Timeless Wisdom: Dennis Prager's Rules For Life

Welcome to Timeless Wisdom with Dennis Prager.

Hear thousands of hours of Dennis's lectures, courses, and classic radio programs.

And to purchase Dennis Prager's Rational Bibles, go to DennisPrager.com. But I'm very, very happy to be here, as you would imagine. If I could touch your life, that's my dream in life, is to touch lives with good things. So it means a lot to me that you're here. Before I actually begin, I want to deal with a flyer that I just saw that was given out. I do this in every college that I go to. They publish things in their papers. Everything that's asserted is not true. I have a theory as to why, and But before I tell you my theory, let me just say to those who might be here who have any disagreement with me or complete disagreement, you go first in questions. And I'm known for my very respectful demeanor, even if I don't find the question respectful. So don't worry about it, I won't eat you up. I'll show why you're wrong, but I will— no, that was a joke, that was a joke. But no, no, no, no, really, if you differ, you get on first. But I'll just give you an example. This is typical. By the way, my favorite, I have to admit, was the University of Wyoming about a year and a half ago. And I don't know if it was a professor or a student who wrote in the Wyoming paper that the usual sixer of sexist, intolerant, xenophobic, homophobic, Islamophobic, racist, bigoted speaker is coming to campus. But they not only said that, They also said, "And anti-Semitic," which is remarkable given that I'm a religious Jew. But you know, what are details on the left? They're annoying. So if you can dismiss a human being with epithets, why argue with them? So I want to give you an example. This is typical. The only reason I am mentioning this is because this is truly typical. I won't read you the whole thing. Purdue against PragerU. By the way, is that remarkable? Are you in Purdue? I'm just curious. All right. Dennis Prager U, fine. So, you know, Dennis is a conservative talk show host, which immediately renders me awful. So here is an example. Unfortunately, many of these videos make claims that are false, unfounded, and completely misleading. So every time I see that on the internet, "Oh, Prager U, it's misleading, it's propaganda," they never ever give an example. What in 400 videos which include, by the way, for the record, professors at Yale, Harvard, Stanford, University of Pennsylvania. It's all over, all over the world. Oxford. It also includes 4 former prime ministers. It also includes 4 Pulitzer Prize winners. It also includes liberals like Alan Dershowitz, who has never voted Republican in his life. But all of a sudden, all of these people tell lies, okay? Because— but they never give an example. So at least to this person's credit, she gives, or he gives— I say she because they told me it was a woman handing out the flyer— 4 examples of how we are completely misleading and unfounded. Here are a few: fossil fuels are the greatest energy source, from the YouTube video Fossil Fuels: The Greatest Energy. What is misleading about that? Do you know how ignorant this person must be not to know that fossil fuels have been the greatest energy source in the history of humanity? That were it not for fossil fuels, there would be no hospitals, no cars, no transportation, nothing. There would be nothing. We would be living in the Middle Ages. People are living and living longer than ever before thanks to dinosaurs. It is one of their great gifts to us. With their fossils. It's mind-blowing to deny it. Now, you could say we shouldn't rely on it anymore. That's a perfectly legitimate position, but I only know it's legitimate if you're then for nuclear power. If you're not for nuclear power and not for fossil fuel, you're a hysteric. Because— no, no, no, that's definitional. Nuclear power is clean and available and supports the beloved by the left Sweden 40% of its energy is from nuclear power, and it'll soon be half of its nuclear energy. All right, so what is misleading about that? It has been the greatest— the greenest, sorry, the greenest. It says the greenest. Yes, it has been the greenest. And will it be? Okay, that's a great question. Next, net neutrality is good for consumers and anti-authoritarian. Okay, we know good people could differ on net neutrality. We just are suspicious of it because anything the government runs is less free. That's it. It's— that's all. There may be arguments in the other direction, but why ruin what has already been free? Number 3: FDR's New Deal further worsened the Great Depression. You know who gives that course? A professor of economics at UCLA. This is not like we picked somebody off the street and said, what do you think of FDR's New Deal? We want to do a video with you. We asked the professor of economics at UCLA, Leo Hanian, Now you may differ with him, you may agree with him, but why exactly is that completely misleading and unfounded? It is inconceivable the person who did this actually watched it. They saw the title. Number 4, the minimum wage should be $0. What's the right minimum wage? So here is a very interesting little thing for you on that. In the 1970s, the New York Times, when it was liberal, not leftist, There's a big difference. When it was liberal, you could check it. You should check it. This was the headline of its lead editorial. The right minimum wage is $0.00. New York Times editorial in the '70s. Okay, so I guess the New York Times was completely misleading and unfounded, which it often is. So maybe that's what the person had in mind. You know, by the way, it's the, the minimum wage issue is a very interesting one to me because I, I think in moral terms, not political terms. I think of right and wrong, what helps people, what hurts people. And I, I believe that the $15 minimum wage hurts people, otherwise I'd support it. I'm, I'm for helping people. I, I, I'm a deep believer in that, uh, and But I believe it hurts people for a lot of reasons, including that far fewer get hired. I could tell you that since they raised it in Los Angeles recently, I am at the LAX, that's Los Angeles International Airport, virtually every week. And I noticed that the lines are getting longer at Starbucks and elsewhere. And I asked them why, why do you have so few people working here? They said because they raised the minimum wage. That's exactly why. So it hurts everybody. Fewer people get employed. The consumer is hurt. People will