Knowledge Fight Interactive Search Tool

All Episodes

Previous Next

Nov. 29, 2023 - Dennis Prager Show

01:48:01

Morally Confused

Large

Audio Only |

Scroll

Time	Text
	Hi, everybody.
	I'm Dennis Prager.
	Great to be with you.
	Here you have a beginning with what's happening in the Middle East, what's happening in America, and I'm going to talk about something just for a moment.
	You decide whether it's significant.
	I think it is.
	An article in The Economist, and it really touched me for, I think for many of you, obvious reasons.
	The importance of handwriting is becoming better understood.
	And there is no handwriting anymore.
	I know whenever I mention that things in some ways were better in the past, I know that there are people who are thinking, oh, that's what older people do, you know, in our day, in our day, in our day.
	Well, the fact is that there's been such a deterioration in almost every arena of life.
	The question is not whether or not an older person is nostalgic.
	It's whether it is true.
	We don't ask that anymore.
	We ask who said it.
	We ask what their race, or ethnicity, or class, or gender, or sex, or whatever.
	But we don't ask, is it true?
	This has been a loss in our society.
	Do you know that I sign books at events?
	Often, before I speak, I have Meet and greet with people who pay extra to meet and greet me.
	And many will bring a book of mine for me to sign, and if it's a younger person, let's say high school or college, I actually say, can you read cursive, or script as we used to call it.
	And often they say, well, not really.
	When I announce on Fridays that one of the five subjects I really want people to call in is with regard to fountain pens, right?
	Fountain pens, classical music, audio equipment, cigars.
	What's the fifth one?
	Photography, yeah.
	So, it's cute, but it's not cute.
	It's also serious.
	The joy of writing.
	Letters are not sent any longer.
	Notes are not taken that way.
	Do you know that people remember things better when they write them down than when they type them in their phone or in the computer?
	They simply...
	That is why I, to this day, I write whatever notes I use for a speech.
	It's not long.
	It's often...
	The entire speech is on the back of a business card.
	But I write it.
	I don't type it in.
	And I know that it sinks into my mind better when I have written it.
	Are your kids learning that?
	Here's a great question for you.
	Are your kids learning anything?
	Where was it I just saw?
	People guessing when...
	Let's see.
	When did slavery end?
	It seems to have mystified many young people.
	Did you happen to see that?
	Many thought it lasted until the 20th century.
	But it's not surprising.
	What do they know?
	It's...
	The crisis of mediocrity is really something...
	They know it if they studied at PragerU.
	Isn't that correct?
	Boy, is that ever correct.
	All right.
	The moral confusion with regard to the Middle East is a very, very bad sign of our times.
	That the events of October 7th did not convince the vast majority of human beings who know about it that we have a good versus evil battle here.
	means something really frightening.
	There is nothing the Palestinians could do that would shake Well, you know, there are two sides and two opinions, and they're both engaged in mass killing.
	Do you know that they're still holding a baby?
	They're holding a baby.
	You would think that...
	There's nothing left in the annals of human degradation.
	And yet, some spectacularly evil human beings.
	Hamas is as evil as it gets, and the vast majority of Palestinians support Hamas.
	This crap.
	That people who don't want to face reality say, oh, you can't equate the Palestinians with Hamas.
	They equate themselves with Hamas.
	Are there some Palestinians who are noble and wonderful and fine and good and kind and all good things?
	Yes.
	There were Germans who were like that.
	There were Russians who were like that.
	There were Chinese who were like that.
	But when we speak about Nazi Germany, we don't say, oh, but, of course, there were so many.
	You can't equate Germans with Nazis.
	Well, you could in the 1930s and 1940s.
	Certainly the second half of the 30s and certainly the first half of the 40s.
	But here, let's put it this way.
	There's probably a greater percentage of Palestinians who support Hamas than Germans who supported the Nazis.
	Certainly than Russians who supported the Communists.
	But there were plenty.
	Stalin's funeral, many people were crushed to death because they were...
	There were so many people who attended Stalin's funeral.
	Imagine that, a man murders 20 to 40 million people of your own people and you weep at his funeral.
	Last night I was on, at midnight California time, I did a one-hour podcast with Australia.
	And it really came out of me.
	My contempt.
	For a good chunk of humanity, which I've always had because the will of man's heart is towards evil from his youth, Genesis 8. The woman asked me, so what was it?
	Are you disappointed or something like that?
	I go, it's very hard to disappoint me.
	Because when you expect so little from humanity...
	It's not difficult.
	What I have is pleasant surprise.
	When I listen to Douglas Murray, I am encouraged that there really is a percentage of humanity that is good.
	You should all watch Douglas Murray.
	It's all over the Internet.
	There is a legend, it's a Jewish legend.
	There are 36 righteous people at any given time on earth.
	And if the number ever goes down to 35, the world will implode.
	It's a powerful legend.
	I think he's one of the 36, to be honest.
	God, there is so much.
	There is a statement in Hosea.
	I believe it might be Isaiah.
	My ayahs are not clear fully who said what.
	But one of them said, Woe unto those who call good evil and evil good.
	You can't tell the difference, the moral difference between Israel and its enemies.
	You are truly morally confused human being.
	But that is what the Left has produced in the West, morally confused human beings.
	What is it now?
	That they've watched Osama Bin Laden's or read his letter to the West?
	Is that unbelievable?
	Oh!
	He had a point.
	We return.
	Every year I do a Christmas campaign for someone.
	Unfortunately, the...
	Salvation Army went somewhat woke, and so we have been bringing your attention to the Angel Tree Campaign, where they bring a Christmas gift and a note, hopefully, from a parent who's in prison.
	These are children of incarcerated men and or women.
	And then they give them religion, they give them Bible.
	It's a Christian group that is doing good work, and I'd like you to support them.
	$25 takes care of a kid.
	$125 takes care of five kids.
	That's pretty good.
	They got a personalized note, and they got a gift.
	It's a big deal.
	888-206-2801.
	888-206-2801.
	Or just go to the Angel Tree banner at DennisPrager.com.
	There's so little teaching of history that I'll bet most of you and many of you are quite knowledgeable, are not familiar, maybe familiar with his name, but not familiar with his work.
	The man is Bayard Rustin.
	I remember him.
	He was a trusted advisor to Martin Luther King and the chief organizer of the 1963 March on Washington.
	To give you an idea of the deterioration in black leadership as everything else has deteriorated in this country, I'm going to read to you from, I can't believe it, it was a New York Times piece on Bayard Rustin.
	Did you happen to see that?
	You'll find this fascinating.
	Bayard Rustin was a towering figure in the fight for racial equality.
	Remarkably for a man of his generation in public standing, he was also openly gay.
	Now, it would be a rewriting of history to say that it was as easy a life for a gay person in the 1960s as it is today.
	There's no question it was tougher.
	But it is worth noting, That a respected leader in the United States of America, a moral giant, was gay.
	Everyone knew it, and it didn't affect anything.
	Just that.
	Isn't that worthy of note?
	But that's not my theme.
	My theme is his views versus today's black leadership.
	By the way, it is a question, why blacks?
	The only group that has leaders are blacks.
	Isn't it a little demeaning?
	Any Hispanic leaders?
	Any Asian leaders?
	Any Jewish leaders?
	In the decades since President Barack Obama awarded him a posthumous Presidential Medal of Freedom, the country's highest civilian honor, there has been a welcome resurgence of popular interest in Mr. Rustin's extraordinary life.
	Whereas remembrances of Mr. Rustin once evaded the issue of sexual orientation, today, in accordance with our growing acceptance of gay people and awareness of the discrimination they have faced, such tributes are likely to center it.
	See, isn't that interesting?
	No big deal was made in 1963 about Bayard Rustin's being gay, but now there is.
