Just as physicists look for equations to explain the natural world, I have always thought it useful to look for equations to explain human nature. For example, in my book on happiness, I offer this equation: U = I &#8211; R. Unhappiness = Image &#8211; Reality. The difference between the images we have for our life and the reality of our life is one way of measuring how much unhappiness we experience.
Here, I offer another theorem, this time to help explain leftism.
A + S = B = L
Affluence + Secularism = Boredom = Leftism
The search for an equation to help explain leftism (as distinguished from traditional liberalism) emanates from these facts:
Most leftists come from the upper and upper-middle class. This was true for the two founders of leftism, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. Marx was supported by his family and by Engels, who was a wealthy businessman and the son of a very wealthy businessman. All the Western spies for the Soviet Union were economically secure. And the great funder of radical causes today is a billionaire — George Soros.
Nearly all leftists are irreligious people. And the breeding place of leftism, the university, is the most secular institution in modern society.
These two facts produce a problem: Many people lack meaning in their lives. And lack of meaning is another way of stating &#8220;boredom&#8221; — a boredom of the soul.
People need meaning. After food, that is the greatest human need. As important as sex is, there are happy people who go without sex (loss of a partner, never having found a partner, vows of chastity), but there are no happy people who go without meaning (no matter how much sex they have).
This need for meaning has traditionally been met by four things: religion, family, providing for oneself and one&#8217;s family, and patriotism. And all are fading.
Let&#8217;s begin with religion. In America today, religion is in sharp decline. According to Pew Research, more than a third of all Americans born after 1980 identify with no religion. That is the highest percentage ever. In a recent Gallup Poll, only 47% of American adults said they were members of a church, mosque, or synagogue. It was the first time since Gallup began asking Americans about religious membership in the 1930s that a majority of Americans said they were not members of a church, mosque, or synagogue.
Next comes family. Marrying and making a family have always been sources of meaning to the great majority of people. However, like religion, the American family is also in steep decline. For the first time in American history, according to Statista, as of 2020, nearly half of all men in America (46%) have never been married, and 41% of American women have never been married. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 85.4 million Americans 18 and over have never been married. There are presently 130 million unmarried American adults. Worse yet, as Dr. Bella DePaulo of the University of California at Santa Barbara wrote in Psychology Today, &#8220;Half of all solo single people don&#8217;t want a romantic relationship or even a date.&#8221;
As every criminologist knows, a lot of single men is a problem for society. And as the ubiquity of women on the Left and among the Left’s angriest protesters makes clear, a lot of single women is no blessing either.
Another nearly universal source of meaning has been providing for oneself and one&#8217;s family. That&#8217;s why, though the poor lack money and material wealth, they have never lacked meaning. Figuring out how to feed one&#8217;s family every day provides a person with a great deal of meaning.
Finally, belonging to one&#8217;s nation also provided meaning to most people in modern history. But love of country largely died in Western Europe after World War II, and it is dying in America today.
So, then, with the four primary sources of meaning dying — killed in large measure by leftist ideology — meaning must be found elsewhere. And that is where the Left steps in. Leftism has always been a secular religion. It kills traditional religion and presents itself as a secular alternative.
It certainly provides meaning. &#8220;Anti-racism&#8221; and saving the world from a threat to its very existence (global warming) are two prominent life-filling examples.
Therefore, the only way to prevent the Left from destroying America and its core value of freedom is to make the case for Judeo-Christian religions, the importance of marriage and family, and the unique achievement of America as the world&#8217;s first and greatest multiracial, multiethnic, multinational society.
Americans should have been making that case in every generation. Post-World War II, they forgot, or never really believed, that the land of the free is, as former President Ronald Reagan warned, always just one generation away from losing its freedom.
The views expressed in this piece are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.
Dennis Prager is a nationally syndicated radio talk-show host and columnist. His latest book, published by Regnery in May 2019, is &#8220;The Rational Bible,&#8221; a commentary on the book of Genesis. His film, &#8220;No Safe Spaces,&#8221; was released to home entertainment nationwide on September 15, 2020. He is the founder of Prager University and may be contacted at dennisprager.com.
The Daily Wire is one of America’s fastest-growing conservative media companies and counter-cultural outlets for news, opinion, and entertainment. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/subscribe">member</a>.

Dem Donkey

PRAGER: Affluence + Secularism = Boredom = Leftism

Leftism

Just as physicists look for equations to explain the natural world, I have always thought it useful to look for equations to explain human nature. For

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On March 23, Mohammad Anwar of Springfield, Virginia, a 66-year-old immigrant from Pakistan earning his living as an Uber Eats driver, was killed by two girls, ages 13 and 15. They carjacked Anwar, Tasered him and then, as he held on to the car (the source of his livelihood) in an attempt to stop them from stealing it, floored the gas pedal and crashed the car, killing him when he was thrown from the vehicle.
As reported the next day in The Washington Post:
&#8220;Anwar tried to force his way back into the car by climbing on top of the teen in the driver&#8217;s seat, (Detective Chad Leo of the Washington, D.C., police homicide unit) said. Before he could get all the way in, though, the 13-year-old reached over from the passenger seat, turned on the ignition and &#8216;manipulated&#8217; the gear shift, Leo said. With Anwar &#8216;hanging outside the car&#8217; through the open driver&#8217;s door, Leo said, the vehicle lurched forward and accelerated down the block, made a sharp right turn, struck a curb and overturned, landing passenger side up. Anwar was ejected and suffered broken bones and injury to his head.&#8221;
After the unharmed girls climbed out and joined the onlookers milling around the car, one of them could be heard yelling, &#8220;My phone is in there!&#8221; (The Washington Post, March 31) and, &#8220;He has my phone!&#8221; (CBS News, March 30).
I found no mainstream media that identified the girls as black.
In The Washington Post report cited above, there was no mention of the girls&#8217; race, just, &#8220;Two girls ages 13 and 15 have been charged with felony murder.&#8221;
CNN&#8217;s report on March 27 made no mention of race: &#8220;Two teenage girls have been charged in the carjacking death of an Uber Eats driver &#8230; The girls, 13 and 15, assaulted Anwar with a Taser while carjacking him &#8230; The younger girl is from the southeast section of DC, the older from Fort Washington, Maryland, police said.&#8221;
In a March 31 Washington Post editorial on the subject, there was no mention of the girls&#8217; race.
The New York Times never even reported the incident.
Why is this significant? Because white perpetrators of violence are always identified as such. When a white man engages in a mass killing, the first thing we learn, and are told over and over, is that he is white. If a white policeman kills a black man, no matter how justified (as in Ferguson, Missouri) or morally ambiguous (as in most other cases), we are reminded in every news story that the officer was white. In the very first New York Times report on the Atlanta massage parlor killings, the Times reported, &#8220;The suspect in custody is white.&#8221;
The mainstream media have a mission that has nothing to do with reporting truth. Along with the Democratic Party and the rest of the Left, their mission is to portray America — that is, its white population — as racist. Reporting that nonwhites have perpetrated violence — particularly against nonwhites — undermines that narrative, and these inconvenient facts are therefore consciously omitted. Or worse: The implication placed in people&#8217;s minds is that whites are the perpetrators.
This was my point in a previous column when I wrote: &#8220;Another New York Times article (about anti-Asian-American violence), under the headline &#8216;A Tense Lunar New Year for the Bay Area After Attacks on Asian-Americans,&#8217; opens with this: &#8216;The videos are graphic and shocking. In January, a local television station showed footage of a young man sprinting toward, then violently shoving to the ground, a man identified as Vicha Ratanapakdee, 84, who had been out for a morning walk in the Anza Vista neighborhood of San Francisco. He later died.&#8217; The Times piece never reveals the name or race of the perpetrator: Antoine Watson, a 19-year-old black man.&#8221;
Why? Because the Times wanted its readers to believe that Ratanapakdee, the elderly Asian American, was murdered by a white.
Truth, it is necessary to say again and again, is a liberal value and a conservative value, but it has never been a left-wing value.
Here is another example from just the past two weeks:
Last week, anti-black and anti-Semitic graffiti were discovered at Albion College, a school about 100 miles to the west of Detroit. As is usually the case with such incidents, police soon discovered that the culprit was not a white racist but a black person seeking to inflame anti-white hatred. Yet, here was how the Detroit Free Press headlined the discovery: &#8220;Albion Student Suspended Over Racist Graffiti.&#8221;
Nowhere in the article did the Detroit Free Press note that the suspended student was black.
America is drowning in left-wing lies. And it is being asphyxiated by the Left’s substitution of &#8220;social justice&#8221; for justice. The two girls, who committed a very adult crime, will not be charged as adults, will likely not be imprisoned and very possibly will not even be punished. And the Albion student — whose name has not been released — most likely won&#8217;t be punished either.
The views expressed in this opinion piece are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.
Dennis Prager is a nationally syndicated radio talk-show host and columnist. His latest book, published by Regnery in May 2019, is &#8220;The Rational Bible,&#8221; a commentary on the book of Genesis. His film, &#8220;No Safe Spaces,&#8221; was released to home entertainment nationwide on September 15, 2020. He is the founder of Prager University and may be contacted at dennisprager.com.
The Daily Wire is one of America’s fastest-growing conservative media companies and counter-cultural outlets for news, opinion, and entertainment. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/subscribe">member</a>.

