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March 14, 2023 - Dennis Prager Show
01:21:59
ASU Review
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Thank you, Mark Davis, for sitting in for me yesterday, folks.
Just an update on the Arizona State University talk I gave.
That was on Wednesday night, and 35 professors signed a statement condemning the university for inviting Charlie Kirk and me.
The program was titled Happiness, Health, and something to that effect.
A real hate-filled program, as you can tell by the title.
And I called on one of the three professors who defended the university for inviting Charlie Kirk and me.
He was in the audience, Owen Anderson, and I had him stand up and they gave him a standing ovation.
And I repeated something that I have said to you so many times, and that is only outliers do good.
Not every outlier does good, but only outliers do good.
The sheep don't do good.
As in most professions, whether it's medicine or law, there's no profession where sheep do not dominate.
It's a very sad realization about the human condition, but I was prepared for it in third grade when I learned that the will of man's heart is towards evil from his youth in Genesis.
I was prepared to be disappointed by humanity because I wasn't disappointed by humanity.
I was...
I was given wisdom in third grade, much more than you're given at Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Columbia, Stanford, Berkeley, University of Nebraska, Idaho State, all combined, just for the record.
I got more wisdom as kids who go to religious Jewish school, religious Christian school, and I mean seriously religious.
There are Jewish schools that have almost nothing to do with Jewish values and Christian schools that have almost nothing to do with Christian values.
There are leftist Christian schools that are indistinguishable from leftist public schools and leftist Jewish schools that are indistinguishable from leftist public schools.
But the schools that are true to their faiths give you wisdom.
And one of the things that you learn to understand is that you are pleasantly surprised by wonderful people rather than disappointed by miserable people.
And the university is filled with miserable people, sheep, cowards.
And if you're not a coward, it's a very, very small chance you'll be a dean or a president of a university.
By the way, the president of Arizona State is not a coward, and I need to note that.
He has made sure that the university actually actively invites conservatives who could not set foot on many campuses.
So Arizona State is different, but it's not different in the composition of its professors.
I have invited any of them to come on my show, and I have offered to come into their class and be drilled by the professor.
Of course, they will never do anything like that because they don't debate.
I always get some emails from people, oh, what do you mean don't debate?
I'll debate you any time, Dennis Prager.
I always get that response.
Okay, anyway.
It was a beautiful evening.
It was with Robert Kiyosaki as well, author of Rich Dad, Poor Dad.
And I'm only telling you this, I should really tell you this next hour on the Happiness Hour, but since it just came up, he said on a number of occasions that I was in many ways responsible for his becoming a happier human being because of my book on happiness and other things.
This is a man who's extremely wealthy, extremely successful, and as he said, and I was not happy.
He was not happy.
Which is, of course, not surprising.
There's no reason great wealth will bring you happiness.
I have a very good and sober view of money.
If you're happy, money makes you happier.
And if you're unhappy, money makes you unhappier.
Because you'll still have the reasons that you're unhappy.
However, you will now have to confront them because you'll realize money was not the source of your unhappiness.
Anyway, 1,200 people showed up, which is a very large audience.
And I thank you all for coming.
I know that Charlie and I have a big following.
Charlie in Arizona, Charlie actually lives in Phoenix.
And it was a very beautiful evening, to be honest.
There is a book out.
I'm going to get you the name later, because it's really...
Could you take a look?
The Economist just reviewed a book on the Holocaust.
So if you could find that for me.
I have an extremely important thing to say about that book.
So it's written by a professor.
I'll get his name.
He's a professor at Oxford.
And he wrote about a major book, apparently, on collaborators with the Nazis in the murder of the Jews of Europe.
And I've been...
I've been psychologically and emotionally and intellectually preoccupied with the Holocaust all of my life, though I am third-generation American.
It's called the Holocaust of Unfinished History.
What is his name?
Dan Stone.
Yeah, Dan Stone.
Thank you.
Do you have The Economist review?
Yeah.
Yeah, you put that up.
Dan Stone is the Holocaust scholar.
To give you an idea of all of my truisms about the left, he, this man whom I don't know from Adam, and he's welcome on my show to answer the charges I'm about to level at him, the economist notes that in his book he writes that the Republican Party in the United States is a fascist party.
Did you know that?
So now, I'm curious.
I'm asking my producer here.
Are you tempted to read the book, now that you know what the man wrote, that the man used the Holocaust to attack the Republican Party of the United States?
Doesn't that, like, end your interest?
Don't you assume he's a fool?
So I want you to understand a few things about Dan Stone.
And this book on the Holocaust.
One, as I have said to you, truth is not a left-wing value.
It's a liberal value, and it is a conservative value.
It is a lie, if there's such a thing as a lie, that the Republican Party in the United States is a fascist party is a lie.
If anything comes closer to fascism, it would be the Democratic Party, and I've never said it was a fascist party, but it's a hell of a lot closer.
A party that wants the government to be smaller is not going to be a fascist party.
So the man lied.
Number two, another principle of the left.
Everything the left touches, it destroys.
It is destroying Holocaust studies.
There's a guy at Yale named Snyder, who is another moral idiot of the left, who writes about the Holocaust.
It's like leftists have captured sacred ground and distorted it.
Why did this guy, Stone, This Oxford professor.
Is it Oxford or Cambridge?
I think it's Oxford.
Why did this guy think it was necessary to put in a book about fascist slaughter of Jews that the Republican Party is fascist?
University of London.
Oh, University of London.
Good, I'm glad I checked on it.
