Shallow

Dennis Prager here. Thanks for listening to the Daily Dennis Prager Podcast. To hear the entire 3 hours of my radio show commercial-free every single day, become a member of Prager Utopia. You'll also get access to 15 years' worth of archives as well as the daily show prep. Subscribe at pragertopia.com. Hello, my friends. And then, whoa, let's see. Adjusting. Haven't been here, been on the road for a week. Uh, things need to be adjusted. Here we go. All's good, everybody. Dennis Prager here, finally back. 4 time zones in 5 days. I do get a— I do have a sense of my country. Many, many different countries in this country, but really 2 different ones, left and right. There's something that I need to stress, aside from the moral character being so low on the left. And I don't mean liberals— they're just weak, but many of them are fine people otherwise. But the left, the intellectual shallowness of the left, is something to behold. There is no day that has passed in the last 2 months that some major medium has not attacked me and/or PragerU. The attacks are so, so revealing about the intellectual shallowness of the left. You can't be deep and a leftist. It is not possible, literally not possible, because leftism is foolishness. It's like you couldn't be a communist and deep. It's— your perception of the world was so flawed as to enable you to do immense amounts of evil. I'll give you an example. To show how bad a person I am, they take one of my essays which says that just as men have to be taught to control their natures, otherwise they end up engaged in terrible acts of violence. So too, women have to be taught to control their natures. Otherwise, just as in the case of men, where their passions and appetites, etc., would rule them, women's emotions would rule them if they're not taught to control them. So across the board on the left, I'm called a woman hater for saying that. But why am I not a man-hater for saying that men have to be taught to control their natures? Because they're so intellectually shallow, and because they believe that a criticism of just the nature of women, just as the criticism of the nature of men is important, you can't criticize anything about women. They are apparently, according to the shallow of the left, Perfect. They don't have to be taught to control themselves or their nature. I'm actually called a misogynist, a woman hater. And the comments of leftists also give you an idea of the intellectual level of these people. Here's one: he probably writes that because he doesn't get sex. This is a typical comment. There you go. That man knows my marital life. He probably believes it, or she. I have no idea. They never put their names in. You're being— your children are being taught not just often by sick people, truly sick, not always by any means, but often. Who truly do believe that sex is not binary and that children should be exposed to drag queens at the age of 5. But these people are intellectual midgets. That's the other part you should understand. When they attack PragerU, they are attacking an intellectual achievement that so dwarfs that of the people who attack us. As to be laughable. Every— I could give you— I could literally read to you for 3 hours attacks on us because Oklahoma, Texas, and Florida are considering allowing teachers to use, to use our materials in classes. God forbid children should be taught to love their country. Literally, God forbid. Well, they don't believe in God for the most part. Which, by the way, is something I am going to share with you later. There was a piece recently in the New York Times about the decline of religion in America, and I need to read to you the comments. I'm sure you, you didn't see this, my dear, dear producer. The comments of New York Times readers about what a joyful day it is in America that religion is dying. Yeah, that's the— those are the most— the very rare for a one article to get 2,895 comments. This is from a sweet, usually foolish, not always, man, Nicholas Kristof. America is losing its faith. So I will, uh, I will share that with you later on. It's a new, a new story is out of another young person mutilated by the left, literally mutilated. If you don't understand that the left is morally vile, then you don't have a functioning moral compass. I distinguish between left and liberal all the time. I wish liberals made that distinction. There's another story about another mutilated young person because of the sick people who are called doctors and therapists. At 16, I was diagnosed with gender dysphoria in under an hour. This is from the Daily Mail. This is from today. Yesterday, yep. And given sex change surgery after just 2 appointments. I am suing the doctors who permanently mutilated me. Is there anything in American history in which the medical profession has participated? And this is an open question. There might, might be. I mean, eugenics, would that be an example? Would be the use of blacks for the Tuskegee experiments. But this is so much more widespread, I believe, is it not? I don't know. I don't know enough about the— you know what I'm referring to with the Tuskegee experiments? It was very hard for me in life to acknowledge that doctors could be evil. Partially because we so venerated doctors in my home. Doctors are close to God in Jewish homes, and my own brother is a distinguished doctor. So it's very hard for me to— just as it's been hard for me to acknowledge that religious people could be evil, because I think of the Bible-based religious person as almost inevitably inclined to goodness. That's not, uh, not the case always, to say the least. There's a— it's very hard to guarantee goodness in this world. A woman who claims she was rushed into transgender surgery is suing the doctors who gave her a double mastectomy as a child. Wow, boy, do I hope the lawsuits— oh, that will be the issue. I hope these people are sued into bankruptcy. I hope they are financially crushed. And the despicable children's hospitals— again, to think of the word despicable in the same sentence as children's hospital. Can you think of a more beautiful place than a place that treats children? And look at what the left has done to children's hospitals, because the left destroys everything it touches. Say that when you wake up, when you walk by the way, when you go to bed, when you stand up, when you sit down, and you will understand what is happening in America. The left destroys everything it touches. Luca Hine was given the irreversible operation at 16 and says the surgery has left her with daily pain, while the hormone drugs may have robbed her of the chance of becoming a mother. The Minnesotan, now 21, suffered a traumatizing few years as a teenager when her parents went through a bitter divorce and she was groomed by a man she met on the internet. Poor thing, poor thing. Yes, there is such a thing as bad luck in life, my friends. Religious people are annoyed at me for acknowledging that. It's hard for me to believe this was God's will. She became increasingly withdrawn and spent more time online, where she began following trans influencers. And became convinced she was born the wrong gender. Luca claimed she was diagnosed with gender dysphoria by a therapist within an hour during her first session and was referred for top surgery after her second appointment. Top surgery. The left comes with great euphemisms. We shall return. I'm Dennis Prager. Gold dealers are a dime a dozen. 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AmericanFederal.com.

