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March 14, 2023 - Dennis Prager Show
01:16:25
Budget Busting
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Hello, everybody.
Hello.
Dennis Prager here.
There's a real joy in me over the two women who sat in for me the two days that I was in Florida.
Amala Epinobi yesterday and Julie Hartman the day before.
If that doesn't give you hope, nothing will.
Simple as that.
You know how often I'm asked, is there any hope?
Of course there's hope.
Is there any hope?
See, I don't know what people are asking, and it's a totally legitimate question, and it's sincere and...
Heartfelt and pained.
But I'm not sure what they're asking when they ask, is there hope for America?
If you were to ask me, are we winning?
I can answer that.
We're not.
Did we lose?
No, we didn't.
Can we save this country?
Yes, we can.
And it certainly helps to have two young people in their 20s, so brilliant and eloquent and full of life and knowledge.
It's a beautiful thing.
In case you didn't know, I do a weekly, long podcast with Julie Hartman, Dennis and Julie, and increasingly people are telling me around the country how much It means to them.
It is a side of me, as far as open as I am on my own program, I have to say, in dialogue with this young woman, where she is so open about her life and I about Ron, you'll be very deeply touched, and you should have your kids, especially college age or 20s, but it's for any age.
Dennis and Julie.
It's a terrific podcast.
So anyway, that was a wonderful thing.
The President of the United States has submitted a budget, which even the New York Times acknowledges will not be passed, but it gives you an idea of where we are heading with increasing debt.
Which is astonishing to think, increasing, given how much there is now.
And, yes, the Wall Street Journal calls it a socialist budget, or is that you calling it that?
That's you calling it that.
Well, exactly what it is.
In fact, our taxes, if this is passed, will be higher than Germany.
Even Germany.
Or even Sweden, in other words, may be higher than almost any country in the Democratic West.
What's the number?
What is the number?
Well, it depends on which group.
But here...
His budget is what?
It's $4.7 trillion.
Okay, so here, just let me tell you.
Sweden is 52.3%.
Add state taxes and many high earners would pay a combined top rate of more than 55%.
That is higher than the UK, 45%.
Germany, 47.5%.
And there, everything is free.
And that includes people paying for medicine.
What about state income tax?
Yeah, no, it includes.
It says, add state taxes.
Spain, 54%, and even Sweden, 52.3%.
Is he trying to beat Europe in a race to the tax top?
This is what the Wall Street Journal is asking.
more social programs trillions of dollars no that's it yes it's right for No, no, no, no.
It raises taxes by nearly $4.7 trillion.
It's way more than that.
It is a $6.89 trillion budget.
$7 trillion budget.
So here's a little detail, a little historical detail.
So I'm reading a biography of Gerald Ford for our President's Series at PragerU.
And?
Which, by the way, it's fundraising month.
That's right.
Your contribution is matched this month.
Can you guess, I'll just put it to you this way, guess what Gerald Ford submitted.
This is in 1976, submitted to Congress as his budget.
I'm afraid to.
Okay, so I'll tell you.
Yeah?
$350 billion.
You could cry.
This is in 1976. It's not, you know, 200 years ago.
No, no, it's 50 years ago.
It's less than 50 years ago.
$350 billion?
Yeah, for the entire federal budget.
We have $350 going to green energy.
$250 billion.
At what point will it be fair to say we're on the road?
That's clear.
We're on the road to socialism.
But, of course, that's no longer the S-word.
Young people think capitalism is bad because they're ignorant.
The ignorance of young people about history is deliberate, of course.
It is deliberate.
$7 trillion budget.
And what about the amount of debt?
Let's see.
It would put the deficit...
Let's see.
The plan raises taxes by nearly $4.7 trillion and would increase revenue and spending to unprecedented plateaus as a share of the economy.
Well, I told you about the tax increases.
I won't give you the details.
You may, I do, I would like Bill Gates to give more money to the government, if only because then he has less money to buy up land in the United States and do other mischievous things.
Nevertheless, I don't know of any economy where raising taxes has helped everybody.
How does raising taxes help everybody?
That's the question.
It helps expand government.
But the expansion of government doesn't help everybody.
There was a PragerU gala in West Palm Beach.
No, in Palm Beach, sorry.
In Palm Beach, Florida, on Tuesday night.
I was there for that and for my wonderful Tampa Station.
And I interviewed Betsy DeVos, the former Secretary of Education.
And I asked her...
And I truly didn't know what she would say because I felt that she would, understandably, in a human way, have some attachment to the office that she held.
And I asked her, would it be good if we abolished the Department of Education?
She said yes.
I did not know this.
Did you know this before she said it, that it was Jimmy Carter who did it as a favor to the teachers' unions?
Do you realize, folks, that as the government expands, the country contracts?
