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Oct. 27, 2023 - Dennis Prager Show
01:18:01
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Dennis Prager here.
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Hi there, everybody.
Welcome to the Dennis Prager Show.
It's already Friday, and such is the passage of life, Monday to Friday.
The speed.
My friends, it is endless.
Just endless.
There was some piece in the free press, some powerful piece, which you should all be aware of.
Why my generation hates Jews.
My peers have been indoctrinated.
She's a 21-year-old, I think, at Stanford.
You're familiar with this piece?
No.
Julia Steinberg.
We have to have her on.
I heard great things about her, and her article is demonstrative of that fact.
My peers have been indoctrinated to believe that Jews are oppressors, so even our mass slaughter is seen as justifiable revenge.
I'm 21 years old and Jewish.
Apparently, 48% of my peers want people like me dead.
As of October 23rd, 64% of 18 to 24-year-olds think what happened on October 7th was a terrorist attack.
77% of us think, quote, it's true that Hamas terrorists killed 1,200 Israeli civilians by shooting them, raping and beheading people, including whole families, kids and babies.
But when asked, in this conflict, do you side more with Israel or Hamas? 48% said Hamas.
48% of America's 18-24 year olds.
The left has done a good job.
The left has been effective in shattering the ability to think morally in a generation of young Americans.
Side with Hamas?
Half?
It is a poll.
It is one I am familiar with.
Let's see who put this out.
It's a Harvard-Caps-Harris poll, Center for American Political Studies.
The Harris poll.
Wow.
Half of America's 18- to 24-year-olds side with Hamas?
Do you believe that?
No.
You don't believe it?
What do you believe?
I don't think they side with Hamas.
They may be neutral.
They're both plague on both their houses.
Well, even that, that's virtually as bad.
No, it's not.
Well, it is in the sense...
Siding with Hamas?
Yeah, you're right.
Siding with Hamas.
Okay.
Well, I don't know the answer to that question.
Does one believe a poll?
The polls have been notoriously inactive.
All right, well, we have to find how the question was praised.
They have a lot of questions here.
About optimism about their own life.
Biden's approval rating remains just above 40%, as it has been for the last year, which proves there is no damage he can do to the country, which would hurt that.
GOP approval remains at about 50%.
Democratic Party approval, let's see, also underwater.
Overall congressional approval ticked down to 30%.
Here's an interesting part of this poll.
Then I'll get to the Middle East.
RFK Jr., Netanyahu, Haley, and Musk have highest net favorability.
Isn't that fascinating?
Donald Trump is the most favorable, but also one of the most unfavorable.
Hillary Clinton is higher in the unfavorable.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., favorable 49%, unfavorable 30%.
Joe Biden.
Favorable, 45%.
Unfavorable, 49%.
Kamala Harris, favorable, 44%.
Unfavorable, 47%.
And so on.
I'm only mentioning these things to give credibility to this poll.
It doesn't seem to be Republican or Democrat in its orientation.
Most voters view Israel favorably just behind the U.S. military and police.
See?
That's a good thing to read.
That's right.
U.S. military is number one, 80%.
Police, 67% to 22%.
Isn't that something?
And then Israel, 59-21.
But that includes all voters, including those above 25. Anyway, I'm going to continue with her piece.
I am not surprised.
In high school, my homeroom had an exercise where we made a T-chart dividing various ethnicities, religions, and other identities into the categories of oppressor and oppressed.
Isn't that fascinating?
The indoctrination?
By the way, all the anti-PragerU columns nearly all cite me as having said, yes, we bring doctrines to children, but tell me what doctrines are wrong.
So in that sense, we indoctrinate.
There is no education that doesn't indoctrinate.
If teaching kids that they should treat their fellow human being decently, isn't that indoctrination?
So isn't the issue in life...
It's like saying Dennis Prager is pro-killing.
Yes, I am.
When you're killing a violent intruder in your home who is about to murder or attempt to murder a member of your household, killing would be right.
Killing is right in a just war.
So saying Dennis Prager is for killing is dishonest.
You have to tell what doctrines, in the case of my pro-indoctrination comment, I'm for.
Women, oppressed.
Straight people, oppressor.
Black people, oppressed.
This was on the...
This was on...
You know what a T-chart is?
Okay.
Then we reached the Jew category, and we paused.
This being a high school in Los Angeles, many of my classmates were Jewish.
I recall we skipped it altogether, but the T-chart stayed on the whiteboard.
If there were fewer Jews in that room, I'm confident that Jews would have gone squarely in the oppressor column.
Social justice theory became part of everything.
My senior English class was not about great literature.
But about readings in critical theory, mostly about race and gender.
Isn't that astonishing?
I mean, I take that back.
It's not astonishing at all.
Isn't it depressing?
She didn't learn about great literature.
I had a non-academic weekly homeroom class in which we learned that every white person is racist and all men are evil.
It took me a long time to shake off a hatred of men.
It wasn't socially acceptable to disagree, and no one really tried.
My high school got a dean of gender studies and feminism.
You hear that?