All right, University of London, which is another quote-unquote prestigious British university.
You have to understand...
The hatred for conservatives that permeates the left, that he would have felt it necessary to put in a book on the Holocaust, on the extermination of six million men, women, and children, that the Republican Party is fascist, gives you an idea of the irrationality that governs all leftism.
So truth is not a left-wing value.
Everything the left touches, it destroys.
The mangling of even Holocaust studies.
You would think if there's one area where people could actually just pursue truth, it would be that.
But no.
They have to...
They don't have a filter.
By the way, Donald Trump doesn't have much of a filter between his brain and his mouth.
I fully acknowledge that.
But nothing that comes out of his mouth rivals this.
Nothing.
But they have no filter.
The need to smear conservatives is as great as to tell the story of the six million for guys like Dan Stone.
I'm aching to make this public.
The Economist, which is not a conservative magazine...
Is that fair to say?
Yes, that's fair.
I've never seen...
It's not leftist.
It's more liberal.
But certainly on climate, it's left.
It's left of center.
Let's put it that way.
And even The Economist...
Felt it necessary in the review of the book to note that this guy stuck in this line.
The Republican Party is fascist.
A man who writes a book on evil doesn't even know what it's about.
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Hello, everybody.
Dennis Prager here.
That's something.
A man writes a book on the murder of six million Jews and sticks in it that the Republican Party is a fascist party.
Professor at the University of London, Dan Stone.
There's a concept in Judaism.
I don't know if he's a Jew or not.
I don't particularly care, but my comment is irrespective of his own identity.
But there is a concept in Judaism that the greatest sin, there is such a thing as the greatest sin, the greatest sin is chilul Hashem, desecration of the name, literally, meaning desecrating the name of God.
It's when you do something bad in God's name.
So, in that sense, atheist evil is not as awful as religious evil.
That's my take.
Atheist evil just brings a bad name to atheism.
But religious evil brings a bad name to God.
So I would say that this guy did Chilul Shoah.
This guy desecrated the Holocaust.
That's what he did with that line.
To use a book on the fascist genocide of the Jews.
And use it to attack the Republican Party of the United States as fascist?
You have to be an idiot.
And he's an idiot.
He's a knowledgeable idiot.
But being knowledgeable does not negate the possibility of being an idiot.
So we have two Republican...
Members of the New Jersey State Legislature, is that correct?
Are they both New Jersey?
In New Jersey, it's not the state legislature.
But what are they then?
They were councilmen.
Okay, so a city council person?
Okay.
Anyway, two Republican politicians murdered within a week.
They don't appear to be related.
I have no idea why they happened.
My only point is the media.
Had two Democrats been murdered, it's all you would be hearing about.
That's all.
Just thought I'd share that with you because the media are not committed to truth, they're committed to the left.
Talking about that, you should know about this, that there is going to be more and more suppression of non-left-wing media.
Washington Examiner has a big piece.
Well-funded disinformation tracking groups are part of a stealth operation blacklisting and trying to defund conservative media.
Likely costing the news companies large sums in advertising dollars.
A Washington Examiner investigation These same disinformation monitors...
are compiling secret website blacklists and feeding them to ad companies with the aim of defunding and shutting down disfavored speech, according to sources familiar with the situation, public memos and emails obtained by the Washington Examiner.
The Global Disinformation Index, GDI, A British group with two affiliated U.S. nonprofit groups, sharing similar board members, is one entity shaping the ad world behind the scenes.
GDI's CEO is Claire Melford, a tech advisory board member for Human Rights First, a left-leaning nonprofit group that says disinformation fuels, quote, violent extremism and public health crises.
Public health crises?
What is that about?
I'm assuming it's COVID. It's devastating.
Mike Benz, the State Department's ex-deputy assistant for internal communications and information policy, told the Washington Examiner, quote, the implementation of ad revenue crushing sentinels like NewsGuard.
We did an entire Prager fireside chat at PragerU.
I did it with the CEO, Marissa Streit, on NewsGuard.
NewsGuard is another one of these left-wing organizations that are taken by various groups to squelch non-left-wing sources, like PragerU, by the way.
Global Disinformation Index and the like has completely crippled the potential of alternative news sources to compete on an even economic playing field with approved media outlets like CNN and the New York Times, unquote.
It's interesting that the man who said that is the ex-deputy assistant for internal communication.
I wonder if someone in the State Department would say that today.
One influential ad company that has subscribed to GDI, that's, again, GDI, the Global Disinformation Index, exclusion list to defund outlets purportedly spreading disinformation is Exander.
Which Microsoft bought from AT&T in 2021 for $1 billion.
Exander informed companies in September 2022 that it would begin adopting GDI's exclusion list to punish content that is, quote, morally reprehensible or patently offensive, lacking redeeming social value or could include false or misleading information.
To enforce this change, Exander is partnering with the Global Disinformation Index and will be adopting their exclusion list, Exander wrote to other companies.
So you see what is going on now, right?
I'm going to give you the list of some of those that they identify as the riskiest and worst offenders.
of disinformation.
It is the greatest organized censorship in American history, probably in Western history.
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800-221-7694 AmericanFederal.com AmericanFederal.com So there is a more organized than ever effort to get rid of all non-left-wing media.
By a group called now the Global Disinformation Index.
It's in Britain.
It's got American affiliates like NewsGuard.
And what they do is they publish who you can't trust and then advertisers stop advertising.
GDI, which did not reply to several requests for its exclusion list, discloses in reports which outlets it identifies as the riskiest and worst offenders for peddling disinformation.
