Dennis Prager

Come Out of the Closet

February 4, 2022 by Dennis Prager Leave a Comment

I received a phone call on my radio show from a man who said, “Dennis, I’m a gay conservative actor in Hollywood, and it is far easier to come out of the closet as gay than as a conservative.”

That call was in the 1980s.

While the current cancel culture—the firing, humiliation, disparagement and smearing—of conservatives is exponentially worse today than 30 years ago, it is not new.

As a result, the great majority of Americans who are conservative—that is, about half the country—hide their true beliefs. They fear saying anything that differs with the Left. This would include such reprehensible sentiments as:

With all its flaws, America is the finest country ever made.

Men do not give birth.

There are only two sexes.

A person’s color is the least important thing about them.

The greatest problem in black life is not whites but a lack of fathers.

A man who becomes a woman and then competes in women’s sports is cheating.

Posting to social media a video by a renowned epidemiologist, virologist or medical doctor who asserts that ivermectin and/or hydroxychloroquine with zinc, when used early enough, almost always prevents hospitalization for COVID-19.

The list is far longer than this. But if you think even this list overstates the problem, put any of these statements on any mainstream social media platform and see what happens. See if any relatives drop you from Facebook or even from their lives. See what your employer says or does. See what Twitter or Facebook does to your account.

There are valid reasons to fear publicly differing with the Left.

So, then, what arguments can be offered on behalf of coming out of the closet?

The first is this: For every person you alienate, you will likely bring at least one new, wonderful person into your life.

Putting aside issues of courage, of standing for what is right, of saving America from those working to destroy it, there is a great selfish reason to come out of the closet: kindred spirits, i.e., good people, will discover you.

In 2020, I received an email from a young woman in her second year at Harvard who told me that my book that explains the Left and America, “Still the Best Hope,” had changed her from liberal to conservative. Needless to say, I was intrigued to learn more about her and, as it happened, she lives—as I do—in Los Angeles. So, I invited her to sit in on my radio show.

While speaking to her during commercial breaks, I was impressed enough to ask if she would be willing to describe her political and moral metamorphosis on the radio. I warned her that appearing on “The Dennis Prager Show” and talking about her conservative views would likely lead to some lost friends, angry, if not alienated, relatives, and attacks back at Harvard. I made that case persuasively enough to give her pause and ask, “May I call my mother?”

She stepped out to make the call. When she returned to the studio, she announced, “I’m coming on.”

About half a year later, she made another appearance on my show, and I asked her what happened after her initial appearance.

“I went through two weeks of hell,” she responded.

As predicted, she lost friends she had had since elementary school, some relatives limited their contact with her, and some students back at Harvard regarded her as an indecipherable sellout.

“Then what happened?” I asked.

“Then I entered heaven,” she responded.

She offered two big reasons.

One was that she began to sleep better than she had in years. The other was the number of kindred spirits, all quality people, who reached out to her, some of whom became friends.

Regarding reason one—sleeping better—staying in the closet exacts a serious mental price on a person. One should not think only coming out of the closet exacts a price. As for the second reason, virtually no price paid for coming out of the closet is comparable to the rewards of doing so. There is little as happiness-inducing as having kindred spirits in your life.

Now, is that worth losing one’s job? If you are sure you will lose your job and no other job paying a comparable salary will be available, only you can answer that question. Similarly, if one of your children will stop talking to you because you are not “woke,” it is not for me to advise you what to do. But there are no other compelling arguments not to come out of the closet.

And there are at least two other arguments for coming out.

One is that you will respect yourself more. And so will others—including, quite possibly, one or more of your children (and your grandchildren, if you have any).

And two: You will help save this country from tyranny. For some, that should suffice.

Dennis Prager is a nationally syndicated radio talk-show host and columnist. His latest book, published by Regnery in May 2019, is “The Rational Bible,” a commentary on the book of Genesis. His film, “No Safe Spaces,” was released to home entertainment nationwide on September 15, 2020. He is the founder of Prager University and may be contacted at dennisprager.com.

