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July 3, 2023 - Dennis Prager Show
01:21:41
Standing on Principles
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Dennis Prager here.
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It's Mark Eisler back with you again, filling in for Dennis Prager.
Zach, where's my music?
Where's my regular theme music?
You forgot?
I don't want the Beach Boys.
Oh yeah, I live in California.
I should mention that.
And I should mention it's my 15th year filling in for Dennis, and it never gets old.
In fact, if you had said to me 15 years ago that I would be filling in for Dennis Prager, Let alone for this length of time, I would have thought I could have no greater honor in this field.
And such it has been.
No greater career honor.
I'm trying to make up for it with the applause.
It won't work.
But I'm trying to...
You got me?
What's the name of my theme song that was on every Saturday night that you played last time?
I can't remember what it was.
Even if the last time I was on, by the way, a listener wrote that as a Republican, I should be dead.
He said I didn't deserve to teach one student, let alone have a microphone.
So I wrote back thanking for his openness and about his belief in free speech, but that was the exception.
Most of you were very happy about what I did.
So, in any case, I think the theme today I was going to do was going to be about...
And about that's all the left ever seems to want is power.
And I had this vision.
The vision I had was that Obama and Biden and Hillary, all they do is sit in the audience.
They could sit in the audience at the Soviet Union and applaud.
Because they'd be happy being apparatus.
How do you say it?
Whatever.
They'd be so happy being in that audience and just applauding whoever the leader was.
Once you understand that all the left cares about is power, it makes a lot more sense.
And they'll get it in any way and in any place.
That's why people doubted that President Trump was elected, as Dennis often says.
Of course there was no doubt.
That there was some kind of cannery going on, and if they could, they would, because that's what they care about most deeply.
It wasn't like the old times.
If you remember, I don't know if you remember this from history, Senator Patrick Moynihan and Senator Scoop Jackson of Washington, where they really cared about what was best for the country.
I think we've reached a new time.
And the new time we've reached is that we'll do anything that works to keep us in power.
Forget about the country.
I remember Ronald Reagan used to say that he and Tip O'Neill would have drinks after, you know, a long, hard week in Congress.
Tip O'Neill would castigate him, and President Reagan would say, what did you say during the daytime?
And now you're my friend.
And he'd say, that's the daytime.
Now we can be friends.
That has all changed.
We have a new Democrat party.
It's not the party of John F. Kennedy who said we'd pay any price, bear any burden to support the defense of freedom around the world.
These people will do and say anything to get their own power, which explains Joe Biden.
Why is Joe Biden doing what he does?
You know, once he supported segregation, some of his strongest friends were segregationists in the Senate.
I think Richard Russell among them.
Why could he get along with them and 20, 30, 40 years later be on the opposite side?
And the answer was because it was always about power.
It wasn't about a series of principles.
Which reminds me, last time I was on, I was talking about, I can't understand how you could watch Fox News after what they did to Tucker Carlson.
He was the best investigative reporter on television.
And yet, they got rid of him.
Why did they get rid of him?
Because...
We can't be sure, but it looks like because of the views he expressed.
What views did he express?
Remember January 6th?
It might have been a riot, but it wasn't an insurrection.
He talked about that fellow Ray Epps, who we still don't know about, who's seen urging the protesters on into the Capitol.
So I wonder, how could you support Fox News when they get rid of the best investigative reporter on?
Not that I agreed with him on everything he did.
But you have to show your principles.
Many years ago, My friend Bruce Hershenson said it was my idea.
I think it was his.
And here was the thought.
We didn't first become Republicans and then decide on what our principles were.
We had a series of views and we said the Republican Party makes sense.
And if ever the Republican Party stops expressing those views, why be in that party?
Which is why I have trouble with people like Mitch McConnell.
And it's been well reported that Mitch McConnell...
And Paul Ryan, who's on the board of Fox, had a lot to do with getting rid of Tucker Carlson.
So you have to ask yourself, if you have a series of principles, why would you ever not let them come through for you in times of knowing what to do?
So one lady, I was giving a speech a week or two ago, and she came up to me very angry.
I've heard you say on the air, and you said it here today.
We shouldn't be watching Fox News.
Well, that's my opinion.
Well, what about Laura?
And what about Sean Hannity?
My answer is, what about them?
They have to decide.
I get why they want to keep their jobs.
That makes perfect sense to me.
But then I don't have to have, you know, support them.
As Dennis always says, courage is in short supply among people.
It's not an easy thing to do.
I'm going to spend a whole hour talking about education in a way I haven't before and give you the background where it started to go wrong and what happened.
Well, we had a teacher strike this year.
And guess what?
I had to come in because my values and my principles said, when you're tested, that's when you do it.
I knew many teachers wouldn't talk to me.
The last time there was a strike, people said angry things to me and, you know, they didn't physically threaten me, but who knows?
And that brought me back.
I'll probably mention this in my educational hour.
It brought me back to many years ago when teachers first went on strike in New York City.
And they were having their union meeting in the lunch hall, wherever we had our room for lunches.
And they tried to kick me out.
And I said, no, this is where I eat lunch.
And they said, no, this is our union meeting, and you're not in the union.
And I said, too bad.
I'm eating my lunch here.
So even then, I had to stick up for my principles.
That's what it's about.
We have this battle going on where it's our principles and our values.
And I'm going to talk about this in the third hour.
Tomorrow is July 4th, obviously.
And if you stand up for what Americans have fought for all these years, what our founders produced, right?
The greatest country in the history of the world.
You hear me say that at the end of every time I'm on for wherever I fill in or on my own show in the past.
It's the greatest country in the history of the world.
But you ask Benjamin Franklin, one of the great founders.
You know this fame.
I'm going to mention it a few times, so it sticks.
A lady says to him at the end, Mr. Franklin, what kind of country have we produced?
And he said, it's a republic if you can keep it.
And by the way, a lot of people don't know it's a republic, the difference between a republic and a democracy, and people interchange it, and that's fine.
I have no problem with that.
But the fact is, the founders are smart.
They knew we might not be able to keep it.
And what was it about?
Most students, you know, you guys know out there that I also teach.
What did they create that was so special?
What they created that was so special was a government with as little power as possible.
So they have checks and balances.
What does that mean?
Congress passes a law as an example, and the president could veto it.
That's the executive.
Congress is the legislative, and we have the courts, which is the judicial form of government.
But Congress passes a law, the president vetoes it, and then if two-thirds of Congress want to override his veto, they can do that.
And if Congress passes a law that is unconstitutional, the courts can say that, that this law is unconstitutional.
The founders were brilliant.
On this pre-July 4th, I want you to get that idea again.
They didn't just do that.
They also had a federal system of government.
What does that mean?
It means that the federal government has certain powers, the states have certain powers, and everything else is reserved to the people.
You know, I've mentioned this story before.
I asked the...
Again, I mentioned Bruce Herconson, my dear friend, who was such a scholar on government and the Constitution.
