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March 14, 2023 - Dennis Prager Show
01:20:37
Darkened World
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Well, hello, everyone.
Welcome to the Dennis Prager Show.
Great to be with you.
My column this week, it's Tuesday.
My column comes up at DennisPrager.com, Town Hall, and then later, American Greatness.
Daily Wire and many other places.
Thank God!
Because they're important pieces.
Are you allowed to say that of your own work?
I have a good answer to that.
If you do not think what you write is important, why are you bothering people with it?
So it is not humble to say, well, I don't know.
I don't know how good my column is or my book is.
Then why are you inflicting it upon the public?
The title of my column is Why My Synagogue May Change Its Prayer for America.
So let me read to you the prayer for my country, our country, that we say at our synagogue and have Before my synagogue was founded and we were part of another synagogue.
Eternal God, we ask your continued blessings for our country, the United States of America, a beacon of light, liberty, and justice in a darkened world.
Sustain us in times of uncertainty.
Guard us from calamity.
Give us the courage to confront evil and the confidence never to yield to fear.
Protect those who guard our safety on the land, on the seas, and in the air, on the streets maintaining our infrastructure, and on the front lines of medical care.
Enlighten with your wisdom those whom the people have set in authority, the President, his counselors and advisors, and those at every level who carry out the public's trust.
May understanding and courage, hope, and discernment Peace, prosperity, and goodwill reign among all the inhabitants of our land, and may your goodness and your message spread its blessings among us and exalt our nation in righteousness and strength.
Amen.
I am one of the three founders of this synagogue in Los Angeles, and I have proposed A change.
And I've talked to at least one of the, well at least, I've talked to one of the other founders.
And I am not the dictator of my synagogue, so I am only proposing.
But I have some influence at the synagogue, since I teach there every week.
And I have proposed the following.
That something change, something be deleted.
From the prayer, because we cannot pray with an untruth.
So the first sentence of the prayer, Eternal God, we ask your continued blessings for our country, the United States of America, a beacon of light, liberty, and justice in a darkened world.
I have proposed that we drop a beacon of light, liberty, and justice in a darkened world.
The darkened world part is not only accurate, it is more accurate than any time since World War II. But the part that America is described as a beacon of light, liberty, and justice, The United States is not a beacon of light, liberty, and justice at this time.
And I cannot stand before God and my community and say something that isn't true.
This is one of the more painful things in my life that I... that...
All of my life I have seen America as a beacon of light, liberty, and justice.
But the takeover of virtually every national institution by the forces of darkness and chaos, the left, has meant that America is no longer a beacon of light, liberty, and justice.
When you just send the justice, when you realize how the Department of Justice has become a political arm, That there are people languishing in horrific conditions in prison who did essentially nothing on January 6th of 2021 and are still in prison while murderers are allowed out?
Justice?
You have to be kidding.
Justice is if you're on the left.
Then it's not justice either.
It's leniency.
We have a politicized judicial system.
We have for the first time in American history, as far as I know, political prisoners.
I've had one on this program, speaking from prison.
I have another video that he has sent out to play.
The conditions under which these people have been imprisoned.
Beatings that some of them have received.
The primitive hygienic conditions are a disgrace to the American flag.
Justice?
A beacon of justice?
I don't believe so.
Of liberty?
For the first time in American history, there is a serious threat to the most important freedom of all, freedom of speech.
People fear to say what they think in the United States for the first time, all because of the left, because there is no instance in history that the left has not suppressed speech.
From Vladimir Lenin to the American University today.
That has been the case.
During the Trump era, people would walk over to me in airports, and I relived something I experienced when I went to the Soviet Union as a young man.
And people would come over to me in the Soviet Union, look around to see who was watching them speak to me, and then tell me something anti-Soviet.
We're pro-American, because America symbolized liberty in a land of darkness called the Soviet Union.
People in American airports during the Trump era would walk over to me and look around to see if anybody saw them speaking to me, and then say, I just want you to know I'm a Trump supporter.
It is to that extent that the left has instilled terror in people.
You sent me a column yesterday about MIT. The professors are afraid to speak.
MIT. I don't blame them.
They should still speak.
But most people do not want to jeopardize their career and all of the collegial relations with their fellow professors or fellow whatever the profession is.
Most people rather have friends by shutting up than few friends by speaking out.
It's a mistake, but that is a natural human inclination.
So we are not a beacon of light, liberty, and justice.
In fact, we're a beacon of darkness in many ways in this world.
For the first time in its history because of the left's takeover of nearly every public and large private institution.
Every public institution and every large private institution.
The United States is now a net exporter of toxic ideas.
All white people are racist.
Healthy teenage girls should have their breasts removed if they say they are boys.
There are more than two sexes.
Western civilization is no better than any other.
Men who say they are women can compete in women's sports.
The list is long and getting longer.
This is what we are exporting, so we're not a beacon of light any longer.
Sweden was more a beacon of light during COVID than America.
If you'd have awakened me five years ago, let alone 50 years ago, and said you will one day say on a national radio show that Sweden in some ways was more a beacon of light than the United States, I would have assumed you were inebriated.
These ideas have spread around the world.
Where did they come from?
Not from France or Germany, but from America, from our colleges and universities, our medical schools, medical associations and hospitals, our media, and from one of our two major political parties.
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Hello everybody, I'm Dennis Prager.
Let me take some calls because there was a dramatic thing in my column today.
You should see it at DennisPrager.com.
You should get it every week.
Subscribe, it's free.
It's about the change I am proposing to the prayer that we make for the United States of America in the synagogue that...
The three of us have founded, and about 150 come each week and another 150 on Zoom.
It's a shortened but traditional service, and there's a tremendous amount of teaching, including myself, each week.
This is an interesting...
Birmingham, Alabama, and Dave, hello.
Hi, Dennis.
Thank you very much.
