Speaker | Time | Text |
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This I knew at a very early age. | ||
The most cultured country in the world built Auschwitz. | ||
There's this old question, how did the people who gave us Beethoven and Bach give us Auschwitz? | ||
And I always found it's an interesting question, but it's somewhat of a non sequitur. | ||
Why does having Bach and Beethoven inoculate you against becoming evil? | ||
The ease with which a civilization can turn morally, that's what Germany taught. | ||
And I see that happening in the United States. | ||
This, I always believed, was the kindest country. | ||
I know it has rotten people in it, just as rotten countries have kind people in it. | ||
But as a country, When people wanted help after earthquakes, they didn't ask for Belgium. | ||
When people used a flag to rebel for liberty, like in Hong Kong, they didn't take the Swedish flag. | ||
unidentified
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But look what's happening. | |
I will tell the people that we had a moment to chat before we just sat down, and we realized that we have not seen each other in person in about 14 or 15 months, because it was a few weeks before my first son was born. | ||
And you said to me, well, why don't I let you tell the people what you said to me right before the child was born? | ||
I said I thought I had, in fact, seen your kids. | ||
Well, there was... But you haven't, as far as I can tell, so you may have dreamt that you've seen them. | ||
Yes, so it shows you, I don't know if this is a good or bad thing, the power of photos. | ||
Yeah, I've sent you a lot of pictures. | ||
I've sent you and Sue a lot of pictures. | ||
From the beginning, exactly. | ||
And then I couldn't remember if you had seen them either. | ||
That is really funny. | ||
We should ask them. | ||
Yeah, we should ask the kids. | ||
Well, they're not talking to us yet. | ||
No, no. | ||
Then I said to you, well, do you remember holding them? | ||
Because I know... Yeah, that would be a giveaway, yeah. | ||
And we have no recollection of that. | ||
Yeah, I remember holding photos. | ||
unidentified
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Yeah. | |
Yeah, okay, that's fair enough. | ||
But, I did see you. | ||
I truly think this was one of the most memorable nights of my life. | ||
I had you and Jordan Peterson over just two weeks or so before my first son was born, and David and I were basically able to ask you to everything. | ||
About life and parenthood, and we talked about everything. | ||
It was one of the most, truly, it was one of the most meaningful conversations of my life. | ||
That's nice. | ||
And we realized, remember what we realized that night about me, you, and Jordan, that we have 14 years separating each of us. | ||
I was 46 at the time, Jordan was 60, and you were 74 at the time, which is just sort of interesting that there's the same... Oh, that is fascinating. | ||
Yeah. | ||
But you said, as I, you know, we were about to have kids, and you said to me something to the effect of, you better enjoy it now. | ||
Yeah, well, I was more specific. | ||
Yeah, can you clean it up for me? | ||
But yes. | ||
Look, I'm a big, big believer in acknowledging reality. | ||
I don't sugarcoat and I don't make worse. | ||
And as I was saying to you beforehand, and I think I might write a column on this, The notion that you can have it all is absurd. | ||
And when the feminist movement said to women, you could have it all, it was one of the indications that it was an immature movement, immature in terms of thought and emotion even. | ||
You can have some of everything, you can't have everything. | ||
If you want to be a parent, and you did, and Dave did, obviously, that you guys, you wanted to be parents. | ||
That means that the happy-go-lucky, let's-do-whatever-we-want, anytime-we-want life is over! | ||
It is over, man! | ||
I'm sorry! | ||
And so many immature people, young people today, Don't want to give that up. | ||
They think that will bring them happiness in the long run. | ||
It's fun on any given day, but the long run, to not have children, to not have the prospect of grandchildren, is such a poorer life. | ||
Do you think you can have it for moments? | ||
Have everything for moments? | ||
Yes. | ||
Because I will tell you one thought that I'm having a lot lately. | ||
I don't want to jinx it. | ||
I almost don't want to say this out loud. | ||
I'm sure there's a Yiddish word for it. | ||
I have the stuff that I want in my life right now. | ||
My life is good. | ||
My family life is good. | ||
My home is good. | ||
My work is good. | ||
My colleagues are good. | ||
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But it's making me a little nervous. | |
So you are, this is almost redundant, a neurotic Jew. | ||
No, I'm not a neurotic Jew. | ||
I'm not neurotic. | ||
I'm not neurotic. | ||
I don't have that. | ||
I don't have that thing. | ||
Oh, if you don't have it, I thought you were saying you do have it. | ||
No, no, no. | ||
I have this notion now. | ||
The notion that you're jinxing it is neurotic. | ||
That's neurotic? | ||
Wow, we found my neurosis. | ||
Because you know me, I'm not a neurotic person. | ||
That's correct. | ||
You are about as healthy a guy as I know. | ||
In all seriousness. | ||
Uh, but... I never... I... | ||
I have, quote-unquote, it all, in that sense. | ||
But I don't have it all, because I've given up X, Y, and Z for family, for career, for intimacy, for friends. | ||
You know, do I want to sleep in many Saturdays? | ||
Of course I do. | ||
But I teach at the synagogue that Alan Estrin, Steve Marmon and I founded in L.A. | ||
But it's worth it, because I love that community. | ||
So, I so long ago made peace with you give up to gain. | ||
It's so funny. | ||
People say no pain, no gain. | ||
And they always mean it with regard to exercise. | ||
It's true with everything in life. | ||
You're learning it now. | ||
And by the way, wait until they get to be teenagers. | ||
Then you may end up neurotic. | ||
They may cause it. | ||
It's so funny because I really don't consider myself a neurotic person. | ||
No, you're not. | ||
And I don't worry. | ||
I generally don't worry. | ||
I worry about the future of the world. | ||
Oh, you know, that's my answer when people say, how are you? | ||
For years I've been saying, better than my country. | ||
So you and I share that. | ||
I'm not worried about that much in my day-to-day life, basically. | ||
Especially now, I'm not. | ||
But I worry about the nature of the world, where the country's heading. | ||
