Fireside Chat Ep. 138 — Pay Attention: Your Freedom Is Fragile | Fireside Chat

Hi everybody, Dennis Prager here. This fireside chat which features, oh he moved, Otto. Snoopy's in the room, but I don't know if you guys see him. You don't see him. Just, I'm just reporting that his brother who was a basset hound is in the room. Anyway, great to be with you. This is unscripted, but for one of the only times, how many of the, about 140. In 140 fireside chats, I will be looking at a paper on which I wrote some notes because there were so many points I want to make because of the unprecedented, since the civil war in America in the 1860s, unprecedented crisis which I do believe threatens the United States value system and what made America the freest country. That's how serious I think what is going on is that I want to address some of the main issues. But before that, I just want to tell you about a book. A man who is a big supporter of PragerU has written this and I am happy to recommend it. He especially wants young people to read it because it's happiness, meaning, wisdom and success and purpose. That's what you need more than another course in whatever you might be learning at college. So this is a terrific book, solid ground, a foundation for winning in work and in life. And Tom Lewis has won in work and life. He knows what he's writing. Okay. Well done, Tom. So my friends, got a lot to talk to you about. We have just witnessed massive violence in the streets of America, massive protests. By the way, word about the protests and COVID-19, weren't we told that we need to be six feet apart? Otherwise, there will be a rampant increase in suffering and death from the virus. And that was the reason for the lockdown, correct? That's why we would deprive tens of millions of Americans of their income. So what did the medical community have to say about hundreds of thousands of Americans getting together, yelling all these viral particles leaving their mouths, many not even with a mask on. And what did they have to say? You know what they have to say? 1,200 people in healthcare, doctors, nurses, and others in healthcare said it's fine because protesting racism is a health matter. It gives you an idea of another example of something I have said my whole life, whatever the left touches, it ruins and it is ruining the sciences. The most prestigious science magazine in Britain, Lancet, has withdrawn its phony study condemning hydroxychloroquine because they can't stand Donald Trump. They corrupted their own studies and now they've withdrawn it. If you understand that whatever the left touches, it ruins, you will understand much of life. Whether it ruins religion, it ruins sports, it ruins late night television, it ruins the arts. It's a chaotic force. That's all it is. It's produced by a lack of meaning in traditional ways. In the West, when Judeo-Christian religions die, something fills the gap. Most people cannot go without a cause. And in traditional American life, there were many causes, liberty, Christianity for most Americans, and America, a belief in America, the last best hope on earth, as Abraham Lincoln called it, which no leftist would agree that it's the last best hope on earth. They would think Lincoln was speaking from white privilege. That's what they would dismiss him. Because there were no great certainly no great white men prior to this generation in their view. It's a chaos. They are creating chaos. Remember, the natural condition of the world is chaos. Very gradually, the Bible-based West, and it was always Bible-based, with all its flaws, introduced moral order into a world of chaos. That being knocked out, chaos is resuming. As I explain in my rational Bible, in the commentary on Genesis, what God did in the time of creation, most of what God did was make order out of chaos. The second verse in the Bible is, and it was all chaos. And then it's just order and order and more order. And moral order is the ultimate. But chaos is the natural state. So let me begin with a few things. First, it is all based on a lie. The whole protest issue, all the demonstrations, not to mention the violence, it's all based on one gigantic lie that blacks in America are targeted for death by police. It's a lie. There's no truth to it. Do you understand? There's none. Let me give you, that's why I have paper, because I want to read to you. This was in the Wall Street Journal just last week. Heather MacDonald wrote the piece. Listen to this. The National Academy of Sciences, hardly a conservative group, in August of 2019 concluded, studying this whole issue, there is no significant evidence of anti-black disparity in the likelihood of being fatally shot by police. Every one of these demonstrations is a lie. It is based on a lie. People are demonstrating for a demonstrable, statistical, factual lie. Shame on all of them for believing it. 2015, that's Obama administration, Justice Department analysis of the Philadelphia Police Department found that white police officers