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March 22, 2023 - Dennis Prager Show
01:18:10
Of Two Minds
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Dennis Prager here.
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subscribe at prager topia.com hello my friends i'm I'm Dennis Prager.
I am of two minds about the current darkness in which we live, all completely manufactured by people.
It was not like we were hit by a comet.
Even COVID, the response was devastating.
Produced, therefore, by human beings, as in keeping children out of school for nearly two years.
So here are my two minds about our current situation.
I have been aware since childhood of the amount of suffering and evil has permeated the human species since its inception.
That is one of the reasons that for so much of my life, until really, I would say, three years ago, I was so, so constantly grateful for being an American.
Because I am aware of the fragility of civilization and the human species nature not being a good one, though of course there are.
Any number of truly good people.
So I walked around most of my life, and anyone who listened to me, for example, knows this.
I walked around with a constant, almost befuddled amount of gratitude.
Wow, how did I luck out to be...
In America and alive at this time.
That's what I would think.
I would just think that.
And I was right.
It wasn't just that I thought it.
Being aware of the ubiquity of evil and suffering is what made me that much more grateful for being a citizen of this country.
So, on the one hand, I am profoundly troubled by the attempt to bring down this country and Western civilization generally.
Absolutely.
And therefore, I am very sad about it.
I'm a happy person who is very sad about that.
It's like you can be a healthy person and have the flu.
So I'm a happy person who is sad about the moment.
So what is the other mind?
I said I am of two minds.
The other mind is, well, Dennis, what did you expect being human?
Did you expect that this would be an easy ride?
And that's a...
Compelling argument for understanding that people are so capable of doing bad that I shouldn't be surprised.
And anyway, look at how bad things were in the past.
I'm of two minds about that.
Things were so good in this country, with obvious exceptions of evil like racism.
It was an evil.
And the country did a massive amount, given that it is the most multi-ethnic, multi-cultural, multi-racial, multi-religious, multi-national country in the history of the world.
So it's...
So...
Yet, even with all of that...
Just a few years before I was born, to give you an idea of the immediacy of it.
Well, in fact, some of these genocides took place after I was born, like in China.
The Holocaust was a few years before I was born.
The industrialized murder of every Jewish man, woman, and child.
In Europe that the Nazis could get to, and they got to two out of every three, including virtually all its children.
And then I've always noted, in fact I have a video up at PragerU, why don't people hate communism as much as Nazism?
Which should be a very telling example of the broken moral compass of humanity.
but there are so many young people who think communism is good, who are so utterly and totally ignorant of the greatest mass murder machine in the history of the world, mass murder machine called communism.
So I sort of berate myself.
So Dennis, knowing history, why are you shocked?
And what the left is doing to the United States and to the West.
and Evidence of which I bring to you every day, every single day.
Well, that's my two minds.
Why would I be naive as to believe that America could remain?
A peaceful, opportunity-giving, freedom-loving society.
And sure enough, half of this country votes for a party that craps on freedom.
That's it.
That is it in a nutshell.
And manufactures hysteria to keep people frightened so that they can do more things to control your life.
Look at what they did in COVID. When I called the lockdowns the greatest mistake in human history, worldwide mistake, I did that in April of 2020. You can see it on the internet.
And then I wrote another column.
This is a dress rehearsal for a police state.
There's another dress rehearsal for a police state.
Not just COVID. The alleged Existential threat of carbon dioxide to human life and biological life generally is another hysteria for the sake of changing your life.
If they don't control you, they feel that they have an empty life.
Do you know how addicts feel?
A lot of you know this, but many of you who have not had an addict in your life, Does not know this.
Or do not know this.
And that is this.
Can I enjoy life without my preferred addiction?
That is what the addict believes.
Life is not enjoyable without his addiction.
Alcohol, drugs, gambling, whatever it might be.
They can't imagine.
They can still enjoy life.
There's fun without alcohol, booze.
I can't believe it.
That is the left.
There is no fun, there is no joy in life without a crisis, without hysteria, without inducing fear and taking over more of people's lives.
The quality of life that has been damaged and will be incredibly damaged because of the hysteria over climate change and the use of fossil fuels.
It's hysteria.
I'm not saying there's no truth to it, but it's hysteria.
There was truth to COVID, but we had a hysterical reaction.
There is a little city in California.
That has just announced that it will place a severe limit on the number of gas stations in their city.
So everybody will have to line up like they did during the Arab oil embargo in the 1970s.
In the name of transgenderism, the changing of your child's life to be preoccupied With a gigantic lie that sex is not binary.
Yes, little kitty, you may not be a boy.
You may not be a girl.
You will choose.
You might be a boy one week and a girl the other week, and then the third week you will be nothing.
You'll be questioning.
All left-wing created hysteria.
If you induce fear enough in people, they will accept the police state.
And now, with the imminent arrest over trivia, for the first time in American history of a presidential candidate who was president before, an ex-president over trivia, they can do and will do anything.