I love you.
Can you hear me?
Yeah, I do.
Oh, I'm sorry.
My grandfather was one of the most prominent rabbis in the history of L.A. He was the first conservative Jew that I ever met.
He always said that the United States was the best country in the world for Jews.
That was before Israel was founded.
I agree with all your criticisms of the recent United States, the COVID, everything.
But on the whole, It's still like the best place.
I travel a lot.
The synagogue in France is en garde.
The synagogue in Florence is en garde.
You can't even get to one in some countries.
Birmingham, Alabama is supposed to be hate-filled south.
There's no cops here.
Everything you said about COVID, the corruption, the January 6th farce, but it's still the best place.
You know what?
It's a beautiful call, and I agree with virtually every word you said.
I'm honored to hear from you.
All right, so let me address that.
I have said all of my life it's the best country Jews have ever lived in, obviously, excluding Israel, but there's been no Israel for 2,000 years until 1948. And still for Jews, although it's a little more problematic, but still for Jews it is a blessing.
Most synagogues now do have a guard, but not nearly as much as in France, because of the Islamic threat to Jews, which Jews don't talk about because Jews only speak what leftists tell them to say, and that is that the great threat is white supremacy.
There's no threat from the Islamic world.
The threat is overwhelmingly white supremacy.
Anyway, it is true, though.
It is a blessing to be a Jew in the United States.
But what I said is true.
The U.S. is not a beacon now of light, liberty, and justice.
What can I say?
Everybody listening knows that.
They know it in France.
The French president is on the left and he's told America to stop sending over these toxic ideas.
I had some guys over to my house yesterday who work in the audio business.
It's a big thing of mine, my audio system.
And I asked them, Do you have trans people coming into your store?
And they said, oh, absolutely.
Men dressed in dresses?
Yep.
We get them, I mean, not all the time, but we get them, yeah.
They look like men, they sound like men, and they're wearing dresses.
By the way, those men are not trans.
Those men are cross-dressers.
That is not the same thing.
There have always been men who wanted to wear women's clothing for whatever psychological reason.
However, in a healthier society, they did it privately.
We are not a healthy society, thanks to the left, because health does not radiate from that part of the spectrum.
Anyway, it's a very touching call, and I thank you very much for it.
He lives in Birmingham, Alabama.
It's a blessing to live in the South at this time.
Anybody who visits the South realizes it.
Did you send me the article?
Are you familiar with the article?
How many blacks are leaving New York City and going South?
It's like a reverse of 100 years ago.
The Great Movement North.
It's now a movement back to the South.
I'll tell you, if I were black or brown or white or red, If I were male or female, young or old, I would get the hell out of New York City.
Now, you might say, so what the hell are you doing?
Forget that.
I don't know why people have a problem with the hell word.
But anyway, what are you doing, Dennis, in Los Angeles?
Is that any better?
Well, it is a little better, yes.
It's not better politically, but it is better in one's daily life.
Depending on, obviously, what part of LA you live.
But it's a fair question to pose to me.
But one of the reasons I stay is the aforementioned synagogue.
One of the reasons I have the amount of energy that I have, which is indistinguishable, I know myself, from when I was 25. I have exactly the same amount of energy, if not more.
But I've been cheating.
I have a Sabbath.
I have a day I leave the world every week.
It is not possible to overstate the psychological and physical benefits and social.
So if I have this community every single week of the year that I am in LA, which is most of the weeks of the year, of course, that's very tough to leave.
1-8-Prager-776-877-243-7776.
The Dennis Prager Show.
Hey everybody, I'm Dennis Prager and I read to you the prayer for the United States that my synagogue, literally mine because I'm one of the three people who founded it, say each week and have said for decades because we were part of another synagogue.
Which let us go because I'm conservative.
And we've thrived beyond our wildest imagination.
We used to get 30 to 40 people.
Now we have 150 and the same on Zoom.
And this is all word of mouth.
And it's a very beautiful experience each week.
And we've said this prayer, which begins with America.
God blessing America.
I'll get you the exact words here.
Won't I? Yes, I will.
Here they are.
Eternal God, we ask your continued blessings for our country, the United States of America, a beacon of light, liberty, and justice in a darkened world.
I've said that for decades, or heard it for decades.
More precise.
And it so touched me.
Wow, I do.
I live in a beacon of light, liberty, and justice.
But the left doesn't like light, liberty, or justice.
And it has slowly, like termites, eroded America on its foundations.
So I just can't say before God what I don't believe to be true.
So I'm recommending to my board that we drop those words.
Ron in Chicago has an alternate thought.
Hello, Ron.
Hi, Dennis.
Thank you for taking my call.
And as I suggested to your wonderful screener, rather than remove that phrase and question, just add to it something like, once again become the light.
Well, so I want you to know, Ron, It's exactly what I said to my producer, who happens to be one of the other two founders.
Exactly what I said to Alan Estrin, the living martyr, right before the show.
One of the editors of my columns, Avner Stein, suggested the same thing.
And I said this.
Would that not be better?
May it once again be a beacon of light, liberty, and justice.
And he has ambivalence about it.
So I've given him the microphone.
What is your ambivalence?
Well, my ambivalence, and let's emphasize the word ambivalence because we haven't really fully thought this through, is that it sounds a little overtly...
Political to me.
Kind of making a political statement.
May God make us once again a beacon of light liberty and justice.
And we are very, very strong about avoiding anything that suggests the political in our service.
And that is why my initial response is, hmm, we're better...
Right, saying nothing is not political.
I happen to now agree with you, and I want you to all know that it is basically a law in our, a rule, if you will, in our synagogue, no politics.
I've been conducting Jewish High Holiday services for 15 years, and I have banned all political talk.
The hundreds and hundreds of people who come to those services are refugees from politicized synagogues.
And there are even some Christians who come from their politicized churches.
