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Oct. 20, 2023 - Dennis Prager Show
01:14:20
Stopping the Donald
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Dennis Prager here.
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Hi, everybody.
Welcome to the Friday Show.
I hope you will have a good weekend.
That's a variation on the theme of I hope you had a good weekend.
I have been on many, many broadcasts, podcasts, TV shows since, well, I am in general, but especially since the invasion of Israel by Hamas.
Pretty predictable question.
Predictable is not a pejorative, by the way.
It's predictable that people will say, how are you?
It doesn't mean it's a bad thing.
But it's almost inevitable.
People will ask me, so do you think there's been this awakening on the part of liberals to the...
As for example, these liberals, very billionaire liberals who have said they will no longer give any money to universities because they realize the university has become a moral cesspool, a wasteland, a breeder of fools.
My general impression is some might, most won't.
It is so difficult for the liberal to make what is not an intellectual or moral realization as it is to change psychologically.
There is a fixed belief in the vast majority of liberals that their enemy is conservatism and the Republican Party.
They refuse, and that's what it amounts to, they refuse to acknowledge that their enemy is the left.
The enemy of liberalism is not conservatism, the enemy of liberalism is leftism.
This is an astonishing thing that the universities have either been neutral or have been prodded into some comment about Hamas and the number of professors and students who are pro-Hamas.
So they think, wow, that's really sad.
The university has failed morally and intellectually.
It's both equally.
But they don't put the proverbial two and two together.
So when people have been saying to students now for a number of years that a man can become a woman and that if you deny that that man is a woman, you are a hater and you are anti-science, that was okay.
When they have been teaching to young people that America, the most open society in world history, has actually flirted with fascism under Donald Trump and is a systemically racist society against blacks, and that having voter ID is a form of voter suppression, that was okay.
And when the University of Pennsylvania...
The English department took down the Shakespeare mural and did so and announced because he was a dead white European male.
In other words, his picture was not up because he's the greatest writer in the English language.
No, it was because he was a white European male.
So we have to take him down.
And so they had a non-white, non-European.
Female, lesbian, poet instead.
That was okay to these people!
So, I don't want to be an ingrate with regard to these people that have finally awakened that today's Nazis, there is no difference between Hamas and Nazism.
None whatsoever.
They both want to wipe out all Jews, one in Europe and one in Israel.
Name me one difference.
Even internally, the Nazis didn't allow opposition.
They tortured their own opponents, German opponents.
And Hamas tortures its own Arab opponents.
There is no difference.
This is in the name of Allah, and that was in the name of der Führer, the leader, Hitler.
So they go, wow, gee!
Now, again, I feel like I'm doing something I hate and that is being ungrateful.
This is a huge, huge difference and I am grateful for it.
But as I said, all of these years of sick teachings at the university, they have funded these universities they have funded these universities all these years with hundreds of millions or billions of dollars, and that
But now that they're pro-Nazi, hmm, well, better late than never, but we'll see, first of all, if it lasts.
People love their names up at university buildings.
Love it.
And people love to say, oh, I gave $50 million or $20 million or $1 million to Yale.
Oh, it feels so good.
It would have been better had you burned that money.
Much better.
Much, much better.
That's wasted.
This is destructive.
But, listen, maybe there will be a sea change.
Will it change any of their voting?
I doubt in 2% of the cases will their voting change.
Because they're voting for the party that breeds this stuff.
So, if you know somebody...
And it would be interesting to me, do you know anybody, is there anybody in your extended family, if you're a conservative, anybody in your extended family who has awakened to the moral damage done to the society by the left with regard to the Middle East?
Nazis versus a free country, and they root for the Nazis.
That's what it is.
They root for the Nazis.
Is there any other example of a free country fighting a tyranny and people around the world rooting for the tyranny?
I can't think of any.
It shows you how effective the demonization of Israel has become.
That this is widespread.
The media are saturated with this.
Do you know that yesterday the Los Angeles Times had an article, I'll quote from it later, in which it described the killing of Palestinians in Gaza as Israel slaughtered.
It wasn't, in quotes, slaughtered.
So, but the description of what Hamas did to Jews, they didn't use the word slaughtered.
So Israel is slaughtering Palestinians.
This is an LA Times, not an opinion piece.
News item.
Israel is slaughtering Palestinians, but not vice versa.
Well...
It's hard to imagine that any real change is taking place.
I am grateful for what there is.
I fully acknowledge that.
To see people cheering on Nazis.
From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.
That means destroy Israel.
From the river to the sea, one thing exists.
The state of Israel.
You want to understand the Middle East?
Go to PragerU.
It's free.
See our videos on the Middle East.
The black member of the South African parliament who lived under apartheid went to Israel to see if it really was an apartheid state.
He gives a presentation.
He presents a video.