Why is that not obvious?
The whole American experiment lies on limited government.
Limited.
So that you and I can fail.
Yes, fail.
We have the freedom to fail.
And the freedom to succeed.
You can't have freedom to succeed if you don't have freedom to fail.
We'll take care of you.
Pre-kindergarten, kindergarten, elementary school, high school.
I have to make this clear and your children don't know this and your grandchildren don't know this.
Thank you.
The American experiment was on small government so that you take care of yourself.
You take care of your family and you take care of your neighbors.
That was the way it was set up.
It became the freest and most prosperous country in the world because it had small government.
And think of how small it was, as you just heard, less than 50 years ago and now.
This is serious.
I don't know how we get out of it, because when people are promised goodies, As I have often said, addiction to free things is harder to break than addiction to heroin.
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If I can do it, you can do it.
You should know what the good guys are doing.
And I'm Dennis Prager.
I'm a good guy.
If I'm not a good guy...
It's an interesting question.
How would I finish that sentence?
If I'm not a good guy, we're in trouble.
I guess that's a good way to...
It's a fair way to put it.
Talking about not a good guy...
It is a painful...
You want to put that up again?
I'm dying to get to that.
I told you, I've said on a number of occasions, the ugliest trait in the human...
And that's a very, very tough call.
I fully acknowledge it.
It's a tough one.
Greed.
Meanness, selfishness, narcissism, cruelty.
I mean, there are so many.
But the worst of the common traits in the human being, I have to argue, is ingratitude.
When people have done you or a person has done good for you, and then you smack them.
Okay, that's...
So I think of Ilhan Omar, what this country did for this woman from Somalia.
Think of what her life would be like in Somalia.
the war, the poverty, the dictatorship, the suppression of women, and how much she has been given here, and how much she hates this country.
She is truly a portrait in ingratitude, As I've said about our colleges, you get a B.A. in ingratitude, a master's in ingratitude, and a doctorate in ingratitude.
That's one of the universal characteristics of all leftists.
They're all ingrates.
And, you know, Larry Fink, the CEO of BlackRock, would be a great example.
Sergey Brin, the head of Google, parents came from the Soviet Union, that would be an example.
So I'm thinking of another example now.
Colin Kaepernick is a total ingrate, obviously towards the country, but he was adopted and raised and loved, and he acknowledges he was loved.
By white parents.
And I'm an adoptive parent.
I don't see any difference between a biological and adoptive parent.
Never did.
And I don't think my sons see any difference.
One of my blood, as you would say, and one not the adopted one.
Colin Kaepernick, this is Daily Mail, Colin Kaepernick calls his white adoptive parents racist because they told him as a teen that Corn Rose looked unprofessional and that he looked like a little thug.
There you go.
You know, this is not uncommon today, where children, and I mean adult children, remember some one or two or three incidents.
That hurt them or bothered them, and that becomes the sum total of the parent's parenting.
I think it's new.
It's the therapeutic age.
I mean, what do you do in therapy?
What do you say, how terrific your parents are?
Has anybody ever done that in therapy?
Doctor, I'm here to tell you, none of my troubles emanate from my parents.
One of the joys that parents have when their child becomes a parent is that they don't say it, but they think it.
Oh, thank God.
Now they'll know.
It ain't so easy to be a terrific parent.
It's an interesting question.
What is a terrific parent?
There's no...
I don't know if there's a definition.
Maybe the best definition is...
You're a terrific parent if your child turned out terrific.
But that isn't even true, because there's a lot of luck there.
And the corollary is certainly not true.
You weren't a terrific parent if your child didn't turn out terrific.
Colin Kaepernick was raised by these people who loved him, and now he calls them racist.
My heart goes out to these two people.
Invest all that love in this child.
But it's very similar to all the whites and blacks who call America racist.
To every black American who says America's racist, I would have a very fair, I think, question.
I think fair question, and that is, where would it be more wonderful for you?
Since you have to compare America to other countries, not to an image.
Or to compare your parents to an image.
I have a chapter in my book on happiness.
Happiness is a serious problem is the name of the book.
And I have a chapter on the damage that images do to people's happiness.
I don't think I connected images with envy.
Isn't that interesting?
I mean, with ingratitude.
If I were to update the book, I guess I would.
You have an image of a parent.
They don't live up to it.
You have an image of a spouse.
You have an image of a child.
You have an image of a country.
Doesn't live up to it.
The hell with it.
The hell with them.
And that's the immature mind.
And if there is a picture of the immature mind, Colin Kaepernick would be that picture.
So there's a race for ingrate of the year between Ilhan Omar and Colin Kaepernick.
Let's take a knee.
The Dennis Prager Show.
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This is fundraising month for PragerU.
I opened the show with the question that people ask me, do you have, is there any hope, yes, for the country?
