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March 14, 2023 - Dennis Prager Show
01:06:40
Tragic Testimony
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Dennis Prager here.
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Hi, everybody.
I am back in California after a fantastic trip to Tennessee. - You can see.
People who bought homes in Nashville, maybe other parts of Tennessee as well, but in Nashville just about a year, a year and a half ago, have seen 50% to 100% increase in the value of their homes.
That is the number, testimony.
To the number of people moving to Nashville.
There is an exodus of people who love this country out of states that loathe this country.
Like Washington, Oregon, California, New York, Illinois.
Isn't that amazing?
It's July 4th weekend.
There is a July 4th Seder.
We call it the July 4th Declaration, but it's completely based on the Jewish Seder, the oldest holiday in the world, thousands of years old.
If you commemorate with ritual, you will preserve your people.
Your religion, your culture, your nation.
And we used to have a lot of rituals in America.
The left has systematically destroyed them.
Columbus Day is gone, of course.
Washington's birthday is gone.
Lincoln's birthday is gone.
And Thanksgiving is a day to dread because it's really genocide.
Of the Indian Day, Genocide of Native American Day.
Christmas is a holiday.
You don't say Merry Christmas.
You don't have a Christmas vacation.
You don't have a Christmas party at your business.
All rituals.
No, not all.
We still have Halloween.
A deep holiday.
July 4th, you should do something with your kids or grandchildren to commemorate the day.
You should put out a flag.
That in and of itself, that is the single biggest statement you can make.
That you honor this country's founding.
That's what July 4th is about.
Put out a flag.
Everything good takes an effort.
That may take an effort.
You need some place to put the flag.
You need a stand.
You gotta get the flag.
Tough stuff.
I'm partially sarcastic and partially not sarcastic.
I'll tell you how to get the ritual.
You need pretzels.
You need tea.
You need a blueberry and a raspberry and whipped cream.
That's red, white, and blue.
You need a pretzel with salt to commemorate the tears of those who fought in the Revolutionary War.
And then you say a given statement about the tears, about the red, white, and blue, about the Tea Party, that the tea represents, the Boston Tea Party.
Kids love it.
I did it last week for a large group of parents, grandparents and grandchildren and children and the kids just loved it.
Kids love ritual.
More important, kids need ritual.
It's the July 4th weekend and I wonder if even If people are even saying, you know, have a nice 4th, I wish you a good 4th, or have a good weekend,
or have a nice holiday weekend or holiday, we have taken away the two identities that matter in this country, that have mattered for all of the country's history.
We have taken away a religious identity and a national identity.
And the very, very, very destructive nihilistic left has supplanted it with racial identity and gender identity.
Amazing.
Just amazing.
You're not a Christian anymore, and you're not an American anymore.
Those are just not important in terms of importance.
You may be those, but they have been relegated to the, as Lenin put it, dustbin of history.
But what really counts to the left is your skin color, which...
It happens to have no depth.
There is no meaning to skin color.
There is meaning to affirming American values and religious values.
Protestant, Catholic, Mormon, Jew, and non-Islamist, Muslim.
Islamist is one who wishes to have society governed by Sharia.
Not all Muslims do.
That's the sober fact as we look at this particular weekend.
It's up at DennisPrager.com or just search 4th of July at PragerU to get the ritual that you should do with your kids or grandkids.
It's all written out for you.
All you have to do is get the pretzels, tea, Raspberry blueberry whipped cream.
That's all you have to do.
We provide all the words that you say and that the kids say.
Again, it is up at DennisPrager.com or just go to PragerU and type in 4th of July.
We are working on this.
I'm reading Pete Hexeth's book on American education.
Remember I told you, of course you remember if you're at all a regular listener, I have many understandings of life that I encapsulate in a sentence.
One of them is, Germany is always wrong.
Including up to the moment with Angela Merkel.
I know she's retired, but...
I mean up to the historic moment, not to the day.
It's a phenomenon how many bad ideas have come out of Germany.
It's a phenomenon.
I don't know why.
It's obviously not genetic, but it's true.
And he's delineating how American education has been ruined by the left, and it goes back a hundred years.
Over a hundred years.
I've talked about how colleges were ruined when at the end of the 19th century, that's the 1800s, professors would go to college professors, college students actually, not professors, they became professors, would go to Germany for their doctorate, for their PhD, because many American universities didn't offer a PhD at that time.