How much of the education money now goes to such positions?
Deans of gender theory, gender studies and feminism.
At the time, one of her roles, that's fascinating, it was a woman, shocking, to help seniors write their college applications.
In answer to the question, what is the most significant challenge society faces today?
I wrote, it was identity politics.
She gave me a note saying that meant I was rejecting the advances of the civil rights movement.
I changed it.
Did you get that?
Did you get that, folks?
She's against identity politics, and therefore she is opposed to the advances of the civil rights movement.
So they're taught, at least in her high school, I assume in vast numbers of them, in a vast number of them, that the civil rights movement was about affirming racial identity.
I understood the civil rights movement as saying your racial identity shouldn't matter.
Your character identity, your individual identity, that's what mattered.
Well, if Hamas are liberators, then racial identity is a healthy thing.
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In fact, it's on my list of the ten books that most influenced me.
And it's just been re-released, George Gilder's Men and Marriage.
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We need to bring dads back, or else get your copy of George Gilder's classic book, Men and Marriage, today at dadsareback.com.
Civilization is built by men with families to feed.
Yep.
Without the dads, we're toast.
Get George Gilder's book at dadsareback.com.
So the New York Times is actually in a frenzy.
Is that a fair statement, Mr. Producer?
About the new speaker.
And everything about him bothers them.
It's quite remarkable.
Trumpism is running the house.
What does Trumpism mean?
Isn't that interesting?
What does Trumpism mean?
I understand opposition that people have.
People don't like Donald Trump.
What is Trumpism?
Is it a doctrine?
What does it mean?
It means that we at the New York Times editorial board want to really worry our readers.
That's what it means.
So we will use an emotional term that has no meaning.
Is there Hillaryism?
I can't stand Hillary Clinton, but I never heard the term Clintonism or Hillaryism or Rodimism.
The three-week battle to choose a House Speaker may be over, yet the fallout for the United States and its reputation as a sound government and a beacon of democracy will be long-lasting and profound.
Wow.
I see.
Because under left-wing domination, the reputation of the United States as sound government and a beacon of democracy has really been intact.
It is the lowest percentage of Americans who trust their government in the history of polling of Americans' trust of government.
I have none.
Zero.
I think Merrick Garland is a crook.
Not financially, but morally.
I think he is a third-world tin-pot dictator-type human being who uses government power to suppress people who differ with him.
Okay?
I've never said that about any attorney general.
I've never said that about any government.
I have no trust in the American Medical Association.
I have no trust in essentially the entire medical profession.
Not every doctor.
There are many great doctors.
That's a given.
All of this was done by the left and the New York Times, which has been in the vanguard of destroying our institutions.
In the way that I just described, have they taken issue with the American Medical Association announcing that the birth certificate of a child should not list its sex because it doesn't have one?
American Medical Association?
And they chose you the utter lack of self-awareness of the left.
Oh!
Oh, I see.
It's the new House Speaker.
That will damage the reputation of America as having a sound government and being a beacon of democracy.
The Republicans in the House unanimously voted for a man who made it his mission to try to overturn the 2020 presidential election.
Who put the political whims and needs of Donald Trump ahead of the interests and will of the American people, a party that once cared deeply about America as the leader of the free world, and believed in the strength, dependability, and bipartisan consensus that such a rule required.
What are they talking about?
They're talking about the Republicans.
Really?
There was a bipartisan consensus?
Didn't the United States lie to the South Vietnamese government about helping them if North Vietnam should invade and allowed them to be taken over and slaughtered by the Communists?
Wasn't that all done by the Democrats?
Bipartisan consensus on foreign affairs?
Really?
Has largely given way to a party now devoted to an extremism that is an active threat to liberal values and American stability.
Wow.
Had this been written by the Wall Street Journal, I would have assumed it was a description of the Democratic Party.
An active threat to liberal values.
Hmm.
The New York Times is not an active threat to liberal values.
When the Columbia Journalism Review, the most prestigious journalism review in the country, called them and the Washington Post liars for years of lying about Russian collusion with the Trump campaign, liberal values, the New York Times has contempt for liberal values.
It believes in having people, political prisoners, which we have for the first time in American history.
That's why those of you who want a United States of America with the emphasis on the word united, oh, the line, and I hear it from really well-intentioned people, Americans have more in common than they have that divides them.
What planet are you living on when you say that?
Tell me one thing that, really one thing, left and right have in common.
I'll wait.
That would be an interesting exercise.
If you think that Americans have more in common than they have that separates them, tell me what left and right, not liberals and right.
Liberals and right have everything in common, but liberals vote for the left.
Liberals are the reason for the disaster in our country, because they don't vote their values.
The left votes their values, the right votes their values, and liberals do not vote their values.
But tell me what left and right have in common.
I very rarely cite the issue because it's so filled with emotion that people don't hear you when the word is said but abortion.
Tell me what left and right have in common on abortion.
Tell me.
One believes that the human fetus is a pimple, and one believes it is a human.
If I have exaggerated, I should be fired from my job.
