Fireside Chat with Dennis Prager Episode 36 | Fireside Chat

Well, hello everybody. I'm Dennis Prager. Welcome to my home. This really is my home. It's not a set, but you can probably tell it's a little messy. And this is completely unscripted. It's my fireside chat, which I do virtually every week. No matter, no matter how busy the week I try to do this. There are times when I'm simply not in LA for a whole week and then obviously I can't do it. But otherwise, I'm with you. It's a wonderful thing. It's a way to talk to you about what's on my mind, take questions from you about what's on your mind, and just to get to know ourselves better. Me know you, but obviously you know me better because it's so completely informal. All right. So I always open up with a thought and then I take your questions. That's pretty much the format. So there's a tremendous amount of talk as every one of you knows. It's impossible to avoid. A tremendous amount of talk about how racist America is and obviously Americans are. It's not true. And it's a terrible, a terrible thing that's happening. This attack on this essentially decent and good country, the least racist, multi-ethnic, multi-racial, multi-religious country that has ever existed. By and large, Americans are pretty decent. I mean, with 330 million people, just think if one out of 20 is indecent, that's still a chunk of change. It's still what, 15 million people who are indecent? I mean, so you gotta put things in perspective. What percentage of Americans are racist? What does racist mean? Racist means that you hate or consider inferior, in which case you'll probably also hate, a group because of their race. So the obvious example of the modern era has been Hitler and the Nazis' hatred of the Jews just for being a Jew. You're born a Jew, you're disgusting, you're an untermensch, you're a subhuman, you deserve to die. Jewish babies were as targeted for death as Jewish adults. Then there was the belief, of course, during slavery that blacks were inferior so you could enslave them. That wasn't, ironically, that was not a hatred, it was just a contempt. I mean, there is a difference, believe it or not, because blacks weren't targeted for extinction, they were just targeted for the horror, and it was a horror of slavery. The transatlantic slave trade was horrible, just horrible. I've just read a book on sugar, and again, the description of slavery, it actually is sort of depressing. Anyway, Americans, a lot of Americans in the past were racist they really did believe in an inferiority of non-whites, especially blacks, and it was a terrible belief. And for the record, just about every group everywhere believed somebody was inferior. This is one of the reasons I don't believe people are basically good. People have done a lot of terrible things to other people, especially people who were different, physically different in particular, or religiously different, ethnically different. I mean, look at what happened in Rwanda just a few years ago and I wouldn't have to go back to the middle of the 20th century. The Hutus slaughtered the Tutsis. I mean, just, what is it, 600,000? I don't remember the number. If you could look that up, how many Tutsis were killed by the Hutus? Because it's unbelievable. This is black slaughtering black, but they're different ethnicities, different ethnically, and so in other words, the different was hated. But in America, it's just not what has happened. In America right now, and basically, pretty much all of my lifetime, you know, I have to admit, I never actually met a white who hated blacks. How many? An estimated 800,000. 800,000, in how long? This is what is so amazing. Between April and June. Yes, that's what's so amazing. April to June, in two months, 800,000 people, and not with gas chambers, and not with guns, with machetes. Can you imagine that slaughter of 800,000 people in two months? It's really, and nobody knows about it. It's unbelievable. You know, Israel kills 10 Palestinians, and it's on the front page, and it's the BBC headlines, but 800,000 Tutsis by Hutus in Rwanda, and I'll bet you 98% of you watching don't even know about it. And it just happened in the 1990s. We're not talking about ancient history. Anyway, I know this sounds almost awful to say, but I never actually met an American who hated blacks. I feel almost apologetic in saying it, like, have I not met whites? Listen, I haven't met non-Jews who hated Jews, but I know that there are whites who hate blacks in America. There are non-Jews who hate Jews, but they're pretty rare. The existence of anti-Semites or the existence of racists doesn't mean that the society is anti-Semitic or racist. You don't generalize. I am totally okay with generalizations, but you don't generalize out of a small fraction. There are the exceptions. This is a blessed country for the vast majority of its citizens, black, white, Jew, Christian, Muslim, Hispanic, you name it, Asian, it's a blessing. You should all read a book. This is a very important book, Out of America. Out of America was written by a black reporter for the Washington Post, okay? Important here. His name is Keith Richburg. He was stationed in Africa. One of the, you know, they rotate journalists, so he had an assignment for a few years to cover Africa. He was the bureau chief, I believe, in Nairobi in Kenya. And he wrote, afterwards he wrote this book, and the thesis of his book is quite something. Without in any way, nobody denies it, without denying the horror of slavery, he says, I'm lucky that my ancestors were slaves. They were unbelievably unlucky, but I am lucky because I got to grow up as a black man in America rather than as a black man in