All Episodes
March 14, 2023 - Dennis Prager Show
01:19:01
My Favorite Words
| Copy link to current segment

Time Text
Dennis Prager here.
Thanks for listening to the Daily Dennis Prager Podcast.
To hear the entire three hours of my radio show, commercial-free, every single day, become a member of PragerTopia.
You'll also get access to 15 years' worth of archives, as well as the daily show prep.
Subscribe at PragerTopia.com.
Hey everybody, Dennis Prager here.
Great to be with you.
It's a Tuesday.
Tuesday doesn't seem to have anything associated with it.
Think about it.
Monday, it's the first day of the week.
Friday, thank God, it's Friday.
Wednesday's the middle of the week.
Tacos.
Taco Tuesday.
This is what I put up with, ladies and gentlemen.
You don't hear what I hear in my earphones.
I feel like I'm at the burning bush every day, hearing things no one else hears.
Welcome to the show, and I'm going to deviate from the norm, which I often do because I like to talk to you about everything.
So I was thinking, what are my favorite words in the English language?
Now, this is meant with only...
Only respect for everybody else.
This is not a self-aggrandizing statement.
But I wonder how many people have ever thought about that.
What are my favorite words in the English language?
Sometimes my own brain cracks me up.
It's just an interesting thought because when I tell you what they are, you'll realize it's very thought-provoking.
So, in no order of importance, let me begin with the word like, which is, I don't think, unique to English, but it is not a verb in English.
That I know of in other languages, and I've studied quite a few languages.
For example, if you want to say, I like him in French, il me plaît.
He pleases me.
But he pleases me is not the same as I like him.
And other languages that I've studied, I don't know of the word like.
I like him is a very powerful, powerful word because it's not love.
And I will give you perhaps the most dramatic example of the difference and why it's so important to me.
And it is to you when you think about it.
Many parents, virtually every parent, loves His or her children.
It is built into the human condition, unless there is some true, deep pathology in you.
You love your child.
And that's where people got the notion of unconditional love, a concept that I take issue with, but it's not the subject of this hour, because No matter what a child does in most cases, it is almost impossible for a parent to extirpate that love from their heart.
It's built in to the human condition as it is to the condition of birds who love their children.
That's built in.
But now here comes the punchline.
Not everybody likes his or her child.
That's why I think like is so important.
Like might be more important than love.
Love is instinctive in many ways.
But like?
Like, well, did anybody ever...
Say unconditional like?
No, huh?
Interesting point.
Unconditional like.
It doesn't exist.
The beauty of like is actually going to lead me to another of my favorite words in English.
But I want to continue on the word like.
Do you like?
I began with your child.
Do you like your spouse?
Again, it's not the same because it's not built in and people can truly stop loving a spouse.
That happens, sadly, of course.
Whereas it's very rare to stop loving a child.
But the bigger question for the longevity...
The happy longevity.
Longevity in and of itself doesn't say anything about a marriage.
It could be an awful marriage and people have just agreed not to divorce.
But an absolute essential component of a long, happy marriage is do you like your spouse?
And before I go to the second word, And you're certainly invited to call in 1-8 Prager-776-877-243-7776.
I know people who do not like their child.
I don't know anyone who doesn't love their child.
I'm not saying they should, by the way.
I think it may very well be things that a child does that are so awful that even the love can break.
But that's very rare.
If you like your kid, you're a lucky parent.
By the way, I think to a large extent it's not identical at all.
But it, I think, applies to a child's feelings towards a parent.
Toward a parent.
Do you like your mother?
Do you like your father?
Is perhaps more important than do you love your father or do you love your mother?
Like is a biggie.
It's too bad that other languages don't have it because how do you say that if you If you don't have the exact word for it, I don't know.
It's an interesting question.
What is the dictionary definition of to like?
You want to look it up?
I'm very curious how they came up with something.
First, I cannot think.
There's no synonym in English.
It's unique.
And, you know, feel positive.
Have positive feelings toward?
But that doesn't quite do it.
It's a very important word.
Do you like them?
I would ask a couple, even, who are thinking of getting married.
I know you love each other.
Do you like each other?
It's thought-provoking, but it's especially true in the parent-child relationship.
Which leads me to word number two of my favorite words in the English language.
By the way, I've never done this particular subject before.
It makes you think, like, what are your favorite words or favorite word?
Don't make up one just in order to answer the question for yourself or for me, but it's an interesting question for anyone to ponder.
Maybe you don't have.
It's not obligatory to have.
A favorite word or a few favorite words.
My next, this I have mentioned on many occasions, which is also rare, if not unique to English.
Earn.
E-A-R-N. To earn.
I love it.
In English, you say to somebody, With regard to one's income, so how much do you earn a year?
Correct?
That's the way we would phrase it.
How much do you earn a year?
That word also barely exists in other languages.
In Romance languages, French, Spanish, and the like, you say, as I know French, gagné.
Is the word meaning to win?
Do you realize what a difference that is?
How much money do you win in a year versus how much money do you earn in a year?
Your whole attitude toward money is shaped by which verb you use.
I've got more.
I'm Dennis Prager.
Dennis Prager here to share a product that can help keep everyone more healthy, Cofix Rx.
Most of us know that viruses of all types are a part of life.
What we don't always know are the right products that could be protecting us.
So I'd like to tell you about Cofix Rx and its doctor-approved secret ingredient.
As a safety measure, many doctors and nurses have been using iodine to swab their noses for decades.