He called himself a constitutionalist, as I remember.
I said, Bruce, do you think God was involved with the founding of the United States of America?
And he said to me, Mark, did you ever think how young the founders were?
And they got everything just about right.
And I thought, uh-huh, maybe that's what was going on.
Because what they created was brilliant.
What they created was a masterpiece.
Because this was the first time in history that the rights were given to the people, not to some tyrant, not to some king, not to some queen, that the average ordinary person, it was their right to do with their lives.
What they wanted to do with their lives.
It wasn't up to government.
And that's what we're fighting with the left.
They want to control us and we want to live our lives.
That is the battle before us as we start to celebrate July 4th tomorrow.
It's not about fireworks.
It's about keeping this great republic that they created.
Let me know what you think.
1-8 Prager 776.
I'm Mark Eisler filling in for Dennis Prager.
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Mark Eisler, back with you again.
1-8 Prager-776.
And I'll continue my theme about the left.
All they care about is power.
That's what they want.
They want power.
They don't care about what's best for this country.
Let me know what you think, and I'll go to your calls.
Let's go to Jay in Los Angeles.
Jay, you're on with Mark.
Hi, Jay.
Hi, Mark.
Hi.
Why do you feel that any politician isn't in office just to want to stay in office?
What separates the two parties?
Why would you say the Democratic Party only cares about power and the Republican Party doesn't?
In the last six months, the Republicans control the House.
What have they put forward to the public other than wanting to impeach Joe Biden?
Well, that's silly.
That's silly.
One of their first things, as an example, was to get rid of the funding for the IRS. They can't do it because it's already been done, but to try to see what they can do to all those agents.
You love having another, I don't know, what was it, 80,000 IRS agents?
Do you love that?
Do you want people to look at middle-class people, to check everything, to try to find ways to catch them?
Is that what you want them to do?
So I'm not even, you know, that's a silly question.
But in general, and I think a lot of...
Left-wing people would admit this.
In general, Republicans want as little government interference in their lives as possible.
They want to be able to live their lives as best as they can see, which is why they don't want a lot of taxes.
They understand that...
We can't have tanks and nuclear weapons, that we have to fund that.
And they understand on a local level, which someone – last time I was on, we were debating this.
They understand on a local level that you need – you've got to let me finish, and I'll let you go right after this.
On a local level, they understand we need police to protect us.
So they understand there are certain things to be funded.
You need stoplights so people don't kill each other when they're driving.
But you want as little government as possible, and that's what the founders understood.
In general, the left, for sure, and the Democrats also, believe more than not that government is the answer.
And they make it clear.
They're always coming out, government should do this, government should do that.
In general, that's what separates them.
So they both want power, although my favorite president, Abraham Lincoln, I don't know if you know this, he took his rivals in with him into the presidency and offered them positions of power.
So he was even more of an exception.
But in general, I gave the Democrats credit in the past.
People like John F. Kennedy definitely cared about what was best for this country.
There's no doubt in my mind.
Well, I, again, your premise is that...
All the Democrats want to do is maintain power.
No, I didn't say that.
I didn't say that, Jay.
You're just ignoring me.
I just said they want government to be more involved in our lives.
And that's, I had a side point, which is now the party of the left certainly wants power at any cost.
But in general, I understand there are good Democrats who, but they believe that government should run our lives.
Well, again, you opened up the show, and you were saying that the Democratic Party wants to maintain power, and that's all they're interested in.
And my question was, why, again, would you feel that the Republican Party doesn't hold the same interest?
And I'm answering you.
My answer, too, is in general, as Davy Crockett did.
Okay, go on.
I'll let you talk, since I'm not sure you want to hear what I have to answer.
Go ahead.
So again, I don't see the difference between the two parties on the issue of them wanting to retain power that they have.
Right.
Because if you think that government should be much more involved in telling the people what to do, then you want power over their lives because you think you know what's best.
You think you know how they should live their lives.
And therefore, you want more power to make that happen.
Whereas Republicans, conservatives, is what the phrase I would use, we want government out of our lives.
In fact, we don't want power in general.
There are exceptions, like Mitt Romney, who will say and do anything.
I don't trust him.
I'm fair on both sides, the ones I admire and the ones I don't.
But in general, Republicans want to go there to make as few laws as possible, to have less power, to go back to their lives when they're done.
Not unlike George Washington, who didn't want to become a king.
They are much more in the image of the founders.
We have a constitution that was created, and it came from the Declaration of Independence also, those two incredible founding documents, where it was meant to let the people live their lives as best as they could, that they knew what was best for them.
And you have a federal government only where what's necessary.
You have state governments only for what has to be done.
And for the rest of the time, let people make their own decisions.
Have as few taxes taken out as possible.
And therefore, you don't want much power.
You just want to be left alone in general.
Maybe you don't understand us.
I think he's getting cut off.
Put him on hold, the connection.
I mean, if I can get back to my will.
Let me go to in North Dallas.
That's Al, I think.
Al in North Dallas.
Yes, good morning, Mr. Eisler.
Good morning.
I wanted to go, based on your monologue, about the reasons.
That the founders realized we had to have limited government in this country.
And since they were respecters and readers of the Holy Scriptures, I believe possibly it was what they read in the Bible that convinced them of this.
No, I agree.
Yeah, go on.
I would like to draw on your knowledge also based on...
Whatever books you've read where men have written biographies of the founders and knew what they actually, you know, what they were influenced by in the scriptures.
But I believe, in particular, they were influenced by the fourth chapter of Luke, which involves the test between the devil and...
Jesus Christ.
And in those days, I also believed that believers believed in the devil's existence as much as the God of the Bible, the Creator.
And not so much today.
My response to you is, these were men...
And women who mostly believed in God.
There's no doubt in my mind that it played a big part.
In fact, at the Supreme Court you have the Ten Commandments.
Whether the Old Bible, the New Bible, whatever you believe in is fine.
But these were very God-fearing people.
They believed in God.
Some people argue with Thomas Jefferson and so on.
But for the most part, they were very strong believers in God.
And as I said...
I'm not sure God wasn't involved with the founding of this country.
I mean, maybe an inspiration.
Certainly Lincoln also believed in God.
All these unbelievable founders knew and understood that there was someone higher that we had an answer to.
Let me know what you think.
1-8-Prager-776.
I'm Mark Eisler sitting in for Dennis Prager Mark Eisler back with you again and you can reach me at 1-8-Prager-776 You know, you just have to watch a lot of these Democrats in action, and I'm calling them Democrats for the sake of the argument.
It's more the left, of course.
But do you remember Joe Biden was for, as I said, all kinds of issues, I should put it this way, against civil rights in many cases.
When he was a senator, and then he changes.
Obama was for marriage between a man and a woman, and then he's for gay marriage.
Hillary, if you didn't know this, was a Goldwater delegate before she became a left-wing Democrat.
