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Speaker 1: Life Audio.
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Speaker 2: Hey there, this is Marissa strit I am the CEO of Prigger You and you are about to listen to a special edition of fireside Chat with Dennis Prager. Those of us here at Pegger You are continuing to do the very important work that we've been doing with him for over ten years. We are educating millions of young people online, we have state partnerships to bring our content into schools, and so much more. You can head over to peger you dot com to see the progress that we've been making. Also, I'd love to invite you to support our mission by donating to our five OHO one C three. It is a nonprofit. Your tax deductible donation will go to an institution of higher learning that actually shares your values. So enjoy your podcast and thank you so much for all your support.
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Speaker 3: Yeah. Put that now, you look like a unicorn. That's good. I hope this is being This should be record our recapturing some of this. Okay, good, good here.
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Speaker 1: Oh wait a minute, I'm wrong. It's got to go under the neck, under the chin.
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Speaker 3: Okay, Yeah, he's definitely silly today. Yeah, one second.
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Speaker 1: It's inconceivable if he wore it. Everybody it would the stock market would sink, and I'll say that. Okay, ready, Hi everybody. You're probably wondering why is Dennis wearing this dunce hat. It's not a dunce hat, a party hat, and the answer is right here, Episode one hundredth, the one hundredth fireside Chat. So it's a big deal. I normally would not wear this, but basically Megan, who was the unofficial producer of the fireside Chat, asked me to do so. She asked my colleague friend and co founder to do it, but as he pointed out, he didn't do it when he was five, he's certainly not going to do it now that he's twenty five. So I've done it, and happy birthday anniversary to us at fireside Chat. I'm Dennis Prager. This is my home. Otto is busy today and you all know atto by now, but this is very special. It's the one hundredth one. So I figured, why don't you meet the person who actually came up with the idea of prager you It was not my idea. I always make that known. The idea of taking credit for something I didn't do actually repulses me. I'm a big believer. You give credit where it is due. Alan Estrin, who is my friend for thirty years, very dear close friend, is the one and producer of my radio show for many years, is the person who came up with the idea. And Alan is known to many of you who know my radio show is the Living Martyr. It's a funny nick that he actually developed on his own, but it was so fitting. It's really it stayed. And how many years ago it was on a listener cruise. I've been taking cruises with my listeners for now about twenty five years, and from Antarctica to the North Sea, I mean literally all over the world, every continent. On one of those cruises, what happened.
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Speaker 4: Two friends of ours on the cruise approached me and they said, we should start a Prager University. Let's do something along the lines of Hillsdale. Let's create a new place where Dennis's values can be taught. And I thought about it for a bit, did a little research, came to the conclusion that it would probably cost us about two hundred and fifty million dollars to get started, take ten years to build a building. Maybe after that time we'd have a thousand students graduating. I didn't want us take that make that much effort, take that much time. But I had another idea that I had been percolating about that sort of came together when they made this point about a university, which I like, the idea of doing something educational at that this was now, I think two thousand and nine, twenty ten.
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Speaker 3: I thought, let how about if we do.
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Speaker 4: We really make use of the Internet, let's create something on the Internet. So then I started researching what they people had been doing educationally on the Internet, and mostly what people were doing was they there were education national places, but it was a professor standing in front of a blackboard talking for an hour, and I knew that's not how people are consuming the internet. It's certainly not how young people are consuming the Internet. That dovetailed with the idea that you have a special gift of being able to distill complex ideas into a short, coherent timeframe. So then I started thinking about, well, let's make short videos, put those on the internet. How long should those videos be? And the five minute idea came to me very quickly. Just seemed seven minutes just fell too long. Three minutes wasn't enough. Five is a nice number, solid number. Let's just do five minute videos. And I went to the same guys and I said, look, what you want is going to cost two hundred million dollars. I don't think you want to spend that kind of money or raise that kind of money. How about some seed money twenty thousand. And they said, okay, let's do it, let's try it, and they gave us the money and we.
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Speaker 1: Went.
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Speaker 4: When we got back to Los Angeles, this was months later, we made our first few videos, which you actually ad libbed. There were no scripts. That's a whole nother process that developed.
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Speaker 1: That's right. I ad libbed, and I remember the first Middle East one.
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Speaker 3: I it was ad libbed.
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Speaker 1: So let's go to the actual. By the way, a lot of this is I can't say new to me, but I don't remember it, so it's new to me for all intensive purposes. So in effect, really it was some to other people's idea.
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Speaker 3: The idea of a university.
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Speaker 4: Yeah was U Ron Lee and our dear friend the late may rest in peace, Carl Bowman. That's right, they had the idea of a university. So yeah, you could give them.
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Speaker 1: No, no, no, that's fine. Like I of course it's yours. But but that.
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Speaker 3: No, no, no, they definitely used the word universe.
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Speaker 1: I got you. So you came over to me and on the ship. Yeah, correct, that I do remember.
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Speaker 3: Yes, And then are we playing Hearts?
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Speaker 1: Yes, which it's amazing you didn't say it during Hearts because I I don't allow anything to intrude on beating you with One of the goals of my life is to win at Hearts at every every time. So you must have said it right before or after the game. And then so my reaction, as I remember, was fine, and that was it. I didn't I don't. I didn't get excited.
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Speaker 4: I I think you were intrigued by the idea, but there was no sense of right, let's let's absolutely we have to do it.
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Speaker 3: Let's thinks.
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Speaker 1: I say to everybody, if someone had said to me in the beginning, you'll have a million views a year, I would have said, from your mouth to God's ears, I would have not believed it was going to happen. How optimistic were you that something like that could happen?
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Speaker 4: You know, that's actually a tough question for me. It raises a bigger issue. I never think. I really don't think.
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Speaker 1: Ahead, right, I'm with you, I know, to say it correct.
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Speaker 3: How many views was it going to get?
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Speaker 1: You know what you need to do?
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Speaker 4: Yeah, I didn't even have a sense of what was a lot of views. If you had said to me, this video gets ten thousand views at that point I probably said, wow, ten thousand people saw.
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Speaker 3: It's that's a good start.
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Speaker 4: When the Middle East, the first one we did, the Middle East Problem, got one hundred thousand views, right, I thought that was beyond belief.
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Speaker 1: Right.
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Speaker 3: I used to say that like.
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Speaker 4: Twenty five in the early days, twenty five thousand Jews was a single, fifty was a double. One hundred thousand was a Grand Slam home run in the bottom of the ninth.
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Speaker 1: For those of you outside of the United States, these are baseball terms.
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Speaker 3: Oh yeah, that's right.
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Speaker 1: There are a lot of people watching outside. That would be like somebody for us using cricket to describe something. Anyway, it was a home run. And to this.
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Speaker 4: Day I don't think about what's it going to be like in five Right, we say we have a deadline, we have to do something tomorrow.
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Speaker 3: We have a job to do tomorrow.
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Speaker 1: Lest that's right, Yeah, that's exactly right. I live that way, you know what, Megan, I'd like to talk about that because people are told a lot think where are you going to be five years from now? I've never thought we're all be five years from now. In my life. I knew what I wanted to do with my life, but that was that was it. I didn't know where I would be in five years, and it didn't matter. What mattered is am I doing something worthwhile now? And this was worthwhile. So we started it and we put out it wasn't every week.
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Speaker 3: No, it was initially it was it was like every six weeks. I mean, we were just.
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Speaker 4: Trying to test the market. We had no no regular pattern. It wouldn't even be like every six weeks. It would be one week, four weeks, fourteen weeks.
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Speaker 1: Well was the first one? Wasn't mine on the Middle East?
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Speaker 3: The Middle East problem was the first?
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Speaker 1: Well interesting? Which is which was redone with a script even though the I had lived one worked out well. But first of all, most people aren't going to be able to add lib so it wouldn't have worked. It was it was not a pattern that we could have kept.
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Speaker 4: No, and then we knew it wouldn't work. When you decided that we couldn't add lib these things because.
