Dennis Prager

watch the face of our guest today as I read the following quotation President Barack Obama speaking in 2009 quote I believe in American exceptionalism just as I suspect that the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism today on uncommon knowledge radio host and author Dennis Prager uncommon knowledge now [Music] welcome to uncommon knowledge I'm Peter Robinson be sure to visit us on our website at Hoover orj slash UK or on facebook at facebook.com slash UNK UNC knowledge facebook.com slash UNK knowlege host of the Dennis Prager radio show columnist lecturer and best-selling author Dennis Prager grew up in Brooklyn graduated from Brooklyn College and Columbia University and then became a westerner moving to California and starting his radio career in Los Angeles in 1982 dennis prager 'he's new book still the best hope why the world needs american values to triumph dennis welcome to uncommon knowledge Peter it's actually an honor oh it is well then we're both honored well okay that's fair the United States of America no more exceptional on President Obama's account than Britain or Greece what do you make of that that is exactly what the Left believes in fact the notion of American exceptionalism is regarded by the left and I want to explain why I use the word the left as quasi fascistic chauvinistic if not actually racist and xenophobic and all the other terms and the reason I mention the left is that the book is about three alternate ideas for Humanity there are really only three in competition and they are left ISM Islamism and Americanism two of them proselytize one not only doesn't proselytize it doesn't even know what it stands for and that's why wrote the book all right still the best hope I have written this book because I am convinced that there is a way to end most evil not I have written this book because I seek an American Renaissance because I seek to repair the damaged fabric of our country because I am a convinced there is a way to end most evil the only answer to making a better world is the American value system that's right explain that Dennis since I was a child I've been preoccupied with evil I have no explanation for it and I mean it I have none it's as if a child were to respond to hearing a cello and said I mommy I want to play cello they have no explanation mine was mommy or daddy or whomever I want to reduce evil I am as corny as that I have been my whole life that's what preoccupies me I just on the way here I read an article about a 10 year old girl in Pakistan who had sulfuric acid thrown in her face because of anger of a man toward her mother and I want acid thrown in his face I was actually thinking of raising funds to get the girl to America for surgery she's lost much of her face and to hire people to throw it in his face I mean I am really that's how passionate I am about evil disguise growing up in Brooklyn 60s and 70s wasn't it hearing people talk about the Holocaust the Holocaust was the trigger in the background was the trigger because I remember when it first hit me I was about eight nine years old watching 20th century with Walter Cronkite Hitler came on and I said through my parents who's that he said he was a very bad man he killed six million Jews and I I couldn't believe it mmm I could what you know they said it matter-of-factly I mean what are they going to say you know fall on the floor right but I somebody did that by the way being Jewish was a factor but not the primary primary factor some they killed 6 million of somebody I went to Cambodia 2 years ago just to visit the killing fields I feel a responsibility to visit everybody's genocide I mean I'm very serious about this issue anyway the the as I write in the book evil is normal America is abnormal that's my view we have created something here which is unique and remarkable gently exceptional deeply exceptional it's and it can't be race-based because there's no American race right so it's a non-issue it's idea based but Americans don't know that idea let alone non Americans and so that's the reason and I could you want the idea in at one sentence sure it's what I call the American Trinity it's on every coin and I didn't realize it for 20 years ago emptying my pockets one night Liberty and God We Trust eople Orbis unum the greatest threesome for making a good world ever created once again still the best hope you mention as you mentioned earlier you described in the book three ideologies will come to each of the three leftism Islam and American values the American Trinity quote these three ideologies are incompatible any one of them succeeds at the expense of the other to all Islamists know this and many leftist know this but most of those holding American values do not alright two propositions there any one succeeds only at the expense of the other two necessarily so why is that well let's take the left the left left ISM which is the most dynamic religion in the world in the last century leftism is the antithesis of Americanism in many ways instead of instead of Liberty it prefers material equality that is its great aim and it's prepared to sacrifice Liberty on the altar of equality that's why leftists are so we're so taken with Fidel Castro and still are after all they they may not have Liberty in Cuba but they have equality right number two in god we trust' if people have Liberty since and this is key since people are not basically good and the founding fathers all knew this as the entire judeo-christian tradition has known this only only the men of the Enlightenment and modern progressives believe people are basically good but the rest of us live on the real in the real world and know that we're not and so how do you have Liberty and goodness only if people fear God in the