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March 14, 2023 - Dennis Prager Show
01:19:43
Steel City
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Dennis Prager here.
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Hi, everybody.
Hello from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Wonderful turnout last night, as we had in Philadelphia.
For those of you who don't know Pennsylvania geographically, Philadelphia is in the Far East, and Pennsylvania is in the Far West of the state, very close to Ohio.
And, of course, Philadelphia is very close to New Jersey.
And you have a different world.
It is truly, like every other state, or, well, not every other state.
I don't know if there are two North Dakotas, although there might be.
Maybe there's Fargo and the rest of the state.
But anyway, like most states, there are two states in Pennsylvania, the Philadelphia state and the Pittsburgh state.
I might add that on a personal level, I put Pittsburgh.
It's not my first time here, but these are all obviously brief stays that have formed my opinion.
But I have been to so many places so many times that I think I do get a sense of a place.
I really like Pittsburgh.
Pittsburgh is up there in quality cities.
Like I felt often, for example, about Tampa.
I have really enjoyed interacting with people here in Pittsburgh.
It's a beautiful combination of big city and small town attributes.
I was at a cigar bar last night after the event.
At Cigar Bar, Cigar Lounge, big one, really actually beautiful and wonderful.
And I would say the guy who managed it was about 35 years old.
And it was very interesting to observe how honest he was.
I'm a big fan, as you know, of cigars, and I'm also a big fan of lighters.
It's not impressive, and it's not depressing.
I get a lot of fun from a lot of things.
I'm very lucky.
Anyway, so I saw some lighters that I had never seen, and I was going to buy one.
And his willingness, his eagerness to say, you know, I'll tell you the truth, I really prefer this one, which is cheaper.
I mean, how often do people do that?
It was lovely interaction.
Every interaction I've had here in Pittsburgh has been very pleasant.
I tell you, if you take New York City out of New York State, Philadelphia out of Pennsylvania, Chicago out of Illinois, etc., etc.
It's a tougher question in California.
You'd have to take Los Angeles, San Diego, San Francisco, Oakland.
You'd have to take a lot of cities out of California to restore a sense of propriety, decency, kindness, goodness.
Etc.
You just would!
But in other states, it's these big, the gigantic city that calls the shots, generally speaking, and those shots are utterly and completely destructive.
Completely.
Only bad ideas have come from big cities in this country.
In the last 50 years, anyway.
I don't know about the past.
I know about the American past, but I don't know if that rule would apply as much.
The big city is an extremely difficult moral problem.
The anonymity of people enables them to act meaner toward their fellow citizens, and bad ideas come from that world.
They usually have at least one major university, which is always a source of Well, anyway, I'm enjoying myself here in Pittsburgh, and I move on.
I will be taking a mini, mini, mini vacation of three days next week, traveling after visiting my son in Pennsylvania.
I have a son in Pennsylvania and a son in Florida.
And then my wife and I will be driving.
Through the autumn leaves to a speech in Vermont.
That's a very pleasant next five days, God willing, in line for me.
On Saturday night, we will both be in Chicago.
So here's something that you'll find of interest about my personal life.
We have a little project, my wife and I. There are two symphonies that we both are crazy about that are well known to classical music lovers, but not well known at all, not even known at all, to non-classical music lovers.
There was a late 19th century Austrian composer named Anton Bruckner.
Bruckner wrote nine symphonies.
Actually, he wrote more.
He wrote, believe it or not, a symphony zero.
He was a little idiosyncratic.
He wanted to write nine symphonies because Beethoven wrote nine symphonies.
He so wanted to emulate Beethoven that he even composed his ninth symphony in the same key, D minor, that Beethoven composed his ninth symphony.
He was a deeply religious Catholic.
His religiosity, I feel, does come through in his music.
We visited his church and his tomb in Linz, Austria, a few years ago.
And two weeks before the lockdowns, we flew to Cleveland.
America has, I don't know if it'll continue, to have some of the greatest orchestras in the world.
Now that places like the New York Philharmonic are stopping blind auditions, they are now having affirmative action in New York.
They will no longer have a curtain blocking visual access of the person trying to join the New York Philharmonic.
End racism and sexism.
And now the left is tearing it down so that you can, in fact, judge a person not by the quality of their musicianship, but by the race or gender of the person.
And that's called progressive.
It's in line with men give birth.
The left is built on lies.
It's built on a completely distorted view of the world.
I will give you an example in a moment.
But we flew to Cleveland two weeks before lockdown, made it just in time to hear Bruckner's fifth, and now we're going to hear the greatest symphony orchestra, arguably, some say the Chicago Symphony, if that hasn't deteriorated yet, playing his eighth on Saturday night.
So I have pleasant, the whole thing was pleasant.
I loved being with my colleagues, by the way, on the road.
I mentioned it to somebody who was accompanying us, the lack of egos, or unhealthy egos, I should say, among all of us in the Salem family, conservative talk show hosts.
We all revel in the others' success.
It's really something quite remarkable given, you know, the fame that accompanies doing this work or the success, etc.
But there are no prima donnas.
It's a joy to be with my colleagues.
We rib each other, we compliment each other.
My biggest compliment to me was Seb Gorka, who's a brilliant mind.
Takes notes while I speak.
I'm very touched by it.
I am.
I'm really touched.
Last night, there was an 11-year-old girl who sat at my table at the Pittsburgh event for my wonderful station here, The Answer in Pittsburgh.
So people sort of bid on...
The table that they would sit at.
So the people who sat at my table paid a premium.
