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Sept. 11, 2023 - Dennis Prager Show
01:26:52
Breaking Biden
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Dennis Prager here.
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Hi, everybody.
Welcome to the Dennis Prager Show, coming to you from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where tonight I have an event for AM 990 WNTP, which stands for News Talk Philadelphia.
So is that Philadelphia in the background on the green screen?
Is that correct?
Is that Philly?
Ah, look at that.
Well, my friends, there is a surplus of stories over the weekend.
If you've watched the president at the G5 conference and then in Hanoi, you see an impaired man.
Now, of course, he's morally impaired, but that has been lifelong.
I detest this president.
I've never said that about any president in my 40 years of broadcasting.
He is a loathsome human being, in my opinion.
And it's an interesting question if my opinion is just a...
Partisan opinion.
But I did not say that about Bill Clinton.
I did not say that about Barack Obama.
But I do say that about Joe Biden.
My entire life has been spent in the preoccupation with the moral.
And I put my reputation on the line.
If he is decent, I'm not.
Okay?
That is how adamant I am about the man's fundamental moral emptiness.
And it is matched by virtually the entire media of the United States, which knows that they have a mentally impaired man as president, but they don't give a damn because he's a Democrat.
And it's amazing.
Even the Young Turks have come out for him not running, and you can't get any more left than the Young Turks.
But I don't know who else has in the Democratic Party.
All I can tell you is if there were a Republican this impaired, it would be the dominant news item in the United States of America.
How mentally impaired the President of the United States is, and now it just goes without anybody saying anything.
Anyway, it is what it is.
He is doing his best to ruin this country, as I brought to you last week, item after item.
Now I have read.
I don't know if it is true.
I have only read that he will again dip into the strategic oil reserve of the United States.
It's there for emergencies like war or some horrible natural disaster.
And he keeps using it after banning the mining or the drilling for oil in the United States.
So he taps into our reserve and goes to countries that are not our allies or even our allies, and he imports the oil from those countries.
So it is okay for them to drill, but it is not okay for us to drill.
Oklahoma Elementary School faces huge backlash after hiring a drag queen as principal.
cool.
So here is an example of a story that Virtually no liberal in your life.
Your family among friends knows this.
You probably didn't know it either.
But if you follow the media, and I got this from the Daily Mail, which is not left or right.
I know that because they, in the past, had two articles critical of me.
So they're certainly not on the right.
But they don't know this.
Do you realize a drag queen?
A man dressed as a woman has been appointed the principal of an Oklahoma...
Oklahoma!
One of the most conservative states in the country.
No state is immune to the destruction of the left.
It's really...
It's almost hard to believe, but it's not any longer hard to believe.
An elementary school in Oklahoma writes the Daily Mail is facing a huge backlash after hiring a drag queen, a school principal, with the superintendent denouncing the decision as complete insanity.
So it's an interesting question.
Is it insane?
What makes the left tick?
Why would people on the left support a drag queen as an elementary school principal?
They're not insane.
Not in the clinical sense.
So, many years ago, I came up with one answer, that they are systematically producing chaos.
Men menstruate.
Men give birth.
America is systemically racist.
If you say you want to be colorblind, you're a racist.
But if you are preoccupied with color, you're anti-racist.
A world of chaos is what they seek to produce.
They don't know it.
If you ask a leftist, so why are you in favor?
Of a drag queen as a principal of an elementary school, they would not say because, hey, that represents more chaos and that's what we want to do.
They don't think that way.
I'm not sure actually what they do think, unless they think it doesn't matter.
Well, the person has, and I will read to you his degrees.
By the way, it is a he.
Remember, drag queens are not trans.
Drag queens are men who love dressing as women.
Not long ago, men who publicly dressed as women were actually the target of ridicule.
It was considered a perverse thing for a man to do, to publicly dress.
I mean, privately as well, but private actions.
Don't concern us as a general rule, and shouldn't.
But public actions should.
Ryan Walter, superintendent of the state of Oklahoma, has called for the immediate termination of the drag queen, who goes by the name Chantel Mandalay, and reads storybooks to children at local libraries while in costume.
Walters, a vocal opponent of the move, slammed the hiring decision by Western Heights School District.
Western Heights School District.
I would love to know who composes the decision makers at the Western Heights School District.
And told Fox News Digital, it's outrageous to have a drag queen running a school.
You know, here in Oklahoma, that doesn't line up with Oklahoma values.
Another interesting question, with whose values does it line up?
Does it line up with San Francisco values, New York values?
Here is a question.
Is there any elementary school in the most left-wing cities in America?
Santa Monica, California?
Santa Cruz, California?
San Francisco, California?
New York City?
Philadelphia, Chicago, is there any school district, is there any school wherein parents would vote to have a drag queen as the school principal?
I wonder what you think if you're a parent.
I don't believe so.
I don't think that even in Santa Monica, California, at the most left-wing school, parents in a secret ballot, they wouldn't have the courage to oppose it in Santa Monica, but parents in a secret ballot, do you want a drag queen as the principal of your child's elementary school?
I don't believe you would get a majority saying yes.
He cited parental concerns about what he called woke left-wing indoctrination and gender theory in schools.
By the way, this man, Ryan Walter, superintendent of the state of California, is the one responsible for allowing PragerU videos to be shown in schools.
That, of course, causes an uproar on the left.
A drag queen.
As a principal, that is a non-issue.
You should see the picture of the guy.
I mean, it's really something you need to see.
It's very sophisticated.
Looks like a fool.
A big picture with his tongue hanging out.
Dressed as a woman.
That's a real model.
When I think of the people in my Jewish religious school who were principal, the principal came into the classroom and we stood up.
The principle embodied the values that we were supposed to aim for, aim to achieve.
