At the Ronald Reagan Library in Simi Valley, California, I had the pleasure of hearing Dennis Prager speak.
While I have met and heard Prager speak several times in the last few weeks alone, I am impressed with his ability to bring new material to his audiences. He does not have a standard stump speech. Sometimes he is completely off the rails. Between that and our Hebrew heritage, we have two things in common.
Given how Prager is a master at expounding, I shall offer brevity and let Prager do the talking. He would not have it any other way.
With that, I bring even more wit, wisdom, and passion from Dennis Prager.
“First of all, I am not going to speak briefly. I don’t want any of you to complain. You’ve already eaten.”
“Raise your hand if you are not a distinguished guest. I personally thank you.”
“I know what you are thinking. Dennis looks like a very large phone booth. Well the Republican Jewish Coalition membership started in a phone booth, expanded into a living room, and now can fill up the Rose Bowl.”
“A President Obama would shut down talk radio.”
“Dennis Prager, Hugh Hewitt, Michael Medved, and Mike Gallagher make up an all star team of conservative radio hosts.”
“This battle is for the heart and soul of America.”
“Any time I meet a republican Rabbi, I know I am meeting a courageous Jew. His congregation thinks he is at an Obama fundraiser.”
“Mississippi Senator Wicker (who spoke earlier), in the same way the North saved the Union in the 19th Century, the South will Save America in the 21st Century.”
“The New York Times has no idea. There is no comparison between a 21 year old soldier here and a regular 21 year old at home.”
“Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner (who also spoke earlier) said that he needs his black belt in karate to be Insurance Commissioner. He needs artillery.”
“Clarity is a mixed blessing. It comes with pain. You see wrongs clearly.”
“Democrats are hurting our country. I wish it was merely two different visions of the world. The collective efforts of democrats are destructive.”
“People are leaving California. When will democrats realize the damage that democrats have done to this state? People are leaving for Nevada. I have spoken there. I have visited there for other reasons. Nobody moves to Nevada from California for the weather.They are driven away.”
“Now, I would like to recite some Romanian Jewish poetry. No, not really.”
“There are three things I want to talk about tonight. First, I want to discuss the battle within Jewish life. Second, I want to talk about progress. Third, I will talk about the 2008 election.”
“Everything I learned in Yeshiva was a conservative value. Nothing I learned in 3500 years of Judaism corresponds with liberalism or pacifism.”
“Rashi says that ‘If somebody comes to kill you, get up earlier, and kill the.’ This is what I call the gospel truth.”
“There is a time for plowshares, a time for swords, and never a time for pacifism, where all killing is wrong.”
“The Torah says ‘Thou shalt not murder.’ It does not say ‘Thou shalt not kill.'”
“Pacifism increases evil on Earth.”
“How can a Jew support this? Non-violent resistance in the form of Ghandi or Martin Luther King is ok when dealing with governments. It is not ok with terrorists.”
“If every Jewish home had had a gun, the Holocaust would never have happened. Only liberal Jews post-Holocaust could be anti-gun. The Warsaw Ghetto had guns, allowing it to survive much longer.”
“Social Justice is not equal to an all powerful state. Conservative Americans give more to charity than liberal Americans.”
“Aid to Africa goes to corrupt governments.”
“Even Clinton signed welfare reform. Government is not a husband.”
“What ruined black cities were democratic mayors.”
“The Torah has a law that one cannot show favoritism towards the poor in court. Justice Earl Warren said that the purpose of justice is to help the poor. No. It is to be just. Politicians, welfare workers, and private citizens should help the poor.”
“Earl Warren, on the day JFK was shot, said, ‘This is a symbol of bigotry and hate.’ JFK was shot by a communist. College kids today think JFK was shot by a right winger.”
“In the USSR, they say that ‘The future is known. It is the past that is always changing.'”
“If you love God, you must hate evil. This is a Mitzvah (good deed) in Judaism. The GOP hates evil. The democrats hate carbon dioxide emissions and DDT.”
