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March 14, 2023 - Dennis Prager Show
01:14:14
Gratuitous Hatred
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Dennis Prager here.
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Hi, everybody.
Welcome to the Labor Day weekend special.
Not sure what's special about it.
You want me to thank Julie?
Why would I thank Julie?
Oh, man.
The demands made upon the host of this show, Julie, is special.
What can I say?
I thank God I found her.
I do.
I literally do.
I thank God.
Julie Hartman sat in for me yesterday.
I was in Denver.
Went to Denver.
Spoke for my local Salem station.
Then flew back.
And here I am.
I worked very hard in my mind on how to describe my reaction.
To Joe Biden's speech.
Hate-filled, demagogic speech.
Among the worst ever given by a President of the United States.
I can't think of something worse, but I'm allowing for the possibility.
In the name of fighting hate, all he does is spread it.
MAGA Republicans.
A threat to democracy.
So now you know exactly what the Communists and Fascists did in Europe.
While they were suppressing liberty in their countries, they would attack their opponents as doing what they did.
That is the definition of Joe Biden and the Democratic Party.
Suppress liberty and say that the opposition is a threat to democracy.
Half the country will buy it, and that's really a shame, a big shame.
Half the country doesn't, and that is wonderful.
This is the party.
That in the ideological part of the country that believes in the suppression of free speech, and yet the threat is the MAGA Republican, a term never defined.
I presume it's a Republican who supported President Trump.
In that sense, I am a MAGA Republican, even though he was my last choice for the nomination, and I was wrong because he turned out to be a great president.
Not a good president, a great president.
Here's a question that I never get answered because they don't ever confront us.
If Donald Trump is a threat to democracy, was there any diminution in liberty in democracy while he was president?
Let's say before January 6th.
He had another, what, two weeks to be president?
So for the first three years, eleven months and two weeks of his presidency, when he had this power, and at one point had a Republican Congress, was there a suppression of liberty?
Was there a diminution of democracy in the United States of America?
He had all this power.
Why didn't he use it?
Is there a suppression of democracy on the part of the left?
The answer to that is there is never a non-diminution of liberty when the left is in power.
There is no instance in world history since Vladimir Lenin in 1917, Russia, of the left being in power and not suppressing liberty.
Liberty is not a left-wing value.
Has a president ever spoken with such hatred of almost half of his fellow citizens?
Has it ever happened?
I don't think it's ever happened.
He's a bad human being.
I never said that of any Democrat in the Oval Office.
I never thought it.
I thought that Barack Obama did a great deal of harm.
I never called him a bad human being.
Joe Biden is a bad human being.
He's rotten.
We have a rotten human being as president.
And he is adored by the New York Times and the Washington Post.
There is a very famous belief in Judaism that stems back thousands of years.
Why the Jews were exiled?
This is a Jewish belief about themselves.
Every kid who studies, as I did at a yeshiva, a religious Jewish school, learns this.
And even people who, Jews who don't, have heard it.
It's so famous within Jewish life.
So why was the temple destroyed and the Jews exiled?
Masses of Jews killed.
Horrible tragedy in Jewish history.
And they blame it on themselves because of, and two famous words in Hebrew, which I won't bother with, since most of you don't know Hebrew, two Hebrew words meaning gratuitous hatred.
Yes, it was the standard Jewish belief that Jews so weakened themselves as to be, Destructible.
Because they hated one another for no good reason.
There are reasons for hatred.
But the rabbinic belief was there was chinam, the Hebrew word, for nothing.
No good reason.
If the United States destroys itself, which it might, absolutely might.
The left will destroy it, and its modus operandi will be gratuitous hatred.
That is what you heard last night from Joe Biden.
Gratuitous hatred.
Not one example given in the entire speech of this attack on democracy on the part of MAGA Republicans.
But if I can get my fellow Americans to fear and hate nearly half of their fellow Americans, perhaps half, then I have done a good job.
The New York Times will celebrate me, as will all of the media, which are in service to the same lying ideology I am.
And that's what it was last night.
I have told you many times If you can't make any generalizations, you don't have a mind that sees patterns.
But if you can't give specific examples of your generalization, you're a demagogue.
Generalizations are critical, but you must support your generalization with examples.
In the entire talk, there was not an example.
New York Times published a week or two ago A column by a Harvard law professor and a Yale law professor advocating that we get rid of the Constitution.
Not that we modify it, that we get rid of it.
But we were accused by this despicable human being named Biden, and he's always been.
It goes back a long, long time.
This is a man who went into politics in order to go into politics.
He stood for nothing, and now he just stands for bad things.
