Dennis Prager Show - Timeless Wisdom - Newer Ideas in My Life

Oct. 20, 2025 - Dennis Prager Show

01:23:16

Timeless Wisdom - Newer Ideas in My Life

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	Welcome to Timeless Wisdom with Dennis Crager.
	Here, thousands of hours of Dennis' lectures, courses, and classic radio programs.
	And to purchase Dennis Brager's rational Bible.
	go to DennisPrager.com.
	Thank you.
	So I try to give you somewhat different perspectives.
	And what I decided to do today was to speak on, let's see, I have here two, four, six, eight.
	I may get to eight, I may not.
	Things that are ideas that are very important to me now that I didn't know any number of years ago.
	Things that I have learned more forcefully, or even anew in the last few years, and they are both micro and macro, both on the personal and on the social realm.
	There's no order of importance, but things that have started to play a bigger role in my thinking than ever before, or even a brand new role.
	And in one case, a dramatic issue, actually, I've changed my mind completely.
	People often ask if I if I do, and I I sometimes do on the air.
	But uh this that one I will bring to your attention.
	Uh you may know of it, but uh I've only mentioned it in passing to the extent that I have on the radio.
	Okay, with no uh in no order of importance, I think that one thing that has come to play a strong role in my understanding of life, uh, and for some of you this is yawn worthy, and for others, it will be not acceptable, and I may be wrong.
	Uh but I have come to realize, and I'll tell you how I deal with it then, because it's not a happy realization.
	And a lot of realizations are not happy.
	Let's be honest.
	And that is the role of luck in life.
	Good luck and bad luck.
	Now, you really only have one alternative to that view, and that is that God has directed everything that happens in your life.
	If you believe that, I not only don't want to knock it out of you, I want you to give it to me.
	I would love to believe that, and I'm a big believer in God, and I'm a big believer in a personal God.
	I think God knows me, God knows you.
	I believe in ultimate justice and hereafter and after life, divine revelation, as I talked to you yesterday.
	Uh, and there are many religious people who see God's hand in everything that happens in their lives.
	I I my father, well, not everything, but my father, for example, believed, and does believe, that the date of your death is set by God.
	So if you are in bed at home or fighting in World War II as he did for three years in the Pacific, fighting submarines and kamikaze, it doesn't matter.
	Your date has been prescribed, ordained by God, and whether you are in the Pacific in World War II or you are at home in bed, in his case, Brooklyn, New York, it wouldn't matter.
	And by the way, I envied him my whole life, this belief, because it uh it was so good for him during the war.
	He says that three, and he's a happy go-lucky guy, many of you have heard him on the radio.
	He's obviously going through the difficult time of the loss of his great friend and partner, my mother, but he's uh he is a happy go-lucky guy, generally speaking.
	Uh and yet, even given that, and the very good life he has led, he's led a very blessed life.
	And have had the greatest uh wife, uh, had a great profession, uh, has two, if I may say, wonderful children, uh, and a lot of grandchildren from my brother who are also wonderful.
	Uh oh, he's got grandchildren.
	I meant great grandchildren from my brother.
	He has he has grandchildren through me, too.
	Uh, but anyway, uh, he had this view that those were the three happiest years of his life fighting the Japanese in the South Pacific, in the you know, the Pacific Ocean, and you know, could be killed any day.
	But he loved it, he loved the camaraderie, he loved everything, he loved being in the Navy.
	He just loved it, and he speaks about it uh with the greatest fondness.
	Uh, What enabled him, as opposed to some of the others on ship, to be fearless was not that he's more courageous.
	I mean, he has a level of courage, but that was not it.
	It was this belief.
	So uh so I don't I don't have any desire to uh ever help in any way extinguish that belief, whether it's in my father or any of you.
	But for those of you who are less, I don't I don't know what the word, mystical, uh spiritual in your outlook, and more on the rational side, one has to deal with this very real fact of what I call luck.
	And I see I see no choice uh but to believe that that's the case, because God I'm torn.
	Would I like to believe that if God forbid one of you uh tomorrow in Morocco were hit by a drunk driver, uh not likely, by the way, since there's very little drinking in Muslim countries, but on the off chance that you were hit by a drunk driver tomorrow and and paralyzed or killed, uh I I would like to believe that for whatever inscrutable reason God willed it.
	But I don't believe that.
	I believe that the drunk driver made a terrible decision and is completely responsible for his or her behavior.
	And uh I I have come to realize how much, and by the way, luck goes in both directions.
	The amount of good luck that people who succeed have, or people who are healthy have, or people with good kids have, I mean, there's just an enormous amount of good fortune that many people have too.
	And one has to weigh both before complaining.
	It's uh I mean, when you think about it the just the right timing that this happened, I I take as an example, I believe that, and this is again uh uh within my life's thinking, a more recent observation.
	Uh I always enjoy speaking to couples who were married for a long time to one another.
	And uh I asked them, so if they have a good marriage.
	Now, being together a long time doesn't mean a good marriage.
	It just means that you've decided not to divorce.
	That's very important.
	That's why one should never confuse longevity of marriage with successful marriage.
	Successful is successful, and long is long.
	Uh uh, a long marriage may be a horror place.
	So please understand, I'm only I'm only concerned with those who have had a good marriage, really good marriage for a long period of time.
	And when I have asked them, well, what's the secret to a successful, happy, long-term marriage, and the answer that I got more and more was luck.
	I met the right person and I lucked out.
	And I believe that's true for my own parents.
	I think my parents would say that.
	There's no, in fact, they did say that.
	My mother said it, and my father would say it now.
	They met at 17.
	What did what did they know at 17?
	They knew about, you know, did they check the e-harmony list of 39 characteristics and someone?
	And I think e-harmony does great work.
	That's why I'm using it as an example.
	It didn't exist then, to say the least.
	And so they met, and uh four years later they married and stayed married happily, I mean, truly happily, for 69 years.
	It's their luck.
	And knowing my parents, and this is no uh no bad reflection.
	I I have the greatest esteem for them, as I think comes through regularly, and when I talked uh to them on the air, uh but uh I don't think either one would have been the easiest spouse to live with for another person.
	All right?
	And it's probably true for a lot of people.
	But they happened to have lucked into meeting a terrific person for them at a very early age.
	And likewise, there are people who've had bad bad luck in marriages.
	That something happened, and you know, in the course of time, and whatever it might be, that the person changed, or the person, whatever.
	I mean, anything could happen.
	Becomes bitter at a certain age, just changes their values at a certain age, flips out.
	I mean, any anything is possible.
	Or even disease.
	Even disease, you know, that does God will all disease that everyone gets.
	It's hard for me to believe.
	Maybe so.
	But I I have to say that there's an element of luck and health.
	You can take care of yourself only so much.
	Was James Fix, the great jogger who died of a heart attack?
	Remember that?
	I mean, you know, what did he do wrong exactly?
	He didn't jog 80 miles a day, only 50, or whatever the man did.
	And so it's just an enormous in almost every area of life, that is the case.
	We like to take credit for if we have really wonderful kids.
	Parents like to take credit for it, but most parents know there's a huge element of luck.
	I'll give you one example about the element of luck in your child's life, who they meet for friends in high school or later.
