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March 14, 2023 - Dennis Prager Show
01:29:11
Veterans Day
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Dennis Prager here.
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For those of you unfamiliar with this music, it is the theme to Victory at Sea.
I get the chills.
This is Veterans Day, that's why we're playing it.
Richard Rogers wrote it, composed it, to be precise.
The reason I get the chills is my dad was in the Navy during World War II and for years after.
And we watched Victory at Sea at home.
I got to watch, in effect, what my father had done in World War II. I grew up in a different United States.
I grew up in the United States.
We're now in the States.
I will show you again that there is nothing in common between left and right.
For those of you who live in the fantasy world of, well, we all want the same things, I don't know why.
Well, I do.
I take it back.
I know why you want to believe that.
It's comforting.
We don't want the same things.
Left and right have biology in common.
We're homo sapiens.
That's it.
I wish it weren't true.
However, I have this trait that I am prepared to acknowledge bad news.
I don't think what I want to think.
There is this gulf.
Victory at Sea, it should be, you should watch it.
The narration, remember the narrator?
Wow, a stentorian voice.
I mean, it was like God speaking about what happened in the Pacific and the Atlantic.
The Navy fought, of course, in both oceans.
Well, that was a good choice.
Who chose that today?
Rick?
Alan?
AJ? Alex?
Rick served in the Navy?
We salute you, Rick.
You'll have to tell me one time how you avoided getting seasick.
I think it's either built in or not.
And it's not built in to me.
On a fishing boat, I am permanently sick.
But I love cruises.
Talking about cruises, we're going on one with listeners.
There are a few cabins, literally a few, under 10 left.
For next May, at the end of May, go to the banner at DennisPrager.com if you want to cruise with me.
And my wife and Alan and his wife.
If you haven't met that living martyr, that's worth the cruise in and of itself.
Now, it's funny, he just snorted.
It's very rare to get such a reaction from the living martyr.
But it's to his credit.
That he thought it was funny.
It's not funny.
You want to meet him.
Anyway, the banner is up at DennisPrager.com.
I am about to read to you a quote from Eric Swalwell.
As shallow a thinker as the Democratic Party has, which is a competition.
If you're not shallow, you're not a leftist.
Might be a nice person, by the way.
He's not, but you might be.
But they're a nice, shallow people.
Swalwell says parent...
Where is this from?
It's actually from Just the News.
It's from Just the News.
Swalwell says parent oversight of education is like putting patients in charge of their own surgeries.
This is what is...
Getting me to start to tweet.
I'm going to have to tweet a response to this.
California Representative Eric Swalwell.
Well, you know what?
Why don't I just read his tweet?
I don't need to read a summary.
I have the actual tweet.
It's in response to Tim Scott.
Oh, yes.
That's correct.
Tim Scott said that Republicans were planning to, quote, put parents back in charge of their kids' education.
So this is what Eric Swalwell tweeted in response to Senator Tim Scott's statement that Republicans are planning to put parents back in charge of their kids' education.
Okay, here it is.
Please tell me what I'm missing here.
This is Swalwell's tweet.
He's a congressperson.
What are we doing next?
Putting patients in charge of their own surgeries?
Clients in charge of their own trials?
When did we stop trusting experts?
This is so stupid.
I have in my rational Bible, I believe I have in there a statement about experts.
In any case, I have written and spoken about this on many occasions.
This is what the educational process has produced.
You do not think.
Experts think for you.
The left-wing vision of the individual is that you're essentially an idiot.
And we will tell you how to live.
We will tell you when you can go out of your house, when you can stop wearing a mask, when you have to wear a mask, how many feet you will separate yourself from, what you are allowed to say, what you are not allowed to say.
We will direct your life.
We will tell you what car you can drive, eventually when you can drive it, hopefully where you can live.
The experts know life.
And the more educated you are, well, it's not an accurate term.
The more you have attended university, that is not the same as the more educated you are.
It is often the antithesis.
The more you have attended school, the more you believe that experts should tell you how to live your life.
Not the wise, not the noble, not the thoughtful.
The experts.
And as we know, in particular, experts in education are almost all fools.
Almost all.
If you have a degree in education, the odds are overwhelming you do not think clearly.
You are robotic and have contempt for children.
Because of the positions that you take with regard to children, like the right to prematurely sexualize them and rob their innocence.
This is as good as it gets.
Remember, ALL, capital A-LL, ALL totalitarian regimes.
All thuggish tyrannies first begin by removing parental authority.
Swalwell is in that world.
He would, in a nanosecond, be just like a communist in the Soviet Union.
That America has produced such lowlifes is very distressing to me, who has loved this country and thought well of my fellow citizens all of my life.
My country has produced a lot of bad seed.
The idea that parents are not in charge of their children's education but experts are is scary in the extreme.
It is the pathway to tyranny.
The pathway.
That is why in my teaching of the Ten Commandments I have come to the conclusion That perhaps the most important of the Ten is honor your father and mother.
I will note to you, as one who has written books on this subject, I will note to you a very interesting fact about the Ten Commandments.
Only one promises a reward.
Do not murder doesn't.
Do not steal doesn't.
Do not commit adultery doesn't.
Do not bear false witness doesn't.
Do not covet what belongs to your neighbor doesn't.
Not even...
Do not bow down to false idols.
Even that doesn't promise a reward.
Only one of the Ten Commandments does.
Honor your father and mother.
And the reward is so that you live long on the land that I give you.
We will not live long as America by this process of removal of parental authority.
Swalwell is the perfect embodiment of leftism.
The perfect.
You, at best, give birth to your child.
You conceive your child.
For the rest of your child's existence, we, the state and its experts, will raise your child.
Who the hell are you, mother and father?
