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Aug. 29, 2023 - Dennis Prager Show
01:27:55
No Parental Rights
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Dennis Prager here.
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Hello, my friends.
I'm Dennis Prager.
I'd like to read to you from the first page, front page of today's Los Angeles Times.
If you still vote Democrat after this, I say this calmly but with great belief.
Ultimately, since I believe in the God of justice, you will have to answer for it.
That is how evil the Democratic Party has become in many cases and in many states.
It's hard for me to contain my anger, but I will.
District sued for trans student policy.
The state says Chino schools, Chino is a city in California, violate rights.
by requiring parents to be told of gender identity changes.
Before I continue, or actually start reading the article, that was the headline and the subhead,
Of the many great, great, great innovations of the founders of the United States of America, none was greater than small government.
As government grows, the human condition deteriorates.
The rights of the individual are reduced.
My old phrase, the bigger the government, the smaller the citizen, is one of the truisms of the human condition.
I remind people of something They never heard in their lives, amazingly.
All the genocides of the 20th century, the most genocidal century in human history, were committed by big governments.
There's nothing good about big government.
Nothing.
There's something good about government.
Can't have anarchy.
There's nothing good about big government.
And the people who pursue a bigger and bigger government are generally loathsome human beings, generally amoral, not necessarily Stalins or Lenins or Maos or Hitlers, just petty nothings, whose meaning in life derives from the power of their governmental office.
I'm not talking about the politicians, though that is true of them.
I'm talking about everyone.
It makes you a worse person, in most cases, not in every, of course, to serve as a servant, as a robotic individual in the service of big government.
I continue.
This, however, is not just a big government issue.
It is the destructive, vile, sick left at work.
California Attorney General Rob Bonta.
What does it take to be called a bad man?
I know the answer.
It's to do bad.
You are what you do.
You are not what you intend to do.
You are what you do.
Nothing has become clearer to me in the recent past as my belief that we are judged by our actions, not our thoughts.
The number of people who think they are good and do evil is almost as large as the number of people who do evil.
California Attorney General Rob Bonta filed the lawsuit Monday against the Chino School District.
Ordering an end to a policy that requires notifying parents if their children change their gender identity, alleging it is discriminatory and violates civil rights and privacy laws.
Who does it discriminate against?
Your eight-year-old says she is a boy and the school...
Must not tell you?
The contempt for parents on the left is of one piece of leftist ideology, for whom the Ten Commandments is a joke.
It is not even worthy of attacking.
It is a joke to a leftist.
A relic of the Stone Age.
From indeed which it comes.
No, actually the Bronze Age, I'm sorry.
It comes from the Bronze Age.
To say that Moses had more wisdom than Rob Bonta is to say that Lou Gehrig was a better baseball player than I. The parental notification policy, which has been proposed by a handful of conservative-leaning districts in California.
Why doesn't that, in and of itself, have you admire conservatism?
You need to be a conservative to think that a parent should be told that their eight-year-old daughter thinks she's a boy.
If their eight-year-old daughter had drawn a gun, she would be thrown out of school.
the parents would be notified immediately, drawn one.
But if she says she's a boy, you hide it from the parents.
The parental notification policy, which has been proposed by a handful of conservative-leaning districts in California, puts transgender and gender nonconforming.
You know what gender nonconforming means?
It's not transgender.
It's something even more impossible.
No gender.
Or both genders.
Or sometimes one gender, and on Thursdays and Tuesdays, the other.
That great line attributed to G.K. Chesterton, but cannot be verified that he is the source, is a truism of life.
Those who stop believing in God do not believe in nothing.
They believe in anything.
If Rob Bonta's daughter said she was a boy, he would want that hidden from him?
What a father.
That's quite something.
It puts transgender and gender non-conforming students in, quote, danger of imminent irreparable harm.
By potentially outing them at home before they're ready, according to the lawsuit.
Really, you're in danger of imminent irreparable harm.
Maybe you're in danger of imminent irreparable harm when you fall into the hands of so many sick so-called therapists who say to the 8-year-old, Oh, you think you're a boy?
You are.
The profession of psychology and the profession of psychiatry have been so denuded of excellence and truth as to become a farce.
Most psychiatrists and most psychologists are frauds to their profession.
I've always known this.
This is not new.
How many psychiatrists announced in 1964?
Was that two generations ago?
That Barry Goldwater was mentally ill?
The profession of psychiatry, for reasons I do not know, since in its core it can be terrific.
The profession of psychiatry apparently breeds a particularly narcissistic fool.
Arrogant fools.
How many fools are not arrogant?
What percentage of fools are arrogant?
Well, I won't go off on that tangent.
This is quite a story.
And it will persuade virtually no one to stop voting Democrat.
because there is nothing they can do to persuade people.
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The contempt for parental authority is a defining characteristic of all totalitarian regimes, all authoritarian, well, not authoritarian as much as totalitarian regimes, all tyrannies, and all cults.
If parents have power, the state doesn't.
There are two power sources that the left is destroying in the name of the state.
The two things that protect us from the state, parents and God.
And for the left, they're both utterly...
Irrelevant.
No, they're relevant, but to be undermined.
The contempt that leftists have for people who ask, what does God want from me, is as deep as the contempt they have for people who believe that parents should be the authorities in children's lives.
To which they'll say, well, what about an abusive parent?
To which I will respond.
What about an abusive state?
With all respect, no, I take that back, with no respect, the state has committed far more atrocities than parents.
1-8-Prager-776 is the number.
There is an answer to the whole issue.
As I have announced over and over, and that is take your kids out of school and homeschool them or send them to a good school, some of which do exist.