So when you don't have a series of principles, and by the way, that's true somewhat in the Republican Party, right?
There's Mitt Romney changing.
He was governor of Massachusetts, much more liberal, runs for president, becomes conservative.
And wants Trump to give him a job, I don't remember, for Secretary of Defense or Secretary of State.
And he doesn't get it, and he turns on Trump.
So I'm not saying that Republicans have great values and great principles, too.
Look at Mitch McConnell, the leader of the Republicans.
He should have been gone a long time ago.
He certainly didn't support Trump.
His wife was Secretary of Labor.
Where was their loyalty to President Trump?
It doesn't exist.
It's about power and making deals.
It often has been like that.
But in general, the left doesn't care about our Constitution.
The left doesn't care about the Declaration of Independence.
I'm trying to be as fair as I can.
They would like to see the United States as another socialist country, maybe even a communist country.
So that's the difference.
And in general, conservatives, Republicans, want the government out of their lives.
I thought that was generally accepted.
And along with that, when you don't think government should play such a big role, you don't even think you should be in power for long.
You just stay there, you do your best, and you move on.
And Democrats used to be like that also.
But Democrats have changed.
Now the left is on the other side.
Now the left is trying to run the Democrat Party, and I think they control it for the most part through Joe Biden, who, as we know, has lots of issues.
So I don't even think he's in charge of what's going on many times.
But that's what they want.
They want power at any cost.
And if you think you know what's best for people, then you want even more power to make that happen.
So I was just trying to answer the last caller.
We lost contact with him.
His line wasn't that good.
And let's go to Ian in Los Angeles.
You're on with Mark.
So, hi.
Thanks for taking my call.
I think what you're saying is without term limits and without banning lobbyists, ultimately it'll all collapse because it'll just be completely corrupt.
Because it just creates a moral hazard.
Yeah, you make a good point.
Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts.
Absolutely, right?
We know that.
And so that's why the founders were so good, right?
They tried to put all kinds of checks on this so the power didn't get out of control.
And of course now we have presidents doing their executive decrees.
And with the executive decrees, they do all kinds of stuff, right?
And they make laws without even supposed to make laws.
So thank goodness the court overruled Biden in terms of the student debt, trying to eradicate some of the student debt, 10%, whatever it was.
And the court said he can't do that.
But the contest for between people getting power and then trying to exercise it and those who believe that attracts more people on the left.
It makes sense to me.
Okay, that was a good point.
And let's go to Mike in Detroit.
Mike, you're on with Mark.
Oh, yeah, Mark.
You know, I think, you know, from the very beginning of our republic, we've been under siege, you know, first from the monarchs who didn't want our experiment to succeed and through, you know, the fact...
Communists and so on.
Now we have an enemy within, which is the most deadly enemy you could have that doesn't want us to succeed.
But we have dealt with all of them and we'll deal with these people too.
But people need to remember that when the Constitution was written and the Bill of Rights was written, it wasn't the end.
It was just the beginning.
These are goals and aspirations we aspire to.
And we need to struggle to keep...
In mind and to keep trying to reach those goals.
And I think a lot of people in this country feel the same way.
We are going to reach these goals.
We're going to get rid of this enemy within.
And I believe we will succeed.
Maybe that's a little bit too optimistic, but I believe it.
We survived so far.
These are centuries of being under attack in this country trying to destroy our experiment.
They will not.
I want to hold your call because you're saying something very important.
Let me know what you think.
1-8-Prager-776.
Mark Eisler for Dennis Prager.
Yep.
Still can't see.
I'll make leave your show.
Mark Eissler filling in for Dennis Prager.
Let's see, this is my 15th year of doing so.
Zach is trying to make up for it by playing my theme song on my local show from many years ago, but he's an hour too late.
Not unlike me being an hour too late with my notes.
I couldn't find my notes.
So whatever you do, what you have to do.
Again, you can reach me at markisler@aol.com, M-A-R-K-I-S-L-E-R at AOL.com, or on Facebook.
I still use Facebook.
I wish I didn't have to.
But after 20 years of Being a talk show host, that's how people find me.
So I've never quite given that up either.
Although, in the first hour, if you missed it, we were talking about how the battle before us to try to retake our country on this pre-July 4th.
It is a challenge like one we haven't seen since the days of Abraham Lincoln.
We really have a divided country.
And I certainly want to get to talking about the schools, how this started.
How this happened, as I mentioned before, Bill Ayers told Obama that if you get to schools, you got it.
We've got it for the rest of time.
But I promised you I'd like to go to your call.
So the topic was, last hour, the power that the left and the Democrat Party thinks.
and I had this vision, I don't mean supernatural vision, but I had this, I could just picture Joe Biden and Hillary and Obama and all the left sitting in whatever congressional type parliament or Duma or whatever they have I could just picture Joe Biden and Hillary and Obama and all the left sitting in whatever I believe they would applaud the supreme leader of those countries because they care more about power than anything.
That's the challenge that started last hour and how we have to try to save this country.
We'll get to as many calls as we can.
Let's go to Brent in Los Angeles.
You're on with Mark.
Hi, Brent.
Brent, are you there?
Yes.
Can you hear me?
I can now.
Go ahead.
Yeah, I want to say a blessed, transcendent, and inspirational Independence Day, Mark.
Thank you very much.
And without our divinely inspired Founding Father's reverence for God, liberty, and biblical values, we would never have become the blessing to humanity we became.
And if we do not soon revive and resurrect God's virtues, we would just follow in the predictable path of every other extinct evil empire.
So I want to suggest, in addition to reading with reverence, the Declaration of Independence and Frederick Douglass' What to the American Slave is the Fourth of July, how about picking up Michael Medved's wonderful book, The American Miracle, Divine Providence in the Rise of the Republic, that he wrote in 2016, showing all the miracles.
I love it.
I haven't read it.
So would you do me a big favor?
Would you email me that title, and I'll be sure to read it on my list?
Mark, M-A-R-K-I-S-L-E-R, at AOL.com, and I promise I will read it.
Okay, sounds wonderful.
Well, thank you very much for your call.
And let's go next to so many good calls.
Ah!
We'll go to that, and maybe next hour, Tom, because I want to do all about America next hour.
Let's go to Marietta, Georgia, and Valerie.
Valerie, you're on with Mark.
Good afternoon.
Good afternoon.
I'm just calling to say, America was founded on the Judeo-Christian values and principles, and America is going down the sewer to the Democrats.
A party.
It is a shame to see what's happened to this country.
I came to America over 40 years ago, and I've never seen it this bad.
It was never even bad.
They started to go down the drain 2010. That's when it started.
And you know who was in power at the time.
That's when America started to lose its value.
And it's a shame.
We need to go back to paper ballots.
It would be less harder for them to cheat.
And the Democrat is all about control and power.
They are governed by Satan himself.
And it's disgusting what is happening to our youth, our children.
And if we don't save these children, they are the future of this country.