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Speaker 1: Even though I had lived well, even very.
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Speaker 3: Very well stream better than anybody, but.
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Speaker 1: It has to be written.
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Speaker 3: We made it a term.
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Speaker 1: Every word has to be careful because it's.
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Speaker 3: Five minutes and every word has to count.
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Speaker 1: I'm permanent, exactly right. So now we have a billion views a year, and we're also in something else we would not have anticipated. We're in a very big battle for free speech on the Internet. I mean, I have come to realize this battle is so much bigger than prager.
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Speaker 5: You.
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Speaker 1: If Google can do what it wants to do, the conduit of all information practically in the free world and is stop us. They put another hundred of ours on the restricted list, and that was just because they're angry at us.
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Speaker 4: Yeah, it's very difficult, I think for people to grasp how big this lawsuit is. If we lose, then Google, Facebook, Twitter truly have a blank check yes to do whatever they want.
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Speaker 3: They will have.
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Speaker 4: There will be the courts will say we're putting no restraints on you.
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Speaker 3: You have nothing to figure.
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Speaker 1: Well, there is only one solution after that, which I never even entertained, and it only hit me now, and that is that Congress would have to pass some sort of law, maybe break up a monopoly. But the threat to free speech in America is the greatest in American history. And neither you nor I engage in hyperb That's that's how serious it is. So I think people would be interested as well to know of our relationship. So it's it's we we met. I think we can actually virtually date the month because you were asked to write a script by David Zucker, the great uh director in Hollywood who he and his brother did Airplane, which is one of the classic films.
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Speaker 3: I want to correct just.
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Speaker 4: That's accurate, but and I know we both feel this. I want to give credit to Rich marky.
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Speaker 1: Good please Rich, who was.
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Speaker 4: Working with David Zucker at that time as as his producer. He was the one who approached me because Rich and I were working on a script for Disney at the time. It's actually a funny idea having to do with the origin of the Marx Brothers, and he he told me that he and David wanted to do an educational video with you, and he asked me if I was interested. At that point in my writing career, I had made the decision that I would not do any writing.
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Speaker 3: At all unless I was paid.
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Speaker 4: It was just kind of a blanket because I had done things and not been paid and didn't work out, and I just thought, I gotta be paid or I'm not doing it.
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Speaker 1: He's a professional screenwriter, that's his profession.
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Speaker 3: Okay, go on, So I said, who is this guy? So he tells me a.
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Speaker 1: Oh, you did not know.
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Speaker 3: I knew who you were. I had just started listening to you.
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Speaker 1: What year is this?
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Speaker 4: This is nineteen ninety one, And the whole backstory of how I started listening to you is a whole other story. And Rich tells me that he and David want to do a project with Dennis Prager. And I said, and he couldn't pay me, you know, I said, what are you going to pay me anything? No, we don't have any money to pay you. And I thought about it really overnight, and I called him back and I said, look, I'll do it because I want to meet this guy. I really like the way he thinks. And I broke my rule. And then the interesting thing that happened was that in preparation for writing, I knew I had heard heard you enough to be very very intrigued so to prepare for writing the script, which for what became for goodness sake, Rich gave me a binder full of Ultimate Issues.
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Speaker 1: And Ultimate Issues was a newsletter that I was publishing at the time on my own. People who went to my speeches subscribed, and that's where I really worked out my philosophy of life and my theology.
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Speaker 4: So he gives me a binder of the Ultimate Issues, and he gives me a box of tapes. Over the next I would say week, now we would say binge watch. But over the week I consumed read all the Ultimate Issues, listened to.
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Speaker 3: All the tapes.
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Speaker 4: There probably were ten or fifteen tapes. And the one that really got me was Why I Am a Jew, which was the first recorded lecture you ever sold. And in that lecture, it was like you were describing my life. I was that person who was so Jews had assimilated so successfully in America that we wanted to marry a Christian because we just we felt so comfortable. This was all this is what was happening to Jews over the last couple hundred years.
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Speaker 3: So by the time.
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Speaker 4: We had our first meeting, I was very, very excited to meet you, and I actually brought with me. I brought my journal. You know, I keep a journal and have since nineteen eighty two or something like that.
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Speaker 1: You have it our first meeting. Yeah, yeah, I have it, And this is all new to me, folks. I'm glad Glady this was By the way, he's the most disciplined person I know. And I say that totally matter of factly. You know why I have to be disciplined? Well, you'll tell them. It's a fascinating theory of yourself that you have and of life. But you are. And one of the many manifestations is that you write every day in your journal. And even if it's just the.
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Speaker 4: Paragraph, sometimes things are in here that I really don't remember. But uh, of course, but it's it's fun to look back. So this is from nineteen ninety one.
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Speaker 1: What's the date?
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Speaker 4: Now here's the great thing. I'm just gonna make the argument right away. For the journal, you have no idea what day we met? You would it would be a struggle to figure out the year. You could do it if we really.
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Speaker 1: Want to go. Sure, I could do the year.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, but and I couldn't either.
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Speaker 4: But because of this journey exact I can tell you exactly the day we met.
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Speaker 3: It was November Monday. I mean, how would you even know? Is Monday right?
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Speaker 4: Monday, November twenty fifth, nineteen ninety one.
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Speaker 1: Where where did we meet?
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Speaker 4: It was in Century City, in an office in Century City. And the headline I often wrote headlines of what happened that day met Dennis Prager exclamation point and this is what I wrote. Today was an important day in my life. I met the man who has changed the way I think, Dennis Prager. The occasion was to discuss the outline Susan Silverberg. She was the woman who collaborated with us on the script and I have done for the Goodness video.
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Speaker 3: That's what it was called at the time. If in my.
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Speaker 4: It is my fond wish that this will be the first of many meetings with DP. To have this great man as my friend would indeed be an honor. The work he is doing is of such great value and importance. That's why I'm so delighted to be a part of this video project, the project which will help spread his and then I put in quote his gospel ethical Monotheism. The meeting itself went better than I expected. DP was wildly enthusiastic. At one point, he said that this was one of quote best moments of his life. He sees that and I underline that he sees that much value in this video. His enthusiasm was both rewarding and infectious. It was also inspiring.
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Speaker 1: God, is that moving? Really? I really moved. I never This is all new to me. That's the beauty of having a journal. I wish I kept one, but I didn't. I asked my father if my late father on an interview, I interviewed him on my radio show every year on his birthday. I asked him, we heard it this year because we replay some of them. Dad, do you have any regrets? None? I do. This is certainly one of them. By the way, it's important that people know you can watch what we made yet with some of the biggest actors in Hollywood, thanks to David Zucker with his contacts, and it's on the internet. I mean, it's free, right, people could just watch it. It's called for goodness sake, and it's really worth it. It's very funny, very funny, and it's about goodness and especially kids should see it. Nineteen ninety one is twenty eight years ago, so that's when we met twenty eight years ago. And I remember that. I didn't keep a journal, but I remember very well meeting you, and I was very excited meeting you. So you were excited meeting me. I was, well, I see, it's so typically it's like my other spouse, my wife. She would laugh too. It's very fine people in my life and humble. But that was it was obviously very important at that meeting, and so we collaborated on the script and folks, you could watch this this. And then we did two more with David Zucker. We did one on and it's just as relevant. I saw it's also on the internet, and it's it's about diversity. Yeah, it's really really, really worth seeing. And then I don't remember what the third was, but the and I did the diversity one with Larry Eldert.
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Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, yeah, we did a sequel. We called it for goodness sake to oh okay, fine, but it was it was two parts.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, it's really really worth you folks watching.
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Speaker 4: So there's a little funny story about about the second one we did. David could not direct the second one. He was busy, so he said to us, look, I can't do it. But I can recommend somebody. I met these two guys there. They're very talented. They're from Denver, Colorado. They just arrived in Los Angeles. I think they would be good for this project. And we said, look, David, you know you're the comedy genius. If you say they're good, they're good. Their names were Trey Parker and Matt Stone. The first project Trey Parker and Matt Stone did in Hollywood was for goodness sake too. They arrived in Hollywood in a a Honda beat up Honda Civic and that's that's how they started.
