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June 19, 2023 - Dennis Prager Show
01:23:55
Father’s Day
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Dennis Prager here.
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Hello, everybody.
Welcome to the show.
Hope you had a good weekend.
And I want to talk about that for just one moment.
No, actually, maybe two moments.
Yesterday was Father's Day, and I wish you a belated Father's Day, if you are a father.
I raised the issue, though, for a very serious and somber reason, actually.
Because many fathers did not hear from one or more.
I'm talking about those who have no contact with one or more of their children.
As many of you know, I am somewhat consumed by that issue.
I am so aware of how fortunate I am that I have such a close relationship with my two sons.
I don't take that for granted because I know how many people do not.
I have asked in audiences, and remember most of my audiences are conservative, composed of mostly conservative people, and I've asked them to raise their hands and not to be ashamed if they do raise their hand because it doesn't mean that they are talking about their own children.
So I ask if you know any family in which there is an adult child who does not speak to a parent or both parents, raise your hand.
And always at least one-third raise their hands.
And remember, a lot of people have people in their lives for whom that is true, but they don't know it because those parents are embarrassed to reveal it.
So if my audience is of traditional people, one-third know of a family where an adult child does not speak to a parent, I think that the number is probably closer to a half than to a third.
So we're talking about, I don't know, ten million?
Tens of millions?
I don't know.
Of people who...
Did not hear from someone yesterday on Father's Day.
So to you, please know, for whatever it's worth, and I say that not only with humility, but with realism.
I don't know if it means much, but my heart goes out to you, and I do recommend...
That you not allow your happiness to be held hostage by your child.
I've done a number of happiness hours on that subject because it is a very important and, as I just noted, ubiquitous subject.
So, isn't that interesting?
On Father's Day, when my sons called and my grandson called, I thought about the people who didn't get calls.
Because their kid doesn't speak to them.
It is hard for me to believe that anything nearing this number, this proportion of adults did not speak to their parents 50 years ago, let alone 100, 150, 200 years ago.
We live in the age of selfishness, of staggering narcissism.
There are many people who don't speak to a parent because of politics.
When did that happen?
It might have happened in the Revolutionary War, I know.
What's the famous case, Benjamin Franklin and his son?
So Franklin's son was loyal to the crown, and of course Franklin was loyal to the colonies becoming...
America, United States of America.
Did they not speak as a result?
Are we aware of their relationship?
I don't think they did.
Yeah, so it happened.
I don't romanticize the past.
How can you romanticize the 20th century, the century of the Nazis and the communists?
It's difficult to romanticize the 20th century.
And in the United States, I don't romanticize some of the bad aspects.
However, in toto, this was a magnificent country to live in for most of its people, for the great majority of its people.
And we entered the 21st century electing a black man as president.
Twice, one might add.
A man who I now realize was not a liberal, but a leftist.
I have been playing this statement of his since, what was the first year he was elected?
2008?
2008. So I have been playing for you since 2008. That's 15 years.
I have been playing for you regularly.
His frightening statement that in five days...
We will fundamentally transform the United States of America.
We are five days away from fundamentally transforming the United States of America.
So here is the insight that I came up with in Romania last week.
When I was asked at a speech in Bucharest, what is leftism?
And I will be repeating this regularly because the only way any of us, including myself, Learn is by repetition.
I knew how terrible that comment was.
That's why I've been playing it for 15 years.
What I didn't do was I didn't cross the goal line.
I got to the two-yard line with regard to the left and with regard to Barack Obama, but I didn't cross the goal line for all these years until...
A question from a young man in Bucharest.
What is leftism?
And as I've said so often, I think best under pressure.
Obviously I was under pressure as a public speech.
Pretty big audience.
And I realized leftism is nothing.
That's the reason people can't define it.
Leftism is...
Entirely oppositional.
That's what it is.
It is for fundamentally transforming society.
That's it.
That is its purpose.
To fundamentally overthrow everything.
Everything!
I mean, when you think about his words, transform is bad enough.
America did not.
That's why I played it from that day on.
America didn't need and doesn't need transformation.
Well, it does now because of what the left has done.
But it didn't then.
Let alone fundamentally transform.
Fundamentally!
And that was the giveaway.
I, Barack Obama, am not a liberal.
I'm a leftist.
Liberals do not wish to fundamentally transform the United States of America.
They vote for those who do, because liberals don't vote their values.
The left and conservatives vote their values.
Liberals do not vote liberal values.
That is, by the way, that is the central problem of America.
Liberals do not fight for liberalism.
They are weak.
With the exception of Alan Dershowitz.
Can you think of another exception?
Can you think of a fighting liberal who is fighting the left?
Because the liberals who were liberal and fight the left now, they've become conservative because the only opposition to leftism is conservatism.
But I want you to understand how important this insight is.
All they're there to do is destroy.
Fundamentally transform is destruction.
Right?
I remember saying at the time, incidentally, I put it in micro terms.
What would you think if your spouse said, I want to fundamentally transform you?
Do you think your spouse loved you?
That I did ask at the time.
It was inconceivable to me that Barack Obama loved the United States of America.
You cannot love what you wish to fundamentally transform.
I mean, that's obvious.
If a composer, I think in musical terms, if a composer looks at his symphony and says, you know what, this symphony needs to be fundamentally transformed.
It means that he didn't love or she didn't love the symphony.
Obviously.
That was a giveaway.
Barack Obama is a leftist.
He's a destroyer.
And that became clear.
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So, which...
Okay, which dark item do I bring to your attention now?
I just want to repeat this critical point that you understand.
Leftism stands for nothing.
It only destroys.
It fundamentally transforms.
What the left did to music, did to art, did to sculpture.
Doing to our university, or he did to the universities, doing to high schools.
That's what they do.
Barack Obama used the right words.
He was honest.