And we ask God Almighty to step in and make a referendum in this country because I don't know what is going to happen to these children.
There will be a lost soul to pray for this country.
Thank you so much for your call, Valerie.
And that was my point, that you come here from another country, you understand what made this country so special.
And notice what she said.
She doesn't recognize it.
That's not what people came here for.
This was the land, you know, the free land, the beacon of hope.
And I quoted Bill Bennett in the past.
I think it was a Chinese gentleman.
He's down below a hill and he sees troops coming on top of the hill and he doesn't know if they're friend or foe.
But then he sees and he goes, American man.
And then he knew he was okay.
That beacon of hope, that beacon of light, that beacon of freedom.
It cannot be erased.
We can't let it happen.
But people from other shores understand that so much better.
Here's Dan in Minnesota, I think.
Dan, you're on with Mark.
Hi, Dan.
Hey, Mark.
Yeah.
Hi, I'm in Invergrove Heights.
So, yeah, I'm wondering if the caller two callers ago may have already mentioned Mark Levin's book, The Democrat Party Hates America?
No.
Oh, okay.
Yeah, you can't get it yet, but it's already number one in pre-sales in the government category on Amazon, and it's at number 45 overall on Amazon, according to the Washington Examiner.
You can see this on Mark Levin's website.
Are you and his family?
No.
I'm just kidding.
Am I in his family?
I love him.
I mean, I love him.
I mean, my God.
How could you not love Mark Levin?
But that's part of my theme, which is, you know, I guess his title, The Democrat Party Hates America.
Certainly the ones in charge now, not John F. Kennedy, maybe not Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who they'll never elect when we do politics.
Absolutely.
But he's talking about today's Democrat Party controlled by the leftists.
He's dead on.
You know, I mean, he nails it.
I agree with that.
I think they do hate at least what the founding principles and what this country is based on.
I think they do hate that.
That's part of my theme.
They want power.
The founding of this country was not about the government having power.
It was about the people having power.
You know what?
You made me think of this.
They really don't like the average American or the average person.
They have disdain.
They're the elite.
They understand this better than the rest of us do.
Yeah.
You've got to look at his website and see what Mark writes about his own book and what the Washington Examiner writes about it.
Thanks for your call, but I still think you're his brother.
Paul Bedard, Washington Secrets columnist, wrote it.
No, no.
I'm not so lucky.
I wish I was that lucky.
Thank you very much for your call, Dan.
Appreciate it very much.
And let's go to someone who disagrees with me.
Let's go to Ron in Portland, Oregon.
Ron, you're on with Mark.
Thank you very much, Mark.
I appreciate all the comments and so forth.
But I take a little bit of an issue as far as going back to the...
Values and principles, and the reason the Europeans came over here, and you were talking about people having the power.
But the reason they left Europe was because of the Reformation, which was saying the Catholic Church or no one has a position between the individual and God.
And what they were trying to do is get to an area in the world, and they ended up in America, where they could have that relationship with God freely.
And so when we talk about principles and values to get America back in track, I hear we have to get back to rules.
That's the word I hear in my mind.
And if we obey the rules, we follow the rules that the founders wrote about, everything's going to be okay.
Absolutely.
Thanks for your call.
Yeah, no, I don't mean to cut you off, but you're right.
A lot of people came here for religious reasons to avoid the persecution that they had.
But certainly as people start to come to this country and understand the founding principles, it became not just for religious reasons, but also for, of course, the freedoms and the political reasons and the fact that we created this incredible country where the people were basically thought to be the ones in charge.
They're the ones with the power.
And on this, again, July 4th coming up, that's the point I want to make.
What was so special about this country that was created?
What did the founders want to do?
What did they want to accomplish with this country?
And it basically was about limited government, making sure the government was out of our lives, to do what they could to make sure they had as limited power as possible, that the people had the wisdom, not the government.
And they were given their rights by God for most of these founders.
Not by the state.
Because what the state can give you, the state can take away.
Let me know what you think.
1-8 Prager 776 Mark Eisler for Dennis Prager And I got great calls Stay on.
I promise you.
But I want to get into a little bit about the schools, which I promised.
Because I have some insight there.
And a lot of you may know that I've been a teacher for a lot of years also.
So I'm a radio host and a teacher.
Those are my prime two passions.
So let me explain to you, give you my insight about what's going on.
As I said before in the first hour, the left wants to read...
Make our country in their image.
And one of their key ways is by taking over our schools.
And I said that Obama learned that from Bill Ayers.
They take over the schools, they got everything.
When I first started teaching, the teachers had never gone on strike.
That all changed when Albert Schenker took over the teachers union in New York.
Teaching was never the same after that.
It all became about the power of the teachers union.
And less about education.
It used to be about helping students reach their full potential.
And if you remember this phrase, in locus parentis, worked, which meant in Latin, in the place of a parent.
My mother could be sure the schools would reinforce the values that she believed in.
But no more.
So much so, as you know, that the schools are replacing the values that parents believed in.
My mother assumed the schools would teach reading, writing, and arithmetic.
There was no issue.
Not global warming, not busing her children, and, of course, not the hatred of Western civilization, among other ideas unknown in her day.
Added to that, they started advocating concepts like bilingual education.
I'll never forget.
I walked into the union hall or the meeting, building, whatever it was, and there was a big banner.
Bilingual education, the wave of the future.
But the parents of these students instinctively knew better.
They didn't want their children in bilingual classes.
They wanted their kids to be immersed in English the way we always did it.
Our ancestors kissed the ground when they landed here.
And they wanted their kids to learn English as soon as possible.
We used to also have, now this is going to shock a lot of you out there who've never seen this, Zach among them.
We used to have assemblies.
You didn't have it in your time either, I don't think, Zach.
You had assemblies, well, about the way I'm going to describe it.
Every Thursday where the girls and boys wore white blouses and the boys wore white shirts with red ties.
Did you do that?
He, no.
He goes, no, like I never heard of it.
What are you talking about?
Can you imagine?
In those days they read a passage out of the Bible every week.
He's got a look of shock on his face.
I am Jewish, but I have no idea which Bible they read from.
Nor did it matter.
We learned that there was something important about those passages and that those Thursday assemblies had some special meaning.
Now I've seen students in class turn their backs.
Even when the pledges said, and they'll say to me, oh, we're allowed to do that.
I don't teach junior high anymore, but that's what I experienced.
Imagine turning your backs on the flag that gives so much opportunity and freedom, which is what July 4th is about.
And these were junior high kids.
You know they learned that from their parents.
What a bunch of ingrates.
There are also pictures of Lincoln and Washington in the auditorium.
I remember that.
We knew these presidents were very special.
None of this nonsense about President's Day, where we honor all presidents, the good and the bad, turning it into a meaningless holiday.
And the teachers were respected in those days.
So one day, I remember this, Zach, I'm going towards the bus stop, and there's my teacher, about to take a bus.
I thought, teachers taking a bus?
