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April 26, 2023 - Dennis Prager Show
01:24:07
Whither Tucker?
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Dennis Prager here.
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Hi everybody, welcome to the Dennis Prager Show.
I don't remember an event wherein there was more speculation and less knowledge.
And I'm not annoyed by it.
It's just a phenomenon of the time.
Why was Tucker Carlson fired, by far the most successful person in...
I would say not just cable, but in all of news broadcasting.
There's nobody on NBC, ABC. You couldn't even name anybody on NBC, ABC, or CBS. I can't.
Let's put it that way.
And people are just so curious.
So where is this latest article from?
Oh, the Wall Street Journal.
So the Wall Street Journal has a piece just published.
Let's see.
Oh, this is about, oh, this is not just about it too big for the bridges.
So it says, vulgar offensive messages about colleagues helped seal his fate at Fox News.
It is a misleading headline.
They do that a lot.
It's to get you to read pieces, but it's not an honest thing.
So what is the summary?
Because it just came out, and you read it just now.
Basically, he was not controllable.
They didn't know what he was going to say.
So, my producer has an interesting thought.
Fox News is ideological to its viewers and to some of its hosts, but to its owners, it's a business.
Is that a fair summary of the way you look at it?
Whereas for Tucker Carlson, it was an ideological battle, which is why he had so many followers.
Anyway, we don't know what the actual case is, but I thought that that was worthy of note.
And frankly, I am far more interested in two other questions.
This is an interesting question, because I watch Tucker Carlson.
I don't agree with him on Ukraine, but I respect him tremendously.
I have said very often, if we demand that our allies agree with us on everything, we will lose every battle that we fight.
The left cancels its enemies, and the right cancels its allies.
That's, that's an agenda.
I wrote a whole, I wrote a whole piece on that, where you had very prominent people I really like and respect.
A conservative saying that if you are supportive of supporting the Ukrainians against the Russian invasion, you're a...
What was it?
Not neocon.
What was the word?
Oh, rhino.
Yeah, rhino.
Worse than neocon.
You're a rhino.
Republican in name only.
But isn't it true that they...
They only cancel their enemies and we cancel our friends.
I don't want Donald Trump to fall into that category of doing that.
Ron DeSantis is not his enemy.
And it's not healthy for him to see it that way.
It's not healthy for the country.
It's not healthy for us.
It's interesting.
Is there more purity on the left?
Or on the right?
I don't know.
Purity is, you must be 100% aligned with me, or I reject you.
This is a very, very tempting thing in the human race.
And very, very destructive.
Shall we be honest about that?
Okay.
So I have...
An amazing story here.
From the New York Post, a two-time Olympian has criticized rules that allowed a transgender runner to beat nearly 14,000 women in the female category of the London Marathon.
Did you see this?
The guy defeated 14,000 women because England is so woke.
By the way, this is very, very, very important.
I would say it is the best indicator of whether your friend or relative has lost their mind and has so adopted left-wing thinking that they have lost their mind.
I would say that dialogue...
Becomes useless.
If you ask someone in your life, do you believe that trans women, as they're called, men who identify as women can compete against women in sports?
If they say yes, it is useless to talk to them about any issue.
They have abandoned logic, reason, morality, fairness.
This is the most obvious of all the questions.
This is more obvious than can men give birth.
This is more obvious than how do you stand on all black graduation exercises at a college.
This is the one.
This person is lost to moral thought.
This person has become a sheep.
This is the clearest of any single question you could ask.
Mara Yamauchi, who finished sixth in the marathon at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, lashed out after trans racer Glenique Frank, 54, gushed to the BBC about using girl power to run the key United Kingdom race on Sunday.
Yamauchi tweeted, alongside a clip of the mid-race interview by the sports bra-wearing runner, who also gushed about soon becoming a grand, males in the female category is unfair for females.
Unfair capitalized.
End of issue.
That's it.
That is the end of female sports.
Isn't that obvious?
Nearly 14,000 actual females suffered a worse Finnish position because of Frank, wrote Yamauchi, who said that even when she was, quote, ranked second in the world as a woman, At least 1,300 men ran faster than me.
That is such a devastating statistic.
She was second on earth as a woman and 1,301 compared to men.
Well, why doesn't that end the discussion?
She noted how UK Athletics applied world athletics rules on the exclusion of transgender women from elite female competition at the end of March to make it, quote, fair for athletes who have gone through male puberty to be excluded from the female category in athletics.
Transgender runner Glenique Frank.
You have to see Glenique Frank.
I mean, your first reaction would be, oh, this is clearly a woman.
I'm joking.
I'm joking.
It's tempting to think he's doing what that...
Was he UK? The guy, the weightlifter, who went into the women's competition and, you know, just won ridiculously decisively only to demonstrate how unfair it is.
He did a grill service.
Transgender runner Glenique Frank competed in the London Marathon as a trans athlete just months after running the New York Marathon as a male, Glen Frank.
Why don't people laugh at this?
Why isn't this man dismissed as a buffoon and actually as somewhat slimy?
Okay, I'll run in the men's marathon and next month I'll run in the women's marathon.
And they say, fine.
And that's considered moral.
Progressive.
Now, I also, you know, your friend or relative to whom you should ask only one question, this one, probably doesn't even know about this.
Oh, come on!
That doesn't happen.
You're blowing it up.
That's their common response.
Even so, she ran around the Big Apple in a bright red bra and wore a long pink wig as a city tourist.
Oh, that'll do it.
You put on a bra and a pink wig and you're a female.
And every women's group that I know of, feminist group, says, that's right.
You put on a bra and a pink wig and you're one of us.