Even, I believe that even Democrats would have to acknowledge, were it not for COVID, and the panicked response induced by that side of the spectrum, and the panicked response induced by that side of the spectrum, Donald Trump would have won the This country was happy.
This country was prosperous.
This country was feared by its enemies.
The number of good things taking place prior to COVID was extraordinary.
And then the devil, which I never believed in, and now I flirt with as a possibility, took over.
I will analyze his remarks when we come back.
You're listening to the Dennis Prager Show.
And this is Labor Day weekend.
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So are we ready with the President's clips, Sean? - I'm...
Alright, let's start with number one.
This is where America made its declaration of independence to the world, more than two centuries ago, with an idea unique among nations, that in America, we're all created equal.
Well, I thought about that when I heard it and read it.
So it was unique to America that we're all created equal.
I'm not attacking this particular comment.
I'm only analyzing it.
What was unique to America, in my understanding, is not the notion that we're all created equal.
That was, after all, that was taken from Judaism and Christianity.
After all, every human being is created in God's image, so that's where they got this idea from, and they would acknowledge that's where they got the idea from.
These were all biblically literate, the founders.
So what was unique about America, this is more pedagogical than it is critical.
What is unique about America, I don't believe, is the statement that all men are created equal as much as it is that we should pursue liberty and that the government should be extremely circumscribed in its powers.
After all, they use the term equality.
In the French Revolution, which was just 13 years later.
I don't think they picked it up from the American Revolution.
So I just thought that's worth noting.
And it's a very good question to ask.
What is unique about America's ideology?
It's liberty, not equality.
Now, the French also said liberty in the French Revolution.
It devolved into the guillotine.
I don't know what they meant by liberty, because they certainly didn't allow for it as a result of the French Revolution.
But we made the freest country in the world.
The French gave us the Statue of Liberty.
They didn't keep it for themselves.
What is unique to America is liberty.
And liberty is not possible as government gets bigger.
It is not possible.
The bigger the government, the less the liberty.
But he would never say that because he wants bigger government and less liberty, being a man of the left.
So I just thought we'd begin with that.
Number two, please.
These two documents and the ideas they embody, equality and democracy, are the rock upon which this nation is built.
They're how we became the greatest nation on earth.
They're why.
For more than two centuries, America has been a beacon to the world.
But as I stand here tonight, equality and democracy are under assault.
We do ourselves no favor to pretend otherwise.
Okay, so now he's getting into the hate.
So a few comments.
Notice that the word liberty is not used here.
It's equality and democracy.
That made America the greatest nation on earth.
But that's not true.
They contributed.
But the major reason we became a beacon was because of freedom.
When in Hong Kong just a few years ago, the last gasps of liberty were demonstrated for by demonstrating against the communist regime of China.
In taking over Hong Kong, which it did, they demonstrated with an American flag.
They didn't demonstrate with an American flag because of equality.
They didn't demonstrate with an American flag because of democracy.
They demonstrated with an American flag because it represented liberty.
But liberty is not a left-wing value.
Free speech is not a left-wing value.
There is no example in the history of the world of the last hundred years of the left taking power and allowing dissent.
And that includes the United States.
Number three.
That sacred flame still burns.
Now in our time.
As we build an America that is more prosperous, free, and just.
Wow.
He's building, the Democrats are building an America that's more prosperous, free, and just?
Wow.
That's really quite something.
One minute.
If you don't get a...
If you don't get a...
Vaccination that doesn't work.
And everyone acknowledges it doesn't work in the sense that it was promised to work, namely prevent COVID. You can be fired.
You are dismissed from the armed forces of the United States.
More free?
More prosperous?
Are we more prosperous since Joe Biden became president?
More free?
Okay.
More just?
Just thought I'd share that with you.
That is what totalitarians do.
They ascribe to their enemies what they do.
It's very difficult to fight.
Especially when they own just about everything.
But not talk radio.
Back in a moment.
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Okay, more from President Joe Biden's hate-filled speech of last night.
Okay, let's go to four, please.
But first, we must be honest with each other and with ourselves.
Too much of what's happening in our country today is not normal.
Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans represent an extremism that threatens the very foundations of our republic.
I want to be very clear, very clear up front.
Not every Republican, not even the majority of Republicans are MAGA Republicans.
Not every Republican embraces their extreme ideology.
There was no once in this hate-filled rant.
Of setting Americans against other Americans?
Did he define what this ideology is?
I mean, even with a sentence, what is the ideology?
Now, not every Republican, not even the majority are MAGA Republicans.
Of course the majority of Republicans are MAGA Republicans.
What is he talking about?
It was just his one-line escape from saying he's telling Americans to hate all Republicans.