If I have not exaggerated, you know the left better.
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I'm Dennis Prager.
Reading to you the New York Times hatred of MAGA Republicans.
Do you know you and I are living through the rewriting of history at such a speed?
Do you know that America was doing great under Donald Trump?
You are a liar to yourself if you deny that.
I don't care if you hate the man.
The man doesn't interest me.
He hasn't interest me for a day.
I'm interested in America.
If a man I don't like, and I'm not saying I don't like him, I don't have particularly strong feelings in either direction.
But I do like America.
The country was prosperous.
The employment rate was great.
We were starting working on the border.
Peace was coming at incredible speed.
At the speed of light compared to the Middle East.
You had the courage to move the American embassy.
You're being warned that it would blow up the Arab world.
Nothing happened.
Moving the American Embassy.
I think it was the only country on earth that the American Embassy was not located in the capital of that country.
That's where all our embassies are.
We have consulates in various cities.
We have embassies and capitals.
Only Israel, because the State Department is so pro-Arab.
That's the reason.
The State Department warned Donald Trump.
The State Department, like every other department, is part of the deep state.
There are individually wonderful people, like in every other cabinet position.
That's a separate issue.
The country was doing great.
I don't believe that Putin would have invaded Ukraine had Trump been president.
I'm not sure that Hamas would have engaged in what it did.
Because people, the bad guys of the earth, were scared of Donald Trump.
I want them to be scared of Donald Trump.
The only people scared of Joe Biden are conservative Americans.
Do you realize that?
The only people on earth whom Joe Biden frightens are half of the American people.
He scares me.
And I rarely get scared.
Isn't that something?
When half your country fears you and the world doesn't, it's a bad, bad sign.
The New York Times doesn't give a damn about how America thrived under Donald Trump.
They just hated Donald Trump because he hated them.
Yeah.
You have contempt for the New York Times.
You are a lowlife.
That's the way it works.
By the way, this girl who wrote this column, which was overwrought in one of its comments, but she has largely hit the truth.
I finally found it on the Harvard-Harris poll.
Just conducted.
Ready?
Do you think the Hamas killing of 1,200 Israeli civilians in Israel, it says on Israel, so I hesitated.
It's a typo they have.
Can be justified by the grievances of Palestinians?
Or is it not justified?
Okay?
The rape, torture, burning alive, killing of children.
Right.
To the tune of population equivalent of about 50,000 Americans in one day.
Do you think it's justified by the grievances of Palestinians?
People 65 over, 9%.
1 out of 10 Americans 65 or over thinks it's justified.
54, age 54 to 64. A mere 11%.
18 to 24, 51%.
That is the effect of the left.
And the number of American Jews who find the left to have been congenial to their values.
Well, my fellow American Jews were living in a make-believe world.
You know how many people live in a make-believe world?
Vast numbers.
I don't know why reality is such a hard thing to acknowledge.
Tom Sowell wrote about that.
What was the word for vision?
Anointed vision?
No.
What was his word?
Vision of the anointed.
We'll be back.
Well, Well, the rewriting of the history was my point about things were so much better when Donald Trump was president.
Ask.
Really, it is worth asking.
But it's fraught with attention if you have relatives who think this way, that Donald Trump is the embodiment of terrible things.
But even if they believe that, was America, for the four years of his presidency, Better in every single way?
And the answer is yes.
I really, really do wish somebody would compile a list.
Someone on the left.
Here is how America was worse when Donald Trump was president.
Go to employment.
Go to...
The general economic condition of the country.
Foreign affairs.
Wars.
The border.
You might draw a line at COVID. I might draw a line at COVID? One might?
Okay.
He bought into the belief.
That the vaccine was a magic bullet.
Correct.
Remember his first comments were, we'll live through this, this is not a big deal.
He was totally mocked.
And he believed, as most Americans did, that Anthony Fauci was an honest man.
That he did not have corrupting ties to big pharma.
I'm not saying...
It's not true I am saying.
I am somewhat defending his awful enthusiasm for the vaccine.
Because had he not, the eruption in the country would have been severe.
You have a killer president.
Your president is killing you.
We have a vaccine to cure you, and he is not taking it or not advocating it.
He could not have survived that.
What am I going to say?
Can you imagine him saying, you know, anyway, why would he even have a basis?
Although I did.
You did.
Look, I'm with you.
It was wrong, and yet the climate of hysteria over COVID, you're all going to die.
Your loved ones will die.
We are in New York City.
We don't have any more room for the dead.
Remember that?
And the closing down of everything.
None of which should have been closed.
Not restaurants.
Not schools.
And by the way, folks, that's what I wrote.
In April, one month after the lockdowns, I said the lockdowns were the greatest mistake in world history.
Not lockdowns in America.
The international lockdowns.
It was the greatest international mistake.
The shattering of...
The economy.
Economy is very important morally.
Because when you have a broken economy, bad people take over a country in many, many instances.
It was always, by the way, it was always a source of pride in me that America's depression did not produce a fascist or communist victory at the polls.
It was a different America, though, at that time.
