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April 4, 2023 - Dennis Prager Show
01:23:52
Can’t Happen Here
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Dennis Prager here.
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Hello everybody, I'm Dennis Prager.
My column comes out on Tuesdays, and today is Tuesday.
And it is titled, Could it Happen Here?
It is Already Happening.
My whole life I've heard that question, could it happen here?
And the reference was to, generally was to Nazism, but basically to the end of democracy, freedom in the United States.
And I always felt it could not, I mean, I knew theoretically it could happen because human beings are human beings and human nature is not basically good.
Nevertheless, I, like most Americans, walk through life quite confident that the land of the free, the home of the free and the land of the brave would continue to be at least the land of the free.
It's not the home of the brave in many instances, and it is not the land of the free, and it is happening in real time.
We are becoming like the Soviet Union.
This is not in any way at all an exaggeration.
I took a vow never to exaggerate because you lose your credibility over time.
I have 40 years of broadcasting.
As a record of telling the truth, not overstating, in fact, trying always to understate and to calm people's fears.
However, right now, we are sliding into a Soviet-like system, and the parallels are frightening.
We even have, and I can't believe I didn't put this in my column, we have political prisoners.
Which I also never...
When the left would say political prisoners, I always defended the United States and saying that is not something we have.
It is something we have now.
Joe Biden would be completely comfortable in a Soviet Union setting.
And so would Kamala Harris.
So would most of the members of the Democratic Party in Congress and in the gubernatorial positions.
The press functions the way the Soviet press functioned, as a mouthpiece for the ruling party.
And now the ultimate, the arrest on completely spurious charges.
The man gave a hundred-something thousand dollars to a woman to not talk about an alleged tryst that they had.
That is it.
That's what we're talking about.
When you want to jail your opponents, you'll find anything because you have the government's power behind you.
You can find anything.
There's an old phrase in the legal profession that you can indict a ham sandwich.
In other words, anybody is indictable.
That includes any one of you listening and me.
It is actually difficult to overstate what the left is doing to the United States in converting it into a Soviet-like country.
Thank you.
1A Prager 776. It's very difficult to know exactly what to do.
We have to change minds.
That's why I work so feverishly at this broadcast in my writing at PragerU.
But 45% of young people in this country, as I reported a couple of years ago, say that they are not for free speech for hate speech.
So they are the perfect product of a communist system.
We say what is hate speech and then we ban it.
And you're okay with it.
That's the way it works.
In fact, to this day, Putin speaks of misinformation just the way the Democratic Party and the New York Times speak of misinformation.
It means whatever we don't want you to know.
That's what misinformation means.
Whatever we on the left do not want you to know.
That is the current definition of misinformation.
It is a very bad day in America, and I don't know how many Americans perceive how serious it is.
The tragedy, as always, is that liberals do not.
Liberals will be crushed by the left when they come to even more power, and they will wonder, hmm, how did this happen?
I thought the right was the enemy, which is the great idiocy of the liberal.
They're still fighting Republicans while the left crushes them and everything they purportedly stand for.
Sorry to be this dark about the situation right now.
You have two choices in life, and that is to fight or to check out.
That's it.
It's not a fight we wanted, it is not one we started, but it is one that has come our way.
And that is what you need to do.
Ideally, you get your kids out of the schools that are poisoning their minds, their souls, their hearts, their consciences, their ability to think.
Most schools are worse than wastelands.
They are poisonous.
It's an astonishing thing.
However, we sold our soul in the early 20th century when we said that the government should educate our children.
That was when we sold our soul.
You're supposed to educate your children, and if you cannot personally do it, then you get people you trust to do it, which is what was done until the 20th century.
If you read the letters, Of Civil War soldiers back home, you will read an English that is superior in people who never went to high school than the English that is written by most college students today.
And in any event, they won't even have to write it.
They'll just go to ChatGPT or some other artificial intelligence site and say, write me up a paper.
On 18th century France and the roots of the French Revolution.
And the paper will write it.
And the college student will change some words so it isn't obvious that they got the same exact answer as the next guy.
And that will be their education.
The speed with which a society...
The freest in history could be crushed, could lose its freedom, is quite astonishing, I guess.
But Ronald Reagan said it, we are always one generation away from losing freedom.
The arrest of a former president and the leading presidential candidate of the opposition party.
It's supported by the New York Times, the Washington Post, the LA Times, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, the Seattle Intelligencer, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
In other words, every Boston Globe, every major newspaper, every major network except for Fox.
They actually support it.
Why wouldn't they?
They'd oppose the arresting.
Of dissidents in the Soviet Union.
Wow!
That's the response that is appropriate here.
1-8 Prager 776 if you'd like to react to this.
877-243-7776 Do not follow your hearts after which you prostitute yourself.
A great warning of the Bible that if you think emotionally, you will prostitute yourself.
That's the real Hebrew.
They don't translate it accurately most of the time because it's too tough, it's too rough, it's too raw, but it's too accurate.
That is exactly what people on the left and the liberals who vote for them have done.
They have decided to act On emotion.
You don't like Donald Trump?
Okay, I get it.
I actually do.
In many ways, he does things that don't make him likable.
No question about it.
There is no filter between his brain and his mouth.
Everybody should have one.
So what?
So therefore, you could subvert Basic traditions of a free country and arrest the head of the opposition while running for president?
Do you understand that we are no different than a Venezuela or a Cuba?
No, you don't.
Not if you're on the left.
