Dennis Prager warns of a US moral decline mirroring pre-WWII Germany, citing intolerance in Belgium and Sweden regarding Hong Kong. He contrasts his own parenthood with feminist promises of having it all, critiques gender-affirming surgeries for minors as pathological, and blames secularism for liberal drift toward the left. Prager argues religion prevents mass murder while online anonymity fuels hatred, urging listeners to fight worry rather than compartmentalize pain in this final warning against societal decay. [Automatically generated summary]
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?
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!
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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!
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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 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.
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.
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.