He's basically telling Americans to hate all Republicans who vote Republican, certainly who voted for Donald Trump.
Well, that's a lot of Americans.
MAGA Republicans.
Yes, whatever that means.
That disgusting human being who says, make America great again.
You should all hate him, my fellow Americans.
If you don't hate the American man or woman who says make America great again, you are not properly hating.
Wow.
Donald Trump represents an extremism that threatens the very foundations of our republic.
Well, they said this for four years of his administration, so don't give me the January 6th line, which isn't, as I said, they used it the day it happened, or the week it happened.
I said they used it the way...
The fascists in Germany used the Reichstag fire.
Hmm.
Too much of what's happening in our country today is not normal.
That's true.
That is certainly true.
Teaching kids when they're five years old that they may not be the sex they're born?
That's not normal.
I agree with that.
That's about the best example of abnormality in our country.
Number five.
And I believe it's my duty, my duty to love with you, to tell the truth, no matter how difficult, no matter how painful.
This is demagoguery that long.
Wait, hold on.
This is really remarkable.
Yep, it's really hard for me to tell you to hate Donald Trump, no matter how painful it is.
I'm just going to overcome that pain.
Continue.
In my view is what is true.
MAGA Republicans do not respect the Constitution.
They do not believe in the rule of law.
They do not recognize the will of the people.
They refuse to accept the results of a free election.
And they're working right now as I speak in state after state to give power to decide elections in America.
To partisans and cronies, empowering election deniers to undermine democracy itself.
Okay, I don't have any idea what he's talking about, so I can't react.
Really, so Republicans are working in every state to give power to decide elections in America to partisans and cronies.
So it wasn't Democrats who shut down election counting in various states in 2020. Gee, I got that wrong.
Number six.
They promote authoritarian leaders and they fan the flames of political violence that are a threat to our personal rights, to the pursuit of justice, to the rule of law, to the very soul of this country.
Well, who exactly was involved in political violence for more than half of 2020?
MAGA Republicans or Democrats?
Left-wing Democrats?
This country was drenched in political violence, all of which came from the left, and he has the audacity to accuse Trump supporters of this violence.
Big lies work.
Half this country, including the dominant news media, actually agree with that.
What?
Political violence from the left?
What are you talking about?
Yeah.
It's...
Words elude one.
As to how vile this man and his speech were.
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Okay, everybody.
Are we getting past ten?
Is that being delivered here?
So, let's go to number eight, please.
And now, America must choose to move forward or to move backwards.
To build a future or obsess about the past.
To be a nation of hope and unity and optimism.
Our nation of fear, division, and of darkness.
Let me ask a question here.
So who exactly sows fear, division, and darkness?
The people who divide everybody by race?
Columbia University with its all-black dorm and its all-black graduation exercises.
Do you think that that's divisive?
How exactly...
Is the Republican Party divisive on any scale comparable to Biden and his party?
Do we have more?
Thank you.
I'm just curious.
What were these words again?
Yes.
Hope, unity, and optimism?
Oh, my God.
The rape of the English language.
Orwellian doesn't quite embrace it.
Continue, please.
They embrace anger.
They thrive on chaos.
They live not in the light of truth, but in the shadow of lies.
He doesn't give any example.
He's a terrible demagogue.
We have a bad human being as president.
This is disconcerting in the extreme for him, too.
Desecrate the independence hall in Philadelphia.
That's all he did last night, was desecrate that hall.
So let me read that.
Let's see.
They thrive on chaos?
So, I see.
He who has preferred pronouns as demanded by the federal government, that's not chaos.
You're not a boy or a girl unless you think so.
Telling that to little kids, that's not chaos.
How exactly do we sow chaos?
This is the perfect example.
Light is dark, dark is light, good is bad, bad is good.
We sow chaos.
They take over the vocabulary.
Since Lenin, to Biden and the Democrats.
They take over the vocabulary.
Disney no longer saying boys and girls.
That's not chaos.
Right.
All right.
Okay.
Let's go to ten.
And this is a nation.
That rejects violence as a political tool.
We do not encourage violence.
Really?
Hmm.
Did you speak out against the 2020 riots?
What is the ratio of democratic preoccupation with January 6th versus a year, or nearly a year, of violence on the part of the left?
Hmm.
um It's breathtaking, this whole speech.
It's breathtaking.
There's nothing that they won't desecrate.
Number 11. We here, you've heard it.
More and more talk about violence as an acceptable political tool.
Yes, I did hear it from the left.
Yes, with the lack of condemnation of what happened in 2020. Who on the right is advocating political violence?
He doesn't give an example.
The entire speech is example-free.
Continue, please.
It can never be an acceptable tool.