Oh, no, no. | ||
That is a legit worry. | ||
unidentified
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Is it? | |
How do you... You've got a couple years on me. | ||
Where do you put that in life? | ||
It's just with you all the time, right? | ||
This one is not a matter of a couple of years on you. | ||
This I knew at a very early age. | ||
The most cultured country in the world built Auschwitz. | ||
There's this old question, how did the people who gave us Beethoven and Bach give us Auschwitz? | ||
And I always found it's an interesting question, but it's somewhat of a non sequitur. | ||
Why does having Bach and Beethoven inoculate you against becoming evil? | ||
The ease with which a civilization can turn morally, that's what Germany taught. | ||
And I see that happening in the United States. | ||
This, I always believed, was the kindest country. | ||
I know it has rotten people in it, just as rotten countries have kind people in it. | ||
But as a country, When people wanted help after earthquakes, they didn't ask for Belgium. | ||
When people used a flag to rebel for liberty, like in Hong Kong, they didn't take the Swedish flag. | ||
Look what's happening. | ||
Do you think that it maybe is just exactly what was going to happen with the nature of the internet? | ||
That because all of us have the world in our pocket all the time, and the ability to get information out all the time, and fight all the time, and see things that we didn't see all the time, and see behind the curtain of the lies of the media, just the litany of things that now we all have sort of stuffed in our brains, that the moment that we're at was in some ways inevitable? | ||
Because of the Internet? | ||
Yeah, because there's just so much information there. | ||
It feeds the division, the algorithms, all of those things that we were going to get to this weird spot in some ways almost... No, I see the decline in my beloved country as independent of the Internet. | ||
I was at Columbia University in the 70s. | ||
That's way before the Internet. | ||
I was taught That America was an imperialist country. | ||
I was taught that men and women are basically the same. | ||
And I even wrote about it in the 80s. | ||
The roots way, way transcend internet. | ||
So you think it was inevitable anyway because of the education system or the institutional collapse, but not necessarily because of the internet? | ||
Well, at Columbia there were kids spelling America in graffiti with a K. That's 1972. | ||
And I remember thinking, are you out of your mind? | ||
Do you know what fascism is? | ||
Or Nazism? | ||
Because that was the German spelling, you know, as if we're becoming Nazi Germany. | ||
unidentified
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So how do you... | |
Reagan explained it. | ||
We are always one generation away from losing freedom. | ||
Deuteronomy explains it. | ||
You know, I have my series of Bible commentaries. | ||
They're right there. | ||
I'm very touched, yes. | ||
I am touched. | ||
It's my life's project. | ||
It's your studio. | ||
Oh, okay. | ||
You know whose name's on the building, right? | ||
Okay, yeah, that's a good point. | ||
I didn't think of that. | ||
It just shows I'm not Mr. Prima Donna. | ||
But Deuteronomy says, you will talk about these things, that is, God's teachings, when you lie down, when you rise up, when you walk by the way, when you go to sleep. | ||
In other words, if you don't teach your children good values all the time, it's over. | ||
And that's what happened. | ||
And I'll tell you who did it. | ||
And I knew it when I was a kid. | ||
It was the generation we call the greatest generation. | ||
They were the greatest generation in many ways, but not as parents. | ||
Their motto, and by the way, I said this in my twenties when I started lecturing. | ||
I would look at these people, my parents' generation, and say, You always say you give our generation everything you didn't have. | ||
The problem is you didn't give us everything you did have. | ||
Which was love of country, love of God, and self-control, and all those values. | ||
So if you saw that when you were 20, so now we're talking, you know, 50-some odd years ago, you must really see it when, you know, so I'm a Gen X guy, so at 47, I'm right now in the thick of what is supposed to be the group of people running the show at this point. | ||
And yet we're not. | ||
We have an 80-plus year old who's president, and another 80-plus year old who, and I'm not an ageist, of course, But the shift has not occurred where we have sort of younger people running things. | ||
I also think that is adding now to some of the tension. | ||
Oh, I wonder. | ||
I don't know why exactly, because I remember, and I'm not saying this because I'm old now, but I remember the motto, one of the stupid, many stupid mottos of my generation, the baby boomers, never trust anyone over 30. | ||
And I was 20 when I first heard it, and I thought, what are you, out of your mind? | ||
I trust Moses. | ||
He's 3,000 years old. | ||
I remember thinking that. | ||
He's really over 30. | ||
What stupid line is that? | ||
Let's say everyone over 60 was removed from all public office in America. | ||
Nothing would change. | ||
Nothing. | ||
I think there's a slim chance we'd get some change on the margins. | ||
Maybe just getting rid of some of the, like, dead wood. | ||
Yeah, so you'd have young fools. | ||
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You'd just have middle-aged fools instead of old fools. | |
Yeah. | ||
Well, look, it's so funny, because you're doing this with me. | ||
We're talking about the ills of the world, but you always have a smile on your face. | ||
I see you at my house, you have a smile on your face. | ||
Oh, you know why. | ||
And you've been talking about happiness forever. | ||
That's right. | ||
It's an interesting dichotomy. | ||
You're telling me, on one hand, you're worried about the world, and I know you are. | ||
It's your life's work to correct that. | ||
And yet, you really, if someone said to me, who's the happiest person you know, it's probably you. | ||
Right. | ||
Well, you know... And yet, there's a whole other series of people that think you're very scary. | ||
You're a right-wing maniac or something. | ||
Right, yes. | ||
Like they know me. | ||
Or even know what I say. | ||
They got all their material from another left-wing site. | ||
Right. | ||
You'll find this very touching because you're very close to Jordan. | ||
So, Jordan Peterson, obviously. | ||
He was at a Prager U gala about a year and a half ago. | ||