were less likely than black or Hispanic officers to shoot unarmed black suspects. Research by Harvard economist Roland G. Fryer Jr. found no evidence of racial discrimination in shootings. No evidence. Any evidence to the contrary fails to take into account crime rates and civilian behavior before and during interactions with police. By the way, this was backed by other studies, the University of Maryland, Michigan State University, and so on. Please understand that. If you or your child demonstrated, they demonstrated for, and nobody, by the way, they never give data. It's all emotional. Look at what happened, and it is a terrible tragedy, what happened to George Floyd. But it is all emotion. Do you know how many unarmed blacks were killed the last year, we have data for, I think it's 2018, by police? Nine. That was reported in the Washington Post. Then the Washington Post saw that it was reported, they upped the number to 15. Okay, 15. There are millions of interactions between the police and civilians every year. And by the way, there were twice as many whites, unarmed whites, who were shot to death than unarmed blacks. It almost never happens. The whole thing is a lie. The Black Lives Matter movement, of course Black Lives Matter. I'm talking about the movement. It is all predicated on a lie. You can't refute what I say. Your children who demonstrate, or your parents, or your cousins, they can't refute this. They will write some emotional thing. They will just label what I am saying is racist. Because that's what they do, is they label. They don't refute. They don't debate. They don't have data. A country is being torn apart on the basis of a lie. So now there is actually a movement to defund police, because it'll be better if social workers go in. So they say, oh, well, if there is a family dispute, why send a policeman with a gun? Because you know how many family disputes end up violent? That's why. You're going to send in a social worker? What happens if the social worker is shot? What are you going to do then? Say, oh, we made a mistake? Defund police? When the police withdraw from areas, there are more deaths. And the deaths are almost always black deaths, because they're killed by other blacks. And that's the vast majority of cases. I don't believe that the gives a damn about blacks. I truly don't. They give a damn about wrecking America. Because if you care about black life, you want more police in black areas. Okay? Black Lives Matter should have as the end of its phrase, Black Lives Matter, only when white policemen shoot them or kill them in some other way. I have no joy in telling you any of this. But that is the reality. Now, let me talk to you about another aspect here. What do I believe? Because I'm telling you what I think is bad. What do I think is good? What I think is good, this is what I believe equality is. Equality is where you treat everybody the same, you make the same moral demands on everybody, and you suggest the same quality of life to everybody. So when I say that values are the most important thing to get people out of poverty, and I have every statistical basis for it, if you graduate high school, if you do not impregnate somebody prior to marrying the person, or get pregnant prior to marrying the person, just those two things alone, and get a job, those three things, you are guaranteed to get out of poverty. Guaranteed. I didn't say it'll make you rich, but you are guaranteed to get out of poverty, you are guaranteed not to lead a life of crime. It's not difficult to give this prescription. But whenever this prescription is given, do you know what academics say? This is all just racist. It's racist? That's how these people advanced to become professors. They didn't impregnate or get pregnant prior to marriage, they graduated high school, they got a job, why wouldn't they recommend what worked to them for blacks? Because the left doesn't believe that blacks are the same as other people. That's why. Virtually all the racism is on the left. When you say standards work for me, but not for you, whoever the you is, you have contempt for. This is the upside down world in which we're living. And I fear because, you see, freedom and civilization are fragile. It's very hard to make a decent society. It's unbelievably easy to destroy it. And nobody is as good at destruction as the left. Remember, whatever it touches, it does destroy. So I have told you about the defunding. I've talked to you about how few, that nine unarmed blacks, or 15 depending on the number, a year. And what I believe in. And I'll tell you one other thing. Yeah. Let me talk about white privilege for a second. White privilege was invented by the left to somehow account for the fact that whites are doing better than blacks. But there's an interesting thing. Asians are doing better than whites. Is there Asian privilege? Why not? Why don't they speak about Asian privilege? And wait a minute. How are black immigrants to the United States doing since the 