“Banning DDT killed Africans through increased cases of malaria. Environmentalists committed mass murder in Africa.”
“Being on the left means never having to say you’re sorry.”
“Being married means always having to say you’re sorry, especially when married to a woman.”
“Deuteronomy states that Jews are to choose life. There is nothing in Judaism that allows for an abortion unless it is to save a life. Jews can be pro-choice, but anti-abortion.”
“We are all pro-choice on adultery, because otherwise many people would go to jail.”
“Pro-choicers cannot say that abortion is immoral. Rabbis won’t say it. Jewish souls are hurting.”
“Christians who founded America were Judeo-based Christians. American Christians founded the best nation for Jews in world history. Removing Christianity is an act of self destruction. The United States is a second chosen nation.”
“The one verse on the Liberty Bell is from the Torah. It is not from Locke, Voltaire, the Enlightenment, or the New Testament.”
“Samuel Morse, in telegraph, asked, ‘What hath God wrought, oh Israel and Jacob?”
“You could not graduate from Harvard in the 1800s without knowing Hebrew. The slogan for Yale is from the Torah.”
“Christians founded Los Angeles. That is why it is called Los Angeles, not Los Secularistes. Then we would have a blank seal. Somehow Corpus Christi has survived. Maybe the ACLU will make them change their name, but maybe they can’t find it on a map.”
“Why are liberal Jews so angry that Saddam was overthrown? He paid $25,000 to the families of suicide bombers.”
“Reform Judaism passed an anti-overthrow resolution. This will go down in history right along with their shrimp and lobster banquet.”
“Reform Rabbis honor the choice of women to wear veils. What choice? This is coercion. There is a sickness in some Jewish souls.”
“Morally, religiously, and fundamentally wrong…that is the American left.”
“How can Jews lament the overthrow of Saddam?”
“Conservative governments are always more Pro-Israel and pro-America.”
“It is a lie that the world hates America. The world’s left hates America.”
“As Jews leave Judaism and become secular, they still want to save the world.”
“Whether liberalism, secularism, or any other ism, Jews founded isms.”
“The Italians gave us opera. The Jews gave us the beauty of Judaism.”
“Last week, a conservative magazine reported that I would not vote for John McCain for president. The magazine based its claim on a column I had written in May 2007 about why I could not support John McCain for the Republican presidential nomination. The magazine was wrong. Though I did not support Sen. McCain in the Republican primaries, the moment he became the presumptive Republican candidate I endorsed him wholeheartedly for president of the United States.”
“I disagree with McCain on ANWR and campaign finance reform, but if I wanted someone I agree with all the time, I would run.”
“Having not been a supporter from the outset, perhaps my endorsement of John McCain will carry more weight among conservatives who are still undecided about whether to vote for John McCain.”
“There is a notion of a leftist taking over, followed by a backlash. My bottom line is this: The gulf between John McCain and conservatives is miniscule compared to the gulf between John McCain and Barack Obama. This is true regarding virtually every issue of significance to America. The America that a President Barack Obama would shape, with the help of a Democratic Congress and a liberal Supreme Court, would be very dissimilar from the America shaped by a President John McCain.”
“Conservatives who will not vote for McCain are well-intentioned utopians. They are comparing McCain to a consistently conservative candidate. The reality, however, is that McCain is not running against a consistently conservative candidate. He is running against a consistently left-wing candidate. And America cannot afford to have its first leftist president ever. It can afford liberal presidents — such as Bill Clinton, or Jimmy Carter (who governed as a liberal but became a leftist after leaving the White House), or John F. Kennedy, or Lyndon Johnson, or Harry Truman — i.e., all the Democrats who have been president since World War II. But the Democratic Party has moved well to the left of liberalism. And Barack Obama is at the left of that left-wing party.”
“Furthermore, given the strong possibility of a Democratic House, a Democratic Senate, and a liberal Supreme Court for decades to come, given the number of Supreme Court appointments a Democratic president will be able to make, an Obama victory will move America more radically leftward than ever in its history. The backlash theory is flawed because Supreme Court appointments cannot be undone.”