That's why I started with this story.
I can't think of one more symbolic of the time in which we live.
1-8 Prager 776. Back in a moment.
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Whenever I'm down, I call on you, my friend.
I'm reading to you the latest attack on civilization from the left.
I'm...
I must admit, I get angrier and angrier by the week at liberals because liberals don't vote their values.
Liberals are too afraid to vote against the left.
They fear that they are abandoning all of their values.
If they vote for a Republican, they have abandoned the brainwash, danger on the right, as I was taught when I was a kid.
Reading books and collecting them in high school as a sophomore.
I remember when I told my friend I had 32 books, all paperback, except for one hardcover.
And I remember the hardcover.
And one of the books was Danger on the Right.
That was the given among the intellectual class.
The danger is on the right.
I wonder if there was even a book Danger on the Left.
Never thought of that.
No enemies on the left.
That is the motto.
A left-wing group, which is therefore a group that is just a damaging one, called Media Matters for America.
They listed some of the many things that they object to in PragerU videos, and one of them was that were anti-communism.
They're so left that they find anti-communism wrong.
And as I have said all of my life, if you don't hate communism, you're a bad human being.
Just as if you don't hate Nazism, you're a bad human being.
Media Matters and much of the left is composed of such people.
They don't hate evil.
They hate the right.
That is the motto of the left.
That has always been the case.
We do not hate evil.
We hate the right.
We hate our opponents, in other words.
The left does not hate evil.
It hates its opponents.
Put this video up at Media Matters.
See how your followers react to that.
And they prove, people like them, prove the inadequacy of the conscience.
Their conscience does not bother them that they don't hate communism, that they hate those of us who hate communism.
Again, I've said it all of my life because I've known it all of my life.
The left was not anti-communist.
It was anti-anti-communist.
They never hated communism on the left.
They hated the people who hated communism.
This is again the superintendent of schools in Oklahoma.
I hear from parents every day that are concerned with the woke left-wing indoctrination of schools.
This gender theory that continues to be thrust upon our kids, it's completely inappropriate.
That's an understatement.
The drag queen in question, Dr. Shane Mernon, 52. Who was named Principal of John Glenn.
God, isn't that amazing?
An elementary school named after John Glenn now has a drag queen as its principal.
Wow.
The speed with which America has deteriorated is breathtaking.
He has a controversial past with child pornography charges nearly 20 years ago that were later dropped.
The judge dismissed the charges during the preliminary hearing due to a lack of probable cause, as it could not be proven the images depicted minors, according to Fox 25. The school district said it was aware of the previous charges, but defended the hiring, emphasizing the individual's qualifications and outstanding reputation.
The school district released a statement stating, Dr. Mernin has been serving the field of education for more than 25 years and has an outstanding reputation.
The school district wrote, he comes highly recommended from previous supervisors, colleagues, and educators, which gives you an idea of who the supervisors, colleagues, and educators are.
And this is Oklahoma.
Oklahoma.
Arguably the most conservative state in the country.
But here is a giveaway, in case you were curious.
He holds a Bachelor of Science in Elementary Education, a Masters of Education in Educational Administration, and a Doctorate of Education in Educational Leadership and Administration.
Three degrees in education.
The most worthless degrees you could have.
Outside of gender studies.
A degree in education.
If every school of education closed, education would improve exponentially in the United States of America.
You have a doctorate in education.
That means you've had that many more years to be brainwashed as a left-wing fool, which is redundant.
But worthy of note in any event.
And they hail him.
That's really who you want your fifth grader, right?
Your third grader to see.
This man dressed as a woman.
As the principal.
Mernon works as a drag queen at a venue called The Boom.
According to her?
No, it's not her.
They made a mistake at the Daily Mail.
It's his.
He doesn't claim to be a woman.
Drag queens are men.
In fact, you see, this is perfect.
Even Daily Mail got fooled.
They write, according to her Facebook page, and then the next sentence, he also visits libraries and read books to children.
So is it he or her?
Of course it's he.
Dressed in drag.
What was that, Sean?
All right, back in a moment.
By the way, this Friday night is the beginning of the Jewish High Holy Days.
I am conducting services again in Southern California.
They're streamed, and you can come.
Just go to pragerhighholidays.net.
Well, everybody, Dennis Prager here in Philadelphia.
An event tonight for AM 990. The onslaught is throughout the country.
Senator Tom Cotton, Republican, on Friday sent a letter to Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin demanding he explain the Pentagon's apparent decision to use the gender-neutral themself.
Instead of himself or herself for decoration and award citations.
As bad as what is happening in schools, equally bad is what is happening in the military.
The attempt to destroy the military is more effective than anything China or Russia or North Korea or any enemy.
The internal enemy is far more dangerous to this country.
I write regarding the department's decision to incorporate gender-neutral language into decoration and award citations.
Our military apparently will now use themself.
By the way, there's no word themself.
It doesn't exist.
It's a made-up term by the left, which is not even a word.
Ah, he writes, which is not even a word.
I hasten to add, instead of himself, Or herself to describe heroic or distinguished actions.
He included a sample of the model language.
First, master, last, junior.
United States Military Service distinguished themselves.
No, sorry.
Rank first.
Let's see.
First, M. Last, junior.
Distinguish themselves by superior meritorious service in a position of significant responsibility.
And then the time was mentioned, the year and the month.
Distinguish themselves.
The military is now beginning to drop male and female from its pronouns, apparently.
Will any liberal, forget leftist, will any liberal condemn this?
The answer is no, and I'll tell you why.
They don't know it.
The omission of what is happening in the country by the left-wing media from the New York Times, the LA Times, and everything in between, is as corrupt as the commission, like the Russia collusion with the Trump campaign, lie.