Fewer Americans committed suicide proportionately during the Depression than today.
Hey, why don't you look up the suicide rate under Donald Trump versus the suicide rate under Joe Biden?
Is that an unfair statistic to look into?
Can you name me any criterion by which America is better today?
Other than the fact that you hate Donald Trump and he's not president?
I don't hate him and I don't love him.
I want America to thrive.
That's it.
Very strange criterion on my part.
The rewriting of history was my subject.
Okay.
How many people know how good things were?
You lived through it.
This is what is amazing.
It's one thing if history is rewritten that people didn't live through or lived through decades ago.
But it's quite another to rewrite immediate history.
MAGA has been made.
Synonymous with fascist.
People say that Trump is a threat to democracy.
They said it before January 6th.
Don't give me the January 6th excuse.
And yet, while he was president, there were so many fewer threats to democracy than under Joe Biden.
Well, that's right.
That's a very good example.
Government working with social media.
I heard Mayorkas.
I was listening today.
Mayorkas quizzed in a House hearing with a great question.
I think it's by the then-Congressman and now Speaker.
Sir!
You say that you are against misinformation.
Who determines what is true?
Wouldn't answer.
Just kept saying, oh no, we're just working against adversaries who plant misinformation.
Sir, who determines what is misinformation and what isn't?
Isn't that like the $64,000 question?
And the only one that matters?
Ministry of Truth will return.
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Hi, everybody.
We have a banner at DennisPrager.com, my website.
To help Israel.
I have very few, but I have a few relatives in Israel.
And I've never heard them speak as distraught as now.
People are really hurting.
So if you'd like to help out, there's a banner at DennisPrager.com, the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews.
Thank you kindly.
Okay, let's see what you folks have to say.
Bob in Chatsworth, California.
Hello.
Hey, Dennis.
I've got a couple statements.
So who do I vote for for president now that Larry Elder dropped out?
Because he's a disciple of yours, and he's probably the most clear-headed thinker.
Who's running for president.
It's not what's here as your topic.
You have to talk on your topic, but I'll answer it.
What the Republican National Committee did to Larry Elder is a crime.
Okay, go on.
Okay, so when I first called at the beginning of the hour, you had a topic on the polls, and then you went on and discussed about 17 other things.
That's the problem.
I think the polls are skewed because...
What did he say?
That the adult brain isn't developed until you're about 25. These polls go from 18 to 24. And there's an old adage, if you're not a liberal by the time you're 20, you have no heart.
If you're not a conservative by the time you're 30, you have no brain.
Well, except if you'd have asked 19 to 24-year-olds 50 years ago about Hamas and Israel, Or something analogous at that time, you would have had a very different vote.
It's not because of the adolescent brain that they think that Hamas was justified to the extent that they do think it.
It is because they have been taught that all of their life by their left-wing teachers.
Israel is the oppressor and the Palestinians are the oppressed, like this girl at Stanford wrote.
Now, the young brain is particularly malleable, and so that's why the left is so frightened of having PragerU in schools.
They know that a five-minute video from PragerU can undo years of lying to them.
The truth is more powerful than lies.
That's why the truth must be suppressed.
That's why all you need to know...
One of the most important questions posed to me at my fireside chat, my weekly one of which there are over 300 up, 300 weeks.
And the question from a young listener somewhere in the world, how do I know who's telling the truth?
And I said, the one that suppresses dissent is lying.
I'm Dennis Prager, Happiness Hour coming up.
It's the happy, happy, happy, happy happy, happy hour.
Yes, it is.
Ladies and gentlemen, since 1999, the Happiness Hour, I've never missed a Friday that I've been on, which is nearly every Friday of the year.
To talk about happiness.
Because the happy make the world better.
And the unhappy unhappy.
And the unhappy unhappy make it worse.
These are the original lyrics.
You know what?
When I cause my engineer to shake his head, given all the years that he has endured the absurdities that I come out with, it's a great moment for me.
It's a victory.
Hi everybody, Dennis Prager of the Happiness Hour.
Got a good one for you today.
They're all good.
But this is good in the sense that a lot of the happiness topics are about unhappiness.
The happiness hour should affect your happiness, but I acknowledge that often they're difficult subjects.
So this one comes from my grandson.
And I want to share with you a very interesting development.
Not at all odd, just interesting.
A few weeks ago, let's see, what is this?
About a month ago was his Bar Mitzvah.
And, of course, my wife and I flew to Florida to be with my son and my son's son.
It was a wonderful, wonderful weekend.
So, when I spoke to my son on Sunday, following the Bar Mitzvah of Saturday, because that's the Sabbath, he said to me, my son did, I asked him, so how's Daniel?
Affectionately known as DP3. How's Daniel?
He said, well, he's down.
Because it was such a high.
The bar mitzvah for him.
And now, all of a sudden, it's over.
And I thought, this is a perfect subject for a happiness hour.
You have to understand how a talk show host's brain works.
I'm laughing at me, but I'm laughing because it is so true, and I suspect it is true for most talk show hosts.