Hey everybody, Dennis Prager here.
It's really something, the world we live in.
1,300 men defeated the woman who defeated all the women in the world who competed.
She was second among women and past 1,300 among men.
And the very, very sick people of the left.
Morally sick.
And I think psychologically so.
There's something wrong with you if you don't understand that it is wrong to allow biological men to compete against women.
There is.
There's something wrong with you.
There's a second motivation for the man to run as a she.
Attention.
Exactly, you're talking about...
Exactly, that is correct.
This guy, the guy's a buffoon, okay?
He puts on a wig, a pink wig and a bra and says, I'm a woman, two months after he races against men.
And they accept it.
And you're a hater if you deny his right to compete against women.
Okay.
And if you vote Democrat, you're supporting this.
See, that's what needs to be understood.
This call is actually related to that.
Rafael in Los Angeles, hello.
Good morning.
Hi.
Thank you very much for answering my phone.
About a month ago, President Biden gave the Medal of Honor to a trans...
Gender women.
That's right.
It was an insult to all American women.
And nobody talks about that.
Oh, well, no.
The truth is everybody on the right does.
Nobody on the left does except to praise him.
They praise him.
And they re-elect him.
Or vote to re-elect him.
By the way, where were you from?
I'm trying to identify your accent.
Is it Iran?
Yes, I'm Iran, and I have met you many places, and I have a picture with you.
You do?
Well, thank you.
Maybe, you know what, have you ever heard me speak Farsi?
No.
Oh, okay, I know one sentence in Farsi.
Are you ready?
Yes, go ahead.
Here we go.
Oh, no, you don't want to do that.
The Ayatollah is special.
Thank you.
I It's absolutely true.
I know one sentence, and I know it really well.
In Farsi.
In Persian.
Let's all go study with the Ayatollah.
And whenever I tell it to someone from Iran, I just wait for the person's reaction.
It's precious.
I like identifying accents.
Didn't the left say you shouldn't ask someone where they're from?
Isn't that mean?
Isn't that suggestion mean?
Doesn't it mean that you have no interest in the person?
Why is that a beautiful idea?
Because the left is sick.
Everything is inverted.
Beautiful is ugly.
Ugly is beautiful.
Truth or lies, lies or truth, everything is inverted on the left.
And liberals vote for them.
A person has an accent?
If I'm in a foreign country, as I have been so often in my life, every year, except 2021, since I was 20 years old, and I speak anything in their language, And they don't ask me, where are you from?
I think, wow, that's a non-curious person.
It's like they say that if you say there's only one race, the human race, that is called racist at the University of California.
They have a list of racist microaggressions.
If you say we should all be colorblind, you're considered racist.
Do you understand?
Blue is green, green is orange, orange is purple.
It's all inverted.
The ease with which people believe the opposite of what they know is one of the scariest parts of human nature and one of the most important lessons of the left.
You can get people to say anything.
This is the best example.
The one we're dealing with.
That biological men should be allowed to compete with biological women in sports.
That's the nadir, if you will.
Or the apex, depending on which perspective you should.
It's an interesting call in Solon, Ohio.
Mark says we should call trans people gender appropriationists.
That's an interesting point.
If you wear a sombrero, you're a cultural, you've engaged in cultural appropriation.
By the way, isn't cultural appropriation another example of a beautiful thing?
When people in Asia wear a suit and tie, aren't they engaged in cultural appropriation from the West?
Is there anything wrong with that?
President Xi of China doesn't wear a Mao suit, doesn't wear traditional peasant Chinese garb.
He wears a Western suit and a Western tie and a Western shirt.
Why is that wrong?
But they wouldn't say it's wrong, because the whole point is to condemn the West.
All right, everybody.
We continue on The Dennis Prager Show.
We give each other strength, those of us who are working for the simple cause of truth and moral clarity, and I am delighted to have a very important thinker, writer on right now, Mary Harrington.
She's a Brit.
She is an editor.
Are you an editor or a columnist at UnHerd?
I am a columnist at UnHerd.
U-N-H-E-R-D. It's a terrific site, folks.
I just want you to know about that.
Mary Harrington has written, Feminism Against Progress.
So tell us, in a nutshell, your story.
You began as a feminist.
Is that accurate?
I would say I'm still a feminist, but I began as a very different kind of feminist.
So if we roll back, say, let's go back 25 years to my teens.
And I had two brothers and...
And a pretty traditional home life.
And in that, I felt as though my mum did not get a very good deal.
I felt as though my brothers were treated differently to me.
It all felt very unfair.
And it led me down the rabbit hole of second wave feminist theory.
I read a whole lot of Simone de Beauvoir, as you do as a nerdy teenager, and got very angry.
And I thought, you know, why is it that just because of my sex, I'm being treated differently?
And this led me, through my studies at university and into my 20s, into fully embracing the queer theory belief that we can essentially create our own genders, that we can transcend the limitations we can and should be able to escape all the limitations of our physical bodies, that we should construct a gender that is right for us, and we should be in no way constrained by any of the limits that we're born with.
And this, to me, seemed good and right and feminist.
Fast forward on some years more, I had a child, and I came to realise that this just simply isn't true.
And not only is it not true, but it's a worldview which leaves out mums to a radical degree.
In other words, I've been sold on a feminism which has no room for motherhood.
And I thought, well, this doesn't work.
If this is meant to be in my interests, but it completely doesn't work for mothers, then are mothers not women?
Is this a problem with mums or is this a problem with feminism?
And that led me down a whole other rabbit hole of looking at the history of the women's movement and trying to work out if it was possible still to be a feminist, if some of the basic ideas seemed to me to be mistaken.