I thought they were close to God.
They were very special people to be respected.
But they actually took a bus?
Even Zach.
Zach, have you ever been on a bus?
You have.
I was going to ask that of Sean.
I know Sean has never taken a bus.
No, don't look at me.
I don't know that.
I'm just guessing.
Not a school bus, a regular bus, a city bus.
You've never taken that.
Now he's admitting the truth.
Yeah, Los Angeles, good luck.
And they wore, the teachers did, jackets and ties.
The idea being that school was special and they had something special to share with us.
And unlike today, the teachers were able to discipline the kids.
So guess what?
What a surprise.
There were fewer discipline problems.
In fact, in those days, my mother always assumed the teacher was right and I was likely wrong, whatever the issue was.
Just the opposite of today, where the parents often think their little darlings can do no wrong.
When I became a teacher, even then on report cards, watch this, we couldn't be honest with the parents, even in my day.
We were told we had to say something nice about each and every student, even if they were monsters.
So this is true.
Of course, what I say is true.
I'm never going to not tell the truth.
I remember thinking, what could I say nice about Phyllis?
Who beat up some of the kids.
That's true.
She beat up some of the kids in our class.
So I wrote, Phyllis is doing well with some of the kids in our class.
What I left out was those were the ones she wasn't beating up.
But liberals always thought they knew what was best for kids.
Especially when they weren't their own children.
So it was okay for poor or middle class kids to be bused to another part of the city, far away from their parents, but not their kids who went to private schools.
Need I mention Obama's kids or Chelsea Clinton?
It makes me think of the story where Bill Bennett, who was formerly on the Salem News Channel, he was debating the head of the teachers union.
I think it was this week with David Brinkley.
And Bill Bennett said to the head of Teachers Union, what does it tell us when 50% of teachers send their kids to private schools?
And you know what the answer was by the union head?
It's not 50%.
It's 40%.
That was the only answer.
That's all they could say.
We spend a lot of money on education, and what we accomplish with that money is a disgrace.
They go from fad to fad when we knew what worked for our kids.
High standards, high expectations, hard work.
We got it down.
We knew it.
Now they've used technology and all kinds of things when...
Every fad that comes out, they work.
So I don't know how much time we have left in this segment, Zach.
What do we got?
30 seconds, I can tell this quick story.
So we have these big TV-like boards called Promethean boards.
No one knows how to, you know, what they're...
Some people use them, I don't.
But they had a training class.
So the next day I asked the teacher, I said, did you like the training?
He said, yeah, but I'm still waiting for them to teach me how to turn it on.
Let me know what you think at 1-8-Prager-776.
I'm Mark Eisler for Dennis Prager.
Mark Eisler filling in for Dennis Prager.
And I think it's crucial.
I don't think any other host out there has been a teacher as long as I have.
I want to give you that insight how they've taken over the schools and what's gone on.
And I'll get to the callers who wanted to talk about...
The original subject.
Let's go to Mark in Philadelphia.
Mark, you're on with Mark.
Hi, Mark.
Thanks for taking my call.
Happy Independence Day.
You too.
That story that you told about your friend who, after all that training, still hasn't turned on.
I haven't been taught how to turn on that magic board.
It reminds me of an old Soviet joke.
I guess the only way I could keep my sanity is start collecting old Soviet jokes, and the more that time goes on here, the more they seem to be applicable to us.
But there's one where two guys were hanging out in the Soviet Union, and one guy says to the other, yeah, my wife has been in cooking school for the last eight years.
So the second guy says, oh, she must be an excellent chef and must know a lot of recipes by now.
And the first guy says, not exactly here.
They're still doing the 16th Party Congress.
And it makes Yeah, it's right what I'm talking about.
Yeah.
And by the way, that teacher was very unassuming, the one I talked about.
I didn't know what he would say.
I thought, because I'm not great technologically.
And so I said to him, what did you think of the training?
Yes, they said, I'm still waiting for them to teach me how to turn it on.
And I thought that was the line of the year.
I thought I was the only one.
But, Mark, we knew what worked years ago.
None of these fads and new theories and almost math or almost spelling, whatever they called it.
And they got away from all of that.
And being the father of a rambunctious 8-year-old, I always told his teacher, you know, if he needs to be disciplined, you discipline him.
And she appreciated me telling her that.
And from time to time, when...
Any rambunctious eight-year-old acts up, as he did, I told her.
By all means, if he interrupted class time, he also took away from the students' learning.
He needs to apologize to you, and if you feel it's necessary, he needs to stand in front of the whole class and apologize to his fellow students.
You know what you reminded me of?
Mark, you know what you reminded me of?
You helped a lot.
When the callers just add to the show, that is just terrific.
It makes it easier for me.
When I first started teaching and one student would ruin the rest of the students by acting out or getting into arguments with the other kids, they would say to me, oh, we've got to save that student.
And I would say...
What about the other 35 kids?
They didn't care about the other 35 kids.
They only cared about that one student.
And I used to say, okay, let's get him out of school.
Get him out of school.
Everybody's got to be educated.
Well, guess what?
If someone, the parent or the kid or someone, wants to be at that school, then they'll start being disciplined.
How could you ruin the education of the other 35 kids?
And that's why I had him apologize to the entire class.
And, you know, I think she appreciated it, you know, and hopefully he learned his lesson, and hopefully I don't hear any such stories when he's in third grade, you know?
You are terrific, Mark.
One question.
Thank you.
How do you survive in Philadelphia?
I keep my mouth shut.
Hey, guess what?
I could tell you another Soviet joke here, but I'll save it for the next time I call in.
Sounds great.
Great call.
Thanks so much, Mark.
I was just thinking, you know, I say this all the time.
How do I keep teaching?
They don't know who I am because they don't listen to the other side.
And I've told this story before.
So we're at a meeting and the principal doesn't show up.
So the teacher advisor says, why don't you all tell us about something we wouldn't know about you?
You think I was going to tell them that I'm national radio host or I do my own show?
That would have been the enemy one way or another because they don't tolerate dissent.
But we knew what worked in the past.
As I said, as that gentleman Mark indicated, hard work and discipline.
For example, you won't believe this, just about none of my students know the times table.
How could it be?
It used to be a given years ago we would learn the times tables.
But then again, these days there's nothing they're asked to memorize.
Just about nothing.
I'm going to go over the Gettysburg Address in the last hour.
I had to memorize when I was a kid the Gettysburg Address, which, as I said, I will do.
Are you kidding me?
For too long, there was no competition for public schools.
If a minority, the left cares about minorities, right?
Most of the minorities vote for the left every time.
But if a minority lived in an area with a bad school, that was it.
Too bad.
The idea that the left is against school choice just shows you they don't really care about minorities.
They just use them to get votes.
Again, there's that power grab.
I'm weaving it together.
Just the opposite of what this country is about.
1A Prager 776 Mark Eisler for Dennis Prager And you know how you get humbled?
