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July 7, 2023 - Dennis Prager Show
01:20:24
Erasing History
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Dennis Prager here.
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I'm Dennis Prager.
I welcome you to the show, Friday.
And that means the happiness hour.
Happiness hour is not a political hour, though sometimes politics enters, but overwhelmingly it's not.
But since it's not the happiness hour right now, I will say something that seems to be political.
And that is, the more happy people there are...
Not only is the world better, because it's better with happy people, but the fewer people who are hate-filled toward this society.
In other words, the fewer people who are leftists.
Not necessarily the fewer liberals, but the fewer leftists.
I have a story for you.
you.
I'm not even sure my producer knows this.
So I was on a I was on TV yesterday.
And I was on with a...
I was on Newsmax.
And I was on with, I believe, a black...
No, I was on with a black congresswoman on Rob Schmidt's show.
And...
The discussion was with regard to one of the most important judicial decisions of my lifetime, that the government cannot collaborate in censoring what it doesn't agree with, cannot collaborate with big tech.
A judge named Dowdy, who is, and I rarely use the term, a national hero.
If you believe in free speech and non-censorship, which the left has never believed in.
So I mentioned that at one point, looking, as it were, at the congresswoman, I said to her, you folks want to suppress free speech.
You're acknowledging it.
And she inferred that I was talking about blacks when I said you folks.
It was a clarifying moment.
Blacks want to...
I was saying blacks want to suppress free speech.
I'm talking about the left.
Is Adam Schiff black?
By the way, brought to his great credit, Rob Schmidt immediately said he's referring to the left.
It was so revelatory about how blacks on the left are like programmed to see racism.
What a terrible way to live a life.
It so fits into what I was just talking about, happy people.
It's hard to imagine she's a happy person.
It would be, if somebody from the left had said to me, you folks want to bring the country back to the 50s, which is a line I get all the time.
I mentioned that to you yesterday.
And I would have said, are you talking about Jews?
You folks.
All right.
I thought you'd find that of interest.
If you could see that, I assume Newsmax puts this stuff up.
On YouTube or somewhere on the internet.
It would be interesting for you to observe.
The National Post.
Is the National Post the one major conservative paper in Canada?
Amazing that they survive.
So Alain Lambert, my dear friend, who's French-Canadian.
And increasingly American, if I can say that, sent me this piece, sends a lot of good pieces, from the National Post.
Canada is systematically erasing its national heroes.
Whenever I talk about the toxicity of American life, I often, not whenever, oh yes, I often, not whenever then, when I talk about it, I often cite Canada as well.
Canada is run by an out-and-out leftist who did something during the lockdowns that you would expect his hero Fidel Castro to have done.
He was the one Western leader who praised Castro as much as he did when Castro died.
A fitting son of his father, Trudeau I, Pierre Trudeau.
What is this Trudeau's first name?
Justin.
Justin.
Pierre named his son Justin.
By the way, I'm not making a joke.
I'm just noting.
There's nothing to joke about.
Canada is...
It is on the road to suicide as much as the United States, but even more so because it has no large conservative movement.
We do.
I spoke at one, Moms for Liberty, last Saturday night in Philadelphia, just to give an example.
The subheading is, A nation without heroes quickly becomes a country without stories.
Or without inspiring ones.
And then it goes on.
Dominion Day is July 1st.
That's their Independence Day.
So that's why this just came out.
Dominion Day has become an annual occasion to catalog the latest civic silliness.
Last year it was the Forks in Winnipeg that imagined Canada Day out of existence.
This year it was Calgary.
By the way, you notice we're not talking Toronto or Montreal.
We're talking about the western provinces.
That's disturbing.
This year it was Calgary City Council which cancelled the city's fireworks display in order to advance quote-unquote reconciliation.
That was something of a wet firecracker, so council reversed itself in the face of public outrage.
Well, that's good.
But the left gains power in all of these places.
It's quite remarkable.
Neglect of proper public ceremony needs to be pointed out, and Canada has become quite practiced at that.
Yet more insidious is the systematic removal of heroes from our history.
Under the current federal government, the targets have been conservative figures from the past.
Sir John MacDonald, even I know John MacDonald.
Was he one of the greatest prime ministers?
I know, but when did he...
You want to take a look what his years were?
John A. MacDonald.
But soon the wheel will turn and grind up liberals too, beginning with, and then he mentions Canadian heroes.
But I wanted to give you my favorite story from this piece.
Late 19th century.
That's what I thought, late 19th century.
What would be an equivalent?
Taking down John MacDonald's statues.
Would be like taking down in the United States...
I mean, it would be like Ulysses Grant or somebody like that, I think.
You think it would be like Ulysses Grant?
Right, but MacDonald is a much larger figure in Canadian history than Grant is.
He's the first Prime Minister of Canada.
It almost would be like taking down Lincoln.
He's the first Prime Minister of Canada?
Yeah.
Okay, yeah.
That's what I had thought.
Okay, here's my favorite.