To think you are in charge of your children.
Thus spaketh the Democratic Party.
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Yes, it's Veterans it's Veterans Day, and we're playing the appropriate music.
'Cause he couldn't jam, the captain seemed to understand What do you think about that?
Ah, the experts should raise your children.
Not you, the parent, Eric Swalwell.
Do the voters in his district know what a shallow man that they have re-elected?
Wow, that's staggering.
Well...
Anybody who wants to know a difference between left and right, parental authority is as big as it gets.
As I have explained to you, every tyranny begins with demoting parental authority.
The left is always a tyrannical force in every society it exists.
Liberals are not.
Liberals vote for the tyrants, but they are not tyrannical.
Liberals don't vote their values.
I tell you this every single day.
Why they don't?
They think they own your kids, school choice advocate Corey DeAngelis wrote.
That's correct.
Wow.
Well, I can't thank Eric Swalwell enough because you know my view.
Clarity over agreement.
You can't get more clear about the differences.
I'm going to say the obvious.
Democrats have engineered elections so that they take a long time.
Why do they take a long time to decide in such a small state as Nevada?
And in Florida with, I think, seven times the number of people.
How many people in Nevada?
Three million?
Want to take a look?
I think it's, was it 21 million in Florida?
Tell me there's nothing, there's nothing suspicious about how long it takes to count votes where Democrats are in charge.
You were spot on in both cases.
I was spot on in both cases?
I must have heard it recently.
I can't take big credit for that.
Nobody guesses the populations of Florida and Nevada to the exact digit.
I'm sure I heard it recently.
Anyway, seven times the number in Florida.
How come it's the Democratic-run districts and state cities, etc., that have this delay?
But there's no reason anybody would think that there's anything suspicious going on.
I'm not saying that they're cheating, by the way.
I'm just saying you have to lie to yourself to deny that there is any reason to suspect that there might be cheating.
I had, remember the doctor who called yesterday, who was called often, who believes that every doctor who has advocated hydroxychloroquine with zinc is a fraud.
It's just typical of people on the left.
If you don't agree with us, you're a fraud.
That's it.
There's no allowance for differences even among doctors.
But I thought they're experts.
One of you is calling in, has a great question.
Which experts do you trust?
There are experts who differ with the left.
Remember the Great Barrington Declaration?
Thousands and thousands of scientists who differed with the lockdown and many other aspects of the evil that we saw during those two years?
So why are they not experts?
Why is Dr. Ladapo, the Surgeon General of Florida, Who is a Harvard MD and was a professor of medicine at UCLA. Why is he not an expert?
He's against masking.
So Swalwell is lying in any event.
Because he chooses the experts.
What he really says is, trust left-wing experts.
That's all he says.
So it's not even true that they trust experts.
Anyway, I've told you this so long ago, before the whole woke world awakened.
Before the woke awakened and woke up.
I learned this from an interview I had decades ago with a fire chief.
I believe he was in Ohio.
And I don't know how the subject arose, but almost every subject arises on this program.
He advocated that even in summer, and schools that are not air conditioned, the doors be kept shut in school rooms, because in case of fire, it's important that the door be shut.
And he's an expert.
Fire chief of that city knows more about fire than I do.
So much more that...
There's no comparison, of course.
However, that was the perfect example and I used it for years.
Expertise and wisdom have nothing to do with one another.
Nothing.
No thing.
That's right.
It's very important to understand that.
Expertise and wisdom are not related.
Non-experts may have much more wisdom.
I don't believe you should keep the schoolroom door shut in the summer because the likelihood of kids dying from a fire is so infinitesimally small that it is not worth having them swelter for months with the door closed.
That's the way it works in life.
That's why I don't trust experts' wisdom.
They are not the people I look to for wisdom.
I look to the wise for wisdom, not to experts.
Some experts have wisdom, but it's a coincidence.
That's the difference.
Now doctors want children to mask up in schools to stop flu spreading daily mail.
I'll bring that to your attention.
The experts have weighed in.
We return.
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All right, How you doing, everybody?
Dennis Prager here.
It took me much of my life to realize that the primary aim, though not conscious, of the left is chaos.
Everything is opposite.
Men give birth.
Ugly is beautiful.
Beautiful is ugly.
And America is systemically racist.
Israel is the villain in the Middle East.
It's all upside down.
So the latest example is out of New Hampshire.
I wonder how many of you have seen it.
Are we putting it up at DennisPrager.com?
This new story?
I think we should.
So they have a lot of contests for who will become Miss, whatever state it is, in the Miss America pageant.
So there are local pageants, local contests, and then there's regional, and then there's statewide to decide the winner.
The winner in New Hampshire, what was the...
I'm sorry, I'm laughing.
I'm looking at the first Twitter response.
I can't read it on the air.
It's so sad.
So a transgender woman, a man who does not look like a woman, and is quite heavy, is surrounded by about a dozen very pretty young women.
All of whom look like women and all of whom are attractive.
Because part of what enables you to win a Miss America contest is looking attractive.
I'm not quite sure why that is a debatable or objectionable comment.
That is part of what enables you to win a Miss America contest.
Well, did.
Did.
I know.
They got rid of the swimsuit competition.
Because they believe a woman can do what she wants with their own body.
Oh, maybe they don't.
You think they took a vote among Miss America contestants over whether they wanted a swimsuit competition?
Of course not.
The feminist rulers of the Miss America competition said you will not appear in swimsuits because kids should be sexualized, but it's not good for adults to be sexualized.
It's part of the men give birth.
Everything is upside down.
So there's something very sad here about the attack on civilizational norms that this man who says he's a woman doesn't look like one and is not an attractive woman.
There are transgender who are quite attractive as it happens.
They have to acknowledge that.