So I want to say this plain and simple.
There is no place...
For political violence in America.
Period.
None.
Ever.
Wait till the next line.
This is awesome.
You saw law enforcement brutally attacked on January 6th.
Okay, so I was trying to think.
Law enforcement was brutally attacked?
Really?
I thought that some of the demonstrators were brutally attacked.
I think two were murdered.
One was beaten to death by the police, and one was shot to death by the police.
They keep saying six died, but they didn't die as a result of anything that happened.
Remember the fire extinguisher?
Was it, what was his name?
Sicknick?
Officer Sicknick?
Killed by a demonstrator with a fire extinguisher?
That was just a mainstream media lie.
Pure lie.
100% lie.
You know how many Americans still believe it?
Because they don't hear talk radio.
They don't read the Wall Street Journal editorial page.
They don't watch PragerU videos.
They don't frequent Daily Wire.
That's why.
They don't know what we know.
It's a very scary thing.
Again, Twelve, please.
There are public figures today, yesterday, and the day before predicting and all but calling for mass violence and rioting in the streets.
But the mass violence and rioting in the streets took place by the left.
What is he talking about?
I don't know what he's talking about.
What's our story, Sean?
Okay.
Sorry.
Okay.
This is the nature of the talk that this man gave last night.
It should be titled, Hate Thine Fellow American Speech.
Hmm.
I gotta read.
I have not had a chance to read the New York Times today.
I'm dying to read the opinion pieces and the editorials.
the language they will use to embrace it back in a moment.
Let's get a few more of the Biden hate lying speech.
It's remarkable.
Like I said, 25 years ago we were in a civil war.
I prayed it wouldn't be violent.
I still do.
But we're in a civil war.
I can't think of a single value that I share with Joe Biden.
Or the current Democratic Party.
God, the party that advocates cutting off girls' breasts at 18 if she says she's a boy has the audacity to speak about love.
And tolerance and truth.
The party that says men give birth speaks about truth.
The party that speaks about 1619 as the founding of America speaks about truth.
The party that says America is systemically racist teaches about truth.
The party that supports all black dormitories speaks about tolerance?
Do you understand how upside down it all is?
Number 16, please.
Thank you.
I believe we can make America safer, so we passed the most significant gun safety law since President Clinton.
Yeah, that's how you make America safer.
Pass more gun safety laws.
That's one of the few comments he made that I actually think he believes.
We won't be safer with more police.
We won't be safer with more innocent people able to protect themselves.
We won't be safer when more kids are raised by fathers.
So I say, if you can ask your...
Liberal or left-wing brother-in-law, one question.
Ask him this.
Do you think we would be safer?
Think there would be fewer innocents murdered if we passed more gun laws or had more fathers?
Okay?
There you have a perfect division between MAGA Republicans and the Democrats.
MAGA Republicans believe in more fathers in the lives of sons and daughters.
Bad belief, eh?
He's a bad president.
The Dennis Prager Show, live from the Relief Factor Pain-Free Studio.
It's the happy, happy, happy, happy hour, ladies and gentlemen.
Ladies and gentlemen, the happiness hour.
Since 1999, the second hour of my show.
Happiness is subversive.
The happy make the world much better than the unhappy do.
It's a very big deal, happiness.
Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
Join me, everybody.
It's the happy, happy, happy, happy hour.
Okay, everybody, this is it.
Wow, how many years?
It's mind-boggling.
23 years.
Do you know the date of the first happiness hour, Sean?
The actual date?
I know, that's not the actual date, that's the actual year.
Yeah, so he's passing it on to Alan.
Alright, maybe Alan would know.
I thought you would know.
Hi everybody, I'm Dennis Prager, big believer in happiness.
Big believer in its importance.
The thing that people find most remarkable in my approach to happiness, because I know I get so much feedback, is that I... The thing that really gets them is that I've spoken of it as a moral obligation.
That you can inflict your bad moods on other people.
People don't think of happiness as a moral issue.
They think of it as an emotional issue.
So, that's not my subject for today, but it is definitely the...
well, not the...
But a life-changing idea with regard to happiness.
Anyway, welcome to the Happiness Hour.
I have a theory.
I've got a lot of theories.
But here's my theory for today, or for this hour.
A lot of people carry anger at their parents into adulthood.
And until they can let it go, there's not much chance for happiness.
Now, there are things that parents could do that are so evil that I can't address those because they're outliers and you have to talk about what the great majority of people endure.
But I have come to understand That the carrying of resentment against a parent or both parents stymies a lot of people's ability to be happy.
So I have a question, and it's not meant as an argument.
It's meant as a question.
What prevents you from letting it go?