Only the collapse of the monstrosity run by a very, very bad organization, Teachers Union.
I mean truly bad.
Teachers unions are the enemy of children.
About half this country knows that.
The other half loves the fact that teachers unions are simply using children for a left-wing agenda.
That's all they do.
They hurt children horribly by threatening strikes.
And other opposition, if there weren't lockdowns, it is amazing that there is support for teachers' unions among parents.
I understand non-parents.
It is amazing.
People who love their children support people who hurt their children.
Well, the human being is a very mixed bag as a general rule.
Okay.
This is one example.
I love my children, but I support teachers' unions.
Really?
How do you reconcile those two?
Well...
So what happens now?
The Attorney General of the State of California is suing this city for a policy that you must tell a parent if a minor child says that she is a boy.
I am curious, by the way, how far does the state of California, the despicable Democrat-run state of California, How far do they take this?
What if a 17-year-old wants to have her breasts removed surgically?
Are parents notified of that?
I'm serious.
I don't know the answer.
I'm asking a question.
I don't know the answer.
What is the purpose of a parent, according to the left?
I'll tell you the answer.
Give us your child.
That is the purpose of a parent.
Under leftism.
Give us your child.
Make them and then give them to us.
That's it.
That's your purpose.
1-8 Prager 776. Here's a story that...
I believe no left-wing source, Washington Post, New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Miami Herald, the lowest, perhaps, of the low, Las Vegas Sun.
I didn't know how truly morally despicable that paper is until the lie-filled editorial about PragerU.
They've all had editorials against PragerU, all.
I don't think any of them watch two videos, ten minutes worth of our stuff.
It's the most wholesome, good stuff out there for kids.
That's why the left hates wholesome.
They hate the word.
Smacks of white supremacy.
Because you can't have a wholesome kid who's not white, right?
There are no wholesome black kids.
No wholesome Chicano kids or Hispanic kids.
Please help us.
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PragerU.com My dear friends, the world in which we live.
Now here's news that you won't read about or hear about in the mainstream media.
A coalition of 1,609 scientists from around the world have signed a declaration stating there is no climate emergency.
And that they, quote, strongly oppose the harmful and unrealistic net-zero carbon dioxide policy, unquote, being pushed across the globe.
The declaration does not deny the harmful effect of greenhouse gases, but instead challenges the hysteria brought about by the narrative of imminent doom, which is what we do at PragerU.
But that's called climate denial.
If you say you're hysteric, You're a hysteric.
That's climate denial.
Either you're hysteric or you're a denier.
Do we have any, and by the way, the answer may be yes, do we have any videos that say that carbon dioxide has no effect on the climate?
No.
Right.
We speak about the movement away from fossil fuels as being extremely detrimental to humanity, which it is.
Talk about big government.
I mean, the laws.
What is it now in London?
The mayor of London, a radical leftist.
You must have seen it because it was in the article you sent me.
I'm talking to my producer.
So, this is fascinating.
He said, they want to charge cars, older cars, about $15 a day for entering London.
Because they're emitting carbon dioxide.
Correct?
Now he says, by doing this we'll have cleaner air.
When did carbon dioxide become a pollutant?
Without carbon dioxide, life on Earth ceases.
When did it...
I'm serious.
This is not a rhetorical question.
I want to know the answer.
When did carbon dioxide...
Evolve into being synonymous with pollution.
Climate science should be less political while climate policy should be more scientific.
The name of this group is CLINTEL, Global Climate Intelligence Group.
CLINTEL. CLINTEL is an independent foundation that operates in the fields of climate change and climate policy.
It was founded in 2019 by Emeritus Professor of Geophysics, Gus Berkut, and science journalist Marcel Kruk.
By the way, one of the signatories...
Just won the Nobel Prize for physics.
So is he anti-science?
Or does he go against the, what is the word that they use?
The consensus, yes!
Did you know that scientific truth is determined by consensus?
I didn't know that.
Isn't that interesting?
You vote on scientific truth.
That's what the left holds.
But they only hold it when it's in their interest because if most scientists said a boy cannot become a girl, you cannot become a member of the other sex.
You can believe you are, you can look it, but you cannot become it.
You can't take on the brain of the other sex.
Nobody talks about that.
They talk about the genitalia.
What about the brain?
Scientists should openly address uncertainties and exaggerations in their predictions of global warming, while politicians should dispassionately count the real costs.
Ladies and gentlemen, allow me a moment of reflection on wisdom.
Wisdom is the key to goodness, not good intentions.
Good intentions without wisdom lead to evil.
One of the most famous phrases in Judaism is from the Talmud, the second holiest work about the year, about 200-300 AD or CE. And anyone who has studied Judaism knows this phrase.
Just for fun, I'll tell it to you in Hebrew.
Who is the wise man?
The one who sees what will be born.
The one who sees consequences.
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Hi everybody, I'm Dennis Pranger. I'm Dennis Pranger.
There's too much to talk to you about.
I need a nine-hour show.
You're going to need more Relief Factor Sleep.
That's a good point.
That was a free ad for Relief Factor Sleep, and that's fine with me.
Hi everybody, great to be with you.
So they have a trial date in New York.
Is it New York or Washington?
Washington.
This is a very dark time in American history.
The arrest, the indictment, the trial of the head of the opposition happens almost never in full functioning democracies.
People understand That it rends the society.
This brings to mind the quote that I cited in hour number one.
One of the life-changing or life-giving, if you will, even, ideas that I learned in elementary school in what's called a yeshiva, half-the-day Hebrew.
Religious subjects half the day.
English, secular subjects.
And I went to high school as well.
It's the greatest gift to me.