Our mind works in the following manner.
Wow.
Is that or is that not a good topic for a show?
Do you have that?
You're the producer.
It's eerie.
It's just eerie.
You have no idea.
Because if this is not what you do for a living, it's not how your brain thinks.
I can't think of an analogy.
To another profession.
But this is truly...
Maybe comedians.
I'll bet comedians work that way.
Oh my god, that is a great routine that I can get into.
So the moment I heard this, I thought, oh, this is perfect for the happiness hour.
And in fact, I would say...
It's averaging twice a month that we have a Zoom session.
As I said, they live in Florida.
And I have a Zoom session with my grandson, which I enjoy immensely, as you would imagine.
And we study Bible and we just talk.
Sometimes we just talk, sometimes it's more just some chapters in the Bible or chapter.
And it's a wonderful bonding experience, and in many, many ways it's just good.
So I decided that I would devote the entire hour, it's generally an hour, of our Zoom call after that, the week later, saying, you know, your dad told me you were down after the high of your bar mitzvah.
And he acknowledged that that was the case.
And he added something.
I don't even think I've shared this with you.
What, did I tell you what he added?
No.
He added, yeah, well, not just that Poppy, that's my name to my grandchildren, Poppy, not just that Poppy, but I feel like it didn't even happen.
Isn't that interesting?
He is truly echoing the sentiments of The vast majority of human beings, when there's this gigantic build-up to something big, and then it's over.
I mean, really over.
Because the build-up is exciting, let alone the event.
So I told him that this is the way life works.
And I knew this at a very young age.
And that's when I developed the idea that I don't want to get too high because I don't like lows.
So I have, in effect, opted.
This I have mentioned on the Happiness Hour.
Not in a long time, but I know I have.
I have opted for a...
A consistent 7.5 on the happiness scale of 1 to 10 as a deal.
I've made a deal with life.
You keep your highs and you keep your lows.
I don't want fives and I'm okay with no tens.
I don't like being on an emotional rollercoaster.
And it has really, really worked out for me.
Now, does it work out for everybody?
I can't answer that.
I think, though, that if you are not a fan of fives or fours, then don't pursue tens.
Now, you'll say, well, they happen whether you pursue them or not.
It's an interesting challenge.
Look.
I'm glad his bar mitzvah was a 10. I'm glad your kid's wedding was a 10. I admit it.
Last year, now a year and a half, a year and a half ago when my younger son got married at my older son's home.
My younger son went from Pennsylvania to Florida.
And we all got together at my son's home, the older son's home in Florida.
I admit, I had a 10 that day.
Interestingly, I didn't have a 5 the next day.
Maybe in part because I control how I react.
And because I know that I will have a certain come down from that high.
I think knowing that...
This hit my grandson like the proverbial two-by-four.
He was hit over the head with a big, thick, wooden stick.
Wooden, what would you call it, slab?
Because he had never experienced that before.
So I went over this with him.
That that's what happens, that's the inherent price paid for having an emotional high, is that you will probably then have a low.
So the trick in life is to stay as even-keeled as possible.
And then, it doesn't mean you won't enjoy those wonderful things, of course not, you still will.
But you can manage the lows.
By understanding that the highs are followed by them.
That's why I have had also on the Happiness Hour the subject of people living for the next exciting event.
That the daily happiness eluded them and instead they rely on some great event that will be happening.
Their children's marriage or their cruise to an exotic location.
And they live for that moment.
That's a mistake.
Daily happiness is more important than highs.
So, Sean, if you needed a summary for today, that would be it.
Daily happiness is more important than highs.
That's a good one.
It's a good summary.
I have that, and I've worked on having it.
One of the great lessons of everything I speak about is that we have so much power over our reactions to life.
1-8 Prager 776-877-243-7776.
1-8 Prager 776.
Actually, the lines are busy, but you should try anyway because people fall off sometimes.
I drop a call.
Let's go to your calls.
The issue...
I was raised by my son telling me about my grandson a month ago had his bar mitzvah, and I asked him Sunday after the Saturday bar mitzvah and the Thursday night party, so how's Daniel?
He said, well, he's down because it's all over.
And I had a very wonderful talk with him for an hour, an hour bi-weekly talks by Zoom.
About how that is the way life works.
And all the lessons that I'm imparting here on the show and have in the past.
Don't rely on highs because you'll get too many lows.
Daily happiness.
A daily 7.5 should be your goal.
Go to 8 on occasion.
You'll go to 6 on occasion.
But basically, that's the goal.
That's a great life.
A great Great life.
Okay, let's see, folks.
Oh, and also his other comment.
I really just got to develop that for a second.
I loved it.
He said to me, Poppy, it's like it never happened.
That's right.
You plan months and months for your daughter's wedding.
It's a phenomenal night or a day and then it's like it never happened.
That's why we take so many photos.
Because it's sort of proof that it happened.
King Solomon told his wise men, this is a legend and it's a great one, make me a magic ring that will...
Bring me up when I'm down, and bring me back down to earth if I get too high.