PragerU is one of the reasons for hope.
Believe me, not the only.
But it's a big one.
Everything we produce is free.
And I'll tell you one of the reasons.
Because then we can get to kids, especially young people, who otherwise would never look at something that isn't left-wing.
If it's free, they'll open it up.
So, you know, Amala, who...
She sat in for me yesterday and is a presenter for personality for PragerU.
I saw an ad that will be coming out on Fox News for PragerU.
She's in it.
And she says, as a young black woman, how would PragerU videos change her life?
She was on the left, and then she rolls up her sleeve, and you see a Black Lives Matter tattoo.
If that doesn't prompt you to give to PragerU, then I am bereft of arguments.
Right?
PragerU.com.
Is it 833-PRAGERU? Is it the same phone number as last year?
And not only that, whatever you give will be doubled.
You give $100, somebody else will give $100.
Thank you.
That's a big deal.
I want you to know that.
Here's Colin Kaepernick.
He's the guy who started I Won't Stand during the National Anthem.
He's being interviewed on CBS. What is the woman's name who's interviewing him?
Adriana Diaz.
Oh, okay.
And sitting next to him is a woman who is his co-author.
What's his book titled?
I've Had It Bad?
America Sucks?
What's the name of the book?
It's a comic book.
It's a comic book?
Yeah.
Alright, anyway.
So here's just a snippet of it.
This ingrate.
And the sickness of his response, I'll explain why I think that's so.
Go ahead.
It's his true high school coming-of-age story.
His journey embracing his blackness.
Okay, hold on.
That's my favorite.
Thank you.
His embracing his blackness.
What does that mean?
His embracing his blackness.
So if you see pictures of him, he is so light that perhaps in certain light one would not know what his race is or even perhaps think he's a white.
I don't give a hoot, but I just thought that it's worth noting.
See, if he weren't so light, I assume he's biracial.
Is that correct?
Biologically, we don't know.
We just know his parents are white, the folks who adopted him.
And loved him, as he noted.
So he embraced his blackness.
A CBS reporter says that with no sense of, my God, did I just make a racist comment.
If you're white, have any of you ever embraced your whiteness?
Would you even know what that means?
Do you know what that means?
Do you embrace your whatever color you might be other than black or white?
Do you embrace your brownness?
What is there to embrace?
What does it even mean?
What is he embracing?
What does he have in common with a black living in Haiti?
Not far from us.
It's a black country.
What does he have in common with any black in any African country?
Tell me, what does he have in common?
Culture?
Religion?
Language?
What does he have in common?
What is he embracing?
I don't understand what he's embracing.
it is a statement of her emptiness and his emptiness it's the happy happy happy happy oh yes it is hey everybody it's the happiness hour because the happy make the world better and the unhappy make it worse and you have a moral obligation to pursue happiness
Because you can't inflict a bad mood on anyone.
It's the happy, happy, happy, happy hour.
Yes, it's 1999. We've been doing this, ergo, 24 years.
Wow.
Well over 1,000 hours on happiness.
Holy crow.
Yes, it's a big deal.
The happy do make the world better.
You know, on occasion I talk about something quote-unquote political.
I try to keep the happiness hour apolitical.
And today's will be apolitical.
It's not political.
But I will say that in one sense, the most political hour of radio I do is the happiness hour.
Because the more people become happy, the less likely they are to maintain the Quote unquote woke values that are so hurting us.
So what's the mother of unhappiness?
I have said for years and in my book the mother of unhappiness is ingratitude.
So I have now I've come to think further and further and longer and longer and talk to more people.
And I would say that ingratitude has a sister.
Is that a way to put it?
It's a sibling.
It's not a child, although they're related, obviously.
But they're not the same thing at all.
That's envy.
As usual, the Bible is my wisdom source, and the Ten Commandments, the single most important document in the Bible, in my opinion.
The Tenth Commandment, which is the only thought commandment, not only the only thought commandment, In the Ten Commandments, it's one of the few, of the 613 laws of the Torah, the first five books of the Bible, it is one of the few thought commandments.
99% are behavioral laws.
Do not do this, do this, do not do this, etc.
So there must be something big.
But this is not even just envy.
It comes from envy.
It's do not covet.
That means do not want to take away that which belongs to your neighbor.
Not his house, not his spouse, not his animals, etc.
And by the way, and it ends after giving examples like the house and spouse and animals.
It says, and everything he owns, you can't envy, or excuse me, you can't covet.
If you envy, you're not violating the Tenth Commandment.
But the Tenth Commandment, you are likely to violate if you are envious.
You can be envious and not covet.
Man, I really...
I would like...
I envy my neighbor's house.
Okay?
You could say that to yourself.
But you can't want to take it away.
That's coveting.