Is Israel an apartheid state?
The head of British forces in Afghanistan presents a video saying Israel is the most moral army in the world.
At olaprageru.com.
1-8 Prager 776.
We continue.
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Here's a report I didn't get a chance to bring to your attention.
University of Chicago report, 30 million Americans believe violence is justified to keep Trump from the presidency.
Isn't that amazing that this has not been reported in the mainstream media?
A new report out.
This is from the University of Chicago.
Shows that millions more people favor using violence to keep Donald Trump from the presidency than those who would use it to put him back in the Oval Office.
Well, the Chicago Project on Security and Threats survey findings...
Some of which are available at The Guardian indicate that 18 million, or 6.9% of Americans, feel violence is justified to ensure Trump does become president again.
That's sad.
This represents an increase of approximately 6 million from last April.
Of this 18 million, 68% believe that the 2020 election was stolen from Trump, and 62% believe the prosecutions of Trump are intended to hurt his chances in 2024. I believe that.
Prosecutions make us a tin-pot dictatorship.
That's what the Democrats have been doing.
But I would not use violence to restore his presidency.
University of Chicago's Robert Pape, founding director of Seapost, said, The public is more radicalized than it was in April, and it's really quite significant.
We've been tracking this quite a while, and this is a really big bump.
The more radicalized public alone is not sufficient for actual violence.
He compared the situation to a kindling, which would mean something like Trump lighting the fire.
But what's shown only as part of the bar graph in The Guardian is the percentage of Americans, 11.6, who said violence would be okay to prevent Trump from again assuming the presidency.
This equates to 30 million people.
So let's go back to the earlier number.
6.18 million.
So almost double.
double 18 is 36 so 30 million Americans say that they would be okay with violence to prevent Donald Trump from becoming president what is amazing I'll tell you what among it's it's amazing because it's so terrible But it's amazing for another reason.
He was president.
So what civil liberties were lost in the United States as a result of his presidency?
If people actually cared about truth, and truth is not a left-wing value...
Then they would acknowledge that the suppression of liberty has been much greater under the Democratic president than the Republican president, under Joe Biden than under Donald Trump.
But truth doesn't matter.
30 million people.
While noting the left has never engaged in anything like the January 6th siege.
Really?
That's bizarre.
The sieges of the state capitals that they have engaged in.
There was nothing like it.
A half a year of massive rioting.
People killed.
Police cars burned.
Takeovers of public spheres.
Nothing like January 6th ever took place.
It's very painful.
what is it he's the founding director of this of this group at the counts the Chicago Project on Security and Threat I guess in order to be taken seriously he got on I guess you have to say that, or you won't get on Meet the Press.
More Americans view Donald Trump as a bigger threat to democracy than Joe Biden.
52 to 33. Wow.
Almost 90% of Trump supporters believe the federal government is run by a deep state of immoral people.
You can count me in that one.
I'm in that 90%.
And by the way, it has nothing to do with Trump.
Which, now that I'm thinking about it, I'd like to offer a heretical thought.
You can have Trump derangement syndrome on both sides.
The people who are preoccupied with hating him and the people who are preoccupied with loving him to the extent that they would not even want any other Republican candidate.
Donald Trump is not the issue.
The issue is the United States of America.
I don't know if I'll convince one person who disagrees with me about that.
Nevertheless, I am morally bound to say that.
I am against never Trump, and I am against only Trump.
I would vote for him.
I would campaign for him.
But my agenda is not Trump.
My agenda is defeating the left.
That would seem to me that anyone who loves liberty, that would be their overwhelming agenda.
All right.
Anyway, that was a...
That was a report that I thought I should bring to your attention.
Here is a completely different issue that I found fascinating.
And I will devote some hour to it.
This is not the hour, but I just thought I would report it to you.
New York Post.
And this is from a few months ago, but I had not seen it.
It's not a dated piece.
I'm a liberal.
It's hard to find masculine men to date who aren't conservative.
Apparently this is a TikTok video that went viral.
And it's a very, very telling thing.
I couldn't agree with her more.
The left is the feminization of the culture.
It goes from standards to nurturing, in a nutshell.
That's what feminization of the culture in part is about.
I remember years ago when they stopped scoring soccer games after a team was winning by too many points.
They did it in baseball as well.
That's the feminization of culture.
Men allow teams to win according to the number of runs or the amount of points they score.
That's a masculine trait.
You lost 52 to nothing?
Well, then maybe that's not the division you should be playing in, or maybe you should rethink the way you're coaching your team or having your players perform.
That's masculine.
Feminine is, it hurt their feelings, so we should have stopped scoring at 20. Back in a moment.
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So here is this TikTok video that this young woman made driving her car.
And this is her lament.
Go ahead.
Do you want to know one of the saddest realizations I recently had?