Iodine has been in use since 1811, and 96% of us are iodine deficient.
Using CoFixRx antiviral nasal spray with povidone iodine is a smart way to stay healthy.
CoFixRx is made right here in the USA. It's simple to use.
You spray it up your nose and the iodine destroys germs and pathogens where they multiply.
In the nasal cavity.
Check out cofixrx.com.
That's C-O-F-I-X-R-X.com.
For a retailer near you, or use the coupon code PRAGER for 20% off at cofixrx.com.
Hello everybody, 1-8-PRAGER-776.
This is a thought-provoking hour here.
It's a good exercise for all of us.
Do you have a favorite word in the English language or favorite words?
So I began with like, which is close to unique.
And I use the example of parents who love their child but don't like the child.
I know such people.
They have not said it in those words, but I know for a fact that that is not uncommon, truly not uncommon.
If you like your kid, that's a good one.
If a kid likes you, it's a good one.
But the parent-child direction is the important one in this instance.
Then I spoke about the word earn, and I love it.
I'm crazy about the word earn.
I told you, that's the beauty, by the way, of learning foreign languages.
There's no question.
I knew this so early in my life that I mastered English.
Its grammar, its meaning, like this.
Because I studied so many other languages.
You don't even have to speak them, certainly not even fluently.
You just have to study them.
And you start understanding language better, and therefore English better.
There's no time to teach kids foreign languages in our schools because the amount of time on sex, gender, The non-binary nature of sex, that's taking up a lot of time now.
And of course, how rotten and despicable their country is.
It's founded when slaves came and other lies about it.
This is what takes up their time.
So there's no time for a musical instrument, which is another language, by the way.
People ask me how many languages I speak.
I don't include music, but it is absolutely another language.
It's written differently, and you have to understand it.
If you don't study it, how would anybody know what the key of B-flat means?
It doesn't mean anything, unless you study the language of music.
How many kids play a musical instrument today versus 100 years ago?
How many kids could diagram a sentence versus 100 years ago?
Okay, these are rhetorical questions.
To say I earn an income is different from I win an income, which is the way it is said in Romance languages.
It's in Hebrew, another language I know.
If you say, how much do you earn?
You would say, how much do you profit?
Again, I don't think there's a word earn in Hebrew.
I'd be surprised if there is in Arabic.
They're related Semitic languages.
It's a biggie, these words.
The words shape the way you think.
Language is very important.
So, one of the reasons I'm not for unconditional love, meaning you love no matter what the other person does, I don't quite understand that.
Why is it even an ideal?
People say, of course, God has unconditional love for us.
I don't know.
Look, it may well be a theological concept in your religion.
Mostly Christians would say this.
But...
That might be one of the rare differences that I perceive between Judaism and Christianity, in terms of values, not in terms of theology.
This is maybe a theological issue.
I don't think God loves everybody equally.
If he does, fine.
I don't lose sleep over the issue.
I believe that even love is earned.
The reason you fell in love with the woman or man that you married is that they earned your love.
They did something.
They acted in a certain way.
Now, there is such a thing as love at first sight.
That is true.
But as we all know, A lot of people fall out of love.
So obviously there's an earned element to that love too.
With regard to children, there is an instinct, as I said earlier, to love your child no matter what your child does.
But that's instinct more than it is a positive statement of...
You're feeling toward that person.
Anyway, it doesn't matter if you believe in unconditional love, that's fine with me.
Nevertheless, I do believe everything is earned.
Earned is a beautiful thing.
When you get things for free, when you don't earn what you get, that's a very problematic thing in people's lives.
You become a less...
Fine human being.
That's why, by the way, it is a very big challenge to inherit a lot of money.
I actually, it sounds odd, and this is meant literally, I feel sorry for the children of very, very wealthy people.
It is an extremely big burden.
When you grow up, Now, it's not true for every child of an extremely wealthy person, but it's hard not to be what they think.
I don't have to earn anything because I already have it.
Do you know how good it feels to earn?
I remember the first eight dollars I earned.
It was for shoveling the snow in my neighbor's driveway in Brooklyn, New York.
It was really tough work.
If you haven't shoveled snow, you have no idea how heavy snow is.
And slush is even worse.
That's water and snow.
But I got the $8.
I can feel it now.
I earned the $8.
Had my neighbor given me $8 as a gift, it would have come nowhere close.
History repeats itself, and we're seeing that play out with inflation.
When Jimmy Carter took office in the late 70s, gold sold for $140 an ounce.
By 1980, the price of gold topped out at $870 an ounce.
If today's market performs like it did when Carter was in office, the price of gold could skyrocket from $1,800 an ounce to $9,300 an ounce.
This is Dennis Prager for Amphed Coin& Bullion.
Don't miss out on a great opportunity to purchase precious metals while the prices are still stable.
If history repeats itself, we'll see a run on gold, silver, and platinum that will certainly drive up prices.
Be smart and buy now as I am at Amphed.
You're dealing with specialists who provide you with personalized attention, honest information, and sound advice.
You'll never be pressured into buying outrageously priced so-called collectible coins or anything that you don't need.
Take advantage of today's prices.
Amphet Coin and Bullion, 800-221-7694, AmericanFederal.com, AmericanFederal.com.
Hello, my friends.
Before we continue with my favorite words in the English language and your reactions, I want to remind you that...
What is today's date?
Let's see.
The 30th?
Yeah.
One more day.
August is fundraising month for Prager University, PragerU.