And they came back with a magic ring, which said three words in Hebrew, This, too, will pass, or shall pass, if you will.
People think the good won't pass and people think the bad won't pass.
That's the way it works.
The present is so powerful.
Okie dokie, everybody.
Let's see.
Fort Worth, Texas.
The famous Andy of Fort Worth.
Hello.
Howdy, Dennis.
Howdy.
So I'm a lot like you.
I'm maybe the happiest guy I know.
And I run on about a 7.5 until it comes to my college football team on Saturday.
Golly, they can bring me down to a 4 and occasionally I hit a 10. I love it.
That is awesome.
You know, so I am curious.
When you say that to me, is there a voice in you thinking, this is pretty irrational that a football team can do that to my happiness?
Certainly it's irrational, but it's tribal, it's instinctual.
I have no issue with it.
I remember when I used to root for L.A. teams before L.A. became a dark city.
I'm a big hockey fan, so I had actually season tickets or half-season tickets to the L.A. Kings the years that they actually went to the Stanley Cup and even won.
And I remember cheering like crazy when they came out on the ice, and I remember thinking, Dennis, look at yourself.
I couldn't believe how much I was caught up, so I'm totally on board with you.
By the way, what is the team?
What's the college team?
Well, so I'm a Texas Aggie, Texas A&M.
The good news is that if the Cowboys lose, it's just no big deal to me.
I will pull for the Rangers, but, yeah, the Texas Aggies, when they go down, oh, it's depressing for me.
That is really – so are you married?
I am, and my wife is an Astros fan.
So we just got done watching last week, and I was not ambivalent, but I was respectful and pulled for the Rangers, and I believe she's going to pull for the Rangers this week.
Yeah.
everybody in Texas should.
Come on, come on.
The reason I asked was not about her fanhood.
Does she appreciate your emotional stability?
Except on Saturday afternoon.
No, I think she does.
You're a good man.
You're fun.
Except on Saturday afternoon.
That was a good answer.
Oh, my God.
My wife said to me on a number of occasions how much...
This is a really interesting insight.
Really, really interesting.
Because it's counterintuitive.
She said, I really, really appreciate how predictable you are, Dennis.
And predictable sounds boring.
Predictable sounds bleh, blah.
But no, there is nothing better than an emotionally predictable person in your life.
The last thing you want is to have in your life someone where every day you wonder, gee, what will their mood be today?
That's a very tough thing to live with or work with if it's a fellow worker.
So the 7.5 theory that I'm offering to you is not only good for you, it is a bloody blessing in the life of those who work with you, or live with you, or for that matter, listen to you on the radio.
Emotional predictability.
That's another way of summarizing today's topic.
And the amazing thing is, it is in our hands.
If it weren't, the entire idea of a happiness hour would have been silly.
And it's anything but silly.
We continue.
Let Dennis be Dennis.
That's right, my parents understood that.
When I was 14, and life has been really wonderful since.
Dennis Prager here.
This is the Arie Southern Journal.
Whatever's on your mind about you, about me, about life, about death.
You can even call in about Sean McConnell.
I won't take the call, but you're certainly free to call in.
I want you to enjoy the music right now.
All right, everybody, about anything you want about life, two caveats.
One, I particularly love calls about cigars, fountain pens, classical music, audio equipment and photography.
I got it right.
There's no predicting.
There's absolutely no predicting.
I don't even know if I'll get it right when I start the five.
And the other is don't be offended if I drop your call before taking it.
There could be any number of reasons, none of them having to do with you or anything about the quality even of the call.
I just may not want to discuss the topic.
I may even know nothing about the topic.
I had a call about car restoration in the last hour.
I don't know anything about car restoration.
What can I tell you?
There are manifold, there are myriad ways of enjoying life.
Thank God.
And what works for you may not work for me, and what works for me may not work for you.
That's why not all of you are interested in cigars, fountain pens, classical music, audio equipment, or photography equipment.
Just to give some examples.
All right, everybody.
What's on your mind?
Let's see here.
Okay.
Cleveland, Ohio.
Bob, the home of the Guardians.
I'm getting nauseous as I say it.
Go ahead.
Good afternoon, Dennis.
I'm hoping maybe you can clarify something for me.
The other day you were discussing free will, and you made the assertion, I believe, if I'm understanding you correctly, that those who believe in God have free will, whereas those who do not...
You're close, but proverbially no cigar.
What I said was, only if there is a God is there free will.
I never said only believers have free will.
Either everybody has free will or nobody has free will.
But only if there is a God do we have free will.
If there is no God, we are just physical beings.
We are...
Sophisticated robots.
And that's why I cited that Stanford professor who wrote a book saying we have no free will.
He says there is no God and there is no free will because we are just mechanistic.
He is honest.
Okay, clear for me then.
If there is a God, how does that...
Because it means that there is something in us that...
Is that makes us up, that transcends the physical.
I am not only neurons.
And how would we know that?
We don't know it.
That's why I said, if there is a God, then we are not just neurons.
And if there is no God, we are only neurons.
I never claim I know God exists.