And we had a wonderful dialogue. | ||
And I'm, of course, a big fan of Jordan. | ||
And he, to his credit, stayed afterwards to take pictures with people and talk with people. | ||
And I was very impressed with that, because a lot of speakers leave. | ||
And I do what he does. | ||
I stay. | ||
I hang around. | ||
But, of course, at a Prager event, I'm going to hang around. | ||
OK. | ||
Anyway, he walked over to me. | ||
I've never told this publicly. | ||
I don't think he'd mind. | ||
But you're so close to him. | ||
It's mind-blowing what you just said. | ||
He said something to this effect. | ||
I'm paraphrasing. | ||
You know, Dennis, I don't know anybody who is as intense about the big issues as you are and who is as happy as you are, who is as light-hearted. | ||
And I never thought of that, that I'm sort of unique. | ||
I don't know if I'm unique, but sort of unique in that way. | ||
A, it's my temperament, but B, I cultivated it. | ||
I hate being unhappy. | ||
I really hate it. | ||
And I am able to compartmentalize. | ||
That's why my answer, better than my country, is such an honest answer. | ||
Am I, quote-unquote, depressed about the state of America? | ||
Yes. | ||
But am I depressed? | ||
No. | ||
And a lot of people can't do that. | ||
That's right. | ||
They can't disconnect those things. | ||
That's right. | ||
And they can't compartmentalize. | ||
If you can't compartmentalize, you cannot be happy. | ||
Otherwise, every human being who has had tragedy is doomed. | ||
You know how many parents I know who have lost a child? | ||
A lot of them have been able, and it's truly to their great credit, To walk around with an essentially happy disposition, and that's the most searing pain a human can have, which you can only now imagine. | ||
It's the ultimate nightmare. | ||
We had to take Luke to the hospital out of nowhere. | ||
One night something wasn't right. | ||
He was a little pale and kind of closing his eyes. | ||
We thought something was going on. | ||
Maybe I said this once on camera. | ||
This is about six months ago, and we were in the car, and I spoke to God, to whatever extent that I speak to God, and I said, you could take me right now. | ||
unidentified
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Like, take me instead of him. | |
Oh, you know, that gives me the chills. | ||
When I brought my first son home from the hospital, I remember getting out of the car, crossing the street into my house, And thinking, I have never been as unafraid as I am now if a car were to come. | ||
All I know is, this child will be safe and I'm okay if I'm hit. | ||
You had the same exact thing. | ||
I'm just echoing what you said. | ||
If you can't compartmentalize, you can't achieve happiness. | ||
There's too much pain in one's own life or in the life of the society. | ||
And by the way, compartmentalize is a good term because what sank the Titanic was that the compartments did in fact leak one into the next. | ||
Had they not, it would not have sunk. | ||
Is that something that you think, and I actually don't want to do much political stuff with you today, but is that something you think conservative-minded people can do better than lefties, liberals, whatever you want to call them? | ||
Yes, because our whole life is in politics. | ||
If the country were in good shape, I wouldn't talk about politics five minutes a day. | ||
I am forced to because I want to help save this country, but that is their meaning. | ||
Revolution is their meaning. | ||
That's not our meaning. | ||
We get meaning from a whole bunch of things, even hobbies. | ||
Yeah. | ||
It's funny, because when I had you and Jordan over, and that night it was mostly focused on family and whatever, but like, had we talked politics, it would have almost seemed ridiculous. | ||
The word Trump did not come up. | ||
The name DeSantis did not come up. | ||
That's right. | ||
And it would have seemed sort of ridiculous. | ||
Why would I waste my time with you guys talking about that stuff? | ||
Not to say it isn't important. | ||
But it is a compartment, not the whole. | ||
Yes, but it is for the further left you go, the more making revolution is everything. | ||
And therefore politics is everything. | ||
Sorry, it's very embarrassing when my own phone rumbles. | ||
What could be going on here? | ||
It's really a riot. | ||
You know what it's going to be, by the way? | ||
Here's the joke. | ||
You know what it'll say on my phone? | ||
Scam Likely. | ||
I get more calls from Mr. Likely than from my wife. | ||
They're trying to get you now. | ||
It could be Sue sending you a picture of my children. | ||
Anything's possible. | ||
That is entirely accurate, yes. | ||
I think almost every time I have you on camera I repeat the same story but I think it's always worth repeating and we can only do it for a moment if you want but the time that when I did the why I left the left video and we were just getting to know each other and it was the first time I was on your radio show I think that afternoon and I was dealing with a lot of hate and all that stuff and I said to you and I didn't know you the way I know you now and I said Dennis You know, what do you do about the hate and security and all that stuff, and you said to me, it was just so perfect, you said, Dave, you know, I can't do, that's not a great Dennis Prager impression, but you said, Dave, you know, I've been doing my show from the same studio for 30 years, and I guess one day somebody could be waiting for me outside and hack me with a machete, but when it's your time to go, it's your time to go! | ||
And to me, that sums you up. | ||
And you're smiling about that right now. | ||
By the way, it's an extremely rational effect. | ||
This notion that I can protect myself if somebody really wants to harm me is absurd. | ||
How often do you read, and so and so and his three bodyguards were killed? | ||
Right, right, right. | ||
You know, for whatever reason, I do elicit a lot of hate, but not that level for whatever reason. | ||
I And I'm not sure why. | ||
I'm a pretty effective voice against the left, but I'm not complaining, certainly, about that fact. | ||
But I'm anti-worrying. | ||
Worrying truly is worthless. | ||
I have a whole theory, like I do on almost everything. | ||
Here's my theory on worrying. | ||
People should monitor how often have they worried, and the thing they worried about actually occurred. | ||
You will find what a small percentage of time that is. | ||
So then you've truly just created misery for yourself for no reason. | ||
And if it does happen, did the worrying help? | ||