I hope he doesn't mind me saying this.
He's done the show a lot of times, Lee Habib, and he came in and said some very nice things.
It just humbles you when someone in your business appreciates what you do.
And that's why I tell my students all the time, try to find your passion in life.
Not every student has passions, but that life is short.
And the more you can find your passion, what you'd love to do, it really makes a difference.
And Zach, I told him, he's doing a great job.
In fact, who's the guy who's here other days besides you, Zach?
I forgot his name.
Who's the regular engineer?
I forgot his name.
No, I was talking about Sean.
He didn't get the guy.
I was kidding him.
Yeah, that guy.
Right, right.
But I want to...
It's so obvious to me.
With school choice, not only will parents and their children be able to pick the best schools for their children, but ironically, it'll make the public schools better.
Competition brings out the best in people and institutions.
It wasn't my line.
I think it was Chester Finn.
I remember his name.
He said this years ago.
We need to redefine public schools as schools the public chooses, be it private, charter, home, or yes, even public schools, when they are good.
Competition has always worked.
You'll never believe this.
My teaching colleagues say, oh, no.
We can't have it here.
Well, the public schools are different.
Well, what if they didn't like me?
One teacher once said to me, because I have a mustache.
So we need to judge principals the same way.
So they'll want to have the best teachers at their schools.
And the real answer is the left.
And now the Democrats, that's who they are now.
They don't really care about the kids.
For years I've said this.
If the goals of the teachers' unions ever match the goals of the students, it's purely a coincidence.
That is not their mission.
Their job is to get the most benefits and money for their members, which they do very well.
In fact, too well.
Because watch what happens.
They give money to these local school board candidates, and then when these school board candidates get elected, they own their jobs to the union's support.
So, of course, the union does their bidding.
It's like a fox watching the chickens.
Once the teachers got the right to strike, our educational system started to go downhill fast.
A caller mentioned, you know, 2000, whatever.
No, no.
It happened way before that.
In fact, it was John F. Kennedy issuing, I wrote down the executive order, number 10988 in January 17th of 1962 that granted federal employees the right to collective bargaining.
Not his greatest moment.
But I stood up to the teachers' union even then.
I think I mentioned this before.
They wanted to have their union meeting.
At the school where we ate our lunches, and I said, I'm eating my lunch here.
I wouldn't let them get away with that, and I won.
So they conceded, and I kept eating lunch there.
But the unions mandated that teachers get paid not on how good they are, but how many years of service they have, and how many useless educational courses they've taken.
And bad teachers can hardly ever be fired.
What other job do you have like that where you can never fire them?
It takes years and years to get rid of a bad teacher.
So what do many principals do?
They just send them to another school.
They used to say that about principals.
They used to call it the dance of the lemons.
I don't know why dance of the lemons.
But they would just shift them to another school.
You just don't fire teachers, bad teachers.
You move them around.
So we abandon high standards and high expectations for low standards and little discipline.
In fact, in some situations, the students run the schools.
So I had this electrician.
He comes.
He was working on the lights in my room.
But I'm in adult school where the students...
I'm there to learn.
I know.
What a radical concept.
Anyway, he said, Mark, you want to hear these stories?
There are schools I go to, he said, where the teachers get assaulted in the hallways and where they throw chairs out the window.
He said, that's true.
I know of one teacher who got hit by a fire extinguisher and has never been the same.
Violence is surely one of the reasons why teachers leave the teaching profession.
But disrespect starts much earlier.
I remember when the students first got free lunches.
Do you remember what they did?
Probably not in your day, Zach.
You probably went to a Christian private school, right?
You went to a public school.
Did they throw the peas around the room that they got for free in the lunches?
I remember that.
Once every full month.
It was a good school.
He went to a good school, probably.
But what you get for free, you often don't appreciate, which includes free schooling.
And, of course, the teachers and the unions use their platforms, as we know, to indoctrinate the students.
By now, you've heard me say too many times, it's not a wonder that students come out as leftists, as we tie this all into their power that we talked about in the first hour.
It's a wonder that any come out as conservatives.
The only change over the years is now the indoctrination starts in the lower grades.
I am one of the few teachers that didn't go out on strike this year.
The only reason, as I said, they don't know who I am is they don't listen to us.
The left will never tolerate dissent no matter what they say.
Actually, they never admit it in the past.
Now they probably would admit it.
They less and less hide who they really are.
So it's a real question as your students get older.
Why would you ever spend thousands of dollars to send them to colleges, universities, to unlearn all the values you believe in?
Not to mention, They come out of college often without any marketable skills.
Oh yeah, they majored in women's studies.
What good is that for anybody?
Who's going to hire you?
What's the point?
Along with college debts that could be hundreds of thousands of dollars, they keep for the rest of their lives.
Did you know this?
That's the one thing you can't go bankrupt from, or at least one of the things, are government loans and government debts.
Isn't it funny how they rigged the system?
And I may be one of the few teachers that says, don't send your kids to colleges.
It's far better if they learn a trade, like plumbers or carpenters, or even start their own business.
Yeah, college could be good for some people, but not for a lot.
Of course, you can go to PragerU, and your students and your kids will see the other side.
Five-minute videos.
Dennis and Alan have revolutionized schooling.
That alone.
So here you have some of my ideas on what has happened to our schools, and none of it is good.
It's all part, as I said, of the left taking over our country.
Tell me what you think at 1-8-Prager-776.
I'm Mark Isler filling in for Dennis Prager.
It's Mark Isler back with you again, filling in for Dennis Prager.
As always, you can reach me at 1-8-Prager-776.
Me personally, MarkIsler at AOL.com.
M-A-R-K-I-S-L-E-R at AOL.com or on Facebook at MarkIsler.
Dennis is the only one I know of who has the ability and insight to talk about the important issues in life.
So in the first hour, I talked about the left's desire to fundamentally transform this country.
In fact, Obama admitted that and said that.
One of the few things I think he told the truth about, but that's my opinion.
In the second hour, I talked about their primary way was through the schools and, of course, the media.
If we have time, I'll get to that later, and I promise to get to a lot of your calls, too.
But on this upcoming July 4th celebration, we must rededicate ourselves to the founding principles.
And I thought I would go over how best to do that.
One of the callers last hour mentioned about memorizing things, and I mentioned that we don't do that in schools anymore.
But in my favorite president's words, which I had to memorize when I was a kid, by quoting him from the Gettysburg Address given on November 19, 1863, after one of the bloodiest battles in the Civil War.
What I didn't know until recently is Lincoln was not even the featured speaker that day when he was asked to deliver a message at the dedication of the Gettysburg Civil War Cemetery.
In my opinion, perhaps the greatest speech in American history.
And here are his words.
Four score and seven years ago, our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation or any nation so conceived and so dedicated can long endure.
We are met on a great battlefield of that war.
We've come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live.
It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
But in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground.
Living and dead who struggled here have consecrated it above our poor power to add or detract.