I always claim I believe God exists.
What I do know, this is important, are the consequences of no God.
My life has been devoted not to telling people that God exists, but to teaching people the consequences of atheism and secularism.
Okay, but essentially what you're saying is you're asserting a belief.
No, I'm not at all.
It is not a belief that only if there is a God is there free will.
That's a fact.
It is a belief that there is a God.
And how is that evidenced as a fact?
Because even the atheist professor would agree with that.
Only if there is something non-physical can there be free will.
You, Bob, you are either only your neurological pathways in terms of making decisions, or there is something that transcends your neurological pathways because there is, if you will, a soul in you, just to use a religious term.
But if there is no God, if there is no...
Nothing that transcends the physical.
You are only physical.
If you are only physical, you have no free will.
I can't do better than that.
I would argue that we have free will to the degree that we've learned to use our physical capabilities profitably in the most constructive ways.
Yeah, but if you're only physical, that decision was already preordained by your physical being.
You didn't make that decision any more than your computer makes a decision.
Right.
It starts out that way.
We start out with nurture and nature experiences, but then we have the opportunity.
To develop more free will, if we learn how to use our thinking, our emotions...
Yeah, but you're deluding yourself is exactly what the atheist professor correctly would note.
You're fooling yourself if you think you have free will.
I'm not saying why you have total free will.
I'm saying...
Well, no, no.
There's either free will...
Okay, either there's free will or there isn't free will.
Total, there's no total anything.
But there is no free will.
If we are only physical.
I can't, as I said, I can't do better than that.
It's self-evident to me.
We're robots.
If there's no God, we're robots.
That's it.
Every atheist professor that I know of would acknowledge that.
Certainly every honest.
You can't argue we are only physical and we have free will.
That's self-contradictory.
Because there is no you there.
You're just the product, the sum total of your physical being.
Okay, let's see here.
Nancy in Philadelphia, hello.
Hi, Dennis.
I have the answer for that prior caller, but I told your call screener that I have a relatively insignificant comment.
I love the relatively insignificant comments.
The RICs.
On this otherwise very somber day.
So, when I hear you, use the phrase, y'all.
I mean, you all.
Right.
It always hits my ear wrong, because when I lived in the South, I was taught that y'all is singular.
All y'all means everybody.
Y'all means the singular?
Correct.
So if I'm just talking to you, I'd say, so what are y'all doing tomorrow?
Exactly.
And I know you're a word person, so it might matter to you.
It matters a great deal to me, but it makes no sense.
Well, I agree, but that's how it's used throughout the South.
So it's not used when a Southerner is talking to a group of people?
They would say, all y'all.
They would say, all y'all?
Correct.
You know, now I'm happy the Phillies lost.
I don't find that plausible.
I was just in Mississippi two weeks ago.
Nobody said to me, all y'all.
Anyway, we'll get some Southerners to weigh in on that issue.
Alright, let's see here.
Okie dokie.
Let's go to Camarillo, California.
George, hello.
Hi, Gunnar.
Hi.
Let me ask a question.
Hi.
There was just a war.
The Azeri Turks versus the Christian Armenians.
It was kind of at a standstill.
Wait, I'm familiar.
One second.
I've got to get my war straight.
You're not talking about the Azerbaijani-Armenian War.
Exactly.
You're not, correct?
No, I am talking about...
Oh, so why...
Okay, then why are you...
Okay.
Well, they were fighting the Averi Turks.
It was the Turks they were fighting.
It was in Azerbaijan, but the Azerbaijan Turks is who Armenia, the Christians, were fighting.
Why are they called Turks?
Well, I don't know.
They were the Turkish people that live in...
Why do people call themselves Irish when they live in America?
Alright, no, no, no.
I'm not challenging you at all.
I understood it as Azerbaijanis versus Armenians.
Exactly.
And my own view is that the Armenians are being persecuted.
Well, the Armenians lost because Israel supplied them all the weapons.
Yeah, okay.
I'll be back in a moment.
And I'm looking to make sure, however, the Prager Law of looking for a page is applying.
Yes, I was right.
Roughgreens.com slash Prager 833223ROUGH. Good.
Nice.
Cool.
On to your calls.
All right, everybody.
Rochester, Minnesota.
Josh, hello.
Hello, Dennis.
How are you?
Well, thank you.
I had a story, and I know you guys have already taken a couple calls about free will in this hour, but I had one that you might find interest in regarding children raised by their parents following their parents' footsteps.
So there was a...
And I heard this from somebody else.
It might not be actually true, but I thought it was pretty cool.
There was a father who, for...
The majority of his life lived in jail, in and out of the criminal justice system, and lived a bad moral life, and one of his sons followed in his father's footsteps, and another of his sons did not.
So when there was people that asked his son, his first son, you know, Why are you the way that you are?
You know, why are you in jail, committing crimes?
And his answer was, with a father like mine, who wouldn't be?
And then people asked his second son the same question.
And his second son was an upstanding multimillionaire businessman with fantastic morals, led a very good life.