Uber Eats

PRAGER: Why The Left Ignores The Killing Of A Pakistani Immigrant Uber Driver

Crime

On March 23, Mohammad Anwar of Springfield, Virginia, a 66-year-old immigrant from Pakistan earning his living as an Uber Eats driver, was killed by two

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Conservatives often speak of Judeo-Christian values and how the current civil war in the United States and the rest of the West is essentially a battle between those values and the Left, which rejects Judeo-Christian values.
They are right.
But they rarely explain what Judeo-Christian values are. Yet, without an explanation, mentioning Judeo-Christian values is useless.
So, let me do that now.
First, a word about the term. Some Jews and Christians find the term confusing, if not objectionable, since Judaism and Christianity have different theologies. But no one speaks of Judeo-Christian theology, only of Judeo-Christian values.
Judeo-Christian values are essentially another term for biblical values. Judaism and Christianity are both based on the Old Testament — its God, its Ten Commandments, its admonition to love one&#8217;s neighbor as oneself, to love God, to lead a holy life, etc. Christians also believe in the New Testament, but only an opponent of Christianity would argue that the New Testament negates the values of the Old.
Here they are:
1. Objective moral standards come from God. As I have written and spoken about in a <a href="https://www.prageru.com/video/if-there-is-no-god-murder-isnt-wrong/">PragerU video</a> and elsewhere, if there is no God who declares murder wrong, murder can be subjectively wrong, but not objectively wrong. So, while there can certainly be nonbelievers who hold murder, stealing, and other actions wrong, without God, those are opinions, not moral facts. Without the God of the Bible, there are no moral facts.
2. God judges our behavior, and we are therefore accountable to God for our behavior. Outside of a religious worldview, there is no higher being to whom we are morally accountable.
3. Just as morality derives from God, so do rights. All men &#8220;are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights,&#8221; declares the Declaration of Independence.
4. The human being is uniquely precious. While the Bible repeatedly forbids cruel behavior to animals (cutting or tearing off the limb of a living animal to eat it as a means of preserving the rest of the animal, not allowing an animal a day of rest, not allowing an animal to eat while working in the field), only human beings are created in God&#8217;s image.
5. The world is based on a divine order, meaning divinely ordained distinctions. Among these divine distinctions are: God and man, man and woman, human and animal, good and evil, and nature and God.
6. Human beings are not basically good. Therefore, the most important moral endeavor is making good people. Religious Jews and Christians understand that the greatest battle in life is with one&#8217;s nature. For the opponents of Judeo-Christian values, the greatest moral battle is not with one&#8217;s nature; it is with society (specifically, American society).
7. Precisely because we are not basically good, we must not trust our hearts to lead us to proper behavior. The road to hell is paved with good hearts. Feelings make us human, but they cannot direct our lives. This alone divides the Bible-based from those on the Left.
8. All human beings are created in God&#8217;s image. Therefore, race is of no significance. We all emanate from Adam and Eve, whose race is never mentioned. That many religious people held racist views only testifies to the almost infinite ability of people to distort what is good.
9. Fear God, not man. Fear of God is a foundation of morality. In the Book of Exodus, Egyptian midwives were ordered by the Pharaoh to kill all newborn Hebrew boys. They disobeyed the divine king of Egypt. Why? Because &#8220;the midwives feared God.&#8221; In America today, more people fear the print, electronic, and social media than fear God.
10. Human beings have free will. In the secular world, there is no free will because all human behavior is attributed to genes and environment. Only a religious worldview, which posits the existence of a divine soul — something independent of genes and environment — allows for free will.
11. Liberty. America was founded on the belief that God wants us to be free. On the Liberty Bell is inscribed just one thing (aside from the name of the company that manufactured the bell). It is a verse from the Bible: &#8220;Proclaim Liberty Throughout All the Land Unto All the Inhabitants thereof.&#8221; The current assaults on personal liberty — unprecedented in American history — emanate from those who reject the Bible as their moral guide (including more than a few Jews and Christians who have joined the assault, having been indoctrinated with anti-religious views in high school and college).
When Judeo-Christian principles are abandoned, evil eventually ensues. One doesn&#8217;t have to be a believer to acknowledge this. Many secular conservatives recognize that the end of religion in the West leads to moral chaos — which is exactly what we are witnessing today and exactly what we witnessed in Europe last century. When Christianity died in Europe, we got communism, fascism, and Nazism. What will we get in America if Christianity and Judeo-Christian values die?
The views expressed in this piece are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.
Dennis Prager is a nationally syndicated radio talk-show host and columnist. His latest book, published by Regnery in May 2019, is &#8220;The Rational Bible,&#8221; a commentary on the book of Genesis. His film, &#8220;No Safe Spaces,&#8221; was released to home entertainment nationwide on September 15, 2020. He is the founder of Prager University and may be contacted at dennisprager.com.
The Daily Wire is one of America’s fastest-growing conservative media companies and counter-cultural outlets for news, opinion, and entertainment. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/subscribe">member</a>.

Bible

PRAGER: The American Civil War Is Over Judeo-Christian Values

Judeo-Christian Values

Readers Pass

Religion

Secularism

Conservatives often speak of Judeo-Christian values and how the current civil war in the United States and the rest of the West is essentially a battle