Not if you're even a liberal.
I had Alan Dershowitz on yesterday.
He wrote a very courageous book, Get Trump.
That's what it is.
Get Trump.
If on the way to getting Trump you crush the country, so be it.
Your hatred of Trump trumps everything.
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All right, everybody.
1-8 to Prager 776 is the number.
Okay.
Oh, good.
Let's see here.
Frank in Los Angeles.
Hello.
Hello, Dennis.
I just wanted to thank you for opening my eyes to the public school situation around here.
I had no idea it was as bad as it was.
And because of you listening to your show for these past couple of years, I convinced my grandchildren, well, my children to take their children, my grandchildren, out of the public school and put them in the local Christian school here.
Boy, what a difference it's made ever since even September.
I wish I would have known this years ago.
How old are they?
Thank you.
You're welcome.
How old are they?
Oh, both boys are in third grade right now, but I wish I would have known.
Okay, believe me, it's not too late.
Is teaching true values?
Oh, yes.
Okay, so it's a Christian school.
Is it a Catholic school or an evangelical generally would be the alternative school?
What is it?
It's a Catholic school.
Well, I'm so happy to hear that.
You should send me a cigar.
The best.
The best.
You should send me the best cigar.
My friend, you made my day.
When I say these things, I hope they happen.
He disappeared.
Okay.
I hope they happen.
The most rapid thing we can do to turn the country around is to take our children out of the schools.
That includes most private schools.
Are you still there?
I don't see you up.
This is very weird.
Folks, what line is Frank on here?
There is no Frank.
Well, how did I just hear him?
Okay, it wasn't Frank.
Fair enough.
That is the fastest remedy, is to get out of the school system.
Look, there are two Americas that have nothing in common with one another.
I'll tell you what really annoys me.
And there are many, many people who are conservative who say this as well.
You know, deep down we have much more that unites us than divides us.
When I hear that, and I heard that from a wonderful human being just the other day, it is another proof that people believe what they want to believe.
In reality, it's very painful.
People believe, it's like women want to believe that, or a lot of women, certainly feminists, that men are really just like them.
They just have different body parts because they don't want to confront the reality of the makeup of men, especially in the sexual nature arena.
Men have to confront that.
In themselves, that is a burden that every man carries.
Gay is well as straight.
It's irrelevant in that regard.
Whom the focus of your erotic attention is, that is what men are.
They're not women with different body parts.
I should write an article on what people believe because they want to believe it.
Well, people who believe that people are basically good.
They want to believe it.
It is an idiotic.
It means that you either know nothing about the world or you live in a little cocoon of sweet people and think the world is like that.
And people want to believe that we have more in common with our fellow American on the other side than we have that divides us.
Really, tell me what do I have in common with the left?
Name me one important value.
Well, I can think of one.
A leftist thinks he should take care of his family, and so does a conservative.
There's one.
When I ask these questions, they're not necessarily rhetorical.
Of course, taking care of a family, or even what the family ought to be, I believe the ideal family is a man and a woman who are married and have children after they marry.
To say that on any campus today is to be accused of heteronormative homophobia.
Yes, indeed, I got my terms down.
Heteronormative patriarchy, in fact.
To say that the ideal family, which of course was said throughout Western history and in the United States as well, so we would agree, yes, that we have in common.
But so what?
A communist and a fascist and a Nazi also thinks he should take care of his family.
So it doesn't mean a damn thing that we have that in common.
We all believe that we should feed ourselves.
But in the realm of ideology and ideas, what do we have in common?
And the answer is nothing.
First thing to do, if you're a grandparent, you should offer your child money if you have it.
If you don't have it, you can't offer it.
That's a given.
You should offer your child money.
You take the time to take your child out.
By the way...
Homeschooling is not what it used to be.
You choose how much involvement as a parent you have in the education of your child if you homeschool your child.
There are so many resources now available, including joining groups where the teachers, they will find teachers.
You don't have to be your child's teacher.
Obviously, you will have more time with your child.
And I know from years and years of experience with homeschooled kids, overwhelmingly, they turn out happier, finer, kinder, and far, far more intelligent in terms of knowledge.
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Hi, everybody.
Dennis Prager.
There's a caller.
He obviously hugged up.
Not obviously.
Obviously to me.
Not to you.
Said...
If I have it correctly in my memory, something to the effect, well, was Hitler a political prisoner after the Bear Hall Putsch, the attempt to overthrow the government?
Was he a political prisoner?
No, he committed a criminal act to overthrow the government.
I don't know what the parallel is to Donald Trump.
paying a sum of money to a porn actress with whom he allegedly had a tryst.
The confusion that people have on issues is a very important subject in my mind. .
It happens to people that are my allies ideologically as well on occasion.
There are wonderful people, truly my ideological allies, kindred spirits, on a religious subject who will say that, for example, when I state that there are gradations of sin, that God does not see Taking a stapler from the office in the same light as molesting a child.
And all through my career, people have called fine people and have said, no, in God's eyes, a sin is a sin.
All is rebellion against God.
So...
I have come in the course of my life to appreciate the value of common sense.
What is common sense?
It's the ability to see reality and to draw logical conclusions.
Is it really logical that God has the same reaction to molesting a child as to stealing a stapler?
Why did he give us a brain if we are to think so radically different from God?
If you don't see the difference between January 6th and Hitler's putsch, then there's no hope.
There's no hope for you because what you have done is you have decided what you want to believe and then you believe it.