They sat with me.
But there was an 11-year-old girl whose parents knew she really loved PragerU and me.
And so she was at the table, and I called her up to speak.
And I'll tell you about it when we return.
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So anyway, on the good news side, and I have reveled in positive feedback.
I deal with really horrible things every day.
The attempt to destroy this country by the left is the greatest attempt to destroy this country since the Civil War.
They loathe what we stand for.
In God we trust, e pluribus unum, and liberty.
The three values that are on every coin, the left despises all of them.
These are really lost bad souls, my friend.
Liberals do not share the left's values, but they vote for them.
That is the tragedy of modern America, that liberals enable the left.
If that didn't happen, if liberals voted their values, there would be no Democrats in office.
That's the way it works, whether it's here in Pennsylvania or anywhere else.
Liberals have bought the lie that their enemy is the right, the enemy of liberalism.
Is the left.
So anyway, a great little example of the positive world that I get in terms of reinforcement.
Last night, about 500 of you here in Pittsburgh, really terrific full house.
And as I said, people paid extra to have their dinner.
Seated next to me.
I don't get the money, by the way, just in case you're curious.
I did this entire tour for no money.
And that is perfectly fine with me, I might add, because I am very deeply committed to the cause and indeed my employer, Salem Radio, which does so much good work.
Anyway, at my table was an 11-year-old girl.
The parents bought the seat.
She sat next to an aunt, or aunt, depending on how you pronounce a-u-n-t, and she was utterly adorable.
Just precious.
So, I got an idea during the panel discussion.
I was with three of my colleagues, Hugh Hewitt, Mike Gallagher, and...
Officer Brandon Tatum.
Three wonderful men.
Seb Gorka had to return home, so he was not here for the Pittsburgh event.
And another wonderful man.
So I got this idea because every time I speak, the question is raised, what do we do about the The ruination of schools that the left is engaged in.
I mean, simply ruining schools in every possible way, morally, educationally, intellectually, psychologically.
And I advocate people get their kids the hell out of these schools.
You're putting your kids...
The fabric of their life in danger by keeping them in most schools in this country, and not just public schools, many private schools as well.
This girl, in fact, interestingly, this girl attended a Jewish school, so-called Jewish school, which was as woke as any public school.
Yep, absolutely.
And woke and Judaism have nothing to do with one another.
There was nothing Jewish about the school except that the kids attended were Jewish, as indeed many Christian schools likewise.
Anyway, the parents took the girl out.
She was at my table.
And I called her up on stage because I said, folks, many of you or some of you are grandparents.
You can have a real influence on your grandchildren.
Maybe your children went woke, tragically, and my heart breaks for you if they did.
But you can still influence your grandchildren.
So I called the 11-year-old girl up.
She had no idea I would.
I had no idea I would.
I called her up, and she came up.
And we have to get a hold of the video if it was videoed.
So, Alan, back in L.A., you should contact Salem and ask if the Pittsburgh event was videoed and just have, for PragerU's sake, and to publicize this girl's statement about how PragerU videos help her understand the world.
And form her values.
It was really beautiful.
The place went crazy.
And the place just erupted.
Because when an 11-year-old girl speaks eloquently and radiates health and happiness, which never happens from left-wing kids, they radiate anger and ingratitude.
Because those are...
Big, big parts of leftism, anger and ingratitude.
It's all based on ingratitude.
The whole leftist world is ingrates.
Among the lower forms of the human species, you're a bunch of ingrates, leftists, and you know it.
That's why you hate when I say it.
Because you know it's true.
For what are you grateful?
Grateful for America?
The opportunities that you have been given here?
The decency of this country and of most of your fellow Americans?
You're a bloody ingrate.
I don't know how people become ingrates.
I think it must take an effort.
Because to some extent, well, maybe gratitude is not built into the human condition.
I guess that's the answer.
Why do parents tell their kids to say thank you all the time?
Anyway, we're going to put it up.
I have a...
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Hello everybody, Dennis Prager here in Pittsburgh, a city I really have come to adore.
You know, you don't hear anything bad coming from Pittsburgh.
Isn't that interesting?
I was commenting on this to my wife, talking about my sojourn here.
So much...
Awful, disgusting news out of Philadelphia and nothing like that out of Pittsburgh.
Well, I assume it's a more conservative city and region of Pennsylvania.
The crime rate in Philadelphia.
I commented, by the way, I hope it got back to...
1,200 people in Philadelphia two nights ago, and I commented on the left that runs the Philadelphia Orchestra, one of the five great orchestras.
We have many great orchestras in America, but it's traditionally believed that there is a top five.
I don't know how accurate it is anymore, but they've always been great.
Chicago, Cleveland, Philadelphia, New York.
Philadelphia Orchestra is being destroyed gradually by the left which runs it.
The most interesting part of the music world, and I know it well because I'm so involved in it, I have friends in many orchestras and I periodically conduct orchestras.
I'm very involved in music.
I follow it quite avidly.
The management of the Philadelphia Orchestra have contempt for great music.
You would think that the people who most would guard classical music would be the people who run the great orchestras of the country, but they have no interest in guarding classical music.
They have interest in keeping their jobs, and you do that by staying woke.
Cowards run almost everything in America.
Universities.
Medical associations, you name it.
Cowardice is the human norm.
People are not born courageous, so this is not shocking.
So listen to this.
University of Wyoming sorority girl speaks out on transgender pledge.
He's just calling himself a girl.