	This past June, for instance, the PBS NewsHour, this is from the New York Times, aired a segment for Pride Month titled, The Story of Bayard Rustin, Openly Gay Leader in the Civil Rights Movement.
	Other representative encomiums celebrate the gay socialist pacifist who planned the 1963 March on Washington and the gay black pacifist at the heart of the March on Washington.
	Okay, now we get to the heart of the matter.
	Mr. Rustin repeatedly challenged progressive orthodoxies.
	A universalist who believed that, quote, there is no possibility for black people making progress if we emphasize only race.
	Did you hear that?
	There is no, this is the man who led the march on Washington.
	Top aide to Martin Luther King Jr. There is no possibility for black people making progress if we emphasize only race.
	He would bristle at the current pension for identity politics.
	I couldn't believe that the New York Times, which celebrates identity politics, published this.
	An integrationist who scoffed at how, quote, Stokely Carmichael could come back to the United States and demand and receive $2,500 a lecture for telling white people how they stink.
	Is that terrific?
	He would shake his head at an estimated $3.4 billion diversity, equity, and inclusion industry.
	That's Rustin.
	That's right.
	He would shake his head.
	$3.4 billion.
	That often prioritizes making individual white people feel guilty for the crimes of their ancestors while ignoring the growing class divide.
	A committed Zionist.
	Did you...
	How's that, huh?
	Bayard Rustin was a committed Zionist.
	This was just published in the New York Times.
	To give you an idea of how the left has sickened the moral compass of our society.
	The attack on Zionism and Zionists.
	Bayard Rustin was a committed Zionist.
	He would abhor the Black Lives Matter stance on Israel and the recent spate of anti-Semitic outbursts by black celebrities.
	Do you understand how they let this be published in the New York Times?
	The origin of Mr. Rustin's estrangement from the progressive consensus began with his belief that once federal civil rights legislation was achieved, The American left would need to turn its attention from racial discrimination to the much more pervasive problem of economic inequality.
	Four months after the march, Mr. Rustin was invited to deliver a speech at Howard University to the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, SNCC as they used to call it.
	According to the Times account, Mr. Rustin, quote, said that the civil rights movement had gone as far as it could with its original approach and that the time had come to broaden the movement, which he said faces the danger of degenerating into a sterile sectarianism.
	That is exactly what the civil rights movement did.
	Degenerated into a sterile sectarianism.
	Based on color.
	Everything about the man, virtually everything, if you will, is the antithesis of the left, which has been embraced by the Democratic Party and the civil rights movement, whatever that means anymore.
	I will read more to you.
	This is powerful.
	I'd like to introduce you to 120 Life.
	An all-natural hypertension treatment formulated by a man in Chicago who suffers from high blood pressure.
	I have, but it's been under control for much of my life.
	But here's a natural way to lower your blood pressure numbers.
	And by the way, if it doesn't, you have a money-back guarantee.
	This is very important for you to consider.
	He created 120 Life, a juice, drink, and powdered mix that helps lower your blood pressure naturally.
	It works, at least for many people.
	It's made of pomegranates, tart cherries, cranberries, hibiscus, beetroot, and magnesium.
	It helps lower blood pressure without the side effects of pills and medication.
	Try it for two weeks.
	If you don't see lower blood pressure numbers, there's a money-back guarantee.
	120life.com, 120life.com.
	Use the coupon code DENTIST to save 15%.
	I'm Dennis.
	One of the leading black figures in the civil rights movement was Bayard Rustin.
	The New York Times has a very long piece on him.
	And you realize how utterly different he was and therefore major aspects of the civil rights movement and black leadership.
	As I noted, it says here he was a committed Zionist.
	He would abhor the Black Lives Matter stance on Israel and the recent spate of anti-Semitic outbursts by black celebrities.
	This is what this New York Times piece writes.
	He was against making race the focus point of the civil rights movement.
	He said, okay, we achieved what we wanted.
	It's like the March of Dimes.
	Polio was conquered, the March of Dimes moved, but they didn't keep it marching for dimes, for polio at least.
	But the Civil Rights Movement acts as if there's more and more to be done to secure black civil rights in America, like they're being suppressed at the ballot box.
	It's just a gigantic left-wing lie.
	In a seminal 1965 commentary magazine essay from Protest to Politics, published after the passage of the Civil Rights Act and several months before the signing into the Law of the Voting Rights Act, Mr. Rustin argued that the main barrier to black advancement in the United States would soon no longer be racism, but poverty.
	How do you like that?
	A black leader.
	I mean, big black leader.
	You know what?
	The biggest problem in black life is not racism.
	What is it now?
	How many years later?
	60 years later, and they're still saying the same thing.
	Racism.
	And all it has done is create a generation of angry young men and women who believe that, who believe racism is their barrier to elevating their lives.
	That issue, after all, is not civil rights, strictly speaking, he wrote, but social and economic conditions that transcended race.
	In 1969, he called the proposal for slavery reparations preposterous.
	Elaborating that, quote, if my great-grandfather picked cotton for 50 years, Then he may deserve some money, but he's dead and gone, and nobody owes me anything.
	This is the man who organized the 1963 Civil Rights March.
	Testifying before Congress in 1974 against affirmative action, Mr. Rustin said, Everyone knows racial discrimination still exists, but the high rate of black unemployment and the reversal of hard-won economic gains but the high rate of black unemployment and the reversal of hard-won economic gains is not Yeah.
	But of the same general economic conditions that affected the white unemployed.
	Contrary to contemporary anti-racism activists, the writer writes, Who claimed that the existence of racial disparities necessarily constitutes evidence of racism?
	Mr. Rustin asserted, quote, that blacks are underrepresented in a particular profession does not by itself constitute racial discrimination.
	What do you think?
	The man said the opposite.
	The opposite of what is said today.
	Although an early opponent of American military involvement in Vietnam, Mr. Ruston could not, as he wrote in 1967, go along with those who favor immediate U.S. withdrawal, or who absolve Hanoi and the Viet Cong from all guilt.
	A military takeover by those forces would impose a totalitarian regime on South Vietnam, and there is no doubt in my mind that the regime would wipe out independent democratic elements in the country.
	He was a giant, Bayard Rustem.
	Yeah.
	The Viet Cong, well, look, people...
	The grandparents of the pro-Palestinian demonstrators today marched for the Viet Cong.
	Ho ho ho chi min.
	Ho ho ho Hamas.
	Or better, ha ha ha ha Hamas.
	Ha ha Hamas.
	I want you to know about besthotgrill.com.
	It's that time again.
	Time to select presents.
	For your family and corporate gifts, for your best clients and employees, and you want to get them a gift that's fantastic, unforgettable, and truly hot, literally hot, that would be a Solaire Infrared Grill from BestHotGrills.com.
	Solaire Infrared Grills heat up to 1,000 degrees in just three minutes.
	Perfect for today's busy lifestyles.
	The hot and fast Solaire Infrared Grills.
	Or the gift that will be used every time your loved ones or whoever you give it to use it, they'll think of you.
	All Solaire Infrared Grills are made in the USA and they are made to last.
	Solaire Infrared Grills deliver what people really want in a gift.
	Learn more about the amazing Solaire Infrared Grills at besthotgrill.com besthotgrill.com Reading to you about a man who was a giant in the Civil Rights Movement, major aide to Martin Luther King Jr., and the man who organized the 1963 Civil Rights March.
	Everything about him is the opposite of the left.
	Everything.
	Racism is not the great barrier to Black's advancement.
	He's a committed Zionist.
	He believed that withdrawing from Vietnam would cause totalitarianism to take over South Vietnam.
	Mr. Rustin's evolution from absolute pacifist.
	He spent two years in a federal penitentiary during World War II as a conscientious objector.
	Isn't that fascinating?
	To Cold War liberal dismayed many of his allies on the left, who accused Rustin's transformation was born of long deliberation and genuine conviction.
