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March 14, 2023 - Dennis Prager Show
01:07:58
Show Trial
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Dennis Prager here.
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A good Friday to you.
I'm Dennis Prager.
So have you been watching the January 6th hearings? - Thank you.
To be honest, I have not.
I am very, very familiar with show trials since I studied Soviet history.
Communism, leftism, Soviet Union, East Europe, that was my field of study.
As I have often said to you, I never ever imagined...
And I mean that.
I never imagined that my study of the Soviet Union would prepare me for events in my beloved America, the freest country ever made in the history of the world.
It has watching the Democratic Party emulate the Communist Party of the Soviet Union with, in this case, a show trial with the inquisitors picked by the party in power.
Adam Kinzinger and Liz Cheney are the Republicans.
They were not picked by the Republicans.
They don't want any embarrassing questions asked, such as, why doesn't the government, the corrupt Democratic Party that controls the government, making a corrupt government, release thousands of hours of videos that it is holding from that day?
This January 6th hearing is as interested in truth as the Stalin show trials were.
I'm not saying that they're Stalin.
I'm just saying that the show trials are as disinterested in truth as the show trials in the 30s and the Soviet Union, 1930s.
Almost a hundred years ago.
Amazing.
It has had a profound effect on my outlook on history, among other things.
If it could happen in America, if a party in power can suppress liberty, arrest opponents, conduct show trials, with a subservient press lying on its behalf on a daily basis.
If that could happen in the United States, it could happen anywhere.
One did not expect this to happen in the United States, which proves the international, non-ethnic nature of leftism.
Wherever it comes to power, it crushes the society that enabled it to come to power.
That is why the great sadness of our time is not the existence of leftists and even the power they have.
It's that they are given power by non-leftists called liberals.
I know some sweet, dear people who will not vote Republican, even as they watch their schools pervert The exercise of education.
I do.
I mean, I know them personally.
My theory of nice people are as capable of destroying society as not nice people is a very important one.
I live it.
I see it.
This is what I said in the very beginning.
When they called it an insurrection, it was not an insurrection.
If it were an insurrection, it would be the first unarmed insurrection in history.
Did you know that CBS actually announced, either yesterday or the day before, that this caused the death of five Capitol officers?
Do you know that that is a lie?
It's a 100% lie.
Tucker Carlson played last night.
All the Democratic Party media, meaning CNN, New York Times, Washington Post, MSNBC, played all of their statements that Officer Sicknick, who lay in state, remember that?
He was bludgeoned to death by rioters using a fire extinguisher.
In fact, that is not true at all.
He was not hit by a fire extinguisher.
Not one of them has apologized or even just said I was wrong, and there's a reason for that.
Truth is not a left-wing value.
I say this regularly.
It is a liberal value and a conservative value.
It is not a left-wing value.
So the notion that I at CNN lied to you is foreign.
Did I serve the cause of the Democratic Party and the left?
That is the question that they ask.
Now, of course, you'll say Fox does the same for the Republicans, but that's not true.
You can say it, and it is a talking point of the left.
There is far more truth on Fox than there is on CNN. In fact, I'll really blow your minds.
Donald Trump spoke more truth in a week, in any week of his presidency, than Joe Biden has since he was elected.
Joe Biden is the consummate liar.
Donald Trump is not a consummate liar.
The press lied about Charlottesville.
He did not say they were nice Nazis.
We have an excellent video on that at PragerU, which sets forth the case, quite objectively, that he did not say that they were nice Nazis.
Nobody with a Jewish son-in-law, Jewish daughter, and Jewish grandchildren thinks there are nice Nazis.
I said that at the time, and it is just worth repeating over and over.
Show trials in America.
Who would have thought it?
Which proves many, many things.
One is, the finest people...
Will not produce fine children unless they dedicate their lives to producing fine children.
I'm speaking specifically of the generation of World War II called the greatest generation.
I think there are many great generations, but it certainly was a great, if not the greatest.
I don't know if there was a greatest.
Probably the founders were the greatest, but it doesn't matter.
This is not an Olympics for greatest generation.
But these were wonderful people who loved liberty, loved this country, loved their schools, loved truth.
They were flawed people, because every human being is flawed.
But they were essentially a good generation with flaws, including the most obvious, on a macro level, being the racial flaw.
However, Americans changed very quickly, and to their credit, this is by far the largest experiment in a multiracial, multiethnic country in the history of the world.