Greatest gift.
It has been relentlessly helpful in my life because it gave me wisdom.
I did an hour on my show years ago.
If you didn't get the wisdom from the Bible, where'd you get it from?
You should do that again.
To prove to you that there is no competing source of wisdom in the West.
And I mentioned that there was a phrase.
They put phrases up in the classroom.
Who is the wise man?
The literal translation is the one who sees what will be born.
Most people don't understand it.
They think who knows the future.
It is not the one who knows the future.
Nobody knows the future.
It is the one who sees the consequences.
What will be born of this policy?
What will be born of the policy of the left of arresting a former president and the head of the opposition?
What will be born?
I don't know.
I only know.
It is only bad.
Only bad.
But the left...
Doesn't care.
The arrogance is not mere arrogance.
It is hubris of the Greek variety from which I think we get the word hubris.
We can do this to the head of the opposition and a former president and, hey, nothing will happen.
Nothing will happen.
Because we'll feel good.
It's what I have called moral onanism.
The left engages in that all the time.
Self-pleasure is the key to leftism.
I feel good about arresting a man I hate.
That is all it is about.
Of course, of course, it is smothered in language of no one is above the law.
Really, no one is above the law.
No, you've got to be kidding.
Joe Biden is not above the law.
His family?
How did they get so rich from a man getting a government salary his whole life?
Man is infinitely more corrupt than Donald Trump.
And I don't want him arrested.
But he will be if there is a Republican.
And there should be.
Because what the Democrats and the left have engaged in is called mutual assured destruction.
Do you know the reason there has not been since World War II a major war between powers in this world?
There hasn't been.
Well, there was a Korean War.
I have to acknowledge that.
And the Vietnam War.
But it was not between two superpowers.
It was because of mutual assured destruction.
Nuclear weapons actually kept the peace.
You use nuclear weapons, we'll use nuclear weapons.
You destroy us, we destroy you.
It's called MAD, Mutual Assured Destruction.
That is what the left is now inaugurating.
You will destroy us, we will destroy you.
That is it.
You asked for it.
You know, I didn't like when I was a kid.
I didn't like it.
Even when my parents did it, I never liked it.
When two kids would fight and one kid would say, he started!
And then the parent or the teacher would say, I don't care who started.
And I remember being revolted by that as a kid.
What do you mean you don't care who started?
What else matters?
I don't care who started.
There is no wisdom on the left.
None.
None whatsoever.
That's why it's so despicable.
Because they're all fools.
Every single one of them is a fool.
Not every liberal is a fool.
Most liberals are weak, but they're not all fools.
Every leftist is.
All they do is destroy.
All they do is destroy.
Because they have empty souls.
Oh, a lot of them mean well.
You know how many people meant well in the communist era and supported?
The most vicious killer in history outside of Mao, Stalin.
You know how many people in the West supported him?
They meant well.
Yes, they meant well.
For those of you who think that sins, that thoughts are sins, then you have to acknowledge that if sinful thoughts are sins, then good thoughts.
To your merit and to your credit.
Do you get credit for good thoughts?
If your actions are bad?
Then why are you punished for bad thoughts if your actions are good?
It's a challenge to a lot of my fellow religious people.
We all have to challenge ourselves.
A life unchallenged?
is not a deep life.
Governor DeSantis, to his credit, went to a rally where he knew he would be booed, had a press conference where he knew he'd be attacked.
Yeah.
It's his fault, right?
His fault.
That some deranged human debris killed three blacks.
You know what is amazing?
The left speaks correctly, ill of these people, but doesn't want any of them executed.
Of course, he committed suicide, but...
Oh, what does the left want us to say now?
He died by suicide?
They don't say committed suicide anymore.
The left fight really important battles.
Read my column this week.
It's really...
It's an important one.
Why young Americans are not taught about evil.
It'll shake you up.
So what is it...
What do they say at Town Hall here?
NBC News in Florida?
Or nationally?
Governor Ron DeSantis appeared for a local vigil where he was heckled.
This is not from NBC, it's from Town Hall.
The liberal media, of course the liberal media will blame the governor for this senseless tragedy.
He's the most hated governor in liberal circles because he's effective.
That's right.
My dear friends, if somehow Ron DeSantis were nominated, you don't think there would be DeSantis derangement syndrome?
You think it is only confined to Donald Trump?
I'm telling you, having read the attacks on PragerU, there's PragerU derangement syndrome.
Is that fair to say?
These people are nuts.
We produce wholesome, good videos and were described as vicious right-wing white nationalists.
Many of our videos are given by non-whites.
Not that we count, but I mean, just for a fact.
It's not something a normal white nationalist group would do.
But truth is not a left-wing value.
They hate this man.
They hate us.
Reminds me to remind you, if you give now till the end of the week, till Thursday, to PragerU, Your gift will be tripled.
Back in a moment.
So Ron DeSantis showed up at a rally about the racist killer murderer.
or I'd like to know more about them.
I'd like to know what...
I'm as interested in good as I am in evil, but I am interested, of course, in evil.
In fact, my subject today in my column is evil.
I'm telling you, though, the black left is really vicious.
So is the gay left.
So is the white left.
The left is vicious.
They're just incendiary.
They throw out grenades, and they don't care where they land.
Listen to this from a state senator, a Miami Democrat, who's a black leftist.
How much can we allow the governor to keep his foot on our neck and not say anything?
Now, that's hysteria.
You're a black Democrat in Miami and the governor has his foot on your neck because you're black?
How many blacks on earth have it as good as Senator Chevron Jones does?
How many?
A state senator in Florida?
And you believe the governor has his foot on your neck?
