Fireside Chat Ep. 159 — The Election: A Divided Nation | Fireside Chat

hi everybody i'm dennis prager and i want you to know exactly the chronology of events and that means when i am actually making this uh recording to you over the fireside chat which comes to you every week with a fire and with a dog otto needs no introduction otto has reached the level of needs no introduction not many dogs can say that and as you can see he's very moved by it so i am talking to you the day after the united states elections as of this moment there is no declared winner though it looks like it will be joe biden who will be the declared winner and i am torn over how to approach this because i can't ignore it obviously it's such a it's an a a world event the an american election is a world event and there's no denying it ever everyone in the world who follows any news follows american politics or at least certainly on a national level so i would like to offer a few thoughts to you at this time in no order of importance and truly spontaneously because i have not yet come to peace with my own emotions on the issue uh i uh i wrote a piece which i i think you should all take a look at it has now just been put up at real clear politics real clear politics takes what it considers the best columns left and right it is not a political place it is a it takes the best articles in its opinion and it took my piece which is titled uh hatred of trump versus hatred of the left that in effect that is what the vote in america was about and i always make the point i when i talk about the left i'm not talking about liberals i'm always asked what is the difference between liberals and leftists so in a nutshell uh just a few examples you can watch and should watch my prageru video on the difference between liberalism and leftism or liberals and leftists however it's titled and i have an article on the internet the same on race for example liberals believe in racial integration leftists believe in racial segregation leftists believe in all black dormitories the ku klux klan believes in all black dormitories liberals oppose all black dormitories liberals believe that we should all be race blind leftists believe that race blind is a form of racism liberals deeply believe in capitalism because it is the only way to lift massive numbers of people out of poverty leftists have always opposed capitalism let's see uh the the liberals believe as lincoln did that america is the last best hope of mankind the the left believes that america is an inherently racist deeply flawed society and that the west is not any better than any other civilization liberals have always been the protectors of the west read franklin delano roosevelt's speeches about the need to protect not just western civilization but what he called and this is a liberal democrat liberal democrat however christian civilization that's what he did he said that fighting world war ii which he was the american president during that war is a war to protect christian civilization can you imagine an american president saying that today a person would be impeached for offending non-christians i'm a non-christian i'm not offended at all i think it was a good thing that franklin delano roosevelt said that uh so on race on capitalism uh oh freedom of speech liberals have been the greatest protectors along with conservatives of freedom of speech the left has always suppressed freedom of speech there is no example in history of the left having power anywhere and not suppressing free speech it was true with vladimir lenin in the russian revolution in 1917 it is true on the american campus today it is true on twitter it it is true wherever the left gains power so the the the irony is as i look at the american election liberals do not vote their values i don't know of any example like this really in in the history of democracies where people don't vote their values liberals vote left but liberalism is much closer to conservatives than it is to leftism but liberals are weak or naive and don't understand or don't want to fight the left which is the biggest battle there is anyway watch my read my column and uh it will explain a lot of the american election now one other thing we have an election day it's the first tuesday in november in america that's that's our election day until very recently that was it you voted on election day then they allowed absentee ballots so people who knew they would not be voting or could not be there to vote physically on on election day or incapacitated and they could get to a polling booth they would request a ballot and they would have an absentee ballot which had to be postmarked prior or arrive prior either one whichever the state passed and be counted as a vote now you can vote in many states six weeks before election day rendering election day a meaningless term right if you can vote in september and election day is november 3rd it's absurd it's not election day any longer it's election month or election season but it's not election day and then the worst the sending out of tens of millions of ballots to people who never requested them a friend of mine his two daughters got ballots in california but seven years ago eight years ago they moved to texas they got two ballots in texas too do you think anybody would ever catch them if they voted both in california and texas no one how could there not be forget deliberate fraud i'm not even talking about that how could there not be a massive amount of nonsense when you send out ballots to people what if they died in the meantime or moved in the meantime to another state as this man's daughters or or will register to vote at a poll and then send in their ballot as well how do you know that they didn't do that is every ballot