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Speaker 1: And I think, I know, I know what you'll say, and I agree with you. Go ahead.
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Speaker 4: No, I think it had a big influence on them.
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Speaker 1: Correct, I do believe that.
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Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean we even there's even a term. I mean South Park Republicans. Yeah, I mean, I'm not saying they're they're right Republicans. I'm just saying their viewpoint was definitely shaped, I think in a very good way. I told that experience.
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Speaker 1: I felt it then and I've felt it since.
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Speaker 3: Not too many people know that.
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Speaker 1: No, no, no, the no, no, I'm sure their origin story. I'm sure almost nobody does. Anyway, it's all available on the internet. So the rest, as they say, is history. I think it's it'll interest you, you folks watching this, that I worked for years to convince you to be the producer of my radio show. And the reason that it took me years he didn't want anything to even possibly interfere in our friendship. And I was certain it wouldn't. You were not You were not a certain And what you understandably were hesitant about was I remember, and I have no problem saying it. Would I would I take criticism because the producer of a radio show who never has a criticism of the quote unquote talent, that's what they're called, the people on the microphone, is useless. How do you get better if if nobody's critiquing you, It's not possible. And so I assured you would, assured you would, assured you fatally you took the leap. So I think they're curious. Can I take criticism?
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Speaker 4: Yeah, you can take criticism, and I can give it. You could take it. I can give it. But you know, something goes both ways. Yes, I mean there's no.
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Speaker 1: We don't hesitate. Hesitated because it's only for the greater good, you know. What That's another subject I should talk. How do you know if if you're criticized out of love or criticized with with with darker motives, and and and how to handle that and how to give it? How to give it is as important as how to take it.
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Speaker 4: We both had the same goal, which is to make the product better. Yes, exactly. That's all that ever matters. It's all that matters at peguer You. It's all that anybody comes up with a better idea, right. We have a very horizontal structure at peguer You. Everybody contributes. Anybody has a better idea.
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Speaker 1: Will will this is this is the power of being united with a higher value. Your ego gets gets bumped out it it doesn't, it doesn't play a detrimental role. And that's that's the case at praguer You. Is the case on our radio show. And that's uh and that we have a lot We have a lot of fun on the radio show. I mean you have to admit it. I mean it's a unique. I mean when you speak about having fun and alan, you have to put it in perspective.
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Speaker 3: I have.
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Speaker 4: I doing the radio show is a great deal of fun. I love doing it. And at the same time, when I'm doing it, I'm all business.
00:27:06
Speaker 3: No, it's all business.
00:27:07
Speaker 4: I'm thinking every second I know of the show, is this working? Is not working? And I can't and you can't imagine.
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Speaker 1: I no one can imagine the amount of work that goes into the show, both on your part and my part. People think, which is what I want them to think, that I show up, you know, shoot the breeze and go home. On the amount that's going in my brain at any given moment, the amount of preparation the night before, the amount of preparation you do. People who subscribe to the show, and it is a great idea, get it without commercials called pragotopia. It's five dollars a month pregatopia dot com. You will not only get the show at any time and keep it and it's very powerful stuff, but you will get all the articles he sends me the night before. This is like a living compendium of what's happening on earth through our eyes, because he knows exactly what I want, and you get his brilliant, pithy one line comment, Oh it is no no, no, Sue, And I live for it. I sometimes burst out laughing at your dismissal of a fool in one sentence, it's anyway, it's a pray gootopia. I'm not trying to sell you anything, but I do want you to know about it. But it's an extraordinary thing to do something every day for three hours. It's intense.
00:28:39
Speaker 4: Well, you have a great phrase for it, which is the radio's relentless mistress.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, it is.
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Speaker 3: She never right, very demanding.
00:28:50
Speaker 1: Yeah, and people expect you on every day and I'm on almost every days. It's intense. It's a fantastic job. Fantastic, I think God.
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Speaker 4: Not only every day, but they're they're the people. Most people don't listen to the radio for three hours, so we whatever, ten minute, fifteen minute. They may go away and come back, but we have to get them whenever they tune in, which is why, as you say, everything, every moment has to be interesting.
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Speaker 1: Yes, well that's did I do? I keep looking at Megan? Did we Did I do something on interesting? Did I do? I think I did a commentary on the fireside chat on the importance of being interesting. Check into that, because if that's it's so obvious when you say it, but people don't think about it. It is It is the key to all communication, all communication of any type, musical, artistic, intellectual, religious, It doesn't matter. So anyway we were, you know, I don't. I was going to say, you know, it's like God brought us together. I'm always hesitant because I don't know if I'm special enough that God will intervene in my life. But if he does, he brought us together. I'll put it that way. You're less hesitant, not because of lack of humility, but I think you're Are you more comfortable with saying God has acted in your life?
00:30:34
Speaker 4: I'm more comfortable than you are. There are people who are I think more comfortable than me, right, But I'm a little further along on the scale than you.
00:30:42
Speaker 1: Right. And not only that, but I have had Saturday afternoon lunch Sabbath Day in Judaism lunch with Alan and his wife Susye for now how many years and one other couple.
00:31:02
Speaker 3: I think that started like in nineteen ninety three. We started doing that on.
00:31:09
Speaker 1: A regular so that's twenty five years. Yeah, that's another incredible bond that obviously we have. It's a very rich life. I mean, there's we're and we're both unbelievably grateful. I know that. So that's that's how Praguer you started. That's our relationships. It's truly a great one. And to when I speak on the radio about the importance of friendship, I know what I'm talking about because I have benefited my whole life from male friends and not that. And I believe women do from women friends. I'm a big believer in same sex friendship. Have I done a thing on friends? I think I have. Anyway, I'm always afraid of repeating myself, which is stupid because nobody, including me, I don't get a point the first time you got to hear something over and over and over and over. Anyway, that's a big one. So should I take some questions? Or have we already exhausted our time? We're at thirty while look at that by Bradley. I have a clock inside, so I don't know. Maybe, yeah, take a question, Okay, I'm fine with it. I love the questions, all right. So here Sarah thirty three, Modesto, California. Hi, Sarah. On a recent fireside chat, you said something that resonated with me. If you learn to compromise your values, when will you stop? This was about parents who call me up and say, well, what should I tell my daughter. She's at college and she knows that if she expresses a non left wing thought, she'll be penalized by her professor and get a lower grade, which happens regularly. And so I always say to them, look and tell you what to tell your child. Of course, but you're calling me up. I'll just this is what I would tell my child, that if you start to compromise your values for grades, when will you stop compromising your values? And it's not a rhetorical question, it's a very real question. You might say, Okay, I know I will compromise my values to get a good grade, but after that I won't. Okay, But it's a question you have to ask yourself. And I know Ben Shapiro from I have enormous respect. I mean, he was a colleague and a friend and it does incredibly important work. And Ben Shapiro and I were both scholars or speakers that are retreat pass over a holiday and this subject came up, and he said, this is one of the few areas Dennis and I differ. He said, I think it's so important to get conservatives into Harvard and Yale and Princeton and Berkeley, and then in Stanford and so on. That you know, if you've got to just keep your mouth shut about your your your conservative ideas, it's worth it. And I respect that. So I'm giving you you, Sarah an argument in that regard. But from from my perspective, uh I I rather I rather have people fight and end up at less prestigious universities or graduate schools, because, as I said, I think if you if you compromise, you pretty much don't stop. Then then she writes, do you think this applies to friendships? If two people have completely different values, can they still be friends? Well, it depends on what the definition of a friend is. For me, a friend is someone that you that you share your most, you say anything to. That's the the ultimate goal. I believe of a friend is someone I could talk to about anything. But if you're going to talk to them about your values and then even the nicest friend say, you know, I reject them completely. I mean that I have the opposite view on everyone. Of course, it has to affect the friendship. Do you have any thoughts on this?
