Ep. 353 — Does the Left Stand Up for Women? | Fireside Chat

Hi everybody, welcome to the Fireside Chat. I'm Dennis Prager and this is number 353 if I got it right. And we tried to have Mr. Tubbs in his bed, but let me explain something, why there's no fire. For the first time since I've been in this house 15 years, the air conditioning is not working, which is, you know why that happened? There was an actual metaphysical reason, because the temperature is so high. It's like, you want to guarantee it's not going to rain? Take an umbrella. It's that sort of rule in life. Sure enough, on one of the hottest days in the summer in Southern California, USA, the air conditioning isn't working. So that's the reason there's no fire. It's probably the reason there's no dog too. I think he got uncomfortable, but who knows. Anyway, welcome to the Fireside Chat. So I have very brief comments because I really want to answer questions. There are so many good ones and I never get to all of them. So I just want to make one comment, maybe two, but we'll see what happens, on the International Olympic Committee and the issue of non-women competing in women's sports, which I have talked about in the past, but it has come up again in the Olympics in the worst possible sport, and that is boxing. And so the shot heard around the world of the Italian woman, who after, I think, 57 seconds or something like that, was hit so hard, she said she had never been hit like that before. Of course not, because she never fought a man before. The International Olympic Committee is an extremely unimpressive group of human beings. I felt this all of my life. I think you have to be of a certain amoral, not immoral necessarily, but amoral persuasion in order to be a head, or one of the heads, or the head of the International Olympic Committee. They've always unimpressed me, and now more than ever, they're so angry at those who think that it is wrong for men who say they're women to fight women in the boxing competitions. We're truly living in the age of the absurd. What can one say? I'll tell you what one can say. Where are the feminist groups? And I have an answer to that. Feminist groups, like virtually all groups of the left, don't give a damn about the group in whose name they theoretically exist. It's true for any left-wing group. The National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers in the United States, they don't care about students. They don't give a hoot about students. They just care about the left-wing agenda. Black civil rights groups that are on the left, they don't give a hoot about blacks. That's why they're against school choice, which most blacks are for. But leftism is against school choice because the teachers unions are against school choice. So for those of you outside of the United States, a lot of this is not familiar territory, and I apologize, but the rule remains universal. Left-wing institutions do not care about the groups. Lenin claimed that the Communist Party was the workers' party, but they destroyed unions and they destroyed all workers' rights. They didn't give a damn about workers, the Communist Party, but they acted as if they did. The same thing with black left-wing groups and gay left-wing groups, and let's see, what were we just talking about? The original, oh yeah, feminist left-wing groups, Jewish left-wing groups, it doesn't matter. The leftism is what matters, not the group. That's why feminist groups overwhelmingly do not support women in women's sports issues with regards to men who say that they're women, because their agenda is leftism, not women. So that's one of the important takeaways from this whole issue. So let me go to your questions. As I promised, we'd go fast and take it away. Hey Dennis, huge fan here. My name is Ari David. I'm 27 from Baltimore, Maryland. I am the founder of Upward News, and each month we reach about a couple of million young Americans with politics, and one of the only reasons I had started it is before I got into politics, I found your fireside chats and they changed everything for me. So huge fan, thank you so much for doing this. My question for you, and this is related to a current political problem, right now there seems to be a debate whether Republicans should stick firm to some specific core values or decide on compromising and really coming together and being a little bit more loose on what they believe in. My question is, when is it the right time for each? When is it the right time to compromise and to come together, or when it is to hold firm to some really big ideas? Thank you so much for everything you do and looking forward to hearing your answer. Thank you. Okay, so I do have an answer actually. Let's see if I can do it. I did. I'm always proud of myself. Well, since you didn't mention any of the core values that you're referring to, I can't answer very specifically, so I'll answer in general. There should be one non-compromisable agenda, in my opinion, with regard to the Republican Party or any nominally conservative party in the world, and that is not allowing the left to continue to destroy their society. Everything else takes second place. There are many issues I feel very strongly about, but they're all or virtually all secondary to the issue of the left. The left is destroying the West, and it is amazing to me. Well, I guess it's not amazing because I don't have a high view of human nature, so maybe it's not amazing. It's distressing. Let's put it that way, that people on the right will fight each other or dismiss each other because they don't agree on one issue or two issues, so you'll never defeat the left if that's the way you think. So many people have their issues. For some people, it's going to be abortion. For other people, it's going to be Ukraine. I'm taught to talk about