Was that as a liberal woman, it is really hard to find a man who is willing to play the more traditional masculine role in the relationship in today's day and age, who is not a conservative.
A man who wants to pay on the first date, who wants to open your door, who has that want and desire to take care of you and to provide.
Is that awesome?
How many views has that had?
I mean, the thing went viral.
Now, why does something go viral?
There are many different reasons.
Or not many.
There are different reasons.
One reason is it struck a chord.
Because it's just a fact.
The further left you go, the more effeminate the man.
That is a fact.
These are not courageous people.
It takes no courage to be a leftist.
To differ with the New York Times, Washington Post, that takes courage.
To simply parrot what the entire left says doesn't take any courage.
It doesn't take any courage in your workplace to say America is racist.
It takes a great deal of courage in your workplace to say America is not racist.
Well, courage is a masculine trait.
It doesn't mean that women can't have it.
There are probably as many courageous women in this society as there are courageous men.
But in the spectrum of willingness to fight, that is something that women find to be attractive in men.
Yes, she has a dilemma here.
Liberal men, is that...
The picture you have in mind when you think the word masculine?
Who is more likely to want to marry and take care of a family?
A conservative man or a liberal man or a left-wing man?
The further left you go, and it's true with women.
I would argue as well that femininity is not exactly a left-wing.
Feminine thinking is left-wing, but femininity is right-wing.
Yes, all of these things are related.
Well, a guy who wants to pay on the first date, he might have even voted for Trump.
Talk about a conundrum for a liberal woman.
This is part of what I opened up the hour with, the question, when will people put two and two together?
When will these people who realize that the universities are breeding grounds for Nazism in the form of Hamas, when will they awaken to the awful places the universities have become, period?
So like this, when will women who want a masculine man awaken to the fact that leftism breeds effeminate men?
That's the question.
That's how they think.
I'm not saying that they don't speak like women.
They have beards.
They have all the secondary characteristics of the male species or the male gender, male sex, whatever term you wish to use, not species.
But they don't radiate.
The traditional masculinity.
In fact, traditional masculinity is considered by the left to be toxic.
It's worth asking a leftist, what is the difference between traditional masculinity and toxic masculinity?
And they will say none.
Traditional masculinity is toxic.
The good guy fighting for his family, The guy who takes his family to church on Sunday.
The guy who is strong, who has a strong presence, who can differ with women.
I'll give you a perfect example of the effeminate nature of the left.
When I have said, which is a fact, that women play a disproportionate role in robbing children of innocence, because...
The great majority of elementary school teachers, the overwhelming majority of the younger grade teachers, the great majority of elementary school principals, and they are disproportionately involved in advocating that kids go to see Drag Queen Story Hours, for example.
The men who attack me for misogyny, these are weak men.
Because for them, you're allowed to attack men, but you're not allowed to attack women.
That is a weak man, because he doesn't want to be disliked by any women.
He fears them.
Masculine man doesn't fear women.
Doesn't fear men.
Fears, if you will, to give you a really traditional view, God.
That's a helpful thought.
Back in a moment.
So, I played for you this remarkable video of this young woman.
Gee, how come all these men that are masculine turn out to be conservative?
Yeah.
It would be an interesting question to pose to your daughter at college.
I don't think in college they'd realize it.
I think mid-20s they will start realizing this.
So I was telling you the difference between masculine and feminine in terms of a society.
So an article that I brought to your attention...
That the dropping of standards like Gavin Newsom, who to me radiates a feminine man, he has just signed a bill that in California a disruptive student may not be thrown out of class or suspended from school because it disproportionately affects,
let's see, what did they say, Hispanics, blacks, The disabled, I think there was one other group.
So that's feminine thinking.
Masculine thinking is if you disrupt the class, you get kicked out.
Whether you're black, you're white, or anything else.
That's it.
That's masculine thinking.
Masculine thinking is standards.
Feminine thinking is nurturing.
We need both in this world, but we have dropped The standards.
Standards is a right-wing term.
It is a conservative idea.
We won't have children in class disrupted.
And I read to you the piece.
They gave an example where there was a kid in class, a girl who kept humming.
And she claimed that she hummed in order to quiet her ADHD condition.
Now, I'm not laughing at her.
I'm laughing that that is acceptable as an excuse.
If I have athlete's foot and I take my shoes and socks off and start scratching my feet in class, I'm not laughing at your condition, but I don't think that should be acceptable.
The war on standards is part of the feminine part of society.
Even war on the standard that, well, there are men and there are women, and that is the end of the issue.
Oh, but you feel you're neither a man or a woman.
I have compassion for you.
That's feminine thinking.
We need both, as I say, but if you...
If you only have standards and no compassion, that's not a kind society.
But if you only have compassion and no standards, you will have the end of your society.
Here's a piece in the Washington Post.