I call on you, my friend.

Really?

Yeah.

All right, let's take this long. Let's see what happens. Hello there, who is this? Yes, it is Bill Maher. Thanks for letting me come on. Well, you certainly sound like Bill Maher, I would say that. I was hoping I could talk briefly about my decision to bring my show back. Your show? What does that mean? That means all the shows are not— because of the Writers Guild strike, there's no show. Oh, because of the Writers Guild. Well, you know, you know, if this really is Bill Maher, and you certainly sound like him, Bill, you remember you were on my show decades ago when I defended your right to stay on ABC. What happened? Why was he knocked off? I'm sorry, Billy, got knocked off somehow. You remember that? I'm not really sure, sorry. Okay, that's all right. Repeat it, I don't think he heard. Okay, you may not have heard. So remember when you had said some things that were very controversial and ABC wanted to let you go, and I had you on my show defending your right, even though I totally differed with what you said? But it was a very early example of cancel culture. Yeah, it happened to you, exactly. And I, and I was on your side. So it's a pleasure to hear from you. So what would you like to know? I could talk all day, but I'm in a little hurry, so I will really insist on getting straight to my point. Right. Well, you guys got— you guys got— that's really— that's adorable. All right. What are you going to do, my friends? That is the— That is the way live radio talks. To think that a man is proud of himself for that. The human species is a mixed bag. Okay, it doesn't matter, it has no effect on me. And let's— so I was reading to you from the Daily Mail about a young woman who claims that she was diagnosed, I'm sure she was, by a therapist within an hour said, oh, you are in the wrong body. She told Daily Mail, I was going through the darkest and most chaotic time in my life, and instead of being given the help I needed, these doctors affirmed that chaos into reality. God, she lifts her shirt. I am so— I want to cry. I do. She has no breasts because despicable therapists after an hour said to despicable doctors, cut her breasts off as a teenager. I don't think kids can ever consent to having essentially full bodily functions taken away at a young age before they even know what that means. No kidding. I was talked into medical intervention that I could not fully understand the long-term impacts and consequences of. A lawsuit Ms. Hind filed today in Nebraska accuses the University of Nebraska Medical Center gender clinic of malpractice and seeks financial damages. We should start raising a fund for these young people who are suing these barbarians. You laugh at the Salem Witch Trials, my friend, my friends. This is on a par with the Salem Witch Trials, what scummy therapists and scummy surgeons are doing in scummy gender centers. God, I'm so angry, I can't tell you. I'm so angry. God, the left is obscene. The left is obscene. The whole gang. The whole gang. Shows you the, the uselessness of the conscience that left us to sleep well at night. In her 28-page complaint, she said she went back to the doctors to tell them she regretted the operation. She was told to seek mental health counseling. The suit claims her doctor then said, I guess this is just part of your gender journey. Your gender journey. How many of you have gone on a gender journey? How come so many young people are on gender journeys today? I'd like to know how many of the therapists telling teenagers to get their breasts cut off or their penis and testicles cut off go to church on a regular basis? I do wonder. I, I'm very serious. I have no answer. I wonder. I was essentially just brushed aside, Luca told Daily Mail. We should have this woman on. She has since decided to detransition and live as a woman, but the treatments have allegedly left her with permanent scars, a deep voice, and Erratic hormones, of course. She also claims she has pain in her joints, lumbar spine, hands, wrists, elbows, and pelvic area as a result of hormone therapy, adding she will not be able to breastfeed and may be infertile. The inability to breastfeed is the least of your problems, my dear woman. Wow, I am. I'm holding back tears. If you don't fight the left, you're lazy. You're intellectually and morally lazy. Or at least help the fighters. Not everybody has a fighting disposition. There's so many wonderful places you can help. PragerU is just one of them. Daily Wire, TPUSA, the Riley Gaines, TeamRiley.org at the Leadership Institute, and so many other wonderful organizations. Organizations. Back in a moment. Mike Lindell has a passion to help you get the best sleep of your life. He didn't stop at the pillow. Mike also created the Giza Dream bed sheets. These sheets look and feel great, which means an even better night's sleep, which is crucial for overall health. Mike found the world's best cotton called Giza. It's ultra soft and breathable but extremely durable. Mike's latest deal is the sale of the year. For a limited time, you'll receive 50% off the Giza Dream sheets marking prices down as low as $29.98 depending on the size. Go to mypillow.com, click on the radio podcast square, and use the promo code PRAGER. There you'll find not only this amazing offer but also deep discounts on all MyPillow products, including the MyPillow 2.0 mattress topper, MyPillow kitchen towel sets, and so much more. Call 800-761-6302 or go to mypillow.com and use the promo code PRAGER. I'm not going to read to you more of the story, but you get the idea. Children getting mastectomies. They have a chart here in the, in the Daily Mail. Age distribution of patients. There are 12 to 13-year-olds getting it. Is that possible? I mean, uh, 13 to 14, 14 to 15, 15 to 16, 16 to 17. That's mind-blowing. According to this chart, 91% are satisfied after surgery. How would they know that? What kind of poll was taken to find that out? Really, 91% of the girls and teenage girls— anyway, this, there's been so little time, this is all so new. 91% of girls who have their breasts whacked off who get a male voice are happy, happy they did so. Well, God, do we live in a sick time. And America has more of these sick people than any country, not just because we're so big. We just do. This is painful for a guy who's devoted his life to a country he loves, but truth is more important than patriotism. And I am a patriot, but truth is more important than anything. We're producing scummy human beings in this country. They teach— many of them teach at colleges. Many of them are therapists. Many of them teach elementary school. Not all, not all, not all. For those of you on the left who monitor me, people who advocate this stuff— I asked Riley Gaines yesterday. Boy, that was some interview. What a great young woman. I asked her, can you