These ten, which all skew to the right, are the American Spectator, Newsmax, the Federalist, the American Conservative, One America News, the Blaze, the Daily Wire, Real Clear Politics.
Real Clear Politics?
That is amazing.
This really proves the point that no...
Real Clear Politics, 50% of what they publish is from the left.
Real Clear Politics doesn't have positions in general.
It just publishes the best left and the best right.
But the fact is they publish things on the right.
You can't do that.
There is no example in history of the left allowing dissent.
Just understand that.
I say this almost every day, only because without repetition, people forget.
People are bombarded with messages, so it's easy to forget.
This is a perfect example.
Who else?
See, Reason.
Reason!
Reason Magazine!
That's why I'm right.
You don't even have to be conservative.
You just have to be not left.
And the New York Post.
That's right.
So advertisers see this list.
They don't know anything.
They don't know that it's a left-wing hate group.
And they go, okay, we won't advertise with any of these people.
Daily Wire?
Some of the finest minds in the world writing for the Daily Wire?
Has Jordan Peterson, who's with the Daily Wire, for example, has he ever said anything that wasn't true?
Has Ben Shapiro, for that matter, an Orthodox Jew, will be violating his deepest religious convictions to lie?
Columbia Journalism Review just reported about how much lying the Washington Post and New York Times did on the Russian collusion issue.
Thank you.
Russiagate, it's called.
Are the New York Times and Washington Post on the global disinformation list?
No, of course not.
This is what the left does.
It just declares you're disinforming just as Putin does.
He calls all opposition disinformation.
There is little to distinguish between the left and Putin morally.
Putin does worse because he has the power to crush people.
If the left had the power to crush people, it would do so.
Well, it's doing so, actually.
People languishing in horrific conditions in prison because they went into the Capitol on January 6th.
Topics that have recently spawned disinformation allegedly relate to COVID-19, anti-vaccine content, mask protests, abortion, and alleged voter fraud during the 2020 presidential election, Melford said.
This is the head of it, this woman, Melford.
She added that disinformation narratives have also taken hold around the idea that, quote, there's a corrupt elite working only for themselves, not serving the will of the common man, and that only a strong man can get rid of the corrupt elite.
You know, there is no corrupt elite in America.
Not according to leftists, because the corrupt elite in America are left-wing.
So, of course, they're not corrupt.
But if you say it, you can't get ad money.
The whole point of the disinformation tracking industry is clearly to destroy, quote, the reach, scalability, market, and even credibility of conservative news outlets, added Benz, now executive director of the Foundation for Freedom Online, a censorship watchdog.
On the flip side, all of the websites that GDI ranks as the least risky lean left in their news courage.
Minus the Wall Street Journal.
Well, the Wall Street Journal leans left in its news coverage, too.
It doesn't lean left in its editorial pages.
Of course, NPR, ProPublica, Associated Press, Insider, New York Times, USA Today, Washington Post, BuzzFeed News, and HuffPost.
They're all truth tellers.
It's the happy, happy, happy, happy area.
Yes, it is.
Ladies and gentlemen, the happiness hour, every Friday the second hour.
No matter what, hail, smiting of the firstborn, frogs, lice, vermin, blood, leftism, no matter what.
All right, y'all, join me.
It's the happy...
Uh-oh, uh-oh, I went too fast.
Uh-oh, uh-oh, uh-oh, uh-oh, I went too fast.
Yes, everybody, it's a dark time we're living in, but you still have to be happy.
I know it sounds contradictory, but what is your choice?
To be unhappy?
First of all, you give the bad guys a victory.
They would be more than happy to know they made you unhappy.
Secondly, what good does it do?
It's a...
I mean, if you can only be happy in good times, it doesn't say much for the power of happiness.
So I am adamant about it, and I've never missed a Friday that I've been on.
I mean, some Fridays I'm off, obviously, but I would say 48 out of 52 Fridays a year.
Since 1999, I've done the Happiness Hour.
Because the happy make the world better, and the unhappy tend to make it worse.
That's the way it works.
I have a great topic for you today.
And I rarely have a title, so Sean, who keeps the sums?
You do, right?
Alright, so here it is.
Sober Fun.
That's today's topic.
Sober Fun.
My son is very open about it, my second son, who was born to a very heavily drug-addicted birth mother.
His late mom and I adopted him the day he was born.
As I attach little to no significance to blood, It has never meant anything to me.
He's my son, period, from the day he was born.
And I have one biological son whom I adore as well, obviously.
Anyway, he battled alcohol and drugs for a good chunk of his youth.
And he's been sober now, I think, five years, is it?
And he said to me something when he first began his sobriety that he couldn't imagine having fun while sober.
And that was a revelation to me and it opened my eyes to the fact that the idea that you could have fun in life and be sober Is, in fact, not a popular idea among many people.
You don't have to be an addict to worry that you can't have fun if you're sober.
This issue arose in my latest Dennis and Julie podcast.
It'll come out on Monday.
Parts air on the Salem News Channel this weekend.
To see all of them in their entirety go to the Dennis Prager Show on YouTube.
Again, we have to have a link at DennisPrager.com.
It's a little silly that we don't.
I'm telling you, though, this hour to an hour and a half that I do each week with Julie Hartman is very powerful stuff.
And it brings out things in me.
That even though I'm very open on the show, are parts of me that I would never have mentioned, not because I want to hide it, but because it's not brought out of me, as she does.