But as I said in 2008, when I played it for you, the scary part was the massive cheer of middle-class Americans, mostly white.
That was it.
That was the symbol of the...
The decline to come of the United States of America, that thousands of people with lives that the world would envy, in a country the world wished to move to, cheered when a leftist destroyer said, we will fundamentally transform the United States of America.
That's what got me the cheers.
I wish somebody could have asked all of those many thousands, what would you like to fundamentally transform?
What about America so rotten, you spoiled, narcissistic brat fool?
What would you like to fundamentally transform about the United States?
I don't know what they would even say.
Well, you see it now.
That's right.
What is the latest from the American Medical Association run by lefties?
You said that just right now, correct?
Correct.
AMA doubles down, really.
American Medical Association pledges to work with activists to push youth sex changes from the Daily Caller.
American Medical Association pledged to ramp up its support for cross-sex medical interventions for youths with gender identity issues in a resolution its House of Delicates approved this week.
By the way, whenever this is raised with a doctor that I would speak to, I say, oh, who cares what the AMA says?
Only 15% of doctors are members.
Folks, this is a naive response.
Doctors are sheep just like every other group of human beings.
There's no difference between doctors and other groups, morally speaking, or in terms of wisdom.
None whatsoever.
There's not a shred of more courage or wisdom among doctors than among plumbers.
Just to give any example, you can take any group you want.
By the way, it's not anti-doctor.
It's true for just about every profession.
But!
When people hear American Medical Association, they think it represents American medical people, right?
That's what you would think.
Is there any rebellion?
Doctors are not fighters.
By the way, nor are lawyers, nor are Uber drivers, nor is any single group.
So, don't be insulted if you're a doctor.
Instead of being insulted, ask, is Prager right?
That's the mature response.
The AMA already supported cross-sex medical interventions for children, but the new resolution makes this stance more proactive in response to state-level restrictions on such procedures, with the AMA now affirmatively lobbying For laws designed to promote sex change procedures.
The resolution passed Monday, according to the Endocrine Society, which sponsored the resolution.
The Endocrine Society?
Who are members?
Endocrines?
That was a joke, by the way.
Endocrinologists?
The organization pledged to work with special interest groups to fight state and federal limits.
On all cross-sex medical procedures, which it euphemistically referred to as gender-affirming care.
As I have said to you, gender-affirming care is as big a lie, as gigantic, enormous a lie, as the Inflation Reduction Act, which involved vast new printing of money.
It is gender-denying act.
It's gender-denying care.
It's so amazing.
I want to change my sex slash gender.
Great!
We'll do that with gender-affirming care.
There is no gender-affirming care in the United States.
You probably lose your medical license or your license to practice psychotherapy.
Kid comes to you and says, hey, I'm a boy when she's a girl.
And you go, well, actually, you're a girl and you should work out your issues.
You probably have other issues, young lady.
You can't become a boy.
There is no such thing.
My friends, you cannot change your sex.
You can change how you think you are.
You can do that all you like in life.
The resolution was co-authored by two medical students.
That is so interesting.
Medical students.
Well, of course, the younger you are, the bigger the fool you are.
In America today, generally speaking, it's not true for all young people by any means, but the woke are disproportionately found among the young.
Medical students, Charles Adams and Delia Sosa, both of whom are transgender, Oh, that's great.
So Charles Adams is a female, presumably, and Delia Sosa, I have no idea.
The co-authors express concerns that state restrictions on cross-sex treatments for children endangered people's lives.
Life and death matter.
That's how they get you.
Back in a moment.
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Hello, everybody.
Dennis Prager here on I hope you had a good weekend, and I especially hope you had at least some warm contact with one of your children if you are a father.
I spoke at length at the beginning of the first hour, so I won't repeat how many fathers and mothers.
I don't have contact with a child who won't speak to them.
Father's Day.
I mean, you really, really have to have been truly abused to not even send a text of Happy Father's Day, let alone make a call or a visit.
But it's the age of feelings, as I wrote about.
Decades ago.
It's the age of feelings.
You feel there it is.
I feel like I shouldn't talk to my father.
I don't talk to my father.
My feelings uber alis.
I feel I'm a boy.
I'm really a girl.
Feelings uber alis.
That's it.
How you feel is reality for the left.
They have departed from reality.
Oregon Education Department says that the idea that there's one right answer on only one right answer in math is a form of white supremacy, which is, of course, the ultimate compliment to whites.
If, indeed, you have to be a white to believe that there is one right answer in math, then there must be something special about being white.
The insult to non-whites of that policy is so obvious because, please understand this, by far the greatest amount of racism and contempt for blacks is on the left.
Utter and total contempt.
If you're black and you think the left is your ally, you are so fooling yourself that history will record this as a phenomenon.
As a phenomenon.
As the Muslims of this city in Michigan that I reported to you about are learning, the left isn't pro-Muslim, it's anti-Judeo-Christian.
So when you actually agree with religious Judaism and Christianity that we don't take pride, we allow, we tolerate, we treat with respect, we have compassion, even love.
But we don't celebrate LGBTQIA. Now it's 2S, by the way, two-spirit.
Yeah, because they didn't have room for the non-binary, the people who were both.
2SLGBTQIA+. Wouldn't you think that the plus would cover that?
What is there left, actually?
Oh, yeah, I know what's left.
Cisgender heteronormativity.
Yeah, that we don't honor.
We really don't.
One of the candidates on the Republican side is Vivek.
It's pronounced Vivek, by the way, not Vivek.
Vivek Gravoswamy, who, by the way, has a terrific PragerU video up, stories of us, segment with him.
He's a big friend of PragerU.
So that's just a full disclosure.
So is Larry Elder.
I mean, it's not like he's the only one, but we do have a connection, a bond with him.
These are two particularly wonderful men who are running for president.