I know someone...
I would say he's in his late 40s now.
He was speaking to me some years ago and was recounting a list of things that one of his parents did, starting when he was, I mean, the memories go back to when he was in single digits, I think eight years old.
And I listened respectfully, but I kept thinking, you've got to be kidding.
This happened 40 years ago.
Even 40 years ago, it was not a big deal.
What you're describing sounds to me almost trivial on the list of things that a parent can get wrong.
And I realized it was impossible for this person to get rid of it.
Thank you.
What stops people from doing that?
You know, every parent has done something to hurt a child.
There is no parent, I don't think, in history that has done nothing.
That could have hurt the child's feelings or whatever.
And if there is such a parent, they're again back into the outlier position and you're a very, very, I assume lucky person to have had such parents.
I have no doubt that they might have existed.
I don't believe I'm one of them.
So I'm not using this to describe me.
But if you know somebody who won't let go of hurt from childhood, what stops them?
And I don't know the answer to this, I must admit.
My thesis for today's happiness hour is that you simply have to let go of it.
My God, I know a woman who was abused by her father and worked as an adult to let go of it.
That's a big deal.
Because sexual abuse of a child is beyond belief horrific.
1-8 Prager 776-877-243-7776 It's not even just parents, though that's what I'm focusing on today's hour on happiness.
But it's not just that.
I remember my first radio show was About religion.
I was the moderator, and there were priests, minister, and a rabbi each week, different ones.
And people would call in.
And I would moderate, and I would obviously offer my own opinions and question the clergy, sometimes question the caller.
And I was amazed.
I remember a guy, I think it was over 90, and he called in to speak about How the way the nun wrapped his knuckles with a ruler in Catholic school rendered him forever angry at the church.
Now, I'm not Catholic, and so I had no axe to grind, so to speak, but I did acknowledge that, given that he was about 90-something, And that this happened when he was about 10, that he might have worked on himself over the course of 80 years to let go.
Let it go.
No, I couldn't make this.
Well, I could make it up, but I didn't make this up.
Now, it's...
It's sort of a cliche that what happens when you're a child, you know, helps form you, and I understand that.
But maybe it shouldn't.
Maybe we should let go of that stuff.
Maybe this guy should have given the church a second chance.
Like, let's say, after 38 years, past the ruler knuckle-smashing incident with the nun.
It would seem to me that that's what being an adult is about, is being an adult.
How much are you, or someone you know, a prisoner of your childhood?
That's, in effect, one way of putting the subject for today.
And were you able to get rid of some of that?
Very early on in my life, I decided to let go.
It was a great decision.
But I don't know if everybody can do it.
On the other hand, I say to myself, why can't everybody do it?
Aren't we to aspire to be free will mechanisms?
Aren't you a sort of programmed robot?
And I don't say this to hurt anybody's feelings.
Although I don't think about that much when I speak.
I have to speak what I think will help people.
Something will always hurt somebody's feelings.
But it certainly...
Not in any way meant to do that.
But if you allow your childhood bad experiences with a parent to make up the rest of your life, then you are sort of acknowledging that you are robotic.
You're sort of a computer program.
You've been programmed At an early age.
And that's it?
I wonder what therapists, I don't think most therapists are competent.
I think many of them actually do harm.
But I wonder what they say to people about these childhood hurts.
Back in a moment.
Hi everybody, Dennis Prager here.
Happiness Hour, and the subject is letting go of stuff from your childhood.
And I have to admit...
What does it mean, I have to admit?
It means that it's maybe a flaw in me.
So that's why I'm saying I have to admit.
It might be...
I'm not being cute.
It might be a flaw in me that...
I don't relate to not letting go of stuff that happened when you were a child.
So, it really does enter a philosophical realm, which I'm not going to enter here.
Are we really free-willed creatures?
Can you will yourself to let go of hurts from your childhood?
Or let's put it this way.
Can you maintain the emotional hurt but not act upon it?
Not let it affect you, which is what I call compartmentalizing.
I don't see how you can have a happy life without compartmentalizing.
All right, let's go here.
Silver Lake, Wisconsin.
Chris, hello.
Hey, Dennis.
This is actually a crazy day for me because it feels like you are talking directly to me and my younger brother in our situation growing up.
Go ahead.
Our father, he was a drunk.
He was extremely mean.
Very emotionally, basically emotionally beat us up.
And I held on to anger for a long, long time.
Then I compartmentalized it.
And then I decided that I wanted to let it go.
And I reached out, extended the olive branch to my father and said, you know, I forgive you.
I don't want to be the reason why my kids don't know their grandfather.
father and I'd like to have a relationship and it's been an awesome relationship probably for the last five or six years.
