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Aug. 15, 2023 - Dennis Prager Show
01:20:24
Number Four
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Dennis Prager here.
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Hello, everybody.
Dennis Prager here on a Tuesday. .
It's my column day Tuesday, so I hope you'll go to my website and read my column.
I have 1,000 plus columns on the internet.
The beauty of being consistent.
Slow but consistent.
I will talk about it.
It is about the fact that more Americans are committing suicide than ever before.
So now there's a new indictment of President Trump from one county in Georgia.
Lindsey Graham said, since when do counties, not states, if he has done something against the people of Georgia, then...
The state of Georgia should bring the indictment.
Does that not make sense?
Of course, I have no hope for people who hate Donald Trump to realize the damage being done to the United States of America with all of these indictments and the arresting of a former president and the head of the opposition.
I'll tell you why I have no hope.
I was reading a piece in the New York Times written by a professor of law saying how much damage is being done to the country because of these indictments of President Trump.
I don't know if he's a Trump supporter or not.
It doesn't matter.
I have great reservations about his ability to win if he's nominated.
I supported him while he was president because he was, in fact, generally speaking, a terrific president.
But that doesn't matter.
You can hate the man.
All you need to do is love the country.
And I'll tell you why I hold little hope for the left, for the Democrats to understand the damage done.
That article in the New York Times, did you happen to see it?
He was in the George W. Bush administration, the professor who wrote that.
So, of course, as I always do, I went to the comments.
There were literally thousands of comments.
And what I do is I click on, you have a choice.
Newest, oldest, most popular.
I always click on most popular.
Every one, I just scroll down, every single one said, of course this man should be in jail.
Of course he should be in jail.
No one is above the law.
He can't get away with his crimes.
America will be worse off if we do not jail this man.
This is what the New York Times reader believes.
The New York Times reader is your quintessential liberal and leftist.
Increasingly, there isn't much distinction, but I do draw a distinction of a big one between leftism and liberalism.
If liberals drew that distinction, the country would be in fine shape.
It's like agnostics.
They don't assert that there is a God, and they don't assert that there is not a God.
But they live as if there is not a God.
Agnostics live as atheists.
Liberals vote as if leftists.
The analogy is close to perfect, actually.
Fulton County in Georgia is the most left-wing of the counties of Georgia.
The thought that he will get a fair trial there.
Is ludicrous.
Just ludicrous.
You're supposed to be tried by a jury of your peers, but that is not the case in Washington, D.C. or in Fulton County.
It is very hard to see where the contamination of the country from the left will end.
I'll tell you what the Republicans need to do.
They need to impeach Joe Biden.
There's far more evidence that he is corrupt than that Donald Trump is corrupt.
It's not even close, actually.
But even if it were close, he should be impeached.
Not because I, under normal circumstances, would not favor Joe Biden being impeached, despite the fact that I consider him a crook.
A true, honest-to-goodness crook.
Who would sell anything for money?
I believe he believes in nothing and is dedicated to Joe Biden.
Nevertheless, I would not be for his impeachment because I don't want to wreck America.
You don't impeach a president even if he is a crook.
Even if he was a crook while vice president.
However, There is no other way for half of this country to announce that if the left wishes to bring us down by the weaponization of the Justice Department, we will retaliate.
Otherwise, we end up with what I have said most of my life.
This country is in a civil war, but only one side is fighting.
The other side has to fight back.
Let him be impeached.
I must say that reading New York Times readers' reactions to a plea, please don't arrest the head of the opposition, You have no idea what you are doing to this country by doing that.
That all of them thought the argument was a farce, just a farce.
That virtually every reader of the New York Times, I presume, is in favor of the jailing of the head of the opposition and a former president is as hopeless a sign as I can offer you.
I hate to use the word civil war.
The words, if you wish, the words civil war.
I hate it.
The thought that my country is in one is truly a depressing thought.
It is a sad, sad thought.
How did half of my country come to believe that something so sick as to put Men who say they're women in women's prisons, in women's shelters, women raped by men, now have to be with a human with a penis?
In a women's shelter?
These are sick.
The left is sick.
It is beyond bad.
They have entered the realm of the sick.
I don't know what the solution is.
Because it's very hard.
If people rationally conclude something like, I think tax rates should be X and you think tax rates should be Y, you can have a dialogue.
You can't dialogue with the sick.
Children should have men in skirts and dresses dance in front of them when they're five?
That's sick!
And the better educated...
No, I take that back.
The more you've attended college...
You should never equate going to college with better educated.
Never!
They have nothing to do with one another.
That medical schools will now take in students based on diversity?
Your doctors in the future?
Your children's doctors?
Maybe less competent, but they are more diverse.
This is all part of a package of pathology, sociopathology.
Thank you.
But they never hear this.
I read the New York Times, but they don't listen to my show.
That's the difference.
As I have said for years, we know what they know, but they don't know what we know.
Every single comment I read said that the head of the opposition should be in jail.
Well, these are dark days in the United States.
Dark days.
How emotions have taken over.
It just shows you the notion of the age of reason.
Ah, reason will lead us to a good world.
But the people who said that forgot about something.
The heart.
Which for many people is far more powerful than the mind.
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Wow, watching the head of the opposition indicted and may well go to jail.
It's a turning point in American history.
And the left, in their despicable arrogance, doesn't give a damn about the message they're sending to half this country.
Not just F.U. But we will bury you, just like communists.
These people are moving this country to communism.