name a feminist organization that supports women's sports against men coming in who say they're women? And she mentioned some basically small conservative women's organizations. Okay. So I just, I will give you the last sentence here. Sex change surgeries carried out across the U.S. annually have nearly tripled in recent years. Why do you think that is? You think these people are now free to be who they are and they would have done this 50 years ago if they were allowed to have this? Or do you think There are a lot of truly lost young people who are being misled by some of the darkest alleys of the social media world. It's the latter. About 48,000 patients underwent some surgeries. Wow. During the 5 years studied, about 12,000, 13,000 in 2019, the peak year, 12,800 in 2020. Okay, I have a very interesting comment that I'm going to analyze. I may devote, uh, I'll see how much time to it, but I want to read it to you. I, I keep notes now. A woman told me, uh, recently at at a speech, before a speech, she said, I told my daughter when she went to college— I wonder if you heard this— I would rather you come home pregnant than a leftist. Is that a riot? I understand that. You come home a leftist, you are— you have adopted a vile, destructive way of looking at life. You— the parent would realize that the— whereas pregnancy was a mistake made at a moment of passion, The becoming a leftist may be a permanent paralysis of the conscience and an alienation, self-imposed by the child, from the parents. I understand what the mother said. Hello everybody, I'm Dennis Prager. Welcome to the show. There's an article recently in the New York Times by a well-intentioned man who's often naive, but I do acknowledge his good intentions, Nicholas Kristof. And he writes a piece, America is Losing Religious Faith, and he's not surprised given the fact that so many of the religious pe— so many religious people supported Donald Trump. See, there you go. That's why Americans are losing religious faith, because they should have supported Joe Biden. Anyway, that's stupid. That's just stupid. But it doesn't matter. Everything— these people have Trump Derangement Syndrome. I never used the term for the 4 years Donald Trump was president. I didn't believe in it. It is true, people have stopped thinking clearly. I am not obsessed positively, and I'm not obsessed negatively with Donald Trump. I'm not— I'm not never Trump, and I'm not only Trump. However, I do believe he was a great president. He gives the lie to their whole charge that he is a fascist. He governed 4 years. If anybody is closer to fascism, it's Joe Biden and the Democrats. Be that as it may, 40 million American adults once went to church but have stopped going, mostly in the last quarter century. More people have left the church in the last 25 years than all the new people who became Christians from the First Great Awakening, the Second Great Awakening, and Billy Graham Crusades combined. He quotes writers on the decline of America. Jim Davis and Michael Graham in a book just published called The Great Dechurching. We may be— maybe we should have them on. Yep, they are drifting away from churches, praying less, less likely to say religion is important in their lives. So what is important in their lives, you wonder? I mean it, you do wonder. This dechurching, as they call it, is apparent in most denominations, reducing the number of Presbyterians and Episcopalians and also evangelicals like Southern Baptists. White and black congregants have left churches in similar percentages, but Hispanic religious attendance has dipped less. By the way, there is one, at least one group I know of religious people increasing numbers dramatically: Orthodox Jews. Is there an equivalent increase in Orthodox small-o Christians? Are evangelicals growing at the rate that Orthodox Jews are growing? I don't think so. It's a phenomenon people are not aware of, but it is very dramatic because they also have far more children than secular Jews. They're becoming a larger and larger percentage of Jews in Israel and the United States. 63% of American adults identify as Christian, down from 78% in 2007. And in the same period, the percentage of adults who say they have no religion has risen to 29% from 16. How's this for a statistic? If this trend continues at the same pace, by the mid-2030s— that's 10 years from now— fewer than half of Americans may identify as Christian. Yeah, so they give various reasons here. When the Reverend Jerry Falwell dismissed AIDS as God's lethal judgment on promiscuity, he conveyed a sanctimoniousness that in the 1980s and 1990s allowed much of the religious right to turn a cold shoulder to the suffering of people with the virus. Hmm, so this, this whole notion that a lot of people offer, the sophisticates, people leave religion because of bad religious people or religious people who've taken a bad position. Are they leaving medicine because of the despicable, vile, evil positions of doctors and therapists? To have children mutilated because they say they're the opposite sex? Are people leaving medicine? Why not? If people in a profession taking a bad position nullify the profession, why doesn't it apply to any other profession other than religion? It's sort of heads we win, tails we lose, or heads we win, tails you lose. So let's say Jerry Falwell was wrong on that. First, does it dismiss Jerry Falwell in his entirety? If you don't know who Jerry Falwell was, he was the leader of what was called the Moral Majority. He was, after Billy Graham, probably the leading Christian influencer in the United States at the time in the late 20th century. I actually had a dialogue with him in my 20s. I hope I can find that. I— the video was made actually, and I have to figure out a way to get it, but it does exist unless it was destroyed. He made a very interesting point to me I'll never forget. Said, uh, Does, uh, does anybody meeting a— or who knows a pregnant woman say, so how's your fetus? It's not an intelligent point. Stayed with me my whole life. If you want the baby, nobody says fetus. Fetus means you don't— you're, you're prepared to destroy it. Simple as that. In retrospect, the most immoral conduct in America in the late 20th century was not taking place in gay bathhouses but in conservative churches. This is what our naive writer at the New York Times writes. Do you know, I wonder, does Nicholas Kristof know how much good religious Christians have done? Who's the most likely candidate to adopt a child with special needs? An atheist, a secularist, or a religious Christian? Who gives more time to such people? You know what's interesting? We have— maybe it's not a legitimate argument. But I'm going to throw it out in any event. So how many churches are called, you know, Saint Something Church, right? And, and how many Protestant churches—