However, I'm not talking now morality.
I am talking now happiness.
And envy is so widely destructive.
The man I was talking to gave me a book that was written in the 1960s on envy.
and it's sort of his secular Bible in understanding the human condition.
I, if I may be personal, it's usually valuable if I'm personal because it makes it, whatever I'm saying, that much more real.
And I'm saying this in front of someone who knows me just about as well as any living person, given all our years of deep friendship.
The man we call the Living Martyr, the producer of the show, co-founder of PragerU, Alan Estrin.
So I'm saying this in front of him.
Because he knows me.
This is not a battle I have had to fight.
I have had my own battles to fight.
Every human does with their own nature.
Some I've won.
Some I'm in a truce.
That's a good way of putting it.
It didn't win, and I didn't win.
But I thank God.
I really do.
Or I thank fate.
Whatever it is.
I'm thankful that this is not a battle I've had.
Now, do I ever experience envy or jealousy?
I do.
I'll tell you one very real one.
People who have private jets.
I fly so much.
Yesterday was a perfect example.
I went from Tampa to Los Angeles with a stop in Dallas.
But Dallas had thunderstorms.
We landed in San Antonio.
To make a long story short, I ended up landing at 2 a.m.
instead of 9.15 p.m.
Got to bed at 3.30 and then did my radio show at 6, excuse me, at 9 a.m.
If I had had my own jet, I would have been home at about 3 in the afternoon, 12 hours earlier.
Okay, so I envy people who have their own jet.
However, it doesn't make me unhappy.
It's a realistic reaction.
If that people have that and they envy them, that's great.
But why doesn't it affect me?
Or why not be envious in general?
So I have two big...
Suggestions.
Now, they're both rational.
They're both using reason, and I have learned that for many people, emotion is way more powerful than reason.
But I can't do anything about that.
I could just ask you to think this way, and if it makes some impact...
Has some impact on you, then it will have done some good.
It might have none.
I know that about anything I say.
So, here is one way to rationally fight envy of someone that you know or don't know, for that matter.
Some people are envious of people they never met.
When people are envious of another person, it's almost always of one thing about that person.
That person's money or that person's looks.
That's more likely in the case of females, totally understandably.
It's not a put-down.
But here is an antidote.
Before you ever start thinking envious thoughts of somebody, remember this.
You have isolated one characteristic of their life to envy.
Would you want their whole life?
I'll bet you wouldn't.
You may envy someone their money.
But do you know about their family life?
Their friendships?
Their inner demons?
No, you don't.
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I'm alright, nobody worry about me.
Why you got to give me a fight?
Can't you just let it be?
I'm alright, don't nobody worry about me.
You got to give me a fight.
Why don't you just let me be?
Do what you like.
Do a little nothing.
It's the happiness hour on the Dennis Prager Show.
And...
And the subject is envy.
Could be said to be the mother of unhappiness, but there are a number of mothers.
I think ingratitude is the biggest.
I'm sure ingratitude and envy are related, though.
People who are ungrateful, I assume, are envious, and people who are envious are ungrateful.
So it would seem.
But I'm talking about envy now.
And I'm trying to offer you some antidotes.
By the way, if you have worked through this, or if it is a big burden in your life, call me.
I'd like to hear how it is a burden in your life, and whom you envy, for example.
You're anonymous, so it'll be helpful to people listening.
1-8 Prager 776-877-243-7776 So, if your mind is powerful and can help direct your emotions, here is one reason not to be envious.
You don't know the entirety of the person's life whom you envy.
And the odds are, if you knew the entirety, you would probably Not be nearly as envious.
In my book, Happiness is a Serious Problem, I don't have a chapter on envy.
I have a chapter on comparing oneself to others, which is similar but not identical to envy.
And I wrote a story.
This happened a long time ago.
I was the guest on a radio broadcaster's show.
He was younger than me and extremely successful.
And he seemed to have everything.
Early success, respected.
In his studio, I saw a picture of his wife and kids.
His wife was beautiful.
Kids looked terrific.
And I remember thinking, this guy seems to really have it all.
And then the following happened.
This was much earlier in the days of the Internet, and I mentioned how helpful it is in all of my research and my work.
And he said, oh my God, it's incredibly helpful to me.
I look up, I think it was MS, multiple sclerosis.
I thought, why do you look up multiple sclerosis?
He said, because my wife has it.
And I remember sort of slapping myself in the head.
I didn't envy him, but I sort of romanticized his life.
Because he was successful, beautiful wife, children.
And then I said, Dennis, you violated your own rule.
You didn't know his whole life.
People envy the super rich.
Do you know if they're happy?
Do you know any of their pains?
No, of course not.
The envy is so selective.
You select one thing about a person.
But why don't you envy the whole person?