And the end result of all of that research and thinking is the book I've written, where I've set out to offer another suggestion, because I still believe.
That women's interests are sometimes missed out, that there are ways in this world today where women are sidelined and those aspects of our life which are unique can be ignored or downplayed or sometimes sidelined.
And so we still need to speak up sometimes for women, but we can't do that just by pursuing freedom.
And we certainly can't do that by pretending that biology never matters.
And so the end point of all of this journey is the book that you very kindly put up on the screen there, Feminism Against Progress.
And there I'm arguing against progress in the name of feminism, because it's now my belief that to stand up for women's interests means resisting the idea of progress, which has now become mainstream in the world today.
Wow.
I am always curious when I speak to people who had a sort of road to Damascus.
Transformation.
And I mean that quite sincerely and admiringly, by the way.
It's not easy to jettison one's passionate beliefs.
And I know you've retained some.
I respect that.
Was that difficult emotionally, psychologically?
Well, I think having a child is...
Challenging emotionally and psychologically a lot of the time anyway because so much of your reality changes in such a transformative way.
They've done studies looking at what happens during pregnancy which show that it literally rewires your brain.
There are women who are mothers respond differently and these are permanent changes.
We respond differently to certain stimuli.
We're more emotionally activated by some It's like going through the looking glass, becoming a mother anyway.
And going through that looking glass with the beliefs that I already had made it, yes, very much a Damascus moment.
Because what I discovered was that freedom and this idea that we should be able to escape every limit of our bodies, the idea that this is good just doesn't make sense when you're a mum.
Because pretty much, by definition, being a mum means limiting your freedom in the name of love.
And pretty much, by definition, it means being grounded in your body.
Because what's happening is it's not something you can...
It is your body.
You're not quite...
And also...
All right.
We're going to continue on that.
Hold on.
Remember your most importantly of all point.
I want to restate the book.
Feminism Against Progress, Mary Harrington.
The book is up at DennisPrager.com.
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Hi, everybody.
Welcome to the Male-Female Hour on the Dennis Prager Show.
Every Wednesday, the second hour, I think it's the most honest talk about men and women in the media.
And as I always remind people, one of the reasons is I am happy and prepared to talk about just about anything, and because I am neither a male fan nor a female fan.
The number of wonderful men and wonderful women is about equal, and the number of bad seeds in both sexes are also about equal.
They each have to fight their natures, etc., etc.
For so many years now, she will remember the number of years.
I don't.
It has been...
It has been...
It has been a major, major honor.
A delight to have the most regular guest in Prager Show history, Alison Armstrong.
Hi!
In fact, Alison was in high school when we first met.
It sort of feels that way.
It kind of does.
This is our 20th year.
Is that right?
January of 2004 is when I was first on with you.
So, in a nutshell, let me just say about Alison Armstrong.
Her story is very powerful.
She wanted to understand men.
The number of women who want to understand men is equal to the number...
I'm trying to think of a truly absurd analogy.
To the number of submarines that also fly.
That's a little overstating it.
I'm going to explore, as always, what you want to talk about.
You have free reign on my show.
Allison comes on every season, so four times a year.
But it's that.
I'd like to do that with you once.
How many women really want to understand men?
And vice versa, how many men want to understand women?
But I think that it's not completely symmetric because I think it's tougher for women to understand Thank you for having me here.
I'm really excited, and I apologize.
It was on me.
I missed the first season ever in...
As long as we've been doing seasons.
So I'm sorry if people are like, where's the winter season?
That was me and about 400 inches of snow.
Wow.
Yeah, I'm still getting used to living here in Steamboat Springs.
And we had one of the, it's like second in, you know, the last 30 years, record snow.
I was buried.
But I'm glad you're here.
And what I want to talk about is conflict.
And people have asked me about fighting and arguments.
And so I'm just calling it conflict.
And there's a certain kind of conflict that is most likely to have a fighting thing going on with it.
And so it's one of the kinds I want to talk about.
And there's ones that we need to resolve early and well or deep trouble for decades.
And then there's things that we could be good if we honored or let go.
One or the other.
Not just let it persist.
Alright, so let me summarize where we're at.
There were three types of conflicts you're saying?
Well, at least that I want to talk about.
Yeah, right.
Okay.
So one is the one that takes place but can be, you know, gotten rid of, so to speak.
The one that is deep-seated and needs to be confronted.
And what was the third one again?
It's the one that causes fighting.
And it needs to be transformed, actually.
Wait, so how does that differ from one or two?
Numbers one or two.
Okay, so look at it this way.
Values, and we'll talk about that.
Values is the big one you've got to confront early because it doesn't go away.
That's a good one.
The second one is expectations, which if they're not transformed, you will have the nastiest, you should have, you should have kind of fights.
And the third is preferences.
Just what it's like to having things the way we like it to be.
So honor them or let go of them.
Those would be the three.
Okay, take it away.
Oh, wow.
Well, which one do you want me to start with?
Your choice.
Okay, well, let's start with preferences because that's the...
It's the lightest one, but it also can create such amazing moments.
So the definition of like is to prefer.
So our preferences are the ways that we like it, right?
It's the kind of ice cream we like.
It's how tidy our homes are.
It's how we season our food.
And is it...
Hot, hot, or just off hot, or who cares what temperature it is, right?
There's these things that just are preferences, but when push comes to shove, you live with what you have to live with.
And when someone has a strong preference, if we can honor it without sacrificing ourselves, then it just creates a kind of sweetness.
It just can be really, really sweet if it's appreciated.
People who take their preferences being catered to for granted, it doesn't create sweetness.
It can create resentment.