contemporary issues, and you named the issue that for some will be that's the only one that matters, and if you don't agree with me on that one, or Trump, or whatever it might be. So people lose sight of the battle. The battle is to stop the left from destroying the societies. I have a list in something I wrote, it's on the internet, of 25 institutions and ideas that the left has destroyed. Twenty-five, and I'm sure I could stretch it to 30. So in the Cold War between the free West and the enslaved communist world, what mattered was liberating peoples from communism. That's what mattered. It killed a hundred million people. There will never be a time where people agree with everything somebody else believes. It doesn't happen. There will always be differences of opinion on the and that's fine. It's not the issue. The issue is what is important. When I think of what the left has done to students, what it's done to medicine, the lack of faith in American doctors and medicine is unprecedented in American history, and it is because of what the left has done to the American Medical Association and to the Academy of Pediatrics, where they actually, only in the US and Canada, do they still continue to believe that you should give hormone blockers to virtually any kid who says he is a she or she is a he, let alone surgeries. So that's my answer. You have to keep the big picture in mind. First, do no harm should be the rule, and the left does harm. Not liberals. Liberals do harm by electing the left, but liberals don't believe in leftist values. It's a shame about liberals. Okay, the Prager United question. So Prager United makes the fireside chat and much else we do at Prager U possible. Become a member of Prager United, please. PragerUnited.com. There are a great number of benefits. One of them is yours is the first question after the video question each week. Ernie G. in Deland, Florida. Since the Jews no longer practice animal sacrifice as atonement for sin, how do modern Jews receive justification for the sins we all commit? Well, I've been asked this question much of my life. I'm a practicing Jew, a religious Jew. And I have a tremendously warm relationship with America's Christians. I'm a big, big fan. And many of them are big fans of mine, to be perfectly honest. So there's sort of a real love relationship. So I'm asked this question often, and I always say, anything in this regard, you never have to worry. You don't have to walk on eggshells with me. So, and I won't walk on eggshells with you. The premise is not fully accurate. First, even in the Bible, if you could not afford an animal, you could bring a grain sacrifice. So just, you know, when people say, well, only by blood, but obviously grain has no blood. So there was the ability to attain atonement with a non-sacrifice of an animal, but having a grain sacrifice. Number two, sacrifices never, including in the Bible, never atoned for sins against other human beings, only for sins against God. You could not bring a sacrifice if you robbed your fellow person in a business deal. You could certainly not bring a sacrifice if you committed murder. And in all instances, you had to first obtain forgiveness from the person you hurt. Then you could approach God for forgiveness. But first you would, you approach the person that you hurt. So when was it applicable? Let us say a Jew violated the Sabbath unintentionally and wants to bring a sacrifice or whatever the issue might be. But there was never sacrifice in any event for sins against fellow human beings. So as Hosea the prophet said, we will substitute the murmurings of our lips for the sacrifices of bulls. Jews, what Jews did when the temple was destroyed and there was no more sacrificial system was to pray instead, just as Hosea the prophet predicted. Okay. Henry in Canada. Henry, what's wrong? Couldn't tell me what province, what city. You know what it is. Canadians think we know nothing about Canada. It's really sad. It's largely true, but it's still sad. Anyway, I do. I've been to all, no, I have not. I've been to nine of the 10 provinces. I have never been to Prince Edward Island, but as somewhat of an excuse, most Canadians have not been there either. Okay. Let's see. Hello, Mr. Prager. Could you share your thoughts on Buddhism? Thank you. That's pretty quick. Actually, I do have thoughts on Buddhism because I studied it. One of the subjects I studied in England when I was there at the University of Leeds in my third year of college was comparative religion. Obviously, as you can tell from the previous question, very interested in religion. The fourth volume of my biblical commentary is coming out this year, the rational Bible. So I care a lot about religion. So I, by great good luck, I was taught by a Buddhist. The professor, his name was Trevor Ling, L-I-N-G. You could look him up. He was a prominent man. He wrote some very important books. And I was lucky enough to have him as my professor. And he was a Buddhist. He was English, but he was a Buddhist. The man changed my life one day, really changed my life, because anyone who knows my views on happiness knows how much this is true. One day he said, according to Buddhism, all pain comes from expectations, from desires and expectations. So if you desire nothing and expect nothing, you'll have no pain. Essentially, that was what he said. The man changed my life from that moment until today. I have never had expectations. I have a whole chapter on it in my book on happiness. Expectations are generally misery creators. The more you expect, expectations is terrible on both levels. The more you expect, the unhappier you will be. I'll tell you exactly why. A, because a lot of things you expect won't happen. B, if you expect something to happen and it does happen, you won't be grateful that it happened. And