There is hysteria around Donald Trump?
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The attack on the quality of life in our country.
Okay.
If it weren't for the left, do you realize how peaceful?
How much less crime?
How much less tension?
How much more enjoyment of life?
How much more marriage?
How much more courting boys and girls, young men and young women?
How many more children and marriage would have taken place?
Do you realize?
Without the left.
Without the left, we would have...
The greatest interracial relations in any country in the world.
Look at the polls about how things were between blacks and non-blacks in the United States.
Blacks saying overwhelmingly things were improving and fine, relatively fine.
And then the left came to power and the thing they hate most.
is a peaceful, content human and a peaceful and contented society.
It is all from the inner existential emptiness that pervades every leftist.
People know about these people in their family life.
The people who cannot abide peace and tranquility, they must always stir the pot.
The left always stirs the pot.
We are kept at a permanent state of tension solely because of the left.
Solely.
They are bored with peace and quiet and law and order.
They are bored by middle class values.
Most people deciding to get married, then raising a family, they can throw up.
It actually nauseates the left.
Not liberals.
Liberals live like conservatives.
They vote like leftists and they live like conservatives.
Liberals are a tragedy.
The left is an evil.
But that's what they do.
And just think.
Think about that.
Think about how much better off the country would be.
With liberals and conservatives and no leftists.
Certainly no leftists in power.
The hysteria over the George Floyd death.
It was hysteria.
He did not kill.
Derek Chauvin did not kill the man because he was black.
Keith Ellenson is the...
Attorney General of Minnesota, he is left-wing and he is black, and he never brought any charges of racism with all of what was said.
It's like there are no charges of insurrection against the people being arrested for entering the Capitol on January 6th.
It's left-wing media-induced, Democratic Party-induced hysteria.
That's what it is.
You want to sit back and imagine a better world, a la John Lennon?
Just imagine.
No left.
Without the left, 100 million people would not have been slaughtered in the 20th century.
I'm talking about non-combatants.
Without the left, vast swaths of humanity would have had A road to freedom like South Korea has because the left was defeated in the southern half of the Korean Peninsula in the great, never-mentioned Korean War of the early 1950s.
37,000 Americans died there for no product produced by Korea.
They died there.
For the product produced in America called Liberty.
And now we are undoing the Korean War.
We are undoing all of the battle for freedom.
The battles for freedom that have been characteristic of the United States of America.
So yes, you want to imagine a better world, imagine one, where your children would go to school and learn how to read and write and be told that race doesn't mean a damn thing.
I couldn't care less what color any of you students are, so it's not going to even be discussed.
We will discuss your character.
We will discuss how to make you into a good adult.
That is the project of adults.
I was reading USA Today as a service, as a public service.
And they have Women of the Year, nominees from each state.
And I don't remember which state.
I'll dig it up.
The woman's whole little bio was about the need to listen to children.
Hmm.
Everything about the left is inverted.
The greater need is for children to listen to adults.
I don't recall adults feeling the need to listen to me because I was told that they'll listen to me when I earn their respect by having actual, mature, fact-based opinions.
All it says is, I am no wiser than children.
This listen to the children idea.
So you go into class and you say to them, let's study.
I, your teacher in fifth grade, will bring to you the greatest ideas and thoughts and writings.
And music and art that was ever produced.
This is a gift of the past to you kids.
I will bring that gift to you.
That's what a teacher should be doing.
Bringing that gift to his or her students.
Instead, they are child wrecking machines.
So allow yourself a fantasy.
A world without leftism.
Talking about PragerU, this is Fundraising Month for PragerU March.
Whatever you give this week, and we're at midweek right now, will be tripled thanks to generous donors.
If you give $100, it's really giving $300.
It's an amazing thing.
Everything we do is free.
And you know why it's free?
It's important that you understand this.
Because we want kids in particular, young people, I wouldn't say kids, but kids too.
We have a huge kids department.
But we want young people, and anyone for that matter, to gravitate to PragerU and not have money stop them so that we can get new minds and touch them.
Every day during fundraising month, I have some young person, usually a young person almost every day, who is affiliated with PragerU, and it is one of the highlights of the month, certainly, because it gives people hope.
So I have a PragerForce member.
That is 19,000 is, I think, the latest number of young people around the world, members of what is called Prager Force.
He is 17, and he is British, and he is in the United Kingdom, Elijah Nixie Payton.
I will ask him if I pronounced his last hyphenated name correctly.
He is 17. He runs the Prager Force Biblical Club.
I didn't even know there was one.
Very happy about that.
On Instagram.
Well, Elijah, welcome to the Dennis Prager Show.
Hello, and yes, you did pronounce my surname correctly.
Oh, nice.
So, are you in the equivalent of what we would call high school?
Yeah, I'm in my senior year, the equivalent.
And have British schools been infected with what we call woke ideology as much as American schools?
Not to the same extent, I don't think.