My younger brother, my younger brother who is now 30, he is in the hole where he will not let go of it.
He will not, he will not stop rehashing things from 20 years ago, but instead is sullen and depressed.
Is he married?
He is not.
Yeah, I didn't think so.
I didn't think so.
He doesn't go out.
He doesn't meet new people.
He doesn't go get help.
It's actually a conundrum that I've been trying to help him because I know how uplifting it felt for me to just finally let it go, and he just won't do it.
Yeah, well, you know what?
It's a great call, and I'm glad you heard this hour, or you're hearing this hour.
If this description is accurate, I always have to say if because I haven't spoken to the person being spoken about, but if it is, it reinforces a revelation that took place on or through the happiness hour.
I learned many years ago from you, I had no idea about this prior, that there are people who don't want to be happy.
That there are people who revel in their pain, in their victim status, in their hurt.
It's almost like saying to me that there are people who like putting their hand in a fire.
That's what I was going to say, and I interrupted myself.
I so don't understand this.
Don't you want to be happy?
Isn't it instinctive to want to be happy?
And apparently not.
What's interesting, by the way, or another thing that is interesting about this not letting go of parental hurt, is you have opted to allow the parent that you can't stand to maintain control over your life.
It's a true irony.
They hurt me when I was 10, or 12, or 6, or all of them.
And I will allow them to continue to hurt me until I die.
That's how I hear it.
Okay, let's see here.
Renee in Los Angeles, hello.
Hi, Dennis.
Thank you for doing this subject.
I was on both sides of this coin.
I was abused by my mom.
My mom, she has very limited intellect and emotional status, if you will.
And as an adult, I realized that my mom, I was expecting my mom, well, let me back up.
I thought of my mom as a superhero, and then when she disappointed me, I was mad at her.
And then as an adult, I realized that if you can imagine a glass being half full, my mom was only capable of giving me a half full.
That was her fullest.
That was all that she could get, except I wanted my mom's full glass of love, but all she was capable of was the half.
So when I realized that, I was like, oh, wow.
And I learned about her background, you know, and so forth.
And then I just forgave her, and it was wonderful.
Well, now, fast forward.
I'm a mom.
And as a mom, I was the superhero to my kids' life until somewhere along the line, inadvertently, I disappointed them.
Well, I call it a come-to-Jesus moment.
One of my daughters and I, we really just didn't like each other.
And, you know, I realized that I had the power over her as a parent.
Sat her down one day, and we just had a long conversation about how she felt about me and what the situation was and how I treated her.
And so when she got to see my perspective and I got to understand hers, we had a wonderful time and now have the closest relationship.
And so I'm 63. I'll be 64 in a couple weeks.
She's 38. Wonderful relationship.
My mom is 86 and I just visited her in North Carolina last week and we're doing fine.
It's just wonderful to accept one another and to forgive one another.
That's right.
That's correct.
That's basically a good way of putting it.
By the way, I have a heretical thought though on that.
I'm not sure that you have to forgive your parent.
In order to let go of the hurt.
They're not the same thing.
I'm actually not asking you to forgive.
I'm asking you to forgive if they've asked for forgiveness.
But I'm actually happy that I'm reacting to that comment.
Because I think most people think letting go and forgiving are the same thing.
Now if you forgive, you do let go.
I assume by sort of definition.
But letting go doesn't mean forgiving.
So I just want you to know that.
Maybe your parent is unworthy of being forgiven in that regard.
But you've got to let go.
My argument is really on behalf of letting go.
Back in a moment.
Let Dennis be Dennis.
Let Dennis be Dennis.
That's a good opening.
Hello everybody, Dennis Prager here.
This is the third hour on Friday.
Ergo, whatever is on your mind.
Let me see if I can remember it.
It's a little embarrassing that I struggle with this every week.
Whatever's on your mind, especially cigars, audio equipment, photography equipment, fountain pens.
I'm thinking.
What did I miss, Sean?
Classical music.
Yes.
Hello, everybody.
Great to be with you.
I hope it is mutual.
There is a feminist website out there that...
Attacked me for my article on the damage that disproportionate number of women are doing in our society, with 92%, I think it is, of kindergarten teachers being female, 75% of teachers overall, and 85% of librarians.
And to think about what is happening to young people in so many of these schools.
With the premature sexualization of them.
And next week I will read to you some of the comments.
750 as of the last read.
And it's ironic because all those comments do is verify what I wrote in the column.
I mean, the low-level comments.
Are worthy of note.
I get a lot of love and a lot of hate.
And you know my motto.
Everybody should adopt it.
I don't let compliments go to my head.
And I don't let insults go to my heart.