But this individual is not.
it is not meant to insult this individual but when you are in a beauty contest which is part of what the Miss America pageant is a beauty contest if you don't look at all beautiful it's not right for you to win and when this individual was announced as the winner you should see the other not the other
The girls there, applauding as if this was a fair decision.
And then this individual went on to say what a great day this is for Miss America and for the country, that a man who says that he is a woman and is not at all attractive as a woman, wins.
We put it up at DennisPrager.com.
It's on the Salem News Channel as well.
The video?
The picture.
The picture is quite sufficient, but the video of the girls cheering.
How many of them will go home and say to their parents, I was cheated?
The whole thing was rigged to make a political statement.
New Hampshire.
Wow.
The country is going mad, my friends.
It's going mad.
I've seen Eric Swalwell and the Miss America pageant contest in this New Hampshire town.
Just two examples of the country going mad.
But you can't go mad.
You have to fight rationally, methodically, civilly, and effectively.
That's what you have to do.
It's not enough to fight.
You have to fight smart.
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everybody, I'm Dennis Prager.
These are great songs.
There was a time when Americans knew all these songs, sang them.
Such a wonderful country.
A wonderful country.
Because I compared America to other countries, not to a dream of something perfect.
You want to lose every friend you have?
Compare them to an ideal friend.
Want to lose your spouse?
Compare your spouse to the perfect spouse, something you imagine.
That's what people do, and they ruin their lives.
I never compared America to utopia.
I compared it to other countries.
I've been to 130 other countries.
I have a lot to compare it to.
I come back to the United States today, and I remember what I experienced this week in Denmark, where I spoke last weekend.
The realization that America is exporting toxic ideas to the world.
For most of my life, I would say this.
I would have thought you were out of your mind.
The greatest ideas about liberty, about how to have a Judeo-Christian society that is an industrialized democracy function, came from the United States.
And now, as I learned in Denmark, the daughter...
Of a recent Prime Minister had her breasts cut off because she said she was a boy.
The daughter of the Prime Minister.
How come that never happened in Danish history?
Why is all of this happening?
You could thank Eric Swalwell's experts.
Eric Swalwell embodies the Democratic Party.
And yet liberals who are...
I think most liberals think the idea that we now have a half million transgender young people in this country.
I think most liberals think there's something awry, but they vote for those who made this possible.
This was all socially engineered.
Why didn't we have this in any time in history that we know of?
Massive numbers of young people saying they are the other sex.
Secularism, of course, paved the way.
The wisdom-free, meaning-free universe of secularism.
It's been my life's work explaining the consequences of secularism.
Latest from our experts.
A growing number of doctors are calling for face masks to be brought back to classrooms, this time to help stop the spread of flu.
Did you see this article?
Because there's a very important point in here that I want to bring to all of your attention.
Pediatric hospitals are being rocked by an early and aggressive flu season at the same time as a wave of RSV, a virus that can be deadly to young children.
Hmm.
Experts say measures brought in to stop the spread of COVID like lockdowns and masks This is the key.
This is the key sentence in the article.
I'll begin it again.
Experts say measures brought in to stop the spread of COVID, like lockdowns and masks, prevented children catching germs that help build their immunity to seasonal viruses.
Wow.
This is the same Daily Mail that actually wrote an article about me.
How silly I am because if a utensil falls on the floor in a restaurant, I will use it.
I do not fear dying from a fallen fork.
One of the reasons I am convinced that I am so healthy, for which I thank God and luck, no question, is that I don't walk around frightened.
That immediately excludes me from the left.
I don't fear the existential threat to Earth from global warming.
I do not fear picking up a utensil and using it again.
I do not fear, and you fill in the line.
I didn't even fear alar in apples.
Remember that one?
Sean was hospitalized for quite some time from LR, I'll never forget.
And yet I still didn't fear LR. I made that up, folks.
Sean was not hospitalized from LR. Some experts have reservations about kids donning face coverings again because evidence suggests they stunted baby's development.
No manure, Sherlock.
Calling for face masks to return to the classroom, Dr. Schaffner, they quote three doctors who are for this, William Schaffner, a top infectious diseases expert at the influential Vanderbilt University, but he's an expert!
He's calling for face masks to return to the classroom.
Can I give you one of the definitions of wisdom?
Here is a very important working definition.
Those who ask, what is the price paid, immediately are on the road to wisdom.
That's the key, or a key.
The experts are so unwise.
They are so spectacular fools like this doctor.
They don't ask, what is the price paid by children wearing masks?
I will read to you some of those prices.
They only know what they know.
They are, most experts are what are known as idiot savants.
Their savant is from the French to know, savoir.
They know, but they're idiots.
That describes most professors.
Although in many cases they're not even savants, but that's a separate issue.
Once you ask what is the price, you are on the road to wisdom, and guess what else?
Conservatism.
Conservatives ask what is the price.
the left doesn't.
There we go.
It's the happy, happy, happy, happy air!
Yes, it is.
My friends, what did I used to say?
Oh, wow, I haven't said it many times.
Whatever happens, come hell or high water, blood, frogs, boils, hail, we still have the happiness hour.
Because the happy make the world better.
I got a letter this week from a 25-year-old woman in Chicago.
And it was one of the most thoughtful, open letters I've ever received.
I almost never talk about my book on happiness on the Happiness Hour or any other time.
I'm self-conscious about it.
However, I'll forego my worries that you're thinking I'm trying to sell you a book.
Buy it used if you want.
Then I don't get any money.
Okay?
But read it.
And how this book has helped her life.
There are parts of it that may be even worth reading at some point on the air.
Because you know how many young people are grappling with unhappiness?
It's an epidemic.
This scares me much more than COVID with regard to young people.