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If you rely on The New York Times, the Democratic Party or CNN — they are interchangeable — for your perception of reality, you now believe America is reeling from the latest expression of white supremacy: Anti-Asian racism.
It is a lie, the purpose of which is to:
a) Further demonize America.
b) Further demonize white Americans.
c) Further divide Americans by race and ethnicity.
d) Reinforce — or create — the belief among Asian Americans that they are widely hated (and must therefore rely on the government and especially the Democratic Party).
e) Engender ethnic identity among Asian Americans, most of whom have heretofore essentially considered themselves Americans who happen to be of Asian descent.
Is there anti-Asian racism in America? Of course. Ethnic bigotry is a tragic part of the human condition. There is no country in which members of different races live that is bereft of ethnic or racial bigotry.
Therefore, the only question decent, wise or honest people ask is: How much?
And the answer in America is: very, very little.
But the Left lacks decency, wisdom and honesty. Therefore, it offers continuous reporting about anti-Asian racism, most of which so wildly exaggerates the issue as to constitute a lie.
Let&#8217;s begin with last week&#8217;s attack in Atlanta, in which a 21-year-old white man murdered eight people in Asian massage parlors, six of them Asian Americans.
Thus far, there is not a shred of evidence that the Asian Americans were killed because they were Asian. The reason the shooter killed them, according to those who knew him before the shootings and investigators who have spoken to him since the shootings, was that he had a sex addiction, for which he had already been in rehab, and had frequented some or all of the massage establishments he targeted, which he blamed for contributing to his addiction. As of today, there is also no evidence of the killer ever having expressed any anti-Asian sentiments on social media or in private conversation.
Nevertheless, the lying media — a term that has become redundant — have portrayed the shootings from the moment they reported them as anti-Asian racism.
Typical is this report in the Los Angeles Times: &#8220;Asian Americans and their supporters gathered Saturday across California and the nation in response to this week&#8217;s shooting rampage in the Atlanta area, which claimed eight lives, including six women of Asian descent.&#8221;
The Atlanta lie is part of the greater lie that there is a national epidemic of white supremacist anti-Asian racism. On March 18, for example, The Washington Post reported: &#8220;Anti-Asian hate crimes have spiked 150 percent since the pandemic began, according to a recent study.&#8221;
The study cited by The Washington Post, The New York Times, CNN and the other left-wing media is from the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University, San Bernardino. The 150% increase in anti-Asian American hate crimes is contained in its &#8220;Fact Sheet: Anti-Asian Prejudice March 2020,&#8221; according to which the number of anti-Asian American incidents rose from 49 in 2019 to 122 in 2020. So, the entire edifice of hate against Asian Americans is predicated on an alleged increase of 73 incidents.
Given that there are about 330 million Americans, and assuming a different American was responsible for each of the 122 anti-Asian incidents, that would mean that 1 in every 2,704,918 Americans committed an anti-Asian incident. And &#8220;incident&#8221; includes perceived slights.
As regards violent acts against Asian Americans, according to the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics from September 2019, blacks have committed the greatest percentage of violent crimes against Asian Americans. But the mendacious media do not report that.
The New York Times, the leader in mass hysterias fomented by the Left — hysteria is the oxygen of the Left — printed this headline last week: &#8220;Attacks on Asian-Americans in New York Stoke Fear, Anxiety and Anger.&#8221; And the subhead reads: &#8220;Hate crimes involving Asian-American victims soared in New York City last year.&#8221;
Focus on the word &#8220;soared&#8221; and you will appreciate the Times&#8217; commitment to truth.
If one reads past the headline — which most people do not — the article gives the actual numbers: &#8220;The number of hate crimes with Asian-American victims reported to the New York Police Department jumped to 28 in 2020, from just three the previous year.&#8221;
You read that right: The number of incidents &#8220;soared&#8221; and &#8220;jumped&#8221; to 28. In a city of 8.4 million people, including, as of 2010, over 1 million Asian Americans. So, about 1 in every 300,000 New Yorkers committed a hate crime against an Asian American, and about 1 in every 36,000 Asian Americans living in New York was a victim of a hate crime. To put this number into perspective, the odds of your dying in a motor-vehicle accident are about 1 in 9,000.
Another New York Times article, under the headline, &#8220;A Tense Lunar New Year for the Bay Area After Attacks on Asian-Americans,&#8221; opens with this:
&#8220;The videos are graphic and shocking. In January, a local television station showed footage of a young man sprinting toward, then violently shoving to the ground, a man identified as Vicha Ratanapakdee, 84, who had been out for a morning walk in the Anza Vista neighborhood of San Francisco. He later died.&#8221;
The Times piece never reveals the name or race of the perpetrator: Antoine Watson, a 19-year-old black man.
But, in what could be called &#8220;compound lying,&#8221; the Times did blame &#8220;former President Donald J. Trump, who frequently used racist language to refer to the coronavirus.&#8221;
Of course, the Times did not provide an example of Trump&#8217;s racist language with regard to the coronavirus. One must assume that blaming the Chinese government for the virus or referring to the virus as the &#8220;China virus&#8221; or &#8220;Wuhan virus&#8221; is regarded as racist, even though virtually every prior epidemic was named after its city or region of origin: the &#8220;Spanish Flu,&#8221; &#8220;Hong Kong Flu,&#8221; &#8220;Ebola Virus,&#8221; etc.
Meanwhile, the blanketing of the country with the Atlanta lie and the anti-Asian violence continues. The cover of this week&#8217;s Time features a drawing of a young Asian woman under the headline: &#8220;We Are Not Silent: Confronting America&#8217;s Legacy of Anti-Asian Violence.&#8221;
It&#8217;s all a lie in service to the Left’s hatred of America.
The views expressed in this piece are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.
Dennis Prager is a nationally syndicated radio talk-show host and columnist. His latest book, published by Regnery in May 2019, is &#8220;The Rational Bible,&#8221; a commentary on the book of Genesis. His film, &#8220;No Safe Spaces,&#8221; was released to home entertainment nationwide on September 15, 2020. He is the founder of Prager University and may be contacted at dennisprager.com.
The Daily Wire is one of America’s fastest-growing conservative media companies and counter-cultural outlets for news, opinion, and entertainment. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/subscribe">member</a>.

Fake News

PRAGER: The Latest Left-Wing Anti-American Lie: ‘Anti-Asian Racism’

Asian American

Hate Crime

If you rely on The New York Times, the Democratic Party or CNN — they are interchangeable — for your perception of reality, you now believe America is

PRAGER: The Latest Left-Wing Anti-American Lie: &#039;Anti-Asian Racism&#039;