deepest sense of the word that they have reverence for a god that makes moral demands that is that is that is what In God We Trust is about and though and people who hold those beliefs don't understand that they are necessarily engaged in a competition that is royal competition well that's right they don't understand has they left no the left does left Americans don't or not I don't mean Americans there are American leftists who love America and I want to make that clear right this is not anti people it's anti ideas but no the left does know that that's why the world's Left can stand America the world's left knows that if America prospers leftism doesn't this is the most religious democracy in the world or certainly of the industrialized democracies it is the free enterprise capitalist democracy and it is a pluribus unum not not UN not it transnational but we affirm nationalism so we are the antithesis of leftism all right segment two on to leftism a question and a clip Dennis the quotation from still the best hope quote for the left politics is the way to transform the world close quote the clip President Obama's commencement address at Barnard earlier this spring but don't accept somebody else's construction of the way things ought to be it's up to you to right wrongs it's up to you to point out injustice it's up to you to hold the system accountable and sometimes upend it entirely it's up to you to stand up and to be heard to write in to lobby tomorrow to organize to vote that's his religion so that sounds very noble right right Lobby organized and the whole system I told my listeners on my radio show before he was elected I said you the reason I cannot vote for him was just articulated because because he said I want to fundamentally transform the United States of America I don't I want to improve the United States of America I don't wish to fundamentally transform it can you imagine if your wife said to you or said to somebody else you know I'd like to fundamentally transform Peter I know your wife wants to improve you that's what wives are for but but fundamentally transform that's very different but this is utopia on earth utopia now politics is their religion all right once again a quotation and a clip and again the quotation from still the best hope quote the left argues that almost all social programs can be solved by the state taxing its citizens as much as possible well that sounds pretty provocative but listen to this clip which is Massachusetts Democratic candidate for the United States Senate Harvard professor Elizabeth Warren nobody in this country who got rich on his own nobody you built a factory out there good for you but I want to be clear you moved your goods to market on the roads the rest of us paid for you hired workers the rest of us paid to educate you all were safe in your factory because of police forces and fire forces that the rest of us paid for Dennis behind every brilliant individual behind every entrepreneurial success you will find the collective you will find a large expenditure of tax money where would Dennis Prager and his radio program be without the Federal Communications Committee is that in case true I guess you think of it the roads that got me to my studio I mean it's endless being a thief the the rules that govern the restaurant I had breakfast in I'm I it's just I never thought of it that way however don't those rules and benefits apply to everybody so it doesn't explain why some do more than others people who watch television 6 hours a day also get their roads paid for also had all of these things but somehow they didn't contribute to society so it's a non sequitur her whole point but yes the big government big government is the ideal the state and we on the left will use the state to tell you how to live because we simply know better okay next question about the left the people we've just been criticizing are the President of the United States and a very influential Harvard professor who now has a good shot of being elected to the United States Senate leftism wins votes it has an abiding appeal in this country you talk in this book about progressivism beginning all the way back in the first decade and two decades of the last century why does it why is it the case that there is a permanent appeal on why does the Left appeal so permanently and so deeply right to Americans well there are many reasons for them it's a huge chapter why the left succeeds but in a nutshell sadly most people prefer security to Liberty they'd rather be taken care of and make a mess aphelion deal I will give you a lot of my dignity and a lot of my Liberty you give me security you make sure that I am taken care of and all I have to worry about is where I travel this year that's the European view and that is the view that the left would like to have that your only worry really is where will I travel this year what museum will I visit this from Karl Marx ideally people will be freed from labor and they will write poetry so what you're saying this is just occurring to me for the first moment so I may be good I may miss state it but what you're saying I think it's in it's in the legend of the Grand Inquisitor it's in Dostoyevsky isn't it freedom is a burden grand grand inquisitor in this scene between the Grand Inquisitor was right that freedom at freedom is a burden that people don't want freedom they strike yeah so you're not saying that American values are best because and they come natural they're hard it is hardly that when the Jews left Egypt within months they were saying let's go back at least we ate well right right segment three Islam still the best hope quote Islamism to be precise Islamism thank you still the best hope I'm quoting you now Dennis every religion every culture every