They're not nationalizing all industry, that's correct, so it's not full-blooded communism.
But it is a form of left-wing tyranny.
Do you have another word for left-wing tyranny?
I'll use that.
It's fine with me.
Here's another example, because remember I told you there is no example in history of the left in power and allowing dissent.
They suppress dissent, whether it's Columbia University or a country or an organization, they suppress dissent.
Because there is only one thing that truly destroys the left.
Free speech.
Free speech is the enemy.
Of leftism.
That's why they censor.
And censor and censor.
And lie about misinformation.
Yesterday I brought to you the fact that all of a sudden the FDA said, well, ivermectin is not so bad after all.
They lied about the dangers of ivermectin.
They lied about the dangers of hydroxychloroquine.
They lied about the need for masks.
They lied about the need to keep children out of school.
They lie, and they lie, and they suppress dissent, calling it misinformation.
That's it.
That's exactly what the communists did in Russia.
So here's another example of suppression of dissent.
In the great state of Illinois, Let's see, where is this?
From Wall Street Journal this week.
Democrats are eager to make their states havens for abortion.
And in Illinois, they're willing to violate free speech rights along the way.
Did you happen to see this?
It's amazing.
Amazing.
The people of Illinois actually voted for this man, Pritzker?
It's like voting for Lenin.
Except Lenin was brighter.
They're willing to violate free speech rights.
Of course they are.
I was asked by the people who precede me, Jen and Grant, the terrific show, Here in Los Angeles on my station in L.A. We were promoting the...
What is that?
What is the official name of our get-together?
With my colleagues for KRLA? Town Hall.
Town Hall, yeah, Town Hall.
The Town Hall coming up.
And so Jen asked me, so you said last year that any Republican is better than any Democrat.
Well, what about those who embrace Robert F. Kennedy Jr., those conservatives who embrace him because of his position on the mRNA so-called vaccine and a free speech?
So I said, well, if you embrace free speech, you're not a leftist.
I have great admiration for RFK Jr. He's a truth seeker.
I don't agree with him on every issue.
I don't care if I agree with someone on every issue.
The only person I agree on every issue with is me.
The only person you agree on every issue with is you.
So it's irrelevant.
Free speech?
If you're for free speech, that means you're no longer welcome in the Democratic Party.
The Democrats hate RFK Jr. Hate him.
If you're for free speech, Democrats and the left hate you.
You are a fatal threat, lethal threat to the left if you're for free speech.
So here's a perfect example.
The Democrats in Illinois are willing to violate free speech rights along the way to making abortion a haven.
To suppressing anti-abortion people.
That's the finding of a federal judge who has enjoined a law to silence groups that run pregnancy help centers.
Governor J.B. Pritzker recently signed a law amending the state's Consumer Fraud and Deceptive Business Practices Act to sweep in pregnancy centers that counsel women against abortion.
The law drafted by Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raul regulates the anti-abortion groups on grounds they engage in, quote, deceptive business practices.
The attack on the beauty of law on the left.
They destroy everything they touch, including the law.
If you counsel women against abortion, pregnant women, you are engaged in deceptive business practices.
Maybe the abortion clinics are engaged in deceptive business practices.
They don't allow the woman who's having an abortion to know what she's aborting.
Why don't they show her pictures and videos at whatever stage she's in?
I think full disclosure is a moral imperative.
know what you're doing.
Federal judge Ian Johnson wrote in an August 4th order granting a preliminary injunction the law is both stupid and very likely unconstitutional.
Yeah, folks, there are some good Americans around.
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It is mind-blowing, this indictment.
The Georgia law is modeled on the 1970 Federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, which gave federal prosecutors a new tool to pursue the mafia.
So that's what they're using to pursue the President of the United States.
The head of the opposition.
Tools to get the mafia.
And 18 others are in it.
They hate everybody associated with Donald Trump.
That includes you and it includes me.
Yes, that's a good point.
It includes you and me, that's right.
And everyone who voted for him.
That's right.
There's a real, it's a pathology of the left.
I believe Joe Biden is ruining this country.
I loathe the man.
I think he's a lowlife.
No, I know he's a lowlife.
But I don't have the same hatred of people who voted for him that the left has hatred for people who voted for Donald Trump.
Their narcissism and arrogance, which are characteristics of the left, Precludes them from understanding that others may have a mirror image, but we don't act the same.
How many adult children don't speak to parents because they voted for Donald Trump?
How many adult children don't speak to parents because they voted for Joe Biden?
What is the ratio?
1,000 to 1?
10,000 to 1?
Yeah.
Amazing.
Gave federal prosecutors a new tool to pursue the mafia by tying mob bosses to the conduct of subordinates within their criminal organization.
Prosecutors in New York and elsewhere successfully used the federal RICO law throughout the following decades to bring down several prominent mafia families and other criminal enterprises.
Georgia's RICO statute, because of the breadth of it, allows the prosecutor to tell the whole story.
The who, what, when, where, and how, said a former DeKalb County District Attorney.
You have to understand, the left wants to destroy us.
Those of us who are not left.
Even if you're liberal, they want to destroy you.
They hate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. They hate him as much as they hate Trump.
Anyone who's for free speech, they hate.
Wow.
Willis' indictment put forth chronologically in a series of alleged acts.
Lays out a vast and sprawling conspiracy to subvert the election with Trump the alleged political equivalent of a mob boss.
Wow.
Fannie Willis.
That's the prosecutor here.