DC teacher, Washington Post.
Important that you note that.
DC teacher reveals chaos unleashed by trying not to be too hard on kids.
This is the Washington Post, which is way left.
I thought at least 50% credit for no work was okay.
I was wrong.
Is that unbelievable?
You get a 50 if you do no work.
There's no such thing as below 50. A teacher I know is working at a D.C. public high school when the district installed a rule during the pandemic that no grade on any assignment could be lower than 50%.
Many schools around the country, including some in Washington area suburbs, have had such a rule for years.
I haven't seen much harm from it.
Giving a zero for an F, I think, is too devastating a blow.
See, that's feminine thinking.
The 50% rule gives students in trouble a chance to build back a decent grade point average.
So he admits that he supported a lie.
You didn't know 50% of the work.
We gave you a lie.
We lied to you about what you had achieved so that you feel good about yourself.
The whole self-esteem movement is a feminine movement.
How you feel over how you act is feminine.
That DC teacher told me I was missing something.
The 50% rule might not have hurt some schools, but the effect on his was disastrous.
Isn't that unbelievable?
Well, it really, it was a disaster in my school, but in other schools, lying to children about what they have achieved might be really good.
He saw this during the 2021-2022 school year when teachers and students returned to their building after pandemic measures were lifted.
It only took a few weeks before our students knew the score, he said, and it was an insult to their intelligence to believe that our bright, savvy kids wouldn't soon learn how to work the system.
Essentially, with the 50% grading rule, if our students completed one or two assignments, they would pass And they knew it.
Okay.
This is an example.
When we come back, I'll have some thoughts on President Biden's speech yesterday, telling Israel that, you know, you can't be guided by rage.
Yes, it's the most Jews killed in the day since the Holocaust, but don't get too angry.
I'm not knocking.
There were some really fine parts to the speech.
I want to make that clear.
But that's quite a remarkable thing to say to another country.
Yeah, well, the Nazis, they're out to murder every one of you, and they showed that that is the case, because among Palestinians, if you murdered an entire family of Jews deliberately, you are a hero.
And then there are all these mostly Muslims around the world who think they're heroes.
That's distressing.
However, for pathology, there's nothing quite like Jews for Palestine.
It's the happy, happy, happy, happy year.
Yes, it is.
Well, everybody, no matter what, as I promised you all those years, come hella high water, blood, lice, vermin, smiting of the firstborn, darkness, we still have the happiness hour.
Because that's the whole point.
If you're only happy in happy times, you don't need a happiness hour.
Good point, eh?
It's a happy, happy, happy, happy hour!
Since 1999, the second hour of my Friday show is devoted to happiness.
You know, I had a topic in mind and I just changed it.
Literally, as the theme came on, I changed my topic.
Because I want to talk to you about one of the things that actually is a reason that I can maintain A serious degree of happiness in very dark times, and these are very dark times.
They're dark in the United States, they're dark in the West, and the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust just took place.
If that doesn't bother you, it's not a good sign.
I mean, how often did I speak about the ISIS massacres of various groups that I'm not a member of?
People were bothered when people were beheaded.
Innocent people were just beheaded.
So it should bother you.
So how does one maintain happiness?
There are many, many answers to that.
Kindred spirits is the biggest one.
You need good people in your life.
I don't know how one does it without that.
But I have a different thought.
See, last night I was on a British podcast.
Midnight 30 my time in California, so it was 8.30 in the morning for my interviewer.
This subject arose, and this might be helpful to you, because you know my belief that you choose to be happy.
If Abraham Lincoln could choose to be happy, he was the one, you know, he wasn't the first to say it, it's been stated since Greek philosophy, but he, what is it, I reckon people are as happy as they decide to be.
I think that that's the way he put it.
So what can you do, what can you say to yourself that will enable you To be happy in these dark times.
So I'll tell you something that for me is very, very helpful.
I expect so little from humanity.
I have such a dark view of the human condition that it helps me stay happy.
Now, that sounds counterintuitive, I fully acknowledge.
But I have actually written and spoken about this.
I don't know if I devoted an hour on the happiness hour, but I want to explain that because it's really true.
I am rarely disappointed in people.
My view of human nature...
Is the rational and biblical one.
And since I believe the Bible is rational, I have my Bible commentaries called the Rational Bible.
There are three volumes out.
The fourth volume is coming out next year.
The rational view of human nature is, human nature is not basically good.
I've never said it's basically evil.
People who went to college are confused by subtle distinctions.
There's a difference between not basically good and basically evil.
I haven't said we're basically evil.
If we're basically evil, it would be almost impossible to explain the existence of good.
Why would basically evil people do good?
But we're not basically good.
Human nature is not.
Therefore, I am far more likely To be happy when I encounter goodness than I am to be unhappy when I encounter badness.
