Fireside Chat with Dennis Prager: Ep. 43 | Fireside Chat

hi everybody i'm dennis prager and this is my weekly fireside chat that's the fireside and I'm the chat great to be with you so I always think what should I open up with and then I take your questions and I'm gonna open up with what I just did and that is come back from a trip a to Eastern Europe and into Austria but I want to talk to you about the Eastern Europe art in Romania specifically it was a remarkable trip that I'd like to tell you about because it has a lot of ramifications for understanding the world today and for Prager University specifically I received an email about six months ago asking me to speak in Romania that there were quite a number of young people watching preview videos in Romania and they would like me to come and speak to them so I was very happy to receive this I received invitations from various parts of the world because what we have to say is Universal there's no such thing in my opinion as values that are only applicable to one nation or one group if a value is good if an idea is good then it's good for everybody so whatever we have to say we're American but whatever we have to say is valid for for anybody anywhere and that's why this the fact that there were so many viewers around the world confirms this belief of mine anyway it's not easy obviously for the logistics to work out to go everywhere in the world in lecture but it was a perfect situation here because every year for the last 25 years I have been taking cruises with my listeners that is listeners to my American rate Oh show so between a hundred and two hundred depending on space on the boat and how many come each time and we had a trip going from Budapest to Vienna on the Danube River well Romania is not very far it's one country away and we said look if we could work it out that I could come a number of days before the cruise by golly I'll be happy to speak for you so it did work out I want to thank the terrific people who brought us there I've talked about them on my radio show I'm quite a bit and it was just on a personal level it was a high and I don't say that often in life but that was a high that there were so many people between Bucharest included the two Romanian cities I spoken we had about 1500 mostly young people come to the two lectures about 750 each that's that's quite remarkable as I told them in Romania that that's that's a good sized crowd for anywhere in the world fir from New York it does it doesn't matter and it was uplifting to me to see that there were so many young people in Romania who were listening and viewing our videos and to their great credit their English was so good I spoke in English there was no translator they understood I know they understood what I was saying because they laugh at the exact right moment though so that was that was a wonderful experience not only that I I I saw this really brought me joy I saw my little book my I would love obviously my big book or any of my books actually to be translated but my littlest book a just a synopsis of the videos on the ten commandments that I gave for preview that they translated two Romanian and it's celli Zetsche a potent qi i believe i got a right to ten commandments and i I must I signed I signed hundreds there that those two evenings so there it is in Romanian and that's very very uplifting for me to see we have a very important message well I told them something that they did not expect me to say they asked me a number of occasions about America and about Western Europe and about looking to them for guidance in values and so on and I told them and it pained me pain me terribly to say this Western Europe is certainly unfortunately and not lickable to four values today it's I have no joy in saying that but even America is so racked with by what I call this internal civil war that were having in America between the left and the non left I would even say the left and the right I would see Eva I would even say between the left and liberals and III make that clear by the way there is a book that I wrote that I spend as much time as I did on my Bible commentary on the first volume and it's titled still the best hope why the world needs American values to prevail and it's about Islamism leftism and Americanism if you want to understand any of those three it's like three books and one I would beg you to read it and I know it sounds like an author selling his book what am I gonna say I can't get around that but it's very very important called still the best hope and I explain leftism in in that book and it's the it's the antithesis of the values upon which the West were founded and especially America America has three primary values they're on every coin in American life every coin three values Liberty a pluralist unum which means for many one that no matter where you from you become an American and number three in god we trust' liberty god and national identity this is good for all countries these are American values but they are they're wonderful for any country the left doesn't doesn't want Liberty as much as it wants equality and it wants bigger and bigger government which means less and less Liberty it doesn't believe in In God We Trust thinks that the judeo-christian religions are nonsense and it doesn't believe in a plural bassoon inform anyone it doesn't believe in nationalism it doesn't believe in borders leftism is the antithesis of what America was founded to be and it is already it's had a terribly corrosive effect on Western Europe the the nationalist aspect is the most obvious they don't believe in the nation-state they think that that is the route to war people having national identities they don't realize that there's good nationalism and bad nationalism Nazism was bad nationalism American nationalism has been a good nationalism it has incorporated all people's races ethnicities and so on well anyway I told them look maybe you and Romania can't look anymore to Western Europe maybe you in Romania and other places in East Europe maybe you will save the West maybe you will save Western civilization and I meant it they had never heard this from a Western or it seemed that they had never maybe they had I it seemed that they had not and I I mean it sincerely these are people who still take judeo-christian value seriously these are people who still take national identity seriously and who love Liberty because