And likewise her.
It's remarkable.
It's called Dennis and Julie.
And this notion of, can you be sober and have fun?
It's a very, very big one.
It's not only the addict who thinks it's impossible.
A lot of people think it's impossible.
I remember in college when kids would say, my peers would say, oh man, there's nothing like sex after marijuana or when you're high on something.
Whether it's alcohol or a drug.
And I remember thinking, wait a minute.
You need something to enhance the fun of sex?
I couldn't believe it.
Like, it isn't fun enough?
enough you needed you needed an enhancer at 22 years of age I I didn't realize what I was confronting The belief that you can have fun if you're sober.
That's really part of that approach was a manifestation of that thinking.
I have to be high on something.
It could be gambling, by the way.
It's not necessarily a drug.
Or alcohol.
But those things are what really make life exciting and fun.
A lot came together in talking to Julie about this notion of sober fun.
It actually arose in a very small way.
She was at...
At my house with my wife and me.
And she came over to my desk to see what I was looking at on the internet.
It was, for whatever reason, it was apparent I wasn't working.
As I say to you, I take a vacation every day.
So she comes over to the computer.
You'll get a charge out of this.
What do you think I was looking at?
Very, absolutely a coherent response, something audio equipment.
I was looking, I'm almost embarrassed to say, I was looking at different inks.
I told you folks, I'm really into fountain pens.
The variety of colors that were available with a certain brand and many brands.
So she came over and she looks and sees on the screen all these colors of fountain pen inks.
And to my great joy and amazement, she found it fascinating.
Just fascinating.
And we spent quite a while on these various greens.
And she's fallen in love with writing with a fountain pen anyway.
And now that she sees, oh my God, all of these varieties, it's almost an infinite variety of colors.
Which is half the fun of fountain pen writing is choosing the color ink you have.
It's not something you can do with a ballpoint pen.
You've got a big choice in most ballpoint pens between blue and black.
But here, it was infinite.
She saw a pink that she fell in love with.
It was not my personal favorite for sexist reasons.
But anyway, it wasn't.
But it was beautiful in its way, absolutely.
Pink's a beautiful color.
And that's what hit her.
She said, you, Dennis, you have a lot of sober fun.
And I always did.
That's why I have recommended on the Happiness Hour, hobbies.
Hobbies are the perfect example of sober fun.
And there's been an absolute decline in hobbies.
What does the youngest generation today do for hobbies?
I hear very often video games.
I'm not sure that that qualifies.
It might.
That's amusement.
I don't think that's a hobby.
I think it's amusement.
Anyway, how do you react?
Do you hear what I'm saying on the need for sober fun?
It's a better life.
Has that been a battle in your life?
1-8 Prager 776 877-243-7776 The Happiness Hour on the Dennis Prager Show.
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Hi, everybody.
Happiness hour on the Dennis Preston Show.
Boiling water, simmer, and serve.
Silver fun is the topic.
Right now, you can go to four patriots at the number four.
So, Rick, may I mention you in the context here?
So, Rick, who works on the show next to Sean, periodically punches Sean to make sure that Sean stays on straight and narrow.
Sober fun for both of you.
Anyway, Rick, like one of my sons, was addicted for many years as a kid.
And he came in to say to me, that's exactly what he feared.
Could not imagine getting sober and still having fun.
But these are not the only, it's not only addicts.
I told you about how many kids my age, in my 20s, would say, oh, you know, if you have sex, you should really...
Get high first and then it's really intense.
Like sex in your 20s needs an enhancement.
It's not enough.
And the pursuit of the adrenaline rush or whatever the chemical description would be is a very big one today.
I guess one way of putting my message here on this Happiness Hour edition would be that one should try to get high on life, which I think is very possible.
I mean, there is so much available that maybe I'm built differently, but I don't think it's that different.
The rush that I feel with music, for example.
Now, mine is classical music, but yours may well be another type of music.
That doesn't provide some sort of quote-unquote high music.
A sober high is being with friends.
I have a sober high every week in my Sabbath.
I told you it's my secret weapon for my energy, my outlook, my joy.
A day a week away from everything, just with people and or family, friends and or family.
If you don't have it, you can't imagine it.
It's not something you can imagine.
You have to experience it.
While 99% of the rest of the country was locked down, willingly or forcibly, I was gathered with my same dozen friends every single Friday night as if nothing were happening.
That was a very big deal in my life.
And in the other 11 people's lives.
Hobbies afford a sober high or sober fun.
That's a big trick in life in terms of happiness.
Okay, let's go to Marty in Plymouth, Michigan.
Hello, Marty.
Hello, Dennis.
This is a real honor to speak with you.
Thank you.
And you're on a good topic today.
Yep, I know.
I, for the grace of God, have been sober for 43 years.
How old are you now?
How old are you now?
I'm 67, so I drank all through college.
Right, exactly.
So 24 you became sober.
Okay.
Correct, yep.
And what I've discovered is the most important thing is you have to find internal keys first.
And then I drank for that enhancement.
You know, there's a line in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof when I think Elizabeth Taylor says to Paul Newman, why do you drink so much?
And he says, well, I'm trying to get that click.
Well, you only get that click the first time you get high or, like you said, the first time you have sex, the first time you do drugs, and then you're trying to chase it ever thereafter.
And so you have to find peace in your heart, and then you can find joy doing things by yourself.
Or I love to bike ride and swim and ski, but I will do those things alone.
I don't need anybody to do those with me to have joy.
Well, obviously you have found sober fun.