I wrote a book to take the example of the slaughter of Jews in Israel two weeks ago.
I wrote a book.
Among my books is one titled, Why the Jews, the Reason for Anti-Semitism.
It's in its third edition.
I wrote the first edition 40 years ago.
Is that correct?
Yeah.
No, more than 40. It's hard to believe.
So, I am amazed at goodness.
I am not amazed.
At extermination-oriented anti-Semitism.
That is what anti-Semitism has always been.
Exterminate the Jews.
Not enslave them.
Not persecute them.
Eradicate them.
It's unique.
Jew hatred is unique among the ubiquitous ethnic and national and religious hatreds of the world.
Wipe them out.
As the Passover service says, in every generation someone arises to annihilate us.
Not persecute us, not enslave us, but annihilate us.
So when I see anti-Semites, Jew-haters, wiping out Jewish families, it doesn't surprise me.
That's what anti-Semites do.
Always have.
The statement I just cited to you, I translated from the Hebrew in my mind, but it was probably stated originally at least 2,000 years ago.
This is not new.
When you think human beings are basically good, now forgetting the big macro horrors like what the The Nazis of Hamas did.
But in one's own life.
A big part of people's unhappiness is disappointment.
But if you expect little from most human beings...
Now, there are people in my life who could disappoint me.
There's no question.
And it would be painful.
But as a general rule...
I'm not disappointed because my expectations are so low.
We live in the age of naivete, and I'll tell you why so many Americans are naive.
It's because America has been a particularly decent country.
Most of its inhabitants have just been generally decent people.
Of course, there's the slavery...
Exception of this eruption of evil.
But that was universal.
Slavery was all over the world.
They weren't uniquely bad.
A point I make about America that is so important.
What was bad about America was universal.
What was good about America was unique.
And that, if you're mature, which excludes most college graduates and all leftists, doesn't exclude all liberals, but all leftists.
But if you are mature, then you realize that.
You don't judge America by the bad it shared with the rest of humanity.
You judge it by the good that it didn't share with the rest of humanity.
As Frederick Douglass...
One of the greatest leaders in American history and certainly one of the greatest black leaders grew up in slavery and became a giant in America.
As he noted in his autobiography, it was Britain and then America that eradicated slavery of the black man all over the world.
The people who, the racists claim that whites are all racists is belied by history.
Since whites abolish slavery, nobody else did.
They also partook in it.
My theme for today is this.
The more you expect from people, the less likely you are to be a happy person.
I celebrate the good.
People that I have in my life.
I am not shattered by the bad that I witness.
Because of my old friend not having expectations.
1-8 Prager 776 If you have a mind too!
So I decided to talk about, on this happiness hour, to talk about a big factor in what enables me not to get depressed when I see the terrible things that take place.
The most recent, the Nazi-like massacre of Jews in Israel, and of course the ongoing...
Decline of the United States to people who loathe it inside of our country.
And by the way, this applies in the micro just as much as in the macro.
I celebrate the good more than I get depressed by the bad because I know human nature.
I'm not sure.
So I'm not shocked by the bad.
I mean, there are certain things that are shocking, but the term is used non-literally.
I'm telling you, you can be better prepared for disappointment if you don't have high expectations of human beings.
That will help your happiness.
I have a chapter in my book on happiness, on not having expectations.
But there, I'm referring to I don't expect anything.
I'm grateful for everything that happens.
I think I'll be healthy tomorrow because I'm healthy today, so I rationally believe that.
But I don't expect to be.
There will be a day.
That I am healthy one day and then not the next.
So I don't have expectations.
I have reasons for thinking things will turn out right, but not ultimately.
So the same thing with human beings.
I don't expect to go through life without being hurt by anybody.
And you shouldn't either.
The nature of life is, after all, based on human nature.
Now, the trick is to try to bring into your most intimate circle of friends good people.
That's a big deal.
It's a very important part of happiness.
But otherwise, for example, I wonder how many people have never been financially cheated?
I'd love to know that.
I would like to see a survey on that.
How many Americans have been cheated financially by someone working for them or by someone that they have dealt with professionally or what have you?
I have to believe that the majority of people have been cheated out of money.
Hopefully not often.
And so I have, and I very rarely, but I have, and I sort of look at it this way.
Most everybody is going to have a car crash.
I don't know almost anyone.
Who didn't have one in the first two years of driving, for example.
And car insurance companies know that, which is why their rates are higher for young people.
They expect them to have a crash.
Going through life with that understanding of human nature, what happens is you end up a lot happier because you are then Rendered happy by all good things that happen to you rather than miserable by any of the bad things that happen to you.
I'm talking about from people.
That is the way of life.
And it has really served me well, again, to be much more frequently happy from pleasant surprises.