	You can't control that.
	To a certain extent, you can.
	I'm not letting Joe into this house.
	He's obviously a bad influence on you, my son or my daughter.
	Okay, so that but they're going to meet Joe all day at school.
	And how many, you know, how many families don't have an issue like that with one kid or two kids or whatever it might be.
	I'll never forget, and I thought this was a very uh important moment, and one I saluted my father for.
	Uh, when he uh after a speech I gave that he and my mother attended, I overheard some people going over to him and saying, Oh, wow, did you raise a fantastic son?
	You must have been some father.
	And he was telling, tell you the truth, it's almost all luck.
	And I really wanted to hug him for that.
	Because there was a lot of luck in how I turned out.
	I know I know my parents' generation did not involve themselves in most part in parenting.
	Basically, my parents, their parents, their parents, till back to Adam and Eve, gave you room and board.
	That's what that's what parents did.
	They gave you room and board, somebody else taught you.
	You know, if you hired a clergy in in olden Europe, or you, you know, some form of schooling outside of the home.
	But uh that's that's true.
	There was a there's a fair amount of luck there.
	And the question to me is not whether there is luck in life, and you you think of people at the wrong place at the wrong time, a stray bullet from a gang in a part of a bad city that any of you live in.
	So, you know, just horrible luck to have been there at that exact moment.
	And so uh what the question for me is not whether luck plays a role, it's what do you do with the knowledge that it does?
	So the answer is, I mean, an answer, there isn't the answer, but an answer is that you are very grateful for the good luck you have.
	Uh, you try to put in perspective the bad luck that you have, and march on.
	I mean, one's alternative in life uh really is clear to me, and this is a very big factor in my own ability to be happy, and that is what is your choice.
	You have a bad thing happen to you.
	You have really two choices to melt down or to stay strong.
	Those, you know, in effect, those are your two choices.
	How does melting down, becoming bitter, uh, angry, how does that help you?
	It doesn't.
	It furthers the bad luck that you've already experienced, if it indeed was bad luck.
	This isn't to say that we don't bring certain things on ourselves, or that there is no role that my parents played.
	It would be absurd to say there was no role.
	They gave me a stable home, that's a big deal.
	And uh anything else.
	Uh, how did I get into radio?
	It was it was a perfect example of luck and uh and ability.
	But the the luck part weren't there.
	I I don't know if I ever would have started in radio.
	Uh the head of the Los Angeles uh Bureau of Education gave my name to the head of KABC, Roberta Weintraub, if any of you live in LA and remember her name.
	Was a good friend of George Green, the head of KABC, who was looking for a new person to be the moderator of this program with a priest, minister, and rabbi every Sunday night.
	And he said, I need a new person, and the person has to know how to speak, know religion, know about religion, and not be a clergyman.
	I don't want a clergy to be the one interviewing the clergy.
	I want a lay person.
	So she had just heard me lecture.
	Said, oh, this young guy was 32, this young guy.
	He's he's terrific.
	He speaks well.
	He speaks about religion, and he's not a clergyman.
	All right, we'll try him out.
	And that's how it happened.
	If Roberta Weinstraub didn't have that lunch with George Green, I I would be uh shoveling snow.
	I don't know what I would be.
	I I really don't know.
	But uh it's that it there's there's so much of that.
	Uh the the recession hit.
	Person could have worked all their lives utterly responsibly, now they're laid off at 50 years of age.
	They didn't do anything wrong.
	Just forces beyond their control have conspired in that way.
	So that's become a uh a real factor in my uh in my looking at life.
	I rather have clarity and rationality, uh, and I guess somewhat discomforting news, if it isn't indeed discomforting, than be comforted by something I knew I couldn't believe for rational reasons.
	That my being rational is a is both a curse and a blessing.
	But so either way, that's what uh I think I have.
	And so the luck factor.
	And by the way, remember these things, or jot it down in case you want to ask me questions afterwards.
	But if I took questions after each one, I'd never get to the next one completely understandably.
	A second one, uh and they're all unrelated uh to one another.
	Uh and that is also, I became it's become clear to me only in the last five years.
	By the way, just a parenthetical statement.
	When I was in my 20s, I did a tremendous amount of thinking and even writing.
	At the age of 25, I wrote an introduction to Judaism, which is, if not the most widely read English language introduction to Judaism, one of the two or three most, still in print 30 years later.
	And uh I so I was always thinking, and I remember in my 20s thinking, God, all these understandings, these revelations about life are coming, but as I get older, they're not going to come as fast.
	You know, you I've I've learned so much now, but they've never stopped coming.
	I I've been amazed by that, how much there still is to learn about life.
	You think at some age you've you know, you you pretty much have learned a good part of what there is to know.
	I don't mean about you know learning a foreign language or learning an instrument, but I mean about life.
	But yet the revelations keep coming.
	By the way, I'll add one more parenthetical on that thing.
	Uh this is not new, but I do want to I want to address this in case it hits home for any of you or for someone you might know.
	When I began lecturing, oddly enough, at 21 years of age, it's a very odd thing to begin public lecturing at that age.
	Uh I would be told regularly at the end of a speech, someone would come over.
	What a terrific speech, but you know what?
	Uh it's it's uh we older folks are not the ones you should be talking to.
	I mean, there would be a smattering of all ages, but uh uh because by our age, you don't change anymore.
	Even at 21, I got angry at people who say that at a certain age you just don't change.
	And I I don't want to offend anybody who believes this, but if you believe that, you're dead.
	You breathe, you eat, you take cruises, but you're dead.
	I I don't understand there is no part of me now, 40 years later, that feels any less capability of changing.
	In fact, I think it's easier to change now, because I'm so much more level-headed than all the the the hormones and the pressures of youth.
	I feel more capable of changing now if I hear how I have to change, uh, than I think I was it 21.
	I mean, you know, that's not it's not easy to change when you're young.
	So it's not easy to change any age.
	But but age is not the fact, older age isn't the factor.
	That's when you know you're alive.
	So anyway, I just wanted to add that as as a as a parenthetical.
	And only this one, that's something that that confirms what I believed many years ago.
	Okay.
	Anyway, here's another one.
	The desire to be loved uh is a very bad desire.
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	Or anything that involves responsibility.
	Man, I'll explain.
	If a president of the United States or a Prime Minister of Canada, it doesn't matter, I'm not, I'm just using US because you're Americans.
	A president who wants to be loved by the country will be a terrible president.
	A boss at a company who wants to be loved will run an awful company.
	That doesn't mean that you should be mean to your employees, God forbid.
	But uh wanting to be loved is generally in fact it's always bad except by friends and spouses.
	You should want to be loved by your spouse and by your friends.
	And and well, I guess by your parents.
	Or by your parents.
	I'll add that too.
	That's it.
	Now everybody wants to be loved by their children, but that's a very big problem in child rearing.
	Because if you want them to love you at all times, you will be a bad parent.
	It's a given.
	And what a lot of parents of my generation and the next generation do is whatever they can to be loved by their kid at all times.
	At all times.
	They'll pay that the piper later on, in my opinion.
	Uh because those who reap in uh those who sow in tears will reap in joy, really applies to everything, including child rearing.