Depicted as a lie by Columbia Journalism Review and a scathing critique of what the New York Times and Washington posted, for which they got Pulitzer Prizes, of course.
But the history of the Pulitzer Prize rewarding lies is an old one.
Cotton said previous guidance simply referred to service members as his, himself, or herself.
And I want to stress this language isn't referring to unspecified personnel in the abstract or large numbers of troops.
It refers to a specific named person whose preferred gender is presumably known.
Cotton made clear he opposed the apparent language change, slamming it as worse than Orwellian.
The departments embrace Department of Defense.
Its embrace of far-left gender ideology doesn't merely subvert the English language in ways that would astonish George Orwell.
Worse, it exemplifies a Pentagon leadership consumed by the fads of the faculty lounge at a time when the Army can't hit its recruiting goals, the Navy can't keep ships out of dry dock, and the Air Force can't find spare parts for planes.
That's what consumes the leadership of the Department of Defense.
He demanded Austin answer by next Friday at 5 p.m.
as to if he personally approved the change and if he did not when he learned about it.
Now, that's very interesting.
He included a footnote after addressing Austin as Mr., saying, if I may be so bold as to assume.
Your preferred gender.
Well, that's right.
That's gutsy on the part of Tom Cotton.
I wonder how many other Republicans are writing or mentioning this.
Themself.
A new word.
So the elementary schools and the military.
I'm Dennis Prager.
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Call 800-761-6302, everybody, Dennis Prager here.
Welcome to the show.
Let's see here.
Oh my God.
My dear, dear syndicator has initiated such a system.
I am now scanning a document because they have so many...
I bet a lot of you have had this.
There are so many precautions now.
What is the word?
I can't even exit out of it.
It is an amazing thing.
Does your company have this?
There are so many...
What is the word?
When it checks incoming...
Emails and incoming documents, firewalls, yes, that it almost renders the system inoperable at times.
Not almost, it does at times actually do it.
But, you know, you can't be too safe, right?
That's the notion.
You can't be too safe.
That's why people lock down children.
I don't know if you know this.
There's a North Dakota man who ran over and killed a conservative teenager who he tried to claim was a right-wing extremist.
I don't know if you're familiar with the story.
Shannon Brandt did this, and he pleaded guilty to manslaughter in the death of 18-year-old Kaler Ellingson.
A year ago, Brandt claimed he ran over Ellingson with his SUV during a street dance event because he believed the teenager was part of a, quote, Republican extremist group.
The incident apparently occurred after an argument about politics.
According to the website Trending Politics, on Saturday, State Judge Bradley Cruff, who had green-lit the plea deal, Strongly considered Brandt's mental state in handing down his punishment.
The punishment?
Five years in prison.
He also got credit for time served.
Guy runs over a teenager because he considers the teenager a Republican extremist.
He's given five years in prison.
But the Proud Boys leader Enrique Terrio received a 22-year prison sentence for his alleged role in the riot at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, even though he was nowhere near Washington that day.
John Strand and John Mellis are two people I know in prison who did nothing.
Who did nothing.
They simply entered the Capitol.
John Strand, because he is such a religious man and believes he cannot tell a lie, did not plead guilty when he could have just gotten a misdemeanor charge.
But he knows he wasn't guilty and he was not prepared to take a plea that was a lie.
So he's sentenced to over two years.
And his rights to email and phone have just been rescinded because he did an interview from prison.
And they put him in a prison with violent prisoners instead of a white-collar prison because they hate us.
And they use the Justice Department and the Prison Department to punish us, us being conservatives.
These are despicable human beings on the left.
But they sleep well because the conscience is, for most people, useless.
This guy's getting five years in prison in North Dakota.
Acknowledges he ran over a teenager because he was a Republican.
Acknowledges it.
As I said to you, a very upsetting thing happened in my personal life last week.
My younger son, in a phone call, just...
Almost matter-of-factly said the United States is no longer the best country in the world.
He's 30 years old.
When I was 30 years old, I didn't just think I knew America was the best country in the world.
But he's right.
I don't know who the best is.
But I can't argue for the United States.
Are there political prisoners in Denmark?
I don't know.
I don't think so.
Do they have drag queen principals in elementary schools in Denmark?
Norway?
Sweden?
The places that the left idealizes?
I don't think so.
Last hour, I read to you the story.
Oklahoma, of all places.
A drag queen and a man who dresses as a woman, not even trans.
A man.
Claims to be a man.
You've got to see the pictures.
We have to put this story up from, I think it's the Daily Mail album.
We've got to put it up.
People need to see it.
You need to send it to friends.
Just ask them, do you think that this is a good thing for kids?
That's all.
And don't be provocative.
What's your take on this?
So this is what a leftist will say, what's wrong?
There's nothing wrong with that.
A liberal will say, this is crazy, and that's it.
They will say it's crazy.
But the thought that they therefore might leave the Democratic Party, nah, it wouldn't occur to 99% of liberals, no matter what the Democrats supported.
Five years in prison for the murder of a Republican kid.
And 23 years in prison for the Proud Boys head.
And the vast majority of liberals as well as leftists agree with the Proud Boys to sit verdict or sentencing.
I have spoken to a man named John Mellis who's a J6 prisoner.
John Strand is a friend of mine.
He's the one who would not take a plea agreement because he did nothing wrong.
He had video to prove it.
But for a conservative, for a J6 individual to stand trial in Washington, D.C., the verdict is as assured as it was in the South when a black was accused of a crime.
It is as assured.
You are no more likely to get a fair trial if you're a conservative who entered the Capitol on January 6th in Washington, D.C. than a black man was in the racist South.
So this will be called a racist statement because the left never asks, is it true?