checked in any event whatever the case uh it it invites results that will not be trusted by at least half the american people and that's not healthy so if you believe as i do that leftism has ruined everything it touches i mean everything the latest is sports and science but before that every institution the university the high school the elementary school music art architecture late night television the nfl the nba that's the national football league the national basketball association major league baseball whatever it touches it ruins it's a force of chaos it's a tsunami of destruction and yet there is a generation that has grown up now in america not not i'm not talking about 20 year olds i'm talking about my generation grew up after world war ii and was not taught about the horrors of communism only the horrors of nazism and so they don't know how terrible it is they don't know how bigger and bigger government means less and less liberty for people and they don't value freedom people don't i just read a poll that three quarters of americans i don't know if it's true three-quarters of americans support a lockdown because of covet 19. if that's true it's truly a different america than the one i grew up in i remind you that in 1968-69 there was a terrible virus in america called the hong kong flu it killed 100 000 americans and that's equivalent to 165 000 today not so far from what has already been killed in america 165 000 americans in 2020 terms nothing was locked down not one office not one movie theater nothing that's when the famous woodstock celebration took place not only was there no social distancing the whole purpose of woodstock was to have no social distance between you and your girlfriend or boyfriend or whatever friend you met at woodstock why is that why was america so different then because it understood there was a there was a much more realistic view of life viruses come people die it is a tragedy let us save all we can but you cannot stop life because there is a virus you cannot do that every leader in the world except sweden's leaders has done that this is not even political what i'm saying conservative leaders like in britain and in israel and in india they did the lockdowns as well you know why they're all afraid to be a leader under whom there has been any death they are afraid of what the media will say they are afraid of what history will say under this prime minister or this president look at how many people died on their watch which is what was obviously said about president trump i'm not exactly certain what he could have done to have stopped it do they blame the belgian prime minister for the deaths belgium has more deaths per million than america is the belgian prime minister blamed for the deaths in belgium i doubt it spain as well but anyway people have bought it and i can't believe that my fellow americans would would would so easily give up liberty and the ability of people to support themselves and bankrupt so many business owners and so many people who have a salary a man called my radio show today just as an example man has not earned a penny in the last seven months you know why he's a wedding photographer that's it there would be a lot more weddings if the government didn't suppress them so you'll say well some people might get covered and i say that's correct and if you're afraid of getting coveted and think you'll die unless you're over 80 or you have some co-morbidity condition you know what the odds are if i think it's either under 60 or under 70. do you know how many the percentage of people who die from covid it is a fraction of one percent a small fraction of one percent if you're under 30 you're more likely to die in a car crash than from covid why can't they go to a wedding and this guy make a living photographing it this is a uh so this is a terrible time in in in american and world history i was on a program with yesterday patrick ben david does a great show he's a very interesting and deep man and he had a people with him he has a very widely listened to or viewed podcast and i was his guest for an hour and he had these other guests who were a number of whom were liberal and they kept drilling me with questions and they said well what about you and a mask do you wear a mask and i said well i i i spoke at a rally this past weekend in beverly hills california and i must have taken a photo with 50 people i put my arm around them and they put their arm around me 50 strangers i must have hugged 50 strangers shaking hands with 50 strangers no masks and i'll tell you why i said because i don't believe that the purpose of life is to live i think that the purpose of life is to live fully you know whose purpose of life it is to live animals good old otto here all he wants to do is live he doesn't think of living fully because that's not his task he's an animal he's got it easy in that way i want to live fully of course i want to live long i love life i'm crazy about it and i enjoy it and i i love my family and my friends and my work and my grandchildren and my children i mean i've got a great life but my only consideration is not will i live longer it's will i live fully that's why i have been with friends every single week since since the virus began there's been no week that i've not been with friends that i've not had people in my house or visited others at their house i read the likelihood of dying from this disease i used my faculty of reason i'm not a i'm not an afraid human being to begin with and i have lived life there are people who've not left their house there are people who've not allowed their children to pay with other children for more than half a year that is child abuse that's right that is pure unadulterated child abuse and americans seem to