The world will little note nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here.
It is for us the living rather to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which those who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced.
It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us, that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they here gave the last full measure of devotion,
that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain, that this nation under God shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people By the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
And I would say, today we're challenged to make sure that that government that President Lincoln talked about shall not perish from the earth.
It is for us, the living now, to be rededicated to the unfinished work which all who died or suffered before us, it's our job to continue their work.
The left, to tie it in, the left wants that government that President Lincoln talked about to perish from the earth.
We cannot allow that to happen.
Tell me what you are doing so those soldiers and those who followed did not die in vain.
At 1A Prager 776. Like the founding of this country, I believe that speech was inspired by God.
It was so brilliantly put, and I didn't know this, that the feature speaker wrote to Lincoln afterwards, I wish that I could flatter myself that I had come as near to the central idea of the occasion in two hours as you did in two minutes.
Lincoln's warning may be just as true today.
What does he say?
Our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation conceived in liberty and dedicate the proposition that all men are created equal.
Now we are again engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation or any nation so conceived and so dedicated can long endure.
I think it's happening again.
He said we're now engaged in a great civil war.
Isn't it true that we're now engaged in another civil war, hopefully peacefully?
But a civil war nonetheless.
Between the values, this is how we started, between the values of the founders of this country who wanted limited government against those who want the government to play a big role in our lives and to tell us how to live.
Between those who value liberty most and those who value security most.
Between, excuse me, those who want power and they don't care at what cost.
But they want to change the country.
And those who want that power at any price.
These are just some of the ideas that divide us at this time.
So the question is, as Lincoln put it, can we long endure?
Not if the left gets its way.
There was only one thing that Lincoln was wrong about in that speech.
That the world would little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here.
No.
No.
This is one of the greatest speeches in history, and the world will likely never forget it.
If I do nothing else today, if you think about President Lincoln's words and ideas, I will have done my job for the day.
It's almost what I tell my history classes.
If they remember the two founding documents of our country and why they were important, then the class will have been successful for them.
Perhaps you could read these words tomorrow, the Gettysburg Address, with your family or friends.
Perhaps on July 4th, you will better understand what this celebrating is all about.
It's really not about fireworks.
It's about the first time in history that a country was created based on the rule of the people and that we didn't need a king or a queen or some dictator to tell us how to live our lives.
That what the state gives you, the state can take away.
That we get our inalienable rights from God, as Lincoln and the other founders understood so well.
Those founding principles are what produced the greatest country in the history of the world.
And we must, in Lincoln's words, rededicate ourselves to making sure that the left and their unaformed supporters never take that away.
Let me know what you think.
At 1-8 Prager 776. And maybe this is appropriate, Tom.
I know you had a poem.
I remember Tom from my show years ago.
Tom from Glendora, you're on with Mark.
Thank you, Mark.
What you just said was the best description of what this country is about by playing the great Abraham Lincoln speech by reading it.
Just wonderful.
I can't thank you enough.
You did a superb job.
Fourth of July Independence Day poem, The Colors of America.
We are blessed by God in this good nation, and we need to thank Him with appreciation.
Therefore, what I will now do is praise our flag of red, white, and blue.
Red in our flag is for the blood shed by brave vets to keep liberty strong.
White is for the good that America spreads by defending right over wrong.
And true blue patriots, living and dead, make sure that our freedom lives on.
Our great flag of red, white, and blue.
fly it with pride every day and then say dear God we humbly thank you for our good precious USA Amen Well done Tom as always thank you for being there and I know how much you love this country also and you, neither of us want most people out there do not want to remake it right?
We're not perfect but it was unbelievable what they created in those early days, the founders just brilliant thank you so much Tom Thank you Mark and I also want, we don't have time now to read some words from the Declaration of Independence It's amazing.
And you could do nothing better than to maybe read these documents to your kids.
And I try to do that when I teach history and I teach government so they understand our founding documents.
And can you believe that the left wants to erase all this, to change all this?
I cannot believe any of it.
I cannot believe that our government is not the same government I thought it was from many years ago, that it's changed so much, that the left has gotten control.
It's pretty sad, but Lincoln's Day, they did it, and we have to rededicate ourselves.
That's why I read the Gettysburg Address.
Rededicate ourselves to saving this country.
He did it before, and we need to do it now.
Tell me what you think at 1A Prager 776.
I'm Mark Eisler sitting in for Dance Prager.
And as I said, I like to go to the callers.
I'd love to read something from the Declaration of Independence.
But let's go to Bill in Sarasota, Florida.
Bill, you're on with Mark.
I love the show, Mark.
Thank you so much.
Your recitation of the Gettysburg Address brought tears to my eyes.
And it reminded me that I've been on a crusade of sorts.
For the last 17 years since I sang the National Anthem to open a show of my band in College Station, Texas.
I sang the first verse of the National Anthem, and I ask everyone to remain standing while I sang the last stanza, because it applies every bit as much now as it did when it was written in the Civil War also.
And to me, the first stanza gives our country the doubt.
Do we still exist?
Does the Star Spangled Banner still wave?
And listen to how the last stanza ends.
It's why we have a country.
Absolutely.
If I may recite it?
Well, we don't like, even though I did, how long is it?
What are you going to do?
It's one verse.
Okay, go for it.
Oh, thus be it ever when free men shall stand between their loved homes and the war's desolation.
Blessed with victory and peace, may the heaven-rescued land praise the power that hath made and preserved us a nation.
Yep, I can never hear it without an effect on me.
By the way, you made me think that's how I felt about the Gettysburg Address also.
But after I read the book, Team of Rivals, about Lincoln, who was my favorite president, And even though we all know what happens at the end, to hear one of his original enemies, I think Secretary War Stanton, say, I can barely say it, and now he belongs to the ages.
Wow.
Indeed.
The eloquence of that time?
For President Lincoln to think no one would remember what he had to say, you know, what he wrote there, said there that day?
That's why I think of all things, maybe it's the Gettysburg Address people should recite or see again tomorrow.
That's what it's about.
It's not the fireworks.
Too many people misunderstand what made this country special.
How many people, that's why I've said it a couple of times, especially the last year or so, how many people understand what made this country so special?
It was about the people, and that's what you understand in the Star Spangled Banner also.
Can you imagine, Bill, what I saw, this is years ago, when I had a junior high school kid I was substituting, I never did it again, turn his back on the pledge.
And I thought, you ingrate, or at least the parents that taught you this, imagine living in this country and turning your back on the flag.
It's so discouraging to me.
It's so depressing.
I would so love to hear that last stanza.
Replacing the first stanza that everybody knows, because everybody knows the melody and they'll know what it is.
That's right.
Well, that's a special call, Bill.
Thanks for what you do, Mark.
Thank you, too.
Thanks so much, Bill, for your call.
Yes.
Yeah, that's why I chose the Gettysburg Address.
I mean, not only was it so special, I promise to get to your calls.