So let me give you, I love this, because I love systematic thought, which you're great at.
So just in a nutshell, I have said this on a number of occasions.
My take on preferences with my wife is...
Let's say the classic one, or a classic.
Which restaurant to have dinner at?
My view on that, or in fact, just about anything, leaving values aside, obviously, is the one who is more passionate about it should win.
Yeah, that's pretty much, we're saying the same thing.
I thought we might be.
And not win at the other person's self-sacrifice.
Yeah, no, no, exactly.
Look, if she wants restaurant X and I want restaurant Y, I will go to restaurant X because it matters more to her.
I'm okay with X. Yes, and one of the things that women don't understand, a lot of them think, are like...
They have said, why do I always have to pick the restaurant?
And I said, well, because he wants you to be happy.
So he wants you to pick the restaurant that you'll be happy at.
And then as women, we talk about, but we can't be happy if you're not happy.
So when we pick a restaurant, it's from the list of restaurants that are acceptable to you.
By the way, I just want to say, this is what drives men crazy.
So the guy, this is awesome.
This is really a great moment.
So she is annoyed that he is saying, you know what?
Let's go to the one you want.
Right.
So he's thinking, wait a minute.
Why isn't that nice of me?
Why isn't that even chivalrous?
I can tell you why.
Because she can't actually enjoy even her favorite restaurant if the man she's with seems at all irritated.
Like my husband, which it's almost been four years, Dennis, since Greg died, which is crazy.
I know, I know, I know.
But Greg had such strong...
Opinions about how fast you get seated, how fast you get served.
Like, I mean, he had such intensity about restaurants that I couldn't go to my favorite places.
I would go there without him because he didn't like one of those things so much that I couldn't enjoy being there.
Because you knew how he felt.
Not just knew it, I can feel it.
We can feel the agitation in each other's.
I mean, shoot.
HeartMath says we can hear each other's heart.
So, you know what?
So, here's another Prager rule.
Yeah?
Minimize the number of things that agitate you.
Oh, yes.
Please.
Exactly.
It takes a lot to agitate me.
Yay!
I know.
All right.
We'll be back in a moment.
This is more fun than almost anything in life.
Maybe a roller coaster is better, but not much.
Alison Armstrong, and I'll tell you how to get in touch with her.
Hey, my dear friends.
I am with the inimitable, but not inscrutable.
That is important.
Yes.
Alison Armstrong.
With whom, as you can tell, I have what is known as chemistry.
Right?
Isn't that fair to say we have chemistry?
I would say we have resonance.
As opposed to chemistry or in addition?
Well, chemistry...
Literally, it's chemical.
It's a cocktail of testosterone and epinephrine.
I would say resonance.
It's a spiritual connection.
Fair enough.
It's a recognition.
And it's even an amplification.
Well, I'll put it in really vernacular terms.
Because you will like this.
I think you will like this.
I shouldn't say you will.
I think you will.
So, we enjoy each other.
Yes!
That's the word I was thinking.
Yes.
So this is what you will like, I think.
When I meet young couples, I don't ask them, do you love each other?
It's a useless question.
I ask them, do you enjoy each other?
Oh, very good.
Yes.
Yeah.
And do you like each other?
Like.
Oh, like.
I'm writing a piece, my three favorite verbs, and like is one of them.
Yes, I like you and what I like about you is important.
And there's three.
Respect, admiration, and affinity.
Liking.
Those three.
Respect, admiration, and like.
Love is so easy.
That's right.
And the best example in that, in my opinion, is almost every parent loves their child.
But a lot of parents don't like their child.
Yeah, and the child knows it, and they just want to be adored by their mom and dad.
Oh, yeah, well, you're thinking of little kids.
I'm thinking of grown children.
I would say that it's the same.
Oh, it is?
Yeah, well, a lot of kids, a lot of people, I support the parents.
I thank God it's not my situation.
I like and love my sons, but I... I'm telling you, it's a tough one.
Anyway, let's go back to your great theme here.
So we're talking about three types of conflicts that could arise.
The first one is over preferences.
Yes.
Okay.
So do you want to move on or do you want to continue on preferences?
Yeah, let's move on.
Okay.
I'm going to be doing like a two-hour version of this in a couple of weeks.
But I want to get people started.
Okay.
And so the other one, let's talk about expectations because it's wicked.
So you can tell something is an expectation because the word should will be involved.
There's a sense of entitlement, like I've already done everything I should have had to do in order to get this from you.
And it should already happen.
I've already earned it.
What the heck?
Everybody knows this.
It's obvious.
So there's a lot of intensity about it.
There's often anywhere from disappointment to fury at expectations not being met.
And they're usually not communicated ahead of time.
You find out someone had an expectation when you failed to meet it or when you exceed it and they gush.
And one of the worst things about expectations is that they're compound.
So not only do I have expectations of you...
But I actually have expectations of you that I think you're expecting of me.
And I'm trying to live up to your expectations without even finding out what they are.
And then the other thing is they're like bunny rabbits.
Expectations breed more expectations.
Whether it's met or betrayed.
Yeah, whether it's met or betrayed, it'll create new expectations.
Yeah, like one expectation, one thing that happens with women.
If we're disappointed, you fail to meet my expectation, we think if I make sure you know how terribly upset I am about it, then you will double down and work extra hard to meet that expectation.
And a woman thinks a man will do that because that's what a woman will do.
Because we don't want you to be upset when we don't meet your expectations.
There's a lot of fear in it.
But men...
Only work harder to not upset someone that they feel dependent upon.
If they don't feel dependent upon that person, the person being upset is like, how annoying.
No, I'm not going to work harder.