What is this, the fourth indictment now?
Is that correct?
Wow.
Fulton County District Attorney Fannie Willis.
I'm sure it was arrived at through deep moral contemplation of the consequences.
What did he say?
Find me 12,000 votes?
Was anybody coerced to do anything?
Was anybody coerced to cheat?
Seriously, I'm asking a question.
Wow.
The inability to dangle the promise of a pardon to others involved in the Georgia case could make it harder for Trump to keep alleged co-conspirators and co-defendants from seeking cooperation deals with Willis' office.
Willis, however, also faces challenges.
The large number of defendants could bog down trial scheduling, delaying any proceedings.
Jury selections could also drag on for months.
Due to the political nature of the case and the anticipated length of a potential trial.
Wow.
A county prosecutor?
That's right, anywhere.
Well, some Republican county prosecutor should file charges against Biden.
I... I think that the left would have scorched earth warfare.
I think that if Republicans started doing what they're doing, they would just, they wouldn't care.
To hell with America.
In the Jack Smith indictments, you know the word insurrection is never used?
Wouldn't you think if there was an insurrection and that he was involved in it, that he would be charged with insurrection?
But he's not.
The Wall Street Journal editorial page truly dislikes Donald Trump.
In this editorial, they call him deceitful and destructive.
His malfeasance on January 6th was disgraceful.
Okay.
But they understand.
It's not why you jail an ex-president.
Democrats have long sought an indictment related to January 6th, but on that score, what's striking is what's not in the 45-page document.
There is no evidence tying Mr. Trump to the Oath Keepers or Proud Boys, who planned to and did breach the U.S. Capitol that day.
That was the worst offense against democracy.
And more than a thousand people have been prosecuted in connection with it.
Okay, I don't happen to agree with the Wall Street Journal's assessment of those thousand people.
Some of them absolutely, but not all of them.
Some just walked in to the Capitol because somebody opened the doors to the Capitol.
Yet the indictment offers no new evidence to establish a connection between the riot and Mr. Trump beyond his well-known tweets and public statements.
Surely Mr. Smith would have added this to his conspiracy charges if he had found such evidence.
Mr. Trump is also not charged with encouraging an insurrection, which is the word and charge leveled by the press corps and the Democrats.
Instead, the indictment charge...
The indictment charges one obstruction and three conspiracy counts related to what it claims was a broad effort to overturn the 2020 election based on, quote, dishonesty, fraud, and deceit.
But the indictment concedes that Mr. Trump, quote, had a right, like every American, to speak publicly about the election and even to claim falsely, that's his words, Smith, That there had been outcome determinative fraud during the election and that he had won.
It's interesting, isn't it?
Did you notice the wording?
Smith is writing, he claimed falsely that there was outcome determinative fraud.
Not just, in other words, Smith is conceding, it may not be a lie that there was fraud.
It is a lie that it determines an outcome.
That's why those words are stuck in there.
See, it's worth going to yeshiva and learning to parse sentences.
That's funny.
So it's not a lie that there was fraud.
It's a lie that the fraud determined outcome.
He knows.
I'm agnostic.
I have been from the beginning.
There's no doubt in my mind that if Democrats could throw elections by cheating, they will.
There's no doubt in my mind.
I know that like I know the names of my two sons.
Even my friend Hugh Hewitt, who is a passionate conservative, but moderate, very moderate man.
And I say that as praise, not as critique.
He wrote a book, If It's Not Close, They Can't Cheat.
A whole book on Democrats cheating.
Long before all of this.
That's correct.
Long before.
In other words, Mr. Trump can lie about the election all he wants, but the indictment says Mr. Trump broke the law when he acted on those lies.
Those actions include lobbying state officials to hunt for voter fraud.
Now, let's say he did that.
Why is that criminal?
You're asking state officials to find voter fraud.
Why is that a criminal act?
Yeah, why isn't it a good thing to do?
That's right.
Working with his conspirators to stand up substitute electors in seven states.
Okay.
I'm not sure that that is worthy of an indictment of a president, of sending a president to jail, because I'm not sure that it's illegal.
There are things that may not be right, but are not necessarily illegal.
And if it's illegal, you still have to weigh the consequences of doing something never done before, putting an ex-president in jail, putting the head of the opposition in jail.
But as soon as you ask what are the consequences, you have left the left.
Stage one thinking, as the great Tom Sowell puts it.
And trying to persuade Vice President Mike Pence that he had the power to refuse to count electoral votes on January 6th.
Why is that criminal?
Trying to persuade somebody is now a crime?
Hmm?
This is a remarkably broad theory of, quote, conspiracy to defraud the United States.
This is again the Wall Street Journal which begins with a serious attack on Donald Trump.
And one with troubling implications far beyond the fate of Mr. Trump.
Mr. Smith's theory seems to be that if a president and his, quote, co-conspirators, unquote, are lying, And then take action on that lie.
They are defrauding the U.S. This potentially criminalizes many kinds of actions and statements by a president that a prosecutor deems to be false.
You don't have to be a defender of Donald Trump to worry about where that will lead.
If you worry about where that will lead, you're not a leftist.
It makes any future election challenges however validly Our legal counselors also point to Nixon v.
Fitzgerald, a 1982 Supreme Court ruling that the president, quote, is entitled to absolute immunity from damage liability.
Predicated on his official acts.