It doesn't work overnight, but it has worked incredibly well, which bothers the left terribly, and that's why there are so many race hoaxes on campuses.
That's why they speak about the great lies of, for example, that January 6th was white supremacy.
Members of Congress have actually said that.
So, one of the great lessons I learned from all of this is that unless the best country in the world very actively works to produce the next generation to appreciate it, It will lose it.
The great line, I paraphrase, of Ronald Reagan was, freedom is always one generation away from being lost.
That was a prophetic line.
That was worthy of Jeremiah, Hosea, and Isaiah, to name a few.
It was even worth Habakkuk.
Something you will not hear on most talk radio shows.
A reference to Habakkuk.
I think it's three chapters in the entire Bible.
That is the lesson.
They didn't teach their children to appreciate the greatest country ever made.
And Adam Schiff and Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi.
The editors of the New York Times are the result.
We continue.
The Dennis Prager Show.
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AmericanFederal.com Only hour on an American news channel that will not be carrying their propaganda live.
They are lying and we are not going to help them do it.
What we will do instead is to try to tell you the truth.
We've attempted to do that since the day this happened.
We hated seeing vandalism at the U.S. Capitol a year and a half ago, and we said so at the time.
But we did not think it was an insurrection because it was not an insurrection.
It was not even close to an insurrection.
Not a single person in the crowd that day was found to be carrying a firearm, some insurrection.
In fact, the only person who wound up shot to death was a protester.
She was a 36-year-old military veteran called Ashley Babbitt.
Babbitt was just over five feet tall.
She was unarmed.
She posed no conceivable threat to anyone.
But Capitol Hill police shot her in the neck and never explained why that was justified.
Those are the facts of January 6th.
But since the very first hours, they have been distorted beyond recognition relentlessly, culminating with last night.
Last night, CBS Nightly News told its viewers that insurrectionists at the Capitol on January 6th, quote, caused the deaths of five police officers.
That is a pure lie.
There's nothing true about it, and they know that perfectly well.
Here's reporter Bob Costa, who should be deeply ashamed to say something this dishonest.
Thursday's primetime hearing will take Americans back to January 6th, when an estimated 2,000 rioters breached the Capitol building, causing the deaths of five police officers.
It's hard to believe he said that.
Rioters caused the deaths of five police officers.
You just heard CBS News tell its viewers that.
This must be the big lie theory.
The more bewilderingly false a claim is, the more likely you will be to believe it.
Apparently, that's what they're betting on.
In fact, precisely zero police officers were killed by rioters on January 6th.
Not five.
None.
Not a single one.
So how'd they get to five?
Well, CBS is counting the suicides of local police officers who took place after January 6th.
In some cases, long after January 6th.
Suicide, unfortunately, is pretty common among cops.
Policing is a tough job, as we've noted.
But in these specific cases, the ones CBS is referring to, the chief of Washington, D.C.'s police department told the New York Times that actually he had no idea if his officers were driven to kill themselves by January 6th.
CBS just made that up.
The fifth death that CBS News is referring to is of Capitol Hill Police Officer Brian Sicknick.
You will remember his name.
Sicknick's body lay in state at the Capitol after the media told us he'd been beaten to death by Trump voters with a fire extinguisher.
Here's what they told you.
Officer Sicknick died after being hit in the head with a fire extinguisher.
Sicknick died after being hit in the head with a fire extinguisher.
Officer Brian Sicknick died after being hit in the head with a fire extinguisher during the hours-long attack.
They beat a Capitol Police officer to death with a fire extinguisher.
Officer Brian Sicknick died after being hit in the head with a fire extinguisher during the fight.
He died at the age of 42 after he was bludgeoned the fire extinguisher.
Once again, that's not true.
Everything you just heard was completely fabricated.
The DC medical examiner performed an autopsy, and the autopsy report showed that Officer Brian Sicknick had not suffered any kind of blunt force trauma.
He was not beaten to death.
He died of a stroke in his office later.
No one has been charged in Officer Sicknick's death because Officer Sicknick wasn't murdered.
They are lying to you.
That is provable.
Not a single person who just saw it apologize.
Pretty powerful stuff.
Thank you.
Thank you.
They're lying to you.
That's correct.
Truth is not a left-wing value.
So will this guy Robert Custa at CBS, not to be confused with Bob Custis, will this Robert Custa apologize?
Will CBS apologize?