Ready?
This is it.
I know for a fact my producer will enjoy this.
In a dark way, I must say.
Ten days ago, the National Capital Commission announced that the Sir John A. MacDonald Parkway will be renamed.
You know what it will be renamed?
Some indigenous something around it.
I can't believe you don't know the actual name.
The Kitchi Zimbi Mekon.
Parkway?
No, no, just, that's it.
I assume one of the words means parkway, as it were.
In Algonquin, for some reason I thought that Alan spoke Algonquin.
It means Great River Road.
Which is just its old name, the Ottawa River Parkway, in a different language.
And there it is.
So it's really George Washington.
McDonald is equivalent in many ways to Washington.
So they are renaming it the Kitschie Zimby Mekong.
How many people in Canada understand that name, Kichisibimikan?
I'm asking an honest question.
This is not being cute.
There's nothing to be cute about.
This is all a part, my dear listeners, this is all a part of the following.
People in search of a mission.
The empty lives of so many people in the post-religious West must be filled with some cause to give life meaning.
And that is why it is now named the Kitschi Zibi Mekan.
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You're listening to The Dennis Prager Show.
*music* Here's another example from this piece in the National Post in Canada.
Queen's University opened a new student residence, let's see, last year.
They called it Nda'avan Tsanon Sote.
No, Tikanon Sote.
Why don't they just change the name of the university?
No, why don't they just abandon English and just...
Oh, that's right.
That's a good point.
Maybe English should be the second language.
Both words mean home.
In Ojibwe and Mohawk.
So the new residence is called Home Home.
And the article ends, A nation without heroes quickly becomes a country without stories.
The absence of stories is the erasure of history.
Just as not every house is a home, so too not every land can be a nation.
It takes devoted residents to make a house a home.
It takes heroes to make a land a nation.
This was written by, I assume, a Catholic priest, because his father is identified as, let's see, Father Raymond J. D'Souza.
So, renaming English place names in Canada...
With indigenous peoples, as they're called, language names.
That means that Canada is no longer a legitimate country.
That's what they're saying.
This is not an issue of just honoring another group.
This is saying we are not legitimate.
The John MacDonald Highway, or Parkway, whatever it was, is an illegitimate name.
He was first Prime Minister of Canada, but it doesn't matter.
Canada doesn't matter.
Remember the Swedish member of government, I think?
It might have been the Prime Minister, but it was a very high-ranking Swede.
She was asked, we've got to find this.
It's in my Hall of Fame collection.
She was asked about Swedish values, and she said, what are Swedish values?
Do you remember that?
Yeah, no, I know we're right.
I just don't remember who the person was.
If you take down, you know, John McDonald, etc., you are...
Saying that's illegitimate.
This country is illegitimate.
It's what Ben and Jerry said about the United States.
Ben and Jerry are spectacular fools.
They are of the genre.
I'm not saying they would have, but they are of the genre of such haters of this society and what it stands for that they remind me of the people In the West who gave Stalin nuclear secrets.
I'm not saying they would have.
They remind me of those people.
That is how staggering two fools they are.
But, you know, you make a lot of money from ice cream, you're a wise man.
Or so they are in their own minds.
Incidentally, there is anti-Israel.
There are two Jewish guys.
Well, I shouldn't even say Jewish because I don't know what's Jewish about them.
Like George Soros, the fact that you're born a Jew doesn't mean you're Jewish.
It just means you're a Jew.
I'm a Jew, but I'm also Jewish.
I take the religion extremely seriously.
It forms the substance of my values and outlook on life.
But in any event...
I'm noting, because there so often go together, hatred of Israel and hatred of America.
Their latest is that we are living on stolen land in America.
Also, like the Canadian story, so there's an illegitimacy to the United States.
I wonder if they think Israel is illegitimate as much.
I know they wouldn't allow their ice cream sold on the West Bank, which was remarkable because it employed, Ben and Jerry's employed Palestinians.
That was who made the ice cream.
So all it did was hurt Palestinians.
But they hadn't thought that through.
What's happening in Canada is a dismantling of the society by the people in the society.
See, do you live in Canada or do you live in Algonquin and Mohawk, on Algonquin-Mohawk land, which is the only legitimate identity of your country?
That's what Canadians need to confront.
Was Canada a bad idea?
The dominant intellectual strains in Canada say that Canada was a bad idea.
Not only bad idea in the sense of mistaken, but bad immoral.
It was an immoral place to have been created.
So what should Europeans...
North of the United States have done.
What should they have done?
Not created a country?
It's an open question.
I don't know what their answer would be.
I think their answer would be, I would say the average professor at McGill would have to say, or would say, that's right.
We had no right to make a new place here.
People already lived here.
We have a video, ironically, I don't know if it's come out yet or it's just about to come out.
The indigenous people of Israel are the Jews.
That's the irony.
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I'm sorry.
I finally have to have a laugh here because I want to know.
Seriously, this will be a fascinating question.
I often say fascinating question because there are many.