either miss their plane or not get their food. But it doesn't matter because you have to understand a major animating impulse on the left is, do I feel good about myself? The question, am I doing good, is not a left-wing question. Does it do good is a conservative question. Do I feel good is a liberal question. That's a very important distinction. I am not interested in feeling good. Or let's put it this way, I am, but it's secondary to doing good. I will talk about that and the conflict between feelings and actions, which is a big part of what I want to talk to you about, or a major part. Next, it says here the viewpoints make sense when looking at the funding sources for PragerU. The main source of funding for PragerU was Dan and Faris Wilkes. Billionaires who profit off hydraulic fracking. That is a 100% lie. 100%. At most, they have given us 10% of our funds. At most. Okay? And by the way, we came out with these videos before they gave us any money. They gave us money in part because they liked our values. We didn't change our values because we got money. That would render me a prostitute, which, by the way, which bothers me not because it bothers me about me. It bothers me about prostitutes. Because it's not a fair thing to label them in such a negative way. But it's just a lie, okay? And by the way, they haven't funded us at least, I think now for 2 years. It just is what it is. Additionally, the others are irrelevant, except for this. The Linda and Harry Bradley Foundation have given over $200,000 to PragerU to support their conservative ideals, including suppressing student speech on college campuses. Okay, all right, since you left, there's no reason for me to go on with that. Okay, this is though, this is the stuff that is normal when discussing, uh, our, a Prager University, because they don't have good answers. You don't know the rigorous fact-checking. And let me just speak personally, I would never attach my name to anything that compromised on truth. Lies are the root of evil. Lies gave us the Holocaust. Lies gave us the Gulag Archipelago. I hate lies. I hate them with every fiber in my body. I am so strict about truth that I've been broadcasting for 35 years, and I will tell you that when I read ads, I often change the copy. I'll give you one little example. It says— this is very common on radio— so here's a— for my listeners only, if you use Prager, you will get a 20% discount. But it's not true. The advertiser says that, but it's not true. You will get a 20% discount if you use my name, but you'll also get a 20% discount if you use any of my colleagues' names. So I drop only— I rewrite the script if there's the slightest— nobody picks up on it. But I just want you to know how committed I am to truth, what we do before a video ever appears at Prager University, which is why they never caught us on anything. This is the stuff that they write on the internet. Oh, misinformation, propaganda, misinformate, but they never give an example. There aren't examples. By the way, if we caught an example, we would list we made a mistake. We have something incorrect. Okay, so what I wanna talk to you about is life. What you probably don't learn at college, that I'd like to share with you, which is no knock on Purdue. As far, I don't know enough about Purdue to incorporate it into my general low opinion of American universities. And I mean that sincerely. There are some fine ones that are not dominated by people who have agendas that are indoctrination rather than education. So whatever I am saying may or may not apply here, but it's irrelevant. The odds are, even at a wonderful university, you're not learning what I am about to mention to you, which should be life-shaping. If you take what I tell you now seriously, it will change your life, which is almost wrong for a speaker to say because I'm setting myself up for failure. Because if I didn't change your life, I did fail. And by the way, I do feel that way. I don't speak because for the hell of it. I speak because I want to change people's lives for the better. That's, that's what I've always wanted to do. That's why I'm here today. This episode of Timeless Wisdom will continue right after this.

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Now back to more of Dennis Prager's timeless wisdom. Okay, not in order of importance, but just a few items. Number 1, Knowledge and wisdom are not the same thing. Wisdom is infinitely more important than knowledge, and we are in the age of anti-wisdom. I realized this when I was at graduate school. In my case, it was Columbia University in New York where I grew up, and I knew I was being taught a lot of nonsense, which was very troubling. This was in the '70s. With a lot of, still, of Vietnam-era demonstrations, takeovers of offices. Nothing much has changed, just the causes have changed, but the takeovers of offices have stayed the same. I want you to know it was a very difficult time for me. I felt very lonely because I didn't share my fellow students' or faculty's values, and it was a lonely time, but it's okay. I didn't mind that 'cause I had close friends. My life was fine. But it was lonely, but what much worse than that was I felt that I needed to answer a question. Why are intelligent people teaching me nonsense? And I remember two specific examples. One was I was at the School of International Affairs where I studied communist affairs. I was at the Russian Institute of the School of International Affairs. And I was taught by my professors that the US and the Soviet Union were essentially moral equivalents, that it wasn't a battle of freedom and tyranny, it was a battle of capitalism and communism, which by the way is true. It was a battle of capitalism and communism. Capitalism is free and communism is tyranny, but it was never put that way. It was put as a battle of economic, not moral systems, but it was a battle of moral systems. There was no comparison. I had been to the Soviet Union. There's no comparison. So I realized I'm not— there's no wisdom here, there's nonsense. The other one, which continues to this day, is men and women are basically the same. Uh, even though I had no sister, I knew this was nonsense. I mean, everybody who was uneducated knows it's nonsense. It's the well-educated who have trouble with the issue, which shows you what well-educated means. If I know somebody, for example, is a professor of gender studies, I assume they don't think clearly. Now, this is not meant to insult them. I know