That is why the argument that an Obama administration will be so destructive that Americans will reject the left and then elect a real conservative to undo the damage done in an Obama presidency is deeply flawed.
“First of all, other than impeachment, there is no way to undo Supreme Court appointments, two or three of which a President Obama would likely make. And given how active most liberal judges are, it won’t matter much if the country has some conservative epiphany and then elects a Republican president and Congress. Because even if the Congress and the president will not pass liberal legislation, a liberal Supreme Court will. On almost any social issue that matters — the right to bear arms, late-term abortion, the definition of marriage, capital punishment, and many others — a liberal Supreme Court will rule on these issues, and there will be nothing that a post-Obama Republican president, even with a Republican congress, will be able to do about them.”
“Moreover, the argument that Americans will have a conservative epiphany after four years of an Obama presidency is predicated on America being greatly damaged by his policies. What kind of mindset welcomes such damage to the country it loves for the sake of potentially gaining politically after the damage is done? Is it, for example, really worth a considerably weakened economy (which Barack Obama’s tax and other economic policies would likely lead to), with its widespread suffering and unforeseeable social and political consequences, just to — hopefully — get a conservative into the White House four or eight years later? Is it worth a widespread depression?”
“The damage won’t necessarily be undone. Even Ronald Reagan, the most popular conservative to ever serve as president, could not roll back most liberal creations. He never could get rid of the useless Department of Education, for example. Nor could a then-popular President George W. Bush do a thing about Social Security even when he had a Republican House and Senate. And how will Barack Obama’s successor undo the damage done to Iraq, the Middle East, the War on Islamic Terror, and the credibility of America’s assurances to allies once Iraq slides into chaos as a result of America’s precipitous withdrawal from Iraq?”
“If we lose in Iraq, who in Iraq will trust us as Iraqis are being tortured? The New York Times ignored the Holocaust. They will ignored Iraqis being tortured.”
“You leave when you win!”
“John McCain understand that if we lose in Iraq, it’s over.”
“I now understand how the liberal media can lose a war when we are winning on every level.”
“Therefore, as well meaning and sincere as many conservatives are, this mode of thinking — let the country suffer under a left-wing president, Congress, and Supreme Court and then it will come to its conservative senses — will likely lead to a downward spiral from which it is hard to see the country escaping for a generation, if it is lucky.”
“There is one person who can prevent this unhappy future — John McCain.”
“He will not raise taxes, the last thing we should be doing in a weakened economy. Even Europeans understand this.”
“He will reduce government spending, and thereby prevent the state from controlling even more of American life.”
“He will ensure that America wins in Iraq. That will make one of the biggest and richest Arab states the freest of the Arab states. And it will hand Islamic terrorists the biggest defeat they have ever suffered. It will teach potential enemies not to attack America (whether Iraq did so directly is irrelevant to the point). And it will reassure America’s allies around the world, many of whom, as in Iraq, risk their lives for America and liberty, that America will never abandon them.”
“He will appoint conservatives to the Supreme Court and to federal benches, thereby depriving the left of its most powerful weapon in reshaping America in its image.”
“One California Justice decided that even though they were for same sex marriage, it was not for them to decide. This is an honorable and all too rare position.”
“He may attract enough Hispanic votes (while securing the borders) to prevent that critical constituency from identifying with the Democratic Party, something that would ensure left-wing victories for decades to come.”
“He will develop nuclear power, environmentalist (read leftist) opposition to which has been morally indefensible. We would all love to have a solar powered or wind powered country. However, on planet earth at this time, nuclear power may be the cleanest source of energy we have. That is why France, not heretofore known as politically conservative, relies on nuclear power for nearly 80 percent of its electricity.”
“Obama is brilliant and effective. On every issue, he is ‘for it, but…there are problems.’ From capital punishment to nuclear power, he is for it, but with reservations.”