1980s? African immigrants to the United States for the last 40 years, they're doing great. They're one of the most successful immigrant groups in American history. If there's so much white privilege and so much racism, why are African immigrants? And by the way, I'll bet you never learned this in school, ever. High school, college, graduate school, considerably more blacks have come to the United States from Africa voluntarily as immigrants that came involuntarily as slaves. That was true already in the 1980s. William Sapphire of the New York Times wrote about it then. Either the 80s or the 90s. It's a world of lies. You know what privilege there is in life? The biggest privilege of all is being raised with two parents. Having a father in your life, especially, because fathers generally set rules and are models for boys, and boys need models not to grow up violent, because male nature is violent. And values. Values is the answer to everything. Money is not the answer to everything. Values is the answer to everything. I had privilege, but it wasn't white privilege. I had the privilege of being raised by a father and a mother. I had the privilege of having, he was a good model, not particularly involved in my life, to be honest, because fathers in that generation, they just weren't. But he was a great model. He was a model of a man who took care of a family, who went and did a job every day, who didn't get drunk. He was a good model. It served me. I wanted to be a good model to my boys. I hope I've been. That's the advantage that you get. And my boys didn't even, came from a divorced home. I was divorced. I fully acknowledge it. But I didn't leave their life. They still had their father in their life. That's important. What is wrong with anything I said? What is even related to race in what I said? Nothing. And now we're told that if you say you don't, you don't see race, you just see people, that that's racist. You know how upside down that world is? So the first thing, the thing that I see that's most important about you is what color you are. It's the antithesis of the liberal, forget conservative, of the liberal values I grew up with. The ones, in fact, that were taught by Martin Luther King Jr., right? It's the contents of a man's character, not the color of the skin by which we should be judged. Why is that dismissed by the left as hokum or taking out of context? No, no, that's the exact context. That's it. This country could be destroyed. As a Jew, and I very rarely say this, as a Jew, I am particularly aware of how fragile civilization is. The most advanced society in Europe created the Holocaust. It went from most advanced society, the society of Beethoven, the society of Schiller and Heine, the society of Mozart, and ended up making Auschwitz. Societies can turn real easily from decent to horrific. The left's threat to the decency and freedom of America is extremely serious. Please take it seriously and please don't join it. Okay, let's take our first video question here. By the way, I'll tell you. One second. All right, I am pressing. Ah, there we go. Now, here we go. I am told that there are people who will send some of these fireside chats to people who don't agree and then they will be defriended just by sending a fireside chat. So please understand, all that means is they have no answer. Let them answer what was said. Gee, this was said. Let them dialogue with you. But the left teaches people not to dialogue. If you differ and you're on, if you're on the left and differ with someone, you call them a name. Six herb, sexist, intolerant, xenophobic, homophobic, Islamophobic, racist, bigoted. That is what you're trained to do on the left at high school and at college. You do not debate. You remove the person from your life and declare them something awful. That's what it's about. First video question. Hello, Mr. Prager. I hope you are doing well. My name is Marilyn Upchurch. I'm 20 years old. I have been in Prager Force since 2018 and I go to Eastern New Mexico University. So my question for you today is, should protests ever turn violence? So I've met a lot of people during all of this who say that this violence does not represent their message or, you know, it doesn't do anything to help. But I've also met people who say that violence right now is the only way to get their point across. So should violence ever be the answer? Thank you, Marilyn. How come the right doesn't do that? If the only way to get your point across is by destroying businesses, for example, destroying property and sometimes even beating people up or shooting a cop, why doesn't the right do it? You think people on the right are not as passionate about what they believe in? Take the people who are pro-life. They believe tens of millions of murders took place. Why don't they smash stores? What's the answer? You think they think that they're right less than the left thinks it's right? Only the left does this. Why is that? Because they don't have a belief in universal moral