If you heard our PragerU young person yesterday, one guest a day for the month of August on PragerU, he was, what was he, 25 years old?
No, 25?
Yeah, I remember correctly.
He was a young black man living in San Francisco from Illinois.
Two years ago, He was a major BLM supporter.
Today he is a member of Prager Force.
If you share my worry about the country, then you have to fight.
Not everybody is capable of fighting.
It's not in their nature, or they don't know how.
Helping the fighters is just as good.
Everything we do is free.
We change minds in a very sophisticated manner.
It's very effective.
So please make a contribution and know whatever you give today or tomorrow is tripled.
Other donors will match what you give and give three times the amount.
If you give $100, it's $300.
$10, it's $30, etc.
PragerU.com 833 PragerU.
I thank you, not on behalf of PragerU.
You're not doing us a favor.
You're doing the country a favor.
I thank you on behalf of the country.
My favorite English words.
The first was like.
And the example of parents who love a child but do not like their child.
The second is earn.
Earn is a big deal.
That's why I hated participation trophies.
They weren't earned.
You earn everything.
You even earn happiness.
That's a great word.
It may not be unique to English, but it is not common in all the languages that I have studied.
And I will give you a third, but I'm going to take some calls first.
And let's see.
Okay.
Dave in Birmingham, Alabama.
Hello.
Hello.
Hi, Dave.
Yep.
Yes.
Hi.
How are you doing?
I love your show.
Frequent donor to PragerU.
Thank you.
When you said that most Romance languages use the word win for earn in Italian, it has guettagnare, is earn, not win.
Win is vincere.
You're right.
I looked it up during the break.
My statement was true about French, Spanish, and Portuguese, but not Italian.
All right, put her on.
She's right.
Hello?
Your husband was right.
Oh, my God!
Okay.
I donated twice for you this month.
Wait a minute.
The oh, my God.
Was that like you were unhappy to hear it, or what?
What was the oh, my God about it?
In 40 years, I had one authority that was right.
This is a precious call.
You guys are great.
Thank you.
It was worth it.
Oh my God, tell my wife.
Oh God, that reminds me of my throwaway line once because of my love of the absurd.
A couple of years ago, out of nowhere, I said that wife in Sanskrit means she who finds flaws in her husband.
And then, to my shock, at speeches, people would come over during the meet and greet and tell me how much that meant to them.
The Sanskrit meaning of the word wife.
My ability to say the absurd with a straight face sometimes backfires.
But this was a perfect example.
He's been waiting 40 years for his wife to say that he was right.
Okay.
I'll say the Romance languages other than Italian.
That's fair.
Okay.
Let's go to Jeff in Plymouth, Minnesota.
Hello, Jeff.
Well, hi, Dennis.
Oh, hold on.
One minute.
One second.
One second.
I feel bad.
Is it break time, Sean?
Oh, I thought you had said the word in three.
Alright, I'll figure that out later.
Towels just don't seem to dry you anymore.
They feel soft and lotion-y in the store, but you get them home, and they don't absorb.
Well, Mike Lindell at MyPillow found that out around 2006, and towels changed forever.
He found the best towel company right here in the USA. They have proprietary technology to create towels that feel soft, but actually work.
And that happens to be true.
I use them.
They are all made with USA Cotton and they come with the MyPillow 60-day money-back guarantee.
Six-piece set, two baths, two hand towels, two washcloths.
Regularly $109.99, now $39.99.
Just go to MyPillow.com and click on the new radio listener specials and get deep discounts on all MyPillow products, including the towels, by entering the promo code Hello?
husband was right.
That is a hall of famer on the Dennis Prager show.
What is it, Birmingham, Alabama?
That was a great moment.
So I decided to devote this hour to an interesting question What are your favorite words in English?
I gave you two of mine.
To like, as in parents who love their child but don't like the child.
A sad situation, but it shows you how important like is.
And earn.
I know that theologically this is a problem for some of my closest people in my life, but I do believe that you earn your way into heaven, and I know that many people feel that it is done solely through grace, and I totally honor this.
I have no problem with different theologies.
I have only a problem with different values.
But I'm a big fan of the word earn.
And I've got to give you my third word, and then I'm going to take your calls.
My third word is obligation.
The word obligation, the word should.
Maybe should is even more powerful.
When I was a kid, I used to hear in the 60s, 70s, there were no shoulds in life, no shoulds.
And all I remember is that I was raised with shoulds.
My whole upbringing was should-based.
What we have done in the last 50 years is substituted rights for obligations.
So people, kids, now they're...
Not kids, they're middle-aged and older.
Believe that all they need to know are their rights, not their obligations.
Society cannot survive people obsessed with rights as opposed, forget obsessed, preoccupied with rights over obligations.
I like, how's that, the word should.
Then you have earned my respect.
All three of my favorite words in one sentence.
Okay, where were we?
In Minnesota with Jeff.
Hi, Jeff.
Yes, hi, Dennis.
A quick word for me would be duty, but I just wanted to set your mind at ease when it comes to unconditional love.
I think that definition got stretched a little too far when it was first.
Kind of brought into the educational system and had to do with, you know, a parent shouldn't make his child feel unloved because he's not good at sports or if he's not the student that they hoped they would be.
The child, you know, should know that he's loved despite that he might have some shortcomings based on conditions that the parents set.
It's not, I'm going to love my mass murderer kind of thing.
That's a very intelligent point.
It was stretched.
That's your claim.
So tell me, I'm very interested in that.