	According to one biographer, Mr. Rustin repeatedly said that if he had been aware of the Holocaust during World War II, he most likely would not have become a conscientious objector.
	Whereas I used to believe that pacifism had a political value, I no longer believe that.
	Mr. Rustin stated flatly in 1983, it is ridiculous, in my view, to talk only about peace.
	There is something which is more valuable to people than peace, and that is freedom.
	Oh my God.
	If I could resurrect one person from the second half of the 20th century, it might be Bayard Rustin.
	Yet another source of antagonism between Mr. Rustin and the left was his outspoken opposition to anti-Semitism within the black community and fervent support for the state of Israel.
	So far as Negroes are concerned, he wrote in 1967, responding to an eruption of anti-Semitic statements by radical black activists, quote, Is now to join history's oldest and most shameful witch hunt, anti-Semitism.
	What a great term.
	History's oldest and most shameful witch hunt, anti-Semitism.
	The following year, in an address to the Anti-Defamation League, Mr. Rustin condemned, quote, young Negroes spouting material directly from Mein Kampf.
	In 1975, as the United Nations General Assembly was preparing its infamous resolution condemning Zionism as a form of racism, Mr. Rustin assembled a group of African-American luminaries, including A. Philip Randolph, Arthur Ashe, and Ralph Ellison, into the Black Americans to Support Israel Committee.
	Basic.
	Black Americans to Support Israel Committee.
	What happened to that committee?
	Since Israel is a democratic state surrounded by essentially undemocratic states which have sworn her destruction, those interested in democracy everywhere must support Israel's existence, he declared.
	A descendant of slaves who was himself a victim of brutally violent racism, his patriotism was unfashionable among progressives and is even more exceptional today.
	I have seen much suffering in this country, he said, yet despite all this, I can confidently assert that I would prefer to be a black in America than a Jew in Moscow, a Chinese in Peking, or a black in Uganda, yesterday or today.
	The guy's a prophet.
	As to contribute to an anthology of black gay men the year before his death, Mr. Rustin respectfully declined.
	Quote, my activism did not spring from my being gay, or for that matter, from my being black.
	Wow.
	He would be called, what Larry Elder was, he would be called by the left today, White leftist, black leftist, the black face of white supremacy.
	Rather, it is rooted fundamentally in my Quaker upbringing and the values that were instilled in me by my grandparents who reared me.
	Those values are based on the concept of a single human family and the belief that all members of that family are equal.
	Adhering to those Call me Baird.
	Yep, that's right.
	He would be unwelcome in the civil rights community.
	He would be unwelcome today.
	He might be unwelcome by the ADL, the Anti-Defamation League, which spouts all this woke stuff to the detriment of America and Jews.
	Well, I thought you'd find that fascinating.
	For those of you who wonder, what was it like Sixty years ago, know that this man was a leader in America.
	History, arguably, is the most important subject.
	And the ignorance of history is a real problem.
	Real problem.
	If we have young Americans reading...
	Osama Bin Laden's letter to America and saying, you know, he had many of them.
	I mean, tens of thousands?
	I don't know what number.
	Commenting, well, I didn't know this.
	Maybe he had a point.
	When I think of 9-11, I think of the people who jumped out of the towers and Can you imagine?
	No, you can't.
	None of us can imagine.
	If I don't jump out the window from the 85th floor, I will be burned alive.
	Takes a lot to have somebody jump out of a window.
	I will never forget the sound of the smashing bodies on the ground.
	It's a sound you can never forget.
	I also think of the flight attendants whose throats were slit by the Islamic terrorists.
	We live in an age of such denial of evil and the reduction of evil and the elevation Of evil among the good.
	So that you end up with an equilibrium.
	Right?
	There's no difference between what Islam has created in the modern world and what Christianity has created in the modern world.
	No difference.
	No difference between the West and the Islamic world.
	There are many wonderful Muslims, but that's irrelevant to my point.
	There were many wonderful Germans.
	But Nazism dominated Germany.
	People saying that their God is great, or greatest, or greater.
	I'm thinking of the literal translation of Akbar.
	Kabir is great.
	While torturing people, Innocent people?
	That's the problem.
	The moral compass is broken.
	You like history?
	Go to PragerU and see our President series.
	It's riveting.
	Hi everybody, I'm Dennis Prager.
	Great to be with you.
	Here you have a beginning with what's happening in the Middle East, what's happening in America, and I'm going to talk about something just for a moment.
	You decide whether it's significant.
	I think it is.
	An article in The Economist.
	And it really touched me for...
	I think for many of you obvious reasons.
	The importance of handwriting is becoming better understood and there is no handwriting anymore.
	I know whenever I mention that things in some ways were better in the past I know that there are people who are thinking, oh, that's what older people do, you know, in our day, in our day, in our day.
	Well, the fact is that there's been such a deterioration in almost every arena of life.
	The question is not whether or not an older person is nostalgic.
	It's whether it is true.
	We don't ask that anymore.
	We ask who said it.
	We ask what their race or ethnicity or class or gender or sex or whatever.
	But we don't ask, is it true?
	This has been a loss in our society.
	Do you know that I sign books at events?
	Often, before I speak, I have...
	Meet and greet with people who pay extra to meet and greet me.
	And many will bring a book of mine for me to sign, and if it's a younger person, let's say high school or college, I actually say, can you read cursive?
	Or script, as we used to call it.
	And often they say, well, not really.
	When I announce on Fridays that one of the five subjects I really want people to call in is with regard to fountain pens, right?
	Fountain pens, classical music, audio equipment, cigars.
	What's the fifth one?
	Photography, yeah.
	So, it's cute, but it's not cute.
	It's also serious.
	The joy of writing.
	Letters are not sent any longer.
	Notes are not taken that way.
	Do you know that people remember things better when they write them down than when they type them in their phone or in the computer?
	They simply...
	That is why I, to this day, I write whatever notes I use for a speech.
	It's not long.
	It's often...
	The entire speech is on the back of a business card.
	But I write it.
	I don't type it in.
	And I know that it sinks into my mind better when I have written it.
	Are your kids learning that?
	Here's a great question for you.
	Are your kids learning anything?
	Where was it I just saw?
	People guessing when...
	Let's see.
	Is that slavery?
	When did slavery end?
	It seems to have mystified many young people.
	Did you happen to see that?
	Many thought it lasted until the 20th century.
	But it's not surprising.
	What do they know?
	It's...
	The crisis of mediocrity is really something.
	They know it if they studied at PragerU.
	Isn't that correct?
	Boy, is that ever correct.
	All right.
	The moral confusion with regard to the Middle East is a very, very bad sign of our times.
	That the events of October 7th did not convince the vast majority of human beings who know about it that we have a good versus evil battle here.
	means something really frightening There is nothing the Palestinians could do that would shake Well, you know, there are two sides and two opinions, and they're both engaged in mass killing.
	Do you know that they're still holding a baby?
	They're holding a baby.
	You would think that...
	There's nothing left in the annals of human degradation.
	And yet, some spectacularly evil human beings.
	Hamas is as evil as it gets, and the vast majority of Palestinians support Hamas.
	This crap that people who don't want to face reality say, oh, you can't equate the Palestinians with Hamas.
	They equate themselves with Hamas.
	Are there some Palestinians who are noble and wonderful and fine and good and kind and all good things?
	Yes.
	There were Germans who were like that.
	There were Russians who were like that.
	There were Chinese who were like that.
	But when we speak about Nazi Germany, we don't say, oh, but, of course, there were so many.
	You can't equate Germans with Nazis.
	Well, you could.
	In the 1930s and 1940s, certainly the second half of the 30s, and certainly the first half of the 40s.
	But here, let's put it this way, there's probably a greater percentage of Palestinians who support Hamas than Germans who supported the Nazis.
	Certainly than Russians who supported the Communists.
	But there were plenty.
