age of idiocy in which we live, truly idiocy, which, by the way, is a direct result of secularism.
There is no wisdom in secularism.
It just isn't.
There's science, but there's no wisdom.
Science has no wisdom.
Science doesn't tell you a damn thing about how to live a life.
Not one bloody thing.
Science doesn't tell you to be kind or be cruel.
So people tell me they believe in science.
Oh, really?
And what does it tell you to do?
Name me one thing science tells you to do.
In the moral sphere or any other.
So, on this eve of the holiest days of the Jewish calendar...
And by the way, the Jewish belief is that Rosh Hashanah is New Year for everybody.
It's called the Jewish New Year, but it's not the New Year for Jews.
The Jewish belief is the New Year for all of humanity.
How about this one?
This will bug you.
Also believe that Yom Kippur, on the Day of Atonement, God judges everyone, Jew and non-Jew.
Everyone.
The Jewish belief is that God judges your behavior, not your beliefs.
So, if you're not a Jew, it's not relevant to your judgment.
How did you act?
How did you behave?
It's called ethical monotheism.
It is the fundamental belief, core belief of my life.
God wants us to be good and judges our behavior.
That's big stuff.
Life-changing stuff.
1-8 Prager 776. And let's see.
Klaus in Burbank, California.
Hello.
Hey, Dennis.
I just want to say that Queen's Don't Stop Me Now song is actually scientifically proven to make people happy.
Really?
Yeah.
That's fascinating.
I saw the movie.
Was it called Queen?
What was the name of the movie about Queen?
Bohemian Rhapsody.
Yeah, yeah.
Thank you.
You know, Sean knows a lot.
He hides it.
If you meet Sean for an hour, you don't realize how intelligent he is.
It takes about 12 years.
And then all of a sudden, he's bright.
And he does know a lot.
But that first impression, I've got to tell you, completely accurate, I hear it by earphone.
It's scientifically proven to make you happier.
I don't have a problem with that.
Listen, my belief about music, you get me started on religion and music, my friends, and you've got a happy conversant in your presence.
We continue on the Happiness Hour.
The Dennis Prager Show.
Tonight, I'm gonna have myself a real good time.
I feel alive.
And the world, I'm turning inside out.
I'm floating around in ecstasy, so don't stop me now.
Well, everybody, it's the Happiness Hour every Friday, second hour.
Good time, having a good time.
23rd year.
Never missed the Friday that I've broadcasted.
I've never deferred the Happiness Hour.
That's how important I consider it.
I'm doing this major series for the Daily Wire.
What did they call it?
Master something?
Master Course.
Master Course.
It's a very big undertaking they're making.
To their credit, we're very allied, PragerU and Daily Wire.
And they've chosen some people to give one hour course, a whole hour on one subject, in a series of those hours.
So, I'm actually doing my next one on happiness, on the moral obligation.
It has never been truer, my motto, that the happy make the world better and the unhappy make it worse than it is at this time.
Happiness and religion are related deeply.
As I ponder not being here Monday and Tuesday for the...
The Jewish New Year, what is called the Jewish New Year.
It's the world's new year that Jews celebrate.
That's the more precise thing.
I conduct my own service with music, and I can't urge you enough to either stream it or attend it.
Information is on my website.
But, of course, the theme of this hour is that you should try to become religiously active, even if you don't believe in the religion, or in God, even.
It's just a better way to live.
And eventually, done properly, I think you will start to believe.
It's the purpose of my Rational Bible series, to use reason to convince you.
Of all these massive issues.
When I think about the alternative, what is the alternative to believing in God slash religion?
To believe that this is all there is?
How could that not affect your happiness?
This is all there is?
Do you know how fast life goes by?
You probably don't, because you can't know it till you're older.
You can know it intellectually, but you don't know it viscerally.
When you're 25, you think, man, it's a long way to go till I'm at the brink of death.
And it's...
What is it that in the liturgy of the High Holy Days, life is called zel over, a passing shadow.
That's a very powerful phrase, isn't it?
Tell me this, if there is no God, And there is no afterlife, and there is no soul.
How are you different from a rock?
There's one way, and that is, you can think, you're self-conscious, that's true.
However, your existence is as coincidental as a rock, and your fate is identical to a rock.