ethnic group and every nation has engaged in violence yet among major world religions Islam has stood out close quote explain well it has its and this there are certain things in life that are matters of opinion right uh you know i think i think this candidate will do better you think that candidate will do better I prefer this car you prefer that car then there are facts either what I wrote is true or it isn't true so it's it's not a it's not a tough call Islam has been violent from its onset does that mean that it will always be no does that mean in fact I have a very deep belief and I write it in the book that Islam can be reformed that you don't have to give up this Lomb you don't have to give up belief in Muhammad and the Quran in order to be a great person and to be and to indeed adopt Americanist values zhudi Jasser a religious Muslim physician in Arizona is one of my models I use him as an example who accepts the American Trinity alongside with his deeply held Islam but he's an innovator within the religion his company historic well look I'll give you the proof right the greatest Arab Muslim writer in history according to all outsiders and probably all Arabs certainly was eben Khaldoun who wrote an introduction to history in in the but let's see about 900 years ago and and he wrote that jihad that is violent war to spread Islam is incumbent upon every Muslim and here's the kicker and I have the exact citation in the book we are greater than Jews and Christians because they don't believe you should kill in the name of God to spread their religion but we do once again still the best hope quote no part of the Muslim world is as steeped in Islam as is the Arab why then has the Arab world which has been Muslim longer than any other part of the Muslim world been the least free clothing clothes yeah I mean that's a question that needs to be answered it's because Liberty is not is not a Muslim value Sharia is and and I don't hold this against Muslims it's that's just the way it is the Sharia'a purpose is not is not Liberty and I have the an example in there which I am so happy to tell you and so happy and this is where my talk show has given me so much information that you can't have just as let's say a scholar people call you they argue they tell you stuff yes they do but listen and I learned from them this this one you will love I was talking about Somali taxi drivers in Minnesota and I am I I'm at Minnesota very often and I know how this is true that many of the taxi drivers at the airport are religious Muslims from Somalia that's where they went to Minnesota I get not for the weather I assure you but that's where they ended up they many of them have simply said we will not take passengers who have alcohol or who bring a dog into the into the taxi dog is considered impure by many Muslims and alcohol is banned in his love right a Christian mailman from Denver called my show and he said I just want to say Dennis I want to draw a contrast here that you might find of interest I am a I am an evangelical Christian mailman and I deliver pornography to people who subscribe to it through the mail I am at least as opposed as a Christian to pornography as Muslims are to alcohol or to dogs but because of liberty and my belief is an American Christian in Liberty I deliver the pornography Islamic scholar Bernhard Lewis here's a longish quotation but I want to know what you make of it quote Islam has brought comfort and peace of mind to countless millions of men and women it is given dignity and meaning to drab and impoverished lives it inspired a great civilization but Islam like other religions has also known periods when it inspired in some of its followers a mood of hatred and violence it is our misfortune that part though by no means all or even most of the Muslim world is now going through such a period close quote a great religion and civilization that is now evidencing and unfortunate but temporary and minority or aberrant strain so we're not in permanent competition with Islam as a religion or civilization it's just well you use the word yourself Islamism its temper and I defamation so you that that's your view as well yes that well remember though Islamism as I define it is the desire to have a Sharia based state and to spread the Sharia to as many places in the world as possible that was not aberrant and that's not temper that's the problem and I think that Bernard Lewis would agree all right a brief clip this is the late anwar el al Waki who was born in the United States which made him an American citizen lived here to the age of seven and then returned to the United States for college Anwar al-aulaqi slims in America I have this to say how can your conscience allow you to live in peaceful coexistence with a nation that is response for the tyranny and crimes committed against your own brothers and sisters how can you have your loyalty to a government that is leading the war against the slammin Muslims place him a crank he's in the America more a representative of something very dangerous to us that we ought to be expecting to fight for a long time to come he both he's a crank in the American Muslim context the vast majority of Muslims in America accept the American value system that's the good news it's the the problem is far more among the Islamists in Europe and groups like care in the United States care is the Council on american-islamic relations who for whatever reason the press ordained that spokespeople for American Muslims but the average American Muslim has little in common with this guy as I do got it segment for American values still the best hope the value system that is unique to America can be called the American Trinity you've already explained this on the coin Liberty yes and God We Trust