Oh, about 25 years ago, I wrote a column titled, Being on the Left Means Never Having to Say You're Sorry.
Who's going to hold you accountable?
Who is going to hold CBS News accountable?
The New York Times?
When the New York Times lies just like CBS does, it's not likely that they will hold CBS accountable.
So the human condition is such that there are never guarantees that goodness will prevail.
Those of you who say, and you are right, in the long run, evil doesn't win out.
But we don't live in the long run.
We live in the short run.
I've never found that comforting in the long run.
You know how many people suffer horribly in the short run?
Why is that in any way comforting in the long run?
You live now.
Your life is important.
This country is important now.
Truth is important now.
Goodness is important now.
The corruption, the utter Sovietization of the American media is so apparent every day.
The great Douglas Murray, and he is a great...
I'm finishing his book, The War Against the West, is really a great book.
I'm telling you, it's quite something.
Anyway, he has a piece up today in the New York Post.
Is he starting to write for the New York Post on a regular basis?
Do you know?
Anyway, he writes here about the guy who went to threaten Supreme Court Justice Kavanaugh.
With arms.
Here's a prediction that can be made with 100% certainty.
If a Democrat-appointed Supreme Court justice had just had their life threatened, this nation's politics and media would be in uproar.
Were a man to have just been found outside the home of a Democrat-appointed judge seeking to kill them, it would be a wall-to-wall coverage.
But it was outside the home of Justice Brett Kavanaugh that a man was arrested in the early hours of Wednesday morning.
The 26-year-old had traveled from California and had admitted that he hoped to kill Kavanaugh.
Among other things, the man told officers he was upset about the leaked draft of a Supreme Court judgment on Roe v.
Wade.
This news hardly made the front page of the New York Times.
A tiny news in brief line was all it got.
There was no wall-to-wall coverage on the networks.
So far, the nation's late-night comics have not got the story between their teeth.
Nobody is talking about the rise of fascism in America.
Or communism.
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MyPillow.com, promo code PRAGER. I was at a dinner last night with some major donors to Prager U. And I said to them, and I will say to you,
outside of science, technology, engineering, and math, there's no question your son or daughter would learn so much more watching and studying the more than 500 videos at PragerU.
Than going to a university in this country.
With obvious handful of exceptions.
Truly handful.
Something you should consider.
It's free, so I'm not doing this at all with money in mind.
It has nothing to do with money.
People who hate us frequently write that It's not a university.
They're big two charges, and it's like Trump University.
Well, you have to pay for Trump University.
You don't have to pay for Prager University.
I'm not making an appeal.
My only appeal is that you raise your child with wisdom and knowledge.
You know, for example, I was just thinking of it because of the promo just now of the three-part series on what Marxism is.
It's a phenomenal series.
Do you know how many professors we have giving courses of the 500 courses?
I wouldn't be surprised if 50 of the 500 courses are delivered by professors.
He's at Clemson, we have Princeton, Columbia, Harvard, places that are by and large worthless today, but they nevertheless have some good professors.
You should take the money that you would save, not to mention saving the mind of your child, saving their heart.
You don't become a nicer person.
Forget don't become wiser.
You don't become nicer when you go to college.
You're taught the source of ugliness, ingratitude.
Talking about ingratitude, When I see Chuck Schumer, I see a profile in two things, ingratitude and cowardice.
This man knows better.
That's why I'm picking him.
He knows how lucky he is to be an American.
But he prefers power to decency.
And to be a Democrat today, especially in a leadership position, Means that you have to forsake gratitude and decency.
Listen to what he said.
I want to tell you, Gorsuch.
I want to tell you, Kavanaugh.
You have released the whirlwind and you will pay the price.
What a lowlife.
Truly a lowlife.
Calling them by their last names.
Threatening them.
But it means nothing.
This is honey to people on the left.
It's sweetness.
It is not easy to make good people.
Schumer's parents are an example.
It is not easy to make good people.
This is the theme of my life.
And if you don't, the whole society will pay.
Oops, I just paid a price.
Banking my mic.
That is the state of life.
If you don't produce good people, the society will not be good.
What I just said is so obvious.
That I feel self-conscious in even saying it.
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It's the happy, happy, happy, happy area.
Yes it is, ladies and gentlemen.
I remember what I used to say.
It's right.
Come hella high water, frogs, lice, vermin, smiting of the firstborn, darkness.
We still have locusts.
We still have a happiness hour.