without gratitude, you cannot be a happy person. Without gratitude, you cannot be a good person. Gratitude is that important. So expectations are no good for anything. And yet people think it's critical to happiness. For example, in sports, I'm often told, they need to expect to win the championship in their sport. But that's absurd. I don't know how many teams in U.S. football, let's say, I don't know how many teams, do you have any idea, any of you guys know? What do we have here? Guys who don't follow sports? All right, let's say, I don't know, I'm just going to make a number. Let's say there are 25 teams, okay? So think of it this way. Let's say every member of all 25 teams expects to win the championship, what we call the Super Bowl. So it's obvious that 24 of the teams are going to be very, very disappointed. If you expect to win and you lose, that's really bad. But they say, well, if you don't expect to win, you won't win. That's ridiculous. That's not true at all. You work to win, whether or not you expect to win. All expecting to win does is create an unhappy you. That's all it achieves. I have never expected, I don't expect to wake up tomorrow. I know that sounds weird. It isn't. There will be a day I don't wake up, right? So I don't know for a fact it's not tomorrow. Now, if I had to bet on it, I would bet that it isn't tomorrow. I'm healthy today. The odds are overwhelming that I will wake up tomorrow. But I don't expect it, because I know one day it won't happen. That's just the way it works. So that's why I have walked through life grateful since my third year in college, thanks to Professor Trevor Lean. Now, here's the punchline. Well, I don't know if it's a punchline. A punchline. I did not accept part one of his Buddhism explanation, when he said all pain comes from desires and expectations that are not fulfilled, and therefore Buddhism gets rid of desires and expectations. I immediately rejected part one. I immediately accepted part two, and it changed my life for the better. I expect nothing, so everything is a pleasant surprise. But I do have desires, and I don't want to get rid of the desires. Desires are very important. I desire to be healthy. I desire that my loved ones be healthy. I desire world peace. I desire a cure for cancer. Even personally, I desire a nice house. I have one. I'm blessed. What's wrong with all of that? Those are great things. A society that doesn't desire anything is not going to really produce anything. The truth is, medicine came from a world where desires are okay, the Western world. In the Eastern world, where desires are looked down upon, you didn't get much medicine, because if you don't desire to conquer illness, you won't conquer illness. So I'm pro-desire, and I'm anti-expectation. Daniel in Sydney, Australia. Hi, Dennis. What do you think is the best Beethoven symphony and why? I'm very bad at the best. It's sort of like, what's your favorite food? Does anybody have a favorite food? Seriously, when you think about it, immediately, some people think ice cream. Some people will think pizza. But could you live on your favorite food for two weeks? Probably not a week. So favorite food doesn't mean—some people ask me all the time, because they know I smoke cigars, what's your favorite cigar? And the answer is, I don't have a favorite cigar. Thank God I don't. I love so many different ones. Half the joy of my cigar smoking is the variety of cigars that I have. Some with an Ecuador wrapper, some with a Nicaraguan wrapper, some with a Dominican wrapper, some with a Brazilian wrapper. Sometimes the filler is different. Thank God. I love so many. I don't have a favorite. I have a favorite wife, I will acknowledge that, yes, which is a good thing. So with regard to Beethoven symphonies, three, five, seven, and nine, it is well known among everybody who loves Beethoven that the odd-numbered symphonies are the greater symphonies. I love the even-numbered symphonies, except for number six, I never got into it. Number one is not on the ranking of three, five, seven, and nine. I cannot decide among three, five, seven, and nine which is the greatest. When I'm listening to it, it's the greatest. The greatest Beethoven symphony is the one I'm listening to. It's like people say, because I'm into photography, I'm into a lot of things. So people say, and they're right, the best camera is the one you'll use. That is such an intelligent, it's not my line, it's such an intelligent line, because people have expensive cameras which they leave at home. The best camera is the one you will use. That's such a great thing to know about so many different things. That's what works. All right, let's see. Amir, 23, in Iran. Well, to think that I have an Iranian viewer, that's great. Dear Dennis, many young Iranians are increasingly alienated from religion due to the hypocrisy of religious leaders in power. How can I persuade my friends to embrace some form of Abrahamic religion's morality despite their strong aversion? Your work is the only reason I still believe in God. Thank you. Yes, the reason my work, how did you put it, is the only reason you still believe in God. I'll tell you why. Because it's rational. My root to God and faith is through reason. So if you're rational and I'm rational, then I'll be persuasive. Most religious people, their religiosity is not rooted in reason. This is not a criticism. These are so many wonderful people I know who are like this. But it's rooted in passion, in faith. And I have faith, but my road to faith is reason. So your question is, let's see, how can you persuade your friends to embrace some form of Abrahamic religion's morality? What's your choice? Secular morality? You mean the world that says men give birth? The world that was, the universities who wildly supported communism and