On the contrary, the rock will be here a lot longer than you will.
The rock will outlive you by centuries, maybe millennia, unless it's converted to sand.
Hmm.
That's a recipe for a happy-go-lucky life, isn't it?
So, my opening question...
Let me broaden this.
In light of the fact that everything about a good religious life is a bad religious life, just like there's a bad anything life.
There's bad family life, but I'm pro-family.
Tell me what stops you from trying to be actively religious.
I'm curious.
Clap for the molar means hitting the head with a windmill.
It's a Dutch phrase.
Which we periodically use depending on Sean Connell's mood.
In fact, this entire show depends on his mood.
I'm sorry to say.
Ah, that was just a riff.
Enjoy the music.
Hey everybody, this is the hour you set the agenda, whatever's on your mind, especially if it is about classical music, audio equipment, photography especially if it is about classical music, audio equipment, photography equipment, cigars, and music.
or fountain pens.
It's very rare that I get it fluently.
Yes, among my many, many, many, many, many interests.
A major source of my joy in life are all these interests, I will tell you.
By the way, I need to remind you that if I let your phone call go, do not take it personally.
People are a bit too sensitive in the world today.
They're readily hurt.
I don't intend to hurt you, but not every subject is of equal interest or importance.
I mean, it's obvious.
It doesn't mean there's anything wrong with you or your subject.
Okay, I just want you to know that if I let you go.
I love you.
There we go.
How was that?
All right, let's take the call.
Paul in Columbus, Ohio.
It's hard to believe they have retained the name Columbus.
When you think about it, it could have been Indigenous People, Ohio.
Hello, Paul and Indigenous People.
Hi.
Hi, Dennis.
I have a quick question for you.
By the way, how are the commanders doing?
I kind of stopped watching baseball when they...
Or is it Guardians?
What are they called?
What is the Indian new name?
Oh, yeah, Guardians.
I'm sorry.
I blew that.
That was an original title, the Guardians.
Do people say that in Ohio now?
Do they actually say, oh, did you see the Guardian game?
The sports commentators do on the radio and TV. Oh, of course they do.
These guys are, there is no more woke group of sheep than sports writers.
But I hear a lot of fans, not many still call them the Indians, but they call them Cleveland.
Yeah, yeah, that makes sense, yeah.
Okay, what's on your mind?
Well, I've been listening for five years, and I thought of this question pretty much two weeks in.
And I wondered how close, if at all, you and your team were ever considering having a fourth specialized kind of specific topic weekly, such as the Ultimate Issues, Male, Female, and Happiness Hour.
Was there ever a fourth one that you guys were...
You don't know how eerie it is that you should be asking this, because I discussed this during the break with my producer.
It is fascinating.
And we were thinking, I was thinking, about having a fourth hour just devoted to religion.
And he had the correct rejoinder that...
There's nothing that prevents me from even devoting the whole next year of Ultimate Issues hours, let's say 2023, to religion.
So I have considered it.
They're all very, very popular hours.
People don't only want to talk about the news or what's happening at any given moment.
I don't talk about the news as much as what's happening.
So that is the answer.
Did you have something in mind for a fourth hour?
No, I actually was trying to come up with something, and religion was one of them.
Right.
But I couldn't come up with anything else.
What do you think of fountain pens?
I like them.
So an hour each week on fountain pens.
The fountain pen hour.
How about the fountain pen five minutes?
You're good.
You won accolades on the Dennis Pringer Show.
Everyone here agrees with you.
Wasn't that a great response?
How about the fountain pen five minutes?
I like you.
You're a live wire.
I like that.
I want to know everything about his life.
Is he married?
Is he happily married?
Do his kids share his values?
Oh my God, that is about as painful a question as you can pose to parents today.
Parents with kids over 15, even, let alone 20. Do your kids share your values?
The war between the parent and the school and the society and the social media?
It's astonishing that any parents can produce children who share their values.
God, if your child just doesn't believe in the preferred pronoun lunacy, lunacy, my friends.
Preferred pronouns.
It's even been adopted by liberal clergy.
That's scary.
The left-wing inroads into religion.
Alright, let's see here.
Yes, that's correct.
Yucaipa, California.
And John, hello.
You're breaking up there.
Yeah, what is today?
Telephone challenge day?