They're not the only ones.
DeSantis spoke at the PragerU Gala in Florida.
And we have three videos with Nikki Haley, and she was on a fireside chat.
I would like you to hear, who was the guy at Fox News, Charles what?
Who interviewed Vivek?
Charles Payne, yeah.
So are you ready there, Rick?
Good.
So I'd like you to hear some of Vivek Aravaswamy.
Take it away.
All right, so it's through his hat in the presidential ring, and I've got to tell you something.
He has taken the election cycle by storm.
His political agenda would fundamentally reshape America, but in this case, it would reshape America back to its roots, to its ethos that propelled us to greatness in the first place.
By the way, that was great on Charles Payne's part.
That was terrific.
It's not the leftist reshape.
It's too...
Put it back into its good shape.
That's a true revolution you're going...
Yeah, well, that's revolution in the sense of revolve, yes.
That's exactly right.
I didn't want to let that pass by, that it was a very important point Charles Payne made in his introduction.
Let's continue.
Presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy.
You know, Vivek, Eisenhower...
His farewell address warned of the unwarranted influence of the military industrial complex, and you're warning about this new woke industrial complex.
Explain that.
So look, I think there's a merger, Charles, of private power and state power to together do now what neither can do on its own.
That's what the ESG movement is all about.
That's actually a lot of what so-called big tech censorship is all about.
It's not big tech censorship.
It's government tech censorship where government is deputizing private companies to do through the backdoor what government could not get done through the front door under the Constitution.
That is...
For that alone, it is important to have him as a viable candidate.
The government is using corporations, in this case big tech and other corporations, to censor speech that it can't do on its own.
Between that introduction and that point alone, it was worth your hearing this.
This is a major message of Arawaswamy.
Who is bright, successful, charming, non-WASP for those who care about that.
Alright, continue please.
That's why I've said as U.S. President, one of my first executive orders will be to say that any time there's a government bureaucrat who has pressured a private company to take an action that the government couldn't take directly, we will publish that and disclose it, because you have to see the problem in order to solve it.
We're also going to go the distance and solve it as well.
You know, right now in this country, morale is just sinking like a rock.
And I think that's one of the keys, right?
If you're going to implement any sort of great idea...
By the way, hold on a second.
So I'm looking at the screen.
You can see it as well.
Salem News Channel.
So I'm looking at it right now.
And nobody...
Even I didn't.
But I want to make this point of how insignificant it is to the average Fox News.
This is Fox News, after all.
It is a black interviewer of a candidate for president whose parents came from India, correct?
And nobody...
It didn't register in me until I just started thinking about it.
But we're the racist side, though.
Right?
Like anyone cares.
It's Charles Payne and Vivek Rawaswamy.
Oh yeah, I forgot.
One's black and one's from India.
Or at least, you know, origins from India.
For the average conservative voter, Rawaswamy might as well be Jones.
If the guy has our values.
But we're the racist side.
Continue, please.
And you want it to come to fruition.
We've got to first find a way to convince folks that there can be, you know, to coin a phrase, morning in America again.
How do you go about that?
Exactly.
So, look, I think we have to revive civic pride in the next generation.
I'm the first millennial ever to run for U.S. president as a Republican.
As a young person, I feel some responsibility.
We're all hungry for a cause.
We're hungry for purpose and meaning and identity.
That's the vacuum at the heart of our soul.
So wokeness or gender ideology or the climate cult, that'll fill the void.
But what we need to do for the next generation, Charles, is fill that void of identity with the vision of American national identity that runs so deep that it dilutes the woke agenda to irrelevant.
Hold on.
I'm telling you, this is Lincoln-esque.
I, to hear this from a man running for president of the United States, I'm not.
I have the chills.
I really do.
I'm chilled.
Not only because the room is 68 degrees.
That he so identifies the crisis, and Charles Payne asked the right question about the morale of America.
They have lost, young Americans have lost any sense of purpose, and it's filled.
I loved it.
With the climate cult.
Did you hear that?
The climate cult.
It is so accurate.
And the sex agenda, however he put it.
That's exactly right.
I mean, that's been truly a theme of my life.
Everybody has a religion.
It'll either be the traditional Judeo-Christian religions or it will be some secular religion.
We'll continue with the Rawaswami interview momentarily.
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Is that New Jersey now has passed a law that you must teach global warming in elementary schools and high schools.
Do you understand how little education you get where the left completely, what is it, fundamentally transforms education?
Do you realize how little you learn?
You learn no music or art, that's a given.
You probably don't learn any grammar.
You probably don't read much great literature.
And rather, you get a vast amount about sex, about sexual orientation, about sexual and gender identity, a great deal about racism, and a great deal now, by law, of global warming.
Do you realize kids are falling behind?
In terms of education, if you compare what kids knew 75 years ago and more, we're basically producing illiterates.
But they're propagandized.
So they are told that Antarctica, that was the example in the article, Antarctica is getting warmer.
This is important for a third grader to know.
Because then you can propagandize them to fundamentally transform energy in your society so that people do not live in bigger homes, they live in smaller apartments, so that people do not have cars to drive, but rather will bicycle, walk, or take public transportation to fundamentally transform everything.
So by law in New Jersey, I didn't realize New Jersey, you know, we talk about Oregon and California and New York and Illinois.
New Jersey definitely should be on that list of crappy states, of sick states.
Forget crappy, sick.
Sick lefties run New Jersey.
But it won't make any difference.
Parents will go along with it.
The human being is designed to be a sheep.
That's it.
You just have to understand that.
You have to fight not to be a sheep because your nature wants you to be a sheep or a lemming.
We will all march over the cliff because that's where everybody's marching.
Is that what the story of the lemming is?
We all march off the cliff because that's where the line is moving?
Yeah, you can see that when you drive.