On Monday, September 19th, but this just came out, A Google form landed in the email inboxes of students belonging to the Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority at the University of Wyoming in Laramie.
By the way, my speech at the University of Wyoming on how socialism makes you selfish is up on the internet.
It's a really good speech.
Every one of your college-age relatives should see it.
It's a good antidote to the poison that they're getting at the university, the moral and intellectual rot.
The members were asked to vote on the admission of two prospective pledges.
Among them was male student Artemis Langford, who identifies as a woman.
Earlier that day, KKG, that's the sorority, Kappa Kappa Gamma, held a meeting to discuss Lankford's candidacy.
Chapter leaders, including the president and membership chair, dismissed the concerns, again, the president and the membership chair, the leadership.
The rot in America comes from leadership, not from the rank-and-file American.
Dismiss the concerns of members who felt deeply uncomfortable with a male being accepted into their sisterhood, a KKG woman tells National Review.
The senior women effectively pressured them to usher in Lankford, she said.
Quote, regardless of what your political views are, our Kappa values, I want to analyze this statement from the leaders.
Regardless of what your political views are, our Kappa values are acceptance and kindness.
So if that is something that you disagree with, that's not in line with Kappa values.
One member allegedly said at the meeting, according to the KKG source.
First of all, to dismiss this as political views?
This is a political view that a guy doesn't belong in a sorority?
A guy who looks like a guy, by the way, as we will see further on in the article.
Really?
That's a political?
Isn't that interesting?
What does that have to do with politics?
How about just common sense?
Just decency?
Just honoring the fact that it is a sorority for girls?
If you're a guy who identifies as a girl, You are not a girl.
You identify as a girl.
And I always said, and some people on the right don't agree with me, if you look like a girl, have a girl's name, talk like a girl, and there's no way that I could know looking at you that you were born male, that you're biologically male, okay, then I'll call you Ann.
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AmericanFederal.com It's the happy, happy, happy, happy hour. *laughs* happy hour. *laughs* Hey, the happy make the world better and the unhappy make it worse.
It's a moral obligation to act happy even if you don't feel it.
Because you can inflict your bad mood on others.
It's the happy, happy, happy, happy app.
Happiness is a moral virtue.
Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
The founders of this country who had more wisdom than all of the faculties of all our universities put together and multiplied by any number you wish.
Yep, that's a fact.
Great, wise men founded this country.
Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
That's right.
We pursue what is good.
It doesn't come naturally.
You pursue gratitude, you pursue happiness, you pursue God.
People think it just flops on you, faith.
Yes, maybe the faith in a celestial butler does, but not in the God of the Bible.
Who makes moral demands on us?
But that's another subject for another time.
I'm Dennis Prager.
This is the Happiness Hour.
I rarely mention my happiness book, but if you find the Happiness Hour helpful, I am puzzled as to why you wouldn't get my book on happiness.
The number of people whose lives have been improved through that book is very large.
People come over to me at every speech with a very tattered copy, well read, for me to sign.
Happiness is a serious problem, is the name.
You should read it.
Well, I have a very wonderful topic for today's Happiness Hour, and it is based on a statement made by the man who conducted the logistics of this very complex operation of going city to city.
A number of us at the Salem Radio Network.
I went from, I started in Orlando with the group, went to Atlanta, went to Philadelphia, went to Pittsburgh.
I'm now broadcasting from Pittsburgh.
Others started, let's see, where did they start?
I forgot where they started.
They were somewhere, oh yeah, Tampa.
They started in Tampa.
And they're going on to Columbus, and I believe Cleveland.
And Phoenix.
You know how much logistics there is involved in all of that?
It's mind-numbing.
To coordinate every single one of us when we broadcast, getting the broadcasting done.
By the way, Eric Hansen gets a shout-out.
The guy is amazing.
Sean acknowledges that Eric is amazing.
That's right.
And he did the logistics with regard to the broadcasting.
But above all of that was Dan Nelson.
He doesn't even know this, but I'm using a comment that he made on one of the buses.
He made a comment on one of the buses.
Going from the airport to the hotel.
And of course, rooms for every one of us.
And food at every locale.
It was really a major challenge.
And it went off perfectly.
Not well.
Perfectly.
Out of nowhere, on one of the buses or vans taking us from...
One of the airports to one of the hotels.
He mentioned, you know, it's...
I'm paraphrasing something to the effect.
You know, I guess it's strange.
Most people don't love this, but I love logistics.
And I said, thank you.
You just gave me a happiness hour topic.
And topics are gold to me.
So Dan Nelson loves logistics.
Let me say this.
If it were up to me to coordinate what he had to coordinate, nothing would have gone right.
What I would have done is hired somebody to do it and given all the money that I was paid to somebody else.
It's not my love.
And I have a theory.
Many of you will have thought this through as well.
I don't claim that this is original in any way, shape, or form, but it is important.
Either God or nature has done something remarkable, and that is given loves and abilities in a very varied way to the human race.
One person's ability or one person's love or passion is not another person's.
And that's very important to know.
Because when one looks to one's work, one should do what one is A, good at, and B, what one loves.
There's an interesting question which I haven't resolved yet.
What if you are good at something you don't love?
And I don't know if that actually happens much.
I would be very interested to know if you've had that conflict where you are very, very, in other words, above average capable in a certain arena.
And don't have any interest in pursuing it.
Generally speaking, what we love and what we're good at are the same.
And that's true for my man Dan and logistics.
And his love and ability in that arena, which is not unique to him, but...
It's not one that most people have.
And he acknowledged it.