	So if you're not capable of of withstanding not being loved, or even your kid saying I hate you, then uh you can't be a good parent.
	I don't know.
	Uh we have talked, Alan and I have discussed this even on the air.
	Uh I don't know where it emanates from.
	But I'll give you a fascinating change, and my my I'm uh I'm somewhat agnostic on this issue.
	And that is that massive sea change in parents going to all the events of their children.
	My parents came to a total of two events.
	When I recited a Russian poem in college at Brooklyn College, they came to my unbelievable surprise.
	And by the way, I was happy they came.
	There's a reason I was happy they came, you will enjoy this.
	I was happy they came because we have a standing joke in my family.
	I started teaching myself Russian in a Berlitz self-teaching book in high school.
	And when my parents met my dear friend Joseph Telushkin's parents, who's now one of the most prominent rabbis in America, but we were very close in high school.
	We're still very close.
	And uh he met Joseph, they met Joseph's parents.
	I went to a Jewish high school, and they met at a parent teacher's meeting, and they had never met before.
	Of course, they had met Joseph, but never his parents, like, and likewise me or mine.
	My father looked at uh Joseph's parents and said, you know, it's too bad I didn't send Dennis to a Russian school, then he would have learned Hebrew.
	It's a very good line.
	Very good line, one that Joseph and I get a big kick out of repeating.
	So what I did was, you know, uh I I learned it.
	So I wanted to show my parents, you see, look at what I can do now in Russian.
	And it was a Yev Toshenko poem, which I still know most of by heart.
	Uh the only other time is when I played basketball for 56 seconds in Madison Square Garden before a next game.
	Some of you know the story.
	Uh maybe I'll tell it before the cruise is over.
	Uh don't eat a lot before you hear it.
	You will laugh your brains out.
	It is the most hilariously embarrassing story I think a human can have.
	My 56 seconds on Madison Square Garden floor.
	Anyway, they came to that too.
	And that was it.
	Uh Alan says his parents never came to anything, correct?
	And he loves his parents and they love him.
	And he's a wonderful son.
	I can tell you that.
	He was just up in uh Oregon because his dad's not feeling well and just uh just went to spend a week with him just like that.
	Uh so my question is, do the parental involvement in kids' life, which is now unprecedented, is it a good thing, a neutral thing, a bad thing?
	And what does it emanate from?
	Is it purely altruistic?
	And I don't care general what motives are.
	I just assess the acts.
	But still in all, or is it my kid will love me because I went to his soccer game or her science exhibit or whatever it might be.
	I don't know.
	But I think that there is that element in it.
	How can I be the only parent not to show up?
	What will my kid think of me?
	Back to wanting to be loved.
	It's a very bad thing, except you should want your spouse, you should want your friends to love you.
	Agreed with that.
	But because those are peers, to be wanted to be loved by peers is lovely.
	Your spouse is your peer, your friends are your peers.
	But wherever there is a vertical relationship, it's not good.
	A vertical meaning hierarchical, parent, child, head of a country, and the people give you another one.
	Uh I don't I don't want America loved.
	Let's put it this way.
	I I'd be very happy if America were loved.
	But it's not, it's a very bad goal.
	It means that America will compromise on it on the values that distinguish it from other countries.
	And just go along with others.
	By the way, it still won't breed love.
	This president has tried to make nice and apologize for America, the country that has done more to spread liberty than any other in the history of the world.
	And the still is still not loved.
	We're loved by, you know, a fair sliver of European opinion, perhaps, who read The Guardian every day.
	It is not a good aim.
	You will not be a good parent, you will not be a good country, you will not be a good teacher.
	Teachers who go into the class wanting to be loved, that's part of, hey, call me Jerry.
	And I'm not going to give you an F, and if I do, I'm going to mark it, you know the newest.
	They mark things in blue, not in red.
	Because red might frustrate the child.
	That's a terrible, terrible thing.
	Kids should be frustrated.
	If you didn't do a good job, you have to be told that no uncertain terms.
	Otherwise, how are you going to develop into an adult?
	But uh but so they've even abolished red pencils in many cases from marking it up.
	And then not even, you know, in spelling.
	There have been teachers who have said, what doesn't matter if you spell about A B O W T. It's understood.
	It's understandable.
	What matters is being understood, not spelling.
	And a lot of kids don't know how to spell, as I'm sure you've seen if you've seen any of their text messages.
	And so, or forget text messages, compositions.
	I taught at college, and it was it was appalling sometimes, the essays that they would write.
	So wanting to be loved, great for spouse, great for friends, and that's about it.
	As it is, I also have come to realize love is a little too often used.
	For example, this is a story I've told.
	I'll never forget I was invited to Anaheim, California, gigantic uh, I think the convention center, where the Catholic educators of the country had their annual meeting.
	Thousands of Catholic educators.
	I was very honored to have the invitation, and I was going to speak on the false gods of modern men and women.
	One of them on my paper was love.
	I walk in, and the largest banner I have ever seen in my life, God is love.
	And I'll never forget, I I'll never forget how I debated with myself, what do I do?
	I can give a great speech, just drop love.
	But then I'm not being true to what I want to say.
	I did keep it in.
	I was never invited back, but I did keep it in.
	But uh this notion of God is love is is bizarre to me.
	God is many things.
	Of course, God is love, but he's also justice, he's also punishment.
	He's a judge.
	Well, what a what a what if somebody put up a banner?
	God is judgment.
	They wouldn't be very popular.
	You wouldn't have thousands of people showing up to celebrate that.
	Nobody wants to be judged.
	I pray God is a judging God.
	I pray for it.
	I don't want the bad to get away with what they get away with, and I don't want the good not to be rewarded.
	I pray to God that he's a judging God.
	But so that's the problem.
	Not that God doesn't radiate love, but that's not all.
	God is love means that's it.
	No.
	If if it were love is one powerful dimension of God, I that's great.
	I agree with that.
	But that's all it is.
	So the whole love notion is problematic.
	Aside from wanting to be loved as number one.
	Okay.
	Okay.
	Just debating what to do next.
	Okay, here's a here's a one on here's one that I just covered very recently on the happiness hour.
	Nothing is permanent, nothing good and nothing bad, by and large, is permanent.
	Life is a roller coaster for the vast majority of human beings.
	There are good times and then there are bad times, and then the bad times pass, and then you can have a good time, and the good times pass and you have a bad time.
	The problem is that when you're in either of them, you think it's permanent.
	When things are going bad, you see no light at the end of the tunnel.
	And when things are going good, you just assume why would anything bad happen?
	That's human nature.
	But the truth is nothing really lasts.
	And by the way, I've had to deal with this.
	I've been very fortunate and worked my tail off to try to not have it happen to me.
	The vast majority of people in my profession who started when I did are now in another profession.
	I don't know anyone broadcasting 28 years.
	There's no brag involved here at all.
	It is just that I have had to deal with.
	I better remake, not in a phony sense, but make better all the time.
	I can't lean on past success to be successful tomorrow.
	Tomorrow's show is the most important show I've ever broadcast.
	That is how I look at it.
	I give you my word.
	In fact, there's a voice in me that thinks if you do a bad show, Dennis, you're fired.
	That is how demanding I am of myself because I don't take it for granted at all that I'll be hired again or that radio will just have no money to support.