That was a civil, not a criminal case, but lobbying his own Justice Department to investigate voter fraud, or even lobbying state officials to find fraud, is arguably within a president's official duties if he believes fraud occurred.
People don't understand the magnitude of the attack on this country from the left.
They don't.
Hi, everybody.
Dennis Prager here.
In a moment I will talk to you a bit more about the Georgia indictment and the assault on the United States of America by the left.
I just want you to know I spent five minutes Looking up what my last caller said when I said, can you name me one prominent Democrat who has come out against biological men competing with biological women in sports?
And he said, Jamie Raskin.
Two of us have been doing research for five minutes.
All we found was Jamie Raskin's support for quote-unquote transgender rights.
So either you made that up, Or you're right and I missed it, and if you send me data, I'll send you $100.
I never made that offer before.
So either send me the data or apologize.
You know, I've always found this, because I've debated a lot in my life.
The only thing I cannot protect myself against in a debate is when the opponent makes up something.
Because what am I going to say you're lying?
I don't know for a fact that they're lying.
You know who did that?
Joe Biden did that.
Remember in his vice presidential debate?
He said something about the Middle East that I had never heard about in my life.
And I thought, wow, why didn't I know that?
I follow international events.
That's my field, international relations.
I was a fellow at the School of International Affairs at Columbia.
How did I miss that?
I was at the Middle East Institute, no less.
So, there's really no way to rebut a lie.
You can announce to the world, my opponent lied, made up of fact.
Well, there's no such thing as made up a fact.
Made up a pseudo-fact.
But it doesn't work because you didn't do it during the debate.
So if Jamie Raskin has come out and said, I oppose biological men competing with biological women, I will send that man $100.
My general belief, as you know, is that truth is not a left-wing value because for people on the left, they are so certain of the rectitude of their position that lying on behalf they are so certain of the rectitude of their position that lying on behalf of it Just like you could lie in war against the communists or the Nazis.
Their view of their opponents is that they're Nazis.
That's what they really think.
Every leftist thinks that.
Listen, I was accused by 37 professors at Arizona State University of being a white nationalist.
That's not different from a Nazi.
You should watch my response to that at the Arizona State Legislature.
Take a look.
It's on the internet.
Did PragerU put it up?
PragerU put it up as well.
That is the reason the truth is not a left-wing value.
If you're fighting Nazis, you can lie.
And there's truth to that.
What is it that Churchill said?
We have a bodyguard of lies?
In wartime against an evil enemy...
Obviously, lying in such an instance for the sake of defeating evil is okay.
And since every leftist believes that they're fighting Nazis, it's okay to lie.
And that's it.
I don't think I've ever fully explained why truth is not a left-wing value.
Truth is not a left-wing value because Opponents of the left-wing individual's eyes are Nazis.
They basically say it.
What is white supremacist?
How is white supremacist different from Nazi?
That's what Nazis were.
They were white supremacists.
Now you understand why truth is not a left-wing value.
Between fighting Nazis and telling the truth, give me a break.
Of course fighting Nazis is more important than telling the truth.
It's the world of simpletons, the world of the left.
Dangerous, vicious simpletons.
And that's how they rationalize it.
We can lie because we're fighting Nazis.
It's important.
It's a very important point.
The damage being done to this country with all of these indictments of the last president is incalculable.
This is the fourth one.
They're just piling on.
We hate Trump.
Again, Trump is a fascist.
That's what they say.
Well, if you fight fascists, you can do anything.
That's it.
It's the world of the simple.
The vicious simple, one might add.
Wow.
Hmm.
Okay.
Well, he's calling back.
Maybe I owe him $100.
I'll be happy to pay.
Okay, go ahead, sir.
Yeah, Jim.
Dennis, what I was responding to was your statement about supporting transgender men competing against women.
Supporting transgender rights is not the same thing.
Do you have evidence that he has said it is wrong for trans women, biological men, to compete against biological women?
Do you have evidence that he has said that?
Yes or no?
I don't have absolutely...
Exactly.
So you lied.
Thank you so much.
Okay.
That was what I asked.
I said to you, can you name me one Democrat in prominent position who was against men competing against women in women's sports?
And you said, yes, Jamie Raskin.
You lied, my friend.
But I forgive you.
Because you don't know what you do.
I'll be Christ-like at this moment.
And I believe that.
I believe he does not know what he does.
He's fighting Nazis, so anything is permitted.
Well, I have my $100.
You know that a part of me, just so you'll know, there was a part of me that hoped that he was right.
Because it's much more depressing.
I'm not depressed if I make a mistake.
But I am depressed when people lie to you.
Then there's no hope.
Okay, anyway, that's what's happening with Donald Trump.
The support is universal.
The only Democrat I know...
By the way, has RFK Jr. taken a position on the indictments of Trump?
Well, I'm having him on, and I'm going to ask him about that.
I'm very, very curious if he's taken a position.
That, I have to admit, is a sort of dividing line.
If you've crossed that, if you think it's good for the country, it's hard.
It's hard to think that we have much in common.
And I have great respect for RFK Jr. So I will ask him that.
That's a very important question.
By the way, in normal times, I would not be for impeaching Joe Biden.
It's only because at a given point, there have to be some Democrats who will say, wait a minute.
If we do this to their president, they'll do this to our president.
And then the country is in chaos.
Most leftists want the country in chaos, so that's not problematic.
But maybe there are no voices in the entire House of Representatives who are Democrats, or in the entire Senate who are Democrats, who worry about the country, the precedent being set by arresting a former president at the head of the opposition.