Because once you ask, is it true, you leave the left.
Is what I said accurate is not a left-wing question.
Can they attack it for being racist is the left-wing question.
But why is it racist?
It has nothing to do with race.
Well, it has something to do with race, obviously, in the South.
Of course it did.
But my point is not about race.
My point is about the lack of fairness in a trial.
Wow.
So this is a judge, by the way, I presume in North Dakota.
There's no escaping from the left.
It's an Oklahoma school that is having a drag queen as its principal.
I really want to follow that story.
Alan, if we could speak.
You know what, Alan?
Let's have the superintendent of schools in Oklahoma on the show.
He is the one getting flack because he is allowing Oklahoma schools to use PragerU videos.
My friends, there would be no reason you would know how much PragerU was attacked.
Every single mainstream source, every single one, New York Times, LA Times, Washington Post, CNN, every single one has attacked, The Guardian has attacked PragerU.
And they're all filled with lies.
Every single one of their articles is filled with lies about what we actually say in our videos.
Media Matters said they watched every single PragerU video.
And they delineate in video after video what is objectionable.
In one case, they object to the fact that we depict communism as evil.
That's all you need to know about media matters.
That's all you need to know.
People who can call communism evil are evil.
So you have to know this.
You can't get depressed over the fact that the majority...
Or at least a vast number of Americans are morally lost and some are just downright evil.
You have to understand that's the human condition.
That's why I have said if you think people are basically good, you're not only naive, you set yourself up for constant disappointment.
Knowing that people are not basically good, I don't believe people are basically evil.
I never said they were.
I'm always attributed that Prager says people are basically evil.
I never said it once in my life.
Not basically good doesn't mean evil.
It's sort of in the middle.
It's just easier to do bad.
It's easier to lie than to tell the truth if you need to tell a lie to gain something.
It's easier to be dishonest than honest on many occasions.
It should be obvious.
I have a story on that, actually, since I'm talking to you about...
The issue of human nature.
Yeah, let's see.
Yeah, here's a story out of Belgium, of all places.
This is in the New York Times, interestingly.
Students in Belgium hazing death are sentenced to fines and service.
Sanda Dia, a 20-year-old black student at the Catholic University of Leuven, died in 2018 after members of an elite fraternity forced him to drink fish oil, swallow goldfish, and stand in an ice-filled trench.
Now, how do you explain that?
To another young man.
If people are basically good, how do you explain this story out of Belgium?
Eighteen students who put a young black man through notorious fraternity hazing ritual at a prestigious university in Belgium, leading to his death and setting off a national debate about racism, were convicted of involuntary manslaughter and ordered to pay fines and perform community service.
Well, that's a punishment for you.
Pay fines and do community service.
They're not keen on punishing evil in Western Europe.
Died of multiple organ failure in December 2018. Yep.
He had been forced alongside two other fraternity pledges.
To drink alcohol excessively, chug fish oil until he vomited, swallow live goldfish, and stand outside a nice full trench.
Do you understand?
What we have here is pure sadism.
Now, this is a very interesting question.
When it says two other students, I'd like to know, were they black?
See, I don't know if racism...
Was the primary factor.
It might have been a factor, clearly.
But I don't know if it was the primary factor.
I think the primary factor.
Well, maybe it was.
Let's see here.
A photo surfaced.
This is from a previous story.
Purporting to show a fraternity member wearing Ku Klux Klan robes.
A fraternity speech referenced our good German friend Hitler.
Well, maybe it was the primary factor.
In any event, it was sadism.
That's clear.
I mean, if they just wanted to kill him, they would have just killed him.
And by the way, some of these sadistic practices happened to white students at various places.
I'm not anti-fraternity at all.
But I just want it noted, the built-in nature...
The built-in to human nature of sadism that exists.
What joy do you get when you force another kid to do this?
I'll tell you the joy.
It was actually explained to me by a rabbi many years ago.
And I hadn't thought of it that way.
What is the joy that a sadist has?
I'm not talking about sexual sadism.
I'm talking about regular, if you will, non-sexual.
This was non-sexual.
Just the joy of inducing pain in another human being.
And he said it was power.
This incredible power over another human being, I can make them suffer.
This is an interesting point.
I hadn't thought about that.
You really live in a deluded state if you think that human nature is basically good.
It means you've had such a good life that it's blinded you.
To the realities of humanity.
We'll return.
I'm Dennis Prager.
The number of articles in the New York Times that have devalued parenting or being a parent is quite remarkable, so...
So here's the latest.
And let me find this for you.
I just had it up, needless to say.
There's a lot to keep.
There we go.
There we go.
Of course, I remember I actually written about this.
Do children need fathers?
They had a panel discussion whether kids need fathers.
Most on the panel said no.
And with regard to mothers, poor women who just are mothers.
So here's another one in the New York Times.
The Lies Mothers Tell Themselves and Their Children.
That's what it's titled.
So this woman writes in the piece here, I used to watch as my mother read Ms. Magazine sitting upright at the dining room table.
She came of age during second wave feminism, when women kind of had a choice and kind of didn't.
This made my mom's ambivalence about motherhood starker and more insistent.
It's within the realm of possibility that my mom's life could have gone a different, more ambitious way, in other words, than being full-time mom.
As a child, I sensed her envy and her longing as she surveyed women who were, quote, doing something with their lives.
It's a very interesting thing.
What I just read to you.
To think that if you are a full-time mother and the maker of the home or homemaker, the implication is you haven't done something with your life.
But if you got to be the head of sales at a women's clothing company...
Then you have done something with your life.
And by the way, I'm in no way putting down being the head of sales at a women's clothing company.
I'm merely noting that from a societal point of view, if you have made a good home and raised good children, you have done more with your life than if you were the head of sales.