That is a phrase that I have offered because I have learned this from this phenomenal laboratory of human thought called Talk Radio.
As I have put it for my whole career, people believe what they want to believe.
Not all people, thank God, but most people.
They believe what they want to believe.
It's a good test for one's You should ask yourself, on any controversial issue, what do I want to believe?
That's easy.
That's really easy.
It's a great little exercise everyone should engage in on any given issue.
What do I want to believe?
That immediately sets you up for the pursuit of Rational judgment and truth.
What do I want to believe?
The left wants to believe that Trump is a fascist.
So they believe it.
There is zero evidence of it.
He was president for four years.
Freedom in America increased.
Freedom in America under the Democrats decreases.
I don't want to believe that.
In fact, I would like to not believe that.
That's what people need to do.
What do I want to believe?
I want to believe that men and women are basically the same, so I believe it.
I want to believe America is systemically racist, so I believe it.
I want to believe that if there's racist graffiti on a black kid's dorm room on the door, then it was done by a white supremacist.
People want to believe it.
But it turns out to usually, on a college campus, be a hoax.
It was not done by a white supremacist.
It wasn't even done usually by a white.
Hi there, everybody.
Dennis Prager here.
And North Hills, California.
Frank, hello.
Yeah.
You act like Bragg indicted Trump.
A grand jury did after hearing evidence from both sides and arguments from both sides.
It was a typical trial, in other words.
You know, well, the trial is actually about to begin.
But I will say this.
This is the least of the charges.
The soliciting voter fraud in Georgia is a slam dunk.
How did he solicit voter fraud in Georgia?
You haven't heard the phone call of Raffensperger?
Yeah, I heard them.
So since we both heard it, tell me why...
Yes, find me, find me.
How does that fraud?
He believes there was fraud, so he wants him to find the fraudulent votes or the non-counted votes.
Did he coerce him?
What did he do that is fraudulent?
He tried to pressure him.
He tried to pressure him, if you listen to the conversation.
So I see.
He tried pressuring him.
And how did he pressure him?
By doing what?
Yes, he said there could be problems for you.
Right.
Okay.
Okay.
So, okay, now, the fact is that they've been, first to begin with, the whole thing is absurd.
What, I'm sorry, what is the...
Can I finish what I'm saying?
No, I don't understand what you said.
I'm only asking you to be of service to yourself.
When you say the whole thing...
I'm trying to talk and you're interrupting me.
I know, in order to understand.
I don't know what you're referring to when you say the whole thing is absurd.
At the time of Carasenberger call, all the fraud had been discredited, all the claims.
I don't believe what you're saying to be true.
Too honorable, I believe you're honorable, I believe I'm honorable.
If you think that there was no fraud in the 2020 elections, we have a different perception of reality.
Okay, can I say a couple things here?
Yes, totally.
Probably a minute.
Please.
Okay, all right.
Christopher Krebs, a Republican and Trump appointee and Director of Cybersecurity and Technology, said this was the most secure election in American history.
Do you believe that?
Do you believe that?
Do you believe that one month?
Wait, can I talk too?
I just want to know, do you believe that for the first time, We have had a month of sending out millions of ballots, as opposed to one election day, and you are telling me that, and no voter ID in many states, you're telling me that was the most secure election in American history?
We don't have the results at night.
When we did it in 1960, we had the results that night.
Why does it take days?
Okay.
In fact, the ballots are sent out.
We're not supposed to Republicans and Democrats.
And there were some states, a limited number of states, that sent out ballots, whether they request not, to all registered voters.
But that's, okay, can I finish what I was saying?
Okay, it wasn't only Krebs, it was William Barr, you know, who had been Trump's lapdog up to that point, who Trump insisted on having him conduct an extensive investigation into possible voter fraud.
And Barr said there was nothing that would have made any difference in the election.
Okay.
Wait, wait, wait.
Make a difference in the election is not the same as there was no fraud.
But okay, let me just ask you one question.
No, no, no, no, no, no.
You keep saying let me finish.
No, no, allow me to ask.
If you don't allow me to ask a question, I'm going to put you on hold.
I feel bad.
You spoke about four times more than I, which is fine.
You're the caller.
I just want to ask you a question.
Do you think that it is good for America...
That this man is indicted for a payment to a woman to hush money over an affair.
Just tell me, do you think it is good for America?
I'm not going to argue with you.
I just want to know how you think.
Are you happy that it is happening, or do you think it is a tragedy for America, or something in between?
No, it wouldn't be good if he was indicted for paying hush money, because that's not illegal.
He's being indicted for things related to that.
Like what?
Like what?
We'll find out, because we haven't heard the charges.
Oh, I see.
So as of now, you're agnostic on whether it is good for America or not.
Is that correct?
No, not at all, because I think that this man was totally corrupt.
He's crass.
Serial lying, infantile name-calling, power-crazed evil maniac who lied about the election because he couldn't stand losing.
All right.
Okay.
Fair enough.
Now, I'm very happy you called.
I really am.
I'm not being at all sarcastic.
Frank and 100 million other Americans, it's a lot of people, hate Donald Trump, and that is what matters.
That is all that matters.
If there could be some extraterrestrial judge with no emotion to come in and see who is a bigger liar, Joe Biden or Donald Trump, there is no doubt in my mind Biden is the serial liar of the two people.
That the left is the world of the lie, like the Russian collusion story.