standards. Standards don't apply to them. Can you imagine if right-wingers had done what the left did in the last 10 days in the United States of America? The press would have gone crazy about talking about the fascists, right? The fascists ruining the country. But when the left destroys, it's just a call to their cause. Just like Marilyn said, these people will say. Always, it's a great rule of life. Whenever you want to know if something is right or wrong, always ask, what if somebody else did it? It's a terrific way. It works 90% of the time, maybe 95% of the time. What if everybody did it? Whether it's a big thing or a little thing. You cut people off in order to get driving. Take a little thing, right? It's not comparable to destroying property, let alone beating people up. What if everybody cut other drivers off to get onto the highway quicker? That would be the end of traffic. Everybody would crash. It's wrong to cut people off because you're making up a new rule for you. The left makes up a new rule for itself. The irony is, it's based on a lie to begin with. Blacks are not targeted for police death or any other death. They're not targeted for death. They die more in violence because of the lack of values in the black murderers who are murdering them. It's why I believe in values. How many murderers, white or black, attend church every week? What percent? One? Zero? With all the recommendations. You know where I see the best black-white relations, by the way? Where there is zero, zero awareness of race? When I go and speak to black Christian groups, excuse me, not black Christian groups, filled with whites, Hispanics, blacks, because they're all united by God, and in their cases, Christ. And I'm a Jew telling you this, but I speak a lot to Christian groups. The white minister doesn't give a damn if the black minister is black, and the black minister doesn't give a damn if the white minister is white, because they're both Christian. So there's something infinitely more important than color to both of them. That's right. That's the best answer. The left destroys what's good, and then riots over the results of left-wing policies. Cool, eh? They really got you coming and going. Anthony18, why is it that in America, we have the biggest political and social divide in the world, and no country has a similar problem? Plenty of countries have similar problems. That's why there's civil wars in different countries. But your point is well taken. Even in the UK and our neighbor's Canada, the people have disagreements, but they don't have such a distinct divide and hatred between two political parties as we do. You know, I don't have a full answer to your question. I have wondered about this too. The left in America has gone just berserk. But so is the left in Canada, now that I think of it. But there isn't a very strong... You see, the left in Australia, the left in Canada, the left in the UK is dominant, or are dominant. I don't know. I have to work through that sentence. And the right is not... The opposition is not nearly as strong. That's the difference. In Canada, they have basically ceded to the left. In the UK, they have ceded to the left. In Australia, I'm giving you the English speaking countries. And New Zealand, the left dominates the culture totally. But in America, there's actually pushback. That's the reason. And it drives them crazy. That's correct. That's the difference. Okay. Let's see here. Yael, 18, California. How do I respond to the dozens of Jewish teenagers in my DMs who are protesting in rallies, and who are trying to accuse me of betraying the Jewish people and our minority allies? I don't even know what that means, minority allies, since Black Lives Matter has a particularly anti-Israel stance. But in any event, which is remarkable, because of all the countries in the world, they've isolated Israel for attack, aside from the United States. Why Jews have bought leftism? It's a very complex question. But in a nutshell, when Jews leave Judaism, they keep the idea of repairing the world, and they attach it to other isms. By the way, repairing the world, tikkun olam, which is the phrase that Jews who don't even know Hebrew know, it's used in the Jewish liturgy, to the best of my knowledge, once. And that's not the phrase. It's l'takein olam b'malchut sh'dai. It's to repair the world under God's kingdom. You can't repair the world without God and Torah, from the Jewish perspective. That's what they're trying to do. And guess what? It doesn't work. Makes things worse. They're brainwashed. They're demonstrating about a lie. That's it in a nutshell. I can't wait to go back to Fireside Chats to talk about life and happiness and meaning and all these other great things. But I'm telling you, just remember, freedom and an order, even, and a decent society, they're fragile. But I will fight to keep America free and good with all its flaws. It has to be flawed. It's composed of people. People are flawed. I'm Dennis Prager. I'll see you next week.