Do you know what an insult that is to the blacks who really did have white feet on their neck?
God, it's despicable.
Leftists...
Well, they just know how to destroy.
This is the result of that stuff.
What stuff?
It's not only the result, it gives individuals who committed this act a hall pass to make it seem like it's okay.
Who is making it seem like it's okay?
Chevron Jones is a liar.
He's just a liar.
He's a low-life, demagogic liar who all he wants to do is rile up his base to get re-elected, hate whites, at least white conservatives, as best as possible because They hate you.
A hall pass to make it seem like it's okay?
Do you understand how despicable this man is?
Chevron Jones.
And he'll be re-elected.
That's right, he'll be re-elected.
This is NBC News.
The agenda, that is DeSantis's, regularly has him at odds with civil rights leaders.
Who say his war on wokeness is a thinly veiled attempt to go after people of color and other marginalized communities in the state.
Oh, really?
So, let me understand something.
Having drag queen story hours banned for first graders in Florida, that is a war on blacks.
This is NBC News reporting this.
Here's another black Democrat who represents Jacksonville, State Representative Angie Nixon.
He has had an all-out attack on the black community with his anti-woke policies.
Really?
So the black community supports woke policies?
Really?
Black parents want their kids to go to drag queen story hours?
Just out of curiosity.
Angie Nixon, which we know very well is nothing more, was nothing more than a dog whistle.
I love the dog whistles.
How come Democrats are the only ones who hear dog whistles?
I know why, because the truth is, there's far more racism, as there always has been in the Democratic Party, than in the Republican.
To get folks riled up in a way, it just happened yesterday.
So anti-woke is anti-black.
It gives you an idea of how left-wing the black left is.
Just like teachers' unions, the issue for black leftists is not helping blacks.
The issue for teachers' unions is not helping students.
The issue for the Communist Party was not helping workers.
The issue of feminists is not helping females.
As is clear, because so few feminist movements have come out against men competing in women's sports.
Yeah.
Do I highlight anything else from this piece?
No, that's it.
Oh, yes, I want to mention a wonderful human being, or at least a human being who did something wonderful.
Oh, there was more.
There was a woman, I'll get her name, who said, you know what, let's cut out the political stuff.
Yeah.
The governor faced audible boos at a Jacksonville vigil for the three victims, jeering that continued until Jacksonville City Councilwoman Jacoby Pittman, a black Democrat, asked the crowd to let DeSantis speak.
Now.
Here's another interesting thing from the NBC article.
It's about Jones.
Who is Jones here?
If you miss one ID in an article, you are doomed.
Oh, that's Jones.
Oh, yes.
That's the senator I just mentioned.
Chevron Jones, a black Democrat.
So listen to this.
Did I say Chevron Jones was a male or female?
Oh, good.
Okay, it is a male.
Jones said he is not impressed that DeSantis went to the vigil.
He pointed out that DeSantis, then a congressman, also visited the scene of the Pulse nightclub massacre in Orlando in 2016, which left 49 people dead.
He was there, and it did not change his response to the LGBTQ community.
Huh.
Do you know, well, of course, this Chevron John doesn't care, the Pulse nightclub was not targeted because it was LGBTQ? Nor was it a white nationalist who did it.
It was actually a Muslim who did it.
But it was not because it was gay.
The shooter did not even know it was gay.
You know why I know that?
Because I really love, passionately, I love truth.
It's the only antidote that really works against evil.
The number of fascinating stories is really living the Chinese.
Interesting.
The Chinese and the Jews have a similar curse.
May you live in interesting times.
There's a lot to that phrase.
It's a curse, remember.
There is a joy to living in quote-unquote boring times.
A big part of leftism is extremely complex.
If people want girls to be able to remove their breasts and boys to remove their penises, you have to understand these people are complex.
It is not easy to analyze how sick people have become, how rapidly, mentally, morally sick.
One feature of leftism is the pursuit of excitement.
If you find life boring, you will pursue excitement.
Why do they hate the 50s?
The left has deep contempt for the 50s because they think it was boring.
Right?
Think about the way they depict the 50s.
You'll be in your suburban home with a white picket fence.
A two-car garage.
Go to church on Sunday.
Come home.
Your wife has made dinner.
As they say it, they are indeed inducing sleep.
When leftists can't sleep, what they do is they picture the 50s.
Did you know that?
There is less sales of sleeping pills to leftists because they have a way to achieve it.
They just think of America in the 50s.
That's how they think of it.
Boring.
When my kids, and they only said it once, literally both said it once in their lives, Dad, I'm bored.
And I said, no, you're not bored.
You're boring.
That ended that issue.
It was never again said.
So, the pursuit of excitement is a very, very big factor.
It's exciting to change sexes.
It's exciting to support double mastectomies on 18-year-old girls.
Not exciting?
You're born a girl, you stay a girl.
You can't get more boring than that.
This is fundraising month for PragerU.
And one of the highlights is that almost every day I have a young person who has been affected by or is a member of PragerForce.
And I have on the line Noelle Fitchett, 24-year-old graduate student, but is an active PragerForce member for four years.
She has...
According to this, you've been doxxed, you've worked in Congress, etc.
Noelle Fitchett, it's a pleasure to meet you.
Hi, Dennis.
How are you?
Good.
Where do you live?
Right now I'm in Texas, wrapping up graduate school, but I'm originally from L.A. And may I ask what school, or do you not want it known?
I'm at Texas A&M, so a more conservative school, which has been refreshing.
Yeah, that is interesting.
Is Texas A&M has not gone woke?
It hasn't.