Usually not, I'm going to guess. | ||
It probably made it worse to some extent. | ||
Yes. | ||
I'm not saying you don't take precautions. | ||
I have earthquake insurance. | ||
I had earthquake insurance before the Northridge earthquake. | ||
What do you do about a society that you're worried about? | ||
As someone that doesn't want to worry, and doesn't want to be neurotic, and wants to fight for the things. | ||
Like, what do you do for the average person that's watching this, or that does care about politics, that cares about the stuff, that feels kind of... So I have an answer. | ||
I actually have an answer. | ||
The only antidote to worry, or better, to misery over the state of the society, is to fight. | ||
That is the only antidote. | ||
Tuning out doesn't work. | ||
Because they'll come to you where you're tuned out. | ||
You think you're tuning out at a baseball game? | ||
Then they're going to put Black Lives Matter on the pitcher's mound. | ||
Or in the field goal area. | ||
What is it? | ||
Touchdown. | ||
End zone. | ||
In the end zone. | ||
So, you can't tune out, it doesn't work. | ||
You have children, you're going to tune out, and then they come home and they hate your guts because you voted Republican? | ||
Society's going to catch up with you. | ||
The only antidote is to fight. | ||
So as you see now the country going in different directions, and I mean that sort of philosophically, but also geographically, right? | ||
I mean, I lived here. | ||
I'm one of a million some odd people that have now left California and moved to Florida. | ||
To me, when I come back here, I feel no, it's great to see you and some of my friends here, but I feel no connection with this place. | ||
That's fascinating. | ||
And I don't mean this as cold as it's going to sound, but I don't really care about it. | ||
Yeah. | ||
I don't blame you. | ||
I get there's millions of good people here. | ||
Eight million. | ||
There are eight million Republicans here. | ||
Right. | ||
More than any other state. | ||
So how do you piece that together in terms of a United States of America? | ||
Periodically praised by strangers. | ||
Oh, you know, I want you to know, I really salute you for staying in California and fighting. | ||
I'm not in California. | ||
I'm fighting, but I'm... California is lost. | ||
Okay? | ||
It is a given. | ||
A vicious party runs my state. | ||
And Oregon, and Washington, and Illinois, and New York. | ||
I mean, a lot of states. | ||
Minnesota. | ||
So, I am here because there are so many people I love who are here. | ||
And as I mentioned, I created a synagogue, which I am very devoted to. | ||
You promised me to create me one if I... I told you I would be the founding member if you moved to Florida. | ||
I believe you. | ||
I do mean it. | ||
It's not, it's not, not tempting. | ||
I missed, you know, we just went through the high holidays here and I missed going to the services here. | ||
Yeah, yeah. | ||
Well, I, so I have a very, very wonderful life here. | ||
It's a very odd I wouldn't say cognitive dissonance. | ||
It's just an odd contradiction, so to speak, to have a great life in a miserable place. | ||
I acknowledge it. | ||
Newsom just announced I mean, that he is vetoing a bill that would allow or creating or signing a bill that would fine any school that banned any book about race or sex. | ||
There is no time in the history of the world that schools have not banned certain books. | ||
Right. | ||
You don't go to your fifth grade library. | ||
Yes, that's right. | ||
There was a children's section in the library. | ||
Right. | ||
That means a lot of books were banned. | ||
You mean your elementary school didn't have Mein Kampf? | ||
Well, listen, here's the irony. | ||
My parents probably would, if you want to read Mein Kampf, Dennis, read Mein Kampf. | ||
But we're not going to give you fellatio books. | ||
Right. | ||
I mean, this is, what? | ||
They're robbing children of their innocence? | ||
Somebody, what was the term? | ||
I've called the left sick for some time now, and I mean it literally. | ||
A pathocracy. | ||
It was a good term. | ||
I don't know who came up with it. | ||
Right, because it's like this pathological thinking that then gets institutionalized. | ||
Yes, that's right. | ||
That's what it is. | ||
We're going to have five-year-olds with guys dancing in women's clothing? | ||
Oh, you'll get a kick out of this. | ||
So, I don't remember the verse, but there is a verse in Deuteronomy. | ||
A man shall not wear women's clothing and a woman shall not wear bed's clothing. | ||
I have to remember the numbers. | ||
Deuteronomy something something. | ||
So there are a lot of Christians who will have, I think it's from John, John 1 8 is it? | ||
Does anybody here know that there's a famous one about God giving his only son to the world? | ||
I love that the biblical scholar is asking the lighting guy if he knows what... | ||
John what? | ||
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316? | |
Yeah. | ||
So John 316. | ||
New Testament, I don't know as well as the Old Testament. | ||
Alright, you're a pro. | ||
I rehearsed Nathan on that one. | ||
So, a lot of people have a bumper sticker, let's say John 316. | ||
I want to have a bumper sticker, Deuteronomy this, whatever that is. | ||
And then people say, what the hell is that? | ||
And they'll look it up. | ||
People don't know that the Bible forbids that, as an example. | ||
Then you'll have a real problem in California. | ||
Well, no one here is religious, so it would be all right. | ||
Well, yeah. | ||
First of all, you're right. | ||
Most people don't know what Deuteronomy is. | ||
So I could put it up there and it wouldn't matter. | ||
You know, speaking of the gender thing, you'll find this interesting, just at a philosophical level, I think. | ||
I was, a few months ago, we had my sister and her kids over, and she's got three young kids, and their middle son is about six years old, and I'm sitting in the pool with him, and it suddenly struck him that there's no mother at my house. | ||
And he said to me, he said to me, Justin and Luke are here, but there's no mommy here. | ||
And he said, where's the mommy? | ||
And I had this really interesting moment because... Yeah, what do you answer? | ||
So my answer was, basically, I grabbed a ball or something and I threw it to like change the topic for a second because I knew it was not my place to give the answer. | ||
So I punted it. | ||
But the irony, of course, well, because the irony is, he's my nephew, I love him, I have his best interests in mind, but it's not my place as the uncle to say when it is for him to learn about such things, right? | ||