There are two left-hand lanes, and everybody is in one of them, and so you don't go to the other, because everybody's in one of them.
So one is often virtually empty or empty.
The road is a great microcosm of society, by the way.
And New York State, another sick place.
And let's see what they...
New York State's directive to schools lie to parents from City Journal.
Secret gender transition is now the default policy for New York State's public schools.
Parents who send their kids to New York public schools have lots to worry about.
Is he really learning?
Is she really safe?
And is the school gender transitioning my child behind my back?
Earlier this week, the New York State, that's last week, I guess, if it says earlier this week, yeah, came out on the end of last week.
The New York State Department of Education published a legal update and best practice document for how schools should serve transgender and gender-expansive students.
Who comes up with these terms?
Do you know that there were geniuses on the left?
Gender expansive.
I can expand my gender.
The key takeaway, if your child decides that he or she wants to socially transition to the opposite gender, it is now a, quote, best practice for the school to lie to you about it.
Only the student...
The New York State Department of Education declares, knows whether it is safe to share their identity with a caregiver.
That's a direct quote.
Only the student.
The baseline assumption then is, the author writes, that unaffirming parents are dangerous to their children.
If Kevin wants to go by Kimmy, but doesn't want his parents to know the best practice according to the New York State Education Department, Will one person take their kid
out of school in New York State because of this?
How many people in New York State even know this?
We will lie to you.
We will call your boy Kevin when we talk to you.
we will call your boy Kimmy when we talk to her as I have so often pointed out tyranny always begins with the undermining of parental authority Okay.
All authority is now non-governmental.
Excuse me, all authority is now governmental.
All non-governmental authority is destroyed.
And there were two big ones, the authority of religion and the authority of parents.
The left has successfully destroyed nearly all of both.
And now they have all the authority.
Through government.
Through corporations.
It is so obvious that you have to willfully decide you don't want to know what is going on.
Not to know it.
That's what's going on in New York State.
And I gave you the New Jersey example.
There are two Americas.
They have nothing in common.
Nothing.
We return in a moment.
There's a new documentary out called Leaving California, the Untold Story.
The great, great epic times.
I love the epic times.
Has made this.
The producer and the editor.
An editor at Epoch Times and the producer of this documentary, Leaving California, is Siamak Korami.
And amazingly, he has not left California, I just learned, two minutes ago.
Neither have I, Siamak.
It's a painful truth.
So what is the untold story of your documentary?
The untold story is the story of the people that are staying and what they are dealing with.
And the fascinating part of all this is that most people that are in California, they are challenged by a lot of different policies.
But for the most part, they don't even know that they are voting for these policies or they're choosing these policies.
They just wonder, why is the cost of living getting so high?
Why do we have homelessness?
Why do we have crime?
But they don't really connect the dots.
So that's the untold story of the people that are staying.
That they don't connect the dots.
That's the fundamental thesis of your documentary.
Wow, is that ever true?
You know, what's fascinating is the media has done a disservice to people in California by not going deep, by not fact-checking, by not...
Analyzing the data by not looking at policies critically.
So, we are doing that through this documentary.
So, in a nutshell, what would connecting the dots lead to?
What conclusion?
The conclusion is that the policies that people are voting for, it's causing a lot of these problems.
And there is a huge disconnect between the policymakers and the leaders with the average Californian.
And it doesn't matter the politics of the average Californian.
It could be liberals, it could be conservatives, it's just the policies are not really helping those.
And nobody's telling this story.
Did you happen to see the Hannity Newsom dialogue interview?
Yes, yes.
Oh, good.
I won't say a word about it.
What was your reaction to it?
Well, I think this day and age what you can do is you can take any statistics and code it and just make up facts and make your point.
And that's really sad to see.
And I think this is what the politicians are doing across the board in this state and they're getting away with it because...
There's going to be some media that's going to support them.
So we have to come back to a point where we are looking at everything critically across all the media.
Well, for the record, I just want my listeners to know, I watched a good chunk of it.
Maybe I saw it all.
I don't know how long it was.
But I watched a good chunk.
And I had heard that Newsom had really run roughshod over Hannity, and that's what I expected to see.
What he did was talk over Hannity constantly.
I don't know how many sentences Hannity was actually even able to finish, but I'll give you one example of an answer he gave, and I'd like you to respond to it.
Well, you know, he said 500,000 people have left California.
He said, well, that's nothing.
It's such a large state.
It's like, what did he say?
Something either.3 or 3%.
He said it's nothing.
What's your response to that argument?
Well, this trend has been with us for 10 years, and it's accelerating.
And it's nothing right now, but if it continues, and what it means, there are better places for people to go to, and if it continues, it could hurt us big time in the future.
I would be shocked if the policymakers of the state are not really paying any attention to this exodus because it's going to get worse if it continues.
It's going to really hurt us down the line.
Well, I would think that at the minimum it will hurt California because the people leaving are taxpayers, often big taxpayers.
Isn't that one of the reasons that we've gone from a surplus here in California to a deficit?
There is a huge amount of AGI, which is the income lost by the state.
There was $29.1 billion lost last year.
And if you aggregate it, it adds up to $475 billion of taxable income that we have lost in the last few years.
So this is a huge loss to the state.
And I think the state leaders are worried about it from the conversations that we are hearing, but they're not mentioning it publicly.
Interesting.
All right, I'll be back with you in a moment.
This is an important documentary.
Leaving California, The Untold Story.
You can see it at SalemNow.com.
Hi, everybody.
Dennis Prager speaking to Siyama Korami.
He's an editor at Epoch Times, producer of the new documentary, Leaving California, The Untold Story.
It's up at SalemNow.com.
There was an interesting aspect to the Hannity-Newsom non-dialogue, because Newsom kept interrupting Hannity, and that was that Newsom agreed to a two-, three-, or four-hour debate with Governor DeSantis, at which Hannity would simply be the moderator.