So, I'm not privy in the same way to what's going on in America, but from what I hear about it, we don't have the same...
We have the same centralized school system, but it's devolved between the different countries here, and there are multiple different exam boards that offer...
Somewhat different curricula, so there's options.
So, for example, is the transgender issue an issue in your high school?
I don't...
somewhat.
There are about four students which you could say are transgender, but it's not a pressing issue in the UK because there's not...
Well, I guess it is an issue in the UK, but it's not so much an issue in education.
It's something like, there are a greater number of transgender identifying people in the UK, so for example, about 2% of teenage girls, but it's less of an issue in schools because it's just not become an issue in schools.
It will become one in a few years when the lawsuits catch up with it, but it's not at the moment.
Are you taught that Britain has a history of racism as a big part of your curriculum?
No.
Not in the same way that they are in America because the education system and particularly the teaching of history over the last 15 years has been tailored more towards British emancipation and further away from British moral repugnancy.
What does that mean, British emancipation?
The efforts that Britain has made to...
I am stunned.
In British schools, the dominant idea about Britain is that it has been a force for good?
It's not that it's been a force for good.
It's still probably taught on net that it's been a force for evil.
But it's moved more towards acknowledging, at least in terms of the curricula that have been given by the government, it's moved more towards acknowledging So, the net result of British influence in the world is negative, but it has also had positive?
Is that a correct read on my part?
I think so.
That's certainly the impression that I've gotten.
Well, it's way ahead of us in America.
America is basically a force for evil, as taught in our schools.
I will be back with you, Elijah, and I want to remind everyone that this is fundraising month for PragerU.
I want to ask him, obviously, what he does at PragerForce internationally.
This should give you hope, and it really should give you hope.
I don't say that as a patronizing idea.
PragerU.com, 833-PragerU.
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Yeah, anytime you want to hear any of the shows, not all of you can hear all three hours.
My intention is that all three every day be very important in your life.
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PragerTopia.com.
Fundraising month in March for PragerU.
And almost every day I have a young person affiliated with PragerU.
In this case, he is in the United Kingdom.
A young Brit, 17 years old, Elijah Nixie Payton in Manchester.
By the way, I remember my year in Leeds well.
Are you in Yorkshire like Leeds is?
No, so I'm in Lancashire.
You're in Lancashire, okay.
So in Leeds, they would say to you, For example, if I'd go into a store and they'd say, so what would you like, Louvre?
That's common in Leeds, right?
Calling people love in American English or Louvre in Leeds.
Do they say that in Manchester?
Not really, I don't think.
It's a Leeds thing.
It's still said in Leeds, but...
It's a Leeds thing.
Okay, that's adorable.
I started saying it myself, actually.
Well, thank you, Lou.
It just becomes natural, even in American.
So, do you have in Britain what we have known as homeschooling?
Yes, but not nearly to the same extent.
There are about 8 million homeschoolers in America, and there are about 100,000 in the UK. Was that at all a temptation for your parents?
Not really.
It would have been possible through primary school because we don't have middle school, so primary school goes up to 11 and then high school is from 11 to 18. So it would have been possible through primary school, but there's a range of teaching and the content is just so vast that it probably wouldn't have been manageable.
So your parents...
In effect, trusted that your school, what we would call public school, your school would not threaten the values that they hold and want you to hold.
Is that fair to say?
Yeah, I mean, both my parents are fairly liberal, but it's...
Oh, that's interesting.
Oh, I did not know that.
I had every assumption that you came from a conservative home.
Not particularly.
I mean, an idea that I think would be worth exporting to America that we have here is grammar schools.
So I go to a grammar school, and that means it's a state-funded school, but there's an entrance exam in order to get in.
So the idea is that they're state funded and they're set up in communities that are poorer communities and they act as like there's a barrier to entry in order so that both it has to be the parents want the children to get in because they're willing to register for them for the entrance exam and the students have to work hard enough to pass it at the same time.
What shaped your movement toward conservatism?
Thank you.
I'm too contented with my own life and with the world to be a liberal or to be a leftist.
Sean, you must keep that.
You have said one of my basic beliefs in life.
There are no happy leftists.
Not every conservative is happy, but every poll shows what common sense suggests.
There's much more happiness in the conservative world than the liberal left world and certainly the left world.
Do you have siblings?
I don't know.
And pertinent to this month, how did you become aware of PragerU?
I think it was a video that came up my Instagram timeline, if I remember correctly.
It may have been your Deuteronomy, Why It's Hard to Love God.
How fascinating.
And how did you react to that video?
I took interest in the idea that Deuce Hieronyme was the most referenced book in the Constitution.
I didn't know that.
Well, by the founders, not in the Constitution, but by the founders of the United States.
Yes, go ahead.
And I clicked on the page and I thought, oh, they've got a few interesting videos, so I'll give them a follow.
And then you just watched more and more?
Yeah, and found out about the...