Or perhaps even if you were a congresswoman.
What is more important than raising good human beings?
Very tough.
Maybe if you're a very effective public figure in some way, possibly.
But that's open to very few people.
She saw herself in these important women's faces.
Who were these important women?
The women of Ms. Magazine?
What does it mean, important women?
I'll tell you what important women in this case means.
Famous women.
And you might as well adopt the Dennis Prager phrase, which I picked up and made a variation of from Bill Bennett.
He doesn't even know it.
Many, many years ago.
The way I put it is, the famous are rarely significant.
And the significant are rarely famous.
She rated her talent and intelligence as equivalent to theirs.
I'm sure it was.
But she wasn't as famous as the women in Ms. Magazine.
So was it their fame?
Or their satisfied lives?
You think that the average woman written up in Ms. was a happy woman?
I don't.
Just for the record, I don't.
She rated her talent and intelligence, this is again the author in the New York Times writing about her mother, as equivalent to theirs, if not higher.
Even as she was, listen to this, the language is critical.
Even as she was sidelined as support staff for the next generation.
Wow.
That is the phrase this woman uses.
About her mother being support staff for the next generation.
It is tough to be your mother's jailer.
Wow.
Imagine thinking that way.
I am my mother's child and therefore her jailer.
I am reading to you a New York Times piece, "The Lies Mothers Tell Themselves and Their Children."
So she describes herself as her mother's jailer because her mother was in jail being a full-time mom.
She admits that this had a bad effect on her.
And how could it not?
My mother is in jail because I am alive.
It's not a wonderful way to grow up.
But her mother bought the Kool-Aid or drank the Kool-Aid.
She might have bought it as well, not just drunk it.
That meaningful life for a woman lies in career.
As we know, all these career women who didn't have families or...
Among the happiest of our fellow citizens.
I was on The Young Turks once, a very left-wing show, and they have two, a man and a woman.
I was on with the woman and then with the man.
The woman, Anna, couldn't believe that I said that if a girl got up in a high school or college class and said my biggest dream is to get married and raise children, she would be regarded as odd.
Where is your data for that?
That's a common left-wing question.
When data is not achievable, when they have no answer to what is such an obvious statement, really?
You think a girl who said that would be as mired?
I was admired as a girl who said, I would like to be a trial lawyer.
It is tough to be your mother's jailer.
My mom gave me everything and for this received nothing that she wanted in return.
That is a heavy inheritance.
No kidding.
So she was her mother's jailer.
Wow.
I once thought my desperation to prove and claim being a good mother was a hangover from a performative childhood.
But as I've grown further into motherhood, weighing my own identity against my mom's, I recognize that her ambivalence is not only a familial trait, but also a cultural one.
That's correct.
It is a cultural one.
I carry it too.
You can love your kids deeply and hate being a mom.
You can hold your children to the bone and still proclaim how sucky it is to be a female parent, in America at least, with our lack of paid family leave or high-quality daycare, and the cultural insistence that quote-unquote good women should stake their entire lives on the opportunity.
Well I'd like to I would invite this woman onto my show.
The chances of her coming on are close to nil.
But I would have a very polite conversation, and I would ask her, since we'll talk about the cultural and not the personal, if you have, let's say, three children, and they become moral,
ethical beings as they grow up, Can you tell me something outside of family that you could have done that would do as much good for the society?
Yes, being a parent is not always pleasant.
That is a fact.
Being married for most people is not always pleasant.
By the way, most jobs are not always pleasant.
That is why Arthur Miller wrote the Nobel, not Nobel, a Pulitzer Prize winning, I don't know if he won a Nobel Prize, I don't think so, but definitely a Pulitzer Prize for Death of a Salesman.
Death of a Salesman is about a guy, Willie Loman, I'm surprised I remember the name, who...
He's a salesman, and the story is the tragedy of his dull, meaningless life as a salesman.
That's what the book is about.
So, I think it's fair to say Miller was not a leftist, but he was, I don't know if he was, but I certainly know he was a liberal.
So you see, what liberals, as you go to the left more and more, There is a naivete about life that is part of its problem.
That's why they're revolutionaries.
Life sucks.
That's their motto.
Life sucks.
America sucks.
Work sucks.
Family sucks.
And I never use the term.
But I don't know of any term that would be as good as that.
Everything stinks.
So we have to make a revolution where you'll write poetry, if you want, as Marx put it.
You'll be free to do whatever you like.
You want to sing songs, play the piano, that's what you'll be able to do.
Yep, everything sucks.
Work, family, marriage, because they live in John Lennon's...
World of fantasy.
And that is the world of I can imagine.
I imagine something better.
And that's why I am miserable.
And so that's why I make revolution.
Something better is out there.
Instead of saying, God, am I lucky to have healthy children.
Am I lucky to have a decent spouse?
Yeah.
Nothing gives a leftist pleasure except tearing down what exists.
Literally nothing.
This is a perfect example of it.
Wow.
You can love your kids deeply and hate being a mom.
That's right.
You can.
That's correct.
Hello, everybody, and welcome to the Dennis Prager Show coming to you from Philadelphia.
We have a big event tonight with AM 990 WNTP. I wonder how many people know that's News Talk Philadelphia.
Did you know that?
Yes, I did.
Oh yeah, I figured.
Well, the man who knows all radio is in the room with me.
So he would know.
Hi everybody, welcome to the show.
I was reading to you last hour another article on how crappy motherhood is in the New York Times.
I read to you a whole series of titles that they had.
And one of the fascinating parts, obviously.
is the comments.
There were 1,087.
I'll just read you a few and then offer a thought and then move on to other subjects.
The most popular comment of the 1,087 among New York Times readers, and you have to be a New York Times subscriber to comment.