Alan, I like that as a topic, maybe for a happiness hour.
Did you feel less loved if you weren't a good student or weren't a good athlete?
Is that what you're saying, Jeff?
Right, right.
So do you know a family in which that was the case?
Well, I probably could think of one, but you see novels and movies and TV shows where a child gets kind of messed up because they weren't measuring up to what their super rich dad was.
Well, you know what?
I really appreciate your explaining the origin to me.
It's so foreign from my thinking.
I will love you less if...
If you are not a good student or not a good athlete or the like.
But now that he has brought my attention to it, I think that is true.
I think that may well be conveyed.
I certainly conveyed it to my kids.
I don't care about your grades.
I only care about your character.
And I wonder, it's an interesting question.
I'll ask my kids.
They're not kids, obviously, but I'll ask my sons.
Did you feel that I might love you less if you were, you did, you did bad things?
And by the way, here's the corker on that one.
Is that a bad thing for a kid to feel?
If I morally screw up, not screw up in terms of grades, not screw up in terms of sports.
If I morally screw up, will my parent love me less?
Is that a bad thing?
What do you think?
He's not sure it's a bad thing.
That's another good question for another hour.
We continue on the Dennis Prager Show.
Hello, my friends.
Welcome to the Dennis Prager Show.
What's happening at the U.S. Open tennis, where the U.S., almost alone in the world, will not allow a foreigner into the country if they haven't been vaccinated, because we all know how effective the vaccine has been.
Virtually everybody who's been vaccinated got COVID after being promised the whole time that it will prevent COVID. So then they changed their line because its honesty has departed from the medical profession as a general rule, lying for the sake of a good cause.
I saw it with secondhand smoke.
I called this many, many years ago, that the activist doctors...
We're okay with lying if they thought it promoted health.
Remember, truth is not a left-wing value.
Equality or equity claims to be.
And health.
You can lie on behalf of health.
We've been lied to on behalf of health.
Lockdowns don't help.
They make things worse.
They harm people.
Masks harm people.
They certainly harm children.
We've been lied to.
We were lied to that ivermectin is just a horse dewormer.
So it's all part of the trend.
It began with secondhand smoke kills 50,000 Americans a year.
And that's when I first started realizing that epidemiology is filled with propagandists rather than scientists.
It's all a problem.
And what they did with the vaccine is, oh no, well, it's true, it doesn't prevent COVID. It prevents you from dying from COVID. So they completely changed the entire rationale for it.
Giving children the vaccination is a form of child abuse.
People are fine with that.
Look, they abuse children constantly by telling them that they're not a boy or a girl in kindergarten.
Non-binary.
That a third grader would even know the word non-binary gives you an idea of the deterioration of our schools.
Read my column today about the role of women in harming America.
It's a depressing column, but you can handle it.
So back to the U.S. Open.
I don't know how many countries...
Are there any European countries that insist that foreigners be vaccinated?
Isn't that amazing?
So we're sicker...
And we are, by the way.
The left in the United States is way woker, stronger, more totalitarian than the left in Europe.
The English-speaking countries are the worst.
America used to export good values.
It now exports horrific values.
Thanks to the takeover of the country by the left.
There is no reason in the world why Novak Djokovic, the greatest tennis player in the world, cannot play in the United States.
It makes us look like fools, because we are.
I never thought of America as a laughingstock, but under Fauci and Biden, the Democrats, The American Medical Association, we have become a laughingstock.
You think the world thinks better of America because it's the only country that won't have tennis championships?
I don't know, will Australia allow the non-vaccinated in?
Will the Australian Open have Djokovic?
They had the Australian Open.
And?
Oh, so Australia's another one.
I don't know what their policy is.
But he couldn't play then.
When was that?
A few months ago.
Okay, so that's sort of the English-speaking countries are the worst.
We went from exporters of liberty to exporters of tyranny.
Another example of everything the left touches it ruins.
It's ruining English-speaking countries.
Ruining, I mean ruining, my friends, in every way.
These are people who thrive on tyranny and chaos, and of course lying.
So, another thought on the Djokovic issue, the U.S. Open won't have the best tennis player there.
Why are the other tennis players playing?
Look, I don't expect athletes to be better than doctors or lawyers in terms of courage.
Or, well, I do expect them to be better than college presidents, the most cowardly group in the world, or at least in America.
Well, that's not true.
They're tied with chief executives of corporations like Disney and American Express for cowardice.
But it's very sad.
It's truly sad.
It would have been undone immediately if the other tennis player said, if Djokovic can't play, we don't play.
That's it.
Then what would have happened?
Maybe, you know, listen, as far as I know, the fanatics like the Barbara Ferrer's of this country, crackpots, who love power.
She's the head of L.A. County Health.
She's a nothing with power.
Nothings with power are very dangerous.
The banality of evil.
It's not my phrase.
But it's apt.
Listen, other athletes don't do anything.
Why did the girl swimmers at the University of Pennsylvania swim team, why did they compete when this narcissistic guy said he's a girl and beat them all and defeated them all in swimming?
What's his name?
Leah Thomas, right?
Normally I say she, but he's not deserving of my respect.
He's a fraud.
And the entire, of course, the University of Pennsylvania, which is another worthless institution, went completely along with the fraud.
But the girls, they didn't have, I understand that.
They're 18, 19, 20-year-old girls.
They weren't raised to be courageous.
Almost nobody is.
But what they all should have said is, if Leah Thomas races, we don't.
He can have the pool.
She can have the pool.