the e pluribus unum all right Liberty quote the larger the state the less its citizens feel needed and therefore the less they especially men feel significant close quote now here's what I find fascinating about that sentence and the argument that you make obviously I'm reducing somebody once said that doing television about a book is reducing an ox to a bouillon cube but the Federalist the authors of the Federalist paper Alexander Hamilton John Jay argued in favor of Liberty the ordered constant ordered Liberty in the Constitution because they were seeking a way to let to permit people to live together the thirteen states to function as a nation you've got in our own time uh economist Milton Friedman and Gary Becker they argue for liberty because it leads to prosperity markets can function markets are the best way of solving material problems you argue for liberty somehow or other because you're interested in you're almost Oprah Winfrey denna you're interested in fulfillment you want people to seek to find meaning in their lives the larger the state the less its citizens feel needed and therefore especially men they don't feel significant is that what you're talking about the best way to personal fulfillment aren't you right yes I am the the the more of the state does the less I have to do it's just as simple as that if I don't take care of my parents don't take care of my kids don't take care of myself don't take care of my community what do I do and the answer is look look at look at what happens in Europe your your big concerns are where do I dine out how early can I retire so I can travel more it's never how can I do more good and and it on a macro level in Europe look at the way Europe is withdrawn from the world as the United States that has protected Liberty in the world since World War two not Europeans and you're saying that that is bad for people it's especially bad for men yes men men derive purpose from conquering the world if the state conquers the world what's for them to do and that's why you have bands of English youth going onto the continent and peeing and fountains that in Italy and elsewhere it's it's notorious by now you have board a board European youth and I worry boredom is a terrible indicator of bad bad futures the second item in the American Trinity in god we trust' still the best hope I'm quoting again the founders substituted God for a powerful secular or religious state and they tied Liberty to God they tied Liberty to God now explain that Dennis it's ingenious it's the system that's why I say it's the best in the world the notion that the state or the or even religion was primarily concerned with Liberty this was almost entirely an American invention and certainly became associated with the United States look even within Judaism and Christianity look they took a verse the founders from the Bible specifically the Old Testament specifically the Torah the first five books to be on the on the on the Liberty Bell right so I'm proclaim Liberty to all the land and the inhabitants thereof yeah Atticus is very good right very good that's because I did a radio show with you last week Dennis that's very humble and looked at out it's even better than good honest but it's this notion of time God God wants Liberty that's what the mailman was saying God wants Liberty even more than he wants me to not deliver the pornography to these people who ordered it this is a a unique invention in the world God cares that we're free but you're not saying that they invented a new religion you're saying that this is a right that this is a deep expression of something that's within Judaism and that's within Christianity but it needed it did something and this I did not write I don't I don't know if I wrote it and I can't say it didn't all right now now this is the interesting part and specifically very interesting part it really took the best of the two religions it took the Old Testament for its values and it took the the Christian universalization of those values because the Jews are a people yes right not just a religion and Christianity is a religion and not a people so it's it said we'll take these magnificent values we Christians will take the Magnificent values of the Hebrew Bible but we will universalize them and and so whereas the Jews had been preoccupied with Jewish law and Jewish observance in Jewish survival and were more inward directed for much of Jewish history the Christians now said no we are going to make a society based on these divinely based values and that mixture is awesome and this is why in particular you will you to law-breaking of any kind but you're not one of the conservatives who's bothered by immigration by a growing proportion of the population I'm I'm bothered by I'm bothered by the non assimilation right right I'm bothering those values are genuine you genuinely / if that's the you see it this bill Bennett said I what is it he had a great line he said I am not worried about what immigrants will do to America I'm worried about what America will do to the immigrants we after if we knew what we stood for and taught these people yeah you know what I have a message to all Hispanics in America all Latinos in America why would you want to replicate what you left that's what happens when you vote for the Democratic Party Denis you argue that religion is essential to the virtues the fundamental sense of morality required in a democracy will you tell me what to make of the following clip this is my late friend Christopher Hitchens on this very program seated in fact at that seat here's an exchange with Christopher if Christopher Hitchens believed in God reviewers have asked then where does he get his sense of right and wrong you have replied in print that this question is in