they experience communism they really appreciate Liberty so it was a very powerful experience in Romania and I would love to go to other East European countries in lecture as well but I'd like if it's possible I'd like to go you know all over the world it's not possible obviously for logistic reasons and a whole host of others Hawaii I feel a very deep moral impulse to explain these values everywhere because young people only hear the stuff from the left and it's corrosive in the arts in education in morality and religion so anyway that's why it was a fantastic trip and you guys who brought me to to Romania god bless you it's all I could say you're wonderful they were a wonderful group of people my wife and I and the executive director of Prager you Alan and his wife we had a phenomenal time with you okay her dictum gave way would the group that brought us was a dictum day okay onwards to your questions okay it helps if I do it up not upside down all right let's go hello [Music] AJ 27 years old California why are Jews predominantly left-leaning there are many many reasons and it's depressing as a Jew as a non leftist that's depressing but it's true there are so many reasons that I could give you an entire lecture on it would take an hour and a half I should write this up as a book because it's such an important question but let me give you a very brief response when Jews leave Judaism they retain Judaism's desire to make the world better but they don't use God and Torah God and by they don't use the traditional values of Judaism they use the values of other isms that's why Jews founded or led so many isms Marxism socialism communism feminism environmentalism Jews love isms I've often said Jews are the most religious people in the world except their religion is rarely Judaism there these are substitute religions these are secular left religions that have substituted for Judaism that's why the Jews who are most religious are not on the left they already have a religion with its own distinctive values called Judaism I may give you so many examples and I do so often you know I'll give you an example from the from the Bible in Genesis I talked about this on my radio show just today in Genesis there is a very there's three fascinating verses in chapter 26 Isaac is the son of Abraham Abraham is the first Jew Isaac is as some a second Jew as it were or the second generation and anyway they were successful they were they were financially successful Abraham and Isaac and Isaac had wells that were filled with water and were successful but it says the Philistines envied Isaac and Abraham's wells and filled them up with earth this was brilliant of the Bible it was a brilliant insight you have two choices when you see people who are more successful financially materially than you one is you can resent them and try to destroy them as the Philistines did in these three verses instead of building their own good wells they destroyed Isaac's good wells this envy of those who are more this resentment and envy of those who are more successful a defining characteristic of leftism that's why they have class warfare class warfare is central to leftism it is the antithesis of a biblical value you don't make war based on on success based on material possessions you make it based on values the people are evil that's a separate issue but rich rich is not evil there are good rich people and there are bad rich people and there are good poor people and there are bad poor people one has nothing to do with the other so that's a this this class Envy this destruction I'm according to polls in America about almost half of young people think that it is wrong that some people are richer than others that that is an immoral idea anyway to make everybody equally a poor is evil the answer to the guy with good wells is not to destroy his wealth it's to make your own good wells so there are many there are many answers to to your question and one more is that the Jews have a terrible fear of the right because they identify Nazism with right-wing and the Nazis of course committed the Holocaust and so they think that anything right-wing smacks of Nazis it's it's it's not only wrong it's idiotic but that's what foolish thinking can lead you to believe so those are two of the big or three of the big reasons Jack's 132 Leesburg Virginia why do you think that people tend to forget about the Korean War because I'll tell you why this is a passion to buying the Korean War we have a wonderful video on the Korean War not by not given by me by Victor Davis Hanson at Prager you can learn about it in five minutes why do people forget about the Korean War first of all because we fought communism and the left writes history they're not they're not happy when you fight communism it's a sad fact there's a there's a there's a phrase in French pothana Mesa gosh there are no enemies on the left many people on the Left believe that that's one reason it's because we fought communism another is because it shows America in a very good light because you can't possibly say this was imperialistic we had no we Americans had no imperialistic aims with regard to Korea had nothing to do with economic desires there is nothing produced in Korea that that was wanted they don't have oil they don't have gold they don't have silver they don't have any natural resources it was done because America fought for liberty America looks too good so people don't want to remember the Korean War mark 16 California why do people ignore Christian persecution and focus on Islamic persecution I assume you mean Christians being persecuted and Muslims being persecuted I can write to them for the question yeah it's for the same reason they north of the Korean War they don't want to show Christians as victims only third world peoples could be victims the left brings you the news and truth is secondary to their desire to portray the world in a certain way it is truly a tragedy that what has happened to Christians in the Muslim world is not reported Elizabeth 15 Indiana what is your biggest advice for a high school student interested in pursuing politics to answer the question why do you want to pursue politics that is my biggest piece of advice do you want to do it because you want to be a politician or to be or do you want to do it because you have very very strong values and believe that you would like to use the political system to further those