Whatever you want to say.
To himself, herself.
Have a great day, everybody.
We're not racing.
Then there wouldn't have been a race.
Or, Leah Thomas would not have been allowed to cheat.
Everything depends on courage.
Everything.
The athletes, the tennis players don't have it.
The University of Pennsylvania girls' swim team doesn't have it, let alone the coach who thought it was a great victory for the team when Leah Thomas was swimming.
If that's not pathetic, pathetic should be stricken from the English language.
What price would the tennis players have paid if they would have said, if the best player in the world doesn't play, our victories are not meaningful?
Correct?
Correct.
Probably didn't dawn on them.
A loss of money versus principle?
Screw principles.
What do you think about that, folks?
What do you think the other tennis players in the U.S. Open should have done?
I'm curious.
You agree with me?
1-8 Prager 776. 877-243-7776.
The solution to these things is really clear.
People just have to say, we're not going along with your lies and your tyranny.
You can play in the French Open or any tennis match anywhere in Europe but not in America if you're not vaccinated.
They've just gotten rid of the last Coast Guardsmen who won't get vaccinated.
The best people in the armed forces are the ones who won't go along with the herd and get vaccinated.
A healthy young person is probably taking a bigger risk getting the vaccine than not getting the vaccine.
Thank you.
COVID was an old people's killer.
God, we swim in the ocean of lies.
Because truth is not a left-wing value.
A few truisms that are very difficult for people to really It's hard to believe that there's an entire class of people that doesn't give a damn about truth.
Adam Schiff would be the picture on the box, if leftism were a cereal box.
Constantly had more proof that there was collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign when he had none.
Everybody is told of falsehood, but it's hard for those of us who really don't like to lie to understand the ones who do.
Yes, I'm reminding you today and tomorrow, the last days of August, fundraising month for Prager University.
Okay.
And whatever you give will be tripled.
Generous donors have made that possible to encourage people.
Yesterday I had on a young member of Prager Force, 20,000 young people, or members of the PragerU group, people in their teens and 20s, 20,000 of them around the world.
This was a young black man from San Francisco, 25 years of age, who two years ago was demonstrating for BLM, Black Lives Matter, that racist, fascist group.
Communist.
I take it back.
It's not fascist.
It's a communist.
And now is an articulate spokesman of conservative values, entirely thanks to watching Preview videos.
That's why the left wants to shut us down.
Not because we don't tell the truth, but because we tell the truth.
Very well.
We do it very well.
So help us and PragerU.com 833-PRAGERU is tax deductible for your interest.
Speaking about the United States not allowing the best tennis player in the world to come to the U.S. Open and how I wish the other tennis players said, if you don't let him in, we don't play.
you have no U.S. open.
Do you, do you, I wonder how many Americans, what percentage of Americans are proud that America is almost the only country in the world that doesn't allow you in if you're not what percentage of Americans are proud that America is almost the Yeah.
Are you proud of that?
Do you think you're healthier as a result of it?
Of course, we have open borders for millions of people to come in illegally, but Djokovic can't come in legally.
It's sick.
The Biden regime is sick.
So I said, why didn't the girls at Penn refuse to race when this guy who said he's a girl Defeated them in race after race after race because he's a cheat named Leah Thomas.
That's all he is.
He's a cheat.
He's a narcissistic cheat.
If you don't think he cheated, there's something wrong with your conscience.
Biological male competing against women in women's sports.
Well, we've got a tennis player here, Jessie in Phoenix.
Hello.
Hello.
Hi.
Hi.
Sorry, I just popped out of a meeting.
Yes, this is a strong point.
With regards to a lot of what the tennis players I think are going to be doing right now, we're going to be watching golf because a lot of us competed at a high level in the college and taught and coached.
We're semi-pro and we just have a mess.
I didn't get the last words.
What were the last words you said?
A lot of us are tennis players that have competed at a high level in college.
Yep, I got that.
And the wokeism that's been occurring, and actually it's a little more than that, but a lot of it started with the college players not coming from America, no longer having scholarships here.
They come from other countries.
And so the fact that the New York Open, the US Open is doing that is going to hurt all the players, even if they don't do what you're suggesting.
Why will it hurt all the players?
It will hurt them because a lot of the dollars are going to go down in attendance.
Oh, I hope that's true.
You know what?
I thank you.
I thank you for that.
I should have mentioned that.
People should not attend the U.S. Open.
That's exactly right.
If nobody shows up...
The players will realize, uh-oh, we're in trouble.
Look, there's such a...
I don't think I ever quoted it.
Was it from Burke?
The only thing we need for evil to win is for good people to do nothing, right?
All right, whoever it was.
Very famous quote.
And I never quote it because it's so well-known and I hate to sound cliched, even though cliches are usually true.
That's why they become cliches.
But these are perfect examples of that.
It's good people doing nothing.
That's why I tell people good people are divided between or among three groups.
Fighters, those who help the fighters, and those who do nothing.
Those who do nothing are the biggest group.
It's hard to know what can be said to motivate people to fight.
Not showing up at the U.S. Open.
Demanding a refund.
Ooh, that would be even better.
If you bought a ticket to the U.S. Open, why can't you demand a refund?
You came to see the best tennis players in the world.
The United States government has prevented that.
The U.S. Open went along with it, because why wouldn't they?
And then people show up.
So who's fighting?
Who's fighting?
The players are not fighting.
U.S. tennis is not fighting, and the spectators are not fighting.
There you go.