I'm not—

sorry, I meant to say hospitals. That was stupid. How many hospitals have saint in their name, right? Saint Joseph's Hospital, right? How many hospitals are, you know, like New York Presbyterian, right? Houston Methodist. How come there are no— why is there a Houston atheist hospital? Atheists, a lot of atheists, why don't they gather the money to build a hospital? Houston Atheist Hospital. Is that a fair question? Maybe it's not, I don't know. I'm— but it is It is worthy of note. I don't know if it's a fair question. Maybe there just aren't enough atheists to raise the money to build a hospital. I find that hard to believe, but maybe not. Or at least secularists. How about Houston Secular Hospital? Some people claim, oh well, you know, they took a bad position, or what we consider a bad position, so I'm rejecting religion. So what will you substitute for it? Feminism? Environmentalism? That's what they do. The embrace of Donald Trump by many Christian leaders, even as he boasted about assaulting women— that's just stupid. That's truly stupid. That's what I said. He's a well-meaning man, but very foolish comments often. He boasted about assaulting women because he said in private, never thinking that this would be out in the public, that if you're really famous and rich, you can grab women by their private parts. He didn't say he did, and in any event, it's private. That Nicholas Kristof thinks you can judge a man by his private comments shows you again the intellectual shallowness that is so widespread on left of center. In this case, he's more liberal than a leftist. I don't dislike the man, and I would never call him evil, but that's foolish. Foolish. Really? So therefore, because of a comment he made privately, a religious Christian can't support him? Then who can a religious Christian support? Is there any living human being that has not said some foolish things privately? And isn't that the place we're allowed to say foolish things? We'll be back in a moment. The Dennis Prager Show. I, uh, I'm reading to you— this is from this article in the New York Times— America is losing religious faith, and the data do support it. If you go through a typical American secular elementary school, high school, and college, what do you think is going to happen? So where do they get their wisdom from? Ask, ask your college sophomore. Oh, so you think the Bible's useless? So where exactly do you get your wisdom from? Ask them that question. Wisdom is more important than good intentions. It's a thousand times more important. Good intentions mean nothing. N-O-T-H-I-N-G. Nothing. Amount of evil caused by people with good intentions is almost equal to the amount of evil on Earth. Okay, just so you'll know, how many people who have done really bad things woke up that day and said, oh, another day to commit evil? God, the lack of wisdom that secular society produces is awe-inspiring. All right, now let us see here. Where are the, uh, where are the comments? Are they below the article? Yeah, they are. 2,895 comments. So I always pick— this is all New York Times subscribers. You can't comment if you're not a New York Times subscriber. So nearly 3,000 people have commented, which is an amazing number. So then I click not on newest or oldest. I click on readers' picks because you could click on it if you like it. So I want to see what New York Times readers say and what are the most popular things they say. So this is give you a real insight into the type of facile mind— no, facile is not the word I'm looking for. Maybe fatuous, of New York Times readers who all think they're really in the know and sophisticated. 3,160 fellow New York Times readers recommended this, the number one recommended. View from the Street. They don't give real names. That's his name. Or her name, Chicago. Implicit in this column for many readers will be that this loss of religious practice and belief is a bad thing. But why should it be bad? Less religious societies, think Northern Europe, are civilized, less violent than we are, and do better for their members than we do. There you go. I wonder if he still admired Sweden that didn't lock down its citizens, that kept its schools open. We have a video on Denmark, correct, at PragerU, by a Danish economist, about how capitalist Denmark is. And by the way, just for the record, oh foolish one in Chicago, They're completely non-heterogeneous societies. They're non-diverse. They're nearly all— Finland, well, that's not Scandinavian, but he said Northern European. Finland is like 99% white Lutheran. They're not believers in Lutheranism, I know that, but that's what they are. They're all Finns, racially, ethnically, and linguistically. It ain't so hard to produce a society where people don't shoot each other. They don't shoot each other much in North Dakota. This is not an argument against diversity. I happen to love diversity. I have two neighbors in the cul-de-sac I live. One whose parents came from Arab countries and one from Korea. I like that, providing we all identify with America and its values. But it's a pretty, uh, it's just a superficial statement they're doing great without God. They're not doing so great. Look at what the Netherlands is doing to its farmers in the name of climate change. Next one, let's see. Seems to me— this is from Stingray US, doesn't give a state— second most popular comment of New York Times readers. Seems to me that organized religion is mostly an iron fist in a velvet glove. That holds the untaxed tithes of the congregation. It's an iron fist and a velvet glove. I would say that that's what the left is, is an iron fist and a velvet glove. What exactly, uh, is the average church forcing people to do, like the secular left governments have in the states? "My church-attending aunt said that the priest told them from the pulpit how to vote. The churches tell our elected officials how to vote." Hmm. Who has more effect on officials in this country, teachers unions or churches? Tick-tock, tick-tock. Okay, the richer the Christian church, the further from the teachings of Jesus. That's a stupid comment. It's a truly stupid comment. Well, Socrates, downtown Verona, New Jersey, third most popular comment among New York Times readers on the decline of religion. Most atheists are better Christians than many who pretend to be Christians. Notice that he, uh, do you know this? Do you see the sleight of hand? I'm curious, do you? I'll read it again. See if you can identify the sleight of hand in this sentence. Most atheists are better Christians than many who pretend to be Christians. He did most against many. It's a phony comment. The comment is completely phony. And you know what? Even he didn't know it. Most atheists are better than many. Of course that's true. Of— is you— but you compare most with most, not most with many. Many of you will recall that— was it— what month? Earlier this year I went to Arizona State University to give a talk. Not myself alone. Charlie Kirk spoke and others. And there was an outcry against Charlie and me coming to speak. We were invited by an institution called the Lewis Center, affiliated with an honors college at ASU. The honors college has about 45 professors. 37 of them signed a statement that I was a white nationalist. And bigots, etc., etc., and that people shouldn't go to hear us, that ASU should not have done it, Barrett College is disgraced, etc. The Lewis Center was the center that invited us, and I have the man who— after whom it was named. We haven't really spoken since then, and I am very interested to know what's happened. He's a real estate investor and former sponsor of the Lewis Center at the Barrett Honors College at Arizona State. Tom, it's a pleasure to have you on.