So I said to my sister as they were leaving, I said, hey, by the way, he asked me this question, you have no pressure from me, I'm just saying he asked, and we'll see if it ever comes up again. | ||
As far as I know, it hasn't. | ||
But I really thought I did the right thing there, and I suspect the way you're nodding at me, probably, I guess you're right. | ||
Yes, well, it was a very noble answer. | ||
Well, a noble non-answer. | ||
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You see, you are a sort of a victim. | |
of what the left has done with the whole LGBT thing. | ||
Do you know, I only wish I had... It is recorded. | ||
Somebody who did 20 years of research would find it. | ||
At least 15 years ago, I said on a number of occasions, why is there a T with LGB? | ||
What does T have to do with LGB? | ||
Nothing! | ||
And L and G claim this is how we are. | ||
What does gay have to do with trans? | ||
And the country is not comfortable with trans, and correctly so. | ||
At the very minimum with children. | ||
At the very minimum, yes. | ||
Put aside how someone feels as an adult. | ||
Well, no, you're 30 years old and you say, you know, have a nice life, fine. | ||
But cutting off 18-year-old girls' breasts is our form of clitoridectomy. | ||
What Muslims and some Muslims, many Muslims, but not all in Africa do, they cut off a girl's clitoris at, I don't know, 12 years old, whatever it is. | ||
We are no better. | ||
I mean, people need to understand, we have devolved in the course of a few years to the level of the clitoridectomy. | ||
And then they call it affirming care, which is an incredible play on words, right? | ||
Totally. | ||
It's the least affirming thing you could ever do. | ||
Well, right. | ||
If you're gender affirming, what you say to a six-year-old who says she's a boy, we want to affirm that you're a girl. | ||
That's gender affirming. | ||
That would be affirming. | ||
Yes. | ||
Chopping their genitals? | ||
Probably not that affirming. | ||
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No. | |
Yeah. | ||
Generally speaking conservatives, and again conservatives I say with this wide sense of that word, are not very good at controlling language around this stuff, right? | ||
We're always playing defense on this, right? | ||
They don't say gay and then we're all like, ah! | ||
What do we do with that? | ||
They own language. | ||
Look, you know the viral video with me on Bill Maher. | ||
Yes, we played it many times, and you deserve a lot of credit for it. | ||
Well, just for the 2% of America that is unaware of it, less than four years ago, I was on his show. | ||
He said, oh, you know, Trump lies, Trump lies. | ||
I said, well, it doesn't compare to the left's lies. | ||
He goes, like what? | ||
Like America is systemically racist and men menstruate. | ||
And they gave him a big laugh. | ||
Everybody laughed. | ||
He laughed, the panel laughed, and the whole audience. | ||
And people have seen it, and he goes, Dennis, where'd you get that from? | ||
It went from, what the hell are you talking about, to, of course men menstruate in two years. | ||
That's how much they own the language. | ||
They are literally putting tampons in boys' restrooms in high school. | ||
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Oh, absolutely. | |
That's correct, yes. | ||
This is the generation that's going to have to fight for America perhaps one day. | ||
Do you think there's going to be a lot of people that are young now that are going to be seriously angry and resentful? | ||
Yes, it's already happening. | ||
Yeah, that when they're putting their parents into old age homes, they are not going to the Cadillac of old age homes. | ||
I mean, they are going to be basically pushing them off the bridge. | ||
I mean that somewhat metaphorically, but that they are just going to say, wow, You did none of the things that were important to protect me. | ||
Well, it's already happening where you have a fair number of these poor souls who had their breasts cut off or their male genitals cut off and they're suing the despicable therapists who see them for an hour and say, yeah, no, you're definitely a boy. | ||
Jordan calls them butchers and now he's got the Canadian Board of Psychiatry after him. | ||
That's right. | ||
Canada... I have no idea if this is a consolation or not. | ||
Canada's worse. | ||
When Justin Trudeau said to the striking truckers, which is now like ancient history but it's a year and a half ago or two years maybe, Uh, that, uh, who he said you must take a get a vaccine or you're fired. | ||
And they said no, that's why they went on strike, and they could not have access to their own money in their own bank accounts. | ||
That's scary. | ||
Do you think in some respects these guys are overplaying their hand and they may cause enough of a... Yes, I think if the... Alright, that's nice. | ||
Yes, you're right, it's nice, because I am not... I do not look at life through rose-colored glasses. | ||
I think the trans issue, and I think that there is a... I'm thinking of so many things, that's why I'm moving from one to another, but let me be more careful. | ||
If the left founders, it will be on the trans issue. | ||
Most Americans are not prepared to say men give birth. | ||
They know that there is a certain Big lie involved there, and they're not prepared to go that far. | ||
They do not believe that five-year-olds should be taught that you might be a boy or you might be a girl. | ||
They do not believe five-year-olds should have drag queen story hours or very sexual books read to them in sixth grade. | ||
And the proof I have is that the New York Times is starting to publish a few columns from guest columnists saying, you know, we have to understand there's a middle road here. | ||
And they just had a piece in the New York Times, well, you know, I don't, I'm no right winger and I can't stand the right wing. | ||
You know, we're going too far on the left. | ||
But is that their trick? | ||
Is that the left and the machines' trick of always maintaining power? | ||
Meaning they drag us all to the precipice of hell with all of this stuff. | ||
And then suddenly, right before we go off the cliff, the New York Times pulls back a tiny bit, but they've already dragged us this far. | ||
Another one you could give is right here in this state. | ||
They were about to pass a bill in the California legislature about if you did not affirm your child's gender identity, they were going to literally let the state take your children away. | ||