	Stalin's funeral, many people were crushed to death because there were so many people who attended Stalin's funeral.
	Imagine that, a man murders 20 to 40 million people of your own people and you weep at his funeral.
	Last night I was on, at midnight, California time, I did a one-hour podcast with Australia, and it really came out of me, my contempt for a good chunk of humanity, which I've always had, because the will of man's heart is towards evil from his youth, Genesis 8. The woman asked me, so, what was it?
	Are you...
	Are you disappointed or something like that?
	It's very hard to disappoint me.
	Because when you expect so little from humanity, it's not difficult.
	What I have is pleasant surprise.
	When I listen to Douglas Murray, I am encouraged that there really is a percentage of humanity.
	That is good.
	You should all watch Douglas Murray.
	is all over the internet.
	There is a legend, there's a Jewish legend, there are 36 righteous people at any given time on earth And if the number ever goes down to 35, the world will implode.
	It's a powerful legend.
	I think he's one of the 36, to be honest.
	God, there is so much.
	There is a statement in Hosea.
	I believe it might be Isaiah.
	My ayahs are not clear fully who said what.
	But one of them said, Woe unto those who call good evil and evil good.
	You can't tell the difference, the moral difference between Israel and its enemies.
	You are truly morally confused human being.
	But that is what the left has produced in the West, morally confused human beings.
	What is it now that they watched Osama Bin Laden's or read his letter to the West?
	Is that unbelievable?
	Oh!
	He had a point.
	Every year I do a Christmas campaign for someone.
	Unfortunately, the Salvation Army went somewhat woke.
	And so we have been...
	Bringing your attention to the Angel Tree campaign, where they bring a Christmas gift and a note, hopefully, from a parent who's in prison.
	These are children of incarcerated men and or women.
	And then they give them religion.
	They give them Bible.
	It's a Christian group that is doing good work, and I'd like you to support them.
	$25 takes care of a kid.
	125 takes care of five kids.
	That's pretty good.
	They got a personalized note, and they got a gift.
	It's a big deal.
	888-206-2801.
	888-206-2801.
	Or just go to the Angel Tree banner at DennisPrager.com.
	There's so little teaching of history.
	That I'll bet most of you and many of you are quite knowledgeable, are not familiar, maybe familiar with his name, but not familiar with his work.
	The man is Bayard Rustin.
	I remember him.
	He was a trusted advisor to Martin Luther King and the chief organizer of the 1963 March on Washington.
	To give you an idea of the deterioration in black leadership, as everything else has deteriorated in this country, I'm going to read to you from, I can't believe it, it was a New York Times piece on Bayard Rustin.
	Did you happen to see that?
	You'll find this fascinating.
	Bayard Rustin was a towering figure in the fight for racial equality.
	Remarkably for a man of his generation in public standing, he was also openly gay.
	Now, it would be a rewriting of history to say that it was as easy a life for a gay person in the 1960s as it is today.
	There's no question it was tougher.
	But it is worth noting, That a respected leader in the United States of America, a moral giant, was gay.
	Everyone knew it, and it didn't affect anything.
	Just that.
	Isn't that worthy of note?
	But that's not my theme.
	My theme is his views versus today's black leadership.
	By the way, it is a question why blacks...
	The only group that has leaders are blacks.
	Isn't it a little demeaning?
	Any Hispanic leaders?
	Any Asian leaders?
	Any Jewish leaders?
	In the decades since President Barack Obama awarded him a posthumous Presidential Medal of Freedom, the country's highest civilian honor, there has been a welcome resurgence of popular interest in Mr. Rustin's extraordinary life.
	Whereas remembrances of Mr. Rustin once evaded the issue of sexual orientation, today, in accordance with our growing acceptance of gay people and awareness of the discrimination they have faced, such tributes are likely to center it.
	See, isn't that interesting?
	No big deal was made in 1963 about Bayard Rustin's being gay, but now there is.
	This past June, for instance, the PBS NewsHour, this is from the New York Times, aired a segment for Pride Month titled The Story of Bayard Rustin, Openly Gay Leader in the Civil Rights Movement.
	Other representative encomiums celebrate the gay socialist pacifist who planned the 1963 March on Washington and the gay black pacifist at the heart of the March on Washington.
	Okay, now we get to the heart of the matter.
	Mr. Rustin repeatedly challenged progressive orthodoxies.
	A universalist who believed that, quote, there is no possibility for black people making progress if we emphasize only race.
	Did you hear that?
	There is no, this is the man who led the march on Washington.
	Top aide to Martin Luther King Jr. There is no possibility for black people making progress if we emphasize only race.
	He would bristle at the current penchant for identity politics.
	I couldn't believe that the New York Times, which celebrates identity politics, published this.
	An integrationist who scoffed at how, quote, Stokely Carmichael could come back to the United States and demand and receive $2,500 a lecture for telling white people how they stink.
	Is that terrific?
	He would shake his head at an estimated $3.4 billion diversity, equity, and inclusion industry.
	That's Rustin, that's right.
	He would shake his head.
	$3.4 billion.
	That often prioritizes making individual white people feel guilty for the crimes of their ancestors while ignoring the growing class divide.
	A committed Zionist.
	How's that, huh?
	Bayard Rustin was a committed Zionist.
	This was just published in the New York Times.
	To give you an idea of how the left has sickened the moral compass of our society.
	The attack on Zionism and Zionists.
	Bayard Rustin was a committed Zionist.
	He would abhor the Black Lives Matter stance on Israel and the recent spate of anti-Semitic outbursts by black celebrities.
	Do you understand how they let this be published in the New York Times?
	The origin of Mr. Rustin's estrangement from the progressive consensus began with his belief that once federal civil rights legislation was achieved, The American Left would need to turn its attention from racial discrimination to the much more pervasive problem of economic inequality.
	Four months after the march, Mr. Rustin was invited to deliver a speech at Howard University.
	To the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, SNCC as they used to call it, according to the Times account, Mr. Rustin, quote, said that the civil rights movement had gone as far as it could with its original approach and that the time had come to broaden the movement which he said faces the danger of degenerating into a sterile sectarianism.
	That is exactly what the civil rights movement did.
	Degenerated into a sterile sectarianism based on color.
	Everything about the man, virtually everything, if you will, is the antithesis of the left, which has been embraced by the Democratic Party and the civil rights movement, whatever that means anymore.
	I'd like to introduce you to 120 Life, an all-natural hypertension treatment formulated by a man in Chicago who suffers from high blood pressure.
	I have, but it's been under control for much of my life.
	But here's a natural way to lower your blood pressure numbers.
	And by the way, if it doesn't, you have a money-back guarantee.
	This is very important for you to consider.
	He created 120 Life, a juice, drink, and powdered mix that helps lower your blood pressure naturally.
	It works, at least for many people.
	It's made of pomegranates, tart cherries, cranberries, hibiscus, beetroot, and magnesium.
	It helps lower blood pressure without the side effects of pills and medication.
	Try it for two weeks.
	If you don't see lower blood pressure numbers, there's a money-back guarantee.
	120life.com.
	120life.com.
	Use the coupon code Dennis to save 15%.
	I'm Dennis.
	One of the leading black figures in the civil rights movement was Bayard Rustin.
	The New York Times, a very long piece on him.
	And you realize how utterly different he was and therefore major aspects.
	Of the civil rights movement and black leadership.
	As I noted, it says here he was a committed Zionist.
	He would abhor the Black Lives Matter stance on Israel and the recent spate of anti-Semitic outbursts by black celebrities.
	This is what this New York Times piece writes.
	And he was against making race the focus point of the Civil Rights Movement.
	He said, okay, we achieved what we wanted.
	It's like the March of Dimes.
	Polio was conquered, the March of Dimes moved, but they didn't keep it marching for dimes, for polio at least.
	But the Civil Rights Movement acts as if there's more and more to be done.