I think that DeSantis should actually take it.
Newsom is somewhat of a fool and easily defeated in a debate.
Because in a debate, the other guy gets a chance to speak, unlike Kennedy.
So I want to ask you a question, Masiamak.
Given that you've worked on this a lot, if tomorrow there were an election, tomorrow, literally tomorrow, in San Francisco, Given the shutting down of so many businesses, malls and hotels, the rampant homelessness, the defecation in the streets, the crime, who would San Franciscans vote for?
DeSantis versus Newsom?
No, no, I'm sorry.
No, no, no, I'm sorry.
You're right in thinking that's what I was asking.
I mean for mayor.
Would they vote for a Democrat or a Republican?
That's my question.
They won't vote for a Republican because Republicans don't really have any presence there.
They have very minimal presence in San Francisco.
They probably want a moderate Democrat.
From what we are hearing on the ground, there's a movement among moderate Democrats that they don't want the policies that are dominant in San Francisco.
They want change.
But these moderate Democrats, they, for whatever reason, they don't like the Republican brand.
And that's what's happening there.
That is the issue in America in a nutshell.
Liberals between a leftist and a Republican would vote for a leftist.
The brainwash is that deep that Republicans are essentially fascist.
That is what the average liberal believes.
Yeah, and that's very unfortunate because Because this country is a country where I actually immigrated to 20 years ago, and this is a place where there is a lot of debate, there's a lot of ideas.
In our day-to-day life, people are very open-minded, but somehow when it comes to politics, we become so divided and so close-minded that we are not even willing to consider others.
Well, to be fair, I think it's more on the left that that is the case.
I keep inviting all my life leftists onto the show and almost none come on.
And that's typical.
Whereas if any left-wing show invited me on, I would be thrilled to appear on their program.
But they probably don't invite you on.
Yes, no, that's exactly the point.
So I don't think it's symmetrical.
I think it is overwhelmingly on the side of the left.
So from your making of this documentary, I don't even know the answer to this question.
Does the average Californian, in your belief, know how bad things are in this state?
No.
They have no idea.
They just see a little bit of what they see.
If they have a homeless encampment in front of their home, they start questioning that.
If they are struggling with cost of living, they start questioning that.
Why is it getting so expensive?
If they have dealt with crime, they say, what is going on with crime?
I'm having some crime problems.
But this is where the disservice from the media comes in, because they haven't told the average Californian of all the problems we have.
And most people have no idea what laws are passing, what we are doing in the States.
So that's really what we believe.
And what about the schools?
Does the average parent think my kid is being taken well care of and well educated at school?
That's what they think.
There's a trend of people pulling their kids out of public schools, but I believe the average Californian still thinks things are okay.
So we did in the documentary, we dove deep and we figured out the cost of educating a student per year is $23,000 now in California.
Ten years ago, this cost was less than $10,000.
Really?
Wow!
It has more than doubled in 10 years?
Yes, and the proficiency rate hasn't gone anywhere.
It's the same.
I actually thought it deteriorated.
Well, the thing is, they made it easier.
Oh, you're right.
They've cheapened the A. Yeah.
So the proficiency rates might be wrong and easier to get the same proficiency rate.
The question is, where does this money go?
And does average Californians understand what they're paying for?
They don't, obviously.
It is painful.
I don't know what to say.
They don't know what is being done to their kid to rob their innocence and educate them with nothing.
$23,000 per child in California?
Siamak, do you realize that four kids, that's practically $100,000.
Do people realize you could hire a major expert?
That is more than most professors make.
You could hire some world-class scholar to teach four children for that price.
Yeah, it baffles me where the money goes.
Where does it go?
So some of it is going to political campaigns and contributions.
So if you look at the unions that represent the teachers, California Teacher Association, they spend more than tobacco, pharmaceutical, and oil industry combined on political contributions.
So they're the top campaign contributor in the state.
Listen, this is a great documentary, folks.
Leaving California, The Untold Story.
It's at SalemNow.com.
Siamak, congratulations on your work.
Thank you, Dennis.
It was great to talk to you.
Thank you.
I mean, why do people think of that?
Just give them money and prove it was given to an educator and educate your kids with major scholars.
Hello, my friends.
I'm Dennis Prager.
I opened up the show today, two hours ago, mentioning that yesterday was Father's Day and offering deepest, deepest sense of sympathy for those of you who didn't hear from a child because they don't talk to you.
And this is a crisis in America that I have been on top of for Decades.
A society that does no longer take the Ten Commandments seriously.
It took the Ten Commandments seriously most of its history.
The Ten Commandments are exactly...
Moses holding the Ten Commandments is what...
That sculpture is what the Supreme Court justices face when they look out from where they're sitting.
If the Supreme Court were designed today, or the ACLU or the Democratic Party were at all in charge of designing the Supreme Court, there would be no Ten Commandments sculpture, needless to say.
They have contempt for the bases of Western civilization, because, as I will repeat over and over and over, the task, the only thing the left stands for, is destruction.
To fundamentally transform society.
As Barack Obama promised in 2008 to fundamentally transform the United States of America.
They transform music, art, medicine, everything.
That's exactly what they do.
It's all they do.
So, in a society that doesn't honor the Ten Commandments, they don't have any operative element of honor your father and mother, which is the...
Fifth commandment.
The first four rely on the fifth.
The second five, or the second four, if you will, rely on the tenth.
I won't go into that at this point.
Just, I do in my Bible.
Commentary, the rational Bible.
So I was talking to a man.
Is he still there?
Yeah.
So Rob in Chicago.
Hey, Dennis.
Yeah, I'm trying to understand something.
You said your father canceled you because you voted for Trump?