I am.
Motherhood is overrated and my son is my favorite human.
Two things can be true at once.
Fine.
Okay.
But that is an interesting thing.
If her son is her favorite human being, why exactly is motherhood overrated?
Her motherhood produced her favorite human being.
By the way, I find that interesting.
Even that is interesting, that her son is her favorite human being.
Obviously, I totally...
I mean, relate to loving one's children.
It's a unique love on Earth.
I'm blessed to have it.
Favorite human being?
Does she have a husband?
Isn't the ideal that your spouse be your favorite human being?
I recognize that it doesn't always happen by any means.
But isn't that an ideal?
Is her son her favorite human being?
Even vis-a-vis her friends.
See, I don't believe her, by the way, that her son is her favorite human being.
I believe that she has a unique love for her son.
But I would like to ask her a question.
If she had to spend six months on a desert island, would she opt to spend it with her son or with a friend?
See...
People on the left live in a make-believe world.
They throw out lines, and everybody else agrees with it.
How do I know?
It's the most popular comment of the 1,087 comments.
Is your child your favorite human being?
Were you your parents' favorite human being?
Is that what one aspires to be?
It's an interesting question.
And if it's true, why would she say that motherhood is overrated?
Nothing about what this most popular comment in the New York Times comments makes sense.
And it's only one line.
Next one.
When I read things like this, I immediately think of my grandmother.
My mother was the eldest of 15, yes, 15 children.
My grandmother popped them out like a human Pez dispenser.
That's a funny imagery.
Any of you remember Pez dispensers?
I do.
As they were desperately poor, and this was many decades ago, and now the punchline, and this, ladies, are where we are headed once again, especially in red states.
You've been warned!
Now do your duty, 2024. Vote for Democrats only.
Is that precious?
That's the second most popular comment.
Now let's analyze this for its intelligence and rationality.
This, ladies, by the way, are where we are headed.
Oh God, it's painful.
It is where we are headed.
It is where we are headed.
It are where we are headed.
Undoubtedly, this woman went to college, and I believe that.
It's not her fault.
You learn nothing in almost any American educational institution other than to hate America, to hate whites, and hate liberty.
This, ladies, are where we are headed once again, especially in red states.
So let me understand.
In red states, you are headed...
To having something like 15 children while you're a dirt poor.
That is how you keep people voting Democrat.
That is, with such scare tactics.
That's where we are headed.
You can't afford children, but you should have 15. You've been warned, and now do your duty.
Vote for Democrats.
Now, that's another question.
Why will Democrats help?
How do Democrats affect whether you have 15 or zero children?
I don't know the answer.
It's an honest question.
Anyway, that's how the 1,087.
I didn't read all of them by any means.
Yes.
Oh, wow.
This is good.
About the fifth most popular one.
I had to read the article twice trying to understand the source of the author's anger.
She is in a career she loves.
She has excellent child care.
She loves her children but hates being a mom.
Why do we expect only the good things in life without the difficult responsibilities that are required?
Oh, my God.
It is inconceivable that the author of this letter, even though a New York Times subscriber is a leftist, It is not possible.
It could be a liberal, but it's impossible.
Once you ask the question, why do we expect only the good things in life without the difficult responsibilities that are required?
You have entered the non-left realm.
How would you have the lovable individuals without an intense investment?
Wow.
Yes, that's correct.
Thank you.
Biblical wisdom, those who sow in tears will reap in joy.
You can't reap in joy if you don't sow in tears.
No pain, no gain, as they put it with exercise.
What the left wants is to remain a child.
All gain, no pain.
Because that's how they were raised, by the parents who spoiled them.
No, I will not allow anything to trouble you.
I will even yell at the umpire if your Little League team has a call against them at first base.
So, thought I'd share that with you.
There's an article by Ross Douthat, who is one of the only conservatives, writing.
I don't think he's a Trump conservative.
They don't have one.
Among the hundred or so columnists.
But he's a conservative and he writes a piece in the New York Times about marijuana.
Let me offer a personal preface.
This, I am smiling when I say this because I remember this so vividly.
How long ago I raised on my radio show, from the very beginning actually, would you rather have your child smoke a joint?
Or smoke a cigarette?
And I said, there's no comparison.
Of course, smoke a cigarette.
And it is one of the only issues, I fully acknowledge this, where the majority of my listeners simply disagreed with me.
Even conservatives, even Christians, would call in and say, I'm sorry, Dennis, I really don't agree with you on this one.
Cigarettes kill, marijuana doesn't.
That was their reasoning.
They'd rather have their child smoke a joint.
I mean, not talking about eight-year-olds, where the question would be ludicrous, but teenage child.
I used to say teenager anyway.
To me, there was no question.
As I said, yes, I fully recognize the danger of cigarettes.
By the way, cigars wouldn't even be an issue because cigars are not nearly as dangerous as cigarettes because they're not inhaled.
But most people are not honest about that in the medical world.
Like the Mayo Clinic, which is becoming the Mao Clinic, it's so woke, which writes that cigars are as dangerous as cigarettes.
When scientists lie on behalf of a cause, you're in trouble.
You're in trouble.
So there's a new questioning of all the legalizing of marijuana.
This was in the New York Times by Ross Douthat.
Legalizing marijuana is a big mistake.
I will offer you some of the data that he cites in his piece.
I knew that from the beginning.
I was never for legalizing marijuana.
But health uber alis.
Health above all.
What about mental health and psychological health?
We return.
In return, I'm Dennis Prager.
So I'm reading to you about the article, from the article, Legalizing Marijuana is a Big Mistake by Ross Douthat in the New York Times, one of the only conservatives who writes there.