And that's where they picked up socialism, the gigantic state.
And the reason the Kaiser made a gigantic state was to bribe Germans into staying home and not moving to America.
America the free and America the prosperous.
So the college was poisoned by Germany.
I didn't realize that the elementary school was as well.
And here's a little fascinating tidbit, something staring me in the face all of my life, and I didn't put two and two together.
And Hexeth made it possible for me to put it together.
The German influence on state education and the content of education, which glorified the state, was so great that the word for the first year Of education in a kid's life is in German.
Kindergarten.
Isn't that fascinating?
Just in case you didn't realize how deep the German influence has been on American education.
The roots of the rot.
Well, what is the figure?
16,000 hours?
Is that the figure?
Kids are in school till the end of high school?
I think that's the figure.
Do you have that many hours with your kid?
Do you teach your kid 16,000 hours?
Do you teach your kid 1,000 hours?
We return.
The Dennis Prager Show.
Dennis Prager here, and the real estate market is hot right now.
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I'm Dennis Prager.
We'll be right back.
If you have an idea of the destructive nature of the left, there's a piece from the Daily Mail, a piece of news that I did not mention to you.
A drag queen for every school, Michigan Attorney General faces wrath of Republicans as she hits out at fake issues during civil rights conference speech and muses, drag queens make everything better.
Michigan Attorney General...
Dana Nessel has hit out at those outraged by drag queens hosting educational events for young children, saying that they should be in every school.
Every school is a direct quote.
Another woman destroying the country.
The predominance of women in the education of children.
She's an attorney general.
She's not an educator.
But this is a phenomenon that may be unique.
In history, women, always known to be the protectors of children, are now ruining them.
Let us sexualize children at as early an age as possible.
The staggering number of women in education, departments of education, schools of education, principals, and of course teachers, and here's an attorney general.
Yes.
Well, you know what?
Maybe?
This is an interesting question.
One second.
Yeah, that's right.
I'm right about that.
Okay.
Just wanted to make sure it was a female.
I just assumed that the name Dana can go either way.
She spoke out at this time in the middle of June against, quote, fake issues such as drag queens hosting reading and dancing events at schools and libraries.
Adding drag queens are fun and make everything better.
Men, yes, men, these are not transgender men.
These are straight men.
We don't know if they're straight.
They are cisgender men.
That's the better term that they use.
Males who identify with their biology but like to dress up as women.
My child would be out of that school.
So fast that the bell announcing the end of the day would not have rung in the presence of my child.
You know what is not a problem for kids who are seeking a good education?
Drag queens!
Nestle said during a speech at a civil rights conference reports the Detroit News.
Drag queens are entertainment.
You know what?
I'll say that was totally not poll-tested.
I'd say this.
A drag queen for every school.
Drag queens lift children up when they are having emotional issues.
Yes, that's whom I really want my child to be emotionally uplifted by.
A man dressed as a woman.
We may, we may not survive the destruction of the left.
I am not optimistic and I am not pessimistic.
I don't find either of them helpful.
Some people do find them helpful.
So, I don't care which you are as long as you fight.
Nessel's comments drew immediate criticism from Republicans.
Huh.
But people who don't want their children entertained at five years of age.
I don't want my child entertained at 15 years of age by a drag queen.
What is a drag queen doing in a school?
Have they learned so much art and music and grammar and history that we can devote that time to drag queens?
A drag queen for every school is a great summation of today's Democrat Party platform, tweeted Donald Trump Jr. Boy, he's right about that.
Nessel's comments are unbelievable, said Paul Cordes, the chief of staff of the Michigan Republican Party.
This is not normal.
She shouldn't be allowed to joke this way.
She wasn't joking.
Dana Nessel is unfit for office.
Wow.
But Nessel said, I'm so tired of having prominent members of our state government create wedge issues that don't help, that don't heal us but divide us.
And that's all they do.
Get it?
So she is for bringing kids to a drag queen study hour, but the people who oppose it are the divisive ones.
Is that awesome?
That's really...
That's Orwellian.
That's the way the left, I often say, has no self-awareness.
We who oppose what they're doing to children, we are the divisive ones.