You sound like you're in another room.
Hang on a second.
How's that?
Is that better?
Yeah, you sound sort of like an astronaut, but we're fine.
I would love to be an astronaut, actually.
You would?
Yes, I would.
As a child, I used to love the space race, and I used to rent books from the library all about space and everything.
Yeah, I would love to be an astronaut.
Cool.
Anyway, I want to ask you, you say that there's helpers, and there's fighters, and there's people that do nothing, correct?
Correct.
I want to ask you if you can help the helpers a little bit more.
I feel like I'm a bit of a fighter.
I post articles.
I'm not afraid to share that, whether I get banned or not.
But earlier this week, you read it.
What happened?
He died out.
All right.
He's talking about the political prisoners and the mistreatment bordering on torture.
I've had...
What is the name of the wonderful man that I've had on?
John Mellis.
John Mellis, exactly.
I forgot the M. John Mellis is in prison for showing up on January 6th in the Capitol.
No bail has been allowed.
Had John Mellis...
Taken an axe and terrorized McDonald's customers while smashing the axe on everything in the McDonald's, as was just done, I think, a week ago in Manhattan.
The guy is now released.
The politicization of the Justice Department by the evil left.
The left is evil.
If you are what you do, the left is evil.
There's never been an exception.
Since Lenin to America today, not liberals.
Liberals are weak, but they're not evil.
Evil is the left.
What they're doing to people, the persecution of everyone, nearly everyone who has attended or participated, as peaceful as they may have been, the persecution of everyone who took...
Part in January 6th, which was not an insurrection.
You don't show up in an insurrection with, what was it?
What were the horns, the antlers?
Moose antlers?
Yeah, moose antlers.
That's an insurrection.
It's been solitary confinement.
He was there for 250 days for entering the Capitol to protest an election.
The FBI has been so screwed up by the left, been distorted, been rendered corrupt.
It is a very, very scary development, the use of courts, judges, and the FBI to persecute right-wingers.
I've had him on twice.
My wife, this week.
I've been at a trial of a January 6th.
I'm doing what I can.
I'm sure I could do more, but it's true about everything that I stand for.
I'm fighting so many monsters here, the hydra-headed monster of the left.
The perversion of childhood that is being done by the left in the name of non-binary sexuality.
The puzzle is why people still send their kids to these schools.
Okay, everybody, we continue.
The Dennis Prager Show.
All right, this is the hour of saying what's on your mind or asking what you would like to ask.
All right, Des Moines, Iowa, and James.
Hello, James.
Dennis Prager.
Hey, Dennis.
Great to talk to you.
My question is very simple.
I'm 57 years old, and I'm thinking about the future, and I'd like to ask you as someone now in your 70s, with the popularity of Prager University, you are impacting more people today in the winter of your life than you did in all your previous years.
Did you ever dream that something like this would happen?
It's a good question.
The answer is yes.
But I didn't assume it would happen.
So I'm taking the verb very seriously.
I dreamed this would happen in high school.
I'm a very odd character in many ways.
One of them is that I knew from such an early age what I wanted to do with my life.
I don't mean professionally.
I had no clue.
But I knew what I wanted to do.
And I wrote it in my diary.
I want to influence people to the good.
That is the purpose of my life.
I've always believed that I had a sort of cure for moral cancer.
I knew that the big challenge in my life would be getting the cure out there.
And between the radio and the books and the lectures and the columns, and now PragerU, I'm living what I intended to do, but I want you to know that I spend much more time thinking about how many people I didn't touch than how many I have.
Does that answer your question?
Yes, very insightful.
Thank you, Dennis.
I appreciate it.
Thank you for asking.
I truly leveled with you.
That is the answer I would tell my wife.
Well, she knows it, obviously, but...
I wish I could do many other things as well.
I don't mean hobbies.
I mean other projects.
You just...
You get one life, you get 24 hours in a day.
You have to sleep some of them.
I don't sleep many of them.
I think I'm blessed in that way, that I don't need a lot of sleep.
Yep, yep.
Pfff.
I'll tell you what I didn't expect.
I didn't expect America to go the way of a police state.
Which is what the left always institutes when they can.
And they're instituting it here.
It's not a conspiracy theory, it's a fact.
It has nothing to do with theory.