00:35:23
Speaker 4: My thought is the same as yours. I mean, it's very hard for me. I mean, people talk about this all the time.
00:35:32
Speaker 3: I wanted.
00:35:33
Speaker 4: It's hard to be friends. You can be acquaintances.
00:35:36
Speaker 1: And pals that you can be friendly.
00:35:39
Speaker 4: Friendly with, But to be friends with somebody who doesn't share your values, that's tough. I'm not sure i'd even want it. I wouldn't want to work that hard unless you felt you you could persuade them to come to your point of view and that you it was kind of like a worthwhile project.
00:36:00
Speaker 1: Of course. Look, there are people who know someone you know since fifth grade and they have such a bond from childhood. I guess if you could just and then then ignore it, I guess. But ultimately, values are too important. I mean, you know that's that's to a large extent to who we are, what do we stand for. It's a tough one. I mean, it's really tough. I'll tell you this, this I am adamant about. I don't want people to drop I'm not saying drop friends, and I certainly want you to keep your relatives as in a loving way. But if you're dating somebody and don't share values, that, I'm sorry. You know. Let me put it bluntly, I don't care how good the sex is it doesn't matter. It's because I can't imagine what else is keeping people who don't share values together to be perfectly honest? Is that fair, Rod, It's I think that that's the realistic way. Okay, you know, I'll take one more here, Is that all right? Yeah? Zayid twenty six in Jordan. I asked Megan to make a list of the countries that we just got questions from. I mean, we don't even know every country. Well, we do, really, you do, I think that don't we get reports from the Internet on what countries people are watching. Yeah, it's an enormous number. I mean it's basically all over the world.
00:37:30
Speaker 3: Yeah.
00:37:31
Speaker 4: The only place that doesn't watch Breaker You videos is North Korea.
00:37:34
Speaker 3: Yeah.
00:37:36
Speaker 1: And this in particular, the fireside chat, everything has taken off beyond anything we imagined. This is seven hundred thousand every week. And by the way, I just want to say to those of you, a lot of you are regulars, and I really appreciate it. I'd like to double that number. And all you need to do is, you know, tell somebody else about it. It's even if they don't agree, it's it's it is interesting and that's that's important. So here's Aid and Jordan. Hello Dennis. I'm a Christian and I'm grateful for my country Jordan protecting their Christian community despite the Muslim majority. But I still have some serious criticisms. My distant uncle was murdered due to the lack of freedom of speech in Jordan. Seeing the Western nations restrict freedom of speech disturbs me as I've seen the effects of it firsthand. Is there any hope or solution to grant freedom of speech rights to the rest of the world's nations, especially Middle East countries. Well, I will just tell you this, Zaid. The bad news is that the freest country in human history is having the most important internal battle since the Civil War over slavery, the war for free speech. The left is opposed to free speech and the right and and for that matter, even sent the center or adamantly for it is. This is the battle, Prager, you is fighting. This is the battle at universities. It's free speech is a value, It's not a human instinct. People want to control other people. People are afraid of free speech. They might hear something they don't agree with. So it's worse than your question. You're worried about it spreading to Middle Eastern countries. And by the way, I agree with you, and I salute you for it. But if we in America, the country of the Statue of liberty, if we can't protect because one of the two political parties, and and and and the media and the social media, and the and the the educational institutions and the newspapers are suppressing free speech, this is this is the battle at this time. Any any thoughts, Allen.
00:40:12
Speaker 4: Well, it kind of takes us back to our case and in against YouTube. Yeah, that this is truly the the tip of that spear. And I think it's important not only for the US, it's because of the US leads if we've as you point out, if we if we fall down on this issue, it's going to be a very bad thing for everybody, for the whole world.
00:40:40
Speaker 1: And you know, I'll just end with this. The left and rewrites history and rewrites language so that for example, they were no longer illegal immigrants, there's now undocumented immigrants. As I've said a number of times on our radio show, maybe we'll rename burglary or or a bank robbery and undocumented withdrawal. Uh I do you know, I just read. Do you know that they're getting rid of the disabled list in baseball?
00:41:15
Speaker 3: Did you know that they've gotten rid of it?
00:41:16
Speaker 1: They got rid of it because it implies that disabled means that you can't play, but the disabled can play. But what if your disability comes from an injury, which is what usually happens.
00:41:37
Speaker 4: It's silly, but it's not silly. This constantly, it's frightening.
00:41:42
Speaker 1: Yes, that's correct. It's it's it's meaningless. But but I mean, and it's a trivial example. It's that's you know, if that was the only example, I wouldn't but it happens everywhere anyway. Alan, Oh wow, you did bring a cake. It was curious. Oh cheese, sheep cheese with not only sheep cheese, sheep cheese with handlewax. That's the best type of sheep cheese. Thank you. That's very sweet. Oh you've got a chance to see maybe.
00:42:19
Speaker 3: That truly cheesecake. That's like a slice of cheese.
00:42:21
Speaker 1: No, no, it's just like that is cheese. That is not cheesecake, right, this is cheese, and that's very sweet. I can't believe it's the hundredth one. This is obviously very meaningful to us. Because I'm a busy guy and I never missed this.
00:42:41
Speaker 3: It's a great example of one of my You know, I have lots.
00:42:44
Speaker 1: Of rules, and yes, your rules are terrific.
00:42:48
Speaker 4: And I don't take credit for this one, and I wish I could give credit to the where I first heard it. But this idea, you can't accomplish a lot in a day or a week, but you can in a year. The people stop themselves from doing things because they can't achieve what they want immediately. But if you think about giving a project a year to develop, So here's a great example, because that's fifty two fireside chats and a year.
00:43:22
Speaker 1: That's that's serious.
00:43:24
Speaker 3: That's serious.
00:43:25
Speaker 1: You're right, Oh well, how are they blowing out on their own? I want that to blow them out? Is it because of the air conditioning? All right? So I wish many many more years working with you. Is that a good wish?
00:43:43
Speaker 3: That's a good wish.
00:43:49
Speaker 1: Okay, everybody onward and upward to number one hundred one day. Yeah, yeah, thank you.
00:43:55
Speaker 5: Allen, thank you tomorrow on Timeless Wisdom with Dennis Prager.
00:44:01
Speaker 1: And something that has puzzled me pretty much my whole life is this we call the generation of World War Two. It has now become fashionable, at least to call that generation the greatest generation. I I don't buy that. I have great admiration for my parents' generation absolutely fought World War II, the Korean War, and much of the Cold War, and the sacrifices made at home through the families that stayed back and then, and the numbers of Americans who died abroad and and just just went under either a draft or a volunteer to go and fight either the Japanese fascists or the Nazis. Is it is? It's there was a lot of greatness in that generation. Absolutely, I don't. I don't say it's the greatest general. Is it greater than the generation of Jan Washington and the founders of the country. That's an odd statement.
00:45:04
Speaker 5: Join us tomorrow to hear more on Timeless Wisdom with Dennis Prigger. Visit Dennispragger dot com for thousands of hours of Dennis's lectures, courses in classic radio programs, and to purchase Dennis Prager's Rational Bibles. We want to take just a second to thank the team at Life Audio for their partnership with us on the podcast. Go to Lifeaudio dot com to find dozens of other faith centered podcasts and their network, including shows about prayer, Bible study, parenting, and more.
Speaker 1: Life Audio.
00:00:04
Speaker 2: Hey there, this is Marissa strit I am the CEO of Prigger You and you are about to listen to a special edition of fireside Chat with Dennis Prager. Those of us here at Pegger You are continuing to do the very important work that we've been doing with him for over ten years. We are educating millions of young people online, we have state partnerships to bring our content into schools, and so much more. You can head over to peger you dot com to see the progress that we've been making. Also, I'd love to invite you to support our mission by donating to our five OHO one C three. It is a nonprofit. Your tax deductible donation will go to an institution of higher learning that actually shares your values. So enjoy your podcast and thank you so much for all your support.