Gaslight doesn't even quite describe it.
Yes.
I just wanted you to know about that.
You know what is...
What is difficult to assimilate into one's consciousness?
That I tell you this, and you're...
I don't know if horrified is the word, but it's an appropriate word.
You're horrified.
And yet, nothing happens.
And I'm not blaming you.
I'm not blaming me.
Well...
I have to admit, I do blame parents who keep their kids in school.
By the way, I mentioned Germany earlier.
You know that Germany prohibits, actually prohibits homeschooling?
The issue is the largesse of the state.
The very opposite of the reason America was founded, to have a small state.
That's why the EPA decision by the Supreme Court is so incredibly important.
You want to tell people what to do with regard to the environment?
Pass a law.
That's the reason for Congress.
That's its raison d'être.
Its reason for being.
You don't do it by an agency of bureaucrats.
1-8 Prager 776. I'm Dennis Prager.
The Dennis Prager Show.
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With the name, with the place, and everything.
Teen testifies in opposition to gender-affirming medical treatment, regrets double mastectomy.
A teen girl who is medically treated to transition into a boy, including having a double mastectomy, testified about the damage done to her future.
This was this Tuesday at a California Assembly hearing.
Amazing that they let her testify.
I'll never be able to breastfeed a child, Chloe Cole said Tuesday at a California Assembly hearing on legislation that would make California a sanctuary for minors seeking to alter their biological sex through drugs and surgery.
What a sick state I live in.
Sick.
Morally and psychologically.
I have blood clots in my urine, the girl said.
I am unable to fully empty my bladder.
I do not yet know if I am capable of carrying a child to full term.
We'll put this up at DennisPrager.com.
You can actually watch it.
Cole said that when her parents sought help when she told them at age 13 she wanted to be a boy, They were pressured to agree with her.
That's correct.
By the authorities.
By the...
you name it.
By the therapists, most of whom do much more damage than help.
Some therapists are terrific.
They're a small minority.
I've said that for all of my life.
This is not new.
Psychiatric profession, psychiatry, something I have always adored.
I even think Freud was a genius.
And the left ruined the psychiatric profession generations ago.
Remember the story of, I don't remember the number, but some gigantic number of psychiatrists declared Valerie Goldwater mentally unfit to be president?
Not a single one had ever met him.
This is not new.
We're seeing the fruits, but it's not new.
My parents were given the threat of suicide as a reason to move me forward in my transition.
That's right.
That's what they say.
If you don't affirm that your 13-year-old girl is a boy, she'll kill herself.
What parent wants a...
What is their...
They even have a saying.
Better...
A live boy than a dead girl.
They got great sayings, the left.
So they threatened parents with the most frightening scenario possible, not just the death of their child, but the suicide of their child leading to death.
At 15, Cole asked to have her breast removed.
She attended a class with other teen girls who said they wanted to be boys.
None of us were going to be men.
We were fleeing from the uncomfortable feeling of becoming women.
That's exactly right.
That is exactly right.
That's right.
The irony is the trans activists, not every transgender person by any means, but the trans activists really loathe women.
You're getting breasts, you're menstruating.
You don't like it?
Don't do it.
Don't have breasts.
Don't menstruate.
And feminists support them.
One of the great frauds was that feminism cares deeply about women.
What feminist group has come out in support of women's sports when biological men compete in them?
I was unknowingly, physically cutting off my true self from my body irreversibly and painfully.
Our trans identities were not questioned.
Despite having therapists and attending the top surgery class, top surgery means removal of breasts, I really didn't understand all the ramifications of any of the medical decisions I was making.
What barbaric surgeon took a girl's healthy breasts off at the age of 15?
This is part of the moral collapse of the medical profession in America.
There are many, many indecent doctors.
There are many doctors who are sheep.
There are many doctors who are cowards.
I say this with no joy.
Doctors have saved my life.
It's nothing personal.
Oh, well, it is personal.
Not in the sense about me, but it is personal about them.
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Get ready, everybody.
It's the happiness hour.
Here we go.
It's the happy, happy, happy, happy hour.
Yes, it is.
Hey everybody, the happy make the world better, the unhappy make it worse.
Happiness is a moral obligation and a virtue.
And a virtue.
Original lyrics.
It is an achievement.
It's the happy, happy, happy.