it's an insult. I'm not gonna say it's a compliment, but I don't say it because I get a joy out of insulting. There is so much nonsense. Do you know that in Connecticut, Last month there were high school girls, girls high school track championships in Connecticut. Two transgender girls raced. That means male bodies who identify as girls. That's fine. If you identify as a girl, you look like a girl, act like a girl, take a girl's name, I will refer to you as a girl. Just for the record, I want you to know that. But I'm not going to live the lie that you no longer have a male body. I mean, that you do. Forget genitalia. You have the body. You don't run with your genitals. You run with your legs. You run with your body. So who won the race? First place and second place. Look it up. Connecticut high school transgender race. The two male-bodied females won the race. Not only won the race, Defeating all the female-bodied runners, obviously. They not only won the race, they set records in Connecticut for girls' track. So that bumped off two girls with girls' bodies off. So to the entire left, this is fair. This is fair. Girls can run against male bodies and lose. That's fair. By the way, not one feminist group came to defend the girls. Which proves something I have always believed. Feminism doesn't give a damn about women. Feminism is— is it just as, by the way, just as communism never gave a damn about workers. They used workers to further their left-wing agenda. Feminism uses women to further its left-wing agenda. Women are a tool for feminism and feminist groups, and workers are a tool for communism. This is what you— this is— and by the way, this is proof. How could feminist organizations not speak up on behalf of the girls of Connecticut? Martina Navratilova, who was a tennis champion about 20 years ago, major world tennis champion, and gay, and was a major factor for accepting gays in sports. She was a gay activist. She said, this is not fair to women to have transgender women, that is, women with male bodies, play against us, is not fair. She was kicked out of every LGBTQ organization, to give you an idea of their moral state. A lifelong gay activist for LGBT and now Q activism, and she was kicked out of the movement because they're totalitarian. That's why. So, uh, I was taught boys and girls, male and female, they're basically the same. By the way, I could give you a speech just on that. I'll give you one more example. The former president of Harvard gave a speech in which he noted that he bought the idea that the only reason boys prefer trucks and girls prefer dolls is because that's what society gives them. So he decided, he bought the idea, he's a liberal, not a leftist, and he decided he would give, I don't know, it's Christmas or whatever, birthday, He gave his daughter, uh, trucks. So he, he tells the story again. You could look this up. So he gave the daughter trucks. He get— he— that, that evening, he hears nothing from her room, knocks on the door or opens the door, and she goes, shh, I'm putting the trucks to sleep. Look it up. Former president of Harvard. By the way, he was dropped as president of Harvard because of comments like that. Harvard does not tolerate any dissent from the left any more than any other school, even in its president. Of course, men and women are basically different. So I realized there was no wisdom at Columbia. There was a lot of knowledge. Let me give you one more example of the difference between knowledge and wisdom. A map gives you knowledge, no wisdom. A map tells you exactly where you are. Wisdom tells you where you want to go. They have nothing in common. If you— if you— you— it's good to know where you are if you know where you want to go, but if you don't know where you want to go, it is useless to know where you are. You get, I don't know about, and I mean it, I'm not being cute, I don't know anything about your college in this regard, but no college I know of with a handful of exceptions gives wisdom. That is not their intent. They're places of anti-wisdom. By the way, my theory is, and it's on the, it's two of my columns that are on the internet are about this. How I Found God at Columbia is about that. And that was 25 years ago. And just two weeks ago, How the Left Keeps Me Religious. It's worth reading because it really does explain what is going on, I believe. Anyway, wisdom is more important than knowledge. The encyclopedias have knowledge, the internet has knowledge, but wisdom— where do you get wisdom? We have knocked the foundations of wisdom out. The latest PragerU video this week just happens to be Ben Shapiro speaking about the two, the twin pillars of Western civilization, Athens and Jerusalem. Athens with reason and Jerusalem with revelation. We, you need God and reason. That's what the West has had. We have knocked out Athens. People aren't studying Athens, and certainly people aren't studying the Bible. And as a result, we live in the, without question, the dumbest age in American history. Without question that people could believe things like men and women are basically the same, or that socialism is preferable to capitalism. It is if you want power, but if you want to help people, it's awful. Only one economic system has ever lifted billions of people from poverty. Only one economic system has lifted millions of people from poverty. Only one economic system has lifted hundreds of thousands of people from poverty, and it's capitalism. But they, they don't care because they're seduced by the leftist god equality. It doesn't bother them if people are not well off. It bothers them that people are well off. It's a, it's, it's a major violation, if you will, of the 10th Commandment: don't covet what others have. Okay, number 2. That was knowledge and wisdom. Number 2: people are not basically good. I divide the world between fools and non-fools. This is my first question: do you think people are basically good? If you do, you're foolish by definition. And this is a staggeringly important thing to understand. Nobody rooted in Judaism or Christianity, or for that matter Buddhism, or for that matter any traditional way of looking at life, has ever thought people are basically good. It is fundamental to the Judeo-Christian Western civilization understanding that human nature is not basically good. I didn't say it's evil. Obviously, if it was pure evil, then nobody would do any good. But it's not basically good. I had a fascinating evening in Berkeley last year, and I