There's no theory involved.
Just what is being done to the people who entered the Capitol on January 6th, 2021, that alone is a police state.
The lockdowns were aspects of a police state.
Arresting a man, remember the man arrested on a beach in California?
A man alone on a beach in California was arrested for being alone on a beach in California?
It's always in the name of something, of course, the name of fighting an insurrection, in the name of health.
Of course, it's always in the name of something.
The number of people who have lost their jobs for saying that they dissent, that they actually believe America is a good place, not a systemically racist place, a thoroughly mendacious claim.
There are not many lies in history as big as the lie that America is systemically racist.
The only systemic racism is leftist.
They're the ones who believe in all black dormitories.
They're the ones who believe.
What is the latest?
You can't be colorblind.
You must be colored conscience.
Wow.
The rapidity with which the left has destroyed good values like colorblind.
Of course you should be colorblind.
Of course that's the ideal.
And by the way, if you're mixed, White parent, black parent, what am I supposed to see?
If I'm supposed to be race conscious, what am I supposed to see?
Or if you're a quarter black, what am I supposed to see?
Yes, indeed.
Okay.
Beaverton, Oregon.
Scott, hello.
Hi, Dennis.
I would just love for you to comment on your...
A debate yesterday with the Young Turks.
I listened to it and I found it.
I got infuriated at just how nasty they were to you.
And I just wondered if you could comment.
I listened to it on like the YouTube live feed and then got cut off after, you know, they want you to subscribe or whatever.
But I just found it infuriating and I thought you did a great job, but I wonder if you could comment.
Yeah, well, I'm debating how much to comment on it.
I'll think about it over the weekend.
I've claimed for years that the left doesn't debate.
There are people with small followings or no followings who say, oh, he doesn't debate because he's afraid of debating leftists, which is somewhat of a joke.
But this was a big deal.
The Young Turks have a big audience, so I said yes.
To their credit that they even had me.
I didn't expect particularly civil behavior toward me.
And it is what it is.
Let people watch the first half hour.
I thought...
I didn't think that she was...
Anna Kasparian was particularly rude.
I think she didn't let me speak much, but I'm not complaining.
They had me on.
That's a victory.
And then you watch it and you decide who made more sense.
We return, Dennis Prager Show.
The Dennis Prager Show.
Hi everybody, Dennis Prager.
Final hour of the week.
I won't be here Monday and Tuesday.
It's the Rosh Hashanah holiday.
Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.
Make up, or Yom Kippur, make up the Jewish High Holy Days.
And for the 15th year, I will be conducting services with a lot of explanation for people of every faith and no faith.
And major music.
It's a powerful experience.
It is being live streamed in 4K. Virtually the highest quality you can have.
There is 8K, but screens don't pick it up, so it's really the highest quality you can have.
If you want to give religion a try, this is a great example of it at its best.
You can live stream it, and you can attend it.
If there are still seats left, you can attend it Sunday night, Monday, and then on Yom Kippur.
It's a very powerful experience.
And it's all available at DennisPrager.com where it says Sighted on the Show and it's the first thing.
You just click on it and find out information on live streaming wherever you are in the world or attending if you're in Southern California or if you want to fly in.
Some people do.
It's very important to have these experiences in life.
I know it because I know the role that it plays in my life.
I spoke about this last hour on the Happiness Hour.
The significance of an actively religious life on one's happiness.
Alright, let's go to your calls here.
Omaha, Nebraska and Agnes, hello.
Hello, Agnes and Nobaha.
Yeah, it's Angus.
Hello, Dennis.
Wait a minute, Angus?
Uh-oh.
Uh-oh.
It's up to Sean whether we put this...
Okay.
You are going to learn to be more professional!
That's what you're going to do!
I hope you don't feel...
Yeah, yeah, that's right.
What's on your mind, Angus?
Great, great work you're doing.
I'm a recent follower, wisdom and clarity.
Two great things.
I'm always bringing all the people in.
But I'm calling because, you know, you do a lot of travel.
And you have watched the transition of the airlines.
I know you have.
I'm a pilot.
Just left American Airlines.
And over three years of flying.
And with the military also, been around the world.
And I've noticed it too.
And I'm working on a little project.
So my question to you is, what?
Do you see are the changes that need to happen?