	To secure black civil rights in America, like they're being suppressed at the ballot box.
	It's just a gigantic left-wing lie.
	In a seminal 1965 commentary magazine essay from Protest to Politics, published after the passage of the Civil Rights Act and several months before the signing into the Law of the Voting Rights Act, Mr. Rustin argued, That the main barrier to black advancement in the United States would soon no longer be racism, but poverty.
	How do you like that?
	A black leader.
	I mean, big black leader.
	You know what?
	The biggest problem in black life is not racism.
	What is it now?
	How many years later?
	60 years later, and they're still saying the same thing.
	Racism.
	And all it has done is create a generation of angry young men and women who believe that, who believe racism is their barrier to elevating their lives.
	At issue, after all, is not civil rights, strictly speaking, he wrote, but social and economic conditions that transcended race.
	In 1969, he called the proposal for slavery reparations preposterous.
	Elaborating that, quote, if my great-grandfather picked cotton for 50 years, then he may deserve some money, but he's dead and gone, and nobody owes me anything.
	This is the man who organized the 1963 Civil Rights March.
	Testifying before Congress in 1974 against affirmative action, Mr. Rustin said, everyone knows racial discrimination still exists, but the high rate of black unemployment and the reversal of hard-won economic gains is not the result of discrimination.
	Yeah.
	But of the same general economic conditions that affected the white unemployed.
	Contrary to contemporary anti-racism activists, the writer writes, who claim that the existence of racial disparities necessarily constitutes evidence of racism, Mr. Rustin asserted, That blacks are underrepresented in a particular profession does not by itself constitute racial discrimination.
	What do you think?
	The man said the opposite.
	The opposite of what is said today.
	Although an early opponent of American military involvement in Vietnam Mr. Rustin could not, as he wrote in 1967, quote, go along with those who favor immediate U.S. withdrawal or who absolve Hanoi and the Viet Cong from all guilt.
	A military takeover by those forces would impose a totalitarian regime on South Vietnam, and there is no doubt in my mind that the regime would wipe out independent democratic elements in the country.
	He was a giant, Bayard Rustam.
	Yeah.
	The Viet Cong, well, look, people, the grandparents of the pro-Palestinian demonstrators today marched for the Viet Cong.
	Ho, ho, ho Chi Minh.
	Ho, ho, ho Hamas.
	Or better, ha, ha, ha, ha Hamas.
	I want you to know about besthotgrill.com.
	It's that time again.
	Time to select presents for your family and corporate gifts for your best clients and employees.
	And you want to get them a gift that's fantastic, unforgettable, and truly hot, literally hot.
	That would be a Solaire Infrared Grill from besthotgrills.com.
	Solaire Infrared Grills heat up to 1,000 degrees in just three minutes.
	Perfect for today's busy lifestyles.
	The hot and fast Solaire Infrared Grills are the gift that will be used every time your loved ones or whoever you give it to use it, they'll think of you.
	All Solaire Infrared Grills are made in the USA and they are made to last.
	Solaire Infrared Grills deliver What people really want in a gift.
	Learn more about the amazing Solaire Infrared Grills at BestHotGrill.com BestHotGrill.com Reading to you about a man who was a giant in the civil rights movement.
	Major aid to...
	Martin Luther King Jr. and the man who organized the 1963 civil rights march.
	Everything about him is the opposite of the left.
	Everything.
	Racism is not the great barrier to blacks advancement.
	He's a committed Zionist.
	He believed that withdrawing from Vietnam would cause totalitarianism.
	To take over South Vietnam.
	Mr. Rustin's evolution from absolute pacifist.
	He spent two years in a federal penitentiary during World War II as a conscientious objector.
	Isn't that fascinating?
	To Cold War liberal dismayed many of his allies on the left who accused Rustin's transformation was born of Oh, excuse me, who accused him?
	Well, I'm missing prints here.
	Rustin's transformation was born of long deliberation and genuine conviction.
	According to one biographer, Mr. Rustin repeatedly said that if he had been aware of the Holocaust during World War II, he most likely would not have become a conscientious objector.
	Whereas I used to believe that pacifism had a political value, I no longer believe that.
	Mr. Rustin stated flatly in 1983, it is ridiculous, in my view, to talk only about peace.
	There is something which is more valuable to people than peace, and that is freedom.
	Oh my God.
	If I could resurrect one person from the mid...
	Second half of the 20th century, it might be Bayard Rustin.
	Yet another source of antagonism between Mr. Rustin and the left was his outspoken opposition to anti-Semitism within the black community and fervent support for the state of Israel.
	So far as Negroes are concerned, he wrote in 1967, responding to an eruption of anti-Semitic statements by radical black activists, quote, One of the more unprofitable strategies we could ever adopt is now to join history's oldest and most shameful witch hunt, anti-Semitism.
	What a great term.
	History's oldest and most shameful witch hunt, anti-Semitism.
	The following year, in an address to the Anti-Defamation League, Mr. Rustin condemned, quote, young Negroes spouting material directly from Mein Kampf.
	In 1975, as the United Nations General Assembly was preparing its infamous resolution condemning Zionism as a form of racism, Mr. Rustin assembled a group of African-American luminaries, including A. Philip Randolph, Arthur Ashe, and Ralph Ellison, into the Black Americans to Support Israel Committee.
	Basic.
	Black Americans to Support Israel Committee.
	What happened to that committee?
	Since Israel is a democratic state surrounded by essentially undemocratic states which have sworn her destruction, those interested in democracy everywhere must support Israel's existence, he declared.
	A descendant of slaves who was himself a victim of brutally violent racism, his patriotism was unfashionable among progressives and is even more exceptional today.
	I have seen much suffering in this country, he said, yet despite all this, I can confidently assert that I would prefer to be a black in America than a Jew in Moscow, a Chinese in Peking, or a black in Uganda, yesterday or today.
	The guy's a prophet.
	Asked to contribute to an anthology of black gay men the year before his death, Mr. Rustin respectfully declined.
	Quote, my activism did not spring from my being gay, or for that matter, from my being black.
	Wow.
	He would be called, what Larry Elder was, he would be called by the left today, White leftist, black leftist, the black face of white supremacy.
	Rather, it is rooted fundamentally in my Quaker upbringing and the values that were instilled in me by my grandparents who reared me.
	Those values are based on the concept of a single human family and the belief that all members of that family are equal.
	Adhering to those Values has meant making a stand against injustice to the best of my ability whenever and wherever it occurs.
	Call me Baird.
	Yep, that's right.
	He would be unwelcome in the civil rights community.
	He would be unwelcome today.
	He might be unwelcome by the ADL, the Anti-Defamation League, which spouts all this woke stuff to the detriment of America and Jews.
	Wow.
	I thought you'd find that fascinating.
	For those of you who wonder, what was it like?
	Sixty years ago, know that this man was a leader in America.
	History, arguably, is the most important subject.
	And the ignorance of history is a real problem.
	Real problem.
	If we have young Americans reading Osama Bin Laden's letter to America and saying, you know, he had...
	Many of them.
	I mean, tens of thousands?
	I don't know what number.
	Commenting, well, I didn't know this.
	Maybe, you know, maybe he had a point.
	When I think of 9-11, I think of the people who jumped out of the towers and Can you imagine?
	No, you can't.
	None of us can imagine.
	If I don't jump out the window from the 85th floor, I will be burned alive.
	It takes a lot to have somebody jump out of a window.
	I will never forget the sound of the smashing bodies on the ground.
	It's a sound you can never forget.
	I also think of the flight attendants whose throats were slit by the Islamic terrorists.
	We live in an age of such denial of evil and the reduction of evil and the elevation of evil among the good.
	So that you end up with an equilibrium.
	Right?
	There's no difference between what Islam has created in the modern world and what Christianity has created in the modern world.
	No difference.
	No difference between the West and the Islamic world.