How many young people are now being diagnosed as psychologically impaired?
God, I mean, to live in such a blessed place and to be depressed, to be psychologically unhappy, to need drugs or alcohol, this is all induced by the people who wish to tear down what is beautiful.
It's very pertinent, by the way.
I feel silly, but I have to say my name.
It's radio formality.
I'm Dennis Prager.
Hi.
This is the Happiness Hour.
One more personal note.
I don't think I've said anything that has affected people more.
I've said things that have affected people as much, I hope.
But more than...
It is a moral obligation to act happy or be happy.
It changes people's lives.
The book is called Happiness is a Serious Problem.
And that's what it is about.
The Daily Wire has just asked me to record eight videos of nearly an hour each.
What do they call it again?
The Master Course.
And needless to say, they wanted one on happiness as a moral obligation.
Boy, has that turned out to be accurate and life-changing for a lot of people.
I discovered, I remember when I noted this, I was on a New York subway train.
I grew up in New York City.
I was in high school.
And I was reflecting on life, sitting back.
I was one of the only persons in the subway car.
It was fairly late at night.
And I said to myself, it's very easy to be unhappy.
And then my dad's voice came to me.
Never take the easy way out.
He was a little fanatical on that, I must say.
When I was a kid and I got glasses, I was 13 years of age.
And the doctor said, this is for watching television and reading.
Which was a stupid thing to say, because one is far and one is near, meaning all the time, right?
My father took them literally.
And when I wore them, when I wasn't watching TV or reading, he said, why are you wearing your glasses?
You're taking the easy way out.
Even my brother thought that was a little silly.
I say even, because...
He was the good son.
Anyway, yes, it's the easy way out.
It's easy to be unhappy.
Now some people have true built-in issues and I totally understand that.
But most people can conquer at least their behavior so as not to inflict their Unhappiness on others.
Today's topic is very, very pertinent.
I debated between two topics till the last minute.
Actually, till the theme went on.
I wanted to talk to you about taking a vacation every day.
Then I realized, though, that so many of you are worried about the country that I need to address that.
And what you can do to maintain happiness.
And my number one, but there are others that are sort of tied with number one, but my number one suggestion is you must find kindred spirits.
This is not the first time I have mentioned this, but everything needs to be repeated.
Repetition is the mother of...
Pedagogy, that is my line.
If you went to college, you don't know what pedagogy is.
It means teaching.
It is, it is, and that's why I offer this again.
What made me think of it was my visit to Denmark this past week.
I was invited to speak in the Parliament Building.
I received an award from...
The Free Press Society of Denmark.
You know, Denmark is where the famous Muhammad cartoons were published.
Just to remind you that there are real fighters for free speech.
The issue is not a defense of mocking anything in Islam.
It is a defense of free speech.
That was the point.
There is an artwork.
I made reference to this artwork in Denmark.
It actually traveled to Denmark.
Not only what I'm about to tell you was popular in America, it went to Europe.
It was called Piss Christ, a brilliant, brilliant artistic work by Andres Serrano, where he placed a crucifix in a jar of his urine.
When you weigh Michelangelo on the one hand, for example, and Andres Serrano on the other, isn't it obvious that we're talking about equals?
And maybe Serrano is even superior?
Have any of you thought of putting a crucifix in your urine?
I'll bet not.
That takes an original mind.
Okay?
Now, It's interesting.
Has any Christian group called for his death?
Or even demonstrated in front of his home?
Yet the Danish cartoonist who drew pictures, a cartoon-like picture of Muhammad, lived with bodyguards the rest of his life.
Traveled with bodyguards the rest of his life.
This was told to me by the Danes when I was there.
Why do I mention this experience in Denmark?
I met hundreds of people who were kindred spirits on the other side of the world.
Between L.A. and Denmark, you're talking a long distance.
It's about a 13-hour flight.
The longest in the world, I think, is 18. It's a long flight.
It's so long you fly over Greenland, which is quite a sight if you've never seen Greenland from the air.
I need to visit Greenland.
I really do.
And I met all these wonderful people, truly special people, and I thought, wow, this is so comforting to me, to travel to a place where I've only visited as a tourist twice before in my life, and now to meet, really, I've met special human beings.
You need to meet kindred spirits to keep your spirits up at this time.
And you need to regularly be with them.
The question is how to find them.
I want to deal with that.
Have you found kindred spirits or do you feel alone in terms of your worries about our beloved country?
1-8 Prager 776 877-243-7776 Let's all go along and whistle a song the way the happy whistler goes.
It makes you feel like laughing all over from your head down to your toes.
You haven't got time for troubles or worry.
Hi, everybody.
The Happiness Hour on the Dennis Prager Show, the second hour every Friday.
Come hell or high water, as they say.
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That's right.
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That would be true for my parents.
Two sons, one is a doctor, and one is a promo code.
That's exactly right.
I'll tell you this, there are more doctors than promo codes.
I mean, let's be honest, guys.
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And...
I'm laughing because...
I'm thinking...
Happily, I have not been asked to sacrifice him.
Not by God.
Not by God.
Exactly.
1-8-Prager-776.
Why didn't you just read me that somebody who attended an event that I was at in Vermont, is that it?
Yeah, and who said how good it was to what?
To meet people like-minded?
That's my topic today, like-minded.
I call them kindred spirits.
I just met hundreds of them in Denmark.
You should join an organization if you don't already have such people in your life.
And by the way, it's almost impossible to have too many.
We bathe in a sea of such toxicity in the country now, sadly, that you need to bathe in healthy seas.
That's how I look at having kindred spirits in my life.
It's really, really important.
Do you know, I've never said it quite this way, not having kindred spirits in your life is almost like being in solitary confinement.