itself insulting and you have rejected quote the appalling insinuation that I would not know right from wrong if I was not supernaturally guided close quote why do you find it insulting because I think it's degrading to to the human to us to you and me to imply we're not to apply to stay directly that absent a celestial dictatorship that had some supernatural influence over us yet to be established by the way as anything really existent but without the assumption of it we wouldn't know right from wrong we wouldn't return stolen property if we found it in the back of a car we wouldn't give blood if someone badly needed a transfusion unless we were afraid either of rewards either of punishment or desirous of a reward that we might help ourselves to underage children as some religious people have actually been known to do because after all what's stopping us now you could tell me if you wanted you would do all this they if you weren't god-fearing but I would choose not to believe you I have more respect for you if enough your opinions then that you don't need religion to be virtuous no you don't you don't you can't no of course he was right about all that no he was not right about all of that because he didn't deal with the larger question is there right and wrong if there is no God you there were people who believed the earth rested on the back of a giant turtle who did right and wrong who do new right and wrong I screw is that Jews and Christians believe in absolutely hold that there is a conscience that God built into the human being that unlike animals that's why we're in the image of God and not animals we know right and wrong and animals do not you don't blame a dog for biting somebody you don't blame them and and and in my view you don't I don't praise them for making a moral choice if they help some kid out of a pond that's that's what they do it's instinct we have moral choice obviously then if God it God held humanity wrong before the Ten Commandments so obviously there must have been some expectation of right and wrong however if there is no God murder isn't wrong whether it is right or wrong is solely a matter of personal opinion the Nazis thought it was right Praeger thinks it's wrong end of issue if there's no God as the source of right and wrong there is no right and wrong it is the same as pretty and ugly still the best hope the third item in the American Trinity a pluribus unum out of many one quote the cultural war in which America is engaged is in large measure about American exceptionalism conservative America generally believes in the concept liberal America does not close quote with particular reference to this notion of out of many one as opposed to diversity what explain explain this well the the there's a conflict this is why I say leftism in Americanism are aren't diametric conflict Liberty versus equality that is thoroughly quality in god we trust' versus a secular state and a plural bassoon versus multiculturalism we want we announced we Americans race ethnicity nationality blood don't matter now that's doesn't Elizabeth Warren is 1/32 yes I know that's the coin thing that's for clay and no no less an institution than harvest Harvard you know this is the irony the progressives have gone back to blood beliefs they've got the progressives are utterly reactionary American values transcended blood that doesn't mean Americans did many Americans believe blacks were inferior was despicable but the American value system holds that it is irrelevant if you could look up the great line from Saakashvili the President of the Republic of Georgia that I have in there says only in America said the other week I was that I was seeing some Americans working at a at an office and I saw people from Africa Asia you know all over and but they all looked American they all spoke American they all had American body language and he said only in America try that anywhere else it doesn't work segment five what is to be done your subtitle title still the best hope subtitle why the world needs American values to triumph why the world needs American values China 1.3 billion people how do you get them to adopt American values what difference would it make what would you apply your notions the world needs American values when I explain in the book how the American Trinity is adaptable to every country and not only do we not want others to abandon their religion or their national identity we want them to affirm it that's the beauty of the American value system that I want Chinese to feel Chinese I want Hondurans to feel Honduran that's the Europeans don't want friends to feel French demands all they want that's right right ok but because that's the left view that you have no identity no identity is the best I'm just a human being but no the American is eater of his own of the UNAM is as important as the e pluribus one you have one national identity nationalism is good if it comes with God and liberty okay so I have heard it said and it sounds to me strikes me is the best very brief summary of 3000 years of Chinese history that Mal eliminated Confucius and then Deng eliminated Mao and so you have 1.3 billion people who at this stage believe vaguely in some sense of national purpose more concretely in material improvement that's right and otherwise that's correct up iliyan free people right whose value system is well actually just as Russia the Lenin limit Lenin and Stalin eliminated orthodoxy right and then you could use the same parallel than Chris Jeff eliminated Stalin and then and then so how do where do they how do they proceed it's a big problem there is a real me allistic void in this world and it's going to be filled with leftism Islamism or Americanism and they're proselytizing and we don't even know what we