Youth equivalent Pragerforce, and that was interesting.
Met a lot of nice people.
Still meeting nice people.
Yes, this is a wonderful way for you to meet kindred spirits around the world.
So I read your little bio here, and it says that you run the Pragerforce Biblical Club.
I'm Prager and didn't know there was a biblical club.
So tell me about it.
So there was an emergence of a number of different groups.
One of them is musical.
I think there's a horse riding one.
There's a filmmakers and I decided that I'd start a biblical version.
I post sort of daily quotes, daily verses and I put a little commentary that's about 150 words.
That's sort of almost daily and then somewhat less frequently I'll do a...
I'll post a hymn on the story, and then very infrequently at the moment, although I plan to do it more often, I will do a link to a current story, and people will give their comments on that.
Were you raised in a religious home?
Not particularly, no.
My parents aren't religious.
And would you characterize yourself as religious?
Yes.
And how did that occur?
I read fairly incessantly, and you can't read for very long without encountering some analogy or some reference or something that leads you back to the Bible.
And then I decided that I was going to read it so that I could finally understand all the references.
And I thought that it was...
Well, given that there are billions of people on Earth who consider it to be not only true, but true enough that they structure their lives around it, I thought I was at least going to pay them the benefit of the doubt of accepting that they have something.
We'll have some final words on this for you.
Forgive me, we have to take a break.
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What shaped your movement toward conservatism?
I'm too contented with my own life and with the world to be a liberal, to be a leftist.
Yeah, Sean, you must keep that.
Yes, we are keeping it.
I was speaking to a Pragerforce member in Britain, 17-year-old.
A 17-year-old, and he is quite obviously mature, as is the case with all of our praying efforts that I have interviewed.
I don't know, I can't say it, for 19,000 people.
Elijah Nixie Payton is his name.
So you post something from the Bible each day and offer about 150 words on it.
And are you gathering somewhat of a following with this?
Yeah, it's gaining, I think it's at about a follow a day on average.
It's something like 70 people, I think.
That's great.
That's really wonderful.
On a personal note, are you familiar or do you know that I am writing a Bible commentary?
Yes, we have something I didn't mention before is we have monthly Zoom calls where the first one happened and we did Genesis 1 and 2 and the second one was Genesis 3 and 4 and somebody who comes to them has your Genesis Rational Bible.
Good.
You would love it, by the way, obviously, given your understanding of the Bible.
Do you go to church?
I try to.
The truth of the matter is that because my mom's Jewish and my dad's Christian, and that makes me halachically Jewish and spiritually somewhere in the middle.
So I've had somewhat of a difficulty discovering where I fit in that properly.
Yes, I would imagine so.
So do you on occasion go to synagogue as well, or how do you divide your house of prayer attendance?
I've tried both, and at times I've led more towards synagogue, and at times I've led more towards church.
Well, I'll tell you this on a very personal note.
I hope you read my Bible commentary.
I think you would love it, given your interests.
Well, all I can tell you is I thank God for these interviews during March and August when we fundraise for PragerU.
Because it gives people such hope for the future, meeting people like you.
I wish you good luck, and I am sure we will meet one day.
I hope that's the case.
I'm sorry they have to come to me for hope.
That is precious.
You may have a future in podcasting, or a wry...
Comedian.
In the best sense.
Elijah, good luck to you.
Thank you so much.
And folks, please remember whatever you give this week will be tripled.
PragerU.com Hey everybody, it's the Male Female Hour every Wednesday on the Dennis Prager Show, an exploration of men and women, their interactions, and their non-interactions for that matter.
I think it's the most honest talk about men and women in the American media.
I think.
I don't know it for a fact, but I don't know of anything quite as open.
And there are many reasons.
One, I am uninhibited about any subject, including sex.
Secondly, I am neither a man fan nor a woman fan.
I am a good person fan, and good people come in both varieties.
There are only two varieties, sexually speaking, male and female.
We live in a very dark age that is attempting to tell us one of the great lies of history, that sex is not binary.
So that's why it is the male-female hour, not the male-female and other hour, just for the record.
Sometimes I explore issues, and sometimes I offer my thoughts on issues, and then you react, challenge, agree, question.
But I have learned a great deal from my listeners on the Male-Female Hour, and it has been a very wonderful experience to have this hour for now.
I don't know, 15 years.
It's quite remarkable.
So today is an exploration question.
How many women think they're good-looking?
That's my question.
So I have a number of women in my life, and some of them are quite attractive.
And if you mention that...
They assume, or if anyone mentions that, well, it's the same as if you mention that, but I didn't mean if I mention it.
If anyone mentions it, they regard the person who said it as having been kind for saying that, but it does not register in them that it might be actually true.
So this is truly...
A question I have wanted to get an answer to, maybe I can get an answer by the end of the hour.
What percentage of women in our society, can't speak for other societies, think they're attractive?
Or even more remarkable, what percentage of women think they're very attractive or even beautiful?