That's why evil wins, in a nutshell.
Certainly why tyranny wins.
Los Angeles and Jane, hello.
Hey, Dennis.
Hi.
Thanks so much for taking my call.
So it seems to me that if Penn and these other colleges are recruiting these female athletes and then they refuse to swim and compete, that they will lose their scholarships.
It's an interesting question and it's an important call.
So, if the entire women's team at Penn refused to swim against a man, then you feel they would all lose their scholarships?
That Penn would be willing to say that to the women?
Go ahead, I'm sorry.
Without having to fax, I'm driving, so admittedly I did not research this, Dennis, but it seems common sense to me that when you're recruited at that level, at that high level, to compete, and then you refuse to do the thing for which you came to the school, and they're giving you the money to attend that school, if you refuse to do that, I find it, it seems to me, common sense that...
Oh, that's...
All right, that's a very important...
No, I think that's a very important point.
I don't have an immediate answer, but there is an answer and may have to go to court.
We were given a scholarship to compete in women's sports.
Penn has changed the rule.
They're allowing men to compete in women's sports.
What is our recourse?
I'll tell you what I do find remarkable is all the parents of the girls who were cheated against showing up and cheering.
I'll tell you what I do find remarkable is all the parents of the girls who were cheated against showing up and cheering.
People are not fighters.
Some are.
It has never been different in human history.
Courage is within the minority.
That's why I always say, don't ever be over-optimistic about human nature and you'll be pleasantly surprised.
Hi everybody, August fundraising month for Prager University.
And we have Prager Force, 20,000 young people around the world and it's growing.
And they are a highlight for me.
Like yesterday's 25 year old who is a black guy who was a big BLM supporter until he watched PragerU videos, and now he's an articulate conservative.
We change minds.
We have terrific people, and they're lucky to be in PragerForce because they get to meet other wonderful young people.
So now I have one.
Her name is Madison Posadas.
She's with PragerForce.
She lives in Newbury Park, California.
And hello, Madison.
Hi, Dennis Prager.
Oh my gosh, this is such an honor to be on here.
Thank you so much for having me.
Thank you.
It's very, very touching for you to say that.
Allow me just one moment to reflect on that.
I wonder if students...
How old are you, Madison?
I'm 17. I wonder how many 17-year-olds would say if they were...
Woke.
Would say to a woke adult, it's an honor to speak to you.
Do you think so?
I think that would be something that is very rare.
I look up to somebody who has influenced me so much, and I just don't know how many kids who are woke would say that.
Yeah, you do wonder, who do they look up to?
It's definitely an interesting thought.
Isn't it?
Yes.
So tell me about you.
Are you in a high school?
Are you homeschooled?
I'm homeschooled.
I've been homeschooled pretty much my whole life.
You sounded.
That's a compliment, by the way.
You sounded.
Thank you.
So go on.
I've had a very classical education, and so it's taught me a lot of things.
So I'm definitely very thankful to be homeschooled to get the education that I have.
Tell people, because I'm curious as well, but tell people who worry about homeschooled kids, do they have a social life, meaning a life with other kids?
Yes.
I think that is definitely a myth.
I definitely do have a social life.
I do have friends who were in public school for most of their life, and then they recently joined homeschooling, and they say that they're even busier than when they were in public school.
They have so much more events with their friends, other homeschool friends, and I can say that's the same thing with me.
I do mock trial.
I do basketball.
It's not like I don't have any social life.
I definitely do a lot of things.
But I think that is just a myth.
Home school kids just have as much social life as other public schools.
If not more, in my experience, because they may have more quantity of kids in their life, but I don't know if they have kids that they're close to.
That often.
You know, there are a lot of cliques in high school.
And anyway, everybody is atomized because they're separated now by gender, by ideology, by, let's see, what else?
Oh yeah, race.
It's very, very sad.
So how has PragerU played a role in your life?
Well, PragerU has had such a huge impact on my life.
It actually started getting me interested in politics.
Back in 2018, I was doing debate, and I had to collect resources for our topic.
And it was actually, I believe it was the Electoral College.
So my mom showed me a five-minute PragerU video, and I watched it.
I wasn't super interested in politics at that time, but about a year later, I started watching Will Ritz videos, and I just loved how he presented the questions, what he asked, how the people answered.
And that just, it showed me that I wanted to become more involved with Craig and you.
It showed me that...
All right, hold on.
Hold on.
Try to remember what you were about to say, because I have to...
Take a break and then return to you.
Madison Posadas with Prager Force.
She's an ode to homeschooling.
Hello everybody, the Ultimate Issues Hour.
Third hour every Tuesday.
I love it.
Many of you love it.
Many of you came to love it.
I'm sure in the very, very beginning people thought, what, every single week?
An entire hour of the show to what?
Ultimate issues?
Yeah.
Because if you don't get those straight, you don't get anything straight.
These are the big questions.
They're not discussed any longer, the big questions.
Big questions concern wisdom.
Wisdom is not taught any longer.
Wisdom must be taught.
Very few people are innately wise.
Very, very, very few.
Last count.
In North America, it was 137. 137 innately wise people.
All other wise people learn their wisdom.
Just like you learn physics or gender studies, you learn wisdom.
Anyway, that's what this hour is about.
Today, the subject is my column, and I will admit to you that It's been percolating in me for quite some time, and I debated whether I would write it, but then I realized if I don't write it and publish it,
then I'm exercising what I hate, and that's cowardice, because it opens you up, of course, to attacks on your character and your humanity.