Then be unhappy from unpleasant surprises because they're not usually surprises.
1-8 Prager 776. And let's see.
Let's go to Calico Rock, Arkansas.
David, hello.
Hello.
Hello.
Good day, sir.
I agree with you 100%.
One thing I add to that, being that person that really, you know, I don't really trust, I'm like you, don't trust human nature that well.
It allows me to forgive people that have hurt me or defrauded me or done something.
It allows me to forgive those to a point where I've had people that I'm a friend with that I've kind of forgotten what they've done to me.
So, you know, I'm a lot happier person not carrying around burdens of what people have done to me in the past.
And that's very interesting, and I salute you.
So that emanates from your understanding of human nature, or does it emanate from some theology, or both?
Both.
Both, yes.
I'm a Christian, and we're fallen creatures.
We'll mess up more than we won't, given your kids will, my grandkids will.
So it gives you an opportunity.
If you can't forgive people, For their mistakes and for the things that they're going to fall down on, their sin in their lives, if you will, then we're in trouble.
Well, so I am curious.
Right.
So I am curious.
Do you forgive even if they don't say they're sorry?
100%, yes.
Yes.
That's fascinating.
I mean, I can only think of maybe one or two people in this world that I would feel that way about.
I mean, again, I'm not talking about...
I'm talking about evil people.
I agree.
I believe in evil, like, you know, the Nazi thing and all that.
But as far as, you know, I've got a good friend who lives right down the road from me.
And he will not speak to me right now over this COVID thing.
You know, and my prayer is that he's going to pull into my driveway one day.
He drives down on his bicycle.
I see him every day.
Well, you know what?
I join you in that prayer.
You're a good man, my friend.
I'll have some reactions when we return.
Happiness Hour, and the subject is how important the realization that human nature is deeply flawed is to happiness, not just to a moral understanding of the universe.
It's critical, because if you think people are basically good, you're somewhat of a foolish person.
You have decided to ignore all of human history to come to such a truly absurd realization.
Human nature is basically good, is just idiotic and dangerous, because then you blame society, you blame outside forces for all the bad they do.
But I'm not talking about that.
That I've talked about often, and I will again at some point.
I'm talking about happiness.
It's the happiness hour.
If you think people are basically good, you are far more likely to be constantly disappointed.
Whereas if you understand people are not basically good, you are far more likely to be constantly exhilarated.
Big difference, isn't it?
Wow, despite human nature, look at all these good people in my life.
As opposed to, oh, human nature is good, how did I get stuck with...
A, B, and C. Not good people or people who do a lot of bad.
That's important.
When I looked at what happened, the massacre of Jews in Israel, the worst day in Jewish history since the Holocaust, the burning alive of families, it's beyond belief.
But it isn't beyond belief to me.
As a student of Jewish history and one who wrote a book on anti-Semitism, this is what, unfortunately, they do.
There's no hatred like Jew hatred.
And it doesn't shock me.
I didn't expect better from Israel's enemies at any time in my lifetime.
They are the heirs to the Nazis.
They want to wipe out the Jews of Israel like the Nazis wanted to wipe out the Jews of Europe.
So my heart breaks for these people.
My heart breaks.
But I'm not stunned.
Surprise is a big factor in unhappiness.
If you're not surprised, you're...
You're more likely to handle it okay.
And it's true in the micro, in your own life.
If you're naive about human nature, you're going to have a lot more unhappiness than if you are rational about human nature.
1-8 Prager 776 is the number.
How does this strike you as a piece of advice?
Okay, let's see.
Sacramento, California, and Stephen, hello.
Hi, Dennis.
Hi.
Thank you for taking my call.
I love this topic because I used to always be angry.
I was angry all the time.
And it was because I expected people to do things.
And an example, one of the days I figured out what my problem was, I always expected people to hold doors open for me.
And if they didn't, I would get angry.
And a lot of times I would say things to them, and it was never pleasant.
And one day, somebody didn't hold doors open for me, and it occurred to me, I was angry because this person didn't act the way I thought people should act.
And then I started looking at all the other things that made me angry, and it was always because people didn't act the way I expected they should.
And so now I don't do that.
Here's how I look at doors and people holding doors for me.
If somebody doesn't hold a door for me, fine.
If they do, I appreciate it.
I don't expect it anymore.
I appreciate it.
And on my Facebook page, my saying is, expect less, appreciate more.
I find ways to appreciate virtually everything.
Like tap water, I appreciate.
I appreciate indoor plumbing.
I appreciate waking up every morning.
I find something to appreciate constantly.
I appreciate having dogs in my life.
Anything.
I mean, the light not being red when I'm in a hurry.
I appreciate things.
I count my blood.
When did you adopt this attitude?
Oh, God.
It was about 10 years ago.
And before that, I was just...
Right.
And what prompted you to adopt it?