I have.
Had I told you when you were 23 that you can have sober fun, would you have thought I was out of my mind?
Probably.
Right.
Okay.
That's my plan, ladies and gentlemen.
I thank you, sir.
I do thank you.
I've got to move on here.
And...
All right.
Let's see.
David in Deerfield, Wisconsin.
Hello.
Dennis, pleasure to speak with you.
Thank you.
You've helped me save my children's lives.
You're a good man.
How did I help you save your children's lives?
Well, I mean, you just speak common sense, and I'm able to impart that to my children.
Oh, good, good.
You made my day.
Thank you.
Yes.
One of them's a little off the deep end, but three of them at least are...
Well, you know, three for four is batting 750. Yeah.
That's Hall of Fame.
So I have four major hobbies.
I'm a semi-professional guitar player.
I like studying the Bible.
I play golf.
And I brew beer.
And I'm probably...
Two of them I'm typically sober for.
I'm sober, and the other two I probably drink when I'm doing them.
Well, it doesn't mean you're not sober.
Are you getting drunk?
I drink just because I enjoy it.
Right, so...
Yeah, not falling, not falling.
No, I don't like to drink and get inebriated.
Okay, all right.
So they're all sober fun.
Yeah.
Yeah, but the...
When I study the Bible, of course, I don't drink, and typically when I'm brewing beer, I don't drink.
It seems like by the time that I'm done brewing the beer, though, I am definitely having one, so I find that it comes out better if I hold off.
That's fascinating.
Well, thank you very much.
Maybe one way of describing this hour's subject is, The more sober fun you can have in life, the happier your life will be.
And if you can't find sober fun, that's a very serious problem.
There are so many avenues.
I mean, I didn't mention another one, travel.
That's a high.
At least for me, and for a lot of people.
Maybe not for you.
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I used to come home late, not a minute too soon.
Barking like a dog, howling at the moon.
You'd be mad as an old wet hen.
Up all night, wondering where I'd been.
I'd fall down and say, come help me, honey.
You laughed out loud, I guess you thought it was funny.
But I sobered up, I got to thinking.
Girl, you ain't much fun since I quit drinking.
Alright, everybody.
Happiness Hour, second hour every Friday.
I'm Dennis Prager.
The subject is sober fun.
Increasingly, well, I don't know if it's increasingly.
I think it is.
I'm not certain.
People are not having fun from life, but from additives.
Drugs and alcohol are the most obvious, or gambling, or any addictive behavior like that.
But it's a reliance on adrenaline producers outside of normal life.
I mean, friends...
Sometimes family, if you have good family relations, if you have a good marriage, your marriage, your travel, music, hobbies.
There are so many sources of what I call sober fun.
It's quite remarkable that people do not find in life itself those Fun things, those exciting things even.
Okay, I learned that from people who feared getting sober because they couldn't believe they'd have fun.
And I'm going to have fun without drinking?
It's almost impossible for the regular drinker to think that.
Okay, let's see here.
I think if someone smokes, it turns out...
I'll try that.
Springfield, Pennsylvania.
Mike, hello?
Hello, Dennis.
Hi.
You signed my Deuteronomy book at the Fuse with a light green.
Did it have a special name?
That's funny.
I must admit, I don't remember the name of all the inks that I use, but it is a very fair question.
Yeah, my comment was, maybe some people, I'm not talking from experience, I was a late bloomer, maybe some people smoke and it masks or turns off the guilt switch before they have sex.
Well, I think, that's an interesting question.
When my peers would tell me how much better sex was, When high, I don't think it was to reduce guilt.
I don't think they had any guilt.
However, there are women who will, in fact, take something, have a drink, or smoke a joint, perhaps, if they're not committed to the guy that they're about to have sex with.
Girls in the hookup culture at college.
So it might be more applicable in those cases.
All right.
I thank you for that.
And Ruth Ann in Erie, Pennsylvania.
Hello.
Hello.
Thank you for taking my call.
The reason that I called is I was raised by Christian parents that really lived it and had a church that believed.
That we have a whole-shaped vacuum in our heart that only God can fill.
And I never needed that other stuff because Jesus had forgiven my sins.
And when your sins are forgiven, you don't have to numb any pain that you caused others or others caused you.
And I'm not saying that every day was blissful.
We go through trials just like everyone else.
But another thing is, I think I never cared what other people thought.
Because I knew that God approved of me, and so I didn't have to have a drink to go dancing and enjoy it.
And what I found, and everybody knows that alcohol is a different question, I used to go to parties where they drink, get high, do all kinds of stuff, and I'd drink my water.
And some of them were afraid and thought I was a narc, and they're like, no, she's just a Jesus freak.
And I got to tell them about Jesus.
Of course, I didn't get invited back too many times.
I just, I'm happy, even in the midst of horrible things, because this earth is not our forever home.
We're going to be in heaven someday.
By the way, I'm curious, did you ever get married?
Unfortunately, I did not pick well, yes.
Wait, you did, oh, wait, you did not pick well and you did get married.
Right.
I see, okay, all right, I got it.
All right, we'll be back in a moment.
Hi, everybody.
Dennis Prager, Happiness Hour, Sober fun is the subject.
People, vast numbers of people, do not think you can have fun without some additive, without being high, for example, or assume that only high is where the real fun is.
Addicts tend to believe that they have a fear.
And if they do get sober, they won't have fun again.
I suspect almost every addict has that particular fear.
But a lot of people have it who are not addicts and who think that it's necessary to escape the world in order to be high.