So let me get to that name again.
Okay.
How many people in Canada will call The Sir John A. MacDonald Parkway, the Kitchy Zibi Mekon.
Can you see a kid calling his parents from college?
So how do I get to wherever?
You take the Kitchy Zibi Mekon.
And where will I be staying at college?
I will be staying at the Endayan Tikanon Sote.
I'm not laughing at the indigenous languages.
I'm laughing at the people who are renaming things that represent Canada.
This does not represent Canada.
And that's the reason they're doing it.
I don't know of an example of good societies committing suicide in history.
Well, there haven't been that many good societies, so that sort of rules that out.
Did I report to you that, I think I did in passing, I didn't realize how crackpotty Michigan is.
Michigan's up there with Oregon.
Right up there.
Right up there.
You agree?
Totally.
I mean, that's really something.
I mean, I keep getting, I keep seeing these news items, and I realize, holy crow!
Let's see here.
Michigan misses it.
Here we go.
Michigan House passes bill that could make using wrong pronouns a felony finable up to $10,000.
Wow.
Recently passed a bill in Michigan can make it a felony.
Folks, a felony.
It's not a felony if you steal $900 of goods from a store in California.
I don't know what they have in Michigan that's analogous.
That's not a felony.
That's a misdemeanor.
But if you say somebody, if you use she, when the person identifies as a he, Could the recently passed bill make it a felony to intimidate someone by intentionally using the wrong gender pronouns?
Michigan State House of Representatives has passed Bill HB-4474, a piece of legislation that criminalizes causing someone to feel threatened by words.
Under the new bill, offenders are guilty of a felony punishable by imprisonment for not more than five years.
Oh, it's not just a fine.
Imprisonment for up to five years.
Wow.
Intimidate means willful course of conduct involving repeated or continuing harassment of another individual.
That would cause a reasonable individual to feel terrorized, frightened, or threatened and that actually causes the victim to feel terrorized, frightened, or threatened.
But it's completely subjective.
They say a reasonable person.
But the term safe, which is a mantra on the left, it's not safe.
When a conservative comes to a campus, it's declared not safe.
The bill specifically addresses sexual orientation and gender identity or expression as protected classes.
According to the bill, gender identity or expression means having or being perceived as having a gender-related self-identity or expression whether or not associated with an individual's assigned sex at birth.
Wow.
Make no mistake about it.
Those advocating for this legislation will wield these policies as a weapon capable of destroying conservative expression or viewpoints grounded in the sacred, distinguished Professor Emeritus William Wagner said.
The number of stories that I have that I never get to is very large.
And it bothers me because each is worthy.
Here's an example.
I mentioned it maybe in 30 seconds.
That I do recall, I believe.
And this is from the Daily Mail.
Veteran biology professor who teaches scientific fact that sex is determined by chromosomes X and Y is fired.
Are you with me?
Fired.
Because he said that.
He's a veteran biology teacher.
After four students walked out of his reproductive class, accusing him of religious preaching.
Do you understand what's going on here?
It's now, the left is now saying, these four students are obviously leftists.
What they're saying is, science is now religion.
Even religious people haven't said that.
If you say that sex is determined by X or Y chromosomes, male X, female 2X, then you are preaching religion?
Incidentally, the biology professor is black.
Had it been reversed, Of course, the college would, A, not have done this.
They don't fire black leftists.
I'm not even saying the guy's a rightist.
He's just a scientist.
Dr. Johnson Varkey claimed he was let go from his teaching position at St. Philip's College in San Antonio.
He was discussing the human reproductive system on November 28th.
When four students stormed out of the lecture, I want to say this, those students scare me.
I don't get scared easily.
They would be, in my opinion, the know-nothings of a Stalinist or fascist regime.
That is how they choose the lockstep troops.
That destroys society.
I would do anything to meet with them.
You know, I tell you all the time, so we're going to invite this person onto the show.
They never respond.
There was a professor.
Why did he say something about the flag?
And I said, he's welcome on the show.
You immediately sent him an invite.
He didn't even respond.
Yeah, they never respond.
They never respond, right.
I shouldn't say no.
Almost never, right.
Exactly.
Thirty-nine professors write a letter, an open letter, that Charlie Kirk and I should never have been invited to Arizona State University.
I hereby once again say, why don't we debate?
They don't debate, they smear.
leftist almost never debate Varky was accused of discriminatory discriminatory comments about homosexuals and transgender individuals and anti-abortion rhetoric and misogynistic banter Wow!
Misogynistic banter.
I want to hear that.
I'm curious to know what constitutes misogynistic banter.
Well, Sean, actually, now that I think of it.
Guilty as charged.
Yes, he just said guilty as charged.
In fact, he does it so often, it's just known here as MB. It's got an acronym.
There he goes again, MB. He thought MBA was a degree in misogynistic banter.
That's how bad it is here, folks.
A veteran biology professor in Texas who has been teaching that sex is determined by X and Y chromosomes for over 20 years was allegedly fired for teaching this.