Now, what percentage of women are very attractive?
I think certainly it's a bigger challenge to both men and women, obviously, as they age.
But let's say at age 40, let alone 30 or 20. So how many women of that age...
Think that they are particularly attractive.
If you get around at all, I mean if you have, let's say you attend banquets for some charity or whatever.
I obviously interact with more people than most people because of the public nature of my life.
I travel almost every week.
I speak in front of audiences.
And I sit at tables.
I meet, or I see, let's put it that way, a great many quite attractive women.
So I would say at age 40 in our society, I would say that 50% are attractive, 25% are very attractive, even verging on the beautiful.
Yet, what percentage of them, and by the way, it might be more than 50% on the attractive.
I'm trying to be conservative in my estimation.
But what percentage of them actually think of themselves in that way?
1-8 Prager, 7-7-6.
And what prevents a woman from thinking that way?
That's of as much interest to me as what percentage think of themselves in that way.
What prevents them?
There's a very famous cartoon of a man looking in the mirror, into the mirror, and a woman looking at the mirror.
And the man is overweight and, you know, not particularly good-looking in any way.
And he sees this fantastic-looking bodybuilder in the mirror.
The woman is particularly good-looking, and she sees this very flawed image in the mirror.
So putting aside what men see in the mirror versus what women see in the mirror, Don't women see that?
Why do they only see their flaws?
Now, it's fine to see your flaws, but if you only see that, you have a very inaccurate sense of your attractiveness.
And I'm not sure what the reason is.
I wonder, is it worse today because of the constant bombardment of extremely attractive women?
In social media and in other media, and then women compare themselves to this 1% of women, of the extremely attractive, if you will, on the scale of attractiveness, extremely very attractive, and so on.
And therefore, maybe there are more women today.
Who do not think of themselves as attractive because of the comparison nature of the term.
Everything is relative in that sense.
All adjectives are relative.
And is that the reason?
And again, I don't know the answer.
But I will tell you, it has just become an issue in my life because I see patterns.
That's my way of looking at life, to see patterns.
I understand the individual, and I want to understand the individual, but there are patterns in society, and I gravitate towards seeing the forest at least as much as the trees, another way of putting it.
And if I see a pattern, It is this pattern of how many attractive women do not think of themselves as such.
And if you say this to them, they will be very gracious.
And I'm not talking about men bothering women, let alone about harassment.
I'm talking about real life, even if a woman says it to her.
That she will simply think, oh, the person is just being very sweet, but it's just not true.
In my view, it's very worth in life having an accurate self-assessment.
You know that I don't believe in the self-esteem movement.
I believe that one should have as accurate a perception of oneself as possible.
If you are X, you should know you are X, and if you are not X, you should know you are not X. And I don't mean attractive, I mean it could be about anything.
You know where you excel, you know where you don't excel.
When the coach of my high school basketball team announced in the final day, and the final cuts were made, he announced, well...
We're not going to have a good year this year, it looks like, because we really scraped the bottom of the barrel.
Prager made the team.
So I've told that story on a number of occasions.
I made the team because I was the tallest kid in high school.
And I tell the story because I often want to make a point.
It's true I was insulted, although it didn't crush me.
But I remember thinking, the guy's right.
They did scrape the bottom of the barrel putting me on the team.
I'm Dennis Prager.
This is the Male Female Hour.
Why do so few women think that they are particularly or even attractive?
Maybe moderately so.
Why is that?
Is it built in?
Is there a certain modesty that is also built into women?
Because it may hold true for any positive trait.
Men compliment themselves, for example.
This is not a negative, it's just a description.
Not only much more, women don't.
Except in one arena, which I will get to.
But for example, it starts at a very young age when a boy...
If you're a boy, if you're a male, you totally relate to what I'm about to say.
And even many females, at least those who have raised boys, may also be familiar with this.
Let's say your son, let's say you are a boy and you're playing baseball, you're on a team, and you make a...
What is the term?
You make a good catch.
Is that correct?
You make a good catch?
Is that the term make?
I mean, I know baseball well, but for some reason, he made a great catch.
Is that the way we put it?
Yeah, all right.
So, you know, the boy will then yell out, Hey, did you see that?
Did you see that catch?
Did you see that pitch?
Did you see that kick?
Did you see that and whatever he did?
Girls would never do that.
Did you see what I just...
Did you see that?
So maybe there is a factor here.
Remember, I'm exploring an issue.
I have no agenda in this regard.
Well, I have a slight agenda.
I want women and men to have a realistic assessment of themselves positively and not positively.
I mean, know where they could work, do themselves.
Make an improvement in their lives, about their lives, and vice versa.
Where is there a strength?
Now, if you walk around thinking all day, I'm beautiful, it's not a good thing.
But if you never realize that you've been given a gift and just be grateful for it, or at least know you have it, it does seem a bit unrealistic not to be aware of it.
So, that is my question.