	Look, those of you who are in LA know that one of the most uh wonderful broadcasters in LA history, Larry Elder, is not on the air.
	That's because ABC Radio is essentially bankrupt.
	It's owned by Citadel, and Citadel is bankrupt.
	They knew Larry was great.
	Larry got great ratings.
	They just couldn't afford him.
	And, you know, I'm I'm fortunate my my syndicator is doing better than ABC.
	But it could have been the other way around.
	In fact, it's so ironic as when I left KABC, they thought I was nuts.
	And it turned out I was fortunate and not nuts.
	But both.
	And so when you I'll tell you, I would love to do a book on early people with early success in life.
	You know, you take sports figures, you know.
	Today they're a household main quarterback, household name baseball player.
	And 20 years from now, they're in trivial pursuit.
	Right?
	I mean, a sports life, you are you are the center of attention.
	If you're lucky, ten years, if you're very lucky.
	But they have another 60 years to live, probably, after the age of 30.
	What then?
	It must be very hard to have such success so early, and then none.
	And at least in that area, it doesn't mean that they can't do other wonderful things, of course.
	So life is like that.
	And it that's why I love the story of King Solomon's ring.
	He asked his wise men to make him a ring that would lift him up when he was down and bring him down to earth when he was a little manic.
	And they made a ring with the Hebrew words, this too shall pass.
	Everybody should wear that ring.
	this too shall pass back to uh Back to a family issue.
	I uh uh I am now of the opinion that the somewhat dysfunctional family is the normal family.
	Enough laughter and nodding of heads has taken place.
	I admit it, I grew up thinking, you know, that behind every classic white picket fence and home and dog was a fairly stable home.
	Everybody has quirks, but you know, stable home.
	Mom, dad, kids, everybody more or less getting along fine.
	I was wrong.
	Most families have something seriously imperfect going on.
	And I always point out that I'm so grateful to the book of Genesis for giving us the peace to know this.
	Every family in Genesis is dysfunctional.
	Every single one.
	The first two brothers, one kills the other.
	Talk about joy from your children.
	How's Abel?
	I don't know.
	Am I my brother's keeper?
	You just go down the line.
	Abraham tries to sacrifice his own son.
	Now, I believe it's a divine test, and he passed it, but Sarah wasn't happy.
	Abraham's wife.
	And she left him.
	And I can prove it to you in the text.
	They never saw each other once and lived in separate cities after the attempt to sacrifice Isaac.
	They never.
	The next time there's any encounter, she is dead, and he goes from his city to uh to mourn her death.
	Then you have uh Jacob's children with Joseph, whom he favors foolishly, gives this coat of many colors to, the uh and and he has these dreams that all his brothers will bow down to him.
	He's the sun and the rest are moon and stars, even his father.
	Talk about a narcissist.
	I mean, Joseph, by the way, Joseph is the best story of an individual changing, and maybe the longest story in the in the Hebrew Bible or the Old Testament of one character.
	We I mean there's a lot of time devoted to Moses, but we don't get details about his life.
	This is a personality change, went from narcissist to good man.
	But he was raised to be a narcissist by his father Jacob.
	And yet Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, those are the patriarchs of Israel.
	We're talking about, you know, giant figures in history.
	But the families weren't doing too well.
	Uh Rebecca helps uh Jacob uh uh fool Isaac for the blessing.
	Remember that?
	Putting on hair on his arm, arms uh to uh to feel because the father was blind, Isaac is blind, and uh so he should feel like Esau and trick him into the right blessing.
	I mean, it's so it should give you some comfort in case there's you have a member of your family who may not be wonderful.
	In fact, my theory is that it is family that that actually in some ways makes us uh universal more than friends.
	Because after all, we choose friends who were like us by and large.
	But you can't choose family.
	You're stuck with a certain percentage of jerks.
	That is just the way it is.
	Just as the jerks are stuck with me and are giving the same speech right now, thinking of me as the family jerk, perhaps.
	Who knows?
	But that that is just something that uh, and by the way, ironically, there is a comforting element in that.
	Not in the sense of Schadenfreude that I am I have any joy in others' suffering, not at all.
	But as a but if you walk around thinking only your family is afflicted with issues, drugs, uh uh not, you know, out of wedlock birth, uh ne'er do well, who knows?
	You're not.
	You're not alone.
	That seems to be fairly much the norm that that exists.
	So it's a good thing to know.
	Another uh revelation uh that's on the macro level that uh I have uh I have come to uh uh appreciate uh is uh is a sobering one, and in with in this regard, I differed with President George W. Bush.
	President Bush uh uh, whom I supported, of course, uh fairly significantly uh on uh tax cuts on prosecuting Islamic terrorists and some major things.
	But uh he believed that all of humanity yearns for liberty as much as he does, or as much as Americans have felt that we we they have.
	That's I don't believe it's true.
	I think that the human nature yearns more for security than I mean financial security and physical security, more than for liberty.
	In that regard, I regard even more so the United States as an aberration because we have chosen liberty over personal security.
	The social welfare state developed in Europe, first under Bismarck and then all over Europe, says liberty is a way second to security and social engineering.
	And people generally agree with that.
	That's why why they vote that way.
	And our individualism.
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	Uh is regarded as uh as wrong, just morally wrong.
	Uh there is a book by Eric Fromm, which I read in in high school or college, Escape from Freedom, that people do want to escape from freedom.
	We sh uh he I just think he was being romantic, President George W. Bush in thinking and advocating that people yearn for freedom.
	Some people yearn for freedom.
	But I don't think most people do.
	Most people yearn for order.
	Yearn for being taken care of rather than for freedom when you're you because freedom means you can fail.
	Freedom means the freedom to fail.
	And the welfare state does not allow for your freedom to fail.
	And so the American experiment with liberty and the individual taking care of himself and others rather than the state is a radical departure from everything else in Western civilization, and I don't know if it'll last.
	Because that's not what people yearn for.
	And they yearn for induced or coerced fairness.
	Norway, more again, more than liberty.
	Nor uh Norway passed a law a few years ago that every board of directors of a major company in Norway has to be half female.
	Irrespective of whether they could find females, because you know, lack lack of training as much as males had, whatever reason.
	Not that females are less competent, they have less background, and also females are generally less work crazy than men are.
	That's just a fact.
	And it's not sexist, it's factual.
	Or it's a if you will, it's a sexist fact.
	It doesn't make men better, by the way.
	It's not better or worse.
	The sexes are different.
	Men are more likely to work their tails off at a job and get satisfaction than women who uh have many other competing desires like family.
	They don't derive their self-definition as much from work as men do.
	Doesn't mean they can't do a great job.
	I mean, I'm very much into music.
	I'll never forget when I was in college, the classical station of the New York Times in New York WQXR.
	I think it's just recently been sold, no longer classical.
	I would listen to it.
	And they won one day they said, so you think there's a difference between a woman pianist and a and a man pianist?
	We're gonna play for you six, the same piece by six pianists.
	Three women, three men.
	See if you can identify it.
	They called in the biggest music critics and musicians.
	Nobody could identify.
	I mean, it's obvious in music there's no difference between the sexes.
	But there are areas where there is more.
	I mean, more men want to be engineers than women.