	There are many wonderful Muslims, but that's irrelevant to my point.
	There were many wonderful Germans.
	But Nazism dominated Germany.
	People saying that their God is great, or the greatest, or greater.
	I'm thinking of the literal translation of Akbar.
	Kabir is great.
	While torturing people, innocent people.
	That's the problem.
	The moral compass is broken.
	You like history?
	Go to PragerU and see our President series.
	It's riveting.
	Hey, everybody.
	The ultimate issues hour every Tuesday.
	I was going to say Thursday.
	Why did I say Thursday?
	I will be in St. Louis Thursday, broadcasting from St. Louis.
	I can't go two weeks without flying somewhere.
	Next week, New York.
	I have no idea what will happen when I speak at Columbia University.
	No idea.
	No idea how many students will show up.
	But it's worth it.
	I'm also going to be speaking for Eric Bataxas, one of my favorite people, at his Socrates in the City series.
	My topic today on the Ultimate Issues Hour is my column, because my column comes out Tuesdays, just as the Ultimate Issues Hour does.
	It's titled, American Jews Who Worked for a Secular America Made a Fatal Error.
	Again, American Jews Who Worked for a Secular America Made a Fatal Error.
	Or another way of titling it is, When America Was More Christian, Jews were more secure.
	Should I have titled it that way?
	Which title do you like more?
	The second one.
	You like the second one.
	Yeah.
	Well, what are you going to do?
	That's what happens in life.
	You look back, you go, I should have said X, I should have said Y. Since World War II, most American Jews have believed that the more secular American society is, the more secure their status.
	This has been, as I have argued all of my life, a colossal error.
	Indeed, it may turn out to be a fatal error.
	With the outburst of unprecedented levels of anti-Semitism, American Jews are living the famous warning, Beware what you wish for, you just may get it.
	The primary reason American Jews have lived in the most Jew-friendly, even Jew-honoring country in history is that most Americans have been Christian.
	But we must make a key distinction here.
	American Christians have been not just Christian, as Europe was, but Judeo-Christian.
	Nearly all the American founders were either traditional Christians, i.e.
	believers in the Christian Trinity, or believers in God, but not in the Trinity.
	Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin fall into this latter category, but almost to a man, the founders were Judeophiles.
	Indeed, Jefferson and Franklin wanted the seal of the new United States to depict the Jews leaving Egypt.
	In an 1808 letter, John Adams wrote about the Jews.
	They are the most glorious nation that ever inhabited this earth.
	The Romans and their empire were but a bauble in comparison of the Jews.
	They have given religion to three-quarters of the globe and have influenced the affairs of mankind more and more happily than any other nation, ancient or modern.
	I will insist the Hebrews have contributed more to civilized men than any other nation.
	If I were an atheist and believed in blind eternal fate, I should still believe that fate had ordained the Jews to be the most essential instrument for civilizing the nations.
	It wasn't just the founders who appreciated the Jews' contribution to the formation of the great concepts of Western civilization.
	Mark Twain, who, though not a religious man, was raised in a religious Protestant home, wrote in 1899 in an essay in Harper's Magazine concerning the Jews, The Babylonian and the Persian rose, filled the planet with sound and splendor, then faded to dream stuff and passed away.
	The Greek and the Roman followed and made a vast noise, and they are gone.
	Other people have sprung up and held their torch high for a time, but it burned out, and they sit in the twilight now, or have vanished.
	The Jews saw them all.
	Beat them all, and is now what he has always been, exhibiting no decadence, no infirmities of age, no weakening of all his parts, no slowing of his energies, no dulling of his alert and aggressive mind.
	All things are mortal but the Jew.
	All other forces pass, but he remains.
	What is the secret of his immortality?
	The only inscription on the Liberty Bell is from the Hebrew Bible, specifically the book of Leviticus, the third book of the Torah.
	Proclaim liberty throughout all the land and to all the inhabitants thereof.
	Until 1800, you could not graduate from Harvard University without knowing Hebrew.
	The insignia of Yale University is in Hebrew, depicting the breastplate of the Jewish high priest.
	In a famous study published in the American Political Science Review, Donald Lutz, a professor of political science, at the University of Houston, surveyed the political literature of the American founding.
	He found that the Bible was cited more frequently than any other work or any other author.
	The Bible accounted for approximately one-third of the founders' citations.
	The single most frequently cited work was Deuteronomy, the fifth of the five books of the Torah.
	The late great theologian, Catholic theologian, Michael Novak, wrote that the roots of the doctrine that all men are created equal lie in Judaism carried around the world by Christians.
	As American society and Americans individually became less religious, i.e.
	less Christian, the Jews became less significant.
	Yet many, perhaps most American Jews, have bought and promulgated the idea that Jewish security in America lies in secularizing, i.e.
	dechristianizing, America.
	As noted above, I have warned against this dangerous foolishness all of my life.
	As I said to John Anderson, the former Deputy Prime Minister of Australia, on his podcast, I say this as a Jew.
	I don't romanticize Christianity when I say, its death is the death of the West.
	I am rooting for Christianity's survival as much as you, the Christian, are.
	Look around, my fellow Jews.
	Are you happy with the results of the secularization of America?
	Do you feel more secure or less?
	I ask you, is it not obvious that when more Christians attended church every Sunday, America's Jews were far more secure?
	The ending sentence is what the title should have been.
	It doesn't matter.
	The Jews have never experienced insecurity in the United States.
	There's been anti-Semitism here.
	Places closed off to Jews and so on.
	But Jews knew that this was the most secure place they had ever lived in the history of the Jewish people.
	And it seems to be diminishing.
	It is diminishing because the power of Christianity in America is diminishing and the rise of substitute religions of the left.
	which have nothing in common with Judeo-Christian values, and with the rise in power of fundamentalist Muslims.
	Nobody has an issue with Muslims who are not fundamentalists, but fundamentalist Muslims very often have profoundly anti-Western and anti-Jewish attitudes.
	So, that's the thesis.
	1-8 Prager 776. 877-243-7776.
	When Americans went to church, Jews were more secure.
	That's the topic of the Ultimate Issues Hour.
	Or if you will, all of America was better.
	Not every Christian was a saint.
	Some Christians were awful.
	Because they're human beings and that's going to happen.
	But the sum total was a better America.
	And now, for the first time in the history of the United States, fewer than half of Americans attend church weekly.
	Many attend church weekly.
	W-E-A-K-L-Y. You think America is better with the demise of Christian belief and Christian activity and Christian worship?
	That's the question, and specifically as it pertains to the Jews of America.
	The ability of people to be foolish is literally boundless.
	Has Sean been treating you well?
	Does that go on the air?
	I'm asking our screener if Shona's been treating her well.
	There you go.
	That was completely non-scripted.
	It shows you many things.
	Number one, how careful we are to treat everyone who works on the show with kindness and courtesy and respect.
	number two how little I trust Sean McConnell to do that just want to remind you folks that when men insult one another it means they really like them This is not a female trait.
	That's fun for the male-female hour.
	Maybe we'll do that tomorrow.
	So this is the Ultimate Issues Hour, third hour on Tuesdays.
	My column, it's up at Town Hall, it's up at DennisPrager.com.
	When more Americans...
	Jews are the most insecure in American history.
	Since the founding of the United States, Jews have never been this insecure.
	This was the place where Jews went to be secure.
	And most Jews won't put two and two together.
	Gee, maybe the decline of religiosity in the country is part of the reason.
	Nah.
	People believe what they want to believe.
	Jew, non-Jew, very few people look at the evidence and then draw a conclusion, especially if it counters what they want to believe.
	Jews, my fellow Jews, many of whom are wonderful people, but a lot of wonderful people make very foolish decisions in the macro realm.
	They really believed in secularism, just like religious Jews believe in Judaism and committed Christians believe in Christ.