So Gavin Newsom at the last second vetoed it. | ||
Not because he doesn't give in to the woke and push the woke in every moment, but it's their way of suddenly... You may be 100% right. | ||
So we drag you and drag you. | ||
Welcome to the Inferno! | ||
And then at the last moment, they give you a little fire retardant or something. | ||
No, no, that's fair. | ||
That may well be. | ||
So, even then putting that argument aside, I do believe that this could be their Achilles heel. | ||
The problem is the liberal. | ||
My problem is not the left. | ||
The left is the left. | ||
As I say almost every day on my radio show, the left votes its values, the right votes its values, liberals do not vote their values. | ||
Liberals, almost my whole extended family is liberal, sweet people, and I mean that, and they are convinced the right is their enemy. | ||
Pas d'ennemis à gauche. | ||
It's a very famous line in French. | ||
There are no enemies on the left. | ||
That is what the liberal believes. | ||
All my enemies are on the right. | ||
And we see this consistently. | ||
I mean, a guy like Bill Maher, who was in essence mocking you for that. | ||
And I brought it up to, didn't I? | ||
I think I brought it up to Bill when I sat down with him on his podcast about that moment. | ||
And I think he kind of like whisked it off a little bit. | ||
That's interesting. | ||
But he then, just two weeks ago, was saying that he wishes, he wants Gavin Newsom to run for president. | ||
And it's like, he's a, he's not a crazy leftist lunatic, right? | ||
You would describe him basically, right? | ||
Newsom is a crazy leftist lunatic. | ||
And he wants it. | ||
Well, that is proof. | ||
That is exactly right. | ||
So you're saying, in essence, you're saying the true lefties, they're telling us what they believe in. | ||
They're doing right. | ||
It's the waffle people. | ||
That's right. | ||
That. | ||
Yeah. | ||
But how do we get that? | ||
Hey, I was one and here I am. | ||
So there is a way to get them. | ||
So, my view of people like you is this. | ||
Whenever someone comes over to me, at an airport, as a classic example, or obviously after a speech, I just want you to know, Dennis, you changed my life. | ||
And I give them an answer, which they may think I'm just being sweet. | ||
I swear before God, I mean it literally. | ||
I tell them, and I say to you, you get at least 50% of the credit. | ||
Because I have been saying these things, and I'm just one example, there are so many, Jordan and others, but I have been saying this for decades, and vast numbers of people, their lives have not changed. | ||
So obviously you have to get half the credit. | ||
If Dave Rubin personified humanity, We have no troubles. | ||
It's kind of funny. | ||
I was just thinking, you know, after touring with Jordan for so long, and I've done plenty of events with you, I've never seen someone go up to either of you and Jordan and been like, you know, I've been listening to you guys for a long time. | ||
I've read all the books. | ||
Right. | ||
Watch Alexa. | ||
No effect. | ||
Didn't do anything for me. | ||
Exactly. | ||
Exactly. | ||
Has anyone ever done anything like that? | ||
Like, you know, Dennis, this happiness thing. | ||
Yes. | ||
unidentified
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OK. | |
I have. | ||
Yes. | ||
As it happens. | ||
So I did an event in Minnesota. | ||
For my local station in Minneapolis. | ||
Oh, God, it was Ilhan Omar, wasn't it? | ||
She read your book and she said, all right, you. | ||
No, no, this is related. | ||
It's not exactly that. | ||
So the event was at a very, very plush cigar lounge. | ||
And it was really just for how many people can you fit in? | ||
It's about 100 people. | ||
They paid a good money for the station to raise money, and I go there and I speak. | ||
People were sitting outside. | ||
It was not obviously winter. | ||
And so there were young, a lot of, you know, guys in their 20s sitting out there and having a drink or smoking a cigar or both. | ||
And a guy looks at me and he goes, Prager? | ||
I go, yes. | ||
And the way he asked it, I then said, is that good or bad? | ||
And he said, bad. | ||
And that was basically it. | ||
And that was it? | ||
Yes! | ||
It was just hilarious. | ||
That's the closest I've ever gotten to your, you know, I just want you to know I've heard you all these years and you haven't had one. | ||
That also, I think, tells us something a little bit about how people behave, I guess. | ||
I guess this is what I was trying to say about the online thing earlier, that there's a behavior pattern that's developing online. | ||
Jordan also talks about this, that it's becoming pathological, that you can just all day long hate you, hate you, you're mean, all these awful things, where in real life this sort of thing just simply does not happen. | ||
Even if you go to an event where you're protested, it's like they'll scream and whatever, but the idea that it would really escalate or something like that, it's not non-existent, but the keyboard has given us a certain level of force field in a way. | ||
What is depressing obviously has nothing to do with violence. | ||
I actually read comments. | ||
I, I, not just on things about me or things I, I write. | ||
I read comments all the time. | ||
That is really an insight into the public. | ||
Because they're anonymous. | ||
Yeah. | ||
And especially in the case of the New York Times readers, you have to be a New York Times subscriber to make a comment. | ||
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Right. | |
So that, to me, would be a more valuable version of it. | ||
Oh, that's right. | ||
It is very valuable. | ||
And, and stuff that I see there. | ||
I'll give you an example. | ||
I did a whole show on this. | ||
Some writer wrote about how, I presume a woman, she's not going to have children because of climate change. | ||
Oh, I remember this. | ||
This was a couple of months ago, right? | ||
Oh, even more than that, but within the last year. | ||
And so I read, I always click on, you can click on three things. | ||
New York Times. | ||
Editor's choice, reader's choice. | ||
I always click on reader's choice. | ||
The ones that the reader, the comments the readers most like. | ||
And one after another went like this. | ||
More than anything, I have always hoped to have grandchildren. | ||
But my daughter, usually their daughter, my daughter, or my daughter and her husband, Because of global warming, are not having children, and I salute them for that decision. | ||
That is what I mean. | ||
That's pathology. | ||