We don't have left-wing politics, obviously, and we don't have right-wing politics.
It is a refuge from politics.
At our synagogue.
And he's right.
If we said once again be a beacon of liberty and justice, excellent point, because I didn't think of that, but you're right.
That would be a political statement.
Folks, we are no longer.
But if we say nothing, there is no politics.
That's exactly correct.
The moment you said it, it made sense to me.
I know that Avner in Florida is listening, so your lovely idea has a response.
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Hi, everybody.
I'm Dennis Prager.
Tomorrow night, and it's already here, I will be speaking at Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona, which is essentially Phoenix, and I will be with Charlie Kirk and Robert Kiyosaki.
Right, it's Robert, correct?
Yeah.
the author of Rich Dad Poor Dad and we are speaking at a special division of the university I'll get an explanation of that with a professor who is in it and
And 35 of the 40 or so professors in that division of Arizona State University have written an open letter condemning the university for inviting the three of us,
especially Charlie Kirk and me, because, as you all know who listen to me, I am a hate-filled, bigot, misogynist, sexist, homophobe, xenophobe, but not germophobe.
Racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic, you name it.
That's right, you name it.
They provide evidence, and it shows you the intellectual frauds that these 35 professors are.
All they did was go to left-wing sites, That extract a line out of context and then cite that as proof.
I'll just give you one example, one I've often noted.
They show Prager is anti-black.
How is that?
Because I said that it is crazy or silly or whatever the word was that we can never say the N-word, which of course it's silly.
What if I want to say, saying...
And then say the word is, if you call a black that word, it is evil.
Which is, of course, what I said.
If you call a black person the N-word, it's evil.
But what if you're reading from Huckleberry Finn?
What if you're reading from McCullough's biography of Truman?
And it happened because a caller to my show asked me, as a Jew, which I am, Dennis, do you think people should be allowed to say the word kike?
And I said, of course.
Of course.
Everything is context.
The only word in the English language you can ever say is the N-word.
Why?
So that's proof that I'm racist.
Anyway, three professors wrote a letter saying, no, no, no, no, no, we need freedom of speech here at Arizona State University.
Three against 35. I have one of them on.
Owen Anderson is Professor of Philosophy and Religious Studies at Arizona State University.
Also has a fascinating book, which I did not know of until I looked him up.
And he's got a reader in me.
And it is the Declaration of Independence and God, Self-Evident Truths in American Law.
Also, a book on Job.
You're a good man.
So, Owen Anderson, welcome to the Dennis Prager Show.
Thank you so much for having me on.
I'm looking forward to talking with you.
My first question to all dissenters is, how have your colleagues reacted to you?
Well, not so well.
So far, what we've gotten is pushback in two ways.
We were made fun of for being white men.
And I can send you that post if you want, but on Twitter we were made fun of.
So because we're right men, the implication is our beliefs or values don't matter.
And the second way is for professors to say, I can't believe you're defending Dennis Prager or Charlie Kirk.
Or whoever else is appearing.
And of course, that's changing the subject.
The subject isn't the individual speakers.
The subject is the principle of free speech on campus.
And that's what we're defending.
And I defend that for people that I strongly disagree with.
Because that's really where you're tested, right?
If you only defend free speech for people who are in your camp, then you're not defending anything.
You have to defend it when it's someone who you say, yeah, I think you're wrong.
And what I said was, not only do I defend it for them, I actually want people that I disagree with.
To speak as often as possible because I think their views are wrong and I think that will come out by having them speak publicly.
Wow.
So who exactly disqualified you because you're a white male?
That is a group.
It's not ASU as a university, but it's a group, a student-led group called, I believe, the CARE Coalition.
CARE? CARE Coalition, not CA. I-R-C-A-R-E. And I believe they're mostly involved in left-wing identity politics.
So they tweeted out.
Interestingly, they didn't ever ask me my gender.
They assumed my gender and tweeted out that I'm a white male and laughed at the fact that...
Well, they assume you're white.
Why make that assumption?
Yeah, they didn't ask me any of that.
Elizabeth Warren is 164th American Indian.
Well, you can imagine if the reverse was done.
If someone had tweeted that kind of thing about things that they think are important, they'd be very upset.
So it's a case of not treating others the way you would want to be treated.
So you were dismissed by this left-wing group at campus, but I'll revert to my original question, your colleagues.
Yes, so far, we've gotten great support.
Let me tell you about President Crow and Arizona State University.
We've accepted the Chicago Statement.
And we got a green light from FIRE, which is the group that looks into universities and free speech.
So President Crowe has always been in favor of free speech.
He's made it possible for different people to come to campus.
It's going to, of course, be the individual professors.
So far, it's been silence.
But we'll see.
I'll keep you updated going forward.
The silence may not be good.
And what I mean is, if any of my colleagues were on NPR, that would have been blasted across my college.
Hey, congratulations for so-and-so.
They're on NPR. So the silence is itself telling about their opinion.
The silence, but you have not had any overt reactions.
Like, oh, and how could you do that?
There was a professor associated with the honors college you were talking about who was tweeting this kind of thing because he's one of the signatories of the letter.
So he did respond back, and I haven't interacted with him because he was making it personal.
Amazing.
So I want people to know, because I did announce this, by the way, on my radio show.
ASU, Arizona State University, because of your President Crow, does appear to be one of the handful of universities that welcomes dissent.
Is that correct?
Yeah, we really are.
FIRE has a ranking system.
And fortunately, I think we're in the 70s.
I'd like to see us a lot higher.
Our two Arizona...
Competitors, NAU, they're in the top 10. And then University of Arizona and Tucson is in the top 20. So we could do better, but we're still committed to that principle.
And what's going on is that there are centers at ASU. So a donor can start a center.
And there are centers of all kinds of ideas and beliefs.
There are certainly left-wing centers.