Every Friday since 1999, that is the 20th century.
Which, when you think about it, began one year, in fact, one minute, after the 19th century.
That is how long I am broadcasting the Happiness Hour.
In the century that followed the 19th century is when it began.
Hi, everybody.
Dennis Prager here.
Happiness is an incredibly important subject.
If all Americans were happy, there would be no left.
There are happy liberals and unhappy liberals, happy conservatives and unhappy conservatives, but there are no happy people on the left.
Happiness is a very important subject.
Very.
So I have one today that echoes themes that I have promoted.
For years on the Happiness Hour, relating to the need for friends.
I have told you from the beginning, you should date for friends just like you dated for a spouse.
You should be looking for friends like you looked for a spouse.
I wish there were friend apps.
I wonder how that would go over.
Friend apps.
Are there friend apps?
Really?
What are they called?
Friend apps?
He's going to look it up.
But I have a suggestion, because friend apps is too generic.
And people might think, you know, I don't want to announce that I'm alone or lonely.
I don't know what the issue might be for people.
But anyway, it might be too...
Too generalized.
I have an idea for you.
What you need more than friends.
Friends will develop from this.
What you need is kindred spirits.
And I've spoken about kindred spirits.
But I want to speak today about finding kindred spirits.
My cup runneth over with kindred spirits in my life.
It is one of the luckiest aspects of my life and a major source of happiness.
First of all, I admit it, incredibly lucky.
I'm married to a kindred spirit.
My kids are kindred spirits.
I know how lucky I am with both of those facts.
Many people are not married to a kindred spirit.
Many people have at least one child who isn't.
These are very painful things.
So I fully acknowledge my good fortune, tremendously good fortune in that regard.
But I'm not talking now about spouses and children.
I'm talking about finding kindred spirits you're not related to, which, of course, is...
The vast majority.
It's virtually everyone in the world.
Right?
People we're not related to.
How do you find kindred spirits?
That's really the subject.
It's a two-part subject for today's Happiness Hour.
The necessity of kindred spirits in your life.
What is a kindred spirit?
A person who shares your values.
It's not complex.
Now, that doesn't mean you will like everybody who shares your values.
There are many aspects to why you feel a bond with somebody and shared values is, this is the best way to put it, it is necessary but not sufficient.
The fact that you have shared values is necessary.
It is like oxygen is necessary for life but is not sufficient.
We need many other things for life, but oxygen is indispensable.
Kindred spirit is indispensable to friendship.
But I will say this, kindred spirit alone is a wonderful, wonderful thing to have, to share with people.
This week I was in Nashville, Tennessee, and I didn't.
I did two things.
I went on the Mike Huckabee show, which you'll be able to watch.
And I think it's, I don't remember when it's coming on.
But I was there for a very, very big event in front of 3,000 people in Nashville, The Daily Wire, which I adore, the organization founded by Ben Shapiro and Jeremy Boring.
Remarkable people.
When I was on the stage there, and I was with the thinkers of The Daily Wire along with Ben Shapiro and Jordan Peterson and Candace Owens, and I just realized, you know how joyful it is to be?
With these people, Michael Knowles, Matt Walsh, Jeremy Boring, and Andrew Clavin, the thinking crowd, the best-known thinking crowd of Daily Wire.
The joy of being with these people, different religions, different upbringings, different races, but kindred spirits.
This is such a wonderful thing.
Now, how do you find them?
I have an idea.
Why don't you start, and tell me if you think this will work.
Tell me if you've done something analogous.
Why don't you start, and given social media, it's not hard to start something.
How about, let's say you are in Cleveland.
So, we are going to start a study group for people who would like to meet like-minded fellow citizens of Cleveland.
So, it could be if you're religiously inclined or you're secular and you want to study the most important book ever written, it could be a Bible study group.
And yes, I fully recommend you use my Bible commentary because it makes things very clear.
It's called the Rational Bible.
If that doesn't make your life better, then I would be surprised.
Genesis and Exodus are out.
Deuteronomy comes out later this year.
Two more volumes to go and doing the first five books, the most important books.
And that's one possibility.
But let's say you don't want to do a Bible study.
How about an American history?
An American history club, where you're assigned, but you meet, in the beginning you meet once a month.
We're not overdoing it here.