And why would I spend more energy on something that I didn't get any points for even trying?
But they're the things that people...
So what is your recommendation?
That people minimize their expectations of the other?
Well...
What we do, we have to examine them.
So the first thing is we have to notice we have a should going on.
Right.
And then check it out.
Is this something that I expect that I actually really truly need?
Like there's a huge benefit to me getting it and a huge cost to not getting it?
Because that changes entirely and it's actually the fourth thing that I wasn't planning on talking about.
You know, so conflicts over needs.
So examine it.
Is it a need or not?
If it's not a need and you have this expectation, then what can be amazing, you can transform it by talking to the person about it.
Find out if they're willing to provide what it is that you wish they would.
And is there anything they need from you for them to be willing to provide it?
And is there anything even that they would need?
Would they be willing to be counted?
Honorable for it.
So if you transform an expectation into an accountability, account-on-ability, I'm willing to be held to account for that.
It can be amazing.
Can you give an example?
Yes, I can.
So I'm highly scheduled when I'm working.
Very punctual, right?
I was trained by the radio show at KRLA. You can do anything in 30 seconds.
And when Dan and I were long distancing each other, he was really punctual.
And then when I moved to Steamboat...
He stopped being punctual.
And my interpretation of it was, oh, now that I live in your city, you're just going to take me for granted.
Okay, okay.
That's good.
We'll be back in a moment.
AllisonArmstrong.com, correct?
One L and one S, Alison Armstrong.
Hi, everybody.
I'm Dennis Prager with the terrific Alison Armstrong.
I'll have it all with you.
And Alison Armstrong is contactable at alisonarmstrong.com 1L1S. Talking about the sources of conflict between men and women.
And we went from preferences to expectations.
Yes, and I was in the middle of giving you an example.
Right.
Okay, about Dan and being punctual and one of the things that's important is that one of the ways that expectations can get created is by behavior.
So we never talked about being on time.
He just was punctual.
So I developed this expectation that he could be countonable for being punctual.
And then when he changed, right, I took it very personally.
And of course, it was because of how he felt about me, which is what women always think.
Uh-huh, uh-huh, right.
It's how you feel about me.
All your behavior will follow.
And what was so funny, Dennis, was when I... I finally talked to him about it because both men and women will avoid conflict.
One, because men have an innate sense of how it can escalate very badly.
And women, because we're afraid of being displeasing or ruin a moment and a precious connection.
And when I finally talked to him about it, he introduced ish.
So three ish.
And, okay, I can do ish.
He introduced ish.
Oh, that's right.
Ish, yes.
But then what was so funny is I poked around some more, and I figured out if I tell you I'll be there three-ish, at 3.08, I will apologize for being late.
For him, this shocked me.
His ish is within 30 minutes after or 30 minutes.
Right.
That's right.
Well, I don't think you should show up early for anybody, actually.
No, no, no.
That's wrong.
I'm with you.
You should show up basically on the time you said you'd come.
Or call.
Yes.
If you call, you're showing respect for the fact that you know you've taken their time.
Being late, Is a form of theft.
Because you're stealing a person's time.
Well, I learned to not be late because of all the things it makes another human being think and wonder and worry about.
Am I in the right place?
Did I get the time wrong?
Were they in a car accident?
Right.
So I just come on time so that doesn't have to happen in their head.
Okay, so those are...
You know what you need to do among your many, many things?
Okay.
I would sort of like to take this on my own as well.
What, since I believe deeply in minimizing expectations, I have a chapter on not having expectations in my happiness book.
Yes.
But I think that one should make a list Of expectations that they have of their spouse or their partner.
Not even to give to the other, necessarily.
Just for themselves.
And if it's a very long list, long is obviously subjective, I understand that, but it should be a short list.
My immediate reaction or thought on that is, There's one overriding expectation I think is legitimate to not be taken for granted.
In my opinion, that kills relationships even more, and I'm certainly anti-infidelity, but I think even more than an infidelity, taking your spouse for granted.
Is the killer.
Yeah.
I wish it was the only one, but there's so many.
So many killers.
There's so many killers.
And then we're wondering, we think we're bad at relationships instead of, no, human instincts doom relationships.
That's the reason we resonate to one another.
Yeah, you can't catch them.
That's right.
I met the enemy and it is my nature.
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Hi everybody, I'm Dennis Prager and I welcome you to the show.
I have some thoughts on the death of my beloved dog, Otto.
The most famous dog in America because he's been on my fireside chats that I've done every week for more than five years.
And there are books about Otto, Otto's tales that...
PragerU has put out, as one person writing to us, to my wife and me, said, the nation's dog.
He was a very beloved, very, very beloved animal in the house.
I want to talk about love of animals and some lessons about life that the death of a beloved pet Bring up.
It's a very interesting thing, the amount of love that people have.
It's usually, of course, a cat or a dog, and there are cat people I know, and there are dog people I know.
Dogs are the most expressive, to my knowledge.
When I've had cats, I have a cat.
Well, dogs are the most expressive animal in terms of love of a person or persons that exists.
I mean, there are people who love their horse.
I don't know, beyond horse and cat and dog, is there a love?
Is there an interaction with other...
Oh, there he is.
He's on the screen.
It's very painful to see.
It actually is painful.
I don't emote on these matters easily, but he was special.
And thanks to my wife, and I guess some degree of luck, but especially my wife, He lived a little over 12 years, which is a long time for an English bulldog.
But he was special.
A number of people would come to the house, friends, and they would say, this is the perfect dog.
That was the way they put it.
Anyway, he was just a delight.
Having him around was a source of joy.
I admit it.
His absence is felt.