Jews after the Holocaust had children, and these people, based on computer models at Oxford, are not? | ||
These are sickos. | ||
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Yeah, but deprogramming somebody from that level... Oh, no, it's hopeless. | |
Do you think that's in some ways also why there's such an assault on children? | ||
Because if you can break the child in this case, let's say an 18-year-old girl who suddenly is saying she can't have children because of climate change, That's a very easy way of then breaking the adult, who may have been less susceptible to these ideas just by age. | ||
You know what I mean? | ||
Like, if you get the child, now the parent has to kind of defend that. | ||
Yeah, well, only because parents are weak. | ||
If my child said, I'm not having children because of global warming, I'd say, I was a pretty... I'm a failure as a parent. | ||
If you think that way, I really failed. | ||
I have real contempt for this. | ||
Because it's my child, I will not stand up for what I believe? | ||
Then you don't believe what you believe in. | ||
I love my children. | ||
I'm not going to compromise on what I believe because my child feels differently. | ||
Maybe that's part of the reason my children still respect me, because they know that's true. | ||
Do you think it's possible that we're not a serious enough country anymore to fix some of these grand things, the big worry things, the real sort of slow decline, that we want a show maybe more than truth, that we want a showman maybe more than someone who's competent, that we, it just may be a piece of what we've all become that isn't something that's able to fix? | ||
In this sense, it's not internet. | ||
In this sense, I've said all of my life the two great calamities in America were college and television. | ||
Before college, widespread college, and before television, Americans were more serious, were more mature, were more grown up. | ||
That Oprah Winfrey is so popular, And is so not profound, you know, well, that's your truth. | ||
She's a big fan of that phrase. | ||
There's no such thing as your truth. | ||
The Oregon Education Department announced that. | ||
If you believe there's only one right answer in math, you're a white supremacist. | ||
Which, by the way, you know what the irony of that whole statement is? | ||
If only whites believe that there's one right answer in math, then whites are supreme. | ||
That's the irony of the idiocy of that. | ||
Blacks should be the first people to be pissed at the Oregon Education Department. | ||
You're telling me that if I think there's a one right answer in math, that means I'm a white supremacist? | ||
But also to combine that, to combine the obvious mathematical truth to a racial... Yes. | ||
Yeah. | ||
But we're hit with this everywhere. | ||
Everywhere. | ||
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Yeah. | |
I mean, is it possible we're just not serious enough as a nation at this point, then, to actually turn around? | ||
Meaning that we want the thing that gives us clicks. | ||
So, the only thing that makes me pessimistic is the once, as opposed to were concerned, | ||
is free speech. | ||
The left, two things. | ||
One, there is no instance in history, and that was my field, leftism at Columbia, there is no instance in history of the left allowing dissent. | ||
From, you could argue, from the French Revolution, certainly from the Russian Revolution. | ||
Wherever the left is in charge, their dissent is suppressed. | ||
There is no, liberals allow dissent and conservatives allow dissent. | ||
Leftists have never allowed dissent. | ||
So, that's point number one. | ||
Point number two, if dissent is allowed, we will win. | ||
They can only win by suppressing free speech. | ||
And, I guess, point number three, 45% of Americans say, young Americans say, I believe in free speech, but not for hate speech. | ||
They don't even understand that means they don't believe in free speech. | ||
Right. | ||
If you want to say I am a Jew, if you want to say I hate Jews, you should be allowed to say I hate Jews. | ||
Because if I don't allow you to say I hate Jews, there is no end to what I will not allow. | ||
That's why the anger, the ADL, which has done more to foment anti-Semitism than to fight it. | ||
Well, they became a leftist organization rather than a liberal organization, which is what they were. | ||
And rather than a Jewish organization, even. | ||
That's right. | ||
So, Musk is correct in attacking the ADL, and now all these left-wing Jews are calling him an anti-Semite. | ||
It so angers me that I've written a book on anti-Semitism which has been in print for 40 years. | ||
What do you think of the notion that every institution that isn't specifically conservative will always become leftist? | ||
That's fascinating. | ||
There's an actual phrase for it, but in essence, if you looked at the ACLU, which was a liberal organization defending the Nazis' right to march in Skokie, Illinois, it's become a wacky leftist organization. | ||
I've never thought of that. | ||
That is a very intelligent point. | ||
Can I think of a liberal, as opposed to individual liberals like Alan Dershowitz, but can I think of a liberal institution that has not gone left? | ||
I cannot. | ||
And by the way, a lot of the conservative ones end up too, but they have at least some defenses, right? | ||
They end up liberal too, you mean? | ||
They end up probably shifting more left over time to some extent. | ||
Yeah, but we have, honest to goodness, conservative institutions. | ||
That's clear. | ||
But your point is frightening. | ||
But it kind of makes sense. | ||
It does. | ||
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Look what you said about Columbia. | |
Well, Columbia was left when I was there. | ||
It wasn't even liberal. | ||
So that raises the important question. | ||
Why does that happen? | ||
Why aren't liberals guardians of liberalism? | ||
Do you have an answer to that? | ||
I mean, I've been noodling this one for quite some time, and it comes up on my show all the time, and I think it probably is connected to belief. | ||
That's correct. | ||
That's my ultimate thesis. | ||
I see no way around it. | ||
There is not. | ||
You end up believing in something. | ||
You know, when I've discussed this with Bill Maher, when I hear him talking about it, he always says, well, I didn't leave the left, the left left me. | ||
And then he says the liberal principles he believes in. | ||
But he also would say he's not a believer. | ||
So he, on one hand, is telling me, I believe in liberalism. | ||