The Lewis Center tends to be more on the right.
And it's housed within the Honors College.
So the faculty you are speaking about are in the Honors College.
I'm not in that college.
I'm in a different college.
And almost unanimously, all of those honors professors signed this letter.
And in the letter, you were mentioning some things, but let me read some more.
They call you a white nationalist.
They call you anti-democratic, anti-intellectual, extreme, and bigoted.
And then as you noted, the citations they give are from a far left.
Yes, of course.
Media source, right?
It'd be like if you quoted from Breitbart and thought you'd proven something to a person on the left.
They would say, well, you're just quoting your own sources.
Yeah.
That is how it would seem to them.
I just want to say that Breitbart is committed to truth way more than media matters is.
And there's no comparison.
I'm just using the analogy.
Yeah, you're perfectly acceptable because they would say, oh, you got that from a right-wing source.
We don't trust it.
But they get left-wing sources.
And then they trust it.
There is not one who has read a word that I have written.
I have a thousand columns up there.
I have ten books out.
They have not read.
I will announce, by the way, I am going to, whatever time I have, because it's a panel, I will be addressing these left-wing professors who are ruining Arizona State and other universities and, by extension, the country.
And I will deal with the lies that they pervade in their column.
I want to humiliate your colleagues there who are thugs, intellectual thugs.
You don't have to say a word.
You don't have to align yourself with what I'm saying.
That's what they are, though.
Anyway, I can encounter this any time I go to a campus.
In the University of Wyoming, you will find of interest, they actually labeled me not only all of that stuff, but an anti-Semite.
Which was really precious since I, among other things, co-authored the most widely read English introduction to Judaism.
Well, I was on a local radio show yesterday and talking with the host about this, and he said Dennis Prager might be the first Orthodox Jewish white nationalist.
Yeah, that's right.
Certainly religious Jewish, yes.
All right, we're going to come back again.
This courageous professor is Owen Anderson, Professor of Philosophy and Religious Study at Arizona State.
Where I'm speaking tomorrow night, you can get tickets at dennisprager.com.
And I want to sell out the hall because I want to refute these professors and show them that all they did is help publicize my speech like when I conducted the Symphony Orchestra of Santa Monica.
1-8-Prager-776.
Back with Professor Anderson in a moment.
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Hi everybody, Dennis Prager.
So Owen Anderson is a professor of philosophy and religious studies at Arizona State University.
He's with the Barrett Honors Program or Barrett Honors College?
He's not with the college.
Oh, he's not with the college.
You're not with Barrett.
I'm in a different college, called New College, but I'm kind of glad that I'm not in that college, just in the sense that I'm calling attention to a university-wide issue, which is not just one college or another, but all of our colleges.
So, Arizona State, I'm speaking there tomorrow night, anyone in the Arizona area should attend.
It is a show of support for us who want freedom in this country.
And who want universities to actually teach and not indoctrinate with bad ideas, no less.
You can go to DennisPrager.com and click on how to get the tickets.
So, Professor Anderson and two others, a grand total of two other professors in the entire university, came out against the 35 professors at this Barrett College under whose auspices we're speaking, correct?
Right, yeah.
And it's not just them, though.
That's just that college.
They have much, much broader support than just those 35 and 37. Yes, there's not.
Much larger.
But what they did in their letter, and the contradiction that came out later, is that they backpedaled and said, we didn't say we want to boycott or censor the show.
We just don't want them to have a platform.
Yes, exactly.
Yeah, that's exactly.
We condemn...
Barrett for inviting Prager and Kirk and Kiyosaki, but we're not at all for censoring.
It's interesting, their position usually switches to something where they label their opponents as having a phobia, meaning that they have some kind of mental disorder if you oppose them.
And so what that means is they don't have to talk to you because you have a mental problem, you have a phobia.
They wouldn't talk to me.
I publicly invited any one of them, any ten of them, onto my show.
This, by the way, I'm living deja vu because I undergo this every time I speak at a college, but you would not know this, but about four and a half years ago I conducted, because music is my avocation, the Santa Monica Symphony Orchestra at the Disney Concert Hall, and seven of the...
Members of the orchestra refused to play for me because, after all, how could a conservative be even allowed to conduct music?
Even though I didn't say a political word the entire time in rehearsal or at Disney, it doesn't matter.
A conservative should not set foot in Santa Monica.
They're polluting the soil of a left-wing city, which is almost what the mayor and the previous mayor actually said.
Be that as it may, I had on one of the violinists who was a professor at UCLA. I had him on my show.
To his credit, he came on.
Most of them are cowards.
He came on, and as a sweet man, a lot of sweet people do damage, so it's not contradictory.
He even brought his wife, who sat in as well.
She didn't speak.
She sat in at the studio, and that was fine with me.
But it was as convoluted a defense.
I said, so you called me a racist.
Do you have any evidence for that?
And there was none.
There was none.
So I just repeat again, Professor Anderson, that I have invited any one of these 35, and I will say that tomorrow night at ASU. So who were the other two professors who signed the dissenting letter with you?
Don Critchlow and Jonathan Barth.
And...
Go ahead.
No, no, they are?
Oh, yeah.
Yeah, they're the two who also wrote this letter, have their names on it, and are willing to defend freedom of speech.
Is either of them at Barrett?
No, none of us are.
So not a single professor at Barrett defended our right to be there?
No.
They didn't even stand up and say what the Chicago Statement says is that...
Even views you find repugnant, you have to defend.
And no one even said that much.
They could have at least said, hey, I really disagree with Dennis Prager, but I defend his right to speech.
No one even said that.
These other two professors, are they at your college?
No, they're actually in a different college.
And what are they professors of?
Don Critchlow's in political science and Jonathan Barth is in history.
Boy, I would like to know how their colleagues feel.
Well, yeah, they've gotten some real negative pushback.