Africa. That's gutsy to say, but you should read his book. And then you'll understand, we're all pretty lucky to live here. There's something wrong with you if you don't feel lucky to be born here or to be naturalized here. I mean, look at all the people who were trying to come into America illegally. What are they, stupid? They're not stupid. They know how terrific it is. People don't go to a bad place. People flee to a good place. Again, they're not stupid. Do you know that more black Africans came to the United States as legal immigrants, far more than came to the United States as slaves? This was true already in the 1990s. The New York Times reported it then. You could needless say, look it up. Listen, on any of these matters, you could look it up. I'm not, aside from being deeply committed to honesty, I'm not a dummy. And I know how easily I could be caught on any of these things. But you'd be hard-pressed no matter how much the antagonism might be to me on any website. I don't know of one that said Prager lied on X or Y. They say Prager U lies. They say that all the time, but they've never pointed out one of them because we don't. Truth is a big value. Anyway, that's an amazing thing to think, isn't it? Because black Africans in my lifetime knew how good America is for black people. That's why they want to come here, and that's why so many have. So when I hear, oh, bummer. Wait, wait, wait. Oh, it went out. Do I have my light? Can I get a light of the yellow one over there? So when I hear all the time, America's racist, systemic racism, what is it, the school-to-prison pipeline and all that stuff, are you gonna get into the camera? That would be an awesome moment. Our cameraman might get on camera. And here he is. I make it happen. Noah, say hi to everybody. Hello, everyone. Thank you. Noah's behind the camera. And you can see Noah really dresses up for the occasion. And we're- More than a T-shirt. More than a T-shirt, that's right. All right. When I hear all this stuff, I get very angry. This is a good country. Don't be bamboozled. Starbucks just had a day to teach all of its, all of its thousands and thousands of store employees, or they don't call them employees, they call them partners. Reminds me of the Soviets called everybody comrade, partners. Give me a break. You're a barista in Starbucks and you're a partner? I hate when people manipulate language. They're an employee. There's nothing wrong with being an employee. I'm an employee of Salem Radio Network to do my radio show, not a partner. I hate that language. It's just manipulative. The whole thing's manipulative. So here's the question. Why is the charge made if it's a lie? If it's a lie, which it is, why is it made? Ah, that's now much more complex. It's made for a number of reasons. One is a political reason. The bump on the camera was just made by my bulldog, Otto. Otto, that was awesome. And the political reason is very simple. The Democratic Party depends on the black vote. We're talking about depends on 90 plus percent of the black vote to win national elections. If it went down to 70%, which is still overwhelming, if just 30% of blacks voted Republican, this would doom the Democratic Party, generally speaking, in national elections in the United States and many local elections. So the entire Democratic Party and supporters of it on the American left know that it is critical to keep blacks voting Democrat. How do they go about doing it? Not by saying we have better plans for you. They don't. What they say is America is racist, we'll protect you. Conservatives are racist, they'll never protect you. Conservatives are racist, this is a lie. We have a lot of videos on the history of the Republican and Democratic Party. Not a lot, we have a few videos on that. They are all worth watching. But that's what they do. And so you need us, you need us to protect you from big bad America and big bad conservatives. And it's tragic, it's believed, obviously, by a lot of American blacks, and it's very sad. I mean, a lot of these things are sad. I mean, why are there black dormitories on campuses? Isn't that racist? That's the irony. We're against segregated, racially segregated. We conservatives are against racially segregated dormitories. The American ideal is integration. The Martin Luther King Jr. ideal is integration. That's, by the way, one of the biggest differences between liberal and left. Liberals are pro-integration, and leftists are pro-segregation. All right, so one is political, why people keep saying America's racist. Another reason is that, and this is a theory of mine, people need to feel that they have meaning in life, that they are crusading for something good. A lot of people, everyone needs meaning, and a lot of people need it through belief that they are fighting for the good. And it's great to fight for the good. I'm a fighter, I totally identify with it. But what a lot of Americans have done, in this case, specifically white Americans, who keep saying that America's racist, they have now a project in life. They have a battle that they're waging for the good. What could be more noble than fighting racism? And the truth is, it is very noble to fight racism. But if there's unbelievably little racism to fight, your battle is somewhat fraudulent, isn't it? Those are two of the huge reasons. You know, you go to college, and then you're taught America's racist and white privilege and so on. I've answered the white privilege on so many occasions. Privilege in America depends completely on how you live your life and how you're raised. I'll tell you, here's a privilege. To have a father in your life is a privilege. A lot of kids grow up with only a mother. And a