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If one were to draw up a list of human needs, food and shelter would be at the top.
With great respect to Freudians, sex would not be No. 2.
The need for meaning would be second only to the need for food.
That meaning is more important to happiness than sex is easily shown. A great many people go long periods without sex, and while many of them miss it, if they have meaning in their lives, they can lead quite happy and fulfilling lives. On the other hand, few people who have regular sex but lack meaning are happy or fulfilled.
Third on the list of human needs is the need to feel important. This need is much less often cited than the need for food, sex and meaning. But it is so important that a case could be made that it is tied for No. 2 with the need for meaning.
The infamous &#8220;midlife crisis&#8221; is a crisis of importance: &#8220;I thought I would be much more important at this stage in life than I am.&#8221; That mostly afflicts men — just as feeling less important after one&#8217;s children have left home afflicts mothers more than fathers.
Among the many psycho-social crises afflicting Americans is a crisis of importance. Fewer Americans feel important than did Americans in the past.
Why? What has happened?
What has happened is a steep decline in the number of institutions that gave people a feeling of importance.
Given that work is generally regarded as one of the most ubiquitous providers of purpose, and that, prior to the COVID-19 lockdown, more Americans were working than ever before, one would think that more Americans than ever before felt important.
It has not turned out that way. For many, work has not provided the sense of importance people expected it to, let alone fulfilled the other great need: for meaning. This is especially true for women, but first, we will address men.
Work used to provide many men with a sense of importance. It is simply a fact that being the breadwinner for a family means one is important. However, since the 1970s and the rise of feminism, women have not only become breadwinners, but they have increasingly become the primary breadwinner within a marriage and for a family. That has helped couples financially, but it has also deprived a great many men of their sense of importance. When regarded by a wife and children as important, husbands/fathers felt important. Progressive America mocks the 1950s TV series &#8220;Father Knows Best.&#8221; But when wives and children believed that, men felt important because they were. The price for this, according to feminism, was paid by women, who didn&#8217;t receive the accolades of breadwinning. And they set about changing it.
However, contrary to the expectations of the well-educated, women becoming breadwinners has not provided most women with a sense of importance, and certainly not meaning in life. Contrary to what feminism, colleges, high schools, progressive parents and the mass media have claimed for decades, men and women do not have the same natures. Just as sex with many partners does not provide most women with the same satisfaction it provides men, most work does not provide women with the same sense of importance or meaning it provides men. For many women, being the breadwinner is financially beneficial but not especially satisfying. Most women would still like their man to be the primary breadwinner. That&#8217;s why very wealthy women so often marry even wealthier men. It is built into female nature.
Moreover, throughout history, work was rarely seen as a primary provider of importance or meaning — for either sex. Work was little more than a necessity, and the vast majority of people would have happily abandoned their often back-breaking, drudgery-inducing work if they could afford to.
For the most part, people sought — and found — importance and meaning outside of work. This was especially true in America, where &#8220;associations&#8221; provided both importance and meaning.
Nongovernmental associations, as Alexis de Tocqueville noted in his brilliant analysis of American life in the early 19th century, was the key to Americans&#8217; success and happiness. These included, first and foremost, religious associations and religion in general. Most religious people feel important — to God, to their community, to their family. My father was the president of our synagogue, and my mother was active in the synagogue&#8217;s &#8220;sisterhood.&#8221; Though both worked full time, those roles provided them with immense meaning and sense of importance.
Add to that: Rotary, Kiwanis and Lions clubs; book clubs; the Masons; bowling leagues; coaching Little League; volunteer charitable work; teaching Bible in Sunday school. These provided people with a sense of importance.
The key to all these associations was their being independent of government. As government has grown, nearly all these associations have shrunk. Therefore, we have a rule: The more government intrudes in people&#8217;s lives, the less important most people feel — unless they work for the government.
Yet, to progressives, government is, or should be, almost everything in people&#8217;s lives. It should take care of as many people as possible. However, at a massive price: The more one relies on the government, the more one will inevitably lack a sense of importance.
This ideal was announced at the 2012 Democratic Party Convention, when the narrator of a specially-created Barack Obama campaign-theme video asserted, &#8220;Government is the only thing that we all belong to.&#8221; The DNC also showed a fictional storybook ad titled &#8220;The Life of Julia.&#8221; It portrayed a woman from childhood to old age, wholly dependent on the government. Despite her having a child, there was not a man anywhere in the story, nor, apparently, was there a man in her life. The result? More and more American women have come to rely on the government, not on a husband. The results have been calamitous.
President Joe Biden repeated this theme last week: &#8220;Put trust and faith in our government,&#8221; he pleaded with Americans. One could accurately say that we are replacing America&#8217;s motto, &#8220;In God We Trust,&#8221; with, &#8220;In Government We Trust.&#8221;
The bigger the government, the fewer the institutions in which people can feel important. Therefore, given the deep human need to feel important, people will look elsewhere for their importance — like fighting systemic racism, heteronormativity, capitalism, patriarchy and transphobia. And, most of all, global warming — because you cannot feel more important than when you believe you are saving the world.
The views expressed in this opinion piece are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.
Dennis Prager is a nationally syndicated radio talk-show host and columnist. His latest book, published by Regnery in May 2019, is &#8220;The Rational Bible,&#8221; a commentary on the book of Genesis. His film, &#8220;No Safe Spaces,&#8221; was released to home entertainment nationwide on September 15, 2020. He is the founder of Prager University and may be contacted at dennisprager.com.
The Daily Wire is one of America’s fastest-growing conservative media companies and counter-cultural outlets for news, opinion, and entertainment. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/subscribe">member</a>.

Capitol building

PRAGER: The Human Need To Feel Important – And How Government Squelches It

If one were to draw up a list of human needs, food and shelter would be at the top. With great respect to Freudians, sex would not be No. 2. The need for

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I have been telling parents for decades that sending a child to almost any college is playing Russian roulette with his or her values.
But it is a different version of Russian roulette. In the traditional version, only one of the gun&#8217;s six chambers contains a bullet. In the college version of Russian roulette, 5 of the 6 chambers contain a bullet. If your child attends almost any university in America (or Canada or anywhere else in the English-speaking world), the odds are that your child&#8217;s decency, intellectual acuity, faculty of reason, character and moral compass will be damaged, perhaps permanently.
The worse news is that sending your child to almost any elementary school or high school — public or private — is fast becoming equally toxic. More and more schools are being taken over by left-wing ideologues and by nonideologues who lack the courage to confront the ideologues.
Once infected with leftism, these schools teach children to hate reason, tradition, America, Christianity, whites, excellence, freedom and masculinity. To cite one example, thanks to a million-dollar grant from Bill Gates through his Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Oregon Education Department has announced that teaching there is &#8220;one right answer&#8221; in math — yes, in math — is an expression of white supremacy. Why, then, would an Oregon parent who cares about his or her child&#8217;s mind, send that child to an Oregon school?
In addition to perverting education, teachers and their unions have exhibited a contempt for children that has taken even conservatives by surprise. Teachers&#8217; unwillingness to show up in class for more than a year is as unscientific as it is unprecedented. On Feb. 3, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky told reporters during a White House news briefing that teachers do not need to get vaccinated against COVID-19 before schools can safely reopen: &#8220;There is increasing data to suggest that schools can safely reopen and that safe reopening does not suggest that teachers need to be vaccinated. Vaccinations of teachers is not a prerequisite for safely reopening schools.&#8221;
Nevertheless, in the country&#8217;s major cities, these cowards and hypochondriacs — people who claim to care more than anything else about their students — have refused to return to school (while demanding to be paid). They have refused to teach, despite the facts that child-to-teacher transmission of the COVID-19 virus is extremely rare and a teacher being hospitalized, let alone dying, as a result of interaction with students is rarer than a teacher dying in a traffic accident on the way to school. Why, then, would you send your child to be &#8220;taught&#8221; by people for whom you have — or should have — so little respect?
Why would you send your young child to a school that sponsors a &#8220;Drag Queen Story Hour&#8221; or that dwells on &#8220;nonbinary&#8221; gender identity? Do you think such things do not damage your child&#8217;s innocence? Do you want your child to be challenged about his or her sexual identity?
Why would you send your child to any school that teaches The New York Times&#8217; &#8220;1619 Project&#8221;? This project holds that America was not founded in 1776 but in 1619, with the arrival of the first black slaves in North America, and that the Revolutionary War was fought not to gain independence from Britain but to preserve slavery. Virtually every leading historian specializing in American history — most of whom are liberals and Democrats, and some of whom were anti-Trump activists — have labeled &#8220;The 1619 Project&#8221; a lie.
Whenever I meet adults who hold traditional American values, I ask them three questions:
The first is, &#8220;Do you have children?&#8221;
If they do, my second question is, &#8220;How many of them share your values?&#8221; It is not common to meet people all of whose children share their parents&#8217; traditional values.
If they respond that any of their children do not share their values, my third question is, &#8220;What happened?&#8221;
In every instance, these parents attribute the alienation of their child(ren) from their (the parents&#8217;) values to the college and, increasingly, the high school their child attended.
Moreover, not only are these children alienated from their parents&#8217; values, but they are often also alienated from the parent(s). One thing you learn when you become left-wing is to have contempt for those who hold other beliefs.
Had these parents known how their children would turn out, they would never have sent them to college — or even to the high school they attended. It appears, however, that no matter how many people lose their children&#8217;s hearts and minds to left-wing indoctrination, and no matter how much information accumulates about the perversion of education in American schools, parents continue to take risks with their children they would never take in any other sphere.
I am well aware of the enormous obstacles. If your child wishes to study STEM (science, technology, engineering, math) or law, college remains a necessity. Otherwise, it isn&#8217;t.
As for elementary and high school, parents must either find a school that teaches reading, writing and arithmetic rather than America-hatred, or they should home-school their child. This, understandably, sounds terribly daunting. However, it is becoming considerably easier to do so as home-school groups and quality home-school curricula proliferate around the country.
Whatever your decision, never say you weren&#8217;t warned.
The views expressed in this piece are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.
Dennis Prager is a nationally syndicated radio talk-show host and columnist. His latest book, published by Regnery in May 2019, is &#8220;The Rational Bible,&#8221; a commentary on the book of Genesis. His film, &#8220;No Safe Spaces,&#8221; was released to home entertainment nationwide on September 15, 2020. He is the founder of Prager University and may be contacted at dennisprager.com.