He was accused of religious preaching.
Hmm.
He was then accused of MB. He received an email from the Alamo College District Human Resources Department which said his credentials would be revoked pending an investigation.
He was later fired.
He's been teaching this for 20 years because that's the way it is.
I got a letter from a listener who's annoyed with me.
He says he won't listen anymore because I talk too much about the...
The gender identity issue.
You know that there are tens of thousands of kids in this country who will be ruined?
But I shouldn't talk about that much.
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I made a mistake, by the way.
The woman I was on with on Newsmax was not a congresswoman.
She is a political and social impact strategist, Crystal Knight.
My apologies, although it's not exactly an insult to say somebody is a member of Congress, but my apologies to you for whatever reason I had thought that they had said to me that I'd be a congresswoman on with you.
It doesn't change anything that I said, but if I'm obsessive-compulsive about anything, it's telling you the truth.
It is being accurate.
In LA, California, Tom, hello.
Hi, how are you today?
Well, thank you.
I was just curious about the changing of the names of the streets in Canada.
It is French Canada, so they have French and English as their national languages.
So I was just curious.
They seem to be changing English names of streets, but I haven't heard anything about changing French names of streets.
So is it more anti-American English bias, or is it actually to honor the indigenous people?
It's a superb call.
I will be very interested to see if they change the major French highway in Quebec to an Algonquin or Mohawk or other indigenous people name.
Superb question.
Hmm.
Peut-être Alain Lambert.
C'est la réponse.
Peut-être.
So, I said maybe Alan Ambar knows the response.
This is unprecedented to the best of my knowledge.
The overthrow of a good country.
Who was this black singer who distorted the national anthem?
What was her name again?
Want to check that?
We have a minute.
Jill Scott, were you familiar with her prior to this, Sean?
Okay.
The land is not free.
So a black person believes, or many blacks believe, presumably, they don't live in a free country because they're black?
Wow.
If it's not a free country, how come she was free to crap on the national anthem and nothing will happen to her?
Happiness Hour coming up.
Here it is, everybody, the Happiness Hour.
So join me.
It's the happy, happy, happy, happy hour.
Yes, it is.
My friends, the happy make the world better, the unhappy make it worse.
You have a moral obligation to pursue happiness and not to inflict bad moods on others.
And now, the original lyrics.
You can't be in a bad mood Because of happy, happy, happy, happy hour I consider happiness so important, and so do the founders of the country, the geniuses, the utterly inspired men who founded this country, and who are being overthrown by, as usual, as I've and who are being overthrown by, as usual, as I've often put it,
having nothing to do with the physical.
Midgets hate giants.
That's a rule of life.
And these are intellectual and moral midgets who hate the giants who founded the United States of America.
Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
That's right.
The pursuit of happiness.
It's a good thing.
So I'm going to...
Discuss today one of the very, very first confrontations with the issue of my life, high school.
It was in my dear friend Joseph Tulushkin's home in Brooklyn, New York, where I grew up.
And he and I were talking about kids we thought were happy or not in class, and they were great.
And his mother was in her kitchen.
Was overhearing the conversation, the great philosopher Helen Telushkin.
And she said, boys, the only happy people I know are people I don't know well.
Which was a perfectly appropriate downer.
The woman was an extremely bright, extremely witty woman.
Who came out with these corkers every so often.
It made it into my book on happiness.
It's such an intelligent line.
The only happy people I know are people I don't know well.
And what does it mean?
And that's the subject of today's Happiness Hour.
People compare themselves to others.
And so often they think that others have it better.
And then they get even more unhappy because they've compared themselves.
But as Helen Telushkin put it, you don't know them that well.
The only happy people I know or people I don't know well is a brilliant comment.
Because the better you know people, the more you know the pain that they have endured or are presently enduring.
I remember, and I use this anecdote in my book, this happened at least 25 years ago.
Because my book, Unhappiness, Happiness is a Serious Problem, came out in 1999, which is 24 years ago.
And this happened before that.
That's why it's included as an anecdote.
So I was visiting some city in the U.S. and I was broadcasting from a station in some city.
I don't remember any of the details of those details.
And I was introduced to a young...
He was at least as young as me, and maybe younger.
Sort of a sensation.
I don't remember his name, and obviously his career has not taken off to the best of my knowledge.
But it was quite successful.
He was very successful then.
He was a good-looking, successful, doing materially well guy.
I went into his office at the station, and he had pictures of his family.
He had an obviously beautiful wife, beautiful-looking kids, and I remember falling into my own trap, thinking, wow, this guy has it all.
So, given that this was in the 1990s, Maybe in the 80s.
But I presume early 90s.
So the internet...
When did the internet really start to take off?
Do you remember?
Was it in the 90s?
Yeah, but...
Late 90s.
Late 90s, yeah.
So this was...
This I do remember.
This was when the internet was just catching on.
And if you used it, you're in the first wave of users.
So, I saw his computer and we started talking about the internet.