I can't even describe because he didn't make any noise other than snore.
And I loved his snoring.
His snoring was like an announcement.
Everything is okay with the world, which is a nice thing in a very turbulent world in which we live now.
And so he would snore.
And it amazes me that I think of the house as so much quieter, like there's a hole in it.
And I find that remarkable, given that, you know, it was a dog, and he didn't bark often.
Our other dog, the Basset Hound, barks a lot.
Anyway, my reflections on this are as follows.
The moment that you get a pet, especially a cat or a dog, I mean, if people say they have a snake and they have a bond with the snake, I believe them, but it's hard for me to fully relate to it.
I have nothing against snakes.
I think in terms of expressive back expressions of love to a human, the dog is unique.
Cats have it.
I like cats a lot.
But dogs the most.
And the moment you get a pet, you set yourself up for pain.
And that's the big lesson here about life.
That we choose to have pain in order to live a full life.
You could avoid the pain of your beloved dog dying by never having a dog.
That ends that problem.
But people opt for that pain.
They choose it.
They know it's inevitable.
The only way to avoid it is for them to die before their pet.
And while that will probably happen at some point in any given person's life, you go through a fair number of pets.
If the average age, let's say, is 12 years, let's just imagine five...
Five pets is only 60 years.
Six is 72. And people live beyond 72. So you've gone through seven incarnations of pain when you think about it.
It's an amazing thing.
And people choose to do so.
I regard this as such an interesting and important lesson.
Choosing pain in order to lead a full life is exactly what the Garden of Eden story is in Genesis, in the Bible.
They chose pain of mortality to lead a fuller life of free will, free choice, etc.
When God punishes them for eating of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, I regard them as consequences.
Pain in childbirth, pain in extracting food from the earth.
These are the lessons.
These are the prices you pay for a full life.
Pain.
That's what the Garden of Eden story is, first and foremost to me.
A lesson about the human condition.
You want to lead a full life and so you choose pain.
What we have now in our society is people choosing not to have pain and thereby not leading a full life.
They don't want the pain of marriage and they certainly don't want the pain of children.
The moment you have a child You are setting yourself up for the very real possibility of pain.
Pain from children is a very real possibility.
The pain of a not-good child, the pain of a lost child, just lost for whatever reason, the pain of a child that gets sick.
There's nothing wrong.
Gets sick.
Gets hit by a drunk driver.
It's a very big risk having children.
And people have decided that they don't want to take that risk.
But the point of life, like having a pet, is if you wish to avoid pain...
You will not lead a full life.
That is the way life works.
People will say, I'm talking about children, back to the marriage issue.
Well, my parents got divorced.
I'm not going to get married.
I've always answered that.
that, well, if your parents were in a car crash, would you not drive a car?
The fear of pain has become dominant in this country.
That's why playing it safe has become the motto.
Sean, play land the better safe than sorry.
How many years ago we developed this theme song or these words as the end of the national anthem.
For the land of the free, better safe than sorry.
Yeah, that's right.
Better safe than sorry.
Well, better safe than sorry, don't get married.
Better safe than sorry, don't get a pet.
Better safe than sorry, don't have children.
Better safe than sorry, stay home and don't travel.
If that's your motto...
Then you won't live a full life.
1-8-Prager-776-877-243-7776 The lessons of owning a pet are huge.
Then I'll talk about the issue of love for them.
1-8-Prager-776 So I'm reflecting on the death of my beloved bulldog, Otto.
And it's a reflection on life that people choose inevitable pain.
Because when your pet dies, it's painful.
And yet people choose the pain to lead a fuller life.
And that's what they should have.
People should have that attitude with regard to everything.
That is the reason you should marry.
That is the reason you should have children.
Now, it's not the inevitable pain, although it can be.
There's a sort of inevitability of pain in some direction, for some reason.
In everything that you have.
To love is to experience some degree of inevitability of pain, but we choose it because it's such a great way to have a life.
And that's why there's a great lesson in having a pet, that you have opted for pain, inevitable pain.
Because you want to leave a fuller life by having that in your life.
Marriage and children is a perfect example, and that is, unfortunately, people are less and less opting for pain in that regard.
So, that's one of the big lessons.
It's the Garden of Eden lesson.
But there's another lesson which is in the opposite direction.
The pain of the loss of a beloved pet is very real and completely understandable.
At the same time, people should not think that the pet is like a child.
You may think of your pet In that way, because we do understandably think it's part of the family, and it is.
Within the boundaries of that term, nevertheless, it is truth.
But as a reminder, you can get another dog, but you can't get another child.
One should never confuse human and animal.
Despite the fact that I fully know and feel the pain of the loss of an animal.
That's what people do.
They usually get another dog.
But there's no such thing as, my child died, I'll get another child.
There's no such thing.
So, it's important to bear that in mind.
Well, at the same time, knowing the power of, and it's really a remarkable thing, it might be a gift of God for all I know, that one could have that bond.
It is said that people who have a pet like that live longer, and that it is a massive help to an older person living alone.
I believe that is true.
I also believe that, well, dogs were created for man, or human beings if you prefer, and from the dog's perspective, we were created for them.
That is equally true.
Charlotte in, let's excuse me, Lisa in Charlotte, Michigan, is that correct?
Do I have the...
City and state, right?
Yes, it is.
Okay, hi.
Hi, Lisa.
Hi, Dr. Hi, Mr. Prager.
So, nice to talk to you.
Thank you.
I do want to wish, you know, give my deepest condolences.
Thank you.
On your last auto.
My husband and I just lost our dog.
Hmm.
A month ago.
My condolences to you.
And I know it still hurts.