And let's go to Lucy in Gary, Indiana.
Hello, Lucy.
Hi there, Dennis.
I do love you.
I found this question very interesting.
You know, because as a youngster, I grew up in New York City, I never thought of myself as beautiful.
And it was totally, where did I get that from?
Well, my mother had never voiced that to me.
I will say that.
I was in a broken home.
My peers, from what, I was always outside the group.
I was always the one outside the group.
In the grade schools, you know, when they would give the kids, little boys would give, you know, do you like me or yes, no.
I never got that note, you know.
And there were others who did.
So to me, in my eyes as a youngster, those must be beautiful girls because the boys like them.
And so as I went through, I never started changing my view until in my 16th year when God came in my life.
And then...
As I read about God and His view of me, and as I was treated differently in church, I started thinking, well, maybe I am, but it really did become more important to me to become beauty from within.
You know, I got those rooms, and I grabbed them, and I thought, well, if I'm not beautiful outside, I can be beautiful from within.
And yet, my view of my actual physical being was because, again, of peer pressure from Christians.
Girls some, but boys more.
And then, of course, my husband, I'm married.
You know, three decades and over more now.
And he makes me feel beautiful.
And so I feel...
Now, when I look in the mirror now, do I say I'm beautiful?
I say, well, God, I must be good enough looking that I'm where I am.
And so thank you.
I could take no credit for how I was put together.
I didn't understand one thing.
How did becoming God-centered or religious, whatever term you wish to use, affect your view of yourself physically?
Correct.
Because, well...
I had never had a boyfriend per se.
Then there was a boy in the church.
He was in the choir.
I remember seeing him and thinking, wow, he is so handsome.
And then he started paying attention to me with no thing on my end why he would.
Okay, so I'm understanding better now.
By becoming, by finding God in your life, as it were, you became Correct.
Okay, fine.
I just wanted to make that clear because it didn't make sense to me and my preoccupation is making sense.
That was very interesting.
Okay, so...
Let's get some more thoughts here.
Okay, one moment.
Yeah.
Michelle in Colorado Springs.
Hello.
Hi, Dennis.
It's a pleasure to chat with you.
Thank you.
My thought is that because of human nature, women's looks are valued highly.
And there's nothing wrong with that.
That's just the way that we were built.
So society reflects that.
We tend to see the most beautiful women everywhere we look, whether it's on Instagram or the movies.
So I think that we have a very high standard to compare ourselves to.
And comparison, you know, sometimes you just can't help it.
Right.
I would say, interestingly.
Yes, so that makes perfect sense, and I suggested that too.
So, let me ask you.
Sorry.
Go ahead.
Do you think that in the past, More women thought they were attractive because there were no pictures, photos, Instagrams, etc.
I do, actually, because the only people that you compared yourself to was the people in your village.
And, you know, so you probably had a much more realistic sense of whether or not, you know, were you rated on the attractiveness scale.
And Dennis, I would be curious to hear if you think that there's an equivalent with men and income and success.
Yes, you're a bright woman.
You're a bright woman.
It's radio.
I can't comment on your looks.
But I can't comment on your intelligence.
Hi, everybody.
I'm Dennis Prager.
Wonderful to be with you.
USA Today has compiled a list of the outstanding women of 2023, one from each state and a few generalized states.
Women of the Year.
I have always looked with some contempt at all of these lists that are compiled.
I'm far more interested in pre-amplifier of the year, to be perfectly honest.
That would interest me much more than...
The man of the year, woman of the year, or whatever of the year.
In the case of USA Today, I checked out virtually every single one with the one-sentence or two-sentence bios.
You can read more on any of them if you want.
And virtually every single one is a left-wing activist.
So it doesn't matter what good you have accomplished or...
Anything else you've accomplished, if you are not a left-wing activist, USA Today does not consider you.
So my technical director asks, if gender doesn't matter, why do they even have the list?
Why do they call it?
Well, they...
Yeah, it is a tough question.
If sex is not binary, why is there a Women of the Year at all?
It should be Humans of the Year, many of whom happen to look like females.
By the way, the winner for Minnesota, a state that is truly competing with California for the most idiotic state in the Union, and that is not an easy win.
It's a tough, tough one.
And Washington and Oregon are certainly in the mix.
The Oregon Education Department, you will recall, announced last year that in Oregon schools, the idea that there is one correct answer in math is white supremacist.
Yeah, that's the Oregon Education Department.
And when we mock that, We are called anti-education.
So the winner, USA Today's Woman of the Year for Minnesota, is actually a trans woman.
And this person transitioned from male to female.
A transition I don't believe is possible, just for the record.
It's either possible or not possible.
Can the person subjectively do that?
The person could subjectively do anything.
You can transition from white to black or black to white psychologically.
But you don't become one because you think you are.
And the differences between the sexes are much greater than the differences between the races.
Anyway, USA Today picked a...
A person who was a male until five years ago.