And you meet someplace where you can serve refreshments, people love to eat, and there's no reason they shouldn't have that joy as well as intellectual joy, and wherever it will be.
Now, ideally, it's at somebody's house, and you take a risk of having strangers come to your house, but it's hard for me to imagine that people are checking out American history clubs to rape and pillage.
So, I would recommend that it's at someone's house.
And you serve refreshments.
You can all chip in for the refreshments, or you alternate homes.
My parents had a study group.
That's what they did.
They alternated homes, so obviously whoever's home it was paid for the refreshments, that study group.
But an American history one.
So we will, for the next meeting of our club...
We will all read this biography of Calvin Coolidge.
And if you didn't read it, you can't show up.
And it's literally the only criterion that I can think of is you have to have read the book.
You can't come in and just pontificate with no knowledge.
So you had to read the book.
A month is enough to read any book, even War and Peace.
What do you think of that idea?
You're starting some sort of study group with the purpose of meeting kindred spirits.
The most important thing aside from perhaps health to happiness.
More important maybe.
I'm laughing because...
I just did an invitation of a phone off the hook, which brought great joy to the technical staff, composed of Triple G, Rick the Bearded One, and JJ, a gift from the Lord.
How was that, eh?
Eh, eh, eh?
Does he consider himself a gift from the Lord?
He does.
He does.
That's nice.
I like that.
This is the Happiness Hour, folks.
And I come to the Happiness Hour having written a book on happiness, which I am told by people, by many people, has deeply affected their lives.
If you like the Happiness Hour, I don't know why you wouldn't read Happiness is a Serious Problem.
Just to prove to you, I'm not trying to make money.
I make enough money.
How many people say that?
And you can even get a used copy.
I think you should actually get a new copy.
Because...
I wrote the book, but I'd rather you read the used copy.
Get no benefit from it financially, but you will benefit from it.
It's called Happiness is a Serious Problem.
I also come to the subject of happiness having talked about it, lectured about it all of my life, having done this program for 23 years, Happiness Hour, and I have a lot of insights on the subject.
Oh yes, this helps.
I'm happy.
I am blessed with my happiness.
I am grateful.
Gratitude is the source of happiness.
Can't be grateful.
Can't be happy if you're not grateful.
The subject today is kindred spirits.
So, you can't be happy, or most people can't be happy, without people with whom they share values in their lives.
That's just the way it is.
It makes perfect sense.
And I suggest that you form a group.
By the way, Triple G, Gentle Gentile Giant, aka Sean, dug up the 13 best apps for making new friends in 2022. And...
I get a kick out of it.
I'm glad they exist.
My suggestion, this is not about kindred spirits.
This is about kindred interests.
It's not the same thing.
Not at all the same thing.
They're generally not related.
I am deeply into photography.
But if I had a photography club...
They wouldn't be kindred spirits.
They would be fellow photographers.
Which, by the way, I would enjoy, I have to say.
Even if they're people with whom I differed on everything important other than photography.
But if we only talked about photography, I could handle it.
But it wouldn't be kindred spirits.
But it would be fun to do.
I agree.
I agree with that.
With whom can I discuss f-stops, depth of field, shutter speed, ISOs?
Shall I continue?
So here are some of the apps that come out for making new friends.
Nextdoor.
Nextdoor is specifically framed for people who just moved into their neighborhoods and are looking to make new friends.
There's more about it, but I'm not going to develop.
Meetup.
Meetup is the perfect place to meet new friends, especially if you're looking for people of the same specific interests.
See, that's interesting, and I totally get it, that these apps would be listed by interest, not by values, and that's fine.
Knitting!
Oh, knitting!
Holy crow!
why did I not join a knitting group?
That is correct.
In my earphones came the following.
There are women who are as passionate about knitting as I am about photography.
You said probably men too.
Okay.
What do you think the percentage?
Of men in knitting groups is.
Just out of curiosity.
I bet it's on the rise.
He bets it's on the rise.
Good point.
Cooking.
Particular sport.
And hobbies.
That's very good.
Okay, that was Meetup.
Next one.
Bumble BFF. Created and launched by the team behind one of the most popular dating apps, Bumble, which is true.
BFF is for people searching for platonic yet meaningful relationships with others.
Okay, that's nice.