And once I told you, there's actually a simple way to make that happen.
What changes need to happen to make the flying experience better?
Yeah, it should be like Disney.
You know, it's an expensive appointment.
You think about your shoes, your hat, your coat, your book.
You know, I could spend an hour on that.
It's actually not an insignificant subject.
And you will certainly, since you're flying 30 years, and of course you flew before that, and you certainly were a passenger before that.
When I was a kid, it was very special to go on an airplane.
And people dressed up accordingly.
Exactly.
Nobody went on a plane in shorts and sandals.
And now people...
There is no difference between a Greyhound bus ride and a cross-country flight.
And so it's not the answer you expected, but I know that society has declined in its overall impact because of the way people dress.
But the airplane experience is reflective of that.
I believe there needs to be more room in coach.
I don't fly coach.
I'm saying it on behalf of people in coach.
The less room people have, the more likely you will have aggression.
Every study shows when people are packed together or even when mice are, they become more violent.
And the packing of people, the sardine effect in coach is a problem.
The fact that it was so nice when people were served meals on planes, no matter what you paid, it was just a given that you got a meal.
And of course, I think airlines, when they say that a flight will leave at 11 a.m., one hopes that by 11.30 a.m., it has left the gate.
So I'll get your response when we come back.
Speaking to a pilot.
Back in a moment.
That's the hour you set the agenda.
This is our last show until next Wednesday.
Monday and Tuesday are Rosh Hashanah, or Rosh Hashanah, as it's often said.
Beginning the high holy days of the Jewish calendar.
These holidays, from the Jewish perspective, by the way, are universal.
It is not considered the Jewish New Year in Judaism.
It is considered the world's New Year.
Be that as it may, let's go back to Omaha and Angus, the pilot, asked me what I thought could help things in airports.
What's your suggestion?
Well, you've probably taken private jets, and I would say the contrast between those two things is a big deal.
Don't rub it in.
It's painful.
I don't like to think about it.
Yeah, and so I'm saying that can come back.
And the difference is that one, the private side, that small jet, is driven by you, and the other one is driven by the government and the airlines.
And I'm saying, like Uber, that's, I mean, aviation is just like Uber.
A transportation service that happens today.
Based on the internet.
That's where it is.
But the problem is the government's in the way.
But there is a way to get it back.
In other words, another way, you know, for example, if we did this thing, you could generate flights, your own flights, and have those airlines compete for you, meaning because you have so many followers.
So you could go, hey, I want to take a bunch of people from Prager out of L.A., and I want them to go to this event that you're talking about.
And now those jets come from you through American United Delta, One World Sky Team Star Alliance, who own 90% of the flight.
That can happen.
And right now, the previous administration was trying to modernize the system.
And he was looking for that solution.
And by the way, I know the solution.
I'd like to give more information maybe to Sean afterwards.
But the real solution is just like I mentioned earlier.
All right.
You know what?
Definitely send that to me.
I'm very curious.
The idea of ordering a plane like I order an Uber.
I'll tell you this.
You'd have me as a customer.
The thing that I find most difficult about my almost every week travel is I give a speech and then I have to stay in that city until the next day in the afternoon because there's no flight at night.
I don't know why there aren't night flights.
They're all filled.
People love flying at night because it doesn't waste time.
There are red eyes, but that's different.
You'd have to start tipping the pilot.
That's what troubles you.
That's what you think the flaw is.
The stuff I hear in my earphones is, I consider it a divine test of my character and patience.
I have to tip the pilot.
All right, he wants to speak to you, Sean, so that you'll pick up.
Can you do that?
Line one for a moment?
You know what, I'll just, Angus, I'll just ask you to send me the information.
Oh, because I've got to clear that line, because a lot of people call in on this hour.
Palmyra, Indiana.
Tim, hello.
Hey, just trying to keep this really brief for you, but I told your screener about it.
It's an idea that I had, since you were talking about ideas today, it seems like a lot.
The idea is that conservatives like Daily Wire or something, since they're making videos, movies, actually, Could make a TV program in which they'd be able to have a time-traveling leftist who determines to go back in time and show people that he wants to correct history and make it all right.
But he goes back and discovers that the people that he's trying to fix, the cultures, actually were worse than what he imagined.