It's a very good motto to walk through life with.
Okay, this is the hour of whatever is on your mind.
And...
Hmm...
Let's see here.
Let's take one that I am asked so often.
I'm not sure if I ever have a great answer for it, but I'm taking it anyway.
Nelson, Colorado Springs, Colorado.
Hello.
Hi.
Good day to you, sir.
Thank you.
Yes, sir.
My question here is a quick question.
I just heard a while ago, honor your father and mother.
My question is an honest question.
What if the father or mother is not honorable?
Right.
So, what are the possible answers?
You dishonor them, you ignore them, you honor them to the best of your ability.
Let's make a multiple choice exam.
Tell me the choices you have with parents who are not honorable.
Chances?
Chances?
Honorable if they're taking drugs?
No, not chances.
Choices.
Choices, not chances.
What do you mean?
Instance.
You mean instance that they're not honorable?
No, no, no.
What can you choose to do?
You can choose to honor them.
You could choose not to honor them.
You could choose to ignore them.
You could choose to yell at them.
So we have all these choices.
What choice do you think is the best choice?
I have to uphold what is written in the scripture.
I don't know what to do, but all I think is to pray for them, maybe, or what.
What is their...
What I mean, notorious in the public that they are not honorable.
So, yeah.
All right, so let me try to deal with this.
Thank you for the calling.
Look, of course, there are two types of dishonorable parents.
There is the parent who was a horrible human being in the world.
You know, let's say you were a German kid.
Your father was Adolf Eichmann.
The architect of the Holocaust.
This really happened.
That's why I'm raising this.
So there were children of these Nazi leaders who loved their parents.
They were wonderful to them.
And they were pure evil on earth.
On the other hand, there are people who were nice to others and they were terrible to the children.
So I don't know what the definition of the non-honorable parent is.
A bad human being who was a...
Was not a terribly terrible parent or an otherwise sociable human being who was a terrible parent.
It's hard to know unless somebody obviously would tell me.
My basic response is somewhat avoiding the question because I don't know enough particulars.
But I will say that this man embodied what I want people to do.
He is wrestling with the question.
This is what religion at its best does.
He believes that, as I do, God instructs me to honor my father and mother, but they're not honorable in his case.
The very fact that he is wrestling with the question puts him in a very high moral category.
That's my immediate response to that.
Okay, let's see.
Louisville, Kentucky.
John, hello.
Hi there, Dennis.
Long-time listener.
Love to hear your wisdom.
Thank you.
And I hope you don't find the question offensive.
It's very hard for me to find anything offensive.
Don't worry.
That's why I thought I'd ask you.
Right.
So, people have told me that I can't say these things.
And this is one of them, is to, when you're bargaining with someone, to say, well, I'll just chew them down a little bit.
Right.
And some people have told me, oh, you can't say that.
I would think that you would be happy about that you're frugal with your money as well as I am.
I don't know if that's the front of the board with people that are Jews.
That's adorable.
No, Jew them down is insulting.
That shouldn't be said.
But it's funny, when I saw your topic, it says, do you find the term?
Oh yeah, no, no, no, no, no, no.
I see.
I misunderstood when I read it because I didn't see him down.
Yeah, it actually happened to me.
Thank you for your call.
When I was about 20 years old, I had a friend.
I don't remember how it happened.
I had a friend, though.
I was living in New York where I grew up, and we were both into photography, and we just...
Had gone into a camera store.
And when we left, he said, oh, I really chewed him down.
I had never heard the phrase in my life.
He was from rural Canada, and apparently that was not an uncommon phrase.
It would be sort of like I gypped him.
And now gypped comes from gypsy.
But nobody knows that, because the word gypsy is not in the word gyp.
Therefore, it's not as offensive because even though it derives from an ethnic stereotype that's negative, obviously, it is still not obvious that if...
I never knew it until I was told that everybody knows Jew him down comes from the word Jew, but nobody or most people don't know that I gypped him comes from the word gypsy.
There was another example, too.
I was a kid.
I don't think it's used anymore.
He's an Indian giver.
That was a phrase to somebody who gave you something and then took it back.
So these things, I fully understand why they wouldn't be used.
Gypt is a tough one because it doesn't have...
Indian giver has Indian.
Jude him down has Jew.
But gypt him doesn't have gypsy.
Anyway, I Jewed him down here.
That would be...
It's not meant complimentarily.
Oh, Jews know how to handle money.
Okay, so that answers that.
I thought the call was about the word Jew.
There are people who don't use it, Jews and non-Jews.
They use...
He's a Jewish person.
He's a Jewish man.
She's a Jewish woman.
They don't say he's a Jew.