You know, there's hard pushback, which would mean something like you get fired.
And then there's soft pushback, which is more cultural, which means that you'll be treated differently because of your ideas.
And that's the kind of thing we'll probably face.
Are you personally religious?
You know, I am.
I'm a Christian.
So as I was listening to your show beforehand, you're going back to Genesis chapter 1 about some of these issues.
And I was thinking, yeah, that's exactly right.
And also your idea of despair as a sin.
Because I think what we're facing here really isn't even a political issue or a free speech issue.
What we're facing here is a real emptiness that our culture has.
And they're struggling to fill it with all the wrong things.
And they don't understand.
And I think ultimately that emptiness comes back to having been alienated from God.
And they don't know how to make that better.
You know, you are verifying everything that I believe and say over and over.
The issue, dear listener, is God and the Bible.
That's the issue.
Professor Anderson and I have never spoken before.
It is as if we know each other for 25 years.
That is the issue.
Do you know the university, I always point out, The stupidest ideas come from the university, and it is not a coincidence that the most secular institution in the country is the university.
Yeah, the idea that neutrality or the First Amendment requires atheism is how it's been interpreted, and it's simply not what it requires.
I also have a book, The Cambridge Companion of the First Amendment, where I defend the First Amendment's religious clauses, and an idea that doesn't mean neutrality at all.
It means we can present our ideas.
And the truth of the matter is, what's being attacked is the idea that God made man and woman, male and female, he made them, and in his image, he made them.
You got it!
We're going to continue.
1-8-Prager-776 go to my website for tickets tomorrow night I'm speaking with Robert Kiyosaki and Charlie Kirk at Arizona State University
35 professors out of the 40-something at Barrett College, it's an honors college, they have all sorts of colleges apparently at Arizona State University, signed a petition condemning, signed a letter condemning the university and the Barrett College in particular for inviting me and Charlie.
They didn't reference Robert Kiyosaki nearly as much.
He doesn't trouble them as much as we do for whatever reason.
Robert Kiyosaki, if you don't know, wrote Rich Dad, Poor Dad, one of the best and best-selling books on economics and people's finances and how to lead a more productive life financially.
So, as usual, the outlier does all the good.
Professor Owen Anderson, you should know I have said very often...
All good is done by outliers.
You're a living embodiment of everything that I talk about.
Thank you.
Yeah, it's really remarkable.
I just want to show everybody how valid my theories are.
Number one, anywhere that the left is in control, they suppress dissent.
There is no exception from Vladimir Lenin to Arizona State University.
The university is not doing it.
I'm talking about these professors.
Number two, it is not coincidental that Professor Anderson, whom I did not know till now, is a religious man, because if you take Judaism and Christianity seriously, you will not be a leftist.
It's as simple as that.
It is not possible to take the religion seriously and be a leftist.
You can be a liberal, you can be a conservative, you cannot be a leftist.
And number three, all good is done by outliers.
So there are three professors in the entire university who said, no, no, we should allow dissenting views in our university.
You didn't even say you agree with us.
We should be a place where different opinions can be voiced.
Yeah.
Well, and if anything, like I said before, the more you disagree with someone, if you really think they say things like that...
Then you should want them in front of the public as much as possible because they'll make these mistakes.
But I think what's going on here, the idea behind the letter is that the people who oppose their ideas have a phobia.
They're mentally unsound.
And so they have to protect their students from that kind of thing.
As opposed to saying, no, there's rational dialogue going on.
The students are adults.
They're rational persons.
Teach them how to evaluate an argument.
And then take them to hear all kinds of arguments, ones you agree with, ones you don't agree with, and ask your students to evaluate them.
Treat them as thinkers, as rational beings.
But unfortunately, I think that's also what's under attack because I put out an open challenge.
I said, I'll debate any of these professors on campus.
I'm sure we'll pack an auditorium full of people in Arizona who want to hear about free speech.
And I'll debate this because I want your ideas brought into the light of reason.
And they actually view that as a bad thing.
They think reason...
Reason is part of this bigoted side, and we need to be protected from it.
Reason is a function of white people.
The idea...
Yeah, that seemed to be what the other...
Oh, no, they've actually said it.
No, no, no, they say it.
It is...
Where was it?
In Oregon?
Yeah, Oregon Education Department, among others, not only announced that the idea that there is only one right answer in math is...
A form of white supremacy.
Yeah, it's almost viewed as reason is the one that is being totalitarian, and we have to free ourselves from reason.
As we are talking about Genesis, I think that's really what Genesis 3, what the serpent does.
The very first thing the serpent says is, did God really say?
So what the serpent is doing is asking you to doubt the word of God.
And so as a Christian, you'll know that I believe in John chapter 1 also, where the...
The word is used, logos, and the logos and the Son of God are identified.
And philosophers like Derrida have written about how we need to de-center the logos.
We need to be even anti-logos.
And if you understand Christian theology, you understand what they're saying.
Be anti the Son of God.
Yep.
Look, we have different theologies, but we have identical values because we use the same book.
Or the same set of books.
Certainly, obviously, the Old Testament for both of us.
Yeah, Genesis, right?
Yes, no, exactly.
It's not coincidental.
So finally, I'm curious, are the other two professors religiously inclined?
Yeah, the other two.
One of them is Roman Catholic.
And then Jonathan and I are both Reformed.
Fascinating.
Not coincidental.
Professor, please come tomorrow night.
I want to honor you and your two colleagues.
Publicly affirm you, okay?
Thank you.
Thank you.
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Hi everybody, Dennis Prager here.
At Edinburgh University.
I don't know if I mentioned this to you folks, but it is still, look, it's a very big dilemma that I have because it's inevitable.
You can't remember everything I say.
I don't remember everything I say.
So it's a dilemma because so much of it is important, not because I said it, but because it's important.