socialism? The great mass murderers of the 20th century? You know what keeps me religious? Secular life. The moral and emotional emptiness of the secular world keeps me religious. But I totally understand that I've often, well, I don't know if I've said this on a fireside chat, but I've often noted, well, I'm always correcting myself to be precise. I have on occasion noted, my wife and I were in Sydney. Is this question from Sydney? No, no, it's from Iran. So my wife and I were in Sydney, we went to the opera, and then we went to have dinner on an outdoor setting. It was a beautiful setting outside the opera house. And our waitress was a beautiful young woman and had a slight accent. She spoke English very well, but I'm always curious where people are from. So I asked her where she's from. She said Iran. So I said, I'm just curious, are you an Iranian Muslim, Christian, or Jew? And she said, none. I'm an atheist. And I remember thinking, oh, I'll bet the Iranian regime has made a lot of atheists. And it has. The greatest single creator of atheists is not atheists and their arguments. It's disgusting religious people. Disgusting religious people are the greatest single producers of atheists. And there's no more disgusting religious people than the heads of Iran, than the people who run that abominable regime. So what your friends are doing, which is understandable, but not intellectually admirable, is thinking, oh, because the leaders of my country are religious Muslims who are despicable, therefore God is not essential for morality. So it's what we call a non sequitur, where A has nothing to do with B. That's my answer. I hope you all read my rational Bible, because it is rational and it makes all of this clear. What's our story? All right. My internal clock is good. It's good to take all these questions. From Christian, 28 years old in Medellin, or Medellin, Colombia. What do you think of religious people who stop speaking to family members because they left the family religion and became atheists or converted to another religion? Not highly. Oh, God. By the way, it's probably much more common politically than religiously. Where you have young people who won't speak to parents who are conservative. This is, in America, it's in the millions. It's a pandemic in the United States. Oh, my parents voted for Trump. I won't talk to them. I won't let them see my children, their grandchildren. It's beyond belief that people do that. But there are some people in religion, you leave my religion, I won't talk to you. It's pretty rare. But I think it's Jehovah's Witnesses, I think have that. And I know Jehovah's Witnesses, there's some very fine people. But I think if you leave JW, as they call it, I don't know if families still stay in touch with you. I don't know about the Amish either. I'm just asking. I don't want to insinuate that it's not true. But obviously, I don't agree with it. So how much time because the next one's really interesting. Okay. Levi in Nottingham, UK, United Kingdom, what is your view on trophy hunting? So I've never talked about this, almost never on the radio, and never at a fireside chat. So before the trophy part, let's talk about the hunting part. So this is actually a significant issue, because it'll help you understand how I approach life. I mean, I personally don't hunt, I've never hunted. And by the way, it's, it's, it's, it's forbidden in Judaism, you can, you cannot hunt for sport. And you cannot even hunt for food, unless it's the only way you will eat. Because anything that might wound an animal would render the animal not kosher. And hunting is very likely to end to result in wounding an animal. The only way to to eat an animal in Jewish law is the kosher slaughter laws, where it's one cut of the throat with a very sharp blade. If it has a nick in it, the animal is not kosher because the animal may have suffered and so on. So, sir, if it's if that's true for food, how much more so for sport. So having said that, I, I don't judge people who do hunt. Some of the finest human beings I know, go hunting. That is not their, it is not prohibited in their religion. They, they, they're careful about many of them eat what they cat, what they kill, by the way. And I think that's admirable. I fully understand that people do that. I will admit I don't understand the sport aspect. You know, if you maybe with a bow and arrow, I would get it. But with a gun, I'm not quite sure what the sport element is. But I'm not sure I'm the right person to judge because I've never done it. However, again, this is a very, the reason I said this is important is that we need to understand that what we might believe does not render those who believe differently necessarily bad. The hunting issue is a perfect example. Now take PETA, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, the largest animal rights organization in the United States. I can't stand the organization, but I agree with them on hunting. I mean, so, you know, just as miserable people I can agree with, wonderful people I can disagree with. Hunting is a perfect example. So that's, that's an important lesson. And that's, that's something I had to learn because I know a lot of very special human beings who have different faith than I, different cultural practices than I, and I still adore them. I appreciate who they are. So that was a wonderful session. We should do this more often, just take questions. So do send them in. And by the way, a friendly reminder, every, I believe it's fair to say every Fireside Chat has a lot of important issues. So it's worth just throwing darts at numbers. Oh, I hit number 82. I'm going to watch Fireside Chat 82. It's worth doing it. It's worth sending it to your kids, to your parents, to your friends. And thanks for watching, listening, and I'll see you next week.