have elected a man who is for a national uh lockdown that well he will do it or not i don't even know if he has the capacity to do it well at least i'm offering you what i hope is some clarity on the differences even if you differ with everything i've said which is fine at least we have clarity on where we differ i don't live scared it is a great way to live i commend it to everyone okay let's uh let's get our first question a video question hi dennis my name is isabella maluena i am 17 years old and i currently reside in the dominican republic my question for you is as we have seen camilla harris has recently published a video seemingly pushing for a marxist agenda how do we fight this compassionate narrative that will ultimately lead to tyranny as we have seen throughout history thank you and have a nice day isabella how do you speak english so well that that is really impressive uh i was in the dominican republic and i enjoyed it immensely and i'm trying to get back to my place and i not having an easy time and now the famous arm has entered our video i have considered renaming the fireside chat welcome to megan's arm so i have seen that video and it it shows that the task of society is that everybody ends up not everybody starts out equally which we would love to see but ends up equal which makes no sense does that mean that if i try out for the new york yankees i i should have as good a chance as as anybody else to to play third base for the new york yankees i don't i don't even understand that everybody end up in the same that is communism and it's it does lead to what she lovingly said tyranny or as we would say a tyranny that's correct that is what it is of course that's what it always does the french revolution emphasized equality the american revolution emphasized liberty which produced which produced guillotines and which produced liberty okay it's as simple as that it is an extremely scary thing and that's why i said that uh i do fear the left because its record of the suppression of liberty is 100 liberals do not suppress liberty conservatives do not suppress liberty the left always does it's very disconcerting that people don't learn from history it is but it's undeniable that that is the case so uh it's it is worrisome isabella carl 43 killing texas why can't racism be outlawed by legislation or executive order such as terrorism sexism or fascism well um let's go through this i don't know any law against fascism to be honest i don't know is there a law i don't think there is no law against communism there's no we don't have laws against isms uh in america we don't uh regarding sexism yes you cannot discriminate on the basis of sex so in fact we have the same thing with racism you cannot discriminate on the basis of race we have outlawed racism so i'm not sure what your question is they mean hate speech it means hate speech but we don't have any other form of hate speech banned and we shouldn't otherwise we don't have free speech because everybody will consider what they differ with hate speech why isn't it hate speech when leftists say that all whites are racist why is that not hate speech that's as pure hate speeches exists an entire group is is uh slandered but of course they don't consider it hate speech by the way i don't want to ban your ability to say that all whites are racist and i want to have the ability to call you a hater and irrational and a fool so i have the right to call you a fool and you have the right to say all whites are racist that's called free speech so i don't understand what banning hate speech means you can't yell fire in a crowded theater you can't say i wish to kill so and so by the way in that regard ironically there i would like to see a tremendous effort made the number of public figures who get death threats is uh is quite uh remarkable everyone should be prosecuted every single one some should be jailed but they're never followed they of course they send anonymous emails or they do it anonymously on on twitter uh but uh they should we should use the power of forensics and find who these people are i don't care if you're doing it to a leftist or to a rightist you cannot make a death threat 99.99999 if not 100 of them are nothing i received death threats i slept very well that night okay people who want to kill you don't send you a letter in advance that's just the way it works but uh it is disconcerting uh to uh to receive them and nobody should receive them and yet people write them that see that's that's real speech that should be banned that's that's threatening violence that's different francis 23 kansas city missouri hi dennis several leftist politicians have called for a mandatory buyback on guns i was wondering what your thoughts are on this and i was wondering what you would do if government officials came after your firearms let me just put this uh very clearly america allows people to own arms because it doesn't trust governmental power and it trusts people to uh to defend themselves now that we know that cities run by progressives like seattle like uh like san francisco like los angeles like washington dc like chicago philadelphia they these people will not stop violence from the left they watch it they do nothing against it therefore this has been the largest sales of guns in american history this past year the only reason is that vast numbers of americans do not believe that where there is a progressive mayor so-called progressive progressive mayor or progressive governor that violent people will be stopped that's it so therefore people want to be able to stop them on their own i don't want to incapacitate people's ability to defend themselves and their loved ones so uh it is a compulsory buyback which is the same thing as confiscation correct