Thank you, Dennis. It's always a pleasure to visit with you.

Thank you. So in a nutshell, why did you even establish the Lewis Center at ASU to begin with?

Well, that's a good question. You know, I have been a huge fan of universities my whole life, ever since I graduated from the University of Kentucky a long time ago. And I just, I just have loved universities. I guess what I've really loved is the way they used to be, because I just had such a great experience and I wanted to give back. And our foundation, my wife and I, have given college scholarships to over 200 students. We did that for almost 20 years. And then what I've always wanted to do was try— the one thing college didn't do for me was to prepare me for life and for my career. And the reason they didn't is because the faculty, I mean, looking back, they're all academics, and so none of them could give any advice about anything outside of how to get a PhD. So there was no effort whatsoever to try to— you know, I majored in mechanical engineering and then got my degree and, you know, what do you do now? So nobody tried that. So I've always wanted to try to better prepare students for the challenges and opportunities of life. And to address the challenges, you have to make them strong, and to address the opportunities, you have to make them smart. So I was trying to interject some practical wisdom into college academics. And I've been trying to do that for 20 years in 3 major public universities. And I've just kind of— I've been committed to that and kind of always thought I could get them to do that. But after 20 years, I've now given up. And this event at ASU was really the straw on the camel's back. Because what we were doing at the Lewis Center at Barrett and what we're also doing with the Lewis Honors College at Kentucky and at the University of North Carolina through a faculty that's dedicated to entrepreneurship is we're trying to bring in speakers that are real grown-ups that, you know, kids say I want to be a doctor, but they've never met a doctor. So we're trying to bring in people to talk about careers, what's it really like to be a nurse or a lawyer or a real estate developer, but just to get them better prepared for life. And then also to try to teach classes on things like happiness and career management. There's a lot of— I've written a book, I'll plug it, it's called Solid Ground: A Foundation for Winning in Life, but it's really advice for young adults on how to find success and happiness. And Dennis, most of what I've learned about happiness has come from you, and 25 years ago when I first heard about you. I was fascinated by all the, all the wisdom you put forth, especially on the topic of happiness. And so that's, you know, so anyway, so that's what I've tried to do is even teach courses or offer courses and things like happiness and career planning. But what I've found is that the faculty have constantly morphed those things into something you would not recognize. And because I'm not in the classroom, I didn't know that. But But now I know that. And so that's why I did it. And that's— this is now why I've stopped doing it.

If I may ask, uh, I want people to understand the magnitude of your generosity. How much would you say you've given to colleges in the course of your lifetime?

Um, I'm going to say it's in the $30 million range.

We'll be back in a moment. I hope you all heard that. How does a man feel who has given tens of millions of dollars to universities? How does he feel now? That was a pretty dramatic statement that I took the break on when I asked Mr. Tom Lewis, a major philanthropist, the creator of the Lewis Center where I spoke a few months ago at Arizona State, which no longer exists. I had no idea what he would answer when I said, how much would you say in the course of your lifetime have you given to universities? And it's in the area of— what did you say, $30 million?

Yeah, I would say that.

Yeah.

So don't rub it in. Okay.

Oh God, that was priceless. That, that was worth the conversation. You don't rub it in.

Yeah, well, live and learn.

Yeah. Yes. Well, this is a classic example. It is so understandable why you did. See, Americans are— many are not aware, as you have become, reluctantly, as indeed in my case reluctantly, about what the left has done to universities. They don't want to believe it. They want to think it's still 1950. Is that a fair statement?

You know, it really is. And as I've had a I've had a lot of people contact me as a result of some of the media attention this event has gotten. And I've heard a lot of comments like, you know, yes, I've recently realized this is happening at my local university. And I mean, it started 50 years ago for sure. And Christopher Rufo has really analyzed this thing very well. But I think it really ramped up after, you know, starting with COVID because it was kind of in the darkness or kind of undercover and it was not really out there. But I think in, with COVID a lot of things kind of accelerated and I think this is one of them. I mean, the faculty now felt empowered somehow to, to, and emboldened and to just step it up. And I think that is really what has happened. It has increased in the last few years. And, um, you know, one of the things I, I want to say too is I read an article recently called "Transgenderism is a Wrecking Ball," and, um, I forget who wrote that, but, uh, I was speaking at, uh, at one of the public universities last October, and there were a group of, of LGBT people that kind of dominated the questions and, and, um But you could— but what really struck me was how everyone else in the room was just completely silent. And so there is this— the suppression that's taking place on public universities is, I would say, massive. And if you're not one of them, you're not welcome to speak. And, you know, when I go back to Kentucky, we also support the the University of Kentucky Christian Student Fellowship, and so I talked to a lot of the Christian students, and it's definitely there that you just cannot speak out against this idea that gender is a fluid personal decision, and if you do, you're shouted down. And so it's really the thing that is creating so much of the suppression, and I think that's one of the reasons why you and Charles Kirk were were such lightning rods for the faculty. They couldn't stand the idea that two religious people would come over there and speak.