00:00:50
Speaker 3: Yeah. Put that now, you look like a unicorn. That's good. I hope this is being This should be record our recapturing some of this. Okay, good, good here.
00:01:00
Speaker 1: Oh wait a minute, I'm wrong. It's got to go under the neck, under the chin.
00:01:06
Speaker 3: Okay, Yeah, he's definitely silly today. Yeah, one second.
00:01:14
Speaker 1: It's inconceivable if he wore it. Everybody it would the stock market would sink, and I'll say that. Okay, ready, Hi everybody. You're probably wondering why is Dennis wearing this dunce hat. It's not a dunce hat, a party hat, and the answer is right here, Episode one hundredth, the one hundredth fireside Chat. So it's a big deal. I normally would not wear this, but basically Megan, who was the unofficial producer of the fireside Chat, asked me to do so. She asked my colleague friend and co founder to do it, but as he pointed out, he didn't do it when he was five, he's certainly not going to do it now that he's twenty five. So I've done it, and happy birthday anniversary to us at fireside Chat. I'm Dennis Prager. This is my home. Otto is busy today and you all know atto by now, but this is very special. It's the one hundredth one. So I figured, why don't you meet the person who actually came up with the idea of prager you It was not my idea. I always make that known. The idea of taking credit for something I didn't do actually repulses me. I'm a big believer. You give credit where it is due. Alan Estrin, who is my friend for thirty years, very dear close friend, is the one and producer of my radio show for many years, is the person who came up with the idea. And Alan is known to many of you who know my radio show is the Living Martyr. It's a funny nick that he actually developed on his own, but it was so fitting. It's really it stayed. And how many years ago it was on a listener cruise. I've been taking cruises with my listeners for now about twenty five years, and from Antarctica to the North Sea, I mean literally all over the world, every continent. On one of those cruises, what happened.
00:03:28
Speaker 4: Two friends of ours on the cruise approached me and they said, we should start a Prager University. Let's do something along the lines of Hillsdale. Let's create a new place where Dennis's values can be taught. And I thought about it for a bit, did a little research, came to the conclusion that it would probably cost us about two hundred and fifty million dollars to get started, take ten years to build a building. Maybe after that time we'd have a thousand students graduating. I didn't want us take that make that much effort, take that much time. But I had another idea that I had been percolating about that sort of came together when they made this point about a university, which I like, the idea of doing something educational at that this was now, I think two thousand and nine, twenty ten.
00:04:40
Speaker 3: I thought, let how about if we do.
00:04:42
Speaker 4: We really make use of the Internet, let's create something on the Internet. So then I started researching what they people had been doing educationally on the Internet, and mostly what people were doing was they there were education national places, but it was a professor standing in front of a blackboard talking for an hour, and I knew that's not how people are consuming the internet. It's certainly not how young people are consuming the Internet. That dovetailed with the idea that you have a special gift of being able to distill complex ideas into a short, coherent timeframe. So then I started thinking about, well, let's make short videos, put those on the internet. How long should those videos be? And the five minute idea came to me very quickly. Just seemed seven minutes just fell too long. Three minutes wasn't enough. Five is a nice number, solid number. Let's just do five minute videos. And I went to the same guys and I said, look, what you want is going to cost two hundred million dollars. I don't think you want to spend that kind of money or raise that kind of money. How about some seed money twenty thousand. And they said, okay, let's do it, let's try it, and they gave us the money and we.
00:06:20
Speaker 1: Went.
00:06:20
Speaker 4: When we got back to Los Angeles, this was months later, we made our first few videos, which you actually ad libbed. There were no scripts. That's a whole nother process that developed.
00:06:35
Speaker 1: That's right. I ad libbed, and I remember the first Middle East one.
00:06:38
Speaker 3: I it was ad libbed.
00:06:40
Speaker 1: So let's go to the actual. By the way, a lot of this is I can't say new to me, but I don't remember it, so it's new to me for all intensive purposes. So in effect, really it was some to other people's idea.
00:06:55
Speaker 3: The idea of a university.
00:06:58
Speaker 4: Yeah was U Ron Lee and our dear friend the late may rest in peace, Carl Bowman. That's right, they had the idea of a university. So yeah, you could give them.
00:07:09
Speaker 1: No, no, no, that's fine. Like I of course it's yours. But but that.
00:07:14
Speaker 3: No, no, no, they definitely used the word universe.
00:07:18
Speaker 1: I got you. So you came over to me and on the ship. Yeah, correct, that I do remember.
00:07:23
Speaker 3: Yes, And then are we playing Hearts?
00:07:25
Speaker 1: Yes, which it's amazing you didn't say it during Hearts because I I don't allow anything to intrude on beating you with One of the goals of my life is to win at Hearts at every every time. So you must have said it right before or after the game. And then so my reaction, as I remember, was fine, and that was it. I didn't I don't. I didn't get excited.
00:07:51
Speaker 4: I I think you were intrigued by the idea, but there was no sense of right, let's let's absolutely we have to do it.
00:07:59
Speaker 3: Let's thinks.
00:08:00
Speaker 1: I say to everybody, if someone had said to me in the beginning, you'll have a million views a year, I would have said, from your mouth to God's ears, I would have not believed it was going to happen. How optimistic were you that something like that could happen?
00:08:20
Speaker 4: You know, that's actually a tough question for me. It raises a bigger issue. I never think. I really don't think.
00:08:30
Speaker 1: Ahead, right, I'm with you, I know, to say it correct.
00:08:35
Speaker 3: How many views was it going to get?
00:08:37
Speaker 1: You know what you need to do?
00:08:39
Speaker 4: Yeah, I didn't even have a sense of what was a lot of views. If you had said to me, this video gets ten thousand views at that point I probably said, wow, ten thousand people saw.
00:08:48
Speaker 3: It's that's a good start.
00:08:52
Speaker 4: When the Middle East, the first one we did, the Middle East Problem, got one hundred thousand views, right, I thought that was beyond belief.
00:09:02
Speaker 1: Right.
00:09:03
Speaker 3: I used to say that like.
00:09:05
Speaker 4: Twenty five in the early days, twenty five thousand Jews was a single, fifty was a double. One hundred thousand was a Grand Slam home run in the bottom of the ninth.
00:09:15
Speaker 1: For those of you outside of the United States, these are baseball terms.
00:09:19
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, that's right.
00:09:20
Speaker 1: There are a lot of people watching outside. That would be like somebody for us using cricket to describe something. Anyway, it was a home run. And to this.
00:09:34
Speaker 4: Day I don't think about what's it going to be like in five Right, we say we have a deadline, we have to do something tomorrow.
00:09:43
Speaker 3: We have a job to do tomorrow.
00:09:44
Speaker 1: Lest that's right, Yeah, that's exactly right. I live that way, you know what, Megan, I'd like to talk about that because people are told a lot think where are you going to be five years from now? I've never thought we're all be five years from now. In my life. I knew what I wanted to do with my life, but that was that was it. I didn't know where I would be in five years, and it didn't matter. What mattered is am I doing something worthwhile now? And this was worthwhile. So we started it and we put out it wasn't every week.
00:10:17
Speaker 3: No, it was initially it was it was like every six weeks. I mean, we were just.
00:10:22
Speaker 4: Trying to test the market. We had no no regular pattern. It wouldn't even be like every six weeks. It would be one week, four weeks, fourteen weeks.
00:10:37
Speaker 1: Well was the first one? Wasn't mine on the Middle East?
00:10:39
Speaker 3: The Middle East problem was the first?
00:10:41
Speaker 1: Well interesting? Which is which was redone with a script even though the I had lived one worked out well. But first of all, most people aren't going to be able to add lib so it wouldn't have worked. It was it was not a pattern that we could have kept.
00:10:56
Speaker 4: No, and then we knew it wouldn't work. When you decided that we couldn't add lib these things because.
00:11:05
Speaker 1: Even though I had lived well, even very.
00:11:07
Speaker 3: Very well stream better than anybody, but.
00:11:12
Speaker 1: It has to be written.