Columbia Journalism Review, the most prestigious journalism school in the country, to my shock, came out with a report a couple of months ago that the entire thing was a gigantic lie, that the New York Times and Washington Post did not deserve Pulitzer Prizes for lying about Russian collusion with the Trump campaign.
There was nothing on the Republican side, nothing in the Trump era.
Nothing in Trump's life that is even comparable to the gigantic nature of that lie that preoccupied this country for two years.
It is a gigantic lie that men give birth.
It is a gigantic lie that this is a systemically racist country.
We are bathing in left-wing lies.
And one of them is that Trump is a serial liar.
He's a serial exaggerator.
On mostly trivial matters, one might add.
That no judge would hear any evidence of any fraud means that they didn't give a damn about hearing evidence.
Why didn't one judge in Pennsylvania say, you can come into my court.
Let's air this thing out.
It's good for the country.
Not one did.
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Hi there, everybody.
I'm Dennis Bringer. - I'm not sure.
And we are moving toward the Sovietization of the United States.
I obviously understand that I risk some degree of credibility by saying that.
And all you have as a public writer or writer or speaker on current issues is credibility.
If you lose that, you're gone.
It is like...
Not being able to throw a ball if you're a pitcher.
So I'm aware of the seriousness of the charge that we are moving toward a Sovietization of American life.
See my column today.
It is on that subject.
Do you realize what has happened here?
Sure.
An ex-president, the previous president to this one, and the leading candidate for nomination to be president is being arrested over trivia, which is the way all punks run authoritarian regimes.
Alvin Bragg is a punk, and the people who support him Are doing so because they hate Donald Trump.
Some may have a more, actually, some may have an additional, I shouldn't say more, but additional motive.
There may be a belief on the left that one of the only candidates who could not win the general election, given the unpopularity, Of Biden and the Democrats is Donald Trump.
That is not, unfortunately, a stupid notion.
I do worry about that.
I would support my whole thesis is that defeating the left is the most important moral imperative in America today, the most important moral imperative in the world today.
And somebody asked me a question, a very intelligent person, I don't even remember who it was, I just remember it was an intelligent person, who asked me this.
What group of Americans has been added to the list of Trump supporters, of Trump voters?
It's an interesting question because if there isn't one, it is a difficult road to victory if he is the nominee.
What if there is?
What if there are?
If there are groups?
Yeah.
Oh, then he'll win.
Okay.
Yeah.
I'm posing the question.
It would be interesting to hear from listeners.
Do you believe that Donald Trump has added any given group?
It would have to be, let's say, blacks, women.
Suburban moms, soccer moms as they say, Hispanics.
He got 75 million votes.
Yes, he got 75 million votes.
Which is more votes than any candidate in the history of the country ever got except one.
Right.
It's more votes.
My producer is correct in every sense.
I'm asking the question.
It's more votes than any...
More than Obama, more than Reagan.
Well, there's a lot more Americans now than Reagan.
But in any event, it is true.
It is true.
If he's the nominee, I will do whatever in my power that God gives me to persuade people to vote for him.
But I do believe that there are...
Do you believe that there are Democrats who think that he would be an easier person to defeat than some of the other candidates?
Okay, so then I return to my theory that there may be a darker thing here at work than the already dark thing here at work, which is simply arresting him.
And that is that...
He will be rendered so popular among people who so resent what is being done to the country by doing this to Donald Trump that he will just simply be the nominee.
He went from being ahead by single digits in polls To now about 30 to 40% lead over any other possible Republican candidate.
I do not think that that is an impossible scenario at work here.
Anyway, I'm just offering it.
It doesn't matter, because the upshot is an unprecedented event.
And you must understand, like in so many third-world autocracies, the charges are either trumped up or they're just trivial.
They're just a way to jail your opponent.
That's what it is.
He didn't declare as a...
This is what we know.
I know, we're going to see...
What is it, 31?
Charges?
34. 34 charges.
You should have all heard my interview with Alan Dershowitz yesterday, lifelong liberal, lifelong Democrat, the best-known law professor in the United States from Harvard Law.
He was the youngest person at the time to ever achieve full status as a professor at Harvard Law School.
And he is as disgusted as I am as what is happening to the country.
Because he doesn't fall into the trap that I spoke of last hour and I believe it is worthy of noting again.
People tend to believe what they want to believe.
And I offered a very interesting test for all of you as I should indeed incorporate it in me.
And that test is Ask yourself about any issue.
What do I want to believe?
That should be easy.
And then ask, is it true?
I want to believe X. Do I believe X because I want to believe it?
Let's leave the political realm.
I'll give an example.
I want to believe there is a God.
I don't want to believe that...
Life is completely pointless, meaningless.
Suffering is, for the vast majority of humans, their lot.
Then they drop dead.
And there is nothing for eternity.
Everyone you have loved, it is the end for eternity.
It's over.
And as I said, it is all a meaningless, self-conscious nonsense.
Okay?
So I want to believe there is a God.
So then I've always asked myself, is that why I believe there is a God?
And to the best of my ability to think rationally, it is not the reason I believe in a God.
Because I have been able to separate the two.
This is why I want to believe in God, and this is why I do believe in God.
They're not the same.
People on the left believe what they want to believe.
Their whole existence is believing what they want to believe.
They want to believe men and women are basically the same.
They want to believe in non-binary human beings in terms of sexual identity.
They want to believe there's no such thing as objective male or objective female.
Of course, the whole thing is not true.
It is a gigantic lie, but they believe what they want to believe.