They are actually very, my first day of class, my professor put up an academic freedom statement that basically a lot of the university professors had to say that they value diverse thought, and so they're really big on freedom of speech and diverse thought, which is really nice.
Wow.
I knew this was true, and I'm thrilled to hear it is true.
I am now going to recommend Texas A&M to parents who want that.
Did you choose Texas A&M for that reason?
I did.
I was in LA my whole life, and so I just wanted to experience a different environment, what that would be like, and I think it was a great choice.
What is the city?
Is it College Station?
What is the name of the city?
College Station.
Yeah, that's right.
Yeah, I spoke there once, and so I remember that.
Well, I just got the note.
We started a little late.
I'm going to continue with you, Noelle.
I'm very curious to hear about your evolution.
By the way, what are you majoring in?
What are you getting a degree in?
Economics, and the Bush School of Government has a certificate program that I can focus on, like border and immigration, so I'm doing that at the Bush School.
Well, is that important?
So you dropped gender studies.
I'm glad you left.
Good, you're on board.
Back in a moment.
I return to a young woman, Noelle Fitchett, 24-year-old, doing graduate work, not in gender studies.
At Texas A&M. She's a member of Prager Forest.
Noelle, with all kidding aside, I am curious.
Does Texas A&M even offer a gender studies major?
I don't know.
I can't answer that for sure.
Off the top of my head, I'm not sure.
I wouldn't be surprised if they didn't, but I'm not exactly sure.
Okay, yeah.
That's fair enough.
So, is the video frozen?
Is that an issue, my friends?
Yes, it is.
Okay.
What are you going to do?
Thank God.
The sound is fine, correct?
Noelle, you're hearing me well?
Yes, I am.
Okay.
So, tell me, how did you discover PragerU?
PragerU, well, my mom had shared with me some PragerU videos.
When I was an undergrad, I started to kind of lean left on some issues.
And so my mom sent me some PragerU videos.
I found out about PragerForce because I was doxed.
And then I found a lot of really great friends that I'm still friends with to this day because of PragerU.
So very thankful.
Who doxed you and why?
Some friends.
Well, friends from high school.
They found out my political views during 2020, and that's kind of when I even became vocal about my views.
And then they decided to put my cell phone number and home address on Twitter.
So that was lovely.
And what happened then?
So a lot of what, I mean, what they planned for evil actually ended up turning into good because I started making TikToks during that time, and they started to blow up during the pandemic.
And because of that, I had a lot of opportunities open up.
I mean, I met a lot more friends.
So I gained a lot more friends than I made enemies.
That's what happens.
I always tell conservatives who are in the closet, how can you meet people who are kindred spirits if you don't come out of the closet?
Very true.
And I've stayed friends with so many people that I met in 2020, and it changed my life.
I'm really thankful that that happened.
Where did you do undergraduate?
At Cal State Fullerton in Orange County.
Is that a woke college?
I had some pretty great professors, but I won't lie, I definitely did lean one way.
And so I would probably argue, yes, I had to do diversity training, so I had to do the gender unicorn.
I had to...
Wait a minute, I'm sorry.
Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.
Gender is unicorn?
Yeah.
What does that mean?
They do these in education trainings with either a horse or some kind of animal.
Mine was a unicorn.
And basically, they used that diagram to explain how gender is a social construct.
They used that diagram to explain pronouns and all of gender theory, essentially, and how we as faculty need to abide by that.
Social construct.
And most of your fellow students bought it.
Is that fair to say?
Yeah, I would say so.
And they even had us do a demonstration where they had us list all of our privileges.
So that made for a very interesting conversation.
Wait a minute.
All white kids would list their privileges?
No, just everyone.
I mean, the majority of the people on the call were white, but everyone had to list their type of privilege.
Well, what was the point then if it was non-whites as well?
What does it mean, your privilege?
As what?
As a human?
As an American?
I don't understand.
Yeah, I think it was more for political reasons that they even did it because I myself asked a question of why we were doing it.
Another student even asked why because, I mean, if I go to Japan, of course, I'm not going to know the language or there might be certain benefits to being a Japanese citizen.
So, I mean, as Americans, we have privilege here.
So it made for an interesting conversation, though.
They didn't have a solidified answer.
Two questions about PragerU videos.
Number one, what is your favorite?
And number two, did anyone really start you in the direction of sanity?
Well, my favorite PragerU video, there's one with Allie Beth Stuckey.
And the title escapes me, so I don't want to say the wrong title.
But Allie Beth Stuckey's PragerU video is probably my favorite one.
What was the subject, even without the title?
What was the subject?
It was only biblical masculinity or just masculinity in general, traditional family values in that sphere.
That was the first time I had heard of Allie Beth, and so I really admire her.
She's great.
She's great.
She's really great.
And the person who probably set me on the track of sanity is probably my dad.
My dad.
What does it mean he could have been a different person?
Well, my dad was born in Compton.
He grew up in Southgate.
Is your dad black?
My dad is brown.
My dad's ethnicity is really complicated, but my dad's brown.
He's mixed, Hispanic.
Yeah, he could have been in a very bad trajectory, but he ended up becoming chief of police and doing a lot of stuff with the boys who didn't have dads in their lives.
He started a Boy Scout troop and just a really great guy, a really great role model.
You were lucky.
Yes, very lucky.
I'll bet that the ratio of conservative kids your age or young people your age who think they're lucky Versus leftist kids your age who think they're lucky is 100 to 1. I agree.
And I think that when I was starting to lean left, I was more bitter.
I was kind of upset at the world because I started to leave.
Of course.
You're not bitter.
You're not on the left.
Yeah.
I'm not bitter and I'm hopeful and I think I'm a lot more thankful for the way that God designed my life instead of being bitter and complaining.