I do wonder.
Is there one Democrat in Congress?
Sinema, she's in the Senate.
I think she's opposed to this.
Am I right?
Has she come out?
I'll check on that.
We'll be back in a moment.
1-8 Prager 776. This is a...
A crisis the likes of which we have never even come close to having.
Sending a president and the head of the opposition to jail.
And half the country thinks it's a great idea.
As I have said, the gulf between left and right is unbridgeable.
You're destroying my country, you on the left.
All you know how to do is destroy.
Tell me what the left builds that's good.
Not liberals.
The left.
Liberals, unfortunately.
I think most liberals in this case are actually on the side of the left with the indictment.
But I don't know.
It's interesting.
I'd like to know...
Those who think that the head of the opposition should go to jail, I'd like to know what their position is on transgender women.
Competing in women's sports.
Do you know that in Canada?
It was last week, right?
This has passed a week.
In Canada, a biological male, which is redundant, a male, won first place in women's weightlifting competition.
Weightlifting, the most obvious arena of all sports where strength is the only matter.
It's all that matters is strength.
He looks like a man.
He lifts like a man.
And the most pathetic part was how the two women who were cheated out of first place and second place were clapping and hugging him.
Wow.
It's hard to imagine the objects of cheating Clapping for having been robbed of their rightful rewards.
It is one of the more distressing, indeed depressing pictures you can see, these Canadian women weightlifters hugging the cheat, the narcissistic cheat, who said he's a woman and cheated them out of their weightlifting prizes.
And the whole left is for that.
And there aren't five liberals in America or Canada who will stop voting left because of this attack on fairness and on women.
I don't think there are five.
So you have a choice, you listening, and I have the exact same choice.
Fight or despair.
Okay?
I'm sorry.
Nobody, what is it?
Nobody promised you a rose garden.
I'm reading this 600-page book on the Russian Civil War.
The Despicable Bolsheviks Against the Despicable Whites, as they were called.
The amount of torture, rape, slaughter that took place in...
Between 1917 and 19, I guess, 21, is beyond imagination.
You know, I'm a religious man, but I come from a tradition where you can argue with God.
The first Jew does argue with God, Abraham, with Sodom and Gomorrah.
Will the judge of the earth not judge justly?
What if there are 50 righteous people in Sodom and Gomorrah?
Will you still destroy the cities?
How about 40, 30, 20, 10?
So you're allowed to argue with God.
I think God lives in perpetual disappointment, even sadness, over the human condition.
There's an amazing line in Genesis, and God got sad unto his heart when he saw how bad the human being turned out.
I'm not God, but I have this sadness about how America's turned out because of the left.
This greatest experiment in human...
Liberty.
There have been a lot of bad Americans.
You know, we have a video coming out at PragerU about Columbus Day.
Do you know why Columbus Day was, in fact, enacted?
It was enacted because there was tremendous anti-Italian immigrant sentiment.
In fact...
I don't know what it is, nine or so Italians in New Orleans were lynched, meaning that they were acquitted of the crime of shooting the police chief, but the anti-Italian hatred in New Orleans was significant.
The New York Times wrote about how bad Italians are.
The New York Times was quite a racist paper.
I don't know when the New York Times could be proud of itself, to be honest.
I don't know when the Democratic Party could be proud of itself, to be honest.
So, I am well aware of the fact that there have been bad Americans, but there have been bad everybody.
So, bad people, the existence of bad people is not...
Determinative of the moral worth of a society because every society has them.
But the good that America offered, that was unique.
Of course there were bad people in this country.
But the very fact is that most Americans thought that what was done to these Italians in New Orleans was despicable.
So they made Columbus Day to honor an Italian.
How ironic that now they're destroying Columbus Day, which was created in order to welcome people of diverse backgrounds.
Gotta fight!
What's your choice?
The Dennis Prager Show.
Well, my friends, this is a dark day.
I was reading to you earlier with regard to what's happening in Illinois.
It's astonishing. - Thank you.
There is a law now signed by the governor, a leftist, Therefore, a suppressor of dissent.
You have to, the day you understand this, that there is no example in history since the Russian Revolution, one might even say the French Revolution, of the left coming to power.
And it doesn't have to be in a country, in a state, in a province, in a city, in an organization, in a school, in a university.
There is no example of the left allowing dissent.
It doesn't exist.
If you allow dissent, you're a liberal.
You're a conservative.
Pritzker, another America-loathing Democrat.
Because if you don't love free speech, you don't love America.
America is not a place.
it's an idea liberty in God we trust a pluribus unum Liberty.
He's selling a law amending the state's Consumer Fraud and Deceptive Business Practices Act to make pregnancy centers violators.
If they counsel women against abortion, they are engaged in deceptive business practices.
This is a law signed, those of you listening in Illinois.
By your despicable governor.
That's right, Sean.
That is correct.
Hey, folks, this is Fundraising Month for PragerU.
I get to talk to terrific people each day.
I have a terrific people on.
Kiri Jorgensen.
She is the publisher and senior editor at Chicken Scratch Books.
Hello to you, Kiri.
Kiri, by the way, I established.
Kiri, tell everybody where you are.
I am located in rural Montana.
We call ourselves the middle of nowhere, southwest Montana.
You call yourselves the middle of nowhere.
So, how close is your closest neighbor?
Oh, my closest neighbor that's a full-time resident is about three miles away.
So, if you need milk...
This is a serious trip.