stand for we can't you can't sell what you don't know you own all right let's ask how we're doing with Islam Bernard Lewis on the Arab Spring quote the Muslim Brotherhood is a very dangerous radical Islamic movement you have to hear that on this show because you won't read it in the New York Times if it obtains power the consequences could be disastrous close quote as we tape this program one of the two finalists in the Egyptian presidential election is the candidate of the Muslim Brotherhood how is the struggle against radical Islam going Dennis well I wrote a piece which among other places National Review where we both appear put up my syndicated weekly column it was a few weeks after the Arab Spring was announced and the New York Times and elsewhere and I said eight reasons why I am pesum think about the Egyptian revolution eight reasons they've all been valid as it happens now why was Tom Friedman the foreign that's reasonable number one if Friedman's for it be pessimist well well if it naive Tay that's the point Oh got it the left is naive because there were Twitter using youth who loved Liberty in Tahrir Square did love Liberty that is what's real is trying to embrace let me represent yeah and by the way embracing democracy is not loving Liberty democracy and liberty are sometimes connected you can vote in tyrants you could vote in Sharia then you don't vote in that's what they're doing when they vote for the Muslim Brotherhood they're voting in Sharia so you are still pessimistic about the Arab Spring yes what about Iraq am i pessimistic about Iran it's better it's better than it was was there Saddam Hussein okay oh let me explain something when you say I support and supported them to President Bush in the world watch it started got it got it I was ambivalent about going in okay American values here at home American values in America Dennis a few statistics let me compare America in the early 1980s when you launched your radio career with the country today in nineteen eighty three fewer than one-third of households received a monthly government check today that figure stands at half in nineteen eighty sixty percent of American households featured a married couple man and wife today only forty eight percent today by the way also the the proportion of taxpayers who receive more than from the federal government than they pay in in the form of taxes stands at seventy percent Dennis it's too late leftism has already won we have passed a tipping point and you will cheer me by saying no and here's why hmm.well Krauthammer said that the american DNA it's funny because i talk about the DNA of the left as being totalitarian which it is the desire to control as much of our lives possible like Oregon telling schools that they can have the word Braves in the title it's against the law now because it's by the way the Indian tribes in Oregon protested I mean that's the irony but in any event the American DNA he said is Liberty however DNA can is not the determinant of all of our behavior leftism is it is poisonous it it makes people who have good intentions do bad things and do corrosive things so what you want me to cheer you up yes ly okay I will cheer you up there are a lot of Americans today who understand the epic battle that we are in that part of America is no longer lethargic no longer takes America for granted in the 50s the assumption was we're terrific we're free we'll always be free now we're realizing that's not true every generation has to reaffirm these values that's why I wrote the book you this book is to call yes people who hold a mirror the American trend the American values to call them to consciousness to rouse them to wear them yeah to wake them and to tell them what it is they don't know I didn't know I didn't know till twenty years ago the this notion if you'd said Dennis what are American values I would as well and I would have given you a speech well he also should be an old patriotism and love of country and it probably would have said Liberty but I wouldn't have realized the Trinity and will how they connect with one another and I mean the American Trinity I just want to go back to one this I listed some depressing statistics but we touched on this it's still rolling around in my mind what was the great book you and I both grew up in New York I think it was on the required reading list for Regents when you went through junior high in high school in New York State to kill a mockingbird I think it still required reading in high schools across the country and what is the great hero of to kill a mockingbird Atticus Finch is struggling against identifying people on the basis of race and we know that one of the things that was so pernicious about racism in the South was the one-drop rule mm-hmm at some level does it just drive you to a kind of despair yeah ii think that harvard university publicized the notion that elizabeth warren was one 32nd chair harp that is a transmission of values from the scorned small-town old south to harvard university Europe in untranslated for it is simply a picking it up from here and dropping it down it isn't it just rot I mean madness it is that's what I say that that the multicultural ideal is to undermine EEP Laura bassoon um what what you what does Jesse Jackson and others say no we don't believe in the melting pot were a quilt no no we believed in the melting pot doesn't mean you gave up your identity I live in a part of the LA area which is very largely Armenian I've spoken at Armenian schools I think that's lovely I went to a Jewish school I think that's lovely but that doesn't mean I don't believe in a melting pot the Armenian American and me were American okay Dennis there is one place I want to try this one on you where American values are still