Of all the ways to win a culture war, the smoothest.
is to just make the other side seem hopelessly uncool.
So it's been with the march of marijuana legalization.
There have been moral arguments about the excesses of the drug war and medical arguments about the potential benefits of pot.
But the vibe of the whole debate has pitted the chill against the uptight, the cool against the square.
As support for legalization has climbed, commanding a two-thirds majority in recent polling, any contrary argument has come to feel a bit futile.
It will take a long time for conventional wisdom to acknowledge the truth that seems readily apparent to squares like me.
Marijuana legalization, as we've done it so far, has been a policy failure.
A potential social disaster, a clear and evident mistake.
There are therapeutic benefits to cannabis that justify its availability for prescription, but the evidence of its risks keeps increasing.
This month brought a new paper strengthening the link between heavy pot use and the onset of schizophrenia in young men.
Well, that's pretty scary.
Do you believe it?
I do.
And the broad downside risks of marijuana beyond extreme dangers like schizophrenia remain as evident as ever.
A form of personal degradation.
That's why I originally opposed it.
Of lost attention and performance and motivation.
By the way, I always ask people about that.
It's another one of my old questions.
One of my rather questions.
Would you rather your pilot smoke a joint or smoke a cigarette?
Everybody knows the answer to that.
How about this?
Smoke a joint or have a martini?
Which do you think would compromise his ability to fly the plane more?
A form of personal degradation, of lost attention and performance and motivation that isn't mortally dangerous in the way of heroin, but that can damage or derail an awful lot of human lives.
Most casual pot smokers won't have this experience, but the legalization era has seen a sharp increase in the number of non-casual users.
Occasional use has risen substantially since 2008, but daily or near-daily use is up much more, with around 16 million Americans out of more than 50 million users now suffering from what is termed marijuana use disorder.
Then you have the extreme case of New York, where legal permitting has lagged while untold numbers of illegal shops are doing business unmolested by the police.
Even in less incompetent-seeming states and localities, a similar pattern persists.
There is a recent book, Can Legal Weed Win?
The Blunt Realities of Cannabis Economics?
by Robin Goldstein and Daniel Sumner.
Which shows that unlicensed weed can cost as much as 50% less than the licensed variety.
I've always said that when people speak about legalizing drugs.
They'll just make the drugs cheaper and cheaper and cheaper so that you keep buying them illegally.
So the more you tax and regulate legal pot sales, the more you run the risk of having users just switch to the black market.
And if you want the licensed market to crowd out the black market, instead, you probably need to make legal pot as cheap as possible, which in turn undermines any efforts to discourage chronic, life-altering abuse.
I am curious, by the way, to know today, 30 years later, After I first began broadcasting my belief that I'd rather have my teenage child smoke a cigarette than a joint, how many of you would disagree with me today?
I wouldn't even argue with it.
I'm just curious.
How would people answer this question today?
I don't know.
It's a very good one to pose.
1-8 Prager 776. Curious how people would.
Got some calls, actually.
Look at that.
All right, let's see.
All right, let's go to Long Beach, California, and Bob.
Hello, Bob.
Hello, Dennis.
Hi.
I heard you talking about the people that are anti-smoking have a mantra like health uberalis.
But I think you're looking at it that the anti-smoking people are concerned with the health of the smoker, and that's not true in most cases.
We're concerned about the health of the people that are non-smokers, that are affected by the side stream smoke, etc.
The smokers who smoke in their vicinity.
If a smoker gets cancer, well, that's self-inflicted.
That's not our primary concern.
It's the unintended victims that we care about.
Right.
You're 100% right.
That is why I have said that the genius of the anti-smoking zealots, and they are their zealots, in my opinion, they knew they were getting very little traction with smoking kills.
So they made up the idea that 50,000 Americans a year die of secondhand smoke.
That was the first gigantic lie I noted from the medical profession.
And it's been downhill since.
Now I assume lies on any controversial subject, like closing schools and lockdowns and boosters.
So I asked the question of would you rather your child, I've asked this for 30 years, Would you rather your teenager smoke a cigarette or smoke a joint?
I just read to you about terrible effects of joint smoking, of pot smoking, pot legalization, and how many people are no longer casual users and the effects, including schizophrenia, on some.
So a gentleman called in to say the reason that people are opposed, or at least he is, to cigarette smoking is because of secondhand smoke.
People want to kill themselves.
That's their business, but they're killing others.
And as I noted at the time that they made that up, I knew that would be the winner.
That's what won it for the anti-smoking zealots.
That you're killing others.
And they made up a figure of 50,000 Americans a year dying of secondhand smoke.
That was the first lie of the medical community that I ever noted.
It bothered me tremendously.
It was so obviously a lie.
And it's just gone downhill since.
Now the medical community announces that you're not born male or female.
It's all, in fact, a cultural construct.
American Medical Association is opposed to listing the sex of a child.
I believe there is a direct line between the lie about secondhand smoke killing people.
I don't deny that secondhand smoke can exacerbate somebody's asthma or the like.
Or allergies, of course.
Killing?
How did I know it was a lie, by the way?
Well, there was one great epidemiologist at UCLA who wrote about what a lie it was, and he has suffered career-wise as a result.
But there was another way, since I'm a big believer in common sense, because so many people have lived with smokers and lived full lives in terms of years.
I mean, it's in the tens of millions.
If all these people were dropping dead in middle age from secondhand smoke, wouldn't we have sensed it?
So, I have an interesting story in light of this that just came to my attention.
I have told you often, Burbank is one of the...
Most left-wing cities in the United States.
People don't know it.
They know Santa Monica is, San Francisco is, LA is.
Burbank is disgusting.
It's a great place to visit.
But it's disgusting, the way it's run.