Fear is Deadlier Than Viruses

November 25, 2021 by Dennis Prager Leave a Comment

The most famous words of Franklin Roosevelt, America’s longest-serving president, were, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”

One wonders if any world leader would or could say that today. We live in the Age of Fear.

All of my life, I thought love and hate were the two most powerful human emotions.

But owing to recent events, I have changed my mind.

I now understand that for most people, fear is the strongest emotion.

In fact, I’ve come to realize that it is possible to get people to do anything if you instill enough fear in them. Specifically, irrational fear.

Fear of COVID-19, for example, is rational. But media and governments induced irrational fears. That’s why millions of healthy people stayed indoors for a year or more, why a vast number of people wore masks while walking or sitting alone outdoors, and why so many parents did not allow their young children to play with other children for a year or more, even though the COVID-19 mortality rate among children was considerably less than the flu’s mortality rate among children.

All of this was caused by irrational fear. It turns out that fear is not only more powerful than love and hate; in most people it is more powerful than reason. And when it is, it is far more destructive — to the individual and to society — than rational fear.

What is rational fear? When a soldier fears going into battle, that is rational. Soldiers cannot allow fear to control their behavior, but their fear is not irrational. If a mugger points a gun at you, it is rational to feel fear. If you are diagnosed with cancer, it is rational to experience fear.

Rational fear is not necessarily a bad thing. It is irrational fear that does the most harm — to yourself, to others and to all of society.

The Salem witch trials of the 17th century exemplified irrational fear leading to evil: the killing of women who were believed to be witches.

You would think that the Enlightenment of the 18th century, with its focus on reason and science, would have led to a great lessening of irrational fear.

It hasn’t.

To cite a number of examples, an unknowable (but not small) number of Americans — usually among the best educated — prohibited their parents from seeing their grandchildren, either because the grandparents or the grandchildren were not vaccinated. They did this despite the fact that the number of young people infected with COVID-19 was close to zero and despite the fact that there were extremely few cases of children infecting adults. Sweden kept its schools open for all students under the age of 16 throughout the pandemic, and studies have since confirmed that the risk to Swedish teachers of infection by students was extremely low. Such is the power of irrational fear.

To take another contemporary example, many people have decided not to have children because they fear that a warming planet represents an “existential threat” to life. Now, it is rational to be concerned about climate change, but it is irrational not to have children because of it. And it gets even more irrational. Their parents often support this decision, despite their deep yearning to be grandparents.

Irrational fear is also a major source of hatred. People hate what they fear. It was Germans’ irrational fear of Jews — people who made up under 1% of the German population — that led to the unique evil known as the Holocaust.

Given the awful power of fear, what can you do to be less fearful?

The first thing you must do is determine whether your fears are rational or irrational.

And that can only be accomplished by thoroughly studying the issue — whatever it happens to be: global warming, a pandemic, racism or any other divisive subject.

For example, black people are told to fear white police because white police are racist and want to do them harm. This is largely an irrational fear. It is well-documented that in any given recent year, the number of unarmed black Americans killed by police is under 20 — nearly all of whom posed serious threats to the lives of the policemen who killed them.

Another example: Credible scientists and other experts who acknowledge that global warming is taking place, but contend that it is not an existential threat to life, are dismissed as “anti-science” and their views suppressed. Read them, and many of your fears will be allayed. (You might even decide to have children.)

Most fears are stoked by governments and their allies in mass media and in Big Tech, who in turn suppress contrary opinions. Therefore, please understand that when you hear only one opinion, and that opinion is designed to make you afraid, there is a good chance that your fears are irrational.

Determining whether your fears are rational or irrational is one of the most important things you will ever do. The quality of your life and the life of your society depend on your making that distinction.

Dennis Prager is a nationally syndicated radio talk-show host and columnist. His latest book, published by Regnery in May 2019, is “The Rational Bible,” a commentary on the book of Genesis. His film, “No Safe Spaces,” was released to home entertainment nationwide on September 15, 2020. He is the founder of Prager University and may be contacted at dennisprager.com.

And Jews Will Still Vote Democrat

October 7, 2021 by Dennis Prager Leave a Comment

There is almost nothing Democrats can do to damage America, or Israel, that would change most American Jews’ political leanings.