Yes, they can't stand that. That is exactly right. I don't know if you're following what's happening to PragerU around the country, how the staggering attacks from every single source— New York Times, Washington Post— I mean, anyone who is not left is, is to be suppressed. So that's what happened at ASU. So let's go to that. So you started the Lewis Center with Barrett Honors College. There's no longer a Lewis Center. Why is that?

Well, because we've made a gift, and, uh, in our gift agreements, uh, there's the things they're supposed to do. And then, and I also have the, uh, the option of terminating the gift if they don't do what they're supposed to do. And so in this case, uh, it was obvious that they were not, uh, you know, the, the level of hostility was so great that they were clearly not fulfilling the intent of our gift. And so we just canceled it, and, um, we had the right to do that. And what was really also shocking though was I would have expected to have gotten— I mean, I've had a 20-year relationship with ASU And, uh, I would have expected to have gotten a phone call from the dean or even the president of the university, Michael Crow. But, uh, all I got was about a one-sentence response, you know, thank you for notifying us and for your previous gifts. So it was, I mean, they have, they're not apologizing for what they did.

Uh, you gave all that money to Arizona State University and the president never contacted you?

Nope. Nope. And then I'll tell you why I think it is, is because the faculty is really kind of are the inmates running the asylum. And that's what I've learned in my experience with universities, that, you know, that a lot of them have this thing they call shared governance, and they're really trying to let— tell faculty that they do have a voice in the governance of the university. Well, it's almost like a union where they can go on strike or collectively they wield a lot of power. And so university presidents do not want to take on their own faculty.

And that's right.

Michael Crow's comment when, um, when someone called him and asked him about what was going on at this event after it came out in the Wall Street Journal, His comment was, oh, it's— don't worry, it's just faculty being faculty.

Wow. Listen, uh, I bless you for all your work. I hope you'll channel your funds into things that you, you know, are doing good. And God bless you for what you have done. It's, uh, you, you certainly have tried to do good. Tom Lewis, whose center no longer exists at Arizona State. Charlie Kirk and I will be speaking at Arizona State University on the 27th of September, by the way. If you know anyone who attends Arizona State, please have them come, especially if they don't think they'll agree with us. Hi everybody, Dennis Prager here, and I have on a man according to Johns Hopkins University study in 2021 is one of the 3 most influential economists in the world, which given his libertarian leanings is quite remarkable, Alex Kaiser. He's done a PragerU video, by the way, and he has a short book, 15 Economic Lessons Every Citizen Should Know. It's called The Street Economist. He's Chilean, but he lectures around the world. And Phil Graham, remember him? Former chairman of the Senate Banking Committee. If you want to understand the world you live in and how it works and don't have 5 years to get a PhD in economics, I suggest you read Axel Kaiser's The Street Economist. Dr. Kaiser explains economics the way my mama did. I love it. Alex Kaiser, welcome to The Dennis Prager Show.

Thanks for having me. Happy to be here.

In a nutshell, what is your economic— how would you summarize your economic outlook?

Well, I would say that I'm a follower of the Austrian School of Economics. Of the, um, Friedrich von Hayek and Ludwig von Mises ideas mostly. And I use that in order to analyze economic reality and different economic processes, and especially to teach, um, the younger generations about basic economic principles. So that's what I do, and I believe that We have plenty of work to do because socialism is gaining traction not only in Latin America, which is nothing new, but also in the United States. And this is what worries me the most because I see, you know, difficult problems that many people have commented on different media that are destroying this, this, this country. And then if we lose the United States, I've said previously We will lose the West. So I think that economics is a huge part of this.

That's correct. It certainly is. So how would you answer something that I was just reading responses of New York Times readers to a column on the— among liberals, not just leftists, and I always draw the distinction, there is this belief that if any of us oppose socialism, we're not answering the real question. If socialism is so bad, why is Scandinavia and Northern Europe doing so well? How do you respond to that?

Well, everyone knows that Scandinavian countries are not socialists. They, they have, uh, high degrees of economic freedom. Actually, if you take a look at the Fraser Institute ranking for economic freedom, All of these countries are on the top of the freest countries in the world. And some time ago, even The Economist published an editorial where they were saying that if Milton Friedman was alive, the paradise that he would encounter, it would be like for free choice and things like that in the Nordic countries and not in the United States, because you have, for instance, in Sweden, a voucher system for schools. Partially, and the same for other social services in, in other Nordic countries. And it's very important to keep in mind that all of these countries, with no exception, became rich after they made free market reforms in the late 19th century and the early 20th century. Sweden, for instance, had the 5th highest per capita income in the world until the 1950s without a welfare state. So it was never a socialist country, but after the 1950s, they created a welfare state, and it had dramatic effects on the quality of life of people. So per capita income fell in relative terms, and Sweden, from being the 5th country with the highest per capita income, fell to the 14th position. And inequality of income— inequality increased, and the work ethic was seriously damaged. And in the early 1990s, Swindon went bankrupt because government was so big and they had to reform the state. So it's completely absurd to suggest that these are socialist countries. It's the same story we hear in Latin America. They are not. And if you take a look at the Economic Mentality Index that is published by Atlas, you will see that these are the more pro-capitalist countries in terms of mentality, favoring, you know, private property, free trade and things like that that you can see in the world. So I don't, I don't understand why people keep saying this being completely false. It's probably our leftists. They want to sell a dream to our, you know, to the public, and it has nothing to do with reality.