Yep.
Yeah.
She was a 13-year-old German short hair pointer.
Third bout of cancer.
We opted not to treat again just because of her age.
But, you know, for the last year, we've watched her decline.
But we still were able to enjoy her, knowing what was coming.
And as a veterinarian, you know, I've always seen people when it's time, you know, it's hard.
But I always would tell them, don't think about this day.
Think about...
All the last, you know, years that you've had with that, you know, dog or cat and reflect on that.
And, you know, you do.
You live a much fuller life with a dog or a horse or whatever.
I did have a horse for 30 years that I lost.
And I'm glad I had that opportunity to have that animal in my life.
Do you have children?
Yes, I do.
I have two children.
And I've been married for almost 32 years.
So you know all the types of love.
Yes, I do.
That's right.
And I have close friends that don't want to feel any pain.
They have such fear of things.
And it really saddens me to see how much they're missing out.
That's right.
That's correct.
Yep.
Well, God bless you, and thank you, and my condolences to you.
What she said, by the way, about remembering all the wonderful years and not the decline years, that holds true in particular for human beings.
And I'm watching my mother-in-law fading, and this is one of the most brilliant...
Humans, not just brilliant women, one of the most brilliant people I've ever known.
She was a practicing psychiatrist.
A very remarkable human being.
That's what I think about.
I don't think about the declining period.
I think of the vibrant person that she was until actually relatively recently.
As regards Otto, we were very lucky.
His decline was so precipitous that we did not have to endure a painful long period, which is very rare, I think, in the demise of either a human or an animal.
1-8 Prager 776. Hi, everybody.
I'm reflecting on the loss of my beloved dog, Otto, after 12 years.
Of really unrelenting joy.
I said he has left a hole, my wife, I am, no, not a hole, a canyon in his leaving us.
So, I will accept that.
And my lesson here is...
By getting a pet, you set yourself up for pain, inevitable pain, and yet people do it, and that is something we should apply to all of life.
If you play it safe, if you aim for a painless life, you will lead a non-rich life.
Marriage, children are the most obvious examples.
Even travel.
I remember the number of people who used to tell me, oh, I'm not even used to.
Oh, I so want to visit Israel, for example.
And they will then say, yeah, but I just want to wait until it's safe.
Well, I've been there about 25 times.
I've always felt safe.
But what they do is they've deprived themselves of something they really know would be meaningful.
Because they want to play it safe.
Well, that happened.
Look at what we did playing safe.
Let's close the schools.
There was absolutely no medical reason to close the schools, but they played it safe.
So they deprived children of schools for nearly two years.
Okay, let's see here.
Got some intense calls here.
There was a man who called.
I guess he gave up.
He said he lost.
Oh, here he is.
I want to get this.
Ladera Ranch, California.
And Kurt.
Hello, Kurt.
Hi, Mr. Prager.
It's such an honor to speak with you again.
Thank you.
And my condolences on the loss of your precious auto.
Thank you.
I lost a dog of 16 years, and I know the loss of it is tough.
Just when you came back on, you said the word acceptance.
You accept it.
My mind's been swirling because it's such a deep and wide topic, but the word acceptance in all of our loss is really so important to get to that place where we do accept it, don't run for it, face it face-to-face and kind of deal with it.
I had told the screener, you know, Had a lot of loss.
You know, more than some, not as much as others, but three sons.
One actually passed away two years ago from fentanyl poisoning.
He was my youngest son.
My middle son, I've been estranged from my wife and I for, she's over 10 years.
And a lot of that, some early family dynamics that were kind of around my oldest son, who is mentally retarded and some of the difficult behaviors that were within the family because of that.
I don't know.
It's just touching to hear you speak.
This is all about loss, right?
And it's such a...
And I guess I told the screener that, you know, it's so important that we don't run from it when it comes to pain and suffering because that's all part of the loss is that we don't anesthetize ourselves.
We work through it.
We face it.
And I think in the midst of all that and working through it, we can be happy and have joy again.
Well, my heart goes out to you.
It really does.
The word loss, by definition, implies having had something.
People are afraid to lose, and so they don't bother having something.
That's a big mistake.
Alright.
Let's see here.
Similar.
Well, nothing is similar.
But John in Denver, hello.
Hello, Dennis.
Thank you for taking the call.
Please accept my condolences for your loss.
Thank you.
I've had both of those losses.
I've had a loss of a very beloved pet, and I also had a loss of a son.
And, of course, a loss of a son, a loss of a child, I think, is the...
The ultimate ask from God to have any human being go through.
That's right.
I don't think there's anything worse than that.
But this whole conversation reminds me of the old Garth Brooks song, The Dance.
He says, you know, I could have missed it all, but then I'd have to miss the dance.
That's a very powerful line.
Hold on there.
Hold on.
I always think it's important to talk to people who lost a child.
And I'm glad I didn't know The way it all would end The way it all would go Our lives are better left to chance I could have missed the pain
But I'd admit to miss the days Hey everybody, Dennis Prager reflecting on life based on the loss of my beloved dog Otto this week.
What is today, Wednesday?
So it was on Sunday.
And it was actually about as blessed a passing, I mean, just a week earlier he seemed quite fine, and then getting bloated.
The veterinarian discovered that there was a cancerous growth on his heart, and it would block ultimate breathing because of the pumping of oxygen.
And that's what happened, and we should all go as peacefully as he did, and having loved ones around.
He was not euthanized.
He was totally natural.
And by the way, I am for euthanizing.
I don't think a dog should suffer.
Animals do not aim for immortality.
They aim for joy.
And the larger issue is that people get an animal knowing that they will experience pain as a result.