Well, like I said, I was walking...
Where I was working, we had like a field trip to another office, a state office.
Oh, all right.
So it was a personal issue.
I was just curious.
If you'd read something, well, you're a happier man.
1023 Cape May, New Jersey, WNJD-FM. Welcome.
It's time to change some lives in Cape Main, New Jersey.
You agree, Sean?
Far overdue.
That is exactly right.
Hi, everybody.
This is whatever's on your mind hour.
So I will straight away go to your calls.
Dominic in Pittsburgh, hello.
Hello, Dennis.
Hi.
First, this is the first time I've called you or any show.
Thank you.
I am honored to be your first.
I'm honored to be speaking to you.
Excellent.
Anyway, my story is, you once told a so-what moment when your Jewish rabbi...
Right.
It reacted to my saying I wasn't in the mood to join the prayer session.
And he said, so what?
Dennis Craig is not in the mood, so what?
It changed my life.
And my moment is when I was maybe 14 or so, I was out in the yard with my dad and he told me to mow the lawn and trim the hedges.
Well, I did and I did what I thought was a fabulous job.
He was precise and did everything nice and neat and trimmed and everything.
and went and told him all that.
And he said, oh, don't expect me to kiss your butt for doing what you're supposed to do.
Did he say butt or a more provocative word?
He used another word.
How old were you?
I said I'm maybe about 14, somewhere in there.
I got the message right away, like you got your...
Yes, well, that's superb.
The coddling of children over the last two generations is a major reason for the breakdown of America that we are witnessing.
The children were taught...
To be selfish, taught to be immature, taught to be spoiled, taught to be ingrates.
I mean, everything wrong.
And the better educated the parent, generally speaking, the stupider their parenting.
Among the many, many arenas that colleges have done horrible damage to this country.
Horrible.
Fools making fools.
That's what the university generally is.
There are exceptions.
Of course, there are some teachers who aren't fools.
Some college teachers.
But especially outside of the area of the sciences, it's pretty rare.
And that's what, since World War II, this is really old.
You are the center of the universe, my child.
I will make sure that you have no pain.
A painless childhood is bad news, my friends.
Really bad news.
Because then they expect life to be painless.
And they will act out when there's pain.
They will not blame the human condition.
They will blame the country.
They will never blame themselves.
Yeah, that's funny.
I have another religious example to the lawn mowing example that we just heard from Dominic in Pittsburgh.
On my bar mitzvah, so I was 13, Dominic was 14, I was 13, and I did a perfect, literally perfect job in something quite challenging, chanting from the Torah text, the portion of the Torah, the first five books of Moses, that corresponded to my birthday.
As luck would have it, I had the longest I had to memorize every word because the vowels are not present and there's no punctuation.
I had to memorize the musical sign for those words to chant it properly.
And when it was all done, 248 verses.
My father looked at me and said, good job.
That was it.
And I can't say I was crushed. ...
Yeah, that was a good one, Dominic.
I appreciate it.
Let's go on here.
Minneapolis, Daniel, hello.
Hey, how's it going, Dennis?
Well, thank you.
All right, awesome.
I've got just a quick question over here.
I'm Jewish, so I have a lot of non-Jewish friends, and they're always asking me, what do the Jews believe is going to happen to the non-Jews in the afterlife?
I know the answer, but what do you answer?
Or do you say you're not sure?
I mean, that's fine.
I'm just curious.
I want to know your opinion.
No, no, it's not.
In this case, I have to be really blunt.
It is not my opinion.
This is one of the rare cases I could say this is the Jewish position.
This is not my opinion.
If you ask me what is the Jewish position on capital punishment, I will say some say you don't, some say you do.
There are a lot of different opinions not on this.
All good people go to heaven.
That is the Jewish position.
God judges people by their behavior, not by their beliefs.
You can believe in idols.
And if you're a good person, you go to heaven.
I know.
And the Torah came to do war on idol worship.
And the prophets want us to spread the idea of the one God existing.
But non-Jews are judged by their behavior.
So are Jews.
But there are more behaviors, in the case of the Jew, that are demanded.
That's a separate issue.
Okay, so I hope that that's clear.
And I'll ask you if it's clear.
Is that clear, Daniel?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, that's clear.
Okay, that was it.
We love clarity on this program.
Okay, Denver, Colorado, and Michael.
Hello, Michael.
Dennis, thank you for taking my call.
I am also a first-time caller and a millennial, and I really appreciate what you do, first of all.
So thank you so much.
Absolutely.
And then I wanted to talk with you about this story that just came out about activist Greta Thunberg.
She announced Friday that she has shifted her attention away from the world's weather to focus on Israel's fate as it fights Hamas and its associated terrorist organizations.
She took to social media to call for a strike in solidarity with Palestine and Gaza.