I say it because it's important, but it's not important because I say it.
But this is just worth remembering to give you an idea of the sickness that pervades academia in the Western world, especially the English-speaking world.
The Edinburgh University Opera Group is reportedly performing the first gender-neutral production of Jesus Christ Superstar.
Jesus is played by a non-binary actor, someone who does not identify as male or female.
And Judas is played by a woman.
The Twelve Apostles are played by female or non-binary performers.
So here's an interesting question for the cowards of the left.
Cowardness is one of the distinguishing characteristics of the left.
They only attack people who can't hurt them.
Would they ever have a play about Muhammad as non-binary?
Of course not.
Because they're cowards.
The moment you get courage, you leave the left.
The moment you think rationally, you leave the left.
The moment that you ask, what are the consequences?
I mean, there are so many reasons.
In fact, if you get happy, you leave the left.
Any non-binary Mohammed acting coming on at the University of Edinburgh?
Of course not.
They wouldn't even paint a picture of Muhammad, even a respectful picture, because they're scared of Muslims and they're not scared of Christians.
It's as simple as that.
Cowardness is the dominant feature of the 35 professors who objected to my coming tomorrow night to Arizona State University.
The herd is the place for the coward.
The professor I just had on has courage.
How interesting, the three professors.
How many professors in the humanities are religious?
Tiny, right?
Tiny fraction.
And all three who signed the petition against those professors who condemned my coming are religious.
So conservatives who are secular, please understand some things.
Secularism rots the system.
Sorry, it does.
We need secular conservatives like we need religious conservatives.
But you won't have conservative grandchildren.
I wrote a column on that.
You should read it.
Will secular conservatives have conservative grandchildren?
Or even children?
But especially, will it go down more than two generations?
Non-binary Jesus.
There you go.
Because the left craps on Christians and bows down before Muslims.
That's right.
Because they're afraid of Muslims and they're not afraid of Christians.
There's piss Christ.
You wouldn't have the equivalent with Muhammad, would you?
Yeah?
Remember that one?
The so-called artist put his crucifix in a jar of urine.
Would he put a Quran in a jar of urine?
Of course not.
Because Andres Serrano is another left-wing coward.
Takes no guts to crap on Christianity.
Because Christians won't hurt you.
That's what fills the New York Times opinion page.
Attacks on Christians.
Christian nationalism.
You ever meet a Christian nationalist?
I worked my whole life with Christians.
I never met one.
What, do they hide?
They don't tell me?
I don't even know what it means.
I don't think the left knows what it means.
What does Christian nationalism mean?
People who say it's a Christian nation, that makes you a Christian nationalist?
Either they're right or they're wrong.
Anyway, what does Christian nation mean?
The bulk of Americans have been Christian.
In that sense, a Christian nation.
You could say that Finland is a Lutheran nation.
Does that make you a Lutheran nationalist?
Israel is called the Jewish state.
Was Ben-Gurion a Jewish nationalist?
How much time do we have here?
Because I want people to hear, well, I guess we'll play that.
Yeah.
The Young Turks, I really annoy them.
I'll play it tomorrow, an excerpt that you have to hear.
Planned Parenthood Sex Educator demonstrates sex toys on TikTok.
Planned Parenthood, another organization dedicated to chaos.
A sex educator who works for the largest chapter of Planned Parenthood also doubles as a TikTok star who directly targets young people with how-tos on buying sex toys and inanimate objects that can be used as a replacement.
Maria Codillo works for the Marmonte affiliate of the pro-choice organization and provides sex education to over 220,000 people every year in Central California and parts of Nevada.
Cordillo often specifically addresses young people in her videos to over 418,000 followers on TikTok, at sexedfiles.
In one such video, she's asked if there's an appropriate age to purchase a spicy toy.
Cordillo responded by saying that it's not illegal to buy spicy toys online, even as a teen, which most people can do, or which most people do.
You just have to purchase them with a valid credit card, debit card, or gift card.
She added, If you're curious about spicy toys, or you just want to explore what's out there, or if you want to purchase them, or one whatever is to do online, do keep in mind that some of these stores also have age restrictions on their website.
But like this app, people can access them anyway.
She also simulates using sex toys and putting condoms on an inanimate depiction of male genitals.
In December, it was revealed an executive director at Planned Parenthood's sex education branch claimed that children are born sexual and has called for comprehensive sex education from kindergarten.
That's an executive director of Planned Parenthood.
As well as porn literacy for older age groups.
Women throughout history protected children's innocence.
Hi everybody, it's the Ultimate Issues Hour every Tuesday.
We talk about some great issue of life.
It's been many years that we've been doing this.
It's a true education, by the way, you can get.
Access to all of these without commercials at pragertopia.com This is an education in life, the Ultimate Issues Hour.
As are hopefully all my hours.
But this is, of course, the big one.
This is the forest, not the trees.
Ultimate Issues Hour.
So I have addressed this in the past.
And I want to revisit it because...
It was played on one of the biggest left-wing internet podcasts or broadcasts, The Young Turks.
And I want you to hear, I'll play it for you in a moment, they had a young woman attack me for saying that The Bible is the greatest source of wisdom.
When I cited the fact, a long time ago, I did an Ultimate Issues Hour, if you don't get your wisdom from the Bible, where do you get it from?
And I want you to hear her response.
She is about, I would say around 30 years old, maybe younger.
It's relevant, very relevant, as you will now understand, to her response.
But the question is a big one.
If you don't get your wisdom from the Bible, where do you get it from?
And when I asked this to listeners years ago, a lot of people said, from life's experience.
So I have a lot to say about that response, and that is one that she will offer.
So here she goes from the program The Young Turks.
I don't know her name, and it is irrelevant.
She's interchangeable with anyone else on the left.
I'm not hearing any sound.
Dennis Prager had to say in this next clip.