Every week, the second hour of my show is the happy, happy, happy, happy hour.
The happy make the world better.
The unhappy make it worse.
Happiness is a moral obligation.
Not an emotional state.
Well, it is an emotional state, partially.
But it is a moral obligation.
It's also a moral obligation to act happy even if you don't feel it.
It is not right to inflict your bad moods on others any more than it is to inflict your bad breath or bad body odor on others.
Hence, we shower and engage in dental hygiene.
Oof, that was a good one.
Dental hygiene.
Welcome to the Happiness Hour.
I'm Dennis Prager.
Big, it's a big subject.
So, I want to reflect on happiness today on a very big subject which can be life-changing if you take it seriously.
As you know, I'm sure you know.
The Declaration of Independence speaks about life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
I love that.
That's really what constitutes a good country.
Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
So my topic today is, of course, the pursuit of happiness.
Most people...
How shall I put it?
Most people do not pursue happiness.
They pursue fun.
They pursue excitement.
We've had some very important recent happiness hours on the excitement issue.
Very, very big, very big deal.
But they don't pursue happiness.
What I have tried to do in the 23 years of the happiness hour is to give you ways to pursue happiness.
But you must consciously understand it is to be pursued.
I want you to know this is controversial.
Many, many writers on happiness, especially in academia, say you can't pursue happiness.
It's a byproduct.
By the way, I have a whole, if not a chapter, but a whole discussion in my book on happiness on that very fact that happiness is a byproduct.
That doesn't mean you don't pursue the byproduct.
If you know that X leads to Y and you want Y, then obviously you'll do X. So these people are sort of fooling themselves when they say, oh, don't pursue happiness because happiness is only a byproduct of other things.
Okay, but if it's a byproduct of other things, then pursue the other things and then you're pursuing happiness.
Of course you should pursue happiness.
What good things don't you pursue?
Why would happiness be any different?
Do the things that bring happiness.
And it's my theory that people don't.
They do things that feel good, that are comfortable.
I work out three times a week.
I don't like the workouts.
So if I didn't pursue happiness, I would not work out.
Because I'm happier as a result of working out.
I'm in better condition.
I have a tremendous amount of energy.
I bless God for it.
Nature, or luck, and my trainer.
A lot of things go into it, including luck.
I have no doubt about it.
Most of the things that you have to pursue for happiness, not all, but most, are not things you want to do.
Married people are happier.
A lot of people don't pursue marriage because it's a lot easier to stay single, especially in our society, where you're told it's just as good to be single.
Among the many lies that people are told at the university and even earlier.
The subversion of happiness is the agenda of the university.
When you think of a professor of gender studies, or even sociology, does the first thing that comes to your mind a picture of a happy person?
Well, it doesn't to me.
The cumulative unhappiness among academics is probably very great.
You're not told what to pursue.
Marriage is a perfect example.
My subject is not marriage, but I'm using that as an example.
Children are a gamble.
Children are not easy.
Most people later in life, most, not all, especially now, So many young people rejecting their parents because they're utterly secular, utterly selfish, and don't give a damn about the people who sacrifice so much to make their life possible.
But generally speaking, most people are happy they had children.
It is an example.
Of a richer life.
That's another thing that people don't pursue is a rich life.
I don't mean rich in money.
A rich life in experience.
And so people pursue what I've often said is that what be written on their tombstone, I had as little pain as possible.
That, my friends, is not a pursuit of happiness.
The avoidance of pain is not the same as the pursuit of happiness.
Really important.
So what can you do to pursue happiness?
So every one of the things I am about to mention, I have devoted an entire hour to.
Many of them there's a whole chapter on.
To end a sentence with a preposition.
This is a no-no.
And I will mention some of them on today's show, at this time.
In no order of importance, necessarily.
Friends is up there.
I can't imagine being happy without close friends.
And I shouldn't have to add the word close, and by close friends...
I have always defined close friend as someone to whom you can say anything.
The more you hide, the less close your friendship is.
The more you hide, the less close your marriage is.
If marriage should be anything, it should be a friendship.
But people don't pursue friends.
There's a lament that I have made often in my life.
If you pursued friends, There'd be a lot of things you would do.
You would take up interests so that you would meet other people who share your interest.
Staying home and watching Netflix is easy, but it is not the pursuit of happiness.
Going to a book club, going to a church club, a Bible study group, Even if you're an atheist, going to a musical group, a choir, I mean, these things, by the way, were far more common 50 years ago and, of course, throughout American history.