00:11:13
Speaker 3: We made it a term.
00:11:14
Speaker 1: Every word has to be careful because it's.
00:11:16
Speaker 3: Five minutes and every word has to count.
00:11:19
Speaker 1: I'm permanent, exactly right. So now we have a billion views a year, and we're also in something else we would not have anticipated. We're in a very big battle for free speech on the Internet. I mean, I have come to realize this battle is so much bigger than prager.
00:11:46
Speaker 5: You.
00:11:48
Speaker 1: If Google can do what it wants to do, the conduit of all information practically in the free world and is stop us. They put another hundred of ours on the restricted list, and that was just because they're angry at us.
00:12:09
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's very difficult, I think for people to grasp how big this lawsuit is. If we lose, then Google, Facebook, Twitter truly have a blank check yes to do whatever they want.
00:12:27
Speaker 3: They will have.
00:12:28
Speaker 4: There will be the courts will say we're putting no restraints on you.
00:12:33
Speaker 3: You have nothing to figure.
00:12:34
Speaker 1: Well, there is only one solution after that, which I never even entertained, and it only hit me now, and that is that Congress would have to pass some sort of law, maybe break up a monopoly. But the threat to free speech in America is the greatest in American history. And neither you nor I engage in hyperb That's that's how serious it is. So I think people would be interested as well to know of our relationship. So it's it's we we met. I think we can actually virtually date the month because you were asked to write a script by David Zucker, the great uh director in Hollywood who he and his brother did Airplane, which is one of the classic films.
00:13:27
Speaker 3: I want to correct just.
00:13:29
Speaker 4: That's accurate, but and I know we both feel this. I want to give credit to Rich marky.
00:13:36
Speaker 1: Good please Rich, who was.
00:13:39
Speaker 4: Working with David Zucker at that time as as his producer. He was the one who approached me because Rich and I were working on a script for Disney at the time. It's actually a funny idea having to do with the origin of the Marx Brothers, and he he told me that he and David wanted to do an educational video with you, and he asked me if I was interested. At that point in my writing career, I had made the decision that I would not do any writing.
00:14:17
Speaker 3: At all unless I was paid.
00:14:21
Speaker 4: It was just kind of a blanket because I had done things and not been paid and didn't work out, and I just thought, I gotta be paid or I'm not doing it.
00:14:33
Speaker 1: He's a professional screenwriter, that's his profession.
00:14:35
Speaker 3: Okay, go on, So I said, who is this guy? So he tells me a.
00:14:46
Speaker 1: Oh, you did not know.
00:14:47
Speaker 3: I knew who you were. I had just started listening to you.
00:14:50
Speaker 1: What year is this?
00:14:51
Speaker 4: This is nineteen ninety one, And the whole backstory of how I started listening to you is a whole other story. And Rich tells me that he and David want to do a project with Dennis Prager. And I said, and he couldn't pay me, you know, I said, what are you going to pay me anything? No, we don't have any money to pay you. And I thought about it really overnight, and I called him back and I said, look, I'll do it because I want to meet this guy. I really like the way he thinks. And I broke my rule. And then the interesting thing that happened was that in preparation for writing, I knew I had heard heard you enough to be very very intrigued so to prepare for writing the script, which for what became for goodness sake, Rich gave me a binder full of Ultimate Issues.
00:15:50
Speaker 1: And Ultimate Issues was a newsletter that I was publishing at the time on my own. People who went to my speeches subscribed, and that's where I really worked out my philosophy of life and my theology.
00:16:05
Speaker 4: So he gives me a binder of the Ultimate Issues, and he gives me a box of tapes. Over the next I would say week, now we would say binge watch. But over the week I consumed read all the Ultimate Issues, listened to.
00:16:24
Speaker 3: All the tapes.
00:16:25
Speaker 4: There probably were ten or fifteen tapes. And the one that really got me was Why I Am a Jew, which was the first recorded lecture you ever sold. And in that lecture, it was like you were describing my life. I was that person who was so Jews had assimilated so successfully in America that we wanted to marry a Christian because we just we felt so comfortable. This was all this is what was happening to Jews over the last couple hundred years.
00:17:11
Speaker 3: So by the time.
00:17:13
Speaker 4: We had our first meeting, I was very, very excited to meet you, and I actually brought with me. I brought my journal. You know, I keep a journal and have since nineteen eighty two or something like that.
00:17:30
Speaker 1: You have it our first meeting. Yeah, yeah, I have it, And this is all new to me, folks. I'm glad Glady this was By the way, he's the most disciplined person I know. And I say that totally matter of factly. You know why I have to be disciplined? Well, you'll tell them. It's a fascinating theory of yourself that you have and of life. But you are. And one of the many manifestations is that you write every day in your journal. And even if it's just the.
00:18:00
Speaker 4: Paragraph, sometimes things are in here that I really don't remember. But uh, of course, but it's it's fun to look back. So this is from nineteen ninety one.
00:18:13
Speaker 1: What's the date?
00:18:14
Speaker 4: Now here's the great thing. I'm just gonna make the argument right away. For the journal, you have no idea what day we met? You would it would be a struggle to figure out the year. You could do it if we really.
00:18:24
Speaker 1: Want to go. Sure, I could do the year.
00:18:25
Speaker 3: Yeah, but and I couldn't either.
00:18:30
Speaker 4: But because of this journey exact I can tell you exactly the day we met.
00:18:34
Speaker 3: It was November Monday. I mean, how would you even know? Is Monday right?
00:18:38
Speaker 4: Monday, November twenty fifth, nineteen ninety one.
00:18:41
Speaker 1: Where where did we meet?
00:18:42
Speaker 4: It was in Century City, in an office in Century City. And the headline I often wrote headlines of what happened that day met Dennis Prager exclamation point and this is what I wrote. Today was an important day in my life. I met the man who has changed the way I think, Dennis Prager. The occasion was to discuss the outline Susan Silverberg. She was the woman who collaborated with us on the script and I have done for the Goodness video.
00:19:12
Speaker 3: That's what it was called at the time. If in my.
00:19:17
Speaker 4: It is my fond wish that this will be the first of many meetings with DP. To have this great man as my friend would indeed be an honor. The work he is doing is of such great value and importance. That's why I'm so delighted to be a part of this video project, the project which will help spread his and then I put in quote his gospel ethical Monotheism. The meeting itself went better than I expected. DP was wildly enthusiastic. At one point, he said that this was one of quote best moments of his life. He sees that and I underline that he sees that much value in this video. His enthusiasm was both rewarding and infectious. It was also inspiring.
00:20:16
Speaker 1: God, is that moving? Really? I really moved. I never This is all new to me. That's the beauty of having a journal. I wish I kept one, but I didn't. I asked my father if my late father on an interview, I interviewed him on my radio show every year on his birthday. I asked him, we heard it this year because we replay some of them. Dad, do you have any regrets? None? I do. This is certainly one of them. By the way, it's important that people know you can watch what we made yet with some of the biggest actors in Hollywood, thanks to David Zucker with his contacts, and it's on the internet. I mean, it's free, right, people could just watch it. It's called for goodness sake, and it's really worth it. It's very funny, very funny, and it's about goodness and especially kids should see it. Nineteen ninety one is twenty eight years ago, so that's when we met twenty eight years ago. And I remember that. I didn't keep a journal, but I remember very well meeting you, and I was very excited meeting you. So you were excited meeting me. I was, well, I see, it's so typically it's like my other spouse, my wife. She would laugh too. It's very fine people in my life and humble. But that was it was obviously very important at that meeting, and so we collaborated on the script and folks, you could watch this this. And then we did two more with David Zucker. We did one on and it's just as relevant. I saw it's also on the internet, and it's it's about diversity. Yeah, it's really really, really worth seeing. And then I don't remember what the third was, but the and I did the diversity one with Larry Eldert.
00:22:18
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, yeah, we did a sequel. We called it for goodness sake to oh okay, fine, but it was it was two parts.
00:22:25
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's really really worth you folks watching.