Much better.
Noelle, you're a joy.
I hope we meet in person.
Likewise.
Thanks, Dennis.
Thank you.
What do you think, folks?
See, that's what I tell when I say wholesome, which drives the left crazy because wholesome is boring.
They're bored by wholesome.
She's not angry.
She must be boring.
Well, if that doesn't move you to...
Help PragerU, I don't know what will.
Please donate whatever you give till Thursday.
It's two more days.
We'll be tripled.
That's right, three times the amount you give will be given.
PragerU.com, 833-PRAGERU. And by the way, again, a different favorite PragerU video.
We've never had the same twice.
Back in a moment.
Hi, everybody.
It's the Ultimate Issues Hour, the third hour on Tuesday.
My Ultimate Issues Hour has helped you and helped me think through the greatest issues of life.
I have a very hard one today.
I'm working on finishing the fourth volume of my five-volume commentary on the Torah, the first five books of the Bible.
The rest of the Old Testament and the New Testament are all based on the Torah.
Love your neighbor as yourself.
God created the world, the Ten Commandments.
Love God.
Everything is there.
No Torah, no Judaism, no Christianity.
No Western civilization.
So I'm finishing the fourth volume, and there is a line in two of the chapters that almost nobody comments on.
It's just because it doesn't seem worthy of comment.
I think it's incredibly important, which is what I do a lot in my commentary.
I show that lines that most people ignore might be incredibly significant.
So there is a line that when you enter the land, You will determine where you settle by lottery, or by lot, actually.
You can say lottery, but it's by lots.
Now, that's very interesting.
So here's the question.
Is the lot determined?
Is where you will have your territory by tribe?
Is it determined by the lot or God?
So it raises the big question, is God in control of everything that happens?
Meaning, does God control?
Not in control.
God controls the universe.
But does God control everything that happens?
Or is there luck?
And I have mentioned this on many occasions, but I never devoted an hour to it.
Luck or God?
Neither one is fully satisfying.
So I'm not asking you what is satisfying.
Clearly, to believe that God willed whatever happens in one's life is more emotionally satisfying than luck.
You're hit by a drunk driver and kills your family, your whole family.
Killed by a drunk driver.
Was that God's will?
Or was it bad luck?
I believe it was bad luck.
First, if it was God's will, then God willed the drunk driver to drink and drive.
That removes free choice from the drunk driver.
Clearly, you don't have free choice if you're the family that is killed.
So that doesn't apply to you.
It applies to the killer.
People want to believe, and I understand that.
And by the way, I am not even in the business of trying to talk people out of belief that God willed their suffering.
I just can't rationally hold it.
I am on no crusade to have people stop believing it.
And by the way, I entertain the possibility that what they believe is true.
But it's not rational to me.
Mao killed about 60 million Chinese peasants.
that God will the death of every single one of those peasants?
It doesn't seem quite possible.
And it makes God capricious.
I mean, he does things that we have no idea why he does them.
Which was an attribute of the pagan gods.
They were capricious.
That's why people had child sacrifice.
They figured they could propitiate the gods by sacrificing a human being.
Because they didn't know why the gods did anything.
But Abraham established about God that God is just when he argued with God on behalf of the people of Sodom and Gomorrah.
And he said, will not the judge of all the earth act justly?
And that was a rhetorical question.
God does act justly.
So are we to believe then that...
The murder of 60 million Chinese, 20 to 40 million Soviet citizens, including 5, 6 million Ukrainians in one year, or a little more than a year in 1932. The 6 million Jews.
This was just?
If God did it and God is just, then these things are just.
Then it was just.
It was fair, it was right that the family be wiped out by a drunk driver.
A lot of religious people believe that God is in control of everything.
In control and controls is not the same thing.
They not only believe in control, but controls.
But God, in my view, made a universe or a world in which things can happen.
I remember reading a couple of years ago, a few years ago, of two Orthodox Jewish men in New Jersey walking home from synagogue, from prayers.
On a cold, wintry night, they walked by a tree which simply fell on them and killed them.
So, was that caused by gravity and the weight of ice on the tree?
Or did God will it that those two people be killed?
That's the question that I am posing.
So, what is your take on this issue?
1-8 Prager 776 is the number.
And I am going to find for you a famous quote.
You'll have to give me a moment here.
I'm going to find you.
There we go.
Let's see here.
This will just take a moment.
From R.C. Sproul, who was a very famous...
American Christian writer and speaker.
And he had a famous statement.
He said, if there is one maverick molecule in all the universe, then God is not sovereign.
And if God is not sovereign, he is not God.
Okay.
That is the view of many people, Jew and Christian, by the way.
Now, there are two separate issues here.
What does reason suggest?
And what do we want to believe?
See, I think it's important that we always ask that of ourselves.
If your child were killed by a drunk driver, I suspect it would be more comforting to believe that God willed, for whatever reason, your child's death than to believe it was just bad luck being at the wrong place at the wrong time.
I believe it is the wrong place at the wrong time.
I do believe in an afterlife where God writes the injustices that exist in this world.
But I can't rationally accept...
I believe in God, as you know deeply.
God is absolutely necessary.
As well as my belief in Him.
But I also believe that religion without reason can lead to bad stuff.
Just as reason without God leads to bad stuff.
We need both.
So, you'll be helping me because I'm writing a big essay for my Bible commentary.
Back in a moment. Back in a moment.
You can help me because I'm working through one of the longest essays in my entire five volumes of commentary on the five books of Moses, the Torah, the Pentateuch.
And it is about luck or God's will.
And I believe there's such a thing as bad luck.