Yeah, I mean, he's always been liberal and always voted Democratic, but at the end of the day, he didn't agree with anything, and he blamed Trump for literally killing people with the way that he acted with COVID and whatnot.
So I didn't talk to my father for a good year and a half.
And then in January of last year, actually on January 6th of all days, my mother-in-law passed.
And so I felt important to call him as opposed to a text or an email.
I just felt it was appropriate.
And we did talk a couple of times here and there over the last year and a half.
Never the same.
Never the same of what it was.
And he was diagnosed with cancer on May 1st.
And he passed June 2nd.
And I honored him by driving 1,500 miles to go see him.
And he wasn't able to speak, but I was able to see him.
He knew I was there.
And I honored him by that, regardless of how I was treated and regardless of how the family was raised.
Was there any reconciliation?
You know, there was a text message of, you know, hey, I like to put everything behind us, but never a conversation about anything.
And that's just the way it always would be, you know.
Well, I'm sorry about the loss.
I just want to understand, your father died a month after being diagnosed?
Yeah, yeah.
Wow, what cancer was it of what?
Brain and lung.
I'm sorry, thank you.
It's interesting.
Man, presumably relatively fine.
Not feeling well, however, I guess prompted.
A visit to the hospital diagnosed with cancer and dies a month later.
This past weekend I gave a speech in Phoenix.
One of my favorite topics, happiness.
I should release that talk.
It was really one of the most important talks on happiness I've ever given.
I have not given a full speech on happiness in years for whatever reason.
This was a really, really important message.
Explaining that the pursuit of happiness and happy people are at the essence of the crisis in America.
Because the left produces unhappy people, and unhappy people make the world worse.
And I spoke about some of the things you need to be happy, and I mentioned dropping expectations.
It's in my book on happiness, and I live it.
I expect nothing.
And as a result, or one result, is constant gratitude.
And I gave the example.
I don't expect to be healthy tomorrow.
And I'm perfectly healthy today.
But I could have an aneurysm tomorrow, or a heart attack tomorrow, or be hit by a drunk driver tomorrow.
It's endless.
Or be diagnosed as this man's father was.
So I... Intellectually, I assume I'll be fine tomorrow because the odds are I will, but I don't expect it.
So that call brought that to mind.
David in Washington, D.C. Hello.
Oh, hi.
Hi, Dennis.
It's a pleasure to finally make your acquaintance.
Thank you.
Long time caller.
Oh, God, I'm really nervous.
So, by the way, it's totally understandable, and you sound fine.
Thank you so much, Mr. Prager.
So, first thing I noticed is that during the California exodus, one thing that worries me is that these people could spread their ideas and practical policies down to Texas, Florida, and even Arizona, of all places.
That's my first thing.
So, yes.
So, what do I think the influence of all these Californians leaving California on those three states will be?
Is that what you're asking?
Yeah.
Yes, it's an excellent question.
Thank you.
I should preface my response by noting that until the last three years, Californians' exodus...
Have ruined states, just like New Yorkers' exodus ruined states.
Washington state was conservative until a massive influx of Californian fools rendered it the left-wing wasteland that it has become.
Same with Oregon.
They're all West Coast.
It doesn't take much to move from California to Oregon or Washington.
And the people who did brought...
Their destructive ideas with them.
But now the Californians who are engaged in an exodus are overwhelmingly people with conservative values.
People who don't want to fundamentally transform something that is good.
So I think it'll have a positive effect.
The question is the New Yorkers moving to Florida.
I don't know the answer to that.
I wonder if there is any...
Any systematic analysis of that?
Do you know?
Are New Yorkers who are leaving New York...
Obviously they haven't had a bad impact.
Obviously they haven't had a bad impact because of the last election in Florida.
Okay, but I still wonder how their voting pattern is.
Maybe there aren't enough of them to have upset the vast majority of Floridians who voted...
People we know.
Yeah, no, but I... I don't know the answer, but you may be right.
Look, if I had to bet on it, I think more Republicans...
It's a net gain.
It's a net gain, yes.
That's right.
I think it's a net gain.
The exodus, even of New Yorkers, which is astonishing.
How many Republicans are in New York?
Do you know I figured out once that in some recent election, and this was years ago, this is pre-COVID, or pre-lockdown to be more precise.
All of the people in the borough of Manhattan, which is what people think of when they think of New York City, though it has five boroughs, all of those who voted Republican, every single one in Manhattan, could fit into Yankee Stadium.
So I don't know who's moving to Florida.
Maybe they're not Manhattanites.
Hi, everybody.
I'm Dennis Prager. - Sure.
I brought to you, it's really, it's so important to me that the ideas and notions and news that I bring to your attention stay with you.
So I think every so often I'll just do a very quick review.
If things already said, New York State's directive to schools is to lie to parents about their child.
If their child, let's say the boy wants to be known as, he's Kevin, but he wants to be known by a girl's name, like Kimmy, that's the example given, then at school, Kevin will be known as Kimmy and will be called she and her.
Teachers, or when the school calls the parents for whatever reason, they will speak about Kevin and him.
That is the directive of the New York State Education Department.
That's amazing, is it not?
Basically, not basically, lie to parents about their child's most fundamental identity.
The left is despicable.
If you don't know that...
You don't want to know it.
New Jersey has now mandated that children be taught about climate change because they're learning too much math and English and literature and music and art.
So we have to cut down some of that.
What they need is more sex and more global warming and more anti-racism.
But you still send your kids there.
This is a phenomenon worthy of its own attention.
On other matters, the Vietnam, China, vast numbers of countries are now boosting their use of coal to make energy.
While we ban the internal combustion engine in California and elsewhere in the United States.
The inflation that we have is a direct result of a number of things, most specifically the energy crisis, which caused by the environmentalists, Most radical people outside of LGBTQ organizations.
Every day I get it.
Oh, not every day.