He said, people think it's a little odd.
How much I love logistics.
And it showed in the job that he did.
My father was a great example of this.
My father wanted to be a medical doctor.
That was his passion.
However, his family was quite poor.
And there was no chance that they could afford medical school.
So there was no chance that he would go to medical school, and he didn't.
And he chose another career.
He chose accounting.
And he ended up loving accounting.
I never quite established, though, did he love it when he entered it.
Well, he's not here for me to ask him that question.
I do know that he loved it.
He regarded accounting, which I would prefer logistics to accounting, to be honest.
When I see rows of numbers, a certain very deep insomnia overtakes me.
I never have trouble falling asleep, but if I did, I think an accounting spreadsheet would solve the problem.
To my father, however, accounting was one of the great challenges.
He was sort of like a pro athlete where the sport was a challenge.
A pitcher in baseball.
Can I get these guys out?
Right?
That's the challenge.
The batter, can I hit this pitcher?
That's a way of saying, can I hit them?
The balls that the pitcher pitches, not actually hitting the pitcher, just for those of you who know nothing about baseball.
He found it a challenge.
How can I save my client money legally?
My father believed that you had to pay your taxes, but he also believed that you shouldn't pay a penny more than you are legally bound to pay.
So he regarded every client as this great challenge.
And he felt that he was a sort of detective.
How can I work this thing through?
He loved it for another reason.
People opened up to him about their problems, family, marital, and others.
Because once people know your finances, Then people just open up.
Passion, love for, you've got to find out.
Everyone has.
Everyone has something.
This is the Happiness Hour.
Take your calls.
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Mmm.
Hi, everybody.
Dennis Prager.
Happiness Hour.
And the subject is a big one, and I have chosen it because of a man named Dan Nelson, who works for Salem Network, and I've been traveling with him and my colleagues all week.
They are now on their way to Columbus.
My week has ended, as it were, with the travel.
I was in Orlando, Atlanta, Philadelphia, and Pittsburgh.
This man has coordinated every minute of this perfectly and said on one of the vans that he loves logistics.
And that gave me my topic.
The world is...
Composed of the most variegated abilities and loves.
And thank God it is.
Can you imagine, what if everybody had the same ability to do something?
Let's say be a talk show host.
Everybody had identical ability to be a talk show host and an identical love of doing it.
The world...
What would you do?
Would you just flip coins?
I guess so.
All right.
You'll be a talk show host.
You'll be a baseball player, even though everybody is equally talented and loves baseball just as much.
Can you imagine what a world that would be?
The division of the world by talent and passion is so variegated, it almost seems divine.
And maybe it is.
I'm not, I don't know.
It's very hard to explain, actually, on purely natural grounds, how it's worked out that some people have such a love and a passion for X and others for Y and others for Z and others for A and B and C and D and E and E, F, G and so on.
I don't have the ability.
Or the passion to be a doctor?
I don't.
My brother does.
He did from elementary school.
He knew he wanted to be a quote-unquote scientist, which was his basic word for basically a doctor.
He knew it.
He loved it.
He wanted it.
He excelled at it.
He's a professor of medicine at this time.
I didn't have that.
I couldn't do it.
I don't have the passion.
I couldn't memorize the names of the body parts alone, let alone have successfully navigated organic chemistry.
If I had to graduate having passed a course in organic chemistry, I never would have graduated.
But I had talents in other arenas.
I love, I have a passion for, and ability for languages.
I love them.
I pick them up relatively quickly.
I understand grammar and its concept really well.
How many people love grammar?
I would say more people maybe love logistics than love grammar.
I love grammar.
Isn't it?
It's a wonderful thing.
It's actually something to be celebrated.
It makes the world function because if we all had the same passions and abilities, the world would collapse.
All the necessary work that would be needed would not be fulfilled because people didn't have the passion or ability in those arenas.
But I still don't have an answer, and I'm not saying you can supply it, but I don't have an answer to my riddle of, is it possible to be superb at something and not love it?
Or do they go hand in hand?
I think most of the time they go hand in hand.
No, I don't think.
I am certain.
That most of the time, they go hand in hand.
Venice, Florida!
And Lisa, hello Lisa.
One minute, I don't have control of the keyboard, Sean.
And that is a problem.
So, are you there, my friend?
I am.
Can you hear me, Dennis?
I can hear you now, great.
Oh, hi!
It's such an honor to speak to you.
Thank you.
I called to tell you that I love what I do.
It's kind of unusual.
I grew up in a very rural, very poor area.
And I loved plants and trees.
And I didn't know that you could do that for a living.
And I'm a horticulturalist and an arborist.
And I won't remember your name tomorrow, but I'll remember every plant in your yard.
And I can give you the botanical name and the common name and the other common name.
It's completely normal and natural to me, and it just comes right off the top of my head, and I've excelled in it, and I love it, and it's what I do every day.
Lisa, this is as close to a perfect call as I could receive.
I just want you to know that.
Well, I've never called because I thought I have to get through.
Yes, you were right.
You had to get through.
That is perfect.
Because as you were saying, I would remember every tree in your yard, and not even necessarily your name, and I would know the, what was it, the Latin name?
What was it you referred to?
I would know all the botanical names.
Yeah, the botanical name.
Yeah.
Right, so that's the Latin name.
I mean, I am listening to you and reveling in your love of it and ability.
And were a gun at my head, I could not do your job.
I would be shocked.
It's fantastic, and I absolutely, it's the only thing that I feel like that comes completely naturally that I absolutely love and that I truly excel at.