00:22:29
Speaker 4: So there's a little funny story about about the second one we did. David could not direct the second one. He was busy, so he said to us, look, I can't do it. But I can recommend somebody. I met these two guys there. They're very talented. They're from Denver, Colorado. They just arrived in Los Angeles. I think they would be good for this project. And we said, look, David, you know you're the comedy genius. If you say they're good, they're good. Their names were Trey Parker and Matt Stone. The first project Trey Parker and Matt Stone did in Hollywood was for goodness sake too. They arrived in Hollywood in a a Honda beat up Honda Civic and that's that's how they started.
00:23:32
Speaker 1: And I think, I know, I know what you'll say, and I agree with you. Go ahead.
00:23:36
Speaker 4: No, I think it had a big influence on them.
00:23:42
Speaker 1: Correct, I do believe that.
00:23:44
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean we even there's even a term. I mean South Park Republicans. Yeah, I mean, I'm not saying they're they're right Republicans. I'm just saying their viewpoint was definitely shaped, I think in a very good way. I told that experience.
00:24:03
Speaker 1: I felt it then and I've felt it since.
00:24:06
Speaker 3: Not too many people know that.
00:24:08
Speaker 1: No, no, no, the no, no, I'm sure their origin story. I'm sure almost nobody does. Anyway, it's all available on the internet. So the rest, as they say, is history. I think it's it'll interest you, you folks watching this, that I worked for years to convince you to be the producer of my radio show. And the reason that it took me years he didn't want anything to even possibly interfere in our friendship. And I was certain it wouldn't. You were not You were not a certain And what you understandably were hesitant about was I remember, and I have no problem saying it. Would I would I take criticism because the producer of a radio show who never has a criticism of the quote unquote talent, that's what they're called, the people on the microphone, is useless. How do you get better if if nobody's critiquing you, It's not possible. And so I assured you would, assured you would, assured you fatally you took the leap. So I think they're curious. Can I take criticism?
00:25:25
Speaker 4: Yeah, you can take criticism, and I can give it. You could take it. I can give it. But you know, something goes both ways. Yes, I mean there's no.
00:25:33
Speaker 1: We don't hesitate. Hesitated because it's only for the greater good, you know. What That's another subject I should talk. How do you know if if you're criticized out of love or criticized with with with darker motives, and and and how to handle that and how to give it? How to give it is as important as how to take it.
00:25:58
Speaker 4: We both had the same goal, which is to make the product better. Yes, exactly. That's all that ever matters. It's all that matters at peguer You. It's all that anybody comes up with a better idea, right. We have a very horizontal structure at peguer You. Everybody contributes. Anybody has a better idea.
00:26:17
Speaker 1: Will will this is this is the power of being united with a higher value. Your ego gets gets bumped out it it doesn't, it doesn't play a detrimental role. And that's that's the case at praguer You. Is the case on our radio show. And that's uh and that we have a lot We have a lot of fun on the radio show. I mean you have to admit it. I mean it's a unique. I mean when you speak about having fun and alan, you have to put it in perspective.
00:26:54
Speaker 3: I have.
00:26:55
Speaker 4: I doing the radio show is a great deal of fun. I love doing it. And at the same time, when I'm doing it, I'm all business.
00:27:06
Speaker 3: No, it's all business.
00:27:07
Speaker 4: I'm thinking every second I know of the show, is this working? Is not working? And I can't and you can't imagine.
00:27:16
Speaker 1: I no one can imagine the amount of work that goes into the show, both on your part and my part. People think, which is what I want them to think, that I show up, you know, shoot the breeze and go home. On the amount that's going in my brain at any given moment, the amount of preparation the night before, the amount of preparation you do. People who subscribe to the show, and it is a great idea, get it without commercials called pragotopia. It's five dollars a month pregatopia dot com. You will not only get the show at any time and keep it and it's very powerful stuff, but you will get all the articles he sends me the night before. This is like a living compendium of what's happening on earth through our eyes, because he knows exactly what I want, and you get his brilliant, pithy one line comment, Oh it is no no, no, Sue, And I live for it. I sometimes burst out laughing at your dismissal of a fool in one sentence, it's anyway, it's a pray gootopia. I'm not trying to sell you anything, but I do want you to know about it. But it's an extraordinary thing to do something every day for three hours. It's intense.
00:28:39
Speaker 4: Well, you have a great phrase for it, which is the radio's relentless mistress.
00:28:45
Speaker 1: Yeah, it is.
00:28:47
Speaker 3: She never right, very demanding.
00:28:50
Speaker 1: Yeah, and people expect you on every day and I'm on almost every days. It's intense. It's a fantastic job. Fantastic, I think God.
00:29:00
Speaker 4: Not only every day, but they're they're the people. Most people don't listen to the radio for three hours, so we whatever, ten minute, fifteen minute. They may go away and come back, but we have to get them whenever they tune in, which is why, as you say, everything, every moment has to be interesting.
00:29:21
Speaker 1: Yes, well that's did I do? I keep looking at Megan? Did we Did I do something on interesting? Did I do? I think I did a commentary on the fireside chat on the importance of being interesting. Check into that, because if that's it's so obvious when you say it, but people don't think about it. It is It is the key to all communication, all communication of any type, musical, artistic, intellectual, religious, It doesn't matter. So anyway we were, you know, I don't. I was going to say, you know, it's like God brought us together. I'm always hesitant because I don't know if I'm special enough that God will intervene in my life. But if he does, he brought us together. I'll put it that way. You're less hesitant, not because of lack of humility, but I think you're Are you more comfortable with saying God has acted in your life?
00:30:34
Speaker 4: I'm more comfortable than you are. There are people who are I think more comfortable than me, right, But I'm a little further along on the scale than you.
00:30:42
Speaker 1: Right. And not only that, but I have had Saturday afternoon lunch Sabbath Day in Judaism lunch with Alan and his wife Susye for now how many years and one other couple.
00:31:02
Speaker 3: I think that started like in nineteen ninety three. We started doing that on.
00:31:09
Speaker 1: A regular so that's twenty five years. Yeah, that's another incredible bond that obviously we have. It's a very rich life. I mean, there's we're and we're both unbelievably grateful. I know that. So that's that's how Praguer you started. That's our relationships. It's truly a great one. And to when I speak on the radio about the importance of friendship, I know what I'm talking about because I have benefited my whole life from male friends and not that. And I believe women do from women friends. I'm a big believer in same sex friendship. Have I done a thing on friends? I think I have. Anyway, I'm always afraid of repeating myself, which is stupid because nobody, including me, I don't get a point the first time you got to hear something over and over and over and over. Anyway, that's a big one. So should I take some questions? Or have we already exhausted our time? We're at thirty while look at that by Bradley. I have a clock inside, so I don't know. Maybe, yeah, take a question, Okay, I'm fine with it. I love the questions, all right. So here Sarah thirty three, Modesto, California. Hi, Sarah. On a recent fireside chat, you said something that resonated with me. If you learn to compromise your values, when will you stop? This was about parents who call me up and say, well, what should I tell my daughter. She's at college and she knows that if she expresses a non left wing thought, she'll be penalized by her professor and get a lower grade, which happens regularly. And so I always say to them, look and tell you what to tell your child. Of course, but you're calling me up. I'll just this is what I would tell my child, that if you start to compromise your values for grades, when will you stop compromising your values? And it's not a rhetorical question, it's a very real question. You might say, Okay, I know I will compromise my values to get a good grade, but after that I won't. Okay, But it's a question you have to ask yourself. And I know Ben Shapiro from I have enormous respect. I mean, he was a colleague and a friend and it does incredibly important work. And Ben Shapiro and I were both scholars or speakers that are retreat pass over a holiday and this subject came up, and he said, this is one of the few areas Dennis and I differ. He said, I think it's so important to get conservatives into Harvard and Yale and Princeton and Berkeley, and then in Stanford and so on. That you know, if you've got to just keep your mouth shut about your your your conservative ideas, it's worth it. And I respect that. So I'm giving you you, Sarah an argument in that regard. But from from my perspective, uh I I rather I rather have people fight and end up at less prestigious universities or graduate schools, because, as I said, I think if you if you compromise, you pretty much don't stop. Then then she writes, do you think this applies to friendships? If two people have completely different values, can they still be friends? Well, it depends on what the definition of a friend is. For me, a friend is someone that you that you share your most, you say anything to. That's the the ultimate goal. I believe of a friend is someone I could talk to about anything. But if you're going to talk to them about your values and then even the nicest friend say, you know, I reject them completely. I mean that I have the opposite view on everyone. Of course, it has to affect the friendship. Do you have any thoughts on this?