Lockers

PRAGER: Most American Schools Are Damaging Your Child

Education

I have been telling parents for decades that sending a child to almost any college is playing Russian roulette with his or her values. But it is a

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The great tragedy of our time is that liberals vote Left.
Virtually every value liberals have held for a century is now held by conservatives and scorned by leftists. Therefore, America, in serious jeopardy of being lost, will be saved when people convince the liberals in their life that the Left, not the conservative, is their enemy.
This process begins by establishing whether a friend or relative is a liberal or a leftist. If it turns out that he or she is a liberal, it is worth engaging in respectful dialogue on the issues of the day. If the friend or relative is a leftist, you can probably only talk about innocuous subjects such as the weather (though not about global warming) or sports (though not about players taking a knee during the national anthem). If you talk about the great issues of the day with a left-wing friend or relative, that could be the last time you talk to each other. He or she is likely to unfriend you not only on social media but also in life. Leftists generally do not dialogue; they dismiss.
Here are questions you might want to pose to friends/relatives to determine — as much for them as for you — whether they are liberal or Left.
Race
1. Many universities now have all-black dormitories, and some have all-black graduation exercises. Do you support these developments?
2. The University of California has declared this statement racist: &#8220;There is only one race — the human race.&#8221; Do you agree with the University of California, or do you agree with the statement?
3. Is the goal of being &#8220;colorblind&#8221; — doing one&#8217;s best to ignore a person&#8217;s color and concentrating only on the person&#8217;s character and personality — a noble goal or a racist one?
4. Do you believe the color of a person&#8217;s skin tells you anything of importance about that person?
5. Do you agree that all white Americans are racist?
6. If your answer is yes, would you tell the millions of blacks in Africa and the Caribbean who wish to emigrate to America that they would be making a poor decision? If not, why not?
7. Is it possible for a black person to be a racist?
8. Is it racist to claim that Johann Sebastian Bach, Ludwig van Beethoven, and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart composed the greatest music ever composed?
9. Is the national anthem racist?
10. If your answer is yes, what would you like to put in its place?
11. The English department at the University of Pennsylvania removed its painting of William Shakespeare because he was a white, European male. Do you agree with that decision?
America
12. Do you agree with The New York Times&#8217; &#8220;1619 Project&#8221; that America was not founded in 1776 but in 1619 with the first arrival of black slaves in North America, and that the Revolutionary War was fought in order to preserve slavery?
13. Should statues of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln be taken down?
14. Has the United States, overall, made the world a better place?
15. Would America be better, worse, or the same as now if all Americans dropped their religion and became secular?
16. Has capitalism been a net-plus for America and the world?
17. Everyone would like to improve America. Some would like to, in their words, &#8220;fundamentally transform&#8221; it. Would you?
18. Could a good person have voted for Donald Trump in 2020?
19. Do you believe that CNN, The Washington Post, The New York Times, and the rest of the mainstream media are biased toward the Left or try to present the news as accurately as possible?
20. Should America have full control over its borders to prevent illegal immigration?
21. There are between 11 and 30 million people in America who entered the country illegally. Should they all be put on a path to citizenship?
22. Should those who enter America illegally be called &#8220;undocumented immigrants&#8221; or &#8220;illegal immigrants&#8221;?
23. Do you believe police departments should be defunded, or at least have their budgets severely cut?
24. Should the government provide vouchers to enable parents to choose what school their child attends?
25. Which school do you believe is more likely to be attacked by a gunman: one that has a sign in front that reads, &#8220;Gun-Free Zone&#8221; or one that reads, &#8220;This School Has Armed Personnel&#8221;?
Men and Women
26. Should it be legal for a teenage girl to have her breasts surgically removed because she identifies as a male — or should there be a minimum age of 18 or 21?
27. Schoolteachers have been told to stop calling students &#8220;boys and girls&#8221; because a student might not identify as either male or female. Do you agree with this policy?
28. Should biological males who identify as females be allowed to compete against biological females in sports?
29. Is the statement, &#8220;Men give birth&#8221; science-based?
30. Do you agree with the practice of inviting a drag queen into public libraries and elementary school classrooms to conduct a &#8220;Drag Queen Story Hour&#8221;?
Speech
31. Do you believe that free speech allows for hate speech, or should hate speech be banned?
32. If you believe hate speech should be banned, who do you believe should determine what is hate speech?
You might want to send these questions to the people in your life whose views are to the left of your own. At best, you (and they) will realize that you have more in common than either of you previously thought. At the very least, their answers will bring you both clarity. And at worst, they will explain why there is a rift between you — and why you might want to restrict communication to weather, sports, recipes, and warm memories.
The views expressed in this piece are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.
Dennis Prager is a nationally syndicated radio talk-show host and columnist. His latest book, published by Regnery in May 2019, is &#8220;The Rational Bible,&#8221; a commentary on the book of Genesis. His film, &#8220;No Safe Spaces,&#8221; was released to home entertainment nationwide on September 15, 2020. He is the founder of Prager University and may be contacted at dennisprager.com.

American flag

PRAGER: These Questions Determine Whether A Friend Or Relative Is A Liberal Or A Leftist

Liberalism

The great tragedy of our time is that liberals vote Left. Virtually every value liberals have held for a century is now held by conservatives and scorned

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One of the most highly regarded books of the 20th century was Ernest Becker&#8217;s &#8220;The Denial of Death.&#8221; Winner of the 1974 Pulitzer Prize, the book is regarded as a classic for its analysis of how human beings deny their mortality.
But there is something people deny more than mortality: evil. Someone should write a book on the denial of evil; that would be much more important because while we cannot prevent death, we can prevent evil.
The most glaring example of the denial of evil is communism, an ideology that, within a period of only 60 years, created modern totalitarianism and deprived of human rights, tortured, starved and killed more people than any other ideology in history.
Why people ignore, or even deny, communist evil is the subject of a previous column as well as a Prager University video, &#8220;Why Isn&#8217;t Communism as Hated as Nazism?&#8221; I will, therefore, not address that question here.
I will simply lay out the facts.
But before I do, I need to address another question: Why is it important that everyone know what communism did?
Here are three reasons:
First, we have a moral obligation to the victims not to forget them. Just as Americans have a moral obligation to remember the victims of American slavery, we have the same obligation to the billion victims of communism, especially the 100 million who were murdered.
Second, the best way to prevent an evil from reoccurring is to confront it in all its horror. The fact that many people today, especially young people, believe communism is a viable — even morally superior — option for modern societies proves they know nothing about communism&#8217;s moral record. Therefore, they do not properly fear communism — which means this evil could happen again.
And why could it happen again?
That brings us to reason number three. The leaders of communist regimes and the vast number of people who helped those leaders torture, enslave and murder — plus the many more people who reported on their neighbors for saying something objectionable to the communists — were nearly all normal people. Of course, some were psychopaths, but most were not. Which proves that any society — including free ones — can devolve into communism or some analogous evil.
Now some facts:
According to the authoritative &#8220;The Black Book of Communism,&#8221; written by six French scholars and published in the United States by Harvard University Press, the numbers of people murdered — not people killed in combat; ordinary civilians trying to live their lives — by communist regimes were:
Latin America: 150,000.
Vietnam: 1 million.
Eastern Europe: 1 million.
Ethiopia: 1.5 million.
North Korea: 2 million.
Cambodia: 2 million.
The Soviet Union: 20 million (many scholars believe the number was considerably higher).
China: 65 million.
These numbers are quite conservative. For example, in Ukraine alone, the Soviet regime and its Ukrainian Communist Party helpers starved 5 to 6 million to death within a two-year period. It is almost inconceivable that only 14 to 15 million other Soviet citizens were murdered.
And, of course, these numbers do not describe the suffering endured by hundreds of millions of people who were not murdered: the systematic stripping people of their right to speak freely, to worship, to start a business or even to travel without party permission; no noncommunist judiciary or media; the near-poverty of nearly all communist countries; the imprisonment and torture of vast numbers of people; and, of course, the trauma suffered by the hundreds of millions of friends and relatives of the murdered and imprisoned.
These numbers don&#8217;t tell you about the many starving Ukrainians who ate the flesh of people, often children, sometimes including their own; or the Romanian Christians whose communist prison guards forced them to eat feces to compel them to renounce their faith; or the frozen millions in the vast Soviet Siberian prison camp system known as the Gulag Archipelago; or the Vietnamese communists&#8217; routine practice of burying peasants alive to terrorize people into supporting the communists; or Mao Zedong&#8217;s regular use of torture to punish opponents and intimidate peasants, like leading men through the streets with rusty wires through their testicles and burning the vaginas of wives of opponents with flaming wicks — Mao&#8217;s techniques to terrorize peasants into supporting the Chinese Communist Party in its early days.
Sources for the above:
Ukraine: Anne Applebaum, &#8220;Red Famine: Stalin&#8217;s War on Ukraine.&#8221;
Romania: Eugen Magirescu, &#8220;The Devil&#8217;s Mill: Memories of Pitesti Prison.&#8221; (Cited in Paul Kengor&#8217;s &#8220;The Devil and Karl Marx: Communism&#8217;s Long March of Death, Deception, and Infiltration.&#8221;)
Vietnam: Max Hastings, &#8220;Vietnam: An Epic Tragedy, 1945-1975.&#8221;
China: Jung Chang and Jon Halliday, &#8220;Mao: The Unknown Story.&#8221;
I return to the theme of the denial of evil.
People associate evil with darkness. But that is not accurate: It is easy to look into the dark; it is very hard to stare into bright light. One should therefore associate evil with extreme brightness, given that people rarely look at real evil. And those who do not confront real evil often make up evils (such as &#8220;systemic racism,&#8221; &#8220;toxic masculinity&#8221; and &#8220;heteronormativity&#8221; in 21st-century America) that are much easier to confront.
The Book of Psalms states, &#8220;Those of you who love God — you are to hate evil.&#8221;
In other words, you can&#8217;t love God if you don&#8217;t hate evil.
And if you don&#8217;t believe in God, here&#8217;s another way of putting it: &#8220;Those of you who love people — you are to hate evil.&#8221;
If you don&#8217;t hate communism, you don&#8217;t care about, much less love, people.
The views expressed in this piece are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.
Dennis Prager is a nationally syndicated radio talk-show host and columnist. His latest book, published by Regnery in May 2019, is &#8220;The Rational Bible,&#8221; a commentary on the book of Genesis. His film, &#8220;No Safe Spaces,&#8221; was released to home entertainment nationwide on September 15, 2020. He is the founder of Prager University and may be contacted at dennisprager.com.
The Daily Wire is one of America’s fastest-growing conservative media companies and counter-cultural outlets for news, opinion, and entertainment. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/subscribe">member</a>.