I asked people a very simple question, and I did this on my radio show, my great experiment, as I call it, my human laboratory.
If you don't get your wisdom and your values from the Bible, tell me what book you get it from.
And it was fascinating.
The answers were either just sad or nonexistent.
This was the greatest single revelation I had in my life, and that is that the most secular institutions in the country, the universities, are the least wise.
There is more foolishness in the most secular institutions.
And therefore, I concluded that the proverb is accurate.
Wisdom begins with fear of God.
When there's no Bible, there's no wisdom.
If we're going with Dennis Prager's definition of wisdom, not only does this discount anyone who's not a Christian, obviously, but I'd say it also discounts most Christians.
In my experience, most Christians I know have never actually read the Bible.
Okay, let's hold it there.
What do you make of that comment?
Most Christians she knows have never read the Bible?
How many Christians does she know is my first...
Well, so your first response is, how many Christians does she know?
I mean, Christians meaning practicing...
Yeah, obviously, right, it's not Christian by virtue of being born into a family that was once Christian.
Right.
Well, I know a lot of Christians, and every single one of them has read the Bible.
Every chapter?
I doubt it.
But the Bible.
In fact, nobody cites chapter and verse like Christians do.
So, you have to understand, it is so important to watch and listen to the left.
That's why I get the New York Times.
Then you understand the cavalier treatment of truth and the superficiality of their thinking.
This woman is a gift.
To everything I stand for.
So, okay, so most Christians she knows don't read the Bible.
Let's continue.
Ever tried to read the Bible?
It is a very difficult read.
Most people, even Christians, have not read it.
So I guess if you're a Christian...
All right, so now it's not just most Christians she knows.
Most Christians have not read it.
See, nobody is there to respond to what leftists say.
And so since they say it, and everybody in their vicinity agrees with them, they get away with things.
Like the Columbia Journalism Review, to its credit, I'm shocked, had this scathing attack on the Washington Post and New York Times for lying about the Russian collusion.
I mean, just lying.
They made it all up.
Neither paper has responded, except the Washington Post said it's proud of its coverage.
The Pulitzer Prize, they got a Pulitzer Prize for lying about it, but it's okay.
The New York Times got a Pulitzer Prize for Walter Durante saying how good the Soviet Union was under Stalin.
You should see a movie, by the way, called Mr. Jones.
It is riveting, and it is important, and it is true.
It is about Durante and Ukraine's starvation in the 1930s.
So, most Christians have never read the Bible.
We continue.
Sorry, you're not wise.
But even that definition is ridiculous.
The definition of wisdom is learning over time and through experience.
Okay, hold on.
This is my favorite moment.
This is a 30 or 28 year old telling you that wisdom is acquired overwhelmingly through experience.
Then why are we listening to her?
Why then don't you only listen to old people?
Since they have so much more experience than you do.
It is true idiocy, this notion that wisdom is primarily acquired through experience.
If that were true, then most old people would be really wise, but they're not.
An old leftist is as unwise as this young leftist.
Is, let's see, is Joe Biden wise?
Is Bernie Sanders wise?
Bernie Sanders is a fool.
He's always a fool.
And he hasn't changed his mind on any issue.
He's just a big fool.
This notion that experience confers wisdom on you, first of all, it was disqualify her from being taken seriously.
She's so young.
Yes, you can attain wisdom from experience, of course, but it takes a lot of experience, and you still need to be taught wisdom.
Some people can play the piano without a teacher.
Most people need to be taught how to play piano.
We continue.
Have to get wisdom through a book.
You can.
You can read many, many books and gain wisdom that way, but you can't just learn wisdom like math through a book.
It is something that you accrue over time and experience.
You can't get back to accrue over time.
That's just wrong.
It's just wrong.
She herself would understand this.
Does she think I'm wise?
I'm old.
Does she think I'm wise?
I've accrued far more experiences than she has.
It's nonsense, but it doesn't matter.
On the left, nonsense is allowable because there's no one to refute it and they so rarely debate.
I went on to the Young Turks.
I'd happily talk to this girl about wisdom.
Invite me on again.
You now know my arguments.
What would your response be?
How do you explain me, whom you consider a fool?
I did not accrue wisdom.
This notion that you don't get it from a book is very frightening.
That means everybody makes up their own wisdom.
That means everyone who lived before you is worthless, which is basically the view of the left since I was a kid.
Never trust anyone over 30. Aristotle's over 30. Genesis is over 30. The Bible is well older than 30. Yes.
This is the self-referential generation since World War II, since the baby boomers.
We are the source of our wisdom.
1-8-Prager-776-877-243-7776.
Where do you get your wisdom from?
Where should people get wisdom from?
It's the biggest issue because you can't be good if you're not wise.
It's not possible.
And I played for you from this left-wing thinker.
So this is a big issue.
Addressed this on a number of occasions.
You can't be good without wisdom.
Wisdom is more important than good intentions.
Very few people have bad intentions.
Even people who do immense bad, they don't wake up thinking, hmm, how can I do harm?
All these teachers who are sexualizing children at the age of five think they're doing good.
Because they have no wisdom.
Where do you get wisdom from in a secular age?
That's my challenge.
Where do you get it from?
The New York Times?
College?
Or as this young woman on the Young Turks attacking me?
Oh, I'm wrong.
You get it through life experience.
Then why the hell should anybody listen to her?
She's like 28 years old.
But she has not thought it through, which is why she qualifies to be a commentator on a left-wing podcast.
Did we finish with her?
Is there any more, Sean?
Finished.
Very nice.
I don't know her name.
I'm not even interested in her name because I have no interest in attacking her as a person.
I'm interested in attacking...
Her thoughts as a leftist.
Her feelings.
It's all feelings.
Oh, and she thinks it's so intelligent.
Wisdom is accrued through life experience.
If that were true, then old people would be fairly unanimous on the big issues of life.