I mean, I'm not, you know, I don't think of myself as...
This being that great in other things.
But this, I honestly feel like...
Well, no, no.
You don't have to be in great other things.
You have to be great in what you do.
By the way, out of curiosity, are you married?
I am.
I love it.
So, I'm going to put you on the spot.
Do you love your husband or trees?
Oh, goodness.
Between trees and my husband.
I'm going to go with my husband because he makes me happier.
Lisa, you are so healthy that it's painful.
I have a wonderful family.
Yes, you do.
All right.
Back in a moment.
And club for the moment.
That's right.
En klop van de molen.
En klop van de molen.
All right.
Three is too much.
That means hitting the head by a windmill.
It's in Dutch.
Famous phrase in Holland, but not outside of Holland.
Hi, everybody.
This is the Aries of the Agenda.
Whatever's on your mind about you, about me, about life, about death.
About fountain pens, classical music, audio equipment, photography equipment, and cigars.
Enjoy the music.
Talking about cigars.
I had a great time last night at a cigar lounge, cigar bar in Pittsburgh.
The young guy managing the place, I really liked him.
And a bunch of young guys were there.
It was packed, the place was packed, but some of the young guys knew who I was, proposed for selfies.
It's a beautiful alternate universe, the cigar world.
Strangers bond immediately.
It's really a nice world.
Okay, all, this is it.
Whatever's on your mind, I won't even begin with anything.
I will just go straight to your thoughts here.
All right, Peter, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Hi, Peter.
Earlier in the week, you asked us to ask our liberal friends why Putin did not invade Ukraine when Trump was president.
So I did that.
And did, wait, wait, wait, forgive me, forgive me.
And did when Obama was and when Biden is.
Right.
So these are the three answers I got for you.
One, Putin's army was busy raping Syria.
I'm sorry, Putin's army was busy raping Syria, so he couldn't invade Ukraine because his army was busy.
Two, Trump kept threatening to leave NATO, which meant that he could get the Baltic nations also.
And three, Trump was very friendly with Putin.
In Helsinki, he agreed with him over his own intelligence agencies, and he took all our soldiers out of Syria and Putin invaded.
So those are your answers.
Okay, listen, you did a national service, my friend.
Thank you.
They're so...
It's depressing.
It's not even a matter of they're wrong and absurd and made up and nonsense.
I mean, they don't make any sense.
He was too busy in Syria?
Oh, my God.
God.
He's been busy in Syria for as long as he has been in office in Russia.
This is, by the way, nonsense about Trump threatening to blow up NATO. What he did was he demanded that they spend what the NATO Constitution demanded.
They spend a percentage of their GDP on defense.
In that sense, he wanted to make NATO stronger.
And he was friendly with Putin.
Well, I'll tell you this.
If being friendly with Putin stopped the invasion of Ukraine, Then let him be friendly with Putin.
God, the small minds who come up with this stuff.
There was even another one.
Oh yes, he sided with Putin over his own intelligence agencies.
Our intelligence agencies are utterly and totally corrupt.
Is that not clear to every one of you?
Fifty-one heads of intelligence agencies signed a statement that the whole Hunter Biden notebook story was Russian disinformation.
They did it a month before the elections of 2020. They're corrupt, my friends.
It is the saddest thing for me to tell you.
These are people I actually applied in graduate school to the CIA. I so admired it.
I didn't pursue it, but I just want you to understand that.
I'm sure there's some record about my applying to the CIA. The FBI was like a model to me.
They're corrupt.
They're corrupt.
Get it?
They stink, the heads of these agencies.
They stink.
They're corrupt.
They're little men in big positions.
Every single one of you knows that, even if you're a liberal.
Leftists deny it because they love this corruption.
Everyone knows they're phonies.
They're corrupt.
They're leftists in high positions.
So this argument, oh, he sided with Putin over his own intelligence agencies.
My God.
Stupid argument.
They've lost their credibility.
Our everything.
Our universities.
Our medical groups like the AMA. The children's hospitals.
Do you understand?
The utter and total destructiveness of the left.
Utter and total.
All they know how to do is destroy.
They build nothing except their own power.
They build nothing.
Okay.
That answers that.
Ardmore, Pennsylvania.
Maggie.
Hello, Maggie.
Hello, Dennis.
How are you today?
Where's Ardmore?
Oh, you there, Dennis?
Yeah.
Where's Ardmore?
Okay.
Sorry about that.
I was at the Fuge the other night.
Oh, so you're in the Philadelphia area, because I'm in Pittsburgh, so I didn't know if you saw me in Pittsburgh or Philly.
Okay, go ahead.
Wonderful.
Nope, I saw you at the Fuge, and I've got to tell you, well, first of all, I have to preface this by saying, by reminding you, as I've told you before, you're my rabbi as a Christian and my mentor.
And the intellectual love of my life.
So I was so excited to be at the Fuge with all of you Wednesday night.
But I have to tell you, I saw that the show was coming, and I literally waited like an idiot.
And a week later, it was sold out, and I was so upset.
I was devastated.
And I got on 990's website right away and entered to win the tickets.
And the lady from 990 literally called me the morning before and said, you won two tickets.
And I said, oh my gosh, I can't believe it.
I never miss Dennis when he's in Pennsylvania.
And I was so devastated that I was going to miss you.
But thank you.
You lifted my spirits and raised, I don't know, you just made me feel so good.
Thank you for telling me that.
That's beautiful.
Thank you.