He has this very rosy look at it like Native American or something.
He tries to correct it and only ends up being corrected himself by those cultures.
I don't know, you want me to give an example?
No, I'm not quite clear.
What would you like me to do in light of this?
Oh, well, I mean...
I thought you called...
According to what the screener said, you would like a conservative show be how leftism does not work.
Would you like that on this show?
Would you like that on television?
I don't quite follow.
Let me just say this.
We have it on this show.
There is virtually no day that I do not show you that another arena of life has been destroyed or ruined by the left.
Medicine and science is one of them.
The schools are another.
I live in...
Greater puzzlement, though, about people's reactions.
What they're doing, the children in schools, should be the number one agenda in American life, since there's nothing as precious as one's child to a human being.
So why is there not a massive withdrawal from schools?
Into either decent schools or homeschooling.
Or religious schools, if they're decent.
A lot of religious schools are just as woke as public schools.
The moment they start with preferred pronouns, you should take your child out.
You know that unhealthy human beings, truly, deeply unhealthy, sheep.
Are indoctrinating, not teaching your children.
And yet people continue there.
We have two lines open, which is rare.
1-8 Prager 776. Redondo Beach in Warren, California.
Hello.
Hi, Mr. Prager.
I'm a very fanatic fan of yours, but I need to ask for your forgiveness as the High Holidays approached.
Back in April of 2020...
You wrote an email back to me saying that you think my doing Seder is self-serving tells me what kind of person you are.
Wait, I'm sorry.
It was not clear to me that my doing is Seder?
I don't quite understand.
I suggested that you were using time during this hour.
This particular, you know, for callers to call in, you were using this hour to talk about the Seder that you were going to hold.
Oh, you mean because people were not having guests because of the lockdown?
That's what I did.
In 2020, I conducted a Passover Seder.
I think a quarter of a million people watched.
Very good.
Yeah, no, no, no, I'm not singing it for that, but yes, that's what...
I still don't know what you said that you need forgiveness for.
Final segment of the week. - Let me summarize some of your calls.
I still don't know what that man needs forgiveness for.
Okay, anyway.
Let me summarize.
Don't hang up, don't hang up, don't hang up, because if you do, I don't know what you wanted to say.
You control whether I see your thoughts.
Alright, let's see here.
Cleveland, Ohio, Mark.
Thank you.
You have taught him how to be more forgiving with his son who was an addict.
I'd love to take that call if we had the time.
I love when I play a positive role in a person's life.
It's about as good a feeling as you can have in life.
And by the way, it is available to everybody.
You don't need a radio show to do that.
The only difference is the radio show touches more lives.
It's a quantitative difference, not a qualitative difference.
Okay, let's see here.
I don't quite understand the Brenda Cole, but it sounds interesting.
Minneapolis, Caleb, do you think schools don't teach about finances on purpose?
So students can be dependent on big government.
They don't teach anything, basically.
Do you know that California will not release its...
Assessments of what students have learned until after the elections.
It's so corrupt.
Anything the left runs is corrupt.
And that's just another example.
What do they teach?
Tell me, what do they teach kids in school now?
Preferred pronouns?
Systemic racism?
Okay?
Just to give examples.
Any music?
Any art?
Any history?
We graduate people who are ignorant, including ignorant of economics, which is a tragedy, because they don't understand basic issues.
Yes, and then they do become dependent on the government.
That's correct.
Dallas Anna would have loved to have taken you.
She had a hard life and found God in the middle of it.
It was about the man last hour who said that he would attend the church, but he hates God.
Because of his brother's suffering.
My friends, this is the last announcement that I can make preceding the great services that I conduct.
Whatever your religion, I know for a fact it will touch your life.
My High Holy Day service, Sunday night and Monday, coming up.
Go to DennisPrager.com.
You can attend if you're in Southern California or want to fly here.
Or you could stream it.
In 4K. And be very moved.
It's great music, and I explain everything.
It's at DennisPrager.com, cited on the show, in the middle of the page.
God bless you, and I'll see you Wednesday.
Dennis Prager here.
Thanks for listening to the Daily Dennis Prager Podcast.
To hear the entire three hours of my radio show, commercial-free, every single day, You'll also get access to 15 years' worth of archives, as well as the daily show prep.
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