	Secularism, as I have said all of my life, I knew this in college, maybe high school, secularism is a dead end.
	Dead, baby!
	Dead!
	It gives you nothing.
	Nothing.
	It gives you an empty, meaningless, morally chaotic life.
	That's what it gives you.
	Not all religion gives you a good one.
	I'm talking about Judeo-Christian values.
	Specific thing which America specialized in.
	Who said it?
	That great, great man.
	I knew Michael Novak pretty well.
	He was a giant, this Catholic thinker.
	I miss him very greatly.
	He was a great man.
	And what did he write?
	Yes.
	The roots of the doctrine that all men are created equal lie in Judaism carried around the world by Christians.
	That is it in one sentence.
	The doctrines were Jewish and the carriers were Christian.
	That's right.
	A lot of people, Jews and Christians, ask, why am I so pro-Christian?
	I'm not a Christian.
	I'm a religious Jew.
	How come?
	Because you, Christians, brought the Torah to the world.
	There you go.
	Just what Novak said.
	Where'd you get the doctrine of humans are created in God's image from?
	The Torah.
	Loving God from the Torah.
	Loving man from the Torah.
	Loving the stranger from the Torah.
	That's why I'm writing a five-volume commentary on the Torah.
	I just finished Numbers two days ago.
	How do you like that?
	The fourth book.
	Not a sexy name, but it's a fantastic book.
	I do believe that anyone who reads my five-volume commentary, The Rational Bible, their life will be not only enriched but changed.
	Many of you bought and read Genesis and Exodus because they're the most famous, but Deuteronomy came out two years ago, and that is the book that was most cited by the founders of the country.
	More than Genesis, more than Exodus, more than anyone in the Enlightenment, the single most cited book.
	It was Deuteronomy.
	Please get it.
	Rational Bible.
	1-8 Prager, 776-877-243-7776.
	Albany, Oregon.
	Ron, hello.
	Hi, Dennis.
	Thanks so much for taking my call.
	I think I told your screener that my kid is in college.
	There are protests going on there, and needless to say, Thanksgiving was a little bit rough.
	Go on.
	Well, my child, I don't want to say the college that they go to, because I don't want them to be chased down or anything.
	But my concern is that my son doesn't appreciate what's going on in Israel at all.
	And doesn't understand what the dynamics are there.
	And it is increasingly a problem is what's going on these campuses.
	That's right.
	That's correct.
	Antisemitism is a problem in this country.
	It is rising.
	I'm not sure if I subscribe totally to the idea that it's a function of secularism because, you know, obviously the Spanish Inquisition, we had a lot of antisemitism that existed before.
	In the United States it is.
	I make it clear in the column.
	You're right.
	American Christianity was totally different from European Christianity.
	This was a Judeo-Christianity.
	It was pro-Jewish.
	That's why I read to you John Adams, who was a committed Christian.
	That Jefferson and Jefferson...
	Go on.
	Well, I can tell you that when my parents and my grandparents came over in the 1800s, they had to change their name.
	They couldn't get insurance.
	This was not a function that they were very...
	Oh, so you're Jewish.
	Okay, that's interesting.
	So the fact is, however, that compared...
	You're right.
	compared to a truly perfect society it was a failure compared to every other society why did they flee their society and come to America if you would have asked your grandparents are you happy you came to America even though it was harder to get insurance they probably would have laughed at you oh well no of course they left because of programs but they weren't secular in in Russia at that time no you're right I said
	I've said all of my life to American Jews, my fellow Jews.
	That European Christianity was not the same as American Christianity.
	These are the Christians that put Torah script on the Liberty Bell, that had you study Hebrew, that said the greatest contributions were made by Jews, like I read to you from John Adams.
	This was a different country.
	This was a different form of Christianity.
	Well, I agree.
	I mean, I agree.
	You have someone like John Hagee speaking at the...
	The rally for Israel, I think, was frankly an abomination.
	I mean, I wasn't for John Hagee speaking.
	I was.
	I was.
	Stay on with me.
	I thought it was a great choice.
	I know him very well.
	Back in a moment.
	Relief Factor has a new product.
	And it's called Sleep.
	And guess what it does?
	I'll give you a moment here to think about it.
	Sean is baffled.
	It's fascinating.
	Sean, I don't understand.
	It's sleep, sleep.
	Hello, sleep.
	Folks, a lot of you have problems falling asleep or staying asleep.
	My heart goes out to you.
	It's not a problem I've ever had.
	I'm very lucky, and I know it.
	But if you need to, this is a great product.
	On the occasion that I have taken it, like, for example, when I went to London and I wanted to sleep on the plane, this thing is fantastic.
	Anything Relief Factor does, I'm a big fan of.
	So, if you need to sleep or stay asleep, try it.
	Go to relieffactor.com and order sleep for restorative, regenerative sleep.
	relieffactor.com So, my column this week is essentially that when America was more Christian, Jews were more secure.
	So, there are two issues with my caller.
	This is a really important call.
	I'm very happy you called, because I have a lot of thoughts on what you're saying.
	So, this is Ron in Oregon, and there are two issues.
	One is that his son, he's a Jewish family, and his son has been participating in anti-Israel protests at his college.
	And the other is that he doesn't fully agree with me, because look, after all, look at all the anti-Semitism in Europe, which was done by Christians, and he's absolutely right.
	But as I've said all of my life, American Christianity was not European Christianity, and Jews, the best place Jews have ever lived outside of their own land has been the United States of America.
	Your last comment was that you were distressed that at the rally in Washington for Israel, they had Pastor Hagee speak, correct?
	Yes, that's right.
	I mean, I never totally agreed with John McCain about all things, but when he distanced himself in 2008 from Hagee, I thought that was the right thing to do.
	And the reason?
	Well...
	I don't think the idea that, and this is what Hagee believes, obviously not what I believe, or I would imagine not what you believe, is that Hitler was sent by God to push Jews to Israel.
	And, I mean, I understand the Christian prophecy that we as Jews are a part of that, but not necessarily in the best way.
	But I guess my biggest concern is...
	We just had the greatest attack on Jews since the Holocaust take place.
	And I look at Israel as a place that was founded at least in part to protect Jews.
	And I think that after 75 years, what we're looking at is a situation where that project has failed.
	And I think in part it's failed because of the way that Israel has gone about it.
	Okay, so you've now entered a third arena.
	They're all related.
	Let me just say this about John Hagee.
	First of all, I never, ever judge people on the basis of their...
	I'm sure you're annoyed when Christians think you're going to hell because you don't believe in Christ.
	So why are you annoyed with John Hagee for his religious beliefs?
	If indeed that's what he said.
	I have reviewed it.
	It's not fully clear to me.
	But let's say he said that.
	God sent Hitler.
	My father, who was an Orthodox Jew and fought...
	He fought Hitler in the U.S. Navy for three years, believed that God sent Hitler, because he couldn't believe that the Holocaust just happened and God watched it.
	There are a lot of Jews...
	Well, that's a...
	Yes.
	Okay, so fine.
	So what exactly...
	How remarkably different was my father's view?
	I don't agree with my father, but it doesn't matter.
	It is...
	As I said, I judge beliefs, but I don't judge people by their beliefs.
	So John Hagee has been one of the most pro-Jewish, pro-Israel figures in American life.
	He has founded the largest organization of Christians.
	It is the CUFI, Christians United for Israel.
	I've spoken.
	No, I know that.
	Okay, so why does all of that good...
	No, because it's...
	Because I do think that intent...
	I do think intent is important here.
	So it is true that Israel has a lot of support from Kufi and other Christian Zionists.
	But they want the Jews there so that they go through hellfire.
	That's not true.
	That isn't true.
	I know for a fact it's not true.
	No, no, no.
	Okay, that was one line in one talk.
	With Netanyahu also making common cause.
	Yes, because he's making common cause because the greatest support in America for his country is coming from Christian Zionists.