And then probably that would end.
So that's recommendation number one.
Recommendation number two.
This I know is operative in my own life.
I walk around I'm far more likely to think how fortunate I am because I compare myself to all those who don't have my good fortune.
You have a choice.
Do you compare yourselves to those who don't have your good fortune or do you compare yourself to those you think have it better than you do?
If you start comparing yourself to the vast numbers of people who have it worse than you do, you might not be as envious.
People always compare themselves, not always, people usually compare themselves to those who have more than they do, whatever the more might be.
Usually money, but not only.
They don't compare themselves to the people who have less.
1-8 Prager 7-7-6 The Immensity of the Subject of Envy Thank you.
What else did I note for myself to tell you?
I guess developing gratitude is another antidote to envy.
I guess.
How could it not be, right?
Because if you're grateful for what you have, you won't preoccupy yourself with how much the other guy has that you don't have.
Or how much that woman has that you don't have.
There really are antidotes.
There are rational antidotes.
I'll tell you, you know, we should put this down.
It's the single biggest question on the Happiness Hour.
If I have done it in the 24 years of the show, I don't remember.
But it comes up almost every week.
But I don't know if I devoted one hour to it.
Can people really...
Control their feelings.
Because if not, if you can't be mind directed because your feelings are so powerful, then all of this is useless.
We'll return in a moment.
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Okay, all Dennis Prager here.
Here.
And the subject of the Happiness Hour is envy.
As an example, by the way, do parents give their kids wisdom?
Do they teach them not to be envious?
What do parents teach their kids?
That's your task.
As a parent is to teach your kids wisdom.
Not to make sure that they have as many extracurricular activities as possible.
I'm not against the extracurricular activities.
But that's what parents specialize in.
The extracurricular activities unfortunately rarely include a musical instrument.
Allow me for one moment to divert the discussion to a picture I have of the American past when virtually every home had two things that almost no homes now have.
A piano and a Bible.
And I'll tell you something.
Thank you.
Your kid would turn out much better with a piano and a Bible than going to the school he or she goes to right now.
In most cases.
In the great majority of cases.
A piano and a Bible.
Envy, my friends, envy!
Let's take your calls.
I'm going to take the toughest one on the list.
In Naples, Florida, Rose.
Hello, Rose.
Hi, Dennis.
How are you today?
I am a lucky man, and I am well.
Good.
So, I will tell you first, I agree with you about the Bible and the piano 100%.
Thank you.
Yes.
Lost both of my beautiful daughters.
May I ask in a nutshell how and when?
The first one was 18 years ago when it was to suicide.
And the second one, it will be four years in July, and it was a brain aneurysm.
She had the worst headache of her life and went to sleep.
And when the children got up in the morning...
She wasn't awake, and they went in to get her and found her dead.
An 8-year-old and an 11-year-old.
And I will tell you that if somebody would tell you such and such is going to happen or occur in your life at some point, you would say, well, no, that's not going to happen, but if it did, I won't survive it.
And you find out that you do.
You find out how strong...
Just how strong you are.
Because it's not a conscious decision you make, but at some point, you survive.
And you don't just survive, but you're happy.
Am I joyful?
No.
Am I happy?
Yes.
I wake up every day, and my first thoughts are my daughters and my two grandchildren.
And I go about my day.
Am I envious of people that have their children?
You bet I am.
Because I see people who have fights with their children, who don't talk to their children, and I want to say to them, cherish your child.
If you can't be with them, call them.
What I would give to hear my girls' voices, even.
Of course.
Who passed four years ago, which was on my birthday, by the way.
I have the recording still on my phone.
Of course, I know.
I still have my mother's recording.
Yes, yes.
So let me react to this.
Yes, yes.
So it is completely, 100% understandable you'd be envious of people who have their children.
Right.
So how about this, though?
Think of this for a moment.
There are a lot of people who have children who don't have grandchildren.
Right.
Should they be envious of you?
Yes or no?
Yes.
Okay.
All right.
Yes, of course.
All right.
Okay.
We don't need it because.
You're a good woman.
Thank you.
Let Dennis be Dennis.
And that's exactly what I am.
Hi everybody, Dennis Prager here.
Third hour on Fridays is your hour, whatever's on your mind, about you, about me, about life, about death, and of course, about cigars, audio equipment, photography, classical music, and one other thing. and one other thing.
I usually try to get it in before this part of the music.
Fountain pens.
I can't believe it because I've really been obsessed with that.
Well, everybody, welcome to the show!
And if I don't take your call, please don't be offended.
People get offended much too easily.
I've devoted some time, some happiness hours to that issue, and I'll do it again.
If you're offended, you have chosen to be offended.
Especially when there's no offense intended.
Anyway!
1-8 Prager 776. I'm fascinated by what is on your mind.