The human nature, I have it as much as any one of you, is to procrastinate until it's too late.
But she got bailed out by luck.
I absolutely suffer from this issue.
I get things done, but since I was a kid, often at the last minute.
And it's a perfect example of something you intellectually know and then you realize you have to fight your nature with regard to it.
I rent a car everywhere I go because rental car is my Statue of Liberty.
I don't like to be driven.
I like to go where I want to go when I want to go.
The car is a liberty symbol, which is why the left hates cars.
I mean that literally.
The left hates the fact that you can go anywhere you want, whenever you want.
They want you in buses and trains so that they take you when they want.
And I don't get my rental car quick enough to...
The rental companies, as typical of big businesses these days, Screwed up.
And during the lockdowns, they sold so many cars that in city after city, you can't rent a car if you try even within a week.
There was literally, not Avis, not National, not Hertz, a single car two days ago in Pittsburgh.
I got one finally the next day, but it's just an example.
They sold so many.
Why did they think it hurts Avis and National and all the others?
Why did they think?
The lockdowns were going to last forever?
You know how much business they're losing because they don't have enough cars to rent?
Is it possible to run a company and be farsighted?
And I don't mean this as acute attack.
I am curious.
Maybe you can't.
Maybe the only thing that matters in a publicly held company is the profit that quarter.
Back in a moment.
Back to what is on your mind this hour.
All right.
Let's go to Jennifer in Malvern, Pennsylvania.
This is Pennsylvania Day on the Dennis Prager Show.
Hi.
Hi, Mr. Prager.
It was great to see you the other night at the Fuge.
I took my daughter.
You signed our book.
Oh, good.
And it was wonderful.
Thank you so much.
You know, we're in the middle of this...
My pleasure, as always.
We're in the middle of this crazy Satterman-Shapiro, you know, crazy debacle.
My question sounds ridiculous because I know we talk about it all the time, but...
What is the endgame for these cities that are on fire?
I mean, I know it's about control and power and putting all of that in the hands of a few, but no one's going to be left in these cities.
It doesn't matter.
You don't understand the amorality of the left because you're not amoral.
They don't care.
I truly believe this.
Of course, if you ask them, do you care about how much violence there is in Philadelphia?
They'll say, oh, it's terrible.
But they don't care because you judge people by what they do, not what they say.
In terms of action, they don't care.
In fact, in terms of action, they actually care about increasing it.
These are terrible people.
Often, people who think they're wonderful.
That's very common among people who do damage to the world, that they think they're wonderful people.
Most people think they are.
Their endgame is exactly what you described.
They have power.
That is it.
They love power like you love your family.
Yes.
It's hard to imagine because I don't love power and you don't love power.
So it's very hard to understand the left.
How do you destroy cities and smile and sleep well?
How do you do it?
There's something sick about your conscience to the extent that they have a functioning one, and they don't.
It's non-functioning because they have massaged it with lies.
It's very, very hard to understand these people.
That's right.
You really want to release people?
Who have just hurt people deliberately?
You want to release them because you think that there's a disproportionate number of blacks in prison?
Well, there's a disproportionate number of blacks in prison because a disproportionate number of blacks commit violent crimes.
That's the reason.
So either you're lying or I'm lying.
I love clarity, folks.
Get it clear.
Either the left is lying or I am.
Okay?
Either they're in prison at a disproportionate rate because the country is racist or because they commit disproportionate amount of crimes.
Okay?
So I'm lying to you if it's the first and they're lying to you if it's the second.
We both cannot be telling the truth.
One of us is lying, either the left or me.
Okay?
Except I got 40 years of honesty behind me.
They have 40 years of lying behind them.
The left has never told the truth.
Liberals often do.
Conservatives often do.
Leftists never do.
Truth is not a left-wing value.
Very hard to understand people who do bad.
It's hard for those with conscience to understand those who have wrecked their conscience.
Like Chuck Schumer.
He has destroyed his own conscience.
I don't think he started out a bad guy.
But if you're a Democrat long enough, you end up one.
A Democratic politician, I should say.
Okay, let's see.
Dan in Philadelphia, I won't be able to take your call because it's on the happiness topic and I try not to bleed over.
So thank you for calling.
Anchorage, Alaska.
Kevin, hello.
Hey, Dan.
It's good to talk to you.
Thank you.
Make your phone call a little clearer.
It's a little muffled.
Okay.
I don't have a strong voice, but I'll talk.
No, no, no.
Your voice is fine.
It was the connection.
Now it's better.
Go ahead.
I'm for legalizing all drugs.
I'm an old libertarian.
With these fentanyl deaths every year, 100,000 people are dying.
And they're our best and brightest because a lot of intellectuals take drugs.
And all drugs are legal.
Opiates would be legal.
And no one would take fentanyl with legal opiates.
And I have some other bullet points here.
Health care would be pennies on the dollar with legal drugs.
Illegals wouldn't be.
Why would health care be pennies on the dollar?
Because we could buy...
Any drug we want, it costs, and, you know, opiates would be the cost of coffee.
I'm curious.
Look, I am torn on the issue because I believe that the most moral question one can ask is what works.
What works is the moral question, not what means well, what sounds good, or anything.
So if it would work...
I would be for it.
So are you happy with all the legalization of marijuana?
Do you think the country is better off or worse off or no difference?
I think it's better off.
So the great increase in marijuana use and stronger doses of marijuana and the belief that it might actually, which I do believe, affect regular users' brains.
Until perhaps later in age.
Your answer to that is?