Communism

PRAGER: Support For Communism Shows A Denial Of Evil

China

Soviet Union

One of the most highly regarded books of the 20th century was Ernest Becker&#039;s &quot;The Denial of Death.&quot; Winner of the 1974 Pulitzer Prize, the book is

https://editorial.dailywire.com/news/prager-the-denial-of-evil-the-case-of-communism/

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Given how flawed human nature is, America has been a remarkable moral achievement.
This is the truism that separates the wise man from the fool.
This is the truism that separates the Left from the anti-Left.
Those who acknowledge how flawed human nature is compare America to reality. Those who do not, compare America to some utopian image: a country free of inequality, prejudices, intolerance, sexual misbehavior, greed, etc. This divide helps explain why those who hold a biblical worldview — usually religious Jews and Christians — are more likely to appreciate America than those who do not. It is fundamental to Judaism and Christianity that &#8220;the will of man&#8217;s heart is evil from his youth&#8221; (Genesis 8:21).
I offer a partial list of bad traits inherent to human nature. When perusing it, one can only marvel at how good a country America became.
No. 1: A yearning for power over others.
This yearning is what has animated nearly every political leader in history. There are people who do not have a personal craving for power and seek positions of power solely because of a calling. But these people are rare.
The American Founders understood this. They created a unique political system to minimize power and to maximize checks on power. That is the reason for the division of power among three coequal branches of government and the reason states were given so much power. Thus, America was established to be a republic, not a pure democracy. In addition, the Founders did not trust the majority with great power, which is the reason for two nondemocratic institutions: the Electoral College and the Senate. And that is why the Left, which is rooted in a desire for power — and therefore a desire for evermore powerful government — loathes the Electoral College and the Senate.
No. 2: A yearning for fame and recognition.
This, along with the yearning for power, is what drives and has driven nearly all politicians in world history, but it is hardly isolated to politicians. For example, it is largely what animates Hollywood actors. That is one reason no other profession gives itself as many awards as does Hollywood. Increasingly, however, being a star is also what animates journalists and, to the extent possible, academics and other intellectuals.
No. 3: A yearning to feel and be considered important and morally superior.
This is nearly universal. People — historically men, but increasingly women — ache to believe they are important. There is nothing inherently wrong with this yearning. However, it can lead people to engage in irresponsible, even evil, behavior — solely because it makes them feel important. This explains why the Left fights largely nonexistent evils such as &#8220;systemic racism,&#8221; &#8220;white supremacy,&#8221; &#8220;white privilege&#8221; and &#8220;capitalism.&#8221; Fighting evil, even make-believe evils, makes one feel important and morally superior to those who do not fight these evils.
No. 4: The sex drive.
Consider how many men have lost everything — their money, reputation, livelihood, even their family — in order to gratify their sex drive. The reason there has been so much irresponsible and sometimes evil sexual behavior is not because of &#8220;sexism&#8221; or &#8220;patriarchy,&#8221; but because of this drive. The wonder is not how much sexual impropriety exists in America; the wonder is how little there is compared to the past, compared to virtually every society in history and compared to many societies today.
This has largely been the result of the influence of Judeo-Christian ethics. Prior to the baby boomer generation, most American men were raised to believe that manhood was defined by marriage and by taking care of a family. With the Left’s assault on Judeo-Christian religions, more and more young men feel free to revert to their animal-like sexual nature, which is not monogamous and not naturally inclined to getting married and making a family.
No. 5. Greed.
The desire for more money and material possessions is built into the human condition. There is nothing wrong with wanting to make more money and have a nicer home. In fact, it is usually a good thing; it is what animates people to work hard and invent things. Greed, however, is the word we use to describe a yearning for material wealth so great that it overpowers moral considerations — which it has throughout history. It is the reason for corruption, an evil that constitutes the single greatest reason countries do not develop. Like every other country, America has always had its share of greedy individuals, but there has generally been far less corruption in America than elsewhere — a major reason for America&#8217;s unique prosperity.
This, too, is rapidly changing. Like the other negative impulses of human nature, greed was held at least somewhat in check by religion. Every Bible-based religion taught its followers self-control. With the demise of religion, the only thing left to control people is the state. But when the state becomes a substitute for religion in attempting to control human nature, one ends up with a police state, which may well happen here.
No. 6: Ingratitude.
Gratitude is not built into human nature. That&#8217;s why good parents tell their children thousands of times, &#8220;Say &#8216;thank you.'&#8221; Gratitude needs to be cultivated. And throughout American history, it was. The great majority of Americans and new immigrants to America were profoundly grateful to be American. Of course, many Blacks had legitimate reasons not to be grateful to be American. But, over time, that has changed. However, the Left has told every group other than white males that they should have no gratitude for being American. One could say that most college and graduate school degrees today are degrees in ingratitude. The Left knows it can only win elections when the majority of Americans are ungrateful.
Given human nature, America has been an extraordinary accomplishment. However, given the Left’s largely successful elimination of Judeo-Christian and middle-class values — and the consequent unleashing of human nature — that accomplishment may not survive.
The views expressed in this piece are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.
Dennis Prager is a nationally syndicated radio talk-show host and columnist. His latest book, published by Regnery in May 2019, is &#8220;The Rational Bible,&#8221; a commentary on the book of Genesis. His film, &#8220;No Safe Spaces,&#8221; was released to home entertainment nationwide on September 15, 2020. He is the founder of Prager University and may be contacted at dennisprager.com.
The Daily Wire is one of America’s fastest-growing conservative media companies and counter-cultural outlets for news, opinion, and entertainment. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/subscribe">member</a>.