I need milk.
It's a serious trip.
What?
You take the cow out?
I didn't hear what you said.
What?
We go to the milk cow when we need milk.
I see.
Okay, so you don't have to go to the neighbor.
That's even better.
I've got to tell my wife, look, we have tortoises, dogs, and cats.
We might as well have a cow.
We might as well.
Did you grow up there or you moved there?
She's speaking.
Okay, we're dropping sound again.
I apologize to my listeners.
Sean, we will have to go to a phone.
I'm so sorry.
This is not sure why we thought things were fixed.
Don't start me, folks.
It gets me very frustrated.
But okay, we'll get her back.
She does some terrific work with children's literature, and she is a fan of what PragerU is doing.
One day in the coming weeks, or coming 10 days, or maybe this week, I will, in fact, share with you the lies that are told about PragerU in mainstream media.
Pure lies.
One of them, I forgot which source.
Said that we put out a video denying that slavery was the reason for the Civil War.
The fact is, that's exactly what the video says.
Slavery was the reason for the Civil War.
It is a 100% lie.
But that's their world.
Do we have Kiri back on?
We'll have her on next segment.
Folks, you want to fight?
Help fighters, okay?
Not everybody can fight.
PragerU is fighting.
Big time.
We have over a billion views.
Most of them are people under 35. Everything is free.
Please contribute to PragerU.com or call 833-PRAGER-U during the break and we'll be right back.
Hi everybody, it's the Ultimate Issues Hour on the Dennis Prager Show.
A reflective word on the Ultimate Issues Hour, if I may.
I had no debate in my mind about a happiness hour.
I had no debate in my mind about a male-female hour.
But I had a debate about an ultimate issues hour.
Generally, people think of talk radio as commenting on what's happening in America and the world.
By the way, Julie Hartman is with me.
And let me be very direct.
We do a podcast together called Dennis and Julie, and I believe it is one of the most important things that I have ever done.
That's how highly I regard our dialogues, which are well over an hour.
And they are available to be seen where Julie...
On the Julie Hartman YouTube channel, and of course you can also download them on Spotify and Apple.
And I would just like to point out, this week's episode is particularly good.
I like to think that every episode is particularly good, but we were discussing my trip to Berlin and communism and freedom, so this one I think I want to star.
Yeah, it would be a great one to introduce anybody to, either yourself.
Or anybody.
Anyway, I'm explaining why Julie's with me.
I even have a reflection on Julie and me, but I'll wait for a moment.
So I debated whether to have an Ultimate Issues Hour because it so runs against the general trend of talk radio, totally understandably.
I love talk radio.
Would people really tune in?
Anyway, it's become one of the most important hours I ever do.
Because if we're not clear on the big issues of life, that's the problem.
It's because there's so little clarity about the big issues of life that we're in the chaos that we're in.
I mean, are men and women distinct?
Or are they the same except for certain bodily parts?
If people had clarity on that, we wouldn't be in the mess we're in in that arena.
Just one word on that.
I couldn't get over this.
The chutzpah of some of these trans female athletes.
Do you know that a guy won the female weightlifting competition in Canada?
No.
You have to see it.
It's not shocking.
First of all, this person looks like a woman like I look like a woman.
Secondly, he won because he's a he.
End of issue.
But the most depressing part, that's depressing enough that Canada allows that.
But the two women who were cheated out of wins, the second and third place winners, which would have been first and second, were it not for him, cheating, hugged him, clapped and hugged him.
When you have to clap at your own injury, You know how sick a society has become.
Canada is really, really, really, really sick.
At least America.
Half of America knows how sick the left is.
Very few Canadians know how sick the left is.
So I have a question, if you don't mind.
Do you think that those two women clapping at their own demise, or as you said, injury, do you think that they're genuine social justice warriors that think that that guy ought to have won the competition?
They're cowards, like most people.
Or they think they have to clap.
Cowardice is more normal than goodness.
The human being is made, you are born a coward.
No, it's obvious that they're cowards, but the question is, are they genuine in believing that this guy should win?
That's a great question.
Or are they fearful?
I don't know, and it's a great question.
I salute you.
I didn't think of that.
I thought, and I think I'm wrong, I thought they know they're being cheated, but they won't acknowledge it.
Because they'll be hated by the left, which is all of Canada, basically.
So, look, the University of Pennsylvania swim team cheered on Leah Thomas.
So, that women are clapping for their own demise, so would men, by the way.
Men would be no better.
This has nothing to do with their being women.
Cowardice does not know sex.
It does not know it.
There are as many brave women as brave men and vice versa.
But it's a great question.
Do they think they lost fairly?
I would give a lot of money to interview those two privately.
That's a good one.
Anyway, so I have one more reflection until I get to the subject of today's Ultimate Issues Hour.
Julie is very young, and I'm old.
I don't know very old, but I'm old.
And she's very young.
And Dennis and Julie proves a very important thing.
Age doesn't matter.
And I truly believe that.
I mean, you're living evidence of it.
I'm living evidence of it.
Does the person have depth?
Is a non-age-related question.
There are empty 70-year-olds and there are wise 20-year-olds.
That's just the way the world works.
I had more wisdom at 20 than the vast majority of professors who were 60 have.
And I'm taking no credit for it.
It just was a fact.
Okay.
So, my column today is my subject today.
Tuesday is my column day.
Why are more Americans than ever committing suicide?
Did you happen to see this?
I hope you didn't, actually.