And there was so much in the world to get high on.
And that's not just a cute line, a throwaway line.
I actually believe that.
I marvel when I think of all the things that bring me joy.
And I think, don't any of them work for others?
That's why I'm a big fan of hobbies.
And just interests in general.
You know, I think one of the damaging aspects of modern life, the social media is a killer.
Because it takes away from the joy of real life, the real life joys you can have by preoccupying oneself in the electronic world like that.
But there's another thing that I think that ruins kids' ability to enjoy life.
Too much homework.
Can't tell you the contempt I have for schools that assign a lot of homework.
And I don't have particular fondness for the parents who believe that it's important.
You're depriving your children of exploring life.
The purpose of life is not to get good grades in high school so as to get into a good college, contrary to what vast numbers of parents think.
What's your purpose in life once you get into a good college?
There is none.
You realize that?
You've lost your purpose.
Your whole life has been get into a good college.
Okay, you get into a quote-unquote good college.
By the way, there are almost no good colleges, so it's an idiotic thing to begin with.
But you don't mean good in any event.
You mean prestigious.
So your kid gets into a prestigious college.
And then what?
What's their next, what's the purpose of life after that?
They're now 21 years old and they've graduated the good college.
Now what?
High-paying job?
Whoa, whoopee-doo.
That's a biggie.
So when did they have time?
Again, I have to use my own life because it's the life I know best.
I was very, very, very, very, very lucky in that I thought clearly at a very, very young age.
I did no homework, none, for four years of high school.
Graduated in the bottom 20% of my class, or as I often put it, the top 80%.
Couldn't care less.
It meant nothing to me.
In the meantime, I did what I wanted and I got high on music and on international correspondence.
One of my hobbies was shortwave radio listening.
I mean, I developed so many joys of life instead of doing homework.
They have lasted with me my whole life.
So it's worth thinking.
What joys does your kid have?
Homework is not one of them.
Getting into a good college does not do for your ultimate happiness what celebrating life does.
Very good.
Thank you, Dennis.
You're welcome.
San Antonio and Margo, hello.
Hello, Dennis.
Hi.
Thank you.
Hi.
The secret that no one tells you about having sober...
It is a thousand percent more fun than being high on anything.
My drug of choice was alcohol, and I was so scared to lose a best friend that I had for 30 years if I gave it up.
And it's the best thing that's ever happened in my life, so I'm very happy.
I do so much more now, and I don't know how I ever managed to do anything, honestly, because it was a full-time job.
Yep, yep.
Well, I salute you.
I salute every sober person.
You have done something, every one of you who has chosen sobriety, you have conquered something that is equivalent to climbing Everest.
I have tremendous admiration for every one of you.
The odds are also that you have more wisdom than most people.
Because you went through AA. 12-step programs have more wisdom than any university in the country, with very few exceptions.
Okay.
Julie, Asheville, North Carolina.
Hello.
Hi there.
Hi.
I was just going to say that hobbies are successful, I think, when you're a creator.
Doing photography or gardening or making something, as opposed to, at your point on video games, being amusement.
You can be amused, high or drunk, whatever.
But I don't see kids with the hobbies, as you said, like we used to have.
Knitting, sewing.
God, you say knitting or sewing to a, what is it, Gen Xer?
They may not even know what you're talking about.
Well, yeah.
That people don't sew anymore just really surprises me.
Right.
Well, they don't sew in anything.
I like your point because what I take from it is in hobbies, you're the actor.
In amusements, they're the actors.
You're the acted upon.
So we're both making that point, but in different ways, and it's a very important one.
Think about the homework thing that I said, though.
That's a biggie.
And Klopp for the Mola.
Yes, everybody and Klopp for the Mola hitting their head with a Dutch windmill.
Club for the Mole.
I'm Dennis Prager.
This is the hour you set the agenda about you, about me, about life, about death, about, of course, fountain pens, classical music, audio equipment, photography, and cigars.
If you heard the last hour, you'll know how important that is.
Anyway, take in the music and we'll continue.
Last hour of the happiness hour was on the importance of sober fun.
So when I go through the cigars, classical music, audio equipment, photography equipment, and whatever the fifth one was.
What is the fifth one, Sean?
Photography, fountain pens.
I think I did that.
Yeah, that's right.
You realize how important that is.
The more sober fun you have in life, the better.
Anyway, 1-8-Prager-776 is the number.
If you don't get through, keep trying because I do clear some lines.
I don't take every single call that comes up for any number of reasons.
And let's begin with East Vale, California, and John.
Hello, John.
Hi, Guinness.
Hi.
I'm fine.
Thank you.
I've heard you mention on a number of occasions the difference between kill and murder in the Ten Commandments.
So the Christian Bible is where it says kill, and the Hebrew translation is actually murder.
Well, I was talking to my brother in Arizona, and he actually happens to be fluent in ancient Greek as well as Latin.
And we were talking about it, and I asked him to look it up, and he found out the ancient Greek actually is the word for murder, but then when St. Jerome did the Latin Vulgate translation, the word could mean either murder or kill.
King James did his English version.
Rather than opting for the English word for murder, he took the kill part from the Latin, because the Latin word could mean either kill or murder, and he just went with the kill.
That's fine.
Literally, I'm not being cute.
It is very interesting what you're telling me, but it has no effect on what the Hebrew means.
I mean, they could translate it as apricot.
It still remains murder.
Right.
I just thought it was interesting.
Oh, it is?
No, okay.