I don't want to exaggerate.
I'd say every week.
I see another story of another life destroyed, in this case, by the Vax.
What is the latest one you sent me here?
Cat Pave.
Oh, yes.
Has she already gone to Switzerland?
We know.
Do we know?
Cat Pave was diagnosed with untreatable chronic neurological illness, ME slash CFS, caused by the COVID booster shot, in addition to suspected respiratory ALS. Her last post was from Switzerland, where she decided to end her life through Pegasus Association.
Huh?
The booster jab I received over a year ago destroyed my health, my body, and my life completely.
There is no other way to end my suffering other than the decision I made.
Beautiful young woman.
This is from her.
What was the date of this tweet?
I don't know.
It doesn't say.
But it's from her in Switzerland, so it's very recent.
Hi, guys.
Over the last 10 days, I became severely ill again, homebound, unable to do much.
My body is too weak to fight this illness.
And I have no more strength, so I made the decision to end my life at Pegasus Association in Switzerland.
I was diagnosed with untreatable chronic neurological illness, ME-CFS, caused by booster jab.
On top of having suspected respiratory ALS. This illness made me disabled, unable to work or have social life and unable to enjoy life altogether.
Breathing has become more and more difficult and painful for me and my lung function has been declining.
Thank you for all your friendship and support over the last year.
The booster jab I received over a year ago destroyed my health, my body, and my life completely.
There is no other way to end my suffering other than the decision I made.
At what point will a substantial number of people in the world ask this question?
Did the Pfizer and the Moderna and Johnson& Johnson vaccines do more harm or more good?
If you don't ask the question, you are not asking the question for the same reason you don't want to know what's going on in your child or grandchild's school.
Because it's too painful to confront the reality.
I don't know the answer, but I know that it is a legitimate question.
The fact that it is a legitimate question is such a condemnation of the liars who told us that we had to get vaccinated or we might die or we might kill somebody else.
The staggering lie and tyranny that surrounded it in Canada, the United States, Australia, and so many other countries.
The tyranny of if you don't hear it from the government, it isn't true.
So if you heard that people were being hurt, especially young people, by the vaccine, was that misinformation?
Well, according to Jacinda, what's her last name?
Adern, yeah, the former Prime Minister of New Jersey, with a great line, if you don't hear it from the government, it is not true.
She's now going to teach at Harvard, which is perfect.
She's perfect.
And so is, by the way, what's her name again?
The mayor of Chicago?
Lori Lightfoot.
She's also going to teach at Harvard.
In public health.
In public health.
Yeah.
I was speaking to a musician, a member of one of the major orchestras of the country.
He had a choice.
His choice was either get vaccinated or say goodbye to your musical career.
So he got vaccinated.
And he's...
He's a terrific, he's a truly world-class musician.
But he told me he's been tired ever since he got that vaccine.
back in a moment.
I mentioned to you last week two of the most awful not even awful It's not a good term.
They are awful, the appointments, but absurd is actually better than awful.
Jacinda Adern, the former prime minister of New Zealand, whom I played for you almost as often as I have played for you the Barack Obama.
We're five days away from fundamentally transforming the United States of America.
If you don't hear it from the government, it is not true.
If that's not totalitarian, then the word should be erased from English.
And then she was appointed to teach at Harvard, and so is Lori Lightfoot, a woman who almost single-handedly ruined one of the greatest cities in America, Chicago.
So if you were a leftist fool in the last few years, Harvard will hire you.
That is what happened.
So I said...
Repeatedly, doesn't this cheapen a Harvard degree?
When you have fools on your faculty deliberately hired, doesn't it make Harvard seem less serious?
Well, wouldn't you know, God sent a Harvard alumna into the studio just ten minutes ago.
Shalom, Dennis.
Would you put on her mic, please?
Oh, I think it's on.
I don't hear you.
Oh.
Yeah, they can.
Are you hearing her?
No, you're not.
So she was not set up.
Anyway, the person I'm referring to is Julie Hartman.
Julie Hartman is one of my favorite people, not just in America or the world, but in the universe.
If there are intelligent beings outside of our galaxy, she would still be one of my favorite.
We do actually, we do a podcast together, Dennis and Julie, and I promise you, you watch one, you will get hooked and want to see them all.
Your kids should see it too, given the content and given Julie's age.
Now, already up to 23. Is Julie on now, or are we...
Yes?
Do you want to say anything?
No, she's not.
Okay, everybody.
What can I say?
I'll control myself.
There are a lot of technical challenges in running all of this.
But I will talk to her because she did graduate from Harvard last year.
And I'm curious to get her take.
How could any Harvard alumnus?
Be proud of Lori Lightfoot being brought to teach at Harvard.
Is there anyone in the country, including Democrats, who thinks that she is someone worthy of any teaching position at any university, let alone the one that is still the most prestigious?
What qualifications does she bring to it?
This is why I said about, I think, 25 or 30 years ago, I wrote it.
Yes, 30 years ago, in my Ultimate Issues little magazine that I would send out to people, a quarterly that I printed.
Being on the left means never having to say you're sorry.
And this is a perfect example.
Lori Lightfoot will never have to say she's sorry.
Gavin Newsom will never have to say he's sorry.
I saw Gavin Newsom on the Hannity Show, and the man was boasting about how well California is doing, thanks to him.
Do you understand that?
Do you understand?
The denial of reality, it is the denial of reality that enabled him to go into an expensive restaurant while he closed down thousands and tens of thousands of restaurants because people could not enter them, but he went into one unmasked.
They live in, every leftist lives with the ability Of denying reality, let alone any role in its destruction.
Harvard appoints Lori Lightfoot to teach public health, no less.
All right, we'll come back.
We'll see what's doable.
In any event, I've got so much to talk to you about.