I did not.
I did not read your column.
All right.
I was kidding.
I'm very hurt.
Well, you told me on the phone last night that I should read it, so I'm really in trouble.
Oh, God.
I really set you up on that one.
I was right.
It doesn't matter.
I'm actually happy you didn't, because then you're reacting spontaneously.
It's like, you know my question.
Do we do a better job interviewing authors if we read the book or didn't read the book?
And I have done both for 40 years.
And you may have a view on this.
Oh, I do.
You think it's better if you read the book?
No, I actually am coming to think it's better if you don't.
Oh, right.
Because I'm neurotic.
I highlight, I underline, I quote passages to the author and maybe to the viewer who hasn't read it.
It's like two nerds in their nerddom sphere talking about the book as people who know it.
So it's probably better to have some idea of what it's about but not have read it fully.
It's completely counterintuitive.
Yes, it is.
Because I have seen people, oh!
This guy interviews people, authors, and he never even read their book.
Larry King.
Larry King famously would talk about how he would know nothing about his guests and he would just make it up on air.
I am interviewed by people all the time.
Some have read my book and most have not.
I can't tell which is a better interview.
And I've done it because you're right.
I'm not asking questions that the public would be asking if I read the book.
Yes, and also you really want to make the author shine.
When you have read the book, you're inadvertently showing off that you read the book.
You want to hand the mic over to the author to give his or her case.
It is funny.
All right, so you didn't read my column.
I didn't.
Shame!
Punishment room.
That's right.
Hey, yeah.
Hey, Sean, has Julie ever been in the punishment room?
Okay.
No, no, no.
Oh, you didn't deserve this.
I'm so sorry.
It hurts me.
Sean, why did you do that?
She had him coming.
She had him coming?
Oh, my God.
Why are more Americans than ever committing suicide?
The New York Post reports, actually an AP report.
About 49,500 people took their own lives last year in the U.S., the highest number ever, according to new government data posted Thursday.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, CDC, which posted the numbers, has not yet calculated a suicide rate for this year, but available data suggests.
Suicides are more common in the U.S. than at any time since the dawn of World War II. The largest increases were seen in older adults.
Deaths rose nearly 7% in people ages 45 to 64, more than 8% in people 65 and older.
Suicide in adults ages 25 to 44 grew by about 1%.
A few more data when we come back, and the question is, why so much suicide?
Let me give you their answers first.
Hi, everybody.
Dennis Prager here, cracking himself up.
Why not?
It's the Ultimate Issues Hour.
Julie Hartman is sitting in, as she does many of the third hours, and we do Dennis and Julie podcast.
Which is truly one of the delights of my life.
So, data have just come out from the CDC, reported by AP and the New York Post, highest suicide rate since the dawn of World War II, almost 100 years.
So, what's interesting to me is what the experts say.
Or the causes slash solutions are.
So, here goes.
By the way, suicide is the second leading cause of death in Americans ages 25 to 44. It was the fourth largest two years ago.
It is now the second largest.
So it's all over the place, age-wise.
The quoted article cites the following reasons as given by suicide experts.
Just parenthetical, whenever I see the word experts, I assume something stupid will be said.
It's not always the case, but that is my assumption.
Higher rates of depression, limited availability of mental health services, And the growing availability of guns.
Oh, God.
I'm sorry I couldn't hold back my reaction.
Yes, yes, you have to hold back your reaction.
Is that a joke?
Yeah, of course it is.
No, I meant, are there three reasons?
No, isn't that my book?
First of all, here's the joke.
So why are so many Americans committing suicide?
Because more are depressed.
Wow.
What a revelation that is.
I mean, when you think about it.
By the way, this is experts.
That's not a reason.
Of course, not a reason.
It's the whole point.
Happy people don't commit suicide.
Do they understand?
No, no, they don't.
I'm stupid.
I'm telling you.
They sometimes.
Often are.
So, right.
Let's take each one.
Higher rates of depression.
Since we can assume that happy people do not kill themselves.
We all assume that as the number of depressed people increases, so will the number of suicides.
Therefore, higher rates of depression explains nothing.
You know when I write this stuff, I'm thinking...
You're reading from you.
Yes, I'm reading my column.
I write this stuff.
It's like I have to take another puff on my cigar.
I can't believe what I... You're getting paid to say such obvious stuff.
That's right.
Yes, exactly.
All it does is kick the can down the road.
It would be like saying that more people are being killed by drunk drivers because more people are getting drunk.
Is that a perfect analogy?
It is.
Typical Prager analogies.
Thank you.
That's true, but it doesn't answer the relevant question.
Why are so many more Americans getting drunk?
Similarly, higher rates of depression only raises the more important question, why are so many people, why are so many Americans depressed?
Next, reason number two from the experts, limited availability of mental health services.
This too may be true, but like higher rates of depression, this answer avoids the question it raises, why are so many more Americans in need of mental health services?
So there were no answers thus far.
Third, The growing availability of guns.
Undoubtedly, easy access to a gun makes suicide more probable.
Shooting oneself may be the quickest and most likely to be painless way of committing suicide.
But again, this is hardly an explanation.
Guns were ubiquitous in American life 10, 25, and 50 years ago, yet the suicide rate was always lower.
And those are the answers the experts give.
And whenever there's a school shooting, you often say, over the past 50 years, restrictions on guns have gone up as school shootings have gone up.
Right.
Here is the same thing.
Restrictions on guns have gone up while suicides have gone up.