I can't tell you the gigantic grin I have on my face. Because your data on Sweden, I feel foolish that I didn't know any of that, but I admit it. It was one of the richest countries in the world until it became a welfare state. And then 40 years later, it went bankrupt. It's priceless what you have just spoken about. What I am curious about is you said, you spoke about, I believe, if I heard you correctly, Latin American countries that had basically a free enterprise system. Is that correct? You mentioned that?

Well, we have this demagogues in Latin America saying that Nordic countries are an example. And as I said, Sweden was the 4th, 5th wealthiest country in terms of per capita income in the world. And after they created a welfare state, they fell to the 14th place, and then they went broke in the 1990s. So in Latin America, what we do have is a very clear example of a successful nation like Chile. We introduced the free market reforms in the 1970s and '80s, and we became the wealthiest nation in Latin America in terms of per capita income. And we have the best social indicators in the whole region. Now, our left-wing politicians in Chile have argued that this system is unfair and that we have to go down the path of the Nordic countries. And what they have achieved is to sell this dream that a bigger state, a bigger government, will improve the quality of life of people. While at the same time ignoring all the data that shows that, that these Nordic countries are among the freest in terms of economic freedom in the world. And so we have collapsed in the rankings of economic freedom, and now we have had 10 years of zero per capita income growth, like 0.6 to be precise. We are facing a huge economic crisis now. We are in recession. We have a Marxist regime And we have record capital flights. And it was, you know, the crown of the Latin American jewel. I think that's a term that Clinton used or George Bush. I don't remember exactly, one of those. And now we are just another ruined Latin American country. We don't have really countries that embraced fully the free market system in Latin America. There are countries doing better like Uruguay and Costa Rica. But Chile was the role model, and we ruined it by saying that we wanted to be like the Nordic countries, which is— which was a trap, basically, so that the government could expand its size and politicians could redistribute more wealth. And then they killed all the incentives for people to produce. And now we have a ruined nation. This is a fact. No, we have high inflation, increasing unemployment, low investment, investment rates, and as I said, record capital flight. It's very easy to destroy and very hard to build.

Yes, you summarized it beautifully. So here is why I think the human condition is largely hopeless. And that is Chile did so well, relatively speaking, with free enterprise. Again, a jewel in Latin America. And then the people decided to ruin it. The people. I mean, this was voted out of power. There was not a coup d'état. The people of Chile said, let us ruin our economy by voting left. And why did they do that? I— here is my theory, and you, if you disagree, that's fine. I don't want to have a wrong theory. But I believe that democracy has the seeds of its own destruction because, and I'm not anti-democracy, I'm just noting it is built-in self-destruction because people will always vote for those who say, we will give you things for free.

Well, I think that's part of the reason why Chile destroyed its free market institutions. But I would say even more important is to analyze— and I predicted this in books that this would happen a long time ago— the climate of public opinion. I think we lost the battle of ideas.

Okay, hold it there. I want to continue. This is really important. The book is— one of the most prominent economists in the world, Axel Kaiser. He's Chilean, as you can tell. The Street Economist: 15 Economic Lessons Every Citizen Should You should know. It's a short, terrific book up at DennisPrager.com. The Dennis Prager Show. Axel Kaiser is one of the most influential economists in the world. He's a Chilean and he spends his time primarily in America and Chile. And he has this terrific little guidebook. I love these types of books. It's just 100 pages. 15 economic lessons every citizen should know. The title is The Street Economist. It's up at DennisPrager.com. So back to you, Axel. So I was saying when you were talking about your country and its rejection of the free enterprise model, and I said my theory is that democracy always contains the seeds of its own destruction because most people will vote for whoever promises them the most free things. Certainly true in the United States. That's why it's almost impossible to win so often as a Republican. Vote for the Democrat, you'll get the following for free. Vote for the Republican, you will get less for free. It's quite simple. But you said there's an additional reason, and that was ideological. Is that the term you used?

Yes, it's ideological because the problem we have, and I think it's also the case for the United States and certainly in Germany— I'm also German and I studied in Germany, I've lived there for many years— is that universities and the media are basically, you know, have been taken over by people who don't believe in freedom, who are woke, and who believe in socialism or at least state interventionism. And so what happened in Chile is a good, you know, laboratory for this because these leftist intellectuals, most of them trained in the United States and Europe, took over universities, took over the media, and they created a narrative that the country was too unequal and that we had to take away money from the wealthy in order, you know, to pay for social rights, so-called entitlements or social rights. And what happened was a result of that, even, you know, business people, people who were supposed to know better embraced this rhetoric. And I was the only one actually fighting against it. And I predicted that was going to lead to the destruction of the economic system, because when you embrace equality as a political cause, you are being driven by envy. Envy can only end up in the destruction of the quality of life of people, because at some point, you will institutionalize this envy. How do you do that? By taxing the rich higher, by taxing corporations higher, by taxing people who have more human capital higher, and so you destroy incentives to create prosperity, wealth, and to invest. In the end, poor people pay the price. Feel the cost of all this more even than rich people do. And so I think the ideological battle— and Hayek insisted a lot on this point, actually John Stuart Mill explained this also very well— it's key to everything. And you have some cases of democracies where they have made free market reforms, like New Zealand, for instance, in the '80s and '90s, or Australia or Ireland, and they became very successful. So it's not, I would say, inevitable, although it is true that democracy has this tendency to self-destruct and to redistribute too much because the incentives are aligned with people promising things for free and voters voting for them. Although you have that, I think the ideological component is really important because it also speaks about the values. And I think in the United States, If you tried to increase the size of government in the times of Thomas Jefferson, that would have not worked. Why? Because the more or less common sense that existed among the American population was self-reliance and the Lockean paradigm from John Locke. So you would be considered immoral if you wanted to take someone else's property. But then you had the progressive movement and everything changed. You have FDR, and then they took over institutions, not only government and media and universities, but also the judiciary. So this is a big problem. And we have to go back to the classical liberal tradition of the Founding Fathers if we want to recover both Chile and the United States, not to mention Germany, which is in big trouble because of this green fascism that they have embraced. That has led to, to a dramatic change in the energy policies and making it the, the most inefficient country in the world in terms of, uh, of energy. So all of these things are ideological in nature, I think. And, uh, even though incentives play a role, the worldview that we have and the values that we, that we have as a society are have the last word, in my opinion. That's why it's so important to, to try to control the narrative and not let the woke or whatever people who are at universities and socialists control it.