lot of these mothers do great work. But it's still a privilege to have both parents. That's a bigger privilege than white. By the way, if whites have so many privileges, why do white men, specifically white men, commit suicide at a greater rate than any other group in America? Something to think about. Anyway, it's one of the greatest lies in history that America is a racist country. Was America racist? To a large extent, it was. But we're not living in was. We're living in is. Okie doke, time for your questions. All right, okay, here we go. This is from Matt, 21, Vienna, Georgia, in Prager Force. Thank you, Matt, appreciate it. By the way, we have Prager Force all over the world, and of course, especially in North America, at colleges and high schools. If you're interested, if people are interested in perhaps joining, if they're in a high school or college, that's the Prager University College and High School Force. They just send an email to PragerU, and that's it, and say I'm interested, and see. On the website, there's a section there, okay, fine. All right, you know what, I think Otto wants to go out. Maybe let him out, because he's walking around a lot. That's the bulldog. As soon as I start the video cast, every week, he comes in, and then he decides he's bored. All right, hi, Dennis. What are some of the benefits of being a married man? We actually have a video on the benefits of being a married man. By the way, it's the most hated video we ever put up to my great shop. It's very sad to me, but if you look at all the comments on it, you'll see how many men wrote how angry they are at us for saying that it's better to be married. Of course it's better to be married. Here's a benefit, though, that you may not be interested. I don't mean you, Matt, that I think a lot of men and women are not interested in. You grow up. Nothing makes you grow up quite like getting married, but as many single women tell me, a lot of the guys that they date, a woman just told this to me recently, she says, half the guys I meet are Peter Pan, you know, not wanting to grow up. Marriage, marriage makes you grow up. You wanna be mature, and by the way, maturity is also, aside from everything else, aside from a moral benefit, it's also a happiness benefit. Married men are happier. In all of the studies done, it is regularly shown that married men, they make more money. You know why? Why do married men make more money? Because the woman in their life spurs them to greater creativity, because the single guy, you know, why should I work so hard? I wanna hang out with the guy who's at a sports bar. Married men aren't at sports bars as much. I know that might sound like the ultimate horror that you'll spend less time at a sports bar, but it's not a horror. Spend more time with your wife. That's a good thing. It's a better way of life. But what college tells you this? What college wants you to grow up? They don't want you to grow up. You grow up, you'll think for yourself, and then they're really mean. You grow up, and you become stronger. College actually makes you less mature, it infantilizes you. Oh, did you hear something that might disturb you? We have a safe space for you, teddy bears and Play-Doh, and videos of kittens frolicking. That's to treat you and to make you a child. One of the great goals in life is to grow up. When I was a kid, it was a given. You know, it was just a given. A man would grow up, marry, try to take care of a family, a wife and kids. That was a great ideal. What was wrong with that? Seems to me to be about as good as it gets, for you and for society. And by the way, this came up last week about age. Remember somebody, a young woman wrote in, 23 or something, she wants to get married, but her parents say she's too young. So look at last week's video. I addressed that issue of... By the way, it's worth looking at all these fireside chats. They're not dated. They're about everything in life. So enjoy yourself. Okie doke. Let's see. Josh in Rexburg, Idaho, 21 years old. I did skip one. You know, I did indeed. Ashley, 22 in Oklahoma, Prager Force. Thank you, Ashley. How does one honor a parent who was not respectable? It's a very great question and a very tough one. But I need to handle it. First of all, it's very important to honor parents. And I'm a big believer in the 10 Commandments. I think, I actually believe those are God's instructions to mankind to make us in a better world. By the way, if everybody just lived by the 10 Commandments, the world would be heaven. We think we're already in heaven without even dying. That's all we need. And I make the case for it in my first volume of my five-volume commentary on the first five volumes of the Bible called the Rational Bible. And I promise you, it'll change your life. If not, you let me know. I'm almost prepared to say, I'll give you some of your money back. I can't give you all your money back. That's how convinced I am it will change your life. It's called the Rational Bible. And I talk about this commandment. Honor your father and mother. It doesn't come with an asterisk. Honor your father and mother only if they're worthy of honor. I'll give you an example. I don't happen to have much respect for one of our previous presidents. His name is Jimmy Carter. I think he did a bad job and he has some very strange views. Nevertheless, I met him once. He came into the radio studio I was broadcasting in and I stood up to greet him. Not because I thought he was honorable or respectable, but because he had been president of the United States and I stand for presidents of the United States. I like them or I don't like them. Honor is, honor is not a feeling. Honor is behavior. You don't