How I used it and how he used it.
Nobody talks about that today because it's like saying you use a car.
It doesn't mean anything.
Everybody does.
But then it was something.
And I'll never forget.
Obviously, I'll never forget.
He said to me, yeah, it's extremely useful to me because I've done so much research on multiple sclerosis.
So needless to say, I said, really?
Well, why do you do so much research on multiple sclerosis?
And he said, because my wife has it.
And I remember thinking, Dennis, you fell into the Helen Talushkin trap.
I mean, head first.
It's amazing you don't have a concussion.
I mean, I was really actually annoyed with myself because I had fallen into this trap of thinking I really met somebody who has it all and then realized this beautiful wife.
Whose picture I saw in his office turned out to have multiple sclerosis.
This was a perfect example of the only happy people I know are people I don't know well.
I didn't know him well at all.
I just met him.
But we do assume, the human nature is to assume that people...
We meet who seem to have it, may seem to have it all.
One of the reasons, I've never said this this way, but I'll say it now.
One of the reasons I have been so open about my own life is that I don't want you to think, oh, we met somebody who has it all.
I've had real challenges.
To my own happiness.
I wrote a book called Happiness is a Serious Problem.
To be honest, right now I do feel like I have, if not all, I do have a lot.
I've always felt that.
But there's no such thing as having it all.
The human condition is personified by the story of Moses who led the Israelites out of Egypt.
And his one great yearning was to enter the Holy Land, and God did not let him.
None of us has it all.
None of us gets into the Holy Land, as it were.
There's a chapter on this in my book on happiness.
It's about the human predilection.
To compare oneself to others.
My older son has a very dim view of social media.
He notes how much people fall into the trap of seeing others and thinking they have it all.
The perfect family, the perfect profession, the perfect income, the perfect looks.
I am not aware of that because I don't use the social media in that regard.
I don't use it much.
I use the internet constantly, but that's different.
1-8 Prager 776. Do you think others have it great and you don't?
Did you think that way?
Did you stop thinking that way?
This is a big challenge to people's happiness.
1-8 Prager, 7-7-6.
The Dennis Prager Show.
Be happy.
Don't worry.
Be happy.
Don't worry.
Be happy.
Don't worry.
Be happy.
Don't worry.
Be happy.
Hi, everybody.
The Happiness Hour.
Dennis Prager, every Friday.
The only happy people I know are people I don't know well.
That great statement of Helen Telushkin.
I heard it.
From her when I was in high school.
It's overstated, but that's the point.
It's stated to make an impact.
That's the subject.
People compare themselves, and now with social media, I am told, because I don't frequent them, Facebook and Instagram, TikTok.
Or Sean's page, the MB page, the misogynist banter page.
And people see all these pictures of perfect specimens, perfect families, perfect lives.
And so you fall into the trap of thinking, well, others really have it better.
Some people do have it better.
But what does that mean, have it better?
Does Bill Gates have it better than me?
It's an interesting question, right?
The exponentially greater amount of money that he has, does he have it better than me, though?
I don't think so for a nanosecond.
I don't know if he's happy.
He has found meaning in the usual secular causes, substitute religions.
I'm sure that gives him some joy.
He's recently divorced.
That's not a happy moment in a person's life.
Who has it better than you?
What does it mean, it better?
Does everybody who has far more than you happier than you?
All right, let's see here.
Chandler, Arizona, and Andy, the famous Andy of Chandler.
Hello.
Hello, Mr. Prager.
Good to talk to you again.
Thank you.
I'm going to use my son's name, Santiago, because I'm going to play this back for him.
He's 10 years old, and he's been going through some troubles at home, like everybody.
And I asked him about his friends, and, oh, they're all happy.
They're just, everything's great.
I said, well, how well do you know them?
And I told him, just like you, Preach on the radio.
Everybody's happy until you get to know somebody, and we all have problems.
And that's what I'm trying to teach him at 10 years old.
But he has difficulty with it, obviously.
He's 10 years old, so...
Well, he just has to know that that is true.
That he doesn't know what's...
He doesn't know what's going on inside of any of his friends.
Nobody can.
So that's number one.
And he doesn't know what's going on in their lives.
Not just what's not going on inside of them.
Here's an interesting take on this subject that I want to share with all of you.
Thank you and hello to Santiago.
So here's an interesting take.
What is the reaction of...
Neighbors and acquaintances of people who turn out to be murderers, sometimes even shooting more than one person.
99% of the time, what do you hear?
I can't believe it.
He is not the kind of guy who would do that sort of thing.
I am in a state of shock, correct?
Right?
You always hear that?
From relatives, friends, neighbors, acquaintances, co-workers.
Shocked.
Why isn't that proof of how little people know other people?
That's the giveaway.
How often do you hear, doesn't surprise me.
Right?
How often do you hear that?
If there's anybody I would have expected to shoot up and be a mass murderer, it was Fred.
You never hear that.
Why isn't that sort of proof of how little most people know other people?