PRAGER: Given How Flawed Human Nature Is, America Has Been A Remarkable Moral Achievement

Morality

United States

Given how flawed human nature is, America has been a remarkable moral achievement. This is the truism that separates the wise man from the fool. This is

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Ten years ago, I wrote a column reflecting on my reactions to visiting Vietnam. Given the lack of revulsion to, and even flirtation with, communism (or its more mildly named version, socialism) among many young Americans, it is worth revisiting.
It was difficult to control my emotions — specifically, my anger — during my visit to Vietnam. The more I came to admire the Vietnamese people — their intelligence, love of life, dignity and hard work — the more rage I felt toward the communists who brought them (and, of course, us Americans) so much suffering in the second half of the 20th century.
Unfortunately, communists still rule the country. Yet, Vietnam has embraced the only way that exists to escape poverty, let alone to produce prosperity: capitalism and the free market. So, then, what exactly did the 2 million Vietnamese who died in the Vietnam War die for? I would like to pose that question to some of Vietnam&#8217;s communist rulers. &#8220;Comrade, you have disowned everything your Communist Party stood for: communal property, collectivized agriculture, central planning and militarism, among other things. Looking back, then, for what precisely did your beloved Ho Chi Minh and your party sacrifice millions of your fellow Vietnamese?&#8221;
There is no good answer. There are only lies and truths, and the truths are not good.
The lie is the response offered by the Vietnamese communists, repeated by the world&#8217;s noncommunist Left, taught (until today) in virtually every Western university, and spread by virtually every news medium on the planet: The Vietnam communists, i.e., the North Vietnamese regime and the Viet Cong in South Vietnam, were merely fighting for national independence against imperialism, i.e., foreign control of their country. First, they fought the Japanese, then the French and then the Americans. American baby boomers will remember being told over and over that Ho Chi Minh was Vietnam&#8217;s George Washington, that he loved the American Constitution, after which he modeled his own, and that he wanted nothing more than Vietnamese independence.
Here is the truth: Every communist dictator has been a megalomaniacal, cult-of-personality, power-hungry, bloodthirsty thug. Ho Chi Minh was no different. He murdered his opponents, tortured God only knows how many innocent Vietnamese (burying peasants alive was a favored method), so as to scare millions of peasants into fighting for him — yes, for him and his blood-soaked Vietnamese Communist Party, backed by the greatest murderer of all time, Mao Zedong. But moral idiots in America chanted &#8220;Ho, ho, Ho Chi Minh&#8221; at anti-war rallies, and depicted America as the real murderers of Vietnamese — &#8220;Hey, hey, LBJ: How many kids did you kill today?&#8221;
The Vietnamese communists were not fighting America for Vietnamese independence. America was never interested in controlling the Vietnamese people, and there is a perfect parallel to prove this: the Korean War. Did America fight the Korean communists in order to control Korea? Or did 37,000 Americans die in Korea so that Koreans could be free? Who was (and remains) a freer human being — a Korean living under Korean communist rule in North Korea or a Korean living in that part of Korea where America defeated the Korean communists?
And who was a freer human being in Vietnam — those who lived in noncommunist (but authoritarian) South Vietnam or those who lived under Ho, ho, Ho Chi Minh&#8217;s communists in North Vietnam?
America has fought to liberate countries, not to rule over them. It was the Vietnamese Communist Party (and China), not America, that was interested in controlling the Vietnamese people. But the lie was spread so widely and so effectively that most of the world — except supporters of the American war effort in Vietnam, the Vietnamese boat people and Vietnamese who yearned for liberty — believed that America was fighting for tin, tungsten and the wholly fictitious &#8220;American empire,&#8221; while the Vietnamese communists were fighting for Vietnamese freedom.
I went to the &#8220;Vietnam War Remnants Museum,&#8221; the Communist Party&#8217;s three-floor exhibit of anti-American photos. Nothing surprised me — not the absence of any truth about the communist North Vietnamese or the Viet Cong; not a word about the widespread threats on the lives of anyone who did not fight for the communists; not a word about those who risked their lives to escape by boat, preferring to risk dying by drowning, being eaten by sharks or being tortured or gang-raped by pirates than to live under the communists who &#8220;liberated&#8221; South Vietnam.
Equally unsurprising is that there is little difference between the history of the Vietnam War as told by the Communist Party of Vietnam and what just about any college student will be told in just about any college by just about any professor in America, Europe, Asia or Latin America.
I will end with the subject with which I began — the Vietnamese. It is impossible to visit Vietnam and not be impressed by the people. I hope I live to see the day when the people of Vietnam, freed from the communist lies that still permeate their daily lives, understand that every Vietnamese death in the war against America was a wasted life, one of the more than 100 million human sacrifices on the altar of the most bloodthirsty ideology in history: communism.
Share this with your son or daughter who knows nothing about communism and has no idea why decent people hate it, along with fascism and Nazism.
The views expressed in this piece are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.
Dennis Prager is a nationally syndicated radio talk-show host and columnist. His latest book, published by Regnery in May 2019, is &#8220;The Rational Bible,&#8221; a commentary on the book of Genesis. His film, &#8220;No Safe Spaces,&#8221; was released to home entertainment nationwide on September 15, 2020. He is the founder of Prager University and may be contacted at dennisprager.com.
The Daily Wire is one of America’s fastest-growing conservative media companies and counter-cultural outlets for news, opinion, and entertainment. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/subscribe">member</a>.

Communist symbol

PRAGER: Trip To Vietnam Reconfirmed My Hatred Of Communism

Vietnam

Ten years ago, I wrote a column reflecting on my reactions to visiting Vietnam. Given the lack of revulsion to, and even flirtation with, communism (or