I just want to read, like I tell my students, there are two special founding documents, and one of them is Declaration of Independence.
It's just amazing what they did and what they came up with.
In Congress, July 4th, 1776, the unanimous declaration of the 13 United States of America.
You know the beginning, most people, when in the course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of earth the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind.
Requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
I hope we never get to this.
We have a civil war now, but I hope it never gets this bad.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, and they're endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, notice from the Creator, they did believe in God, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, that to secure these rights,
governments are instituted among men deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it isn't that what we're going through now and to institute new government laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form as to them shall seem most likely to affect their safety and happiness and it goes on and on
but I want to read how it finishes to show you how...
They got all of this just about right, and it applies today.
We, therefore, the representatives of the United States of America, in general Congress, assembled, appealing to the supreme judge of the world, the supreme judge of the world, for the rectitude of our intentions, due in the name and by authority of the good people.
Of these colonies solemnly publish and declare that these united colonies are and of right ought to be free and independent states, that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British crown, and that all political connection between them and the state of Great Britain is and ought to be totally dissolved,
and that as free and independent states they have full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish congress, And watch the very end.
And for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor.
Yeah.
They knew the stakes of declaring their independence.
And they are willing to give it all up.
Their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor.
But as Dennis often says, courage is not in great supply.
I want to know, what are you willing to do to keep this great experiment in democracy going?
Let me know at 1-8-Prager-776.
I'm telling you.
This was something special that they created.
You don't have to believe in God as I do to believe that it was in some ways divinely influenced.
Call it what you want.
This was an unbelievable country.
That's what makes July 4th so special.
We created something in this country that was never done before.
And it stands to the world still as a beacon of hope and a beacon of light.
And we cannot let it...
Disappear.
We've got to fight for it strong and hard the way all the people before did also.
Tell me what you think.
1-8-Prager-776.
I'm Mark Eisler.
filling in of your dental spree.
A lot of you called in and want to know how to spell my name.
Check me out on Facebook.
It's MarkIsler at AOL.com.
And Isler is spelled I-S-L-E-R. I-S-L-E-R. Mark is M-A-R-K. And the only reason I kept AOL all these years is because for 20 years, that's how people know me.
All right.
So someone, I think, built in Highlands Ranch, Colorado, doesn't know that I keep saying...
It's a republic if we can keep it.
But go ahead, Bill.
You know, the thing is, I've got to tell you, I am just so upset that we have a constitutional republic, okay?
The republic is based on our constitution.
We have never, ever had a democracy.
And it drives me nuts that people like you and Dennis, And fill in the blank, talk about our democracy.
We have never had a democracy.
To talk about a democracy, it minimizes the fact that we do have a republic, and it minimizes the fact that we need to look at the Constitution and all the things associated with that.
If we look at our founding fathers, with Hamilton and, you know, all that stuff, they said...
We have a republic if we can keep it.
And we need to promote the fact.
We need to educate the masses about the fact.
That we do, in fact, have a republic, not a democracy.
We have never, ever had a democracy.
And the left wants us to think that we have a democracy, but it's never, ever happened.
So, Bill, I know, but the problem is you didn't listen.
In fact, I probably felt in my mind that I said it too many times that Franklin said it's a republic if we can keep it.
So you got the wrong guy, but I appreciate your call.
That just shows you can never say it or do it enough.
I mean, and I think I'm overdoing it, and he kind of says, I don't say it at all.
All right, let me go.
Wesley in St. Simons Island, Georgia.
You've been waiting a long time.
You're on with Mark.
St. Simons, and Mark, thank you.
I'm really enjoying your class today and your radio school.
Thank you.
The thing that you have that a lot of people need to have is caring.
You care about the people that you teach in your other role as a teacher, and you obviously care about filling in for Dennis, and thank you so much.
He's really good at picking great fill-in hosts, so thank you, sir.
I wanted to say that another person that cares is a guy that retired out of the Air Force.
His name is Marshall Wood.
He and his wife, Cindy, live in Orange Park, Florida, and they are literally...
Almost full-time seeking to save our country by encouraging people to do exactly what you encouraged people to do today, which is to read our founding documents, to understand our role as citizens, and the fact that this great republic was formed after the first Great Awakening in the 1730s.
And so he has dedicated himself to educate, like you have, we the people, that our form of government was...
That we are sovereigns without subjects.
You are sovereign in this country without subjects.
I'm not your subject, but you are sovereign.
I'm a sovereign.
That's why elections and election integrity are so very important.
So thank you so much for what you and Dennis do.
Thank you.
Thanks, Wesley, so much for calling.
And I see we have some calls on what I said about education, so hang on there.
We'll get to you.
Yeah, July 4th tomorrow.
What a country they created.
What a responsibility we have to keep it going.
It's unbelievable.
The challenge and what we live, what we take, so many take for granted.
Let me know what you think.
1-8 Prager 776. I'm Mark Eisler sitting in for Dennis Prager.
Mark Eisler filling in for Dennis Prager, and I could not do the show without the staff.
I'm one of those teachers that knows the custodian is important, the bus driver is important.
We all make it happen.
And the same thing is true when you do a talk show.
Studio engineer Rick Locke, call screener Leslie, video engineer Alejandro, and technical producer Zach.
I want to thank them.
I just couldn't do the show without their incredibly strong support and help.
I think I'll finish the show kind of the way I began it, with the theme tomorrow being July 4th.
How fortunate we are to live in this country.
And if you just go over Lincoln's words, I'll just not do the whole thing again, but just a little bit.
A new nation was conceived in liberty and dedicated the proposition that all men are created equal.
And now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation or any nation so conceived...
And so dedicated can long endure.
That's what we're up against now in this country.
That Civil War idea that we're so divided, that is true again between the left and those who want to keep the country the way it was conceived.
And he finishes by saying, This is true today, too,
to the great task remaining before us, that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they here gave the last full measure of devotion, that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain,
that this nation, notice, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, That is what tomorrow is all about.
That those founders who pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor, said in the Declaration of Independence, that what they did creating this incredible country does not go down in vain.
That they didn't get injured, that they didn't die, that all those who came before us, that we are so lucky.
To be living in the greatest country in the history of the world.
It's still that way, but we have a job to do to keep it that way.
That's what July 4th is about.
Okay, enjoy your fireworks.
Don't forget the Star Spangled Banner.
I still...
Someone mentioned Mark Levin.
I love the fact that he starts his show with the Star Spangled Banner because every time it stops me and it makes me think of the past and it makes me think...
Of the history of this unbelievable country.
We had a caller I didn't get to who wanted to say all the bad things America has done.
We're not perfect, but we're the greatest experiment in the history of the world.
And I am so grateful to be here and so should the rest of you.
So again, I finish my show always the same way.
It's a privilege to have a microphone in the greatest country in the history of the world.
Until next time, I'm Mark Eisler.
Dennis Prager here.
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