Now, to be honest, I really do believe I know my friends well.
I also believe they, and here's a real kicker, I think you know me well.
But that's not the norm, shall we say.
All right, let's see here.
Let's go.
Crown Point, Indiana.
Bill, hello.
Hi, good morning, Dennis.
I'm not sure where I heard it, but something that's a little plumb that stuck with me said, don't make the mistake of comparing your inside to another person's outside.
That is superb.
That is superb.
I think you should spend the rest of your life finding out who said that.
I hereby give you a mission.
No, I'll give you a variation on that.
It's on a moral issue.
That's on a human or happiness issue.
People, what is it?
We compare others.
We judge others' actions and we judge our motives.
That's an analogous statement to the one you just said.
You get it?
Yes.
Yeah, well, you're a good man.
I appreciate your call.
That's correct.
We know our insides and we know others' outsides.
That's right.
And the same thing in the moral realm.
We judge our motives, but we judge others' behavior.
The answer is not to judge others' motives.
The answer is to judge our behavior.
That's the solution to that particular dilemma.
Let's see here.
As Mom said, the people who don't have problems are the people you don't really know.
Yep, that's another person who said the obvious.
Well, we got some really good calls here.
I'm not going to take one right now because in a half a minute we're taking a break.
But this is such an important antidote.
To the very common human behavior of thinking all these other people are problem-free, whereas I have all these problems.
It's only because you know you so well, and not them.
The Happiness Hour on the Dennis Prager Show, every Friday the second hour.
You can hear 20 years...
Of happiness hours at PragerTopia.com.
Without commercials, I might add.
PragerTopia.com.
The subject today is the great line of the late Helen Telushkin.
The only happy people I know are people I don't know well.
We think others are so much happier and that just contributes to what I call compound unhappiness.
We're unhappy and then we get unhappier because we think the others are all doing so well.
I don't deny, it's ridiculous to deny that some people have a better or happier life than others, of course.
But by and large, people don't know what they're comparing themselves to.
Just the other day, my engineer, Sean McConnell, was telling me that he compares his life to his dogs and feels that Ferguson has a better life.
And I thought that was sad.
But the truth is, he probably does.
whose dog doesn't have a better life than they do my wife would often say about one of our dogs he's so happy And on many occasions, not all, I would respond, yeah, but he doesn't know it.
Yes.
In my ears, I just got a message that Ferguson's...
Tail wags even while he's asleep.
That is how happy he is.
Alright, let's go on here.
This is a really important subject, needless to say.
In Minnesota, Dan, what is the name of your city, Dan?
It is Power, Minnesota.
It's up on the Iron Range area, about 100 miles south of Canada.
Are you near Duluth?
It's about an hour and a half south of me.
You're north of Duluth.
I am.
Wow.
How cold does it get in the winter?
Well, it never gets cold until it gets below zero, but we have, I don't know, last year there were some 20 and 30 below zero days out there.
So are you sort of rooting for global warming?
I am.
I am.
We're going to have the Paradise State and the Union when Global Army finally gets there.
That's right, yeah.
All right, so what's on your mind up there in Power, Minnesota?
First of all, thank you for taking my call.
I've listened to you for years, and you're one of the wisest men I've ever heard.
Thank you.
So, to this subject, I graduated from college in 86 in IT, Maine.
Tons and tons of money all the way up until the year 2000. And I never spent a raise.
All I could think about is my next new car, my next new top line this and top line of that.
As you know, IT crashed in 2001. I found myself out of a job.
Actually, I had to file bankruptcy.
But during that time, I became spiritually awoke.
I reaffirmed my Christian faith.
And my focus shifted from things to make me happy to personal growth to make me happy.
Now I live, I'm retired, I live on like $3,000 a month, extra money left over, and I'm happier than I've ever been.
That's fascinating.
Did you ever marry?
I did marry, and we had a very lovely marriage about 12 years ago when my wife was 48. I lost her to lung cancer.
Well, that's a blow.
It was a blow.
And for all those people who poop out religion, I was so down, sometimes I wouldn't leave my house, but every Sunday I went to church.
And just being with a group of people, singing and sharing fellowship, raised my spirits.
That's right.
Secular life doesn't give hope.
religious life does the loneliest monk flawless living bitter taste the loneliest monk keeps his chance to himself Let Dennis be Dennis.
The loneliest monk Altered memories on a shelf The loneliest monk Used chopsticks to eat ice cream Saw the things that go unseen Knows exactly what I mean The loneliest monk The loneliest monk The loneliest monk The loneliest
monk The loneliest monk The loneliest monk Or $200,000 actually.
The speakers alone were $80,000.
And I fell in love with it.
For the record, my wife hates the song.
Just for the record.
All right, this is the hour.
You set the agenda.
Whatever's on your mind.
About you, about me, about life, about death.
And, of course, about cigars or fountain pens or audio equipment or photography equipment or classical music.
That came out truly fluently.
You know my theory.
The more you're passionate about, the happier you are anyway.