have to hold a parent in esteem in order to honor the fact that that is a father or a mother. Now, obviously, they could reach a level of such evil, either toward you, I mean evil, I don't mean incompetence or even awful, but I mean evil. I mean, there are evil people and some of them have children. Every law, every law comes with exceptions, okay? We're not supposed to lie, but sometimes it's okay to lie. If a rapist is chasing a woman and says, you know, I wanna rape this woman, could you tell me where she ran? You're allowed to lie and tell the rapist she ran the other direction. All right, I'm just to give an almost silly example. You're not only allowed to lie, you should, okay? In general, we're not supposed to take light, but sometimes we have to. Guy shooting up a school, school children, if you can shoot him, shoot him. So there are exceptions, but in general, I'm not telling you, you don't have to love your parents. That's between you and your heart. But a certain degree of honor is, whoops, sorry about that, that's my own phone. Now, don't put your own phone on silent. You've really committed a sin. That was a sin. Okay, so that's my answer. I don't believe that every parent is honorable, obviously, but they're not, because not every human is, and a lot of them have children. But you'll have to work that out. But I still think the obligation in 99% of the cases is still upon us in some way. Now, if they don't want contact with you, that's one thing, but I don't think a child, unless the parent's evil, should stop contact with their parent, just as an example. Josh, Rexburg, Idaho, 21. Do you believe that the existence of extraterrestrial life is compatible with Judeo-Christian theology? Yeah, why not? Let's say in the Bible that God only created life here. I don't happen to believe there is life, certainly not intelligent life elsewhere, but if it were found, it's a big universe. I don't know, but it wouldn't shake my faith. Now, if these were intelligent beings, and they all came down, and they were living a beautiful life, and they were good to each other, and they all came down and said, you believe that there is a creator, you're out of your mind, that would be an interesting challenge. But my feeling is that if there is intelligent life, they believe in a creator just as much as I do. Noah, 17, Irvine, California, I'm sorry. All right, so I'll go to Noah, and then I'll go to another one. Yes, but that one I did for a reason. Noah Irvine, 17, Prager Force, thank you, Noah. What was your biggest obstacle, that is my Dennis's, biggest obstacle you had to overcome to get where you are? There were two big ones. Being very, very, very independently minded. There was no group as such that really reached out to help me on my way up in life. I have a very, thank God, very, very many individuals who appreciate my work. But since I don't march to the beat of any group drummer, no group was going to be a big help, or was a big help in getting where I got. There were individuals who always helped me. God bless them. That was one thing. If you truly are committed to life as you understand it, it's a little tougher to make it, but I've been blessed. The other is, I'm being very, very, very open here. I've never been good at self-promoting, and I probably would have gotten further faster if I were good at it. And by the way, it's not bad to be self-promoting. It's a good thing, actually. I don't say it as a compliment to myself. I actually think it's a flaw. But I never did, and I know why, and that's why I know it's a flaw, is I have too much pride. So I can't ask people to help me in that way. I'm never able to do that. So I never pushed in that way. I pushed me very hard, but I never pushed others very hard. So those were two that come immediately to mind. But over time, I'm very lucky to say, life has worked out very nicely, and I'm very grateful, because I've always wanted to touch people with my ideas. I wrote that when I was in high school, in my diary. I knew exactly what I wanted to do with my life, but it's hard to make a living doing it. I didn't know how I'd make a living. I wrote, I want to influence people to the good. I'm preoccupied with goodness, and therefore preoccupied with evil. My favorite verse in the Bible is, those of you who love God must hate evil. If you don't hate evil, you don't love God. It's a really powerful line. So that was what it was. Let's see here, what is our time here? Am I more or less the mark? Yeah, okay. Ooh, that's a good one. Moral bank accounts, yeah. Did I ever, that's an opening subject, isn't it? Yeah, I'm gonna do that, maybe next week, but we'll see what happens in the world. But it's a very big belief of mine. Anyway, listen, thank you for watching. If my ideas touch your life, give my book that just came out, The Living, excuse me, The Rational Bible, a chance. Because even if you're an atheist, read the reviews on Amazon, that's all I'd ask you to do. Read what atheists write, what people of different religions write. And see, I use reason alone, not faith, to tell people about the greatest book ever written. So give it a try. In the meantime, enjoy a cigar. And in fact, I just got a letter from a cigar magazine that's interviewing me. They realize, I guess they've become aware of my advocacy. You know what, I should probably talk about that. You know, health and cigars and that stuff. Have I done that? Not in an opening? Put that down too. Because people ask me, why do I do this? But it's very deliberate, this thought behind this. Not cigarettes, by the way, I'm anti-cigarettes. Anyway, thanks a million for being with me. See you next week. From my home, I'm Dennis Prager.