	It's just the way it is.
	And and uh work harder as well.
	So they but they passed this law in Norway.
	Sounds wonderful, but the now the companies, this was a New York Times piece a few weeks ago.
	The companies are losing money.
	They are doing worse than they did beforehand.
	Now, you know, Meg Whitman is running as one of the candidates uh for governor in California, you know, with eBay.
	I mean, she's obviously done magnificently.
	It's not to say women can't do it.
	It's just to say that there weren't enough women to fill those affirmative action spots on the boards of directors of Norwegian companies.
	But Norwegians love it.
	It's fair.
	It's not free, but it's fair.
	Because that means boards are not free to hire their own directors.
	The country tells them.
	People like to be told what to do, believe it or not.
	The American spirit doesn't like it, but the American spirit is not enduring necessarily if it's not passed on to another generation.
	Now back to family.
	Here's the one wherein I changed my mind 180 degrees.
	And it in large measure because of you.
	Meaning my listeners in totality, and the emails and the calls for decades on this subject, and the subject is spanking.
	I didn't spank either of my boys, so I have no vested interest in telling you.
	I'm not defending my own behavior.
	I'm in fact saying that done properly, spanking is a good idea with some kids.
	Not every kid, not older kids, but uh the number of people who have written to me and called me up, and I said I was against banking on the on the radio for many years.
	And then I would just get calls from people who were spanked as kids and said, Thank God my parents did I turned out good.
	I was a wild animal.
	And now the New York Times has a very interesting, had a very interesting piece.
	And the piece was uh that uh so f so many fewer parents are spanking, there's now a lot more yelling at children in houses.
	I mean, look, kids are exacerbating, right?
	They're not all as easy as you and I were.
	And and so uh kids can be exacerbating.
	And what uh what do you do?
	Um you know, you remember the Doritos ad that I criticized about the kid who was smacks across the face, the man coming to pick up his mother for a date.
	I was I wrote my uh column on it, I broadcast about it.
	Uh uh, I didn't I didn't like that idea.
	And yet the number of people, I mean, I was vilified in the uh uh on on the internet by left-wing blogs because uh I I said I would grab that kid's hand and hurt that hand.
	I don't mean permanently injure it, but hurt, I'd put pressure, I'd squeeze it.
	You don't hit an adult kid.
	Who the hell are you?
	Can you have imagined as a kid smacking an adult?
	I mean it's what if the kid had cursed the adult?
	Let's say the same thing.
	But uh, so I if uh I they said, well, what if somebody grabbed your kid's hand?
	I would want that.
	If my five-year-old smacked an adult, I'd want that adult to physically uh grab that my child.
	We I happen to agree with Hillary Clinton, it takes a village to raise a child.
	The difference between me and Hillary Hilton is the values of the village, but not the notion that the village raises children.
	I was raised by my parents' friends, and I was raised by teachers.
	Teachers did hit me.
	And every time they did, I thought they were right.
	I wasn't an idiot.
	I was a nuisance in class.
	In fact, Sue and I were in the car the other day.
	I got a uh I got a uh condolence note on my mother's death from a woman whom I have not seen since eighth grade, when she was, I think I can say, a girl.
	And uh uh named Paula.
	Paula sent a note to my brother's home where I was uh because my mother was buried in New Jersey.
	I stayed with my whole family for half the week afterwards, and then the remaining of the week uh in Jewish life you do a week of mourning, I I came back to my home in California, but the first half I was there.
	She sent a card to me at my brother's address.
	I don't know how she got it, but she did.
	It's very sweet.
	My brother showed it to me two weeks ago.
	You know, The card came there six months ago, but he remembered, oh, Dennis, I have a card for you.
	Anyway, she's a very sweet card about reaching out to me, and though we have not seen each other since eighth grade, which would be 1962.
	Yeah, it's a long time ago.
	So I called her up.
	And I called her from the speakerphone in the car.
	Sue heard this.
	I was worse than I remembered.
	This was what I asked her, what do you remember about me in eighth grade?
	She said, Well, I'll tell you what I remember.
	I sat in front of you.
	And uh every day you would sing this song into my ear.
	Lady of Spain, I adore you.
	Pull down your pants and let me explore you.
	And I knew she knew me.
	That's right.
	I actually remembered those lyrics.
	I had forgotten them in 35 years.
	And she remembered me banging on the desk and, you know, just talking the whole time loud to other kids in the class.
	I deserve to be walloped by the teacher.
	I have no, it's a non-issue.
	In fact, one time the poor guy is half my size, I was told then too, threw me over a desk.
	And I, you know, and I went to the uh the men's room, the boys' room, and I'll never forget I wrote him an apology note on toilet paper.
	I mean, because I was so aware that I was wrong.
	Today a kid is thrown over a desk, that teacher is in jail.
	I mean, you know, parents would how dare you touch my child.
	My parents, if if they knew a teacher hit me, they'd hit me.
	They wouldn't sue the teacher.
	Why did you what did you do to deserve that?
	And then they'd find out and I'd get a wallop.
	No, the truth is they didn't wall at me much.
	But I would be, they would be angry at me, not the teacher.
	Teacher was always right.
	That's not, it's not a perfect attitude, but it beats the one today where the kid is always right.
	So I have come around on the spanking issue, and I'll tell you this it I think a lot of people are more injured by yelling than by uh a simple spanking, especially one where I believe where, you know, it's over clothing, not under clothing, because you don't want to humiliate a child.
	That's a bad, that's a bad thing.
	That's but you're humiliated when you're yelled at.
	And and the parent who never spanks and never yells is better than me.
	I mean, I don't uh or has an easy child.
	That's possible too.
	But uh for most parents and and most normal wild children, you can't do either.
	Go to your room for a timeout.
	Do you think that works?
	There were kids it may work with.
	It wouldn't have worked with me.
	I just would have played in my room.
	I would have thought I got away with it.
	Go to your room?
	I loved my room.
	The room was the center of my life.
	Go to your room.
	This is like a new, oh my god, this is Siberia.
	What the hell is wrong with going to your room?
	Time out.
	Maybe time out for some little infraction, maybe good or whatever, I don't know.
	But anyway, I have come, I have come full circle on that.
	There's another thing that I uh not full circle, that means I came back.
	I've gone 180 degrees, not 360.
	Uh one other aspect, by the way, of children and homes, again, uh a more recent realization of my life, is how many, at least American homes, I don't know, homes elsewhere, revolve around the children, not around the adults.
	And I'll give you one simple way to assess this.
	Are there toys in the living room?
	Has the living room become a playroom?
	And there is no room for parents to have a normal house except in their bedroom.
	And maybe even the bedroom has now kids' toys.
	But I visited two dear, dear, dear, beloved really people in my life, who are uh considerably younger than I, and whom I adore and am endured, adored in uh not indured, adored in in return, I feel.
	And I went in, and sure enough, both both homes, the living room, you had to watch your step.
	You would trip over, you know, a locomotive or a doll or whatever.
	And I'd uh that is a statement of the kid runs the house.
	It is the parents living in the kid's house, not the kids living in the parents' house.
	It's a very big difference.
	And it's not a good, it's not a good thing.
	It's not good for kids.