All right, so let's see.
By the way, I always announce if I let your call go and don't take it, don't be offended.
How could you be offended?
It's not even against you.
All right, let's begin, ladies and gentlemen.
Oh, my God.
The beauty of this hour is how varied the calls are.
Wow, look at that.
All right.
Let's go to Maggie in Cleveland.
Hello, Maggie of Cleveland.
Hi, Dennis.
Thank you for taking my call.
I love your show.
Thank you.
You are a very religious person and a family man.
I always say that without God and without family, we are nothing.
I'm divorced.
I have a daughter and a son.
And my daughter has not spoken to me for two years and a half.
I raised both of my kids and I know what you're going to say.
After I sent them to college, they became these two crazy liberals.
But the difference is that my son respects me, and he always tells me, Mom, I don't agree with you, but it's okay.
My daughter has blocked my cell phone.
She has not spoken to me for two years and a half because I'm religious, I'm conservative.
She can tell me whatever she wants.
And I'll tell her that's okay that you believe this way, but when I tell her what I believe, she gets very angry at me.
The last election, actually the last two elections, she tried to convince me to vote for the non-conservative candidate, and I told her that she had the right to vote for whoever she wanted, but because I'm religious, I believe in God, I'm against abortion, I could not vote for the...
Democratic Party, you know, so one thing after the other, they have not spoken to me for two years, and I have, like I said, I raised them Christian, conservative, and then I sent them to college.
It's killing me because my daughter and my son are so important to me, and I'm very blessed that my son is in my life, and he respects me.
My son is 31. She's 33. And she's behaving like a spoiled little girl because she believes only her side has to be heard, and I don't have the right to think that I do with my religious thoughts.
That's exactly what she thinks.
Did they both go to the same college?
No, my daughter went to the University of Cincinnati, and my son went to a small Christian college, but that has been in Columbus.
Turning to the very liberal side.
Yeah, as many are, right.
And by the way, I just want to tell you that I probably am one of the few college professors who are religious and conservative.
So at work, I need to keep my thoughts to myself because I need my job.
So you teach where?
The college or high school?
At the university.
Wow.
So, you're religious and you're a family man, what is your advice for me, please?
So let me understand something.
Yes, okay.
I have a lot of thoughts on this.
So first, I'm just curious to know, when she went to college, was she a more decent person?
Very much so.
Your contention is, and I happen to believe that, college made her into a meaner human being.
Very much.
Very, very much.
Not only her professors, but her friends who are liberals, too, including the gentleman who she was dating.
They end up getting married.
They eloped.
They were dating for a while, and she told me and he told me they would never get married.
But then they decided to elope because of the health insurance.
She does not use his last name.
She does not like when I say, how is your husband doing?
Mom, he's not my husband.
He's my partner.
They don't wear wedding rings, and they introduce each other to friends, to people.
This is my partner.
They don't tell anybody that they're married because they're against the institution of marriage.
Yeah, by the way, people don't know that.
To the best of my knowledge, listeners, Gavin Newsom refers to his wife as his partner.
Which is, aside from being woke, is childish.
Because you don't want to take on even the name wife and husband.
It's too traditional.
It's too filled with obligations.
Compared to my partner.
My advice, that's what she called for.
So, number one, I have been adamant about this for many years.
You cannot, as hard as it is, you cannot allow your happiness to be held hostage by a child.
You must live your life and pursue happiness independent of that individual.
Number two, once again, to prove to you how despicable the left is, here's a question.
If you send a child to a college, the child is loving and respectful, And becomes a bastard.
Is it because they went right or went left?
Do any of you know children who went right, became conservative slash religious, whatever it might mean, and became meaner?
Treated their parents?
Let's say the parents were leftists.
Treated them with contempt and don't speak to them?
Is there a parallel on the right, is my question, to what this woman just described that is so common on the left.
There are millions of adult children who don't speak to a parent.
And in very many instances, not all, but in very many, it is because of views of life, or politics, if you will.
My heart breaks for these parents.
Thank God she has a son who is decent.
But I have been warning about this for decades.
This is truly a pandemic.
For a child to opt not to speak to a parent for political reasons?
Whew.
That's really something.
So, I always ask the question, do mean people gravitate left, or does the left make you meaner?
And the answer is both.
Okay, let's see here.
Mars, is that possible?
You're in New York State.
Frank, is that correct?
Yes, it is.
Dennis, how are you?
Thanks for taking my call.
What is the name of your city?
I'm in Morris, which is in central New York, about an hour northwest of Binghamton.
Oh, you're really up there.
How do you spell the name of your city?
M-O-R-R-I-S. Morris, New York.
Actually, I'm originally from New Jersey and Pennsylvania.
Well, there's a Morris County, right?
Yeah, I actually grew up in Morris County, New Jersey.
But I'm up in Otsego County, up in New York.
Right, but you insist, wherever you live, that somehow it is named Morris.
Yes, the town of Morris.
That's a fascinating need in a person's life.