This young woman who is now, I believe, by now dead, she went to Switzerland because the pain was unbearable as a result of the vaccination.
The country forced young people to take a dangerous vaccine.
Remember that, my friends.
take Bobby Kennedy Jr. seriously.
Well, here is our Harvard graduate.
And it's perfect that you are, because without your even being here, Julie, I have actually said last week, I can't imagine that the average Harvard graduate thinks, oh, Harvard sounds even classier, more prestigious, now that they have Lori Lightfoot and Jacinda Ader in teaching there.
They might.
They might think it sounds more prestigious.
I'm sorry.
I wish everyone could see Dennis' face.
Well, theoretically they could.
No, actually, theoretically they can't.
That's right, it's the third hour.
You're kidding me.
No.
You mean so, you think that many Harvard graduates are in tune with Lori Lightfoot?
In tune meaning supportive of?
Yes.
I don't know if they're supportive or not supportive, but they think she's a Democrat and she was a mayor of Chicago, and they don't know how bad she was because they watch CNN and read the New York Times.
They live in a different America than we live in.
And so when they see that, they're probably neutral or positive.
If you did see me now, folks, you would see me smiling.
Julie has...
I'm sorry to compliment you.
I'm truly sorry.
I'm not joking.
Because it doesn't matter.
I'm sorry, but you have an original mind.
I did not think of that.
That point is critical.
I always say it, but I didn't put two and two together.
I always say they don't know what we know.
They don't.
So the issue is not that they're proud of what she did, which is what I asked.
You're right.
They don't know what she did.
No, they don't.
I mean, I will encounter people all of the time, and they'll ask me why I'm conservative, and I'll go, well, do you know this new law that's going to be passed in California that a parent can be classified as abusive in a custody battle if he or she does not abide by their child's preferred pronouns?
People will look at me like I'm an Oompa Loompa.
You mentioned during this show...
Excuse me, like you're a what?
An Oompa Loompa.
Have you ever seen Charlie and the Chocolate Factory?
Yes.
I did.
I love it, actually.
Isn't that where the Oompa Loompas are?
He still doesn't know.
Right.
I've seen it, but I don't remember what an Oompa Loopa is.
Yes.
A bizarre creature.
Okay, I got it.
I do remember now.
You mentioned on this show, I was listening to you as I was driving, that the Oregon Department of Education says that finding one right answer in math is white.
They don't know that.
I tell it to these people.
That's right.
And they look at me again like I'm an Oompa Loomba.
That's right.
They live in a different universe.
Yeah, go on.
No, I was going to say, I struggle sometimes with how hard am I on them, because I do think that they're lied to and they live in this, as I say, other America, other universe.
But also, I think that they willingly blindfold themselves.
Oh, totally.
There's no question.
As I read it, I knew or even said on the air...
People don't know this.
In New Jersey, your child, by law, will now have to be taught about climate change in first grade.
Oh my gosh.
I mean, in New Jersey, the...
Did you just say New Jersey?
Yeah.
Oh, okay.
Also in New Jersey, the Department of Education says that any school district or teacher that does not teach that gender is non-binary will be punished.
It's in the Department of Education code.
Yeah, you know, I said to Alan last hour, or maybe earlier this one, I said, we talk about Oregon, Washington, California, New York, Illinois, but we never mention New Jersey.
It's as sick, and that's the best word, as any of them.
Why don't we?
Well, it's partially an insult to New Jersey because nobody takes it seriously, which is a silly thing.
A lot of people live there.
But I think that's the reason.
It has no identity.
All the others have their own identity.
New Jersey is like a suburb of New York in people's minds, to a certain extent it is.
If you cross the Washington Bridge, Holland Tunnel, or Lincoln Tunnel during rush hour, it does seem like a suburb of New York.
But anyway, back to your issue.
So you do know these things.
Do you feel that a Harvard degree has been cheapened by these appointments?
Of course.
And it's very sad.
I mean, I'm not trying to compliment myself here, but it's just a fact.
I worked really hard to get in there.
And it's sad to see what's happened to it.
Jacinda Ardern, let us not forget, was my commencement speaker a year ago.
And her whole speech was political.
She talked about the buyback program in New Zealand where they bought back the guns.
She talked about decriminalizing abortion.
Everyone in Harvard Yard stood up and clapped and whistled.
I thought that was so odd.
Even if you support decriminalizing abortion, it's not something to yay and whistle at.
It's a very regrettable thing.
I'm curious.
Did you stand up?
No, of course not.
No.
How many others didn't stand up?
I couldn't see.
Did you see any?
No.
I want you to hear something.
You know so much about me, but you don't know this.
And it touches me a lot.
That's why I asked you if you stood up.
When I was in high school, every single Sunday that the New York Rangers, the hockey team, played in Madison Square Garden, I went from Brooklyn to Monaco.
I've always been a big hockey fan.
I went to every Rangers game that was played at home on a Sunday night.
When there would be fights on the ice, that's common that it happens in hockey, the entire Madison Square Garden, all the spectators would stand up and scream and yell for their team to beat up the other guy, and I stayed seated.
Good for you.
I know, but I'm just saying how the parallel, it just touches my heart.
Well, I wanted someone to see me seated.
Just not me, Julie Hartman.
I wanted someone to look at a human being seated.
Yes, that's how I felt.
I go to see hockey games, not fights.
That was my theory.
I don't know why that's...
But it was.
It was a highlight to many people.
I acknowledge it.
A lot of nice people.
That was their highlight, the fights.
But there's boxing and there's now MMA for fights.
Hockey should be for hockey.
But you sat.
That is so interesting.
It's as if abortion has no moral issue.
There's no moral issue to the left.
They don't wrestle with it.
It's a fascinating aspect.
Back in a moment.
Dennis Prager here.
Thanks for listening to the Daily Dennis Prager Podcast.
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