Now, why do you want to believe something that doesn't exist anywhere else in the animal kingdom except perhaps over some unbelievably primitive species under the ocean?
Is there any mammal?
Forget primate.
Is there any mammal that is non-binary?
Right?
Are bulls and cows, bulls and cows, male and female?
Of course not.
Only humans.
And the people who believe that humans are just another animal, they have to really confront this.
You want to believe Trump is a fascist, so you believe Trump is a fascist.
He was president for four years, there was no fascism.
There's much more fascism today.
That's what I mean.
People believe what they want to believe.
It's a very important exercise if you care about truth, which is the most important thing that exists.
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Scranton, Pennsylvania.
Tony, hello.
Hello, Tony.
Can you hear me, Dennis?
Now I can, yes.
Thank you.
All right.
Hi, Dennis.
How you doing?
I just want to...
I feel like I'm having my daily counseling session with Dennis Prager, so it's kind of cool.
And I'll be listening to you.
Thank you.
I'm not...
I was wavering on the Trump support because of all the garbage bags he has on them.
But now after this, I'm going to go out and put my bumper stickers all over my truck like I did in 2016, and I'm all in.
Because, Dennis, if they came after your family like they're coming after his family, I'd be like a Wolverine.
I would really be going after him.
How do you feel about that?
If they were coming after your family like this with the full-throated federal government?
Well, you don't even need the family part.
I mean, just coming after him for what?
Right, exactly.
That's exactly my point.
That's why I'm total support for him now.
All right.
That's right.
You represent a lot of people.
Totally understandably.
The attack isn't on Trump.
The attack is on America.
It's actually, the only good thing thus far about all of this is the further clarification as to the communist-like fervor of the major newspapers of the country.
The immediate support for this in the New York Times.
It's so interesting.
The same people who say to us, hey, why are you opposed to this?
You don't even see the content of the indictment.
But they're supporting it without seeing the content of the indictment.
It is astonishing.
You can support Bragg without seeing the indictment, but you can't oppose Bragg without seeing the indictment.
That is the intellectual level and the moral level of the New York Times editorial page.
I've said to you so often, and it's a very, very sad part of my life.
I studied Russian in order to read Pravda.
I was at the Russian Institute at Columbia University in graduate school.
I wanted to understand the enemy.
I never thought that I would apply it to American newspapers.
Pulitzer Prize given.
For lies by the Washington Post and New York Times about Russian collusion.
Columbia Journalism Review.
Astonishing because the Columbia School of Journalism is quite on the left.
So I'm happy to report a rare moment of light in the liberal or leftist world.
A devastating attack.
Critique.
Of the reporting of the mainstream media on the Russian collusion issue.
To the best of my knowledge, the New York Times has never even reported the Columbia Journalism Review report of it.
Why would it?
Yes, it's a clarifying moment if you don't understand this as an attack.
Most people are living their lives going on as normal.
If I am right about the Sovietization of the United States, it really does make clear to me how this could happen in any country.
How truly, truly destructive evil forces can take over and people watch it happen and watch a movie that night.
People believe what they want to believe.
I should add now a corollary.
And they don't believe what they don't want to believe.
That's what we're seeing.
You don't want to believe how bad this is for America.
That's why it is important to know how much support Bragg is getting from the New York Times, Washington Post.
And the rest of the media.
They're collaborating in the destruction of this country.
Hillary Clinton did much worse things, and I would not have gloated if she were sent to prison.
It was enough for me that she lost the election.
A woman whose conscience, in my opinion, Effective.
How's that for an understated comment?
Victor in Chicago.
Hello.
Hi.
Hi, Dennis.
Hi.
Hi.
My question is this.
You know, with the media being so far to one side, 80-90% to one side, You know, CBS, NBC, Washington Post, whatever.
How can a constitutional republic survive if these multibillion-dollar corporations, almost omnipotent, you know, unaccountable to anybody?
What chances does a republic have if they're not putting out the news the way they're supposed to be putting out the news?
I mean, what chance do we have in the long term?
As educated as they used to be.
What chance do we have?
So, that's a very fair question.
You're listening to one of those chances, talk radio.
Talk radio reaches more people by an exponential figure than Fox News, for example.
Obviously, this is not a critique.
Of Fox News' effects and influence.
It's just a fact.
PragerU has over a billion views a year.
65% of them are under 35. The Daily Wire has an enormous, enormous reach.
TPUSA has an enormous reach on college campuses.
And I'm only mentioning a few.
However, it is true that when the mainstream media are all in one direction and do not give you the news truthfully because they believe what they want to believe and they print what they want to print, and with corporations giving hundreds of millions of dollars to left-wing groups, And almost nothing to conservative groups?
Yes, the odds are against us.
But the worst is big tech and all the left censoring.
If they allowed dissent, even if they were all left-wing, New York Times down and up, it is the suppression of...
Alternate voices.
Why it's so important that Elon Musk got Twitter.
That is truly the road to the Sovietization of the country.
The suppression of dissent.
And again, the political prisoners.
He asked if there's hope.
Of course there's hope.
Back in a moment.
The Dennis Prager Show.
Hello, everybody.
It's the Ultimate Issues Hour.
It's Tuesday.
Thank God for it, because it forces me to talk about something other than the darkness of the arresting of an ex-president and leading candidate of the opposition, just like in third-world dictatorships.
Just like.
There is no difference whatsoever.
None.
The charges are trivial.