knew there would be a lot of demonstrators, so I decided I would forestall all demonstrations by announcing I won't give a speech, I'll just dialogue with two leftist students you choose. So there were no demonstrations, and I got all my points in anyway. So you could see it, it's on YouTube until they take it down. So it is, uh, so I dialogue with these two left-wing students at Berkeley, and what, what I do, I have a motto on my radio show: I prefer clarity to agreement. It's a terrific motto to go through life. I, whenever people call up to disagree with me, which is regularly, I have a guest on, I say at the outset, I'm not here to convince you you're wrong or that I'm right. I just want to clarify for my listeners where we differ. By the way, I tell this to married couples. Instead of fighting, just start out with, let's get clear where we differ. And you have no idea how many couples have told me it has helped their marriage immensely, because then they realize, well, maybe we don't differ that much. "Or, oh, that's your point?" And then you could yell at each other. I'm not saying— no, no, I'm not saying you can't yell at each other, but before you yell at each other, find out where you're really different. So I would raise issues, and then they would tell me their left-wing viewpoint, and I would tell them the common-sense viewpoint. So that's the way it worked that evening. So I ended, I said, "My final question: do you believe people are basically good?" And of course, they both said yes. You could watch this. So I said to them, after they told me why, I said, there is only one reason you believe something that is so unbelievably wrong, and that is you live in America where people are pretty good. We— one of the reasons for our troubles is people compare America to utopia, not to the rest of the world. That's what the left does. America's racist? Do you have any idea what racism is like in the rest of the world? You don't have a clue. This is the least racist, multiracial country in the history of the world. Yeah, that, that is worth applauding. Not me. America is worth applauding. This episode of Timeless Wisdom will continue right after this.

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Now back to more of Dennis Prager's timeless wisdom. Anyway, so I, they, I said that's the only reason you believe it, you're naive. Now when you're 20 and you're naive, there's, there could be an excuse, but if you're 40 and naive, there's no excuse. Then you decided to be a fool. How you can know anything about the human condition and think people are basically good. It is amazing. The same people who believe people are basically good say America is sexist, intolerant, xenophobic, homophobic, Islamic, Islamophobic, racist, bigoted. I don't get it. Where did all of that horrors come from? If people are basically good, how did that happen? But they don't think. They don't. They feel and they emote. Do you understand how idiotic it is? This country stinks, but people are basically good. All whites are racist, but people are basically good. How could that be? How could that be? What is wrong with you? Where did slavery— do you know that every place on Earth, every society in human history, not only had slavery, had human sacrifice? People are basically good. Do you know any history, any at all? You know how much corruption there is in the world? Do you know the reason that the third world doesn't advance more is solely because of corruption? They have the brains, the talent, the natural resources. It's corruption because people cheat each other. I've been to 130 countries, including 20 African countries. So the last time I was in West Africa, my driver— I, I don't remember if it was Togo or Benin, it doesn't matter, but I'm just telling you one of the two countries. So The driver said to my wife and me and the couple we were with, I said, watch this. So sure enough, we were driving and there was a police obstacle in the road, a block, a blockade, or whatever you call it. And they said, watch this. Now in America, if the police stop your car, it's because there's construction or there was an accident. I mean, I'm not talking about if you were speeding or you're drunk driving, right? I mean, you're driving fine, they will stop because, hold it here a minute, we're getting traffic this way, right? But he knew exactly why he was going to be stopped, and he was right. The policeman came over, took money from the guy, and let him through. That was it. That's normal on planet Earth. That is the norm. In America, it's virtually unheard of. In the world, it is the norm. People— to believe people are basically good after the 20th century, 100 million people, noncombatants, 100 million noncombatants butchered by other human beings, not to mention enslaved and raped and tortured. People are basically good? You're out of your mind. Babies aren't even basically good. Okay, they're innocent, but they're not good. I want mommy, I want nipple, I want to be taken, I want to be held, I want to be comforted. And if you do not do all of this immediately, I will ruin your day. The idea— babies, what are we talking— they're good until they're corrupted by patriarchy? That's what— no, no, that's what you're taught. That's what the left believes in their make-believe world. Ask parents how often they have to tell their kid to say thank you. Maybe you even remember, I raised two kids. If I didn't say, say thank you 10,000 times, I didn't say it once. But if kids were basically good, I would have had to say it once. I'd say, say thank you, and the kid would say, you know, my father's right. If, uh, if somebody does something nice for me, I should say thank you, of course, and that would be it. Why do you have to tell a kid to say thank you? If you're basically good, they would know it immediately. Or how about sharing? Comes very natural to kids to share, doesn't it? That's— this alone is why I know the left is foolish, because they start with this moronic premise: people don't rape and murder in America because human nature is flawed. No, it's because of racism and poverty. That's what they believe. I remember when I first heard poverty causes crime, and I, and I thought— I'll never forget, I was, I was younger than you, and I, I remember thinking of my grandfather who was quite poor, as was his wife, my grandmother. They were very poor, really poor. If it weren't for my father giving them money periodically, and we weren't rich, but we were middle