But then, as I hope always or nearly always in my life, my fear of suppressing the truth is greater than my fear of telling the truth.
So the article is titled, and you can see it at DennisPrager.com.
If you send it along to people, I think it would be valuable.
Women are disproportionately hurting our country.
That's the title of the column.
As in almost every case, I have this fantastic advantage in life.
I have a radio show.
How many writers have a radio show?
Infinitesimally small, obviously.
So I get to work through ideas before I write them.
Constantly.
And I've worked through this realization.
I don't know when it came to me.
But that women are playing a disproportionate role in wrecking our society.
For the record, there are...
A great number of spectacular women and a great number of awful men.
All right?
Joe Biden is a man.
George Soros is a man.
Adam Schiff is a man.
I'm well aware of that.
Most of the damage men do...
No, that's not entirely accurate.
Almost all the damage done via violence and predatory sexual behavior is male.
They don't have a monopoly on violence.
increasingly some young women are engaged in it, but they have an almost monopoly on predatory sexual behavior.
That's both biologically and in terms of one's nature, you don't hear about men being raped by women.
Has it happened?
I assume that everything has happened at some point, but it doesn't happen.
And likewise, sexual harassment is an almost one-way street.
Men heterosexual men to women and homosexual men to men.
But it's men.
So that's clear.
But the damage that women do is very severe on a societal basis and needs to be addressed.
Some people have a romantic view of women that they are the superior sex.
These are feminized men who make that claim.
It's so silly that it doesn't even bother me.
Women are superior.
Really?
By the way, I don't say men are superior either.
Some individual men, some individual women are superior.
That's clear.
But the notion that women are superior has certainly been belied.
By the events in America of the last couple of decades, certainly.
The disproportionate role, highly disproportionate role, women play in ruining children.
And I'm not talking about mothers, I'm talking about teachers.
95% of kindergarten teachers are female.
75%, let me see, I have it in the article.
You really should read it.
It's up at DennisPrager.com.
It's out today.
Let me give you the percentage because it's really, it's pretty dramatic.
Alan, if you can find it in the article.
Here, I found it.
75% of all teachers are women and 92% of kindergarten teachers are women.
If you think children are being hurt by schools, It is women who are doing the hurt, the hurting, the damage.
Who is prematurely sexualizing children?
Men or women.
Who is teaching children that there are more than two genders or sexes?
Women.
Do you think the teachers' unions are wrecking children?
I do.
If you think teachers' unions are good, then you don't agree with my premise.
Then women are doing a terrific...
Job for our country.
If you think teachers' unions are terrific, then my whole thesis is wrong in your eyes.
The heads of every major city's teacher union that I looked up was a female.
That of the National Education Association is a female.
I think the head of the American Federation of Teachers, I forgot to put that in, is a female.
The principals are overwhelmingly female.
In elementary schools.
That's a big indictment.
Very big.
What is being done to kids in our schools?
The teachers' unions advocating that there be no classes for two years?
The damage done to children because of these hypochondriacs?
Thinking they'll die if a kid has COVID in class?
Sweden had classes.
Every single day of COVID. Kids under 16, every single day.
They didn't shut down at all.
There's no record of a kid or a teacher dying of COVID because of that.
I still pinch myself that I use Sweden as a model country.
As the psalm says, from where will my help come?
You never know.
It came from Sweden.
1-8 Prager 776-877-243-7776 I don't know where this idea arose, but I heard it so often when I was in college.
Oh, men have really screwed up the world if only women ran it.
Oh my God, the thought if only women ran the world.
Well, I wonder how many people on the left, I don't think there's a conservative who believes that, but I wonder how many people on the left believe that, if only women ran the world.
Well, they do run the world.
They run the schools.
There you go.
You now have your perfect test.
If you think elementary schools are doing wonderful things for children, By golly, you should be a female fan.
And if you don't, then you have to draw the obvious conclusions.
Gender studies, you think they're producing women's studies, you think they're producing competent, important people doing good for society?
Nearly every single person who gets a degree in gender studies or women's studies.
Is a female member of the human race.
The question is, not am I right, but why has this happened?
That's an ultimate issue.
Thank you, Sean.
It's not often I get to thank Sean publicly, and I don't...
I think I'll be doing it again until about Christmas.
Just for the record.
So the Ultimate Issues Hour.
Take a look at my column.
It's DennisPrager.com in a town hall.
Then it goes to American Greatness and to Daily Wire and to many, many other websites.
Thank God.
If you write, you want to be read.
It is about how women are disproportionately hurting this country.
People are afraid to say it because they'll be called misogynists.
Since I have been called names by the left, I was even called anti-Semitic when I went to the University of Wyoming.
It's in print.
Yeah.
That's right.
See, what they do, the left, they have so cheapened every single adjective, every nefarious adjective, fascist.
Racist, neo-Nazi, misogynist, homophobe, xenophobe, that even when appropriate, it no longer resonates with people.
So, do you know that once you stop fearing the left, you lead a happier life?
Their whole hope is that you will be intimidated.
That you will act like the female swimmers at the University of Pennsylvania swim team.
And allow yourselves to be defeated by a biological male.
Because you're afraid of the left.
I'll call you transphobic.
Alright, let's see what you have to say.
Oh yeah, so wait one second before I go to you.
So...
Given the most obvious damage that a disproportionate number of females are doing, that is on children, since 75% of elementary school teachers, or 75% of teachers, I think that includes high school, so it's even higher for elementary school, are female.