It is just to humiliate or incapacitate politically opposition.
So I'm leaving that, and we're going to talk about something completely nonpolitical, which I raised, interestingly, during the previous two hours.
It came up.
And it's a very important subject to me.
I've talked about it periodically all of my life, all of my public life.
And it could go under the heading of things religious people believe that have no religious basis, from my perspective or my knowledge.
Certainly no biblical basis.
For example, the...
The notion of unconditional love, that no matter what you do, you're supposed to love people, or your spouse, or whomever it is, that the idea of unconditional love,
or even that God has unconditional love, was made up in the 1950s, 1960s, Therapeutic-based rather than biblical-based ideas arose.
It's another good article for me to write.
Things religious people believe that has no basis.
So here's another one that a lot of wonderful people, and this is no attack on you.
If you believe this, I'm not attacking you.
I am attacking the belief, but I'm certainly not attacking you, because a lot of the people I deeply respect believe this.
But I don't know where they got it, so you'll have to tell me where you got it.
See, I don't believe that God violates common sense, let alone basic moral principles.
The idea that all sin is equivalent, or to put it in the other way, my way, There are gradations of evil.
There are gradations of sin.
And my usual example is God does not regard the stealing of a stapler from the office the same as molesting a child.
So if you have an idea of where that developed or why you believe it, I'm very, very curious to hear from you.
And the number is 1-8 Prager 776. There was a caller on this.
Earlier I sent the call Friday.
You can call now because I didn't realize I would do this subject for the Ultimate Issues Hour.
You know, my Bible commentary is called the Rational Bible because I believe that God gave us reason to be used to get closer to Him and do what He wants.
My approach to God, to Scripture, is reason.
Reason without God.
It leads to all kinds of crazy things.
Look, only secular people say that men give birth, so it gives you an idea of how important the biblical God is to people being rational.
Isn't that an important point that I just made?
Only secular people say men give birth?
Only secular people say that...
Biological men can compete in women's sports.
Now, not all the people who say it are secular.
Excuse me.
Not all secular people say it.
That's what I meant to say.
But all the people who say it are secular.
You lose your mind, ultimately.
The society loses its mind when it loses its God.
The God of the Bible, specifically.
It's losing its mind.
When you tell children that they are non-binary, when I was six years old, I was learning how to read.
In elementary school, I learned the definition of an adjective and an adverb and a noun and a pronoun.
I learned a predicate and a subject, and every sentence must have them.
A subject and a verb.
In order to be a sentence.
Fish swim is a sentence.
Fish yellow is not a sentence.
There's no verb.
How many people at Harvard could define a sentence?
I'd be very curious.
I don't know the answer.
I'd just be very curious.
1-8 Prager 7-7-6 Where did the notion develop that all sin is equal in God's eyes? - Thanks.
Does God get angry at the same sins equally?
Does God, who is the author, I believe, of at least the first five books, the Torah, with all the punishments that are available, is every sin punished the same?
If they're all equal, they would all have the same punishments.
It's a very interesting question.
I don't know the answer.
I don't know where the idea developed.
That's why I'm having this hour, because I learn so much from my radio show.
I learn, of course, among other things, what people think.
I never knew this.
Before I had a radio show, I never knew that people believed that God thinks all sins are equivalent.
It never dawned on me.
me.
I learned that completely from fine people calling in and saying that.
Among other things, it says to me that people...
Think more morally clearly than God does.
We know there is a universe of moral difference between molesting a child and stealing a stapler, but God doesn't?
That's a toughie.
I don't think I am more morally clear than God.
See, you can't say, well, in man's eyes, they're different, but in God's eyes, they're the same.
One of us is wrong.
You can't have mutually contradictory statements and both be correct.
God says rain is wet, man says rain is dry.
One of us is wrong.
And that's the case here.
If you believe that God thinks that all sins are equal, but you don't, one of you is wrong, either God or you.
But I'm really curious as to where it developed.
Or how about this?
God hates the sin, not the sinner.
Where did that arise?
There are three...
So you could call in on that one too.
Where did these ideas come from?
Unconditional love, God hates the sin, not the sinner, and God regards all sin as equally bad.
Where did these notions arise?
I don't have a clue.
I would be very curious if it was said a hundred years ago.
We actually know that unconditional love didn't exist as a term in 1900. Google has a fascinating website.
Google has a fascinating website which Actually traces the frequency of use of a word or a term in history.
It's astonishing that they could do this.
If you look at the graph of unconditional love, it is virtually zero at 1900 and then skyrockets after 1960. So obviously it's a perfect example of secular society influencing religious life, which it has done much more than vice versa in my lifetime.
Okay, so I will be taking your calls on this subject.
Where do these ideas arise?
You need it so much more.
This is the Ultimate Issues Hour.
I hear things that don't make sense to me as a religious person and someone really steeped in the Bible, particularly the Old Testament.
I fully acknowledge that.
I know Hebrew very well.
And I hear things like God...
Loves the sinner and hates the sin.
But actually, in the Bible, it says God hates the sinner.
I'm talking about serious sin.
If God hated every sinner, then God would hate every human being.
There are so many reasons not to believe that.
But the biggest is common sense.
God gave it to us.
We should use it.
And then...
The one that I've been talking about here, that all sin is equally bad in God's eyes.
When I've challenged people, they've said, well, not in humans' eyes.
Okay, so if that's the case, then humans and God differ.
All right, one of us is wrong.