class, I don't know what they would have done. But I remember thinking, how come my grandfather hasn't held up a bank or mugged anyone? And to the best of my knowledge, he hasn't raped anybody. Now, why is that? And they were Jewish, they were impoverished, there was antisemitism in America. But if you would've said to my grandfather, "You know, you're poor and there's antisemitism, so I really think it makes sense if you would rob," he would think you had lost your mind. He knew God said you don't steal, do not steal, ends the issue. It doesn't say poor people can steal, it doesn't say victims can steal, Do not steal. Yes, if you're starving to death and the next guy has more bread, you can take the bread, okay? That is not an issue in America. No one is starving to death in the United States of America. But that's what the left has to believe. There are outside forces, not inner forces, that cause people to do bad. People do bad— every religious Jew and Christian knows why— because they didn't get their wisdom from Columbia. They got their wisdom from the Bible, which has been the source of wisdom. Lincoln, who never went to church, said this is God's greatest gift to mankind, the Bible. And, you know, I'm working on a Bible commentary, volume 2 is coming out next month, called The Rational Bible. And I came to realize sort of midway in life, Bible-free is wisdom-free. And I, because I realized that's where I got my wisdom. I could give you— listen, if I were here a week, one of my lectures would be wisdom from the Bible. It would blow your mind. I'll give you one little example. Aside from what, by the way, it says people are not basically good. Christians and Jews got it from that. I knew this when I was a child. You know, so I'll give you one example. Not just the wisdom from the Bible. One example of how this changed my life. I was taught that the biggest problem in Dennis Prager's life is Dennis Prager. That's a very different way of growing up. You know how liberals raise their kids? The biggest problem in your life is America. That's sick. It is morally sick. You are the biggest problem in your life, and everyone who knows that is a better person, and anyone who denies it is a worse person. If you don't fight your nature, there's no chance of your becoming a good person. No chance. Anyway, I'll give you an example, one of hundreds, and I really do hope you'll read. Listen, I have no problem— I have a problem. I'm always self-conscious about pushing something I did. On the other hand, nobody writes Bible commentaries to get wealthy. Okay, is that fair? Are we on agreement on that? Okay, so I It would change you. I'll give you one example. Ten Commandments: honor your father and mother. It's very interesting, the same Bible says love God, love, love your neighbor, um, love the stranger. In the New Testament, love your enemies. And, uh, in, uh, but no love your parents. Bible never tells you to love your parents. You don't have to love your parents. You only have to honor them. You know how life-changing that is for kids who have, which most people do at some point, emotional ambivalence towards a parent? You know how relieving that is? That's, that's Bible wisdom for you. So this people not basically good, you have to battle yourself. This is, this you're not taught at college. You have to battle you. And by the way, men have their own battles in addition to the human battle. Men have men battles and women have women battles. Men have two basic battles with their nature. They're aggressive naturally, and they're sexual predators naturally. Okay, that is, that is male nature. And by the way, the proof of the second one, that it has nothing to do with patriarchy or sexism, is gay men are just exactly like straight men. Their nature is identical to straight men. The only difference is the object of their desire. But their nature is exactly the same. They're sexual predators. Heterosexual men are sexual predators. They control themselves. The male you most admire, this is true about him too. There is no exception unless he has been castrated. I'm not being cute. That's the only possible exception. But women have battles too. And because we have grown up in this unwise world, where we have only taught boys to battle their natures, a lot of women have suffered. Because if girls aren't taught to battle their natures, they'll never be happy. You can't be happy if you don't fight your nature. So there, there are two things in women. They're related. And that is emotions. They have to battle their emotions to not let them control them. And they have to battle their malcontentedness. That's my column this week. Are women malcontented? That's what women have to battle. Parents don't do it. Parents think girls are terrific, boys are awful, so they tell boys to battle themselves. And if girls are not taught to battle themselves, they'll never be happy, because if you're controlled by your emotions, your chances for happiness are zero. So both morally and in terms of happiness, you have to battle yourself. That's number 2. Human nature is not basically good. Number 3: feelings aren't important to anyone except you and your shrink. That is it. Maybe your parents too, but that's it. There are about, what is it, 7 billion people in the world. None of the other 7 billion care how you feel. All 7 billion care how you act. And by the way, you're the same about the other 7 billion. You don't care how they feel, you care how they act. When I go to Starbucks and they treat me really nicely, I don't really think they're treating me really nicely because they're really nice or because they really like me. They're doing so because Starbucks said, "Be nice to all the customers." That's fine with me. I have no issue with that. I don't care why you're nice to me. I only care that you're nice to me, that you don't cheat me, that you greet me with a smile, that you say thank you. That's all that matters. Maybe with a spouse, feelings really matter because you love your spouse. Fine, I understand that. But even with spouses, Still, how you behave towards your spouse is more important than how you feel. You know how many people have abused a spouse and thought they loved that spouse? Doesn't really count, does it? We live in the age of feelings. Leftism is rooted in feelings. I feel X, that's all that matters. I feel— I am offended, I am triggered, I am— you name it. A conservative speaker comes to campus, I need a safe room. By the way, Adam Carolla