You're allowed to engage with others, unlike a literal solitary confinement, but you're still alone because you're not revealing who you are.
That's, by the way, my argument for coming out of the closet.
You will make enemies.
You might even lose friends.
But you will now bring into your life people who share your values.
And so it's sort of like a...
You know, a trade.
I'll give you our shortstop and left fielder and you give me two relievers.
It's really like that.
It's making a trade.
And it's a trade worth making.
I am very blessed because of the nature of my work.
So many wonderful people enter my life.
I know every day how lucky I am in that regard.
But you can be lucky too.
Not as lucky, obviously.
You don't have a public life like I do.
But it doesn't matter.
When you come out of the closet, you become public.
That's exactly what you do.
This wonderful young woman, Julie Hartman, with whom I do my Dennis and Julie podcast, which I bring to your attention.
It's really wonderful.
Every week.
And that's what she underwent when she was at Harvard these last four years.
She graduated in June.
And she came out of the closet, as it were.
She's nothing if not courageous.
And that's what she found.
Yes, she lost friends.
When she first came on my radio show, she lost friends.
You went on the Dennis Prager show?
Forget it.
Isn't that amazing?
Do we say that?
It's an interesting question.
You went on the Young Turks?
You're no longer my friend.
It doesn't sound like us.
The Young Turks.
Okay, don't get me started.
They're an advertisement for conservatism.
This is not meant as a mockery or even an insult.
But anyway, I'll leave it at that.
1-8 Prager 776. The need for kindred spirits.
Look, my whole life I have said values are everything.
I'll give you the most dramatic example that I can think of.
I used to do, I don't know why I stopped doing it, every single year I used to do a show on how much more important love and values are than blood.
And the chief example was adoption.
And I did it one year, and a guy called me.
This is why you know now, why do I describe my radio show as my human laboratory?
That's what it is.
I have learned about humanity through your calls so much.
So he called me up.
I'd say this guy was about, at the time, I don't know, 35, 40 years old.
And he said, Dennis, I agree with you almost all the time, but on this one, when you put down the importance of blood, I just got to tell you, I don't agree with you.
And let me give you my example.
My parents lost...
Everyone in the Holocaust.
They're European Jews.
Everyone.
Every sibling, every cousin, uncles, parents, everyone.
I am their only blood relative.
Me, the son.
Do you understand how important blood can be?
It was a very emotionally wrenching call.
When we return, I will tell you how I responded and won him over, even him or even he, to my belief that values are the most important thing.
And that's what makes for love and kindred spirits and a good world when we return.
Let Dennis be Dennis.
That's right, Ari, everybody.
We're playing special music on this Veterans Day.
This is the theme from Victory at Sea.
Richard Rogers, the great composer.
You should all go on the Internet and watch the Victory at Sea series.
Made after World War II. It's in black and white.
I watched it every week on television.
With my parents, my father served in the Navy in World War II, so it really brought things home.
Victory at sea.
At a time when Americans were rightfully proud of their country, patriotism was a positive term.
Kids were not being taught that the American flag represented racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, xenophobia.
Phobia, phobia.
Phobia, phobia, phobia.
Phobia to the fourth degree.
Isn't that something?
You know how many kids believe the American flag represents bad and not good?
All right.
Anyway, this is the hour you set the agenda.
Whatever is on your mind, 1-8-Prager-776.
If I don't take your call, do not be offended.
That's what I've got to do.
An hour on a happiness hour about being offended.
You choose to be offended.
You're not offended objectively.
Like almost everything in life, being offended is a choice.
Did you ever notice that there are people who are almost always offended?
They're fun to live with.
Anyway, don't be offended.
For whatever reason, I don't want that subject for this hour.
It has nothing to do with how wonderful you are.
Okay, 1-8-Prager-776.
Needless to say, we particularly welcome calls on audio equipment, photography equipment, classical music, cigars.
What's the fifth, Sean?
What did I miss?
Cigars.
Oh, fountain pens.
Of course.
Exactly.
Alright, let's go to your calls here.
And North Hollywood, California and Kevin, the famous Kevin of North Hollywood.
Hi.
Yes, hi.
I talked to you before.
I'm North Hollywood Kevin.
I have two quick questions.
Two.
Do one, do one, do one.
Oh, no.
Okay.
One is, so you know how you said, you know, let's not have low, let's not have high expectations.
Correct.
We should have low expectations because if things don't go the way we want, then we're not going to be unhappy.
Right.
But here's the question from Mr. Prager.
Isn't it kind of true that...
You can easily say that because you're pretty successful.
So it's easy to say, oh, if it don't work out, don't worry about it.
But you haven't had like the failures maybe that others have had, you know what I mean?
Yes, I do.
So why would that make not having expectations easier for me than for someone who's had it harder?
If someone has had it harder, it's even more important not to have big expectations.
Good point.
Okay, so my answer would be if you had, let's say if one had failure after failure, then it's, is it almost like someone is saying, well, okay, I'm just saying it may be.
Well, ironically, in terms of that, it would seem to me to be harder for me to say it.
If you believe that my life has been easier than many people's lives, then why would it be a big problem for me to have high expectations?
Right?
Because what you're arguing is, in my case at least, They have largely been fulfilled.
So what's the big problem?
So my answer to you is, first of all, I write about this in my happiness book.
Many people think that the happy have had an easier life than they have.
I have found no correlation between people's demeanor, And the amount of suffering that they have had in their life.
There are people who have suffered terribly and have a happy countenance.
You would never know it when you meet them.
And there are people who have had it relatively easy who walk around angry, ungrateful, complaining.
So you don't know, and I can't expect you to know, the difficult times that I have had in my life.
And I've had.
I could not have written a book titled Happiness is a Serious Problem if things had been easy for me all the time.