Most people were part of some social network, of some club, if you will.
Like a glee club.
Not anymore.
Television, I've believed that television and college education were the two great post-World War II curses.
The net result of both has been awful.
And you have to ask And you should ask yourself, what do I do to pursue happiness?
Another one, in addition to pursuing friends, and I'll get back to that, is religion.
People think religion is only for people who are firm believers.
It's not true.
Religion is for people who want to delve into the great issues of life.
That's what a Bible class should be about.
It shouldn't be just about the faith.
It should be about all of life.
What does the Bible say?
That's why I'm writing my Bible commentary.
Because what it says can fill your life with happiness and wisdom.
1-8-Prager-776 Happiness Hour on the Dennis Prager Show, the second hour every Friday.
I'm arguing for the pursuit of happiness.
This was a normative teaching in the past, certainly in America.
That's why pursuit of happiness is in the Declaration of Independence, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
It was also called the pursuit of a virtuous life, whatever the term was.
That is what the parents' obligation and school's obligation were perceived and the church's obligation were perceived as being.
Lead a person to a rich, happy, meaningful, virtuous life.
We have none of that now.
And then we have the highest suicide rate among young people ever recorded in American history.
We have the nihilists who are robbing children of Basically, their chance at happiness.
I always debate whether I get into anything political on the happy hour or the happiness hour.
And it is.
It's a tear at me.
I try not to, but it's almost impossible when you deal with something like this.
I mean, if you tell children that America is worthless, that religion is worthless, And they will be incinerated by global warming when they get older.
It's very easy to understand why you have so many depressed young people.
Oh yes, and added to that, why get married?
Just pursue a career, because as we know, a financial analyst gets a lot more out of financial analysis than...
People get out of marriage or children.
It's not even comparable.
That's where meaning is.
So it's no wonder that we have so many unhappy Americans.
You actually can get in.
It's a rare happiness hour where we have actually a couple of open lines.
1-8 Prager 776. Okay.
Stone Mountain, Georgia.
Larry, hello.
Hello, Dennis.
Hi.
Hi, thank you for what you do.
Thank you for saying that.
I wanted to ask you, or say, what is your definition of happiness?
I have none.
Okay.
I think there's two types of happiness.
One is fleeting, the other is real.
And permanent.
Right, but neither is a definition.
You asked me to define it.
You can't define it.
No one can.
I wrote in my opening to my book, which I published 23 years ago, I don't define happiness because everybody knows when they're unhappy.
So, therefore, it gets you nowhere.
You can't define it.
Define beauty.
You can't.
Okay, all right.
So that's why the question, I didn't think the question is a very understandable question, but it's not a legitimate one.
And you're right.
Look, if your point is there's real and there's ephemeral happiness, that was my whole point.
There's the fleeting.
Watching TV at night you think makes you happy, but in the long run it doesn't.
Right, that's true.
So I think, or what I know from my own experience is that If I pursue happiness, anything in this world, things, people, jobs, whatever you want, money, that can come to an end in a second.
Right, and what's permanent?
Self-knowledge.
Knowing the truth of yourself.
Knowing yourself.
As Socrates said, know thyself.
Right, I'm not sure that knowing yourself is sufficient.
I think it's like oxygen.
You need it, but you also need other things.
Well, I think that's the first thing that you pursue is self-knowledge.
Everything else falls.
And how do you pursue that?
You either go to church, you do your religion.
I meditate.
I found a way to go inside and to connect to myself.
Do you think that most meditators know themselves better than most non-meditators?
No.
Okay, so then the prescription you offered is...
Listen, I don't disagree with anything you said.
I just would argue, know thyself is critical.
A vast number of people don't.
That is why I'm so big on teaching people that they have to fight their nature.
If you don't know how your nature, your own very own nature, leads you astray, you can't know yourself.
When I listed the seven deadly sins, that was an example of, do you know, not you, my caller, but do you, anybody, does one know that one's nature inclines one to that list of gluttony and envy, etc.?
Do people know what they're composed of?
I debated this week, and we're going to get it up online.
I want you to watch that debate.
Whether people are innately good.
You can't know yourself if you think that.
Now, I'm not asking people to think they're innately bad.
There is no know-thyself going on now.
That's true, but it's not sufficient.
Okay, thank you for your call.
And Simpsonville, South Carolina.
Brian, hello.
Hello, Dennis.