And they asked him the same question, why are you the way that you are?
And his answer was, with a father like mine, who wouldn't be?
You know, I knew that was the answer, which doesn't take away from your story.
And I get moral credit for not interrupting and offering the answer.
It was very tempting.
Yep, that's correct.
Whether it's true or not, it is entirely accurate.
Look, the free will issue, I'll have to revisit it, because there are people, not criminals, but I see people who do things that are so injurious to themselves, and I think, you can't control yourself?
There's no doubt some people have more free will than others.
But remember, if there is no God and we're all just physical, there is no free will at all.
You can't create free will if you're just a mechanism.
All right, let's see here.
Anderson, South Carolina, the famous Bob of Anderson.
Hello.
Thanks, Dennis.
I think it was fountain pens maybe that you missed earlier.
I don't know.
It might have been.
But I do have a question.
I've had a classical tune stuck in my head for a while, and I can't recall what the name is, and I was hoping that you might be able to help me with that.
If you hum it well, there's a 50-50 chance.
Go ahead.
I'm a bad hummer.
You know what?
I actually...
It's funny.
I actually...
But that's not a classical theme.
It was the Three Stooges theme.
Or some cartoon theme.
They often use...
It might be.
It very well might be.
Anyway, I'm honored that you would think I would know it.
I do know often, but there's a lot of classical music out there.
Okie dokie.
Well, we don't often get a 90-year-old calling in, so we will honor Gail in Los Angeles.
How are you doing, Gail?
Just great.
I want to tell you, you mentioned...
Truman decided to drop the second atomic bomb.
He called in five leading professors from all over the United States.
One was from Columbus, Ohio, Ohio State.
One was from UCLA. And three were top Japanese history professors from leading colleges back east.
And they talked to him.
They all decided, especially with the three Japanese scholars, that the Japanese higher-ups know that they are losing the war, but they would not surrender.
But if he dropped the second bomb, they would have an honorable out and surrender, and that is what happened.
Well, I read a lot about it, and there's no...
To me, there's no question without the atom bombs, both atom bombs, they would not have surrendered.
They were already preparing for the defense of Japan by arming all Japanese citizens.
And for those for whom the atom bomb was immoral, please understand the complexities of life.
Far more Japanese, not to mention Americans, would have died had the bombs not been dropped.
Just like with Hamas, when your country is taken over by evil human beings who then commit horrible atrocities on others, everyone will suffer.
And it is not the fault of the people who were attacked by the evil regime.
It is the fault of the evil regime.
The Germans who died in World War II, their blood is on Hitler's hands.
And the Nazis' hands.
The Japanese who died in World War II, their blood is on Hirohito's and the General's hands.
And that's the way it works in life.
I don't know of a choice.
People who say Israel should not invade Gaza, I'm not thrilled about Israel invading Gaza for a whole host of reasons.
But I have...
I have an insurmountable obstacle to my opposition.
What is Israel supposed to do?
You slaughtered equivalent in the American population of 50,000 of our people, the worst Jewish day since the Holocaust, and we don't invade you?
Well, the man was right, it is a classical it is a classical piece.
I didn't identify it, even though I knew the music.
But it's very famous.
A lot of people know it.
You know, I realize there was a much better chance if it was a theme of a piano concerto or symphony.
Well, this is really famous, this poem, yeah.
Okay, well, we solved your problem.
Jacques Offenbach is the composer.
I don't know light classical as well as the heavier.
Anyway, it is what it is.
I'm happy to acknowledge my lacunae.
All right, let's see here.
There are so many, so many great questions.
Megan in Nashville, Tennessee.
Hello.
Hello, Grandpa Denny.
Thank you.
I have one question about male-female nature and then a comment about a happy hour dance.
Which one would you like first?
No, we can only do one.
Do the female nature.
That's what I saw on the board.
Sure.
So I know you've given recommendations on previous shows about controlling male nature.
And I feel like online, in terms of women controlling their nature, being very emotional and sensitive and overthinking, the only suggestions are really to take a bubble bath and put crystals in my pocket.
So I was wondering if you had any more helpful tips or book recommendations that would truly help me control my own nature as well as better understand that of my male partner.
God, do I. I need an hour for that one at least.
But in a nutshell, my major theme on this issue has been to tell parents that you must teach your girls to control their natures as much as you teach your boys to control their natures.
And most parents don't.
They know boys' natures in the sexual realm and the violence realm need to be controlled.
But since those are not the problems with females, females are not raping and harassing, otherwise acting out sexually in that way, and they are much less involved in violence.
So they don't understand, though, that girls can do as much damage in their way as boys do in their way.
And that's my big concern.
You raise your daughter to control her emotions, just as you raise your boy to control his predilections.
And very few parents do that.
And women, if you haven't been raised that way, at least know it.
And a good man can help you in that regard, just as you can help men.
In regard to their natures.
I wish I could take all of your calls.
I live with many wishes that are unfulfilled.
Such is the human condition.
Thank you for listening.
I hope we have a better weekend on planet Earth.
Dennis Prager here.
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