92% of kindergarten teachers are female, and that's where they're doing the damage to children by sexualizing them at that age.
And teaching them that there are more than two sexes.
An incredibly damaging lie told to children.
And then taking them to drag queen story hours at libraries, and 85% of the librarians are female.
So the question is why?
What has happened?
I'm not going to answer it now.
That's such a difficult question.
Why?
It's a disproportionate number of females screwed up values-wise and rationality-wise.
Okay, let's go to your calls here.
Denver, Colorado.
Jacqueline, hello.
Denver, it's so great to talk to you, Dennis.
I can't even believe I got on.
Oh, great.
This is such an important topic and you're still my Bhagavad Gita.
Oh, wow.
Hey, you know, that's not common to be called someone's Bhagavad Gita.
Thank you.
No, very uncommon.
Yes, thank you for your wisdom.
We talked about this a couple years ago, I believe, where I said women are just ruining the world with some of this, but I've done research, so I do have a pretty good proposal as to why, and I think it has to do with the fact that many of them, and the ones I researched, did not have a father figure in their life, and they did not grow up knowing who God was.
And I think it's so obvious, because you see people who, when you're...
Following liars, your life is chaos.
When you're following truth-tellers, it's peaceful.
It's very, very simple to see.
And I do believe that those are the people that are, the people that without a father, without a father in heaven or a father on earth, they're the ones causing a lot of this.
They just, they're angry and they identify with a cause.
What percentage of what you just said do you think I agree with?
I'm hoping for 50. That's adorable.
100. Not 99. 100. Well, then we should probably meet and talk in person at your next event.
I couldn't...
Hey, I'm coming to Denver in two days.
I know you are, and I'm going to be in the mountains in two days.
Oh, you see?
I show up, and she goes to the mountains.
But, Dennis, I can't thank you enough for bringing this to light, because this is what everyone's seeing in America.
And, hey, America, if you're wondering what's going on, you need to stand up for truth.
That's right.
Bless you.
That was good.
You know, I just want to say, I actually wrote that in my Genesis commentary.
The Rational Bible, Genesis.
And if you don't have a Father on Earth or a Father in Heaven, It's going to have very bad impact on you.
There is no doubt in my mind that the root of all of this is the secularization of life.
Yeah.
Stupid people, truly stupid.
They have fine brains.
You can be stupid and have a really first-class brain.
So how about foolish people?
Really thought that we could get rid of religion, get rid of God, get rid of the Bible, and have a good society.
You can, for about two generations.
And then, like cut flowers, once cut from their soil, they look healthy for a while, right?
Flowers last for a while.
Then they wither and die.
The same thing with ethics and values, and wisdom.
Doesn't take two days or five days.
It may take 50 years, but they wither and die too.
We are living in the age of cut flowers from the religious soil that nurtured them.
That is exactly right.
Okay, let's see.
Mike, Vegas, Nevada.
Hello.
Oh, hi, Dennis.
Great.
King of Clarity, you're a national treasure.
You know, everything you're saying, it just makes me realize it's just that much more important to just take your kids out of public schools and send them to Judeo-Christian schools as soon as possible.
I tell you.
That's right.
One little point.
Hopefully this will be helpful to everyone listening, and I wanted to get your input.
As far as men and women, though, it seems like most women really don't know where North, South, East, and West is.
So in terms of, like, family safety, that might be something for the men to kind of go over.
That's funny.
Okay, we've got to take a break.
Well, it's the final segment of the Ultimate Issues Hour, third hour, every Tuesday.
It's the subject of my Tuesday column, that women are disproportionately hurting this country.
I don't have an emotional investment in that position, it's just objectively accurate.
Unless you think the left is doing good for the country.
If you think that kindergarten teachers, first grade teachers, telling their students that there's no such thing as boy and girl, that's binary, and sexual identity is non-binary.
That's what they're telling them.
It's important for your third grader to know that, isn't it?
And this is women.
The women from gender studies departments.
It is women who are the spokespeople and the doctors who are the spokespeople for the hormones to be given to block puberty.
Because we know that when a 12-year-old boy says he's a girl, He's really a girl.
There's no social influence on all these girls saying they're boys.
This is from within.
It's not been caused by sick society.
Largely, but not exclusively at all, made by women in these arenas.
How many men do you know who took gender studies or women's studies?
Each sex has its own internal issues.
Men have to battle their physical aggression and predatory sexual nature.
And women have to battle their emotions.
This all emanates from emotions.
There's also a deep confidence in a lot of women that they just know better than men about every micro issue.
And in some ways, they are better prepared, like with a very young child.
They wake up at night much more readily than men do.
This is a beautiful dance that God created with the two sexes and all their differences, both their strengths and their weaknesses.
And when done right, they fit beautifully like in a jigsaw puzzle.
There's a great feeling when you put a jigsaw puzzle together.
Putting men and women together and working it out is that ultimate jigsaw puzzle.
But you need a healthy man and you need a healthy woman.
You need a strong man and a strong woman.
And that is not...
Common.
So the battle continues for making a better world.
Both sexes need to work on themselves.
Ultimate Issues Hour, I'm Dennis Prager.
Hello?
Your husband was right.
Oh my God!
Dennis Prager here.
Thanks for listening to the Daily Dennis Prager Podcast.
To hear the entire three hours of my radio show, commercial-free.
Every single day, become a member of PragerTopia.
You'll also get access to 15 years' worth of archives, as well as the daily show prep.
Export Selection