	Why wouldn't he make common cause with them?
	I'm sorry?
	I'm trying to explain.
	I'm trying to explain because I think what it breeds is a type of singular nationalism in Israel which has left Jews unsafe.
	So you believe that Israel is at fault?
	Okay, so let me understand.
	No, no, not Israel.
	I'm saying...
	Certain elements within Israel, because we know there was Zionist thought, starting in the late 1800s into the early 1900s, where the idea of a multi-ethnic, multi-religious democracy could have taken hold.
	Yeah, okay.
	Well, let me just say this.
	Don't be shocked that your child has taken your ideas to their conclusion.
	Go to relieffactor.com.
	Read what people have written about this product, which relieves pain in muscles and joints.
	I know it.
	I endorse it.
	I use it.
	The living martyr uses it.
	My wife uses it.
	In fact, my wife used it before I ever heard of it.
	That's why I actually agreed to even promote it years ago.
	Because she told me, oh, it's fantastic for her knee pain.
	It's so good, she sometimes forgets to take it.
	Doesn't take it and the knee pain comes back.
	Try it for three weeks.
	Doesn't work in three weeks.
	The bankers say you should cancel your order because it probably won't work for you if it doesn't work in three weeks.
	Go to relieffactor.com $19.95 for three weeks.
	That's it.
	You should definitely try it.
	relieffactor.com $800-583-84 Okay, so just a final word here.
	I rarely keep somebody on so long, but I thought that this is invaluable.
	So I just want to say, and this is, God knows, I thank you for your call and your openness, but with your views with regard to Israel, it's not shocking that your son would have participated in anti-Israel demonstrations at college.
	I know you wouldn't, and I fully appreciate that.
	But he didn't come from a home that made peace with Israel as a national Jewish project.
	Well, I don't think that's true, actually.
	I mean, certainly much of my Hebrew school at that point was more conservative than Orthodox.
	But much of my Hebrew schooling was oriented towards Israel.
	Many of my teachers were...
	Yeah, but that's irrelevant.
	It's your views.
	Look, you said the project itself is flawed.
	All I'm saying is I'm looking at this as a practical matter, though, Dennis, because as a practical matter, if the part of the Zionist project was to provide a safe home for Jews, I mean, and surely you know this as well, We have Israelis now who are in bomb shelters four times a day, and it has not worked.
	The peace and security for Jews as a single ethno-national state has not...
	So therefore, you believe Jews would be more secure if they weren't a Jewish state, and it was just a Jewish and Muslim state?
	And Christian...
	And Christian.
	Yeah, but there are so few Christians there.
	Okay, okay, that's academic.
	So you believe Jews would be more secure with majority Arab rule?
	I think absolutely a multi-ethnic society could be set up.
	Okay, all right, all right.
	Look, I've got to leave you at that because we've talked so long.
	Forgive me.
	I'll leave it at that and let the listener decide.
	But I think it's...
	You need to be honest with yourself.
	If you believe that the Zionist project is a failure, it is not that surprising that your son would have demonstrated against Israel on his campus.
	St. Petersburg, Florida.
	Corey, hello.
	Yes, hello, Dennis.
	Since October 7th, I've been to four or five Catholic churches for Sunday Mass.
	And not one time has the priest mentioned in his homily the atrocities committed against Israel.
	So after each Mass, I spoke to the priest and I said, well, you know, we're witnessing modern-day good versus evil, the good being the Israelis.
	Why don't you say something?
	And at best, at the very best, the priest will say, well, we are doing something.
	We're praying for peace in the Mideast, as if there's a moral equivalent.
	Right, the moral equivalents.
	That's very depressing.
	It's very depressing.
	I bless you for calling.
	There is of zero consolation to me that all of my beliefs about the human species are being vindicated once again.
	Many of you have heard me say...
	And if you've been listening since I began radio 40 years ago, you've heard me say it 40 years ago.
	Evil is not dark.
	You can look into the dark.
	Evil is so bright, you can't look at it.
	And then people have pointed out Lucifer is from light.
	It's much easier to be neutral than to fight evil.
	much easier.
	It's another distressing realization, but I'm a big boy.
	I can handle distressing realizations, or DRs, as Sean calls them.
	And that is that I often ask myself, how big a difference does a religion play in a person's life morally?
	I know it does in terms of happiness.
	I know it does in terms of meaning, community, good things, but morally.
	Eric Metaxas writes about this.
	Eric Metaxas is one of the greatest Christian voices on this subject.
	We saw the weakness of so much...
	So many religious institutions, when like sheep, they said fine when the government said shut down during COVID. Sure, absolutely.
	We will be completely obedient to secular irrational authority.
	That's what most churches and synagogues said.
	That should have been a wake-up call.
	It was a wake-up call for many.
	Not for Eric Metaxas, he knew about this before, but he's written his, I think, letter to the Christian Church on this subject.
	I mean, if a Catholic priest cannot tell the difference between Hamas and Israel, of what use is his Catholicism?
	Or Protestantism?
	Or Mormonism?
	Or Judaism?
	Of what use is it?
	I mean, this is not a toughie, my friends.
	This is just not a toughie.
	Civilization versus barbarity and a religious individual can't tell the difference.
	What the hell did you study in seminary?
	Yeah.
	Oh.
	Okay, Dick in Denver, Colorado.
	Hello.
	Dennis, thank you so much for taking my call.
	I love you.
	I love your show.
	Michael's sister is my sister-in-law.
	And whenever you go, we live four minutes from the View House.
	You are welcome to stay with us anytime you come out.
	Please remember that.
	Thank you.
	I'm a Reformed Jew.
	I'm shocked that I've lived.
	I'm as old as Israel.
	I was born in 1948, the end of 1948. This is breaking such vitriol at this time.
	I can't believe that I'm living through this now.
	I have a granddaughter who's about to start college in next September, and I fear for wherever she will be going, what I see...
	Yeah, I'm very curious about her.
	We'll be back in a moment.
	Hi, everybody.
	Final segment.
	Really important hour here.
	Read my column today, if you would.
	It's on that.
	When America was more Christian, Jews were more secure.
	That's the column.
	It's not just the title, that's the subject.
	So, Dick in Denver, as a Reformed Jew, and is your granddaughter going to college?
	And what are you worried about?
	I'm worried about her safety.
	I'm worried.
	She's been very active in BBYO. Oh, bless her.
	Okay, that's great.
	You did a good job.
	She's been a president of the Rocky Mountain region.
	I have been very blessed and I'm very, very lucky.
	Well, I don't know if it's come to the point that we Jews should worry about the safety of every Jewish student at a college.
	I tend not to bury my head in the sand.
	I've been confronting the issue of evil all of my life.
	So I don't know the answer to that.
	But I do know that if Jews start hiding their being a Jew, like taking down their mezuzahs, then it's over.
	If you have to take down your mezuzah in the United States of America.
	Things are really bad.
	Let me summarize your calls.
	Please don't hang up, because I can't take them all.
	But I can summarize many.
	Michael in Manhattan says, John Hagee said Hitler was good for the Jews.
	Terrible.
	Okay.
	John Hagee doesn't believe Hitler was good for the Jews.
	He believes Hitler is in hell for what he did to the Jews.
	You might as well say my father was terrible.
	My father believed that God willed the Holocaust and he was an Orthodox Jew and fought Hitler in the Navy.
	This notion that we judge people by theology anyway is so un-Jewish.
	He's been one of the greatest friends that Israel and the Jews have.
	I've been to his church many times and spoken there and seen these people give over their time and their money to help Jews.
	Roseville California Larry.
	Christian who went to synagogue to show support and should he do the same at a mosque?
	No.
	Because one side is right and one side isn't.
	Not all Muslims are supporters of Hamas, but most are.
	Have you seen any anti-Hamas marches at mosques?

▲