	Kids want to believe parents are in control.
	There is something kids want even more than love, in my opinion, and that is security.
	And if the parents are not in charge, they could say they love you all day long.
	It means nothing.
	If they could speak, they'd say, if you loved me, you'd run the house.
	I wouldn't.
	And so that has become as well a problem because if the house revolves around a child, narcissism is inevitable.
	And our dear friend Dr. Stephen Marmer, the psychiatrist I have on the happiness hour, has said on a number of occasions.
	And when he started psychiatry, he's in his mid-sixties, I believe.
	When he started psychiatry 35 years ago, the biggest problem among patients was excessive guilt.
	Now the biggest problem is narcissism.
	That it's like again, a 180-degree change.
	John Rosemond was on my show.
	I adore this man.
	He's very popular writer on raising children.
	And we spoke recently on the air, and he made a an almost unbelievable point, but the more I thought about it, the more I agree with him.
	We were talking about the self-esteem movement, which started in California, and which I wrote against as soon as it started.
	I knew it was bad news.
	Because I believe you have to earn self-esteem, not be granted it.
	And also I didn't believe that it would have the great effect on the morals and values of individuals that John Vasconcelos, the state senator who started this in California, thought it would.
	John Rosebond goes further.
	He said to me on the air, it is not good for kids to have that much self-esteem.
	That was really fascinating.
	What are they going to have it about?
	That what?
	They did what?
	And I think he's right.
	This is a mantra self-esteem.
	That's why my kids got uh got trophies for playing baseball when they lost.
	My older son played more baseball than my younger one.
	He has room was filled with trophies.
	He never won a game in his life.
	It's good Prager tradition of being on the team that regularly loses.
	So I would ask him, Dave, you know, you know, Dave, I love you, but why'd you get that trophy?
	Because I played.
	Get a trophy for playing.
	And the kids who didn't even play got trophies.
	They showed up.
	They got trophies for showing up.
	This is phony self-esteem.
	The kid knows it's phony, but if they don't know it's phony, it's even worse.
	Because then they develop self-esteem and they get arrogant and self-centered.
	There's plenty of time in life to develop self-esteem once you've really earned it.
	But uh for a child to have it for no good reason, and usually there is no good reason.
	Doesn't mean you will humiliate a child.
	Humiliation is the biggest no-no with adults or children.
	I have I have a deep hatred of humiliation, but that's not the that's not the alternative to false self-esteem.
	Esteem.
	Okay, I think that I have uh, oh yes, I will just uh mention one more.
	And uh that is the big macro realization, the bigger the government, the smaller the people.
	And uh the war in America, I'm reading right now, I wish I had read it earlier, but Jonah Goldberg's great book, Liberal Fascism.
	And it's very serious work, it's it's not meant to smear liberals or anything like that.
	But that the very notion, starting with Woodrow Wilson through uh Franklin D. Roosevelt and on, of the larger, larger, larger state emanating from the European practice of it, Has been a real assault on the American value system, which is that I take care of me first, I take care of my family next, and I take care of the stranger next.
	But I take care of them.
	And if you are not allowed to take care of yourself, that's a very, very bad development.
	To have others take care of you.
	And that, so uh, I have a lot more to say, and in fact, will say it.
	I'm going to show you momentarily one of the Prager University videos.
	But I'd like to take some questions or comments on anything that I did say or anything else that you'd like to raise.
	And if not, I'll I'll go straight away to the video.
	This, well, the video will be on a bigger government.
	Yeah.
	Yeah, but but uh, but I said seven other things, so I'm waiting for questions on that.
	Yep.
	Hey, Dennis, it's Bruce Allen.
	Uh we've had a discussion at our table last night that really relates to your talk yesterday, which is uh, and you I imagine are dealt with it as well, given that you recently remarried.
	Um that is given the notion of respectful names, Mr. Mr. Senator, Senator, as you discussed yesterday.
	What does uh a child call a stepmom?
	Or in your case, Susan's children, what do they call you?
	We struggle with it, because from day one, our my case will call Debbie Debbie, and we acknowledge what you said that it may not be the most respectful term, but we couldn't come up with a good alternative.
	Except for what?
	Some comedian.
	Oh, I see.
	I don't think there's a choice but the first name.
	You're not going to call your your dad's wife Mrs. Salon.
	Uh it's too remote putting.
	And uh the only time I think it would be appropriate to call to call a stepparent, uh my stepchildren call me Dennis, in case you you ask that.
	Uh the only time dad or mom uh is appropriate, I think, is if there isn't one playing a role in their life, and that they were at a very young age gotten.
	Now, there are exceptions, and listen, there are many people that I meet who are closer to their stepfather than their father, or to their stepmother than their mother.
	And that that's fine.
	But uh I I even then, well, I shouldn't say even then.
	If, for example, the divorce was at two, let's say the father, you know, moves to Japan, and the stepfather does all the rearing, and the kid just naturally says, Dad, I would I would not oppose it.
	In fact, it's it's a blessing, you know, for all concerned if that happens.
	But it's never to be expected, in my opinion.
	So you're doing fine.
	And that uh you're right.
	I mean, ideally, but ideally, what would they say?
	You know, hi stepmom, how you doing today?
	Good morning, stepmom.
	You know, it just couldn't work.
	Yes, Sarah.
	Leo Taxenstein?
	From Naperville Illinois.
	Comment on.
	Hey, do you guys know each other?
	No.
	Because I assume everybody in Illinois knows each other.
	You do, you do, okay, fair enough.
	In the Prager group.
	Right, in the Prager group.
	Um I sometimes think that our free will as humans extends in some way and it's a continuum to randomness at the quantum level.
	So there, and therefore you agree with me or don't.
	I agree with you, randomness by the way.
	Yeah, that's right.
	Well, that's exactly right.
	Uh that is why people say, does God know what I will do tomorrow?
	I maybe he does and maybe he doesn't, but I it doesn't take away from God's greatness if he doesn't know the future, because he has created beings that can violate his will.
	He may know what a what a uh what an ant colony will do.
	There's no free will.
	That's why it says in the Bible, for those of you who care about these matters, uh, in the very beginning of Genesis, and God was saddened unto his heart that he had created man on earth because all he thought about was bad all day.
	God was surprised at how rotten we turned out.
	And and it is rotten.
	I mean, there were some Wonderful.
	I didn't say this because it's not new, but I'll just say it anyway.
	One of my guiding principles is I have contempt for humanity and I love individuals.
	And I really do love individuals.
	When you see me, you know, uh I enjoy people.
	Last night, you know, we had some of you were.
	Where's Mr. Letterer, by the way?
	Where are you?
	We were waiting for you.
	He gave me a beautiful box of really beautiful cigars.
	Smoked it, brought one of them for you.
	But it's okay, I don't blame you.
	Americans have a big health care problem.
	Over 100 million citizens carry medical debt while paying for overpriced and complicated health insurance.
	As Christians, we don't have to pay for a broken system.
	Christian Healthcare Ministries is an alternative to health insurance at half the cost.
	Plus, you can enroll at any time.
	Stand up to health insurance with a biblical solution.
	Join CHM today by visiting ch ministries.org slash wellness.
	That's ch ministries.org slash wellness.
	Americans have a big health care problem.