I think murder is much more clear.
Well, it's what it means.
Murder is much more clear.
Well, it's not a matter of just more clear.
Of course it is.
It's just that's what the Hebrew is.
Hebrew has two words for homicide, just like English does, murder and kill.
If it said, do not kill, if it used the Hebrew, which is harog, or harag, rather than ratzach, then you would not be allowed to kill animals.
You'd have to be a vegetarian.
You could not kill in self-defense.
There's a lot of killing that is not murder.
And anybody who says otherwise doesn't know what they're talking about, obviously.
Murder is immoral killing of a human being.
Nobody says, I murdered a mosquito.
You would be considered a member of PETA. They might say it.
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.
Oh, Cadook!
And let's go to San Diego and Jeff.
Hello.
Hello, Dennis.
As always, it's an honor to speak with you.
Thank you.
My point is twofold, but the first one is that we've seen waves of the woke attacks on American traditionalism.
And I would say that going back a few years, it started, well, it's always been going on, but a few years ago was the same-sex marriage, which was a wave.
And then after that, we got the Black Lives Matter, the George Floyd waves of critical race theory.
And the transsexual wave, you know, it seems like they step up their campaigns.
Well, now it's the reparations.
I can tell they're stepping up the campaigns on the reparations.
There's this Disney thing out on Disney Proud Family or something where the little kids in the Disney family are doing a rap.
I played it on the air.
I played it on the show.
Yeah, utterly infuriating.
But you can tell that they're stepping up the heat, right?
That's correct.
That's right.
There's always a panic.
There's always an alarm.
Without it, the left does not function.
It's interesting, in light of my last hour, it's like they can't have sober fun.
There has to be some adrenaline-producing drug.
At every moment, they're bored.
Remember, secularism plus affluence equals boredom.
It's one of the most important equations about life anyone can understand.
And boredom always leads to bad things.
The left is bored, so they create stuff.
Like they're saving the planet from existential...
The existential threat of global warming.
There is no basis whatsoever to believe there is an existential threat to the world.
You can believe that the world is warming, but it is not an existential threat.
Cold is a far greater existential threat in any event.
If you mean the existence of human beings, certainly.
So, it's never-ending.
COVID mandates, COVID vaccine mandates, another example of a panic which created more harm than good.
It's pretty much endless.
And now reparations.
I mean, I read to you what they're thinking of doing in San Francisco.
Truly out of its mind.
City.
And on the, out of its mind, west coast of the United States.
So who exactly will get it and who exactly will pay it, and why will that be fair?
I mean, really, how do you figure out who gets this money?
And who pays it?
Obviously, many blacks will be paying reparations, because not every black will be receiving reparations.
So every black who is paying taxes will also be paying reparations.
And people who have no ancestors who were here in the time of slavery will also be paying.
Why is that?
Somebody comes here from Venezuela 25 years ago and has to pay reparations.
Okay.
Riverside, California.
Andrew, hello.
Hi, Dennis.
I have two ideas.
I'm going to share one with you if you want to hear the second.
Wait, say it again.
If I want to hear what, I'm sorry.
If you want to hear the second of my two ideas, you asked me.
Oh, I see.
Yeah, because you have to talk about the one you told the screener.
Okay, go ahead.
I told her, too.
But the first is, I think we engage in a lot of negation.
I despise Drag Queen Story Hour, as you do, and most of the listeners.
But I say Prager University maybe should start War Veterans Story Hour, where we recruit war veterans who show up at public libraries in their uniforms with their decoration, their ribbons, their medals.
And they read stories to the children, and then folks could bring their children to hear them.
Right.
What librarian will invite them?
You have no idea how radical the Librarian Association is.
Well, I live in Riverside.
We've had different events at the library, and I think because it belongs to the people, they can reserve space.
Anyway, I like the idea.
I think it's a beautiful idea.
We don't organize events.
But it doesn't matter.
We could still perhaps get involved in some way.
So I thank you for that.
Okay, let's go to Los Alamitos, California.
And Tino, hello.
Hi, Dennis.
I'm calling you.
My daughter wanted me to call you.
We had dinner last night, and she had been dating her boyfriend since high school.
She's 30 years old now.
And your male-female hour about why waiting?
You know, her and I used to always have discussions about why doesn't he ask you to marry?
She was really down on that.
But anyway, I listened to it, and then I sent that to her, and she said she played it for her now fiancé.
She said that that was the reason.
Sorry about that.
This is so emotional for me.
Anyway, she said that was the reason why he asked her to marry me.
And they're getting married one month from today.
So your male-female hour had a...
That was the reason why you asked her to marry.
So she was really happy about that.
And again, she asked me last night to call you, and here I am calling you.
Well, you and she made my day.
The left says I'm a misogynist.
Because the left is...
It's sick.
There are a lot of men who asked their girlfriends to marry them after hearing me.
Men need men in their lives.
It's hard to know what to do without a male model for a man.
And I am very male in males' eyes.
I'm persuasive.
And I'm right.
Hi everybody, you're listening to the Dennis Prager Show.
What's on your mind hour.
And it certainly is varied stuff.
Okay.
Let's see here.
I'm going to clear up some lines.
Forgive me if I let you go.
Don't take it at all personally.
Victor in Woodland Hills, California.
Hello.
Thank you, Mr. Prager, for taking my call.
I met you a couple of months ago, so I'm a great admirer.
I have a question for you.
I want to know your take on the recent earthquake in Turkey, over 20,000 beds with babies.
So what do you think about that?