And let's begin.
All right.
All right.
Okay.
All right.
In Los Angeles, is it Ellie or Eli?
Hey, how are you, Dennis?
Hi.
Tell me, is it Ellie or Eli?
It's Eliahu or Ellie.
Ali, hi.
Thank you for calling.
Okay.
First time getting on calling, I was actually in front of my computer just now, and I'm working.
My family has a beauty care business, and there's certifications that our company can get that, like, there's badges on different, specifically Amazon, but on different places, okay?
There's, like, local business badges, small business badges.
One of the—I'm filling out these forms, and it says LGBTQ. None of us are—I don't know what the—we're LGBTQ. None of us have anything to do with that.
But we want, like, if it's a sale, we're thinking that, like, maybe we should put it in if it'll help, I don't know, bringing in a certain demographic.
So me and my brother are here, and we're like, all right, it's the— Like, the question hour on Dennis Prager, let's call in.
So we were, like, morally thinking, are we doing the right thing or wrong thing?
I always joke with my, like, at the Shabbat table, I joke around, I'm like, I'm a transgender lesbian and here's my wife.
So I was thinking, like, is that something that's morally wrong, what I'm doing?
Or what are your thoughts?
I mean, I just want to run it by.
I always...
Always taking your opinion in high regard.
So I want to hear what you have to say.
Are you familiar with the case of the baker, I think it was Colorado, I think there's also one in Washington, who was asked to bake a cake for a gay wedding and said, I will happily bake a cake for gays, but I can't bake a cake for an event that I just cannot religiously accept.
In my view, my religion's view, he said, he's a Christian, a marriage is only between a man and a woman.
So he was found, he was accused by the state court of discrimination and bias, etc., and then exonerated by the Supreme Court, but then Colorado brought new charges against him.
Anyway, are you familiar with that case?
Yeah, it was like, growing up, I remember it was like 2012, I think, or 2011. Right, yes, exactly.
Okay, so what would you have done if you were the baker?
I would not have baked the cake, I would say.
All right, okay, okay, fine.
I didn't think you would, because I assume you're a religious Jew.
Yeah.
Right.
So, the question now becomes, is...
Seeking that badge, is that the same as baking that cake?
Right.
Yeah.
I hear.
So that's an answer that you'll have to come up with.
Within LGB... Ironically, my problems are not with L and G. They're with B and T. T, I cannot support because it...
It proposes to have us lie about human beings.
Human beings are either male or female.
I mean, that's just a fact.
Men do not give birth.
It is a grandiose absurdity and lie to say so.
Okay, so then the B, I have a problem with the B, in that if a person is, let's say, a man.
I know quite a number of gay men.
And they have zero attraction to women.
They are as attracted to men as I am to women.
They can't be talked out of it.
That's who they are, and I know that.
So I would not bake the cake, because I believe marriage is between a man and a woman, even though I'm very close to married gay men.
Nevertheless...
I can't compromise.
I have the same religion as you, and I can't compromise on that.
Otherwise, religion is a joke.
If you only agree with it when it's good for you, then you are God and not the God of the Bible.
So, with lesbians and gay males, I don't have an issue.
I have an issue with bisexuals in that if you can truly love either sex...
And attracted to either sex, then clearly I believe you should choose heterosexuality.
Men and women are meant to bond.
Some men can't, some women can't, and I recognize that.
So that's my problem with the LGBTQ acronym, the T and the B. Now, are you...
One final thing to help you clarify your question.
You're not being asked to put out a pride banner, correct?
No.
Yeah, no.
No pride banner, no nothing.
Right.
So it's just, you know, we service these people.
Is that correct?
Not even.
Basically, I don't know...
So it's like a...
I was trying to get local certification for Amazon.
So when people go on the site, it says, oh, this is a local vendor, right?
And you see a product on Amazon.
So then LGBTQ came up.
Are you LGBTQ? And I was like, I don't know if I'm going to get a certification for this.
I don't know what's going to happen.
But I was like, you know, there's no way to...
Like, I've been in corporate America and there's like...
Especially, I don't know.
Like, there's...
DBE, Diverse Business Enterprises, which helps, like, I don't know, a lot of times contracts go to diverse businesses.
So, like, there's black, Latino, LGBTQ. And then the interesting thing about LGBTQ is that there's no way to prove such a thing.
Like, you know...
All right, all right.
So, look, we've talked a lot because it's such an important subject.
I'm not telling you what to do, but I personally, I wouldn't have that certification.
I would obviously, I would service any human being who came into my business, needless to say.
But I don't want to give in to the woke mob, which is what I think would be involved here.
Even if it were a race.
Okay?
Sorry?
Sorry?
Sorry, you said that again.
Even if?
Even if it has nothing to do with LGBTQ. Let's say it was just race, you know.