The title comes from my own experience.
I have worked on my happiness.
It'd be very hard to write a book on happiness if you've never experienced unhappiness.
What would you have to say?
In that regard, I always ask people, When they talk about who should give advice about marriage, I ask them a simple question.
If you have a choice of two marital therapists, one has had a happy marriage all of his or her life, or adult life, and the other one had a difficult marriage, had divorced, and is now in a happy marriage, which therapist would you take?
Every single person I've ever asked it has said to one, Who had the divorce?
Right?
So, as regards expectations, it has been a very powerful thing in my life not to have expectations.
I've therefore had very few disappointments.
When you expect little, you just walk around grateful.
I'm happy you called, Kevin, of North Hollywood.
Appreciate it.
Mara on Long Island, New York.
Hello.
Hey, good afternoon, Dennis.
Promo Prager.
That's right.
Promo code Prager.
I just want to tell you.
That what you said earlier about meeting kindred spirits resonated with me because we took the Stand With Israel tour with you and Mike Gallagher back in 2017, my son and I. And he lives in California.
I mentioned him before too.
I've been on your show.
And I live here in New York.
And it's just so difficult meeting, you know, kindred spirits.
And the people that we met on your Stand With Israel, many of whom were from California, They just rejuvenated both of us when we were home, and they will never know how much they enriched our lives.
That's beautiful.
And I just thank you.
But I just want to say, when we were with them, and you talk about people having issues in their lives, many of them came up to us because it was a mother and son, and they saw how much we were enjoying ourselves and enjoying their company.
And they came to us and told them about...
He told us about the Yiddish word for aggravation, and yet they were happy.
They were wonderful, wonderful, wonderful people.
And ultimately, my son, with that refreshed feeling, went back to California and eventually met, you know, the woman who's now his partner.
And she's also politically conservative.
She calls him her unicorn because he's originally a New York transplant and a Jew.
And she was expecting, you know, obviously...
A liberal.
Yeah, that's shocking.
I can't believe it.
She expected a New York Jew to be a liberal?
Oh, my God.
Me joketh, ladies and gentlemen.
Most New York Jews are left of center.
That's just a fact.
It's not an attack.
I'm a New York Jew, and I'm an anomaly.
I knew it when I lived in New York.
By the way, this call is one great advertisement for going on a trip with me.
Not because of me, but because I gather kindred spirits.
It's the people you will meet.
People do not do the things that will bring them happiness.
It's a fascinating insight that I arrived at in my second half of life.
One of the reasons too few people are happy is because they don't pursue happiness.
I'm not trying to get you to sign up for my trip.
Hundreds of people sign up irrespective of this.
But if you know that this might bring you happiness, why wouldn't you?
Back in a moment.
The Dennis Prager Show.
The music is in honor of Veterans Day, ladies and gentlemen.
and just what you should know.
That's right.
By the way, the 1,012th person to do it gets a visit from Sean.
To see Sean's reactions to these things, that is one of the things that keeps me happy.
Okay.
When out of nowhere, I bring up Sean.
It is the last...
Is it correct it was the last thing you expected, Sean?
The last.
That is second to last.
That's right.
All right, everybody.
This is whatever is on your mind.
And La Kenyatta, California, Bill.
Hello, Bill.
How are you doing, Dennis?
Good.
By the way, wait one minute.
I'd like you to do that again.
That was the fastest How Do You Do, Dennis, in my 40 years of broadcasting.
How do you do, Dennis?
How are you doing, Dennis?
That was good.
That was good.
Okay.
Well, I'm an old newspaper guy like you, so I want to get to the point.
But you were at Columbia, I think, back in the, what, late 70s?
1870s.
Yeah.
Yes, I was there in the 70s, correct?
Right.
And I was there at the J School in the mid-80s, and two of my best professors, who were actually friends of mine at one point, too, were Fred Friendly, the former president of CBS News, and Judith Criss, the famous film critic.
Two of the smartest people that I ever met, two of the best people, They were New York secular Jews who accepted American institutions and traditions.
They believed in language.
None of this gendered, illogical nonsense.
And I want to ask you, what do you think has happened to Colombia that's preaching microaggression and all that garbage now?
What went wrong?
It's a very good question.
The seeds were already there when you were there, and even I, who was there a decade before you.
Look, I was taught at Columbia that men and women are basically the same, which is the seed of what we're having now.
If gender has no difference, then gender is irrelevant.
And we're now seeing the upshot of gender is irrelevant.
Do you think the university supported that?
Well, that's what I was taught by my professors.
I never got that from these really good professors.
Well, you were in the journalism school.
It may not have arisen.
I'll tell you specifically what I got, because I was at the School of International Affairs, that America and the Soviet Union were basically moral equivalents.
This is in the 70s in Colombia.
I was taught, the way they taught me the Cold War was two superpowers protecting their interests, fighting one another.
And I remember the imagery that they used, two scorpions in a bottle.
That's what it was.
It wasn't free society versus tyranny.
It was two superpowers engaged in a Cold War.
That's the 70s at Columbia.
Well, you know, Fred Friendly was a veteran, World War II veteran.
Yes, that's correct.
You're right.
That's when liberals were liberal.
And not leftists.
That's exactly right.
I know.
I know well what you're saying.
Talking about Jewish liberals, secular Jewish liberals, most Jews are secular.
The Superman comics is a perfect example of what has happened.
Superman, what was it, the 1930s?
Was it the 30s at Superman?
Sorry?
Yeah, tell me.
39?
Perfect.
1939, Superman was invented, or created better, and it was by secular Jewish liberals who loved America.
And he was a patriot, and he was an American.