Well, you don't have to take as much with the stronger marijuana.
And people do it and they get tired of it.
When it's legal, it becomes not such a big deal.
Well, that's if you think that people take it because it's illegal.
They may take it because they love it.
They would take it if they loved it and if it was legalized.
I don't think it would work, and I'm very, very respectful of the fentanyl argument because of the havoc that it is doing.
It's one of the toughest issues.
We'll be back.
The Dennis Prager Show.
Hey everybody, Dennis Prager here, and this is The Arrow.
What is on your mind is what we talk about.
And let's see, we get every week, I love it, we get also calls on religion.
In a nutshell, the great tragedy is that we are a post-biblical society.
That's the issue.
People make up their own wisdom and they come up with men give birth and other gigantic absurdities and lies and accept them.
Masks work, especially on two-year-olds.
It's good to keep kids out of school for two years for their safety.
We bathe in lies because we are an age that doesn't value wisdom or truth.
Had the arrogance of thinking that the founding documents of the society, the Constitution, the Bible, don't need to be studied.
The arrogance of these people is beyond belief.
They think they know better.
Moses schmoses.
That's the view at Harvard.
Okay, let's see.
Where is Derek in Cleveland?
Hello, Derek.
Hello, Dennis.
Thank you for taking my call.
Now, my question is about Judaism and why there's the requirement for animal sacrifice to cover sin.
But may I give a quick rebuttal to your last caller about drug abuse, which does also tie into the Bible?
No, because if you do, we'll end up on the drug abuse.
I'm sorry.
You've got to talk about the issue you called in on.
They're both great issues, but you're asking a great question.
So what troubles you?
Why do you raise the question?
So when I called a couple weeks ago, and I asked you the question, then how does the Gentile, the non-Jew, atone for sin?
And your response was, You would change the person to change your behavior.
So I wanted to ask you then, if changing one's behavior is enough, then why the requirements in the Bible, in the Old Testament, for Judaism, for animal sacrifice, for blood sacrifice?
Well, okay, so please understand that the animal sacrifice issue was given to Jews just like kosher was.
So you might as well say, well...
Why doesn't everybody have to keep kosher?
The non-Jewish world doesn't have to keep kosher, according to the Bible, and the non-Jewish world doesn't have to bring sacrifices, according to Judaism.
In fact, this is a basic Christian belief, that the ritual laws only apply to the Jews.
In fact, one of my challenges to Christians is, since you believe that the ritual laws only apply to Jews, I don't know any...
Well, there are a few Christians who keep kosher, but almost none.
Why do you believe that sacrifice applies to non-Jews?
And it was a ritual law.
I don't know that answer, and I've dialogued with Christians all of my life.
I'm going to ask that one the next time.
I don't know why I didn't ask it.
But let me ask you a question.
If a Korean asked you, I just did something wrong to...
A fellow Korean.
How do you suggest that I atone for it and make up for it?
What would you say?
Well, I would say the only way to atone is by God's sacrifice through His Son, Jesus Christ.
His death on the cross.
So, in other words, no one can atone for a sin even if they have not heard of Jesus.
So, is that what you're telling me?
Well, and I've thought of that also, and to me it would also seem, even in the Old Testament, how many different people groups, non-Jews, had not heard of Jehovah.
It would almost be the same.
That's right, but they're never penalized for it.
That's what I'm not, that's where I don't grasp, that's where I don't understand if Jehovah.
Okay.
Yes.
Right.
Okay.
All right.
I hear you.
I wish we had more time.
time, you're a thoughtful man.
Look, I am one of the great proponents of Judeo-Christian values.
I am...
If there's a bigger non-Christian defender of America's Christians, I don't know who it is.
But we obviously have different theologies, which is great.
I don't have a problem with that.
But it is clear from the Torah that God judges people by behavior rather than theology.
Okay, we will come back to that.
The last call, and I love theology calls.
It's a passion of mine, along with music, religion.
Just a note that I think a lot of my Christian listeners are not aware of, the sacrifices of the Torah, or the Old Testament, but we're talking about the Torah, the first five books, they are only with regard to ritual sin, and the ritual sins can only be sins among Jews.
A non-Jew does not sin by not keeping kosher or by working on the Sabbath, although some Christians are divided on whether the Sabbath, the law and the Ten Commandments, applies to them.
So for many who don't believe it is, clearly the violation of the Sabbath would not be an example of something one had to atone for.
You don't sacrifice if you've murdered somebody or stolen from somebody.
What you have to do is make retribution to the person that you have violated.
Okie dokie.
Let's see here.
I had, oh yes, this is interesting.
LaDonna in Ventura, California.
Hello.
Hello, LaDonna.
Hi, it's interesting you should lead in with what you were just saying regarding...
Forgiveness.
Has Bill Maher approached you and asked for forgiveness for treating you so shabbily on his show?
Because I don't want to speak out about him if I missed it, and he did.
Uh-huh.
No, he hasn't, but you know what?
I don't think he owes me an apology, and I'll tell you why.
I know, yes, he laughed at me for what?
I was 100% correct on my part when I said the left says men menstruate and he laughed at me.
And it's gone viral.
People can all see it on YouTube.
And this is three years ago.
Exactly three years ago.
And who says that, Dennis?
Give me a break.
So he was wrong and I was right.
But I don't think he owes me an apology because he didn't insult me.
And yes, he was laughing at what I said.
The fact is he had me on the show, and he's a liberal, and I'm a conservative.
By the way, he's not a leftist.
He's a liberal.