But they choose the pain because they want the good that comes from...
And that is a lesson for life.
That's why you should get married and have children.
There may be real pain, but you want a fuller life.
So, John, did you have anything to add?
I know you've lost both a dog and a child, so you know both the difference between the loss and the pain, which, of course, is incomparable.
And my heart goes out to you.
Did you have anything else you wanted to add?
Well, just that, you know, it was a horrible experience, of course.
And like I say, I don't think we're a human being is asked to go through anything harder than the loss of a child.
But you know what?
I also have four other boys.
And you know, I think it has actually enriched my life with them.
Because now, having had the pain, you can...
Really appreciate the good times.
Right, so the loss has increased your appreciation of what you have.
Absolutely, yes.
Right.
So the trick in life is to appreciate things without having lost them.
And it's not built into human nature to do that.
I do that, but a lot of people don't.
Appreciate what you have and whom you have while you have it and while you have them.
San Antonio, Texas, and Diane.
Hello, Diane.
Dennis Prager, hello.
Hello.
Gosh, what an honor to speak with you.
Thank you.
My point is, not only is your heart breaking and your wife...
But so is Snoopy's heart.
Snoopy needs another companion soon because he's used to that.
And my sister and I rescue weenie dogs, and we've had about six of them.
And we always, when one passes, we always have more or another one to comfort them.
We agree with you.
We totally, totally agree with you.
We are on a search for a bulldog.
As you speak.
Unfortunately, Otto sort of spoiled us.
And I mean that.
Look, he's extremely well known.
You can see pictures of him on the internet because he played such a role in my weekly Fireside Chat, which if you don't watch, you should.
And I welcome you to.
It's at PragerU.com.
And Otto was there with his tongue usually sticking out.
And it's impossible to have looked at him and not smiled.
That's a big deal, to have that.
Santa Monica, California, and Joe, hello.
Hey, how are you?
Can you hear me clearly?
I do indeed, yes.
Great to talk to you, and blessings to your dog.
To another life.
I'm a believer in that.
And my daughter went off to law school.
She says, Daddy, could you take care of the dog?
You know, little Trixie.
I said, heck no.
I didn't say heck no.
I said the other word.
Hell is allowed on this show.
Go ahead.
Okay.
Anyhow, so to make a...
Of course, my daughter knows me.
She gives me the dog, and so I take the dog, and it was fantastic.
This dog would walk around the block with me while I was chipping golf balls, and she was my little gallery as I practiced golf on the parkway.
And you're right about the expression of dogs.
They just show so much love, and she was such a blessing.
And she finally, she would get these seizures, like epileptic seizures, when she was getting older, and they became more and more frequent.
And I got to a point where I figured that she'd rather, it was just too painful for her, you know, to go through that.
That's right.
I had to say goodbye to the dog.
So you started off reluctant to even have her?
Yeah.
Yeah, that's what's so amazing.
Exactly.
It's a very fascinating thing.
Look, my first concern is that people love people.
But why would that exclude loving an animal?
I mean, it doesn't exclude it at all.
There's something very precious about it.
People come first, but so what?
I love music.
People come first, but my life would be much poorer without music.
Love is a good thing.
It's not the only thing.
And it needs to be channeled properly, but it's a good thing.
We continue.
The Dennis Prager Show.
Martha, my dear, though I spend my days in conversation, please remember me, Martha, my love.
Don't forget me, Martha, my dear.
Hold your head up, you silly girl.
Look what you've done.
Hi everybody, Dennis Prager here reflecting on life and pain and loss and how by getting a pet you have inevitably set yourself up for pain and yet that is the lesson of life.
If you want to live a full life, you have to be prepared for pain.
No pain, no gain.
That's why you should marry, that's why you should have children.
Despite the fact that there could be real pain involved in both.
Okay, let's see here.
Ashland, Ohio, and Lee.
Hello, Lee.
Hey, how you doing?
Okay, thank you.
I'm not really good.
I've been on the radio before, but you were talking.
I was listening to you.
I'm driving a semi, and I was listening to you, so I'm here to load, so I'm outside talking.
Yeah, we had a daughter that was a doctor from Wisconsin.
We're from Ohio.
And she was killed on a stomach ill accident.
She was brain dead.
We had to go up, you know, pull the plug, basically.
And then we acquired her dog three years.
It just happened about a year ago.
The dog died.
But we had the dog for almost three years, maybe not quite.
But when the dog passed away, it was almost, if not harder.
When the dog passed away because it was like a connection to our daughter.
And we still missed the dog.
We probably kind of missed the dog more because the daughter was kind of living away from us.
But we had the dog for those three years.
It was a great dog.
It's kind of like a human dog in a way.
And we're not dog people.
We are dog people, but we never had animals in the house.
So then that was another thing.
We accepted the dog.
When we went to her house, we wouldn't eat out of the dishes because she would feed the dog out of a bowl.
Well, we didn't care after we had the dog.
But yeah, the pain and kind of brought it back and it's kind of reliving it again.
Yeah, I hear you.
I hear you.
That was a connection to your daughter.
That's right.
My wife believes that they have souls.
I didn't used to believe that.
It's interesting that in Judaism there's actually a debate by medieval rabbis.
Do dogs have souls?
I don't remember what was resolved.
It may not have been resolved.
But I don't dismiss it.
The connection is a very remarkable one.
I'm happy they exist.
Let's put it that way.
And just remember the big lesson.
If you want to avoid pain, You don't live a full life.
That's the lesson.
Dean and Jack, Kevin, Cheryl, Lee, Daryl, Dennis.
I wish I could have taken your calls.
Dennis Prager here.
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