respected still acted upon listen for a moment the longest quotation but it makes an important point and moreover I want to see how you respond to it this is art laughs Ernst even more writing recently in the Wall Street Journal and they're writing about the heartland the middle of the country people are leaving workers paradises such as Hartford Buffalo and Providence for Jacksonville San Antonio and Knoxville Republican governors in Florida Georgia Idaho North Dakota South Carolina Ohio Tennessee Wisconsin and even Michigan and New Jersey are cutting taxes to lure new businesses and jobs Georgia Kansas Missouri and Oklahoma are now racing to become America's tenth state without an income tax all of them want what this has almost half of all new net jobs in America over the last decade overwhelmingly they're talking about states in the middle of the country and although they're talking about economic growth these are also states where family formation is high where religious observance is high where in many cases they've passed a state amendment amendment to the state constitution making sure that marriage remains one man and one woman even California voted that way we've avoided that way and then head up of course as you know in detail had a judge under all right so though so here's the practical thing you have to do tennis you need to leave LA and move to Dallas and just try to hold the Heartland together until the rest of the country comes to its senses that's really the best hope what do you make of that I've thought about that have you real absolutely you're ahead of me again I have it no I'm not ahead of you but I have definitely thought very seriously about that were it not for familial and friendship ties I would leave California III say it with sadness because I I have I have loved it there there there are so many wonderful people there but but it has been ground into the ground to be redundant by the Democratic Party because it can do whatever it wants in every area of life financially socially textbooks so yes I agree you know I would love to do a swap let all the liberals go to New York and California won't go I mean give them a nice weather no that's Manhattan and that economy you you have a built-in great economy and they did the left-handed most dynamic economy in America California and ruined it it's because their ideas are bad their ideas are pernicious they don't work they don't work in Europe what does it take for a leftist to wake up one day and say it's not enough to mean well you have to do well alright last couple of questions still the best hope quote the United States of America has a cure for moral cancer close quote I want to know I'm not asking you to predict the future exactly but I want to know how optimistic you are I wish you didn't ask that I'm serious the reason that I wish you didn't ask you have kids I mean there's yes but even if I didn't have kids all American kids are my kids in a certain sense and I'm not being poetic but the reason I wish you didn't ask it is that I don't like to think in those terms I this is the terms that I think in all right if we reimburse the American value system we I am thoroughly optimistic if we don't I'm thoroughly pessimistic so it comes with a big if and that's why I waited 12 years since my last book which was the best seller on of all subjects happiness which by the way is in a very important subject for another time and there's a reason by the way that conservatives are happier than liberals and I have that in the book because a very important little little epilogue at the end of the leftist chapter why are people on the Left less happy but if you don't feel you command your own ship you can't be as happy that's the American value system says I rather I Dennis much rather fail and be free right then be taken care of and never be allowed to fail right but anyway on the optimistic pessimistic it's a big if if we reaffirm the values we will soar if not we're Greece last question I hereby assure you that you you may give one sentence but only one sentence of advice to Barack Obama and Mitt Romney and they will act on it if I gave you that assurance what sentence would you give to President Obama well you mean for him to win the presidency no no really no no till I would give the same advice the bigger the government the smaller the citizen that's my that's my motto - both of them - both of them you you we are reduced our liberty is reduced our dignity is reduced the bigger the government that I want to take care of my community I want to take care of my family okay and then I keep saying last Quest rouille is the last question I just gave asking you for advice to for the president and Governor Romney you have a boy who's 29 you have a boy who's 19 this program which appears on the web is especially popular among college kids and I am conscious that guys with hair our color can get a little pessimistic about the country and we get up and walk off and get about our life and the college kid wait a minute I have to find a career here and what so to somebody who's beginning his life what is your advice to that person that never ever ever ever think that change in and of itself is good maybe just maybe there was wisdom in the founders of this country and they offered us a recipe for a good life that still works Dennis Prager author of still the best hope radio show phenomenon and my friend I'm happy to say thank you for joining us it's really been another for uncommon knowledge I'm Peter Robinson [Music]

Channel: HooverInstitution

Views: 87,096

Rating: 4.7327118 out of 5

Keywords: UKHooverInstitution, values, culture, America's Founding, Growth of Government

Id: u9S-gwm-AQM

Length: 48min 14sec (2894 seconds)

Published: Tue Jun 19 2012