	Over 100 million citizens carry medical debt while paying for overpriced and complicated health insurance.
	As Christians, we don't have to pay for a broken system.
	Christian Healthcare Ministries is an alternative to health insurance at half the cost.
	Plus, you can enroll at any time.
	Stand up to health insurance with a biblical solution.
	Join CHM today by visiting ch ministries.org slash wellness.
	That's chministries.org slash wellness.
	Chances are a lot more attractive than me, and I fully understand that.
	But anyway, I just want you to know we missed you.
	Anyway, but I I love I love talking to people.
	I do, I love people.
	But I don't love humanity.
	Humanity uh is is deaf to human suffering, and there's there's too there are too many uh individuals too, just done wrong.
	But but I love many individuals.
	Uh so yeah.
	Okay.
	George Van Stoy from Newport Beach, my wife Carolyn.
	Hi, Carolyn.
	Which one of you two is the moody one?
	Certainly not her.
	No.
	And you?
	I'm not.
	All right, so you that's great.
	A non-moody and a and a non-moody.
	You know my theory, folks.
	Non-mooties marry non-moties, non-moodies marry moody's, but mooties never marry mooties.
	They may be miserable, but they're not stupid.
	Go ahead, yes.
	Well, I have something for you relative to cigars, but what I was going to say is uh had uh Senator Boxer been at the health summit, and President Obama said asking her to speak.
	No, she never president.
	No way.
	This was to score a political point.
	A general, a major general sa says uh says ma'am, which is utter respect, and and then she demands senator.
	But first person, they're all happy because it was a democratic president.
	Somebody should have said uh it doesn't matter.
	I'm very opposed to what happened.
	Go ahead.
	Oh, is anybody else?
	Over here.
	Oh, I just wanted to throw out an idea that you might want to elaborate on while you're all the most good.
	I think one of the reasons that are so involved with a child's life is because they don't belong to their own.
	That's a that's fascinating.
	That is fascinating.
	And think about it when a child grows up and leaves.
	I mean I'll be about an unhappy marriage behind.
	That's a very good point.
	And one the second part is certainly true.
	If i if children are the center of your life, what happens when they leave?
	Or you won't let them leave.
	And I don't mean physically, but emotionally.
	Because that's what gives you your meaning.
	No.
	That's a very important point.
	The first one is interesting.
	I think that there are a lot of parents who do have a life, but feel morally constrained to make they have it as a value.
	Despite my own life, I have to make the children the center.
	Uh or uh oddly enough, there may be in one case where I know where both parents work, maybe they allow the child to take over the living room out of guilt.
	She works and he works.
	And so that's maybe an element of guilt there.
	It's a double whammy.
	Not only are you guilty that you're working, but look at all these wonderful perfect parents.
	Look at how perfect parents are going to all the game.
	So you get both.
	Yes, you get both.
	About yes, you know, one, if you are working, you have that guilt, and then if you uh uh you think that they're the perfect parent, they go to all the other kids' games, so you feel another guilt.
	Let me just say, as a guy, I must say, I did not want my parents to come to my games.
	I would have felt uh made into a little boy.
	Hey, I'm in high school, I'm a big guy now.
	I I I want to play with the other guys.
	As John Rosmond pointed out, when we grew up in any event, there were very few games to go to.
	You just made it a stickball game with you know with kids, or in Brooklyn stoop ball.
	None of you know that, do you?
	That's a very good sport.
	I just, you know, want you to know.
	In fact, it's gonna be an Olympic event.
	Listen, if they have curling, they have to have stoop ball.
	It'll be it'll be a summer event, though, summer event.
	But uh the point is the point is extremely well taken.
	Yeah.
	I did not want, I did not want them to show up, because I'm a big guy, and you show up for little kids.
	So ironically, I don't even know if it's all that good a thing.
	If a kid if a kid thinks, first of all, a kid should never hold any emotional uh not advantage, but blackmail over you.
	Oh, I will only know you love me if you do X or Y or Z. That's not good.
	The way you play basketball, I don't know.
	The way I played basketball, they shouldn't have come.
	You're entirely right.
	I agree with you.
	They would have they would have watched me bench warm for most of the game.
	Anyway, I was much more interested in the cheerleaders than my parents, I have to just say.
	Right?
	Yes.
	Right there.
	I'm the Dell from Arizona.
	I just want to really make a comment and not ask a question.
	Uh I'm talking about spanking, and this was something that has never occurred to me before, but this is a friend of mine of my own generation that said, um, my dad used to take his belt to me.
	And I said, Did you replace your father for this?
	And he said, uh-uh.
	He said, every single time he did that, I deserve it.
	Huh.
	I believe you.
	That's that's what I'm saying.
	I'm I'm very open.
	I may be wrong, but I am very open.
	And I got mocked for this because I actually wrote in my column on this subject about three weeks ago.
	And I I do hope you'll remember to look at my columns.
	Just if if you like me enough to go to Africa, then read my articles.
	But uh, in any event, uh I I made that point that I was really turned around by callers to my radio show, saying things like you just said, and God was I'm oh, look who he listens to, callers on his radio show.
	See, I didn't listen to studies.
	This is what really infuriated them, because of all the studies, undoubtedly done by political scientists and psychologists who had no agenda.
	By the way, there are studies in the other direction, too.
	I mean, whole generations have had it.
	Is everybody healthier?
	Is the most depressed generation in in in measured history?
	And they uh and they're not been spanked.
	Okay, by and large.
	It's it's like it's like forgive me, uh, breastfeeding.
	I have no nothing against it.
	But it is it is the notion that if you bottle feed your child that you were almost abusing him is is ridiculous.
	The whole generation that was bottle fed is fine, and they believe to do what was done to them is wrong.
	It shows the power of persuasiveness.
	Uh uh, you know, and by the way, I must say one argument that I really don't like is oh, the mother bonds better with the child.
	Well, if that's the case, what's the father supposed to do?
	Gotta have a sex change and then produce and lactate?
	Well, why no, no, I I that that argument is so selfish.
	The hell with the father, that's what it says.
	If it's truly true that breastfeeding bonds You more to a child than bottle feeding, and it's hard for me to believe it's true because uh every mother I know who's adopted a child feels unbelievably close and loving to that child.
	So I I don't believe it.
	I think it's a myth.
	Without that, then you're you're not gonna bond.
	And how is what is he supposed to do?
	Play the cello while you do it?
	I mean, what is he supposed to do?
	I love giving the bottle to my kid on the occasion that I occasions that I did.
	I tell I really like diapering kids as something abnormal, I admit it.
	I enjoy diapering your kid.
	Okay, next.
	Where's Alan, by the way?
	When do you want to uh when do you want to show it?
	Okay, let me take one more, then I want you to see a Prager University thing, I'll tell you about PU.
	Who's got a hand up?
	Are you Ruth?
	Hi, Ruth.
	Hi, where are you from?
	California.
	Yeah, but it's a big state where San Diego.
	And my kids were on the tennis circuit and they played college tennis.
	So I was involved in going to a lot of games, and the parents are quite busy.
	Have you ever thought about the fact that the parents are so narcissistic and see their children as extensions of themselves?