I've been thinking, you know, the atheists would say, look at the God-believing people.
So I want to hear your opinion about that.
You mean my opinion with regard to how God would allow such a thing?
Yes, sir.
Right.
Well, so you should know I have dealt with this problem all of my life, and there is no answer.
I am at peace with the fact that there is no answer.
I adopted two views a long time ago.
One is a medieval Hebrew phrase.
It's three words in Hebrew, more in English.
If I knew him, I'd be him.
I'm not God, so I don't know God, so I am not God.
I don't know...
I can't answer why God did or didn't do any given thing.
The other is a statement of a rabbi, Milton Steinberg, around 1950. He made a very powerful comment which had a big effect on me.
He said, Believers in God have to account for the existence of one thing, unjust suffering.
I have to account for the existence of everything else.
I find that very persuasive.
Non-belief explains nothing.
Absolutely nothing.
If there's no God, you can't explain why there is a universe, why there is intelligent life, why there is life at all.
Why there is beauty, why there is meaning, why there is almost anything.
The whole world is an insoluble riddle.
But we, it's true, we have, by the way, atheism can't explain the earthquake in Turkey either.
Well, I guess they can.
The earth does what it wants, which is pretty much my explanation too.
The earth does what it wants.
Why did God allow the earth to do what it wants?
I agree.
I don't have an answer.
But it hardly argues for my not leading a religious life.
I lead a religious life with questions.
The word for Israel in the Bible is explained when God changes the name of Jacob to Israel.
The word is explained.
In Hebrew, it means struggle with God.
Believers should do it, and non-believers should do it.
The non-believer doesn't struggle with God.
They take the lazy way out.
I don't know why there are earthquakes.
No God.
I don't find that very deep.
I'm glad you asked, Victor, and I thank you very much.
Beverly Thrills, California, and Roy, hello.
Hello, Dennis.
Thank you very much for taking my call.
It's an honor to talk to you.
I have a question related to the Ten Commandments, and I know that you're really a student, a teacher, and a scholar in this area, and I'm puzzled by the phrase, you shall work six days.
I'm setting up, of course, the Sabbath by itself as the commandment, and yet it's not considered one of the Ten Commandments.
Right.
Well, there are a lot of subsidiary commandments that are not separated as a commandment.
That you must allow your animal to rest is not a commandment of the Ten Commandments either.
It's one of the commandments inside of a commandment.
Got it.
It's filled with commandments that don't have their own separate number.
But it's a very interesting point you raise, and I was taught that in fact it is part of the law that you should work six days.
I do find those who don't work at all because of retirement, because of whatever reason, I'm not sure they're not violating...
Part of the Ten Commandments.
If you're healthy and you can benefit society, work doesn't mean remuneration.
It doesn't mean you get paid for it.
You should do volunteer work.
My parents volunteered to work with inner-city kids when they were in their 80s, and the kids loved them, and they loved what they did.
The non-use of retired older people in this society is a catastrophe.
It's a puzzle to me.
They need each other badly, the old and the young.
Okay, let's see here.
Garner, Iowa.
Haven't heard from Garner in a long time.
Hello, Franco.
Hey, Dennis.
Hello.
I'm actually in Minneapolis.
I drive truck.
But you've frequently made the comments or commented about the lack of color choices in cars in California, white, black, silver.
Yeah, not just California.
I know you don't agree with me, but I'm all over the country.
I don't see colored cars anywhere.
Well, I just passed, or a mint-colored Beetle just passed me, a bright green Dodge.
I saw one a while back.
Yeah, but they probably weren't made that way.
It was probably a paint job.
No, no, sir.
I used to sell cars.
Well, I used to try to sell cars.
I wasn't very good at it.
But they have all kinds of colors.
Yeah, I would love you to send me a website of any car maker that has a whole bunch of different colors.
I would.
I'd be very curious, and I'll happily announce it.
Hey Dennis!
That was special.
Okay, yes, the book called Being Born.
That was what my parents gave to me when I was in elementary school to know about the birds and the bees.
I don't know the author.
I only know that's the name of the book.
I don't know if it's still in print.
Okay, let's see.
God eradicated evil with the flood.
Josh in Decatur, Texas.
I wish I could know what you mean by that, because there's certainly been a lot of evil since the flood.
And, okay, so Kevin wants to tell me that I was in the bottom of the 21% in my class.
There's something to hear about for years, I have to say.
I wonder if I have time, because this one...
How much time do I have, Sean?
All right.
Speak quickly, John, in North Carolina.
I'm curious what you have to say.
Hi.
Yeah, I'm a teacher for 35 years.
I just think, you know, you're not the average kid, Dennis.
to advocate not worrying about grades and not developing good study habits, you know, that's not going to improve the learning of most kids.
And it's really kind of where we're at now.
There's no respect for education, really, in much of our culture.
I couldn't agree with you more.
We're not doing too well versus other countries.
Well, no, everything you say is true.
But education has been degraded.
You're not educated in most schools today.
You're indoctrinated, and you're not taught to think, and you're not taught to love learning.
And in most of American history, there was very little homework.
And kids wrote English in so much better form than they do today.
Anyway, it's worthy of a lot more time than, obviously, I have now.
I'd like to talk to Renee, who is a whistleblower, about masks.
So try to call me next week.
Have a wonderful weekend, everybody.
It is a joy to be with you every day.
I'm Dennis Prager.
The Dennis Prager Show, live from the Relief Factor Pain-Free Studio.
Dennis Prager here.
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