Then there's HeyVena!
Hey!
Vena has been called Tinder for Girlfriends.
The number of men trying to get into that group is very, very large.
Specifically designed for women looking for other women who they can be friends with.
It should be whom or with whom they can be friends so that you don't end a sentence with a preposition.
If you've gone to school in the last 20 years, you have no idea what I just said.
According to its founders, its main goal is to empower women and strengthen both their individuality and camaraderie.
I've got to admit that the word empower is sort of a troubling term.
But anyway, that's another one.
Then there's peanut.
Peanut is highly recommended for moms who feel isolated and would like to connect with other moms who understand what they're going through.
The app connects women across fertility and motherhood.
Why is it called peanut?
That might have been the most moronic answer I have received in all my years with you.
Thank you.
I'm not sure if I should repeat it, but it's not fair to the listeners if I don't.
So I have to.
Peanut reminds him of how a fetus might look.
That borders on the sick, I have to say.
It's a very wild place, the Dennis Prager Show, I must admit.
Alright, so there's Peanut.
Next is Friender.
Friender claims that it is a friends-only type of app, which means it is not specifically designed for dating and starting romantic relationships.
After creating your account, you are given a list of 130 activities from which you can choose your favorites.
I'm joining.
I just want to see the list.
I can't come up with 130 activities.
So what do you say, folks, like an American history study group?
The Dennis Prager Show.
Let Dennis be Dennis. - Yes.
That's right.
Hi, everybody.
I'm the Dennis, but I'm not the Dennis of that reference, but we just use it.
Dennis Prager here.
This is the hour you set the agenda of whatever's on your mind about you, about me, about life, about death, and needless to say, about photography, audio equipment, cigars, and what else?
Classical music.
And now the music.
Oh yeah, and fountain pens.
Hi everybody, great to be with you. - Bye.
This is the Whatever's On Your Mind Hour.
I always remind you that sometimes a call just won't work out.
It's no reflection on you.
It might be a brilliant subject.
I've just discussed it a lot, or I know nothing about it.
I know a lot, but folks, I... Don't know everything.
And whatever the reason.
So don't be insulted if I let your call go.
1-8 Prager-776-877-243-7776.
Let's go to Philadelphia and Gil.
Hello.
Hello, Dennis.
It's a pleasure to speak with you.
Thank you very much.
I'm calling because I know you're rather fond of the Mormon Church.
I am, too.
I'm a Mormon.
And recently, as you know, they totally embraced the lockdown, the vax, the mask, everything.
And it's really a big deal to me.
As a matter of fact, recently one of the church leaders said that...
One of the blessings of the corona epidemic was we had the opportunity to demonstrate obedience.
And I look at the church, and I don't know if you know this, but there was another tiny little scandal when one of the really big wheels in Salt Lake, someone we consider to be an apostle, made contributions.
To left-wing, like, Black Lives Matter and what's her name down there in Atlanta?
Anyway, and then went and lied about how the contributions were made.
And it's a big deal to me.
I mean, in my mind, there's a hierarchy to spirituality.
You have to be knowledgeable until you can be enlightened.
You have to be enlightened before you can be inspired.
You have to be inspired before you can be prophetic.
You know what I'm saying?
Well, I took your call precisely for the reason that you mentioned my fondness for LDS, for the Mormon Church, and for Mormons, and my admiration for the quality of family life and communal life that most Mormons have made.
It's enviable, and most Americans are aware of that.
Having said that, and none of that is being removed by what I'm about to say, it would be remarkable if the only church not to be infected by the left would be LDS, Latter-day Saints.
It's doable, but it would be remarkable.
Christianity, Catholicism, non-Orthodox Judaism, and even increasingly modern Orthodoxy have been deeply infected and affected by leftism.
And it would be remarkable, as I said, if the Mormon Church were impervious to it.
I was disappointed by this obedience.
I would have one question.
If you are proud of being obedient to irrational secular authority, at what point would you be disobedient?
I would love to have an answer.
I would love to have that answer myself.
The other question I ask myself is the Mormon hierarchy were around, or even the members were around at the revolution.
Whose side would they have been on?
I have no answer, and it's an interesting question.
But they weren't around, obviously.
It's an issue I have raised on a number of occasions.
The Christian belief in obedience to authority.