	And therefore, when it's not that they're not busy, there's an expression in German, you know, Schadenfreude, but there's another one called Affenliebe.
	When, you know, you're an animal and you have animals and you're so in love with yourself, but the child, if you're really living, not because you don't have your life, but well, you know.
	That's a very important point.
	That is a new thing, too.
	The child is the extension of me.
	Uh I I I it's inconceivable you would know who I'm referring to, so I will give you this uh example.
	I mean, there was a woman named Lisa who named her daughter, Mona.
	No, no, that is the uh no, that's not a joke.
	I I knew I knew the I knew the people.
	I mean, is that not a statement of we are one?
	Mona Lisa.
	And and so uh that's a very good point.
	I must say, I always uh uh have said my gratitude to my parents for having their own lives.
	Because then I don't have then I don't have the guilt of having to be their source of meaning and amusement.
	They they I know cases where parents are deeply involved in the adult child's life.
	And I don't uh look even a daughter who calls mom every day is fine with me.
	I don't want to, it's wonderful to have a good relationship with a parent, believe me.
	I wish it upon everybody.
	But I think you know what I mean, where it is too much, too much, where there's control.
	And uh that's a very interesting point about that.
	That that's by the way, I think that's true largely about what college a kid goes to if the parent has made that the end end all, be all and end all of their child's life, because then they can say, my son is at Princeton, my daughter is at Yale, and then I'm great.
	That's why they're saying it.
	I'm great.
	So, yeah, well, look, there are a lot of problems in life.
	Okay, now, should I say a word about Prager U, Alan?
	Uh Alan and I have come up with the Prager University, and I'll tell you why.
	And uh to be honest, if you can help that would be great, it's uh yeah.
	Alan will explain that later.
	He does it better than I. Uh I'm worried about the United States.
	I'm really worried.
	And I don't worry easily.
	But I am, and one of the reasons is the loss of clarity and about the values we stand for.
	Secondly, college is uh is not a healthy place for most kids, in my opinion.
	The kids who were drunk for four years, it's fine.
	But the kids who actually hear their professors, it's not fine.
	Because a lot of these professors have a of the statist, state-centered left-wing mentality.
	America is bad, Europe is good, and uh and so much other politically correct stuff.
	Men and women are basically the same, give boys T sets, give girls uh give girls trucks, and so on.
	So we have a motto.
	What we're doing is we're getting some of the finest people Who share our values to speak for five minutes and then professionally produce the five minutes.
	The first teacher has been me, but I but I'm not at all.
	In fact, I just made a tape with Paul Johnson, the great British historian, on this trip.
	I started in London.
	So we're going to get the best thinkers who can also express themselves, do five minutes.
	The motto of Prager University is give us five minutes, we'll give you the world.
	Oh no, excuse me.
	Give us five minutes, we'll give you the world.
	Give us give us five minutes, we'll give you a semester.
	That's our motto.
	Because we don't think you get much wisdom from college.
	And what we want to do is give wisdom in these lectures.
	So we're going to show you now.
	Alan, did I leave anything out?
	Okay.
	So we're going to show you now one example.
	That's why I didn't cover it in any detail now.
	And this will be for kids and for adults equally.
	It's entertaining.
	They're all meant to be entertaining in the best sense of the word.
	But get the point home in under five minutes.
	So here is the one on the bigger the government, the smaller the people.
	Now, it's such an important point, one that uh has eluded most people.
	It eluded me for much of my life.
	I I would skirt around it, but I was not never fully aware of its power.
	So if millions of Americans can see this and others we've made on a whole host of a variety of subjects, do we have more, by the way, that we could show in the course of time?
	Maybe we'll show one each time.
	We have a terrific one on uh male sexual nature.
	It's very funny and and uh very helpful, especially if you have a daughter who doesn't know what her clothing does to guys.
	Uh it's a particularly helpful thing to show.
	And so uh that's why we uh we have started uh this uh this particular thing.
	Did you want to say anything, Alan?
	Why don't you come down?
	Why don't you greet Alan Mestre folks who is the chancellor?
	I'm the uh I'm president of the Prague University.
	This is the Chancellor.
	Uh all positions can be bought, uh whatever you like.
	I would only say that, well, first let we will show other videos so you get a better sense of it.
	Some of you already have a sense of it.
	How many, can I ask how many of you have seen uh gone to the Prager University website and seen a video?
	Well, that's that's that's pretty good.
	Well, how many have it?
	You'll see, you'll see.
	It's the it's you see?
	Yes.
	It's it's deceptive hands.
	I've done this for 40 years, I now know.
	Okay.
	Well, good.
	Well, for those of you who haven't seen it, you'll you'll you'll you'll be introduced to it.
	To those who have seen it, we have uh a couple of new ones to show you.
	One way of conceiving of this is that this is Dennis, this is the Dennis Prager think tank.
	There are there are there's the Hoover Institute, there's the American Enterprise Institute, and they do a wonderful job, and we and we love what they do.
	But this is a new kind of think tank.
	We're trying to reach a new audience in a new way.
	And the key here is that we want to offer courses in a wide variety of subjects, with presenting the best conservative minds in the country.
	In the world.
	In the world, in fact, as Dennis just mentioned Paul Johnson.
	And we're going to do it in a new way to a new audience.
	So this is this is a new think tank, but done in a new way.
	We have a we have a we have a new angle.
	And we think it's going to be, it could be very powerful.
	And we we have the testimony that we've received from people who have seen the videos and have told us how it is changed their thinking, has been quite profound.
	And the key here is you can learn, and this is what we're finding.
	We we suspected it, and we view this as a somewhat of a demonstration project at this point.
	You can communicate a tremendous amount of information and ideas in five minutes.
	So that if you want to send this, get this concept of the bigger the state, the smaller the citizen.
	If you want to get that across to somebody, you can do it now by saying go to Prager University or Just sending somebody the link to it and if you have a friend who is confused on the subject, or you're not making the point as clearly as you think you want to, it's going to be available to you to anyone to do that.
	So we're very excited about this idea.
	It's going to require uh a significant amount of uh uh of funds, but uh but we're we're bound and determined, because we we see such value in this to uh to pursue it.
	Let me just uh let me just add a personal note here, because I I you know very open.
	Uh I uh have even flirted with throwing my hat in the Republican presidential candidacy race for uh thank you.
	Uh not expecting to win, I'm not a megalomaniac, but uh I do believe that among the candidates that are now listed, I express the values of this country better than they do.
	And that's it's it's not even well, thank you.
	But I and I know it's not for me, it's for the for what I just said.
	The truth is I I wish one did.
	Uh it the the gap is what bothers me.
	Uh and if if quote unquote our side can't express the values that we're doing.
	And so I've thought about that, but in light of the massive amounts of funding and other complexities involved, the odds are I won't be doing it.
	So, what I want to do is as much with my life as possible to to help, and I and I say help, and I'm the next word uh the next word bothers me, uh, but it's um save.
	Save, you know, not in some theological sense, just save the country from becoming different from what it was not intended to be by the founders.
	And so this is uh this is at the vehicle uh without uh without politics.
	This has been Timeless Wisdom with Dennis Krager.
	Visit Dennis Prager.com for thousands of hours of Dennis's lectures, courses, and classic radio programs.

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