The latest example took place just last week. A college student speaking to the vice president of the United States, a Democrat, condemned America for supporting Israel, and charged Israel with committing “ethnic genocide” against Palestinians.

Harris’s response?

“Your voice, your perspective, your experience, your truth cannot be suppressed, and it must be heard.”

It was indeed the student’s truth — which means it was a lie. “Your truth” always means “a lie.” When a person says something that is true, people don’t say, “that is your truth.” They say, “that’s true.”

And indeed, what the girl said to the vice president was a complete lie. Not a partial lie, a complete lie. As a rule — except on the Left with regard to Israel — groups that are victims of genocide decrease in number. Yet the Palestinians have had one of the highest population growth rates in the world. According to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, in 1991, there were 2,783,084 Palestinians living in the West Bank and Gaza. In 2021, there were 5,227,193. This number does not include another 2 million Palestinians who are citizens of Israel. How many other national or ethnic groups have doubled in size in the last 30 years?

Yet, despite this revealing incident, it is hard to imagine that one American Jew will in any way rethink his or her commitment to Biden-Harris.

One reason is that few Jewish Democrats even know it occurred. I Googled “new york times kamala harris george mason university” and the following results came up (in this order): New York Post, Politico, Times of Israel, JTA (Jewish Telegraphic Agency). Next came the New York Times — an article from 2020: “Kamala Harris Makes History as First Woman and Woman of Color as Vice President.”

I could find nothing about the incident in the news sections of the Washington Post or Los Angeles Times either.

Some of the most powerful forces in the Democratic Party (the reason for the $3.5 trillion spending bill) are indistinguishable in their hatred for Israel from Hamas, Hezbollah and the Iranian regime. Does this disturb American Jewish Democrats?

Not nearly as much as Donald Trump disturbed them. Most American Jews loathed Trump despite the facts that he was the most pro-Israel president since Harry Truman; that his daughter and grandchildren are religious Jews; and that he engineered the Abraham Accords, a peace agreement between the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain and Israel, which was followed by normalization of relations between Sudan and Israel and between Morocco and Israel.

Most American Jews believe the Democratic Party is a good and moral party and that the Republican Party is immoral and perhaps even evil.

This view is entirely emotional, which is why it is difficult to imagine it changing.

Most American Jews identify Republicans with the right and they assume “the right” means “fascist” or even “Nazi.”

Most American Jews identify Republicans with the rich and powerful and the Democratic Party with the poor and downtrodden, even though the rich and powerful are overwhelmingly Democrats.

Most American Jews identify the Democratic Party with secularism and the Republican Party with religion (religious Christians and Orthodox Jews). And they are as committed to secularism as Christians are to Christ.

Most American Jews have signed on to just about every secular substitute for Judeo-Christian religions: feminism, environmentalism, “anti-racism,” humanism, socialism. Jews, I have often noted, may well be the most religious people in the world — but for the great majority of them, Judaism is not their religion. And the Democratic Party is the party of all these secular religions.

This is all a great tragedy — not just for America but especially for American Jews.

America has always been the best country Jews have ever lived in outside of Israel. That is why a Jew wrote “God Bless America” (and did so at a time when antisemitism was much more prevalent and accepted in American society than it is today). That is why the most influential religious Jew of the 20th century, the Chabad leader, Rabbi Menachem Schneerson, described America as a (SET ITAL) medina shel chesed (END ITAL), a “country of kindness.” Coming from Europe, he did not compare America to Utopia but to all the other countries Jews lived in.

Yet, something happened to American Jews after World War II. They veered more and more left — becoming able to support America-hating movements (like the Black Panthers, for whom Leonard Bernstein and other prominent Jews in music and Broadway threw an infamous fundraiser).

And why did that happen? Because Jews became less and less committed to Judaism, substituted the New York Times for the Torah and went to college in greater proportions than any other ethnic or religious group in America. Colleges corrupt most students’ values. Jews are no exception.

That helps explain why a Democratic vice president could praise a student who just told her that Israel commits ethnic genocide — and have it mean nothing to most American Jews.