Your family is hit by a drunk driver.
It was bad luck.
I don't believe it was necessarily God's will.
It might have been.
I don't deny it.
But I am telling you what reason leads me to believe.
It's not emotionally comforting to believe that.
I am told that kidney stones are extraordinarily painful.
Unbelievably painful.
Why does person A get kidney stones and person B not?
You can say diet, but I don't buy it.
Sometimes it's true.
Most of the time, it's just the way it is.
Did God will that you have a kidney stone?
That's a lot of suffering there.
Now...
You realize neither is emotionally fully suffering.
To think, oh, God gave me a kidney stone is problematic.
And to think, bad luck?
It's my bad luck that I got a kidney stone.
It's also problematic.
But I don't...
I try not to, let's put it that way, ask myself, what do I want to believe?
But what makes more sense?
Okay, Rami in Georgia.
Hello.
Hi, Dan.
Hi.
Hi.
I feel God is in control of it all.
From the microcosm to the macrocosm.
Cell division.
A cell is divided, and you have two individual cells.
It divides again, and you have four.
Four become eight.
He's been 16. In a short time, there's a dark line in the middle.
They're no longer identical.
He's orchestrating the human body.
So, let's use...
Hold on, please.
Okay, so good.
Okay, I hear you, and you're eloquent.
So, let's use my example.
Your kid is killed by a drunk driver.
God willed it?
Yes.
God creates Isaiah.
I know.
God creates good and evil.
45-7.
I'm well aware of it, and you're right to point it out.
Okay, so I'll deal with Isaiah 45-7 later.
I just want to know, and I'm not arguing at all.
I'm really using this to hear how people think.
You know, I gave the example of 60 million Chinese killed by Mao.
Did God will the death of every one of those?
God willed the death of all human beings.
No, no, no, no.
But at that time, obviously, if you die at 90 in a family bed, it is not the same as starve to death when you're 20. God's will that man is here for a short time, and we're in a fallen world.
And we are to look to Him.
If everything was perfect, we wouldn't even look at Him.
Yeah, so, right.
When you cross the street, do you look at both sides?
Yes, sir.
Why?
If God wants you dead, hit by a hit-and-run driver, then you can't do anything about it.
It's how you think and how you act.
Possibly open and God allows me to live longer.
So then he doesn't?
If I don't obey local laws, if I don't obey his laws, then he can change things quickly.
Okay, listen, I'm very happy you called, obviously.
That's why I took it, because I'm trying to hear the other side.
I don't think it diminishes God's greatness.
By the way, I'm not saying that any of you are saying this, but people do say it.
Some people say it.
I don't think it diminishes God's greatness, God's omnipotence, to argue that...
When that tree fell on those two Jews walking from the synagogue, it was their bad luck.
Though I suspect that the families probably said, for whatever reason, God wanted it.
And I would never argue with them, because why would I argue with a belief that gives people comfort?
But I'm just telling you what I can or cannot believe.
Okay, let's go on here.
All right, Sandra in North Carolina, hello.
Hello, how are you today, Dennis?
Thank you, I'm well.
That's good.
Dennis, I fully believe that the Lord is in control.
And as I was telling the lovely lady that answered the phone, my four-year-old child, back in 1968, Was killed by a drunk driver who, as he testified in court, told the court that it was no different than running over a dog.
He killed my four-year-old.
He killed my best friend that was driving the car.
And he put my 15-and-a-half-month-old baby in and out of the hospital for over seven years.
The preface of the story is that when my four-year-old was born, she was born with no heartbeat, no breathing, no nothing.
And I had been in horrible labor that night, screaming and crying to the doctor to please not let this baby die.
Please, God, don't take this child again from me.
And when she was born and he could not get her working and breathing, He motioned to the nurse to take her out of the delivery room.
All right, hold on.
I really want to continue with you.
Do you believe that everything that happens, God has directed to happen?
Or do you also believe, I guess, also is proper?
That there was good luck and bad luck.
I believe the latter.
And we're talking to Sandra in North Carolina, who lost her four-year-old daughter to a drunk driver many years ago.
And so, getting to the bottom line here, you do believe that it was God's will?
I certainly do.
Because he gave her to me for four years, and in those four years, she taught me about the love of Christ, about Heavenly Father, so strongly.
I would come home from work, Dennis, and I'd say, What did you do today?
What did you and Sissy do today?
And she would tell me about fixing a tea party and having a tea party with Jesus.
She'd tell me what it was like to be in his arms and talk to him and different things.
She corrected a minister one time when she was three years old because what he said, she said, that's not what it says.
And when he checked in the Bible, she was correct and he was wrong.
And he preached her funeral and talked about the wonderful spirit that this child had and the gift that God had given us by having her for such a short time.
I lost her at birth.
He gave me her back to strengthen and guide me.
And I know that she's there in heaven waiting for me with her brother, and that someday I will be home with him.
And I have no doubt at all about that.
I don't either, by the way.
My only issue is God's will that all of that happen.
God bless you, your credit.
To your faith.
Thank you.
Okay, let's see.
Is there anybody who has my view?
Let's see here.
Susan in Detroit.
Hello.
Susan in Detroit.
Hi.
Hello.
Thank you for taking my call.
I've thought a lot about this because, just like everybody else, I've seen...
Horrible things happen to good, faithful people.
But I believe that God does have dominion over everything, but also the gift that God gives to humans is free will.
So we make choices.
And can God intercede and stop bad things from happening?
Or can He perform miracles?
Yes.
But does He always do that?
No.
And as a Christian, I believe that...
The promise that God has made to us is not about this life.
It's about the afterlife.