They're as divided as anybody else.
By the way, if you believe that wisdom accrues through life experience, why would you give the vote to 16-year-olds?
Why would you give the vote to 18-year-olds?
I was opposed to it when I was 18. I thought it was ridiculous.
And I actually pursued wisdom, and I had a religious education.
I didn't think that I was any more capable of choosing a leader than being one.
Which is an interesting question.
If you can't be, what is the age to be a, let's say, a representative?
Is it 30?
Whatever the age, why can you vote but not run?
If you don't have the wisdom to run for office, why do we assume you have the wisdom to vote for people in office?
I never thought of it that way.
How did you give your kids wisdom?
Sorry, 25?
Yeah, maybe that should be for the House.
And what is it for the Senate?
30?
And what is it for President?
35?
Maybe they should be the same age.
You run and vote for whatever office at the same age.
The absence of wisdom is the fundamental problem.
You know where I learned it?
I have an interesting observation for you.
Jews have a prayer book for the Passover Seder.
It's almost 2,000 years old.
It's called the Haggadah.
By the way, I have a commentary on the Haggadah for people of every religion, just as I have a commentary on the Bible.
It's called the Rational Passover Haggadah.
Or Haggadah.
And I commend it to your attention.
The Rational Passover Haggadah.
Anyway, in it is a very famous, among Jews anyway, very famous episode.
Or not episode, actually observation.
How do you teach the Exodus, which is what Passover is about, to children?
And then it gives the example of four children.
And the four children, or the four sons, that is very well known in Jewish life.
The four sons are the wise son, the bad son, the simple son, and the son who doesn't know how to ask.
As a kid, I remember thinking, why is there no good son?
There's a bad son.
But no good son is the point I make in the rational Passover Haggadah.
The authors of the Haggadah were very wise.
The opposite of bad is not good.
The opposite of bad is wise.
Ah, that's a good one.
And that's wisdom, by the way.
It is wisdom to know that good intentions are useless.
That's wisdom.
In the secular world, intentions and feelings have become everything.
How do you feel about it?
Did you mean well?
That's it.
That's what matters.
Not is it wise.
Is the policy wise is a conservative question.
Do you mean well?
That's a left-wing question.
And there is a big difference.
1-8 Prager 776. David on the road in Michigan.
Hello.
Hello.
Hi.
Shalom.
Shalom.
Yes.
I was saying that the way that people viewed the Bible is both the key to the rise of our civilization, which I really think we should call biblical, but it's then called Western, and that we gave up on but it's then called Western, and that we gave up on that view as where we've gone That's right.
I agree with you entirely.
I thank you for calling.
That is exactly right.
We really should call Western civilization biblical civilization.
And it's the most accurate term.
It's even more accurate, and I love the term Judeo-Christian.
I use it, I love it, I agree with it, I explain it on the internet, but it really is biblical civilization.
Hello everybody, I'm Dennis Prager.
Subject is wisdom.
I played for you a perfectly apt left-wing approach.
In attacking me and saying two things, that the most secular institutions are the least wise, the most foolish, the universities, and that without the Bible, it's very difficult to achieve wisdom, at least in the Western world.
Hindus have the Bhagavad Gita.
Others have their own texts.
I'm not commenting on non-Western civilization.
But in the West, yep.
I'll give you an example.
I'll bet if I asked the young woman who attacked me, to whom I only have thanks, since she provided such a perfect example of how left-wing people think.
They don't think, they feel.
But I would like to ask her, does she think people are basically good?
I'll bet she says yes.
I'll bet she would say yes.
An example of learning wisdom.
I learned when I was a kid, I mean, before I turned 12, maybe when I was 8, that human nature is not good.
That's wisdom.
Then you know you have to fight your nature to be a good person.
That's the essence of wisdom.
Leftists fight America, not themselves.
That's the key to the problem of the left.
Religious people are taught to fight themselves and our natures.
That's all of life.
So you want to know how to lead a good life?
It's not by demonstrating against racism, which is existent, but which is of minimal significance in America today.
You want to be a good person, fight yourself.
But it's much easier to fight America than to fight yourself.
Not easy to fight yourself.
And it's a lifelong battle.
Even crusade, to use a verboten word.
That's an example of wisdom.
So I learned at a very early age, I had to fight me.
There's no doubt in my mind, she did not learn that.
Nor anybody at the Young Turks or Media Matters.
Or any left-wing organization.
It produces foolish people and it hires them.
Because foolish is the opposite of wise.
This notion you get it by living life would disqualify any young person, obviously, right?
But they don't think it through.
Columbus, Ohio.
Ah, yes, my rabbi listener in Columbus.
Hello, Rabbi Carey.
Hi, Dennis.
Thanks for taking my call again.
As I was listening to this conversation, I was remembering that the Hebrew word zakain, which I know you know, means an old person, but it also means an elder with wisdom.
And it occurs to me that congregations today would prefer to have a young, But energetic, inexperienced individual as leader of their congregations over an older, more seasoned leader.
And we see that in just about every denomination.
What a great point.
Thank you for listening and for calling.
Oh, wow.
Exactly correct.
We need a young pastor, a young priest, a young rabbi.
The thinking is that'll attract the youth.
Why?
Why do you think that?
Youth are attracted by what you say, not by your age.
It's a common misconception.
I have a gigantic young following, enormous, through PragerU.
Walk through an airport with me, it's mostly young people who come over for selfies.
Jordan Peterson...
Enormous young following.
Kids react to what is meaningful, not what the age is.
How many young people have had an incredible bond with a grandparent?
I don't think they dismissed them as not influential because they were old.
Yeah, let's let the youth...
I wasn't against it.
I was hired at 27 to head one of the largest Jewish learning institutions in the country.
But I did have something to say, and I had learned a lot of wisdom.
Dennis Prager here.
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