Well, I wish everybody heard you, to say the least, and certainly we're doing our part to get your word out. I have a thought on Germany which I doubt you'll agree with, but I'll still share it with you because I've said it so often on my radio show. As a general rule, all generalizations have exceptions, Germany is always wrong. That is one of my theories of the human condition. And I think Angela Merkel letting in all of these people from the Middle East, the green policies, uh, they're just the most recent examples. I don't know why this is the case. That Germany is always wrong. There are a lot of fine individual Germans, needless to say, but it's— I was in— where was I just recently? I was in Germany. Yeah, that makes sense. And I was having a cigar at a cigar lounge at a hotel in Munich, and lo and behold, a member of the German armed forces was sitting next to me. And we had an hour conversation over a cigar, and he actually affirmed what I had read years ago. He was spit on when he showed up in German trains, for example, wearing an army— a German army uniform. Such was the contempt. So I'll just tell you one more thing. Germany As a result of World War II, Nazism, and the Holocaust, they did not learn to fight evil. They learned that fighting evil was wrong.

Yes, you know, being a German myself, I agree with you. I think individually Germans are some of the smartest people on earth, but collectively they are some of the stupidest people on Earth. And, um, and the ideologies that they embrace—

all right, I want to know why you think— why you think that has happened. That you're fascinating. We're going to continue with Axel Kaiser. His book is up at my website. I'm Dennis Prager. I have one of the world's most influential economists, as voted by Johns Hopkins University— Johns Hopkins. I'm surprised they did, given that he doesn't share Johns Hopkins views. But they did. Axel Kaiser, who is Chilean, German American, some partially Togolese, somewhat New Zealand. Is there any nationality that is not to be found in you?

Well, I took the DNA test, you know, and And you blew up, you blew up the machine. Yeah, I had like 40 different nationalities, but they are all in, in Europe, Eastern Europe. And I have some Russian in me because, you know, the, my family emigrated from Germany in the 19th century and the last one who emigrated was my grandfather from Stuttgart in 1936 because He thought the Nazis were crazy, so he left the country.

Where did he go?

And they all went to Chile.

And fascinating.

And so, yeah, at the time there was an official, official policy of the Chilean government to invite Germans to develop the country. These were a qualified labor force and some of them had a lot of money. Actually, one of my ancestors had a lot of money and he just left because he He was fighting with some duke or something like that. And so, but then they married among German descendants, which was something very typical to do. And they sent their children back to Germany for a while. And then we would go back, come back to Chile. And so we have this experience of being both German and Chilean and we speak the language.

And so, so you speak German, Spanish, and English. Anything else?

Um, yeah, that's, that's about it, right?

But you're, but you're, you're completely fluent in them. I mean, it's not just, you don't just get along in them. Yeah. So we were talking about Germany and I told you my theory, Germany is always wrong. By the way, I misstated, uh, I have a better way of putting my line to you. Uh, the Germans after World War II Instead of learning to fight evil, they learned that it was evil to fight. That's the way I've put it. It's a more elegant phrase. So you were acknowledging that despite the fact that there were so many bright Germans, collectively they're fools. Do you have a theory as to why?

I believe that it has a lot to do with the fact that Germany is what we call the Beamtenstaat. It's a state or a society that depends too much on government and therefore has to develop ideologies all the time that justify the allegiance of the people to their leaders. So they idealize authority. Germans.

Did this start with Bismarck?

Well, Bismarck was a big part of the problem because he unified the nation. He therefore destroyed the competition among the different kingdoms that we had in Germany, and then he created an empire and then the first welfare state in the world.

Exactly. So that's why I asked that. Do you, do you think it started with him or there was a predilection prior to Bismarck?

It started before that because the intellectual climate, again, of opinion in Germany started to shift dramatically already in the early 19th century, maybe the late 18th century, towards collectivism. And this Hegel, I mean Hegel and of course later Marx and all of these people basically replaced and killed the classical liberal tradition in Germany. And as a result of that, it was much easier for Bismarck and then, of course, the Nazis to create a very centralized government and develop this welfare state and then, you know, favor the triumphs of, the triumph of collectivist ideologies. But it started before that, even in economics. If you take a look at economics, and this was imported or exported to the United States later, I mean, the progressive movement in the United States, it had huge influence from German thinkers.

And I've told my listeners that for years, they went for PhDs at the end of the 19th century to Germany.

Exactly. So in a way, one could say that Germans or German ideas ruined the United States because, yes.

You know, I hold it there. Hold it there because I want to— I want to once again, I want to promote your book. As an author, I know how important that is. Yeah, it's terrific, folks. You hear what this has— man has so much knowledge and common sense. The Street Economist, Axel Kaiser, 15 Economic Lessons Every Citizen Should Know. It is up at DennisPrager.com. I'm Dennis Prager. We return. The Dennis Prager Show. Dennis Prager here. Thanks for listening to the Daily Dennis Prager Podcast. To hear the entire 3 hours of my radio show commercial-free every single day, become a member of PragerTopia. You'll also get access to 15 years' worth of archives as well as the daily show prep. Subscribe at prageropia.com.