and I are coming out with a film later this year called No Safe Spaces. It's exactly about that. You'll love it. It's funny and very frightening at the same time. And so this is a subject I'm only too well aware of, how people feel. I'm affronted, I'm offended, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm. It's all narcissistic. How you feel is not important in any arena. I'm sorry, but that's, that's good. Behavior is everything in morality. Behavior is everything. You meant well doesn't matter. You didn't mean well also doesn't matter. Is capitalism based on greed? Maybe it is, but it does good. Is socialism based on altruism? Maybe it is, but it does bad. So it only matters what it does. I don't care what the things are. I remember people who would tell me, oh, the only reason this guy gave all that money to UCLA was to have his name on that hospital wing. And I thought, why is that bad? Isn't it great for all the people who will now be treated in that hospital wing? So you're going to dismiss what he did because he wants his name on it? Are you out of your mind? Did you ever need a hospital? This is the wisdom-free thinking of our time. Behavior is— and by the way, behavior is everything. I wrote a book on happiness and I broadcast an hour a week on happiness. I've talked my whole life, or most of my life, on happiness. I know a lot about the subject and I've helped a lot of people. And the first thing I say is act happy, then you'll feel happy. Don't wait to act happy till you feel it. It's— you're doomed. Act happy even if you don't feel it. They did studies. People who smiled felt happier. Just smile and you'll be happier. By the way, a big part of the left-right battle is the happy versus the unhappy. I've never met a happy leftist. I've met happy liberals. I've met some unhappy conservatives, but I never met a happy leftist. How could they be? If you're a black and you're on the left and you believe every white hates you, how could you be happy? Think about it. You're taught to be unhappy. News flash: most whites don't dislike blacks. Most whites in America don't give a damn what your color is. Which is the way it should be. But that is considered even bad. What? I don't respect race? No, that's racist to respect race. I respect character, personality, temperament, goodness, but not race. Doesn't mean a damn thing to me. What race was Adam? Okay, I believe in the Bible. What race was Adam? None. So from the very beginning, it's clear the only distinction God gives a hoot about is the male-female distinction. God created the human being, male and female. He created them. It is the only intrinsic distinction that matters to the God of the Bible. Now, number 4, America, and then I'll have all the time you want for Q&A. America. America has a trinity just like Christianity does. The American Trinity is found— I didn't make it up, it's on every coin. Have you all seen coins, or do you only use credit cards? No, no, I don't even know anymore what to expect. You know, the other day I inscribed my book to a high school kid, so I wrote it in cursive, and I go, can you read what I wrote you? He goes, no. Now, what does the guy learn? Carbon emissions, uh, condoms on bananas. I mean, what, what does he— I, I, I, I don't understand. What if you can't read cursive in high school? What are you learning? Do you know what a preposition is? Nope. Have you ever diagrammed a sentence? I'll bet you none of you ever heard of it unless you went to some ritzy-witzy-witzy-titzy, uh, high school. We diagram sentences. You would show this is a predicate, this is a subject, this is an adjective, this is an adverb. It's one of the reasons I speak and write well is because I was taught the English language well. Well is an adverb, good is an adjective. I just wanted to throw it out there. But it gets tricky because if you say, he just recuperated from his surgery and is well, Then it's an adjective. Have I really thrown you for a loop? Okay. This episode of Timeless Wisdom will continue right after this.

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Now back to more of Dennis Prager's timeless wisdom. Every coin has 3 things on it that stand for America: Liberty, E Pluribus Unum, and In God We Trust. That is the American Trinity. Christianity has the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Judaism has God, Torah, and Israel. There are trinities all over the place. The left has a trinity: race, gender, and class. Everybody has trinities. So the American Trinity is Liberty, in God we trust, e pluribus unum. Let me explain them in a nutshell, then you'll know what this country was founded to stand for and the war against all three of these. Begin with liberty. Number one about liberty: liberty is a value, not an instinct. Get the difference? This is really important. People do not yearn to be free. That is a common misconception. If they did, Why would we have liberty? The founders didn't put breathing, 'cause breathing comes naturally. Breathing is not a value. Breathing is an instinct. Liberty is not an instinct. By the way, got that from the Bible too. Israelites have their Exodus. God takes them out of slavery in Egypt, and right away they're complaining. We want to go back, the food was better. Read it, it's in the book of Exodus and in the book of Numbers, the fourth book. Isn't that awesome? It's such a great lesson. You know what? We'd rather be slaves. Which, by the way, is what the left view is. They'd rather enslave and be slaves because that's equality. You know how many people celebrated the Castro Revolution and communism in Cuba and do so to this day? Or Chavez in Venezuela? The people of Venezuela are unbelievably suffering, but he had a revolution for equality. Slaves are equal. One of the great things about slavery is it has equality. The only non-equality are among the slave owners, who are the Communist Party apparatus or the Socialist Party apparatus. But that doesn't matter to a lot of people. It's equality. It's like people tell— you don't know how often I find this. Listen, what are you knocking Castro for? Do you know that healthcare in Cuba is egalitarian? That's right, and it stinks. Or even my favorite one, the literacy rate in Cuba is 99%. To which I have always responded, so what? All they can read is Communist Party propaganda. I'd rather be illiterate and free than literate and enslaved. Anyway, liberty is a value. People, you know what people rather have than liberty? They'd rather