Two generations later, Superman, a few years ago, renounced his American citizenship, stood in front of the UN and said, I'm no longer an American, I'm a citizen of the world.
They've dropped...
What is the motto of Superman?
It was...
Truth, justice, and the American way.
They dropped the American way.
Some pablum, I don't know, and the way of peace or something like that.
That is a perfect representation of the deterioration of liberals generally.
And Jewish liberals specifically.
Why did it happen?
Not easy to answer.
But the education system is a big part of it.
You know, I remember in high school, I had a teacher, social studies it was called.
He was a big leftist.
Which is so indicative of the difference between left and right.
My high school...
It was completely conservative.
It was an Orthodox yeshiva in Brooklyn, New York.
And half-the-day religious subjects in Hebrew, half-the-day secular subjects in English.
My social studies teacher, I remember our nickname, Lefty Morose.
Mr. Morose.
And everybody knew the guy was a lefty.
And we joked about it.
The idea that a conservative institution would not allow a lefty to teach in it never occurred to us.
Because liberals and conservatives believe in free speech and dissent, leftists do not.
That is the key to understanding the left.
That is the key to understanding who's lying.
This is now a big, big deal for me.
On my fireside chat, I do a fireside chat, 262 are up there.
Every single week, even through COVID. And it's at PragerU.
And I get questions mostly from young people in different parts of the world.
So one question last week or the week before was, Dennis, how do I know who's telling the truth and who's lying?
It's a very good question, by the way.
It's a very tough question.
I came up with an answer that I think is so important.
I wish I had come up with it 20 years ago.
The ones who want to censor are lying.
That's it.
It's as simple as that.
That's how you know the left lies.
Because they're the ones who want to censor dissent, not the right.
That's all you need to know.
The Dennis Prager Show.
There's a new song, isn't there?
We have not had this as a bumper.
Is that correct, Rick?
I'm not talking to Sean today.
I'm angry with him.
And I'll tell you why I'm angry at him.
I think people should know.
When I offered you as a prize to the 1,012th caller, You laughed.
Okay.
We're at 678. We're at 678. Yes, as it says in Genesis, take your engineer, your only engineer, the engineer whom you loved, and sacrifice him on the nearest hill.
Okay.
Somebody came in.
Oh, you know who did?
Our Greek Orthodox guy in sales here.
He came in yesterday and said, Dennis, what you need to do on some day is just be goofy for three hours.
Which, I must tell you, is not a challenge, just for the record.
But...
The question is, how would my employers react to that?
How would my audience react to that?
There is no answer.
So we continue on a semi-serious vein.
Here is a serious call, actually.
Rebecca in...
I hope I always get it right.
Is it Naperville, Illinois?
Or Naperville?
It's Naperville.
Good.
Thanks for taking my call.
In light of Veterans Day, hi, how are you?
In light of Veterans Day, my grandfather was a World War II Navy vet in the Pacific.
During the COVID lockdowns, his assisted living was completely shut down for all visits for his extended family.
He passed away on Christmas Eve of 2020. Kids were unable to see him for a year, so essentially a year, so just a huge overreach of these COVID-19.
And he died alone?
He was able to see his children very infrequently, so he saw his daughter the day before, and his son was coming Christmas Day, but otherwise extended family couldn't see him for almost a year.
Well, my heart breaks.
For all of you.
But I must say there is an emotion that I have that is greater than heartbreak.
My anger at the authorities, medical authorities and others, is very deep.
It is one of the reasons that my attitude to the medical establishment has changed.
I'm sort of shocked myself.
The way I regard the American medical establishment, the AMA is a moral wasteland.
If you're a doctor who's a member of the AMA, you should get out.
Most doctors are not members, by the way, of the AMA. The AMA is to medicine what teachers' unions are to teaching.
That is the best way to put it.
The cruelty of not allowing people dying to be with people.
I said at the time how vicious it was, but you know, in the name of health you're allowed to be vicious.
Everybody has a higher value that defends meanness.
These people are not mean.
They don't wake up in the morning.
The people who devise this policy, you must die alone.
You can't have visitors.
I thought masks worked.
I thought vaccines worked.
Now, this is pre-vaccine, admittedly.
I don't remember what month vaccines came in and they bought this stuff.
But...
What was wrong with masks?
Weren't they supposed to work?
Why could the nurse visit your dying parent but you couldn't?
Anyway, I said during the time, I said that if a loved one of mine were dying, I would have broken down the door of the hospital and been arrested.
Simple.
I know I would have.
At least my relative would then know, or my loved one, not just relatives whom I love, That I didn't accept this viciousness in the name of health.
With the proper wrong value or good-sounding value, you can do anything horrible to people.
That was what the famous Milgram experiments showed.
When they said to people, yes, inflict this terrible pain on people.
We're just doing an experiment.
A person in a white coat said it.
And people kept doing it.
That's what the COVID was.
All right, everybody, in honor of Veterans Day.
All right.
Okay, my friends.
Erie, Pennsylvania, and Greg.
Hello, Greg.
Hey, how you doing, Dennis?
Really well, thank you.
Hey, honored to speak with you.
I just had two questions I want to ask quickly and then get your insight on it.
You touched early on the Ten Commandments, and you said that honoring your parents is one of the most important things to do because it's the only thing that offers reward.
With that, in our family, There's been great divide over really, I guess, the values, not politics, what's going on in the country.
Everything from my brother to myself and his kids.
So how do we keep honoring our parents and having a good relationship when this is the state of the country and the politics have interfered so much?
So I'll give you the 12-step motto, fake it till you make it.
The answer, I have an answer, I think.
You don't have to respect your parents.
You have to honor them.
Your parents may well have lost your respect.
They may in fact be fools.
I'm not saying they are.
I don't know them, of course.