Okie dokie, let's see here.
Ruth Ann in Erie, Pennsylvania.
Hello.
Thank you for what you said about in marriage you shouldn't put up with really bad treatment because they taught us in church unconditional love and they used the story of Hosea and Gomer when God told him to marry a prostitute and then she left him, cheated on him.
He still bought her back and they said...
That if, you know, God could do that, we could do that.
But what you said and what James Dobson said in his book, Love Must Be Tough, I believe when they start mistreating you, you need to be firm and give them consequences, because if you do, when their conscience is still tender, they can say they're sorry and change.
But if you let them continue to treat you like a doormat, their conscience gets harder, and eventually the abuse escalates.
And they end up blaming you anyway, and you've just ruined your whole life.
That's right.
That's correct.
Goodness said it better.
I assume this might have happened to you or someone you know.
You speak from experience.
I speak from moral clarity.
By the way, that's the reason, and I know that this is not...
Accepted by all of you, and I fully honor it and appreciate it, but I just want to explain.
That's why I believe in the possibility of divorce.
God doesn't want you to be treated like a doormat.
Some people treat doormats better than they treat their spouses, just for the record.
Okay, let's see here.
What do you have to say?
Los Alamitos, California.
Tom.
Hello, Tom.
Hey, Dennis.
I love it when you go in this direction with the stuff you bring up.
Yeah, good.
Me too.
I love it too.
Thank you.
Yeah, I frequently teach kids on this issue in Bible, and what I like to do is start with a big whiteboard, and I'll take my marker.
And I'll explain the whiteboard as God's holiness, a poor example, but it's pure white.
And I'll simply take a black marker and I'll put a dot on it, and then I'll say, that's sin.
And then I can take that same marker and I can draw a big fat circle on it and fill it all in and say, that's sin.
Because either way, no matter how small, we're violating God's perfect holiness.
And you would agree with that, even as a Jew, that God is perfectly holy.
So, is one sin different in shape and size and description?
Absolutely.
And I believe that God then gradates sin for our governance on the earth.
Okay, so we don't differ at all.
Okay, well then, why would I not be able to make the statement, sin is all the same in God's eyes, in terms of His holiness?
Oh.
I didn't know you were going there.
I thought you were just making the case that one is a little dot and one is a big circle.
It's all sin to God.
Yes, of course it's all sin to God.
That's my point.
Yeah, I know, but I don't understand it.
Forgive me.
Let me use my example.
Does God think that molesting a child and stealing a stapler are equivalent?
Absolutely.
And I think that this goes to your macro-micro.
I think on a micro, that yes, we have to govern ourselves, God knows that, and he cannot have murder being the same as stealing.
And we see that in the Levitical law, of course.
But in terms of his holiness, and that's where the Christian, I believe, is coming from, when you hear that phrase, sin is sin to God, you could have a bad attitude and you have violated his holiness.
So I think that's where, I mean, that is where the Christian's coming from.
So every single human violates God's holiness, by definition.
100%.
So God created a creature that inevitably violates his holiness.
Well, no.
He created a creature that violated God's law in the garden, God's word in the garden, and then sin entered our world.
I mean, I know you're...
No, no, no.
I don't understand that.
Wait, wait.
Forgive me.
I don't understand that one either.
Sin entered the world when they ate from the tree.
Okay.
So the moment Adam and Eve were created, the possibility of sin was created.
Say that one more time.
I'm sorry.
The moment...
That's fine.
The moment God created Adam and Eve, He created creatures who could sin.
Obviously.
Yes.
So, okay.
So God created a creature from the beginning that inevitably violates His holiness, to use your term.
Okay, well, you know, we're going now to, you know, how is it that God could not exist?
That's a conundrum for all of us.
If God's all-powerful, how does sin enter the world?
Okay, that is a different question.
Listen, thanks a lot for the call.
We continue.
Hi, everybody.
This is the Ultimate Issues Hour, not politics.
It's a religious question, but it's more than religious.
Even if you're not religious, it's an interesting question.
There are three things that I have heard all of my life that I don't believe are rooted in religion or in scripture specifically.
And they are that God hates the sin, not the sinner.
And unconditional love.
No matter how you act, you're loved and you should love people no matter how they act.
That's the ideal unconditional love.
And this one, that God regards all sin as equally awful.
I don't know where any of those three ideas arose and they don't make sense to me.
And I'm a big believer that God makes sense.
Scripture and religion should make sense.
That's why I wrote the Rational Bible.
Three volumes.
The fourth is coming out next year.
Okay, let's see here.
San Diego, Bob, hello.
Hello, Dennis.
Under Catholicism, they have the...
Distinction between mortal sins and venial sins.
So a mortal sin is murder, rape, adultery.
A venial sin is stealing a stapler.
Now, they also have the concept of confession, and a priest can forgive a mortal sin.
But if you die with a mortal sin, my understanding is you go straight to hell.
If you die with a venial sin, you go to purgatory.
I'm not sure what that suffering is, but ultimately you can go to heaven.
I'm not an expert in Catholic theology, but I have an extensive education in it.
Good.
Yes.
Whenever I have raised this issue in private or in public, Catholics have said, yes, we definitely believe in gradations of sin using exactly what you described as mortal and venial.
That's correct.
So, if that is correct, then it is maybe unique to Protestant Christianity, for which I have enormous respect.
They are the founders of the United States, overwhelmingly.