Right.
So I actually think that third premise is not factual.
The growing availability of guns, that's not factual.
Very interesting point.
And access to therapy is at an unprecedentedly high level, adds Sean.
I'm tempted to say he's wrong, only because I always want to say that.
But he's not wrong.
What the hell has that had on his head?
Why is he wearing a ski hat in August in California?
Does anybody have an answer for that?
Do you have an answer?
Or is that like, why did God make the mosquito?
You said on Dennis and Julie, people are characters.
Shanzi's one of them.
Oh, Shanzi?
A ski hat.
Okay, so I would like to offer, I'm reading from my column, two other explanations.
One, loneliness.
More Americans are living alone than at any time in American history.
And not only older Americans, 25% of all Americans aged 40 have never been married.
By far the highest percentage of never married people at age 40 in American history.
It was 8% in the 80s.
In addition, there are fewer associations than ever.
Already in the 1990s, you should read this book, Robert Putnam wrote his classic book, he was a Harvard professor, Bowling Alone.
Which described the decline of clubs, associations, study groups, and even bowling leagues.
The decline of what he called social capital.
When I was a child, my mother was a member of the synagogue sisterhood.
My father was a member of the synagogue brotherhood, and of the synagogue's board of directors.
Every other week, my parents met with others in one another's homes in a study group.
Every Saturday they attended synagogue, which was as much a social occasion, which was a good thing, I write, as a religious one.
I want to, by the way, I want to go on a tangent.
You know how many people who leave religion say, oh, church, it was a social event, it wasn't a religiously meaningful experience.
It's an imbecility.
That argument.
That people had other people to be with every single Sunday in an elevated environment, even if it was overwhelmingly social.
Why isn't that good?
Of course, even if it was a social event.
That has enormous utility.
Yes.
It's a very big part of religion, being with other people.
God, in my commentary in Genesis.
I write, God said it's not good for man to be alone.
But he wasn't alone.
He had God at him.
But God said he was alone.
We need people.
It was not my insight.
I never take credit for insights that are not mine.
I don't know whose it was.
But it was brilliant.
We'll continue in a moment, Ultimate Issues Hour, with Julie Hartman with me in this Prager show.
It's the Ultimate Issues Hour.
It's based on my column today, Why Are More Americans Than Ever Committing Suicide?
The experts gave three reasons.
Higher depression rates, lack of enough mental health care, and availability of guns.
I don't think...
That's worthy of its own Ultimate Issues Hour experts.
People confuse expertise with wisdom.
They're not related at all.
At all.
There's no reason to believe that whatever constitutes an expert has a better idea of what to do than an Uber driver.
Who was moonlighting from his construction job.
Is that fair to say?
Oh, yes.
I mean, I know a lot of leftists, you know, with whom I went to high school or college.
And many are highly intelligent people who know a lot about certain subjects.
But clearly, given their ideology, they don't have that necessary component of wisdom.
You know, we don't even hear the word wisdom much anymore.
I reintroduced to that word when I encountered you.
Well, I'm not sure reintroduced.
Were you ever introduced?
Well, I knew the word, you know.
Right, no, obviously.
Sometimes it was used.
Oh, it is not used.
It is not used.
It's used in religious, Jewish, and Christian schools.
And not all of them.
But if it's going to be used, that's where it'll be used.
So, my argument is...
The other two things are loneliness, the end of social institutions like religion.
After the 1960s, I'm continuing my column, almost everything changed.
The spoiled and arrogant baby boomer generation, of which I am a member, but I am not spoiled or arrogant.
And I thought I had such...
God, maybe because you're here, Julie, but I keep thinking of more topics.
I so knew how different I was from most of my peers.
I think I told you, I don't know if I've mentioned this on the radio, when I was at Columbia, there were the riots against the Vietnam War, among other things.
And, oh, you'd see America spelled with a K, or Ameri-K-K-K-A. This is, this is, the 60s were horrific.
Horrific.
This was the 70s, actually, when I was at Columbia, but the same thing as the 60s.
And I remember it only happened once, because I never engage in self-pity.
I hate self-pity.
And it was the closest I ever got when I was a young person.
I was across the street from Columbia, across Broadway, and I was sitting...
In a restaurant.
And there were a whole bunch of Columbia kids in the restaurant.
And I thought, I am truly alone.
I'm not sure it was self-pity, but it wasn't a happy thought.
I am truly alone.
I had one very, very close friend, thank God.
And I was not an unhappy man at all.
But I realized how alone.
And as I write this, after the 60s, almost everything changed.
The spoiled and arrogant baby boomer generation rejected almost everything that made life meaningful.
Many came to hold their parents in contempt.
Remember, never trust anyone over 30. They, after all, went to college and therefore believed they understood life much better than their less formally educated parents.
I remember, this is not in my column, I was present.
It happened in my parents' house.
So friends of my parents brought their son, who was in college, and he said something to the effect, They were talking about men and women, whether they're basically the same.
And of course he said they were.
He went to college.
And he said to them, and it wasn't even, he didn't say it, you know, yelling at them.
Just as a matter of fact, how would you know you didn't go to college?
Oh my gosh.
That is perhaps the most arrogant statement one could ever say.
And stupid.
And wrong.
And wrong.
It's relevant.
Right.
You think men and women are basically different.
You didn't go to college.
Then you would know they're basically the same.
Yeah.
We'll be back in a moment.
Dennis Prager here.
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