You can't even smoke in a cigar shop.
You can in LA. There are cigar lounges in LA. There are none in Burbank.
That is a tip-off.
To the suppression of liberty, for which Burbank is noted.
Well, sure enough, I just got a video.
This just happened.
The mayor of Burbank, Constantine Anthony, a true moron, a true moron, because he's a leftist, received a spanking from a drag queen in front of people, including children, at a Democrat campaign event.
Is that yesterday?
I guess so.
What is today?
September?
Yeah, so two days ago.
Yeah, that's great.
He's a hero, but he doesn't allow...
See, this is the beauty.
These sick leftists.
He won't allow you to smoke a cigar in a cigar store in Burbank, but he will get spanked by a drag queen in public, including children present.
Or at least 15 and up.
See?
This is the left, sick in every way.
They ban what shouldn't be banned, and they permit what shouldn't be permitted.
It's a real lark.
The mayor, the indignity of it.
But it doesn't matter.
Dignity is not a left-wing word.
Let's see more calls here.
What you folks have to say about this.
Wow, look at that.
Let's see.
Huh.
Well, we'll take a call on another subject for a moment.
Robert in Sarasota, Florida.
Hello.
Hey, Dennis.
Thanks for taking my call, man.
Hey, yesterday when Biden made a fool of our country on a world stage in Vietnam, I wasn't aware until I woke up this morning.
That he chose to schedule himself 3,400 miles away from ground zero.
And that makes me really sad.
And the response the left gave was what made me angry.
I try not to make things an abomination.
All right, hold on.
Yes, I'm totally with you on both scores.
I don't think you realize what you've done for me.
So I was talking to some folks on the phone here, and the caller in Sarasota is noting that the president went to Alaska when he should have been at some site regarding 9-11 today.
Had Donald Trump done something like that?
He would have been excoriated by the left-wing media.
Here is the other reference that Robert in Sarasota made.
The president is clearly mentally impaired.
Here's an example of an incoherent, weird comment that he made.
You want to play that one, Sean?
My brother loves having these famous lines in movies that he always quotes.
One of them is a movie about John Wayne, he's an Indian scout, and they're trying to get, I think it was a patch of wall, one of the great tribes of America, back on the reservation.
And he's standing with the Union studies that roll on their horses and their saddles.
Three or four Indians of headdressers and the Union soldiers.
The Union soldiers basically saying, the Indians, come with me, we'll take care of you, we have anything to be good.
And the Indian scout, the Indian looks at John Wayne and points to the Union soldiers and says, he's a lion, dog-faced pony soldier.
There was a lot of lion, dog-faced pony soldiers out there about global warming.
Not anymore.
All of a sudden, I don't realize it.
Alan tells me that there is no such a line in the movie.
I don't know, but he knows movies well.
He taught screenwriting at the American Film Institute before becoming producer of my show.
Lying dog-faced ponies.
On global warming.
So I'm curious, folks, if you had to bet your life, well, it's too dramatic, if you had to bet your house, who do you think is more likely lying?
Those who say that the world will be destroyed by global warming if we do not do radical things.
Like banning cars in favor of electric vehicles, or those who say that that is exaggerated, that it does not pose an existential threat and we are going too far in reducing energy independence and raising energy prices.
Who do you think is more likely to be telling the truth?
In retrospect, it should make it easier.
Who told the truth?
The scientists who were pro-lockdown or the scientists who were anti-lockdown?
The scientists who said close schools or the scientists who said don't?
Like Joseph Lodipo, the Surgeon General of Florida.
Who do you think is more likely to be telling the truth?
The incoherence of the President's statement is another remarkable thing.
So, Robert, did I flesh out your statement?
Yeah.
In a short way, yeah.
Thanks for having me back on.
The follow-up that his administration gave to the American people was, 22 years after Pearl Harbor, would it be a smack in the mouth if the U.S. president didn't visit that site?
Well, that would have been LBJ. We all know that.
But it bothers me that a federal department like that can tell the American people that I choose to be in Alaska the farthest away from ground zero.
And then their excuse...
Why was his scheduling?
And it's not quite absurd that we have to move on.
So the victims and the survivors of that horrible day, and that horrible day on December 7th as well, they were able, in a sentence, to just about kick the entire country's heart in.
And I just don't understand.
The reason for my call was to seriously ask you.
This is not a rhetorical question.
What's the end game here with this administration poking the American people's chest?
They're doing it to 50-somethings.
They're doing it to 60, 70-somethings.
We're on our way out.
I get it.
But is this a redesigning and an erasing of American history?
Because it certainly feels like, whether you're a Republican or a Democrat, it really feels like a very, very divisive administration that someone installed.
Yeah, well, that's exactly right.
Yes.
Divisive.
Didn't he speak about white supremacy or something analogous in his inaugural address?
Does he ever miss an opportunity to accuse whites of white supremacy?
Of crapping on the country?
The endgame?
They don't know their endgame.
The left has never understood its endgame.
They imagine an endgame.
That's the point.
What was the endgame of the French Revolution or the Russian Revolution, other than power for the left?
They don't have an endgame.
Because revolution gives them meaning, gives their lives meaning.
So there is always an opportunity to transform more.
We are five days away from fundamentally transforming America.
Their endgame is fundamental transformation of art and music, science, human beings.
That's it.
That is their endgame.
It is very hard to understand the left because normal thinking involves a clear endgame.
Their endgame is not the issue.
It is the road to transformation that gives them meaning.
That's what you need to understand.
Men give birth is the endgame.
Chaos.
We'll be back.
History is made when a leader steps up.
Stays true to his values and charts a fundamentally different course for the country.
Dennis Prager here.
Thanks for listening to the Daily Dennis Prager Podcast.
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