And many people on Twitter have said this is a further blow against women.
Women, you're not really women.
Because what you think constitutes your womanhood is shared by men who think that they are women or say they are women.
So the person is a Lee Fink.
L-E-I-G-H F-I-N-K-E And this person is in the Minnesota House of Representatives.
Won by an astounding 80 plus percent according to USA Today.
Well, I guess the transgendered are quite popular in Minnesota.
But the one that I want to bring to your attention because of a theme that I have talked about, oh, a fair number of times in the past, is the adulation of young people on the part of people on the left.
So the winner, yes, I read virtually every winner's little bio.
The winner from Minnesota, excuse me, from Nebraska.
The woman of the year from Nebraska is Nikki Clark.
This is what is written under Nikki Clark's photo.
She says young people, quote, have the answers.
They have the solutions.
I'll just continue.
There's one more sentence in the summary of the person's outlook on life.
In USA Today, which is just a left-wing daily sheet, through her work with a non-profit, Focused on empowering young people, she's determined to elevate their voices.
This is classic.
Let me understand the nonprofit.
Empowering young people.
Hmm.
Why would you want to empower young people?
Why would you even say, it's an amazing quote, that young people have the answers, they have the solutions?
Why would an adult say that?
And I have the answer.
Because adults who say that do not have any more wisdom than children.
So they think children have the answers because they are indistinguishable from children.
That aside from politics, politics is the...
Primary reason that Democrats want to make the vote available to younger and younger people because they will get more and more votes that way.
But aside from that, this notion of you have so much to learn from young people, which is not true.
It's just not true.
Unless you are a wisdom...
What would be the word?
Absent.
A wisdom absent adult, which is most adults, unfortunately.
Especially those who graduate college, which is the anti-wisdom center.
You know, people ask me very often what influenced me in my life.
So here's one of my answers.
I grew up in a traditionally religious Jewish home, and I established one for my children as well.
And anyone who has attended a Shabbat dinner, a Friday night dinner at any Jew's home, will know that it goes on for many hours.
Because the beauty of the Sabbath is there's nothing to go to, and especially if you don't rely on electronic entertainment, which we didn't.
You just sit there and talk.
I think I learned how to think clearly in part at the Shabbat dinner table in my parents' house.
And I'll give you an example.
There were just two of us, my older brother, six years older, and I. Six years is a lot of time when you are young.
It's the difference between college and elementary school.
Pretty big difference.
Anyway, my father and my brother would often have these big discussions at the Shabbat table.
And finally, when I thought I was ready, I offered my opinion.
I don't know how old I was.
12, 13, I don't know.
But I offered my opinion, and I don't remember the exact word my father said, but he said, Dennis, that's nonsense.
And it was one of the best things ever said to me because I learned to critique my thought before I spoke.
That was an incredibly important lesson.
There was no sense in my family that because you were young, we're going to take your ideas seriously.
Now, I wasn't insulted.
I wasn't humiliated.
That's wrong, obviously.
But there was not a smidgen of thought, oh, you're young, whoa, you've got really important things to say.
I mean, if you have important things to say at 15, I would presume you'll have even more important things to say at 35. You're not going to stay in the same spot, presumably.
So this woman...
Her whole thing and USA Today and the whole left, they are crazy about kids.
Never trust anyone over 30. That was the motto of my moronic baby boomer generation when we were young.
a lot more on this coming up.
So there is a fixation on youth because there is no fixation on wisdom on the left.
If there were, there would be no left.
Wherever there is wisdom, there is no leftism.
There can be liberalism and there can be conservatism, but there cannot be leftism.
And wisdom is generally regarded as more likely in adults than in children.
There are wise children because they were given wisdom.
I wrote a column on this.
I don't know, in the last six months, that offered the idea that there was more wisdom in my elementary school or my high school, I think I wrote high school, than on the faculty of almost any university of this country, including elite, prestigious schools like Stanford.
Again, I wrote, and I believe, That I and many of my classmates at Yeshiva, a Jewish religious school, had more wisdom as juniors in high school than the faculty of Stanford University.
And the reason is we were taught wisdom and these secular people were not.
So part of this wisdom issue...
Is the adulation of youth.
So I was reading the bios of the Women of the Year nominees from each state, from USA Today, virtually all of whom, as I noted to you, are left-wing activists.
But this woman really struck me, the bio, and I will read it to you once more.
And, okay, she disappeared for a moment.
Come back, Ms. Kelly.
No, no, Ms. Clark.
Nikki Clark of Nebraska.
She says, young people have the answers, they have the solutions.
Now, that's amazing.
Young people rarely have the answers and solutions that have eluded adults.
But to people with little wisdom, kids have an equal amount of wisdom.
That's why it was...
Generally, liberal activists who wanted the voting age changed from 21 to 18. I didn't, and I was 18 at the time.
I remember, and I've mentioned this, I said to my girlfriend at the time, and I was a freshman in college, I said to her, why are they giving me the vote?