values that's great that's what the thing you have to do most is become clear clear as a bell this is what I stand for this is what I believe in then learn to articulate it then hopefully you can do good in politics but a part of it is hey I just I love politics we we don't want that people who know what the politics which they love politics is a problem you got to go into politics for one reason because you think that it is the best vehicle that you can utilize to further good values that's it not because you love politics it's okay to be a football player because you love football it's okay to be a lawyer because you love law but you can't be a politician because you love politics okay next Brandon 17 in Montana why do you think small towns slash rural areas are generally right-leaning while large cities tend to be left-leaning well I actually have a theory on this the smaller the or the more rural the area the more people take care of each other the bigger the area the more they want the state to take care of other people which is left in which is right I take care of myself my family my community that's conservative the government takes care of me my family and my community that's left-wing okay that's the that's the biggest reason people in the city like to have the government take care of them and you can be more anonymous so you're not really obligated to take care of your fellow individual Devin 18 Georgia do you believe that men need respect more than love yes I do that's correct what is it I put it this way on my male/female our once every week one hour line Wednesday's show is devoted to men and women's discussion about men and women I think I put it this way let me think of for a moment men want to be respected or even adored by the woman they love and women want to adore the man they love I think that's the way I put it I hope it is but that's that's why there's nothing worse for a man than to be put down by his wife that's the worst okay every man wants to be a hero to his wife so men should act that way and women should hopefully respond that way are we doing on time here another question all right Isaac 27 San Francisco California it seems as if the media is working overtime to politically polarize the country what can be done to prevent a reverse the ideological divisive miss we are experiencing today those are two separate questions that you V that the media is on the left the left wants to destroy the right so that's it that mean that's why that's that's the reason you get now what you get in the media that's that's pretty clear most most journalists in the Western world do not believe their task is to report what happens that's an old-fashioned view of reporting it's boring to these people they want to they want to change the world that's not their task the task of a of a journalist is to report the truth not change the world and why is there so much divisive miss well because we're on it we're in in America a civil war the left then the man left our or with one another thank God thus far it's nonviolent though I wouldn't be surprised if left these left-wing violence might take place the screaming at everyone in the Republican administration in the United States who walks into a restaurant screaming and cursing at them is one step away from beating them up and I believe if they could they would beat them up but they're afraid of being arrested but if they could I think they would beat them up every day now we hear a report of this happening this is a this is the first in American history that's how much hatred comes from the left you scream and curse you go in front of people's apartments and homes this is not does not happen in American history you go to the whole of your political opponent and you start screaming no peace no no sleep you shut down you shut down highways and it just happened in Chicago this past weekend people on the Left just shut down an expressway people miss their flights how much for a person was gonna go to to a doctor or they'll go to their child's wedding and they missed it because because self-righteous people on the Left think that they owe the public nothing their values come first their I politics come first they can shut down a highway when was the last time people on the right shut down a highway in the United States I'll take a minute for you to think about it why doesn't it happen people on the right have very strong convictions but people on the right believe that there are rules of society you just don't do such a thing but that is narcissistic in the extreme I people who are against abortion are very passionate about being opposed to abortion but they don't they haven't shut down any highways all right well Lana take one more here Margot 72 oh that's good do some affirmative action for some of the folks who are older what do you think in California what do you think about intelligent design do you think evolution is the best science we have on the origins of life evolution has nothing to say about the origins of life it's common misconception evolution has zero to say about how life originated evolution speaks about how species developed but not about how life originated science has nothing to say about the origin of life nothing zero science has as much to say about the the creation of life from non-life as it has to say about unicorns nothing it is completely stymied by the riddle of how life came from non-life so you should just know that Evelyn is a common misconception people think evolution explains life nope evolution to the extent that explains anything explains the evolution of species but not of life and yes so the most obvious answer is some intelligence and created it that to me is the most rational answer it's not a faith answer it's a rational answer ok my friends it has been a joy to be with you always love your feedback tell people about this it's a way to have completely unrehearsed unscripted time together and I really appreciate it and a lot of these not a lot almost all of my values come from a book that is not taken seriously in the West and that's part of the reason the West is in big trouble cuz it's called the Bible and you might want to read my rational Bible take a look at it it's meant for people who don't believe anything or believe everything in any event whatever it is it's great to be with you I'll see you next week from my home to yours I'm Dennis Prager you you