be taken care of. It's as old as the Book of Exodus. Take care of us. We don't want liberty, we want to be taken care of. That's the leftist outlook, and it's why it's dangerous. It doesn't have liberty. Liberty is not a left-wing value. Left-wing value is being taken care of and equality. Those are left-wing values, but not, but not liberty. The proof is freedom of speech, which is being suppressed in America for the first time in American history. What is happening on college campuses where the effort it takes. When Ben Shapiro went to Berkeley, they spent $600,000 on security. I have a picture of me. I, I don't know if it was Colorado State. I don't remember where it was, but very recently I have a picture of me with the armed guards who came to bring me in. It looked like I was being escorted in Afghanistan. It is, it's a truly funny picture. These policemen were, were in basically war gear. And, uh, is there any left-wing speaker who needs security? No, none. Ann Coulter travels with a, with a bodyguard. Does the left-wing equivalent of Ann Coulter travel with a bodyguard? Of course not, because we don't threaten them, they threaten us. To be just to be heard— do you know that, uh, we have 400 videos? Do you know that 100 of our videos are YouTube is put on the restricted list, which means if your family has filters for pornography and violence, you can't see a PragerU video. Yep, it's mind-boggling. They talked about it in Congress. We have a lawsuit against Google, which owns YouTube. It's really frightening. This stuff is brand new. And you know what's up there? Victor Davis Hanson, one of the gentlest human beings in the world, a professor of classics. At Cal State University. He teaches a course on the history of the Korean War. That's on the restricted list. Alan Dershowitz, lifelong Democrat and liberal, gives a history of Israel's founding in 5 minutes. It's on the list. Anything that defends Israel or America is automatically lumped with pornography on YouTube. Okay, just to give you an idea of what the left does when it has power. Liberty is not one of their values. They don't like liberty. America was founded on limited government. You can't have free people with big government. Or as my motto goes, we even have bumper stickers available with it, the bigger the government, the smaller the citizen. That's the way it works. We want big citizens, little government. They want big government, little citizens. That's how it works. You can't have both. Limited government is the, the only country in the history of the world to be founded with the ideal of limited government is the United States of America. The left, in the words of Barack Obama, wants to fundamentally transform the United States of America. Conservatives don't want to fundamentally transform this country, they want to improve it. Leftists want to fundamentally transform it. It's a very big difference. And you don't love what you want to fundamentally transform. If somebody said to you, "I really love my wife, but I'd like to see her fundamentally transformed." Okay, that's why you should laugh the next time you hear a leftist say, "I love America." You can't love whatever you want fundamentally transformed. It is not possible. It is laughable, as you just saw. Number 2, e pluribus unum, which is the Latin for from many, one. This country, everybody comes from different places and we're supposed to become one. It's— this country is not founded on an ethnicity. If you wanted a picture of a Swede, you, you have a white blonde picture. A picture of a German, a picture of a Japanese, you have a specific picture. Of a Korean, you have a specific picture. There's no specific picture of an American. It doesn't exist. There's every type. So if we divide America into races and ethnicities, we are undoing the American experiment. The whole point was to be unum, was to be one, irrespective of where you came from. You want to honor your culture? I went to a Jewish school. I studied Hebrew half the day. I speak Hebrew like English because of that. But I'm American. I love America. I celebrate America. I have that in common with every other American. Whether you ever could read a Hebrew word or not, it's irrelevant. You want to know— if your parents came from Korea, come to Hamida. I want you to know Korean. That is beautiful. It's a beautiful thing. Nobody's ever asked people to stop studying their culture or their language, but we all unite as Americans. And race means nothing, nothing. It only means something to the left because every happy Black is more likely to vote Republican. Every happy woman is more likely to vote Republican. Telling people they have it bad keeps them voting Democrat. It's a disgusting little device, but it works. Oh, women, oh, you're oppressed. If American women are oppressed, then the word oppressed has lost all meaning. It is an absurdity to walk around thinking you're oppressed, either as a Black or as a Hispanic or as an Asian or as a woman. You are not. Period. End of issue. You are not. You're damn lucky to be American. And by the way, the amazing thing is everything I just said is called racist. The left calls all this racist. The university— look up, look at the— look it up, either with my name or on its own. University of California list of microaggressions, the official list of things you can say that are racist. If you say there's only one race, the human race, That is considered racist according to the University of California. I don't— what is it? I troll. Here's another one: I treat— I try to treat everyone the same. That is racist. You're supposed to treat blacks differently. Isn't that bizarre? It's not bizarre. Is that an insult? This is the battle that we're fighting, and I hope you'll fight it. And finally, in God we trust, my final point. You, even if you're conservative, you have undergone most likely a secular brainwash. It's just true. It's not an insult to you or even to those who taught you. It's just true. You don't realize why in God we trust is the American motto or an American motto, but it is because you can't have limited government without a big God. People have to feel accountable for their behavior to something higher and more powerful than themselves. If people are not basically good, they better damn well feel accountable for their behavior, correct? Or we're going to get a lot of bad behavior. So you have a choice: the God of Judaism and Christianity or the God of the Ten Commandments, if you will, or big government. That's why secular Europe has bigger and bigger governments. The European Union has taken over for God. We will tell you what you can drive, when you can drive it, how long you can keep your store open, when you can keep it open. Uh, it's, it's just endless. They become the moral authority. And by the way, I've said very often in the United States today, there's far more fear of the left than fear of God. It's not even close. 