Luther, citing the New Testament, said it was complete.
An evil regime.
As there was in his time.
Suppressing peasant revolutions.
Horrifically.
So, yeah.
I had another puzzle, given how much I follow developments in the Mormon Church.
And I had the incredible...
Truly incredible honor of conducting a piece with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir at the Disney Concert Hall.
Conducting is an avocation of mine.
And shortly afterwards, I learned that the church had changed the name Mormon Tabernacle Choir to, what is it, the choir on the, I forgot what it was.
I'll look it up.
Completely mundane name.
The most famous choir in human history dropped its name.
I can't think of a more foolish idea.
Like Coca-Cola saying brown-colored soda.
I know the reason, and it was well-intended.
Almost every foolish decision is well-intended.
Well-intended is like telling me somebody breathes.
I assume if you're alive, you breathe.
I know very few people with evil intentions.
So intentions don't mean a damn thing.
If you don't have wisdom, your intentions are worthless.
And I thought it was, I say this as a friend, defender and friend of the Mormon church, dropping Mormon Tabernacle Choir was spectacularly foolish.
Before people change things that work, they should ask, do I really have confidence that the change will be beneficial?
Thank you.
Is that a worthy question for all change?
It's not just called the Tabernacle Choir.
It's called the Tabernacle Choir?
Oh, I thought the first, I thought it was the church choir.
On the church square or something like that.
Anyway, it's now called the Tabernacle Choir.
Because I know the leaders of the Mormon church don't want Mormon used.
They want Latter-day Saints used.
And I understand it, and I don't think it's...
I don't know why they're embarrassed.
And it is.
It's an embarrassment by the name Mormon.
I don't know why.
The Book of Mormon is a holy work.
Very holy work.
If not the holiest work, along with the Bible in LDS, it comes from a desire, a deep desire to be considered Christian by Christians.
And I understand that.
And I have no axe to grind.
I'm not on either side, so to speak.
I'm a Jew, so I'm...
I'm a good outsider here.
But who is going to say, if you say Latter-day Saints, it doesn't tell anybody you're Christian.
And if you are the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, nobody's going to say so many words instead of Mormon.
What are you?
Oh, I am the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Oh, pleasure to meet you.
Just continue living the good lives that you do, having these wonderful ideas like sending 18-year-olds to grow up fast and become mature men and now women.
And you have so many wonderful things going for you.
Why change?
Okay.
But yes, it was disturbing, the obedience issue.
It was disturbing in Judaism, Christianity.
Protestant, Catholic, Mormon is disturbing.
Very disturbing.
Obedience to irrational secular authority is a Jewish or Protestant or Catholic or Mormon ideal?
Really?
That, my friends, is what we call scary.
If we can't look to religious people not to be obedient to irrational secular authority, there's no place to look.
The Dennis Prager Show.
Okay, let's see here.
We are going to go to CZ Heights, New Jersey, and Matthew.
Hello, Matthew.
I worked very hard in high school and college, and eventually earning a PhD from Columbia in 2015 in engineering.
The dream of going to an elite school inspired me to work and study very hard for many years.
Yet when I got to Columbia, I was quite disappointed.
Yanmi Park sugar-coated how Marxist it was, as the engineering school was basically in bed with the Chinese Communist Party.
For example, the current Provost Mary Boyce and engineering school Dean Shifu Chang both went to China in 2018 and met with the CEO of MIGVI, which is actively participating in the Uyghur genocide.
Now that I have two girls, how can I inspire them to study hard in high school, knowing how problematic our elite universities are?
Just out of curiosity, I'll answer you, and it's an important call.
Did you read that?
I wrote my question in advance, correct?
Yeah, okay.
I feel better.
Nobody speaks that fast normally.
Not even Ben Shapiro.
So, folks, that's the danger of writing.
I don't care if you write something out.
It's fine with me.
Just don't read it so fast.
But anyway, I followed everything.
I'm sure my foreign-born listeners struggled.
And I have many of them and I'm delighted.
How do you inspire your children to study hard just to go to a cesspool called an American university today?
And they are cesspools.
I don't use these words lightly, my friends. - Yes.
They're disgusting places as a general rule.
There are very few exceptions.
You learn to hate yourself.
You learn to hate your fellow American.
You learn to be racist.