She said the world needs to speak up and call for an immediate ceasefire, justice and freedom for Palestinians and all civilians affected.
And, you know, I get why she's doing this, because there's going to be a ground invasion.
And when there's a ground invasion, those hostages...
I think she sincerely believes that Israel is the villain.
That's what I... She doesn't think clearly on climate.
Why should she think clearly on the Middle East?
Generally, people think clearly in a fairly consistent pattern.
They don't tend to fluctuate.
Confusion here, clarity there.
So I just announced that I have a new station in Cape May, New Jersey.
So I looked up Cape May.
Cape May is at the very, very, very, very southern tip of New Jersey, across from Delaware, and it is so far south, it is south of Baltimore.
Who thinks of New Jersey as stretching to south of Baltimore?
The only person I know, other than people who live in New Jersey who know that, is Sean.
Who is a living map.
You can ask Sean, what is the distance between Bismarck, North Dakota and Little Rock, Arkansas?
And within four miles, he will tell you.
Yeah, that's right.
If you're traveling with him within four miles, he will give you an answer.
May not be correct.
But he will give you the answer.
Okay.
All right.
Let's see here.
It is time to take more of your calls.
That's what the hour is about.
What is on your mind hour?
Let's see.
Indianapolis.
David.
Hello, David.
Hi, Dennis.
I'm a huge fan.
Huge honor to speak with you.
Thank you for taking my call.
If you had a college-age child in a year abroad program in Israel right now, what would you do?
Would you bring him or her home, and what advice would you give to a parent who might be in the situation?
I won't give advice to a parent because it's too sensitive, and I don't want to be in that position.
I tell you what I would do, and I would say, what do you want to do?
I am not asking you to come home, and I'm not asking you to stay.
You're a big guy now.
It's your call.
But I would in no way tell them to come home.
When I was...
I'll give you an analogy, which actually occurred in my life.
I was 20 years old.
I was studying in England.
And the Israeli government...
At that time, was sending in young Jews to the Soviet Union to smuggle in Jewish items and to smuggle out names of Jews who wanted to leave.
And my name got to the authorities in the Israeli government.
It's not important.
Just friends that I knew there mentioned me.
And knowing Russian and Hebrew, I was the perfect candidate.
So they said, we'd like you to go for a month in September.
Instead of going home back to America from England, I would go to the Soviet Union for a month.
So in those days, you were rarely called internationally, but obviously this was important.
I called my father, and I told him, and he said, listen, I fought in World War II. This is your fight.
Good luck.
Basically something like that.
Nothing like, it's dangerous, don't go.
And I wouldn't say to my own child in this case, it's dangerous, come home.
The purpose of life is not to avoid danger.
The purpose of life is to lead a full life and do as much good as you can.
Now, I don't believe in taking foolish risks, but I... I also don't believe that you run for the exit when you're in an embattled place.
So did I answer you?
You did.
Thank you very much.
Thank you very much.
Hmm.
That was an important call.
Yeah.
The message that has been given over to most American young people is be safe.
Yeah, that's the message.
Be safe.
Not be good.
Not be courageous.
Be safe.
And then we wonder why there are safe spaces on college campuses.
Because our poor kid might have heard an idea that he or she differs with.
You know what happens in these safe spaces?
This is the truth.
You could look it up.
They're given hot chocolate and Play-Doh and watch videos of kittens frolicking all because a conservative came to campus and it might trouble their sensitive brain.
Be safe is not the message.
Certainly not the overriding message.
When people say to me, and I don't blame them for saying it because it's just a matter of speech at this point, but where they will say, you know, before I go on the trip, you know, so I wish, you know, I wish you a safe flight, and I always say, I'll tell the pilot, since I don't have anything to do.
I have no say over that.
Okay, let's see.
Steve in Santa Clarita, California.
Hello.
Well, hi, Dennis.
I'm sorry I don't get to go to Israel with you.
Well, we're hopefully going in the spring.
Well, good.
The travel agency has been great in communicating with us.
But I was listening to your opening monologue about people giving donations to see their names on buildings and such.
I'm disturbed by the small liberal arts college that I went to back in Michigan, and they recently accepted a $30 million anonymous donation.
And I would like to know who gave $30 million to the college.
I'd much prefer to see somebody's name on the building to know who gave the money than to have an anonymous.
Well, you know, that is a fascinating subject.
Thank you.
I would like to know why they want to be anonymous if they gave a small liberal arts college $30 million.
I will give them the benefit of the doubt.
They don't want credit for the good they've done.
But I remember some religious figure made a very interesting point about that when somebody asked him, About that, should I give this major charitable contribution anonymously or with my name?
And said, definitely with your name, because you want to be a model to others of good that you've done.
But I don't think that they did good by giving the college any money.
Dennis Prager here.
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