I want to say that the pursuit of leisure has replaced the pursuit of meaning in the U.S. life.
Throughout history, work, religion, family would provide enormous amounts of meaning in our lives.
Probably 95% or more of our time on work, religion, family.
Not necessarily in that order.
Some men spend more on work and women more on family.
But now, we don't spend 95% of our time on those very important things.
We pursue hobbies.
I wish people pursued hobbies.
That's one arena where I agree with every word you said.
You should all read Amusing Ourselves to Death.
Published about 40 years ago.
Hello, my friends.
Final segment of today's Happiness Hour.
I've been making the argument that you need to pursue happiness to attain it.
Most people do not.
They pursue what is convenient, what is pleasurable, but not what brings happiness.
Two of you are calling in to say that serving others brings happiness.
That is a very fair statement.
I agree.
I think you have to do more than that.
I mean, so do you.
I'm not taking issue with you.
But I should add that to my list of things that can be of tremendous help.
I think meaning would incorporate that.
But I'm happy with that, serving others.
That's a beautiful fact of life.
I agree with that.
Friends, marriage and family, religion, hobbies.
I'm big on hobbies.
Hobbies are passions.
Hobbies are, not all, but most hobbies are far deeper than Amusement.
I mentioned to you the book, Amusing Ourselves to Death, Neil Postman.
Maybe you already write it in the 60s, so more than 50 years ago.
60 years ago.
I reread it last year.
It is so pertinent to today.
Television inaugurated the Amusing Ourselves to Death issue.
Amusement is perfectly okay.
I beg you folks to pursue friends like you pursued a spouse.
People should date for friends.
I have said this as long as I have been broadcasting.
People should date for friends with the seriousness with which they dated for a spouse.
But they don't.
Today, almost everything is answered if it happens.
Ask a young person.
So you want to get married?
Somebody, you know, maybe.
If the right person comes along.
If the right person comes along.
So they're not pursuing one of the most central institutions of happiness, marriage.
A lot of marriages are awful.
That's right.
So therefore what?
How does that in any way negate what I'm saying?
We live in a simpleton time.
It's very sad.
So, friends, marriage, religion, hobbies, meaning, fighting your nature, serving others.
There's some good advice on pursuing happiness.
I hope you follow it.
I really do.
Now call in on any subject under the sun.
So I did a lot of research during the break on the American Academy of Pediatrics and a lot of good things in what I have found. - Good.
At the same time, here's from the New York Magazine, August 2021. The American Academy of Pediatrics.
Said that everyone in school over age 2 should wear masks regardless of vaccination status.
And the CDC later took up that recommendation.
Hmm.
This is New York Magazine, which is on the left.
I just want to make that clear.
It's not a conservative source.
After the CDC and the American Academy of Pediatrics issued their student mask guidance, And this is 2021. I contacted both organizations, the writer writes, asking for the evidence or underlying data upon which they base their recommendations.
That every student two years of age and older wear a mask.
The AAP did not respond to multiple requests.
So, okay, anyway, that has nothing to do with the subject where I... I was very happy to learn from the pediatrician who called in.
The former dean of Harvard Medical School, Jeffrey Flyer, wrote, We lack credible evidence for benefits of masking kids aged 2 to 5, despite what the American Academy of Pediatrics says.
On the other hand, they did take other positions, like schools should open.
So it's a mixed bag.
But it has nothing to do with the bigger problem that I had raised and which the pediatrician set me clear about being able in the state of Washington to remove a girl's breasts without parental concern.
Okie dokie, everybody!
Take a light question here.
Pacoima, California.
Johnny, hello.
Love you, man.
Thank you.
We met before over in Beverly Hills, man, over at the rally over there.
You took a picture with me.
Oh, good.
Glad.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Happy we met.
We listen to you every day, every day.
Thank you.
Yeah, yeah.
I got a question, man.
When you would say you traveled a lot when you were younger, I don't know if it was business or vacation, but when you traveled, did you find it more fun when you would not book your accommodations, like pre-book them, or did you just book them before you went, or did you just wing it and find it more fun?
You know, wherever you were at?
Yes, that's a great question.
So when I was, certainly before I got married at 32, I winged it completely.
I would stay wherever I was as long as I wanted to, and then if it was in Europe, I would take a train.
By the way, I've traveled as much when I got older as I did.
There's nothing I can do, by the way, folks, about banging my mic, just for the record.