He's a good example of one of the handful that exist.
And the left is not happy with Bill Maher for that reason.
So anyway, that, LaDonna, is why I don't think he owes me an apology.
Well, you're full of grace and mercy.
Yeah.
Thank you, Dan.
That's very sweet.
Okay, you bet.
I'm full of grace.
I'll tell you what animates me in this regard.
I'm not easily hurt.
It takes a great deal to insult me, to be honest.
And everybody should have that attitude.
I'll revisit that subject on a happiness hour.
You choose when to be hurt, believe it or not.
It is a choice people make as a general rule.
Philadelphia and Nick.
Hello, Nick.
I listen to you always, especially your happy hour.
First of all, I want to comment on one of your callers.
He said, there's a profound impact that we all have.
When I was a police officer young, it was great making arrests, getting the glory, running up an alley, catching a burglar or rapist or robber.
And as a detective, I felt the same rush.
But I found out later on that it was just vanity.
I had talent, and I was using it for vain purposes.
When we use our talent as a police officer to uplift somebody, that's when the passion comes in, and I only found that out until the end of my career.
I don't understand.
Why was it vanity to feel good about catching a rapist?
Because I did it for my vanity.
I was the best cop on the street.
Right, okay.
Well, what's wrong with that?
If you caught the rapist, all you did was good.
I judge you by good, not by intention.
If your only intention was to bring glory to yourself and you caught a hundred rapists, to me, you're a saint.
Well, I found out later on when I was teaching rookies that to use your talent for your own glory, you make mistakes.
And it's just...
Okay, all right.
Well, that may...
Okay, all right.
That's fair.
If there is...
All right, go on.
I'm sorry.
For anyone to use their talent for vanity, for uplifting, not uplifting only yourself but not others, is not a terrible thing.
It's okay.
It's fine.
It's wonderful.
But to use that talent to uplift someone, To make them better.
I had a crisis in my life where when we arrest people and it's happening now, they're just let out.
And I had a friend of mine come up to me and say, you know, why are you so dejected about, you know, this guy at least served a couple weeks in jail before they released him.
He said, why, during those two weeks he spent in jail, maybe you saved somebody's life.
Maybe you save somebody's home from getting burglarized, or maybe you save someone from getting raped or murdered.
Yeah, I gotta say, alright, you're a good man.
Whoever said that to you is a non-thinker.
If I were a policeman, and I expended all the effort and risked my life to find a murderer, and they let the guy out, or an attempted murderer, to be more precise, they let the guy out in two weeks?
The argument that, oh, maybe you prevented a murder during those two weeks, I find to be stupid.
You didn't make it, your friend did.
I understand that.
It's a stupid argument.
Cops have every right to be disgusted with judges and prosecutors and district attorneys.
These people are hurting the society deliberately.
They are vile human beings.
They don't suffer the consequences of their despicable policies.
They let the other guy get shot, the other guy get thrown onto subway tracks, the other guy to be beaten, the other woman to be raped.
These people are vile, these judges, district attorneys, and the idea that the guy was there for two weeks and so you saved somebody?
Okay, give me a break.
Cops have every reason to be disgusted with the so-called justice system.
The left has turned it into an injustice system.
What is our story, Sean?
Back in a moment.
The Dennis Prager Show.
Hey, everybody.
Final segment already.
Wow.
Hard to believe.
Hard to believe.
Okay, y'all.
In Port St. Joe, Florida, Rod.
Hello, Rod.
Hey, good day, Dennis.
My wife and I recently celebrated our 32nd wedding anniversary.
And as we always do, we go to a restaurant, our favorite restaurant, of course.
And we're both current events and political news junkies.
So what we do, it's a hard and fast rule with us, we'll devote no more than 10 minutes after we order drinks to perusing the day's news.
Then after that, we put the phones down.
So we're into this a couple minutes.
And my wife turns her phone towards me, and there's a news article up there.
And from the title and the first couple of sentences, I gathered that an Italian OBGYN, a senior guy, about my age, 65 years old, would sometimes tell his patients that they had a very rare gynecological condition that could only be cured by having sex with him.
So I exclaimed to my wife, Well, gee, how often did this work?
Words of that effect.
So she slams down the phone, raises her voice so that the entire restaurant could hear, and she says, Pigs!
Pigs!
They're all pigs!
All men are pigs!
All right, let me react, because we don't have a lot of time.
Men's natures is piggish.
That is correct, but not all men are pigs.
Okay?
By the way, female nature is not one whit more noble than male nature.
It's just ignoble in its own way.
If you don't fight your nature, you're a pig, whether you're a male or a female.
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Hello, Mark.
Hey, Dennis.
How are you?
I was at the dinner and presentations last night, had a great time, and to borrow some language that you used, these guys did a great job.
You're the only one that knew the buzzword there.
You did a great balance.
Well, I'm the only one who used it.
I don't know if the other guys...
Yeah, yins, I love it.
It's y'all, by the way, for those of you who don't know, in Pittsburgh.
Well, thank you.
I'm glad you loved it.
I loved it, too.
And as I began my show, I have somewhat fallen in love with Pittsburgh.
It's not my first trip by any means, but it's gathered momentum over time.
It's a place I could imagine living happily.
There are a lot of places I could have imagined living happily.
Some I could not imagine living happily, like where I come from originally, New York City.
And if I had to, I would force myself.
The Northeast in general.
It's problematic.
Anyway, please go to my website, DennisPrager.com, and donate now to the Alliance Defending Freedom.
Dennis Prager here.
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