“However noble their intentions, conservatives who do not vote for John McCain will be morally complicit in what happens to America during an Obama presidency.”
“I love AMerica too much to elect Obama.”
“Liberals say that they love the USA, and to love is to criticize. Ask a liberal if they hold that position regarding their wife. They have a strange sense of love, or no love at all. One praises as well every so often. We are not constantly criticizing what we love.”
“I love America, and I am supporting John McCain.”
There are a million things I could add, but despite what I said earlier, like Prager, brevity is shockingly enough not my forte. I will just say that when I spoke to Prager regarding interviewing him, his exact response was, “Eric, you have to keep reminding me about stuff like this. Send the questions again and again until I take care of it. I am slow with this stuff, but keep reminding me and it will get done.”
Given that Mr. Prager reads my column on a daily basis, this is his reminder.
As always, his speeches bring the crowd to its feet. This one was one of his best. Given that we were in the Ronald Reagan Library, I would have expected nothing less.
eric
I’m sorry, but Mr Pragers paranoia seems to know no bounds.
“A President Obama would shut down talk radio.”
Shut fown talk radio??? What does that even mean??? How could he do it even if he wanted to???
“Mississippi Senator Wicker (who spoke earlier), in the same way the North saved the Union in the 19th Century, the South will Save America in the 21st Century.”
The South??? What???
“Pacifism increases evil on Earth.”
Alright, that’s it. I’m getting a brainache here.
I’m sorry, but the popular rightwing radio hosts like this guy have lowered the discourse in America so much that we’re practically a retarded polity today. How these guys sleep at night is beyond me. If I was a rightwing radio host, I’d jump off a cliff.
JMJ
I havent even read the post yet.
But as in the case with Bill Clintons pacifism, it increased evil.
So the comment is not totally without merit.
Go take an aspirin.
Jersey,
The discourse in this country was lowered long before talk radio came into existence by many on the left. You can start with many things said during the Viet Nam war. All the things said about Proposition 13 here in California, the comments about Reagan. I remember a college Professor at San Francisco State saying when Reagan was Shot “Too bad it wasn’t a few inches over.” (So that it would have hit his heart). Diane Watson (LA Assembly woman at the time) saying Ward Connerly wasn’t really black and hated blacks because he was married to a white woman. There are so many other quotes over the years from the left. The only difference today is the the right now has the ability to get out its point of view which was much more difficult when they airwaves and internet were not so available. Of course there are many over the top on both sides, but my experience is the right tends to attack positions more (with some exceptions) and the left tends to engage in personal attacks.
Mila-18 is one of my favorite books.
Any passers by lets say a prayer for Tony Snows family.
I was always in awe of the man for always being able to conduct himself with such class and dignity.
I cant say enough about this guy, he was simply a wonderful man.
Eric,
I agree with you in principle-
Of the two candidates, McCain is by far the best choice.
Obama is and outright Marxist!
We cannot allow an Obama Presidency! The results will most likely be devastating to the country as a whole. We will probably be so deep in Socialism that we will never recover.
With a Democrat controlled Congress, and no chance of a Republican block in the Senate, a John McCain Presidency will also be damaging. Hopefully mush less harmful than with BO at the helm.
Amnesty is another big issue, both men will see to it that amnesty is granted to 20 million Latinos. That is going to guarantee that Democrats have a huge advantage in all future Presidential elections. You can dream that they will vote Republican, but it ain’t gonna happen! They are and will continue to vote without citizenship! An estimated 3 million illegal votes are projected for the 2008 election. Several states, like Maryland, have gone overboard in their efforts to allow illegal’s to vote.
On the subject of judges, what happens when McCain nominates conservative judges and the Senate says, “No way!”?
Will McCain reach across the isle, as he has in the past, and “Okay, who do you want?”
I fear that will be the case!
In my latest Blog, I suggest that McCain step-down and make room fot someone that is willing to actually attempt to win the election. McCain does not seem willing to do that!
Watch Dog
http://www.MindlessAndSpineless.com