We honor blacks.
I don't want to divide America by color.
Okay, okay.
But, but, I hear you.
I get what you're saying.
But imagine you're a company, you're working in California, and there's, like, I don't know, contracts.
There's contracts for, especially with the state.
Or, you know, like a gas company, the state of California actually makes like a 43%, they put a mandate for 43% of the businesses to be DBE, Diverse Business Enterprises.
Okay?
Now, you're an engineering firm, and you're trying to win these bids, but you're just a regular.
Right.
Okay.
All right.
Listen.
Okay.
All right.
Listen.
It basically comes down to how much are you compromising?
And I'm not saying this in any derogatory way.
How much are you compromising for the sake of greater success in your business?
That's what it comes down to, I believe.
And some compromise is not a big issue.
A lot of compromise is a big issue, and you have to figure out which it is.
It is very sad that the game has to be played at all.
And people have to draw their lines, because they're very easily smudged.
He's a religious Jew.
If the state said you have to be open on Saturdays...
My suspicion is he wouldn't compromise on that.
The state, especially in California, pressures you to compromise.
All right, everybody, Dennis Prager here. - Sure.
Bye.
I'm going to make it a little bit better.
Life is all about how much does one compromise.
It's a toughie.
On your basic principles, it's not a good idea.
On the other hand, it's easy for me to say because it's not my business.
Literally, that's not my...
Type of business, my type of business is to influence people.
But everybody can influence people.
Anyway, let's go to Bakersfield, California, and Jay.
Hello, Jay.
Hello.
Hello.
Yes.
Yes.
This is Jay.
Hi.
I'm waiting for you.
Go ahead.
I was asking your screener if you'd turned into a Marxist the way you've been criticizing BlackRock.
I don't quite follow how I turned me into a Marxist.
They're the top capitalists.
They have all the money.
Isn't that what they're supposed to do?
Yeah, that's fine with me.
I don't attack them for making money.
I attack them for being woke and investing the money.
Let me read to you from the New York Post last year.
Let's see.
BlackRock.
Yep.
Larry Fink, that's the CEO of BlackRock, has been a huge cheerleader for the so-called ESG, environmental, social, and corporate governance investing.
ESG is all about ensuring that companies BlackRock holds in its multitudes of funds adhere to certain progressive edicts.
Sounds good on paper until you drill down.
For starters, such investing methods are highly political and veer far to the left.
He's not for free enterprise.
He's for using money and almost extorting it from companies.
So he has so much power controlling trillions of dollars that he will make company boards fold into the woke world of ESG investing.
That's the problem.
Not the fact that he makes a lot of money.
I don't care about that.
Okay, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Jeff, hello.
Hello, Dennis.
How are you doing today?
I'm well, thank you.
Good.
First of all, big fan.
I love your show.
I love you.
You're one of the best there is.
So, anyway.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
I have a brother whose son is gay, and he's getting married this year.
I'm a Christian.
I believe that marriage is between a man and a woman.
Right.
I love my nephew.
I don't want to lose my brother or my nephew.
What should I do?
You know what's interesting to me, and I've dealt with this a lot.
It's very interesting that the gay and the pro-gay, in this case the gay being your nephew, the pro-gay being his father, your brother, are blackmailing you.
That's all they're doing.
Unless you exaggerated, which if you did, tell me.
If you lose your brother and his son because as a Christian you won't attend a gay wedding, then I have contempt for your brother and your nephew.
They're blackmailers.
That's all they are.
Compromise on your values or F you.
That's really astonishing to me.
I would never, whatever the issue would be, I would, unless it was evil, I mean, you know, like, it's evil if you don't go to an interracial wedding, but I find that people make this assumption all the time.
My gay son or my gay brother or my gay this will abandon me if I don't do X. Is there any other parallel?
I don't know of any other parallel.
The arrogance of your brother and his son is immeasurable.
They should say to you, we perfectly understand.
We know you love him.
We know you're torn.
This does not in any way reflect upon your love of me or my son, and we understand why you're not there.
Period.
End of issue.
Now, just let me add this one thing.
I might be doing that terrible word called assuming.
I have not sat down one-on-one with my brother.
Well, you should.
You should.
And say, you know...
This has no reflection on my regard.
By the way, I'm just curious, is this a church wedding or a secular wedding?
It's going to be, I don't know who's officiating, but I'm assuming it's going to be a secular wedding.
Right, so here's just something for you to consider.
There are two other options for you, aside from not attending at all.
If it were done at a church, because there are so many pastors who would do this, as there are so many rabbis, then you can't go to such a wedding because the clergyman is distorting and perverting the religion.
So you can't allow for that.
It would be the same if he married...
Two spouses to a person in what they call now polyamorous relationships.