Don't think it's some bizarre idiosyncrasy of mine.
It's on a stand right in front of me.
So any movement of my hand will risk that noise.
I just wanted to make clear why that happens.
Anyway, then when I got older, I wouldn't book a tour, but I did, of course.
Know how long I would be in any given place.
That was not winged.
I wonder if there's anybody who has traveled a lot.
I don't mean as much as I, but a lot.
I wonder if anybody thinks, you know, when I look back on it, it really didn't add that much to my life.
I don't think there's anybody who would say that.
The reticence to travel is usually, I'm not going to take extreme examples, but is usually a statement of somebody who's giving in to the ease of staying home.
It's much easier.
I go, On the road almost every week of the year.
Which reminds me, you folks in South Carolina, I'll be in Greenville next Thursday night.
Go to the station's website and you can get information.
Haven't been to South Carolina in quite some time.
It's a very popular state amongst those of us who live in police states.
I mean, I can't say a lot, but two people quite close to me have moved to South Carolina, at least two, from California.
I've got to believe there's a real movement of people through South Carolina.
Anyway, I hope to see you on next Thursday night.
Okay, let's see.
Where are we here?
Okay, Steve, Santa Clarita, California.
Hello.
Oh, hi, Dennis.
We have the 4th of July coming up, and I hope that you'll encourage your listeners to host the 4th of July Seder that you promoted years ago.
Did you use it?
Oh, yeah, I've used it, you know, multiple times.
We have an annual 4th of July parade here in Santa Clarita, and we have friends and family gather down in a...
Part near the beginning of the parade about 8 o'clock, and I'm going to do it again this year now that they're going to have the parade again.
So I thought about it this morning, and it's a great way to share America.
Yes, thank you for noting that.
Go to PragerU.com, 4th of July.
It's bottled on the Seder.
I think we call it order, because that's what Seder means, order.
If we don't have rituals, we will lose our holidays.
If we lose our holidays, we lose our country.
I assume this is a 50s movie, right?
I love it.
After classical music, it's 50s rock and roll.
That's my favorite genre.
Big gap between Beethoven and this.
54, yes.
It's happy.
It's a happier time.
I wonder about the size of government and the happiness of its citizens.
and Is there an inverse ratio?
Is there a direct ratio?
For me, there's no question it's an inverse ratio.
The bigger the government, the less happy people like me who love liberty are.
I want to be as unconscious of government as possible.
I want to think of my family, my friends, My synagogue, in my case, or your church in your case, my Rotary Club, my Lions Club, my Bible study class, my music.
I want to think about immediate things.
This country was founded to have a small government.
Do you realize that?
I mean, how upended our values have become since the early 20th century, the progressives.
Progressive means progressively intrusive, controlling government.
That's what progressive means.
That's what it stands for.
Let the government progress in its power over your life.
There are many ways of dividing the world, happy and the unhappy, the moody and the non-moody.
It's endless.
The musical, the non-musical.
But certainly, one division that is, to me, inexplicable, is the world is divided between those who wish to control others' lives and those who don't.
You know that in your family life, because most families have some member, In the extended family, if not the immediate, who wants to control people's lives.
And we have that massively in America.
Half of this country wants more control.
You know, I remember for years, and this goes really back in my radio career, people would call and say, you know, Dennis, I agree with you 99% of the time.
And still people say that.
What I want to recall is my response to that when somebody would say, you know, Dennis, I agree with you 99% of the time.
And I would then often interject, is the 1% secondhand smoke?
And I would say half the time, that was the one arena that people who agree with me almost all the time, or all the time, except for that.
And I have always supported common sense, to use the term that's really...
Revered, but sometimes misused.
I supported common sense laws like no smoking on airplanes.
In a confined, small arena, it's not fair to people that they be subjected, especially to cigarette smoke, which stinks.
So, I got that.
But I knew in my gut, as legitimate as some of the concerns were, although I don't believe the health concerns are legitimate.
I don't believe 50,000 Americans die a year from secondhand smoke.
I think it's another lie of the medical establishment which views lying for the sake of health as a moral good.
But I knew when Burbank, California, near where I am right now, when Burbank, California, one of the most woke cities in the country, by the way, When it banned cigar smoking in cigar stores, I knew we were headed down a very, very bad path.
Most Americans supported it because in the name of health, deprivation of basic rights is justifiable in the minds of most Americans.
And that was the preparation for the lockdowns and for school closures for two years.