But if you said to him, are you a believer, you know, in a grand sense, he would say no. | ||
But you do believe in something. | ||
You just told me what you believe. | ||
Yeah, but you told me just ten minutes ago he supports Newsom, who's a leftist. | ||
So I think he's rather confused. | ||
Yes, he is. | ||
Well, no, it's not that he's confused. | ||
He's a brilliant guy. | ||
The issue with him, really, and I would We've become friendly, so I would say this to his face. | ||
This isn't something... I'm not speaking behind his back. | ||
His issue, I think, is that he's 67 years old, worth an untold amount of millions of dollars, as a lifelong atheist, unmarried, with no kids. | ||
He can afford to have certain beliefs that I think maybe if he had had kids and whatever... I know that sounds very judgmental. | ||
We discussed this a bit with Jordan on his podcast. | ||
But you know what I mean? | ||
Like if you're worth a gajillion dollars and only responsible for yourself, | ||
it's pretty easy probably to have a series of beliefs that don't really have to get put into action. | ||
He doesn't have to have, he's not worried that his kid's gonna come home | ||
saying that his kid's a girl, his son is a girl. | ||
So you can sort of have the belief that it's wrong, but you can also vote in the guy who will usher it in. | ||
Well, it raises also other questions like. | ||
I don't mean to make it about him specifically. | ||
No, no, no, all right, well, well... | ||
I defended Bill Maher when ABC kicked him off, and he said disgusting things about American pilots. | ||
I had him on my show to defend his right to say disgusting things. | ||
So I have a long, long track record with Bill Maher. | ||
But the question with Bill Maher that I would like to live long enough, and I hope I do, is ten years from now, Will he look back at a life with no wife, no kids, and go, that was a great life? | ||
I don't know the answer, but it's not meant to insult him at all, at all, because I actually admire his taking on the left. | ||
It's a lack of emotional depth, let's put it that way. | ||
If you're 77 and go, you know, I really had a lot of fun, what a great life. | ||
You should watch, I'll send it to you, he did a sit down with Jordan for about two hours and they got into this and it's a tough thing to sit across from someone and talk about it, much less Jordan Peterson. | ||
And I think Jordan would even say Bill might be as close to the ability to do that as possible. | ||
Oh, fascinating. | ||
Meaning he gave everything to his career and his comedy and art and blah blah. | ||
And it's not to say it's perfect, because Jordan basically would say it's almost impossible, which is in essence what you're saying. | ||
But Bill might be as close as it would be. | ||
Okay, that's fair. | ||
I want to go back to the question you posed and I then posed to you. | ||
is why do all liberal institutions end up left? | ||
And your answer has been my lifelong answer. | ||
And here is part of the reasoning we can give. | ||
I just spoke at Arizona State University again. | ||
Oh, I covered this on the show, because you're very controversial, right? | ||
You and Charlie Kirk went there, Robert Kiyosaki. | ||
Well, yes, white nationalists. | ||
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Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. | |
I know, I lost relatives in the Holocaust, but I'm a white nationalist. | ||
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Yeah. | |
I said to them, one second, this is really important, oh yes, something I've been saying for years, only secular people say men give birth. | ||
That should really give pause to anyone who dismisses the importance of the Bible, religion, God, etc. | ||
Only, not all, not everyone, not every secular person says men give birth, but everyone who says it is secular. | ||
So, apparently, there's infinitely more idiotic ideas coming from the non-religious world than the religious world. | ||
You are brainwashed by the left to believe that it is religion that is irrational and has cockamamie ideas and asks you to leave reason. | ||
It's, in fact, the secular world that has produced far greater irrationality. | ||
Or, as I say to students all the time, You know, a hundred million people, non-combatants, were murdered in the 20th century, and every one of them by a secular government. | ||
That sort of feels like it should be the ending, but it was a little dark. | ||
Give me something. | ||
Give me the Dennis Prager smiley... I'll give you a fun story. | ||
Yeah, there we go. | ||
Okay. | ||
Do you know... Oh yeah, well, I just told it to you beforehand, but I'll say it again. | ||
You'll just have to laugh like you heard it the first time. | ||
We'll be even funnier this time. | ||
People will get a kick out of this. | ||
I just learned it because it was just my grandson's bar mitzvah in Florida. | ||
And my son, his dad, my son, told the story to the people at the bar mitzvah party prior to the Sabbath rituals. | ||
And so, he is known as DP3. | ||
I'm DP1, Dennis Prager. | ||
My son is D.P.2, David Prager, and he is Daniel Prager, D.P.3. | ||
And he's very proud of that, which touches me. | ||
Prager will probably be a basketball player. | ||
Yeah. | ||
So when he was about eight, my son told the story. | ||
He said to his father, Daddy, if I have a child, or when I have a child, he's going to be D.P.4. | ||
So my son asked the logical question. | ||
Oh, really? | ||
What will you name him? | ||
And he goes, Dewan. | ||
Which is, you know, generally understood to be a black name often associated with sports. | ||
Yeah. | ||
And that's, which by the way, I don't know if I told you inside, it reminded me of his dad, my son, also at eight. | ||
I said, David, what do you want to be when you grow up? | ||
And he said, black. | ||
Because he had a picture of Magic Johnson in his room. | ||
He skipped basketball player and went right to black. | ||
That's correct. | ||
Well, that was the only avenue to do what he really wanted, presumably. | ||
He is in good tradition, my grandson, but that's how we're going to get DP4. | ||
And as much as I enjoy these highly intellectually stimulating and deeply personal philosophical conversations with you, I also wish that everything being equal, I had been a black basketball player. | ||
So here we are. | ||
That is a confession that no one has heard from you prior to this. | ||
How often do you fist bump? | ||
As often as I'm offered fists. | ||
I love you, Dave. | ||
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That's good. |