You learn to hate...
A free economy.
You hate free speech.
You come out despising all that is good.
No wonder there are so many depressed college students and so many of them are automatons.
The scum have taken over our education system from kindergarten through graduate school.
How do you inspire your kids to study hard?
It's a tough question.
I think the answer is either homeschooling or one of the handful of good schools in the country.
You may have a local charter school or religious school or even public school.
sometimes they're okay.
Anyway, the question...
It implies that the purpose of studying is to get into a good college.
The purpose of studying is to gain knowledge, and even more important, gain wisdom.
That's the purpose of education, not to get into a quote-unquote good college.
Nobody gives a damn what college you went to.
It's true that many places, not all, and fewer and fewer, Look at a graduate from a prestigious college with a greater favor than they look upon someone from a non-prestigious college.
So fine.
You won't get that job.
You'll get another job.
And excellence will rise to the top.
No matter what college you went to.
Anyway, I don't want your kids to study hard to get into a good college.
Even though that makes...
We should drop the term prestigious college.
There are very few good colleges.
Anyway, I feel for the father.
It's an issue.
Jason in Chandler, Arizona.
Hello.
Hi, Dennis.
How are you?
Well, thank you.
Great.
I enjoy the show.
I have a comment slash question.
It's been a month, maybe a little longer than a month.
You had an episode.
I believe it was the male and female hour.
And you had mentioned about feeling bad for women that waited around for men to make up their mind.
And I think a good question to pose to the women.
A question that you could pose to the women is, are they keeping themselves before marriage?
Because as a man, as men, we are far more likely to make a decision when we don't reap.
Right, yes.
What is it about the cow and the milk?
There's a saying about that.
Yeah, don't buy the cow when the milk is free.
Yes, that's right.
That's an interesting issue.
Things are so bad today, the sickness that the left has created in society, that frankly, if your daughter is dating a guy,
For that alone, in most cases, and this is not anti-gay, this is pro-cisgender, identifying with your biological gender.
If she asserts herself as a female and is happy with her biological identity, that alone is now reason for celebration.
Putting that aside, The issue of premarital sex is a complex one.
I personally believe that intercourse should be reserved for a marriage, that that is the ideal.
I also believe that you should be active otherwise before marriage.
To know that you have that chemistry that is necessary in marriage.
Hey everybody.
I always regret coming to the end of any show, and especially the hour where calls come in on anything.
Let me summarize some of the calls.
Please don't hang up, then I can't possibly address what you want to raise with me.
So, let's see here.
There's a Dr. Yuval in South Florida who makes it a point to say God bless you to his patients.
Oh, man, I want to talk.
All right, let's do 30 seconds here, Yuval.
What was your position with regard to patients who didn't get vaccinated?
Can you repeat that?
I just got on the phone.
No problem.
What was your position with regard to patients who didn't get vaccinated?
Well, I've been seeing patients regardless of their vaccination status.
In fact, colleagues in the area have been referring patients for that reason to me.
So I have absolutely no problem with someone not going to get vaccinated.
So do you think that you're in a minority among doctors?
I don't know, but what I can tell you is this.
The people who support across-the-board vaccination are certainly more vocal and more widely publicized than the people who do not support that position, if that makes any sense.
Yeah, it does.
Thank you for calling and keep saying God bless you to your patients.
Patrick in Indiana, why do you, Dennis, think Freud was a genius?
Because he was.
I thought he was the most...
I thought he should have been time's man of the century instead of Einstein.
I don't say I agree with...
I think Moses and Monotheism was a stupid book, but with regards to the human psyche, I think he was a genius.
And they can't stand him in part because he...
He understood that the human being, human nature is so flawed.
And he recognized that.
And that's the key to wisdom, knowing human nature is flawed.
Pasadena, California, Maria would like me to play some Dr. Zelenko interviews.
Dr. Zelenko died of cancer yesterday or the day before.
Breaks my heart.
He was a great human being.
He had the rarest of traits, courage.
He has a special place in heaven, in my opinion.
My heart goes out to his family and to America, which can't afford to lose such heroic people.
I wish you all a wonderful Independence Day.
Please celebrate it, show the flag, and God bless America.
Dennis Prager here.
Thanks for listening to the Daily Dennis Prager Podcast.
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