I don't know anything.
I remember saying that to her, and I... It wasn't some great outburst of humility.
It was just a fact.
And by the way, I was an avid reader.
But I just assumed that people three years older knew more and could vote more intelligently.
Through her work with a non-profit focused on empowering young people.
That scares me.
Empowered young people?
Whoa!
Really?
And give me examples in history where empowering young people led to a better and kinder and finer and wiser society.
Not sure I know where that might have been.
Tyrannies empower young people, that I do know.
Komsomol, the Soviet Youth League, the Hitler Youth in Germany.
And so on.
She's determined to elevate their voices.
The last thing kids need to think is that they are repositories of great insight.
What you do is you produce leftists because of the narcissism at the root of leftism.
I'll give you another example of this I did last week.
The lieutenant governor of, oh my God, I can't believe it.
Will it be Minnesota?
Oh, yes.
A truly benighted state.
The lieutenant governor is Peggy Flanagan.
Good parents believe kids when they, quote, tell us who they are.
That's right.
That's a fascinating thing.
That was her message.
You want to play it, Sean?
This is the Lieutenant Governor of Minnesota.
Because, let's be clear, this is life-affirming and life-saving health care.
When our children tell us who they are, it is our job as grown-ups to listen and to believe them.
That's so interesting, isn't that?
I thought the job of a grown-up was, in fact, to offer their best insights into life to them.
So if your 10-year-old daughter says she's a boy, that's what a good parent does.
You believe them.
I believe you're a boy.
Okay.
We'll see in the long run whether that was a truly good response on the part of parents.
Certainly every left-wing parent believes that, and probably most liberals as well.
I don't think most conservative parents think that if your daughter says she's a boy, your response must be, of course you're a boy.
Why would I think anything else?
I want to tell you something.
If all the adults in children's lives today said no, you are...
What your sex is.
You are a boy and God, if you believe in God, or nature, if you believe in nature, made you that way.
And that's it.
There's no such thing as becoming the other sex.
If you have emotional, psychological, or mental issues, let's treat them.
But we're not going to cut off your genitals or your breasts.
We're not going to give you hormone blockers.
The fact is, you're a girl.
That is, in most cases, the best response of a loving parent.
If the whole parental role is to listen to what your kids say, what the hell do we need parents for?
We shall return momentarily.
1-8 Prager 776. The Dennis Prager Show.
Yeah, this is fundraising month.
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So I'm looking at the USA Today winners of Women of the Year, one from each state.
So the nominees for, I guess, the national title.
And the one from Nebraska, I thought was a perfect example of how left-wing people think.
She says, young people have the answers, they have the solutions.
Through her work with a non-profit focused on empowering young people, she's determined to elevate their voices.
What we need are elevated voices.
What they need is wisdom, kids.
Direction.
Not, we need to hear what you have to say.
Sorry.
We need to hear what they have to say only to know how we can help them develop.
But not because they have the solutions.
By the way, I looked on the list.
I always get a kick out of these things.
So I want you to know about the winner from Oregon.
Her name is Tiquette Bramlett.
T-I-Q-U-E-T-T-E. Which is an incredible coincidence because my technical director's sister is named Tiquette and I never met another Tiquette.
How is Tiquette, Sean?
No, it's not a place.
It's a name of a person.
Okay.
By the way, he doesn't have a sister named Tiquette.
I never met at Tiquette, but that's fine.
It doesn't matter.
I just, I love names, and I'm commenting.
My comment is not about her name.
My comment is about the brief bio underneath her name, why she was nominated by USA Today, a bastion of depth, to be the...
Woman of the Year from the state of Oregon.
The first black woman appointed to oversee a U.S. winery.
This has caused a certain degree of mirth in the engineer's studio.
Do you realize The left, if they didn't do so much damage, would be a joke.
The woman is the first black woman to be appointed to oversee a U.S. winery.
OMG! Words elude me.
This is a moment that America must celebrate.
I'm not mocking her at all, by the way.
I'm mocking USA Today, just for the record.
Wow.
Well, I will say this, though.
We've really not reached left-wing nirvana quite yet.
She may be the first black woman to oversee a U.S. winery, but there's still more glass ceilings to be broken.
There are still more.
Because we need the first black lesbian to oversee a U.S. winery.
That has not yet happened.
And that is reason for some degree of despair and hope at the same time since we are shattering glass ceilings.
USA Today is pathetic.
But they live in their hermetically sealed universe wherein that is the reason to be honored.
As the Woman of the Year from Oregon.
I will note, of course, that I think I read or at least skimmed the bios of all 50 winners, and I came across none with any religious affiliation.
Because in the world of the left, somebody who has done something in Christian or Jewish life religiously oriented is a waste.
The person is regarded essentially as a superstitious fool on the left.
So there isn't one of the 50 that does anything religiously oriented.
1-8 Prager 776 Dennis Prager here.
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