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Let us begin with this fact: The Left always suppresses speech. Since Vladimir Lenin and the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia in 1917, there has been no example of the Left in control and not crushing dissent.
That is one of the important differences between liberal and Left: Liberalism and liberals believe in free speech. (The present leftist threat to freedom in America, the greatest threat to freedom in American history, is made possible because liberals think they have more to fear from conservatives than from the Left. Liberals do not understand that the Left regards liberals as their useful idiots.)
The Left controls universities. There is little or no dissent allowed at universities.
The Left controls nearly every &#8220;news&#8221; medium. There is little or no dissent in the mainstream media — not in the &#8220;news&#8221; sections and not in the opinion sections.
The Left controls Hollywood. No dissent is allowed in Hollywood.
That is why we have &#8220;cancel culture&#8221; — the silencing and firing of anyone who publicly dissents from the Left, and even &#8220;publicly&#8221; is no longer necessary. The National Association of Realtors has just announced that if you express dissenting views (on race, especially) in private, you may be fined and lose your membership in the organization — which effectively ends your career as a realtor.
So, we return to the opening question: Why does the Left need to crush all dissent? This is a question made all the more stark because there is no parallel on the Right: Conservatives do not shut down dissent or debate.
The answer, though the Left will not acknowledge it, is the Left fears dissent. And they do so for good reason. Leftism is essentially a giant balloon filled with nothing but hot air. Therefore, no matter how big the balloon — the Democratic Party, The New York Times, Yale University — all it takes is a mere pin to burst it.
Leftism is venerated by intellectuals. But there is little intellectual substance to leftism. It is a combination of doctrine and emotion. The proof? Those with intellectual depth do not stifle dissent; they welcome it.
That is why universities are so opposed to conservatives coming to speak on campus. One articulate conservative can undo years of left-wing indoctrination in a one-hour talk or Q and A. I know this from personal experience on campuses. You can, too. Watch the speeches given by any conservatives allowed to speak on a campus — many of these talks are still on YouTube — and you will see large halls filled with students yearning to hear something other than left-wing pablum. Look at their faces, filled with rapt attention to ideas they never heard that are clearly having an impact. Universities are entirely right to fear our coming to speak. We come with the pin that bursts their $50,000-a-year balloon.
That is also why it is so hard to get any of them to debate any of us. In 35 years of radio, I have never mistreated or bullied a guest. I was unfailingly polite to an icon of the Left, Howard Zinn, the America-hating author of the America-hating &#8220;A People&#8217;s History of the United States.&#8221; I even invited a UCLA political science professor and violinist, one of seven members of the Santa Monica Symphony Orchestra who refused to play when I conducted the orchestra in a Joseph Haydn symphony in the Disney Concert Hall — solely because I&#8217;m a conservative. Despite his public letter, in which he accused me of holding &#8220;horribly bigoted positions&#8221; and wrote, &#8220;Please urge your friends to not attend this concert, which helps normalize bigotry in our community,&#8221; I nevertheless invited him on my national radio show. He agreed. I had him in studio for an entire hour and treated him and his wife (who accompanied him) with great respect, despite my contempt for his false accusations and his advocacy of the cancel culture. Every American should hear that hour.
Unfortunately for the emotional and intellectual health of our society, he, Zinn and a few others were anomalies. Of the 100 or so left-wing authors, professors and columnists invited to appear on my show, almost none has responded in the affirmative. They prefer NPR, where they are never challenged.
The opposite, however, is not true: Every conservative intellectual I know says yes to every one of the (very few) left-wing invitations we receive. Of course, we are almost never invited. We regularly invite leftists. Leftists almost never invite us. They claim it&#8217;s because we are not up to their intellectual level and they have no desire to waste their time. One would think that the opportunity to publicly show how vapid we conservatives really are would be too good to pass up.
Leftists do not debate us or appear as guests on our shows and prevent us from speaking whenever possible, because they (correctly) fear conservatives. Race-baiters such as Ibram X. Kendi or Ta-Nehisi Coates or &#8220;White Fragility&#8221; author Robin DiAngelo would never debate Larry Elder, for example. Why won&#8217;t they? Because they would be shown to be the intellectually shallow purveyors of hate they are. Deep down, they know it. Larry Elder is one of many conservative black intellectuals who left-wing blacks (and whites) refuse to debate.
Now you know why the Left suppresses free speech: because they have to. If there is free speech, there is dissent. And if there is dissent, there is no more Left.
The views expressed in this piece are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.
Dennis Prager is a nationally syndicated radio talk-show host and columnist. His latest book, published by Regnery in May 2019, is &#8220;The Rational Bible,&#8221; a commentary on the book of Genesis. His film, &#8220;No Safe Spaces,&#8221; was released to home entertainment nationwide on September 15, 2020. He is the founder of Prager University and may be contacted at dennisprager.com.

Censored

PRAGER: Why The Left Has To Suppress Free Speech

Free Speech

Let us begin with this fact: The Left always suppresses speech. Since Vladimir Lenin and the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia in 1917, there has been no

https://editorial.dailywire.com/news/prager-why-the-left-has-to-suppress-free-speech/

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I am writing this column upon returning home to California after five days in Florida. For the first time since my first trip to Los Angeles in 1974 and moving there two years later, I dreaded going to California.
That first trip, as a 25-year-old New Yorker, I experienced the palpable excitement looking at the American Airlines flight board at JFK airport and seeing &#8220;Los Angeles.&#8221; For most Americans, the very name &#8220;California&#8221; elicited excitement, wonder, even envy of Californians, and most of all &#8230; freedom. While America always represented freedom, within America, California exemplified freedom most of all.
Yet, here I am, sitting in a state where corruption reigns (one of the leading Democrats of the last half-century told me years ago that politicians in California are window dressing; the real power in California is wielded by unions) and where, for nine months, normal life has been shut down, schools have been closed and small businesses have been destroyed in unprecedented numbers.
During these last five days in Florida, a state governed by the pro-freedom party, I went anywhere I wanted. First and foremost, I could eat both inside and outside restaurants. At one of them, when I stood up to take photos of people dining, a patron who recognized me walked over and said, &#8220;I assume you&#8217;re just taking pictures of people eating in a restaurant.&#8221; That&#8217;s exactly what I was doing. I even took my two grandchildren to a bowling alley, which was filled with people enjoying themselves playing myriad arcade games as well as bowling.
None of that is allowed almost anywhere in California. It is becoming a police state, rooted in deception and irrationality.
Restaurants have been shut down (except for takeout orders), even for outdoor dining, for no scientific reason. After ordering Los Angeles county restaurants closed, the health authorities of Los Angeles county acknowledged in court that they had no evidence that outdoor dining was dangerous; they ordered restaurants closed, even to outdoor dining, solely in order to keep people home.
The Left’s claim to &#8220;follow the science&#8221; is a lie. The Left does not follow science; it follows scientists it agrees with and dismisses all other scientists as &#8220;anti-science.&#8221;
Science does not say that eating inside a restaurant at least six feet from other diners, let alone outside a restaurant, is potentially fatal, but eating inside an airplane inches from strangers is safe.
Science does not say mass protests during a pandemic (when people are constantly told to social distance) are a health benefit, but left-wing scientists say they are — when directed against racism. In June, Jennifer Nuzzo, a Johns Hopkins epidemiologist, tweeted: &#8220;In this moment the public health risks of not protesting to demand an end to systemic racism greatly exceed the harms of the virus.&#8221; She cited the former head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Tom Frieden: &#8220;The threat to Covid control from protesting outside is tiny compared to the threat to Covid control created when governments act in ways that lose community trust. People can protest peacefully AND work together to stop Covid. Violence harms public health.&#8221;
Even The New York Times, in July, acknowledged the double standard: &#8220;Public health experts decried the anti-lockdown protests as dangerous gatherings in a pandemic. Health experts seem less comfortable doing so now that the marches are against racism.&#8221;
Science does not say, &#8220;Men give birth&#8221; or, &#8220;Men menstruate.&#8221; But the Left routinely argues that &#8220;science says&#8221; such things and that &#8220;science says&#8221; there are more than two sexes, many more.
The last time I felt I was leaving a free society and entering an unfree one was when I visited the communist countries of Eastern Europe. As a graduate student majoring in communism, during the Cold War, I would travel through the countries known as Soviet satellites: Poland, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria. In the middle of my trips, I would stop in Austria to breathe free air.
Never did I imagine I would ever experience anything analogous in America, the Land of the Free, the land of the Statue of Liberty and of the Liberty Bell. But I did yesterday, when leaving Florida and returning to California.
There is no question that America is becoming, if it hasn&#8217;t already become, two countries: one that values liberty, from small businesses being allowed to operate to people being allowed to say what they believe, and one that has contempt for liberty, from eating in restaurants to free speech.
I am asked almost daily by friends around the country and by callers to my national radio show whether I intend to stay in California. Were it not for all the close friends who live here and the synagogue I and a few friends founded, the answer would be no. But at a given point, I am sure that I will leave this Soviet satellite for a free state. The bigger and far more important question is: How long will the Soviet states of America and the free states of America remain the United States of America?
The views expressed in this opinion piece are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.
Dennis Prager is a nationally syndicated radio talk-show host and columnist. His latest book, published by Regnery in May 2019, is &#8220;The Rational Bible,&#8221; a commentary on the book of Genesis. His film, &#8220;No Safe Spaces,&#8221; was released to home entertainment nationwide on September 15, 2020. He is the founder of Prager University and may be contacted at dennisprager.com.
The Daily Wire is one of America’s fastest-growing conservative media companies and counter-cultural outlets for news, opinion, and entertainment. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/subscribe">member</a>.

California flag

PRAGER: The Sovietization Of California

California

Coronavirus

COVID-19

Florida

Lockdowns

I am writing this column upon returning home to California after five days in Florida. For the first time since my first trip to Los Angeles in 1974 and

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