Okay.
With a secular wedding, it's less intense, the moral issue, because this is a secular act and it's not a religious act.
So that's something for you to consider.
I'm not suggesting you go, but I am suggesting that there is a difference.
In my extended family, this happened, in my case Jewish, and the father of the lesbian daughter said, I will not attend a religious wedding with the woman you marry, but I would attend the secular.
So I've actually seen this at work.
The other is for you to attend the celebration but not the service.
Right.
I was thinking about that.
yeah.
Okay, my friend.
So much, I really appreciate it very much.
Yes, I appreciate your asking me.
These are important subjects, but that emotional blackmail, the arrogance, and the meanness is quite remarkable.
You will do what I want, or I have no relationship with you.
Back in a moment.
Well, hello, everybody.
This is the hour.
So, so far, really good stuff.
Real-life questions.
It's the hour you set the agenda, as I've always put it.
Whatever is on your mind.
Tim and...
Oh, I do.
I have a guest.
Forgive me, Tim.
I'll take you in a moment.
That's right.
This is Fundraising Month for PragerU.
One of the highlights, truly, I get a lot of feedback, is when I speak almost every day during the month, whether it's March or August, to one of the young people involved in PragerU.
Let's say, is Elise Galvin, is she on video or just audio?
Okay.
Good.
Elyse, there you are.
Hello.
Hi.
What a pleasure.
Elyse Galvin is a Prager Force member.
Prager Force is high school and college age young people.
There were, oh, I don't know.
How many?
Do you know how many there are?
I don't.
Do you know?
I'm not sure how many there are right now, but I know it's...
Probably over 15,000?
I mean...
Yeah, it's enormous.
It's an enormous thing.
Which reminds me, have you been able to...
Well, first of all, where were you located?
I'm in San Antonio, Texas.
Have you been able to contact other PragerForce members anywhere?
I have been.
Actually, this past year, I went to a Turning Point event, and I was able to meet several of them there.
And then next week, actually, I'm going to be meeting another Prager Forrester who lives here in San Antonio.
Why do you sound so mature?
Homeschooled, maybe.
That's it.
That's it, folks.
I did not know this as God is my witness.
But had I had to bet my house, I would have bet she's been homeschooled.
You're also, one second, you have a, you co-founded a Prager Forest book club called Conservative Z Club?
Yes, that's correct.
Tell me about it.
So me and someone I met through Prager Forest, who's actually one of my best friends now, we both are avid readers.
I also love movies.
So we decided to kind of start a page where we could analyze media and books from a conservative and Christian standpoint.
So we started that a while back.
Right now we have around 205, I think, followers.
And every month we have book club meetings over Zoom and we're able to discuss classic literature.
And it's been really great.
It's a great experience.
What books did you do, for example?
So last month we had the picture of Dorian Gray.
This month we're doing Murder on the Orient Express.
And then next month we're doing The Magician's Nephew by C.S. Lewis.
So just a variety of classics.
God.
I'm sorry.
I'm sort of floating.
By the way, folks, Sean, where do I tell people if they want to see Elise?
Salem News Channel, because you could watch the show, but it's especially nice when I have guests.
So what year are you in?
Well, how old are you?
I'm 17. Do you intend to go to college?
By the way, I have no vested interest in this.
I'm very happy if you don't.
I'm happy if you do.
Yeah, I'm fine.
Are you going to?
Do you intend to?
I most likely will.
Not exactly because I need to, but really just because I think I can get a few extra skills from there and we have the means to.
My other siblings are kind of less inclined to go because they have other pursuits and things in mind, which is totally fair in my opinion.
Exactly.
What would you study if you went?
Do you know?
There's a lot of things I'm interested in, but as far as degrees, I'm probably looking for something in the financial area just to kind of help as a life skill later on.
So I'm going to ask you the question I ask virtually every woman under 30 I meet, even one as young as you.
So I'm going to...
Have you heard my guarantees question?
I don't believe I have.
Good.
Oh, perfect.
Okay.
So I'm offering you two guarantees.
You can choose one.
And it's important to understand that even if you didn't choose the other, it doesn't mean you cannot get it.
It just means that only one is guaranteed.
So you have one of two guarantees to choose, a guaranteed great marriage or a guaranteed great...
Excuse me.
How I choked up.
So a guaranteed great career or a guaranteed great marriage?
Great marriage, without hesitation.
Yeah, I had a feeling you'd say that because you're healthy.
Do you know how much unhealth is going around in this country?
It's scary to see, yes.
Yeah, okay.
I want to address that with you.
I'm very curious how you react.
I will be back with Elise Galvin of PragerForce.
Please make a donation in the meantime to PragerU.com.
Dennis Prager here.
Thanks for listening to the Daily Dennis Prager Podcast.
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