100 years ago, there was a lot more fear of God. Does that mean everybody acted good? Of course not. Of course not. There's no such thing as everybody acting good. It doesn't happen. But people act better than other people in other places. And we've had that in the United States. In God We Trust is central to the American experiment. Secular conservatives don't know this, and the left opposes it. That's why they hate evangelical Christians, because they are the largest single anti-left body in the United States. So this, uh, the, uh, The mayor of South Bend, Indiana, who is third most popular Democrat right now, Buttigieg, has said, oh, what hypocrites, what phonies these evangelicals are for supporting the president who had an affair with an adult film actress and paid her to keep silent. I know evangelical Christians real, real well. Why are they hypocrites for supporting the president? Because he did that. This is an amazing thing that this nonsense goes for intelligent talk. They didn't say he didn't sin. They said that there are more important things in choosing a president than whether the person sinned. That's called wisdom. That's the way it works. Evangelical Christians think it's more important to protect the United States of America. They think it's more important, for example, to declare infanticide wrong. Forget even abortion. Infanticide, as Virginia just said, it was okay. They think that's more important than whether the president happened to have slept with a porn actress or not. And by the way, they have good biblical bases for that. God seems to have had a lot in store for King David, who not only slept with a woman he wasn't married to while he was married— excuse me, that she was— no, while she was married, which is adultery, but had the husband killed. Other than that, not so terrible, uh, which by the way Trump never did. There's no, no contention that the guy had a— that the porn actress was married and he had the husband killed. So, uh, how come God could, could find King David, who will be— who's the ancestor of the Messiah for both Judaism and Christianity? How come God chose, of all the people in Canaan, to let the, uh, the Israelites into the Promised Land? Guess who, who he chose? A prostitute. So I guess if God could work with sexual sinners, so could we. It's none of my damn business. I said this with regard to Clinton. I didn't give a damn if he had consensual sex. It was none of my business. Listen, I grew up with John F. Kennedy. I was a little child. Guy had orgies in the White House. And the left still thinks he's the greatest president perhaps since Lincoln, who by the way was a Republican. Just throw that out for your edification. But, uh, but to Buttigieg and, and to, uh, and to Beto O'Rourke and also all the others— oh, evangelicals, oh, what hypocrites. No, they understand something. When you vote for president, you are not voting for pastor, rabbi, or priest. You're voting for president. President of the United States affects all 7 billion people on Earth. Okay, so there are much more important issues than whether he has been sexually saintly or not. That's it. That's the end of the issue. This notion of, well, well, kids, you know, what kind of model is he for kids? I don't know. I was a kid like you. You were a kid. I can't— when I was a kid, I don't remember my father saying, Dennis, I want you to look at Lyndon Johnson. If you'd have said to my father, "Doesn't Dennis take his moral cues from the president?" My father would have said, "What are you, out of your mind? If he doesn't take moral cues from his father and his uncles and his older brother and his rabbi and his teachers, we're in trouble." That's where you get moral cues from. President? This is make— this is a make-believe world of the left. They loved Clinton. Did we take moral cues from Clinton? No, no, it's just an absurdity. It's just an absurdity. And, and, and, and if you are faithful, does it make, make you a great leader? I think Jimmy Carter was an awful president. I have no doubt he was faithful to his wife. So what? That's called wisdom, and for that matter, honesty. Anyway, in God we trust. Yes, so that's the third part of the American trinity. I have offered you 5 ideas of what is life-shaping, about feelings less important than behavior, about you have to battle yourself to have a good world, This is the stuff that matters. And I don't see people getting, they're not getting it. Your generation, my generation didn't get it either. I got it 'cause I went to religious school all day long. 9 to 1 religious subjects, 1 to 6, I mean, 9 to 6 I went, all day. But it was a great grounding. I understood what my teacher said. I'll leave you with one final great thing about feelings. You know when I learned feelings didn't matter? This is a very major thing. I remember literally one thing from 4th grade, but it changed my life in 4th grade. So I studied in what many of you never heard of, a yeshiva. Yeshiva is an Orthodox Jewish school, as I said, Hebrew half the day, English half the day. So one day the rabbi says, "Okay boys, it's time for the afternoon prayer." So I walked over to the rabbi, because I always had chutzpah. I never was disrespectful, but I always had chutzpah. I walked over to the rabbi and I said, "Rabbi Fastag, I'm sorry, but I'm not in the mood for the afternoon prayers." Well, it was clear to me even in 4th grade, the rabbi had never heard mood and prayer. In the same sentence. So he had a beard. He stroked his beard and he thought for a minute and he goes, Dennis Prager is not in the mood to say the afternoon prayers. So what? That man changed my life. So what? Who the hell cares about my mood? I have something I have to do. My mood is irrelevant. And that stayed with me the rest of my life. So what? If you could say that, it's the beginning of wisdom. This has been Timeless Wisdom with Dennis Prager. Visit DennisPrager.com for thousands of hours of Dennis's lectures, courses, and classic radio programs, and to purchase Dennis Prager's Rational Bibles.