But it's obvious that it's odd because we don't say he's a Christian man, she's a Christian woman.
It says he's a Christian, she's a Christian.
Why not he's a Jew, she's a Jew?
I always say Jew.
In fact, the title of one of my books is Why the Jews, not Why the Jewish People.
It shows you how effective the anti-Semites have been in making the word Jew negative.
back in a moment.
Welcome back.
This is the hour.
You set the agenda.
Whatever is on your mind.
And let's see here.
That's a fun question.
Ed in Chicago.
Hello.
How are you, Dennis?
Good.
Well, fine.
Thanks.
All right.
You know, there's a lot of serious stuff going on, so it's good to...
I agree.
That's why I took your call.
I enjoy listening to podcasts on the weekends, and I was listening to a business podcast, and then immediately yours right after it, and they were talking about plant-based meats.
Of course, we've heard about Beyond Burger and all that kind of stuff.
So I'm curious.
I actually did a little research to find out, are there...
Plant-based bacons.
And are there?
There are.
Well, there's also turkey bacon.
Yeah.
Right.
Sure.
So there's shiitake mushroom bacon.
There's all kinds of different bacon.
So I'm wondering, does that tempt you?
That's funny.
This is an interesting question because he's actually asking.
He doesn't realize it, perhaps.
This is a fascinating issue.
I want to explain it to you.
So I don't eat bacon because I don't eat the prohibited foods of the Torah.
When my Leviticus book comes out, you will see my explanation.
Remind you, by the way, that Deuteronomy is coming out.
It's the fifth book, but it's the third of my books, the first five books of the Bible.
And I'm having a huge event in Washington, D.C. at the Museum of the Bible, first Monday of October.
There's information on attending it.
It'll be a huge, really huge day.
I'll do the show from there.
Go to DennisPrager.com and click on the banner about the...
Publication of the third of my five books on the Rational Bible.
So here's the interesting issue.
Is kosher bacon kosher?
So why is it interesting, even if you couldn't care less about kosher?
In other words, if it's a plant-based thing that tastes like bacon, So the obvious answer is, well, it's not bacon, it's not from a pig, so it's not an issue.
However, there are two elements.
This is why I consider it a serious question.
There are two elements to ritual law, symbolic and intrinsic.
And what is ritual law?
Is it primarily symbolic, or is it primarily intrinsic?
So, for example, this comes up every Passover.
On Passover, according to the Torah, Jew is not supposed to eat leavened bread or any leavened yeast items.
So you're obviously not going to have bread, rolls, pasta.
But now with matzah meal or some other ingredient, So there are Jews who think this violates the spirit of the law, even though it's keeping it the intrinsic way.
It's not really bread.
But it looks like bread and tastes like bread.
Is it violating the spirit of the law?
I don't have an answer, but the same thing would have...
Would hold, theoretically, for the plant-based bacon?
I would eat plant-based bacon, just as I do eat kosher for Passover rolls.
But it's a very legitimate question.
All right, San Francisco and Steve, hello.
Hey, Denny.
I just want to thank you for advancing our Judeo-Christian values, and I think you could crush Sam Cedar in a debate, and you should advance these values.
Whoops, what happened there?
What did I just do?
All right, very good.
So let's see here.
Littleton, Colorado, and Jim.
Hello, Jim.
Yes, let me start by saying thank you for everything you do, and it's a lot.
Thank you, I appreciate that.
So I don't get to listen to your show as much as I'd like to.
You may have had this conversation, but with all the...
Talk around puberty blockers and the things that are being done to children.
Have you ever had a conversation, is it a viable approach to use state age of consent or children child sexual assault to prosecute people that are doing these things to our children?
It's a good question and I want to offer you a backup for your question.
So if a 13-year-old says, a girl says, I want to be a boy, or I think I'm a boy, I know I'm a boy, whatever the terms are, and they give puberty blockers.
So I saw somebody, this is not original to me, it was an excellent argument, I thought.
What if a 14-year-old...
15, 16 year old says, I want to get married.
Can you marry?
Can a 16 year old, can a 12 year old marry?
We obviously do not think that before a certain age, major decisions are makeable by that individual.
You've got to say, marriage is not as permanent, perhaps.
I think it isn't.
You can divorce, obviously.
You could be widowed.
It isn't as permanent as the effects of beta blockers.
Not beta blockers, sorry.
That's for heart conditions.
Puberty blockers.
All of a sudden, We are listening to minors, and certainly people under 21. Can't go into a cigar store if you're 20, but if you're 18, you could say, take my breasts off.
They're perfectly healthy, but I think I'm a boy.
Bad news.
Dennis Prager here.
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