00:35:23
Speaker 4: My thought is the same as yours. I mean, it's very hard for me. I mean, people talk about this all the time.
00:35:32
Speaker 3: I wanted.
00:35:33
Speaker 4: It's hard to be friends. You can be acquaintances.
00:35:36
Speaker 1: And pals that you can be friendly.
00:35:39
Speaker 4: Friendly with, But to be friends with somebody who doesn't share your values, that's tough. I'm not sure i'd even want it. I wouldn't want to work that hard unless you felt you you could persuade them to come to your point of view and that you it was kind of like a worthwhile project.
00:36:00
Speaker 1: Of course. Look, there are people who know someone you know since fifth grade and they have such a bond from childhood. I guess if you could just and then then ignore it, I guess. But ultimately, values are too important. I mean, you know that's that's to a large extent to who we are, what do we stand for. It's a tough one. I mean, it's really tough. I'll tell you this, this I am adamant about. I don't want people to drop I'm not saying drop friends, and I certainly want you to keep your relatives as in a loving way. But if you're dating somebody and don't share values, that, I'm sorry. You know. Let me put it bluntly, I don't care how good the sex is it doesn't matter. It's because I can't imagine what else is keeping people who don't share values together to be perfectly honest? Is that fair, Rod, It's I think that that's the realistic way. Okay, you know, I'll take one more here, Is that all right? Yeah? Zayid twenty six in Jordan. I asked Megan to make a list of the countries that we just got questions from. I mean, we don't even know every country. Well, we do, really, you do, I think that don't we get reports from the Internet on what countries people are watching. Yeah, it's an enormous number. I mean it's basically all over the world.
00:37:30
Speaker 3: Yeah.
00:37:31
Speaker 4: The only place that doesn't watch Breaker You videos is North Korea.
00:37:34
Speaker 3: Yeah.
00:37:36
Speaker 1: And this in particular, the fireside chat, everything has taken off beyond anything we imagined. This is seven hundred thousand every week. And by the way, I just want to say to those of you, a lot of you are regulars, and I really appreciate it. I'd like to double that number. And all you need to do is, you know, tell somebody else about it. It's even if they don't agree, it's it's it is interesting and that's that's important. So here's Aid and Jordan. Hello Dennis. I'm a Christian and I'm grateful for my country Jordan protecting their Christian community despite the Muslim majority. But I still have some serious criticisms. My distant uncle was murdered due to the lack of freedom of speech in Jordan. Seeing the Western nations restrict freedom of speech disturbs me as I've seen the effects of it firsthand. Is there any hope or solution to grant freedom of speech rights to the rest of the world's nations, especially Middle East countries. Well, I will just tell you this, Zaid. The bad news is that the freest country in human history is having the most important internal battle since the Civil War over slavery, the war for free speech. The left is opposed to free speech and the right and and for that matter, even sent the center or adamantly for it is. This is the battle, Prager, you is fighting. This is the battle at universities. It's free speech is a value, It's not a human instinct. People want to control other people. People are afraid of free speech. They might hear something they don't agree with. So it's worse than your question. You're worried about it spreading to Middle Eastern countries. And by the way, I agree with you, and I salute you for it. But if we in America, the country of the Statue of liberty, if we can't protect because one of the two political parties, and and and and the media and the social media, and the and the the educational institutions and the newspapers are suppressing free speech, this is this is the battle at this time. Any any thoughts, Allen.
00:40:12
Speaker 4: Well, it kind of takes us back to our case and in against YouTube. Yeah, that this is truly the the tip of that spear. And I think it's important not only for the US, it's because of the US leads if we've as you point out, if we if we fall down on this issue, it's going to be a very bad thing for everybody, for the whole world.
00:40:40
Speaker 1: And you know, I'll just end with this. The left and rewrites history and rewrites language so that for example, they were no longer illegal immigrants, there's now undocumented immigrants. As I've said a number of times on our radio show, maybe we'll rename burglary or or a bank robbery and undocumented withdrawal. Uh I do you know, I just read. Do you know that they're getting rid of the disabled list in baseball?
00:41:15
Speaker 3: Did you know that they've gotten rid of it?
00:41:16
Speaker 1: They got rid of it because it implies that disabled means that you can't play, but the disabled can play. But what if your disability comes from an injury, which is what usually happens.
00:41:37
Speaker 4: It's silly, but it's not silly. This constantly, it's frightening.
00:41:42
Speaker 1: Yes, that's correct. It's it's it's meaningless. But but I mean, and it's a trivial example. It's that's you know, if that was the only example, I wouldn't but it happens everywhere anyway. Alan, Oh wow, you did bring a cake. It was curious. Oh cheese, sheep cheese with not only sheep cheese, sheep cheese with handlewax. That's the best type of sheep cheese. Thank you. That's very sweet. Oh you've got a chance to see maybe.
00:42:19
Speaker 3: That truly cheesecake. That's like a slice of cheese.
00:42:21
Speaker 1: No, no, it's just like that is cheese. That is not cheesecake, right, this is cheese, and that's very sweet. I can't believe it's the hundredth one. This is obviously very meaningful to us. Because I'm a busy guy and I never missed this.
00:42:41
Speaker 3: It's a great example of one of my You know, I have lots.
00:42:44
Speaker 1: Of rules, and yes, your rules are terrific.
00:42:48
Speaker 4: And I don't take credit for this one, and I wish I could give credit to the where I first heard it. But this idea, you can't accomplish a lot in a day or a week, but you can in a year. The people stop themselves from doing things because they can't achieve what they want immediately. But if you think about giving a project a year to develop, So here's a great example, because that's fifty two fireside chats and a year.
00:43:22
Speaker 1: That's that's serious.
00:43:24
Speaker 3: That's serious.
00:43:25
Speaker 1: You're right, Oh well, how are they blowing out on their own? I want that to blow them out? Is it because of the air conditioning? All right? So I wish many many more years working with you. Is that a good wish?
00:43:43
Speaker 3: That's a good wish.
00:43:49
Speaker 1: Okay, everybody onward and upward to number one hundred one day. Yeah, yeah, thank you.
00:43:55
Speaker 5: Allen, thank you tomorrow on Timeless Wisdom with Dennis Prager.
00:44:01
Speaker 1: And something that has puzzled me pretty much my whole life is this we call the generation of World War Two. It has now become fashionable, at least to call that generation the greatest generation. I I don't buy that. I have great admiration for my parents' generation absolutely fought World War II, the Korean War, and much of the Cold War, and the sacrifices made at home through the families that stayed back and then, and the numbers of Americans who died abroad and and just just went under either a draft or a volunteer to go and fight either the Japanese fascists or the Nazis. Is it is? It's there was a lot of greatness in that generation. Absolutely, I don't. I don't say it's the greatest general. Is it greater than the generation of Jan Washington and the founders of the country. That's an odd statement.
00:45:04
Speaker 5: Join us tomorrow to hear more on Timeless Wisdom with Dennis Prigger. Visit Dennispragger dot com for thousands of hours of Dennis's lectures, courses in classic radio programs, and to purchase Dennis Prager's Rational Bibles. We want to take just a second to thank the team at Life Audio for their partnership with us on the podcast. Go to Lifeaudio dot com to find dozens of other faith centered podcasts and their network, including shows about prayer, Bible study, parenting, and more.