But if that is the case, that is unique to Protestant Christianity, among Christians, and with regard to other faiths, that God regards all sin as equivalent.
If indeed that is normative Protestant Christianity, I don't know that it is.
So that's the question here.
Dallas, Texas, Robert, hello.
Hey, Dennis.
This is the Great Robert from Dallas.
Hello, great Robert.
Yeah, I've heard you talked about this.
It's probably late 90s.
I've been a listener since 93.
Love your show.
Great.
What I think I can speak for as a Christian, as Southern Baptists, they were taught that, like the guy said previous, the dot on the screen was like a black dot is the sin versus a big circle, is that they believed that any sin is that they believed that any sin would separate you from God, that you couldn't reach heaven or God with any sin.
So they said, well, it must be any sin then.
We don't preach that or teach that.
We believe that there is hierarchy of sin.
Like if you do evil in God's name, it's a lot worse than stealing the stapler, right?
Oh, I think there's biblical basis for that.
So you are agreeing with me.
Yes, I'm agreeing with you.
So where did you ever hear, as I have on the show, that God regards all sin as equivalent?
I hear this from Bible-based believers all the time.
Okay, so help me out.
Where did they get it from?
They got it from any sin would separate you from God, even the smallest sin.
So they equated that to...
Right, that's not the same thing because it doesn't equally separate you.
Exactly.
Jesus came and said, you've heard it say that if you, you should now show up murder.
And he said, I say if you're angry with your brother, you've committed sin in your heart.
So Jesus held us to a higher standard even.
So Jesus had higher standards of hierarchy of sin.
Well said.
I thank you for your call.
Yes.
We'll do an hour once on that question too.
Sinful thought versus sinful deed.
Okay, old Dennis Prager here.
Come on, come on, come on, come on.
Hmm.
I'm looking at your calls.
That's the reason for the moment of silence here.
Hmm.
Well, this is the ultimate issues hour.
It's not political.
It can be.
Sometimes we talk political issues and the ultimate issues, but not current events.
But this one is about a recurring theme that has always troubled me, is when religious people, when I'm religious, call me and tell me that God regards all sin as equivalent.
I don't know where they got the idea.
And that's really my question.
Where did you get the idea that God thinks stealing a stapler and molesting a child are equivalent?
The notion that all sin separates us from God may well be true, but it's a non-sequitur.
It has nothing to do with the nature of the sin.
I think you're more separated from God By molesting a child or murdering a person than you are from taking a towel from your hotel room.
Which, by the way, I'm really opposed to.
It is stealing.
People justify it because they charge a lot.
They expect it to happen.
They won't miss it.
I understand.
But it's stealing.
However, it is not...
In the moral universe of molesting a child.
Okay, let's see here.
Pastor in Jamestown, New York, Mel.
Hello, sir.
Yes, Dennis, I think we need to get our categories correct when we talk about the law, sin, in relation to salvation and creation.
With regard to salvation, like it says in James 2, verse 10, for whoever keeps the whole law yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it.
Therefore, we need a Redeemer in Jesus to deal with that sin sufficiently, efficiently, effectively.
Whereas in creation...
You deal with matters of justice in a gradated form, meaning there is a difference, a huge difference, between stealing a stapler and molesting a child.
And the society's justice system needs to reflect that.
Right.
So we're virtually on the same page, but I just, certainly on the second part, obviously you're Christian, I'm Jewish.
So how do you answer the...
Statement, though, that God sees them as equivalent.
Do you agree with that?
Sees them as equivalent?
Yes, when it comes to salvation, because it doesn't matter what sin.
And I would say also that it's not so much a sin as it is the nature of sin within man that has to be dealt with at the root.
What we see manifest...
Inaction is only a fruit of the root of the problem.
Okay, all of that is accurate.
But you're not happy to say God sees sins differently.
For some reason, that troubles you.
No, I would say that He sees it differently.
But...
Like I say, when it comes to aspect of salvation, it doesn't matter how great the sin is or how small the sin is.
The sin makes us unrighteous before God, but that is a deeper issue in dealing with the depravity of man.
Fair enough.
Thank you again.
I appreciate your call.
So, in the service of openness and truth, I'm almost incapable of not serving openness and truth.
It's not bragging, because it's just my nature.
This would be an example of a difference between Judaism and Christianity.
Not in terms of values.
That's why we have Judeo-Christian values.
By the way, recently I wrote a column.
What are Judeo-Christian values?
It would be very worthwhile for you to read it, but obviously we have different theologies.
If we didn't, we'd be the same religion.
So the quote, which is not just from James, Paul says it as well, that...
God says in the Old Testament that violating one law is equivalent to violating all of them, but that isn't correct.
It does not say that in the Old Testament.
In Deuteronomy, there is a list of curses.
Curses is he who, for example, sleeps with his child.
And it's a whole list of curses.
He is cursed who he is cursed who.
And anyone who violates these laws is cursed.
So it's on that basis that it has been inferred that God is saying if you just violate any law of the 613 in the Torah, the first five books, you are cursed.
But that's never said, actually.
It's a specific list of a few laws, particularly awful ones.
But anyway, that's a theological difference, and I don't have any issues.
I am, since we're quoting James, faith without works is dead.
All I want to know are your works.
Then I know your faith.
That I really do believe.
If you say it's freezing outside and you don't take a sweater or jacket, my assumption is you don't really believe that it's freezing outside.
I know that you believe it's freezing outside if you take some clothing with you.
Dennis Prager here.
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