So we can pray for things that we want, and God hears those prayers.
He doesn't always answer them the way we want them.
Okay, so where do you and I differ?
Well, you say luck.
Yes, what do you say?
But you say that God doesn't will it in every case.
No, he has control, but like the woman that called before me, whose daughter died in a drunk driving accident, a drunk driver hit the child, I don't think God allowed that to happen.
I think it was the free will of the man who chose to drink.
Well, God did allow it to happen.
The question is, did God ordain it to happen?
Of course God allowed it to happen.
It wasn't God's doing, though.
Okay, so if it wasn't God's doing, then I have no desire to change your mind.
I just want to clarify.
Yeah, sure.
So if it wasn't God's doing, it was the child's and the mother's bad luck?
Okay.
I mean, I guess I can agree with that, but I don't really...
I just think...
Luck makes it sound like it's haphazard.
It is, but it was haphazard.
If God didn't ordain it, it was haphazard.
But I believe that the only person that created that accident was the man that chose to drink.
Fine, agreed.
But it was haphazard from the point of view of the child and her family.
Yes.
Okay, all right.
That's all I'm saying.
Thank you.
My take is that a lot of people, and I totally get it, believe me, my desire is not to talk you into anything, and I often want to talk you into things, but not today.
I just want to figure out why I'm wrong in some of your eyes.
Dennis Prager, Ultimate Issues Hour.
Do you believe that there is good and bad luck, or is everything God's will?
I believe there is good and bad luck, and that God has not ordained every tree that falls on a person, every human killed by an earthquake, let alone by other people.
And I'm not here to change your mind.
I'm only here to clarify.
Because I'm writing, I have really, in some sense, a selfish motive.
I work out a lot of ideas and have in my life with you.
So if you believe God controls everything that happens, I want to hear the case that you make.
But the last call or acknowledge that there is haphazard in life.
God created a world where things He doesn't want to happen.
Pharaoh ordered that all the Hebrew boy babies be drowned.
Pharaoh ordered that.
Was it God's will let every one of those babies be drowned?
Anyway, if God does order every bad thing that happens, why would we fight evil?
Why would the psalmist say, those of you who love God must hate evil?
I hate evil if every act of it was ordained by God, and every earthquake, and every plague.
All right, Bowling Green, Kentucky.
Don, hello.
Hi, Dennis.
So the answer to that last question you just challenged, and I'll get to my point, is we don't have omniscience.
We don't know how God is working in his providence to bring things to pass.
But I'm in wholehearted concert with the Westminster Divines, which says, God from all eternity, did by the most wise and holy counsel of his own will, freely and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass.
Yet so, as thereby neither is God the author of sin, nor is violence offered to the will of the creatures, nor is the liberty or contingency of second causes taken away.
But rather, established.
One of the greatest theologians I've ever known said, if there is one rogue molecule...
Yeah, that's R.C. Sproul.
I cited him at the beginning.
Oh, okay.
Yeah, no, that's fine.
I'm just, you can finish it.
That's fine.
The thing I want to ask you is, those trees that fell on those two Jews, they could have fell away from them, could they not have?
And I would ask you that if blind chance...
Or if luck is what occurred there, what is the force behind that?
Because there has to be a power exerted that brought that to pass.
With blind chance...
Gravity.
Gravity and ice on the leaves.
And so they all of a sudden, in concert, came together and brought about the demise of those two?
That's quite a faith you have.
No, that's what happened.
It's not faith.
There's no faith whatsoever in what I just said.
Zero faith.
I believe you as the deist.
No, no, I'm not a deist.
I believe God knows everything that happens.
I think God cares.
I think God sometimes intervenes.
But not always.
And accidents happen.
And an accident or a bad thing happens.
Otherwise, if every bad thing that happens is God's will directly, why fight bad things?
You're fighting to undo God's will.
I said that in the beginning, which is, I don't know what God's will is for that, do I? Because I don't have omniscience.
Right.
Therefore, I fight it because I'm called to.
I'm commanded to, actually.
You are commanded to.
I agree with that.
We are commanded to fight evil.
But then if we believe that every act of evil is God's will, we're fighting God's will.
That's part of my dilemma with that.
Okay, let's see.
Barbara, Lincoln, California.
Hello.
Hi there.
Hi.
I completely agree with you, completely.
I'm sorry about that.
I mean, one of the things that we were given was free will.
So if I'm going to go have a drink and decide to drive, I am in control of that because I was given free will.
And that's what I believe.
I believe that when children get hurt or people die in wars, it's because of evil people.
I mean, to me, it's pretty much that simple.
And you believe in God?
I do.
Yes, so you're the first caller who agrees with me.
I appreciate the call.
I just want to repeat, because I'm one of God's bigger advocates in the public arena, that it does not diminish God's greatness.
To say that he has relinquished control.
God could control everything that happens.
But then life becomes meaningless.
Free will is removed by definition.
Now you could argue, and by the way, I'm playing my own...
So to speak, devil's advocate.
You can argue that belief in bad luck or good luck also renders life meaningless.
To a certain extent, I don't know if it renders it meaningless, but I totally get the idea.
It's, to say the least, frustrating to think about how powerful luck can be.
I think whether or not you get kidney stones is not ordained by God.
Sometimes it's ordained by diet, but most of the time it happens to person X and it doesn't happen to person Y. Our task is to spend enough on medicine that we can undo the pain and damage of kidney stones, let alone cancer.
That's our task.
We're sort of God's partners in making this place better.
In general, by the way, it's a great question to always ask yourself, forgetting religion, about politics or anything.
What do I believe and what do I want?
Dennis Prager here.
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