I think secondhand smoke opened the door to we can do anything we want to you.
We can deprive you of any liberty if it's for health's sake.
Just a thought.
Hi, everybody.
Dennis Prager of the Hour.
You call in on whatever is on your mind.
And we go to Fort Worth, Texas.
Kim, hello.
Hi, Kim.
Hi, Mr. Prager.
It's such an honor to speak with you.
Appreciate that.
Thank you.
So, I was calling you because I have a 15-year-old daughter that the left has already kind of got in her head, and I'm curious what would be the best...
PragerU videos to start her with.
Well, it's an unanswerable question, but I can give you some guidelines.
The first thing you should do, which will take you a little while, we now have more than 500 up.
I know, there's so many.
That's why I'm like, I don't know where to start.
Okay, so, what I generally recommend...
Is that you begin with non-political stuff.
Okay.
So, for example, I have videos on happiness.
And that may well be worth her watching.
That way, I become a little more lovable.
By the way, I just want to make clear, I only do one out of ten videos.
So, there are 450 videos that I didn't do.
I'm just using me as an example because I do non-political as well as some political.
So you have to look at the list and decide what you think would get her on board not to be defensive from the very outset.
That's how I would choose.
Has your home been at all religious?
Oh, yeah.
I mean, she's grown up her whole life that way, and now all of a sudden she's telling me that she's an atheist.
Right.
Okay.
Well, then it might be worth showing some of the videos on God's existence.
Or even my videos on the Ten Commandments, so that it's not pushing any religion down her throat, but it is making the case for why these things are terrific.
Or even, you know, more controversially, but more important even, if God didn't say do not murder, is murder wrong?
I mean, you know, but what you need to do is talk about it afterwards.
Okay.
That's really important.
Or, you know, some of the videos defending America.
Okay.
So, take a look at the list.
We're very proud of it, and let me know in about two months.
I'm very serious.
I'd love to hear from you what progress you made with her.
God, she comes from a religious home.
She's 15, and the left has already gotten to her, as her mother just said.
That's exactly right.
That's what happens.
So she's an atheist now.
I mean, most kids go through an atheist period.
I understand that.
But it is really remarkable when you think about it.
You go to school and they teach you to be an atheist.
There you go.
That'll really help you in life.
Think about that.
Okay, Philadelphia.
Stan, hello.
Oh, no.
I pressed the delete button by accident.
It's so easy to do with this new thing.
Missed it by...
Yeah, no, I missed it by a lot.
Anyway, I remember what Stan was going to ask me.
Why don't I think that Donald Trump should run again?
So I have made the case on maybe one or two occasions.
Very briefly, I want to make clear.
If he runs, I will passionately support him.
Number two, I think he was the best president the country had since Abraham Lincoln.
Number three, I don't want him to run again.
It has nothing to do with how great a president he was.
It has to do with winning.
There is an existential, to use the left's term with regard to climate change, there is an existential battle for America.
The left is a mortal threat to this country, to everything that most of us have valued, especially liberty.
So, if the Democrats win again, it's hard to see the way out in the lifetime of most of you listening.
I want a candidate who will win, and I think that...
Donald Trump, in that regard, it's very hard to say.
He will bring out Republicans who otherwise might not have voted, and he will also suppress non-Republicans who would have voted for another Republican.
So I don't know.
I'm not a prophet.
I can't say, but I know this.
If Donald Trump runs, it is somewhat of a gift to the Left because all they will do is talk about Donald Trump.
Most of it will be lies, most of it will be calumnies, most of it will be smears, but that's all they will do.
If another Republican runs, they will try to smear that person as well, but it won't be as effective.
Look, he does have an abrasive personality, which is part of his appeal, by the way.
Nancy Pelosi is not abrasive.
Chuck Schumer is not abrasive.
Adam Schiff is not abrasive.
On planet Earth, they are.
Nevertheless, he is particularly so.
I don't care.
Well, I do care.
I take it back.
But I know that I can't have everything in any arena of life.
It's just the way life works.
So when people have said to me for four years, oh, if only Trump didn't tweet so much, I would say, yes, I agree with you.
But everybody is a package.
That was the term.
I've used that on the happiness hour.
Everybody is a package.
You can't say...
Oh, this is a great person except four.
Or I would love him or her if it weren't four.
But the fact is, that four is part of who everyone is or that person is.
Back in a moment.
Dennis Prager here.
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