But let's say you have fools for parents.
And it's a sad thing.
It's not unheard of.
Just as people have fools for children.
But I think the answer is they are still owed honor because they are your parents.
So you don't, for example, the most dishonoring thing you can do to a parent is cut off relations.
Children who do that, except in the rarest of instances where the parent was pure evil, I think will have to answer to God.
And I don't think, I'm certain, will have to answer to God for doing that.
So I... I would say to you, you honor them.
You don't have to love them.
There's no law to love your parents in the Bible.
And there's no secular law to respect your parents.
And my example is that if Joe Biden walked into a room, I think he's a lowlife, a thug.
I think he is the worst president since the Civil War.
I think he's a bad human being.
I would stand up because he's president of the United States.
So I have no respect for him.
I have contempt for him.
I loathe him, and I would stand up.
I'm standing up for the president, not for Joe Biden.
So you're calling your parents, not because you love them or respect them, but because they're your parents.
And that's my answer.
Okay.
What if my parents, they express...
The same values.
They say, hey, this is ridiculous what's going on in the country.
Yet they express at the same time their hatred for Donald Trump because they just don't like the guy.
So fine.
So yes, look, they have Trump derangement syndrome.
By the way, there are people who love Trump who have Trump derangement syndrome.
I've come to realize this only in the recent past.
There are people who are as fixated on an unquestioning love as there are people as fixated with an unquestioning hate.
I don't have either.
I think he was the greatest president since Abraham Lincoln, but I don't have Trump derangement syndrome in thinking that he is necessarily the man or I'm not crazy about him since his, whether you want to call it unjust loss or just loss, it's not the argument I want to get into.
But I, so your parents, if the extent of your problem is that your parents can't stand Donald Trump, I don't think that that should really be a big problem for you in honoring them.
I mean, so they have a silly notion of fixation on the man.
So what?
Yeah, it's gone further than that in some aspects, too.
Just asking if their grandkids are getting booster shots and things like that.
Right.
Good, so fine.
So you tell them no, and you send them, so mom and dad, I'll read anything you want to send me.
I'm asking you to read stuff I send you.
Ask them how many kids have died of COVID. Ask them why Sweden kept their schools open and America didn't.
And Sweden's excess death rate is the lowest in the Western world.
I mean, there's so much you could say to them.
But listen.
Your parents don't sound as bad as I thought from the beginning.
Okay.
I think the example that I gave of Joe Biden if he walked into the room is a really good one.
There are very few of you who loathe your parents as much as I loathe Joe Biden.
And I would stand up if he walked into the room.
Okay.
I might limp.
I might stand on one leg.
That's the way it works.
Fake it till you make it.
One of the great ones.
Thank you for the call.
That was an important one.
And let me take some more here.
Okay.
Dennis in San Antonio.
I normally take all Dennis calls.
No, no, that's a joke.
Do you know what I have no answer to?
I have no answer to why God made the mosquito.
That's my classic question.
People, by the way, it just happened last week at a speech.
Somebody was very serious.
Dennis, if you could meet God, what one question would you ask?
And I said, why God did you create the mosquito?
And they didn't know whether to laugh or not.
It was a great moment in my life.
Is Prager serious?
The guy who wrote all these books?
Three volumes of Bible commentary?
That's his question?
Anyway, there are all sorts of questions to be asked here.
Okay, let's see.
Oh yeah, so here's my question that I would like to ask God.
How come some names fall out of favor?
What the hell is wrong with Dennis?
I understand Gertrude.
Okay?
I do.
Nobody's going to name their daughter Gertrude.
That was bad.
Gertrude.
And I had an aunt Gertrude.
Thank God we called her Gertie.
I don't know if that's an improvement now that I think of it.
But I don't know why Dennis died as a name.
It's a good one.
Back in a moment.
We fought in many places In our veins the red blood flows And the price we paid for freedom Every veteran knows And the battle scars we suffer We'll never go away.
That's why to me each day will be Veterans Day.
That's what it is.
Hi, everybody.
Final segment of the show.
Funny to think I began the week in Denmark.
As much as I travel, and I travel more than almost anyone except flight attendants, I still marvel.
That you wake up in the morning in Denmark and you go to bed in the evening in L.A. It's really remarkable.
By the way, a free ad here.
I flew to Copenhagen.
My wife and I flew from L.A. to Copenhagen on Lott Polish Airways.
L-O-T. We went L.A., Warsaw, Copenhagen.
Because there's virtually no direct flights in Copenhagen.
You've got to stop somewhere.
It could be anywhere.
Paris, Frankfurt, London.
So it worked out schedule-wise.
And I had no experience with this airline.
Didn't even know anybody who had flown it.
I just want you to know my experience was excellent.
So just a word to the wise if any of you are traveling to Europe.
So let's see here.
Ah, good stuff.
Alright, so Dennis in San Antonio, why don't we shut down the FDA? The corruption and the foolishness that permeate American institutions is so deep.
That I understand the question.
What else can I tell you?
Yep.
San Diego Jeffrey says, Dr. Oz was not the best candidate, yet it was a disappointment that he didn't win.
I don't know what candidate could have won in Pennsylvania if John Fetterman won.
Fetterman, sorry.
The answer, my friends, to the American dilemma is changing minds.
If we don't change minds, we lose the country.
That's why I work as feverishly as I do, whether it's radio or PragerU or lecturing or writing.
I'm not the only one, thank God, involved in this.
And that's why they want to shut us down.
Ann Coulter was just at Cornell.
She spoke a total of seven minutes.
They just kept shouting her down.
The reason the left shouts people down is because they're liars, and that's the only way their lies can survive.
Sorry to end on such a note.
Have a good weekend.
Dennis Prager here.
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