it's just you're getting some money for what is confiscated uh will not work in the united states of america and it would be the beginning of violent confrontations between authorities and americans i i pray that never happens but that's what would happen there is no tyranny in the last hundred years that the that the first thing it did didn't do was uh take away a people's guns the nazis did that first thing communists did that first thing and uh in a free society people should be able to defend themselves gigi x-i-z-h-i so i guess it's a shiji that's right cg 24 poplar bluff missouri hi dennis i'm an american citizen for a year and because how crazy this year's year was i started to read bible if i can't be a faithful person i can still learn from this amazing book perhaps the greatest book period here's an issue that bugs me tremendously coming from a secular background from china east asian culture i started to see how people worship beauty and become morally corrupt that in some way it reminds me of the story of sodom and gomorrah but i also find myself to be a hypocrite since i realized that's how i saw women too i become really angry of myself and the asian culture so angry that i have chest pain last night wow that's really angry at yourself but i don't know how i can solve this issue please advise so i wish we could speak so i could get this more clearly about worshiping beauty worshiping anything but but god and god's will like the ten commandments is is is what we call idol worship but and there are people who worship beauty but worshiping beauty is not the same as valuing beauty that is the human condition beauty matters to human beings and i don't see why that's a terrible issue that's the way we're built and yes if you you're a man obviously i assume from this that's the way you see women welcome to the human race the in the land of the blind beauty doesn't matter in the land of the sighted beauty matters in in the bible god describes of sarah the matriarch sarah abraham's wife as particularly beautiful describes rebecca the second matriarch as also particularly beautiful beautiful to look at and beautiful a form it describes david as particularly a good-looking because that's the human condition it's unfair that i will i will totally agree with it's unfair but a lot of things are unfair it's unfair that this person has better brains it's unfair that this person has better athletic ability it's unfair that this person has more beauty that's the way it is if you worship it you are pretty superficial but if you value it if it means something to you you're normal that's the way it works would you rather have a world in which it meant nothing where where people didn't care how they looked i wouldn't uh i don't i it strikes me as uh a a a very unappealing world and uh in the human species female beauty is generally more important than male beauty uh if you if you told a man i i can get a date with you with a model the odds are he would say okay i think uh i think i'll do that where if you said to a woman uh listen i got two guys one is a male model and the other guy is uh does really well financially which would you like to date overwhelmingly the woman would say the guy who was doing really well financially whereas on the the for the mail i got a really wealthy woman and a beauty which would you like to date he'll take the beauty that's the way it is by the way what i am saying is almost tension filled this is how sick we have become that if that normal is now unutterable oh prager comes out with the sexist comment that men value beauty more than wealth well they do that's why so many men will will date a woman who has no money but who has beauty whereas women don't think first of all oh he's gorgeous okay now it doesn't hurt if a guy is gorgeous it is an asset i gotta admit that's why i try to earn money kidding i not fully kidding i'm moderately kidding because i i have earned money but i can't i'm not in the uh i'm not in the uh bill gates realm of of of money but uh men know this of course they know the vast majority of men are okay looking there are very very few truly ugly men and there are very very few truly gorgeous men very few but there are very many really good-looking women they don't know this the women i mean most good-looking women don't think they are which is it's a very charming aspect of female hood but nevertheless there are and that is the way it is done in peacocks it's the opposite male peacocks are gorgeous and female peacocks are pretty dull looking okay so that's the way it works god it's it's it's do you know i i used to say on my radio show i get paid well to to say the obvious because you have been taught that see there's a war against truth on the left to say that men value beauty is to is is a sexist statement that's what they would call it it's a sexist statement what does that mean sexist statement the question isn't is it sexist the question is is it true that's why there's a war against truth at the university he's sleeping see for otto the election has not been a source of tension [Music] he and that's why it's good to have him around he helps put things in perspective biden trump democrat liberal it's all the same he snores through it all all right you're the man how we doing on time the old inner clock worked that was important that beauty discussion all right i'll have a lot more to say another time in any event these are difficult times we will prevail i do believe that the there are very many uh silver linings in the american election and i'll deal with that in future fireside chats and much more i'm dennis prager thanks for being with me thank you for watching this video to help keep prageru videos free please consider making a tax-deductible donation