Well, if somebody asks you where do you live, don't you tell them whatever city you're from.
No, no, no, I'm ribbing you that you went from Morris to Morris.
There you go.
There you go.
You know, one of the issues, I think, is as we get older, I'm going to be 60 next month, and I've been divorced for 23 years and never been remarried.
One of the issues I find moving forward is that, and obviously I'm heterosexual, I'm a conservative, I listen to your program, and I enjoy listening to you.
I think for the females that...
I've been dating and conversing with, a lot of times they can't let their past go.
Okay?
Whether they had a bad divorce or a bad...
Alright, hold on with me.
I'm curious to hear your point.
We return momentarily.
That's exactly what I mean.
Don't think because there's a ring on your finger.
You need try anymore.
For wives should always be lovers too.
Run to his arms the moment he comes home to you.
I'm warning you.
Day after day, there are Happiness Hour.
No, excuse me, that was last hour.
This is the whatever's on your mind hour.
Okay, let's go back to New York State, all the way up north.
And you're dating, you've been divorced for over 20 years, you're dating, and you say a lot of women can't get over their divorce that you meet, because at your age you'll...
You'll be meeting widows and divorcees overwhelmingly.
So do you think that that is more...
Yes and no.
Well, you're meeting women, let's say 50, who have never married?
No, the age group is usually about 45 and up from there.
So you're meeting women 45 to 60, or 60 whatever, Some of them have never been married.
I assume that's a small minority.
Yes, it is.
Okay, well, all right.
So that's what I said.
So by and large, you're meeting widows and divorcees.
And you're saying that a large proportion of them are fixed or fixated on their past relationship.
That's correct.
Yeah, I had not heard that.
I'm not saying at all that you're wrong.
I'm just saying I have not heard that before.
Do you think that it's more true for women or for men, or both?
Well, I don't have a lot of conversations with single men and their interactions.
Yeah, that's fair.
But for myself, I know that one of the first questions a woman will ask me is, what happened in my marriage?
How come you're divorced?
I think that's a great question.
I do as well, but when you don't go into a lot of detail, I'll say that unfortunately my wife and I got to a point where our lives were not going in the same direction.
We didn't want the same things, and we decided it was best for our family and for ourselves not to be together anymore, and that's the truth.
As my 29- and 27-year-old kids can attest, I've been, you know, a very involved dad for the last 23 years of being divorced, coaching baseball, basketball, soccer, two teams every year, you know, being the best dad that I could be.
That's basically my mission in life is to be a great father.
So I think what happens when you give out that information on how things ended, well, what happened?
I want more specifics.
Unfortunately, it happened 23 years ago.
I didn't know this person 23 years ago, so it's not really relevant to the conversation today, to the experiences we're having together.
You don't need to know what happened, right?
You're supposed to get to know the person that I am today, not the person I was 23 years ago.
Okay, so let me react here.
I'm very happy you called.
This is the sort of call I could spend the hour with.
But I have to go to other calls.
So, if I were dating, I would inquire of a woman who had been divorced.
I would be very interested in the particulars of why she divorced.
It would have nothing to do with judging her.
Nothing.
It isn't even so much, I'll know you better, although that's a factor.
It's just, it's the elephant in the room.
You divorced someone you were married, let's say, 20 years to.
I'm so curious as to why it happened.
I mean, I don't care if the answer is, you know...
I like BMWs and he liked Lexuses.
I would just find it fascinating.
First of all, I can't talk trivia.
I don't care what her favorite movies are.
And I'm not saying he does.
I'm reacting to the subject, not to the caller.
But I relate to...
The inquiries as to why you divorced.
It is a way of getting to know you and to talk about what you care about.
Now, if you've changed, so fine.
So, you know what?
I am such a different man today, I might not have even divorced if the issue were today.
It doesn't matter.
I don't know, in other words, and I know he's dying to react, but I have to go on to other calls.
And I'm sorry about that, I really am.
But I don't believe that asking the person on the date, the particulars of their previous marriage, means that she is fixated or he is fixated.
On his or her past.
I think it's a good sign of an intellectually curious person.
I may be wrong.
I fully acknowledge it.
But that's how I read it.
Alright, let's clear the line.
Let's see here.
Joe in Los Angeles.
Hello.
Hi, Dennis.
Hi.
If you ever consider doing a PragerU topic regarding the seven Noahide laws.
Yeah, 99% of humanity doesn't know what they are, so I wouldn't do it.
What I've done instead is 11 videos on the Ten Commandments.
So I don't advocate to the world the seven Noahide laws, which I will explain in a moment.
And I will tell you what they are when we come back, and I'll explain why that's not what I specifically preach, even though that is the traditional Jewish view of the message Jews should bring to the world.
I have opted for the Ten Commandments because whereas 99% of humanity, including most Jews, never heard of the seven Noahide laws, almost everybody heard of the Ten Commandments.
Dennis Prager here.
Thanks for listening to the Daily Dennis Prager Podcast.
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